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Boodleheimer
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Location: working undercover for the Man
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 Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 5:48 am Post subject: |
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[quote="Junior"]
| KWhitehead wrote: |
| citations, please. |
Disprove it if you want to try.
Would evidence affect your opinions in the slightest anyway?
quote]
yes, evidence would. i'm just curious about statements like "According to scholars the world over, if there ever was a so called Palestine, it was located hundreds of miles east of Jerusalem, dead center in the heart of Jordan." can you provide citation for it?
i mean, i have problems accepting blind statements like that.
another example: "The term Palestinian refers to Palestine. Palestine existed in 1000 B.C. and before." palestine is a term still used in the writings of Josephus during the time of the Roman Emperors. |
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Scaggs
Joined: 19 Sep 2006
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| Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 12:08 pm Post subject: |
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Myth One: The Territory of Palestine
According to scholars the world over, if there ever was a so called Palestine, it was located hundreds of miles east of Jerusalem, dead center in the heart of Jordan. In fact, early in the twentieth century, the nation that is now Jordan expelled would be Palestinians -- the historical ties to the land that lies in Jordan was removed centuries ago when Arab tribes pushed the nomads who might today have called themselves Palestinians out of that area. Immigration into the area that was within the borders of the granted State of Israel was through the arab equivalent of homesteading or trade amongst owners of invalid or undocumented title. Territory outside the original boundaries was conquered land and under International law, remains the property of Israel. However, in order to appease Arab neighbors, Israel has ceded land back to Jordan and Egypt, creating a tender peace between Israel and those two countries. Israel has also ceded back some territory to Syria and Lebanon. However, Israel drew lines that they believed would provide security from attack on their northern and northeastern borders. |
The territorial notion of Palestine in the modern sense can at least be seen following WWI. By 1917 the British took control of the area counting for modern Jordan, Palestine, and Israel. This territory was called Palestine and consisted of Cis-Jordan and Trans-Jordan. As Britain progressed in creating a Jewish homeland in the 1920s, the Palestinian Mandate was split in practicality. I believe, though I might be mixed up, that it official broke the Palestinian Mandate up only in 1947 with the initial UN partition plan. To say there was no Palestinian geographical area is out of left-field.
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Myth Two: The Palestinians are a race or a culture
The term Palestinian refers to Palestine. Palestine existed in 1000 B.C. and before. It was a Jewish conquered territory at that time. There are no Palestinians descended from Arabs of that time and place, only Jews.
There is no Arab Palestinian race, culture or similar notion. The dwellers of the region who were displaced centuries ago had no government, organization, or capital. In fact they had no leaders, officials, or tribal recognition. They were simply nomads and homesteaders -- squatters who were regularly displaced by other landowners who themselves abandoned the area The tribes the Jews displaced were wanders and squatters who other Arab tribal leaders came along and kicked off their land. They didn't even have a language or credo. They were treated by the Arab tribes as unclean and usually less than human. Before 1930, population growth in the area finally annexed by the grant of the Israeli state had been populated about 2/3 arabs of various ethnic factions. There was little land sale recording, however, it is clear that both Jews and Arabs owned land at near about the same ratio (2/3 Arab, 1/3 Jew). This is the proud heritage that so called Palestinians wish you to believe entitles them to chunks of land in Israel. |
There is no Palestinian "race" as you said. Correct. To say there is no culture seems strange. You have roughly 5,000,000 Arabs living in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel today. You also have area's like Jordan, a country with a massive population of people who were pushed out of Israel. The shared experience of living in refugee situations certainly creates a commonality. Again, I really have no idea what your point it by trying to discount the Palestinian identity. I don't think even the far-right Israeli would say that the Palestinian's are not in fact a group of people. Also, you cite faulty numbers, prior to 1930, you have about a 10% Jewish population. After 1930 is when things pick in Jewish immigration (hmm ... what was going on in Europe). By '48 you are getting closer to 50%.
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Myth Three: The Israeli government oppresses those who would call themselves Palestinians
There is no way to identify Palestinians. No DNA, no practices, no address. They ARE Christians, Jews, and Muslims. In the case of Muslims, there are a handful of Muslim factions who also call themselves Palestinians.
There are no laws in Israel that identify or separate Jews from Christians, or Jews from Muslims. Israel has a equal rights provision in its constitution and is a signatory to the human rights conventions. Security regulations restricting movement in Israel did not exist until the number of terrorist attacks against Jewish people became so large that the costs of treatment of wounded and burials became a significant portion of the countries GNP.
Non-Palestinians -- those with no ancestral ties to the nomads of the region -- from outside the occupied territories bring weapons and credos that foment the killing of Jews and those in the refuge camps gladly do their bidding.
Nothing in Israeli Law notes the difference between any human in Israel, and until the violence began to peak, Israeli leaders refrained from taking steps to identify the so called Palestinian. Today separation has been the only semi-effective means to control, to some degree the violence. On many occasions, the separation and restrictions on movement have been rescinded, only to be accompanied by a huge jump in murders of Israeli Jews and Christians, and Muslims who work next to them. |
You are somewhere near correct here, but seems a bit off. Israeli law does protect its Arab citizens equally. However, it also states that Israel will be a Jewish state, which seems to be to some degree inherently exclusionary. Perhaps an analogy would be to include a clause in the US Constitution about the US being a white a state. But Arabs still do make up 15-20% of the Israeli population and have seats in the Knesset. However, the story for Palestinians in the occupied territories is very different. They are not Israeli citizens. They live in the status of permanent refugees. Their government is corrupt and like most refugees, they have little to no economic opportunities or structure. To say that there is equality, legal or literal, between these groups is ridiculous.
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Myth Four: Oppression of the Palestinians is intentional economic oppression
The average educational level of the so called street Palestinian is high school level whereas the education of the average Israeli is higher, nearing a 80% college graduate level. Israelis and Palestinians compete for jobs and Israelis win the higher paid and more authoritative jobs.
There IS an economic distinction between Israelis and so called Palestinians. Muslim schools in Israel are not funded by Israel, the Muslim schools refuse Jewish funds. Jewish schools are well funded and teach modern mathematics, decision making, economics, and science. Muslim schools teach Whabbism, hatred and death to the Jew. The average Palestinian cannot hold a job in a technical field, and woman are not allowed to attend school, and thus half the population of the Palestinians rarely contribute to the economic advantage of the Palestinian.
Boys and girls are taught equally and the notion of equal rights to all is taught in the Jewish schools. In Muslim schools girls must wear the burka and they are not taught the same lessons and are second class citizens. Western science is rarely taught and mathematics levels are dismal.
Palestinians who wish to attend college travel to enlightened Arab states who have real educational systems in place. Or they attend western nation schools and then return. The local institutions are not open to girls and women and few Palestinians can afford to attend anyway. There are few if any scholarships presented by Arab nations for so called Palestinians, nor is there any reasonably sized effort to find jobs for Palestinians in the Arab nations surrounding Israel. Thus is it rationale to say Israel is economically oppressing the Palestinian? Who is really oppressing the Palestinians? Their own Arab "brothers".
The Palestinian Authority receives millions from Arab nations presumably to help the people -- to build and run schools, buy food for the majority who cannot feed themselves, yet the Authority allows rocket and mortar attacks to be executed from right next to and in some cases from within schools and hospitals. When Israel retaliates against those sources, schools and hospitals and indeed neighborhoods get damaged or destroyed. The Palestinian Authority is very slow to rebuild and does not prevent terrorists from setting up their bases for attack next to or within schools or hospitals.
Without proper schools, the Palestinians (Jews, Muslims, and Christians) cannot get the education required to advance their place economically. The oppression comes from within the Arab community, not from Israel.
Israel has offered to provide public schools but non-Jewish parents, adult attendees or their leaders have steadfastly refused, stating that their own Muslim oriented schools are fine. Israel has offered to provide funding to help the Muslim Schools upgrade their level of teaching to help their attendees get better jobs in the world as well as within Israel. Again this aid is refused. |
I am not sure that this is widely claimed. It is clear that Palestine relies heavily on the financial aid of the outside world, Israel included. It is clear however that the Palestinians in the occupied territories suffer from extreme poverty. This doesn't need to be an issue of blame, but it is a problem that needs to be addressed. Poverty is a breeding ground for violence.
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Myth Five: Israel murders Arabs by the carloads
Patently untrue, this myth is pure propaganda. In the decades since Israel became a nation, more Israelis have been killed by Arabs by at least two magnitudes. Only in recent years has Israeli retaliation began to increase, yet the number of killed Palestinians is no where near the rate of murders of Israelis by terrorists. Again the numbers are more than two magnitudes apart. Israeli retaliation targets are tactical -- bomb factories, hideouts of key terrorists or in some cases a vehicle transporting terrorists. Terrorist targets are almost always civilians or guards at checkpoints. The civilians are unarmed and usually include children. Children are killed in Israeli retaliation because the Terrorists make their bases or build bombs, load mortar shells and other such activities n buildings where innocents live.
Israeli police and soldiers wear uniforms and positioned, with their arms in plain sight. Terrorists hide bombs on their bodies or hide their guns and then open fire while hiding among the innocent including their own people working, eating, or playing amongst Israelis.
Israel has ceased retaliation for months at a time on the promise that they will let the cycle of violence cease and talks between the Palestinian Authority and Israel can resume towards a peaceful settlement. In every case, Israel has patiently waited while the violence stopped, trickled back into being, and then became wholesale slaughter against Israelis again before resuming retaliatory attacks.
Israel has paid the price for conciliatory gestures with huge numbers of Israeli lives, all lost for nothing -- the violence has continued on and on.. |
Blaming either side for violence is silly at this poitn, though of course it happens. if you care to note a difference between the two, Israel apologizes when civilians die in its operations where as the Palestinian and other terrorist groups are happy about it. However, both sides have a lot of blood on their hands. The history has become so long and bloody that it isn't logical to try and point out who did more. You are correct that Hamas probably says ridiculous things about Israeli's eating babies, but I don't see where this fits into a reasoned discussion. While Israeli violence certainly is exaggerated in Islamic propaganda throughout the Middle East, I don't think that means much, at least to whoever you were addressing on the board. However, your choice of wording "by the car loads" I think was humorously poor, because a carload isn't that big, and I imagine that when Israel makes strikes on militant leaders, they are sometimes in cars, and do indeed get killed by the carload.
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Myth Six: Israel has created prison living for Palestinians and restricting freedom
In the late 1980s Israel setup checkpoints on major thoroughfares within Israel that led between typically Jewish settlements and so called Palestinian settlements. The Palestinians do not have the economy to buy or even rent homes thus live in refugee camps. They live in these camps because they did not come from a home and move into Israel because it was a decision they made. They migrated because they were forced out of Arab run nations of Lebanon, Syria, Egypt or Jordan. They DID flee during years of wars between Israel and their neighbors and thus became refugees. Until violence increased between Arab and Jew in Israel, there were no security measures to separate the so called Palestinians and the Israelis. Over the decades since the 80s, the separation has become complete, including a security wall.
The separation is necessary because outside forces have funded and supplied Arab terrorists with huge rockets and mortars so they can be setup just outside Jewish Settlements and fire into those settlements killing scores of Israelis.
Helicopter patrols seek to spot these attackers and thus provide a clear indication of Israeli vigilance in those areas bordering the Israeli settlements. These aircraft attack known bomb factories or hideouts.
While some of this has worked to decrease the violence, the fact remains that homicide bombers still blow up buses in the cities of Israel on a regular basis and Israeli deaths continue to rise at a rate higher than those non-Israelis in the so called occupied territories. |
Not prison living, but certainly refugee living. And the fault isn't all with Israel, but the Palestinians surely got the shaft. Unless you adhere to a might makes right philosophy, Palestinians who fled their homes in 1948, I would think could blame Israel for it. They could also blame neighboring Arab countries for the awful treatment they received once they fled. Again, I think blame is a secondary issue to the fact that the living conditions for Palestinians in the occupied territories are pretty awful.
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Myth Seven: Palestinians cannot build an infrastructure because Israel keeps destroying it.
Israeli retaliation occurs against bomb factories and sources of incoming fire. An analysis of the buildings destroyed is less than 1% of all the buildings in the area controlled by the Palestinian Authority.. The edges of Palestinian Authority controlled areas that face Arab nations could easily become "no combat" zone and flourish, simply by controlling where would be terrorists operate. However, the PA has no such control and the Arab Nations turn a blind eye to their brethren who foment terrorism in Israel. Lebanon and Syria are clearly not interested in building a flourishing area for so called Palestinians and refuse to let them settle across their borders -- in fact the passage into Lebanon and Syria across Israeli borders is highly restricted and is one way allowing terrorists into Israel and no Palestinian settlers out of Israel.
The funding for the Palestinian Authority is more than adequate to build schools, living quarters, and fund targeted programs to better the Palestinian educational level and create small business. However, for some reason, the funds do not get spent.
The PA does not produce an audit of where its funds are being spent. Arab donations go into a black hole and violence comes out. Would an accounting of funds to the Palestinians reveal funds going toward guns, ammunition for guns and mortars, mortars, rockets and launchers? Until the PA produces a clear and verifiable audit of Arab funding, there will never be a true reckoning of why the Palestinian infrastructure does not exist. If Palestine does become a state, will the leaders suddenly open their books? This is very doubtful. |
How would you like it if one out of a hundred and fifty houses where you lived got destroyed? But you are correct that the lack of infrastructure shouldn't be blamed on Israel. Again, looking to blame isn't helpful. The are plenty of reasons contributing to the lack of infrastructure in Palestine. The Palestinian Authority is corrupt. The economic factors are oppressive. Slums don't just suddenly start growing. Like many poor places around there world, you have people trapped in dispairing poverty.
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Myth Eight: The Palestinian State Will Resolve the Terrorism Problem for Israel
Events in Ramallah during the infatada and in the Iraqi cities of Najaf, Baghdad and Fallujah clearly indicate the level of civilization of the terrorists involved. To believe that these people will go live peacefully effectively inside Israel is not only naive, but clearly wishful thinking.
After a period of Euphoria, the people in Palestine will realize they have no education, no imports, no exports, and no industry. Street vendors will be the wealthiest people in the nation and soon they will be victims of theft or murdered for their product. Then the Palestinian State will look outside for reasons for their despicable condition and find Jews living better and happier.
At that point the violence will start again. The prediction is that this will occur within ten years of the official formation of the Palestinian State. The result of that external expansion of violence will be an Israeli incursion and a resumption of the conditions that existed in 2000-2004. |
Those are quite some predicitions, Nostrodamus. I don't think Palestinian statehood is a cure all either. But it is crazy to think that any solution won't have to give the Palestinian a national soverignty.
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Myth Nine: The United States Is An Accomplice in Israel's Oppression of the Palestinians
The United States HAS been a staunch ally of Israel. At the last moment in the Yom Kippur War, the U.S. started delivering resupplies thanks to a General who essentially disobeyed orders in order to help save the Israeli nation. When the Israelis retaliated against Palestinian attacks that murdered Israeli citizens, the U.S. counseled restraint and put on pressure using proposed cuts in U.S. weapons supplies (similar to that before the Yom Kippur War). No one seems to preach that same restraint to Terrorists being sent from Lebanon, Syria and Iran.
The U.S. also supports Saudi Arabia in its mature moderation of OPEC oil accounts. The U.S. also supports Jordan and Egypt's peace with Israel.
Rhetoric against the U.S. is solely based on the U.S. support of Israel the nation, not Israel's reaction to the violence done to the nation's people. The U.S. support for Saudi Arabia includes ever increasing pressure for the Saudi Royals to reform their governance of its people. There are no Arabs "under the oppressive thumb" of the United States. Not now, and not in the past. |
I think the dissappointment with the US in Israel (at least my dissappointment) is that by being such a staunch Israeli ally, it makes it so much more difficult for the US to use its position of power to broker peace. I don't know that I "preach" it, but I do think Syria and Iran need to be pushed out the equation. At the same time the United States needs to become far more even handed in its dealings. The goal has to be for both peoples to succeed.
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Myth Ten: The United States is a Killer of Arabs and Palestinians, and Iraq is the Proof
The U.S. totally not involved in any violence against Palestinians. In Lebanon in the 1980s was the only opportunity for the U.S. to kill Arabs. Ships pounded Lebanese positions with offshore gunfire in support of U.N. forces. When Marines were killed wholesale in their barracks, the U.S. was part of a United Nations force that consisted of Muslims and Christian nations. Terrorists murdered U.S. Marines, not the other way around. Syria killed Arabs and Jews alike, but there is no infatada against Syria.
In Iraq, the U.S. is more than willing to leave when the Iraqi security forces are ready to manage their own security, and the government of Iraq will make that request. When it is made, the U.S. will be gone quite rapidly. The violence leading up to the elections in Iraq indicated why Arab terrorists want the U.S. gone -- not because of anything the U.S. has done to the Arab peoples, but what our policy of democracy will mean for the terrorists.
Bid Laden and al-Zarqawi have stated it clearly. They want a radical religious government in all nations in the Middle East, if not the entire world. The violence will not stop until they are destroyed or their dream of running the world under radical Islamic law is realized. |
I don't know what exactly is implied in your myth, but there are a lot of Arabs dying in Iraq that probably wouldn't be if the US had not invaded. The lack of provocation makes it look all the worse.
Overall, I don't know where these myth's are coming from. Hezbollah? Sure, terrorist groups tell a lot of lies about Israel. Mainstream opinion in the western world? I don't see that as much. I think overall it is a scenario, like many, where people draw sides because of their nationality or religion or what have you, and do little thinking about things that are actually happening. Again, I don't know where your myths are coming from.
I could do that too:
Myth: Dingos eat babies.
In fact, though there have perhaps been incidents of Dingo's eating babies, this occurance is very rare. Dingos are not baby eaters. Any babies that were happenstancely eaten had bad parents and blame should not be put on the Dingos.
Yes I am being silly and that has nothing to do with anything, but my point is that raising these supposed myths and then counterpointing them seems very propagandists to me. Why not raise a particular issue and discuss facts instead of myths? |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 1:12 pm Post subject: |
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| KWhitehead wrote: |
| ...citations, please...i have problems accepting blind statements like that. |
By the way, Scaggs: you mentioned something about me "pointing to my library shelf" when I posted in another thread.
KWhitehead's obstinacy partly explains why it is necessary with this crowd...Other side of the coin, I guess. |
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Boodleheimer
Joined: 10 Mar 2006
Location: working undercover for the Man
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| Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 7:12 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| KWhitehead's obstinacy partly explains why it is necessary with this crowd...Other side of the coin, I guess. |
i'm quite proud of my obstinancy. i, in turn, could call you obstinant for not accepting what i say immediately. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 7:18 pm Post subject: |
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| Junior wrote: |
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Time for your education Miss bird.
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It's generally Ms (and sometimes Mrs).  |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2006 7:19 pm Post subject: |
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| KWhitehead wrote: |
| Gopher wrote: |
| KWhitehead's obstinacy partly explains why it is necessary with this crowd...Other side of the coin, I guess. |
i'm quite proud of my obstinancy. i, in turn, could call you obstinant for not accepting what i say immediately. |
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Big_Bird
Joined: 31 Jan 2003
Location: Sometimes here sometimes there...
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| Posted: Sun Oct 08, 2006 8:29 pm Post subject: |
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From Tanya Reinhart (a well known Israeli professor):
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| In the present political atmosphere in the US and Europe, anybody who expresses criticism of Israel�s policies is immediately silenced as an anti-Semite. Part of the reason why the pro-Israel lobbies have been so successful in their use of this accusation is the massive lack of knowledge about what is really happening in Israel-Palestine. Without the facts, the dominant narrative remains that Israel is struggling to defend its very existence. Attention focuses mainly on the horrible, despicable Palestinian terror; hence critics of Israel are often accused of justifying terror. |
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