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Obama Addresses Gaza: He's Fired Up, Ready to Go

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Check this out on Politico.

Just as I thought, the President-Elect was holding back so he could fully address the issue after Jan. 20.

"The loss of civilian life in Gaza and in Israel is a source of deep concern to me, and after January 20th I'll have plenty to say about the issue."

Obama said he was "not backing away at all from what I said during the campaign" and that "starting at the beginning of our administration, we're going to engage effectively and consistently in trying to resolve the conflict in the Middle East."

Read between the lines. He is going to engage big-time, and not piece meal either. This is good news. (Note, he addresses the the loss of life in Gaza first, before mentioning Israel. That is how it should be considering that 98% of the deaths are Palestinians but, nonetheless, this is not how the issue is usually addressed in Washington, neither by Bush or by the Democratic Congress.


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MJ: Do we dare believe that a real human being will be president in two weeks? (Tears falling down face....)

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Bet an egg cream that O!'s going with his pal SarkO!

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Only if Carla is coming too.

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OK, finally a step in the right direction. A very small step, but a step.

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encouraging news, especially when I had been letting the pessimism I have learned over too many years control my expectations for the next administration

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I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble -- and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I've seen in my life. And it's typical of Hamas. If reporters would probe deeper, they'd learn the awful truth of Hamas. But Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people.
http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/
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Call me old-fashioned but "bais"--as in not objective, has an agenda, etc--matters. Please note the background on SholomA's source, Mr. Jeffrey Goldberg. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_Goldberg

He served in the IDF. And another journalist described Goldberg's reporting thusly:

"Goldberg's article has been criticized, however, as "a J-school nightmare: bad sources, compromised sources, unacknowledged uncertainties, and the whole text spun through with an alarmist rhetoric that is now either laughable or nauseating, depending on your mood."

Footnote 11 from source above.

Finally, is Jeffrey Goldberg in Gaza? I thought the IDF was keeping journalists out? This is really like Donald Rumsfeld quoting Donald Rumsfeld as justification for Donald Rumsfeld's actions.

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Sorry, the word is "bias."

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Mythbuster, can you read? There is a link in the post you pontificate about, you know... Here's a quote for those too lazy to click on a link:

For the record: I defend Israel's right to defend itself, but I fear that Gaza will quickly become a quagmire. I fear for the lives of Israelis, obviously, but I also fear for the lives of Palestinian civilians -- I have friends there, in harm's way -- in part because the Israeli army (and I say this from personal experience) can be a big, rough bulldozer of an army, and in part (large part) because Hamas terrorists unblinkingly and ostentatiously use their own civilians as human shields. I've seen this up-close, and it's repulsive. One story the media isn't telling, because it's impossible to get this story in these circumstances (especially because Israel stupidly won't allow foreign reporters into Gaza) is how much resentment the Hamas policy of using Palestinians as human shields causes among Gaza civilians. Early reports indicate that Hamas mortar teams were firing from the UN School. This shouldn't surprise anyone.
One more thing, speaking of pornography -- we've all seen endless pictures of dead Palestinian children now. It's a terrible, ghastly, horrible thing, the deaths of children, and for the parents it doesn't matter if they were killed by accident or by mistake. But ask yourselves this: Why are these pictures so omnipresent? I'll tell you why, again from firsthand, and repeated, experience: Hamas (and the Aksa Brigades, and Islamic Jihad, the whole bunch) prevents the burial, or even preparation of the bodies for burial, until the bodies are used as props in the Palestinian Passion Play. Once, in Khan Younis, I actually saw gunmen unwrap a shrouded body, carry it a hundred yards and position it atop a pile of rubble -- and then wait a half-hour until photographers showed. It was one of the more horrible things I've seen in my life. And it's typical of Hamas. If reporters would probe deeper, they'd learn the awful truth of Hamas. But Palestinian moral failings are not of great interest to many people.

Khan Younis is in Gaza, so Goldberg was there before. And he doesn't like the closure of Gaza for journalists too, so at least you two agree on something.

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I will be too late to save Hamas.

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you, sir, are a moral coward that would sign away your dignity and self-determination for any crappy deal offered you by your oppressors.

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Yes. I would. Jews have lived under oppression for 2000 years without ant deal and have survived. They took a crappy deal in 1948, Palestinians didn't. Who is better off today?

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that's truly rich...

me: you would sign away your dignity and self-determination

you: yes I would

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That "crappy" deal in 1948 gave most of the viable land of Palestine to foreign immigrants who were a minority, and even then the Israelis accepted the deal only as a stepping stone to greater expansionism.

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I don't thinks so, sorry. Obama will be Clinton all over again. His picks are thus far nothing more than slightly more moderate Zionists like Dennis Ross.

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Yes, but the position of the US in the ME is much more precarious now than in 1993-2000. America is a nation state that practices realpolitique. We will bend to meet the times.

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If we practiced realpolitique, we would have stopped backing Israel long ago. The whole thesis of Walt-Mearsheimer's "The Israel Lobby" is that when it comes to Israel, our own interests have taken a back seat.

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Oh my, the unbridled optimism. Engagement is needed now. Now. Evil does not wait for political opportunism... or it shouldn't.

Anybody see that pic in Time magazine of the soldier lighting Hanukkah candles while his tank awaits? Just a bunch of bitter dessert-dwellers clinging to their guns and religion, eh??


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Tea leaf reading is fun and we must agree that these are an optimistic pattern. I eagerly wait for Jan 20.

But if Obama really tries to affect a cease fire before Israel is ready, he will face an incredible firestorm. The republicans for sure and Aipac will be working its thousand lobbyists to turn Democrats in Congress against Obama. Let us not expect too much.

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Don't worry. Israel needs less than two weeks.

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two weeks to remind the world what a merciless bully it is

and then it will be in the exact same position it was before, with millions of Palestinians demanding their basic human rights from within their apartheid cage, some violently resisting

remember, not everyone is the moral coward you are

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Interest in real news?

Download Livestation
Al Jazeera English actually has reporters on both sides of the border and experts who know what they are talking about

http://www.livestation.com/aje

Funny how Al Jazeera's correspondents and commentators speak flawless English with upper class Brit accents while on CNN, the Arabs all seem to have thick accents..some you can scarcely understand..

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Did you ever see that video "Outfoxed" about how Fox Noise manipulates the news? They find the most annoying and squirrelly liberal guest they can and pit him/her against some all-American dude or attractive female. Going by images alone, you want to agree with the "conservative." CNN is playing the same game with Arabs.

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MJ: I am still waiting for an answer as to whether the George Orwell quote on your blog (which Andrew Sullivan annointed the quote of the day, linking to your piece) was lifted from Glenn Greenwald's piece - which, not incidentally, sought to make the same point you referred to in your title. Lifting a quote someone else uses in order to make the exact same point without attribution, while not outright plagiarism, is at the least intellectually sleazy.

If I am wrong about this, I apologize. But I would appreciate an answer.

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I hope for a change in American policy, and, like Mythbuster, believe that the U.S. will play "realpolitic" and stop it's wildly irrational support of Israel in the face of that nation's behavior and the impending shift of power in the middle east from western-controlled nations to middle eastern soverign nations.

Sadly, at times I fail to see much difference between the creation of the Warsaw Ghetto and the creation of the Gaza Ghetto -- (perhaps the difference is that the Israeli's have not yet created concentration camps).

A sad turn of events for a people's history.


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If engaging "big-time" means Obama will push for two-states, he will be washing his hands of the whole affair 8 years from now. Sorry to say, but two-states ranks right up there with the best of mythology.

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but you're all missing the funniest line! "just as I thought, the president-elect is holding back..."

MJ and his ilk have ALWAYS thought they knew exactly what progressive leftist best-thing-since-sliced-bread Barack Obama was going to do. I think Obama's proven that MJ knows nothing. so far the PE has been a complete centrist who voted for FISA, kept Robert Gates as SecDef, and hired the entire Clinton White House back. that's change I can believe in!

you people just really don't get it. these people, these Palestinians that you care for so much: they hate you. yes, you! not just me, or Sarah Palin, or George Bush: YOU. yes, even you there, wearing your cafepress "Zionism is Racism" t-shirt...and you, chanting "Death to Israel!" at your little protest march in Berkeley...you are infidels and therefore you must die.

read the freaking Hamas charter, and tell me if you really want to be on their side. I sure don't, and thank God our government doesn't either. sorry to disappoint.

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You're quite correct. Apparently none of those who criticize Israel have read the Hamas' charter, or don't respect the Palestinians enough to believe what they say. Congratulations for stating the truth.

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I sure don't want to be on your side. You and your ilk have destroyed my country. Why would I care would any Bush voting rightwing neocon Palin-Giuliani type has to say about anything? I don't. And the next 8 years will be your worst nightmare. Just watch.

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I'm sure you intend no intellectual dishonesty by suggesting that all Palestinians are Hamas, and that Israel is currently assaulting only Hamas.

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"98% of the deaths are Palestinians"

Uh, that's not true at all. Going back over the full history of the conflict you'll find that the deaths on both sides are about equal, with a bit more on the Israeli side. Remember that 6,000 Israelis were killed in the 1948 war, and there have been many more since. Thank God Israel has a strong military, or the Israeli deaths would have been in the tens of thousands. And don't forget that if Hamas wins, millions of Jews will die. While if Israel wins, then it's just a few Palestinians.

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Here is a link to a good article by Khaled Abu-Toameh in the Jerusalem Post which pretty much illustrates how the idea of a unique "Palestinian" national identity is myth. Yes, all the people that people call "Palestinian" hate Israel, but hatred of some group or nation is not enough to create a sense of national identity. For example, both Shi'ites and Sunnis in Iraq hate Israel but that doesn't prevent them from going at each other. Europeans also share an antisemitic tradition but they fought some really bloody wars among themselves as well.

This also shows the line that MJ is always pushing which says that the number one obsession of the entire Arab and even Muslim world are the problems of the Palestinians is also a myth.


http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231167283398&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

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