Israel / Lebanon.

[B_NineInchCock_160IQ]

Israel and the US are dicks! We're reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. And the UN are pussies. And Hezbollah and other terrorists are a bunch of assholes. Pussies don't like dicks because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes. Assholes that just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick. With some balls. The problem with dicks is that they fuck too much or fuck when it isn't appropriate. And it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves. Because pussies are just an inch and half away from assholes. I don't know much about this crazy crazy world, but I do know this: If you don't let us fuck this asshole we're going to have our dicks and our pussies all covered in shit.

 

[B_NineInchCock_160IQ]

Pincushion... sigh... I look at everything you just wrote and grow tired just thinking about typing up a response to everything. I'm not going to sit around and correct your egregious ignorance. It would take too much time. Rest assured, virtually everything you said is wrong. I'm tired of this thread so I'm moving on.

Don't worry, though. While you may be for all intents and purposes technically retarded... if Adolph Hitler or George W. Bush knew anything at all about what they were talking about, if you say something enough times then it becomes the truth. and who could ask for better role models? So keep spouting your special brand of insanity and perhaps some day it will actually be true.



quick aside about "terrorists"... I know that today this has become a bad word, and so people (mostly terrorists) misuse it all the time saying this government is a terrorist organization or that person is a terrorist. Other people saying that "well the terrorists are considered liberators" or other equally ridiculous bullshit. This is all semantic nonsense. A terrorist is a terrorist. Just because the term has grown to have negative connotations doesn't change its definition. If you attack civilian non-military population centers intentionally, with no hope or aim at damaging military infrastructure, no clearly defined military or strategic goal, your only hope being to inflict as many casualties on innocents as possible and as much symbolic property damage as possible in an effort to try and sway policy and public opinion through fear of further attacks... then you are a fucking terrorist and you DESERVE whatever negative connotations go along with that label. Wear it proudly and admit what you are.

Alright, I'm done now for real... I have a lot of homework that I've been neglecting that I need to get back to.

 

[pichulon]

Pincushion... sigh... I look at everything you just wrote and grow tired just thinking about typing up a response to everything. I'm not going to sit around and correct your egregious ignorance. It would take too much time. Rest assured, virtually everything you said is wrong. I'm tired of this thread so I'm moving on.

Don't worry, though. While you may be for all intents and purposes technically retarded... if Adolph Hitler or George W. Bush knew anything at all about what they were talking about, if you say something enough times then it becomes the truth. and who could ask for better role models? So keep spouting your special brand of insanity and perhaps some day it will actually be true.



quick aside about "terrorists"... I know that today this has become a bad word, and so people (mostly terrorists) misuse it all the time saying this government is a terrorist organization or that person is a terrorist. Other people saying that "well the terrorists are considered liberators" or other equally ridiculous bullshit. This is all semantic nonsense. A terrorist is a terrorist. Just because the term has grown to have negative connotations doesn't change its definition. If you attack civilian non-military population centers intentionally, with no hope or aim at damaging military infrastructure, no clearly defined military or strategic goal, your only hope being to inflict as many casualties on innocents as possible and as much symbolic property damage as possible in an effort to try and sway policy and public opinion through fear of further attacks... then you are a fucking terrorist and you DESERVE whatever negative connotations go along with that label. Wear it proudly and admit what you are.

Alright, I'm done now for real... I have a lot of homework that I've been neglecting that I need to get back to.

That is fine, I guess it is the trade mark of this place, when no arguments can be presented, call your oponent retarded , anything that comes to mind.
If you can not participate without insults, without intentional mispelling of names

Pincushion...

.... then, it is better not to participate. I respond with arguments. Perhaps this is not the side of the story that you were told in the US, but, at least, I listen to you and respond in kind.
To your last reply, I will not follow, I do not enjoy childish name calling....
You better go back to your homework, at least you can not get angry at your work and you will not be able to call it names.

 

[pichulon]

My point exactly. For a thousand years Jews were Europe's whipping boy, and after the Holocaust enough was enough.
As for Native American tribes needing their own states, they basically already have them. Indian reservations are almost as self-governing as states are.
I'll tell you this - I sure do think the Kurds need their own nation.
Finally, I'll agree that the establishment of Israel could possible have been done better. But it was done hastily out of necessity. The Jews needed a place to go and no one else wanted to take them. Sometimes things done hastily are sloppy. But the fact is Israel is there and they aren't going anywhere. And the fact remains that, for anyone reading this, if the country next to you was sworn to your destruction, had missiles pointed at you, and was being supplied by another one of your arch enemies, I think you'd want your government to put an end to it. Heck, I think you'd demand it.

The US should had given the jewish people all of CA and OR. England could had volunteered some land too. Why the palestinians?? If Germany was the perpetrator of the holocaust, why not take a part of Germany??
It is always the weak who has to pay for the whims of the powerfull.

 

[bigschlotsky]

This thread has become like an auto wreck that I'm driving past, I don't want to look at, but I can't help myself. Early on, the thread was dominated by anti-Israel posters and I wanted to balance things out. But by now, all the ideas are out there and readers have had the chance to hear all sides. The only reason for me to continue posting on this thread would be ego - to win the debate. That is not a compelling reason to me, so I'll make this my Israel/Lebanon thread swan song. There is only one more idea I want to share.
Certainly the situation in Israel/Lebanon is complex. But I think it's important to step back and look at the broader culture war that's going on in our world. It pits radical Islam against western secular democracy. The situation in the middle east is either a test case, a portent, or however you want to look at it - but what's going on in the middle east is not strictly a middle eastern problem.
People like to find easy answers. Some Arabs in Iran, Syria, etc. like to say their problems are the west's fault, or Israel's fault. It's an easy answer, even if it's not the right one. Many of us in the west seek easy answers as well - just give back the land to the Palestinians and it'll be allright. If only it were that simple. Radical Islam is not just a religion, or a political movement. And it's followers don't get mad only if they think you've taken their land. It's a cultural movement that doesn't share basic western values. They riot if you print a cartoon they don't like. They're up in arms if a politician or religious leader insults Mohammed, or Islam. 100 years ago, perhaps we could have said let's just leave the mid-east alone and let them to their thing. This is no longer a possibility. America and Europe have rapidly growing Muslim populations, including some radical Muslims. The culture class is already evident. In France, a law against religious symbols in school provoked fierce anger from the Muslim community, in Holland a Christian priest was murdered for insulting Islam.
Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is merely the front line of this war between western secularism and radical Islam, that if left unchecked, in a few years the Arab missiles will be reigning down on Europe. This sounds paranoid, no doubt. But what we've seen is that radical Muslim, above all else, objects to societies that are not Muslim, and are not based on traditional Muslim values and laws. Holy war is viewed as a compulsion to these radicals. If someone insults Muhammed for instance, it is seen as the DUTY of a Muslim to kill the offender. This is not only Israel vs. Hizbollah or Palestine, or Syria or Iran. This is western secular democracy and freedom versus intolerant antiquital Islam. The conflict will not be solved until one side is forced, or chooses, to appease the other's values. I sincerely hope it will not be us.

 

[Lordpendragon]

If you could just see that radical religious zionism as practised by the occupiers in the West Bank was as unbending as radical Islam, then we would actually begin to be able to discuss this properly.

 

[Lordpendragon]

I don't think that America can have the best perspctive to deal with the Middle Easts problems.

1. The US has shown 100% consistent support for Israel
2. The US has too great an economic interest in the area to be impartial
3. The US's main experience of the ME is fighting there
4. Radical Muslims have committed heinous terrorist crimes against the US

Europe has a closer relationship with the ME. We have many people of ME origin in our countries and many of us are able to travel in the ME, including Israel. If you don't meet people and get to know them, then it's difficult to get a meaningful dialogue going.

It is easy to see the ME as being populated by extremists, but this isn't the case. Empty vessels make the most noise and throw the most punches. I don't think that it is an impossible task to take the wind out of their sails and let the unheard majority develop peacefully.

BTW there are many examples of muslim countreis developing their own third way, you just don't hear about it. We may soon be holding our breath in Europe as we welcome Turkey, a secular country with a muslim population into the EU. There will be problems and many don't want it - but if you are not prepaed to build bridges, you need very high walls.

 

[b.c.]

I was watching a closing news feature on NBC one day last week, a feature focusing on the American children who fled Lebanon with their families. The question being posed was how were the children handling this turmoil and upheaval in their lives? "How does one explain it all to the children who had to leave?" they asked.

I recall thinking to myself, how does one explain it all to the ones who cannot?

 

[faceking]

Love all this blathering, and wasted bandwidth for a situation that is very SNAFU.

Always has, is right now... always will be.

Yawn. You are better off in search of the perfect cock ring, rather than some (what you think) insightful solution to this.

 

[AndrewEndowed24]

LPD, the very fact that Europe is not as deeply vested in the middle east allows for a sort of indolence. They may support whichever side sways ones emotions and is more stylish to support rather than whichever side is more likely to have a lasting positive effect on the area. Oh, and it's amusing how Europe's view of Islam changes when they switch from talking about how the Jews should deal with them to whether or not they will let them into the EU.

Oh, if only those few occupied territories would be returned, then all of this would stop! Do you really believe that suicide bombers are the ones distinctly interested in moderate binational solutions based on a mandate set 58 years ago? The violence against Israel is perpetrated by people who would reject that sort of legal positivism in place of a 'higher order'. Giving back the territories would do very little to improve the situation as it stands. At best it would make surrounding governments and Palestinian moderates happy, however they have never shown any interest in policing the radical elements and if they are given all they want without having to, they will continue to allow the radicals to run wild.

 

[AndrewEndowed24]

Turkey may be a bad example of islam's ability to liberalize itself. "Funny" story about Turkey, to a large degree secularism may have been the pet project of, you guessed it, an elite group of 'crypto jews'. Take a look: http://www.avrumehrlich.net/sabbatean.htm. hoo boy! this won't be popular.

 

[keeks]

Israel and the US are dicks! We're reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. And the UN are pussies. And Hezbollah and other terrorists are a bunch of assholes. Pussies don't like dicks because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes. Assholes that just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick. With some balls. The problem with dicks is that they fuck too much or fuck when it isn't appropriate. And it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves. Because pussies are just an inch and half away from assholes. I don't know much about this crazy crazy world, but I do know this: If you don't let us fuck this asshole we're going to have our dicks and our pussies all covered in shit.

nineinch... thank you for being both funny AND smart... a welcome sight in this thread. Your pics ain't bad either:wink:

 

[bigschlotsky]

If you could just see that radical religious zionism as practised by the occupiers in the West Bank was as unbending as radical Islam, then we would actually begin to be able to discuss this properly.

You heard it here, folks. The major problem facing all of us is radical militant Judaism. Sorry, I can't top that. Good night, now.

 

[findfirefox]

You heard it here, folks. The major problem facing all of us is radical militant Judaism. Uh-huh.

I don't think thats what he ment...

 

[keeks]

bigschlotsky said...

"But what we've seen is that radical Muslim, above all else, objects to societies that are not Muslim, and are not based on traditional Muslim values and laws. Holy war is viewed as a compulsion to these radicals. If someone insults Muhammad for instance, it is seen as the DUTY of a Muslim to kill the offender. This is not only Israel vs. Hizbollah or Palestine, or Syria or Iran. This is western secular democracy and freedom versus intolerant antiquital Islam. The conflict will not be solved until one side is forced, or chooses, to appease the other's values. I sincerely hope it will not be us."

IMHO, it is impossible to not feel some sympathy for the innocents in Lebanon, and Gaza for that matter, but to argue that Israel is overreacting to the situation is crazy. It seems to me that a majority of the Lebanese support Hezbollah and by definition are not entirely innocent. They have invited this disaster on their own country, by allowing Hezbollah to become/remain a major political and social force within their own country. I know there are historical reasons for this, but if Lebanon cannot stop Hezbollah for whatever reasons, Israel has a duty to its citizens to contain them.

To argue that the creation of Israel was a mistake also seems a moot point... it is now a reality that must be dealt with in the here and now... nobody can go back to 1948 and wave a magic wand and make it different.

No, we are not yet fighting WWIII, but we are in a major clash of civilizations that could become WWIII if things get out of hand. I must say one thing completely missing from this debate... in general, not just on this board... is some intelligent, articulated Muslims willing to speak up against the extremism that has lately invaded their religion/culture. That is both telling and worrisome to me.

Enough for me... just my subjective, uneducated opinion:smile:

 

[B_dxjnorto]

Europe has a closer relationship with the ME. We have many people of ME origin in our countries and many of us are able to travel in the ME, including Israel. If you don't meet people and get to know them, then it's difficult to get a meaningful dialogue going.

Everyone would like to see Europe take more interest in policing the Middle East. I remember thinking when Saddam was shooting scuds around the region why does the U.S. have to go over there? We always take this heavy handed mercenary role. You are correct in saying we don't understand well. We try to sell democracy to nations who don't have that word in their vocabulary.

I realize the E.U. is not at united as the U.S. so maybe that's asking too much currently. We definitely have economic interests in the Middle East that we can't currently abandon, but eventually oil will dry up and everyone will conserve and other energy sources will have to replace oil. We've got a big ocean on both sides of the U.S. Obviously no one is impervious to terrorists. But by dint of geography, the E.U. has a much dearer interest in dealing with these guys and their longer range nuclear and missile dreams.

The majority in the U.S. don't like being the world's police force. And the world does not like us being the world's police force. But who spends as much on military as we do? Who can do these things? I know we police and twist arms because we can. This is a problem and can be THE problem.

 

[Dr Rock]

the enemies of Israel who wish her completley destroyed are far too insane and fanatical to understand what is going to happen should they achieve their goal. They probably think God will save them from the nukes.

they probably don't care. people who are willing to fight and kill in the name of stupid shit like religion and politics will usually just assume that everyone else is as eager to die as themselves.

Europe has a closer relationship with the ME.

... whereas the US wants oil and has money. who do YOU think is gonna generate more string-pulling power?

 

[Lordpendragon]

You heard it here, folks. The major problem facing all of us is radical militant Judaism. Sorry, I can't top that. Good night, now.

Hey shit for brains, why do you keep deliberately misquoting me?

Aren't you all sick of seeing American hardware blowing up children?

Israeli atrocities in Lebanon inspired Osama Bin Laden, how many more Osama's are we going to have to deal with because of the Zionists hatred of the Arabs? It is a two way street that both sides think is a one way street with their right of way. You arm Israel, Iran probably arms Hezbollah. And the difference is?

http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/

http://www.jewsnotzionists.org/

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/jews_against_zionism.html

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5232434.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/5228392.stm

And if you think that I am lying about hating the Arabs - have a little read of some of these HATERS

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/palestinians.html

 

[Lordpendragon]

Regarding the Allies sitting around watching the Holocaust - can you answer these questions?

TEN QUESTIONS TO THE ZIONISTS

1. IS IT TRUE that in 1941 and again in 1942, the German Gestapo offered all European Jews transit to Spain, if they would relinquish all their property in Germany and Occupied France; on condition that:
a) none of the deportees travel from Spain to Palestine; and
b) all the deportees be transported from Spain to the USA or British colonies, and there to remain; with entry visas to be arranged by the Jews living there; and
c) $1000.00 ransom for each family to be furnished by the Agency, payable upon the arrival of the family at the Spanish border at the rate of 1000 families daily.

2. IS IT TRUE that the Zionist leaders in Switzerland and Turkey received this offer with the clear understanding that the exclusion of Palestine as a destination for the deportees was based on an agreement between the Gestapo and the Mufti.

3. IS IT TRUE that the answer of the Zionist leaders was negative, with the following comments:
a) ONLY Palestine would be considered as a destination for the deportees.
b) The European Jews must accede to suffering and death greater in measure than the other nations, in order that the victorious allies agree to a "Jewish State" at the end of the war.
c) No ransom will be paid

4. IS IT TRUE that this response to the Gestapo's offer was made with the full knowledge that the alternative to this offer was the gas chamber.

5. IS IT TRUE that in 1944, at the time of the Hungarian deportations, a similar offer was made, whereby all Hungarian Jewry could be saved.

6. IS IT TRUE that the same Zionist hierarchy again refused this offer (after the gas chambers had already taken a toll of millions).

7. IS IT TRUE that during the height of the killings in the war, 270 Members of the British Parliament proposed to evacuate 500,000 Jews from Europe, and resettle them in British colonies, as a part of diplomatic negotiations with Germany.

8. IS IT TRUE that this offer was rejected by the Zionist leaders with the observation "Only to Palestine!"

9. IS IT TRUE that the British government granted visas to 300 rabbis and their families to the Colony of Mauritius, with passage for the evacuees through Turkey. The "Jewish Agency" leaders sabotaged this plan with the observation that the plan was disloyal to Palestine, and the 300 rabbis and their families should be gassed.

10. IS IT TRUE that during the course of the negotiations mentioned above, Chaim Weitzman, the first "Jewish statesman" stated: "The most valuable part of the Jewish nation is already in Palestine, and those Jews living outside Palestine are not too important". Weitzman's cohort, Greenbaum, amplified this statement with the observation "One cow in Palestine is worth more than all the Jews in Europe".
There are additional similar questions to be asked of these atheist degenerates known as "Jewish statesmen", but for the time being let them respond to the ten questions.
These Zionist "statesmen" with their great foresight, sought to bring an end two two-thousand years of Divinely ordained Jewish subservience and political tractability. With their offensive militancy, they fanned the fires of anti-Semitism in Europe, and succeeded in forging a bond of Jew-hatred between Nazi-Germany and the surrounding countries.
These are the "statesmen" who organized the irresponsible boycott against Germany in 1933. This boycott hurt Germany like a fly attacking an elephant - but it brought calamity upon the Jews of Europe. At a time when America and England were at peace with the mad-dog Hitler, the Zionist "statesmen" forsook the only plausible method of political amenability; and with their boycott incensed the leader of Germany to a frenzy. And then, after the bitterest episode in Jewish history, these Zionist "statesmen" lured the broken refugees in the DP camps to remain in hunger and deprivation, and to refuse relocation to any place but Palestine; only for the purpose of building their State.
The Zionist "statesmen" have incited and continue to incite an embittered Jewish youth to futile wars against world powers like England, and against masses of hundreds of millions of Arabs.
AND THESE SAME ZIONIST "STATESMEN" HEEDLESSLY PUSH THE WORLD TO THE BRINK OF ANOTHER TOTAL WAR - REVOLVING ENTIRELY AROUND THE HOLY LAND.
What may befall the Jewish inhabitants of Palestine, of the Arab crescent, Europe, or the USA; is of no concern to these Zionist leaders. The rising anti-Semitism in the Western World is the product of their "statesmanship".
Under the guise of "love of Israel", the Zionist "statesmen" seduced many Jews to replace devotion to the Torah and its Sages with devotion to the scoundrel who founded Zionism. It is of no little significance that Herzl originally sought conversion of the Jews as a solution to the problems of the Diaspora. When he realized that this was not acceptable to the Jewish masses, he contrived Zionism as a satisfactory alternative!
A look into history reveals that this very same type of "statesmen" opposed the call of Jeremiah the prophet to yield to the minions of Nebuchadnezzar at the destruction of the first Temple. Five centuries later, Rabbi Yochonon Ben Zakai appealed to the people to surrender to Titus the Roman to avoid bloodshed. The "statesmen" rejected this appeal, and the second Temple was destroyed by the Romans. --- And now for the past fifty years, the Zionist "statesmen" rebuff the leadership of our Sages; and continue in their policy of fomenting anti-Semitism. When will they stop?? Must every Jew in America also suffer?? - Even the Nazi monsters had more sense, and gave up their war before all Germany was destroyed. The Zionist "statesmen" ridicule the sacred oath which the Creator placed upon the Jews in the Diaspora. Our Torah, in Tractate Ksubos, folio 111, specifies that the Creator, blessed be He, swore the Jews not to occupy the Holy Land by force, even if it appears that they have the force to do so; and not rebel against the Nations. And the Creator warned that if His oath be desecrated, Jewish flesh would be "open property", like the animals in the forest!! These are words of our Torah; and these concepts have been cited in Maimonides' "Igeres Teimon", "Be'er HaGola", "Ahavas Yehonosson", and in "Toras Moshe" of the Chasam Sofer.

 

[Lordpendragon]

I agree with this US Israeli.

Jeff Halper: an Activist's Activist

By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
East Jerusalem.

“We’re just pissed off [at the Palestinians], the way whites were with blacks in the southern United States. They just don’t know their place.”

Jeff Halper is the kind of activist that political analysts like us can get our arms around, figuratively speaking: he is a political analyst himself, an academic and researcher, as well as an activist, and his particular talents encompass both the research and analysis for which many activists have no patience and the hands-on activism for which many analysts and academics have no talent.

Halper is an Israeli anthropologist, until his retirement a year ago a professor at Ben Gurion University, a transplant 30 years ago from Minnesota, a harsh critic of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and, as founder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), one of the leading peace and anti-occupation activists in Israel.

We met with Halper on a rainy afternoon in Jerusalem to discuss him, his activism, and the dismal situation that he has dedicated his energies to resolving. He thinks the notion of mixing activism with academics helps put issues in context in a way that neither would do by itself, and he believes anthropologists are uniquely qualified to work in both areas, specifically because their academic work involves being out in the field and dealing with people.

Halper writes voluminously, in clear, accessible, blunt prose with accompanying maps and charts and concrete facts about Israel’s control over Palestinian lives. He is also an activist’s activist, slogging around in the mud trying to prevent the demolition of Palestinian homes by Israeli bulldozers and rebuilding homes that have been destroyed.

With the war in Iraq raging, we begin by talking about the U.S. and its image in the Middle East and move quickly over to Israel and its self-image.
Speaking about the U.S., Halper says it has actually not joined the world. It is and has always been isolationist, and Americans are disconnected from everyone else’s reality. This leads to a revealing discussion of Zionism and how it has molded the Israeli people and their thinking.

Halper touches on political territory so sensitive that probably only an Israeli could venture in. Zionism, he says, “is a very compelling narrative, but it is totally self-contained, a bubble in which Israelis separate themselves from all others.” Israelis regard everyone else as irrelevant. When it is suggested that fear motivates this self-absorption, Halper disagrees. “It’s not so much fear,” he says; Israelis “just don’t give a damn. They make everyone else a non-issue. They see themselves as the victim, and if you’re the victim, you’re not responsible for anything you do.”

Anything goes if you are the victim, he explains: you don’t care about the consequences of your actions for other people, you need not take any responsibility for the effect of your policies on others, you don’t care about how others feel. Israelis always think they’re right, he says. They believe everything they do is right because the Jewish nation is “right,” because they are only responding to what others do to them, only retaliating. “If you combine three elements: the idea that we are right, with the notion that we’re the victim, and with our great military power,” he says, you have a lethal combination. “It’s like being autistic with power. You don’t care about other people because you’ve cast the others as the aggressors. You create a situation where Israel is off the hook.” Israel can act with brutality, but the responsibility, the fault, lies elsewhere.

This mindset plays out in the Palestinian arena, Halper explains, through the widespread Israeli assumption that the only way the Palestinians can achieve anything is “if they accept our way. If they accept what we say, then we can be generous. If they accept their place, we can get along.” Israel sees its response to the intifada as a necessary effort to put the Palestinians in their place.

“Why was there so ferocious a reaction to the intifada?” Halper asks rhetorically. It cannot be explained by what the Palestinians did, he says, since in the early days after the intifada began, the Palestinians used no arms and no Israelis were killed, while large numbers of Palestinians were shot to death by Israeli soldiers. But, he says, “they had the chutzpah to call into question our right to have the whole country,” and Israel could not let this stand. “For Israelis, there are not two sides. This is our country,” and Arabs have no rights here. “You’ll notice,” he says, “that Israelis refer to the Palestinians as Arabs, not Palestinians. For Israelis, all Arabs are the same, they’re undifferentiated. If you point out that Palestinians are distinct from other Arabs, they brush it off with a dismissive ‘whatever.’ They say this is our country, there’s a bunch of Arabs here, they should go live with other Arabs.”

Halper tries to be upbeat. He sees the “roadmap” drawn up by the U.S. and its Quartet partners as a promising document because, among a few other straws to grasp at, it actually uses the word “occupation,” which Israel itself refuses to use. He wants to mobilize and coordinate pro-Palestinian groups in Israel/Palestine and elsewhere around the world to insert themselves into the process and try to work with their governments to have some input in implementing the plan. He recently talked to a State Department official who was hopeful. But for the most part, what Halper says is gloomy and pessimistic.
Congress is the principal problem in the U.S., he believes, which makes it particularly hard for President Bush. For Bush really to move on the issue, it would “cost him a lot of political capital.” He thinks it’s an open question whether Bush will ever be willing to pay that cost, so he is latching onto the “roadmap.” But then, right after declaring the roadmap a promising document, he says, “Either you just get rid of the occupation, period, or the two-state solution is gone. If Israel keeps the main settlement blocs, it’ll control 90% of the West Bank.” But the roadmap shows little promise of “just getting rid of the occupation, period.”

At the end, Halper returns to the issue of Israeli fears and his blunt assessment of where Israel’s actual thinking is centered. “It’s not fear,” he says. “We’re just pissed off [at the Palestinians], the way whites were with blacks in the southern United States. They just don’t know their place.”

With such an Israeli mindset, as well as a U.S. president clearly unwilling to pay the heavy political cost necessary to move Israel, and an Israeli government clearly unwilling ever to relinquish any settlements or any territory, it is exceedingly difficult to share Halper’s tentative sense of hope. But if anyone can make it work, people like Halper can.