KISS Rocker Gene Simmons Slams Obama Over Israel Policy

KISS Rocker Gene Simmons Slams Obama Over Israel Policy

Katie Pavlich
Townhall.com
May 22, 2011

KISS Rocker Gene Simmons, who was born in Israel, is far from impressed with President Obama's calls for the Jewish State to go back to its 1967 borders, (Obama defended his position once again today during a speech given at the AIPAC Conference in Washington D.C.) which would give the terrorist organization Hamas more control over the area while leaving the tiny country indefensible. Simmons also tore apart the United Nations, calling it the "most pathetic body on the face of the earth," "garbage infested," and even defended a person's right to defend themselves.

"President Obama, and I voted for an idea. What I didn't realize what I was getting was an idealist."

"How about you (Obama) live there and try to defend an indefensible border 9 miles wide. On one side you've got hundreds of millions of people who hate your guts, on the other you've got the Mediterrean."

"He (Obama) has no *explitive* idea what the world is like because he doesn't have to live there."

Great
First a pizza guy thinks he has ideas now a *libellous comment removed*
When is that beiber kid giving us his take on the matters

TheNextPrez2012 wrote:Great
First a pizza guy thinks he has ideas now a *libellous comment removed*
When is that beiber kid giving us his take on the matters

Simmons doesn't do drugs and never has. Let's address the topic at hand here instead of attacking the messenger?

TheNextPrez2012 wrote:Great
First a pizza guy thinks he has ideas now a drugged up egotistical guitar player pushes his ideas
When is that beiber kid giving us his take on the matters

*Comment removed* ad hominem attacks that are not only not true but are provably false! Calling Herman Cain a "pizza guy" is deliberately done to denigrate a man with degrees in mathematics and computer science, who worked for the Navy, ran major multinational corporations, and did a stint as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas. What can Obama say he did with his life before elected office??? Please, enlighten us! What, community organizer???

Fucking ridiculous... "pizza guy" indeed!

Obama won because of his speaking ability not because of his political background (which hardly existed at all) The Democrats could have put a sock puppet against the GOP in 2008 and it would have won.

The fact is that everybody that puts their hat into the ring for this job gets you to believe they have the answers and those solutions never work
The popularity is high for a few months and then it goes down because they don't get that words or fame do not equal ideas

This Cain guy is part of the Tea Party and their idea for improving education is to cut funding for it
If that doesn't tell you something about the idiocy of these people then I can't help you!

TheNextPrez2012 wrote:Obama won because of his speaking ability not because of his political background (which hardly existed at all) The Democrats could have put a sock puppet against the GOP in 2008 and it would have won.

The fact is that everybody that puts their hat into the ring for this job gets you to believe they have the answers and those solutions never work
The popularity is high for a few months and then it goes down because they don't get that words or fame do not equal ideas

This Cain guy is part of the Tea Party and their idea for improving education is to cut funding for it
If that doesn't tell you something about the idiocy of these people then I can't help you!

I just want to correct this mistaken allegation (in red above). The Tea Party and Herman Cain do NOT want to cut funding for education. They want to do away with the FEDERAL Dept of Education. The fact is, the Constitution does not grant the federal government any role in education. And an even more relevant point is the dismal failure that the Dept of Education has been since day one of its inception! Countless BILLIONS have been funneled into the Dept of Education and the statistics show an inverse relationship to Federal education spending and student performance. If you look at the graphs as more money is spent, test scores go down! It doesn't take a rocket scientist (much less a person with degrees in math and computer science) to see that money coming from taxpayers and being sent to the Dept of Education is being WASTED! That money could be MUCH better spent by the states and municipalities on a local level that is being done by the Federal government.

There is a huge difference between "cutting spending on education" and scrapping a completely failed and wasteful federal government department! THAT tells you something about the so-called "idiocy" of the Tea Party. Such simplistic and disingenuous representations of Tea Party positions exposes either bias against or ignorance of true Tea Party positions.

As for Gene Simmons comments (just so this isn't completely off topic), I agree with him wholeheartedly! Not just on Obama's ignorance of the dangers that Israel faces, but also on just what a waste of time the UN has become. If I were President I'd withdraw the US from this putrid, dictator infested organization and kick them out of NYC. Any organization that would elect Libya to head their "Human Rights Commission" is CLEARLY insane and not worthy of US support - or the support of any democratic nation.

Yeah, I'd like to see this thread deal with what Simmons said.

The UN, imo, is pretty useless in many areas. There's a few where they're not too bad but for the most part, it's a waste of time.

Let's put the UN headquarters on Antarctica... neutral territory.

Btw, Simmons was born in Israel. I read his autobiography a few years back and it was interesting to read what he remembers as a child there. He left when he was, I think, 5 or 6 years old.

TexasBlue wrote:Yeah, I'd like to see this thread deal with what Simmons said.

I would agree. I just couldn't allow that libelous attack on the Tea Party and Cain to go unaddressed. You know how I am on that kind of thing.

TexasBlue wrote:The UN, imo, is pretty useless in many areas. There's a few where they're not too bad but for the most part, it's a waste of time.

Let's put the UN headquarters on Antarctica... neutral territory.

I am not quite as forgiving as you Tex, I find the UN to be a net negative for the world and civilization any way you cut it.

TexasBlue wrote:Btw, Simmons was born in Israel. I read his autobiography a few years back and it was interesting to read what he remembers as a child there. He left when he was, I think, 5 or 6 years old.

I did not know that! Interesting. Certainly lends some context to his remarks.

Per Wikipedia;

Biography

Chaim Witz (later Gene Simmons) was born in Tirat Carmel, Haifa, Israel in 1949. The family emigrated to Jackson Heights, Queens in New York City when he was eight years old. His mother Flóra Klein was born in Jánd, Hungary. The German name Klein (means: small) translates to Hungarian as Kiss, that gave the rock band's name. Florence and her brother, Larry Klein, were the only members of the family to survive the Holocaust. His father, Feri Witz, also Hungarian-born remained in Israel. Simmons says the family was "dirt poor," scraping by on bread and milk. In the United States, Simmons changed his name to Eugene Klein (later Gene Klein), adopting his mother's maiden name. He attended Yeshiva Torah Vodaath in Williamsburg, Brooklyn as a child, from 7 in the morning up to 9:30 at night.

He became a science fiction fan and published several science fiction fanzines, among them Sirruish, Id, Cosmos (which eventually merged with Stilletto to become Cosmos-Stilletto and then Faun), Tinderbox, Sci-Fi Showcase, Mantis and Adventure. He also contributed to other fanzines, among them BeABohema.

In the the late 1960s, he changed his name to Gene Simmons, after legendary rockabilly performer Jumpin' Gene Simmons.

Political views

While a self-described social liberal, Simmons was a supporter of the foreign policy of the George W. Bush administration. He supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, writing on his website: "I'm ashamed to be surrounded by people calling themselves liberal who are, in my opinion, spitting on the graves of brave American soldiers who gave their life to fight a war that wasn't theirs...in a country they've never been to... simply to liberate the people there in".

In a follow-up, Simmons explained his position and wrote about his love and support for the United States: "I wasn't born here. But I have a love for this country and its people that knows no bounds. I will forever be grateful to America for going into World War II, when it had nothing to gain, in a country that was far away... and rescued my mother from the Nazi German concentration camps. She is alive and I am alive because of America. And, if you have a problem with America, you have a problem with me".

During the 2006 Lebanon War between Israel and Lebanon, Simmons sent a televised message of support (in both English and Hebrew) to an Israeli soldier seriously wounded in fighting in Lebanon, calling him his "hero."

In 2010, Simmons said he regretted voting for Barack Obama and criticized the 2009 health care reforms.

During his visit to Israel in 2011, he stated that the artists refusing to perform in Israel for political reasons are "stupid," referring to artists who canceled planned concerts in Israel.

This certainly puts a different face on Simmons than the one I had before! I did not know any of this about him. He just went up several notches on my respectability scale.

Bass Solo (complete with spitting blood).

Probably the best song they ever made. This is from their 1996 reunion tour with all the original members. Gene shares lead vocals with Paul Stanley on this one. Even my mom was tapping her foot to this song (I have it on DVD).

Well considering that Simmons was born in Israel, his is not really an unbiased opinion, is it?

BubbleBliss wrote:
Well considering that Simmons was born in Israel, his is not really an unbiased opinion, is it?

Hard to say. He's a social liberal for one. Two, he hasn't lived in Israel since he was 8. His stance is that he's visited there more than for a "diplomatic" visit like most politicians.

But it's still his home country and the country of "his people" if you will.

BubbleBliss wrote:
But it's still his home country and the country of "his people" if you will.

Obviously.