I tried to send them feedback and was directed to this page http://m039.lib.uic.edu/form/,
this guys don't have a clue about anything it seems.

Yeesh. I mean, I'm sure the Saudis would prefer to see Israel wiped off the map -- but that doesn't mean State has to do it for them.

Done. I followed the link provided on their site to the CIA World Factbook and found Israel labeled "IS" and pointed that out to them. I then asked, just a little more politely, if they were pandering to the Saudis or simply incompetent.

..."ask them who they think they work for"...
Well, they aren't paid by Israel, I'm pretty sure of that.

Strangely enough, Saudi Arabia name's either is NOT on the map itself...

We know they aren't paid by Israel. We also know that many of them ARE paid by the Saudis (vid. Joel Mowbray's work, among others). Draw your own conclusions.

Heh... my comment has ref#304441. Wonder if they'll reply?

Just curious as to why this would bother you so much, the country is there, the borders are drawn, including artifical interior boundaries, they just opted not to label the country.

So why the stink?

More interesting is the first sentence "I'd started a post criticizing the Israelis for building 600 new homes in the West Bank . . . "

Wow. You were going to imply that relentless extensions of settlements in the West Bank might be a bad thing?

But then you just decided to recycle something from that cesspool of hatred, LGF.

klaatu -

LGF may be a cesspool of hatred, but I've gotta say that a lot of it seems to be translated from Arabic. We have our own bozos, but - how to put this politely - they usually don't get invited to sit (or write, or run on TV) with the grownups.

And yes, I have a lot of problems with settlement policy; one of these days I'll actually set some of it out (along with some of the pro-settlement email I got in response to this).

A.L.

A.L.

I'll look forward to that, but I'm not holding my breath. I'd love to read some of that pro-settlement e-mail, or the comments that would follow your post. Draw the lunatics/genocidists out.

Klaatu,

Your characterization of Israelis living in the disputed territories, and by extension even those who support their right to do so as "lunatics" and "genocidists" is entirely in character for you. Never take the high road and add insight when the gutter will do, eh?

Some of them undoubtedly are, just as some of the Arabs living in the State of Israel proper undoubtedly are. Welcome to the damned human race. But with language like that, it seems you can't resist joining the loons yourself. Hope you're all happy together.

Intererstingly, I've never heard those terms used by you with respect to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, whose platform literally is genocide. Wonder why that is? No, on second thought I don't.

I, too, look forward to A.L.'s post... mostly in the hope that it generates more intelligent discussion than this.

First, Joe, I didn't say that the Israelis living in what you call the "disputed territories" (is that what they are called?) are lunatics and genocidists. They may be, as you say, or they may be just run-of-the-mill fanatics, or just people looking for cheap subsidized real estate and a better life for their families.

I thought it was clear that I said that a post about the subject would draw out the lunatics and genocidists in the comments. People like, say, M. Simon, who has advocated killing (I recall one post of his advocated a massive barrage on all the Arab cities and towns on the West Bank) or expelling the Pals on the West Bank in the comments here, or your everyday LGF comments poster.

I usually don't feel the need to restate the obvious: suicide bombers are lunatics and genocidists. But if you need a denunciation of them, o.k., I denounce them.

But you know, I do hold Israel to a higher standard. One, because it is supposed to be a democracy. Two, because it is an ally of the United States and supported in part by my tax dollars.

Israel's democracy, however, is subject to the distorting influence of its multi-party, proportional representation system in which every government is subject to whatever fanatic party which holds the three or four seats needed to keep the coalition together in the Knesset. So these few settlers hold the rest of Israel, and the rest of the world, captive to their dreams.

Israel has two choices: (1) It withdraws to a line roughly along the 1967 boundary. Settlers in places like Hebron or Ariel have to move. It builds a wall, if necessary, and rewards and punishes the Pals on the other side of the wall as conditions warrant, and moves in the direction of normal relations, with the help of the U.S. Good fences make good neighbors, and things calm down in time, maybe even making the wall unnecessary.
(2) It stands pat, lets the few thousand settlers stymie any contiguous Palestinian state, builds a wall all around and through the West Bank, cutting broad swaths of land away from the Pals. It continues to deny the Pals any political rights, seizes land on the West Bank for settlements at its will. The occupation continues beyond 35, 40 years. The Pals continue to breed, though, and eventually the Israelis have to make a choice: they either have to give the Pals some voting rights or do some ethnic cleansing. Or, after how many more suicide bombings, the Israelis finally choose to leave.

I've laid my cards on the table, Joe, my version of a settlement. What's yours? Or is it too one-sided and morally indefensible to state?

And, Joe, if your so certain as to what you think the sources of my comment is, you don't wonder why I said something, please tell us or STFU.

[long silence]

I thought so.