Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Thomas Friedman gets it half right

First the part he gets right (When Friends Fall Out).

I have a big problem when people get so agitated by Israel’s actions in Gaza but are unmoved by Syria’s involvement in the murder of the prime minister of Lebanon, by the Iranian regime’s killing of its own citizens demonstrating for the right to have their votes counted, by Muslim suicide bombers murdering nearly 100 Ahmadi Muslims in mosques in Pakistan on Friday and by pro-Hamas gunmen destroying a U.N.-sponsored summer camp in Gaza because it wouldn’t force Islamic fundamentalism down the throats of children.

That concern for Gaza and Israel’s blockade is so out of balance with these other horrific cases in the region that it is not surprising Israelis dismiss it as motivated by hatred


Unfortunately he offers the same old tired solution based on a Palestinian that is doomed to failure.

Amos Oz is such an idiot

He wrote a typical left wing editorial in the NY Times today. The following statement is typical of his idiocy:
No idea has ever been defeated by force — not by siege, not by bombardment, not by being flattened with tank treads and not by marine commandos. To defeat an idea, you have to offer a better idea, a more attractive and acceptable one.

Really??? What about the Nazis in WWII? I am sure that Amos Oz and his ilk would have been all for a negotiated peace with Hitler in 1941. After all, you don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies. What about slavery in the US? The Civil War? The list goes on and on.

His solution is typical left wing idiocy as well.

...quickly reach an agreement with the Palestinians on the establishment of an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as defined by the 1967 borders, with its capital in East Jerusalem. Israel has to sign a peace agreement with President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah government in the West Bank — and by doing so, reduce the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a conflict between Israel and the Gaza Strip. That latter conflict, in turn, can be resolved only by negotiating with Hamas or, more reasonably, by the integration of Fatah with Hamas.

What world is he living in? This is a complete and utter fantasy. Why not throw in peace with Iran as well?

What hypocrisy

It is amazing how hypocritical the world is. The flotilla departed from Turkish-occupied northern Cyprus. Since Cyprus became independent in 1960, there has been tension between the Greek majority (80%) who are Orthodox Christians and the Muslim, Turkish minority that lives in the northern part of the island. In 1974, the Turkish army invaded the island to aid its Turkish "brothers". In 1983, the Turkish-Cypriots declared an independent state in the northern part of the island. Turkey’s occupation of half of Cyprus is deemed illegal by the European Union and the United Nations. If the government of Turkey feels so strongly about ending disputed occupations, why does it not start with the disputed occupation it is operating itself? Where is the outrage from the world? What about the Kurds in Turkey? Why don't they have their own state?

The world is in an uproar about the deaths of 9 so called "peace activists", yet around 500 civilians were killed in Thailand, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and India in just the month of May with nary a peep from the UN.

Israel needs to truly disengage from Gaza

I was against the disengagement when it happened, but now that it happened Israel needs to fully disengage, and in fact should have done this from day 1.

Israel needs to tell the world, we are leaving Gaza, closing the border, cutting off electricity, water etc. You want to turn the clock back to June 4, 1967, fine, we have NO responsibilities to Gaza.

Let the Palestinians in Gaza figure out how they will get electricity etc. Let them get everything from Egypt,by sea, however they want. Let's see how their fellow Arabs the Egyptians would treat the Palestinians in a situation like that.

Believe it or not Aluf Benn from Haaretz wrote a column today suggesting exactly this.