"Stop blaming Israel and wake up: The black flag of jihad is the REAL threat to the world"

[Asia 2,491]

rule one for posting in a thread alongside oriz. any documentary, article, video, that is not completely cheering on israel and justifying their every move, is propaganda and false per oriz. if you dare suggest that israel is not righteous - expect to be hit with a wall of text.

keep it up and you'll get called a jew hater.

Thanks for letting me know!

That'll teach me to keep my opinions to myself

I don't like to be hit with a wall of text when I only shared my POV and expected to read some other POVs.

Tho... I find it odd and silly that people claim that their land was promised to them by God, so that gives them a right to have it and it's completely not negotiable

[Karee 4,189]

rule one for posting in a thread alongside oriz. any documentary, article, video, that is not completely cheering on israel and justifying their every move, is propaganda and false per oriz. if you dare suggest that israel is not righteous - expect to be hit with a wall of text.

keep it up and you'll get called a jew hater.

Well said.

[OriZ 3,157]

Lyons’ angry roar hides lack of substance

By Allon Lee, AIJAC

March 13, 2014

In a nearly 1,100 word response to Greg Sheridan’s dismissal of his “Four Corners” hatchet job on Israel, one might have expected John Lyons would have found space to answer the factual questions raised by his critics. Instead he preferred to attack Sheridan for relying on analysis by the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) that debunked many of Lyons’ claims (Australian, March 8).

These analyses, which appeared in the Australian newspaper, the Australian Jewish News, the Australia/Israel Review and AIJAC’s website, exposed Lyons’ catalogue of misreporting, half-reporting, obfuscations and sensationalising.

Lyons insisted the analyses could not be trusted because AIJAC is “a privately funded lobby group with extremely hardline positions on Israel.”

If “hardline” in Lyons’ worldview means supporting a negotiated two-state resolution, then AIJAC pleads guilty.

Obtusely, Lyons attacked Sheridan, “find[ing] it breathtaking that a journalist would recommend a private lobby group for a rebuttal of journalism.”

In other words, after 2,500 years, Western traditions of logic and evidence have run their course and intellectual arguments should be decided solely on the basis of who makes them, rather than their substance.

Of course, Lyons’ own reports relied on such shadowy organisations as “Breaking the Silence” that provided largely anonymous “evidence” that cannot be investigated to charge Israel with systemic and widespread mistreatment of Palestinian minors.

Lyons also attempted to discredit both AIJAC and Sheridan, not for the critiques of his “Four Corners” report, but for “repeat[ing] AIJAC’s claim about settlements not growing – year after year AIJAC says this while construction booms… Israeli statistics show settler housing more than doubled last year, and in the first half of 2011 grew 660 per cent. Outposts are also surging – these are illegal under Israeli law, yet Israel tolerates them.”

Again, Lyons overreaches. First, AIJAC never said there was no growth in settlement housing, only no new settlements and no expansion in the boundaries of existing settlements. Secondly, the 2011 leap Lyons cherry picked was the result of the end of the Netanyahu Government’s unprecedented ten-month settlement building freeze intended as a good will gesture to kickstart peace talks.

In fact, overall, during the past five years the Netanyahu Government has built far fewer homes in the settlements than recent predecessors.

As Evelyn Gordon explained last week on the Commentary blog, between 2009 and 2013 “housing starts in the settlements averaged 1,443 a year… That’s less than the 1,702 a year they averaged under Ehud Olmert in 2006-08… It’s also less than the 1,652 per year they averaged under Ariel Sharon in 2001-05… And it’s far less than under Ehud Barak, who is also internationally acclaimed as a peacemaker… One single year under Barak, 2000, produced more housing starts in the settlements (4,683) than the entire first four years of Netanyahu’s term (4,679).”

Lyons concluded that “Obama told Israelis their occupation was unfair” but again left out of his reckoning the three offers made but rejected by the Palestinian Authority that would have ended that occupation.

Meanwhile, over at J-Wire, readers might be interested in a hard hitting analysis of John Lyons’ output courtesy of Isi Leibler, the veteran Australian and international Jewish leader who now lives in Israel.

http://jfjfp.com/?p=57458

[novedsac 355]

rule one for posting in a thread alongside oriz. any documentary, article, video, that is not completely cheering on israel and justifying their every move, is propaganda and false per oriz. if you dare suggest that israel is not righteous - expect to be hit with a wall of text.

keep it up and you'll get called a jew hater.

I wasn't aware the opinion of Ortiz mattered or was of any consequence at all.

[decocker 7,198]

I wasn't aware the opinion of Ortiz mattered or was of any consequence at all.

me either.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

If you can't stop the message, attack the messenger. Always a good strategy.

[decocker 7,198]

If you can't stop the message, attack the messenger. Always a good strategy.

i'm sure that's why the 'jew hater' comment was never removed. no one takes that sort of strategy seriously.

[OriZ 3,157]

If you can't stop the message, attack the messenger. Always a good strategy.

It's a classic piece of their propaganda. Just like when they ignore substance and attack sources. What do they expect me to do, sit here and write things I already know but that someone else already did the work for me? Does it really matter if it is in quotes or not? If they are too lazy to read it and would just rather continue think what they are thinking, be a man and say so. Don't blame the person posting it. Cause you are allowed to post a video instead of writing what it alleges but I can't post quotes? Double standards abound not only towards Israel but also towards those defending it.

Thanks for letting me know!

That'll teach me to keep my opinions to myself

I don't like to be hit with a wall of text when I only shared my POV and expected to read some other POVs.

Tho... I find it odd and silly that people claim that their land was promised to them by God, so that gives them a right to have it and it's completely not negotiable

[Karee 4,189]

If you can't stop the message, attack the messenger. Always a good strategy.

Definitely can't stop the message. Not with that kind of propaganda machine. However, you can point the message out for what it is.

[Karee 4,189]

Thanks for letting me know!

That'll teach me to keep my opinions to myself

I don't like to be hit with a wall of text when I only shared my POV and expected to read some other POVs.

Tho... I find it odd and silly that people claim that their land was promised to them by God, so that gives them a right to have it and it's completely not negotiable

It helps when you can frame the current inhabitants as a bunch of Muslim terrorists. Never mind the fact that the IDF racks up a civilian body count that would make Osama bin Laden envious.

[OriZ 3,157]

well worth the watch:

[rlogan 2,036]

rule one for posting in a thread alongside oriz. any documentary, article, video, that is not completely cheering on israel and justifying their every move, is propaganda and false per oriz. if you dare suggest that israel is not righteous - expect to be hit with a wall of text.

keep it up and you'll get called a jew hater.

He has no monopoly on representing "Israel" either. Conservative Jews in particular disagree fundamentally with the whole Zionist agenda there. But just as with the USA, plenty of us know our stupid "War on Terror" is generating more enemies than it vanquishes. If you are against the whole Empire Americana, you are in the minority here. But it doesn't make you anti-American. In fact, you see pushing world empire is what is most likely to destroy us. For us, it is through federal bankruptcy.

Same thing with Israel. Being against war crimes of either the USA or Israel doesn't make you anti-USA or anti-Israel.

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

Definitely can't stop the message. Not with that kind of propaganda machine. However, you can point the message out for what it is.

That's... well that's exactly what I was saying.

[OriZ 3,157]

Here's another video:

[OriZ 3,157]

In today’s ever tumultuous world, we are finally beginning to understand what we are up against.

As the war in Gaza continues to chart its violent path and the US conducts a sustained bombing campaign against ISIS in northern Iraq to save the Kurds, the battle lines in the Middle East are clearly drawn. On one side are Islamist fundamentalist, jihadist and terrorist organizations including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, ISIS and al Qaeda; and, on the other, a de-facto alliance of “moderate” Middle East nations, including Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinian Authority headed by President Mahmoud Abbas.

This remarkable shift in the strategic alignment in the Middle East has happened so abruptly that many people in both the Muslim and Jewish communities have not yet fully comprehended it. Many American Jews have not yet fully assimilated the fact that Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt - not to mention the Palestinian Authority - are essentially on the same page as to how to resolve the Gaza crisis and should be encouraged to work more closely together. At the same time, Muslims in the West who have lately been indulging in harsh anti-Israel rhetoric over events in Gaza are operating on outdated perceptions that Muslims in the Middle East have already largely discarded.

First, this is not a war between Israel and Arabs. This is not a war between Muslims and Jews. Rather, it is a war between moderation and extremism; modernity and medievalism; civilization and barbarism. Yes, some of the non-state groupings in the terrorist-fundamentalist crescent have their own differences; for example, Hezbollah is Shia and has fought in Syria against the forces of ISIS, which seeks to recreate the Sunni-dominated caliphate of 1,000 years ago. Yet all of these groups share an absolutist vision of Islam based on imposing an extremist version of Sharia law on their often-unwilling subjects. In the areas of Iraq and Syria taken over by ISIS, non-Muslims are faced with an existential choice: convert or die. In ISIS territory and Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon, women are stripped of their rights, freedom of speech is non-existent and moderate and secular Muslims are also at risk. In the thuggish world of Hamas, the people of Gaza are used as pawns and collateral damage. Their suffering and death is used to make Israel look bad.

For weeks now, the contours of this new strategic paradigm have been obvious to anyone willing to face reality. Since the beginning of the Gaza war in early July, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates have been strongly critical of Hamas, often blaming that movement more than Israel for the war and for the desperate plight of the civilian population of Gaza. Indeed, these countries have seemed to be quietly rooting for Israel to take Hamas down a notch so as to make it possible to broker a deal for the government of Mahmoud Abbas to take over Gaza.

One question is why we see a disconnect between the pragmatic position of the Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians and the Fatah wing of the PLO on one side and the anti-Israel drumbeat from many Muslims in the West. Why do grassroots Muslims in Europe, North and South America, Australia and South Africa, unlike their co-religionists in the Middle East, fail to grasp the basics of the conflict? I would distinguish between those extremist Muslims in Europe who are consumed with hatred not only of Israel and the Jews but also of Western civilization itself, and the majority of European and American Muslims who believe Islam can and should be reconciled with democracy and modernity. Shocked by the images of destruction from Gaza, it is understandable that moderate Muslims charge Israel with over-reaction.

Yet these concerns pale before the grave threat that the reinvigorated jihadist groups pose to civilized world. At this perilous moment, moderate Muslims the world over need to stand up and state clearly that there can be no compromise with the jihadist forces. Ultimately, it is critical that this battle be waged within the Muslim world, with moderate Muslims refusing to allow jihadists to hijack a faith whose prophet came to deliver a message of peace.

The good news is that Israel and the most powerful of its longtime Arab adversaries have come to a common understanding of the peril to their very survival from resurgent fundamentalist Islamism. I plan to initiate a dialogue next month with Muslim friends and suggest that moderate Muslims everywhere take a clear stand against the jihadists. Without a doubt, it is high time for the Muslims marching and even rioting in the streets of Paris and London to take a sober lesson from the playbook of their fellow Muslims in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. Tides are changing in the Mideast, and the future lies with the forces of moderation, not extremism.

Rabbi Marc Schneier is president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding and co-author with Imam Shamsi Ali of “Sons of Abraham: A Candid Conversation About the Issues that Divide and Unite Jews and Muslims” (Beacon Press).

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4562892,00.html

Edited August 26, 2014 by OriZ