Why the fuck does Isreal just "surround" Arafat's compound..

[K.A.R.R.]

How many arabs do you know personally? Do you know any Palestinians? Have you spoken to them about their daily lives under Israeli occupation? Have you discussed the situation with them at length? I have.

Those are some good questions. When you stop seeing a particular people as mere nightly news characters and begin to learn about their history, culture, and religion, you get to see their humanity and understand their motives and actions.

Now, may I ask you a couple of questions?

How many Jews do you know personally? Do you know any Israelis? Have you spoken to them about their daily lives in Israel? Have you discussed the situation with them at length?

As for the rest of your post (especially the part about creating Israel in Montana), it only reveals your near-complete lack of knowledge of Middle Eastern history. Also, do a little research on the concept of dhimmi in Islam. Anti-Jewish hatred and violent persecution in the Arab world existed for centuries prior to the establishment of Israel.

 

[MattTheSkywalker]

Maybe massive investment in the area would help matters, as poverty rarely helps things, extremists prey on the poor and destitute...

Yes! massive investment would help!!

And you know who would be the perfect group to subsidize that investment? The oil-drenched, super wealthy royalty in the Middle East!!

The King of Saudi Arabia, instead of paying thousands of people off to prevent his overthrow, could throw a few bucks that way. So could UAE; plenty of dollars over there. Imagine that - Muslims helping each other. Isn't one of their 5 pillars "alms to the poor?"

You know who is investing in the area? Saddam Hussein! He has offered $25,000 to the surviving family of a suicide bomber. Did you know that Saddam is the greatest killer of Muslims in the last 100 years?

Meanwhile, Israel lets native born Arabs vote (nowhere else in the Middle East would do that). Those brutes!

You know, instead of blaimg the Muslims for the terrorism, we should blame the Mongols. After all, it was Genghis Khan's army who killed the caliph in the 1200's and ended the golden age of Islam. They still haven't recovered. Damn Genghis.

 

[the nature boy]

You know who is investing in the area? Saddam Hussein! He has offered $25,000 to the surviving family of a suicide bomber. Did you know that Saddam is the greatest killer of Muslims in the last 100 years?

hmmm, I wonder who put him into power. it escapes me. maybe you know.

 

[circusgirl]

To answer some more questions -

Do I know any Jews? yes, I do.
Israelis? There are a few working here in the dept.

Have I discussed the situation at length with them? Not at length. I know one of them disapproves of the expansionist policies of the current Israeli govt because he occasionally makes anti-sharon comments.

I can see that for Israelis, the situation is fairly shitty. World powers say, hey, come and live here (I believe Uganda was also mentioned at one point as possible site for Israel), zionists propose current territory of Israel as location, people arrive, oh shit, we forgot to tell you, the house is real nice but the neighbours suck....

For Palestinians, British etc kick them off their land. Not being the greatest graspers of world politics, Palestinians fail to realise that world powers and not a couple of hundred thousand war refugees are at fault here.

Shitty situation escalates.

People born in Israel, just told, these crazy arabs just hate you and want to kill you. AFAIK it is not the case that the Jewish communities in places like Jerba in Tunisia were persecuted a great deal BEFORE the foundation of Israel. However, after this, the jewish communities in these places had to leave because they were perceived as being allied with Israel. So, not much choice there, hey, go to Israel and get attacked all the time. One of the books that has featured prominently on the best seller list in Israel recently is calle "How to get a foreign passport". I understand that they feel trapped and under seige, there are so many arabs and so few of them, and Israel is pretty damn small in size in comparison. They can't leave, they are cornered, so they fight, and fight dirty, just to make sure.

Understanding does not equal sympathising, and this does not, in my opinion, excuse the behaviour of the Israeli govt for the last 20 years. They have practiced torture and murder on a massive scale and oppressed the Palestinians, and now the Palestinians CONTINUE to see those nasty Israelis as the source of all the trouble, when strictly speaking, they now are, but were not to begin with... The govt should know better, they have many employees whose job is to know better.
More to the point, it is just storing up more trouble and escalating the situation.

I do not equate the policy of a govt with the views of every citizen. I do not agree with many of Blair's policies here, nor do quite a lot of the population. I would be justifiably pissed off if I was held accountable for it abroad.

The situation now is, the Israelis are there, the Palestinians are there. Best thing is to TALK and stop killing each other. However from what I know this intifada started because the Israelis were busy being shitty to the Palestinian authority, and not really letting them make a go of it. I do NOT think the Pastinians are justified in being suicide bombers, however, if they attacked some Israeli military installations, I would not be crying a great deal.

As for a lot of the govts in the area being assholes, I agree, most arab states illtreat their citizens terribly. And there was/is quite a bit of corruption in the current Palestinian authority, much as you get in arab society (or indeed, western society) when influence is more important than hard work.

circusgirl

 

[K.A.R.R.]

To answer some more questions -

Do I know any Jews? yes, I do.
Israelis? There are a few working here in the dept.

Have I discussed the situation at length with them? Not at length.

Not at length? Sounds like you don't know these people well. Overhearing one anti-Sharon remark does not really constitute a conversation.

I find it rather odd how you stress the importance of discussing these really complicated issues in detail with the people who either live there or hail from there, yet you fail to realize that it's a two-way street. For every Palestinian view, there's an Israeli one.

If you really want to understand Israelis, and Jews elsewhere in the world, read up on the litany of anti-Jewish violence that reached its apex in the Holocaust. There's a point in a people's history when they say "enough is enough."

People born in Israel, just told, these crazy arabs just hate you and want to kill you. AFAIK it is not the case that the Jewish communities in places like Jerba in Tunisia were persecuted a great deal BEFORE the foundation of Israel. However, after this, the jewish communities in these places had to leave because they were perceived as being allied with Israel.

No, people born in Israel are not told or taught that there are Arabs who hate them. They can see it for themselves when their 3-year-old niece is blown to pieces at an ice-cream parlor, or when they find out that their 24-year-old daughter was decapitated in a bus blast on her way to work. This hatred is real.

Again, you don't know much about the history of the Jews in the Arab world. I'm assuming you mentioned Jerba, Tunisia because it was recently on the news as the sight of a synagogue bombing. Did you do a search on the concept of dhimma in Islam? You should. The Jews were persecuted a great deal from Morocco and Algeria to Yemen and Iraq way before the establishment of Israel. Oh, and the explanation of "alleged alliance" that you provided above is really just Arab propaganda. It didn't happen like that - what did happen is that pan-Arab nationalism, which began to flourish in the late 19th century, only reinforced traditional anti-Jewish beliefs and practices in various Arab societies and often led to deadly anti-Jewish massacres that fused old religious prejudices with modern ideological motives. Violent anti-Jewish persecution existed in the Arab world prior to the emergence of modern Arab nationalism, but it acquired new ideological characteristics, often borrowed from various European racial theorists, during the late 19th and 20th centuries. This hatred escalated just prior to and immediately following the establishment of Israel - but it's always been there.

You could also do a little research on what the Palestinian Arabs did in the 1920's and 1930's BEFORE the establishment of Israel. That is when the Arabs raped, maimed, and killed hundreds of Jews for simply being in Palestine.

Understanding does not equal sympathising, and this does not, in my opinion, excuse the behaviour of the Israeli govt for the last 20 years. They have practiced torture and murder on a massive scale and oppressed the Palestinians, and now the Palestinians CONTINUE to see those nasty Israelis as the source of all the trouble, when strictly speaking, they now are, but were not to begin with... The govt should know better, they have many employees whose job is to know better.
More to the point, it is just storing up more trouble and escalating the situation..

I love your "value neutral" statements, i.e., "those nasty Israelis."

Other than that, and some simplifying, almost propagandistic exaggeration that takes political events out of context, there's some truth in what you just said.

As for a lot of the govts in the area being assholes, I agree, most arab states illtreat their citizens terribly. And there was/is quite a bit of corruption in the current Palestinian authority, much as you get in arab society (or indeed, western society) when influence is more important than hard work. circusgirl

Most Arab governments are fascist regimes; they're either oppressive monarchies or totalitarian regimes (with few exceptions, e.g., the moderate kingdoms of Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, etc.). Syria and Iraq are ruled by the Baath party, which is short for the Arab National Socialist Movement (refer to one of my paragraphs above on Arab nationalism). That's right, that's National Socialist - they're Nazi. As long as these regimes continue to exist and support extremist Palestinian groups, there will never be any peace in that area. Also, let's not forget that millions upon millions of Arabs have been brainwashed since childhood with Nazi-type anti-Semitic propaganda. This problem also needs to be addressed in order to have real peace.

 

[circusgirl]

erm "those nasty israelis" was a sarcastic comment.