Replies

“but hey James Baker said something that hurt their feelings and that;s all that matters.”

You did not read the article carefully enough and you don’t know your history.

Baker and Bush 1 screwed Israel over big time by denying them loan guarantees because of settlement activity. That was a stinking first. He also pushed Rabin and the Madrid Conference down their neck.

Further he is an Arabist who has always taken the Saudi scapegoating position on Israel — that the Pali problem is at the heart of all the turmoil in the ME and among Muslims, ie ‘it’s Israel’s fault’. The latest time he did that was in the Iraq Study Group which Pres Bush 2 acknowledged and then pronptly ignored.

And it bothers me (just a little) that his law firm is defending the Saudis against the 9/11 victims.

And it bothers me (just a little) that his law firm is defending the Saudis against the 9/11 victims.

Not any more, Baker won, victims lost.

And you're correct that the context of the remark was that wonderful decision to rehabilitate a terrorist in exile in Tunis, Abu Ala aka Yasser Arafat, and pressure Israel, aka the Jews, to accept that decision, rather than continue negotiations with homegrown palestinians. Less forceful leaders I admit, but not known terrorists with American blood, I won't bother with Jewish blood, on their hands either. The genesis of the failure of American mideast policy relative to the palestinians. Not to suggest we had a role to play to begin with.

That settlement problem was a violation of treaty and of official Israeli policy. If the Israeli government refused to enforce their own policy, why should we have aided them?

The building of new settlements was a deliberate effort by so-called conservative Jews to antagonize the Palestinians and force the governments hand.

Obviously you do not know your history. The so-called Palestinian problem IS at the heart of most Middle East problems and it is Israel's fault. Israel was carved out of land owned by the so-called Palestinians by force of arms. The Palestinian refugee camps came about because the people were displaced by the Zionists in their desire to build a Jewish state.

I don't blame the Jews, had I experienced what they experienced in the past, I would want to build a state that I could defend and I too would probably not care who I hurt in the process, but to deny that Israel bears a great deal of the responsibility for what you call the Palestinian problem (interesting choice of words, btw, very reminiscent of Hitler's term, "the Jewish problem") is to live in denial.

You did not read the article carefully enough and you don’t know your history.

Hey bub....YOU didn't read my post carefully because I was taklking about Jimmy CARTER's and Z's ACTIONS that are FAR WORSE than Baker's WORDS.