The double standard

Grumpy true Zionist

Toameh along with the irrepressible Caroline Glick (also of Latma fame) recently picked up some top awards in Israel in the journo world

He is greatly respected (read Glicks tribute to him) but i fear as a arab he is in the wilderness, as far as his arab comprades are

nearly couphed up my espresso at the mention of that kapo/that vansen... goldstone - may he continue to wander from shul to shul looking for a friendly face and never find one

Elizabeth

Watch how the United Nations Human Rights System empowered Libya's Colonel Gaddafi all these years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgNH6AHh6RE

Truthtriumphs

Yes, but the settlements are only a problem in the minds of those for whom Israel is itself a problem because, for them, there is no place for the Jews in the Middle East--- or anywhere.
I any case, the largest "settlements", like Gush Etzion, were Jewish owned in the 1920s, from where the Jews were driven by marauding Arab gangs, and have been re-taken by their rightful owners.

As Churchill observed, countries don't have friends, they have "interests".
That is why Israel, just like every other country, should not listen to false, so- called, friends, like Hague, but do what is in her best interests.

Greg

"Why doesn't someone syndicate Khaled abu Toameh throughout the western media?"

Because he doesn't fit the popular Western narrative.

Shaun Harbord

"Why doesn't someone syndicate Khaled abu Toameh throughout the western media?" Surely you could ask your employers at The Daily Mail that question and report back whatever answer you get.

devilfish13

Britain and France have drawn up a draft resolution with a package of measures aimed at isolating Libya's political and military leaders. It would have been stupid to table this while British citizens were still in the country. The 170 remaining expatriates are still of great concern, but I suspect that plans for their extraction from the desert are well advanced.

Elements of the resolution could include targeted sanctions, an arms embargo, and a proposed referral of the situation in Libya to the International Criminal Court.

Meanwhile,today, Prime Minister David Cameron made the strongest condemnation of the Gaddafi regime of any Western leader so far.

It doesn't make any sense to try and draw some comparison between the international communities view on the Arab revolution taking place across the Middle East, with Israel's continuing expansion of illegal settlements on the occupied West Bank.

Hewbroid

No country with a place on the security council, except the United States, has much interest in defending Israel over the settlements. That made an agreement really easy. Maybe the prospect of oil well in excess of $150 a barrel is motivating the reserve of the US and others where Libya is concerned. Anyway, Russia and China are always reluctant to criticize their fellow dictatorships. Where was the strategic interest in defending Mubarak's regime? Was the United states supposed to set itself against very widespread opposition in Egypt? And for what? Not very much.

Israel needs friends if it is to be secure. It should aim to be more explicitly integrated into the West's defensive alliances. Let it join NATO. Let there be a NATO base in the Negev. In return it should get out of the West Bank, settle with the Arabs, concentrate on economic expansion and bringing water to the Negev. Israel could be of strategic use to the West as as an economic dynamo bringing wealth and development to the whole area. It is not worth much as a military bulwark.

It is all really easy.

gareth

It's very worrying our own government is taking the soft EU/UN option when it has been so manifestly discredited in recent years. Hague is as hopelessly conflicted as his PC NewLab predecessors.

Carl

Angela Merkel told Netanyahu the truth: "You have not made a single step to advance peace".

Augustus

The death certificate of the Cold War came in 1989 when a spokesman for Michael Gorbachtev
replied unexpectedly to a question about the reforms going on in Hungary and Poland,
that the Sinatra Doctrine would now rule - a reference to the song 'My Way'. This wholly novel
doctrine had a domino effect and opened the way for the coming of democracy to the region. But today, the European Union, instead of seeking a doctrine to respond to the Arab revolutions, is tiptoeing around them. This non-doctrine
has neither name nor substance.
It has no name because of a glaring lack of leadership at all levels; in the capitals, where leaders are casting edgy
glances trying to avoid being the first to place the wrong bet on change; and in Brussels,
where Ashton has not wanted to risk a thing. This crisis could have been a chance for Ashton to prove herself, but the Baroness has accepted, with total submission, her fate as a
mere spokesperson for whatever the EU can unanimouly agree on.
There's not going to be any
'Ashton Doctrine' in this crisis. Nor is there any substance to this non-doctrine,
because our leaders want everything for nothing: Protest without disturbances, influence without interference, condemnation without sanctions,
help without risk, participation
without commitment, and on top of it all, these 'leaders', in
keeping with the hypocrisy that has guided the Union's behaviour until now, do not even bother to hide the fact what really worries them: Refugees and energy prices. Like the miracle of today's Coke without either sugar or caffeine, Europe has launched the Zero Doctrine: Changes for nothing in return.

Adam B.

Carl, Netanyahu instituted a settlement building freeze for several months, during which time the Palestinian Authority under the Holocaust denier Abbas dragged its feet in coming to the table. They then left the table as quickly as they came, despite Netanyahu offering to continue talks.

What steps has Abbas taken for peace? What about the Hamas administration in Gaza - what concessions have they offered?

A legal settler

@devilfish simply because you parrot the lie that the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria are illegal does not make them so. A lie is a lie and repeating it ad nauseum will not make it any more truthful.

blue_&_white_avenger

Augustus: "This crisis could have been a chance for Ashton to prove herself, but the Baroness has accepted, with total submission, her fate as a
mere spokesperson for whatever the EU can unanimouly agree on."
Do us a lemon - are you talking about that complete incompetent nonentity, the Baroness Cathy, the one who wants a whole raft of European embassies / ambassadors & the the whole troupe superimposed on exiting UK & EU dimplomats, the one who is going for a ME peace settlement by this Sept.
Do us a lemon; there are plenty of incompetent "statesmen " starting with Obama but this one is in a class of her own

Augustus

Blue & White Avenger - Totally agree with your assessment of the British EU Foreign Minister, but she's supposed to be the world's third most powerful woman (after Hillary Clinton and Angela Merkel), and
considering that both Germany and France have been trying their best to resist what they saw as Britain trying to dominate European foreign policy, it seemed a befitting opportunity to highlight a perfect example of situational irony. And there's another irony
to boot: Another Labourite, Harold Wilson, used to mock having to go cap in hand to "the gnomes of Zurich", but we now have in Rompuy and Ashton
truly the gnomes of Brussels.

Truthtriumphs

Carl
February 26th, 2011 10:18am
"Angela Merkel told Netanyahu the truth: "You have not made a single step to advance peace"."

Doesn't that demonstrate the sheer shamelessness, insensitivity and mendaciousness of the foremost representative of a country that just one generation ago committed an unparalled crime in the history of the world?
Merkel is simply condemning the surviving remnants of the Holocaust, and their descendants, as well as the sephardi Jews who escaped the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Arab countries, for trying to protect their miniscule homeland.
She has demonstrated that she, along with the other so-called European leaders, are interested only in a "peace" based on the surrender of the Jewish state.

Shame on her, and those who think like her.

She should be reminded of the old German aphorism:--

"Man tracht und Gott lacht".

AY

Carl

How do you explain the whole Arab world raising against dictators, sacrificing lives in thousands.. everywhere except PA and Israeli Arab sector? - ..these ones are supposed to be first victims of "Zionist genocide".

Here it is, an awful secret. Netanyahu doesn't need to make peace with Arabs because de-facto peace is already established. Israel is not at war with those, even yesterday enemies, who have stopped hostility.

Taking into account the schizophrenic nature of "Arab street" there, and meagre prespectives for political stability, the factual peace is the best available option. And Arabs quietly accept this.

Harry

AY, great point, beautifully said.

Reb Shlomo Silverstein

Dear Truthtriumphs,

"A mensch tracht un Got lacht"

is a an old Yiddish proverb, not a German one (or was this a joke?)

The makor (source) is is a pasuk in Sefer Mishlei (Proverbs)

רבות מחשבות בלב àéש ועöת ה' תקום

"Rabos machashovos belev ish veatzas Hashem Hi Sakum"

"There are many plans in the heart of man; but Hashem will do it His way!" [Mishlei 19:21].

Truthtriumphs

Reb Shlomo Silverstein
March 1st, 2011 8:40am
Dear Truthtriumphs,

"A mensch tracht un Got lacht"

is a an old Yiddish proverb, not a German one (or was this a joke?)

So it is, my apologies!
However, the language is German, and I've always, mistakenly, thought of it as a German saying.
Thanks for the correction.