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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

# Esra’a Says:
June 8th, 2007 at 3:47 pm

Yes, due to illegal settlements. Duhhhh. Expanding illegally = taking land that doesn’t belong to you. In English they also call this “stealing.”

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.

Jina (Web Surgeon) Says:
June 4th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
Israel is stolen land.

Jina (Web Surgeon) Says:
June 4th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
They stole those lands.

Esra’a Says:
June 5th, 2007 at 6:42 am
Israel has expanded illegally and thus in the process has “stolen land”

Ray Hanania (Palestine/USA) Says:
June 7th, 2007 at 12:10 am
…it is a land grab

How can you deny it when it is all right here on this very thread?

Ali Says:
June 1st, 2007 at 4:32 am “stolen lands”

Jina (Web Surgeon) Says:
June 1st, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Stolen PALESTINIAN land.

Ray Hanania (Palestine/USA) Says:
June 1st, 2007 at 8:00 pm
Israel stole land

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.

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.

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.

I don’t mean Palestine.

I mean Jewish rights in ARAB countries. That means Syria, Morocco, Bahrain, Lebanon, etc. Arab countries. Not just Palestine.

Lamer, see Esra’a has clarified it for you. Maybe she thinks Palestine is not an Arab country? :o)

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.

That

is what is so humiliating to them.

If there comes a solution to the Isreal and palestine issue, I think it will be around judgement day!!