idrankwhat

I'm well familiar with the history, as well as present day events....which you seem to actively ignore. There IS one group over there who's currently being purged, and it aint the Israelis. Reality can be your friend too but you have to accept that there are some folks who prefer to deal with the illusion. The FAIR article that was posted does a pretty good job of looking beyond the sound bytes. Give it a read when you get a chance.

So basically your "neighbors" keep attacking you and you keep winning...you go back to the previous border and they attack you again... Stop right there. Israel has never gone back to its border. They have never ceased their land grabbing. They're doing it even today. And the Palestinians keep "losing" because the US doesn't send them $3 billion/year along with all the weapons they can fire and providing protection from multilateral international retribution.

Glad to see you're keeping an open mind on the issue.

They also have a tendency to litter their articles with supporting citations. Making assertions and backing them up goes a long way towards validating your argument. A Colbert quote comes to mind here.

Did you read all of the article? I'd say that there are some substantial "hints" in there. "On more than one occasion, Hamas’ chief representative in Lebanon, Usama Hamdan, has outlined a stance toward the conflict with Israel which, according to an ICG report (Enter Hamas, 1/06), “many who study Hamas consider [to be] its emerging consensus.” In an interim agreement, Hamas and Israel would conclude a comprehensive armistice in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 borders. After a period of confidence-building, a formal agreement could be concluded. “Hamas is clear in terms of [both] the historical solution and an interim solution,” Hamdan said. “We are ready for both: the borders of 1967, a state, elections and [a peace] agreement after ten to fifteen years of building trust.” Yet in almost every case, the U.S. media failed to broadcast these signals. For instance, four months before the elections, a moderate Hamas candidate representing Nablus, Mohammed Ghazal, told Reuters (9/21/05) that the group could change its 1988 charter calling for Israel’s destruction and that it was open to negotiating with Israel. “The charter is not the Koran,” Ghazal said. “Historically, we believe all Palestine belongs to Palestinians, but we’re talking now about reality, about political solutions. . . . The realities are different.” If Israel reached a stage where it felt able to talk to Hamas, Ghazal said, “I don’t think there will be a problem of negotiating with the Israelis.” (Less than a week after Ghazal’s comments, Israeli soldiers raided his apartment and arrested him—AP, 9/27/05.)" But Israel doesn't want to "negotiate" until they've finished their land grab and forced the Palestinians onto what is essentially three "reservations". And the US's complicity in this plan is really bad news for us.

I don't know about you but gasoline in my area has gone up ~0.10-0.15 since last week.

I would have to disagree. CAMERA is quite influential and vastly more so is AIPAC. The reason that the US breaks from the rest of the world and gives Israel a free pass to do whatever they want is due primarily to the influence of AIPAC and the religious right. I found stories at Fox, CNN, Forbes, the Washington Post and MSNBC. While I do see some glaring gaps in the coverage, this story isn't being ignored in the US. I quite agree. You very often hear about the rocket strikes into Israel but you don't hear much about the IDF's continuous attacks in Gaza that have been going on since late June or about Israel's continuing policy of building illegal settlements in the West Bank.

I would have to disagree. CAMERA is quite influential and vastly more so is AIPAC. The reason that the US breaks from the rest of the world and gives Israel a free pass to do whatever they want is due primarily to the influence of AIPAC and the religious right. As an interesting comparison of news however, I just read two stories about the rocket attack in Israel today. One was from Haaretz and the other was from the BBC. The Haaretz story was more damning of Israel than the BBC's. BBC quotes Peretz's response as "They will pay a heavy price. We will move against those who are involved from the leaders to the last of their terrorists". Haaretz has him saying "Israel will act against anyone involved in the rocket fire, from the terrorist leaders to the last activist, The terrorist organizations will pay a heavy price." So, the Israeli leadership thinks that activists are acceptable targets? Nice.

That's certainly not the case with the British media, especially BBC (both Net and radio) and The Guardian, as well as NPR in the US. The clear anti-Israel slant on many of the feature stories about the Arab-Israeli conflicts played on BBC radio (broadcast in the US by NPR) can be enough to make FalxOri want to go on jihad. That's because *any* reporting that might shed a disfavorable light on Israel is considered biased and is the subject of hammering by media groups like CAMERA. Let's say Bush lied to us about something, I know, not much of a stretch but let's say he did it. Then ABC reports "Bush lied" and then tells what the lie was. Is that a "drive by media" showing a bias?

Thanks for the links, I'll do some reading. Here's another if you want a Palestinian perspective. http://www.palestineremembered.com/ I've never said that this is a one sided conflict and as I've posted before on this issue, there's no shortage of coverage of the Israeli viewpoint. That can't be said about the Palestinian viewpoint. Both need to be considered if there is to be any real negotiation towards a lasting peace. What we have now is essentially the US and Israel against the rest of the world. Note that even the UK broke from the US, by abstaining in the security council vote for the proposed resolution condemning Israel's recent actions.

Thanks! If the sarcasm implied by the emoticon is sincere then I completely agree with you.

Me? I'm the one who's pissed that the US vetoed the resolution.

The more I read about this stuff the more it sounds like Israel doing the same thing to the Palestinians as the US did to the Native Americans.

Even the history that you posted above doesn't help your argument.

And if the US did those things that I mentioned would you expect the Canadians to sit there peacefully and say "hey there, cut it out eh", and not try to retaliate? You and Amazon are playing the "well who started it" game and ignoring Israel's very active role in propagating the violence. Did you know that Israeli jets almost got shot at by UN troops the other day because of Israel's continued illegal mock air raids into Lebanon? http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/787384.html Israel brings it upon themselves. They regularly commit war crimes and then complain and feign innocence when people get pissed.

Sorry, you didn't kill it. My mom's in the hospital so that takes/took priority. The lack of honest debate or even coverage of this issue has been going on for a long time. I don't expect this forum, even with its international component, to be the keystone to middle east peace. Maybe it will however, prove to be a seed to at least get people doing some more reading on the issue and not just accept the biased and lousy coverage that is the US media.

I can't say how many died that way. And I only posted that website because it put names on the children who have died over this crap. And Canada probably would riot if the US came across the border, bulldozed homes and people, blew up Canada's infrastructure, kidnapped your government leaders, militarized all of your streets, rounded up all males between 13 and 35, started building houses and winerys in Canada and shooting anyone who challenged them (with "acceptable" collateral damage) while destroying the homes and families of the relatives of that person. IMHO, if the US wants to help make peace they need to start by arresting Olmert and taking him to Gitmo.

I would if that "loyal friend" was actively making matters worse by continuing to make illegal overflights and mock air raids on UN troops in Lebanon and continuing its war crimes in Gaza. Hopefully we won't have Bolton as our rep in the UN for much longer and crap like this won't continue: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=20576&Cr=Palestin&Cr1=

Here are a few. http://www.rememberthesechildren.org/remember2000.html

I'll be waiting to see the Israeli explanation for this. Israel's been doing this since before the incursion into Lebanon. It never stopped. It only stopped being reported in the press here in the US.

And if the incapacitated person has no other family than their live in partner.........? Already the ban has caused problems for victims of domestic violence in Ohio. Victims can't seek protective orders. What we're talking about are the unintended consequences. The proponents say "it is not intended to prohibit business partnership agreements, medical directives, joint bank accounts or any other privileges not exclusive to the institution of marriage. "The amendment says: "This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage. Nor shall this Commonwealth or its political subdivisions create or recognize another union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage." Pretty straight forward. This amendment won't break up gay and lesbian couples but will only make homophobes feel better and the unintended consequences will hurt those who were not the target.

And just what advantages should those people be getting, outside of a break on rental costs? Being able to make medical decisions for an incapacitated partner for one.

rePUBICans brownshirts chimpy bushitler etc etc etc Personally, I'm trying to push "CONservatives" or "Cons" into the national dialog. It just fits perfectly and you don't have to distort the name. (insert tractor pull announcer voice) "New Century Republicans....putting the CON into CONservative". It's a work in progress

It passed here in VA. Pretty lame if you ask me. Most people who I heard interviewed (and those doing the interviewing) broke down the debate between "do you support gay marriage" or "do you want marriage to be only between a man and a woman" when, for me, the real question was "should our Constitution be amended to deal with this issue". I say resoundingly "NO". Constitutions are for spelling out what the government can't do, not what the people can't do. Besides that, the wording of the amendment is going to screw over non-married cohabitating heterosexuals too. Personally I think that the real reason that it was brought up was to get more of the religious right to the polls. Doesn't matter anymore. Here's our new logo: http://www.tshirthell.com/store/product.php?productid=790

Wow. That didn't take long, and the votes aren't even certified yet. I'm going to try to buy jump tickets in advance! http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/fn/4320602.html