The new Bush doctrine

Lee Jakeman

Golda Meir once said "we will not die so that others may think highly of us". With Olmert now running things, Israel appears to have adopted suicide as its national policy - i.e. Israel has joined the West.

davod

Baker-Hamilton

Michael Fisher

Re 'sabotaging democracy in Lebanon'. Er, weren't the Israelis bombing seven shades of you-know-what out of it last summer? Or perhaps this is some new and unusual use of the words 'sabotaging democracy' that I haven't come across before. Whoops. Then again maybe it's one rule for Israel, one rule for everyone else. Again.

JJS

Oh, Michael Fisher, you can't be serious.

Ahmad Hamdan

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." -- David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99. Please, be part of the so-called the civilized world, and democracy, and publish this...

Bogdan of Australia

Michael Fisher: I'd like to remaind you that the people like you were also against bombing Germans during the WW2.

B.Walter Kay

Shouldn't critics and 'pundits' at least let the damn conference take place before ripping it apart? And by the way, how many of you pundits have lived in Israel, served in the military, and paid taxes there? Oh, you haven't. Then best not say anything!

Michael B

B. Walter Kay, So if you hire a contractor to build your new home and you see them using faulty, indeed disastrous methods while they're laying the forms and pouring the concrete for the foundation, you're not going to say anything until the home is completed? Or moreso, perhaps you'll even enthuse as the structure is being built upon that disaster of a foundation? Or put differently and in more postive terms, what is it you find worthy in the plans and talks leading up to Annapolis, beyond sentiments?

B. Walter Kay

Michael B. you are missing the point. You can't live someone else's life for them. Israelis who are on the daily front line are the ones who will make the decisions whether you like it or not. If you feel so strongly then go to Israel and participate in the national questions. Last time I checked it was called representative DEMOCRACY.

Michael B

B. Walter Kay, As previously articulated you made two distinguishable points. Too, and most certainly not to quibble, I'm of the conviction that you are missing the far more critical point, or set of points. I don't choose to comment when Tel Aviv is electing a mayor or some other, strictly local and domestic concern. However and simply put, that is not an accurate or even a responsible depiction of the issue at hand, reflected in Annapolis or Oslo or any of the other initiatives wherein Israel is being asked to accept preposterous conditions, both theoretically and practically/existentially understood. Likewise, to remain apathetic or more willfully obtuse in the face of such a perversely conceived set of principles as is being forwarded vis-a-vis Annapolis is precisely that: apathy, at best. This is especially true given the wide array of forces marshalled in defense of such obtuseness, from the Left and Islamicists of varied stripes to other dubiously motivated actors such as James Baker and petro dollar motivated actors and further on to purported "realists" such as Walt/Mearsheimer or superficial moralists and analysts such as Jimmy Carter, others still. Further, I am echoing the opinion of more than a mere handful of Israelis and other, more grounded analysts as well.

Lynne Teperman

Michael Fisher: The Israeli bombing of Beirut in the summer of 2006 was pretty much confined to a 10 block area where Hezbollah had embedded rocket launchers in private homes and was lobbing them at Israeli targets after they incited the hostilities by kidnapping a couple of IDF soldiers by crossing into Israel. After the smoke cleared, it was made known that the Hezbollah Construction Co. had been very enterprising in the interim between the 2000 departure of the IDF and summer 2006. They used that "hudna" to go around the community fixing up peoples' homes bona fide with the priviso that they be allowed to build secret rooms that the residents could not enter. What a surprise to find what the purpose of the secret rooms. And after the war... ...Hezbollah's on the scene again with fistfuls of counterfeit US dollars and offers to rebuild peoples' homes. Lately, they've been purshasing as much real estate as they can south of the Litani River from non-Shias. While Hassan Nasrallah has painted the kidnapping as a surprise pre-empt of an Israeli attack, in fact, the timing points to creating a distraction from Iran's nuclear activities and the continued investigations of Rafiq Hariri's assassination. The current stalemate in the Lebanese government via the withdrawal of Hezbollah from the cabinet is yet another example of Hezbollah's pursuit of Syria's and Iran's desires at the expense of their own countrymen of all confessionals.

Maizy Doats

Et tu, Bushy? The future for whose of us who value truth, liberty, justice and western civilization -- all four founded by Jews, remember -- looks increasingly bleak. But with truth, liberty, etc on our side, we must continue to believe that we will prevail.

Mark Wahlberg

Quote: "...The Israeli bombing of Beirut in the summer of 2006 was pretty much confined to a 10 block area where Hezbollah had embedded rocket launchers in private homes..." Yes...the private homes painted white, flying a blue flag and designated as UN Observer sites?