monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

I've never felt that attempted mass murder was particularly peaceful.



Some people just don't think that Jews should be allowed to defend themselves when people try to murder them.

Is it politically incorrect these days to add Hamas’ culpability into the conversation? They pay for martyrdom and make it known that children’s deaths are a great instrument against Israel.

This doesn’t diminish criticism of Israel, but not talking about Hamas seems ridiculous.

You certainly are in line with e.g. Israel's ambassador in Belgium: she called the dead children and babies Israeli "terrorists".
(Foreign Minister Didier Reynders has asked the Israeli ambassador Simona Frankel for an explanation of her statements on the violence in Gaza yesterday and called her in his office.)

Trump has a new favorite poll (that shows half the country disapproves of him)

Trump realizes his popularity is staying steady and rising. You and others can't deal with it. The Washington Post will still be saying things like this when his popularity is 60%. Which it will be by 2020, if not higher.

The same reason Haley praised Israel for their restraint. They have dropped the pretense of a balanced peace broker. One day we (US) are simply going to be left behind in all international decisions and we will have only ourselves to blame.

Video at link.
http://barenakedislam.com/2018/05/15/its-a-miracle-gaza-muslim-man-on-crutches-is-suddenly-able-to-walk-and-run-again/

Well, heck. If 50% disapproval is all you can find to brag about, go for it.

Eight months old terrorists are the worst, isnt't it?

I know I certainly would not have been nearly as restrained as Israel is being, if it had been my call.



Nonsense. The fact that we are truthful and honorable does not preclude our being balanced.



If the bad guys wish to enforce decisions on us that we do not agree to, they are first going to have to win a thermonuclear war against us.

And people are supposed to trust these people that will not acknowledge Israel right as a sovereign nation to have Jerusalem as its capital? I guess anything they say about Israel should be disregarded because the reality is too much for them.

Islam is Israel's enemy and these Jewish politicians appease Islam at all costs. I want nothing to do with people who justify Islamic aggression with false accusations.

I question whether any eight month old babies were trying to assault Israeli border guards.

Although, yes, young Palestinians are certainly bad news. The kids will murder you just as fast as the adults will if you give them a chance.

I've travelled to Israel on numerous occasions over the last several decades. In Israel one never fails to notice the generally bad treatment that prevails there for their Palestinian citizens and residents - both Moslem and Christian. Israel is a state that defines itself in religious and ethnic terms, and that has pervasive bad economic, political and social consequences for non favored minorities, that are impossible to overlook.

At the same time Israel's neighbors and the displaced Palestinians have remained implacable in their hostility to the Jewish state and have resisted all efforts to find a mutually acceptable accommodation. Israel has exploited this situation to expand its borders in two wars and several unilateral actions. In addition this persistent issue has been exploited by other states (including the USA) during the Cold War, and more recently by Iran and Russia to advance their interests in the region. The result of all this is a political wound in the Middle East that won't heal.

Israel was born in a growing conflict that started soon after the inception of a growing Zionist movement in Europe in the late 19th century. This exodus grew after the fall of the Ottoman rule in WWI and truly exploded after WWII as Jews all over Europe ( those who survived the Holocaust and found at war's end that they were no longer welcome in their former homes) fled to found a new state for themselves.

I believe that many Europeans too often forget their decisive roles in creating and sustaining this ghastly situation. The 19th Century British Empire had a dual policy with respect to the former Ottoman Empire - When Russia was seen as a threat, the British backed up the Ottomans: during periods when Russia was an ally they worked to bring down the Ottomans to expand and protect their own empire.

This came to a head in the approach to WWI as Germany attempted to expand its economic reach with the Ottomans, while the British and French worked to destroy their empire. Even before the start of WWI, the British and French worked out a division among themselves of Ottoman territories in The Mid East, and the British independently promised European Zionists a "homeland", in a middle East region they didn't yet control.

To further their war aims during WWI, the British, and ( to a lesser extent) the French, worked to finance and incite an Arab rebellion against the Ottoman Turks, promising autonomy to Arab leaders, including the rule of the same Palestine they had recently promised to European Zionists. Despite these betrayals of all who dealt with them, the effort was successful and the UK and France ended up with new colonies and protectorates in the Middle East, more or less as previously agreed. However the seeds of continuing rebellion and political discord had been sown throughout the Middle East.

During the Holocaust of WWII, Europeans, led by Nazi Germany, killed and expelled the Jewish populations that had lived amongst them, in many cases fairly well assimilated, for nearly a millennium. At the end of this war, amidst the widespread destruction of cities and industry the European states found it convenient to let their surviving Jewish populations leave to establish a new homeland in Palestine.

In the decades after WWII, the British and French lost the Middle Eastern colonies and protectorates they had seized, in a series of revolutions , most of which produced new locally devised authoritarian states, which have themselves created continuing problems in the region - not a particularly impressive legacy. They have since turned their focus to their own economic development and the European Project.

Now it's all too easy to blame either the implacable Palestinians or the greedy Israelis ( depending on your particular prejudices) for this intractable situation. However the fact is that it was created by European empire building, exploitation, deceit, and efforts to exterminate a despised minority. After WWII the European states simply abandoned any responsibility for what they had created, and turned it all over to the amorphous and ineffective United Nations where the subject is endlessly (and ineffectually) debated, and the European States sustain their pretentions of virtue and justice by periodic ( mostly meaningless) votes in its chambers.

Nine prominent Israelis compare the shooting of Palestinians to South Africa’s Sharpeville Massacre

Personally I would find being beaten to death by a crowd of Palestinians to be dangerous.

I'm sure the Israeli border guards felt the same way.



Hardly a crime for Jews to defend themselves from murdering thugs.



The United States stands proudly beside Israel in defiance of antisemitism.