Hillary and Bibi stood side by side, and their body language, fraught and rigid and hostile, suggested they had just gone through the following dialogue, or something like it.
‘You’re a piece of shit, Bibi. You poisoned Bill’s friend Arafat and I don’t like you.’
‘It was a cabinet decision. I spoke up against it.’
‘Don’t lie to me.’
‘Okay, okay, I went along with it. And then I had second thoughts, and I, er, left the government.’
‘You left the government because you thought Sharon was a pussy on Gaza.’
‘Well, yes, there was that. He was a pussy on Gaza.’
‘And you had him poisoned too.’
‘No.’
‘And you killed forty children last week.’
‘Thirty nine.’
‘Forty.’
‘Okay, forty. But the rockets kept the children of Ashkelon awake.’
‘For which the children of Gaza had to fucking die?’
‘We… do our best… to minimize civilian casualties.’
‘By bombing apartment blocks at three a.m.?’
‘Four a.m. Sometimes we bomb apartment blocks in broad daylight. After dropping leaflets saying, leave home.’
‘Bibi, if you invade Gaza we’re stopping your money.’
‘You wouldn’t dare.’
‘Fifty million a week.’
‘You wouldn’t dare.’
‘Well, you did a Romney commercial and we thought you wouldn’t dare. But you fucking did it, didn’t you?’
‘He was an old school friend.’
‘With about as much future as you after Yasr’s autopsy.’
‘Just a little invasion? A two day invasion? My voters would like that.’
‘You’ve got thirty seconds to say yes, AND stop assassinating your political opponents or Obama pulls the money. All the money, as long as you’re Prime Minister.’
‘Yeah okay.’
‘I think we’re due for our press conference.’
‘What are you going to say?’
‘That we’re rock solid behind you. As always.’
Name:
‘And what are you going to say Bibi?’
‘Well, I’ll start by saying 111 Israelis have been wounded by rockets.’
‘But aren’t they just suffering from…well…war-related stress?’
‘Yeah…but wounded sounds worse.’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/21/gaza-conflict-fierce-fighting-clinton-seeks-truce
Sounds about right to me.
But I wonder in which universe Hamas can claim a victory? They can teach Tony Abbott about the meaning of “totally losing control over border security”
Check out which nation was tooting horns and firing pistols triumphantly.
It wasn’t Israel.
Probably because they realised that they could have been bombed back 10 years AND lose all their leadership. Make no mistake, Israel could wipe Hamas from the planet.
Oh and the only reason that more Israeli civilians didn’t die is that Israel had invested in Iron Dome - defensive missiles that shot down hundreds of rockets.
Iron Dome defensive missiles? Sounds like something you’d buy from Blowfeld or his knock off cousin Dr Evil!
To Act Rationally:
So …?
What?
Regrettably entirely fanciful. If only Secretary Clinton had said those things. That aside, she won’t be Secretary Clinton in the second Obama cabinet.
And? Joe Lieberman will?
Don’t be daft.
One calendar month later, and it should be abundantly clear to everyone that Secretary Clinton will not be Secretary Clinton in the second Obama administration.
Does anybody else think that after she’s put Bibi in his place that she might try scooting across the border for a word with the Palestinians?
Apart from this perceptive gem:-
‘What are you going to say?’
‘That we’re rock solid behind you. As always.’
The rest is unadulterated nonsense. Arafat was more valuable alive than dead. He was the very corrupt official they could deal with and ignored endless chances.
Arafat vwas sitting pretty and there were over a billion reasons why others would want to get at him.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/07/60minutes/main582487.shtml
I’d still like to know what would Romney have done? Hmmm?
Romney? I don’t spend all day here all the time you know. What Romney could do after January 20 2013, no-one knows, including Hamas and its enablers. That’s the point. They knew what Obama would do - nothing differently than the steady retreat. Romney might have also done nothing. ‘Might’. However, he could have done likely things within a range from immediate notice to Israel and moderate Arab states like Saudi Arabia that their wishes would be supported: Iran to be taken on and that Iran’s surrogates like Hamas and Hezbollah were about to be challenged. Hamas would be worried about this too, as it is about losing its position within the protective circle of Syria (now also a virtual Iranian puppet). Everywhere, Iran would be on notice and all its puppets couldn’t handle that. Start their rocket attack before the election and help Obama to be challenged? No way Jose.
Alternatively, he (but never Obama) could give the give light to Saudi Arabia and others to free up the air route from Israel to Iran and thus achieve what they have wanted for years: destruction or delay in the Iranian nuclear weapons program.
“Iran’s surrogates like Hamas”
Shia theocracies have Sunni surrogates under a Romney presidency? That’s novel.
Let me see if I’ve got this right.
So, from the loudest and dumbest Conservative megaphone we have this:
“no-one knows”
“might have also done nothing”
“Might”
“However, he could have done”
“likely things”
“within a range”
“Everywhere, Iran would be on” “notice and all its puppets” “couldn’t handle that”.
“No way Jose.”
“Alternatively”,
“he…could give”
How many “known and unknown unknown’s” can you fit into one short post Ryutin??
So let me break that down for everyone here: you have no idea, not only what Romney would do, but also what it is exactly that you’re supporting as an alternative to Obama.
That’s just great stuff Ryutin.
Keep that up, you awesome Brain’s Trust you!
As I said elsewhere to Ryutin, Annabel, Romney might tear his shirt.
(I always thought this was a well-known expression, meaning that all the huffing and puffing and pseudo-action would result in a torn shirt only; but maybe it only runs in my family (!) )
Don’t speak too soon on the one. I see they exhumed him for tests the other week so results may follow soon.
Who, Romney?
Yes Doug, Romney. Under a full moon with Hilary in the role of Buffy!
To M Ryutin,
Why then did they blow up his compound and systematically kill his lieutenants? To show they wanted him alive?
I don’t know Bob, that’s the point, but when you trawl for the usual suspects, don’t blame me for pointing out some alternatives, interested as I am by the knowledge that the Palestinians have had the FULL medical reports since he died. Also you are not the only one to always blame Israel so there might be some innocents out there who swallow everything you say as being in all seriousness. I certainly wouldn’t want you to be on any jury of fact when you make such assumptions!
This poison wasn’t known of, or detectable, till four years after Yasr died. He looked really healthy when I last saw him, in Manger Square on Christmas Eve, 1999.
I’d lay money on it. He was poisoned.
‘We… do our best… to minimize civilian casualties.’
….Like we did in 2004??
Israeli Army Slaughters Civillians During Demonstration in Gaza Strip 20.05.04 (2004)
http://archive.org/details/RafahDemo20_05_04
Bob, why are you sure that Israel murdered Arafat? Even after his inability to get the Camp David agreement through, he was someone who Israel could do business with. Surely it is much more likely (if he was poisoned) that it was Hamas or another faction of the Palestinians.
Because they shelled his compound for months and killed, progressively, his underlings.
Because they preferred to work with his successor who has proved, as they hoped, a pussy.
But did not Hamas and other factions have reasons at least as strong?
They KILLED two Hamas leaders, you fool, and, last week, the Hamas equivalent of Eisenhower.
It’s what they do.
With a Nobel Peace Prize winner they had to move more secretly.
Not convinced. Or even that he was murdered. The post-mortem will answer that. My money would be on Hamas or another faction, but I guess we will never know.
We will know by Christmas, when someone in Mossad grasses on Netanyahu.
“..my voters would appreciate that..” re Gaza action. That’s about how I see it also, as the Palestinians are again scapegoated by an Israel not getting its way on something, in this case the US election and Iran incursion.
Bob, I’m not as certain as you are about the alleged murder of Arafat, which appears to be based on a French current affairs show (Le Today Tonight?)
In the interests of impartiality, you and your readers may want to read “Arafat’s Swiss Bank Account” by Issam Abu Issa who founded the Palestine International Bank. Issam was forced to flee Palestine.
He states that rather than use donor funds for their intended purposes, Arafat regularly diverted money to his own accounts and the corruption of Arafat and the Palestinian Authority was blatant.
He writes: “At the end of 1997, when the PA Auditor’s Office released its end of the year financial report, $326 million—43 percent of the annual budget—was “missing.” …Over a period of five years, approximately US$900 million was diverted to these accounts”
But the conclusion of the former founder of the PIB that readers may find illuminating:
“Arafat’s failed leadership is one factor responsible for the evolution of Palestinian extremism and fundamentalism, as well as a culture of death and despair among the Palestinians. While Clinton feted Arafat at the White House as a peace partner, many of us who worked with or lived under Arafat disagreed, seeing him instead as a man exclusively concerned with power, money, and personal gratification. He heads a dictatorial regime staffed by gangsters. I and increasing numbers of Palestinians also blame U.S. and Israeli officials who, in the wake of the Oslo accords, calculated that a Palestinian dictatorship would make a better negotiating partner than a Palestinian democracy. They were very wrong. When growing pressure in the Palestinian territories forced Arafat to find a scapegoat for his political failure, mismanagement, and economic plunder, he turned his guns toward the Israelis.”
It;s possible Arafat was poisoned by his own people too.
Arafat’s corruption was not for monetary gain; it was to shore up his political position. However, there is no doubt that he was massively corrupt.
Edward W Said on Arafat:
“Arafat’s gift, as I have said before, is to appeal to the worst in his people. He rules by cliques and cronies, by mafias and little gangs. He is surrounded by yes-men and sycophants who tell him what he likes to hear and, after thirty years of doing business this way, he is not going to change. Besides, he has noticed that his people — despite complaints from the Legislative Council and a few courageous and independent individuals — simply accept every new outrage and failure he commits and keep venerating and respecting him. So why should he change? The people he brought from Tunis, who effectively did what they did in Beirut before they did the same thing in Tunis, make it impossible for him to hear anything except flattery and agreement. Their jobs depend on his pleasure, not on their objective performance. Ever since the days of Amman and, after that, Beirut, the PLO’s style of doing things has been by improvisation — nothing is studied beforehand, no preparation is undertaken, people whisper in his ear, and he controls everything through his power of the purse. While that may have been understandable in Lebanon, it has absolutely nothing to do with dealing with the Israelis or, more important, with building the basis of a state.”
- Al-Ahram, 20 August 1988
You can see why Hamas may have a vested interest in having Bibi re-elected, those rockets probably had how to vote cards attached.
“Nothing is but what is not,schlemeil”.
Mordechai Macbeth
Hmm. I’m not sure they’re that subtle. They want their homes and orchards back, and want to send what they see as the Jewish filth back to Poland, Austria, Russia and New York.
They want their homeland back. They have kept the keys to their flattened cottages, and they want to rebuild them.