Gaza Burns as Palestine's Neros Fiddle
(A comment from Ray Hanania. This column was published today in the widely read Arab News newspaper in Saudi Arabia. I point it out because I am often criticized by pro-Israeli supporters at YnetNews.com, the English language web site of Yedioth Ahronoth, who claim I “always” criticize Israel but never offer critical analysis of the failings of the Arabs. (If you really want to see examples of ugly and vicious Israel hatred, just read the “talkbacks” posted at the end of my column — they prove that Palestinians have not cornered the market on hate speech and racism, as Israelis allege. Of course, it is all B.S. There are as many fanatics on the Israeli side as there are on the Arab side. And the point falls into my new thread of discussion on the meaning of Moderation. Moderation means addressing the principle of justice and what is right in a consistent manner regardless of which side you are on. 
)
In assessing the escalating violence in the Gaza Strip, nearly every Arab analyst has placed the blame on Israel, avoiding the real challenges posed by rising strife in Palestinian society itself.
Arab world analysts continue to turn away from the obvious, because Arabs as a culture reject the notion of accepting blame and responsibility. Instead, they prefer to embrace preposterous theories that cast all blame on the foreign element, Israel, hoping to rally the Arab and Palestinian spirit.
Some Arab analysts have argued that Israel is provoking the conflict between the mostly secular Fatah organization and the religiously-driven militants of Hamas.
Others look at the situation and contend that Israel faces a new Lebanon front. They argue Israel is concerned Gaza might transform into a repeat of the disastrous confrontation with the heavily-armed and tougher Hezbollah militants in the north.
Others go further and insist that Gaza can become the new Lebanon, the southern front where Hamas militants can recreate the successes that Hezbollah achieved in driving Israel out of Lebanon last summer, licking its wounds and sending Israeli politics into a tailspin.
They are all the same old excuses of “blaming Israel” for everything whenever anything goes wrong. Meanwhile the various internal Palestinian factions are pitted against each other in a rerun of the secular versus religious political strife that has become Palestinian daily life.
Palestinians must resolve their own internal conflicts before they can ever expect to see their own independence or achieve national self-determination.
But they must do several things first.
The most important is to recognize that their tragedy is multilayered.
There is the conflict with Israel, a speeding car that careens past solutions and crashes into every reasonable barrier of hope with tragic but predictable results. Next month’s 40th anniversary of the 1967 war and the beginning of the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem will quickly become a 50-year marker. There are the challenges of Palestinian society itself that must be overcome.
A transformation is also taking place among the Palestinians themselves. What was once a secular and richly diverse Palestinian society is quickly becoming a one-religion, one-identity and one-ideological entity of self-hatred. As Palestinians fall into that hole they begin turning their rage on each other.
While it is easy to identify the fruits in this cornucopia of misfortune, Palestinians must place the various conflicts in priority and then deal with the most important first.
And the most important of all the challenges they face is uniting Palestinians so that they can successfully overcome all of the remaining challenges that keep them in a cycle of misery and hopelessness that is exploited by the opportunists who circle among them like vultures.
There is a desperate need for Palestinians, also, to have the confidence in their leadership restored. Palestinian leaders must unite and begin the process of defining a new national strategy that is secular and speaks to all of the religious and political niches.
Palestinians must be rallied back to the belief that there is a genuine hope of peace and national salvation in their future.
That will end the bitter and vicious conflicts we now see waged between Palestinians groups not just in the Gaza Strip but throughout the West Bank.
With new leadership, Palestinians can then enter negotiations to resolve the conflict with Israel enforcing just demands such as a removal of the fence, the return of land stolen for illegal Israeli settlements, to share Jerusalem and to resolve the 800-pound gorilla of the conflict that looms over every discussion, the fate of the Palestinian refugees.
Palestinians can return to a path that leads to a hopeful future.
Or, they can continue to make excuses and blame everything on Israel. Dream of the ridiculous notion that somehow the violent Hamas elements will somehow transform into a powerful military force and become a Palestinian Hezbollah, driving the “Yehude” into the sea, cleansing the New Palestine of its Christian and secular Muslim non-believers, and impose a regime that would make the Ayatollahs proud.
That won’t happen.
Blaming everything on Israel, and refusing to deal with our own problems, will only reinforce the mental wall that now imprisons the Palestinian people in a coma of hopelessness.
Ray Hanania is an award winning Palestinian American columnist, author and standup comedian. He can be reached at www.hanania.com.
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???? You’re kidding right? 40 years and that hasn’t happened. 40 years and the Palestinians leaders betrayed them, doing deals with Israel. The vote for Hamas was a vote of desperation, they had nothing left to lose.
Nothing the Palestinians do will bring peace with Israel.
Peace has always been in Israel’s hands.
Divide and conquer. Look at Iraq and Lebanon.
In regards to Fatah and Hamas: what are we to expect after they have been economically strangled and starved?
We expect them to put their hands together and actually work for a common, noble cause, rather than fight selfishly and greedily for the sake of money and power. They have proved to us now that they care about themselves and their pride more than they care about stabilizing Palestine.
So, you accept the same racist logic, but you’re just a little friendlier. Great. Ray, you’re part of the problem.
It’s so sad you have to endorse all of these false and boring cliches because you think it makes you “moderate.” I have never met a Palestinian who dreams of “driving the Jews into the sea” or one that wants to “cleanse” the Christians. Not even Hamas, which you think is the biggest demon in Palestine, talks or acts like this.
Why don’t you ask your heroes in Fatah, Mohammed Dahlan and Abu Mazen, why Israel and the US find it necessary to rush military and monetary aid to their private security forces… for the sole purpose of fighting Hamas in the streets–doing the dirty work for them. This way, “gosh darn, look at those damn Palestinians killing each other, why can’t they ever learn?” instead of having to cover their asses when they are the ones massacring civilians.
Ray, really, who reads Arab News in Palestine? Maybe if your goal is really to “reach out” to those unenlightened Arab masses, you should start writing these in Arabic.
Maybe next time you have the opportunity to write in a Saudi Arabian newspaper you should say something about the numerous crimes in Saudi Arabia, including the repression of civil dissidents, the persecution of Christians, and the commodification of women. That might be a little more courageous than speaking to a Western audience in a Saudi newspaper.
To Ray Hananiah – I liked your article – only selfcritizism on both sides lead to the humble valley of compromizes & negotiations & of maybe understanding each other –
Hmm Karlos – your: “
- this is a very fatal statement- it’s the statement of fascists & religious fanatics & desperados – you chose the fate of doom & blasting everything up instead of the way of hope & trying to improve your situation – everybody has something else to lose, like family members, his home, his life etc. – a sound reason to live on should be to may improve your life to get out of your miserable situation..
Hmm – your:
– in combination with “
What an absurdity! – Israel has the least interest to go inside Gaza again, because than the blame the world is easy at hand – Israel gave up it’s villages in Gaza a time ago – Israel gave Gaza to self-government – Israel doesn’t want trouble with Gaza – but if Hamas, Al-Aqsa- Brigades etc. shoot within the last half year in a time of armistice more than 400 Quasam rockets into Israel (even in May more than 200) where in Sderot a lot of the population already fled – Israel has no choice than to react – Hamas wants war & so Hamas gets war – Hamas was really hard trying to involve Israel again, to be able to put again the blame on them (look what they do to our wives & children) – but please nobody (even not some prejudiced socalled Arab analysts) tell me that Israel was this time provoking the situation no country in the world could stand the situation to get attacked with rockets over the border for long time – not reacting means giving in – hmm & what would happen, if Israel would give up the West-Bank – getting shot there with rockets all the time?
& I saw in your site, Karlos (what you get when you click on your name), the flag of Israel with an annihilation sign, which shows me that you personally crave for the totally destruction of Israel – let’s drive the Yehudi into the sea, an old idea since more than sixty years, which shows me that your heart is full of hatred. – Me personally – I would never put a Palestinian flag with an annihilation sign on my site, because I would like to have also a Palestinean state side by side with Israel living peacefully together – well – needs may some hundred years to go to fulfill that dream..
& in which country do you live Yaman? – (I mean how close are you to scene, we’re talking about?)
Hey Yaman
I’m a Palestinian, not a Saudi so I don’t have a pertinent view other than as an Arab … but the truth is we can complain about discrimination in every country, right? Including in the United States where a woman still has not been elected president (while three women have been elected heads of state in three of the largest Muslim countries in the world.)
And it is not “racist” to comment on a “cultural trait” … not a racial trait, but you’re entitled to your anger. I know my people apparently better than you. We don’t acknowledge or errors — in fact, in EVERY Arab home where there has been a disabled child, we hide them when people visit. I see it all the time. Is it is racist to comment on that? Or is it complicit to pretend that it doesn’t happen, just as we can pretend Muslim women are not discriminated in Islamic society, too …
So,m with so much bad out there, I’ll focus on Palestine and Israel. I’ll leave the Saudi’s to you …
In my opinion, Hamas is a terrorist organization. Why? Because they used violence for the sake of violence and to BLOCK peace with Israel. The PLO used violence to force the world to acknowledge Palestinians existed. They had a goal of self-preservation. When the peace process was in full swing, Hamas launched suicide attacks to block the peace process and destroy it and now the one-staters (who cheered Hamas on) complain that the two-state solution never worked even though they are responsible for murdering it … I’m in favor of Israel taking out Hamas if the Palestinians won’t do it … I won’t live in a fanatic Hamastan State. I would rather live in Israel that embraces racist policies but still allows me to live, even if it is as a second class citizen. But that is still better than what the Hamas maniacs would allow for me, other Christian Palestinians and secular Muslims.
As for Karlos … I understandf your points and can relate to them … but, I haven’t been to your site but will check it out but the criticism above has merit. We can’t promote hate and then complain about Israel. It’s ONE PRINCIPLE. Either we stand for justice or we are worse than the people we complain about.
Thanks for writing
Ray Hanania
It is racist when you start treating “cultural traits” as truths. Of course people do not like accepting responsibility for their ills, but that has nothing to do with “Arab culture,” it is just the way some people behave. Why do you think, even in America, it is still seriously taboo to even posit the idea that there is a rational explanation for why the people behind 9/11 did what they did? Because people equate any such reasons with a “justification” (they are not the same), and would prefer that this remains an “irrational” event so that they don’t have to acknowledge certain truths about the world. It’s much easier to say “they hate us for our freedoms” than to say “they hate us because of what we’ve done to them.”
Hamas won the Palestinian parliament. I don’t see them blowing up churches and forcing women to wear burqas. In fact, when thugs began attacking churches last year during the cartoon episode and following the Pope’s comments, it was Hamas that mobilized their police forces to protect them. You buy too much into the demonic image of Hamas, and I have a difficult time understanding why.
I will tell you, there is more “process” in “peace process” than there is “peace.” What is a peace process? What needs to be discussed? People have been saying 2 states since 1948. Nothing about this needs to be talked about any further. Everybody has known, since 1967, that for a two state solution, Palestine will exist in the West Bank and Gaza and Israel in the rest of historical Palestine.
What is going to said during this “process,” besides drawing out a final map? Nothing. The peace “process” is a way of preserving and ensuring Israeli dominance over anything that comes out of a Palestinian state.
Did you enjoy Israel’s “concessions” during Oslo? Pity the country that isn’t even allowed to control its water or borders…
Israel told the Palestinians that the PLO had to go. They invaded Lebanon to destroy the PLO. They failed. The PLO finally gave in to Israel’s only demands, recognizing it, in the 1980s. Did this get the Palestinians anywhere, or did Yasir Arafat still die after spending his last days under siege in his Ramallah compound?
Unable to move, even in his own country. What a process!
Heimo,
You tout the typical Zionist distortions:
.
Israel maintained a stranglehold on Gaza, controlling all entry points, exists, sea ports and airspace. Palestinians had to ask Israel when to scratch their noses. Self-government? Stop lying to yourself.
Oh how righteous of you heimo. But you support the actual annihilation of the Palestinian people.
You go on about the rocket attacks against Israel, but have no remorse for the sheer brutality and ethnic cleansing that ellicits these rocket attacks. The brutality and racism of the IDF is well documented by Israeli journalists such as Gideon Levy and historian Illan Pape and Benny Morris.
Ray Hanania,
And what of the IDF Ray??? Are they terrorists to in your eyes?? Or a righteous ‘defence’ force?
Like I said above. Peace is in Israel’s hands, not Hamas.
I used to support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish State (despite the inherent racism). But after their assualt on Lebanon last year, that changed. I started to research what the “Jewish State” stood for, and what actions they took. I was disgusted and shocked. By their own hands they lost the right to live in peace. I would not see the native Israelis dispossessed, as their fathers dispossessed the Palestinians. But I would see their racist vision for this land cut down.
That notion ignores the very real plight of the Palestinian people.
It’s not violence for the sake of violence. It’s a desperate act caused by desperate measures.
Answer this Ray: If Hamas stopped the home-made rocket attacks, do you think Israel would let them have a state with East Jerusalem as its capital?
There was limited violence from Palestinians before and between the Intifadas, but Israel never gave them anything worth while.
I very much dislike your generation.
What kind of a ludicrous logic is this? Occupation is an act of war. As long as even an inch of Palestinian land is being occupied, it’s Israel who is doing this act of war crap you speak so highly. What Hamas do is in normal terms would be called retaliation against the occupation. But to the fact that the world calls Hamas a terrorist organization makes their struggle little bit more troubling to the brainwashed tools of the West.
Yup, Hamas is provoking Israel. But don’t bring in the navel, the aerial and the land blockade into the equation, because this also called an act of war. Please do me a favour and go read up on this act of war crap before you react to any of my comments.
You say no country in the world would stand by this situation, no country or people would also won’t stand by what Israelis do to Palestinians. You are creating two rules here. One for Israel and one for Palestinians. Equality, ever heard of that word?
Israel give in? Are you out of your mind, their settlements grow every fucking day, some “giving in” this is, ohh do I even need to show you the stats for causalities on both sides? Hamas is the one who shouldn’t give into Israeli terror imposed on the Palestinians since the birth of Israel. Now when the Palestinians fight back against this terror, you claim Israel now has some sort of divine rights to do away with the Palestinians without even giving a moment to think WHY Hamas is there in the first place?
Every fucker out there think Hamas materialized out of thin air without asking why they are there and why they are so popular. Everyone wants to cut the bloody branch, but don’t even mention about the roots.
You don’t even know what that sign is if your are talking about this image. It’s not a fucking annihilation sign, it’s a no… sign. In this case no to Israel. I see this bloody sign every day on the roads, at work, at stores, at hospitals etc. with different icons behind them.
And you arrive at a false conclusion based on a false premise without reading a single article from the site. You discredit an individual based on your narrow understanding of a simple little sign that is used every fucking day and in every fucking place on this side of the world.
For reference, when you see that sign with a cell phone on it… PLEASE don’t panic and call 911 because it doesn’t mean they want to annihilate your cell phone, it just means no cellphone, as in you can’t use that bloody thing.
…translation… OMG OMG… he’s an anti-Semite because I am fucking illiterate….
…
I’ll quote something he had to write about Zionism and his critique of Israel that you failed to read..
I hope that helps and feel free to go read some stuff instead of making a fool of yourself.
Please make your font larger and change it fro m grey.. it’s terribly hard to read and I would love to read it
Thanks
Hi Gill, I am not sure what you mean – the only grey text are the blockquotes.
Sadly when the Palestinian leadership or “leadership” fight amongst themselves, there’s nothing really left for me to do except weep for the Palestinian people, victims of their own so called leaders.
Sigh! As shitty as things are, and as naive as it maybe, hope is all we have.
Btw Ray, first time commenting to you and just wanted to say I LOVED your piece on being a moderate.
Thanks Karlos … I think that the Israeli military does engage in state terrorism … that their response oftentimes goes way beyond justified response.
But here’s my point about Hamas. THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO FIRE ROCKETS INTO ISRAEL. Who the f- are they? Who elected them.
And, that leads me to the next point. Hamas does control the PNA, but the firing of rockets is NOT BEING DONE BY THE PNA … Hamas members may support it, but the firing of rockets is being done by a stupid, terrorist fanatic group in Gaza intent on killing Jews. Why fire them? To kill some little old lady in an Israeli settlement. That’s supposed to be their genius? They are ignorant pathetic fools who exploit Palestinian suffering to achieve their goals of 1) destroying Israel, and 2) subjugating Christian Arabs AND Secular Palestinians.
The right action is to stand up to Israel int he International Court of Law. And don’t say we have because we haven’t from day 1. We never have. We have always resorted to vengeance and violence … we should have accepted compromise in 1947 even if we didn’t believe it was right because we couldn’t win … and to prove that, we have had 60 years of LOSING to Israel.
Reason, sanity and common sense should prevail, not wild emotion, hatred, anger, whatever. Your response is emotional and that’s not good strategy and that achieves nothing. If it did, we wouldn’t be here today.
The answer is peace, moderation and intelligent strategic thinking. Are we Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims incapable of doing that? Or, will we always give Israel everything it needs to hammer us, take our lands and reject a real and fair peace compromise?
You’ve obviously opted for the latter. I believe that realism will result in peace because justice and truth ALWAYS win in the long run, unless you veer away from justice and truth and become the monsters that you claim the Israelis are. Becoming what you denounce is not justice.
Thanks
Ray Hanania
Actually, HAMAS’s roots are in Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, and they are now being funded by Iran to act as their proxies (against the Palestinians’ own best interests). They are shooting missiles into Israel for the same reasons that Hizbollah does at times — they’re being ordered and paid to do it by their handlers. Can we stop the charade already that they are an independent organization that acts in such a dysfunctional manner because Israel pushes them into it?
The Palestinians’ biggest problem, in my opinion, is that they refuse to act as a sovereign and independent people, preferring instead to safeguard the political whims of non-Palestinians rather than their own. That’s why they have become so factionalized lately. What is happening between Fatah and Hamas is yet another regional proxy war between the US and Iran for regional dominance. Meanwhile, their people starve because their handlers tell them it’s noble to have an empty stomach and closed fist.
Ask yourself, how is it that Palestinians are able to get plenty of weapons rather than food from their “friends” and “allies”? You really think that’s what the average Palestinian wants — a gun rather than bread? Think about who is in control over their affairs. It’s not Israel. He who pays the bills calls the shots. You know that.
Of all the people I have spoken to, the ones who want Hamas to fail the most are Egyptian forces of democratic change, as well as with their Coptic minority, because the Muslim Brotherhood is fighting to resurge in Egypt. They know that, if Hamas succeeds, it will embolden the MB in Egypt too. Egyptian secularists and Copts are desperate for Hamas to fail because they realize that the region’s problems are not so much about Israel as much as they are about a global political movement that threatens their way of life since it uses religion, instead of modern concepts of human rights, to guide society. They don’t blame Israel for Hamas’ development, they blame the MB (and now Iran) and they know what they are talking about.
Yaa… and this goes very well with the 9/11 being a Jewish masterminded attack to draw the US into a war with the Moooslims.
Ya ok… ohhh you missed the part where Israel funded Hamas as a opposition for the PLO.
In order for them to be sovereign and independent, they have to have sovereignty, it won’t happen under Israeli occupation.a
Your arguemnt is based on the fact that the Palestinians are doing the bids of foreigners. How can I argue with a conclusion when the primes itself is flawed beyond reasoning?
Who ever said they are their friends? Their Arab neighbours only use them to further their own agenda. These Arab nations have no compassion for the Palestinians, they use the Palestinians to get revenge for the humiliation these Arab nations faced after the wars with Israel.
Reeeeeely? Can I now use that argument with Usama and guess where that would take me? Or how about every other blowback cases? Come on I can play that game also.
Israel has to be an equal partner to those Palestinians who wants peace, and just like Hamas, Israel got it’s government that doesn’t want this. It depends on the people of Israel and the Palestinians to bridge the gap on a grassroots level before doing anything drastic. I see many grassroots movements, maybe in the future there will be peace and a just solution to this mess, but this won’t happen as long as the current Israeli government or militant groups like Hamas are in power.
Ah, Jina, but there lies the rub:What is defined as Palestinian lands?A very popular narrative in the Palestinian society defines all of Israel to be “Palestinian land”- I have yet to see the state that dismantles itself willingly.Especially one whose people have been so persecuted in across history.
Currently what the average Israeli sees is this:the West Bank is under Israeli control and very few attacks come from there, Gaza OTOH has been conceded to the Palestinians and rockets are launched from there almost daily at Sderot.Not what I’d call and incentive, especially when you add in the fact the Hamas charter explicitly calls for the destruction of Israel.Btw, the only things Olmert put as prerequisites for sitting with Hamas back in March of 2006 was the deletion of these parts of their charter and acknowledging Israel.
I can say that there is a very popular belief within Israel and within the worldwide Jewish community that suggest that they want all of certain land for themselves. The occupation and the continued expansions and creations of settlements are just the proof I need.
You see, you can go round and round like bunch of fools. When are you going to learn?
Take it up with the people who persecuted you. And the PA did recognize Israel and Israel did what to them?
Lets go with the internationally recognized borders, the pre-war borders.
And Hamas says get out of our land before they start the negotiation…
@ Jina:
I prefer to make a fool of myself in your minds eye
No it doesn’t help – I know that stuff & that kind of argumentation already since long time – Ahmadinejad argues like that that – this argumentation give free hand to attack Jews if they live in Israel love Israel, support Israel or something like that – so Jews aren’t Jews anymore but just evil Zionists, if they live in their homeland Israel, but we still support them if they behave & deny any connection to Israel – on the other hand I believe that not every critique in Israel is antisemitic – it shouldn’t be put in that terms of language anymore anyway.-
at first I wanted to answer to all of your ‘fine remarks’ – but I don’t that have that time by now – so at some crucial points
“ yes of course it is – (the only one person in the whole wide world who doesn’t know this fact, is probably you!)
Did you ever think about why Israel did occupy the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights? – because it was all the while attacked from there – & West Bank got occupied because Israel got attacked with war by Jordan in 1967 – From the Golan Heights there were settlers in Israel all the time shot at in the 50ies & sixties – so why give it back? – I insist in the statement I made in my comment before, that Israel gave back Gaza & that Gaza is ruled by Palestinian forces (what I’d call self-government) – there is Abbas, there is Fatah, there is Hamas voted by the Gaza’inian people, there is a Palestinian legislative & executive in Gaza, there are a lot people who feel free to shoot Quasams at Israel, which shows that of course that not Israel is governing or ruling in Gaza.
& did you think
So you think Israel should have shot over 400 rockets into Gaza within the last half year? – that would have been equality – I don’t think so, because Israelian rockets would have been much more effective – & I’d also hate every innocent person within Gaza to get hurt or killed by such an answer..
your:
Yes you are right Jina – of course I know that it’s a ‘no – sign’ – like ‘fuming forbidden’ – ‘no littering’ – Strangers forbidden – Jews forbidden – Israel forbidden – of course it doesnt’t mean to annihilate them – it just means (in my minds eye) to forbid that country to exist – well we all know (at least we brainwashed western people) what in most cases that sign means, but I understand that, since you’re so used to see it daily, while I see it about never, see it in other terms (maybe brainwashed easternly)..
@ Karlos.
Israel wouldn’t do so if not all the time there would come attacks from Gaza – Israel wouldn’t have all these strange & disgusting checkpoints & controls, if not all the time there would come suicide-bombers & other attacks – Israel wouldn’t have that that awful wall, if it there wouldn’t be need of protection from attacks from the other side – who was first – the chicken or the egg – the action or the reaction? -
No,IIRC when they were talking they said “Get out of our land and we’ll *think* about talking to you and stopping the attacks, maybe”- not a wording to inspire confidence and trust, is it?
And as I’ve mentioned in the past Israel(specifically the Israeli public) doesn’t trust the Palestinians enough to perform these actions- not after the way Arafat took advantage of what trust we had and destroyed it by continuing the “In blood and fire we’ll free Palestine” especially not with the rockets arching out of Gaza and into Israel since the retreat from there.All Israel wanted was a declaration and a change of the wording of a document- not action:there was no request included of “every rifle not in PA hands goes into our hands” which would have been the equivalent of what Hamas demands before it even thinks of sitting down to the table.
AntonGarou, if all those Palestinian rifles were in the streets of Tel Aviv stopping you from going to school or the market, you’d demand they left too before you put your own piece down.
Hamas, actually, has offered full truces/ceasefires for periods of 10-15 years during which a permanent settlement can be discussed. It’s called the hudna. Learn to love it–it’s the only way out.
Is that a joke, Ray? Have you seen the rulings by the International Court of Justice against many of Israel’s actions, including the building of the confiscation wall? You think Israel actually cares abotu the ICJ? What’s the ICJ going to do, write them a letter? Come on…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/hardtalk/3639093.stm
Heimo,
Why do you work so hard to make Israel out to be the victim?
You clearly need to do your research.
When Israel withdrew from Gaza, it left the Palestinians discontinuous pockets of land on which to build a state, whilst Israel maintained control over all its resources. It disallowed Palestinians from using their own roads and the new roads Israel had built on Palestinian land.
Palestinians could not even fish in their own waters.
Gaza was a prison with “self-rule”. Lovely.
Israel is founded on ethnically cleansed land.
Israel is built on the ruins of hundreds of Palestinian villages.
In some cases, Israel has planted forests over these village to cover them up.
Israel was founded on extremist religious ideology.
Israel was created by violence and fire.
The Palestinians had a strong fear and animosity towards the immigrating Jews in the early 1900s. I do not doubt there were racist attacks towards the immigrating Jews.
But based on Israel historians I noted above, the immigrating Jews formed terror gangs and drove the natives from their land. These terror gangs became todays IDF.
Why do you defend a nation that tacitly rejects every opportunity for peace?
Hamas recently acknowledged Israel’s right to exist, indirectly, at the Saudi summit. Hamas agreed to abide by all agreements the PLO had signed with Israel. Few months later, Israel attacks Hamas and arrests scores of their democratically elected politicians.
By the way Heimo, the “no sign” that offends you so much mean this:
Israel, in it’s current racist and violent form, as represented by that flag, cannot exist. If you read my post, you would know that I advocate the right for every Israeli to remain in Israel, but equally for every Palestinian to receive justice. You can stick with your Jew-superiority complex if you want.
Karlos says “Israel was created by violence and fire.” LOL! Say what? Sorry sir, Israel in fact is the only nation state to have her borders defined by treaty.
But, let’s entertain your played notions of occupied land. Note however that the UN term is disputed territories.
Compare a map of Germany in about 1914 to one of 2007. Now, try and make the case for returning turf that has been German since Roman times and the world will laughingly lecture you about the wages a state incurs when it repeatedly attacks it’s neighbors – and repeatedly loses.
Of all the conflicts since WWII, why is this one impossible to solve?
Ever heard of Germans detonating in downtown Gdansk to protest the Polish occupation of Danzig? Or Greeks launching home made rocket attacks on Turkish schools for the right of return to Smyrna? The Chinese never made suicide runs at the capitol in Hong Kong to fight British Imperialism and occupation.
History actually makes the opposite case – that all this never ending, on again off again roadmaps, peace plans, ‘meetings’ etc, by Western powers to negotiate Israeli-Palestinian peace make the problem worse, not better.
Might it not be closer to the truth to say that Arab radicalism is the cause of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute–not the result of it?
That there is no peace because Israel’s neighbors–and too many of the world’s Muslims–cannot bear the idea of an egalitarian society, with a free and uncensored press, open and transparent elections in their midst or accept the right of a tolerant, non-Arab, non-Muslim minority to live unsubjugated in the Middle East. That is the true basis of the dispute, and it cannot be fixed by negotiation. At least not with what is misruling Palestine now.
If the HAMAS could recognize Israel, (and no, I don’t mean your kinda, sort of bit at the ‘Saudi’ summit) adhere to previous agreements, stop suicide bombing, reign in and disband any number of their nearly two dozen militias, stop honor killings, grant equal rights to women, establish a free and uncensored press, create an independent judicial system based on the rule of law instead of the sharia, allow the treasury to be openly accountable, plan and hold periodic, free and fair elections, announce that any ‘jews’ who wish to live in Gaza or the West Bank will enjoy the same rights as Arabs in Israel – then they may find the free world would support such moves.
But all that is a lot of ifs, ya’ll.
The fact is that Israel ‘occupies’ less than 1% of Arab lands and less than a tenth of a percent of Islamic turf.
Sounds like Israel presents a wonderful chance for a little tolerance from Arabs and Muslims.
Hi Karlos, – is it possible, that you added a much more longer text in your comment, than I read there yesterday – I can’t react to that by now – well so just to Hamas:
your Karlos:
well I confess, I’m a friend of Israel – so apparently biased somehow, but not extremely to believe in things like ‘Great-Israel’ etc – & I’m also a guardian against anti-semitism here in Germany so, because it’s a very wide theme – just some more words Hamas:
But first a little look inside the Hamas charta:
passages like this (e.g. article 22):
or if I read in that charta sentences like this:
you see they use about the same arguments & theories of deep anti-semitism like once the (we) Germans had, – when by that belief they made race cleansening & extinguished most of all Jews (about 6 Millions) that lived here for centuries – since I’m German I feel ashamed & guilty to what we did to the Jews & this makes me very aware, that nothing like that should happen ever again – & since I know these roots & arguments of the generation before me since youth, I recognize them of course if they appear in another disguise somewhere else in the world in modern forms like Jewish conspiration theories about 9/11 & Ahmadinejad, Hizbollah, Muslim Brotherhood & finally Hamas we’re talking about – all in same ideologic line – I fight this rooted anti-semitism by fanatics, be they Nazi, Christianic, Islamic etc. since youth (which doesn’t mean that all Christians or Muslims are anti-semitic – but some percent are..) – so argumenting against Hamas doesn’t even mean yet to talk about the Palestinian/Israelian conflict about land, origins etc.
but seeing a majority in Gaza having voted for Hamas, like once here a majority voted for Hitler, which led his country in insane wars & leaded it to a future of doom – like in days of misery & need & starvation people always tend to vote & follow the strongest & most reckless leaders they believe in to be strong enough to set them free. – That’s natural – but in most cases wrong. – Don’t follow Attila, Napoleon, Hitler or Hamas etc. they lead you to doom.
Nothing is more harming to any Palestinian case for selfgovernment for a better life situation, about land & settlements, than believing in fanatic religious hardliners – I would understand political discourse & maybe Fatah (with political argument, not fascist-religious) , but not brainwashed fanatical Jihad Anti-semitism. – & anyone who’s a follower of Hamas, Hizbollah is under this preamble not worth to discuss with, but any other Palestinan – yes of course
Hi Karlos again:
Is there a new Hamas Charta (I know that some decadees ago also PLO reformed their first charta) – if so – please inform me – the link that Jina set up here to a Hamas interview was not that convincing..
Heimo / Courtneyme,
Neither of you have addressed the ethnic cleansing and racism that Israel has engaged in and continues to engage in, since the mass immigration of Jews to Mandate palestine.
Heimo,
Your fight against anti-semticism is noble, but you should know Arabs, even Palestinians, are also Semites.
Your arguement about Germany, Poland and Turkey is broken. It was the Zionists that “returned” to Israel and demanded its return to them. You have it backwards.
Courtneyme,
Yes, Israel was founded by violence and fire. Hundreds of villages were ethnically cleansed by early Israeli terror gangs, like the Stern Gang.
This is pure mistruth. There are many racist Jewish only settlements built on Palestinian land. East Jerusalem is annexed as part of the racist Jewish State.
Heimo,
The step Hamas took in Saudi was very significant: they recognised Israel and agreed to abide by all agreement made with the PLO. But Israel does not care for it because it suggests compromise.
Israel has never recognised Palestine and has never renounced violence.
Karlos,
History is not so kind to those who wage wars of aggression and lose them. Israel won the WB and Gaza fair and square. And like Germany, Palestine has paid with land. Nothing magic about it.
I understand your feelings about it and all the Arab states at the heart of the Middle East question: Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. The truest cause of the Arab/Islamic lament – cannot be voiced so easily, either openly or in detail. Why? To do so would involve a systematic cultural, political, and social review of the entire Middle Eastern contemporary world – one that might explain, in terms other than the few thousand acres of the West Bank, why a tiny Jewish state is so prosperous, free, and confident amid dozens whose half-billion inhabitants are not.
Your real grievance against Israel is not so much its post-1967 retention of conquered land — there were 20 years of war prior to then — but its Westernized presence and daily example of success in a sea of failure. The pathologies of the Middle East were there prior to Israel.
Calling Israel a racist state is laughable. I suspect your feeling doesn’t spring solely from genuine dismay over the hundreds of Arabs Israel has killed on the West Bank; after all, Saddam Hussein butchered hundreds of thousands of Shiites, Kurds and Iranians, while few in Cairo or Damascus said a word. Syria’s Hafez Assad liquidated perhaps 20,000 in sight of Israel, without a single demonstration in any Arab capital. The murder of some 100,000 Muslims in Algeria and 40,000 in Chechnya in the last decade provoked few intellectuals in the Middle East to call for a pan-Islamic protest. Clearly, the anger derives not from the tragic tally of the fallen but from rage that Israelis have defeated Arabs on the battlefield repeatedly, decisively, at will and without modesty.
If Israel were not so successful, free and haughty—if it were beleaguered and tottering on the verge of ruin—perhaps it would be tolerated. But in a sea of totalitarianism and government-induced poverty, a relatively successful economy and a stable culture arising out of scrub and desert clearly irks its less successful neighbors.
If one of your points of contention is ‘settlements’ then perhaps you’d best drop it and maybe find one that isn’t so easily shot down. Syria holds far more Lebanese land than Israel does the West Bank. Ethnic intolerance and cleansing? You mean like Kuwait, quite unlike Israel, ethnically cleansed their entire country of Palestinians after the Gulf War. Syria and Iraq summarily expelled over 7,000 Jews after the 1967 war, stole their property, and bragged that they had rid their country of them. The upcoming Arab Summit could spend weeks just investigating the Arab murder and persecution of its own people and Jews.
I stand by my post – tiny tiny Israel – ‘occupies’ less than 1% of Arab lands and less than a 10th of a % of Islamic turf. And judging by history – it doesn’t look like she’s going anywhere soon.
Answer this Yaman: Do you think Israel will give them anything if they continue the rocket attacks?
At the risk of sounding like a radical, let me ask what the purpose of a civil society is, particularly a Palestinian civil society? It is all too easy to lose sight of the obvious. The object of a secular society is to maintain public safety, to increase the wealth of its citizens, to provide useful education for the young, to provide for public health, to implement and maintain a transportation system, to foster agriculture, to maintain a court system, to maintain a stable currency, and so on. Palestinian society is dramatically failing to accomplish these goals for its people.
Much of the failure stems from its internal divisions and obsession with Israel. And the chronic failures of Palestinian society to provide for the actual, not the ideologically prescribed, needs of the Palestinian people reinforces the divisions and the obsession with Israel.
What can Palestinians do today to take the first steps toward breaking out of the vicious circle they are trapped in?
In spite of being an outsider I would suggest working toward these goals:
–stop the fighting
–stop the attacks on Israel to stop provoking reprisals
–emphasize and improve useful education
–solicit investment from rich Arab countries
If Palestinian territories ever had full employment, none of their problems would seem as urgent or in need of fighting about.