Will Obama Betray Israel?

President Obama can't betray America unless he resumes the Bush policy of uncritically supporting everything that Israel does, because 71% of Americans want the United States to be neutral and not take any side in the conflict.

Somehow I think that's what you seem to want as well, which places you, along with President Bush, firmly on the fringe of American society.

Whether you personally like it or not, the President is doing what he was elected to do, and what the American people want him to do: put the interests of America first, and not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

And here is a poll from inside Israel that shows a majority of Israeli's wanting their government to negotiate with Hamas.

Paul William Tenny

Whether you personally like it or not, the President is doing what he was elected to do, and what the American people want him to do: put the interests of America first, and not take sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Agreed. The America-Israel tie had reached a point where America was just rubber-stamping any and all Israeli government decision, a very unusual and unhealthy attitude for a sovereign nation.

In particular, you seem far more concerned by the existence of settlements on about three percent on West Bank territory than by continued terrorism directed against Israeli civilians.

You're confusing concern with focus. I talked about the settlements because that's what Robbins was talking about: "Despite decades of history and abundant facts, they insist that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are the primary obstacle to resolving Israel-Palestinian problems and achieving the nirvana of a two-state solution."

What Robbins did was try to delegitimize a complaint about Israel that is recognized everywhere on the planet except within Israel as legitimate: the status of the illegal settlements. He talked about that so I addressed that. I don't need to sit there and devolve into a stenographer or referee. One can criticize Israel for its actions without criticizing Hamas and the Palestinians without being biased or favoring one side over the other.

To the contrary, the job isn't to pick out the faults of both sides and list them side-by-side in a fit of false equivocation.

If Israel wants peace then there's a very clear road open to them towards that goal: remove the illegal settlements. The road for the Palestinians is another story for another time.

Just as a point of interest, would you concede that terrorism is illegal..

Yes.

..and that action taken in defense against terrorism are legal?

Absolutely not. With that kind of uncritical generalization you could do practically anything in response to a valid complaint and become just as ugly as that which you seek to destroy, if not worse. Nobody is arguing that Israel doesn't have a right to defend itself against terrorism but that by no means gives them the right to do anything they want. There is such a thing as crossing the line from abused to abuser, and Israel has done that more often than not.

Did you know that Israel has killed more civilians in the past 6-10 years than Hamas has? If killing civilians without regard to the lives if innocents is what we call terrorism, how is Israel not also a terrorist state?

We criticize Hamas for killing civilians because killing civilians is wrong, but only when the bad guys do it apparently. It's plenty fine when the American war against Iraq kills thousands of civilians because we're the good guys and gosh darn it, we just mean well. But god forbid anyone kill an American civilian because then you'll get wiped right off the earth no matter who gets killed in the crossfire.

Israel, like the United States, thinks that it is somehow justified in killing civilians in the name of ending the killing of civilians simply because they mean well, because they are the righteous on the side good.

Well guess what, Hamas uses the same excuse.

Everyone does.

When the Japanese water boarded American POWs during WWII, America charged them with war crimes, put them on trial, and executed them for crimes against humanity. But when America does it, it's ok because we're just defending ourselves and we had the best of intentions at heart.

You can find that kind of thinking everywhere on the globe from the most respected superpower down to the ugliest tyranny and terrorist filled nation-state.

So no, I do not agree. I object as strongly as possible to the idea that any reaction can be justified – no matter how savage or destructive – in the name of self defense.

Hamas, in particular, has made it clear that they will never accept the existence of Israel.

Nobody thought the IRA would disarm but it happened. Nobody thought man would break the sound barrier, but we did. If I had a dollar for every time I heard rhetoric used to justify heinous acts, I'd be a very rich man.

America had made it clear that they would never accept a nuclear armed North Korea or Iran and despite possessing the greatest military power the world has even seen, this country stood by and let precisely that happen unopposed.

What people need to learn is the difference between rhetoric and actual principles. Hamas talks tough because it's a group made up of extremists, the hardest of hard liners that are completely unrestrained either by forces within or from the outside. I would be surprised if they didn't say crap like that because they represent the furthest extreme of the opposition to Israel that I'm aware of. The group exists precisely to advocate that position and nothing else.

But so what? The IRA went away, and so can Hamas. When it's not needed anymore, when the need for extremism disappears so will the group created to fill that need.

If Israel made substantive gestures towards a true two-state solution – like rolling back the illegal settlements -- as opposed to surrounding Gaza and bombing it back into the stone age (while gaining absolutely nothing for the effort other than setting back the peace process a decade or more), what point would there be for the existence of such an extremist group?

Palestinians want their own state with an unquestionable right to exist, the same thing that Israel wants. And people would be foolish and naive to think that Hamas actually represents and speaks for all Palestinians. To be honest the only people with the power to make Hamas go away is the people who feed its need to exist in the first place, and the only way those people are going to stop feeding that need is when they see a real chance to be free and a chance for their hopes and dreams to become reality.

That view is widely supported throughout the region..

I very seriously doubt that's actually true. I'm sure that's what the Israeli government and American neo-cons would love for the world to believe because it gives them an excuse to marginalize the Palestinian government as a dead ender and to defame the Palestinian people as terrorists themselves for supporting terrorism at large, but I don't really see any evidence of that at all.

Palestinians probably hate Hamas just as much as they hate Israeli because when it comes to reality on the ground, the result is the same regardless of intentions: lots of dead civilians.

The point is this: When the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab and Muslim world agree that Israel is a legal sovereign state that has the right to exist and when terrorism directed against it stops, everything else is possible

That's a ridiculous requirement. No country has a right to exist, period. Not Israel, not Iran, and not the United States. We all live on this planet together and nobody owns the thing. We all take what we can get and that's just the way the game is played. Jews didn't magically appear on that land with a ownership deed in their hand thousands of years ago. That land has swapped hands more times than I care to count and that's pretty much the story of the entire planet.

If Israel is big enough and strong enough to hold that land then good for them, if not, well too damned bad. If Canada decides that it wants American land and develops the capability to take it from us then more power to them as well, that's how it works.

This silly notion that once a nation is created that it has an automatic right to exist is laughable, and if we were to accept it then we'd have to go back millions of years to find the first humans to inhabit that region of the Middle East and return rightful ownership to them, and guess what my friend, it sure as hell isn't going to be anything remotely resembling Jews.

The terrorism should stop, I agree, but not because of this BS. It should stop because terrorism is wrong, period. Just as Israel needs to roll back its settlements (amongst quite a few other things) simply because they too are flatly wrong.

The settlements issue is a sideshow used to denigrate Israel

It should be used to denigrate Israel, those settlements are shameful and illegal and the single most important roadblock to any true chance for lasting peace.

I would add that Israel hardly needs America to help it exist. The last time there was a war with Israel, a whole host of Arab countries got absolutely pasted, and now that Israel has over 100 nuclear weapons at their disposal the chances of that country being at risk from anything other than itself is practically non-existent.

It's nothing but a giant victim complex over there. Israel has the military might to defend itself from anyone so if there's a threat to their survival, it's natural election -- e.g. their own errors in judgment and mistakes that will doom them, not their adversaries.

I very much doubt that, what the Israeli government wants from us is to do to Iran what we just did to Iraq, and I've got news for them, that just isn't going to happen. If Israel wants to start an unprovoked war with Iran then best of luck to them, they can call us when it's over and let us know how it went.

whatever a Palestinian is

It is hard to take your concern about the conflict seriously when you don't know how to recognize the identity of Palestinians.

From your colloquy I can see you do have some ideas about Palestinians:

an unguided (chaotic) movement-

The whole movement is more like a gang than any sort of a country or an army or anything.

for the purpose-

to support continued terrorist attacks on Israel

that has membership-

some members of the Palestinian movement

that are used as regional political pawns-

Arab and Muslim leaders in the region use the Palestinians as a diversion to deflect unrest in their own countries

This sounds like denial of the peoples humanity. Palestinian is not merely a movement one can join or abandon. This lack of humanity in what you know demonstrates a strong negative prejudice against the people who identify as Palestinians. Imagine if someone mocked your national identity and characterized it only in terms of a hostile political movement.

to avoid having to host Palestinian refugees

Roughly half of all Palestinians live outside of their homeland, primarily in other Arab, Gulf, or Muslim areas in the region (see Palestinian diaspora).

It is not my intention to mock the Palestinians, but as you put it, "people who identify as Palestinians." is the point here. What country was Palestine? What wereits' borders so you could identify it and point to it? I mean in the last couple of hundred years?

It is as if having had your ancestors living in a part of the world, where the Jewish people also lived, gives you some sort of identity as a Palestinian, and in the same breath eleminates anyone else who might have had ancestors living in the same area.

That was my reference to "Whatever a Palestinian is"

As far as "This lack of humanity in what you know demonstrates a strong negative prejudice against the people who identify as Palestinians." You must admit, those who claim to represent the Palestinians, seem to have gone out of their way to demonstrate a rather strong "lack of humanity" over the past fifty years, in their pursuit of the interests of the Palestinian people. Not only in their treatment of the Jews but in their corrupt treatment of their own people.

People don't have to have been born into a land of the current model of nation states to have a national identity - think of the Cherokee or the Kurds. The people who have a Palestinian identity think of themselves as native to the land that was referred to as Palestine. If you still can't figure it out check for a map Dave.

eleminates anyone else who might have had ancestors living in the same area.

well, I don't hear that implication in the word Palestinian. I suppose "anyone else" means the folks that have been given citizenship in Israel? Then there are Palestinian Jews too. It's an association you are making in the political context but not a part of Palestinian identity.

There are communities of Palestinians living in the US too. Here is a link to the Chicago Historical Society's page that describes the lineage of identity for those who established homes in Chicago. These people are not necessarily in a "movement" yet they know they are Palestinians.

And, no, I don't have to admit that Palestinians lack humanity despite what they may have suffered over the last 50 years. For all we know the leadership that might have found acceptance is one of over 10,000 Palestinians currently held in Israeli jails. Maybe the leadership that you would find acceptable was denied power by an extra-judicial assassination by Israeli forces or an Israeli settler. It's possible the next Palestinian leader resides in the occupied territories and is struggling for survival in daily life.

The problem is that, at least on the Palestinian side, there is no one in charge.

Um, yes they do. The actual problem is that the United States heavily pushed for democratic elections and Hamas won a great deal of power, which then caused the Bush administration and Israel to isolate the PNA. The supreme irony there being that America pushed for those elections to happen in the spirit of spreading democracy only to ignore the results because it didn't like the outcome.

The PNA at least was a step in the right direction towards a functioning government representing the Palestinians and it's been hamstrung for years because Israel doesn't actually want it to exist because then would be ceding power.

Not only do Palestinians have a pseudo-government representing them, it was democratically elected.

The whole movement is more like a gang than any sort of a country or an army or anything.

That's because Palestinians aren't allowed to actually have an army, Israel won't allow it or anything like it. It's disgusting how token all of this is. They can have a government, but only if Israel approves of it. They can maybe have their own state, but they can't police it or have a military to defend it, and only until Israel says they can't have it anymore.

Would you live under those conditions?

The only centralized issue is they want an end to the state of Israel..

No. You're dishonestly smearing Palestinians with the policies of a single terrorist organization and it is rejected out of hand.

The rest of the Arab world is either legitimately in support of the Palestinians (whatever a Palestinian is) and others that simply pay lip service to the movement but are more concerned with making sure that THEY don't end up getting a bunch of homeless Palestinians immigrating to THEIR country.

Uh, most countries like Egypt have formally accepted the right of Israel to exist and have for quite some time now. Where do you get your history from, Fox News?

Hamas isn't our enemy, they have absolutely nothing to do with us at all. They don't threaten us and don't generally care about us. Obama is doing the right thing, the thing that 71% of Americans want him to do: don't take sides.

You can't help two sides come to peace by taking one side over the other. That's not peace, it's forced subjugation.

People who want America to uncritically support Israel in every matter while opposing the Palestinians at every opportunity are well outside of the mainstream in this country and in the world, in fact they are pretty far out on the fringe and their views are incompatible of those of the overwhelming majority.

He will capitulate and give Israels's enemies every opportunity while constantly criticizing anything Israel does to defend itself. He would sell them down the road in a heartbeat, because he sat in a church for 25 years and listened to anti-Jewish sentiments from the pulpit. Its part of his brainwashing.

Not only that, but he grew up in muslim Indonesia, when thousands of Christians were being slaughtered by muslim Indonesians, yet obama never spoke a word against that slaughter! I wonder why.....

Until Hamas and the PLO recognize Israel's Right To Exist, there can be no peace in the Middle East.

Israel doesn't have a right to exist. America doesn't have a right to exist. Mexico doesn't have a right to exist. Japan doesn't have a right to exist.

How hard a concept is this to understand? 90% of world history is the study of one civilization taking land from another. There will be peace when Israel rolls back its illegal settlements and the Palestinians in return get rid of Hamas. Or there won't be.

Jews were not the first human beings to call that land home and they will almost certainly not be the last.

Obama is in over his head again with this issue.

President Obama is carrying out the will of an overwhelming majority of Americans. 71% of Americans don't want the United States to take sides at all. He's doing what his country wants him to do: put America first and don't take sides.

He will capitulate and give Israels's enemies every opportunity while constantly criticizing anything Israel does to defend itself.

1. Israeli's enemies, not ours. Not our problem and not our concern. America has enough enemies in the world as it is without neo-conservatives trying to make more.

2. This nonsense over Obama's insufficient devotion to Israel -- a foreign country -- has been addressed and debunked time and time again:

The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg conducted what he's calling an "interview" with Barack Obama regarding Israel, but it sounded much more like an inquisition. Goldberg repeatedly demanded that Obama swear his devotion to Israel and affirm prevailing orthodoxies ("I'm curious to hear you talk about the Zionist idea. Do you believe that it has justice on its side?"; "Go to the kishke question, the gut question: the idea that if Jews know that you love them, then you can say whatever you want about Israel, but if we don't know you –- Jim Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski –- then everything is suspect. There seems to be in some quarters, in Florida and other places, a sense that you don't feel Jewish worry the way a senator from New York would feel it"; "Do you think that Israel is a drag on America's reputation overseas?"; "If you become President, will you denounce settlements publicly?"). Afterwards, Goldberg pronounced himself satisfied: "Obama expressed -- in twelve different ways -- his support for Israel to me."

Needless to say, Obama's vows of devotion to Israel were not enough for the right-wing polemicists who endlessly play on the fears of American Jews and exploit Israel-related issues for political gain.

There is almost no perceptible difference between what Obama says regarding Israel and what Republican political leadership say. The only meaningful difference is that Obama is a Democrat and therefore must be smeared as having insufficient devotion to Israel -- even though the American public demands that the country take a neutral approach.

Their is no being neutral in this issue.

So says the fringe of American society. 71% of your fellow countrymen disagree.

Not only that, but he grew up in muslim Indonesia, when thousands of Christians were being slaughtered by muslim Indonesians, yet obama never spoke a word against that slaughter! I wonder why.....

Because he was a child? Obama left Indonesia when he was *10 years old*. Man you people are either embarrassingly desperate or embarrassingly ignorant.

Your analysis of why Israel has no right to exist, and no country has any right to exist, seems to be a valid argument for Israel taking whatever land they may be capable of taking. Your logic ends up defeating your defense of the Palestinians.

To the confessor are you ignorant, Another America is the victim seed but this time it is the code word betrayal. Now if betrayal means removing the settlers from all of Native American land and ditto from Hispanic southwest stolen from Mexico and the hawian Islands stolen from Native peoples, then it is OK because it means that America will be held to a standard that befits an illegal, repressive occupier.under international law which has been ignorded foe 223 years. Israel can not continue to support this emberassing occupation and theft of land anymore