AJ,

Exactly....Isreal, with all its military power and might,  not only won the 1967 war, they took over and occupied the land that was long settled by Palestinian families! 

What of the really real plight of the Palestinian people? 

Yes,

Like I said to Leauki, I do not believe - to any measure - that (all) Palestinians are cold blooded monsters. Yeah, there are the leaders who, in my opinion, merely do it for the power (I'm sure some truly dislike Israel,etc.). Yeah, just like in America, there are Palestinians who support people that hardly, if ever, make sense. Surprise, surprise - that's a common thing in the world.

Mmm, I'm not going to get into an argument of who was first and the first who, etc. Honestly, the entire history of that area is wrapped up in too many things - it makes my head spin sometimes.

So we can continue the wars because Israel can defend herself. Brilliant.

And I am clouded by my zeal because I have a problem with ongoing wars for the sake of ongoing wars?

Yes. And before Israel did that land was used for constant attacks on Israel.

If the Arabs had wanted to keep that land, they could have sued for peace at any time before 1967. In fact Israel offered to return the land after the war in exchange for peace and the Arabs refused.

The "plight" of the "Palestinians" is simply due to their refusal to end the attacks.

Without the "Palestinian cause" there wouldn't be a "plight". The "Palestinian people" (who don't exist, they are simply local Arabs) have a higher standard of living than Arabs in Egypt and Jordan. That's their "plight". And if they wouldn't keep attacking Israel, there would be no border fence, no checkpoints, no counterattacks, no blockade, nothing.

(Unless you want to argue that the Jews would simply do these things for fun or out of the evil of their heart.)

I do not believe that all "Palestinians" are cold blooded monsters either. But I do believe that the "Palestinian cause" is evil. NOT "Palestinians", but the "Palestinian cause".

I also reject the idea of a "Palestinian people" since there has never been such a people. They are merely Arabs who live in the territory that the Europeans called "Palestine". They are not more or less "Palestinian" than non-Arabs who live in the same territory. The Qur'an refers to the area only in relation with the people of Israel not as "Palestine" which was a name the pagans gave to the land to insult the Jews. ("Palestine" derives from the Hebrew for "invaderland".)

You are still unable to differentiate between the people and the cause.

There is no "Palestinian cause" that is about "food, water, essentials for the women" etc. They have NEVER fought for that. They never needed to.

The only thing the "Palestinian cause" has to do with these things is that as long as the cause makes people fight, they will have less of these things because they are losing a war.

I don't know what made you believe that the "Palestinian cause" is about food and water but I guess it cannot have been the statements made by actual leaders of the "Palestinian cause".

I guess you just decided that food and water are good and Israel is evil, hence food and water must be the "Palestinian cause".

I also think that you have warped ideas of what the living standards are like in the occupied territories and in Gaza. I think you'd be surprised if you actually saw it (and compared it to the slums of Cairo etc.).

Alderic, be honest...

Do you _really_ believe that this:

“All Egypt is now prepared to plunge into total war which will put an end to Israel”

is about food and water for people who (at that time) were residents of Egypt and Jordan?

Or look at that:

"Germany and Italy recognize the right of the Arab countries to solve the question of the Jewish elements, which exist in Palestine and in the other Arab countries, as required by the national and ethnic interests of the Arabs, and as the Jewish question was solved in Germany and Italy."

(It's what the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Yasser Arafat's uncle and mentor, proposed to Germany and Italy during World War II.)

Do you really think that that is about "essentials for women"?

Do you really believe that the "Palestinian cause", as outlined by its leaders has anything to do with food and water other than causing shortages of food and water by starting wars?

Do you really believe that there is a "Palestinian cause" that is somehow about food and water given that food and water given that "Palestinians" have more food and water than Egyptians and given the above?

Who represents the "Palestinian cause" you are thinking of? You? Does any "Palestinian" support that cause? (Does he call it the "Palestinian cause"? Do other "Palestinians" call it the "Palestinian cause"?)

Do you know what you get in the territories for trying to make a living rather than attack Jews? It's not called "Palestinian cause", it's called "collaboration with Israel" and there is a death penalty for it.

Also, read this:

http://www.ynet.co.il/english/articles/0,7340,L-3105616,00.html

It will give you an idea of what the conflict is about.

The author is an Arab married to a Jewish woman.

Can you perhaps point out exactly where in the article he mentions a fight for food and water as the "cause" he was supposed to be fighting for?

Also read this:

http://citizenleauki.joeuser.com/article/365408/Jewish_Capitalism_in_Israel

It should give you a more clear idea about this "food and water" issue that you think the "Palestinian cause" is about.

Between 1967, when Israel took over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and 1987, when the first intifada erupted, those two territories were one of the fastest-growing economies on earth. GDP surged 30 percent a year for a decade, the Arab population nearly tripled, six new universities were launched, and Arab longevity jumped from 43 years to 74.

And that's when the "Palestinian cause" hit them.

Rather than bringing "food and water" to one of the richest regions in the middle-east outside the oil regions, it brought death to Jews and suffering to Arabs.

And then the world, all worried about the "plight" of the "Palestinians" decided it would be a good idea to force Israel to allow a terrorist group from Tunisia, the PLO, to rule over these people (presumably to bring them food and water).

And after that experiment failed, the "Palestinian cause" goes on.

Can you name a single place in, say,the poorer regions of Africa that imports as much food and luxury goods as Gaza?

And do you realise that if you say you support "the Palestinian cause", people will think you mean the same thing the Arabs call the "Palestinian cause"?

If you are in favour of delivering food and water to the inhabitants of the occupied territories, just say so. Don't associate it with the "Palestinian cause" which has never been about food and water. And don't blame others for being zealots because they refuse to see the connection between calls like "kill all the Jews" and essentials for women.

If you ever find yourself delivering food and water to the territories you will be in for a surprise though. The territories are not poor by any meaning of the word. They have cars, television sets, Internet access, mobile phones, and, I am sure, a better public health care system than the USA. Bringing "food and water" to a city like Ramallah, famous for its Falaafel and Schawarma, to help the people is like delivering cars to Los Angeles so the poor people of LA can finally drive to work.

The only thing these people need is to get rid of Hamas and the PLO, aka the people who brought them the "Palestinian cause" and whom the west is so happy to support.

(Incidentally, and this might surprise you too, "essentials for women" are usually bought in supermarkets in the territories. How backwards do you think those people are anyway???)

And two more interesting articles.

About the "Palestinian cause", its leaders, and how they brought "food and water":

http://nizos.blogspot.com/2009/03/replace-both-palestinian-leaderships.html

In the meantime, what I do demand is a reformation of the PA, the removal of all the bahayem who line their pockets with the aid money. Dollars we were very lucky to receive in the first place. Wallah, African nations with more pressing needs are starving while we sit back, multiply, beg for handouts and get angry at the world when it doesn't go that extra step and wipe our asses for us.

About Zionism and the "Palestinian people":

http://nizos.blogspot.com/2008/07/on-zionism-arabs-and-democracy.html

To go back to the Palestinians, what you call Palestinians today were Levantines who were living under the Ottoman boot. Their Palestinian identity as it is known today crystallised in the refugee camps in the 1960's. Had they not been corralled into camps, they would have "melted" into their host countries within 1-2 generations at most. I know many Lebanese whose middle-class grandparents fled Haifa in 1948 and purchased their Lebanese citizenship upon arrival in Beirut. It is impossible to differentiate between them and other Lebanese. Impossible.

(No, he does not let Israel of the hook in his posts. But he does focus on what actually happened. Also, he is as gay as the day is long. You'll like him!)

I think you really ought to lose the idea that the "Palestinians" are very very poor (they are not) and that everybody who brings that up is some kind of zealot. You don't have to be an extremist Jewish settler to be against a murderous ideology that kills anything non-Arab and anything Arab that disagrees.

(The Arab equivalent of an "extremist Jewish settler" is an "Arab with Israeli citizenship". "Extremist" is a word that comes with being Jewish. "Settler" is a Jew who lives somewhere. An Arab who lives somewhere is an "inhabitant".)

Assume for a moment that Jews/Israelis/Zionists are not evil and work from there. Perhaps you will realise what's going on.

(http://papundits.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/d09607_3.gif)

I always considered the term "zionist" to be a stealth method of demonizing and hating on Jews. Even Jeremiah "god damn America" Wright once fell back on this method after his famous, "them Jews won't let me near Obama" insanity. He quickly changed "Jews" to "zionists" as if that would chaange the message.

You don't have to be a reactionary Zionist war criminal to oppose a society where "women" are married off at age 14, homosexuals have to cower in fear and girls suspected of pre-marital sex are regularly murdered. You don't have to be a messianic Jewish settler living in Hebron to understand that the corruption and cynicism of the Fatah is immoral and hurts the Palestinians.

-- Ami Isseroff

I think it is high time that western liberals understand what it is they support when they support the "Palestinian cause".

Or is this really just about prolonging the conflict?

A "Zionist" is a middle-eastern Jew who is still alive.

Zionism, aka Jewish nationalism and the belief that Jews have a right to live in their original country, is the only way for Jews in the Middle-East to survive.

Apart from Morocco (which I definitely exclude here) Jews in the "Arab world" have been hunted down and killed ever since the rise of Arab nationalism (and since before Israels independence). Like other non-Arab minorities (and majorities) Middle-Eastern Jews had the choice: either live as slaves (if lucky) or die (if not) or fight back.

Look athe Middle-East and North-Africa. Do you know how many different peoples live in the area we call the "Arab world"? The Middle-East and North-Africa are as Arab as South-Africa is white.

But in contrast to South-African apartheid, the Arab rulers have rarely even recognised the others. Aramaic is not an official language of Syria (although it is the native language of the indiginous population). Syrian Kurds are not even citizens. Iraqi Kurds were gased by Sadam. Africans in Sudan are murdered and enslaved. The Berbers of North-Africa, who in Morocco are even still the majority of the population are not recognised as a people and their language is neither official nor usually even recognised as existing. (And the related civil war in Algeria killed 10 times as many people in a few years as the Arab-Israeli conflict in 60.)

The native population of Israel even before the advent of Zionism was a few ten thousand remaining Jews. The rest were Arabs who moved into the country over the last 1000 years and crypto-Jews living among them. (Recent genetic research has shown that up to 50% of Arabs in "Palestine" are of Jewish descent. And about 10% of them are aware of it and hide the fact, except for some Bedouins who are proud of it and are called "Jews" by other Bedouins.)

If American Indians moved back to, say, Maine, from Canada; would it be acceptable to murder them or "throw them into the sea"? Would such an attempt be the "American cause" associated by liberals with "food and water" and a "plight" of white Americans? I somehow doubt it, even if the Indians would win those wars.

People complained about apartheid in South-Africa and rightly so. But the Assyrians of Iraq (the native population) would be glad to have a "homeland" and the Massalith and Fur in Darfur pray daily for a life as an oppressed people (or any life really).

But I guess liberals are just to bothered with the issue of women's essentials in the wealthy parts of the region (like the West-Bank) to be worried about those things.

The Palestinian territories are rated by the UN with a HDI of  0.737.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index

That puts "Palestine" in the upper half of "medium human development" in the same general area as Iran and Syria and above Guyana (where my flat mate is from, 0.729), Indonesia (0.734), Egypt (0.703), and India (0.612).

Calls for "good and water" might just be a bit of an overreaction considering that the "oppressed Palestinians" in their "plight" enjoy one of the highest standards of living outside the western world and a higher standard of living than their brethren in Egypt and most of the rest of the Arab world.

So according to Alderic the "Palestinian cause" is about bringing food and water (and women's essentials) to people who get water from pipes and who buy food (and women essential's) in the supermarket. Israeli oppression must be fought because such a living standard is obviously akin to living in a concentration camp. (Alderic did not say that but many liberals make that comparison. As if Jews and Gipsies in REAL concentration camps bought food in supermarkets.)

The average is for all the of the territories (presumably including East-Jerusalem) but it is important to note than the living standard in Gaza, although it has gone down since Hamas took power and attacked Israel, is not much worse. In fact Gaza imports more food and luxury goods than most cities in the Middle-East and when the border between Gaza and Egypt was open for a few weeks the problem was not that the misery of Gaza swept into Egypt but that the (comparatively) rich Gazans bought the Sinai empty with their Israeli money.

Jihad Jaradeh, 24, a Gazan whose family owns a furniture shop, reached the Egyptian town of El Arish, some 25 miles from the border. Although shop owners doubled and tripled prices, Jaradeh paid up, saying he even gave extra "because they looked so poor."

Jaradeh is not typical; two-thirds of Gazans live on less than $2 a day. But many travelers remarked on the discrepancy between their more glamorous image of urban Egypt _ derived mostly from movies _ and the run-down border region of unpaved streets and small houses they encountered.

...

"I've always wanted to see Palestine anyway," said a smiling [Egyptian] Mohammed, a slight dark man with black eyes. Pointing to cars crowding a nearby street, he said: "I thought conditions here would be harder than this. I thought people would be starving."

...

A common quip is that Hamas should drop its "Save Gaza" slogan, coined in response to Israeli border closures, in favor of "Save El Arish" _ in this case, from Palestinian shoppers.

Still others jest that Egyptians will storm Gaza if the breach is sealed because the Palestinians have picked them clean.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/01/AR2008020101924.html

I think it is time to give up the cheap propaganda lie that "Palestinians" are starving and have a "plight" and need people to engage in a "Palestinian cause" to get them "foor and water".

Let's face it, they buy the stuff in supermarkets like everyone does in the richer half of the world.

There is no "Palestinian cause" for better supermarkets. You could just as well (actually more justifiably) fight for the cause of getting food and water to Guayana which has a worse living standard than "Palestine", without much Israeli oppression.

How do you reconcile the idea that a "Palestinian cause" with leaders who demand the death of all Jews with the cause of getting food and water to a population who buy food in supermarkets and have more money than Egyptians?

You know, reading the quotes in the original post, you almost make it sound as if the Nazis were NICER about it.

The Germans were more polite, perhaps.

And opposition to the allies during World War 2 would have been the "German cause" and it would all have been about food and water for the Germans.

Incidentally, except for the quote addressed to the Grand Mufti all the quotes come from respected leaders of the Palestinian cause. That is the "Palestinian cause" that 80% of "Palestinians" keep voting for and that the Arab states support, not Alderic's water and food project for the richer half of the world.

chucksc

No, please that's not what I'm saying at all....

I made 2 statements stating 2 truths.

Why has Isreal been at war with its neighbors ever since its creation in 1948?

What happened...what did the mighty and powerful Isreal do? Being attacked by Arabs and defending themselves is one thing.  But it's quite another thing that Isreal didn't stop at defending themselves but Isreal actually went much futrther ...they took over the land as their own and occupied and populated it with their own people.

CHUCKSC POSTS:

Can you imagine if the mighty and powerful Americans would have done that same thing in Iraq after defeating Saddam Hussein? Can you imagine if Americans would have moved there, taken over the land as our own and populated it with our own people?

SIN is the real cause of wars and the world's ills.

leauki posts 1

Has any Zionist leader ever called for the extermination of Arabs?

I have never heard of one.

There was Rabbi Kahane who advocated an Arab-free Israel. He didn't advocate the killing of them. In the great scale of things that makes him the equivalent of the "moderate" Arab leaders who advocate Jew-free Arab states (like Saudi-Arabia, Jordan, and the PLO's "Palestine").

His political party (Kach) has been outlawed in Israel after Kahane's death in 1994 and perhaps rightly so.

Israels' foreign minister pursues a strategy of changing the border to annex Arab towns to the PLO state and Jewish towns in the West-Bank to Israel. But he doesn't draw the line between Jews and Arabs but between those loyal to the state and those not. (And his party has considerable support among Israeli Arabs.) One problem with that strategy is that most Israeli Arabs do not want to live under PLO rule.

Those two are the worst I know of.

You will easily find supporters of the Palestinian cause who will tell you that all Zionists (or most or many of them) advocate the extermination of Arabs (in fact there is a lot of "master race" talk in that crowd). But I dare say that you will have difficulty finding a Zionist who will actually believe in that ideology.

And if you don't believe me you can try it out. Travel to the most Zionist place in the world (I recommend Tel Aviv, the first Hebrew city) and pretend to be an Arab. Then travel to an Arab city and pretend to be a Jew. That way you can easily find out what each side wants to do to the other if given half a chance.

But I have to warn you. My own experience sharing a university dorm with Arabs in Haifa on the one hand and being told by a Kurdish soldier not to tell anyone I was Jewish in the Arab part of Iraq on the other suggests that perhaps the theory of moral equivalence between the two positions has a weak spot.

No Arab country anywhere does bag checks at the entrance to shopping malls or cinemas because of the fear that a Zionist might smuggle in a bomb and blow up the building. It's just too rare an event to justify being overly careful.

We covered that: for the same reason as all non-Arab communities have been at war with the Arabs. Arab nationalism does not accept non-Arab societies in the Midde-East and North-Africa.

Show me ONE non-Arab community in the former Ottoman Empire outside today's Turkey that is not at war with the Arab rulers and we can identify the difference between that community and the Jews to figure out the why.

And which land would that be?

There are but a few ten thousand Jews in the West-Bank, some of whom live in communities that have been Jewish for over 3000 years. Doesn't look like "populate with their own people" to me. Jews buy land in the territories. Arabs sell it to them and the terrorists don't like it. Did you know that there is a death penalty for selling land to Jews in the West-Bank?

As I said before Israel offered the occupied land bank just after the six-day war in exchange for peace. The Arabs rejected it.

But at some point I think it must be legitimate to settle land won in war. If not, what legitimacy would the Arabs have to live anywhere outside Arabia? And how we justify the Polish ownership of Silesia or the existence of the country of Australia?

Like you did with Louisiana, Texas, California, Oregon, Hawaii and Alaska?

Yes, I can imagine.

But that's a bad example really, because Americans can live freely in America. Middle-eastern Jews cannot live anywhere but Israel. And there is absolutely no reason for why a Jew should not be allowed to buy a house in East-Jerusalem or get the house back that the Arabs stole from him in 1948.

And Jews have lived in Israel (including the West-Bank) for literally thousands of years. Europeans only arrived in America 500 years ago yet you make up more than 90% of the population of North-America including the slave population you imported.