I can only assume you're a product of the Cook County public school system. Need I say more?

Russia-US row: Putin rules out tit-for-tat expulsion of diplomats

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38464612


one of the few times I agree with Putin this shit is embarrassing the sanctions are understandable expelling diplomats I cant understand they are doing there job

Also as soon as Trump gets in cant he just get rid of the sanctions on Russia don't really understand why Obama is doing this now

Obama hasn't had any credibility on foreign policy for quite a while.
The dems are trying to fight the Cold War 30 years late. Sadly, the Russians and the western world have a common enemy. How does the saying go? The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

Everything obama does is political and nothing more. Putin knows that so he is not forcing trump to act by doing his own. Smart move by putan very smart.

Obama on other hand hates Israel. That will back fire as well. When trump is the president.

Leader of each country should act in the best interest of their country, so I take that into consideration when I hear foreign leaders speak.... BUT I feel like laughing when Netanyahu said that he doesn't want to be "lectured by other countries" about this or that.

You don't want to be lectured? Why not turn down the foreign aid you get from U.S.? Cut the umbilical cord already .
Israel is a well developed advanced country, what is the justification for so much foreign aid.

completely agree getts don't know what Israel are crying about the amount of aid the US gives them is beyond ridiculous if the US wanted to they could stop giving Israel all these weapons see how long they would last what a joke.

Also Israel are in the wrong this time if every country in the UN either voted against or abstained then its telling you something. Why do some of you think US should have vetoed it? actually give me a reason why should Israel be allowed to do whatever they want?

Gangster Report,

Whenever so much bloodshed has occurred, it's delicate topic overall to discuss. I tend to avoid commenting on the decades or centuries long conflicts going on around the world for this reason.
Like I said though, each country has a right to act in their own best interest, but the days are gone when ANY criticism of Israel or Israeli policy gets a person labeled as anti-Israel, or anti-Jewish.

Took a lot of chutzpah for Netanyahu to make that "don't lecture us about the importance of peace" comment.

Obama hasn't acted in the best interest of this country for quite a while. Glad he's out. Good riddance.

FatDom,

We have one of best self promoters in our nation's history in office in a few weeks. If you think the guy going out didn't have the country's best interest at heart.....you ain't seen nothing yet.

I'm not a fan of Trump. It doesn't hurt my feelings.

Funding the state of Israel has been more contentious lately because of the influence of the BDS movement. The premise of the BDS movement is that Israel has been stealing land, which is totally false. It ignores the facts and history.

First, it's ignored that Jews have lived in what is now Israel for 3000 years, and they've lived there continuously. Going back to Abraham and then hundreds of years later when Joshua led the Hebrews to the Promised Land, Jews have lived there. They formed the Kingdom of Israel, which then split into Judah and Israel, then lived there under the occupation of the Assyrians, Babylonians, Syrians, Greeks and Romans. Even after the destruction of Masada in 73, they continued to live there. When the first Crusaders arrived in Jerusalem, they killed a lot of the Jews who lived there. When the Ottoman Turks ruled over that area in the 1800s, they took regular censuses and counted thousands of Jews. Yet a lot of BDS supporters believe that the Jews only started moving in with the Zionist movement in the late 1800s.

They also are ignorant of the fact that the British occupied the area from 1917 as the Turks were losing in World War I. The British and the French took a lot of territory from the Turks and chose to do with it as they wished, which is what happens in wars. After all, it wasn't originally Turkish territory anyway. The British established a mandate from the Jews in Palestine. As more Jews moved in they paid for and bought land from Muslim landowners. Other Muslims threatened the sellers with death, and several times those threats were carried out.

Eventually the British capitulated to Muslim Arab demands and divided the land in a piecemeal fashion that pleased nobody. Transjordan was considered the state for Muslim Palestinians, but that wasn't enough and they wanted the Jews out. In 1948, Israel became an official country and immediately all of its Muslim neighbors attacked it. Palestinian leaders had told their people to leave with expectation that they were going to win, but that didn't work out so well. In the meantime, Muslim Middle Eastern countries expelled several hundred thousand Jews. If Israel didn't take them in they would have been killed.
In the 1967 war, Israel's neighbors again attacked and lost, and Israel captured territory. In 1973 they attacked again and lost.

Meanwhile, Anwar Sadat of Egypt decided he'd have enough fighting and made a serious deal for peace, and Israel returned the Sinai. It was a good deal for Egypt, but Sadat was assassinated for what he did.

Over and over again Israel has sought peace and various Palestinian groups went through the motions. Yasser Arafat, the Egyptian-born head of the PLO, never closed any peace deals because his goal was to not have an Israel. Although the PLO includes Christians, it is dominated by Left-wing Arab Muslims that includes a contingent who want to implement Sharia. Arafat, meanwhile, stole millions of dollars meant to help the poor. The PLO did recognize Israel's right to exist and in turn gave the PLO recognition as a non-terrorist group, although it was responsible for several massacres and mass murders. It renounced violence and operates as the authority in the West Bank.

In Gaza, however, the Palestinians voted in Hamas, a Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group that has in its charter the annihilation of Israel. The Gazans don't want a two-state solution. They want one state. Jews are to be killed, converted, or to live as second-class citizens who pay a monthly mafia tax.

Compare that to Muslims living in Israel. They can and do serve in the military and in parliament. They have full rights. Those Arab Muslims who support Israel for the freedom they experience are called traitors and apostates by the anti-Israel Muslims. In orthodox Islam, the penalty for being an apostate is death.

So why support Israel? One reason is that its supporters don't want to see the genocide of 8 1/2 million Israelis. Another is that it's a reliable democratic republic that has always supported the United States and Britain. So it serves as a line of defense against jihadist groups that want to spread Islam by the sword for the ultimate goal of a one-world caliphate.

After considering all that, to me Benjamin Netanyahu has a good point.

In my opinion, the entire BDS movement is predicated on hatred for Jews. It is very thinly cloaked. To try to make a historical argument presupposes the people you are arguing with have any interest in facts.

I get a good chuckle out of those who argue against funding for Israel, when we give billions of dollars to Arab countries that outwardly speak in favor of our destruction. Of course, you will never hear any of these same people complain about our giving money to terror-sponsoring regimes.

I have a proposal, let's stop giving money to these arab countries, de-fund the UN, and spend the money on our veterans.

True its extremely complicated and no easy solution to solving the conflict i do however feel there needs to be a discussion and compromise which has not happened yet international help UN needs to be involved but in the past it has just been US dominated talks which has made the situation worse for some reason superpowers always feel its there right to interfere and they know the answers to the worlds problems used to be UK then it was the US and Soviet Union and now its just the US. Russia of today is not a superpower it pretends to be a superpower. China government is too centralised to ever be a superpower. US is a dying superpower reminds me of Britain during the 1950s.


Obama caused a lot of problems worldwide but you cant even compare him to Trump still we all knew this was going to happen Clinton would have been just as bad.

And look at Trumps ambassador to Israel we are in for a long 4 years

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-38337108

really defund the UN you know the amount of good they do in supplying food aid to countries all over the world millions would starve without UN help they have done a lot of good in Africa and saved a lot of lifes. The UN needs reform no point it having an army those peacekeepers are useless have guns but cant fire.

Defund arab countries lol you created the mess with invading Iraq supporting coups in Syria, Egypt and Libya you guys pay for the costs. You want the Iraqi army and Jordan to fight ISIS right? then expect to pay for it nothing comes for free Lebanon holding all those Syrian refugees dont pay them they will let them all come into the West nothing comes for free. The Kurds they are fighting ISIS they need weapons they cost money. I do agree with you on not supporting these "moderate" arab groups the US backs those groups are very far from being moderate half of them are connected to Al Qeada

faithul its a very controversial topic everyone has very polarized views on who is to blame i agree with a parts of what you said but as getts said its a topic i dont like to discuss as people get very passionate about and will never change there minds on. However the vote was on the settlement issue faith not on who was the cause of the war and there is a reason not a single country supported Israel and i dont think every country who had the chance to vote abstained or voted against because of the BDS movement

Israel does have its right to protect itself so i understand there reason for believing they deserve significant US aid but i dont personally agree why Israel? so what US has a lot of allies who are crying out for even a fraction of the aid Israel gets Nigeria for example they are currently fighting Boko Harem and Al Qeada they are significantly underfunded Ethiopia aswell the collapse of the Africa United army fighting Boko Harem recently is because of the lack of west financial support the whole thing is political US politicians want the Jewish vote. Also Israel is getting all this aid and weapons from the US its fair to say they would have never survived if they dident help them what right does Israel have to citizen the US when they rely on them militarily

F1,
That's good background and context for the topic. But Rabin was also assassinated for making overtures towards peace, and just like Sadat....it was by an element of his own people who didn't truly want peace.

I noted that Israel is an advanced country, fully capable of functioning without so much aid. It cannot be justified.I don't think that the military support can be justified anymore either.


FatDom,

I think you're simplifying the nature of what BDS might be about. Every single time I've watched an interview about that movement, the person speaking was of Jewish descent. Unless they are all "self hating Jews", I hardly think you could paint a movement with so many Jews at the forefront as being anti-Jewish. These are old excuses that don't fly anymore.




Gangster,
complicated topic for sure.
I think China is a superpower, but will not exert/extend itself as others have in the past.

Gets,
You're right that Rabin was assassinated for the Oslo Accords, but his assassin was tried and sent to prison, where he currently rots. When Palestinians commit an act of terrorism it's not unusual for the government to pay off their families or to even have a street named after them. The Israeli government and media don't teach Israelis to murder Palestinians, but the Palestinian states have TV programs that teach young children to stab Jews and hate them. There's a different mentality.

As for aid, it's hard to say. Maybe we shouldn't give any country foreign aid. It has to be looked at in a case-by-case basis and in context. Israel is advanced, but can it fully function without aid? I don't know. But the U.S. can't be supporting Israel's enemies and then cutting it off. Not unless we want another Holocaust.

As for BDS, I respectfully disagree. Maybe not every supporter of the movement is anti-Semitic, but that doesn't mean that BDS in itself is not. It was founded and sponsored by the Palestinian BDS National Committee, and its ultimate goal is the destruction of Israel. BDS defames and slanders Israel by calling it "racist" and "apartheid," and puts all the blame for the conflict on Israel while turning Palestinians into victims. It's worse than a hypocritical double-standard. It's the only Jewish state in the world, in contrast to over twenty different Muslim states. Moreover, Palestinians already have a Palestinian state called Jordan.

What about its support by people of Jewish descent? For the most part, they are on the political Far Left and religion plays no role in their lives. They are secular. I'm not going to claim that they are "self-hating Jews," just that they have a mindset that has more in common with some form of radicalism, like Marxism, than having a belief in God. BDS shares a belief in anti-colonialism that Marxists have, although Islam is by nature colonialist.

Here is a statement from the BDS website: The BDS movement aims to pressure Israel to respect international law by:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall. International law recognises the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights as occupied by Israel.

BDS also doesn't take into account that Israeli actions, like the blockade, are REACTIONS to Palestinian violence. BDS fails to mention that Israel has tried to negotiate with the West Bank, but its leader refused to participate. In Gaza the leaders call for the end of Israel as a state and the death of all Jews. Syria lost the Golan Heights in the 1967 war when it attacked Israel, but Israel was willing to return it in exchange for a peace agreement. In 1973 Syria tried to retake it by military force and failed, yet Israel agreed to return 5% of the territory to Syrian civilian control. All of Israel is visible from the Golan Heights, so it is of strategic importance. Syria or Hezbollah could use it as a launching pad to fire off missiles to cause massive destruction and loss of life. Does the BDS care about any of these historical facts? No.

Maybe, just maybe, if the Palestinians and their supporters stopped attacking and killing Israelis and cooperated and had an interest in peace there wouldn't be a problem. To paraphrase someone I respect, if all the Palestinians laid down their arms and chose peace, there would be peace and an end to the conflict. If all Israelis laid down their arms and chose peace, there'd be a lot of dead Israelis.

Quora question: Is it true that Israel offered Palestinians "97% of their land" back, and the Palestinians rejected? What does this frequently cited story refer to?

Answer by Dennis Levy:

Yes, it is true. Actually they were offered 97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, sovereignty over the Temple Mount, full and final compensation for all refugees of the 1948 war, and a few other things. In exchange they had to agree to a permanent peace. The deal was brokered by Bill Clinton and he could hardly believe that they turned it down.

The following are excerpts from President Bill Clinton's autobiography, "My Life," published in 2005.

... December 23, was a fateful day for the Middle East peace process. After the two sides had been negotiating again for several days at Bolling Air Force Base, my team and I became convinced that unless we narrowed the range of debate, in effect forcing the big compromises up front, there would never be an agreement. Arafat was afraid of being criticized by other Arab leaders; Barak was losing ground to Sharon at home. So I brought the Palestinian and Israeli teams into the Cabinet Room and read them my “parameters” for proceeding. These were developed after extensive private talks with the parties separately since Camp David. If they accepted the parameters within four days, we would go forward. If not, we were through.

I read them slowly so that both sides could take careful notes. On territory, I recommended 94 to 96 percent of the West Bank for the Palestinians with a land swap from Israel of 1 to 3 percent, and an understanding that the land kept by Israel would include 80 percent of the settlers in blocs. On security, I said Israeli forces should withdraw over a three-year period while an international force would be gradually introduced, with the understanding that a small Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley could remain for another three years under the authority of the international forces. The Israelis would also be able to maintain their early-warning station in the West Bank with a Palestinian liaison presence. In the event of an “imminent and demonstrable threat to Israel’s security,” there would be provision for emergency deployments in the West Bank.

The new state of Palestine would be “nonmilitarized,” but would have a strong security force; sovereignty over its airspace, with special arrangement to meet Israeli training and operational needs; and an international force for border security and deterrence.

On Jerusalem, I recommended that the Arab neighborhoods be in Palestine and the Jewish neighborhoods in Israel, and that the Palestinians should have sovereignty over the Temple Mount/Haram and the Israelis sovereignty over the Western Wall and the “holy space” of which it is a part with no excavation around the wall or under the Mount at least without mutual consent.

On refugees, I said that the new state of Palestine should be the homeland for refugees displaced in the 1948 war and afterward, without ruling out the possibility that Israel would accept some to the refugees according to its own laws and sovereign decisions, giving priority to the refugee population sin Lebanon. I recommended an international effort to compensate refugees and assist them in finding houses in the new state of Palestine, in the land-swap areas to be transferred to Palestine, in their current host countries, in other willing nations, or in Israel. Both parties should agree that this solution would satisfy United Nations Resolution 194.

Finally, the agreement had to clearly mark the end of the conflict and put an end to all violence. I suggested a new UN resolution saying that this agreement, along with the final release of Palestinian prisoners, would fulfill the requirements of resolutions 242 and 338.

I said these parameters were nonnegotiable and were the best I could do, and I wanted the parties to negotiate a final status agreement within them. After I left, Dennis Ross and other members of our team stayed behind to clarify any misunderstanding, but they refused to hear complaints. I knew the plan was tough for both parties, but it was time – past time – to put up or shut up. The Palestinians would give up the absolute right of return; they had always known they would have to, but they never wanted to admit it. The Israelis would give up East Jerusalem and parts of the Old City, but their religious and cultural sites would be preserved; it had been evident for some time that for peace to come, they would have to do that. The Israelis would also give up a little more of the West Bank and probably a larger land swap than Barak’s last best offer, but they would keep enough to hold at least 80 percent of the settlers. And they would get a formal end to the conflict. It was a hard deal, but if they wanted peace, I thought it was fair to both sides

Arafat immediately began to equivocate, asking for “clarifications.” But the parameters were clear; either he would negotiate within them or not. As always, he was playing for more time. I called Mubarak and read him the points. He said they were historic and he could encourage Arafat to accept them.

On the twenty-seventh, Barak’s cabinet endorsed the parameters with reservations, but all their reservations were within the parameters, and therefore subject to negotiations anyway. It was historic: an Israeli government had said that to get peace, there would be a Palestinian state in roughly 97% of the West Bank, counting the swap, and all of Gaza where Israel also had settlements. The ball was in Arafat’s court.

I was calling other Arab leaders daily to urge them to pressure Arafat to say yes. They were all impressed with Israel’s acceptance and told me they believed Arafat should take the deal. I have no way of knowing what they told him, though the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar, later told me he and Crown Price Abdullah had the distinct impression Arafat was going to accept the parameters.

On the twenty-ninth, Dennis Ross met with Abu Ala, whom we all respected, to make sure Arafat understood the consequences of rejection. I would be gone. Ross would be gone. Barak would lose the upcoming election to Sharon. Bush wouldn’t want to jump in after I had invested so much and failed.

I still didn’t believe Arafat would make such a colossal mistake.

Faithful1 and others here,

If Bill Clinton's memoir is truthful and accurate, then Israel should pull out and the UN should move in and police the Palestinian territories. If the Palestinians don't want a state, just endless bloodshed, then what was once Palestine should become an international protectorate...with no Israeli in sight.

The entire international community ought to require Israel to withdraw to whatever boundaries are now considered legal, and then police the Palestinian areas with UN troops. That's it.

If anyone has a better solution, I'd be glad to hear it.

I agree with you on that but the UN soldiers have to be given more power they are not allowed to fire unless someone shoots at them but that's been a disaster people know they are powerless they allowed the Srebrenica massacre to take place during the 90s and during the Rwanada genocide they were powerless to do anything while nearly a million people were butchered. They became targets themselves the UN soldiers US pulled out all of there peacekeepers and refused to help bill Clinton has a lot of blood on his hands he could have stopped that whole thing with just the threat of US intervention instead just pretended it was not happening poor African country no point helping there but when its a country with oil its a different story.

Yes. I prefer to support the veterans of this country.

I can't speak to them being self hating Jews or not, but I think if your sole argument for BDS not being anti semetic is that they have Jews involved, you ought to go back to the drawing board.

I think history is relevant here. Go look up the term "Kapo".

Pure drivel. Go brush your tooth and make another baby with your cousin.

Continued on the new NEWS 2017 thread....