I think my point was well made....18 months for cold blooded murder is a joke.

Not really a surprise to anyone though that Israel (like any good right wing state) won't convict their own of murder....just isn't possible for them to commit murder in their eyes. Even when convicted of manslaughter they are basically letting the murdering bastard walk free.

He put a bullet into an incapacitated man's head ffs.

Most moral my arse.

My understanding from the news is he is appealing and could also possibly receive a pardon. Yes he did get away with murder.

grunching, but I trust you all saw this: http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/lieberm...e-middle-east/

Hamas turned it down: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/225195

Their justification is amazing. "If we wanted to turn Gaza into Singapore, we would have done it ourselves. We do not need favors from anyone"

Uh-huh.

How about you give up the idea of a Jewish nation and Arab oil money will build you a palace from the Jordan to the sea?

Hamas being asked to disarm, then wait for a politician who viscerally hates Arabs to build them Singapore is a non-starter.

One does not have to sympathize with Islamicism to question if Lieberman's offer was serious. Are Gaza and the West Bank being offered either Israeli citizenship or a state with control of borders and an end to occupation? Because without a resolution of the underlying conflict it's all noise.

There's nothing serious about the offer except propaganda for those represented by the pastoral photo.

Bill, Hamas is saying if they wanted to build Gaza into a beautiful thriving place, they would have. So why aren't they?

hint: it does them no favors for the people of Gaza to be in any situation other than the ones they currently find themselves in

Assuming the quote is fair, what of it? If the reply to a fake offer is impolitic, so what? Pouncing on it is dancing way above the main issues.

Besides, Hamas would need open importation of concrete to do anything, so both offer and reply are fairytale rhetoric.

Even though Hamas is icky, can't we point out that Lieberman's offer is part of a propaganda war, not a move toward a settlement?

Bill, Hamas doesn't want what you think it wants. This is the first problem with arguing with you. And I could spend 10 years trying to convince you of it.

You think Hamas just wants a "tidy" 2 state solution, and when it's complete the territory under them will thrive thanks to trade, peace, development, etc... But believe me, that's not their end game. You want things one way...



good day, I know better than to go back and forth

I'll take Hamas at its word, which I believe is that there should be no Israel and a Palestine from the Jordan to the sea. But "wants" and "can get" are two different things.

But we are veering very quickly from whether Lieberman's offer was real.

I think what's really at issue is you believe that a Palestinian state has to be blocked for fear it will be a staging ground for inveterate hostility to Israel. I think that hostility is driven more by the occupation than anything else.

If the PLO had been allowed to deliver a state and normalcy in peoples lives, it would have been transformative.

And made them irrelevant.

Also: I've posted on here that I could turn Gaza into a flourishing place before that character did.

I never realized that there are people out there who get butthurt about the US president referring to the "palestinian territories" as "palestine".

something about doing so legitimizes it as a state when it really isn't recognized as such.

interesting, you learn something new every day I guess

best believe

Benny

He boarded that hijacked airliner, 'disguised' to the genius hijackers as a mechanic and proceeded to cleanse them of their lives

we ought to study why native americans and aboriginal aussies or any other displaced peoples dont run around like agitated ants in perpetual resistance to their 'occupiers,' and implement our findings in Israel

Perhaps being able to travel, work, vote and hold office in the US and Australia makes them feel less occupied.

arabs travel and vote andddd work in Israel iirc

their privileges may be fluid

Our occupation isn't a "problem" for native Americans because we killed 99% of them.

So you meant this post:

to be about Arab citizens of Israel and not Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza?

Wait wait wait, forget that that was a question. That's not what you meant.

credit to Israel, eh?

Not necessarily. Standards are far different today than in the 18th and 19th centuries.

you guys are good

I'm sure this has been hashed and rehashed in here hundreds of times.

I'm with Israel, period.

You don't get credit for not murdering a few million people.

Israel's policies regarding Palestinians are self-destructive, so blind allegiance is harmful, not helpful.

the alternative to 'blind' allegiance?

educate myself on the region, say, back a few millennia

I'll get on it