This past Wednesday, at the Annual Policy Conference of AIPAC- the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, presidential candidate, Barack Obama drew a standing ovation when he pledged his "unshakeable commitment to Israel's security" if he is elected president in November, and declared that Jerusalem should stay an undivided Israeli city.
The day before, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice seemed hopeful to reach an agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis before the end of the year,
"Israelis have waited too long for the security they desire and deserve," she said, "and Palestinians have waited too long, amid daily humiliations, for the dignity of a Palestinian state." But no one cheered and no one stood up.
The fact of the matter is, Rice's statement in front of one of the United States' most influential lobbying groups is more realistic and more in tune with the facts on the ground.
The United States and other international powers do not recognize Israel's annexation of Arab East Jerusalem following the 1967 war. Their embassy and those of most other countries are located in Tel Aviv. Even Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert refuses to give a direct response to Obama's statement that Jerusalem will remain the undivided capital of Israel.
"His words on Jerusalem were very moving," Olmert told reporters after meeting U.S. president George W. Bush at the White House.
When it comes to Jerusalem, Obama can talk the talk but can he walk the walk?
In reality, Jerusalem is a divided city. It has been divided since 1948. An Arab city (East Jerusalem) and a Jewish city (West Jerusalem).
In 1967, Israel conquered East Jerusalem and later annexed it in violation of all international laws and United Nations resolutions. In spite of this, the city remains divided, not through international borders and an armistice line but through psychological barriers and the discriminatory policies that Israel has imposed over its Palestinian residents for more than 40 years.
Under Israeli law, Palestinian residents of Jerusalem are not considered citizens. They are not even considered permanent residents; instead they are considered "temporary residents." Under this discriminatory policy, any Palestinian Jerusalemite would lose his or her legal residency in the City if he or she lives abroad for more than 3 years. At the same time any Jew who immigrates to Israel is eligible for full citizenship rights.
On the political level, Palestinians living in Jerusalem do not have the right to vote in the Israeli Knesset. Imagine if a certain ethnic group living in Washington D.C. were not allowed to vote in the congressional or presidential elections. Furthermore, Palestinian Jerusalemites are forced to pay the Israeli "Arnona" tax. Taxation without representation.
On the socio- economic level, under Israeli rule, Jerusalem has been divided into a city for the haves and the have-nots. After forty years, Israel has yet to upgrade the infrastructure of its debilitated Arab neighborhoods. It also continues its policy of appropriating Palestinian lands to construct new illegal settlements and housing for its Jewish population with all the modern comforts and amenities, while continuing to deny most building permits to its Arab population.
The stark difference between the two Jerusalems is clearly visible to the naked eye and for a candidate like Obama who prides himself on being a candidate for change...perhaps for a change; he should stop pandering to interest groups and take a hard look at the facts on the ground. Perhaps he should walk the streets of Jerusalem and see the reality for himself just like former president Carter and others have done...the true tale of two cities.
Fact Check: Obama and the Satus of Jerusalem
Jamal Dajani produces the Mosaic Intelligence Report on Link TV.
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Israel will fail because its own insanely arrogant and aggressive actions preclude the possibility of peace.
Consider:
Its core belief is Zionism, a nineteenth -century nationalist delusion that Jews are entitled to their own nation in the place where some of their relatives lived over a thousand years ago. Someone else lives there now , Theodor.
Israel faces a growing population of refugees with little to lose and antagonistic neighbors inflamed by its disdainful occupation, the US invasion of Iraq and other real and perceived slights against the Muslim world.
It constantly undermines peace talks by building new settlements. It's always done this and always will.
It's an apartheid state.
It's irrational. The carpet-bombing of Lebanon in response to a minor kidnapping indicates that the government of Israel and much of its population has lost its reason.
Living outside the Israeli delusional theme park, most of these people will adjust to a realistic life as citizens of nations which care less what your religion is. Welcome to the real world, make yourselves comfortable, kick back and live in peace!
Funny. I though the carpet bombing was in response to the 10,000 rockets that Hezbullah sent over the border into Israeli civilian areas. Seems you don't want to think about that. It is worth pointing out that along with killing some, and capturing other, Israeli soldiers in Israel at the beginning of the events of the summer of 2006, Hezbullah fired cross border rockets into Israel before Israel fired a single shot into Lebanon.
Several Arab nations reacting to the expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 as a result of the cretaion of Israel epelled and harrased its Jewish population. But many others did not like Morocco, Tunisia and Yemen. As a matter of fact, Israel tried very hard in the late 40's and early 50's to spread rumors in Northern Africa to scare off the Jewish population and force them to immigrate to Israel as it was trying to increase the Jewish number in the new state. Some Israelis try to equate the expulsion of the Jews from Arab countries to the explusion of the Palestinians.
Trying to repetriate the Jews at the expense of the Palestinians is a wrong argument. I believe that ALL refugees should have the right to return to their countries of birth; Palestinians living in Lebanon should have the right to return to Palestine, Polish Jews living in Israel should have the right to return to Poland and Iraqi Jews can also return to Iraq.
Why?
AIPAC manipulates our government with political terrorism. If a politician resists AIPAC, AIPAC "swiftboats" him or threatens him with character-assassination, even criminal coercion, makes its threats credible with actual defamation.
Israel ought not exist.
Israel began with terrorism, slaughtered Palestinians, destroyed their homes, expelled them from their 13-centuries-long homeland. Still it steals Palestinian land, subjugates millions of Palestinians with terrorism.
Israel is a terrorist state. Its terrorism killed or maimed millions of Arabs, rendered others refugees or imprisoned them in wastelands.
Iran does not threaten Israel. Israel threatens Iran, threatens to bomb Iran. Olmert pressed Bush to bomb Iran. Israel's 2006 Lebanon-invasion was a terrorist statement directed at Iran.
Iran abhors the US because Eisenhower toppled Iran's democratic government and installed the Shah and tries to undo Iran's current government, because the US thinks the world is its terrorist playground, because the US uses its terrorism and UN veto to support Israel's terrorism.
Jimmy Carter told the truth of Israel's apartheid. Most foreign press tells the truth of Israel's Lebanon invasion and terrorism. Obama's AIPAC speech denied those truths.
Would President Obama keep the US a terrorist state and keep backing Israel's terrorism? Or would his actual policy differ from his AIPAC speech?
Oh, I'm half Jew, half Magyar, atheist, not Muslim. I sorrow because the Holocaust's victims became Zionists Nazis.
The non-Jew Palestinians lived peacefully with earlier Jewish immigrants, those of the 1880s, because they were few and dispersed and did not appear to design a take-over of the Palestinian homeland. The situation changed dramatically when the British Mandate acceded to Zionist pressure and permitted a huge Jewish immigration that Zionists designed to prepare an eventual Zionist take-over.
And you mislead, dissemblingly, with your words "Arabs started killing Palestinian Jews." Your language suggests, falsely, a wide-spread, ongoing anti-Semitic campaign.
The killing happened during a short time and just in a circumscribed locale. The killing occurred on both sides. The non-Jew parties included non-Arabs and non-Muslims. The matter was Zionist invasion of Palestine, not antisemitism. The victim number was not great, certainly not compared to the number non-Jew Palestinians killed, maimed, displaced, and effectively concentration-camped by Zionists, then Zionist Israel, from 1946 until today.
It's all part of a ninetieth-century nationalist fantasy called Zionism, in which the Jewish god will give the Jews of the world their own nation. As he habitually does, this god makes a big mess, and plops European refugees on top of people who already live there. (Read his book, it's hilarious). Amazingly, they are made hostile by being evicted from their land and possessions, seeing their childrens' futures crammed into refugee camps and living under humiliating occupation.
Sixty years of escalating violence later, the prospects grow ever more dim for this absurd imposition, which happened because the Zionist "dream" coincided with European nations' antagonistic desire to send large numbers of dispossessed Jews elsewhere.
As the warfare continues, fewer and fewer young Israelis will see much of a future in this "promised land." They can escape to more welcoming and secure places such as the US. And the Arab population will continue to grow, leaving a smaller and smaller layer of "masters" to control the "underlings.' Not even the entire US defense budget can prevent the inevitable.
Israel was and remains a bad idea. Time to turn the page.
I'm glad you find it funny, but judging what others find sacred is even more laughable.
What Obama overlooks is that it is not un-American to seek a modicum of balance to the U.S.'s Middle East policy. The many questions about Obama's "patriotism" have clouded his candidacy. Obama is trying to outdo McCain by appearing more pro-Israel, a litmus test of US presidency nowadays. Illegal settlements and the failure to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty will be "off the table." Obama criticized the Bush administration's allowing the elections where Hamas came to power and approved the recent Israeli attack on Syria. In so doing, Obama has boxed himself in bolstering his chances to gain the presidency while undermining both the perception of the United States throughout the Arab World and global confidence in the United States.
Obama and McCain will continue to mirror each other on all issues. Neither is capable of bringing real change because of the system of campaign finance.
Most Jews do not take the hardline AIPAC approach. Neither do most Israelis. Just as most Americans are not hardcore neocons, most Jews do not want the hard right wingers to dominate the politics.
The appeasement of Obama towards AIPAC and Israel is a standard among all American politicians who want to make a living in the US. Many years ago, I was reading in Newsweek about G.W Bush before he became the president of the US. Newsweek wrote that G.W Bush is in Jerusalem signaling his desire to run to be the president of the US.
Read Obama speech about race and religion in the US. Guess what, he had to mention 'radical Islam' as the reason for terrorism in the Middle East. Not the occupation. The ultimate b--- kissing.
The media is making it look like Obama is back peddling. He is doing no such thing. When read in context his AIPAC statements said:
"Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided. I HAVE NO ILLUSIONS THAT THIS WILL BE EASY. IT WILL REQUIRE DIFFICULT DECISIONS ON BOTH SIDES."
Did you get that? ON BOTH SIDES.
He is not advocating the enhancement of the discrimination, the taxation without representation, etc. He is advocating SERIOUS negotiations that require sacrifice ON BOTH SIDES.
It is a very responsible and respectful position for both sides of the conflict.
Now, you can argue that the West Bank settlers are chauvinistic and I wouldn't disagree with you; you can argue that they should cease and desisit building and I wouldn't argue with you. But they are not, as far as I now, training their kids to be suicide bombers.
Israel doesn't need to train its kids to become suicide bombers with the amount of military aid we give them. You can't compare the victims of the occupation with the occupiers who now hold the fourth most powerful military in the world with nuclear weapons.