Amjad Atallah – Huckabee Offers Palestinians State "Some Place Else"
By Guest Post • Aug 19th, 2009 at 10:12 • Category: Analysis, Features, Ideas and Projects, Israel, Newswire, Opinions and Letters, Palestine, Somoud: Arab Voices of Resistance, Zionism
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.
source: Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amjad-atallah/huckabee-offers-palestini_b_262505.html
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[...] about Huffington Post as of August 19, 2009 Amjad Atallah – Huckabee Offers Palestinians State "Some Place Else" – palestinethinktank.com 08/19/2009 In a move sure to antagonize the Onion for not having come up [...]
American "Christians" like Huckabee getting down on all fours to lick the boots of Jewish Zionists in Israel just goes to show how bad the Jewish Zionist problem really is in America, too.
It’s amusing to read the vast generalizations American left-liberals make about how backward Christians are based on clowns like Huckabee and Bush, who are merely sucking up to Jewish Zionists and their plutocratic capital in an effort to bolster their own political careers — the same process that the Democratic Party and its politicians have been religiously going through on an almost daily basis for decades.
Ashkenazi Jewish Zionists have more political influence in the Democratic Party than anywhere, and as the primary power base for US Jewish Zionist politicians and operatives, it has long been the main vessel of American support for Zionism.
Most American left-liberals, in fact, view Jews as staunch allies in the internationalist war against traditional civilization and morality, be it Christian, Islamic, or any other. That is why they demand a strict distinction be drawn between “Zionism” and “the Jews” or Zionism and Ashkenazi organized Jewry in the West. If average Americans are allowed to draw the correct conclusions about the interchangeable morality of organized Ashkenazi Jewry and Jewish Zionism, they will notice how much unconditional support the Democratic Party has extended to Zionism over the years, and the hugely disproportionate amount of influence Ashkenazi Jews wield within the left-liberal establishment — and wonder if left-liberalism is really what it professes to be.
Americans might start to wonder why left-liberalism has so much in common with Jewish Zionism, and if left-liberalism really is interested in the “progress” and “social justice” for mankind that its political sloganeering professes, or if its slogans are really just cynical political machinations and opportunism employed to advance its own monetary interests and power.
Really, how interested in authentic justice can any political entity willing to form a coalition with Jewish Zionism for decades on end really be? Why, Jewish Zionism's behavior in just the last 3 years alone would have been enough to get the entire entity expelled from any political grouping of real conscience. But the Democrats have hardly missed a beat.
Left-liberals, Jewish Zionists and Christian Zionists: one big, happy family of craven opportunists, cynics, and moral frauds.
May he expire in a conflagration of cerebral hemorroides!
Since the USA is a state created on stolen land why would other states not be created just the same? I mean when Germany was out for "lebensraum" they were evil, but when Israel does just the same they are good. You know why? They have their PR section in order!
Huckabee is no more than a religious fool whose hate for Jews is very obvious. Like all his elks of religious Christian’s fundamentalist, they think the fastest way to their heaven is through Armageddon when the “Christians” give the Jews the options either to convert to Christianity or face a certain death. All this expressed love of Israel and the Jews is nothing but a moral lie, hypocrisy at its best. I guess that is why these guys want to see all American Jews to immigrate to Israel so their America will be free of Jews. Huckabee is only looking for his Christian heaven when the only thing he will find waiting for him hell. I am sure Jesus is simply disgusted with his kind and wonder where did he (Jesus) go wrong. Since Huckabee is acting as God dispensing land left and right, how about California for all the Palestinians. That is not a bad deal. Let the Jews have Palestine and let the Palestinians have California, and yes, there will be no problem with Mexican and they will be welcomed as brothers and fellow citizens.
The fastest growing cult in the USA is the cult of Christian Zionism-and it has nothing to do with what Jesus was all about-for it seeks empire in this world and ignores the fact that Jesus was a social, justice, radical, revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who was crucified for disturbing the status quo of a brutal military occupation.
Huckabee and his ilk are clueless regarding the Christian Exodus from the Holy Land which has reduced their numbers from 20% of the total population to less than 1.3% since Israel became a state in 1948. The reasons are primarily the over forty years of occupation, the oppression, The Wall, the lack of economic opportunity, the daily humiliations at checkpoints, the hassle of obtaining permits to be able to move about, ineffective and corrupt governments, the rise of fundamentalism in all three branches of Father Abraham’s offspring's and the violence and destruction that surrounds.
A little history of the First Major Corruption of Jesus' Message:
Before Emperor Constantine brought Christianity into the mainstream, all the early Church Fathers taught that Christians should not serve in the army but instead willingly suffer rather than inflict harm on any other. St. Augustine was the first Church Father to consider the concept of a Just War. Within 100 years after Constantine, the Empire required that all soldiers in the army must be baptized Christians and thus, the decline of Christianity began.
With the justification of war and violence supplied by Augustine’s Just War Theory, wrong became right. Nothing much has changed in two millennia, for in today’s Orwellian world politicians claim the way to peace is through war and that nuclear weapons provide protection. I don’t care who wears the uniform, or how noble they believe their cause, war is the ultimate form of terrorism for any civilian caught in the crossfire of violence.
Even as a kid, I could not understand the logic that promoted the need for Hiroshima and Nagasaki to "save American lives" and why there was never a mention of repentance for the innocent that died.
Eisenhower warned America not to bind our economy to the Industrial Military Complex. But, like most prophets, he was ignored.
In 313 AD, Emperor Constantine legitimized Christianity and thus, those who had been considered rebels and outlaws began to enjoy political power and prestige. Jesus’ other name is The Prince of Peace, and with the marriage of church and state, his true teachings were reinterpreted.
The justification of warfare and the use of state sponsored violence corrupted what Christ modeled and taught. Jesus was always on about WAKE UP! The Divine already indwells you and all others. Christ taught that to follow him requires that one must love ones enemies; one must forgive those who hate, curse and revile them, without a thought of payback.
Christ lived a life that proved evil can be opposed without being mirrored, and that the cycle of a “tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye”, will never bring peace and justice. Before Emperor Constantine brought Christianity into the mainstream, all the early Church Fathers taught that Christians should not serve in the army but instead willingly suffer rather than inflict harm on any other.
The term Christianity was not coined until three decades after Christ walked the earth.
Until the day of Paul, followers of Christ were called members of The Way; the way being what he taught!
Christ was never a Christian, but he was a social justice, radical revolutionary Palestinian devout Jewish road warrior who rose up/intifada and challenged the corrupt Temple and disturbed the status quo of the Roman occupying forces by teaching that God was on the side of the poor and the outcast.
Clement, Tertillian, Polycarp and every other early Church Father taught that violence was a contradiction of what Christ was all about. There have always been those Christians who spoke out against this corruption of scripture and they have been ignored, reviled, rejected, mocked, persecuted and maligned throughout time. There have always been Christians who have never abandoned the true teachings, such as the Quakers, Mennonites, some Catholics and Protestants who have been faithful witnesses to Christ by denouncing violence and caring for the poor.
There have also been Jews, Muslims, atheists, anarchists, secularists and other’s who have lived lives that embody the message of Christ much better than many so called Christians.
@ SJJ: "Huckabee is no more than a religious fool whose hate for Jews is very obvious."
I don’t think Evangelical Zionists really do hate Jewish Zionists, particularly the dual covenant evangelicals who believe God has his own plan for the Jews, and still has a compact with them. In fact, I think that today, just like religious Jews, they are essentially Jewish supremacists in the sense that they profess to believe the Jews are still God’s chosen people.
It’s interesting to me that Jesus’ preachings and later the Christian faith were built upon a premise that utterly rejected the notion that Jews were still God’s chosen in the post-Messiah world, (which is one reason Jesus and Christians were and are despised and persecuted by the Jewish hierarchy), but that duel covenant Evangelical Zionists have now completely rejected that premise and re-embraced the Jews as God’s chosen, which is essentially a rejection of Jesus as the Messiah.
Jesus was the Messiah for everyone except the Jews? Then according to biblical prophecy and by duel covenant logic, he couldn't possibly be the Messiah.
It seems that duel covenant "Christian" Zionists can't possibly really be Christians since, like the Jews, they basically reject Jesus as the Messiah, although they are coy about it.
Christian Zionists behavior is that of unprincipled opportunists and charlatan snake oil salesmen. When the Jews are down, they won’t pay them much mind (and why should they?); but when they’re up, as they are today in the U.S., they’ll lick their boots.
All political and social opportunists essentially behave the same way. As I noted above, despite a clear pattern of institutional chauvinism and ethnic-supremacism, which (supposedly) contradicts everything left-liberalism (professes to) stand for, the Democratic Party has been licking organized Jewry’s boots for decades now. In contrast, the GOP only really started licking organized Jewry’s boots when the false-Christian Evangelical Zionists/neo-Jewish supremacists began demanding it.