http://www.al-bab.com/arab/background/jews.htm\ I will admit I do not know that much about this subject as it is not something that cared about greatly. What I know is mostly heard or read in passing. However, I do get the feeling that the Jews were treated worse in Europe than in middle east for a long time.
Dear pirc1, Please do not fall for this colonial propoganda. Some people are interested only in the opinions of Arab leaders in the 1950's. That is, the opinion of a handful of people out of hundreds of millions. Those people did not represent the population, and their actions and words and behavior was not similar to that of the population. I'll provide an example for this. For example, if I were German and I lived in a fully democratic Germany, then the "leaders" of my country do represent me. I have accepted the agreement that I will vote in people to represent me. If the leaders make bad decisions, I am also responsible and I am an accomplice to all their actions, good or bad. However, if I instead lived in Saddam's Iraq, then the leaders of the country didn't represent me and there was not even a mechanism for communicating political demands. There is no way you can blame someone who lives under the force of a tyrant and where that person's demands does not make its way to government. I am not responsible and I am not an accomplice to their actions, good or bad. In the examples which have been cited to you to change your mind, none of the people can be said to representive of their people by any reasonable standard. Accuracy of elections and robustness of democracy is not relative to the era, we have known the principles of democracy throughout these conflicts. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Mr Al Husseini was a cleric and he was in charge of maintaining the holy places. He was not a political figure, and was told off when he overstepped his boundaries onto the political stage. [Acording to wiki] In 1948, after Jordan occupied Jerusalem, Abdullah I of Jordan officially removed al-Husayni from the post, banned him from entering Jerusalem, and appointed Hussam Al-din Jarallah as Grand Mufti. When Jarallah died in 1954, no Grand Mufti was appointed until 1993. This person are made clerics by other clerics who agree to make him a cleric. The leaders of the area at that time also most likely had a huge hand in the selection of this individual. Even if this man adored Hitler and publicly announced his hatred of Jews, it would not be any reflection on the overall sentiment of Jews towards Arabs and Arabs towards Jews, except the extremists. In the same vein, don't let people fool you into believing that all Muslims were good to all Jews as this was never the case for a prolonged period of time. While it can be said that Muslims treated the Jews better than anyone else did during the diaspora except for political allies of Israel. At the same time, there were several terrorist Jewish organisations at the time who were engaged in the same tactics as Hamas and Hezbollah are currently engaged. These organisations eventually morphed into various parts of the Israeli government and IDF, while this same structure is rejected for the Palestinians. This is not opinion, this is public knowledge, and you can read about all the explosions and assassinations on wikipedia with universally accepted sources of information. The only time that Muslims and Jews have gotten along completely fine was during the period of the Prophet Muhammad's life when he enshrined their protection (and that of the Christians the city) into the constitution of Medina. During this period, everyone fought together against oppressors of any religion, and those who did not want to fight on the front lines could pay an opt-out tax called jizya which allows them to do nothing but still be protected by the city's forces. Muslims were not afforded this luxury. Remember that at the fundamental state of things, our idealistic hope is that anyone can live anywhere they want without problems, total freedom of movement. How things were in the past should not shape our solution, though I'm guilty of this myself at times. We should be thinking about a state where the huge majority of the population lives in peace, and work on a plan towards that goal. No solution is satisfactory unless all of the people feel secure, all the barriers are torn down, and all the terrorists on both sides are behind bars. This is why it is easy to reject any proposal right now, because none of them give the people total security, and I'm afraid that the power seekers in that area are hell-bent on securing an agreement where they can continue to scare their population into compliance with their will. Let's hope that doesn't happen.
Lol their side is "propaganda" your side is "truth." Glad you cleared that up. I'm sure the other side doesn't think the same about their truth and your propaganda. If you think that "their holy book" tells them to hate Israel, I guess you're okay with characterizing Jewish texts as saying it's not crime to cheat Goys or mocking Jesus as the illegitimate child of the w**** Mary by a Roman solider and raised by a cuckolded Joseph. You also believe that Christianity for its part teaches that Jews secretly have horns and cloven feet. You can make the religions say anything by cherry picking radical (or even heretical) teachings that each of the three sides have said about each other one throughout history. And I'd hate to think you're not an equal opportunity bigot. The issue that Arabs have with Israel is political not religious. Certainly the fundamental taint in the Muslim world is a great danger to the West but again that's a political reaction that's seeped into their religious structure because life in Iran, Afghanistan etc is pure ****. I don't like towel heads any more than you do but the US and the West is largely responsible for the state of affairs over there with our policies going all the way back to Versailles after the fall of the Ottomans and continuing to the 21st century. If you're trying to help Aroundtheworld, you're not. It makes it sound like all the bigots and haters are on his side. Next time try to make arguments minus the blatant bigotry calling everything "lies and propaganda"
Just another reason we should rid our government of big money interest groups like AIPAC. If I could be a dictator for 3 days, set all my decrees, and then step down. If only...
Deji is probably the best poster here when it comes to Israeli topics because he understands the people from both sides. I share his frustrations with the extremist Israelis just as I am frustrated by the hate from both sides. My sister, who is Zionist and loves Israel with all of her heart, couldn't be paid enough money to move there right now because of the political climate. It's easy and convenient to stay myopic and point a finger. It's harder to see the bigger picture and understand that the fault goes to whomever benefits from a longterm struggle. Both the Israelis and Palestinians would be able to enjoy enough tourist money if they had an everlasting peace to have thriving economies. Countries that deal arms don't benefit from peace. Countries that deal arms(weapons, tanks, planes, ships, subs, etc) to Israel: US (http://www.fpif.org/articles/whos_arming_israel) UK Germany France Romania Italy Czech Republic Slovenia Belgium (link for EU countries: http://euobserver.com/24/27359) Sources of illegally smuggled arms into the Palestinian Territories: Iran(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karine_A_Affair , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francop_Affair , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Affair) North Korea (http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/israel-to-un-north-korea-arms-proliferation-destabilizing-the-middle-east-1.303720) Worldwide arms smugglers I'm sure I've missed many players in this, but you all can see that arming both of these countries for never-war is big money. There's little incentive for the world powers to push for a lasting piece because their governments don't want to shoot themselves in the foot and lose their exports.
It does raise the unsavory unsettling issue of Adam and Eve having only two sons, and their mother, Eve, was the only woman so how did the race continue?
This is what I have been arguing for a long time. Enlightened Jews should be pressuring Israel to end apartheid if for no other reasons than it is not a workable solution in the long run.
She is disappointed for other reasons than you are. I pretty share the same views that she does with frustrations with regards to the warhawks. With that being said, we remain in support of a Jewish state.
Both sides are hostage to their own extremists and extremists from outside the region. Radical Israelis hold Israeli policy hostage by insisting on settlements. Radical Palestinians hold the rest hostage by insisting on wiping out Israel. In turn these groups get aid and funding from outside groups that see political gain from supporting them and making them a proxy for larger issues. Yithzak Rabin called making peace with the PLO The peace of the brave, because he understood that it would be harder to stand up to the extremists and make real peace rather than just continuing with the conflict. It required sacrifices to be made by both sides in regard to sharing the land and letting go of the rhetoric of hatred. For his trouble he was assassinated by a radical Jew. The further tragedy was that there hasn't been a leader since on either side who has been willing to take up Rabin's peace of the brave.
I am not in favor of a state that privileges one religion or ethnicity over another in this country or in Israel.
These governments need the revenue from exporting arms to anybody that will buy them. The world would be a better place if the tyranny ended in Iran and North Korea. The Green Party in Iran showed the existence of a people that wants to join the rest of the world. We can go about change by war and have millions killed. Or we can crush them economically and let them crumble from the inside-out. For the longest time, I've believed that the Palestinians were being used as pawns against their own good. All of the neighboring countries have notoriously ejected refugees and treated them like dogs. To this day, the governments of surrounding countries don't give a damn about Palestine, they only glorify a violent movement so they can profit from dealing arms. I've come to realize that the Israelis have been used by it's allies in a sense. We almost had a lasting peace. A peace thwarted on the inside. Billions and billions spent on the war game. The fact of the matter is: 1. You can't stop the flow of arms into the Israeli government because the money is just too big. Powerful companies have a stranglehold on policy throughout the world. 2. You can't stop the flow of arms into the Palestinian territories because desperate countries and dirty arms dealers make way too much money from them. You do notice that any time Israel tries to disarm or crack down on weapons, they are condemned by the UN. They aren't allowed to fight a war. Israel is entitled to defend itself and it's citizens just as the Palestinians are entitled to decency and a fair shot at life. Adopting the belief that one side is wrong only buys into the cycle of hate and violence. Saying that Israel should no longer be a Jewish State is just as hateful as saying the Palestinians should be killed/moved out. Threads like these are a symptom of a lack of seeing the bigger picture.
