Steely Dan

Although democrats disapprove of the GOP letter there are plenty still lining up with the Republicans stance on a Veto.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/03/even-democrats-wont-back-obamas-iran-nuclear-deal

Pity I'm not an Israeli and cannot vote... Netanyahu is my man!

Indeed the Israeli electorate should look no further than their neighbor Egypt to see how being Obama friendly does not stop him throwing you under a bus, as Mubarak found to his cost. I hope the overt interference in the Israeli election from people attached to the Obama administration is remembered. If so Netanyahu will prevail seeing as Obama has an approval rating of 10% in Israel.

No. There has never been an independent Arab country called Palestine - ever.

You are wrong.
Palestine - the country and the people have existed since antiquity.

You better inform all the history books then.

1) When was it founded and by whom?

2) What were its borders?

3) What was its capital?

4) What were its major cities?

5) What constituted the basis of its economy?

6) What was its form of government?

7) Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat (who was actually born in Egypt)?

8) What was the language of the country of Palestine ?

9) What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine ?

11) What was the name of its currency?

Choose any date in history and tell what was the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against the US dollar, German mark, GB pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese yuan on that date.

Those questions could be answered more positively in relation to Palestine rather than Israel.

So please start answering them, any group of them. You can't because Palestine was a region encompassing part or all of several countries. It never was a country. Arafat began calling the so-called Palestine that in the mid 1980's and that's the first time in history that anyone called Palestine a country. Even then it still isn't.

It was not a country during the British mandate and it was part of the Ottoman empire before that. But the region was always refered to as Palestine unless you go back to the Old testament-ages. It had a majority of native arabs living there, anything else is propaganda and a lie. The area was not empty as some british guy once said and is refered to. The arabs didnt arrive at the same time as the jews. There were already a lot of native arabs living there. Some arabs came at a later time, but the area had a sizeable native arab population (majority). What they called themselves or what people called them is not relevant. Iran has been called Persia for 2500 years but Persians dont call themselves Persian.

All these years Netanyahu has been mouthing the mantras... there is no alternative to direct negotiations in line with the Oslo Accords...we have no partners in peace to talk to... when he himself was never willing to negotiate a Palestinian state. What a liar and hypocrite.

Ironically, Netanyahu’s legacy may well be that he himself destroys the Jewish state. The elephant in the room is “What are you going to do with the 4 million Palestinian refugees you are currently occupying in a one state solution?”

Full blown institutionalized apartheid, ethnic cleansing or full citizenship?

The EU, Israel's largest trading partner, will not tolerate the first two... and one would hope that even the USA wouldn't either. So it may well be that EU sanctions will finally make Israel see sense, if they haven't already worked that out in today's election.

All the Palestinians need do is sit tight, practise passive resistance, and shame Israel before the whole world flooding the social media with images of their daily humiliations ,beatings, and murders.

I agree. Years ago they were on the verge of signing an accord..and what did the Israelis do? They marched into mosques with armed soldiers in a "show of force" -- and THAT sparked what was called the infitada.

It was despicable the American media bowed to Israeli pressure--they reported all about the infitada and the clashes...but NEVER reported what sparked the infitada to begin with.

Americans are sick and tired of Israel dictating what Americans must think about Israeli. I have Jewish friends who hate the way the Israelis are treating Palestinians.

A lesser announcement would serve to do nothing, except kick the can of failure further down the road. I fully expect such a by the Obama government, the O.P shows the spinning of such a 'deal' has already started. But the centrifuges would keep spinning and some of our esteemed members would sleep soundly in their beds cocooned by their own ignorance.

The ISIS attraction is growing globally.....people must be stopped on their ways to join this group of terrorists.........
No-one wants Asia or SE Asia becoming infiltrated with this mad idealism.........they have to be stopped!

The attraction is growing globally because it is a global calling. A worldwide Caliphate being the ultimate goal.

IMO they must NOT be stopped from going to join this group. They should certainly be stopped trying to return.

I take it you do not read the news much. Asia and SE Asia are already infested with this mad idealism.

From the OP.

Fears are also growing in Indonesia, which has long struggled with Islamic militancy -- the country’s counter-terror chief saying that more than 500 Indonesians are believed to have gone to fight with IS

Indonesia has waged a crackdown on terror groups over the past decade following attacks on Western targets

And let us not forget the Southern Provinces of Thailand or China.

Indeed this is not a job for social services in any Country, it's a job for airlines to make available as many one way tickets as demand dictates. Returning planes can be filled with something useful, such as figs, dates or pistachio nuts.

You have to be a retard to choose a fruit bowl as a murder weapon.

It reminds me of the IRS scam to block charitable status to organizations the current government disagreed with politically. Hang on... That was an official scam not an unofficial one.

Who is the 'spokesman for Islamic State militants' and did he go to Yale ?

Abu Mohammad al Adnani, a spokesman for IS, announced in an audio message the group's leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, had accepted the loyalty of the Nigerian militants

The statement urged "Muslims everywhere to pledge allegiance to the Caliph".

In his audio message, al Adnani called on Muslims who could not join IS in Iraq and Syria to enter combat in Africa instead.

He added that Boko Haram's pledge had opened a "new door for you to migrate to the land of Islam and fight".

http://news.sky.com/story/1444095/islamic-state-accepts-allegiance-of-boko-haram

But remember folks. This is NOTHING to do with Muslims or Islam.

Indeed they are both aligned to random violence and mental illness. Both follow no common rule book so any similarity in their behavior is purely coincidental.

Hey, look how quickly the goalposts moved! Apparently Steely Dan read my mind and decided to discern that I was only speaking of Gaza, and Gaza hasn't been occupied at any time in the last 50 years, and that Israel clearly hasn't killed any civilians over the course of the last 50 years in any other occupied territories, right?

You do realize that we were talking about all the civilians killed in the last 50 years, right? So why did you make such a blatantly false reply to my comment? Do you just like Red Herring diversions?

By the way, I welcome the news that Israel is no longer in control of Gaza. So I assume that it's free to form its own international government, control its own borders, issue its own passports, raise its own military, join the UN, and negotiate its own foreign treaties, right? And Israel shouldn't carry out military actions within its borders without it de facto being an act of war against a foreign government, right?

I guess you should ask Hamas as to why Gaza is subject to the restrictions it faces.

So you'll just continue to ignore the fact that we were talking about civilians killed in the entire history of Israel over the last 50 years, and not just the recent history of Gaza?

And saying that Israel doesn't have the death penalty is laughable. Israel sentences people to death whenever it likes. They even execute people in foreign countries when it serves their aims. The fact that they chose not to hold a trial before an execution doesn't somehow make it better.

Hey, look how quickly the goalposts moved! Apparently Steely Dan read my mind and decided to discern that I was only speaking of Gaza, and Gaza hasn't been occupied at any time in the last 50 years, and that Israel clearly hasn't killed any civilians over the course of the last 50 years in any other occupied territories, right?

You do realize that we were talking about all the civilians killed in the last 50 years, right? So why did you make such a blatantly false reply to my comment? Do you just like Red Herring diversions?

By the way, I welcome the news that Israel is no longer in control of Gaza. So I assume that it's free to form its own international government, control its own borders, issue its own passports, raise its own military, join the UN, and negotiate its own foreign treaties, right? And Israel shouldn't carry out military actions within its borders without it de facto being an act of war against a foreign government, right?

P.s Its a bit rich you talking about diversions when you engage in diversionary trolling as a reflex. For example my comment on An Al-Azhar cleric calling for the hand and foot of ISIS fighters to be chopped off was a comment confined to Sharia law, not all Muslims, not all Egyptians, but I guess you knew that full well but persisted in dishonestly misrepresenting my comments there and now persist in spilling over here with the same rubbish. Indeed your metaphor here is a non-sequitur seeing as Israel does not even have the death penalty. In sharia law death sentences are as numerous as mentions of the word Zionist from some of our esteemed members here.

Very few unless you include combat situations where it is pretty much impossible not to kill some civilians. Something like half of the deaths caused by war happened to civilians all over the world, but Israel has pretty much the lowest civilian to combatant casualty ratio in history in the setting of combating terrorism.

How can you call it "war" and "in the setting of combating terrorism" at the same time? Which is it?

Massive civilian casualties were not a common part of warfare until the 19th or 20th century. There were exceptions, but to just assume a lot of civilian casualties is a new thing. In many wars, armies met on the battlefield without ever encountering civilian populations.

And there are many, many examples of terrorists being dealt with in countries right now, across the world, without civilian casualties.

I'd love to see the cites of Israel's impressively low civilian casualties. Let me guess - any man who is killed where their bomb lands is immediately deemed a terrorist?

On top of all that, it's false to compare the situation to an actual war. Israel is dropping bombs on an imprisoned sub-segment of its own population. It is not "at war"...and if it is, who is it currently at war with, and has it limited casualties to members of that group?

I guess you missed the news that Israel unilaterally vacated Gaza years ago. So to refer to dropping bombs on an imprisoned sub -segment of their population is utter nonsense.

Israel controls Gaza's land, sea and air routes. Under international law it is the occupying power and has a duty of care to its residents, same as in the West Bank.

Israel is blockading Gaza as a collective punishment for Palestinians who freely and fairly elected a government that Israel didn't like.

Anyway it looks like an Israeli Arab has been decapitated for real. I await an avalanche of posts concerning this from some of our esteemed members.

http://app.debka.com/p/newsupdate/10747/

Seeing as I'm not American I don't know the answer to this question, but I think it needs asking, so here goes.

After O.J Simpson was found not guilty of murdering his wife did the president either encourage or facilitate the civil charges which were brought against O.J Simpson?