Tony Blair wrapped up his Middle East visit Wednesday. The British Prime Minister had toured the Middle East over the past few days in the hope of finding some way to kick start the stalled Israeli/Palestinian peace process. While he was there, Mahmoud Abbas said he was going to hold new elections in the Palestinian Authority (PA). He did this, basically, to see if the Palestinian people still wanted to be governed by Hamas after the months of poverty they had endured because the U.S and the west views Hamas as a terrorist organization. Immediately Bush, Blair, and Olmert came out supporting Abbas' decision, and when Tony Blair went to the Palestinian territories, he met only with Abbas. The whole Middle East trip then became a mission to support the moderates against the extremists.
Olmert, Bush, Blair, and their allies would have us believe that Hamas won't stop until Israel is wiped off the map, and all Jews have been driven into the sea. Painting Hamas as a terrorist organization in the current climate makes Israel a staunch ally, standing beside the rest of the world in the fight against extremism. It doesn't however give Hamas or the Palestinian people a fair deal.
Hamas are not like Al Qaeda or their affiliates around the world, who are simply using the Palestinian cause to fuel their own recruitment, with yet another call for Palestinian Jihad released on Al Jazeera this week. Hamas are not filling the internet with their Jihad videos of attacking civilians around the globe. They are not sending fighters into Iraq or Afghanistan to attack and make life difficult for U.S forces. Nor are they attacking or threatening to attack every country allied to the U.S, despite the U.S support of Israel, which is Al Qaeda's main rallying cry. They don't have cells in most countries and they are not radicalizing and/or recruiting young Muslims from around the globe to join them, or even attempting to do so.
They are made up of Palestinians, most of whom have lived all their lives under the control of Israel. Of course, according to Bush, Blair, and Israel's supporters it is not a cruel occupation. Israel has been fair to the Palestinians and has only used violence in self defence. By this reasoning the Palestinians should be thankful and their ungrateful violence only brings trouble into their people's lives. The Palestinians life: not being able to go where they want when they want, living under fear of bombs falling on their home, and --as the current Hamas boycott has shown-- at the mercy of Israel for their next meal. They have no army and they are beaten and arrested for protesting.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Mark Schannon
Liam,
I think you make some important points that deserve consideration, but my fear is that your entire thesis rests on the assumption that Hamas (and the entire Palestinian state) is not linked with other terrorist groups to destroy Israel.
Hamas' actions are not those of a political group seeking peace but rather fomenting a powerful Israeli response.
The Palestinian National Covenent (their Constitution, so to speak) still has the call for the destruction of Israel in it.
Virtually every terrorist groups says the end of Israel and the Jews are their primary goal.
Hamas, as a partner in the Palestinian Gov't, has been a disaster, undermining the President and the government at every step.
How can the Israelis trust Hamas--I hope you're right when you say their position is more a bargainning chip, but I gotta tell you if I were living there, it would be a penny chip, not a hundred dollar chip.
Words are cheap and useless. Behavior is all that mattters, and Hamas has done nothing to behave in ways that can only be characterized as terrorist.
In Jameson Veritas
2 - RedTard
Leftist ideology is all about punishing the law abiding/hard working/successful types and rewarding the unsuccessful/ terrorists/criminals whether it's on an individual or state level.
Why? Because you have more to fear and higher risk of destabilizing violence from the latter. Siding against the terrorists gets your throat slit or your building bombed. Poor people riot and maim and invade your gated communities when they feel they're not getting adequate hush money. Wealthy and law abiding types have a town hall meeting and issue a stern letter of opposition or protest vigorously at the UN when they get wronged.
It's certainly doesn't meet any traditional sense of justice or fairplay but it often works. It's much easier to control those that exhibit self control than to reason with those whose backs are against the wall (even if it's their own fault they ended up that way).
3 - Zedd
Mark Schannon
I think that the simplest way to understand a situation is to put yourself in another's shoe.
In South Africa, the ANC (Mandela's party), who were labled as terrorists, linked with the Soviets, Castro, Gaddafi to reach their end which was freedom. It was said that they would destroy the nation and bring all sorts of hatred and mayham to the land. YES their ideas were radical to the South African government (the opressors). YES they wanted the dismantling of a white South Africa.... they were thought to be evil for that.
Now think of Palestinians. They were thrown out of thier land by Jews from Europe mainly, who were defiant because of a wrong that was done to them by Europeans not by Arabs. They are punished for the actions of any Palastinians. Curfews, road blocks and black outs are implimented to an entire city for the actions of one person. They are angry. VERY angry. They will affiliate with ANYONE that will help them. UNDERSTAND. ANYONE. THey are not in a movie or a childern's story book. These are real people with a HUGE and crazy problem. They want it to stop by ANY MEANS.
Can you understand that. Your rantings about how terroristic they are or may not be is irrelevant. They will terrorize because they are hopeless. Wouldn't you.
How many occassions do you allow people to take everything you have and you just wait patiently for people to feel bad and give your stuff back.
I bet you get mad when you are cut off on the road, let alone displaced.
The real problem is that we don't see nonWhites as human. As deserving the same exact considerations as everyone els. That is the REAL problem. You don't see their humanity. PERIOD.
The U.S. and Isreal were buddying up with the South African gov. Isreal provided arms..... side note
4 - Zedd
The Jews in the Warsaw ghettos were radicals and they would be called terrorists in today's terms. They knew that their goose was cooked. They felt hopeless and some retaliated as they should have.
The fight for liberty is never welcomed by those that liberty is being requested from. Jews don't get automatic "good guy" status. A wrong is a wrong and shame on us no matter what religion or nation of origin for sitting by and watching one of the great human rights mal adjustments, sitting back analysing it as if its a football game.
I heard an NPR peice where they were following two girls, one on the Isreali side the other on the Palestinian side. The Jewish girl spoke of how she cant go to cafe's comfortably and that she is inconvenienced by all of the security measures. The Palestinian spoke of how she hasnt been to school in months and have run out of food and cant access a store because of road blocks, that their sewer system was blown up... she went on about the curfews and relatives who now live with them because their homes were torn down mistakenly by the Isreali army (who refused to pay restitution).
5 - Zedd
Liam
No one will believe you. They think that Arabs are all alike and HAVE ONE MIND (whatever that means).
I am not sure why they cant look at the American revolution and see the George Washington was a rebel to the Brits. That was a status equal to that of a terrorist. The Americans weren't even fighting for their own land. The Palestinians have been there for thousands of years.
They don't understand why the Palestinians would even want to fight.(The same people who wanted the entire middle east blown up, after 911.) I think its funny how a large army like Isreal wants to lable Hamas is Hesbalah evil because they don't fight conventionally. Ummmm how would or could they??
So if you are not rich enough to buy expensive weapons, you are bad. But if you have huge weapons that can destroy more people at once, and have money and facilities to train large numbers of soldiers, you are GOOD?
Before the Jewish state of Isreal, Palestinians were Jews, Arabs and Christians. Most people don't know that.
6 - markiel
WHY DOES THE JEWS HAVE MORE THEN 4000 YEARS OF HHISTORY IN ISREAL THE POEPLE WHO BUILD TEMPALS THE WALL AND EVERYTHING THAT ISREAL HAVE THE JEWS DATE BACK 3000 YEARS BEFORE JESUS , SO WHERE IS YOUR PALASTINEAN POEPLE HISTORY WHAT HAVE THEY DONE WHAT HAVE THEY BUILT WHAT ARE THEY HISTORY WHERE DID THEY COME FROM , OR SHOULD I SAY WHO PUT THEM THIER ,
WHY WE THE WORLD THE NATION NEVER EVER HEAR A HISTORY ABOUT PALISTIAN POEPLE ,
ILL TELL YOU A HISTORY ABOUT THEM ,
THE PALISTINES ARE A MIX GROUP OF SIX ARAB NATIONS THE POOR ARAB NATION THEY WORE HOMELESS AND POOR SO WHAT DOES THE BRITISH DO THEY GIVE THEM LAND IN GAZA AND WHEN THE BRITISH LEAVE THEY WANT ISREAL
WELL YOU KNOW WHAT THE BEST THING TO DO IS READ A BOOK FIRST ITS TO ALL THE READERS PLEASE
7 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Liam,
I see you have not had too much to say here in answer to your critics. Zedd has picked up the burden for you and carried it manfully, albeit what he writes is as fraught with errors as what you write is fraught with stylistic problems. But we've discussed these already at this article at Desicritics. A repetition is not warranted here.
It is all too tiresome to read about "Palestinian history." This is all a pile of shit. Now for some real history.
About 3,300 to 3,500 years ago, this country was conquered and settled by Hebrew tribes from Egypt, coming round via Jericho. MY ancestors lived here for at least 2,000 years as the majority in this country, they renamed Canaan and called it Israel, though for the last 600 of them, it was almost always under foreign rule, and under conditions of persecution. For that 600 years the Romans had re-named the country Syria Palestina, a pointed insult to the Judeans living here, as it recalled the name of the Philistines, the people whom David had conquered. For a short period of time 1,400 years ago, the Persians will willing to back a woman named Heftziba in setting up a protectorate of theirs here as a "sovereign" Jewish state. But the Persians came to an agreement with the Byzantines and Christian persecution here resumed.
The Christian persecution was ended by Omar who conquered the land for the Arabs and who brought Islam to the country at the point of a sword. Those who worshipped the sun were slain, Zoroastrians were slain, Christians and Jews were allowed to live provided they paid a special tribute and accept second rate status as dhimmis.
A mosque was erected on the Temple Mount, which the Christians had used as a garbage pile, along with a golden dome where a Jewish convert to Islam told Omar was the location of the Holy of Holies.
When the Crusaders attempted to conquer the country, the stupid fools managed to kill more Christians than Moslems because they had no idea that everybody pretty much dressed the same. They also managed to miss the opportunity to convert millions of Mongols who probably would have been happy to fight in an alliance with the Christians to conquer the Arabs and the Turks. By the time the Ottoman Empire had established its rule here, the country was filled with swamps and bandits, with Arabs farming what little land was indeed arable, and with Jews living in Tzfat and Jerusalem. This nation was a fetid backwater of an empire that rotted under its own inability to advance technologically and under the continuous assault from the west and the north of the Europeans, who had advanced technologically.
When Jews started to resettle here en masse, about 125 years ago, Arabs from Syria and Mesopotamia heard that there was work to be had, and they migrated to live here. There are two or three clans of Arabs that have lived here for centuries, and who may well be descended from Judeans who converted to Islam in the 600's. The remainder are descended from those who immigrated here in the last 125 years. Their villages are seen at the PASSIA site of Arab villages a century ago.
Even then, this country was incredibly empty, an observation made by Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) when he visited here a little over a century ago.
As more Jews came, bringing work, peaceful technology (as opposed to the technology of war imported from non-Jewish Europeans) and a measure of prosperity, more and more Arabs wanted to live here. Under the British Mandate, the Brits, who had repented of their initial declaration to erect a Jewish homeland here, encouraged this immigration and usually interpreted the law to favor Arabs.
Had the Arabs been more coöperative with the British colonial authorities, by sitting on juries and local councils, and the legislative council proposed for the Mandate, there would be no Jewish state here now. But the mukhtars, already under the spell of the Wahhabi influenced Moslem Brotherhood of Egypt, would not coöperate at all, as it meant granting a measure of recognition to the Jews who had settled here. So British efforts at creating an autonomous Arab entity here failed and the British had to rule directly.
So two separate communities arose - an Arab one and a Jewish one, with the Arab one divided into Moslem, Druze, Cherkess and Christian parts, and the Jewish one relatively united under the Jewish Agency and its constituent institutions, most of which have continued in one form or another under the State.
The Brits were driven out of here by Jewish terrorists and the fact that their own treasury was empty after WWII, and they just didn't have the money to maintain an empire world wide. When they left and the Jewish state arose, Arabs were convinced by their leaders that they should leave their homes so that Arab armies could drive the Jews into the seas. This has been admitted to by Arabs recently, as well as confirmed in a number of biographies written decades earlier.
While many Arabs left because of fighting in cities like Haifa and Tzfat, THE VAST MAJORITY OF ARAB REFUGEES FROM THIS COUNTRY LEFT OF THEIR OWN ACCORD TO ESCAPE WHAT THEY THOUGHT WOULD BE A BLOODY CAMPAIGN OF MASSACRING JEWS WHO LIVED HERE. AND THEY LEFT AT THE INSTANCE OF THEIR OWN LEADERS, WHO PROMISED THEM THAT THEY COULD RETURN.
So much for the lies about "ethnic cleansing."
I will not recite the history of the state per se. I just want to make the point that Arabs calling themselves "Palestinians" started with the PLO in the mid-1960's. They had never considered themselves to have a separate nationality until then.
So much for the bullshit.
8 - Zedd
Ruvy
You cant just gloss over the fact that you arrived and took the land from other people.
We all know that you were "created" in Egypt. You are from Egypt. End of story. How dare you go on this ridiculous rant when your history more than ANYONE elses is known. In my opinion that is what your chosen status is all about. I believe God used you as an example for all of humanity to observe. Your consception and expansion is known. Your blunders, sins, and evil deads are recorded. Your persecution was mandated by God because of your misdeeds not because of your victim status.
As for the European Jews, you cant claim that they are of that soil.
Palestinians consisted of Jews, Muslims and Christians. Prior to 1945. Religious jews come and with their experience with cultural and religious hatred and separation and spread it judiciously in the land which welcomed them after no one else wanted them.
There is always another perspective my friend....
9 - Zedd
Ruvy sez:
"LEFT OF THEIR OWN ACCORD TO ESCAPE"
uhmmmmm. Re-evaluate this manner of reasoning. They escaped so we really didn't take their land? They were running for their lives from us..... Not our fault!! Who told them to want to live.
So the jews who left their homes in Europe with all of the art and valuables to ESCAPE before being fried in gas chambers really have to right to their property, right?
Oh Zedd but we are Jewish and white (sort of) so we count more....
Who said anything about ethic cleansing. But just because what was done doesn't fit into a modern day slogan, it doesn't make it a good thing.
Ruvy this is horrible. Its a crime.
I know its difficult to see it when you are up close, but what your people have done is evil. I know there will always be an argument to suport your actions but REALLY it is a cruel...
Remeber, the Whites in South Africa thought they were victims. They SERIOUSLY thought they were right and they had all sorts of historical data to support their claims to the land (funny stuff. Whites claiming Africa). But it gets really crazy when people like yourself dig in thier claws and decide to be right NO MATTER WHAT.
In a few years all of this madness will be over and the children of that time will wonder what was wrong with you guys and why it was that you just didn't get it. Ask your buddies, the white South Africans.
10 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
"We all know that you were "created" in Egypt. You are from Egypt. End of story."
WE, Zedd? Which we is this? Which church that distorts history to its own aims? Which pack of liars that has it in for "white" people that glosses over the fact that all Jews and Arabs are Semites. I don't give a tinker's dam about how dark any Jew's skin is, or how dark any Arab's skin is. This is of no interest to me. You are talking to ME now, Zedd, not some representative of the Israeli government or of the rich Jews in Riverdale, in the Bronx.
There is archaeological evidence indicating that we descend originally from Sumer. Tablets talking about TeraHu and Ubrumu - TeraH and Avraham, the ancestors of MY people, along with all the Arabs and Pushtun.
But let's get beyond this.
"As more Jews came, bringing work, peaceful technology (as opposed to the technology of war imported from non-Jewish Europeans) and a measure of prosperity, more and more Arabs wanted to live here. Under the British Mandate, the Brits, who had repented of their initial declaration to erect a Jewish homeland here, encouraged this immigration and usually interpreted the law to favor Arabs.
Had the Arabs been more coöperative with the British colonial authorities, by sitting on juries and local councils, and the legislative council proposed for the Mandate, there would be no Jewish state here now. But the mukhtars, already under the spell of the Wahhabi influenced Moslem Brotherhood of Egypt, would not coöperate at all, as it meant granting a measure of recognition to the Jews who had settled here. So British efforts at creating an autonomous Arab entity here failed and the British had to rule directly."
Every apologist for the Arabs, every single
shit shovelling liar and passer of the Wahhabi influenced propaganda line that attempts to de-legitimize Jews with its lies, glosses over these facts listed in the two paragraphs above.
Let's add more wood to the flame. Every shit shovelling apologist for the Arabs ignores the fact that the "grand mufti" of Jerusalem took his ass off to Berlin in 1939 to be Hitler's running dog - AND TO PUSH FOR THE EXTERMINATION OF JEWS IN EUROPE, INSTEAD OF THE ORIGINAL NAZI PLAN TO SHIP THEM TO ISRAEL TO BE KILLED WHEN THE NAZI WAR MACHINE DEFEATED THE BRITS. So to put it very simply, the reason that six million Jews were murdered off in Europe was that some bastard from the Husseini clan in Gaza who arrogated to himself the title of "grand mufti" wanted the murders not to take place in his back yard.
I don't know where you write from and do not much care, but your ignorance is deep and profound, and you have much to learn about the history of this region - the real history, not the hysterical bullshit the Arab propaganda machine has you believing.
Oh, by the way, Zedd. I know a hell of lot more about the Arab world than do a lot of my Israeli colleagues, including professors who think they know more and who don't. I know how the Arab community in this country breaks down. I don't lump all Arabs in one box, much less give a damn for what skin color they have. So save the "Crow Jim" shit for a real racist. And before you ever dare compare this country to the apartheid régime of the Dutch Reformed Church of South Africa, and the Boers who worshipped in it, learn some South African history as well.
11 - Liam Bailey
I don't know whether I've told you this or not Ruvy, but I work full time and have a new-born baby, which I have to fit around trying to forge a career as a freelance journalist, a fiction writer and a poet. I'm sorry I don't have the hours to while away writing 3000 word comments like yours, but I write two articles or a page of my latest short-story or a poem in that time. My time at the computer is precious and by some people's comments I know that their views are so opposite to my own that to reply once would be to reply ten dozen times, I just don't have the time or the inclination to set-about changing people's inset and entrenched views.
I have tried in the past and spent hours at a time, at the end when the person I am arguing with still comes back with the same --brainwashed and oblivious to the real facts-- answers I am cross with myself for such a futile waste of my precious time. One such occasion I vowed never to do so again. If in making a comment someone presents an argument but at the same time resents an attitude that displays their willingness to at least listen intently, or read intently as the case may be, the argument of someone with different views, that is a person I will respond to. Unfortunately as the bigotry of your views spews out more and more I feel less and less that you are one such person. How can you say:
"It is all too tiresome to read about "Palestinian history." This is all a pile of shit. Now for some real history." before going on one of your rants about Israel, and then say:
So save the "Crow Jim" shit for a real racist.
The fact that you say real racist says it all to me, a racist is a racist.
Oh and by the way Zed isn't the only person to accuse Israel of Apartheid, so go and expose deficiencies in South African professor of International law and the UN's Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the OPT, John Dugard's knowledge of South African history, and probably knowing you, call him stupid.
12 - Zedd
Ruvy
Be slow to speak. I am an expert on South Africa. Apartheid was not created by the Dutch Reform Church silly. It was created by Afrikaners or Boers but was initiated, in a way, by the British with their racist empiricist habits. They were however much more tame compared to the Boers.
Why do you think that Adam Ash has such little patience for Israel? He’s heard it ALL before as a South African ex pat and is not buying your silly arguments for justifying the apartheid that you are inflicting and so have I. The nit picky excuses that you give can’t erase the premise of what you have done. You live in an evil regime which is cleansed by its wealth and its Western ties ONLY. Your support is not based on your righteous stance. Its your money (not you personally) and your European and religious ties to the West and what a shame that is.
To think that you say that some guy (1 Arab guy) in Palestine caused the Holocaust; do you not see just how insane it’s all gotten? He didn't want Jews to be killed in his country (shame on him) so HE caused the massacre, not Hitler and the band of kooks. Have you lost all of your senses??
Listen, the disrespect of non whites doesn’t have to be by you specifically, it is a fact of our world right now. You are naïve and don’t get it that the Jews are safe because of their nearer European ties (biologically and culturally). It is not because your cause is righteous. South African whites stayed in power because they were WHITE. That is what our world is like.
Also, are you saying that the Jewish bible(s) does not say that Abraham is the father of the Jews and Arabs? That Isaac (his half brother Ishmael was banished) begat Jacob who went with his eleven sons to Egypt, following Joseph. It is there that the nation began. They multiplied to the point where the Egyptians became nervous. It is from there that the Exodus began, starting with the Passover. As for Jacob calling Canaan home, there were other inhabitants in Canaan. He wasn’t the only person there. Meaning it is not the home of the Jews ONLY. Are we reading different interpretations?? Your claim to the land may be authenticated by the fact that you believe that God gave you that land, however in a civil society that is not enough. Besides, the bible does not say that land can not be shared with anyone else. Also God has kicked Jews out on a number of occasions for misbehaving.
13 - Zedd
RedTard
Your post almost made sense this time. But you missed the fact that one of the characteristic of those that were heard is that they were WEALTHY.
The poor and law abiding write letters too and much less happens when they do. In most countries in the world, they are imprisoned or killed for doing so.
Using South Africa agian, people were imprisoned for simple acts like talking amoung themselves about the discomfort of Apartheid. They didn't even have the nerve to write a letter (ha ha).
You are very naive.
14 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Zedd,
Your comments indicate that you must have been in a hot fury when you wrote them. Half the things you write would not have been there had your anger not been so hot.
Cold anger is always better than hot anger when you write, or when you shoot a rifle. It lets you aim the bullet with unerring accuracy.
So, let's cock the gun and fire away.
First your misreadings of my words, deliberate or otherwise.
1. "To think that you say that some guy (1 Arab guy) in Palestine caused the Holocaust; do you not see just how insane it's all gotten? He didn't want Jews to be killed in his country (shame on him) so HE caused the massacre, not Hitler and the band of kooks. Have you lost all of your senses??"
Hitler was very clear as to what he intended for Jews. He viewed them as a "Gegenrasse", a race set against his, to be eliminated from the face of the planet, so as to make way for the true chosen people, the Aryans.
So there was never any doubt that the final solution was to kill all of us. Nazi policy prior to 1939 indicates that the plan was to concentrate all the Jews in ghettos, to ship loads of them here to Israel, and upon conquering this country, to exterminate them, having conveniently concentrated them in one place.
Along the way, their property was to be expropriated, and other Jews were to be extorted from in order to save the lives of those in Europe. Hence the Nazi policy of keeping relations open with the Labor Zionists of Eretz Yisrael, amongst others, and the policy of dumping Jews here quietly, providing them with passports and travel fare - undoubtedly using money extorted from the Labor Zionists.
Amir Husseini (the bastard who called himself "grand mufti"), who kept his ears close to the ground - the Moslem Brotherhood admired Hitler, as did many Arab "intellectuals" of the day - went to Berlin to help Hitler - and also to keep him from dumping his Jewish trash here. His proposal was instead to burn it in Eastern Europe. If Egyptian Jews were routinely referred to as "our dogs" by Arabs, it is easy to see Husseini referring to us as garbage to be burnt - IN EUROPE. There was a great deal of Arab pressure on the British to close the doors of their Mandate to Jews. And they did bow to that pressure, issuing the imfamous "White Paper" of 1939 that limited Jewish immigration to this country and eventually was to ban it. So the door was shut to Nazi policy of deporting Jews to Eretz Yisrael from the other side, this side, as well.
2. "Also, are you saying that the Jewish bible(s) does not say that Abraham is the father of the Jews and Arabs?"
Let's just pose what I actually wrote...
"There is archaeological evidence indicating that we descend originally from Sumer. Tablets talking about TeraHu and Ubrumu - TeraH and Avraham, the ancestors of MY people, along with all the Arabs..."
3. "That Isaac (his half brother Ishmael was banished) begat Jacob who went with his eleven sons to Egypt, following Joseph. It is there that the nation began. They multiplied to the point where the Egyptians became nervous. It is from there that the Exodus began, starting with the Passover. As for Jacob calling Canaan home, there were other inhabitants in Canaan. He wasn't the only person there."
Let's look at the text of B'Reishit/Genesis 17:1-8.
"When Abram was 99 years old, Hashem appeared to Abram and said to him "I am El Shaddai; walk before me and be perfect. I will set My covenant between Me and you and I will increase you most exceedingly."
Abram threw himself upon the ground and G-d spoke with him saying, As for Me, this is My covenant with you: You shall be a father of a multitude of nations; I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and make nations of you; and kings shall descend from you. I shall ratify My covenant between Me and you and between your offspring after you; and I will give to you and your offspring after you, throughout their generations, as an everlasting covenant, to be a G-d to you and to your offspring after you; and I will give to you and your offspring after you the land of your sojourns - the whole of the land of Canaan - an everlasting possession; and I shall be a G-d to them."
Note please, that Abraham had already fathered Ishmael.
Now, let's look at the text of B'Reishit/Genesis 15:12-17, and B'Reishit/Genesis 15:18-20.
And it happened, as the sun was about to set, a deep sleep fell upon Abram. and behold - a dread! great darkness fell upon him.
Ad He said to Abram, "Know with certainty that your offspring shall be aliens in a land not their own - and they will serve them, and they shall oppress them - four hundred years. But also the nation that they will serve, I shall judge, and afterwards they will leave with great wealth. As for you: you shall come to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And the fourth generation shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite shall not yet be full until then.
...On that day Hashem made a covenant with Abram saying, "To your descendants have I given this land, from the from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates River; the Kennite, the Kenizzite, the Kadmonite, the Perizzite, and the Rephaim; the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Girgashite and the Jebusite."
Which descendants of Abraham get THIS land? Abraham, promised a son through his ninety year old half sister and wife Sarah, says to G-d "O that Ishmael might live before You!" G-d replies "Nonetheless, your wife Sarah will bear you a son; and you shall call his name Isaac; and I shall fulfill My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his offspring after him..... But I will maintain My covenant through Isaac whom Sarah will bear to you by this time next year. [B'Reishit/Genesis 17:18-19, 21]
The Torah is very clear on this point. The children of Ishmael do not inherit THIS land. And the Qur'án backs up this claim.
I can quote more of the Torah to you, but the bottom line is that the Hebrew tribes who are to inherit this country are instructed to clear the land of its previous inhabitants, who have made the land impure through their sexual practices, and the Writings in the Bible indicate the failure of the Hebrew tribes to do this and the result.
4. "Meaning it is not the home of the Jews ONLY. Are we reading different interpretations?? Your claim to the land may be authenticated by the fact that you believe that God gave you that land, however in a civil society that is not enough. Besides, the bible does not say that land can not be shared with anyone else."
This is the home of the Children of Israel, not the Jews, who form only a part of the Children of Israel. But the Arabs are the Children of Ishmael, and not of Israel.
You mention a "civil society." I'm sorry, Zedd, I do not mean to laugh in your face, but there is nothing "civil" about this society. Forgetting all the ills that have befallen my people, there is the continuing persecution of blacks in Africa, particularly at the hands of Arabs in Sudan, there has been at least one instance of genocide on the African continent in the last forty years, there was the Cambodian genocide of the mid '70's, a general enslavement of poor women in the southeast Asia, and a brutal caste system that guarantees that a vast number of people on the Indian sub-continent suffer constant harassment and discrimination, not to mention the genocides of the Communists in China and the Soviets in Russia, and to top it all off, there is a system of exploitation that insures that the vast majority of poor people will remain poor and become poorer, while a tiny portion of the world sits in wealth and relative splendor as it pollutes the planet it calls home.
Between the fools in frock coats who claim to represent authority in this joke of a "civil" society, where any claim is adjudged by people who have a program of poverty and misery, and the G-d of Israel, I'll put my faith and stake my life on that faith in the G-d of Israel. The Creator is far more powerful and reliable than the fools He creates.
As for those who do not wish to believe in this, that is their problem. My job is to make sure it remains their problem...
15 - Zedd
Ruvy
My thinking is that Abraham must have been the biggest, drama queen!!! Poor Sarah. Both Jews and Arabs are extremely emotional, argumentative, aggressive (not physically), just pushy. You don’t know how to let things go. Geeeeez. You are indeed brothers!! You are just alike. Only you don't see it. It’s the rest of us who watch and think "oh my goodness, can they just calm down!!!, does everything have to mean soooo much!". I mean the hands are always flailing in the air, major declarations are being made. It’s always dramatic and crucial no matter what it is. You believe fervently, dress to display your piety (drama) yet you anger and hold grudges more than women. Jews try to act more civilized because they understand Western culture and know that such emotions are frowned upon, but they only hold back for a short while then loose it.
The news conferences are hilarious. The representatives of either side are declaring something dramatic like "till the sands of time and the earth turns to dust, we will not blah blah blah.." or "as long as there is a single breath and a beating pulse in the body of (insert country or religion) we will stand by our blah blah blah." The answer could have been a simple YES or NO, but we had to hear the dramatic speech, which means nothing to us after all of these years of fighting and billions of dollars spent on our part. Its comical, perplexing and all so silly.
16 - Zedd
Ruvy
I appreciate your more somber approach. We can talk now.
I suppose by civil society, I meant that Israel is not a theocracy. It is run by civil law. You can’t have a theocratic democracy.
You can't base your laws on the bible(s) and expect to have respectability in modern society. Just as it is frustrating dealing with Muslim fundamentalists it is equally frustrating to reason with Zionists.
While I personally revere the Word of God, I can’t impose my BELIEF (it is just a belief Ruvy) on any one, let alone to the point of removing their property.
Rationally, it is clear that you were conceived in Egypt. Religiously yes, all that you say stands. But not everyone is a fundamentalist. Historically, Jews come from Egypt. Within the confines of Israel, there are none religious people are there not? They don't respond to your "reasoning". To many people, a man talking to the creator of the universe and a woman having a baby at a 100 yrs old, sounds a little insane. You can’t base a civil society on THAT. Yes, believe it all you like but don’t expect people to allow you special accommodations because of such claims.
What would stop any group from coming up with their cultural "myths" and claiming divine mandate for ANYTHING. All groups believed that they were the center of the universe. All groups believed that they were regarded by their version of a deity or force of universal power. Why should your claims be more regarded than any others.
Also you never answered about the Europeans who are not biologically Jewish but converted centuries ago; some, a millennia ago. They are not the children of Abram (Abraham). Why do they get to reside in the land of Canaan and Arabs, your brothers, can't.
17 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
"...you never answered about the Europeans who are not biologically Jewish but converted centuries ago; some, a millennia ago. They are not the children of Abram (Abraham). Why do they get to reside in the land of Canaan and Arabs, your brothers, can't."
Zedd,
There is nothing to answer. This is an false, empty assertion, as full of truth as a toothpaste commercial.
The people you refer to are the Kuzari, who converted to Judaism about 1,000 years ago. To make a long story short, if the Kuzari were the ancestors of most European Jews, then the language they spoke, a form of Turkic, would be all over the Yiddish spoken by European Jews.
I am a Yiddish speaker, and learned this language because my parents used to talk about yours truly when they didn't want me to know what they were saying. This was a great incentive to learn.
There is no trace of Turkic in Yiddish at all. I know. In addition to being a Yiddish speaker, I studied linguistics.
The Jews who eventually came to live in Russia-Poland, in the area known as the "Pale of Settlement" mostly came from western Europe, and these Jews mostly came from Spain, where they had followed the Arabs who conquered the peninsula in the 700's or 800's. The reason so many of them lived there was that Poland was far friendlier to Jews than the Germans, French, Austrians, etc., etc., the same reason so many Jews live in the United States.
The Jews who lived in Spain came from places like Rome or North Africa or Egypt.
18 - Zedd
Ruvy
You failed to make the genetic link to Abraham. If there is no genetic link then they are not the children of Israel and need to pack up and go according to Genesis 17
"and I will give to you and your offspring after you, throughout their generations, as an everlasting covenant, to be a G-d to you and to your offspring after you; and I will give to you and your offspring after you the land of your sojourns - the whole of the land of Canaan - an everlasting possession; and I shall be a G-d to them."
If these people including you, are Aryan and are religious converts, you are not akin to Abraham. You are not genetically linked to the land. You don't belong either.
19 - Zedd
Ruvy sez: "There is nothing to answer. This is an false, empty assertion, as full of truth as a toothpaste commercial.
The people you refer to are the Kuzari, who converted to Judaism about 1,000 years ago. "
I said: you never answered about the Europeans who are not biologically Jewish but converted centuries ago; some, a millennia ago.
ummmm. A millenia IS 1000 years ago. Why did you say I was as full of truth as a toothpaste commercial (oh the drama Ruvy!!!)? Couldn't you say that my statement is incorrect?? But keep it up its rather entertaining and makes or discussion seem sort of epic!! May you pull out of your loins a suffient enough responce... Im not that good at it yet.
20 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Zedd,
"You can't base your laws on the bible(s) and expect to have respectability in modern society."
Say what?
Have you ever heard of a court of chancery? In case you do not know what that was, it was an ecclesiastical court in Great Britain and its dependencies, which reached its judgments using the concepts of equity found in the Bible. And those concepts of equity were (you better sit down for this) the laws of the Torah, as interpreted by the Christian judges on the courts of chancery.
As for respectability, I hardly call the joke that passes for law in the European Union or the Americas respectable. If you wish to, that is your choice, but in my eyes, except for provisions that allow for relatively cheap health care, and for freedom of expression, it is a bad joke.
What is not a bad joke about it is that it is applied far more fairly in Europe, Canada and the United States than it is here in Israel. What is precious about American law is its adherence to due process. What the Bush administration has done recently is to gut much of that, but you will not see this immediately.
There is a great deal about Israeli society that you do not know about at all. I suggest you go to my writers' spot here at BC and read my articles and learn before you condemn. I'm not asking you to agree with my perspective, but at least look at the other side of the coin before you jump. Remember, just as you have a great deal of knowledge of Africa, I have an awful lot of knowledge about the Middle East.
21 - Zedd
As for hating Jews, I really don't.
I asked my neighbor a couple of years ago if we could participate in some of their Hanukkah observances so that my children could learn about some of the Jewish culture and apreciate it. We were invited to the lighting of the manora and we sang the draddle song and shared in gift exchanges.
My kids mark the start of Hanukkah on the calendar every year even though we don't observe it but they revere it and respect it. They respect Jews as a result. They also know about Jewish involvement in the civil rights movement (here in the 60's), also in the apartheid struggle (Helen Susman was one of our heros). They also know about the Palestinian crisis and know that not all Jews in Israel support what the government is doing.
No hate here.
22 - Zedd
Ruvy
Have you lived in an Arab nation? If so, how long.
23 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
Ruvy sez: "There is nothing to answer. This is an false, empty assertion, as full of truth as a toothpaste commercial.
Why did you say I was as full of truth as a toothpaste commercial (oh the drama Ruvy!!!)?
Zedd,
Let's set things in order first. If I had said that you were as full of truth as a toothpaste commercial, our esteemed comments editor might have considered it a personal attack and edited it out.
I said the assertion was false and empty. And it is. You, Zedd, I do not attack at all.
"You failed to make the genetic link to Abraham. If there is no genetic link then they are not the children of Israel and need to pack up and go according to Genesis 17".
As for proof, there is such a thing, believe it or not. I couldn't. A study was done on the Jews who identify themselves as Kohaním, or priests. Priestly identity is passed down through the father. I turned out that over 65% of those individuals had a marker in their "y" chromosomes, the ones passed down through the father, that was about 106 generations old, or going back to the time of the Exodus from Egypt.
The first kohén was Aaron, Moses' brother. He was descended from Leví, a son of Ya'akóv, who was descended from Avrahám. These kohaním with the "Aaronic" marker in the "y" chromosomes were found among European and non-European Jews both.
24 - Ruvy in Jerusalem
I have not lived in an Arab country, Zedd. But living here, in Israel, you get to know Arabs as people, not as abstractions.
25 - Zedd
Ruvy what is you opinion of Arabs.