ISRAEL: WHEN WILL THE WEST DO SOMETHING?

[donnie]

Am I alone in feeling outraged that Blair et al have said and done nothing about Israel's incursion into Gaza following the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier?

I have been very outspoken on MN about my opposition to the Israeli Government in the past and make no bones about the fact that I do regard it as verging on being a rogue state. Their sustained oppression of the Palestinians is repulsive to me and I see them as legitimised terrorists.

Opinions please.

yes caligula I did think I knew you better which is probably why I was so shocked .. enjoy your washing

it is true that if you kill 5 terrorists you end up with 20 or 30

I also think its true that if you bomb school buses and bus terminals and shopping centres you create a nation that lives in fear and begins to believe that attack is the only form of defence

Kathy, I certainly don't think that Jews shouldn't live in Israel. The younger generation who are there now have only ever known that country. What I am cnocerned abuot though is that this war will never be over until they aren't. So from the othersides point of view, they will keep going until everyone is dead.

As for the money thing in the US, you are right I wasn't aware that jews have been blamed for this for years. Well subconsciously I suppose.

I was trying to find the reason for the US being so pro Israel.

Can anyone answer my question then. Is the USA financed by mostly Jewish money? So what if it is, good luck to them but ast least it explains how things are going to be in the future.

I would say a majority of Israeli teenagers do their gap year in the US with relatives/friends of thethe family. Before they come back to do national service which is why I believe that most Israelis have connections to the US.

oh no, it's getting too scary now .

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anti-defamation league report on this financing myth

The US is now providing Isael with precision-guided missiles, they have no intention of brokering a cease-fire.

Bloss, I think you may have the wrong impression of why I was asking this question. Reading the link that Twiglett posted, it looks like you think I know more about the persecution of Jews than I do.

I understood that the financial structures owned by Jewish people were the hard work & determination of people who were persecuted beyond belief in WW2. I feel nothing but admiration and was quite pleased that these people have have built up something from nothing and have such a strong standing & community after what happened to their people. If that has given them any influence in the US, it's not a bad thing IMO. It just explained by the US falt such a strong bond with Israel and was protecting her with such force. Certainly not from any warped view from anything remotely anti jewishness, which would have been weird given that my G.grandmothers name was Sarah Levi.

But UCM in terms of financial structures owned by Jewish people, the reason it's an issue, is because it's always put forward by those who believe in the Jewish World Conspiracy, as evidence that the JWC does exist. When in fact what it is generally seen as by most reasonable people, is evidence that almost uniquely among nations, the USA has not had a seriously dysfunctional relationship with the Jewish people. Without wishing to be a cheerleader for the USA economic system (that'll be the day) it is a place where in the main, Jews have been allowed to function as full citizens without constant pogroms, persecution etc. impeding their existence. If you look at the financial structures owned by groups such as the Irish, Italians etc., you will probably find that they too, as groups of people who have been in the USA for well over a century (ever since the USA started to emerge as an economic superpower) have managed to make themselves economic stakeholders in the country. It would be surprising (and an indication of a very dysfunctional relationship) if various long-established communities in the USA did not have various financial, political etc. interests. But unless I've led a very sheltered life, not many people are interested in proving the Irish World Conspiracy and so it's not an issue - you don't get websites which list various Irish businessmen and which corporations they have interests in (at least I don't think you do - perhaps someone will contradict me) in order to prove that the Irish have a sinister plot to take over the world. Whereas when it comes to Jewish individuals and organisations, that's exactly what you do get. Hence the hoo-ha whenever it's raised because it is so sensitive. And hence the need for open discussion and clarification I think. And sensitivity with language when discussing it (mea culpa). It's obviously not to be entered into when not concentrating properly (that's a note to myself by the way, not to you!)

Anyway the whole situation is now so depressing. It looks like the state of war Israel and its neighbours have lived in for fifty years, is now guaranteed to continue for at least another generation. There is such a horrible inevitability about it all, like everyone is sleepwalking into hell.

sleepwalking into hell it's such an awful situation

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I think the US also has an interest in maintaining instability in the Middle East .

Was slightly bemused by this article.....

crikey fuzzywuzzy, don't know what to say about that.

Let's not forget that Dubya thinks that God talks directly to him and that he is carrying out God's will in the Middle East (iraq, Israel, Iran etc). Funny how many people seem convinced that God is on their side... TB, assorted terrorists, Zionists, Islamic fundamentalists etc...

I know I shouldn't laugh, but at the anti-christ being the head of the EU. You couldn't make it up. I expect s/he'll be French as well.

I also like the po-faced BBC's delicately phrased: "It is not clear how many evangelicals believe literally in those type of prophecies."

So, when Hezbollah succeeds in throwing Isreal back into the sea (despite the jews having living in the middle east for every bit as long as the arabs btw), the few remaining jews who survive are supposed to meekly go and live in America where they (despite most of them having no links whatsoever with the country) 'control the finances' (just like they did in Germany, of course, and the reason why it was OK to herd them into gas chambers and murder them)? And there is no anti-semetism on this thread?
Disgusting.

Bibliophile that is not fair, no-one is criticising Jews. Some people, including me, have a lot of issues with Israel and the US and their foreign policy and people are just wondering about US motives in this whole mess.

My feelings are for the innocents on all sides - palestinian, lebanese and israeli. There is a huge humanitarian crisis happening in front of our eyes, thousands displaced maybe never to return home. This area has always been a tinderbox ready to ignite and hezbollah's strike was just that trigger. Why oh way can't they all see what they're doing to civilians. And why isn't the UN sending in a peace force. Perhaps Dubya is hoping that Israel sorts out the issues for him. Worried people here as saying that maybe he'll use it as the excuse he needs to attack Iran, for all our sakes I hope not.

Oh apparantly according to the BBC, Dubya has given Israel a week to wreak adequate havoc before he send in a US 'peace' (there's an oxymoron) envoy

yep that sounds about right. Those poor people it must be hell on earth in Beirut and southern Lebanon as well as northern Israel

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Israel and Hezbollah are as bad as each other - they are both terrorists - but Israel has far more fire power and is wreaking far more misery and pain. As a nation state it is entitled to defend itself but bombing civilians trying to flee the attacks, hospitals and mosques it really should face a war crimes tribunal. But it won't, because international law does not apply to the US or to Israel.

So much of the discussion of Israel seems to me to be underpinned with racism. Israel must have seized land belonging to someone else...after all, that's what those grasping, greedy hook-noses do. After all, they control the finances of America, they love money, they love to take things from other people... it was stuff like that that made the Poles, the Germans, even the Vatican either keen to support the death camps or unwilling to oppose them. Let's face it, anti-semetism was not exactly an unknown force in England either. Our ancestors were happy to burn Jews or expel them or steal their businesses and homes.
FFS, most of what used to be Palestine is now Jordan. When do we hear the great cry that Jordan should be given back to the 'Palestinians' (there is no such homogenous group, as I understand it, and if there was, then the Jews have a good claim to be a part of it, before they were pushed out).
Do Jews have no right to one place on the face of the earth where they have not faced state-sanctioned genocide? Are they the only people on earth who do not deserve a homeland?
I am not Jewish, nor do I support the killing of civilians, and I loathe and despise Bush, but yes, I do think much anti-Israeli rhetoric is underpinned by racism.

And if they do deserve a homeland, how can they defend it against a host of neighbours who want to destroy the homeland and every single man, woman and child who lives in it?
I feel desperately sorry for the poor families who face Israeli bombardment, but it is also terrible to see the numbers of poor French and German civilians who died in the second world war under British, American and Canadian bombardment.
But if one side seeks total annihilation of the other as a fundamental tenet of their existence, what can the other side do?