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To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (13528)	4/10/2002 4:58:02 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

Polls us-israel.org

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (13528)	4/10/2002 5:05:55 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

UN "peacekeeping" story.news.yahoo.com A six-year study of the 1995 slaughter of thousands of Muslims by Serb troops in the Bosnian "safe zone" of Srebrenica spread responsibility for the debacle among the Dutch government, its army commanders and the United Nations (news - web sites). But relatives of victims castigated the report as a whitewash. The 7,600-page report commissioned by the Dutch government, a historical reconstruction of the worst massacre in Europe since World War II, immediately set off a political firestorm in the Netherlands and angry reactions in Bosnia.

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (13528)	4/10/2002 5:16:41 PM
From: wgh613	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

The Holocaust came about because of a genetic hatred based on jealousy. Nothing has changed much today,witness people like you.and the always reliable Europeans to spew their hatred. There will be a lot of suffering if the extremism by the Palestinians is not controlled,so that a peaceful solution can be achieved. Israelis are well aware of the Holocaust,and they will do everything necessary to protect themselves from the visciousness of the new haters. It will take generations if any to get any real trust between the Palestinians and Israelis. Any resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli problem will have to be built on trust,and only time can prove that the Palestinians are ready to live with the Israelis in the same region.

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (13528)	4/10/2002 6:27:06 PM
From: hdl	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23908

y would anyone be vehemently against israeli actions and not stress barbarism of muslims? if what israelis do is bad, a fortiori, a multitude of things the muslims do is far worse. it pains me to see so many- europe, u n, arabs, muslims, some u s students not seeing things correctly. u have a lot of company.

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (13528)	4/11/2002 4:00:45 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

More on the pathological US-Israel relationship: Lexington *No Schmooze with the Jews, The Economist (UK), April 6, 2002, p. 47* Forget about infirmity of purpose. The most troubling criticism of America's Middle East policy is that it is driven not by national interest but by a domestic lobby -- the Jewish lobby. This criticism is an article of faith in the Arab world. It has been whispered in European chancelleries for years. Now arespectful American pundit, Michael Lind, has tried to detail the case in a respectable British magazine, Prospect. Does the argument hold water? Without question, the Jewish lobby is enormously influential in the United States. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is a legend among lobbyists, a phenomenon when it comes to lining up senators, orchestrating public opinion and arranging junkets to Israel for impressionable politicians. The Jews are not alone in lobbying their ethnic interests: everyone does it. Nor are they alone in occasionally allowing ethnic loyalties to trump the national interest. But the Jewish lobby is nevertheless unusual in several respects. It allows Jews to exercise an influence out of proportion to their mere 2% of the population. It is unusually focused on foreign affairs -- and particularly on providing Israel with the military might which it needs to survive. It also has an enormous number of allies in the media and in politics. A striking proportion of America's leading pundits are Jewish. Three of the most prominent foreign-policy hawks in the current administration, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, are Jewish; so is the most prominent hawk among the Capitol Hill Democrats, Joe Lieberman. America is also far more pro-Israel than Europe. Israel receives more of America's foreign aid budget than any other country -- $3 billion a year, two-thirds of it in military grants. This has allowed Israel to turn itself into a muscle-bound colossus. In 1967, Israel's defence spending was less than half the combined defence expenditure of Egypt, Iraq, Jordan and Syria. Today, it is 30% higher than the combined defence spending of those states. But does the Jewish lobby, well-connected as it may be, really explain America's support for Israel? The lobby may do its bit. But it would be powerless if America did not have such strong cultural affinities with Israel. Americans have a marked tendency to see foreign policy in moralistic terms --as a battle of good against evil or western values against barbarism. Europeans may see the Middle East as a matter of managing rival interests (and assuaging colonial guilt). Americans tend to see it as a matter of defending an island of freedom and democracy from a ravening crowd of kleptocrats and tyrants --and, since September 11th, in terms of allies and enemies in America's war against global terrorism. Many Evangelical Christians are also passionately pro-Israel. Some of the strongest support for Israel comes from Bible-belt states, such as Alabama and Mississipi, that have few kosher restaurants. Evangelical preachers such as Pat Robertson pull off the extraordinary feat of being both anti-Semitic and passionately pro-Israel. Bestseller lists are full of apocalyptic tracts about the end of the world and the return of the Jews to Israel. A group of Pentecostal Christians in Mississipi breed red heifers for sacrifice in Israel when the Second Coming reclaims Jerusalem's Temple Mount from the Muslims. A Texan in Israel What about the charge that the Jewish lobby is "distorting" American foreign policy, by persuading governments to put ethnic interests before national ones? Not likely. All American presidents have happily crushed the Jewish lobby whenever they think the national interest demands it. Ronald Reagan, a pro-Israeli president, sold AWACS aircraft to Saudi Arabia over strong objections from AIPAC. He was so infuriated by Israel's invasion of Lebanon that he put a picture of a Palestinian child on his desk. In 1991 George Bush senior brushed aside AIPAC's objections when America threatened to withhold loan guarantees if Israel continued to expand its settlements in the occupied territories. Successive American administrations have declared Jewish settlements in the territories illegal and counterproductive. AIPAC, like all ethnic pressure groups, is good at getting its way on things that presidents don't much care about. But when it tries to butt its head against issues of national interest, it ends up with a headache. The current administration is a particularly odd candidate for the role of cat's-paw to the Jewish lobby. Jews are the only group of rich white people who habitually vote Democratic --and many of the Jewish commentators who are credited with such influence over American policy would rather dress up in a Ku Klux Klan outfit than endorse the current president. The Jewish lobby has a particularly testy relationship with the Bush dysnasty. Jewish organizations regarded George Bush senior as the most anti-Israel president in recent years --a man who saw the Middle East in terms of oil supplies rather than Israel's destiny. James Baker, the elder Bush's secretary of state, is credited with a memorable line on the Jewish lobby: "Fuck the Jews. They don't vote for us anyway." The current president is certainly more sympathetic to Israel than his father. During a trip to Israel a few years ago he was shocked to learn that Israel had once been only nine miles wide: "In Texas, some of our driveways are longer than that." But sympathy does not reduce him to a puppet of a domestic lobby [like Clinton]. [...] economist.com

To: Elmer Flugum who wrote (13528)	4/11/2002 9:58:36 AM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23908

Among the findings: Nine in 10 Americans say groups of Arabs carried out the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Solid majorities in Islamic nations don't believe that. More than six in 10 Americans say U.S. military action in Afghanistan is totally justified, compared with fewer than one in 10 in most Muslim countries. Only one in four Americans has a favorable opinion of Muslim countries. That's roughly the same percentage of the Islamic countries' residents who look favorably on the United States. usatoday.com