The Evening Standard on Israel

Mr Eugenides

That's extraordinary.

David

I'm beginning to agree with Melanie....

peter

Well, they re right aren they?

I mean whatever one's views on the trasition of Israel from beacon of hope to world's least favourite nation, any objective analysis would suggest the Standard is completely right. Sorry, objective.

Maybe you re surprised that the Standard should be the one making the point.

Either way, until Israel changes its mindset, things wilo only get worse.

peter

Well, they re right aren they?

I mean whatever one's views on the trasition of Israel from beacon of hope to world's least favourite nation, any objective analysis would suggest the Standard is completely right. Sorry, objective.

Maybe you re surprised that the Standard should be the one making the point.

Either way, until Israel changes its mindset, things wilo only get worse.

fulcanelli

Absolutely disgusting!

How anyone can agree or side with this kind of reporting is beyond me. The media coverage in this country has been positively anti-semitic and tantamount to insighting racial hatred.

Ivan D

Um, which one of them are you suggesting *isn't* a warmonger? The one that started the last 'war', the one that wanted her to go further, or the racist nutjob who wants to kick even Israeli Arabs out of Israel (sorry, take a 'loyalty test')? I'm genuinely interested in hearing your answer as to which of them is not a warmonger? Unless you're simply going to quibble over the word. And that would just be silly.

RUTH

Each candidate is tripping over the other to appear the most intolerant and war like.

It is a policy with clear consequences - Israel has succeeded only in bolstering fanatics beyond its (!) borders, and shifted to the extreme right internally.

Almost deliberately so.

Just as the rest of the world is turning to diplomacy, Israel is turning its back on it.

Instead, the rather unpleasant candidates aside, the whole country is held hostage by an ultra orthodox former nightclub bouncer with nothing but state subsidies on his mind and a rabble rouser who wants to alienate a fifth of the population - echoes of Apartheid.

And all the time Arabic lands are colonised and occupied.

Charleston

IvanD considers stopping incoming mortars which target civillians as warmongering?

and dear Ruth, considers the lands of Jews and Jesus conquered by arabs and then conquered and ruled by Turks before WW1,

as ALL ARAB? Christians and Kurds and Armenians and Maronites and Assyrians and Egyptians(Copts) all to be forced to live UNDER Islam and sharia? Like England soon will be?

It was not arab land...before The Ottoman Turks ABANDONED the land, the Turks had ruled it for 400 years

Johan

RUTH, your ignorance is staggering.

Stephen Rothbart

Most commentators on this subject are, like Ruth ignorant. There is no absolute truth when it comes to Israeli Palestinian discussions.

Just as there was no Israel for two thousand years, but Jews and many other people lived in the land who weren't Arabs, there NEVER was a state called Palestine, until an Egyptian terrorist saw a chance to dupe the world into giving him and his bogus movement a great deal of money by creating one.

As for the fact that according to people like Ruth, the Israelis have only just recently caused the 'Arabic' people to hate them, well I guess the invasion of tiny Israel in 1948, 1967, 1973 and the attacks on the Jews living there before Israel even existed by the Hitler-loving Mufti of Jerusalem during WW2 was just their version of 'tough love.'

Ruth, the Arabic people mainly hated the Jews living around them because they hate anyone who is not them, including their fellow 'Palestinians.'

The 1948 war on Israel only failed because they hated each other as much as they hated the Jews, and they could not form a united front, because Jordan and Egypt wanted the same land for themselves as the Syrians did.

This is not a black and white situation. There is good and bad on both sides, but it is not what happened in the past but what happens in the future that is going to matter.

Israel has tried making peace with her neighbours for 60 years and with the exception of Egypt and Jordan, their hand of friendship has been rejected again and again.

Even recently 70% of Israelis wanted the two state solution for Palestine. But Palestine is ruled by a moderate terrorist organization and a ferociously bellicose terrorist organization, neither of which really want to make peace, but at least one pretends to, while the other one is truthfully blunt and says it never will.

On the official front, Syria is a client state now of Iran which has threatend to obliterate Israel.

Is it really any wonder that any new leader of Israel has to be ready to go to war with its neighbours?

Livni is the best hope for Peace, becasue she will say what the world wants to hear, which is that Israel will try to accommodate the Palestinians.

Netanyahu and Liebermann are the different sides of the same coin. In a way they are right, for Israel to survive it has to shed its Muslim populations, but Libermann is a PR disaster for Israel. Thankfully not everyone in Israel is yet a racist which Liebermann clearly is.

Netanyahu is closer to Liebermann than Livni and also will be bad for PR but he is experienced and is a good speaker and communicator.

I sincerely hope, that in this new age of Militant Islam appeasement from Europe and probably from the Obama led USA, Livni wins, because she will keep some of Israel's few remaining allies onside, while the election of either of the other two will give the anti-Semitic and anti-Israeli media and governments free reign to dump her for good and start pressing for sanctions.

This will encourage Iran and the other loonie 'Arabic' states to be even more intransigent in their dealings with Israel, because they will believe that the tide is moving in their direction.

And all this will bring a nuclear strike against Iran one step closer to reality.

Max Kaye

Fortunately for us all, Israelis don't give a tinker's cuss what British newspapers write about them.

At least they have an election.

Oh that we were so lucky....

Robert

Israel's land mass is 1/10 of ONE percent of the Middle East.

It is the least efficient "colonisation" or imperialism in history.

"or the racist nutjob who wants to kick even Israeli Arabs out of Israel"

As opposed the racist nutjobs who wish to ethnically cleanse Judea/Samaria of Jews to create a Juderein "Palestine?"

Ivan D

You do realise Max that we care for what they think pretty much exactly the same as they care for what we think? And despite all the hysterical stuff (on this thread, and on so many tedious others) about the 'caliphate coming to England', somehow I don't think any of us really believes we're in graver, still more mortal danger than Israel is.

Indeed, given that Israel *is* in really quite a profoundly dangerous predicament, maybe she ought to to start listening to those abroad disposed to being her friends, while there's still something of her left to be friendly to. But to adapt your last line Max, fortunately for her, you're not yet the Israeli ambassador to the UK.

ndm

The headline may be extraordinary qua headline but it is objectively true. It will undoubtedly not sit well with your drouthy neighbour.

I wonder, however, where the high-profile British commentators are who would point out the madness of those high-profile Zionist apparatchicks who play the part of Crazy Marty in the British press. Where are the likes of Alterman, Yglesias, Ackerman and Klein willing to take on these Zionutty fools who, even as the trumpet Western morality, allow their bigotry to drown out their morality.

Max Kaye

Ivan D - but we are in a greater danger than Israel is. Israelis know that they are surrounded and outnumbered by enemies, and that they must deal with that reality - by diplomatic and/or military means.

Here in the UK, on the other hand, our liberties and freedoms are being eroded from within and yet most people are glibly happy to remain oblivious to this reality.

RUTH

Johan,

It would be helpful if extremists who are completely unable to debate the situation would refrain from resorting to the overarching arrogance that infuriates all those in search of understanding and solutions.

There is nothing ignorant in reporting back the truth, however much you may not like it;

- The country has moved to the right. Even Livni. No debate.

- Israel has created more generational hatred in Gaza and worldwide with its recent murderous attack. No debate.

- The timing of the attack was cynical - a pre electoral strike timed to con incide with Bush's dying days and brought to an end the night before Obama's inauguration. No debate.

- Obama and others are turning towards diplomacy with Iran and Syria. Even Turkey, Israel's biggest interlocuter, has turned against us. No debate.

- Today's election will be notable for the influence of an an ultra orthodox former nightclub bouncer and a man who wants to lose a fifth of the election. No debate.

- And all the time Arabic lands are colonised and occupied.
No debate.

Please feel free to explain yourself, but without falling back on your prejudices.

Stephen Rothbart

Hey Ruth, why answer you when most of your comments ended with 'no debate?'

And anyone who says that, and then ends with 'please feel free to explain yourself' is either a retired school teacher, a bigot, or works in the Labour Government.

ndm

[via Spencer Ackerman]

Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. peace negotiator, is quoted by the Washington Post as follows:

-- Miller said even a broad unity government -- one possible outcome -- would be unable to agree on peace moves but could reach quick consensus on military strikes against Hamas or Hezbollah, such as the recent invasion of Gaza. "You may get a government good at war-making, not peacemaking," he said. "It's really going to create a major headache for the administration."

Perhaps we need more of the Evening Standard's prescience.