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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Secretary of State Kerry’s Speech on Middle East Peace

Reader Interactions

144Comments

  4. 4.

    Anya

    John Kerry: “Under a one-state solution Israel can either be Jewish or democratic. It can’t be both.” I hope Israelis head this simple warning.

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    Kerry knows Netanyahu isn’t serious about a two-state solution and never has been. He knows Trump isn’t serious about anything except acquiring more money and power. I guess he’s just laying down a marker.

  10. 10.

    hovercraft

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Eli Lake appears to be having a meltdown.

    Okay I’m going to watch it from the beginning.
    I’d say I’m surprised the shitgibbon is not live tweeting the speech, but it’s too long, and he’s still having a meltdown over Obama.

  11. 11.

    Spanky

    No can do video here at work, but yous guys seem to indicate that Kerry will conclude with a mic drop and walk offstage towards the end of his SOS gig.

    It’s way past time for Israel to realize that the US isn’t here to prop them up. And I know just the President who will make them pay their own way!

  14. 14.

    Chris

    @Anya:

    John Kerry: “Under a one-state solution Israel can either be Jewish or democratic. It can’t be both.” I hope Israelis head this simple warning.

    They’ll heed it. They’ll just pick “Jewish” over “democratic.” Tribalism and bigotry are in this year.

  17. 17.

    Betty Cracker

    @Spanky: If you mean Trump will make them “pay their own way,” that would involve a complete reversal of Trump’s current attitude. He and Netanyahu are polishing each other’s knobs on Twitter today in a most scandalous fashion.

    I’ve been trying to suss out how Trump might balance his coalition of Likudniks and neo-Nazis. That’ll be a real dilemma for him, but if I had to guess, I’d predict he’ll remain steadfast in his support for Netanyahu because 1) he admires Netanyahu’s disrespect for PBO, and 2) he’s such an ill-informed, patronizing crackpot that he probably conflates support for Netanyahu with loyalty to Mr. Ivanka.

  18. 18.

    Elizabelle

    @hovercraft: On top of that, Obama just bested Trump in Gallup’s Most Admired Man poll.

    And Hillary Clinton led her peers.

    More likely fodder for TrumpTweets.

  19. 19.

    Mike in NC

    Give the Trump administration — consisting of roughly equal numbers of Zionists and anti-Semites — about three weeks to get us involved in some crazy, nasty shit in the Middle East.

  21. 21.

    Chris

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’ve been trying to suss out how Trump might balance his coalition of Likudniks and neo-Nazis. That’ll be a real dilemma for him

    Not as long as they all agree that liberals and Muslims are the primary undesirables.

  23. 23.

    tobie

    @RobertDSC-iPhone 6: Absolutely. Kerry has been extraordinarily nimble and effective as SoS. Under his watch, we’ve had the Iran deal, the reopening of diplomatic relations with Cuba, North American and EU-wide sanctions against Russia for the Ukrainian invasion, chemical weapons inspections in Syria, and much more. His deftness and professionalism will be sorely missed.

  25. 25.

    Mike in DC

    The de facto annexation of the occupied territories has been a goal of the State of Israel since the late 70s. The shameful thing is that no major elected politician in the USA can point this out publicly.

  27. 27.

    Betty Cracker

    @Chris: That shared view allowed them to come together, but will it hold once the gravy train leaves the station? I don’t know. Could get interesting.

  28. 28.

    GregB

    We may finally be reaching the point where the people of good faith have to admit they have been played for suckers by the one state side for a long time.

    Surely Trump will be able to square the circle of unalloyed support for Israel with the far rightists in Russia and Iran.

  32. 32.

    Cacti

    If Israel finds the US abstention too onerous, they’re always welcome to reach out to their other friends for support.

    Oh, right.

  37. 37.

    Cacti

    @Botsplainer:

    Criticizing Israel makes you anti-semitic. They’re the bestest ally and bestest friends we ever had…

    They’ll always be there for us when they need us.

    They’ll always be ready to fight any foe down to the last American.

  38. 38.

    daveNYC

    I’m pretty sure Israel will be able to weather the next three weeks of our new middle-east stance until it’s replaced by Trump’s “Fuck ’em” policy.

  40. 40.

    Botsplainer

    @Cacti:

    …and howling with rage at any American who has the temerity to utter a thought that perhaps, just perhaps there was some overreach by the government of most saintly, holy, sacred of places (with a deed essentially spelled out in the written recollection of the oral myths of their ancestors, a semiliterate tribe of Bronze Age goatherds, now elevated to some pivotal historical role by an American apocalyptic death cult).

  41. 41.

    Doug R

    @dr. bloor: That’s another timeline, the one where the candidate with the most votes wins.
    America can keep the electoral college or be a democracy, but they can’t have both.

  42. 42.

    crawdad

    Since when does an administration announce a major foreign policy change with less than a month left before the end of their term?

  44. 44.

    Botsplainer

    @daveNYC:

    I’m pretty certain that those members of the military who voted Trump will be proud to be shipped back to an ME conflict to experience misery, injury, death and the conscience that is sparked by committing open war crimes due to Netanyahu’s belligerence and Trump’s psychopathy.

    I’m hoping that there is plenty of jail space at The Hague, assuming that it survives what’s coming. There are going to be quite a few Israelis and Americans which are going to be housed there.

  46. 46.

    Spanky

    Fuck these guys:

    Jerusalem (CNN) Israel will provide detailed, sensitive information to Donald Trump’s incoming administration about the US role as a covert partner in the UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, a senior Israeli official told CNN Tuesday.
    The official said it is becoming increasingly clear, based on Arab sources, that the administration was a covert partner in every detail of its formulation, together with the Palestinians.

  48. 48.

    Another Scott

    @dr. bloor: Not Adam, but…

    The President sets the policy. Kerry made a good case that this non-veto was not a change in US policy.

    So, my guess, in a contra-factual world, is that Yes, the US still would not have vetoed it.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  51. 51.

    hovercraft

    @dr. bloor:
    I think yes, the disrespect began when she was SoS. Remember Bibi laid down his marker when Biden visited first Israel as VP, a visit that Hillary had set up, so it was a slap at her too. Bibi also has a history antagonizing Bill Clinton, so there is no love lost there, I think the message still would have been sent. Obama wanted to leave this goodbye present for Bibi, and if she was coming in, it would have afforded her some distance, she could have come in as the good cop to Obama’s bad cop. Now it’s just a FU.

  52. 52.

    dr. bloor

    @Spanky: Well, at least he’s listening to someone’s intelligence service. Not that I find it at all shocking that the US was pulling some levers behind the scenes in the first place.

  53. 53.

    JMG

    This was Kerry giving up. That’s about the only time diplomats tell it straight. He just wants it on the record. Truth is, a majority of Israelis, just like a majority of Trump voters, see an apartheid state as their desired end state. That’s why Israel’s knee-jerk supporters here howl at the word apartheid. It’s a truth they cannot admit to themselves.

  54. 54.

    Betty Cracker

    @crawdad: Didn’t sound like a major foreign policy change to me, just reiteration of the long-standing commitment to a two-state solution and explanation about the abstention. ETA: Didn’t see the whole thing, though — what was new?

  55. 55.

    Miss Bianca

    @Spanky: And what I’m wondering is…just how “criminal” can it possibly be that the US chooses to abstain, rather than veto, or vote “nay”, on a UN Security Council vote? Or even, God forbid. JOIN a vote condemning Israeli actions?

  56. 56.

    Another Scott

    @Yarrow: China is very critical of any institution that claims to have a say on internal policies (because they don’t want their government’s legitimacy challenged). They have a complicated relationship with the ICC, for example. It’s hard for me to conceive of them hosting something like the ICC anytime in the future.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  57. 57.

    Yutsano

    @Botsplainer:

    I’m pretty certain that those members of the military who voted Trump will be proud to be shipped back to an ME conflict to experience misery, injury, death and the conscience that is sparked by committing open war crimes due to Netanyahu’s belligerence and Trump’s psychopathy.

    But e-mails…

  58. 58.

    germy

    NPR plays one sentence of Kerry’s speech. Then three people spend ten minutes discussing it. Then they play another sentence of his speech. Then they spend another ten minutes discussing that three-second sound byte. That’s what I’m hearing from the other room.
    The analysts sound skeptical, like “good journalists.”

  60. 60.

    Yutsano

    @germy: A friend of mine who’s a soldier in Alaska told me he voted Trump because of Hillary’s e-mails.

    The kicker: he’s from Wisconsin.

  61. 61.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    @Mike in NC:

    Give the Trump administration — consisting of roughly equal numbers of Zionists and anti-Semites — about three weeks to get us involved in some crazy, nasty shit in the Middle East.

    I’m sure VP-elect Dense is pushing just that. The more chaos and war there, the more likelihood of something catastrophic happening which brings a Dominionist, American Taliban like Dense that much closer to the Rapture.

    I’m really upset that we never got the FEMA reeducation camps for conservative white Christians that Obama promised us. This Iron Age tribal apocalyptic death cult that grew out of an older Bronze Age goatherd tradition will be the death of us all if Dense has his way.

  62. 62.

    schrodingers_cat

    Trump is the logical conclusion of the Reagan revolution and a Nixonian worldview. Plutocrats of this country have wanted to upend the New Deal since it was enacted and now with Trump they have one of their own to do that. They have cut out the middlemen, i.e. politicians and lobbyists. They want nothing short of the repeal of the 20th century. Welcome to the Bad Old Days.

  63. 63.

    hovercraft

    @Spanky: Adam said the other day that he would not trust any evidence they “produce” unless it could be verified by several other intelligence agencies. So I’m sure the no one will believe it, right? Nah bullshit, the media and most people will take it as gospel.

  64. 64.

    Botsplainer

    @Spanky:

    I’m genuinely puzzled at the “we’re telling on you” gambit that those fascist racists are trying to play.

    Do they think that American Jews are going to run and support Republicansin droves?

  65. 65.

    Chris

    @Betty Cracker:

    Didn’t sound like a major foreign policy change to me, just reiteration of the long-standing commitment to a two-state solution and explanation about the abstention.

    Israel policy is similar to the gun debate in a lot of ways. One of them is that whatever was longstanding bipartisan policy yesterday will be attacked tomorrow as an unprecedented betrayal of our freedoms and an act of unconscionable extremist left-wing fascist communism that will destroy all good things if we don’t fight it to our last dying breath.

  67. 67.

    Yarrow

    @Another Scott: Feels like the whole world order is shifting, so who knows how it will turn out. China may well come out ahead in all this and set up its own ICC of some sort.

    I guess my comment was partially along the lines that expecting the old norms to hold is not necessarily smart. We need to actively defend the institutions, not just think, “Oh, they’ll go to The Hague.” The Hague is in The Netherlands, which has its own issues with right wing extremism. If the right wing took charge, would they keep the ICC? What would it look like?

  68. 68.

    Spanky

    @Botsplainer: It reads almost like Israel expects the Trump administration to punish Obama admin officials for this. I think it’s impossible that Israel would think that that’s possible … under current law.

  69. 69.

    hovercraft

    @Botsplainer:
    They’ve been telling American Jews that Obama hates Israel since before he won the first time, and again when the Iran deal was being negotiated, and every time Obama refused to genuflect to Bibi, and he still won the Jewish vote both times, and so did Hillary. The stampede to the GOP has not happened because American Jews are supportive of Israel, but not blindly, and they are more importantly, all about inclusion, they are and always have been a small minority. They as much as any minority group take to heart, “first they came for the….”. They have lived it.

  70. 70.

    tobie

    @Botsplainer: According to the NY Times exit polls, the breakdown of the Jewish vote in the 2016 election was 71% for Clinton, 24% for Trump. I have a hard time seeing how Netanyahu can believe he’s going to win over American Jews with his actions against the outgoing Democratic administration.

  71. 71.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Betty Cracker: Nothing. It was a reiteration and defense of long standing US policy towards Israel and the Palestinians and a reiteration of the principles that were the backbone of the 2014 peace process initiative.

  72. 72.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    @germy:

    NPR plays one sentence of Kerry’s speech. Then three people spend ten minutes discussing it. Then they play another sentence of his speech. Then they spend another ten minutes discussing that three-second sound byte. That’s what I’m hearing from the other room.
    The analysts sound skeptical, like “good journalists.”

    Reason #2,869 I stopped giving to public radio a dozen years ago and stopped listening to them 3+ years ago. Also too, Reason # Gazillion to remind everybody what Driftglass declares the corporate media (of which NPR/PBS are a part of) Enemy #1.

  74. 74.

    Cacti

    Donald’s love triangle with Israeli Zionists and Putin’s Russia is going to make for some interesting times in our middle east policy.

  75. 75.

    Gator90

    @tobie:

    the Jewish vote in the 2016 election was 71% for Clinton, 24% for Trump

    My father-in-law doesn’t believe this statistic. He and his friends all voted for Trump, which means the statistic is liberal propaganda.

  77. 77.

    JordanRules

    @Served: Oh wow. This is going to be very interesting. Looking for more details but I expect his post Kerry speech is going to be a hot ass mess with this breaking news looking.

  79. 79.

    Served

    @JordanRules: It’s also extremely interesting when put in context with the “Israel to share intelligence with Trump” story. Was that Bibi setting a frame to claim “political retaliation” in advance of this news?

  80. 80.

    Spanky

    @Served: I’d seen somewhere (here?) that the AG was considering charges and may present them, but nothing indicated it would be this soon.

    Interesting times!

  81. 81.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Gator90: Have all the older people gone batty this election season. I know we talk a lot about Bernie bros here but the two worst examples of Bernie dead enders that I personally know are women in their 60s one is white and the other one is black. Banging my head on the desk is more fruitful than talking to either of them.

  82. 82.

    EBT

    @JordanRules: I saw something about that on Times of Israel yesterday, I couldn’t remember if that was a real paper or not and didn’t see it on Haaretz. so I wrote it off.

  83. 83.

    Chris

    @Served:

    Suddenly I understand why he’s so infuriated and pissed off at the reiteration of a longstanding and bipartisan U.S. policy.

  84. 84.

    JPL

    @Served: Bibi’s administration is suppose to respond to Kerry’s speech shortly, and I expect it to be strongly worded. The hope is that the news will concentrate on that, and not the investigation.

  85. 85.

    Cacti

    @JPL:

    Bibi’s administration is suppose to respond to Kerry’s speech shortly, and I expect it to be strongly worded. The hope is that the news will concentrate on that, and not the investigation.

    Bibi’s public response thus far has been a gift to his detractors. Acting like an unhinged spoiled brat at every turn.

    As an American President once said…”Please proceed”.

  86. 86.

    hovercraft

    Will Bibi be investigated for bribery and fraud?

    Marc Goldberg
    December 28, 2016, 2:19 pm

    The longer Bibi can make the UN Security Resolution against settlements scandal last the more time he has to release all his dirty little secrets in a way that will get the least possible attention. Did anyone notice that there has been a police inquiry into him for months?

    The investigation currently being conducted into the Prime minister for bribery and fraud was announced just two days ago right at the heart of the ongoing diplomatic crisis the Prime Minister has manufactured around the country.

    Follow the link to read the rest of the post from earlier today.

  87. 87.

    tobie

    @Gator90: I suppose you could tell him that birds of feather flock together but that probably still won’t convince him that his friends do not represent the entire American Jewish community. Oh maybe he’d say they’re the only real Jews. I feel like I don’t have a read on anything any longer.

  88. 88.

    JPL

    @Served: From your link

    Netanyahu set to give a response to Kerry’s speech in 5 minutes, live on all the nightly news casts

    He definitely doesn’t want the investigation to lead the news.

  91. 91.

    opiejeanne

    @schrodingers_cat: Yeah, our favorite neighbor just about Bernied us to death when we took over some cookies on Christmas Eve. She couldn’t tell you about the policies of either of them, but she really liked Bernie and had some doubts about Hillary.
    She’s about that age, but she did say she voted for Hillary, as we were leaving. She’s Jewish but not religious, he’s atheist but loves Christmas. I think he is still a Swedish citizen, so couldn’t vote. They’re good people but she does make me a little nuts sometimes.

  92. 92.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle:

    On top of that, Obama just bested Trump in Gallup’s Most Admired Man poll.

    Really? Oh, that has got to sting Trump’s fragile little ego.

    And this about Hillary. Wow.

    Hillary Clinton Most Admired Woman a Record 21st Time

  93. 93.

    Calouste

    @Betty Cracker: Israel was bestest buds with South Africa under apartheid. Yeah, they (Likud) are probably somewhat concerned about the anti-Jewish sentiments, but I suspect they think they can distract the neo-Nazis with anti-Muslim sentiment, and by suggesting that all Jews should relocate from the United States to Israel.

  94. 94.

    hovercraft

    Bibi has a Sad ;-(
    Frm Haaretz
    Kerry’s Peace Principles: Jerusalem Would Be Capital of Two States

    In speech strongly critical of Israeli government, Kerry warns against a one-state reality and lays out principles of future peace agreement. Netanyahu’s office: Speech biased against Israel.

    Barak Ravid | 
    Dec 28, 2016 8:28 PM

    U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry strongly criticized Israel’s government in a speech on Wednesday, saying that trends on the ground are leading to a one-state solution and defending the U.S. decision not to veto a UN Security Council resolution against the Israeli settlements.

    “If the choice is one-state Israel can neither be Jewish or democratic, it cannot be both and it will not ever live in peace,” he said.

    Kerry presented the principles of a future final status agreement: An Israeli and a Palestinian state based on the 1967 lines; full rights to all citizens; a solution to the Palestinian refugee issue; Jerusalem as the capital of both states; an end to the occupation, while satisfying Israel’s security needs, with a demilitarized Palestinian state; an end to all claims by both sides.

    Shortly after Kerry’ speech, the Prime Minister’s Office said: “Just like the resolution that John Kerry advanced at the United Nations, the speech he delivered was biased against Israel. For more than an hour Kerry dealt obsessively with the settlements and almost did not touch on the source of the conflict – Palestinian opposition to the existence of a Jewish state with any borders.”

    The secretary of state said that although Netanyahu said he supports the two-state solution, his government was the most right wing in Israel’s history, and its agenda was driven by the “most extreme elements.”

    “Netanyahu’s government policy is more committed to settlements than any in Israel’s history leading in opposite direction, leading to one state. Israel has effectively consolidated control of much of the West Bank for its own purposes,” he said.

    “Trends show a comprehensive movement to take West Bank land for Israeli development,” Kerry said. “Israeli farms flourish in Jordan River Valley and Israeli resorts line the Dead Sea where no Palestinian development is allowed.”

    “If Israel goes down the one state path it will never have peace with the Arab world,” Kerry said.

    Kerry also defended the U.S. abstention at the UN Security Council last Friday, which led to the adoption of a resolution critical of the Israeli settlements. “The vote in the UN was about protecting a viable two-state solution.. Israel living side by side with a Palestinian state… that’s what we were trying to preserve,” Kerry said.

    Kerry said that although the U.S. didn’t agree with every word in the resolution, they couldn’t “in good conscience veto a resolution that condemns violence and incitement, reiterates what has long been the overwhelming consensus international view on settlements, and calls for the parties to start taking constructive steps to advance the two state solution on the ground.”

    “If we had vetoed this resolution, the United States would have been giving license to further unfettered settlement construction that we fundamentally oppose,” Kerry added.

    Kerry rejected claims that the U.S. was behind the resolution, made by Israeli officials. “The Egyptians and Palestinians have long made clear their intention to bring this resolution to vote before end of year. The U.S. did not draft or introduce this legislation,” he said.

    Kerry also defended the Obama Administration’s record on Israel, pointing to an unprecedented 10-year $38 billion dollar military aid package concluded earlier this year. He added:

    “No American Administration has done more for Israel’s security than Barack Obama’s. The Israeli Prime Minister himself has noted our unprecedented military and intelligence cooperation. Our military exercises are more advanced than ever. Our assistance for Iron Dome has saved countless Israeli lives. We have consistently supported Israel’s right to defend itself, by itself, including during actions in Gaza that sparked great controversy.”

    He condemned terrorist attacks by Palestinians. “President Obama and I have made clear to the Palestinian leadership countless times, publicly and privately, that all incitement to violence must stop. We have consistently condemned violence and terrorism – and even condemned the Palestinian leadership for not condemning it,” Kerry said.

    Kerry laid down six principles of any future final status agreement between Israel and the Palestinians:

    FOLLOW LINK FOR FULL LIST

    Netanyahu fears Kerry’s remarks will be used as basis for international imitative on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Paris peace summit, taking place on January 15, or even in another Security Council resolution that will be put for a vote before Obama leaves office on January 20.

    Friday’s vote was able to pass the 15-member council because the United States broke with a long-standing approach of diplomatically shielding Israel and did not wield its veto power as it had on many times before.

    The resolution’s two main clauses state that the settlements have “no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law,” and call on the nations of the world “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.”

    Just ahead of Kerry’s planned speech, Jerusalem’s city planning commission approved a plan to build a three-story building for Jewish settlers in East Jerusalem’s predominantly Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan.

    The vote on the Silwan project took place despite the commission’s cancellation of a vote on hundreds of other housing projects for both Jews and Arabs in East Jerusalem earlier in the day. The Jerusalem municipality denied a Reuters report that a request to put off the vote on these other projects had come from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    Also Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump said that the U.S. “cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect” hours before the speech.

    “They used to have a great friend in the U.S., but……. not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (U.N.)! Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!” Trump tweeted.

  95. 95.

    germy

    The youtube livestream link is down.

    Youtube. Our Motto: “Here today, gone tomorrow.” (or today)

  96. 96.

    Blue in SLC

    @Betty Cracker: The American neo-nazis are split on what they think about Israel. At the post-election gathering of the ‘alt-right’ (i.e., American neo-nazi fascist white supremacists) there was what might seem like an odd declaration of support for ‘Zionism’. The reason, I presume, is two-fold: (1) They envision kicking the Jews out of the US and moving them to Israel; and (2) it means something horrible will happen to the Arabs in the Middle East. I fear the Likudniks will go along, thinking they can use the neo-Nazis for their own ends. Pence and his ilk will also throw their support behind these sorts of policies thanks to their delusional end-of-times beliefs. This makes for a nasty alliance and an extraordinarily dangerous mix.

    As an American Jew (and not just a “Jew living in America”) committed to the values of a diverse and inclusive society, I say they can go fuck themselves.

  97. 97.

    germy

    (Old Onion article. Warning: fake news ahead, for comedic purposes only)

    Israel Builds New Settlement To Host Palestinian Peace Talks

    JERUSALEM—As part of their continuing efforts to bring peace to the conflict-stricken region, Israeli government officials announced today the construction of a new settlement on Palestinian lands where future peace talks can be held. “After years of failed diplomacy, it has become clear that we need to make a fresh start, and what better way to do so than by appropriating a small amount of Palestinian territory where Israeli citizens can live and negotiators from both sides can talk about a peaceful way forward?” said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, referring to the civilian Jewish community that will be constructed in place of multiple razed city blocks in the West Bank. “With this new settlement in place, I believe that our prospects of peace and unity will be brighter than ever. In fact, we should build more settlements so there can be even more places to negotiate.” Netanyahu noted that any individuals currently living on the future site of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have exactly 36 hours to leave before they are forcibly removed.

  99. 99.

    D58826

    @hovercraft:

    Kerry also defended the Obama Administration’s record on Israel, pointing to an unprecedented 10-year $38 billion dollar military aid package concluded earlier this year.

    At this point I think that is about 38billion and one cent to D*****M much. Tell Bibi to go pouind the sand in the Negev.

  100. 100.

    Miss Bianca

    @Brachiator: Yeah, but emails!

    I know, I know…it’s just that the infantalization of the American political culture has produced an almost Pavlovian snark response in yours truly.

  101. 101.

    bemused

    I’ve been busy and was not paying close attention to the tv. Then suddenly something sounded wrong. Kerry was talking an awful long time. I didn’t notice any commercials nor media mouths blathering. Huh, it must be C-Span. Nope. It was msnbc and same thing on CNN. I almost fell over from the shock. This is unprecedented coverage for cable news, aside from Trump rallies.

  104. 104.

    Chris

    @Blue in SLC:

    The American neo-nazis are split on what they think about Israel.

    As near as I can tell, skinhead foreign policy amounts to a lot of hand-wringing over the question “do I hate the ragheads so much that I can stand to hold my nose and work with the Jews, or should I hold my nose and work with the ragheads because I hate the Jews a lot, too?”

  107. 107.

    trollhattan

    Trump will have an interesting time simultaneously keeping his buds Bibi and Vlad happy. Tringulate this, beyotch!

  109. 109.

    trollhattan

    @Chris:
    “Something, something Jews over there aren’t ruining mah country and they’re killin’ Ayrab Mooselims, so they’re okay, I guess.”

  110. 110.

    Bobby D

    “Where do you get the idea that the majority of Israelis support apartheid?

    From the democratically elected apartheid govt they’ve voted into place for a couple decades?

  111. 111.

    Another Scott

    @trollhattan: Donnie will leave those “details” to Pence and the XOM guy. They’re the “best people” you know.

    Donnie doesn’t care about stuff like “policy” or keeping others happy. That stuff just gets in the way of his work – supporting Trump, Inc.

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who wishes he was just being snarky…)

  112. 112.

    Botsplainer

    @Yarrow:

    The China version of an ICC would involve the DP (not the pornographic kind that some – ahem – find titillating). China, as a culture, appears to seem politicians and billionaires as fungible, and that they are generally replaceable if they make huge errors that result in great financial crimes or fatalities. They’d bill the families of the perpetrators of such war crimes for the bullet used in meting out the sentence.

    Were I to survive whatever catastrophes precipitated Chinese justice, I would likely appreciate this facet of it.

  113. 113.

    hovercraft

    @D58826:
    The election is over, she is no longer a threat, so now we can go back to admiring her. She only becomes scary when we have a gopmedia ponding it into us every day all day telling us she’s a scary bitch.

  116. 116.

    Felonius Monk

    @Calouste:

    and by suggesting that all Jews should relocate from the United States to Israel.

    Who, in their right mind, would do that. I’ve been to Israel, it’s the fvcking desert. I don’t care what they’ve done with irrigation. It’s still the desert and it’s ugly. Those settlements are ugly. Looks like living in a prison compound. If the Palestinians were smart, they would all move to Europe.

  118. 118.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle: A little more on that most admired poll.

    Obama

    Since Gallup started asking the question in 1946, incumbent presidents have dominated the list, winning 58 of the 70 times that Gallup has asked the question. The last exception was Obama himself, who received the honor as president-elect in 2009.

    Obama’s ninth consecutive year at the top of the list puts him in second place all time, behind president Dwight Eisenhower, who won the distinction 12 years….

    Following Obama and Trump on the top 10 list were Pope Francis (4%), Sen. Bernie Sanders (2%), the Rev. Billy Graham (1%), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (1%), the Dalai Lama (1%), former president Bill Clinton (1%), Microsoft founder Bill Gates (1%) and Vice President-elect Mike Pence (1%).

    Clinton

    After Clinton, the most admired women were first lady Michelle Obama (8%), German Chancellor Angela Merkel (3%), television mogul Oprah Winfrey (3%), television host Ellen DeGeneres (2%), Queen Elizabeth (2%), women’s rights activist Malala Yousafzai (2%), former secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (2%), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (2%) and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin (1%).

    Clinton was the most admired woman for the 15th consecutive year, and the 21st year overall — the most years at the top of the list of any woman in the poll’s history. Former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt was most admired for 13 years.

  122. 122.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: One of them is already discounting the worst of T’s appointments. As for Ruski meddlings, she thinks “we deserve it” for the United States has done in South America. As I said, not reachable by logic or common sense.

  125. 125.

    Cacti

    @hovercraft:

    The election is over, she is no longer a threat, so now we can go back to admiring her. She only becomes scary when we have a gopmedia ponding it into us every day all day telling us she’s a scary bitch.

    Yep, admirable when she’s not asking for a seat at the boys’ table.

  127. 127.

    Chris

    @Calouste:

    Adam’s post about this yesterday was quite good.

    So was the TL/DR from some later commenter who pointed out that Bibi needs antisemitism like Daesh needs Islamophobia.

  129. 129.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    As I keep saying, when the bombs are raining down on Tehran, it’s going to be cold comfort to the Iranians that the US got screwed by Russia the same way that Iran got screwed by the US.

    And anyone who thinks the meddling in Central America will be better under Comrade Trump is too stupid to live. There are way too many people who think Trump is an isolationist when there’s very little proof of it. Mostly, he seems to want to break our current alliances and ally with Russia instead.

  130. 130.

    hovercraft

    @Blue in SLC:

    I fear the Likudniks will go along, thinking they can use the neo-Nazis for their own ends.

    They know that the evangelicals believe that Israel needs to hold onto all of biblical Israel for the biblical prophecies to come true, which in their telling will result in their destruction if they refuse to convert, but since they don’t believe in the prophecy they are willing to go along with them. It furthers their own goal of annexing every inch of Palestinian land they can get. Cynical, but useful idiots are useful. Plus as Adam pointed out in a thread yesterday, the rise of ant-Semitism helps prove Bibi’s point that the only safe and welcoming place for Jews is Israel, so you should all come home to Israel.

  131. 131.

    D58826

    As if 2016 has not been long enough, the year’s dying minute will last an extra second to make up for time lost to Earth’s slowing rotation, timekeepers say.

    Countries that use Coordinated Universal Time — several West African nations, Britain, Ireland and Iceland — will add the leap second during the midnight countdown to 2017, making the year’s final minute 61 seconds long.

    PRESENTED W/O COMMENT
    http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/5-4-3-2-1-1-an-extra-second-to-see-out-2016/ar-BBxEPVz?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=iehp

  135. 135.

    Spanky

    @Baud: Everyone will have to do that at 23:59 CUT. It’s just that it only falls at midnight for those countries at/near the Prime Meridian. The article (predictably) garbles that bit.

    More evidence that the majority of journalists got into journalism to avoid the science and math requirements in college.

  136. 136.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Served: @JordanRules: That’s been coming for a while now. They’ve been doing a high priority, highly compartmentalized against leaks in depth investigation into him for over 9 months. They brought the evidence to the Israeli AG this week and asked for formal charges.

  138. 138.

    sherparick

    @Anya: The Israeli right-wing is okay with the non-democratic/ethnic cleaning bit directed at Israeli Arabs and Palestinians. And to be fair, the Israeli left and center were pretty much destroyed by Arafat’s rejection of Camp David and initiating the Second Intifada with the Ramallah Lynching. That incident pretty much destroyed most Israelis belief that they could live with the Arabs. There is a a strong constituency and interest in the U.S. for supporting Israel and Netanyahu and Ron Dermer, a right-wing Republican political operative before becoming Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. (and basically continued to be a Republican operative in forging an alliance between Republicans and Likud. It has now been 16 years, half a generation since that event. I think Obama realized in the first term that he was not going to be able make any progress as long as Netanyahu was Prime Minister Israel because he allied with the Republicans to make Obama as unsuccessful a President as possible. Ironically, Likud and other Israeli right wingers have little objection to right wing anti-semites in other countries as long as they keep the antisemitism sufficiently in sotto vocce (the meeting that broke up earlier this month in Israel over Ms. Winberg and Swedish Democrat party participation in it was probably due more to her being Swedish and less to the antisemitic proposal made by another Swedish Democrat in November. Apparently, Netanyahu and the Israeli right hope for some kind of alliance with Putin, Trump, and the nationalist right in Europe and India in order to get a free hand to punish the Arabs and ethnically cleanse them from the West Bank. Since that is the prescription of endless war, I expect a slow drift of Israelis to the U.S. and Europe. Right now, Israel still has more people migrating their then leaving, but it fell to zero during the 2d Intifada. It is back to a downward drift now. A long Intifada and a long Lebanon war, which Netanyahu seems intent on starting, will drive it into a negative migration. http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?c=is&v=27

  139. 139.

    Steeplejack (tablet)

    @D58826:

    It reminds me of the humor piece (The Onion?) about Sting: “I really admire his work; I just don’t listen to his music.”

  141. 141.

    opiejeanne

    @schrodingers_cat: My neighbor hasn’t let her hair go gray yet, but she’d fit right in with your crunchy ladies; she has an unease about Hillary but has decided that Trump is a bit worrying. She’s anti-vax but has no children so this is applied to her dogs. She takes them to an animal “healer”, who lives in a yurt. Apparently the yurt lends authority.

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