I am content to leave it to the reader whether or not you have fairly and accurately summarized my position.
But you make one point worth noting: how many times, you ask, must Israel offer the hand of peace and have it refused, how many blows must she take without answering?
The glib answer would be “As many as it takes”. The truthful answer is, I don’t know, I did not consider this an issue to be answered by quantifying. One blow, two, three? It would have to depend upon the nature of the blows, wouldn’t it?
And, as I’m sure you know, you wildly mischaracterize my suggestion as saying that Hamas would be privileged to rain down death and terror on Israel as long as it pleases. But, of course, if you believe wildly imaginative slander is a persuasive form of argument, you are welcome to it.
But to clarify to anyone confused by you: what I mean by “taking the last blow”. In any conflict, if it ends, there is a last blow struck. Between America and Japan, it would likely be Nagasaki. But does anyone remember the last blow struck by the IRA against England and the Protestants? If peace can be achieved, does it matter?
Peace will be achieved only with patience, humanity, and courage, qualities Israel has in abundance. Who else, then, can lead? The bitterness and fanatical resentment of Palestinians for their fate is a flame that you have tried to drown with gasoline for two generations now. It isn’t working. Time to try something else.
I wholly concur that this thread is long. But is it “very” long? That it is quite a different matter. Websters Online Dictionary defines “very” as…hey, quit shoving…defines “very” as…hey, man, uncool!..stop that!..
Ahhh, the good old “Sure the facts show I’m wrong, but I’m willing to let other people put the facts against my claims” gambit.
By the way, it’s generally a rather odd tactic to deny something, and then confirm it right away.
You’ve claimed it’s a “mis-characterization” to state that you’ve demanded that Hamas be allowed limitless attacks against Israel without any degree of self defense. Then when pressed on it… you still can’t name a limit.
Name the limit. Go for it.
If it’s not “as long as it pleases”, when does your rhetoric stop and you say “my big Friend Israel can defend itself.” What’s the limit? Obviously, nothing that’s come so far has reached that limit, so it’s somewhere past what we’ve ever seen, ever. So if there’s some sort of limit it’s pretty damn massive.
Or is it, in fact, limitless and you cannot name any actual limit?
Go ahead, quit this nonsense about “slander” and prove that you’re right. Identify the limit and we can discuss that, rather than your clearly limitless demand while you argue that it’s not limitless, it’s just got no limit.
And yet again your argument just happens to ignore all the Israeli peace proposals that came in the face of violence. But, you certify, all your Friend Israel has to do to meet your demands is to offer peace in the face of violence and then after a point (really, there is a limit!) Israel can defend itself. Explain, then, why all the times Israel has done that don’t count?
Because if you’ll disregard all the times Israel has been attacked and still offered peace (while you demand that Israel “sooner or later” do that), and if you demand that Israel accept a limitless number of attacks from Hamas (while saying that really there’s a limit past which Israel can respond, you are just completely unable to state what that limit is.) Well…
**elucidator **and FinnAgain, you are both off topic and getting too close to personal insults.
Knock it off.
= = =
EVERYONE, this thread appears to have outlived its usefulness. Everyone has until tomorrow morning (my time, and I will determine when that is), to get in their last digs, then I am closing this thread. It is no longer about the original topic and it is taking way too much of the staff’s time to babysit you folks.
Reality has an anti-Israel Bias. I think that’s what T’nD means.
Anything will do, so long as there is no such thing as plain stand alone atrocity on the part of Israel. There’s no crime so grave that many of T’nD’s generation won’t give a dispensation for Israel, usually by inventing an equal and opposing crime by its enemies, as here. Lord alone knows what infected that generation so, they certainly won’t talk about it.
I don’t see this. Involvement in the ME in general, yes. Preserving a military relationship with Turkey, its main democratic ally in the Middle East, yes.
But there’s nothing so rational in this Israel folly. To the contrary it’s a strategic liability, a drag on progress, chain-anchored to the Israel lobby.
Don’t bother starting a new thread, folks. Let’s wait for Flotilla II: Float Harder. The one with what’s his name on it. Let some of the heat die down, okay?
But what is the truth? I read reports all the way from Gaza is a spa-like summer camp with banana daquiris served beachside, to its a living hell that makes Calcutta slums look like the Hamptons! Somebody, surely, is lying. Who to trust?
So, I think, well Doctors Without Borders has a pretty good rep, I’ll google… Bunch of references to Israeli sources insisting that they’re in cahoots with the terrorists.
Its not that I find that hard to believe. Its that I find that real hard to believe.
But what about the people who find that easy to believe? What objective source can I offer them for evidence?
Not sure what tribe it is, exactly, that you belong to, but while alleging that every Jew in American politics whose name you can remember (including a Greek Orthodox man who got included in the list somehow) are potential Jewish Traitors because their names sound Jewish to you and they’re in politics… well, it’s somewhat curious that you find a need to mock Jews by joking about how you’re one of them. Something tells me you might not enjoy the accusation that you’re a potential traitor because of your ethnicity. Of course, that seems to be the point.
That and, of course, using a token Jew to support your anti-Israel positions is odd in and of itself. One wonders what you’re trying to suggest about your ideas, or what you’re trying to avoid, by pointing out “Oh oh oh, and a Jew agrees, too!” But tokenism is funny that way.
Of course, that too seems to be the point.
