[xenophobic]

Originally Posted by Kippy Winstead

lol... and i STILL beat your piss belt ass...

There is a lot of douche bags on Sherdog who seems to think their post count makes them special, or an expert. "news flash" : You're not.

Originally Posted by Kippy Winstead

I'm saying he SHOULD be speaking to the dem elected government... we were the ones who pushed for elections... then they elect people we don't like and we refuse to speak with them...

You say a lot of things, most of which makes no sense - speaking about what? He is a former United States President, meeting with a terrorist organization, and foreign Government that the current Administration has deemed to sever economic, and diplomatic ties with, due to their role in terrorism.
His status like that of any U.S politician that meets with them undermines the U.S foreign policy, and gives an air of legitimacy that would not be given by meeting a regular U.S citizen. It should not be done by any former President, however Carter has never let an opportunity to make the United States look weak slide.

[GOD_OF_MUAYTHAI]

Summon the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), or any other lobby promoting confrontation with Iran, to the forefront, so that the warnings they offer in whispers from a back room can be articulated before the American public. Hold these conjurers of doom accountable for their positions by demanding they back them up with hard fact. See if the US intelligence community concurs with the dire warnings put forward by these pro-war lobbyists, and if it doesn't, ask who, then, is driving US policy toward Iran? Those mandated by public law and subjected to the oversight of Congress? Or others, operating outside any framework representative of the will of the American people?

If a real case, based on facts as they pertain to the genuine national security interests of the United States, can be made for a confrontation with Iran that leads to military conflict, so be it. America should never shy away from defending that which legitimately needs defending. The sacrifice expected of our military forces, while tragic, will be defensible. But if the case for war with Iran is revealed to be as illusory as was the case for war with Iraq, then Congress must take action to stop this conflict from occurring. This is the Democrats' issue now, the one that will make or break them in 2008 and beyond.
-scott ritter former un weapons insepector and critic of the iraqi war

[hypocalking]

Fuck Israel.

[Thaiboxer18]

As for Jimmy Carter, if I were Israeli I would too be pretty pissed off at a guy who said Israel is an apartheid state and then expected Israel to protect him while he goes to meet with Hamas, which is still nominally sworn to Israel's destruction. I don't blame Israel one bit for telling Jimmy to go fuck himself.

[Zankou]

Originally Posted by Thaiboxer18

Don't forget the Evangelical lobby.

I agree with the rest.

Agreed, they are pretty much the third link in the chain. Add the oil lobby's machinations, and you've got a policy juggernaut that consistently pushes in the same/similar direction, causing problematic foreign policy choices. At the end of the day, I see the Israeli lobby as substantially aggravating the problem, but it's really American factions that have caused/enabled it in the first place. It's not a foreign cabal manipulating us against our will, it's us as Americans that need to be blamed for getting in a situation where foreign influence becomes so powerful.

[GOD_OF_MUAYTHAI]

Originally Posted by Thaiboxer18

As for Jimmy Carter, if I were Israeli I would too be pretty pissed off at a guy who said Israel is an apartheid state and then expected Israel to protect him while he goes to meet with Hamas, which is still nominally sworn to Israel's destruction. I don't blame Israel one bit for telling Jimmy to go fuck himself.

Israel can be regarded as somewhat theocratic given the state promotion of Jewish institutions for the purposes of the country's integrity as the 'Jewish Homeland'. Israel's Law of Return grants any Jew the right to become a citizen of the country with the aim of facilitating their immigration to what the State of Israel views as their ancestral homeland. Israel's Basic Law: The Knesset (1958, Amendment No 9) states that a political list may not participate in elections if its party platform implies the "denial of the existence of the state of Israel as the state of Jewish people".

There is a small amount of intertwining of Jewish law (Halakha) and civil law, particularly with regards to the enforcement of Orthodox Jewish weddings for Jewish citizens, rather than allowing freedom to have a civil marriage (although these sorts of laws are being fought and revoked on a constant basis). Another promoted institution is that of the 'yeshiva'- an Orthodox Jewish seminary, often funded to a large extent by the state. Hard to say its not an apartheid.

[Thaiboxer18]

This kind of exposes the achilles heel of democracy; votes can go to the highest bidder. I think it goes back to our reliance on English common law. At common law, there was an effort made to get property into the hands of parties who valued it the most, and you can see the same mentality in Congress, where I guess it could be argued that a vote is a piece of property.

Whether we are talking about selling out our health care to the big pharma companies or continuing to support middle east dictatorships or any number of other instances in which votes are simply bought, the free market system is at play on Capitol Hill.

[Thaiboxer18]

Originally Posted by GOD_OF_MUAYTHAI

Israel can be regarded as somewhat theocratic given the state promotion of Jewish institutions for the purposes of the country's integrity as the 'Jewish Homeland'. Israel's Law of Return grants any Jew the right to become a citizen of the country with the aim of facilitating their immigration to what the State of Israel views as their ancestral homeland. Israel's Basic Law: The Knesset (1958, Amendment No 9) states that a political list may not participate in elections if its party platform implies the "denial of the existence of the state of Israel as the state of Jewish people".

There is a small amount of intertwining of Jewish law (Halakha) and civil law, particularly with regards to the enforcement of Orthodox Jewish weddings for Jewish citizens, rather than allowing freedom to have a civil marriage (although these sorts of laws are being fought and revoked on a constant basis). Another promoted institution is that of the 'yeshiva'- an Orthodox Jewish seminary, often funded to a large extent by the state. Hard to say its not an apartheid.

You can certainly make an argument that there is apartheid in the west bank, but in Israel proper, where over a million Arabs live mostly free from the problems that Palis in the WB face, I think it is quite a stretch.

I don't think Israel can be said to be theocratic for granting citizens to Jews from the diaspora; lots of countries have policies like that. My South African friend has a Swiss great grandmother and recently went back to Switzerland and became a citizen. Non-Swiss people are not eligible for Swiss citizenship; is that any more discriminatory than what Israel does with citizenship? I don't think so. Further, there is no religious requirement-Israel doesn't say Jews have to actually be religious to get citizenship, they just have to be children of Israel in the same way that Swiss people in the diaspora are descended from Switzerland.

As for the Knesset, there are Arab MKs, and the Israeli government gives research grants to universities to do all kinds of research, including supporting the research of Ilan Pappe, who is probably Israel's harshest critic.

[AAAhmed46]

Isreal isn't theocratic, but they simply suffer the same problem that the palistinians have in regards to haveing a powerful strict fundamentalist religious movement influencing policy, though isreal being more well off tends to have it a bit more contained, albeit with instability

[BadassHo]

You forgot: Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Byelorussian SSR, Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Sweden, South Africa, Ukrainian SSR, United States of America, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Uruguay, Venezuela.

ugh, that was in 1949 when the UN did

the 1947 partition plan only led to isreal declaring itself a legit nation. no one else said it was then besides the US. the others came with the UN recognition.

ignorance.