Last night’s CBC National featured another heart-wrenching piece by Adrienne Arsenault, reporting on the desperate measures of a besieged Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip to protect their children from the anticipated onslaught of remorseless Israeli tanks.
As she described the “booby-trapped sand berm” behind her…
mp3 audio 300 kb
ogg audio 99kb
(This won’t be current for long, but click here to view the entire broadcast. It begins with a report on BC forest fires).
update – The facts that Arsenault omits.
Without a gov’t, without an economy, what’s left for the Palestinians? They are locked into hatred and revenge, which has become their sole reason for life. Do you seriously think this is genetic? No. No, it’s isn’t islamofascism; it isn’t a fight to return to tribalism. It’s about being occupied, deprived of an economy, of self-gov’t, of educational progress, of hope, for a whole generation. That does something to the psyche.
Posted by: ET
I could not agree more.
I’ve been watching this tiny area of the planet damn near dominate world affairs since I was a little kid.Maybe it is time for an all-out war between the two,to the victor goes the spoils…That is thousands of years of history!That is how men fight wars!
I wouldn’t doubt that in the end,less lives would be lost than 50 more yrs of this unending BS.
Is my suggestion a tad harsh?….Damn right!
But,maybe in reality it will be the only long term solution to the present,never-ending hatred and carnage….
Posted by: Canadian Observer
sick, even for a neo-con. I would agree to it, however, if the Russians ans Saudis were allowed to arm Palistine to the exact same extent the Americans have armed Isreal.
AP, aka the MSM, is now receiving/disseminating propaganda/photos on behalf of the cult of black death in Gaza. Photos by an AP photog at:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/
Women’s Liberation, Palestinian Style
Um Ahmed, 36, a mother of eight, holds what she claims is a suicide belt, as she sits for an interview with journalists in the village of Abasa, near the southern Gaza Strip town of Khan Younis Wednesday July 5, 2006. She is one of a group of at least 20 women in the village that are given, according to the local al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades commander, suicide belts every night in preparation for an expected Israeli assault on the town. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti).
I should like to suggest, Voter, that it might be less than optimal for you to align yourself with a position you have just labelled as sick, independent of your provisos.
By the way, Jeremy Bowen has a nice piece in the BBC (yes, I know) on ‘Why dreams must die if peace is to come’.
A few comments:
‘They are able to take the same set of events and draw utterly different conclusions about how they got to where they are, what is happening now and what to do next”….’the Israelis and Palestinians are levelling the same accusations against each other, accusing each other of terrorism and opporession. Both believe that they are acting in self-defense”
He says that “in the 39 years since Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, history has delivered a few fundamental lessons, which neither side at the moment is in any mood to absorb….”lesson for Israel is that force does not work”…”lesson for the Palestinians is that force does not work”.
“If this crisis escalates further, Israel may well be tempted to topple the Hamas government. But what will happen after that? Would there be more or less chaos in the territories?”
“eventually their only chance of creating a decent future for their children is to make a political agreement about sharing the land between the River Jordan and the Mediterranean that is acceptable to both sides. To do that they will both have to recognize that peace has a price. Up to now, in all the years of negotiations, neither side has been prepared to pay what is needed in lost dreams and hard choises”.
I think he’s right. Peace has a price, and the price is to recognize reality and give up fictions. The fictions are such as espoused by ex-liberal, who supports his conclusions with, yes, fictions, with films. Or others, who conclude that one side is purely good and the other side is purely evil.
What are some of these fictions? About there being ‘no such people as Palestinians’, about the land being empty in 1948, about ‘all Palestinians being terrorists’ and wanting only to drive Israel into the sea’, about the need for revenge, about all the land being ‘ours because God gave it to us’.
And, other fictions, such as the ‘right of refugees to return’, such as that disappearance of Israel, such as the need for revenge.
Both sides have to give up these fictions, even if they consider them basic reasons for living, and accept reality. As Bowen says, that means that life isn’t built according to dreams. It’s based on reality, and hard choices have to be made, by BOTH sides.
I dunno, maybe we’re reading too much into this? Perhaps we should reserve judgement until she she goes all Rachel Corrie, and throws herself in front of a bulldozer.
She she who who? Pronoun reference error.
Imagine being asked to mediate an intractable dispute which had gone on for years between two neighbours. Now suppose that one side in the dispute wants peace, but that the other not only doesn’t want peace, but loudly insists, and reiterates generation after generation that there will be no peace until the other side doesn’t exist any more. Who would you deem to be the reason for the problem?
Arabs in the regions surrounding Israel seem to thrive on their hatred of Jews, and — this is what dashes hopes of resolution — they seem to deeply believe that their hate is THE necessary force which will bring them the solution they want.
It seems practically self-evident that the average Jew would like nothing more than to have peace in the region, were it to be offered. If we are to take their utterances at face value, the Arabs who surround Israel have no such desire. So who’s the problem?
Aye.
swingvoter, do you think Israel was given their military for free from the US? They bought every tank and gun they own. They developed their own military technologies. They bought from France, Germany, Britain, and many other countries too. And with a hundred million Muslims completely surrounding the state of Israel, openly preaching about how they should be eradicated from the middle of the Nation of Islam, who can blame them for wanting to defend themselves. The Islamist war against the Jews began long before Israel even became a nation. Read your history about the Hebron massacres or the 1936-39 “Arab Revolt”.
the fight of the Arabs from the British Mandate is not about Land – it is about not letting Jews rise above their dhimmi status that Islam has kept them in for 14 centuries. Dhimmis are not even suppose to carry weapons let alone be sovereign in their own land.
ET disagrees with me – so what. Take a number and get in line with all the rest of the planet who doesn’t like the idea of Jews defending themselves.
It is just plain historical fact: All the land that is present day Jordan used to be part of the British Mandate for Palestine. In about 1920 or so the British broke everything east of the Jordan River off of the Mandate to make a state for the Hashemites. No Jews were allowed to live east of the Jordan River – it was to be a Jew free land for the Arabs of the Palestinian Mandate.
The Arabs of the Palestinian Mandate were offered another state in 1947 when the UN proposed to partition the land west of the Jordan River into 2 states for 2 peoples – a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews agreed to this partition and the Arabs rejected it.
ET what is to disagree with here? This is not “personal narrative”; it is not to make the Jews “look heroic” in fighting Islamic crazies (what? you don’t think they are heroic? You think they should just go back to being dhimmis?)
This is just history.
What – you don’t think it is just a little bit odd that no one but Jews called themselves Palestinians before 1967?
ET, come on – you must be Jewish – you seem to have such a pathological aversion to thinking that maybe, just maybe, the Jews might be right (or do you think that there is no right and wrong – I don’t think you are a moral relativist are you?) ET, I’m Jewish, as you probably know, and believe me there are so many people in my family who think that everything is just our fault, and why don’t we just go quietly into the night.
ex-liberal. I guess we’ll just have to ‘agree to disagree’.
No, the Israeli-Palestinian fight is not about the Islamic religion and its agenda of ‘dhimmitude’. It’s about land and resources, about living within a state rather than a refugee camp, about developing your future, yourself. Trying to cloak the I-P war into a heroic ‘fight against ancient dhimmitude’ is frankly, egregious and unethical.
The Islamic fascist reality has nothing, nothing, to do with the above I-P war. Islamic fascism is a result of the demographic explosion of the ME during the last two decades, and the inability of the political infrastructure to mature into an industrial economic-political structure. It retained tribalism, but retained it within military and religious dictatorships. The religious dictatorship was the mov’t to Wahhabism, focused on Purity of Origin. The tension between a population – and tribalism – especially when not isolated from the world, has exploded into fascism as the region tries to retain tribalism.
Islam has nothing to do with the I-P war, which has completely different causes – the refusal of Israel to recognize the realities of a settled population, the Palestinians, who had been living there for centuries. If you do not want these people as citizens (because they are not Jews); and no-one else wants them (Jordan and Egypt refuse); then, you must not simply let them live within refugee camps, but acknowledge that they exist. Compensate them for loss of farms and houses; Stop settling the land allotted by the UN to them. End the occupation – and particularly in the fertile West Bank, which has land and water while Gaza has neither. Recognize a Palestinian state, which Israel has so far refused to recognize, hoping that those people will disappear ‘into the desert’.
In other words, give up the fictions (such as that Jordan is ‘really’ the Palestinian state and the million refugees were all really Jordanians who just happened to be living outside of Jordan under the British). Don’t start with the caliphate ‘dhimmitude’ argument which is meaningless in this situation.
No, I’m not a Jew, I don’t have any religion; I’m an atheist. (And for the unaware, being an atheist does not automatically mean one is a communist. I’m certainly not communist!).
I’m trying to look at the situation from an objective perspective – ie, what do you do in a situation where a global gov’t says X (the UN) and where there are already people living there, and where the people moving there reject assimilation with those people. What do you do?
Can we PLEASE stop referring to Gaza, et al, as ‘refugee camps’? I’ve BEEN to Gaza, it’s not a ‘camp’, it’s built up, and little different from any other Arab urban ‘community’.
‘Refugee Camps’ is a misnomer deliberately intended to create the impression of lines of non-serviced tents with no roads or facilities available……..Boo Hoo…but it ain’t true.
A million Jews moved from the surrounding states to Israel proper. When will they be compensated? When will they get their piece of Syria, Iraq, Iran, etc? Jordan IS the Pal state – as ex-liberal stated, 90% of mandate Palestine was cleaved off and made a no-go zone for the Jews. Why is it that the Jews moved but the Pals can’t possibly be expected to do the same?
Why is it that when Iran threatens to nuke Israel we never hear Pals react in horror at the thought of their allegedly “stolen” homes in Israel becoming part of a radioactive dead zone? Why is it that they react in glee at the thought? You’d think that if they’re so desperate to go back to grandpa’s home – even when in many cases grandpa, like Yasser Arafat, came from Egypt – they might have a thing or two to say about Iranian threats.
Why is it that I always see Canadian Pals on TV talking about Israel as an apartheid state, why do they without exception want a one state solution, and why is it painfully obvious that they want the Jews in dhimmitude?
Update re “mysterious explosion”.
Muslim Islamist terrorists from Gaza “fired at a car” containing other Muslims.
The Rules of Engagement (ROE) for the Islamist terrorists in Gaza is: Shoot first, ask questions after. …-
AP Doesn’t Care About Injured Journalists
In a story about the Gaza operations, Associated Press Palestinian propagandist Ibrahim Barzak tosses off an insignificant tidbit of trivia:
In nearby Beit Lahiya, Palestinians fired at a car carrying a crew from the Arabic satellite TV channel Al-Jazeera, wounding two people, said Wael Dahdouh, one of the reporters in the car. The gunmen apparently thought the reporters were Israeli undercover agents, he said.
And that’s it. Because the Al Jazeera journalists were shot by Palestinians, the world’s media could not care less. Imagine if Israel had been responsible—there would be page one screaming headlines, demands for investigations, etc.
via LGF
Part of the Islamofascist agenda is to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. With regards to the so-called ‘Palestinian’ people, the question is, what is their real motivation? Is it to have their own country and thereafter live in peace with Israel? Or to take over the whole combined area, after Israel is wiped off the face of the earth?
What is Palestine and who exactly are the Palestinians? Are they the same gentle Jewish, Christian and Muslim farmers as they were in 1946? Or have they morphed into something entirely different, including a large percentage of militant Arab Muslims from surrounding countries?That question may be answered by their choice of government. Hamas is a pan-ME, Arab terrorist organisation, headquartered in Syria. Is this choice of a foreign government representative of Palestinian wishes for their own country, living peacefully beside Israel? Or rather, the Islamofascist agenda to wipe Israel off the face of the earth?
I’d say the latter.
And ET, the area was a squalid backwater producing little from the earth prior to the establishment of Israel. But then, that should go without saying when you look at the agricultural production from most Muslim countries.
I won’t respond to the posts aligning Palestinians with Islamic fascism, for I’ve provided my reasons for this as an invalid alignment.
I also won’t respond to the posts asserting that Jordan is ‘the real home’ of the Palestinians, for this refuses to acknowledge the reality of the two areas of trans-Jordan and Jordan.
There’s also no point in trying to correlate the immigration of Jews to Israel from the surrounding Arab lands, a willing choice, with immediate citizenship upon arrival, and the exodus of the Palestinians, by force and fear, to refugee status with no citizenship, with the loss of their homes and farms.
With regard to irwin daisy, no, the area was not a ‘squalid wasteland’. It was a peasant, non-industrial agriculture, akin to something called ‘transhumance’ which is an economy based around local village non-industrial agriculture and small animal husbandry (goats, etc).
You have to acknowledge the ecology of the ME. Check out, for instance, the arable land base of Saudi Arabia – it’s about 1% and then, compare it with the arable land base of a European country, which is about 30%. AND, the European biome or ecological env’t has water – rainfall, while the ME lacks water. These are realities that you perhaps don’t know about. But, it means that the type of agriculture you have, without industrialism, is small scale, peasant, can support only a small population. They are governed within tribalism.
To change this – and it’s not a complete change – you have to move to industrialism. That will enable irrigation (which can have bad results too). The problem with the ME, is that the states industrialized only oil, and used the revenues, not to develop their agriculture, and their education and their non-agricultural businesses – but- to support the dominant tribe. And, they retained tribalism rather than moving to democracy. That’s the disastrous reason for islamic fascism. And islamic fascism has nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian situation.
“Why is it that when Iran threatens to nuke Israel we never hear Pals react in horror at the thought of their allegedly ‘stolen’ homes in Israel becoming part of a radioactive dead zone? Why is it that they react in glee at the thought?”
Interesting point.
Presumably in this case they’re happy to become “necessary collateral damage” for the greater cause!
Irwin Daisy said: “Part of the Islamofascist agenda is to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.”
Hamas agrees: its entire agenda is to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
Hamas has been conducting test flights of rockets, aided/abetted by Iran and North Korea. …-
Hamas works to fire rockets deeper into Israel
Reuters AlertNet, UK – 1 hour ago
By Nidal al-Mughrabi. GAZA, July 6 (Reuters) – Hamas rocket makers spent months adjusting engine parts and conducting test flights …
google news
“… the immigration of Jews to Israel from the surrounding Arab lands, a willing choice …”
Well they could have hung around for the Daniel Pearl treatment. I suppose that was an option.
“… the exodus of the Palestinians, by force and fear, to refugee status with no citizenship, with the loss of their homes and farms …”
You mean told by the invading Arab armies to get out of the way to avoid getting caught up in the slaughter of the Jews. ‘Cept it didn’t quite turn out that way, did it?
And now 50 years’ on, they’re still in refugee camps, still on the U.N. teat, still going the terrorist route. That too is an option, but certainly not one that should be rewarded with a state.
BTW, related to an earlier post, Sharon’s birth certificate says his place of birth is Palestine.
ET, you wrote:
“karl – if, as you say, Israel has no right to create a Palestinian state, then Palestinians have no right to create an Israeli state”
ummm…. I never said (or even thought) that the Palestinians had a right to create an Israeli state. The UN created the state of Israel. I am not following your line of thought here.
“We aren’t talking about creation, we are talking about recognition.”
Recognizing what? There has never been a Palestinain state to recognize, aside from possibly the Kingdom of Jordan, and yes I agree that that ship sailed long ago and that some new solution to the Palestinian question is needed.
“And Israel has only recognized Palestine as a muncipal entity but not a national entity.”
Which is as much as anyone in the world (the UN included) has ever done, at least to my knowledge. You keep speaking as though there once was a Palestinian state that someone took away, and now needs to be “recognized”. But there has never been a state to recognize. The logic that “we need to recognize them as a nation because they are a nation which needs to be recognized” is a bit of a circular argument, don’t you think? It is more accurate to say that if there is to be a Palestinian nation, it must be created. To recognize something implies that it already exists. To create something recognizes that it never has existed. Which description best fits the historical reality of ther Arabs in Palestine?
I mean really, Quebec has as much historic and cultural claim to nationhood as they do. It too was never a state, but was a colony, that now has pretentions to statehood. Only they can justly claim that they lost their ties to their old colonial masters due to a military action fought just outside their colonial capital, on “their own soil” if you will. The Palestinaians on the other hand lost their connection to the Ottaman Turks because of battles fought elsewhere (mostly in Arabia and Europe). And yet we Canadians bristle when the PQ and the Bloc refer to Quebec as a nation. Why do we not bristle when Palestinians use “we are a nation” language. Or for that matter, why are we critical of the Native folks at Caledonia? Are they not just saying (and to some lesser degree, doing) what the Palestinians are doing? And now the Ontario government is going to relocate by force some Canadian “settlers” from their “home on Native land”, or their “outpost” if you will. The nerve!! No, I don’t subscribe to this logic myself, nor am I accusing you of doing so. I use it by way of comparison. It is easy to be critical of Israel, partly because many people have the tendency to favour the underdog. But the underdog is not always in the right.
You went on to say:
“The Oslo Accords recognized only municipal self-government powers, referring to education, culture, health. Not borders, foreign relations, resources, defence.”
Again, this is more than they ever got from anyone, anywhere, anytime. It is a step toward statehood. But not if they keep fireing rockets, and doing suicide bombings. And certainly not if there is still a significant faction in their midst who will not let go of the goal of pushing the Jews into the sea. Certainly, I can see the Israeli’s point in wishing to oppose the formation of a state on their borders who seek to be their military enemy. If Quebec was saying they wanted independance so that they could form an army so that they could invade us, I daresay we would fight tooth and nail to keep it from happening. I realize that some of the Palestinian leadership has set aside that previously stated goal (which by the way, was formative formative for the PLO). But many have not. Say for instance there were two nationalist parties in Quebec. One that stood for peaceful co-existance with Canada, and one that stood for war with Canada. Let’s also say that the peaceful party is now in, and they win a referendum. Would you really want to be just one election away from a possible war? Would you not fight pre-emptivly to prevent it?
Having said all of this, you also state elsewhere:
“Arafat was indeed double-sided; signing the Oslo Accords with one hand and keeping the fight going with the other – and his Fatah was corrupt. But Sharon was no better, settling the occupied lands as quickly as he could, rather than recognizing the Accord and the land rights of the Palestinians.”
Absolutly correct. But two wrongs don’t make a right. Using the bad actions of one to excuse the bad actions of another is poor logic, and unhelpful in finding solutions to probnlems. This is what I meant earlier when I spoke of this as being a classic “race to the bottom”. Unfortunately, it seems that both Israelis and Palestinians prefer their hawks to their doves. The only way out of a race to the bottom is if someone stops running. Like Gorbachev did when he saw there was no way the USSR could win the arms race without utterly destroying the Soviet economy. He did the right thing (and so it could be argued, did Reagan). Hopefully a couple of smart, tough, and (above all) reasonable figures will emerge on the two sides of this issue as well. Perhaps then, both sides can finally let go of their respective “fictions” as you have so aptly called them.
Anyway, as you have said elsewhere, saying that “Jordan is the Palestinian state” is unhelpful to the present situation. That ship has sailed. The question is, what is the way forward. Setting aside of mutual goals to drive the other from the land would be a good start in my view. But how to control the radical elements on both sides is the problem.
ET,
You surprise me. I typically agree with your logic on most issues, however, this one I completely disagree with.
It seems reasonable enough to see that the Palestinian desire for their own homeland is subordinate to their overall fanatical desire to obliterate Israel. At least the usual Islamofascist terrorist tactics are all evident – including mothers applauding their suicide bomber children; and men in black balaclavas, armed to the teeth, yelling allah akbar – whenever there’s a camera in the vicinity. Not to mention their overall joy when the towers came down.
Given that, it’s pretty hard not to admit that the Palestinian borders are Islamic battle fronts.
Further, your description of pre-Israel Palestine fits the term ‘squalid backwater’ quite splendidly. There’s no doubt that at least the Israeli portion has benefited from modern irrigation and agricultual methods, while the Palestinian area remains as squalid as ever.
Denying facts does not stop them from remaining facts.
Jordan has 77.37% of the Palestine Mandate territory.
Karl says….
“Hopefully a couple of smart, tough, and (above all) reasonable figures will emerge on the two sides of this issue as well.”
I would suggest it is a three-sided issue and -must- be a three-sided solution.
The nation that has over 3/4 of the mandate land has no role to play in the resolution?
Ridiculous!
Again, as to compensation, explain why the burden is placed on Israel and not the Arab nations who INVADED with the goal of DESTROYING Israel.
Ridiculous!
ET should be railing over how the Arab nations have used and abused the Palestinian Arabs since 1948.
Robert,
Okay, fair enough. Perhaps Jordan figures more prominently in this than I suppose.
And as to the compensation question: The more I think about it the more I wonder where ET is coming from on this one. The fact is that Israeli Jews are descended from people who were driven out, refused entry into safe countries like Canada, persecuted, driven from farms and towns that they had occupied for centuries, stripped of property, money, heirlooms, and in fact some of them had most of relatives killed. And this not just by the Nazis either, but in pogrom after pogrom. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but where is the insistance that compensation be paid for these atrocities? In recent years we witnessed the spectacle of Swiss Banks doing everything they could to avoid giving money back to living relatives of those who died in the holocaust.
But why stop there? I have some Acadian ancestory. Where is my compensation from land confiscated and given to United Empire Loyalists in New Brunswick? And what about those self same loyalists driven from their land in New England? And what about the Natives before them? and what about the members of the previous tribe driven off by them?
The truth is that throughout history people have been driven from their land without compensation. And I dare say those same Palestinian Arabs originated somewhere else, like say Arabia. Where do you stop?
“In Rome, Italy’s foreign minister called the scale of Israel’s offensive out of proportion, Italian news agencies reported.
‘It’s unthinkable that to save one hostage we would embark in an operation that would cause the deaths of dozens of people,’ the reports quoted Massimo D’Alema as saying.”
I would agree with the foreign minister. Then again, Israel’s disproportional “justice” is nothing new.
ET, the PLO was formed in 1964, prior to Israel acquiring the West Bank and Gaza Strip. These were territories under control of the Arab nations from 1947 to 1967, and they did nothing for the people there for 20 years. Yasser Arafat began fighting Israel the year Israel declared their statehood. He was against an Israeli state in the middle of the Muslim world. Plain and simple. The PLO did not fight against Israel for land. They began a war against Israel operating from the safety of Jordan, long before Israel came into posession of the West Bank and Gaza. This war is not about land and control of the land…it’s about a non-Muslim state in the middle of the Muslim world!
ET, I try to look at the situatiion from the perspective of objective truth.
Practically everything you say is a cliche repetition of the anti-Jew/anti-Israel tripe levelled by Chomsky, Said, Fisk, Cupe, the Anglican Church, leftists, and assorted Bible haters.
you say “… the immigration of Jews to Israel from the surrounding Arab lands, a willing choice …”
Following the 1947 United Nations vote to partition Palestine, Arab violence against Jews erupted throughout the Middle East and North Africa where more than 870,000 Jews were living (1945 estimate). Many of the Jews resided in communities with a continuous Jewish existence for 2,500 years or more.
Even before the November 1947 UN vote, Arab delegates to the UN, in particular those of Egypt and Iraq, had hinted at their intentions in speeches, warning that Partition might endanger Jews in Arab lands, intensify antisemitism and lead to massacres of Jews. These veiled threats must have had a chilling impact on Jews in Arab lands where memories of the pro-Nazi stance of the local Arab governments and nationalists were still fresh, especially in Iraq, Syria and Egypt, as well as in Libya where Arab mobs had accepted the occupying Germans’ invitation to plunder the Jews. And recall the incitement to murder Jews issued over Radio Berlin during World War II by Haj Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem. These facts make obvious nonsense out of claims that Jews made a “willing choice” to move to Israel
In Iraq, new laws made Zionism punishable by death. In Aleppo, Syria, 300 Jewish homes and 11 synagogues were burned to the ground, and half of the city’s 4,000 Jews fled elsewhere. In Aden, 82 Jews were killed. Pogroms accompanied by confiscation of Jewish property and belongings was the norm in Arab countries. From 1948 on, Jewish communities that had survived in Arab countries since antiquity dwindled to a few families or became extinct.
Aproximately 600,000 Jews sought refuge in the State of Israel. Since their belongings were confiscated as the price of leaving, they arrived in Israel pennyless, but they were welcomed and quickly absorbed into Israeli society. In reality, an exchange of populations took place between Jews leaving Arab countries and Arabs leaving Jewish Palestine. But while the Jewish refugees quickly became productive citizens of their new home country of Israel, the Palestinian Arabs were forced by their politically motivated leaders to fester as “refugees” for generations.
Israel absorbed the Jews who fled Arab countries and millions of refugees from Nazi and Soviet Europe in the same time. After brief periods of adjustment, the Jews fleeing life-threatening conditions in other lands became indistinguishable from other Israelis. Today tiny Israel, with relatively few resources, has no “refugee problem” while the wealthy Arab countries, with vast lands and oil riches, cannot find a way to help the Arabs from Mandated Palestine. (http://www.palestinefacts.org)
excellent point Pete
what does our friend ET have to say about that historical objective fact
oh, and ET, there are plenty of Jews who are atheists – so you could absolutely be a Jew and an atheist at the same time.
Maybe that’s why you have such blinders on when it comes to the state of the Jews – it kind of irks your atheist self that the ingathering of Jews from the all the lands of their dispersion has occured (you know, fullfillment of biblical prophecies) . My experience is that atheists, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, have difficulties with Israel
“fundamentalist” atheists that is – those totally committed to the idea that the God of the Bible does not exist.
ok, just one more for ET
She says “It is not merely historically false but it is unethical to make that claim (that the fight against islamic fascism and dhimmitude = Arab/Israeli fight), because it is giving an attribute of heroism to the Israeli fight and an attribute of ‘jihad terrorism’ to the Palestinian fight, that does not in reality exist.
unethical? huh?
read the whole thing http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=21997
read anything by Bat Yeor
During a Friday sermon broadcasted live on June 6, 2001 on PA TV, from the Sheik ‘Ijlin Mosque in Gaza, Palestinian Authority employee Sheik Muhammad Ibrahim Al-Madhi reiterated these sentiments with regard to Jews:
We welcome, as we did in the past, any Jew who wants to live in this land as a Dhimmi, just as the Jews have lived in our countries, as Dhimmis, and have earned appreciation, and some of them have even reached the positions of counselor or minister here and there. We welcome the Jews to live as Dhimmis, but the rule in this land and in all the Muslim countries must be the rule of Allah
And most recently, interviewed by Wall Street Journal reporter Karby Legget in late December of 2005, Hassam El-Masalmeh, who heads the Hamas contingent at the municipal council of Bethlehem, confirmed the organizations plan to re-institute the humiliating jizya. El-Masalmeh stated explicitly,
We in Hamas intend to implement this tax (i.e., the jizya) someday. We say it openly – we welcome everyone to Palestine but only if they agree to live under our rules.
There have been ceaseless calls for jihad in Palestine during modern times—in the 1920s and 30s by Hajj Amin El Husseini and Izz Al-Din al Qassam; by the late Yasser Arafat throughout his 40-years as leader of Fatah and the Palestine Liberation Organization; and now under Hamas. Hamas’s foundational covenant calls for an annihilationist jihad to eradicate Israel. It states, “There is no solution to the Palestinian problem except by jihad.” Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers are presently assisting Hamas commanders in arming and training a new jihadist army called the Murbitun—a name which derives from the pious Almoravid religious warriors—Islamized Berbers whose jihad campaigns ravaged North Africa and Iberia in the 11th and 12th centuries. And on April 1, 2006 the new Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mahmoud al-Zahar made clear the goal of such jihadists, “…our dream to have our independent state on all historic Palestine …will become real one day. I’m certain of this because there is no place for the state of Israel on this land”
Thus let me close with these penetrating insights from historian Bat Ye’or, who observed, that jihad remained,
…the main cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Since Israelis are to be regarded, perforce, only as a religious community, their national characteristics – a geographical territory related to a past history, a system of legislation, a specific language and culture – are consequently denied. The “Arab” character of the Palestinian territory is inherent in the logic of jihad. Having become fay territory by conquest (i.e. “taken from an infidel people”), it must remain within the dar al-Islam. The State of Israel, established on this fay territory, is consequently illegal.
And she concluded,
…Israel represents the successful national liberation of a dhimmi civilization. On a territory formerly Arabized by the jihad and the dhimma, a pre-Islamic language, culture, topographical geography, and national institutions have been restored to life. This reversed the process of centuries in which the cultural, social and political structures of the indigenous population of Palestine were destroyed. In 1974, Abu Iyad, second-in-command to Arafat in the Fatah hierarchy, announced: “We intend to struggle so that our Palestinian homeland does not become a new Andalusia.” The comparison of Andalusia to Palestine was not fortuitous since both countries were Arabized, and then de-Arabized by a pre-Arabic culture.
Ex-lib:
ET keeps affirming that it’s not an Islamofacist thing because she doesn’t want to admit that she’s on the same side as those barbarians with respect to Israel.
Mississauga,
Clearly, you haven’t read ETs comments well. The only barbaric thing here is your line of thinking.
I think Israel has committed enough barbaric acts to warrant more than your blind defense of them.
Trying counting the number of UN resolutions Israel has ignored. Of course, when it comes to other nations, it’s a reason for war.
J: Before you comment on ‘UN Resolutions’ it’s prudent to look at who voted to pass said ‘resolutions’.
Resolutions censuring Israel are proposed and endorsed by Muslim countries, countries being bought by muslims, countries who want to be bought by oil-rich Muslims, tinpot dictatorships who want the light of public scrutiny shone on someone else, and countries that wish to embarrass Israel’s supporter, the US.
There is no validity, but much venality, to any of these votes……and certainly no reflection of honest reality.
J, try to lay off of the moonbat-koolaid.
Do you know how the UN functions?
Efforts by moonbats and their ilk to draw comparisons between UN action on Israel and Iraq misses the fundamental differences between the different kinds of resolutions in the UN organization.
UN General Assembly resolutions are non-binding recommendations
UN Security Council resolutions have a hierarchy.
Resolutions adopted under Chapter VI of the UN Charter – that deals with “Pacific Resolution of Disputes” – are implemented through a process of negotiation, conciliation, or arbitration between the parties to a dispute. UN Security Council Resolution 242 from November 1967 is a Chapter VI resolution which, when taken together with Resolution 338, leads to an Israeli withdrawal from territories (not all the territories) that Israel entered in the 1967 Six-Day War, by means of a negotiated settlement between Israel and its Arab neighbors. The resolution is not self-enforced by Israel alone; it requires a negotiating process.
The most severe resolutions of the UN Security Council are those specifically adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter – that deal with “Threats to Peace, Breaches of the Peace and Acts of Aggression.” When Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the UN Security Council adopted all its resolutions against Iraq under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The implementation of those resolutions was not contingent on Iraqi-Kuwaiti negotiations, for Iraq engaged in a clear-cut act of aggression. Moreover, UN resolutions on Iraq are self-enforcing, requiring Iraq alone to comply with their terms. However, the UN recognized, under Article 42 of the UN Charter, the need for special military measures to be taken if a Chapter VII resolution is ignored by an aggressor.
In 1967, no UN body adopted a resolution branding Israel as the aggressor in the Six-Day War – Israel was acting in self-defense. No Security council chapter VII resolutions have been issued against Israel
That there are literally hundreds of non-binding resolutions passed against Israel at the UN says more about the UN than it does about Israel.
Sheez, you’d think that people who love the UN so much would know a little more about how it operates.
J,
I watched Michael Coren tonight, and your fellow Israel hater Sid Ryan brought up your very point, and then went one further and mentioned how Switzerland has condemned Israel.
Manu Raj countered with many of the same points Nemo2 and ex-liberal did, and then went on to point out that not only did Switzerland steal money from Jews murdered in concentration camps, but it also was extremely reluctant to turn the money over when it all came to light.
So they’re not exactly a credible source.
Sid was left looking like a fool. I’m sure you know exactly how he felt.
Trying counting the number of UN resolutions Israel has ignored. Of course, when it comes to other nations, it’s a reason for war.
So you’re a supporter of the Americans in Iraq? Good on you.
I don’t understand why people try and deflect one of the biggest issues when discussing Palestine, Islam, and terrorism. Islam is a religion that goes to extremes to oppress women. It goes to extremes to oppress, silence, and eliminate any dissenting voices or non-Islamists. And the peoples of the Muslim world are being used as tools. Their children are being brainwashed! They are brainwashed to walk into a crowd of women and children and blow themselves up, hopefully killing countless innocent civilians. And they are brainwashed to believe that this is the will of their god, and they will be rewarded for it. There are some very evil men who are in control of all of this. They need to be held accountable, because what they are doing is not something a civilized world would allow. It is time the leaders of Islam were held to account. Where are the war-crimes charges for the leaders of Islam who have so warped a religion that they are slaughtering their own young in a war against the non-Islamic world?
“J, try to lay off of the moonbat-koolaid.”
“Sid was left looking like a fool. I’m sure you know exactly how he felt.”
Nails “J” to a “T”
CBC, Reuters, AP et al have demonstrated to me with sufficient clarity that their desired outcome is to see the Arabs push Israel into the sea.
Why is another matter. I believe it is a matter of envy. Similar ever present but slightly less vivid envy of America that is fomented by the hypocritical Librano sect in Trawna the Good.
I suggest we loan the PA some of our Jane/Finch and Scarboro Jamaican street/drug gang brothers and they’ll have the matter cleared up in no time.
The Muslim Islamist Terrorists of Gaza are on the road to oblivion. …-
Hoping for Plan B
In The Two O’Clock War: The 1973 Yom Kippur Conflict and the Airlift That Saved Israel, author Walter Boyne relates the story of how Israel, faced with national extinction in the first days of the conflict, considered the idea of dropping nuclear weapons on Arab capitals as a last resort. This story is repeated in an Air Force monograph on the 1973 War without confirmation. By far the most intriguing version of the story as related by Boyne concerns the rumor that Israel had prepared a strike on Moscow to wreak ultimate vengeance on Sadat’s superpower sponsor, although Boyne attaches little credibility to the tale, citing limitations on the range of Israel’s F-4 strike aircraft.
James Dunnigan, speaking at the Glenn and Helen podcast, argued that the key problem posed by Kim Jong Il’s missile posturing — for China — was that it might force Japan to go nuclear, adding that Japan with it’s plentiful supply of fissile material and superlative industrial and technical base, could produce weapons and launchers that could unquestionably work within fairly short order.
These two instances illustrate the limits of political correctness in dealing with nations. No declarations of “illegitimacy” will eliminate the actual existence of Israel; no admonitions against rearmament can wholly restrain a Japan bent upon survival. Words are one thing, but physical reality is another. An Salama A Salama in Al-ahram op-ed piece said:
The Palestinians must be aware by now that they can no longer count on Arab help, economically, politically or militarily. They must defend themselves without waiting for Arab assistance.
Half the Palestinian cabinet and many parliamentarians are in Israel’s hands. President Mahmoud Abbas is trapped and Gaza is being pummeled, all because one Israeli soldier has been abducted in retaliation to the killing of an entire Palestinian family on a Gaza beach. And yet Arab nations have had enough. They’ve had enough of this endless tragedy. They’ve had enough of the slogans and rhetoric that gets us nowhere. Arab governments have run out of options. They are tired of running around, trying to get sympathy from the UN and a resolution from the Security Council. Meanwhile, Israel is bullying everyone. Only recently it sent planes into Syria’s airspace, just to show the Syrians who’s the boss. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh isn’t even asking the international community to intervene.
Just who in the “international community” actually has the ability to intervene against Israel is a good question. The one country that definitely has the capability to physically compel Israel is exactly the one Arab countries know better than to ask. …-
belmont club
Arabs tired of “trying to get sympathy from the UN”…….the aggressor as victim….I’m holding back tears.
The ‘invasion of Syrian airspace’ rings true though……..in the 80’s a couple of our Saudi project’s guys, stationed in Tabuk, used to say that, every once in a while, an IDF fighter used to do a touch & go at the local airport. The Saudi Air Force were always otherwise engaged, as they heard their mothers calling.