Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Discussion of science, technology, politics, and other topics that aren't strictly philosophical.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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His site appears to be down since today. Zionist hackers! ;)
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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Talking about conspiracy theory: Israel and her supporters always have operated in the top league. Like today: Israeli Ambassador Dan Ashbel declared that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) “has been taken over by Hamas and is being used as a weapon against its own people.”

It's not enough to see infiltrating and conspiring Arabs abroad they have to be distrusted and demonized ['terrorfied'] inside Israeli borders as well: Arab parties disqualified from elections. Nice move though, if it won't be overruled in court.

Barring 20% of a population from meaningful elections (in normal countries called 'the opposition' or ethnic variety), added to the multiple of that amount of refugees which are not allowed to return to their '48 homeland and you get the picture of a sham democracy.

Zionists know very well they can only exist by letting the other not-exist in a shared space which is done by objectifying them out of existence, downgrading them to 'problem' to be solved, to 'threat' or 'terror'. Don't talk about motives, people, children, culture, history, the whole social being of a Palestine. Just talk about Hamas hiding in hospitals, don't mention Hamas building the thing, just talk about killers and pursuit and weeding out. Watch the language, follow the discourse and topic and witness the psychology.
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vicdan
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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Isn't it cute? Israel bars from running two of the arab parties -- on the ostensible grounds that they oppose Israel's very existence. Arguably a bad move, but in the hands of certain people, this suddenly transforms into disenfranchising the entire 20% of Israel which arabs comprise.

BTW, Balad was banned from elections before, and that decision was overturned by israel's Supreme Court.

Anyway, in the most recent election, Balad and UAL together took only 5% of the vote -- a quarter of the arab population. Even if the ban is upheld -- and I hope it's overturned -- that would be very far from denying israeli arabs a voice.

What i find instructive is how every fact is perverted and twisted against Israel. You are in your usual top form, Diebert.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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Lets not forget, for the sake of balance, that the thinking inside Hamas historically has been just as conspiracy minded as their opponent, seeing Zionist influence in every worldly institution that was somehow seen as disadvantaging them.

Any road towards peace starts with losing some of that paranoid delusional mindset. Just like real life!
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Lets not forget, for the sake of balance, that the thinking inside Hamas historically has been just as conspiracy minded as their opponent, seeing Zionist influence in every worldly institution that was somehow seen as disadvantaging them.

Any road towards peace starts with losing some of that paranoid delusional mindset. Just like real life!
Haven't lost your mojo, have you?

Hamas is officially, constitutionally committed to the eradication of Israel. This is a brute fact of the world. To equate the fear of Hamas influence with the paranoid anti-semitism is disingenuous to say the least.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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Probably no point in asking what you think of this story.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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Why don't you ask, and find out?
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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Ok, so, what do you think of that story, (he asked, rolling the quantum die)?
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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  1. Hamas didn't in fact endorse the initiative. The Hamas officials backpedaled on the spokesman's words. While it's not clear whether the spokesman was speaking wrongly or whether some internal Hamas kerfuffle caused the position change, the fact is that Hamas did not in fact accept that initiative.
  2. The initiative is certainly a step forward, but it's an extremely raw deal. it has two major problems -- it ignores the Israeli security concerns (the very reason for the 1967 war which re-drew the map), and it speaks of the palestinian refugee problem while completely ignoring the jewish refugee problem -- the jews who fled the muslim world after Israel was established. The latter was larger both in sheer numbers and in financial impact, and yet all those arab countries which endorsed the Saudi peace initiative didn't say one word about a correspondingly fair settlement of the jewish refugee problem.
I think this initiative might be an acceptable starting point for further negotiations. It certainly cannot stand in its current form though.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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vicdan wrote:Isn't it cute? Israel bars from running two of the arab parties -- on the ostensible grounds that they oppose Israel's very existence.
At some point everything starts looking as a threat to ones existence, if that existence has become based in something too far from any reality principle.

They are against any exclusive Jewish identity of the State, desiring it to be really bilingual and multicultural. That is normal when feeling part of 20% of the population. No matter if being Jew is seen as religious or ethnic, Arab citizens have the right to believe in a different government even if this is technically a 'threat' to the current self-imposed nature of that State.

Now you can say Victor that 'only' 5% of the vote [25% of the Arabs] went to those two parties but one doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to understand that these numbers could be quite different under current circumstances. The parties they usual voted on [and it's normal to want to vote on larger parties] have changed quite a bit on topics important to them recently.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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vicdan wrote:Hamas is officially, constitutionally committed to the eradication of Israel.
Meaning what? Just that they see Israel as illegal in how they have set up their state and want many things changed or undone.

They seem to have left that 'constitutional' element out of their latest election manifest though. The fact that people radically disagree with you doesn't mean there cannot be a compromise at some point. This is also Arab culture to a certain degree, they always state their goals in the extremes even in little things.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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hamas charter:

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).

"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "

"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."

"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying."
yup, sounds moderate and slightly misunderstood. The Protocols reference was surely a subtle joke, too.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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vicdan wrote:Section 19:
If a dog attacks an animal or chases a horse being ridden, the owner or person in charge of the dog is guilty of an offence.
Seems obvious, eh? Ah, but see that word, 'owner'? it applies only to owned dogs, i.e. it applies only to dogs as pertaining to humans.
Well sure, because that legislation assumes that every dog has an owner, and if a dog doesn't have an owner, or if it is currently beyond the control of its owner, then it is classed as a dog at large, which an authorised person may seize and detain, and try to return to its owner; yes, one option if the owner cannot be found is to destroy the dog, and clearly this is a horrible outcome for the dog - I wish that it didn't happen, and we would not do it to a homeless person - however: (a) homeless people are not as hopeless a case as stray dogs (here in Australia, at least, they have the option of getting on the welfare system), (b) it is a matter of practicality given the current structure of society (stray dogs don't have many survival options), and (c) the law stipulates that ownerless dogs must be killed without undue suffering; and anyway, I've already admitted that the law is to some extent prejudiced against animals.

The legal stipulation that a dog must have an owner makes sense from the perspective that humans are responsible for having bred dogs into an essentially dependent species, so all that the law is doing is making sure that all dogs have someone responsible for them. Sure, this benefits human beings, but it also benefits dogs.
vicdan wrote:So this law doesn't show any care for harm to animals in general. it shows care for harm to owned animals, and to native animals (which pose a special interest to australian society).
You could have just said that it omits feral animals. Granted, this denies feral animals protection from suffering, and I don't agree with that at all - but I don't think that it's necessary to posit that this omission is solely based on "interest to [human] Australian society": feral animals wreak havoc on the native ecosystem, throwing it out of balance and killing off native species, so it's also out of consideration of the rights of the native animal inhabitants of Australia that feral animals are discriminated against.
vicdan wrote:On the other hand, it posits simply chasing a ridden horse to be as great an offense as, say, killing another pet (and a greater harm than killing e.g. a rabbit), even though merely chasing a horse doesn't harm it. However, I imagine human riders don't like being chased by dogs.
OK, on this one you might have a point. I'm a bit bemused as to why this clause exists in the first place anyway, though. I don't think that the average dog has much chance against the average horse when it comes to a fight. Perhaps the reasoning is that on its own, a horse is free to defend itself as it sees fit.
vicdan wrote:Furthermore, did you notice the title of that law?

DOG CONTROL ACT

it's not a law about dog behavior, it's a law about human control of dog behavior. Again, it's not about dogs, it's about humans relating to dogs. It's not about protecting all animals, it's about protecting animals of interest to humans -- native animals and owned animals.
As I pointed out above, humans are assumed to be in control of dogs due to the dependency that we have bred them into, so the title of this legislation isn't particularly surprising.
vicdan wrote:Are you noticing the pattern yet?
Not the pattern that you want me to recognise, but let me clarify a few things. I've already accepted that our legislation is to some extent prejudiced against animals; also, given that most people eat meat, it is untenable for me to argue that our society protects animals to the same extent that it protects humans. All that I am actually arguing, though, is that your position that we only care about animals to the extent that they have value to us, and that we only care about their suffering to the extent that it is proximal and makes us feel bad, is false: it is too black-and-white; the reality is more complex.
vicdan wrote:or will you continue to delude yourself and call me a cynic? That was rather amusing, given the etymology of the word 'cynic'.
Now all that you need to do is roll over. :-)
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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vicdan wrote: yup, sounds moderate and slightly misunderstood. The Protocols reference was surely a subtle joke, too.
Well, I did mention they are equal masters of conspiracy and make-belief just a few posts back. It's easy to point out extreme positions in the other, especially when they express themselves in an alien context, while not seeing ones own.

One of the main problems is this idea you cannot negotiate with a party that believes in the undoing of the things you have created. Or that they are not allowed to have wacko ideals in the back of their head. This is all very arbitrary after all, it implies some universal standard which just doesn't exist in real politics.

As for the much heard violence to be 'renounced' - one has to define violence as the situation where one feels violated. To start counting rockets against raids is to be alienated from the real world. In that world the violence doesn't always stop when arms are put away. Zionists should understand that especially.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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No wonder Palestinians so believe in the powers of a Zionist cabal: Olmert says called Bush to force change in U.N. vote
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said a telephone call he made to U.S. President George W. Bush last week forced Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to abstain in a U.N. vote on the Gaza war, leaving her "shamed."

Olmert said he then told Bush: "...you can't vote in favour.'

"He gave an order to the secretary of state and she did not vote in favour of it -- a resolution she cooked up, phrased, organised and manoeuvred for. She was left pretty shamed and abstained on a resolution she arranged," Olmert said. -
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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Diebert van Rhijn wrote:Well, I did mention they are equal masters of conspiracy and make-belief just a few posts back. It's easy to point out extreme positions in the other, especially when they express themselves in an alien context, while not seeing ones own.
As I pointed out earlier, it's ludicrous to ascribe equal degrees of paranoia, hatred, and conspiracy theorizing to zionism and Hamas.

I find this kinda amusing, in a perverse way. So it's not enough to draw moral equivalence between them -- you must now draw the epistemic equivalence as well...
One of the main problems is this idea you cannot negotiate with a party that believes in the undoing of the things you have created. Or that they are not allowed to have wacko ideals in the back of their head. This is all very arbitrary after all, it implies some universal standard which just doesn't exist in real politics.
There is nothing arbitrary about it. While I don't really support the idea of refusing to negotiate with Hamas, the notion that you can't reasonably negotiate peace with someone who is constitutionally committed to your death doesn't seem at all arbitrary to me.
No wonder Palestinians so believe in the powers of a Zionist cabal
Right, because calling in a favor from your ally is exactly like believing a deranged conspiracy theory about a world-bestriding secret cabal of baby-blood-drinkers. Exactly like it!
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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vicdan wrote:So it's not enough to draw moral equivalence between them -- you must now draw the epistemic equivalence as well...
Sure, you tell me the difference:
  • Declaring a Jewish State with a defined Jewish identity by expelling many of the inhabitants and letting them live on a strip under third world level circumstances because they're now a security risk
or
  • Aiming for an Islamic Waqf thereby forcing the Jews to move abroad or suffer Islamic rule over them. Perhaps they'll get their own strip out of security concerns [as Jews will lop rockets too I'm sure, non-stop].
I'm not aware Hamas has said anything about wiping out Jewish people. They actually believe that all religions can "coexist in security and safety where their lives, possessions and rights are concerned".

Of course many Jews would believe [justified or not, this is another discussion] another holocaust would come sooner or later but apart from that belief: where is the epistemic difference according to you?
the notion that you can't reasonably negotiate peace with someone who is constitutionally committed to your death doesn't seem at all arbitrary to me.
That's what the whites in South-Africa must have said: do you want us to give up our privileged rule, they will kill us all! They also had this belief they brought so many good things to the country, they "embodied modernity" and that the blacks should 'self-determine' themselves, but please not here.
... calling in a favor from your ally is exactly like believing a deranged conspiracy theory about a world-bestriding secret cabal of baby-blood-drinkers. Exactly like it!
By the looks of it they are indeed at the same level, apart from the fact that the phone-call to Bush telling him what to do as well as the baby-killing are both done quite openly nowadays. We're living in the times of revelations!
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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Diebert writes:

"Declaring a Jewish State with a defined Jewish identity by expelling many of the inhabitants and letting them live on a strip under third world level circumstances because they're now a security risk".

Recovering or reasserting control over an land area traditionally a Jewish possession, by a people who held to the notion of their nationhood relentlessly without ever giving up on the idea of their possession of the land, is a very different way to state the problem. It is one of the only cases, that I know of, where a people have been in the situation of exile and who have many (thousands of) years later reasserted themselves in their traditional homeland. But, since you simply cannot and will not accept any part of this as fact, as a legitimate reason for possessing that land, you will never appear on the 'page of reality' that is a core truth for most Jews, and most Israelis I think. If I remember correctly, you have all sorts of information that makes the 'fact' of exile a trick, a deception, a manoeuvre on the part of Jews. Also, Jewish identity is for you a similar (no-) thing. You have tricky ways to pop Jewish identity like the bubble of an opium smoker, and for you it is not a real thing, not a considerable thing. Then, you also recur to a group of legalisms to make the fact of Israel disappear into a dark cloud if illegality. This is pretty much the core of your arguments, and all those who are attracted to them.

"Aiming for an Islamic Waqf thereby forcing the Jews to move abroad or suffer Islamic rule over them. Perhaps they'll get their own strip out of security concerns [as Jews will lop rockets too I'm sure, non-stop]."

With this, it seems to me, you have strikingly described reality. You have reduced it to the final and basic point and made the truth stand out. There is a pole of view which asserts just what you say, and they will do everything in their power and use everything at their disposal to achieve their aim. All cultures operate on such a basis especially when they are conquering cultures, and certainly Islamic culture has this sort of thrust.

I 'chose' to assert and reassert the core fact (which can be presented, explained and defended): that this area is the historical possession of Israel, the people who define themselves as Jews. Recent history provided Jews with a unique opportunity, which they took, and maximized, and as I see things have no intention of backing away from.

You, the entire Arab world, all your friends and neighbors, can take the side of Israel's (pretty much openly declared mortal) enemies (not by Jewish definition but by Arab definition, and stated thus), and you seem to. Am I wrong to see this as the core of your position? But there is another alternative, and that is to defend Israel in its process of reestablishing itself, even if, say, you don't agree with every element if 'it'. That is the angle that I try to take with many people. But, often, what rises in them is the same old strains of prejudice, and the core idea that the Jews are up to diabolical activities and 'good Christians' must step in to protect the victims of Jewish wrong-doing.

(You should have seen the opinion-pieces about the Israeli attack on Hamas here in my South American city, along with snippets from Biblical accounts on the same page, just a few days before Christmas.) But I must have already told you the joke about the man who killed the dog who was on the verge of ripping a little French girl to shreds, right?

---Tell us your name, friend, tomorrow you'll be known all throughout the land as the Frenchman who killed the evil dog and saved the girl!
---Um, But I'm not French...
---No matter, tomorrow's headlines will read "Brave European saves girl from killer dog'.
---But I'm not European either.
---Then where are you from?
---Israel
---(Pained Silence) Oh, in that case the headlines will read: 'Vicious Israeli Kills Little Girl's Defenseless Dog'
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Dan Rowden
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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This land is mine!!!!

Brings a tear to the eye. Sniff, sniff.
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Diebert van Rhijn
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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Alex Jacob wrote:Recovering or reasserting control over an land area traditionally a Jewish possession, by a people who held to the notion of their nationhood relentlessly without ever giving up on the idea of their possession of the land, is a very different way to state the problem.
Certainly the idea of exclusive possession of The Land has always been important in Judaism but not as pure political, unconditional [in terms of Judaic Law] idea. That's something steadily grown way later.

If we keep with the harder facts: to be Palestinian plainly means to be an original inhabitant of the area, containing branches of Islamic, Christian and Jewish roots. It would have still included Jews too if they wouldn't have excluded themselves, not only by intention [although Judaism offers quite a few hooks for that] but also as consequence of their moderate immersion into other cultures. When arriving back at Palestine, one remains foreign for quite a while with all the discrimination and distrust that all foreigners always receive during the more difficult times.

The question whose possession the land traditionally was, from a geopolitical point of view at least, is a complex discussion. Many groups could claim a piece of the pie that way, claiming periods of dominion in administrative sense or spheres of influence and inter-marriage with locals . The major realization needed here is that there's no base for exclusive ownership to be found in current historical analysis apart from the rather unspecific and varied Palestinians, not necessarily excluding Jews.

One should at least explore the viewpoint that saw the immigrating Jews increasingly as distant cousins who once left and of which many underwent centuries of exposure to different civilizations, different cultures which didn't leave them unchanged, even when they tried and thought they remained true to old traditions. The Jew coming back from exile is then seen increasingly as invading, violating, domineering - representing something entirely different than what was traditionally seen as Palestinian, as original inhabitant with claims [by locals or the ruling administration of a period] and the settler movement becomes very much like an attempt in colonization of a style abandoned somewhere in the 19th century but suddenly re-applied in the 20th century after intense lobbying. As all colonialism it was steeped increasingly in asymmetric power relations, perhaps initially accepted and welcomed but when teeth and claws were finally shown, initial enthusiasm would be steadily replaced by a booming resistance to the process.
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

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Diebert van Rhijn wrote:If we keep with the harder facts: to be Palestinian plainly means to be an original inhabitant of the area
Oh? I got news for you.
Unknown to most of the world population, the origin of the "Palestinian" Arabs' claim to the Holy Land spans a period of a meager 30 years - a drop in the bucket compared to the thousands of years of the region's rich history.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there were practically no Arabs in the Holy Land. By contrast, Hebrews, despite 2000 years of persecution and forced conversions by various conquerors, have always made up the majority of the population here. When General Allenby, the commander of the British military forces, conquered Palestine in 1917/18, only about 5000 Arabs resided here. Other Moslems in the area either came from Turkey under the Ottoman Empire, or were the descendants of Hebrews and christians who were forcefully converted to Islam by the Moslem conquerors. None of these other Moslems were of Arabic origin.

The local inhabitants did not call themselves "Palestinians". The concept of a "Palestinian" to describe the local residents has not yet been invented; neither was there ever in history a "Palestinian Arab" nation. None of today's Arabs have any ancestral relationship to the original Biblical P'lishtians who are now extinct. Even Arab historians have admitted that "Palestine" never existed:
In 1937, the Arab leader Auni Bey Abdul Hadi told the Peel Commission: "There is no such country as Palestine. Palestine is a term the Zionists invented. Palestine is alien to us."

In 1946, Princeton's Arab professor of Middle East history, Philip Hitti, told the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry: "It's common knowledge, there is no such thing as Palestine in history."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, an executive member of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), said in an interview to the Dutch newspaper Dagblad de Verdieping Trouw: "The 'Palestinian people' does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

Mark Twain - real name Samuel Clemens, the famous author of Tom Sawyer and its sequel Huckleberry Finn - took a tour of the Holy Land in 1867. This is how he described that land: "A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. 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 a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country."

In 1874, Reverend Samuel Manning wrote: "...But where were the inhabitants? This fertile plain, which might support an immense population, is almost a solitude... Day by day we were to learn afresh the lesson now forced upon us, that the denunciations of ancient prophecy have been fulfilled to the very letter - "the land is left void and desolate and without inhabitants."
In a report to the Palestinian Royal Commission (created by the British), there is an account of the conditions on the coastal plain along the Mediterranean Sea in 1913:
"The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track, suitable for transport by camels or carts. No orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached the [Jewish] Yabna [Yavneh] village. Houses were mud. Schools did not exist. The western part toward the sea was almost a desert. The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many villages were deserted by their inhabitants."
The Arabs who now claim to be natives of the Holy Land migrated to "Palestine" after 1918 from neighbouring Arab countries, predominantly from what are now Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. None of these countries existed as nations prior to 1913. They were nothing but a disorganised collection of tribes, constantly terrorising each other, trying to seize land from their neighbours. Unfortunately, those Arab immigrants, imported into the Holy Land their age-old culture of terrorising neighbours to seize land. Many of them were social outcasts and criminals who couldn't find jobs in their own countries so they searched for their luck elsewhere. Some of them were accepted by the British regime as a source of cheap labour and were allowed to settle on unoccupied Hebrew land in the Holy Land. Even Yassir Ara'fat, the leader of the PLO, is not a native of the Holy Land. He was born in 1929 in Cairo, Egypt. He served in the Egyptian army, studied in the University of Cairo, and lived in Cairo until 1956. He then moved to Saudi-Arabia and, in 1958, together with his Saudi-Arabian friends, founded the Al-Fatah terror organisation (precursor to the PLO) in Kuwait.

Lewis French, the British Director of Development wrote about the Arabs in the Holy Land:
"We found it inhabited by fellahin [Arab farmers] who lived in mud hovels and suffered severely from the prevalent malaria... Large areas were uncultivated... The fellahin, if not themselves cattle thieves, were always ready to harbour these and other criminals. The individual plots changed hands annually. There was little public security, and the fellahin's lot was an alternation of pillage and blackmail by their neighbours, the Bedouin [Arab nomads]."
The governor of the Syrian district of Hauran [the Biblical Haran], Tewfik Bey El Hurani, admitted in 1934 that in a single period of only a few months over 30,000 Syrians from Hauran had moved to Palestine. Even British Prime Minister Winston Churchill noted the Arab influx. Churchill, a veteran of the early years of the British mandate in the Holy Land, noted in 1939 that
"....far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied."
My own grandparents were born in the Holy Land in the 19th century. They saw with their own eyes how empty the land was at the time, and during my childhood they described this to me. They also lived through and experienced first-hand the British conquest and the Arab immigration that followed, as did I. The Arab immigration continued right up to the British evacuation and the creation of the State of Yisrael in 1948.

The real problem facing those Arabs today is not the lack of a homeland. The historical root-cause of their problem and frustration is the fact that the countries they came from have not agreed to accept them back in. This is why so many of them live, right up until this very day, in refugee camps, in neighbouring Arab countries, lacking fundamental civil rights. In their frustration they feel that the only hope and choice they have is to try and steal a country. Many of the vehicles and the agricultural equipment in the PA were stolen from their Yisr'eli neighbours. For a while, Yisrael suffered the highest rate of automobile thefts in the world! Most of the stolen vehicles were later found in towns and villages of the PA. If stealing vehicles is so easy, why not try and steal the country too?

In their propaganda, the Arabs who now call themselves "Palestinians" consistently demand that Yisrael and the world recognize their pre-1948 rights. That's about 60 years ago. Mysteriously, they are never willing to add another 60 years to their "historical" claims on the Holy Land. They know very well that doing so will send them back to where they came from - Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Lebanon, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq. Years ago, during negotiations with these so-called "Palestinians", someone in Yisrael proposed an amendment to their claim for "pre-1948 rights" replacing it with "pre-1917". The "Palestinians" vehemently opposed this proposal - now we can see why!

The Moslem religion was invented by Muhammad in the 7th century CE, in Saudi Arabia. He never visited Y'rushalayim and Eretz Yisrael, and did not consider them important enough to be mentioned in the Kur'an even once. By comparison, the land of the Hebrew Holy Temple in Y'rushalayim was purchased by King David, for the Hebrew nation, approximately 1000 years BCE, and the deed, the name of the previous owner, and the purchase price were recorded in the Bible (See Shmuel Beit, ch.24 and Divrei Hayamim Alef, ch.21).

The best reference for understanding the Moslem-Arab mentality and politically-motivated distortion of history is Muhammad's own words in the Kur'an:
"War is deception".
Some Arabs consider themselves the descendants of Avraham, the ancestor of the Hebrew nation. But ironically, were it not for Muhammad's thorough study of the Bible, the Arabs would never even have known of Avraham's existence. Muhammad studied the Bible in order to be the better equipped in his attempts to persuade Hebrews to follow his newly-invented religion. When they refused, he wrote the Kur'an (the Moslem bible), and filled it with his own imaginary accounts of Biblical events. He even took the liberty to change the Hebrews' God-given day of rest, Saturday (Shabbat). Since Sunday was already taken by the christians, he picked Friday as the next-best choice for a Moslem day of rest.

Today the Moslem "Palestinians" claim to own our Temple Mount, the ancient site of our Holy Temple in Y'rushalayim. They claim it is "their" holy site. Does anyone in the rest of the world know which way Moslems in Y'rushalayim face when they pray? When Moslems in Y'rushalayim pray in their mosques, even in the Al Aktza mosque which is built on the very edge of our Temple Mount, they actually stand with their backs turned to our Temple Mount. And, when they bow down in their prayers, they are actually showing their backsides to it. How is that consistent with considering the Temple Mount a "holy site"? Visit any mosque in Y'rushalayim and see for yourself (if they will allow "infidels" - "unbelievers" - to enter during prayer-sessions). The fact is that Y'rushalayim is not mentioned even once in the Kur'an, while Mecca and Medina, the only two Moslem holy cities, are mentioned hundreds of times.

Our Holy Temple stood on the Temple Mount long before Islam, or any other current world religion, had been invented. Even when the founders of christianity walked the streets of ancient Y'rushalayim, not a single mosque or church stood here - only the Hebrew Holy Temple and nothing else.

Can any Moslem in the world produce any credible evidence for their connection to this holy site, other than in Muhammad's dream? Believe it or not, the one and only source for the Moslem's claim to Y'rushalayim and the site of our Holy Temple, is a mention in the Kur'an of a dream that Muhammad had about an unidentified "place far away", and an ancient document of questionable authenticity that was allegedly "discovered" by the nazi-sympathiser and friend of Adolf Hitler, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the former "Grand Mufti" of Y'rushalayim (and, incidentally, also an uncle of our very own Mr Ara'fat), which he would never show to anyone else or submit for academic examination and which couldn't be found among his papers and effects after his death in Beirut in 1974. Perhaps the "place far away" was the site of the White House in Washington DC?

There is only one possible solution to the "Palestinians'" desire for a homeland. If helping them go back to where they lived 60 years ago is their own definition of justice, then helping them go back to where they lived 120 years ago is, by the same definition, a better justice - double justice. Let's all help them get the better justice they deserve - let them go back to where they came from.
One should at least explore the viewpoint that saw the immigrating Jews increasingly as distant cousins who once left
Left? Were expelled by force.
The Jew coming back from exile is then seen increasingly as invading, violating, domineering - representing something entirely different than what was traditionally seen as Palestinian, as original inhabitant with claims [by locals
Ah yes... the locals... see above. :)

Now mind you, an ethnicity can emerge and declare itself. I recognize that. Just let's not play the "foreign jewish invaders came over and stole the land from indigenous people" game, eh?
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vicdan
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by vicdan »

More interesting stuff.

Wording from the original 1964 PLO charter:
This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, in the Gaza Strip or the Himmah area
So they didn't actually want palestine, they just wanted the lands jews were on. They didn't give a flying fuck about palestinian nationalism or independent state, they just wanted to kill the jews.
Zahir Muhsein, PLO executive committee member, on March 31, 1977 wrote: The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism. For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
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vicdan
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by vicdan »

more interesting stuff:
The Population of Jerusalem by Communities (1800-1870) (approximate figures)

Year __ Jews __ Muslims ___ Christians __ All Non-Jews __ Total
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

1800 __ 2,250 __ 4,000 ____ 2,750 ______ 6,750 _____ 9,000

1836 __ 3,250 __ 4,500 ____ 3,250 ______ 7,750 _____ 11,000

1840 __ 5,000 __ 4,650 ____ 3,350 ______ 8,000 _____ 13,000

1850 __ 6,000 __ 5,400 ____ 3,600 ______ 9,000 _____ 15,000

1860 __ 8,000 __ 6,000 ____ 4,000 ______ 10,000 _____ 18,000

1870 __ 11,000 __ 6,500 ____ 4,500 ______ 11,000 _____ 22,000
yes, a muslim holy city with a thriving muslim community... more like a tiny backwater town, until jews started returning en masse.

Constantinopol had over half a million population in 1800 -- more than 60 times more populous than Jerusalem.
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Alex Jacob
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Alex Jacob »

My dear Diebert, if we are to be really truthful, like in some process therapy group where fronts, deceptions, strategies and false-trails are not allowed, we would have to describe your 'harder facts' as having a very specific origin and a very specific purpose. The purpose, I assert, of these narratives (the ones you bring forward and intone like mantras) is to undermine the legitimacy of Israel, to lend support to the cause of the enemies of Israel (no joke: directly) and work in the direction of some sort of event of harm to the state of Israel and the people there. I don't say that this is all that you (Diebert) do or wish for, but I do say that in the main this is the purpose of your activity. It is like some kind of strange, delicious liquor that you've gotten hooked on. Not only that but you get other people to drink it, and you support a 'false-cause' that has lead and is leading so many people to suffering, and every year that goes by the same destructive forces are nourished, and all the paths or any pof the paths that might have been pursued for harmonious and prosperous living are undermined. And this, for you---you as meddler---you call progress? This is pursuit of truth for you? This is your creative work in history?

All of us are 'called' (more or less forced really) to get behind and to serve certain narratives that provide a structure in which to live our lives. I assume you are some decent European dude quietly living your life in your Dutch city, engaged nicely in a civil lifestyle. Are you secretly longing for some underground, rebellious lifestyle or pitched battles, grenades and house to house battles? Is this how some unconscious forces in you, like some Walter Smitty, seek expression? If you were really interested in peace and prosperity (life) in this part of the world, I say you would be supporting it in a real and creative way. In what tangible way do you contribute to peace in the Near East? I don't mean with (irresponsible) words but with concrete actions?
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Carl G
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Re: Palestine: from the fall of the Ottomans to Today

Post by Carl G »

Alex Jacob wrote: In what tangible way do you contribute to peace in the Near East? I don't mean with (irresponsible) words but with concrete actions?
What concrete actions do you suggest are possible?
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