2009-01-09
I Don't Understand Israel/Gaza Conflict
Please forgive me if I offend anyone. I know I am going to, but I don't understand the U.S. unyielding support for Israel, no matter what. Number 1, I never understood why the Jewish people were given land that already had occupants on it. I don't understand why people wondering why those former occupants were upset. I don't get the current actions of Israel right now.
Why does America support Israel come hell or high water? I understand that from aspects of the Torah, the land is supposedly Jewish land, but outside of religious texts, what rights does Israel have to exist? I understand that back during 628 the Jews did live there and were expelled, but do we really want to go back literally millennia to lay claim to certain lands and remove the existing inhabitants? If so the very existence of the U.S. is in trouble, as well as various other countries.
I also can't help to think of the overwhelming lack of support for the mere concept of reparations for slavery and injustices done to black people in this country, while it seems perfectly ok to expel other people from land to give it to someone else, to make up for injustices done to a particular group.
I just finished reading this op ed piece from former President Jimmy Carter. Why is Israel backing out of the cease fire, I know the Hamas is per America a Muslim terrorist group, but why is it that Israel is kicking ass now, and taking names later? To the detriment of the humanitarian efforts they agreed to. Killing children in schools and killing people in U.N. trucks who are trying to provide help to me seems a bit.....wrong.
Even the Red Cross is getting upset.
I think this current conflict has confirmed my questions about America's love affair of Israel. I never understood it, and with the current actions of Israel, I still don't.
Am I wrong to question the love affair, am I wrong to question Israel? I do want to note, I have nothing against the Jewish religion or Jewish people, I just really don't understand how and why Israel is recognized, considering the manner of how it came into existence. I also want to note, I am not a Hamas fan, nor am I saying the Palestinians are complete angels with no blood on their hands either.
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83 comments:
I don't think you are wrong to question it. Infact not questioning this attack on the Palestinian people is the problem.
Most of my friends always justify Israel's existence due to the Holocaust. I've never been one to compare people's suffering but I for one refuse to accept that the Jews suffered more than the Armenians, Congolese(under King Leopold or African Americans due to what happened to them in Europe and therefore deserve to be compensated with other people's land.
I do not hate Jews but I disagree with these attacks on the Palestinians. I think it is cruel to make people live in refugee camps on their own land, evacuate them out of their homes, and deny them food, water, electricity, medical care and education. The US policy towards Israel needs to be re-examined. Sadly, I believe that Obama will bring not about any real change. Israel is like a welfare queen, sitting back and reaping the benefits from the work put in by hardworking Americans.
Hamas IS a terrorist group. Even other Arabs don't want to deal with them. Yassir Arafat created it, then spent the last decade of his life terrified that they were going to kill him.
Neither side in this conflict wants peace. Why? Because there's no profit in peace. In Oslo the Israelis offered Arafat 95% of what they said they wanted and were turned down flat. Why? Because he knew Hamas would kill him deader than hell if he accepted. Much like the Israelis killed Rabin for making concessions.
As for why the Israelis were 'given land that was already occupied,' this is more or less what happened all over areas of the world that were colonized. After the Ottoman Empire fell, most of the their empire (The Middle East, much of the Balkans, etc...) fell under French/British rule. They divided it up as it would benefit them, much as they did with Africa, etc... Most of the messes we see in the world today stems from this fact.
Now, I suppose we could go back and divide all these countries up according to tribal boundaries, but I would imagine that the resultant mess would be even worse. And the bottom line is, there is not, nor has there ever been a country called Palestine.
The US supports Israel because it's in the country's best interest to do so. What other ally do we have in the region? Factor in the same guilt we have as the rest of Europe does, and there you go. Since we spent thousands of years exterminating Jews and wouldn't let them live in peace amongst us, it was either kill them all or give them their own homeland.
There's a great book called A Peace to End all Peace that explores the history of the region and the mess Europeans made of it. You should check it out. It's awesome.
I think this current conflict has confirmed my questions about America's love affair of Israel. I never understood it, and with the current actions of Israel, I still don't.
America doesn't love Israel so much as it can't stand the muslim states. Conservatives and Christians are willing to support Israel, but they don't accept the Jewish fate; However, the alternative is supporting the Muslim states that would like to see Christianity and the west taken out.
For people like me who don't believe in any of that it's a different argument. I think we should relocate the whole state of Israel to Arizona. Israel is one of the most technologically advanced society in that part of the world and it would be a big boom to the economy.
@ Sid:
"Why does America support Israel come hell or high water?"
I think it's tied up in our "Christian" identity and Western guilt over WWII. They've swapped Hitler and his faux Aryans for Arabs and Persians. Their geography is also a matter of strategy: assuming we waste our bridges everywhere else in the region, we -might- be able to launch offensives from there. It also helps that the West tends to look at Israel as an island of white folks surrounded by those evil swarthy dudes.
"Why is Israel backing out of the cease fire, I know the Hamas is per America a Muslim terrorist group, but why is it that Israel is kicking ass now, and taking names later?"
Israel has always had a "fuck it up now, justify it later" attitude about everything. Part of it is because they feel like they're under siege from all sides (which is kind of true, since the country itself is/forms a salient). If they make the idea of attacking the country terrifying because of the way they respond to any kind of perceived wrong doing, maybe everyone else will leave them alone. It's not worked so far (but has with airplane highjackings) and strikes me as little man's syndrome, just at a national level.
Part of it is that, from their perspective, the existence of the country hangs in the balance every time they're involved in a fight. A fox is chasing a rabbit. Both are very fast. Who wins? The rabbit--which is running for its life--rather than the fox, which is just running for a meal. in helping keep the hare ahead of the fox, they've developed a fair amount of weaponry and we sell them lots of interesting things just to be sure they keep an edge. The fertility programs (which aren't subsidized for arab residents to the same degree, if at all) and lack of birth control except from private organizations is telling as well. They're trying to out-breed and out-fight everyone else. Dr. Ruth was a sniper for Israel; that should tell you something.
Israel also likes to jump in to things (see: secret pacts with Britain and France during the Suez Canal nationalization drama), even if they have little to do with them initially.
"I also can't help to think of the overwhelming lack of support for the mere concept of reparations for slavery and injustices done to black people in this country, while it seems perfectly ok to expel other people from land to give it to someone else, to make up for injustices done to a particular group."
In America, getting due reparations = attack on all white people. The majority population cannot separate the actions of government from themselves as a group of people, so it's never going to happen. "Why should I pay for something my ancestors did?" and such. It's the same reason why natives (indians, inuit, and polynesians) rarely, if ever, get what's owed to them. If they do, there's always someone trying to take it away. Making amends also means that they lose the moral high ground on a lot of things and the complaints of various groups can't be dismissed as "entitlement" or "complaining."
As a nation, we don't like to admit we're wrong and actually doing something about it is unthinkable.
Hamas is getting the Palestinians in to an assload of shit, most likely to their detriment considering how their opponents feel about collateral damage. I have a problem with people who respond to rocks with demolishing people's homes, among other things.
There are more than a few people on the Israeli that don't give a fuck about peace. Assassinating folks will never get you anywhere.
As long as people justify blowing each other the hell away because of the right to a crappy swatch of land given to them by their own religious texts, there's going to be fighting. One of three things is going to happen: Israel's going to kill a bunch of folks until the Palestinians stop supporting Hamas; Hamas is going to be such a pain in the ass that more moderate nations, like Egypt, step in to stop the insanity; or the rest of the Arab and Persain world is going to jump on Israel at the same time. Thusfar, Israel's been able to repell two nations at a time (Egypt/Syria - '73), but any more than that and Mossad's going to have its hands full.
Some days I think we (the rest of the world) should pull out of it and let them all kill each other. Other days, I think we should glass the whole region and be done with it.
There will be no peace until all sides genuinely work at it, which means talking to each other and not fighting proxy wars through people with similar beliefs or backgrounds.
America's support is all about access to the Middle East. Remember America is new to the whole imperialist thing, unlike the other European Nations. So far that is the strongest presence America has in the world. Asia and Africa are off limits because Europe got there first. Amercica could not even get an Africom base in Africa because none would let it except for Liberia which later on wasn't sure.
The whole Israel thing is so multi layered. And firstly it is important to differentiate between Jews and Israelis. Then the different ethnic Jews. The Jews wielding political power are those mostly of European origin. These are the ones the Arabs reject as Zionists. They see them as foreigners and intruders. The Jews that remained in the region integrated and live peacefully all over the middle East. These are acceptable to the Arabs. In essence to the Arabs, the Zionists are European imperialists masked as Jews.
I have come to question so called Jewish power. Its seems that the Jewish identity is so fluid especially as one moves out of the MidEast. The Jews in Europe and Russia seem to have become whiter and its no secret that Jews too uphold the Aryan standard of beauty.
The thin line between Jewish identity as religion rather than ethnicity has made Jews even harder to identify. In the West especially, Jewishnesss is quickly becoming an idea. You go to Hollywood and you see blond and red headed Jews. Its no wonder the Arabs quickly reject them.
But I am getting the sense that the world is getting tired of the holocaust card.
America still has its strategic interests in that region, but as we move towards cleaner energies, the Middle East will become quickly irrelevant. In this age of you tube, we can see a man record his brother in a space of an hour, from a young energetic kid playing soccer in the back yard to his last breath as the beep of a hospital machine flatlines. Palestianians are humans too. And their life is just as valuable as that of an Israeli.
We do know that to the Israelis one life is extremely precious. However this attitude as commendable as it is, it also encourages the opression and destruction of other lives as we see with Palestinians.
Regardless of the politics, it should not be lost to us that innocent civilians a dying at the hands of the Israelis who put a premium on their own lives.
As for the land, I guess they feel justified because of the oppression they suffered else where when they left it.
The irony of all this is, the same people doing this will later successfully sell their holocaust experience and many will buy it. Black America is sold.
On the other hand, I wish the world paid as much attention to African suffering. This is a picnic in comparison. Genocides are going on unabetted with the involvement of Western powers.
America supports Israel because of the fundamentalist Christians support Israel. PERIOD
Unfortunately religion and politics/government are not nearly as separate as they should be in this country. I see it as colonization.
:-) I have opinions but all I do when I come on your blog is smile because you bring up things I am thinking about.
And yeh, why does the US support Isreal so much ? I saw Rice give that UN speech. It seemed one sided.
There are too many crisis's...is that correct grammar?
I will comment more when I see what other people think.
t I for one refuse to accept that the Jews suffered more than the Armenians, Congolese(under King Leopold or African Americans due to what happened to them in Europe and therefore deserve to be compensated with other people's land.
That is my feeling on it. I am not saying suicide bombings are right, but I understand why Palestinians would be upset.
I do not hate Jews but I disagree with these attacks on the Palestinians. I think it is cruel to make people live in refugee camps on their own land, evacuate them out of their homes, and deny them food, water, electricity, medical care and education.
I do as well.
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Hamas IS a terrorist group. Even other Arabs don't want to deal with them. Yassir Arafat created it, then spent the last decade of his life terrified that they were going to kill him.
To us, Hamas is a terrorist group. To people in Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas is a group that provides them with libraries, educational systems, hospitals, and social programs. It is kind of like the Black Panther Party back in the day, depending upon who you talked to, they were either saints or sinners, the same could be said about Hamas. Per the western world, they are evil, but to everyone they are not. That is why I get frustrated that the terrorist label has been thrown around, especially since 9/11. No one wants to see the shades of grey, they want it to be 100% good or 100% evil, there can be no in between. Hamas were actually elected to replace Fatah, which was seen as corrupt and ineffective, and I am no way saying Hamas has been effective, but the people there aren't seeing all the terror that the US media has shown us.
Neither side in this conflict wants peace. Why? Because there's no profit in peace. In Oslo the Israelis offered Arafat 95% of what they said they wanted and were turned down flat. Why? Because he knew Hamas would kill him deader than hell if he accepted. Much like the Israelis killed Rabin for making concessions.
I definitely agree with this.
And the bottom line is, there is not, nor has there ever been a country called Palestine.
But should that justify kicking out in group in favor of another?
The US supports Israel because it's in the country's best interest to do so. What other ally do we have in the region? Factor in the same guilt we have as the rest of Europe does, and there you go.
Why do we need an ally there, no one over there likes us anyway, and we already know this. I don't think getting a relationship with Israel is ideal, considering no one over there likes them either.
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Dr. Ruth was a sniper for Israel; that should tell you something.
Damn, Dr. Ruth is hardcore!!!!!!
As a nation, we don't like to admit we're wrong and actually doing something about it is unthinkable.
Very true.
The ignorance of Siditty and her anti-smite followers is unbelievable. Here some history to help you understand. The Jews are the most universally hated and persecuted ethnic group in history. The Zionist founders believed that hatred of Jews was a direct consequence of their stateless condition. As long as Jews were aliens in every society they found themselves in, they would always be seen as interlopers, their loyalties would be suspect and persecution would follow. This was what happened to Captain Alfred Dreyfus, whom French anti-Semites falsely accused of spying and who was put on trial for treason by the French government in the 19th Century. Theodore Herzl was an assimilated, westernized Jew, who witnessed the Dreyfus frame- up in Paris and went on to lead the Zionist movement.
Herzl and other Zionist founders believed that if Jews had a nation of their own, the very fact would "normalize" their condition in the community of nations. Jews had been without a state since the beginning of the diaspora, when the Romans expelled them from Judea on the west bank of the Jordan River, some 2,000 years before. Once the Jews obtained a homeland - Judea itself seemed a logical site -- and were again like other peoples, the Zionists believed anti-Semitism would wither on its poisonous vine and the Jewish problem would disappear.
Here is what happened instead: In the 1920s, among their final acts as victors in World War I, the British and French created the states that now define the Middle East out of the ashes of the empire of their defeated Turkish adversary. In a region that the Ottoman Turks had controlled for hundreds of years, Britain and France drew the boundaries of the new states, Syria Lebanon and Iraq. Previously, the British had promised the Jewish Zionists that they could establish a "national home" in a portion of what remained of the area, which was known as the Palestine Mandate. But in 1921 the British separated 80 percent of the Mandate, east of the Jordan, and created the Arab kingdom of "Transjordan." It was created for the Arabian monarch King Abdullah, who had been defeated in tribal warfare in the Arabian Peninsula and lacked a seat of power. Abudllah's tribe was Hashemite, while the vast majority of Abdullah's subjects were Palestinian Arabs.
What was left of the original Palestine Mandate - between the west bank of the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea - had been settled by Arabs and Jews. Jews, in fact, had lived in the area continuously for 3,700 years, even after the Romans destroyed their state in Judea in CE 70. Arabs became the dominant local population for the first time in the 7th Century CE as a result of the Muslim invasions. The Arabs were largely nomads who had no distinctive language or culture to separate them from other Arabs. In all the time since, they had made no attempt to create an independent Palestinian state west or east of the Jordan and none was ever established.
In 1948, at the request of the Jews who were living in Palestine, the United Nations voted to partition the remaining quarter of the original Mandate to make a Jewish homeland possible. Under the partition plan, the Arabs were given the Jews' ancient home in Judea and Samaria - now known as the West Bank. The Jews were allotted three slivers of disconnected land along the Mediterranean and the Sinai desert. They were also given access to their holy city of Jerusalem, but as an island cut off from the slivers, surrounded by Arab land and under international control. Sixty percent of the land allotted to the Jews was the Negev desert. Out of these unpromising parts, the Jews created a new state, Israel, in 1948. At this time, the idea of a Palestinian nation, or a movement to create one did not even exist.
At the moment of Israel's birth, Palestinian Arabs lived on roughly 90 percent of the original Palestine Mandate - in Transjordan and in the UN partition area, but also in the new state of Israel itself. There were 800,000 Arabs living in Israel alongside 1.2 million Jews. At the same time, Jews were legally barred from settling in the 35,000 square miles of Palestinian Transjordan, which eventually was renamed simply "Jordan."
The Arab population in the slivers called Israel had actually more than tripled since the Zionists first began settling the region in significant numbers in the 1880s.The reason for this increase was that the Jewish settlers had brought industrial and agricultural development with them, which attracted Arab immigrants to what had previously been a sparsely settled and economically destitute area.
If the Palestinian Arabs had been willing to accept this arrangement in which they received 90 percent of the land in the Palestine Mandate, and under which they benefited from the industry, enterprise and political democracy the Jews brought to the region, there would have been no Middle East conflict. But this was not to be.
Instead, the Arab League - representing five neighboring Arab states - declared war on Israel on the day of its creation, and five Arab armies invaded the slivers with the aim of destroying the infant Jewish state. During the fighting, according to the UN mediator on the scene, an estimated 472,000 Arabs fled their homes to escape the dangers. They planned on returning after an Arab victory and the destruction of the Jewish state.
But the Jews -- many of them recent Holocaust survivors -- refused to be defeated. Instead, the five Arab armies that had invaded their slivers were repelled. Yet there was no peace. Even though their armies were beaten, the Arab states were determined to carry on their campaign of destruction, and to remain formally at war with the Israeli state. After the defeat of the Arab armies, the Palestinians who lived in the Arab area of the UN partition did not attempt to create a state of their own. Instead, in 1950, Jordan annexed the entire West Bank
As a result of the annexation and the continuing state of war, the Arab refugees who had fled the Israeli slivers did not return. There was a refugee flow into Israel, but it was a flow of Jews who had been expelled from the Arab countries. All over the Middle East, Jews were forced to leave lands they had lived on for centuries. Although Israel was a tiny geographical area and a fledgling state, its government welcomed and resettled 600,000 Jewish refugees from the Arab countries.
At the same time, the Jews resumed their work of creating a new nation in what was now a single sliver of land. Israel, had annexed a small amount of territory to make their state defensible, including a land bridge that included Jerusalem.
In the years that followed, the Israelis made their desert bloom. They built the only industrialized economy in the entire Middle East. They built the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. They treated the Arabs who remained in Israel well. To this day the very large Arab minority, which lives inside the state of Israel, has more rights and privileges than any other Arab population in the entire Middle East.
This is especially true of the Arabs living under Yasser Arafat's corrupt dictatorship, the Palestine Authority, which today administers the West Bank and the Gaza strip, and whose Arab subjects have no human rights. In 1997, in a fit of pique against the Oslo Accords, Palestinian spokesman Edward Said himself blurted this out, calling Arafat "our Papa Doc" - after the sadistic dictator of Haiti - and complaining that there was "a total absence of law or the rule of law in the Palestinian autonomy areas."
The present Middle East conflict is said to be about the "occupied territories" - the West Bank of the Jordan and the Gaza strip - and about Israel's refusal to "give them up." But during the first twenty years of the Arab-Israeli conflict, Israel did not control the West Bank. In 1950, when Jordan annexed the West Bank, there was no Arab outrage. Nor did the Middle East conflict with the Jews subside.
The reason there was no Arab outrage over the annexation of the West Bank was because Jordan is a state whose ethnic majority is Palestinian Arabs. On the other hand, the Palestinians of Jordan are disenfranchised by the ruling Hashemite minority. Despite this fact, in the years following the annexation the Palestinians displayed no interest in achieving "self-determination" in Hashemite Jordan. It is only the presence of Jews, apparently, that incites this claim. The idea that the current conflict is about "occupied territories" is only one of the many large Arab deceits -- now widely accepted -- that have distorted the history of the Middle East wars.
In 1967, Egypt, Syria and Jordan attacked Israel for a second time and were again defeated. It was in repelling these aggressors that Israel came to control the West Bank and the Gaza strip, as well as the oil-rich Sinai desert. Israel had every right to annex these territories captured from the aggressors - a time honored ritual among nations, and in fact the precise way that Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan had come into existence themselves. But Israel did not do so. On the other hand, neither did it withdraw its armies or relinquish its control.
The reason was that the Arab aggressors once again refused to make peace. Instead, they declared themselves still at war with Israel, a threat no Israeli government could afford to ignore. By this time, Israel was a country of 2 or 3 million surrounded by declared enemies whose combined populations numbered over 100 million. Geographically Israel was so small that at one point it was less than ten miles across. No responsible Israeli government could relinquish a territorial buffer while its hostile neighbors were still formally at war. This is the reality that frames the Middle East conflict.
In 1973, six years after the second Arab war against the Jews, the Arab armies again attacked Israel. The attack was led by Syria and Egypt, abetted by Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and five other countries who gave military support to the aggressors, including an Iraqi division of 18,000 men. Israel again defeated the Arab forces. Afterwards, Egypt - and Egypt alone -- agreed to make a formal peace.
The peace was signed by Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, who was subsequently assassinated by Islamic radicals, paying for his statesmanship with his life. Sadat is one of three Arab leaders assassinated by other Arabs for making peace with the Jews.
Under the Camp David accords that Sadat signed, Israel returned the entire Sinai with all its oil riches. This act demonstrated once and for all that the solution to the Middle East conflict was ready at hand. It only required the willingness of the Arabs to agree.
The Middle East conflict is not about Israel's occupation of the territories; it is about the refusal of the Arabs to make peace with Israel, which is an inevitable by-product of their desire to destroy it.
The Palestinians and their supporters also claim that the Middle East conflict is about the Palestinians' yearning for a state and the refusal of Israel to accept their aspiration. This claim is also false. The Palestine Liberation Organization was created in 1964, sixteen years after the establishment of Israel and the first anti-Israel war. The PLO was created at a time the West Bank was not under Israeli control but was part of Jordan. The PLO, however, was not created so that the Palestinians could achieve self-determination in Jordan, which at the time comprised 90 percent of the original Palestine Mandate. The PLO's express purpose, in the words of its own leaders, was to "push the Jews into the sea."
The official charter of the new Palestine Liberation Organization referred to the "Zionist invasion," declared that Israel's Jews were "not an independent nationality," described Zionism as "racist" and "fascist," called for "the liquidation of the Zionist presence," and specified, "armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine." In short, "liberation" required the destruction of the Jewish state. The PLO was not even created by Palestinians but by the Arab League -- the corrupt dictators who ruled the Middle East and who had attempted to destroy Israel by military force in 1948, in 1967 and again in 1973.
For thirty years, the PLO charter remained unchanged in its call for Israel's destruction. Then in the mid-1990s, under enormous international pressure following the 1993 Oslo accords, PLO leader Yasser Arafat removed the clause while assuring his followers that its removal was a necessary compromise that did not alter the movement's goals. He did this explicitly and also by citing a historical precedent in which the Prophet Muhammad insincerely agreed to a peace with his enemies in order to gain time to mass the forces with which he intended to destroy them.
The Middle East struggle is not about right against right. It is about a fifty-year effort by the Arabs to destroy the Jewish state, and the refusal of the Arab states in general and the Palestinian Arabs in particular to accept Israel's existence. If the Arabs were willing to do this, there would be no occupied territories and there would be a Palestinian state.
Even during the "Oslo" peace process -- when the Palestine Liberation Organization pretended to recognize the existence of Israel and the Jews therefore allowed the creation of a "Palestine Authority" -- it was clear that the PLO's goal was Israel's destruction, and not just because its leader invoked the Prophet Muhammad's own deception. The Palestinians' determination to destroy Israel is abundantly clear in their newly created demand of a "right of return" to Israel for "5 million" Arabs. The figure of 5 million refugees who must be returned to Israel is more than ten times the number of Arabs who actually left the Jewish slivers of the British Mandate in 1948.
In addition to its absurdity, this new demand has several aspects that reveal the Palestinians' genocidal agenda for the Jews. The first is that the "right of return" is itself a calculated mockery of the primary reason for Israel's existence -- the fact that no country would provide a refuge for Jews fleeing Hitler's extermination program during World War II. It is only because the world turned its back on the Jews when their survival was at stake that the state of Israel grants a "right of return." to every Jew who asks for it.
But there is no genocidal threat to Arabs, no lack of international support militarily and economically, and no Palestinian "diaspora" (although the Palestinians have cynically appropriated the very term to describe their self-inflicted quandary). The fact that many Arabs, including the Palestinian spiritual leader -- the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem -- supported Hitler's "Final Solution" only serves to compound the insult. It is even further compounded by the fact that more than 90 percent of the Palestinians now in the West Bank and Gaza have never lived a day of their lives in territorial Israel. The claim of a "right of return" is thus little more than a brazen expression of contempt for the Jews, and for their historic suffering.
More importantly it is an expression of contempt for the very idea of a Jewish state. The incorporation of five million Arabs into Israel would render the Jews a permanent minority in their own country, and would thus spell the end of Israel. The Arabs fully understand this, and that is why they have made it a fundamental demand. It is just one more instance of the general bad faith the Arab side has manifested through every chapter of these tragic events.
Possibly the most glaring expression of the Arabs' bad faith is their deplorable treatment of the Palestinian refugees and refusal for half a century to relocate them, or to alleviate their condition, even during the years they were under Jordanian rule. While Israel was making the desert bloom and relocating 600,000 Jewish refugees from Arab states, and building a thriving industrial democracy in its allotted sliver, the Arabs were busy making sure that their refugees remained in squalid refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza, where they were powerless, right-less, and economically destitute.
Today, more than fifty years after the first Arab war against Israel, there are 59 such refugee camps and 3.7 million "refugees" registered with the UN. Despite economic aid from the UN and Israel itself, despite the oil wealth of the Arab kingdoms, the Arab leaders have refused to undertake the efforts that would liberate the refugees from their miserable camps, or to make the economic investment that would alleviate their condition. There are now 22 Arab states providing homes for the same ethnic population, speaking a common Arabic language. But the only one that will allow Palestinian Arabs to become citizens is Jordan. And the only state the Palestinians covet is Israel.
The refusal to address the condition of the Palestinian refugee population is - and has always been -- a calculated Arab policy, intended to keep the Palestinians in a state of desperation in order to incite their hatred of Israel for the wars to come. Not to leave anything to chance, the mosques and schools of the Arabs generally -- and the Palestinians in particular -- preach and teach Jew hatred every day. Elementary school children in Palestinian Arab schools are even taught to chant "Death to the heathen Jews" in their classrooms as they are learning to read. It should not be overlooked, that these twin policies of deprivation (of the Palestinian Arabs) and hatred (of the Jews) are carried out without any protest from any sector of Palestinian or Arab society. That in itself speaks volumes about the nature of the Middle East conflict.
All wars -- especially wars that have gone on for fifty years - produce victims with just grievances on both sides. And that is true in this one. There are plenty of individual Palestinian victims, as there are Jewish victims, familiar from the nightly news. But the collective Palestinian grievance is without justice. It is a self-inflicted wound, the product of the Arabs' xenophobia, bigotry, exploitation of their own people, and apparent inability to be generous towards those who are not Arabs. While Israel is an open, democratic, multi-ethnic, multicultural society that includes a large enfranchised Arab minority, the Palestine Authority is an intolerant, undemocratic, monolithic police state with one dictatorial leader, whose ruinous career has run now for 40years.
As the repellent attitudes, criminal methods and dishonest goals of the Palestine liberation movement should make clear to any reasonable observer, its present cause is based on Jew hatred, and on resentment of the modern, democratic West, and little else. Since there was no Palestinian nation before the creation of Israel, and since Palestinians regarded themselves simply as Arabs and their land as part of Syria, it is not surprising that many of the chief creators of the Palestine Liberation Organization did not even live in the Palestine Mandate before the creation of Israel, let alone in the sliver of mostly desert that was allotted to the Jews. Edward Said, the leading intellectual mouthpiece for the Palestinian cause grew up in a family that chose to make its home in Egypt and the United States. Yasser Arafat was born in Egypt.
While the same Arab states that claim to be outraged by the Jews' treatment of Palestinians treat their own Arab populations far worse than Arabs are treated in Israel, they are also silent about the disenfranchised Palestinian majority that lives in Jordan. In 1970, Jordan's King Hussein massacred thousands of PLO militants. But the PLO does not call for the overthrow of Hashemite rule in Jordan and does not hate the Hashemite monarchy. Only Jews are hated.
It is a hatred, moreover, that is increasingly lethal. Today, 70 percent of the Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza approve the suicide bombing of women and children if the targets are Jews. There is no Arab "Peace Now" movement, not even a small one, whereas in Israel the movement demanding concessions to Arabs in the name of peace is a formidable political force. There is no Arab spokesman who will speak for the rights and sufferings of Jews, but there are hundreds of thousands of Jews in Israel - and all over the world - who will speak for "justice" for the Palestinians. How can the Jews expect fair treatment from a people that collectively does not even recognize their humanity?
The Oslo peace process begun in 1993 was based on the pledge of both parties to renounce violence as a means of settling their dispute. But the Palestinians never renounced violence and in the year 2000, they officially launched a new Intifada against Israel, effectively terminating the peace process.
In fact, during the peace process -- between 1993 and 1999 -- there were over 4,000 terrorist incidents committed by Palestinians against Israelis, and more than 1,000 Israelis killed as a result of Palestinian attacks - more than had been killed in the previous 25 years. By contrast, during the same period 1993-1999 Israelis were so desperate for peace that they reciprocated these acts of murder by giving the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza a self-governing authority, a 40,000 man armed "police force," and 95 percent of the territory their negotiators demanded. This Israeli generosity was rewarded by a rejection of peace, suicide bombings of crowded discos and shopping malls, an outpouring of ethnic hatred and a renewed declaration of war.
In fact, the Palestinians broke the Oslo Accords precisely because of Israeli generosity, because the government of Ehud Barak offered to meet 95 percent of their demands, including turning over parts of Jerusalem to their control -- a possibility once considered unthinkable. These concessions confronted Arafat with the one outcome he did not want: Peace with Israel. Peace without the destruction of the "Jewish Entity."
Arafat rejected these Israeli concessions, accompanying his rejection with a new explosion of anti-Jewish violence. He named this violence -- deviously -- "The Al-Aksa Intifada," after the mosque on the Temple Mount. His new jihad was given the name of a Muslim shrine to create the illusion that the Intifada was provoked not by his unilateral destruction of the Oslo peace process, but by Ariel Sharon's visit to the site. Months after the Intifada began, the Palestine Authority itself admitted this was just another Arafat lie.
In fact, the Intifada had been planned months before Sharon's visit as a follow-up to the rejection of the Oslo Accords. In the words of Imad Faluji, the Palestine Authority's communications minister, "[The uprising] had been planned since Chairman Arafat's return from Camp David, when he turned the tables on the former U.S. president [Clinton] and rejected the American conditions." The same conclusion was reached by the Mitchell Commission headed by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell to investigate the events: "The Sharon visit did not cause the Al-Aksa Intifada.
In assessing the Middle East impasse it is important to pay attention to the moral distinction revealed in the actions of the two combatants. When a deranged Jew goes into an Arab mosque and kills the worshippers (which happened once) he is acting alone and is universally condemned by the Israeli government and the Jews in Israel and everywhere, and he is punished to the full extent of Israeli law. But when a young Arab enters a disco filled with teenagers or a shopping mall or bus crowded with women and children and blows himself and innocent bystanders up (which happens frequently), he is someone who has been trained and sent by a component of the PLO or the Palestine Authority; he is officially praised as a hero by Yasser Arafat; his mother is given money by the Palestine Authority; and his Arab neighbors come to pay honor to the household for having produced a "martyr for Allah." The Palestinian liberation movement is the first such movement to elevate the killing of children - both the enemy's and its own - into a religious calling and a strategy of the cause.
It is not only the methods of the Palestine liberation movement that are morally repellent. The Palestinian cause is itself corrupt. The "Palestinian problem" is a problem created by the Arabs, and can only be solved by them. In Jordan, Palestinians already have a state in which they are a majority but which denies them self-determination. Why is Jordan not the object of the Palestinian "liberation" struggle? The only possible answer is because it is not ruled by Jews.
There is a famous "green line" marking the boundary between Israel and its Arab neighbors. That green line is also the bottom line for what is the real problem in the Middle East. It is green because plants are growing in the desert on the Israeli side but not on the Arab side. The Jews got a sliver of land without oil, and created abundant wealth and life in all its rich and diverse forms. The Arabs got nine times the acreage but all they have done with it is to sit on its aridity and nurture the poverty, resentments and hatreds of its inhabitants. Out of these dark elements they have created and perfected the most vile anti-human terrorism the world has ever seen: Suicide bombing of civilians. In fact, the Palestinians are a community of suicide bombers: they want the destruction of Israel more than they want a better life.
If a nation state is all the Palestinians desire, Jordan would be the solution. (So would settling for 95 percent of one's demands.) But the Palestinians also want to destroy Israel. This is morally hateful. It is the Nazi virus revived. Nonetheless, the Palestinian cause is generally supported by the international community, with the singular exception of the United States (and to a lesser degree Great Britain). It is precisely because the Palestinians want to destroy a state that Jews have created -- and because they are killing Jews -- that they enjoy international credibility and otherwise inexplicable support.
It is this international resistance to the cause of Jewish survival, the persistence of global Jew-hatred that, in the end, refutes the Zionist hope of a solution to the "Jewish problem." The creation of Israel is an awe-inspiring human success story. But the permanent war to destroy it undermines the original Zionist idea.
More than fifty years after the creation of Israel, the Jews are still the most hated ethnic group in the world. Islamic radicals want to destroy Israel, but do so Islamic moderates. For the Jews in the Middle East, the present conflict is a life and death struggle, yet every government in the UN with the exception of the United States and sometimes Britain regularly votes against Israel in the face of a terrorist enemy, who has no respect for the rights or lives of Jews. After the Al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center, the French ambassador to England complained that the whole world was endangered because of "that shitty little country," Israel. This caused a scandal in England, but nowhere else. All that stands between the Jews of the Middle East and another Holocaust is their own military prowess and the generous, humanitarian support of the United States.
Even in the United States, however, one can now turn the TV to channels like MSNBC and CNN to see Ariel Sharon who is the elected Prime Minister of a democracy equated politically and morally with Yasser Arafat who is a dictator, a terrorist and an enemy of the United States. One can see the same equivalence drawn between Israel's democracy and the Palestine Authority, which is a terrorist entity and an ally of America's enemies Al Qaeda and Iraq.
During the Gulf War, Israel was America's staunch ally while Arafat and the Palestinians openly supported the aggressor, Saddam Hussein. Yet the next two U.S. Governments - Republican and Democrat alike - strove for even-handed "neutrality" in the conflict in the Middle East, and pressured Israel into a suicidal "peace process" with a foe dedicated to its destruction. It is only since September 11 that the United States has been willing to recognize Arafat as an enemy of peace and not a viable negotiating partner.
The Zionists' efforts created a thriving democracy for the Jews of Israel (and also for the million Arabs who live in Israel), but failed to normalize the Jewish people or make them safe in a world that hates them. From the point of view of the "Jewish problem," which Herzl and the Zionist founders set out to solve, it is better today to be a Jew in America than a Jew in Israel.
This is one reason why I myself am not a Zionist but an unambivalent, passionate American patriot. America is good for the Jews as it is good for every other minority who embraces its social contract. But this history is also why I am a fierce supporter of Israel's survival and have no sympathy for the Palestinian side in the conflict in the Middle East. Nor will I have such sympathy until the day comes when I can look into the Palestinians' eyes and see something other than death desired for Jews like me.
We are like Israel's only friend (that big older kid on the playground that reminds the other kids in the "sand box" not to mess with his little buddy) and we will stick by them until the (apocalyptic?) end. That is not going to change. However, as of late, we have not been very good friends to the nation of Israel as evidenced by what we have let them get away with these past few years (with out calling them out on it). I have heard that it is the part of a good friend to be honest with his "little buddy" and tell him when he is in the wrong.
I totally understand the need to protect itself from rocket strikes and the like, but dude, bombing schools and hospitals?! Killing little children?! Really?! Pulling the holocaust card does not move me enough to turn a blind eye to what I know is wrong. Enduring great suffering does not make you good and just; it is how you act during and after great suffering that makes you good and just. The Israeli government needs to know that, and as its only real friend, the American government needs to tell them that.
America should have said to Israel that its response to attacks from Hamas has been extremely disproportionate and a violation of human rights (not a human rights nightmare...a violation). From my vantage point, the Israeli Government is little better than Hamas in this regard (I'm not even going to speak on the Apartheid-like situation that they got the Palestinians living under over there). Who suffers? The everyday people (both Jew and Palestinian) who are just trying to live. FUBAR...Utterly FUBAR!
The Jews are the most universally hated and persecuted ethnic group in history
Black folks could give you a run for your money.
As long as Jews were aliens in every society they found themselves in, they would always be seen as interlopers, their loyalties would be suspect and persecution would follow.
Maybe this is why blacks in the diaspora are hated the world over?
If the Palestinian Arabs had been willing to accept this arrangement in which they received 90 percent of the land in the Palestine Mandate, and under which they benefited from the industry, enterprise and political democracy the Jews brought to the region, there would have been no Middle East conflict. But this was not to be.
So they still had to give up land they were living on and didn't want to compromise. I wonder if any place in the world at this point and time would be ok with anyone trying to compromise with them in how much land they should take? Or would most places assume they want all the land they assumed was theirs.
In the years that followed, the Israelis made their desert bloom. They built the only industrialized economy in the entire Middle East. They built the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.
If the rest of the middle east had the financial and political support of other countries in the world, they might prosper as well.
he Middle East conflict is not about Israel's occupation of the territories; it is about the refusal of the Arabs to make peace with Israel, which is an inevitable by-product of their desire to destroy it.
In this recent conflict who stopped the cease fire?
It is only because the world turned its back on the Jews when their survival was at stake that the state of Israel grants a "right of return." to every Jew who asks for it.
Where do black folks like me go? Oh, we don't, we sit and continue to struggle the world over.
The claim of a "right of return" is thus little more than a brazen expression of contempt for the Jews, and for their historic suffering.
So basically they should just get over it right?
How can the Jews expect fair treatment from a people that collectively does not even recognize their humanity?
You don't expect fair treatment. I don't expect fairness or empathy from the majority of white people in the US, because they can't empathize or they don't want to.
This is one reason why I myself am not a Zionist but an unambivalent, passionate American patriot. America is good for the Jews as it is good for every other minority who embraces its social contract.
I disagree.
Nor will I have such sympathy until the day comes when I can look into the Palestinians' eyes and see something other than death desired for Jews like me.
You believe all Palestinians want you and all Jews dead? That is sad to me.
I don't care how many schools you build and free breakfast programs you start, if you routinely assassinate folk and launch rockets at them, YOU ARE A TERRORIST. The election of Hamas was a major Bush administration misstep, no surprise there.
But should that justify kicking out in group in favor of another?
Nobody kicked them out. The Arabs launched the war, not the Israelis.
Actually I suspect both groups want one another dead.
After Oslo, I more or less lost interest in the situation because both sides showed their hold care. They don't want peace. My Middle East plan would be to wash our hands of the whole mess. Of course that's more or less my solution to all these damned people who insist on fighting over bullshit.
I suppose we could bomb both sides to the peace table as Clinton did with the Balkans. There's something to be said for a president with a hot temper and little patience.
Bottom line is, as long as there's breath in those people's body they will be fighting one another. Hamas is deliberately launching rocket attacks from civilian locations because they know the Israelis will bomb there. They want to get the moral high ground and sympathy. What they fail to understand is that the Israelis don't really give a shit about moral high ground or sympathy. For them it's about survival. They feel that the whole world is against them anyway, and it's more or less proved them right. So what difference does it make. When you're fighting somebody who has nothing to lose, there can be no winner. Hamas and the Israelis both feel this way. My suggestion? Get the hell out and stay out. We can't win with this one.
Hamas needs to stop firing rockets at Israeli cities and endangering innocent lives.
This does not mean that Israel gets my undying unquestioning support. Israel needs to give up the land it captured in 1967 and let Palestinians have a homeland
There are two sides to this story.
"The ignorance of Siditty and her anti-smite followers is unbelievable".
Sorry, some of us don't see a Jewish life as above a Palestinian's or any other. Too bad that those who don't dance to your tune become anti-semites. This song is tired.
Jews are not above crime, hate and oppression and one pointing this out does not make them an anti-semite.
"Here some history to help you understand. The Jews are the most universally hated and persecuted ethnic group in history."
LOL! @ the history lesson. I think we have all been bombarded enough by the Jewish perspective.
Defend your cause all you want but as long as innocent women and children are getting killed by Israel, you will be judged and criticized and it won't be because one is anti semite.
And what makes Jews the most hated ethnic group in the world? Is this another way of playing victim and guilt tripping.
Where I grew up I didn't even know what anti-semitism was. Europe hated Jews, does Europe account for the world? How much anti-semitism is in Asia and Africa? Wait, those are not part of the world are they?
Try being black anywhere in the world.
Infact I have heard also that the most hated group is the Gypsies. But somehow, Jews have claimed this title.
How do you measure hateability? Massive killings? Constant discrimination? Are jews the only people that have suffered from these?
How can you be hated so much yet have alot of political and economic influence in all corners of the globe?
Personally I prefer to measure hate by its ability to take away ones life and basic rights. How much has anti-semitism done this and is the resultant effect the greatest ever?
To me, calling Jews the most hated group, is highly skilled propaganda and nothing else. The Whites may be able to buy it but as a Black African person I know better because I have seen and experienced Jewish hatred and millions of my own people are dying because by the international standard their life is even less worthy than that of a Palestinian. So go ahead and cry me a river.
Chuck,
If you're going to paste something at least give the author the credit for his writing, you pinhead!
Here, I'll give it to you.: http://www.fightthebias.com/Resources/Rec_Read/mid_east_conflict.htm
"Maybe this is why blacks in the diaspora are hated the world over?"
Hey Sid,
I think you guys ought to arm yourselves and go chase the West Africans off their land.
"It is only because the world turned its back on the Jews when their survival was at stake that the state of Israel grants a "right of return." to every Jew who asks for it.
Where do black folks like me go? Oh, we don't, we sit and continue to struggle the world over."
This person sounds like a Jewish teacher I had whose class I had to drop. Every class we had to hear about injustice to the Jews. She must have sensed my discomfort because she later on gave me hell for it. With her it was like you either get sold onto the whole Jewish sob story or you are anti Jewish.
I grew up pro Israel, but I have since developed common sense. Jews have a right to live and justice just like any one else but the holocaust card seems to give them the right be the the only agrieved parties in the world even when they have since over come the evils that plague them.
It may turn out to be a self fulfilling prophecy that they are the most hated group because I am beginning to ge the sense that people are fatigued by the holocaust card. There are genocides going on right now and somehow we are still being emotionally black mailed by what happened to the Jews when some of our own people were being killed and brutalized at the same time and still are.
We have heard the Jewish story its time to put the attention where its most needed.
To us, Hamas is a terrorist group. To people in Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas is a group that provides them with libraries, educational systems, hospitals, and social programs. It is kind of like the Black Panther Party back in the day, depending upon who you talked to,
Hamas makes their people stupid by teaching only the Koran and Islam. Hamas is simply another Taliban-fundamentalist group, filled with ignorant fools that don't understand they need to live in the 21st century and not in the 12th.
Before a Jewish state was even set up in 1948, Palestinian groups supported pr Nazi efforts and massacred Jews across the Holy Land. Arabs sided with the Axis Powers during WWII and even launched coups (Iraq in 1941) to help the German war effort.
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php
@ Sid:
"Where do black folks like me go?
Oh, we don't, we sit and continue to struggle the world over."
I think they meant to deport us all at once to Liberia, but there wasn't enough money for it. That and I doubt that several generations of American-born blacks would've wanted to go to a foreign nation, although some did.
There have been numerous calls for a two nation state. I don't think people really grasp the scope of what is going on between Israel and Palestine. We only get bits and pieces of the story from the MSM but you have to broaden your horizons and read more indepth reports from the region and watch independent news from abroad. Do you know that Palestinians girls are raped by Israeli soldiers or that people have to walk around with id cards just to cross over to certain regions to visit family and loved ones. I'm sure some of you did not hear about Palestinians breaking down a wall to get into Egypt for food and water because Israel had cut off their supply lines. Imagine what it was like for blacks living in America or South Africa. No one should be allowed to be treated like a degenerate in their own land. That's my problem with this conflict. Israel was established by the west without the inhabitants of that region being consulted. Jews and Arabs had lived together for years and worked together in that region until European Jews arrived and began this injustice to the majority (as Jews are the
minority.)
To those saying that Hamas is a terrorist group...let's remember that the term 'terrorist' is relative. Would you consider Nelson Mandela a terrorist? What about Che Guevara? Let's even talk about Hitler. He was a terrorist because he murdered not only Jews, but Blacks, Gypsies and others. Yet he was also respected for what he did for Germany. He made Germany a world power again after they had been suffered dearly in WWI.
Sid, I don't mean to take over your blog just want to have a debate.
I don't care how many schools you build and free breakfast programs you start, if you routinely assassinate folk and launch rockets at them, YOU ARE A TERRORIST
If we go by that definition, the US could be considered a terrorist government.
Nobody kicked them out. The Arabs launched the war, not the Israelis.
They launched a war on the premise of people being displaced from their land.
Actually I suspect both groups want one another dead.
I don't think either side is innocent, but I don't think Israel is this all innocent country clear of any wrong doing in their handling of previous and current conflicts.
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Hamas needs to stop firing rockets at Israeli cities and endangering innocent lives.
So does Israel
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Before a Jewish state was even set up in 1948, Palestinian groups supported pr Nazi efforts and massacred Jews across the Holy Land. Arabs sided with the Axis Powers during WWII and even launched coups (Iraq in 1941) to help the German war effort.
Lots of countries, including our own didn't support the Nazis, but they sure as hell stayed quiet. I still don't think that absolves Israel of it's wrongdoings. I am just saying their is no innocence. Just because the US backs a country come hell or high water, doesn't mean that it is due to the intentions of spreading all things good and wonderful to the rest of the world.
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I think they meant to deport us all at once to Liberia, but there wasn't enough money for it. That and I doubt that several generations of American-born blacks would've wanted to go to a foreign nation, although some did.
I'd go if I could still get sushi and had internet access. OK, no I wouldn't. I figure they bought my ass over here, I can stay over here, whether folks like it or not.
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We only get bits and pieces of the story from the MSM but you have to broaden your horizons and read more indepth reports from the region and watch independent news from abroad.
Yes it seems our MSM tends to make Israel the good guy each and every time, but if you look at media elsewhere the picture is a bit different. I personally don't think there are any good guys.
To those saying that Hamas is a terrorist group...let's remember that the term 'terrorist' is relative.
I wholeheartedly agree. The word terrorist is like the word racist, no one wants the title, but everyone is walking around with traits and characteristics of the definition.
Before a Jewish state was even set up in 1948, Palestinian groups supported pr Nazi efforts and massacred Jews across the Holy Land. Arabs sided with the Axis Powers during WWII and even launched coups (Iraq in 1941) to help the German war effort.
There were several high profile Americans that openly sanctioned Nazi’s Eugenic policies and have worked to replicate their odious campaign in America. In fact, Sterilization practices were used on the undesirables such as Black women, the handicapped, the mentally ill, etc. in the early part of the 20th century and has been proved than many of Hitler’s policies have been lifted completely from American thought and was backed by the likes of Carnegie and Rockefeller, pillars of America who wanted to rid America of genetic defects.
Need we forget many American companies such as IBM that happily did business with Hitler even when they knew what he was doing? Why do you think it took so long for FDR to gain support to invade Europe when there was a great deal of Apathy and sympathy for Nazism in America? Americans knew of the extermination camps for years and did nothing, therefore there is plenty of blame to go around when many Americans sympathized and some openly supported Hitler and his hardcore socialist policies. Hardly the sympathetic face for Jewish welfare as they were sent to the ovens. Only with the invasion of Pearl Harbor did America feel the need to act. If America was never attacked, it would have been unlikely that FDR would have garnered enough support from Americans to justify invading Europe—especially when there was a undercurrent of Nazi sympathy.
Well, historically (I'm only going back about five centuries), the ownerhip of the land starts with the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans sided with the Germans in World War I. They lost and most of territories external to Turkey (and some inside Turkey) were divided among the victorious powers.
The relevant land ended up being ruled by the UK. The British Mandate of Palestine was one of the main places Jews fled to before and during World War II. By the end of the war, the populaton was about evenly divided between Arabs and Jews, which caused quite a lot of problems. The Brits decided to wash their hands of the whole situation which was rapidly approaching civil war. The UN came up with a plan which would divide the land 55% for the to create Israel, 45% to create Palestine.
The Jews voted to accept, the Arabs didn't. There was a very ugly civil war, which te Arabs lost. This was followed by an extremely ugly invasion by the surrounding Arab powers, which the Jews won. Egypt ruled Gaza, Jordon ruled the West Bank, Syria ruled the Golan Heights and Israel ruled the rest of modern day Israel, until the Six-Day War, in which Israel conquered all those territories.
Israel bases its legal existence on the same things all nations do, it won.
As for the current conflict, I'm torn. I usually support Israel's actions, but in this case, it's beginning to become counter-productive. Of course, any withdrawal will be seen as a sign of weakness. Look at Hamas'/Palesinians'/Arab World's reaction to Israel's decision to take a step toward peace by withdrawing from the Gaza Strip...
But the legality of the state is not why generations of American presidents and politicians have supported Israel (after all, they've supported plenty of illegal states and overthrown more than a few legal ones). They've supported Israel for three reasons: guilt over the Holocaust, the fact that (outside Turkey) it's the only democracy in the region, and because they know they can rely on and use Israel as a counter-weight to any other regional power attempting to exert hegemony over the region and its crucial natural resources. Whether it was Egypt in the 60s-70s or Iran today, we have an ongoing interest in the region and we need reliable allies, who aren't one bullet away from collapsing into anarchy (as dictatorships almost always are).
Also, a question you might want to consider, population exchange was fairly common, see the Greco-Turkish war following World War 1 for an example. So how is it the Israel was able to integrate the Jews who fled the surrounding Arab states to settle in Israel, but the surrounding Arab states couldn't integrate basically the same number of their Arab brothers into their own nations? Why is it Palestinian refugees still cannot become citizens in any Arab country? Why are they banned from most forms of employment in Syria and Lebanon?
Grata: "The Jews that remained in the region integrated and live peacefully all over the middle East. These are acceptable to the Arabs. In essence to the Arabs, the Zionists are European imperialists masked as Jews."
Yes, if you're willing to blend in and make no waves, then people MAY accept you and not kill you.
"How can you be hated so much yet have alot of political and economic influence in all corners of the globe?"
The economic influence is mostly a relic of the fact that Christianity and Islam both have fairly firm negative attitudes on making money and usury (money-lending) and since lending is sort of a crucial part of capitalism, someone had to do it. The only available group was the Jews (as any other religion would not be 'of the book' and therefore would be unnacceptable). As for political power, I haven't seen any studies showing Jews have political power out of proportion with their numbers and wealth (because with money comes power) and I'd be nervous about any study looking into it, because it plays into some very nasty stereotypes about secret Jewish cabals ruling the world, or attempting to. But, if such studes exist and they support your statements, then my assumption would be that it was the result of an attitude within the Jewish community. Namely "Never Again." One way of ensuring that no one ever attempts to commit genocide against you again is to have your own country, another is to make yourself a major participant in the government from which any organized attempt at genocide would come.
@ Chuck, please, don't call people anti-semites for criticizing Israel, it makes you sound ignorant and makes it incredibly difficult to have anything resembling a productive conversation.
My final two cents on the subject of fighting for land, is that until 1948, the Jews were immigrating to the mandate of Palestine legally (mostly, there's always illegal immigration though studying whether people have different impressions of this illegal immigration as opposed to modern American illegal immigration might be interesting...) They lived on land they purchased legally. The question wasn't supposed to be who lives where? It was supposed to be where do we draw the dividing line between these two nations?
My problem is that I can understand Israel's actions, even when I don't agree with them, I can understand them. Hamas on the other hand...
Who looks around at a school full of civilians, children, and says "I know, I'll fire mortars from here, that's a good idea"?
Who, when allegedly faced with a humanitarian crisis of horrific proportions smuggles in rockets instead of food?
And why isn't Egypt getting some of the blame for the blockade? They border Gaza too...
Well, that last one wasn't me not understanding Hamas, it was me not understanding the world.
Roslyn reading your comments I'd like to add by your definition the United States should be declared a terrorist group as well. They do the same things to many people throughout the world - in fact it's part of the reason why this country is in such economic turmoil.
Man, this world is so stupid. I get it that imperfections make life worth living, but this is just fucked up. This runs deeper then just religion and conservatism, at least here in the U.S. Here its all about the defense contractor and arms dealers. The U.S. is the largest arms exporter in the world, by almost two to one over the second largest exporter (Russia). I got more to say, but my brain is going to pass out, so I'll finish this thought tomorrow.
When I first read your title, I immediately went to your comment section to see who would be first to call you an anti-semite. You can bet you will receive more of those kinds of messages.
It's hard to understand a war that's being going on for over a 100 years now. Even those who are fighting and dying probably don't understand it anymore. Maybe they fight for their history, their existence; past, present and future.
Both sides are always talking about Honour and Respect, but there is no Honour or Respect in what they are doing to each other. Just hatred and death.
Nobody wins and it's always the innocent that suffers.
Don't get stressed out over this, remember there's a baby on board.
Dark Moon,
You are right about America not wanting to get involved in the war, however, there was little support for Hitler or the Axis here. Imagine what would have happened if America had not gotten involved in the end? No other country besides the United States could have stopped the Axis, and we did. What do you think the Arabs would have done if Hitler won? Nary a Jew would have been left alive in the Mideast.
We now make amends for not helping the Jews earlier by supporting the only genuine democracy in a region where Islamic extremism rules the day. Who does the US have more in common with Israel or the Arab/Islamic regimes?
So how is it the Israel was able to integrate the Jews who fled the surrounding Arab states to settle in Israel, but the surrounding Arab states couldn't integrate basically the same number of their Arab brothers into their own nations? Why is it Palestinian refugees still cannot become citizens in any Arab country? Why are they banned from most forms of employment in Syria and Lebanon?
Simple really, the Arabs don't give a damn about the Palestinians, they are using them as cannon fodder against Israel.
If we go by that definition, the US could be considered a terrorist government.
And your point is?
I don't think either side is innocent, but I don't think Israel is this all innocent country clear of any wrong doing in their handling of previous and current conflicts.
Israel is a terrorist country. In the middle of a region of the world that's full of terrorist countries. Seems to be par for the course. As I said, when you've got a conflict in which neither side has clean hands your best bet is to get out and let them slaughter one another.
Siddity, you just don't get it. You're a typical far left-wing crackpot. The unspoken truth about the fighting in Gaza, which began on December 19, 2008, when Hamas rockets broke a voluntary truce, is that this is the frontline of a much larger war. This war began 30 years ago with the Islamic Revolution in Iran and is now global in scope. Its agenda is the extermination of the Jews and the destruction of the West.
The Islamic terrorist organization Hamas makes no secret of this agenda. Its Egyptian founders and Palestinian inspirers were active followers of Adolf Hitler and enthusiasts of the Nazi Holocaust. The founding charter of Hamas, which promises that “Islam will obliterate Israel,” memorializes the Egyptian admirer of Hitler, Hassan al-Banna, as “the martyr…of blessed memory.” The same document contains the genocidal incitement of the Prophet Mohammed to “kill the Jews,” to hunt them down “until they hide behind the rocks and the trees, and the rocks and trees cry out ‘O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him.’”
In 2006, these Islamic Nazis took possession of the Gaza Strip, which is unoccupied except by Hamas and is Jew-less (because the Palestinians would kill any Jews that moved in their state). Hamas has turned Gaza into a terrorist fortress, launching rockets into Israeli schoolyards, hospitals, and townships, and launching them from Palestinian schoolyards, hospitals, and townships to ensure that the maximum number of civilians – both Jews and Muslims – would die for their cause. They will win the Armageddon they are planning, they boast, because “the Jews love life and we love death.”
And all around the world, and across Europe and throughout the United States, Muslim and secular radicals are rallying to this Nazi cause, supporting Hamas and attacking Israel and the Jews. The unholy alliance formed by Muslim fanatics and socialist radicals is the face of the terrorist future in the West. It is a coalition for whom no party is so evil that it does not deserve aid and comfort if its enemies are Israel and the United States, and if it is willing to attack them.
The wars in the Middle East are the frontline of the Islamic Nazi offensive – a 60-year aggression of Muslim Arabs against the Jews, rationalized at each turn by epic lies that resonate with radicals in the West: that the Arab aggressors are the victims; that the Jews stole Arab land (Israel in fact was created out of the ruins of the Turkish empire); that there is a Palestinian entity that wants peace with the state of Israel (there is none – there is not a single Palestinian leader – who supports the existence of a Jewish state).
The Palestinians are the only people in history to have a majority support a national death cult, to worship the murderers of little children (including their own), and to proclaim the murderers saints and “martyrs.” The father of Palestinian Nationalism, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was an acolyte and ally of Hitler who preached the extermination of the Jews and planned to construct his own death camps for Jews in the Middle East. The miseries Palestinians have suffered are self-inflicted, the inevitable consequence of staking their national ambitions on the genocide of another people, while embracing a death cult for themselves.
Their allies in the West are either stupendously ignorant or morally blind.
The whole question of race is a dicey one. Pity the poor fool who wades into those troubled waters. Well, here goes. If a black person tells the truth -- namely, that in 2007, 99% of black problems are self-inflicted -- he is, like Bill Cosby and Thomas Sowell, dismissed as an Uncle Tom. If a white person tells the truth -- namely, that with a 70% illegitimacy rate, no amount of government hand-outs will do anything but provide the cancer victim with a very expensive band-aid -- he’s condemned as a racist.
When blacks say they wish to have a dialogue with whites, it only means that they want a forum at which to bash whites, while their victims provide a Greek chorus of mea culpas, provide the coffee and Danish, and drop a little something in the collection plate on their way out.
There is such a thing as white prejudice. No doubt about it. But it has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with character, culture and values. What blacks refuse to acknowledge is that whites are intolerant of crime and the creeps who commit it, be they black thugs or white trash. The latter are those lowlifes who form Aryan gangs; tattoo themselves with skulls and swastikas; and produce, distribute and use methamphetamines. I don’t know a single white person who isn’t ashamed to be of the same race as these vicious cretins.
But if a person such as Bill Cosby says he’s ashamed of the promiscuity, drug use and illiteracy, that plague the black underclass, he’s called names. The real shame should be that millions of black kids are fatherless; that their taste in music is for anything that’s crude, lewd and loud; that their role models are too often basketball players who make more babies than baskets; whose language skills are embarrassingly abysmal; and that, although most of the street punks are peddling drugs for roughly the minimum wage, they regard it as a worthier, more manly pursuit than working at a 7/11 or, God forbid, going to church, school or a library.
Most whites in this country are not racist. In their heart, they agree with black comedian Chris Rock when he says, “I love black people, but I hate niggers,” even if they themselves are not allowed to make such an honest declaration.
Actually, what most whites are is cowardly. When we see black kids with the top of their baggy pants drooping somewhere south of their butts, annoying people with their ear-splitting boom boxes, saying “they be” when they mean “they are,” and we pretend that theirs is a different, but equally fine culture as our own, we’re no better than those enablers who give money to drug addicts or booze to alcoholics.
When we finally stop patronizing loafers, louts and criminals, stop encouraging people who were born 120 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, 20 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, to pretend that their sloth and ignorance are the fault of whites, only then will blacks come one step closer to having that colorblind society they claim they want.
Hamas is a terrorist group. They use human shields and kill their own people and many in the Arab world don't agree with them.
http://www.monaeltahawy.com/blog/?p=94
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1M4eH9Kk7I
This you tube user is constantly being shut down by you tube since many Muslims are flagging his videos and other videos like it. So much for free speech!
http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2009/01/hamas-in-their-own-voices.html
http://muslimsagainstsharia.blogspot.com/2009/01/as-united-nations-officials-continue-to.html
http://www.sandmonkey.org/2008/12/28/my-head-hurts/
http://www.irshadmanji.com/im-palestinian-leader-fatah-and-hamas-come-from-the-same-root
The leader of Hamas's own son, talks about how Hamas terrorizes Gaza.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLjwe2b40YA&feature=channel_page
Sid, I will like to point out that I am the first anon who posted and not the one stating that Hamas is a terrorist group. Now back to the topic.
C1,
I will have to disagree with you. There was support for Hitler, how do you think George W. Bush's grandfather made his millions? He was in business with the Nazi party. So I will have to agree with Dark Moon. And do you really believe that with all the espionage that was going on during that period that authorities in Europe and America did not know that Jews, Blacks, Gypsies, and people with mental and physical defects were being slaughtered? Secondly, the US did not end WWII, the Russians did, please give credit where it's due. The attacks on Leningrad and Stalingrad were one of the most climatic points of the war and the US basically came in when the war was nearing the end. To suggest that the US ended the war is very chauvinistic.
Chuck,
You need to brush up on your Middle Eastern history instead of this ad hominem approach you are taking. Calling people anti-semitic who do you agree with you highlights your ignorancy and proves that you have nothing of value to add to this debate. Just so you'd know, semitic means of Middle Eastern descent and so by your definition, if we are anti-semitic, then we hate Arabs, Jews, people from east Africa and those who speak semitic languages.
Lastly,
I will like to say that I agree with some of the arguments. Violence is not a response to violence. Hamas is just as guilty as Israel. The people who suffer in the end are innocent civilians trying to make a better lives for themselves and their children. Nonetheless, I still consider Israel a bully. I digress.
"As I said, when you've got a conflict in which neither side has clean hands your best bet is to get out and let them slaughter one another".
There are many lessons to learn from Rwanda. The world, except for France and Belgium, kept out. And those two were eventually kicked out any way.
People only hear of the 100 day genocide and little about the aftermath of the Tutsi revenge were Hutus got killed en mass and no one knows how many. In Burundi more Hutus are killed than Tutsis but you don't hear about them. The lesson to learn here, like Roslyn said, is let them kill themselves. The only thing you as an outsider can do is give an advantage to one over there other. And the other will always make a comeback unless you finish them off completely. In which case Israel would take over the role of the Nazis and its bye bye to the holocaust card.
So what is happening in Rwanda, people have come to an agreement to live together and are carrying out justice in village courts against all killers both Tutsis and Hutus. Some killers are forgiven and return to same the community they killed people. Others are locked away. it is going to take a long time to heal but they are on that path. And Rwanda today is one of the faastest growing countries in the developing world. People are so vigilant that any kind of threat to stabilitty is dealt with promptly.
Let the Palestinians and Israelis sort themselves out.
America's support can only go so far. There are other players in the world that are growing militarily. In the not so distant future America won't be the Super power it is now. What will then happen to Israel? This can not go on indefinitely, Its time for America to take serious inventory of its relationship with Israel.
"Well, here goes. If a black person tells the truth -- namely, that in 2007, 99% of black problems are self-inflicted -- he is, like Bill Cosby and Thomas Sowell, dismissed as an Uncle Tom. "
@Burt,
Are you sure you are posting in the right post? Or are you making a case for Jewish racism?
By the way there are many blacks that would agree with you but I get the feeling you can't imagine that.
Hey Burt,
There is room to critisize much of what you see in the black community...but to ignore the problems in the white community or deny thier existence in the same post IS racist.
I see plenty of white people displaying all the negatives you deride blacks for... where is your complaints about them?
Whites don't put up with criminals?
B.S.
Burt, if you are real, look in the mirror. Critisizing others is fine in my book but own up to your own problems... to not do so is hipocritical at best and racist at worst.
As someone who actually lives in the region there are a few things that were left out.
1) Jews and Samritans have always been in the region. ALWAYS. Much of the regions West Bank and Gaza used to be land that belong to the Samaritans, before the Arab take over and creation of a Palestinian identity. Yet, no one talks about them and their rights to their land.
2) There are a percentage of Palestinians who have Jewish and Samaritan ancestry. Palestianians of Arab descent come from Arabians who either migrated or invaded the Arabs during the many wars between the Muslims, Byzintines, Mamluks, etc.
3) This region has been conquered and requered by NUMEROUS groups. Many of which were invading armies. It all ends in who is the last and most able to hold on to the region.
4) Much of the media that one gets in the west does not delve into the realities of this region. Only living here for at least a year or more can give you that.
5) Much of what has been going on here is a media war. Unless you have lived here long enough to know the realities it is a matter of who has the better media vehicle.
6) Much of the current conflict is rooted in one event in 1967, and that is when Moshe Dayan ordered giving the Temple Mount to the Waqf. Israel giving the Temple Mount to the Waqf changed the entire face and scope of future conflicts here.
7) The Jewish refugees from Arab controlled lands issue was never resolved. There were around 850,000 Jews from Arab countries who were forced out. Much of this had been simmering long before Israel was even reestablished.
8) ALL of the countries in this region, and I mean ALL, have borders that were the result of the British and French colonization of the area. Iran, Iraq, Lebenon, Jordan, etc.
9) Before Israel, the British controlled the area and they designated a two state solution. 1 state for Jews (west of the Jordan) and one state for Arabs (East of the Jordan). Before the British the Ottomans controlled the region, before the Ottomans the Mamluks. So on and so on. The region has switched hands numerous times.
10) Much of wars like this actually benefit the western powers by keeping the region on Western Welfare. Israel is not the only country in this region receiving LOADS of money from the US. Pretty much every country here has/or currently does receive millions. I for one believe that we here in Israel need to cut off such money since it makes us a welfare state.
11) This is also the result of the various US/European peace accords. ALL of them, and I do mean all of them are completely illogical from both a regional and historical reasons.
That pretty much sums it up in a nutshell of what the conflict really is. It is not religious, since both the Bible and the Koran say the same thing about the region. It is not exactly since there a large number of Israelis and Arabs here in Israel who live in peace. I live in Maale Adummim and we have a large Arab town right next to us and we have peace. I have friends who live in East Jerusalem and they have peace with the Arabs there. Yet, the media, won't ever talk about that because war sells.
One other thing. The reality here is that this is not a conflict, it is a war. Not the kind of wars that people in the West are used to because it has been a long time since a major western power was invaded, reinvaded, etc.
What is going on here is a war idealogies and Middle Eastern realities. The West wants the Middle East to be what it wants, and not what it is. This region has been the tension center of the world for hundreds of years. There is no oil here and there is no gold here (In Israel). So the question is why is the world so fixated on it?
This is like the Navajo and the Seminales fighting each other. Both are native to a region, and both were invaded by more powerful states. Most Israelis are not foreign to the region, and there are many Muslims (non-Arabians) who are also native to the region. Although many of their ancestors were originally Jews, Samaritans, and Christians. The question is one of going back far enough to know what the REAL issues are.
Hamas knows that they are fighting a war. They know that the type of war they fighting has risks and costs, and they have decided that they are willing to take the risks and those costs. Here in Israel, our problem is that many of us don't realize we are fighting a war. Israel, unfortunately is also trying to do too much to please the West.
I live in Israel, and see the realities and I can't fault my enemies for knowing that they are fighting a war. If you know the make up of how cultures and cities are connected here you will easily understand how and why, unfortunately, civilians get caught in the cross hairs in the Middle East. Look at every war fought in the Middle East for the last 2,000 years and those are the realities of Middle Eastern war.
If Hamas says they are fighting a war against Israel, of course they will target civilians because that is their method of war. They have fired over 7,000 missles at civilians targets in Israel for the last 7 years. Even when Israel forcibly removed Jews, many of whom had ancestors who roots had been in Gaza for years. The rockets from Gaza continued and increased. The reason is in Middle Eastern culture giving away things to any enemy who has declared war against you is a sign of weakness.
If Israel strikes back there is NO WAY to attack in a way that completely avoids civilians. The way that Gaza is set up and the way that Hamas exists in it is inseperatable. This isn't a war in the way the West is used to them. It never has been, that is why people in the West don't understand it. That may also explain why the West has had a lot of problems dealing with Middle East and Asian wars and conflicts. It is a world that the West, for the most part, does not understand.
Also, pretty much every country that complains about what goes on in the Middle East has loads of dirt under their own carpets so it is like the pot calling the kettle black. Just like America has never really dealt with what it did to the Native Americans or Africans it enslaved, the British, French, etc. colonized much of the world and set in motion most of the world's modern conflicts. The UN, well I don't even need to go into their record.
As an Israeli I don't seek the world's sympathy, it isn't necessary and it won't be given. I don't use the Holocaust card, and even if I could I wouldn't. There are a number of OTHER exterminations of Jews that I could use that directly affected my family, but that is not what I need to justify my existance here. I also know for a fact that Israelis/Jews are not the only people in history who have suffered tragidies and hardships.
I already know that the world will use Israel/Jews as the excuse for various problems here and there. I also know that there are some Israelis/Jews who will feed into this, and I also know that there are Israelis/Jews who seek the world's sympathy. I don't and I simply live out the reality.
This idiot Chuck said:
"Siddity, you just don't get it. You're a typical far left-wing crackpot."
LOL! If you think Siditty is a "left-wing crackpot" then why are you even reading and posting on her blog? Posts that you obviously copied and pasted because you were too lazy to type thoughts of your own? If you don't like it, then leave! Opinions are like assholes - we ALL have them. Ones that crazies like yourself might not agree with.
Gotta love the right-wing loonies who troll blogs. Especially those who blame liberals (and I'm damn proud to be one) for all of their self-inflicted problems. At least Siditty isn't one-sided the way the U.S government is on this issue.
Seriously. ANYBODY who thinks this conflict is a black and white issue, like this moron Chuck, should have their head examined. Both sides are at fault here. Hamas rockets, taking away land rights, bombing innocent people/children, etc - there are no good or bad guys. And it doesn't make me an anti-semite to say so.
My husband's friend is a Bosnian Muslim who is a staunch Palestinian supporter and is well-read on the whole situation. He believes that Israel is committing genocide on the Palestinians and they are taking advantage of their relationship with the US to violate previous terms and bomb Gaza to drive the Palestinians out. They clearly believe that it is their land by rights. I believe that there is wrongdoing on both sides. Killing innocent children is inexcusable. I've seen pictures on the Bosnian Muslim's site that he got from a friend who lives there and they are horrible. How can you call yourself a human being and act so inhumanely? This violence does not solving anything, it is obviously making things worse and both sides believe that they are right. I have Jewish friends as well as Muslim friends who have very strong opinions about this. I have a friend from Lebanon whose family had to hide in the mountains during the time the Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and the area being bombed in retaliation for this act. My friend grew up hating Jews because of her family and the long and bitter history between Lebanon and Israel. She has changed her mind about Jews since living in the States, she just hates the politics behind the fighting and sees people as individuals, not just grouping all Jews as evil. Hamas may be doing good things, such as giving food and medical treatment to the Palestinians who have been denied these things by the Israeli government, but they also kill innocent people. But, it's deeper than that and this has been going on for centuries.
*please note that whatever is in quotes, is NOT my writing.
Damn, so much to address, but first I got to start with Burt.
"The whole question of race is a dicey one. Pity the poor fool who wades into those troubled waters. Well, here goes. If a black person tells the truth -- namely, that in 2007, 99% of black problems are self-inflicted -- he is, like Bill Cosby and Thomas Sowell, dismissed as an Uncle Tom. If a white person tells the truth -- namely, that with a 70% illegitimacy rate, no amount of government hand-outs will do anything but provide the cancer victim with a very expensive band-aid -- he’s condemned as a racist."
Now, I some what I agree with you, and see where your coming from, but lets look take a hard look at this, and see if you realize the ignorance of your statement. Now I'm pretty sure that some of the law makers realize that with a 70% illegitimacy rate government hand outs are just band-aids but I'm sure that they're smarter then you, or at least I'm smarter then you, and realize that if you take away these hands outs your making a bad situation worse. The problem really comes from a lack of education and a reliable urban public school system. You remove these government hand outs and more single mother have to work longer hours which means less parental supervision which leads to lower performance in school and low performance in school leads to crime and unfinished education, which restarts this cycle. Now lets rationalize before making hasty statements.
"But if a person such as Bill Cosby says he’s ashamed of the promiscuity, drug use and illiteracy, that plague the black underclass, he’s called names. The real shame should be that millions of black kids are fatherless; that their taste in music is for anything that’s crude, lewd and loud; that their role models are too often basketball players who make more babies than baskets; whose language skills are embarrassingly abysmal; and that, although most of the street punks are peddling drugs for roughly the minimum wage, they regard it as a worthier, more manly pursuit than working at a 7/11 or, God forbid, going to church, school or a library."
I agree with you up until the fatherless part, then for some reason you become ignorant and biased at best.
"that their taste in music is for anything that’s crude, lewd and loud"
Really, this has to be one of the most ignorant statements I've read. Because you are not a subscriber of one's musical preference doesn't mean you can dismiss it as something crude. First I want to point out that white people in terms of volume are the largest purchaser of Hip Hop music. Second I want to point out the ignorance that comes with a statement like this. I don't like country music, does that mean I can and should dismiss it as southern hick music and that it is music for unintelligent, science-confused, conservative backwards hicks. Well if we go by your approach, then I can do that to all types of music since you know, opinions are the final word in a rational dialogue.
"that their role models are too often basketball players who make more babies than baskets"
Really, you know a lot about basketball, so since you know a lot about these NBA players, tell me who, with the exception of Shawn Kemp and Karl Malone who no longer play, are these players making more babies then baskets in the NBA. If I were you I would at least get my facts straight before making one of the most racist generalization on here. The NBA is actually the greatest contributor to charities in sports(I would look up the Utah Jazz Players charity and see what they have done, and also Ray Allen).
"and that, although most of the street punks are peddling drugs for roughly the minimum wage, they regard it as a worthier, more manly pursuit than working at a 7/11 or, God forbid, going to church, school or a library."
This one was just to funny. I don't know where you got the impression that peddling drugs is roughly equal to minimum wage. This one is good. Burt must be referring to his friend the Cookie Monster, peddling cookies on the street. I will tell you from a first hand account that it is not roughly equal to minimum wage. Not even close. First there are a lot less hours for a lot more money then minimum wage pays. Second, the sad part is that in this country is that too much black people go to church. The church is a tool to keep people ignorant, and most black youths do go to church, so that comment was just foolish.
"Most whites in this country are not racist. In their heart, they agree with black comedian Chris Rock when he says, “I love black people, but I hate niggers,” even if they themselves are not allowed to make such an honest declaration."
I can't believe you just honestly said that.
let me repeat:
"“I love black people, but I hate niggers,”"
I can't believe you just said that. Do you think before you type or do you just free-type whatever is in that dimly lit head of yours. Do you understand the racism behind this statement. I'm pretty sure you don't comprehend, but I'm a little unsure of how to rationally respond to something so irrationally put and understood by an Individual who seems to lack basic reasoning skills.
"Actually, what most whites are is cowardly. When we see black kids with the top of their baggy pants drooping somewhere south of their butts, annoying people with their ear-splitting boom boxes, saying “they be” when they mean “they are,” and we pretend that theirs is a different, but equally fine culture as our own, we’re no better than those enablers who give money to drug addicts or booze to alcoholics."
You seem to have a very 'speacial' reasoning skill. The way your brain works out logic is 'speacial' indeed.
"Actually, what most whites are is cowardly"
Please speak for yourself, because I'm sure I wouldn't be too cowardly to say shit to your face about how ignorant you are, and how you need to pick up a book learn some basic reasoning skills.
"When we see black kids with the top of their baggy pants drooping somewhere south of their butts, annoying people with their ear-splitting boom boxes, saying “they be” when they mean “they are,” and we pretend that theirs is a different, but equally fine culture as our own"
This has to be one of the most ignorantly written phrase here. First what I find funny is this all encompassing culture that white people share. This singular culture that is shared by white people, what is it again? Can you explain it characteristics? Have you ever taken a sociology class in your life? Let me help you out since one of us here has a enough credits for a minor in sociology. In the U.S. there are many cultures and many more subcultures, so this encompassing culture idea of yours just keeps showing your ignorance. Now lets look at how you claim superiority over a culture, which demonstrates your xenophobia. This is a very dangerous way to think, because instead of understanding a culture and looking for ways to have the culture integrate more successful ways of conducting day to day life without completely ridding itself of its original intent of creation, if said reason is there or it is desired by those subscribing to it, you just completely degrade it and its individuals. You speak in a manner full of hatred and disdain for the culture and you just suggest that "[if] we stop patronizing loafers, louts and criminals" then society will improve. Do you also support genocide? I wonder what some people have in their head sometimes. This is the reason why we still have wars. Because people are too stupid, lazy, and full of themselves to try and learn something new about a different culture, and use intelligent and rational approaches to solving conflicts. Remember culture is based off an Idea, and you can't simply kill an idea by killing people, or cutting them off from money and supplies in your case, or most forms of hostility in general. Ideas have to die from the inside out, not outside in. The death and birth of Ideas come from education. By having a supremacist ideology and a closed minded, hostile attitude you are not doing society a favor, nor yourself. Trust me, your worse then those Aryan gang scum, you try to pass off your ideology based on reason, which it is far from, and is far more harmful, because it gets more credibility then some tattooed bigot's idea. Please read a lot of books to get on a basic reasoning level to discuss things in a rational method.
*please note that whatever is in quotes, is NOT my writing.
I am so glad to finally see someone bring this question up. Ihave been trying to find out what the hell was going on for a long time.I really don't think we will get straight answers from the American media. It seems like all of a sudden Israel just started kicking ass. The last count of the death toll was over five hundred dead in Gaza and about five dead on the Israel side. I had someone tell me the reason the US backed Israel is because they are the only true representative of Democracy over in that part of the world. Whatever.That is not a good enough answer to me.
Hey C1 what happened to your blog? I cannot seem to get in
I don't understand it myself.
BTW, I'm loving your blog.
Hey Siditty.
I don't have much to add here. Sorry. But I do feel you and feel your sincerity.
AWESOME BLOG!
I've been saying the same shit about the Jewish Zionists for a long time. Its funny that when you speak truth to power you're always wrong.
What they're doing right now is wrong. Its all politics actually. In my opinion, I think they're trying to bait Iran because they back Hamas. I think they're doing this because Hezbollah kicked their ass in Lebanon in 2006.
Jewish Zionists are a bunch of racist assholes who hide behind the bible and that whole "God's Chosen" bullshit. Also, if you look into Ribinic law, you'll find that thy give two shits about black people or any other race.
I find it funny that when Black people speak on racism/slavery in America and stuff like that, they're told to get over it. But say the same thing to a Jew about the holocaust? You're anti semitic.
Why is America in love with Israel? Its a symbiotic relationship. Look at your politicians and you'll see it. The Jewish lobbying group AIPAC is the largest lobbying org there is. Bottom line: Jewish interest (i.e. Israel) has been bought and paid for. Their organization has been hi-jacked by hardline right wing conservatives just like the republican party. Their agenda is domination, and they use their racist Zionist agenda in concert with Christian Zionists to do what the Lord chartered them to do.
I'll never understand the conflict either because its roots are hard to pin point.
If I had to pick a side, I'd pick the Jews. There's something about Islam that completely turns my stomach. It didn't used to be that way until I went to Afghanistan.
It's a good thing I don't have to pick sides.
And your point is?
My point is if we want to call out the terrorist card, you got a whole list of people to call out, including our own government. It would explain the hostility the rest of the world seems to have for us.
-----------
Siddity, you just don't get it. You're a typical far left-wing crackpot.
Yes Chuck you have figured me out. I also love how I am supposed to try to have intelligent conversation with a man as antagonistic as you.
--------------
Burt,
What did you post have to do with ANYTHING related to the post at hand?
If a black person tells the truth -- namely, that in 2007, 99% of black problems are self-inflicted -- he is, like Bill Cosby and Thomas Sowell, dismissed as an Uncle Tom.
Is that the truth or your perception. Why is it assumed blacks are all on welfare and receive government handouts. Go to white women if you want to look at welfare.
When blacks say they wish to have a dialogue with whites, it only means that they want a forum at which to bash whites
When blacks want to have a honest dialogue about race, we actually want to tell you the truth, no matter how uncomfortable for whites it is. The fact of the matter is white privilege exists due to the history of this country. The legacy of racism will continue because of people like you Burt. You just don't get it, and when we tell you that, you get upset, and then people like you post comments to blogs that aren't even related to the post in question.
Focus Burt.
What blacks refuse to acknowledge is that whites are intolerant of crime and the creeps who commit it, be they black thugs or white trash.
Yes, black people love crime, what percentage of black people commit crime 100%? 99%? 70%? Oh no, about 4%-6%? Yes we embrace and love crime, the 94%-96% of us who actually don't commit crime embrace and love criminals.
But if a person such as Bill Cosby says he’s ashamed of the promiscuity, drug use and illiteracy, that plague the black underclass, he’s called names.
The problem is Burt, when Bill Cosby makes those comments, racists like you think it applies to the MAJORITY of blacks, not the minority, and that is the problem when people like Bill Cosby makes those comments, he appeals to racists like yourself.
The real shame should be that millions of black kids are fatherless; that their taste in music is for anything that’s crude, lewd and loud; that their role models are too often basketball players who make more babies than baskets; whose language skills are embarrassingly abysmal; and that, although most of the street punks are peddling drugs for roughly the minimum wage, they regard it as a worthier, more manly pursuit than working at a 7/11 or, God forbid, going to church, school or a library.
White kids are buying hip hop and that crude, lewd, and loud music way more than black kids, the biggest buyer of hip hop is YOUNG WHITE MEN. Yes we all are trying to play basketball, we all speak ebonics, and we all peddle drugs. You have figured out black america Burt. Your generalizations and stereotypes prove discussion with you is futile. You are a racist Burt.
only then will blacks come one step closer to having that colorblind society they claim they want.
Blacks don't want a colorblind society. That is where you are mistaken. We know we can never have a colorblind society because of PEOPLE LIKE YOU.
Ok, now I have time to finally address this issue. First and foremost, Hamas IS a terrorist organization, no matter what they do for their people. Actually they need to build schools and hospitals to gain the support of their people, so they can gain power and have funds to gain arms for war. Tell me of any terrorist organization that didn't have support from its people. It's impossible because you can't fight a war against an enemy and your people at the same time.
I would also like to expand on two great points made by ehav ever.
"That pretty much sums it up in a nutshell of what the conflict really is. It is not religious, since both the Bible and the Koran say the same thing about the region."
"What is going on here is a war idealogies(Sp) and Middle Eastern realities. The West wants the Middle East to be what it wants, and not what it is. This region has been the tension center of the world for hundreds of years. There is no oil here and there is no gold here (In Israel). So the question is why is the world so fixated on it?"
These points are great because to the surprise of many christian, who don't shit about other religions and most of the time their own, that Islam actually believes in Jesus as one of their prophets, and they believe he will come back to earth on Judgment day and restore justice. I just thought that was funny, you know a Jew, who is the symbol of Christianity, is worshiped and believed as a defender of justice by Muslims, yet they all want to kill each other. This is why I condemn religion, because a lot of these morons don't know shit about religion. They basically share the religion but they kill each other based on semantics (at least supposedly) of their religion is interpreted. This isn't the post for this, so now the point I want to make is that most of the people actually fighting the war (foot soldiers) do believe it's about religion, since the people in charge no how to manipulate religion for political purposes, but the real people in charge know it's not.
So if it's not about religion or resources (Gold, oil, etc), then what is it really about. This is a question that really took time for me to reason with. Then I asked myself one question who benefits the most from these wars. That's when it hit me, the men who put fear into the hearts of presidents and world leaders, who some wish they were, and other try and wish they could control, men who control companies one way or another, Arms Dealers. Who benefits when a gun is bought, a bullet is fired, a conflict escalates, a war is started. The man who supplies them. Do you think an arms dealer doesn't have an interest in seeing war. Look, the CIA, which is a terrorist organization, supplied Osama Bin Laden with arms (obviously not for free). Osama Bin Laden himself supplied arms in many fronts, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Algeria, and other conflict zones. Look at the Iran-Contra affair, which sent weapons to Iran through Israel. arms for drugs in Nicaragua to then be sold in the US for profit. These people are pawns in a chess game played by really wealthy and well connected people. I'm starting to lose hope in society. And trust me I'm not one of those conspiracy theories guy, but standard reasoning leads me to deduce these unfortunate facts. I have more to say, but my brain dead and I need to reflect a little more.
I applaud you for posting this because honesty I have been thinking the same thing for years...shoot, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Nothing else to add but like what you said.
By the way congrats on the pregnancy.
Why not try to live peacably instead of launching rockets and provoking a war that you cannot win?
Israel has nothing to lose in this conflict.
Palestinians have already lost too much.
Siddity, the only privilege that is going on America is black privilege. Very few blacks accomplish anything based on merit. We have a president who got elected because he was black. Most, if not all blacks in top schools are there because they're black. Check the stats, black privilege is rampant, and you people still suck. That's why there are so few black doctors. Affirmative action does not apply for medical schools. The only place where blacks get into based on merit is the football field, B-ball court, and jail. As far as white prople buying more rap albums, white people make up 80% of the nation, of course they are going to buy more albums. Furthermore, hence the word BUY. Whites buy the music. Blacks steal the music.
Also,for anyone who ever wondered just how much more likely blacks or are than whites to commit various crimes, the answers are here.
It takes hard work to pry the facts out of the reluctant grip of federal crime databases. But the results are eye-opening:
Blacks are just 13 percent of the population but they commit more than half the muggings and murders in the country.
The proportion of blacks in an area is the single best indicator of how dangerous it is. The racial mix is a much better predictor of crime rates than poverty, unemployment, and dropout rates combined.
Although Jesse Jackson and Bill Cosby wring their hands over black-on-black mayhem, blacks actually commit more violent crime against whites than blacks. A black is about 39 times more likely to do violence to a white than the other way around, and no less than 130 times more likely to rob a white.
And yes, everyone's suspicions about rape are correct: Every year there are about 15,000 black-on-white rapes but fewer than 900 white-on-black rapes. There are more than 3,000 gang rapes of whites by blacks—but white-on-black gang rapes are so rare they do not even show up in the statistics.
There is plenty more—but just as interesting will be how the Mainstream Media will treat these facts.
Back in 1999, we released an earlier, less detailed version of this report. Even before publication, the Associated Press, Time, CBS Evening News, National Public Radio, Knight-Ridder, and the Washington Times wanted copies. A dozen other media organizations, including the Washington Post, attended the press conference with which we launched the report. At the same time, we arranged to have copies delivered to more than 450 news organizations with offices in the Washington, DC area.
The result: complete silence—with one exception. The Washington Times ran a substantial story on the report, in which it interviewed several prominent criminologists who confirmed the accuracy of our numbers but said they were too inflammatory to be discussed publicly.
Most whites lose the power of speech when the subject is race, but they can tuck right into a purely factual discussion of crime rates. Everybody—and I mean everybody—knows blacks commit crime way out of proportion to their numbers. People want to know just how way out the proportions are.
It is a sorry day in America when you are either brave or racist if you dig up and publicize crime data the Department of Justice has been collecting for decades.
The main point of the "racism" accusation was that, even if the numbers were true, publicizing them only encourages other "racists" and feeds stereotypes. This is the Frank Jewell argument: White people can't be trusted with the facts
In fact, more and more people are laughing outright at mainstream prudery. When I talked about crime on the radio, talk-show hosts were exultant: "You didn't read about this in the Baltimore Sun did you? That's right, folks, this is where you get the real news."
This time around, it would be pleasant if AP or the LA Times wrote about The Color of Crime.
But we're not counting on it.
The internet and talk radio will get the word out—and big media will sink just a little further in the minds of people who are tired of being told they can't be trusted with the truth.
Truth,
That was a long drawn out utter piece of bullshit you just wrote. I am sorry you wasted you time typing that.
Our President did not get elected because he was black and contrary to popular belief, not every black person in college takes the place of a worthy white person. In Texas, we eliminated race based admissions, and as a result minority enrollment in college has skyrocketed. It was ensured that every kid who was in the top 10% of their class received guaranteed enrollment in school. So Becky and Todd could no longer get into college based upon legacy.
Siditty, I have no idea why you even responded to that idiot who calls himself Truth...
These mindless idiots who support Israel blindly don't even realize that they're being played.
Even George Bush did a complete 180 on the issue, and said that Israel should show some restraint.
It was also released that Israel was trynna start somne shit with Iran, but Bush didn't take them up on it or backed them by providing the bombs and equipment they requested.
Bush is an idiot but be happt that he didnt follow thru with them and take this country into another stupid ass costly war.
The neo-conservative assholes who are war mongering are the only ones who are against "terrorists" who are a made up entity are the ones who are pushing for this.
I want to ponder what JDR said. Very interesting. Very annoying (annoyed at the arms sellers). I'd be interested to hear your solution, JDR.
Sid, I really hope that you are not letting these trolls upset you. Stress used to give me headaches when I was pregnant. I left you a message on Twitter, but I know that you are busy :-)
Siddity,
I have to give it to you - you let all kinds of crazy people comment on your blog.
I don't know why, but kudos to you for having an extremely high toleration for foolishness. Truth's post would have been deleted quick, fast and in a hurry if this were my blog. But I'm a dictator at heart, so that's just me (smile).
"In Texas, we eliminated race based admissions, and as a result minority enrollment in college has skyrocketed." HAHAHAHA, NIGGER PLEASE! No state has eliminated race based prefrence. If they did, blacks would be fucked. A study conducted by the Justice Policy Institute, a D.C. based organization that supports alternatives to incarceration, found that in 2000 there were 791,000 black men in jail or prison, and 603,032 were enrolled in colleges or universities. The U.S. Department of Justice website says that for every 100,000 black males in the U.S., 4,618 are in jail and for every 100,000 white males in the U.S., 773 are in jail.
However, according to the U.S. Census Bureau only 15 percent of blacks 25 or older have a bachelor's degree or higher compared to 84 percent of whites, a shocking discrepancy.
Here's an article that douchebags like Chuck, Burt, and "Truth"(ha!) will enjoy reading. It's called "White Privilege" by Tim Wise. This article is so on point!
And this was written by a WHITE guy, mind you.
http://www.redroom.com/blog/tim-wise/this-your-nation-white-privilege-updated
This is Your Nation on White Privilege
By Tim Wise
For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or who are constantly looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps this list will help.
White privilege is when you can get pregnant at seventeen like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.
White privilege is when you can call yourself a "f ing' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their f ing' a__," and talk about how you like to "shoot sh_t" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug.
White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement, whereas a person of color who did this would be viewed as unfit for college, and probably someone who only got in in the first place because of affirmative action.
White privilege is when you can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than most medium-sized colleges, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as the lower fifth of the island of Manhattan, makes you ready to potentially be president, and people don't all piss on themselves with laughter, while being a black U.S. Senator, two-term state Senator, and constitutional law scholar, means you're "untested."
White privilege is being able to say that you support the words "under God" in the pledge of allegiance because "if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it's good enough for me," and not be immediately disqualified from holding office--since, after all, the pledge was written in the late 1800s and the "under God" part wasn't added until the 1950s--while believing that reading accused criminals and terrorists their rights (because, ya know, the Constitution, which you used to teach at a prestigious law school requires it), is a dangerous and silly idea only supported by mushy liberals.
White privilege is being able to be a gun enthusiast and not make people immediately scared of you.
White privilege is being able to have a husband who was a member of an extremist political party that wants your state to secede from the Union, and whose motto was "Alaska first," and no one questions your patriotism or that of your family, while if you're black and your spouse merely fails to come to a 9/11 memorial so she can be home with her kids on the first day of school, people immediately think she's being disrespectful.
White privilege is being able to make fun of community organizers and the work they do--like, among other things, fight for the right of women to vote, or for civil rights, or the 8-hour workday, or an end to child labor--and people think you're being pithy and tough, but if you merely question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college--you're somehow being mean, or even sexist.
White privilege is being able to convince white women who don't even agree with you on any substantive issue to vote for you and your running mate anyway, because all of a sudden your presence on the ticket has inspired confidence in these same white women, and made them give your party a "second look."
White privilege is being able to fire people who didn't support your political campaigns and not be accused of abusing your power or being a typical politician who engages in favoritism, while being black and merely knowing some folks from the old-line political machines in Chicago means you must be corrupt.
White privilege is being able to attend churches over the years whose pastors say that people who voted for John Kerry or merely criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the U.S. is an explicitly Christian nation and the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God's punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you're just a good church-going Christian, but if you're black and friends with a black pastor who has noted (as have Colin Powell and the U.S. Department of Defense) that terrorist attacks are often the result of U.S. foreign policy and who talks about the history of racism and its effect on black people, you're an extremist who probably hates America.
White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced.
White privilege is being able to claim your experience as a POW has anything at all to do with your fitness for president, while being black and experiencing racism is, as Sarah Palin has referred to it a "light" burden.
And finally, white privilege is the only thing that could possibly allow someone to become president when he has voted with George W. Bush 90 percent of the time, even as unemployment is skyrocketing, people are losing their homes, inflation is rising, and the U.S. is increasingly isolated from world opinion, just because white voters aren't sure about that whole "change" thing. Ya know, it's just too vague and ill-defined, unlike, say, four more years of the same, which is very concrete and certain…
White privilege is, in short, the problem.
Truth,
This nigger does have a college degree and can see through all your bullshit. Hopwood v. Texas is the case that struck down race based admissions to Texas state colleges. In order to accommodate the ruling in Hopwood v. Texas banning any use of race in school admissions, the State of Texas passed a law guaranteeing entry to any state university of a student's choice if they finished in the top 10% of their graduating class. Look it up. I live in Texas, I am a negro, and I managed to graduate from college. I know that hurts your feelings.
84% of whites do not hold bachelor degrees either you dumb ass. 32% of non hispanic whites hold bachelor degrees. 19% of blacks do, not 84%. I obtained my information from the census, not stormfront. Obviously you are not one of those people that actually has a degree, so it doesn't really matter anyway.
Since you can't figure this stuff out on your own and continue to spread misinformation that gets disproved over and over again, I can only assume the rest of the bullshit you posted wasn't true either. A lie, a sad pathetic lie, just like your sad pathetic life.
Hmmm, 84% of American whites, 25 and older, hold Bachelor degrees, huh? I know that's INCORRECT without even checking.
Truth, you are an imbecile.
Well Siditty, how can I be twisting facts since I got those facts from The Hilltop, which is the daily student voice of Howard University. The top HBCU in the country. Here is the link to the article. I guess all those black folks at Howard are in on the conspiracy. http://www.thehilltoponline.com/nation_world/1.1148409
Tim Wise's act is so old and sad. White privilege is when you can call yourself a "f ing' redneck," like Bristol Palin's boyfriend does, and talk about how if anyone messes with you, you'll "kick their f ing' a__," and talk about how you like to "shoot sh_t" for fun, and still be viewed as a responsible, all-American boy (and a great son-in-law to be) rather than a thug." I didn't read any article saying he was an all American Boy and great guy. Something Wise made up.
"White privilege is when you can attend four different colleges in six years like Sarah Palin did (one of which you basically failed out of, then returned to after making up some coursework at a community college), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement." Has Wise been living in Mars the last few months? Sarrah Palin's IQ was mocked on a dail basis. She was made fun of for being dumb more so than any other canaidate in American History. Again, Wise is just pulling stuff out of his ass.
"White privilege is not knowing what the Bush Doctrine is when asked by a reporter, and then people get angry at the reporter for asking you such a "trick question," while being black and merely refusing to give one-word answers to the queries of Bill O'Reilly means you're dodging the question, or trying to seem overly intellectual and nuanced." The only people who got angry at reporters where Palin supporters. Wise is an Idiot and everything he says could be spun the other way around. If I wanted to make a case for Barrack and black privilege I could do so easily.
Truth,
You seem to be a bit of a dummy. A news article written by college students does not make it true. I gave you the link to the official website of the U.S. Census, but you would rather use a newspaper written by 19 year olds for your facts?
Yes Anon,
Black privilege abounds. We get free jobs, free school, and everything right? ::rolls eyes::
Siditty,
Seriously, why let these trolls steer the topic of discussion to what they want to talk about? I mean it would be one thing if their posts where even relevant to the topic at hand, but they just aren't. They aren't even original. Just copied and pasted talking points from Stormfront et al. Why afford them an audience here? Let them go post on Fox News' comments section. This schtick is old. You have to treat them like the roaches they are: starve them of the attention they seek until they pack up and go elsewhere OR keep responding to them and providing a venue for their bs.
To Anonymous - the truth hurts, doesn't it? Trailer trash like you cannot take responsiblility for your actions so blaming all your self-inflicted problems on Black people is all you can do.
Quite pathetic, my dear.
I've been watching this exchange from the sideline, and its proof positive that the assholes who support Israel moving on Gaza are just as racist as Jewish Zionists.
As a matter of fact, it also proves how and why Christian Zionists (i.e. far right political ass clowns) are married to those racist assholes better known as Jewish Zionist.
If any of you don't believe me. Do some research on Ribbinic Law and how it applies to the design of White Supremacy.
"Israel’s Haaretz TV has a story about a new program in one Israeli city that warns Jewish girls not to date Israeli Bedouin boys.
The southern Israeli city is pushing the program in schools by using a video called “Sleeping with the Enemy.”
The Haaretz video shows a Kiryat Gat city representative warning girls not to take part in dating Bedouin boys - something he calls “abnormal."
READ IT HERE
Matter of fact, that idiot Truth has since emailed me with some bullshit ass stats to try and prove a point.
Though the stats may be factual, its important to realize that in the larger context of White Supremacy, that they are the results of a well designed system that works against people of color.
TAKE THIS QOUTE AND THINK IT THROUGH...
"Our race is the Master Race. We are divine gods on this planet. We are as different from the inferior races as they are from insects. In fact, compared to our race, other races are beasts and animals, cattle at best. Other races are considered as human excrement. Our destiny is to rule over the inferior races. Our earthly kingdom will be ruled by our leader with a rod of iron. The masses will lick our feet and serve us as our slaves." - Menachem Begin (Israeli Prime Minister 1977-1983)
@Rippa, the only sources I can find for your quote are white supremacist and flat-out crazy sites. What's your source?
By the way, thank you for the information that I am a racist asshole. I had not been aware of it up to now, but it's always nice to learn new things.
Evan,
In Rippa's defense, I don't think he was saying ALL Jewish people are complete assholes. I think he does have issues with America's love affair for Israel, as do I, but I don't think I hate Jewish people because I question Israel's military action and political motives. I have an issue with the government, not the people.
In regards to Menachem Begin, to be fair what site would provide this quote? It is kind of like people's love of Gandhi, the man was a racist for several years, had several racist writings and rants against black people. He wanted equality for Indians, not for black people, as he felt they were beneath them, but Indians and whites were on par with each other. We never if ever hear of these writings, and instead we have made him a deity, as this perfect person who can do no wrong. He was a racist, but what he did for his own people were great, but I don't think Gandhi would be on my side about anything, as he would feel I was a horrible person based upon skin color alone.
Like not all Indians are represented by Gandhi, not all Jewish people should be held accountable for the quotes or sayings of Menachem Begin.
Rippa,
Truth, Jovent, Racist Asshole, whatever name he goes by sent me stuff via email and I would reply to it. I have actually put a filter on the idiots so they go straight to trash.
In terms of racism in Israel, I was think the link you provided was pro-hamas at first, then I realized it was from an Israeli news source. What it shows me, is that Israel, like everyone else has it flaws. What really confuses me though, is American mainstream media, we are the only media reporting that Israel was struck by Hamas first, and that Hamas stopped the cease fire, when every other world news source, including the BBC says it is the complete opposite. I don't think the rest of the world hates Israel, what I do think is that our media tends to show a bit more bias than other media sources, which scares me.
I don't think the rest of the world hates Israel, what I do think is that our media tends to show a bit more bias than other media sources, which scares me.
Well, when you look at the people who control the media outlets and where there political interests lie, it makes perfect sense. I read The Guardian and other European news sources. They tend to have a less biased view on these issues.
Siditty, he writes: "those racist assholes better known as Jewish Zionist."
I agree that he's not saying that all Jews are racist. He's saying that all zionists are racist. Well, Jewish zionist are racist. Christian zionists are asshats.
I am a Jewish Zionist (or, argably, a territorialist though the distinction is basicaly non-existant at this late date). I support the founding of and the existence of the Jewish state of Israel.
Regarding the quote, I quite agree that it's entirely possible that he said that. It won't change my opinion of anyone but the speakrer, but I thought it would be interesting to know. I'd just like some evidence from a reliable source.
Siditty, I posted the following video on my blog a while back in relation to why the media distortion.
Plain and simple...
IT'S BY DESIGN.
Check it out...
Peace, Propaganda and The Promise Land
Its a very interesting video and I suggest people check it out. Alot of what we see comes from Israeli directed propaganda clearly by design by the Isareli gov't.
I never said that Jews were racist. I made it quite clear that the intent of Jewish Zionism entails a racist ideology.
How about the same zionists had terrotist organizations in an effort to fight Arab existance back in the day shortly after 1948?
LOOK UP THE BRITISH MANDATE OF PALESTINE AND THE EVENTS SURROUNDING IT AND TELL ME I'M WRONG.
I dare any of you to do it. The majority of the Jews in Israel now were immigrants to the region, unlike the Arabs who had been there for lord knows how long.
Most of this is simply divide and conqor wich was left over from tactics of the British who colonized the region.
Its sad that most of the people who support this would more than likely be against Mexican immigrants coming here in droves as they are and getting jobs illegally or legally.
Now tell me this...
WOULD ANY OF YOU SUPPORT MEXICANS COMING INTO THIS COUNTRY AND "TAKING OVER", OR STEALING YOUR LAND, OR BIRTHRIGHT?
WOULD ANY OF YOU SUPPORT MEXICANS COMING INTO THIS COUNTRY AND "TAKING OVER", OR STEALING YOUR LAND, OR BIRTHRIGHT?
That's not really the question in my mind. The question is how many people do you let into the country? Mexico is a country in great peril, and if you really opened the borders, many millions more would come in to the country. Secondly, how do you decide who gets to come here and who doesn't? There are probably billions of people who would come here if they had a chance where do you draw the line?
C1,
I will have to disagree with you. There was support for Hitler, how do you think George W. Bush's grandfather made his millions? He was in business with the Nazi party. So I will have to agree with Dark Moon. And do you really believe that with all the espionage that was going on during that period that authorities in Europe and America did not know that Jews, Blacks, Gypsies, and people with mental and physical defects were being slaughtered? Secondly, the US did not end WWII, the Russians did, please give credit where it's due. The attacks on Leningrad and Stalingrad were one of the most climatic points of the war and the US basically came in when the war was nearing the end. To suggest that the US ended the war is very chauvinistic.
There was never enough support to keep America a neutral in the war, much less on the side of the Axis. Secondly, the Soviets were fighting and winning because of Lend Lease aid from the US. Without that economic aid, the Russians would not have been able to defeat the Nazis. Even England could not have survived without American aid and the US entering the war on their side. At the time of the US entry into the war, Dec 7th 1941, the Axis powers were clearly winning on all fronts.
Nor could Russia have won without the second front that Normandy created. Without the involvement of the United states, the Axis powers would have won, in both Asia and Europe.
Okay, burnout has been achieved. I am officially done.
However, I should say congratulations on the pregnancy to our host, Siditty. Don't know how I missed that news since it's in a big banner at the top of the page...
WOULD ANY OF YOU SUPPORT MEXICANS COMING INTO THIS COUNTRY AND "TAKING OVER", OR STEALING YOUR LAND, OR BIRTHRIGHT?
Per my father in law, they already have. That will be another blog topic.
Evan,
I hope I didn't offend you. I really just wanted some insight, that is all.
Siditty, you didn't offend me and I did my best to answer your question up above.
The thing is, I don't think there really is a good answer to any of the questions here, especially not the most important of all: What can either side do next?
HAHAHA, Evan is so funny ! I'm sure you have not offended him so much. That means that I offended him. But he is still talking to me.
Found this today. Sorry if the topic's burnt out, but I thought it was funny. Kind of like the Serbs/Russia and Austria-Hungary/Germany before WWI.
http://www.caglecartoons.com/images/preview/%7B8afe65ed-79a1-46fd-b145-45a8c68315fd%7D.gif
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