Does this outfit make me look dumb and ineffective?

The Big O™ is now giving up on his position that Israel should cease building more homes and settlements on Palestinian land, asking both sides to come back to the table and discuss.

Yeah right jackass, like that is going to change anything Israel does regarding the Palestinian’s right to live and exist like humans on their own land.

The NYT sums up The Big O’s new position this way:

Rather, Mr. Obama, unable to extract that concession from Israel or other confidence-building moves from Arab states, seems intent to press Palestinians and Israelis to negotiate all the difficult issues between them toward a final deal that has eluded negotiators, and bedeviled American presidents, since President Jimmy Carter brokered a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979.

The pivot toward tackling issues that include the status of Jerusalem, the fate of Palestinian refugees and the borders of a future Palestinian state greatly increases the stakes for an administration that has found even small advances to be beyond reach. It also risks making Mr. Obama appear ineffective in having not gained a tangible early goal of his Middle East policy.

The last sentence really chaps my ass as it’s so friggin obvious to me. Ineffective, thy name is Barack Obama.

Obama has changed his ‘position’ so many times on so many issues he and we should all have a nasty friggin case of whiplash at this point. In fact, I am hardpressed to name one thing The Big O has steadfastly maintained his position on since we the people elected him last November.

Oh wait..I got one!

Afghanistan.

If you, m’dear reader, have another, please by all means..leave it in the comment section ok? I would love to have something positive to cheer about these days.

In the meantime, enjoy Will Ferrel’s new Funny or Die video on health insurance reform.

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

Israel keeps water from Palestinians.

This is SO fucked up. The European Union, the UN, and everyone else that talks to Israel needs to bitch slap them for this bullshit. Pathetic fucks.

The anniversary of the creation of Israel

Tomorrow is the 61st anniversary of Israel's creation in the middle east. I want Palestinian's and Jews to live in peace. American Friends Service Committee, AFSC, has a video that shows how the Palestinian land has been carved up during the various decades.

Palestinian's should be allowed to live on their homeland and be self-sustaining. Israel has taken control of prime real estate over the decades. There has to be a dialogue that offers both groups of people freedom to live in peace. There has to be....



May 15,1948 was a banner day for Jews. It was quite the opposite for Palestinians. The nightmare has never ended for Palestinians.When will peace come to this region..or is the real question...

Will peace ever come to this region?

From AFSC's site:

There are often different understandings of the history of 1948 and its ongoing significance. We believe that an honest discussion and accounting of this period is central to any lasting and just peace between Palestinians and Jewish Israelis.

61 years of war and turmoil must to come to an end..It will take the entire world to accomplish this. Please, let the conversation begin today.

Israel denounces Gaza war crimes investigation by UN

And this really, would be laughable if it wasn't so damn disgusting. It is also a high-irony alert. From Jurist:

In an interview with a reporter, Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said the probe is an attempt to demonize Israel and that it has no moral ground. Palmor also condemned the UNHRC as unreliable and having the worst history of all the organizations within the UN. The criticism came the same day that the UNHRC announced the appointment of South African judge Richard Goldstone to head the fact-finding mission. Israel has not said if it will cooperate with the probe, which was originally approved by the UNHCR in January.

The impetus for the probe was a report [authored by UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk], which criticized Israel for failing to take adequate precautions to distinguish between civilians and combatants in their offensives in the region. Both Israel and the US criticized the report, calling the rapporteur's views "anything but fair." An internal Israeli military investigation found earlier this week that war crimes had not been committed in the offensive despite individual reports by Israeli soldiers. Israel has already disputed a previous report to the UNHRC that accused it of human rights violations. In January, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said that it lacked standing to investigate possible war crimes in Gaza.

Sweet Jaysus in a speedo..demonize Israel and that it has no moral ground? Dude, you are so full of shit, your eyes better be brown. Morally, Israel is so bankrupt, when it comes to Palestine..I can't even begin to point out the obvious here...but let me try..

Letting Israel's military investigate their own war crimes is tantamount to the fox guarding the henhouse.

Their own soldiers reported various war crimes during the latest Gaza seige.

Plenty of news reports are out there..including numerous videos of Israel bombing civilians homes.

More civilians were killed than Hamas soldiers in Gaza, by all news accounts. This one alone states 1,434 Palestinians, including 960 civilians were killed.

Violations of the Geneva Conventions which require the military to distinguish between military targets and surrounding civilians.

From The Guardian:

The Guardian has compiled detailed evidence of alleged war crimes committed by Israel during the 23-day offensive in the Gaza Strip earlier this year, involving the use of Palestinian children as human shields and the targeting of medics and hospitals.

A month-long investigation also obtained evidence of civilians being hit by fire from unmanned drone aircraft said to be so accurate that their operators can tell the colour of the clothes worn by a target.
*snip*
Some of the most dramatic testimony gathered by the Guardian came from three teenage brothers in the al-Attar family. They describe how they were taken from home at gunpoint, made to kneel in front of Israeli tanks to deter Hamas fighters from firing, and sent by Israeli soldiers into Palestinian houses to clear them. "They would make us go first so if any fighters shot at them the bullets would hit us, not them," 14-year-old Al'a al-Attar said.

Israel isn't above the law or the Geneva Conventions. That they would kill more civilians than Hamas soldiers and use children as human shields turns my stomach. Watch all three parts of The Guardians investigation into Israel war crimes here.

Lebanon fires rockets into Israel

Sweet-Jaysus-in-a-speedo....the shit has not only hit the fan, its getting knee-deep. From Reuters:

Israel pressed its offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip on Thursday amid sharp Red Cross criticism that it was delaying access to casualties.

A rocket salvo from Lebanon slightly wounded two people in northern Israel and briefly raised fears that Hezbollah fighters were opening a second front to relieve pressure on Gaza. But an Israeli cabinet minister blamed Palestinian groups in Lebanon.

This isn't going away any time soon. It will only get worse. Keep in mind that very few Israeli's have been killed while over 700 Palestinians are dead from this pissing contest. Again from Reuters:

Eleven Israelis have died in the past 13 days, eight of them soldiers, including four killed by "friendly" fire.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its officials and Palestinian ambulance workers had found four starving children huddled with at least 12 corpses in Gaza in a house 80 meters from an Israeli military position.

Among the dead in the house, found lying on mattresses, were the children's mothers, the ICRC said.

In nearby houses in Gaza's devastated Zeitoun neighborhood, the team found another three corpses and 15 survivors, including several who were wounded, the Geneva-based agency said.

It is so hard to wrap my mind around this carnage. It makes me weep.

Tags: Lebanon launches rockets into Israel, Gaza

US policy helped build Hamas’ power base.

McClatchy has an interesting read up on the recent history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Analysts draw a direct line between US/Israeli policies and the rise of Hamas in the region. As usual, the US screwed the pooch and instead of talking to the aggressors, they push for military action instead. From the McClatchy writeup:

In August 2005, when Israel unilaterally withdrew from the narrow coastal territory, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon promised it would make Israel safer. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice hailed the move as “historic.”

Israel had left behind a political vacuum, however. That, along with decisions by Israel, the U.S. and Palestinian rivals inadvertently boosted the militant Islamic group Hamas into power. Hamas is stronger than ever, and Israel’s air strikes risk bolstering it further, according to current and former U.S. officials, diplomats and analysts.

Then, in January 2006, the Palestinians, with strong backing from the Bush administration, held legislative elections. Over Israeli misgivings, Hamas — which has questioned Israel’s right to exist and which the U.S. and Israel consider terrorist group — was allowed to participate.

Hamas won a majority of seats, benefiting from the perceived corruption and incompetence of Abbas’s Fatah faction.

“The United States should have anticipated a result it didn’t like, and it should have played it better,” said Jon Alterman, of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“Hamas has much more power now than it did three years ago,” he said.

After the elections, the Bush administration began an effort to reverse the results, McClatchy reported in 2007, but it failed to weaken the group or persuade it to modify its hard-line views. As the months went on, Washington opposed Arab efforts to form a Palestinian unity government and pressed Abbas to confront Hamas.

In June 2007, after months of factional fighting, Hamas forces overran Gaza, ousting Fatah’s foreign-armed and trained security forces. The U.S. rounded up diplomatic and financial support for Abbas, and Israel responded by clamping down harder on Gaza.

Even the Arab states believe the only way to shut down Hamas is politically, not militarily. But the two important powers in the region…the US and Israel refuse to consider that method.

Damn fucking shame if you ask me. But then…our biggest purchaser of American weaponry wouldn’t be buying all that firepower would they? hmmm….

Two wrongs do NOT make a right.

Hamas is pure, unadulterated, evil batshit on one hand. This fact can not be denied. They are as extreme as you can get. They also help what is one of the worlds poorest populations. From CFR:

In addition to its military wing, the so-called Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigade, Hamas devotes much of its estimated $70-million annual budget to an extensive social services network. It funds schools, orphanages, mosques, healthcare clinics, soup kitchens, and sports leagues. "Approximately 90 percent of its work is in social, welfare, cultural, and educational activities," writes the Israeli scholar Reuven Paz. The Palestinian Authority often fails to provide such services; Hamas's efforts in this area—as well as a reputation for honesty, in contrast to the many Fatah officials accused of corruption—help to explain the broad popularity it summoned to defeat Fatah in the PA's recent elections.

The fact that they have a totally fucked up military presence in Gaza however, does not give Israel the right to use the full force of it's military to bomb Gaza off the face of the earth. There are a million and a half Palestinian's that live in Gaza.

They are not all insurgents. Anyone that says otherwise is not only uninformed, they are stupid.

Currently, over 345 residents of Gaza are dead due to Israel's bombs, with another 1400 injured with at least a third being innocent civilans. How many Israeli's have been killed by Hamas' crude bombs during the same period?

4

The whole fucking eye for an eye biblical bullshit is lost on me, but that said...this pissing contest between Hamas and the Israeli government is very lopsided. For a historical perspective, check out this McClatchy article:

It was the highest death toll from Gaza rockets and mortars in a single day. Until Monday, Palestinian rocket fire had killed eight Israelis in the past two years. Since Israel launched the air strikes on Saturday, four Israelis have been killed in attacks from Gaza.

One of my commenter's had the audacity to state, in the post below, that all Palestinians are vermin, that they teach their children to hate Israeli's. Besides the fact that his statement is unprovable, its inaccurate as all get out. It's equivalent to saying all American's are vermin and hate Iraqi's just because the Bush Administration invaded Iraq and commenced tearing that country apart, installing a government as corrupt as Saddam's was and blowing their infrastructure to hell so that clean water and electricity are things of the past.

I see what Israel is doing as a ridiculous dance of futility. They will not endear themselves to anyone with their show of force. They already control how much food, energy and medical supplies get into Gaza, and they use that weapon to it's fullest. They force all Palestinians to suffer for the actions of the extremists.

They remind me of Bush, Cheney and the whole PNAC crowd... and we all know how that has turned out, don't we?

There has to be a better way to create livable conditions for both Palestinian's and Israeli's...there has to be. All Israel is doing now is alienating Palestinians that hold no allegiance to Hamas.

Like Bush and Cheney did in Iraq.

Using a wrecking ball when a hammer will do the job.

This just freaks me the hell out. As of today, almost 300 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli bombs and bullets in this latest pissing contest between Hamas and Israel. Women and children, people, ...they are killing civilians en masse over the death of one Israeli. 

Methinks this is a form of genocide. In any case, Nobody's right, if everybody's wrong..