Israeli defense minister says occupation must end

[CptSternn]

http://tinyurl.com/y5jcgtd

JERUSALEM – Israel must recognize that the world will not put up with decades more of Israeli rule over the Palestinian people, the country's defense minister said in unusually frank remarks Monday.

Ehud Barak's comments, on the occasion of Israel's Memorial Day, come against the backdrop of severe friction between the U.S. and Israel's hawkish government over an impasse in peacemaking.

Last week, President Barack Obama issued a surprisingly pessimistic assessment of peacemaking prospects, saying the U.S. couldn't force its will on Israelis and Palestinians if they weren't interested in making the compromises necessary to end their decades-old conflict.

Barak told Israel Radio on Monday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government has "done things that didn't come naturally to it," like adopting the vision of two states for two peoples and curtailing settlement construction.

"But we also shouldn't delude ourselves," he added. "The growing alienation between us and the United States is not good for the state of Israel."

The way to narrow that gap is to embark on an Israeli diplomatic initiative "that doesn't shy from dealing with all the core issues" dividing Israelis and Palestinians, he said.

These issues — chiefly, the status of contested Jerusalem, final borders and a solution for Palestinian refugees of the war around Israel's 1948 independence — have been negotiated multiple times in the past 16 years.

The pursuit of that big-picture program and "broad willingness to reach an agreement" has allowed Israel to get past the friction with the Americans over settlement construction in the past, Barak said.

The Israeli defense minister dismissed talk of an imposed U.S. solution — an idea that's been fielded recently in Washington.

But he warned that while Israel is militarily strong, it needs international legitimacy as well.

"The world isn't willing to accept — and we won't change that in 2010 — the expectation that Israel will rule another people for decades more," he said. "It's something that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world."

Palestinians aspire to a state of their own, he said, and "there is no other way, whether you like it or not, than to let them rule themselves."

Barak heads the Labor Party, the only political party in Netanyahu's government that is not considered hawkish.

But in his three years as defense minister, Barak has not even taken down the two dozen settlement satellites that Israel promised the U.S. it would dismantle in 2003. Dovish critics have accused him of making Labor a fig leaf for the Netanyahu government's hawkish policies.

[Apathy's_Child]

As the end of the article indicates, this shit will come to exactly nothing.

[KissMeDeadly]

Alright, I might sound a little stupid, maybe even a little selfish, but honestly, I think the United States should just stay out of this conflict. It's really not our fight, and there is no clear "good guy" or "bad guy". It'll be another Vietnam, and we'll yet again stick our collective noses into places where they don't belong.

My opinion is that the only help given should be medical aid and food and the like should an armed conflict occur, but we need to remain mostly impartial.

[Ben Lahnger]

KMD, we've been "involved" for decades. It's not like Vietnam in that both parties (for the most part) want us involved, although we have been accused of siding too much with Israel. And unlike Vietnam, we have been primarily engaged as a diplomatic "peace broker" of sorts.

When I first heard Secretary of State Clinton's and then President Obama's statements about the Israeli refusal to stop building settlements in the West Bank, I thought maybe we were going to bring real pressure on them to stop and get serious at the negotiating table. Since then it seems that due to the complexities of the situation all the U.S. can do is speak dourly about what a disappointment Israel has been and offer vague threats of maybe not being so nice to them in the future. Those developments, and this well-sounding but ultimately meaningless statement, lead me to believe that not much is going to change in the near future. Except, of course, for the possibility of further Palestinian/Israeli violence. *sigh*

[Entropic]

As long as Israel remains the US's only strong non-Islamic ally in the Middle East, I can guarantee you these words will mean squat.

[Starke von Oben]

Both Zionists and Pan-Arab Nationalists are as bad as each other, and I know it's trendy within the fashionable left to support the Arabs... but honestly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zqFLNJEiclM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylYd9YZsRLs

[CptSternn]

As the article states, israel has yet to follow through with its promises from the last round of peace talks almost a decade ago. This is nothing new, because if you have been following (or Google a bit) you will see they have NEVER followed through with ANY promises they made during ANY rounds of peace talks. They have NEVER removed or stopped settlements, they have NEVER sat down to proper talks.

They also stand in violation of 76 UN resolutions. The US invaded Iraq after violating just one. The only reason they have not had international forces come in to sort this out is because the US continues to block any security council action against them, even though ever other country in the UN agreed to take action (the US is one of a handful of countries which holds the power to veto resolutions agreed upon by all other council members).

Then there is the aid. The US sends 30 BILLION a year to israel to prop up the government and buy it guns. Thats more than ANY other country in the world gets from America. Thats more than America sends in aid to the entire continent of Africa for a year.

All for what? So israel can build big walls and continue to take away land it stole in a 'pre-emptive strike' a couple decades ago, all the while oppressing a whole race of people who did nothing more than be born.

Why? Because the 'god' the israelis believe in told them a few thousand years ago that the land there belongs to them, so they had the 'god given' right to use bombs and guns to steal the land from the people living there, a sentiment their own government still clings to, today.

So apparently it is ok to oppress a nation of people if your religion says it is ok.

It's ironic that a group of people who lived through atrocities stemming from the fact another group of people held a belief which they used to commit horrid acts against the jewish people now think they have the right to do the same to another group, all because what they believe they hold in higher regard than the rights of the people they oppress.

Papers, please is no longer said in German, but in Hebrew, as they take Arabs away in cattle cars to prisons.

[Despanan]

Careful Sternn,

You've got some foam on your chin and your eyes are starting to roll back into your head.

[creature6]

[Apathy's_Child]

......... Fuck me, you are such an iredeemable moron.

[creature6]

Originally Posted by Apathy's_Child

......... Fuck me, you are such an iredeemable moron.

[Ben Lahnger]

No, Apathy's_Child is right ... with "irredeemable" being the new insight. We've all known you were a moron for a while. Each new post from you just reaffirms it.

[KissMeDeadly]

Holy fuck, US soldiers can **** women and set them on fire. Nobody bats an eye but a select few (liberal hippy hate mongers no doubt), but Israelis take a photo of a guy they shot and BACK THE FUCK UP.

[creature6]

No,I was right ... with "irredeemable" being the new insight. We've all known you were a moron for a while. Each new post from you just reaffirms it.


It's a sad story and god knows how it will end.

[Man In Room 5]

I didn't waste my time reading this entire thread and I don't really care about the issue at hand because I hardly even come to this shithole website anymore but, seriously, why the fuck do we even have a politics section on a goth board? Isn't politics news and don't we already have a news section?

[horse]

i am a proud war crimminal i wake up every morning hoping i can kill a kid or maim somebody, please man come off it i live here in Israel I lived in the "territories" There is no genocide and the only reason there are traveling restrictions is because
of "a few" terror incidents maybe if they would put down their guns then we could
move forward with our lives and there is a palestine it's called Jordan now it's run by the former rulers of Arabia you should read into it

[horse]

i can get video footage of Palistinians dancing in the street with the entrails of an Israeli it goes both ways and for the record it is illeagal for a soldier to take such photos i belive what you have here is a photo of an investigation team every bullet must be accounted for when a soldier leaves the field and every kill outside of a war gets investigated if it was deemed unjustifiable than soldiers go to jail for a long time

[horse]

oh and Ehud Barack only wants the cavode that comes with being the peace maker he is a politician whos party has been put out of power when he was prime minister He would gave the military cart de blanch to respond to every terrorist action with force so is he really your guy or just another lying politician like the rest of them

[horse]

also in the photo the soldiers have long m 16s we don't send those weapons to the field anymore and the soldier with the camera has his sleaves rolled up that is a no no "i got in trouble on gaurd duty for having my sleaves rolled up"

[KissMeDeadly]

Jesus christ, shut the fuck up.

[donmara]

hey horse(shit). Fuck you.

[horse]

hey domara you can try buddy "let me know when you find your dick" as far as trying to enlighten you people it's no use. you are predisposed to accepting this bullshit, I don't blame you it is just a sign of the times i know we don't commit genocide. The amount of intelligence we use to minimize collateral and the amount of money we spend on smart munitions to minimize collateral should speak for itself

[Alan]

So you tell us that you are "a proud war crimminal" who wakes up "every morning hoping [you] can kill a kid or maim somebody"
But now you're whining at us because you do apparently make an effort to not kill people?

Are you an idiot or a hypocrite?

[JCC]

He was being sarcastic about people's view of Israelis.

[horse]

Originally Posted by Alan

So you tell us that you are "a proud war crimminal" who wakes up "every morning hoping [you] can kill a kid or maim somebody"
But now you're whining at us because you do apparently make an effort to not kill people?

Are you an idiot or a hypocrite?

no i was being sarcastic but i learned that it is hard to express sarcasm on the net i'm not sorry but i apologize