Palestinians: Aggressors, Not Victims

[sirs]

And on that note, there are many groups trying to work through this problem, because truly, the children of the Palestinians and Israelis are the best hope for the future of the region.

That, I can agree with.  Though as I said, 1 side's children isn't getting a very fair starting point, in which to try and build that bridge.  Exceedingly hard when you're repetatively told that the other side is the source of all your misery, and that rightfully, they should not even exist in the region, in the 1st place

It IS happening. I have watched numerous programs and read numerous items detailing the efforts being made where these kids - usually joining such efforts as teens - are raised with terrible stereotypes of the other side. That is why it is critical that they come together... to breakdown the stereotypes. Israeli or Palestinian, they are all human beings.

Again, I agree with where it needs to happen, and despite the overwhelming roadblock presented to Palestinian children, I'm glad you see it as happening.  I'll remain optimistic

[The_Professor]

>>Or, move the Israelis to the most inhospitable place on the face of the Earth and have them legitimately purchase it from the owner.<<

They did that already, it's called Israel.

I'm always amazed at the ignorance that people show when it comes to Israel's history. I suggest you take some time and do some real research into the history of the the area. You'll find that there never was a country called Palestine, and that Israelis made that area what it is today. "Palestinians" don't exist today, nor did they exist 60 years ago. It's Arabs who create these refugees, and it's Arabs who keep them refugees for their own twisted political purposes.

The facts are the facts. Some people are easily taken in propaganda, some people can read.

Rich, I understand this. As an evangelical Christian, it is clear to me they are entitled to the land of the Philistines and all surrounding territory to include all land at the height of any Jewish hegemony. God gave them this, IMHO.

However, I am offering a real life compromise here. Let's move 'em, lock stock and all, to somewhere else no one will want so the hostility is gone. If anyone like the Palestinians go there and find then and mess with them THERE, then they deserve what they get, regardless what folks like MT might say. Sometimes, you simply must move on and not be controlled by hate.

God will prosper them no matter where they are, so let's start afresh, shall we?

And try not to talk down to someone who is generally on your side. Being as ass doesn't become you. Or, does it?

[sirs]

And try not to talk down to someone who is generally on your side. Being as ass doesn't become you. Or, does it?

He does have a tendency to do that     

[Richpo64]

>>Of course the region was a deserted wasteland until the Zionists came. No one really lived there... (sarcasm alert)<<

Close, but not quite. The land was legally acquired by Jews who immigrated to the region.

By 1937 there were already 400,000 Jews living there on land they legally purchased... (Reality Alert)

[Xavier_Onassis]

The bit about the Kazars is probably true, but the whole argument that that anyone automatically owns real estate because their ancestors once lived there is to me completely bogus. Hitler was a dolt, and some Palestinians, notably Yassir Arafat are also dolts, but they are different kinds of dolts.

I am sure that Hitler was equally willing to execute Kazars or Jews, or Ukranes or Poles, but he was happiest when he could get the odd Pole or Ukraine to help out.

I think the descision of the Kazars to convert was quite crafty and shrewd and was quite admirable. Huge numbers of tribes have vanished and been assimilated and we never meet one anymore. I can't recall ever seeing a Geat, a Visigoth, a Frank or a Schwabian of late.

The Evangelicals are of the opinion that all the Jews need to return to Israel, because they believe that the Book of Revelation predicts that all the Jews must be in Israel, the Third Temple must be rebuilt, and Jesus, the True Messiah, will reappear and give them another chance to recognize Him as the Messiah. He will send those who still don't do this down to eternal hellfire, and the rest will frolic about with all the rest of the good Christians until  everyone ascends to Heaven.

This seems rather silly to me. I don't think that there is any chance that (a) all the Jews will ever live in Israel again (they were scattered about before Christ, too- There were many Jews in Alexandria , in fact it was the center of Jewish scholarship, and Paul of Tarsus was, well, from Tarsus, which is in Turkey these days, or is it Syria?) (b) the Temple will be rebuilt (because this is on the land now occupied by the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque) or (c) Jesus will return. I am not sure which of these events is the most improbable, but they are all beyond the odds given by Jimmy the Greek.

 In any event, all historical arguments are pretty much bogus. The Palestinians were once Philistines, that is where the name Palestine came from. But they were forceably driven out of their homeland, and that wasn't right. Israel is a colony, and that isn't right, either. I am as willing as the next guy to admit that anyone who was born in a place has trhe right to not be thrown out, and there is no logical reason why the Israelis and the Palestinians cannot learn to live in close proximity to one another without suicide bomb attacks or bulldozing homes. They can duke it out if they wish, but I don't want to pay to arm either side. It is not a problem that I, an American, should have to deal with. I am also for peace in Armenia, Kashmir, and Tibet, but I just don't want pay money or see American troops die for those disputes, either.

Those who know me really well know that I am the 15th great grandson of Anika Janssen, the daughter of the Morganatic marriage of William the Silent and a former nun named Anika Jans, and therefore am sort of an heir to the throne of the Netherlands.

But I am not going to claim my throne. I doubt that I would even if I spoke Dutch, which I don't.

Anika Janssen married Dominie Everardus Bogardus, who was siad to be the first Protestant minister in Nieuw Nederlands, now known as New York, by the way.

I love the way Dutchmen with common names Latinized them Boogart means "farmer". The surname Bogardus is rather like sticking a Rolls Royce grille on a VW.

[Michael Tee]

<<Anika Janssen married Dominie Everardus Bogardus, who was siad to be the first Protestant minister in Nieuw Nederlands, now known as New York, by the way.>>

So that makes you and Bogie, what, first cousins fifteen times removed?  Cool - - You gotta practice
"Sam, I tolja never to play that song again."  Or does it come naturally?

[Xavier_Onassis]

I am related to the Bogarduses (and there are still some who spell it that way in upstate NY) by a female ancestor, and I have no info on Humphrey's lineage.

Bogart/Boogart/ Bogaart/ Bogardus all mean "farmer" and are as-common-as dirt names in Flanders and the Netherlands, so it is  not too likely that Bogey and I are related. I quit smoking cigarettes in 1967 and the pipe in 1986.

I really like Bogey's films, but I am an ever bigger fan of Steve McQueen, especially in Sand Pebbles, Papillion, the Great Escape, and several more.
McQueen was better at getting across whole biographies with just a look or a pose than any actor before or since.

Among the living I fancy Sean Penn and Johnny Depp.

[Lanya]

Looks like they're the victims in this instance:

Israeli Attorney General prohibits Gaza electricity cut-off; allows blockade
author Monday October 29, 2007 23:26author by Saed Bannoura - IMEMCauthor email saed at imemc dot org Report this post to the editors

    The Israeli Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz, on Monday ruled that the Israeli government should temporarily delay its plan to cut electricity to the 1.4 million residents of the Gaza Strip, but added that it was acceptable for Israel to cut Gaza off from the outside world.

Menachem Mazuz
Menachem Mazuz

Israel had been accused by a number of foreign governments and the United Nations of engaging in ‘collective punishment’ of the Palestinian people by cutting off fuel and food supplies to the Gaza Strip.

Israel controls all the borders of the Gaza Strip, and has imposed a full closure on the border since last September. Last week, hospitals ran out of anesthetic and were unable to perform surgeries.

In the latest attempted punishment of the Palestinian people, the Israeli Defense Minister decided last week to cut off the electricity supply to the people of Gaza, a decision that the Attorney General's ruling puts on the back burner, at least in the short term.

According to the Israeli-based Physicians for Human Rights, at least five Palestinians have died since June after being denied entry into Israel for medical treatment. An additional thirteen people are reported to have died at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt while waiting to cross the border for essential medical treatment.

Israeli forces have closed two of the remaining three border crossings that had been open for humanitarian cases only, leaving just one border crossing available for all of Gaza’s 1.4 million inhabitants. And that border crossing, known as Kerem Shalom, is strictly controlled to allow only a very few cases to cross. Many severe humanitarian cases have been denied passage, and essential goods have been unable to enter.
category gaza strip | israeli politics | news report
http://www.imemc.org/article/51162

[sirs]

Lanya.....there are going to be a plethora of instances where the Palestinians are seen as "victims".  Does that negate the Isreali men, women & children victims, suffering nearly every day rocket attacks, terrorist attacks, bus bombings, etc.?  Are there not victims on both sides??     

[Xavier_Onassis]

Does that negate the Isreali men, women & children victims, suffering nearly every day rocket attacks, terrorist attacks, bus bombings, etc.?  Are there not victims on both sides??     

It is the nature of war to produce victims. The victims are very rarely the leaders whose actions caused there to be victims, which is why thyere continue to be more and more victims.

Gaza is probably the most undesireable place to live on the planet, certianly the most well-known undesireable place.

The Egyptians didn't want it, they gave it away. The Israelis won it and they gave it away, too. There are class differences between Gazans and the people of the West Bank. Gazans are poor and less educated. Gaza is an enormous desert slum, with about a million hapless souls crammed into a place with practically no resources, little water.

Unlike other miserable places on the Earth, the Gazans have an abundance of people to blame: the Israelis, first and foremost, then the PLO, that spent most of the money it got on developments in Ramallah and the rest of the West Bank.

Joe Sacco, in his comic documentary 'Palestine', portrays Gaza as a hopeless place filled with sad and desperate people. I have never read any comic novels more evocative than those of Sacco, who was born in Malta, raised in Australia and educated in Oregon. I don't know what nationality he is, but he must be an American resident, perhaps a citizen. Anyone born in Malta is Maltese forever.

[hnumpah]

Palestinians had no "lands" prior to the UN's decision to return Isreal to it's original location back in the late 40's.

Many of the Palestinians owned property in Jerusalem and elsewhere in areas that are now controlled by Israel. They fled during Israels war of independence and have not been allowed to return.

Now, whether they fled because they were afraid of being caught up in the war, or they fled, as some surmise, expecting to return in a short time after an Arab victory, is irrelevant. israel, once the war was over, has refused to let them return to the homes and property they rightfully own, and has turned it over to others to live in or settle on.

[Michael Tee]

<<Joe Sacco, in his comic documentary 'Palestine', portrays Gaza as a hopeless place filled with sad and desperate people. I have never read any comic novels more evocative than those of Sacco, who was born in Malta, raised in Australia and educated in Oregon. I don't know what nationality he is, but he must be an American resident, perhaps a citizen. Anyone born in Malta is Maltese forever.>>

You'd probably like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (Iranian Revolution and its sequelae) and (if you haven't already read it) Art Spiegelman's Maus (the Holocaust.)  I read Palestine, and liked it a lot.  Sacco's got some others out there as well, one of them I believe being set in Sarajevo.  Maus was the granddaddy of that kind of political reportage as graphic novel, and IMHO still far and away the best.  Spiegelman had the old man's voice down to a "T" and it was a story I couldn't put down.

I think there's nothing like graphic novels for showing the human dimensions of political conflicts and making them understandable on a basic level.  They really have a way of cutting through the bullshit and the rationalizations. Spiegelman, for example, is brilliant at showing the realities of the Holocaust, but there is no Jewish answer to Joe Sacco.  The problem with a Jewish answer in graphic novel form is that it would either fail to ring true, or if it DID ring true, it would be very apparent who the victims were and who the oppressors were.

[The_Professor]

I recently re-read The Haj by Leon Uris. I highly recommend it.

[Michael Tee]

Here's another graphic novel about a journalist in Iraq in 2009.

http://shootingwar.com/chapters/chapter-1/

Shooting War.  It's not the greatest but it's OK.  Not really going anywhere.  Good atmospherics.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I recently re-read The Haj by Leon Uris. I highly recommend it.
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I read this godawful piece of Zionist propaganda years ago. As a valid description of the Palestinians, it sucks most deeply. It is the straight rightwing AIPAC line.
The Palestinians depicted in this piece of trash are portrayed as incompetent boobs ruled by Satanic manipulators. The3 message is: Israelis good, Palestinians bad.
You will get little insight by reading this thing.
Even Abba Eban is more fair to the Palestinians.