The Peace Maker

Rahm Emanuel's Mideast Mission.

By Dan Ephron and Michael Hirsh | NEWSWEEK
Published May 23, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Jun 1, 2009

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  • Posted By: Miniminor @ 06/15/2009 7:10:42 PM

    You know, the Jews survived the Egyptians, and the Amorites, and the Philistines, and the Greeks, and the Romans, and the Crusaders, and the Inquisition, and the Nazis, and the communists, and the Arabs. So I think we will survive Obama and Rahm as well.

  • Posted By: Aditya Mookerjee @ 05/28/2009 12:46:06 AM

    It is unfortunate, that both Israel and The United States have nuclear weapons, which they would use, if the occasion arises, but they are out to stop a third nation, from developing nuclear weapons, which may be used against them. I do not mean to infer, that there should be nuclear proliferation, but The United States and Israel, are not showing that they are not indirectly applying double standards. Would not Israel use nuclear weapons against any nation, if the need arises? Why is international diplomacy, so two faced? Can there be a lasting peace in the Middle East, if Israel keeps the peace, because it has nuclear weapons as insurance? Why cannot Israel engage the Middle East on equal terms? A settlement has to come out.

    • Posted By: hppeeves @ 06/04/2009 10:15:35 AM

      Israel can have nuclear weapons and can stop Iran from getting them because:

      a) Israel is a democracy and won't have some lunatic dictator with his hand on the button.
      b) Israel has no desire to commit genocide or wipe a nation off the map. Iran does.

      • Posted By: albogator @ 06/09/2009 5:52:43 AM

        iran is not a dictatorship, elections are coming on June 12th. Iran has never committed any genocide while Israel is under investigations for their attack on the Palestinians with huge casualties of innocent children.

  • Posted By: tommyj7648 @ 05/23/2009 11:37:26 PM

    George Washington on Israel


    "A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification." ~George Washington Farewell Address


    "The nation which indulges toward another habitual hatred or habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interests." ~ George Washington


    "Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." ~ Thomas Jefferson

    • Posted By: hppeeves @ 06/04/2009 10:18:01 AM

      George Washington wasn't alive when Israel existed. Same with Thomas Jefferson. So how can you claim those quotes are referring to Israel?

  • Posted By: Fleeting Chance @ 05/27/2009 10:58:01 AM

    Interesting how Israel favors so prominently in our foreign affairs when there are more important and more strategic nations. I hope the coming superpower is wise where we were careless.

    • Posted By: JB619 @ 05/28/2009 6:05:11 AM

      Why wouldn't the US support Israel? Israel being the home of Jews and a Jewish Democratic State. I mean, just look at all that Jews have done for US society and the International society as a whole! What have the Arabs contributed besides terror and 9-11?

      At least 176 Jews and persons of half-Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize,1 accounting for 23% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2007, and constituting 37% of all US recipients2 during the same period. In the scientific research fields of Chemistry, Economics, Medicine, and Physics, the corresponding world and US percentages are 27% and 40%, respectively. (Jews currently make up approximately 0.25% of the world's population and 2% of the US population.)

      Chemistry (29 prize winners, 19% of world total, 28% of US total)
      Economics (25 prize winners, 41% of world total, 55% of US total)
      Literature (13 prize winners, 13% of world total, 27% of US total)
      Peace (9 prize winners, 9% of world total, 10% of US total)
      Physics (47 prize winners, 26% of world total, 38% of US total)
      Physiology or Medicine (53 prize winners, 28% of world total, 41% of US total)

      Jewish Recipients of the US National Medal of Science (166 recipients, 38% of total)
      Jewish Recipients of the Kyoto Prize (26% of recipients)

      • Posted By: froy1100 @ 05/28/2009 7:15:59 AM

        Why wouldn't the US support Israel? Israel being an apartheid regime that keeps over 3 million people under military occupation. I mean, they have lots of Nobel prices, so let's allow them to kill some more hundreds of children and finish up the ethic cleansing of Palestine!

        • Posted By: hppeeves @ 06/04/2009 10:12:18 AM

          If Israel loves occupying Israeli territory, why'd they withdraw from Gaza in 2005?

          Do you think Israel enjoys killing children, or do you think Hamas hides in areas which maximize innocent casualties when Israel counterattacks? Stop holding Israel to such a ridiculous double standard.

          "We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us."
          -Golda Meir

    • Posted By: moshek258 @ 05/27/2009 11:35:23 AM

      Many others have and would define having a reliable friend in a bad neighborhood where a critical resource exists as strategic.

  • Posted By: QITAM @ 05/28/2009 9:30:12 AM

    PLIZ GIVE ME A BREAK!!!! A JEW BY BIRTH AND UP-BRINGING, BESIDES BEING NEOCON AND TRUE SUPPORTER OF ISRAEL, WOULD WANT TO PUSH A NON-NEOCON-NON-JEWISH AGENDA FOR THE BENEFIT OF ARABS AND IRAN..........!!!!? NO, NO, NO. IT CAN'T BE TRUE. NEWSWEEK IS EITHER LYING, BLUFFING OR DAY DREAMING, POINT BLANCK. A JEW IS AND WILL ALWAYS BE FOR THE INTEREST OF THE JEWS AND ISRAELIS.

    • Posted By: factsearcher @ 05/28/2009 4:02:44 PM

      It is people with your mentality that obstruct peace and the desire to make peace.
      Too bad you cannot think on your own after all the brainwashed propaganda you have been taught with.
      It is people like you that hate no matter if the person is willing to help your people.

    • Posted By: factsearcher @ 05/28/2009 3:56:48 PM

  • Posted By: factsearcher @ 05/28/2009 3:54:14 PM

    There cannot be a two state solution before peace is achieved. And please they are not interconnected.
    palestinian people need to stop attacks and violence, recognize the state of Israel and teach that in their schools from now until the end of the year...before a two state solution is accomplished.
    We cannot keep asking a nation that has been persecuted, discriminated, threaten on a daily basis by its neighbors, attacked ...
    to give up MORE land and accept the two state accordance...IF
    IF the other side (palestinians/hamas) doesn't move an inch for Israel to trust them.
    Hamas said it best: If we agree on truce and a palestinian state: the peace would be temporarily until we re-build and then will continue our goal...to wipe them off the map.

  • Posted By: memo2 @ 05/28/2009 7:28:31 AM

    Please don't we don't need more problems right now at the Mmiddle East, you can't send Emanuel to deal with this kind of situation we don't need this right now, just can't believe this people Hope Obama is not serious on this one !......

  • Posted By: Chaotician @ 05/27/2009 11:33:17 PM

    The Zionists have accepted that they can no longer count on a patsy US Government while they steal ever more land, break ever more UN Resolutions, kill ever more Palestinians, wage endless preventative wars against their neighbors, illegally occupy lands seized in illegal wars, illegally contain the ???free??? peoples of Gaza from ???free??? movement, ???free??? association, and ???freedom??? to come and go from their own Jewish Ghetto that makes Warsaw look like the garden of Eden!
    These psychologically broken peoples are pathologically insane pursuing hoary myths from their Holy Book of Terror, Misogyny, and Genocide! There is no evidence that these people have ever sought anything but the coveted lands of others for their hysterical guilty fear of annihilation by their vengeful God of Death and Destruction.
    Clearly these people must be forced to return to lands within the 1967 borders no larger than the territory granted to the Jews by the UN in 1948; demilitarized completely; forced to pay compensation to the Palestinian peoples they have so brutally mistreated; and forbidden all access to Jerusalem in recognition of their immoral, illegal, and unjustified actions of the last 50 years!
    It is shameful and un-American to give these terrorists any support of any sort by America!

    • Posted By: JB619 @ 05/28/2009 6:02:11 AM

      You have some serious issues and have no knowledge of the history of the Middle East. Please read up on what actually happened before printing your ideological venom. Your hate has fallen on deaf ears.

  • Posted By: Aditya Mookerjee @ 05/28/2009 1:25:07 AM

    All parties in the Middle East conflict must act in concord with each other, to come to an acceptable solution to the Middle East crisis.

  • Posted By: froy1100 @ 05/27/2009 5:28:48 PM

    If this guy, an Israeli, son of fanatical terrorists, is the best America can offer as a "balanced mediator in the Middle East conflict", the Palestinians are screwed. Big time. Once more.

  • Posted By: moshek258 @ 05/27/2009 12:19:12 AM

    Common sense would dictate that the time to stop the madman of the world from being able to use nuclear arms would be before they actually succeed in obtaining them.

    Diplomacy is always preferable to risking the lives of our soldiers but when was the last time "talk" prevented the proliferation of nuclear arms? If we do not act now, or let the Israelis act, we will pay 100 times as dearly in the future.

    Obama talks a beautiful game but does he have the guts to really do something concrete to prevent the Iranians from ever obtaining nuclear arms. No? Then let the Israelis have a free hand. Today they have the most to lose, tomorrow we all will.

    • Posted By: froy1100 @ 05/27/2009 5:24:38 PM

      Yes, let's stop the madman! Let's stop Israel!

  • Posted By: rho1953 @ 05/27/2009 4:08:14 PM

    He's not a peacemaker. He's a Judas that will cause the destruction of Israel.

  • Posted By: Fleeting Chance @ 05/27/2009 10:59:20 AM

    Israel needs some big time tough love. Question is will our prostitute Congresspersons allow their favorite cash-provider to be put in its place.

  • Posted By: Traveller1933 @ 05/27/2009 9:25:33 AM

    Would the adminstration use an Arab-American with dual citizenship in Syria in such a high position? Does Obama even have an Arab in his administration? No matter who is in office, the Palestinians are screwed.

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