Charlie Rose

Abdel  01/30/2009 01:56 PM Report

JDavidson,

Are you seriously justifying the act of Israeli occupation in the west bank because collective Arab countries are as big as North America?

That, right there, is exactly the kind of excuses that won sympathy leading to the creation of an Israeli state in the first place.

Thats like carving a wealthy man's house because his home is just too big for him.

jdavidson1  01/25/2009 10:50 PM Report

At the end of the day, you have to remember that Israel accepted the U.N. partition in 1947 and the Arabs / Palestinians rejected it and immediately launched a war against the vastly outnumbered Israelis. Nearly every land Israel has gained since then has been won in a defensive war against the Arabs and Palestinians. So I think the symptathy towards the Palestinians - who almost entirely created their own problems - is bizarrely misplaced.

Also you'll have to explain why it's okay for Arab countries to have land the size of North America but it's not okay to let the Israelis have a piece of land the size of New Jersey. Just doesn't seem fair to me.

tartufe  01/19/2009 11:09 PM Report

It has been pleaded, ". . . that Jews might after all be human beings." The News Hour tonight was exuding with their humanity: 1,250 Gazans killed, scores more wounded, over 1/3rd or 400+ children. These "human beings" used phosphorous bombs on a school building burning children to death. The phosphorous bombs were followed by tank shells - to emphasize just how HUMAN they are.

The SS Storm Troopers are standing by, slobbering no doubt, awaiting and hoping for any sign of resistance so they can continue their slaughter. They will, palms up in typical supplication to the Obama administration, plead that oye, we tried to bring peace but they continue to resist. Why they've killed a dozen of us.

The west, strained as it is, will doubtless have to rebuild the infrastructure at least to a point where human services can be resumed to their previous subsistence level.

Hamas claimed less than 50 combatants killed. Credible or not the magnitude is probably in the ball park, 1,200 civilians killed, for 50 combatants. Cause the 50 were in a jam-packed concentration camp caliber ghetto.

The plethora of pity-party, woe-is-us, holocaust-reminder films, videos yadda, yadda are rendered HOLLOW. Cost of inhuman arrogance by these "humans."

The plaint that "Jews might after all be human beings," will be a hard sell with even the biased news that filters through. The Jews have incurred 12 deaths, one per cent of the 1,250 Gazans, but get disproportionate news coverage. Whereas 99 per cent should go to the victims.

The Obama euphoria makes our Israeli support-at-all-costs all the more pathetic, and ultimately will undermine our world standing back down to its rightful level.

As long as we support such inhuman humans, we deserve whatever that low esteem redeems. I for one don't think it will be good. But we can blame Obama, even if Bush helped increase our enemies list, Obama will continue the folly so he will be culpable enough for perpetuating the Israeli inhumanity. Perpetual humility spawns desperation. Unfortunately, one is judged by the company one keeps. And it will be costly - again!

marianrich  01/19/2009 12:29 PM Report

First of all, Charlie Rose is about the only place to hear anything halfway sensible anymore, other than the political comedy shows.

I think, though, history has sort of passed Simon's analysis by long before the period he discusses (post 1967). After all, isn't everything that has occurred, including the events of 1967 and the more recent period, basically an outcome of the failure/untenability of the two state solution of 1947? That is, there seems to still be little serious attention given to the inherent and perhaps fatal difficulties of religious/ethnic-based partitions as solutions to conflict in which there are overlapping populations. Even in the "Western democratic" world such things wreaked havoc in, eg, the N. Irish situation for decades. And the partition of Pakistan and India on ethno/religious lines has seen three wars and the creation of an exceedingly dangerous nuclear standoff, and a growing right wing Hindu fundo-nationalism that mirrors the Muslim varietis in Pakistan and Afghanistan (all the "stans", actually).

Israel is seeing the same sort of chickens coming home to roost as America did with Al Qaeda. Much as the US did in Afghanistan, Iran etc, Israel nurtured Hamas and Hezbollah as a counterweight to progressive, secular Arab/Palestinian forces, because those forces could very well have supported a multiethnic democratic Palestine which would have meant the end of a Jewish state. So what Simon identifies as history passing by is really more the logical playing out of this 60 year old contradiction. We have the logical outcome of ethno-religious partition--one in which each side would expel population based on ethnicity (a de facto victory of Kahanism in Israel).

One could hope that Israel could transform into a progressive nation that was a benefactor to its neighbors and to the underdeveloped world--much like we would like to see America be (and of course both Israel and the US do indeed provide such aid internationally). What we can hope for in the Obama era is an approach that doesnt simply "change sides" in favor of the Palestinians at the expense of Israel, but instead searches for new paradigms based on democracy and inclusion, and perhaps creative approaches to "two state" solutions (eg, open borders, federation, cooperation rather than being ethnic based and separatist). More like Brooklyn and less like the Balkans!

marcopolo789  01/16/2009 08:20 PM Report

We all as Palastinians knew this since late 90s...why do u think the second intifada broke in 2000? Sharon's visit was just the straw... this did not happen overnight like Mr Bob Simon's sudden epiphany makes it sound like. I am sorry to say that his report is way LONG overdue, no glory in reporting the obvious. Good investigative journalism should warn the public from such unilateral trends before it's too late. Journalists have abdicated their responsibilities regarding a conflict that is a recruitment bonanza for UBL, such as they let down the American people at the run of the Iraq war. Alas.

AleisterK  01/15/2009 12:26 AM Report

We need more conversations like this. Hopefully Obama will have the guts not to be manipulated by the Israeli Lobby in the US. We the people are sick and tired!

taylorw  01/14/2009 08:00 PM Report

This conversation reminded me of the occasions when people get off the air -- or off the stage -- and speak frankly about whatever the topic may be. Simon looked and sounded like someone who is no longer interested in -- and is tired of -- sugarcoating the story of the US-Israeli relationship, which he has covered for 25 years. It is silly to suggest he distorts the nature of what is happening there.

The problem, regrettably, goes back to the original idea: creating a new state for a single religious population, even if it wasn't dependent on massive immigration and land acquisition for its establishment. It is simply, and demonstrably after 60 years, a bad idea. Even if the US wasn't involved in its sustaining at all.

I go back to the first comment in this thread, which suggested putting the entire Levant under a UN Protectorate. I don't know about a UN anything, but I have often thought a Levantine state called Ibrahimia with several major metropolitan centers, tolerance for the Three Great Religions each of whom -- as Article I of its constitution - guarantees the sanctity and security of Jerusalem, and ultimately a position that is still at the crossroads of three continents. As unlikely as that might be, it at least contains the raw material out of which a real democracy might evolve.

In the meantime, I will continue to be grateful to reside here in the real "promised land," at least on this planet.

tartufe  01/14/2009 01:11 AM Report

K12 - interesting point re threatening phone calls. They are in ersatz Israel, i.e., NYC. Surely Shalom (Peace) would not resort to such non Free-man tactics.

Ironically, tonight they're touting yet another woe-be-gone holocaust movie "Defiance." They're too obtuse to realize that the current Gaza holocaust makes a mockery of their incessant "celebrations" of the holocaust cum hollow-cost. They are bereft of a any sense of embarrassment. Only a brazen entitlement. Totally counterproductive. Ahh, have I lapsed here? They are Chosen and thus given carte blanche, eh? Ask Congress. They know the priorities. Kill, murder, plunder all you want but please keep us in office.

K12  01/13/2009 07:49 PM Report

ShalomFreedman: firstly, is that your real name? Doesn't sound like it. I don't use mine for this reason: I once used it on a forum about world affairs and literally within minutes of one post about our giving too much aid to Israel and not enough to Darfur etc, I had endless threatening phone calls telling me to "shut up or die", as one typically polite Zionist told me. I got the post pulled and the calls stopped the next day. Reason enough?

As for your indignance and crocodile tears, let's try these facts on for size: first, here's Israeli PM Olmert bragging this week about forcing the US to not vote for a Gaza cease-fire that we tried to help create. It's from Reuters, those anti-semites (anyone who says anything but that Israel is indeed the Land of The Chosen People is an anti-semite, as we see daily in the press around the world):

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said a telephone call he made to U.S. President George W. Bush last week forced Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to abstain in a U.N. vote on the Gaza war, leaving her "shamed."

Pouring on political bravado in a speech late Monday, Olmert said he demanded to talk to Bush with only 10 minutes to spare before a U.N. Security Council vote Thursday on a resolution opposed by Israel calling for an immediate cease-fire.

"When we saw that the secretary of state, for reasons we did not really understand, wanted to vote in favour of the U.N. resolution ... I looked for President Bush and they told me he was in Philadelphia making a speech," Olmert said.

"I said, 'I don't care. I have to talk to him now,'" Olmert said, describing Bush, who leaves office on January 20, as "an unparalleled friend" of Israel.

"They got him off the podium, brought him to another room and I spoke to him. I told him, 'You can't vote in favour of this resolution.' He said, 'Listen, I don't know about it, I didn't see it, I'm not familiar with the phrasing.'"

Olmert said he then told Bush: "'I'm familiar with it. You can't vote in favour.'

"He gave an order to the secretary of state and she did not vote in favour of it -- a resolution she cooked up, phrased, organised and manoeuvred for. She was left pretty shamed and abstained on a resolution she arranged," Olmert said.

***************************

So there's your beloved Israeli leader in action.

Please defend that, Shalom.

The other question I want to ask you is this, and it's a simple one, really: why is Israel not a democracy?

You've lived there for 35 years. You must know the answer. What's wrong with democracy? Maybe that most Israelis would vote against this war and their right-wing minority's many other vicious schemes?

And if you don't have democracy, then how is it that you are not in truth very much an apartheid state, as Bob Simon (who only lived in Israel ten years, what can he know?) and millions of others claim?

Easy questions, free of invective and threats on your life.

I look forward to your well-informed and rational reply.

PS Here's what our military is cooking up with your tax dollars, folks: a brutal new secret weapon that Israel is using in Gaza. It ain't pretty; but then what that Israel does to steal ever more land from their neighbors is?

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/772933.html

Abdel  01/13/2009 02:44 AM Report

Great Show tonight! Very courageous of both Bob and Charlie I must say

A question though ...

Bob Simon spent 1/5th of the episode starkly criticizing Hamas and 4/5th of the episode denouncing Israely behavior in the West Bank (apartheid). Perhaps America - Hamas is justified in resist occupation (a George washington re-incarnation if you )? Just maybe ?

iemoto1  01/12/2009 03:18 PM Report

I, like many other viewers, was shocked to hear Bob Simon’s comments. America must cut off all aid and support for Israel and demand they cease all military action against the prisoners of Gaza.

I thought Bob Simon said his report from the West Bank would be on 60 minutes, but it didn’t happen yesterday and I don’t see any listing for a future program. I will check Charlie’s show tonight to see if he still has a show.

Dr_Ron  01/12/2009 01:11 PM Report

If reporters like Simon want to make commentary on the region and put their reputations and themselves at risk, all the better to them. However, the U.S. Government has no authority, moral or otherwise, to come up with all sorts of resolutions on the matter and pick the good guys and bad guys. Don't forget that they were partly responsible for encouraging the push for the Palestinian democracy that elected Hamas into power. And the billions of dollars toward subsidizing Israel's missile industry hasn't exactly placated the situation either. Instead of going out and policing the world, we aught to set things straight over here first.

BarakOsama  01/12/2009 01:08 PM Report

Don't worry yall. The chosen one is here!

tartufe  01/11/2009 11:28 PM Report

ShalomFreedman says, "I suggest Tartuffe and K- 12 take a look at the Islamist media, and have a small idea of the kind of fanatical hatred and violence, Israel is facing."

NYT, WSJ suffice. Islamist media would have legitimate rationale just by reading these two.

With a P:I murder ratio of 30:1, before this latest incursion and now approaching 1000:1, you want sympathy for the Israeli cause. Add to that the daily grinding humiliation through settlement encroachment, curtailed infrastructure - water, sewerage, power, check points, travel freedom, medical services, schooling, simple humanitarian considerations - and they murder their children (two schools attacked) when they protest with random rocket fire.

So, sow, reap, wail and gnash your teeth and deflect us goyim into a reminder of the holocaust (being diminished daily into a hollow-cost with the Nazi-style plundering).

If the two-state solution has been rendered to an impasse, under a one-state existence wouldn't it behoove Israel to make friends rather than enemies? Taking my land, rubbing my nose in my own excrement, and killing my children would hardly qualify. You want the right to respond to rocket fire. They obviously want the right to respond to inhumane treatment - for a half century.

Your willingness for the US to fight a proxy war with Iran doesn't garner much sympathy as well. Mr Simon said Israeli living was pretty special. It will continue longer with sustained efforts to remove the humiliation from their mouths, than continuing to grind them into their largely frustrated, relatively impotent, rocket fire. A gnats fart in comparison.

A mushroom cloud (even on top of your own head) may be desirable to oppressive daily humiliation.

facchetti  01/11/2009 05:04 AM Report

"Total democracy will never happen ... because of the demographics". I recall when we had a small problem with "demographics" in South Africa too. There some renamed it "separate development" for a while (it looked a lot a two-state solution, actually, but with a few more states) but they finally had to yield. Someone will have to yield here too, eventually, although I fear some would sooner sacrifice the security of the entire planet than see "total democracy" (they say it's a little like "total pregnancy") come to pass in this part of the world.

ShalomFreedman  01/11/2009 03:14 AM Report

First, a word on a couple of the comments made here, by someone who calls himself 'Tartufe' and another 'K12'. I do not know why people are afraid of using their real names when they make comments. But that is a side issue.

The viciousness towards Israel might be more understandable if if it were backed up by solid evidence, and above all a real understanding of Middle Eastern political realities.

It would also be more understandable if it were not accompanied by such obviously absurd claims as that Israel 'owns the media' and directs its coverage of events. In fact Israelis are disturbed by the media bias against them, and in the present operation the failure to really understand what it means for a country to go eight years with its citizens being attacked by rocket- fire, see that rocket- fire expanding, and not respond militarily.

As for Bob Simon he has some of his facts wrong. The demographics of West Bank reality, and Arab- Jewish population in the years to come are not as simple as he makes them. There are demographic analyses which point to far smaller numbers of Arabs in Judea and Samaria, and an increasing Jewish birth- rate in the whole land of Israel.

What he does not sufficiently point out is that Israel has made two territorial withdrawals, from Lebanon and from Gaza, and for this received rockets and missiles on its civilian population. A third withdrawal which would put the center and heartland of Israel in range of missile and rocket fire is not at the moment very popular.

All this said , this does not mean the two- state solution is dead. It means it would have to be developed and implemented far more slowly than most of us would like. The struggle, unfortunately, is a long one.

One more simple point to the sideline quarterbacks. I have lived in Israel for over thirty - five years. I know its people well. They long for peace, and most of them have been willing and would be willing to make sacrifices of land even of historical Biblical Eretz Yisrael, to do this. But what to do ? One cannot make Peace only with oneself. One needs someone on the other side who truly agrees to stop the hate, the violence, the unending determination to destroy one's home and people.

I suggest Tartuffe and K- 12 take a look at the Islamist media, and have a small idea of the kind of fanatical hatred and violence, Israel is facing.

Cooki  01/10/2009 02:54 PM Report

Great, informative, (re-educating)interview..I've watched it twice (so far), all the way through..

I agree with Mr. Simon (history has passed the 2-state solution by). Seems a very intractable situation.

TJHillgardner  01/10/2009 12:17 PM Report

Excellent interview. Compelling TV. When I saw the clip was 25 minutes long I groaned. After two minutes I had to watch it to its conclusion. Mr. Simon presented facts and news analysis and should not be criticized for his point of view as he did not express one. Apartheid is a fair characterization and Gaza is like the former sovereign zones within South Africa. A complete blockade of a nation is an act of war.

US support for Israel - no matter what, and especially in light of the immoral policies it has followed - is the problem. Still, in the United States the American people generally are unquestioning about the premises for this country's strong support of Israel. Countries that deny basic human rights to human beings within the geographical sphere of their control are not deserving of our support nor the monikers of "democratic state" or "freedom fighter." There can be no doubt that the inordinate concentration of news stories about Israel and the Middle East in this country are part of the reasons why Americans have been deluded into believing the myth of the preeminence of importance of Israel to American foreign policy interests. This is not to say that the United States should not defend the right of Israel to exist, but United States foreign policy has gone so far beyond that for so very long that our foreign policy has very little to do with the right of Israel to exist.

The events of 9/11/2009 cannot be justified but they certainly can be understood in light of the anger and resentment that grows in the hearts of Arabs from the injustice visited upon the Palestinian people by the Israelis through the manifest destiny policy of the Zionists over the so-called "occupied territories."

From where I sit in New York City, it seems that more than half of the 300,000 Israeli settlers on the West Bank come from families that hail from New York City if not from Brooklyn alone. By their numbers in population, Jews have a great deal of influence on both national and New York politics. Nationally, their numbers are concentrated in New York, California and Florida (two prized electoral states and one infamous "swing state."). In New York, the so-called media capital of the world, many people are afraid to speak out against a wrongheaded foreign policy for fear of being labeled anti-Semetic. Politicians, in order to be elected, pander to the Jewish interests. Not suprisingly, for the most part (with a few notable exceptions) New York Jews are blindly supportive of Israel, buying Israel bonds through their synagogues and attending political rallies at the UN. Add to this political power base the evangelical Christians who support Israel based entirely on biblical doctrines and you can understand why Bob Simon and Charlie Rose talked about the "pro forma" statements of Barack Obama in support of Israel that are to be expected in a national election campaign.

As for hopefulness that Barack Obama will bring change to our blind support of an oppressive political regime, I have been disappointed by Obama's moves since Election Day particularly assembling Clinton's old cabinet and appointing Rahm Emmanuel as his chief of staff. So despite how cool he played his cards during the political campaign, and how the Israelis are nervous about an Obama presidency, I , too, fear that we are in for more of the same old, same old.

tartufe  01/10/2009 12:16 AM Report

Some great comments. Where are the zionists? Uncharacteristically silent. Are they embarrassed by the father land - as well?

Amir  01/10/2009 12:13 AM Report

There is one more solution that I don't know why nobody is mentioning. Israel can simply draw back to the 67 borders and tell the settlers that they have the choice to either return to Israel or stay under the Palestinian authority. This way the two state solution is still viable, and Israel won't have to fight any settlers. I never understood why they were forced into Israel in the first place. The Israeli public will eventually see that that is the only solution, and violence is avoided. Isn't it that simple?

iqbahm  01/09/2009 09:34 PM Report

K-12,

I am really impressed at your crystal clear thinking process. I don't want to insult the general citizens of Israel, but I must say that Israel along with it's PR lobby have kept general people of the USA (even the government) in a world of wrong information about mid east.

Someday, truth will come out.

hrc  01/09/2009 07:02 PM Report

Where's Joe Biden when you need him.

K12  01/09/2009 06:31 PM Report

Charlie, I can't begin to commend or thank you enough for this truly excellent interview with Bob Simon. To hear at last someone from the mainstream media (no insult intended) who really understands the area speak what so many know to be the truth was both astonishing and moving.

I am neither Jewish nor Arab, just someone who has been assaulted with daily headlines about the Middle East since I was a kid in the 60s. I always wondered: why do we hear about Israel every day, but almost never about Africa or South America or our neighbors in Canada or pretty much anywhere else in the world? Do they not exist? Are they not important?

Now that I know who owns what and why they need us to believe whatever we are told, I am daily dismayed at the lies we are fed about most everything, but especially concerning the Middle East and the real reasons for our being in Iraq. Not that that war is mentioned much these days. They just siphon the 10 billion-plus a month and shhh, let's not upset that little cash cow. Here's betting Obama renegs on his promises about ending the war and plays puppet to Zionism like every other President.

Bob Simon was so honest and blunt and simply right on about the situation and our kowtowing to Israel, no matter how they treat people or break accords, that I was as stunned as Charlie. To hear that much truth in 25 minutes after decades of mainstream media one-sidedness felt almost miraculous.

When will we wake up to the fact that we are fighting Israel's wars and letting our kids die for something that is not our business in any way? Whenever that is, I will think of this interview and be truly thankful that there are people like Charlie and Bob with enough guts to tell it like it is.

I've always thought it interesting that every nation in the Middle East is full of terrorists...except Israel. Never once have I seen the term "Israeli terrorists" in our media. They are only "freedom fighters". This interview explains why that is quite clearly.

No way Obama has the balls to cut off aid to Israel, but that Bob had the balls to suggest it was the only hope for the area makes me respect him on a much higher level than anyone I can think of on any current network news program. Truly inspiring to see a man speak truth about the naked emperor, and to have it broadcast unedited. This is what true journalism is supposed to be: intelligent, informed people speaking their minds on whatever side of the issue they find to be true.

To Charlie and all his staff: stand tall and proud. Your recent pieces on the phony bailout and the Middle East have been exemplary. Well done. Please keep stepping it up ever more notches; we are at a real crossroads and those with the bully pulpit need to go all-out to let people know the truth behind the headlines.

And to Bob Simon, nothing but kudos and respect. You are a rare tribute to your profession.

sean  01/09/2009 02:17 PM Report

Although Mr. Simon makes the important points that the Israeli settlements are harming the peace process and that Palestinians in Gaza are living in a large prison, he is wrong when he says the world is allowing this to happen. It is the United States that is allowing this to happen. Every year for nearly twenty years the U.N. has put resolutions on the table that would call for a two state solution roughly along the 1967 borders. Every year it is the same situation: the vast, vast majority of the world votes in favor of it, and the United States and Israel reject it. American people need to stand up for a two state solution and demand it of their leaders so this grave injustice can be stopped.

brewer595  01/08/2009 11:21 PM Report

I agree with bubbareeves. This interview was too one-sided. Mr. Rose fail to examine Mr. Simon's points with any real debate of Mr. Simon's view of the "facts." I usually find Mr. Rose a good interview, but this interview was not very good.

chrisbak  01/08/2009 11:19 PM Report

.This was an especially informative interview and I highly recommend it. However I wondered if Simon too easily discarded the possibility of a 1-state solution? For example a 1-state solution for Iraq remains US policy and is strongly supported by Iraq's neighbors. Also Simon ignored that predominantly Arab countries like Iraq seem to be gaining in influence within the US, to some extent at the expense of Israel. We should welcome that trend as part of a healthier US foreign policy toward the Middle East.

iqbahm  01/08/2009 10:46 PM Report

I found Bob Simon's interview very truthful. It is rarely seen in US media any one is crticizing (right/wrong) any action of Israel. A big organized group of people/journalsits jump on the person who critisize Israel right away. Why is that? I am mostly impressed by the policital dynamic system of Israel, at the same time very very sad with their policy in mid east. Why Irsael is beyond criticism? Is it a democratic practice?

tartufe  01/08/2009 06:08 PM Report

Re Mr Simon's conjecture that the only way they would relinquish the settlements would require a US president with cajones enough to cut Israel off may be spot on, but that aint gonna happen.

Obama is too ambitious, too young and too short of real wisdom to have such foresight. Congress would overrule such wisdom at any rate.

Israel is free to self-immolate. I have faith in them.

tartufe  01/08/2009 05:59 PM Report

Tsk, tsk RE Mant says, "Or alternatively, we can drop a good-sized nuclear weapon on the area and re-visit the issue in 2,000 years or so."

Interesting that Ahmadinejad's not the only one that this occurs to. Must be an instinctual remedy to cauterize the putrescent gangrene from the geopolitical body.

Alas, it's too close to what may well be the ultimate outcome. Unfortunately, our species wouldn't be content with that. Total extinction seems to be in our lemming-like genetic code.

Given Israel's repugnant example, maybe it's well deserved. Daily perpetual humiliation would at some point welcome the proverbial mushroom cloud. Nothing but a cinder in 2,000 years Mr/Ms Mant.

YLKC  01/08/2009 04:12 PM Report

Kudos to your conversation with Bob Simon, who should be congratulated for daring to speak the obvious. Any mildly

interested reader of the Middle East situation cannot help but come to the assessment that Simon brought forth last night. The trouble is no American politicians dare to take

any stand mildly critical of Israel if they want to survive,

given the fact that the media, banking and businesses and a large segment of the public (the evangelicals to note)are all under control of the pro Israelis faction. Comments offered by 'bubbareeves' are typical. Despite news on how Israel's sporadic raids in Gaza, arresting and killing the

Palestinians at will, withholding tax revenue and shortchanging the latter's water rights, holding them virtue prisoners by sealing off the tiny area by land, air and sea, bulldozing their houses and homes for the slightest instances of defiance, these Israelophiles are only able to consider the welfare of the Israelis to the

complete obliviousness of the plight of the Palestinians. To these people, I suggest they go to Gaza or even the West Bank and stay a month of two to gain a proper perspective

of the inherent anger of the oppressed. If Mayor Bloomberg's remark on the stupidity of 'proportionate retaliation (paraphrasing)' is to be taken seriously, Hamas has every right to target Israeli towns with rockets. After all to repeat Bloomberg's words, a government's responsibility is to protect its people. To expect an aggrieved populace to look upon its aggressors with good will defies human nature. If Israelis truly want peace,they must first treat their neighbors as human beings!

OnReflection  01/08/2009 04:06 PM Report

A very enlightening program Mr.Rose,

Once again President Jimmy Carter has been vindicated, Israel is a Apartheid State, Hence not a true Democracy.

We as Americans can no longer support an authoritarian regime, the likes of Apartheid South Africa.

I agree with your statement Mr.Rose the world has let this go on for to long.

OnReflection  01/08/2009 04:06 PM Report

A very enlightening program Mr.Rose,

Once again President Jimmy Carter has been vindicated, Israel is a Apartheid State, Hence not a true Democracy.

We as Americans can no longer support an authoritarian regime, the likes of Apartheid South Africa.

I agree with your statement Mr.Rose the world has let this go on for to long.

DavidSmith  01/08/2009 03:58 PM Report

I can understand why Israel took control of the West Bank. But it's incomprehensible that they allowed the Settlements in the first place, and its foregoing expansion ever since.

The people of Israel deserve peace, like everybody else, but not when they are adamantly acting as thieves.

They allowed their people to become tenants of their neighbor's seized land, and that made it legitimately theirs.

It's humorous that Prime Minister Barak praised president-elect Obama's analogy about his will and right to fight defending his daughters if attacked, yet totally neglects that the Palestinians are fighting just that...their land was taken from them. I can understand Israel placing troops there eternally or until reaching a compromise, but acted by adding insult to injury and built-on on what was not theirs in the first place, that makes them crooks in the world stage and it is unacceptable for the US to maintain its support unless they remove the Settements.

bubbareeves  01/08/2009 03:05 PM Report

Your converation with Simon was a joke!. You barely questioned his outrageous [and fallacious statements] Every single poll in Israel from Likud to Meretz favours a 2 state solution. As a friend of Israel, whenever I am there all that is ever discussed with friends/family is politics, Israeli's live it/love it..bar perhaps the Simon family!..His nonsense re;1 state/apartheid etc is just that absolute crap, me thinks he's been reading a little bit of Jimmy Carter of late.....Love you show Charlie, but when biased bogus individuals like Simon come on the least you can do is counteract/question their statements/opinions...you seemed blindsided by him when you ended it off 'thanks for being here...I think. Israel will continue working towards a two state solution with Fatah, everything [including settlements] are on the table!! Dream on Simon!!

REMant  01/08/2009 02:07 PM Report

Indeed very pessimistic, but I think realistic. I can think of two more options. The first: we can recognize the importance of the area to a good portion of mankind by making Palestine a UN mandate or protectorate including the Lebanon, Jordan, Israel and the present Palestine, with some autonomy, build settlements for those in refugee camps equivalent to the Israeli's and, if necessary, to increase the motive for its preservation, move the UN headquaters there. God knows it isn't doing anything of importance where it is. This may not find complete favor with everyone, but should solve the problem. Or alternatively, we can drop a good-sized nuclear weapon on the area and re-visit the issue in 2,000 years or so.