Did God instruct the Israeli government to build condo's on Palestinian land?

Can't help sharing this little gem with readers.  What is there to debate about the legality of Israeli settlements on Palestinian land?  They are illegal. The uprisings in the Arab world have thrown US imperialism in to a bit of a tizzy, making statements one day and changing them the next.  I think they'll be talking to Hamas soon maybe. The Pentagon might unterrorize them.  It is hard to justify them as a terrorist organization when the governments troops and police of Bahrain are shooting women and children peacefully demonstrating with 30,000 troops watching.

American politics

Democracy in America

Israeli settlements

Some kind of perfidy

Feb 18th 2011, 13:36 by M.S.

This week the Obama administration apparently tried, unsuccessfully, to broker a deal in which the Palestinian Authority and other Arab governments would downgrade a proposed Security Council condemnation of the illegality of Israeli settlements on the occupied West Bank from a "resolution" to a "statement", in exchange for American acquiescence. In response, writes Politico's Ben Smith, knee-jerk pro-settlement Republicans and knee-jerk pro-settlement Democrats in Congress went bananas. (I'm not sure "went" is the appropriate verb here. "Remained" might be more accurate.) Steve Rothman, a Democratic representative from New Jersey, said that "any failure to stand with Israel during these difficult times in the Middle East will only encourage the enemies of America and Israel." The emptiness of the logic in Mr Rothman's statement beggars description. Meanwhile, Democrat Joe Crowley and Republican Joe Walsh are circulating a letter that says, inter alia:

Reports have surfaced that the United States is negotiating with a group of Arab nations about supporting a possible United Nations Security Council presidential statement critical of Israel and possibly taking other similar steps in exchange for Arab agreement to withdraw a UNSC resolution and deeming Israeli construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal. It is also not clear whether the U.S. would veto a resolution on settlements should it be brought to the UN Security Council. It should not be the practice of the U.S. to be conducting back door deals, of any sort, that weaken the strategic interests of any ally—let alone one of of our closest allies. We strongly urge you to make it clear that the U.S. will oppose any U.N efforts to pressure Israel on the "settlement" issue.

On this one, I have to confess, I'm of two minds. My first instinct is that one good reason why America should support a statement deeming Israeli construction on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem illegal is that Israeli construction on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem is illegal. It's rather pathetic to watch the way each of the statements issued in criticism of the Obama administration's stance dances frantically around the question of whether it's a good idea for Israel to be building more and more government-subsidised housing settlements exclusively reserved for Jews on land that does not belong to Israel, unless you subscribe to the idea that seizure by force legitimises ownership, or to the equally alarming idea that the government of Binyamin Netanyahu was ordered to expand the condo units at Maale Adumim 3,000 years ago by God.

However, I hesitate to really embrace the point that America should call the settlements illegal because they are, as it's based on the idea that governments ought to say things because they are true. I don't actually think that's a very compelling principle in diplomacy, and in any case it's so rarely observed in practice that I'm not sure what the point of advocating it would be.