I am using it in the ethnic sense. But that doesn't imply Jew == Israeli citizen because Israeli citizens can be of Jewish, Arab, Druze and Circassian nationality.

I don't care whether those Jews are religious or not or accepted as Jews by orthodox authorities or not.

I believe that too.

Your explanation is a bit confused but I think what you mean is that any Israeli citizen of whatever nationality (Jewish, Arab, Circassian etc.) should be allowed to build or buy homes in all of Jerusalem. I agree with that.

I think you confused Jews with Israelis. All Jews can become Israeli citizens (just like all Germans can become German citizens) but not all Israeli citizens are Jews (just like some German citizens are Sorbs or Danes and have never been Germans) as there are other ways to obtain Israeli citizenship.

korwyn posts:

OK, I hear you.

However, the latest battle is over Jerusalem. The political machine of Isreal has erected an 8 meter concrete wall through parts of Jerusalem which completely encloses the the last passage of the Scriptural pathway of Our Lord Jesus Christ on His way to the Cross? Pilgrims are blocked from going through the gates. The Vatican, clergy and laity inspected the deplorable conditions in the Holy Land, and found the attitude of the Isreali military and bureacracy from uncooperative to hostile. The Vatican charged that Isreal violated the 1993 agreement between Rome and Isreal guaranteeing the West Bank land owned by the Church...so far it's fallen on deaf ears.

Why? It's not about Isreal's right to exist...That is a ruse.....it's about Imperialism.

It's the Jews' fault! It has nothing to do with terror attacks.

Quick, send the Romans!

None of the "death to the Jews" crowd would ever question Israel's right to exist.

But seriously, how is building a few houses "imperialism"?

I find it particularly interesting because looking at a map of the Middle-East I see that the Arabs rule over many many territories and peoples, the Jews being the only ones who resisted their attacks. And by "resisted" I mean they avoided a genocide like in Sudan and gas attacks like in Kurdistan.

And you see imperialism where?

Is it also "imperialism" when Arab countries build houses in their cities or is that one of those Jewish things?

Anyway, let's hear it for the smallest empire of all time! The Vast Empire of Isra (there is not enough room on the map for the "el"), may it last forever, as G-d promised.

(In case you are honestly worried about imperialism in the Middle-East, there are thousands of African refugees in Israel who can tell you stories that go beyond even the horrors of family homes and children with kippas.)

Incidentally, there is no wall going through Jerusalem and the wall AROUND Jerusalem has not been finished either. I guess your clerics must have been in another city. That can happen. Or they make up complaints about the Jews as they go along. That can happen too.

Anyway, you may be glad to know that peace activists are already acting against the evil imperialists:

The evil imperialist here identified by the peace activist as the source of the oppression appears to be a crying child.

(Oh, and before you tell me stories about accidental victims, the car was attacked ON PURPOSE, and it is clearly NOT a military target.)

KFC,

Apparently Obama and Clinton leaned out too far.

Netanyahu was "warmly received" by Congress:

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu received a warmer public reception from Congress than from the Obama administration, with a top Democrat and Republican joining Tuesday to welcome a leader who has agreed to disagree with the White House over Israeli housing expansion on disputed ground.

"We in Congress stand by Israel," the leader of the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, assured Netanyahu at an all-smiles appearance before the cameras. "In Congress we speak with one voice on the subject of Israel."

http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=171638

This is not the usual polite acknowledgement of a friendship. This was in opposition to the administration's behaviour. And I have much respect for Nancy Pelosi for doing this!

Here's what I think happened.

Neither Obama nor Clinton really understand the Middle-East. They don't understand foreign policy much either. (Heck I even read a German commentary by a very left-wing author on a major news site that criticised Obama's foreign policy and listed all the mistakes!) It was perhaps not obvious but Obama's predecessors understood these things much better, both Bush and Mr Clinton did.

Despite what I said before about Mrs Clinton (I can be wrong, you know), it now seems to me that Obama and (Mrs) Clinton both are stuck in a mindset that allowed that simply didn't allow them to see anything wrong with demanding lots from Israel and nothing from the PLO or with deciding in advance, before any discussions between the actual parties, that "East-Jerusalem" (and all the holy cites) are "Arab". They just couldn't fathom that Jews would not accept as normal and a given that these things can simply be done to Israel.

And, apparently, neither do America's representatives in Congress see things that way, neither Democrats nor Republicans.

Again, I don't think Obama and Clinton see themselves as anti-Israel. They merely live in a world where one doesn't ask non-Jews for things that one asks Jews for and in a world where the opinions of Jews are not taken seriously when one decides whether they or somebody else own their holy city. So they probably never saw anything wrong with deciding that East-Jerusalem is "Arab", because in that world, it simply doesn't occur to people that Jews matter.

Israel has offered peace to the Arabs again and again and under any terms and the answer was always NO. Even now the entire episode was about getting the Arabs to talk while the Israelis were ready and willing. And "land for peace" also suggests that it is the Arabs that peace must be bought from, not the Israelis.

But Obama doesn't understand that. He is stuck in a his little world and will continue to screw up US foreign policy. His only foreign policy success I can see is US help in evacuating the last 200 Jews from Yemen because their houses were firebombed on a daily basis (they are obviously not now UN-supported refugees and neither are any of the other Jews that fled Arab countries, TWICE as many as "Palestinian" refugees).

And the same is true about Mrs Clinton. I was wrong.

(I still think that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with Mr Clinton's foreign policy. He clearly at least understood what was going on and who all those people were he was meeting. I thought his wife was equally educated. I was wrong.)

lula posts:

I understood this after reading a book review written by Iwo Cyprian Pogonowski.  You should check out Naeim Giladi's book, Ben-Gurion's Scandals: How the Haganah and Mossad Eliminated Jews (Tempe Arizona: Dandelion Books. LLC. 2nd expanded edition, 2003.

It was the the author's statement that: "Jews killed Jews to create the state of Isreal", that caught my eye and attention.

Giladi interviewed Ben-Gurion and asked him why since Isreal is a democracy with a parliament, it did not have a constitution. Ben Gurion answered, "Look boy, if we have a constitution, we have to write it in the border of our country. And this is not our border, my dear."  To which Giladi asked, "then where is the border?" Ben-Gurion answered, "Wherever the Sahal (Isreal army) will come, this is the border."

And I am assuming that since such an accusation exists, you will use this as a "fact", right?

A surprising statement considering that Israel was under constant attacks, didn't have safe borders (or even borders) and would indeed have the borders wherever the army would go.

What's your point?

Is this some sort of pretext to accuse Israel of "imperialism" again, despite the fact that Israel (and Ben Gurion) have constantly offered peace at current borders, regardless of what those borders were?

I think it is rather typical that you would blame Israel for a situation forced on Israel by others. It wasn't Israel's fault that it didn't have defined borders. Israel accepted the partition plan, despite the fact that it made Jerusalem an international city. (And I think we both know how well the UN would have defended Jews' rights to live and worship in the "international city", right?)

Technicality time:  Since the state purpose of Hamas and others is the complete irradication of all Jews in the Middle East, then all places containing people are military targets.

Now that being said, why do we not hear from the Rachel Corries about how they support genocide on this scale?  Their silence is their deafening hypocrisy.

Ah, pish-tosh! Those are freedom fighters!

There are two answers.

1. Who cares? We can still support them.

2. They don't support genocide. They only say they do. So we can still support them.

Well, the rest of the world is just starting to learn what many Americans have known for over 2 years.  most US presidents come into the job naive on foreign affairs.  But they surround themselves with knowledgable people and learn on the job.  Obama has failed both ways - in surrounding himself with knowledgable people, and learning.

Clinton is another matter.  She could not care less about foreign affairs (it was just the highest ranking job Obama could give her).  It is clear to all but the most blinded liberals that she has been marginalized, and I am sure she is fuming (not that the marginalization was a bad idea considering her ineptness).  I suspect she will resign next year.  For 2 reasons: 1 - to distance herself from the failures of the Obama administration, and 2 - to start her campaign for 12.

DAMN!  You always impress me! (BTW, my reference to Clinton above is Ms, not Mr.)

Pish-tosh?   It does not matter if they are freedom fighters or not, they are global warming sources that the goal is to erradicate.  After that, all else is secondary.

Neither of which removes the stain and stigma of the statement and reality.  They support genocide.

Everyone keeps speaking ill of Leauki obssession over Hillary and wondering why?

During the primaries of this most recent race guess which candidate was the ONLY candidate to put a full page ad in Hebrew in Israel?

Yes, Hillary was the ONLY one.  She said in this ad that if she was elected she would do whatever it takes to make sure that Iran would NEVER obtain Nuclear weapons. 

When I read this, it was funny because it was just after a debate of the candidates when both Obama and Hillary said that they would negotiate and essentially military force is out of the question.

If you know Leauki, he loves Israel as do I.  I would have voted for her if I didn't know that she lies a lot.  Most people from the States don't realize how popular the Clintons are aboard and how unpopular Bush was aboard for the most part.  I don't support either political party for various reasons.

Lula, its good to hear from you. I haven't seen you around the boards for some time.  There are rules/principles for interpreting or understanding any language.  The first and primary one is usually called the 'Golden Rule of Interpretation' is to take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the facts of the context indicate otherwise.' This rule is recognized by logicians, grammarians and rhetoricians as the true criterion by which one must be governed. When guided by this principle, one cannot go far afield, but if it is ignored, one roams at will and can never know whether he has interpreted the Word of God correctly.

I have noticed that a lot of your bibical interpretation violates this rule.  Then a Second primary rule for interpretation is to become intimately acquainted with the author or in other words dicover the author and the people who is addressing and the life and times of those involved in a given case.  A very quick and brief example of this is that even thoush all wrote of the same one and only gospel (Galatians 1:8-9) the writes of each of the 4 gospels wrote to different groups of people:  Matthew to the Jews, Mark to the Romans, Luke to the Greek, and John to the Gnostics.  All of them have certain flavors in them due to the people groups they had in mind.

Your interpretations violate this rule as well.

How would one interpretate this verse:

 ' If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget;
  let my tongue cleave to my palate, if I do not remember you, if I do not bring up Jerusalem above the head of my joy. '

Everyone keeps speaking ill of Leauki obssession over Hillary and wondering why?

During the primaries of this most recent race guess which candidate was the ONLY candidate to put a full page ad in Hebrew in Israel?

Yes, Hillary was the ONLY one.  She said in this ad that if she was elected she would do whatever it takes to make sure that Iran would NEVER obtain Nuclear weapons. 

When I read this, it was funny because it was just after a debate of the candidates when both Obama and Hillary said that they would negotiate and essentially military force is out of the question.

If you know Leauki, he loves Israel as do I.  I would have voted for her if I didn't know that she lies a lot.  Most people from the States don't realize how popular the Clintons are aboard and how unpopular Bush was aboard for the most part.  I don't support either political party for various reasons.

Lula, its good to hear from you. I haven't seen you around the boards for some time.  There are rules/principles for interpreting or understanding any language.  The first and primary one is usually called the 'Golden Rule of Interpretation' is to take every word at its primary, ordinary, usual, literal meaning unless the facts of the context indicate otherwise.' This rule is recognized by logicians, grammarians and rhetoricians as the true criterion by which one must be governed. When guided by this principle, one cannot go far afield, but if it is ignored, one roams at will and can never know whether he has interpreted the Word of God correctly.

I have noticed that a lot of your bibical interpretation violates this rule.  Then a Second primary rule for interpretation is to become intimately acquainted with the author or in other words dicover the author and the people who is addressing and the life and times of those involved in a given case.  A very quick and brief example of this is that even thoush all wrote of the same one and only gospel (Galatians 1:8-9) the writes of each of the 4 gospels wrote to different groups of people:  Matthew to the Jews, Mark to the Romans, Luke to the Greek, and John to the Gnostics.  All of them have certain flavors in them due to the people groups they had in mind.

Your interpretations violate this rule as well.

How would one interpretate this verse:

 ' If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget;
  let my tongue cleave to my palate, if I do not remember you, if I do not bring up Jerusalem above the head of my joy. '

My apologies Leauki for invading your article with that post.  I saw that you were taking some slack and I figured most people on this board probably didn't know that she did that.

Also my apology for posting the rules of interpretation.  I really don't like people who are followers of Jesus Christ who have a strong leaning into Supersession/Replacement Theology.  This theology is very anti-biblical and has a minor tone of ant-semitism flavor.  I will not post anything further that would remove from your original intent.

I pray that all is well with you and that I can find your forgiveness.