Interesting and insightful.

As always Rich, I agree with every word of it. I love reading your blogs when you post them.

Look in the mirror dude. Rick Perry scares the shit out of me ESPECIALLY because of his biblical support of Israel which would cause Israel to be bigger dicks than they already are. His kin WANT to have the Jews drive them in the limo up to the velvet ropes in front of the club just to say, "Thanks for the ride, here's a tip(nation), but limo drivers aren't allowed into the club".

BELIEVE ME RICK PERRY SCARES THE SHIT OUT OF ME

But you are still stuck on the stupid crap "My shit don't stink"

Here is what our COUNTRY HAS even if Perry were elected, which Palestine would NOT set up if given a nation. Pluralism and the opportunity for dissent and change.

You are too blind to the fact that if Hammas got a country, those who do not tow the party/religious line, even those within Islam who do not go with the flow, their "voting" would be meaningless.

At least if Perry gets elected he cant be president forever. If Palestine gets a nation, you might have elections, but it would be mob rule and minorities and dissent WOULD NOT be protected.

NOW if you want to prove me wrong I would love to be proven wrong. I would love for the leaders of Hammas say, "Christians Jews and atheists are welcome in our democracy". 

Now don't pull the bullshit of quoting websites of groups who DO want to get along and try to claim that that is a majority opinion in Palestine. If it were AND I WISH IT WERE, Hammas would not have been elected to power.

HAMAS RUNS THAT COUNTRY AND WERE ELECTED TO POWER, BUT THEY ARE NOT SECULAR AND DO NOT VALUE PLURALISM.

You are a hypocrite and just as bad as Rick Perry. The only difference between you and him are the gangs you cheer for.

Perry wants a Christian theocratic democracy. You, because of emotions don't realize that you are supporting a Muslim theocracy. I don't want any part of either.

AND I DO WISH ISRAEL WOULD TAKE THAT FUCKING STAR OFF THEIR FLAG

Wow, there is very little I disagree with you on, and I damned sure wish you were 20 years younger and a hot Hooters waitress, but since I am not gay, and especially since I have seen your face, you are in luck in the fact that you have nothing to worry about. ..............don't let this joke be a "squirrel".(another inside joke folks)

I AM NOT for a two state solution because the "state" that Palestine would set up would not be westernized. Iran has voting too, but voting does not constitute protection of dissent or minorities.

I KNOW that there ARE some, far too few, in Palestine that have woken up, but they are NOT in charge and the current powers that be would just set up a Muslim democracy, not a secular democracy, so that it would still allow for monopolies of power even with elections.

I thought it was funny when America demanded they had elections, AND DID, and ended up with the Muslim version of Jerry Falwell.

Our policy IS wrong because it supports a "Jewish state" and a "Muslim state" when what should happen is that they BOTH should employ a secular state with the SAME principles of separation of church and state and anti monopoly laws that insure that voting alone wont rule.

Currently I  am not for a two state solution because it has too much of a schoolyard mentality where the principle tells the children that the only way the playground can be used is that if the factions stay on opposite sides of the fence. It sounds nice, but in reality all it does is make a buffer to allow the ignorance of both sides to concoct ways to lop spit balls through the fence. It does nothing to humanize each other to the other.

The problem with their policy is that recent scientific studies on DNA shows ethnicity to be a figment of imagination. I can't recall exactly the study, but it was actually conducted in the middle east, and found that two jewish tribes were pretty well the same as they were different when compared to two arab tribes. In fact, if I remember correctly, each of the jewish tribes were more similar to the arab tribes than they were to each other.
I just spent a few minutes searching for the study and came up empty. So perhaps it was faulty, or maybe I'm just using the wrong parametres.

I thought we already had a thread for this stuff. How is this related to Rich's article?

Oh no! This thing is going to infect every thread! Maybe we should have One Thread to Rule Them All!

You don't know the power of the dark side.

Refreshing. A rational post on the subject. Non-confrontational comments then.

Palestine is recognized as a sovereign state by over 100 countries. (Bosnia has only 80 or so at present.) Its announcement of same was in 1988. The Charter of the UN, section 4 I think it is, that only a state may apply for admission. Palestine applied. Its application was accepted. Not even the US or Israel objected. It is therefore recognized as a sovereign state by the UN and the US and Israel.

At present the PLO, which is not the government of the state of Palestine, has observer status as the representative of the Palestinian people. What happened last week was that the state of Palestine applied for membership. Worst comes to worst it will become an observer state separate from the PLO as an observer entity.

The issue is as always that once its status as a sovereign state goes from 100+ separate recognitions to UN recognition it can accede to every international treaty. This will gives its internal laws international recognition. IDF murders another Palestinian? Interpol arrest warrant. Stealing natural resources? More arrest warrants. Israel and Israelis refuse to pay their taxes? Sieze their assets in countries around the world.

Asset seizure is the easiest part. The basis is a violation of usual, reasonable and customary laws in every country like taxes. The only place recognized to challenge taxes is in the courts of the country which levies the taxes. Of course Israel and Israelis will not appear in Palestinian courts. Case closed. If Israel does appear in court, jurisdiction recognized. A different case closed.

Suits in other countries for asset seizure are pro forma. The validity of the tax cannot be challenged. In one case I remember the unused portion of a multi-year lease by a country's embassy was an asset which was seized and the embassy evicted. There is no sovereign immunity in any form applicable. Not quite true. You can't take the clothes off a diplomat's back but that is about it.

This is without getting into the innumerable war crimes under Geneva IV.

There is no such thing as an ethnic Jew, period. I have the legal opinion of a jewish, Israeli judge in an Israeli court in support of that statement. Do you have anything but fantasy behind your non-question?

Like Islam, Judaism is not a creedal religion. Belief is irrelevant. It is only a ritual/taboo life that makes one a Jew.

This means you.

If an eskimo converts to Judaism can be become one of the frozen people? Can he change is name to Iceberg?

The correct answer is, if he leads a jewish life as defined by the rituals and taboos of Judaism as found in the Torah. The conversion process is teaching those rituals and taboos with close monitoring they are in fact being observed.

It gives citizenship based upon the Nazi definition of Jew not the Torah definition. Israel clearly agrees with the Nazis as to who is a Jew. Only about 1/10th of its Russian immigrants qualified as Jews under the Torah.

According to Josephus there was never a distinction. It was all a matter of military conquest forcing the Judean rituals and taboos upon the Iodumaeans, Samarians and Galileans. And that came about as a consequence of rapidly changing alliances with the Egyptian and Eastern Greek empires.

In other words the Yahweh cult was an invention of the Maccabes and never voluntarily existed outside of the city-state of Jerusalem. Of course if your opinion is that a priest of the Yahweh cult had no idea what he was writing about then there is no other source whatsoever upon which to base an opinion of the cult's geographic extent.