Benjamin Netanyahu moving Israel in 'wrong direction,' Joe Biden says
Source: CBC
Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged "overwhelming frustration" with Israel's government on Monday and said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's administration has led Israel in the wrong direction, in an unusually sharp rebuke of America's closest ally in the Middle East.
Biden, in a speech to the advocacy group J Street, offered a grim outlook for peace efforts, reflecting dim hopes for progress during the remainder of the Obama administration. Although he said Israelis and Palestinians shared blame for undermining trust and shirking responsibility, he was emphatic in his critique of Netanyahu's government, suggesting his approach raised "profound questions" about how Israel could remain both Jewish and democratic.
"I firmly believe that the actions that Israel's government has taken over the past several years — the steady and systematic expansion of settlements, the legalization of outposts, land seizures — they're moving us and more importantly they're moving Israel in the wrong direction," Biden said.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/biden-israel-speech-netanyahu-1.3542155
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EdwardBernays
(3,343 posts)is to help the weaker party negotiate on equal footing with the stronger party... otherwise the stronger party has NO incentive to compromise... and compromises SERIOUSLY need to be made on the Israeli side, after years of war crimes and illegal behavor...
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)should be asked of the Palestinians? Is it okay if we ask them to stop the daily stabbings? The leaders stealing the money meant for schools and hospitals so they can buy more weapons and build more tunnels to kill more Israelis? Is it okay if we ask them to stop pouring poison into their children's brains teaching them that Jews are monkeys and vermin? Or should the left just continue to pretend all the fault lies with the Israeli's? Perhaps the Palestinians should have accepted their state in 1948 instead of continually asking for do-overs which the left wing just wants to hand the peaceful little darlings. If the Palestinians lay down their arms, they'll get a state. If the Israelis lay down their arms, they'll all die. It's that simple.
EdwardBernays
(3,343 posts)There's NOT daily stabbings, though there has been hundreds of Palestinian civilians killed int he last few years, hundreds of illegal settlements built and thousands of people trapped with no freedom of movement, access to proper schools or education, etc.
I find it so unironic that a Hillary supporter is all for further subjugating a brutalised people... standing up for the elite? You betcha.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)Right - the poor, put upon Palestinians who VOTED in the thoroughly corrupt Abbas and the terrorist organization hamas to be their leaders is in no way responsible for their actions. They're poor innocent little kittens who do nothing wrong. Those Israeli border guards and soldiers just got in the way of the knives that stabbed them. A bomb went off YESTERDAY on a bus.
Just remember, those who sympathize with the Palestinians represent a teeny minority of Americans - even among the young, the atheist, and our fellow Democrats (well, my fellow Democrats, I have no idea what party you belong to). Perhaps instead of standing up for hamas and Abbas, you should educate yourself as to why that is. Why the continual do-overs when their leaders STEAL from them every single day (yet, Israel gets blamed for that also). It's no wonder Israel doesn't give a shit what the American and European left think - they only listen to one side of the story.
silvershadow
(10,336 posts)
BeanMusical
(4,389 posts)
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)Right - because I agree with the VAST majority of Americans but not you, I must be getting paid. This is precisely why the Palestinians have so little support in the US - those that support them can't come up with a cogent, intelligent argument. They can only insult (as if I give a shit). Meanwhile, the Palestinians will continue to suffer while you down another drink. Well done!!!
BeanMusical
(4,389 posts)It represented you drinking the hasbara which is a word that you apparently misunderstand. No need to be paid to spread it.
Lol, Israel has absolutely no intention to let them have a state and never did. Except maybe when Yitzhak Rabin was Prime Minister but he was assassinated for that reason. It's been right wingers like Netanyahu that have been elected before this tragedy and ever since.
Mar 16, 2015
In a definitive disavowal of his Bar-Ilan two-state speech, prime minister makes last-minute attempt to draw voters from Bennett's Habayit Hayeudi.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau said Monday that if he were to be reelected, a Palestinian state would not be created, in a definite disavowal of his 2009 speech, in which he had voiced support for the principle of two states for two peoples.
http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/elections/1.647212
For once that psychotic genocidal maniac was telling the truth that day.
cab67
(2,993 posts)The fastest-growing segment of the Israeli population is the Ultraorthodox community, a great many of whom oppose a Palestinian state whether they "lay down their arms" or not.
Think about places where civil wars ended or died down substantially - Northern Ireland, Peru, etc. - and it's mostly because the people living there just got tired of it. They were ready for it to end. There may have been external mediation (esp. with Bill Clinton in Northern Ireland), but the willingness to compromise and live with each other came from within.
Based on what I've personally seen, the number of people on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian divide who don't want it to end - or who do, but absolutely refuse to compromise - is increasing. Palestinians feel persecuted (with reason), which outside groups are able to exploit. Israelis feel threatened (again, with reason), and there are outside groups (many in the USA) who will support Israel in all things without asking whether Israel's actions are constructive or just.
I'm really beginning to think the answer lies not among Israelis or Palestinians, but with the outside groups who exploit the fears and discontent in the region. And I don't see that happening anytime soon, either.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)exceedingly well. Unlike many others on this board.
cab67
(2,993 posts)this means many pro-Israel Democrats - and I count myself as one - should acknowledge the basic fact that the Israeli government has sometimes acted abominably over the past several years. They have the Israeli equivalent of GW Bush, albeit with a better vocabulary, in charge. Their actions in the West Bank have less to do with defending Israel and more with dominionism. They're exacerbating the problems they're (in principle) intended to solve.
I do not condone what militant Palestinians do. Innocent lives are lost. But that doesn't mean Israel gets to do whatever it wants.
leftynyc
(26,060 posts)and think he's been horrible for Israel (completely agree with VP Biden on this) but I was there in October and spoke to people on both sides of their aisle - they feel under attack and feel nobody cares. Nobody cares that they face terrorism every single day and they have circled their wagons. It was weird, neither side particularly cared for bibi - and my friends on the left hate him - but they get why he was elected. In particular, they unilaterally picked everyone up and left gaza - had to have soldiers pulling their people out of their homes screaming - and look what it got them - more rockets, more terrorism, never one day of peace. Doesnt' make them too jazzed to try it again and I guarantee they'll never do anything unilaterally again and I can't blame them for that.
villager
(26,001 posts)...since that would conflict with the political/religious agendas of said interests.
fbc
(1,668 posts)leftynyc
(26,060 posts)be a reasoned, intelligent question?
maxsolomon
(33,345 posts)
maddiemom
(5,106 posts)
Bad Dog
(2,025 posts)As always the Devil's in the detail, how to make it happen.
awake
(3,226 posts)
FlatBaroque
(3,160 posts)
gordianot
(15,238 posts)
MBS
(9,688 posts)think
(11,641 posts)fbc
(1,668 posts)
dembotoz
(16,804 posts)
Martin Eden
(12,867 posts)Lip service will be paid to the "two state solution" to the extent it is a politically necessity, but the Israeli hardliners are thinking long term -- not years, but decades or centuries if necessary.
Facts on the ground belie the lip service. The West Bank is riddled with settlements and the roads connecting them, under Israeli control. How is it possible for a sovereign Palestinian state to exist with its territory thusly sliced and diced?
A Palestinian state is not viable without one of the following happening:
1) Israelis abandon the settlements, some of which are multi-generational communities.
2) Israelis in the West Bank agree to live in the Palestinian state under Palestinian authority, with no protection from the Israeli government.
What are the chances of that happening?
IMO, next to zero.
The one state solution, encompassing all of Israel and the West Bank (Gaza too?) cannot exist as a democracy with the current demographic trends, which would eventually result in Jews being a minority. This will never be allowed to happen. It would either be an apartheid state, or there would have to be a Palestinian diaspora with other Arab nations taking them in.
Will the Palestinians agree to leave peaceably?
This is an intractable situation.
Response to GliderGuider (Original post)
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lark
(23,099 posts)He tells it like it is, even to the most sacred of cows.
