Yeah genetically we're all brothers and sisters..we all share common ancestry. Its a mistake however to look at I/P as people fighting over religion or ethnicity....its not a religious war...its a political one. It would be same fight you'd see in North America centuries ago when the Europeans were taking the land from the native people of this continent...and when they resisted they became violent barbarians in the eyes of the occupier...
I'll let Bertrand Russell sum it up....
"The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was ‘given’ by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict. No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East".
I've studied I/P for a decade. I first saw it in shades of gray, but its become only starker the more I learned.
In terms of International Law wise its not complicated what should happen. You can't keep land you win in war and refugees have a right to return after the war. This is the law. If it were any other people, we'd all reconize the law...but Israel is rich/powerful and they tell us we arent going to concede to law so we find ways to bend the Palestenians to give up their rights...generations of people have lived and died in refugee camps...you think this would be tolerated if it was another group of people? Come on...thats the other thing..its only complicated because we refuse to see the Arabs as having the same rights as we'd give another group of people.
None of the great thinkers of the 20th century, from Ghandi, to Einstein, to Orwell and Russell saw I/P in shades of gray either. Its terms of morality, its was clear cut to them as well. A group of people used the shadow of British guns to go in an establish their own nation in someone elses land, using the Bible as a deed.
"Brazil and India are quickly rising in world power and the US doesn't mind in the slightest'
How do you know 'the US doesn't mind in the slightest' What are their goals? What are our goals? What are the goals of the nations 'diametrically opposed to ours'?
All due respect, but its really hard to have debate anything when you describe forgein policy as if its some sort of comic book...these are the good guys, these are the bad guys...we have good goals..they have bad goals..
Lets not make it complicated. When relationshiops between nations are defined by might makes right...wars happen, people die. This is why after 70 million or so people were killed in a war, law was defined as the means for relationships between countries. All countries have their own sovereignty...order between countries is maintained by law and the UN. That the US is so quick to ignore the rights of sovergin nations when convieniant should not be celebrated...for anyone who knows history they should be alarmed, for anyone who can see beyond nations and their own country, there should be outrage.
its 'North Korea and Venezuela' they 'dream their mad dreams of power and glory' but the USA...
we're just 'putting out diplomatic fires and cleaning up after natural disasters.'
and this gets modded Insightful?....groan
There is plenty of lessons in history to show what happens when you have a dim view of the world such as
'Our opponents have goals that are incompatible with ours'
groan....
This has all been worked out before. Its why international laws and respect for other nations sovereignty is important.
Its not Iran whose been invading and bombing countries and refugees in the Middle East for the past 40 years....That would be the US and Israel...Iran not having a nuke just means that will continue. What are you happy about? More ignoring international law in and dominating weaker states.. Yea!!/s
So long as the US refuses to face the reality that terrorism is a result of foreign policy and not this LIE that 'they hate our freedom'...we'll always be under defending ourselves from aggrieved people who have no voice except through violence...
Despite all this wikileaks shows that the next war with Iran is already being ramped up. Is that going to make us safer? Please. Americans have to get real about what the goals of government is....its not to keep us safe.
The Armistice Agreements in 1949 said that neither party would attack the other...Israel broke that agreement and again, invaded, bombed and killed the people of Lebanon.
Iran has never had a war with Israel nor directly attacked Israel. You want to buy the propaganda that Iran is a direct threat to Israel...despite no proof, no historical record, be my guess.
Israel is committing suicide right now. Even if they attack Iran and succeed militarily they will lose any legitimacy they had. The world is a changing and nothing Israel can do save for respecting international law is going to help it.
There is a different in pre-emptively attacking someone and attacking someone because they invaded and took over your land.
Israel invaded and occupied Lebanon for 15 years...they bombed them willy nilly 4 years ago...to this day they occupy Lebanese land.
when Israel stops building settlements outside of their border they'll stop being attacked, every freedom loving person should support that. Iranian or not. Also the quote you mention is a LIE unless you can show me a citation.
Oh Grow up. Iran has not attacked any of its neighbors in the past 60 years. Israel has done it dozens of times and Israel is in violation of more than 50 UN resolutions.
The fact that critical thinking so quickly goes out the window for so many people when the govt says 'Iran wants to destroy us' is indeed, sad.
Obviously the same country who is dragging the whole towards a war with Iran is also responsible for the worm
Russia and China want to be allies with Iran. You are deluding yourself if you think there is any nation in the world that fears or wants war with Iran besides Israel/US.
In fact most nations in that region if not the world are moving away from the US which is obviously in some sort of suicidal death sprial. Just look at Turkey where they are turning down US military cooperation and seeking out deals with the Chinese. Nato is balwking on the endless wars the US has plans for the Middle East, no one contributes to it besides the US...just try and convince Europe that attacking Iran is a NATO, it won't happen.
Israel is behind this worm, and if they get what they want, they will get their war, and then frankly even if they win the battle, the war will be clear, the US/Israel vs the rest of the 'peaceful' world and in the long run we won't win that.
'lets all emigrate to a place based on the bible.' Come on. Add to that the obsession with the Holocaust and a million Russians immigrants who don't have tradition European liberalism to at least feel sympathy for the Palestinians..and you have modern day Israel...which is not a pretty picture.
"How come they haven't permitted the Palestinian refugees within their borders to become integrated into their Arab national life?"
Because international law calls for refugees to have right to return to their homes after a war. Why should the Palestinians give up this right? The Israelis want them to sacrifice that right because they want their 'democratic' country to have a Jewish majority. Good people should support the Palestinians to not give up their rights for something that is in fact not democratic, but racist.
You have a lot to learn. In the late 1800s Palestine was a colony for Zionists Europeans. After WWI a rich Zionist (Baron Rothchild) had the British who controlled the area after the Ottoman empire collapsed to promise to make a state for the zionists in Palestine.
For decades afterwards most intellegent people Ghandi, Einstein, Orwell, the US state department realize that unilaterally creating a state against the wishes the of the indigenous people was fool hardy. The early Zionists were persistent and carried out terrorists attacks against the British until they left...as it was after WWII and the Holocaust had created many Jewish Refugees the UN decided to partition the land giving 20% of the population 60% of the land. Truman, the US president recognized the new state against the advice of the state department. Before the neighboring Arab countries even could react the Zionists destroyed arab villages and drove the people out
“We drove them out because of the Zionist ideology. Pure and simple. We came to inherit the land. Who do you inherit it from? If the land is empty, you don’t inherit it from anyone. The land wasn’t empty so we inherited it by driving them out"
After 1948 war came the 1956 war where Israel conspired with England and France to attack Egypt who had nationalized the Suez canal. Real Heoric. Ike and the Russians made them stop that. Soon after the Lavon affair happened...this was when Israel committed a series of terrorist attacks in Egypt and blamed them muslims...its true! haha.
Then came the 1967..guess who started that? Oh yeah it was a 'pre-emptive war' started by Israel. Right after the war they claimed all of Jerusalem as their capital, even though its against IL to keep territory won in war...but whatever...the Arabs did strike back..the one war they started in 1973...they lost..after that they offered full peace if Israel returned to 1967 borders...that offer has been made numerous times since...but its always refused by israel... preferring the lets negotiate for this pizza while I continue to keep eating it tactic. Now there are 500K Israelis living outside the pre 1967 border in settlements
Due to Israels unprovoked wars on Lebanon and Gaza and more open move to the right wing, things are changing. Outside the US, reality is talked about...there are active boycotts, musicians refuse to perform there...Turkey once a close ally of the US is refusing some military cooperation due to the US bias for Israel. The world is changing..Israel will not forever be able to count on a US willing to go to war its enemies...eventually there will be one state there again, and all people will have equal rights. How can anyone be against that.
"Iraq is probably still better off today than it was under Saddam Hussein."
groan. Have you read what the Iraqis say about us? Do you they think they're better off? No...honestly only an American could say this....and no the US has been responsible for more Iraqi deaths than Sadamm was ever accused of. Over 100K killed from our recent combat there...and during the previous 10 years due to our embargo its said that between 300K and 900K people died.
Can you fathom that? I can't. We've witnessed the trauma the US went through when 2500 people were killed here...imagine if more than > 500K of your fellow citizens were killed...lord knows what % that is....Imagine your cities bombed, your goverment deposed...decades of progress erased.
The world may keep truning, but for those who lived through this in Iraq...they will never be able to go back to their old lives nor move forward with the rest of the world..their lives are forfeit...an entire generation lost will be lost....
You really imagine the Iraqis saying...'oh yeah, we've lost everything, or homes, livelyhood, family...but thank g-d we have a new president.'
No, no, you have much to learn if you think you this was a war of liberation. They've been using that lie for 4K years and people still havent caught on. Its incredible really.
Remember that scene in Back to the Future when they shot the professor. Remember who shot him? Libyans.
"Run for it Marty...Its the Libyans!!"
haha
Watch this video. Its good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi1ZNEjEarw
By Jackie Salloum. http://www.jsalloum.org/videos.html
Official selection of the Sundance Film Festival 2005
A trailer-esque montage spectacle of Hollywood's relentless vilification and dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims. Inspired by the book "Reel Bad Arabs" by Dr. Jack Shaheen
Out of 1000 films that have Arab & Muslim characters (from the year 1896 to 2000) 12 were postive depictions, 52 were even handed and the rest of the 90O and so were negative.
Man, I have to re-read this shat before I post it and check for grammatical errors....
oh well....I hear what you're saying, and I'm sure you're partly right. I may be a few degrees too idealistic. That happens when you know whats going on over there and you realize how little of that truth is being spoken about in America. But even if I go to far what I'm saying closer to the truth than the crap was first posted about this story.
Those comments were similar to what I see about Iraq. After we bomb their cities, destroy their goverment and society...then when theres anarchy and bombings...Americans read about it and say 'oh my they are so violent! It must be because of their religion!'
Same as with the reaction to Hamas in this story.
To ignore the political things and lay it all at the feat of their culture and religion is a delusion.
No Hamas is not pure and good..but this story IMO is not the most important thing Americans should be aware of RE I/P.
In the US you will read endless stories about how bad hamas is, how crazy those muslims, but Americans will get very little of the reality of what I/P is about, a reality that the rest of world is well aware of.
I was in the WTC for both attacks. Afterwards I investigated why we were attacked. The terrorists said we were attacked because of support for Israel. The govt and media said we were attacked because they hate our freedom. That is a lie.
Our policy towards I/P hasent changed a lick since 9/11. Now after we kill all the "terrorists"...were up to what now? 150K? Eventually we will have to face reality and Americans will have to learn about I/P...this story frankly is, even if true, even if terrible a waste of peoples time considering what is going on over there.
We get upset over someone being arrested for blasphamy but the 60 year occupation, aparthied, that gets ignored by most Americans. Something is wrong here.
Its funny you should see US politicians squirm when they are asked about this...Actually only Helen Thomas has the spine to ask...they all avoid the question, although they and us both know...are there nukes in the middle east?
the reason they dont answer the question is that there is a law that says we cant give military aid to a nuclear country that isnt a memember of the NPT. So the politicians response is to simply not answer the question.
Its absurd to me that a nation 'of the people' with a free media would tolerate such a belittling of our intellegence as this, especially when you combine it with the moral high ground we take on Irans nuclear program...but eh thats America.
I don't know how old you are, but seriously at some point you have to understand the difference between the image and the reality.
"fighting for liberty"
thats the image you're taught...the reality is slavery, no sufferage for women, genoicde of native americans.
Its important to reconize that as its all over history and current events...Image = Operation Iraqi freedom! Reality = see wikileaks
Image= Our great democratic ally and bastion of freedom in the Middle East..Reality=Israel who has the most UN resolutions against it in the world...and who is ethnically cleansing the native people of the area.
Seriously, turn off the TV for a few weeks and thing about the world using your own mind instead of just repeating slogans like 'Americans were fighting for liberty..."
You ignore the reality of whats happening while calling for them to be responsible to rule themselves to some standard that Israel...the occupier decides.
The Palesteinians are where they are because another people violently established a country in their land and have been continuing to expland it via. 500K Israelis live outside of Israels original border. Why? Because they are not interested. Because those 500K people are outside Israels border, 4 million Palestenians are controlled by rules and checkpoints by Israel...yet they have no vote in Israel, even though they are subject to Israeli law.
If Israel wants the land, then they can keep. Let them declare their borders...something they havent done...and make the Palestenians who fall within them citizens....but they dont do this cause they want Israel to be a 'Jewish" democractic state (haha) so they keep the land and oppress the people...thats not nice or legal
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah genetically we're all brothers and sisters..we all share common ancestry. Its a mistake however to look at I/P as people fighting over religion or ethnicity....its not a religious war...its a political one. It would be same fight you'd see in North America centuries ago when the Europeans were taking the land from the native people of this continent...and when they resisted they became violent barbarians in the eyes of the occupier...
I'll let Bertrand Russell sum it up....
"The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was ‘given’ by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict. No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East".
mondoweiss.net
I've studied I/P for a decade. I first saw it in shades of gray, but its become only starker the more I learned.
In terms of International Law wise its not complicated what should happen. You can't keep land you win in war and refugees have a right to return after the war. This is the law. If it were any other people, we'd all reconize the law...but Israel is rich/powerful and they tell us we arent going to concede to law so we find ways to bend the Palestenians to give up their rights.. .generations of people have lived and died in refugee camps...you think this would be tolerated if it was another group of people? Come on...thats the other thing..its only complicated because we refuse to see the Arabs as having the same rights as we'd give another group of people.
None of the great thinkers of the 20th century, from Ghandi, to Einstein, to Orwell and Russell saw I/P in shades of gray either. Its terms of morality, its was clear cut to them as well. A group of people used the shadow of British guns to go in an establish their own nation in someone elses land, using the Bible as a deed.
mondoweiss.net
The 1967 war was a 'pre-emptive' war.
Israel attacked first.
The law is very clear. You do not get to keep territory you take during war, especially not when you attacked first!
http://open.salon.com/blog/judith_green/2009/01/09/truth_against_truth_the_six_day_war
"Brazil and India are quickly rising in world power and the US doesn't mind in the slightest'
How do you know 'the US doesn't mind in the slightest'
What are their goals? What are our goals? What are the goals of the nations 'diametrically opposed to ours'?
All due respect, but its really hard to have debate anything when you describe forgein policy as if its some sort of comic book...these are the good guys, these are the bad guys...we have good goals..they have bad goals..
Lets not make it complicated. When relationshiops between nations are defined by might makes right...wars happen, people die. This is why after 70 million or so people were killed in a war, law was defined as the means for relationships between countries. All countries have their own sovereignty...order between countries is maintained by law and the UN. That the US is so quick to ignore the rights of sovergin nations when convieniant should not be celebrated...for anyone who knows history they should be alarmed, for anyone who can see beyond nations and their own country, there should be outrage.
mondoweiss.net
I love how when
its 'North Korea and Venezuela' they 'dream their mad dreams of power and glory'
but the USA...
we're just 'putting out diplomatic fires and cleaning up after natural disasters.'
and this gets modded Insightful?....groan
There is plenty of lessons in history to show what happens when you have a dim view of the world such as
'Our opponents have goals that are incompatible with ours'
groan....
This has all been worked out before. Its why international laws and respect for other nations sovereignty is important.
mondoweiss dot net
Have some perspective.
Its not Iran whose been invading and bombing countries and refugees in the Middle East for the past 40 years....That would be the US and Israel...Iran not having a nuke just means that will continue. What are you happy about? More ignoring international law in and dominating weaker states.. Yea!! /s
So long as the US refuses to face the reality that terrorism is a result of foreign policy and not this LIE that 'they hate our freedom'...we'll always be under defending ourselves from aggrieved people who have no voice except through violence...
Despite all this wikileaks shows that the next war with Iran is already being ramped up. Is that going to make us safer? Please. Americans have to get real about what the goals of government is....its not to keep us safe.
mondoweiss.net
The Armistice Agreements in 1949 said that neither party would attack the other...Israel broke that agreement and again, invaded, bombed and killed the people of Lebanon.
Iran has never had a war with Israel nor directly attacked Israel. You want to buy the propaganda that Iran is a direct threat to Israel...despite no proof, no historical record, be my guess.
Israel is committing suicide right now. Even if they attack Iran and succeed militarily they will lose any legitimacy they had. The world is a changing and nothing Israel can do save for respecting international law is going to help it.
There is a different in pre-emptively attacking someone and attacking someone because they invaded and took over your land.
Israel invaded and occupied Lebanon for 15 years...they bombed them willy nilly 4 years ago...to this day they occupy Lebanese land.
when Israel stops building settlements outside of their border they'll stop being attacked, every freedom loving person should support that. Iranian or not. Also the quote you mention is a LIE unless you can show me a citation.
I suggest you broaden your views on I/P.
http://imeu.net/#panel-1
Oh Grow up. Iran has not attacked any of its neighbors in the past 60 years. Israel has done it dozens of times and Israel is in violation of more than 50 UN resolutions.
The fact that critical thinking so quickly goes out the window for so many people when the govt says 'Iran wants to destroy us' is indeed, sad.
Obviously the same country who is dragging the whole towards a war with Iran is also responsible for the worm
Russia and China want to be allies with Iran. You are deluding yourself if you think there is any nation in the world that fears or wants war with Iran besides Israel/US.
In fact most nations in that region if not the world are moving away from the US which is obviously in some sort of suicidal death sprial. Just look at Turkey where they are turning down US military cooperation and seeking out deals with the Chinese. Nato is balwking on the endless wars the US has plans for the Middle East, no one contributes to it besides the US...just try and convince Europe that attacking Iran is a NATO, it won't happen.
Israel is behind this worm, and if they get what they want, they will get their war, and then frankly even if they win the battle, the war will be clear, the US/Israel vs the rest of the 'peaceful' world and in the long run we won't win that.
better get those Canadian Passports ready now.
This is not some one off lunatic. At best, half of Israel shares his views.
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/11/israeli-state-violence-and-the-value-of-palestinian-life.html
Lets not forget, Zionism itself is a cult...
'lets all emigrate to a place based on the bible.' Come on. Add to that the obsession with the Holocaust and a million Russians immigrants who don't have tradition European liberalism to at least feel sympathy for the Palestinians..and you have modern day Israel...which is not a pretty picture.
Even if some of those people
http://maxblumenthal.com/feeling-the-hate-in-jerusalem/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWha0aMGIlQ&feature=player_embedded
"How come they haven't permitted the Palestinian refugees within their borders to become integrated into their Arab national life?"
Because international law calls for refugees to have right to return to their homes after a war. Why should the Palestinians give up this right? The Israelis want them to sacrifice that right because they want their 'democratic' country to have a Jewish majority. Good people should support the Palestinians to not give up their rights for something that is in fact not democratic, but racist.
Marc,
You have a lot to learn. In the late 1800s Palestine was a colony for Zionists Europeans. After WWI a rich Zionist (Baron Rothchild) had the British who controlled the area after the Ottoman empire collapsed to promise to make a state for the zionists in Palestine.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917
For decades afterwards most intellegent people Ghandi, Einstein, Orwell, the US state department realize that unilaterally creating a state against the wishes the of the indigenous people was fool hardy. The early Zionists were persistent and carried out terrorists attacks against the British until they left...as it was after WWII and the Holocaust had created many Jewish Refugees the UN decided to partition the land giving 20% of the population 60% of the land. Truman, the US president recognized the new state against the advice of the state department. Before the neighboring Arab countries even could react the Zionists destroyed arab villages and drove the people out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_towns_and_villages_depopulated_during_the_1948_Arab-Israeli_War
“We drove them out because of the Zionist ideology. Pure and simple. We came to inherit the land. Who do you inherit it from? If the land is empty, you don’t inherit it from anyone. The land wasn’t empty so we inherited it by driving them out"
After 1948 war came the 1956 war where Israel conspired with England and France to attack Egypt who had nationalized the Suez canal. Real Heoric. Ike and the Russians made them stop that. Soon after the Lavon affair happened...this was when Israel committed a series of terrorist attacks in Egypt and blamed them muslims...its true! haha.
Then came the 1967..guess who started that? Oh yeah it was a 'pre-emptive war' started by Israel. Right after the war they claimed all of Jerusalem as their capital, even though its against IL to keep territory won in war...but whatever...the Arabs did strike back..the one war they started in 1973...they lost..after that they offered full peace if Israel returned to 1967 borders...that offer has been made numerous times since...but its always refused by israel... preferring the lets negotiate for this pizza while I continue to keep eating it tactic. Now there are 500K Israelis living outside the pre 1967 border in settlements
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Peace_Initiative
Due to Israels unprovoked wars on Lebanon and Gaza and more open move to the right wing, things are changing. Outside the US, reality is talked about...there are active boycotts, musicians refuse to perform there...Turkey once a close ally of the US is refusing some military cooperation due to the US bias for Israel. The world is changing..Israel will not forever be able to count on a US willing to go to war its enemies...eventually there will be one state there again, and all people will have equal rights. How can anyone be against that.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2003/oct/23/israel-the-alternative/
"Iraq is probably still better off today than it was under Saddam Hussein."
groan. Have you read what the Iraqis say about us? Do you they think they're better off? No...honestly only an American could say this....and no the US has been responsible for more Iraqi deaths than Sadamm was ever accused of. Over 100K killed from our recent combat there...and during the previous 10 years due to our embargo its said that between 300K and 900K people died.
Can you fathom that? I can't. We've witnessed the trauma the US went through when 2500 people were killed here...imagine if more than > 500K of your fellow citizens were killed...lord knows what % that is....Imagine your cities bombed, your goverment deposed...decades of progress erased.
The world may keep truning, but for those who lived through this in Iraq...they will never be able to go back to their old lives nor move forward with the rest of the world..their lives are forfeit...an entire generation lost will be lost....
You really imagine the Iraqis saying...'oh yeah, we've lost everything, or homes, livelyhood, family...but thank g-d we have a new president.'
No, no, you have much to learn if you think you this was a war of liberation. They've been using that lie for 4K years and people still havent caught on. Its incredible really.
Remember that scene in Back to the Future when they shot the professor. Remember who shot him? Libyans.
"Run for it Marty...Its the Libyans!!"
haha
Watch this video. Its good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi1ZNEjEarw
By Jackie Salloum. http://www.jsalloum.org/videos.html
Official selection of the Sundance Film Festival 2005
A trailer-esque montage spectacle of Hollywood's relentless vilification and dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims.
Inspired by the book
"Reel Bad Arabs"
by Dr. Jack Shaheen
Out of 1000 films that have Arab & Muslim characters (from the year 1896 to 2000)
12 were postive depictions, 52 were even handed and the rest of the 90O and so were negative.
Man, I have to re-read this shat before I post it and check for grammatical errors....
oh well....I hear what you're saying, and I'm sure you're partly right. I may be a few degrees too idealistic. That happens when you know whats going on over there and you realize how little of that truth is being spoken about in America. But even if I go to far what I'm saying closer to the truth than the crap was first posted about this story.
Those comments were similar to what I see about Iraq. After we bomb their cities, destroy their goverment and society...then when theres anarchy and bombings...Americans read about it and say 'oh my they are so violent! It must be because of their religion!'
Same as with the reaction to Hamas in this story.
To ignore the political things and lay it all at the feat of their culture and religion is a delusion.
every war but one was intiated by Israel...try reading Israeli newspapers you'll get some truth...
and lets stop with the "extermination against jews" troupes , the Palestenians are the victims in this. full stop.
I know lets go back to the 'this is what I hate Islam' trolling that followed this story.
If you care about 9/11 you should make yourself intimately familiar with I/P.
It is the main reason for 9/11 and every terrorist attack on America.
Once we kill all the terrorists, if we dont deal with that, there will be new terrorists to take their place.
this is what happens when you focus on the wrong root of the problem(islam) instead of the real reason we are being attacked (nakba, Palestine)
whether people sympathize with me shouldnt matter.
this is information.
evaluate it on whether its true or not, not on whether it comes off as polemic.
to my view this is information that is not disementated in the US very much.
"They hate us for our freedom, Al Queda, Hamas, Hizbolla, Iran, Muslims are all seen as one blob thats threatening us."
thats how I see Americans perspective of I/P, Muslims...and thats simply not true, and in fact is very dangerous.
No Hamas is not pure and good..but this story IMO is not the most important thing Americans should be aware of RE I/P.
In the US you will read endless stories about how bad hamas is, how crazy those muslims, but Americans will get very little of the reality of what I/P is about, a reality that the rest of world is well aware of.
I was in the WTC for both attacks. Afterwards I investigated why we were attacked. The terrorists said we were attacked because of support for Israel. The govt and media said we were attacked because they hate our freedom. That is a lie.
Our policy towards I/P hasent changed a lick since 9/11. Now after we kill all the "terrorists"...were up to what now? 150K? Eventually we will have to face reality and Americans will have to learn about I/P...this story frankly is, even if true, even if terrible a waste of peoples time considering what is going on over there.
We get upset over someone being arrested for blasphamy but the 60 year occupation, aparthied, that gets ignored by most Americans. Something is wrong here.
mondoweiss.net
+1
Its funny you should see US politicians squirm when they are asked about this...Actually only Helen Thomas has the spine to ask...they all avoid the question, although they and us both know...are there nukes in the middle east?
the reason they dont answer the question is that there is a law that says we cant give military aid to a nuclear country that isnt a memember of the NPT. So the politicians response is to simply not answer the question.
Its absurd to me that a nation 'of the people' with a free media would tolerate such a belittling of our intellegence as this, especially when you combine it with the moral high ground we take on Irans nuclear program...but eh thats America.
"fighting for liberty"
I don't know how old you are, but seriously at some point you have to understand the difference between the image and the reality.
"fighting for liberty"
thats the image you're taught...the reality is slavery, no sufferage for women, genoicde of native americans.
Its important to reconize that as its all over history and current events...Image = Operation Iraqi freedom! Reality = see wikileaks
Image= Our great democratic ally and bastion of freedom in the Middle East..Reality=Israel who has the most UN resolutions against it in the world...and who is ethnically cleansing the native people of the area.
Seriously, turn off the TV for a few weeks and thing about the world using your own mind instead of just repeating slogans like 'Americans were fighting for liberty ..."
You ignore the reality of whats happening while calling for them to be responsible to rule themselves to some standard that Israel...the occupier decides.
The Palesteinians are where they are because another people violently established a country in their land and have been continuing to expland it via. 500K Israelis live outside of Israels original border. Why? Because they are not interested. Because those 500K people are outside Israels border, 4 million Palestenians are controlled by rules and checkpoints by Israel...yet they have no vote in Israel, even though they are subject to Israeli law.
If Israel wants the land, then they can keep. Let them declare their borders...something they havent done...and make the Palestenians who fall within them citizens....but they dont do this cause they want Israel to be a 'Jewish" democractic state (haha) so they keep the land and oppress the people...thats not nice or legal