How the Palestinians voted and "not voted".

by knowing i wasn't there... Thu May 05, 2005 22:14

May 5, 2005

May 5 - 2005 - Palestine

by Assad always wins Fri May 06, 2005 01:18

Vote early, and vote often...

by Ali H. Fri May 06, 2005 11:36

the subject of the post was Palestine, not Syria.

Perhaps you should put on your glasses before posting next time.

As for democracy, the Palestinian elections, overseen by foreign observers disprove your claim that democracy is a foreign concept for Muslims not to mention Turkey etc. etc.

by - Fri May 06, 2005 11:38

watch Rafa.
Hamas are claiming it, and the poll didn't go without violent incidents and yet are also reported as being party-like :-
"The election had a festive air as the parties erected tents and greeted arriving voters, but the mood deteriorated after polls closed with supporters of both sides claiming victory.

About 20 masked men stormed two polling stations in the West Bank village of Attarah and destroyed three ballot boxes as votes were being tallied, an election official said."

http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=143&sid=5756685&cKey=1115328040000
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/afx/2005/05/06/afx2004963.html

It seems that mobility impaired voters were not impeded in the election, in sharp contrast to the poll in the UK and northern Ireland where there have been complaints raised in many constituencies on the lack of thought given to voters' special needs:-
http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4506873
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/south_east/4517799.stm

It is worth commenting that the majority of British who bothered voting did not vote for New Labour.
If that system was proportionaly representative like Palestine, today we would have what many had wished for - "a hung parliament" and most surreally of all, the possibility of a silly coalition between tory and liberal just to make Gladstone and Disreali roll in their graves.

thoughts published yesterday on that line from Mo Mowlam,
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/features/story.jsp?story=635819

he got to the ballot box. many disabled voters yesterday in the UK & NI didn't.

by Name another moslem democracy Fri May 06, 2005 19:00

"Muslims not to mention Turkey etc. etc."

I didn't say Muslims, I sad Arabs...there are only two examples for the palestinians to follow regarding the vote...Syria has regular elections, with a member of the Assad family as the eternal winner of the elections. the other example is Saddam, he alwys got 99.9% of the vote too...those who didn't vote for him were found floating in thee Tigris...
At any rate...the outcome of "palestinian" elections is insignificant...the revolution will end all democratic aspirations, as armed militants slaughter each other for control, Al Capone style

by objection! Fri May 06, 2005 22:23

[sustained / over-ruled]
judger urself

by Barrister Fri May 06, 2005 23:01

Sure there are Arabs living in Turkey. There are Arabs living in other democracies as well. The point is, that there are NO Arab democracies. Every Arab nation is either a Monarchy, a theocracy or a dictatorship. That being said, the "palestinians" would do well to use Israel as an example of a democracy in the neighborhood, and not follow the lead of the other Apartheid Arab regimes.

by TheTroll Fri May 06, 2005 23:57

And what if palestinians chose a monarchy??? Would that give Zionists an even greater "birthright" of murderous theft of more and more Palestinian lands.

Holy cow!!! Like the Palestinian's government, 1 way or the other, is going to give ZIonists thier alleged "birthright" to just move in, take over, steal what they can, MURDER the palestinians who resist (or are just in the wrong place, as defined by the ZIonist crusaders), and route the bereaving widows and orphans of the ZIonist's crusade into the wilderness.

I don't see how palestinians being democratic would give Zionists any LESS of a birthright of murderous theft of Palestinian lands. Just as I don't see how Palestinians NOT having a democracy gives Zionists any MORE of thier alleged birthright of murderous theft. It just looks like ZIonists playing on your programed prejudices. Is there really someone out there who is so pathetic as to suggest that Palestinians FAILING to live up to YOUR standards gives Zionists a birthright of murderous theft of Palestinian lands???

It really is a dunghill of a supposition.

by Istrakiya Sat May 07, 2005 01:44

The Palestinian left (PFLP, DFLP, PPP) has scored a major advance scoring around 20% according to preliminary results. After years of being squeezed between the fundamenatlists and Fatah, looks like a significant minority of Palestinians have cast their vote for radical secular politics.

by - Sat May 07, 2005 12:09

thousands of Fatah supporters took to the streets on Rafa and demanded a recount after intial and unofficial poll results had indicated a Hamas swing.

52 councils to Fatah
Hamas 24 councils
84 councils.
14 areas listed in article above.

by Ali H. Sat May 07, 2005 13:42

Democracy. It is the battle cry of the Bush Administration, which is otherwise plum out of excuses for its rape, looting and pillaging of Arab nations.

The Administration loves to tout Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East . Ironically, true democracy in the region would most likely be the death knell of Israel . This is something that neocons and Christian Ayatollahs have not considered as they fan the flames of war.

Every Arab citizen desires democracy. However, they want a democracy where they choose their leaders and laws, not a government imposed by the armies of western nations and their expatriate stooges. When true democracy takes root in the Arab world, the result will shock and awe those seeking to let the genie out of the bottle.

As for apartheid ask Israeli muslims and the residents of the occupied territories before shooting your mouth off.

by Democracy!!? What's that? Sat May 07, 2005 18:42

"thousands of Fatah supporters took to the streets on Rafa and demanded a recount after intial and unofficial poll results had indicated a Hamas swing."

Let the festivities begin!! Elections will lead to the inevitable Arab civil war, as they once again turn their guns on each other, and forget about the jews for a little bit.

by Lungs McPherson Sat May 07, 2005 19:32

Thank you Barrister. You are a a lighthouse of reason and truth in a sea of blind hatred and gross misinformation. Keep it up!

by Workers Unite Sun May 08, 2005 06:50

Elections in bourgeois democracys aren't really representative of the people, because of the way elections are run, and the influences involved. Cuba has better democratic processes than any of these bourgeios nations. And one of the myths of the Israeli state is that it is a democracy. Yeah it's a democracy if your jewish., and it doesn't matter if you have come there from somewhere else, since Israel is a colonial settler state. If you are from another ethnic identity, however; even if your family has lived there for generations you don't have rights, because you are a second class citizen. Although there are some jews like the Hessidic, etc. who are not treated as well as their european brotheran are, but they still have more rights than non-jews.

I can't believe there are so many right-wingers on this website...

I thought they had to stay tuned to Rush Limbaugh, or Shawn Hannidy, or some other right -wing blow-hard...

I thought this site was supposed to be more attuned to those on the left...

If your interested on other links you can visit my website, www.angelfire.com/indie/workersunite726

by avi H. Sun May 08, 2005 09:12

Nobody seems to have commented on the obvious fact that Hamas' victory in the polls is an even more blatant endorsement than before of a terrorist group dedicated to the destruction of Israel (the world's only Jewish state) and the murder of Jews. How this squares with peaceful coexistence with the Jewish state, a policy Mahmood Abbas supposedly an advocates, is quite beyond me. Can someone enlighten me on this particular point?

by Ali H. Sun May 08, 2005 11:09

is a vote for covert NBC weapons programmes, land and resource theft, apartheid, political assassinations, murder of civilians by trigger-happy settlers and soldiers, cover-ups of these same murders and collective punishment etc.

All of which continues while the PA, Hamas and other Palestinians are on ceasefire.

by Noel Sun May 08, 2005 12:57

'All of which continues while the PA, Hamas and other Palestinians are on ceasefire'

Bwahahahahahahahaha.

Try these, from the producers of The Death Of Muhammed al-Dura and Jenin Massacre:
http://israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=77154
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050303/wl_nm/mideast_dc_125
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050421/wl_nm/mideast_dc_12

Must try harder.

by Ali H. Sun May 08, 2005 17:34

that a vote for Likud is a vote for covert NBC weapons programmes, land and resource theft, apartheid, political assassinations, murder of civilians by trigger-happy settlers and soldiers, cover-ups of these same murders and collective punishment etc.

by Workers Unite Sun May 08, 2005 17:43

The last recommended websites are nothing but zionist propaganda, and we get enough of that from regular news outlets.

It would be like trusting the U.S. news media for accurate reports about the U.S. occupation and slaughter in Iraq, and elsewhere.

by No Free Press Sun May 08, 2005 18:33

" It would be like trusting the U.S. news media for accurate reports about the U.S. occupation and slaughter in Iraq, and elsewhere"

No doubt, you trust Al Jezeera. Al Jezeera is produced in Qatar. There is NO free press in ANY Arab nation. Al Jezeera is funded by the Qatari Monarchy. It's also where Coalition forces are headquartered.

by Workers Unite Sun May 08, 2005 20:13

Al Jazeera is owned and operated by the bourgeios of that Arab region, so no I don't trust that either, but they do show images that are being censored elsewhere. And the U.S. Military is stationed there, and the local bourgeios have many ties with the bourgeios in Europe, the U.S, and Israel.

The Arab bourgeios have close links with the U.S. imperialists, and they have helped the U.S. imperialists by repressing their own people. The people in these nations need to rise up and over throw the rascals.

But the ruling classes in theU.S. and Europe, as well as Israel would never want to see that happen, because that would mean the end of imperialist domination in that region, and the unraveling of the racist zionist state of Israel.

The israeli bourgeios who happen to be Zionists will keep encouraging Jewish people to be reactionary, because it serves them well.

They are the ones who have led the Jewish people into a death trap, and they will keep doing so, as well as continuing to steal Palestinian lands, which they are doing by constucting the aparthied wall.

For more info to this and other issues concerning all working people

Jews, Arabs, European, American, and all other peoples of the world

Check out my website

by Alois Brunner Sun May 08, 2005 20:51

" They are the ones who have led the Jewish people into a death trap, and they will keep doing so, as well as continuing to steal Palestinian lands, which they are doing by constucting the aparthied wall."

LOL!! Every place the Jewish people have gone has been a death trap. After 2000 years the Jews finally have a place where they are well armed and capable of defending themselves. The "apartheid wall" saves lives on both sides, and has been successful in stopping arab terrorists from blowing up civilian populations.
"Palestinian" lands were initially stolen by the TransJordanians (80% of Jordan's population is Palestinian), Syrians and Egyptians.
"Palestinians" are a modern creation. They didn't come into existence until the Arab nations lost their fifth war of anihilation against the Jews. Prior to 1948, a "palestinian" was a Jew from the region. The other people living there were Arabs (claimed simultaneously by Syria, Jordan and Egypt)

by Workers Unite Sun May 08, 2005 21:36

That is the argument that the zionists used to create the racist state of Israel in the first place. The Israeli state was created by the ethnic cleansing of another people, that is why the zionists found commonality with the facists of germany who also used ethnic cleansing. They found commonality with the racist government of South Africa, and the racists doctrines of Ciecil Rhodes.

Before the founding of the Racist state of Israel and the call to settle the lands of the Palestinian people, by the early zionists, Jewish people were welcomed in those regions, and the Arab people did not commit pogroms or genocide against the Jews who lived there, before the zionists entered into the picture.

The pogroms and massacres were carried out by the zionists, and their followers against the Arab people.

And don't tell me that Palestine was a land without a people.
It is well documented that the Palestinian people had farms, and industry,and educational institutions that were to be found in their many towns and villages, before the zionists came to to eliminate them from their land and bury and destroy their history, and make it seem as if they never existed in the first place.

Sounds very facist to me. I guess the Zionist did learn something from the Jewish Holocaust.

by redjade Sun May 08, 2005 21:49

'They didn't come into existence....'

One could easily make the same argument that Italians didn't exist until they were invented in 1861.

I think Palestinians exist - I've met a few, for people that don't exist they seemed pretty real to me. Friendly too.

by Nordie Sun May 08, 2005 21:55

One thing that's for sure is that Israelis didn't exist before a load of people decided to steal some real estate and declare themselves Israeli in the 40's.

by Silly Arabists (perhaps ignorant) Mon May 09, 2005 04:13

"That is the argument that the zionists used to create the racist state of Israel in the first place. The Israeli state was created by the ethnic cleansing of another people, that is why the zionists found commonality with the facists of germany who also used ethnic cleansing."

Actually, Israel was created by the beloved UN. Ethnic cleansing is and was the hallmark of Arab nations. What did Trans Jordan, Egypt and Syria do when they attacked the new nation of israel, and captured and annexed "palestinian" land? They locked the locals into "refugee" camps. Claimed their land as their own, but failed to murder the Jews. Hebron? It became an "arab" city as a result of murder rape and ethnic cleansing starting in the 1920s...long before the creation of Israel. "arab" east jerusalem? The result of ethnic cleansing of East jerusalem of Jews. How did the PLO arrive in lebanon? After the massacre of 20,000 palestinians, the PLO was ethnically cleansed by the hashemites. Once they arrived in Lebanon, they started murdering thousands of Christian Lebanese. What happended to 1/2 million palestinians in 1991? Ethnically cleansed from the Kingdom of Kuwait. The list of arab atrocities againts THEIR OWN is endless...but keep trying to compae Israel to South Africa, it strie=kes an emotional note although there's is no equation.

by L Kavanagh Mon May 09, 2005 08:15

Workers Unite reverses reality:

> The Israeli state was created by the ethnic cleansing of another people

The Palestine Mandate was established by the League of Nations, in pursuit of self-determination, following WW I. It's intent was to re-establish a Jewish state in Palestine.

There was no irony at the time given that for hundreds of years "Palestine" was the Latin/European name for the Land of Israel - not the name of an Arab people.

In fact, those Arabs themselves argued that there was no such thing as "Palestine".

With the discovery of oil in Arabia, Britain (caretaker of the Mandate) began to favor the Arabs over the Jews. In 1923, Palestine was partitioned. Eastern (Trans-Jordanian) Palestine (75% of the land)) was made into an exclusive Arab region, no Jews allowed. Today it is the Kingdom of Jordan.

Following WW II and an investigation by UNSCOP, the UN General Asssembly suggested a partition compromise of the Jewish "half" (22%). The Jews, eager to build their own state, accepted. The Arabs violently rejected and invaded the new-born state - but failed to destroy it.

Israel was created by the failed Arab attempt to ethnically cleanse the Jews off their homeland.

During the Arab initiated war, hundreds of thousands of Arabs fled the region. Some were also expelled, but the majority fled (without ever seeing an Israeli soldier!) out of several reasons: Arab leaders urged them to quit, to incapacitate the new state (e.g. Haifa). Arab leaders advocated that they evacuate so as not to get in the way of the Arab invasion. Arab leaders threatened that those who remained would be considered as "collaborators" and "thrown into the sea" along with the Jews. Arab leaders intentionally exaggerated events (e.g. allegations of rape) which caused some to flee. And, of course, since war is bad for children and all living things, some Arabs fled because they didn't want to be in a war zone - something for which the Arab leadership was responsible.


> the zionists found commonality with the facists of germany who also used ethnic cleansing

Prior to the advent of the Final Solution, when the nazis were still seeking to deport Jews rather than exterminate them, Zionists attempted to work with the Germans. What next? Will you also claim that Schindler, Wallenberg and Sugihara also collaborated with the nazis?

In contrast, the Mufti of Jerusalem and the leader of the Arab High Committee, the body representing the Arabs of Palestine (who were not yet known as "Palestinians") spent the war at hitler's side - advocated him to bring the Final Solution to Palestine and exterminate the Jews there, too.


> Jewish people were welcomed in those regions, and the Arab people did not commit pogroms or genocide against the Jews who lived there, before the zionists entered into the picture.

Except that Jews living in Arab/Moslem lands were officially second class citizens, century after century, having to yield the sidewalk to Muslims, unable to testify in court (which makes it difficult to defend yourself from false accusations), often not allowed to build/repair synagogues (which in any case couldn't be as grand as the neighboring mosques) and subject to pogroms.

Albert Memmi, a Tunisian-born author and political theorist, writes: "Never, except for two or three eras with very clear boundaries in time, such as the Andalusian period ...have the Jews lived in the Arab countries otherwise than as a diminished people in an exposed position, periodically overcome and massacred."

For example, decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted in Egypt & Syria (1014, 1293, 1301), Iraq (854, 1344) and Yemen (1676). Forced conversions (or death) in Morocco (1275, 1465, 1790) and Baghdad (1333, 1344). And massacres to rival the European Pogroms: 5000 Jews in Grenada in 1066, all but 11 Jews in Fez in 1465, Libya (1785), Algiers (1805, 1815, 1830) and Morocco (1864 and 1880).

http://www.nitle.org/arabworld/texts.php?module_id=6&reading_id=54

|| As the nineteenth century began... Jews had to bear the burden of social isolation, inferiority, and general opprobrium. Over the preceding four centuries, they had become increasingly confined into overcrowded ghetto-like quarters, which were called by a variety of names throughout the Muslim world (for example, Mellah, Harat al-Yahud, and Mahallat al-Yahud ). European travelers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were unanimous in their reports of the overall debasement of the Jews living in the Islamic lands. The Italian Jewish poet and traveler Samuel Romanelli, who spent four years among his coreligionists in Morocco in the late eighteenth century, described them as "oppressed, miserable creatures, having neither the mouth to answer an Arab, nor the cheek to raise their head." 3 And the Englishman Edward William Lane, who lived in Cairo during the 1820s and 1830s and was a keen and sympathetic observer of native life, depicted the Jews of Egypt as being "held in the utmost contempt and abhorrence by Muslims in general." 4 He also noted that the condition of the Jewish lower class was wretched and that many in this group depended on alms. 5

Even in the Holy Land, the Jewish homeland, the fate of the Jews under foreign Arab/Muslim rulers was no better:

The Jerusalem Jews were bitterly and mercilessly persecuted during the 17th century reign of an Arab ruler Ibn Barouk who bought the rule from Murad IV. In 1660 the entire Jewish community was massacred by Arabs with only one survivor.

Little is known by Arabs as to why Ahmad Basha El-Jazzar (The Butcher) held this name, his sadistic wanton exploits became legend during the 1800s, who was known to travel accompanied by an executioner. When The Butcher encountered a subject who was adjudged to be misbehaving, "The criminal bowed his neck, the executioner struck, and the head fell" (DeHass). Hayim Farhi, the only Jew who has risen to power in the area was imprisoned by The Butcher, cutting off his nose, ear, and gouging out his eye. The Jews were at the bottom of the heap of peoples in status who had to pay to pray on the Wailing Wall, protection money was always collected against destruction and vandalism of the Jewish burial grounds, and to prevent molestation of Jewish travelers.

Johann van Egmont and John Hayman described Jewish life in 17th century Safed: "Life here is the poorest and most miserable that one can imagine." The oppression was so great that Jews "pay for the very air they breathe." In 1674, the Jesuit Father Michael Naud wrote of the Jews: "paying heavily to the Turk for their right to stay here.... They prefer being prisoners in Jerusalem to enjoying the freedom they could acquire elsewhere... The love of the Jews for the Holy Land... is unbelievable."

In the 1830s havoc was created during the Egyptian reign of Palestine, and the Jews were persecuted brutally throughout the country. In 1834 the inhabitants of Eastern Palestine crossed the Jordan River to join natives of Nablus, Hebron, and Bethlehem, 40,000 of them rushed on Jerusalem and looted the city for 5 days where the Jews had their homes sacked and their women raped. (DeHass, History, vol V, p.393).

The Jewish story in Palestine was like the story of a rape victim, blamed for being there at the time. Between 1848 - 1878 scores of incidents involving anti-Jewish violence, persecution, and extortions filled page after page of documented reports from the British Consulate in Jerusalem.


Let's not forget a key point: when the Arabs arrived in Palestine (at different times in history), Jews were already present.

by Workers Unite Mon May 09, 2005 08:28

There are many similarities of Israel and South Africa, For one they are both settler states, but the zionists in Israel went a step further, instead of just colonizing the Palestinians they replaced them by ethnic cleansing, with jewish settlers.

They have created bantustans for the Palestinian people while they keep stealing thier lands. The newest effort is being done with the construction of the apartheid wall. They deprive them of valuable resources like water since they now control the flow of it. They need to keep their swimming pools full, while the Palestinians can't even have access to their own farm land to grow and harvest their crops. The Palestinians have their houses and villages bulldozed, and all their records of land ownership destroyed. So their is no evidence that the land was theirs.

Sounds very facist...

As for the U.N....

The U.N. only does the handywork of the U.S. and other European imperialist nations.

Why do you think there are no sanctions against the U.S. and Britian for invading a soverign nation like Iraq.

Now what do you think would happen if North Korea or any other opposing nation tried to do something like that?

One of the Zionists Vladimir Jabotinsky Wrote in his "The Iron Wall" in 1923 "we cannot give any compensation for Palestine, neither to the Palestinians nor to other Arabs. Therefore, a voluntary agreement is inconceivable. All colonization, even the most restricted, must continue in defiance of the will of the native population. Therefore; it can continue and develop only under the shield of force which comprises an Iron Wall through which the local population can never break through."

Ben Gurion wrote in 1937 " a partial jewish state is not the end but only the beginning. I am certain that we can not be prevented from settling in the other parts of the country and the region. After we become a strong force as the result of the creation of the state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine. To do this the state will have to preserve order, not by preaching but with machine guns."

Hmmm... The word Order has a familiar ring..

The butchery began in Deir Yasin, by slaughtering men, women, and children in their own houses. This was carried out by Irgun, and Lehi. Then they went from village to village carrying out the same slaughter.

As for Lebanon. The slaughter and dispersal of the Palestinian people was one component of Israeli strategy. Another was the decimination of the vital Lebanese economy which, despite Israeli efforts, had emerged as the finance capital of the Middle East.

Twenty thousand Palestinians and Lebanese died, 25,000 were wounded and 400,000 were made homeless during the first months of the 1982 Israeli invasion. The tonnages dropped on Beirut alone surpassed those of the atomic bomb which devastated Hiroshima. Schools and hospitals were particularly targeted.

Virtually all rolling stock and heavy equipment were looted and taken to Israel.The citrus and olive production of Lebanon south of Beirut was destroyed. The Lebanese economy, whose exports had competed with Israel's became null and void. The south of Lebanon became an Israeli market even as the headwaters of the Litani River like the Jordan River before it, were diverted by the Israelis.

Then of course you have the Sabra and Shatila Massacres. Top Israeli officers one of which was Sharon, planned many months to enlist the Lebanese forces, made up of combined Christian militias headed by Bashir Gemayel, to enter the Palestinain refugee camps once an encirclement of West Beirut was completed.

Months before the slaughter, there were many reports of what was to come:
Major Etienne Saqr (code name Abu Arz) was the leader of the several-thousand-strong right wing militia "The Guardians of the Cedars". Major Saqr remarked " it is the Palestinians we have to deal with. Ten years ago there was only 84,000, living in the camps, now there are between 600,000 and 700,000 thousands. In six years there will be two million. We can never let it get to that.

These operations were performed with the help of the U.S. imperialist Agencies, like the CIA.

Israel was created by the U.S. dominated U.N, so that the U.S., and British imperialists could establish a bulwark state, to help establish and maintain domination in that region.

I'm sure that the Israeli government does not allow the real history behind the creation of the State of Israel. Just as the U.S. education system does not allow for the real history to be taught of the Native American genocide that was commited in the U.S, nor the genocide of the Vietnamese people, in which there were over 3 million massacred, by the U.S. And the British don't want their history of murder and genocide to be told either, because it would expose the slaughter that they commited on the people of Ireland, and other parts of the world. Just as other imperialist nations don't want the truth about their histories to be told. That does not mean it didn't take place.

by Workers Unite Mon May 09, 2005 09:00

Oh yes I think I could trust the revisionist history that is written by those who are sponserd by the very right-wing Mellon foundation.


Oh yes... right...uh... I believe that Palestinians fled their lands because they just wanted to, without seeing one Israeli soldier, or militiaman. Yeah... this kind of thing happens all the time.


The Imperialist Doctrine such as the Balfour agreement allowed the British to give lands to the zionist settlers, which wasn't theirs to give in the first place.

At the time of the Balfour Agreement there was a 5% Jewish population in Palestine.

It is well documented that the zionists had ties with the facists in Germany. They believed in the same racial doctrines, and there are pictures of Jabotinsky in his brown shirt uniform. Zionism is a political philosophy based on racist, right -wing doctrine. It was not representative of the Jewish people, as a matter of fact many Jews Abhored this doctrine. But unfortunatley many who live in the State of Israel are being raised on a steady diet of this racist philosophy.

by Workers unite Mon May 09, 2005 14:54

For more information about Zionism go to the website below.
You can listen to the radio programs, or Read "The Hidden History of Zionism" by Ralph Schoenman.

by avi H. Mon May 09, 2005 15:03

However, it's dressed up - whether as anti-Israel or anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism is Jew hate. It can be recognised easily enough by its refusal to ever accept any elements of the Jewish narrative.

by Noel Mon May 09, 2005 15:19

Jabotinsky wore a brown shirt?
Which means he was what ? A Nazi ?

He authored the Protocols of the Elders of Zion too, but you probably knew that.

by Nicolo Mon May 09, 2005 15:20

Can I ask Avi H to answer me this

Is criticism of Israeli policy towards (a) Palestinians in the occupied territories (b) Palestinians in East Jerusalem (c) Development of Nuclear Weapons all anti semitism and if so then is their anything one can criticise against Israel.

Also can you answer me the follow

(1) As Israel itself claims to be a secular democratic state how can criticism against its policies be anti-jewish? Unless of course you feel that Israel should or indeed is a jewish only state, to paraphrase the Irish context "A Jewsih state for a Jewish people"

(2) Are the multitude of Jews both outside and inside of Israel that criticise Isreal also anti-Jewish here I refer to jews for Justice in Palestine, Jews against House Demolitions etc etc etc and also the many Jewish people in the world who believe that the existence of a Jewish state is forbidden by their religion.

(3) If the Arab population of the region are also semitic people, are people who are against Palestinian rights including many Israelis also anti-semitic? And therefore by your logic anti-jewish. Or does anti-semitism only occur against Jewsih people.

May I ask what you have against Palestinian rights, as I asked Noel here before, are the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, desmond Tutu, Nelson mandela, etc etc etc all anti-semitic jew haters ?

Maybe there is actually some valid criticism that can be made against Israel and any attempt to use anti-semiticim or the Holocaust as tools for proctection against criticism is an insult to all Jews who have died in the holocause and every other pogrom in history.

Answer me this, is zionism good or bad, do Palestinians have any rights in your world?

by Nicolo Mon May 09, 2005 15:24

Welcome back Noel, there are still many questions you have not answered me on the question of palestine.

One being have you ever been there or seen the reality on the ground.

You have answered that you more or less dont believe in palestinian human rights but answer me this does Israel break any laws or violate any human rights in the occupied territories, do you feel they should leave the occupied territories, in your vire are they occupying another poples land?

by Noel Mon May 09, 2005 15:57

Hi Nicolo,

No, I've not visited Israel. But it sounds like a wonderful country with wonderful people.

I can't seem to remember saying I don't believe in Palestinian human rights.
Perhaps you can provide a link.

Once peace is established, and only then, should Israel negotiate over the disputed territories. Peace for Peace.

Israel does what it does to guarantee the safety of it's citizens. If that means the UN gets huffy, so what? I don't think the UN has much credibility where Israel is concerned.

'are they occupying another poples land?'
No, Arabs are actually occupying Israel, but I admit we'll never agree on that one.

by Nicolo Mon May 09, 2005 16:13

Thanks for the reply Noel,

I have been to both Israel and Palestine and agree that there is wonderful people in both countires but I'm afraid its not such a wonderful land.

I am interested how you feel Arabs are occuping Israeli land or do you mean Jewish land. Maybe your views are religiously or racially based. Historically it was agreed to divide the area between Arabs and Jewish but this was never implemented. Also Jewish poplulation of the region was always in the minority until the influx of immigrants in the 30's and after the war.

As regards peace for peace, history shows that the territories invaded and occupied by Israel in 1967 were not staging grounds for hstile action and indeed if Israel had problems it was with its Arab neighbours who were countires. neither the west bank nor Gaza were countires. Dialogue is of course the way forward but it needs to be meaningful and real, as regards the UN etc etc many countries state that the UN is irrelevant to their situation, look at the US decision to invade Iraq look at Saddam hesussin itself, if the Un is irrelevant then how about other groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights watch, hell even the US has criticised Israel recently for expanding settlements in the west bank. Even the term settlementsd implies that the area is unoccupied, its not the owners (palestinians) are forced from their homes and then settlements are built on it.

Finally Noel can I ask you, is your belief in Israel based on religious grounds. Does SIraelhave a right to exist and act as it does because the bible (old testament) says it is the land of the Jewish people. If so does this mean Israel can do what it needs to do to protect its citizens.

Does Israel do anything wrong, is the blame always with palestinians and sorry finally may I ask you how come you believe so much in Israel without ever seeing the reality on the ground or so you rely on the media soley for your news?