The Palestinians want their own country. There's just one thing about that: There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word. Israel was called Palestine for two thousand years. Like ';Wiccan,'; ';Palestinian'; sounds ancient but is really a modern invention. Before the Israelis won the land in war, Gaza was owned by Egypt, and there were no ';Palestinians'; then, and the West Bank was owned by Jordan, and there were no ';Palestinians'; then. As soon as the Jews took over and started growing oranges as big as basketballs, what do you know, say hello to the Palestinians,'; weeping for their deep bond with their lost ';land'; and ';nation.';
So for the sake of honesty, let's not use the word ';Palestinian'; any more to describe these delightful folks, who dance for joy at our deaths FAMIL until someone points out they're being taped. Instead, let's call them what they are: ';Other Arabs Who Can't Accomplish Anything In Life And Would Rather Wrap Themselves In The Seductive Melodrama Of Eternal Struggle And Death.';
I know that's a bit unwieldy to expect to see on CNN. How about this, then: Adjacent Jew-Haters.'; Okay, so the Adjacent Jew-Haters want their own country. Oops, just one more thing. No, they don't. They could've had their own country any time in the last thirty years, especially two years ago at Camp David. But if you have your own country, you have to have traffic lights and garbage trucks and Chambers of Commerce, and, worse, you actually have to figure out some way to make a living. That's no fun. No, they want what all the other Jew-Haters in the region want: Israel.
They also want a big pile of dead Jews, of course -- that's where the real fun is -- but mostly they want Israel. Why? For one thing, trying to destroy Israel - or ';The Zionist Entity'; as their textbooks call it -- for the last fifty years has allowed the rulers of Arab countries to divert the attention of their own people away from the fact that they're the blue-ribbon most illiterate, poorest, and tribally backward on God's Earth, and if you've ever been around God's Earth, you know that's really saying something.
It makes me roll my eyes every time one of our pundits waxes poetic about the great history and culture of the Muslim Mideast. Unless I'm missing something, the Arabs haven't given anything to the world since Algebra, and, by the way, thanks a hell of a lot for that one.
Chew this around and spit it out: Five hundred million Arabs; five million Jews.
Think of all the Arab countries as a football field, and Israel as a pack of matches sitting in the middle of it. And now these same folks swear that if Israel gives them half of that pack of matches, everyone will be pals.
Really? Wow, what neat news. Hey, but what about the string of wars to obliterate the tiny country and the constant din of rabid blood oaths to drive every Jew into the sea? Oh, that? We were just kidding.Anyone heard the Dennis Miller quote on the situation in Israel? Thoughts??
Wether or not you like Dennis Miller, his take on this is exactly right. Until the creation of Israel the area called Palistine meant Jews. The Arabs living there never called themselves Palistinian, nor did they recogzise the area as ';Arab Palistine';. When the first partition occured in 1948, the Arabs were given a portion of land (Trans-Jordan) that was 10 times larger that Israel. The Arab League turned down this land because they wanted it ALL, not just a part. The Arab League told the ';Arab Palistinians'; to leave while they destroyed Israel, then they, the ';Arab Palistinians'; could return and take the land for themselves. That never happened, as Israel defeated their enemies again and again. Now, this humanitarian crisis with the so called Palistinians is a direct result of their leaders actions, and their refusal to take what has been offered to them time and time again. Until the Arabs and Islam decide to recignise Israels right to exsist there will be no peace.
And finally, both Yassar Arafat and Zahier Mushein have stated publically that Palistine was created as a political entity designed soley to destroy Israel. That information is available to anyone willing to take the time and look it up.Anyone heard the Dennis Miller quote on the situation in Israel? Thoughts??
As he pointed out, Israel was called Palestine for a long time before 1948. So the people who identify themselves as originating from that area, but aren't Israeli, would only logically be called Palestinians. I think Dennis Miller is a total tool.
I can't listen to that pomposity Dennis Miller.
does that mean we gonna come back to the Roman Empire? Cuz romans are pretty numerous in Europe...
Personally, I liked his comments.
Your question is?
On the ';Palestinians'; - exactly. It also needs mentioning that the Jordanians, Egyptians and others have used the ';Palestinians'; quite disgracefully and callously to score political points.
On algebra, however, although I know his comment is a bit of a throwaway jokey aside, we need to honour the Arab and Muslim contribution to huge aspects of our modern-day understandings. Algebra is kind of important in broad swathes of scientific understanding (especially cosmology).
The Arab world have been REJECTING a two state solution since 1937, when it was first proposed.
Israel has ALWAYS agreed to the two state solution. By now there would BE a thriving Palestinian Arab state NEXT to Israel IF the Arab world had AT ANY TIME agreed to it!
Instead, the Arab world has said no PURELY because it won't accept there being ANY Jewish state in the middle east - DESPITE Palestinian Jews being the natives of the region that was named 'palestina' by the Romans when they changed the name from JUDEA.
Israel = 0.01% of the middle east
There were people on that land before it was given to the Jews for Israel. Regardless whether they were called Palastinians or not, they were there.
This is about people, not words or terms.
I don't even know where he's getting much of his information - and since he doesn't bother to illuminate, we shouldn't take it for anything more than it is: an illformed rant.
I have never heard of the Palastinians wanting Israel. They just want their own land. They don't want to subject to Israeli checkpoints just to enter their homes. They want the land they are already on to be actually theirs...or at least not Israel's. And they want Jerusalem, for the same reason everyone wants Jerusalem. Israel considers Jewrusalem to be its capital, the other nations place their embracies in Tel Aviv. Why? Because Jerusalem wasn't supposed to be a part of Israel. It was militarily seized.
I ususally like Miller, but that speech is not only insulting, rediculous and degrading,
its ignorant, and a lack of ignorance is what I normally like in Miller.
BTW, generalizing any population into a single derogatory name like ';Jew-Hater'; will lose you the argument, IMHO. Grow up.
point one, I agree with everything you said, and if you e-me I will send you a copy of an article I recently wrote for a local newspaper.
point 2---you should've provided a link (preferably youtube) to demonstrate the authenticity of Dennis' quotes)
oh shat, here is the article I wrote, which contains some language very similar to yours...written in response to a lady who wrote two bleeding-heart articles decrying the plight of the Palistinians...here goes...
Some 20 years ago when I was running a landscaping business I attended a seminar in Berkley that focused on the evils of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. Seized with the zeal of a convert, I immediately began to preach the gospel of organic everything as being superior to chemical anything.
Some years later, after receiving a college education, I began to look back on those days with a twinge of sheepish regret at my immediate embracing of ideas that sounded good, and were espoused by well-intentioned people, but were ignorant, unscientific, and wrong.
It is from this background that I have studied Joan Huguenard’s recent columns on the conflicts in the Holy Land, titled “Peace and Justice in the Holy Land” and “Let’s love each other and work together.” Ms. Huguenard obviously means well and is sincere and altruistic, but some of her information is obviously based on errors of history, logic, fact, reality, and common sense.
I am going to address four of the emotionally-charged phrases in her columns, and then discuss what I have found to be the reality that flows against them.
';young (Palestinian) children caged in their homes behind chicken wire because of their parents' supreme efforts to keep their precious youngsters safe...';
The children would be a lot safer if extremists did not take shelter behind civilians when launching their rockets against civilian targets. I would be very interested to learn about any Israeli child who has ever been brought to a Palestinian hospital swaddled in plastic explosives in an effort to kill Palestinian medical professionals and civilians. I would be equally interested in learning about Israeli extremists firing rockets at Palestinian enclaves from civilian dwellings because the Palestinians would be reluctant to retaliate against civilian targets.
...';Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland at the point of a gun...'; (in 1947-48)
Some Israeli settlers were evicted from their homes in the West Bank recently by Israeli soldiers carrying guns---some of them were forcefully evicted. There are doubtless hundreds more stories about Palestinians being forcefully evacuated from their homes, and this is a terrible thing. But the vast majority of land that has passed from Palestinian hands to Israeli hands was purchased, usually for far more than its value, and the transactions were settled quite amicably.
Under Israeli law, and the tenants of Judaism, it is wrong to hurt or defraud others, and if one can say nothing more about Jews, one must admit that Jews usually follow their own rules.
...(how could) ';a people who have been so brutalized inflict such brutality on another people?'
The Israelis have made major, major, conscientious efforts to treat their Palestinian brethren well. There is a lively and ongoing discourse in the Israeli media that examines these issues daily, carefully, and often in opposition to government policy.
This sort of discourse seldom exists in the media of those who oppose Israel, and its right to exist. The people who use phrases such as “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid” do the world a huge disservice when they apply those emotionally-charged phrases to what has happened in Palestine.
This is not to say that Ms. Huguenard has intentionally misused these phrases, because, in the case of “apartheid” she was simply citing the title of former President Jimmy Carter’s book, “Palestine: Peace not Apartheid.” And she seems to quote Chuck Sher, a Jewish musician from Santa Rosa when she writes that “…Palistinians were ethnically cleansed from their homeland at the point of a gun...” in 1948-49, although this is not entirely clear.
Perhaps the most damning evidence that Ms. Huguenard presents is a graph that purports to represent “Palestinian loss of Israel 1948-2000”, in which the overwhelming majority of land is represented as Palestinian in 1948, and, in almost a photographic negative, is seen to be Israeli in 2000.
This is an understandable misunderstanding. The graph should instead be labeled, “Israeli ownership of land 1948-2000,” and the word “ownership” should be clearly defined. Almost all of the land that now constitutes Israel was arid, unowned, and virtually uninhabitable in 1948. The vast majority of this land was bought from the people who lived on or near it, usually people who had dubious claims to ownership, and was purchased for a lot more than its value, then developed by Israelis from a state of near-uselessness to productivity.
Phrases like “ethnic cleansing” and words like “apartheid” are hugely offensive to Israeli Jews who have agonized over doing the right thing, are linked with horrific practices that are repugnant to Israelis who have worked hard to avoid oppressive treatment of their Palestinian brethren, and just plain flat-out do not apply to the situation on the ground in Israel.
Finally, while it is impossible to give a succinct and balanced view of the issues surrounding the strife in Israel, a few important points should be raised.
There are a dozen Palestinian Israelis in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, who represent the 20% of Israeli citizens who are of Palestinian descent. They are Israelis and Palestinians, and have full rights under Israeli law.
The word “apartheid” cannot be applied to a people who have the right to vote, to freely associate with whomever they choose, to forge friendships and marry whomever they choose, and who are respected and valued members of the society in which they live. Blacks in South Africa were a majority ruled by a minority, and who could not vote, associate with, marry, or have equal rights under the law of South Africa. To equate this in any way with the policies of Israel is ridiculous and insulting.
(There are two sides to the story of apartheid in South Africa, which does not excuse the horrible treatment of native Africans by the whites in South Africa. But there is no denying the fact that many black Africans came to South Africa from neighboring countries to find a better life, and found it, much like many Palestinian “refugees” came from neighboring countries to the refugee camps and have never lived in Israel. Even the disenfranchised Palistinians in the West Bank have more defacto rights than their counterparts in, say, Syria…)
While I hold President Carter in the highest esteem, his use of the word “apartheid” in the title of his book conforms to an old pattern of exaggerated statements, which his press secretary Jody Powell once referred to as “the Carter hyperbole.” President Carter is not an anti-Semite, but he does try very very hard to see both sides of every issue, often to the detriment of giving corresponding weight to each side of an issue contingent upon its validity.
The idea of “ethnic cleansing” being applied to Israeli policy is absurd. Israel has been the only nation on this planet to actively seek Africans, black Ethiopians, to come to Israel and resettle there, and while recent developments in genetic testing have shown that these folk are not ethnic Jews, they have been granted full citizenship and a far better life than they’d had in Ethiopia, as Israeli citizens.
Lastly, it seems unnecessary to recount the numerous and unique ways in which Israel has been threatened over the years, by enemies from within and without, while surrounded by hostile nations. An apt analogy might be that Israel is like a postage stamp in the middle of a football field and the field is full of people who wish to destroy it. As a functioning democracy with an unruly free press, and because they wish to fight off their enemies while shedding as little innocent blood as possible, they are fighting with one hand tied behind their back. And, dammit, they are winning.
And I am rooting for them.
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