Everything melts together in the right wing brain.

policies, not people. The Israeli government has swung way to the right. There needs to be a 2 state solution. There will not be one under the current right-wing Israeli government. Both the Isreali and Palestinian people suffer when they are ruled by far right leaders. I just want there to be peace, and that requires serious thoughtful leadership.

they used the word sympathize:

http://www.people-press.org/2017/01/12/the-world-facing-trump-public-sees-isis-cyberattacks-north-korea-as-top-threats/

which tends to correlate with your analysis

backing in their headline, while the actual PEW poll used the word sympathize.

36 percent of liberal dems sympathized with both or neither. Given that they are liberal dems I suspect most of those are in the both category.

"Blind" in the same sense as one of the three monkeys.


There has never been a poll showing Democratic support for the Palestinians, yet they continue to spin relatively less support for Israel as evidence that support for Israel is the right wing position and opposition is the progressive position.

The overwhelming vote in both parties in congress just a few days ago will either be ignored or (blind to the racist undertones inherent in the position) attributed to the irrationally large influence that Jews have over our political systems.

hardcore pro-Israel. But that's not representative of the party's base.

I'm not arguing that being anti-Israel is a progressive cause, just noting that the belief that the US should be wearing a Team Israel jersey tends to correlate with being a wingnut, though there are of course exceptions.

Yet you keep posting these annual polls as though they somehow support your positions.

Nor is referring to our elected representatives as "elite political class" very far from blaming those darned joos for their grip on our government.

The comparatively minor divide between the implied support levels in this latest poll and the actions of those who represent us... is far easier attributed to the gap between Democrats who actually have some understanding of the issues and history... vs. those who accept BDS spin in ignorance.

The charts don't show any "general trend", they show a sharp change starting 3 years ago.

Additionally, 10 to 12 percent of Americans harbor antisemitic sentiments, I think we know which group those folks are in. It might be higher, I looked around a little and could not find antisemitic rates by party.

Arabs and Muslims, including the President-elect and his national security advisers.

However, the situation for Palestinians in Israel and the occupied territories will become worse with or without Netanyahu, and I think that will be reflected in American attitudes towards Israel and the Palestinians. What's happening right now is that support for Israel more and more equates support for the settlements, as the recent pro-settlement vote in the Congress clearly shows.

The only democracy in the Middle-East is becoming less democratic, and there is little left for liberals to support. The occupation, the illegal settlements and the Apartheid aren't really compatible with liberal values...

in your opinion, is purportedly becoming "less democratic" (which appears to mean more politically conservative, which is hardly the same thing), so your response is to support the progressive, democratic, multicultural humanists from the Palestinian Authority, to say nothing of Hamas?

If "democracy" is a key component of liberal support, as you suggest, preference for the Palestinians in either the PA or Gaza runs quite contrary to the alleged view and easily marks you a hypocrite.

Would you care to elucidate the "liberal values" inherent to the Palestinians and the culture that warrant liberal support, or do you simply have a double standard for Jews and Israel, just like your heroes at the United Nations.

Israel is politically very much aligned with the racist and nationalist right-wing. All the parties in the Israeli government have a racist agenda, and all the ministers in the government are hardcore racists. I've always been firmly against right-wing nationalism, and it's not primarily about Israel.

As for the Palestinians, I don't see why oppressing them is justified under any circumstances. Much of what is wrong in the occupied territories could be said to be the direct result of them being oppressed by Israel. I support the right of the Palestinians to live normal, oppression-free lives. I also believe in co-existence, and that there's no need for one people to dominate another.

Palestinian culture and violence against Jews before 1967 when Israel first occupied the territories, including before 1947, before which Israel wasn't even a state, right wing or otherwise (and we can later discuss of WHY the left has been decimated in Israel, a lesson in democracy punishing foolish concessions and misplaced trust by the left that led to more Israeli suffering, e.g, the Second Intifada).

Also, are you seriously suggesting that the PA and Hamas, the Palestinian governments in the West Bank and Gaza, are not right-wing and racist, pretty much like all their Arab brethren? If you're in doubt, just as a small beginning, read the Hamas charter.

As always, you rationalize and excuse (to the extent you even acknowledge) anything remotely negative about the Palestinians as all due to the occupation. It's absurd, offensive, condescending, and actually denies the Palestinians their free agency. Your double-standards applied to Israel are not particularly subtle. Every time you invoke purported liberal values to decry Israel, you seem to develop complete amnesia about ingrained Palestinian illiberalism, including on matters unrelated to Israel entirely (e.g, women's and gay rights), and then fall back on little more than trite propaganda sound-bites to advance your purported points.

And, quite frankly, you really don't support "right of the Palestinians to live normal, oppression-free lives" or "believe in co-existence." You've openly and strongly advocated one state solutions, which to anyone who both knows the history of the region (and world) and listened and watched the conduct of the surrounding Arab states, historically and today, knows that such a "solution" is little more than a "final solution" for any Jews in the region, and additionally will not bring liberal values or culture to the Palestinian people.

If you truly believe in such liberal values as co-existence, freedom and human rights, you might develop some credibility by first acknowledging the atrocious state of such values among the Palestinians (and all surrounding Arab states), and demand they improve and liberalize. What better way to prove to Israelis and others that they have nothing to fear or distrust from Palestinians or their proposed state than clear demonstrations of actual Palestinian liberalism, as the terms is actually understood by classically liberal Western states? The "occupation" is no excuse, as proven by the relatively good governance and society building of other occupied people under the heel of far worse governments than Israel, such as the Kurds, Tibetans, Cypriots, etc. (people who also get FAR less financial support and political cover that the Palestinians). "Occupation" only seems to be a concern when it involves Jews.

The poverty and misery brought upon the Palestinians by the occupation make any kind of progress difficult. The Palestinians are just getting poorer as the settlements spread and prosper at their expense. The only way to turn things around is to alleviate the effects of the occupation. Until that happens, we will see more terrorist attacks in the future as they are a result of the negative effects of the occupation.

In the hope that you or someone else will actually read it, I'll cut and paste some links to the reports from various NGOs that clearly show that Israel is the problem, and it's not the Palestinians who are at fault for not trying to get their things together. Much of my own views on the viability of a Palestinian state and what could be done to take steps towards solving the I/P conflict are based on reports like these:

Economic monitoring report to the ad hoc liaison committee : main report (English)
Source: The World Bank, 2016/09/19

Ethnonationalism is an enemy of democracy, as are theocratic practices such as granting the Orthodox rabbinate exclusive control over who may marry, convert, divorce or generally be recognized as being of the privileged religious class.

"Some are more equal than others" and "only some Jews are really Jews" is a pretty good combo for slouching towards being yet another retrograde Middle East theocracy.

are openly and demonstrably worse than Israel in terms of "ethnonationalism" by multiple orders of magnitude, or do you hold Jews to a totally different standard? Israel is purportedly "slouching towards ethnonationalism," but the Arab world been there for centuries.

Moreover, if this purported ethnonationalism is such a great evil, why would Israel agree to what amounts to two violent, illiberal ethnonationalism states on its tiny borders?

Do you realize that appealing to vague notions of "democracy" and "liberalism" are actually arguments AGAINST concessions for a Palestinian state, at least given the current political, social and cultural state of the Palestinians.

The PA generally lacks principles and purpose but certainly lacks an enlightened or even modern outlook. Even as their primary function is to act as agents of Israel's security agencies.

However, the Palestinians are not going to progress and evolve while under occupation, certainly not under permanent occupation. There's really not any other agenda item other than overthrowing their oppressors as long as that is going on.

It's perfectly reasonable to state that a Palestinian state is not a workable short-term option.

The problem is that the Israelis have been using the settlements to suffocate and strangle the possibility of there ever being a Palestinian state much like a python squeezes the life out of its prey.

Of course the Palestinians hate the tribe occupying them and controlling every aspect of their lives. How did the Israelites feel about Pharaoh?

The entire Middle East is a giant shitshow. Israel is now part of that shitshow instead of offering an example of how to evolve past that dysfunction.