For Israel (4 Viewers)

[nofunchee]

I refer to a live debate

When its election time here and Bertie and Enda are up on the podioum in their head to head you won't catch any of them saying "One sec can I just check Google for a second"

;]

politicians on podeums point-scoring and avoiding issues is hardly a shining example of open-minded debate.

 

[TenRabbits]

Did someone say 'live debate'? Where's me protectors..:

 

[Janer]

You look more then 29 tbh.

 

[Janer]

politicians on podeums point-scoring and avoiding issues is hardly a shining example of open-minded debate.

It's not like the dail debates, at elections they have a journalist who asks the questions, sure u can get some crap but overall u see how one fares against the other.

 

[nofunchee]

It's not like the dail debates, at elections they have a journalist who asks the questions, sure u can get some crap but overall u see how one fares against the other.

what's this got to do with you wearing a hamas t-shirt/people using the internet to get information for internet arguments? i'm a bit lost to be honest.

 

[Janer]

Well lad it's all in this thread, if you don't grasp it I can't really help you except to say do I know you from Eirecore and how did we end up here on these white forums?

 

[broken arm]

my girlfriend just informed me that you can buy that fair trade palestinian olive oil from oxfam in ireland now. 12 bucks.

that's will do more for the palestinians than wearing a Hamas t-shirt

 

[skrellp]

my girlfriend just informed me that you can buy that fair trade palestinian olive oil from oxfam in ireland now. 12 bucks.

that's will do more for the palestinians than wearing a Hamas t-shirt

there was this one time that I bought something like oranges or a tomato which had a sticker saying it was from palestine. I didn't buy it because of that, but when I read it, I thought oh, that's interesting. I noticed it was a sticker, so I peeled it off, and under it was product of some town in israel.

 

[Bellatrix]

I noticed it was a sticker, so I peeled it off, and under it was product of some town in israel.

Wouldn't necessarily mean it wasn't produced by Palestinians.

 

[ICUH8N]

I can't believe the Israelis "tagged" those Tomatoes.

 

[hugh]

Has anyone else noticed how Basil always seems to come from Israel (and I don't mean Fawlty)? The whole place must be covered in the stuff.

 

[pete]

THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

U.S. foreign policy shapes events in every corner of the globe. Nowhere is this truer than in the Middle East, a region of recurring instability and enormous strategic importance. Most recently, the Bush Administration’s attempt to transform the region into a community of democracies has helped produce a resilient insurency in Iraq, a sharp rise in world oil prices, and terrorist bombings in Madrid, London, and Amman. With so much at stake for so many, all countries need to understand the forces that drive U.S. Middle East policy.


The U.S. national interest should be the primary object of American foreign policy. For the past several decades, however, and especially since the Six Day War in 1967, the centerpiece of U.S. Middle East policy has been its relationship with Israel. The combination of unwavering U.S. support for Israel and the related effort to spread democracy throughout the region has inflamed Arab and Islamic opinion and eopardized U.S. security.


This situation has no equal in American political history. Why has the United States been willing to set aside its own security in order to advance the interests of another state? One might assume that the bond between the two countries is based on shared strategic interests or compelling moral imperativs. As we show below, however, neither of those explanations can account for the remarkable level of material and diplomatic support that the United States povides to Israel.


Instead, the overall thrust of U.S. policy in the region is due almost entirely to U.S. domestic politics, and especially to the activities of the “Israel Lobby.” Other special interest groups have managed to skew U.S. foreign policy in directions they favored, but no lobby has managed to divert U.S. foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. and Israeli interests are essentially identical.1

an innnnteresting read... ah who am i kidding, i'm only on page 7

 

[skrellp]

Wouldn't necessarily mean it wasn't produced by Palestinians.

That's SO true, but chances are they were produced by Israelis and the tag was wrong.

 

[skrellp]

an innnnteresting read... ah who am i kidding, i'm only on page 7

I haven't read it either, but from skimming over the main points, I'm surprised this is causing such a furore in America. The basic points have been said before (I'm thinking Said, Finkelstein etc) and are available in American bookstores.

 

[taubstumm]

I haven't read it either, but from skimming over the main points, I'm surprised this is causing such a furore in America. The basic points have been said before (I'm thinking Said, Finkelstein etc) and are available in American bookstores.

i think the 'furore' is in the fact that it hasn't created a furore, if you get me. usually something this high-profile and this mainstream which is 'critical of israel' would be shouted down in a firestorm of political flack. the difference on this occasion is that, although the israel lobby and u.s. foreign policy has garnered a lot of the expected criticism, it hasn't been blasted out of the water like how similar stuff would normally be.

as you point out, also, it's not saying anything new. what is new is that these points are now being made in the mainstream of u.s. foreign policy academic discourse - by harvard professors, who are less easy for the mainstream u.s. media to dismiss as cranks or weirdos.

to be honest they put the cart before the horse in attributing so much power to 'the lobby' - a more honest assesment would be that israel exists as a u.s. satellite and that the lobby is a symptom of that, not the cause of it.