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Ask Moshe Bar about [your choice here]
Moshe Bar is (pick one) 1. A Linux kernel developer; 2. A motorcycle enthusiast; 3. The primary openMosix maintainer; 4. A respected Linux device driver writer; 5. Author of several books and many articles about Linux; 6. Newly married. 7. A Talmudic scholar; 8. All of the above. The correct answer is 8, and since in addition to (or perhaps because of) all this Moshe is a popular guy, this interview is here by reader request. (Yes, we take interview requests; send them to robin@roblimo.com.) Ask Moshe whatever you wish, one question per post. We'll send him 10 of the highest moderated questions and post his answers as soon as he gets them back to us.
Why did you choose a Harley Davidson? Just curious.
Mozilla, Opera, Netscape, Galeon, IE, lynx? Which is it?!
Where do you find the time for everything?
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
How do you find time to follow all of your interests?
Do you have Asperger's syndrome? It is very commonplace among hackers at your level.
It seems like such a chore to write drivers that work on all distros since they all use different kernels. It seems to me that businesses only develop for windows because they are guaranteed that their drivers will work on all windows machines for X (4,5,6) years without any mroe work. Having experience writing Linux device drivers, do you think that a cross-distribution effort to standardize on kernel versions and guarantee major hardware manufacturers this compatibility would promote driver development in Linux?
Moderation: Put your hand inside the puppet head!
What is your opinion of the current state of the open-source community at this time, and do you think open source beer has a future?
Also, Do yout think that Germany's swich to open source will have a signifigant impact on the open source community and/or IT in general?
Linux is dead.
LU
Are there any rants you'd like me to ask about? If so, please explain.
And, do you pronounce it mohsheh, or moishee?
Have you read my journal today?
Attention: There appears to be a bug in the web browser you are currently using.
Ack... I can't decide what to say at this point. I'm torn between making an IE joke, poking fun at Roblimo for screwing up his link, and pointing out Amazon's horrible site design which renders the concept of a Uniform Resource Locator meaningless.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
Does Moshe have a son/daughter named "foo"?
-Baldric Dominus
What is the major difference between openMosix and Mosix, and what do you think openMosix needs to improve on the most?
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
If the picture in meoshebar.com is really Moshe, how come that we have a lot of bearded in the community (like Stallman and many others), but not a talmudic student?
(Perhaps because of the wife?)
As an avid Linux user, and programmer, I've always been interested in developing the kernel. However, the sheer size of the kernel has been rather intimidating, and kept me away from it. I've also found myself to be better at programming "utilities" rather than "end-user" types of programs. Is there any section of the kernel that would be "the best place to start"?
With that in mind, are there any suggestions you could make to those of us interested in kernel development, on how to get started?
Thanks up front.
We have already seen the Islamic religious authorities having to deal with the question of whether divorce via e-mail is binding. What do you see as the biggest and/or most interesting questions regarding Talmudic teaching as they apply to current/near-future technology?
poking fun at Roblimo for screwing up his link
Actually, Roblimo is F E M A L E.
Maybe we could poke fun at your inability to determine the distinction.
I'm a 2000 man.
As someone involved in many different activities, do you have cohesive social groups? That is, do the people from, say, your motorcycle-riding friends develop/use linux as well? (Or does your wife know about your dirty little secret? :P) I'm interested in knowing what your social ties are, being as it seems you are a fairly active individual.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
What is your favorite Isreali historical figure?
-Tolerate my intolerance
... is A Talmudic scholar and what does it consist of?
Shadus
Despite staunch opposition from certain developers, Linus has recently started to maintain the kernel using the non-free BitKeeper SCM product, which is not only proprietary but also uses undocumented file formats, making interoperability difficult or impossible. Do you think it's fair to encourage developers who would otherwise keep to Free Software to turn to a proprietary solution and what is in effect, shareware?
... your life is now an open book. Welcome to the life of the slashdot celebrity.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Do you see Mosix becoming so easy to use, so powerful and so fault-tolerant that cheap clusters of commodity boxes will soon displace big proprietary SMP machines?
And, just to be totally random, have you found that your Talmudic studies have made you, as a person interfacing with other people, more easy to use, powerful, and fault-tolerant?
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Serving With Linux is interesting.
Best Slashdot Co
Hello Moshe. Do you use openMosix at home? Do _you_ believe openMosix is well-suited for small mini-clusters to allow individuals to save cpu cycles from older machines or is it really only for larger clusters?
I read that your past rides have been a Harley-Davidson Softail, a Fat Boy, and a Yamaha Dragstar 1100. I believe I see a Harley Sportster laid into the graphic on the front page of your web site, so is that the new one on the way? 883 or 1200? Any special plans for it? Engine mods?
I wrote to the mosix-list a few years ago about whether Mosix would ever help me render animations with a Windows 3D animation app under Wine. I got a reply saying that anything running under Wine would require pooled memory. Are we going to be seeing this soon because Wine has definitely improved in ways that I don't think anybody imagined in just a few years.
and why?
politics, religion, computing, etc.
no holds barred.
I understand that a lot of Jewish religous law about technology is based around the 'started fire' idea. Forgive me for not knowing more about it as I'm not Jewish, but the way I understand it, a fire cannot be started on the sabbath, but a fire can be maintained during the sabbath.
By the same doctrine, computerized systems can be booted on the day before the sabbath and then put on an autmatic mode during the sabbath. During that time, a sysadmin can address important issues as they creep up, just like he would add a log to the fire he started before the sabbath.
Right? Please correct me if I'm not.
Okay, this said, is Linux kosher for the sabbath? Is it permissable to say, perform a checkfs during the holy day? What tasks can you perform and what tasks can't you?
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
do you think that the Linux kernel should follow the same route as the Mozilla project. That being that when Mozilla reaches 1.0 the API will freeze and any plugins, applications that use gecko, etc. will be compatible until version 1.2 is out. Should the Linux kernel make some sort of standardized API for drivers so a driver that works with 2.4.0 will work for 2.4.20?
Is this a reasonable request? (doable?)
why/why not?
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
9) A nice chocolate covered cookie bar with caramel and some other bits of goodness in there. Not quite a Twix, not quite a Clark Bar.
I think I'm going to go get a Moshe Bar right now.
That was a joke.
What advice to you have for open source developers who are just getting started?
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Harleys or sport bikes?
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
After reading this cheerful little event I decided to ask you: what was the expression on the faces of these Microsoft executives, when you delivered your speech about Linux?
:o)
Talk about priceless
Sigged!
today is spelling optional day.
As a cluster guru, I am curious about your take on database server clustering in both the commercial and the open-source space.
First, it appears that IBM DB2 has been wiping the floor with Oracle on the TPC benchmarks lately, and Oracle "RAC" has been a flop. However, IBM is not using any hardware from its proprietary server lines, but instead relies on clusters of "federated" databases running on 32 standard PCs running either Linux or Windows. It does appear that Oracle still generally beats IBM in raw performance on a single system (as IBM refuses to post any non-clustered benchmarks AFAIK).
Do you think that any of the hype over either of these vendors cluster packages is worth attention? Do you agree with Sun's claim that TPC(-C) no longer has any practical relevance? It all seems to be getting rather silly.
Second, is there any push to make any of the ACID-leaning open databases (Postgres, SAP-DB, etc.) fault-tolerant, perhaps using Mosix? I assume this would require modifications to Postgres enabling it to access raw partitions. Have you had any talks with the Red Hat Database people about cluster modifications to Postgres, just out of curiousity?
Do you think the linux kernel, openMosix, and Open Source in general can break out of that stereotype?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Why are you guys starting a new interview with Mr. Bar when we still haven't seen the results of that interview with Alan Cox? Or did I just miss it when it posted?
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
Is Linux kosher?
As for me, I think someone is cashing in on a classic. Tis a shame.
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
Babylonian or Jerusalem?
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play. How about a nice game of chess? - Joshua (Wargames)
Why not? Starting another interview won't do anything to (further) delay the Alan Cox interview.
-- If no truths are spoken then no lies can hide --
since as is the linux filesystems book is horrible
(most structural basics and concepts are not explained but
just used, maybe a third of the book are sourcecode
dumps and partly very outdated howtos) will you finish it
and bring it into a form that makes it worth buying?
Tomas Pospisek
As someone who has been following MOSIX for a few years (and now OpenMOSIX), I'm wondering what do you see as your short term goals? What about long term, do you see OpenMOSIX as an integrated part of Linux which can transparently migrate any application, or even individual threads, accross a network?
Also, what areas of the project are priorities at the current time? I'm wondering as a developer who is also looking for an interesting masters project in the next few months.
OMG man, these days you can really get the jewish guys going at you if you're making an islam statement within the same context as their holy script.
ISLAM=Quran
JUDAISM=Talmud
Anyway, (non-orthodox) jewish religion is pretty open-minded, much more so than most christian or islamic groups. Jewish teaching has no problem with technology.
...but the article said pick anything. Since there are quite a few philosophers on Slashdot (and since I'm Jewish and this question gets a lot of thought from me, and when will I ever be able to ask again?) here's my question:
Do you see any reconciliation between science and the G-d of the Torah? What about between Science and any sort of Creationism at all? Do you see the possibility that science, as it approaches the moment of Creation itself, becomes more in tune with religion? I guess a big part of what I'm asking - do you see a place for (or proof of) G-d in science?
Thanks...sorry this isn't the usual Slashdot fare, but I can't help but ask.
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
And yes, you did miss it . I paid close attention to this one, as one of my questions was asked. (#10)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I have no Idea who you are.
however, it says here you develop drivers.
how does one get into that sort of thing starting out? obviously you've been doing it for a while. how would someone who has a base understanding of assembly and C get into this? it's a big field, and I wouldn't know where to start, but I would like to help some day.
Looking for Book Reviews? Check out Literary Escapism.
Actually, it's slashdot.org... Though I'd prefer if I could type /. in my browser to get here... ^_^;;;
Luke-Jr
For me, that's the main thing that i fear of "fork and forget", a non-migrating socket would easily double the network traffic on a cluster... but i've never been able to found any word of progress on this area.
And what about other forms of IPC communication? is there a (performance) contrainidication on their use on mosix clusters?
-Kz-
Games DON'T affect kids. If PacMan did, we'd all be eating pills and listening to repeditive music...
You mean like popping Ecstacy at a techno rave?
By the way, the word is "repetitive", not "repeditive".
"Scientists prove we were never here."
-- Devo
I think he knows that, he was just using the cell phone thing as an example of how religious issues can be sparked by new technology.
Got Rhinos?
According to the FAQ on your website, you are currently studying for your first law degree. With such a heavy technical background, especially in CS, I am curious as to what area of the law you are planning on going into. Is it a technology-related area? It would be nice to have some more technically-capable people in the law profession, especially those who are Linux friendly. Or is going into law just your way of making money for that early retirement?
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
I just wonder how difficult it is to keep your head in maintaining complex and sophisticated code with a new family while living in the midst of tensions that most of us can't imagine.
Do you currently see a future for a cluster of Harley's running the linux kernel to aid newly married couple to become authors in the subject of Talmudic belief?
FYI, harleys are for men with tiny penises.
The louder their mode of transportation, the smaller their penis. This is a basic rule, a law of nature, if you will.
So my question is, just how small is YOUR penis?
2 questions:
What do you think about ongoing conflict in middle east?
What do you think about massacre that Isreali soldiers commited in refugee camp in Jenin?
-- http://electronicintifada.net --
How is his brother Hershe
between the greater and lesser infinities sleep the dreams undreamt
Did your parents name you after Moshe Cordrovero, Great Kabbalist, Talmudic scholar, and philosopher. 1570-1643?
He speaks truth.
Has anybody ever told you that you look like Adam Sandler ?
Many geeks track politics from a logically analytical standpoint rather than from an emotional, nationalistic, or religiously prescribed stance.
Some of these "freethinkers" have come to the conclusion that Israel is a racist theocracy no better than the WW2 German Nationialism that spawned it. Right or wrong, this viewpoint exists, and my question is based not on the debatable truth of this view but rather on its existence.
Much technology development, and many great programmers (Arnold Robbins comes to mind) are resident in Israel. Is it legitimate (from your perspective as a student of the Talmud) to use one's influence to dissuade one's employer from using technology developed in Israel, if one has anti-Zionist beliefs? What if using one's position to show solidarity with the oppressed Semitic peoples of Israel and Palestine is a disservice to one's employer? Is the responsibility to the employer greater than the responsibility to personal conscience?
And finally, does it make a difference if you're Jewish, and have spent countless hours in thought, study and prayer before arriving at the decision to boycott Israel?
I would say this is about fucking typical of anti-Semites. I believe the number after 8 is 9. Thanks for playing.
So are most Linux users.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
does she spit or swallow?
mindrape
Do you find conflict between your scientific and religious pursuits?
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
You've mentioned Hercules in your column a couple of times, both quite favorably. Thanks!
One industry analyst from Germany has claimed repeatedly that IBM is getting ready to slap down Hercules with its lawyers, on the basis of some unspecified violations of their intellectual property rights. He's said that it's not just patent infringement, but refuses to go into exactly what else.
What effect would you think that taking such an action would have on IBM once the open source community finds out?
Disinfect the GNU General Public Virus!
This design goal isn't always realized though, because OpenMosix works with processes as the atomic work-distribution unit, and not treads. ie. OpenMosix can't migrate multithreaded apps.
Is thread support planned for *any* future version of OpenMosix?
In one story on your web site, you gleefully report on how you mentioned Linux in front of a "Microslobs" crowd. I'm assuming that you mean "Microsoft," but have butchered the name to sound more l33t.
At the same time, your "Community-related stuff" icon is a rip-off of the award-winning Windows Messenger icon. This sort of mock-the-hands-that-feed-you attitude is prevalent in the Linux world, where people write FUD-filled diatribes while shamelessly ripping off copyrighted look-and-feel mechanisms for their own personal benefit.
Do you feel that open source projects can survive in ways other than mimicking already-proven closed source projects?
Calling anyone who opposes the israeli apartheid system an anti-semite. Learn to argue before making an ass of yourself.
... is she a goer, eh? Know whatahmean, know whatahmean, nudge nudge, *wink*wink* know whatahmean, say no more?
-----
For those lacking context, check the script. Seriously though, congrats!
09
a beowulf cluster of yourself?
Question: Are you concerned that FreeBsd will overtake the Linux distributions, united or otherwise.
If so, why?
thanks
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
I can't help thinking that the Linux kernel may be a little like string theory in physics. String theory tends to attract young people who are the most talented of all, and you have to wonder whether their talents are being wasted, since string theory might not even reflect reality.
Find free books.
In the Bible, there is a prohibition against attempting to "accelerate" (force forward in time) God's processes. In such a way, it was not acceptable for Jews to return after the Babylonian exile before God's time; rather, they were to go to Babylon, work for the good of Babylon, and await God's timing for their return. The same might be noted of Moses striking the rock twice, or even the children worshipping the golden calf. In each case, they were impatient with God's timing, to their own sorrow.
Considering that Israel has to fight the Palestinians, and there do not appear to be any valid prophets at the moment, how exactly do Israelis determine *what is God's time* for their return from this 2000-year dispersion, and what might simply their own attempt to force the issue (based on fears, nationalism, hope, and such)?
And how might the issue of rebuilding the temple (or not) fit into all this, if at all (or is that a different question entirely)?
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
These are great questions, Dimwit! (I must say, I feel a little odd writing your handle and hping it doesn't sound like sarcasm!).
A question back to you (and others): do you see any inherent division between science and the G-d of the Torah? Or between science and "God" as the English call it, or "Allah" as Muslims call it, etc.?
I see you love the Harleys.Do you prefer the around towniness of the sportsters or do you like to get out on the road on a " glide" ?
Were you born to ride or just happen into it during
the tech boom?
Ever wake up in Sturgis or Daytona with a hangover and a new tattoo and a strange gyno taste in your mouth?(i guess this is the question i was leading up to)
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
plans for developing a fault-tolerant, kosher Harley with a Linux kernel at its core?
--bpl
if you're not part of the solution,
you're part of the precipitate.
This is a question of genuine interest to many Bible-believing Christians, moderators probably won't agree, but in the interest of honesty it's posted here.
How do you reconcile the clear prophecies of the Messiah as both suffering servant and triumphal ruler (as Christians see it, the first and second coming), such as Isaiah 53, with saying that Jesus was either just another prophet (false or genuine)?
I understand that you're a Talmudic scholar. This is interesting in itself since most of the highest profile members of the Free Software community usually express anti-religious ideas or are from religious traditions drastically at variance with the Judeo-Christian traditions (ie, neo-paganism and oriental misticysm).
How is that you relate your Jewish faith with the work as a Free Software developer, and the central tenets of the Free Software movement?
-- Look to the Rose that blows about us--"Lo, Laughing," she says, "into the World I blow..."
Why is the parent marked offtopic? Are you moderators fucking idiots?
As a Jew-gone-Atheist, I was always bothered by the literal interpretation that Talmudic scholars typically hold to, and the silly (at least to me), seemingly arbitray debates, such as the decision that you must wait precisely 2 hours after eating milk before eating meat--after all, don't you need to go to the bathroom first, technically?
Being a Linux programmer, you are almost a scientist, and I would expect a more logical, less nitpicky approach to religion. What effect do you think your involvement with computers has on your religion, and what is your response to my admittedly biased view? Do you ever get irritated about the silliness of some Talmudic debates? Do you usually take a more logical approach to it, or do you find that you can view the Torah as a specific set of programming prerequisits that need no explanation?
Dan
Even the Palestinian leadership isn't calling it a masscre any more. They are saying 56 Palenstinian deaths compared to 33 Iraeli deaths is a VICTORY.
However, put that word aside and there is still a very valid question. "What do you think about how the Iraeli army conducted itself in Jenin, considering the credible evidence of war crimes that exists, such as their use of human shields, their denial of access for emergency medical personnel, and the fact that they cut off power and water to Jenin during the action? Would you justify or condemn these actions?
Here is one place where you can check my facts.
If you owned a consulting business which provided various services (application development, database design/admin, systems admin, help desk, web dev etc...) would you provide the source code to the community for the applications your company developed and if so, how could this help/hurt your business?
Uhhhh, yeah, thath dithgustin. [The lady's man]
Is there any way I can ingratiate myself to you like all of the other sycophants here on Slashdot?
.
Hello Moshe,
There are a number of ways to add migratable live sockets to OpenMOSIX. Would you care to comment on when OpenMOSIX would start working on this very important clustering feature, and what strategy would you likely employ to accomplish it?
Thanks.
zetatalk at www.zetatalk.com
Hi Moshe,
Remember me, Mark?
I have a question for you.
When you hire someone from abroad to do something for you, and you make an agreement in advance about what he gets for it.
What do you do? Do you keep your word or are you just a lying basterd?
Thanks for your time.
Mark Santcroos
ps. I hate begging for money, but I couldn't let this opporturnity go by.
The IA32 HZ = 100 constant is a throwback to prehistoric times. Will OpenMOSIX ever get rid of this dinosaur, or perhaps bump it up to a respectable 1000 so that realtime apps need not use 100% CPU in tight time-polling loops?
Boxers or briefs?
------------RAEL----------------
What are some of the most interesting computing projects you've heard about using MOSIX that could pretty much only happen using MOSIX (as opposed to "plain old" PVM/MPI/etc)?
Actually, the 1.0 API freeze is permanent, from this point on if an API needs to change, a new one will be created. As far as I'm aware, 1.0 is the point at which permenance is guaranteed.
A Harley Davidson isn't so much a motorcycle as a tractor with two wheels and "a lot of extra chrome".
If you've actually ridden Harleys and other bikes you'll know that Harley Davidson survive pretty much solely by marketing their name and selling you the Harley Davidson lifestyle.
Cruisers are really just toys to be brought out on sunny Sundays to pose round town.
Deleted
Hey man, it's true I did take it once but I never swallowed. Please cease and decist :)
What do you think about ongoing conflict in middle east?
/. crowd?
No offense, but what sort of question is that? I don't imagine that any reasonable person would be in favour of the on-going conflict. Nor do I see how any decent sort of person would claim that the death count (on all sides) is not yet high enough. The violence is so self-defeating. As we brutalize others, so do we brutalize ourselves.
What do you think about massacre that Isreali soldiers commited in refugee camp in Jenin?
Why not ask him how he feels about the suicide bombers who deliberately choose to attack non-combatants?
Could we leave the partisanship aside and discuss things relevant to the
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
http://www.triumph.co.uk/
Deleted
don't feed the trolls
Working for necessity's mother.
Sorry to reply to my own post - let me clarify something here. When I say "Creationism", I don't mean right-wing dinosaurs-never-existed Creationism. I mean "the existance of an intelligent Creator and (at least somewhat) planned design for the Universe, as opposed to pure Atheism."
Sorry, just wanted to clear that up.
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
It's rare that one gets the chance to talk to a Talmudic scholar who understands geek issues. I feel privileged to be able to pose the question in a public forum! It's not intended as a troll, in the classical sense, though I guess since all posts to this topic are asking Mr. Barr for a response they could all be considered trolls.
Thanks for at least being polite and concise in your reply, but I think any moderator who mods my question up simply wants to see the answer. Why would anyone want to prevent their search for answers?
What kind of an effect do you think open source will have in terms of impact on society and general perceptions of computers?
Have you tried integrating any interesting technology onto your bikes?
Like remapping fuel curves, electronic gizmos, heads-up GPS displays, augmented reality, etc.
in that case, the second description of the creation of the world would be more appropriate (or is it the first)..where man was put on earth last (not the one where he is put first)
QED
BSD is for people who love UNIX. Linux is for those who hate Microsoft.
I have not ever been tempted to post on /. but there is always a first time.
There have been a lot of posts about conflicts or lackof with Halachik (orthodox) Judaism and tech. I'm sure Moshe knows his stuff and I'm also sure that he would be embarassed to be called a Talmud scholar. However, could he/you perhaps spend some time dispelling myths and explaining facts about some of the issues. I don't think a discussion on using email as a shaliach (third party) for divorce papers is necessary or the difference between "G-D" on paper and "God" on a computer screen (which is a comlex issue. But ideas about how the sabbath fits in with practical life and place of God in his personal life would be illuminating.
please!
Thank you for your comments. (I hope Mr. Barr will choose to share his insight also, but I guess that'll depend on the moderators.)
I'm trying not to make any further comments here myself, because it's so difficult to say anything without inflaming the fanatic anti-semites and equally fanatic anti-anti-semites - if I make the slightest slip of phrase one party or the other will gleefully misinterpret everything else I've said.
I'm honestly not trying to promote any viewpoint of my own here. I'd really like to see Mr. Barr's response to the Israeli Boycott question, because it's something much discussed in the high-tech circles I move in. Many people on both sides of the issue have very strong beliefs that are not based on propaganda or knee-jerk reactions.
-atrowe: Card-carrying Mensa member. I have no toleranse for stupidity.
Oh, the irony of that sig...
A) What the heck does this have to do with linux development??
B) Jews have been living in Israel continuously since 1500BCE (BC), mostly with the blessings of the Ottoman empire. Return in earnest began in aprox 1880CE (AD). Up until the Balfour Declaration (November 2nd, 1917), Muslims and Jews lived in peace, and there was already a substantial Jewish population present. Soon after this the rioting started. (I'm not saying there weren't any problems before hand, but nothing out of the ordinary for the time period). Under the Balfour declaration alone, the land as legally GIVEN to the nation of Israel, without conflict (since the owner of the time was Great Britain). GB reneged on it's promise and signed it's name to UN proposition 181 (November 29, 1947) that repartitioned the land between the Jordan river into 2 NON-Contiguous states. One was an Arab state, to be given to Arabs already living in this region (not called Palestinians at the time), the other was a Jewish state. While most European countries ratified the agreement, none of the then 27 Muslim countries (which now make up the ENTIRE regional security council) in the region approved it. 181, was never ratified. Never the less, in compliance with UN rules regarding colonial holdings, GB pulled out entirely from the region, leaving over 90% of its entrenchments and weapons in the hands of Muslim countries, despite repeated declarations of intent to go on a genocidal rampage and wipe out any Jews found in then Palatine. When the dust settled, the region took on what is now called the pre-1967 boundaries.
Up until this point, it is incontestable that all actions in the creation of a state of Israel were STRICTLY DEFENSIVE. Which is not only permitted under Jewish law but REQUIRED. Few western authorities take issue with any of these points. Up until this point in time, Israel is CLEARLY in the legal right. And it's mostly the UN/GB and Israel's bad neighbors who are held to blame.
The issues start in 1967, when after several months of blockades by Egypt, and military build ups by Egypt, Saudi, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon along Israel's borders, Israel initiated open hostilities against Egypt, to end the blockade. Under international law, naval blockades are considered an act of war. So who started the war is at issue. But the bottom line is that for the first few hours it was just Egypt and Israel slugging it out. Egypt was loosing bad. In the first 5 minuets (since Israel did STRIKE first) most of Egypt's air force had been destroyed while still on the ground. Egypt contacted Jordan and told Jordan that Egypt was winning the fight, and that a second front would cause the Israeli army to collapse. Jordan then fired on Israel, initiating hostilities with Israel. The outcome of those wars can be seen on any map of the present day.
Again the above, while it does present numerous moral issues, is not factually in contest.
Because of the debate over who started conflicts, Israel or Egypt, the Gaza strip is a legitimate area of debate. The West Bank (judea/sumaria) is under every international law, the property of Israel (especially since the treaty was signed between Jordan, the previous owner, and Israel, relinquishing and claims to said territory).
Here's the big issue. When Israel captured the west bank, they inherited a HUGE problem. Domestic Arabs living in the Judea Sumeria region, were living in ghettos. Some quarter million of them, this is a condition which had been in place since 1948, when millions of Arabs fled the conflict between revolutionary armies of the then newborn state of Israel, and 7 other allied Arab nations. It is on public record that these residents were asked by their proper governments to flee the area so as not to be hurt during the conflict. Since this time, until 1967 (and indeed until the present day in every middle eastern country except Israel) it had been ILLEGAL for these refugees to leave or work out side of these camps. What ever the motivations of Jordan (at the time Trans Jordan), they had created the refugee camps, rather than allow natural sprawl or integration into their society.
Israel attempted to alleviate the problem by building expansions of these camps into towns, and adding water, electric etc... Even offering full citizen ship to anyone living in the Jerusalem area. Resistance cell's quickly formed amongst the Arabs of Judea/Sumeria, now officially calling themselves Palestinians (which before 1948 referred to anyone jew/christian/muslim born in this region). Intimidation of moderates became the norm for both sides. Routine claims were made by both Jordan and Syria claiming that culturally Palestinians belonged to them. Raising serious issues about the validity of nation hood for an non-distinct culture that already has national independence in a bordering location.
Israel's treatment of the Palestinians has since been less than spectacular. IDF soldiers are drafted, so the entire spectrum of society is present in the military. From the well educated, to the... well... the Israeli equivalent of trailer trash. It's this trailer trash which is usually put on duty in the "Territories". Whether this is intentional by the IDF or the result of political strings being pulled by soldiers who's parents can afford to have them posted safer places is also a matter for debate.
Baring Jerusalem and Hevron, "Jewish settlements" do not displace domestic Arab populations, and are there for legal under international law.
With respect to Jerusalem and Hevron, both were predominately Jewish cities before 1948, when they were driven out by Jordanian forces, neither city has reached it's pre-1948 Jewish population, nor has any property lost during that war been returned to it's former owners. But that was 54 years ago, and most people who live there now have no memory of their properties previous owners or how it was acquired. This brings up major issues of how long a displaced peoples should be allowed to maintain their claim to their land.
Bottom line. It's not a simple situation, it can't be explained while standing on one foot. It takes weeks worth of research just to get a fledgling idea of what this conflict is about.
However this also isn't some ancient conflict stretching back beyond history. The records are recent, detailed and available to anyone who can find and use a library. Note: I recommend NOT using the Internet to do research for this... emotions are running way to high, and so is misinformation.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
What is the most useless / weirdest / hackish / funny "feature" that you ever saw on a linux machine or in a proposed kernel patch?
What would you like to see on linux that would fit that category?
my
I'm learning C with the intent to work on the kernel, device drivers, and whatever else looks interesting. The books I'm currently using are:
1) Linux Kernel Projects ( for coding experience )
2) Practical C Programming
3) C Primer Plus
4) Expert C Programming: Deep C Secrets
5) C Reference Manual, 5th ed.
6) Linux Device Drivers
I'm starting to move through the kernel code, but it's going slowly because I'm still learning.
What are your recommendations for achieving this goal and the resources that worked for you?
Thanks
I searched google and could not find any code written by you. Could you elaborate on what code exactly it was that you have written?
(OpenMosix does not count, since it is almost identical to MOSIX, by Prof. Amnon Barak from HUJI)
actually he was lately honored with an honorary doctorate from The University of somethingorother in Florence. I call him Dr. Foo ever since.
What solution have you used?
Did you look at using ram disks?
me Jewish, though not religious. non authoritive answer follows:
:)
the letters of god's name, yod-heh-vav-heh, which is a very unique form of of the verb "be" used nowhere else in our language of Hebrew, are supposed to signify "Eheye Asher Eheye" as god said to Moses - "I am who I am". this ubiquitous being doesn't NEED a name since he IS everything (roughly
so anyway, those 3 letters became holy with time, dropped into names of people god sees as blessed or favoured. Avram becomes Avraham (Abraham), Saray becomes Sarah, and on it goes into other names, Jonathan (Yehonatan - god has given), John (Yochanan, God has pardoned), Jededaya (Yedid-Yah, the friend of god), and so on.
in practice, although the "real name of God" is supposedly encrypted in the Zohar (book of the Kabalah), people do not utter the name YHVH (be it Yeh-ho-VAH or YAH-weh we are not sure), and anywhere it's written in the bible or a prey, it is read as Adonai (My Lord) or HaShem (The Name). the word for God in Hebrew, btw, is El but often also the plural form Elohim, which appears a lot in the bible (which is one of many hints to bible researchers to claim Israelites were not always monotheistic), Observant jews avoid even saying Elohim and many times say Elokim instead.
to some up - yod, heh and vav are sorta holy and problematic when used in a word denoting god. vav is the vowel for "oh", so the way I see it they write g-d like they say Elokim instead of Elohim. makes sense when you write in Hebrew, no f---ing clue why they do it in English as well.
The current conflict between Isreal and the Palestinians is one of mutual terror. The Palestinians perform reprehensible suide bombings, while the Isrealis have the luxury of using US-manufactured F-16s and Apache helocopters (amoung other western-supplied arms) to do their killing. Neither side has a monopoly on terror, and certainly neither side has moral justification to kill innocents. And yet it continues...
It might be more appropriate to ask if Mr. Bar considers the occupation and subjucation of the Palestinians to be in Isreal's best interests. Can disenfranchising an entire generation of peoples really provide for security? I would argue that the creation of a new Palestinian state that was economically well integrated with Isreal (and with a democratically elected government rather than the dictatorship enjoyed by arafat) would serve everyone's interests.
My thought: providing for economic security for Palestinians and self-determination would do more to root out extremist factions than the current military operations. Certainly it is true that western societies that enjoy economic prosperity are much less likely to allow extreme elements to dominate their society. The converse is very much likely.
What is/was the problem with Amnon Barak?
Maybe there is a chance of a reunited mosix.
At least he seems to offer new versions again,
now that you made openmosix available.
To what extent is Talmudic commentary an open source interpretation of Jewish law by a small number of Rabbi committers? Are there any parallels that can be made between the Talmud and open source/free software coding?
Are you ever going to get back togeher with Sirijule? I miss those bits on Letterman. The one where you were fly fishing was funny.
It's not intended as a troll, in the classical sense Save it. Someone who "prays and studies" as much as you claim to should be well aware of the fact that the (Babylonian) Talmud was finished around 500 CE, at a time when no Israel existed. Therefore, it is highly unlikely that the Talmud would offer you guidance on whether it would be right of you to use your influence with your boss to incite against and malign Israel.
Please support your answer.
Assuming that I read your faq correctly, you served in the Israeli army in the 80's. Military service can be daunting, and often changes one's perspective on life. From my observation, this is even more pronounced with regard to intellectual people, and to those who had actual combat experience.
Did you have combat experience while in the army? How has it changed your philosophy on life? Has it affected you professionally? Does army service, whether in active units or miluim (reserves) have an affect on the company you recently founded?
Solution to blink tags: wrap them in another blink tag, with a javascript delay loop, so they cancel each other out
One of the cardinal (ahem) rules of Talmud study is you have to pay attention to the exact meaning of every word. A good study partner won't let you say, "Well, I think this sentence means X, so let's move on" -- the partner will say, "How do you know? How does this prefix on this word here fit your interpretation?" Since the Talmud is written in a fifteen-hundred-year-old language, without vowels or punctuation, the beginning/intermediate student (like me) has to make a lot of effort to just get the plain meaning of the text.
Now, as it turns out, this skill is very helpful when you're reading someone else's code, particularly code written in the "Real Programmers can write FORTRAN in any language" style -- because the computer will pay attention to every (uncommented, non-dead-code) word in the program, and if you gloss over the meaning of some line that the computer interprets differently, you're in for a world o' hurt. I wrote a little more on this subject here. (N.B.: I'm not Joel, he just posted an email from me.)
I think it works the other way, too: among geeks with some knowledge of formal logic and logical terminology, some Talmudic discussions become much easier. Sometimes it's a helluva lot more concise to translate a Talmudic sentence into algebra or pseudocode than into English.
OK, here's my question for Moshe: Can you recommend a "Geek's Guide to Talmud Study?" (If not, can you write one? :-)
send all spam to theotherwhitemeat@ropine.com
What's it like to have a name straight out of Star Wars?
Han Solo
Watto
Moshe Bar
Boba Fett
Mace Windu
I have been pwned because my
Why are you soooo Jewish?
I have only to look at how the Israelis treat another people. Like dogs. Israel is a nation without conscience.
1000 SlashDot sigs
That has got to be without a doubt the gayest question i can think of.
"Bottom line. It's not a simple situation, it can't be explained while standing on one foot. It takes weeks worth of research just to get a fledgling idea of what this conflict is about. "
You have certainly laid out the israeli justification for occupying palestenians and many people disagree with the "facts" as you see them. I suppose that is to be expected.
personally I think the problem is much simpler then trying to dig throughout history and simply point to the present facts.
1) The israeli people are conducting a military occupation of the palestenian people.
2) The palestenian people do not enjoy being occupied by the israelis.
3) The israeli people are building settlements on land that palestenians consider their own (the israelis claim it's land). The palestenians don't enjoy this fact.
4) The nation of israel reserves the right to kill, invade, bulldoze, arrest, detain, torture, place under curfew, assinate, or otherwise do anything it wants to any palestenian it wants. The palestenians don't enjoy this very much either.
The palestenians don't enjoy the treatment they get at the hands of the israelis and they fight back any way they can. They are outgunned, out numbered, out financed, out organized yet they persist.
I know that if I was living under military occupation by a country I would fight back with any means I could so I can definately see their point of view.
War is necrophilia.
I AM NOT JOKING.
I personally would have let them run around the house with a thick coating of turd drying like cement on their bungholes.
You left out a few.
Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy
There's a lot of them out there.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
...you're labouring the obvious. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
In particular, because unlike, say, Windows... a sysadmin won't be asked to `tend the fire' as often.
The bottom line for whether something fits observance of Shabbat is `does it distract me from G-d?'
Stricter flavours of Judaism hew to a massive collection of rules about how far you can walk with/without shoes, blah blah, but G-d says nothing so fine-grained or picky. Liberal Jews might rock up to the synagogue on that day - or not - but the rest of the rules are basically ignored, IMHO they're evicting the baby with the bathwater, but that's their choice. IIRC, the rule says `no touch fire on Shabbat.' Presumably this includes dealing with arson. Non-Shabbat holy days are less strict.
To join the chorus: no, I'm not Jewish.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Why "f---ing"? Is there anyone on Slashdot that doesn't read this as "fucking"?
If so, why?
thanks
(sorry. couldn't resist.)
...as long as it is science being done, and not religion.
Sadly, most science is undertaken with an a priori committment to materialism: first, we assume that there is no G-d, then working from this assumption, we do science which `proves' that there is no G-d. Like, d'oh? Many leading scientists, like Shapiro, and the late Gould, have clearly stated in a variety of ways that this is the process which they use. Which means that they're doing religion, not science.
G-d has some interesting properties, from a scientific POV. He is often measurable, but not predictable. He manages the predicting, says Torah in no uncertain terms. The mistake most people make in looking for evidence of creation is in looking for perfection (`the problem of evil' is a common term for it). In light of explicit statements from G-d that this world is damaged (and as a consequence of our actions, no less), one would expect this to be an exercise in futility. Nevertheless, the evidence that people run across is occasionally too clear and direct to ignore.
My question for Moshe (Moses, Musa) is: given that significant intervention in history is an essential consequence of any effective G-d, and in particular the G-d of Torah, where do you stand on the question?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
As one of orthodox religion how do you find interaction with the "mystic religion" loons and the "something to hide" atheists to be and do you believe in all that is to happen in the future as predicted by the Book.
Is your wife the colombian girl that once made you go to Bogota and give a talk on mosix? :) if so, how does she like Tel Aviv? :P
Sergio
"Agree with them now, it will save so much time."
Genesis 1 consistently uses a form which reads, transliterated, `and the evening was, and the morning was, day N'. You can't read this, in a straightforward manner, as thousands, millions or billions of years. Genesis 2 reiterates the creation from a different POV: Adam's instead of G-d's, which is de rigeur for ancient Hebrew. God tells us, `evening and morning,' who are you to say, `no, millennia or aeons?'
Yah, like Hebrews 4:4 `For he spake in a certain place of the seventh day on this wise, And God did rest the seventh day from all his works.' Unsurprisingly, this is referenced to Genesis 2:2 in every version I can find. Even if you stick to the OT, you regularly run aground on definite, enumerated statements like Exodus 20:8-11.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
What do you think about [your choice here]? Is [your choice here] the best way to do [your choice here], or would [your choice here] be a better way to accomplish [your choice here]? How does your wife feel about [your choice here]? Does she even care? While on the subject, what is your favorite [your choice here]? What [your choice here] is the worst? And what [your choice here] is [your choice here]?
Last but not least - is "little wife night" and "wife night" exist outside of Denmark, and if so - what nights do you practice this?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
I'll let the text explain it to you, the first words of the Bible: `In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.'
In case you missed it: before creation, there were no days. Note that God made days on day one. LILO for worlds! Note also that days were created before the sun was, and very probably for a good reason.
This is your tautology: I believe there is no God, therefore no evidence I see can be evidence of God.
Ignoring your tautology, for the sake of a good rant, it's still a pretty vacuous statement to make, given how deeply many very ancient civilisations were into astronomy. These guys built stuff like Baalbek and Sacsauaman, they weren't dumb bunnies.
Back in this century, did you know that dendrochronology has shown the Yellowstone forests to have grown contemporaneously? That WW2 aircraft were found under 200m of ice layers on Greenland after only 50 years (ta ta ice core interpretation, not that self forming O2 varves had done that idea any good)? That fresh wood has been found deep in Sydney sandstone? Peppered moths are a furphy like the horse sequence? Stanley Miller has proven his own `primitive atmosphere' experiments to be dead ends? And so on.
AFAICT, every single `evidence' for long ages has seen more than one counterexample implying extreme youth. Robert Gentry's unrefuted (no, they're not Radon 222) Polonium haloes imply a metter of seconds-to-minutes for huge amounts of base granite, which is much more in line with creation in days than `creation' in gigayears.
It's probably also time to find out about genetics and statistics. (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It contains no pigs, crayfish or other scavengers/carnivores, only references to them. AFAIK it hasn't seen a rabbinical blessing, but you could print it out on kosher paper using kosher ink and probably get that formally approved.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I have not made any statements whatsoever about my personal beliefs on this issue. I am, however, interested in Mr. Barr's. I don't know why you think I've taken a position either for or against Israel; I suggest that you work on your reading comprehension skills. And don't bother quoting me without context to make accusations; I won't reply.
the above were facts, and are available in any public record. My interpretation was of course slanted. But what facts in particular do you take issue to? What do you feel I omitted?
When it comes to the middle east, nothing is simple, and everything is about history.
1) Up until Intefada II Israel had pulled out of 95% of "Palestinian Territories". At that time, this most recent mess started, it could hardly be refereed to as a military occupation. Also consider the region for a moment; Syria "Occupies" Lebanon presently and shoots anyone who brings the subject up, but no one protests them. Under the 1949 armistice between Israel and Jordan, Jordan stipulated that the borders of Judea/Sumeria were NOT national boundaries but war time boundaries and subject to change. Hence, Jordan was also occupying the west bank (I guess that would be their east bank...). Both the Jordanians past treatment of the Palestinians and Syria's treatment of it's own citizens, the Lebanese and their own Palestinian refugees makes Israel look like a Palestinian pleasure resort.
Does this justify Israel's treatment of the Palestinians? No. But it puts it in perspective. This is "Normal" for the region. And you can't expect anyone to switch to an "enlightened" western view over night.
2) It's awful that the Palestinians don't like being occupied. But you know what... that doesn't justify killing civilians, women, children, and whole families. I'm not talking about accidentally killing innocents. I'm talking about walking into high schools and kinder gardens with rifles and unloading. Nothing justifies this, nothing.
3) First, those settlements are legal. Second, most of the land and cities that the Palestinians live in now, belonged to Jews who were forced off their land ILEGALY in 1948, no one has asked for it back. Third, no one ever talks about Palestinian settlements, yes they do the same thing as the Israeli's. Each one is trying to lay claim to as much land as they can before the borders are finalized. Since their has never been a Palestinian state there are no "original" borders to work from, so it's a land grab by both sides.
4) Israel does reserve the right to retaliate and defend it's self, furthermore it reserves the right to hunt down any terrorists that are not being detained by their host countries. Just like big brother USA.
First the US asked the Taliban to arrest Osama Bin Laden and Alquada, the US waited less than 2 months. Israel asked the PA to reign in Hamas, Fatah, the PFLP, etc. and waited 7 years, during witch time over 2000 Israelis died in terrorist attacks.
Then the US went in and carpet bombed what was left of Afghan cities, exacting unknown death tolls, but according to US senators the death toll was in multiples of 9/11. The reasoning for this action was to avoid any further loss of life to US soldiers. Israel went in on the ground (though they had the capacity for carpet bombing) and did everything they could avoid civilian casualties, including telling the terrorists (as well as the general public) when and where they would be operating 3 hours in advance to give innocents an opportunity to evacuate. So effective are the Israelis at this, that when they went into a situation like Jenin, with booby traps and human shields, in a civilian neighborhood, that even the Palestinian Gov't admits to less than 60 casualties, mostly non-civilian.
The US expected a bunch of backwater thugs to round up and arrest one of the most advanced terrorist networks in the world. Israel asked the PA to round up specific individuals, while the PA was claiming a "Police Force" larger than any other in the world per capita.
The Palestinian people are not evil. Neither is Israel. The villain is the PA (aka PLO) which has made the Palestinians even poorer then when they started, and filled them with so much hate that this war may take generations to end.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
With so much of the text in Moshe's book, Linux File Systems ripped off from various sources (or maybe "used with permission") who should get the writing credit? Why is it that the acknowledgement doesn't mention the authors of the myriad of FAQs, whitepapers, and web sites that had huge portions of text used verbatim in the book?
I read your name a lot, as a writer of articles and such. You claim to "have set in a coffee shop in Italy and designed the 150 memory patches all over again using a random mechanism, together with Andrea Arcangeli". You claim that "you knew Linus would prefer to accept those from AA, so you let him submit it alone."
Does AA support this version? Or would he be surprised to read that you ever claimed so?
You also mentioned having a script which sends Linus the same patches every week, and that he has a script to decline you.
I think you are not such a modest person, as to give up the credit. If you really ARE a kernel hacker, if you really can code, what did you actually write? what piece of CODE has your name on it? I could not find one bit!
But for cryin' out loud, leave the Irish out of it, OK? Your ignorance of Irish pre-history is appalling!
Ireland's earliest known native peoples were the legendary Firbolgs, who were conquered by the semi-mythical Tuatha De Danaan (eventually mytholigized into the Sidhe) who were in turn displaced by the Milesian Celts, who were invaded by many Germanic and Norse tribes but who nonetheless remain the principal ancestors of the people of modern Ireland. The PICTS inhabited what is now SCOTLAND!
When you can intelligently discuss the relationship between the Christian ideal of the Perfect God and the legends of Nuada of the Silver Hand and Balor of the Dreadful Eye (respectively), you will have enough information to comment on Irish prehistory. Until then, stay in the Middle East where at least one of you has something meaningful to say!
But my point stands. Substitute "Firbolgs" or "Sidhe" for "Picts" and you have a valid comparison. The Irish of today aren't the first people ever to set foot on the island. Yet no one questions their ties to Ireland. Meanwhile, idiots world-wide actually believe Arafat (born and raised in Cairo, Egypt) when he says that the Palestinians are the direct descendants of Philistines and therefore should have all of "Palestine" for themselves.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Oh, well, yay, there's a big improvement. Not.
Ignorant people do not slice up and cart around 2000-tonne blocks of stone as a hobby. Note that the 1100 tonne stone pictured cannot be moved by any number of sweating slaves, since no known material would make strong enough staves to get the required number of slaves near it, and the stone would break if they tried stuff like rollers.
...and speaking of ignorance... yes, they did. That was pretty clever of them because without excellent telescopes it is basically impossible to distinguish between a model involving Earth orbiting the Sun, and one involving the Sun orbiting the Earth and dragging the planets with it. Tycho Brahe proposed just such a model.
There's obviously a few gaping holes in your understanding of history. They not only understood heliocentrism, they knew enough to promptly adjust their calendars to track changes in astronomical conditions.
Because modern astronomy (and other sciences) is generally sold on gradualism, a consequence of a priori committment to materialism, they have a hard time even admitting that serious changes could take place within a historical timescale in our own solar system. A similar a priori commitment dooms atheistic Egyptologists to using the broken Sothic Cycle for dating, which throws their results out to the tune of up to 1000 years, and we're only talking maybe 4000 years ago.
That's not a failure. You're describing agnosticism. Atheism is not a default condition, it is the deliberate denial of theism. You will find that your arbitrarily atheistic stance is a consequence of assuming materialism without proof.
Neither position can be a default. Each position is a definite statement, ergo cannot be taken until it has been considered - except ignorantly.
That's very, uh, brave of you.
So... your hypothesis is apparently that mankind existed for millions of years in intelligent ignorance, and only in the last few thousand years or so has knowledge rushed in to fill the void? What evidence do you call in support of this assertion?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
"When it comes to the middle east, nothing is simple, and everything is about history"
That is precicely the problem (that and religion). The palestenians and the israelis are too busy looking backwards and spend no time looking at the future. I don't want to spend too much countering your points one by one but suffice it to say you seem to be spreading the standard Israeli propaganda line. I personally don't like it when the israelis try to justify their vile actions by comparing themselves to us. The US is going to compensate every single civilians unjustly harmed in Afghanistan and will spend billions rebuilding that country. When is Israel going to compensate the civilians it killed unjustly? At least it could make an effort for god's sake, it's not like they will pay for it, the US taxpayers will get stuck with that bill just like they pay for all the weapons used to kill palestenians.
The problem is this. Both people believe that they have a god given right to live in the same plot of land. Both of them believe that the other are invaders and evil. Cloaked in their righteousness they can rationalize the most despicable, inhuman, evil and vile acts. And both of them have chosen to elect bloodthirsty men who apparently take great joy in killing the opposition.
You list off the vile acts done by palestenians while finding excuses for state sponsored massacres, torture, and yes terrorism of civilian populations when it's done by the israelis. It's easy isn't it? One side says we commit inhuman acts because we are defending ourselves the other side says we commit inhuman acts becasue we are being occupied and humiliated and denied basic human rights. Both are wrong and neither party is willing to live side by side with the other.
Unless the world steps in (it won't becasue the US won't let it happen) this will end in genocide. The palestenians will never enjoy living under israeli occupation, the israelis will never lift the occupation, it will instead kill every palestenian who will not be subjigated.
War is necrophilia.
First, this thing has got very little to do with relgion. I know it sounds weird. But the fact of the matter is that neither the Israelis or the Palastinians are all that religious. Yeah, we see CNN shots of mosques and men with long beards (both sides
It's the forward looking that's really killing us too (as well as the back looking). Israeli's are largley decendent from holocost survivors, and Jews in general have a very long memmory. When Palastinians go marching down the street chanting "Death to Jews" it does not fill Israeli's with compasion and sympathy for their plight.
Likwise, when border guards humiliate palastinians who are just trying to make a living and support their faimlies over stupid bigotries. It doesn't help to calm the situation.
I will never claim that Israel is inocent. They aren't. But then again Israel is not a monoculture hell bent on the destruciton of all non jews. Some factions are nazi-ish lunatics, others camp out side border patrolls to take notes and video tape IDF violations.
On compensation, your sorley mistaken. Not only has humanitarian aid been shipped into Jenin and the west bank, but Israeli hospitals have been taking palastinian wounded since the begining. Health officials sent over a hundred thousand huff 'n mouth vacinations to the PA. During the seige at Ramalah, the IDF supplied not only basic supplies but cigarettes and toiletries (not much good the water was cut). Furthermore the FIRST country to send humanitarian aid to Afganistan was not Saudi, America, France or GB, it was Israel.
1) Arafat was elected 8 years ago. But no one else was running against him. There have been no elections since, despite calls from a palastian "senet" for new elections for the last 4 years.
2) 90% of israeli arabs voted FOR Sharon. It's whole debate just trying to figure this one out.
3) None of this would have happend in the first place if Arafat didn't through away Camp David. Barak was anything but bloodthirsty, and defied the vast majority of his own people and offered even Jeruselam!!
"Ocupation vs Defense"
BOTH sides are defending them selves. Israeli's are being attacked too.
Like I said, since no Palastian state has ever existed, and Jordan relinquished all claims to the west bank, there is not Ocupation. You have a refugee problem, but again Israel isn't alone in this (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt all have refugee camps originating in 1948)
The world? Who partel should represent the world?
The UN? All regional actions are handled by the the Regional Security council. In wich israel is allowed no vote (since it would need to be voted in), and is controled entirley by countries that have had a declared a state of war with israel for over 50 years! (eceptions to Egypt and Jordan). (side note, the UN has never condemed anyone who attacked Israel, and it's a long list)
How about France? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!! (oh I needed a good laugh!) I'll be old and gray before I can list all the problems with that.
England? They created this mess in the first place. Besides their still ocupying Ireland.
Oh even better, how about brining in Saudi Arabia, yeah thats great. We can listen to them talk about peace in english while they broadcast TV stations into Israel, in arabic, on how to make bombs from house hold materials.
Egypt? No. They founded the PLO!
How about someone with no vested intrests? China? No, besides some of the worst human rights violations on record, they have arms deals with Israel.
Humiliation is not grounds for murdering civilians. Last I checked children sitting in school or nursing from their mother's never humilated an Palastinian.
BTW: I chalange you to prove that anything Israel has done to the Palastinians is unique. i.e. is not done by surounding countries with minority arab poplulations. (a hint, this is a violent area of the world, with or without Israel)
Or better yet, since your educated more than I on the palastian point of view. What the heck is a palastinian?
If you want to check for propganda please do, but provide some sort of proof that this is untrue or that I have skewed the facts.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
Moshe, Thanks for all your enlightening articles; keep up the good work! My question is: What do you run on your desktop? Which kernel, window manager, widget library, editors, and favorite programs?
Moshe,
Thanks for so many enlightening articles; keep up the great work!
My question is: What do you run on your desktop? Which kernel, window manager, widget library, editors, and favorite programs? Games?
Not one thing you said justifies anything Israel does. You seem to think it does but it does not to me.
No country should torture period end of sentence. No country should occupy other people it's an evil act. You can call it whatever you want, you can try and justify it a thousand ways but in the end palestenians are denied basic human rights under israeli rule and that is wrong.
I think its very funny some of the things you use to justify the actions of israel. I especially like the one about
"BTW: I chalange you to prove that anything Israel has done to the Palastinians is unique. i.e. is not done by surounding countries with minority arab poplulations. (a hint, this is a violent area of the world, with or without Israel)"
I guess it's ok to kill people if other people are killing them too nice.
As for compensation. The negotiations are not finished yet but US is willing to give every wrongfully injured civilian in afghanistan $10,000.00. This includes people who had their houses accidentally destroyed even if no physical harm came to them. I would like to see israel do the same thing. Every civillian they killed and every house they destroyed they should give 10 thousand dollars to. Everybody who was tortured in prison should get 20 thousand. Every person arrested and held without charges or access to attroneys should get five thousand. On top of that Israel should rebuild rammalah and jenin from teh ground up. It's only fair to compensate the innocent civilians.
It does not count to shoot people and then try and pretend you are doing good by stopping their bleeding. They would not be in your hospitals if you didn't shoot them in the first place. Same with the cigarettes bit. Surround a city, invoke a curfew, kill anybody who dares to roam the streets, cut off the water supply, and then claim you are good guys because you gave them cigarettes? What kind of twisted logic is that?
Like I said. You are willing to rationalize any evil act done by israelis. This is the crux of the problem. Both sides can somehow justify committing inhumanly evil acts. It's sick.
War is necrophilia.
You know, I was going along with this thread thinking, "TLC, there are two sides to every story. You, your biased. And this debate may give you the opportunity to see the other side." Thanx for proving me wrong on at least one count.
I've given you facts, dates, UN friggen statistics. I can even back them up with a bibliography if you choose to ask. All you are doing is making some assumed, and emotional, alegations. PROVE IT!! Because the stuff your saying sounds allot more like propoganda from where I'm sitting. Please prove me wrong.
If you'd actualy be reading you would have seen that I'm not trying to justify anything. Israel screwed up, even they admit that. But just like the palastinians they are in a tough situation and doing things that only desperate people would do. Both sides are under attack.
You for your part are obviosly starting from a heavily biased POV. You keep bringing up israeli torture and shootings. Palistinians do that too. They even get parades in their honor if they do it a whole lot. BTW: do you think the PA will make this kind of restitution too?
You are also making a BIG assumption that this is the "Palastinian's Land". Sorry to break it to you charly but it's as much their land as it is England's or Frances. They don't even have a historical record. The first recorded use of the word "Palastinian" to represent a national identity was 1973, by none other than Arafat. Ironicaly arabic doens't even have a "P" sound, the name Palastinian was chosen for political purposes, the asumtion of identity with the land. (I always think it's cute to hear Arafat call his people "the Balastinian Beapol"). If they do have an unique identiy apart from other indigionous mulsims, I'm trying to find out. But funny me I beleive in research somehting before I take a pasionet stand on it.
It's a little hard to defend your country from people who have sworn a blood oath to wipe you out, without shooting them. Oh other's have tried... but handing floowers to the nice gentelman making bombs just makes him laugh. Most studies have shown that the most effective way to stop an attacker from killing you is a large caliber rifel shot, between his eyes.
The Israeli's are under attack. And quite frankly I don't care who started it!!! It started frigging 80 years ago!! The point is both sides are under attack and both sides have a right to self defense. But neither side has the right to target non-combatants. If they do then so be it.
(BTW: Have you heard anything about how they will determine who was rongfully hurt in afganistan? And seing as how the average afgani makes less than a dollar a week, what the hell are they going to do with $10,000? that's about a 300 year salary over night. Sounds like a quick way to make a couple people really rich, really fast.
Also since you think the US's behavior is so noble, do you realize who they are putting back in power? The same people that the taliban kicked out in the first place! Not because the taliban are religios nuts, they are. But because the former goverment was going on genocidal rampages and killing people. We may not like the taliban, hell the Afgani's and the rest of the world may not like them. But when they took power they were hailed as heros, for liberating that country from opression. Let it be a lesson, it's no good to trade one dictator for another, even if the new one is your own.)
Look I'm doing my best to be open minded about this, care to give a little of the same back?
I would rather be ashes than dust!
What would YOU do for a Moshe Bar?
"Agree with them now, it will save so much time."
"I've given you facts, dates, UN friggen statistics. I can even back them up with a bibliography if you choose to ask. All you are doing is making some assumed, and emotional, alegations. PROVE IT!! Because the stuff your saying sounds allot more like propoganda from where I'm sitting. Please prove me wrong."
Prove what? What do you need me to prove? let me think of some things I said.
1) The palestenians live under israeli military occupation. You need proof of this?
2) Israel routinely kills palestenian civilians and does not compensate them.
3) Israel reserves the right to invade palestenian towns whenever it wants.
4) Israel assinates palestenian leaders.
5) Israel has a stated policy of torture in place (by the way I heard that from B. Netanyahu on tv).
6) Israel arrests and holds palestenians without trial or charges.
Are you actually disputing any of those statements?
"You for your part are obviosly starting from a heavily biased POV. You keep bringing up israeli torture and shootings. Palistinians do that too. They even get parades in their honor if they do it a whole lot. BTW: do you think the PA will make this kind of restitution too?"
If you go back and read my posts you will see that I am accusing both people of inhuman acts of death and torture. Arafat is a terrorist and Sharon is a war criminal who is responsible for multiple massacres. Both of these people have devolved into such a despicable animal state that they have chosen bloodthirsty leaders who they hope will commit unspeakable horrors on the hated enemy. I have repeatedly stated that both the PA and the Israeli govt are barbaric, sick, disgusting piles of shit intent on killing as many people as they can whether they be innocent, women, children, sick, lame, or whatnot. I do not excuse either party from their actions.
"If they do then so be it."
So be what? It's OK to target civilians? that is what you seem to be saying here.
"Have you heard anything about how they will determine who was rongfully hurt in afganistan? And seing as how the average afgani makes less than a dollar a week, what the hell are they going to do with $10,000? that's about a 300 year salary over night. Sounds like a quick way to make a couple people really rich, really fast. "
Apparently there will be some sort a commission set up. I am sure many people will apply and I am sure amny of them will be rejected. I suppose they will take their money and try to rebuild their lives. It's not like they are going to blow it on britney spears CDs.
"Also since you think the US's behavior is so noble, do you realize who they are putting back in power? The same people that the taliban kicked out in the first place! Not because the taliban are religios nuts, they are. But because the former goverment was going on genocidal rampages and killing people. We may not like the taliban, hell the Afgani's and the rest of the world may not like them. But when they took power they were hailed as heros, for liberating that country from opression. Let it be a lesson, it's no good to trade one dictator for another, even if the new one is your own.)"
I don't dispute for one minute that the US is at least partially responsible for the rise of taliban in the first place. The taliban took over after the corrupt govt was thrown out but not right away in the mean time there was a big struggle for control by the various factions. Somehow the taliban got a hold of helicopters and fighters (my guess is that they were supplied by either the US or one of our proxies) and ended up "winning" the war. They drove the opposition north and took over the country. We then supported them by bribing them to stop poppy production and to let us run a oil pipeline. They were our buddies. So I am not excusing the role of US in that regard but I still remain convinced that innocents should be compensated.
War is necrophilia.
For the most part your right.
Both sides are guilty. (I'm not even getting in to the Sharon thing, I don't think he's a war criminal, but he should have been dishonarably discharged for criminal negligence)
Israel does not make it it's intent to kill civilians, if it does it does so accidentialy. Do acidentaly injured or killed people deserve compensation? Probably depending on their complicity, and in the middle east that can be a tough thing to figure out. And right now they couldn't pay anyhow, because the EU has trashed their economy (but sending weapons to Iran is ok?)
Israel goes in because it has to. Israelie's have NO desire to babysit the Palastinians, and no want to risk the lives of their sons and daughters to police them. Remember this whole thing started AFTER Arafat turned down national soverenty at Camp David. (at the time of Camp David 95% of desputed territory was under PA rule. Most areas hadn't seen an IDF soldier in 5 years)
Israel assasinates Palastinian leaders? Yeah, they do. Personaly I think it's better to take out the leader of a riot, than to gun down the crowd. I also think they just need one more asasination... (now this is MY oinion)
Torture... can't disagree one bit. Sucks. It's cruel and shows a lack of efficiency. I would try to defend it if I thought it actually did more good than harm. But drugs can be so much faster, and are relatively more humane.
Holding without trial. True, israel lacks the US's bill of rights, but this is the case in most countries. Also this is standard operating procedure in the PA too. It's not a justification, but it does explain the situation in the middle east as a whole.
The problem is that now you have two bad neighboors.
The Israeli's at least show more intrest in building up an economy and living confortably, it's leverage and can be used to make them good neighboors.
On the other hand, the palastinians stand a snowballs chance in the Negev of building any sort of infastructure, furhtermore the PA has spent the last 8 years shoving hate literature down childrens throughts. Even if they totaly relplaced the PA, you would still have to deal with a hostile neighboor, who's poor and pissed and looking for a target to take out their anger. Compounded with blockd of non-contiguous teretory, other arab countries smuggling in weapons, and the fact that they still think that all of land between the jordan and the mediterainian is theirs.
The second one Palastian fires a rocket over the border, Israel will react with "Never Again" mode, and go way beyond what any other nation would consider normal. (the Holocost may be history to you, but to Jews it never ended, and Israel is the first line of defense)
My point is that peace may not be possible. Both sides harbour hate and fear of eachother in a way neither of us can understand.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
"Israel does not make it it's intent to kill civilians, if it does it does so accidentialy."
People keep saying this but I don't believe it. I don't think they care very much how many civilians they kill and the number of civilians killed every year bears this point out. I have seen coverage of Israeli fighters launching missiles into crowded citites, helicopter gunships strafing inside citites, and tanks shelling inside of cities. These are not the actions of people wanting to avoid civilian casualties. I don't think the IDF sees palestenians as human beings in the same way that in our history we did not see black people as human beings. To draw an anology from American history "the only good palestenian is a dead palestenian".
"Israel goes in because it has to. Israelie's have NO desire to babysit the Palastinians"
If that is true (and I don't think it is) they can do one of two things. 1) lift the occupation. Pull out all troops to the border, seal it off and let the palestenians be. 2) Agree on a date on which palestine will be an independent state.
Since it is unwilling to do either one I will not believe you when you say they don't want to babysit the palestenians. What they want is the land the palestenians live on and they want to remove the palestenians from that land. Either by killing them or moving them on to other countries (or reservations). They want to do the palestenians what we did to the indians. It's the exact same thing.
"also think they just need one more asasination... (now this is MY oinion)"
First of all it's illegal under international law. You can't try and justify the settlements with international law and then advocate assasination. Secondly killing arafat will accomplish nothing. He is an old useless man. Whoever replaces him will be a younger more violent man. Sharon knows this and that's why he won't kill him.
"The Israeli's at least show more intrest in building up an economy and living confortably, it's leverage and can be used to make them good neighboors. "
Isreal will not allow the palestenians do the same thing. They impede commerce with curfews, store closures, shutting off the food and water supplies, destroying shops and houses and of course killing people. They do this to keep the palestenians poor and destitue which supplies them with a ready stream of cheap labor to clean their toilets and to bus their tables. It's all calculated.
"the Holocost may be history to you, but to Jews it never ended,"
Not too long ago there was a movie on NBC called "uprising" it was about a rag-tag group of jews fighting the mighty Nazi army with home made bombs and rifles. I thoght to my self it's funny how history repeats itself. When the UN created israel I bet it never taught the israelis would act like the nazis.
"My point is that peace may not be possible."
Peace is possible under a couple of different scenarios.
1) Sharon completes his genocide. Kills all the palestenians and removes the ones he does not kill to reservations. If sharon does not live long enough netanyahu would be glad to pick up the torch and continue on with the ethnic cleansing.
2) Sharon and Arafat die and are replaced by sane people who are able to convince their people that peace is better then war.
3) Jesus comes back.
4) United states puts it's foot down and smack down the PA and the Israeli govt. It draws a line on the sand and says "this side is israel and this side is palestine, anybody who disagrees will be attacked by the US govt" and then puts US soldiers on the border will people calm down.
Like you said peace is not possible.
War is necrophilia.
Way to miss FP.
slashdot!=valid HTML
Judaism hasn't elected a Pope, but it has recently merged with Hinduism, creating 900 million Hinjews. Or so the news reports say.
"I have seen coverage of Israeli fighters launching missiles into crowded citites, helicopter gunships strafing inside citites, and tanks shelling inside of cities"
.. " 1) lift the occupation. Pull out all troops to the border, seal it off and let the palestenians be. 2) Agree on a date on which palestine will be an independent state.
:)
So you missed the parts where the helcopter hovers over head for 3 hours with a megaphone saying get out were going to blow this building up? I'm not kidding they do this. Not every time. Especialy not when they plan to fire a missle in and take out one or two guys. But usually (and yes there have been exceptions) they warn of the attack ahead of time. CNN doesn't like to mention this, so check multiple sources, some where in the middle is the truth.
"If that is true"
Since it is unwilling to do either one I will not believe you when you say they don't want to babysit the palestenians."
They did. Camp David, 1998. for 7 years preceding that 95% of all palastinians, 40% of the west bank, and 97% of the gaza strip were under exclusive PA control. At Camp David Barak (who the arab press still calls a Butcher, though I have no idea why) and Clinton offered all that pluss 100% of gaza and 95% of the west bank, pluss israels only oil wells, natural water springs, land in israel proper, 3/4 of Jeruselam, and internationalization of the TempleMount to make up for the missing 5%. Arafat walked away without any discussion or counter offer. To quote President Bill Clinton, refering to Camp David "Arafat made a fool of me."
Israel did exactly what you asked for. It's in writing. You can look up further details on the agreement. It was even endorsed by the President of the United States.
"First of all it's illegal under international law."
Yeah... better a few die while breaking the law than millions of lemmings to their deaths by adhering to it's letter. And make no mistake, when talking about this conflict, the present casualty numbers are nothing compared to the real stakes, which are in the millions.
The old phrase: "If you could have shot Hitler before he came to power. would you?", Arafat and his PA are just getting warmed up.
"They do this to keep the palestenians poor and destitue which supplies them with a ready stream of cheap labor to clean their toilets and to bus their tables. It's all calculated."
So I suppose it's also big Jewish conspiracy that Israeli-Arabs have the highest living standards of any Arab group in the entire middle east (baring oil princes, who hoard their money, instead of feeding their starving people). It's probably also a massive plot that Israel kept giving money to the PA untill nearly a year into the war? Oh and my other favorit plot is that it was the jews who kept he palastinians poor during the 20 years they were under Jordainian rule!
There is not one industrialized Arab nation on earth. Nor is their a arab democracy. Or any muslim or arab country that alows palastinians to have a job within their borders. But this is also a plot by those crafty israeli's to keep the palastinian down, and working for cheep.
" they want to remove the palestenians from that land."
problem. Were not talking about one indigenous peoples, and a european invader. These are two indigenous peoples (counting back 300 years). Now if you want to have a pissing contest on who's more indiginous fine. But your going to loose, 'cause I have british, ottoman, and roman historacle records on hand. (not the originals, I need to save up more money for that
Besides much of the land that Palastinians claim as their own was purchased by jews while under ottoman and british mandate goverments. This land was taken from them in 1948, and no one has offered it back since.
"1) Sharon completes his genocide."
Sharon didn't have anything to do with Sabra and Shlita, he just doesn't care enough about muslims to do it. (actually Arab-Christians did the butchering to Arab-Muslims) Quite frankly he neither likes nor hates muslims. He never cared about them at all. So he just ignored the report of what was going on. As far as he was concerned it was just the christians getting back at the muslims for what had been done to them for the last thousand years. That's negligence not homicide, and even the act it's self doesn't qualify as genocide, it was done against a relgious group, by it's own race. Unless the butchers of Sabra and Shlita commited suicide it's not genocide. (actually the term is xenocide)
And I should also mention, under jewish law your not allowed to kill the palastinians to take their land. The only reason you can kill is for self defense (using mandatory draft, it's complicated).
"3) Jesus comes back."
Just in case some one relgios is reading.
It's odd that the Torah (old testament) starts off with a story of creation. Now adays we take it for granted, of course you should start a book about G_d and the world by describing the begining of it. But the problem is that the Torah isn't in cronological order to begin with. And besides it's a book of laws, not stories. The answere given by sages is that the reason why the Torah starts out with G_d creating the world is so that everyone will understand that it belongs to him, not us, and whom ever he decides to give the land of Israel to, it's his to give.
sorry for the religious diatribe. But if anyone thinks Jeasus is coming back, this is a big point.
"4) United states puts it's foot down "
Then what happens when the US leaves?
This is what the US did in '79 between Egypt and Israel. Now the US gives 6 billion every year to Israel and Egypt (even split). But when the US pulled out it's troops from the Sinai (down to 23 now) the Egyptions started smuggling weapons over the border, agrivating the situation.
"Like you said peace is not possible."
It's possible, just not in any sort of pleasent way. Whether there will be Peace or War it's going to be a bloody one.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
The IDF uses F-16's, Apaches, etc. to attack legitimate military targets. That's not terrorism. They do a respectable job of minimizing civilian casualties. There were 13,000 Palestinian civilians in Jenin -- the IDF kept 12,977 of those civilians safe. That's not so bad, is it? We'd all prefer that they'd kept ALL of them safe, but international law recognizes that all you can do is try your damnedest. The terrorists resident in Jenin were a legitimate military target, by any objective standards you care to name. Israel had a legitimate right to go in there.
That's just one example; the others are all in the same vein: Israel uses those military weapons against military targets. Their goal is to kill combatants. Active members of Islamic Jihad, Izzedine al Qassam, the PFLP, etc., are (at best) combatants. They're actively, directly, and voluntarily engaged in hostilities. They kill people. It's okay to shoot back at them. Of course, they're not "combatants" in the honorable sense in which IDF soldiers are combatants, because the Islamic "militants" focus primarily on killing civilians -- their intent is to kill people who are not combatants. That's a war crime. That's terrorism.
The Palestinian "militants" attempt to maximize civilian casualties. They perpetrate massacres as a matter of deliberate policy. This has been the policy of the PLO since its foundation in 1964 (not to mention Arab massacres of Jews in 1920, 1929, and so on).
Speaking of economic security, there was plenty of that in the PA for years. The terrorism continued throughout the years of the Oslo Accords: Something like 350 Israelis were killed by Palestinian terrorism between 1993 and the outbreak of violence in late 2000. That's quite a few, and the PA economy was going great guns back then (in fact, Palestinian terrorism has generally correlated positively with concessions made by Israel; they initiated the current violence after Israel's unilateral withdrawal from south Lebanon, and immediately after Barak offered unprecedented concessions at Camp David in 2000. It seems counterintuitive, but think about it: The more territory Arafat & Co. control, the more extensive their bomb factories and training facilities can be, the more openly they can operate and recruit, etc.). Well, anyhow: Try to imagine how France would react if Germans were killing 50 Frenchmen every year, or how England would react if, say, Catholics in Northern Ireland were... oh, wait... They'd call it "terrorism" and react appropriately, wouldn't they? I mean, let's be serious here!
The IDF is not in the business of terrorism. The Islamic "militants" over there are in precisely that business. You suggest that there is some kind of moral equivalence between the two, but you are mistaken. If Arafat had the kind of resources the IDF has, tens of thousands of Israeli civilians would have been killed since 2000. If Israel wanted to kill Palestinian citizens, they have the means to kill them in droves -- but they have not chosen to do so.
And don't tell me that Lebanese Maronite Christians are helpless automatons, incapable of controlling their own trigger-fingers.
The Palestinian people surely do deserve self-determination, hell yeah -- and so did the people of Japan in 1945. But they didn't get it until they chilled out a bit and learned to live in peace with their neighbors. The "militants" in the PA claim loudly and often that they won't stop killing people if Israel withdraws from Gaza and the West Bank. Instead, they will stop killing Jews when they can't find any more Jews to kill. Make no mistake, their ideology is explicitly racist and rejects any and all political solutions. These people very closely resemble the Ku Klux Klan in the USA (but much more enthusiastic, of course). You can be on the losing side and still be a swine. You can spout national liberation rhetoric and still be a swine.
"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law." --
"They did. Camp David, 1998. for 7 years preceding that 95% of all palastinians, 40% of the west bank, and 97% of the gaza strip were under exclusive PA control. At Camp David Barak (who the arab press still calls a Butcher, though I have no idea why) and Clinton offered all that pluss 100% of gaza and 95% of the west bank, pluss israels only oil wells, natural water springs, land in israel proper, 3/4 of Jeruselam, and internationalization of the TempleMount to make up for the missing 5%. Arafat walked away without any discussion or counter offer. To quote President Bill Clinton, refering to Camp David "Arafat made a fool of me." "
Once again this is the israeli point of view. If you listen to other people they seem to have a different recollection of what happened. They blame Barak for lying to them and then stabbing them in back. I guess it's a matter of who you choose to believe. Since that event Israel has never even come close to making a deal so I tend to think that this deal was not actually on the table. There is nothing preventing israel from lifting the occupation unilatirally or simply saying on the record "on such and such a day there will be a nation called palestine". It's been decades since the israeli army starting occupying the palestenians if they didn't want to they could have ended this at any time. They never have and I submit that that's because they don't want to.
"So I suppose it's also big Jewish conspiracy that Israeli-Arabs have the highest living standards of any Arab group in the entire middle east (baring oil princes, who hoard their money, instead of feeding their starving people). It's probably also a massive plot that Israel kept giving money to the PA untill nearly a year into the war? Oh and my other favorit plot is that it was the jews who kept he palastinians poor during the 20 years they were under Jordainian rule! "
It's not a conspiracy simply a national policy. A healthy palestenian economy will have devestating effects on the israeli position. It will legitimize the palestenian cause, it will lead to a palestenian state, it will give greater incentive to europeans and americans to protect their markets (and therefore the palestenians) and last but not least it will dry up a pool of very cheap labor for israel. As for the standard of living I highly doubt the israeli arabs have a higher standard of living then the people in abu dhabi, kuwait, or even saudi arabia. Besides they are second class citizens anyway no matter how much money they make.
"These are two indigenous peoples (counting back 300 years)."
Now you are repeating what I said. There are two sets of people who bbelieve they have a birthright to the same land. Right now israelis have the military might (and the backing of the US) to kill everybody who lives on that land or at least kick them out of their homes and cities and move them into reservations, refugee camps, or concentration camps. I am fully conviced that this a very real possiblity. A second genocide or a mass dislocation of people from their homes and cities. It's an evil thing to do but evil has sunk into the soul of the israeli people.
"Sharon didn't have anything to do with Sabra and Shlita"
Yes he did and denying it does not make undo what he did. Hopefully the war crimes tribunal will act and hold him responsible.
"And I should also mention, under jewish law your not allowed to kill the palastinians to take their land. "
Oh man that's a funny one. I laughed so hard when I read this. But then again they have a built in excuse to kill the palestenians and take their land they simply claim that god promised that land to the jews ans voila kill with a clear conscience. Nice heh?
"It's possible, just not in any sort of pleasent way. Whether there will be Peace or War it's going to be a bloody one."
I stated my thoughts on how peace can be accomplished. It will be bloody as hell and the mass murder of palestenians by the israelis will forever be compared to the treatment of jews by hitler. That's my prediction.
War is necrophilia.
"Once again this is the israeli point of view. If you listen to other people they seem to have a different recollection of what happened."
This is also the point of view of the last 2 presidents of the united states, as well as the state department (the State Departement is rarely pro-israel). Furthermore it's the view of both the house and senet with a total of one senator and 22 house representatives desenting. All of these people are much closer to what happend at Camp David than any of us, and they have stated and voted in public that the facts I stated are true.
The palastinians point of view on camp david is irelevent. They also believe that jews back the blood of arab children into matzah, that the protocols of zion are actually true, and that it was the mosad that blew up the WTC. Their media sources make ours look positivley upright. They live in a place of state controled media, and rampant bias so extream that they actually told them that the IDF was droping pigs from the sky to eat up their crops and starve them out... the palastinian POV is therefore some what suspect.
"They blame Barak for lying to them and then stabbing them in back."
How did Barak stab them in the back? I have never been able to figure this out. Barak offered more than any other PM in history, and far more than anyone in the international community expected. How could he have stabed them in the back?
"There is nothing preventing israel from lifting the occupation unilatirally"
There is a daying. "If the Arabs put down their weapons their would be peace. If the Israelies put down their weapons there would be no Israel."
A Palastine formed on land less than maximalist demand will end up in another Sheba Farms episode. (every nation on earth has, including most of the Arab ones said that Sheba farms (3 acres) was part of Israel, but Hizbola says they have to keep killing to drive the israelies out).
A Palastine formed with no treaties for arms limitations will result in a staging area for a full out war against Israel.
The palastinians don't want west bank and gaza, they want israel, all of it. And they wont stop till they have it all. Religiously they cant. It's considered Wakf. All land ever owned by muslims can never be returned or sold.
" It's been decades since the israeli army starting occupying the palestenians if they didn't want to they could have ended this at any time. They never have and I submit that that's because they don't want to. "
They did pull out. Under the Oslo agreement. By 1998 95% of all Palastinians were under PA rule.
"A healthy palestenian economy will have devestating effects on the israeli position."
This is as oposed to endless suicide bombers? The number of wholes in this theory are countless. The biggest is that the only source for cheap labor are the palasnians. Palastinian labor hasn't been in major use for nearly a year. Most unskilled labor now comes from India, Russia, and the pacific rim. Cheap labor isn't hard to find, anywhere in the world. It's a sad fact of life. But if what you say is true, then America must be doing the same thing to Guatamala and Mexico, since most of our unskilled labor comes from them.
The bulk of Israels economy comes from skilled labor, diamonds, technology, agro-tech, biotech and medical export. Agroculture comes in pretty low on the list, and there is very little manufacturing industry in israel, it is almost all outsource to Europe. Most Palastinian labour was used for construction (of those blasted settlements!!), janitorial and taxi driver positions. Not exactly the kind of dependency that would warnt the kind of conspiracy your talking about.
Besides, there are hundreds of thousands of either unempoyed or under paid (avg $600 a month with a family of 6) jews that would be happy to do the work.
"As for the standard of living I highly doubt the israeli arabs have a higher standard of living then the people in abu dhabi, kuwait, or even saudi arabia."
The average income for Saudi Arabia is $32 a week, which has decliend more than 300% in the last 20 years. Women are treated like slaves, and are legaly the property of their husbands/fathers.
Kuwait &Abu Dahbi are welfare economies with 95% of the population recieving money from the state. Neither country has any industrie other than Oil export (realisticaly). Welfare economies dont' count, since standard of living includes freedom of entreprenuership.
In Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, & Abu Dhabi women are not allowed to vote or stand for election, nor can they decide whether or not to be married or divorced. Killing your wife is not considered murder, and is punishable by a maximum of 3 years. When I said standard of living I meant for men AND WOMEN!
Also Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, & Abu Dhabi have no REAL democracy. In the rare cases that they can elect someone you can either vote for only one person, or the person you do vote for has no power in the goverment. They are ALL Patriarcal Monarchies.
Lastly is the most condeming part, a Palastinian shop owner living in Jeruselam area B circulated a petition to the PA asking that they be left under Israeli jurisdiction when the PA's status is finalized. Before the shop owner was shot 6 times in a the chest, he had collected over 2,000 signitures. I'm looking for the name. The article is now over 2 years old and a little tough to find. Will get back to you.
"Hopefully the war crimes tribunal will act and hold him responsible."
He was already tried, and exonerahed by the UN war crimes tribunal 20 years ago. Unfortunatley the world community has no double jepordy laws like the US, he's being tried by the EU in absentee, that didn't exist at the time. Wow... I can't believe that's even legal!!
"Oh man that's a funny one. I laughed so hard when I read this. But then again they have a built in excuse to kill the palestenians and take their land they simply claim that god promised that land to the jews ans voila kill with a clear conscience. Nice heh?"
Go pick up a Talmud, it's how this argument started. Talmud is THE book of jewish law. And it states bluntly that you may not kill wontonly in a war of expansion. Furthermore you are not allowed to retake Israel in an any war of expansion. The only exception is for defense. Any teritory gained in an act of self defense is legitmate. However if you have the oportunity to limit your enemies casualties, or allow him to escape, you have to take it.
However Israel is a secular state. These rules only apply if the ultra-right wingers take office. (since in israel the right wing is generaly relgious, and they are compeled to abide by Talmudic law)
"It will be bloody as hell and the mass murder of palestenians by the israelis will forever be compared to the treatment of jews"
Unless you lost family, or were yourself in the Nazi camps, I would please ask you to refrain from commenting on them. You simply don't have the right. And yes, holocost victims (jewish or otherwise) DO have an exclusive on this!!
There is NO equivilancy to what Hitler did to the Jews. Hitler would not allow even one jew to live, or to escape. And I have proven over and over that Israel has tried to make peace, and even risked the lives of it's own sons and daughters to avoid hurting palastinian civilians. Even the gethoization of the Palastinians is done to them by thier own, not by the israelies.
In the holocost the Jews weren't allowed to run. We tried. We ran everywhere we could find a spare place. But we were sent back at the point of a barel to the concentration camps. Not just by the Nazie's but by the US, British, Canadians, Russians, Italians, Spanish, French, and every other nation on earth save the Chinise and Brazilians. When the Allies carpet bombed ever inch of germany, they wouldn't bomb the railways to the concentration camps, because it was a strategic advantage that the Nazi's wasted resources against the Jews. No one would defend us. No one would take us in. And when that wasn't enough they helped to kill us. That is what Israel is for! Never Again, means that NEVER again will jewish blood be cheap. Israel was created to defend jews where ever in the world they may be. And that is what Israel is doing!
If the Palastinians realy thought they were going through another holocoust then they can run! Because that's what we did. But they aren't going through that, and it isn't as horific, because no sane human would stay and be slautered like that (The Shoa)! They are surrouned by culturaly IDENTICLE countries, where they could live in peace! Before 1973 both Syria and Jordan claimed to be the actual "Palastinians". In situations like the holocost people run. They aren't running. Where there is smoke there is fire. There is no smoke, and certainly no evidence of genocide.
Europeans still feel guilty for the holocost, that's why they lay this claim on Israel. Because if the jews are as bad as them, then they have no reason to feel guilty for their complicity.
Yes you have the right to defend yourself against opression. But not against inocent civilians. You have the right to your land. But no plot of land is worth a human life. And if given the option between resorting to terrorism, and loosing.. you have the right to loose.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
I want to thank you for this conversation. It has confirmed for me that some sort of evil has invaded the soul of the israelis and remains there festering. I don't say this to critisize you but to warn you. Before you claim that I am picking on you, believe me when I say that the soul of the palestenians are also equally infected (I have repeatedly comdemned them as well). I find it ironic that a place so sacred to the three major religions of the world should be so infested with evil and I am sure there is a deeper meaning in all this that I can not grasp.
I have confronted you with the following facts.
1) You are militarily occupying another people.
2) you routinely deny basic human rights to people living under your occupation by denying them food, water and access to medical care. This view is also shared by amnesty international, doctors without borders, pysicians for human rights etc).
3) You routinely kill innocent civilians and do not compensate the families. Hundreds of them have been killed in the past year alone.
4) You torture palestenians and have torture as a stated policy of your govt.
5) You routinely arrest people and hold them without charges or access to lawyers in order to torture them.
None of these facts are deniable and all are not acceptable in a civilized society. These are the acts of a evil nation and there can be no justification of these acts under any circumstances.
You have found a way to excuse all of these acts with an astounding series of rationalizations. You quoted the Talmud, you claimed that they would have been worse off living under somebody elses occupation, you claimed self defense, you claimed that they are liars. Even if all these things are true none of them justify the evil acts you are committing, none of them.
You need to face the evil in your soul. Don't try to justify evil acts of yourselves by trying to find excuses.
BTW self defense is a silly excuse. You are a powerful nation with the full backing of the military might and funding of the united states. You have nuclear weapons, tanks, helicopter, modern jet fighters etc. The palestenians are practically unarmed compared to you. Hardly a fair fight.
This is the last thing I am going to post on this thread because I am convinced that we will keep going around in circles. You are clearly unable to face the reality of what you are doing to the palestenians and are unable to evaluate yourself and your actions in an objective way.
I hope that the efforts of the peace makers in your respective countries will one day be able to lift off this curse and I hope that it will happen before the massacre and the mass dislocation of palestenians I forsee in the not too distant future.
War is necrophilia.
Since when did I do any of this?
"You" is inapropriate, since at no point did I say "We".
I am an American citizen. The fact that I'm a jew does not meen I'm an Israeli. It is a curios asumption.
Your right, time for this to end. How about a quote from one of the greatest humanitarians and crusaders for human rights in history?
"Be carefull sir when you refer to ani-zionism, for it is just another name for anti-semitism" - The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 1968
I would rather be ashes than dust!