I do very much have to sympathize with the Palestinians who have been driven from their homeland by a claim of rightful ownership that goes back thousands of years. Technically all of America belongs to the Indians who had an unchallenged claim to it until just a few centuries ago. Well, I guess with the exception of Manhattan Island, which we paid for. Of course, I'm not willing to give my land back to the Indians either. But neither do I pontificate about it being mine.

Sixty percent of historical Palestine is now in Jordan. Israelis and Palestinians are fighting over the other 40. Of course, Palestinian Arabs have never had self-government, or any aspects of a culture, language, literature or any other "national" identity until the craetion of Israel. Isaeli "occupation" of the West Bank followed Jordanian occupation, which must have been idyllic, since nobody complained then. Also, in fairness, how about a word about the Jewish refugees from Arab countries, who numbered almost as many as the Palestinian refugees. Why are the great-great-grandchildren of one group still in camps, while the other group were absorbed as citizens of a democracy?
Cui bono? And how about right of return for those Jews?

Israel should be kicked in the ass for not providing security for Carter. I'm not sure you can find any rational American that wouldn't condemn this act by Israel.

What the hell is wrong with that Government?

Bush and his lacky Condi Rice should be putting out press releases condemning this irresponsible behavior by Israel.

The Israelis dislike Carter intensely. This shows up in the polls. He is the most disliked of all US presidents. There can be only one reason. He somehow forced Israel to withdraw from the Sinai. This was an extremely unpopular move among the more militant Zionists. It is also why keeping the settlements remains popular within Israel. Even if some polls show about half of the population supporting 'land for peace', it is the other half the militancy and fanaticsm that moves West Bank annexation policies.

Judging from past experience, who is going to protect Carter from an itchy fingered IDF sniper? He might be safer if the IDF stays home.

Iain Hook comes to mind. Questions were asked then 'Why did an Israeli soldier shoot a British official in the back?'

Wow. Do you think they're really punishing Carter for meeting with Hamas or is this still blowback from Carter's use of the term "apartheid" last year?

"On the other hand, when remarks are thrown around implying that Jews have no national rights in Israel..."

I've always understood statehood and sovereignty to mean the ability to defend one's own borders.

If Israel relies on the U.S. for aid money ($3 billion annually) to fund their defense are they really sovereign?

In regards to Zionism - if its a religious belief (as I understand it) and one doesn't believe it - why is that 'antisemitism'?

This concerns me deeply (as an atheist) that we are declaring one state's religious belief 'protected' in such a way that we must believe it also.

Bush has installed a lot of Christian-Zionists into the government - and I don't think they are pandering, I think many of them truly believe it.

Perhaps weirdly, life under the Jordanian government was, relatively speaking, idyllic.

The Hashemite monarchy doesn't give the Palestinian majority in Jordan full democratic rights, but it treats them really quite well, and responds to their concerns much of the time -- idyllic compared to the apartheid / murder-of-innocents treatment they get in the Israel-occupied territories. And much the same relatively-decent treatment was true when the West Bank was under Jordanian control. (Notably, for comparison, the inhabitants of Gaza were, by the accounts I've read, *much* less happy with their Egyptian overlords than the inhabitants of the West Bank were with their Jordanian rulers.)

Given the information we receive in the media, the average American would have to conclude the settlements are a very popular thuing with widespread public support. Yet, you say (and I believe you) that they really are not so popular

MJ is overly optimistic. The settlements have very strong support within Israel. They include:
the 400000 settlers, about 8% of the population.
the recent Russian immigrants. About 10%.
The Sephardim- 10 -20% ??
The ultraorthodox ?
Plus the sabra and ashkensai that form the Likud base.

Opposed to this are the Tel Aviv suburbs that may oppose the settlements but do not do so with with the same passion that the prosettlement people feel.

Basically, politcally, Israel supports the settlements. That is their right. Why should the US continue to expend our military resources fighting wars on behalf a such a dysfunctional country?

The apartheid language troubled me a lot less after a bit of travel around the Territories. Still, it's inapt and inflammatory -- and I think Carter meant it to be. This struggle is about land, not dominance. Israel doesn't need or want cheap Arab labor. The occupation is a means of gaining control over land for zealous minority and security belt against terror for the ambivalent middle. MJ presents a pretty rosy scenario of the security Israelis live in, but as the era of advanced asymetrical warfare unfolds, fueled by the long arm of Iran (whose goals are clearly stated), being the fourth-biggest military power in the world (?) may not be all that useful. Still, the only long-term way forward is like South Africa: strike a deal with the folks on the other side who believe in the future instead of the past then repress the hell out of the rest. Hacking away at the tentacles of settlement enterprise would be a good place to start.

Does the apartheid analogy offend you? Sorry, Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu agree. They honor the Jews who fought with them against white rule, like Joe Slovo and Ronnie Kasrils, but they were Communists, not Zionists. But they also know that Israel collaborated with the white regime.

Who else has warned of Israel going the South African route if the window for a two-state closes? That lefty anti-Semite Ehud Olmert, that's who.

If anything, Carter was being too mild by saying the apartheid label only applies in the territories. The Arab citizens of Israel have many rights, but the state is defined as not theirs. The Law of Return is based on blood, not religious observance, so it does have a "racial" aspect, even if it applies to Ethiopian Jews as much as Russians.

The settlements, and mainstream Israel's refusals to confront them, make a viable two-state solution impossible. The one-state alternative will spell the end of Israel.

Israel is a failed state, founded on a flawed premise.

If the settlements remain, hope for a two-state solution will disappear and Israel will have the dubious distinction of declaring their Jewish minority as the apartheid rulers over their pseudo-democracy.

The country will be neither Jewish nor democratic.

Moving forward a bit

It's likely that voters in the coming US presidential election will think a bit more holistically, more macro when considering the serious character assessment of their candidate, this time.

It's desperate times for both the US economy, and US social stabilty.

US families are very worried about their future, under the present US administration and historically, voters in similar collective mindsets have gone for the hopeful change, usually despite massive fear bombardment about change, by the self-professed learned rich incumbents and their lot.

Obama is the hopeful change this time.

Commentators who focus on the micro contradictory utterances of candidates , normally find it difficult to fathom logically the simplicity of a collective public perception, one that sees differently and prevails, just because it’s “the time to happen”.

Obama has that simple "Macro" honesty energy necessary for successful change to happen around him.

He is courageously building his public personna to be more than the sum of it's parts; to put it lyrically.

It will take a very big and often repeated gaff to stop him now.

Obama has consistently shown enough guts to move off message a bit, nearly always going on to wing it in his talks, and he is progressively building this into political momentum.

He seems able to fight single-handedly against all the massive contra spin levelled at him, and he's becoming ever more polished at doing it.

The public consciously, or subconsciously picks up on this.

This difficult energy of honesty can't be faked for very long without slick editing.

And today’s slick spin editors are all headed for redundancy

See the genies is out of the bottle.

And if our Emporers have no clothes, we react quickly now.

Both Mccain and Cheney can't go more than a minute or 2 without looking and sounding very dubious.

And to a lesser extent, the Clintons dont look honest when they wing it in public, and they look dated.

All candidates are aware of the value of winging it rather than being glued to the planned script.

Candidates know the public are expecting nothing less of them in this age.

A duplicitous agenda gets anyone found out very quickly in this age of much un-edited live speech and immediate wide-open scrutiny.

So voters will really get to know the candidates’ warts, this time around.

Obama is the most novice of the candidates, But in working his his way through this phase of his evolution, he looks to have surpassed Clinton and McCain already.

I get the feeling that most Americans would not begrudge him reaching the high standards usually needed to be US President.

But most dont think he’s there yet.

Nearly everybody respects someone who can overcome odds to honestly succeed.

Like a boy named Sue

Obama has got some work to do

And a lot of people are watching to see if he can beat the massive odds : bigotry and fear and racism and suspicion and oppression and conditioning and and and, the beat goes on...

Maybe to realize what America was founded on.

Guts, decency and enterprise against big odds.

Obama is becoming very able at fending off negative responses to the slip-ups he makes, when they occur.

More so he is becoming reasonably polished and fluent,looking more statesman-like when confronted with those occassions.

Great men are never owned by those who assist them to their thrones, only less than great men go there.

Millions of Americans can see Obama as having more important issues to attend to , in life, rather than allowing himself to be dictated to by that measure.

If Obama evolves courageously and does rise to greatness , he will take the US into a smarter future, more accessable to people of any colour, religion or sexual lean, provided they abide by the law.

The old "Whip up the Patriotism" distraction guys, like Cheney and McCain, and to a lesser extent Clinton are maintaining plenty of the tried and true cliche’d popularism cynical devices in their destabilizing campaign against Obama, but this masks a continuously dangerously headed course for US people, who have been unjustly represented worldwide by their recent leaderships.

Both McCain and Hillary look like they are struggling to fathom policy with with global perspective.

It looks like Obama is doing it a bit tough and exposed,without a “Good Ol boys” team behind him.

If US voters elect him President, he will also be refreshingly embraced by the European Community, Asia, The Pacific nations, Canada, Australia, Austria, South America and the Middle East, with the probable temporary exception of Israel; whose population he will likely benefit, despite it's recent woeful leadership’s reckless attitude.

It’s getting too difficult for the the western press to orchestrate successfully, a one way, no-reply, imagery, for any political figure , or even governments anymore.

McCain is having a faithful shot at it though

His LLLetttttterMan limber-up for example.. is subtle, but no longer effective...and Dave’s always doing his subtle best to help.

Must be time for a break---------------------------

The old fruitful one way, no-reply press model is faltering in it's efforts to deliver even the subtlist propaganda, to the masses seriously anymore.

Even sanitized truth is hard to land and get gobbled.

People are learning and communicating 2-way un-edited now.

To get by, the truth has to be the truth , more so than ever.

Traditional television newscasts in the US, and around the world are not trusted as factual or balanced anymore, (according to virtually all polling organisations, including the television industry’s own polling).

There is a quickly growing and significant portion of the public that is able to gather and knit the important pieces of information about issues together, to analyse issues for themselves.

The information is sourced mostly, but not entirely through the the web.

Ironically the web is becoming trusted without verification, because it is multisource self-verifying, virtually instantaneously.

And although, for a while, some measures of censorship, and vested interests, can with “Might”, block and corrupt information, and or flow of information, this doesn’t really change anything for this new population of news seeker, except give them a vex to locate a keener search engine.

Finding the truth is going to get very fast for everyone.

This of course was, something that was formerly entrusted to credible journalists , but that is no longer the case, due to rife Media ownership conflicts of interests, which have ruined the news hour and almost totally wiped out credible journalism, even in sports.

The question for Murdoch and other Media owners is:

Has the Media wittlessly? inspired new breeds of investigative sleuths, who, in the absence of believable news and serious journalism , will take it on themselves to find the news.

And they are ‘digg’ing the task aswell.

More and more of the world’s population is becoming part of this new “Truth Sleuth ”

And this new rising sleuth population is seemingly a natural progression, and it is easily equipping itself with more and more credible sources.

Feasibly, it could grow in size and effectiveness within a very short timespan to swamp the desperate media empires?, who for so long have flagrantly challenged the silent intellect of their habitual readership, almost to mockery.

This new and fast growing truth sleuth population of newscasters, almost all approve of Obama.

And they can smell a faked up propaganda thread in an instant. So big business and party political slant stuff in any media, the web especially, is getting tagged and, not only flicked but flagged as what it is and thereby instantly marginalized into guugly marginalized media land, or anywhere for that matter, then to where elephants go to die.

The point being that erroneous propaganda, once discovered , is not only being destroyed , but it is also tagged to the reputaton of it’s perpetrator.

And immediately so.

Perhaps Media moguls might begin to see the value of not peddling propaganda.

They might even send an edict out to their; gainfully sad, but forcefully obsequious, workers: Ahoy!Ahoy! It’s time to return to veracitous journalistic content? And reap satisfaction.

We’ll see

Time for a coffee ----------------------

Only honest inclusive Leaders will be able to survive as large scale Leaders in this near future trading climate.

This is gonna mean some serious crisis time for the dubious rich war mongers, who rely on the availability of a neverending supply of unquestioning “Active Duty” from others.

To supply life and death “Duty”, to solve political problems and problems resulting from poor leadership, is a gross and failing abuse of the military, and it’s not going to go on without serious American public scrutiny of the power that allows it, for much longer.

Obama is the only US leader who is respected by the rest of the future thinking, enterprising prosperous world community.

Someone who thinks big enough and has the guts to say that a man with a gun isn’t brave, is one man who is.

Ask a soldier

And ask a Christian what Christ said about religion ,when asked what it is needed for.

The Bible writes that, when asked, Christ said simply: religion is to provide comfort for orphans and widows who suffer.

Perhaps all religions worldwide are guilty, of indulging in too much praise and prayer at the expense of real religious Ethical actions.

Perhaps when US voters take the lead in coming to know this , they will see the benefits, and find how quickly America's woes can turn around for the better, with more ethically consistent policies and actions.

World Staple food prices have doubled in a year, as a result of Financial market instruments being used to prop up the accustomed to, gains rates of the "Greed is Good" guys.

The”Greed is Good” guys dont want to give an inch of their ill gotten gains back, even if America is in economic and social crisis , or frought with increasing possibility of military banktuptcy.

A lot of these influencial greedy good guys remain comfortably deluded, in the belief that the world will go on tolerating their lensed indifference to the castasrophic suffering of , not only their countrymen and woman, but to the international community, and it’s likely ability to resolve the entrenched international problem of terrorism on behalf of the US and Israel.

These inept rich patriot lingo savvy guys wont remove themselves.

They have to be voted out.

The press peddle up the Sub-Prime every week as the mask to explain The Us and global economic mire.
The Middle East Military Fiasco , is what is bankrupting the US

McCain is a total continuation of Cheney-Bush-Bring it on Ltd.

Hillary is a partial cure , but a bit too dated to be leader
She would be a stop-gap measure.

But if she partners Obama , she would be the making of a formidibly respected US Leadership , internally and internationally.

Clinton’s knowledge and network of relevant Democrat and moderate Republican contacts and thinkers, would further enable Obama.

Obama with Clinton would be a fresh new relevant government for the US.
And a solid Foundation to continue on with the still relevant and heritage special, tried and true good ways of American Enterprising Culture.

Obama is Future US 100% and world US future savvy.

The American public are becoming more aware about this.

If Obama can sustain momentum and go on to become US President, then the rest of the world will allow him time to dismantle the old cartels which have diabolically sapped The US strength and lead it to indulgent conflicts, costing millions of lives and trillions of dollars.

Barack Obama is:

not Osama Bin laden.
not OJ Simpson.
not Ehud Barac
not the late Saddam Hussein.
or Mad Max

He is probably unluckier than Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But Cowboys

“It’s The Black Guy’s Turn”

leave your weapons at the door

Give him a go to do the right thing

God Bless America

See Ya at the Olympics.