Israel's Self-Righteous Critics Remain Silent as Palestinians Kill "Collaborators"

[elke]

Originally posted by martinw718


Now hold it a minute.

The main reason we give so much money to Israel is that we are proud to give that money. That money was appropriated by Congress. By the People's representatives.

The ones who are trying to attach strings to the money are the enemies of Israel.

They are the ones spouting things like "Well if we're going to be giving them all that money they should [insert political rhetoric here]."

You'll hear media mouthpieces speculating (i.e. sticking their own opinion in as if it were news) about how "the Government is going to react to the situation in light of the large amounts of aid..." And blah, blah, blah. But Congress has not tried to use the aid to extort policy changes. That's the anti-Israel crowd talking about that. And you know where they can go.

Thank you, Martin, for your support and well-articulated post to explain it!

[Mediocrates]

Originally posted by eyl


In fairness, it should be pointed out that there have been instances where Palestinian medical personnel treated and returned Israelies injured in Palestinian area (including a few soldiers)

About 10% of the medical staff of the Hadassah hospital are Palestinians including organ transplant specialists.

[yaaqub ishaq]

Originally posted by martinw718


Now hold it a minute.

The main reason we give so much money to Israel is that we are proud to give that money. That money was appropriated by Congress. By the People's representatives.

why is it that AIPAC feels it necessary to place so much pressure, and actively funds pro-israeli candidates? many american politicians have admitted that they felt they would be disadvantaged if they didn't support israel, due to AIPAC stuffing the pockets of their adversary.

is this your idea of governing for the people? one man one vote? i disagree...

[yaaqub ishaq]

Originally posted by Mediocrates


About 10% of the medical staff of the Hadassah hospital are Palestinians including organ transplant specialists.

there are many good people on both sides. it is a pity some people like to talk about how 'all palestinians/jews feel the same way'. i understand i am not allowed to use personal attacks so i am struggling to come up with a suitable term for this type of thinking

[elke]

Originally posted by yaaqub ishaq
there are many good people on both sides. it is a pity some people like to talk about how 'all palestinians/jews feel the same way'. i understand i am not allowed to use personal attacks so i am struggling to come up with a suitable term for this type of thinking

It's called "generalization". And yes, we all indulge in it too much

[elke]

Originally posted by yaaqub ishaq
why is it that AIPAC feels it necessary to place so much pressure, and actively funds pro-israeli candidates?

AIPAC, as well as the oil lobby, various business and other political lobbies, provide information and support to the candidates who they feel will support their causes. Realistically, "one man one vote" on every issue is not possible.

many american politicians have admitted that they felt they would be disadvantaged if they didn't support israel, due to AIPAC stuffing the pockets of their adversary.

Source?

[Haifa]

Well, instead of organizing themselves, arabs and moslems whine about AIPAC.

WHy do not they establish a ARAB-PAC?

I understand that it is harder for arabs (because of religious and political reasons and because they are not as wealthy as aipac) but I believe there should be some sort of organization that bribes congressmen (is this the right word??).

[yaaqub ishaq]

Originally posted by elke


AIPAC, as well as the oil lobby, various business and other political lobbies, provide information and support to the candidates who they feel will support their causes. Realistically, "one man one vote" on every issue is not possible.

yes, i agree. this is a failing of US political campaign laws, in my view. you americans should fight to stop your politicians from grabbing at this money, at the expense of democracy. this is not specifically a middle east issue, even tho the ME is affected.

Source?

i had an excellent source for this, it was an article on the recent case where the black US senator lost out in his bid for pre-election, he blamed the jewish lobby for throwing a lot of money at his opponent's campaign. the message was clear there: 'support us or else'. a few other politicians were quoted admitting fearing crossing the jewish lobby.

of course my aim is not the jewish lobby, it is the american political campaign laws which allow this obviously undemocratic behaviour.

[Gilgamesh]

Originally posted by eyl
In fairness, it should be pointed out that there have been instances where Palestinian medical personnel treated and returned Israelies injured in Palestinian area (including a few soldiers)

So few cases and so out of the ordinary that it make head lines in Israel, when ever such thing happence. As a rule, out side the hospitals (where they work for money), Arab medical personal give s*t about Jews.

Part of the problem is, that everybody, including fellow Israelis like you eyal, it seems usuall and quite acceptable. Well, I disagree.

Fact of the matter are, Jewish medical personal give full and equal medical attention to everybody, with no national distinctions. Arabs don't.

[ibrodsky]

Originally posted by Philip
[B]

As you later noted, I did not accuse Mr. Farah of being a paid Israeli agent; I only said that he acted as if he were one and it would be no surprise if in fact he were. It now appears to me that Farah falls into the category of evangelical Christians who support Israel for reasons of Christian messianism. He unfortunately seems to let his professionalism as a reporter suffer because of his religious beliefs. I am not trying to silence him -- it would be pointless for me to try -- but I do hope to make clear that his opinions should be recognized as being very biased.

No, you did accuse him of being a paid Israeli agent. You just did it in a way so you could deny it later, as you are doing now.

I hope I made fairly clear that I was just stating percentages from off the top of my head rather than quoting formal polling results. I note that the poll of Elke's link asks whether people like Israel or Arab nations better (or something like that), and do not compare attitudes about Israel and about the Palestinians. My point in presenting percentages off of the top of my head was to indicate that the situation in the US is that, among those who are active and aware about the Israel-Palestine situation, the Israel supporters have a strong majority, and that they have been able to maintain a majority support for Israel among the active-but-not-entirely-aware remainder of the voting population. I don't think you'll find any polls that seriously contradict that.

Nonsense. You were trying to say that only a tiny group has strongly held opinions either way, the obvious implication being that when the masses become as informed as you are the situation could change radically.

Actually, the "unaware" people are already accounted for: they land in the "no opinion" and "unsure" categories.

I think Robert Fisk's work speaks for itself. If you were to choose to call him unprofessional -- as I have called Joseph Farah -- thinking people would easily be able to see through you.

Joseph Farah writes editorials -- opinion pieces -- and presents them as such. Robert Fisk writes opinion pieces and presents them as in-depth news reports.

"Thinking people"? Your disdain for most people is showing.

[Philip]

Originally posted by victot
why does that discredit him? i've heard that idea mentioned numerous times...
by israel's supporters, and even by non-israel supporters...

Watch just one American news program with representatives of the Israeli government and of the Palestinian Authority -- or more generally of Israel and of the Palestinians -- and you will understand.

[Philip]

Originally posted by ibrodsky


No, you did accuse him of being a paid Israeli agent. You just did it in a way so you could deny it later, as you are doing now.



Nonsense. You were trying to say that only a tiny group has strongly held opinions either way, the obvious implication being that when the masses become as informed as you are the situation could change radically.

Actually, the "unaware" people are already accounted for: they land in the "no opinion" and "unsure" categories.



Joseph Farah writes editorials -- opinion pieces -- and presents them as such. Robert Fisk writes opinion pieces and presents them as in-depth news reports.

"Thinking people"? Your disdain for most people is showing.

You've become a caricature of yourself, Ibrodsky.

[Mediocrates]

Originally posted by Haifa
Well, instead of organizing themselves, arabs and moslems whine about AIPAC.

WHy do not they establish a ARAB-PAC?

I understand that it is harder for arabs (because of religious and political reasons and because they are not as wealthy as aipac) but I believe there should be some sort of organization that bribes congressmen (is this the right word??).

There is. It's called Conoco, Mobil Exxon, Lockeed, General Dynamics, Carlisle Group. There is tons of money flowing into Congress from petrocracies and from the US companies that benefit from them. Too bad the Palestinians don't have any oil though. Too bad they waste their defence budget on low tech items. If they bought a few F16's Congress would be falling over themselves to grant their every whim.

BTW is that an "all Jews are rich" slap you made? I dunno know about your culture but most of the people I know have been donating 5-10% of their income to Jewish causes, lobbies, charaties and the like since the Oslo War. That's where a great deal of the money actually comes from.

[elke]

I don't understand why it is more difficult for the specifically Arab/Muslim lobbies to appear, culturally speaking.

Yaakub, Ms. McKinney lost for more reasons than one, and more than financial. She made some very irresponsible, and plain stupid, comments that made it into the national news, on other subjects as well. Moreover, one - or even two (you are probably talking about Mr. Hilliard, another outright silly person) representatives do not "many" make.

As far as whether this is an equitable system... well, there are problems with the lobbies, that's true. However, in any democracy the issues have to be brought to the attention of the people's representatives one way or another. Given the support much of the population gives to Israel in the US, as demonstrated by the polls, it is likely that disallowing the lobbying of the Congress would not make much difference in this respect.

[Mediocrates]

I've been screaming about this for weeks. It's been painted by Arab loyalists as another 'zionist intrusion'. It's being painted in crypto fascist terms by the the African American caucuses as corruption of the black political mainstream.

But here's the deal, McKinney was very public and very loud about anti Indian things as well. She was very supportive of "Pakistani efforts to defend themselves from Hindu Terrorism". So clearly whomever was paying for HER campaign miscalculated. In fact the Times of India is taking credit for unseating her.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/a...artid=19791564

So it basically comes to down to screaming zealotry got pushed out by reasonable thinking people.

That's one of the great things abou this country - crazy people can run for office from Perot to Buchanan to McKinney and every stripe of hateful borderline personality disorder in between.

Even moderate muslims in the US have to understand that tacit silence of Islamic inspired violence has zero political life. If AIPAC recognizes that and tries to stop it it's only because once again we're the canaries in the coal mine.