Banning Arab parties in the upcoming election? Stunning. …and incredibly stupid. The good news is that it actually makes Olmert’s move on Bush against Condoleezza Rice almost recede from view. Almost. But it sure reminds you of the serial failures Rice has suffered under a president that never seems willing to let her do her job, whatever that may be at the time.
Though I’m no fan of Condi, mainly because she’s proven woefully incompetent in her positions, particularly as national security advisor, she’s trying to get a ceasefire agreement pushed through at the UN Security Council. But on a phone call from Olmert, George W. Bush made Rice abstain from voting on the measure, the only one on the U.N. Security Council not voting in favor of the ceasefire. The Israeli leader gloated in typical machismo satisfaction, revealing why so many detest Israeli leaders during military actions. Their rhetoric is insulting to the United States, making the U.S. presidency look like nothing more than a mere patsy for Israeli action.
“She was left shamed. A resolution that she prepared and arranged, and in the end she did not vote in favour,” Olmert said in a speech in the southern town of Ashkelon.
[...] “I said ‘get me President Bush on the phone’. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn’t care. ‘I need to talk to him now’. He got off the podium and spoke to me.
“I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour.”
This is exactly the type of foreign policy from which Obama needs to stay an ocean away. The interlocking of Israeli – American policy regarding the former’s escalating military actions against Palestinians has caused our country a lot of grief. Obama needs to separate Israeli – American policy in the Middle East, though there is no evidence that is what will happen. But independence and friendship are not mutually exclusive, and Obama through Clinton needs to send that message upon arrival.
never been first.. That’s amazing Taylor. How humiliating.
I know, Rice must have had to throw a plate to keep from exploding.
Republicans seem to like to appoint women, but not let them do their jobs or represent anything real.
Looking at how Bush treats Rice, even Christie Todd Whitman when she was at EPA, you can see how Palin got to be the veep pick.
What a friggin’ piece of crap. Too bad she wasn’t close enough to throw something at him. But she probably would bow respectfully and smile.
What a mess he’s left this country in. And his press conference today was a complete lie. The man won’t dare travel anywhere because he’ll be stoned, egged, or even worse. He’s the worst that we’ve ever had.
And Taylor, I’m sorry to say that I now get really angered when anyone even so much as speaks in a positive manner towards him.
What a bunch of sexist slobs.
What can I say? Absolute disgust is what I feel.
Rice is Sec of State and works for him, so she has to take it. On the other hand, she could have resigned. Bush just undercut her in a way that was truly obnoxious and made her look foolish, so it would be a real statement.
I think he will go down as the worst president ever, and almost certainly as the worst two-term president ever. I don’t usually have very good political instincts, but I didn’t like him from day one (I was disturbed that he was so intellectually uncurious ss to have never traveled overseas).
I’ve lived for many years (71) and he is the very worst President that ever existed. Nixon wasn’t all the great but he WAS an environmentalist so for that I would rank him higher than Bush. Bush is a total disaster. People in TX have told me that he wasn’t that great a Gov either.
People in TX have told me that he wasn’t that great a Gov
either.
Betsy | 01.12.2009 – 7:43 pm | #
That press conference Bush gave today was a complete work of fiction… his autobiography will have to be made up crap as well…
Will someone please tell me what the hell JTP has that makes conservatives swoon over him. He’s a total idiot. Doesn’t he get the true picture? Boy has the McCain campaign created some monsters (JTP and Palin).
I know, Rice must have had to throw a plate to keep from exploding.
Republicans seem to like to appoint women, but not let them do their jobs or represent
anything real.
Looking at how Bush treats Rice, even Christie Todd Whitman when she was at EPA, you can see
how Palin got to be the veep pick.
TaylorMarsh | Homepage | 01.12.2009 – 5:19 pm | #
Taylor–I have to take exception to that comment. Sexism is not relegated to just the republican party—I know we are supposed to bring up the primaries–but Hillary got BATTERED like fish at a fish fry on everything from her clothes to crying. (Never mind the fact she is the toughest and strongest women leader alive) But we must, as a nation, not allow to stand any bigotry: based on race or SEXISM—we cannot be a great nation if any part of our society is relegated to second class citizen status. If those types of behaviors are allowed to stand then we, as a people, are no better than the mullahs in Afghanistan and will become the hypocrites to a free and evolved society.
Rice is Sec of State and works for him, so she has to take it. On the other hand, she could
have resigned. Bush just undercut her in a way that was truly obnoxious and made her look
foolish, so it would be a real statement.
I think he will go down as the worst president ever, and almost certainly as the worst
two-term president ever. I don’t usually have very good political instincts, but I didn’t like
him from day one (I was disturbed that he was so intellectually uncurious ss to have never
traveled overseas).
DaveB | 01.12.2009 – 6:57 pm | #
If thats the case–then I take back every last mean spirited word I said about Colin Powell—
f you read the Ha’aretz article carefully, you will see that not all the politicians are in accord with this. Also, “Members of the CEC conceded yesterday that the chance of the Supreme Court’s upholding the ban on both parties was slim.”
But this was the reason it was done
“In doing so Kadima joins Yisrael Beiteinu and other political parties who declared that because Balad rejects the idea of an Israeli state, it can therefore not take part in the 18th Knesset.”
(from a previous article http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1054535.html:
It will be challenged, and will not be upheld by the Supreme Court. Israel knows that minority voices must be heard.
This story sounds ridiculous to me, anyway.
Utter nonsense.
“What a mess he’s left this country in.Betsy”
This country? Hehehe.THIS COUNTRY!?! BWAHAHAHAHA! HOW ABOUT THE WHOLE FRIGGIN W-O-R-L-D!!!!! “SOB”
To Mkay, this is what Israel leaders think of its Arab minority.
“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”
– David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99
“We must expel Arabs and take their places.”
– David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.
“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.”
– David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech
“We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?’ Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said ‘Drive them out!”
– Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.
“Israel should have exploited the repression of the demonstrations in China, when world attention focused on that country, to carry out mass expulsions among the Arabs of the territories.”
– Benyamin Netanyahu, then Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, former Prime Minister of Israel, speaking to students at Bar Ilan University, from the Israeli journal Hotam, November 24, 1989.
“It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.”
– Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.
“Everybody has to move, run and grab as many (Palestinian) hilltops as they can to enlarge the (Jewish) settlements because everything we take now will stay ours…Everything we don’t grab will go to them.”
– Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of the Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, Nov. 15, 1998.
“Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial.”
– Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001 quoted in BBC News Online
How Israel progressively drove all Palestinian out of Palestine.
http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2009/01/the-shrinking-map-of-palestine.html
This story sounds ridiculous to me, anyway.
Utter nonsense.
AnninCA
Nonsense that the US under Bush does the bidding of Israel. One of Bush’s own people admitted that under Bush the settlements issue was never once brought up. Israel says jump and Bush said how high.
I was disappointed in Israil’s embargo policy.
But no, I won’t agree withik you, Dave.
I do agree with conservatives at this stage in my life that it’s true…..there are those who have no interest in peace.
I am for negotiations with very clear boundaries.
NO MORE ROCKETS.
Then, we talk.
Yes, I know, we’re not Israel.
But we could be one day.