Israel gets up off its knees

Pot Head

"Well, well. Two days into the new Netanyahu government" and its Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman" gets himself arrested for bribery, money-laundering and breach of trust

That must have happend after his maiden speech, I'm not sure if it was before or after he got off his knees?

Maybe people will take him seriously when he sticks to that "all-but forgotten notion that people must actually adhere to" the rule of law

You'd have to have a heart of stone not to piss yourself laughing.

Bill Corr

Will Israel, under the new and improved management, call the bluff of the venal and mendacious Egyptians as well as that of the PA? Given political and geographical realities, one somehow doubts it.

It will be recalled that the sworn agreements committed Egypt - and Mubarakistan is no open democracy - to prohibiting "hostile propaganda" aimed at Israel and Jewry.

Instead, there has been an unending stream of virulently hostile propaganda of all kinds, diligently cataloged by the MEMRI website.

The item most to be treasured is the straightfaced report that Israelis were smuggling a chewing gum with special properties into Egypt. If chewed by young Egyptiennes, the gum would make them uncontrollably horny and thus undermine Egypt's fine morals.

Tragically, this splendid confection is not on sale in the West.

Joe

Can we please have a politician prepared to "tell it as it is" here? Nearest we have gotten is the Bishop of Richester.

Joe

Sorry - Rochester

Michael B

Lieberman's speech will attract name calling - precisely because detractors do not want to face the realities being articulated on a point-by-point basis or as a whole. Hence name calling and demonizing rhetoric will ensue in lieu of facing those realities. The obverse side of that same coin is the fact that so many polities in the west and elsewhere will continue to refuse to be weened off their illusions: illusions long advanced by the UNRWA and many, many other transnational orgs, and newly advanced by the new administration in Washington. A price, sooner or later, lesser or greater, will be paid.

truthtriumphs

Too little and too late.
Weak and amoral Israeli leadership has continually moved the goalposts against Israel's interests.
It's high time that the West realises that concessions are not a one way street only to be demanded of Israel.

truthtriumphs

Too little and too late.
Weak and amoral Israeli leadership has continually moved the goalposts against Israel's interests.
It's high time that the West realises that concessions are not a one way street only to be demanded of Israel.

Jenny

I decided I liked Lieberman as soon as Peter Oborne said how much he disliked him.

Mr Oborne prefers to write love notes instead to one Binyam Mohamed. He who refuses to tell the media whar he was doing in the Middle East when he was picked up but can't wait to give people like Mr Oborne lots of copy to fill up his stupid columns with allegations of torture.

al ramy

Hot air from a nearly indicted two bit money launderer is not in the best interest of the state of Israel. Most Israelis (including this author, writing from Los Angeles) are rather disappointed with Liberman's new post. His rise is a reflexive response to the weak and spineless other parties, few admire this Moldovan bouncer. In my opinion, Bibi knows that he will be indicted shortly and will be forced to resign once the police can press charges at which point the challenging oily Silvan Shalom, will get the ministry. Indeed, Israel has to find a way to face the Iranian opera but it is not cool to go mano a mano with your weapons supplier. The last thing the U.S wants is an Israeli visit over the skies of Natanz. The U.S is broke, its defecit in real dollars is likely to visit the 10 trillion dollars range and there is no place where this money can be borrowed nor can Americans pay interest on such loans, therefore, they do not want to be distracted by Lieberman and his collection of two bit followers. The fact that two Jews are a heart beat from the President is not money in the bank. The U.S has its own issues and presently they are mostly domestic. Ms. Philips is a great supporter of Israel for which I thank her, sadly she lacks the basic understanding of yjr fundamentals of the corrupt Israeli politics, (see Prof. Bernard Lewis, Wall Street Journal, Opinion, this week) for this you need to follow Israeli news in Hebrew.

Kiwi

Well well Pot Head, straight in, boots and all. You've been told a million times not to exaggerate! Mr Lieberman has not been arrested, nor charged with flouting any rule of law. Merely questioned over a long-standing, probably politically motivated, allegation believed to relate to a company run by his daughter. Israeli police have confirmed that their interview with Mr Lieberman had been scheduled in advance. According to a BBC report, an unnamed spokesman said, "He co-operated fully with police investigators and answered all their questions and enjoyed drinking their coffee."

Barbara

If you are going to piss yourself, please stand downwind of me.

Lieberman may or may not be a crook, but that doesn't change the fact that he is absolutely right. I hope for once that the Israelis follow through. It is beyond time for the Arabs to start sticking to their agreements.

David Lynn

Pot Head: "You'd have to have a heart of stone not to piss yourself laughing." Pot head.

Yehuda

The new Foreign Minister of the minuscule (territorially)State of Israel dwarfs his Western counterparts in his grasp of the realities, his analysis and his conclusions.
In the West, however, the baying hounds will rationalise their pusillanimity, their grovelling, their Chamberlainesque capitulation to the most savage, fanatical force the world has seen since Hitler, by calling him "an extremist right-winger".
Well, you know what the Arabs say: "The dogs bark, but the caravan moves on."

David

Ah, so Israel will stop building and expanding settlements? Excellent.

David

"Lieberman is a controversial politician who has been called a fascist"

He's on record that loyalty to the state is above the rights of the individual. That's pretty much textbook fascism.

Miranda Rose Smith

I have always advocated a two state solution, but I happen to know how to count. There already IS an Arab state in mandatory Palestine, Jordan, which could and should take in the "Palestinian" refugees. The fact that the Arab states in general, and Jordan in particular, have never offered to take in the "Palestinians," who are culturally and linguistically and historically ARABS, makes in BLATANTLY plain that the Arab states do not want to help their fellow Arabs, the "Palestinians," they just want to keep the "Palestinians" rotting in the refugee camps, so the Arab states can say to the world "You have to kick out all the horrible, aggressive, imperialistic Jews in order to make room for these people." The fact that world opinion lets the Arab states get away with this, instead of telling them to pipe down and take in the "Palestinian" refugees, the way Israel took in the thousands of Jews who were expelled from Arab lands, proves, as I've said before, that world opinion doesn't care about the "Palestinians," except as cat's paws to finish off Israel for them.

Carl

A country that can elect politicians like Lieberman has some serious problems. He is just about every -ist that can be named, a truly foul person.

Still, it's good to see that Melanie is in favour of dismantling the Settlements.

elixelx

Well, pot heads are well known for their penchant to micturate all over themselves, and hence speeches by A. Lieberman are just one more excuse to prove themselves incontinenet in public!

The problem for Barry the boy is that he is going to have to embrace the Bush-embraced road map; but can he? After all if every Bush-embraced policy is wrong, what makes this one right?

The despised Bush once again rides to Israel's rescue!
HO Ho ho!

Trumpeldor

Indeed ,Melanie,Israel is back !!!
I hope that "the coalition of the free and of the three:Avigdor+Bibi+Ehud "will stop the decline of Israel in every field such as deterrence,education and posture to the "international community"
Interestingly, deterrence and education of western world has also been strongly damaged by decades of socialissm and relativism
Let us hope that Israel awakening is the begonning of a new resolve for all western world!

Hag PessaH sameah to you and to all your readers,

Michael B

David,

In fact, in terms of any legislative initiatives, Lieberman has attempted to come to terms with Arab Israeli citizens and MKs (e.g., Azmi Bishara and Ahmad Tibi) who have both visited and positively aided entities such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria - and have openly declared their loyalty and support for those entities - including during times of war.

So no, it's nothing remotely similar to "textbook fascism." Rather, it's a matter of seeking a commonsense and reality based approach to existential matters and the sui generis aspects of Israel's Arab population that increasingly is evidencing loyalties in support of Hamas, Hezbollah, et al. - and positively against Israel's EXISTENTIAL interests, not more debateable legislative and policy matters.

And speaking of Arab Muslim MKs in Israel's Knesset, have you heard much of Jewish members of legislative bodies in Syria, in Iran, in Saudi Arabia? Or of Jewish voting members of Hamas or Hezbollah, helping to determine budgetary and other priorities in those organizations? Or, likewise, have you heard much about the Left protesting a lack of Jewish membership among those bodies, or on behalf of a right of return or compensation for the 900,000 Jewish refugees from those Muslim states?

In short, you're omitting a wee bit of context - and reality - from your allusion to "textbook fascism." Iow, you may as well describe a husband who refuses to allow a neighbor to sleep over with his wife as an unfriendly fascist. Inviting a neighbor over for coffee is one thing, inviting a neighbor over for less discrete matters is another thing entirely. Fascism and avoiding stupidity are not synonymous, are not conceptually similar, not remotely so, David.

Trumpeldor

@david,

For your information,Tel Aviv is a BIG settlement !

Original Tony

I am learning more about the Arab/Israeli conflict every day. Yesterday I learned that in August 1967, a short while after Israel took back its own West bank, that it offered the Arab league both the west bank and Gaza in return for a final peace treaty.

The Arab league adjourned to Khartoum to discuss this, after which they issued their infamous 3 No's: NO peace, NO negotiation and NO recognition of Israel.

If the arabs had accepted this offer there would be no need for a road map or world pressure to give up this land.

And despite this magnanimous offer, Israel is still blamed for today's stalemate.

So I say, to heck with the world. Israel, keep your head up high and just keep saying no to everything until the 'Palestinians' play their part.

phil

Pot Head you are aptly named ,the man is being investigated and if he is guilty will be dealt with according to the rule of law -have you any comments on our own political miscreants .Israel continues to show the world that it does have laws and that no person is above them .

Ian C

The first post on each of Melanie's comments on Israel is very usually from someone with something to say that is designed to antagonise. The name is different each time but I wonder the email address is.

gary

Would someone like to explain why the people called Palestinians should have a sovereign state of their own. There has never been a precedent set in any place in the world, nor at no time in history, that a bunch of people, bonded by whatever they say bonds them, who say they want a state, hen have their claim accepted. There have been a few exceptions, but if there is a general rule it's non-acceptance.

In the mid 1970s the UN held numerous talk-fests and commissions about this very subject and decided against it as a general rule. Most of the votes nulling the idea were from the Soviets and the unaligned nations including all the Muslim terrortories.

Whatever argumant supports the Palestinian claim should equally have been applied to the Kurdish claims, the Tibetans, the Copts, the Basques, the Shia in Iraq, the balkanisation of the Balkans, the separation of the Czech & Slovak republics, the historical grabbing of parts of Romania by Turkey, Hungary, the Soviets and Romania. There is no universally accepted "international law" about nationhood.

Palestinians should have a state because otherwise they'll hijack planes and ships, get their mates to wage war around the world, and inflate the cost of energy. Strip away the euphemisms of diplomacy and that's the story. Give them a state and they'll only attempt to slaughter Israeli Jews and the rest of the world can rest in peace until they invent another reason to throw a tantrum.

Al Ramy

Ms. Philips is right in principal about Oslo, the dilution of character among the pathetic Israeli Knesset aparatchniks, but Avigdor Lieberman, also known as Yvett, the Moldovan muscle man is not the right man to be the international face of Israel. Prime Ministers used to staff this position with men they had contempt for. There was M.K Levi, a wreck from beith Shaan, who could not speak English, or Silvan Shlaom, Bibi's nemesis, now it is the settler from Tekoah (the Beth Lehem Hills), IBA reported that he looks like toast because within the next six weeks charges will be filed and he will be gone, few Israelis will shed tears. Eithan Haber, his critic on the pages of Yediot Achronot, ( a daily that belong to the spouse- Ms. Moses, of the pretender Silvan Shalom (i.e the contender to the job) is another loyal Mapamnik, who grew up singing the International in every meeting of what was & still is the utterly corrupt Israeli Labor, (RIP Crime Inc.). It is only expected of him to defend the shameless Oslo. The history of the Jews is laced with a trail of appeasers. Don't confuse a trailer trash (there is such a thing in Israel) with statecraft.

Linda Smith

Gary: I agree with your post 4 April 5:-06pm. Only question is what to do with the West Bank and Gaza. Israel doesn't what to subsume them into Greater Israel because they don't want to increase their Arab population. Join them onto Egypt and Jordan respectively? Don't think Egypt and Jordan want them either because they did not absorb them between 1948 and 1967.

gary

Linda

Some people reckon nation states are an anachronism from the past. Let those regions be the first non-nation of the 21st century. Make them administrative regions under joint administration of their neighbors, Jordan and Israel.

Drop the idea of tying a peaceful life for Israelis and Palestinians to ideas about sovereign statehood.

Jordan has more to fear from a Palestinian state than Israel. The creation of a Palestinian state would destabilise aliances within the Arab League. It would disrupt all the time-wasting committees of the UN. It would cause the UN's Human Rights to have to look at other problems. Europe, Russia, & America would have to find a new pawn for their power plays.

The creation of a Palestinian state would cause "a new world order" that would overturn all the international power structures built during the last half century. The Arab-Israel conflict is the touch-stone of post-WW2 international politics. That's why there is no Palestinian state.

Turn it into an administrative solution instead of a statehood issue. Leave the Palestinians something to complain about because otherwise world politics will suffer from too radical and overhaul. Drop the ideas about statehood because it would cause too many flow-on problems.

Mark

If David wants to be trite about loyalty to the state being presumed to be "fascist" maybe he should remember that the croats were not exactly loyal to the yugoslav state as the real fascist germans were actually invading the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.

Geoff M

It comes to something when acually adhering to the internationally agreed "Road Map" is seen as revolutionary.

What I cannot understand is how Israel so lost the plot and failed to put Palestine and the International conmmunity on the line.

They have an agreement, they have adhered to it, the Palestinians have not.

Where is the UN debate? Where are the complaints to the US? Where is the media campaign? The YouTube, Twitter and blog campaigns?

Constant repetition will eventually win through. Tell them over and over again - not just politicians but the public.

Challenge the international community. Get THEM to invest Palestine with troops, to dismantle the terrorists organisations and supply routes. Get international sanctions in place - to be lifted as and when Palestinians comply with the Road Map. Highlight the discrimination and intimidation of Christian and Samaritan communities in Palestine and demand international condemnation.

Expose the Muslims and show the world what they have, and are, doing. Expose the links to terror groups, other Islamic states. Show the funding and links between Hamas, Lebanon, Saudi, Syria, Iran etc etc.

Expose the Jihad and its threat to the whole world.

Wake people up.

So much can and should have been done.

Its obvious - even to an English Christian like me.

Have the Jews been asleep all this time?

Perhaps we all have!

gary

"Have the Jews been asleep all this time?"

About 30% of the world's population would like us to disappear, and probably another 30% doesn't care one way or the other. We're about 0.2%. We speak but they refuse to listen.

"Have the Jews been asleep all this time? Perhaps we all have!"

Tha Nazis were Europe's alibi. The Palestinians are the world's alibi.

Michael B

Oh please, gary. The Nazis were Europe's alibi? Perhaps you haven't noticed, but history doesn't proceed in a vacuum. To ask but one question in return: what or whose alibi is reflected in all the Marxists/Leninists and their progeny? Or, from a similar angle, the world is not remotely in danger of forgetting Hitler's holocaust, but the world has in fact largely forgotten the three (3) great genocides of the 20th century that preceded Hitler's: the Armenian genocide; Lenin's and Dzerzhinsky's mass murder, c. 1922; and perhaps the greatest genocide of all during the 20th century, Stalin's and Kaganovich's Ukrainian program of mass murder, c. 1933. Jewish communities and Israel have Iran and plenty else to be concerned with presently and evil does manifest itself in the world, due to passive and active participation both, but that is all the more reason to emphasize the fact that perspective is needed.

Palestinians as the world's alibi, by contrast, comes closer to the mark, vastly closer, precisely because tranzi orgs from the E.U. to the U.N., among other entities still, not only use Sunni Arab Palestinians as alibis but actively support/promote their social/political and cultural pathologies. But such distinctions are vital; the notion or sentiment (it doesn't qualify as a coherent thought) that Hitler's program was Europe's alibi cannot be defended without recourse to its own programmatic deceits.

gary

Is no-one permitted to mention one genocide without mentioning all the others?

Slovakia paid the Nazis to remove their Jews before Slovakia was invaded. Hungary didn't need to be invaded - they willingly shipped their Jews off to work-camps. Vichy France ran their own extermination programme. Austria welcomed them.

They say , "we didn't do it." The Nazis are their alibi.

Michael B

You're permitted to comment as you like, gary. You're not necessarily permitted to comment without being replied to, rebutted and having context added to your commentary. That's how forums in the public square commonly work.

But why would you be reluctant - in the least, in any sense whatsoever - to "mention" those other genocides? Are they somehow deemed unworthy of "mention," much less for purposes of context and relevancy in general? It isn't as though I compared some minor tragedy to Hitler's holocaust. Or do you prefer Lenin's, Dzershinsky's, Stalin's and Kaganovich's mass murders and inhuman atrocities not to be "mentioned" at all?

Finally, no one argued that various and sundry others were not variously complicit, both in the holocaust specifically and in WWII more broadly conceived, but you indicted the entirety of Europe, also referring to "they" in much the same vein.

Is your own alibi ignorance, apathy or something else entirely? And who is "they," exactly?

GeoffM

Gary - take off your bigoted specs.

The Nazis were Europe's alibi?

If that was the case how come overwhelmingly more Christians died fighting the Nazi's than Jews?

My parents generation fought and died for the defeat of your tormentors - and now you spit in their eye?

Carry on like that mate and you may just get one more person who turns against the Jews.

You should learn some humility and gratitude towards those who have stood up and fought then - and continue to do so today. After all, where were the battalions of British and American Jews lining up to fight in 1939?

gary

Michael B

You're giving little slaps, nitpicking my words when they were obviously meant as traces of a general theme. If there's something important in *that* which you wish to disagree with please be more specific. If all you want is to spring-board off someone else's notes to deliver your own theories about something you think is related, please go ahead.

JSS

Geoff M -- Source for: "overwhelmingly more Christians died fighting the Nazi's [sic] than Jews?" ???

As to "where were the battalions of British and American Jews lining up to fight in 1939?" the answer is proportionately they were very well represented. On the other hand, Jews had fought for Germany in WW1 -- and look where THAT got them! So perhaps ayone with a heart (and who is not a pot head or too busy urinating all over the place) would understand that Jews might be a bit reluctant to join armies in which they are sometimes regarded as second-class citizens. Before, during or after the fact.

Michael B

There is no "theorizing" involved in what was forwarded, gary. Yurup, the Jooos, whatever, dude. If incoherence doesn't work, respond with a pretense of superiority? Iow, it's both, it's both apathy and a certain willful and studied ignorance. That mask of superiority makes for a poor alibi.

JIll

Ha ha! About time! Good for him, and good for the Israeli public that finally voted in a govt that can stand up for itself and knows what personal strength is!

long may it last!

JIll

JSS, Jews fought with the British in WW2, and there were Jewish soldiers in the US Army.

phil

geoff m ,gary et al it does no good when we argue amongst ourselves ,we have enough enemies as can be seen every day here .geoffs suggestions are sensible but the world does not want to see what is obvious to us ,Arab dollars and anti semitism are powerful .antidotes to common sense .
geoff I have to say my grandfather ,my father and my uncles all fought for this country as did so many other Jewish people from all over the world and no one will forget the sacrifices by all those that gave their lives for freedom regardless of their ethnic background .

Mongo

Hey pothead, you are funny.

"You'd have to have a heart of stone not to piss yourself laughing." Pot head."

Did you not mean that you need to have a STONED head in order to piss on yourself while laughing? Time to check into a rehab center closest to you.

shirley, israel

i've read most of your comments and i'm very pleased to see some support for israel. we certainly could use some right now...guess some europeans are not as ignorant as i thought...

Si, N

'The brilliance of this proposition'…

…are you for real? Lieberman has on behalf of the people of Israel declared war on the world and you consider that a brilliant proposition - no sane person would have expected anything but more aggro for the Palestinians - he made no secret about that - but if the word of the crooked Russian fascist is good, there's going to be one hellish ride for Israelis and Jews everywhere - and Phillips in her pique-ridden stupidity thinks that's brilliant. ?????

I despair