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Subscribe to RSSPresident Barack Obama spoke on the unrest in the Middle East while on a trip to Asia. The president's trip is meant to put a focus on foreign policy, with the president making a tour of the region, including Myanmar and Cambodia. NBC's Chuck Todd reports from Bangkok.
President Barack Obama said Sunday that Israel has “every right” to defend itself against missile attacks by militants inside Gaza but warned that escalating the offensive with Israeli ground troops could undermine any hope of a peace process with the Palestinians.
"Let's understand what the precipitating event here that's causing the current crisis and that was an ever-escalating number of missiles that were landing not just in Israeli territory but in areas that are populated, and there's no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders,” Obama said at press conference in Thailand at the start of a three-nation tour in Asia.
“So we are fully supportive of Israel's right to defend itself from missiles landing on people's homes and workplaces and potentially killing civilians."
He added: "Israel has every right to expect that it does not have missiles fired into its territory. If that can be accomplished without a ramping up of military activity in Gaza, that's preferable. It's not just preferable for the people of Gaza. It's also preferable for Israelis, because if Israeli troops are in Gaza, they're much more at risk of incurring fatalities or being wounded."
Netanyahu: Israel prepared for ‘significant expansion’ of Gaza operation
More than 50 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds more wounded in the four days of Israeli assaults. Egyptian officials are working on securing a truce between Israel and the Palestinian factions, which could help avert a war both sides say they are prepared to fight. NBC's Ayman Mohyeldin reports.
Obama directed some of his comments to the heads of state of Egypt and Turkey, both countries that are supportive of the Palestinians. “Those who champion the cause of Palestinians should recognize that if we see a further escalation of the situation in Gaza than the likelihood of us getting back on any kind of peace track that leads to a two-state solution is going to be pushed off way into the future,” he said.
Obama's comments came as Israel's campaign against Hamas militants in Gaza blasted into its fifth day. Israel is at a crossroads of whether to launch a ground invasion or pursue Egyptian-led truce efforts, and Obama sought to clearly defend the U.S. ally's military rights while pushing for a halt in the violence.
Key players in the Israel-Gaza cross-border conflict
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Sunday that Israel was prepared to significantly expand its military operation in Gaza. Obama has been lobbying Netanyahu along with the leaders of Egypt and Turkey to try to halt the crisis -- including stopping rocket strikes on Israel.
Ammar Awad / Reuters
Two sides exchange deadly airstrikes, rocket attacks.
He said Israel was justly responding to "an ever escalating number of missiles that were landing not just in Israeli territory, but in areas that are populated. And there's no country on earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders."
Obama said Palestinians will have no chance to pursue their own state and a lasting peace with Israel as long as rockets are fired into Israel. He said he hoped for a clearer process over the next 48 hours -- showing how much the Mideast conflict had intruded on his diplomatic mission to Asia.
NBC News' Shawna Thomas and The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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HAMAS has a secret weapon that can Disable F16'S from dropping Bombs on GAZA!!!!!!!
HAMAS..................simply stops shooting rockets into Israel.
Works 100%
apr 13 2012- Obama have proven more than willing to sidestep Congress to place American tax-dollars in the hands of their friends throughout the world. It was, after all, just last month that the administration circumvented Congress and gave $1.5 billion in aid to the Muslim Brotherhood-run Egyptian government............
Obama administration is sending $147 million in funding to the West Bank and Hamas-run Gaza.
why is my TAX MONEY WASTED going to homicidal maniacs?
why is my TAX MONEY WASTED, when it should be used to capture, charge and try these killers?
His deception and meaningless rethoric continues with talk of support for Israel on one hand and giving aid to Hamas with the other through the Muslim Brotherhood.
How much do we give to Israel... Mr Smart Guy
Still don't get it do you, he's playing both sides appeasing rich Jewish campaign donors here and financing the Muslim Brotherhood at the same time. Wake up, catch up and keep up.
HUigi... you are hallucinating... see a psychiatrist soon
Normally i would agree with the basic ideology of protecting one self. But in this case Obama, I see this as a case of the Palestinians trying to protect themselves.
I love how people conveniently forget that Israel is an occupying force, who have herded the Palestinians into ghettos. After stealing their land, and one of their most holy religious sites.
Israel is currently observing the year 5.773.
People who support Hamas are people who support the total destruction of Israel and the killing of every Jew on the planet.
Looks like we see which side you are on.
.
"...Israel is an occupying force...." Really?! Israel handed the Gaza Strip over in September of 2005! Soon after Hamas took over the Government in January, 2006, They began an, intermitent, but consistant policy of launching rockets into Israel from there!
Hamas, and therefore the Palestinians, are and for a long time have been the Aggressors! They control a valuable Coastline on the Mediterranean Ocean, yet chose to make war with Israel rather than enrich the population!
Hamas started this
steven.. we are in 2012.. see a psychiatrist
Go Obama! Agree with ya all the way. Israel had every right to fire on the hamas and take them out like the cockroaches they are. Still the big problem is who is funding them and giving them weapons? Oh thats right Iran is doing that. Why not stop the problem from the source? The world needs to change in order for us to move forward.
The hair on the back of Netanyahu's head must really be standing up now! WOW !! For Obama to make a statement like this?! Every red light on the Israeli threat board is flashing! After four years of discounting and ignoring, after inviting Netanyahu to the White House for a confrence and then leaving him to sit in an anti-room for hours while Obama has supper, after demenaing him with Sarkozy, now this!
Netanyahu knows that Obama is doing something to undermine Israel somewhere behind the scenes! Fool me once shame on you! Fool me twice, shame on me! " I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no other way of judging the future but by the past" Patrick Henry
Really, didn't Americans in Benghazi have every right to have adequate protection from terrorist attacks and military support when the attacks began?
Harry Reid Shuts Down McCain On Libya: ‘End The Politicization Of National Security’
http://mccainblogette.com/forum/topic/3144988/harry-reid-shuts-down-mccain-on-libya-lsquo-end-the-politicization-of-national-security-rsquo
Harry Reid thinks be can try to stop McCain but he can't hide Obama's cover up that will be addressed in further hearing and investigations.
Obama called out and challenged McCain and Graham because of the Rice's controversial statements about Benghazi. Let's see if he doesn't hide behind Privilege when the time comes.
"Something happened... H.R. 1388 was passed yesterday, behind our backs. You may want to read about it. It wasn't mentioned on the news... just went by on the ticker tape at the bottom of the CNN screen.
Obama funds $20M in tax payer dollars to immigrate Hamas Refugees to the USA. This is the news that didn't make the headlines...
By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in "migration assistance" to the Palestinian refugees and "conflict victims" in Gaza.
The "presidential determination", which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States, was signed on January 27 and appeared in the Federal Register on February 4."
Not only do we bring the terrorists to this country, we pay their way. Let's make some more cuts to medicare/medicaid and education so we can keep bringing them in.
Them and a lot of other "refugees". To Salt Lake and Minneapolis and others that I know of and those cities get federal dollars.
It's been going on for much longer than when Obama came to office but nice try. You could send back all those federal dollars if you don't like it.
Good.. you can blame Ronnie Reagan and the ConTurds for that
Dear Mr. President:
Thank you for your words. You love words. You don't love action. Your first four years taught us you are pure political and nothing else.
So yes we will defend ourselves. With your blessing or not.
Signed,
Israel
We've armed you with state of the art weapons all for free... you can fight your own wars.
BTW, we need to cut off the $114 BILLION in aid we send to Israel every year simply because we can't afford it.
Hey, isn't Bibi in another election now? How convenient. He didn't think he could win without starting another war? Maybe he was too busy screwing with our election rather than engaging the Palestinians in peace talks.
Another falsehood.
That number is aid to Israel since 1949:
http://journalistsresource.org/studies/international/conflicts/u-s-foreign-aid-to-israel-2012-congressional-report
Armand with typical deceptive liberal talking points. You can fool some of the people some of the time................ but you've been exposed this time.
Obama: Israel has 'every right' to impose its final solution on Palestinians.
Thank you for demonstrating your ignorance of history.
Hamas started firing rockets because Israel made "decisions". Oh that's a good excuse!
All Lah needs more virgins... so many martyrs, so few virgins.
BTW, if Romney were President, we'd be in WWIII by now with Iran and Russia.
Romney was a war mongering draft dodger that would have had us in a nuclear conflagration with "our geo political foe" Russia by now.
You don't like it here... move.
Armand! You still having that trouble when you try to chew gum and walk!?
You sound like another anit christ Mormon and you people don't have any room to talk
Obama: Israel has 'every right' to impose its final solution on Palestinians.
If you are unbiased or if you can lay your bias aside and look at the problem from each sides perspective from the 1947 partition plan to now you can get a sense of just how difficult this has become in 65 years. For get Hamas and the Israeli Government look at it from the people's perspective.
Two wrongs can never make a right. Correction I do know of a situation in which 2 conservatives had a child who grew uo tp be a Democrat so that would be a situation where 2 wrongs did make a right, it is the only one I know of though.
How did you propose to stop Hamas from firing their 10,000 rockets into Jerusalem?
By doing a ground pound like the Israeli army is planning now just like the last time they spanked Hamas. Any more questions?
Wow, that was the cleverest bit of wit I've ever seen in my entire life... Fantastic... I bet you felt really spectacular about yourself and had a big ol' smile on your face as you typed out that little diamond... Or perhaps you had that asinine look that the cretins on PMSNBC have on their faces when they make a "HA HA" on the TV about the mean old backwards Republicans... Either way, Good Show!!
For all the Christians out there, we should be looking at the current situation at two levels: political and biblical.
Political:
The basics of national defense is punching back when being attached.
Biblical:
In the end, God will come back to Earth when Israel is being surrounded by nations around the world.
For those who have opposing views, no offense.
God Bless.
Why did the Evangelicals want to put an anti-christ into the white house?
The mormons claim to be Jews... every one is a Jew in happy mormon theology, Mormons descended from Ephraim, Native Americans from Manasseh, Tongan BYU football players, everybody except maybe black people.
I know the blasphemy of them which say they are Jews and are not, but are the Synagogue of Satan. - Revelations 2:9
Revelation is based on images created by Zoaster - Zarathustra. Jewish writers wrote down the images of absolute good versus absolute evil and a battle at the end of the world. It never made it into mainstream Judaism, but the Roman Empire, when they took over Christianity, needed to change the peaceful and tolerant religion of Jesus into a justification for war so they created Revelation with Zoaster's violent images.
They also copied the mother and child Egyptian Goddess - Isis and her son Horus - popular in the Roman Empire and the Madonna and the Child - breaking the ten commandments in the process.
But anyway it sold.
The Jews picked up the images of Zoaster when the Persians (Iranians) freed them from the Babylonian captivity. The Romans had to reinterpret the bible to make the absolute good vs absolute evil, changing Satan - counselor of God in Job to an enemy of God and making the snake (based on a Mesopotamian snake god) into Satan - not so identified in the bible.
Took Obama long enough before finally stating that Israel has the right to defend itself.
Golda Meir said "Peace will come when the Arabs love their children more then they hate us".
LIAR... Obama has always said he would always stand with Israel... just like he said he prays to Jesus.
What part of that can you not understand? I want to see your birth certificate.
Obama: Israel has 'every right' to defend itself from Gaza missile attacks, really MR president? did we expect anything else to come out of your mouth? justice for all and all for Israel ha MR president?
Don't worry... we expect a return on our investment... this is just business right? Just like the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelson.
What a complete shame for America. Obama is the reason I finally resigned from the Democratic party. To back the butchery of a captive people that are heroically resisting is nothing short of a fascist collusion. But what can you expect of a man that thinks it's OK to maintain kill lists of uncharged, unindicted, and untried humans (American too).
The right of a country to defend itself is a total red herring. It is the duty of the Palestinian people to resist by any means necessary. Apartheid led to the dissolution of the South African government. May Israel follow suit.
Go to the Gaza Strip and fight for Hamas
I am no fan of Netanyahu, who rejected a reasonable peace for the West Bank in 2010. That peace was proposed by Israeli Defense Minister Barak, accepted in principle by the Fatah negotiator and Mubarak offered to sell it to all the Arab countries and a majority of the Palestinians. It provided for Israel to keep the big settlements in East Jersalem and along the border and for the Temple Mount to be autonomous, open to all peaceful and respectful visitors. That would have removed the main concern of Muslims worldwide and brought peace. Gaza would have voted to join at the end, gotten an enclosed highway to the West Bank (part of the land exchange an adjustment of the 1967 borders called for by the Arab League in 2002 when they asked for peace with Israel, repeated in 2007). Hamas would have been eclipsed.
Netanyahu rejected the 2010 peace in favor of more land grabs. He was similar to Arafat a number of years earlier - rejecting a peace that would have been good for his country. Now Israel is faced with a one state peace and accepting 2.4 million West Bank Arabs as permanent residents. No one really cares what happens to Gaza politically. They are annoyance but not a realistic threat to Israel's existence. They are not so difficult to control, as long as Israel doesn't exaggerate in the response and cause a wider war with Egypt and others.
Now Mubarak is gone, Fatah's formal recognition of Israel, pledge of non-violence and call for peace makes them look like suckers and the two state peace idea is essentially dead. Abbas could not sell it alone. Fatah is losing credibility.
But Hamas is a terrorist outfit shooting rockets at Israel. Israel must respond. They should stick to bombing and not a land invasion, since that might accidentally lead to war with Egypt and possibly other countries that neither side would want but might happen anyway.
Romney used to work with Netanyahu at Boston Consulting Group. Netanyahu's second wife was a Bain employee, was/is Netanyhu a Bain Client?
Netanyahu probably has $4BILLION in US aid money in a Swiss Bank just like Arafat did.
Netanyahu used to work with Romney at Boston Consulting Group. Netanyahu's
second wife was a Bain employee, was/is Netanyhu a Bain Client?
Netanyahu probably has $4BILLION in US aid money in a private Swiss Bank account, just like Arafat did... thanks to Romney
Armand, envy will get you no where........................
Now Obama is defending Israel? After his policies have brought so much power to the Muslim brotherhoods and other terrorist organizations? After Obama won the election he stated the best is yet to come. No wonder so many key people in his administration have jumped ship. I did not vote for Romney or Obama. Both are idiots and pawns of the elite.
LIAR
Armand Stop calling posters on the Vine names. It is childish and a violation of the Vines rules. Not everyone subscribes to a slave driven theocratic ideology.
Obama says that Israel has the right to defend itself. Now our Ambassadors and Embassys. That's a different story!
Harry Reid Shuts Down McCain On Libya: ‘End The Politicization Of National Security’
http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/11/17/1209901/harry-reid-shuts-down-mccains-libya-grandstanding-elections-are-over-end-the-politicization-of-national-security/
What about Pat Tilman... dummy
What about Tillman? I see no connection.
That was the biggest cover up ever and perpetrated by McCain. Remember? It was friendly fire that killed Tilman. Where the hell were you then?
Diversion won't work when the Benghazi Failure happened under Obama's watch. Face it, he owns all of it.
For all you cry-babies over the Obama win,watch this and see what you avoided.lol...you tube:Bill Mayer warns voters:If you elect Romney....get over it people,the right guy in the big house.
Go back to Germany Hitler boy
It appears that every country in that region hates Israel. America seems to be the only one who would help them. I wonder why?? I don't recall them helping us with Nam, Iraq, Afghanistan etc. Something is wrong with this picture.
You must be talking about Great Big Moral Mormon Romney and his Evangelicals
Israel is our attack dog... unfortunately it sometimes bites us.
You're making an even bigger fool of yourself and embarrassing your idol while doing it.
An “immoral massacre against the media” and a tacit acknowledgment by Israel “that it has lost the media battle.”
It has also lost some of our sympathy.
'Every right', obviously translates into free reign to ignore the Geneva Convention, as they rape the Palestinians from their land. Anyone on the Israeli side, seriously needs to reconsider their stance of WWII, because, ghettos, malnutrition, and a revolting amount of perverted social engineering is exactly what the world fought to stop. It's unfortunate, our governments are now on the side of fascism, racism, and genocide, all for a few broken dollars.
No such place as "Palestine".
Gaza was Egypt.
Your ignorance of the situation has been noted.
I suppose your truth is what you learned from the oppressed non existent people of Palestine that were made up to promote the antisemitism that you desire to promote. Israel purchased it's land when the state was formed. The land it has acquired since was won after repulsing the Muslim attacks upon it's state.
You're right steven, Palestine was part of Israel know as the Gaza Strip if I remember correctly from my history years ago. These people have been fighting for the last 50 years I can remember.
That's when they were invented. About 50 years ago.
Read the book "1948" by Jewish Professor Benny Morris based on recent archives.
The Israeli army fired mortars into Arab villages and urban neighborhoods to force the Arabs to flee and then blew up their houses so they couldn't come back. He details this village by village or urban area.
Israel is there to stay, but the idea that the Arabs all came from somewhere else is just a lie. Many of them had lineage to the original Jews after the Romans expelled them from Jerusalem in 70 AD. The Jews were not expelled from Palestine and the Romans rebuilt Jerusalem as a Roman city about 70 years later. Jews were allowed back in Jerusalem to live until the fifth century, a century after Rome took over Christianity. Many of the locals probably converted to Christianity and later to Islam - like the mothers of George Allen and Madeline Albright.
correction - Jews were not allowed to live in Jerusalem from 70 AD til the 5th century. The Muslims let them stay. Crusaders killed all the Jews and Muslims when they took Jerusalem. When Saladan took it back, he let the Christian soldiers go with their possessions after paying a fine, respected the Christian churches and invited Jews to come back to live in Jerusalem.
good and bad on both sides.
Gaza was a part of Egypt, untill they attacked Israel in 1967! Israel captured and kept Gaza untill 2005, when they gave it to the Palestinians. In 2006 Hamas won control of the Government of Gaza, and only weeks later began an intermitent but consistant policy of launching rockets into Israel. This caused both Israel and Egypt to begin sanctions! When they stop with the missiles perhaps peace can be had!
Nothing that happens in Gaza will bring a lasting peace. Lasting peace would only come when the issue of Jerusalem is settled. Israel promised in the 1994 peace with Jordan to protect Muslim control of their mosques on the temple mount but the Israeli Prime Minister was killed by a radical Jew as a result of making the peace and there have been threats since then.
Israeli Defense Minister Barak proposed a workable peace for the West Bank including making the Temple Mount autonomous. That would ease Muslim fears worldwide about their holy sites and could lead to a lasting peace. Netanyahu rejected the proposed peace in 2010 in favor of more land grabs.
tom - Stop with that "issue of Jerusalem" non sense. If Jerusalem was that important to muslims Hamas would not be firing misslies at Jerusalem, twice. Ignorance has a limit.
Post It
The U.S. has never "helped" Israel in any of it's wars. No boots on the ground, etc. Intelligence? You bet. And Israel has reciprocated in our mid east conflicts.