Recent Comments

1. about 5 hours ago on Rob Rogers

   The path towards a solution, which I don’t expect to happen any time soon, is that borders reflecting true sovereign independence and a keeping of the peace has to be enforced by an international peacekeeping force.

   Such a force should include Britain (which occupied and controlled the land of Canaan as a colonial power prior to 1948), the United States (which is the nation most trusted by Israel and on which Israel depends for military and economic support) and the other neighboring Arab countries which have credibility with the Palestinians but who also want a viable peace, including Egypt, Jordan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, and who have born the brunt of the responsibility for taking in Palestinian refugees.

   The full sovereign and autonomous rights of Palestine as a state and the full sovereign and autonomous rights of Israel as a state need to be respected and, until they can do so themselves (which is not in the foreseeable future), it needs to be externally imposed.

2. about 5 hours ago on Mike Luckovich

   @Old recluse admits that his only concern is not about “we the people” as a whole — the big picture of the economic and financial condition of the country in its entirety — but it is only about himself, and his own individual financial condition which, conveniently, none of the rest of us have any way of verifying.

   ::: rolling eyes :::

3. about 11 hours ago on Rob Rogers

   Religion is what allows otherwise good, decent people, to commit horrific atrocities.

   Yes, gullible suckers who blindly accept whatever they are taught without questioning and challenging it and demanding evidence are the problem.

   But the religious justification of those atrocities is also the problem.

   .

   Drug addiction is a problem.

   The illness or susceptibility of the addict is a problem.

   The drug dealer is also a problem.

   “Religion is the opium of the people.”

   And the addicts are fighting and killing each other over which is most peaceful manifestation of God / YHWH / Allah.

4. about 13 hours ago on Rob Rogers

   Give me a break. It was actually 2006 when Palestinians elected Hamas. That was SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO. There have been no elections since because Hamas knows the people no longer want the brutality they have invited and would vote them out. More recent polls show that about 70% of Gazan people want Hamas out. While I recognize the enormous difficulty of conducting an objective poll in Gaza, if anything that difficulty would work in Hamas’ favor because people may be afraid to speak out against them.

   To say that a choice they made SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO (or sixteen if you use your number) reflects how Gazans feel today is as nonsensical as saying that Americans still wanted George H.W. Bush as president in 1992 or Trump in 2020 just because they had won four years earlier (they both got soundly defeated when they ran for reelection.

5. about 14 hours ago on Rob Rogers

   — If we want to say that either Israel or Palestine has a claim to sole occupancy and control of the entirety of the land of Canaan based on prior history of occupancy, then the entirety of both the South and North American continents must be parceled back to the descendants of the indigenous original occupants.

   The reality is that Europeans have been on the continents going back 500 years and we cannot undo that.

   The reality is that both Israelis and Palestinians have shared ownership of portions of that land for 75 years, and even before that, under British colonial occupation, the land was occupied by both Palestinians (about 2/3 the population, prior to the influx of European and American Jews after World War II) and Jews (oh yeah, some Christians too).

   We cannot undo the reality of what has become the established present order.

   Both Palestinians and Israelis have a right to exist in their own fully-sovereign borders (as determined by the 1948 partition, perhaps amended for a southern band to allow a contiguous Palestinian state) without intrusion from the other, even if those boundaries have to be enforced and peace maintained by a force made up of American, British, Egyptian, Jordanian, Saudi and Qatari peace-keeping forces.

6. about 16 hours ago on Rob Rogers

   — Your statement is FALSE and reflects Islamophobic stereotyping.

   NO. “ALL” Palestinians do not have the goal of obliterating all the Jews any more than all Jews have the goal of obliterating all the Palestinians.

   There are those in the extreme far right elements of both Israelis and Palestinians who do want to obliterate the other, but they are not reflective of the whole.

   The extremist terror organizations of Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad do want to wage genocide against the Jews. And there are Jews — likely Netanyahu himself — who want to completely obliterate Palestinians and claim the entirety of the land of Canaan as the Jewish state of Israel.

   Without pressure for restraint from the United States, it is probable that Netanyahu would simply take over the entire West Bank for settlements and completely decimate Gaza without regard for the destruction of all Palestinians. For sure, terror groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad want the same for Israel.

   (By the way, there are also genocidal American neo-Nazis and white supremacists who also want to obliterate ALL Jews, as well as all Blacks, all gays and all leftists.)

   As I CORRECTLY stated in my original comment:

   Palestinian civilians are not Hamas (or, I would add, Hezbollah or Islamic Jihad).

   Israeli civilians are not Netanyahu.

   Any attempt to conflate what is not the same represents either anti-Semitism or Islamophobia.

7. 1 day ago on Rob Rogers

   — Jimmy Carter’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning peace accord brokered between Israel and Egypt forty-five years ago is one of the longest-lasting peace accords ever signed in the Middle East and is a testament to his role as a peace maker that he has continued and expanded in what is probably the most active and successful post-presidency in U.S. history.

   Some presidents want to build walls to keep people out; Jimmy Carter built walls with his bare hands (and some tools), side-by-side with Rosalynn, to house the homeless.

   His seventy-seven year marriage with Rosalynn, which never faltered or faded, is truly one of the great love stories of all time.

8. 1 day ago on Rob Rogers

   Both Israel and the Palestinians claim the land that was originally known as Canaan (before either one of them occupied it) as Holy Land bequeathed to them by the same invisible sky god of Abraham.

   The Arabic Muslims, including the Palestinians, claim that the rightful, lawful first born son of Abraham was Ishmael. When Sarah’s wife Sarah thought she was unable to have children, she forced her handmaid Hagar (basically her slave, who had no choice about being impregnated by an old man) to be her surrogate to bear her a child, who she named Ishmael. This was a lawful surrogacy under Hebrew law. Ishmael was the rightful firstborn son. Both the Bible and the Qur’an make this clear.

   When it turned out that Sarah could get pregnant after all, and bore her own biological son, no surprise that she favored him over the child forcibly conceived for her by her handmaid (slave) in lawful surrogacy. Jealous, Sarah drove out Hagar and her son, Ishmael (Abraham’s lawful first born son and rightful heir) from their tribe and declared her own biological son, Isaac, to suddenly become the rightful heir.

   Isaac would become father to the Israelites represented in today’s Jewish faith.

   Ishmael would become father to the Arabic nations represented in today’s Islamic faith.

   The Jews claim the land as their rightful legacy from Abraham through Isaac.

   The Palestinian Arabs claim the land as their rightful legacy from Abraham through his firstborn son Ishmael, as heir under a rightful surrogacy.

   Both have long histories with the land. Both have their rightful territories. The solution is a true two-state solution with full autonomy and true sovereignty, without infringement on the territories of one by the other. Both have a right for their civilians to live in peace without threat of terrorism, oppression or occupation.

9. 1 day ago on Rob Rogers

   Hamas is a terrorist organization.

   Netanyahu is head of a terrorist government.

   .

   Palestinian civilians are not Hamas.

   Israeli civilians are not Netanyahu.

   .

   Palestinians have the right to a free, sovereign and fully independent state.

   Israel has a right to exist and defend itself.

   .

   The Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, killing, maiming and kidnapping hundreds or thousands of INNOCENT Israeli civilians (many of whom had vigorously opposed the Netanyahu terrorist infringements of Gazan and West Bank sovereignty) was a terrorist war crime and human rights violation. It was wrong. It was evil. But it was not without provocation.

   The Hamas refusal to allow civilians to leave Gaza and to use hospital facilities as hostage sites and military sites and innocent civilians as shields constitutes war crimes and human rights violations.

   Israel under Netanyahu has a right to root out the Hamas terrorists, but is morally obligated to protect innocent civilians. The fact that Hamas uses them as targets and shields does not undo the fact that those civilians are innocent and have nothing to do with Hamas. It imposes on Israel extra precautions which, though difficult, must be adhered to.

   Israel under Netanyahu provoked the attack with its illegal occupations of Gaza and its illegal settlements and domination of Palestinians in the West Bank and taking as prisoners (hostages) innocent Palestinian CIVILIANS including women and children for the heinous crime of resisting when illegal Israeli settlers claimed their homes ON PALESTINIAN land, and evicted them and then holding them without charges, sometimes for years.

10. 1 day ago on Mike Luckovich

    Actual current financial data confirms what I have said. And most people are enjoying the sharp drop in gas prices, food prices, transportation costs, health care costs as well as the higher wages. It is not just my experience. It is fact that has been widely reported in official data and even on the conservative corporate-owned mass media (with the exception of the extreme right-wing anti-American disinformation and misinformation sources).

    Conservatives seem to want to make it about individuals rather than general issues. I do not know @Old recluse or his financial situation so I can’t comment on it. This is the Internet; he could be anyone or say anything he wants as he pockets the savings of lower prices on most items. I am referring to widespread, general public experience based on actual economic data.