Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (168459)	8/7/2005 10:35:30 PM
From: el_gaviero	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Sun Tzu is right as usual. Tony Judt, ...a Jewish writer, in The Nation "Following the invasion of Lebanon, and with gathering intensity since the first intifada of the late 1980s, the public impression of Israel has steadily darkened. Today it presents a ghastly image: a place where sneering 18-year-olds with M-16s taunt helpless old men ("security measures"); where bulldozers regularly flatten whole apartment blocks ("rooting out terrorists"); where helicopters fire rockets into residential streets ("targeted killings"); where subsidized settlers frolic in grass-fringed swimming pools, oblivious of Arab children a few meters away who fester and rot in the worst slums on the planet; and where retired generals and Cabinet ministers speak openly of bottling up the Palestinians "like drugged roaches in a bottle" (former Israeli Chief of Staff Rafael Eytan) and cleansing the land of its Arab cancer (former Housing Minister Effi Eitam). " Israel is utterly dependent on the United States for money, arms and diplomatic support. One or two states share common enemies with Israel; a handful of countries buy its weapons; a few others are its de facto accomplices in ignoring international treaties and secretly manufacturing nuclear weapons. But outside Washington, Israel has no friends -- at the United Nations it cannot even count on the support of America's staunchest allies. Despite the political and diplomatic incompetence of the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization]... ; despite the manifest shortcomings of the Arab world at large... ; despite Israel's own sophisticated efforts to publicize its case, the Jewish state today is widely regarded as a -- the -- leading threat to world peace. After thirty-seven years of military occupation, Israel has gained nothing in security. It has lost everything in domestic civility and international respectability, and it has forfeited the moral high ground forever." In my opinion, our number one foreign policy problem is getting ourselves disentangled from Israel and focused on our own self-interest. Unless we do THAT, forget it. Nothing we do is going to make a difference, except to make matters worse.

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (168459)	8/8/2005 3:30:08 AM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 281500

It is not a joke at all. Israel is driving the arms race in ME and they have one of the most violent cultures on earth. I don't think you have been paying attention to their mindset over there. Israel is perhaps the biggest threat to world peace. You have got to be kidding me. I'd like to see what any of our Western countries would do if confronted with the kind of continuous assaults that Israel has been dealing with. Look at tolerant Great Britain. One terrorist sucker punch from some brainwashed individuals who aren't immigrants and they blow some guy's head off and he's not even an Arab. I could just imagine the situation in the US if Mexicans were suicide bombing us in California, or if Blacks were leaving car bombs because of segregation. And who gassed the Kurds ? That was a Sunni Muslim, not Jews. Who cost the lives of probably a million Muslims between Persians and Iraqis ? That wasn't Jews that I know. Maybe you should take a look at sub Saharan Africa some time if you want real violence and assault to human dignity. I think in the last 4 or 5 years, the civil war in the Congo has cost more lives than there are Palestinians even living in their "territories". Not to mention Angola, etc, etc... The Arabs have tried collectively several times to wage simultaneous war against Israel and failed, so now they have found a successful strategy by keeping the Palestinian issue in everyone's faces. Probably it's because Africans don't have half the UN on their case that a genocide can go down in Rwanda and nobody lifts a finger. I'll make it perfectly clear how I feel about the whole Mid East region. It's one big cesspool where they've been killing each other since it was the cradle of civilization and we in the US shouldn't be touching it with a 10 foot pole one way or another, and certainly we shouldn't have Shrub playing kissy-face with the Saudis down on his ranch. But it takes one oil man to know another. But Israel wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for European anti-semitism. Europe has never gotten over being caught with the Holocaust going down on their watch, and they're delighted that they can demonize Jews once again. This rap that Jews are the cause of all ill in the world is simple nonsense, and the main reason we have to listen to all this Muslim fundamentalist stuff is because of oil and little else.