Obama: Situation in Gaza unsustainable

[VaporTrail]

Obama urges Israel work with all parties on Gaza

WASHINGTON

Wed Jun 9, 2010 12:34pm EDT

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama called on Israel on Wednesday to work with all parties to find a solution for Gaza and said the United States is providing $400 million in new aid for the Palestinians.

 

World | Barack Obama

 

In remarks made as he met Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Obama called on Israel to curb settlement activity and on the Palestinians to prevent any actions that could incite confrontation.

 

Abbas visited the White House amid an international backlash against Israel after its forces boarded a Turkish aid ship bound for the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip on May 31. Nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed.

 

Abbas, speaking after Obama, called on Israel to lift its "siege" on the Palestinian people.

 

Obama called the situation in Gaza unsustainable and said it was important to get all the facts out about the flotilla incident.

Obama said he would make a statement later in the day about the U.N. Security Council's vote to approve new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65841Z20100609

 

A step in the right direction. About time we get off their dicks and stop letting them do whatever the f*ck they want to the area because YHWH said they should live there.

 

/edit.

 

Anyone else find it odd that we give their enemies billions of dollars to give them an army to pummel this people. Then here we are, spending half a billion on a situation we enabled. I guess I don't find it odd, because that's just the way it is. I think it's just weird that I don't think much of it.

[Chicopee John]

Nice photo op and PR to sooth Islamics, i.e. "good guys".

 

Israel = "bad guys".

 

What's $400M in taxpayer money among friends and relatives.

[VaporTrail]

And how many BILLIONS are going to the Israelis?

[Pumpkin Eater]

And how many BILLIONS are going to the Israelis?

 

however many, it's that amount too much.

[VaporTrail]

It's $3bil/yr.

[Chicopee John]

And how many BILLIONS are going to the Israelis?

 

 

The $400M was just a 'tip' of thanks.

 

[DieHardBrownsFan]

If they give me say, just $1,000,000. I'll forgive them.

[Paxton]

Those criticizing foreign aid to Israel have to take into account the role aid has played in promoting peace in the region. For example, part of the peace treaty between Egypt & Israel was a commitment by the United States to provide aid to both countries, and the US provided over a billion dollars in the 1990's to help Israel move military bases out of the West Bank.

 

US aid to Israel may be on the excessive side and in some ways working against the peace process, but those in favor of a two state solution shouldn't be advocating for an abrupt end to it. In fact, some of the strongest advocates of ending US aid are Israeli settlers, who fear that the US will tie future aid to settlement deconstruction.

[Alo]

Fair points, but I do think there's a serious "moral hazard" issue cause by our foreign aid to Israel. Because of our massive aid, Israel is desensitized to the diplomatic costs of its foreign policy and the economic costs of the occupation. They like their hard-line stance on Hamas, Iran, etc., and the millenialists like the occupation, and they're able to consume a lot of both because the US is paying for it.

 

If the US turned off the spigot, Israel would face harsh short-term consequences, but its long-term strategy would end up being more pragmatic and consistent with a peace agenda. It'll never happen because of it's too unconventional, but I'd like to see it tried.

[Westside Steve]

Fair points, but I do think there's a serious "moral hazard" issue cause by our foreign aid to Israel. Because of our massive aid, Israel is desensitized to the diplomatic costs of its foreign policy and the economic costs of the occupation. They like their hard-line stance on Hamas, Iran, etc., and the millenialists like the occupation, and they're able to consume a lot of both because the US is paying for it.

 

If the US turned off the spigot, Israel would face harsh short-term consequences, but its long-term strategy would end up being more pragmatic and consistent with a peace agenda. It'll never happen because of it's too unconventional, but I'd like to see it tried.

 

Or we could just nuke 'em.

Then there would be world peace at last.

Allah would smile on us indeed!

 

WSS

[calfoxwc]

Alo - that's seems terribly anti-Semitic to me.

 

Seriously, how is financially undercutting Israel going to stop Hamas, which refuses to this day,

 

to recognize Israel's right to exist?

 

How is it going to stop Iran and it's nutjobs from working to undermine Israel's security

 

with threats and aid to Israel's enemies?

 

What I read from your post, that we should help destroy Israel, to force them to surrender

 

to their enemies, and go back to Poland and Germany.

 

Say it ain't so, Helen.

[VaporTrail]

Zionist Israel is just as fanatical as Hamas.

[calfoxwc]

That's like saying when a martial arts expert is attacked

 

on a night out with his family, by terrorists who want to kill them all,

 

that his violence in self-defense is the same as their violence against him.

 

Liberals try to make everything upside down, and inside out.

 

It makes them feel like they have a "special purpose." @@

[Paxton]

If the US turned off the spigot, Israel would face harsh short-term consequences, but its long-term strategy would end up being more pragmatic and consistent with a peace agenda. It'll never happen because of it's too unconventional, but I'd like to see it tried.

I get what you're saying, but I think the consequences would be more devastating than you're imagining them to be. In the end, we'd probably both agree to a gradual reduction in aid to Israel, the pace of which to be determined based on how irredentist Israeli policies are.

 

The precedent would be how Bush 41 used a denial of military aid to topple Shamir in favor of Rabin. Though it'd be harder to do that now, both because Israel has become more right-wing and Obama is less popular there, I'd consider that a policy worth trying.

 

Zionist Israel is just as fanatical as Hamas.

That's just an awful statement that I'd like to see you flesh out. What do you mean by 'Zionist Israel'?

[VaporTrail]

They destroy people's homes. White Phosphorus in civilian areas. Displace families. They have a long record of human rights abuses. Generally, they make Palestinian lives miserable because the Torah says they're entitled to the promised land. I'm willing to bet that the Israelis have killed more Palestinians than Hamas has killed Jews.

[Paxton]

It's probably true that Israel has killed more civilians, but it's most certainly true that Hamas has targeted more civilians. Unfortunately, the collateral damage of Israeli strikes has been very high, and they haven't always shown proper discretion in the weapons they've used, but it's hard for me to conclude that their military prefers to directly target civilians, like Hamas does. Maybe you could point out a few cases, but it's not at all like Hamas's general MO.

 

Also, I think you're overstating the "the Torah promised them the Land" element in all of this. Yes, there are religious parties in the current governing coalition, but a majority of Israelis are secular and frame their Zionism in the logic of Herzl: the world will never fully accept us, so we need a state of our own. Herzl was even willing to accept a new Jewish state somewhere in Africa; his primary focus was on protecting a group that had long faced brutal discrimination, not reclaiming the Holy Land.

[Westside Steve]

It's probably true that Israel has killed more civilians, but it's most certainly true that Hamas has targeted more civilians.

 

And remember there is the practice of stationing weapons and fighters among civilians.

WSS

 

[calfoxwc]

Oh, Please, Vapor.

 

Israel human rights abuses?

 

and not one word of self defense?

 

Not one word of innocent Israeli children being blown up on school buses?

 

Remember the Israeli olympians who were murdered?

 

Remember Iran continually threatening Israel's existence?

 

Remember Hamas' refusal to admit that Israel has every right to exist?

 

What is it, to pick sides, the wrong side?

 

Because of anti-Semitism? Or a lack of understanding of the history of the Jewish people ?

 

Or, just a belligerent adherence to the Helen Thomases, the Obamaos, etc, no matter what?

 

What is it, that excuses the missiles sent into Israel, the threats and promises to wipe Israel off the map,

 

but to key in on the tough ways Israel survives when attacked?

 

Maybe an extreme lack of critical thinking on the issue?

 

Seriously... what is it?

 

 

[Pumpkin Eater]

Foreign aid to Israel does need to cease. How it's done does not matter to me. Most foreign aid needs to be stopped. That's not saying I am against handing it out in emergency situations, such as starvation and famine. There's nothing about Israel that makes them so special that they deserve $3 billion a year.

[calfoxwc]

I disagree, PK.

 

There is a lot about Israel worth sending foreign aid to.

 

There's friendship. And Israel is the scourge of most? many? in the Arab

 

world, mostly because there is no chance they can be converted to Islam.

 

The wars declared to drive them out of that part of the world...

 

Israel recognizes every one of those countries' right to exist.

 

Not with Iran, and other countries. They think like Helen Thomas.

 

The UN created Israel for good reason. The Palestinians could have had their own state too,

 

but in their hatred of the Jewish people CULTURALLY over the CENTURIES (it IS where the Nazi hatred for Jews,

 

using them as the big scapegoat, began, you know...)

 

THEY REFUSED TO ACCEPT THEIR OWN STATE.

 

It is justified that Israel exists, and poetic justice that the "Palestinians" who refused to have their own state,

 

if Israel got one too..... do not have one.

 

It is their own extreme bigotry and hatred that has put them in their mire.

 

Not Israel. Not the UN. Not the United States.

 

We support Israel, because in the world view, Israel is a small thing that must be squashed, along with all the people in it.

 

We support Israel to keep them in existence. It's the honorable thing to do.

 

There are a LOT of countries I would take all aid from, to make sure we keep giving Israel the aid we must

 

keep giving them.

[VaporTrail]

Cal, first off, anti-Semitism didn't stem from the Muslims. Christianity came along way before Islam, and there was a whole load of anti-Semitism, then. Most of the prejudice went the other way, though, because xtians were the minority. Before that, they were enslaved by multiple groups of people. Muslims did not invent anti-Semitism, stop pretending that that's how it was.

 

Secondly, why do you believe they are deserving of 3 billion of our dollars every year?

[Alo]

Both religions have fueled anti-Semitism; there's plenty of blame to go around.

 

Historically, Turkey was known to be one of the most tolerant countries when it came to Israelites. However, there also was plenty of anti-Semitism in the broader Islamic world; at one point in the 18th/19th century, Iranian clerics ruled that Jews couldn't go out in the rain because their impurity would get on good old Shi'ites.

 

Bernard Lewis's The Jews of Islam is a good place to start on the subject. Despite his crazy neo-conservatism, he's a very good historian & scholar.

[VaporTrail]

That's fine. I'm just attacking his assumption that Muslims are responsible for Nazi Germany's anti-Semitism. It's a fallacious argument that's only used to include these people in the same group as Hitler.

[calfoxwc]

Cal, first off, anti-Semitism didn't stem from the Muslims.

**************************************

That is not what I said, Vapor. I said that the NAZI anti-Semitism, the hatred and projection of vile and "fault" onto the Jews,

came from Muslim extremists.

 

Best I can remember, I read it as fact. I can look it up again...

********************************************

Christianity came along way before Islam, and there was a whole load of anti-Semitism, then. Most of the prejudice went the other way, though, because xtians were the minority. Before that, they were enslaved by multiple groups of people. Muslims did not invent anti-Semitism, stop pretending that that's how it was.

*******************************************

See my statements above. I said nothing about Muslims inventing anything of the sort.

*****************************************

 

Secondly, why do you believe they are deserving of 3 billion of our dollars every year?

******************************************

Because Israel has many enemies, because of who they are, historically, what they believe, and where their

country is.

 

The hatred of the Jews by the Arabic and Muslim subcultures, is historical, all the way back to the days of Mohammed

who had an entire Jewish settlement murdered, when they refused to renounce their beliefs and their culture, and would

not convert to Islam.

 

Without us, and a few other countries, there would be no Israel. There would be genocide, and that part of the world

would be a hellish evil place.

 

The UN should be demanding that Iran etc, Hamas and Hezbollah, should immediately cease and desist with

the warmongering rhetoric, and they should absolutely demand that Hamas leave Gaza.

That is, if the UN was a genuinely benevolent group. as it is, the UN is worthless, a leftist, corrupt bunch of

players on the international scene.

 

There is no money to be made with defending Israel, so all those countries don't bother, couldn't care less if they

were nuked, because there IS money in siding with oil rich Arabic and Muslim countries in that region.

 

We should send that aid to Israel, because they have never asked our American soldiers to come and fight

for them, or with them.

 

They just need our support.

 

Or, we could take the corrupt easy way out too, and stop our support. And then we can go to war,

when the Soviets go in with other countries like Iran, and try to eliminate Israel, and many of our

soldiers would die, all because we played stupid with using foriegn aid denial to aid those countries that

want to take out Israel, once and for all.

 

The way your "president" organized corrupter does things, the exact opposite of his "intentions" would happen.

And the way he spends our tax dollars, 3 billion is a tiny little drop of water in a gigantic bucket.

 

Liberals/progressives do it all the time - they react emotionally, not logically, nor based on any kind of principle, nor any kind of values held...

 

We aid Israel, because it is the right, HONORABLE thing to do.

 

 

 

[Pumpkin Eater]

Looks like it's being phased out regardless.

 

And of course they have never asked American soldiers to come and fight for them... because they have access $3 billion in foreign aid ALL delivered within a month of the new fiscal year and to our military technology and equipment.

 

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf

 

U.S. military aid has helped transform Israel’s armed forces into one of the most technologically

sophisticated militaries in the world. U.S. military aid for Israel has been designed to maintain

Israel’s “qualitative military edge” (QME) over neighboring militaries, since Israel must rely on

better equipment and training to compensate for a manpower deficit in any potential regional

conflict. U.S. military aid, a portion of which may be spent on procurement from Israeli defense

companies, also has helped Israel build a domestic defense industry, which ranks as one of the top

10 suppliers of arms worldwide.

For many years, U.S. economic aid helped subsidize a lackluster Israeli economy, though since

the rapid expansion of Israel’s hi-tech sector in the 1990s (sparked partially by U.S.-Israeli

scientific cooperation), Israel is now considered a fully industrialized nation with an economy on

par with some Western European countries. Consequently, Israel and the United States agreed to

gradually phase out economic grant aid to Israel. In FY2008, Israel stopped receiving bilateral

Economic Support Fund (ESF) grants. It had been a large-scale recipient of grant ESF assistance

since 1971.

[Westside Steve]

The Jews have been persecuted since well before there was Christianity so those who want to blame Christians ought to look a little further.

WSS

[VaporTrail]

@cal

 

You're still saying that Nazi anti-Semitism came from the Muslims. Projecting fault onto the Jews is not exclusively a Nazi nor Muslim trait. Did Muhammad wipe out Jewish settlements if they refused to convert? Yes. But guess what, he did that ANYONE that didn't convert. That's why Islam is believed so strongly over there.

 

@Steve

 

I know that Jews have been persecuted forever. I just brought up Christianity as an obvious example. Clearly, Christians and Muslims were not the only peoples to have ever hated the Hebrews.

 

[Westside Steve]

@Steve

 

I know that Jews have been persecuted forever. I just brought up Christianity as an obvious example. Clearly, Christians and Muslims were not the only peoples to have ever hated the Hebrews.

 

 

I understand.

 

And I'm puzzled as to why.

 

I don't get anti Semitism.

 

WSS

[Chicopee John]

Just a note to Vape, Cal and others..................

 

Being anti-Israel isn't necessarily anti-semetic although it becomes almost impossible to separate the two because of the value both sides get out of this association.

 

 

[VaporTrail]

I completely agree, John. It's just hard to separate when you get T starting topics like, "Why do progressive liberals hate Jews?" I don't hate Jews, I completely disagree with the establishment of Israel, and I hate how the Israeli government is handling the situation. I hate the whole situation period. Our tax money shouldn't be used on it.