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US puts squeeze on Israel
Guardian Unlimited ^ | 10/12/01 | Ewen MacAskill and Suzanne Goldenberg

Posted on 10/11/2001 7:08:53 PM PDT by gohabsgo

The US is to make a determined effort to force Israel to enter into peace negotiations with the Palestinians, fearing that the west is in danger of losing the propaganda war with Osama bin Laden.

In an attempt to address one of the main Muslim grievances, President, George Bush will use all the financial and political muscle at his disposal to push the Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table.

Mr Bush, whose patience with the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, has finally snapped, is drawing up a detailed plan to be published in the next few weeks in the hope of finally resolving 53 years of conflict.

But Mr Sharon, whose camp has been unnerved by the development, will not be moved easily, and the scene is set for a gigantic battle of wills. Tony Blair, who returned to London last night from a two-day visit to the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Egypt, highlighted a gnawing anxiety in the US and Britain.

Only five days after the bombing of Afghanistan began, Mr Blair made the extraordinary admission that the west was in danger of losing the propaganda war in Muslim states. He said: "One thing becoming increasingly clear to me is the need to upgrade our media and public opinion operations in the Arab and Muslim world. There is a need for us to communicate effectively."

Bin Laden electrified parts of the Muslim world within hours of the first bombs landing on Afghanistan by releasing a video in which he tried to polarise the conflict between the west and Islam, focusing especially on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. A senior aide to Mr Blair conceded that the broadcast had found a receptive audience in the Middle East.

The west's biggest worry is the dangerous schism between Arab leaders, who basically support the west and are appalled by Bin Laden, and sections of their people to whom he has become a potent symbol of defiance.

Acknowledging this, Mr Blair said: "All moderate, sensible parts of Arab opinion know that it is right that we are acting in Afghanistan and support that. But they do point out to us that they have a general problem with their own people, that we have lost interest in the peace process. It is a perception we need to counter."

In a series of interviews in the region and a signed article offered to Arab newspapers - all part of Downing Street's new battle for public opinion - Mr Blair stressed the urgent need to "convince people that we are sincere in our desire" to get the Middle East peace process back on track. Central to that is the new US thinking, which Saudi Arabia and Egypt are enthusiastically backing. It is based on proposals on the table when the Israelis and Palestinians met in January at Taba in Egypt, the closest they have ever come to agreement. It envisages Jerusalem as the shared capital of Jewish and Palestinian states.

The ideas, which were to be announced in a speech by the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, that was postponed because of the September 11 attack, are expected be revealed formally later this month.

Leaks in the American and Israeli press are causing tremors of nervousness around Mr Sharon, even though US diplomats say the proposals could change before they are publicly aired. "This government is not going to divide Jerusalem. Period," Mr Sharon's spokesman Raanan Gissin said. "Jerusalem will remain the capital of the Jewish people."

Mr Sharon will visit Washington next month to press his case, Israel Radio reported yesterday. He is known to be angry that Mr Powell consulted Saudi Arabia and Egypt but not Israel when he drafted his speech.

Palestinian officials lauded the idea of a "viable homeland" - seen as an improvement on Mr Bush's call for a Palestinian state.

Revealing the nervousness of Arab governments, it emerged yesterday that a tentative plan to include Saudi Arabia on Mr Blair's Middle East itinerary was scrapped at the last minute.

The Saudi government is fearful of Islamic fundamentalist opinion in the kingdom. The London paper Asharq al-Awsat quoted "informed sources" in London as saying the kingdom told Mr Blair that it could not receive him because the leadership was sensitive about its role and position in the Islamic world.

Downing Street played it down, insisting that the visit was not logistically possible.


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To: Skywalk
Fred25 yours is a hateful, paranoid anti-semitic fantasy.

You are an egotistical racist using typical Zionist slogans. Hey, why don’t Zionists intermarry with other races? Why do you want to keep your race “pure”? Why did you keep Ethiopians from immigrating for so long? Why do you hate Gentiles? Why do you keep the text of the Talmud so secret?

201 posted on 10/12/2001 9:59:21 PM PDT by Fred25
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To: Skywalk
You are anti-Gentile, anti-Arab, anti-Hispanic, anti-Oriental, anti-Christian, anti-everybody but Zionists. Egotistical, racist, elitists, with dreams and fantasies of world domination. No wonder Zionists have been kicked out of country after country over the centuries. You think you are better than everyone else and you try to manipulate the politics of every country you live in. You are on the verge of getting your butts kicked all over again. When will you ever learn? Join the human race like the rest of us and like the decent Jews who don’t support mad insane pompous racist Zionism.
202 posted on 10/12/2001 10:06:38 PM PDT by Fred25
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To: goldstategop
If we don't want to go the way of every other power on earth before us we'll take care to see to it no harm comes to Israel.

I know. You’ll use you atomic bombs on all the nations of the world, but I think we, Russia, China, and India have more bombs than you do. You will get a few of them off, but not enough to save your fascist nation.

203 posted on 10/12/2001 10:11:21 PM PDT by Fred25
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To: gohabsgo
I'm sure the terrorists will be telling their Muslim friends all through the Middle East that we would never have supported a Palestinian state if the terrorists hadn't destroyed the World Trade Center.

We are going to appear weak and stupid. As soon as they get new concessions, they will make new demands. The next demands made on us, if rejected, will provoke further terrorists attacks, since that apparently forces us to make concessions.

204 posted on 10/12/2001 10:13:19 PM PDT by Rocky
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To: Fred25
JESUS! You're a lunatic. It'd be one thing if you made certain false claims, but you spew pure venom and vitriol. Look I can't help it if you're ex mother in law was a bizznich. I MERELY answered your own maniacal rantings with my own observation of YOUR paranoid fantasy.

AS for intermarrying, you think SOME Jews are any different than other ethnic groups? They want to preserve their culture, and not see their grandkids become devout Baptists. Whatever you may think of that, there are PLENTY of Christians who would be not a bit happy if their daughter married an atheist or Muslim or Buddhist.

Get over yourself and your delusions. No one is trying to conquer the world, an impossible proposition for Jews anyway.

205 posted on 10/12/2001 10:18:28 PM PDT by Skywalk
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To: Skywalk
AS for intermarrying, you think SOME Jews are any different than other ethnic groups?

I keep telling you, I’m not talking about “Jews”. I’m talking about Zionists. These people are cultists, a weird racial-superiority group who will try to dominate every nation on earth and who will destroy the entire earth with their A-bombs if they feel it is necessary.

206 posted on 10/12/2001 10:24:30 PM PDT by Fred25
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To: calmseas
Amen! The President has stated that the US will never negotiate with terrorists,
but then wants to force the Israelis, one of our best allies, to negotiate with them?
207 posted on 10/12/2001 10:29:39 PM PDT by patriot5186
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To: Fred25
Hey, why don’t Zionists intermarry with other races?

From your earlier delirious post, I thought one of them had "intermarried" you?

208 posted on 10/13/2001 5:38:12 AM PDT by Cachelot
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To: Seti 1
Bibi got huge applause when INVITED to speak before Congress.

He was also an honored guest on the Rush Limbaugh show.

And I didn't notice him trying to bribe the USA with a fat check that was shoved back in his face by Rudy G. and the US govt.

209 posted on 10/13/2001 7:54:19 AM PDT by veronica
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To: Seti 1
Your ability to read Bush's mind is amazing. What do you use - tarot cards?
210 posted on 10/13/2001 7:59:06 AM PDT by veronica
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To: Fred25
You have hit on the true face of Judaism. It is a religion and culture based upon exclusion....If you don't believe it just try to convert or do business in Israel or any of the "trades". The perpetuation of the "Chosen People" handle is their way of calling the rest of us "untermensch". The reason that one must have a Jewish mother to be Jewish is so that the boys could bang the slave girls and goyas and not dilute or pollute the race....sounds down right "Aryan" to me.
211 posted on 10/13/2001 12:33:03 PM PDT by 11bravo
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To: Cachelot
From your earlier delirious post, I thought one of them had "intermarried" you?

No, no, no. My wife was just “Jewish” but not Zionistic. I think her family wasn’t Zionistic in their early years, but some of them turned Zionistic after the ’67 and ’73 Middle-East war. Some of them weren’t really Zionists at all, but my mother-in-law drove everyone nuts about it. She was the most racist and Zionistic of the lot of them. It was from that experience that I began to study about Zionism. There are different degrees, different motives, and different kinds of Zionism. Some of it is based on race and some on religion.

I don’t care if someone “supports Israel”. That’s ok with me. It’s just when they support Israel more than they support the United States, that causes a problem with me, and I don’t care much for the “end timers”. I think they are nuts, and they aren’t all “Jews”. Many of them are “end time” Christians. And of course there are anti-Zionist “end time” Islamic Arabs. When all these nuts get to plotting (“end time” Christians, Jews, and Arabs), then there is a danger of a big atomic war, with three different types of crackpots trying to force the “end time” on all of us, thinking “their side” will win.

212 posted on 10/13/2001 5:32:48 PM PDT by Fred25
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To: Fred25
You think you are better than everyone else and you try to manipulate the politics of every country you live in. You are on the verge of getting your butts kicked all over again. When will you ever learn? Join the human race like the rest of us and like the decent Jews who don’t support mad insane pompous racist Zionism.

It's time Fred you hear from my attorney.

  Alan Der-show-it-z, attorney

Alan Dershowitz was representing a group of Florida voters who wanted the recounts to go forward. Dershowitz is a professor at Harvard Law School and a criminal defense attorney. His clients have included O.J. Simpson, Claus von Bulow, Mike Tyson and Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.

213 posted on 10/13/2001 10:45:01 PM PDT by Infinite Perfection
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To: Phil V.
Obviously Suzanne Goldenberg, George Bush, Powell et al have not received Israel's/Sharon's....

LOL. Leftwingnuts like Suzanne have nothing in common with Conservatives like Bush and Powell, though she might with Leftists like you.

214 posted on 10/14/2001 8:58:12 AM PDT by veronica
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To: Goblins; Objective Reality
Thats Israel talking there giving his name to Joseph's sons, not to Judah. Find Joseph's offspring and there is Israel. It is not the Jews

I have seen stupidity in many forms while having preacher types ignore reality, but this is absurd. Jacob blessed Joseph's sons to add their names to the inheritance of Israel because they were half Egyptian. While erroneously positing YOUR version of history as fact, which a lot of people might be inclined to believe since the Old Testament was so thoroughly discarded, you might want to check out the very next chapter of Genesis. 49, it is, where Jacob gave his deathbed blessing to his SONS, the TWELVE TRIBES of Israel. Ephraim and Manasseh are NOT named nor are they TRIBES. They became part of the Tribe of Yosef.

*Objective,*
If you elect to dismiss the Gospel of John as "hearsay," then you dismiss the entire Gospel as "hearsay," and your opinions on the alleged "teachings" of the "devout Rabbi" (and nothing more) Yeshua Ben Joseph are utterly baseless, in that no other written account exists. He wrote no texts.

Oh. I guess THAT explains everything, huh?

215 posted on 10/14/2001 9:07:49 AM PDT by NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh
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To: NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh
"Joseph is a fruitful vine, a fruitful vine near a spring, whose branches climb over a wall. With bitterness archers attacked him; they shot at him with hostility. But his bow remained steady, his strong arms stayed supple, because the Mighty One of Jacob because of the Shepard, the rock of Israel, because of your father's God who helps you, because of the Almighty who blesses you with blessings of the heavens above, blessings of the deep that lies below, blessings of the breast and womb. Your father's blessings are greater than the blessings of the ancient mountains, than the bounty of the age old hills. Let all these rest on the head of Joseph, on the brow of the prince amongst his brothers.

I can not find your reasons given in the bible. Yet I can quote from the bible to support mine. So you are the one in delusion. The son's of Joseph were each given an allotment different in kind in the promised land.

216 posted on 10/15/2001 3:22:53 PM PDT by Goblins
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To: NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh
Joseph's sons were the tribe of Joseph but each became there own people, each became their own tribe and were given different allotments in the Holy land unlike any other tribe. And the only members of the tribe of Joseph were his two sons, unlike that which you inferred.
217 posted on 10/15/2001 3:28:33 PM PDT by Goblins
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To: liberalism=failure
Exactly. From now on, all Israeli women can only get mostly pregnant. The Pali's don't want peace, they want the destruction of Israel.
218 posted on 10/15/2001 3:35:25 PM PDT by Republic of Texas
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To: NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh
Here is some more for you

When Rehoboam arrived in Jerusalem, he mustered the whole house of Judah and the tribe of Benjamin ... to make war against the house of Israel
1 Kings 12:21

The house of Judah separated with the tribes of Benjamin and Levi and are now the modern day Jews. The house of Israel are the remaining tribes who chose to follow Ephraim and Manasseh, and were later taken into bondage and became the missing ten tribes of Israel. Three from twelve is nine in my book, so why are they called the missing ten? Why during the division did those who followed the combined tribes of Joseph become called the house of Israel?

219 posted on 10/15/2001 6:12:56 PM PDT by Goblins
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To: Goblins
Your unique interpretations of completely out of context verses sound so *right* don't they? It's all the things in between which you left out that show the desperate search to eliminate not just the House of Yehuda, but also Benyamin and Levi. Don't you know that it was designated that ONLY the House of Levi were to be accepted into priesthood? What is your problem with the ENTIRE Old testament that you so rudely posit unconnected pronouncements to make a point that is illegitimate on its face?
Genesis 49:8-10
Judah, thee shall thy brethren praise;
Thy hand shall be on the neck of thine enemies;
Thy father's sons shall bow down before thee.
Judah is a lion's whelp;
From the prey, my son, thou art gone up.
He stooped down, he couched as a lion,
And as a lioness; who shall rouse him up?
The sceptere shall not depart from Judah,
Nor the ruler's staff from between his feet,
As long as men come to Shiloh;
And unto him shall the obedience of the peoples be.

Genesis 49:28

All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is it that their father spoke unto them and blessed them.

And BTW, Joseph went to help bury his father and returned to live out his life in Egypt. His dying words were for his brothers NOT to leave his bones in Egypt. So during the Exodus, they did indeed gather Joseph's bones and carry them back to the land which G-d promised them. That land was and is ISRAEL.

220 posted on 10/15/2001 7:05:48 PM PDT by NixNatAVanG InDaBurgh
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