Israel - Electioneering with Bombs »
Posted By hyperbola 11 months, 1 week ago in ReligionOf the three politicians who announced the military assault on Gaza to the world on Saturday, perhaps only the outgoing prime minister Ehud Olmert has little to lose -- or gain -- from its outcome.
Flanking the Israeli prime minister were two of the main contenders for his job: Tzipi Livni, the foreign minister and the new leader of Mr Olmert’s centrist party, Kadima, and Ehud Barak, the defence minister and leader of the left-wing Labor Party. The attack on Gaza may make or break this pair’s political fortunes as they jostle for position against Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing party, Likud, before a general election little more than a month away.
Both have strenuously denied that the election has any bearing on the timing of the Gaza operation. But equally they hope a successful strike against Hamas may yet save them from electoral humiliation.
In the run-up to the election, observed Michael Warschawski, a founder of the Alternative Information Centre in Jerusalem, “all Israeli leaders are competing over who is the toughest and who is ready to kill more”.
... by launching the attack when many foreign reporters were away from the region for the holidays, the government hoped to be able to inflict the maximum damage on Gaza before the media could catch up.
It will take some days before western reporters effectively renew the pressure against Israel over its weeks-old decision to bar them from entering the Strip. The result will be fewer investigations of Israel’s choice of targets in Gaza, or the nature of the casualties, and a greater emphasis on talking heads in studios in Jerusalem, at which Israeli spokesmen excel.
... and most importantly -- their political rival, Mr Netanyahu, has been silenced. His main platform had been insisting on a tougher approach in Gaza.
Read Full Story at counterpunch.com »
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hyperbola
Military brat (14th generation American) with unassuaged wanderlust. By age 11, schools in four states and three foreign countries (in 3 languages). Left home at ...
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hyperbola11 months, 1 week ago
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Well engineer, more and more ethical american jews are condemning the zionist killers. The zionists are on their way to committing suicide.
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Jewish Organizations Call For End to Gaza Bombings
Instead of offering unquestioning support of Israel's latest military venture in the decades-long conflict, four major Jewish organizations are calling for an immediate end to the bombings, and for humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip.
One of the groups, Americans for Peace Now, the sister organization of the Israel-based Peace Now, called for "the government of Israel to end its military operation in the Gaza Strip and to act toward achieving a cease-fire."
And Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, called on the outgoing Bush administration "to initiate an international effort aimed at negotiating an immediate cease-fire."
These strong statements, along with ones from J Street (the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement) and the Israel Policy Forum (IPF), are in sharp contrast to many of the more hawkish traditional pro-Israel groups, who make no mention of a cessation of armed hostilities. The confident assertions from the four groups are a relatively new sort of campaign.
"You see a voice that is increasingly clear and has a significant resonance in the American Jewish community, and beyond the Jewish community, that takes a position, stakes it grounds, and won't be intimidated," said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli negotiator and the director of New America Foundation's Middle East Task Force, one of the four groups.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/12/31/jewish-o...
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Locky12Comment removed: Spammer, Abusive
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avoth11 months, 1 week ago
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"It will take some days before western reporters effectively renew the pressure against Israel over its weeks-old decision to bar them from entering the Strip."
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Let them in now!!! And, of course, increase the bombing. Maybe some of the Islamic propagandists....oops...I meant, "western reporters" will receive their just rewards. -
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avoth11 months, 1 week ago
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Although this article was posted by a rabid anti-Semite, albeit one who currently claims that he has nothing against Jews who are anti-Israel (once all the pro-Israel Jews are exterminated, watch how quickly it changes its views), there is some truth to the article.
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Tzipi Livni (Olmert with lipstick) and Ehud Barak stand to lose big time at the polls in February to "left-winger masquerading as a right-winger", Bibi Netanyahu. Even so, the charade of Israeli elections may cause Livni and Barak to be virtually non-existant in terms of power. So it seems likely that Israels actions this week are a last ditch attempt to gain some votes.
If the truce had ended a few months ago, and the terrorists had confined themselves to bombing Sderot and Ashkelon, I doubt the Israelis would have retaliated at all. Only when their phony-balony jobs are threatened, do these leftist sheep act.-
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hyperbola11 months, 1 week ago
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Well avoth, what is your excuse for egging israeli jews from afar into committing suicide? Americans are increasingly fed up with zionist racism and terrorism - so much so that 70% of Americans now reject taking Israel's side. They are right - crimes against humanity cannot be accepted, from zionists on anyone else. About the only chance that the israelis still have is to get te palestinians on their side before it is too late.
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George Washington's warnings and U.S. policy towards Israel
A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 18 countries finds that in 14 of them people mostly say their government should not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just three countries favor taking the Palestinian side (Egypt, Iran, and Turkey) and one is divided (India). No country favors taking Israel's side, including the United States, where 71 percent favor taking neither side.
The degree of mandated orthodoxy on the Israel question among America's political elites is so great that if one took the statements on Gaza from George Bush, Pelosi, Hoyer, Berman, Ros-Lehtinen, and randomly chosen Bill Kristol-acolytes and redacted their names, it would be impossible to know which statements came from whom. They're all identical: what Israel does is absolutely right. The U.S. must fully and unconditionally support Israel. Israel does not merit an iota of criticism for what it is doing. It bears none of the blame for this conflict. No questioning even of the wisdom of its decisions -- let alone the justifiability -- is uttered. No deviation from that script takes place.
that America must unquestioningly stand on Israel's side and support it, not just in this conflict but in all of Israel's various wars -- is a view which 7 out of 10 Americans reject. Conversely, the view which 70% of Americans embrace -- that the U.S. should be neutral and even-handed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict generally -- is one that no mainstream politician would dare express.
In a democracy, one could expect that politicians would be afraid to express a view that 70% of the citizens oppose. Yet here we have the exact opposite situation: no mainstream politician would dare express the view that 70% of Americans support. Isn't that fairly compelling evidence of the complete disconnect between our political elites and the people they purportedly represent?
http://www.propeller.com/story/2008/12/31/george-w...
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