[quidnunc]

FYI

[Prime Choice]

BTTT!

[goldstategop]

When Israel vows "Death to America" and promises more 9/11s are in store for the Yankee colossus. You get the point... I can't imagine Israel ever forfeiting our support but the Palis have done that and more. How come they haven't forfeited our support yet??

[general_re]

The answer, it seems to me, should be assessed in cultural, economic, political, and social terms.

Errr, no. The answer should be assessed purely in terms of realpolitik - we should stop supporting Israel when it is no longer in America's interests to support Israel. Not that I think this is likely to happen any time soon, but that's how the geopolitical calculus works in the real world.

[thoughtomator]

funny stuff

[Lily4Jesus]

The day the U S A stops supporting Israel the U S A will be history. GOD said:"I will bless those that blesses Israel and I will curse those that curses Israel..." GOD said it that settles it. This also applies in a a personal level too. In Jesus Name, AMEN.

[laylauneok]

Palestine has NEVER complied to ANY rule of law set forth by the U.N. ever. Palestine has done NOTHING but support and arm terrorists against Israel and the friends of Israel. Palestine is now harboring terrorists against the United States and her allies. Palestine will stop at nothing until the complete destruction of Israel has occured. After that happens...Christians are next. And SO it goes.

[GeronL]

we should not make our foreign policy based on appeasing terrorists

[Tolik]

So until then, I think most Americans can see the moral differences in the present struggle.

If the Palestinians wish to hold periodic and open elections, establish an independent judiciary, create a free press, arrest murderers, subject their treasury to public scrutiny, eschew suicide murdering, censure religious leaders who call for mass murder, embrace non-violent dissidents, extend equal rights to women, end honor killings, raise funds in the Arab world earmarked only to build water, sewer, transportation, and education infrastructure, and pledge that any Jews who choose to live in the West Bank will enjoy the same rights as Arabs in Israel, then they might find Americans equally divided over questions of land and peace.

But all that is a lot of ifs. And so for the present, Palestinian leaders shouldn’t be too surprised that Americans increasingly find very little in their society that has much appeal to either our values or sympathy. If they continually assure us publicly that they are furious at Americans, then they should at least pause, reflect, and ask themselves why an overwhelming number of Americans—not Jewish, not residents of New York, not influenced by the media—are growing far more furious with them.

Victor Davis Hanson moral clarity huge BUMP  

[please freepmail me if you want or don't want to be pinged to Victor Davis Hanson articles]

If you want to bookmark his articles discussed at FR: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/k-victordavishanson/browse

His NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp

His blog: http://victorhanson.com/index.html     BIO: http://victorhanson.com/Author/index.html

Yes, he is listened by the Bush Administration; they like him maybe as much as we do: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1085464/posts?page=6#6

[MEG33]

Bravo, Mr.Hanson.He nails it!

[PigRigger]

"When Should We Stop Supporting Israel?..."

Never. Israel is what the west has to look forward to if we do not win the WOT.

[PGalt]

Great post. Thanks.

[metesky]

Thanks for another great VDH article.

Tolik, thanks for the ping.

VDH moral clarity bump.

[Slings and Arrows]

Ping!

[Valin]

at what point should we reconsider our rather blanket support for the Israelis and show a more even-handed attitude toward the Palestinians?

when they stop killing Israelis eating pizza, riding buses,...

I'll get back to you when this happens.

Don't hold dinner waiting.

[Paulie]

The answer is never. Now why don't you crawl back under the rock you came from, Mr. Hanson.

[HenryLeeII]

When Should We Stop Supporting Israel?

How about when:,

1) the entire Arab world learns to live in peaceful co-existence with a nation that does not conform to their religion (yet still allows more freedom to its Arab citizens and does more to protect their rights than basically any Arab country);
2)does not inflict its youth with rabid anti-Jewish/anti-Israel rhetoric in lieu of education;
3)does not give money to the families of those who murder innocent men, women, and children;
4)does not try to invade Israel (although they seem to have given up that idea after the last few attempts haven't turned out so well);
5)adopt official positions of recognizing Israel's right to exist, rather than calling for its annhilation;
6)and gives up the silly and ignorant notion that there was once a country called 'Palestine' and accepts the fact that the Arabs calling themselves 'Palestinians' were sent out of their homes in the UAR and/or Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt, then weren't allowed to return when initial attempts to crush the fledling state of Israel failed.

So, in other words, probably never.

[Tribune7]

bump

[HenryLeeII]

When Should We Stop Supporting Israel?

How about when the Arab world:

1) quits murdering innocent men, women, and children and learns to live in peaceful co-existence with a nation that does not conform to its religion (yet still allows more freedom to its Arab citizens and does more to protect their rights than basically any Arab country does for its own);
2) does not inflict its youth with rabid anti-Jewish/anti-Israel rhetoric in lieu of education;
3) does not give money to the families of those who murder innocent men, women, and children;
4) does not try to invade Israel (although they seem to have given up that idea after the last few attempts haven't turned out so well);
5) adopts official positions of recognizing Israel's right to exist, rather than calling for its annhilation;
6) gives up the silly and ignorant notion that there was once a country called 'Palestine' and accepts the fact that the Arabs calling themselves 'Palestinians' were sent out of their homes in the UAR and/or Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt, then weren't allowed to return when initial attempts to crush the fledling state of Israel failed.

So, in other words, probably never.

[Brian Allen]

When should we stop supporting Israel?

The recent assassination of Sheik Saruman raises among some Americans the question—at what point should we reconsider our rather blanket support for the Israelis and show a more even-handed attitude toward the Palestinians? The answer, it seems to me, should be assessed in cultural, economic, political, and social terms.

Well, we should no longer support Israel, when…

Mr. Sharon suspends all elections and plans a decade of unquestioned rule.

Mr. Sharon suspends all investigation about fiscal impropriety as his family members spend millions of Israeli aid money in Paris.

All Israeli television and newspapers are censored by the Likud party.
Israeli hit teams enter the West Bank with the precise intention of targeting and blowing up Arab women and children.

Preteen Israeli children are apprehended with bombs under their shirts on their way to the West Bank to murder Palestinian families.

Israeli crowds rush into the street to dip their hands into the blood of their dead and march en masse chanting mass murder to the Palestinians.

Rabbis give public sermons in which they characterize Palestinians as the children of pigs and monkeys.

Israeli school textbooks state that Arabs engage in blood sacrifice and ritual murders.

Mainstream Israeli politicians, without public rebuke, call for the destruction of Palestinians on the West Bank and the end to Arab society there.

Likud party members routinely lynch and execute their opponents without trial.

Jewish fundamentalists execute with impunity women found guilty of adultery on grounds that they are impugning the “honor” of the family.

Israeli mobs with impunity tear apart Palestinian policemen held in detention.

Israeli television broadcasts—to the tune of patriotic music—the last taped messages of Jewish suicide bombers who have slaughtered dozens of Arabs.

Jewish marchers parade in the streets with their children dressed up as suicide bombers, replete with plastic suicide-bombing vests.

New Yorkers post $25,000 bounties for every Palestinian blown up by Israeli murderers.

Israeli militants murder a Jew by accident and then apologize on grounds that they though he was an Arab—to the silence of Israeli society.

Jews enter Arab villages in Israel to machine gun women and children.

Israeli public figures routinely threaten the United States with terror attacks.

Bin Laden is a folk hero in Tel Aviv.

Jewish assassins murder American diplomats and are given de facto sanctuary by Israeli society.

Israeli citizens celebrate on news that 3,000 Americans have been murdered.

Israeli citizens express support for Saddam Hussein’s supporters in Iraq in their efforts to kill Americans.



So until then, I think most Americans can see the moral differences in the present struggle.

If the Palestinians wish to hold periodic and open elections, establish an independent judiciary, create a free press, arrest murderers, subject their treasury to public scrutiny, eschew suicide murdering, censure religious leaders who call for mass murder, embrace non-violent dissidents, extend equal rights to women, end honor killings, raise funds in the Arab world earmarked only to build water, sewer, transportation, and education infrastructure, and pledge that any Jews who choose to live in the West Bank will enjoy the same rights as Arabs in Israel, then they might find Americans equally divided over questions of land and peace.

But all that is a lot of ifs. And so for the present, Palestinian leaders shouldn’t be too surprised that Americans increasingly find very little in their society that has much appeal to either our values or sympathy. If they continually assure us publicly that they are furious at Americans, then they should at least pause, reflect, and ask themselves why an overwhelming number of Americans—not Jewish, not residents of New York, not influenced by the media—are growing far more furious with them.