Needlenose

Yelling at spitting at an 8-year old because she dresses immodestly – that’s just pitiful.  What’s worse is that we help fund these bozos.  Amazing that their country-mates put up with them – in a country surrounded by hostile nations with compulsory military service, these loons are exempt – presumably so they have more free time to scare the bemoishe out of little school kids who aren’t sufficiently holy.

Not surprising really, when you consider the little acts of terror in the ‘price tag’ campaign on the part of their ‘settler’ brethren (not that this is ‘news,’ price tag terror has been brewing for a few years now).  Fortunately, other than the official government randomly raining death and terror on the folks in Gaza when the Hezbollah become too uppity, the colonials haven’t been caught plotting anything as evil as the bombing of Arab schoolgirls for sometime – let’s hope their Reactionary government wakes up to the clear and present danger these various loons represent.

Finally, a U.S. President talking some sense about the situation between Israel & the Palestinians.  Of course I think the two-state approach is not a viable solution, and of course he provides neither carrot nor stick to get either side to embrace his vision (e.g. cutting off the very liberal aid we dole out to both parties), but at least he spent a little of his “I Killed Osama” politcal capital on the issue!

Expanding the colony, one house at a time

After feigning interest in the ‘peace talks’ with the Palestinians, Israeli’s PM Whatayahoo gives Obama the finger and lets the West Bank colony expansion ban lapse on the eve of talks.

Hey Barack – the whole purpose of having a client state is to advance your agenda, not theirs!  Give Whatayahoo a call and have a very different discussion with him, remind him why he needs to renew the ban.

Bring it, IDF!

In other Israel-related news, do you figure Israel will shoot anybody on this aid ship?

*Update 9/28/10* Intercepted, nobody shot.

*Update 4:10P* What Juan Cole said.

General Petreaus says:

“enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests in the area of responsibility.” AND “Arab anger over the Palestinian question limits the strength and depth of U.S. partnerships with governments and peoples [in the region]“

Uh – ya think?  More bluntly – our AIPAC-formulated Israel policy is the dead albatross around our neck that is dooming our Middle Eastern foreign policy.

Biden decries Israel’s illegal colony expansions!  Compare and contrast with the Status Quo Ante, Shrubya’s envoy’s reaction to getting sand kicked in his face.

*Update 3/11/10* We should retaliate for the snub by cutting off their annual $5B handout.  Ingrates.

*Update 3/15/10* The Empire Strikes Back.  Let’s see if Obama wusses out.

This fortified wall is for your protection! Really!

It’s bad enough that Israel and the Palestinians diverge on a basic and heretofore non-negotiable item in their discrepant visions of an independent Palestinian state, the nature of Jerusalem post-independence.  The Israelis consider Jerusalem in its entirety as the capitol of Israel and are continuing to evict Arabs and expand their illegal settlements in direct contradiction of world & US policy and Palestinian aspirations.

However that’s only one indication of the shape of things to come were Israel to get its way.  Whatayahoo naturally assumes a demilitarized Palestine, and more importantly, one still containing Israeli troops, ostensibly to patrol ‘the borders’ with that scary terror state of Jordan.

So if Whatayahoo and his ilk get their way, we’re looking at an Arab Palestine composed of a wiggly little patches of territory gerrymandered around Israeli colonies, surrounded throughout by an armed wall and riddled inside with Israeli troops, without a significant city to call a capitol.

Arab Palestine would have no port, all movement between Palestinian townships would be through Israeli military checkpoints, all goods and travel into and out of the territories would be monitored, controlled and subject to shutdown at any time at Israel’s whim.

Hmm that sounds like a Bantustan to me.  Hey Whatayahoo, I hope that works as well for you as it did for Botha’s Apartheid South Africa!

“Expanding the settlements” in Jerusalem - the “natural growth” of existing settlements to provide homes for new family members – it all sounds so pleasant – but in crowded Jerusalem, one family’s expansion is another family’s eviction - it’s ethnic cleansing, one family at a time.

*Update* Palestinian leadership seems to be ackowledging the imminent death of the two state solution and are starting to talk again about becoming citizens of Israel – not a bad idea.  Dr Saeb Erekat, head of the PLO Negotiations Affairs Department:

“We are not short of options. If the two-state option is excluded, there is the option of a one-state, as happened in South Africa. The situation in the West Bank is worse than it was in South Africa.”

Flipping off the ‘Road Map’ and US policy on the Palestinian question appears to be a sacred Israeli institution.  Whatayahoo is going forward with the settlement expansion that Obama asked him not to do back in May.

While Obama is still enjoying high poll ratings on his foreign policy leadership, it would be  a good time to really test out the power of AIPAC and start cutting back on our billions in aid.

Seriously, there’s not much point in funding a client state that not only doesn’t follow orders, but publicly humiliates us in the process.  They are like the Billy Carter to our Jimmy Carter, but they don’t even give us Billy Beer – what a crock!

Following the hand-jive of uber nationalist and former Israeli PM Sharon, current Israeli PM Whatayahoo just gave the finger to Obama and his foreign policy.

Seriously, unless there are some consequences to their actions (like, oh, cutting off the $2.4+ billion in aid we give them every year), why would Israel do anything else but flip us off and laugh at us in disdain?

*Update 5/29/09* I guess the Israeli wrong-wingers grew unaccustomed to push back on their slo-mo colonization program, but Whatayahoo is puzzled by Washington demands to back off their settlment expansion program.  Unlike Shrubya, Team Obama at least told Israel to get back with the program.  Still, dialoging has done nothing during my lifetime, so unless Washington follows up with some consequences, Whatayahoo will stay ‘puzzled.’

From November 5th, 2003 to sometime in 2005, Swopa used to regularly post ‘Groundhog Day’ news bits covering what seemed to be the same news of one or a few US soldiers blown to bits or some attack on civilians in the Iraqi Quicksand.

Then for a time, things seemed to stabilize.  Shrubya claimed it was his surge, Petraeus claimed credit for the military’s initiative to bribe the Sunni insurgents, and the reality-based community reckoned it was because most conflict neighborhoods had already been ‘cleansed’ and the US troops withdrew into their fortifications (removing easy targets).

Well it seems that minus the intra-Shi’ite political maneuverings, Groundhog Day appears to be making a comeback.  In today’s news, 3 more US soldiers were killed in a bombing, and suicide attacks are back to being regular news stories.

Swopa really called it when he mused that Obama had walked into a policy trap set for him by Shrubyian dead-enders in the military.

Obama really needs to take a lesson from Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon a few years back – otherwise, he could well be facing another several years of Groundhog Days as various Iraqi factions pull off stunts designed to keep us trapped in Quicksand.

*Update* UK PM Gordon Brown apparently doesn’t read the same news that Swopa & I read – apparently the British there was a ‘success!’ As a village idiot once said: “Heckuva job, Brownie!”