Israel calls Brazil a ‘diplomatic dwarf’, then brings soccer

[Jaga]

Some Israel politicians behave like upset little boys:

Israel calls Brazil a ‘diplomatic dwarf’ – and then brings up World Cup humiliation

www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/07/25/israel-brings-up-brazils-world-cup-humiliation-and-calls-the-country-a-diplomatic-dwarf/?tid=pm_pop
In a statement on Wednesday, Brazil condemned what it said was a "disproportionate use of force" by Israel in its Gaza Strip offensive by pulling out its ambassador from Tel Aviv for "consultation." The country is the second country to recall its ambassador from Israel; Ecuador did so earlier in the week.
At first, the official reaction from Israel appeared sanguine. "Brazil is a friend, but we think its position is not balanced," Israel's general consul in São Paulo, Yoel Barnea, said according to the Wall Street Journal, adding that Israel should have a right to defend itself from the thousands of missiles being fired at it by Hamas and other Palestinian groups.
Things soon took a turn for the worse. “This is an unfortunate demonstration of why Brazil, an economic and cultural giant, remains a diplomatic dwarf,” Israeili Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said on Thursday, the Jerusalem Post reports. “The moral relativism behind this move makes Brazil an irrelevant diplomatic partner, one who creates problems rather than contributes to solutions.”
That insult wasn't the worst that Israel had reserved for Brazil, however. In an interview with the Brazilian media, Palmor brought up the most humiliating moment in recent Brazilian history – this summer's stunning World Cup semifinal loss to Germany.
"Israel's response is perfectly proportioned in accordance with international law," Palmor said in an interview with the Jornal Nacional TV show late Thursday. "This is not football. In football, when a game ends in a draw, you think it is proportional, but when it finishes 7-1 it's disproportionate. Sorry to say, but not so in real life and under international law."
...

[Jaga]

here is one of the comments:
Palmor epitomizes the Ugly Israeli - arrogant, smug and self-righteous. We must remind ourselves that usually behind arrogance is anguish, and certainly the Jewish people have experienced anguish. But it's beyond irony that the Israeli state would act similar to the Jews' persecutors of the 1930's and '40's rather than as a balanced, humane people. AND as an effective society, as the road it's on now can only lead to self-destruction - the demographics are not on the Jews' side.

[pieter]

Jul 26, 2014 3:17:33 GMT -7 Jaga said:

here is one of the comments:
Palmor epitomizes the Ugly Israeli - arrogant, smug and self-righteous. We must remind ourselves that usually behind arrogance is anguish, and certainly the Jewish people have experienced anguish. But it's beyond irony that the Israeli state would act similar to the Jews' persecutors of the 1930's and '40's rather than as a balanced, humane people. AND as an effective society, as the road it's on now can only lead to self-destruction - the demographics are not on the Jews' side.

I aggree with you Jaga, and a lot of jews do, in and outside Israel.










August 12/06 Rally in Toronto, Canada against Israeli aggression/occupation of Palestine and Lebanon




Jews and Arabs united for peace







en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jews_for_Justice_for_Palestinians

[Jaga]

Pieter,

I am sorry but I feel almost a bit paranoid about Israel's action and strange standds of US journalists. They ask Palestinians authorities all the wrong questions like:
"Should Hamas just show all the tunnels to ISrael so that there would be no more killing"?
"Does Hamas think they can win militarily with Israel?"

[pieter]

Jaga,

I am not a big fan of Hamas and think Hamas causes a lot of harm to the Palestinians independently from what is Israel is doing. From the other side the Israeli blockade of Gaza from all sides with the support of Egypt is a larger problem for the Palestinians. Hamas ideology of Sunni Islamism, Islamic fundamentalism and Palestinian nationalism brings the Palestinians of Gaza not closer to Palestinian self-determination. It was sad that El Fatah, the PLO party of Yasser Arafat (1929–2004) and the present Palestinian president of the West-Bank Mahmoud Abbas (born 26 March 1935) didn't won the 2006 legislative election in the Gaza Strip and didn't won during the 2006/2007 Fatah–Hamas conflict.

Tensions between Fatah and Hamas began to rise in 2005. After the Hamas' legislative victory in 2006, relations were marked by sporadic factional fighting. This became more intense after the two parties repeatedly failed to reach a deal to share government power, escalating in June 2007 and resulting in Hamas' control of the Gaza strip. As of August 2007 the Palestinian Authority is split into two polities, each seeing itself as the true representative of the Palestinian people – the Fatah-ruled Palestinian National Authority and the Hamas Government in Gaza.

In fact I think that nor Hamas nor Fatah can find a solution for the occupation of Palestinian territories and the malfunctionating Palestinian Authorities in Gaza and the West-Bank. I only favor Fatah, because they are secular, and they enegaged themselves in the Peace process. I hope that there will be a third Palestinian party, who will have a grassrootsmovement and popular support in Gaza and the West-Bank. This party should have a soort of Civil Rights Movement - American style - branch to find new ways to fight the Israeli occupation from a Palestinian point of view.

Hamas will never show it's tunnels to the Israeli's, because to much effort, money, energy, material and sacrifices were made for building these tunnels. And these tunnels are important for the Palestinian economy, survival and thus existance. Eventhough they are black, in the sense that they serve a black market. But due to the closed borders and Israeli blockade of Gaza they have no other option than to use the illegal tunnels. The Palestinians of Gaza or surrounded by Israeli's and Egyptians who refuse them or their good passage.

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

Jul 28, 2014 9:59:17 GMT -7 Jaga said:

Pieter,

I am sorry but I feel almost a bit paranoid about Israel's action and strange standds of US journalists. They ask Palestinians authorities all the wrong questions like:
"Should Hamas just show all the tunnels to ISrael so that there would be no more killing"?
"Does Hamas think they can win militarily with Israel?"

Jaga,

The US journalists aren't neutral or objective. The USA is the largest allie of Israel, the Jewish lobby is very strong in US Politics, within the Democratic and Republican parties, with the Christian zionist and Jewish Zionist members and with organizations as AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), ZOA (the Zionist Organization of America) and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (CoP; commonly Presidents' Conference) and the owners of the American Media corporations are often Pro-Israel. Six corporations control the American media and press. General electric (who owns NBC; Irish Catholic and Roman Catholic chairmen), Rupert Murdoch's News Corp (Murdoch is an Australian American of of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry), Disney (ABC; ), Viacom (Mass Media: Jewish owner), Time Warner (CNN, Time; Lutheran owner of of Dutch and German ancestry) and CBS (Jewish chairman)

Support for Israel is strong among American Christians of many denominations. Informal Christian support for Israel includes a broad range varieties support for Israel ranging from the programming and news coverage on the Christian Broadcasting Network and the Christian Television Network to the more informal support of the annual Day of Prayer for the Peace of Jerusalem.

Informal lobbying also includes the activities of Jewish groups. Some scholars view Jewish lobbying on behalf of Israel as one of many examples of a US ethnic group lobbying on behalf of an ethnic homeland,which has met with a degree of success largely because Israel is strongly supported by a far larger and more influential Christian movement that shares its goals. In a 2006 article in the London Review of Books, Professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote:

"In its basic operations, the Israel Lobby is no different from the farm lobby, steel or textile workers’ unions, or other ethnic lobbies. There is nothing improper about American Jews and their Christian allies attempting to sway US policy: the Lobby’s activities are not a conspiracy of the sort depicted in tracts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. For the most part, the individuals and groups that comprise it are only doing what other special interest groups do, but doing it very much better. By contrast, pro-Arab interest groups, in so far as they exist at all, are weak, which makes the Israel Lobby’s task even easier."

Cheers,
Pieter

[Jaga]

Pieter,

Netanyahu and Israel's politicians made sure that HAMAS became synonymous with evil, bad. They talk about Hamas tunnels, Hamas mosques, Hamas terrorists, Hamas doing all the bad things, whereas Hamas became less extreme and Hamas is just the ruling party in Palestine where PEOPLE live, not just future Hamas terrorists. It is just crazy.... at least there are mass media there and some pictures are showing real people, real damage without using "Hamas" as a bad word......

Jul 28, 2014 10:41:35 GMT -7 pieter said:

Jaga,

I am not a big fan of Hamas and think Hamas causes a lot of harm to the Palestinians independently from what is Israel is doing. From the other side the Israeli blockade of Gaza from all sides with the support of Egypt is a larger problem for the Palestinians. Hamas ideology of Sunni Islamism....

Hamas will never show it's tunnels to the Israeli's, because to much effort, money, energy, material and sacrifices were made for building these tunnels. And these tunnels are important for the Palestinian economy, survival and thus existance. Eventhough they are black, in the sense that they serve a black market. But due to the closed borders and Israeli blockade of Gaza they have no other option than to use the illegal tunnels. The Palestinians of Gaza or surrounded by Israeli's and Egyptians who refuse them or their good passage.

Cheers,
Pieter

[Jaga]

Pieter,

Gerald Kaufman, whose video was posted by you, summarized perfectly what is going on..... yes, Warsaw ghetto insurgents could be called terrorists, the same way, how Israel treats people in Gaza who dare to oppose this regime.

[pieter]

Jul 28, 2014 20:46:45 GMT -7 Jaga said:

Pieter,

Netanyahu and Israel's politicians made sure that HAMAS became synonymous with evil, bad. They talk about Hamas tunnels, Hamas mosques, Hamas terrorists, Hamas doing all the bad things, whereas Hamas became less extreme and Hamas is just the ruling party in Palestine where PEOPLE live, not just future Hamas terrorists. It is just crazy.... at least there are mass media there and some pictures are showing real people, real damage without using "Hamas" as a bad word......

Jul 28, 2014 10:41:35 GMT -7 pieter said:

Jaga,

I am not a big fan of Hamas and think Hamas causes a lot of harm to the Palestinians independently from what is Israel is doing. From the other side the Israeli blockade of Gaza from all sides with the support of Egypt is a larger problem for the Palestinians. Hamas ideology of Sunni Islamism....

Hamas will never show it's tunnels to the Israeli's, because to much effort, money, energy, material and sacrifices were made for building these tunnels. And these tunnels are important for the Palestinian economy, survival and thus existance. Eventhough they are black, in the sense that they serve a black market. But due to the closed borders and Israeli blockade of Gaza they have no other option than to use the illegal tunnels. The Palestinians of Gaza or surrounded by Israeli's and Egyptians who refuse them or their good passage.

Cheers,
Pieter

Jaga,

I am stil not a big fan of Hamas, but like Yuval Diskin, former director of Israel's internal security service Shin Bet, I think that Hamas is a reality we have to deal with. They were elected by the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip and they won an armed conflict in that same piece of land with Fatah. Winning the elections and winning an armed conflict with the powerful and military trained and experienced Fatah fighters means you are a politicial force to be reckoned with and you are a ruler Israel, Egypt, and International parties have to deal with. So from a pragmatic point of view I believe that there has to be negotiated and deals have to be made with Hamas. And I am sure that behind the visibility of international media, politics and official negotiations, there are secret negotiations going on between Israeli's and representatives of Hamas. Maybe in Cairo, maybe in the West-Bank (where both Palestinians and Israeli's are), maybe in Lebanon (in Beirut) or maybe in Jordan (in Amman), Geneva, London, Paris, Berlin, Moscow or New York? The world is not always that what the case is. What we see or are being shown is not always the reality of behind the curtains. Secret diplomacy exists. The Egyptians are the official mediators between Hamas and Israel. But because they aren't neutral, and not trusted by Hamas, there could be a fourth or fifth party. Who besides Egypt has connections with both Hamas and the Israeli's? Turkey, Qatar, the USA or Russia?

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel–Qatar_relations

Cheers,
Pieter

[pieter]

Jul 28, 2014 23:04:44 GMT -7 Jaga said:

Pieter,

Gerald Kaufman, whose video was posted by you, summarized perfectly what is going on..... yes, Warsaw ghetto insurgents could be called terrorists, the same way, how Israel treats people in Gaza who dare to oppose this regime.

Gerald Kaufman is a honest man and a humanist!

[Nictoshek]

Look what Israel is calling John Kerry:


Try as it may, Israel unable to deter 'Kerry the nudnik'

By UDI SEGAL


Why is the US secretary of state so determined to push the peace process forward? And what is behind Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman's decision to play along?

US Secretary of John Kerry, meanwhile, is the only one who made sure to call Israeli and Palestinian officials on each day of his Christmas/New Year’s vacation simply to ask, “What’s up?” Publicly, senior Israeli officials are unanimous in praising Kerry for his “determination, persistence and adherence to his mission,” among other sycophantic terms meant to disguise their fake appreciation.


Behind closed doors, they say what it is they really think. “We’re dealing with an obsession [by Kerry],” one source said.

“He’s a nudnik (nuisance).”

As former prime minister Ariel Sharon’s health took a turn for the worse, veteran peace negotiators remembered in recent days what Sharon used to say behind closed doors: “On this issue with the Palestinians, if you don’t want to make concessions, you can only do one thing – don’t go in the room.”

Throughout nearly his entire term in office, Sharon avoided going into the room.

Ultimately, though, he did concede – big time – but that’s a discussion for another day.

Sharon was talking about a situation with which many Israeli government officials – from Tzipi Livni to Moshe Ya’alon to Amir Peretz to Naftali Bennett to Yair Lapid to Danny Danon – have become intimately familiar over the years. If the negotiations collapse, regardless of the reason, Israel will be fingered for blame. Period. The simplistic explanation is the rallying cry for the nationalist Right, which sees the international community as “entirely against us” and “everything is anti-Semitism in just a different disguise.”

The more complex explanation holds that Israel is perceived as the stronger, more stable, obstinate party, and the world has had enough of the explanations and excuses over why it must continue to rule over the Palestinians, build in the settlements and refuse to compromise on the territories.

It’s unclear if Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu entered the room out of pseudo- appreciation for Kerry’s persistence, or simply because he had no choice and understood that in order to preserve Israel’s real interests, he had to enter the negotiating process, buy himself a year of quiet and demonstrate good will in order to prevent a debacle at the United Nations.

If, however, someone thought that Israel would manage to exhaust Kerry by drowning him in the vicissitudes and minutia of this seemingly insoluble quandary until he threw his hands up in despair, compelling him to find something else to do in the Far East or Africa, as his predecessor Hillary Clinton did before him, they were wrong.

Kerry is here to stay, he’s not letting up, and he wants results in the coming weeks.

“It’s as if we are the most important place in the world,” a senior Israeli official who thinks that Kerry is wasting our time said bitterly. “There are 30 million Kurds who want independence and nobody cares about them. Here, the world is standing on its head over a few hundred thousand Palestinians.”

The response to such a statement is simple enough – it’s politics. Kerry felt compelled to tackle the Palestinian issue after shrewdly examining the matter from a political standpoint. After all, he doesn’t really have anything to lose.

If the talks break down, Kerry, who failed in his bid to unseat the incumbent George W. Bush in the 2004 election and who is married to the heiress of the Heinz family ketchup fortune, won’t need to retire to the private sector to “tend to his home.”

He could take solace in the fact that he was the latest in a long line of highly skilled and accomplished American statesmen who dipped their toes into the muddy Middle Eastern waters and had to return home with their tails between their legs. Before Kerry, there was Bill and Hillary Clinton, George Mitchell, George Tenet, Anthony Zinni, Martin Indyk, Dennis Ross, Condoleezza Rice, Warren Christopher, Madeleine Albright and many more.

Kerry walks away virtually unscathed. He could say, “I tried, honestly.” In Europe, they’ll applaud him for his efforts, while it’s not like Americans hold their breath over this issue anyway. On the other hand, if Kerry does succeed, even partially by somehow producing a framework document or a paper of principles that would serve as the basis for a continuation of negotiations, he could expect to be feted, perhaps maybe even earn that coveted Nobel Prize, even if there is no peace treaty forthcoming. And if he really succeeds, Kerry could cast his eyes toward a run at the presidency in 2016.

This is the real reason Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman has changed his tune.

He still doesn’t believe it is possible to reach an agreement with the Palestinians, but he has taken a conscious decision not to be the one who trips up the determined Kerry. In his first term as foreign minister, Liberman learned firsthand what it’s like to be the country’s top diplomat who gets the cold shoulder from Washington. He knows that if he wants to exert influence on the process, he needs to be in the game.

Liberman took advantage of his first sitdown with Kerry to lay out his central idea – a population and territorial swap. In other words, if Israel and the Palestinians are going to do a deal, then let’s exchange Wadi Ara for Ariel and Gush Etzion. Kerry did not dismiss Liberman out of hand. On the contrary, the secretary of state saw this as Liberman’s entry ticket into the process.

That doesn’t mean Liberman’s idea is on the negotiations’ agenda, but Kerry did not rule it out. The secretary’s aides understand that within the context of Israel’s political landscape, Liberman is a key player whose approval for any deal would be necessary since it would have the needed right-wing imprimatur. Any formula which would be okayed by Liberman would go a long way toward complicating – perhaps even eliminating – any mutiny from within Likud against Netanyahu.

That’s why Liberman’s pie-in-the-sky idea allows Kerry to bring the foreign minister into the negotiating tent, with the final goal being a historic compromise.

Kerry is coming with ideas for a settlement.

He may even have a letter in his pocket. But he has no intention of presenting it to them. Instead, he wants to warm them up around its ideas.

Kerry won’t put the letter down on the table. Instead, he will present his ideas in long, drawn-out meetings that will be friendly and amiable on the one hand, but probing and exhaustive on the other. Kerry is in the region to test the limits of Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas. He wants to see just how far they are willing to go, and how America could help.

[Jaga]

I guess, now Israel blames Hamas and Kerry in one sentence. Which country would be able to be so arrogant, brutal and still suck as much money as they can?