“… the only people on earth whose immediate urge, when their friends and fellows are injured, is to grab them and try to twist them into cruel and dangerous positions. “
“… the only people on earth whose immediate urge, when their friends and fellows are injured, is to grab them and try to twist them into cruel and dangerous positions. “
lookout – I’ve read about the failure to fully open to border to export/import as well. For example, BBC, Tuesday, August 19/08, there’s an article by Aleem Maqbool (I hesitate to provide links) which states that there is little change with the ceasefire agreement:
“Since the ceasefire began, the fighting with Israel has died down, but the strict sanctions remain.
Most of the one-and-a-half million people living in Gaza are now reliant on food aid, and are unable to enter or leave the strip.
Over the last year, tens of thousands of people in Gaza have lost their jobs.
Most industrial operations have stopped because raw materials are not being allowed into the territory, or produced goods allowed out for export. ”
However, there are a few other assertions which are without foundation.
First, is the assumption that IF a current population which might now be quite genetically distinct from/or similar to a past population, can state that ‘at one time in the past’ they lived in such and such an area – then that same area is now and forever ‘theirs’. This is an illogical and legally untenable conclusion.
If this were the case, then all of us ought to leave America, for that assertion which is used to justify Jewish dominion over Israel, also means that the indigeneous peoples alone have the right of ownership of America. I’ve mentioned this several times but no-one has commented on it.
Second, there cannot be any proof of ‘First Footstep’ because our forebears were mobile rather than settled, were not operating as distinct communities, and to make a claim that ‘First Footstep’ justifies land ownership for eternity is nonsense.
Equally illogical are the oft-repeated claims that ‘there’s no such people/name as ‘Palestinians’ and without a Name, you can’t lay claim to being a Nation’. Such would negate the national claims of Canadians, Americans, and just about everyone else on this planet.
Of course, the observation that ‘God gave us the land’ is equally untenable. Apart from my atheism, I object to such a land defense on the pure grounds of its having nothing to do with human law – and land ownership is a political and legal man-made agreement, and certainly not a religious domain.
phantom – what’s keeping the Palestinians ‘stuck’ is because they lack the resources to build an economy. No land for growing crops, no water rights to irrigate land, no hydro, no gas, no rights to travel on the main roads, no access to Israeli or other markets. Such ‘lacks’ do indeed, have an effect.
“…my puzzlement over why so many people are astonished at the anger of the Palestinians over the loss of their homes and farms.”
I’ve asked ET before to prove who these Palestinians are. I would like ET to trace for us their historic beginnings to the present and because of that, their rightful and legitimate claims.
On said “loss of their homes and farms,” please provide the details.
The original ‘Palestinians’ were Israel’s hated enemy, the Philistines. And as mentioned by Knight 99, a Canaanite people – probably Phoenicians.
Who were definitely not Arabs.
In fact most of the ME people are definitely not Arabs. Although their history, culture, art and knowledge were destroyed and replaced by the imperialist armies of Arabic Islam and their barbaric, anti-human ideology.
These people claiming to be ‘Palestinians’ today, are completely false. It is a fabricated lie. A recent, conjured up myth.
ulianov praises, quotes ET:
What is still missing, and I’ve asked repeatedly but not one person replies – is my puzzlement over why so many people are astonished at the anger of the Palestinians over the loss of their homes and farms.
Me:
What is still missing, and I’ve asked repeatedly but not one anti-Israel person replies – is my puzzlement over why so many people never mention the 800,000 or so Jews who were expelled from all the Arab countries, who lost THEIR homes, their farms, their businesses and all their assets, and am astonished when I hear calls for compensation for Arabs but not for Jews, esp. considering that the Jews living in Arab countries had nothing to do with the Arab-Israeli war which the Arab countries started.
Moreoever, it always astonishes me when anti-Israel persons fail to acknowledge how the Arabs who stayed put in Israel thrived because they wisely refused to be suckered out of their homes by the cynical annihilationist Arab elites, including rich Palestinian Arabs who left early to avoid the inconvenience.
ulainov, I asked you to provide documentation to prove your statement (@2:38 today) that commentators have expressed that “Palestinians shouldn’t feel anger BECAUSE they are something less than human”.
You’ve produced a lot of statements, none of which prove your point. Sorry.
Whoops, make that “ulianov”.
irwin daisy –
I reject any notion that IF and Only IF a population can lay claim, by assertion or even genetic testing !!, that they are descendants of a population who lived in such-and-such area several thousand years ago, that such population has any legitimate right to a land base.
Land ownership is not held by genetic means, is not held by historic tenure, and is held only by current legal statute. Your assertion, irwin daisy, as I’ve said many times, would mean that all of American would have to be returned, immediately, to the indigeneous peoples. Now.
Equally, your assertion that IF and ONLY IF a people have a name which they assumed at some time in the past ..and recognizing that before they had this name they might have had OTHER NAMES..and still use this same name..then and only then, are they entitled to bear this name. That would mean that there are no such peoples as Canadians or Americans and so on.
irwin daisy – just google ‘loss of Palestinian homes and farms’. Or ‘destruction of Palestinian homes and farms by settlers’. You’ll find lots of factual evidence. Of course, I know in advance that you’ll reject all of it, so..don’t bother.
As for your claim that the people of the ME are not Arabs – well, that’s your own fictional world in which you live.
But it doesn’t matter if they are Arabs or not, doesn’t matter if they somehow, carried the name Palestinian from the first moment they stepped on this planet from their alien ships, doesn’t matter if they changed their name during the subsequent centuries. None of it matters.
What matters is current reality. What do you do with a population who have been living for centuries, even if they have No Name, on a land base, and another population comes along and starts to settle that land? What if a higher authority (the UN) says that x-place is where you can now live, but these same settlers move in and settle on the land and won’t let you do the same? What does one do? Not get angry?
I disagree that real property is held by statute, ET: it is held by force. Sure, statute acts as a facade to domesticate the force-bearing structure, nevertheless, a facade with no undergirding support structure will not stand. It is when citizens forget that humans are red in tooth and claw that we loose our understanding of the undergirding; that is when our abstractions become excessive to the degree of the detachment of the facade from structural reality, and that is when our whole beneficial system of statutory adjudication falls to the ground.
On the other hand, it does seem clear to me that if people repeating the same arguments over and over and over again in blog comments could solve the problem, it would have been solved years ago 😉
Posted by: trucman at January 3, 2009 4:06 AM
What you have to understand is that Judaism and Islam are basically tribal religions.
Christianity transcended all that with an overarching sentiment of, and I’m paraphrasing, “there’s only one race and that’s the human race.”
The British were somewhat brilliant when they deeded the land they controlled to Israel.
That way, peoples of two basically tribal religions could go at each other’s throats and not bother the rest of the world.
It’s clear that Ulianov is but a propagandist. I’ve no doubt about it. I see tactical parallels in Ulianov’s communications… parallels with the propaganda tactics of the Chinese Communist Party’s agents whom I’ve encountered online.
And I’m afraid I’m becoming worried about ET…
ET, so what would you have done if you were in Israel’s shoes, seeing all those thousands of rockets being lobbed at you from Gaza, the land that you unconditionally turned over to the “Palestinians” as a peace offering, a sign of goodwill, a land that, because of you, was made to be very successful and prosperous for all, including “Palestinians”, and which was pretty much turned into an ethnic ghetto and missile launching base by Hamas?
Are you unable to see the forest because you prefer to study each and every tree one at a time? Try to take a realistic overview, a macro-level analysis, and not a complicated historical, anthropological, sociological analytical approach, for this can prevent clarity of view of the actual reality that is the case right now, which is that the “Palestinians” are attacking Israel and Israel is responding in self-defence.
Doesn’t take a genius to understand such a blatantly simple concept… if someone throws a rock at one, then one is entitled to whatever defensive action is required to stop that person from throwing any more rocks. Israel has restrained herself over thousands of these “rocks” being lobbed at her and is now retaliating, specifically to put the launchers out of commission and protect Israelis from further attack, as is Israel’s absolute right to do so.
“Diplomacy” is already done to death with the “Palestinians”. The only thing that works with them is brute force. For them, “Diplomacy” is a stalling tactic only.
Really, the “Palestinians” are the equivalent of the German Nazis and the Imperial Japanese during WWII, in terms of it being too late for “dimplomacy” and the only solution being to defeat them with deadly force.
It’s time to quit niggling over old details and get real. The Hamas bastards, they’re shooting rockets at Israel, period. Israel is stopping them, period. Support Israel, for she’s the victim and the “Palestinians” the hateful aggressors!
Remember, it doesn’t take a genius to understand this, ET. Time to give your head a good shake.
vitruvius – if your reference to force means only brute force, the type of ‘might makes right’ force, then I’ll disagree with you. That’s because we are not just physical beings but intellectual beings and the force of our reason has brought us tremendous accomplishments, including this computer.
However, if your reference to force means physical reality dominates imaginary reality – there I’d fully agree with you. That’s why I feel that Israel exists because it exists. Physically. The intellectual arguments about why it ‘ought’ to exist (god, First Footprint etc) are irrelevant.
Set you free – yes, it’s interesting that Islam and Judaism are both tribal religions. What is also interesting is that the religion in both cases is ‘hereditary’ while in Christianity it is a choice of the individual (baptism, confirmation etc). And the Judaic is matrilineal – the religion is ‘inherited’ from the mother’s side which suggest to me that this was a culture whose economy was based around small farms (gardens) primarily carried out by the women. The Islamic is patrilineal – an economy based around large animal herds carried out by the men who are away from the women for long periods – which is also why they have such rigid rules about women.
Christianity is completely different; it isn’t inherited but chosen, so to speak, by the individual. Its focus is not on the exclusionary tribe as in Judaism or Islam, but on inclusion of any and all. This suggests to me an economy that was settling, expanding, focused on trade and market interactions and that required peace and good neighbours to interact with.
me no dhimmi- for one thing, the Jews who were expelled after 1948 from the Arab lands had a home to go to – Israel, where they were immediately accepted as citizens. Yes, it was wrong, but please note that the Palestinians have nowhere to go to AND were also promised that they were to set up a state. Furthermore, if something is wrong in one place, it doesn’t make it right if it happens also elsewhere. It remains wrong.
canadian sentinel – there’s no need for you to worry about me; I’m’ not worried about me.
Actually, canadian sentinel, your imagery of Gaza is quite romantic; you see, the economic blockade put up by Israel on Gaza immediately on the election of Hamas meant that no goods could be exported, and only humanitarian imports. So, since Gaza is a terrain of about 30 by 10 km, and exists only as a ‘sieve’ exporting and importing – that blockade ended its economy.
And I don’t think that handing Gaza over was a peace offering or sign of goodwill. Not that land. Meanwhile, Israel continued to settle and settle the West Bank. That’s the real land that Israel wants for itself; it is not interested in Gaza.
What should the Palestinians do when Israel is settling the West Bank land set aside for them? To use your words – it doesn’t take a genius to conclude that the Palestinians might feel justifiably angry.
Actually – my perspective IS on the macrolevel. I’m not involved in the emotional issue of who is ‘good or bad’. I’m neither for nor against Israel or Palestine. Both exist; that’s my ‘starting ground’. For many of you, only one has the ‘right’ to exist, while I say that there’s no such thing as ‘right’ in this situation. There’s only reality. Both peoples exist. So- how does one deal with this reality?
I’m looking at the situation as if I were a total alien, from Mars, so to speak. I’m looking at the population base, as I always do, the land base, the water base, the roads, the infrastructure of industrialism etc..
I think that Israel is not interested and never was interested in Gaza; it wants Egypt to take it over. It is interested in full control of the West Bank and that is why it continues to settle that land base. That is why the Palestinians are angry and I conclude that they are justified in such an emotion.
That’s quite the statement – the Palestinians are equivalent to Nazis. I think you are over the line on that.
Sorry, I don’t buy your reductionist ‘Israel is good’ and ‘Palestinians are bad’. As I pointed out before, the situation is far more complex than such a simplistic reduction, and no people are all ‘good’ or ‘bad’..and that includes the settlers who burn down the olive groves of the Palestinians.
I need more empirical evidence and analysis than you have provided, canadian sentinel, for me to change my mind. So, don’t worry about me; I’m not worried.
…you know, one thing that bothers me about this whole thing – with all the land masses/countries surrounding Israel, none of them is willing to take in the Palestinians till things work out.
Ok Syria. Well…no. Jordan? Not really.
Besides some countries shipping more arms and more missiles – what other great ‘Berlin blockade’ aide is going in? A little yacht?
Hmm, now there wouldn’t be bigotry within the Muslim countries would there be?
Speaking to a diplomat friend of mine a dozen or so years ago, he says most Arab states are thankful Israel is taking the heat and dealing with the ‘lazy’ Palestinians. No, he wasn’t an Israeli diplomat either.
But to answer a question I keep seeing pop up in different forums, yes I’d be PO’d if someone took my land and cut down my trees, that’s a no brainer.
But I wouldn’t go around killing their children, nor would I send my son out on a promise to get virgins, what’s wrong with the ones in town?
Ah, speckled glasses. Ever learning, but never coming to the truth.
No “Palestinian Arab people” existed at the start of 1920, but, by December, it took shape in a form recognizably similar to today’s.
Until the late nineteenth century, residents living in the region between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean identified themselves primarily in terms of religion: Moslems felt far stronger bonds with remote co-religionists than with nearby Christians and Jews. Living in that area did not imply any sense of common political purpose.
Then came the ideology of nationalism from Europe; its ideal of a government that embodies the spirit of its people was alien but appealing to Middle Easterners. How to apply this ideal, though? Who constitutes a nation and where must the boundaries be? These questions stimulated huge debates.
Some said the residents of the Levant are a nation; others said Eastern Arabic speakers; or all Arabic speakers; or all Moslems.
But no one suggested “Palestinians,” and for good reason. Palestine, then a secular way of saying Eretz Yisra’el or Terra Sancta, embodied a purely Jewish and Christian concept, one utterly foreign to Moslems, even repugnant to them.
This distaste was confirmed in April 1920, when the British occupying force carved out a “Palestine.” Moslems reacted very suspiciously, rightly seeing this designation as a victory for Zionism. Less accurately, they worried about it signaling a revival in the Crusader impulse. No prominent Moslem voices endorsed the delineation of Palestine in 1920; all protested it.
Instead, Moslems west of the Jordan directed their allegiance to Damascus, where the great-great-uncle of Jordan’s King Abdullah II was then ruling; they identified themselves as Southern Syrians.
Interestingly, no one advocated this affiliation more emphatically than a young man named Amin Husseini. In July 1920, however, the French overthrew this Hashemite king, in the process killing the notion of a Southern Syria.
Isolated by the events of April and July, the Moslems of Palestine made the best of a bad situation. One prominent Jerusalemite commented, just days following the fall of the Hashemite kingdom: “after the recent events in Damascus, we have to effect a complete change in our plans here. Southern Syria no longer exists. We must defend Palestine.”
Following this advice, the leadership in December 1920 adopted the goal of establishing an independent Palestinian state. Within a few years, this effort was led by Husseini.
Other identities – Syrian, Arab, and Moslem – continued to compete for decades afterward with the Palestinian one, but the latter has by now mostly swept the others aside and reigns nearly supreme.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/palarabs.html
…and from Wiki
For the term “Palestinian” as applied to Jews, see Palestinian Jew. For other uses, see Definitions of Palestine and Palestinian.
Palestinian people or Palestinians (Arabic: الشعب الفلسطيني, ash-sha`b al-filasTīni; Arabic: الفلسطينيون, al-filasTīnīyyūn), also commonly rendered as Palestinian Arabs (Arabic: العرب الفلسطينيون, al-`Arab al-filasTīnīyyūn) are terms commonly used to refer to an Arabic-speaking people with family origins in Palestine. The total Palestinian population worldwide is estimated between 10 and 11 million people, over half of whom are stateless and lacking citizenship in any country.[6]
The first widespread use of “Palestinian” as an endonym to refer to the nationalist concept of a Palestinian people by the local Arabic-speaking population of Palestine began prior to the outbreak of World War I,[7] and the first demand for national independence was issued by the Syrian-Palestinian Congress on 21 September 1921.[8] After the exodus of 1948, and even more so after the exodus of 1967, the term came to signify not only a place of origin, but the sense of a shared past and future in the form of a Palestinian nation-state.[7]
Palestinians are predominantly Sunni Muslims, though there is a significant Christian minority as well as smaller religious communities. Roughly half of all Palestinians continue to live in Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.[9] The other half, many of whom are refugees, live elsewhere around the world and comprise what is known as the Palestinian diaspora.
The Palestinian people as a whole are represented before the international community by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).[10] The Palestinian National Authority, officially established as a result of the Oslo Accords, is an interim administrative body nominally responsible for governance in Palestinian population centres in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
he timing and causes behind the emergence of a distinctively Palestinian national consciousness among the Arabs of Palestine are matters of scholarly disagreement.
In his 1997 book, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness, historian Rashid Khalidi notes that the archaeological strata that denote the history of Palestine — encompassing the Biblical, Roman, Byzantine, Umayyad, Fatimid, Crusader, Ayyubid, Mamluk and Ottoman periods — form part of the identity of the modern-day Palestinian people, as they have come to understand it over the last century,[22] but derides the efforts of some Palestinian nationalists to attempt to “anachronistically” read back into history a nationalist consciousness that is in fact “relatively modern”.[22] Khalidi stresses that Palestinian identity has never been an exclusive one, with “Arabism, religion, and local loyalties” playing an important role
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_people
What is the Palestinian Authority and how did it originate?
The 1993 Israel-Palestinian Declaration of Principles (DOP) was the first in a series of steps known as the “Oslo Peace Process”. The DOP set forth a two-phased timetable. The first phase, or the “interim period,” was to last five years, during which time Israel would incrementally withdraw from Palestinian population centers in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza Strip, while transferring administrative power to an elected Palestinian Authority (PA).
A transfer of powers and responsibilities for the Gaza Strip and Jericho took place pursuant to the Israel-PLO May 4, 1994 Cairo Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area. As an immediate result of this agreement, Yasser Arafat was able to return from the PLO exile in Tunisia to take control. The event was chillingly described by eyewitness Michael Kelly in his article titled “Promises but Never Peace”:
* Arafat’s entry into Gaza was an object lesson: a purposely uncaring display of brute power. He arrived from the Sinai in a long caravan of Chevrolet Blazers and Mercedes-Benzes and BMWs, 70 or 80 cars packed to the rooflines with men with guns. The caravan roared up the thronged roads and down the mobbed streets, with the overfed, leather-jacketed, sunglassed thugs of Arafat’s bodyguard detail all the time screaming and shooting off their Kalashnikovs to make their beloved people scurry out of their beloved leader’s way.
The transfer from Israel to the Palestinian Authority took place in additional areas of the West Bank pursuant to the Israel-PLO September 28, 1995 Interim Agreement, the Israel-PLO January 15, 1997 Protocol Concerning Redeployment in Hebron, the Israel-PLO October 23, 1998 Wye River Memorandum, and the September 4, 1999 Sharm el-Sheikh Agreement.
After the interim period, the second phase was expected to be the “permanent status” or “final status” negotiations, to resolve “remaining issues, including: Jerusalem, refugees, settlements, security arrangements, borders, relations and cooperation with other neighbors, and other issues of common interest.” A final status agreement would mark the official peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, including the possible establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.
The Palestinian Authority was given the responsibility for combating terrorism and coordinating security with Israel. Following the implementation of the Oslo agreements, the PA gained control over all of the Gaza Strip excluding Israeli settlements (over 85 percent of the area) and 39.7 percent of the territory of Judea and Samaria, the West Bank. The land areas were chosen so that ninety-nine percent of the Palestinian population resides under the Palestinian Authority’s jurisdiction.
On January 20, 1996 Palestinian Arabs elected an 88-member legislative council and a president of the Palestinian Authority. The date of the elections was more than 18 months later than planned, a delay used by Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yaser Arafat to consolidate his grip on the Palestinian populace and silence opposition. Any independent news sources were intimidated into silence and opposing political organizations quietly disappeared. Arafat manipulated the election with rules to forbid anyone from running against him without his express approval, as reported by the UN election observer team. Dr. Haider Abdul Shefi, who had led the PLO delegation at the Madrid negotiations in 1991, offered his candidacy, only to be rejected by Arafat. When Dr. Shefi said that he was going to run anyway, a bomb explosion in Dr. Shefi’s home convinced him otherwise.
When the votes were counted, Arafat became the Palestinian Authority’s first president, winning 88.1 percent of the vote; his main opponent, Samiha Yusuf Khalil, garnered 9.3 percent. The legislative contests, held in 16 districts of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem, saw 50 of the 88 seats go to members of the Arafat’s Fatah political movement and most of the rest go to parties who were reliably loyal to Arafat. International monitors noted a number of irregularities, but praised the high turnout and the efficient manner in which the elections were conducted. However, investigations have since documented the methods Arafat used to impose dictatorial rule and ensure his landslide victory.
Final status agreements between Israel and the PA have been delayed because the PA’s commitment to Israel’s security, embodied in a series of signed documents, has been only an illusion created to gain concessions. The years of the “Oslo Peace Process” have been filled with escalating violence and terrorism against Israel to the point where the time is known in Israel as the “Oslo War”. The PA continues to wage the al-Aqsa intifada war of terrorism against Israel and the Oslo process seems to be dead.
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_1991to_now_pa_origin.php
I’m certainly not worried about you ET, I think you make an important argument (albeit perhaps with a frequency that can only be understood when one takes into account your great history of services to pedagogy) that needs to be heard, in order for the discerning thinker to reach a balanced conclusion, I just disagree with you on the feasibility of your abstraction, at least in part because I do think that when the resources of our new brain are found to be exhausted by the reality of a situation, then there is nothing to prevent our old brain from doing what it does. When our Deeds in the Land Titles Office no longer have existential value, we are reduced to marking our territories by the human equivalent of the mammalian phenomenon known as pissing in our corners and then protecting said turf in the name of self-defense, to the degree of violence necessary. Or we absquatulate. Or we remove our limbic system. Or we die. Take your pick.
and from the horses mouth, the UN…
The Palestine problem became an international issue towards the end of the First World War with the disintegration of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Palestine was among the several former Ottoman Arab territories which were placed under the administration of Great Britain under the Mandates System adopted by the League of Nations pursuant to the League’s Covenant (Article 22) .
All but one of these Mandated Territories became fully independent States, as anticipated. The exception was Palestine where, instead of being limited to “the rendering of administrative assistance and advice” the Mandate had as a primary objective the implementation of the “Balfour Declaration” issued by the British Government in 1917, expressing support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people”.
During the years of the Palestine Mandate, from 1922 to 1947, large-scale Jewish immigration from abroad, mainly from Eastern Europe took place, the numbers swelling in the 1930s with the notorious Nazi persecution of Jewish populations. Palestinian demands for independence and resistance to Jewish immigration led to a rebellion in 1937, followed by continuing terrorism and violence from both sides during and immediately after World War II. Great Britain tried to implement various formulas to bring independence to a land ravaged by violence. In 1947, Great Britain turned the problem over to the United Nations.
After looking at various alternatives, the UN proposed the partitioning of Palestine into two independent States, one Palestinian Arab and the other Jewish, with Jerusalem internationalized (Resolution 181 (II) of 1947). One of the two States envisaged in the partition plan proclaimed its independence as Israel and in the 1948 war expanded to occupy 77 per cent of the territory of Palestine. Israel also occupied the larger part of Jerusalem. Over half of the indigenous Palestinian population fled or were expelled. Jordan and Egypt occupied the other parts of the territory assigned by the partition resolution to the Palestinian Arab State which did not come into being.
In the 1967 war, Israel occupied the remaining territory of Palestine, until then under Jordanian and Egyptian control (the West Bank and Gaza Strip). This included the remaining part of Jerusalem, which was subsequently annexed by Israel. The war brought about a second exodus of Palestinians, estimated at half a million. Security Council resolution 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967 called on Israel to withdraw from territories it had occupied in the 1967 conflict.
In 1974, the General Assembly reaffirmed the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination, national independence and sovereignty, and to return. The following year, the General Assembly established the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People. The General Assembly conferred on the PLO the status of observer in the Assembly and in other international conferences held under United Nations auspices.
http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/ngo/history.html
…and last but not least:
The controversial visit by Ariel Sharon of the Likud to Al-Haram Al-Sharif (Temple Mount) in 2000 was followed by the outbreak of the second intifada. A massive loss of life, the reoccupation of territories under Palestinian self-rule, military incursions, extrajudicial killings of suspected Palestinian militants, suicide attacks, rocket and mortar fire, and the destruction of property characterized the situation on the ground. Israel began the construction of a West Bank separation wall, located within the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which was ruled illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004. In 2002, the Security Council adopted resolution 1397 affirming a vision of two States, Israel and Palestine, living side by side within secure and recognized borders. In 2003, the Middle East Quartet (US, EU, Russia, and the UN) released a detailed Road Map to a two-State solution, endorsed by Security Council resolution 1515.
In 2005, Israel withdrew its settlers and troops from the Gaza Strip as part of its “Disengagement Plan,” while retaining effective control over its borders, seashore, and airspace.
Following the Palestinian Legislative Council elections of 2006, the Quartet concluded that future assistance to the Palestinian Authority would be reviewed by donors against the new Government’s commitment to non-violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements.
————–
So yes, I’d be PO if someone took my farm and cut my trees, but the question I have to ask is:
– what was I doing there in the first place?
ulianov, you put words in my mouth. You wrote—yes, you did—”I did not say commentators WROTE that Palestinians are less than human”. Guess what? Smoke and mirrors: I never said you did.
I’m still waiting for words from you that would prove your point.
Why am I not surprised that that still hasn’t happened?
Nicely done, Tomax7, four dump posts in a row.
Frankly, sir, I’d be more interested in what you think.
ET,
I’ll ask you again, “…prove who these Palestinians are. I would like ET to trace for us their historic beginnings to the present and because of that, their rightful and legitimate claims.”
Since you refuse to answer the question, let’s ask the ‘Palestinians’ themselves:
HAMAS LEADER, MAHMOUD ZAHAR TO THE ECONOMIST:
“We [Palestinians] were never an independent state in history,” he notes. “We were part of an Arab state and an Islamic state.”
…..
The leader of the Arab terrorist group As Saiqa –the one who led “Palestinian” Arab Muslims to massacre hundreds of Maronites at Damour, in Lebanon — Zuheir Mohsen, said the following to James Dorsey in a 1977 inteview in the Dutch newspaper “Trouw”:
“The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism.
“For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”
I think any rational person will take this definition of the so-called ‘Palestinians’ over your fabricated mythology as to who these people are and their falsified claims to legitimacy.
It doesn’t matter what you think. What matters is what they think.
Vitruvius, I’m surprized in your comment also.
I posted those because some kept asking for facts and some kept denying was Israel doing.
It wasn’t a dump, but a simple post and read what somewhat authoritative sites say.
Who cares what I think?
You see, irwin daisy, I think your question is not legitimate or relevant. Why not? Because it rests on as assumption that the only ‘rightful claim’ to a land base has to be from an ‘ethnos’ population.
An ‘ethnos’ population is one who are genetically, almost ‘pure’, who can claim a relatively intact lineage from some distant ancestor(s). Actually, this is impossible to prove for any people; all such lineages are narratives rather than factual. But I don’t believe that title to a land rests on an ‘ethnos’ identity. [That’s an aspect of fascism, by the way]
I believe that land ownership is a political construct, and rests on a notion of a population as ‘demos’. This is a civic rather than ethnic identity; as such, it is open to all people who want to become members of the state while the ‘ethnos’ identity is closed and open only to members of that ‘ethnos’.
This difference, by the way, is what Harper meant when he defined the Quebecois as a ‘nation within a united Canada’. He was acknowledging their desire to be ‘ethnos’ but, within a ‘demos’ nation.
I believe that ‘ethnos’, as a definitive clause for a nation to exist is unacceptable in our modern world. We don’t, I hope, define nations and their citizens as confined to one single ethnic group.
So, your insistence, irwin daisy, that I define the Palestinians as an ‘ethnos’ rather than a ‘demos’ is, to me, an invalid request. They exist, as demos Palestinians because they were living there, in that land called Palestine by the British, for centuries. That’s all that is needed; they were citizens of that domain, demos not ethnos citizens. And I prefer the demos to the ethnos. OK?
tomax- what were you doing there in the first place? You and your family had been there for generations, farming there, paying your taxes to the Ottoman and then the British. That’s what you were doing. You were legally there – not squatters!
vitruvius, esteemed and venerable as you are, I only repeat my comments because when I say it once, they are ignored.
Yes, tomax – that view of the Palestinians is common among Arabs who think of them, as I’ve said repeatedly (vitruvius!)..as scum. Ah well.
That’s not fully true, ET. When you say it once, I don’t ignore you. Sure, some do, but that’s life, it is not a reason to replace the extential quantifier with the universal. Anyway, unfortunately, I don’t find the signal to noise ratio here to be life-supporting, so I’m going to go do something I do find to be life-supporting, namely, working on SDA Late Nite Radio. Catch all you cats in a few hours, eh what?
BUT ET, while it’s true that the Jews in the Arab countries had a new state to go to, it’s not Israel’s fault that the Palestinian Arabs had no home to go to. That’s 100% the fault of the Arab countries (and now Iran) who USED — and continue to use — the Palestinian Arabs as proxies for the destruction of Israel. And now that they have been extremely radicalized — really they are now neo-nazis — no Arab state wants them. Tragic, but again not Israel’s fault.
And even with a home to go to, they lost all their property, for which, if you are at all fair, you should also recommend compensation. OR not, i.e., it’s a wash, let it go.
Be clear: I feel very bad about the fate of the Palestinian Arabs, but again Israel bears 0% of the responsibility for this.
As has been pointed out over and over again — ignoring Jordan (80% of the mandate) which is a de facto “Palestinian” state — the new 22nd Arab state offered in 1947 is pretty well the state that western elites now recommend for the “Palestinians”, namely, all Gaza, all West Bank. They refused this state and started a war of intended anihilation. They will now NOT get this state and if wisdom prevails no state at all, unless the 20,000 or so islamic jihadists are destroyed.
ET,
Their ‘ethnos’ identity is Arab and, more importantly, to them, Islamic. This is how they define themselves.
I disagree that Islam is a race. It’s a ridiculous claim. However, they think so. This is the basis of so-called ‘Islamophobia.’ OIC pressures on the UN to protect Muslims and other propped up fallacies and false grievances.
“But I don’t believe that title to a land rests on an ‘ethnos’ identity. [That’s an aspect of fascism, by the way]”
Once again, it hardly matters what you think. They do think this way. Look at Saudi Arabia and their rejection of Jews setting foot in their country, for example.
Look at how the ‘Palestinians’ have created a successful ‘ethnic’ cleansing of historically placed Christians.
Apples and oranges. A total waste of time.
ulianov, it seems that the IDF is more in line with my thinking than yours. Right now, at this very moment, IDF soldiers are hunting down the Hamas terrorists who have been shelling Israel for -years-. The terrorists are bravely hiding behind women and children while sniping at the IDF.
Oddly, no reports of Jews randomly killing Palestinian civilians for the hell of it have surfaced.
Go Sabras!
Btw, yes I do think that terrorists should be stomped on like cockroaches.
Phantom, I agree with you and am pleased that the ground troops have moved in. I hope they do the job they need to do, thoroughly. Yes, civilian deaths are tragic, but that’s what Hamas plans for and wants–for both the Israelis and their own people: what despicable snakes they are. The blood is on their hands.
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Hamas are evil garbage, they must be eliminated. Then, if the rest of the ‘Palestinians’ really want peace they can give up their dream of destroying Israel, if not, they will never have peace.
Israel must destroy as much of Hamas as possible before the MSM and the idiots and ignorants whine loud enough for them to stop. They must only quit when they are ready.
For EVERY missile shot into Israel at least ONE missile should be returned to the area as close as possible to the shooter. Tit for tat. Every single missile should be returned. Period. Treat them like adults, if they kill, they will be killed. If they send missiles, they will receive them. That is the only way they will learn. Screw public opinion, force them to see the truth, or let them be damned.
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absurd thought –
God of the Universe says
hope your kids grow up
to strap bombs on babies
to kill other children
.
absurd thought –
God of the Universe says
form a terrorist country
then wish to be destroyed
by committing acts of war
.
absurd thought –
God of the Universe says
blame your failings on the Jews
for a few more thousand years
they are Earth’s scapegoats
.
absurd thought –
God of the Universe says
give Israel away
to appease her enemies
dishonor America
.
All real freedom starts with freedom of speech. Without freedom of speech there can be no real freedom.
.
Philosophy of Liberty Cartoon
.
Help Stop Terrorism Today!
.
USpace
🙂
.
“because they were living there, in that land called Palestine by the British, for centuries.”
If they had been living there for centuries, then why was the UN’s definition of “refugee” a anyone who had lived there for 2 years? Where is the evidence that they had been living there for centuries? Where is their history, who were their leaders all those centuries, what are their accumulated stories from all those centuries?
I have been reading your posts on this subject for maybe 3 or more years now – and frankly it worries me that there are university educated people who can twist this in such a way that makes it hard/impossilbe for Israel and the rest of the world to win the battle against Islamic terrorists. How far does your support go?
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The delusional insanity of the Left is frightening. Hamas are evil garbage, they must be eliminated. Then, if the rest of the ‘Palestinians’ really want peace they can give up their dream of destroying Israel, if not, they will never have peace.
Israel must destroy as much of Hamas as possible before the MSM and the idiots and ignorants whine loud enough for them to stop. They must only quit when they are ready.
For EVERY missile shot into Israel at least ONE missile should be returned to the area as close as possible to the shooter. Tit for tat. Every single missile should be returned. Period. Treat them like adults, if they kill, they will be killed. If they send missiles, they will receive them. That is the only way they will learn. Screw public opinion, force them to see the truth, or let them be damned.
.
absurd thought –
God of the Universe says
hope your kids grow up
to strap bombs on babies
to kill other children
.
absurd thought –
God of the Universe says
form a terrorist country
then wish to be destroyed
by committing acts of war
.
absurd thought –
God of the Universe says
blame your failings on the Jews
for a few more thousand years
they are Earth’s scapegoats
.
absurd thought –
God of the Universe says
give Israel away
to appease her enemies
dishonor America
.
All real freedom starts with freedom of speech. Without freedom of speech there can be no real freedom.
.
Hahaha! Of course! Ya got me…mocking people who hate a certain ethnic group…that’s what propagandists do.
Posted by: ulianov at January 3, 2009 6:36 PM
— “Mocking people who hate a certain ethnic group”. You mean like the “Palestinians”, who hate a certain ethnic group: Israelis/Jews…
Do I hate “Palestinians”? No. I hate what they are doing, however. To suggest that I hate a “certain ethnic group” is but a standard Hard-Left propaganda tactic, performed by Hard-Leftists who can’t win without calling people “racists” just because they criticize certain folks who happen to belong to a certain ethnic group, for doing certain things…
Nevertheless, that’s it for me and you. I know better than to continue this wasteful exchange.
Overheard conversation between a father and the local inman…
“…what’s wrong with the virgins in our hometown?”
Overheard conversation between a father and the local inman…
“…what’s wrong with the virgins in our hometown?”
Posted by: tomax7 at January 4, 2009 11:50 AM
–Imam: “Well, see, they all wear bags over their heads, and you know what that means…”