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Title: GOP Candidates Discuss Israel-Palestine
Source:
www.huffingtonpost.com
URL Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james ... s-middle-east-_b_1140679.html
Published: Dec 10, 2011
Author: James Zogby
Post Date: 2011-12-10 15:49:25 by Ferret Mike
Keywords: None
Views: 13794
Comments: 33
On Dec. 7, 2012, six Republican candidates for president (Rep. Ron Paul was not invited) appeared before the Republican Jewish Coalition (NRC) to campaign for Christian votes. There are Jewish Republicans, to be sure, but not enough to make a difference in this primary contest. No, the real prize that drew the candidates to the NRC event were the 40 perecent of GOP primary voters who are declared "born-again" Christians who fervently believe that Israel can do no wrong and that it is their religious duty to support any and all Israeli policies as a prerequisite to hasten the "Day of Judgment." The speeches were mostly filled with hysterical criticism of President Obama's "appeasement" of Israel's enemies and hyperbolic praise for Israel (with the exception of John Huntsman, who, after a few pandering platitudes, spoke mostly about the economy -- and was greeted with "stoney silence"). Because their remarks included such irresponsible charges and promises, I have included significant excerpts below in order to give a flavor of how out of touch today's GOP is from current Middle East realities: Newt Gingrich "As President, on my first day in office, I will issue an executive order directing the US Embassy in Israel to be moved to Jerusalem as provided for in the legislation I introduced in Congress in 1995... The United States should explicitly reject the concept of a right of return for Palestinian refugees. The so-called right of return is a historically impossible demand that would be a demographic disaster and mean the end of the Jewish state of Israel. We are for a right to prosperity, a right to freedom, a right to the rule of law, a right to private property, but we must be totally opposed to a right of return...[And] the United Nations camps system must be replaced by a system of earned income and property rights to restore dignity and hope to every Palestinian." [Gingrich on The Jewish Channel, the next day] "Remember there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire. And I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people, who are in fact Arabs, and were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places. And for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and I think it's tragic." Michele Bachmann "It seems as if lately, our president has forgotten the importance of Israel to America and thinks of our relationship only in terms of what we do for Israel. The President is more concerned about Israel building homes on its own land than the threats that Israel and America face in the region... Our policy has confused engagement with appeasement and has inspired Israel's enemies." "Obama improperly calls for Israel to retreat to indefensible 1949 armistice lines with swaps, and to then still face further demands to divide Jerusalem and allow a Palestinian 'right of return' to overrun the entire State of Israel. The Obama administration has also unconditionally given the Palestinians unprecedented amounts of U.S. foreign aid, and opposed Congressional efforts to condition aid on the real steps that would bring about peace." "The so-called Palestinian 'right of return,' would demographically destroy Israel by swamping it with millions of Arabs who never lived in Israel, thereby turning the world's only Jewish state into the world's 23rd Arab state." "My administration will fully recognize Jerusalem as Israel's undivided capital... My administration will also recognize Israel's 1980 annexation of the Golan Heights and any settlements, which Israel, as a sovereign state, chooses to annex. Simply put, my administration will accord Israel the respect to which sovereign, democratic nations are entitled." Mitt Romney "Over the past three years, President Obama has... chastened Israel. He's publicly proposed that Israel adopt indefensible borders. He's insulted its Prime Minister. And he's been timid and weak in the face of the existential threat of a nuclear Iran." "These actions have emboldened Palestinian hard-liners who now are poised to form a unity government with terrorist Hamas and feel they can bypass Israel at the bargaining table. President Obama has immeasurably set back the prospect of peace in the Middle East." Rick Perry "President Obama has systematically undermined America's relationship with Israel... I want to be clear I support the goal of a Palestinian state, but it should be the Palestinians who meet certain preconditions." "Instead, the Administration has insisted on previously unheard-of preconditions for Israel, such as an immediate stop to all settlement activity. President Obama has suggested the 1967 borders as a basis for negotiations. And he has instituted the practice of "indirect talks," subverting the Oslo Accords." "Israel does not need our president demanding gratitude for being the best friend Israel has ever had while his Secretary of Defense rails that Israel has to "get back to the damn table" with the Palestinians, and his Secretary of State questions the viability of Israel's democracy, even as his Ambassador to Belgium blames anti-Semitism among Muslims on Israel's failure to accommodate the Palestinians... " This torrent of hostility towards Israel does not seem to have been coordinated, but rather is the natural expression of this administration's attitude towards Israel." * * * All of this goes beyond the normal platitudes offered up in an election year. It was dangerous, shameful, and crass pandering, making it clear how far today's GOP has moved from the reality-based foreign policy of the Bush-Baker era. And while it's hard to imagine the alternate universe inhabited by these candidates for president, it's frightening to think of where they will take U.S.-Middle East policy should any of them be elected.
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#1. To: Ferret Mike (#0)
Israel is the mother country of America - western civilization ! More so than Greece - Rome !
Sometimes (perhaps all the time) you are so full of shit that it pains me to create a post to you. Iran is the mother country, you dumbfuck. Ever hear of Zoroastrianism, that started monotheism practices? Yeah, asshole, and the cult desert rat Jew bastards ripped off those ideas from Zarathustra and formed Judiasm (Abraham and Sarah) and then Jesus of Nazarath ripped offed those ideas from the Jews and initiated Christianity.
Mesopotamia in the fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is considered the cradle of Western Civilization. Apparently some people want to re-write the book on how Western culture came to be. And many of them want the world to believe ancient Israel and Judea is our cultural womb so badly they won't even debate the point. Modern Israel is an invented country, the three dollar bill of the Middle East. A place where you have Israelis openly talking about death camps for Palestinians who have bought and paid for sume American presidential candidates who suck up to them by parroting dehumanizing rhetoric about any other people from that region that is Arab and Palestinian that Jewish Zionists don't like. John Kennedy said in his inaugural address that people who seek to climb onto and ride a tiger runs the risk of winding up as it's meal. And some insane Christian Zionists welcome a nuclear war scenario as a good thing to see happen as they feel this is the world's natural Armageddon as Israeli Zionists tighten the girth to the big cat's saddle preparing to suffer the consequences of their bad karma. The Jewish Zionists are not about to contradict these suckers Christian Zionists are because of the money and support this insane notion brings their way. And they do not serve the interests of truth and justice anymore then Hitler and his people who are their former nemesis did. Stone and Boris forget that any country can fall iss with the disease of fascism. And much as the revolt of animals in George Orwell's satire 1984, if Israeli Zionists were dining in the farmhouse with Hitler and company like the pigs dining with the human farmers at the end of the book; a meal with German Nazis and Zionists dining together would have a lot in common and both groups would blur into one entity in the eyes of the beholder. Much as the now enslaved and oppressed former farm animal comrades of the pigs no longer could tell farmer from pig as they looked from one diner to another from their vantage point of being on the outside looking in
What Middle Eastern country isn't an invented country? The British carved up the Middle East, without regard to historic tribal patterns, after the Ottoman Empire fell. A lot of the problems that exist in the Middle East are due to the British Empire's poor decisions at the beginning of the 20th century.
How many new countries put on the dog as being a seamless representation of an ancient one?
#12. To: Ferret Mike (#11)
(Edited)
Top some degree Turkey, Iran (Persia), Egypt, Greece, and Israel.
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#5. To: BorisY (#1)
Israel is the mother country of America - western civilization !
#6. To: buckeroo (#5)
#9. To: Ferret Mike (#6)
(Edited)
Modern Israel is an invented country, the three dollar bill of the Middle East.
#11. To: jwpegler (#9)
"What Middle Eastern country isn't an invented country?"
Replies to Comment # 11. How many new countries put on the dog as being a seamless representation of an ancient one?
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