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Who are Palestinians?


Yamato

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And I know this. But you made the discussion about my standards, not anyone elses,

No, you were asking me for a principle that was, and I quote from what you said "that as good as or better than mine". And I don't want to keep a conversation with someone who has a high-opinion of themselves and refuses to acknowledge that.

Hang on, are you criticising someone who pulled out of Gaza to hand it over to the Palestinians?

And I know this. But you made the discussion about my standards, not anyone elses,

The discussion is about finding a standard. There's an open invitation to all posters to share one that's good enough. You're different only in that you've been asked repeatedly and couldn't find one.

No, you were asking me for a principle that was, and I quote from what you said "that as good as or better than mine". And I don't want to keep a conversation with someone who has a high-opinion of themselves and refuses to acknowledge that.

Actually I can have a very low opinion of myself and still ask for a standard that's as good as or better than mine. The honest exercise of asking for improvement from others so I can improve myself doesn't reflect the personal accusation you're making. I would argue that the worse someone's standard is the more help from others they need and so asking for it is even more pragmatic.

Hang on, are you criticising someone who pulled out of Gaza to hand it over to the Palestinians?

Yes I'm criticizing Sharon and all other Zionists, because I'm criticizing brutally evicting people from their own property. Opposing the very existence of Israeli settlements is a logical extension of that criticism.

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Hamas isn't every Palestinian nor is it a reason to defend illegal collective punishment of millions of people including hundreds of thousands of children. That's not propaganda, that's pure evil.

With all due respect to you, I am truly amazed that you seem to really be sincere about this nonsense you repeat ad nauseum. I could understand your stance if you were just baiting people here as a contrarian but apparently you ACTUALLY believe the drivel you spout. These two peoples are at WAR with one another. For decades tit for tat. When the good folks of Gaza elected a terrorist government that regularly attempts to kill Israelis those same good folks reaped the consequences of their actions. Cry and whine about sieges or fences but the irrefutable proof is that the Intifada basically stopped when these measures were put in place.

My opinion of these Arab stepchildren will not change until they begin publicly teaching THEIR children respect for the people of Israel. Not just how to kill them.

So it's drivel to politically and monetarily abstain from this conflict? It's drivel not to take sides in their war? How is that drivel? You think that "the Arabs" are terrorist thugs. I think the Israeli bureaucrats are terrorist thugs. What hypocritical drivel is this that one side deserves weapons and an economy and self determination and a state and an elected government and a bigoted society based on the colonization of other peoples land, and not the other? That's the difference between you and me. I believe that all people deserve civil liberties and you don't. What drivel is this that I'm the dupe that needs to continue paying for it?

Write your own check and pay for your own drivel and I'll freely pay for mine just as well, but don't come here propping up your force control on me and accuse me of drivel just for fighting it. I'm glad I've invoked your amazement. I'm disappointed that you think liberty is "nonsense".

Edited by Yamato
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The discussion is about finding a standard. There's an open invitation to all posters to share one that's good enough. You're different only in that you've been asked repeatedly and couldn't find one.

No, the discussion is about Palestinians, not other poster's standards.

Actually I can have a very low opinion of myself and still ask for a standard that's as good as or better than mine. The honest exercise of asking for improvement from others so I can improve myself doesn't reflect the personal accusation you're making. I would argue that the worse someone's standard is the more help from others they need and so asking for it is even more pragmatic.

Again, why do you point out hypocracy is a fault of mine, yet you commit it yourself? It is a comparison, insenuating that your standards are better than mine and therefore it is a personal accusation. It is a blatant comparison of you to me. Don't hide it under a veil on sincerity because we can all see it.

Yes I'm criticizing Sharon and all other Zionists, because I'm criticizing brutally evicting people from their own property. Opposing the very existence of Israeli settlements is a logical extension of that criticism.

So, the Israelis were evicted from their own property even though you claim that all Israeli settlers occupy Palestinian land (which Gaza is)?

Edited by MichaelW
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Who are the Palestinians? First of all, they are human beings, like the rest of us.

Second, if the question refers to their identity as a nation or an ethnic group, they are Arabs - that is, a group of people who share the same culture and language as other 250 million people around them. Their identity as "Palestinians", is the result of a process which started some 150 years ago in the Arab world, and specifically in what is now called Israel and Jordan - some 80 years ago, after WW1. Before that, there was no concept of Arab identity - there were concepts of tribes, families, villages etc. and to a larger scale - a concept of Islam and social status (falah vs. urban dwellers, land owners vs. serfs etc.). All of these people lived under some sort of a Caliphate - either the Ottoman Empire as it was known in the West, or some local sheikhs.

In the beginning of the 19the century, a number of nationalistic ideas were imported from Europe into the Ottoman empire, first influencing the Balkans and Egypt (the two regions with the most European influence by that time), later on advancing to the rest of the Empire. By the mid 1850s, these nationalistic ideas became quite popular among Arab intellectuals, especially Christians, while most Muslim Arabs still looked at the Caliphate as their principle identity. Christian Arabs had two reasons to advance Arab nationalism - first, they had the most interaction with other, mainly European, christian countries were these ideas were formed, and second, by dismantling the dominance of religion and tribal belonging in the Arab world and replacing it with nationalism, they will no longer be considered a minority but part of this new Arab nation. This is by the way the same reason Jews were usually involved with socialist and nationalist movements in Europe - the idea that nationalism and socialism will render their differences from the surrounding non-Jewish majority obsolete.

But until WW1, these ideas were isolated mainly to intellectual circles in the major cities, not influencing the majority of the Muslim Arabs, still under the rule of an Islamic Caliphate. The exception and relevant example however was the region currently known as Israel, the disputed territories and Jordan, where in the 1830s during a war between Egypt and the Ottoman empire, the local Arab population, encouraged by the Egyptians, revolted against the Ottomans, and for almost a decade part of the region was under Egyptian rule, until the Ottomans got it back. This is significant as it is the first time Arabs revolted against the Ottomans, and for almost 80 years would be the only significant rebellion in the region.

However, at the beginning of the 20th century, nationalism had infiltrated into each and every part of the Ottoman empire, including the Turks themselves, and the idea of a special and unique Arab nation was formed. This spread of nationalism was coupled with the rapid downfall of Islam, and the final blow would arrive after WW1, when the Caliphate was cancelled, and the muslims found themselves with no common regime and no common leader. This was the most serious change in history of the region in the past 500 years, since the downfall of Constantinople and the unification of the region under the Ottoman dynasty. Today, the Arab spring is also a direct result of those changed, some 4-5 generations after the end of WW1 and some 100 years after this major change happened.

Anyhow, one of the results of the changes was the fact that for the first and only time the Arabs united during WW1 against the Turks to rebel against the Ottoman empire and gain their own independence (the Lawrence of Arabia affair). However, their helpers, Britain and France, had different ideas to the region, and divided it according to their own agreements. Soon the Arabs found themselves separated into these different territories, and their once united national movement started to separate into different branches.

These territories were not states or countries, and also were not occupied from the Arabs, but where occupied from the Ottoman empire, which, after becoming the Republic of Turkey, gave up all it's claims to these regions. So basically, these regions were managed by the British and the French, but were not part of these countries as well - they were Mandates under the League of Nations (the father of the UN).

Each major power divided and named it's territories according to strategic and logistical rational, and so you had one Arab village which was under the French mandate, and another one under the British, even though for centuries they had family and tribal relations. With that not enough, you had inner divisions, with one village one morning being part of the Mandate of Syria, and in the next part of the Mandate of Lebanon.

The powers also named these territories after their own decisions. For example, there was no Palestine, or Jordan, or Iraq prior these divisions, and their concept of what is Syria and what is Lebanon didn't exactly correspond to the Ottoman districts with the same name. For many years, these facts where the main reasons behind conflicts between Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, for example.

So, the Arab national movement that was now divided and had to operate in the new territory, started to grow different political aspirations. But they still had one agenda - creation of a unified Arab republic. So you had the newly created Palestinian branch of the Arab national movement, with different branches, the most radical and influential up until 1948 would be the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al Husseini. So basically, the formation of the Palestinians as different nation started then - after WW1 and the division of the middle east into different mandates between the French and the British. Before that, there were no Palestinians in the sense of a nation - there were ofcourse people in the land, that would further acknowledge themselves as Palestinians, but they were no different from Arabs in every other place in the middle east, and indeed, many Arabs travelled from one city to another, until the 1920s.

But still, even the Palestinian Arab National movement didn't have aspirations for a separate Palestinian country, not until the lethal blow Pan-Arabism got in the late 1960s, and after 40 years, Islam started to recover from the fatal blow it received in the 1910s. This recovery will get it's first political achievements only in the late 1970s, with the assassination of president Anwar Saadat and the Islamic revolution in Iran, and with the war in Afghanistan against the Soviets.

Before that, virtually all factions in the Palestinian national movement were financed either by Syria or Egypt, and were part of a regional plan to unite the future "liberated" "Palestine" with either a Syrian-led Arab republic or an Egyptian-led Arab republic. For some time, there was even a joint Syrian-Egyptian Arab republic.

Anyhow, after 1967, and the Black September massacre in Jordan, Palestinian nationhood as a separate country became a more and more popular idea, until it became the mainstream idea in the 1980s.

So, to summarize - Palestinians as a nation were formed by the division of the middle east by the major powers after their victory in WW1, in the 1920s. However, they still didn't see themselves as different "Palestinian" nation, but part of a larger Arab nation that needed to be united. After 1967 and during the 1970s, the idea that pan-Arabic nationalism is dead prompted the idea of a unique separate Palestinian nation. By the 1980s, these ideas became the mainstream among the Palestinians, which by then could truly be identified as a separate nation. By then, however, Islam began to recover in the Middle East, and by the 2000s, Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, won the elections and took over Gaza. Hamas has a different, non-nationalistic view for what a Palestinian nation should look like, and actually sees it's future as a part of regional Islamic caliphate. And now we witness the final blow the Arab nationalism, in the result of the Islamic spring running through the middle east in the past 2 years. What would be next? who knows.

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So it's drivel to politically and monetarily abstain from this conflict? It's drivel not to take sides in their war? How is that drivel? You think that "the Arabs" are terrorist thugs. I think the Israeli bureaucrats are terrorist thugs. What hypocritical drivel is this that one side deserves weapons and an economy and self determination and a state and an elected government and a bigoted society based on the colonization of other peoples land, and not the other? That's the difference between you and me. I believe that all people deserve civil liberties and you don't. What drivel is this that I'm the dupe that needs to continue paying for it?

Write your own check and pay for your own drivel and I'll freely pay for mine just as well, but don't come here propping up your force control on me and accuse me of drivel just for fighting it. I'm glad I've invoked your amazement. I'm disappointed that you think liberty is "nonsense".

Actually I view most of those in question as victims of a vicious minority preying on powerless brothers. I've asked a simple question in these forums several times and there has never been a clear answer. What would you have Israel do? Do you honestly believe that if Israelis pulled back to the 1947 borders that they could then coexist in PEACE with the Arabs? Or are you of the same mind as the Arabs that Israel is simply illegitimate and NOTHING short of total dissolution of the Israeli State will do? It really is a simple query. Why so difficult to just answer it straight up?

All citizens that work pay taxes and ALL citizens pay taxes for things they'd really rather not fund.

These Arab stepchildren deserve civil liberties from those who have kept them in a destitute state - Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

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No, the discussion is about Palestinians, not other poster's standards.

Again, why do you point out hypocracy is a fault of mine, yet you commit it yourself? It is a comparison, insenuating that your standards are better than mine and therefore it is a personal accusation. It is a blatant comparison of you to me. Don't hide it under a veil on sincerity because we can all see it.

So, the Israelis were evicted from their own property even though you claim that all Israeli settlers occupy Palestinian land (which Gaza is)?

No, the discussion is about Palestinians, not other poster's standards.

I'm discussing Palestinians. I post videos with Norman Finkelstein talking about Palestinians and accuse me of being off topic. You're losing it.

Again, why do you point out hypocracy is a fault of mine, yet you commit it yourself? It is a comparison, insenuating that your standards are better than mine and therefore it is a personal accusation. It is a blatant comparison of you to me. Don't hide it under a veil on sincerity because we can all see it

.

You couldn't show any hypocrisy from me here to save your life. I merely have a standard that I think is good enough for Palestinians too. You don't have any standard anywhere in sight. When there's only one, it's the best by default. I challenge you, encourage you, defy you, plead with you, and beg you to come up with a better standard since you have so many unknown problems with mine.

So, the Israelis were evicted from their own property even though you claim that all Israeli settlers occupy Palestinian land (which Gaza is)?

Yes. Structures built in Israeli settlements aren't Palestinian though they exist on Palestinian land. That's just one of the pathetic results that the Zionist regime in Israel creates for itself.

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Actually I view most of those in question as victims of a vicious minority preying on powerless brothers. I've asked a simple question in these forums several times and there has never been a clear answer. What would you have Israel do? Do you honestly believe that if Israelis pulled back to the 1947 borders that they could then coexist in PEACE with the Arabs? Or are you of the same mind as the Arabs that Israel is simply illegitimate and NOTHING short of total dissolution of the Israeli State will do? It really is a simple query. Why so difficult to just answer it straight up?

All citizens that work pay taxes and ALL citizens pay taxes for things they'd really rather not fund.

These Arab stepchildren deserve civil liberties from those who have kept them in a destitute state - Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia.

If Israel genuinely pulled back to the 1947 borders to usher in the formation of a contiguous Palestinian state, the implied effects of that move would mean there'd be nothing more for Israel to do. To provide reasonable assurance that Israel will be secure from attack from Palestine, and vice versa, my idea is to insert international peacekeepers with maximum transparency into both Israel and Palestine because the fire could come from either direction. I'm quite certain Israel wouldn't agree to this, and would insist that it can police itself. I would have to take the same assurances from Palestinian authorities on faith as well, and I'm unwilling to do that to a large degree because I know there are individuals on either side of this conflict that will want nothing more than the first possible opportunity to start another war over the petty interests that some people like to start wars over. And I'm beyond sick and tired of seeing such people ruin the lives and livelihood of everyone else.

After some unknown number of years the need for maintaining an international presence would likely subside. I wouldn't expect this to be soon. I'd guess 25 years at a minimum. Maybe a couple of generations. I'd love to see a lot of international investment and trade in both Israel and Palestine during this period of peace, compromise, and growth to make it easier for the people on both sides of the respective borders to stomach it. So the international mission should go beyond just security in my opinion. "Trade Not Aid" would be a good enough standard for both sides, and indeed, for the rest of the world too.

People don't get their liberty from their own government let alone foreign governments, so don't look to these other states to give it to Palestinians. The essence of government is the denial of liberty, not the reverse. Palestinians deserve to be their own referee to fairly administer their own inalienable liberty that they already have that's being forcibly denied by Israel. Statehood would enable Palestine to be held to a more consistent and predictable accounting for its own sovereignty, its own security, its own ability to police and defend itself, and last but not least its own self-determination. This is in the interests of everyone in the region seeking greater security. "The Arabs" aren't going to create or determine a Palestinian state no matter how miraculously angelic or perfect they become. That's a job for Palestinians, Arab or not, once the occupying regime in Israel stops chewing it up and finally relents to accepting its statehood.

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Dr. Norman Finkelstein is another individual worthy of emulation who understands the importance of having principle in determining how we treat people.

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Lets keep the discussion civil please folks.

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Yamato I'm sorry but this entire thread is a sham, and your self-righteous introduction to it doesn't make it any more civil. It's like I would bless you but then smack you in the face - doesn't make my behaviour any less violent. Just because you are articulate and able to express your lies in a calm, pseudo humanitarian manners, doesn't make this thread ok. The debate about who are the Palestinians can go on without bashing Israel and blaming it for atrocities it didn't commit. This thread should have been called "My allegations towards Israel - or how I blame Israel for things I think it did to the Palestinians". Instead, you white wash it and then self-righteously patronize saying you will not tolerate racism or harsh criticism from anyone, as if your thread is somehow scientifically leaning with no political bias.

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Well no actually you will find I think that most people would support the Palestinian cause of its own separate country. Israel keeps breaking the rules and by following a government doesn't make you right every time.

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Following a government? who follows a government? I'm a free thinker in a democracy I can say and do whatever I want as long as I don't break the law.

What democracy do Palestinians have? The moment they had a chance to have one, they voted a radical, anti-semitic organization into government. Yet the Israel bashers on this board try to white wash Hamas as well.

However, when a currently right-wing government in Israel stops all construction in the settlements for 9 months, no one cares.

When Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas claims that "I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land", it's ok. Racism and apartheid aspirations are being taught in Palestinian society on daily basis, yet no one cares. It's all ok, right? it's not a barrier for peace, to teach your kids metaphysical hatred towards the other side. I'm afraid virtually all Palestinian supporters on this board, except KoS, are racist of low expectations when it comes to the Palestinians.

Anyhow, I have yet to found a single Israeli criticizer here to actually get it's facts straight - all of them either think Israel is a fascist state, or that Israelis are militant nutjobs, or that we hate the Palestinians and want to prevent them their future because we are racists. Even the settlers are been attributed with cowboy happy trigger nutjob persona, while two thirds of them are either secular, normal Israelis or anti-Zionist hasidic Jews who couldn't care less about Israel who live there because the land is cheap.

When I think about it - no one even gets Zionism right and the term is used here as if it's some sort of a right-wing racist ideology.

The only conclusion is that either there is an inherent bias by world media to present only the Palestinian narrative because they are considered the "under dogs", or that my country fails completely in it's PR. Or the combination of both.

Anyhow I'm a pessimist as to any change or real open debate with any of the Israeli bashers here because: A. The human nature of almost never admitting to be wrong, B. They are so closed minded and certain about the narrative they have been fed with that there is no way to get anything new up their heads from a citizen of a democratic country that lives in the region.

Also, ofcourse, being an Israeli I'm brainwashed and follow the evil Zionist line of thought :rolleyes:

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Yamato I'm sorry but this entire thread is a sham, and your self-righteous introduction to it doesn't make it any more civil. It's like I would bless you but then smack you in the face - doesn't make my behaviour any less violent. Just because you are articulate and able to express your lies in a calm, pseudo humanitarian manners, doesn't make this thread ok. The debate about who are the Palestinians can go on without bashing Israel and blaming it for atrocities it didn't commit. This thread should have been called "My allegations towards Israel - or how I blame Israel for things I think it did to the Palestinians". Instead, you white wash it and then self-righteously patronize saying you will not tolerate racism or harsh criticism from anyone, as if your thread is somehow scientifically leaning with no political bias.

I have low tolerance for the usual hate speech against Jews, Muslims, or Arabs that this issue will almost always show up after discussion of this topic begins. Hopefully in part because of that introduction, this thread has been (somewhat) refreshingly void of such hate speech.

Everyone is biased. Everyone. Don't believe any claims to the contrary. Telling me that I'm biased says nothing. When you show up with photos of Israeli military jets on your signature, it isn't difficult to understand that you just don't like how I'm biased or why I'm biased.

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Following a government? who follows a government? I'm a free thinker in a democracy I can say and do whatever I want as long as I don't break the law.

What democracy do Palestinians have? The moment they had a chance to have one, they voted a radical, anti-semitic organization into government. Yet the Israel bashers on this board try to white wash Hamas as well.

However, when a currently right-wing government in Israel stops all construction in the settlements for 9 months, no one cares.

When Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas claims that "I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land", it's ok. Racism and apartheid aspirations are being taught in Palestinian society on daily basis, yet no one cares. It's all ok, right? it's not a barrier for peace, to teach your kids metaphysical hatred towards the other side. I'm afraid virtually all Palestinian supporters on this board, except KoS, are racist of low expectations when it comes to the Palestinians.

Anyhow, I have yet to found a single Israeli criticizer here to actually get it's facts straight - all of them either think Israel is a fascist state, or that Israelis are militant nutjobs, or that we hate the Palestinians and want to prevent them their future because we are racists. Even the settlers are been attributed with cowboy happy trigger nutjob persona, while two thirds of them are either secular, normal Israelis or anti-Zionist hasidic Jews who couldn't care less about Israel who live there because the land is cheap.

When I think about it - no one even gets Zionism right and the term is used here as if it's some sort of a right-wing racist ideology.

The only conclusion is that either there is an inherent bias by world media to present only the Palestinian narrative because they are considered the "under dogs", or that my country fails completely in it's PR. Or the combination of both.

Anyhow I'm a pessimist as to any change or real open debate with any of the Israeli bashers here because: A. The human nature of almost never admitting to be wrong, B. They are so closed minded and certain about the narrative they have been fed with that there is no way to get anything new up their heads from a citizen of a democratic country that lives in the region.

Also, ofcourse, being an Israeli I'm brainwashed and follow the evil Zionist line of thought :rolleyes:

The elephant in the room is, Israelis have no right to live on someone else's land. Even if Abbas agrees with that.

I need not be the slightest bit "self righteous" to understand the principles that Zionists cannot accept. I keep whoever I want off of my property and out of my house. Even an Israeli! Cool, huh? I don't have to prove my own perfection, or lack of sin, or righteousness or goodness in your eyes, or some perfect record, or saintly past or whatever the expectations are, to keep whoever out of my house that I want to. I don't have to be Jesus Christ to have civil liberties and neither do Palestinians. If someone hears the pump action of my 12 gauge and still can't figure out how wrong they are for being on my property, magnum slugs through the torso are imminent. Don't wait and die. Leave my house now. It's bizarre how the media has warped our thinking into considering behavior like that is "terrorist". Such arguments are always presumptuously supportive of government and require applying different standards to different groups.

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People don't get their liberty from their own government let alone foreign governments, so don't look to these other states to give it to Palestinians.

Yet you expect the government of Israel to provide civil liberties to those in Gaza. International observers were crawling all over southern Lebanon while Hizbullah rearmed and stockpiled many more missiles than they had prior to the last conflict. No, I guess Israel wouldn't be too willing to accept those assurances.

My last post to this discussion. Israel holds the ground. After the next bloodletting I suspect they will hold even more of the ground. The dead will be buried and the hate deepened and all the arguments on every forum like this will have done nothing to change any of it.

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People don't get their liberty from their own government let alone foreign governments, so don't look to these other states to give it to Palestinians.

Yet you expect the government of Israel to provide civil liberties to those in Gaza. International observers were crawling all over southern Lebanon while Hizbullah rearmed and stockpiled many more missiles than they had prior to the last conflict. No, I guess Israel wouldn't be too willing to accept those assurances.

My last post to this discussion. Israel holds the ground. After the next bloodletting I suspect they will hold even more of the ground. The dead will be buried and the hate deepened and all the arguments on every forum like this will have done nothing to change any of it.

I expect no such thing. Liberty is not endowed by government. The Israeli government cannot give liberty to Gaza it can only cease taking it away. The essence of all government is tyranny. Keeping this in mind, it's a bit unrealistic to expect a government to act against its own interests without outside pressure. There are many like-minded Israelis who want to see a Palestinian state and they can help oppose their government's policies on Gaza too.

Hezbollah has grown into a component part of the Lebanese government. They've taken it upon themselves to defend Lebanon and will need weapons to do so. If weapons are what creates the unwillingness to accept assurances, then the US should stop proliferating them to this region for that reason as well.

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I have low tolerance for the usual hate speech against Jews, Muslims, or Arabs that this issue will almost always show up after discussion of this topic begins. Hopefully in part because of that introduction, this thread has been (somewhat) refreshingly void of such hate speech.

Everyone is biased. Everyone. Don't believe any claims to the contrary. Telling me that I'm biased says nothing. When you show up with photos of Israeli military jets on your signature, it isn't difficult to understand that you just don't like how I'm biased or why I'm biased.

Racists are stupid, and usually racist or prejudice claims in these kind of threads results when you scratch the surface and discover the truth about the guy that you're been discussing with - that he had no real rational agenda, just racism and load of cr*p to try to wrap it all in a nice, rational sounding way.

As for bias - it's alright to be bias, as long as you admit to it, and acknowledge it, and do not present your ideas as facts, which is exactly what you did - your first post here was seemingly "calming" yet it included a lot of basic wrong "facts" like and alleged ethnic cleansing on the Palestinians and so forth. I have no problem with you or anyone's else's biased. I do have a problem with self-righteous biased who think and behave as if their stand is the enlightened truth, and everyone's else's are treated as "misguided" or needed a "lecture" on how to behave or think.

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The elephant in the room is, Israelis have no right to live on someone else's land. Even if Abbas agrees with that.

I need not be the slightest bit "self righteous" to understand the principles that Zionists cannot accept. I keep whoever I want off of my property and out of my house. Even an Israeli! Cool, huh? I don't have to prove my own perfection, or lack of sin, or righteousness or goodness in your eyes, or some perfect record, or saintly past or whatever the expectations are, to keep whoever out of my house that I want to. I don't have to be Jesus Christ to have civil liberties and neither do Palestinians. If someone hears the pump action of my 12 gauge and still can't figure out how wrong they are for being on my property, magnum slugs through the torso are imminent. Don't wait and die. Leave my house now. It's bizarre how the media has warped our thinking into considering behavior like that is "terrorist". Such arguments are always presumptuously supportive of government and require applying different standards to different groups.

Oh but I thought you claimed you're not about to discuss whether or not the land belong to one party or the other, no? :rolleyes:

The truth is that currently 20% of the Israelis are Palestinians with the exact same political and civil right as Israeli Jews. We drive the same buses, we go to the same universities, each and every sign in Israel is written in both Hebrew and Arabic, and they vote to parties in our parliament - currently 12 out of 120 of the member of parliament are Israeli Palestinians, with 10 of them coming from Palestinian-lobbying parties.

These are almost 1.5 million Palestinians that are Israelis.

But I bet you didn't know that. Or simply this fails your judgement of the relations in the region.

I also believe you didn't know that Jerusalem had a Jewish majority by 1860s, about 20 years before the first Zionist immigration to the land. "What?! there were Jews here before Zionism?! no way!" :rolleyes:

I also believe you didn't that the first national leader of the Palestinians, Grand Mufti Haj Amin Al Husseini was a Nazi collaborator who trained Muslim Waffen-SS divisions in the Balkans during WW2 and later on was behind the attempted genocide of the Zionist Jewish community that failed.

And what is this Jesus thing? oh my god your really do believe in this self-righteous stuff... lol...

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Btw, this was the situation prior to the British Mandate:

Biot393PhotoA.gif

Can you spot Palestine? Or Lebanon or Syria for that matter?

All of these countries are the result of the divisions the winning powers of WW1 conducted in the region. The British named the region "Palestine" because this is how it was called for centuries in the West, as a result of Western civilization being the direct descendant of the Roman civilization, which changed the name from Judea to Palestine to erase any remainder of Jewish connection to the land. Jews fought hard to remain and regain their presence in their homeland, and we're just as well ain't gonna make it easy for the likes of you today :tu:

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I do't see Israel either

Yes but no one on the Israeli side claims that Palestinians occupy Israel, or that Israel existed there for eternity - we acknowledge the history as it was - we lost the sovereignty over our forefathers' land and the majority of us were expelled from it some two millenia ago, during which the region was occupied by number of empires - Roman/Byzantine, then Arab, then Crusade, then Mamluke, then Ottoman and eventually British empire. Not once was it ruled by it's local population since it was ruled by Judea. As an expelled minority we were brutalized and persecuted for religious reasons for all those years, and even when we blended in, this didn't help. So in the 19th century Jews started to look for their own state, just as many other European nations did, but no where was there any connection of Jews, that became the eternal nomads, to the land they lived in. The Pale of Settlement in Poland and Russia was, well, part of Poland and Russia. Other places where Jews lived where part of other countries. Eventually, the only place that actually meant something for the Jews, not only religious wise (Zionism was a socialist secular movement from it's creation) but also historically wise. So we started to return to our ancestors' land - Judea. However, we also acknowledge that as it was back then when we did rule the land, to this day there are other non-Jewish people that are native to the land, be they are descendants from long living populations that are as ancient as us or that most of them are new comers seeking for better life as the economy of the region boomed at the end of the 19th century - they were and still are here. And other than few extremist, the mainstream view of the Zionist movement was to co-exist with them (before someone jumps and cry "What about the Irgun?! It's just like Hamas!" well yes and no - it mainly targeted British military installations and personal, and conducted retribution acts against Arab terrorism. But even in it's hey days it didn't justify itself with genocidal ideas of killing all the Arabs and it was considered for all it's existence a minority opposition to the mainstream left leaning organization, as opposed to Hamas which won democratic elections and currently governs some 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza). This wasn't the case from the Arab (later known as Palestinian) side, which at least since the 1830s has been massacring Jews in the land that is now Israel.

The conflict will end when Palestinian (and more generally Islamist and Arab) racism against Jews and other minorities in the region will end. Jews are just one group - you have Kurds, Copts, Berbers, Assyrians, and Maronites - all persecuted and prejudiced against throughout all of the middle east. Jews are just the only minority to get it's own land, so this racism is being painted through a national conflict. Unfortunately, it's not a war about land, but a war about our right to exist in the region at all.

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I'm discussing Palestinians. I post videos with Norman Finkelstein talking about Palestinians and accuse me of being off topic. You're losing it.

Posting a video with a caption talking about principles says otherwise. You are going off topic posting things about principles.

You couldn't show any hypocrisy from me here to save your life. I merely have a standard that I think is good enough for Palestinians too. You don't have any standard anywhere in sight. When there's only one, it's the best by default. I challenge you, encourage you, defy you, plead with you, and beg you to come up with a better standard since you have so many unknown problems with mine.

Again, this isn't about standards and principles. It is about Palestinians. Keep it that way.

Also, I don't have problems with your principles. I do, however, have problems with your attitude towards me and other members. You need to seriously think how you need to portray yourself.

Yes. Structures built in Israeli settlements aren't Palestinian though they exist on Palestinian land. That's just one of the pathetic results that the Zionist regime in Israel creates for itself.

Either you support the eviction of Israelis from Gaza or you don't. There is no middle ground.

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Posting a video with a caption talking about principles says otherwise. You are going off topic posting things about principles.

Again, this isn't about standards and principles. It is about Palestinians. Keep it that way.

Again, that is gross distortion. This thread has been about applying principles for Palestinians too and thus treating them like human beings deserve to be treated. If you can't accept what the first post is saying or what the first video is showing then you can't understand what the topic is here.

Also, I don't have problems with your principles. I do, however, have problems with your attitude towards me and other members. You need to seriously think how you need to portray yourself.

What other members? So it's all about me personally. I have a problem with your attitude too, wanting to argue incessantly over nothing. Because you're not able to handle applying a consistent standard that's good enough for all people including Palestinians, it's no wonder you can't even understand that is the topic here. But somehow you don't have any problems with my principle regarding Palestinians? Progress has been made!

Either you support the eviction of Israelis from Gaza or you don't. There is no middle ground.

That's just rhetoric trying to impose black and white thinking on me. Don't dictate to me what I must or must not support. If you can't handle the complexity of an issue leave it for someone else but don't tell them they must be as simple-minded as you are. One dimensional thinking is bad enough. Denying the line between two poles is even worse.

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Racists are stupid, and usually racist or prejudice claims in these kind of threads results when you scratch the surface and discover the truth about the guy that you're been discussing with - that he had no real rational agenda, just racism and load of cr*p to try to wrap it all in a nice, rational sounding way.

As for bias - it's alright to be bias, as long as you admit to it, and acknowledge it, and do not present your ideas as facts, which is exactly what you did - your first post here was seemingly "calming" yet it included a lot of basic wrong "facts" like and alleged ethnic cleansing on the Palestinians and so forth. I have no problem with you or anyone's else's biased. I do have a problem with self-righteous biased who think and behave as if their stand is the enlightened truth, and everyone's else's are treated as "misguided" or needed a "lecture" on how to behave or think.

I just admitted to my own bias. I'm biased to trying to identify and keep good standards and apply them to everyone, because no group of humans is more deserving of human rights than any other group of humans. That is the reason why collective punishment is wrong. If that explanation makes me sound self-righteous to you, I couldn't care less. Jews aren't higher than Arabs. White people aren't higher than brown people. Black people aren't higher than red people. Men aren't higher than women. Pick whatever two groups you like and it works just as well. Now that bigotry has been removed from the discussion, let's address your accusation:

"I presented a lot of wrong facts"? What "lot of wrong facts" are those exactly? That Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed?

Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to violently remove the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from certain geographic areas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GS0_kiAh8Y

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I'm biased to trying to identify and keep good standards and apply them to everyone

Translation: "My only fault is that I'm such a good person and enlightened above you all" :rolleyes:

Your bias is that you adhere to the Palestinian narrative entirely. You claim you apply good standards to everyone - yet which good standards did you apply to the Israelis? coming from you, they are all evil, oh wait no you applied the classic trick - our governments are all evil. Problem in a democracy, is that generally the government is elected by the people and represent the people. So saying that all Israeli governments have been committing evil crimes is the same as saying that there is a criminal majority in Israel since it's creation that keeps voting criminals and murderers into power. The other option is claiming that Israel has no democracy and we are all lead blindly by ruthless dictators, that for some reason are elected every 4 years, and each time from different political party :tu: .

So summing up this subject - you didn't even admit to your own TRUE bias, just claimed how good of a person you are. And just shows how credible you are.

Jews aren't higher than Arabs. White people aren't higher than brown people. Black people aren't higher than red people. Men aren't higher than women. Pick whatever two groups you like and it works just as well. Now that bigotry has been removed from the discussion, let's address your accusation:

Who calimed Jews are higher than Arabs? no one claims that. As to white vs. brown - many Israeli Jews would be considered "Brown" in Europe or the US.

Israel is the only western country to bring in tens of thousands of black people not for slavery purpose. And Israel is one of the only western democracies to have had a woman as a leader of state, when it was only 30 years old. We also currently have a woman head of the high court. And until two years ago, a woman was the head of the parliament. The leader of the opposition is currently a woman.

Israel, also, while having a bloody conflict with Palestinian Arabs for the past 80 years or so, grant full civil and human rights to it's Palestinian citizens. So you see why blaming my country with racism or other Nazi-like policies towards Palestinians make me laugh at best if not cry because sadly enough, this is what the world think of us. :no:

The sadder part is that Palestinians really are treated the way you present it, but not under Israeli government. Check the situation of Palestinians in Lebanon, Syria and Egypt, and you'll see the definition of apartheid, racism etc.. And all of this under the supervision of the UN in the form of UNRWA. :blush:

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