"National home of the Jewish people?" Rubbish. Jewish people have national homes all round the world, which they share with other people. Australia is one of them. How are the mythical "Jewish people", as a people and not just as a collective noun for individuals of Jewish origin, more special than everyone else? Where's the "national home" of the "Celtic people? Or the so-called "Aryan people"? Heaven forbid that there should ever be one.

David. I am inclined to agree with President Obamas' rejection of "one of President Bush's most cherished objectives". After all, this is an objective of Bush, not that of the Palistinian representatives, and it is they that determine their form of govenance surely?

Events in both 'Palestine', syria, Iran and other 'Arab Spring' states demonstrates that the more traditional 'dictator/bully/tribal might form of governance is preferred to that of democracy. That is fine by me.

The right of Isreal to exist without the threat of extinction from its neighbours, on the other hand, is not negotiable and the ultimate objective of a peace plan. Once negotiated, agreed borders are established, Palistinians and all others are free to carry on with their internecine tribal squabbles as long as they like, provided it does not spill over into neighbouring states.

Greg Sheridan had a piece in The Australian titled:

Obama leaves Labor adrift on Mid East

LET'S be quite blunt. President Barack Obama is an ardent Zionist.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/obama-leaves-labor-adrift-on-mid-east/story-e6frg76f-1226605779928

In contrast to most of my co-religionists I've long felt that Obama is the best friend Israel has had in the White House since Harry Truman. He is certainly a better friend that the fake friends on the Republican side.

Excerpt:

>>His unequivocal statement of support for Zionism, the idea that there should be a Jewish state in the land of Israel, went too little remarked.

Here's part of what he said in Jerusalem: "For the Jewish people, the journey to the promise of the state of Israel wound through countless generations. It involved centuries of suffering and exile, prejudice and pogroms and even genocide . . . And while Jews achieved extraordinary success in many parts of the world, the dream of true freedom finally found its full expression in the Zionist idea - to be a free people in your homeland.">>

stevenmeyer,

"... to be a free people in your homeland."

Tragically, it's somebody else's homeland. The notion that Jews are uniquely privileged to return to some ancestral "homeland" is chauvinistic nonsense.

Emperor Julian,

yes, indeed,

Humans have a thousand "homelands", I've absolutely no inclination or moral right to "return" to Western Turkey, the area north of the Black Sea, a small island off NW Europe, or East Africa.

To #Emperor Julian and #mac

Your denial of the right of the Jews to have their own state in their biblical,ancient and legally sanctioned and recognized homeland - as President Obama so eloquently stated - indicates you have no conception of what is required to end the Jewish-Arab conflict.

President Obama expressed this requirement in a simple one liner:
"Palestinians must recognize that Israel will be a Jewish state."

Their failure to do so will see the current two-state solution end up in the dust bin of history - like previous two state solutions proposed in 1922, 1937, 1947 and 2000.

#To Prompete

The requirement that any Palestinian state be democratic was a condition of the Roadmap the terms of which were endorsed by the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.

The requirement seems to have been quietly shelved in the face of the total inability of the Palestinian Arabs being given the opportunity to have a say in their own future for the last six years.

My own view is that this is a big mistake.

The Palestinian Arabs should not be muzzled by their despotic masters.

Realpolitik seems to dictate otherwise at the moment - but frustration could see the situation change very quickly. One can only live in hope that this will occur.

#To stevenlmeyer

Both Presidents Bush and President Obama are Zionists as were virtually all members of the US House of Representatives and Senate who endorsed the letter from President Bush to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon dated 14 April 2004.

The Jew-haters who frequent OLO should take note that their jaundiced viewpoint will be the straw that breaks the camel's back in achieving a peaceful resolution to a conflict that has now raged for over 130 years.

Denigrating Jews and delegitimizing the Jewish state will prolong the conflict - not bring about its resolution.

David. I take your point in the fact that democratisation was a condition of the 'roadmap', as agreed by the parties to the negotiations, and not necessarily a personal requirement of Bush.

However, as further 'compromise' is continually demanded and as particularly espoused by many on this site, my inclination is that the dumping of 'democratisation' in the area, in a pragmatic compromise gesture, be the area that I would offer that compromise.

On the other hand, I bleed for all Palistinian and other Arabs being subject to their traditional forms of governance. Perhaps I am displaying my cultural cheauvenism here?

The Singer is, without doubt, the world's premier lily-gilder.

He can take any situation and, using his devious mind, twist it so that the Israelis are as pure as the driven snow and the Palestinians are black and evil and to blame for every horror that has happened to them since the Jewish plague descended upon them in 1947.

He should be given a medal really but not a solid gold one! Perhaps a lead one with some gold paint on it would suffice.

The medal could be inscribed: "To the King of Gilders. He has no Peer!"

We all hope he disappears!

David G

"The Singer is, without doubt, the world's premier lily-gilder."

And it's a particularly stinking lily.

David Singer

You wrote:

>>Denigrating Jews and delegitimizing the Jewish state will prolong the conflict - not bring about its resolution.>>

"The conflict" as you call it, will never be resolved.

It doesn't matter what mac or David G or anybody else on OLO thinks

The Muslim "ummah" will never accept the legitimacy of a Jewish enclave in the heart of what they regard as Dar-ul-Islam. No amount of legalistic argument is going to change that.

You think that "virtually all members of the US House of Representatives and Senate" are Zionists.

That's taurine fertilser.

I'm inclined to think Obama is sincere. The rest are simply concerned about getting re-elected. At the moment being pro-Israel is a better bet than being anti so Congressmen and Senators support pro-Israel motions.

Where and how this will end I don't know but my guess is in a nuclear war.

In the mean time Israeli scientists continue to produce astonishing technology.

See:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=IfJemqkby_0

Pity no Australian government will learn from Israel, Singapore and South Korea and focus on developing Australia's scientific culture. The minerals boom won't last forever and then what?

See for example:

>>Samsung to open startup center in Israel

Global technology giant launches international innovation and strategy center with branch in Ramat Gan, expected to invest millions of dollars in companies and academia>>

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4342371,00.html

Why in Israel?

Why not in Australia?

<<His highly significant use of this keyword on 21 March at the Jerusalem International Convention Centre constituted a diplomatic milestone in America's quest to end the long running Jewish-Arab conflict.>>

Oh Dear David Singer,

What a sad day that would be for you!
You will then sit bored at home and we'll all miss your nearly-weekly articles, especially your devoted EmperorJulian, Mac, David G, Geoff of Perth and Marilyn Shepherd who eagerly await your articles so they can curse the Jews.

Perhaps we should better keep the war going for just another 50 years or so, shall we?

Yuyutsu,

You're rather too glib. Don't paint us all with the same brush, where have I "cursed the Jews".

If I decided, like you, to use ad hominem arguments I could describe all pro-Israel commenters as " racist, Arab-hating Islamophobes" couldn't I?
Of course that's not true, some are, of course.

Dear Mac,

Thanks for your comment!

<<Of course that's not true, some are, of course.>>

And some cursings are justified too.

Carpe Diem!

To #David G and #mac

Sorry to be the bearer of news you both don't like to hear - that appears to have given you both hissy fits.

I can only conclude your failure to criticise or take issue with any aspect of my article is due to the fact that the views expressed therein are incontrovertible - leaving you with no option but to take some cheap shots at the person who delivers the message.

You should vent your spleen at President Obama - not me - for the President making this profoundly important statement:

"Palestinians must recognize that Israel will be a Jewish state."

I know that this is a bitter pill for Jew-haters to swallow - but I am not gilding the lily - just telling it exactly as President Obama has spoken.

The equation is not that unfair - 57 Islamic states in the world and just one Jewish state.

The failure especially of the 21 Arab Islamic states (with two notable exceptions) to face up to what is required of them has been the major stumbling block to ending the Jewish-Arab conflict for the last 65 years.

With friends like you urging the Arabs to maintain the racist view that Jews are not entitled to reconstitute their national home in their biblical and legally sanctioned homeland - it is you who are putting your heads in the sand along with the Arab League in ensuring any hopes of a two-state solution will end up in the dust bin of history - as occurred in 1922,1937,1938,1947,1948-1967,2000 and 2008.

I think President Obama made it clear in Jerusalem that even he is not going to play along with this intransigence for much longer.

This is not gilding the lily - it is just telling it as I believe it is.

Singer, given that you are a man whose mind is a captive of his religious beliefs, I suppose you deserve our pity.

Then it is hard to feel pity for a group of people who have tyrannized and opressed a whole group of people who have done no wrong, ie, the Palestinians.

Your people, those in Israel, have engaged in monumental cruelty, a deliberate choice. They have head-shot children, allowed pregnant women to die at checkpoints, taken their houses and demolished them, tortured them, massacred them, called them subhumans, starved them, stolen their taxes, deprived them of freedom and medical supplies, used missiles and drones and tanks and Apache helicopters and warships against them, pulled up their olive trees, humiliated them, etc, yet you want us to praise them, give them a clean sheet!

If you could only see the Israelis as much of the world does, as a group of brutal religious fanatics and racists.

No amount of lily-gilding will change the reality of the Israelis. Only they can change and they will only do that if sanity and reality finds its way into their tiny, religiously deranged minds.

Dear David G.,

<<Singer, given that you are a man whose mind is a captive of his religious beliefs, I suppose you deserve our pity.>>

Singer's beliefs are anything but religious, his mind is captive of his nationalistic ambitions, hence he does not deserve our pity.
Judaism is not a religion, but a national movement, albeit sometimes tactically disguised as a religion. Had Singer taken that religious aspect of Judaism seriously, he would not have commented here on the Jewish Sabbath, contrary to the injunctions of that same book he is waving as "evidence" to owning the land of Israel. He would also remember that in that same book, the most prominent Jewish prophets cursed the Jewish people to be exiled for failing to follow the commandments of that book, which they still mostly don't follow.

Having said that, your long list as in "Your people, those in Israel, have engaged in monumental cruelty", is exaggerated, hence lacking in credibility. If would have benefited you to prepend the word 'some' before each statement: Yes, SOME Jews have done very bad things for which there is no excuse - and SOME Arabs too. This is a war and each coin has two faces.

<<If you could only see the Israelis as much of the world does, as a group of brutal religious fanatics and racists.>>

Israelis are hardly a group. The vast majority of them are simply citizens by default because they were born there, and living between a rock and a hard place, between Singer's Jews and groups of mad fundamentalist Muslims who would not allow anyone but themselves to live in their neighbourhood, or indeed on this whole planet if they had the power to kill/convert us all.

<<Only they can change and they will only do that if sanity and reality finds its way into their tiny, religiously deranged minds.>>

The first step towards change and sanity is acknowledging the existing reality. If someone has no 'religiously deranged mind' (never-mind 'tiny') to begin with (but rather a 'huge nationalistically-deranged mind'), how possibly can they get rid of it?

Yuyutsu, the link between extreme nationalism and religious extremists cannot be broken or arbitrarily dismissed.

The Israelis provide a case in point as do the Americans and the leaders of several radical Muslim nations.

The danger presented by the fusion between extreme nationalism and religion is the most dangerous mixture of all especially when nukes are in play.

You end up with a situation where a race of people consider themselves to be superior to all others and this belief is underpinned by the belief that some mythical god is on their side and will reward their abhorrent behavior! People who think this way consider that what they want, they should have!

The Israelis think that all of Palestine should be theirs and the Americans think that the whole world should be theirs! In both cases, military force is used to plunder and destroy.

Nationalism and extreme religious belief, if allowed to continue, will end our world.

It's just a matter of time!

Dear David G.,

<<Yuyutsu, the link between extreme nationalism and religious extremists cannot be broken or arbitrarily dismissed.>>

What doesn't exist cannot be broken!

Those nationalistic extremists are out there to trick you, and you, so it seems, have naively bought their stories. They are not religious, never were, they only pretend to be and they will find neither virgins nor sit and study Torah with Elijah in the Garden of Eden once they die.

Violence is the antithesis of religion. Such people who consider themselves to be superior to all others, ignore that divinity which is the common essence in each and every one of us, hence are not religious, they take the name of God, or Allah, in vain.