Discussion for article #223919
Real Christians are sick of the Far Right fundamentalists and Republicans highjacking their faith and turning it into something ugly and destructive to the true teachings of Jesus Christ.
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“After unsuccessfully trying to secure their rights using a multitude of other means…”
Nice gloss.
You mean threatening people who didn’t believe him with eternal damnation? Cursing fig trees out of season? Name calling those who didn’t follow him?
Progressives should stop legitimizing a role for religion in political discussion. Israel should get out – NOW – from the territories occupied since 1967 and Palestinians should have their own state – for simple humanistic, humane, justice related reasons. Period. Arguing for it in the name of irrational beliefs is suicidal for progressives anywhere. Religious freaks have too much access to the public debate as it is. TPM should not give them one more channel of communication.
Bibi has the bomb you know. He’ll do what he wants
Drastic times call for drastic measures. It would be convenient if humans were basically good and susceptible to the hundredth monkey effect.
The scary part is that the wingnuts have him by the balls.
I agree completely -Palestinians should have their own state, with secure borders and control over their own affairs. However, Israel deserves the same. Israel withdrew from Gaza, and it did not help their security. Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon and it did not help their security. When Palestinians demonstrate that a Palestinian State will give Israel more security than an occupied Palestine, then they will get a state. No rational person would argue that Israel should withdraw unilaterally if it decreases her security. A first step on the part of Palestinians is for their entire government to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish State. This was requested and refused. The ball is in the Palestinian’s court.
Bibi is a wingnut. He’s a killer and a war monger at heart.
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This is not about Presbyterians. This is about spreading more misinformation about the conflict.
Nobody has ever explained how building additions on existing buildings, or new houses within the boundaries of existing settlements is actually creating a “single state reality”. Everyone knows those areas will be traded for equal area in a final agreement. Everyone knows that settlements in Gaza were given up unilaterally, so mere buildings are no indication that the land will never be negotiated away.
The “illegal Settlement Wall”, as anyone who cares to know the truth, is a wall for a few miles where Palestinian snipers had killed and wounded the most innocent Israelis. Those areas are now safe. The rest of the fence is just that, a fence, similar to thousands of miles of fence on other borders that are not even remotely dangerous.
Why don’t the Presbyterians boycott organizations that glorify people who blow up school busses full of children, name streets after them, and dress up their own children as suicide bombers? Organizations that make it a capital offense to sell land to a Jew? You know who I am talking about.
Finally, a little history. After 1967, Israel offered to negotiate to return the West Bank to Arabs. The Arabs flat out refused, instead choosing to start another war and support decades of terrorism. They refused to let any Palestinians integrate into their society, leaving them in squalid camps for over 50 years. Why is this now Israel’s fault?
Yes, in the end justice and fairness requires a secure Palestinian State next to a secure Jewish Israel. When the Palestinians can demonstrate they are willing to accept that situation, and to enforce that acceptance on their population, then Israel will have a moral obligation to join in that solution. Until then, forcing Israel to give up the West Bank unilaterally is asking Israel to put their fate in the hands of the people who have attacked them for the last 90 years.
Seems to me like an interlocking problem—our wingnuts support their wingnuts, and both have a disproportionate amount of power in their respective societies. I don’t see how any U.S. administration would have the freedom to really lean on the Israeli hard-liners until the fundamentalists here lose their grip on the political system. The situation is difficult enough without the influence of a whole lot of American magical thinkers whose interest in Israel is motivated by the Book of Revelation and not at all by any interest in promoting a lasting peace in the region—far from it.
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Same thing.
I think we agree…
Velcro, you’re trying to be humane and rational, but you’re blinding yourself to the reality of the Israel occupation.
There is a history to the occupation, and the anti-Israelis are happy to ignore the early part of it (i.e. 1967 and before). But you seem to want to ignore what has followed. The settlements in the occupied territories have nothing to do with Israel’s security, they are part of an attempt to implement a religious-fascist ideology, supported by rabbis who incite to hatred in their books and manifestoes, including the incitement to assassinate the Israeli Prime minister who signed the Oslo agreement with the Palestinians. I suspect you know all this. At any rate, it is today’s reality. Face it.
There are many antisemites among the Israel haters, no doubt, but in Israel’s current government are several overtly racist people, some of whom have nazi-like ideology. Face it.
You say “a first step on the part of Palestinians is for their entire government to acknowledge the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish State” : what kind of progressive are you that requires that the occupied give legitimacy to the occupier? The ball is in the Palestinian court, you say : there is no Palestinian court. The Israeli army is all over it. Face it.
And speaking of the offense to sell land to the other side : the Palestinian land is theirs, as pre-1967 land is Israeli. They are protecting their survival. And why don’t you mention the Israeli official laws that forbid selling ANY Israeli land to ANY non-Israeli Jew?
Reality is here, but you don’t seem to want to face it. If you really care about the future of Israel, you’d better stop denying what’s facing you.
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You and Velcro get points for an actual, fact based, intelligent discussion on line. How rare is that? Velcro gave the accurate party line and you poked progressive holes in it, but in ways that let the rest of us make up our own minds.
My feeling is that there are hardliners on both sides who know that a 2 state solution spells the end of their reason for being, and they will never let it happen, even though they are not the majority. Much like the Bush administration with its color coded terror alerts to gin up fear to fuel his re-election, the Israeli right is very good at stirring up Palestinian rage to push their populace into voting right. Unless and until the moderate middle rises up, the hardliners will keep control. Hamas and Likkud are very comfortable with a permanent state of war, so that’s what we get stuck with.
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Nice gloss.
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It’s not only American fundies who are our problem. Senator Schumer, for example, has said on NY television that he believes G_d put him in the Senate to be Israel’s protector.
The golem story that I’m familiar with turns out badly for both the Jewish community and the golem.
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Wow, even churches starting to embrace BDS?
Just waiting for the announcement that the Presbyterians are now officially “anti-semites”.
Hasbara much? Why the hell should Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish state”, and thereby relegate any non-Jews to second class citizenship? Why the hell should Palestinians- or Americans for that matter- endorse a state where a Muslim or Christian can’t marry a Jew? Where their ancestral land was stolen from them? Where they live in open air prisons without right to travel and associate freely? Recognizing Israel before it loses its nature as a theocratic apartheid based state is ass-backwards.
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