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New Mega-Leak Reveals Middle East Peace Process
An anonymous reader writes "There's been yet another mega-leak, this time of 1,600 papers describing the Israeli/Palestinian peace process negotiations. It's independent of Wikileaks and came to light via al-Jazeera, showing perhaps that the mega-leak meme is here to stay whatever happens to Assange. The papers show a weak Palestinian side offering ever greater concessions to Israel, which flatly rejected this as being insufficient: 'We do not like this suggestion because it does not meet our demands,' Israel's then foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, told the Palestinians, 'and probably it was not easy for you to think about it, but I really appreciate it.'"
A whole new game, ain't it now?
NO SIG
The person who leaked this has raped me.
Please arrest him immediately. Thanks.
I thought maybe isolate both sides for 100 years or so. Give them time to cool off.
Yeah, because it's not like the Jews or Muslim to carry a grudge for hundreds of years, right?
I'm guessing you are a fellow American. We tend to underestimate the longevity of a grudge in the rest of the world. The beginning of the US seems like a long time ago to us, but to the rest of the world, we are still kids. Then again, we haven't gone that far out of our way to prove them wrong.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
"we are the the most psychopath right wing coalition that can ever come into being in a country through a democratic process", Tzipi Livni should have said.
no really, its beyond fathoming, the nature and formation of this ungodly coalition is. my israeli friend (colleague too) says that the exterior minister of this coalition, liebermann, is known as outright mafia in israel. not in a manner of speaking, but, literally. he says the entire coalition is filled with similar right wing zealots and psychos, came to being as a coalition government only through an unholy alliance they have set up among each other after the scattered elections. they, naturally, dont even reflect the true will of the majority of israeli people.
its no surprise to me to hear these leaks, after being told about the situation in israel and nature of these people by my friend, tho it may be worthy of news to some people.
Read radical news here
You realize the term "meme" predates its modern usage of describing "LOL cats", and other internet ephemera, right? The guy who coined the term, Richard Dawkins, coined it to explain much larger phenomena, like the evolution of society as a whole, and pretty much all evolving intellectual and sociological phenomena that is not immediately traceable to genetics.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
the optimism, vigour, idealism and basically cocky precociousness of youth can explain all those achievements.
"kids" is not necessarily derogatory. just look at any old person who envies the youth that have overtaken them.
however, i fear the USA has now entered adolescence and is more concerned with yelling at it's mum and sitting in it's room listening to terrible music and blaming everyone but itself...
Yeah, except they were willing to give up parts of their own land, and you didn't bother to read the story since it doesn't fit your moronic prejudices.
And where did you leave new jersey motherfucker!!??
We tried to leave it in Antartica, but the penguins sent it back.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
How long before the world's secret services adapt to the "megaleak" phenomenon, and start using it as a tool to spread propaganda?
What do you mean "start"? False flag and disinformation campaigns have been a staple of foreign policy for at least as long as recorded history.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Oh come on. A good chunk of the US still seems to practically define itself through resentment at the North over the civil war. Forget what Dunbal said about WWI and WWII, lots of Americans seem to be holding a grudge over colonial times and the War of Independence. They also seem to carry a massive grudge against the French for no reason I can figure out.
You mean like the Arabs that lost the west bank and gaza during the six day war and the yom kippur war did?
So we set the marker in the ground only where _YOU_ think we should start over?
It's independent of Wikileaks and came to light via al-Jazeera, showing perhaps that the mega-leak meme is here to stay whatever happens to Assange.
I think history will find that Wikileaks and by association Julian Assanges greatest contribution to the world, will not necessarily be the Wikileaks service, but helping to cultivate a greater culture of leaking, by showing that it can be done effectively, and that your message will be heard.
Now that, is something extremely valuable, that's almost impossible to be taken away.
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I said "effectively". Maybe the meaning was unclear. Would you prefer "essentially"? How about "more-or-less"?
Given that there are more Muslims in the Israeli Parliament than there are in the US Congress, I'd say they're probably more secular than the US in reality, if not on paper. They have complete freedom of religion, and have had Muslims and Druze serving in all aspects of the government, including as Supreme Court judges, ambassadors, and army generals. When the only thing making them non-secular is that they self-identify as a Jewish state, it's fair to say that they ARE secular for all intents and purposes.
Pretty close to it, yes. Courts in Israel are civil courts, not based on Jewish religious law. Legislation is passed by a civil legislative body, not a religious one. Religions are considered equal before the law. There is no official state religion, and there is freedom of religion and of worship.
There is one weirdness, which is marriage. There is no "civil" marriage in Israel; there are only religious marriage under the auspices of the various religions practiced by the people being married. This can cause problems for non-Orthodox Jews, for interfaith marriages, etc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_in_Israel has details.
Also note that in Israel being Jewish is not necessarily a religious matter; it's an ethnic matter. You can be an atheist and still be considered Jewish ethnically.
This can matter for things like military service, where ethnic minorities are generally exempt from the draft (though accepted as volunteers).
In any case, I suppose it depends on your definition of "separation of religion and state". It's not exactly a black-and-white line; there are gradations. Would you say that religion and state are separated in Germany, say?
Do you mean Israel's right to exist or Palestine's right to exist?
(Dreadful source, but the map is accurate)
Blank until
The solution is to arm both sides equally. I'm sure negotiations would be much more productive if the Palestinians had helicopter gunships, tanks, jet fighters, and billions in military aid every year instead of barely enough food to eat. It would also stop the suicide bombing, since they would be able to target what they really want to hurt: the IDF.
Try replacing "Jews" with any group. Most social groups are incapable of seeing their own shortcomings.
And I guess Hitler killing millions of Jews was their fault too, eh?
If you ask an ultra orthodox Jew, you might even get a Yes as answer. A minority opinion among them is that European Jews were punished by god for not living orthodox.
(Just to be clear: I don't agree with that. I merely wanted to answer your question.)
Um, there were no Jews 3,700 years ago. A monotheistic religion that would later become Judaism was just getting started. Even the first "proto Jews" weren't strictly monotheistic (the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament contains fragments of polytheism, eg. Psalm 82) which -- at least by today's standards -- would not qualify them as Jews...
As for your Pharaoh comment: There is not a single piece of archeological evidence that hundreds of thousands of people migrated away from Egypt and wandered through the desert for 40 years.
So either the Exodus never happened and the story is just made up or the ancient people of Israel were the cleanest people ever by not leaving any pottery, weapons, etc. behind....
It's actually a lot more complicated than that. My advice when people ask me about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that if you think either side is right, it's because you don't know anything. Spend any time really studying the issues and you realize that there's nothing but shades of grey in this conflict.
, I'd say they're probably more secular than the US in reality,
They have complete freedom of religion
Riiiight. Pay no attention to the fact that TWO THIRDS of ultra-orthodox men live on welfare and don't work (and amongst the women, 50% don't work, whereas 25% in general Israeli population don't.) If you elect to go into such studies, the government gives you automatic welfare AND excuses you from military service (where it is ordinarily compulsory) AND gives you a complete tax break.
Did I mention that these ultra-orthodox freeloaders are causing most of the upheaval and supporting hard-line policies? And multiplying like rabbits, marrying young and having huge families?
If that's "Secular", then I guess you'd be OK with the federal government giving welfare to people who decide to become ultra-right-wing Christians?
Please help metamoderate.
vi users? *Ducks*
"of course, the old accounts also describe Amazon warriors."
You do realize that there is significant evidence that at least part of the Amazon myth is based on reality right ? Genetic evidence at that. Based on the oldest writings about them - they had entered Europe and Greece from the Russian Steppes to which they later returned. In the steppes are Burial Mounds in which were found the bodies of woman with the adornments of warriors. That's already a big hint.
It gets better, we know for a fact that the people who lived in those parts of the steppes later migrated from Russia toward Asia - and were the ancestors of Genghis Kahn's hordes. To this day their descendants expect women to fight as well as men - and here it gets really interesting. A small minority of Mongol children are born as blonds, and as far as we know - it's only EVER daughters. Apparently suggesting a female-only gene that causes blondness in a small minority. Genetic testing of some of them found a clear mitochondrial DNA link (that is maternal only) with the bodies found in the Steppes.
It's not absolute, nothing in science ever really is - and less so in archeology because evidence is *always* incredibly sparse, but right now the evidence we do have, suggests that at least part of the amazon legend as written by the first Greek historians was, in fact, true.
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
You know... the French could justifiably turn your whole "Do you speak German" thing around and ask: "Are you ruled by the Queen of England" to Americans.
How sad that almost nobody in America knows that the only reason your country even EXISTS is because the French funded your war of independence and kept you going (granted, they did it mostly to spite England but still). Ironically in doing so they impoverished themselves tremendously - directly leading to the French Revolution.
Yeah you HELPED liberate them in World War 2 (you know there were soldiers at D-Day from ALL the allied nations including Britain and even my little South Africa right ?) - they liberated you 300 years ago.
How about you both just call it even and learn to STFU about it ?
Unicode killed the ASCII-art *
If you go back and read the same Bible most of the West does, you'd see the Jews are constantly their own worst enemy.... they rise to the occasion under extreme suffering, only to wallow in the gutter when everything goes their way. It's like a micro cell of humanity... it's happened before, it will happen again... 60 years ago somebody tried to exterminate one part of their ethnic group, yet they can't have any kind of grace or honor with people lesser than them. It's straight out of Dickenson where somebody with everything claims injury because they had to clean a little poor kids guts off their carriage and it ruined their day.
The problem is that most of the "Jews" that ended up in Israel after WW2 would best be termed "carpet baggers". Most of them were from other well-to do places. It was founded as a "fairy tale" religious state... like if Pat Robertson and Dick Cheney had their own country. I think part of why Americans are starting to find it so vulgar is that it mirrors what the Americans did to the Indians not that long ago... and they're starting to realize it was a mistake.
From a purely "biblical" point of view, the land being squabbled over is the same land Israel failed to take back in the time of King David and the Philistines. There is a prophesy that it would NEVER be their land... and 4000 years later it's still the case. They are trying to take land their OWN religious text says they won't ever get.... They're trying to starve them out, to cheat on their peace treaties, etc, etc. when 60 years ago those people were just "folks" of the land. In ANY western country (like Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, etc) we'd call out Israel for "Ethnic Purges" which is exactly what they're doing. It's high time they stop getting a free pass to randomly execute residents of their country... we overthrew Saddam for the same kind of crap.
Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, Crusaders.... all gave the jewish people a chance to participate in their cultures, then wiped them out... then the next guy gave them another chance, rinse n repeat. The UK/USA is another in a long line of big world players that felt the Jewish people earned great respect.... watch them squander it all just as fast!!!
My opinion is that in the next 5-10 years Israel is going to step over the line with Iran and the US will have to put them down for their own good (and to save our own face with the UN), wipe out all the stuff we've sold them... or 8 other countries will try to wipe them out. Iran is playing a game of talking big, but being careful not to actually violate any international laws, while at the same time stepping up response to minor violations on their own borders. It's a clever game to talk smack, but make sure the other guy throws the first punch. Russia and China have too much invested in Iran to let the US knock it over too... I think those two would hit the veto button on any military action against them.
There's English Al Jazeera which you can buy at least in Finland as a part of pay tv packages. Apparently they're by far more balanced with their reporting than the Arabian version is. Not too surprising, perhaps, considering their target audience.
The Hitler excuse is starting to wear pretty thin. Some of my relatives died in the death camps (my mother's family were German Jews who left the country in the '30s, but not all of them got out in time), so I'm not exactly unbiased on this issue, but every time someone calls Israel to task for their behaviour the reply is always 'but... Hitler killed loads of Jews'. He also killed loads or homosexuals and gypsies, but these groups don't seem to get to use him as an excuse for behaving like asshats several generations later.
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