My Own Middle East Peace Crusade
May 31st, 2007It’s not just because my mother is from Bethlehem or that my father is from Jerusalem that makes me so concerned about peace between Palestinians and Israelis.
What happens in the Middle East directly impacts our own lives right here in America. I can’t help but to believe that if President Clinton had solved the conflict in his rush before leaving office, maybe we would not have the troubles today that made it easy for fanatics to attack America on Sept. 11 — not that the Palestinian revolution has anything to do with the Islamicism fanaticism that is spreading throughout the Arab World.
Maybe the cost of gasoline would not be so high. Maybe we wouldn’t be in Iraq today, losing three and four American soldiers’ lives every day with no hope of winning in sight.
But then, I’m a “moderate,” which is just another word for a fatalistic optimist.
So next week, I will be off on another one of my Middle East peace crusades, trying to do my little part, the make my tiny, maybe insignificant contribution towards nudging the two sides, Palestinians and Israelis into believing that peace is possible.
I’ll do another comedy tour of Israeli and Palestinian cities partnering with fellow Chicago comedian Aaron freeman and two courageous Israeli comedians, Yisrael Campbell and Charley Warady. (www.IPComedyTour.com). I will also participate in a conference on defining a vision for peace Monday June 11 at Haifa University with Professors John Myhill and Fania Salzberg. I’ll have more information posted on my web site at www.hanania.com and also here.
Warady and I met by accident. I penned an online novel called “MidNight Flight” about racial white flight from Chicago’s Southwest Side in the late 1960s that he read, discovering that he lived only a few blocks away in “Pill Hill.”
Pill Hill was where all the rich doctors lived, along with Warady’s neighbors like Curtis Mayfield and Ernie Banks.
Actually, I lived east of Jeffrey in the neighborhood called “Bill Hill” where all the patients of the doctors lived.
Warady e-mailed me around Thanksgiving. When he said he was a comedian, too, I challenged him to appear with me on stage to do what Jackie Mason refused to do back in August 2002, though the brouhaha landed us both loads of media. Warady took up the challenge without hesitation and with enthusiasm. (We just returned from a 1,200 seat performance at Toronto’s prestigious Roy Thomson Hall.)
There are 18 Arab American comedians, I’m the only one not in jail, none so far will partner with Israelis, or “the entity” as they call them. I think it is a ridiculous taboo so I decided that in order to set an example for peace, you have to break the ugly, stupid and ridiculous taboos.
We performed five sold out shows in Israel and East Jerusalem last January. Next week, we go back to do 10 more performances beginning June 7 in Tel Aviv, West Jerusalem, East Jerusalem, Haifa, Ra’anana and Beersheba in the Negev Desert.
Humor is a powerful way to diffuse anger and undermine hatred.
If we can laugh together, we can live together. I know because my wife, Alison, who is Jewish, and I celebrate 10 years of blissful marriage this July; our only conflicts involve the fact that she is a Republican and I am a Democrat. (She says the Republican Party is the Party of God. Where I come from, that’s called Hezbollah.)
Humor won’t resolve the conflict but it might help change a few minds. It’s easy to hate someone you don’t know, and harder to hate someone you do know.
Sharing laughter, laughing with someone rather than at someone as Don Imus once did, can change how people see each other.
And right now, we can use a little laughter. Not just in the Palestine-Israel conflict, but also right here in America.
Which reminds me: President Bush is concerned about the invasion of Chicago by that new and ferocious al-Qaeda sub-cell, that he calls, the “sa-Qaedas.”
(Ray Hanania’s web site is www.hanania.com.)
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Perhaps you know the expression, “Preaching to the choir”? Advocating peace in Israel is a waste of time because Israeli have always wanted peace. There is no Israeli equivalent of rejectionism, no plans to push the Arabs into the sea, no holy book heaping derision and hostility on the Arabs.
If you want to do something for peace, try doing your act in Gaza, Ramallah, and Jericho. Of course you would be killed for trying, but that certainly shows who and what the problem is, doesn’t it?
sure we Israelis want peace — but due to what has already taken place there is almost no TRUST! on either side! It doesn’t take a Dr. Freud to figure out how a Palestinian must have felt leaving his home during all the confusion of 1948. Even if this is all part of God’s master plan, things happend that shattered the old reality….. trauma resulted and now it’s time to start a healing process and regain some trust. I’m not talking politics or religion here….. let’s just laugh and love and care a little more than we have. It may be our only hope.
Ray, is your stand-up a secondary job or are do you make a career out of comedy and journalism? Just out of curiosity.
@ Jack Kessler
I think that the settlers and people supporting the settlers are the israeli equivalent of rejectionism and of a holy book heaping derision and hostilitity on the arabs.
Of course you can say that the jewish scriptures dont preach hatred but according to the settlers they (indirecty) do.
So stop pretending to be the reasonable, unguilty one in this conflict. We all know that both parties talk shit, do shit and eat shit.
Ah Jack. Living in your own blind world. Always blaming the Palestinians but closing your eyes to the extremism in Israel. I support peace and moderation, but as I have said in the past, a true moderate is someone who sees the truth on BOTH sides, and who criticizes not only the other side but their own side. Part of the problem in the Middle East, unfortunately, are people like you who exaggerate criticism of the Palestinians and ignore criticism of Israel. BOTH sides have issues and have done things they need to change. And when you pretend that Israel has no real responsibility or that people like Sharon or Netanyahu want peace, or Avigdor Lieberman, one of the most racist and hateful people in Israel (I like to call him the Ahmadinejad of Israel), then, well, you are not a part of the “Peace Choir” that I am preaching to.
But, I do appreciate your opinion.
Thanks
Ray Hanania
Oh and hey to Patrick. I was a journalist, and now mainly am a columnist, which is somewhat different. (A reporter reports or should report the news fairly and accurately. A columnist takes that information, adds his own twist and offers a subjective perspective to help readers understand the news. I’ve actually been writing columns mainly for the past 10 years as my main journalism endeavor. I also have published two Arab American newspapers and this month launch a third called the Arab American Times Newspaper (English and Arabic) … the web page is http://www.AATimesNews.com. No politics, just a focus on Arab American culture, society and events. (I support all of the other Arab American newspapers which also do a great job of addressing politics, but I wanted to do something that offers a focused look at the other areas.)
The comedy is a mission more than a job. I really do believe that humor is a powerful way to break through the hatred. If we can laugh together, we can live together. You should have seen the enthusiasm after the Toronto Show May 29. We brought down the house with 1,200 people int he audience at Roy Thomson Hall. About 45 mostly Palestinian Arabs waited for me after the show and their enthusiasm for the humor and rejection of the fanaticism in our community was so moving to me.
I love the Arab community. They are so great. One couple insisted that the next time I come to Toronto, I have dinner at their home and stay there. We Arabs are always so excessively generous and always ready to open our hearts and give everything we have to help people. That’s the true Arab spirit we don’t often see among the small group of fanatics and extremists who do everything based on selfish politics.
The comedy is a parttime job but my heart remains in writing. (I have 8 books including the most recent, “Arabs of Chicagoland” by Arcadia Publishing. (The books are listed on my web site at http://www.hanania.com, with everything else, of course.)
Thanks
Ray Hanania
I still don’t understand what is the Israeli notion of “ peaceâ€
while Israel is supposing to be “ negotiating †a peace settlement with the Palestinians over the West Bank and Gaza, since Oslo, they in the process have built more illegal Jewish settlements over stolen Palestinian lands, doubling the illegal settlers population and built highways, tunnels and bridges, that eat up even more Palestinian land , imprisoned more Palestinians, ( over 10,000 prisoner) killed more, destroyed and traumatized the Palestinian society for generations to come, and still they say “ ohh we want peace, but you Arabs want to throw us in the sea†what does Israel exactly mean with the word “ Peace†!
I am wondering … really.. do Israelis expect the Palestinians to throw flowers at them, or protest the theft of their land and the murder of their people by sending them thank you cards, or writing letters to the editor!
Ray: It’s easy to hate someone you don’t know, and harder to hate someone you do know. You know Charles Malik ? (blogname) He once, long before the Israel/Lebanon war last year wrote the following unforgettable (at least for me) words :
Not knowing about “them” is the worst crime we can commit. It invalidates them as humans, as if they don’t even matter. They are Stalin’s faceless enemy, the rabid dog, the evil blood suckers whom it is righteous to kill.
this goes for everybody who’s locked up in their own little world and afraid to step out (because then, maybe, they’ll have to meet themselves… )
Ali, you lost one eye?
And yesterday morning Mohammed Mar’i reported a story about further Israeli terrorist tactics…
Israeli High Court Permits Torture of Palestinians
Kudos to Israel for taking yet another step towards “peace…” sigh.
Israel must realize that the Palestinians are not about to give up their right to reconstitute their state based on their native right in that land. They did not give it up in 1936, 1948, 1956, 1967- to the present, and I don’t think it will ever happen.
If you ask any Palestinians child in any refugees camp scattered around in the Arab world where he from is, he will answer you with a name of his village that is no longer exist and now is perhaps an Israeli town.
Sometimes, it amazes me that Russian immigrants, now Israeli politicians.. Think Sharansky, or Leiberman, speak of “deporting†the Palestinians, or want to “transfer†them out of their own native land. Give me a break!
Palestinians did not come or immigrate from somewhere to be “granted†their own country, or to be given VISAS to visit their former towns and villages now lie underneath some Israeli mall or suburb.
Israelis need to really explore the humanity of the Palestinian people and cross that psychological threshold that Palestinians and Arabs are human beings not insects or animals that should be caged in big prisons like Gaza, or kill them wholesale, or lock them up in their towns and cities.
Israel must realize that the Palestinians are not about to give up their right to reconstitute their state based on their native right in that land. They did not give it up in 1936, 1948, 1956, 1967- to the present, and I don’t think it will ever happen.
Well, Ali it will for always stay war then. Your choice.
Esra’a, only for Palestinians is it made into a ‘case’ – ‘criminals’ get tortured as well here but nobody really hears about it –
However, torture is inhumane and humiliating and should be condemned byhigh and by low and always and by everyone, still the israeli torture is nothing compared to the torture applied in our surrounding neighbor’s countries. I don’t say that to talk Israel out of its responsibilities – but to balance a bit, and to show you it doesn’t necessarily have to do with longing for peace or not (as you seem to draw your conclusion).
Sorry, that’s a bad statement to make, surely you don’t even know what goes on within these prisons. You always assume that Israel is an “angel” compared to the rest of us, and that is a nationalist mentality to have that shouldn’t ever be approved of. Learn how to admit your mistakes and condemn them without belittling others like you so often do to us.
Your comment solidifies my point that some Israelis, and some Jews see the Palestinians through the prism of either they give up their right to be free in their own state or war! Slavery to Israel or war, or living in reservations or war! .. another example of Israeli kind of ” peace”
And tsedek, if you think Israel is such an innocent and advanced democracy, I’ll have you know that Israel is home to one of the worst cases when it comes to sexual slavery and human trafficking. Why do you always compare your practices with neighboring countries and assume that you are so far in terms of progress and advancement? There’s nothing wrong with being proud of your achievements, which is mostly thanks to the U.S, but it’s just sad that your only solution, instead of peace and overall acceptance, is acceptance that Israel is somehow much better and should reserve the right to do whatever it pleases to Palestinians or other Arabs. Why do you feel that way, and what is so wrong in admitting your mistakes for once without justifying it or claiming that “it’s fine because Arabs are guilty of worse?”
You are here trying to propose a solution without realizing that you are actually part of the problem. When we condemn violence from Palestine, you call it “moderation,” but when Israelis condemn Israeli violence, most call it being a “traitor.” You should aim to fix that, instead of justifying these mentalities (and having the same one too.) A step towards peace is when you realize that all violence and torture no matter what must be condemned regardless of race, nationalities, or lousy justifications. Israel makes heaps of errors and mistakes, horrific human rights violations, what are you doing to ensure that it doesn’t happen instead of blaming it on the Palestinians all the time?
Sorry, that’s a bad statement to make, surely you don’t even know what goes on within these prisons.
Well, actually I sorta do. Look at the clips sandmonkey placed in his blog, or at the testimonies of the people that got replaced from Guatanomo to Egypt…. and you will get a fairly good impression.
Israel used to keep such practices as well (the “famous” Guam prison in Lebanon for instance for which it should be condemned and punished, but this hard-core torture is history now. (thank God)
You always assume that Israel is an “angel†compared to the rest of us,
Esra’s I wish I could one time get through to you. I am NOT comparing Israel with you. That’s the same thing as comparing Jordan (or whatever country) with me. You (and every individual living everywhere) is you. Countries however have their governmental system, which is something I don’t connect with PEOPLE, but with a system. Okay?
and that is a nationalist mentality to have that shouldn’t ever be approved of. Learn how to admit your mistakes and condemn them without belittling others like you so often do to us.
I challenge you to give me one example where I “belittle” you. Please, do it, because that way we can maybe get to the core of the matter and get misunderstandings out of the way. I’m awaiting your example
Your comment solidifies my point that some Israelis, and some Jews see the Palestinians through the prism of either they give up their right to be free in their own state or war! Slavery to Israel or war, or living in reservations or war! .. another example of Israeli kind of †peaceâ€
Ali, Israeli peace = two natiions – two countries.
If you’d like to think one nation away for the convenience of having the other nation’s rights put on top, it won’t work. Sorry
Haha. I love that you are using Sandmonkey as a valid source of information here. Try again.
What makes you so sure? Have you actually witnessed what Palestinians are going through in these prisons? Obviously, since you appear to know everything.
Israel as a system is just as bad as any other Arab country that doesn’t compile by international law.
Your comparison above is a valid example of this.
Did Ali even imply that? No. What he and many others here are saying is that Israel needs to respect Palestinian human rights – which right now, it certainly doesn’t. No one is going to bow down to your government, which seems to be what you want for “peace” to become a reality.
And tsedek, if you think Israel is such an innocent and advanced democracy, I’ll have you know that Israel is home to one of the worst cases when it comes to sexual slavery and human trafficking.
I know, I work with it…. But what does this tell? Again a reaction of mine that there are others that are much worse? What does it solve?
Why do you always compare your practices with neighboring countries and assume that you are so far in terms of progress and advancement?
Esra’a, I don’t. I’m am very proud tho on our social organizations that ARE standing up to injustices, there are many of those: both organizations and injustices. Nothing to do with advancement. Personally I’m even not advanced so understand very little in it and it doesn’t interest me at all anyway.
There’s nothing wrong with being proud of your achievements, which is mostly thanks to the U.S,
Thanks to the U.S.? Nope, dear Esra’a. Money can be given to anyone, it depends on WHAT someone’s drive is. If he wants to progress or stand still in time…. People that lost their WHOLE family in the Holocaust came here and remarried, had children (again), started new careers and build their lives… Esra’a thanks to the spirit of people like these the country can be proud of its achievements. Has totally NOTHING to do with the U.S.
but it’s just sad that your only solution, instead of peace and overall acceptance, is acceptance that Israel is somehow much better and should reserve the right to do whatever it pleases to Palestinians or other Arabs.
Where did you get this nonsense from in heavensname? How can you even think to know what I think? Don’t you think that’s a tiny bit presumptious?
Why do you feel that way, and what is so wrong in admitting your mistakes for once without justifying it or claiming that “it’s fine because Arabs are guilty of worse?â€
And, that’s exactly what I was not doing and what you could have understood should you read exactly the letters I wrote without connecting presumptions to it. I was ONLY making this comparison to take away your claim that it might be connected to not wanting peace. Because it isn’t. If the neighbors (and not only them) are doing it without war – why should it be connected to wanting war by Israel? Don’t seclude Israel, but treat it as any other country, because that’s what it is. YOU are the one taking it out of the context and placing it in a secluded place connecting it with not wanting peace. Not I.
You are here trying to propose a solution without realizing that you are actually part of the problem. When we condemn violence from Palestine, you call it “moderation,†but when Israelis condemn Israeli violence, most call it being a “traitor.â€
I don’t care and am not responsible for what ‘most’ call what.
You should aim to fix that, instead of justifying these mentalities (and having the same one too.) A step towards peace is when you realize that all violence and torture no matter what must be condemned regardless of race, nationalities, or lousy justifications.
Fix what? That you didn’t understand what I wrote? Here on this forum I don’t see anybody following the pattern you just described and outside of it there exists the problem from TWO SIDES, my dear. So, again: don’t exclude Israel, approach it from both sides.
Israel makes heaps of errors and mistakes, horrific human rights violations, what are you doing to ensure that it doesn’t happen instead of blaming it on the Palestinians all the time?
Nobody is denying Israeli’s “heaps of errors and mistakes, horrific human rights violations” etc. And, if you think I’m blaming it on the Palestinians all the time then you are not reading my comments and I kinda not like you at all now for these presumptious, prejudiced explanation you seem to take out of my writings. Sorry. I can only say in order to have some kind of progress and willingness to have this stopped there needs to be cooperation between all parties involved and no seclution of Israel in anything. And most of all: who is catalysing all this and what is the root that has to be taken out for this snowball to stop. And, I can assure you: that’s not Israel.
Esra’a I work for a law-office handling human rights organizations pro bono and yes, I know what goes on within the prison-etablissement here.
Sandmonkey also made up those clips? You can shoot the messenger, but his message is still there, Esra’a.
So what are talking about in the victimized “you think you’re better than us” posting to what I reacted? I say exactly this, you complain about it, I explain, and then you say the same thing??? Okay then: if you think people are wired to electricity here and thrown buckets of water while being electrified, or have their eye taken out, or all of that hard core stuff – you’re simply wrong. You don’t have to believe me, and you won’t – but that doesn’t interest me at all. I write what I KNOW. The rest is up to you.
If this is an example of my ’superiority’ over you, I have nothing to do here anymore on this forum. I would just add that your comprehension is thickly covered in a victimhoodsyndrom seeing things that don’t exist. If you could only just READ – as I explained before – the letters instead of connecting them to your prejudice it should show you a totally different picture. But halas….. you can only see what you are programmed to see probably.
No, Esra’a what Ali is saying is that he (and he assumes he speaks for all Palestinians or most of them – see his comment above) – will never give up his grandparents house IN Israel even if it doesn’t exist anymore, he will never give up his goal of ‘regaining’ that house. That, Esra’a is a CLEAR declaration of war: because that house isn’t here anymore and I am. Comprenez?
If you call this advancement, that under your hands, such human rights abuses can go unpunished, then I call it injustice. There’s nothing at all to be proud of if you collectively allow these human rights abuses to continue to happen.
What a hideous statement to make! He has every right to say that. It is his HOME which he has every right to secure from Israeli bombardment, and you’re telling me this is a declaration of war?
Obviously you are not interested in living with your fellow Palestinians… your solution is to what, kick them all out?! Dear God.
Israeli systematic degradation, torture, expulsion and wholesale demolition and killing of Palestinians are not isolated incidents of a democratic country, but rather as I mentioned above “systematic: as a state policy in dealing with the Palestinian people. In fact it started right off 1967 war with Israel controlling more Palestinian land and people when the Defense Minister Moshe Dayan put it in much clearer terms along the lines of “we should treat the Palestinians like dogs, and the more we treat them like dogs more of them will have to leave†its not working!
History provides us a valuable lesson in that no occupation of another people and their land has ever worked. It did not work in India, or Algeria (with more than 500, 000 soldiers and Algeria was a province of La France) or in Africa, Asia, or anywhere else.
So why should it work for Israel? I don’t think it will!
Another thing I love about you is the way in which you say that you speak entirely from facts while the rest of us (anyone with a different opinion from you) is relying solely on propaganda. I am arguing from my own personal perspective, my own personal bias, and here you are, enforcing your opinions upon me as if it’s the truth and the ONLY solution. So because I think differently and want to ensure different things, you tell me that I am blind and “programmed” to think this way, as if I am too stupid to actually have an informed opinion?
Yeah, only you have informed opinions! Nothing I saw from your post other than “I know, I know, I work in this field!”
Where is the productivity in your posts? Why are you blaming us here for thinking differently and telling us that we are intolerant (or at least implying it strongly,) if you hold yourself so much higher from us and claim that we want war simply because we have a different solution to the problems?
I maintain my stance that your mentality is only feeding hatred. You’re not doing anything or anybody a favor by doing what you love to do in forums like these. We’re here to collaborate, NOT to propagandize and litter the threads with “I know better and you are wrong.”
Declaration of war eh!
Let me talk about one of Israel’s best propaganda myths!
You see…. Many Israelis claim how heroic the state of Israel when at the time of its birth in 1948, it repelled the aggression and attacks of six Arab armies and it was Israeli heroism that triumphed over those six mighty strong Arab armies.
The truth is: (according to the historical record and the work of Israeli historians)
The six Arab armies in 1948, Egypt, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Iraq totaled only 20,000 soldiers (Lebanon’s Army did not actually fight and did not formerly enter the borders)
None of those Arab armies had any air force to speak off (Jordan had 0 airplanes) the Egyptian army it was found out that their fighting weapons in Palestine were dysfunctional!
On the other hand, the Jewish Militias in 1948 had 60,000 strong soldiers’ ( 3 times the size of six Arab armies) and very will equipped and trained and complete with modern weapons and an air force, many of them had served in European armies!
Sorry guys, you are not a peace blog/forum at all. You’re here to justify yourselves and pretend. You won’t get anywhere with this nonsense talking to israeli’s. Israeli’s (generalization, I know) won’t get slapped on the wrist by anyone’s pretentions. Ali is saying that his house IN israel is what he is after and you talk about the PA esra’a. totally mixed up you two, and obsesssed with justifying yourselves.
Whenever you want to apologize you know where to find me.
good luck with you forum,
Tse.
It is a very irritating conversation… oh, fuck it.
Once again the Israelis here show their knowledge in “productive dialogue.”
If anyone here is pretending it’s you Tsedek and you know it fully. Your idea of “peace” is for Palestinians to give up their rights for your sake – and we won’t bow down to your demands in doing so. It’s pitiful, it’s inhumane, and it’s unjust.
Don’t come here to spread your propaganda and to justify these horrific errors that you have YET to personally condemn. You don’t like this forum simply because you yourself are not a peaceful and understanding person at all, and for this, you will surely not be missed.
Don’t expect an apology either. You’re not better than us the way you think you are just because you’re Israeli. There are plenty of decent Israelis who understand fully what it means to be level-headed and understanding. Your insistence that we’re not peaceful merely because we disagree with you is further testament of your own ignorance and utter misunderstanding.
Goodbye. Come back when you actually grow up and understand what it means to accept criticism. For now it seems that you put your pride above anything else – even above human rights – which is what this blog is fighting against. One day I hope you will realize and learn from your own mistakes (which you are too proud to even admit at this point.)
Oh yeah, and no wonder you were so persistent in keeping Yoni here, which turned out to be a false propaganda machine employed by your ever so perfect government which you love boasting about so much.
Accept the fact that you’re imperfect, and that you only wish to maintain your own security at the expense of other innocent human beings. It’s very shameful. I weep for your country if the majority think and feel the way you do.
Fortunately I know from the Israelis here, who actually respect our differences, that there are a lot of understanding Israelis out there. You’re just not one of them. Having them share their thoughts and feelings with us in a respectful manner while understanding fully where we come from doesn’t make them any less Zionist or proud to be Israelis. It just makes them more understanding of what it truly means to be a decent human being, instead of someone like you who has no problem justifying abuses and murder in the name of Israel, a country whose errors you simply refuse to acknowledge.
Ummm I forgetz What does Tsedek mean again? justice? Don’t let the door hit your talking head on the way out.
I assume that since you claim Israel “stole” Arab land, you will admit that the Arabs “stole” French land in Paris, Marseilles, Lyon, etcetera? That the Arabs stole British land in London, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol? I assume you will admit that the Palestinians stole Kuwaiti land until they were kicked out en masse by the Kuwaitis for collaborating with the Iraqi Ba’ath occupying army?
(Why are the Arabs so silent about the expulsion of 300,000 Palestinians from Kuwait in 1991? That is more than four times as many Palestinians as left their homes in 1948. And what is the connection between 300,000 suddenly unemployed men and the Second Intifada? An outsider might find it characteristic that instead of accepting responsibility for having been expelled for being treacherous guests, that the Palestinians blamed Israel for their situation. Oh I forgot, it was all on account of Sharon walking on the Temple Mount.)
I assume that, if you are in a Western country, you will admit you stole the land you are on right now? Or if you won’t admit you stole all those lands, will you give up repeating that stupid lie against the Israelis?
And don’t forget the theft of American land in Michigan and New Jersey. Give it back. The French, British, and American peoples will never give up our rights to our land.
Why is that when Arabs go to live in someone else’s country they are immigrants who have to be welcomed, but when anyone else goes to live near them they are settlers who have to be driven out or killed?
Stolen PALESTINIAN land.
Ya… give it back to the natives. Ohhh your talking about the Arabs who live there? Last time I checked, they are not claiming to be an independent nation and trying to ethnically cleanse the rest.
Because Arabs don’t go and live in a country and then say that is their country and ethnically cleanse the others.
And ones again another Israeli comes here and says stuff and when the other disagree, they say you don’t want peace bla bla bla and leaves. You are following in the foot steps of Ben, the fuck who thinks Holocaust is the only genocide ever took place, Racoon, the person who agreed with him, Howie who never stays on topic and claim Israel and US is better because Arabs do worse things, Yoni the propaganda machine and… damn you guys are as diverse as the “Arab” loons who have the same view as you, but are on the other side of the spectrum.
Why can’t you be like Ray, criticize whom ever is at fault and try to address the issue rather than just blame one side for all ills on this planet and claim that you are not as bad as them, and use that to justify everything you do.
oh my The shortbus is missing a rider
Is there a full moon or something?
You forgot Pacific Palisades and Beverly Hills or do rich Arabs not count?
Tsedek, I don’t know who or what you are, but you’re the most arrogant and annoying person I’ve ever had the misfortune of reading on this site. If anyone here owes anyone an apology it’s you.
Have you ever written a comment that is NOT a damned complaint?! You complain to Ray, you complain to Ali, you complain to Esra, you complain and never say anything of worth. I for one am glad you are leaving. Good riddance! No more complaints and arrogant remarks that have no intellectual value whatsoever.
Will the Israelis on this site please explain this?
Eliyahu advocates carpet bombing Gaza
And read the talkbacks.
So, since Israel does “no mistakes” ever and it’s never guilty (it only acts in “retaliation and self-defense”), who here is going to justify it? Obviously, Israelis do everything “for a good reason,” even if it includes murder and further bloodshed.
People like Eliyahu exist. Even within the army. That’s why we are here to condemn ALL sort sorts of violence except many Israelis here simply refuse to admit any error on their part.
Easy. It is an attempt to dissuade the peace-lovers in Gaza to stop carpet-bombing Sderot. Why do so many Arabs have so much difficulty seeing the connections between their actions and the consequences of their actions?
I feel as if I am watching a tennis match the ball goes from one court to the other..
so can anyone think of a solution instead of biting each others head off!
Some speak of peace, and how in hell can this be achieved if all parties are not willing to budge!
seriously, must I point this out to you? Is your name Jack Handy? or Jack Kessler?
Jack,
Horrific. A top rabbi asks to wipe out INNOCENT CIIVLIANS and here you are actually justifying it?! Rasha, how can you expect “peace” when we have people who justify murder all the time?
Have WE ever justified murder? Can you find me one single article on this website where we haven’t admitted our mistake and condemned the violence committed in the name of us and our religion? You wont find one!
But if you read above, Tsedek and Jack both never shy away from justifying murder and unjust war.
Constructive dialogue doesn’t mean wishing death upon an entire nation. It doesn’t mean we kiss each other’s asses. It means ADMITTING your own mistakes when you come across it without justifying murder, and treating other human beings as if they were one of your own. Otherwise it can only be hateful – not constructive.
So no, you simply cannot and should not expect peaceful debates when this mentality is so prevalent amongst the Israeli commenters here. Only when Israelis actually get the courage required to condemn people like this rabbi can we ever see real progress.
We condemn our terrorists. They should learn how to condemn theirs.
Jina, once again you are unable to connect Arab actions and the consequences of them. It was only after the Arabs began murderous attacks on unarmed Jewish immigrants in the 1920’s which accelerated in the 1930’s, and swelled to open war in the 1940’s that Israelis began to arm themselves. It was Arab bigotry, xenophobia, and violence which led to separation of the two communities and the creation of two states by the UN in 1947. Had the Arabs accepted Jewish immigration, as the Americans, Canadians, French, and British today accept Arab immigration, none of that would have happened.
Jina, perhaps you can tell me why the Arabs have such difficulty accepting, or even seeing, their responsibility for the consequence of their own actions?
Esra’a, that is just silly. In Israel, public bigotry against Arabs is illegal and the law is enforced. You may chose to forget that Rabbi Kahane was convicted and sent to jail for it, and his tiny Kach party legally suppressed. On your side, more than 70% of Palestinian voters cast their vote for Hamas, which openly declares its intention to destroy Israel. Hamas, so far from being legally suppressed as Kach was, is the main political party.
Hey really? Then why didn’t this so-called “law” come in question when this happened:
Or when Azmi Bishara (an Israeli Arab) was persecuted by Israelis for wanting human rights for Palestinians?
Oh I know. Maybe because Israeli Arabs don’t enjoy the same rights as you do. So, if Israeli Arabs themselves can’t enjoy such rights – I can only imagine what actual Arabs go through in Israel’s name.
Esra’a, it is so simple that I am embarrassed to have to point it out to you. The Israelis are defending their country, which is a legitimate purpose. Hamas and Fatah are trying to destroy a neighboring country which is not a legitimate purpose.
If the Arabs would stop attacking Israel there would be reprisals and no mistakes in making them. But Arabs never seem able to see the connection between their attacks and the reprisals for them.
Some think that by being the Chosen people By God.,They are justified to do whatever!
I wonder this…why in history have jews been persecuted?
I think they believe that gives them the right to persecute others?
Why is it anti-semitinism so widespread ?
I remember in my scripture/bible classes the israelites freed from the pharoah were descibed as arrogant.
They have played the victims all thru history and have turned into now aggresors yet that mentality of being victims is still stuck blinding many to their own actions.
Jack, the only embarrassing thing here is your mentality that allows you to justify murder. Regardless of the cause, murder is murder no matter WHY it happens. Innocent civilians dying is not something you should justify. The only thing you are highlighting here is your own violence, which I find surprising to say the least!
That’s your problem. That’ everybody’s problem. Each person says, “they started it, and we must retaliate!” Arabs, Israelis, everybody. That alone is why the war has been going on for so long; because of people like you and Tsedek.
Here’s the only thing we should to as a response to violence:
CONDEMN it no matter what the causes are, otherwise you are the ones asking for it yourselves. Justifying murder is a shameful act and only shows how much of a violent person you truly are.
They have no right to do that; it’s downright hypocracy.
All these countries you listed refused assess to the Jews who were fleeing the Nazis, if they had accepted the Jewish immigrants, the Jews would not have had the need to immigrate to the Middle East. I can play the same game.
Ignorance is a bliss, no?
Stop grouping them all into one shit. Iraqis are not Palestinians and Palestinians are not Egyptians and Egyptians are not Moroccans.
I don’t ever remember saying, Arabs are not at fault. Stop using your preprogrammed brain to come to false conclusion. I am not an Arab, Arabs did worse thing to my people than they did to the Jews, so you can stop the victimhood now, because Jews are no longer the victims, they are the perpetrators of the current crimes.
Arab nations are controlled by dictators, dictators who are funded and armed by America and the West. When the West stop meddling in Arab matter and let the people have a say, then we can know what the Arabs want.
Then why did Israel fund and support Hamas?
Jina, a nice reply but it evades the question. If you don’t like taking responsibility for what the Arabs did in the past, how about having them take responsibility for what they are doing today.
Palestinian schools continue to use textbooks which vilify Israel and publish maps which show Israel as non-existent. The Palestinian press, television, and pulpit routinely vilify and demonize Israel. Today, when over a million Arabs live peacefully in Israel, no Jew is safe in Palestinian-controlled territory. Palestinians are so unwilling to consider peace that they refer to Israel as “the Zionist entity”.
Here on this very forum, Wafa of Saudi Arabia vents his antisemitic racism. Presumably this is because he is open-minded and wants peace with Israel?
Jina, you yourself, trapped by the facts of 70% Palestinian voter support for Hamas, find yourself having to invent fantasies that Israel supports Hamas. The Israeli funding of Hamas, that you claim, consisted of Israel and the European Union cutting off all payments to the PA while Hamas runs it. Or does your fantasy not include remembering that?
Of course the ones who are doing the crime has to take responsiblity for what they are doing, this goes for both Jews and Arabs.
And why should I take responsibility for anything Arabs did? Didn’t you not read what I wrote?
Kinda goes with the American notion of Usama was never funded by CIA and Saddam had WMD… when are you going to take responsibility for the mess US and Israel created. You call for the Arabs to take responsibilities, but you don’t want to do it yourself. Shove your hypocrisies up your ass and stop calling everything that moves anti-Semitic just because you don’t agree with it.
Ray Hanina, Israel has Peace Now, Meretz, several Arab parties, the left wing of Labour, and lots of others who are critical of national policy. Where is the equivalent among the Palestinians? Why is there no Palestinian peace movement? To put it in your terms, where are the Palestinian moderates? There aren’t any.
Actually, in my opinion, criticism is, at best, the bare minimum anyone can do to improve a situation; and at worst, totally counterproductive. Israelis and Palestinians have heard so much by now, it’s just become nitpicking at this stage and they don’t process it. Why not focus on what is actually needed — you know, like calming tensions already? Making peace is tough because people are too busy focusing on who is right instead of how to share. Part of the problem is that so many outsiders take sides rather than build bridges.
I don’t get why this has to be such a competition and why it’s so tough to agree that there are two competing and overlapping narratives: 1) Palestinians who have enjoyed being a majority on the land for a long time; and 2) Jews whose collective patrimony, history, tribal identity, institutions, folklore, oral traditions, liturgy, philology, and anthropology are unrivaled on the land.
Everyone’s right and noone’s right at the same time. You’ve got a situation in which the so-called colonialists are purveyors of an indigenous culture and adhere to precolonial institutions whereas the natives are purveyors of a foreign culture and adhere to foreign institutions. That’s screwy and you won’t find that anywhere else in the world. Can we all work together to make peace now?
Jina, I seem to have struck a nerve. I am sorry you have been moved to such language. But I understand the source of your frustration.
When mobs rampage through Palestinian cities screaming, “Death to the Jews!”, it is not a matter of my not agreeing. When people like Wafa claim that centuries of persecution are the fault of the persecuted, it is not a matter of my not agreeing. When murderers of civilians are publicly praised as shaheed martyrs, it is not a question of my not agreeing.
No one is denying what’s happening.
The difference is, unlike you, we aren’t justifying it.
And you are.
That makes you the violent one. No question about it. When someone justifies murder of innocent civilians – that is violence in action.
Want to tell me what that source is? Keeping in mind that I am not a Arab, like I said before and not a Muslim, answer it.
Jina, don’t you know? Anyone who values innocent civilians in Palestine comes from a terrorist source of some sort, it doesn’t matter what your religion or nationality is.
Jina – The source of your frustration is that your are trying to defend an unjust cause. You are a smart guy but you keep finding yourself making feeble or ridiculuous argument.
In my country there are still Southerners trying to defend the Confederacy, which existed as an attempt to preserve slavery. They try to recast the American Civil War as The War of Northern Aggression. They make themselves ridiculous by making up silly arguments.
That is how you found yourself claiming that Israel supports and funds Hamas.
But whoever said above that the argument is fruitless so long as it just reiterates each side’s grievances, was correct. What would be more fruitful would be to discuss what could be changed to change the situation.
What would make Palestinian voters less inclined to support people like Hamas? What would it take for there to be a Palestinian consensus in favor of coexistence with Israel? Please do not bother me with the usual song and dance about the occupation. The violence was going on for forty years before there was an occupation.
Also, I think everybody on every side is ignoring the elephant in the room. Gaza and the West Bank have among the highest birth rates in the world. At the same time, the economy of the Palestinian areas is among the most chaotic and least productive in the world.
For my part I am impressed with the similarities to Northern Ireland. When the birth rate came down and the economy became prosperous, it somehow became possible to make peace. Gerry Brown and Ian Paisley recently sat on the same stage and initiated the new government. Everybody patted each other on the back, particularly they congratulated Tony Blair and Bertie Ahearn. But I am convinced that the real roots of the peace was the decline in unemployment.
I think the immediate sequence between the expulsion of 300,000 Palestinians from Kuwait in 1991 and the outbreak of the Second Intifada within months, was not a coincidence. It illustrates the causal relationship. It also illustrates that the reasons people give for their actions have little to do with the actual reasons.
If I am right, what can the Arabs collectively do to reduce the birth rate and to reduce unemployment in Gaza and the West Bank? As we recently saw reported, the Nablus Stock Exchange is going nowhere but down because of the fighting. It is a spiral. No one will invest because of the fighting. As long as no one invests there will be unemployment and fighting. How can the spiral be broken? Ideas anyone?
Yikes! That’s a lot of spicey meatballs!
Listen, Tsedek, Israel’s government has and continues to do many bad things. I don’t hear many Jewish Americans, who support Israel, openly condemn the hate speech that takes place in Israel.
As for Jack … well, he’s off. Way off. I don;t even know why I am responding to him/her/whatever … Peace Now confirmed that Israel stole land … it’s a fact. And there is a peace movement in palestine, it is one supported by the majority of Palestinians who backed the compromise with Israel (all the while as Israel continued to expand it’s settlements during the alleged peace process).
Stop blaming one side. Blame both and start by blaming your own side …
But then, would you be a moderate? Or just someone who wants to hassle others? It only makes you look bad in my opinion?
Ray Hanania
Ray Hanania — It is interesting that you merely want to reiterate your group folk tales of how badly you and yours have been treated — exactly what you object to so strenuously when others do it. It is a measure of how little you believe your own mythology that you rely on your Israeli dupes for confirmation. My understanding is that that is exactly the sort of hypocrisy that Jina would have you shove up your ass. I suggest you keep your backside covered…..
Ray Hanania — Are you saying that Hamas is a peace movement?
Thanks Jack. You should learn to read. But the problem among extremists is they don’t listen to others, only “yell” in their writing and communications, which is really what you are doing.
Hamas a “peace movement.” You’re obviously an extremist.
As for folk tales, can you list 10 crimes Israel is guilty of committing without also blaming Palestinians. If you can’t, then you are one of the worst kinds of extremists, one who provokes for the sake of hatred.
Thanks for “writing.”
Ray Hanania
Ray Hanina,
If a majority of Palestinians support peace and 70% of them voted for Hamas, then either you believe 30% is a majority or you believe that Hamas is a peace movement. Which is it that you claim? I am sorry to be a believer in extremist doctrines like arithmetic but….
Esra’a – If you read Ray Hanina, you see the problem. If you were right about no one on the Arab side denying the facts, the problem would have been solved generations ago. Ray and others even deny that Muslims are hostile to Israel because Israelis are Jews. How can they even face toward peace, let alone move toward it, when they deny even the most fundamental facts of the situation.
Hi Jack,
Wow! I really enjoyed reading your posts. I was curious – are you a history teacher?
Jack,
No one is denying or ignoring the issue. You are the one insisting that we are apparently so hateful when it’s far from the truth; so who is really feeding the problem, you or Ray? The hate comes from all side – including the Israeli or Jewish side as well. Your approach doesn’t fix anything if you target only one group and ask them to change. Everyone needs to change. All forms of extremism must end regardless of race, religion, or nationality.
As for the source of the hatred – It’s not because Israelis are Jews. Most of it is born because of the human rights violations happening in the name of Israel. Jewish people exist within Muslim countries too – Bahrain, Morocco, Tunisia, et al. Do we attack them? No. We have Jews within our own government. Many Arab Jews are also hostile to Israel because of its practices that violate international law.
Some rather racist comments here.. Ray is a moderator? Israel is a “stolen land”? Is that considered a moderate view here?
Israel is stolen land. What does that has to do with being a moderate? So, a person who denies the facts is a moderate? I think you are confusing the meaning of the term moderate with apologist.
No. I think you don’t know what moderate means. How is viewing Israel as “stolen land” a moderate view? If that’s so, then what’s the extreme view?!
Esra’a how ignorant do you think we are? Mobs run through Palestinian streets screaming “Death the to Jews!”. The official media and schoolbooks are full of the worst and vilest racism against Jews. The Egyptian government controlled press routinely publishes Nazi propaganda like the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’. No Jew is allowed to enter Saudi Arabia.
So far from living peacefully in Arab countries and Iran, the majority of Israelis are people who were expelled from Arab countries and Iran.
Far more Jews were expelled from Arab lands after Israeli independence than Arabs were displaced by the war. (And it is a fact of Israeli politics that those who were expelled from Muslim countries, and their children, are considerably more Likud-nik and less conciliatory toward Arabs than the original Zionists and their descendants. That is called poetic justice.)
More than a million Arabs live peacefully within Israel. No Jew is safe anywhere in Palestinian-controlled territory. Several Jews who have gone there mistakenly have been lynched and murdered.
The standard Arab narrative is that the Occupation caused all the hard feelings. Why were there two waves of prolonged Arab rioting, one in 1929 and again in 1936 in which large numbers of unarmed Jews were murdered. Why did the Palestinians and other Arabs attack the Jews so persistently in 1947-48 that the UN was forced to offer partition?
There was no Israel and no Jew had weapons (the British forbade firearms) until after those attacks.
If the Palestinians were so concerned about their national rights, rather than just hostile to the Jews, why was there no resistance to the Jordanians and Egyptians when they occupied Gaza and the West Bank for 17 years? The resistance began only when the occupiers were Jews
The first thing the Palestinians did when they got control of territories under the Oslo Accords was to violate the accords by destroying every synagogue in their territory and destroying the ancient Tomb of Rachel.
You spoke feelingly about the need to treat each other with respect. Please show a little respect yourself by not insulting our intelligence with such claims.
That is precisely what you are doing.
Jina, repeating a falsehood doesn’t make it true. So far from stealing land, there is a long history of Arab persecution of other Arabs suspected of selling land to Jews.
Jina, you ought to think very carefully about your proposition that immigration is a form of theft. I suspect that most of the readers here are immigrants and you probably are too. If no one has a right to immigrate without racist violence against him, then other immigrant communities also have no rights in their new countries. Or is just Jews that have no right to immigrate?
Courtneyme, thank you so much for the compliment. No, not a history teacher. Just a retired uncivil servant.
Just like the mob runing around American streets screaming “Death to the Arabs”
We are not talking about Arab persecution of Arabs. Of course Arabs slaughtered each other, of course very few ever talk about it even within Arab community. No one here is denying that, but that is not the topic of discussion.
Just because someone did something bad, doesn’t give you or anyone the right to do the exact same thing to someone else.
Not immigration, theft is when you immigrate and kick out the land owners and you live in their house.
Yes, I am an immigrant, I didn’t kick no one out, my parents worked in factories to make money and afford a place to live.
You gotta be kidding me, the other immigrants who come to Western countries don’t fucking kick out the people who live here. You know those Jewish settlements… guess what, they used to belong to Palestinians, Palestinians used to live there. They stole those lands. Come talk to my gf’s granddad. Go visit that house he ones grew up in and you will see a Jewish family living there now.
I’m insulting your intelligence by providing my own opinion? Dude, you need to grow up.
You see guys…
Jack boasts about Israel but doesn’t seem to know a thing about the fact that Arabs within Israel have less rights, especially if they are not Jewish. In Northern Israel, there are no alarm systems or bomb shelters. It’s not a coincidence that this is where the Arabs reside.
Doesn’t know a thing either about the fact that a top rabbi has called for the death of innocent Palestinian people without enough Israelis condemning it in the press – in fact Jack you yourself justified this, and said it’s a “reaction.” In other words, you support genocide. Someone who backs up a rabbi who wants an entire civilian city wiped off is systematic and violent murder. You justifying it makes you an inconsiderate and violent person.
How do you explain the videos of Jewish kids beating the hell out of people who were walking Palestinians to school? How do you explain the anti-Arab propaganda overflowing Israeli blogs and press? How do you explain people like you justifying the cold murder of innocent civilians?
You’re so one-sided to the point where you’re completely blind to reality. You need to acknowledge the fact that Israel IS guilty of human rights violations just as much as the Palestinian terrorist groups are- calling for the carpet bombing of an entire city IS a human rights violation and you justifying it is a violent act that makes you a violent person who is only contributing to the problem you love to whine about so much.
And stop complaining about Saudi Arabia. Its own citizens don’t have rights – you expect others to? There are terrorist organizations operating everywhere. Israel, UK (BNP which calls for the death of Arabs and Muslims), USA, Iran, Palestine – you can’t be so one-sided and assume that the problem is anybody else’s but yours. That just feeds hatred and racism, something you claim to condemn, and yet you go and support a rabbi who wants every civilian in Gaza dead. Wonderful. That doesn’t make you different than the terrorists you love to complain about.
Read this also from Haitham:
Four decades of occupation, six decades of wars. Enough!
And Jack sorry but anyone who approves of murder is he himself a murderer. You should have condemned the requests for carpet bombing Palestinian cities instead of excusing this harsh behavior.
Jina, that would be a terrific news story. Curiously nobody but you seems to know about it. There is unfortunately endless footage of Palestinian mobs screaming “Death to the Jews!”
Jina, you are quite right that we are not talking about that. We are talking about the fact that there were sales of land by willing buyers and sellers. Which I believe is what you insist on referring to as theft when the buyers were Jews.
You seem to enjoy saying that. Does it bother you at all that the land was purchased by willing buyers from willing sellers, just as your parents’ house was? Do you really believe that the Jews were somehow seizing Arabs’ houses while the country was ruled by Britain?
If by “kick out” you mean “buy or rent”, immigrants always kick out their predecsssors. Every neighborhood was previously somebody else’s neighborhood. What used to be Anglo neighborhoods became Irish neighborhoods. Irish neighborhoods became Italian, and so on through African-Americans, Mexicans and others.
What is different is that the Anglos did not conduct endless terrorist attacks against the Irish, nor the Irish kill and massacre the Italians. The Italians did not conduct endless incitement against the African-Americans, nor did African-Americans make an endless bloody jihad the Mexicans.
It time to admit the facts and take responsibility for the consequences of your actions. It is also time to stop substituting prejudices and ideological necessity for facts.
But as I said before, you seem to enjoy saying that the Jews stole the land and I doubt very much that facts will dissuade you from saying it. It is your credibility – waste it as you like.
Nooooo Jews who move to the settlements don’t buy or rent, they kick out the Palestinians. IDF does that. That’s the difference.
I am not talking about Jew who legally bought or rented the land from the Palestinians. My gf’s granddad’s situation was that his family was kicked out by the Israeli Army.
It’s kind of sad how you compare buying and renting with kicking people out of their homes. Show how knowledgeable you are about the entire issue.
Jina, I don’t particularly care about your using bad language. I use it myself more often than I should. But perhaps you should check with others as to their feelings about it. I may be old-fashioned but I usually assume one should not use bad language in the presence of ladies unless they have been asked. I realize that that is not perfectly egalitarian, but ladies often have different sensibilities than men.
Did you even read the post about Israel demolishing at least 18,000 homes in the past few decades? Israeli organizations aren’t denying it since it’s a fact; rather they are actually trying to help instead of justifying this horrific abuse of Palestinian human rights.
And Jack, who are you trying to flatter? You called me silly, embarrassing, and an airhead, and now you’re implying that you’re a “gentleman”? If you want to teach someone else manners, please start practicing what you preach! You’re the first one here who should learn from respect and minding your manners in the presence of “ladies.”
Also the fact that you justified the call for genocide as retaliation is sick. You are no different than the Muslims and the Arabs who call for the genocide of the Jews.
At the same time these Muslims and Arabs also call their remarks as “retaliation”. Hamas call their suicide and rocket attacks as “retaliation” and the IDF incursions, curfews and missile attack from gunships and jets as “terrorism”.
There is always the other side to the story. Day you decide to listen to the other side is the day you will wake up from the mental coma you are in.
A moderate opens his/her eyes to the plight of both sides, not just one side like the Arabs do or the Jews do or the Israelis do or Americans do or whom ever. As long as you only consider one side as righteous while holding the other as tyrants, when both are tyrants, you will go no where and we’ll have millennia more of warfare in the not so “Holy Land”.
Sexism, double standards, I treat everyone the same way. I don’t care if you are a woman or a man.
Swearing, context has lot to do with it. It’s negative or an attack only based on the way it is used in a sentence.
Whatever you say Jack, as disrespectful as you can often be, we can handle you. Especially the women. We don’t need “special” treatment as you claim.
Ahh, the famous “the IDF kicked us out of our homes” canard. Marvelous! I take it then that you are at least willing to give up the pre-War of Independence part of the lie? I assume that is because of the improbability of such stuff going under the British Mandatory government?
Do you acknowledge that there was a war going on? Or do you claim the 1947-48 war is just Zionist propaganda and never happened? Do you acknowledge that under the British Mandate Jews and Arabs were free to live anywhere in Palestine Mandate and did? Do you know that there were Jewish settlement and Arab settlements throughout the country?
Do you accept that the neighboring Arab countries invaded Palestine, or is your theory that their armies were all peacefully minding their own business at home? (Careful how you answer here. You may find yourself being condemned as a Zionist if you admit too much.)
What do you think happened to the Jewish settlements in the areas that were occupied by Jordan, Egypt and Syria at the end of the war? Whether you care or not, they left on their own because they were afraid of the Arab armies. They left on their own, the same as the Arabs did. Nobody was clueless enough to wait and see what would happen if they stayed. Unless you believe the Arabs were both stupider and more trusting than the Jews, they left for the same reason – because they feared the enemy army. Like the Jews, they left on their own.
How curious that you Jina, never ever ever show any concern for the Jews whose homes were “stolen” when they left them for exactly the same reason the Arabs did.
Jack,
You don’t know Jina enough, he’s been here for the past year and he helped build a site that gives a loud voice to Arab Jews. You’ve been here for less than one week now and you claim to know that Jina “never ever” said this or that? He criticized Arab leaders and terrorist organizations much more than he criticized Israeli ones. Yet you here claim that you can only be in “your” side or “their” side, without realizing that both nations have their terrorists. You don’t see anyone here justifying Palestinian terrorism but I see people like you and tsedek justifying the Israeli kind. That shows that we’re one step ahead of you.
You don’t know Jina well enough to make such claims. Mideast Youth with his help built a big community for Arab Jews to share their voices; that’s probably much more than what you ever achieved for them.
Jina, actually the difference is that the rabbi in question was just running his about carpet bombing and nobody thought for a moment of doing it. Gaza religious leaders advocate the carpet bombing of Sderot and it is going on right now. Why is it that you object to the words spoken by the one but not the acts perpetrated by the other? This is not a rhetorical question. Please answer it.
Esra’a, that is very kind of you. I am sorry to keep harping on unpleasant things like facts but the fact is that many women do object to bad language. I learned that the hard way in India, when I used the same work Jina just used and got a shocked and offended reaction. The better custom is to ask. I just did, and you just answered.
Esra’a, if Jina set up this website he did a terrific job. However he is hoist on his own petard. The blockquote feature makes changing your story later difficult.
I am referring to his having repeatedly repeated the tired old story about the Jews stealing the land. I pointed out a number of cogent reasons why that not only is that not true, but could not be true. His response was to repeat the charge.
I guess it was you rather than he who claimed that Jews were living happily and safely in Arab lands. I lived in Paris for a year and I met a number of Algerian Jews from Oran who had been living in France for a generation because they had been expelled from their homes by the Algerian government. All of them had relatives who had gone to Israel instead of France, where according to Jina, they “stole” the land they live on.
I also have difficulty believing that someone who demonizes Israel and denies its legitimacy as he does is any friend to the Jews, no matter what his or her protestations. Would you consider a person who said the same things about the Arabs a friend of Arabs? I don’t think you would.
The fact remains that many Jews themselves are making Jina’s argument. What do you call them? Anti-Semites? Some of the most religious Jews out there protest Israel’s foreign policies, they were especially visible in the media during last summer’s Lebanon crisis. Tons and Tons of Israelis and Jews rallied for the cause of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians… what do you call them? They are as Israeli and Jewish as anybody else.
Ever heard of ‘Jews Against the Occupation?’
You see it’s always easier to blame outsiders as “haters of Jews…” but many Jews also agree with us, making this claim of yours impossible. We don’t hate Jews. Nor do we deny their existence. We merely wish to see Israel cease its human rights violations and illegal expansion.
Jina, I was willing to believe you actually meant any of that until you started insisting on “the Jews stole our land” story. That tale is one of the hallmarks of someone who denies the right of Israel to exist. As long as you deny Israel’s right to exist you can claim an excuse for any violence you want to perpetrate.
And I might add, so long as the Arabs continue to deny the legitimacy of Israeli society and thus assert the legitimacy of Arab violence against it, by the same logic Israel is fully justified in using whatever violence against the Arabs they deem appropriate. You cannot have it both ways. If Israel has no rights that Arabs must respect, then the Arabs have none that Israel must respect. That is how we got here in the first place
Jina contradicts himself when he claims to favor peace then repeats and insists on the “stolen land” propaganda basis of Palestinian violence against Israel. It has already been pointed out by someone else here that someone who denies the legitimacy of one side by definition is not a moderate.
Sorry to annoy with these damned facts again, but there are bomb shelters in northern Israel. I have seen them with my own eyes.
And now I am going to accuse you of not reading carefully. I said “thatis just silly”. And that your remark was embarrassing. It is easy to be insulted if you want to be. I did call you and Jina “airheads”, for which I apologize. You have certainly called me worse. For instance do you not realize how insulting it is to say I am no gentleman?
Esra’a, here is a survey I took recently among a hundred Israeli Arabs chosen at random:
Jack: Which would you prefer, to have fewer rights than Israeli Jews (and not have to serve in the IDF), or be treated as the Jews are treated in Palestinian controlled areas – brutally lynched by a mob?
Okay, a show of hands please. Those in favor of having fewer rights please raise your right hand. (a pause while I count hands)
Okay, now those in favor of being brutally lynched by a mob, please raise your right hand. Please wait a minute while I tally my count here….
Esra’a, actually you did not provide your own opinion at all. You made a representation of what you purported to be facts. And expecting to be believed when you tell such tales is indeed an insult to the intelligence of anyone you tell them to.
Considering how sensitive you purport to be about disrespect, I am curious about why you feel so free to use expressions like “Dude, you need to grow up.” Again you cannot have it both ways. Either you want dialogue to be respectful or you don’t.
Another nice try – “I saw it with my own eyes.” I want facts. This isn’t good enough at all.
Then you don’t know at all what debating means. You are brushing off my opinions as unimportant as “tales,” and then you claim to be respectful?
Jack, this is the 3rd time I’m telling you this. Stop making things personal and then whining about it like a child when you are the one refusing to practice what you preach.
Please next time refrain from this immature behavior and pitiful claims and focus on refuting the argument rather than making such insulting remarks that only provoke personal fights, is that clear?
You do in fact need to grow up and behave yourself for us to take you seriously. That means you need to stop calling our opinions “tales” or that we are “paranoid airheads” and you need to start treating us like people who have actual opinions that deserve some respect.
Don’t spam if you can’t focus on the argument and if you choose to make this personal. I asked you thrice now to do this and you have yet to comply. I won’t bother with you again and you’ll be ignored the way you deserve to be if you don’t treat us like adults who also have opinions, biases and concerns just like you do. Seriously, this is your third chance to be respectful to our opinions. You don’t know any more than the average persona just like the rest of us. We all depend on different sources and all come from different backgrounds – YOU need to respect that. Again, is this clear enough for you?
We’re all here to learn, and if you are claiming that you know it all (which NO ONE does) then that just makes you arrogant and stubborn, two things that don’t deserve our attention here. You’ll be preaching to the choir the rest of your stay as long as you learn how to behave yourself and respect others. You think because you don’t use bad words you’re not insulting or offending us, this is untrue – you’re being very disrespectful since the day you came here and you continue to be. Are you going to change or shall we just ignore you and let you spark your own little useless personal fights here?
Esra, I think you defend the all knowing Jina too much.
This ganging up on someone is not uncommon is it? I think Jina’s comments are often disrespectful and he/she is quickly backed up by you.
First things first though, if MidEast youth is moderate, I think it should say it loud and clear that at least the administrator disagrees with her moderators who call Israel a stolen land!
..and you wonder why Israeli users leave after reading such comments?
I don’t defend Jina “too much” – only where it needs defense. Jack comes here, disrespecting members, and then complains too often even if it’s just his arguments being refuted. I’m sick of this immaturity.
If someone says Israel is stolen land – that is a matter of opinion. There are other Israelis who say that Israel has expanded illegally and thus in the process has “stolen land” – if you find that so offensive, back it up with facts and not insults.
Secondly, I don’t know what you mean by “moderators.” Ray is an author, not a moderator.
I don’t wonder either why Israelis leave – the ones who do have no guts or a hint of respect like Howie, Tsedek, and others who have called Arabs with such racist names and now claim that they shouldn’t “bother” with us as if we’re just a bunch of rats. You want to see how far Howie and others like the Raccoon went, I encourage you to make use of our archives.
These commenters and also some of our Israeli authors resulted in many Arabs leaving – I don’t see you complaining about that at all. How come, City Boy? Is it only the Israelis you are so concerned and worried about, hmmm?
It goes without a doubt that most Israelis stay; its’ actually just the outrageous racists who find their way out and rightly so as they have no place here in the first place.
This site is controversial. Whiners need to find a place where their asses will be kissed. Here – we don’t do that. We debate you until you prove to us respectfully why we are wrong. If you find that so offensive, really, there are other sites that can kiss your ass and also whipe it for you, this one isn’t it.
I hope I am making this clear to everybody who follows City Boy’s thinking in that we are somehow “ganging up” against Israelis. More Arabs are leaving each day merely due to us having Israeli authors and commenters, you need to open your eyes to the fact that this place is just as “offensive” to Arabs, Muslims, and many others. Anyone who finds the sharing of opinions “offensive” is just very funny in my opinion.
No, it is not an opinion. It is an assertion of fact. If I tell the police that you stole something from me, and I have been shown repeatedly that you didn’t, is it an opinion? Or is it a lie?
Esra’a, I and other have done that repeatedly, and you and others simply ignore the facts presented.
Which part of the lengthy post in which I set out the facts showing that the land is not stolen did you not understand?
Done that repeatedly how, by calling our opinions “tales” or “embarrassing” and then claim to be the victim of others’ attacks? You’re not. What you provided is opininated material. An interpretation of the so-called “facts.” Everything you have said here is simply a matter of opinion. Claiming that what you tell us is “facts” is just arrogant and stubborn – two traits that fail debates here.
I didn’t ignore your so-called “facts,” I just don’t find them convincing. To me, what you provided is merely yet another opinion. Which I do respect (except not when you support and justify carpet-bombings and murder, which you have.)
Anyone who claims to know it all inside out, is here to propagandize, not to learn. It’s not healthy when someone likes you speaks out of arrogance without wishing to learn about what others unlike them are thinking and why they arrive to such conclusions. If you are here to educate yourself about the opinions and beliefs of others you need to learn how to approach these things without claiming that you are the “master of facts” (which you as much as the rest of us are far from.)
In any case, I am done giving you undeserved attention. It’s distracting and a waste of time especially since I gave you 4 chances to try and be civil and you chose to describe my opinions as embarrassing, silly, uninformed, and you even called both me and Jina “paranoid airheads.” For that you deserve to be ignored. Anyone who finds different opinions “offensive” all-the-while justifying murder and genocide is someone who deserves no more than a “grow up.” Well done on proving the worth and extent of your “knowledge.” You can stay here and play alone now.
I was only commenting on what I have seen, and I didn’t talk about ganging up on Israelis, just anyone who disagrees with your view.
Esra’a, I am not sure I understand you – you insist on respect and then call me “immature” and my remarks “pitiful”. And please dear, do not “warn” me. It is condescending, which is rude.
Please do not “warn” me. It is condescending and rude. Do you imagine that there are not ten thousand other blogs I can read and write to? And when you make good on your threat to block my comments, as you have apparently driven away others who disagree with you, your blog will become just another site with Israel-haters talking to one another and hearing no one else. Such blogs are called zombie sites because there is no real discussion of anything. There are many of them.
The logic is inexorable – if you drive people away, they won’t be here.
When someone deserves a warning – I give them one. No one decides that but this site’s admins, which you are not.
Listen Jack, like I said the first 10 times of addressing you regarding this, you addressed me with disrespect and rudeness. Hence my description of your personality and remarks, which I still stand by unless I see an actual change.
Now you either accept this and move on, or keep whining about it. Personally I prefer if you pick the 1st option so that this entire thread can move on for God’s sake and ours.
Trust me, I won’t be the one losing any sleep over this. Our returning visitors stats is way high and is only getting higher, so are the number of frequent commenters. It’s never our loss when people decide to leave because we always gain thrice as many and we want this place to serve the ones who actually have the guts required to debate others while being gentle, open, and understanding, regardless of the heated controversy.
If you don’t wanna do that – fine, you’re more than welcome to leave. We never beg anyone to stay, it’s your choice, and never our loss.
Esra’a, you are mistaken. Nobody’s opinion is worth anything when they ignore facts. I tell you facts and you reply by saying your opinion is just as valuable and worthy of respect as facts. It isn’t.
When you make assertions of fact that simply are not so, and defend them by calling them opinions, then the very best that can be said of them is that they are “tales”.
Wonderful. You drive away and won’t listen to those who speak for the United States and Israel and then can’t understand why Arab voices are not listened to by the United States and Israel?
We have a saying, “The Arabs are their own worst enemies.” The next time somebody complains on this site about no one giving a damn what Arabs think, remember me and the others you have driven away. Goodbye.
Right… this is a classic conclusion you see. Coming to foolish conclusion based on nothing. And I think I am going to go debate this with a 5 year old, last time I did that, we actually managed to have a nice debate.
Jack is not an Israeli, he’s an American.
Gee thanks… your words not mine.
Okay JACK and CITY BOY, prove this article wrong and I’ll take back EVERYTHING I said about Israel being stolen land; otherwise, shut it. I had enough of your bullshit, and all your “facts” include what you post without backing it up with any source. Here is my source. Enjoy.
PS: I have many many more sources.
Jina, Well, I should not even be writing this after Esra’a has asked me not to participate in this blog because of “disrespect”. (I am sure she has sternly warned you for referring to the writing of others as “bullshit”. She didn’t? You mean she’s a hypocrite? Well, never mind.) “Disrespect” apparently means not agreeing with Arabs and their apologists. I am certainly guilty of that.
But since you have addressed me directly and by name, I will come out of exile to reply.
When someone makes an assertion, no one has a burden to disprove it. The proponent bears the burden of proving his assertion. When you and Arabs and herds of their apologists claim “Israel is stolen land”, no one has a burden to disprove it. You have a burden to prove your assertion and you haven’t. Because of the persistence and perniciousness of that particular lie I have gone to the trouble of disproving it above (about which you remain silent).
As to your “sources”, let me offer you one, “Muslim sources say Hindus and Jews descended from pigs and monkeys.” Does that become true because some moron runs his mouth and I have called him a source? Does anyone have to disprove it?
Once again Jack refuses to focus on the argument at hand and makes this about himself being a sad victim. Wow guys, aren’t we all surprised?
Cry me a river! I never said that. I said that if you threaten to “leave,” go ahead. No one is stopping you. We don’t force anyone to stay, least of all someone so arrogant enough to assume that their opinions are factual and right and everyone else is wrong.
Go wallow in your own self-importance; I don’t even know why I bother replying to your over reactive immaturity anymore.
Here are more sources. Let’s see if Jack replies or continues to dodge the issue:
From an EU Report on Israel’s illegal actions within and around East Jerusalem.
Highlights -
Here is something more fun for you – Haaretz:
Planning council approves illegal West Bank building plan
From Rense:
From MERIP - Israeli Settlements Illegal and Getting Worse
From yet another Israeli source, Kibush:
Tulkarem choked by Israel’s illegal chemical fumes; Shop flattening scheduled by illegal expansion
From Global Research:
From AFP:
UN Report Slams Israeli Wall as Illegal Annexation of Palestinian Land
From The Hindu:
From The Australian:
So if you don’t like the BBC – we have plenty more, from international sources AND national (Israeli) sources that provide the exact same information, making your failed attempts to disprove it so far harder. But I’m willing to see you try to refute each and every one of these headlines and highlights I included.
Esra’a – it is fun to scroll down through this now lengthy exchange and see how many insulting things you have written about me while simultaneously complaining about lack of respect.
Jina, you are certainly right that there is a long tradition of anti-Israeli as well as more explict Jew-hating propaganda and lots of examples of it. There has always been lots of such trash. Since you seem to be of the opinion that something is true because it has been published in a newspaper, you should read the conservative press in Israel and the United States and many other countries and you would find out that all those “sources” to which you refer are wrong.
On your theory the man who is always right about everything is Rupert Murdoch because he owns more newspapers than anyone else in the world. Murdoch is pro-Israel so I guess you should be too? He doesn’t think Israel is stolen land so you also don’t think so?
If you take seriously what you read in newspapers you are in serous trouble now that almost every newspaper is available on the web. Oddly enough every single newspaper just happens to reflect the views of its owners and the perceived views of its readers. An amazing coincidence, don’t you think?
Unless you actually believe that that really is a coincidence then you are stuck with the conclusion while you might tentatively and partially believe their reporting of facts, t it wrong through bias or incompetence)You should actually think for yourself instead of believing what every newspaper scribbler says?
A break is needed at this point and I offer myself as a break (or bridge, if you want).
Guys,
Esra,
I can’t resist butting in. Regardless of how fiery and at times irrational this whole thing gets, (and I know how heated the Israeli-Palestinian subject can get), as an outsider, I have actually become optimistic about these discussions! The simple fact that this is happening, that you have this site open and that it is run by progressive middle eastern youth is truly great! I don’t know where this is going, but it’s moving and the willingness to change is definitely there!
If I may add a suggestion, make sure you have enough variety on the boat and don’t drive away people who provoke you (like Jack), they might be the ones who help you bring about a truth you didn’t even recognize as a driving force behind your actions and speech.
I just said ‘good bye’ in another forum’ and then decided to know more about each of you. It’s moving, guys, keep the gates open!
Esra’a – of course you’re right. It is not as if Muslims have bombed Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul. Nor did they bomb the Portuguese Synagogue in Paris. Nor did they bomb the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, killing hundreds of people. Nor do Muslims maintain a constant barrage of racist imagery and propaganda in their press, television, pulpit speeches, and worst of all in their education. And then the deny that they hate Jews. Of course we believe you.
Arabs do not commit endless suicide bombings against Israelis, so clearly the purpose of a wall to keep out suicide bombers must be apartheid. Of course we believe you.
Muslims keep up a constant barrage of racism against Jews, conduct endless violent attacks against them, and then claim that they don’t hate Jews. Of course we believe you.
If they back it up with legitimate source, they are also legit. You haven’t refuted my source or anything in it, you are resorting to bullcrap as usual. Either refute or shut up, I want to see your source that says “all” of Israel is built on lands that were bought from the Palestinians; otherwise, take your bullshit somewhere else.
I don’t give a damn about Rupert Murdoch, I watch Fox ones in a while also, there is truth in everything, you just need to learn to filter out the crap. I seen crap on BBC, Fox, CNN, just name any news source. Crap is there.
Esra: Excellent post concerning Israel’s illegal actions.
Lamer: Very insightful as usual!
Jack: LOL! God help us while you’re here insisting hatred while living off generalisations and insecurity. I see nothing hateful. These are people providing the same facts you asked for. Stop clouding your vision so much and try to be more open to differences in religion and political opinions. To assume that Muslims hate Jews is shallow as just as many murders happen in the name of Jews all over. Don’t be selective because the facts are there and can prove you wrong. Violence, it happens. It’s human nature. Blaming groups of people who are innocent (by saying all muslims you assume me as well, and I never harmed or murdered anyone and I do not ever approve) then you are only adding to the gap that this site is trying to recover.
Jina, I think that your repeated reference to contrary arguments in vulgar language suggests that you really do not have a case or you would make it.
Your “references” all turn out to be just some journalist reprocessing the usual canards and posturings. I have several times explained why your position is wrong and you have ignored those explanations. You have certainly said nothing to refute them.
A reference is just that, a reference to what someone else said. Your position seems to be that such-and-such a position must be true because someone else said it was. That is called an appeal to authority. In an open discussion, appeal to authority has no persuasive value whatever.
Even a parrot or a mynah bird can repeat what it has heard someone else say. If you have any reason of your own for your position, I would be interested to hear it.
Murad, that is exactly the problem, isn’t it? You never do see anything hateful — when it is directed against the Jews.
Hahahah you are funny, you are the type who call me uncivilized for me eating food with my figures while fucking a prostitutes. I am very pissed off right now so go fuck yourself.
Your the generation that was brainwashed to believe anything your government and society say as fact. Your fucked up generation fucked our generation up with your ignorance. Stop it.
Learn to address the crimes committed by both sides or quickly die off like the dinosaurs so my generation can start to fix the blunders your generation created.
No time to fuck around with you, good day and I thought you said good bye. Why are you here?
Last time responding to you, good day.
Jina, that is what is known as a concession speech — when you are wrong and so angry with the one who has shown you to be wrong, that you begin to splutter and curse.
Still, it is your dignity and your self-respect. You are free to throw them away any way you like.
New York Times Thursday 7 June 2007
This is just as I feared and predicted here on this blog. But I had no idea it would start so soon. This can only get worse.
Jack re: the wall. If the wall were simplyt o prevent terrorism, it owuld have been built on the Green line. But, insteadm it was built to incorprate the settlements and more West Bank land into israel, so it is a land grab despite your denials.
And the only person writing hate on this site is you. You are relentless in denial regarding Israeli atrocities, Israeli and Jewish hate against Arabs, and Israeli killinsg of Palestinians.
I’m glad I am not like you, a one-sided person. I am a moderate and criticize both sides. You NEVER criticize Israel, and worse, exaggerate to convince everyone that only the Palestinians — the targets of your hatred — are wrong.
Please keep posting. People read your posts and see how accurate these observations are.
Ray Hanania
Ray, Do you think that the Israelis living beyond the green line should not be protected from suicide murder-bombers? What would happen if they weren’t?
The wall can be taken down whenever Arab terrorism stops permanently. The people murdered by suicide bombers cannot be replaced ever.
How interesting that you think the problem is the wall and its location rather than the suicide murder-bombers and their sponsors who have occasioned it? How balanced and honest a point of view is that? How moderate is that?
The purported ideological basis of Arab hatred of Israel is the “stolen land” lie. And here you are repeating it yet again, you the supposed moderate.
It seems you like the label “moderate” but don’t care for the substance? You want to call yourself a moderate and then repeat the same lies, delegitimizations, and demonizations as the radicals.
I don’t need to criticize Israel, Ray, I’ve got you to do that for me.
A cautionary tale –
Early in the Second World War, during a battle between the Japanese and the Americans on a Pacific island, the Japanese put up a white flag and offered to negotiate a surrender. When the American officers came out to negotiate, the Japanese mowed them down with machine guns.
American forces throughout the Pacific were sent an order not to negotiate with Japanese units that attempted to surrender. American forces driving the Japanese out of the Pacific islands killed every single enemy soldier – all of them.
As a result of that stupid tactic by one battalion-level or even company-level Japanese commander, hundreds of thousands of Japanese soldiers died who might otherwise have gone home alive after the war.
Yasser Arafat did much the same thing at Oslo in 1993. By negotiating a peace and then complying with none of its provisions, a generation learned never to believe Arabs claiming peaceful intentions.
People like Ray, claiming to be peaceful and moderate, while still delegitimizing and demonizing Israel, are modern Arafats and Japanese commanders.
How are we to believe in your willingness to live peacefully with Jews when today, Hamas and Fatah kill each other though both are Arab Muslims? How are we to believe in Arab willingness to live peacefully with Jews when Sunni and Shi’a massacre each other every day? Now there is even fighting between Sunni and al-Qaeda, and between Turks and Kurds.
People on this blog can insist forever on how peaceful they are and how everything is Israel’s fault. But the world ignores your words and pays attention to your deeds.
“People on this blog can insist forever on how peaceful they are and how everything is Israel’s fault.” ?! ?! ?!
Is this really the case?! Then I am dumb, dumb, dumb and deaf, the world is dumb and deaf I will turn off the computer, no, hit the computer for having wasted my time!
‘Yasser Arafat did much the same thing at Oslo in 1993. By negotiating a peace and then complying with none of its provisions, a generation learned never to believe Arabs claiming peaceful intentions.
People like Ray, claiming to be peaceful and moderate, while still delegitimizing and demonizing Israel, are modern Arafats and Japanese commanders.’
What the fuck are you doing, Jack? You take me out of my poetic stance and convince me to be on your side! Look at me, Jack! I am fucked up right now. And what the fuck are you doing with Ray in your statements ? !
Jack, in case you don’t get it, I am not hysterical (and I am not a woman of the last century – Freud’s century, that is). But whatever I represent is still still fucked up by your statements.
Lamer, if I were you I would ignore Jack. A lonely individual who resorts to stereotypes and justifications of carpet-bombing and who insists that everyone here hates Jews when in fact we are one of the few groups that are rallying for Jewish rights within Arab countries at mefaith.com
He’s just a bored guy looking for trouble – ignore him and go engage in the discussion with people who are actually worth debating with. He’s too stubborn and will imply things that aren’t there due to him not knowing how to read and interpret opinions. Dozens of people here are writing about fascinating things and sharing worthwhile information – don’t waste your time with silly Jack. He’ll get bored listening to his own voice and leave soon.
This conversation has been going on for the last week with NO outcome!
I can tell you from now that if you decided to keep it going for the next 40 years the way Israelis and palestinians have, you will still be at point ZERO.
Esra’a says …rallying for Jewish rights within Arab countries at mefaith.com…
I am not sure what you mean by that but I will check this one out very carefully. Bye now!
We started the Middle East Interfaith Blogger Network to promote religious tolerance and especially to recognize Jewish rights within Arab countries. It’s one of the few sites that currently do this on the internet.
There are so few Jews left in Arab countries after the expulsions and persecutions that you are trying to solve a problem after it is almost gone. What would be more constructive would be promoting tolerance of a Jewish state recognizing Jewish rights to their own country in the Middle East. Continuing to sing the “stolen lands” song is just the opposite, isn’t it?
Lamer, I am not sure what that means, but don’t let me or anyone take you out of your poetic stance. Centuries later, no one remembers the politics or fights of 1602, but that was the year Shakespeare published Hamlet. Poetry lasts, the rest fades. Four hundred years from now the urgent issues of 2007 are sure to be dust, but your poetic vision might endure.
One of the things I like most about where I live is that Gus lives in front of my house. Gus is a 103 feet tall California redwood tree. He (or she? I don’t know if Gus has a gender.) is not only huge and beautiful, he can live 2,000 years. His presence is a solace to me and to whoever walks by. Your poetic vision might be like that. Don’t let anyone dissuade you from it.
I have written the first draft of a “Prequel to Hamlet”, a five act Elizabethan tragedy in imitation of Shakespeare. I hardly need tell you that it stinks. And you indirectly have told me why. I wrote it from ingenuity, but I have no poetic vision. It never rises above occasionally being witty or erudite.
Were you born with poetic vision or did you acquire it?
Yawn. No matter how many Jews there are left (dozens if not hundreds of thousands, FYI) they are still worth fighting for. Every single one. So while you are sitting here complaining with absolutely nothing to contribute to this change, others are actually doing something positive for these people.
Lamer, 103 feet is about 30 meters.
And for someone who interviewed Arab Jews for this website, I’ll have you know that all of them require and need this help. Speak for yourself if you find this “useless” sitting all the way safe in America, you don’t know or understand Arab Jews, not one bit, if you say that this is “too late” to fight for. Don’t dare speak for others.
Esra’a,
how it is approached. See ya!
I guess my question was raised by the formulation “Jewish rights in Arab countries”. You mean Palestine. I understand that in principle you are “fighting” for the acknowledgment of two independent states: Palestine and Israel and for rights of whoever happens to live in each area, correct? That implies that some land would be given back to Palestinians who have been expelled from their houses. The question of who was there first going back to the Bible or who is to blame for the never-ending craziness happening on both sides right now is a bit beyond anybody’s resources (or sources) as I can see from this blog.
Anyway, if anything, you made me really want to look up this issue in detail and more impoartantly, to see with my ears
Jack, since you provoke me to boast about myself, have it, baby: I was born in Romania, I had my second birth in the French language and then became Canadian (whatever that means). I live in Saudi Arabia. I teach visual arts International Baccalaureate students, if you’ve never heard about IB, check it out! These are the kids who will make a difference in the world of tomorrow. I don’t give a damn about immortality right now — all those who do, forget not only to live but create a morbid place for everybody else. Shakespeare went from ‘boite’ to ‘boite’ and wrote his stuff without knowing who he was — you see, he was other people all the time. How I aquired my poetic vision? By mourning for a lost land that never existed … I am the loiving proof of that land.
Lamer, what are you talking about?
No.
I don’t mean Palestine.
I mean Jewish rights in ARAB countries. That means Syria, Morocco, Bahrain, Lebanon, etc. Arab countries. Not just Palestine.
I had to return on my words before covering up from head to toe and giving up a stage that I had stolen perhaps unecessarily. An audience is pretty embarassing at this point.
Be careful, Jack-people, it can eat you up like it swallowed all my good byes (well, maybe not this one).
I did not mean that the kids I teach will become the ones that will make a difference in the world because I teach them, although that’s every teacher’s wish. By striving to fulfill the requirements of the IB program itself, they develop powerful — by that I mean empowering — voices. That’s the only power I can tolerate and in fact encourage.
Don’t know who or rather what taught you, guys… LIFE is the best teacher (so enough about the IB program). This site is ALIVE
That actually makes a big difference. THanks, Esra’a.
lamer,
If there comes a solution to the Isreal and palestine issue, I think it will be around judgement day!!
Lamer, see Esra’a has clarified it for you. Maybe she thinks Palestine is not an Arab country?
)
She supports Jewish rights in other Arab countries but not in Palestine for one reason. In other Arab countries Jews are a helpless and frequently abused minority. In that condition she has sympathy for them, when she can speak to the poor dhimmis as a condescending and kindly master.
In Palestine the Jews rejected being helpless and abused and fought back against Arab attacks. Worse yet they fought back successfully. That is what the endless Arab campaign against Israel is all about.
People whom the Muslims consider to be dhimmis have defied them and made it stick. They are horrified by the defiance of people the Koran tells them over and over must forever be less than they are, barely tolerated if at all.
Successful defiance by people they consider to be dhimmis has an even more horrifying side to it. If the Jews will not accept being dhimmis, the clear implication is that Muslims are not the morally superior master beings the Koran endlessly tells them they are.
In our age all the markers of worldly success – industrial development, incomes, political freedoms, military power, education, health, and so on – are in the West and in Israel, not in the Muslim countries. Even wealthy Muslim countries are wealthy only because they have oil money, not through their own efforts (With the two important exceptions of Turkey and Malaysia). The consolation for Muslim self-esteem has been that the rich successful West is decadent and sinful and that they, the Muslims are morally and socially superior because of being part of the Muslim master class in their own countries.
The Jews in Israel, by refusing to even acknowledge Muslim superiority or their own dhimmitude, have attacked the Muslims exactly where they are most sensitive in their egoes. When we in the West make astonishing progress in science, medicine, literature, politics, economics, and so on, that erodes Muslim self-esteem but only by comparison to their lack of progress. Israel attacks their self-esteem directly.
When the Zionists came there (other Jews had been there since biblical times) Palestine was a miserable scrap of land so worthless that by the late 19th century almost everyone had gone elsewhere. That the Jews built a thriving society on what had been a wasteland when the Arabs had it, was a humiliation to them. The Arabs have lost many wars in the past and been conquered many times. What was so humiliating about this particular set of defeats was that they were at the hand of people whom they needed to consider dhimmis and subservient.
One of the little straws in the wind that illustrates this point is the constant complaining about the “humiliation” of having to wait in line at roadblocks. There are lots of lines to wait in in Arab countries. Lines at banks, for busses, in clinics, in stores, everywhere big cities make people wait. We never hear anyone describe those lines as “humiliating”.
The difference is that at an Israeli roadblock they are made to wait upon a Jewish soldier whom the people in line believe in their bones to be inferior to them.
is what is so humiliating to them.
Lamer,
Don’t be so confused by Jack’s supposed ‘clarifications.’ None of what he said reflects the reality of our MeFaith website or of my opinions. He simply does not know a thing about Arab jews within the region, and nowhere did I state that I don’t support Jews within Palestine. I clarified that the Arab world literally means the Arab world, and not solely Palestine.
You had it right, while Jack doesn’t, and I suppose that you understood the 1st time what I meant. Jack, even after 150 comments, still doesn’t. So don’t be confused by the rambling post above mine, it’s not accurate at all. It’s just asking for more trouble.
Lamer, don’t disparage being Canadian. It is a lovely country. I try to spend summers there when I can.
That is a good observation about the Bard. If Shakespeare had set out to be the Great Shakespeare, he would not have been. Brahms self-consciously set out to rival Beethoven, which is why his music is so much less engaging and compelling than Beethoven’s. The somewhat disturbing conclusion is that we necessarily stumble into becoming who we become, all unknowing.
I am impressed that you have stuck it out in Saudi Arabia. My niece went there as a governess for the children of a minor prince. She was shocked when they took her passport from her when she started. She was shocked that she could not even walk around outside by herself. She was shocked that she was not permitted to drive a car either. She was shocked that the Saudi prince refused to pay her what he had agreed he would.
What had started as an adventure turned into a jail sentence. She finally made a scene and demanded her passport back. The prince, of course found a pretext to refuse to pay her the remainder of her earnings even by his own crooked reckoning. She was glad just to be able to get out of that country.
Esra’a, I understood what you meant when you and Jina repeated the “stolen land” jingle over and over. As long as you repeat the “stolen lands” lie, you deny the legitimacy of Israel. You deny the rights of Jews to their own country, while the Arabs have 22 countries. Until you relinquish that fundamental lie, the rest of what you claim about your supposed good intentions are meaningless.
You need to learn how to read. I know it takes years of experience, but eventually you might get it.
Did I say anything about stolen land? No. I said something about stolen settlements which you have yet to refute, because these are facts which even Israelis themselves admit. The biggest Israeli organizations are against it. These stolen settlemetns can also be referred to as “stolen land” meaning Israel is guilty of illegal expansion.
If you want to close your eyes to reality go ahead. But no one here is falling for it.
God, I have never been so fucking bored with any thread debate before, but this one just takes the cake. You’re officially the most boring and stubborn commenter on this entire site. Congratulations, you earned yourself quite a title. You’re a lost cause.
Yes, due to illegal settlements. Duhhhh. Expanding illegally = taking land that doesn’t belong to you. In English they also call this “stealing.”
How can you deny it when it is all right here on this very thread?
Since you are again repeating the “stolen lands” lie, why did you bother to deny that you are repeating it.
And as long as you continue to repeat it and thereby deny Israel’s legitimacy, you are one of the inciters, not one of the peacemakers.
Once again Jack makes a complete fool out of himself by calling these statements a “lie” without proving a single time why they are, even when the entire world, including the EU, has already proved it as well as every other major news source and also many Israeli organizations. So Jack finds this insulting and thus refers to it as a lie, refusing to understand why the entire world are calling these settlements illegal.
150 comments yet we are exactly where we started. This conversation is going absolutely nowhere like Rasha and others already stated.
For this reason, I am closing this thread. Big threads as per usual get closed and you have a chance of opening a thread about this discussion in our forums if you wish to continue (so don’t whine about censorship, we’re giving you a chance to speak up now in the message board.) This is to keep the threads here neat and concise.
Read Our Policy #3
Maybe next time, you’ll learn a thing or two from this unfortunate experience.
We’re gonna have to re-open this.
I just realized that the forums are still down due to the hack. That means you’d have nowhere to post your response, and that is against our policy too (censorship.) So until our forums are back up and running, so is this thread.
Esra’a, that is very thoughtful of you. Now if you could just knock off the constant barrage of insults…..
Yes I was harsh, so to make this up for you, I’m giving you this thread as a gift, do what you want with it just as long as it’s not porn.
“do what you want with it just as long as it’s not porn.”
What you said is quite witty, Esra’a but it shouldn’t have been said here, especially NOT after my acting scene.
I have many many questions but I will have to get a life first (and get off the computer) and then come back to visit other forums. This session was extremely tiring and annoying for everybody but it wasn’t useless, at least not in my case.
Oh, Jack, you will have to back up your statement (for yourself, not for me, nor anyone else on this site, ok?)
“People whom the Muslims consider to be dhimmis have defied them and made it stick. They are horrified by the defiance of people the Koran tells them over and over must forever be less than they are, barely tolerated if at all.”
If you don’t get this from me in poetic terms, you will never get it from anyone:
We ALL need to change for change to happen. That includes YOU, Jack. Perhaps it starts with you, who knows?
I never disparaged being Canadian because that’s where I encountered a glimpse of that THIRD SPACE I am dreaming about. And you were not in that picture although you claim going there each summer! You have to die, Jack (in symbolic terms) and then, perhaps, to resurect — I forgot where that truth comes from already. You will resurect and you will be already in a new world. Have you given birth, Jack, ever? No? Then assist in birth! It’s nothing grand nor is it that scarry , I can assure you. And there is an afterbirth too and that’s much harder. Once born again, you will need to get deborn (like Jacques Derrida), to retract (now I have an almost Khaballistic vision) and to let the world be whatever it has to be. Accept it and trust it. But that is only in the aftermath of whatever neverending wound you manage to recognize in yourself and that continues to create hate and swoallow everything into one nicely canned theory of conspiracy. I choose to trust. We can only try, Jack, that’s all we can do.
And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a student coming in.
Lamer, I do not believe in life after death and I do not believe in reincarnation. I do not believe that there is an Over-soul composed of the same substance as human souls, to which we return after death. G_d is one thing and we are another thing.
To me every notion of survival beyond death in any form or manner whatsoever, is denial. It is the inability to accept the reality and finality of death.
All notions of becoming an angel with harp and halo, of being reincarnated as a cow or a tree, of 72 houris (what do Muslim women get, 72 guys on steroids?), to me are fables. We die. We become dirt.
There is a positive benefit to knowing that life is temporary and death is permanent. It makes life worth taking seriously. It gives life sparkle and interest to know that it will not be endlessly repeated or go on forever.
Recognition that this life is all we get tells us to make the most of life while we can.
Jack this is my very last reply, pls. don’t bother me anymore. I’ll be very honest and — nI hate to put it that way–, very apologetic.
I take back what I said in my previous message. I made a complete fool of myself and I should have never engaged in a converstaion with people who are so much smarter than I am. Actually, most (if not all) people would have gotten my words wrong. I was a very bad ‘translator’. How stupid of me to be so vague and use such mixed complex and in fact ‘feminine’ imagery trying to make you understand facts of life. I completely abused the powers of the poetic language. That actually doesn’t make me a bad writer, just an untranslatable bitch.
I do not believe in angels either (some of us do believe and there is nothing inherently wrong with that unless one starts to believe that s/he is an angel or that trees go by the name of Gus
just kidin’:). However, I had people who helped me immensely and opened doors for me and they were LIKE angels. And I planted namless trees in my garden. About the death and resurrection metaphor, you see, sometimes we feel we die in ourselves because some ideas die and the resurrection is just a figure of speech to mark a completely new way of thinking and approaching the world. Don’t ask me about Derrida and the notion of being deborn, that’s way over my head, although I somehow understand it. Now, Christians approach these things in their own way and guess what? It works for them. We are our thoughts, Jack, does that make more sense to you? And that’s exactly what this site is striving to change (for the better).
Jack, all you are saying about Saudi Arabia and extremist views in the Muslim world is true, NOBODY can refute that. BUT there is a huge current of change and I would be stupid not to recognize and support it. If Rasha (who is Saudi and Muslim by the way) can take what I say with such grace, translate it in her own world and work for change within her own frame of mind (yet we remain worlds apart for your comfort), then why shouldn’t I believe that there are hundreds of women (and possibly men) like her and that it can happen WITHIN Islam. I am not turning a Muslim because I don’t need to, but why should I just debunk Islam? Because of terrorism? On the basis of facts accumulated in history? Well, I was actually very tempted to do so, especially after the bombing of compounds that happened while I was here in Riyadh. But then, there is Rasha and Wafa and before them, others that I met personally, REAL people like them.
If our goal is to achieve peace somehow (I wish it sooner than later but who knows?), then what is your goal or desire? To discredit Islam? To deny Islam? To deny Islam to its people? And then what? Make the Western world triumph? The Western world has its GREAT achievements and its problems. If you deny Islam, then you include Rasha in that denial. Sorry, I have to use her as a figure of speech. You deny all people who want and can change without becoming like us but rather becoming more like themsleves. That doesn’t make sense? WHY? Because you think Islam is NOT the way? Maybe it is for them and maybe it wasn’t for others whom they are trying to shake up right now. It’s without hope? Maybe. Maybe it takes 250 years. Maybe it’s too late. Whatever. But I choose to trust that it can happen. Because it makes my life and the lives of all those who enter in contact with me, easier. It is as simple as that. That’s what I meant by trusting.
Do you think that Ray (and I’ll quit using his name so many times and find others like him for a change) is actually doing propaganda or that he is trying to gain more souls or trying to brainwash Americans, or to simply do PR or what? Many may just limit their understanding to these points. But in this way they will still be drawn by his words, by his message. I would call that “good”, although I like to fantasize that I am beyond ‘good and evil”
For some people dialogue is helpful. For you, monologue might be better. Continue writing in your journals and good luck with your version of “Hamlet”. I am serious. I know from experience how important it is to write a book, no matter the outcome (I mean, you know what I mean, that the process might be even more important than the outcome) Maybe this is your best ACT in the world. I don’t know and I don’t care at this point and I don’t feel guilty for not caring either. And I don’t consider that disrespectful nor insensitive, although you are free to choose to take it that way.
Look Jack, I am not going to change this (the Islamic world of today), I have no power over it and it’s actually ridiculous to declare here something as obvious as that. But Rasha for instance and Ray and others can work from inside, again, not to debunk it and not simply to rehabilitate it but to save some of us (humans) from (self-)destruction. At least this is my take on what they’re doing and if I am wrong, well, I am just wrong…big deal.
My favorite writer Clarice Lispector wrote once (in metaphorical terms again!!!) that “friendship is the stuff of salvation”. I am sure you get what she is saying, and she is in no way a religious writer, yet knows her bible from inside. Helene Cixous, another of my favorite writers whose writing is NOT advisable, writes about birth, rebirth and death in highly metaphorical terms, yet she manages to speak about things that happen to us in the most real sense: in life.
As bad as I am in matching such sublime writing, as hopelessly cheasy or romantic or lame I manage to be sometimes (Lamer was meant to be a French name but lame-r in English is my other name), so as bad as I am to express truths of rare beauty, Rasha somehow understands what I am saying and you don’t. You really don’t read me, Jack and there is always a possibility that I don’t read well your brilliant writing either. And I insist, it is my fault as both writer and reader. Not that I feel guilty, nor proud about this lack of achievement. I just feel that I wasted my time away from my family for nothing. We just cannot communicate properly with each other.
You are very smart, you have an incredible amount of knowledge in that head of yours, style in your use of language and you can be as sharp as a blade. And I can be as poetic as a nut, yet we cannot understand each other. (override?) I have become VERY tired and boring. Yet, others have become like that before me so…I don’t know. I just want to unknow and something more productive. In my humble opinion, you should do the same.
I TAKE BACK EVERYTHING that I said before. IT was all under poetic license but I agree, it sounded rather nuts. Bad translation, I guess. Just PLS. understand that A)I do not believe in angels, although there is nothing wrong with those who do (unless they believe they are angels themselves or they call their trees by the name of Gus
— just kidin’ here). I did have people in my life who opened doors for me and in that sense they acted LIKE angels. You get this one, don’t you?
We are our thoughts, Jack and you know that. And this is exactly what people on this site are trying to change without doing PR and without debunking Islam or any religion for that matter. Now, change (birth) might not happen (you are the living proof) but it’s still worth trying. And I am not one of those able to change things here. But Rasha for instance is. So, I choose to trust — that’s what I meant by trusting.
Clarice Lispector, one of my favorite writers said that “friendship is the stuff of salvation”, now that’s a secular truth said by someone who knows her inner bible (or vice-versa, I don’t know and I don’t care but still think that what she says makes sense because friends have done it for me so many times).
Now we really have to stop this because we have both become very boring and unintelligible (Ok, I’m just speaking about myself). So,as gracefully as I can put at this late hour, I’ll shut the f…off.
Lamer, I agree with you that heaven and hell, salvation and damnation, angels and devils, death and rebirth, all of it, it all exists — right here on this earth, in this life. Pushing it off to another life is like injecting this life with embalming fluid.
And yes, you put it very aptly and logically, as usual. I actually believe you mean well (except for the racist implications of your speech) BUT paradoxically enough, your way might not be THE WAY TO CHANGE for many and that’s what you don’t want to understand. Quit explaining (overexplanation is potentially damaging). In many cases (especially this one) silence is more precious than anything — I learned it here in the desert. And now I can die as a result.
Lamer, thank you for all your kind compliments. But you do me an injustice to think I intended to contradict Islam or any other religion by denying that I believe in any sort of after-life. I was very specific and careful to mention repeatedly that that is what I believe, not what anyone else should believe.
What the Jews want from the Muslims is to be left alone to live in peace. Instead there have been pogroms and wars, and wars and pogroms. The first step toward the Muslims ending their attacks is to even admit they are doing it. That is what all the back and forth on this thread has been — my trying to get them to admit their hostility. They can’t fix it until they admit it is broken
Posthumously yours,
Ophelia.