If Obama Is Serious

Is this democracy??

Israel Bans Arab Parties From Coming Election
JOSEF FEDERMAN | January 12, 2009 11:49 AM EST |

JERUSALEM ??? Israel on Monday banned Arab political parties from running in next month's parliamentary elections, drawing accusations of racism by an Arab lawmaker who said he would challenge the decision in the country's Supreme Court.

The ruling by parliament's Central Election Committee reflected the heightened tensions between Israel's Jewish majority and Arab minority caused by Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip. Arabs have held a series of demonstrations against the offensive.

Parliament spokesman Giora Pordes said the election committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of the motion, accusing the country's Arab parties of incitement, supporting terrorist groups and refusing to recognize Israel's right to exist. Arab lawmakers have traveled to some of Israel's staunchest enemies, including Lebanon and Syria.

The 37-member committee is composed of representatives from Israel's major political parties. The measure was proposed by two ultranationalist parties but received widespread support.

The decision does not affect Arab lawmakers in predominantly Jewish parties or the country's communist party, which has a mixed list of Arab and Jewish candidates. Roughly one-fifth of Israel's 7 million citizens are Arabs. Israeli Arabs enjoy full citizenship rights, but have suffered from discrimination and poverty for decades.

Arab lawmakers Ahmed Tibi and Jamal Zahalka, political rivals who head the two Arab blocs in parliament, joined together in condemning Monday's decision.

"It was a political trial led by a group of Fascists and racists who are willing to see the Knesset without Arabs and want to see the country without Arabs," said Tibi.

Together, the Arab lists hold seven of the 120 seats in the Knesset, or parliament.

Tibi said he would appeal to the high court, while Zahalka said his party was still deciding how to proceed.

Pordes, the parliament spokesman, said the last party to be banned was the late Rabbi Meir Kahane's Kach Party, a list from the 1980s that advocated the expulsion of Arabs from Israel.

I would like to see a dramatic change in US policy toward Israel regarding her occupation of Palestine, as well as our refusal to acknowledge the plight of the Palestinian people. 

Israel's defiance of 69 UN Security Council resolutions concerning Palestine and the continual expansion of illegal settlements is at the core of the conflict as it stands. Moreover, the Palestinian people are living in a virtual concentration camp and we, as a nation, have a humanitarian crises of epic proportions on our hands.

The last two Presidents were ineffectual in solving this crisis. What will Obama do differently? Will Obama allow lobbyists such as AIPAC to dictate US policy in the region? Is this what is best for America? Also, is it really necessary for millions of US taxpayer dollars and weapons to be sent to Israel each year? This is a policy that I think Obama will find most unpopular in the coming years. 

I sincerely hope that the Obama administration makes a clean break for the policies of the past. The world is waiting...

It will be interesting. So far the game is(this time and not counting the deaths before) 14:800+. The Palaestinians wont stop fighting, because they essentially have been kicked off their own land. Having no political or military power nor backing by any imperialist country, they have been refugees by the 100000s and finally being locked up in their own country by a wall and a day-to-day humiliating to the cases of death road-blocks and an economical blockage that starves them to death. For years. The obvious result is the same as of an animal driven into a corner. If you poke it often enough, it bites back.
This will not end in peace, this will not end in an integratory solution (or why would Israel build a wall?
The question is, why Israel was allowed to exist in a country, that was no part of the decision making process of where to create that state. It's a religious state, not a state of people and it's justification is a thousand year old book. An why is Israel treating other people in a way that it's own people have been treated?
Israel will continue to exist. The US won't interfere, as Israel is too important for the US both economically and politically. Obama won't be different, he already showed that during the election with promises of Jerusalem as capital of Israel. He is no other politician than most presidents before him. With US's power slowly disappearing, the UN will get momentum towards an equal view on the challenge, but only if ex-imperialist states like UK and France will lead.
This will cost thousands of more (mainly civilian) deaths. There is research showing that wars are not getting any more precise and 'clean' due to 'better' weapons, rather the opposite seems to be true.

Now, please people stop calling each other names and please please, stop calling the holocaust a fraud, that's just ignorant.

Mr. Miller presumes too much. President Obama has no imperative to do anything. Our biggest problem in the US right now is the economy...and the government bailouts. Not only do we not have the answers to peace in the middle east, we don't have the answers for anywhere else in the world.

Bring our troops home, export the UN and take back our contribution, stop giving foreign aid (it doesn't further respect for us around the glove anyway and accomplishes little) and apply those funds toward securing our northern and southern borders, improving our educational system, and generally taking care of our first obligation...our own citizens.

Allow the rest of the world the Freedom, as well as the obligation, of taking care of themselves. We have no foreign friends, just entities that act like spoiled children, screaming that they want a bigger allowance and will keep screaming until we give it to them. Let them pay their own way and lets get on with getting our own house in order.

Comments Posted By: Callejero sys "At last, W did something right and refused to help Israel Bomb the peace loving nation of Iran" This peace loving nation's president publicly declares that Israel should be wiped out. Israelis who are hard working and industrious mind their own business and the whole middle east seems to be jealous. Please don't help international terrorism.

I am from Asia and I can't understand why everybody is talking about Palestinian children and women while forgetting the innocent israeli children and women? Hamas and other terrorist groups don't give a damn for innocent lives. I only see world wide demonstrations against Israel but not a single demonstration against Hamas terrorism. I look at this problem as a neutral person. Jews have suffered enough throughout history. Please don't help terrorism !

There is a reason why gaza is under INTERNATIONAL blockade.
Poor Palestinians? The ones who are training their kids to be suicide bombers?
You really have to see this before they flood youtube with their cover-up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvsAzF2MxcA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znRWKwUzCoQ

The ones who elected a governing terrorist body responsible for this... besides the 8000 rockets?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1197051.stm

There is a reason why gaza is under INTERNATIONAL blockade.
Poor Palestinians? The ones who are training their kids to be suicide bombers?
You really have to see this before they flood youtube with their cover-up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvsAzF2MxcA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znRWKwUzCoQ

The ones who elected a governing terrorist body responsible for this... besides the 8000 rockets?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1197051.stm

layarddog appears to profess his need for haste in closing his mind rather than listening to the reporters complete report. Interesting, how some people think,.... or choose not to

sure sounds like Callejero thinks he knows what he is talking about and has personal experience that undermines or devalues the thousands of lives that were lost in WW2. Whether the aggression is made up with Jews or not, there still stands to reason that until the Palestinians get rig of their trigger happy missile launchers then they should not be suprised when somebody takes offense to the sporadic killing of their people. Maybe if someone started to sporadically launch missiles in this guys direction he would change his tune. The who would the racist be?

Wow such un-biased reporting. Right from the start the reporter makes his feelings know toward Israel, so why read the rest of his garbbage.

There is a reason why gaza is under INTERNATIONAL blockade.
Poor Palestinians? The ones who are training their kids to be suicide bombers?
You really have to see this before they flood youtube with their cover-up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvsAzF2MxcA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znRWKwUzCoQ

The ones who elected a governing terrorist body responsible for this... besides the 8000 rockets?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1197051.stm

Thank you. I am absolutely sickened by US policy. Our politicians and mainstream media treat Palestinians as if they have no legitimate grievances and Israelis as if they have a perpetual right to victimhood no matter what they do. Shameful and disgusting is this foreign policy outlook.

Callejero, you really have a lot of extra time in your hands. It's pitiful to see how hatred pours out of you. Find an occupation!

Mr. Miller succeeds in keeping his head in a cloud, ignoring what he doesn't want to see, and thinks this will allow him to arrive safely at his destination. Hamas' proclamation that it will never make a peace with Israel, that it is religiously forbidden from doing so, its proclaimed determination to murder every Israeli woman and child, and its current refusal to stop its missile and mortar bombardment of Israeli homes and schools, is an insiginificant detail to this dreamer. His wishful thinking, coupled with a tough attitude toward Israel, is supposedly enough to turn things around. A more realistic attitude might be to support Israel as it totally defeats Hamas. That would leave only 3 local "players" - Egypt, the Palestine Authority, and Israel, each of which have shown willingness to sign agreements with the other.
Re Callejero below: his claim that Jews owned all the slaves ships has been refuted by the university scholars who have checked it out. Even if some specific Jew did own a slave ship 150 years ago or more, that wouldn't justify hating that person's descendants, nor hating all Jews, which apparently is what Callejero hopes for. Since his comments don't seem to have any connection with Miller's article, one wonders why they're here. Newsweek editor: can you tell us?

I agree, Israel "Ethnic Cleansing" in Gaza made it Jewish-less when it kicked out 8,500 productive Jews from it and created a small refugee problem of its own. What a stupid government.

Funny, no mention of Israel unilateral pullout from Lebanon and Gaza, hoping to revive a peace dialog. With Miller, Arafat doesn't reject peace, peace just stops. Arabs didn't attack Israel in 1967, the war was just won by Israel. Ditto for 1973. I wonder if accountability and Arab are contradictory terms in Miller's dictionary.

Funny, no mention of Israel unilateral pullout from Lebanon and Gaza, hoping to revive a peace dialog. With Miller, Arafat doesn't reject peace, peace just stops. Arabs didn't attack Israel in 1967, the war was just won by Israel. Ditto for 1973. I wonder if accountability and Arab are contradictory terms in Miller's dictionary.

The governemt and IDF of Aparthied Israel and their sick supporters are BARBARIANS.. Land stealing, ethnic cleansing, dehumanizing, oppressors of the Palestinian people.