…and one who does not

sebastian

When Saudi Arabia leaves Trans-Jordanian land - including wealth generating Makkah and Medina - then it can start talking territory. Until then, it can shut up. Besides, PTF really means Arab "muslim" lands. Christian Arabs, who were there first let him be reminded, have suffered as much as the Jews at the hands of Arab muslims. In his own country of KSA for instance, they are totally forbidden openly to practice their more ancient - and more civilized - Christian faith. Indeed, I don't think there's any Saudi Arab Christian community there at all. In all my time there I never saw or heard of one. So before the Prince of Excess and Self Indulgence addresses the Jews, let him right the many many wrongs committed against that other, pre-Islamic indigenous Arab group that had its lands stolen and its faith bloodily repressed. Who does this bloated upstart think he is?????????

Stephen

''if the Arabs stop trying to occupy Jewish land and attack the west'' wtf? Even the Arabs in Morocco, Tunisia, Kuwait? Why do you emphasize the issue of anti-semitism (which is far to contradictory for my liking) when you clearly don't like the semitic people next door to israel? i.e ''the arabs trying to occupy jewish land'', melanie? You've simply writen about Arabs the way an anti-jewish person writes about Jews. ...Thats simple physcology. What ever the prince said it makes you come out with the hidden hatred you have for the semitic people next door to Israel quite clearly. ...Remember... it wasn't the Jews who caused 9/11... it was the muslims. ...Please.

sebastian

I think we should remember that until attempts to destroy Israel failed and Israel took certain small patches of a huge, largely enemy "muslim" surrounding region, the presently "occupied territories" were as "occupied" long before as they are now: by Egypt in Gaza and Jordan in the West Bank. But no Saudi or other muslim objections then! There was never an independant "Palestine" (a non-Arab construct in any case) leading me to ask whether "Palestine" hasn't actually less right to exist than the Jewish State it seeks to replace. "Palestine" may be altogether more artificial and invented. Indeed, Arab muslims - their "brothers" (some "brothers", actually)- have been harsher on the "Palestinians" and their political agitations than the Jews have ever been, and have supressed "Palestinian", nationalist-style uprisings in Syria and Jordan with much greater and more ruthless brutality. Moreover, the "Palestinians", such as they are, have been more unjust on themselves than the hated Israeli ("Zionist") democracy that at least some of them would actually, but confidentially, prefer to live under: where there's better justice; more transparency; better organisation; better opportunities; more honest and receptive local and national government.....and so on. Where, in fact, they are emancipated from the awful Arafat legacy of self-seeking, incurable corruption and venal dishonesty. Certainly, I guess, discriminated-against Arab Christians in Gaza (if there are any left now) would be happier ruled by Israeli Jerusalem than by fanatical and Islamist Hamas and its cohorts of hooded, Qur'an and Kalshnikov brandishing gunmen. Israel is a better place to grow oranges and to brew beer. KSA, which may be the largest occupier in Arabia of others' lands, should take more care over its public claims to the high - or even the low - ground - in these matters.

Helen

Can you imagine the reaction from the Left if Arabs were asked to leave Western land, especially those who want Sharia imposed on us all? But if it's the other way round, why: "It's their culture, innit?"

roGER

What an embarrassment Mel's blog is becoming. She accuses one of the world's great civilisations of being uncivilised because it refuses to condone theft.

BJ

Whatever one thinks of the Suadi regime this is a remarkable statement which underlines the reality that the Saudi Plan offers the best opportunity for negotiating a two state settlement, based on mutual recognition,offering peace and security to both Palestinians and Israelis.

James Strong

Contrary to roGER's claim Mel's blog is a wise and firm defence of civilsation.A civilisation that is under threat from Dark Ages superstition and barbarism.

JJS

Yeah, right, BJ ... and, yes, there is a tooth fairy....

george

I think Seb is correct in proposing that Palestine would be strangled at birth by the Saudis and their enablers, were they to fulfill their wet dreams of a second holocaust. 'Palestinians' have been shown since their invention to be only a few steps above Jews and israelis in the Arab untermensch rankings. Notice the term 'Arab lands' rather than Palestinian lands used by that forked tongue Saudi. The word "Palestinian" is strictly for the use of the gullible European infidels, for the Saudi supremacists it is merely a temporay proxy notion to be discarded once the land has reverted to the Ummah and the 'Palestinians' have outlived their usefulness as canon fodder. In other words , the worst scenario for the Palestinians would be in they annihilated Israel, The Palestinian state would not last for one fraction of the time Israel has.

N. Simon

Stephen, Arabs aren't Semitic, they're Hamitic

Arabs have only one link to their claim of being a Semitic people- the Arabic language. Despite this, language and ancestry don't go hand in hand. After all, most Americans speak English, a Germanic language, but this doesn't mean that most Americans are Germanic.

Genetically speaking, Arabs (the ones from the Arabian Peninsula and North Africa, at least) are more closely related to East Africans than they are to the peoples of the Fertile Crescent. As far as the Bible is concerned, Ishmael was the son of a Semite (Abraham) and a Hamite (Hagar was an Egyptian). Ishmael then subsequently married Egyptian (Hamitic) women, who gave birth to children who were only 1/4 Semitic. As far as we know, Ishmael's sons lived in a region where there were no Semites as far as the Bible records. The logical outcome of this is that Ishmael's sons ended up marrying other Hamites, and the sons and daughters of those marriages ended up marrying other Hamites, a process that kept occurring until the rise of Islam in the 7th Century.

The end result is a Hamitic people with less than a drop of Semitic blood in their veins calling themselves Semites just because they happen to speak a Semitic language. Even Hitler only looked as far back as the grandparents to ensure racial 'purity'.

To make a long story short, Arabs aren't Semitic and are therefore fully capable of being as anti-semitic as Hitler, or even worse.

J. Isaacs

For a ghoulish taste of the barbarism James Strong says we can expect, type "Saudi Executioner" into You Tube. You can watch the Saudi headsman showing off his swords and chillingly explaining how he chops off heads, hands and feet, all in the name of Allah. He speaks in a matter-of-fact tone of voice and with the quiet confidence of someone who knows he has a job for life. Indeed, he is training one of his sons to follow him. Possibly one of his other sons could be in training to pass the British citizenship exam.

Ron Todd

I think they need to do more before they can be considered to be civilised. As important as their policies to other countries is their treatment of their own people. To be civilised they need to move towards democracy , religious freedom rule of law and equality for women

sebastian

I agree with george. The so called "Palestinians" - whom I prefer to think of as Jordanian or Egyptian, Islamist dissidents - are neither welcome nor liked in muslim Arab lands. In KSA, whose so called peace plan is a stalking horse to reduce Israel to its former and difficult to defend borders, "Palestinians" are hardly able to gain citizenship even after many years of living there or after being born there. The same applies to the Gulf States. No way would a "Palestinian" Hamas member be embraced as a citizen of thriving western supported, Sunni Dubai, for instance. Of course, Wahhabist KSA wants the return of all of Arabia to muslim control as their rather odd and very intolerant religion requires: this means, naturally, capturing back the small Jewish bit including Jerusalem, the Dome on the Rock and Al Aqsa mosque: built as symbols of muslim triumph and now under Israeli juristiction. I say "naturally"; but there's actually nothing "natural" about an entirely muslim Arabia. Nor is there anything "natural" about its constituent countries' settled borders. Actually, its totalitarian creed and its lines of demarcation are all artificial. The first was largely plagiarised from former faiths, then perverted and used as a pretext for warmongering and supression in the worst kind of man-made manner; the second - the demarcations - are mainly of western mapmakers making and/or the result of muslim strife. Israel, is no less "natural" or no more "artificial" than all the others. So the others have no higher moral - "natural" - right than Israel to any of it. What's different, however, is the more civilized behaviour of the Jewish State. You think otherwise? Try comparing it to any of the surrounding Arab countries to see which is more democratic; which has a free press; whose education system is most genuine and conforms most to proper academic standards; which legal system is modern, fair and impartial; which politicians ("rulers") are most accountable; and so on. If anyone has a natural right to exist in peace and prosperity, it's surely the Jewish State. They've earned it. Their neighbours have abused theirs.