I don't understand how this could be any clearer.

As I wrote in the referenced post, the water belongs, under the Oslo agreement, jointly to the two sides. The accords allocate, by agreement, shares of the water which are roughly even.

The referenced post makes abundantly clear to all - but the most obtuse reader, such as yourself - that Israeli water-extraction utility withdraws X litres out of their allocated share. The Palestinian water-extraction utility withdraws Y litres out of its allocated share.

As a result of differences in the two national utilities' water-extraction technology, the ratio of X to Y is approximately 4:1.

The distinction is very clear, and there is a significant difference between that and "Israel deprives Palestinians of water under an apartheid policy", as the Guardian article you sourced implies and you insist. This is all clear in the sourced materials, which you wilfully failed to read. And this key information is present, though peripherally referred-to near the bottom, in your Guardian article.

Moving on.

So uke_master. After reading this post, and the above quote, which category do you think Bill Haywood falls into?

1) idiot?
2) Hater?
3) honest, intelligent guy that just hasn't been made aware of all of the information?

In light of your answer to the above, can anyone really trust anything he says? And aren't his preferred sources (such as the Guardian) significantly more dubious now?

Question of interest, before the Palestinian side will start developing it awesome water infrastructure, does it need Israeli permits?

Per the Oslo agreement, in Area A, it does not. In area B and C, it does.

That has nothing to do with whether Israel is an apartheid state.

But I'll answer you anyway. It may be that Arabs and Israelis both do not have a right to act completely unilaterally with respect to water.

We can argue that Palestinians are unfairly harmed or that advancement of peace are hindered by giving Israelis the right to issue security permits for water infrastructure. You can argue that racist Israelis in government will never issue permits to Arabs because they want Arabs to die of thirst. Or, you can argue also that the army will happily write up any permits they're asked for, regardless of race or nationality, if they don't pose security problems (i.e. Maybe an Israeli Arab wants to run the Palestinian water utility).

These are all arguments that are honest and legitimate - even if I think they are incorrect.

Besides, they'll just hook themselves up anyway.

But requiring a permit within the agreed-upon terms of an agreement with a foreign entity is not apartheid, as much as Bill Haywood, and the haters want it to be.

This nasty thread can only be saved by the new website, Yiddish Curses for Republican Jews.

http://www.yiddishcursesforrepublicanjews.com/

Samples:
And my contribution:

Anyone?

I agree, this IS something that people should change. Yet you have been an ACTIVE PARTICIPANT in perpetuating precisely this mentality, down to the exact words:
Identical phrasing. It goes on:
You have repeatedly accused me of hatred or idiocy. I think this kind of rhetoric is very bad and people should refrain from it. On the one hand, you seem to agree, but on the other you are doing exactly what you just said was bad.

This is profoundly hypocritical, and if you honestly think this mentality you are espousing is bad and israel should change this mentality - as they should - it should start with you apologizing for your egregious behaviour.

Oh and btw, if you read these context of these comments they were explicitly said at me, so this cop out doesn't help you:
Let us see how long you can keep up this idea that you shouldn't just go around accusing people of being haters because it might be these other factors. Oh wait that didn't take long:
Oh look at that, you are back on the racism and anti-semitic hate thing again, none of that claimed balance before. Now it isn't exactly as if you have not been critical of claims of racism before.
Ah right, so you can be outraged when other people claim any form of racism on behalf of israel but you are completely okay with just dropping out repeated claims that *I* am a hater and that BDS is racist and anti-semitic. And you are trying to pretend you are not a hopeless hyperpartisan?

Btw, this trichotomy of "idiot, ignorant or hater" that you keep proposing is nonsensical. Informed, smart, non racist people can disagree on issues. Take any other thread in this forum, there are extensive disagreements on innumerable issues and it is almost never so simple as "if they learned a bit more they would agree with me so since they disagree and I have told them what I think they must obviously be racist, anti-semitic haters".

Gamblor, putting bureaucratic red tape and obstructive definitions ahead of dry fields, parched livestock, and failing farms is the essence of apartheid. The system is well represented here.

Hey Gamblor, remember that time you said I was lying about Korea -- a war you didn't know the first thing about?

Gamblor is a great leveler imo

That's actually incorrect according to Amira Hass. Israel is in charge of water infrastructure in Areas A also.

The water issue starts at 0:25

I think you're having too much fun.

Well Washington was the Reagan administration back then and, as I cited, declared Nelson Mandela to be a terrorist. As you probably know, there was major anti-apartheid legislation passed by the congress that Reagan vetoed. Reagan (my guess is) was being told that Mandela was a communist or something and, being someone idiotically ignorant about race relations, Reagan decided to emphasize that stupid speculation rather than the humanitarian and political crisis on the ground, never mind that this entailed a block on any possible democracy. But if you know anything about America you know that supporting democracy has nothing to do whatsoever with our foreign policy so no surprise there.

I think that the crumbling that happened inside South Africa was a direct result on the economic sanctions/divestment. South Africans ended apartheid by enlisting the help of us and the rest of the world. Without the help of us here I truly believe that apartheid would be in full force in South Africa this very day. That might be hard to imagine but I am happy about that it is. I hope one day it will be hard to imagine that Israel even considered doing what it is doing right now.

Israel is certainly a tougher nut to crack. The entire world is against Israel, but we support them totally. Why is that? I can't say I have all the answers but there is an analogy I keep coming back to.

I had a friend who was a great guy to all his friends but dude had a dark side. He was really into body building and as I look back I think he was probably on roids. Anyway he liked to get drunk and fight. But he didn't like going to jail so he came up with this plan which he executed. He became a bouncer at a few clubs. He would enlist a friend of his, a scrawny guy, to go pick fights with bigger guys. The bigger guys would bite, and my friend would intervene, ostensibly to break up disallowed behavior but really because he wanted to whoop some ass.

In this analogy my friend is the U.S., Israel is the scrawny guy, and the targets are all over the middle east. But obviously the U.S. does not engage in wars and other aggression in the middle east because we are on steroids. As you alluded to, we have vital economic and strategic interests in the region. Israel's behavior causes great strife and social unrest in the region. It causes so called terrorism as oppressed people strike back however they can (or you can take the view that entire masses of otherwise peaceful people are just raving psychopaths) and in general inflames the world. Well these inflammations and the predictable results become the pretext for a strong American military presence in the region. Israel's apartheid, their killings, their land annexation, giant security walls, the open threats of nuclear strike, the spying, the undermining, the targeted assassinations, the humiliations- these are all things that piss off the region immensely, as well they should. These are not only expressions of racist and anti-Islamic hatred by Israel, but are tactics designed to antagonize the entire region. So now when Iran says that Israel should be wiped off the map, we can start a war with Iran under the pretext of trumped up weapons charges. Sound familiar? It should.

Not, from what I can tell, according to a report published by the world bank:

The report also states:

From what I can, Palestinians are under-drawing on estimated potential by about 5% (but i could be misinterpreting this report).

source

No, it's not. The reason we have written or codified laws is so that haters can't just throw accusations around and point to vague, peripheral similarities while ignoring definite, material differences.

As I've shown, the crime of apartheid per the Rome Statute is in no way violated by Israel.

What you've done is make up your own definition and then say Israel violated that. Well, I am saying that the essence of genocide is posting on twoplustwo. Expect the police momentarily.

And I hope one day that it will be hard to imagine that people questioned that Israeli exposed itself in the hopes they achieved peace. The same way that they now question Chamberlain. The West Bank will be the new Sudetenland. Hopefully they come to their senses before 6 million more die, but lets be honest, we aren't defenseless anymore so we'll be fine.

1) This is an absolute lie. I've shown that the EU is steadfastly supportive of Israel, North America is steadfastly supportive of Israel ideologically and economically. The far east does heavy business with Israel as does India. Parts of South America (Venezuela, for example) are not, but they don't really have the same pull. There's a lot of talk and bluster at the UN, and I suppose if the entire world is a coffee shop in San Francisco then you're right, but otherwise this is a lie.

2) What makes you think "the entire world" has any less political, strategic, and economic interest in the Arab world than the US does in Israel?

3) And in no way do "you" support "us" totally. Perhaps a few vetos here and there, and a few missles here and there, but that is not unqualified support - Israel is regularly restrained from aggressive action by the US in the face of direct threats to her civilians.

This is literally the dumbest thing I've read here since this thread started. Now Israel is at fault for the Arab Spring, ethnic and religious wars, poverty, and corruption? What exactly does Israel cause?

I stand corrected.

"oppressed people striking back"? If I show you that murderous Arab Muslim violence against Jewish civilians predated any sort of Israeli occupation or even the existence of Israel, will you stop posting this nonsense?

"Otherwise peaceful"? Arabs/Muslims have killed more of each other than Israelis have, by orders of magnitude. The whole region is a cesspool of violence-first politics, everywhere but in Israel.

"inflames the world"? So lol.

My jaw is literally on the floor at this drivel. Of course, you are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts. And your entire narrative is based entirely on lies.

This is my source as posted above.

I'll take both reports at face value, and accept that perhaps I misinterpreted parts as well.

Like I said, the facts may be in question and I can't rule out untoward behaviour by bureaucrats within the water authority and army. But none of this points anywhere near "apartheid", as Bill Haywood asserts that it does.

On the other hand, the city rejected my application to clip the curb in front of my house because I expanded my driveway. And funds catholic schools but not Jewish schools. And the professions are disproportionately represented by Jews. And a disproportionate number of pizzerias and auto garages are operated by Italians. Apartheid!

Amira Hass has been ruled by the Courts to have defamed and libeled others and not accurately source information.

She's been jailed as part of the Gaza flotillas.

She's an entertainer, not a journalist. I think her credibility isn't very meaningful in the face of the evidence I have already presented.

I mean, I could be wrong about Area A, but it will take more than Amira Hass' word to prove me wrong.

great fair and balanced discussion going on here

What we know is over 75% of the world recognizes Palestine as a state, of course the USA is not part of that 75%, This creates a legitimate argument for Palestinians that they are indeed treated as 3rd world citizens by the Western world including the USA.

I will say Israel produces some of the worlds finest academics, and very peaceful people. The issue at hand is the right wing of the Knesset (Israel legislature) and parts of the US congress who refuse good respectable peace talks with parts of the PLO. None the less some aspects of the PLO are corrupt, yet we seem to see this aspect(corruption) live in all forms of government, not always in a large way, sometimes minor.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1pmB1Ts0Wk Cenk Uygur presented this piece on his "Young Turks" show which points out the unfortunate negative aspects of Israel's occupation of Palestine including

*Number of West Bank Settlers since 1993 has :tripled to over 300,000
*60% of the West Bank is restricted military areas
*percentage of West Bank annexed by the Separation Barrier- 10 %
*Currently Palestinian's have only 22% of land they had in 1946, and the Israel Knesset (mostly right wing) wants them to have less today.
* 40% of the adult male population has been imprisoned at some point in there life since 1967

I feel BiBi Netanyahu is a decent leader,but he hardly talks of a two state solution, he consistently gives into the non-logical stance of the right wing members of the Knesset. Yet I feel he will evolve his stance and start to think logically on the issue.

Im going to ignore the rest of it because its simply incorrect, but i'll answer this:

You can disagree on issues, but you must have facts to support your conclusions.

the haters start from the conclusions - apartheid, occupation, etc. These are conclusions you draw from evidence, not facts in and of themselves.

The haters assume these conclusions are true and work backwards - searching for facts that (even in the most peripheral, immaterial way) support the presupposed conclusions. Like that Israel is an apartheid state.

[QUOTE=thekid345;34459800]great fair and balanced discussion going on here[quote]

I disagree, but w/e, brah.

Nope.
And even then, non-recognizers include:
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Columbia, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, USA, and the UK (among many others). So basically, virtually the entire developed world has no diplomatic relations with - and therefore does not recognize - the State of Palestine. Recognizers are basically former communist countries of Eastern Europe (but not all), Muslim/Arab countries, South America, and Africa.

So what you said is both technically false and a false characterization of the facts.

why? what does it mean to treat someone as a "third world citizen"? What does that even mean? Whatever, not important.

What is important is this (and the crux of the issue is): are the only criteria to earn diplomatic relations as a state is that you declare yourself to be one (and perhaps have convinced some other people that you are a state)?

Or is it possible that they have not met the real criteria, like financial stability, recognized borders, a reasonable degree of political stability, etc. etc. Being a recognized state brings with it obligations and requirements, and it is clear that the democratic world believes that "Palestine" is not capable of meeting them at the moment.

Maybe because those parts of the PLO have been murdering Israeli civilians for 40+ years now, and its predecessors have been for 100 years. The PLO is, in any event, officially recognized by both Israel and the US as the representative of the Palestinian Arabs and legitimate negotiating partner. Which, of course, means nothing when Hamas members are now allowed in the PLO, and openly declare that they are not bound by that agreement. Netanyahu repeatedly calls for negotiations without preconditions, while Abbas (the PLO's rep) repeatedly shifts the goalposts and issues toothless threats.

Like a President (Abbas) that's in the 9th year of a 4 year term?

Lets see if these really are "negative".

This is not inherently bad, unless you think Jews have no right to live in places they have lived for thousands of years, with the sole exception of the years between 1949-1967. I'd even say let them become citizens of Palestine, if I thought they'd live more than 5 minutes.

This is better addressed in my last paragraph.

This is absolutely ridiculous. Even the most anti-Israeli person knows this is a complete and utter lie. Think about that. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights publishes every arrest of a Palestinian by Israeli forces and has for a long time. In most weeks, the number is under a dozen.

So let's say a few hundred people are arrested per year on average. Ignoring that many who are arrested don't even go to prison, it would take literally thousands of years to reach 40% of the population (40% is about 1.5 million), and that assumes no repeat offenders. Ridiculous, especially given that at any given time, less than 5,000 Palestinians are in prison.

At the rate you quote, Israel would need to arrest 1,500 unique Palestinians every month since 1967. ****ing ridiculous.

These organizations simply lie.

So non-logical = you don't like it? I don't understand. And I think Bibi is the best of a very bad lot right now. He's a waffler, to say the least.

See, your problem, as with most of the anti-israel camp, is that it assumes the conclusions before the facts. Occupation has a very specific legal definition, and the test for occupation is not yet proven, regardless of what you and politicians say.

Even the ICC, in the fence ruling, was forced to assume that Israel had no legal right to any of the West Bank because the court arbitrates between claims and the Israeli government did not participate so as to make arguments to the contrary. All of these "negatives" rely on two key (false) assumptions:

1) that Israel has no legal right to the territories
2) that the negotiations per the Oslo agreement will be resolved such that all of the land will be under Palestinian sovereignty.

Neither of which are realistic at all.

Pretty sweet call the only Israeli journalist,who actually bother to to report from territories an entertainer, but hey the lefties are uninformed ones.

How is it incorrect. At some point you are going to have to address the blatant hypocrisy where by on the hand you directly accuse me (and refuse to apologize for it) of being either a hater or an idiot and on the other hand claim that a problem in israel is the mentality of calling people either haters or idiots!


Oh look, more talk about haters. For someone who thinks it is a problem that there is a mentality in israel of just calling people haters or idiots you sure talk about haters a lot.

[QUOTE=Gamblor;34463851][QUOTE=thekid345;34459800]great fair and balanced discussion going on here[quote]

I disagree, but w/e, brah.


Nope.
And even then, non-recognizers include:
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Columbia, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, USA, and the UK (among many others). So basically, virtually the entire developed world has no diplomatic relations with - and therefore does not recognize - the State of Palestine. Recognizers are basically former communist countries of Eastern Europe (but not all), Muslim/Arab countries, South America, and Africa.

So what you said is both technically false and a false characterization of the facts.



Just to address the above, , In mid-September 2011, it was reported that 126 (65.4%) of the 193 member states of the United Nations had recognised the State of Palestine. Their total population was over 5.2 billion people, equalling 75 percent of the world's population



What I meant to say was 75 % of the world's population does indeed recognize Palestine as a state, As of 18 January 2012, 130 (67.4%) of the 193 member states of the United Nations have recognised the State of Palestine.

130 member states of the United nations is equivalent to 5.2 billion of the worlds population, you can not just disregard this fact man. Think with logic gamblor, you seem to have a high level of intelligence and I respect that, I only ask for respect in return


With that being said, I am sorry sir, but 130/ 193 is a highly significant number,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interna...e_of_Palestine

Gamblor do not accuse me of providing false information again, its not a good way to debate. I do research on the issue at hand, I have previously in this very thread showed stats from Hafia University, ( a major Jewish University in Hafia, Israel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pa...ition_only.svg

btw this is the video i meant to post in my prior post,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfBb7...eature=related


Also since 1967, 700,000 Palestinian males have been imprisoned according to Cenk Ungar's stats

in addition here is a interesting link to look at regarding Palestinian prisoners and there treatment in comparison with there Jewish counterparts http://www.salem-news.com/articles/j...t-peace-ef.php

Nothing will change until Israel makes the first move towards peace and takes responsibility(not all but some) for the state the entire region curently is in.

Israel is responsible for the Syrian revolution?

I strongly disagree. Israel is never going to change of their own volition. It's up to us, their master, to make them change. We here have to pressure our government to make them change- it's the only way in the foreseeable future to accomplish peace.

And if this wasn't the case people like Gamblor would not be frothing at the mouth with lies and propaganda intended to sway the opinion of U.S. citizens. They know where the war is being fought- right here in the court of American public opinion. Without us, they are nothing and they know it.

What, in your opinion, should the master command?