As I've at least implied, I didn't agree with Arafat walking out of negotiations. I thought doing so without making a counter-offer was a mistake on his part.

That said, yes, you could of course identify something as a forfeiture/concession with or without the prism/framework of international law. Yes, the fairness of that concession is ultimately and technically subjective. That is an aside though; you obviously cannot assume the vantage of either position as an evaluator of these negotiations; you must identify and adopt the most impartial and least biased focal point. This would be international law as it is most representative of impartial global consensus. Israel is free to make its offering and indeed it probably was consistent with its position and objectives, but this does not obviate the fact that this offering was certainly weighted heavily in its favour by demanding Palestine make all of the concessions as determined by this impartial vantage. This is my point; it was by no account a sweetheart deal when examined through an unbiased prism independent of both parties. Arafat was thus perfectly right to refuse it, though he faulted in not providing a counter-offer.

No, I don't. I can in fact consider my own perspective, which is primarilly that those who carry on about fairness are generally trying to muddy an issue and are not focused enough on results. I in fact have made no judgments as to the actual fairness of teh initial offering, beyond suggesting that as an initial offering it was probably not something that even teh israeli's considered fair because tehy wanted room to negotiate towards a fair compromise. I don't have to acknowledge how unfair or fair it was and fall for an emotional appeal based on someone else's authority. As far as i am concerned Arafat demonstrated the position of a 5 year old by stomping away screaming "but that's not fair!" Whether it si fair, he thought it was fair, Israel thought it was fair or the international community thought it was fair is *irrellevant8 as far as I'm concerned, because Arrafat walked away to let his people die throwing a hissy fit about a subjective issue like fairness when bodies being strewn all over the middle east by this conflict is an objective fact.

Seeking a fair perspective from which to more objectively evaluate an emotionally charged set of negotiations with strong biases on each side is actually the direct opposite of attempting to 'muddy' an issue; it is in fact attempting to _clarify_ it. This is not an appeal to emotion, it's an appeal to sanity and the most logical and impartial analysis possible of a heavily subjective issue. Individual opinions and vantages are not an adequate basis, and are fraught with confounding elements and personal bias; you must rely on a more structured consensus as the basis of examination, which is again international law.

Again, much as you may think Arafat was wrong to walk out, which I fully agree with, the Israeli offer was untenable, and its refusal completely legitimate. It was not a sweetheart deal, and the record needs to be set straight on the nature of these negotiations. They were a notable step forward and a worthy attempt at achieving peace, but the 2000 Camp David Summit should not, and must not be viewed as some kind of proof of Israeli moral superiority with the (false) rationale that they made a very generous and satisfactory offer that Arafat was simply too greedy to accept.

it certainly masquerades as an attempt at clarification, but let us be specific- Arafat muddied teh waters when he cried "unfair" and walked out without giving a fair chance at peace. while there is certainly an attempt here to sound reasonable, what is being produced is a justification for his inexcusable behavior based on a rationalization of fairness which does not accurately apply to the situation- a first offering is being analysed as if it were the final deal, and as noted and agreed upon, the issue of fairness is inherantly subjective. Just because it is dressed up in language which approximates neutrality does not mean that it is not an emotional appeal based on subjective criteria. Arafat walked away from teh opportunity to save his people's lives and is using cries of unfairness to gather sympathy for his treachery. who knows how the talks would have gone had he stayed, perhaps the Israelis were starting from a hard position so they could point to how much they 'gave up' in negotiations. We can't know because of arafat's childish behavior, and analysing an initial proposal as if it were a final offer is anything but neutral in perspective- the method of analysis has a clear pro-palestinian bias.
As well I have not made any claims of Israeli morality in regards to this issue- as far as i am concerned niether side in this conflict has any morality to bring to the table with regards to their handling of teh region and all teh talk about fairness and morality is just so much noise, and an attempt to bring the fight into the international arena by seeing who can blame who for not giving in. they are both being childish, and the sad thing is they are dragging all of us towards WW3 because we keep listening to them and taking sides.

Looks like Obama was lying about not knowing about the situation in Benghazi. Or he didn't care enough to pay attention. Or he felt he could spin it as the video for political purposes.

State Dept. Email to White House at 6:07 PM on 9/11/12: 'Ansar al-Sharia Claims Responsibility for Benghazi Attack'

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/stat...responsibility

And on Letterman last night he called out Obama for lying about Romney's position on GM's bankruptcy. When Letterman calls out a Democrat the tides have truly turned. Things like this matter more than post debate polls which were even neutral or good for Romney.

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/letterma...it-go-bankrupt

Now, I don’t care whether you’re Republican or Democrat, you want your president to be telling the truth;

Looks like we lose either way then.

Because the above are not in any way an attempt to appeal to emotion, nor do they in the least bit reveal a bias on the issue.~


I'm not entirely certain what you're referring to, here, as 'the method of analysis'.
Are you referring to an analysis of the actions in the region through a lens of international law?
If you are, and if you seriously believe that international law produces a bias in favour of palestinian demands, then I would conclude that the only rational response would be to accede to those lawful demands until such a time as you are able to mount sufficient international support to change those laws.



Or - and this is just speculation, of course - the President decided to trust the repeated assurances of his intelligence agency over the unverified claims of an extremist militia.

I am refering specifically, as I have pointed out before, to utelizing criteria designed for analysing the final compromise to analyse an initial offering in a negotiation. that comes under the "duh" category- nobody starts in the middle.

Also nice selective quoting- they are both being childish. Pointing out that I think one of them is being childish doesn't show bias unless I think the other one *isn't*. Personally I think we need an international agreement to either invade both countries or let them fight it out amongst themselves with no outside help. Like when my kids have been fighting for a while and start appealing to me so they can "win" because "it's their fault"- they both get a time out. And yes the sad thing is that will people dying and two countries at stake the best metaphor is children fighting.

WRT Benghazi, the president got an email stating one thing, daily updates from intelligence stating something else, and really, what would be his motivation to lie? Sure I understand why some people have a motivation to paint him as a liar, but aside from the issue of honesty he comes off looking the same either way. intelligence isn't perfect, issues are often confused, and mistaken is not the same as lying.

You realize there is a presidential election going on right? And that he's been trumpeting his horn about how he's defeated Al Queda and killed Bin Laden, so having them kill an ambassador on 9/11 kind of squashes his only popular policy success in 4 years. So yeah, plenty of motivations to spin it for political reasons.