reading aljazeera: stuff for thought

[matis]

Exactly my point. Not only do our oil dollars pay for these oppressors, but support for the 1967 land grab has given them plenty of ammunition with which to shift the blame for their failures. (shootinstudent)
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Right, shootinstudent. Self-defence is a land-grab.

The Arabs don't need ammunition to shift blame. They may not produce anything much industrial or intellectual (to speak of). (Right -- now tell me what great intellectuals they were 1000 years ago.) But they are highly skilled liars. They attack israel because she exists (why did they attack in '67?). And when she retaliates they give the retaliation as the reason for their next attack.

And when, in their bravado and incompetence, they blew themselves up along with Arab bystanders -- including children -- 19 people -- during a parade about 2 -3 weeks ago -- they blamed the Israelis. They tried to say that Israeli gunships did it. Even the Palestinian Authority said publicly that Hamas blew themselves up.

But you know the Koran, right? Doesn't it say that one can freely lie to infidels, make false treaties (Hudna) and so on -- so long as it serves Allah?

They do tend to lie, don't they? During the 1967 "land grab", didn't their field officers report to their headquarter that they were victorious, even as the Israelis were routing them? Didn't the Egyptians lure the Syrians and the Jordanians into attacking Israel by telling them of their great victories over the Jews. Even as the Jews were decimating them?

Saving face and honor are very important to them, isn't it? They even kill their own daughters for the sake of family honor, don't they?


So why should the Israelis do anything to reach out to them when they will lie and twist it all anyway. They have only one objective: to annihilate the Jews.

Of what use is it to offer them anything, gestures of goodwill, negotiations, etc. It has all been for nothing.

They know only strength. Israel is strong. Whatever she got she got by strength. She must STOP trying to negotiate and make deals with them. They NEVER keep any of them!


Personally, I wish the Israelis had "grabbed" a lot more land.

You do know, don't you, that the Israeli's had crossed the canal and were approaching Cairo.

They were within (wasn't it?) the outskirts of Damascus and stopped. It isn't that they were stopped. They themselves stopped.

They stopped before entering Amman.

They stopped in response to obscenely screaming world opinion and pressure from the United States. The same world opinion that couldn't care less about Europe's annihilation of her Jews. Wouldn't even allow escaping refugees in. Sent them back to Hitler. And the same world opinion that would have been silent had the Arab butchers succeeded.


That's why we need Israel. And why Israel has a right to exist.

She should have taken and kept a lot more of the land that she captured in the 1967 war of self-defense.

Giving back the Sinai and Gaza and parts of the West bank earns her NOTHING from this wonderful world of Jew haters. It will cost her dearly now to deal with Hamas in Gaza. But she will deal with them.


And Jerusalem will always be her capital. As it was in the time of Kings Solomon and David.

Am Israel Chai (the Jewish People Live)!


matis

 

[Cosmoline]

Second rate agitprop--typical for the Arab press. Make no mistake, we are THE ENEMY to the people running that paper. There is no alliance, there is no friendship, there is no hope of either.

 

[shootinstudent]

As far as Jerusalem and Israel and all that, the Arabs started the 1967 and 1973 wars. The aim was genocide (and still is). The Israelis won.

Art, I see your point on the Arab states whining and losing a war, but to me that's not really relevant. It would be justified, IMO, to remove or topple the governments responsible for attempted genocide, and then return those countries to their rightful owners, as was the case in Germany and Japan after WWII. Warfare and international relations are not poker games; you don't bet cities that millions of people (who didn't vote for those governments in the first place) inhabit, and then lose them to another government.

I think the Arab and Israel tension preceeding the 67 war was entirely understandable. Israel had recently been created via terrorism, and the establishment of the state represented a sore violation of the promises the British government made to the majority Muslim inhabitants of the region. Still, I think attacking the state in 1967 with the aim of eliminating it was wrong because I believe that, as established, the Jewish people who fought the british out of the region deserved to keep their state.

I stand by my comparison of moving the senate and capital of the US to baghdad. Saddam threatens the US (supposedly, I'm not so sure anymore), so we invade and then declare Baghdad the new capital of the United States. How legitimate do you think that would be?

That's pretty much exactly what happened when Israel seized Old Jerusalem and the West Bank. It instantly transferred settlers in the hope of outvoting all the natives, and set up its national capital in Jerusalem. That is an illegal land grab by any measure, whether you agree with the aim of preserving Israel or not. Maybe the other evil Arab dictatorships do need to be taken out....but does that mean that Israel gets to ship permanent settlers to all of their capitals and declare them all Jewish states, to the exclusion of what the native peoples want?

 

[shootinstudent]

She should have taken and kept a lot more of the land that she captured in the 1967 war of self-defense.

Giving back the Sinai and Gaza and parts of the West bank earns her NOTHING from this wonderful world of Jew haters. It will cost her dearly now to deal with Hamas in Gaza. But she will deal with them.

Well, I mean you obviously have a religious belief that leads you to this opinion. That's fine by me, but it's sure not a basis you can expect anyone else to find reasonable. I could care less what the Torah, Koran, or Bible's command when it comes to making foreign policy, because I believe in law-making that relies on principles of reason that anyone can debate or accept.

And in those terms, ie, accepted practices in international law, the land grab was clearly illegal. Israel was founded through anti-british terrorism, antagonized all of its neighbors, and when those nations attacked, instead of limiting itself to neutralizing aggression, Israel seized their lands and declared it the Holy Capital of the Jewish nation. If you can't see how that would create a problem, even for reasonable and secular citizens of the Arab states (of which there are plenty), I'm not sure how else I can explain it.

Just imagine if the Iraqis magically transformed into a powerful army overnight, and in response to the US invasion, decided to invade Washington DC, rename it "Riyadh", and then declared it to be the capital of Iraq instead of an American city. Their reasoning for doing so?

"Iraq was invaded and the US, so we responded by beating them and now we have the right to annex any part of the US we want and to declare it an Islamic city." Would that reasoning fly? Why not, if it's okay for Israel to do exactly that in response to a threat?


And this separately, since it risks going way off in the wrong direction...

But you know the Koran, right? Doesn't it say that one can freely lie to infidels, make false treaties (Hudna) and so on -- so long as it serves Allah?

I'll be happy to see your citations and discuss anything you want in PM.

 

[matis]

QUOTE:shootinstudent
Well, I mean you obviously have a religious belief that leads you to this opinion. That's fine by me, but it's sure not a basis you can expect anyone else to find reasonable. I could care less what the Torah, Koran, or Bible's command when it comes to making foreign policy, because I believe in law-making that relies on principles of reason that anyone can debate or accept.
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Shootinstudent, I do NOT have any religious belief.

Later in life I learned what my heritage, Judaism, is about and I fell in love with it. Assimilated Jews have no clue what their heritage really is. It is certainly NOT about left-liberal values.

Be that as it may, it seems too late for me to actually believe. Instead I love and appreciate the Orthodox and the Chassidim and do not respect what assimilation has done to Jewish belief.

My reasons for feeling as I do about Israel relate more to my desire for justice and MAINLY to my irrational desire to SURVIVE.

The United States is my adopted country (born in Canada) and I have come to love her dearly. It was a long road, since I was raised by a Marxist, atheist father. But I made it. I am here and I know and I deeply appreciate how fortunate I am.


But I learned once in a commodities trading class that one should NEVER BUCK A TREND. Unless that is, one wanted to get steam-rollered.

Anti-Semitism is 2000 years long and that is a very long trend. Sooner or later Jews in just about every country in the diaspora have had to face that trend. So much as I love the United states, I know never to buck a trend. So, although it is much less likely in the US, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE, TOO.

Besides being a source of Jewish pride, Israel represents a haven for Jews, should they ever need one. Sooner or later, in most countries, Jews have needed one.


Until the birth of Israel, my image of a Jew was as some one cringing with one hand held over his face, trying to fend off the blows. It isn't pretty. But my understanding of Jewish history in the diaspora, especially my reading as a teen-ager, every book I could get my hands on about the holocaust, left me with that image. This was before that word was even used.

One day in Los Angeles, some Israeli friends brought a film to my apartment. It showed a military parade down Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv.


For the first time in my life, I saw fighter planes, tanks, APCs with the Star of David emblazoned on them. I saw young Jewish soldiers, armed, strong and proud marching in their legions down the street.

And I was never the same again.

My image of the Jew had gone through, shall we say, a transformation.

I am a loyal American and I will defend my adoped country. My 17 year old daughter, may she live and be well, prospers here, as do I.


And I also love Israel and I will defend her as well.


I am proud that the Jews could drive the British out. The Balfour Declaration promised to the Jews for a homeland a hugely larger land mass than they finally ended up with. Included were parts of Iraq and all of trans-Jordan. The British were given the mandate of seeing this through to fruition. But like the American State Department, the British were partial to the Arabs and their oil. And anyway, who likes Jews.

The Jews in Palestine lived, for the most part on land purchased from Arabs and paid for. The British blockaded Palestine and wouldn't let in Jews escaping from Hitler. And they kept up the blockade after the war.

The Jewish Palestinians (Palestinians were the Jews, there is no such Arab people as the Palestinians. In the forties, the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra was Jewish, not Arab) would not acquiese to British intransigence. And just like the Americans we beat them and drove the b@stards out.

Jews have always been a problem, you see. We gave the Syrian-Greeks hell (that's what Chanakah celebrates. American Jews think it's mainly about the miracle of the oil - one day's supply burned for 8 days. Actually it's about my namesake, Matisyahu, the old Hasmonean priest, who killed the Greek Officer and his Hellenized Jewish accomplices, as they tried to place Greek Idols in the synagogue. In the resulting war, the Jews beat the mighty Greek army.

In Massada we held off the Roman Legions for 2 years before they got us.

I love the saying, "Don't mess with Texas." And now that we have Israel again, don't mess with the Jews!


People like you are not new to us. And frankly I couldn't care less what you and your kind think. Your arguments are hair-splitting and childish. You argue as you do only because of where your sympathies lie. Reason has nothing to do with it.


We WILL prevail and your aspirations, unless you change them, will certainly be dashed.


matis

 

[Cosmoline]

I find it very interesting that without exception the individuals who complain bitterly about the division of the Palestine protectorate between the existing Arab and Jewish groups don't have any problem with the division of India between Muslim and Hindu groups.

Very very interesting.

 

[dzimmerm]

Some food for thought

There is some basic history and quite a few links regarding the creation of Israel in 1947. It also mentions an earlier motion by the one time League Of Nations in 1922.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_and_the_United_Nations

I did not read all of it yet but it looks pretty interesting.

The opinions so far seem polarized and I have found that searching for historical fact oftime defuses opinions.

dzimmerm

 

[shootinstudent]

The Jewish Palestinians (Palestinians were the Jews, there is no such Arab people as the Palestinians. In the forties, the Palestine Philharmonic Orchestra was Jewish, not Arab) would not acquiese to British intransigence. And just like the Americans we beat them and drove the b@stards out.

Right, the Israelis drove out the british using classic terror tactics, like bombing hotels and cafes where the british resided. I'm glad that you're proud of that, but being against terrorism in any form, I'd try to minimize that part of my history.

People like you are not new to us. And frankly I couldn't care less what you and your kind think. Your arguments are hair-splitting and childish. You argue as you do only because of where your sympathies lie. Reason has nothing to do with it.

Well, this goes right to the heart of the thread, if you'll allow me to get back on the track of anti-Western sentiment....how much safer are Israelis today because of the Seizure of Jerusalem? What if, instead of illegally annexing Jerusalem, the Israelis had instead attacked the brutal dictatorships, supported democracies in Jordan and Egypt, and then given every inch of the 1967 land back to those states? Better yet...what if they kept the militarily important Golan heights, but gave back Jerusalem?

Do you honestly believe that wouldn't have gone a long way towards quieting Islamic radicals, who were trying to sell everyone on the claim that Israel had a plan to expand and grab all the land for itself that it could, in order to drive out Muslims?

There are a Palestinian people today. Illegal action by the Israeli government has contributed to their identity and plight. I think refusing to recognize this is only going to make the problem worse, and inspire a new generation to believe that the terrorists are actually telling the truth. I'd much rather take the wind out of AlJazeera's sails by respecting the law and treating Palestinians as a people deserving of respect and dignity like any other.

Your idea of expansion and denying any legitimate right to the land on the part of the Arabs has had 40 years to show its worth....and all we have had over those 40 years is more terrorism. I think it's time enough for a new approach.

 

[GoRon]

Your idea of expansion and denying any legitimate right to the land on the part of the Arabs has had 40 years to show its worth....and all we have had over those 40 years is more terrorism. I think it's time enough for a new approach.

Blame the surrounding countries for segregating the "palestinians" into slums, blame the UN for the slums they set up.

Instead of welcoming their "brothers" they put them into camps and let them live off scaps thrown to them by the UN(US). Whole generations of palestinians know nothing more than hatred and dependency.

 

[shootinstudent]

Instead of welcoming their "brothers" they put them into camps and let them live off scaps thrown to them by the UN(US). Whole generations of palestinians know nothing more than hatred and dependency

Well, that's only partly true. The Arab states didn't agree to a UN partition, and then invade and annex the half that wasn't theirs.

Short history of how the palestinians ended up in camps:

-Hundreds of thousands illegally immigrate to Palestine, despite the fact that the people who were born and raised there did not want them.

-Those said hundreds of thousands formed political and paramilitary groups dedicated to establishing a Jewish state.

-After a series of Muslim-Jewish terrorist acts on both sides, they finally force the british (through violence) to withdraw, and get the UN to propose a partition, where the Muslim residents get their own country, and the Jewish immigrants get their own.

-The partition happens, and Israel is born. It almost immediately invades the part that was reserved for the original residents of Palestine. It annexes most, if not all, and can't grant voting rights to the people there, because they vastly outnumber the Zionist movement.

-They invade the rest of the partitioned piece in 1967, and are for the most part still there.

So, the state of Israel is directly responsible for where the Palestinians are today. Maybe it would've been nice and humane for the other Arab states to absorb them, but the Arab states didn't illegally send citizens to their land and then revolt to conquer it.

And hence we have people like Aljazeera, who get away with selling everyone on the evil westerner idea. Palestinians don't get to vote for the most part, lost the country in which they were a majority and native born, and are pretty unhappy because of it. If you want to change that...well, getting rid of radicals in other arab states is a good start, but it's not going to change what's happened in Palestine, and that'll need to be addressed also to help end US-hating in the Arab world.

 

[matis]

QUOTE: shootinstudent
And hence we have people like Aljazeera, who get away with selling everyone on the evil westerner idea. Palestinians don't get to vote for the most part, lost the country in which they were a majority and native born, and are pretty unhappy because of it. If you want to change that...well, getting rid of radicals in other arab states is a good start, but it's not going to change what's happened in Palestine, and that'll need to be addressed also to help end US-hating in the Arab world.
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Right, shootinstudent, right.



The way to "...change that...." is to do as was suggested above: expel the hostile population from greater Israel.

You have heard of Pakistan and Bangladesh, haven't you? Where are the Sudetanland Germans, now? Or the all the Germans who lived in other parts of Europe.

This was done many times in history. But if the Jews do it, then, of course, it's reprehensible.



And US-hating in the Arab world, to the extent it can be ended will be by forcing upon them regime-change, so they can begin their journey to the 21st century.

Or in the way we ended US-hating in Germany and Japan.




matis

 

[shootinstudent]

This was done many times in history. But if the Jews do it, then, of course, it's reprehensible.

Yep, and in every case it's been a disaster. I'm quite surprised you'd use Pakistan and Bangladesh to prove your point...look how much ongoing border violence there has been because of the odd partitioning system. Can you imagine what it would be like if, instead of leaving well enough alone, India had decided to annex the whole of Pakistan?

Expelling the Palestinian Arabs, who were mostly there long before 1948, would only make an already bad situation infinitely worse and more unjust. It'd be like Mexicans illegally immigrating to New Mexico, and then not voting, but rather forming a militia to expel or disenfranchise all the native born American voters, and then saying "hey, it's our land historically anyway so we deserve it!" That is precisely what the Jewish immigrants did in Palestine.

I'm sorry, but illegally immigrating to a country, and then snatching government away from the majority of the people who live there and forming your own new government on their land is just plain illegitimate. Even today there are about 3 million more Palestinians than there are Israelis out there...so why exactly should a majority of the population that's lived there continuously for the past 1400 years be expelled? What's the legal/moral argument for that one?

As long as we are in denial about the origins of Israel, we're going to keep giving tons of ammo to aljazeera type posters who want to make the west out to be the evil empire. One possible solution I think would be for israel to give full voting rights to all of the Palestinians....oh wait, but then there wouldn't be a Jewish majority. Is the need to maintain one religious majority over another, even when the government occupies land that includes more of the religion without voting rights, justification enough to support the current state of affairs?

I think it's great that Israel has offered western style development and a model for functioning democracy and civil liberty in the middle east, but now I think it's time to move beyond religious justifications for the government. If it can't find a way to incorporate the native inhabitants of the region, it's not a real democracy, and no amount of regime change in other arab governments will make the Palestinians forget that they don't have the right to vote on what goes on in their own homelands. Violence and extremism will continue, America and Jews worldwide will continue to be targets, and we'll have that much less to say the next time a religious group decides it wants to immigrate-and-revolt to create a new government for whatever religious reasons it might have.

 

[Kurush]

so why exactly should a majority of the population that's lived there continuously for the past 1400 years be expelled?

By the way, it's a common misperception that Palestinians are Arab immigrants who took over the area when the Caliphate conquered it.

The word Arab has two different meanings, an ethnic group and a linguistic group. As the Muslims conquered the Middle East and North Africa they "Arabized" the populations, converting them to Islam and forcing Arabic on them. It's common to call Moors, Libyans, Syrians and Palestinians Arab but that only means they speak Arabic, they aren't geneologically related. The only actual pure ethnic Arabs are Bedouins and the people of the Arabian Peninsula.

What I'm driving at here is that the Palestinians are the same people who were there in Biblical times, with some Roman, Byzantine, Arab, and French mixed in.

This was done many times in history. But if the Jews do it, then, of course, it's reprehensible.

You're admitting that the expulsion of Palestinians for the purpose of building settlements is similar to the atrocities committed against the ethnic German civilians of Europe after WWII, (see the book "A Terrible Revenge" by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas) but can't understand why anyone would want to stop the ongoing expulsions and settlement construction.

I find your argument repulsive, and what's more I find your tactic of making thinly veiled accusations of antisemitism to shut your opponents up to be despicable.

 

[matis]

Quote: (me)
This was done many times in history. But if the Jews do it, then, of course, it's reprehensible.


Quote: (Kurush)
You're admitting that the expulsion of Palestinians for the purpose of building settlements is similar to the atrocities committed against the ethnic German civilians of Europe after WWII, (see the book "A Terrible Revenge" by Alfred-Maurice de Zayas) but can't understand why anyone would want to stop the ongoing expulsions and settlement construction.

I find your argument repulsive, and what's more I find your tactic of making thinly veiled accusations of antisemitism to shut your opponents up to be despicable.
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There are 1.2 billion Muslims and over 200 million Arabs living in 22 countries.

Arab land comprises around 6 million square miles; Israel is a postage-stamp sized country a bit smaller than the state of New Jersey.

Relatively few Arabs lived in this postage stamp.

The Jews maintained a presence since Biblical times; there were always Jews living in the area.

Most Jews were dispersed and the history of their experience living among the gentile countries is horrific to apprehend.


Hitler had a "final solution" to the problem of the Jews.


Those who survived that had a better solution: Israel. This was our country once and it is now the country of the Jews again.

All who understand and value their Jewishness can hold their heads higher because of this. And when the "goyim" where ever they live periodically go crazy again, as they have done for 2000 years, the Jews now have a safe haven.


Do the "Palestinians" have their side of the story? Of course they do.

But if Jewish refugees from Arab barbarism must live elsewhere, so that Arab countries can be Judenrein, then so can the Palestinians. Reality is not perfect.


Israel has offered to pay to improve their conditions or to relocate the Arab refugees in the camps, where they are kept in squalor by the other Arab governments. These overtures are refused.

Many Arab countries have expelled Palestinians with great bloodshed -- they don't want them. Palestinians are feared by Arab governments because they cause grief wherever they are.


You seem to bleed more for these people than their Arab brethren do.


You think my insinuations, of Anti-semitism are "thinly veiled." They are not insinuations but accusations and I don't know how I can make them any plainer.


You cry at the suffering of these Arabs at the hands of the Jews. The United Nations, most of whose member countries are run by thugs -- also cry for the Arabs -- constantly. I hear very little about the suffering and unprovoked atrocities that occur constantly elsewhere. Not much attention focused there.


But the focus of attention is always on what the Jews do. We are held to impossible standards that our accusers themselves don't begin to live up to.


Israel is here to stay.


She will do what she must to survive. She has from the beginning tried everything to make peace with her neighbors. (Most of what she has done is in my opinion, short-sighted and some of it -- suicidal.)

The wars were forced on her. And she won them all.

The Arabs will never rest from their efforts to destroy Israel. That is until Israel uses her military strength to settle the problem, once and for all.


Without expelling the hostile Arabs, I don't think peace will ever be possible. I only wish the Israeli government agreed with me. But I believe that when they have absorbed enough punishment (G-d forbid), they will do what has to be done.


I find those who cry crocodile tears for the Arabs, who savagely express their essences by aiming their atrocities at innocent civilians -- I find this hypocracy -- repulsive.


Arguments for the Arabs, that ignore the issue of Israeli survival, that is what I find -- repulsive.


Those who bleed for the poor Arabs and find reasons to refuse solutions that include Israeli survival -- it is their arguments that I find -- despicable.


And for Americans who argue that way, your pigeons are coming home to roost.


Unless Americans and Israelis -- and all "infidels" unite to face this evil that has re-emerged in the world, we will all end up back in the 7th century.


The Arab refusal to accept the existence of Israel is directly related to the Muslim Jihad against America, England, Russia, India, Sudan, Indonesia and against infidels everywhere.

You may find that indulging your indifference to Israeli and Jewish survival forecloses your own and that of YOUR children.



"Those who bless her (Israel) I will bless; those who curse her I will curse."



matis




Bob Dylan is back in the news. He's got a song he calls

NEIGHBORHOOD BULLY
Well, the neighborhood bully, he's just one man,
His enemies say he's on their land.
They got him outnumbered about a million to one,
He got no place to escape to, no place to run.
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive,
He's criticized and condemned for being alive.
He's not supposed to fight back, he's supposed to have thick skin,
He's supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in.
He's the neighborhood bully.

The neighborhood bully been driven out of every land,
He's wandered the earth an exiled man.
Seen his family scattered, his people hounded and torn,
He's always on trial for just being born.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he knocked out a lynch mob, he was criticized,
Old women condemned him, said he should apologize.
Then he destroyed a bomb factory, nobody was glad.
The bombs were meant for him.
He was supposed to feel bad.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, the chances are against it and the odds are slim
That he'll live by the rules that the world makes for him,
'Cause there's a noose at his neck and a gun at his back
And a license to kill him is given out to every maniac.
He's the neighborhood bully.

He got no allies to really speak of.
What he gets he must pay for, he don't get it out of love.
He buys obsolete weapons and he won't be denied
But no one sends flesh and blood to fight by his side.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Well, he's surrounded by pacifists who all want peace,
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease.
Now, they wouldn't hurt a fly.
To hurt one they would weep.
They lay and they wait for this bully to fall asleep.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Every empire that's enslaved him is gone,
Egypt and Rome, even the great Babylon.
He's made a garden of paradise in the desert sand,
In bed with nobody, under no one's command.
He's the neighborhood bully.

Now his holiest books have been trampled upon,
No contract he signed was worth what it was written on.
He took the crumbs of the world and he turned it into wealth,
Took sickness and disease and he turned it into health.
He's the neighborhood bully.

What's anybody indebted to him for?
Nothin', they say.
He just likes to cause war.
Pride and prejudice and superstition indeed,
They wait for this bully like a dog waits to feed.
He's the neighborhood bully.

What has he done to wear so many scars?
Does he change the course of rivers?
Does he pollute the moon and stars?
Neighborhood bully, standing on the hill,
Running out the clock, time standing still,
Neighborhood bully.


Copyright © 1983 Special Rider Music

Columbia Records:



By the way, if the shoe fits, wear it!


matis

 

[shootinstudent]

Relatively few Arabs lived in this postage stamp.

That wasn't the point. You're dodging the issue, which is that there were millions of Arabs living in the postage stamp, and very few jews...that is, before the founders of Israel illegally immigrated from all over the world, and then, still a minority, undertook a revolt and divested the Arabs there of their rightful control.

I haven't posted a single anti-semitic remark. Israel is a state, and it has policies and institutions that can be criticized just like any other. I don't subscribe to the fallacy that one state speaks for an entire race of people, but you seem to be under the impression that the actions of the arab states speak for all arabs. Perhaps you should rethink your notions of the relationship between race and national governments.

She will do what she must to survive. She has from the beginning tried everything to make peace with her neighbors. (Most of what she has done is in my opinion, short-sighted and suicidal.)

Matis, again, I'd like to see your explanation of the bare facts of Israel's creation. I'm sorry, but illegaly immigrating to another people's country and then rebelling, instituting a government that limits political participation based on ethnic and religious lines, and then occupying as much territory as you can surrounding your new state is not in any way an attempt to make peace. If you can explain to me how the 1948 war and the rejection of the UN partition agreement was an act of peace, I'll change my opinion.

Is it permissible, legal, just, or whatever for people who are not born in a country to immigrate there illegaly, form an army, and then take it away from the people who have lived there for millenia? Even today, Jews are not a majority in the territories that Israel occupies. So what justification do you have for the continued occupation of the land promised to palestinians under the pre-48 partition deal, beyond a bob dylan song and your pride in being of Jewish ancestry?

If ethnic pride and songs are all you need to justify minority rule based on religion, I think you will have a hard time coming up with a consistent explanation as to why Al Qaeda doesn't have the right to invade and capture any country it wants in the name of its radical religious views.

 

[matis]

Quote: (shootinstudent)
Is it permissible, legal, just, or whatever for people who are not born in a country to immigrate there illegaly, form an army, and then take it away from the people who have lived there for millenia?
______________________________________________________________


Shootinstudent, your hyprocisy is pathetic.

You have just described exactly how the United States came into being.

And most other countries That is the way of the world.


I have been calling your arguments childish. But maybe Kurush is right. After all that I have posted -- and all that is available for anyone of goodwill to know and understand if they wanted to -- your arguments are redolent of Jew-hatred.

Why are you not railing against our treatment of the Indians. Why don't you give at least your piece of America back to them?


Jew-haters insist that Jews behave in a ridiculously utopian manner that you require of no one else. It just so happens that your insistence on Jewish purity would result in their annihilation. Oh, well. Tough luck, I guess. We'll have to find someone else to kick.

You may half-heartedly point to this and that injustice. But you save your vehemence for Israel and Jews.



You and your kind make me sick.


matis

 

[Kurush]

[long unfocused rant, even Arabs hate Palestinians, everyone who disagrees with me is anti-semitic, etc etc]

I'm not going to argue with you, you are obviously not interested in seeing anyone else's viewpoint.

But for everyone lurking here, I ask you to consider which side of this debate shows concern for the well being of both sides of the conflict, and which side has deprecated the value of the lives of one side by referring to them as "barbarians" and "highly skilled liars".

Matis likes to compare everyone but himself to Hitler, but casting your enemies as vermin is a tactic they both seem fond of.

As for me, the quote in my signature explains my viewpoint better than I can.

 

[shootinstudent]

Let me start by pointing out what you did not include:

A moral, legal, or any other kind of rational justification for illegal-immigration and then rebellion, followed by minority rule based on religious identity.

Now I'll address your personal comments:

I have been calling your arguments childish. But maybe Kurush is right. After all that I have posted -- and all that is available for anyone of goodwill to know and understand if they wanted to -- your arguments are redolent of Jew-hatred.

Why are you not railing against our treatment of the Indians. Why don't you give at least your piece of America back to them?

For one, I'm not posting about the Indians because this is a thread on reasons for anti-American and anti-Israeli sentiment in the Arab world. It would be a bit silly to start posting on the evils of wiping out all the native americans and taking their land, which, I agree, was wrong. It's water under the bridge by now, especially because of point two...

Why don't you give at least your piece of America back to them?

I support honoring the treaties that the US government made, which do grant land. Likewise, I support honoring the partition agreement, which gave some land to the Palestinian arabs, and left some for the Jewish immigrants. Israel did not respect that agreement.

On top of this, I would most certainly be more than upset if my government decided that Indians had no voting rights, especially if a majority of the country were still indian. Would you support expelling all Native Americans to somewhere else because of the separatist-leanings of the AIM and the Leonard Peltier crowd?

I think perhaps you have resorting to calling me an anti-semite because you can't come up with a rational explanation for your position. That's fine, but I hope you will recognize it for what it is. I'm criticizing illegal land grabs and minority rule based on religious identity, and I don't care who does it...Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, or Hindus, it's wrong to disenfranchise and expel millions of people from their homes because you can't risk letting them vote.

And, back to the topic, the continued denial of what happened in 1948 along with the subsequent refusal to take any steps towards giving Palestinian arabs rights of self-determination in their homeland, is fueling anti-American and anti-Israeli sentinment all over the world. I think you, by pretending that nothing bad has gone on, are only helping to prove correct the propaganda of the hate-mongers when it claims that no one cares about the Arab point of view and that any attack on Arabs will be justified if it supports Israel.

 

[matis]

Quote:
I'm not going to argue with you, you are obviously not interested in seeing anyone else's viewpoint. (Kurush)
______________________________________________________________




I would dearly like to see your viewpoint, Kurush.


It just so happens that your viewpoint would lead to the destruction of Israel and ultimately of me and mine.


So you'll just have to get by without my seeing your viewpoint.



Why don't you start your own campaign to give America back to the Indians?




matis

 

[matis]

Shootinstudent,


Here, you can have the last word. I'm tired of banging my head on the wall.


Our survival, our very existence is against all odds. Some call the re-birth of modern Israel a miracle. We have out-lasted all, great and small, who intended our destruction.


So in real life, we'll see who gets the last word, won't we?



matis

 

[shootinstudent]

But for everyone lurking here, I ask you to consider which side of this debate shows concern for the well being of both sides of the conflict, and which side has deprecated the value of the lives of one side by referring to them as "barbarians" and "highly skilled liars".
.

Kurush, I think I'll adopt your approach. Thanks for the info and for your comments, and now it's time for me to check out of this one.

 

[matis]

Quote:
which side has deprecated the value of the lives of one side by referring to them as "barbarians"
_______________________________________________________________


In case anyone is still unsure why I call these people "barbarians", I suggest you peruse a site called: www.ogrish.com


Click on archive, then either on terrorism or on war.


If you have the stomach for it, you can see photos and videos of what these lovely people perpetrate.

See the bloody body parts strewing the street after a bus bombing in Israel.

Or especially, see the Muslim spectators applauding as they watch a man shreiking while they saw his head off.

Or see the Muslim spectators applauding as a man screams while the barbarians shove a sword up his rectum until it emerges out his back at one of his shoulder blades. Amazing how long these poor souls can stay alive and scream.


See the joy on the faces of these lovely people as they applaud their fellow human-being brutalized until death ends their agony.

Sure makes these lovely guys' day.



And to bring it back home, see the videos of the WTC tower jumpers. Watch as they tumble head over heels until they pulp themselves on the ground.


War is not pretty and people get torn up.


But this is not war; these are the savage, barbarian acts of human animals without pity or human feeling.

These are the kinds of people Israel has had to cope and "make peace" with.


Judge for yourself. I calls them as I sees them.



Then Kurush and shootinstudent can explain these outrages away.

You know -- I'm "...just not interested in seeing their point of view".



matis

 

[silverlance]

Analogies of Israel on a microscopic scale

Image that I am Israel. My neighbor, whose family has lived on this street just as long as mine has (Jewish ancestral claims to land) hates me because in the many years while I was away, my family's lands were used by my neighbor Palestine's family.

So my neighbor Palestine walks over and talks to the other neighbors (actually they [Egypt, etc] talk to him) and they decide secretly to invade my house and ride me out of town on a rail or put me to death if I refuse to leave. The neighbors convince their young sons that this is the proper response because their families have lost quite a bit of property (700k refugees) as I've returned to claim my family's land. Some neighbors even point to old documents citing abandonment and dimly remembered court cases (wars, treaties, etc) to support their argument.

But as they creep into my yard, the perimeter alarm goes off and I loose the dogs (Israeli Air Force) upon them. Oh Crap! The neighbors get bitten badly and poor Palestine gets a bucketload of 00 Buck from my shotgun, ol' trusty One-Eye (and my sidearm Sharon). It isn't pretty.

The other neighbors run off with their tails between their legs and abandon Palestine, who's badly wounded. I take away his West Bank lever-action and Gaza Strip bandolier, decide I like it, and kick his unfortunate arse back across the fence. As a matter of fact, I decide that if I plan to be able to fight off the neighbors again next time, I need more land to plant more crops to pay for better dogs (military) and better guns (patriots, etc). So I push the fence several hundred feet over and shove Palestine's family into the barn. Their barnhouse becomes my guesthouse, and I spend the next fifty years fortifying it in preparation for another attack.

Palestine protests loudly to all who listen on the corner about his unfair treatment. The other neighbors listen sometimes, and encourage him to keep throwing rocks through my windows. But whenever he goes over to their houses to borrow a cup of sugar, they chase him off with their own dogs. On the next street over, a couple of families that have only recently built their houses periodically come visit with me and ask that I give Palestine back his yard. I politely disagree with the Americans and the Canadians, but move the fence back twenty feet or so out of respect for these newcomers. As we sit discussing what else can be done to resolve my dispute, a rock come sailing through my window and hits Senor American in the head. He gets up, shakes his head, pulls out a Bazooka from under his baggy t-shirt, and runs out the back door.

I sip my tea in amusement. I guess I could do with a little less land. And I probably should at least give Palestine back his clothes (certain civil priviledges), which I ripped off his back as I sent him back home that fateful night.

But one thing at a time, one thing at a time.

...

Millenia ago, China was made up of many countries. A single emperor ruthlessly united them. Today China has only a single language and a single people. Was his federalization of China illegal? Was it unethical?

 

[shootinstudent]

silverlance,

The comparison isn't even close to what happened. It's more like: "I invite all my friends over from different parts of the world, and then declare the whole neighborhood mine....and only my friends get to vote on what our new government does. No one else gets to vote, and we kick out anyone who doesn't like it through force of arms."

Millenia ago, China was made up of many countries. A single emperor ruthlessly united them. Today China has only a single language and a single people. Was his federalization of China illegal? Was it unethical?

It is not a single language or a single people today, and there is plenty of inter-cultural rivalry. Are the methods of the chinese government in suppressing said rivalry and dissent unethical?

You betcha.

The problem I think is that a lot of people, especially in the west, assume that most of the people who founded Israel had been living there. That's not the case. Most of the people who founded Israel immigrated in the decades prior to the 1948 war, despite that immigration being illegal. The Palestinian arabs did not want immigrants coming and taking over their land, and I think that is entirely fair, since at the time they controlled it.

The only possible basis for claiming that the people born in other countries had a right to control Palestine/Israel is religious, and as far as I'm concerned people shouldn't be invading or overthrowing other countries because their religion says they have a right to the land. But that's water under the bridge, because even if you accept a right to establish Israel, the first move the new state took was to invade the Palestinian land that had been reserved for Palestinian coexistence. Now, Israel occupies a geographical area inhabited by millions more arabs...who don't vote.

The barn and neighbor analogy is neat, but it doesn't fit the situation.

 

[Kurush]

Then Kurush and shootinstudent can explain these outrages away.

I have no need to explain them away. The fact that you think the innocent civilians whose houses are bulldozed for Israeli settlements are the same person as the various terrorists because of their (purportedly) shared race simply unmasks your racism.

Honestly it makes me sad to read your diatribes. I see someone who has converted fear into an irrational hatred and paranoia. You cannot understand that not all Arabs are the same person. You cannot understand that Israel's existence is not a dichotomy between cruel domination and its own annihilation. You cannot understand that anyone could sincerely sympathise with the cruelties inflicted on the Palestinians. I pity you for your lost humanity. I don't expect you to understand that, but there it is.

As I said before, you are clearly not interested in discussing, only in attacking. I have no interest in slinging mud, so there is no point to responding to you further. I am now adding you to my ignore list.