Israel rejects U.S. call to halt Jerusalem project

Monday 20th July, 06:46 AM JST

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realist at 01:09 PM JST - 20th July

Have I missed something? I thought that the Great Leader and Savior of the world, President Barak Hussein Obama,(sic) said recently in the Middle East, that the USA wouldnt try to impose its will on any other country? Of course, he was addressing the Muslim world then, wasnt he? Obviously his comments do not apply to the sovereign state of Israel. Talk about contradictions! Isreal is right to ignore the USA in this respect, blatant interference in the internal affairs of another country.

The Capital City of Israel is Jerusalem, given to them by God. They can build in it and do whatever they like in it - its theirs! Omaba and his liberal, Muslim-loving government should be told in no uncertain terms to Butt out and put their own house in order before trying to interfere in another sovereign country.
Gombei424Canada at 04:27 PM JST - 20th July

zurcronium:israel gave up land it occupied to egypt when carter brokered the deal that won him a nobel peace prize. That deal is still holding.

Bang on, my fine friend.I was reading something the other day which made me really upset.It seems the Israeli settlers are calling their new imperialism land grab in the Occupied Territories 'the Obama Hilltop Project". Fools! I guess they need to take my lesson on the use and abuse of political speech.

Well, anyways, we all know the carte blanchers of the bush era are the ones TRULY responsible for the way israelis and Palestinians act or misbehave, unless said Palestinians or israelis make POSITIVE developments,in which case all credit and all kudos should go to the United Nations,whom the carte blanchers and sargies of the world just HATE!
Sarge at 04:37 PM JST - 20th July

"Mideast peacemaking"

Here we have two groups claiming the same land. Ideally, one group admits they're wrong, the other group takes the land, and lo and behold, there be peace!
Madverts at 05:48 PM JST - 20th July

" I thought that the Great Leader and Savior of the world, President Barak Hussein Obama,(sic) said recently in the Middle East, that the USA wouldnt try to impose its will on any other country? "

Does billions in aid correspond with imposing one's will?
TumbleDry at 06:55 PM JST - 20th July

With Bush it was: go for it but try to be discreet.

to which Israel answers: Thanks

With Obama it is: Don't!

to which Israel answers: We do what we want.
grafton at 07:29 PM JST - 20th July

What incredible naivety for anybody to imagine that the Palestinians are going to become peaceful because of ANY land deal that leaves Israel in existence. I just wish we could run a parallel reality whereby we could see what would happen to Israel if all the Arab appeasers (Smith & co.) got what they want. We shouldn’t really need to do this if we allowed experience of the past to show us that possible future, but blind irrational bigotry tends to colour the thinking (reactions) of so many anti-Israeli talking heads. The level of self-inflicted blindness to the reality in the Middle East is staggering. Here we have a tiny Jewish country surrounded by bitter Arab neighbours, the friendliest of which can never be trusted, countries that have all at some time attacked Israel, usually as group. After the back stabbing operation by the British & French in 1956 the US promised to support Israel because it was obvious at that time Israel’s very existence was at risk. Since then the left-wing media lead propaganda machine has worked to feed the gullible a twisted reality of the Middle East. We have a modern democratic country that has been repeatedly attacked by its dictatorially lead semi-backward neighbours yet Israel is always portrayed as the aggressor. History is constantly distorted to create the idea that the Arabs are the underdogs being bullied by Zionist fanatics. It would be wrong to say that the West today is anti-Semitic, but it would also be deliberately obtuse to refuse to see that a foundation of anti-Semitism (anti-Jewish really) lies deep in the Western subconscious. 2000 years of Christian “values” don’t get expunged in 60 years, all that has been achieved in that time is a mask of hypocrisy. In the past the stupidity was more honest, the Jews murdered Christ so they are bad, today that is no longer acceptable, now some use the excuse of their tax dollars, Zionist Nazis, poor Palestinians & the list goes on. When I was at university we had Vietnam & Latin America as our fashionable crusade, not that Israel wasn’t also seen as one of the bad guys at that time too, Israel was a friend of the US & the US was the world bully, or so the left-wing propaganda of the day showed us. To be a politically conscious person with a heart we needed to side with the underdog, no matter who they were, no matter to what degree that might mean blinding ourselves to the reality of who that underdog was. Most of us grew up leaving behind that simple black & white reasoning. But many couldn’t get the deep indoctrination of anti-Semitism out of their sub-consciousness leaving themselves open to a self inflicted blindness to the reality of the Middle East & a level of hypocrisy that beggars the imagination. The media have made well trained gullible seals who cannot be seen to be anti-Jewish so rather pretend to be pro-Palestinian & anti-Israeli. Sometimes I have this mental image of people with their eyes closed & their fingers in their ears going la la la la la very loud rather hear rather than see or hear how incredibly idiotic they are.
SezWho2 at 07:53 PM JST - 20th July

I wonder how much land the Syrians would give back if they had won the 1967 war and took over half of Israel.

My guess is that they would have been forced to give back all of it.

However, this is not about the Syrians. All the Israeli settlements outside their UN-mandated borders have been illegal. Expansion into East Jerusalem has been illegal. Israel has gotten a free pass.
elbudamexicano at 11:11 PM JST - 20th July

Netanyahu is a dork! He is an idiot! How the hell can he even try to compare Jerusalem to New York? To London? To Tokyo? Only and idiot would even try to make such a comparison and with all of them angry Palestinians both in an around Jerusalem,well, just the perfect recipe for more violence. Obama should kick Netanyahu up side the head and teach him some respect for the USA!
adaydream at 11:47 PM JST - 20th July

I've advocated that the US needs to take back the $30Billion over 10 years that george bush gave Israel. Israel makes agreements and they renege on them as soon as they decide that their benefactor is in the way.

This is no different then the Israelites still building in Palestinian solvern lands. Doing what they want. But if Palestinine/Hamas retaliates, Israel sets the stage to murder thousands of innocent people.

Israel is just a bunch of bullies. < :-)
SuperLib at 02:03 AM JST - 21st July

daydream: But if Palestinine/Hamas retaliates, Israel sets the stage to murder thousands of innocent people

Then maybe they should find another method of protest other than terrorism. What a novel idea...
smithinjapan at 02:18 AM JST - 21st July

30061015: "I'm sure its safe to say you are."

Believe it or not, a person can be against the Israeli government reminding everyone of the holocaust while keeping millions in a worse-than-Warsaw-ghetto and not hate Jews. Might surprise you, but again that would only be because you are... well... overly sensitive to your own deficiencies (ie. racist).

But, sigh... let me spell it out for your ilk for the thousandth time: I am not for what the Palestinians are doing in terms of launching hobby rockets, despite them doing little more than making a bit of gravel here and there. I'm also not for Israel's incursions and mass killings, even of UN food trucks, etc. I think both governments, in short, are acting like children, and they are going to continue to do so. But when one has nukes and plays the victim card and says anyone else is an enemy... well... let's just say you have the wrong ones pegged as dangerous.

Now, here's a question I've been meaning to ask for a little while. Let's say Israel decides to just nuke Iran or some other place, like even Palestine (too close, but hey); how are you guys going to be able to defend Israel with a straight face?
smithinjapan at 02:40 AM JST - 21st July

SuperLib: "Then maybe they should find another method of protest other than terrorism. What a novel idea..."

Agreed. Israel should stop doing it too, and the US supporting it. The biggest shame is when people call you 'anti-Semite' for not supporting terrorism when it is committed by Israel.
goodDonkey at 04:53 AM JST - 21st July

realist said:

The Capital City of Israel is Jerusalem, given to them by God.

The good news for realist is that he explained the problem perfectly. The bad news for realist is that the problem is him and his ilk. realist's answer to evolution - God created the heaven and the earth (that would be the entire universe - about 6,000 years ago). realist's answer to preventing America from going straight to hell - force the little boys and girls to pray to a christian god.

I don't know the answer to this dilema. I know jerk Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is just inciting conflict; but that is what he wants. He did it before as Prime Minister. The two nations were doing pretty well in relative terms and then came Benny and the Jets.
goodDonkey at 07:03 AM JST - 21st July

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0WCQadt864

skipthesong said:

wasn't Jerusalem once the capital of Jews? how did it become non-Jewish?

Good question. Actually the Jews only ruled Israel for a total of about 600 years (many people would arguably say half that) out of the thousands of years of "history" or if you want to me to get tribal on yo ass (just kidding) tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years in various tribal/nomadic states.

The Babylonian Empire (Babylon the city was in Modern day Iraq) took over Judah, a huge part of Israel around 600 B.C. Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar about 586 B.C.. The Kingdom of Israel fell much earlier near 740 B.C. – 722 B.C.. Then all you have to do is throw in the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Muslims, Spain's Crusaders, the Muslims again, squeeze the Ottoman Empire in there and the British perform the grand finale.

However the entire history of the land has been occupied by Palestinians in one shape or form. Somewhere around 1000 B.C. to 700 B.C (Very rough estimation) the Jews limited the occupation of the tribes i.e. Philistines, Canaanites, Canadians, Comedians, etc. to their lowest numbers.

I am not an Anti-Semite. I believe in a return to the 1967 borders. Until Israel does that I don't think they have much of an argument. Look even with the 1967 borders the Palestinians have lost a whole lot of land. How can anyone expect every single one of them to be ok with that? I think it will eventually work. But to blame everything on Palestinians who lost the most, in the century that past, because the christians backed the Jews is ridiculous. That is why I will continue to say that Israel needs to get the hell out of the West Bank at the very minimum. Those who blame the Palestinians would have blamed the Native Americans for starting a war with the Europeans (Americans).

Furthermore I find it hard to accept that Palestine could call Jerusalem anything but a symbolic capital. That doesn't mean I want to see them removed; I consider them immigrants from Palestine. They have a long history of peaceful coexistence. I know the dumbbells who have no real interest in the truth, or knowledge of recent history, will try to deny that but they have lived in Jerusalem a very long time. So what I was saying is that basically Jerusalem should belong to the Jews and they should make symbolic gestures but not be forced to allow Palestine to set up government agencies in Jerusalem except advocacy and cooperation councils under the constructs of Israeli law. I solved the "right to return" issue years ago. The agreement would state that Palestinians have the right to return to their homeland. However, Israel would still be sovereign so they would completely control immigration. That means they would initially completely close immigration until they are satisfied with the peace. Both the, Jerusalem, and "right of return" issues are simply face saving measures for the Palestinians but I cannot possibly see how they are going to get any more anyway. I was chatting on line just after the mid 1990's with both Israelis and Palestinians and nobody here could possibly believe how much they said they liked each other. They kept saying that all the conflict was with their governments and not the people. Call me a liar indeed. But I was interested so I talked to many on both sides for months. I know it is no longer like that. That is a damn shame; a tragedy. I don't expect many people to believe me. I can only offer that some will because they have seen how I dig into things. I can be ferocious. I was so curious to learn the truth back then that I spent a lot of time seeking it. Don't get me wrong I have no hope of seeing relations repaired in my lifetime. I guess the governments that wanted conflict won and now probably most of those same people hate each other. I do want them to sign a peace agreement. Those who expect the conflict to end or choose to condemn the peace to failure due to continued conflicts, even with a signed peace agreement, have no historical reference to world events, that go back to long before history began. A patience will be needed that this world has never known. The UN must be involved heavily with troops and both sides must be pushed into reprimanding their own who will try many ways to end the peace. Peace can only be accomplished if both sides adhere to a pledge of extreme patience and a stalwart commitment.

To those of you who refuse to believe that there can be peace, across the 1967 established borders, between Israel and Palestine I have no doubt you would have refused to believe there could be peace between Israel and Egypt before there was.
ca1ic0cat at 08:59 PM JST - 21st July

It is highly unlikely that there is going to be any peace deal as long as Israel continues building settlements on what the Palistinains consider their turf. A moritorium on building would be a good start to getting some discussion going. But that doesn't seem to be the goal.