Because they've never killed protesters?

Because they don't sponsor terrorism?
Those are "rational" actions?

If the military or police acions that kill or injure protesters defined countries that were forever branded as pariahs there would be a very long list indeed.
No one would be dealing with China (Tianamin Square and Hong Kong) or Saudi Arabia (Saudi tanks rolled into Bahrain just a year or two ago to end democratic demonstrations...
Hell, remember Selma or Kent State? Or Chicago 68 ? ...
Hell to be entirely fair, look up the Quebec conscription riots or the Winnipeg General Strike.

Plus they play both sides of every Arab conflict in order to exacerbate the conflicts. (Thanks for proving that Ray).

rickyp wrote:

Because they've never killed protesters?

Because they don't sponsor terrorism?
Those are "rational" actions?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/25/israeli-soldiers-kill-palestinian-west-bank-protest

"There are thousands of rioters there," an army spokeswoman told AFP.

"They are rolling burning tyres and throwing Molotov cocktails and fireworks at soldiers and border police," she added.

She could not confirm or deny the use of live rounds.

The protest erupted after allies of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah movement marched from the West Bank city of Ramallah to the edges of Jerusalem in protest against Israel's war against Hamas militants in Gaza, where the Palestinian death toll has topped 760.

A doctor at Ramallah hospital said three people had died after being shot, including a man in his 20s who was injured in the head, while at least 100 other people were treated for various injuries after the protest. Israel Radio said the protest appeared to be the largest since the 2000-2005 Palestinian second intifada, or uprising.

If the military or police acions that kill or injure protesters defined countries that were forever branded as pariahs there would be a very long list indeed.

No one would be dealing with China (Tianamin Square and Hong Kong) or Saudi Arabia (Saudi tanks rolled into Bahrain just a year or two ago to end democratic demonstrations...
Hell, remember Selma or Kent State? Or Chicago 68 ? ...

As for sponsored terrorism, both Israel and the US have sponsored covert actions in Iran and provided weapons and other assistance to groups that are branded terrorists.

And Israel is the only country illegally occupying and subjugating another nation.(Well, China and Tibet?)

None of this should impact the nature of the negotiations ad the need to achieve the goal in order to achieve a certain level of security against nuclear proliferation in the area. Not negotiating won't do that, since the status qua won't stop Iran if they decide to commit.

Negotiating with unrealistic preconditions that mean that the current Iranian regime would capitulate and leave power (seems to be Republican ad Nethanyahus position) is either just dumb.

Or in the case of Nethanyahu serve his purpose in the same way unrealistic preconditions for negotiating with Palestine have allowed him to incrementally seize parts of Palestine.

Its always easy to demonize the opposition in an attempt to sabotage useful negotiations. God thing Reagan was able to set the rhetoric aside and deal, right?

Ray Jay wrote:Ricky:

If the military or police acions that kill or injure protesters defined countries that were forever branded as pariahs there would be a very long list indeed.
No one would be dealing with China (Tianamin Square and Hong Kong) or Saudi Arabia (Saudi tanks rolled into Bahrain just a year or two ago to end democratic demonstrations...
Hell, remember Selma or Kent State? Or Chicago 68 ? ...
Hell to be entirely fair, look up the Quebec conscription riots or the Winnipeg General Strike.

Does Canada have stamps that glorify the killing of innocent tourists? Does Israel post the words of it's founders calling for the destruction of other countries on its buildings?

For a sense of the magnitude of the capitulation represented by Barack Obama’s Iran diplomacy, it’s worth recalling what the president said when he was trying to sell his interim nuclear agreement to a Washington, D.C., audience in December 2013.

“We know they don’t need to have an underground, fortified facility like Fordo in order to have a peaceful program,” Mr. Obama said of the Iranians in an interview with Haim Saban, the Israeli-American billionaire philanthropist. “They certainly don’t need a heavy-water reactor at Arak in order to have a peaceful nuclear program. They don’t need some of the advanced centrifuges that they currently possess in order to have a limited, peaceful nuclear program.”

Hardly more than a year later, on the eve of what might be deal-day, here is where those promises stand:

Fordo: “The United States is considering letting Tehran run hundreds of centrifuges at a once-secret, fortified underground bunker in exchange for limits on centrifuge work and research and development at other sites.”—Associated Press, March 26.

Arak: “Today, the six powers negotiating with Iran . . . want the reactor at Arak, still under construction, reconfigured to produce less plutonium, the other bomb fuel.”—The New York Times, March 7.

Advanced centrifuges: “Iran is building about 3,000 advanced uranium-enrichment centrifuges, the Iranian news media reported Sunday, a development likely to add to Western concerns about Tehran’s disputed nuclear program.”—Reuters, March 3.

Does Canada have stamps that glorify the killing of innocent tourists? Does Israel post the words of it's founders calling for the destruction of other countries on its buildings

Palestine is not a nation

The International Court of Justice,[4] the UN General Assembly[5] and the United Nations Security Council regards Israel as the "Occupying Power".[9] UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk called Israel’s occupation "an affront to international law."[10] The Israeli High Court of Justice has ruled that Israel holds the West Bank under "belligerent occupation".[11] According to Talia Sasson, the High Court of Justice in Israel, with a variety of different justices sitting, has repeatedly stated for more than four decades that Israel’s presence in the West Bank is in violation of international law

rickyp wrote:fate

Palestine is not a nation

138 nations recignize the Palestinian state. More are expected to over the course of this year....
Besides which the occupation is iilegal.

The International Court of Justice,[4] the UN General Assembly[5] and the United Nations Security Council regards Israel as the "Occupying Power".[9] UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk called Israel’s occupation "an affront to international law."[10] The Israeli High Court of Justice has ruled that Israel holds the West Bank under "belligerent occupation".[11] According to Talia Sasson, the High Court of Justice in Israel, with a variety of different justices sitting, has repeatedly stated for more than four decades that Israel’s presence in the West Bank is in violation of international law

Ray you seem to think I don't see the "evil" side of Iran. I do.

I also won't ignore the "evil" that my nation or others are capable of....
Let me ask you, if a nation also ignores or fails to acknowledge its own failings does that skew the way its people think about an issue? How many Americans are aware of the USS Vincennes destruction of a civilian Iranian airliner? Or the support for Iraq against Iran in their conflict? How many are aware of the CIA coup in 54?
If those issues were well publicized and understood would Americans feel differently about Iran/US relations?

rickyp wrote:I would much rather have an Iran committed to an open relationship with the world, and committed to peaceful use of nuclear energy.

A top State Department official on Monday dismissed reports that Iran may be hiding key nuclear-related assets in North Korea and implied that she was unaware of the possibility, despite the publication this weekend of several articles by top analysts expressing alarm at the extent of nuclear cooperation between Tehran and Pyongyang.

Marie Harf, a spokeswoman for the State Department, dismissed as “bizarre” the reports, which described the transfer of enriched uranium and ballistic missile technology back and forth between the two rogue regimes.

The existence of an illicit Iranian nuclear infrastructure outside of the Islamic Republic’s borders would gut a nuclear deal that the administration has vowed to advance by Tuesday, according to these experts and others.

If Iran is not forced to disclose the full extent and nature of its outside nuclear work to the United States, there is virtually no avenue to guarantee that it is living up to its promises made in the negotiating room, according to multiple experts and sources in Europe apprised of the ongoing talks.

Gordon Chang, a North Korea expert who has written in recent days about Iran’s possible “secret program” there, described the State Department’s dismissal of these reports as naïve.

“Let me see if I get this straight: The country with the world’s most highly developed technical intelligence capabilities does not know what has been in open sources for years?” Chang said. “No wonder North Korea transfers nuclear weapons technology to Iran and others with impunity.”

“The North Koreans could go on CNN and say, ‘Hey, Secretary Kerry, we’re selling the bomb to Iran,’ and the State Department would still say they know nothing about it,” Chang said. “No wonder we’re in such trouble.”

Other Iranian experts specializing in the country’s military workings also have raised recent questions about Tehran’s collaboration with North Korea.

Ali Alfoneh and Reuel Marc Gerecht, both senior fellows at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), have revealed that a nuclear reactor destroyed in Syria in 2007 by Israel was likely a North Korean-backed Iranian project.

Gerecht told the Free Beacon in a follow-up interview that key issues regarding Iran’s past military work and outside collaboration are being ignored in the negotiating room as diplomats rush to secure a tentative deal by Tuesday night.

“It certainly appears that the administration has backed away from [previous military dimensions] questions,” Gerecht said. “The plan appears to be to let the [International Atomic Energy Agency] continue its so far fruitless effort to gain access to sensitive sites, personnel, and paperwork, but to keep these questions out of the talks.”

“The administration is doing this because it fears the Iranians would walk out,” he added. “Any military work revealed by the Iranians would prove the Supreme Leader and [President] Rouhani liars.

Despite concerns from countries such a France over the issue, the United States has attempted to accommodate Iran, Gerecht said.

“The White House wants to believe that monitoring of known sites will be sufficient. It’s a bit mystifying given the Iranian track record and the CIA’s longstanding inability to penetrate the nuclear-weapons program (it’s just too hard of a target to do this reliably),” he explained. “But since they fear a breakdown, they bend their credulity in Iran’s favor. This has been the story of the negotiations from the beginning.”

Alfoneh also told the Free Beacon that Iran should be pressed by the United States to disclose the full extent of its nuclear relationship with North Korea.

“I certainly think the Islamic Republic should come clean concerning its past record of nuclear activities: Did the Islamic Republic ever try to build a nuclear weapon? If not, how are we to understand the opaque references to Tehran-Pyongyang nuclear cooperation in the 1990s?” Alfoneh said.

Ray Jay wrote:Ricky:

Ray you seem to think I don't see the "evil" side of Iran. I do.

Perhaps you see it, but you don't truly understand it.

On 17 March 1992, at 2:42 pm (UTC−3), a pickup truck driven by a suicide bomber and loaded with explosives smashed into the front of the Israeli Embassy located on the corner of Arroyo and Suipacha, and detonated. The embassy, a Catholic church, and a nearby school building were destroyed. Four Israelis died, but most of the victims were Argentine civilians, many of them children.[2] The blast killed 29 and wounded 242....
Messages intercepted by the American National Security Agency revealed Iranian knowledge of the impending attack, as well as the complicity of Hezbollah operative Imad Mughniyah.[6] In fact, Mugniyeh was formally charged by Argentina with participating in the bombings of the Israeli embassy.[7]

In May 1998, Moshen Rabbani, (the Cultural Attaché in the Iranian Embassy in Argentina until December 1997) was detained in Germany, and the Argentine government expelled seven Iranian diplomats from the country, stating that it had "convincing proof" of Iranian involvement in the bombing. ...
In 1999, the Argentine government issued an arrest warrant for Imad Mugniyah in connection with this attack and the 1994 AMIA Bombing in Buenos Aires, which killed 85. It is suspected that the two attacks are linked.[

The AMIA bombing was an attack on the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA; Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) building. It occurred in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994, killing 85 people and injuring hundreds.[

I cannot speak for others, but I'm well aware of these issues and I think it is a bad deal. Perhaps we are smarter than you think?

JimHackerMP wrote:Ray Jay: is that the bombing related to the scandal involving President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner? That that prosecutor was found dead with a draft warrant for President Fernandez' arrest in a trash can in his apartment?