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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GST who wrote (125070)	2/25/2004 4:28:48 PM
From: redfish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"Israel's battles are not our battles. Israel's enemies are not our enemies. Israel has to stand on its own two feet." That is something I have long believed. Israel is perfectly capable of dealing with its enemies by itself. But at this stage of the game, I don't think such a belief is viable. For better or for worse, I think we are so closely connected to Israel that its enemies are our enemies. It is too late in the day to attempt to portray ourselves as impartial. Israel and the United States are conjoined twins.

To: GST who wrote (125070)	2/25/2004 6:03:26 PM
From: Ish	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

<<Israel's battles are not our battles. Israel's enemies are not our enemies. Israel has to stand on its own two feet. >> No, as a democracy it comes under the aegis of the USA, we try to protect those folks.

To: GST who wrote (125070)	2/25/2004 9:47:40 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

We are not currently engaged in any declared war If you mean that Congress has not declared war, you are right. Congress has not declared war since WWII, so Korea and Vietnam were not wars either by that definition. President Bush, however, has laid out a doctrine that says that America is at war with terrorist organizations and those states that harbor them, starting but not finishing with Al Qaeda and Afghanistan. So your statement is an incorrect rendition of the Bush doctrine. "targeted for military action" is a kind of weasel-worded, Kerryish attempt to have it both ways, to say that we are using the army for a glorified police action. No. This is a war, and President Bush has said so many times. There are organizations that engage in suicide bombing and other acts of violence against Israel whom we do not list as terrorist organizations Name one. We list all the organizations that are blowing up Israeli buses and pizzerias as terrorist organizations. The Europeans keep trying out ways to declare parts of Hamas non-terrorist, but we don't. It is a stated policy of the United States that we have a problem with blowing up schoolbuses for political reasons on principle. Therefore we also regard as terrorists those organizations that are blowing up subways in Moscow as terrorists, even though Moscow's battles are not ours and we don't say they are. Israel has to stand on its own two feet If only Israel were left alone to do so, the Pals would be in deep doo-doo in a hurry. And Israel has to be held accountable for its own actions -- including abuses of human rights and international law. As I have said about a million times before, it is not holding Israel accountable that bothers me. Israel holds itself more accountable than 99% of other countries. It is removing Israel from all context, hiding and excusing all the barbarities and far worse human rights abuses of Israel's enemies, and then demanding that Israel alone live up to some impossible standard of absolute purity. For example, Israel is routinely demanded to let scores of its own citizens die needlessly in terrorist attacks, rather than hinder Palestinian livelihoods. The fact that people are pointing the finger at Israel for the attacks, not the terrorists who commit them, shows how well they have absorbed the Pal propaganda of victimhood and helplessness. Nobody would buy this for a second in any other context. The Saudis are building a wall on the Yemeni border (the Yemenis say they are grabbing Yemeni land in the process). The Saudis are doing this to stop Yemeni terrorists. Does the world care? No. They Saudis have every right to defend themselves. Only the Israelis are routinely denied the right to defend their own lives.