There is no problem with anyone obsessing with Palestine. My only concern is for activists who do not allow other activists to peacefully campaign for other issues that deserve an equal amount of attention, whether it’s Darfur or abused minorities. These are the people I essentially targeted my post with. I was criticizng this specific approach, and not the obsession itself, which I have absolutely no problem with.

Our obsession with palestine, is the only thing left for them to fight with. In a time when revolting against occupation became terrorism, and doubting a divine promise to the Israelis a blasphemy!

Don’t steal that away from them. Governments have turned their backs on them. Let them enjoy the support of the common. Is it too much to ask?

If you are interested in defending the rights of minorities, then you are an angel. Write 10 posts every day about that, but don’t forget that most atrocities and turmoils happening in the Middleeast happen because of Palestine & Oil. If you are doing your society a favor, don’t shy away from what really matters to them.

The article expresses my crucial point perfectly clearly, with some detailed examples listed, so please read it again, I don’t feel I have anything else to add, but all I know is that your comment is a bit misguided and not exactly relevant to the point I made within the article.

I personally find it very interesting that an Arab person is disgusted by the obsession about palestine. I’d say that you have chosen the wrong word to express your feelings! But, maybe I’m wrong, and you are actually disgusted by that!

Some arabs do discriminate against palestinians in their countries. This is a fact. But so do Lebanese against Syrians, Egyptians against sudanese, Saudis against Yemenis, and even Bahraini shiites against Bahraini Sunnis & the other way around, and so do Swedes against Danish, Spanish against Catalans, Whites against blacks, Yankees against rednecks. And this is happening in what is called the advanced world.

People don’t discriminate against each other because they hate each other. It’s just our nature. Humans. If you watched the movie Crash you might understand what I mean. You will side with your brother against your cousin, you’ll side with your cousin against your neighbor, you’ll side with your neighbor against the guy from the next town. As such, you’ll side with bahrainis against palestinians, and with palestinians against the Jews.

You’ve given a half-man Kuwaiti writer as an example. I know there are some half-men Kuwaitis who are following the same trend, but I assure you that if the call was made, Kuwaitis will side with the palestinians. It’s in the nature of this stupid world, that politicians do something, and the “common” fall in the trap. I’m highlighting the common, because you can not blame the common for going with the flaw. This is why they are called the common. Saddam attacked Kuwait, he needed a cause that arabs will undoubtedly support, so he started bombarding Tel Aviv. Palestinians, being victims for 50 years of Israeli agression looked up to the only guy who challenged Israel for decades. The funny thing is that Israel didn’t reply because they know if they did it will look like they are on the same side as the Gulf states, Egypt & Syria, etc. Which will obviously embarass these countries, and might risk them pulling out of the coalition.

Your Italian reader pointed out that the world doesn’t know anything about palestine. Have you given any thought on why this is the case? I’ll tell you why. It is simply because there isn’t enough obsession about it. I do agree with you that there are other atrocities in the arab world, just like in all other nations, but do you really think that your voice is as much needed on those issues?

I think you should leave it to FOX, CNN, and the rest of the gang to stress on these issues. Believe me they did a pretty good job highlighting what is going on in Darfur. How long has it been? 10 years? The whole world knows by now what is Darfur & what is going on there. On the other hand, I still get questions on where the hell is palestine? Something like, why are these Israelis called palestinians causing troubles to their state? Is it because they are Muslim Israeli?! So you see, our obsession didn’t succeed in convincing the whole world that Palestinians are actually different from Israelis, let alone convincing them with their cause.

Why? Because we whine about Palestine to ourselves. We know the story, but we keep telling it to ourselves. Not enough coverage in English. That’s probably why i’m getting a bit excited with Aljazeera international. Because maybe, just maybe, they can send out a message in english that the world can hear. CNN & FOX are never going to do that.

So my suggestion is that people like you, who were blessed with the ability to communicate in english, and reach out to a big audience like your site’s, should be more obsessed with palestine. If you are obsessed with the rights of Baha’is, Minorities, Homosexuals, and the likes, fine! write about them 10 posts/day. But equally write 10 about Palestine. Whether you like it or not, the main cause, and issue that the Arab & Muslim population is concerned about, is palestine, and you have no right to try and change that.

All these opressed segments of the community are getting more than enough support and rallying from the Western media, and probably they deserve it. But when Palestine doesn’t get that attention, I think it is your duty to expose it.

I would’ve loved to read here about how much you’re disgusted by our inability to translate our obsession about palestine to a lobbying effect in the world. Instead, you have chosen to decide for your readers, and the population you are supposed to be helping, that they shouldn’t be as obsessed with Palestine.

The west for example, is obsessed by labelling all arabs as anti-semitic, which is a laughable thing for me, because we are actually semitic. They are so obsessed with supporting Israel, to the limit that it was the only thing both american presidential candidates agreed upon! I think the whole world will butcher and Arab president, if his campaign had a big space for the palestinian issue.

Our obsession with palestine, is the only thing left for them to fight with. In a time when revolting against occupation became terrorism, and doubting a divine promise to the Israelis a blasphemy!

Don’t steal that away from them. Governments have turned their backs on them. Let them enjoy the support of the common. Is it too much to ask?

If you are interested in defending the rights of minorities, then you are an angel. Write 10 posts every day about that, but don’t forget that most atrocities and turmoils happening in the Middleeast happen because of Palestine & Oil. If you are doing your society a favor, don’t shy away from what really matters to them.

I hope you wake up from your slumber and realize that it is the zionists who are obsessed with Palestine, not the Arabs…

It is an Arab obsession, and you’re just in denial. Your whole comment is a testament to that fact, which I have already explained in detail in the post. You happen to misunderstand the point of this article and what it is trying to express, but I won’t put that past you. You, like most Arabs, are blinded by this destructive and aggressive obsession and it is the reason why we lack the vital progression that we need here in the Arab world.

Us jews have no right to the land of Palestine; the zionists brazenly stole it from the Palestinians in an act of agression. They were aided by the British of course who mandated Palestine to the zionists as a repayment for their service during WWI, that service being bailing out the British by forcing America into entering this war. The jewish clout in America was convinced by their Zionist partners in Europe to put pressure on Wilson to go to war under the cause of “making the world safe for democracy” – very similar to what happened in Iraq.

So we, the jews, sold Germany in WWI, because the majority of jews were of German decent. They have treated us well and we sold them, and then in 1933, we declared war on them and demonized Hitler and boycotted German goods in America – read your history books.

The Germans were pissed…I think you know well what happened later. We exploited our suffering, just like Norman Finklestein said, using the Balfour Declaration as a reminder of the British promise of repayment in the form of….Israel. And we got our way – the Zionists got their way just like they always have and like they always will.

My parents were called up to Aliyah, they helped found this repressive regime, and they deeply felt disgraced and remorseful after they realized what they had become complicit in: A forceful occupation of another country. My dad recalled driving out Palestinians from their homes in 1967, burning homes and sending people into the desert.

All this for what? Israel is not our promised land. We don’t deserve it, we’re Khazars, pagans turned jews who never put a toe in the holy land. But they grew greedy, and Theodore Hertzl messed it all up. God is not a real estate agent, I don’t care what the Torah or the Old Testament says, you can’t claim a piece of land that belongs to another human being simply because my ancestors used to live there a thousand years ago, whose greed was the result of the loss of their Kingdom, the Kingdom of Judea.

This is a terrible justice, the Arabs have all the right to be angry. I was labeled by many as a self-hating jew for voicing my anti-zionism, my dad was persecuted for defecting and had to flee to Canada and my mom, well…let’s just say I will never forgive Israel…ever….

But all the efforts by the Arabs have been thwarted, and now they are hopeless. Israel is stronger than any country in the region…stronger than any NATO country other than the US for that matter.

As a result, the Arabs resorted to Islam, they sought to unite Islam as they saw that the Arabs were submitting to the West and the Muslim faith was declining. Their efforts were brought about in the form of a holy war declared against the state of Israel…
And if there’s anything I learned from studying Islam is that you can’t call off a holy war; this WILL end with the rightful destruction of the illegal state of Israel.

As a jew, I stand to witness that the zionists have wronged the Arabs, they have oppressed them and waged a global smear campaign against them and anyone who supported them. They isolated them, they steered US politics against them, they persecuted Arabs in the own land and relegated them to second class citizens, and in the past, MURDERED THEM in COLD BLOOD.

You are a horrible person Esraa, if you can’t see the right of Arabs to b outraged. Israel is the centerpeiece of all suffering in the world. If there were no Israel, there would’ve been no 9/11, no Iraq, no Iran (wars that is), no Islamic extremism, no perceived “clash of civilizations”, none of that garbage brought about by FALSE judaism. Apart from Darfur, every conflict in the Middle East has been caused directly or indirectly by Israel, aided by AIPAC.

I hope you wake up from your slumber and realize that it is the zionists who are obsessed with Palestine, not the Arabs…and it is their obsession that has caused so much suffering and so much death…and let these clueless morons who kneel before a jew on a cross help us in destroying a race of human beings, setting up the stage for the Apocalypse. The time the zionists should be punished is upon us.

There are, to be sure, plenty of tragedies around the world–many in the Middle East which you don’t even mention–that get little coverage and that is a shame,

I mentioned several (obviously not all, which is impossible and is beyond the point of my post) tragedies that no mainstream media mentions or cares to give any attention to, and yes, this is due to a clear and consistent obsession only with Palestine, to the point where no one cares about anyone else being abused in the region. Why? Because Palestinians are “more important?” No one is arguing that Palestine is not important or that it deserves any less attention than what they are getting, I am arguing other minorities need just as much attention. It is unfair for them to go unnoticed and for their horrific persecution to be constantly overlooked.

The whole point of the matter is that no one mentions the other tragedies in the region since everyone is so utterly obsessed with Palestine. And it’s right, attention is all they are getting, and they are the only ones in the Middle East getting it, unlike all the other oppressed people whom others (especially the media) seemingly dismiss as unimportant, including our own governments who commit these atrocities to begin with. Why don’t the majority care, protest against, or write about other things than Palestine, when there are minorities/nations who at times go through things just as bad or even worse? Do they not matter to you?

And it’s hardly the point of my post that the attention Palestine gets “bothers” me – please make an effort to read my conclusion one more time before making such a baseless claim. I said activism towards Palestine is admirable and I encourage it, but to attack others who protest against things other than just Palestine (which many Arabs do and I have tons of personal experience in this field), is proof of the fact that this is more than just “activism,” it is abusive ignorance and obsession.

In any case, your comment only implies that you didn’t get the point of the post. No one said Palestinians were obsessive, the attention they get, however, is obsessive and it is heartbreaking to see that no other tragedy or minority or human rights abuse will ever get the same attention because people have lost interest and awareness for the other ones being abused by their societies and by our governments. What a disgusting, shameful reality. One day this region will really pay the price of this carelessness.

well, Jina, I appreciate your comment but, as it were, you only make assertions;

Hmm… news flash… your claims are also assertions. Can you give me your proof first?

I can similarly say: “Jina is not a person. No one gives a damn about anyone named Jina.” As you see, without providing any evidence or examples, it is difficult to take you seriously.

wtf? same applies to you…

=======> this is my penis, this is Jina… kthx… now that we got our introductions out of the way, shall we continue?

What is the evidence that Arabs don’t give a damn about the Palestinians?

The fact that almost every single Palestinian refugee still live in the same refugee camp they moved into when the Jews kicked them out tells me something. Fact that the children born to these refugees have no nationality even though they were born in these Arab countries tells me something. Fact that children of those children… get it?

Is it all the public opinion studies of the Arab world that say the exact opposite of what you claim?

Words vs Deeds, I judge based on deeds, not words.

Is it all the rallies and Nakba commemorations held every year?

Does this involve not discriminating against Palestinian refugees in the Arab world or is it just a way to tell people that you care and then get back to shitting on them the next day?

Arabs seem to be the ones that care about Palestinians most–certainly most Americans don’t.

Americans? Why even bring them into this argument? Actually now that you mention it, 200,000 some Palestinians living in Americas were treated much better when they arrived and do really well within America currently. Compared to Palestinians in America, those refugees living in the Arab countries aren’t even allowed to leave their refugee camps because of who they are.

On another note, Americans and Arabs only make up about 8% of the world population. Gosh these must be the entire world and I am an invisible person writing this from Pluto… ok Mars… ya Mars sounds better.

As for the occupation claim….I qualified my statement by saying “arguably” but I really can’t think of another one. Indonesia left East Timor a while ago, the US is bound to leave Iraq in under 40 years–or at least end an informal occupation…I just can’t think of any comparable occupation in modern history; so instead of making claims, back yourself up with evidence and enlighten me please….

This proves your ignorance or lack of knowledge. I’ll give you a little list, starting with the Arab, Turkish and Iranian occupation of Kurdistan. Chinese occupation of Tibet. Indian/Pakistani occupation of Kashmir. Russian occupation of Chetchnia. Of course if I go to India, I can add about few dozen more. How about Africa? Ehh… ok that is way too messy. You know where Africa is right or India? Palestine ain’t the center of the world, get your head around that and learn a tad bit about the rest of the world. Come to think of it, you sound a lot like an American with your worldly knowledge.

Ohh another interesting point. My mother-in-law never speaks to other Arabs in her Palestinian dialect. I wonder why? Was it because the other Arabs tend to react negatively to her because she’s Palestinian? Maybe its her imagination… actually no, after being discriminated against and mocked for being a Palestinian, she decided to get smart and speak a different dialect and lie about her origin to save her from all the humiliation she faces.

But i would say it is a different thing. It’s a question of A: it being part of India; B: being part of Pakistan, or C: being an independent state. I would dare say the Kashmir conflict is, geopolitically, more complex.

What is the evidence that Arabs don’t give a damn about the Palestinians? Is it all the public opinion studies of the Arab world that say the exact opposite of what you claim? Is it all the rallies and Nakba commemorations held every year? The Palestinian question is abused, to be sure, but to make a wild claim that simply Arabs don’t care about Palestinians seems to be at stark odds with reality–indeed, Arabs seem to be the ones that care about Palestinians most–certainly most Americans don’t.

As for the occupation claim….I qualified my statement by saying “arguably” but I really can’t think of another one. Indonesia left East Timor a while ago, the US is bound to leave Iraq in under 40 years–or at least end an informal occupation…I just can’t think of any comparable occupation in modern history; so instead of making claims, back yourself up with evidence and enlighten me please….

to barrage people for being “obsessive” about arguably the only long-term occupation in modern history

False and this comment reassert the point about people being too obsessive about Palestinians.

Arabs really don’t give a damn about the Palestinians, they are generally obsessed to appease their ego more than care about the Palestinians who are caught up in the middle.

spare me….

Well, actually, I will make a response to one of the comments–Chris in Canada. When it comes to economic development, Israel has moved from being pretty much a third-world country to being one of the leaders in high-tech, biotech, start-ups etc. (I work with these companies–it is simply amazing).

(Yes, there are problems here/ no it is not perfect/ yes we have to improve various areas/etc etc…but I just could not let that just go!)

Again, thank you for the thought provoking article
Gila

The more bandwidth, the more we pay. See, it has its downside too!

The more you find yourself paying, the better a job you are all doing

Great post Esra’a, has got my day off to a better start reading your apologies 1 to 4. I also agree with your statement mostly, but not your method, just like you said. Well done. Haven’t met a she-hulk before, so I can tick that off now.

Hi Almani – good post and you certainly have a unique perspective because of where you have come from. Could I ask you to translate things like “kull ‘ashan Ihtilal ash-Shaytan Isra’el” so that limited englishmen like me can also understand?! Good point about the filipino maid – I have read how it is prevalent in Saudi as well – I suppose anywhere there are rich people really. I know some suffer here in London too but perhaps there are a few more options here for people to leave, maybe the same is not available for migrant workers in the ME. Again, an important local issue veiled by the focus on Palestine perhaps.

R E Konrad – nice post. I think the distracting tactic with Palestine is pretty established now. But first you have to identify the problem before you can solve it. And the US isn’t the only country who doesn’t get the full story. That’s why places such as MEY.com are so important and things are starting to change I think, I hope.
Josh

First of all: Mabruk Esra’a! A great article. I will link it on my blog and recommend it. And great of all those who commented in such varied ways. Pity about the middle section, where it became a bit “you did this” “no I didn’t” kindergarten-like and maybe a breath of beautiful fresh air and cooling of the head would have helped (sorry). But there are some very interesting view and opinions, all of which I learned from. Thank you. It is great, that these kind of conversations can and do now exist. Thank you, WorldWideWeb!

Obviously, being German my ears turn around when I hear the word “antisemitism” and it came up quite a few times during this discussion. I don’t really want to go back to that point, but this word is really raped a lot of times in general. Does having negative feelings for (or rather against) a person who is a Jew make you an “antisemite”??! If you take it by its original meaning, then you’d have to hate Arabs just the same, who are also Semites (=people of nomadic origin) in their roots and hence related to the Jews (thank you BattalAgha for pointing this out).

Esra’a made a very useful and necessary point about an “obsession with Palestine”. And I have felt this many times when I’ve travelled in the Middle East… “kull ‘ashan Ihtilal ash-Shaytan Isra’el”…. and yet the in-action of most of those outside Palestine who make it a big deal. (On the other hand: what CAN they really do? – I’m sure you have some good ideas here.)

Well, unfortunately in my case, the topic of Israel is often followed by praises for Hitler. (I must say, I’m glad to see that this name hasn’t appeared yet in this thread… despite its inevitable connection with the world “antisemitism”). And that’s when I become either very quiet or very loud… I shall not judge all Arabs by the Taxi drivers who I usually have this conversation with. Nevertheless, these taxi drivers don’t seem to understand that if Hitler had succeeded in wiping out the Jews, the Arabs might well have been the next ones. Or in fact, if it hadn’t been Jews at that time, but Arabs who were active and present in great numbers in Germany, they might well have suffered the same fate. I would like to argue that it wasn’t really their being “Jews” that was the problem… and maybe the way nowadays this “obsession with Palestine” is used as a political tool, “Antisemitism” at that time was used as a political tool… Jews became a scapegoat for all problems that existed in Germany at the time and a common (internal) enemy always forges a people together… I don’t want to go so far as to compare this blaming everything on the Jews to what is going on in the minds of many people here at the moment.

I just want to encourage people to see this issue outside the “antisemitism” and “Jewish” debate. I live in Jordan. Recently a taxi driver of Palestinian origin (MANY people here are originally Palestinian) told me about six of his brothers and cousins who died at the hand of Israeli bullets. To be honest, I can’t remember if he said anything hateful about Israelis (in fact, I think like most Arabs I met that have suffered like him, he displayed a remarkable lack of any such expressions), but if he HAD… it would’ve been because they killed his loved-ones, not because they are JEWS.
A few years ago, I witnessed something in the Yemen that shocked me… a 13-year old boy was walking around the streets of Sana’a with a belt of live bullets around his chest. I asked him:
“What are those for?”
His answer was simple:
“To kill the fucking Jews in Israel.”
But this is no case to judge from. All this is, is stupidity and brainwash.

In that sense: there certainly is a strong feeling against ISRAEL (and sometimes also against ISRAELIS) among many Arabs, but what has this got to do with “antisemitism”? OK, some might use the word “Yahudi” (Jew), but I very much doubt that they specifically mean, what some term “antisemitism”. If your brother was killed by soldiers from a ‘democratic’ state that likes to appear as a ‘unity’, surely it is understandable that you have negative feelings against people from that state.

Anyway… not sure if I’m going anywhere with this. But I couldn’t help making a plea for a very careful use of the word “antisemitism”. And I guess all of us could write for hours on this topic, but I’ll stop here.

As a last note, maybe: The Phillipini government recently prohibited citizens of the Phillipines to go and work in Jordan, because of numerous cases (and more un-reported, as always) of what Esra’a not inappropriately described as ’slavery’: abuse, non-payment and rape. I have seen with my own eyes how a Jordanian family was sitting in a restaurant, dining finely, while their “Phillipino” maid was standing behind them, rocking the pram of their youngest and then getting the plate of one of the elder children to eat what was left.

Racism exists everywhere. And in Germany and Britain, where I’ve lived for most of my life, I’ve never seen as much of it as I have seen here in the Middle East, I hate to say. Don’t misinterpret this statement, please. This is not a generalisation saying: Arabs are racist. In most of the cases where I’ve seen Phillipinos, Egyptians, Sri Lankans or Gypsies (add them to your list, Esra’a!) being treated like they were not of the same race or kind as the ones who treated them here, it was from Arabs who I would desribe as ‘wealthy’ and ‘westernised’, actually.
Right, I’ll leave it there.
Goodnight.

The more here, the more views, the more we all learn

The more bandwidth, the more we pay. See, it has its downside too!

Goodnight.

I decided also to calm down, take your advice, and apologize to those whom I was rude towards.

So to everyone (except my2cents), and especially to Corey and limpia, I am sorry for:

1) Overreacting
2) Putting things you didn’t say in your mouth
3) Making things personal, even though it wasn’t my intention. Okay, yeah it was.
4) Turning into a she-hulk, basically

But I will not apologize for my actual statements, which I strongly believe in, just the tone that I expressed them with.

Goodnight.