Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Yes, you're right, hypocrisy does not suit you well. You should think about stopping it soon.
You keep bringing up starving Palestnians. They have plenty of food, don't yu worry about them.
And you're not upsetting anyone. I really don't give a damn what you or people like you think. Whether you feel the need to pass judgment on the ligitimacy of another country, based on lies, is up to you.
Much as it upsets me to admit it, I do care a fair bit what you think, because it's people like you who enable the subjugation of an entire nation of people through apathy and indifference. If it wasn't for this international apathy then Israel would have to face real scrutiny and the international pressure would be more capable of keeping its behaviour in check. My intention wasn't to upset you, but you made my day when you claimed in the same paragraph that the Palestinians are terrorising the Israeli's and that Israel is 'pummelling' the Gazans in response.
Now you've accused me of several things which are very serious. Firstly you called me a hypocrite, a claim I've already addressed. I'm not applying a double standard anywhere so I ask you to withdraw your remark. Secondly you say that I 'pass judgement on the legitimacy of another country based on lies'. Yet you do not identify where I am supposed to have "lied" thus robbing me of the ability to defend my integrity.
Thirdly you have mis-represented me again by inferring that I said that the Palestinians are 'starving'. I said that they are malnourished as the result of the blockade. That is the finding of the Red Cross organisation, not some 'lie' which I have invented. They are forced to live on food handouts because their economy has been crippled, their diet is largely rice, sugar and oils and this is stunting the growth of their children. They used to fish which provided additional nutrients but now Israel shoots Palestinian fishermen who go further than 3 miles offshore stopping them using their big boats. Many Palestinian farmers are prevented from walking directly to their own farmland which is behind the illegal barrier that Israel has constructed further limiting the Palestinians ability to alter their own circumstances.
Now you've accused me of several things which are very serious. Firstly you called me a hypocrite, a claim I've already addressed. I'm not applying a double standard anywhere so I ask you to withdraw your remark.
Bravo Eoin, I can only complain that you've understated your own case. There is a very good case to be made FOR a double-standard, specifically because the Jews are invaders and colonists and thieves and the Arabs aren't.
Bravo Eoin, I can only complain that you've understated your own case. There is a very good case to be made FOR a double-standard, specifically because the Jews are invaders and colonists and thieves and the Arabs aren't.
On what basis are you claiming that the Arabs are not invaders? Most of the area was desolate before the Zionists started returning to the area. After the Jews started to reinvigorate the local economy, Arabs from the surrounding areas came to live in Palestine.
What about the Caliph Umar? Was he not a Islamic conqueror? (See Caliph Umar: Conqueror of Jerusalem - Early Islam: Historical Figures - GoJerusalem.com)
What about the Jews that have lived in the area for generations? They are not invaders, colonists or thieves.
Chava we're arguing at odds here. I'm not saying that no Palestinian has ever been permitted to leave Gaza for medical treatment. However the truth of the matter is that Israel enforces a bureaucratic procedure on people needing emergency treatment. In order for a Palestinian to leave Gaza for medical treatment they must get a permit from Israel. Amnesty International quotes the World Health Organisation as saying that 28 patients died in Gaza while waiting for a permit from Israel to leave for medical treatment in 2009. The permits can be delayed for months with no explanation from Israel, all the while the patient suffers without even knowing whether they will be permitted to travel. http://www.amnesty.org.uk/uploads/do.../doc_20057.pdf
You're right that what the Nazi's did in Warsaw was "worse" than what Israel is doing in Gaza, but there is still a comparison for the reasons I gave before. When one makes a comparison one is not comparing every minutiae of what happened in one instance versus another. If one were to ask the question, "Which world situation in 2011 is similar on the most levels with the Warsaw Ghetto" then there is only one answer - Gaza.
You say that Palestinians 'bombard' Israel with rockets, and you're correct that they do. However the fact remains that in 7 years of relatively continuous firings these rockets have killed 13 Israeli's. If you watch the following documentary (it's in 18 parts, just click the links after the preceeding one ends) you can see more dead Palestinians as seen by one video journalist in the course of a week in Gaza. The documentary is amazing, it's amateurish on many levels but because it isn't highly edited like a normal news report then you see the stuff which goes on which doesn't tend to be reported.
On what basis are you claiming that the Arabs are not invaders?
On the basis that most of them had been around for 1200 years before the Jews came back.
Quote:
Most of the area was desolate before the Zionists started returning to the area. After the Jews started to reinvigorate the local economy, Arabs from the surrounding areas came to live in Palestine.
What about the Caliph Umar? Was he not a Islamic conqueror? (See Caliph Umar: Conqueror of Jerusalem - Early Islam: Historical Figures - GoJerusalem.com)
What about the Jews that have lived in the area for generations? They are not invaders, colonists or thieves.
Nobody ever denied anything that belonged to the Jews who in Palestine then.
Most of the area was desolate before the Zionists started returning to the area.
This is not true Chava. Read the following passage written Ahad Ha'am in 1891. (Ahad Ha'am was one of the foremost pre-Zionists and most Israeli towns have streets named after him.)
From abroad, we are accustomed to believe that Eretz Israel is presently almost totally desolate, an uncultivated desert, and that anyone wishing to buy land there can come and buy all he wants. But in truth it is not so. In the entire land, it is hard to find tillable land that is not already tilled; only sandy fields or stony hills, suitable at best for planting trees or vines and, even that after considerable work and expense in clearing and preparing them- only these remain unworked. ... Many of our people who came to buy land have been in Eretz Israel for months, and have toured its length and width, without finding what they seek
Pro-Zionists are quick to spoon feed lies like, "A land without a people for a people without a land." They're quick to try and argue that Arabs emigrated to Palestine after thr Jews had arrived. Nothing could be further from the truth. Check out Demographics of Palestine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia There are ample statistics showing what the population looked like prior to the huge Zionist migrations and there is no doubt among any academics that the population was considerable, and that there was a clear Arab Muslim majority.
The Arabs had been there continuously for hundreds if not thousands of years. These Zionists authors in concert with the Israeli Government, contort the truth at every available opportunity so that are not forced into the position of having to concede that Israels foundation was illegitimate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chava61
What about the Jews that have lived in the area for generations? They are not invaders, colonists or thieves.
Chava how can you even question the relevance of the Arabs having been conquerers hundreds of years ago? If you want to go further back this logic you're using will backfire, surely you know this right?
18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girga****es and Jebusites.” [e] Genesis 15 (verses 18 - 21)
If you reckon that the Jews have some sort of unalienable right to Israel, then it cannot be because they were conquered out of the place, because they conquered the area in the first place!
The only possible defence you can use is that God told the Jews that it's their right to have the land, and if you seriously believe that then you should write to Richard Dawkins expressing your feelings in full, so that he has some more ammo for his next book.
...and do we wonder why they can't get along? We're all so very *human*.
Apologies here southward bound, I'm sure you're an outstanding person and you're picking up on the unpleasantness inherent in our argument. You react in an adult manner and I hope that if I've been needlessly provocative then I can temper my responses in future. However there is a very grave risk which the, "Why can't they all just get along" attitude brings to the Israel/Palestine debate.
If somebody ejected you from your home, and you called the police, and then the police took the attitude that you should "Just get along" with the person who rendered you homeless, then you could be excused for being somewhat angry with the police and the person who stole from you.
Trying to 'get along' with the perpetrator of your injustice will not resolve the problem because such a move would be in the favour of the criminal who stole from you, and would ruin any chance you have to get your property back. Unfortunately, this necessitates making a judgement as to who is right and who is wrong, and in the case of Israel making a judgement which will be against the wishes of one party or the other.
This is not true Chava. Read the following passage written Ahad Ha'am in 1891. (Ahad Ha'am was one of the foremost pre-Zionists and most Israeli towns have streets named after him.)
From abroad, we are accustomed to believe that Eretz Israel is presently almost totally desolate, an uncultivated desert, and that anyone wishing to buy land there can come and buy all he wants. But in truth it is not so. In the entire land, it is hard to find tillable land that is not already tilled; only sandy fields or stony hills, suitable at best for planting trees or vines and, even that after considerable work and expense in clearing and preparing them- only these remain unworked. ... Many of our people who came to buy land have been in Eretz Israel for months, and have toured its length and width, without finding what they seek
Pro-Zionists are quick to spoon feed lies like, "A land without a people for a people without a land." They're quick to try and argue that Arabs emigrated to Palestine after thr Jews had arrived. Nothing could be further from the truth. Check out Demographics of Palestine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia There are ample statistics showing what the population looked like prior to the huge Zionist migrations and there is no doubt among any academics that the population was considerable, and that there was a clear Arab Muslim majority..
Eoin
Mark Twain, who visited Palestine in 1867, described it as:
“ ...[a] desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds-a silent mournful expanse....A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action....We never saw a human being on the whole route....There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”
So this is an early time period than the one you quoted and it is a known fact that many Arabs moved to Palestine after the Zionist Jews came and simulated the local economy.
Chava how can you even question the relevance of the Arabs having been conquerers hundreds of years ago? If you want to go further back this logic you're using will backfire, surely you know this right?
18 On that day the LORD made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— 19 the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, 20 Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, 21 Amorites, Canaanites, Girga****es and Jebusites.” [e] Genesis 15 (verses 18 - 21)
If you reckon that the Jews have some sort of unalienable right to Israel, then it cannot be because they were conquered out of the place, because they conquered the area in the first place!
The only possible defence you can use is that God told the Jews that it's their right to have the land, and if you seriously believe that then you should write to Richard Dawkins expressing your feelings in full, so that he has some more ammo for his next book.
Eoin
Abraham/Abram didn't conquer the land although according to the Bible it was promised to his offspring.
As for the Arab conquerors they came after the Jews who had the land first and there has a been group of Jews in the area continuously since Biblical times.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
