The Petraeus briefing: Biden’s embarrassment is not the whole story

Policy and Generals?! The General wants more responsibilities and more power. The analysis based on reactions of Arab dictators and haters should be valid argument for US policy? This is highly debatable, at the least!

Hundreds Of Christians Killed In Nigeria While Biden Was In Jerusalem-Yet Media & Obama Spoke Only Of Jerusalem. It's Pathetic That The World Slams Israel For Every Action Yet Is Complacent When Radical Islam Spins Out Of Control In Countless Locations.

I believe that the USA is going to be hit and hit hard by a muslim gang

Only then will the USA realize that all muslims are a target

I hope that day comes very soon

Someone thinks we are being "complacent" about Islamic fundamentalism and security threats in the region and that the US government is constantly criticizing Israel but not the Palestinians? That's interesting given we are fighting two wars in the region and may end up fighting a third one in Iran if Israel [and some in the US] get their way. When exactly have we repeatedly criticized Israel? Did we criticize them after Cast Lead? Did we criticize them based on Goldstone? No, we worked with Abu Mazen and Israel to try to table it. Did we criticize Israel after they refused to halt settlements during peace negotiations? No, we didn't, we heralded their 10 month settlement freeze [with many exceptions- more of a thaw really] as "unprecedented"- a move which resulted in Abu Mazen threatening to step down and a complete breakdown of negotiations.

Of course the ongoing conflict fuels terrorism- we already know that but now we know that the US military is finally urging our political leadership to make the connection.

@ABU MCDONALD wrote:
"I believe that the USA is going to be hit and hit hard by a muslim gang
Only then will the USA realize that all muslims are a target
I hope that day comes very soon"

Replace "Muslim" with "Jew" (or any other racial group for that matter) in that sentence and realise what an ignorant and ugly person you have just revealed yourself to be.

If the Arabs didn't have all the oil, this would be a no-brainer for the US. But because we have to appease the Arabs in order to continue fueling our empire, we're going to turn our backs on Israel? That's the real military strategy at play. They have oil that we need so we have to do what they want even if that means turning our back on our allies.

The government of Israel employs hundreds of paid bloggers, to promote it's agenda on internet forums like this one. Don't get too worked up trying to argue with these fakers. It's their job 40 hours a week.

There are no treaties between the United States and Israel and the two nations are not legal allies. Historically the two nations share a warm relationship but there is no legal responsibilities for one another legally unlike a real U.S Ally like Canada for example.

Please, for the love of God please stop calling Israel an ally of the United States when no such treaties exist.

nah.. a really hot one..The USS Liberty attack makes it a red-hot relation-ship. The fires on the Liberty were not just warm.

General Petraeus either knows nothing about geopolitics or he was playing a role in a White House playbook. The General should stick to counterinsurgency. I a top secret tip for him: Neither the Iraqis, nor the Afghanis, nor the Pakistanis, nor the average Iranian really care about Israel and the Palestinians. The threat to American soldiers in Iraq and Af-Pak is coming from...IRAN!
The fraud of linking the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to everything Islamist, if not Iran, if not Arab, if not.... is not new with Petraeus. This fabricated "policy" was ennunciated by Rahm Emmanuel last year at an invitation-only dinner at AIPAC in WDC last year. Emmanuel asserted that the administration viewed Israel making "progress" with the Palestinians -- whatever that is, all considered -- as essential for the U.S. be able to deal with Iran on the nuclear Israel. Even the most arden Obama supporters in this office of numerous naive Jewish liberals were stunned by the audacity of such a cupiditous remark. Later it was "rationalized" with the "explanation" that Israel-Arab progress would make it easier for Arabs to back us, which is utter nonsense because the Arab leadership is horrified at the idea of a nuclear Iran. And the idea of "the Arab street" is a myth. Witness the underwhelming reaction to Isreal's aerial spanking several years ago of Syria's brand spanking new North Korean reactor.
There is nothing new about Petraeus' alleged term paper to the Joint Chiefs. If he did his high school research on the subject, the military has been squeamish about Israel since Truman recognized it. The military complained then that the U.S. needed Arab oil, not a Jewish state. George Marshall, the Secretary of State who had been a WW2 general, even threatened to resign if Truman recognized Israel. Truman did. Marshall didn't. General Petraeus needs to stick to counterinsurgency.
There are many objectionable if not obnoxious aspects to what Biden, Clinton -- and many of the responses hereto -- have stated. It would be nice if the U.S. as well as the Arabists on this website objected so strongly to the rockets and mortars hitting Israel, to the blood libels perpetrated in the Arab media, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinians, against Jews and Israel, as well as to the ongoing rejection of Israel as a Jewish state.
I find it difficult to object to Israel building more Jewish housing in East Jerusalem. Since 1967, when Israel annexed East Jerusalem, the Arab population and housing units has grown there tremendously. Biden and Clinton are essentially perpetrating a lie by objecting to Jewish housing in East Jerusalem. In fact, they are supporting an Apartheid policy against Jews.
In the final analysis, it is disconcerting in the extreme that Biden, Clinton -- as well as Petraeus and Obama -- are registering more concern over Jewish homes in East Jerusalem than they are about Iran steadily closing in on a nuclear gadget.
Those who object to the existence Israel, it's right of defense and justify the attacks against are warped and bigoted to begin with. They are merely the latest incarnation of an age-old problem that came to a climax with Hitler, Stalin and Mao but otherwise always has been and always will be. These people are fascistic in their soul. The object not to merely a tiny Jewish state. Israel is only mote in their eye, a bone in their throat. What they object to is a world where women, gays and people of different faiths are deemed equal. They don't merely hate our "way of life" and "liberty." They hate our equality. They have the same disease as any dictator or other utopian: They loathe what is different. They are so intolerant, they become mentally deranged enough to justify or even commit murder bombings, to jail people for a public kiss, to stone a woman over the mere accusation of "infidelity" -- to brutally demand that women conceal their identities from the world to begin with.
This is not about merely a Jewish state and Israel. This is about a sick obsession that the world be of one mind and a murderous will to impose it.
Biden, Cinton, et al. are merely blind to it as well as complicit in the cowardice not to confront it. Easier to pick on the little Jewish state.

The Taliban didn't invade the Swat Valley because a non-Arab built a rec room on their house in East Jerusalem. That's not the "Middle East situation," but instead, it's an absurd theory that Muslims have used convincingly for power projection. "Devout" Pakistanis don't need an occasion to throw acid in a woman's face (the subject of a whole Wikipedia article, no less), or to rape a Christian toddler (Baby Neeha). Again, shari'a law lacks the very notion of moral responsibility, because it conflicts with the Qur'anic doctrine of predestination, so Muslims cannot be expected, under their cosmic jurisprudence, to behave in the way that Western secular democracies hope for. Given this, the concept of a quid pro quo - fewer suicide bombings in return for fewer Jews in the ancestral Jewish capital, fewer Muhammad cartoons, etc. - is idiotic, since it incorrectly assumes that the allegedly monolithic "Muslim world" has a negotiator who can enforce such a bargain. When secular governance in any Arab or Muslim country is besieged by innumerable Ikhwan, Al-Qa'eda, and local shar'ia factions (viz. Lebanon and Yemen), the writing on the wall should be crystal clear for the US - jihad is a free-for-all, and a Qur'anic virtue, and foreign policy will never change that.

You need to get out of your blog world and get a clue about the ground reality. In all the Arab countries, Iran Pakistan and Afg, Palestinian issue is a major concern. Injustice by the west is the key slogan these militants recruiter use. It is getting impossible for the moderates in the Muslim world to support the west because what is going on in Iraq and Israeli occupied land

Gen Patreaus is absolutely right; when Govts of these Muslim countries, tell him how we can we tell our people to support US troops, when they see images of US standing shoulder by shoulder with the "butcher of ME".

Last Year’s killing of 1400 people in the enclosed camp by Israeli Forces marks yet another genocide by Israel. People will not forget the images of children being shot at point blank…, Refugees camp being attacked with US made phosphorous bombs... all of this committed by the Israel using US weapons.

How do you expect US to get support in the Muslim countries? A clear and decisive resolution to the Palestinian problem is the only solution for Israelis, Palestinians and for us.

What a laugh. Arabs and Muslims around the world have over a trillion dollars to finance terrorists in Africa, South America, Europe, etc. And you're going to tell that Israel is financing bloggers?

Speaking of paid polemics, the 6 volumes of hadiths were paid for by the Abbasid governors of the Caliphate, but they're still heralded as the immutable word of an all-knowing god. I don't think anyone needs to be paid to write their opinion - everyone has an opinion.

Right, the US has its legal, "strategic" regional ally in the form of Turkey. Mind you, this is the same "strategic" NATO ally that refuses to concede that the Ottoman Caliphate ethnically cleansed Armenians from Anatolia, and even attempted to cash their insurance policies with MetLife and other carriers. Yet the US acts as those Turkey were a superpower and not, in reality, just a textile-exporting commodity node in the global economy. What is worse, and especially outrageous, given the fate of non-Muslims in the Ottoman Caliphate, is that NATO has not yet expelled Turkey from the security body. Not only did the Turks give the Soviets flyover permission to resupply the Egyptians and Syrians during the Yom Kippur War against Israel, they also refused NATO countries flyover rights to subdue Saddam Hussein's government, and have most recently begun actively sharing intelligence with Iran. In essence, the Turks have refused to be useful to NATO at every juncture for cooperation, resolving instead to aid and abet the enemy. When one considers the historical memory of the Ottomans' jizya poll tax on non-Muslims enforced through the 1900s, their 1770 law promulgating execution for Greek, Armenian, and Jewish curfew-breakers, and the massacres of Christians accompanying the conquest of Constantinople, we are also reminded that shari'a law lacks the very notion of moral responsibility (as it conflicts with the Qur'anic doctrine of predestination), and can better understand the Turks' designs for us under the AK Party's reign. Law-makers in every democracy, that ostensibly seek guidance from notions of right and wrong, should not flinch from recognizing the Armenian genocide, and expelling Turkey from NATO as an enemy mole. But oh! Those poor Palestinians! The fates of Kurds, Armenians, and non-Muslims simply pales in comparison to what our poor, darling Palestinian Arabs have to endure: cradle-to-grave living stipends courtesy of the UNRWA, cash payments to the families of suicide bombers, and the affection of every ex-colonial power seeking to absolve its white guilt. Thank goodness for our "legal" allies, like Turkey and Germany, who of course would never, ever, do anything evil to their own citizens.

From a Gaza war journal during Operation Cast Lead: "There war empty beds at Shifa Hospital and a threatening atmosphere. Hamas is reduced to wielding its unchallengeable authority from extensive air raid shelters which, together with the hospital, were built by Israel 30 years ago. Terrorized Gazans used doublespeak when they told me most of the alleged 5,500 wounded were being treated in Egypt and Jordan. They want it known that the figure is a lie, and showed me that the wounded weren't in Gaza. No evidence exists of their presence in foreign hospitals, or of how they might have gotten there." -Pallywood at its finest. And from Time Magazine: "According to the [Jerusalem] Post, the CLA said '580 of these 1,200 had been conclusively 'incriminated' as members of Hamas and other terrorist groups.' The CLA said 300 were 'non-combatants'--women, men over 65 and children aged 15 and under. The CLA said the remaining 320 were all men, and estimated that two-thirds were 'terror operatives,' the Post said. By this count, according to the CLA, one-third of the Palestinian death toll were civilians--not the two-thirds claimed by the PCHR." The Cast Lead casualties have been listed by name, and the IDF has UAV camera footage of its strikes against rocket-launching crews to substantiate Hamas and Islamic Jihad's share of the body count. Arabs have never been on the receiving end of genocide, so don't you dare bandy about that word in regard to your dead Hamas shaheed brothers.

While it's nice to see that the Pentagon is finally realizing that supporting Israel is bad for US soldiers, I have to say first what took you so long and secondly this article doesn't go far enough.
Re-establishing Israel in the middle of a region that hates Jews was of course one of the worst post WW II decisions of all time. King Saud warned Roosevelt that this would be a terrible decision. Roosevelt made a deal with the King that Saudi Arabia would give the US the rights to develop the Kingdoms vast oil resources in turn for Roosevelt's promise that before any decision was made to re-establish Israel in the region, that Roosevelt would consult with King Saud. Shortly after, Roosevelt died before this deal was put in writing and in 47/48 Britain in concert with the US and the UN voted to give Israel it's own state. Wars immediatly ensued and in 1973 Saudi Arabia and other Arab members of OPEC got their chance to get back at the US for there part in making the country of Israel a reality. Oil embargoes were implemented and the 1973 oil crisis was initiated.
I mention this because it is important to know and I'll bet most of our leaders have no idea of the history behind the troubled past, present, and most likely future of Israel's position in the middle east even though this is History 101 stuff.
Further, Israel is doing to the Palestinians what Hitler did to the Jews during WW2. Harsh words but very true. The Palestinians have had everything taken from them, their land, their jobs, and their lives. How would you feel and what would you do if you lived in Palestinian territory and there was 90% unemployment? How would you feel is Israeli soldiers routinely killed your children with sniper rifles because those children threw rocks at an armoured personnel carrier? Why do we support a country that takes away Palestinian land, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? The awnser is so we can have a "friend" in the region to who we can sell our multi-billion dollar war machine.
To the author of this article, our Pentagon leaders, and our president, yes of course our soldiers are in trouble for supporting Israel at the expense of Arab lives. But further, when we support Israel we support murder of innocents. Do you hear that Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden? Tell the Israeli Lobby to STFU and do what is right. That's a change I can believe in.

The US and UK happily supported the Iraqi dictator. During his reign of terror he gassed, tortured and murdered ethnic groups and any opposition. The US led attack on Iraq was not an attempt to 'subdue' but to destroy a country which was no longer a client state and a threat to regional allies (Saudi Arabia/Israel). It is now a compliant ally.

For Petraeus to basically blame Israel for American combat deaths is an unconscionable scapegoating of a loyal ally. Maybe the general should stick to military tactics and leave the geopolitical analysis to those with more talent in that area.

Perhaps the general has forgotten (or never knew about) the fact that the Israelis warned the U.S. of an impending attack using airplanes, months before 9/11. Furthermore, in the months leading up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Israel warned Bush that it was Iran and not Iraq that was the real regional threat.

Obviously, Israel's efforts were wasted--yet had the U.S. heeded the advice of its close friend and ally, an ally that understands the Middle East far better than the State Department--then thousands of American lives might have been spared.

Instead, we are treated to this sort of topsy-turvy bizarro logic wherein all the troubles of the Muslim world can be laid at Israel's doorstep, and combat deaths of Americans stationed in that part of the world are ultimately blamed on Israel.

I used to think Petraeus might make a good addition to the White House as secretary of state or similar office. No longer do I feel that way.

Religion, history, culture, economics, and respect are significant factors in Arab attitudes towards the West, and perhaps are greater influences on the generation of hostility than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. To exclude complicating nuances and to over-simplify the situation does more harm than good. By pinning our problems from Iraq and Afghanistan to North Africa on one single issue is reductionist and fallacious. Our government and leaders need to do the real hard work of sifting through the immensely complicated issues, and not devolve to over-simplifications. I know of no other similarly complicated and far-reaching situation-- political, economic, or societal—that is placed on the shoulders of one group or nation. To say, therefore, that a single state, namely Israel, is to blame raises my suspicions about motivations. It has also been a long standing practice of Arab leaders to “address” internal discontent by re-directing that mass anger towards Israel. Knowing this, therefore, it seems imprudent and disingenuous for our political and military leaders to validate that process by embracing the same idea that on Israel lays the problem and solution.

Generals are not supposed to make policy, but they can make policy input. Who's better informed about the situation on the ground than they are? It's a thin line, but Petreaus has shown that he knows his politics too and so he's not going to cross it. But I see nothing wrong with his making this assessment. You can dispute the merits of this arguments but the commander of a huge strategic region briefing his superiors on some of the external issues affecting the war he's been charged to wage seems normal and overdue.

As for the argument about listening to Arab dictators over allies that sounds weak and myopic. At least on the question of Israeli-Palestinian conflict most Arabs are on the same page with their dictatorial governments. And besides most of these dictators governments are pro-west or not hostile at least--excepting Iran.

What's to get? If the Arabs didn't have oil we wouldn't give a crap what they think. I don't even if the have the oil. They support terrorism here and abroad. The are archaic in their outlook on women, class, and religion. Our men and women put their lives on the line during the Gulf War and they could not display a Red Cross, have Jewish religious services and the women service personnel were unable to work in t shirts. What exactly do we owe the Arabs. Nothing at all. We should have let the Iraqis roll over them. They should be giving us oil for free forever even if they paid for part of the cost of the war. We saved their useless butts and now they want to dictate our foreign policy. Long Live Israel.

What is the point in an alliance? Hmm? An alliance is made when it is mutually beneficial for both parties to work together. When it no longer becomes mutually beneficial it should be terminated, our alliance with Israel should be no exception.

Israel's belligerence threatens our strategic interest in the region and if it wishes to continue doing so then it can look for a new benefactor as far as I am concerned. I am hard pressed to think what benefit we, America, gain from this relationship any more.

As the saying goes, there are no permanent friends or permanent enemies, just permanent interests.

Generals should understand that all Palestinian people's problems can be solved in two weeks by very simple way. Arab countries should first unconditionally honestly recognize Israel.
Then Israel will recognize all Palesinians rights. But Arabs did not do it more than 60 years and never will do it. They actually sacrifice prosperity and future of Palestinian people for sake of destraction of Israel.

Blaming Israel stupid. Israel freed Gaza and what?

Open for discussion,
Omar

Totally agree, replace "Muslim" with "Jew" and try to read, if you can.

At least you've helped me stay cool-minded on these heart-less people. Thank you!

But isn't it just as likely that the severe rebukes issued by Washington to Israel over the past few days are likely to enhance Obama's image in the Arab world - an image, remember, which has become just a little tarnished since the glory days of last June and his Cairo speech addressed to Muslims everywhere? Won't it be seen as demonstrating that America might indeed be an honest broker when it does eventually come to sitting down at a negotiating table? It's far from all bad news, General Petraeus.
Neville Teller
http://a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com/

Ladies and Gentleman
I came across this forum by pure accident and I saw a rare oportunity to relay a message of wisdom to all concerned on such a very important issue which is the Middle East problem and at the core of it The Palestinian / Israeli Conflict.
First I would like to give a brief background about my self. I am off Jordanian prominant family with a christian background my family is very much involved in the politics and economy in the country, B.A in political science,with very moderate views on all issues.
I am not going to take us back to the roots of the Palestinan/Israeli conflict but to The Arab Israeli Peace Process which in my mind as an educated well informed moderate arab was a golden opportunity to end all the pain that Arabs and Jews are suffering from,but now after a decade and more of this Alleged Peace Process the situation is becoming worse and WE AS MODERATES are Pulling Back as there is no realistic on the ground results to solve the issue and we cant defend it any more and losing ground to extremists we need help and its not coming.My message is a message of peace , Arabs ,Jews,Christians,Bhudists,Athiasts,We just want to live in peace but we are not having it because of the very complicated history of the region combined with the wealh of Oil Etc and the
all the Relegions that originated in this tiny part of the world.If we are not Prudent and open minded we will all fall in the hands of those people who still believe in ancient myths and legends which will lead to the destruction of all what humanity achived ie EXTREMISTS and I am talking here about EXTREMISTS from all sides of the conflict lets become wise and catch the train as HUMANS before its too late ,We should give consessions to each other and live in this part of the world which have suffered enough through its long history of conflicts going back to thousands of years WE WANT TO LIVE NORMALLY LIKE EVERY BODY ELSE MOSLEMS CHRISTIANS JEWS but it seems we cant as Moderates achieve that goal.So this is a message of peace and a call for help to the MODERATES BEFORE WE ARE EXTINT LIKE THE DINOSAURS.
Please escuse me if there is any spelling mistakes .
Kind Regards to all

You do realize that Europe and Asia get more oil from the Middle East than the US right? Infact they get a majority of the oil that comes out of that region.....

From Commentary Magazine's "Contentions" Weblog:
March 25, 2010

From the Horse’s Mouth: Petraeus on Israel

By Max Boot

Back on March 13, terrorist groupie Mark Perry — a former Arafat aide who now pals around with Hamas and Hezbollah — posted an article on Foreign Policy’s website, claiming that General David Petraeus was behind the administration’s policy of getting tough with Israel. He attributed to Petraeus the view that “Israel’s intransigence” — meaning its unwillingness to give up every inch of the West Bank and East Jerusalem tomorrow — “could cost American lives.” His item received wide circulation though it may be doubted whether, as he now says, “It changed the way people think about the conflict.”

I tried to set the record straight with two Commentary items (see here and here) in which I suggested, based on talking to an officer familiar with Petraeus’s thinking, that Perry’s item was a gross distortion —in fact a fraud. I noted that in Petraeus’s view, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process was only one factor among many affecting U.S. interests in the region and that Israeli settlements were far from the only, or even the main, obstacle to peace. I even suggested — again, based on inside information — that the 56-page posture statement that Central Command had submitted to Congress, which stated that the Arab-Israeli conflict “foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel,” was not the best indicator of his thinking. Better to look at what he actually told Congress — in a hearing he barely mentioned Israel (until prompted to do so) and never talked about settlements at all.

This brought hoots of derision from commentators on both the Left and the Right, who claimed that I was putting words into Petraeus’s mouth — that I was, in Joe Klein’s phrase, taking a “flying leap.” Predictably piling on were Andrew Sullivan, who said I was “glossing over” what Petraeus said, and Robert Wright, who claimed that, “by Boot’s lights, Petraeus is anti-Israel.” Diana West added a truly inventive spin, by suggesting that Petraeus was a protégé of Stephen Walt, who was his faculty adviser many years ago at Princeton before the good professor won renown as a leading basher of the “Israel Lobby” and the state of Israel itself. It was from Walt, Ms. West claims, that Petraeus imbibed his “Arabist, anti-Israel attitudes.”

So who was off-base here: those of us who tried to explain the nuances of General Petraeus’s thinking or those bloggers and commentators who tried to suggest that he is a strident critic of Israel?

The answer has now been publicly provided by Petraeus himself in a speech in New Hampshire. Watch it for yourself. A good summary is provided by the American Spectator’s Philip Klein, who was present at the event and asked Petraeus to clarify his thinking.

The general said that it was “unhelpful” that “bloggers” had “picked … up” what he had said and “spun it.” He noted that, aside from Israel’s actions, there are many other important factors standing in the way of peace, including “a whole bunch of extremist organizations, some of which by the way deny Israel’s right to exist. There’s a country that has a nuclear program who denies that the Holocaust took place. So again we have all these factors in there. This [Israel] is just one.”

What about Perry’s claim that American support for Israel puts our soldiers at risk? Petraeus said, “There is no mention of lives anywhere in there. I actually reread the statement. It doesn’t say that at all.”

He concluded by noting that he had sent to General Gabi Ashkenazi, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, the “blog by Max Boot” which, he said, had “picked apart this whole thing, as he typically does, pretty astutely.”

I hope Petraeus’s comments will put an end to this whole weird episode. Those who are either happy or unhappy about the administration’s approach to Israel should lodge their compliments or complaints where they belong — at the White House, not at Central Command.

--Posted By Max Boot - 03.25.2010 - 12:11 PM

Copyright © 1997-2009 Commentary Magazine
All Rights Reserved

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/boot/265971

http://www.infowars.com/israel-recruits-army-of-bloggers-to-troll-anti-war-websites/

you gave yourself up in the first non-sentence

Petraeus is stating the obvious. Israel's brutal and expansionist actions matter a very great deal in the Middle East. Our soldiers (and business people for that matter) are forced to walk those streets every day.
More over, I just cannot see giving Israel billions and billions, year after year, to build illegal homes, when millioms of Americans are losing theirs and American schools are closed.

"All Muslims are a target"?! All 1.3 billion? This sounds suspiciously like 1933 Germany. What an uproar today if anyone dared to say "All Jews are a target." I believe that is vilified as hate speech," right?

Posing as serious discussants, their flagrant disinformation is unlikely to fool anyone. Too bad they can't find honest work, but economies are weak everywhere.

Allies? Are you aware of Israel's attack on the USS Liberty in 1967, killing 34 American sailors and injuring 172, followed by an unconscionable cover-up by the US gov't orchestrated by Admiral John McCain Sr., the only incident of being attacked without retaliation in U.S. history? Moshe Dayan, who later admitted ordering the attack, once said that Israel must be perceived as "a mad dog" too dangerous to confront.

Israel has certainly followed Dayan's model. After committing 33 massacres during the Nakba, Israel has committed another 29 to date, and many thousands of Palestinians have paid the ultimate price for our indulgence and intimidation by their Lobby. Mad dogs must be caged (what Benny Morris prescribed, ironically, for the Palestinians), and Israeli writer Michel Warschawski in his book "Toward an Open Tomb" describes how Israel is caging and isolating itself from the world behind its wall and its posture as Fortress Israel, imprisoning itself in another ghetto of its own making.

So resistance to Israel's brutal invasion of their land is "terrorism" to which the Palestinian people of Gaza are not entitled? Aggressive war is illegal under international law, defined by the Nuremberg Tribunal as "the supreme international crime." Every Gazan killed, with or without their pathetic, very light weapons of resistance against an overwhelming military juggernaut, was a war crime, as was every Iraqi killed by the US. Both US and Israeli leaders need to be carted off to the Hague.

US taxpayers are not subsidizing the crimes of other states, only those of Israel, and as outraged taxpayers we must put a stop to it.

What is the bravo for? He spoke with Arab leaders (who want to see Israel gone) and they bad mouth Israel and tried to hurt its strategic relationships with the USA. This is so obvious! So now we should follow Arab leaders' wishes as the US policy? Peace is a good cause and peace between Israel and Palestinians is good, but not as a tactical move to eliminate Israel off the face of the earth! Sorry General Petraeus, the observations that Arab leaders will blame Israel is so expected and so trivial (and the General has a Ph.D. in International Relationships and should know better than that). Policy is a complicated thing and this view is so simplistic.

I'm all for having a country for jews. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you shove millions of arabs living in and around jerusalem aside and establish a country for jews right in the middle of arab population based on some 2000 yr so called old rule book, you are asking for trouble. Ofcourse 300 million arabs in that region, 200 million iranians, and more than a billion muslims around that world will consider Israel an enemy in addition to some sensible westerners.

American people have to decide if they want to support just a handful of trouble-making jews or 1.5 billion people opposed to the existence of israel itself. Gen. Petraeus is just standing on the very tip of the iceberg of frustration building up in that region over the decades. 9/11 and other terrorism-related acts are just a side-effect of that frustration. Now that israel exists, it needs to be tamed. Letting it run around like a wild animal is not the way to go.

Why would the "Arab leaders" of Egypt and Jordan want "to see Israel gone"? Their massive bribes to collaborate with Israel (some $3 billion/year, effectively doubling Israel's allowance) courtesy of US taxpayers would become unnecessary and placed in jeopardy.

The FP "update" now says that the Petraeus story is false ... so who knows??

But if the story were true it would mean that Obama is the poodle of the Arab world, not of the Israelis ...

Only because of the Israeli diplomatic blunder has the MSM reluctantly considered the linkage between unconditional US support of Israel and the endangering of US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan - if not for the blunder, this would have been ignored.

Among countless examples of the MSM ignoring the danger that Israel causes to US interests, the most egregious is the excising of the part of OBL's post -9.11 speech where he connects 9.11 to Israel's brutal mistreatment of the Palestinians.

If this linkage had received wide dissemination, would the average American unconditionally support Israel?

When outsiders who have no dog in the fight cry bloody murder over Israel distributing leaflets before bombing a terrorist hideout, yet willfully ignore such crimes against humanity like Hafez Assad's 1982 scorched-earth massacre of 30-40,000 civilians in the town of Hama, or Indonesia's 1965 jihad-nationalist massacre of over 300,000 citizens of Chinese descent, or the state-sanctioned torture and raping of thousands of Iran's non-violent protesters, there are two potential reasons: 1. these outsiders are pseudo-intellectuals who believe anything they read, and tend to read headlines rather than books, and have a sweet spot for the 21st century's "spiritual" noble savages and freedom fighters; or 2. these outsiders have theories that determine their observations, where their willful ignorance is predicated on a political or pseudo-theological doctrine akin to Sartre's cover-up of Stalin's GULag camps or Ratzinger's cover-up of Catholic priests' sodomizing of little boys, and who use both scrutiny and apathy as weapons. The second type's incorrigible worldview makes them, in the case of their double standards against Israel, a Israel-hater or Jew-hater. The first type can probably be shown a less skewed view of reality by reading and asking critical questions of both sides. For them, they can regain a balanced view of Israelis and a first-hand understanding of Muslims by reading the following: "Why I Am Not a Muslim" by Ibn Warraq, "Foxbats over Dimona" by Isabella Ginor & Gideon Remez, "A History of Palestine, 634-1099" by Moshe Gil, "A History of Israel" by Howard Sachar, and of course, the Qur'an and the 6 "authentic" collections of hadiths (by multiple authors employed by the Abbasids). In the meantime, to claim that Israel is not scrutinized is to ignore most of the headlines you've obviously read, ignore the widely distributed "Pallywood" hoaxes like Muhammad Al-Dura's murder, ignore the subject of hundreds of UN resolutions at the behest of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, and thus, amounts to willful ignorance, which is a form of propaganda itself.

umm well wrong and wrong! Sorry, but I guess you got the picture upside down. The Israeli settlements are NOT being built on Israeli land (actually that's why they are called settlements not cities or towns), and the Palestinians are NOT allowed to build houses on their own lands (C areas - look it up).

Makes more sense now, right?