"MY NAME IS SHARI"

[Barbara Branden]

Nothing more needs to be said.

Barbara

[Chris Grieb]

Barbara' Excellent! Thank you.

[Aggrad02]

Terrorism is horrible. But we must remember that this is occurring on both sides.

For every poster like this one, there can be three made with Palestinians on it.

--Dustan

[Brant Gaede]

Terrorism is horrible. But we must remember that this is occurring on both sides.

For every poster like this one, there can be three made with Palestinians on it.

--Dustan

Yes, Palestinians killed by Israeli suicide bombers blowing up buses in Gaza.

(sarcasm)

--Brant

Edited September 25, 2007 by Brant Gaede

[Chris Grieb]

Brant; Good answer!

Dustan; I like you but the Palastians and Israelis are not moral equalvalents for exactly the point of Brant's post.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dustan,

That 3 to 1 ratio is not correct, or at least not widely agreed upon. I have been told other figures. The truth is that regardless of what the figures are, the situation over there is a holy mess and it is even compounded by another factor. The following is from an email I wrote recently:

There is one issue that no amount of intellectual warfare will cure and only time will. That is the deaths of loved ones. In the hearts of people on both sides, this transcends right and wrong or correct and incorrect or fair and unfair. Muslims who have had loved ones killed by Jews will hate Jews, and Jews who have had loved ones killed by Muslims will hate Muslims. I can't do anything about that except take it into account. It certainly will not go away.

The emotional charge from this often gets entangled with others like antisemitism or anti-Muslim bigotry. To untangle a bit with suggested solutions for what to do intellectually to help resolve matters (and this holds for all sides):

Loved ones killed - No solution except time.

Bigotry - Evil, work to eliminate.

Genocide - The most depraved kind of evil, don't even think about tolerating.

Government dictatorship - Evil, work to eliminate.

Individual rights - Good, work to encourage.

Everything else - To be discussed and negotiated, and support agreements being enforced.

Judism as a religion - (yawn) Study a bit for basic understanding.

Islam as a religion - (yawn) Study a bit for basic understanding.

This, to me, is what a true pro-reason intellectual tries to do.

Michael

[Aggrad02]

Brant; Good answer!

Dustan; I like you but the Palastians and Israelis are not moral equalvalents for exactly the point of Brant's post.

Chris I understand. You don't have to apologize for disagreeing with me, that is what these boards are for. Intellectual discussion should never be personal and the ones that occur on these boards very rarely are. If we all agreed, all of the time discussion would be pointless.

But I think Barbara's post was purely to stir emotions.

What was the point of it?

Was there any discussion about why the Palestinians are doing what they are doing?

Was there any discussion about how money is given to the terrorist in Palestine? Is the government directly financing them, or is it individual donors from with in Iran (much like Israel receives donations from American citizens, does that mean that the US is responsible for everything the Israeli's do?)

Was it pointed out that that this young woman was killed in 2002, when Ahmadinejad wasn't even part of the federal government? Or that he is not the most powerful person in the Iranian government?

From wikipedia:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad[1] (born October 28, 1956)[2] is the sixth and current President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He became president on 6 August 2005 after winning the 2005 presidential election by popular vote. Before becoming president, he was the Mayor of Tehran. He is the highest directly elected official in the country, but, according to Article 113 of Constitution of Iran, he has less total power than the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of Iran and has the final word in all aspects of foreign and domestic policies

I think Barbara's comment about the picture was incorrect: There is a lot more that needs to be said! Talked about, discussed.

I have no feelings either which way in this conflict, I want to find the truth. And I am sorry if I will not be spoon fed my information by our main stream propaganda machines.

So I intellectually challenge everyone on these boards to look into this issue to try and find the truth. Who here will accept this challenge? I recently bought the following books to do research:

The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy Mearsheimer and Walt

Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid Jimmy Carter

Interventions Noam Chomsky

Once Upon a County Sari Nusseibeh

The Shock Doctrine Naomi Klein

The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot Naomi Wolf

The last two do not say anything about the Middle East conflict other but are about US Foreign Policy and how it is formed.

I am also doing research on the web.

So will anyone else join me in this quest? The first thing that needs to be discussed are the events that led up to the formation of Israel prior to 1945 and the ramifications that those events had on the formation of Israel. Remember before this time there were not many Jews in Palestine, In 1890 there were only 20,000 Jews (all Arab) to a half a million Arab Muslims and Christians. So how did we get to the point in 1945 that 608,000 Jews declared independence from Palestine and 1.2 million Arabs and took control of 77% of the territory by force? Why did the Jewish population not decide to form a free Palestinian democracy composed of all ethnic/religious groups (Jews, Muslim and Christian) which is what the Muslims and Christians wanted?

This is from the archive of the American Jewish Committe written in 1945. It is a letter from the president of AJC, Joseph Proskeur, to the Secretary of State John Byrnes:

http://ajcarchives.org/AJC_DATA/Files/I22.PDF

The immigration of a substantial number of Jews and the growth

of the Jewish settlement in Palestine would not be hostile to the

interests of the Arabs of that country or of the entire Near East.

There is no irreconcilable conflict between Arabs and Jews; rather it

is to the interest of both and of their continued progress to cooperate

in the promotion of increased living standards and democratic selfgovernment

in the Near East. With good will on both sides, supported

by a firm attitude on the part of the United Nations, the two

communities can live side by side in harmony and peace. In the past

the intimate working together of Arabs and Jews brought forth priceless

contributions to civilization. So can it be again.

This is not what happened. Lets try to find out why.

I think we need to seriously look at these issues.

Dustan

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dustan,

I sent you a link to a site off line:

Tell the Children the Truth

I am reproducing it here for convenience.

Muslim thought in certain places has been highly contaminated with Nazism, including the antisemitism that went with it. The world did a horrible job by letting Nazism stay on as an underlying current in the Middle East after WWII.

Objectivists really miss the boat when they bash the Qu'ran as the root of all Islamist evil. I think we have to point out to Muslims that Nazism is not Islam as part of the intellectual package, and show precisely where Nazism contaminated Islamist history and thought.

Get rid of Nazism where it exists in Islamic thought and you resolve well over 90% of the Jew/Muslim problems.

Michael

[Judith]

Before September 11, I knew nothing and cared less about what was going on in the Middle East. After that, I decided to find out. Having no particular stakes in the issues, being neither Jewish nor Moslem, I think I could look at the issues relatively objectively. I was shocked by what I discovered. The so-called "Palestinians" don't have a case. The history is clear. The issues are clear.

One site that lays it all out pretty clearly is the following:

http://www.factsandlogic.org/

I hesitate to recommend it because it "reads like propaganda", which is unfortunate; the facts it presents are verifiable from other sources. I have a day job, and I don't have time to dig up the other sources I originally found, but they're out there if you look for them.

Judith

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I hesitate to recommend it because it "reads like propaganda", which is unfortunate...

Judith,

This is the major problem for understanding this issue for outsiders. There's tons of propaganda out there and lots of correct and gargled info all mixed up in it. You have to be a bit immune to yelling if you want to objectively corroborate ANYTHING.

Michael

[Judith]

I hesitate to recommend it because it "reads like propaganda", which is unfortunate...

This is the major problem for understanding this issue for outsiders. There's tons of propaganda out there and lots of correct and gargled info all mixed up in it. You have to be a bit immune to yelling if you want to objectively corroborate ANYTHING.

Despite the tone, this site is pretty accurate.

Judith

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Judith,

I have skimmed though some things, but the tone is definitely a turn-off, starting with the name: FLAME.

I will try to give it a fair looking at, but as with the tons of info about global warming that get thrown at you if you ask a simple question requiring a simple answer, I am not eternal, so there is only so much time I have to sift through the BS to get to the actual information.

I am not criticizing your link. I appreciate it. I am just generally frustrated about all this. There's so much fear and hatred and yelling shot all through all of this on all sides that it is exhausting to even look at it.

Michael

[Alfonso Jones]

Good post, Barbara.

Alfonso

[Aggrad02]

Before September 11, I knew nothing and cared less about what was going on in the Middle East. After that, I decided to find out. Having no particular stakes in the issues, being neither Jewish nor Moslem, I think I could look at the issues relatively objectively. I was shocked by what I discovered. The so-called "Palestinians" don't have a case. The history is clear. The issues are clear.

One site that lays it all out pretty clearly is the following:

http://www.factsandlogic.org/

I hesitate to recommend it because it "reads like propaganda", which is unfortunate; the facts it presents are verifiable from other sources. I have a day job, and I don't have time to dig up the other sources I originally found, but they're out there if you look for them.

Judith

Where exactly does it lay it all out. There are many articles on that site. This is a quote from one of them about Israel's existence:

Denial of the obvious. The questioning by the Moslems of Israel’s right to exist is particularly strange in view of Israel apparently being the major preoccupation of all Arab countries and of most non-Arab Moslem nations, Iran prominently among them. And how can the Arabs possibly question Israel’s existence since they have been involved with Israel in at least five major wars, in all of which they were decisively defeated. Nobody questions that if results had been reversed in any of these encounters, Israel would indeed have ceased to exist and most of its inhabitants killed.

How is it possible, one wonders, that despite the decisive military defeats that the Arabs have suffered, they still wish to deny Israel’s existence. It is an almost unbelievable act of mental acrobatics to deny the existence of a country that has inflicted such severe and repeated punishment on them. When it becomes inevitable for the Arabs to mention Israel at all, they always refer to it as “the Zionist entity.”

The basic argument is Israel can exist as a Jewish nation because they took the land and are stronger than anyone else. "We won the war so we get the spoils". This sounds like something that Bob wrote.

What information on that site led you to believe the Palestinians have no case?

This is what I have found out so far about the history of the formation so far (this is in a nutshell so if there is anything wrong about it please let me know) which lead me to believe that Palistinians have a case:

Around 1870 the area is almost entirely Arabic (even the Jewish population), the Jewish population is around 20,000 compared to half a million Muslims and Christians. The Rothchilds sponsor Jewish immigrants from Russia to settle in Palestine. This was the first Aliyah.

In the late 1800's and early 1900's Jews are persecute by Anti-Semites in Europe strengthening a desire for a Jewish homeland (Zionism). At this time three-fourths of the Jewish population lives in Europe. The land of Palestine is still 90% Arabic.

1917 in response of the lobbing of Chaim Weizmann and the Rothchilds, Britain pronounces the Balfour Declaration, which states that Britain supports Zionist desires for a home in Palestine, but promises not to infringe on the rights of the current residents of Palestine (Arabs).

WWII, more antisemitism in Europe and the Holocaust. More Jews flee to Palestine. Palestine still 80% Arab.

1945, Britain leaves Palestine. League of Nations divides Palestine between Jewish population and the Arabs, without any input from the inhabitants of the land. Palestine object and begin to revolt, Zionist retaliate, and take 77% of the land. Take by force the best land in Palestine.

It seems to me that the Palestinians have a very strong case. Their homeland was invaded by European Jews through immigration (which is fine, I don't like to use the word invade here, but I can think of another). When Britain left, the Jewish community (who was in the minority) demanded their own state.

Why?

The Palestinians (Muslim and Christians) revolted at what was Jewish occupation of their land. They lost and had even more property taken from them.

What is moral about this?

Thanks, Dustan

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Bob,

One of the reasons the Jews need their own state, irrespective of where it is, is because of the shameful immigration limits the British put on Jews trying to go to Palestine during Nazi persecution. The Jews who would have escaped Germany, Poland, etc., had no place to go except concentration camps. Now they do if anything like that ever happens again.

I support that.

Mankind has shown to what extent some will go because of what they think of Jews. Americans have a place to call their own and nobody has tried to kill all Americans. Why can't Jews have a place to go, too? I have no problem with such a place for Jews on principle, but this is reinforced because of the attempts at genocide.

The earth is just too big for all this. There's plenty of land in northern Africa. There's room for everybody if that's the only issue. (Of course, it isn't.)

Michael

[Aggrad02]

Bob,

One of the reasons the Jews need their own state, irrespective of where it is, is because of the shameful immigration limits the British put on Jews trying to go to Palestine during Nazi persecution. The Jews who would have escaped Germany, Poland, etc., had no place to go except concentration camps. Now they do if anything like that ever happens again.

I support that.

Mankind has shown to what extent some will go because of what they think of Jews. Americans have a place to call their own and nobody has tried to kill all Americans. Why can't Jews have a place to go, too? I have no problem with such a place for Jews on principle, but this is reinforced because of the attempts at genocide.

The earth is just too big for all this. There's plenty of land in northern Africa. There's room for everybody if that's the only issue. (Of course, it isn't.)

Michael

HEY!!! I'm not Bob

I think I could accept that argument.

But then like you said at the end finding a home, for the homeless was probably very difficult. Especially when people were already living were they decided to go.

--Dustan

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

HEY!!! I'm not Bob

Dustan,

Good Lord!

May my armpits become infested with the fleas of 1,000 camels if I ever do that again.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Dustan,

I don't want to push the analogy too far, but whenever there is massive immigration, there is always a problem. Imagine if we started something similar hostility-wise here in the USA with Mexican immigrants.

The fact is that League of Nations, UN, mandates and all the rest is nothing but a big pile of legal confusion. I am not sure there are any rules for how to conduct the founding of an autonomous nation, much less fair rules (or even unfair ones).

In the scramble, Israel was founded. Now that it exists, I personally do not want to see it dismantled. I support defending it.

How are nations founded? Think about it. I can't think of one that was founded without "settling," which is as loaded a word as I can think of. Most were founded as results of war and occupation.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

Terrorism is horrible. But we must remember that this is occurring on both sides.

For every poster like this one, there can be three made with Palestinians on it.

--Dustan

Most Palestineans who are murdered are murdered by other Palestineans. See how Hamas and al Fatah iron out their differences on the streets of Gaza.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The Palestineans never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity --- Abba Eban

[BaalChatzaf]

Why?

The Palestinians (Muslim and Christians) revolted at what was Jewish occupation of their land. They lost and had even more property taken from them.

What is moral about this?

Thanks, Dustan

The Jewish occupation of "Palestinean Land" was a response to the attempt by Palestineans to anihilate the Jewish presence back in 1945 and 1946. The Palesntineans kept making war and they kept on losing. The rules is this: if you lose the war, you lose land and wealth. Solution: don't start wars.f

The Jewish Agency which is the predecessor to the current state of Israel was willing to live on the parcels of land it bought from the Ottoman Turkish government when Turkey ruled, prior to the Great War. The Palestineans would have none of that. The Jews had to go. But the Jews didn't go and the rest is history.

There never was a Palestinean Nation. There were the Turks and many and sundry people who lived under Turkish rule prior to the Great War, including Jews.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Aggrad02]

The Jewish occupation of "Palestinean Land" was a response to the attempt by Palestineans to anihilate the Jewish presence back in 1945 and 1946. The Palesntineans kept making war and they kept on losing. The rules is this: if you lose the war, you lose land and wealth. Solution: don't start wars.f

The Jewish Agency which is the predecessor to the current state of Israel was willing to live on the parcels of land it bought from the Ottoman Turkish government when Turkey ruled, prior to the Great War. The Palestineans would have none of that. The Jews had to go. But the Jews didn't go and the rest is history.

There never was a Palestinean Nation. There were the Turks and many and sundry people who lived under Turkish rule prior to the Great War, including Jews.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Thanks for the information Bob. The history that I have read so far implies that the Palestinians would have agreed to a one state solution but the Jews wanted their own state, and only attacked after the Jews declared independence.

Also were all of the Jewish settlements connected and in the same area or were their Arab settlements mixed in.

--Dustan

[Aggrad02]

Dustan,

I don't want to push the analogy too far, but whenever there is massive immigration, there is always a problem. Imagine if we started something similar hostility-wise here in the USA with Mexican immigrants.

How are nations founded? Think about it. I can't think of one that was founded without "settling," which is as loaded a word as I can think of. Most were founded as results of war and occupation.

Michael

Well what would happen here if all of the illegal and legal Mexican immigrants moved to California and declared independence? We would have an all out war.

But by the same token, that is basically what we did to the Native Americans in this country, so we are not necessarily off the hook, we just made sure that almost of all of the natives were killed.

--Dustan

[Brant Gaede]

But by the same token, that is basically what we did to the Native Americans in this country, so we are not necessarily off the hook, we just made sure that almost of all of the natives were killed.

--Dustan

Careful, "we" is all wrong.

--Brant

[Aggrad02]

But by the same token, that is basically what we did to the Native Americans in this country, so we are not necessarily off the hook, we just made sure that almost of all of the natives were killed.

--Dustan

Careful, "we" is all wrong.

--Brant

When I say we, I mean as United States policy at the time.

--Dustan

[Brant Gaede]

But by the same token, that is basically what we did to the Native Americans in this country, so we are not necessarily off the hook, we just made sure that almost of all of the natives were killed.

--Dustan

Careful, "we" is all wrong.

--Brant

When I say we, I mean as United States policy at the time.

--Dustan

That was not U.S. policy at that or any time. You are talking about Hitler, now.

--Brant