Rue

Well if you follow the comments of most anti-Zionists yes Israelis just go poof and disappear according to one of these scanerios: 1-kaboom my a terrorist bomb 2-kaboom by a missile 3-rat a tat tat by an invading army 4-forced excile (fleeing the Middle East presumably by boat,plane but not camel since the neighbouring nations will of course close their borders) 5-imprisoned 6-segregated and forced to live in the apartheid system in Sharia law known as dhimmitude which of course most anti-Zionists pretend not to know about and instead refer to a state where Jews and Muslims live in a wonderful democratic state exactly as in the model described by Mummar Ghadafi which in fact believes Jews are infidel and so equality for them is dhmmitude which protects them from themselves. Then again given there is a Zionist conspiracy that controls all the worlds' banks and media, this may not happen until they figure out our leader is Sara Silverman and take her down.

You presented an example of religious fundamentalist extremism as a pretense to keep engaging in shots at the Islamic religion? Why? What is the point? why not just say, Islam is poo, and leave it at that. What was your point other then that? You engage in the same exercise anti-semites do with Jews or others do when negatively stereotyping all Christians or gays or blacks, etc. What is the point? What is the point suggesting an entire religion and therefore all its followers are negative and fundamentalist extremists or have the same negative characteristics other then to incite intolerance? Is it possible for you to criticize Islamic precepts without just throwing out the entire religion and inferring anyone who is Muslim has a moral problem? I resent it very much when people suggest because there are fundamentalist Jews who subsrcibe to the same extremist values as you presented above, that I as a Jew also think that way. I tell such people to take their negative stereotypes and shove them up their keesters. I would say to you the same thing. If you want to criticize Islamic precepts do so. Resorting to negative stereotypes of the entire religion and all its followers, I pass on.

So are you suggesting Muslims are not gay? I also think Steven Harper is gay. He plays the piano. Dead give away.

Michael H to respond to your comments, I would have to defer to the gay community and its people in Toronto to comment on where they are at. It would be presumptious of me to know how they feel about community access and services, etc. As a non gay person I see gays having become a very open and important political interest group on the municipal level having worked very hard in their community to upgrade all kinds of programs and services but I have no idea of knowing if it is as good or better then what would be available in other communities. I am not even sure whether an openly gay Mayoral candidate is a positive or negative asset. Could it be if say Smitherman is elected Mayor, he will not want to be seen as favouring gays any more then anyone else and maybe unintentionally over- compensate by being less receptive then a straight Mayor? Who knows. I am not even sure either whether token displays such as having a parade are significant or not anymore in terms of measuring real power and influence? I would like to think being able to get married is a credible indicator of equality. The fact though is equality deals with human rights which is really federal or at times provincial legislation not municipal. For example, a city can assure there is a hospital receptive to the gay communities special needs, but if a gay partner is not recognized as next of kin, which is a federal matter and provincial matter, I am not sure how it can be said having access to a gay sensitive hospital means anything as long as such an issue restricting access exists? I think it is safe to say the gay community was at the forefront of speer heading improved community services for health education and domestic assault and violence that has promoted equality for aids patients whether they were straight or gay or people being abused whether they are straight or gay. Much of the so called achievement of equality for gays in Toronto has directly and positively impacted on non gays as well. I myself because of what I have witnessed from the gay community in municipal level politics have come to see them as a vital community just like I would the Chinese or Irish or Italian communities. I see them as a collective identity the way I do my "people", Jewish people. I have always considered the gay community a major community that helped rebuild and shape inner Toronto and cause a huge increase in property values and lowering of crime rates in their neighbourhoods.

????? You lost me with that. Wild Bill was simply saying if you followed his analogy he hates everyone equally so to speak, i.e., he has no problem with anyone and his objection is if someone wants their interest group to get a special treatment no other interest group gets. It wasn't directed at gay interest groups but ANY interest group trying to have an unfair advantage. How you came up with the above question is beyond me. If you are trying to pin the racist tag on the donkey its inappropriate.

In primal behaviour when pack animals such as primates including the primate sub-type humans, engage in territorial imperative, i.e., battles over territory, there actually is no distinct rule as to the alpha male of one group engaging the alpha male in the other group. Sometimes this is most certainly the case, in others it may not be. Certaintly taking out the alpha male of the group will as a general rule cause the others to scatter and run but sometimes the pack that loses its alpha male suddenly has another emerge in battle and fill the void. So there is no black and white or general rule. What we have also seen in history is attempts to assasinate alpha males causes martyrs for followers to canonize and rally round and use as a symbol of unity for the next alpha male when it takes over.

There have been, are and will be many forms of terrorist behaviour. It can be political in motivation but is not necessarily limited to political motives. A terrorist act can be violent or non violent, passive or aggressive, active or inactive, committed by one or many. The one distinguishing element is that its intent or purpose is to cause people fear, i.e., to coerce or intimidate its target or targets. Terrorist acts are carried out on an object that is either animate(person or persons) or inanimate (property, i.e., buildings). The intent of the terrrorist exercise is to damage or destroy the target to then send a message to those who witness the result of the damage of destruction. The damage of destruction, i.e., dead bodies, collapsed buildings are intended to send a visual stimuli to the audience that will frighten and evoke fear in the audience. The intent of the message is to make the audience feel powerless, vulnerable and incapable of preventing the terrorist or terrorists from engaging in their actions again. The act is used as the prop or attention getting mechacnism to incite the feelings of fear and vulnerability to then set the stage for sending a message attacked to the fear. The fear evoked serves as the coercive pathogen or element that then carries the message and attachs to the message to serve as a cause and effect lesson-agree with the message or be hurt or killed. The mistake many of us make when discussing terrorism is getting caught up on who the target is or what the message is. The target or the message is not what makes an act a terrorist act. It is the engaging of a terrorist act to try coerce someone into obeying the person who engages in the terrorist act which makes it terrorist in nature. Whether the target is animate or inanimate, an animal or a human, a soldier or a civilian is irrelevant to the determination of whether it is a terrorist act. On the other hand the attempt to use a terrorist attack to demand something be complied with is what determines whether the act is terrorist or not. It is the demand by threat and use of manipulating fear that makes it terrorist. In that sense humans have engaged in terrorism since they learned to pick up a rock and bash another human in the head with it. Humans by nature are primal beings and violent. Terrorism comes naturally to primal beings prone to displays of violence when exercising territorial imperative. All terrorism is, is the act of a primate exercising territorial imperative. Instead of picking up a rock and trying to bash the other primate in the head, or simply fling feces, at our stage of primal development we choose to engage in the exercise of aggression to pursue territorial imperative through terrorism. It is one of many aggressive behaviours we primates display. When terrorism is engaged in by a group, the inherent nature of the group lowers inhibitions that would otherwise serve to restrain acts of violence that would be prevalent if the primate acted alone. This is where the expression for the group phenomena comes from, i.e., monkey see monkey do. Terrorists are nothing more then primates flinging their feces at one another. We being humans however, have developed ways to make that feces flinging lethal.

Now that is interesting. I am also curious. Did you spend any time reading about the system of dhimmitude in Muslim sharia nations? If not, why not? If you did, did you come to the same conclusions as you did with Israel? I am also curious. Did you read up on the laws in Christian nations and how they treated jews and did you find any similiarities there with South Africa? Here is why I have a problem with your criticism. Its selective and that is probably what you get criticized on. I will also tell you what I have a problem with-a very real problem. I am a Zionist. I don't like being stereotyped by anyone and lumped into simplistic categories such as the two black and white ones you presented in the article. To me such categories are arbitrary and simplistic and erroneous. I like many Zionists am not religious and consider my Jewishness a shared collective identity of which Judaism the religion is just one of many components. I like many Zionists in the disaspora am concerned with certain Israeli government policies that I feel are counter-productive to peace talks with Palestinians and may be alienating them. I like many Zionists who are Jewish am not comfortable with extremist religious Zionists whether they be Jewish or Christian. I like many Zionists believe in a two state solution and applaud a new shift in Palestinian political mentality which sees more and more Palestinians engaging in peaceful resistance rallies. I believe as that precedent spreads, it stands a good chance of making terrorists and therefore the IDF become obsolete and will force politicians to meet and have to dialogue. Unlike you though I do not buy into this Zionism is racism, Zionism is apartheid stereotype. Zionism is not about defining people by race. It is a non religious, political response to Jews in Europe being refused the same rights as non Jews and being second class citizens in those countries. It was a response to Jews being forced to live in the apartheid system of dhimmitude in Muslim countries. Zionism was a political reaction to being segregated and treated as inferior and being persecuted. It was not based on racist ideology or religious ideology but on a political response by a collective of people called Jews who believed they had a right of universal sufferage. The idea of a Jewish state was to create an institution that would forever guarantee that if one were a Jew never again would there be a holocaust or the forced second class discimination or persecution of Jews again. The state would be a place of refuge for Jews fleeing persecution. It wasn't created as you infer based on any notion of superiority. This is precisely why Arabic is an official language of Israel and Muslims and Christians who are Israeli citizens have the exact same legal rights as Jewish Israelis do and the Supreme Court of Israel has upheld those rights and protected their right to equal treatment. This is precisely why they have their own family and religious courts. This is precisely why Muslims in Israel have the highest standard of living of any Muslims in the Middle East. Tell me, in your analysis, did you stop to ask yourself how it is you came to the conclusion you did about South Africa and failed to notice how Muslims and Christians in Israel who are of Israeli citizenship are not segregated and have access to the same government buildings and hospitals? What you do is classic. You take the situation on the West Bank, and then fuse it with the actual situation in the State of Israel and turn it all into one negative stereotype of how Muslims in Israel are treated and that is why I suggest you are criticized-that and your simplistic black and white attempts to explain the many nuances of conflicts in the Middle East.

Some of my best friends are goys Wyly but I don't understand that love affair with white bread. Try a rye or a pumpernickel and just once use mustard instead of mayonaisse. One last thing, when you have a bagel ( pronouce it bay-gill, not bah gull) it should only be with cream cheese and lox, nothing else. Stop adding onions, capers, lettuce, etc. That is ridiculous also you will most certainly go to hell if you put ham and/or mayonaisse on a bagel. I find these threads designed to incite fear or distrust in people self-explanatory. Rational people will not stereotype all Muslims in a negative manner while others of course will. The name of the group being stereotyped will change from Muslim to Arab to jew to gay to black to what-ever but the exercise of negative stereotyping of the entire group of people in the identified group will remain the same. Unfortunately as psychologisst found out long ago, in the process of conceptualization we take the matter around us that we perceive and label it to try make it meaningful. Some of us have less ability to develop empathy and remain rigid and fixed in our labelling processes. There is probably little you or I can do to teach them how to be more empathic or how to learn to flex their categories-its probably deeply engrained in them long before they get to this forum and I would suspect while some of it was learned, some of it may be genetic predisposition. 50% of people tested score below the average i.q.

One word I would not use with Harper and that is "fanatic". I do not doubt the man is a classic conservative, fundamentalist Christian, anti-abortionist, etc., but fanatic? Please. He is first and foremost a pragmatic politician. You do not survive in power as long as he has with such a fragile minority being a fanatic. A fanatic would not do what he has done and that is to be opportunistic and bend his principles to accommodate other agendas so he can remain in power. He has deliberately placed many of his beliefs on the back burner to stay in power. Fanatics do not compromise like that. I think he is pragmatic. I don't like his right wing fundamentalist views on certain social and religious issues. I criticize some of his economic policies for abandoning conservative economic principles and engaging in the exact same government spending he claimed he is against. I am like most Canadians-in the middle- to the left on social issues, to the right on the economy but no extremes either way. Where I criticize him is his abandoning of all the economic principles he claimed he would follow and creating huge debts from gov. spending. I appreciate world markets and economic conditions he had no control over may have forced his hand on much of that. As for his being anti-abortion he has been careful to keep it on the back burner. I find his disrespect for the independence of the judicial decison making process questionable. I find his deliberate patronage and partisan spending highly questionable considering he came to office claiming to be righteous and above such behaviour and now engages in the exact same behaviour as Chretien did with gov. spending and doling out of patronage appointments. I also find him to be petty, snarky, smarmy, petulant and thin skinned. However every criticism I have for him I have identically for Michael Ignatieff. As for Jack Layton he to me is not worthy of even considering. He is a little toad. Unfortunately Harper is typically Canadian small town. He should be running a Ford dealership in Red Deer and serving as head of the local Kiwanis club.

Immigration policies of all countries not just Canada's are designed to try discourage and prevent people coming to the country who will be dependent on the state. The reality is people who are sick and who will die in other countries will find a way to get to Canada if they think they can get free care that will keep them alive. I know of a recent case where a man with kidney disease requiring dialysis who lived in a country that had no such treatment married a Canadian woman. He had zero assets. He was able to live 23 years in Canada before he died. In his case his wife carried him but the point is he enjoyed the benefits of our medicare system. Some would say the marriage was a sham just to get him in the country. Some would argue the state has only so many seats available for dialysis and has an obligation to make sure a Canadian citizen gets that seat before someone from outside the country. The bottom line is Canada can not take in all the sick of the world without compromising the health needs and capacity load to provide those health needs for Canadian citizens and immigration policy tries to prevent compromise of our health system's capacity to serve Canadians. Yes it would be nice to be compassionate and have unlimited capacity to provide the entire world with medical care-the reality is however, each state has a limited capacity to serve its own people who it must look after first.

Who ever was beyond this idiotic act shows; 1-they have no idea how to express themselves in a rational manner; 2-forced anyone they wanted to listen to their message to ignore it; 3-engaged in a meaningless act that will shift the focus away from their actual message to simply the stupidity of their act; 4-will provide an excuse for people to engage in negative stereotypes of native people and make it harder for native peopleto bring attention to their issues. The above act luckily killed no one. It is nothing more then a child having a tantrum only the next time we may not beso lucky. These actions reflect only the actions of the idiots who engaged in them and no one else.

Its called rhetoric. You engage in it so does he. He returns what you give. Your language calls for his language. The words you use invite certain words in response. The facts are not black and white. They never were. There is no black and white, good v. evil, right v. wrong as you and others depict the equation on the West Bank as. In fact the West Bank was never part of any sovereign state. No amount of historic revisionism can change that fact or do what you want it to do, create in international law a new doctrine that says a land that was never part of a sovereign nation is the exclusive land of only one kind of people. Not even Israel when it founded a Jewish state excluded non Jews. Palestinians do seek this again. I say again, because people like you ignore history. You pretend or conveniently ignore that 78% of Palestine was illegally and unilaterally seized by the British to create TransJordan contrary to international law and the TransJordanian state was created as a Palestinian state. That Palestinian state said so in its constitution. It defined Jordan as a Palestinian state which is still on its coat of arms. The fact is and remains to this day, that under Jordanian law, no Jew is allowed citizenship and if you sell land to a Jew-you face capital punishment. This is why there are NO Jews living in Jordan. Jordan granted a law of return granting anyone who was MUSLIM and identified themselves as a Palestinian the automatic right to obtain citizenship in Jordan. The fact is the nation proposed for Palestinians on the West Bank also calls for a Muslim state that would expel all Jews. You conveniently depict Israel as the bad guy and the ethnic cleanser but you ignore the fact that the Arab League of Nations expelled its one million Jews forcing 90% of them to flee to Israel after all their belongings were stolen. You then ignore under Sharia law in Muslim states of the Middle East, it continues that Jews can not own land, testify in court because they are considered unable to tell the truth and are required to hire a Muslim to represent them when doing business with another Muslim, etc. You also conveniently ignore that Israel as part of its constitution guarantees the right to non Jewish citizens the same right to own land in Israel, vote for elected representatives, and to have its own religious and family law courts. You conveniently forget that in Israel, non Jews live in the highest standard of living in any country of the Middle East. So now we have the West Bank. You look at it ignoring 78% of Palestine was already turned into a non Jewish Palestinian state. You know want to take that land as well and create a second Palestinian state. Israel says fine just don't use it as a zone to attack Israel with terrorists. You want a state, recognize us and our right to live free of terrorism. What happens-Hamas says never and they will not stop until all of Israel and Jordan as well as the West Bank is turned into a Sharia Law Muslim theocracy. They have stated this time and time again as well as the policy that it is justified to engage in acts of terror until this is achieved and that every Israeli, every Jew and anyone who supports Israel is a target of "war". This is echoed by another 300 terror cells, each with their own leader operating in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, etc., but of course we ignore that. Then we have Mr. Abbas who wrote his thesis in unversity on why the holocaust never happened. he is portrayed as a peaceful moderate and yet is on record saying he will never recognize Israel as being a Jewish state. We also know he as no control over Fatah Hawks and the other terror cells in the Palestinian Authority who operate on the West Bank and who are dedicated to destroying Israel. We pretend that no one on the West Bank is a terrorist or has terrorist sympathies and Israel should have no right to prevent terrorists from entering Israel from the West Bank or Gaza-that is unfair-because if you stop terrorists from coming in you stop Palestinians from coming into Israel and that is not fair. Israelis should die and be the subject of non stop terror attacks to assure Palestinians move about freely into Israel to work and have access to Jerusalem, and jobs in Israel. See unlike you I do not ignore all that. I do criticize Israeli policies on the West Bank. I have openly stated continued expansion exasperates any ability to engage in peace talks. I have openly stated expansion by Israel has severely damaged the fragile ecosphere of the West Bank. I have criticized Israel for not freezing settlements in Jerusalem so peace talks can be commenced again. I have openly criticized extremist Jewish settlers on the West Bank. Yet Naomi never once have I heard you criticize Palestinian extremists. Even Myata who I openly debate/feud with has acknowledged my comments and met me half way. You and this other person on this thread-all I have seen are the usual anti Israel platitudes. I repeat again Israel bears responsibility form policies on the West Bank which are exasperating tensions. It also struggles to contain its extremist settlers (about 33% of the settlers of the West Bank) who are a volatile electorate and who when teamed with a minority of extremists in the Knesset make Netanyahu dependent on them to stay in office. I openly admit that. However no I will not sit here and pretend it is all Israel's fault. It is not. Israel did not illegally create Jordan. It did not start the war of 1948-9 in which the Arab League chose to try wipe out all Jews of the Middle East and then deliberately imprisoned Palestinians in camps to serve as political pawns to pressure the world into undoing the state of Israel. Israel did not expel one million Jews from the Arab League nations forcing the majority of them into Israel making it then impossible even if they wanted to, to take back Palestinians who wanted to return to Israel. You can look at the Middle East in a vacum pretending only Israelis are foreigners. You can pretend the people who today call themselves Palestinians are not descended from foreigners from outside Palestine. You can pretend that a Jew who came to Palestibne is a foreigner but a Muslim who came to Palestine is not. You can pretend the Jews who came to Israel were colonial imperialist swine and not escaping colonialists. I really don't care. Neither to Israelis. At this point they don't care. They realize they are alone, hope people will understand why they fight to exist and how Israel was created as an existential response to both Western Christian and Eastern Muslim violence, genocide, slaughters and discrimination, but in the end they do not care. They will do what they have to do to survive. I say the exact same thing about Palestinians. I know many. They do not kid themselves into believing that people who utter trendy leftist or couched neo Nazi piffle about Jews and Israel and the holocaust like them any more then they like Jews. Both peoples know what their fate is and that the key to their survival is to find a way to shut down terrorists and outsiders who meddle and claim to speak on their behalf.

Its called rhetoric. You engage in it so does he. He returns what you give. Your language calls for his language. The words you use invite certain words in response. The facts are not black and white. They never were. There is no black and white, good v. evil, right v. wrong as you and others depict the equation on the West Bank as. In fact the West Bank was never part of any sovereign state. No amount of historic revisionism can change that fact or do what you want it to do, create in international law a new doctrine that says a land that was never part of a sovereign nation is the exclusive land of only one kind of people. Not even Israel when it founded a Jewish state excluded non Jews. Palestinians do seek this again. I say again, because people like you ignore history. You can of course onveniently ignore that 78% of Palestine was illegally and unilaterally seized by the British to create TransJordan contrary to international law and the TransJordanian state was created as a Palestinian state. That Palestinian state said so in its constitution. It defined Jordan as a Palestinian state which is still on its coat of arms. You can ignore the fact is and remains to this day, that under Jordanian law, no Jew is allowed citizenship and if you sell land to a Jew-you face capital punishment. This is why there are NO Jews living in Jordan. You can ignore that Jordan granted a law of return granting anyone who was MUSLIM and identified themselves as a Palestinian the automatic right to obtain citizenship in Jordan. The fact is the nation proposed for Palestinians on the West Bank also calls for a Muslim state that would expel all Jews. You can of course depict Israel as the bad guy and the ethnic cleanser but you ignore the fact that the Arab League of Nations expelled its one million Jews forcing 90% of them to flee to Israel after all their belongings were stolen. You can ignore under Sharia law in Muslim states of the Middle East, it continues that Jews can not own land, testify in court because they are considered unable to tell the truth and are required to hire a Muslim to represent them when doing business with another Muslim, etc. You can ignore that Israel as part of its constitution guarantees the right to non Jewish citizens the same right to own land in Israel, vote for elected representatives, and to have its own religious and family law courts-in otherwords all the rights no Jews are allowed in Sharia law nations or were allowed in Christian nations. You can also forget that in Israel, non Jews live in the highest standard of living in any country of the Middle East and this is why so many Muslim Israelis will not leave the country. By the way you can also ignore how Israel took in Muslim refugees from the Yugoslav civil war. So now we have the West Bank. May I suggest, from what I have read from you in past posts that you look at it ignoring 78% of Palestine was already turned into a non Jewish Palestinian state. You now want to take that land as well and create a second Palestinian state. I myself feel a second Palestinian State is required for a possible peace settlement. Israel says fine just don't use it as a zone to attack Israel with terrorists. You want a state, recognize us and our right to live free of terrorism. What happens-Hamas says never and they will not stop until all of Israel and Jordan as well as the West Bank is turned into a Sharia Law Muslim theocracy. They have stated this time and time again as well as the policy that it is justified to engage in acts of terror until this is achieved and that every Israeli, every Jew and anyone who supports Israel is a target of "war". This is echoed by another 300 terror cells, each with their own leader operating in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, etc., but of course we ignore that. Then we have Mr. Abbas who wrote his thesis in unversity on why the holocaust never happened. he is portrayed as a peaceful moderate and yet is on record saying he will never recognize Israel as being a Jewish state. We also know he as no control over Fatah Hawks and the other terror cells in the Palestinian Authority who operate on the West Bank and who are dedicated to destroying Israel. Would you have me pretend no one on the West Bank is a terrorist or has terrorist sympathies and Israel should have no right to prevent terrorists from entering Israel from the West Bank or Gaza-that is unfair-because if you stop terrorists from coming in you stop Palestinians from coming into Israel and that is not fair. Israelis should die and be the subject of non stop terror attacks to assure Palestinians move about freely into Israel to work and have access to Jerusalem, and jobs in Israel? I do criticize Israeli policies on the West Bank. I have openly stated continued expansion exasperates any ability to engage in peace talks. I have openly stated expansion by Israel has severely damaged the fragile ecosphere of the West Bank. I have criticized Israel for not freezing settlements in Jerusalem so peace talks can be commenced again. I have openly criticized certain extremist Jewish settlers on the West Bank. Yet Naomi never once have I heard you criticize Palestinian extremists. Even Myata who I openly debate/feud with has acknowledged my comments and met me half way in the past. You and this other person on this thread-all I have seen are the usual anti Israel platitudes. I repeat again Israel bears responsibility for policies on the West Bank which are exasperating tensions but it is not the only source of tension. It also struggles to contain its extremist settlers (about 33% of the settlers of the West Bank) who are a volatile electorate and who when teamed with a minority of extremists in the Knesset make Netanyahu dependent on them to stay in office. I openly admit that. However no I will not sit here and pretend it is all Israel's fault. It is not. Israel did not illegally create Jordan. It did not start the war of 1948-9 in which the Arab League chose to try wipe out all Jews of the Middle East and then deliberately imprisoned Palestinians in camps to serve as political pawns to pressure the world into undoing the state of Israel. Israel did not expel one million Jews from the Arab League nations forcing the majority of them into Israel making it then impossible even if they wanted to, to take back Palestinians who wanted to return to Israel. You can look at the Middle East in a vacum pretending only Israelis are foreigners. You can pretend the people who today call themselves Palestinians are not descended from foreigners from outside Palestine. You can pretend that a Jew who came to Palestibe is a foreigner but a Muslim who came to Palestine is not. You can pretend the Jews who came to Israel were colonial imperialist swine and not escaping colonialists. It really does not matter. All that matters if Palestinians and Israelis find a way to be able to speak with one another.

No and I am glad you were ignored when you asked this question. Your comment simply reflects your preconceived view based on an antiquated myth that is false and its a classic example of how alleged criticism of Israeli policy is fused with a myth about jewish religion which then negatively stereotupes not just all Israelis but necessarily all Jews as racists. I have lost track how many times this anti-semitic canard has been repeated and quite frankly Oleg I expected more from you. In Judaism there is a story which refers to a covenant Jews enter into with God in which God tells them they must honour God through a collective identity. This relationship or covenant, or in fact promise God holds the Jews to in the story is specific to Jews. The fact it is specific to Jews and does not apply to others is what Jews feel distinguishes them from non Jews. It is a concept where Jews feel God selected them for a promise he did not impose on non Jews. Nowhere in this concept does it state this make Jews superior Oleg. That is an anti-semitic myth. Judaism does not and has never stated Jews are better than anyone else. You have taken the word "chosen" which is a rough translation from Hebrew and assume it signifies the Jews as being defined as superior people by God. That is absolute nonsense. Sheer and utter nonsense. Chosen in fact means designated or assigned or told by God or ordered or by God. In fact there are numerous passages in the Old Testament and Talmud and many other essays by Rabbiahs and Jewish scholars which teach that Jews are to respect all other mono-theistic religions and to treat non Jews with respect and kindness as a central precept of being a Jew. In fact Judaism does not define Christians and Muslims as inferiors. In fact Christianity defines Jews as infidel going to hell if they do not convert to Christianity. In fact Islam defines Jews as infidels going to hell for not following the words of Muhammed. In fact this is why Christians convert and Muslims convert and Jews do not. In the original early days this myth was probably written as an allegory to encourage Jews to develop a collective identity if they were to survive in a world of feuding tribes, no more, no less. For you to twist that, and suggest it means something it does not and then repeat the old anti-semitic canard that Zionism is racism and Israel is racist because the creation of Israel is based on the precept that Jews are superior and don't want other people in their state is bull. Zionism as it was originally created was not religious at all. In fact it was drafted by agnostics and atheists who defined their Judaism as a political collective identity based on not just their religion but ethnicity and culture. It defined the collective Jewish identity as an identifiable people seeking the right to human sufferage. Religious Zionism as expressed by extremist settlers on the West Bank which claims Judea and Somaria as all belonging exclusively to Jews and those religious Zionists of this group of Israelis who embrace anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian policies and wish to live only with Jews are not mainstream Israelis, not mainstream Jews, and not mainstream Zionists. They are no more indicative of Zionists, Israelis or Jews, then terrorists who profess to be Islam are indicative of the thoughts and beliefs of all Muslims. They are no more indicative of Zionists then religious Christian Zionists. Religious Zionists are a segment or sub-group of Zionists and a minority sub-group. Zionism as enshrined in the Israeli state government defines Arabic as an official language of Israel, allows Muslim Israelis to elect members to the government that can openly call for the end of Israel, enshrines and protects the right for Muslims and Christians to have their own religious courts to deal with religious and family law issues-affords the same property rights to non Jewish citizens as it does Jewish ones. In fact it does so precisely because the Zionist ideology did not define Arabs/Muslims or Christian citizens in the Jewish state as inferior. You mistake the Jewish state for Sharia Law Muslim states which create dhimmitude and define non Muslims as inferior citizens unable to own land or testify on their own behalf in court because they are considered unable to tell the truth and therefore take an oath. You mistake the Jewish state with Christian ones that excluded Jews from owning land and entrenched in these countries constitutions laws that discriminated and held anyone who was non Christian as being inferior. The Israeli state has its issues. It has questionable policies and its share of ignorant hateful people but for you to suggest Judaism or Zionism or Israel is racist is a crock of dung. If Israel was racist it would not have taken in Felashie Jews. Yes there is friction between the Orthodox Rabbinical courts which do not recognize people as being Jews unless they subscribe to Orthodox Judaism but the actual state would allow me a non Orthodox Jew the same right of return it allows Felashie Jews or Jews from across the world. Our skin colour or race is not the issue and never was. There is friction between say Russian Jews and African and Arabic Jews but that is cultural friction not skin colour friction. The fact is Jews come from every race and if you live in Israel long enough you become brown from the sun even if you are a caucasian.

Your point is well stated and of course in North America as in Europe we have laws guaranteeing a certain percentage of wages must be added to an employee's pay for vacation pay and we provide statutory holidays in which full time employees must be paid. However there is I think a difference between enshrining vacation days or pay as a legal right and defining the right to "travel" as a human right. Guaranteeing people time off is one thing. Going the next step and stating they also have an inalienable right to travel assumes, i.e., it imposes an assumption that travel is a government responsibility. No what people do on their vacation should remain a private matter as far as I am concerned. By stating travel is a human right it devalues other human rights. A human right, i.e., an inalienable right, should be an idealistic and abstract ideal societies try work towards-not a day to day life choice. A human right is in my opinion something like freedom of speech, freedom to assemble, freedom of religion. A human right in the above case could be the "right to move freely across borders ". That would be a human right. The above example does not state that. It in fact defines the human right as "the right to have enough money to be able to afford to travel while on vacation". A human right might state, " the right to earn a fair salary commesurate with work performed" but it would not go further then that. It can't. A human right is a general notion not a specific one. Think about it. How does one define how much money one needs to travel? How far should they travel? Should they travel by car, plane, boat, train, foot, horse, first or second class-should they stay at a hotel, motel, hostel, on and on. Its nonsensical. People are confusing an open ended sense of self entitlement with what a human right is.

I sort of have your take to. When I head the question the questioner made no derogatory comments about Easterners so Brown should have been smart enough not to call her a bigot even if he thought that was her agenda. He's a politician. He's supposed to avoid taking the bait. He could have easily acknowledged the remarks with -"yes its a difficult issue-we want to be fair to people who want to come to this country and contribute positively to its success but we also have to be aware of issues some prospective immigrants might face with assimilating to our society such as language." Or simply, " yes I acknowledge your concerns that immigration policy must take into consideration assimilation issues when determining eligibility requirements". Politics is about stating the obvious. Brown took the bait and showed himself to have thin skin. Then again he is human. he may have been tired and worn out. This is where his handlers come in. He certainly is not a charismatic man and that will hurt him in this day and age where image and communication style are what gets someone elected not the substance of their messages. After years of a politician who spoke very eloquently, switching to the boring Brown was like reverting back to John Major. Boring politicians don't make it in Britain. You need to be able to speak brilliantly to make a lasting impression. Blair's eloquence is a hard act to follow but both the Liberal and Conservative leaders are up to the task. Mr. Brown unfortunately sounds and looks like a wet blanket.

His question shows his preconceived bias that the terrorists who quote Islam are practicing Islam. Your attempt to correct his question goes too far the other way. I appreciate your point I just think you are also missing the point. His question should have been posed: "What percentage of terrorist attacks have been committed by terrorists professing Islam?" There is nothing "wrong" with pointing out that the majority of terror attacks come from people professing Islam or who identify as being Muslims. What is questionable is then smeering the vast majority of Muslims who do not agree with terrorism, who do not engage in it and who do not believe their religion teaches them to be terrorists. To incite people to hold all Muslims culpable for the actions of terrorists who are Muslim is nothing more then negative stereotyping. It is no different then those who smeer all Jews and Israelis and people who support the right of a Jewish state to exist as evil because one may disagree with certain Israeli government policies. It is no different then smeering all Americans as evil because one might disagree with the policies of Dick Chaney or George Bush. I did not respond to the survey because the question concludes terrorists are Muslims and engage in terrorism because they are Muslims. The terrorists may identify as Muslim, be born in a Muslim society, been brought up by other Muslims to believe terrorism as an acceptable Muslim religous practice- all verifiable- but there is a way to report that without concluding all Muslims do it or that necessarily is what Islam teaches. It is no different then saying all Christians agree with those Christians who shoot doctors performing abortions or all Christians agree pedophile priests should simply be sent to a new church or that all Christians agree with the KKK's take on Christianity.

Well stated. There is no way (this my area of expertise)any liability insurance policies BP has will be sufficient to cover the money BP will be held responsible for in terms of compensation. They will easily excede any liability limits. In fact no amount of money BP will pay can offset the damage and the question is will the courts protect BP from bankruptcy by capping the amount that they can be sued for? The damages is in the trillions. We are talking about 3 or 4 state coast lines and permanent eco-spherical damage. The lowlands of Missouri and Louisianna were already facing extinction as a result of other man made activity plus hurricanes. The overcrowded wild life will now all suffocate from the oil. Entire species of birds, fish and wildlife may be wiped out. We know any pelicans, water birds or wildlife dependent on the lowlands are as good as dead. Vegetation will not be able to fight back from continuing waves of crude oil. The winds and storms will blow the oil upstream into fresh water areas causing even more disasterous permanent damage. We are talking about 100's of thousands of square miles of teaming wild life and fresh water wiped out by oil. The oil spill is so vast it can not be burned. This was bound to happen. We all know it was. The oil rig off St. John's if it breaks will do the same disasterous thing. Oil rigs up North in the will do the same thing. It is just a matter of time until they break down. You can't put these things in the ocean and thing man is stronger and smarter than nature and can resist the wind, the water pressure, the storms. Nothing humans make can be assumed to be fool proof. Time and time again we have destroyed huge chunks of this planet with this insane notion that we are superior to the planet and can do whatever we want to it.

Remind me to always stand up wind of you. As for the Israel reference (why is it Israel ends up in every thread no matter what the subject) may people who criticize Israel call Israel racist and refer to Zionism as racist. Criticism of Israel being racist speaks for itself. Criticism of Zionism for being racist speaks for itself. When that criticism of Israel or Zionism engages in ferences to the Jewish religion being racist and having racist beliefs then that becomes anti-semitic as it incorrectly stereotypes all Jews as racists for being Jews-it assumes the canard that we believe we are superior because we have a covenant with God which is a crock. However I agree with you that criticism of Israeli state policies per se is not necessarily anti-semitic. I also know people who can criticize Zionism without making negative generalizations about Judaism and Jews but more often then not it breaks down to the same stale stereotype false myths. Now getting back to the gay topic the whole thread was a bit absurd. An adult who engages in sex with a child is a pedophile not a homosexual or heterosexual. To suggest pedophiles are either homosexual pedopholes or heterosexual pedophiles is a misuse of the word. Homosexual refers to consensual sex between same sex adults, and heterosezual, consensual sex between adult members of the opposite sex. While some pedophiles have a preference for boys and other girls, most pedophiles do not. In fact they are attracted to children precisely because of their non specific features, i.e., no facial hair, no muscular or breast development. Pedophiles will molest either boys or girls if they have access and opportunity even where they have a preference. The vast majority of pedophiles have reported themselves as heterosexuals not homosexuals but the fact is a true pedophile is unable to perform with an adult or sustain intimate relationships with an adult and if in such a relationship is in a dysfunctional one. We have had many people come on this forum and make sweeping stereotypical comments about gays being pedophiles. That is a crock. Victims of pedophiles are not homosexual or heterosexual, they are children. Even if these children have an emerging sexual identity it is not why they are molested-it is because an adult had opportunity and access. Referring to pedophiles as either heterosexual or homosexual is incorrrect. When they are pedophiles, they are only pedophiles. A person molested by them is not molested because they were gay and gave off signals or were straight and gave off signals. I would urge people before they make sweeping generalizations about gays and pedophilia at least take the time to research pedophilia and stop projecting onto gays their own sexual insecurities and uncertainties. If you fear gays, deal with it stop calling them pedophiles to rationalize your fear. The fear comes from either mixing up pedophiles with gays or because you have unresolved gay tendencies or issues. The best way to deal with sexuality is to read up on it and be open and honest with yourself about your feelings. Sexuality between consenting adults is natural. It is not natural when its between adults and children precisely because of the power imbalance and lack of consent. Sexual relationships of any kind become problematic where one party uses its power to gain leverage over the other unfairly. In the psychiaytic and psychological world, classifications are not meant to be simplistic labels. They are meant to assist in identifying violent behaviour, exploitive behaviour or behaviour that injures or harms. You want to morally judge people, grow a beard and run up and down the street with a sign screaming at people they are going to hell for touching their pee pees but don't confuse that with rational discourse as to sexuality. As for Michelle Rodriquez who I hear is gay, that is too bad I would love to engage in boring straight sex with her. I gave up on Jodie Foster. Also I like Rosario Dawson. Now if one of my fellow testacle carriers prefers Oleg Bach its none of my business.

1. The beginning and end of my day is with my wife. She would beg to differ with you. 2. You can have it thanks. 3. No one rules the world no matter what kind of genitilia they have. That is an illusion. At best some of us try control tiny portions of it and we never succeed.

Get real. Afghanistan is a large rock and some desert. The only crop it has ever grown is poppies. Its main good has always been poppies and heroin. The real reason the West went in is to find away to put a pipeline through it-end of story. There is no agricultural base to develop nor has it ever been anything but a nomad land. Unless heroin is legalized it has no agricultural basis or natural resources. Let's get real shall we?

You might want to spend more then a couple of more hours reading. Lol. I don't think the British abandoned the Belfour declaration. Far from it. The Jewish leaders at the time accepted it and the Arab League of Nations rejected it. The British did not abandon it-they proposed it. It was not up to the British to accept. Its acceptance depended on both the Jews and Arabs of Palestine agreeing to it. The Arab League intervened and rejected it. In fact the British violated their League of Nations mandate and illegally created the nations of Iraq and Jordan as part of its dividing up of the Middle East with France in the Pictot agreement. Both nations acted illegally. France tried to create colonies in Lebanon and Syria and Britain placed Prince Faisals to sons on thrones in Iraq and Jordan. Jordan was illegally seized from 78% of the land mandated for a Jewish state. Jordan was created as a Palestinian state which it still states on its coat of arms. It had a law of return for any Arab who claimed to be a Palestinian offering them automatic citizenship while forbidding Jews not only citizenship but living in the country. You might want to read a bit more. The Belfour declaration was proposed by Britain after it first illegally seized 78% of Palestine to try prevent a Jewish state. The Belfour declaration proposed to tiny enclaves, one Palestine and one Jewish to be administered indefinitely by the British. It was a recipe for creating a permanent condition of crisis and dysfunction to legitimize Britain remaining. It is what the British liked to do. Artificially carve up areas of the world with borders that ignored natural tribal patterns and then use all the conflicts the arbitrary borders caused to divide and conquer. It isn't rocket science. It also isn't rocket science to know Britain did what Britain has always done, play one party off of another to create a feud between them so it could exploit the feud for its own gains. The wild card in this was Hitler and Nazi Germany. Just as the League of Nations was about to call a meeting to declare the creation of Trasnjordan illegal and for the Arabs and Jews to come back to the table without British and French interference, WW2 broke out and we saw Palestinian nationals led by the Mufti of Jerusalem forge a Pan-Arab movement that allied with Hitler against the French and British in the Middle East. France quicjkly was knocked out of the war and French colonies like Morrocco, Algeria and Tunisia sat out the war as Vichy indirect Nazi areas of influence. The British however waged a war against the Germans all though the rest of North Africa with the Nazis obtaining support from the pro Nazi political parties and Muslim Brotherhoods in Syria, Egypt and Iraq. Anwar Sadat, Gamel Nasser and their political party in Egypt, and the Bath parties of Syria and Iraq were openly pro Nazi and imitated it in their uniforms and policies right down to the anti-semitism. It was no concidence after WW2 the SS and elite Nazis flooded Egypt, Syria and Iraq where they ran their host countries' military, secret police forces, and communication ministries. The Mukbarat we now enjoy in many Arab nations is the incarnation of the Gestapo. The goose stepping, German helmet, German riding pants and boots are still seen in the ceremonial guard uniforms of the Egyptians, and Syrians and the Hitler mustache was all the rage in the Arab world during the 50's and 60's. The Nazi salute and goos stepping is a feature of every Hamas and Hezbollah parade and rally.

How many times do I have to tell you. Paris Hilton leading an illuminati free-mason Mossad false flag CIA operation did it.

No of course not. It was a Mossad false flag operation. I saw Jews oops I mean Israelis dancing in Moscow as the subways exploded. No wait, it was a CIA operation. Oh it was a joint CIA Mossand operation. No wait the free masons did it. No wait the illuminati did it. No wait the Georgians did it. No wait Paris Hilton did it.