So much crap has been written about that security wall which is so false that I wish that Israel would build the wall/fence, faster, higher, and wider. This is a disgusting anti Semitic cartoon and I am convinced that those who oppose the security fence do so because they either secretly or openly enjoy seeing Jews live in fear or being blown up.

this same cartoon was published in the Philly Inq - AS WELL as an op ed piece by an ISM member - my letter to the editor was in outrage over this was ignored - thus my subscription was canned.

At the least, this is plagiarism. I am sure I have seen this use of the Star of David both in the New York Times and the LA Times in years past.

This is a serious question.

How is it that the Arabs openly claim a war with the world. "palestinians" openly claim it is their intent to murder all Jews & take over all Israel. They continue to commit terrorism

.............yet Israel always gets blamed?

Tony Auth- the cartoonist responible for this atrocity is a notorious Israel basher and general leftie creep.

Misleading? Ignorant? Sure. Intentionally so? No argument from me. But antisemitic? I'm not seeing it. The use of Jewish symbols to criticize policies of the Jewish state doesn't strike me as inadmissible in and of itself.

Granted, there ought to be limits, perhaps defined in some measure by hypocrisy. And certainly on that measurement Auth gets part way there. But the charge of antisemitism is as serious one and ought to be clearly established before being leveled. This one falls short. There are pragmatic reasons for exercising caution: Before you know it, you're going to hear the claim that any criticism of Israel is stifled by charges of antisemitism.

If they're trying to make a comparison to the Berlin Wall, they would do well to remember that the Berlin Wall kept the East Germans trapped IN the communist paradise. How many died trying to escape to the "brutal capitalist" side?

I can't comprehend how anyone of good will could oppose a security fence while there's discussion of Palestinian (Jordanian immigrants really) autonomy. What are borders for?

I don't find it anti-semitic. Wrong-headed and misleading yes. The fence isn't being built to intern Arabs.

The use of the Star of David does not automatically make a criticism Jew-hatred. Israel uses it on their flag and as a national symbol so it is also an Israeli symbol. If the cartoonist were to say he meant it to symbolize Israel I'd believe him.

Kal

wm. tyroler

"Before you know it, you're going to hear the claim that any criticism of Israel is stifled by charges of antisemitism."

We've already heard that, for decades.

Kalroy,

If the cartoonist wants to symbolize Israel, he should use the entire Israeli flag, with the bars above and below the Star.

Maybe the Seattle times should do another cartoon with the American flag showing all the red parts represented as blood flowing from the bodies of dismembered babies. Oh, and skulls instead of stars.

I think it's time we stopped asking how this can be happening (and/or why), and start figuring out what we're going to do about it.

That cartoon is simply horrible.

Ironically, the Star still looks great. Just like the Stars and Stripes - even if it is being burned. Great symbols' meanings shine through no matter. :-)

The Israeli Army has a saying:

"We have to fight smarter."

Heed these words!

Don't get me wrong,

I am hoping to come off as extreme and insulting to some: anyone who is against the State of Israel in the fight against the Arabs right now, is a fucking anti-Semite.

Allow me to explain: there is a right, and there is a wrong. The Arabs are clearly in the wrong. I don't care less about anyone's "point of view", it's a fucking joke. Nazis had a "point of view" as well, and they were clearly wrong. Sorry, it just doesn't fucking wash. When you're wrong, you're wrong. The Arabs are wrong. They are fighting Israel - and Jews - around the world for anti-Semitic reasons. Anyone who supports them is supporting blatant anti-Semitism. I wouldn't go around saying that people had a right to support Nazi Ideology during WWII simply because they might have legitimate criticisms of the Allies. I understand that it is the new way of thinking to suggest that everything has a wrong side and, well, that's frankly a whole lot of bullshit. So yes, it's anti-Semitic, simply because it supports the Arab point of view. And if you don't like it, shit, that's my point of view, and you're an anti-Semite for thinking otherwise. My suggestion to all who find my point of view offensive in some way: fuck off and die.

And that's only when I'm being polite.

"Maybe the Seattle times should do another cartoon with the American flag showing all the red parts represented as blood flowing from the bodies of dismembered babies. Oh, and skulls instead of stars."

Be careful what you ask for, it may come true!

Hi all...and to Mr. Sharkansky as it's my first post on his site...

To Joel
"I am convinced that those who oppose the security fence do so because they either secretly or openly enjoy seeing Jews live in fear or being blown up."
and
To Bleeding Heart Conservative
"I can't comprehend how anyone of good will could oppose a security fence while there's discussion of Palestinian (Jordanian immigrants really) autonomy. What are borders for?"

Look friends, I consider myself relatively good willed, and certainly my politics are to the right of both of you...especially on Israeli matters.
But there really really ARE GOOD REASONS NOT to build the security fence. Practical reasons, - crippling military and economic cost, vast doubt as to it's effectiveness....and Political reasons, - the isolation and attenuation of the danger to thousands of Jews living peaceably "beyond the fence", the establishment and tacit concession of a border, without even the mockery of a negotiated settlement (essentially capitulation to terror), the everlasting message that Jews are willing to give up their Promised Land (which puts the whole Zionist enterprise at question)
The answer is not 'ghetto fences' near or on the "Auswitzch Borders", but clear-eyed and relentless zero tolerance for terror - that is, ATTACK! NOW! Finish the PA! Annex the Land! Demand that ALL serve in the IDF or do National Service, and Swear OATH of FEALTY to the Israeli State, or be denied citizenship. Deport or imprison, with no reprieve, ANY who engage in acts against the State. Flood Yesha with Jewish Immigrants from America, by establishing a "Homestead Act"...
Those Arabs who cannot tolerate living with Jews will LEAVE of their own accord, no 'transfer' required...
Anyway, there's a lot more to this, and it's even simpler than I describe here. I'll check back a bit, so as not to 'troll', but find me mostly at LGF, or my postings of Professor Eidelberg's work at Israpundit.

oh, btw

"ipsofacto"
That's a sweet sentiment!... :-)

I'm not a jew or an Israeli but I am sick of the arabs and their constant whinging and their stupid blind leftist supporters. They are not the only hard done by people in the world but also they are probably the only ones who ask for it.

If you want to built peace, you don't fence your enemy into an unviable space. That's what this cartoon is trying to say. And it does so effectively.

To "walls never"

Ah, my friend, but in this case the enemy has somewhere to go! Like out among anyone of his 300,M -odd breathern..and 22 countries.
Or are you so pathetically naive as to suggest that a Pal State on the '48 ceasefire lines would be a VIABLE state...?
OH! I get it! The Jooos LEAVE, and the Pals sort of just take over everything! Already all set up! That'll work!
Shurley not!... ya tulling. :-P

While this cartoon is tasteless and inaccurate, it isn't even close to the worst I have ever seen. The mainstream Arab press is considerably worse. However, I do wonder if the same cartoonist has ever considered using a Christian cross in the same vulgar manner, or portraying Blacks in Africa with bones in their noses as they cannabalize some other poor Black, or perhaps an Arab in a burnoose as he teaches his six year old son how to assemble and wear a suicide bomb belt? I doubt this very much, nor do I believe that the editors at his paper would allow him to. For that reason alone I feel that the author is an anti semite, and should be criticized in every forum possible, his paper should be hammered too.

Tiburon:

Your ideas although in part admirable are not practical. The fact of the matter is that until there is a politcal/military solution, Israel would be at the mercy of murderous Nazis who have tens of thousands of tragets of opportunities (hospitals, schools, buses, cafes, movie theaters, restaurants, shopping malls, etc.). But controlling and hopefully eliminating Pali access to Israeli cities, towns, villages, farms, etc. Israel can breath a bit safer and make more effective use of a lmitied manpower pool. Right now every Israeli establishment needs to hire security guards and the IDF and police are over stretched. Safer streets in Israel will lead to an increase n toursim, a drop in unemployment, and some psychological healing form the terrors of the past few years. Every night the past year when I went to bed I prayed to God that when I woke up the next morning (if He would even grant me the grace to wake up in the morning) I would not wake up to the news of some horrific terror attack. The fact of the matter is that not a single homicide bombber has infiltrated via Gaza since the fence around Gaza was put up. What our enemies fear (i.e. a fence) is good strategy to adopt as Napoleon once said.

of the four or five waves of antisemitism in the west (but here i analyze america) since wwII, this one is the most intellectually intriguing to examine.

the 50s had a rise in incidents, mainly tied to jewish support for communism - it was led by some in the political class, but mostly industrial.
The media and intelligentsia played no real part.

the late 60s and early 70s saw a more populist burst with the oil crisis and jewish action against the war in vietnam. THis was maybe the zenith of the potentially violent antisemitism in the US (save for acts of muslims which may rise in the future).

the early 80s was again a sort of economic anti semitism, mainly in the white supremacist movement, but then echoing in the black supremacist movement.

the last one, in the late 80s early 90s coincided with the intifada and was most akin to the one now, it was probably somewhat also an economic wave of anti-semitism and really had its most awful display in the black community (farakhan and jackson, et. al.). it seemingly died out with bill clinton making the democrats grow up and dumping jackson and his ilk. the pick up in the economy and the peace process also helped.

this one, which began in 2000 or so is clearly the most interesting - down in the grassroots, jews have never been so well liked and successful. Even in a horrible economy, the blame the jews game is alarmingly missing - i am sure some of the names in the enron/wcom/name your pick scandal are jewish, and maybe us jews deserve a little singling out, but knock me over with a feather if not once have i heard any sort of jew conspiracy blame game come out, except on the websites of the left. the highest levels of government show jewry in america at its zenith, there are more jewish senators, etc. than ever. Popular hatred of jews is very hard to detect. However, the media and intellectuals are at the forefront of this wave. I dont know if this makes it more dangerous - but it seems an almost silly wave - just hatred from the elite who are the most comfortable it is as if this is a new form of the hatred, less religious, less racial, but totally ideological which may tie in to how closely allied it is with freakazoid islam.

Wow, there is a lot of ignorant and hateful commentary here. Israel is an apartheid state and a theocracy. The ongoing violence is about the land. In 1947, when the UN imposed the partition, Jews owned just 7% of the land. An entire nation was disposessed. And yet, even as Israel steals more and more land, engages in ethnic cleansing and kills the Palestinians like stray dogs, we hear whining like the comments above. Anyone who dares to out forth the mildest critique is automatically an "antisemite." Oh please. It's like a broken record, and rarely accurate or justified.

By the way, the cartoon was pretty mild. Yes, the Israelis are building an Apartheid Wall. Yes, Sharon wants to give them 40% of the West Bank and Gaza (or less) for a few "reservations." Yes, there are those in the Israeli government who openly advocate genocide. One crime (the Holocaust) does not justify another.

Gearge,
"It's like a broken record"
Funnny you should say that
So the Jews owned 7%, thats is true I wont deny it. So what about the other 93%? The Arabs in Palestine didnt own all of it if that what youre implying. You think your smart because you know one (insignificant on its own) statistic. Well go and find out some facts dickhead find all of the ones you can then make an opinion.

Bear in mind a few facts:
1- the Land of Israel was Jewish inhabited long before the Arab conquest-The Greeks and Romans called the whole country Judea [IUDAEA in Latin, IOUDAIA in Greek, from the Aramaic YEHUDAYAH meaning, the Jews]. The Romans only changed the name to "Palestine" in 135 CE, after the Bar Kokhba Jewish revolt which wiped out at least one whole Roman legion, if not two. Jews were forbidden to live in Jerusalem and surroundings [source: Eusebius, Church History, inter alia]
2- A substantial Jewish population remained in the Land until the Crusaders came in 1099 and massacred most of the surviving Jews. However, during the early Arab period of rule, from 634 to 1099, Arab-Muslim rule became more and more oppressive, with special taxes and humiliations for non-Muslims [dhimmis], and frequent disorder, raids and looting by Arab tribes, frequent intra-Muslim warfare which caused suffering to non-Muslims, plus confiscation of Jewish land by Arab tribes who settled on it. All this led many Jews to emigrate and it was during the early Muslim period that sizable Jewish communities were first founded in northern Europe based on refugees from Israel and their offspring.
3- skipping over the miserable Crusader and Mamluk periods, when Jews always lived in the country despite Christian and Muslim oppression, Jewish refugees from Spain started arriving in Israel in the late Mamluk period [after 1490] and in the Ottoman period Safed in Galilee became a Jewish cultural center. Despite Muslim exploitation and oppression, Jews became the largest single religious-ethnic group in Jerusalem in 1840 and by 1854 Jews were reported to be an absolute majority in the Holy City [reports by Karl Marx (!) no less, and others]. So Jews have been an absolute majority in Jerusalem since the 1850s [till now], despite Muslim oppression, and their numbers were growing elsewhere in the country. This was BEFORE Theodore Herzl set up the Zionist Organization.
4-As to the ownership of land, recall 1) Arab tribes confiscated land from Jews before the Crusades, 2) the Jewish holy site of Prophet Samuel's tomb near Jerusalem was confiscated by Arabs only about 400 years ago in the Ottoman period. 3) Most land in the country was state land and did not belong to individuals; the population was small, only about 250,000 in 1800; hence most land in the country was unused and once fertile areas had been deserted and sometimes became desertified [check out Mark Twain's description in Innocents Abroad], 4) the Mamluk Muslim rulers destroyed all the coastal cities, towns, and villages about 1300 CE, in order not to provide bases for a new Crusader invasion; hence, there is no continuity of population in the coastal plain, the coastal towns, etc., were only rebuilt in the Ottoman period; 5) the San Remo Conference in 1920 set up the Jewish National Home in international law, and all of what was called by the West "Palestine" was assigned to it. Later the British betrayed their trust [the mandate] to foster the National Home. They prevented Jewish refugees from coming in during the Holocaust.

texsouthphilly! :-)

Fabulous post! I'm always thrilled to see folk who can just reel off the facts and data like you. Don't expect a reply from the Indynazi-type troll "george" - to him all this is, dollars-to-donuts, Zionist Conspiracy Lies.
To add to your chronology, best as I'm able, the British then, during the Mandate, in addition to restricting Jewish immigration forcibly and militarily (ILLEGALLY!), carved off 2/3rds of the original Mandate and gave it to the Hashemite Dynasty, in compensation for their eviction from Mecca and Medina (where they'd been for centuries), and where the British and British Petroleum had backed the Wahabbist uprising which had led to the Saudi Dynasty supplanting the Hashemites in the Arabian Peninsula.
This country became Jordan, and the whole exercise was EXPLICITLY to establish a 'homeland' for the largely itinerant "palestinian" Arab population, the balance of the Mandate to be for the Jews. Unfortunately, the Arabs, who truly and deeply don't give a rat's ass for 'borders', continued to flood into the Western Mandate beyond the Jordan, which led eventually to the whole "Partition" fiasco. They came for the jobs, hospitals, schools, and civil order that the Jews (and to certain extent, the British themselves) had brought to the area. Much later came the lovely fantasies that they had been there "Since Time Immemorial", a la Joan Peters.

Joel: -
Thanks for your considered response. It's clear your heart is sincere in looking for the optimal solution here. I have things to reply to you, I think, on topic, (well not the "cartoon" topic, but the "fence" topic ;-)) but I haven't the time to formulate them now. G-d Willing I'll find my way back here later today to post on this.

The Seattle Times has really gone down the crapper in the last few years. It has become fat, dumb and extremely lazy. Left wing ideologues have come to dominate the paper as Blethen learned to his dismay during the last stike.
For a while it looked like the Seattle Times would go tits up and take that poor zombie, the Seattle P-I, with it thus opening up the Seattle newspaper market. Alas we were not that lucky.

Re: " Indynazi-type troll "george" - to him all this is, dollars-to-donuts, Zionist Conspiracy Lies."

As I noted, even the mildest critique instantly draws ad hominem attacks and a long list of alleged "facts" which amount to nothing more than a string of non-sequitors; none of which address the points I made originally.

Geroge:

To address just one of the points you made originally -- the 7% ownership of land in
the territory of the West Palestine sub-mandate.

A few thoughts...

Most of the land in the sub-mandate was "amiri" -- that is state land, in Ottoman parlance. I believe the figure was 70 percent, but I'll have to looke that up. The reason was that most of the territory from Metulla to the Gulf was either desert, mountan, marsh, or otherwise useless.

This leaves the actual amount (if the amiri percentage is ballpark) of land owned by Jews and arabs to be roughly three or four to one.

Even this amount was remarkable because until 1878 it was virtually impossible for any non-Muslim to own land in the Ottoman Empire, or anywhere else in the Muslim world, for that matter. The record of Islamic state theft of land is long and very tragic and goes back to Mohammed's raid on Khaibar.

If you wanted to keep your land in an Islamic state, you converted. If you wanted to steal land, you converted. One tragic example of the effect of Islamic state land theft was in the Greek Peloponesus, the large peninsula/island south of Athens. In 1820, the land's 350,000 peasants revolted against the local landowners, all of them Muslim Greeks, roughly 30,000 of them. They slaughtered most of them. The Ottoman authorities responded by inviting the Egyptians to restore order, and they did so with great relish, killing roughly 30,000 landless Christian peasants and taking away an equal number of women and children as slaves. (You won't hear about this in Egyptian history books!)

The result was European support for an independent Greek state, but i digress.

In Jerusalem, the majority of the population of the city was Jewish, the majority of the non-Jewish population was Christian, but the small Muslim minority owned all the land and buildings. So greedy were they that the land owning families locked the city gates at night and sent out goons to beat up anyone who didn't come inside and rent a bed. (The prices and conditions were horrible. By the way, the nazi Grand Mufti, haj Amin al-Husseini was a member of the leading slumlord family.)

As it was, the only land that the Jews could buy during the Turkish and British times were in three areas the Arabs did not want -- so they settled in malarial swamps, former farmland ruined by abysmal Arab agricultual practices.

These three areas were the Sharon coastal plain, the Upper Jordan or Huleh Valley, and the Jezreel Valley. All three were drained through herculean efforts and became majority-Jewish areas. (It is interesting to note that few Jews ever settled in the areas where there were no mosquitos, the mountain highlands, i.e the "West Bank".)

So there you have it -- the statistic is false as well as misleading. And as a Christian (i gather)and as an Arab (i guess), you whould be well aware of Islamic land theft.

So knock it off

Mardukhai:

You just have to stick your assumptions in there, don't you? Anyone who disagrees with you "must" be a Christian or an Arab, it seems. Perhaps that is because you are blinded by the arrogant certainty of your beliefs. And if I said I was a Jew, no doubt you would immediately label me a "self-hating" Jew, wouldn't you.

My point regarding the 7% in my earlier post is not to delve into a (highly subjective) interpretation of history. Rather, my point is to note the seemingly endless ongoing theft of the land by the Israelis.

(As I noted earlier, replying with a bunch of non-sequitors is a non-argument. Saying "he did it too" is like saying "two wrongs make a right." Try again.)

Check that map from 1947 that awarded Israel 52% of the land (wow, 45% free!). Then look at the map after the 1948 war; Israel has 78%. Now, Israel has control of 100%, and is busy with an ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing in order to take all of it.

While you may prefer to justify these kinds of actions with your preferred interpretation of history and fairy stories from the Bible, the reality of the present is of slightly greater concern.

To my dear Zionist friends: Nobody would be giving Israel a hard time if they were building this fence on the green line, or even on the lines that Israel offered in 2000 in Camp David.

My question: if Israel did succeed in absoutely crushing ALL ARAB resistence, then how much land would you be willing to cede? Why?

If you are unwilling to cede 20% of the land west of the Jordan (about what Barak offered) to a nation that will make up a majority of the population within that territory within a generation, then you are not an honest peacemaker.

Just to add
70% government owned is the correct figure
of the remaining 30%, 7 was owned by the Jews. The other 23% was owned by both The Arabs of Palestine and absentee Arab landlords in Jordan, Syria etc..
I will find out the figure but I think its around 6% locally owned vs 17% absentee.

O and George, who is avoiding the questions Now??

Markus,
the fence around Gaza is on the Green line and and people still give "Israel a hard time" about it.
If you look at where the fence is being built at the moment it is parallel to the thinest strip of land west of the green line (16km wide I think). This is being built first probablly beacuase they see it as the most important section. Building the fence along the green line there and withdrawing from the eastside would leave a densly populatated part of land within range of the same Kassam rockets that the Palestinians fire out of Gaza.

RE: the pustule named "george",

Obviously you buy into the "Arab point of view", so you must obviously agree with their "root cause" for the entire conflict: Jewish expansionism.

Nice to see a Nazi come into the open like that. Hi. Is your armband getting ironed?

George then do you have a problem with the land ownership/citizenship law Trans Jordan adopted in 1923 after they emigrated from Arabia? NO JEWS

Also the goal of the 48 War by the Arabs was to annihilate the State Of Israel assumbaly leaving the Jews either in the ground or the Mediterranean but most assuredly not offering them their ""7%"". Thus, what is fair for Israel to take in that war as was asked above, "what should Israel cede if they 'crush' the opposition today"
Further, Israel was given 55% by the UN but only owned 7%? despite that being misleading years later the Arabs said they now wanted that Resolution to be enforced? Thus, at first they wanted Jews to get 0% (48) now they mention that Resolution as well as 242 which would give them the Armistice Lines. Arafat rejected Camp David/Taba/WHouse 12/00 but in May of last year said he "would now accept that".

My feelings on it are simple and don't need the Bible.

The Jews won the land the same way every other country or Empire has been existence since the beginning of time, they fucking won it
You know they don't speak ancient Egyptian in Egypt anymore, pretell you know why? You know how in Pakistan they read the Koran today? it didn't fly over there?

Second, for whatever claims the Pal's make regarding the 48 War the Arab states stole far more perhaps 50x more in value from the Sephardic Jews directly following that. Today over 60% of the population are MEastern Jews and most of the Likud are Sephardim. The way I read that is as follows:

a) If the Jews were half as ruthless as the Arabs have been towards Arabs this conflict would be over and something like the Elon Plan would have been instituted a while ago. Greece and Turkey did this and there has been peace between them for how long now?

b) Whatever did or didn't happen in 48 I don't give a shit, its at the least a trade up so the Arabs can take their self created welfare/prison/terror camps in Syria and Lebanon and stick em up their ass. How depraved must you be to keep "your brothers" in camps for 54 fucking years?

END OF STORY.........

Oh, 1 more thing.

I know there's a biblical allegory or fable somewhere which covers something like this:

If the Arabs laid down and demonstrated a minimal degree of peaceful inhabitness they would get everything. The whole fucking ship! However, thanks to their culture and the Nazi brainwashing Arafat has succeeded in since 1994 they have created a culture so rich in vile hate that their best weapon for success is nearly not an option for them. Ie.... they can't stop this train of violence and death even if they wanted to. Abbas's only hope for realizing his strategy through peace is ironically for Israel to crush and expel Hamas, Al Asqua, Islamic Jihad and Arafat. The ironic thing is Arafat thought in his dillusional murderous mind he was creating the train 8 years ago that would bleed Israel into the ground.

Now Sharon can play chicken with the Hudna / Roadmap and there is no doubt that the Palestinians will flinch, they never miss a chance to fuck themselves. Sharon can then clean Gaza up and finish the fence.

Anyone who has any dillusions of peace or even dimmed violence for a while just need take a trip to Northern Ireland. There they speak the same language, share the same culture, look indistinguishable, come from Western Democracies and the only difference is nationalism and slightly religios and they can't and won't be able to make peace.

Now multiply the complexity of that situation by a 100 and maybe you have situation in Israel.

Banagor, Mike, and DeadEd,

By resorting to ad hominem insults and "Nazi" characterizations, your shrill rhetoric only enhances my comments. You should be ashamed of such comments, but it seems that your bloodthirsty and arrogant certainty precludes any human feeling on your part.

Well, I disagree with George's comment that Israel is engaging in ethnic cleansing in the West Bank. Much as many Zionist nutcases would like to do this, Israel to its credit has not yet seriously considered the "transfer" option, although it did practice this somewhat in the 1948 war.

To those of you of who adamently insist that Israel deserves control of the West Bank as a result of its military victories -- you neglect to deal with the fact that in previous cases the conquering empire was responsible for the assimilation of the conquered population. That is, if you want to hold on to the West Bank, you must make the Arabs equal citizens, like the Arabs lucky enough to live in "Israel proper." (You don't like that phrase, that distinction, but I'm sure you don't hesitate to point out that Arabs in Haifa have rights that you would deny to Arabs in Hebron. And why is that?)

Or you must explicitly deny them self-determination on the basis of their nationalitiy, and make them second class citizens, like blacks in Rhodesia and South Africa. (Perhaps you are talking about and advocating colonialism -- but isn't that what the antisemites accuse you of?)

Perhaps your position is illogical, and more importantly, unsustainable.

DeadEd said: ..."the fence around Gaza is on the Green line and and people still give "Israel a hard time" about it."

I've never seen any bad press about the Gaza fence, since it does not seek to expropriate land that is internationally recognized as NOT BELONGING TO ISRAEL.

"If you look at where the fence is being built at the moment it is parallel to the thinest strip of land west of the green line (16km wide I think)."

Uh, obviously "parellel" means nothing. The relevant point is exactly WHERE it is parallel to that thin strip.

Banagor, Mike, and DeadEd,
By resorting to ad hominem insults and "Nazi" characterizations, your shrill rhetoric only enhances my comments. You should be ashamed of such comments, but it seems that your bloodthirsty and arrogant certainty precludes any human feeling on your part.
by george at August 5, 2003

George I am more familiar with "trolls" like you than most here. I didn't call you any ad hominems or Nazi characterizations either. You can't point it out. Your only here to engage in trolling not discussion. Why don't you get attention at Indy what is the need to get attention here.

Its also notable that right after accusing them of calling you names you called them bloodthirsty very funny! lol!! A typical trollism, looking for some attention.

Mike

Has everyone noticed that every single step or measure that any Israeli government takes to protect her citizens or improve their security is criticized or belittled as a violation of Arab human rights, a war crime, genocide, land stealing, or racist? George would have us believe that if the fence were built differently it would then be okay but since he in fact neither represents nor speaks for anyone but himself his words can hardly be taken as a serious assessment of the situation. The fact is that the only Israeli produced solution that the anti Israel critics will accept is the voluntary mass suicide of the Jewish Israeli population. Indeed, once Israel would do that the Europeans and some of the Americans, and I suppose even those like George, would stand up and applaud the courage and conviction of the Israeli Jews.

The whole idea of Arab Rights groups is a joke? Its only for Arab rights or powers in the West and Israel. Of course we know about Arab Rights in the Middle Eastern countries run by Arabs, aka.... like the "modern" state of Jordan where honor killings are still common.

The fence will go up unless the Bush Admin is really serious, which they may be about preventing it, because the Arabs will definitely break the truce and blink.

Markus
if you havent heard any bad press about the Gaza fence its probably because its mostly been long forgotten about. Thee is still however plenty of condemnation about how Israel has 'imprisoned' the resisdents of Gaza. Now days most of those that called bloody murder when Israel put up the fence have shut up. Why? because it worked. NOT A SINGLE SUICIDE BOMBER HAS INFILTRATED INTO ISRAEL FROM GAZA during this intifada.

As for "internationally recognised as not belonging to Israel"
What are you talking about?
SC res 242 338 give Israel the legal right to be there until peace is made with the Arabs.

To the Georges and all other anti-semites.
We Israelis and Jews couldn't care less what you think. In 1922 the British mandate partitioned 78% of the area , then known as Palestine.This vast area was given to the Hashemites in repayment for their tribes participation in the eventual eviction of the Ottoman Turks who had complete control of the entire area prior to ww1.
This new state was named Trans-Jordan. Its constitution reads that Jews and all infidels may not reside in the state today known as Jordan.
Israel has today 1,200,000 Arabs citizens.Close to a 1,000,000 Sephardic Jews were evicted from Arab states upon Israel's creation. They owned land, businesses etc., far greater than the
falah who resided on land owned by absentee Turkish land owners.The early pioneers paid dearly with their lives and money to the absentee landowners for the privilege to clear and reclaim the swamps and barren land. Were Arabs displaced? Many were and many left, encouraged by the king of Egypt and the mufti Haj Amin Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem. Recordings exist, which I personally
have heard, "leave my brothers, when we defeat the Jews you will reclaim your rightful lands". However all the surrounding Arab countries were roundly defeated, leaving the land less falaheen in refugee camps for decades , while the Jews of the new nascent state called Israel, integrated all the Jewish refugees who were forcibly evicted from their homes.
Peace with the Arabs and the so called Palestinians will never be achieved as long as the people do not accept a Jewish democratic
state in their midst. There is no right or wrong . Each group has their opinion, and rightly so. Once the Arabs accept Israel's existence
and stop teaching their children hatred for Jews and all infidels, will peace have a chance. Allah has not been on the side of the Arabs for a long, long time.
I personally have no faith in the peace process. As one of the writer participants stated, I am in the category of the nutcases but consider myself a right wing reasonable man ,who has lived in
Israel and visited both Egypt and Jordan. Since the Arabs have chosen terrorism over peace, "TRANSFER" to Jordan is the only
alternative. I mean all the Arabs from the territories and also all those who reside in Israel. As a secular Jew, some may see this opinion as very harsh and radical. When one lives in a radical part of this world, radical solutions must be used. So be it. The world has never been on our side , so we have to do what is expedient for our survival. Jordan is a Palestinian state now. Another belligerent armed
undemocratic Palestinian state on Israel's border will only cause more wars ,resulting in terrible consequences. But this is just my opinion and becoming more and more the opinion of the average Israeli and Jew. The more belligerency coming from
the Arabs, the more radical will my people become. We will do what is necessary to survive.
YACOV GAFNI

I agree with mr. Ganfi. I started saying "Jordan is Palestine" many years ago!

I have finally come to the conclusion that the Israel Jewish Community will never take the actions necessary to neutralize the Arab Islamic threat until we have exercised every other possible option and are left with no other choice but to drive all the Arabs out. Just remember how things turned out in the Warsaw Ghetto, until the Jews were faced with the fact that they had no other choice did they choose to fight back. Israel is slowly reaching the same point.

Those who support expelling Palestinians need to see what disaster would befall Israel if such a move came to pass. Israel would become reviled. The response "so what, she already is" is simply not rational. It would be much worse. So much antisemitism would be engendered, which ALL Jews would have to suffer for, now and in the future. Also, are you able to guarantee to all of your people's children that G-d would look kindly upon Israel making such a move? Can you be certain?

Israel must deal with the Palestinian problem honorably. Anything else will give undeserved authority to the antisemitic claim that Jews do not respect and value the lives of non-Jews.

This Tony Auth cartoon has caused a stir in several Philadelphia, Jewish, and on-line circles since it was printed in the Philadelphia Inquirer last Thursday. The cartoon, which depicts a fence in the shape of a Jewish star dividing Palestinian civilians, has come under fire – as do most on the left about Israel – as not only critical of the Sharon government but anti-Israel, and not only anti-Israel but antisemitic. And, as in most but not all cases when Israel is the topic and antisemitism is charged, the charge doesn’t hold weight.

At the heart of the issue with this cartoon is the symbolic use of the Magen David, the Jewish star. Because Auth uses a religious symbol, the argument goes, the cartoon represents a religious – rather than political – slur, a blood libel. Because the star is employed in connection with a depiction of oppression, the cartoon’s message must be that the religion, and the coreligionists, associated with the star are oppressive. But this argument disregards the appropriation of the Jewish star a century ago for the flag of the State of Israel. The star, which appears in the center of the flag framed above and below by horizontal stripes, is its only recognizable symbol, and appears solo in a range of administrative contexts, as understandably is also a mainstay of pro-Sharon lobbies. So why the Magen David does not belong to the lexicon of acceptable symbols for Auth is seems to me difficult to argue.

This may seem like a belated nitpick, but there’s a larger and more persistent issue here. Whatever one believes about the religious nature of the state, I think intellectual honesty demands a recognition that any self-identified religious state inherently blurs the discourse, insofar as most of us legitimize and call for judgments of states and political actors of a type that we don’t want or legitimate of religions or religious groups. But pundits on both sides can fall prey to a desire to have it both ways. A couple months ago I called a Yale professor active on the Yale-Peace listserve on a seeming inability or willful refusal to distinguish between Jews, Zionists, Likudniks, Israelis, and neoconservatives. But the double standard on the right is subtler and more ubiquitous: Groups that defend the Israeli government are pro-Jewish and speak for Jews, but when critics of Israel conflate the state and the religion it’s bigotry. It would be gratifying to see more politicians willing to distinguish the Jewish community and Arik Sharon when it comes to commentary they agree with and commentary they don’t.

Katha Pollitt, in an essay on flags after September 11, wrote that symbols are doors and it’s time to walk through them (when I asked her in person what she had meant by that quote, she said she didn’t remember ever writing it). Symbolic politics is inherently potent and inherently fraught. And all cartoons are caricature. As cartoonists go, Auth isn’t a particular favorite of mine, although he has his moments. But Auth’s cartoon has three symbols. The first, as described above, is perhaps the primary symbol of the state. The second, Palestinian civilians exist by the millions in the territory occupied by that state. And the third, the fence in question, is lengthening even now. The criticism of Auth for using the symbol, and the implication that his symbolism is akin to Nazi propaganda and/or is comparing Israelis to Nazis to Nazis, makes it easy to forget that in this case life preceded art. The actual fence, in fact, looks a lot uglier than portrayed in the cartoon. Auth chose to make a statement – not a particularly new one – about the construction of the fence in the name of the star and its impact on men, women, and children. Debatable? Sure. Bigotry? No.

Poor Josh, the other guy kicks him in the face, punches him in the groin, and spits on him to boot, and Josh explains that this other guy really deep down likes him, he just has a different, somewhat strange way of showing his affection.
It is n much the same way that certain news outlets print stories about the Middle East. They claim to be professional, objective, and even factual but in truth, 99% of the stories are bitterly critical of Israel. Not only are virtually all these outlets critical in substance and tone regarding Israel, many of them include as a matter of course, negative criticisms of the Jewish religious nature of the State. Often Israel hating Jewish Israeli expatriates are enlisted to the cause of hammering Israel because it is believed that they enjoy some sort of special insight and "understanding" of the deviousness of the Jews. And besides, because they are so decent and moral, they simply could no longer suffer the pain of living in such an evil place like Israel.
When these news outlets do condescend to present the Palestinian or Arab side of the conflict, it is as if every Arab woman is Mother Theresa, and every Arab male Che Guevara. And when these outlets discuss the Arab and Palestinian cause, even when the Arabs they interview slip up and admit that their true goal is the destruction of the Jewish State, and the extermination of the Jewish People in a Middle Eastern version of the European Holocaust, the news report that finally appears glosses over these incendiary and violent statments and often turns reality on it's head and blames Israel for having the arrogance to even exist!
If I could be shown a similar treatment of an Arab flag or other Arab national symbol by a major news outlet, then fine, I might just go along with good ole' Josh. If I could see even the African murderer Charles Taylor of Liberia being roasted like this on an editorial page, then again I might be able to find common ground with Josh. But we all know that I will never see things like that, only when Israel is involved. or to a lesser extent, the United States, is this sort of anti semitic and anti Jewish bigotry allowed.
Josh, when they spit in your face, they really mean it, it is not just raining.