Hatie for Jews makes you blind & stupid.

I don't hate Jews, I disapprove of what the Israeli government does to Christian and Muslim families in the West Bank just for being Arab.

Last time I checked Iran hangs gays and stone women to death. Same they doe to converts to Christianity and opposition to the mullahs. Not in Israel, the only place in the ME where Arabs do not kill one another and criticize the government and gays have their parades.

Violence towards women, gays and non-Muslims (or non-Jews) exists in both countries, and they both have a large part of their population that is tolerant and reasonable. Ultra-orthodox Jews are no less totalitarian than the Ayatollahs, see for instance jezebel(dot)com/5871293/orthodox-israelis-spit-on-whorish-8+year+old-girl-for-going-to-school

Also, Israel is the only place in the ME where they do not burn American flags and do not scream death to America. Arab territories not withstanding. But peaceful jihadists in Iran make burning our flags and chanting death to America as their favorite pastime.

What I said was that Israelis and Iranians are morally on par. Loving America doesn't make any country more or less "moral" in my view.

Whatever happened to Free Speech?

If you loved America you would not have written this.

If loving America means that I must have a double-standard and be blind to what America has done in the Middle East, then I guess I don't.

Israel loves America and America loves Isarel because of common values. Please, spare me of the "Jewish lobby".

Spare me the nonsense. You are using "America" as a proxy for neo-conservatives.

Both are screwed up in their own ways - Iran because of the religious oppression, and Israel because it is literally an apartheid state that openly discriminates against the 20-25% percent of its population who are not Jews.

If "morally on par" or not is subjective in the eye of the beholder.

However, morally speaking, I can't conceive of a coherent argument that can be made that tells the Iranians: "it's OK for Israel to have as many nukes as it wants, but you can't have any".

@Cassandra It's not that they didn't try, and I wouldn't be surprised if they do succeed from time to time. www(dot)nodeju.com/18248/orthodox-jews-stone-woman.html

A Jewish State = An Islamic State = A Chirstian State. A government that is based on a specific doctrine or religion is, by definition, oppressive, discriminatory and hostile to those with different beliefs.

religion poisons everythng.

Spitting on little girls every day for months, flinging feces and rocks, eggs and garbage at them and calling them whores today; tomorrow it turns into beheadings. That's how fundie religionists work.

One seems as reasonable as the other.

The "Mutual assured destruction" that "justifies" our nuclear program is just as necessary in the middle east. It is a lot more chancy there as it is for India and Pakistan, but no less a good way to curb excesses by both countries. Iran would surely come out the worst for an unprovoked attack but Israel seems determined to interfere with their right to defend themselves. I don't like theocracies in any country, especially the republican effort to start one here in the US.

As many novelists do when they get involved with politics and foreign affairs they go off the deep end.Gunther Grass follows in the tradition of Celine,Saramago, Pound,Montherlant and many others.Some were even executed in France and other countries for supporting the nazis.In Germany his words will go over as big as someone in the U.S who defends the extermination of Indians. If this guy can´t see the difference between Iran and Israel he might be relegated to the head of the Nobel Prize winners Dummy Club.. What a morally dyslexic person he is !! Germany has done a pretty good job dealing with their mass murdering regime of Hitler and his perverted monsters.This fellow Grass seems to have fallen between the cracks.!

Coon
any thoughts about the election Iran held a few years back?

Duh... any thoughts about the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Yep. Thought not... Iran signed it. Israel? Not so much.

martin bart again!

Coon
any thoughts about the election Iran held a few years back?

Disappointing and very likely fraudulent.

Gunter Grass is a former Waffen SS member who lied about his history for 60 years, before finally admitting it in 2006. So it is not surprising that he would try to accuse Israel of wanting to perpetrate genocide against the Iranian people. That way he can feel better about himself, and maybe get some of that pent up hate released. Like taking a really big dump after having to hold it for way too long. And what came out ain't pretty that's for sure...

From what I've read it looks like the vast majority of German intellectuals as well as their foreign minister Westerwelle, have condemned Gunter Grass, and his hate filled poem. Too bad Tarantino wasn't around back when Gunter Grass was wearing his shiny black SS uniform. He could have given him a nice symbolic memento on his forehead (carving a Swastika into his forehead with a knife)* to help people recognize Gunter Grass for what he really is.

* Inglourious Basterds (2009), directed by Quentin Tarantino.

Why do I say only now,

Aged and with my last ink,

The nuclear power Israel endangers

The already fragile world peace?

Because it must be said

What even tomorrow may be too late to say;

~ Guenter Grass

Grass had urged Germans for decades to come to terms with their Nazi past but his moral authority has never fully recovered after his belated admission in 2006 that he had once served in Hitler's Waffen SS.

LOL! Why is this guy even given a voice? Snow is cold, water is wet, Nazi bashes Israel. LOL! This is almost surreal. The anti-Israel movement uses a Nazi to condemn Israel and he's actually taken seriously. You guys slay me! LOL!

The big problem for Zionists is the truth hurts. Zionists complain about some rights violations in Iran, but never mention the mass murders Israel commits with its air force bombing of Beirut, Lebanon and Gaza., where a total of over 2400 people were killed, mostly women and children.

Please spare us the human shields. The Israeli air force cannot differentiate between targets. They kill at random, just as the Palestinans do with their bottle rockets, which rarely injure a soul. When a large city is bombed, innocent people are the ones most likely to be killed.

The German is 100% correct. Germany should not be selling submarines to a rogue terrorist state, which attacks it's neighbors.

May God bless Israel and deliver it from the hands of the wicked.

If someone is pushing for Armageddon is Israel. Who has Iran invaded in the last 200 years?

Israel bombs foreign countries nuclear plants and threats others because it feels threaten (when they are the ones that actually have nukes), shoots missiles at buildings with people (including kids) to kill one terrorist, it has a racist apartheid system on millions of Palestinians, steals land and water from the occupied territories and invades Lebanon every 10 years or so.

Not mentioning Israel sponsored massacres of Sabra and Shatila.

I think you just illustrated the difference between America and Israel...only not in the way you'd like to see. Israel is currently suffering under the same egotistical leadership and neoconservatism as we suffered under Bush and Cheney. I would hope the majority of Americans have learned to recognize when a small cabal of individuals are using power for their own benefit.

We have opened our shores to every sort of individual who wishes to stomp our culture, our soldiers, our VARIOUS religions, our capitalism WHICH THEY HAVE EMBRACED and used to used to send funds back to their homelands... and our welcome has done nothing but cause enormous internal strife across every area of our lives with few exceptions of the few immigrants who truly wanted to assimilate.

I have no love for Bush or Cheney but I saw no effort on their parts to stifle any comments or visits from anti-American persons.... just from citizens here in this country who tried to speak out againsts THEM.

My only comment, @screaminmimi, is that we should all be careful of characterizing a person based on aesthetic association. In saying things like "he looks like a fat Hitler" you lower the value of your opinion to a level very similar to that which the Nazi's frequently used to discriminate against Jewish people. In their Eugenics programs the Nazi's used physical descriptions and characterizations of the stereotypical Jewish facial features as a strong point of evidence against their humanity and worthiness. I would not want to see you or anyone else go down that road in trying to make their case against one with whom they disagree.

I don't know how old you are, AngieS, but I grew up with Hitler as the bogieman, the devil to fear, the heart of evil. You cannot shame me with your words. I have seen the numbers tatooed on the wrist of a Jew. I have listened to the words of an elderly Jewish man describing what it was like to watch his family pulled from behind the barbed wire one by one and led to the ditches where they were shot and then he along with others were pulled out to fill in the ditch where they were buried without markers to name their graves.

Yes, he looks like a fat Hitler. He looks like a fat Hitler. He looks like a fat Hitler. He looks like a fat Hitler.

I am Native American. My people are to this day being dragged out of vehicles and beaten to within an inch of their lives for BEING Native American, singled out for their looks. A seventh grader was humiliated in front of her entire class and benched from playing in a basketball game for teaching a classmate how to say "I love you" and "hello" in her Native language a few weeks ago.

I know all about being profiled on looks alone. Just wanted to let you know. And he STILL looks like a fat Hitler.

What do you mean? Israel is over-represented in America if anything.

You can accuse us of stupidity but no one can say we don't have the intestinal fortitude to stand our ground.

Obviously, screminmimi hasn't read much Guenter Grass. No one is anything "for life"... at least not when it comes to philosophy.

I bet you hate Reagan and Bush and their view of America as much as you hate Israeli. Your heroes are Carter, Obama, Arafat and Ahmadinejad. Israel apartheid?! Not Iran, not Saudi Arabia, not even Syria? This is beyond absurd.

Alex613, If you read your own post, you will read the definition of "absurd".

Thank you Chuck for your thoughtfull comment

How is Israel apartheid? Israel is a Jewish state - a state for Jews to live safely because they've been killed and persecuted for thousands of years in "civilized" western countries. When you guys start killing Jews again, which is very likely considering our lovely history, Jews can now go to a country of their own, and unless you're U.S., Russia or China, the IDF will f"ck your sh*t up quicker than you can imagine =)

I see you want to parse words by clarification, the preemptive attack on Iran won't be "nuclear". A sad attempt at obfuscation of the real issue. I follow as close as I can the real sentiment of Israeli citizens and in my opinion the country is being railroaded into war much the way America was by Bush and Cheney into Iraq.

Absolutely agreed. We, none of us, can discuss the subject matter without access to the original words of the author, himself. For the edification of the argument, a translation of the poem from German into English is posted below. Now, let the *real* conversation begin.

Thank you very very much Angie, you must certainly be a Angel -

The bottom line seems to be fear of nuclear war, doesn't seem to have much at all to do with race color or creed.

reloading the dialogue of the U.S. - U.S.S.R. cold war, and the movies illustrating post nuclear war in many languages could help? - people got involved when they saw what could happen - they elected people with the appropriate frame of mind

this activity must have played a role in stopping nuclear war before!

(nobody ever really wins a war, but in this kind of war everybody loses!!!)

Not one single mention of the Jewish faith in the whole poem, only of Israeli nuclear power (which relates more to the government than to the Israeli people). I guess Gunter Grass is right and Netanyahu is once again playing the victim to avoid rational debate.

If, indeed, this translation is reliable (as my very limited knowledge of the German language does suggest), you are in the right. This poem actually seems to be aimed primarily at taking the German government's continued support to task - both in providing military supplies and in psychological justification for those provisions - by pointing a finger at what he sees as a grave wrong fraught with the potential to embroil his own country in yet another devastating world conflict. If anyone were qualified to look back on the history of their own country and see the possibility of that history repeating itself I would guess that Herr Grass should be counted among them.

AngieS, Well said. Herr Grass, in my opinion, is asking others to take pause and to take notice of the actions of our governments and the decisions they make. Are those decisions in the true interest of the people and world peace or do they march us exorbitantly toward more war which can only lead to regional conflagration or WWIII? In this day and age, there is no such thing as victory, or winners and losers. Just losers.

It seems that this "poem" was translated by a computer. It is very difficult to assess his meaning from such a clumsy translation.

Hatred for Israel seems to pervade this discussion thread. If you or your relatives did not experience the holocaust and did not experience the constant threats and shelling and attacks and suicide bombers and avowed dedication to the destruction of your state that the Israelis experience every day, I would say you don't understand the problem. Neither does Mr. Grass, whose "moral authority has never fully recovered after his belated admission in 2006 [60 years after the fact] that he had once served in Hitler's Waffen SS." Having visited Israel numerous times does not necessarily make him sensitive to these issues.

Israel is willing to defend itself. For those who are concerned, rightly, about the destabilization of the ME that may "result" from self-defense, (a) many of the countries are already in a state of utter turmoil, run by despots and killing their own people, and, (b) make up your minds. Do you want to police the world, or not?

Thank you Angie, very much. You have done something many others of us should do. You went to the source, you read you shared what you found in its entirety. In this case especially I am glad for the translation post as opposed to simply a link somewhere. No delay. Read now and learn if you wish. Well done. Thank you again for a cool head and a good dose of just the facts. We could use more of that just about everywhere.

I have family members who escaped the Nazis, I have family members who died in the camps, I have zionist family members that live in Israel. As an American I say that I will not live in a country (Israel) where there is no hope of equality for anyone other than one group. This is a constitutional fact in Israel. Automatic deportations if the non-Jewish population exceeds a certain number. This is not about Arabs its about anyone who isnt Jewish, folks. To those members of my family that have decided to recreate and perpetuate the wrongs of the past through the Constitution and governance of Israel I say the following. You cannot kill enough Palestinians, you cannot annex enough land, you cannot poke sticks at enough other people, you cannot keep Israel pure enough, to stop the cries, to stop the tears, to stop the pain of the 6 million and of those who survived and those of who came after. You cannot stop those who hate nor can you keep yourself safe behind the barbed wire of border crossing or the implied threat of your nuclear arsenal. This was never about religion or religious freedom. It is about the hating and attempted destruction of one whole group of people becoming the justification for that group of people to perpetrate many of the same hateful actions that was perpetrated against them. Read the Israel Constitution, folks. It sounds great, but its only for Jews; not Christians, not Buddhists, not Muslims, not Hindus, not atheists, only Jews.

Americans have perpetrated many crimes against our native peoples and they in turn struck back at us with all the ferocity they had at their disposal. They remained rightly hostile to us until we showed any signs of regret, of humility. We are still very weak in this area. We have treated many of our fellow citizens like garbage, including the forced deportation of native peoples from their land when they became too numerous or inconvenient, and the lynching and tarring those with different skin color to take their land and deny them the vote. There is no defense for this, or for our continued bad behavior and hateful attitudes, but at least our constitution and its subsequent ammendments provide hope for a better day for the oppressed (to be released) and for the oppressors (to get with the program). Israel offers no such hope. And unfortunately, I dont think that she has the luxury of taking 200 years to start getting it together.

Josephine, your words are words of wisdom for all to hear. When the opressed become the oppressors then hope for humanity is lost.

well said. So true.

Wow that sure is a big pile a dung, isn't it? Man, old Gunter Grass probably had to keep that terd for a long time before he was finally able to take a dump.

The best part is when he accuses Israel of wanting to commit genocide and wipe out the Iranian people! That's nice coming from a former SS man, who simultaneously manages to ignore the fact that Iran really does have the stated goal of annihilating the Jewish state.

Grass was drafted into the SS as a 17 year old kid,at near the end of the war. When the SS was reduced to drafting kids to keep on fighting. For all those years he didn't go around telling people about that period.I'm sure he was ashamed of it.But I don't think he ever lied about it either. He is considered the greatest living German poet/writer,Nobel Prize Winner,and someone who's spent his life trying to bring people together in peace.Now a man like that is demonized because he opposes Israels governments actions.

The Nazi murders of Jews,Poles,Russians,etc,the Armenian Genocide,Pol Pot in Cambodia, Stalin's murders of millions of "class enemies" in the Soviet days,and the Rwanda Genocide,were probably the worse slaughters of innocent human beings in Modern History. And if we go back in time further we find the Spanish/English extermination of Native American peoples,and the Western and Muslim African slave trade killing more people that all the others from the Modern period combined. But those days are gone today.

As for as Germany is concerned.Probably between 85% and 90% of Germans alive today,weren't born before 1945,and many of the rest were kids before 1945. They are not anymore responsible for the Nazi crimes,than American white's today are for Slavery in the US. Germany accepted responsibility in the 1950's to pay reparations to Israel for the Nazi crimes,and the huge amounts of money Germany paid,coming at a low point for Israel,has been claimed to have helped Israel survive in those early days. Yet today,it seems whenever anyone,and especially a German,condemns any action that Israel commits,they are called an anti-Semite by Israel and their supporters. And the Nazi crimes in the Holocaust are brought up to help attack Germans and Germany.

In Israel today,between 55-65% of Jewish Israelis are descendents of what are called "Oriental Jews",they have no direct connection with the Nazi Holocaust. They,their parents,or grandparents didn't come from countries invaded by the Nazis. The other 35-45 %,includes very many descendents of Jews already settled in Palestine before WWII,or that came from countries in the Americas,and while many may have had relatives in Europe during the Holocaust.They and their immediate families didn't live under Nazi control.Yet the government in Israel misuses the memory of the Holocaust to taint anyone that opposes them as a near Nazi,and an anti-Semite.

The time has come for people to stop being afraid to disagree with Israel,if they object to their policies. I'm not afraid to speak my mind as an American. I know that opposing Israels actions doesn't mean I hate Jews. I know I,and many other Americans come from families that helped put a stop to the Holocaust,and destroyed Hitler's Empire. We need to not let Israel and their supporters use intimidation to gag free speech here in our own country.

Not absolving him from his past, but the SS was widespread within the Nazi Germany bureaucracy as well as being quasi-military units. It was possible to serve in the SS without being part of the final solution or being involved in the atrocities that many SS units committed. So condemning him for being part of the SS is on par with blaming the entire German people, but allowing the German people to be forgiven but not allowing a soldier who may not directly taken part of the atrocities to be forgiven because he may of changed since his younger days is hypocritical. There is a time that a person has to be re-assessed on his personality.

77% of Israeli arabs they would prefer to live in Israel then anywhere else in the middle east.

This is what a lot of critics of Israel seem to miss. I've seen lots of polls, not the 77% one, where a vast majority 65-80% from Israel papers and Al-Jazeer that point to the same thing. Al-Jazeer buries it though under as many negative polls as it can before it gets to that one though and they stopped printing that poll altogether sometime last summer. Even at it's worse, Israeli Arabs have had large percentages that were willing to give Israel a chance to live up to the standards that it was founded on. Even though Israel messed up for decades, now that it is changing things for the better over the last 15-20 years, the percentage of Isreali-Arabs supporting Israel has gone up as well.

Even at it's worse, Israeli Arabs have had large percentages that were willing to give Israel a chance to live up to the standards that it was founded on.

That's a bit subjective, since the poll doesn't say why they prefer to live in Israel. It may have nothing to do with a better standard of living, and more to do with their feeling of belonging to that land, which is the case of many Palistinians in the West Bank that refuse to leave.

Steveala, you talk as if you were a German citizen in 1938-45 you would of opted out of any form of service as if in your youth you would have seen the world so purely,that you would of said,"oh no way,I wont serve at all"coming from an American culture so mediated and dysfunctional we cant tell truth from fiction because television tells us so,(excuse typing)AND YOU WOULD HAVE SEEN ALL???fOOLISH!! tHE HOLOCOUST WAS EVIL BUT SO WAS vIETNAM,THE KILLING OF ALL INDIGENOUS AROUND THE WORLD,YOURS WAS NOT THE ONLY INJUSTICE,MANY NATIONS SUCH AS THE U.S. and Isreal have that incommon,the founding of the nation based on a historical injustice!!.....So you would of not served and therefore not have been judged 50 years later huh?Our culture watches,stands bye as...the people who dominate the airwaves...rewrite history fictionally,non fictionally...and create new received truths thru the power of mass comm. and our need to be led is anwered because we have such a deficient real world view of reality!.........And as long as were passing out blame...as if somehow the jewish people had NO part in the problems...Why thru out history have they been kicked out,chased out of so many nations?What do they do with each nations economy,do they gain too strong of a foothold and why is it now,you cant criticize a jew without being ANTI-SEMITIC,I dont hate them but they dont have carte blanch.The great strength of the Jewish people is they see themselves as a people and that is a truth and accounts for things like only being two percent of the population in our nation and being so extremely powerful in our here,examine this or maybe you already see it?....and as far as people wanting to live in a beautiful,wealthy and powerful nation,live with the winners ,well what else is new,maybe they just want less misery and turmoil and Ive seen the Muslim religion up close,all I can say is they are in the dark ages that Europe was in before the crusades,but that doesnt make it our responsibility or even make it a right to change them...I just know between the power of the Jews here and the new Muslim immigration,we HAVE LOST OUR LIBERTY (patriot act NDAA ETC)AND THE MOMENTUM TO SUBJUGATE THE INDIVIDUAL IS WELL IN PROGRESS,THANK YOU jEWISH PEOPLE,BIG OIL,AND Muslim immigration and U.S.GOVERMENT.I believe all men must be strongly checked and balanced by a powerful middle class and fcc licenses redistributed and we should create if possible a true meritocracy here and focus on our nation,not the wealthy globalization.No offence to you stevella but if you are offended then at least it made you revisit the thoughts,if your not to entrenched in your interest.

That's a bit subjective, since the poll doesn't say why they prefer to live in Israel. It may have nothing to do with a better standard of living, and more to do with their feeling of belonging to that land, which is the case of many Palistinians in the West Bank that refuse to leave.

Since the poll covered the territory that Israel covers as it's borders, and not the territories, you seem to be reaching for an excuse. The polls covered as being Israeli, which polled high, and if you want to bring up the point, 75-95% of Israeli Arabs consider themselves better off then surrounding Arab countries and feel more represented. Considering that poll also goes up in response to Israel trying to even things out after decades of goverment stupidities that they implemented at the beginning, it looks like the Arabs feel more of a part of Israel then ever before.

Truth Before Propriety-

Leave your rants at another forum

Iran is not building nuclear weapons.

They are building power plants (which in my mind, is equally condemnable, though much of the world would disagree in hubris). Further, Iran is a signatory to the International Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Israel is not, as they would then be subject to IAEA inspection which would expose their illegal, heretofore unreported nuclear arsenal), which dictates that, not only are they allowed to pursue means of nuclear energy, but WE (other NNPT signatories) are required by that same contract to help them build.

I would say that someone who is willing to publicly admit to their own involvement in the Waffen SS, calling it an "unclearing stain" is not harboring "anti-semitic" agenda.

Oh, and one more thing. Who is the only country on Earth to have ever used "weapons of mass destruction"? That's right, kids; The good ol' USA. If we want to ensure the peaceful existence of Israel, or any other nation for that matter, it is time to put a leash on unchecked nuclear weapons programs, and possibly a muzzle on Netanyahu.

Since the poll covered the territory that Israel covers as it's borders, and not the territories, you seem to be reaching for an excuse.

I am hardly reaching for anything, since you did not mention the territory covered by the poll. And since you are responding to critics of Israel (who usually aim their critique at how Israel treats Arabs in the West Bank), I don't see why they shouldn't matter.

The polls covered as being Israeli, which polled high, and if you want to bring up the point, 75-95% of Israeli Arabs consider themselves better off then surrounding Arab countries and feel more represented. Considering that poll also goes up in response to Israel trying to even things out after decades of goverment stupidities that they implemented at the beginning, it looks like the Arabs feel more of a part of Israel then ever before.

I'd like to see your source, since you are now saying something quite different from what you said in your initial post. You said before that 75-95% of Israeli Arabs "would prefer to live in Israel then anywhere else in the middle east" (sic), and now you say that 75-95% of Israeli Arabs consider themselves better off and more represented than those in surrounding countries. Those statements are not the same thing. Since you are using the same figure (75-95%), I take it you base your claim on the answer to the same poll question - you need to make up your mind about what that question is.

Other relatively recent polls are not nearly as optimistic as yours. For instance, there is one that says only 45% of Israeli Arabs would encourage their kids to remain in Israel, and 72% of them responded "Yes" to the statement "Israel as a Zionist state is a racist state". Also, 66% said they consider the Israeli Arab population to be "deprived" (27% said "not deprived").

Source: www(dot)jewishvirtuallibrary(dot)org/jsource/Society_&_Culture/arabpoll.html

It may not be all roses and peaches in the surrounding countries, but Israeli Arabs seem to be more divided about whether they are better off or not in Israel than you seem to think - and even if they were in fact better off, it doesn't excuse Israel's unequal treatment of Arabs (e.g. the High Court's ruling that Palestinians that marry Israelis are not allowed to live with their spouses in Israel).

Truth Before Propriety-

Leave your rants at another forum

I suggest you take your own advice.

since you did not mention the territory covered by the poll.

Since you mentioned only Israeli Arabs, that really limits the scope of your statements, if you had left it as arabs or palistinians then your rebuttal would have some weight. So my statement still stands.

I'd like to see your source, since you are now saying something quite different from what you said in your initial post. You said before that 75-95% of Israeli Arabs "

Since I didn't clarify on the second set of stats, I take the hit on this one. The first is from both Israel and Egyptian newspapers since Al-Jazeer stopped the polls for this segment and focused on just the territories last summer. And the range comes from 2 sets of difference of numbers between the two papers (Israel always has higher numbers, but Egypt is usually within 5 points.) The numbers change from month to month, and usually higher in times of relative calm and lower when fighting or shelling occurs. Egypt papers usually have the stats towards the end of the month, and Israeli papers should be releasing their poll figures between the 10th and 15th. I'll look in my bookmarks and find the direct links to the English language papers with the stats. This refers to the relationship to countries outside of Israel.

The second stats are inwardly focused. on Israel 's responses to local needs. With Israeli-Arabs having a higher participation (per capita) in local and national elections then Jews, that power has meant an increase in medical services, education, and public services. And that has lead to an increase in poll figures since Israel stopped most of their draconian laws starting in the late 80's. Since these figures didn't start going up until the late 90's, it generally means that the more attention Israel pays to them, the higher the figures. These stats come out at the same time as the other poll.

On this I have egg on my face since I should of posted the links in the first posts. Now I have to dig through my bookmarks and figure out which ones they were. I just never seem to have to time to keep it organized and sorted by topic. But thanks for the link, I've been going off of the newspapers for this information. I didn't know that they had polls on the Jewish library since I considered it biased in favor of Israel. There is a discrepency, but where it is (between the library's figures and the ones in the newspapers,) I have to figure out.

Truth Before Propriety-

Leave your rants at another forum

If you noticed, he/she copied/pasted it several times in this seed as well as another one I browsed through. You, at least pointed out discrepancy in my post when I did not clarify and bring links to support it, as well as gave me something else to look at (the discrepancy between the newspaper figures and the Jewish Library figures) without going off topic and being polite about it. From what Truths post barely touches the topic and is more designed to inflame then push to actual thought.

Since you mentioned only Israeli Arabs, that really limits the scope of your statements, if you had left it as arabs or palistinians then your rebuttal would have some weight. So my statement still stands.

The link to the polls I gave you is about Israeli Arabs, and you were the one who first talked about this group in your initial post when you quoted "77% of Israeli arabs they would prefer to live in Israel then anywhere else in the middle east." So I think my rebuttal stands.

The second stats are inwardly focused. on Israel 's responses to local needs. With Israeli-Arabs having a higher participation (per capita) in local and national elections then Jews, that power has meant an increase in medical services, education, and public services. And that has lead to an increase in poll figures since Israel stopped most of their draconian laws starting in the late 80's. Since these figures didn't start going up until the late 90's, it generally means that the more attention Israel pays to them, the higher the figures. These stats come out at the same time as the other poll.

While this would explain why many Arabs would start to feel better in Israel than in previous decades, what really matters here is what the poll question was. If it only asks them whether they prefer to live in Israel than in an a neighbor country, then the fact that 77% said "Yes" doesn't mean they feel they are better off in Israel, since there may be another reason (e.g. attachment to the land, patriotism, discrimination in other countries for being born in Israel, etc.) for their wanting to stay.

For instance, I have a Jordanian-raised (though Egyptian-born) friend whose mother is from Israel and his father is from Egypt. He has had to go through a lot of trouble to get a full Egyptian citizenship, and used to have problems getting work in Jordan because of that. He would like to be able to live and work in Jordan, but he eventually had to bribe some Egyptian officials to get his full citizenship (otherwise he would've needed to do military service) in order to find work in Egypt since he couldn't get any work in Jordan as an accountant. He would never think of trying to get work in Israel. I think a similar situation could happen for those Arabs that were born in Israel or the territories, and they would likely express a preference for Israel since they can't plausibly get work in Egypt or Jordan.

However if the poll question was whether they feel they are better treated and represented in Israel than they would be in other countries (assuming that there would be no citizenship problems), then that 77% you mentioned would conflict with the results of the polls I linked.

If you noticed, he/she copied/pasted it several times in this seed as well as another one I browsed through.

That was my mistake, I didn't realize "Truth Before Propriety" was another guy so I thought you were saying that to me.

yea, some of my best friends are Jewish too.

Joanny

Some of my friends are born again christians, you should hear what they say about other religions, gays, blacks, people from South America, the far east etc. I believe abortion is a god given right, you should hear what they say about it it. The problem is people like you just do not like jews. Do you think blacks should sit in the back of the bus. PS some of my friends are also black

What do you have to say about South Africa. This is what I have to say about you. FU

John,

And our armed forces showed no compunctions over killing 100,000 Iraqis in a "pre-emptive" strike.

Did you speak out about them?

So true

he looks like a mean and bitter old man who learned nothing from the past. Unfortunately, there are too many like him in Germany and elsewhere.

How about acting linke a independent state that can choose to keep out any one it wants for any reason it wants. They are not shuting him up, as some morons on here sugested, they are saying he is not wanted in Israel as is their right. He is still free to say, write and publish what ever he wants in Germany.

you forgot to write the last line of your poem..."And into my path never wonder...as I continue my goose stepping over yonder!