The Palestinians And The Mid East

[steve_bank]

There are valid criticisms of Israel. That being said, the Arab and Persian hatred of Jews and the modern attempts to destroy Israel have roots going back centuries.


The average Palestinian should be shaking fists at Iran and the Saudis.

The Palestinians are regional talking points. Neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia care. In American terms the Palestinians to the Arabs are the regional 'poor white trash'. Egypt closed its border with Gaza before Israel did.

The Arabs recruited the Palestinians to fight with the first Arab coalitions to end Israel. When they lost they abandoned the Palestinians. No one wants them.

A few years back I looked at regional mefia outlets. In Iran there were animations depicting Isreal and Jews much like Nazis propaganda. Rats to be exterminated.

No amount of sympathy for the Palestinians will change centuries old dynamics. It is the regional propaganda that is fueling the conflict. Iran and Saudi Arabia leadership are a medieval anachronism. Centuries old religions, ethnic, cultural, and territorial conflict with the Palestinians in the middle.

I listened to a Saudi official proclaim they would die to defend their Muslim sect from the Iranian sect. The result, destruction of Yemen having nothing to do with Israel or the USA.

Culturally the region is sick. There is no other way to put it. Any idea of developing a cooperative region focused on betterment is pure fantasy.

Palestinians will not improve unless they get rid of Iranian backed terrorists. Previous attempts at free elections failed. Neither Hamas or Fata will allow the otter a majority.

Before the Intifada Palestinian's did business in Israel.

 

[braces_for_impact]

I think you sum it up well. How's one supposed to make any headway towards peace when even the actors attempting to "help" aren't acting in good faith? The region wants to hate Israel. The region needs it for a lightning rod, and the Palestinians, are merely a mechanism for the region to continue to hate on Israel. Why anyone remains surprised that the "holiest" place on earth is also one of the most violent and ill is beyond me. I wish there was a solution, but I fully expect things to maintain the status quo when I'm an old man on his deathbed.

 

[steve_bank]

While there are issues with Israel, it is a side show to everything else. Not something the liberals will contemplate.

 

[untermensche]

The Palestinians have been victims of a brutal immoral power for decades.

Their lands have been stolen.

Their children have been murdered.

The Palestinians are unfortunate victims of ignorance and hatred.

But there are many Americans on the side of ignorance and hatred.

 

[Tammuz]

The other Arab states really don't care about the Palestinians. Contemplate the fate of the Palestinians living in Lebanon:

Much of the Palestinian community in Lebanon does not have Lebanese citizenship and therefore does not have Lebanese identity cards, is legally barred from owning property or legally barred form entering a list of desirable occupations. Employment requires a government-issued work permit, and, according to the New York Times, although "Lebanon hands out and renews hundreds of thousands of work permits every year to people from Africa, Asia and other Arab countries... until now, only a handful have been given" to Palestinians. Palestinians in Lebanon also have to heavily rely on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for basic services such as health care and education, because they are not granted much access to the social services the Lebanese government provides.

Keep in mind that they have living there more for than half a century.

 

[Elixir]

There are valid criticisms of Israel. That being said, the Arab and Persian hatred of Jews and the modern attempts to destroy Israel have roots going back centuries.


The average Palestinian should be shaking fists at Iran and the Saudis.

The Palestinians are regional talking points. Neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia care. In American terms the Palestinians to the Arabs are the regional 'poor white trash'. Egypt closed its border with Gaza before Israel did.

The Arabs recruited the Palestinians to fight with the first Arab coalitions to end Israel. When they lost they abandoned the Palestinians. No one wants them.

A few years back I looked at regional mefia outlets. In Iran there were animations depicting Isreal and Jews much like Nazis propaganda. Rats to be exterminated.

No amount of sympathy for the Palestinians will change centuries old dynamics. It is the regional propaganda that is fueling the conflict. Iran and Saudi Arabia leadership are a medieval anachronism. Centuries old religions, ethnic, cultural, and territorial conflict with the Palestinians in the middle.

I listened to a Saudi official proclaim they would die to defend their Muslim sect from the Iranian sect. The result, destruction of Yemen having nothing to do with Israel or the USA.

Culturally the region is sick. There is no other way to put it. Any idea of developing a cooperative region focused on betterment is pure fantasy.

Palestinians will not improve unless they get rid of Iranian backed terrorists. Previous attempts at free elections failed. Neither Hamas or Fata will allow the otter a majority.

Before the Intifada Palestinian's did business in Israel.

It's quite an intractable problem. The regional rulers have used the same playbook for centuries; maintain an imminent threat, the only solution to which involves the extermination of the enemy. If no such threat actually exists, manufacture or appoint one. Who the enemy du jour happens to be, does not matter in the least; as long as you can keep the populace involved in urgently needed killing, you can appropriate everything beyond the bare survival needs of the population at large - for your ultra-lavish lifestyle.
If they didn't do that, well ... they wouldn't be Arab rulers.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It's quite an intractable problem. The regional rulers have used the same playbook for centuries; maintain an imminent threat, the only solution to which involves the extermination of the enemy. If no such threat actually exists, manufacture or appoint one. Who the enemy du jour happens to be, does not matter in the least; as long as you can keep the populace involved in urgently needed killing, you can appropriate everything beyond the bare survival needs of the population at large - for your ultra-lavish lifestyle.
If they didn't do that, well ... they wouldn't be Arab rulers.

Exactly. Israel is Eastasia.

 

[Harry Bosch]

There are valid criticisms of Israel. That being said, the Arab and Persian hatred of Jews and the modern attempts to destroy Israel have roots going back centuries.


The average Palestinian should be shaking fists at Iran and the Saudis.

The Palestinians are regional talking points. Neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia care. In American terms the Palestinians to the Arabs are the regional 'poor white trash'. Egypt closed its border with Gaza before Israel did.

The Arabs recruited the Palestinians to fight with the first Arab coalitions to end Israel. When they lost they abandoned the Palestinians. No one wants them.

A few years back I looked at regional mefia outlets. In Iran there were animations depicting Isreal and Jews much like Nazis propaganda. Rats to be exterminated.

No amount of sympathy for the Palestinians will change centuries old dynamics. It is the regional propaganda that is fueling the conflict. Iran and Saudi Arabia leadership are a medieval anachronism. Centuries old religions, ethnic, cultural, and territorial conflict with the Palestinians in the middle.

I listened to a Saudi official proclaim they would die to defend their Muslim sect from the Iranian sect. The result, destruction of Yemen having nothing to do with Israel or the USA.

Culturally the region is sick. There is no other way to put it. Any idea of developing a cooperative region focused on betterment is pure fantasy.

Palestinians will not improve unless they get rid of Iranian backed terrorists. Previous attempts at free elections failed. Neither Hamas or Fata will allow the otter a majority.

Before the Intifada Palestinian's did business in Israel.

You're exaggerating a little here! Jews and Arabs got along pretty well until roughly WW1. Then obviously 1948 blew it away. So, they've hated each other for roughly a 100 years.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

There are valid criticisms of Israel. That being said, the Arab and Persian hatred of Jews and the modern attempts to destroy Israel have roots going back centuries.


The average Palestinian should be shaking fists at Iran and the Saudis.

The Palestinians are regional talking points. Neither Iran nor Saudi Arabia care. In American terms the Palestinians to the Arabs are the regional 'poor white trash'. Egypt closed its border with Gaza before Israel did.

The Arabs recruited the Palestinians to fight with the first Arab coalitions to end Israel. When they lost they abandoned the Palestinians. No one wants them.

A few years back I looked at regional mefia outlets. In Iran there were animations depicting Isreal and Jews much like Nazis propaganda. Rats to be exterminated.

No amount of sympathy for the Palestinians will change centuries old dynamics. It is the regional propaganda that is fueling the conflict. Iran and Saudi Arabia leadership are a medieval anachronism. Centuries old religions, ethnic, cultural, and territorial conflict with the Palestinians in the middle.

I listened to a Saudi official proclaim they would die to defend their Muslim sect from the Iranian sect. The result, destruction of Yemen having nothing to do with Israel or the USA.

Culturally the region is sick. There is no other way to put it. Any idea of developing a cooperative region focused on betterment is pure fantasy.

Palestinians will not improve unless they get rid of Iranian backed terrorists. Previous attempts at free elections failed. Neither Hamas or Fata will allow the otter a majority.

Before the Intifada Palestinian's did business in Israel.

You're exaggerating a little here! Jews and Arabs got along pretty well until roughly WW1. Then obviously 1948 blew it away. So, they've hated each other for roughly a 100 years.

Jews and Arabs got along reasonably well because Jews tolerated their second-class status.

The fertilizer hit the fan when they refused to accept this anymore.

 

[untermensche]

I hear you.

The Jews were abused in the past.

That justifies their decades of abuse of the Palestinians.

Many Muslim cultures are abusive to minorities.

That justifies decades of abuse of the Palestinians.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I hear you.

The Jews were abused in the past.

That justifies their decades of abuse of the Palestinians.

Many Muslim cultures are abusive to minorities.

That justifies decades of abuse of the Palestinians.

No. What you fail to understand is that the conflict is not caused by the Jews being bad, but by refusing to accept second class status anymore.

 

[Arctish]

I hear you.

The Jews were abused in the past.

That justifies their decades of abuse of the Palestinians.

Many Muslim cultures are abusive to minorities.

That justifies decades of abuse of the Palestinians.

No. What you fail to understand is that the conflict is not caused by the Jews being bad, but by refusing to accept second class status anymore.

What you fail to acknowledge is that Europeans flooded into the Palestine and the nearby areas as the Ottoman Empire weakened and fell. The sudden influx of immigrants, cash, and the new Euro-centric power structure of the British and French Mandates destroyed regional stability.

It wasn't the Jews of Palestine who took up arms with the goal of establishing an exclusively Jewish State. It was mostly European Jews with a fair number of Jews from Yemen. If your argument is that the European Jews wouldn't accept second class status anymore, that makes sense given what happened in Europe but it doesn't justify them making Palestinians second class citizens or non-citizens or refugees.

If your claim is that the Jews of Palestine were rebelling, that's a Zionist fairy tale and you know it.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I hear you.

The Jews were abused in the past.

That justifies their decades of abuse of the Palestinians.

Many Muslim cultures are abusive to minorities.

That justifies decades of abuse of the Palestinians.

No. What you fail to understand is that the conflict is not caused by the Jews being bad, but by refusing to accept second class status anymore.

What you fail to acknowledge is that Europeans flooded into the Palestine and the nearby areas as the Ottoman Empire weakened and fell. The sudden influx of immigrants, cash, and the new Euro-centric power structure of the British and French Mandates destroyed regional stability.

It wasn't the Jews of Palestine who took up arms with the goal of establishing an exclusively Jewish State. It was mostly European Jews with a fair number of Jews from Yemen. If your argument is that the European Jews wouldn't accept second class status anymore, that makes sense given what happened in Europe but it doesn't justify them making Palestinians second class citizens or non-citizens or refugees.

If your claim is that the Jews of Palestine were rebelling, that's a Zionist fairy tale and you know it.

That "stability" you like was of oppression.

And it doesn't matter if it was the Jews of Palestine that rebelled or outsiders that did it--in either case it was throwing off an oppressor. Something you like so long as the oppressor is white.

 

[untermensche]

I hear you.

The Jews were abused in the past.

That justifies their decades of abuse of the Palestinians.

Many Muslim cultures are abusive to minorities.

That justifies decades of abuse of the Palestinians.

No. What you fail to understand is that the conflict is not caused by the Jews being bad, but by refusing to accept second class status anymore.

The Jews will not accept second class status anymore.

That justifies decades of abuse of the Palestinians from Israel.

 

[Arctish]

What you fail to acknowledge is that Europeans flooded into the Palestine and the nearby areas as the Ottoman Empire weakened and fell. The sudden influx of immigrants, cash, and the new Euro-centric power structure of the British and French Mandates destroyed regional stability.

It wasn't the Jews of Palestine who took up arms with the goal of establishing an exclusively Jewish State. It was mostly European Jews with a fair number of Jews from Yemen. If your argument is that the European Jews wouldn't accept second class status anymore, that makes sense given what happened in Europe but it doesn't justify them making Palestinians second class citizens or non-citizens or refugees.

If your claim is that the Jews of Palestine were rebelling, that's a Zionist fairy tale and you know it.

That "stability" you like was of oppression.

The Ottomans protected the Jews. They flourished under Ottoman rule, so much so that Istanbul became a major center of Jewish culture.

You know this. You learned the history. You read the links I provided in previous discussions. You did your own research of the articles at My Jewish Learning and The Jewish Virtual Library. But I understands that it undermines the preferred narrative that Jews were oppressed in Palestine so that makes it okay that nowadays Jews are the ones doing the oppressing.

BTW, how does this work for Palestinian Christians? They were oppressed to the exact same degree as Jews under Ottoman rule, and they're oppressed now. Does that mean you will support them when they refuse to accept second class status, take up arms, overthrow their oppressors, and drive the non-Christians out of their new Christian State?

And it doesn't matter if it was the Jews of Palestine that rebelled or outsiders that did it--in either case it was throwing off an oppressor.

It matters if the Jews of Palestine didn't feel all that oppressed and didn't want to have a violent uprising, but were forced into one by the European immigrants flooding into the region looking to establish a State founded on religious bias.

Remember the DNA evidence that shows the Jews of Palestine are more closely related to their Muslims and Christian neighbors than they are to the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews of Europe? Remember that research showing ~60% of Palestinians has Jewish ancestry on their mother's side at the founding of Israel? Remember when the massacre at Deir Yassin was stopped by a Jewish rabbi and a handful of men from his congregation who told the terrorists that Muslims were their friends and neighbors?

The Jews of Palestine didn't invent Zionism, didn't draw up plans to expel Muslims and Christians, and didn't want to be segregated.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I hear you.

The Jews were abused in the past.

That justifies their decades of abuse of the Palestinians.

Many Muslim cultures are abusive to minorities.

That justifies decades of abuse of the Palestinians.

No. What you fail to understand is that the conflict is not caused by the Jews being bad, but by refusing to accept second class status anymore.

The Jews will not accept second class status anymore.

That justifies decades of abuse of the Palestinians from Israel.

The Palestinians have spent the last 70 years trying to exterminate them for rebelling.

If they want to be treated reasonably they need to cease the war crimes.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The Ottomans protected the Jews. They flourished under Ottoman rule, so much so that Istanbul became a major center of Jewish culture.

You know this. You learned the history. You read the links I provided in previous discussions. You did your own research of the articles at My Jewish Learning and The Jewish Virtual Library. But I understands that it undermines the preferred narrative that Jews were oppressed in Palestine so that makes it okay that nowadays Jews are the ones doing the oppressing.

The thing is you don't recognize what oppression is. It's not oppression to keep your enemy in war down.

BTW, how does this work for Palestinian Christians? They were oppressed to the exact same degree as Jews under Ottoman rule, and they're oppressed now. Does that mean you will support them when they refuse to accept second class status, take up arms, overthrow their oppressors, and drive the non-Christians out of their new Christian State?

Christians aren't being driven out by Jews. They are being driven out by Muslims.

And it doesn't matter if it was the Jews of Palestine that rebelled or outsiders that did it--in either case it was throwing off an oppressor.

It matters if the Jews of Palestine didn't feel all that oppressed and didn't want to have a violent uprising, but were forced into one by the European immigrants flooding into the region looking to establish a State founded on religious bias.

Not rebelling doesn't mean they didn't feel oppressed. It could also mean they didn't feel they could succeed until they got the outside help.

Remember the DNA evidence that shows the Jews of Palestine are more closely related to their Muslims and Christian neighbors than they are to the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews of Europe? Remember that research showing ~60% of Palestinians has Jewish ancestry on their mother's side at the founding of Israel? Remember when the massacre at Deir Yassin was stopped by a Jewish rabbi and a handful of men from his congregation who told the terrorists that Muslims were their friends and neighbors?

This isn't about DNA, it's about religion.

The Jews of Palestine didn't invent Zionism, didn't draw up plans to expel Muslims and Christians, and didn't want to be segregated.

The Jews never sought segregation. There are a lot of Muslims living in Israel. What the Jews sought was not being attacked. People that took up arms against Israel were not welcome there anymore.

 

[Arctish]

The thing is you don't recognize what oppression is. It's not oppression to keep your enemy in war down.

Christians aren't being driven out by Jews. They are being driven out by Muslims.

Not rebelling doesn't mean they didn't feel oppressed. It could also mean they didn't feel they could succeed until they got the outside help.

This isn't about DNA, it's about religion.

The Jews never sought segregation. There are a lot of Muslims living in Israel. What the Jews sought was not being attacked. People that took up arms against Israel were not welcome there anymore.

Why is it these discussions always end in disconnected unsupported assertions being tossed out like beads at Mardi Gras?

It's like discussing the Civil War with a racist Dixiephiles. They're happy to talk about the Constitution and State's Rights and tariffs. They're a bit less happy to talk about the letters, personal diaries, and official papers of Civil War leaders unless they get to tell you about how God fearing and devout men like Stonewall Jackson were. They won't discuss the Cornerstone Speech if they can avoid it even though they agree with it. They avoid coming to grips with the issue of slavery but if they absolutely, positively have to discuss it they'll pay lip service to the principle that slavery is bad but almost immediately pivot into telling you the slaves were pretty well off and that slavery was good for them because it brought them to Christianity, taught them European culture, and kept them out of trouble. And then they'll go right back to talking about the Constitution and State's Rights. It's a closed loop. The loop expands as more bullshit is added and contracts as ridiculous assertions are shown to be ridiculous, but it keeps returning to the beginning and starting over.

You are talking about oppression as though only Jews experienced it, as though they experienced it at the hands of Palestinians, and as though the reason Palestinians were expelled from their communities was because they declared war on Israel. It's nonsense.

Jews did not experience any hardship that other religious minorities in the Empire didn't also face. A case could even be made that they were less oppressed, given the explicit bodily protection they were given whenever ethnic strife broke out. But even if you can support your claim that they were oppressed, that's not evidence they were oppressed by Palestinians. And even if you could support that claim it still doesn't justify the oppression of Palestinians today.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The thing is you don't recognize what oppression is. It's not oppression to keep your enemy in war down.

Christians aren't being driven out by Jews. They are being driven out by Muslims.

Not rebelling doesn't mean they didn't feel oppressed. It could also mean they didn't feel they could succeed until they got the outside help.

This isn't about DNA, it's about religion.

The Jews never sought segregation. There are a lot of Muslims living in Israel. What the Jews sought was not being attacked. People that took up arms against Israel were not welcome there anymore.

Why is it these discussions always end in disconnected unsupported assertions being tossed out like beads at Mardi Gras?

You made an assertion--that the Muslims weren't driving out Christians. I called you on it.

 

[Arctish]

The thing is you don't recognize what oppression is. It's not oppression to keep your enemy in war down.

Christians aren't being driven out by Jews. They are being driven out by Muslims.

Not rebelling doesn't mean they didn't feel oppressed. It could also mean they didn't feel they could succeed until they got the outside help.

This isn't about DNA, it's about religion.

The Jews never sought segregation. There are a lot of Muslims living in Israel. What the Jews sought was not being attacked. People that took up arms against Israel were not welcome there anymore.

Why is it these discussions always end in disconnected unsupported assertions being tossed out like beads at Mardi Gras?

You made an assertion--that the Muslims weren't driving out Christians. I called you on it.

Actually, no, I didn't. I said:

BTW, how does this work for Palestinian Christians? They were oppressed to the exact same degree as Jews under Ottoman rule, and they're oppressed now. Does that mean you will support them when they refuse to accept second class status, take up arms, overthrow their oppressors, and drive the non-Christians out of their new Christian State?

Christians were under the same rule as Jews in the Ottoman Empire. Their communities were organized under the same millet system. They had to pay taxes under the same system as everyone else in their region and the İspençe tax levied on all non-Muslims. They followed the same rules that all citizens of the Empire had to follow as well as the rules their own religious leaders required them to follow, the same as Jews.

When the militant Zionists created their Jewish State, they drove out Palestinian Christians from the areas they claimed, the same way they drove out the Muslims. Those who remained were subject to discriminatory and oppressive rules, and many lost their homes and farms to newly arrived Jews through the efforts of the Transfer Committee and Zionists policy of erasing Palestinian villages and religious sites throughout Israel.

Moshe Dayan as quoted in Haaretz, 4 April 1969:
“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushu’a in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”

I can provide links to personal accounts published in reputable media outlets if you need them. I can also provide links to research into the number of Christians forced into refugee camps. I might even be able to find the thread where a poster said he knew a Christian family originally from the village of Safsaf and what they told him about the massacre in 1948. You might remember it came up in a discussion of Ted Cruz getting booed off-stage by an organization fighting persecution of Christians and religious minorities in the Middle East .

There's a lot of material available. What part do you want to discuss? The treatment of religious communities in the Ottoman Empire? The treatment of Palestinian Christians in Palestine? I asked you if you would support oppressed Christians taking up arms and rebelling against their oppressors. How about we just talk about that?

BTW, regarding your assertion that

Christians aren't being driven out by Jews. They are being driven out by Muslims.

Mr. Hijazeen and Mr. Shomali disagree:

Based on our years as parish priests in Palestine, we were appalled by the false allegations regarding Palestinian Christians made in recent weeks by Israeli spokespeople, such as Ambassador Michael Oren.

We were perplexed not because of their position, which has been part of the official Israeli narrative for many years, but by how openly they have distorted facts and misconstrued the plight of Palestinian Christians pursuing justice and peace.

These spokespeople have wrongly propagated a cynical discourse misleadingly touting “Christian persecution by Muslims.” Every Friday, we celebrate the holy mass attended by hundreds of Palestinian Christians from Bethlehem, Ramallah and Jerusalem in the Cremisan Area of Beit Jala. The holy service, celebrated among ancient olive trees, was not a prayer to end a “Muslim-led persecution” but to prevent Israel from confiscating this area of land that belongs to 58 Palestinian Christian families – Israel’s latest attempt to consolidate its ring of settlements that aim to sever Bethlehem from Jerusalem. This is one last attempt to prevent a land confiscation that would have catastrophic consequences for the local Christian population.

Since the Israeli occupation began in 1967, Israel has confiscated thousands of acres belonging to Palestinian Christians and Muslims. In the Jerusalem and Bethlehem areas, Christians have been severely affected by Israel’s colonization policies. As an example, approximately 5,436 acres of land from northern Bethlehem were unilaterally annexed by Israel to create the illegal settlements of Gilo and Har Homa – which Israel now cynically calls new Jerusalem “neighborhoods.”

These “neighborhoods,” aim to physically separate Jerusalem from Bethlehem and, for the first time in history, prohibit Palestinian Christians from worshipping in the holy city of Jerusalem...

... In fact, Israeli spokespeople “forget” to mention that in 1948, 75 percent of the Palestinian Arab population, including Christians, of what is now the State of Israel became refugees. Entire Christian villages were destroyed by Israel; and tens of thousands of Christians were expelled. Some areas of today’s west Jerusalem, such as Talbiya and Katamon, were home to thousands of Palestinian Christians whose homes were looted and private property confiscated.

Since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967, Israel has implemented a policy of taking as much as land as possible and as few as Palestinians as possible. Palestinian Christians, particularly in Jerusalem, have suffered the consequences of this policy.

Considering the hundreds of cases put forth by Palestinian Christians living in occupied east Jerusalem, if Israel continues its policies of residency revocations and home demolitions, within a few years the Christian community in Jerusalem will not count more than 6,000 faithful...

... In the West Bank Israel does not differentiate between Palestinian Christians and Muslims in its policies. Several studies have shown that the Israeli occupation and settlement activities are the main reason for Christian emigration.

These claims are not Palestinian “propaganda” but have been largely researched by the US government, the European Union and the United Nations. In fact, all the recent International Religious Freedom Reports published by the US Department of State highlight this issue.

They know more about the situation than either one of us, for obvious reasons. I think we should take their word for it unless and until we get well sourced information to the contrary.