Comments on: Rabbis and President’s Conference Say High Holidays Time to Hurt Iran

By: kathymm

kathymm — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 23:28:55 +0000

It’s about time I saw someone truly neutral and attempting to help in a humane and sensible way….without all the hate mongering and one side has to kill all the others attitude.

Katherine Magdangal (I’m on FaceBook)

By: Norman Weinstein

Norman Weinstein — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:58:50 +0000

As to “hold firm”, I simply meant that I hope Obama and team will not retreat from their stated defiance of settlement expansion in whatever form it takes. Yes, of course, there is the possibly larger picture of innumerable and ever-expanding unlawful settlements, already well established, one obvious bonus of which in the minds of the settlers and their enablers and fellow travelers is the destruction of a potential just peace – underscore “just”. But still, the old one-step-at-a-time approach, if indeed it is a large, solid determined, and uncompromising step, is sure a hell of a lot better than what’s been the modus operandi for too long now, to the ultimate detriment of Israel, the U.S. and the world, whatever else malevolent maniacs may believe. Wars and their concomitant violence have a way of metastasizing. Enough already!

By: ellen

ellen — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:46:22 +0000

Hi,
Not sure what you mean by “hold firm on settlements”.

Today’s headline: Israel to build 455 new apartments in West Bank.

By holding firm – do you mean – not increasing?
If so, interesting how the parameters of the conversation have been shifted.In fact, ALL settlements are illegal. The issue is not whether or not they are increased, the issue is they should all be dismantled.

By: Norman Weinstein

Norman Weinstein — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 14:16:00 +0000

Oh, boy, Ellen, how I long to disagree with you and David Michale Green, but though I have an unfortunately active imagination, it still won’t permit belief in that comforting old Tooth Fairy. We are inundated with people of neo-con temperament, and, in their arrogant and maniacal belief system, they are quite pro-death, especially for others. I pray that as far as the Israeli lunacy goes Obama and crew will find the courage and political stamina and wherewithal to hold firm on the settlements – and I mean profoundly firm – and on other manifestations of Israeli Manifest Destiny, so that 1) we might survive some few more years in this 21st Century of ours and 2) Israel might also survive as an entity worthy of its propaganda.

By: LD

LD — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:02:21 +0000

i dont understand how most americans support Israel. its really ridiculous. there is no strategic benefit. they are a settler/colonial state STILL in the 21st century.

if americans didnt get their history from movies (hate Arabs, love Jews; Jews are always victims, Islam is a death cult) etc.etc.

but then again, we cant stop our own wars of aggression as well so its really as much our fault as it is the Zionists who perpetually use emotional blackmail and rhetorical games to stall/obfuscate/etc. any meaningful discussion that would enlighten the public

By: ellen

ellen — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:04:14 +0000

Sorry to say, that what you imagine – worst nightmare – is likely to come about.
David Michale Green in this article argues that Obama will probably be a one-term president, and that he will probably be succeeded by a Palin, or a Palin-like creature. {How ’bout a Palin/Cheney ticket?}

“Obama was a complete fool if he ever believed for a moment that his campfire kumbaya act was going to bring the right along behind him. These foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics have completely lost all sense and proportion, and were bound to viscerally hate any president left of Cheney, let alone some black guy in their white house. Meanwhile, centrist voters in this country seem pretty much only to care about taxes and spending, and so he’s lost them, too, without the slightest rhetorical fight in his own defense. And he’s blown off a solid progressive base by spitting in their eyes at every imaginable opportunity, beginning with the formation of his cabinet, ranging through every policy decision from civil rights to civil liberties to foreign policy to healthcare, and culminating with his choice not to even mobilize his email database in support of his policies.

So if he’s lost the left, right and center, just who does he think is going to be clamoring to give him a second term three years from now.”

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/05-5

By: Richard Silverstein

Richard Silverstein — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:03:52 +0000

My fear, in fact my almost conviction, is that Israel isn’t carrying a big stick that it won’t use. It’s carrying a big stick which it’s fully prepared to use. You & I may find the consequences too horrific. But that’s what I thought about Lebanon & Gaza as well. Who could’ve imagined beforehand that Israel would really turn both places into a smoking ruin? I think that Bibi is perfectly well prepared to risk the abyss in attacking Iran. I think he’s been bitten by the same hubris bug which bit Bush before he invaded Iraq. Bibi believes the consequences will be manageable somehow.

By: Norman Weinstein

Norman Weinstein — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:44:00 +0000

In light of all this holier-than-thou indignation about Iran producing a nuclear bomb, I find quite incredible the smug silence regarding American and Israeli possession of many such bombs, and Israel of course, being a light unto itself, is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Also, can you just imagine another Dick Cheney or two, secularists though they may be, in command of U.S. destiny, along with assorted literal-minded Biblical adherents of whatever persuasion with nuclear weapons at their disposal? May God, or somebody in supreme heavenly command, have mercy on us all.