Iqbal Tamimi – Abraham bought a cave, he did not buy Palestine
By Iqbal Tamimi • Aug 12th, 2009 at 22:11 • Category: Analysis, Biography, Culture and Heritage, Israel, Nakba and Right of Return, Newswire, Palestine, Religion, Resistance, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Zionism
I have been reading an article by Robin-Yassin Kassab, entitled ‘A visit to Hebron’. Yassin Kassab is the author of ‘The Road from Damascus’. This time he was not writing about Damascus, he was writing about my home town Al-Khaleel, known to the Western world by the name of Hebron. In his article he describes his visit to Al-Khaleel accompanied by a number of wonderful writers and publishers, amongst them Michael Palin, Henning Mankel, Deborah Moggach, Claire Messud and MG Vassanji, and he describes the misery of the people in my hometown under the illegal Israeli occupation. Those writers have been able to witness the very painful reality when they travelled to Palestine to participate in the Palestine Festival of Literature.
As usual, the Zionists were ready with sharpened teeth to shred his efforts by their usual Hasbara methods of sending their false poisonous comments in an attempt to mask any efforts at explaining what is really going on in Palestine. One of the comments left by one of those Zionists on his blog complained that ‘Hebron Arabs today have access to 98% of the entire city. Jews have only access to 3% of Hebron’.
In the comment of this ‘anonymous’ reader, what seems to look like an innocent number of complaints, should the reader not know much about that part of the world he/she will fall a victim to the false impression that the presence of the Israeli Occupation in my hometown is justified and not an illegal occupation according to international law and even by Israeli standards. His comments sounded like as if they are coming from a victim who is supposed to have equal rights of access.
The 3% of the Jews in Hebron he was talking about are not supposed to be there, the occupying force according to international law is not supposed to allow or facilitate the transfer of its own citizens to the occupied areas.
He complained that the owners of the city – the Arab Palestinians – have access to 98% of their own city and the occupiers who are called for well-known media manipulation reasons ‘the settlers’ have access to 3%. ‘The expression settlers’ seems to be a very benign use of the language for a malignant reason. Of course the total according to his figures makes the population of Al-Khaleel more than 100%, this is a good example of what happens when Israeli authorities employ cyber amateurs to defend its crimes against the Palestinians, they work very fast so that they conjure numbers that do not make any sense. The Zionist state employs thousands every year to work on character assassination of the writers who bring to light any information about the absurdity of the Israeli occupation in Palestine, like Mr Kassab.
This shows how far they can go to fabricate false stories by throwing numbers without any verifications or referencing, and as usual, the Westerners swallow it all because the numbers and figures are connected in their experience with studies and statistics, and methods we all respect and do not doubt their credibility. I want to surprise ‘Mr anonymous’ and tell him that the people in Al-Khaleel are supposed to have 100% access to their own city because it is their home. It seems that the Zionists are full of themselves to a point they think that people can’t figure out that it is unacceptable for a total stranger to come from as far as Russia to occupy the living room of any Palestinian by hooliganism, and deny the owner access to his own kitchen or bathroom. Blocking the way of the locals is preaching their human rights and this is what the claimed 3% Jewish ‘settlers’ are doing in my hometown.
Those Jewish ‘settlers’ who have access to 3 % of my home have killed three students while walking on campus in 1986 for no reason whatsoever. Those 400 gun-wielding settlers are guarded and protected by 1,500 Israeli soldiers who witness their daily attacks on the unarmed local Palestinians and do nothing about it even though they are supposed to protect the locals according to International law. The Israeli authorities tend to demolish any home, should the owner build one brick without their permission, but at the same time claim that they could do nothing to handle the illegal presence of the Jewish settlers in the heart of Al-Khaleel, occupying the roof tops of the Palestinians homes and throwing their rubbish on them every day, and calling the Palestinian women whenever they open their doors ‘whores’.
I guess those ‘chosen by God’ people show the Almighty as an under-achiever, he could not even choose a respected lot who behave themselves when he went to choose his own loved lot. I would imagine no ordinary person would ever choose to be a friend with someone with a bad reputation and despicable manners like the Jewish settlers, let alone a wise compassionate God, but it seems that they know that the Western world is a hypocritical lot, they would support their claims even though they are a secular majority who deny even the presence of God, but when it comes to Israel suddenly they turn to be serious believers of every claim told by the Zionist lot, and the angel halo appears shining, bright and glowing above their heads, you can almost touch their holy wings. Even those who have just converted to Judaism only yesterday for visa reasons to work in Israel and care less about Moses, Jacob, Solomon, or any other prophet mentioned by any holy book, turn by a swift magic wand into very religious people even when they are posing naked in adult magazines to promote tourism in ‘the Holy Land’.
My brother-in-law is a doctor whose clinic is located in the heart of the city of Hebron, where the settlers are turning the people’s lives into living hell because they are God’s chosen brats. His practice is located in an area where poor, sick, underprivileged people need medical attention. The soldiers who are supposed to be guarding the locals according to international law are not doing so, on the contrary, they are helping the settlers to occupy the rooftops of the neighbouring houses including his clinic, the soldiers themselves used to urinate in the water reservoir on the rooftop of his practice to drive him out, and to evacuate the area from the last few Palestinians who were persevering and trying to get on with their miserable lives against the odds. For years he used to go every single day to his practice and just set there, even though he knew perfectly well that he could not treat the ever-decreasing number of sick people who could reach his clinic, not because of the intimidation of the settlers and the hygiene problems only, but because they are hindered by tens of roadblocks and obstacles as well. But he never gave up on his mission, he continued to go to work every morning anyway – to send the Israeli occupying forces a clear message of ‘I am not leaving’. All his patients knew about his daily struggle and used to knock on his home door asking for help at odd hours, he could not turn them back, but one can imagine what kind of life this must have been for him and for his wife and children who hardly have any privacy at home, and who could not anticipate when the next banging on the door will start.
Many times he would go to his work and could not come back home that day because a new curfew had started while he was in his practice.
This is a reality every single Palestinian in my hometown has to deal with day in day out. I remember asking him once ‘what you were doing in the clinic then if you could not treat your patients’? He smiled and said I used to help my wife in her housework. I have been able to pick the leaves of almost 30 Kg of Oregano one summer to dry them for family use for the rest of the year’.
Storing food to manage during the curfews is another problem. The Israeli authorities used to cut the electricity of the city on purpose until all the stored food kept in homes’ freezers rotted and was no longer edible, besides subjecting the lives of sick people in the operation theatres at the hospital to great danger. My late husband told me about a number of surgical operations he had to perform at Princess Alia Hospital which turned to be a challenge when the electricity was cut off, besides the fact that most drugs including anaesthetics were banned, many patients were stitched without any sedation. Those are only a few kinds of inflicted pains the people had to deal with.
Year after year of hardships taught the Palestinians to find their own solutions, the people knew that the curfews can be imposed at any time, and for no reason whatsoever, no one is allowed to look through a window or walk outside the door during such enforced siege, no shops will be opened, no cars are permitted to take a dying person to hospital. The people of Al-Khaleel had to find solutions to this hard reality. They were forced to become self-sufficient and learn how to survive, no more they rely on freezing their food, they started drying, pickling, salting, and bottling the very little they managed to cultivate in their home gardens.
The same paid Zionist to attack the article and assassinate its writer’s character says ‘Close to 100 Jews have been killed in the Hebron region by Arab terrorists, in cold blood over the years and this number does not include 67 Jews murdered in Hebron 80 years ago, during the 1929 riots and massacre’.
I dare this person who threw at us the first rounded figure using his ‘close to’ expression to come with any evidence of his claim, but still I would like to tell him that according to official statistics by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics the number of reported innocent civilians killed in Hebron by Israeli soldiers in only 8 years not 61 years, between 29 September 2000 – 31 December 2008 is 265 people, those were all innocent civilians.
This same person evidently employed by the Foreign Ministry of Israel to bleach its burned image is complaining about what he described as ‘noise’ in my occupied home town, he claims ‘the Muslim call-to-prayer begins at about 4:00 AM and is repeated five times daily, with other public interludes, until after 11:00 PM, waking up sleeping people and preventing them from sleeping, with this noise being broadcast from numerous points in the city’.
For goodness sake, if you do not like living there just go back where you came from, you are living in our home, you have no right to tell us how to behave or complain about our worshiping rituals, at least the not chosen people who still worship God unlike his own chosen people who smeared his name. So…this chosen by God man considers calling for prayers a ‘noise’, while shelling, bombing, and demolitions of homes, snipers’ bullets whizzing all the time, and hovering military aircrafts since 1967 are not? How about sleeping somewhere else where you will have the right to sleep without being disturbed by the ‘non chosen people by God’.
The same chatterbox complains as well about the Ibrahimi Mosque which no more is treated with the dignity and respect it deserves, he says ‘the largest hall, the Isaac Chamber, is off-limits to Jews so that Moslems may hold their prayers there’. I guess he forgotten to mention that the Israelis occupy more than half the Mosque and as such Muslims have no access to their own place of worship, and the 3 main entrances are fitted with metallic security doors and Muslims have access through one entrance only where they are searched and humiliated, men and women, before every prayer by God’s chosen people. But most of all he forgot willingly to mention that a fundamentalist racist Jew shot down 29 Muslims while kneeling in prayer in that same mosque and was considered a hero by the Jewish Zionist society.
Not only that, he lies through his teeth, he claims that ‘Most of those 400 settlers are children, and they aren’t gun-wielding’. Oh really, that is fascinating information, so…the fourth strongest army in the world could not handle less than 400, people the majority of which are children? I would indicate such a story-teller to the Israeli Foreign office should he want to knit a lie, to do some research… and make a lie-proof story because there are people who read and there are those who do their own research. And by the way, when 4000 years ago, the prophet Abraham came to my city as an Iraqi immigrant, he bought the cave which became later the burial place for his wife from us, we the Palestinians, the people of Al-Khaleel…surely you are not serious to believe that whoever buys a cave owns the whole country, and pass it as an inheritance to his believers wherever they are!!!
Visit Palestinian Mothers to see some films of the scenes this article talks about.
Iqbal Tamimi is a Palestinian journalist and poet from Hebron. She is the creator of a vibrant and important activists' network Palestinian Mothers, open to all who share the vision of peace and justice, men and women alike. She is working now in UK.
Email this author | All posts by Iqbal Tamimi
The Palestinians especially those of Al-Khaleel should never forgive nor exonerate the late Yasser Arafat and his PLO negotiating team from the crimes they committed against the people of Al-Khaleel when they signed on the agreement with Bib Netanyahu that allowed for the imprisonment of some 70,000 people placing them under constant curfew. It was the careless, irresponsible and criminal acts of Arafat and his PLO team that gave legitimacy to the nightmare we have seen in Hebron. The same is true of the Gaza borders agreement which was negotiated by Dahlan and his friend and buddy Mofaz that put 1.5 millions under siege in Gaza. Arafat continue to be the hero of Palestinians and Dahlan was able to buy his way to Fatah Executive Committee and represent the millions he imprisoned.
I wish, that all this accuses from both sides wil stop and that there wil be peace for all.
It is like in kindergarden: he started, no she started. This is mine, no it's mine!
Reach you hands, open your hearts with lots of love, tolerance, trust and acceptance
Throw away all the killing thoughts, throw away all the weapons. Don't listen to what all your leaders are talking about and do brainwash you.
LOVE is the only way to have real peace!!!!
Dear Sami, It is indeed shocking that after all the hardships and disasters, that the Fatah decided to just carry on as they are doing. At least a change in leadership would have presented the idea that there was going to be a more effective approach on the way.
I used to talk to a friend of mine way back in the days, and his family was deplaced from Palestine without any rights to voice their views on how the Sole Representative of the Palestinians was acting. He said something I'll never forget. When I was saying that what would be a good idea would be to try to implement a plan to have universal suffrage for all Palestinians wherever they lived, so that they could contribute to determining their approval or disapproval of what the PLO was doing. He responded "We already have universal suffering".
The problem therefore might be that some think that Palestinians outside the OPTs either do not exist and if they do, they don't care what happens and they have anyway renounced their rights to their land, property and national identity. If nothing else, the witnessing of the constant suffering of Palestinians in their homeland and in the refugee camps is bringing awareness to many that the issue does not only involve those in the West Bank or Gaza, but that the injustice is not acceptable for any Palestinian. This might lead one day or another, to a real movement to unify all Palestinians everywhere and to determine that it's getting too late to allow more innocent people to live in those conditions, suffer and die and that this occupation has got to end immediately, take whatever it does.
@Ed –
Dear Ed
The way you talk shows that you do not know much about what is happening there, it is not as a kindergarten fight as you put it, children are usually told by mothers or teachers not to be a bully and not to take what is not theirs. The way you oversimplified our pains hurt deeply. You are requesting demands of both sides to open hearts with love. This is a very cruel comment because it implies that both sides are not willing to reach for peace, and that both sides are equally armed, and both sides have the choice. I do hope you read a little not even from Palestinian side stories, but from Israeli human rights organizations that do care about human dignity, and watch some real videos before you throw at us few words even though they looked like a genuine advice, but unfortunately they are not. I see your advice as an extra way to mask the real barbarism of the Jewish settlers. It is not about mine and yours, it is deeper than that. It’s about good manners and politeness. How would you feel if an immigrant who came from a far away country and lived next to you called you wife every morning a whore just because she want to open the door? How do you feel if an immigrant who bought a corner shop 40 years ago brought all his people of faith to your country and then claimed that he owns your country because he bought that property, and blocked your child’s way from going to school that he should climb over roof tops every morning to go to school? Ed… You are not fair at all. Do not tell us about equal responsibility because the case is not. Do not preach about love here before looking at all the photos of all the Palestinian children massacred by the Israelis. Take off your angel halo please…we are humans and there is a threshold for pain.
[...] by Iqbal Tamimi , Palestinian think tank [...]
Dear Iqbal,
the palestinans are no angels as you try to describe, sorry. I understand that your people got hurted, But so do the Israelis. Also the Israelis did mistakes for sure, but they also have to defend themselves.
Also the photos you are talking about, are very much propaganda, which is prooved! Yes there were mistakes over 40 years ago, but this is the past! You are living now and you have the choice for peace every single moment. It is up to you! Your people fight against each other in Palestine, you need to stop that too.
Fatah against Hamas and also killing your own people…???
I know you were educated to have this opinion, it is only time to wake up. I know that many palestinians and many israelis want to have peace, but again, the only way is Love no fights. Do you really think that it helps I kill you and you kill me? Not at all, it is prooved all the years.
And Mr. Arafat got so much money to help the palestinians, but they didn't get any of it. Mr. Arafat brought the money to other countries and his family is having a great life. The poor palestinian people have none, that's for fact! So what I see, you try to blame all on the other side. But you know exactly it is not true. Even some palestinan people say the same, that there is a lot of propaganda and that the most palestinians want the Israelis people dead and out of Israel! This is their goal. No sharing or reaching hands. So how can there be trust???
I would love to see that all religions will live togehther in peace. It is possible in other countries.
So do you really want peace without any killings on both sides? Everything is possible.
And all people on the planet are humans and have the right to live in peace.
All the best for all of us
Ed
@Ed –
Hiiiiii Ed
Can you please write to me how the Israelis were hurt? Please I want a comparing figures about deaths, injuries, loss of human rights, loss of properties, sieges, blockades, starvation,imprisonments….everything in numbers, should you try to do that you will find how much you are mislead or misleading.
(The Israelis have to defend themselves)
From what if I may ask? They have atomic bombs, tanks, armoured vehicles, while the people in my home town have nothing.
( the photos are propaganda)
No they are not, they are documented everywhere by UN and Israeli human rights organizations. By the way…how did you manage to find out that it is all propaganda? Is it possible that you dream so? Do you think any nation can do what you are doing regarding propaganda? If this is propaganda it is a failing method, 61 years of torture and we are still using the same propaganda methods even though we know for sure that this will get us no where? Surely you can’t be serious.
(Yes there were mistakes over 40 years ago, but this is the past)
Why should the Palestinians forget about the past, the Jews are still milking Germany and howling about their losses in the WW and how they were treated bad, they still shout about anti Semitism whenever anyone cough or sneeze, why should we forget and they should not?
(Your people fight against each other in Palestine)
Oh, how kind of you to worry about us to divert the discussion away, we got used to your methods. This fight you are talking about was created by Israel and USA and we all know that. Hamas was born in the 80s but Israel has been massacring us for over 60 years. I can assure you, you do not have to worry about Hamas or Fath, they are brothers and the moment the siege is lifted from Gaza they will find ways of reconciliation.
(I know you were educated to have this opinion, it is only time to wake up)
I was not educated to have this opinion, I was exiled like all the Palestinians who were forced to leave home so that some Russians can live in our place. If I was educated to have this opinion my gratitude goes to the barbarity of Israel that hijacked my life for good, yes…every day was a lesson…if this is what you meant, and then yes, I was very well educated to take this opinion. I do not have to wake up as you requested because I have never slept on this issue. Besides who are you and why are you so concerned about Fath and Hamas and me anyway?
( I know that many palestinians and many israelis want to have peace, but again, the only way is Love no fights)
Why don’t you tell that to 6 Jewish grown up women who threatened to take their babies from a day care centre because a one year old Palestinian baby girl was to join a couple of weeks ago?.
And before talking about Arafat tidy up all the scandals of your corrupt politicians who are harassing women at work, embezzling money, and sinking in corruption up to their ears. Arafat died while he was besieged living on the minimum.
(The poor palestinian people have none)
Ooooooooh how very sweet of you to think of the Palestinians, do you mean the Palestinians who are starved to death in Gaza by Israel? Or those do not count?
(I would love to see that all religions will live togehther in peace)
There was never any problems between people of faith in Palestine before the creation of the Zionist monster, this insinuation that what is happening is caused by faith is a total fib. NO people of faith will steal other people’s properties; NO merciful God would advise people to snatch a land from an owner using his name.
I am extremely grateful to whoever translated the article to French On the International Solidarity Movement's website.
http://www.ism-france.org/news/article.php?id=12509&type=analyse&lesujet=Colons
INTERVIEW WITH RABBI BARUCH KAPLAN
This is a free translation of a Yiddish transcript of a taped interview made some twenty years ago with the late Rabbi Baruch Kaplan, who was a principal of the Beis Yaakov Girls School in Brooklyn, and who was a student in the Hebron yeshiva (religious school) in 1929 at the time of the killing of a number of Jews by some Arabs. Rabbi Kaplan explains how events unfolded, and how it was the arrogant and cowardly Zionist maniacs who perpetrated the events by provoking the Palestinians
“When I was in Hebron in 1929, there occurred the tragic massacre of over twenty yeshiva students, great scholars, plus another forty members of the Jewish community. I would like to describe the error that has circulated in Jewish communities – a horrible error, that accuses the Arabs in Hebron of being murderers who attacked the Jews simply because the Arabs were “bad people.” In order to correct the record, this error must be corrected. The Arabs were very friendly people, and the Jewish People in Hebron lived together with them and had very friendly relations with them. They worked with Jews, and everybody got along just fine.
To take just one example, I used to have the habit of walking a mile or two out of town all by myself to visit a tree that was believed to be the tree where our patriarch Abraham met the three angels, as described in Genesis. I especially enjoyed visiting the tree in the summertime. Along the way I would talk to the Arabs, though it was mostly using our hands because I didn’t speak any Arabic. Interestingly enough, no one in the yeshiva ever told me it was dangerous to go by myself among the Arabs. We just lived with them, and got along very well.
I have also seen a letter from the Grand Rabbi of the Gerrer Hassidim of those days, Rabbi Avraham Mordechai Alter of Poland, regarding his trip to the Holy Land during the days when people were talking about emigrating to Palestine. He wanted to find out what kind of people the Palestinians were, in order to be able to advise people whether to move there or not. He wrote in his letter that the Arabs were a very friendly and fine people.
Therefore it’s necessary to set the record straight about the accusations that the Palestinians were terrible killers who liked attacking Jews. This was never the situation at all!
Today’s wicked Zionists are just like their predecessors, who were responsible for causing terrible suffering in Palestine with their wars with the Arabs, may G-d have mercy. At that time in 1929, the Zionists had a slogan arguing that the Western Wall in Jerusalem was a Jewish “national symbol.” Of course, the Arabs disagreed with this idea, considering that they had control of the location for over 1,100 years. However, the Zionist mobs were yelling that “The Wall is ours!” It’s hard to understand why they felt that way considering they have no connection to the Jewish holy places whatsoever. An argument erupted in the Jewish newspapers about establishing a permanent prayer area for Jews at the Wall. This provoked the Arabs, and the rabbi of Jerusalem at the time, Rabbi Yosef Chaim Zonnenfeld begged them to stop and to be appreciative to the Arabs for allowing Jews to pray at the Wall for so many centuries undisturbed. However, the Zionists wanted a permanent setup under their control.
The Zionists refused to heed the calls of Rabbi Zonnenfeld, and they called a large meeting of Jews in Jerusalem – supposedly some 10,000 people showed up. One of the speakers was their “chief Rabbi” (Avraham Isaac Kook), who proclaimed, “Hear O Israel, the Wall is our Wall, the Wall is One” (which is a ridiculous pun on the blessing, “Hear O Israel, the Lord our G-d, the Lord is One”). This began the conflict at the time between the Zionists and the Arabs.
Afterwards, we were studying at the yeshiva in Hebron, and saw a bunch of boys in short pants carrying weapons on bicycles and motorcycles, running around the streets of Hebron. We were very worried about this. What were they up to?
In brief, our rabbi, the supervisor of our religious academy, Rabbi Moshe Mordechai Epstein, called them for a meeting, but they refused. He was forced to go over to them, and asked them what they were up to. He accused them of wanting to provoke the Arabs. They responded that they were coming to protect us!! We cried out, “Woe is us! G-d have mercy!” They didn’t want to leave town until it was too late!
These arrogant cowards only ran away when the local leaders of the Arabs called for a mass meeting of the people of the surrounding Arab villages. But it was too late; the Arabs got organized, and the Mufti called on his people to be ready Friday night when the yeshiva would be attending prayers. At this point, the yeshiva was alone against the Zionists, but the Arabs didn’t know to distinguish between us and the Zionists. Sadly they attacked and killed some of our people, including the great scholar, Rabbi Shmuel Rosenhaltz.
The next morning we heard about the excitement in town, and even worse, we heard the crying and shouting. I and a friend, Avraham Ushpener, lived in an apartment that was part of a three-story building leased by a Jew from an Arab. We could hear all the noise from our apartment on the third floor. We were terrified to let the Arabs in because we knew how angry they had become, but a while later things calmed down. In total, some 65 people were killed. On the other side of town, however, the Jews were spared.
Why am I telling this story? It is because I wanted to describe how the wicked Zionists, both today and in those days, were the cause of our suffering! They cooperated with the Nazis, and our religion teaches that a person who causes someone to sin is worse than someone who kills him.
It reminds me of an event recounted by Rabbi Moshe Schonfeld, who once visited Rabbi Avraham Yeshayahu Karelitz {Chazon Ish) when the Zionist state was established, and when there was fighting between the Zionists and the Arabs. Rabbi Schonfeld told Rabbi Karelitz about what was happening. Rabbi Karelitz told him that the crimes of the Zionists were much worse, because they were wicked heretics who were uprooting hundreds of thousands of Jews from their faith and that is much greater pain since our Sages stated that a person who causes another person to sin is much worse than if he kills him.
In our own days there is a Zionist leader (Begin), whose arrogance and selfishness is more important than anything else to him, and for which he is prepared to sacrifice hundreds and thousands of Jews. These heretics and evildoers, this Zionist leader of a state that killed the Judaism of the Yemenite and Moroccan Jews, and of many other Sephardic Jews! This is the work of these thugs and gangsters. And there are religious Jewish parties who dare to state that they love this man?! Everyone must know that the anger of the Arabs against us is only caused by the Zionists!
The Arabs were a friendly people to us, and I am a witness to it. We lived very well with them in Hebron. Rabbi Alter attested to this as well, and it is the accursed Zionists who caused them to hate us. The Zionists dare to use their power to expel the Arabs, and even today in Lebanon, they kill and butcher the Arabs; they wipe out whole villages with the airplanes they get from the United States.
Everyone should know who the murderers are – the Zionists are the biggest murderers in the world, who refuse to let the Jewish People live in peace either physically or spiritually!”
http://www.nkusa.org/Historical_Documents/KaplanInterview.cfm
@Ed – ED your (on the surface) well intentioned logic is faulty, and maybe deliberately naive (sounds like a kinder/gentler hasbara crap)…have you seen any BT'selem footage of roving gangs of drunk, and stoned settlers that look like some demonic man children making life a living hell for Palestinians. I won't even bother with a rebuttal…God bless Iqbal she has the patience and knowledge to scrunch your well reheased nonesense.
Dear All,
it is very sad to see, that there is no will for real peace at all, at least what I understand now from your side.
Too much hate is in your hearts and you put yourself as the total innosent in this matter here. As long as you do all that, there will never be peace. Don't blame it all on others please.
Only when you will open your heart for love, than there is a real chance for all of us.
May God or Allah give you all you need, especially peace in your region and your hearts
Salam
Ed
@Ed –
Ed
I can see that you even did not bother to answer my questions, or just ran away when you have done a little research.
We had enough of many people like yourself who end their discussion by a pathetic bit of emotional blackmail. Don't you ever talk about love and forgiveness before reading well and seeing what happened to the victims. If we did not have enough love for the whole universe, you will not find us here; we would have been bitter people using only arms to express our anger, not words and dialogue. We are peaceful all right, and you are not innocent at all, and I can see that you have failed in your mission.
Dear Iqbal,
just because we don't have the same opinion, doesn't mean I failed.
But actually you're very right: I really failed, because I couldn't get to the bottom of your heart
I don't agree with you in many points, but it doesn't mean I don't respect or love you.
What I try is to go the way of unconditional love, no matter of religion or skin color. I respect the Koran as I respect the Jewish and the Christian Bible also the Buddhism or any other believe. I wanted to blend out the past and try to find a better way for the future, but it has to begin in the present only.
Because real LOVE is unconditional. Real love means to tolerate and respect all around. What you give, you will get back. That's the law of the universe for everybody.
if you talk about you are peaceful, what about the sucide bombings all over the years killing innocent people in Israel, what about the many rockets bombed into Israel every day since years? which country in the world would have tolerated this? Not 1 country in this world. They would have bombed and destroyed your country.
And Israel has all the power and the weapens to eliminate you! But they don't do it.
What do you say how real peace could be achieved?
Salam, Shalom, Peace, Frieden
Ed
@Ed –
Ed
(just because we don't have the same opinion, doesn't mean I failed).
you failed because you did not answer my questions, and I guess you will never do because you will be ashamed to defend a state that murders people just to take their land. I want you to understand why it is difficult to make peace, because Israel wants Palestine without Palestinians. They do not want to live with us; they want only our country empty of its indigenous people.
(But actually you're very right: I really failed, because I couldn't get to the bottom of your heart)
if I am that important to you, and you are desperate to show me your affection, why you did not just ask me how Ed? Well, it’s never too late, I can tell you how. If you want to get to the bottom of my heart find a way to allow me and all the exiled Palestinians like myself go home, and compensate us for losing our loved ones, and return our homes and lands back, and get our relatives out of the prisons. EASY.
(I don't agree with you in many points, but it doesn't mean I don't respect or love you).
For a moment I was worried, I thought you don’t… I felt miserable. But now I feel great, I even forgotten about my country.
(What I try is to go the way of unconditional love)
Darling Ed, there is no unconditional love except the mothers love for her child, but since you are offering me your heart, I will never turn you away unhappy, I am going to accept your unconditional love on one CONDITION…bring me back all the things I have lost because of the Israeli occupation of my home country.
(Because real LOVE is unconditional)
Again? I can almost hear the music in the air…I am floating few inches above the ground, where have you been all my life?
( Real love means to tolerate and respect all around. What you give, you will get back)
Does this mean if you shoot someone or burn his children with white phosphorus he will do the same to you? This would be real love?
(if you talk about you are peaceful, what about the sucide bombings all over the years killing innocent people in Israel)
Edddddd, I thought you are different, I even began to believe you, what suicide bombings? How many of them? And when….in return of 61 years of massacres, torture, thefts, detentions…? you have broken my heart man, I almost believed your talk about unconditional love.
( what about the many rockets bombed into Israel every day since years?)
What about them? Fireworks? How many people were hurt by them over the years? One? Two? How about the continuous bombardment of Palestinians? Have you heard about a playground called Gaza? Besides do not use words like (every day), this is called a lie.
(which country in the world would have tolerated this? )
You got the nerve? You invade our country and kill our people, and you do not want them even to defend themselves with the minimum?
(And Israel has all the power and the weapons to eliminate you! But they don't do it.)
They did not? Have you been watching TV in the last century? Do you read? Go and Google Israel’s massacres, and attacks on civilians. Ed, you disappointed me, for a while… after talking about unconditional love, I almost believed that you loved me..now .you have broken my heart.
Dear Iqbal,
I understood now, my unconditional love is not working for you at all.
So anyway I wish all of us real peace with love not with weapons. I will not stop to hope, hope is the last thing to die.
Salam, Shalom, Peace, Frieden
Ed
@Ed –
What uncoditional love you are talking about? I will accept your story that you are trying knit if you show me your real uncoditional love, I want you out of my home, can you do that as a proof of your unconditional love.
His unconditional love! This is surreal! Thanks Iqbal for your spirited and entertaining replies to Ed.
Ed
Two points: (1) Allah is Arabic for God. It is derived from Allaha, the Canaanite word for God as spoken by Jesus. (2) Your ignorance regarding the history of the Israel-Arab/Palestinian conflict and the current situation on the ground is so outrageous and un/misinformed that you do not qualify for serious debate. Also, judging by what you have written, I can only assume that you would have argued for the equivalency of both sides when the Nazis occupied France, Holland, Poland etc. Let me set the record straight: Israel is a racist, fascist, expansionist, occupier, ethnic-cleanser, apartheid state. Along with zionism, its founding 19th century settler/colonialist ideology, Israel is a betrayal of the 6,000,000 Jews who perished at the hands of Hitler and his thugs during WWII.
I respectfully suggest that Ed's inane and comments be ignored by everyone. Let him drown in his profound ignorance.
Correction: I just realized that in my previous posting I erroneously referred to the language spoken by Jesus as "Canaanite." In fact, he spoke Aramaic which is closely related to Arabic.
@Iqbal Tamimi –
This description of events in Hebron by a Jew in 1929 is very interesting. I want to point out some things about it that may help you to understand Jews a little better.
The fearful self-blaming minority/Jew.
Being vulnerable minorities in Arab and Christian lands for thousands of years taught Jews not to make trouble. Such an atmosphere was common for any minority before the modern notions of equal rights empowered them to think differently. And since it was normal and accepted, of course many stories could be told about the good relations of Jews and other minorities with their neighbors. But this leads to a permanent kind of mental fear; that if trouble comes, the best option is to be accommodating so that the trouble would pass quickly.
That is why Rabbi Kaplan called the Zionists wicked, because they did not act like this kind of fearful minority, and they were upsetting the balance. Rabbi Kaplan understood that Arabs would not tolerate being disrespected by a brazen show of pride from the Jews and so the Zionists were wicked. Jews were not supposed to have pride, this was well understood. It is very interesting that after the massacre, which by the Rabbi's descriptions is sparked by "Zionists with shorts" walking around town, he has no urge of blaming his Arab neighbors for these acts. It is very clear to this man that the blame lies in the pride of the wicked Jews with shorts. You would think he would dwell some time on the actions of his Arab neighbors and friends.
This attitude of avoiding trouble, and of waiting and seeing, is well understood of Jews in Pre-Nazi Europe. It is this same attitude that ultimately led to so many people staying in places of future danger in spite of years of warning, because always they thought it would pass if they behaved.
Because they stayed and died, Jews continue this kind of fear by actually blaming themselves for their fate in WWII. There is not a thinking Jew alive, who does not wonder what Jews themselves could have done to avoid it. Jews might be uncomfortable with Germans or Germany, but they don't hate them. Really they are uncomfortable because Germans remind them of their own weakness and loss in that time. I don't know why Rabbi Kaplan suggests the wicked Zionists conspired with Hitler, but I suppose that one could say they laid down for him. Out of respect for the dead I will say now, how could they have really known. But religious Jews looking back would say they should have sinned less before God. Secular Jews would say they should have fled sooner or fought harder. It is all very easy to say now when we look back. But my point is that the reflex of the Jew is still to look at themselves for what they have done to deserve this, and Rabbi Kaplan is a great example.
After the war you see a very different attitude. Jews are still capable of their self-criticism, that is why they have a strong left, and their own human rights watch-groups. But also they have a new desire to be free of the meekness and self-blame that Rabbi Kaplan is describing. There early war victories contributed to this sense of themselves, but you can really se it In their recent wars which were not fought against armies and were controversial. They do not want to apologize for killing more Palestinians than the amount of Israelis that died either in Lebanon or Gaza, because they feel in their hearts that apologizing for wanting to live is like being the Ghetto Jew that is afraid of what they have done for themselves, and is afraid of what might happen to their community because they stood up for themselves.
I think modern Israel is precisely, the strain between a people's old tendency to criticizing themselves and their newer refusal to apologize. It is clear that civilians were killed in Gaza, but you will find that most Israelis are pleased with the outcome of fewer missiles from Gaza and very few soldiers killed. They feel like they had to fight this way to achieve this outcome. This is what I mean about the new effort to stop apologizing. It is a long way from Rabbi Kaplan. Jews don't blame Kaplan for blaming Jews for their own deaths. Only, they won't continue to be like him. Unfortunately, that ancient Jewish community in Hebron was destroyed that night in 1929, if the Palestinians had not taken that action, there would be actual Jews who belonged to the place instead of the ones that replaced them after 1967.
I think it will only get worse from here. The more the get comfortable with their right to exist, the less they will want to compromise about it. Also Israelis have inched to the right more and more since the first Intifada. Unless an opportunity for peace is seized aggressively by both sides soon, I think the Palestinians can look at getting less and less in future agreements because they will be dealing with a people who just doesn't care what they think anymore.
"I understood now, my unconditional love is not working for you at all."
this is definately one of the most absurd things I have read when it comes to this issue. There might be conflicts in which both parties are equally guilty (i wouldn't know that many but I am sure they exist), well this is not one of them, and even the attempt to portray it as such is offensive and disrespectful to the victims of it. This is one of the most assymetrical conflicts in the world today. On on the one hand a people that lost their homes and their lands and are still stateless after 60 years, on the other hand a people that came, took everything and now has the support of the world's super power, nukes, walls, checkpoints and soldiers included. Do you have any idea how condenscending this sort of language is? It is analoguous to telling a jew that is laboring in one of the concentration camps that they have to be willing to compromise and accept peace and if they don't then they are not susceptible to 'unconditional love'. That is how offensive it is. Get is through your mind. You are dealing with people that was robbed of everything. They have nothing left that they can bargain with, you took everything already. Now, with this stupid language, you want their blessing for this robbery as well. Well their blessing is one thing you cannot get. The Jews suffered too. But they are not suffering anymore and they didn't suffer at the hands of the palestinians either. Instead they are inflicting suffering upon a people that had nothing to do with the damn Holocaust. This is a case of ongoing injustice that one people keeps inflicting on an other people. Any language that the victims should open to unconditional love while the robberies are still taking place is as absurd as it gets.
@raphael –
Raphael
The way you portrayed the Zionists Jews as self-blaming minority, vulnerable , peaceful people who depart themselves of trouble is totally untrue, and I am afraid it is more like a sprinkle of powder sugar on a big heap of sh-t.
Jews might have been a minority in numbers but they controlled everything, and they have never been subjected to any discrimination in Arab countries because we looked at them as Arabs of another faith that’s all. Many of us Arabs were Jewish ourselves who converted to Islam and Christianity. Read about the Jewish status in Egypt, they were on the top of many industries including media, movie production, hospitality businesses, art and others.
How can you explain your claim that ‘Arab and Christian lands for thousands of years taught Jews not to make trouble’?
First of all Arabs are people of different faiths, how come you consider Christians and Arabs as different things, and how did you came to the conclusion that both have been ‘teaching’ the Jews not to make trouble?
You say that Arabs and Christians taught the Jews for THOUSANDS of years, Islam is almost 1400 years old and Christianity is almost 2009 years…isn’t your approach a kind of dramatizing and exaggerating things, and insinuating that the Jews were oppressed by Arabs including Arabs of Christian faith?
‘Taught them’ is another expression you ought to explain.
@Iqbal Tamimi –
Iqbal-
Thank you for reading my comment thoughtfully.
I wasn't describing the Zionist as self-blaming and not wanting to make trouble – he is more complicated than that – I was describing Rabbi Kaplan as such. Otherwise he could not have blamed his fellow Jews for the murders in his community even though he saw that that they were killed by his Arab neighbors. This is a kind of madness, the same madness that has Jews, and others, blaming Jews for the holocaust. Jews also held all of those positions in Germany and Eastern Europe that you described in Egypt. But obviously they were still vulnerable to the changing winds of attitudes towards them. While mass murder is a unique German problem, there were many eruptions of violence against Jews in Arab lands, right up to 1956 when they were pushed to make a mass exodus. I guess all of their high positions did not help them after all. And I can guarantee you that many of those Jews blamed their fellow Jews in Israel for upsetting the balance and stoking the hate against them. Tell me honestly, when you consider the events of 1956, don't you blame Israel for what happened to the Arab Jews?
To argue that conditions of oppression never existed for Jews and Christians in Muslim lands is very silly. Let's not get stuck on that point. Rabbi Kaplan understood things this way so he did not want to muddy the waters. It was obviously much more important for a religious man like the Rabbi to continue living in a holy place like Hebron than to worry about something like a secular homeland for Jews, which is what the Zionist were concerned with. He was calling them wicked both because they were secular (wore shorts) and because they had their mind on nationhood more than God. My point here is that it is very cynical of you to use his description to try and claim that the Jewish community in Hebron was not murdered. It would be like a Jew in Germany saying we deserved what we got because some Jews have too much pride.
The Zionist is different than the Rabbi Kaplan… he is trying to actively reverse the trend (yes, of 2000 years) of seeing himself as a vulnerable minority. Suddenly he has a gun and he has more control over his own fate. This is a sudden difference in mentality between the generations of Jews that lived in Europe and Arab lands and the generations that grow up in Israel. These people are a work in progress. I think there are still cooling from the fire. But there are already differences between American and Israeli Jews, even though many of their grandparents come from the same places. American Jews tend to be much more timid and embarrassed about who they are, even though they live in freedom. It is an old disease this kind of shame. Israelis seem to be shaking this. You know who that kind of pride reminds me of, the Palestinians.
I honestly don't know if Jews will eventually be better off when they are 5 or maybe 10 generations into their empowerment. So far, they have not forgotten how to examine their actions and they need to keep this. But that process is a Zionist process. Learning how to be a better person in Israel and even advocating for Palestinians is also a part of Zionism. It is much bigger than the picture of wicked troublemakers that I suppose you would prefer.
For me, a zionist and a Jew, it is very special to be in a place like Israel where ordinary Jews are not ashamed to be themselves. I understand that a lot of areas in Israel used to Arab and these don't even exist anymore. I am sorry for them, but I am not ashamed. It is not easy to admit, but I am glad that the Arabs fought Israel in 1948, because the land is a solid piece and more viable with what was won. If the Jews had started that war, I think it would be much harder for me to feel that way, and it would be like curse on our heads to enjoy the land. But this is not how it happened. I know you hear many times that the Arabs should have accepted the first borders, but how could you? You do not have that vision of yourself as meek, and vulnerable, and wanting to keep the peace because you are afraid. How could you accept the status of a partner when you should be first. You have the strength of Islam and all the Arab peoples, if not in your fighting, in your hearts. It is impossible for you to become like the Jew in Europe or an Arab land. It seems destined that we were both meant to have pride and keep fighting.
You said some of these Muslims used to be Jews. I am glad you are aware of our common ancestry. It is in my heart that the only way for us to move forward is by acknowledging that we are the same people. That in fact Jews are Palestinians and Palestinians are Hebrews and so on. And that together we make a people more special than other kinds of Muslims, Jew or Christian. I am not sure exactly how it would work. But if we could truly see each other as cousins that live among each other, I think we would finally become that light unto the nations.
@raphael –
Raphael
I will put your comments in brackets, and I will follow it with my comment.
(there were many eruptions of violence against Jews in Arab lands, right up to 1956 when they were pushed to make a mass exodus)
You know perfectly well that this is totally untrue, the Jewish Arab were not forced to leave the Arab country, why should they leave one Arab country to go to live in another?, Israel was luring them with big temptations to move to Palestine to outnumber Palestinians for demographic reasons. What I say is documented by Arab Jews who refused totally to leave upon continuous pleas by Israel like the top singer Lila Murad. She documented such efforts and refused to leave her country.
(To argue that conditions of oppression never existed for Jews and Christians in Muslim lands is very silly).
Why silly? Because it did not suit your agenda?, the Christians are facing oppression by Jews, and the Muslims as well, but they never had a problem before the creation of Israel. Jewish brothers’ witnesses said that their mothers and the Muslim Palestinian mothers used to baby set for each other, and they have never had any troubles…why such thing would upset you?
(For me, a Zionist and a Jew, it is very special to be in a place like Israel where ordinary Jews are not ashamed to be themselves)
The Jewish people were never ashamed before occupying Palestine as they feel now, everybody knows that they are using God even the secular ones to steal, oppress, kill, imprison, and starve people.
The Jews I know who do not believe in Zionism are humans who are ashamed of what has been done to their faith by people who never cared about God and never believed in him and have no drop of humanity. Do you want to tell me that you are a practicing Jew? And that you came to Palestine to worship God?
( I understand that a lot of areas in Israel used to Arab)
No area in Palestine is for the Jews, the Jewish people who were living in Palestine 4000 years ago are the same ones who became Muslims and Christians and called Palestinians…the secular Zionists of Russia are killing the grand children of Moses and Ibrahim… GOT IT? I am the granddaughter of Abrahim not you. Tell me where did you come from? I bit you are a Khazar…and you inherited my home? Isn’t that true?
@Iqbal Tamimi –
The Arab riots against Jews in Arab lands are a fact. The idea that Arab jews came to Israel just for the "Good life" goes against the most common known reason for Jews to move to Israel, which is fear in the land they came from.
I see now that you are intent on calling me a liar when you say I am writing things that I don't even believe only for my own agenda. That is very insulting when I have tried to be respectful. And now instead of finding things to agree about I have to spend time showing you information that is commonly known to historians and to anyone who would like to find out the truth. I will provide some information, it is not propaganda. Even though it points out Arab violence against Jews, none of it means that the Palestinians owe anything to the Jews, but if you can not at least accept history for what it is then there is nothing more to talk about.
Also, my great grand parents are Russian and Polish. Even if they are descended from converts, Khazari or otherwise, what does this matter. I am Jewish. Genetic tests show that European Jews have original genes mixed in with local blood. But what does this matter either. How do you know where your blood comes from 100% for 4000 years, you think it is all local? We are all mixed, how do you think Palestinians have blonde hair. You are my cousin for sure. The Khazari argument is a what is known as a RED HERRING. A way to distract people from the real discussion. I know you think it is really convincing to call me a "fake" Jew, but no one listens to that except for people who already hate Jews.
A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ARAB JEWISH EXPERIENCE
The Arab riots against Jews in Arab lands are a fact. The idea that Arab jews came to Israel just for the "Good life" goes against the most common known reason for Jews to move to Israel, which is fear in the land they came from.
You can find many sources for the following information all over the internet.
When Jews were perceived as having achieved too comfortable a position in Islamic society, anti-Semitism would surface, often with devastating results: On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot was incited by Muslim preachers who had angrily objected to what they saw as inordinate Jewish political power.
Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in "an offensive manner." The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.(6)
Other mass murders of Jews in Arab lands occurred in Morocco in the 8th century, where whole communities were wiped out by Muslim ruler Idris I; North Africa in the 12th century, where the Almohads either forcibly converted or decimated several communities; Libya in 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews; Algiers, where Jews were massacred in 1805, 1815 and 1830 and Marrakesh, Morocco, where more than 300 hundred Jews were murdered between 1864 and 1880.(7)
Decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted in Egypt and Syria (1014, 1293-4, 1301-2), Iraq (854-859, 1344) and Yemen (1676). Despite the Koran's prohibition, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in Yemen (1165 and 1678), Morocco (1275, 1465 and 1790-92) and Baghdad (1333 and 1344).(8)
As distinguished Orientalist G.E. von Grunebaum has written:
It would not be difficult to put together the names of a very sizeable number of Jewish subjects or citizens of the Islamic area who have attained to high rank, to power, to great financial influence, to significant and recognized intellectual attainment; and the same could be done for Christians. But it would again not be difficult to compile a lengthy list of persecutions, arbitrary confiscations, attempted forced conversions, or pogroms.(9)
The situation of Jews in Arab lands reached a low point in the 19th century. Jews in most of North Africa (including Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Morocco) were forced to live in ghettos. In Morocco, which contained the largest Jewish community in the Islamic Diaspora, Jews were made to walk barefoot or wear shoes of straw when outside the ghetto. Even Muslim children participated in the degradation of Jews, by throwing stones at them or harassing them in other ways. The frequency of anti-Jewish violence increased, and many Jews were executed on charges of apostasy. Ritual murder accusations against the Jews became commonplace in the Ottoman Empire.(10)
By the twentieth century, the status of the dhimmi in Muslim lands had not significantly improved. H.E.W. Young, British Vice Consul in Mosul, wrote in 1909:
The attitude of the Muslims toward the Christians and the Jews is that of a master towards slaves, whom he treats with a certain lordly tolerance so long as they keep their place. Any sign of pretension to equality is promptly repressed.(11)
The danger for Jews became even greater as a showdown approached in the UN over partition in 1947. The Syrian delegate, Faris el-Khouri, warned: "Unless the Palestine problem is settled, we shall have difficulty in protecting and safeguarding the Jews in the Arab world."(12)
More than a thousand Jews were killed in anti-Jewish rioting during the 1940's in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria and Yemen.(13) This helped trigger the mass exodus of Jews from Arab countries.
I haven't read all of Raphael's post, but had to stop at this line:
The idea that Arab jews came to Israel just for the "Good life" goes against the most common known reason for Jews to move to Israel, which is fear in the land they came from.
which is PATENTLY FALSE! I have been studying the Aliyah propaganda for the past 20 or so years and fear is NOT, definitely NOT the motivation behind any of the propaganda to get people to move to Israel. Check out some of it, if you don't believe me.
The motivation is: UPWARD MOBILITY first and foremost, of jobs in "advanced countries that are developing at a rate and have tech jobs to offer". These are people who want as well to feel "important" and this psychological element is much used in the recruitment. Also not to underestimate is the economic benefit. I too did the little calculation of my Sal Klita, and with my family status, I'd be collecting a nice little sum there at Ben Gurion Airport! http://www.nbn.co.il/site/kb/categories/Benefits+%26+Rights/
how about those 70 to 90% tax discounts?
Monthly money for my children?
Rental Assistance?
Help finding work?
Language courses?
Think about it… they have to give all these great gifties because it's hard to convince folks to leave the US, France, Spain, etc. http://www.nbn.org.il/index.php... come ON! They want the good life, cheap.
@raphael –
( my great grand parents are Russian and Polish. Even if they are descended from converts, Khazari or otherwise, what does this matter)
Can you tell me how did you come to inherit my family land? Explain to me how my family who lived in Palestine since 1400 years at least through documented history are now refugees, while a Russian Polish is living in Palestine?
@raphael –
(I know you think it is really convincing to call me a "fake" Jew, but no one listens to that except for people who already hate Jews)
Here we start as usual. It seems all of you studied under supervision of the same teacher, now as from my experience the minuet the expression ‘HATE JEWS’ appears, I know for sure that you are out of information ammunition and will start to dump any information to give the readers the illusion that you have been oppressed…AGAIN, and most important of all, you are heading to another expression and I will hear about it soon ‘anti Semite’.
The crème of your talk is, if any one disagrees with your views, then he is doomed as a ‘Jew hater’. What a convenient escape. What does Jew hater mean? For sure people hate for reasons, but not for having a different point of view or for embracing a faith. I never heard about Christian haters, or Muslim haters, or any other faith haters. Can you explain to me why you are always a victim? And hated by others for no reason whatsoever?
@raphael –
(When Jews were perceived as having achieved too comfortable a position in Islamic society, anti-Semitism would surface)
Do you mean to tell me the anti Semitism surfaced ‘by Semites’ against ‘other Semites’ because the second ‘Semites’ have achieved too comfortable a position in society? Does this make any sense at all? If they hated their guts, why leave them until they achieved the so called ‘comfortable a position’? Why give them access to all education and science facilities?
@Mary Rizzo –
Mary,
I wish you would read my whole entry next time. You are right, the Israeli government is giving many monetary incentives to Jews to move to Israel. This doesn't change the reasons why "most" Jews have moved to Israel in the past. You can't argue about the situation of Jewish refugees from Europe, but that is just the most extreme example. Israel could not offer these incentives, and did not have the same kind of services and infrastructure in the 40's and 50's. Everyone knows that it is more difficult to live in Israel than a western nation. It is financially stressful there, as well as costly to move there. These incentives are meant to defray these costs for a period of transition. Still the reason why someone makes the move is certainly not to get rich. Look at "Alliyah" for a description of migrations from various countries and the different reasons that these nationals had.
Mary,
I meant look at "alliyah" on wikipedia
@Iqbal Tamimi –
Iqbal,
It is wonderful that Jews entered Arab facilities to learn. But such an environment can be destroyed quickly. Again, German Jews entered the same facilities. We still study Freud and Jung. But that all changed didn't it.
Thank you for the opportunity Iqbal, but I can not continue this much more Iqbal.
FIrst you declare that I am pulling "Jew hate" out of a bag of tricks we Jews use that is meant to confuse you. Then you ask how come it is that so many people hate the Jews. You want to have it both ways, to deny it, and then to hold it up as evidence of how it must mean we are bad.
Do you really think it is unique to Jews, who have their own language and religion, to get a negative attention when they are the minority in another country. Is it the Hispanic's fault for being persecuted in America? Is it the Roma's fault for their difficult time in Europe? Is it the Arab's fault for being racially profiled in the West? You would have Jews continue the same cycle of shame, which is for them to look at themselves and point the finger and say "I am the reason I am hated". You have no vision Iqbal because you can not even wrap your mind around anything that does not conform to your truth. Your versions of your history run in such a straight line that it can not be true, because no one's history is so straight as to not be questioned ever. And your treatment of me is far from honest. You would vent anger from one side of your mouth and deny it is in your heart with the other. You are a forceful advocate for your people and I wish you well. I am sure you are beloved among them.
Raphael, there are millions of poor, frightened immigrants all around the world who flee war, famine, poverty. Take ONE look at the ladies and gents getting off those big El Al planes and tell me if there is something remotely resembling fear in their faces. They are well-fed, middle class yuppies looking for their upward mobility.
My father was a poor immigrant, and his family didn't get a penny from ANYONE to try and make a go of it. When I myself became an immigrant, I pulled my own bootstraps up, didn't expect any help or benefits and mostly, didn't displace a single human being to do any of it. This is the way things work, unless one is privileged and believes it's his or her "birthright" to get stuff in Israel at a big discount and whatever refugees are waiting to return can be damned.
I find it sick that you pull the image of poor wartorn folks waiting at the rail of The Exodus when we know that's not how it is now or how it's been for over 60 years! Time to stop lying.
Mary,
I truly wish I didn't have that image of Jewish refugees to pull. You make the same belittling reproach that Iqbal does, by making this out to be some kind of maneuver of mine. All Jews wish we didn't have that image in our past. Unfortunately it is our history. The luxury of modern immigration does not change that. And Jews don't have to apologize for making it easier on each other. Displacement? Maybe. I call it a war won by Israel. Those well fed yuppies might be the newest immigrants, but their upward mobility is more spiritual than financial, otherwise they certainly would not be coming to Israel.
People like to ignore those early years, that it was so long ago, that immigrants aren't like that anymore, that Israel is the aggressor now. But those years are important. The seeds were planted then. As in my first point earlier. If the Arab nations had not attacked, we would not be having this argument now. Everything after that is connected. And now the Palestinians have less. But they have their lives, and life is paramount. Your father didn't moan for his dignity and it doesn't sound like you did either. Nor did the Jewish refugees of Europe. Your are right it's boot strap time. For the Palestinians.
Raphael, are you kidding??? We WISH we didn't have those images???? They are stressed to the world as a whole in continuation as if the Jews were the only ones who ever were refugees! Have you never seen other "hunger marches" all over the world, including the one just below the border of the USA? What about the boats from Libya to Europe? From Morocco to the Canary Islands? It is a common fact that the poor will go to where they can find work, future, escape war. Those going to Israel, to take the homes of the refugees whose rights should be protected, are leaving a cushy job in Atlanta or London, and they want an even cushier one in Tel Aviv, or a villa with a garden in a settlement. Or they aren't Jews yet, and will send their kids to the Nativ programme to fight against Palestinians and get an accelerated Conversion so that they are fully Halacha.
Give me a break! We don't believe the propaganda you peddle and neither do you, but you think you can be slick and get away with it here. We know the score. Sorry.
(1)Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, born into an affluent Jewish family in Baghdad: "We are not refugees, nobody expelled us from Iraq, nobody told us that we were unwanted. But we are the victims of the Israeli-Arab conflict." ( Ha'aretz, August 11, 2005)
(2) In Iraq, among other tactics, Zionist agents from Israel (known as The Movement) planted a series of bombs in synagogues and Jewish businesses. Convinced that they were under attack by Muslims, all but a few thousand Iraqi Jews left, mainly for Israel. Details of the conspiracy were first revealed in 1966, when Yehuda Tagar, an official in Israel’s Foreign Ministry admitted his part. Israeli Mordechai Ben Porath was subsequently identified as one of the agents responsible for tossing hand grenades into the Shem-Tov Synagogue in Iraq, killing and injuring a number of worshippers. (For a detailed discussion of Israeli directed terrorism in Iraq, see David Hirst’s The Gun and the Olive Branch, Faber and Faber, 1984 and The Jews of Iraq, by Naeim Giladi, http://www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/ameu_iraqjews.html)
(3) While testifying before the 1946 Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry on Palestine, Chaim Weizmann, a leading Zionist and Israel’s first president: "I wouldn’t like to do any injustice; the Muslim world has treated the Jews with considerable tolerance. The Ottoman Empire and the Arabs received the Jews with open arms when they were driven out of Spain. The Jews should never forget that."
(4) Rabbi Sassoon Kehdouri, Iraq's Chief Rabbi for 48 years, speaking before the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry on Palestine: "Iraqi Jews will be forever against Zionism. Jews and Arabs have enjoyed the same rights and privileges for a thousand years and do not regard themselves as a distinctive separate part of this nation."
@Abraham bought a cave, he did not buy Palestine « Silver Lining –
I don't deny any other refugees suffering Mary. Including Palestinians. The assumptions about Jews here continue to be insulting. Jews don't do anything as a whole, that is why they(like myself) were on the front line politically standing up for Bosnians. And others stand up for Palestinians, though I don't because I feel like they have plenty of allies. These Jews are not exceptions, they are also Israeli, secular and religious and zionists. You will get nowhere in the real world with you one-track propaganda. Not in the peace process and not one inch more of your dreams until you accept the inherent human struggle of both sides.
Raphael:
Please site me one war that took place between Israel and the Arab states that was not either started directly or precipitated by Israel.
Correction – (haste makes waste)
I should have written:
Raphael:
Please cite one war that took place between Israel and the Arab states that was not either started directly or precipitated by Israel.
@raphael –
So, the Jews of USA immigrated to Israel because they are frightened and intimidated.
(Israel could not offer these incentives, and did not have the same kind of services and infrastructure in the 40's and 50's).
This is why it was forcing Arab Palestinians people out of their villages and homes and expanding to make space for the new lured immigrants.
(Still the reason why someone makes the move is certainly not to get rich)
I hope you can enlighten us about the reasons, why do you pay lots of money to bring any one who would claim he is a Jew regardless of how happy he is in his own country. Please do not tell me because God said so, I have many so called Jewish friends, the Orthodox Jews know for sure that they should not be living in Palestine for religious reasons, and the rest secular who deny there is a God. Why insist on bringing people who are already settled in EU or USA. Hitler died long ago, and Germany compensated you over and over again, you have been blackmailing everybody since a long time, there are no fear facing any Jews anywhere, but still you are shopping even in areas like India and Africa digging for people who are very poor who even can immigrate to hell if offered a place and a meal and convince the world that those Indians might be a lost tribe of Israel.
All this is done on the expense of the Palestinians and their stolen lands. Instead on working on how to improve the lives of the Arabs living in Israel and paying their tax, all the money that should go to services goes to house more people who claim they are Jews. I want to know why you are doing all this effort to uproot people from their countries, go through all the expenses to re house them not just in what is called now Israel but on the occupied land in the West Bank?
@David –
Yom Kippur War – 1973. This is one in which Israel was taken by surprise. Arabs had no choice but to telegraph he others. The only reason I don't mention any others is because I am sure you will find a pretense for "precipitation" in all of them. I suppose you would say Jews started the 1948 war by existing. I am sure you will supply the necessary quotes.
After you supply your "retort", I ask that you do not address me anymore in your comments. I am uninterested in this style of one-upmanship. It is not productive. Thank you for consideration.
@raphael –
)Those well fed yuppies might be the newest immigrants, but their upward mobility is more spiritual than financial, otherwise they certainly would not be coming to Israel. (
Spiritual???? who are you kidding man? Do you mean that all those secular, drunken, drug addicts and women who pose on adult magazines do that for spiritual reasons? Are you telling me that all the children killed in Palestine, all the mothers who given birth at road blocks, all the elderly who were shot down died because you killed them for spiritual reasons? Do you mean to tell me that you invaded and occupied the West bank and evacuated families from their homes for spiritual reasons? What kind of spiritual people you are talking about? And what kind of God you worship? Be honest and tell me, do you really go to pray in the synagogue every Saturday? Are you a spiritual person and that is the reason you came to Palestine? Is it because of your spirituality that one and a half million people most of them are children are starved to death in Gaza. If what you do is caused by spirituality, then how your God is different from Satan?
@raphael –
Nice try Raphael, but no cigar. Apart from the fact that the 1973 war was precipitated by the war Israel launched on 5 June 1967 and its subsequent illegal and belligerent occupations of Palestinian and other Arab lands, not one Egyptian or Syrian soldier, tank or aircraft entered Israel within its borders as defined by UNSC Res. 242 during the 1973 war. The fighting was confined to Syrian and Egyptian lands occupied by Israel's troops. As for 1948, intervention by Arab state armies was caused by Jewish militias expelling at least 300,000 Palelstinians between passage of the recommendatory only UNGA Partition Plan (Res. 194, Nov. 29/47) and the declaration of the state of lsrael on May 15/48. Without pause, The IDF continued the eviction at an accelerated rate, including Acre. By the end of 1948, 800,000 Palestinians were expelled, 450 of their towns and villages destroyed and Israel occupied 78% of Palestine.
@David – I
Just noticed I erroneously wrote UNGA "Resolution 194." The Partition Plan was UNGA Resolution 181 .
Dear Iqbal, you know me… some days I get in the mood when I just feel "down" and like there is really nothing to be done to make people see the violation of basic rights and why keep trying…. The other side has the money, power, ability to make yuppies look like poor, fearful immigrants escaping death and misery.
and do you know what I do to remind me that the PROBLEM of Palestinians all around the world who are being denied their right to return home is intimately connected with the PROBLEM of Jewish Immigration to Israel, (and that includes immigration of "not really Jews…YET…. but close enough and we can fix that…. from Russia and other nations with tall, blonde Europeans")? I go to the various Aliyah sites, there are many of them. Programs like MASA, which are NOW saying to youth between 18 and 30 that the "Credit Crunch" shouldn't get them down, and they will be helped to go to Israel to "train" and get experience and maybe even stay! I go look at the 400 people who are flown in each week on the Nefesh b'Nefesh flights who are the typical folks you will see at a $300 Paul McCartney concert or down at the bar zone near the Universities on Friday nights so that they can "relax" until Monday. There are a few cute little families, and for colour, always two or three Chassidic elders who look a little bit lost. One guy generally comes out of the plane with the Torah scrolls wrapped in an Adidas Duffle Bag, and all those "thumbs up", "victory signs" and what have you make them not look like the disembarkment at Ellis Island of folks from Albania, Greece, etc and FAR less like the folks who manage to wade through the Rio Grande… no. These folks look like the disembarkment of the Marines in Kuwait! Vigorous and Pre-tasting Victory.
And every single one of them thinks they have a God-Given right to be there and every single one of them will say the "Arabs" have 22 other countries to go so what are they waiting for, and every single one of them are going to get help, money and support from the Jewish Agency and EVERY single one of them is going to have a bit of a culture crisis, because the propaganda is not like real life. They will realise that they had it good back in the States. That they never had to stand aroud and tell everyone what kind of Jew they were, they were just Jews and NOW they are going to be defined by what kind of Jew they are! How ironic!
All of them are looking out for number one, and each and every one of them is racist, maybe even the tiny tots.
Iqbal….
I'm using that line it I can and crediting it to you. "Abraham bought a cave, not Palestine."
I'm a reporter for a pro-Palestine/Jewish Voices for Peace type newspaper in the San Francisco Bay area, check us out. coastalpost. com. Here's the question.
Abraham had 8 sons who divided his estate to form a number of small kingdoms. The two eldest, Ismael (and 6 others) and Issac represent the Arab and Hebrew nations. Where did Ismael go when he and Hagar were so rudely kicked out because Sarah got jealous… had her own child, etc.? Were they kicked out or did they establish a separate household? After all, Abraham went to Mecca with Ismael. Did Hagar maintain her place as concubine? Is Ismael buried in Hebron caves?
When, how did Jews go into slavery in Babylon and "lose" access to the lands of Abraham? DId Ismael's descendents stayed in Canaan and the same approx. three hundred square miles that A mapped out?
I'm trying to figure out how Israelites came to think they own all of the area rather than their segment of A's estate like the rest of the sons? They say because Issac was "true" son and Abraham gave it to him as rightful heir.. Any comments?
Thanks,
Karen Nakamura
Karen….
Regarding (Abraham had 8 sons who divided his estate to form a number of small kingdoms)
What about the rest of the population who owned the rest of Palestine. To make it as simple as possible, if a refugee came to USA and bought a corner shop and fathered 8 sons, does that mean that those sons will inherit every single property in USA? Small Kingdoms? Isn’t that an exaggeration…? you surely do not believe that a refugee who has just been able to afford to buy a cave suddenly became a king, and his children created 8 kingdoms in Palestine.
( Where did Ismael go when he and Hagar were so rudely kicked out because Sarah got jealous… had her own child, etc.? Were they kicked out or did they establish a separate household? )
I am not a social worker dear, neither have I worked for CIA, how would I know where a mother and her child went 4000 years ago. No one will know for sure. People lose tract of each other in our very well connected modern world and it takes detectives to trace someone who lost touch for 10 years not 4000 years.
But still such questions and their answers are irrelevant. Thousands of women around the world are victims of jealousy, and their children suffer the consequences, and this woman and her child are one of such cases. Should Ismael and Hager have established a new home, or a hundred homes, there are still the rest of the homes owned by the locals who allowed them to live amongst them and in their town. How can you explain losing all properties in a country for the sons of one man?
(After all, Abraham went to Mecca with Ismael. Did Hagar maintain her place as concubine? Is Ismael buried in Hebron caves?)
All the above propabilities might be true, but this would still not change anything? The local Muslim Palestinians right now are a mix of the grand children of the original population who Ibrahim rented from them his cave, and the grand children of Ibrahim by blood inheritance.. not by politics from Russia or Poland. Those Palestinians grand children of Ibrahim are the Jews who converted to Islam and Christianity afterwards. There is no legal right for any strangers coming from Poland or Russia to claim ownership of one spot of dust in Palestine.
Should we give in to such claims, that any group of people who believe in a certain faith can inherit the land because at some point that land was occupied by their people, this will give the Muslims the right to demand to re occupy many countries from Spain to China. What is happening in Palestine is theft and politics created by Zionism, whose members are not even practicing Judaism, the majority are seculars.