Sami Jamil Jadallah – What is wrong with the Palestinians? A whole lot.
By Sami Jamil Jadallah • Jul 25th, 2009 at 13:11 • Category: Analysis, Culture and Heritage, Features, Israel, Newswire, Palestine, Religion, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Zionism
There is something very wrong with people who claim to be smart, intelligent, educated, hard working, honest, nationalists, and decent to accept such a stupid, corrupt, incompetent, reckless, useless leadership and organization for the last 45 years that failed at everything it set out to do -turning the PLO to a manager and contractor of the Jewish Occupation with leadership that at best can be described as self serving, racketeering mafia that made financial fortunes for itself and members of their families fleecing national treasury, while claiming to represent and lead the Palestinian people toward liberation and independence. The Palestinians remain under Occupation till now.
There is something very wrong with people who never held the leadership accountable for its failing, for lack of accountability and transparency, for the numerous disasters that befell the Palestinians in exile and under Occupation, where tens of billions wasted, tens of billions remain unaccounted for, where tens of thousands perished and died in the cause of liberation and where hundreds of thousands were exiled (Kuwait) and lost everything because of the reckless and irresponsible behavior of the leadership.
There is something wrong with people where “intellectuals” who are supposed to be the conscious of the nation and guardians of the people’s interests and rights collude with Arafat, the PLO and Fatah leadership and remained silent while witnessing firsthand the abuse of power and authority by Arafat, lack of collective leadership, lack of financial accountability, lack of holding the leadership and officers responsible for the many repeated failures. There is something wrong with intellectuals who became self serving of a system that corrupted their body and soul. Rather than standing up for the people’s rights, became a tool and apologists for a failed leadership. They simply sat on their face all these years while knowing the PLO and its leadership are nothing more than a lie, a fraud, bunch of crooks and thieves, unfit to lead let alone liberate. The failures and the mess we see today did not take place overnight. They were there years ago, when Arafat became the sole dictator, dispensing financial favors for loyalty, making sure that all those around him are “eunuchs” with no voice bought and sold with money and privilege and subordinated powers accepting personal insults and humiliations by the “Old Man”.
There is something wrong with a business community and leadership failed to dedicate its money, access to power to building a viable economy with professional and skilled jobs for the people it chose collusion with a corrupt and failed leadership, benefiting from the corrupt leadership of Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority with rewards of monopolies and business opportunities that added billions to their wealth while the rest of the people could hardly have a decent job to live on. A business leadership that “cornered” wealth rather than “spreading” wealth, robbing average small entrepreneurs from business opportunities, becoming part of the mafia that is the Palestinian Authority.
There is something with leaders of so-called “civil societies” that rather than serving the general interest of the people and public became self serving of their own pockets accumulating substantial wealth from donations they get from foreign donors anxious to do some good for the miserable people of Palestine. So many leading names became corrupted by access to Arafat and the Palestinian Authority and the business opportunities created through such relations that they became silent and blind, failing to speak out on corruption, incompetence, ineptness, abuse of power and authority, civil rights abuse, never speaking out for accountability and transparency in government and public service, muzzled by the dollars they get. To them the Occupation is a business, a big business.
There is something wrong with people and their so called representative (PNC) who never demanded any sort of accountability and who never held the leadership responsible for it failures and mistakes in Jordan, in Lebanon, in Tunis, in Kuwait. There is something wrong with people who failed to demand accountability and public inquiry into the many massacres committed against the Palestinian people in Tal-Zaater, in Sabra and Shatilla, in Jenin, in Hebron. Who would believe that Israel’s of Begin form a public and independent commission to hold hearing into the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla but says nothing about Palestinian leadership’s failures to hold a similar hearing? Something very wrong with such people and such leadership.
Who would believe that the leadership never made public accounting of the billions at its disposal, people’s money, with no accounting of SAMED Industries, no accounting of tens of billions of investments in Africa, in Europe, North America and the Middle East with no one knowing what happened to these tens of billions? And more troublesome is the deafening silence as they see and witness financial corruption and thefts of public funds on a daily basis.
Who would believe that Israel charges its hero and prime minister, Rabin, with failing to adhere to its laws limiting bank accounts of officials outside Israel, forcing him to resign yet accept Yasser Arafat's private and personal decision to transfer millions of dollars of the “people’s money” to the private accounts of his wife so she can enjoy the high standard of living in Paris. Israel dismisses its prime minister over few thousand dollars while the Palestinians worship a man who robbed them blind and failed them.
Who would believe the Palestinian accept a leader who agrees and accept hundreds of millions transferred into his personal and private account, money collected by Israel from taxes it collects on Palestinian imports, rather than having all the funds going to the people’s treasury? Who would accept but Palestinians their leaders to have public money deposited into private accounts of their leader’s entrusted to retired Mossad agents and crooked bankers in France and in Switzerland? Why Israel punishes its leaders for keeping several thousands of dollars in foreign accounts, yet the Palestinians do not demand to know where are the billions hidden and lost in the private accounts of Arafat.
Who would believe that there are so many traitors, informers and collaborators working for and on behalf of the occupying enemy making it very possible for Israel to target and assassinate key leadership such as Sheik Ahmed Yassin, Abdul-Aziz Rantisi, Engineer Abuy-Ayash and many many more resistance fighters gunned downed in cold blood based on information and intelligence provided by members with Hamas and Fatah? Who would believe there are tens of thousands of such collaborators and informers within the highest levels of government of Hamas, Fatah, and Palestinian Authority to the drivers of the donkey carts in the streets of Gaza or Nablus?
Who would believe that Palestinians accept, say nothing and do nothing about having to wait for hours and days, by the hundreds of thousands if not millions at more than 650 security checkpoints while more than 3,000 VIPs of Fatah, PLO and Palestinian Authority speed through these Israeli security points? One has to wonder what kind of people the Palestinians are made of and what kind of a leadership that negotiate for itself such privilege while the people its suppose to represent languish for hours and days at these humiliating and degrading security checkpoints with so many women, sick and very young dying while waiting to go through. I am sure the leadership is very proud of its achievements for itself. It never cared about the people when in Beirut, Tunis and now Ramallah.
One has to wonder what kind of people that accept a leadership that promised liberation for 45 years, only to come back as manager and partner with the occupation. A leadership that continues to meet and negotiate while Israel continues to expropriate and steal more and more land for its settlements, while settlers are terrorizing village and destroying farms, with some 70,000 Palestinians under virtual 25 hours curfew in Hebron and does nothing to chase this leadership out of Ramallah? Abbas’s partner Olmert succeeded to build 2,500 housing units in settlements, 400 Km of the Apartheid Wall, while Abbas, Saeb, Quari and Abed-Rabou were having regular visits and drinks with Olmert, Livni and Barak. They even met with these killers and murderers after the war on Gaza. Who would believe that leaders from around the world make the efforts to visit Gaza to see the devastation caused by the Palestinian Authority negotiating partners yet not Abbas, not one single leaders of the Ramallah authority bothers to make the efforts to visit Gaza?
Who would believe that Palestinians accept the lies of both Hamas and Fatah as they talk of liberation when the only thing they are interested in is “who gets what of the financial pie” that is the Jewish Occupation? Who would believe the lies of Hamas that it is Israel that detonated a truck load of explosive during a “Resistance Ceremony” killing some 40 innocent people and lies about its reckless and irresponsible behavior and total disregards of the people’s safety and security as it parked the loaded truck next to the people?
Who would believe that a leadership like Hamas turns the absolute and honorable right to resist and fight the occupation including armed means, into an act of ‘terror” through the reckless, irresponsible and immoral use of “suicide bombings” that kills innocent people, yes innocent people in cafes, buses and restaurants and turned resistance into a self serving business, with families celebrating the death of a son in a suicide mission rather than celebrating his or her life and graduation from college, making families accept “blood money” from such killers and murderers like Saddam. It is one thing to carry a gun and shoot and kill an Israeli soldiers or an armed settler in the Occupied Territories, it is another thing to murder people on a bus in Tel-Aviv. Hamas leadership blurred the lines between what is right and what is wrong, and what is honorable and legitimate resistance and acts of terror. Hamas reckless behavior and leadership deprived the Palestinians from such a noble right to fight and resist the Occupation. Hamas failed to liberate and managed to pull the rugs and legitimacy from underneath legitimate armed resistance.
Who would believe that smart and intelligent people believe that the useless worthless Qassam rockets will liberate Gaza and that Hamas fighters will defend the people of Gaza when in fact such irresponsible resistance managed to kill not more than a dozen Israel soldiers while Israel managed to destroy some 30,000 homes made more than 500,000 homeless and killed some 1,800? Where is the smart intelligent resistance? Certainly it is not in Gaza. Why does Hamas leadership put the fate and lives of millions of people in the hands of reckless, irresponsible resistance fighters and fails to take charge and fails to take responsibility for its failed strategy?
One has to wonder what kind of people the Palestinians are for accepting the daily abuse and misuse of power and authority by the Palestinian Authority Security Forces with a mission to protect the soldiers and settlers of the Occupation, retreating to its barracks when the Israeli army decided to carry out a military operation or an assassination, leaving the Palestinians without any security or safety and open to Israeli fire?
Who would believe that people who suffered for so long under occupation with more than 700,000 spending time in Israel jails since 67, tens of thousands dead at the hands of the Jewish Occupation accept the abuse and criminal behavior of Arafat’s Preventive Security Forces in Gaza and the West Bank where more Palestinians died in its jails than those who died in Israel’s jails? Who would believe that Palestinians accept and remain silent while Arafat and his cronies turned the Preventive Security Forces into a mafia, racketeering and protection organizations for its leadership and officers accumulating millions in the process? Who would believe that the leadership and commanders of the Preventive Security Forces, during the shameful and criminal commands of Dahlan and Rajoub, of course with the blessings of Arafat, and who acted so tough and rough subjecting average Palestinians to torture, physical and verbal abuse are rewarded with promotions as they ran away scared, abandoning their posts before the advancing Israeli forces leaving behind their staff and political prisoners locked behind bars? Fulfilling the old saying “assadon alaya wa fel hurubi na’amatun” Loins when it comes to me but an ostrich when it comes to war and enemy.
It is difficult to believe how the PLO leadership of the last 45 years turned and transformed the Palestinian people from a nation and people dedicated to education, hard work with ambitions to become doctors, engineers, lawyers, industrialists and teachers and turned them into unskilled laborers for Israeli market killing their hopes and ambition to have a university degree. Young people now can look forward to joining gangs, joining “Sulta” and join the Palestinian Authority and becomes a security officer or a functionary, dedicated to protecting the Authority, the leadership and the Jewish Occupation?
It is even more difficult to accept the utter silence, bordering on cowardliness where people fails to rise up against such an Authority where more than 80% of the people are below poverty line while the elites; the “returning” leadership enjoys million dinars homes, luxurious cars with drivers for themselves, their wives and mistresses, spending thousand of dinars on dinner and drinks enough to feed several families for a month.
Never understood how brave individuals who faced Israeli tanks and guns with stones and rocks, could become a nations of cowards failing to take up the challenge of popular sustainable and persistent uprising against the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and Fatah and against the Israeli Jewish Occupation that lasted some 42 years? Why are the people so brave before Israeli guns and tanks yet do not take the challenge and march on Ramallah and Gaza and chase the leadership out of office and out of the country?
It is also not so surprising that the Palestinian people accepted the role of refugees, living in miserable camps, with open sewers, waiting for the end of the month to collect their rations of dry milk, flour, and cooking oil from UNRWA rather than take the challenge taking over such services themselves. No wonder the Palestinian people and leadership became a nation of beggars, “shahadeen”with no self respect and dignity and a leadership of thieves. Too bad for the Palestinian people after being the model of well educated hard working intelligent people they became the laughing stock of the Arabs, and the world. Thanks to such a self serving corrupt incompetent inept leadership of thugs, thieves and collaborators. Never seen a case where a leadership not only failed to liberate but succeed in destroying a people and a dream. Thank you Yasser Arafat, thank you Mahmoud Abbas, thank you Ahmed Qurai, thank you Farouk Qadoumi, thank you Saeb Eurikat, thank you Yasser Abed-Rabou, thank you Mohamed Dahlan, thank you Jibril Rajoub, thank you Tayeb Abdul-Raheem, thank you Khalid Mishaal, thank you Hakam Balawi and thank you Azzam Al-Ahmed, thank you all for succeeding where Israel failed. For and on behalf of more than 7 million people for your successful dedicated leadership. We deserve you, as you deserve us.
http://www.jeffersoncorner.com/what-is-wrong-with-the-palestinians-a-whole-lot/#more-468
Sami Jamil Jadallah is Palestinian-American born in El-Bireh, Palestine, an international business and legal consultant, and a veteran of the US Army. His comments are posted at his website http://www.jeffersoncorner.com.
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nearly all lands are ruled by large gans of people; in most lands, the gangsters differ not at all or only slightly from a biker, street, mafia, et al gangs.
and in an occupied land, hated by judeo-christian alliance, gangster rule was inevitable. Having said that, an honest and much more democratic rule in occupied territories might have been even worse for poor pal'ns.
tnx
Well it's not the geography because look what they do in America with their groups like ADC. They are working hand in hand with the Zionists to destroy US democracy. All they want is to be another lobby.
So sad and so true. The Palestinian leadership of Arafat and his successors turned the Palestinian people from a proud hard working educated people who contributed to the building of many nations in the Gulf to a bunch of beggars, gangs and thieves. I remember when Arafat came to sign Oslo, I was invited but refused to go.. Because I knew Oslo was nothing about peace… it was a management contract between Arafat and the PLO and Israel. Arab and Palestinian “leadership” in Washington were stepping over each other to see and meet with Arafat every time he is in town, knowing the man and his organizations are nothing but gangs and thieves who failed at every thing, and we jailing and torturing people in their own prisons as if Israeli prisons where not enough. So much cowardly silence… Same is true of so many Palestinian personalities in the Occupied Territories who made their name and fortune being part of the Occupation and being part of the establishment… None of them spoke out on accountability, transparency, need for clean democratic governance. They were and are beneficiaries of the occupation. I never heard Hanan Ashrawi talks of establishing an independent commission to investigate the billions lost or stolen or investigate the murders in Tel-Zaater, Sabra and Shatilla, Jenin and Hebron. I never heard Ashrawi or Mustapha Bargoughti ask for an independent commission to investigate the criminal abuses, torture and murder committed by the Preventive Security Forces.. I never heard of any of these personalities speak out about why Arafat has his own private account receiving money collected from Israel. No one ever demanded open accountability and transparency when they were part of Arafat government. They all were silent why? Yes, it is time to put the dirty laundry out. So many beneficiaries of the Occupation, that no one does any thing about ending it.. Only managing it. Yes, our people are stupid and cowards for putting up with this kind of leadership. That is why I decided some years ago not to contribute or participate in any of the Arab-American organizations such as ADC, AAI, and ATFP. Shame on us. Ben-Gurion attracted so many Jewish smart minds to help him build a nation. Arafat attracted only crooks and thieves to help fleece the nation, not build it.
I can only shake my head when I read this, because what Sami Jadallah has written is all too true and I say that from my experiences in Lebanon and Jordan in 1970, in Lebanon in 1983 and as an active participant in the Palestine solidarity movement for close to 40 years , that movement which remains the unindicted enabler in this sad scenario because its leaders and many of its memers have seen or known about much of what is described here yet remained silent or looked the other way. . The.Israeli and American Jewish "peace movements," such as they were, also promoted Arafat as the virtuous leader of the Palestinian people. no doubt pushed to do so by Zionist agents in their ranks.
The late Edward Said always regretted that he, too, had remained silent after seeing in Lebanon what I had, the .massive corruption of the Fatah led PLO which had alienated the Shia population and made Israel's sweep through the country all the more easy in 1982. When Said did speak out, what was the result?
Arafat banned his books from being sold in the West Bank and Gaza. Only in the book store on Saladin street in Jerusalem could you find them. Was there a word of protest from the solidarity movement? We know the answer. In the early 90s, maybe 93, an editorial appeared in the English language edition of Al-Fajr, Fatah's newspaper, asking for readers to report stories of PLO corruption, Arafat promptly closed the paper down and it never reappeared. Was there a word of protest from the movement? We know the answer.
As members of the NY chapter of the AAUG attending the 1978 annual conference in Minneapolis, we proposed a draft resolution calling for the election rather than the selection of the North American members of the Palestine National Congress. After then president Fouad Moghrabi agreed to bring it to vote and tabled it, he simply closed the meeting and put the resolution in his pocket. I continue to have the correspondence with the leadership of the AAUG till today. Of course I resigned immediately from such an organization. Palestinian intellectuals were part of the collusion with Arafat. They were silent while knowing the man was running a mafia, not a liberation movement. I raised this issue with the late Dr. Hisham Sharabi at a meeting in Georgetown and asked why he and Edward Saeed, Ibrahim Abu-Lugod, Samih Farsoun and others were silent before Oslo? Whey they never spoke out about Arafat corrupt and incompetent leadership? He answered, “We always met with him late at night and there was never time to have long discussions and debate”. It is the silence of the Palestinian intellectuals that gave us Arafat, Oslo, Ramallah leadership, Preventive Security, corruption and failed leadership. Not only we colluded with the enemy but we colluded with a corrupt, incompetent, inept, stupid reckless leadership made up of thugs and thieves. Then we ask why we are in such a big mess. Very few like the late Dr. Edward Saeed spoke out, but then it was too late.
Some years back, I believe shortly before the Al-Aksa Intifada, there was a front page article in the NY Jewish Weekly Forward which reported that Natan Sharansky had demanded in the Knesset that Israel stop paying Arafat $8 million a year because he was not running a "democratic" Palestinian Authority. Quite aside from the irony contained in that statement, considering its source, this story, too, never got legs, as we say, and disappeared.
Among Arafat's greatest crimes was his undermining of the first Intifada, whose communiques carried an inscription at the top of the page, "No voice above the voice of the uprising!" which was as much a message to Arafat as it was to Israel and the world. That uprising came as a shock to Arafat and to almost the entire diaspora community which was filled with its own self-importance and had written off the West Bank and Gaza and which up to then had been the focus of Palestinian activity. The American Palestinian community did little to support it, and never recovered its own vitality andlevel of activity in its aftermath.
From Tunis, Arafat responded to the intifada by trying to undermine it, first by engaging in a minuit with Sec of State James Baker then finally burying it with Oslo which, by no coincidence was signed by Abbas. Not a single Palestinian lawyer was invited to advise the PLO delegation. The Israelis could have killed Arafat whenever they wanted but they needed to keep him alive to that point since he was the only Palestinian with the credibility to sell away the rights of the people to their land. Sharon did try to kill him in Beirut in 82 but he had his own agenda which was to drive the Palestinians out and not worry about pieces of worthless paper.
Arafat not only undermined the First Intifada which was the best chance for Palestinians to end the Occupation he mismanaged the Second Intifada. I know that he literally bought his way into the First Intifada. I used to travel a lot to El-Bireh to visit my late parents and I had many meetings with some leaders of the Intifada. Arafat killed the purity of the Intifada and corrupted much of its leadership. He also funded the AlFajr Newspaper as voice for the PLO. When he was in Beirut he and the PLO never gave a damn about those under Occupation, when he returned to manage the Jewish Occupation, he and the PLO never gave a damn about those outside in the Diaspora. Arafat and the PLO were never about liberation. I came to that conclusion after having spent few days at the Waldorf Astoria with members of the Executive Committee when Arafat came to speak at the UN the first time. I never changed my mind. Arafat Oslo saved Israel tens of billions of dollars, money it should have spend on civil services as occupying power. With Arafat, he released Israel of this financial burden, took it upon himself to beg donors while Israel used the saving to build the settlements. The PLO bought its way through the Palestinian community in the US funding much of the small businesses operated by Palestinians. Tens of millions lost because no one kept accounting of it with some families inheriting some $50 millions in Florida, money that belongs to the people. This is the legend of Arafat and his PLO.
The most fitting description of Oslo was, ironically, made by one of its Israeli negotiators, Shlomo Gazit, a former head of Israeli intelligence, who was speaking about it in a San Francisco synagogue not long after the signing ceremony, when a member of the audience rushed down the aisle shouting "Munich, Munich!" in a harsh German accident. "My friend," Gazit calmly replied, "I don't like to make such comparisons but if it's Munich, we're the Germans and the Palestinians are the Czechs."
I would hope your courage in peeling back the layers that have covered the truth for so many decades will inspire not only further discussion but internal critique and a change in direction. I suspect, however, until the people take it upon themselves to move, nothing will change.
nevertheless the corruption of the gangsters, the gangsters have rejected clinton diktat; oops, generous offer.
even if the next 'generous' [read please diktat] offer wld be the best offer, abbas and other crooks wld reject it.
pal'ns are not stupid. They know, or s'mbody shld tell them if they don't, that 'settlements' can be removed only by a war or threat of war.
in short, second state is no longer available. In other words, 'Jews' get a country [as of yet of unknown size], pal'ns get a county or counties of unknown size.
abbas becomes general of the three meters wide gazan sea and admiral of dead sea and a few municipalities.
so, i conclude, both parties are charading for mostly their respective pops and get paid for it. So, why not obtain some money? What is there to lose by a good game? tnx
Dear Sami
I fully agree with al you wrote about Fateh and the old man,
You asked, "Who would believe that Israel charges its hero and prime minister, Rabin, with failing to adhere to its laws limiting bank accounts of officials outside Israel, forcing him to resign yet accept Yasser Arafat's private and personal decision to transfer millions of dollars of the “people’s money”
I BELIEVE, because in case of Rabin, it is Israeli money, while in the case of the old man it not their money and its transfered to their man, Their Jewish man ARAFAT.
Who would believe that ARAFAT, ABU AMMAR, who said "Shaheedan, Sahaheedan" is a Jew?
Don't be surprised. I shall explain how Arafat managed to turn the smart, intelligent, educated, hard working, honest, nationalist Palestinians into a nation of buggers, and many, many into traitors, informers and collaborators working for and on behalf of the enemy. And if you agree with my "Conspiracy" theory, you will find answers for all the question you have asked, and would stop blaming the palestinian people, the victims of Arafat..
In a famous lecture (after oslo) in London, Hani al-Hassan (an old Fateh Guard, the poltical adviser of Arafat) tried to Justify going to Oslo. He claimed (Hanging Fateh treason on Nasir's hook) that after 1967 war Nasir told Arafat and Fateh leaders close to Arafat: its over, you has no choice other than reaching a peace deal with Israel.
Consequently, according to Al Hassan, after 1967, Fateh decided its time for preparing the Palestinians to accept a peace deal with Isreal.
Based on Al-Hassan's statement, I am one of Palestinians who claimd that, the Massacres of Palestinians, in Black September in Jordan, in Lebanese civil war, the alignment with Saddam that lead to the Nakba of half million Palestinian living in Kuwait, the starving of Palestinians especially those on the PLO payroll for several months before Oslo, were steps in the process that paved the way Oslo, ans sold Oslo to Palestinians, and paved for the return of "Victorous" Afrafat to Ramallah, to achieve what Israeal failed to achive put an end to the First Intifadah.
I am, here, saying Fateh was created to do what it dit during the 51 years (not 45) .
In adopting armed struggle, Fateh put itself to the Left of Nasir and Arab nationalist movement.
Fateh was not the only player, the Syrian Seperation coup funded by Sauda undermined the Liberation Nationalists option, and bosted Fatah and its Palestinian Option.
Both Fateh, based in Syria and, and Pre-assad Syrian regime, pushed, jointly Nasir to 1967 trap, that paved the way in 1969 for:
1- Fateh, taking over PLO in Feb, 1969
2-Creating the Organization of Islamic Conference in September 25, 1969 to replace Baghdad Pact and undertake the old task of containing the USSR, and the new task of defeating USSR in Afghanistan.
Here, let us remember that Nasir's rejected Baghdad Pact , known as Dwight Eisenhower's Project, to contain the Soviet Union by having a line of strong states along the USSR's southwestern frontiercontain.
Nasser felt that the pro-western Baghdad Pact posed a threat to Arab Nationalism. As a response, Egypt and Syria united into the United Arab Republic. At that time, 1958 Syria was as described by Patrick Seal, a feather in wind storm. It is Nasir who protected Syria from the wind storm blowing from Iraq, Turkey, and Lebanon.The United Arab Republic boasted 1958 revolution in Iraq.
"On July 14, 1958, the Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in a military coup. The new government was led by General Abdul Karim Qasim who withdrew from the Baghdad Pact, opened diplomatic relations with Soviet Union and adopted a non-aligned stance; Iraq quit the organization shortly thereafter. The organization dropped the Baghdad Pact moniker in favor of CENTO at that time."
"The toppling of a pro-Western government in the Iraq 14 July Revolution, along with the internal instability, caused President Chamoun to call for U.S. assistance."
The United Arab Republic boasted also in the same year, 1958, the setting up of the first cells of the Fateh movement in Kuwait
The formation of Fatah was the first nail driven in the coffen of Arab nationalist movement at its 1958 peak, and 1967 and the death (poisoning) of Nasir was the last nail.
I remember, and understand how and why, after the the success of Algerians revolution and the 1961 Syrian seperation coup, tens of Palestinian faction have grown like mashrom within Palestinian in Daispora. Mainly in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Gaza. But I failed till this very moment to find a reason for creation of Fatah in 1958 (the peak of Arab nationalism).
All events, many meetings, discussions, I held since early sixties confirmed my old theory.
I met Mahmoud Abbas, accidently, in 1976 in Lybia, without knowing that he is Fatah member, after presenting my theory in his presence, he said nothing other than cursing Palestinian leaders mainly Habash.
I met many Fateh Ambasadors, who just commented: Conspiracy theory.
Few weeks after Camp david 2, one retired Fatah old Guard, who Joined Arafat in Kuwait, told me many, many stories confirming my theory. He mentioned an internal secret Document issued before 1967, about the two state solution. He said, a copy of the document is available with ….. another Ex-Fatah, living in….This document, lead to a coup within Fateh in Kuwait. The Cuop was ended by Fateh fighter brought from Syria A Kuwaiti flight.
There was always, a big question mark about Arafat, his family, real family name origin. In early 1990's I directly heard, while under arrest from my interrogator, a non-confirmed story, claiming that Arafat is the son of a Jewish family, from Moroco, His grand father, came to Jerusalem in 1928, coverted to Islam, married the daughter of Abu-Assoud (Jerusalem Mofti) in order to stay in Jerusalem). Arafat's Father business was selling Jewish Head cover, his shop was burned, and he left to Gaza, then to Egypt. His son Yesir was born in a Jewish neighbourhood (Hay Assakakini) in Cairo.
Few years ago, in a gethering I accidently met Arafat's Egyption half brother without knowing him. One syrian claimed, that Syrian PM Al-Kasim was removed because they found the Al-Kasim family are Ex-Jews. I commented: Good for them, they knew and took action. We know and don't dare to speakout. I was sitting between Arafat's Half brother and a friend. My friend hit my leg to stop me, but I told my story. After about half an hour, we moved to the dining table and the half brother was standing on the other side facing me, without telling me his identity, he commented as follows:
Anwar Al-Sadat, after hearing the same story, he asked for Arafat's family tree. He found that Head of Arafat's family was our Prophet Mohamad.
I am not making it. I have many witnesses. In short the stupid comment of Arafat's half brother confirmed the un-confirmed story.
Unlike Cohen (Amin Thabit), the famous spy planted in Syria, Arafat is real and have a real family.
I always argued, how Israel succeeded in assasinating almost all Fatah founders, such as Kamal Edwan, Kamal Nasir, Abu Jehad, Abu Iyad, Abu Alhall, etc.. and fail to get Arafat.
His life was saved many, many times, after Balck September in Jordan, The western fleet arrived twice to Labanon to save his ass, Americans rescued him when his plane crushed in Lybian desert. I know many stories about Israel bombing places, building (in both Syria and Lebabon,) few minures after Arafat leaving it.
Some would say, how would Israel kill such asset??
My answer is:
After his great sevices to zionist project, in putting Palestinians on the "Peace track" that lead to Oslo and his "Victorous" return to end the first Intifada, Arafat became a liabilty more than an asset.
In Camp David two, he reached and agreement with Barak, but he needed time sell it to Palestinians, Arabs and Muslems, but he failed to deliver. Barak left the office to Sharon, to complete the "Independance" And Arafat lost controll on the Palestinian street with the second Intifidah.
So the asset became a Liability. and Zionist Elders decided to keep the profile of Arafat as the "Historic God father of Palestinian Armed Resistance" rather than exposing him and paving the way for a New Fatah leader like Barghouti. Especially with the Bahae Mahmoud Abbas Merza, ready to complete the mission.
A Dead "Palestinian HERO" is better than a living EXPIRED EXPOSED SPY.
Finally, I understand your anger but I disagree with you putting Hamas in the same basket.
You are lucky to be alive to tell your tale. I remember speaking in Irbid, Jordan in late July or August of 1970, before Black September to the head of the PLO office in that town and had not yet taken the measure of Arafat. Nasser had reportedly just agreed to the Rogers Plan which dismayed his supporters within Fatah.. I suggested to the PLO and Fatah member in Irbid, naively that Nasser was jealous of Arafat. He said, no, Arafat is jealous of the Palestinian people, that,in fact, Arafat had been selected to be the head of Fatah because he was the least charismatic, the poorest Arabic speaker, and the worst looking of the founding cadre and was the least likely to become a dominating figure like Nasser or Khadfi. Little did they know that he excelled them all in deviance and deceit. Not longer after our conversation, which I had repeated to one, he was purged.
Another and one of the last myths of Arafat was that he was under essentially house arrest by the Israelis in Ramallah and was unable to leave his compound where he would entertain and befuddle international solidarity activists on a routine basis. It was clear going by the compound when I was there in 2003, that there was nothing preventing him from leaving except fear of being confronted with the complaints of "his people." There were no guards, no Israelis anywhere in sight and life went on outside the compound as normally as possible considering the circumstances. The group I was with requested a visit to see the "rais," which was apparently visiting groups were obliged to do and I was looking forward to seeing the old man and ask him why he just didn't leave but his schedule was full and I never got the chance. Being suspicious of everything Arafat did, I noticed on several occasions that when complaints against the lack of democracy in the PA and other problems began building up and inside or not, Arafat was being criticized on the street, the Israelis would start making threatening noises about doing something to him and, of course, the criticism would stop and people would rally around their threatened leader. It's an ancient game and always seems to work.
If one wants further evidence that Arafat was working for the Israelis, this might do the job. The leader of the same group with whom I was in Ramallah had visited Arafat in Tunis during the First Intifada and had seen him a number of times. A conversation about US aid to Israel came up and my friend and her companion were shocked to hear Arafat tell them that he was opposed to stopping US aid to Israel (and for sure, we never have seen any kind of major campaign in the US calling for such an obvious essential measure while he was alive. Add to that, Arafat was very cozy with a former Yeshiva student and ardent Zionist named Alan Solomonow who just retired after many years as the head of the Middle East Desk of the American Friends Service Committee in San Francisco where he had been boycotted for years because of his failure to include Palestinians and other Arab-Americans in the committee that dealt with the region.
Back in the 90s, the Council of Arab Presidents had many meetings with the AFSC leadership, including a visit from one of its top officials in Philadelphia, in an effort to get him replaced, in which I was involved,and the Council was told that they had to work with Solomonow if they chose to work with the AFSC and so they boycotted the organization, as well. (I wrote a long article about this situation for a magazine I edited at the time which, unforunately, has yet to be put online). In any case, the president of the Council sent a long letter to Arafat in Tunis, describing in detail Solomonow's actions that had been detrimental to the interests of the Palestinian cause. They never got an answer, well, at least, not in writing. A couple of months later I saw a picture in a magazine dealing with the Middle East and there was a photo of the two Israeli agents, Arafat and Solomonw with their arms around each other. The title of my article had been, "With friends like these who needs enemies?"
Few days after the birth of my twin girls on 4/4/85 in Geneva, I was invited by the Palestinian industrialists, investor and businessman Mr. Munib Al-Masri to join him and the late Mr. Abdul-Majeed Shoman, without reservation a great and exceptional Palestinian to meet with them in their suite at the Richmond Hotel in Geneva to follow up my proposed idea of establishing the Palestine Investment Corporation as a public stock company with Palestinians investors from all over the world with the purpose of making investments in the Occupied Territories to create jobs and keep the people in place ( the idea became PEDICO, owned not by small investors but by few people with unique business opportunities granted by Arafat). During the discussions I raised the question to both gentlemen, why Arafat is so successful in silencing dissent and why no one within the PNC dare to challenge his many failings? The answer was very clear and forward “Arafat controls the money and he writes the checks, he learned the mistakes of Shukair”. This answer should tell us why there was never ever serious accountability of Arafat and his decisions and why the PNC was nothing but a rubber stamp, made up of eunuchs. It seems the same remains true… no one dare to questions policies and actions of leadership and why we are in such big mess. Money silenced the mouth and killed the conscious of people, especially intellectuals and business leaders.
Special Note to Uprooted Palestinian: Thank you. I do not put Hamas in parity with Fatah. I think and I am of the opinion that Hamas engagement and sponsoring of suicide bombing was not only immoral, unethical and against Islamic values, but was a reckless and irresponsible decision. I also think that the decision of the political leadership to put the lives of 1.5 Palestinians at risk and in the hands of reckless Qassam brigade is an irresponsible act of leadership. While Hamas “Executive Force” is not as ruthless as Dahlan and Arafat Preventive Security Forces, I think they are of the same mind and same contempt for the civil and legal rights of people and citizens. And Yes, we should debate suicide bombing, we should debate Qassam rockets and we should debate what the best and most effective means of resistance is?
I read few minutes ago in AlQuds paper published in Jerusalem that Nabil Amr, the Fatah ambassador to Egypt announced for the need for Fatah to find its own sources of funding and financing… this is clear admission that Fatah has been stealing, robbing and fleecing the people’s treasury to fund its cadres of thugs and thieves. This is like the US Treasury funding and paying the salaries of Republican and Democrat activists. Who would believe that? Yet all those civic leaders in Ramallah and in Jerusalem, those with dakakeens (NGOs) never raised the issue of why the public has to fund and support a political party Fatah? Talk of collusions. Shame on all those who dare to show their face on television as representative of the people. Will Fatah and the PLO ever pay back the billions they stole?
Sami
You almost did put Hamas and Fateh in the same basket, you called for an intifada against the two and israel.
You may debate anything, but I wonder why you are raising the issue of suicide bombing after Hamas stopped it since a while?
With full respect for your opinion I totally disagree with you saying "that Hamas engagement and sponsoring of suicide bombing was not only immoral, unethical and against Islamic values" Many schoolars said its not Haram and not against Islamic values, unless you are a muslim better than better than hamas and hezbollah leaderships, Actually, as a Muslim who spend 10 years studying Islam, I claim that I know Islam quite well and don't need fatwas from anybody. I consider every Israeli whether man or woman young or old as a legal target for resistance, because of .the nature of the zionist entity, as an army having a state.
As for "the political leadership to put the lives of 1.5 Palestinians at risk and in the hands of reckless Qassam brigade is an irresponsible act of leadership" I wolud say; I read similar statements from Abbas, and Iraelis claiming that "Hamas is using Gazan's as human sheilds." I heard and read similar statement from lebanese ceder "revolution" and moderate arab regimes, acusing Hezbollah for destruction of Lebanon. I heard and read Human rights oraginization talking about hamas and Hezbullah war crimes for using rockets and killing "inocent Israeli civilians"
Again my friend, I understand your anger, but I think you have to be carefull and fair, especially with your people, fighting who are fighting the whole world since 61 years, Yes there is something wrong , mainly now with palestinians, but with Arabs who with petro dolar crowned Arafat as the King of Palestinians, instead Habash the prophet of arab nationalism and armed strugle.
Finally, my Friend, it is Hamas and Jehad who challanged the "stupid, corrupt, incompetent, reckless, useless leadership and organization for the last 45 years that failed at everything it set out to do -turning the PLO to a manager and contractor of the Jewish Occupation"
"WE FAILED LET THEM TRY" This said Habash to the Angry Arab. but he failed to follow the advise
Uprooted Palestinian. As a former soldier with JD in law from top ranking school, I believe that people under occupation have every right to fight and resists the occupation by all means including armed means. There is no exception in international law for Jewish Occupation. However smart resistance is a must, not reckless and irresponsible. I think the Palestinians were more effective in resisting the Occupation with rocks and stones during the First Intifada than they were effective during Second Intifada which was ill planned, ill organized and recklessly mismanaged by Arafat and his gangs. Keep in mind that it was Arafat who undermined the First Intifada and was generously rewarded by Israel for putting an end to the Itifada.
As a practicing Muslim, well versed in the Quran and with some intelligence, I do not need the opinions of these “ulamas” with irresponsible “fatwa’s” that gave justifications for murder and killings through suicide bombing whether it is Gaza, Jerusalem, Baghdad or Kabul. These “Ulamas” are the main source of retardation, ignorance, failures, violations of human values and lives in the Muslim world. They have hijacked Islam and gave themselves a role that is simply not there in Islam and became to act like the Rabbis in ancient Israel. I do not need an idiot and a fool to give me a “fatwa” and teach me Islam.
There is a big difference between Hamas and Hezbollah leadership, a very big difference. Hezbollah has a responsible leadership that acts with discipline and have control over its armed staff. Sheik Hassan Nasrallah admitted his mistake not taking into account the consequences for kidnapping Israeli soldiers. Hezbollah gave Israel a fight for its life, Hamas simply allowed Israel to devastate Gaza. Please it is unfair to Hezbollah and its political and military leadership to compare it with Hamas political and military leadership. Yes, Hamas political and military leadership was reckless and irresponsible before, during and after the War on Gaza. Hezbollah never ever used suicide bombings even when Israel was occupying South Lebanon. Suicide bombing if not against Islam and its values, then it is against human value system and morality. Hamas leadership that recruited, trained and set recruits on suicide mission is guilty of cold blooded murder. Hamas that transformed the mourning of a dead son to a celebration to collect a check for $20,000 is as guilty as those who fund such blood money. Well that is my opinion. I am for fighting the Israeli Occupation soldiers and armed settlers but not through suicide bombings. Frankly I think a civil uprising like we saw in Iran and burning of all Israeli issued IDs is a good start, and tattooing Israeli issued numbers on wrest, reminding Israel of its Nazi past is a second good step. All the bravado of Hamas and they managed to kill little more than a dozen of Israeli soldiers. Common please give me a break.
We need to keep in mind that both Hamas and Fatah are not committed to ending the Occupation First, they are committed to their own ideology and agenda first, ending the Occupation will put both Hamas and Fatah and Jihad out of business. Then they have to learn how to build schools, build and operate hospitals, clean garbage, run traffic, have professional police force that respect civil and human rights of citizens. All are simply not ready for that. It is not their agenda to build a nation. It is their agenda to perpetuate their self interest. In the end I think what we need is for the UN to take over releasing our people from being held hostage by Israel, PLO, Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front, Democratice Front, and Stupid Front.
It's amusing to read the writer how he pushes all Palestinian groups – Islamists, secular and nationalists – under his imaginary carpet with the same broom. By discrediting everyone – maybe, he is suggesting that the Palestinians have no choice but to live under Zionist/Jewish yoke.
Maybe, the author should open is eyes and tell us which nation is not ruled by corrupt leaders? I am not going to mention Chevez or Ahmadinejad – because both can jolt some sensitive nerves. Afterall, both have not much of respect for the Arab rulers or the USrael – and too bad, Ahmadinejad is a Shia, who supports Hamas and Islamic Jihad while considers Fatah and other nationalist groups working for their personal gains.
The past history of Palestinian resistance have proved again and again – that Palestinian will never regain their land without the help of the non-Arab Muslim Ummah. Without Islam – Arabs have no history of international achievements for the last 1400 years.
My question to Sami Jamil Jadallah is: What would have happened to the Palestinian cause should dahlan's mob succeeded in their Gaza coup ? It seems to me that the author is more interested in oslo, road maps, futile peace negotiations and more PA atrocities.As for suicide bombing of innocent people is abhorrent and counter-productive, however, and this is in no way accepting it, should be taken in the proper contexst. While israel, its protectors and its cohorts in the pa, hav a free hand killing innocent Palestinians, as has been demonstrated in Gaza and the WB.
It is healthy to ctiticise a methoodolgy, but failure to provide a workable, reasonable and achievable alternative will certainly lead to the ultimate treason to our Palestinian rights.
A communist, socialist, anarchist, so called progressive, and nationalist solutions, brought us to our current miserable situation. Fire should be faught with fire. Roses & olive branches have been burnt by the occupiers & their gangs. The last 60 years of our Nakba demonstrates the pity state of some of the so called writers & thinkers, they are in great need to shread their blinders in order to see the big picture!
Issam.
True, Islamic culture and civilians enriched Arabs and what we think is Arab civilization is in fact Islamic civilization. No one can deny that Islam was and is enriched by non-Arabs who were the backbone of Islamic civilizations from architecture, to science to philosophy, sociology, to mathematics even philosophy. But Islam of the past is not Islam of today. If Islam was to come now, I doubt it will spread beyond Mecca. What we have now is Islam of the Taliban’s, Islam of the terrorists in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Iraq, in Kashmir, in India, in Somalia, in Yemen, and in Indonesia, Islamist terrorists who never built a school, built a hospital or clinic, of even a bakery. Their business is death and not life. I think my long history toward the Jewish Occupation is well established and I do not need any one to teach me or give me lessons on nationalism, on Arabism certainly not on Islam and the Umma. The Muslim world is in such a mess, because illiterate retarded drug blushers have hijacked Islam. I am sure you agree with me, that the terrorists of Pakistan or India or Kashmir or Afghanistan could never build such a magnificent civilization as the one we seen from Spain, to Mali to Iran, to India, and Indonesia. Before Palestinians can call on Umma for help, they need to clean their act. Thank you for your input.
Issam.. I suggest you reread the essay to truly understand what I think of Oslo, Road Map, Peace Negotiations. Oslo is nothing more than a management contract between Israel and the PLO, whereby Israel got rid of the First Intifada, got rid of substantial financial burden of funding the civil affairs of the Occupation and passed all the expense to the PLO while keeping the benefits of continued occupation such as expanding settlements and water resources. The PLO got its chance again to do what is was doing all alone, fleecing the national treasury. Oslo was nothing more than financial windfall for Arafat and his cronies to feed their own private bank account. As for Dahlan, has he won in Gaza, it would have given Israel peace and security Fatah agreed and contracted to provide, and he could have made money like never before. Of course he will end up setting a network of barbershops to shave the beards and heads of some 500,000 Hamas members on weekly basis, and could make millions operating such a network of barbershops. Let us keep in mind that it was the American Zionist Jew Elliot Abrams who developed and is considered the Godfather of the Road Map. It was designed so that Israel keep doing what it does best, confiscate land and build settlements and Jewish Roads. Never understood why Saeb always insists on adhering to the Road Map as developed by Elliot Abrams.
Hmm. What do you suggest the Palestinian people do to have a change of leaders? Revolt when they have the arab leaders, Us, Europe against them backing the PA? Im not sure that would work.
You know, If the zionists wanted to create a state in some other country then we would see the same scenarios there as these scernarios were planned and set in to action by the enemy (like making sure the mainstram Palestinian organisation would be someone like fateh). It is not fair to blame the Palestinian people for it. And as for corruption, name one arab country where the rulers arent corrupted? You make it sound as if Palestinians are the only arab people that live under a corrupt leadership when that is the case of all the Arabs. Education is still as important to Palestinian (people) as it was before, people are obessesed about education in Palestine, the first thing they ask you is either "what do you study" or "what did you study". of course, that is no thanks to the PA, but it is thanks to the people that you seem to be very angry with for reasons i cant relate to as i dont blame the people for the wrongs comitted by the leadership.
The only way the PA managed to get young men in their security force was by handpicking youngsters with little education to join them by offering them the salary of a doctor and giving them the illusion that they are defending Palestine, of course a young occupied man would accept such an offer.
There are refugee camps in Palestine that are in a better shape than poor areas in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world so i dont see how you can make it sound like Palestinians are the failures of Arabs when clearly that is not the reality. I support your harsh tone against the leadership but not against the people that have suffered for a long time, what should they do, start a civil war when there is a good chance it will backfire on them, tarnish their image in the media (that by the way chose to be supportive of mosavis demonstrations for selfish reason and not because they actually cared about the cause).
As for your opinion on suicide bombings, i definatly agree with you on that part and that is one of the reasons why i despite being religious and despite of my hate for fateh and the PA, PLO, Arafat and the corrupted politics crew cant bring myself to consider hamas as the best option for Palestine. They made such a stupid misstake by adopting the suicide bombings (which were actually introduced to Palestine by secular organisations) that i cant see them as a leadership that can deliver what Palestinians need. It is OK to make a misstake, but such a STUPID misstake is not allowed if u claim to be working for the Palestinian cause and people as they were supposed to know better had they really been working for the greater good of Palestine. Even if 100 percent of the Palestinian people had supported it (which of course isent the case), the leadership must reject it and make sure to proove to the people how it is a bad action.
By the way, you should attack the failed leadership in Arabic in a Palestinian website or newspaper as at the end of the day, in order for your message to actually make a change, it has to first be sent to the Palestinians in Palestine and the refugee camps around Palestine. I do respect what you want to say because i believe all you say comes from love for your people, i only disagree with being unfair in your judgement against the people as i have read many purely unfair and racist comments on various websites sent by arabs that hate the Palestinians thanks to the misstakes of mainly fateh and these guys end up writing totally untrue statements and stuff they know nothing about, i dont want them to find ammunition in your article. All the misstakes that exist in Palestine exist in their own countries as well yet they only see the wrongs in Palestine when they have the same misstakes in their own countries taking place and this comes from their hate for Palestinians, none of them mention how Palestinians built Jordan and helped out in the Arab Gulf states like Kuwait, none of them mentions how the top med students in AUB as an example have been Palestinians year after year, (but cant work in Lebanon as doctors) they dont see any of that because they are only interested in seeing bad stuff , like this other day i saw a extremly nationalistic jordanian on youtube that referred to Palestinians as "falasTIZIYE and mokhayamjiye", never mind that Palestinians built up next to everything that fools like him take pride in when it comes to Jordan. Such racists should not be given free ammunition by people like you who have the heart in its right place, that is why i wish you would have chosen your words more carefully.
Ps. My father came back from Nablus recently, he told me everyone he met there hated mahmoud Abbas, and my brother (who also was there recently) used the words "emwall3a ma3on", he was referring to how angry people were with the sulta.
Izabella… thank you. I do not care about corruption within the Arab world, they are not under occupation and I am not my brother’s keeper. I am focused on Palestine and ending the Jewish Occupation. Yes, I think the Palestinians should march on Ramallah with sticks and stones and chase Mahmoud Abbas and all of the PA, Fatah and PLO out of Ramallah and I would suggest the same thing the people of Gaza should do. Then they should call on the UN to come in and take over from Israel, the Palestinian Authority and then Hamas in Gaza. They should demand the opening of Gaza sea port and keep access to Egypt and Israel closed for ever. Civil uprising that does not quit until the Occupation end. As for Arab media.. No one will ever print such criticism of the Palestinian people or authority not even Alquds Alarabi of London. I am convinced that the Palestinian Trio of Arafat, Abbas and Qurai all colluded with Israel to keep the Occupation going while becoming managers. One has to wonder where Fatah gets the money to support and pay its some 30,000 active members if it does not skim money for the people’s budget. Nabil Amr (remember PA thugs shot him, his leg was amputated and he never demanded to know who did it? I guess the price was right), just admitted the need for self financing and funding of Fatah and the money can only come from Israel in exchange for service rendered such as “down payment” on prime land forming the main settlement blocks as suggested by Qurai or by stealing the money from the national treasury. If the people have any respect or dignity they would have chased the Ramallah leadership out long time ago.
I always find people who have to quote their qulaifications tp make a point, a trifle boorish..
and I have to wonder about the motivations here…
Love them or hate them……Hamas, in the words of .Interior Minister Fathi Hammad
“We managed to achieve what was not achieved by 22 Arab states when we say ‘No, we will not give up our rights to the USA and Israel,’”
As for the suicide bombing…..people left with little choice will do what they will to make a point…
"As a practicing Muslim, well versed in the Quran and with some intelligence, I do not need the opinions of these “ulamas”
Sami
You are repeating my words, " I claim that I know Islam quite well and don't need fatwas from anybody.", Since you are well versed in the Quran. I would like to draw your attention to some verses instructing yous to fight aganst those who started the fight against you. To slay them wherever you find them, and drive them out of the places they drove you out , And to attack them like manner as they attacked you .
2.190 . Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you , but begin not hostilities . Lo! Allah loveth not , aggressors .
وَقَاتِلُواْ فِي سَبِيلِ اللّهِ الَّذِينَ يُقَاتِلُونَكُمْ وَلاَ تَعْتَدُواْ إِنَّ اللّهَ لاَ يُحِبِّ الْمُعْتَدِينَ
2.191 . And slay them wherever ye find them , and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out , for persecution is worse than slaughter . And fight not with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there , but if they attack you ( there ) then slay them . Such is the reward of disbelievers .
وَاقْتُلُوهُمْ حَيْثُ ثَقِفْتُمُوهُمْ وَأَخْرِجُوهُم مِّنْ حَيْثُ أَخْرَجُوكُمْ وَالْفِتْنَةُ أَشَدُّ مِنَ الْقَتْلِ وَلاَ تُقَاتِلُوهُمْ عِندَ الْمَسْجِدِ الْحَرَامِ حَتَّى يُقَاتِلُوكُمْ فِيهِ فَإِن قَاتَلُوكُمْ فَاقْتُلُوهُمْ كَذَلِكَ جَزَاء الْكَافِرِينَ
2.192 . But if they desist , then lo! Allah is Forgiving , Merciful .
فَإِنِ انتَهَوْاْ فَإِنَّ اللّهَ غَفُورٌ رَّحِيمٌ
2.193 . And fight them until persecution is no more , and religion is for Allah . But if they desist , then let there be no hostility except against wrongdoers .
وَقَاتِلُوهُمْ حَتَّى لاَ تَكُونَ فِتْنَةٌ وَيَكُونَ الدِّينُ لِلّهِ فَإِنِ انتَهَواْ فَلاَ عُدْوَانَ إِلاَّ عَلَى الظَّالِمِينَ
2.194 . The forbidden month for the forbidden month , and forbidden things in retaliation . And one who attacketh you , attack him like manner as he attacked you . Observe your duty to Allah , and know that Allah is with those who ward off ( evil ) .
الشَّهْرُ الْحَرَامُ بِالشَّهْرِ الْحَرَامِ وَالْحُرُمَاتُ قِصَاصٌ فَمَنِ اعْتَدَى عَلَيْكُمْ فَاعْتَدُواْ عَلَيْهِ بِمِثْلِ مَا اعْتَدَى عَلَيْكُمْ وَاتَّقُواْ اللّهَ وَاعْلَمُواْ أَنَّ اللّهَ مَعَ الْمُتَّقِينَ
So, sami, Quran instruct you to fight your occupier, untill ending the occupation, and I assume you agree with me that the so called Isarel is also a Palestinian occupied land. Setllers are not those occupying 1967 land. Consequentely, I consider all "peacful jews" even our friend Uri, they are settler until they go to where they come from.
Human Freedom is the first pillar of Islam, God created you and me free even to deny his existance, and therefore I am against anybody who picks the above verses out its historical context, to divide the world in Dar Al Islam and Dar Al Harb.
I fully agree with what you wrote about "“Ulamas” are the main source of retardation, ignorance, failures, violations of human values and lives in the Muslim world. They have hijacked Islam and gave themselves a role that is simply not there in Islam and became to act like the Rabbis in ancient Israel. I do not need an idiot and a fool to give me a “fatwa” and teach me Islam." but it's unfail to generalize. I call them Ulama aLsultan. Its not them who hijacked Islam,
Islam was Hijacked by Moawiya 30 years after the death of our prophet. I shall e-mail you a part of my deserted Draft of a book wriiten several years ago, to know where I stand.
Yes there is a big ideological difference between Hezbollah, and Hamas, and its politics, and resistance that btoght them together.
Since 1400 years Sunna were the Rulling Party, and shea were the opposition Party. Shea, are looking foward prepairing the stage for the appearance of Mahdi, like the Jews christoan zionists preparing the stage for the appearance of Messeeh, While Sunna are lookin backwords to Sadre Al Islam.
Politically, yes there is a big diffreance in discipline and control over armed staff. But again it is unfair to compare, Gaza Getto with Lebanon open to Syria and Tahran. Geopolitic acted all the time for Hezbollah and acted all the time against Hamas. Should I remined you what Hasralla said about learning from palestinians and building on it. Should I remind you what he said and promised during the war in Gaza. to be fair, and taking into consideration Gaza conditions, topograhy, neigbours, logistics, the internal fifth pillars, I would say that Hamas performed better than HEZBOLLA in July war.
Finally, I agree, the first intifadah is great, But Sami, the first intifada is history now, Arafat retuned to end that Intifada, and his PA was created to prevent a second intifada fighting occupation with stones.
I would add I arafat stayed in Tonis, Israel would have left Gaza without condition, like it did in Lebanon several years after.
Alkhansa.. Do not mean to tout my education or background. However I do read many sources. As for Hamas and the words of the interior minister. I read his words and I think he is fooling himself, unless Mother of All Battles of Saddam was a great victory. Gaza survived because Israel could not destroy every thing and could not kill every one. Gaza did not survive because of the great military victory of Hamas and Qassam Brigade. Let us keep things in perspective.10, 000 Qassam fire crackers did not kill an Israeli and if you call the kill ratio of 12/ 1500 and 30/5000 injured a victory, and then we have something wrong with our Palestinian math.
Uprooted Palestinian: I always stated that under common and international law people under Occupation have every right to resist and fight the occupation including shooting and killing soldiers and armed settlers. The Holy Quran may explain certain conditions, but international law is clear on this. However smart fight and resistance is a must. You do not choose to fight a Mike Tyson by entering the wring with him. You can throw a sharp rock to his face and knock him down. One has to be smart to choose the most effective means of fighting the enemy. In the absence of effective weapons such as anti-tanks missiles, anti aircraft missiles, you simply do not fight a tank with an M-14 rifle. No one could ever deny the Palestinians the right to fight and resist the Jewish Occupation however smart resistance is a must. In the American army we were told “make the other guy die for his country”, and this should be the case with the Palestinians. Heaven is full of dead Muslims.
@Sami Jamil Jadallah –
You repeat your ignorance of Islam and Muslim resistance. Islamic message is eternal. It never changes as the teachings of Judaism and Christianity has changed to suit the interests of the elites. Your so-called terrorists in the Muslim world – some of them are considered heroes – for their resistance to occupation rather whining like some cowards blaming them taking arms against occupiers and not being Gandhian pasties.
The Al-Qaeda is a myth created to divide Muslim Ummah for the western interests. It only exist in the minds of its creators and Islamophobe dupes.
http://www.counterpunch.org/schaefer06212003.html
Thanks to all who participated in this debate. The issue at the table is the failed leadership of the Palestinian leadership and the silence and ineptness of the people to do something about it. Failing to do something about this situation certainly perpetuate the Jewish Occupation, one of the longest in modern times, and without the right leadership and the right participation of citizen to deal with the occupation it will continue for a long time and with this leadership we have, be sure they have already got the down payment. Do not listen to what you hear from the leadership just see what they do. All are beneficiaries of the continued occupation from the Fatah, Hamas, PA, PLO and the many heads of the NGOs. I am afraid that our people too got used to the occupation, in the same way they got used to being “refugees”. As for my ignorance, or as Shaukat said “repeat my ignorance of Islam and Muslims” I say, ignorance is a bless. All I need to do is open the television, read the newspaper and see nothing but death, destruction, murder, corruptions, ignorance, lack of basic services, with millions homeless with no hope for the present and the past and I say, well this is what the “ulama” wants us to accept as a fact, and this is what Muslims think Islam is all about, a Taliban or a Pakistan style Islam. I am very happy for my brothers and sisters in Afghanistan and Pakistan and glad they are having a speedy access to heaven. Their leaders having failed to deliver a decent life for them on earth want to send it through terrorism on their way to heaven. If we have the “right” view and interpretation of Islam and if we have the “right” leadership, the Umma will not be in the big mess it is now. Glad that some see the Taliban’s as a model Muslim state, let all those Muslims wishing to live the Islamic way, go to Afghanistan and they should not apply for residency in the US or Switzerland, the lands of the “ infidels”. Thanks to all of you.
@Sami Jamil Jadallah –
I am following this debate for 2 days.
I really become more and more confused…
As far as I can see, there are facts on the ground, there are Palestinian people, there is a Palestinian leadership and there is a clear internal Palestinian debate. These things cannot be changed. Saying "There is something wrong with the people" gives the impression that you would prefer the Pls people to be different i.e. other people …Let's face it, these are the people and this is their leadership. It is down to the people to change their leadership and as we know they did. It is down to the people to change their tactics and as we know they do often enough.
I do not think that blaming the Pls as people is taking us anywhere.
The Pls are at the forefront of a clash between 2 totalities. between 2 symbolic orders. It is not a political debate and it is not an issue of local tactics or strategy. As Israeli intelligence generals have been predicting for 2 decades, all Pls need in order to win is to survive. If you look at Israel and Zionism from that very perspective, you would realise that the 'Wall' is actually the biggest Pls victory. They dismantled the Zionist project and made the Israeli into a 'diaspora ghetto Jew'. The Pls have managed to push the Jew back to the ghetto, and this ghetto will shrink as Pls ballistic capability grows. The Jewish state is a matter for Historians, its future is doomed.
We are not heading toward a political solution or military victory. The only way forwards is what Pls leadership defines as 'facts on the ground'
However Sami, If you know how to sort things out there, T'fadal, offer yourself as the new Pls leader. If you do that, take my advice as a professional performer. The last thing you want to do is telling your crowd that "There is something wrong" with them.
Salam
Gilad
Gilad.. Salam and thanks for your comments and input… I wrote what most Palestinians think and say in private but never come out and say it. I am sure the majority of the people are fed up with the leadership they have, yet they accept to do nothing about it. Simple look at Iran… millions went to the streets to challenge the leadership and the system. I look at Latin America and East Europe even Indonesia and see the transformation of societies and the group courage they have taking actions and destiny in their own hands and changing leadership that has been there for many years and few years. Yet our people do not nothing, they simply sit and complain, accept to be refugees for so many years without doing something about… without taking matters into their hands always accepting others to do something for them. They all know the leadership they have now and for some 80 years from the days of Hajj Amin are nothing but inept, incompetent, corrupt and failed leadership yet they do nothing about it, accepting their own destiny. Why Israeli Jews hold their leaders accountable for minor failures and our people remain silent when leaders commit catastrophic acts? Our people know the leadership is nothing but a bunch of gangs, crooks and thieves yet they accept the leadership and continue with business as usual. Who would believe that we simply accept all this failure and do nothing about it… not even an open and honest debate? Intellectuals and civil society leaders have been corrupted by both the leadership and the occupation and became beneficiary of a corrupt humiliating system and status quo, yet fail to lead the people to change their lives and work toward ending the occupation. I do doubt if any one even the people are really interested to work toward ending the Israeli Occupation. All with some minor exceptions became beneficiaries of the Occupation. As for leadership, I am sure there are well and much better qualified leaders to lead. Who would think that someone like the late Dr. Haider Abdul-Shafi a man of so much integrity, smart, loyalty to country and people his slate could not even muster 4% of the vote and who would believe that the people simply did not take the challenge and get someone like him to lead? Yes, there is a whole lot wrong with the Palestinian people. I was hoping that more Palestinians would join the debate. I guess all are busy with their own thing.
Sami,
I hate to see people praise Hezbollah, Just to mock Hamas. I heard directly on new TW, answering a hypothical question: would you cupture the 2 soldiers if you know the results. He said he wouldn't, but he never said did a mistake or apologized. You took what he said like those who say: "Don't" pray and
Ignore "when drank" Nasrallah thanked God for commiting that mistake, because the War on lebanon was planed moths before. and Hezbullah could have been taken by surprise.
In blaming Hamas for the destruction of Gaza, you, are spreading zionist propaganda, Like march 14 movement talking about Hezollah holding the War and peace decision, whil they know that it is Usrael who hold that decision. Both Hezbollah and hamas hold the decision to resist and both did within given condition.
If I read well your last comment, you wanted to end the debate. Having read your article, and replies insisting in putting Fatah, Hamas, all resistance groups and your people in the same basket, its time to say that Sami Jamil has a proplem. I reposted your article at my site under the title: What's What is wrong with Sami Jamil Jadallah?
Indeed you have a problem, mainly with Islam, to be more prcise I would say with Moslims. You can't cover your problem with being a born Muslim, or k nowing few verses. You may curse Ulamas, and I would join, because most of them deserve more than cursing, being the official speaker of Islam doesn't mean that they are the true representatives.
Extremism is not a Talban trade mark, all those who reject the others and claim to hold the ultimate truth and Nationalist Talban, Comunist Talban, ans secular Talbam. If I have to select betweem the mentioned Talbans, I select those who applied to fight the occupation in Iraq, in Afghanistan, In lebanon and Gaza, rather than those who applied for residency in the US, the "land of free"or Switzerland, If I have to chose between Liberation and Democracy and human rights, I chose liberation.
In my previous comment i mentioned how nasralla said that he leaned from Palestinians, I would add now what Mawwaf Mousawi said few days ago, He said that it is the Iraqi resistance, not Hezbulah, who statigically deafeat the US middle east project, He said that Hezbollah delivered a new model of resistance.
Mousawi was not talking about iraqi resistance that included the Iraqi Talbon.
As an audiance, I would say, I am politically a Sunni in Iraq, a Shiit in Lebanon, a Hamas in Palestine, and Talban in Afghanistan
Like you, I am a born Moslem. I started my political life as a nationalist in Arab nathionalist movement passed by PFLP, and moved with hawatmi to DFLP, In 1982 I decided to get out the box, and think with my own mind, see with my own eyes. A book, ( The book and Quran, a medern reading) I read in early 90's trigered a great need to know ISLAM, and to read Quran for the first time in my life. I read tens of books, my intensive reading made me understand why Islam is under attack not only by the enimies of Islam, but by people claing to be muslims just because they were born to Muslim parent. They are the victims of Talban version the goes back beyond Ibn abdulwahab to Ibn Taymeya, and back to Ibn Hanbal. They failed to see the thin thread seperating Islam (I mean by Islam the Holly text -Quran only) and the human understanding of the Holly text, between Islam and the History of Islam.
Quran is Holly, it's Human understanding (Tafseer) is not.
Quaran is Holly the History of Islam is not.
Those who killed Othman where commrads (sahaba) of our Prophet PUH.
And those who fought Ali in Jammal battle wre lead by Aysha and Sahaba, Talhah and Zubair. Their disagreement was not about relgion, but about power.
That disagreement started before the funeral of our Profit, and turned into a revolution (Ulama call it fitna" against Othman, that plitted Muslims till this very day.
I never felt, any contardiction between bein a Palestinian by birtn, an arob by nationality, a leftist by idiology, and a moslem by religion,
I hate to stop, but I have, and would like to end my comment saying that Pharoah, Quroun and Haman mentioned in Quran are not Just names they are symbols what we call now, the alliance of Political power, (Pharoah), financial power (Qaroun) and Media (Haman), Religion, all religions, were in fact revolution against that alliance. Prophets, all Prophet, were the first freedom fighter in human history. I would say the first "Suicide bombers" , because their mission using your view of "smartness" was by all means suicidal. Our Qyran call jews as Prophet killers.
@uprooted palestinian –
I happen to agree with every word you say here.
Dear Sami
you say "I wrote what most Palestinians think and say in private but never come out and say it." I tend to have problem with people who know what 'most' other people 'say in private'…
As far as i am aware there are at least 4 distinct pls discourses: OT, Pls who hold Isr citizenship, Refugees and Western Diaspora. These discourses are different by nature and aspired by different ideas and visions. Thus i would refrain from talking about most pls..
I am also not inspired by the correlation you paint with Iran. It is also possible that in Iran, millions went to the street to protest against a majority vote in favor of Ahmadinejad. As things stand we do not know the truth and we may never know. It is a matter of belief.
I wouldn't dare suggesting who should be the Pls leader. You are entitled to do so as a pls, however, I would suggest to you to be more careful when you write about your people. Though I am sure that you operate in good will, many of your lines can be used against your cause and the cause of your people (as Uprooted Pls suggested above).
Salam
Gilad
Uprooted Palestinian: Salam… my disappointment is that not many of our people, the Palestinians decided to enter the debate, since there are very few places where forum such as this available, especially on a topic like this. I am sure if we had the courage to debate major issues and major failing some years ago, we will not be in this mess we are in now. My brush with Palestinians and Arab organization was short lived. In the fall of 74 I was elected as the president of the Arab Student Association, Indiana University-Bloomington chapter. We had some 1000 members and of course they all came from the left and right. I simply refused to be a member of Fatah, or the Popular Front and the Democratic Front, and I did not join the Muslim Student Associations. Because I did not express loyalty to these organizations, the leaders of such organizations decided to call for a general meeting and remove me from office on the premise that I was not an “Arab” but a US citizen. Rather than promote a long legal fight, I decided to resign but after I collected back my membership fee pro-rata. I did not rejoin the organization ever, and in 1977 I and with my own resources and with support of many of my friends on campus, held a conference on “Zionism and Racisms” attended by an over flow of some 700 students, perhaps one of the largest gathering. I was the speaker and I did not use one single Arab or Muslim or Christian quote, all of my quotes came from Zionist writers and the quotes where displace on the stage. Something the Arab Student Organization simply failed to do. I am currently reading a book titled “A Savage War of Peace… Algeria 1954-1962” by Alistair Horne and just finished reading a book titled “Kill Khalid” by Paul McGeough and when you read the book you will see why Arafat and Dahlan were so desperate to destroy Hamas. Arafat decided to give open ended recognition to Israel without ever defining which Israel he is recognizing, Israel of 47, or 48 or 67 or 93 or 2004 with expanding settlements and Jerusalem in exchange, and here the big story, for Israel giving recognition not to Palestine, but to the PLO so he can undermine and undercut any present or future organizations that can or will take the leadership of the Palestinians. That is why Fatah always insists on the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestinian people because Arafat and Israel made a deal to talk and negotiate with each other only and no one else. That is why Fatah made sure it undermined Hamas the day of the election and supported and promoted the boycott of the new government. This is the legal issue that is Mosmar Juha. As long as Israel made a deal with the PLO and recognized the PLO, Israel will never deal with any one else other than Fatah. It is as simple at that. This is what our people fail to see. As for Hamas, no one say any thing of corruption, I only address the issue of suicide bombing, which I am totally against, and I have problem with the leadership giving full reign to Qassam Brigade without due concerns for the results. Like any thing else, leadership have an obligation to weigh in all issues and consequences and due a cost benefit analysis… this is something that Hamas fail always fails to do. Why insist on firing useless rockets when they know Israel will use such an excuse to blockade Gaza and not allow any thing in or out. Why after Israel left, did Hamas fails to promote the idea of opening the sea port under international jurisdiction, not Egypt and Israel, but the UN or NATO and tell Israel and Egypt they can go to hell and close all land access? Hamas in Gaza is committing same mistakes and same crimes committed by Dahlan, perhaps to a lesser degree. A leadership that builds its success on “security issues” is bound to fail Israel failed because security was every thing. Fatah and Arafat failed, because they thought that security is every thing. Security must be one of the basic elements of good government, not every thing. Frankly I am also sick and tired of seeing both Hamas and Fatah spoke person on TV, they make me sick. They tell half truth and lies and they think people believe their lies. Let us keep the debate if it means perhaps someone can come up with better ideas. I am for that. As for “What is wrong with Sami Jamil Jadallah?” I am sure my wife and children have a lot to say about that. Feel free to write say what you think. You are free to your opinion, but do not use George Bush statement, “either you are with us or against us” Best wishes.
well
The problem with Hamas is not what happened in Gaza and is NOT the war with israel. They should never be blamed for that. They tried to avoid the war in all cases. the problem with them is not resistance whatever way they practice it even.
Its not how they received the international community ……………they actually made a quite good job with it all.
how about myself? where is the "me" in a hamas ruled society? I do not wear a hijab,I love classical music; believe a women can be a head of state……………..their supporters HATE the likes of me, they do NOT accept me for who I am, they never did and they will never will. and believe me, I have been talking with ALOT of them and it has not been pretty………………we will find ourselves agreeing to resistance, to politics….outside of that, we are quite different
they reject the "other" as much as the other reject them
this part of the world sucks…………….you either be a "corrupt collaborationist secular" or "loyal islamist to his country but with an agenda"
it ALL sucks…………..the problem is socio-political…………people here have no idea with what they want. they do want someone to stand up for their rights and diginity (the islamists are doing that for now) but they also want to keep the little personal freedoms they have attained (the corrput seculars wont annoy them in their social "freedoms")
well thats about hamas
about the palestinian cause, everyone failed it including our intellectuals, when god bless his departed soul edward said or Rashid khalidi or the "progressive" Mustapha bargouthi completely dismiss armed resistance as an option, I see something very wrong. you can NEVER completely cut out armed resistance as an option, we need it and we need it desperately. its those ideas that people can become quite disillusioned with liberalisim and secularim and making them equate such ideas to collaboration.
meaning, being a liberal or secular equals being a collaborationist and a mouthpiece to the west. and you cant blame them because thats the reality in the middleeast, and thats how neoliberals are here…………and they are found everywhere,and they make people puke for being apolgists for dictatorships,american and israeli actions, not standing up the imperialisim happening in the middleeast, welcoming hostile american actions, writing the most disgusting essays when the Gaza war broke out……………they are preaching against the human nature ………………can I blame people for being attracted to "islamists" ?
I cant………………because the other option simply has NO dignity whatsoever. even though supporting islamists will come at the expense of personal freedoms sooner or later which also sucjs
I appreciate their immense roles(the intellectuals), but what they're doing it is NOT gonna cut it. Gandi like approaches wont save our cause, yes, we need armed resistance, it was not with gandi approach that Hizbullah liberated south lebanon. it took sacrifce, it took armed resistance, it took death…………….why aren't some of our best intellectuals saying the obvious without looking through the lens of western pollitically correct behaviour is beyond me. why are some not looking at the context of things and try to color it their idealized vision of what their societies should be like……………..its another illusion that our intellectuals have perpetuated
everyway you look at it, palestine and palestinians now are screwed. and the reasons are aplenty, everyone is responsbile for the this chaos and madness
I have been avidly following this conversation from the beginning because from my own experiences as a North American on this issue starting with the four months in 1970 I spent in and out of the refugee camps of Lebanon and Jordan and the offices of Fatah, the PFLP, the DFLP and Al-Saika, I was also frustrated with Arafat and the PLO leadership, but not being a Palestinian, kept it to myself until I could not longer keep silent while watching Arafat undermine the First Intifada and when his reputation among Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza had become so low that I wrote in the Middle East Labor Bulletin,before Oslo, that the Rabin government would have to do something to save him, which was Oslo. I remember a telling cartoon in the Jerusalem Post afterward which showed Rabin and Peres carrying Arafat on a stretcher and he was sitting up and waving his hand.
I thank Sami Jamil Jadallah for saying about Arafat, the PLO and the PA what has long needed to be said. As for Hamas, I cannot speak but from any experience but it faced and still faces quite a different situation in confronting Israel than does Hezbollah with which I do have some experience and greater knowledge.
Hezbollah enjoys the support of the greater part of the Shia population, is well organized, technologically advanced, and enjoys the support of a close ally on its border as well as the backing of a significant segment of Lebanon's Maronite population. Hamas, on the other hand, must contest with Fatah for the support of the Palestinian population, and as we know,must deal with Israel agents and certain Fatah elements that have been paid to undermine them. As opposed to Hezbollah which has a friendly Syria providing a source for Iranian weaponry on the Lebanese border, Gaza is enclosed by Israel and its and America's lapdog, Egypt. Regarding the winners and losers, it is therefore understandable that their was sense of victory in Lebanon when I visited there after the 2006 war whereas, from what I understand from a variety of sources, there is no such feeling in Gaza after Israel's onslaught, which stems from the different situations in both places.
I should note that Hezbollah captured the Israeli soldiers, they did not "kidnap" them as Sami wrote, since only civilians, and as the word, implies, children are kidnapped, which is a crime. Hezbollah's capture of the two Israeli soldiers was not a crime nor was the capturing of Gilad Shalit by the Palestinians since, as we know, the Israelis have been kidnapping Palestinians and Lebanese with regularity over the years and the world has had nothing to say about it. In fact, the day before Shalit was captured, the Israelis came into Gaza and kidnapped two brothers who presumably are still in prison. Who knows their names?
One of the most important points that Sami made and repeated has been largely overlooked by the Palestinian solidarity movement which is that "Oslo is nothing more than a management contract between Israel and the PLO, whereby Israel got rid of the First Intifada, got rid of substantial financial burden of funding the civil affairs of the Occupation and passed all the expense to the PLO while keeping the benefits of continued occupation such as expanding settlements and water resources."
Oslo may be dead but the financial situation remains the same.Israel has never been held to accout, either in money or sanctions, for its devastating war on Lebanon in 1982, an earlier invasion in 1978, its war on Lebanon again in 2006 or its onslaught of Gaza earlier this year. Remarkably, not a single payment has been demanded of Israel by anyone and that includes the Palestine solidarity movement with which I have the greater argument and the greater disappointments.
I can not hold the Palestinian people responsible for their present situation any more than I can any other people. Why some rise up in some oppressive circumstances and get new leaders and not in others is something historians have been trying to figure out and haven't succeeded.
Dear Gilad
Very glad with you comment, I happen to agree with every word you said to Sami.
Yes "there are at least 4 distinct pls discourses: OT, Pls who hold Isr citizenship, Refugees and Western Diaspora." I would add Arab Diaspora (Working mainly in Gulf), even this discouses can be divided into at lest two distict discourses, those who came from refugee Camps, and those who came from OT. You Can't put all Refugee in the Same basket, In Jodan they are Jordanians, In Syria, they have the same ciivil right as Syrians, In Lebanon, they live in misirable conditions with any civil rights, in Iraq, they are stuck at the Syrian and Jordaian borders. You may go on and on and you shall find these mini "discourses are different by nature and aspired by different ideas and visions."
So, I understand and respect you refraining "from talking about most pls.."
Our friend Sami, dared to simply put all Palestinians in one basket.
I as an Uprooted Palestinian who came from Refugee camo in Lebanon and joined the arab diaspora, don't dare to give Hamas lectures on Smartness. WE SAY in Arabic:
أهل مكة أدرى بشعابها
(PEOPLE OF MECCA, ARE MORE KNOLEGABLE ABOUT ITS MOUTAINS.).
And for sure Hamas knows Gaza better than me and SAMI, and for sure Gazans living under siege, not Diaspora Gazans Have the right to question Hamas.
I as uprooted palestinian, with lebanese travel document, don't dare to question OT Palestinian right to have in an Indepandent state, as long as they don't hijack my ROR. So I refuse statement that Hamas is following the same trak of Arafat.
AND YES, GILAD, you hit the nail saying: "the 'Wall' is actually the biggest Pls victory. They dismantled the Zionist project and made the Israeli into a 'diaspora ghetto Jew'. The Pls have managed to push the Jew back to the ghetto, and this ghetto will shrink as Pls ballistic capability grows. The Jewish state is a matter for Historians, its future is doomed."
One of the reasons for building the wall was Security, THANKS TO SUICIDE BOMBERS,
BTW, I don't expect and Arab american to dare supporting Suicide bombing, but I would respect his silence.
The Wall said bye bye to Great and graeter Israel. It is really sad to find Some palestinians and Arab intellectuals evaluating the outcome of the wars on Iraq, and Lebanon with the number of Casaulies on either side
Thanks Again
Jeff Blankfor
"You are lucky to be alive to tell your tale."
May be you are right, Naji Al Ali paid his life for a Carton on arafat's mistress Munshira Mahran.
Sami
From the very begining I said I agree with all said on Arafat/Fateh and PA. I disagree with you on Hamas, On blaiming the People, On Mocking those wanting to go to heaven, and you shall not surprise me if you even talk about Heaven Virgins (I forget their Number).
So, Sami, i shall not waste my time repeating myself,
You asked, " Why after Israel left, did Hamas fails to promote the idea of opening the sea port under international jurisdiction, not Egypt and Israel, but the UN or NATO and tell Israel and Egypt they can go to hell and close all land access?"
Sami, Arafat Excuted the Idea of see and air port and we saw what happenned to both ports, Yes Israel left and without conditions, but we know that Israel is still there on the the north and on the east, in the see, subletting the south to Pharoah. And same we have what happenned to Last Free Gaza Movement trip. What international jurisdiction you are talking about??,
Salaam,
This is a very interesting debate. When I first read this article there were no comments yet and I immediately thought of one thing that we call "Jald al that" basically means whipping oneself. There is a time for constructive criticism in order to reform from within or else everything grows old and withers away so there is always a need for new blood so to speak. Your article was based on a large amount of negative feelings that has been building for a long time. I think millions of us share your frustrations towards the way the Palestinian cause is dealt with by everybody: Palestinians, Arabs, Muslims, and the rest who support it…We see Al Qudus (Jerusalem) in this condition and the massacring and suffering of many yet what we do is not enough. But the ones who do something like the different resistances in the region who give us hope of a better future should be given a helping hand instead of being attacked. The Arab regimes with the exception of a few, US, Israelis and their allies are doing what they can to get rid of the resistances so we can't aid them by criticism that doesn’t do anything to improve the situation. To get a good advice to these resistances there is always ways to do that without coming off as attacking them and helping the real enemies.
@uprooted palestinian –
My dearest Uprooted Pls,
As you say , we do not expect support but silence would be appreciated. It is a war, it is a long one and the enemy is ruthless and inhuman beyond comparison and supported by the west … The last thing we can do is to judge the oppressed.
I typed out a long reply, but it got eaten up! I'll try to remember the salient points!
I had been following the discussion with great interest, but no time to comment until now. I want to agree with Zunaib here and say that this debate is very interesting, and I thank those who found the time to participate. This is the entire point, to have discussion that can bring out elements that are generally not on the table. This issue is rarely discussed, as we are well aware of, and the opportunity to do it is a good thing.
I can agree with everyone here that there are elements Sami says that can be shared 100% (the Arafat-PLO discussion) and that there are other parts that need to be debated and can be seen as detrimental. I believe the spirit is as many have pointed out, love of his people and deep frustration at the impossibility (seemingly impossible, but not really) to turn the Jewish Occupation over and get rid of it. It would be and should be the number one goal of all Palestinians, but as someone pointed out, there are so many (artificial) divisions between Palestinians and their interests have been diluted due to many factors. I believe that the tendency towards factionalism is detrimental, and it happens even among our own allies, which is unfortunate. There was indeed a time that the priority was not "which party is good" or "are seculars or Islamic based thinkers better". It seems that time is over for the moment, and this is perhaps a result of the frustration at the ineffectiveness of the resistance at all levels and how it is not promoted fully in its thousand dimensions, from the very small to the very big, but is seen as able to be handed over to one faction while the rest watch and admire. What matters actually hasn't changed, although the discourse has in some levels, at times in interesting ways.
I would like to state however, that I see that there is a reason for this, and it is something that has been pointed out here and can be a way forward to bring the struggle to a higher level. It is not really a discussion about "what kind of resistance". I am convinced that ALL kinds are needed, starting with the identification of the problem of the division of the Palestinian people. This has to be fought. Palestinians in Israel do not get behind their brothers and sisters in the OPT and refugee camps (just as many Arabs do not get behind the Palestinians at all, when we are being realistic about it) for one reason. They have not yet understood it is in their best interests. They are weighing the state of things and do not see themselves as fully part of this people. There are exceptions, such as Azmi Bishara, but on the whole, there is no unification there, and this is in Israel's interests, and the divisions have been pointed out here and on countless other occasions. Just as on the land of Palestine, Palestinians are divided, they are chopped and separated into political and geographical factions. We all know unity would be needed, but this has never really been attempted, and this is because it seems that what counted was the survival of the PLO and the Fatah, not the Palestianian freedom cause.
I think that we fall into a trap, all of us, with how we have been trained, and this is perhaps why it looks like Sami is attacking people when he asks why they do not rebel against their corrupt or ineffective leaders and seeks something looking far more like a popular revolt (which in history has always been more meaningful than an election or a battle victory, take the Intifada for instance…) The point is to render life impossible for Israel to continue as it is, to take their confidence away and to impose the will of the people to resist. This is the strategy that many have been advocating for a long time, but it has not always been carried out to any great degree either because it was not effective at all, it was kept silent by the press, it finds resistance by people as not being practical, suitable, etc, it did not achieve its results and no further attempts were made. Sami is NOT attacking Palestinians, as far as I can see, and most here are aware that his frustration is fueled by love of his people and desire for their freedom of Jewish Occupation. I believe that the PLO created this way of talking that we are all in a trap ("leave it in OUR hands") and need to find a way out of. What is that way: That the PLO is the SOLE representative of the Palstinian people has been a very dangerous thing that has thwarted a lot of action. It thus becomes automatic to either a) keep criticism of the PLO to oneself – because there are consequences and we know that those who are arrested often these days in Palestine are being arrested by the PA security forces… if you look at the situation of the Jericho Six, of journalists in the West Bank, it becomes clear that it is forbidden to speak out; b) to believe the official Palestinian reality and leadership has full legitimacy, with the consequences of that. People are never really standing up against this thing, and I am happy to say that in this paper, this is being done. Standing up to this "leave it in our hands" mentality has got to happen.
Let me illustrate. A few years ago, they voted in Iraq. Diapora Iraqis could vote, so we in Al Awda Italia decided it would be good to attempt to get all exile and diaspora Palestinians registered for the Administrative elections. We talked with the representative, and he thought that was a fine idea. We were set to meet a few days later, and since this is Italy, you double check the morning of appointments, and he was "gone"… had went back to Ramallah to help for the Fatah candidates. This is the representative of the Palestinians in Italy! His loyalities are to his party, and when they call him, he drops all and runs(and they do not bother to replace him… (anyway, no one listens when he speaks out, so what's the point of diplomats when you have elections coming up – is what they must have thought). Needless to say, given the history of the PLO in Italy (Wael Zuwaiter) we know that many Palestinians here do not profess their political leanings. They perhaps don't feel secure doing so. At any rate, the point is, people think in terms of party divisions, and the association of "the People" with the PLO is a trap that I think all of us have fallen into willingly or by accident. We need to work on fighting that.
We have gotten to the point when even a majority in Israel will "say" they want to end the occupation. Well, why is all of this so impossible? I don't know the answers, but I love that the questions and discussion exist.
Thanks to all Jilad and Uprooted Palestinian: I think we all agree that the enemy is ruthless, with no ethical or human values and not respect for human life that is not “Jewish” and for sure Israel is not Colonial England and a Ghandi of India will never succeed in a country with no moral and ethical values. Colonial England even in its heydays did give considerations to international law and international value system, Israel never did and it never adhered to any international laws or UN resolutions. I think we all agree on the nature of the state and I may add the nature of the “Israeli/Jewish/Zionist” people. Having said that and given these facts, I think we all agree the Palestinians do need a much more intelligent, committed, corrupt free leadership. We have suffered for too long from such self serving leadership from the days of Hajj Amin Hussaini to Arafat to Abbas and the PLO.A grave situation needs professional competent leadership not the one the Palestinian have. I do believe that our people are held hostage and under siege by a self serving leadership and my complaint with our people why is the silence? Why do we need to accept such a leadership? A leadership that legitimized the Occupation that legitimized the settlements, a leadership that sold out to the enemy and some years ago, way before Oslo. Arafat was nothing but a fraud and a lie, and time will tell. There is nothing wrong with holding the feet of the leadership to the fire and hold them accountable and responsible for their failures for their missteps. Citizens have every right to change leadership even by force as it happened in Iran, in Poland, in Indonesia, in Hungry and in Romania, what is wrong with that. Why do we of all people have to remain silent when we see and hear the likes of Abbas, Saeb or Abed-Rabbou or Qurai and all the Abus and all mothers—? Why we have to put up with such people who failed at every thing they set out to do and we do nothing about it. Our intellectuals are silent and sold out, even those we tout as outstanding they were all silent for so many years and they should have demanded a change in leadership way before Oslo, soon after Jordan certainly soon after Lebanon, definitely after Kuwait. Yes, there is nothing wrong with “Jald althat” self whipping if it means waking up, why do we have to accept the status quo and live with it? Why do we have to accept to live as refugees for so long with a camp leadership that is nothing but gangs and thugs why? Why do we need not challenge our leadership to come up with strategies and goals and objectives that we can hold them accountable to what are wrong with that? Why do we have to remain silent knowing the leadership to be nothing more than incompetent inept and bunch of thieves, thugs and crooks? Why do we not challenge someone like Farouk Kaddoumi who sat silent, perhaps too drunk all these years and why do we not challenge this kind of leadership that is nothing more than a parasite, living off the dead yes why not? Why do we have to accept a leadership that uses the people’s money to fund its own party activities paying cronies and cadres with millions of dollars when these dollars should have gone to fund schools and hospitals what is wrong with that? And yes, we have every right to challenge Hamas leadership and challenge its failed strategies and its shortcoming? If we remain silent then Hamas leadership will turn out to be another Fatah leadership? Why do we not challenge the likes of Hanan Ashrawi, Mustapha Bargouthi and others to stand up to corruption and incompetence and demand accountability and truly become the guardians of the peoples interest rather than remaining silent when they see all of the missteps and failures? What is wrong with that? Why the people of Argentina go out in the millions with pots and pans and chase the leadership out? Yes, I think that we an enemy like Israel we need a leadership like that of the late Dr. Haider Abul-Shafi. However I think and sad to say, give money to our people and you will buy their silence even if this silence means the loss of a country and the possibilities of living as slaves under occupation. That is the sad truth. I hope that someone from the Occupied Territories and Gaza challenge on all I have said. I like to point out one incident that took place in Gaza. Hamas was holding a rally and it brought to the site a truck full load of ammunition as part of the rally. As it happens of course there was lax security and safety and the truck exploded killing some 40 and injuring some 200. Sami Zuhri, Hamas spoke person immediately came out on the news and blamed Israel for the death of these people. My question to Hamas, why not take full responsibility for this criminal act and take actions against those irresponsible people who made that happens? Why do we always put the blame on Israel when we do not have the courage to take responsibilities for our stupid and reckless mistakes? I want to ask the Uprooted Palestinians, how many Palestinians were gunned down killed and murdered through internal fighting, in the tens of thousands and why no one take responsibility for that, we only hold Israel responsible for our dead but dare not hold the leadership responsible for such death? Why? Thanks again.
Gilad, Uprooted Palestinian, May and all … here are some ideas to share with every one.
I have some very specific ideas I like to share with all of you as a first step toward ending the Occupation. I think that we all need to keep our eyes, and focus on ending the Jewish/Israeli Occupation that lasted for some 42 years. I do not think that the priority should be spend on how to fix the problem and conflict between Hamas and Fatah, they simply can go to hell if they do not see the detriment there selfish and self serving dispute is causing the Palestinian people:
- Need for a sustained civil uprising, unarmed with no guns pointed toward the Israeli occupiers or toward the Palestinian Authority Security Forces or Hamas Executive Force.
- Tattooing the Israeli issued numbers on the wrest of every one, young and old, rich and poor reminding Israelis of their Nazi past.
- Massive burning of all issued Israeli IDs. Similar to the burning of draft cards as a protest against the Vietnam War. I know this means that people could not travel or move about… however this will be the start of serious fights against the Jewish Occupation. I think there should be maximum participation by the hundreds of thousands young and old, rich and poor all standing in the main square of each city and town and building a bone fire dumping all Israeli issued IDs.
- Tattooing the Israeli issued numbers on the wrest of every one, young and old, rich and poor reminding Israelis of their Nazi past.
- Organizing a weekly strike of all business and transportation in every town and every village.
-Organizing a tent city next to all of the Israeli security check points… reminding the world and our people of such crimes.
- Vigilant and around the clock massive crowd surrounding the Moqata of Abbas, and the same of Haniya in Gaza with yes banning of pots and pans same as the people did in Argentina, until the government in Ramallah resigns. Any way both Abbas and Fayyad do not have any legitimacy what so ever.
- Have someone like Mustapha Bargouthi and Hanan Ashrawi, well articulated personality with name and face recognitions to become the spoke person for such an uprising. Yes they can leave the comfort of their homes and offices and live in tent on Manara Square. Demanding the UN to intervene and place the entire Occupied Territories under UN Trusteeship and refusing any negotiations with Israel until UN take over the Occupation and remove Israel as Occupying Power.
- Blockading all access points with Israel and Egypt with mass of people and demanding the immediate lift of the siege on the Port of Gaza and demanding the immediate access to the sea, and inviting NATO, yes, NATO forces to manage the Port of Gaza.
I know this will take efforts and leadership and it will take lots of convincing for our people to join such massive sustained action even it means less food, less job and less purchasing power. I remember the First Intifada where people went back to the land and ate whatever they can produce. There were so many strikes daily and weekly, all were undermined by Arafat.
- No guns pointed toward Israeli and no guns pointed toward PA Security Forces of Hamas Executive Force. Let them start the shooting of unarmed civilians. Our people have the courage to stand up to Israeli tanks with stones. Why cant we all stand together for once and make a sustained stand until such time the US and the UN accept the immediate needs to end the Occupation… no negotiations nothing just simply end the Occupation, then negotiations can start, not before. I know this may mean that Saeb, Abbas and Qurai and all the guys in Ramallah will have nothing to be busy with, but they have to decide either they are with the people or they are with the Occupation. No in-between. I hope this will generate some more discussions.
no military resistance, that is a good idea. I've been saying this for at least 20 yrs. And not only in palestine but also afpak and iraq.
partisan military resistance was successful mostly because mighty empires also fought axis powers. resistance in muslim lands have no chance to succeed.
it may be noted that if christo-judean alliance wld be stymied, there is always wmd!
if US wld not ever allow expulsion of pal'ns from expalestine, pal'ns wld be winners. All that needs to be done is to abhor not only 'zionism', but also "jewishness" or a 'higher quality of being' in 'jewish' eyes.
[words under single quotes denote their false symbolic values] tnx
Yes, why not? A massive well organized civil uprising in all parts of Palestine including Gaza, no guns no Qassam Rockets no suicide bombing… simply a people uprising against both the Jewish Occupation and against the Ramallah government. We all need to keep in mind we were very close to defeating Israel in the First Intifada until Israel made Arafat and Fatah an offer they could not refuse… the rest is history. Also keep in mind, Arafat and the PLO gave up armed resistance and Barak soon after the failure of Camp David send his F-16 and F-15 to bomb cities and towns and the world said nothing. As such we all should know that the worlds, sad to say, will allow Israel to send its jets and bomb schools and hospitals and get away with it. We need to fight Israel and defeat it and this can happen with massive sustained well organized civil uprising. Israel with all of its might could never defeat us if we are united. No Hamas no Fatah but Palestinians fighting for liberty and freedom, fighting to end the Occupation and ending it now, not through endless negotiations. It is a question of will power, do we have it or we don’t.
There was another crucial element that would undermine the First Intifada that has not been mentioned. It was the role played by the US Congress which continued to give its unconditional political and financial support to Israel and to its response to the uprising despite unprecedented criticism of Israel in the US media,reflected in cartoons in the mainstream press that correctly describe Congress as Israeli occupied territory and compared Israel with both South Africa and Nazi Germany. Looking back on those cartoons,which were published in a booklet by the ADC in 1988 and realizing that nothing like it happened during the assault on Gaza or on Lebanon in 2006 is to understand the degree of control that that the Jewish establishment has gained over the mainstream media, since many of those same cartoons are still at work today. Why is this important? Because the US Congress, bought and paid for by the Zios many times over. is an objective enemy of the Palestinian people (as it is, of course, of people in struggle across the globe), and exposing it beginning at a local level should be the responsibility of everyone in the US to is serious about liberating Palestine, that means Palestinians and non-Palestinians. Up to now, thanks to the misguided analysis of Chomsky and his followers, that has neve been tried. All the boats and delgations that go to Gaza or try to go, may lift people's spirits there and relieve to a small degree their hardships, but, like the ISM and its dedicated followers, they have not succeeded in changing anything on the ground. In fact, what they have done goes unreported in the US media as did the hijacking of the Spirit of Humanity by the Israeli navy, which was reported in a few local papers but ignored by the mainstream. Clearly, where the work has to be done is here in the US for Americans, in the UK for Brits,etc. The BDS movement is an important step which has made important strides in Europe but not in the US where the Jewish establishment is stronger and the movement, correspondingly, weaker.
Massive civil disobedience on the part of Palestinians against the PA and the IOF has been suggested before and perhaps wouldwork if enough people participated over a long enough period so that the US press could not ignore it as it has ignored virtually all the non-violent protests that have been taking place in the West Bank in the past few years, non-violent protests that have been met with Israeli violence. Perhaps, protests against the media for not covering the stories would be a good idea and far better than the ritual time wasting protests in front of the Israeli consulates or marches demanding an end to the occupation.
Sami, as much as I think that a real resistance at every level is something that would be "good for" the spirit of the people to get the struggle back in focus, I can't see asking or expecting people who are already under seige and such difficult living conditions to do more. I also agree with Jeff that it would not get the media coverage, and all it might bring is more suffering to Palestinians. However, there are some ideas you have that are excellent, things to disturb the "ordinary quiet lives" of Israelis, and development of "victory gardens" (as they used to be called) or any other means to reduce trade with Israel would be a good way to start. However, I believe that the sympathetic people in other countries should begin more and more to involve themselves as Jeff says, in education, in boycotting or exposing the media that fails to present the facts, then moving on to other actions (days of fasting, and this private act being done with public awareness if possible, which have been done for prisoners, for instance) boycotts, (my daughter and I did two local initiatives a few years ago in a shopping mall! Against Jaffa fruit and The Power Rangers school bags and accessories. We got a LOT of attention and we actually got the local media to cover it. People on two Saturdays started to associate Israeli and Zionist products with something bad. I could go on and on, but many of Sami's ideas could be enacted if there were some kind of movement that would make some of them appealing to the people and if they would only damage Israelis and not Palestinians.
I do know a group of Palestinians who decided to make a claim to their homeland. They tried to cross as a group over the Allenby Bridge from Jordan and were turned back, but they always said that if they could convince a thousand to do it together, to force their way in, it might work. One friend said he was willing to be shot in order to be allowed in. Return is seen as a battle.
I fully understand the spirit of your words, your call to popular resistance and revolt, Sami, my friend, and I wish this call would indeed spread and become the standard thing to do. The passion for justice and for redress is very strong, but it needs to find its way out. It might be a matter of time. We all know that no one is going to allow it to happen unless the Palestinians make it happen.
Sami
There is a lot to read , I put a link at my site to this Debate
Dear Jesse
on July 27th, 2009 at 15:00:
I understand and share you concerns, and would say to Hamas: You already have enough enemies. However, I believe Hamas is under pressure of other Islamic factions, and may rethink.
As I said before: If I have to chose between Liberation and human rights, I chose Liberation.
Dear Gilad
Thank you again.
UP, thanks for linking to the debate. As you know, your site is one of my favourites (and will be an upcoming featured site, see "Mary's Choice" for more details.
I am glad the debate is taking place. This is what most of us are here for. All respectful input is useful and educational for all of us.
Agree with Gilad.. Liberation first, however liberation does not mean the need to run a police state with no accountability and a systematic of civil and human rights. People want to be free from foreign occupation but they need not fall into the oppression and dictatorship state. The Bolshevik and Khmer Rouge and the FLN, Nasser regime, Saddam, Assad and Qadhafi regimes are some examples. No need for Palestinians to leave Israeli jails to enter the jails of Hamas and Fatah. Hamas should have learned from the failure of Fatah and its dependence and use on Preventive Security as a racketeering organization made of thugs and bandits. They should have learned that they under a microscope and the world will magnify every single mistakes or violations of basic human rights. They should set themselves to a much higher standard of conduct, transparency and of course respect for human rights. They won the hearts and minds of people because of the humanitarian work and the ‘clean” leadership. They are losing the support of the leadership inability to take charge of the lose and reckless military organization, the abuse and misuse of police power not so different from Fatah and now the setting up of code of conduct, what to wear and not to wear in public and courts. I think there is an absolute need for Hamas to clean its acts to limit the appearance of its too many spokespersons who simply repeat what they said the night before and most of all, give the people some slack. I do not mean they need to allow bars, whore houses or things like that, but allow for arts and music, for sports for women, mixed educations, etc. They need to show the people what kind of state and what kind of government they are capable of setting up. The people do not need a government like that of Fatah run by bearded men. They want to see a an accountable transparent government that respect human rights, privacy of citizens and give ending the occupation, rebuilding Gaza, clean the streets, the open sewers, clean water a priority… dress code for women lawyers can simply wait and is not a priority. Let them solve the people’s daily problems and let the people worry about their own moral code and their quest for heaven. Let them put emphasis and priorities to getting people to work rather than making a job with a security force the only job in town. They should learn the pitfalls and mistakes of Fatah and do not repeat the same thing, which I think they are doing now, but to a lesser extent. Let Fatah members attend the 6th conference, so what. I continue to believe in public uprising so that the US and the world will see the Palestinians are not willing to wait for this Israeli government or the next one to decide if they want to give the Palestinians limited self rule and keep them under occupation.
Dearest Gilad
Listening to you, talking on Enlightenment, self love, Judification and other forms of Choseness and Jewish Idealogy, not Judaism, explained to me why you " happen to agree with every word you say here."
Indeed, here we are on the same page.
we have to differenciate between two types of discourse when discussing Hamas
1- people who hate Hamas simply because its not bending up to their deires (israeli/american imperialism-recognizing israel/quartert conditions)….and I applaud hamas for not bending to it, (they paid the price too, so we cannot doubt it)
2- people who appreciate its resistance but dislike or hate their ideological agenda(I consider myself to be one of those)
in any case, I don't think hamas is good for palestinians for the long run and the signs for this are showing post Gaza war……….I feel they are becoming highly arrogant and embittered(my personal opinion)….their idealogues stands against this.
we need a blend between those who believe in armed resistance along with all other types of reistance and a progressive stand on the national cause/human rights….etc
and Mustapha bargouthi, with all due repect for hi "the national palestinian intiiative" party, the fact that he doesn't believe in armed resistance as an option whatoever, will make paletinians always look some where else.
I mean, I think his party "might" be very good with democracy, human rights, econmics, I am not undermining that.. but in national liberation, sacrifce is also required….and we need some people who step for this, having learned from all the mistakes and failures of everyone elses.
"But even mainstream “peace” movements in the West try to delegitimize resistance by calling on both Palestinians and Israelis to renounce overt acts of violence, equating Palestinians who commit suicide bombings with Israelis who send F-16s, D9 military bulldozers, and Apache attack helicopters to level entire neighborhoods. The problem is that the usually random and individual acts of violence by Palestinians against Israelis are not equal to the myriad structural oppressions and cruelties imposed on Palestinians through Israeli government policies. No Palestinian fighter jets bomb Israeli cities – because Palestine has no fighter jets. No Palestinian bulldozers demolish Israeli homes – because Palestine has no military bulldozers. No Palestinian soldiers invade Israeli neighbourhoods, terrorizing the populace – because there is no Palestinian army. The conflict in Palestine is a war of Israeli state terror against a largely unarmed and defenceless civilian population. Even immoral and self-defeating acts of violence against Israeli civilians (such as some suicide bombings are) cannot be equated with the daily humiliations, terror, and death that Israel inflicts on Palestinians by deliberate policy. Contrary to its presentation in the mainstream media, this conflict is neither a righteous war against evil Arab terrorists, nor a religious or ethnic dispute between two opposing and equally self-justified groups of people. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is the struggle of two irreconcilable and unequal causes: the struggle of an oppressed people for freedom, justice, and self-determination against their oppressors’ struggle to maintain (and even expand) their domination. Under these circumstances resistance is not only a right – it's a moral imperative. This is not to say that any and all acts of resistance are acceptable. Clearly they are not. But it grows tedious to continually hear well-meaning, but otherwise clueless, Westerners try to equate the two sides of this conflict. I am past tired of hearing white people passively whine, or shrilly demand, “Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?”
Ramzi Kysia is an Arab-American essayist and an organizer with the Free Gaza Movement.
tiny, impoverished israel, which cldn't make a spoon if it wasnt for christo-talmudic soyuz, cannot at this time nor in near furure establish any israel or 'jewish' state.
the war-peace process against pal'ns over the last 90+ yrs proves it.
i also educe that US/Israel will only talk to those pal'ns who wld [tacitly or by deeds] let isarelis know that they know the rules.
israel/US knows that whatever they may 'offer' to pal'ns, these wld reject the offer even if it be best ever.
but looking at the current map of palestine, forget the word "best" i just posited.
probably worst ever 'offer' is to be fully expected.
and US/Israeli negotiations in public with its salieint preconditions signify that the future talks wld be ab. minor factors.
in short, talks are over already! tnx
We all are for resistance. We were for it for many years from the days of Ahmed Shukair to the days of Arafat. We also need to keep in mind, with some minor exceptions such as defending Beirut against the Israeli invasion, brave resistance lead fought and paid for not by leadership and senior officers (who ran away from the fight only to be promoted to the ranks of generals and return with Arafat to lead his Israeli Protection Security Forces. We also need to keep in mind more Palestinians died in factional fighting than died fighting Israel. The question is what kind of resistance do we want and are able to carry one with certain degree of success? Is it the resistance of Arafat and the “Fasael/ factions? Is it the resistance of Hamas and suicide bombings and Qassam rockets? Is it the resistance of Fatah as part of the Palestinian Authority? Do we use conventional wars, or guerilla wars, and where the effective weapon comes from? Can we fight Israeli jets with M-16 and Uzis? Do we go after the Israeli infrastructures of bridges, power stations, roads, communication system or what? I think we need to define which and what resistance do want and can work and has reasonable chance to succeed? Can we have an effective resistance with Fatah in charge of the West Bank and Hamas in charge of Gaza? Questions that certainly needs answer. I know resistance sounds very good and very romantic, but let us debate and define the resistance we want. Is the resistance of popular uprising with millions participating in or is it the armed resistance of the few thousands? Could we have a reasonable armed resistance that is not penetrated by collaborators and informers? I have many questions and I hope we can have many answers? I always believed in the absolute rights to resists military and armed settler’s occupation with armed means and within the Occupied Territories of 67 as defined by international law as “occupied territories” but then I always had questions about the best and most effective means of resistance, even armed ones? Is it the best options for the present conditions or we have to think out of the box? Last but not least did we forget that Arafat, the PLO and Fatah all gave up armed resistance and got paid for it?
@uprooted palestinian –
We are on the same page, the next Q is how to bring others to read that very page..
Sukran a million for the reference on your site…
Referance on my site is a step on the long way to let them read and understand that very page,
Million welcome..
The question is what kind of resistance do we want and are able to carry one with certain degree of success?
As uprooted Palestinian, I leave the answer to Palestinians Under direct occupation, and I think they elected the resistance option, Its up to them to decide the way they resist, and its my duty to supoort their resistance whether with stones or Guns, or explosive belts.
"I know resistance sounds very good and very romantic, but let us debate and define the resistance we want. Is the resistance of popular uprising with millions participating in or is it the armed resistance of the few thousands? "
Both are required,
" I always believed in the absolute rights to resists military and armed settler’s occupation with armed means and within the Occupied Territories of 67 as defined by international law as “occupied territories”
So, Gaza is Liberated, with Israeli withdrawal and desmetling Gaza settlements and Gazan should stop launching Qussam on Israel as defined by "International law" release Shalit for lifting the siege, recognize the Jewish state, forget the prisoners of zion,and, leave West bank palestinians alone???
,
As far as I am concerned, Palestine from river to see, Gollan, and Shebaa farms are occupied territories, However, as I told Anon on my site, I support an independant state in WB and Gaza without selling my rights,
To begin with, I always viewed Israel as a colonial settler state that has nothing to do with the Promise Land and has nothing to do with Chosen People, simple land grab and theft. Since God never promised the land, certainly the British never had a right to promise the land either. It was nothing but colonial powers and racism supporting each other. As such I will always question the legitimacy of the state and believe in the absolute rights of those exiled to return or to choose. It is individual choice, and I wrote about this issue.
Gaza was never freed; the idiots (Abbas, Dahalan and Saeb) in Ramallah negotiated the siege of Gaza and gave Israel the rights to control access to Gaza. If Dahl an did not negotiate with Mofaz the Access Agreement, then the Palestinians of Gaza will not be in this mess. In view it is the Palestinian leadership of the PLO/Fatah that gave legitimacy to Israel to do all that it wants and I think that Fatah was rewarded for it. As such Israel never left Gaza; it only locked Gaza and took the key. Do not see why we insist on opening the border access when there is a sea out there with the possibilities of having direct access to the world like this daring boat visiting Gaza. I say hell with Israel and Egypt, let them close the borders but open the Sea Port of Gaza.
As for resistance, there is no disagreement however I do disagree with the use of suicide bombing and explosive belts as a matter of religious and ethical views. However will always question the effective use of Qassam rockets as the source and corner base of resistance? I think they are useless an RPJ is more effective than thousands of these.
The strategy for resistance is the responsibility of those under occupation and the responsibility of the “uprooted Palestinians” they too have to share in and decide on the strategy. They should not but the burden only on those under Occupation.
The problem is and will always remain, successful liberation, successful resistance, successful management of the affairs of the country, success in building a nation state and deciding the counters of such a state takes leadership, and sorry to say the Palestinians inside and outside do not have that kind of leadership. They all have been compromised either by the host country, or by Israel, by money, by prestige or power; certainly I do not see a leadership out there that is fit to lead to end the occupation, let alone liberation not to mention the Right of Return. Do you think for a moment that the Fatah meeting in Bethlehem is fit to lead to liberation; it is living off the blood and sweat of our people.
@Sami Jamil Jadallah –
To begin with, every Palestinian knows that Israel is a colonial settler state. its a fact admitted by ben Gorion: "With compulsory transfer we [would] have a vast area [for settlement] …. I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it." (Righteous Victims, p. 144)
"If Dahl an did not negotiate with Mofaz the Access Agreement, then the Palestinians of Gaza will not be in this mess….Israel never left Gaza; it only locked Gaza and took the key. …. let them close the borders but open the Sea Port of Gaza."
I would say, If Arafat did not negociate the OSLO agreement to end the first Intifadah that led to whole mess, Israel would have left Gaza without conditions and left all the keys with Gazans. It is arafat, who gave Rabin, not only all the key, he legitimised the God//Balfour (call it as you like) deed for 78% of the "promised land"
So I bet you should know that Israel have the key of the Sea and the once upon a time so called Gaza airport. I bet you know the story of the Egyption Pilot who challanged that, and know what happenned to last Free Gaza movement trip, and whats happening to gazan fishing men..
As for resistance, there is disagreement however You have the right do disagree "with the use of suicide bombing and explosive belts as a matter of religious and ethical views", and shold repect the opinion of others thinking otherwise. However will always question the effective use of Qassam rockets as the source and corner base of resistance? I think they are useless an RPJ is more effective than thousands of these, who would remind you that Isareal is a ."colonial settler state" as you started with.
You have the right question the effective use of Qassam rockets as the source and corner base of resistance? And think they are useless an RPJ is more effective than thousands of these. In my previous comment I debated , your limitting resistance to 1967 OT. And would like to remind you it is Hezbullah Katyouha that made Nisan Agreement Possible (Stop attcking civillian, we stop the Katyousha). Hamas almost achieved that with <a href="Mickey Mouse Resistance" Still Confronting Tanks, Helicopter Gunships and Missiles…… "Mickey Mouse Resistance
Don't tell me again that the scale of wining and losing is the Number of Casualties. Preventing yourenemy from achieving its goals is a victory, and both Hamas and Hizbullah did that.
The strategy for resistance is the responsibility of those who fight. until 1982 It was mainly the responsibilty of uprooted palestinians under occupation and the responsibility of the “uprooted Palestinians”, And turned to be the responsibility of those under Occupation. Resistance is not limilted to armed resistance, and every Palestinian can resist in a way or another. Staying in Jerusalem is restance, refusing nationalization is resistance, serving Palestinin communities in diaspora is resistance, preserving Palestinian culture, follore and heritage is resistance, online activism, debating zionist propaganda is resistance.
In short, leave Breadmaking to the baker, أترك الخبز لخبازوا
I have the right to share, not the right to hijack the decision.
As for your question; "Do you think for a moment that the Fatah meeting in Bethlehem is fit to lead to liberation; it is living off the blood and sweat of our people. "
I never cosidered Fatah, a resistance movement, and because of this I refuse comparing it to Hamas. I have, since early sixties a big question mark on Arafat,, forming Fateh in 1958 at peak of the Arab nationalism, and failure of Baghdad pact, who turned the Arab Central cause, into a Palestinian cause, and ended destoying that Palestinian Cause,
@Sami Jamil Jadallah –
Adding the link
Hamas almost achieved that with Mickey Mouse Resistance
@Sami Jamil Jadallah –
Four years ago, when sharon pulled out from Gaza, Keeping the key, Uri Avnery wrote to Gaza Settlers;
Dear Settler
""I might have some sympathy for your plight, if you had uttered one word of compassion for the inhabitants of the 1500 Palestinian homes that were destroyed because of you, a greater number than all the homes of the settlers that are being destroyed now. If you had expressed any compassion for the children that were evicted from their homes within half an hour, without compensation, without hotels and psychologists. For the thousands of trees uprooted in order to supply you with "security". ""
Four years ago I commented as follows
Dear Uri
You are a coloniser like your dear Gaza settlers, the only difference is you settled in Palestine Land 19 years before your dear Gaza settler..
Therefore, I can't buy your sympathy for "the inhabitants of the 1500 Palestinian homes that were destroyed because of" your dear settlers, "for the children that were evicted from their homes within half an hour, without compensation, without hotels and psychologists. For the thousands of trees uprooted in order to supply you with "security". "
You did the same, "Over a period of two years, from 1947-1949, you demolished 419 Arab villages and depopulated the Palestinian Arabs in those towns. When the state of Israel was established in 1948 it became apparant that this Zionist policy was a systematic state-sponsored program to replace Palestinians and their land with Jews and Jewish villages."
The following are some quotes by a Palestinian author, Walid Khalidi said by the Israeli war hero, Moshe Dayan.
"By the end of the 1948 war, hundreds of entire villages had not only been depopulated but obliterated, their houses blown up or bulldozed. While many of the sites are difficult to access, to this day the observant traveller of Israeli roads and highways can see traces of their presence that would escape the notice of the casual passer-by: a fenced-in area, often surmounting a gentle hill, of olive and other fruit trees left untended, of cactus hedges and domesticated plants run wild. Now and then a few crumbled houses are left standing, a neglected mosque or church, collapsing walls along the ghost of a village lane, but in the vast majority of cases, all that remains is a scattering of stones and rubble across a forgotten landscape." Walid Khalidi, Palestinian author, All That Remains.
"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushu'a in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not one single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab Population." Moshe Dayan, Israeli war hero, Address to the Technion, Haifa(as quoted in Ha'aretz, April 4, 1969)
You did the same, committed massacres and war crimes to uproot 750000 palestinian from their homeland, turned them into refugees in their own land and neigbour countries, denied and still denying their right of return.
Your real concern is not the Palestinians under occupation, it is new settler endangering the future of Israel, and the future of Zionism,
By "YOU" I meant all 1948 settlers
Israel and since Oslo made sure there will never be a free independent Palestinian state and the only ones who bought the idea are the reckless stupid idiot fools who negotiated Oslo. Arafat & Co. knew very well what they signed on is a management contract and that Oslo will never ever lead to a Palestinian state. All of them are simply buying time while Israel continues to take large bites of the land. Given these circumstances why can’t the Palestinian people abandon the pursuit of autonomous state run by thugs and thieves and seek a one state solution as the only viable option. Just like Israel will never wipe out the Palestinians from Palestine and exile the rest, the Palestinians has to also know they simply could not get rid of 6 million people living in Israel. With no perfect solution for both, I think the one state solution should be the only solution at the table. We know the leadership in Gaza and Ramallah do not buy that, because they also have vested interests in creating two Palestinian states each in the image of its leaders. Let us face these facts too. I have no problem whatsoever living in a joint Palestine/Israel state.
I read the article and comments for many days and wanted always to be able to make a comment. I thank the people who have written here, I am very interested in all what is said. Resistance to all pressure and then Support for resistance is what is needed, but real truth is that we have no resistance. That is the comment I need to make, and it is sad. I lived in Gaza and I do not feel we have anything to say we won or that we prevented enemy from winning in the war against us that goes on even now. This is wrong to try for to make us all feel better that we pretend Israel was set back and not us. I look every day at the pictures that move along the screen on top of the page and I see how we have been made to suffer and we gained nothing from this, not even that our conditions are better with countries who should be helping us.
I see here this comment by someone who for most part has made good comments, the uprooted Palestinian and he says this,
Don't tell me again that the scale of wining and losing is the Number of Casualties. Preventing yourenemy from achieving its goals is a victory, and both Hamas and Hizbullah did that.
My question to him and to all is – did Hamas prevent the enemy from achieving its goals? My answer is – No. NO it did not. Israel got what it wanted. It wanted the stop to resistance and Qassams and they got precisely this. Israel maintains blockade, they close still all borders and so does Egypt and we don't have anything to thank for the future just that many of us who still inside only want to get out. What was Israel's goal other than to weaken and put Gaza in worse condition and to stop any rocket fires? This was what they wanted and this is what they got. I am sorry you do not see this, but this is how the story is.
As much as we want to believe they did not have great victory of destroying us all, they destroyed enough of us and we no better for all what happened.
We don't blame Hamas for all what happened, we blame Israel and all who send them the weapons and who let it be, but we do not all regard Hamas as heroic resistance but some do, from what I see, mostly it is people far from here. Of course the story is very different in Lebanon, though Hezbollah act as regular governing bodies and not resistance force. I personally admire all what they did, but they did not lift a finger towards helping us. Words were spoken and this is it. We do not regard anyone else as having resisted or come for to help us either. No one came for to help us. If this is how you want to believe resistance is, it is failure. I am sorry this is how it is, but Israel is no weaker, only we are. Hamas had little materiel so to truly resist. It is not Hamas's fault for all of that. It got no big help from anywhere so yes, it survived and this is all, but to survive is not to resist if your enemy gets what they want and you give it to them too.
It is true what Sami writes that if there is give up idea of unity of all our land, not only Gaza and West Bank, we will find very strong Israel who will crush us more and more and then Gaza abandeoned by West Bank with very different government and would we have more to hope for than surviving again? We don't want a Gaza autonomous from West Bank or from all our lands. I think resistance have never been so weak as today and I welcome many new forms of it because it can't succeed in the way it is. Thank You. Tarek
@sami jamil jadallah –
We are getting closer, Gilad rightfully mentioned how the zionist project aiming for control of the area between the Euphrates and the Nile ended creating a Getto within the seperation wall, the greatest Palestinian achievement.
I posted today an article by Mazin Qumsiyeh, about Fatah conference. Mazan "had a fantasy that attendees would do what the first conventiuon of Palestinian women did in 1929: go the streets, challenge the occupation and demand self determination."
But, Most of the people he "talk to (of various political leansings) believe that this convention will instead likely validate the negotiations track taken during Oslo (many opposed these talks that are not based on human rights and International Law). In the unlikely event that this conference reinvigorates the resistance plank of Fatah, there are implicit and explicit Israeli threats which are taken seriously since Bethlehem and all its visitors are under Israeli brutal military occupation. If the convention tries to straddle the fences and to come up with an arrangement that attempts to satisfy everyone, then it will likely fail. But while Fatah is a core segment of our society, it is not all. And we must remember that Palestine is bigger than any of us.
We Palestinians are in Lebanon, in the US, inside Palestine 1948, inside the West Bank, in Gaza, and everywhere. Palestine is in us regardless of political leanings (or even courage). Collectively, we are diverse, dynamic, and able to resurrect hope in the land where it is believed that Jesus was resurrected from the death. It is this larger Palestine that gives us hope.
The original Zionist blueprints are for control of the area between the Euphrates and the Nile. Here we are 130 years later and even the area between the Jordan and the Mediterranean is roughly at parity between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians.
30 years ago, Zionists had convinced most of the world that there was no such thing as Palestinians. Today most of the world and even Zionists themselves recognize that not only are there Palestinians but that indeed there is such a thing as Palestine."
Mazin is completing a book on history of civil resistance in Palestine. "What is notable is that resistance has been sporadic with periodicity of 10-15 years between uprisings (beginning in 1891) . "
For him, you and me "the biggest successes (and there have been many) were achieved from grass root movements when Palestinians joined hands and worked together (e.g. the beginning of the 1987 uprising)."
Sami
It is the armed struggle, Plane highjacking, that made "most of the world and even Zionists themselves recognize that not only are there Palestinians but that indeed there is such a thing as Palestine." and it the great first intifadah and the Palestinian womb (demographic nightmare) that forced Israel to go to oslo to sign the management contract . Mahmoud Darweesh hit the nail in saying that Oslo solved nothin more than the problem of the Tired Palestinian Leadership.
An old Fatah Gaurd, send an advise to Mahmoud Abbass before Camp David, to disolve the PA, and drop arms, and call for granting Palestinians under occupation the Israeli Citizenship. Fateh rejected the advise, and even if it was put on the table Israel will reject it.
Given these circumstances I would say the PA thugs and thieves shall not abandon the pursuit of autonomous state and Israel shall never within the given circumstances accept a one state solution.
Nasralla hit the nail in saying that Israel is weaker that the spider home. Israel will never wipe out the Palestinians from Palestine and exile the rest, and the Palestinians don't need wipe out the 6 million settlers living in Israel, they know Palestine is not theirs, and shall leave. In July war they moved south to Avoid Hezbullah Rokets, and in Gaza War they moved north. Immagine the situation with Palestinian having Rockets in WB.
Its a long struggle, and we have to look into the full half of the cup.
I don't think you will find a single Palestinian who has had his land and farm divided or stolen by the apartheid wall which Netanyahu announced last week would be permannent, who believes the wall represents a defeat for the Zionists and a victory for the Palestinians. Israel can thumb its nose at the World Court decision that the wall was illegal as it has done with every UN resolution beginning with 194 and get away with it, since the EU, like the USA, has come under the Zionist thumb and says nothing.
As for the second '"victory," I have yet to meet a single person who has been to Gaza since the Israeli onslaught who has come back reporting how the people there speak of having won a victory, as the borders remain closed and even the president of the US has not had the courage to say a single word about Israeli atrocities and is even wavering on his demand that Israel "freeze" settlement building, which would be comic if it was not so tragic.Moreover, Israel causes billions of destruction as it did in Lebanon and the UN, the US, the EU, do not ask the Zionists to pay a single dime for reconstruction and instead, they have a fund raising meeting in Cairo to find the money and not a single paper in the West, even among the so-called enlightened left, points that out. I don't think the Palestinian can afford any more such "victories" as the wall and Gaza, no matter how coats of paint are put on them.
Oslo not only was the greatest betrayal of a people in modern times, it predictably created both dissension and confusion among the people as to what to do that remains to this very day. The US has created an army for the PA that is not designed to liberate the land but suppress resistance to the occupier as we saw when the PA police broke up protests on the West Bank during the war on Gaza. And when the IOF comes into a village at night so seize someone, the PA soldiers are nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, Israel pulls out a few checkpoints that might be put back in place another day and asks the West to pet it and the West obliges. That is the reality facing Palestine today And not a single Arab or for that matter non-Arab government lifts a hand or raises a voice of protest. Still, the Palestinians remain steadfast and are not going anywhere, and as happened in 87, it may take another generation, as Mazin Qumisyeh suggests, to reignite the resistance.
I agree with Tarek
The palestinian resistance could not be any weaker right now
it may take another generation to pull off something effectual……..I agree with that assesment, maybe then cirumstances would be better, palestinians would be unified, there are new generation of palestinian leaders…..etc.
Gaza is still beseiged ………..Hamas is weak and in a way lost (well cause unlike Hizbullah , no one is helping them, and everyone was against them) the PA suppressed resistance in west bank ……….the palestinians are divided…………we are in a very weak situation…………the situation is actually quite revolting
.
Hello and thank you Jesse, thank you Jeff Blankfort for your important view. I thank not only because I agree with you but I am glad you are saying what you do. There was no victory in Gaza and taking permenently our land anywhere on Palestine, even one centimeter of it – is no good thing I don't care if it does make a Zionist to feel he renounces something because in the meantime, our lives and our land are devastated and you joke on it as if it has nice aspect to it and Zionist chews his hand. Gaza was no win for us and no loss for Israel, and why is anyone saying that it was? There really are people who believe that Israel did not win all who read these sites that tell the facts? What am I to think for people who watched the news and all is forgotten instead of mythic of "victory of resistance" i see in some of this comments? Where there were things and buildings and places to grow food now there is nothing in some places. Where is my uncle, he is dead and his house is demolished and street contaminated with illegal phosphorus weapons. This is what you like to see? I will not sadden myself to read this more. I would like all to be honest, aware, but this takes to admit we fail again.
Is Hamas resistance? Do not forget that Israel did not fight really Hamas but they fought Palestinians and Gazan people particularly. Hamas did not have power to fight or to protect because not any Palestinians have this and this is why you have many who give up and go away the first chance. No one expected then or now that Hamas resist for us. And, like before I said, Israel wanted that Hamas stop shooting and Hamas did just that. I define resistance different, it does not agree to stop fighting for nothing in exchange but damages.
I think of more Israel achieved, they had agreement with the USA government to stop "contraband " and what I learned they call smuggling. At the same time, they leave on the total blockade. CAn this be another great Palestinian achievement, Gilad and the Uprooted Palestinian? Are will going to shoot ourselves in the chest now instead of let us be shot? How much nicer do we want to be with ourselves. I won't wait for the list. I can make the list myself, it is the same list of always.
I am convince -Without a way to unify and to stop lying to ourselves we are doomed especially if our death is looked at like Israeli loss. There will never be any justice for any of this. What joke are you saying that Hamas resisted for us and that our sufferings are victories? Why did Hezbollah win in the Lebanon? It is very easy to understand – they unified behind them all Lebanese. They did not have division in this. No Lebanese wants occupation and they overcome the divisions and they stand behind resistance.
I am tired and sick of people to say what divides us and no one to say what makes us united and this is the sole way to do anything, to not pick any side but side of Palestinians people. We want only the people to be with uswho suffer if we suffer, and do not elate when we are kicked and killed. Those who do this, if you Palestinian or not, what are you doing playing games? It hurts me too much and I do not want more to comment here or read this. Thank you, good bye and pray for us. Tarek
Between Israel, Fatah, Hamas, PLO, and the PA, Palestine is lost, the Palestinians are lost, the liberation is not in sight, democracy and freedom is no where in site, and the Israelis are ethnically cleansing Sheik Jarrah stealing the land from the Palestinians and giving it to Jewish settlers. 45 years of PLO/Fatah leadership and 24 years of Hamas, we have two organizations that abandoned their own goals and mission and became consume with their own self serving interest and lost in between any chance of a decent democracy, sense of human rights and civil liberties. I do agree agree with Tarek… Israel did not win and did not lose it only destroyed what it set out to do, destroy Gaza. Destruction of Hamas was never part of its agenda, just simple mean vindictive way to make the people of Gaza suffer. Hamas did not win, because it was not there to protect and it did not inflict the kind of heavy damage its PR machine let us believe. Fatah is meeting in Bethlehem to find a way to continue fleecing the public treasury and sucking the blood out of the people, with the PA paying some 40,000 members of Fatah who simply do nothing, do not work for a living, do not contribute to society, some 40,000 parasites who live of the blood and sweat of people. Israeli, the US, Europe, Japan, the World Bank, the Arabs when they fund the PA to pay the salaries, they are in fact keeping Fatah machine going. Without funding from the PA, these 40,000 parasites will drop and abandoned Fatah by the tens of thousands, what keep Fatah alive is the money it steals, rob and fleece. As we have seen it is very likely there will never be a democracy or the practice of democracy, there will be a one party state, one in Gaza and one in the West Bank. Both Hamas and Fatah dropped and abandoned the work toward liberation and are busy with self preservation. Meanwhile the Settlers are having a field day. Thank you Fatah and than you Hamas, you won and the people lost.
With full respect to all who disagreed with me I still believe something wrong saying what is wrong with the Palestinians? A whole lot.
I am not singling people I am singling ideas, problematic ideas, even if it's the ideas of our brothers and sisters, rather than singling people. I criticized and commented on the content, on the ideas, and I have no power to silent, moderate, censor ideas and thoughts on this site. I don't do that even at my own site, where comments are not moderated, and reader to comment don't have to give their e-mails
The Issue is not Fateh and Hamas. The real issue is not human rights, not the dress code, not Hamas prisoners at PA Prison, not Fateh prisoners at Hamas jails.
Again the real Issue is not Fateh and Hamas. Palestine is bigger than both, as Mazin Quwasimy correctly said. The Real Issue is Resistance or Resisting Resistance, as Dr. Abdelsattar Qassem, rightfully summarized. I meant by resistance all types of resistance.
And once the Palestinians agree on big issue, they will agree easily agree on the secondary issues. It's up to you to decide where you stand.
For Tarik, I would say.
Yes, Israel failed to achieve its goals, in both Lebanon and Gaza. Yes Israel destroyed Lebanon, and Gaza, and would do it again and again, but I don't think the Goal was the destruction, or maintaining the siege on Gaza. The goal was destroying the resistance will, and that’s where Israel failed.
Netanyaho indirectly admitted that in Hoping that Palestinians will Eventually Topple Hamas. Netanyahu's tool in making his dream come true, is maintaining the siege, untill your resistance is broken. Its sad to see some Palestinian falling into Netanyah's Trap, with all respect to their right of speach, I repeat, what Gilad said "your silence would be appreciated"
You were right in not blaming Hamas, as others did, for all what happened,
Yes, I agree with you, the the story is very different in Lebanon, but, the main difference is geological, Lebanon was never under siege even during July War.
Gaza and West Bank were always under siege, thanks to "Lions" in Cairo and Amman.
It is not fair to say that Hezbollah "did not lift a finger towards helping" you. and to say "No one came for to help" you. I am not in a position to tell you what they did for you, but I am sure Both Mossad and Omar Suleiman knows what Hezbollah did, or tried to do via your neighbors (Jordan and Egypt. And that may explain why Hamas had "little materiel so to truly resist".
Yes, I agree with you "It is not Hamas's fault for all of that", but it aslo not the Fault of Hezbollah, nor its the fault of Syria and Iran. To set the record faily we should say, it is the treason in Jordan and Cairo.
Within, the given geopolitical circumstance, I would disagree with you, and say, I salute Hamas Heroic stand in both milary resistance with the "little material they have", and the political resistance, against the inhuman Iraeli / Egyptian siege. I salute all International Activists trying to break it.
SURVIVAL IS RESISTANCE, and as long as they fail to break our will, our blood shall defeat all swords.
Saying what is wrong with the Palestinians and listing these wrongs is a first step toward self correction. This is not self lynching, but a wake up call, to take full responsibly for whom we are and what we turned up to be, collaborators, beggars and thieves when we were model of hard work, love for education, love for the country and love for traditional values. Arafat, Fatah and the PLO changed all of that. We are where we are today because we remained silent all these years as the leadership won and we lost. They won because we did not have the courage to stop them and throw them out of the window and the leadership role long time. We are where we are because we did not insist of democracy, or building institutions rather than “dakakeens”, we are where we are because we accept a one party state, one in Gaza and one in the West Bank. Who would believe no one dare to say anything as some 2,500 Fatah operative meet and greet and celebrate their victory over our people funded by $50 millions budget taken out of the people budget, money that could have paid for thousands of teachers and doctors, yet we remain silent. I say yes, there is a whole lot with us as people for remaining silent for all these years. Have we put Arafat out of business right out of Amman we will not be in this miserable and tragic position we are. Yes, we have a lot of be ashamed of and few things to be proud of. Let us not kid our self or make believe. We failed because we did not work hard, honest enough toward success, toward liberation, toward freedom, certainly toward democracy. The days of ancient slogans, the days of Ahmed Saeed and Saout Al-Arab are over. Arab nationalism not only failed to liberate but lost and with it Nasser placed over 5 millions in Israeli jails for some 42 years. The slogans of George Habash, Naif Hawatemeh, Yaser Arafat, Shafiq Al-Hout, Al-Asifa, Al-Saeqa, Fatah and Hamas are nothing more than simple lies and bullshit. It is does not take a genius to see the facts on the grounds, some 5 million people in refugee camps waiting to return home for 62 years and we expect a Abbas, or Dahlan, or Qurai or Qaddoumi or Saeb or Abed-Rabou or a Fayadh, or a Mishaal, or Haniyah to succeed when the hero of Palestinians, that big fraud and lie Arafat failed or at least lied about for some 45 years. Too bad we do not yet have that real debate within the Palestinian community, in every home, and in every village and every school. Only we the people can make a difference and so far we failed at it.
I have only got a few moments to comment here, and there is actually very much I want to say. But before I lose the chance to say so, I only wanted to express my condolences to Tarek for the loss of his uncle during the war. It must be a very painful thing for you and your family. I think as well, Tarek, that you have made very many valid points that are important to reflect upon, and which I believe need answers and should be addressed fully, and I thank you for sharing all of that with us. Please make yourself welcome here whenever you would like to come around.
I agree with those who have stated (privately and publicly) that this discussion is important. I thank Sami most of all for all of his contributions and his dedication to his people.
If his worst "sin" has been to use a title that is shocking (he used it for Jewish People as well in a previous article) and to openly state his criticisms of how all groups have somehow abandoned in whole or in part the very cause they were developed for, to liberate Palestinians from Jewish Occupation, then I think we should consider that it is vitally important that these views are aired and that Palestinians especially feel free enough to state what they think. That is the true goal of this site, to allow the space where thinking people can feel secure enough to state their thoughts and ideas and that out of this, all of us will gain something. It would be great if we were all sitting around a table and not each one of us alone in front of a screen in order to converse in this way, but even with the limits of the medium, I think Sami has allowed us to confront arguments and those who have participated in the spirit of dialogue and open-ness are to be thanked.
Mary
Thak you for allowing me to put my 2 cents, we are back to suqare one. As un uprooted palestinian, of millions of palestinians who refused to be turned into a collaborator, begger, or thief, I am quiting this debate.
I believe tired Sami's aganda is very clear, "In the end I think what we need is for the UN to take over releasing our people from being held hostage by Israel, PLO, Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front, Democratice Front, and Stupid Front." (Comment 15)
and cosidering your reaction towads my title: What is wrong with Sami Jamil Jadallah? I am not going to spoil more time in the "most important debate", because in continueing I shall call spade, spade, and you shall not like that. I am on the same page with palestinians like Salim Nazzal, "My allegiance is with no party. My loyalty is to Palestine." "Palestine – we are taught from one generation to the next, is above all ideologies, parties, persons and politicians. Yet too often Palestinian politicians put their personal and party interests above the interests of Palestine."'The Palestinian revolution is not the construct of philosophers or university professors. It is a revolution which has its genesis in the anguish of ordinary Palestinians whose families were murdered before their eyes, by Palestinian, Zionist Jewish terrorists, expelled them from their homes. The flames of this revolution have been fanned by the daily humiliation at the Zionist check points and Israeli prisons which are overpopulated with innocent Palestine’s taken from their beds at gunpoint."The Palestinian revolution is the expression of the loss of trust in the justice of international community – which has been unwilling or unable to enforce one single UN resolutions against Israel. Powerful nations continue to lecture us about the human rights provided arms to the Zionist apartheid state and turn a blind eye to the occupation and theft of Palestinian land, and to the oppression and humiliation of Palestinians. The Palestinians will never accept being slaves in their country." MoreI shall visit and read and whenever I have to say somthing, I shall say it in my site.
Good Luck
@Uprooted Palestinian –
Well, UP. It is interesting to note that while you claim you have alliegance to NO PARTY; (precisely what Sami says, as he stresses that his alliegance is to his land and people), you spend a lot of time stressing where you are different and in insisting that Hamas are the only ones holding the candle and that they are indeed the true resistance force, despite some evidence. Pointing out where Hamas is abandoning its principles is something that can only be of use, unless we see it as more important to uphold the opposing Party to Fatah no matter how it acts, which at least this can be said of Hamas, they are to be preferred on many levels to Fatah who are indeed busy collaborating with the selling and giving away of Palestine.
A few comments, if I may.
1) you claim it took you days to see your comments here because I "moderate". That claim is untrue, as the post was set up at 25 July and your comments appear on the very same date.
2) you claim along with Gilad that the Separation Wall is a "great Palestinian achievement". Can you please respond to the two people, including another Palestinian like yourself, who challenge this statement that Zionist oppression instruments are "Palestinian achievements". I am not the only one who looked at this and was aghast, there were others in public and private. I would like to hear your defence of this.
3) you obviously support two states (one for Jews and one for Palestinians) in your comments. I had been reading your site for a long time, and to be honest, that really surprised me. Zionists want two separate states, as well as those who think it is needless to resist any longer and to just settle for what is left.
4) you claim that Israel had "lost" in Gaza, because the resistance is still there. First of all, Israel knows that the only way to bring all resistance to an end is to indeed destroy all Palestinians. Thank God this will NEVER happen and there are Palestinians who will always fight for what is theirs and what is right. In this case, until the last Palestinian is gone, using your logic, we can say that Israel can do whatever it likes, maintain the world and Palestinians hostage, bombard it to the ground without punishment, allow a total seige and imprison thousands of innocent people, but they are losing, no matter how much Palestinians suffer, because the only goal of Israel is to just destroy Palestinians. As Jesse, Jeff, Tarek and others said, the resistance has never been at a lower point in Palestine. The morale is low because simply…. the group that could have done operations decided to stop them. It is not only a question of obtaining weapons, it is far deeper, but I can't say the precise reasons, because I am here in Italy and don't know how deep the suffering of the Gazans is, but I imagine it is tremendous. Israel made them obey and they obeyed, GETTING NOTHING in exchange, not even the lifting of the seige. I just don't understand this putting a rose tinted glass over reality. I too support Hamas as the elected representatives of their people, but that they are not doing resistance is so obvious! It is no wonder their consensus is shrinking, they have abandoned resistance. This is something that a lot of people have said for the past 6 or 7 months. The situation in Lebanon is also different for the fact that the people recognised Hezbollah as a resistance movement, even the Christians did, and if you doubt it, I have about 6 interviews I did when I was at the Lebanon conference with people from all backgrounds. Islamic, Christian, Secular, Anti-Imperialist, of the Civil Society, Scientists and Doctors, and they said, "the People are the resistance and we entrusted Hezbollah to carry it out". I can find them (or you can) easily. I have never heard this way of responding in the Gaza situation either in Gaza or by Palestinians in the West Bank, and believe me, I got thousands of letters, bulletins, etc, spoke to Gazan friends who told me of their situation, and I think you know what I am talking about, whether or not you find it convenient to admit it.
5) that you are free to do as you like on your site is sacrosanct. That you do it anonymously and at the same time hold up as a "bad example" someone who is just as much dedicated to your cause (who knows if not more, I can't know it, but I can say that I know Sami and know his dedication is around the clock and concrete) well, that is for you to judge as appropriate or not. I said a few times I don't like it. Take it or leave it!!
I find things in your ideas that are surprising and questionable. I know you said you are out of the debate, and that obviously is your prerogative, but it is easy to do so when the weak points are pointed out by others and you end in bold text telling others about how you are steadfast and they are not!
Good luck
I do not feel offended by the comments made by “uprooted Palestinian” of what is wrong with Sami Jadallah and I am not offended at all by the exchange of comments, I only wished there are more Tarek and more “uprooted Palestinian” and more Mary, and more Jeff, and More Gilad to add to the debate. As we witnessed the gathering of thousands of Fatah operatives and fact cats at Bethlehem with no sense of shame for their failures at liberation and no sense of shame at fleecing the public treasury of tens of billions and no sense of shame for using $50 millions of the national budget, begged money, to conduct and carry their conference and yet, and this is the most surprising thing there are hardly any demonstrations outside the conference halls or in cities and towns, people simply protesting this selfish use of public funds to fund people who simply do not and did not contribute anything to public life or public service. These people have been living off the blood and sweat of people for years and yet there are simply not even dozen of protestors out there showing their contempt for such a conference and for such parasites. It is hard to believe when the unemployment rate is at 70% and more than 70% below the poverty line, the Palestinian Authority is able to set aside $50 millions to fund the Fatah conference paying the expenses of all of these members to attend the conference and yet, we do not see something wrong with us Palestinians? Frankly this is but one example of what is wrong with us. Unless people, citizens begin to hold their representatives and leadership accountable for their actions and failures nothing will ever change? I can understand and appreciate that at the moment there is simply no clear cut workable strategy developed to end the occupation other than to keep negotiating with a party that has nothing but contempt for the Palestinian side, because the Israelis know the Palestinian leadership don’t give a damn about their people and they know they lack the legitimacy claimed, and they know well that the Palestinian people do not hold their leaders accountable for their failures. So why the Israelis should be worried about any thing? I am quite surprised that independent thinkers such as Dr. Mustafa Bargouthi and Dr. Hanan Ashrawi and many others, who heads many of the NGOs, that suppose to do good for the Palestinians are not out there in the forefront leading demonstrations against the Fatah conference and what it represent and they are not out there offering people some choices, and there are people who feel offended because I wrote what is wrong with the Palestinians, yes, a whole lot.
Dear Mary. During the 2006 war against Lebanon there was a strong opposition to the war coming from the Lebanese. The christians, druze etc that supported HezbAllah are those whos leaders are allied with HezbAllah (march8), on the other side you had people celebrating that war with dancing and fireworks as they thought that hezbAllah now would be crushed (as they hoped). HezbAllah are hated by half of the Christian population and the majority of sunnis and druze in Lebanon so i dont understand how people here are claiming that they were supported by a majority during that war. I remember during that war, how i saw comments from lebanese on talkbacks condemning and cursing hezbAllah for starting the war (as they saw it), i remember how i spent hours a day debating such lebanese and now all of a sudden i read that the majority supported hezballah, if that was true then i wouldnt have been so frustrated seeing and hearing all those angry comments about hezballah coming from lebanese. My mothers friend (a sunni lebanese) called our house and sent curses after curses on hezballah, and called nasrallah a dog and what else. Simply just enter a march14 website now and read the comments from the users and see how they react whenever there is something written by hezballah and u will see the massive hate. The majority of shias supported hezbAllah cuz they had no other choice, who else will fight for their rights in Lebanon? It cant be compared to Gaza or Palestine where majority are sunnis and the political party u support is not about which sect u belong to. Imagine if the shias had been told to revolt against hezballah, they would loose everything and be used by the mustakbal and various maronite groups as sheap, they would get a puppet leadership that turn them back in to third class citizens in their own land. In Palestine, a massive revolt against fateh and hamas would risk leaving the people all alone if not done with a proper leadership to lead the revolt, in fact a leadership to lead such a revolt is a must in order to acieve something cuz people cant just call their friends and say lets go revolt as this needs planning and strategy and someone strong enough to mobilize the people, something with a plan, not someone that wants the Palestinians to risk loosing everything without giving them some sort of hope that they will gain everything.
Another thing, During the war on Gaza, hamas was not alone in fighting, all armed factions participated in the resistence, even fateh in Gaza participated so i do not understand your point when you claim that in Lebanon hezbAllah was recognized as a resistence movement as if hamas was not recognized as such in Palestine? there were demonstrations in the WB in support of hamas (and many demonstrations were stopped by the PA). No Lebanese in southern lebanon was happy to have his/her house destroyed or relative maimed, likewise no Palestinian in Gaza was happy to have his/her house destroyed or relative maimed so i dont understand this comparission that is being made as if a southern lebanese that complains about his destroyed house is invisible while the Palestinian that complains about his destroyed house means hamas had no support.
I disagree with hamas on many things but please lets not make such unnecassary comparissions about hamas and hezballah and the support they had as at the end of the day regardless if every lebanese and palestinian support his resistence movement,that support wont magicly transform in to F16 and tanks and the outcome of the war would remain israels advanced weapons against katyushas and qassams.
There are some other things written here in the comments section that i disagree with but i have to go for now.
Salam to everyone and i hope nobody becomes angry or annoyed with the other as we are only exchanging opinions here, not fighting, and we all care about Palestine.
Uprooted Palestinian. Salam.. Though your comments were addressed to Mary, be sure that no one is angry or upset or offended with this debate and I think it is the only way we can come up with some working solution. I am sure all of us do this not for any financial rewards, certainly not for any position but because we all care and give a damn about our country Palestine and our people the Palestinians. I only hope that few people get together and organize an online conference to come up with some very practical solutions that put in charge, were we become pro-active rather than reactive. I have been pushing for setting up the Palestine Agency/Palestine Documentation Center where the best and brightest from among the Palestinians and Arabs can become engaged in providing the best possible ideas to move forward. We certainly need new ideas and new leadership. Thank and hope we can stay in touch. All the best and many thanks to all those who contributed to the debate. Next Year in Jerusalem, Inshallah.
Dear Izabella,
thanks for your input and comments. I would like to share with you some of the interviews I did
http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2008/03/in-lebanon-resistance-are-people.html
http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/search/label/Bruxelles%20Tribunal
http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2008/03/rania-masri-on-israeli-war-against.html
including a quote by Dr Badr Al-Din
He went on to identify what exactly this war had attempted to bring about. “We did not establish which type of aggression that came to strike us. We were and are simply Lebanese civilians. The fact is that we are entitled to live there, even if it is too close to the border area the Israelis covet. The purpose of the enemy is to clearly identify the border area and to force people as far back away from it as possible. But we will not leave. This is our land, and we hold on despite everything. The Israelis also tried to adopt a system of division that failed them. They tried to create social shock between the local inhabitants and the fighters of Hezbollah. Yet, much to their surprise, but not to ours, this did not happen. The Israelis failed to realise that the resistance ARE the people. We are the same. The Israelis attempted to use the principle of “Divide and Rule”. They sought to create divergence between us and the Hezbollah. They tried to accuse the resistance of being responsible for our suffering and tried to undermine the popular support. In fact, with the bombings, many people did leave, because bombs are real and death and destruction were not in the imagination. People are afraid and rightly so. But what Israel tried to do did not work. They failed because in general, it is the people who resist.”
“The Lebanese know their struggle is a lifelong one. The Lebanese population is well aware of it. We remained together and we were victorious. We sacrificed many innocents and the children as well as the adults, but especially the children, are suffering traumas from this, and I know that they need support to relieve this great psychological burden.”
and this is by Rania Masri:
“Much depends on our belief in our capabilities. Hezbollah believed they could win, and if it wasn’t so, right now we’d be speaking as representatives of Occupied Lebanon.”
“We as activists are placed in the defensive. We have to stop doing this. It is time we understand that we have to propose. We have to contextualise our issues and causes with other acts of solidarity. It is vital for us to make links across communities and it is time we realised something important: we actually ARE the majority. Our arguments are what most people think and consider as right if they are exposed to our arguments. The problem is that we have not been effective in framing the argument.” She then quoted Commandante Marcos about the universality of solidarity.
To further address Izabella's comments, the recent Lebanese election gave the March 8 coalition of Hezbollah, the Free Patriotic Movement and the Marada Party, the latter two both Maronite Christian parties, 55% of the vote. Were it not for the antiquated Lebanese election laws, installed by the French deep into the last century which give the Maronites 50% of the seats in parliament and the presidency, the government of Lebanon would have a very different appearance today. That Hezbollah enjoys the support of the FPM and its leader, Michel Aoun and of Marada and its leader Suleiman Franjieh has been the key factor in blocking the Israel/US plan to discredit Hezbollah among Western European governments.
Nothing expressed the degree of collaboration between the previous Siniora government more than when it tried to destroy the communications network that Hezbollah had set up and which the Israelis were unable to break and its attempt to fire the officer in charge of the airport security who was sympathetic with Hezbollah because the latter was witnessing the arrival of US planes carrying weapons presumably to be used against Hezbollah in a civil war that fortunately never materialized.
Those Lebanese who have not sold themselves to Washington are well aware that were it not for Hezbollah, Israel would still be occupying Lebanon up to the Litani and stealing its waters as it steals those of the Palestinians in the West Bank. When I was last in Lebanon a year after the war, every Maronite I spoke with–and granted I did not seek out the March 14ers, expressed their support for Hezbollah and it was definitely there among the Shia in the Beirut suburbs which had suffered the worst of the heavy bombing and was being rebuilt. And it was also there among the people in the south who have been the victims of Israeli bombs and artillery since 1964, well before the advent of Hezbollah.
In the extraordinary war museum that Hezbollah has constructed in the Dehiya neighborhood, which featured an entire Israeli Merkava tank among other captured weaponry , families were streaming in and out and there was a visible sense of pride in the Hezbollah resistance. Let those who prefer to cling to Uncle Sam's skirts complain. They have done nothing but betray their country.
I disgaree with hamas on plenty of things btw and I dont agree with this.
what resistance do they want right now? we all know what happened in Gaza? Hamas cant resist otherwise people will blame it on bringing "chaos" upon them………….so its a loss-loss situation afterall, if they do resist, people will blame them (and they are still blaming them) and if they stopped resistance because people want to have a rest, they will also be accused of selling out the resistance. so they are damned if they do and damned if they dont.
and in the west bank, they are beseiged we all know what happened in Qalqilia, two qassam militiants were killed. 1000 in jail and god knows how many are still in hiding.
ITS absloutely unfair to compare Gaza and lebanon. Hizbullah has so many friends, an OPEN BORDER that helps it smuggle the best of weapons, a COUNTRY for GOD's sake, NO seige, FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT,absloute support from IRAN and Syria and no iran or Syria are NOT as supportive of hamas as they are for Hizbullah for ideological,strategic reasons ………………..etc.
we can write a book about the differences between the two situations.
to Izabella,
its true that many factions particpated in resistance, but the major palestinian faction reststing belonged to hamas, hamas ran the war,its leaders took the brunt of it on T.V and media outlets, they were the ones who were active, maybe the only leadership that was active. It was khaled meshaal, haniyah, al zahar …………dont remb seeing any of the other factions' leaders doing a damn them. they simply vanished.
ofcourse the others helped. everyone admits to this. Hamas liked to showcase the other factions to spread the idea of resistance but to say they played a very significant role in the war or played as much as an important role as the Qassam brigades played would be faulty.
Mister Sami, the Palestinian reality speaks another language. Can you confirm me that the Palestinian children are being taught to hate Jews and to blow up themselves to kill so many Israelis as possible? Can you confirm me that the main Palestinian political parties were and are still involved in terror activities and that to date they didn't openly and clearly recognize the right to exist to Israel? Do you truly believe, Mr. Sami, that the way of resistance through terror (that means also the killing of Israeli civilians) the Palestinian were and are still going without break in continuity is the best one to achieve their supposed and declared goal, a viable Palestinian state in peaceful coexistence with Israel?
I can understand your despair about the situation of your people, and many Israeli and Jews do too. But the false and hostile policies of the different Palestinian authorities during decades, the absence of a sincere and acceptable peace offering and, above all, the continuous threat to their very existence through terrorism and war made Israelis not anymore confident about the true intentions of the Palestinians. You must understand that only serious and responsible peace talks, not more violence and hate, can bring you further. But where is the will of peace by your Palestinian brothers?
Is Hamas ready to give up, in order to achieve peace, its declared goal to destroy Israel? No, better die as martyr. Is Fatah ready to sit down around a table together with Israeli Jews, in order to achieve peace and a viable Palestinian state? No, better "resistance by all means" (said Abbas today). Is there a peace partner on Palestinian side that can take responsability for its own people? For the sake of its people? And let me ask you at the end, Mr. Sami, where are those real Palestinians who can and want stand up for what is right? Palestinians who can stand up for right honest Palestinian government and policy – for their own people's sake, the sake of Israeli Jews and the sake of the whole Middle East?
@Jeff Blankfort –
Hello Jeff, Mary asked me to address your comment… (63)
"I don't think you will find a single Palestinian who has had his land and farm divided or stolen by the apartheid wall which Netanyahu announced last week would be permannent, who believes the wall represents a defeat for the Zionists and a victory for the Palestinians"
As far as your lines were referring to mine I would suggest to re-read my original comment (27) and please note the capital letters:
"The Pls are at the forefront of a clash between 2 totalities. between 2 symbolic orders. It is not a political debate and it is not an issue of local tactics or strategy. As Israeli intelligence generals have been predicting for 2 decades, all Pls need in order to win is to survive. If you look at Israel and Zionism FROM THAT VERY PERSPECTIVE , you would realise that the 'Wall' is actually the biggest Pls victory. They dismantled the Zionist project and made the Israeli into a 'diaspora ghetto Jew'. The Pls have managed to push the Jew back to the ghetto, and this ghetto will shrink as Pls ballistic capability grows. The Jewish state is a matter for Historians, its future is doomed."
In my comment I obviously talk about the Israeli/Zionist perspectives,
In other words, there is no contradiction between the view of a Palestinian and an Israeli general because they talk from very distinct perspectives.
I hope that these resolves the issue.
Peace
Gilad
Gilad,
Even from a Zionist perspective I cannot see the building of the wall as a Palestinian victory any more than I would the construction of Jews-only roads. From what I have seen there and from what I know of Israel's history, constructing the world's largest ghetto has been the Zionist plan from the beginning. Whether one cites Herzl or Ben-Gurion, it is clear that Israel was intended to be an exclusively Jewish entity, ergo a ghetto. To portray their success in achieving this as the dismantling of the Zionist project by the Palestinians seems to be even more of a flight of fancy or wishful thinking than one might find in a speech by Abbas or Erekat at the Fatah conference.
Moreover, to suggest that this entity will be threatened by the increased potential of Palestinian rocketry seems to be in keeping with the mistaken notion that Gaza was another "victory" when we know that the Zionists will not hesitate to repeat Gaza and worse over and over again because they are allowed to get away with it. The Palestinians, by themselves, are in no position to change this situation. It is up to those in the countries that provide Israel with its crucial political support, as much as the weaponry, to make the price for that political support as expensive as possible until it is no longer affordable. From what I have seen so far, very little has been done by Palestinian solidarity activists to make that happen,.
@Jeff Blankfort –
Hi Jeff
When taking about Zionist perspective i refer to the Initial Zionist ideological plan to erect a civilized Jewish society of people who are free on 'their' land (Gordon, Borchov, Nordaw, Jabotinsky) ….The wall made it clear that the Israeli Jew is a continuation of the Diaspora Ghetto Jew. He is locked behind walls. he is segregated. By the way, from THE VERY SAME perspective a 'Jew only road' is a similar Palestinian victory for it proves that the Jews failed to integrate in the region and built a racially orientated Jew only state. The criterions to judge a failure of a precept are ideological rather than positive
Whether Gaza was a victory or not is not a question that would be judged by military criterions. Israel didn't achieve any of its objective in Gaza. The Hamas is stronger than ever. If anything Israel proved to the world once again what the Jewish state is all about and what it stands for.
I agree with your reference to solidarity activists, however, Palestinians will liberate themselves against all odds, whether they are united or not. As i said many times before, Israel has many bombs, Pls has one bomb, the demographic one. Israel will be Palestine. In the short run it is the fact on the ground rather than an armed struggle.
If you want to talk about the Right Wing Zionist dream of Greater Israel, i think that it is clear that the wall made the clear that Israel is now restricted in terms of territory.
I see the wall as a fact on the ground, the beginnings of a permanent border, the attainment of which is crucial to stopping Zionist expansionism. Once Israel’s border is permanently fixed and internationally recognized, it will be clearer to the American laymen, who after all is financing Zionist expansionism (often unwittingly) via underwriting and U.N. vetoes by the U.S. government, who the aggressor in any given dust up really is. Remember, when Israel attacked the territorial integrity of Gaza and Lebanon, it received P.R. black eyes the world over, and lost ground in American public opinion in both cases. Once the borders are officially established, any Israel aggression will be clearly seen as encroachment — which is why Israel has refused to draw borders.
Re Arafat and his heir, Abbas, it seems clear that each is/was a corrupt, small minded puppet more interested in presiding over a fiefdom, playing a coy game of cat and mouse to garner more funding from their Western government pay masters and from private Palestinian sympathy funding than actually making progress on the Palestinian cause and for the Palestinian people. I don’t think either ever was or will be capable of being more than a neighborhood Don, although Abbas has an intellectual veneer and civilized mannerisms that Arafat lacked to paper over his baseness.
I think SJJ’s disgust with the Palestinian people is misplaced, and a case of blaming the victims, who have been relentlessly and systematically abused on a massive scale for decades by some of the most cynical and sadistic minds on the planet. I believe if fingers are to be pointed at Muslims anywhere, it is at the corrupt Western collaborating Saudi Arab oil sheiks and Arab dynasties that have the money and the means to really do something about Palestinians suffering, but that have done next to nothing.
Clearly, the Islamic state of Iran has been the most effective Palestinian ally, which is why the Zionists are hell-bent on destroying it.
Gilad,
There were, of course, a variety of opinions as to what the ideal "Jewish state" would look like and how it would relate to its non-Jewish neighbors but I refer to the practical zionism of Ben-Gurion who was adamantly against Israel having friendly relations with surrounding Arab states because, as Sharett's diaries revealed, if Israel was to be at peace with its neighbors it would become lazy and slovenly, at which point it would be overrun by the Arabs and destroyed, or words to that effect. The tension, he wrote,must always be maintained. As a consequence of that policy, he would have Israeli soldiers conduct raids into Syria,Jordan and Egypt which were designed to "heat up the borders" and bring retaliation at which point Israel would, with its diaspora hasbara working overtime, play the eternal victim.
In 1983, when I was interviewing members of the Yesh G'vul reservists movement, I interview an immigrant from Brazil, whose family had emigrated there from Hungary) who told me that when he was stationed in the Golan, Israeli snipers were ordered to shoot at Syrian officers in order to "heat up the border," the very same expression that B-G had used. This reservist, who long ago returned to Brazil, had was not aware the expression originated with B-G but it was significant that this was still the reigning policy.
Obviously, there are many Israelis who would prefer it to be otherwise, but I suspect the majority like it just the way it is with the only improvement being the ethnic cleansing of the 20% Palestinian Arab population which at least half the population has supported in polls going back at least 30 years. You should be the last one not to realize that the racism inherent in zionist ideology would prevent Israel from being a "normal" state.
As for those Jewish-only roads reprsenting another "victory" for the Palestinians, I can only wonder how many such victories the Palestinians can afford. I would suggest that those most affected by those roads and by the wall be allowed to define what is and what isn't a victory for themselves.
@Jeff Blankfort –
Jeff
Even the case of Ben Gurion is slightly problematic in that context.
Interestingly enough Ben Gurion, as i learned from Shlomo Sand recently, was looking to incorporate the Pls within the Zionist project. He changed his mind only in 1929.
There is no doubt that Israel was creating incidents since its moment of tragic birth but as you mentioned yourself Hasbara was working overtime to present Israel as a Shalom seeking nation…The monumental Wall is a tremendous symbolic change, both in terms of Israeli image and Israeli psychic (self image). It explains also the total collapse of the Israeli left. It brought to an end the fantasy of 'left Zionism'… the dream of nation amongst nations and people like other peoples. You may be right to argue that left Zionism was a myth to start with, but for many years Israel was divided on this issues.
Jeff: "I would suggest that those most affected by those roads and by the wall be allowed to define what is and what isn't a victory for themselves."
I agree with you, but this has never been the Q here.
We are discussing what is a Pls victory FROM AN ISRAELI PERSPECTIVE (sorry for capitals just trying to make it clear)
The Pls perspective is a different issue altogether. As you know i save myself from commenting on the subject, never did and never will.
In case you are interested, Israel didn't achieve its objective in gaza. There is a constant little war in Gaza.
Hamas keeps shooting on a daily basis.
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSTRE57916V20090810
Peace
G
Gilad,
There was never that much of a genuine Israeli left to collapse as far as I could tell but certainly what remains is a remote speck altho a segment of that speck is just undertaken a campaign that should have been done in the US long ago (where the speck is larger but directionless) to expose the American Jewish tax-exempt organizations that have been funding the settlements in the WB and East Jerusalem. Unfortunately, Zionists are running the US Treasury Dept. so we know what the prospects are for that campaign unless there is a vigorous public component in the US which, judging from past history, is unlikely.
I haven't read Sand yet, since it hasn't come out in English but of course, B-G would be making statements, which Chomsky cites, to make us believe that he was for an all inclusive state. But what else could he say publicly when Jews were such a tiny minority. Chaimele Weizmann said one thing in public making him appear to be a great humanist, but something else privately, showing him to be a European racist. In any case, we see what course Israel has followed.
As for the Israelis seeing the construction of the wall and, by implication, Jewish only roads, as being losses and victories for the Palestinians, where is there evidence for that? I suspect being safe and secure on those wonderful modern roads while driving by those leading from the Palestinian villages that have now been closed by cement blocks gives Israelis a warm, fuzzy feeling, knowing they are safe and secure from the Arab untermenschen.
That it was Palestinian workers who built those roads as it was Palestinian workers who built their elegant towns the world calls settlements must also give some of them a certain satisfaction since in Israel construction work and manual labor is considered "Arab work."
Hamas has not kept shooting into Israel on a daily basis. They only responded the other day with a single rocket when Israel bombed some tunnels on the border. As for much of the world's disgust with what Israel did to Gaza, that disgust was not translated into anymore meaningful action than was the world's disgust with its war on Lebanon in 1982, its reponse to the intifadas of 1987 and 2000, or to itts bombing of Lebanon in 2006. It never had to pay a single shekel for damages and its support both in the capitals of US and Europe is stronger than ever. Israel still maintains the siege and its spokesperson say it will only be lifted when Shalit is released. That they can make this demand and do it publicly without being internationally condemned tells you the level of strength of the anti-Zionist movement and the Palestinian resistance at the present time. One almost needs a magnifying glass to see it.
@Jeff Blankfort –
J: There was never that much of a genuine Israeli left to collapse
G: for sure, but there were people out there who tended to believe that they were left and peace seekers.. They now gave up (either on the lie or what the genuinely believed in) .
J: I haven't read Sand yet, since it hasn't come out in English but of course, B-G would be making statements, which Chomsky cites, to make us believe that he was for an all inclusive state.
G: You will have to read it first, i do not have the book with me, i am on the rd. However, it i was actually found on BG"s personal notes (if i remember correctly, it wasn't a party policy. we are talking about the 1920's).
J:In short, Zionism, the ideology was an attempt to normalise the Jewish condition. Whether we like it or not. This ideology appears in every early Zionist text , poem, story and ritual.. I believe that it was a genuine will. I grew up on this very belief. We believed that our national project made us people like all people (as oppose to ghetto Jews). Take it or leave it.
J: As for the Israelis seeing the construction of the wall and, by implication, Jewish only roads, as being losses and victories for the Palestinians,
G: we do not talk about "israelis" as much as we do not talk about Palestinians. We talk about perspectives. This is an ideological matter, the view or the take of the particular subject is irrelevant to the matter. We can clearly see a contradiction between the wall and the IDEA of 'greater Israel'. We can CLEARLY see a contradiction between the IDEA of FREE PEOPLE in FREE LAND and the erection of a Jewish Ghetto surrounded by walls. We do not need any positive or empirical evidence. Philosophy is about an argument rather than statistics and polls.
Hamas has not kept shooting into Israel on a daily basis.
G: Interestingly enough, i read about it in Israeli Hebrew press but couldn't find the info on ynetnews and haaretz in English. it wasn't mentioned or at least was well hidden.. Israel is confused by the shooting and the resistance. It find it hard to accept that it doesn't have a 'military solution' to its 'security concerns'. If you read about it in Hebrew press, you ll find out that for the Israelis, Gaza shooting is not presented as Pls local retaliation, it presented instead as a Pls continuos effort.
here is the translation of the hebrew headline
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3759952,00.html
"Shooting Continuos: mortar on workers near Kisufim"
Yesterday one Quasam and 2 mortars, in the night IDF attacked, in the after noon again some explosion were heard in the West Negev, no damage reported"
In Hebrew press, it is presented as an unstoppable ongoing thing.
@Jeff Blankfort -
Sorry Jeff, read this instead I attributed you with my words … too early in the morning and no coffee yet
J: There was never that much of a genuine Israeli left to collapse
G: for sure, but there were people out there who tended to believe that they were left and peace seekers.. They now gave up (either on the lie or what the genuinely believed in) .
J: I haven't read Sand yet, since it hasn't come out in English but of course, B-G would be making statements, which Chomsky cites, to make us believe that he was for an all inclusive state.
G: You will have to read it first, i do not have the book with me, i am on the rd. However, it i was actually found on BG"s personal notes (if i remember correctly, it wasn't a party policy. we are talking about the 1920's).
In short, Zionism, the ideology was an attempt to normalise the Jewish condition. Whether we like it or not. This ideology appears in every early Zionist text , poem, story and ritual.. I believe that it was a genuine will. I grew up on this very belief. We believed that our national project made us people like all people (as oppose to ghetto Jews). Take it or leave it.
J: As for the Israelis seeing the construction of the wall and, by implication, Jewish only roads, as being losses and victories for the Palestinians,
G: we do not talk about "israelis" as much as we do not talk about Palestinians. We talk about perspectives. This is an ideological matter, the view or the take of the particular subject is irrelevant to the matter. We can clearly see a contradiction between the wall and the IDEA of 'greater Israel'. We can CLEARLY see a contradiction between the IDEA of FREE PEOPLE in FREE LAND and the erection of a Jewish Ghetto surrounded by walls. We do not need any positive or empirical evidence. Philosophy is about an argument rather than statistics and polls.
J: Hamas has not kept shooting into Israel on a daily basis.
G: Interestingly enough, i read about it in Israeli Hebrew press but couldn't find the info on ynetnews and haaretz in English. it wasn't mentioned or at least was well hidden.. Israel is confused by the shooting and the resistance. It find it hard to accept that it doesn't have a 'military solution' to its 'security concerns'. If you read about it in Hebrew press, you ll find out that for the Israelis, Gaza shooting is not presented as Pls local retaliation, it presented instead as a Pls continuos effort.
here is the translation of the hebrew headline
http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3759952,00.html
"Shooting Continuos: mortar on workers near Kisufim"
Yesterday one Quasam and 2 mortars, in the night IDF attacked, in the after noon again some explosion were heard in the West Negev, no damage reported"
In Hebrew press, it is presented as an unstoppable ongoing thing.
Dear Deceschi. Salam. I do appreciate your statement and concerns for the welfare of Israelis, however what I do not understand is the failure of so many Israeli sympathizers to appreciate that violence begot violence. The Israelis and beyond them Zionist Jews do and should not expect the Palestinians to stop their quest for freedom, liberty and end of occupation. Never understood the over emphasis on terrorism when Israel every day commits hundreds of acts of terrorism against the Palestinian people. There terrorists acts includes among others house demolition, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem, confiscations of property and land, uprooting of olive trees and destructions of farms and poising of water well, the more than 650 security checkpoints, the Apartheid Wall and land and water theft that came with it, targeted killings, arrest and jailing without trial and of course simply the presence of a military and settlers occupation. The Palestinians were silent for so long and Israel continued with its policy of land theft and destructions of Palestinian communities. For so long there were no Hamas and no Intifada and Israel simply continued with its occupation. Now that there is a Hamas and two Intifada Israeli and Zionist Jews wonder why so much violence against them. Simple. There is and must be a cost for the occupation and until the costs is more than the benefits Israel will NEVER let go of the West Bank and Gaza. Please do not tell me Israel left Gaza, it is there putting Gaza under seal. Arafat and the PLO gave Israel recognition, with open borders, and trusting Israel to negotiate a peace in good faith. Rather Israel used the good well, perhaps the stupidity of the Palestinian leadership to confiscate more and more land for its settlements, to exile Palestinians to increase the check points and never appreciated the fact that the Palestinian leadership is saving Israel billions of dollars in direct and indirect costs by taking over the costs of Occupation from Israel and relieving Israel of the financial burdens of the occupation. It has to be clear that as long as there is Jewish Occupation, Israel should expect resistance and violence toward the forces of Occupation. Beside, and let us keep in mind, it is the Jews who introduced terrorism in Palestine. It is too bad for Israel and the Palestinians that Israel is getting away with its occupation. It is time for the world to make Israel pays a very high price for its continued occupation to include arms embargo, ending political and financial aid, ending the tax exemption of Jewish organizations that funds and supports the occupation, settlements and land theft. Frankly I think Israel will continue with its Occupation and will continue with its land theft and ethnic cleansing knowing the US, the European and certainly the Palestinian leadership is giving it the political and financial covers. As for suicide bombing, I have made my opinion very clear on this as a mater from religious and ethical values. I yet to see Israelis and Zionist Jews to declare their opposition to the Occupation and to the daily land theft. Perhaps it is too much to expect Israelis and Zionist Jews to share the same human values like the rest of the world.
@sami jamil jadallah –
Hallo Sami. Shalom. There is indeed a conflict – even a (asymmetric) "war" – going on between Israelis and Palestinians, and I would also say, at the same time between Israel and the Arab-Islamic world (apart from a couple of few exceptions). I think you agree with me about this central point. From your (Palestinian-Arab) perspective this conflict means (in your words) "occupation", "house demolition", "ethnic cleasing", "confiscations of property and land", and so on. This terminology is commonly used by Palestinians and their anti-Zionist supporters in the Middle East and around the world to explain and justify the "resistance by all means" against the "Zionist enemy". To a certain extent it actually reflects facts on the ground, although I would be cautious about the term "ethnic cleasing", since the growth rates of the Palestinian population in both the Gaza strip and West Bank and even in Israel are quite high, higher than the Jewish growth rate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Palestinian_territories#Population_growth_rate).
But what you consciously or not avoid to do – as Palestinian and strenuous supporter of the Palestinian fight for freedom and self-determination – is to question and to reflect carefully WHY the Palestinians are suffering this painful situation and probably will continue to suffer for even longer. About the reasons of this misery it seems to be a huge lack of (self)critical understanding on your side. So you tend to slide easily into rhetorical and ideological well-run pattern of explanation and claim that maybe international media and politicians in world may believe you, but that doesn't help you to answer the true question posed above and that doesn't help you to solve your problems.
Palestinians are indeed too much confident in the power of violent resistance and media influence resp. propaganda and too little confident with democratic rules of dialogue and compromise. We see this in both main Palestinian "parties": Hamas is a radical Islamist group (I would better say: gang), its intention toward Israel is well-known and so is its attitude toward all those Palestinians who thinks differently from them … Fatah on the other hand is deeply corrupt, based on patronage and far behind democratic standarts, as we could all see at the last Fatah congress. Last but not least both parties don't recognize Israel's right to exist, both want to "liberate" all Palestine from the Jews. A wise person said once there is only a difference between Hamas and Fatah: the first's aims is to destroy Israel as soon as possible, the second's aims is to destroy Israel within the next fifty years….. These two parties have been elected by the Palestinian people itself, well-knowing what kind of mindset and power they represent. This considered, it's just a little surprising that some Israeli ministers are supporting as ultima ratio the idea that jailed Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti (guilty of terror acts against Israel) should be released in the hope that peace talks with the (assumed) moderate current of the Palestinians can resume (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418580805&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull).
So what are the reasons of the Palestinians misery? Can you see them without looking immediately and reflexively to the "Israeli Jews", the "evil Zionists", the "thiefs"? When, Sami, "the Palestinians were silent for so long"? Shall I remember you what happened since 1948? I'm even not speaking about the wars Israel had to fight to its very survival. Let's consider only the Arab/Palestinian terror against Israelis even before "occupation" 1967, even before the birth of the state of Israel 1948. Here some figures: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/osloterr.html. Shall I remember you how many times Palestinians said NO to peace offers from Israeli side? Quite a lot of times: the last one was in November 2008 between Olmert and Abbas. What do you think does this mean for average Israelis – this peculiar Palestiniam combination of non-recognition of Israel, non-acceptance of any kind of peace agreement parallel to maximal stake of claims toward Israel, resistance "by all means" (included bomb terror, rocket terror, stone protests, education to hatred: http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/839584.html), reluctance to start serious peace talks that ALSO could solve the occupation and settlements issue. Maybe the average Israelis are quite fed up and not very confident about the good will of Palestinians, for sure of those in power and maybe also the people itself. So please, Sami, don't preach about human values, it doesn't really make sense.
Settlements policy must change (a majority of Israelis is supposed NOT for settlements: http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/06/05/friday_poll_in_israel_shows_majoritysolid_support/), occupation must stop, but also another new really different approach to problems must come from Palestinian side. And above all: a new democratic culture of dialogue must come, if there is a true interest in the establishment of a viable pluralistic Palestinian state. Do you see anything like that at present? Do you see a chance for the future?
I wish you a good night.
Gilad,
The idea of "normalizing" Jewish life was always contradicted by the notion of a Jewish state which by definition is an abnormality from which has flowed, as to be expected, increasingly abnormal, even psychopathic behavior. I can not comment on B-G's notes, having not read them, but from a practical standpoint, since the Zionists were going to count on contributions from Jews in the diaspora, it was realistic to expect that wealthy Jews would be more likely to give to a Jewish state than to a bi-national one. Also,from the behavior of the early Zionists, as described by David HaCohen in the early days of the 20th century, Arab produce was boycotted and, in general the same attitudes of Israeli Jews that we see today were manifest tnen among the majority of Jews.
In any case, while you may look at the building of the wall, philosophically, as a defeat for Israel and a victory for the Palestinians, and the same wirth Jewish only roads, these "facts on the ground," may be the subject of a philosophical discussion but their existence is unaffected by it as are the lives of the people whose lives have been made the lesser for it.
As for Hamas firing rockets occasionally or one or twice into Gaza, that hardly represents a victory while Israel continues to hold the strip under siege. There was a time when the resistance meant armed attacks against the occupier's army, not the firing of home made rockets that rarely hit anybody and certainly never threaten military targets. I don't think you or anyone else would get very far by going to Gaza and telling the people, "cheer up, you won!" That Israel has been able to get away with waging that war and maintaining the siege without paying for it financially or politically is a crime for which we are all responsible and that should be our focus, not creating illusions that will not begin to hide a desperate situation.
Deceschi. Shalom and Salam to you to. No one, not even the powerful state of Israel and beyond it the powerful Jewish/Zionist world community can deny the fact that Palestinians were forcibly exiles from their homes and that their properties and land were taken over by new immigrants determined to ethnically cleanse Palestine from its original inhabitants and create a Zionist/Jewish state as pure as Nazi German state. Of course if you were a Palestinian you will not agree to the partition since it means you are giving away your properties and land to these new immigrants who have nothing to do with the land, other than the fact they are not even Jewish but Zionist. If the “Jews” did not forget about their “historical” land in 3,000 years why should the Palestinians forgot about their homes and land in 60 years, it makes no sense except if you think the “Jews” have superior rights simply because they are “Jews” a proposition that I do not subscribe to.
The Palestinians have every natural, legal right in Palestine and no one, not even UN resolutions or F-16s could change these facts.
For some times I was an advocate of peace with Israel based on 242 and 338 and 194 with recognition of Israel within 67 borders and a shared open Jerusalem. However Oslo changed all that. It showed me that Israel whether Labor, Likud or Kadima or Shas are ever interested in peace that allows for the creation of a free Palestinian state free from Jewish and settler’s occupation. Oslo showed me that Israel was only interested and remains interested in keeping and taking more lands, keeping it army in control, taking all water resources and controlling all access to this Palestinian canton with no real sovereign power. The more I see the more I read and the more I watch, I became more and more convinced that Israel never wanted or wished for peace with the Palestinians. The only thing Israel is interested in is “security” for its occupation, for its soldiers, for its settlers and certainly for its citizens, without any considerations for the other side. Without consideration for the legal, human, and civil rights of the Arabs. If Israel today declares its acceptance of a free Palestinian state within 67 borders and with an open and shared Jerusalem and an “agreement” on the issue of the refugees, I think you will find more than 80% of the Palestinians and the Arabs willing to accept this and normalize relations with Israel. However even with Oslo, Israel continues to deny it is an “occupying power” and continues to refer to the Occupied Territories as “Judea and Samaria”. Look what happened in Gaza, Israel leaves yet it closed all access and put Gaza under siege, and you wonder why people are willing to commit suicide bombing or fire rockets at Israel. You simply have to accept that NO one, not an Arab, not an Israel could ever accept the present conditions in the Occupied Territories. Israel could never have its “peace and security” while remaining an occupying power. I think Israel will never end its occupation and will never accept peace with the Arabs unless the price for its continued occupations becomes too high in terms of loss of life, in terms of economic and political sanctions and in terms of political and economic cover provided by the US. I am convinced that Zionism can only thrive when blood, both Arab and Jewish blood continue to flow. That is the nature of Zionism. It is an ideology driven by racism and contempt for all other races and people, a superior ideology not too different from Nazism. I think this conflict could have been solved long time ago, if the Israelis were German, Japanese, British, Canadians, Swedes or Italians but the fact they are Zionist Jews, there is simply no hope for peace. You could never change the nature and value system of people who have no respect for the life of others and who have nothing but contempt for the Arabs and the world at large. I am for ending the violence including the occupation and settler’s violence and armed violence by the Palestinians including suicide bombings and firing of rockets, I am for a demilitarized Palestine state with only a police power but no standing army, I am for an open and shared Jerusalem, I am for the rights of Jews to reclaim their properties in Arab countries and for Palestinians to reclaim their properties in Palestine/Israel. I am for normalization of relations with Israel provided Israel declares its legal borders within 67 borders. I am for a nuclear free Israel with reduced army and military power. Frankly, I think the only solution now is a one state solution and I think you will find Palestinians in substantial numbers willing to vote for an Israeli Jew who is clean, competent, dedicated to serving and preserving the people’s interest before they vote for the guys in Ramallah or Gaza.
Sami, there will not be a one state solution as you hope. It's not in Israeli interest, and probably also not in Palestinian interest. At the most, there will be a two state solution where Israel and Palestine can live side by side in security and peace. That was possible in Europe after the WW2, this should be possible in Middle East too. The argument that " this conflict could have been solved long time ago, if the Israelis were German, Japanese, British, Canadians, Swedes or Italians but the fact they are Zionist Jews, there is simply no hope for peace" can use Israelis in the same way by replacing "Zionist Jews" with "Palestinians": "This conflict could have been solved long time ago, if the Paestinians were German, Japanese, British, Canadians, Swedes or Italians but the fact they are arab/islamic Palestinians, there is simply no hope for peace". It's quite racist too (maybe you don't notice).
We have not to be naiv, Sami: both sides have their very good reasons for claiming to be in the right. Palestinians do have as well as Jewish Israelis do. We could never stop exposing each other our main strong arguments in support of our own well-founded position. For my part, I could show you a lot of evidences that I have best "trump cards" to win
, in the same way you show me that you and your Palestinian brothers do have. But I don't want to continue this kind of "poker game", out of a sense of dignity and pragmatic thinking. Those who claim to be the sole depository of truth, don't want peace and are not willing to reach an peace agreement in which form it would be. Those are the likes of the settlers and far right-wing parties in Israel (but for sure not Netanyahu and Barak or Livni, I can assure you), those are the likes of Hamas and other Islamist groups, and maybe also a not insignificant part of Fatah. You and me, Sami, are only "light weights", and even we have some troubles to find a common basis of thinking.
So long as one side persevere in its uncompromising position, based first of all in a deep-rooted ideological position which is reflected in every (even innocent) kind of discussion on the issue, there will be no solution but a continuation of the conflict "by all means", that means terror, repression, war and more suffering on both sides.
What I miss in all this conflict and – from my perspective – in particular on Palestinian/Arab side (Israel is STILL secular and democratic, not forget, and more than a million Arab Israelis live in Israel and they have their democratic elected deputies in the Knesset) is a lack of sane pragmatic and rational sense of reality beyond religious radicalism, ideology and myth. Maybe it will take a couple of more generations for a significant change and chance for peace, maybe even then not. Islamist radicalism and wounded Arab pride seem to be irreducible entities. We still hope not. Have a good day.
Errata corrige: Of course I miss a sane pragmatic and rational [i]sense of reality[/i], and not a [i]lack of … sense[/i].
To bring about real peace, not security arrangements, not a hudna, it takes leadership, courage, fairness, sense of human decency and most of all respect for the rights and interests of the other side. We are not there yet. There was the 100 years war, there was the Crusade, there was the war between England, France and Spain, there was the war between Germany and France, there was WWI and WWII, the war in Vietnam and they all ended in peace. May be someday there will be real peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Who knows?
deceschi ,
I have neither the time nor the inclinations (nor high enough hip boots) to wade through your arguments (since I know them all too well) but there is one reality that you and those who think like you will inevitably face. If one looks at the Middle East as a body, than clearly Israel with its European Jewish colonization was a foreign object which was and remains incompatible with the region/host has and which will continually be rejected until it disappears or is transformed into something other than a European dominated settler state. Had the settlers been Catholics or Proestant s or for that matter atheists, their attempts at colonization would also have been rejected and they no doubt, like the French in Algeria, would have packed their bags and left a long time ago. Israel has survived thus far largely because of the ability of American Jewry to control the US Congress and the media and make the price of bringing Israel to heel too high for any American president to pay. A day will be coming, however, when the American people will become aware of what its support for Israel has cost the US both politically and economically and then things will change. So, Deceschi, I would suggest you keep your bags packed and tell your Israeli Jewish friends and family to do the same.
@Jeff Blankfort –
Jeff: The idea of "normalizing" Jewish life was always contradicted by the notion of a Jewish state which by definition is an abnormality from which has flowed, as to be expected, increasingly abnormal, even psychopathic behavior.
G: Brother, we are going in cycles here, i obviously agree with you, but this is not the point. For them (the zios) it was a shift towards normality. Deconstruction is all about turning an idea against itself rather than judging it from an external moral paradigm.
J: I can not comment on B-G's notes, having not read them, but from a practical standpoint, since the Zionists were going to count on contributions from Jews in the diaspora, it was realistic to expect that wealthy Jews would be more likely to give to a Jewish state than to a bi-national one.
G: This could be a valid point but as you know in the 1920s Zionism wasn't yet that popular amongst world Jewry.
J: Also,from the behavior of the early Zionists, as described by David HaCohen in the early days of the 20th century, Arab produce was boycotted and, in general the same attitudes of Israeli Jews that we see today were manifest tnen among the majority of Jews.
G: This is indeed true, and it actually supporting the point I try to make about normalisation. As sick as it may sound, Arab labour was stopped so they can develop the notion of Jewish Labour… This is Jewish socialism for you. Basically National Socialism was practiced first by Zionists
J: In any case, while you may look at the building of the wall, philosophically, as a defeat for Israel and a victory for the Palestinians, and the same wirth Jewish only roads, these "facts on the ground," As for Hamas firing rockets occasionally or one or twice into Gaza, that hardly represents a victory while Israel continues to hold the strip under siege.
G: Jeff, as you surely know, victory is not a scientific notion. Victory belongs to the one who believes to be the winner. The Israelis do not feel as winners after Lebanon 2006 or Gaza 2009. In fact they voted a different government (in spite of Kadima winning the election). They are devastated by their military failure to achieve a political shift.
J: There was a time when the resistance meant armed attacks against the occupier's army, not the firing of home made rockets that rarely hit anybody and certainly never threaten military targets.
G: The resistance is a dynamic notion it has changed many times and it will change again. It is not down to you or me to tell Pls how to resist. Just clinging to the land is resistance because the Isr want them out. . But one thing is clear and you ll ve to admit it: The Isr are hiding behind walls, this is not exactly a victorious state of mind.
J: I don't think you or anyone else would get very far by going to Gaza and telling the people, "cheer up, you won!"
G: My Job is not go to Gaza, my task is limited: I elaborate on J power and J identity. If the Pls in Gaza are cheered by my interpretation, salam alekum, if not it is not a problem.
That Israel has been able to get away with waging that war and maintaining the siege without paying for it financially or politically is a crime for which we are all responsible and that should be our focus, not creating illusions that will not begin to hide a desperate situation.
G: Jeff, my dear, I really do not know who is "we" anymore …. As you said before solidarity activism failed all the way through…. .. I myslef do not think that anyone in the west will liberate the Pls: neither the PSC nor Obama!!! I do believe that, at least currently, Islamic resistance has been most effective spreading despair amongst Israelis. Monitoring Israeli press , this is what they are afraid of . The only thing I myself believe to be effective is working towards full legitimation of Islamic resistance and Islam in the WEST. This is the only thing I can 'focus' on and I actually do!
Well, Jeff, my "well-known" arguments are maybe too complicate and obscure for you, but your arguments are definitely poor. Poor in founded historical and general knowledge, poor in vision and solutions. Your arguments are a sort of fatalistic moral surrender in front of a culture and mentality which is – according to your own words – unable to accept a Jewish western State in its middle, unable to make peace and live with whatever looks and sounds western (Christian or Jewish, doesn't matter), which is refractory to western civilisation (but not western money). And following your thoughts maybe the Jihad will reach (after Israel) soon also your country, in Europe or America. Because probably you don't know that Islam was dominating extended parts of Europe and world during quite a long time in the past, and there are some radical elements and groups which believe Islam should again rule over the faithless world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_history
(So it can be possible that you will too soon or later be forced to pack your bags or … to convert.)
In this sense, your position is the faithful "(anti-)western", anti-Zionist/anti-Semitic* reproduction of the beliefs of radical islamist ideology in Middle East. So far, nothing new unter the sun … And who knows? Maybe you are completely wrong.
*MARTIN LUTHER KING ON ZIONISM
"Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend"
"… You declare, my friend; that you do not hate the Jews, you are merely 'anti-Zionist'. And I say, let the truth ring forth from the high mountain tops, let it echo through the valleys of G-d's green earth: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews — this is G-d's own truth.
"Anti-Semitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a blot on the soul of mankind. In this we are in full agree-ment. So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently anti-Semitic, and ever will be so.
"Why is this? You know that Zionism is nothing less than the dream and ideal of the Jewish people returning to live in their own land. The Jewish people, the Scriptures tell us, once enjoyed a flourishing Commonwealth in the Holy Land. From this they were expelled by the Roman tryant, the same Romans who cruelly murdered our L-rd. Driven from their homeland, their nation in ashes, forced to wander the globe, the Jewish people time and again suffered the lash of whichever tyrant happened to rule over them.
"The Negro people, my friend, know what it is to suffer the torment of tyranny under rulers not of our choosing. Our brothers in Africa have begged, pleaded, requested — DEMANDED — the recognition and realization of our inborn right to live in peace under our own sovereignty in our own country.
"How easy it should be, for anyone who holds dear this inalienable right of all mankind, to understand and support the right of the Jewish People to live in their ancient Land of Israel. All men of good will exult in the fulfillment of G-d's promise, that His people should return in joy to rebuild their plundered land. This is Zionism, nothing more, nothing less.
"And what is anti-Zionist? It is the denial to the Jewish people of a fundamental right that we justly claim for the people of Africa and freely accord all other nations of the Globe. It is discrimination against Jews, my friend, because they are Jews. In short, it is anti-Semitism.
"The anti-Semite rejoices at any opportunity to vent his malice. The times have made it unpopular, in the West, to proclaim openly a hatred of the Jews. This being the case, the anti-Semite must constantly seek new forms and forums for his poison. How he must revel in the new masquerrade! He does not hate the Jews, he is just 'anti-Zionist'!
"My friend, I do not accuse you of deliberate anti-Semitism. I know you feel, as I do, a deep love of truth and justice and revulsion for racism, prejudice, and discrimination. But I know you have been misled — as others have been — into thinking you can be 'anti-Zionist' and yet remain true to those heartfelt principles that you and I share. Let my words echo in the depths of your soul: When people criticize Zionism, they mean Jews — make no mistake about it."
@Gilad –
talking about keeping your bags packed
Here is Livni tonight…
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3761231,00.html
Livni: Israelis desperate to leave country
Opposition chairman says hundreds of thousands of Israelis searching or ways to move abroad in light of grim political situation in country, government's lack of vision
Attila Somfalvi
The Israeli public has lost all hope in light of the political situation in the country, opposition leader Tzipi Livni said Wednesday evening.
"I see the despair of many Israelis. Hundreds of thousands see what is happening and arrange for a foreign passport, send their children to study abroad and even buy a house overseas," Livni told hundreds of Kadima MKs and activists at a gathering in Tirat Hacarmel.
"I know many of you have come ere tonight because they care, not only about Kadima as a party, but also about the State of Israel. I know you too share what a great part of the Israeli public feels – desperation," she said.
"Only four months have passed since the establishment of the government. In other places this is usually a period of hope, prosperity, and vision. Instead, since the day this government took office, with its dozens of ministers and deputy ministers, the public has realized that its sole objective was political survival."
Kadima's chairwoman strongly criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his "lack of vision and lack of clear path."
Livni lauded the faction members for the hard work they have been putting in at the Knesset. "Gentlemen, every one of Kadima's members and activists should be proud of the party. There is no other faction like it in the Knesset, and hasn't been one in many years," she stated."
deceschi,
Well my settler-colonial correspondent, you should have done a little better research before you trotted out that fictitious letter which your Zionist friends allege to have been written by Dr.King. Here is what your good buddies at CAMERA have had to say about, albeit relcuctantly:
"FACT:
CAMERA's research indicates that the “Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend” allegedly written by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is a hoax, although the basic message of the letter indeed reflects the sentiments of Dr. King. For example, in a 1968 appearance at Harvard, Dr. King said: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews, you are talking anti-Semitism.” [ from “The Socialism of Fools: The Left, the Jews and Israel” by Seymour Martin Lipset; Encounter magazine, December 1969, p. 24. ]."
Now, when Dr.King made the one statement that is quoted above it was a time when Israel enjoyed wide support within the black community as well as among the mainstream white church leaders. Over the years many of those same church leaders, black and white, have come to see the truth behind the mask of lies that those in the West were told concerning Israel's "immaculate conception" and who now condemn in the cold light of day the intense sadism that has informed Israel since its inception and which I have seen for myself both in Occupied Palestine as well in Lebanon.
I do not need lectures from racists like yourself to tell me about Islam. Since 1970 I have spent months in Jordan and Lebanon, the last visit being in 2007 when I spent time with Lebanese Shia revisiting the South and watched the Israeli wehrmacht riding up and down in their jeeps on the Israeli side of the border. On each of the five or six trips that I have made I have found far more warmth and humanity among the peoples that I met than I did in Israel apart from the few anti-zionist friends I have there.
In 1983, I interviewed a number of Israeli reservists who had either refused to participate in the invasion of Lebanon or who after agreeing to do so, refused to go back. They described to me the war crimes that their fellow soldiers had committed there and they elected to take a short term in prison than return. Then I went to Lebanon and saw what your beloved wehrmacht had done for myself. Your wehrnacht's racist behavior–for them one Arab was like any other and was to be treated like dirt–gave rise to Hezbollah which proceded to whip the collective behinds of your arrogant countrymen and send them crying home to mother.
It is too bad that you will never get to Beirut.Because there in the Dehiya suburb is a wonderful museum of the 2006 war created by Hezbollah which features war material, uniforms, weaponry, etc., captured from your countrymen, with the star attraction being an entire Merkava tank. They have created a warlike scene for its many visitors with dummies dressed as Israeli soldiers made to appear as if they were crawling to get away. One does not see the tank right away. First the visitors enter a theater and watch a Hezbollah missile score a direct hit on an Israeli warship off shore. When the film is over and the cheers have died down, the lights go on and there, in a pit in front of the audience is the tank. More cheering, of course, follows. There is also a very large photo in the Museum of a group of Israeli soldiers, huddled together in fear of the next Hezbollah barraage which must have been taken from an Israeli magazine. I suspect that image reflects what is in the pit of the stomachs of most of the Israelis who went into Lebanon three years ago and who have a queasy feelings in their buttocks at the thought of being sent there again. I hope you have enjoyed my little tour not to mention my expose of your false quote.
Jeff, so now we know for sure that you are not only a supporter of the Hamas, whose clear aim is the destruction of Israel, but also a supporter of Hezbollah, the other proxy of Iran in Middle East (that Iran which is repressing in blood the protests of decent Iranian people).
Maybe Luther didn't wrote the letter, but he understood very well the right of the Jewish People to return to their own Holy land and build their own state. That's Zionism, nothing more, and this legitimate right was denied since the beginning by most Arab countries and is still denied by the Palestinians (also Fatah, according to your source: http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=2&x_outlet=35&x_article=1710), as well as people like you, who can't – like your Middle East models – produce any perspective but only insane hopes. It's so far not surprising that Israelis are becoming more and more mistrustful toward their alleged interlocutors and sceptical about peace, even if it still remains a hope and challenge for the majority of them.
I wonder what kind of values you have, apart from your declared anti-Zionism and your ill-concealed anti-Semitism.
Deceschi. Please let us keep in mind, before there was a PLO and Fatah there was a Jewish Occupation and forced exiles of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Before there was Hamas there was anther and expanded Jewish Occupation that stole more and more land and imprisoned some 700,000 Palestinians at one time or the other. Before there was any suicide bombings and Qassam rockets there was a Jewish Occupation, and Jewish Settler’s Occupation that destroyed homes, uprooted trees, destroyed farms and simply murdered and committed war crimes. Before there was an Islamic Iran, there was a Jewish Occupation that simply worked to destroy the lives of millions of people. It is the Jewish Occupation, Stupid. Somehow Israeli apologists simply forget or chose to forget they are an occupying force that is stealing the land from underneath its people that they turned Israeli to land thieves and war criminals. So stop blaming Hamas and Iran for every thing and for the continued military and settler’s occupation. You had Fatah and Arafat as your partners and look what you did to them. You used them, abused them and spit them like garbage. Israel was never interested in peace; it always wanted the land, not only of historic Palestine, but of Jordan, Iraq and part of Egypt.
Dear, Sami. Let's try to be serious and honest. I understand and support the Palestinian request for self-determination, but I don't accept Palestinian victimism. This kind of victimism goes beyond the legitimate request of Palestinian rights, putting all the blame on Israel. Victimism lay the foundation for any ideological midset and creates the concept of an irriducible enemy, an evil entity per excellence. That's why you are able to say that Israel wants "not only of historic Palestine, but of Jordan, Iraq and part of Egypt". This is simply not true, since Israel made peace with Jordan and Egypt, giving back land won in defensive wars, never aimed to conquer Iraq and withdraw completely from Lebanon. Israel acts first of all in order to reduce as much as possible the threats to her very existence. And I dare to affirm that even the occupation (what was before 1967? Or you mean that all "Palestine" from Mediterranean sea to the Jordan river is occupied?) you blame for all sins is a consequence of a situation of continuous existential threat through wars and terror. It's true that there are radical forces in Israel which are interested in expanding the settlements in the West Bank, but those forces never could have the political influence they have if there would be a concrete perspective of peace for Israel. So long as Arab world and first of all Palestinians aren't able to give such perspective a real chance, in order to convince the Israeli Jewish people and its leadership to make painful concessions for a comprehensive peace agreement, the State of Israel will keep its defensive attitude and will consequently continue to reinforce it. It will never give up the strategically decisive West Bank with the risk to see it trasformed in a new "Hamastan". Israel is like a cat forced since its birth in a corner which fights with toot and nail to exist. It can't stop fighting against a hostile environment, otherwise it will succumb as her foes would like, but it can change attitude if the environment becomes friendlier and more peaceful.
If you want peace give peace a chance, fight for a Palestinian government which is open for serious peace talks and compromise, not for more violence and confrontation. Clean up your house and you'll find the "Garden" you are dreaming of.
I wish you a good day.
Deceschi. No Palestinian is asking for a Garden of Eden, they are only asking to live freely with dignity and respect in their own home in Palestine, not in Russia or the Ukraine or Poland but home in Haifa, Akka, Safad, Ramallah, Nablus and Al-Khaleel. No Palestinians is asking or calling for the throw of Jews into the sea and no one is asking for the destruction of Jews, we leave to the civilized racist West. If any one master the art of victims hood it is the “Zionist Jews” from the days of the Russian Pogroms to the days of Nazi Germany death camps to the really missed up and screwed up Jews of Brooklyn and the US, who come to Israel with real issues, pick up a gun and go Palestinian hunting and stealing or properties.. You really have to admit, Zionist Jews have real mental and physiological problems perhaps century old and Palestinians have nothing to do with this mental handicap. I guess the Israelis showed the Palestinians what kind of government they want to handle the occupation and the Palestinians need to elect a government that can mange the occupation as is the case now. Frankly, I think the Israelis are fine with the status quo of keeping the occupation and the territories and the Ramallah guys are quite satisfied with managing the Jewish Occupation, perhaps improving on the financial terms and conditions. I do agree that the present leadership of Israel and the Palestinians is incapable of achieving peace. President Obama and his policy in the Middle East is hostage to AIPAC and its 80 Senators who are on its payroll. A good starting point is the admission of a historical wrong committed by international Zionism. Then the rest becomes easy. The Arabs have always been forgiving and hospitable, I think it is part of our culture and tradition and we never supported the idea of “people’s transfer” as the Zionist and the West practiced for a long time. We think people belong to the land should stay on that land, unless they decide to move on their own without having a gun pointed at them. Who knows there may be a new Israeli and Palestinian leadership that can have the vision, the courage and the decency and sense of history that can achieve peace and security for both people? No one is out to throw the Jews to the sea, and Israel will never succeed in throwing the Palestinians to the desert.
Is Deceschi reading from a textbook? It sure looks that way. The kind of textbooks that use the propaganda terms such as "existential" problems relating to Israel and make this fundamental question a fully recognised "right" of Israel. As a matter of fact, international laws themselves say that what Israel has done in order to maintain the land it took clearly put into doubt this legitimacy, and in fact, it is not recognised as legitimate by millions of people around the world, and not because Israelis are Jews, but because of the cancellation of the rights of the original inhabitants. In this case, it would be a good idea to take the advice of Sami, admit the historical wrongdoing and expect that there will be clemency in return for it, which might be your best option.
The Israel apologist seems to forget that there were expulsions in order to create the status quo of the Jewish state and to maintain it, Palestinians are denied their rights of movement, return, and many other rights as well. Not to mention, those nasty wars that Israel starts.
Deceschi., Wise anti-zionist and non-zionist Jewish writers and religious figures were already predicting in the first half of the 20th century that setting up a Jewish state in the land of Palestine would be a source of endless conflict and disaster and there predictions have, not surprisingly, come to pass. Its existence has not only robbed the Palestinians of the land in which they and their families inhabited for centuries (without having to refer to a questionable book written by the ancestors of those who dispossessed them), but it has robbed Judaism of whatever moral position it had in the world previous to Israel's existence. If there is an "existential" problem in the region it is Israel's very presence and the fact that its supporters in the US and Europe have used their money and political manipulation to protect it from being sanctioned to its knees by the international community. It has, in sum, become a "blight unto the nations" and, in my mind, represents with its Israel Uber Alles mentality, the greatest threat to the future of the planet.
I frankly do not care about the welfare or the future of those 94% of Israeli Jews who supported Israel's bombardment of Gaza and even less of those who brought their lawn chairs to watch the fireworks provided by the dropping of white phosphorus on their defenseless enemies. They are no different than Nazis in my eyes–Judeo-Nazis is how Shau Leibowitz described an earlier version of their ilk–and despite our having a polite verbal exchange on this list, in essence, I see you as being no different.
In fact, I suspect, giving the timing of your entrance into this current conversation, that you may be part of a new Israeli project, announced the other day, that is designed to have Israelis with time on their hands play a greater role in spreading Zionist propaganda on the internet.
As for your accusation of "anti-semitism," there is an old American expression that you might not have heard that applies to that silliness: "That dog won't hunt." There was an American journalist, one of Israel's earliest critics who wrote that "anti-semitism once referred to people who didn't like Jews. Now it means people who Jews don't like." As I wrote earlier, keep your bags packed.
Deceschi wrote:
" Israel made peace with Jordan and Egypt, giving back land won in defensive wars, never aimed to conquer Iraq and withdraw completely from Lebanon"
Well, it seems clear how they can make peace with the Palestinians.
The fact that I'm spending these days some of my precious time here in this palestinethinktank has nothing to do with Jeff's cospiracist preconceptions, nor with Mary's rhetorical assumption that I'm reading from a presumed "propaganda-textbook" (in fact non-existent). My very extemporaneous "entrance into this current conversation", as Jeff kindly describes my hopefully legitimate (but maybe not very much appreciated) partecipation in this forum has two main reasons that I'm glad to explain shortly to you apologists of the Palestinian cause and strenuous anti-Zionists. First of all it's part of every fair and open discussion that there can be a thesis and a antithesis and maybe even a synthesis of opinions on the subject, and not – as I've observed when I tripped by chance in this forum – only a one-sided endless thesis, quite full of resentment (pretty well resumed by Jeff' words between the teeth "keep your bags packed" – by the way, why shall I leave my country in Europe – and where shall I go? Maybe… to the Promised Land?). So I've decided to counterbalance and to disturb a bit with a different view of things this in my eyes not very pluralistic forum. It's not my intention to spread "Zionist propaganda", as you may think, but to supply the discussion with arguments from the opposite side which could lead (very unlikely, I admit) to a sort of sythesis, or at least to a real dialectical confrontation of ideas. I'm somewhat scared from the idea that a sort of total and tacit accordance in principle should reign over the apparently discodant personal views of the single persons. A kind of democracy Iranian style. And I think you understand what I'm speaking about.
The second reason is directly connected with the subject, the Middle East-conflict and with you Sami and your people, the Palestinians. Since I'm quite convinced – contrary to the deluded Jeff, who believes to have already the final "solution" (die "Endlösung") in his pocket – that there will not be, not today nor tomorrow, a final winner or a final loser, but a continuous fight between Israel and the Palestinians with the involvement of the neighboring countries – and because I see the danger of this endless fight for the Palestinians living in the occupied territories and Gaza in first place and for Israel immediately in the second place. That means, both people are victims and will be in future. The Palestinian people are not only paying the prince of occupation (the main reasons – the why-question – of the occupation I've tried to explain in my previous comments), but also and above all paying the price of bad choices and worse policies by their rulers and authorities. I believe that those policies never gave peace a true chance and still don't. And this political reluctance – coupled with a very harmful armed (terroristic) struggle – could cost even greater damage to the Palestinian people. It's time that all decent Palestinians – as you Sami are as well as the majority of your people (I want firmly to believe) – start to speak with Israeli Jews instead of demonizing them in this forum or elsewhere, in order to give peace a real chance. There must be a compromise for both people so that they can live side by side in peace and security. This compromise must start to grow in the minds of decent people, because they only represent the chance for peace, not the extremists and haters on both sides.
deceschi,
The implication that your time might be more "precious" than those who differ with you is in keeping with the mentality that legitimizes the theft of one people's land by another and then blames the latter for not living in peace with that. I am always suspicious of those who say they seek peace when the primary goal should always be justice. Peace alone is more often synonomous with injustice than it is with justice which is why one frequently hears at protests cries of "No Justice, No Peace!" For Israel and its supports, peace is short for pacification and ultimately, while resistance is currently at a low level, the Palestinians will not be pacified.
As for meeting with Israeli Jews,Palestinians have been doing that for years, but not, I suspect, with the Israeli Jews that you have in mind. I am speaking of those who realize and refuse to accept the injustice done by their fellow Jews to the Palestinians such as the organization Zochrot, which insists on making markers to show those same fellow Jews where more than 400 Palestinian villages stood that were erased from sight by Israeli bulldozers 60 years ago. Or those who stand with Palestinians protesting against the apartheid wall and get teargassed and arrested. I am speaking of those Israelis who are openly anti-zionist. Are they self-hating in your eyes because they seek justiice for those who have and continue too be Zionisms' victims?
I have long been a critic of the Palestinian leadership,observing over the years, how Israel managed to murder those who would have otherwise have risen to leadership and replaced the corrtupt Arafat and his cronies. Arafat had to be left alive because only he could sign away Palestinian land and undermine the resistance as he did at Oslo and then, when he was no longer needed, they have have had a hand in doing him in. But never has a victimized people been so poory led as they were by him. Even Shlomo Gazit, the former head of Israeli intelligence who negotiated Oslo for Israel acknowledged to a Jewish audience in San Francisco that what the Palestinians received at Oslo was the equivalent of what the Czechs received at Munich in 1938.
It matter little that you will not accept that Israel is a foreign body in the Arab Middle East or that I make such an argument. The facts, after all, bear that out. Is Israel any closer than being accepted than it was 60 years ago and would either Egypt and Jordan be kissing Netanyahu's ring if America wasn't plying both countries with billions and millions respectively? We all know the answer.
What inspires me at the moment is the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement that is growing in the UK and on the continent where the Zionist international is strong but not so strong as it is in the US. When that movement does begin to take off in the US and the present economic conditions might supply an impetus to that, then Israel and its supporters will begin to sweat, even in the middle of winter…. and pack their bags as already many are doing.
deceschi -"start to speak with Israeli Jews instead of demonizing them" – are you taking about the 6% who didn't support the slaughter of women and children under clouds of white phosporous? And how is it that you think a besieged people under military occupation are supposed to open this dialogue? Bullies don't listen to their victims, they see any attempt by the bullied as a sign of weakness which calls for even harsher measures.
You're not trying to bring balance, you're introducing a narrative we've all heard, and which has long been deconstructed.
Do you think pro-Jewish discussions should be given balance with a bit of anti-semitism?
Also ,you ignored my previous comment – are the Palestinians less human than Egyptians, Lebanese, Jordanians and Iraqis? After all it is they who have lost far, far more and are sheltering in overcrowded refugee camps with no prospects. So, peace means restoring justice to them, not demonising them as terrorisists.
*sigh*
@deceschi – "both people are victims and will be in future."
But only the Euro-Kazharian “Jewish” supremacists have made a profession out of being "victims," and systematically used that status to leverage and extort sympathy, money, material and political support for their supremacy from the world at large. Only they employ victimism as a sort of racketeering standard operating procedure and a means of communal cohesion for their ethno-religious ideology . Only they deliberately engage in abhorrent and murderous conduct out of impulse and modus operandi (thesis) that inevitably leads to backlash (antithesis) at which point instead of aiming for synthesis, they redouble the conduct that brought them into harms way in the first place.
Are they collectively suicidal? Are they collectively mentally ill? Are they collectively self-absorbed to the point of sociopathology? Or is it all motivated by epic ego and greed? In the end, those are probably questions for psychiatrists. But as the pattern of hatred and conflict has followed them across great swaths of time, geography, and interaction with all manner of ethnicities, cultures and races, it is quite clear that they are fundamentally irrational, belligerent, and loathsome in their conduct towards outsiders.
How, exactly, are Palestinians supposed to ever come to peaceful accords with a fundamentally irrational and supremacist people that regard the goy as something to be wrung for all its worth and then scraped of the bottom of their shoes?
To Jeff:
There is something pretty biased in your position as well as in the position of your fellows pro-Palestinian supporters – therefore I will try to correct these wrong opinions by means of a couple of examples (taken from a endless list). To be clear: I think it's this same kind of biased preconceived position that makes you believe Israel is the only oppressive and expansionist power in Middle East, while the Arab people – and among them the Palestinians – are the only victims of this "foreign" power. In your eyes, there is one sole offender in this conflict, and that are the Israeli Zionists inclusive all their supporters worldwide (means 98% of all Jews, apart of course from those who are like you). But in so doing, you use two different weights and mesures to judge the Middle East conflict, ignoring the facts on the ground and the context in which these facts have occured. So far I tend to believe that as the original idea of Zionism can become an radical ideology (see settler movement) and lead to extremism, so also anti-Zionism is a form of ideology and can degenerate in irrationalism. Let alone the other main protagonist of this drama, the radical Islamism which even seeks to traslate into reality the radical idea of Jihad, the "holy war" against all infedele.
Let's take your accusation that Israel forcibly drew out the Arab population during the 1948-war ("ethnic cleasing" charge). In 1947 the Arab population is approximately estimated at 1,135,300 people, while Jews were 650,000. Both the civil war and the conseguent Arab-Israeli war caused an exodus of 650,000–750,000 Palestinian Arabs who fled or were expelled by Israeli forces. Many of them were actually expelled, but many others fled in the expectation that they would shortly return to their homes on the backs of victorious Arab invaders. The remaining Palestinian Arabs became part of the newborn state and constitute today a strong Arab minority in Israel. Arab countries rejected in 1949 an Israeli proposal to take back some 100,000 Palestinian refugees. In the meanwhile – after pogroms, killings, threats against live, confiscation of Jewish properties and prohibition to practice their profession – the Jewish exodus from the Arab lands had already begun and has lasted until the early 1970'. Most of the 800,000 to 1,000,000 Jews fled to Israel and were welcomed and integrated in the society. Unlike the Arab states who left to rot their Palestinian brethrens in refugee camps for decades and used them for their low and hostile political aims.
Would Israel really be interested in doing ethnic cleasing, as you state, how do you explain the fact that the Palestinian population is growing steadily in Israel as well as in the disputed territories? Don't you see any contradiction?
Other issue but same pattern: Israel alleged war crimes. All anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli criticism is today focussing on alleged Israeli war crimes during "Operation Cast Lead". At least a dozen reports have already been written by humanitarian groups and UN-commissions on the behaviour of the IDF, but – strange enough – the lauching of thousand of rocket attacks and thousand of mortal shells by Hamas on the Southern Israeli communities between 2000 and 2008 was largely ignored, let alone the dozens of previous suicide bomb attacks during the Second Intifada. Pretty bizarr, isn't it? So explain me how should Israel deal with those Islamic extremists? Talk with them under continuous fire?
I don't want to say that Israel is immaculate and free from errors and sins, but I assert that both sides – the Jewish-Israeli and the Arab-Palestinian – are in equal and comparable mesure responsible for this situation, for the
continuation of the status quo. The admission of this moral (or immoral) equality – free from ideological ballast – can be very helpful to start again with a new sense of responsability, going forward in the peace process.
to fdp:
"Well, it seems clear how they can make peace with the Palestinians."
I think Israel would not oppose a withdrawal if the Palestinians renounce violence. So simple. The State of the Palestinians is within reach, but they seem to be (voluntarily? unvoluntarily?) unaware.
To Chris:
Only a question – how many Israelis do you know personally?
"I think Israel would not oppose a withdrawal if the Palestinians renounce violence. So simple. The State of the Palestinians is within reach, but they seem to be (voluntarily? unvoluntarily?) unaware."
So, the Egyptians get back their land for peace, the Jordanians get their land back, the Lebanese get their land back – and the Palestinians are supposed to sit in refugee camps for eternity whilst the israelis live in the houses they've been stealing since 1947?
Can you see that there might be the odd Palestinian who doesn't find this acceptable?
We've seen the so-called unilateral withdrawal from Gaza – it didn't solve the problem.
Bring on the boycott……..
To deceschi,
Only a question — Why does Euro-Khazarian organized Jewry ultimately end up despised and in mortal conflict century after century everywhere it goes?
deceschi,
I am biased against racists whatever their stripe. I am biased against people who steal other people's land and then blame them for it while stealing more land. More specifically I am biased against those American Jews who while enjoying the benefits of what America has to offer have become a fifth column undermining what is left of our democracy, putting the interests of what that French official once referred to as "that shittly little country" ahead of those of their fellow citizens and then complaining when that is pointed out while accusing the accusers of "anti-semitism." Whatever the reasons for its appearance in the past, the existence and rise of what is more properly described as an "anti-Jewish" attitude today is clearly the result of the growing revulsion to the barbaric actions of the Israeli state and the ham [sic] handed defense of it by the Zionist International in in the US and every Western Country.
As for what happened in 1948, I need no more Zionist pap. The Israelis encouraged the Arab Jews to leave their homelands, going so far as to set off bombs in Iraq when the better off Jews there were reluctant to leave. The number who left in 1948 and came to Israel was a little over 12,000 and the most in any one year was 125,000. The total number is questionable–I have the official Israel statistics at home and I am on the road–but it is less than the 850,000 which was another Zionist concoction so the world would think that there were more Arab Jewish refugees than Palestinian refugees. It is curious that the book I have from the middle 60s published in Israel which contains all kinds of interesting statistics about the country, it economy,and the Jews who inhabited it at the time contain no suggestion that the Arab Jews were refugees. Perhaps you can tell me any other refugees who were picked up and moved by transport planes as were the Jews of Yemen and Iraq? Or Ethiopia? When Israel committed the first terrorist act against the US when it firebombed the US embassy movie theater in Alexandria in 1953 and an Egyptian Jewish spy ring was broken up (the Lavon affair), did not that make the Egyptians legitimately concerned about the loyalty of their Jews? And did not that send a message–no doubt intended by the Israelis–to other Arab countries who began to worry about their Jews acting as spies in their midst.The time is coming when a lot of Americans will become concerned about that, too.
The Israeli Zionist Jews, they kill, they rob, they steal, they destroy, they murder, they arrest, they imprison, they destroy farms and kill domestic animals, they uproot people and trees, they exile, they humiliate millions on a daily basis, they have their own roads, they throw garbage on a daily basis on Palestinian homes in Hebron, they teach their children hate and racism as part of their new cultural and religion, they starve people, they blockade and put undersize some 1.5 million people, their soldiers steal and rob people of their cash and jewelry and credit cards, they occupy for 42 years and now we hear from Israeli apologist, “only if Palestinians abandon violence and terrorism” all will be fine, of course for Israelis but not for Palestinians. They abandoned violence and abandoned the right of self defense and the absolute rights to fight the occupation from 67-88 and what did Israel do. They simply went on a free shopping trip stealing and stealing and stealing land and water resources and exiling people from their homes. I always wondered what kind of people and what kind of minds are the Israelis and their supporters are? Nothing short of a one state solution will do. The two states solutions the Israelis and the Americans are talking about, is a Jewish State of Israel along the Apartheid Wall, and the Jewish Settler’s State of Judea and Samaria with Palestinians having no more than a “temporary residency” that can be revoked at any time. The problem is that I doubt if the leadership in Ramallah appreciate this fact.
ftp: broken record?
Is it too much requested if Israelis demands a full recognition by the Palestinias (Hamas didn't and also Fatah didn't to date, look at the map: http://www.alhayat-j.com/details.php?opt=2&id=86758&cid=1493) and the abandoning of the armed terror struggle (in brief a true lasting peace – no Hudnas), in exchange for land and a viable Palestinian state?
That was indeed the conditio sine qua non for the return of land to the Egypt and a peace agreement with Jordan, fully implemented and complied with by both sides.
Chris:
Sorry, no interest in discussing with you.
Jeff : Maybe this can assure you a little bit:
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/june_2009/81_say_palestinians_must_recognize_israel_s_right_to_exist_as_part_of_any_peace_agreement
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/current_events/ally_enemy/americans_still_see_more_enemies_than_friends_in_middle_east
You belong obviously to the 8 percent.
Why not get real and try to find practicable solutions rather than engage in illusions? Your intelligence is unfortunately misplaced. Regards.
Sami: "They abandoned violence and abandoned the right of self defense and the absolute rights to fight the occupation from 67-88 and what did Israel do". Is this true? We should face the facts not believe in legends.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/israel-terror.htm
Israeli sponsors, apologists, supporters have no sense of human decency and devoid of shamed common human values to see and recognize the wrongs committed by Israel on a daily basis, one should not expect them to have the sense of decency and shame to lie and continue to lie and dictate and invent historical facts as it relates to Palestine, to Nakkba to the Occupation to the Siege of Gaza, they went even further, they claim they are” G-d Chosen People” entitled to rob, steal and kill in HIS/HER name and to have nothing but contempt and despise for the rest of us, God’s trash. I guess that is why they needed hundreds of well organized and funded organizations to make sure the truth about Zionism and Israel never comes out; we can count Campus Watch and CAMERA and many others among these Zionist organizations that make sure they have monopoly on the truth and the rest of us are simple liars. They want the rest of the world to accept the Holocaust as historical facts, not open to debate or reviews or discussions, yet they are denying the Palestinians the rights to even remember their exile and Nakkba. Yes, indeed very unique people unlike any thing else humanity has seen in the last 10,000 years. I am sure Abraham the Prophet is wondering where did he go wrong? I am sure Zionists hijacked Judaism stripping it of all its values that made it the first and ever lasting faith.
deceschi -"Is it too much requested if Israelis demands a full recognition by the Palestinias"
Perhaps you'll answer the question? Why should the Palestinians spend an eternity in refugee camps so that Israelis can have the land they took at gunpoint?
You wrote this:
" Israel made peace with Jordan and Egypt, giving back land won in defensive wars, never aimed to conquer Iraq and withdraw completely from Lebanon"
Why do the Egyptians, Syrians and Lebanese get land back in return for recognition of Israel, whilst the Palestinians are supposed to meekly accept the theft of their land?
Not too hard for you to answer is it?
ftp: "Why do the Egyptians, Syrians and Lebanese get land back in return for recognition of Israel, whilst the Palestinians are supposed to meekly accept the theft of their land?"
They must not, it's enough they fully recognize Israel's existence and accept to live peacefully next to Israel. If they don't, their destiny will be as you lament. They shoud choose peace.
ftp: "Why do the Egyptians, Syrians and Lebanese get land back in return for recognition of Israel, whilst the Palestinians are supposed to meekly accept the theft of their land?"
They must not, it's enough they fully recognize Israel's existence and accept to live peacefully next to Israel. If they don't, their destiny will be as you lament. They should choose peace.
Did you feel proud to write that?
deceschi,
My last comment because you are clearly intent in wasting mine and other people's time. You sent a link to a poll that shows that 81% of Americans believe that the Palestinians should recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Apart from the fact that what happens in Palestine is none of their business, these are the same Americans who have shown no objection to having their tax dollars used to provide the F-15s, the Apache helicopter gunships and the M-16s to kill Palestinians and Lebanese. Of course, since the Zionist controlled US media does not generally report on these facts, most Americans are not aware of it. When you start telling them the truth they tend to get angry which is why control of the media is a key element ot the Zionist international's agenda. There was a time, some years back, when Israeli Jewish critics of their own country's barbarism had their articles published in the US mainstream press but that window has been closed. As a consequence the only writers whose op-eds critical of Israel are allowed to appear are those written by Palestinians or Arab-Americans and even those must fit into the accepted parameters that have been set by the Zionist media barons. As the late anti-zionist historeian aind linguist told a a leftish Jewish dinner crowd in San Fr4ancisco on her last trip there few years ago, it as if the Protocols of the Elders of Zion were alive and well. Of course the Jewish dinner guests didn't want to hear that but she knew what she was talking about. So that's my last communication on this thread to you. To quote an old but useful send off, go peddle your papers somewhere else.
Jeff,
good decision – although only for your part, not for mine -, since our talk is one of the deaf. Hopefully Israelis and Palestinians lern to do it better (I know, it's only my hope not your).
Sami,
keep in mind your words:
" Who knows there may be a new Israeli and Palestinian leadership that can have the vision, the courage and the decency and sense of history that can achieve peace and security for both people?".
"Maybe someday there will be real peace between Israel and the Palestinians."
There is a a yiddish saying: "Dein Wort in G'ttes Ohr". May G'd hear what you said (and fulfill it).
Israeli sponsors, apologists, supporters have no sense of human decency and devoid of shamed common human values to see and recognize the wrongs committed by Israel on a daily basis, one should not expect them to have the sense of decency and shame to lie and continue to lie and dictate and invent historical facts as it relates to Palestine, to Nakkba to the Occupation to the Siege of Gaza, they went even further, they claim they are” G-d Chosen People” entitled to rob, steal and kill in HIS/HER name and to have nothing but contempt and despise for the rest of us, God’s trash. I guess that is why they needed hundreds of well organized and funded organizations to make sure the truth about Zionism and Israel never comes out; we can count Campus Watch and CAMERA and many others among these Zionist organizations that make sure they have monopoly on the truth and the rest of us are simple liars. They want the rest of the world to accept the Holocaust as historical facts, not open to debate or reviews or discussions, yet they are denying the Palestinians the rights to even remember their exile and Nakkba. Yes, indeed very unique people unlike any thing else humanity has seen in the last 10,000 years. I am sure Abraham the Prophet is wondering where did he go wrong? I am sure Zionists hijacked Judaism stripping it of all its values that made it the first and ever lasting faith.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('11146','Sami Jamil Jadallah'); return false;">Reply</a> – <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('11146','Sami Jamil Jadallah','Israeli sponsors, apologists, supporters have no sense of human decency and devoid of shamed common human values to see and recognize the wrongs committed by Israel on a daily basis, one should not expect them to have the sense of decency and shame to lie and continue to lie and dictate and invent historical facts as it relates to Palestine, to Nakkba to the Occupation to the Siege of Gaza, they went even further, they claim they areâ G-d Chosen Peopleâ entitled to rob, steal and kill in HIS\/HER name and to have nothing but contempt and despise for the rest of us, Godâs trash. I guess that is why they needed hundreds of well organized and funded organizations to make sure the truth about Zionism and Israel never comes out; we can count Campus Watch and CAMERA and many others among these Zionist organizations that make sure they have monopoly on the truth and the rest of us are simple liars. They want the rest of the world to accept the Holocaust as historical facts, not open to debate or reviews or discussions, yet they are denying the Palestinians the rights to even remember their exile and Nakkba. Yes, indeed very unique people unlike any thing else humanity has seen in the last 10,000 years. I am sure Abraham the Prophet is wondering where did he go wrong? I am sure Zionists hijacked Judaism stripping it of all its values that made it the first and ever lasting faith.'); return false;">Quote</a></div>; Israeli sponsors, apologists, supporters have no sense of human decency and devoid of shamed common human values to see and recognize the wrongs committed by Israel on a daily basis, one should not expect them to have the sense of decency and shame to lie and continue to lie and dictate and invent historical facts as it relates to Palestine, to Nakkba to the Occupation to the Siege of Gaza, they went even further, they claim they are” G-d Chosen People” entitled to rob, steal and kill in HIS/HER name and to have nothing but contempt and despise for the rest of us, God’s trash. I guess that is why they needed hundreds of well organized and funded organizations to make sure the truth about Zionism and Israel never comes out; we can count Campus Watch and CAMERA and many others among these Zionist organizations that make sure they have monopoly on the truth and the rest of us are simple liars. They want the rest of the world to accept the Holocaust as historical facts, not open to debate or reviews or discussions, yet they are denying the Palestinians the rights to even remember their exile and Nakkba. Yes, indeed very unique people unlike any thing else humanity has seen in the last 10,000 years. I am sure Abraham the Prophet is wondering where did he go wrong? I am sure Zionists hijacked Judaism stripping it of all its values that made it the first and ever lasting faith.<div class="comment-remix-meta"><a href="#" class="replyto" onclick="replyto('11146','Sami Jamil Jadallah'); return false;">Reply</a> – <a href="#" class="quote" onclick="quote('11146','Sami Jamil Jadallah','Israeli sponsors, apologists, supporters have no sense of human decency and devoid of shamed common human values to see and recognize the wrongs committed by Israel on a daily basis, one should not expect them to have the sense of decency and shame to lie and continue to lie and dictate and invent historical facts as it relates to Palestine, to Nakkba to the Occupation to the Siege of Gaza, they went even further, they claim they areâ G-d Chosen Peopleâ entitled to rob, steal and kill in HIS\/HER name and to have nothing but contempt and despise for the rest of us, Godâs trash. I guess that is why they needed hundreds of well organized and funded organizations to make sure the truth about Zionism and Israel never comes out; we can count Campus Watch and CAMERA and many others among these Zionist organizations that make sure they have monopoly on the truth and the rest of us are simple liars. They want the rest of the world to accept the Holocaust as historical facts, not open to debate or reviews or discussions, yet they are denying the Palestinians the rights to even remember their exile and Nakkba. Yes, indeed very unique people unlike any thing else humanity has seen in the last 10,000 years. I am sure Abraham the Prophet is wondering where did he go wrong? I am sure Zionists hijacked Judaism stripping it of all its values that made it the first and ever lasting faith.'); return false;">Quote</a></div>;;
You’re not interested in reflecting upon organized Jewry’s own behavior, characteristics or initiatives that might have led to its many conflicts with so many peoples over geography and time? That doesn’t surprise me.
As a rule, organized Jewry is more interested in observing, generalizing about and publicly condemning the sinister behavior, motives and characteristics of Christians, Muslims, the Left, the Right, etc than it is in reflecting upon its own moral failings.
Group supremacists and megalomaniacs, you see, don’t believe they have any failings. Any ill behavior on their part is either the natural order of things, or the fault of those who resisted or contested their authority and intellect; never the fault of their own.
This kind of thinking is also characteristic of sociopaths.
“But if we are sociopaths, the world made us so,” cry the Jews.
Did it? Did it really? It had nothing whatsoever to do with organized Jewry’s self-righteousness, monomania, delusions of grandeur, delusions of choseness, and consequential assertion of its self-identified “authority”? Did the world make the Jews collective sociopaths, or did their own agenda and self-conception?
This is the real reason the Palestinians are being persecuted: they challenged the moral authority of “the chosen” to take what it wants.
And the real reason the Jews have been historically persecuted? Because the world is unwilling to roll over to the concept of their supremacy (even is certain incredibly stupid American politicians are.)
What is wrong with the Palestinians? A whole lot. With a title like that I would have expected to find some mention of 30 killed and 100 + injured at a mosque might be mentioned. Well I guess there is no room for self reflection there either or maybe you're a group self-righteous sociopaths. But them I'm sure the world and Jews made it that way.
One could draw the conclusion some here are projecting.
Kevin – either you think that Sami Jamil Jadallah is an amazing pyschic who could forsee events 3 weeks before they happened, or you're not very bright.
As for projecting, its not something you'd be guilty of , is it?
Kevin,
leaving the Jewish/Palestinian conflict aside for the moment, what are your theories on why Ashkenazim-Khazarian organized Jewry nearly always ends up despised and in mortal conflict across nations, continents, and huge swaths of time?
For example, do you believe Christians in Europe who wound up in conflict with Jews time and again were entirely to blame, as you apparently believe Muslims in the Mideast are? Do you believe Leftists who once partnered with Jews in the Soviet Communist coup but ultimately wound up in conflict were entirely to blame as well? What about all the nationalists who have butted heads with Jews over the course of history? Was it all their fault as well?
Too general? Okay, let's get more specific. What about the group of Hasidic Jews of the Lubavitch movement from New York who opened a kosher slaughterhouse in Postville, Iowa and wound up in conflict due illegal business dealings, worker exploitation and fraud perpetrated on the locals (even though the townspeople initially bent over backward to welcome and accommodate them). All the fault of anti-Semitic Americans?
Does organized Jewry play no role itself whatsoever in any of these endless conflicts it is involved in, or is there really something to "the Jewish problem" as documented by so many writers and thinkers (some of them Jewish) throughout history?
Organized Jewry and Zionists better start getting used to the reality that the post-Holocaust moral pass granted them these last six decades has been milked for all its worth, and is now running dry.
Chris Moore,
Read "My life" by Golda Meir. This single book weighs far more than all the lot of rubbish you've filled up your mind with during a whole life and it will teach you something true about Jews and Zionism. But of course you prefer to keep tigh your insane convincions. Sorry for you.
deceschi
"Both the civil war and the conseguent Arab-Israeli war caused an exodus of 650,000–750,000 Palestinian Arabs who fled or were expelled by Israeli forces. Many of them were actually expelled, but many others fled in the expectation that they would shortly return to their homes on the backs of victorious Arab invaders"
.Golda Meir:
"I am more than a little tired of hearing about how the Jews 'stole' land from Arabs in Palestine. The facts are quite different. A lot of good money changed hands, and a lot of Arabs became very rich indeed. Of course, there were other organizations and countless individuals who also bought tracts. But by 1947 the JNF alone – millions of filled 'blue boxes' – owned over half of all the Jewish holdings in the country. So let that libel, at least, be done with."
One of them must be a liar………
Or maybe both of them……
ftp
Or maybe you can't accept that Arab Palestinians aren't only the victims as you like to see them …
No – some of them are resistance fighters
I'm clear on one thing – the Palestinians didn't travel from other continents to create the difficulties.
But hey – educate me – explain how the ones who crossed seas to steal the land are the true victims.
It should be fascinating…….
ftp: "But hey – educate me – explain how the ones who crossed seas to steal the land are the true victims.
It should be fascinating……. "
Maybe this could be a beginning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine#cite_ref-1
Tel-Aviv-Washington, International press agencies: Today the government of the State of Israel and the American Congress announced the conclusion of secrete studies that has been funded by the US Congress, State of Israel and with generous support from Jewish philanthropists such Bernard Madoff lasting some 25 years to determine the “origin” of the Palestinian people inhabiting the land of Israel. The study carried out by Israel scholars in history, anthropology, genetic researchers conclude that those people called “Palestinians” are aliens and their historical origin is not Palestine, but Russia, Poland, Ukraine, Hungry, South Africa, US, France, Germany among other courtiers. As such both government, the US and Israel have agreed to set aside $500 millions to repatriate these Palestinians to their courtiers of origin in Europe, the US, and South Africa. The Magic Carpet was the name selected for this operation with thousands of charters flights are scheduled to start the repatriations of Palestinians. Within the next two years, Israel will be as Jewish as New York Borough of Brooklyn.
I presume you mean this bit?
"Benny Morris , a leading historian on the subject Israel, has stated that only few families were displaced by the land purchases as oppose the critics who state otherwise. Morris claims that “Historians have concluded that only ‘several thousand’ families were displaced following the land sales to Jews between the 1880s and the late 1930s”
You've already admitted that many many Palestinians were either driven off the land or (ahem) left with the intention of returning to their land.
Now how does the fact that a few thousand Palestinian families sold their land whist tens of thousands were driven off at gunpoint, with massacres and rapes or (ahem) left expecting to return, make the ones who crossed seas and stole land (and continue to steal land on a daily basis) the true victims?
Perhaps I'm not very intelligent, but I can't see how the article answers the question……
In the first place the myth of Arab land dispossession before 1947. There was nothing like that, but land sold to the Jewish people by absentee Arab landlords, appointed by the Ottoman government, at enormous profits. In the second place the myth that before 1947 the land was inhabited mostly by Arab indigenous for centuries. Fake, since the majority of the Arab population (400,000 to 450,000 people) in Palestine, when the heaviest Jewish immigration began in 1880, was itself a recent immigration, and seen that the Arab immigration in Palestine, followed unprecedented economic growth, continued to increase exponentially until 1947 (to almost 1,300,000 people). And the last Palestinian (and your) claim about the expulsion of Arab population from the land. Historical facts speak a clear language, so I don't see the reason of your understanding problems:
Even before the British mandate, there were first the bloody Arab riots of 1921(http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_riots_1920-21.php) and 1929 (http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_riots_1929.php) against the Jewish communities, the latter fomented by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini (http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php). After that came the Arab Revolt of 1936-39, in which the Jews where persecuted and killed by the Arab majority (http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_riots_1936-39.php). The result of the violence was the publication of the White Paper (http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_whitepaper_1939.php), very iniquitous toward the Jewish communities. During the WWII the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem al-Husseini collaborated with the Nazi to get rid of the Jews (to exterminate them) in British Palestine like Germany did already in Europe, but he did't succeed because Generalfeldmarshall Rommel didn't manage to break through the British lines in Egyp (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Amin_al-Husayni#The_Holocaust). After the war in 1947 a Partition Plan was adopted by the UN (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Palestine), in the aftermath broke out the Civil War in Mandatory Palestine with many attacks und violence on both sides and in May 1948, the day after the Declaration of Indipendence by Ben Gurion, the first Arab-Israeli War, in which arab armies joined the Arab Palestinian in their fight against Jews. The clear aim of the Arab armies was now to of the new-born Jewish nation and the reconquest of "Arab" land. But they lost. The war led indeed to Palestinian refugees from Israel AND to Jewish refugees from Arab countries, in almost equal numbers. In both cases they left alone for fear or were forced to leave. The difference is that while Jewish refugees fled, lost everything and never expected to return to their stolen homes and properties, because Israel welcomed them in their new country, many Arab Palestinians were let to rot in refugees camps by their Arab "brethren" and were and are still used as "human weapon" against Israel (here's why the absurd claim of the right of return to Israel for all Palestinian refugees, more than 5 millions).
There is a lot of projection in all these claims toward Israel. I think this old game must finally stop in order to find a good compromise that can bring peace. There is no other way, believe me. Only the desire for peace that starts in your hearts and minds can achieve what the violence destroys again and again.
Deceschi apparently believes it is non-Jews whose minds are filled with rubbish. He has apparently internalized the rubbish with which his own mind has been filled by the closed-cult of organized Jewry. He believes his own false consciousness, painstakingly constructed brick after brick and year after year by his co-religionists.
Deceschi, please entertain for just on minute — sixty short seconds — the possibility that it is your own cult that has filled your own mind with rubbish; the possibility that the reason organized Judaism cuts itself off from the world and defines itself as a people apart is because it wants to control the minds of those under its sway, and fashion blinders to obstruct their vision.
Think back over your own life in flashback scenes as they often write into movies where the protagonist finally puts all the pieces of the puzzle together in quick glimpses. Think about how the Jewish cultists controlled, manipulated, lied, propagandized, thought-managed, and engineered your beliefs and perceptions over the years. Parents. Rabbis. Politicians. Think how their fellow travelers in the mass media reinforced this false consciousness with movies, books, documentaries, magazine and newspaper articles…
Obtain the courage to ask yourself: Was I educated, or was I indoctrinated? Dare to step outside yourself and objectively view your cult. But only if you dare. Most would rather remain children, perpetually suckling from their rabbis as their rabbis once suckled from them.
Deceschi, are you a man, or are you a rabbi suckler?
Deceschi can not send anymore his responces because of the very undemocratic censorship in this thread. A long way needed, a very looooong way indeed.
Let's beginn with the myth of Arab land dispossession before 1947. There was nothing like that, but land sold to the Jewish people by absentee Arab landlords, appointed by the Ottoman government, at enormous profits. In the second place the myth that before 1947 the land was inhabited mostly by Arab indigenous for centuries. Fake, since the majority of the Arab population (400,000 to 450,000 people) in Palestine, when the heaviest Jewish immigration began in 1880, was itself a recent immigration, and seen that the Arab immigration in Palestine, followed unprecedented economic growth, continued to increase exponentially until 1947 (to almost 1,300,000 people). And the last Palestinian (and your) claim about the expulsion of Arab population from the land. Historical facts speak a clear language, so I don't see the reason of your understanding problems:
Even before the British mandate, there were first the bloody Arab riots of 1921 and 1929 against the Jewish communities, the latter fomented by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini . After that came the Arab Revolt of 1936-39, in which the Jews where persecuted and killed by the Arab majority . The result of the violence was the publication of the White Paper , very iniquitous toward the Jewish communities. During the WWII the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem al-Husseini collaborated with the Nazi to get rid of the Jews (to exterminate them) in British Palestine like Germany did already in Europe, but he did't succeed because Generalfeldmarshall Rommel didn't manage to break through the British lines in Egyp . After the war in 1947 a Partition Plan was adopted by the UN , in the aftermath broke out the Civil War in Mandatory Palestine with many attacks und violence on both sides and in May 1948, the day after the Declaration of Indipendence by Ben Gurion, the first Arab-Israeli War, in which arab armies joined the Arab Palestinian in their fight against Jews. The clear aim of the Arab armies was now to of the new-born Jewish nation and the reconquest of "Arab" land. But they lost. The war led indeed to Palestinian refugees from Israel AND to Jewish refugees from Arab countries, in almost equal numbers. In both cases they left alone for fear or were forced to leave. The difference is that while Jewish refugees fled, lost everything and never expected to return to their stolen homes and properties, because Israel welcomed them in their new country, many Arab Palestinians were let to rot in refugees camps by their Arab "brethren" and were and are still used as "human weapon" against Israel (here's why the absurd claim of the right of return to Israel for all Palestinian refugees, more than 5 millions).
There is a lot of projection in all these claims toward Israel. I think this old game must finally stop in order to find a good compromise that can bring peace. There is no other way, believe me. Only the desire for peace that starts in your hearts and minds can achieve what the violence destroys again and again.
The links to my previous posts, with my excuses for the previous little anger….
Arab riots of 1921 and 1929 : http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_riots_1920-21.php
http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_riots_1929.php
The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini: http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php
The Arab Revolt of 1936-39: http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_riots_1936-39.php
The White Paper: http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_whitepaper_1939.php
During the WWII: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Amin_al-Husayni#The_Holocaust
My excuses for the previous little anger, but the links to the single points are not getting through.
Chris Moore,
I take my stand on facts, not ideology, unlike you.
deceschi: "I take my stand on facts, not ideology, unlike you. "
Yes – by quoting pure zionist propaganda at us.
I thought that you might not be up to the challenge set you by Chris Moore, and I was right.
No matter how you play it, the refugee camps are full of dispossessed Palestinians who were driven off land under violence and threats of violence, and whose land is now occupied by people who came across the seas, and who are still stealing parts of the meagre 22% of the Palestinian homeland.
And you say that they can only have peace by accepting this, and being second class citizens in their only country for eternity. Either they will be non-Jews in the Jewish state, or they will be subjects of defenceless bantustans, whose every means of survival are controlled by the Jewish state.
Now even if the majority of Palestinans are bullied into accepting this, there will always be those who are not prepared to, and who will resist.
If it was Jews who were being treated like Palestinians, I am sure you wouldn't find it acceptable – but somewhere in your ideologically hidebound head you have dismissed the humanity of the Palestinians, and bought into defending great injustice.
I wasn't around in 1921, so I don't know what really happened – but we already know that many of the myths about why Palestinians fled in 1948 have been disproved by Israeli historians such as Benny the racist:
"Of course. Ben-Gurion was a transferist. He understood that there could be no Jewish state with a large and hostile Arab minority in its midst. There would be no such state. It would not be able to exist."
"Ben-Gurion was right. If he had not done what he did, a state would not have come into being. That has to be clear. It is impossible to evade it. Without the uprooting of the Palestinians, a Jewish state would not have arisen here."
"If he was already engaged in expulsion, maybe he should have done a complete job. I know that this stuns the Arabs and the liberals and the politically correct types. But my feeling is that this place would be quieter and know less suffering if the matter had been resolved once and for all. If Ben-Gurion had carried out a large expulsion and cleansed the whole country – the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan River. It may yet turn out that this was his fatal mistake. If he had carried out a full expulsion – rather than a partial one – he would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations."
He explains why the Jews are the true victims at the end of the interview he gave in 2004.
Like your claims it is pure ideological bullshit.
Without justice there will never be peace.
______________________________________________
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=380986&contrassID=2
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=380984
@deceschi – palestinfacts.org is registered to the Zionist Organisation of America.
No doubt they deal in facts and not ideology – exactly like you…….
Jeff is totally right here in that there is a new spate of "hasbarists" who are spending a lot of time to "argue the Israel case" on Palestinian boards and boards sensitive to Palestinian issues. I have noticed in the past few days a great increase in these "new" figures who come onto a whole lot of threads and put generally the same material in, more or less, all of it acting as if they are just here to dialogue, when it is truer to say they are here to put in the usual Zionist propaganda, such as the fake King quote, stuff from sites like Palestinefacts and whatnot.
Our policy has been to not allow the distraction that these propagandists have, and generally, they are nipped in the bud. In this case, the decision was made to let the discourse unfold, because the range of the discussion is so wide and it has been actually so interesting and insightful to watch how a hasbarist is deconstructed by those who are very aware of how the facts can be inverted, turned on their head and hidden, that I believe there has been a benefit in seeing these people's arguments exposed, as sooner or later they always are.
ftp,
but you must admit that all these historians (the left side of Morris, Ilan Pappe, and many other historians of the "new generation") are 100% Israeli Jews who dare to look into the problematic side of Israel's history and who are not afraid to pursue a hash criticism on Israel. This belongs to rules of democracy as Israel is, there is a free speech there, unlike in Arab countries and by Palestinians as well. There was indeed injustice in Israels behaviour in 1948, but because of the very tough situation in which she came into existence as a Jewish state. I fear, if Israel had lost only one of the wars she fought, there would be now not a Jewish issue in Middle East anymore as there is today a Palestinian issue, because the Jews would be exterminated by Arabs without mercy and not simply driven out in a limited extend, as Jews were from Arab states (but in a almost complete extend indeed).
There is pretty a lot historical evidence (not "pure Zionist propaganda") that the Arab Palestinians before the indipendence War of 1948 didn't not at all agree to share the land with Jews, but collaborated actively with Nazi Germany in order to get rid of them all, and the same also during the first Arab-Israeli War 1948. But if you have other evidences show me please.
If we want peace we need to look at the ugly truths of reality on both sides, and not only of the other side. Justice means first of all intellectual fairness. I miss it by you and your fellows.
To those Zionist Jews who claim Palestinians sold their land and properties to the immigrant Jews I say “you are liars and your tongues are on fire”. At the time of the creation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948, the Jewish community owned not more than 5-6% of the total land of Palestine, including predominantly Jewish Tel-Aviv. True Arabs such as Lebanese feudal landlords sold some of their properties to Jews especially in the area of “marj bin amer”, and some villagers such as “Lifta” who sold some to the Jews. To claim that the majority of land was Jewish owned in 1948 is a simple lie, and lies is the Zionist truth. As for Jews who chose to leave their homes in Arab countries they did leave behind properties and no one is denying that. I personally know of a number of Moroccan Jews who returned and recovered all of their properties since Arab stole it. I am for Arab Jews to reclaim all their rights and properties in Arab countries and I am for Palestinian Arabs right to reclaim their properties in Israel and I am for European Jews rights to reclaim their properties taken over by the Nazis. The sad thing is that Zionist Jews want the world to recognize their rights to their properties while denying the Palestinians their rights to their properties, since this is an admission they are not only colonial power but simple land thieves.
Well, mr…. It must be said that there is a commenting moderation "glitch" that has to be explained. Any comment that has 4 or more links gets automatically sent to the spam file, no matter if the poster is "accepted by the system". That is because computer generated spam has to be blocked. It comes in at a rate of 30 a day and the bulk of them have 4 or more "links" and therefore, this is the threshold that is set. If someone has to put in a lot of links, they will not be aware of this occurrence, but their comment will be blocked and held "as if" it were spam. Sorting anything with lots of links automatically spares people having to wade through the junk, even if at times real comments are placed there. It is necessary for being able to keep the threads legible and a service to readers to not have to put up with the mess of spam, including readers of the threads and those "subscribed" to comments, which may be hundreds of people. Comments that fall under the spam filter stay there until the moderator can get to the computer and open the file and sort things out manually, including the many true spams that are held there.
@deceschi –
You say: There is pretty a lot historical evidence (not "pure Zionist propaganda") that the Arab Palestinians before the indipendence War of 1948 didn't not at all agree to share the land with Jews, but collaborated actively with Nazi Germany in order to get rid of them all, and the same also during the first Arab-Israeli War 1948. But if you have other evidences show me please.
Well, you have to talk about things in the proper perspective. 1) sharing the land was something that of course was always allowed by the Palestinians to whomever was truly part of that land. There is a major difference between sharing and limitless and massive immigration to their country which would dramatically change the demographics of their country and along with it, be a reason to worry about their own rights being respected and their own property and well-being being in their own complete control. 2) the "Palestinians" did not collaborate "actively" (how could they?) with Nazi Germany (here comes the Mufti of Jerusalem that Israeli propagandists love to pull out as proof of something). What do you mean by "active collaboration" and "the Arab Palestinians" anyway? Of course, this is the way to put in all kinds of historical falsehoods and turn the Palestinians into having responsibility for the fate of Jews, which they are not. They did not have anything to do with crimes against Jews and passing this off as fact is a blatant distortion used as part of the propaganda because people are hungry for motivation to blame Palestinians for what happened to them and let the rest of the world supporting the Jewish immigration en masse to Palestine off the hook for the disasters it has created for millions of people, not the least, the Jews themselves, since we can't judge Israel as a successful project and a safe haven for Jews.
hey, folks
it is not fault of the hebrews and the euros who converted to their faith that 'god' had chosen them to lead not only the nations but people also.
we, nonhebraic and nontalmudic people better accept this 'fact' since present 'jews' have their yahweh and we do not.
and yahweh can do anything. He can even depopulate entire canaan for 2K yrs and keep it unoccupied so that his children can return to the land of israel.
so, why don't defenders of yahweh let yahweh handle the matters; he needs no defending nor tutoring, i think.
Is this because talmudniks do not trust Yahweh or even believe that s/he does not exist?
yes, i thin, that is the problem. That's why they take the moral and legal laws into own hands.
and yahweh is a jealous and mighty god. He smote israelites, benjaminim/yehudim, and 'jews' of europe. He, surely, will whack also new israelis. tnx
hey, folks
it is not fault of the hebrews and the euros who converted to their faith that 'god' had chosen them to lead not only the nations but people also.
we, nonhebraic and nontalmudic people better accept this 'fact' since present 'jews' have their yahweh and we do not.
and yahweh can do anything. He can even depopulate entire canaan for 2K yrs and keep it unoccupied so that his children can return to the land of israel.
so, why don't defenders of yahweh let yahweh handle the matters; he needs no defending nor tutoring, i think.
Is this because talmudniks do not trust Yahweh or even believe that s/he does not exist?
yes, i think, that is the problem. That's why they take the moral and legal laws into own hands.
and yahweh is a jealous and mighty god. He smote israelites, benjaminim/yehudim, and 'jews' of europe. He, surely, will whack also new israelis. tnx
The Zionist creed apears to parallel that of the shyster lawyer:
1) Never admit wrongdoing
2) Never apologize
3) Never let truth, justice or even common decency get in the way of grasping
With a creed like that, is it any wonder Zionists find themselves perpetually embattled? On the other hand, they've found enduring acceptance among like-minded shyster comrades in the post-Christian West, from slick politicians, to corporatists, to used car salesmen. Which explains why they systematically go about degrading any given society in which they dwell.
Certain organism prosper and thrive in swamps and cesspools while others choke and drown.
This is the real danger of Zionism. It attracts a lot of very base creatures who are hell bent on bringing their upside down, "bad is good" shyster creed to the four corners of the globe.
@sami jamil jadallah
I would like to ask you if you have some figures about the return of Jewish properties stolen in Arab lands to their legitimate owners, and if there are statistics about how many Jews who were driven out from Arab lands could return in persona to their homes. Since my sources are all "Zionist propaganda", as you state (a bit easy to brand everything as Zionist propaganda), please give me at least a source that in your opinion is objectiv on this subject.
As for your statement that Jews owned legally in 1948 7% to 10% of the whole land, this is true but do you have any precise and proven statistics of Arab land OWNERSHIP (and NOT , given to usufruct it by the government?). Were the Arab Felah indeed owners or land tenants who were steadily displaced or "dispossessed" by other factors than Zionist purchases? The chaotic land registration practises under the Ottomane regime as well as under the British regime can hardly help to infer the exact Arab ownership during the Brirish Mandate. At the end of the British mandate 1947 out of the total land of Mandatory Palestinian (26.3 million metric dunams) over the half was state land. Besides, you must consider that Jews weren't allowed to purchase the land because of discriminatory laws against them since 1939 (the White Paper).
Of the 55% land given to the Jewish state in the Partition Plan of 1947 approximately 60 % was arid desert (Negev). According to British statistics, more than 70% of the land in what would become Israel was not owned by Arab farmers, it belonged to the mandatory government.
Yet, the Arab Palestinians didn't accept the UN-Partition plan and violence broke out between both sides, followed by the invasion of several Arab armies. Arab League Secretary Azzam Pasha said on September 16, 1947 to a delegation of the Jewish agency that came to find a last minute compromise to avoid the war:
"Nations never concede; they fight. You won't get anything by peaceful means or compromise. You can, perhaps, get something, but only by the force of your arms. We shall try to defeat you. I am not sure we'll succeed, but we'll try. We were able to drive out the Crusaders, but on the other hand we lost Spain and Persia. It may be that we shall lose Palestine. But it's too late to talk of peaceful solutions". And on the day of the declaration of Indipendence of Israel he stated at Cairo press conference (reported in the New York Times, May 16, 1948): "This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades"..
Well, you are always only the victims, isn't it?
@Mary Rizzo
Thank you for your kind explanations about the automatic spam section
I think we shall see things like they are: The Arab majority (1,300,000) was never in danger to be overflooted by the Jewish minority (600,000), since Arabs would be allowed even after the partition to immigrate freely and legally in Arab Palestine, as the Jews into Israel, and since the properties of Arabs and Jews were both protected in egual mesure by the law of each state. (Before 1947 there were no land expropriations by Jews, as you hopefully should know). There was no reason at all for Arab Palestinians to be afraid that "Das Boot ist voll", the boat would be full like the Swiss authorities disgracefully thought towards the Jewish refugees during WWII. But the fact is: Palestinians didn't want the partition. What did they (their leaders) want?
I wonder if you can look at reality beyond the ideological apology of the Palestinians at any cost. Its a historical evidence without any doubt that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (and oncle of Jassir Arafat) was a strenuous and active sympathizer of the Nazis. There are many photos of him in presence of Nazis, one of them shows him sitting in front of Hitler. He met with Himmler and other hierarchs and, among the many things, he is strongly suspected of having been actively involved in the 'Holocaust'.
As for the active collaboration between Palestinian leaders and the Nazis here a link, hopefully above the usual suspicions:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1423589.stm
Well, Tedeschi, oops, I meant Deceschi, when I saw your resurrection of the accusations against the late Mufti and by implications against the Palestinian people as a whole, which is always a sign that that the Zionist raising the issue (for it is only Zionists that do this) has reached the bottom of the barrel and run of argument , I could not resist going to my files and copying this about the true Nazi collaborators..
Since no one else seems to have mentioned it, please explain the insidious connections between the Nazis and the Zionists and perhaps you might agree that there should be a re-issue of the medal that was coined to commemorate Adolph Eichmann’s trip to Palestine in the 30s which had a swastika on one side and a star of David on the other. How prescient that was! Eichmann was the man with whom the Zionists successively negotiated the transfer of most of the German Jews to Palestine and particularly the young, healthy ones who the Nazis allowed to train as young pioneers even as other non-Zionist Jews were being rounded up.
There was nothing humanitarian about the Zionists. They were not interested in saving the old ones unless they had money which was then used to buy German goods which were shipped on Nazi flagged freighters to Palestine where they were resold by the newly arrived olim. (See Edward Black, The Transfer Agreement, Macmillan).
The Zionists rejected the old stereotype of the bookish, intellectual, businessman Jew in favor of building a “new Jew,” something that strangely resembled the Aryan image that the Nazis were projecting and they certainly seemed to have achieved that (and will be as successful in maintaining it as were those in the “1000 Year Reich.”)
The Nazis were so helpful to the Zionists in Palestine that the great Jewish writer, Leon Feuchtwanger wrote that one day “they will erect a statue to Hitler in Jerusalem.” Poor deluded Leon, too, managed to escape.
Then, of course, we have the case of former prime minister Yitzak Shamir (nee Yezernitsky) , a member of Lehi AKA the Stern Gang that sent a message to Hitler expressing its understanding and support for the Nazi cause and offering to work with the Nazis against the British since their philosophies were so similar. A copy of the document turned up in a safe in the Turkish embassy after the war and not only has its authenticity never been questioned, it has been published in the Israeli press.
As a result when the criminal terrorist Shamir replaced his fellow criminal terrorist Begin when the latter retired as prime minister in 1983, there were protests from Jewish holocaust survivors who asked how a man who tried to collaborate with Hitler could be allowed to rule Israel. (I was there at the time since that piece of information was blanked out in the Zionized US media). As is well known in Israel, holocaust survivors have always been treated like shit, and so no one, except a few journalists now and then, paid attention to the story. (See 1949: The First Israelis by Tom Segev). Of course, to publish that in a US paper would have been verboten. Talking about it got my late friend, Colin Edwards, a veteran radio journalist and longtime Welsh nationalist, thrown off the air at KALW in San Francisco when the Israeli Consul General and a local Zio judge complained.
Besides Lenni Brenner’s “51 Documents” which seals the case for Zionist collaboration with the Nazis, I strongly recommend reading Ben Hecht’s “Perfidy,” which is an eloquent, irrefutable unmasking of the collaboration of the Zionist mainstream with the Nazis, written from the perspective of a member of the Irgun of which Hecht was its most important American supporter.
In “Perfidy,” Hecht reveals the lengths the mainstream Zionists went in order to sabotage the rescue of German and other European Jews who would have been sent to any place but Palestine. Building a Judenstaat was more important than saving Jewish lives. They were a truly execrable lot, those Zionists and, not surprisingly, they have created an even more execrable state.
And yet Israel has no compunction in deporting Jews for entirely peaceful opposition to its violent occupation. This has happened to a few friends of mine.
This seems very unlikely if you read Jeff Blankfort's post at 161. You've produced no evidence against the Mufti other than that he had meetings with Nazis and is "strongly suspected of having been actively involved in the 'Holocaust'." Many of those now living in Gaza Prison and the West bank, not to mention the refugee camps outside of Palestine, were not around in the 1940s, and therefore cannot be held responsible for anything the Mufti is "strongly suspected" of. The original post is proof enough that Palestinians are humans who don't share the exact same thoughts at all times.
I think the intellectual fairness you talk of means swallowing truckloads of zionist propaganda which aims to obscure the fact that Israel continues in a belligerent violent and extremely undemocratic occupation which leads to the suffering of millions of innocent people who have done nothing to deserve the inhumane treatment and incarceration to which they have been subjected for the last six decades. If the existence of the Jewish state is only made possible by the continued suffering of the indigenous population, then I cannot see where the right to exist of such a state comes from. If Israel carries on with a programme of slaughters which people get to watch on their televisions, anti-semitism will increase and eventually Israel will lose all goodwill.
And no amount of trolling on pro-Palestinian sites will stop that from happening.
Unless you can come up with some positive suggestions that aim to stop the suffering of Palestinians and to resverse the injustices done to them, I have no desire to carry on this discussion.
Jeff,
don't you find it odd that anti-Semitism accuses the Jews – among the many thinks – of international (world) cospiracy, but when they (the Jews) want to establish a Jewish state and live in it, anti-Zionism take its place and accuse them of wanting their own state to detriment of others? Mutatis mutandis ….
In this "system" of thought we can of course also see the attemp to equate Zionism and Nazism in order to disqualify the first and, consequently, to delegitimate the same right of Israel to exist as state. The equation is simple: As some Zionists collaborated with Nazi-Germany until the outbreak of the World War II in the intend to promote and facilitate the emigration of Jews to British Palestine, so are the Zionists themselves and as a whole comparable to the German national socialists, and the way they behaved during such collaboration and even later in the new-born Israeli state show this similarity. This kind of distorted sillogism is commonly used by those like you to support their own biased anti-Zionist position. As a matter of fact, the program and the goals of the Zionist movement in Germany were very far from being the same of the nazional socialism, as every honest person would see, even if they shared a similar German cultural background, above all the idea of a ethno-nationalist state. Apart from this, the cooperation between German Zionists and German anti-Semites was due in first place to pragmatic grounds.
If you are truly interested in knowing the facts I suggest read the in-depth and well-founded study of prof. Francis R. Nicosia "Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany" (http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=052188392X). From the reviews:
“With careful precision Francis Nicosia has unraveled the complex relationship between German Zionists and their Nazi interlocutors. Both rejected the legacy of Jewish emancipation and both called for Jews to leave Germany. But while Zionists understood Nazism as a traumatic prelude to eventual Jewish renewal in Palestine, Nazi officials grotesquely used Zionism toward their goal of Jewish ruination. That German Zionists operated under extreme pressures while overestimating their prospects for success makes the story all the more tragic. Nicosia’s book is an essential read for anyone interested in German and Jewish history.” -Norman J.W. Goda, Ohio University
ftp,
actually it is not my purpuse to obscure the facts by means of spreading on this pro-Palestinian site "truckloads of zionist propaganda". But I want to expose the truth (or at least the truth of the other side) and I want you to reflect about yourselves and the ME-conflict in a more critical and objective way. Many people in fact don't see this conflict as you see, or better, they see the unjustice of the Israeli occupation which cause much suffering to the Palestinians, but see also the injustice of Palestinian terrorism and radicalism, which keeps on denying Israel's right to exist. Did you ever thought that the belligerent violence of Israel has maybe something to do with the violence of the Palestinians and their allies? That both violences are maybe corresponding and interdipendent? You blame Israel for killing the Palestinians in Gaza. But what was before? Didn't you notice anything wrong? Do we admit that there is violence coming from both sides or do we want to recite eternally the role of bookkeepers of the violence? There is a saying: "To fight it takes always two."
I think that a biased, one-sided view of thinks is not really useful to reach peace, actually it represents a major obstacle for peace. Because it strengthens the desire of revenge instead of the desire of reconciliation and peace.
But you are right, the past is over, even if we can't turn back the clock. So let's think about present and future. We should both sides start to think a way that both people, Palestinians and Israelis, have the right to exist and to live a normal life, without injustice and fear. This way is practicable, but on condition that we look beyond our "wall" and start to believe in coexistence. For my part, a Palestinian state should already be reality, since I accept its right to exist in peace and security side by side with Israel. And if you agree with me on this, I consider that already a step forward on the way.
@deceschi –
deceschi: " they see the unjustice of the Israeli occupation which cause much suffering to the Palestinians, but see also the injustice of Palestinian terrorism and radicalism, which keeps on denying Israel's right to exist."
Well, then they have little understanding of history. Oppressed indigenous people have always resisted subjugation and settlers. And as I already said, if, as benny the racist says, it was necessary to ethnically cleanse hundreds of thousands of indigenous people in order for a Jewish state to exist, then the existence of the state is not legitimate.
deceschi: "There is a saying: "To fight it takes always two.""
And I'll remind you again that one side came across the seas – the other side was already there – it didn't go looking for a fight.
deceschi : "For my part, a Palestinian state should already be reality, since I accept its right to exist in peace and security side by side with Israel."
Unfortunately, the Israeli state is built on the ruins of the homes of Palestinians – and Israel is made up of far more territory than the bantustans it oppresses the refugees in. There are many many Palestinians who will not accept this – they have the keys to their houses and they want to go home. International law says that that is their right. Furthmore, every day more land is stolen from the little that is left of the bantustans and the water resources within the bantustans are not controlled by the Palestinians but by the Israelis.
Now, try putting yourself in the place of a 40 year old Palestian man who has spent all his life in a refugee camp waiting to go home, and tell me that you would settle for an eternity in a refugee camp, without control of your seas, airspace, borders, water or an army to protect you.
Of course I know that you're incapable of doing this…… but others reading the thread will be able to.
I long ago realized that zionism was a mental illness that made otherwise normal, decent people, behave like Afrikaners or Nazis when the issue of the Palestinians was raised, that beneath that facade of goodness one would often find a virulent streak of Old Testament Jewish tribalism that ignores the fact that the god that "chose" them was wholly their creation (as were other ancient people's gods who also "chose" their creators). The only difference between Jews and the others is that Jews by dint of historical circumstances and the aquisitve, racist attributes in which they informed their god,has successfully foisted upon much of the civilized world the notion that Jews are the most moral of peoples, even while looking at those people and their laws with the utmost contempt. Anyone who reads unexpurgated sections of the Talmud as provided by my late friend Israel Shahak. or in any issue of New York's Jewish Press, the organ of hatred of non-Jews published weekly by America's Jewish orthodoxy. They are technically not Zionists, but are only too happy to gorge themselves at the American taxpayers trough.
As for Israel having a right to exist, I have always said that NO state has such a right. Peoples have a right to exist but NOT at the expense of other peoples who have a prior claim on the land as clearly the Palestinians whose families had been living and working the land for centuries. It is more Zionist-infested nonsense to claim that "the tragedy is that both peoples had just claims on the land." Not a single Euro-Ashke-nazi Jew had claim to as much as a dunum of Palestinian land and denying them that right
is certainly not to deny Jews as a people the right to live which in the US they have used to their full advantage and increasingly to the country's disadvantage. In fact, I cannot think of a single category of US society today that is not dominated by Jews, Congress and the media being the most crucial. But it is these same Jews who have joined with their fellow Juden in Israel to deny the Palestinians their right to exist in the land of their birth and that of their fathers and mothers.
I only re-entered this conversation because my bullshit meter grabbed me by the leg when you brought up the old and tired Mufti connection as it did when you tried to run that phony King letter by this list, knowing damn well, since you are so well read, that it was a fake. People who deliberately lie are not worth arguing with but I should have known: Lying is as inherent to Zionists as is contempt for the "goyim."
ftp:
If you are thirsty and there is no water around, what would you do, accept a half-full bottle water that somebody is ready to share with you now, or refuse it because you want only the full bottle of water in the hope that you will get it somehow, sooner or later?
@deceschi –
You would accept the half bottle would you?
For your bonus point, name one indigenous people who accepted racial subjugation by settlers.
That will be all………
And where would the water come from? The West Bank Aquifers no doubt…..
The half bottle is poisoned, and doesn't contain enough to quench the thirst. In reality it is less than a quarter of the bottle, is it not?
The alternative is that Israelis and Palestinians share all the water, on an equal footing. The settlers who find that unbearable can use their second passports.
Jeff:
"I long ago realized that zionism was a mental illness that made otherwise normal, decent people, behave like Afrikaners or Nazis when the issue of the Palestinians was raised, that beneath that facade of goodness one would often find a virulent streak of Old Testament Jewish tribalism that ignores the fact that the god that "chose" them was wholly their creation (as were other ancient people's gods who also "chose" their creators). The only difference between Jews and the others is that Jews by dint of historical circumstances and the aquisitve, racist attributes in which they informed their god,has successfully foisted upon much of the civilized world the notion that Jews are the most moral of peoples, even while looking at those people and their laws with the utmost contempt."
Sounds like Nietzsche, "Beyond good and evil".
"As for Israel having a right to exist, I have always said that NO state has such a right. Peoples have a right to exist but NOT at the expense of other peoples who have a prior claim on the land as clearly the Palestinians whose families had been living and working the land for centuries."
So, what about the United States of America that uprooted the native American Indians or closed them in reserves?
"In fact, I cannot think of a single category of US society today that is not dominated by Jews, Congress and the media being the most crucial."
Sorry, that's your social discomfort. Maybe with a more conciliatory attitude you could live well with it.
"But it is these same Jews who have joined with their fellow Juden in Israel to deny the Palestinians their right to exist in the land of their birth and that of their fathers and mothers."
Israel is the Holy Land of the Bible. Where else should the Jews have their state?
There are many Palestinians in Israel, nearly one million and half. Many others are in Jordan, others again in West Bank and the Gaza strip. If they want to live there a normal live they should agree to share that shitty thin land with the Jews. Ok.?
People who deliberately lie are not worth arguing with but I should have known: Lying is as inherent to Zionists as is contempt for the "goyim."
I'm not a liar, sorry for you. I love Spinoza.
I said NO state has a right to exist. The US exists and that is a fact. That it will exist forever is not a fact. To say that it has a right is exist is to justify the genocide of the indigenous peoples who populated the land in the same manner as the Zionist Jews who dispossessed the Palestinians of theirs. If the survivors of the indigenous peoples who had their lands stolen here called for their land rights to be restituted I would support that but their populations have been so decimated that they are beyond demanding that. The Palestinians are not they want their land back as any people dispossessed in modern times would. Israel exists, the Palestinians have recognized that fact, but they will not recognize that that existence is by right and not by right.Only a racist and a sadist would demand that of them and you qualify on both counts.
There is a need for domination that seems to runs through the tribe which while occasionally appealing in certain individuals, collectivelyit is obnoxious and suffocating. Especially when such a large percentage acts as a fifth column against the interests of this country that has treated them so well.So while that situation exists, please don't give me or any one else that crap about the need for a Jewish state. Sayonara.
Jeff: I can't understand why you accept so easily the genocide of the indigenuous native American Indians by the settlers from the whole wide world and by new artificial governments of the US, who had nothing but really nothing to do with the new land but to grab and to steal so much they could, but you deny the desire of the Jewish people after 2000 years Diaspora and persecutions to go back to their Holy Promised land and rebuild their own historical homeland. The fact that there were to a certain extent expulsions of Palestinian inhabitants has mainly to do with the wars that Arab states started to "throw the Jews back in the sea". It seems clear who in Middle East and elsewhere had and still has genocidal aims, since the Jews have many Arabs living in their land, but not the opposite is the case …
You should maybe consider to go clean up your mind as this intelligent and respectable Muslim did to his and other's advantage: http://www.aish.com/jw/id/48916537.html
Sharing with you what my nephew Amjad Atallah published at the Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amjad-atallah/huckabee-offers-palestini_b_262505.html?view=print
Amjad Atallah
Amjad Atallah
Co-Director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation.
Posted: August 18, 2009 05:41 PM
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Huckabee Offers Palestinians State "Some Place Else"
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Read More: Israel, Israeli Settlers, Mike Huckabee, Palestinians, Two-State Solution, World News
In a move sure to antagonize the Onion for not having come up with it first, former U.S. presidential candidate Mike Huckabee endorsed Israeli control over the occupied West Bank and rejected the "two-state solution." Instead, the Southern Baptist preacher suggested that Palestinians should "have a place of their own" some place else.
Both my parents immigrated to Indiana from the Palestinian town of Ramallah in the early 1960s, before Israel's occupation in 1967. Like many Palestinians in the Diaspora, they would have been happy with a secular democratic state in the entirety of historic Palestine/Eretz Israel with equal rights for both Jews and Arabs. But also like many Palestinians, convinced that Israelis would never agree to granting equality to all Palestinians, they have supported attempts to create a rump Palestinian state in the parts of Palestine occupied by Israel in 1967 where Palestinians could exercise their right to self-determination.
Having been uncomfortable with the idea of immigrants from Europe displacing the native inhabitants of Palestine, Palestinians have never seriously entertained the idea that they should go somewhere else and displace another people to create a "Palestinian" state. But now that a prominent American politician is making the offer, I have some ideas on a locale.
Obviously, the Arab world doesn't offer any choices. All the good states are already taken. I know that many Israelis including Labor leader Ehud Barak occasionally talk about Jordan being given to Palestinians, but being at the intersection of Iraq, Syria, and Greater Israel is probably not what war weary Palestinians want.
The British offered Theodore Herzl Uganda for a Jewish homeland but the larger Zionist movement rejected the offer. To the best of my knowledge, no one asked the Ugandans how they felt about it, but boy did they dodge a bullet there. Perhaps for similar reasons, Palestinians probably wouldn't want to move to Africa either. There has historically been an under-appreciation of Africa by Semites, but that is probably to Africa's benefit.
Huckabee reminded me of a comment my late grandfather made as we drove from Chicago to Washington, DC and then again through the Blue Ridge Mountains. He couldn't believe just how much beautiful empty land there was in the United States. So much empty land……almost like a land without a people waiting for a people without a land.
And since the United States has played such a prominent role historically in helping Israel keep the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights, perhaps the United States can offer up one of the states to the Palestinians. Perhaps that was what Governor Huckabee was getting at.
I haven't yet conducted a poll of Palestinians on the Huckabee-Solution, but it seems that California – at least everything from San Francisco and south would be most preferred, no offense to Huckabee's home state of Arkansas. The landscape is very similar to historic Palestine with various Mediterranean climates, lots of orange and fig trees, beautiful vistas, and lots of ocean front property. California even has its own fault lines, just like Israel/Palestine which makes for good wrath of God sermons. It wouldn't matter if you were originally from Haifa, Ramallah, or the Gaza Strip, there would be something to remind you of home.
Many Palestinians immigrated to the US to live in industrial cities where jobs were plentiful. My grandfather's brother worked for Ford for most of his life in Detroit and I grew up in Gary, Indiana. Nothing against Detroit and Gary, but Palestinians have an agrarian history (it wasn't called the Fertile Crescent because you couldn't grow anything) and would prefer California.
Many Palestinians, especially those in the Diaspora, are Christian and they could try their hand at taking over the California wine industry.
And think of all the jobs in Hollywood playing Arab stereotypes that could now go to actual Arabs.
Hmmm, but that raises the issue of what to do with all the Californians that already live there.
Perhaps Huckabee has a solution for them too. There is a lot of empty land in Nevada and Arizona. We'll just have to wait for his next presidential run.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Sami, that was very entertaining!!! I'd like to post it up as the top post today so more can see how it really looks to displace people to make room for new immigrants and "give them a home". The piece explains better than a dozen scholarly papers could! why it is wrong and even absurd to propose something like that.
Fantastic, you found a neocon muslim of Pakistani origin, who works closely with the pro-Israel lobby and you think he could 'clean up our minds'. You might as well have given us the mysterious Walid Shoebat – who makes a killing from selling his birthright.
Well, as you are still sullying this site, why not read an Israeli who tells it like it is?
http://palestinethinktank.com/author/gilad-atzmon/
At least he is from a relevant part of the world.
Theres a shedload more where he came from – you run out of muslims to throw at us after Squalid Shoebat.
There are many more Jews and ex Jews who have managed to escape the indoctrination enough to reject zionism, than there are muslims and ex muslims who have come to love the (money from the) Israel Lobbies.
You need to get a new site from your paymasters – you've completely blown your reputation here.
well ftp, Deceschi has pulled out almost all the typical "dialogue" tricks. I don't have the time right now to list them all one by one, but briefly:
1) he's not even Israeli (this makes him "objective")
2) throwing Jews into the sea, no where else to go, empty Palestinian land and the other foundation/security myths
3) bringing up Mufti / Martin Luther King canards to blame Palestinians and praise Zionists
4) using sources that are created precisely for these purposes: to convince those who are not doing their research using Israeli arguments put into the mouths of those who might appear above suspicion (Palestine facts, Camera, aish) and turning it into a religious issue
5) God's promise, 2000 year return, Jews thrown off of Arab lands… etc.
6) accusations of anti semitism toward those who disagree, including accusations of censorship if something does not show up
7) Arabs being to blame because they lost a war (which they also like to falsely claim that Palestinians "Arabs", as they tend to call them, started it.
8 ) the way forward is sharing and why can't Palestinians just do that?
9) however, that doesn't mean that the Israelis have to share Israel… in fact, there is a large Arab population, so they already do it in essence…
10) putting words into the mouths of others, as if they are dismissing Manifest Destiny and genocide against native Americans (which they are not doing) because they say there is no movement to reinstate the Land Mass governance of the Americas to its proper ownership, but if there were… they would support that.
there are many more, of course, but you get the picture. This is why it looks like he is using the basic arguments with zero reflection on how they are simply manipulative tools to sway those who are "in the middle" or seek a "dialogue solution")
"You need to get a new site from your paymasters – you've completely blown your reputation here. "
Yes, since your indoctrination is far from being better than mine. I think my short (and interesting) stay on this site is coming to the deserved end – to your and your fellow's relief. Enjoy it among yourselves bigots, sharing your bigotry as you like to do su much, wallowing in mystification, victimism and revancism.
But, don't forget: when you are thirsty, the offer of a half-full bottle of water now is much more better than the wish of a full bottle that will never come. Think of it. Look over your walls. That was ans is my true (not heard) message here – there is somebody beyond the wall, human beings like you and me.
Bye. Be well of.
Yes, since your indoctrination is far from being better than mine. I think my short (and interesting) stay on this site is coming to the deserved end – to your and your fellow's relief. Enjoy it among yourselves bigots, sharing your bigotry as you like to do su much, wallowing in mystification, victimism and revancism.
But, don't forget: when you are thirsty, the offer of a half-full bottle of water now is much more better than the wish of a full bottle that will never come. Think of it. Look over your walls. That was ans is my true (not heard) message here – there is somebody beyond the wall, human beings like you and me.
Bye. Be well of.
I'm sure thats exactly what I was trying to tell him……..
A rather pathetic and ignoble departure by deceschi.
'This is how it ends. This is how it ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper.'
Hopefully the fate of Zionism as well.
Sami,
You point out in great detail in your article and elsewhere the corruption of Fatah and very much condemn political corruption itself, yet you write (in comment 40) that Palestinians should demand the “Occupied Territories” be placed under “UN Trusteeship” and that NATO forces be invited “to manage the Port of Gaza”. Do you think the UN and NATO aren’t corrupt and haven’t always been corrupt? NATO is mainly an arm of US imperialism, and I suggest that if it is ever used to “manage the port of Gaza” it will be done so for the benefit of Israel. Israel hasn’t opened the port of Gaze because the US, its life support, hasn’t demanded they do it – that’s all that’s needed to get them to open it.
Do you think the Palestinians do not have a right to sovereignty over their land, as so many other peoples around the world have on their land? I haven’t seen you express that they have this right, to the contrary. “One-state” isn’t sovereignty.
David
David, thank you. Yes, I think under these circumstances with the Jewish Occupation as is, and with Hamas running Gaza and Fatah running pockets of the West Bank and with Gaza under virtual siege I think placing the entire territories occupied in 67 war under a UN Trusteeship is the only viable option, of course if that means ending the occupation. My priorities always been toward ending the Jewish Occupation of the Palestinians Territories, with that in mind and given the incompetence, ineptness and corruption of the leadership, placing the liberated areas under an interim management is the best option. It will end the Jewish Occupations (soldiers and armed settlers), put an end confiscation of land, destructions of homes and farms, eliminate all the checkpoints, end the Jewish Only roads, stop stealing of water and land certainly put an end to the business and management contract between Fatah and the Israeli occupation, and of course it allows free access to Gaza to rebuild what Israel destroyed. The Palestinians needs a breathing spell from the Jewish Occupation, Fatah and Hamas, and we hope a need competent and professional and corrupt new leadership will emerge that takes over a sovereign Palestinian state at end of the mandate.
The UN has a checkered record when it comes to peace-keeping.Much depends on the source of the troops and its mandate but given the alternative, continued Zionist occupation maintained with the assistance of the US trained armed forces of the PA collaborators, it may not only be the best interim solution but the only one.
Which is why Israel has always opposed any international presence in either the West Bank and Gaza.
Sami, your opening piece on this thread has really made me look at the reality with new eyes. The time has indeed come to put away the bombast, romanticism, and delusions that have contributed to the current situation and not wait for another generation yet to be born to liberate the land.
If we take off the blinders we would see that the lives for Palestinians under occupation and in the refugee camps have only gotten worse. That what armed struggle there is more often than not involves Palestinian vs. Palestinian should make that clear to everyone.
@Sami Jamil Jadallah –
Sami,
What response, overall, are you getting from Palestinians to this idea (or proposal)?
Also, to be clear in case it wasn’t before, the land for the Palestinians to have sovereignty over, I had in mind, was historic Palestine, not just the West Bank and Gaza.
[...] expert on and opponent of the Israeli and Jewish lobby, Jeff Blankfort, had this to say in the comments: Sami, your opening piece on this thread has really made me look at the reality with new eyes. The [...]
[...] Palestinians. Another important article that was similarly self-critical was by Sami Jamil Jadallah What is Wrong with the Palestinian People? It was his appraisal of the apparent Palestinian complacency in the face of betrayal of the [...]
[...] Palestinians. Another important article that was similarly self-critical was by Sami Jamil Jadallah What is Wrong with the Palestinian People? It was his appraisal of the apparent Palestinian complacency in the face of betrayal of the [...]
[...] expert on and opponent of the Israeli and Jewish lobby, Jeff Blankfort, had this to say in the comments: Sami, your opening piece on this thread has really made me look at the reality with new eyes. The [...]
[...] Palestinians. Another important article that was similarly self-critical was by Sami Jamil Jadallah What is Wrong with the Palestinian People? It was his appraisal of the apparent Palestinian complacency in the face of betrayal of the [...]