"Israel is prepared to make “painful compromises” for peace with the Palestinians, including the handover of land they seek for a state, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Congress Tuesday. Palestinians swiftly dismissed the Israeli leader’s terms for a deal as placing more obstacles in diplomacy’s way, casting doubt as to whether frozen peace talks would resume anytime soon.
Mr. Netanyahu received frequent standing ovations in addressing the joint meeting of Congress, a bastion of support for Israel. The speech came after a testy exchange last week with President Barack Obama over the contours of a future Palestine and Netanyahu used it to reiterate his expectations ahead of any talks.
They included Palestinian recognition of Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people and the scrapping of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ unity accord with the Islamist movement Hamas.
“Tear up your pact with Hamas. Sit down and negotiate. Make peace with the Jewish state,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
“I am willing to make painful compromises to achieve this historical peace. As the leader of Israel, it is my responsibility,” the right-wing leader said, echoing a pledge in a speech to Israel’s parliament on May 15.
“Now this is not easy for me. It’s not easy because I recognize that in a genuine peace we will be required to give up parts of the ancestral Jewish homeland,” he said, referring to the occupied West Bank.
Mr. Netanyahu explicitly suggested for the first time that Israel would cede some Jewish settlements in the West Bank, although others would be annexed under any future agreement.
“In any peace agreement that ends the conflict, some settlements will end up beyond Israel’s borders. The precise delineation of those borders must be negotiated,” Mr. Netanyahu said.
Mr. Netanyahu said any “compromise must reflect the dramatic demographic changes that have occurred,” referring to Israel’s construction of hundreds of settlements on land Palestinians want for a state.
Israel always has to fight for validation. It gives and it gives. It doesn't matter how reasonable Israel is, the insanity of the Arab states' sandbags takes precedence.
A "war zone" is an understatement, unfortunately
Were these attacks on Coptic Christians the result of a sham?
Asked in a recent interview if she converted to Islam for its own appeal, or simply to get rid of her Coptic husband, Abeer said "No, I had a lot of problems with my husband and that's what caused me to do this [convert to Islam]. I asked 'How can I be rid of him [her husband]' and was told to 'be done of him by changing your religion' [to Islam], so I did this to be rid of him." Asked "Do you want to stay a Muslim, Abeer?" she responded with a small "Well, it's something that there's no return from."
As we have seen, and as Abeer knows, Islam's views on conversion are dramatic: Muslims who convert out, the apostates, are to be put to death according to Sharia; non-Muslims who convert in—sincerely or not—are a source of great pride and parade.
In short, all the death and destruction recently visited upon the Copts was performed in the name of a "convert" whose only motivation for converting to Islam was to gain an advantage against her Christian husband. Even the Islamist Muhammad al-Awwa, an inciter against Copts, recently confirmed that Abeer "has no connection with Islam" and does not know the first thing about it.
Many Egyptian media commentators have rightly asked: what sort of Muslims are these who kill and destroy on behalf of an adulterous and bigamist woman—two great crimes in Islam? Apparently for some, gaining converts is more important than actually upholding Islamic principles; for others, any excuse to attack Christians and churches, even in the name of a nominal Muslim, is good enough.
When apologists speak of moderates, please do point this out.
There are plenty of ways to destroy your children: neglecting them, abusing them, failing to mould them into fine, productive human beings, including giving them crappy names and attempting to buck nature:
A Saturday Star story about a Toronto couple who have chosen to keep the sex of their baby a secret has elicited a rush of responses from readers.
“Never has an article left me so upset. These parents are turning their children into a bizarre lab experiment,” wrote Heather Reil in an email.
“The world around us has been set by thousands of years of social evolution. To try to undo this evolution through your child is very selfish and very inconsiderate to the child,” said Wayne Leung.
“Footloose and gender-free” told the story of Kathy Witterick and David Stocker, a couple who lives in Toronto’s Junction Triangle neighbourhood with their three young children, who believe a child’s sex should not determine his or her place in the world. The couple wants 4-month-old Storm to grow up free from strict social norms about males and females, so they have shared his or her sex only with sons Jazz, 5, and Kio, 2, a close family friend and the two midwives who helped deliver the baby....
The family challenges the norm on other issues, too. They practice “unschooling,” an offshoot of home-schooling that centres on the belief a child’s learning should be curiosity driven. They believe children can make meaningful choices for themselves, like choosing their own clothing and how to wear their hair. And the family co-sleeps, curling up together at night on two mattresses pushed together.
“I think the whole story was forcing people to think about the role of socialization of children,” said Zucker.
The family, who the Star had asked to participate in Saturday’s story, has decided not to do any more interviews. Jazz and Kio chose to go to the park over talking to inquiring journalists.
“We don’t want them to feel like exotic bugs, and when consulted, they said no thanks to more media attention,” wrote Witterick, 38, in an email.
As cliched as this sounds, we are the sum of our parts. This includes biology. Do these parents really believe that the power of will is somehow strong enough to ward off the inevitable biological outcomes the kids' respective physiology will endure? "Unschooling" doesn't produce inquisitive children but lazy, purposeless ones. I taught for four years. A student with nothing to do will not develop his intellect sitting on his @$$. Don't get me started on this "celebrating oneself" self-congratulatory nonsense.
These kids are my candidates for "most likely to go off the deep end". I'm calling it now.
But the stupidity doesn't end there. How long does a show like "Good Christian Belles" have to go before it's put in the dumpster?:
Poor Christians. Just so put upon. Not like they're politically shoving their dogmatic crap and bigotry down everyone's throats on a daily basis, right? They also have to whine about how it's JUST ALL SO UNFAIR! Ugh.
This would-be viewer is like a lot of sad, little people who have no idea what it is like to stand in a breadline or have their hands cut off in a theocracy. Yes, those dreadful God-botherers are the reason why girls have acid thrown in their faces or are beheaded or why cartoonists and others are forced to go into hiding. Except it isn't Christians.
What this mental midget refuses to understand is that Christians are an easy target not because their values of forgiveness, redemption, human worth and charity are so oppressive but make them less likely to lash out. Would ABC even attempt a show about catty Muslim women or homosexual caricatures? That would be bold, wouldn't it? And suicidal. Though Muslim trumps gay in the "thrown-under-the-bus" game liberals like playing, they can still sue and revile you. Isn't that worth the price of art and free expression? No. This is a TV network we're talking about. Higher principles just don't enter into it.
Unbelievable.
Sad. A dog stays by the remains of its dead relative.
And now, the only soapbox car that can take out the Death Star.
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