The Isaerli Government believes they need a "Firefox Version"!

[Jonathan N. Little]

But there is no international boundary between Gaza and Israel. What
would the U.S. Commander in Chief do if the rockets were coming from
Puerto Rico given that he is the chief of state of Puerto Rico? The
Israeli Defence Force is also Gaza's defence force.

Actually a more accurate analogy would be if a couple of external
countries, let's say China and Russia, got together and decided to annex
North Dakota and give to to the refugees from Darfur. I doubt if the
current North Dakotains would be too pleased with the arrangement!

Now I am not condoning the rocket attacks and the suicide bombers, but
my point is the situation is a bit more complicated and less B&W than
most believe.

 

[DLU]

This reply is loaded with so much bullshit that I can hardly get to
answer it because of the wicked stench -- but I'll try.

I see you have been indoctrinated by AIPAC quite well. I remember a
time when Israel was extolled for turning useless Palestinian land into
productive citrus growing. We were told how the Palestinians just let
the land go fallow and was no worth anything. What we were not told was
that the Palestinians Olive groves has been torn out and that worthless
land was actually used for sheep and goats. Of course you would not
remember that as it happened in the late 1940s and early 50s.

"If you knew even the slightest thing about Judaism and Jews you would
know that "paying homage to the Roman gods" was an impossibility to even
consider. The Romans got angry at the time of the self-proclaimed
messiah who was to be "king of the Jews", rather than the Roman puppet.
That was when the trouble began ending with the Masada and the sacking
of Jerusalem."

A little bit of historical revision here. the Romans already had
problems. Joshua of Nazareth was just another subversive. The assault
on Masada and the sacking of Jerusalem was because of the revolt and did
not sit well with the Romans. It's not nice to screw with the Romans,
gets you killed.



***************************************
* This is the Spammish Inquisition *
* Not Lumber Cartel Unit 75 [TINLC] *
* I am not SPEWS.ORG *
***************************************

 

[Jani]

So what's "aus"?  ...Oh, I get it.

You mean Austria??? I think they use also "arse":
http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/

 

[Neredbojias]

You mean Austria??? I think they use also "arse":
http://www.monochrom.at/arse-elektronika/

Actually, I was wondering if any country used "aus" for "ass" (or
"arse") but then I realized that the citizens of any such country would
hardly include a bad word in their name for their land.

 

[Neredbojias]

Well that is not exactly a fact. The Jews were in fact a
militaristic society at time in the past. The Hasmoneans were quite a
force and the Maccabees who liberated the temple from the Seleucid
Empire were noted for their militarism.

Okay, but "Maccabee" definitely sounds Scottish and "Hasmonian"
Hittite. Perhaps the Jews were already laying the groundwork for world
occupation even in them early days.

The Romans allowed the Jews to practice their religion as it was
considered an ancient religion. However the Jews could not leave
well enough alone. Their right wing refused to give in to Roman
customs and this made the Romans consider them subversives. Not
paying homage to the Roman gods would bring down the wrath of the
gods. It was not real smart to get the Romans mad at you in those
days.

Yep, that makes sense because the right-wing Republicans in this
country (USA) tend to **** everything up, too.

There were times the Jews were the persecutors.
Today Israel controls all aspects of life in Gaza as they have for 50
year. All they are doing is causing another generation of
Palestinians to hate them. Another generation that has nothing to
look forward to in their lifetimes, so if they have the chance, they
will be more than willing to blow up a Jew or two. Today the toll was
four Jews killed, and 400 Palestinians. A little history will reveal
who else used to practice this kind of retribution. Israel has two
choices, kill all the Palestinians or find a way to make peace. We
can not know the real state of things as Israel which calls itself a
Democracy does not allow the press to se for themselves what is
actually going on. Television in Israel is controlled by the
government and news is censored. The propaganda machine is set up to
brand anyone who criticizes them as anti-semitic. If the US stopped
its financial support of Israel it would collapse. If the Arab
countries wanted, they could shut of Israel's oil supplies.

Actually, it seems to me that my prevalent inclination is sound. I
just need to set up my own government, practice Neredbojiasism in all
it's excellence, and let the rest of the world do what it wants as long
as it leaves my realm alone. Oh sure, there are some difficult
logistics to this, but hey, I have not yet begun to fight...

 

[Gordon Levi]

Actually a more accurate analogy would be if a couple of external
countries, let's say China and Russia, got together and decided to annex
North Dakota and give to to the refugees from Darfur. I doubt if the
current North Dakotains would be too pleased with the arrangement!

Now I am not condoning the rocket attacks and the suicide bombers, but
my point is the situation is a bit more complicated and less B&W than
most believe.

I thought my Puerto Rico analogy covered that since, like Palestine,
it has a history of colonial rule. However, the main point was that I
expected the current colonial ruler to take much greater care of their
own subjects than they would if attacked by a foreign country. I was
disappointed when the poster approved of the United States going in
with guns blazing rather than treating the hypothetical Puerto Rican
rocket attack as a domestic problem that required police action and
negotiation.

 

[Jani]

Actually, I was wondering if any country used "aus" for "ass" (or
"arse") but then I realized that the citizens of any such country would
hardly include a bad word in their name for their land.

Anyway. The Bush's happiness about the israeli attack in Gaza is his
end.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

I thought my Puerto Rico analogy covered that since, like Palestine,
it has a history of colonial rule.

However there have been people living in Palestine, i.e,. Palestinians,
long before colonial rule... Do you really believe that the individuals
actually living on the land prior to 1948 were consulted when the area
was annexed?

However, the main point was that I
expected the current colonial ruler to take much greater care of their
own subjects than they would if attacked by a foreign country. I was
disappointed when the poster approved of the United States going in
with guns blazing rather than treating the hypothetical Puerto Rican
rocket attack as a domestic problem that required police action and
negotiation.

It a good thing that "domestic" conflicts never spiral out of control
into barbarism and terror among more "civilized" people...

Hmmm... Ireland and even the US's Civil War comes to mind... Again my
point is it is not that black and white.

 

[Tim Streater]

The current North Dakotains took the land by force from native
Americans. In Israel, on the other hand, there was no such thing as
a "Palestinian" prior to the attacks on Israel in 1948/1967/1973.

Don't be silly. Of course there was. I suggest you look it up. Wikipedia
has a big article.

There comes a time when one must admit that the war is over and
deal with who owns the land now.

This is of course true. Otherwise there'd be arguments that (say) Texas
or California or whatever should be handed back to the Mexicans /
Spanish / Indians. The Argentineans tried that argument in the
Falklands, and it was wrong then also.

Of course, Israel had no right to come into existence without the
permission of the locals, but once it did, and if it can survive until
there is no longer anyone affected who was alive at the time, then it
gets the right to continue to exist. Another 50 years then, say.

I'm not interested in whether Palestine was "historically Jewish" (i.e.
from a couple of thousand years ago). That's the sort of argument that
Hitler used.

 

[Tim Streater]

Who attacked who in 1848?

I take it you mean 1948.

Who attacked who in 1967?

Who attacked who in 1973?

By and large, the Arabs. Not that this is relevant in any way (see my
other post).

Why are the Israelis getting along so well with the Palestinians
in the west bank?

You mean not getting on with the elected government in Gaza? The
Palestinians are kind of split (Hamas government, Fatah President). But
that's not unusual, happens all the time in democracies, even in the US.

Any bets on whether I will get straight answers to the above questions?

No takers.

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

The current North Dakotains took the land by force from native
Americans.

Yep, they did...did make it right.

> In Israel, on the other hand, there was no such thing as
a "Palestinian" prior to the attacks on Israel in 1948/1967/1973.
There comes a time when one must admit that the war is over and
deal with who owns the land now.

Oh, so there was *no one* living there prior to 1948?

 

[Jonathan N. Little]

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8Bit

However there have been people living in Palestine, i.e,.
Palestinians, long before colonial rule...

Evidence, please.

"Nothing there [Jerusalem] to be seen but a little of the old
walls which is yet remaining and all the rest is grass, moss
and weeds."
--English pilgrim in 1590

"The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants
and therefore its greatest need is of a body of population"
--British consul in 1857

"There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent
[valley of Jezreel] — not for 30 miles in either direction."

"One may ride 10 miles hereabouts and not see 10 human beings.
For the sort of solitude to make one dreary, come to Galilee..."
--Mark Twain, _The Innocents Abroad_, 1867

"Nazareth is forlorn ... Jericho lies a moldering ruin...
Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and humiliation...
...untenanted by any living creature... A desolate country
whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds.
...a silent, mournful expanse...a desolation..."
--Mark Twain, _The Innocents Abroad_, 1867

"We never saw a human being on the whole route... Hardly a
tree or shrub anywhere. Even the olive tree and the cactus,
those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted
the country... Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes...
desolate and unlovely..."
--Mark Twain, _The Innocents Abroad_, 1867

There never was a Palestinian state or a Palestinian nation.
Israel did not go to war against a Palestinian state and
occupy its land. Rather, Israel was attacked by six Arab
countries at once. She defended herself, defeated her
attackers, and won the so-called territories, not from
the Palestinians, but from Jordan and Egypt.

During the 19 years that the West Bank, and the Gaza
stip were occupied by the kingdoms of Jordan and Egypt,
no one talked about a Palestinian state, not the Arab
countries, not the United Nations, nobody! Nobody ever
asked Jordan or Egypt to abdicate their ownership and give
it to "the Palestinians." Not even the people who are now
called Palestinians said anything about a Palestinian state
or a Palestinian people, because nobody had ever heard of
a Palestinian people. They were Egyptians and Jordanians.

Most Arabs living in Palestine today are not indigenous
to the region. It was not until after the Jews had
changed deserts and swamps into a productive and thriving
land that the Arabs started migrating there. The Jews
did not displace anyone, because no one permanently
resided there. The only "inhabitants" were nomadic
Bedouin tribes passing through.

Same was said about the Kalahari, the Bushman where not using, right?

 

[DLU]

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8Bit



Evidence, please.

Early archeological textual reference to the territory of Palestine
is found in the Merneptah Stele, dated c. 1200 BCE, containing a
recount of Egyptian king Merneptah's victories in the land of Canaan,
mentioning place-names such as Gezer, Ashkelon and Yanoam, along with
Israel, which is mentioned using a hieroglyphic determinative that
indicates a nomad people, rather than a state.
Egyptian texts of the temple at Medinet Habu, record a people
called the P-r-s-t (conventionally Peleset), one of the Sea Peoples
who invaded Egypt in Ramesses III's reign. This is considered very
likely to be a reference to the Philistines. The Hebrew name Peleshet
(פלשת Pəléshseth) usually translated as Philistia in English, is used
in the Bible to denote "the coastal region north and south of Gaza
which was occupied and settled by Philistine invaders from across the sea".
The Assyrian emperor Sargon II called the region the Palashtu in
his Annals. By the time of Assyrian rule in 722 BCE, the Philistines
had become 'part and parcel of the local population',[16][17] and
prospered under Assyrian rule during the seventh century despite
occasional rebellions against their overlords.[10] In 604 BCE,
when Assyrian troops commanded by the Babylonian empire carried
off significant numbers of the population into slavery, the
distinctly Philistine character of the coastal cities dwindled
away,[16][18] and the history of the Philistine people effectively
ended.[10]

There never was a Palestinian state or a Palestinian nation.
Israel did not go to war against a Palestinian state and
occupy its land. Rather, Israel was attacked by six Arab
countries at once. She defended herself, defeated her
attackers, and won the so-called territories, not from
the Palestinians, but from Jordan and Egypt.

In European usage up to World War I, "Palestine" was used informally for
a region that extended in the north-south direction typically from
Raphia (south-east of Gaza) to the Litani River (now in Lebanon). The
western boundary was the sea, and the eastern boundary was the
poorly-defined place where the Syrian desert began. In various European
sources, the eastern boundary was placed anywhere from the Jordan River
to slightly east of Amman. The Negev Desert was not included.[114]

Under the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, it was envisioned that most of
Palestine, when freed from Ottoman control, would become an
international zone not under direct French or British colonial control.
Shortly thereafter, British foreign minister Arthur Balfour issued the
controversial Balfour Declaration of 1917, which promised to establish a
Jewish state in Palestine in exchange for the Jewish financial support
to the British in their war against Ottomans and Germans.

The British-led Egyptian Expeditionary Force, commanded by Edmund
Allenby, captured Jerusalem on 9 December 1917 and occupied the whole of
the Levant following the defeat of Turkish forces in Palestine at the
Battle of Megiddo in September 1918 and the capitulation of Turkey on 31
October.[115]

During the 19 years that the West Bank, and the Gaza
stip were occupied by the kingdoms of Jordan and Egypt,
no one talked about a Palestinian state, not the Arab
countries, not the United Nations, nobody! Nobody ever
asked Jordan or Egypt to abdicate their ownership and give
it to "the Palestinians." Not even the people who are now
called Palestinians said anything about a Palestinian state
or a Palestinian people, because nobody had ever heard of
a Palestinian people. They were Egyptians and Jordanians.

Most Arabs living in Palestine today are not indigenous
to the region. It was not until after the Jews had
changed deserts and swamps into a productive and thriving
land that the Arabs started migrating there. The Jews
did not displace anyone, because no one permanently
resided there. The only "inhabitants" were nomadic
Bedouin tribes passing through.

Umayyad rule (661–750 CE)

Under Umayyad rule, the Byzantine province of Palaestina Prima became
the administrative and military sub-province (jund) of Filastin - the
Arabic name for Palestine from that point forward. It formed part of the
larger province of ash-Sham (Arabic for Greater Syria). Jund Filastin
(Arabic جند Ùلسطين, literally "the army of Palestine") was a region
extending from the Sinai to the plain of Acre. Major towns included
Rafah, Caesarea, Gaza, Jaffa, Nablus and JerichoJund al-Urdunn
(literally "the army of Jordan") was a region to the north and east of
Filastin which included the cities of Acre, Bisan and Tiberias.
In 691, Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan ordered that the Dome of the Rock
be built on the site where the Islamic prophet Muhammad is believed by
Muslims to have begun his nocturnal journey to heaven, on the Temple
Mount. About a decade afterward, Caliph Al-Walid I had the Al-Aqsa
Mosque built.

It was under Umayyad rule that Christians and Jews were granted the
official title of "Peoples of the Book" to underline the common
monotheistic roots they shared with Islam.

So most Americans living in the US today are not indigenous to the
region. The next time a Sioux, Crow, Navajo, or Apache comes to you
door, will you give him his land back? Or, will you, like many Hasidim
I have heard, claim that God gave you this land?

--
***************************************
* This is the Spammish Inquisition *
* Not Lumber Cartel Unit 75 [TINLC] *
* I am not SPEWS.ORG *
***************************************

 

[dorayme]

The Israelis are getting along fine with the Palestinians in the
west bank

Cough, splutter,... there goes the coffee on the keyboard *again*...

 

[dorayme]

The odds are too high against it.

You will get as straight an answer as you will ever get in "The Gun and
the Olive Branch: The Roots of Violence in the Middle East" (Nation
Books) (Paperback) by David Hirst.

<http://www.amazon.com/Gun-Olive-Branch-Violence-Middle/dp/1560254831>

What are the odds that those who have read the above include the people
who have *not* stood up to demand that their governments pressure Israel
to withdraw from much of the lands they grabbed subsequent to 1948 etc
etc...

 

[DLU]

Cough, splutter,... there goes the coffee on the keyboard *again*...

The question is, who says so? The Palestinians whose olive groves have
been torn out to build more kibbutz's?

--
***************************************
* This is the Spammish Inquisition *
* Not Lumber Cartel Unit 75 [TINLC] *
* I am not SPEWS.ORG *
***************************************

 

[Tim Streater]

It should also be pointed out that a hundred years ago there were
no jobs to speak of in either place.

You mean no jobs in banking, retail, making movies, etc? I expect they
were all doing simple things like olive trees, farming etc.

The Gazans could have made
it so that *they* have a thriving industry and that closing the
border would keep *Israelis* working in *Palestine* away from their
jobs.

Bit hard to do when the Israelis take the best land and most of the
water.

 

[Tim Streater]

Would that be the same "every other Government" that turned away the
Jewish refugee ships,

Why were these ships going to Palestine?

forcing them to return to a certain death in Germany

The war was over by then. Get a grip.

and later leading to the creation of Israel so that they
would never again be in such a position?

And screw the indigenous population, eh?

 

[Tim Streater]

[yawn deleted]

There never was a Palestinian state or a Palestinian nation.

So what? Before 1948 there was the British mandate, attacked by lots of
Jewish terrorist gangs, and before that there was the Ottoman Empire.
Point is, there were people living there before Israel was set up. They
were not consulted by the Jews, nor, I'm ashamed to say, by the British.

 

[Neredbojias]

Anyway. The Bush's happiness about the israeli attack in Gaza is his
end.

Bush's end is at hand, anyway, as the new pres is about to take the
reins.

No, I didn't like Bush; I don't like Republicans in general, but I
don't believe he bears much responsibility for the Middle East mess.
The real problem is this: as long as an embraced religion endorses war
for "holy" reasons and as long as governments use this as a proxy for
righteousness there will not be peace. I'm sure there are a lot of
good muslims but there are unfortunately enough bad ones with power
enough to corrupt world brotherhood and security. Eventually the
situation extant will attenuate, but the cost to the guilty might be
the very existence of their heritage. In the grand scheme of things it
would surely be a minor event.