"THE LIBERAL PERSPECTIVE’S" RESPONSE TO CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER’S SYNDICATED COLUMN “COMING TO TERMS WITH THE SETTLEMENTS MYTH”
Charles, Charles, Charles! You are so far off base on your article today in the Chicago Tribune entitled “Coming to Terms with the Settlement Myths” Your short term memory loss is further along than I originally believed.
Israel by international consensus had no right to build settlements in the midst of the very land the Palestinians are to establish their state, in the first place.
120 settlements, each surrounded by a cadre of military forces dot the landscape of the West Bank like measles on a child's face. These are not small, minute clusters, in 2006 485,000 Israelis lived in settlements previously assigned as part of the new Palestinian state.
Numerous international bodies such as the United Nations Security Council, the International Court of Justice, the European Union, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch and numerous international law experts have deemed these settlements to be in violation of international law.
In recent years, contrary to your assumption, no impartial observer has "envisioned Israel retaining" control over these settlements and many envision these settlements either under Palestinian law, but more likely removed from the West Bank where they should not have been allowed to be built in the first place.
For you to say that the Palestinians leadership "gave its people corruption, tyranny, religious intolerance and forced militarization; leadership that for three generations rejected every offer of independence and dignity, choosing destitution and despair rather than accept any settlements not accompanied by the extinction of Israel,” Is simply an over-simplification of the facts. No doubt, there was corruption in the PLO and its political arm—Fatah.
However, it must be said the people did vote and while Fatah failed to provide the basic services the general populace required, because of lack of resources available for anything other than military preparedness which was severely limited because of the United States and European embargos, it did pave the way for Hamas to come to power.
I am in regular communication with a peace organization in Israel that is fighting the Israeli law that requires all of its youth to serve in the Armed Forces. These young men and women have been jailed, under house arrest, re-committed to a penal institution on and on ad infinitum nausea. That Charles is militarization also, and is equally despicable.
Charles you are a master of oversimplification and thus deception and lying. The Israeli conflict is vital to peace in the region and while the Arabs have made some unwarranted errors in their attempt to force Israel into the sea, there are millions of Palestinians in ghettos throughout the Middle East who have been homeless for over sixty years. There are millions more in the West Bank and Gaza that live in conditions that are unfit for human habitation.
The U. S. policy for the past eight years under Bush has done nothing but intensify the conflict while ignoring the imperative needs of the Palestinian territories.
Charles where do you think al Qaeda and other jihadist militia are recruiting their suicide bombers? People who have or nothing would rather die for Allah than spend their lives in poverty, ignorance and houses made of mud and canvas.
And finally, for you to even suggest that Obama went to Cairo to tell the truth. "But he uttered not a word of that," is a despicable violation of your journalistic responsibility.
Obama has done what no other president in my memory and unlike you I still have a healthy ability to recall facts without interjecting my political bias, has been able to accomplish. George Bush would not have drawn 300,000 people to one of his speeches Berlin, or the crowds in Turkey, England, France; or even been permitted to address the University of Cairo without appearing behind a bullet proof glass surrounded by Secret Service men on all sides, if he was permitted to speak at all.
The hard right is turning what should be a time of rejoicing for the election of a brilliant, eloquent and adept leader who puts a whole new and quite strong face on the American government.
By the way, people as ignorant as Jon Voigt who made irresponsible remarks about Obama this week, are collaborators with the hard right that want nothing more than to see Barack Obama fail and with him the entire U. S. economy. At least one of Voigt’s children, Angelina Jolie and her partner, Brad Pitt, are smarter than the old man.
Charles, open your eyes, read, travel to the Middle East and then tell me that what you wrote has any validity at all.
11:57:51 PM 
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