The airbrushing of Middle East history

Lucashyde

Makes me want to weep.

Dai the Red Sea Pedestrian from Edinburgh

Just an ignorant intellect that stubbornly refuses to accept that the word Palestine isn't Arabic but a Latin word (Palestinia)imposed as a governate by Rome upon the entire Jewish region. Moreover, in his ignorance (and stupidity) this deluded intellect is also totally blind to the fact that his real ally in the region is Israel and not his sentimentally constructed Arabian extremists on the other side of the river.

Gerry C

Appears that the Grauniad inquisitors rapidly deleted one Janny 11 who - it seems - tried to point out that the term 'early Palestinians' was, um, slightly inaccurate. (Doncha just love the way the G is so staunch a defender of free speech?!) However, others have succeeded in pointing out this 'mistake', the best being the chap who is waiting for remakes of classic films which will show that the 'early Palestinians' were there and did everything and invented everything before anyone else was even awake. 'Early Palestinian Jurassic Park' will star, he claims, the well-known EP Jeff Goldblum...

Edward McLaughlin

The tragic thing is that, with so many of our people now almost totally devoid of even the slightest connection with, and awareness of, their own history and that of the wider world, such factoid narratives are snapped up and regurgitated.

Baron

the Grauniad’s scribbler may have got it right, you know, as the later Palestinians who, following on the early ones, pushed the boundaries of their contribution to mankind much further by painting the Mona Lisa, composing scores of operas, symphonies, discovering America and later penicillin, splitting the atom….

RR

With few exceptions I no longer believe anything I read in the press or hear on the bbc. But this tops the lot. Who is the cleric? Who is his superior, who do we report him to?

Verity

Well Jesus would not have known the name Palestine as it was not introduced until after the revolt in AD 70. Now how do you explain that? Christian Aid has also taken up Canon Ateek's ideas as they depict a wall that poor Mary and Joseph encountered and prevented them getting to Bethlehem and on another occasion they were searched at a check point by Israeli soldiers . Archbishop Temple said in a commentary on Simon Peter cutting off the High Priest's servant's ear, 'When the Church takes up the sword ears are always cut off' The Church has taken up the sword against Israel and Israel can no longer hear what it has to say . But is this the true Church or just its misleading leaders ? I think the latter . Jesus said 'I am the ...Truth' . These emissaries of the Church do not speak the truth and so are false

Harris

A lot of fuss over nothing. Honestly, who cares? Some people around here seem to have very thin skins. Perhaps you should concern yourselves with more important matters, such as, say, the disintegrating British economy, the rise of hysterical Islamophobia, the hypocrisy of Barack Obama, the sheer idiocy of the American Right, the stranglehold of Rupert Murdoch over Cameron's Govt or the evils of the Catholic Church. Open your eyes, people.

WRB

Just a note supporting Dai the Red Sea etc. and quoting the etymology from the OED thus

"The name Palestine is derived from Gr. [Palaisteen] (used in early Christian writing), L. Palaestina (the name of the Roman province), and designates that territory on the eastern Mediterranean coast which in biblical times comprised the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. There have been many changes in the frontiers in the course of history. It was revived as an official political title for the land west of the Jordan mandated to Britain in 1920. Palestine ceased to exist as a political entity in 1948 when the state of Israel was established, but the name continues to be used to describe a geographical entity, particularly in the context of Arab aims for the resettlement of people who left the area when the state of Israel was established."

postergirl

Oh no, not again ! We all know where the last round of replacement theology finally ended up ... in the Final Solution.

' After the Holocaust, no statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that would not be credible in the presence of burning children. '

Irving Greenberg, Orthodox Jewish scholar.

ferdigrofe

One of the truly sad but not unexpected consequences of Zionism.
People lived in Palestine before Abraham. The invading 12 Tribes hovered in the highlands and were forbidden iron while the Philistines, Egyptians, Iraqis and Turks dominated the coastal plain. Only under David and Solomon did the 12 Tribes gain control of the coastal plain. After Solomon 10 tribes became Israel. Two tribes became Judah. But the Egyptians, Iraqis and Turks were back in the coastal plain. Assyria destroyed Samaria and the 10 tribes in Israel. That left Judah in a small enclave in the mountains around Jerusalem. These became the "Jews." Is the word "Jew" even in the Torah or the Old Testament or in the Septuagint. When is the first recorded use of it? I would suspect it was not used until or after the time of the Babylonian Captivity, if even then. Do you know the answer? So yes there were people and a lot of people who inhabited Palestine before the "Jews" did.

elixelx

Some people just CANNOT bring themselves to contemplate much less say the word "Jew" in any complimentary way...and not only "Jew"...
When I was teaching impoverished European adults English, in the Third World Borough of Hackney, in LONDON, if I quoted something which had everybody nodding in agreement, and I said "that was Shakespeare" "that was Bernard Shaw" the rush to write down the quote was breathtaking. If I said "That's from the Talmud" or "that was Rabbi Akiva" the rush to STOP writing and start sneering was just as breathtaking....
"Anti-Jewish" is by no means the preserve of the elites. It is interwoven into the DNA of the modern European mind, at all intellectual levels in every country, and, as such, no longer identifiable as a pathology, even less a sickness!

Louis Berk

"Isn’t it wonderful to have quality newspapers written by educated writers?"

You think? We've had a systematic reduction in the precision of journalism in this country for years and I think I can trace it back to the the time when Rupert Murdoch destroyed the Times. Nothing has accelarated the old adage that today's newspaper is tomorrow's fish and chip wrappers than the inaccuracies and poor research that is apparent in most journalism in this country. I've always assumed that most nowdays correspondents begin their life reporting sport and move up from there? (and that most journalists today are so young that they probably don't understand the role of the newspaper in the growth of the fish and chip industry).

Margaret Muller-Johansson

Giles Tremlett,

Jesus was a Hebrew!

RPK

Ferdigofe @2.57am
Had heard there was a Neanderthal settlement in Farrindon Road London on the site of the Guardian offices and its not extinct

EDDIE

It is not unreasonable to say that anti Semitism is a mental illness associated with paranoia and fixated delusions that cannot be addressed through logic. I t is an extremely virulent and addictive condition to those minds that are sensitive, In the same way that most people can take alcohol in moderation and others become permanent drunks. There is no cure and it is if some genetic mutations appear in every generation. The only possible treatment must be some sort of, yet undiscovered medication; but logical arguments and the presentation of facts are a complete waste of time

Charlene

I am a Christian Zionist and Melanie you are spot on. Perhaps Sabeel and co ought to read Romans where Paul states that Christians are grafted in, he certainly did not advocate replacement theology. Ironically it is Islam which is the least tolerant of all the religions and therefore if Islam were to get contol of the whole of the Promised Land, Sabeel would either have to defer and bow the knee to Islam or they would not survive. Israel is the Promised Land to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Ishmael's descendants have Saudi etc, how greedy can they get.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harris: "the rise of hysterical Islamophobia".

You mean, the rise of "hysterical Islam", surely???

May your anti phobic concerns obviate the hysteria.

Derek Pasquill

"Isn’t it wonderful to have quality newspapers written by educated writers?"

No - the writers at the Guardian are pig ignorant.

Mitnaged

"Father" Naeem Ateek is rather intellectually challenged I think and he certainly doesn't know his Old Testament:

As well as blaming Jews for crucifying the Palestinians and denying their link with Israel and the rest of the Holy Land, this faux scholar actually wrote in a published paper that Samson, in the Old Testament was the first suicide terrorist! No matter that the story of Samson involved him alone and those who actually took him captive and blinded him, and set no precedent for wholesale slaughter of Philistine women and children, no, this chump STILL tries (and fails with intelligent people) to skew Jewish/Israelite history and to make that comparison!

As the saying goes, "You couldn't make it up" but of course he does and I believe he falls for his own lies. He is the archetypal dhimmi, who believes that if he sucks up to the PA his Christian congregation will get preferential treatment should Israel ever fail (which heaven forbid).

Elliott A Green

Great job Melanie

Yisrael Medad

Your "The land of the New Testament was called Judea and Samaria" is found in Acts 8:1. The land was never the "West Bank" which came into usage following the 1948 war of aggression by 7 Arabs states when Jordan illegally occupied Judea and Samaria, prevented the recommended "Arab State" of the Partition Plan from being establsihed and instigated Arab terror attacks against Israel in the 1950s by the Fedayeen and then permitted the PLO to engage in terror beginning in 1964.

Stephen

Perhaps Harris is unaware that in the 2008 FBI report on hatecrime, over 60% of victims were Jews, while fewer than 8% were Muslim.
The thin skins seem to exist rather more in the ranks of those who think 'hysterical Islamophobia' is more of a concern than the kind of relativist appeasement in the West so regularly, which is actually fuelling Islamism, and legitimating the murders it commits.

Andy

The label 'Palestine' was one given to the land of Israel after the Roman's had conquered it. The inhabitants (who were Jews) would not have identified with that label. So much for the anti-imperialism of the Guardian!

Dave M

In the Roman world, it was very clear the Jews occupied the now disputed territories and you find usually all the time the Roman adjective is applied. For example below the term
"Iudaeis" is used when briefly mentioning customs regarding food. This is from Elagabalus in Latin:
"Struthocamelos exhibuit in cenis aliquotiens, dicens praeceptum Iudaeis, ut ederent."
There is simply no Latin equivalent used in the same sense regarding Palestinians and there are scores of uses that clarify this fact.
Again, the big problem here is education. People these days are not really taught the facts of history. They obtain their beliefs from trendy newspapers and mistakenly conclude modern Jews are "occupying" a land they believe belongs to a former Palestinian race. There is hardly anything broadcast by the BBC on Jewish history or even an attempt to look at the situation in a historical perspective.
In actual fact, it was the Cannanites who came before the Hebrews but the Cannanites were polytheistic, semitic and many intermarried with the Hebrews being very closely related. However, these Cannanites were in no way related to modern Palestinian peoples.

Jackie Boy

Harris says "a lot of fuss about nothing". Well read the report on "Israel and Palestine" prepared for and adopted by the Christian Methodists at their Conference in June.
Much of their criticism of Israel relies upon testimony from Naim Ateek and his Sabeel friends. In addition several Methodist leaders raise the importance of "supersessionism" to the Church and propose that a study in detail of this vile creed be launched by the Methodists.

At the moment every Methodist Church in England is studying their Conference Report - a document based on these philosophies.

That is why all of us should care before the seeds of antisemitism and anti Israel sentiment take root in the church in the Methodist Church near you.

Marcus from the USA

I do not see much of a problem with calling Jesus a Palestinian.

Modern day Arabs, especially ones from the Levant, are ethnically closer to the ancient Hebrews than modern day Ashkenazi or Sephardic Jew.

Dr Delaney

Jesus was a Jew.

Mohammed was really a crypto-Jew who cribbed from Jewish teachings.

We're all Jews really, so do let's try to get on.

Michael White

If indeed Buenos Aires Park does eventually open and offer visitors re-enactments of the birth of Christ, etc., I wonder how long it will be before it is targeted - perhaps by a group claiming the concept is an affront to their beliefs? Far lesser expressions have evoked violence from certain quarters, after all. The Spanish in recent times have shown themselves unlikely to resist religious aggression.

BTW, someone should assist Harris, who has difficulty with both religion and economics. For religion Harris displays great muddle over what is termed as ‘hysterical Islamophobia’. What irony. (There is however mild Catholophobia evident). For the economy there is the inaccurate proposal that the UK economy is in 'disintegration' - in fact unemployment is falling and growth is unexpectedly rising, albeit slowly.

Finally, in a quest to discover who cares about any of this stuff anyway, Harris shows considerable care, otherwise why try to close the discussion down in such a flapping manner?

zkharya

Melanie is spot on about how the Palestinian Christian nationalist narrative is essentially that of the crucifixion in modern nationalist form. It is also the one adopted by pro-Palestinian movements in the west.

Yochanan

Just remind Sabeel of those passages in the New Testament where Jesus and his disciples shows their utmost respect for the Roman 'occupiers' (there are several of these passages), and then suggest that they should do the same towards the Jews.

Chaing Mai Chris

The Guardian? What do you expect from that trash?

And anyway, I thought it was the Romans who crucified Jesus. A symbolic washing of hands was all very well but they were the decision makers.

Edward McLaughlin

Harris

Can you not see any link between things like this and 'the rise of hysterical......."what was it again?

Dave M

Did you know this antisemitic matter goes way back to early Christianity but not prior to Christianity? That is, before the doctrinal split between Judaism and Christianity, there was actually no antisemitism.
Let me explain:
Back in the time of the very early Christians there were Christians who included the Hebrew scriptures as official Christian doctrine and some other smaller groups who wanted to totally eradicate the Hebrew texts from canon. In other words, they didn't want the Old Testament. This is, therefore, the origin of some of the modern clergy groups who want to rewrite the Bible. I've sometimes encountered some of these people and have explained the Jewish element of Christianity, hoping to demonstrate the two are rooted together. For example, 12 tribes of Israel = 12 apostles.
I think much of the antisemitism today goes back to this original split between Jesus and his followers and those who remained rooted in traditional Judaism. Of course, I'm aware that today there are many Christian evangelicals who support Israel and even this can be traced back to early Christianity too.
In truth, I feel quite sure the current situation is rooted in both race and religion.

C.Gee

The Palestinians steal, or perhaps I should say recycle, for propaganda, whatever in history, ideology or religion puts them in the right. To appeal to the left, they claim to be an underclass oppressed by capitalism and/or oppressed indigenous victims of colonialism. To appeal to Christians, they turn Jesus into a Palestinian, suffering to redeem the world. To appeal to Human Rights secularists, they have have borrowed Jewish history, claiming their own Holocaust, history of discrimination and exile, diaspora, rights of nationhood based on being victims of "racism". All as plausible as the Rolex watches sold in their bazaars.

This recycling extends the tradition of misappropriation and misunderstanding of Judaism (and Christianity) by Islam. Cultural conquest is as fundamental to Ishmaelites as actual conquest. Ideas must convert, serve the cause, or die. ( Which might explain why Greek thought, which we are told was preserved by Islamic scholars, did not seed the renaissance or enlightenment in the Muslim world.)

Raoul

Well, I received an email from a friend who together with her late husband were friendly with Father Naim Ateek in Haifa in the context of furthering Arab-Israeli relations.She was shocked to read Melanie's report, finding that their dream of rapprochement had obviously come to considerably less than zero.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

C.Gee
September 15th, 2010 5:45pm
The Palestinians steal, or perhaps I should say recycle, for propaganda, whatever in history, ideology or religion puts them in the right
==================
I agree with all of the above. However, you have omitted to mention their habit of building on top of existing or ruined holy places, those belonging to others. Jerusalem is a perfect example, today a Mosque stands where the rubble of the Jewish Temple stood. The Israeli government, so often harshly judged internationally, allows the Islamists to forbid access to this building by those of the Jewish faith. The Western Wall, in the time of the Jordanian occupation was utilised as a urinal.

wolf t.

What I find histerically funny is that most Europeans could care less about the christian religion that formed their cultures and histories.

"Truth is the mother of all hatreds," said an old roman philosopher. The more the Jews are hated the greater their witness to God's truth. No lies can ultimately prevail, not even ones by an ecclesiastical Arab or pseudo-christian archbishop of Canterbury.

Look at the head of the C of E and her heirs: does that give anyone comfort in the validity of this church? Hey Henry 8: hell of a job!

Adam B.

Marcus

Classic antisemitism.

Pervy Grin

@JOHN ROOSEVELT
Thank you for fixing that for him. The comments at the Guardian article are remarkable in their bigotry and hatred towards Christians and their beliefs. I'm sure if there was a Muslim theme park opened at Ground Zero the same commentators would think that was really cool. Wait, that's going to happen, isn't it, and they realy do think it's cool!

Michael

just checking to see how things are going here on the lunatic fringe.

Good to see not much has changed.

Carry on being irrelevant everyone.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

C.Gee: I have been remiss in not thanking you for your superb posts.

Music to my ears..:))

Linda Smith

Maybe this geezer Ateek is a secret Muslim. His admirers in the Church of England should get their heads stuck into Islamic theology and take a gander at Bat Ye'Or's scholarly works. This, from a recent interview:

Bat Ye'or:
“….there was a continual conflict, because Muhammad thought that he was bringing the real Bible, that the Koran was the real Bible. You see? And therefore, we still have this conflict now. This is why the Muslim says that our Bible is a falsified version of the Koran of Islam. You see--so, there is in his conflict with the Jews in Arabia, and in his war against the Jews, of course he developed verses--verses were revealed--which direct him to wage war against the Jews. Anti-Semitism or Judeophobia, in this case Judeophobia, developed very strongly from the war of Muhammad against the Jews. And then it was taken through the biography of the prophet, which were published two centuries later, and in the hadith, which are the sacred scriptures of Islam. And it was there given an institutional and legal form, the status of the Jews and Christians. And therefore, these, since they are considered sacred -- so we have a whole body of sacred Islamic rulings which are extremely Judeophobic, and also anti-Christian, because often what was said to the Jews was said about the Christians. And the Christians are also considered even worse than the Jews. And these people don't know it. Because they are called as idolaters -

Geller: Idolaters. Yes.

Bat Ye'or: Yes, or associationists. This is the people who associate other gods to one G-d. So, in fact--and also because of the war that developed later with the Christians, against the Christians, so the history, Islamic history, and legal institutions and rulings have a whole body of anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, also anti-pagan--important, how you say, baggage.”

http://www.jihadwatch.org/2010/06/bat-yeor-the-worlds-leading-scholar-of-islamic-antisemitism----full-interview.html

ellen

As an Israeli, I wouldn't mind if the Palestinians took Jesus and left us in peace. I think this should be considered a negotiating position by Israel in any peace talks. "To the Palestinians: You take Jesus, we'll take Israel".
.

guillaume

Verity, early in this thread, says that Jesus wouldn't have known the name Palestine, as it wasn't invented until after AD 70. He or she is wrong. The region was known as Palestine since at least the 5th century BC, since Herodotus, writing at that time, refers to it by that name. The conquering Romans, as always, named their province after the already existing accepted name, though they no doubt imposed their own boundaries. So the Guardian writer, if he intended to be provocative or facetious in referring to "early Palestinians", wasn't in fact far wrong. I'd dispute the word "early" rather than "Palestinian"; as far as the ancient world in general was concerned, Jesus, his followers and the Jews in general were Palestinians.

C.Gee

JOHN ROOSEVELT:

Thank you. Proud to serve with you in Colonel Phillips' battalion.

Derek BLADES

elixelx says that "[when teaching] if I said 'that's from the Talmud' or 'that was Rabbi Akiva' the rush to ….. start sneering was ….. breathtaking."

Quite right too. I am sure elixelx would have seen the same reaction if he/she had cited the Bible or Cardinal Newman. Religion should be kept out of the classroom. Religious belief is not compatible with learning and never has been.

What Elix witnessed is certainly not anti-semitism, just old fashioned common-sense. As.Harris rightly remarked “Some people around here seem to have very thin skins.”

Zeev

Find this blog only today.
It's great…

The point is the combination of Christian religious like Mr. Ateek, with the Muslim society. They knows very well what happened to Christians in a mixed villages and towns or societies.
Look at east Jerusalem, Bait lekhem, Dir Hana, Nazerath or see what's going on in Lebanon or Egypt- It's the same all over the place. The Christian leave and the Muslims stays. Sometimes they forced to leave their towns, sometimes they give up and leave. Israel was very generous and let both Muslims and Christians keep they religious heritage, buildings and practice in Jerusalem. Show me one Rabbi that can speck out against is country in Arab country …
Mr Atick knows and understands that the only way to hold his possession and status and acceptance is by attacking Jews and Israel.
That's why double-faced behavior is common in the Arab culture, but not in the western world or Jews moralities.
Has a Christian scholar he should know that Jesus a Jewish rabbi

Miranda Rose Smith

Much of this rewriting of history comes from Arab Christians based at the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre in Jerusalem under the aegis of Father Naim Ateek (who is such a personal favourite with so many in the Church of England),

The Church of England goes along with this. Don't they know that the same people who write the Jews out of the history of Israel will write the Anglo-Saxons out of the history of England?

Lindsay

C.Gee
September 15th, 2010 5:45pm

I will not say anything too pointed so you do not deflate again. But is there no end to the fiendish cunning of this Palestinian/Arab/Muslim worldwide conspiracy whose tentacles reach into the very heart of High Finance and the Governing Elite of the Western World, a consipracy which employs its lies and its money to corrupt, poison and destroy all that is good, all that is civilised, all that is wholesome...? And must not this Global Conspiracy be rooted out wherever it has insinuated itself whatever the cost in treasure and manpower, must we not hold back and defeat this wave of darkness and evil as once the Teutonic knights did in the eastern marches...oops

Gerry C

Derek BLADES writes:Religious belief is not compatible with learning and never has been.

Best laugh I've had since the last Morecambe & Wise Christmas Show! It follows from DB's premise that religious people cannot be learned and learned people cannot be religious... Isaac Newton? St Thomas Aquinas? Leonardo da Vinci? Charles Darwin? Moses Maimonides? JS Bach? Teilhard de Chardin? Albert Einstein? Oh, my aching ribs... (BTW, I think of myself as a reasonably religious Catholic and I have a degree in English Literature, a Master's in Theology, a diploma in French literature. And I can use a PC and drive a car!!)

Marcus from the USA

I dont think Jesus would have recognized his Anglicized name during his lifetime.

We must not forget that Hebrew is a very primitive language; standard Hebrew has no vowels, and even some consonants like the "J" letter sound are missing.

So English words like "Jesus", "Jews", "Jerusalem", "Jehovah", "Judea", etc are as foreign to Hebrew as the words "Bible", "Christ", and "Christian".

It was hundreds of years after the life and death of Jesus, did the first Christians live in Briton and the West.

MindTheCrap

Marcus from the USA:

"We must not forget that Hebrew is a very primitive language; ... So English words like "Jesus", "Jews", "Jerusalem", "Jehovah", "Judea", etc are as foreign to Hebrew "

Are you competing with Tremlett to see who can say the most stupid thing online ??

Harold

Anne Wotana Kaye 1
September 15th, 2010 6:26pm
Could you tell us where the humourously named Museum of Tolerance in Israel is to be built?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

ferdigrofe: thanks for the historical exegesis.

When did the moslems inhabit Judeah and Samaria - relative to the "Jews" - even those "little hills" around, what was it called it again - Jerusalem? Oh yes..jerusalem..Indeed, were they, then there, before the "so-called" Jews?

Just curious. I know it's irrelevant, now, 'cause Israel here and has to be dealt with. God, how cruel history can be...

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lindsay: "But is there no end to the fiendish cunning of this Palestinian/Arab/Muslim worldwide conspiracy whose tentacles reach into the very heart of High Finance and the Governing Elite of the Western World, a consipracy which employs its lies and its money to corrupt, poison and destroy all that is good, all that is civilised, all that is wholesome...? "

NO, unless you and your mates, tavarich(es) Andrei and Harold, help us to.

"And must not this Global Conspiracy be rooted out wherever it has insinuated itself whatever the cost in treasure and manpower, must we not hold back and defeat this wave of darkness and evil.."

Indeed it must.

My God, I think she's got it!

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "Could you tell us where the humourously named Museum of Tolerance in Israel is to be built?"

Tovarich, it's called The House of CCCCCCHAMAS", of course! I'm sure they'll make you an honorary benefactor....

C.Gee

Lindsay:

You will have to say something a little more pointed for me to get the point you are making, if any. Glad to see you pumped up and ready to spar.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Marcus from the USA
September 15th, 2010 1:15pm

"I do not see much of a problem with calling Jesus a Palestinian.'

...and I am sure, Marcus, you dont have a problem in calling Jesus Jewish, either...since you sound a fine fellow, indeed.

Walkindude

Isn't the credibility of everything that appears in The Guardian undermined by the fact that it's in the Guardian? I'm consistently amazed by the way the left distort and disregard facts which they consider inconvenient. The other explanation is that they are ignorant muddle-headed fools. Probably a bit of both.

Dave M

"I'd dispute the word "early" rather than "Palestinian"; as far as the ancient world in general was concerned, Jesus, his followers and the Jews in general were Palestinians."

The point is people who confuse modern Palestinians with ancient history have got it all very confused (so far as I'm aware). To any educated Roman Senator, there was no doubt at all that Jerusalem was a land where Jewish people lived and followed Jewish customs. If we go back far further in time to around 1000 B.C., the Jews were still living in these lands, practising the same religious beliefs and customs. In fact, as we know there was a period around 1000 B.C. of Empire with two languages being spoken (literary Aramaic used mainly by the upper classes).
We must be careful and clear not to confuse modern Palestinians with the ancient peoples of the region or the notion Islam had any actual bearing back then. The modern Palestinians of today came far later on in history, before and after the fall of the Roman Empire. That's not to say Persia, Egypt and Iraq don't also have ancient history to be discovered in their borders but the strange thing is this isn't Islamic history when we go back to Roman or pre Roman periods.
I think the key issue is the Islamic World uses the modern Palestinians as a lever in a propaganda war that states Jerusalem belongs to Islam and the Palestinians and so on. This is an amazing assertion as both Orthodox Judaism and even Gnostic Judaism have been rooted in the Middle East centuries before Mohammad was born. Yes, of course, there were other ancient inhabitants such as the Cannanites and the conflict between their polytheism and Judaism at the time is well known. Yet the Cannanites are totally remote from modern Palestinians. If there were any genuine ethnic/cultural connection at all I could understand the other view point but there simply isn't.
I should add any peace talks or negotiations will never succeed unless somehow the Muslim world understands and accepts Israel existed and has the same unique history as Egypt or Persia.

Harold

Jesting John Roosevelt,

Recall what was said:

" you have omitted to mention their (the Palestinians') habit of building on top of existing or ruined holy places, those belonging to others."

And the question:

What is the "Museum of Tolerance" to be built upon?

If you know the answer, tell us. Or just give us another asinine jape if you find that comes more readily.

Derek BLADES

ferdigrofe correctly writes "So yes there were people and a lot of people who inhabited Palestine before the "Jews" did."

Canaan was a land flowing with milk and honey so it was naturally coveted by many people of the area. The small band of wandering Jews who settled there were just one of many who lived in and fought over this particular bit of real estate.

In his virtually incomprehensible "reply" to ferdigrofe, John ROOSEVELT may be accidentally saying something that makes sense. The ancient history of what we now think of as Palestine has exactly zero relevance to the conflict between the post-war Jewish immigrants and the Arab people who were kicked out to make room for Israel.

Adam B.

Harold, I'm glad you jest at the destruction of the Jews' holiest site and the building of a Mosque directly on top of it.

How witty you are.

Adam B.

Marcus, I think that is probably the most stupid post I have ever read.

Jesus is not an anglicized name. A language is not "primitive" because it does not have a "J" equivalent, and "Briton" is a person, not a country.

The fact you hate Israel just seems to fit the rest of the puzzle nicely.

Derek BLADES

To support his claim that he is both religious and learned, Gerry C tells us that he has a Masters in Theology.

Excusre my ignorance Gerry, but I cannot imagine what one would do to earn such a Master's degree. My puzzlement is genuine. Please tell us what you studied.

David SI

"Excusre my ignorance Gerry, but I cannot imagine what one would do to earn such a Master's degree".
Derek, just focus on the main point of Gerry’s argument and avoid the totally insincere “Uriah Heep”–like pleas for him to “excusre” your (amply displayed) ignorance.

phil

Lindsay
September 16th, 2010 11:02am -yes !!!,although I do not include all Arabs and Muslims just those that do and think like you

phil

Marcus from the USA
September 15th, 2010 1:15pm -So, marcus from your writing it seems you are still closer to a monkey than a human ,and you are not evolving ,no progress over the years you have been posting here .Your every word bear no relationship to Christianity and must bring great sorrow to those you try to represent .In fact I think it is those who think and behave like you that that the POPE was referring to yesterday .Jesus was a Jew and don't ever forget it .
The scattering of Sephardim and Ashkenazi Jews was down to those again who think like you ,so do not also forget that Nuremberg told you how wrong you are .Our day of Atonement will be here in a few hours and you would do well to join us ,for you have much to atone for .

phil

Michael
September 15th, 2010 7:54pm -We are doing fine thanks michael,back to the asylum now .

phil

Lindsay
September 16th, 2010 11:02am -yes !!!,although I do not include all Arabs and Muslims just those that do and think like you

JOHN ROOSEVELT

derek Blades: "In his virtually incomprehensible "reply" to ferdigrofe, John ROOSEVELT may be accidentally saying something that makes sense. The ancient history of what we now think of as Palestine has exactly zero relevance to the conflict between the post-war Jewish immigrants and the Arab people who were kicked out to make room for Israel."

Comrade, you as well as comrades, Harold, lyndsay and Andrei know full well that Binational state idea which you guys now pine for was out forward by the Anglo-American commission in 1946 and only dropped when the Arabs states (our other comrades) and the Plaestinian leadership (more comrades) roundly rejected it.

Now, you must play smart if you are to stay in job of showing world we and Hamas mean peace and is badly understood. We know that is was a prf at the Hebrew University who proposed the concept along wif other jew - a finker - called Martin Buber. You have to stay stum about this or we get shot down from dizzy hight!!!!

If you want box clever like I ask, read some Tony Judt. he a smart anti Zionist wif cred...and someone needs to pik up his baton, now sadly dropped.

Let's kick out Jews and make way for Hamas!!!
Jesus may have bin Jew, but he knew how get his message accross. Take leef from his bookend!

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

Harold
September 16th, 2010 1:26pm
Anne Wotana Kaye 1
September 15th, 2010 6:26pm
Could you tell us where the humourously named Museum of Tolerance in Israel is to be built?
==========================
Sorry if I have ignored your posting. Only saw it today, and as my Fast begins soon, I am too rushed to give you a reply. I suggest you consult Google, taking material from varied sources as a starter. I cannot see why you find Tolerance amusing, unless of course I am missing some sarcasm. I hope not, because tolerance is a quality we all need.

phil

Another great invention by the Israelis

FINALLY — A great alternative to body scanners at airports . . .

The Israelis are developing an airport security device that eliminates the privacy concerns that come with full-body scanners at the airports.

It’s a booth you can step into that will not X-ray you, but will detonate any explosive device you may have on you. They see this as a win-win for everyone, with none of this crap about racial profiling. It also would eliminate the costs of a long and expensive trial. Justice would be swift. Case closed!

You're in the airport terminal and you hear a muffled explosion. Shortly thereafter an announcement comes over the PA system . . . "Attention standby passengers — we now have a seat available on flight number XXXX. Shalom!"
---------------
Just another contribution to the peace process that harold andrei and lyndsay will applaud

JOHN ROOSEVELT

"What is the "Museum of Tolerance" to be built upon?

If you know the answer, tell us. Or just give us another asinine jape if you find that comes more readily."

No, comrade. Don fink will be built on asinine jape. You bin in New York one? If so, keep it quiet. Noone wan influence our Hamas fwends.

Skeptic

>>>>‘Early Palestinians’, eh? And just who were these ‘early Palestinians’? Well, they were what we would otherwise call... Jews.

No no no. Jesus was a good man so he couldn't POSSIBLY have been one of those disgusting Jews. He was a non-Jewish Palestinian!

Just ask the 3rd Reich Bishops who declared that Jesus was actually an Aryan, not (God forbid) a Jew.

>>>>One of the truly sad but not unexpected consequences of Zionism.

Quite right. If the Jews didn't exist, or didn't live in the Arabs wouldn't be trying to kill and expel them all. So the "root cause" of the problem is indeed zionism.

Of course, by the same logic, the root cause of rape is women. If the victim were killed as a baby in a car accident, she wouldn't be around to be raped now, now would she?

Lindsay

C Gee and Phil

...Since the beginning of the French Revolution, the world has been drifting towards a new conflict, whose extreme solution is named "Bolshevism"/ "Islamo-Communism-Fascism",but whose content and aim is only the removal of those strata of society which gave leadership to humanity, and their replacement by "Islamism/ Communism/Fascism". The idea of "Islamo-Fascism" is the unscrupulous savaging and dissolution of all norms and culture with the diabolical intention of a total destruction of all nations. It could only have been born in the minds of "Islamists"(/Arabs(?)). The "Islamist" practice in its terrifying cruelty is imaginable only as perpetrated by the hands of "Islamists"(/Arabs(?))...

phil

C GEE can you translate this rubbish ,maybe tell me where she has copied it from and what it is supposed to mean -
""Lindsay
September 17th, 2010 2:14pm ""---------I think she may have imploded,possibly on one of the new Israeli scanners -its certainly beyond me -and she didn`t keep her word for very long did she ?

Gerry C

Derek BLADES wrote: Excusre [sic] my ignorance Gerry, but I cannot imagine what one would do to earn such a Master's degree. My puzzlement is genuine. Please tell us what you studied.

http://www.leeds.ac.uk//trs/Postgraduate%20Pages/postgraduate.htm

The courses have changed since I (post)graduated in 1984; I followed courses in the Marxist critique of religion, the development of secularisation theory and the theological response thereto, and theological methodology with reference to Lonergan and Rahner. And yes, it really is true: reputable universities in this country (and indeed abroad) offer postgraduate courses in theology and religious studies! I await agog the front page of Saturday's Grauniad... and a proper response from you to my previous comment.

Carl

Adam B - you do make me laugh "Jesus is not an anglicized name". It's not exactly a Hebrew one either is it, a fact that seems woefully to have passed you by. Don't you have any knowledge of the semitic languages at all? It doesn't look like you do.

C.Gee

Lindsay:

Totalitarianism, in any form, is the enemy. Putting quotes around “Bolshevik” or “Islamo-fascist” does not diminish their toxicity.

The “norms” totalitarianism will destroy are the laws that protect individual liberty, diversity of thought, and differences in the outcome of effort and talent; and the “culture” it will destroy is that of tolerance. The nation-state as modeled in the West (America) is the jurisdictional and juridical arrangement that constitutes and protects these norms. The nation-state (whether it federates or associates with others) is the structure that optimally contains the largest collective of people of diverse origins, religions, races, etc., all able peacefully to interact in the multifold and multiform markets created from their orderly pursuit of happiness. The people’s national commonality lies in their love, not of race or ritual, but of the law, that embodies justice as the equal treatment of individuals before it. Totalitarianism has a culture of intolerance, and imposes legal norms which place people into arbitrary collectives, some favored over others, which are punished or cleansed from the system. Of course communism and fanatical Islam want to destroy the nation-state, especially America, because it guarantees pluralism.

The French Revolution made totalitarianism in the name of equality stylish. A mob, sans culottes, raging in the street demanding blood remains the fashionable image for political righteousness. Communism and Islam have borrowed it.

Islam did not invent totalitarianism. This is not listed among the inventions we are taught originated under Islam. Nor is cruelty. Palestinians/Arab/ Muslim are not the demonized scapegoats you pretend they are.

Which brings me to your prior post where you say: “But is there no end to the fiendish cunning of this Palestinian/Arab/Muslim worldwide conspiracy whose tentacles reach into the very heart of High Finance and the Governing Elite of the Western World, a conspiracy which employs its lies and its money to corrupt, poison and destroy all that is good, all that is civilised, all that is wholesome...?”

You do realize that this illustrates precisely the point I made above, concerning the appropriation of Jewish history to the Palestinians? In your facetious pretense that Palestinians are the objects of untrue vilification, you chose as the vilification memes from the Protocols - conspiracy, tentacles, control of finance and governments. Are you seriously trying argue that Palestinians are now the victims of Jew-hatred? Anti-semitism now demonizes the Palestinians? This would be doubly ironic. The Protocols are currency in the P/A/M world: the Hamas charter refers to it, and Egyptian museum places a copy of it next to the Torah, and it as been made into a smash hit TV series, enjoyed all over the Muslim world. But your implication that those who support Israel (and Jews) are using classic antisemitic lies to demonize the Palestinians is utter madness, an old, recognizable, madness. Jews are poisoning the well of discourse, eh?

Adam B.

Oh dear Carl, you have further compounded Marcus' mistake.

Jesus is the Latin name. It is therefore not "anglicized", and consequently it has not "passed me by" that it is not a Hebrew name. Amazing that you need this spelled out to you.

But then again, on any topic concerning Jewish matters or Israel, you are woefully ignorant. Thanks for demonstrating your smug ignorance so clearly.

I just love it when someone is absolutely convinced they're right, when they're completely wrong.

Adam B.

Skeptic, excellent.

Lindsay

C.Gee
September 17th, 2010 6:04pm
Thank you for this considered response to what I have to confess is one piece of sarcasm from me and one piece of what Phil was right in calling gobbledygook. I would like to take the time to consider what you have said.

Fabio P.Barbieri

Just a note to point out that while the Catholic Church has not been able to remove the poison from all its members, it has never accepted supersessionism. IN fact, both Church law (the protection extended to the Jews by Pope Gregory the Great in his decree Sicut Iudaeis, and renewed by every succeeding Pope) and doctrine (Thomas Aquinas, the Church's greatest theologian, explicitly rejects supersessionism) deny it. I think it would not be going too far to call supersessionism a heresy - it denies specific passages of the Gospel - and of course, nobody would be surprised to find it, being a heresy, being sheltered and encouraged in "ecumenic" environments.

streborjm

Christ Almighty ...

Why don't you all just have a word with your imaginary friend?

I'm sure he could sort it all out.

Jonathan Levy

guillaume - Herodotus was referring to a very specific part of the Holy Land - the area around Gaza, where the Philistines used to live (Gaza, Ekron, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Gat). These were the neighbors of the Israelites in biblical times, who are mentioned often in the books of Judges and Samuel, but disappear later on.

In any case, they were a Phoenician people, and are completely unrelated to the modern Arabs who call themselves Palestinians.

Furthermore, they are completely unrelated to the Jewish people, and to Jesus, a Jew from the Galilee who lived almost 500 years after Herodotus.

The name was resurrected by the Romans six hundred years later(after suppressing the revolt of Bar-Kochva, if I'm not mistaken, and not after the Great Revolt) and Judea was renamed. Similarly, Jerusalem became Aelia Capitolina.

To call Jesus an 'Early Palestinian' because Herodotus mentioned Palestine 500 years before he was born is like calling Julius Caesar an 'Early Etruscan' just because there used to be an Etruscan people north of Rome 600 years before him.

Alec Noncullis

I posted my contribution to this forum several days ago. It hasn't, as yet, appeared and yet later postings by others have appeared.

That seems to indicate to me that some form of editing or rejection takes place.
Am I correct in that assumption ?

Lindsay

C. Gee
I tried to respond, but my response has not appeared. I am sure you are not waiting with baited breath for what I have to say, so I will spare us both the trouble.

Aelfthryth

Melanie, I agree, but I think you don't go far enough. They do not want just to destroy the Jewish nation state, but the Jewish nation, and all Jews, as well.

Our existence, particularly when we prosper, and our stiff-necked refusal to deny God and our history, refutes their tale of supersessionism. Our continued survival makes them all into liars, which is the basis of their hatred of us.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay wrote: "
Lindsay
September 19th, 2010 8:36pm

C. Gee
I tried to respond, but my response has not appeared. I am sure you are not waiting with baited breath for what I have to say, so I will spare us both the trouble."

Well, well. You go figure...

Ron Gillis

This is all a crock! There were people living in the area we mow call Israel/Palestine. They were conquored by the West then the land was given to persecuted Europeans. The people living there could be Palestinians, Vegetarians,it doesnt matter. They had homes there and the area was given to Europeans. Some of them and their children are upset about that.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Ron Gillis
September 21st, 2010 1:14pm

This is all a crock! There were people living in the area we mow call Israel/Palestine. They were conquored by the West then the land was given to persecuted Europeans. The people living there could be Palestinians, Vegetarians,it doesnt matter. They had homes there and the area was given to Europeans. Some of them and their children are upset about that."

Well, this is clearly a man of Letters writing...

Now, what next?Press rewind, I guess. Ah, the tech age we do live in...:)

phil

Ron Gillis
September 21st, 2010 1:14pm -You might also say the survivors of the Holocaust were also rather upset ,especially when the leader of the Palestinians was praying to hitler to enlarge it ,and stayed with him in Berlin to ensure he heard those prayers.

Donna

Christians have removed as much of the Jewishness of Jesus (even his name, Joshua) as they possibly can - short of putting a foreskin back on him! The Gospels trace the lineage of his mother back through the Davidic line of David - not Mohamed. He preaches and reads in the synagogues from the Torah - not the Koran. His kingdom is not of this world - hardly an earthly caliphate and he was crucified by Pontius Pilate - a career soldier in the legions of Rome who was not the nice guy of the Gospels but a brute who was recalled to Rome for trial before the emperor for brutality and corruption. He is never heard of again. The author of this new and bogus theology is a homonculus and all within hearing distance should don their garlic!

Amir Tamari

Melanie Phillips is spot on! The word Palestine comes from the Hebrew word, Plishtim, invaders, the term used to refer to the Philistines, a sea faring people from the Aegean Sea near Greece. Arabs come from what is now Saudi Arabia, thousands of kilometres away from Greece! The Jews, or Judeans, are the aboriginal people of the Land of Israel, which includes the State of Israel, Judea and Samaria (a.k.a. the West Bank) and parts of the Kingdom of Jordan (a.k.a. the East Bank). The Arabs are known colonialists, who have robbed the Judeans, Kurds, Copts, Babylonians, Berbers and many other peoples of their land. Jesus, was, a Judean, who frequented the Temple in Jerusalem. Christians, all Christians, must support the Judeans and Israel, if they are true Christians.

Skeptic

>>>>>Could you tell us where the humourously named Museum of Tolerance in Israel is to be built?

Why, yes, I can.

It will be built next to a Muslim cemetery where there were no burials since 1927.

The cemetery itself, it goes without saying, will not be touched. It's not as if the Jews are like the Jordanian legion, who, after capturing the old city in 1948, used ancient tombstones of Jewish graves in Jerusalem in their latrines, to show their contempt.

More precisely, it will be built on a plot of land where nobody was ever buried, one where, in the 1940s, the Muslim council itself planned to build a shopping center.

Naturally the Islamic movement created fake graves on the site to pretend it is all evil zionist encroachment of holy Muslim land, and threaten riots and violence if the dhimmis go ahead with such a grave insult (no pun intended) to the religion of peace.

Well, they should know -- after all, they think all of Israel is zionist-occupied Muslim land, so why should this particular plot of land be exempt from the general rule?

Details here:

http://tinyurl.com/2waq8oo

Harold

Skeptic

The museum is being constructed on the site of an ancient Muslim cemetery, desecrating the graves of the interred. Archaeologists believe the Mamilla (Faithful of God) Cemetery holds the remains of tens of thousands of Muslim soldiers of Salah ed-Din, the 12th century leader who reconquered Jerusalem from the Crusaders. The cemetery was actively used by prominent Palestinian families through 1948, when West Jerusalem fell to Israeli troops. Hence the site is immensely significant archaeologically, but is also culturally sensitive to Palestinians.

An initial petition by Palestinian families and Islamic groups to the Israeli high court delayed but did not halt museum construction. Speed was the guiding principle of the project, not care for archaeological preservation nor respect for the dead, construction workers recounted to Israel's Haaretz newspaper. The Israeli high court denied a second petition, ignoring evidence that the Israel Antiquities Authority had suppressed the opinion of its own expert in originally permitting the museum's construction.

In fact, chief excavator Gideon Suleimani advised his Antiquities Authority superiors against construction on the site and has since characterized building there as "an archaeological crime." Palestinian families have taken their case to the United Nations, petitioning a variety of bodies there for relief. Represented by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, the families have also dispatched letters to members of the board of the Wiesenthal Center (which is helping to finance the project) appealing to them to press for a halt to construction

Harold

I suppose the more serious point is that it is odd to the point of hypocrisy for a supporter of Israel to distinguish it from the Palestinians on the grounds that the Palestinians build on "holy" sites. The list is long and growing. As the Wiesnthal Center said in its defence, it is difficult to build in the Holy Land without disturbing something of religious or archaelogical significance.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold wrote: "he more serious point is that it is odd to the point of hypocrisy for a supporter of Israel to distinguish it from the Palestinians on the grounds that the Palestinians build on "holy" sites."

A very serious point indeed, comrade. Actually, on second thoughts, what point are you making? Never quite got where you're going with this except to notch up another point against dem bad ol Jewish folk.

Augustus

After the Six-Day War in 1967 in which Israel utterly defeated the Arab coalition, and took legitimate possession of Judea and Samaria, the Arab dwellers in those regions suddenly discovered that they had morphed into a new identity,
i.e. Palestinians. So, if you were a Jordanian (another invention instigated by Britain)
on June 4th, 1967, virtually overnight you became a Palestinian. Of course, people with a new identity had to build themselves a history, or to be more precise, they had to steal someone else's history, and the only foolproof way of doing that was if the victims of the theft no longer existed.

Thus, the leaders of the Palestinians claimed lineages from ancient peoples that had inhabited the land of Israel:
The Canaanites and the Philistines. As for the Canaanites, the only people who can trace a lineage back to them are the Jews. And claiming
that the Palestinians comes from the term Philistines is only true in so far as they were both invaders from other lands, which is the precise meaning of their name. Philistine is not an ethnic denomination but an adjective applied to them. The ancient Philistines were a confederation of non-Semitic peoples from Crete, the Aegean islands, and Asia Minor, also known as the Sea Peoples. But, notwithstanding the Roman banishment of the Jews in AD 135
from their land, and notwithstanding the fact that over many centuries many Jews travelled to the four corners of the world, others simply remained, kept out of the Romans
way, and stayed. In the last century many returned, either escaping the Russian revolution in 1917 and joining their Zionist pioneers, or escaping (if they were lucky) the onslaught of Nazism. And with their return the Jews colonised not some mythical Palestinian land, but regenerated a completely neglected and practically uninhabited land of their own forefathers, not by stealing property that was not theirs, but by purchase and hard work.

Harold

Augustus
September 23rd, 2010 1:45pm
Of what relevance are the ancient antecedents of either Israelis or Palestinians (or "Arab dwellers there")? How do ancient antecedents determine modern title?

When you say "legitimate", what is it you think lends legitimacy?

When you say the land was "practically uninhabited", what do you mean? I ask becasue the land was inhabited. There were "Arab" "dwellers". How do you think they become an irrelevancy?

Augustus

Harold - The relevance of 'ancient antecedents' ties in with the article. The claim to age-old Palestinian rights is contradicted by history. Even the Romans attempted to eradicate all trace of Jewish history by naming the land Palestina. And by 'practically uninhabited' one is referring,
at least to most of the region,
as a desertscape in which, as is the case in such regions, a paucity of folk 'existed' with
not very much in the way of either possessions, or title.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "How do ancient antecedents determine modern title?"

Determine "title", comrade? What about the "labour theory of value" and "surplus value" , the "proletariat" and all that truly revolytuionary malarkey?

You do confuse us, Harold dear. One moment it's the good of all that seems to concern you - some warm and fuzzy hippyesque vision of a brighter future in which what we Brits may recognise as Human Rights is the norm;; then it's good old capitalistic property rights and whoever has the property first gets all rights; then its sanctification of medieval imperialists - like Saladin, the embodiment of Islam's vivid history of conquest and murderous pursuit of power in the name of religion - the veil of Islam - still so pertinent today and which your vilification of Israel ends up apologising for and supporting; then its some misty form of 19th century romantic self-determination - like an afterthought, on returning home for a well earned cuppa after a day out on the barricades in 1848.

What's gone on with you, Harold? How come such a mess of confused and confusing ideas masquerading as some well thought our digest of principles? Is it a mother thing?

...and if - oh God take me from this evil Earth right this moment if it be true(!!) - I have misconstrued your pedantry, why not just unashamedly and uninhibitedly lay it all out - your coherent philosophy for a better world (at least in the Middle East) before us to make some kind of sense of?

Oh Jesus. Jesus, wherefore art thou?

Harold

Augustus
September 23rd, 2010 6:29pm

What do the ancient antecedents have to do with modern title?

What have the geographic features to do with the rights of the inhabitants as opposed to the rights of incomers? Why should the fact that they "existed" deny them rights?

What did you intend to signify by the use of "legitimate"?

Skeptic

>>>>>What's gone on with you, Harold? How come such a mess of confused and confusing ideas masquerading as some well thought our digest of principles? Is it a mother thing?

Well, apparently it has to do with whatever principle will best serve bashing Israel or excuse Muslim violence -- at the moment.

Take self-determination. It's all wonderful and dandy for the Palestinians. For Jews, it's colonialism. And colonialism is bad. Except when it's done by Muslims like Saladin or Muhammad, when it's liberation.

Or take the crusades. Evil imperialistic aggression. zionism, the same. Islam's conquering of half the known world? Meh, we shouldn't get hung up about who is to blame for some ancient war. Except the evil Israelites conquering the land 2000 years before Islam. That we must condemn.

Respecting the dead? Sacrosanct when Jews build where Muslims were buried 900 years ago. Muslims wanting to build a shopping mall at the same spot? No problem. To respect the dead killed 9 (not 900) years ago by Islamic terrorists by not building a mosque on *their* remains? Islamophobe!

...and so on.

It's dhimmitude of the mind, where anything the Muslims do is fine and everything the Kaffirs do is evil.

Harold

Augustus
I know you have never stooped to pretending not to understand English, but for others, less scrupolous, or perhaps just less literate:

"Title: That which justifies or substantiates a claim; a ground of right; hence an alleged or recognised right..." OED

Augustus

Harold - The word 'legitimate'
was inserted in my previous post but one because, contrary to Soviet propaganda at the time in the UN and elsewhere, Israel was fighting a defensive
war, not an aggresive or expansionist one. A defensive response to aggression is completely different from a war of conquest.

I understand English perfectly well, thank you, even though I may be foreign. 'Title'(?) So what?

Harold

Skeptic
September 24th, 2010 6:29am
I said:

Anyone building in the Holy Land on any scale is going to find "holier than thou" difficult to pull off without hypocrisy. Israel is not exempt. So whoever it was invited us to condemn "Arabs" for building on Jewish holy sites should have refrained.

What title does ancient history provide? None. This applies to invocations of Saladin or Canaanites or ancient Israel.

Harold

Augustus
September 24th, 2010 10:36am
You certainly understand English. Indeed I would have taken it to be your first language. You perhaps do not always read it carefully, but then who does?. The definition of "Title" was to help others. I should not have put it in a comment addressed to you.

"Legitimate" implies "title" as it happens.

Israel's war of 1967 cannot be called entirely defensive.

"Defensive" conquest does not give any legal right to the conquered territory (at least under interntaional law).

So your use of "legitimate" still needs to be explained.

Travis

The term "Palestine" was not even in use during Jesus's lifetime (approx 6 BC - 33AD). It only came about after the suppression of the Bar-Kochba Revolt of 132 - 135AD by the Roman Emperor Hadrian who in order to erase the Jewish connection to Judea renamed the province Syria-Palestina after the Jews greatest ancient enemies the Philistines.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: If Israel's war of '67 was not defensive, the term has no meaning...which of course shouldn't put you off.

In your book, nothing Israel does in war with the Moslems could be considered defensive and nothing the moslems do with regard to their violence agains Israel could be considered "offensive" - because you clearly think Israel - by virtue of its existing at all - is ipso facto "offensive" and the moslems, therefore, not so.

No point in arguing that, I guess:)) Israel has nothing to loose, then...since it can do no right without threatening its own existence.

You see the probem, Harold, when propaganda goes apesh*t? It turns on itself. Israel does exist. It will decide what is offensive and defensive and it will ignore those, like you, who deem otherwise - always. One day you will take note...or perhpas, you wont. You are a bit slow, I fear, but the moslems respect a good bit of the old offence. It's in their blood.

Augustus

Harold - I will only explain the term 'legitimate' in the historical context to which it applied, and not in terms of any present-day moral or legal case concerning the human dimension. Given the historical
fact that the Jewish state and its people were under attack from various aggressors, the use of the term 'occupation' which the Arab League invoked when trying to lay down its terms, was, as it is widely understood, inappropriate. Israel's position was that it had good reason to take the territories in question, and in the absence of a final settlement, mainly due to
continuing hostility from Arab quarters, had a valid reason to continue to hold on to them. It is therein that legitimacy lies.
Whatever you may further refute
about that I will simply put down to either a confused memory, or false post-war propaganda.

Harold

Augustus
September 25th, 2010 1:18am

"I will only explain the term 'legitimate' in the historical context to which it applied, and not in terms of any present-day moral or legal case concerning the human dimension."

A minor technicality to you perhaps but the law in question applied in 1967 as now. So we still have no grounds for your claim the occupation is "legitimate". And to repeat, a war of "defence" nor a war of preemptive defence (i.e attacking first) provides legal grounds for occupation and expropriation.

Harold

Augustus
I missed your answers to the other two questions.

How does ancient history confer modern title?

How are the rights of the inhabitants affected by the geography of their land and the fact that they merely "existed" there?

Augustus

Harold - "How does ancient history confer modern title?"
You might as well say: For me, and a lot of other people, the rights of the Jews rest solely on the way they had been mistreated throughout history so
the West couldn't refuse them a
state of their own, and in so doing treated the Palestinian inhabitants miserably. But, of course, such an argument would depend on their having been a Palestinian state there in the first place, where in the aftermath of the mandate for a Jewish national home, a UN resolution, and a Holocaust, a lot of Jews suddenly appeared. Not because they had already been living there, such as in Jerusalem, Safed, Tiberius
and Hebron long before the Holocaust, and where a Jewish state was already in embyro, and
not because Jews had always had religious and spiritual ties with the land of Zion with which they had always identified, but because they were given it on a plate in the light of some ancient texts.

Have you ever mentioned the way
Jews were regularly attacked from the 1920s onwards? Have you ever mentioned that Arab resistance was really only on a large scale once Israel was being founded? Do you ever consider how every compromise with the Jews was rejected by the Arabs? The fact is that history is repeating itself, things have gone full circle and Israel has become the only place where Jews can feel safe.
What does it mean to someone, to a people, when others want
nothing more than to destroy you, not once, but repeatedly,
and by sheer luck, bravery and
willpower you manage to survive
but have had to pay an enormous price in the process? That's what history conferred on them, and thank God they made something grand out of their inheritance.

Harold

Augustus
September 25th, 2010 4:51pm
"Harold - "How does ancient history confer modern title?"
You might as well say: For me...the rights of the Jews rest solely on the way they had been mistreated throughout history so
the West couldn't refuse them a
state of their own..."

Well, no. The question is simple: how does ancient history come to confer title now? What is the principle that is applied here? What are the rights you claim on the basis of ancient history and how does ancient history provide a basis for them? Your attempt to express what you mistakenly take to be my opinion is neither here not there.

"such an argument would depend on their having been a Palestinian state there in the first place, where in the aftermath of the mandate for a Jewish national home, a UN resolution, and a Holocaust, a lot of Jews suddenly appeared. Not because they had already been living there... and where a Jewish state was already in embyro..."

This is mistaken in a number of ways.

There is no need for there to have been a Palestinian state for the Palestinian inhabitants to have been badly treated in allowing the Zionist colonisation.

The mandate, you no doubt recall, was for a Jewish National Home, in Palestine that did no harm to the rights of the population already resident (those whose rights were indeed harmed).

The Zionist state "in embryo" was the work of the Mandate. It was not there prior to the Mandate. It was facilitated by Britain as the Mandate power. The state "in embryo" cannot be brought in evidence to support the establishment of a state "in embryo".

You have so far failed to explain your claim of "legitimacy". You have failed to explain how ancient history can confer title. Are you now going to try to explain how the inhabitants lost their rights because they "existed" in the particular geography of their native land?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "You have so far failed to explain your claim of "legitimacy". You have failed to explain how ancient history can confer title. "

Well, comrade, you have certainly failed to "explain" your "claim to legitimacy" and what makes your notion of title legitimate.

Most importantly, you have never explained the implications of an acceptance of your notion of "legitimacy" and "title" in terms of resolving conflict in the Middle East, in the context of the nature of the Islamic states which characterise the region.

If you cannot convince that Iran, Hamas, hezbollah, Syria etc will accept a full and final settlement of the conflict with Israel and on what basis that acceptance would become a genuine reality - as opposed to what you think ought to be the case i.e your fantasy, all your faux lofty disputation is nothing but another tactic in your war strategy - i.e. nothing whatsoever to do with Peace.

Now, you may believe that Israel deserves war till it has acceded to what you want - whatever you admit that to be. That's cool. Just good to stop your sufi-like twirls, so we can all keep our food down.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: I just dont get it. Why are you so concerned to validate any secular claim to legitimacy at all? Such claims are of no relevance whatsoever to any of the Islamic actors involved in the dispute with Israel except in their propaganda war.

Hamas, Hizbollah, Iran - for starters - believe God has given them "title" over Palestine. How many of which tribe lived there when, and how many pairs of pyjamas they had, matters little to them.

AS always, Harold, your arguments are therefore nothing but otiose and an alternative - though, admittedly, a very effective one - way of getting off to sleep.

Harold

Augustus,
Like all the others who come to Israel's defence here, you assert its right to Palestine.

I am sure you are not one of those who pretends to think that, because the Enemy does not believe in such rights (allegedly), the Zionists do not need to have had any to justify taking Palestine. (This argument is often put forward after claiming the Zionists had every right - a combination difficult to reconcile).

We are also to believe that Hizballah has no right to defend the Shia of Lebanon against Israel's frequent assaults. Hamas has no right to defend the people of Gaza from the continuing assaults of those who made most of the families who now "exist" there refugees in the first place. And Iran has no right to defend itself against the repeated and credible threats by Israel and the US to topple its government. Only if they all give up any pretence to such rights (enshrined irrelevantly enough in the UN charter) will we be able to discuss whether or not Israel has the right to act as it does. And even then it will be otiose, since they will all in effect have surrendered and thrown themselves on Israel's mercy, grateful for any full and final settlement Israel deigns to allow.

Or we are told the Enemy think they were given Palestine by God, so no negotiation is possible - after all, God promised the land to the Zionists...

I am not sure if you are one of those who boldly asserts the Zionists' and Israel's rights to this that and the other, throws in the odd non sequitur to support the assertion, and then slinks off in silence rather than answer any objection.

I would hope you are one of those who thinks Israel has reasons good enough to defend robustly and cogently. Such are vanishingly rare here.

Augustus

Harold - The Security Council's
resolutions required Israel and the Arabs to make peace, and that when a 'just and lasting peace' is made Israel should withdraw from some, but not all of the territory it occupied in the course of the 1967 war. The peace borders were to be determined by the parties. According to Professor Julius Stone: "International law forbids acquisition by unlawful force, but not where, as in the case of Israel's self-defence in 1967, the entry on the territory was lawful..."

Regarding your repeated questioning about ancient history and modern title, the important thing to remember is that even without the British mandate for a Jewish national home, or the recommendation by the UN to divide Palestine between the Jews and the Arabs,
the real reason for Israel's existence is because Jews wanted
its creation and with it their own self-determination. It is really a myth that Israel was given to the Jews by the West. The Palestinians themselves prove that this cannot be so, because even with the support of the UN and the whole international community they still can't get any further than a theocracy in Gaza and a corrupt dictatorship in the West Bank. I suppose you could argue that after the events of the Holocaust, the founding of Israel, then the six-day war, the Jewish state was bound to get mired in Messianic controversy, but they appear to have avoided that, as they have
also been spared theocratic extremism and other ideological
madness at the very top.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: Come out, come out, wherever you are!

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: back to your rhetorical twaddle again..

"Augustus,
Like all the others who come to Israel's defence here, you assert its right to Palestine."

Acute observation, Harold!

"I am sure you are not one of those who pretends to think that, because the Enemy does not believe in such rights (allegedly), the Zionists do not need to have had any to justify taking Palestine. (This argument is often put forward after claiming the Zionists had every right - a combination difficult to reconcile)."

No, Harold. You got this wrong. It's not because Israel's Enemies dont believe it has rights to Israel that it believes it doesn't need any to do whatever with. No, no. It's that this is simply an indication that all these Enemies pretenses that they will agree to a meaningful Peace with israel is total bunk.

"We are also to believe that Hizballah has no right to defend the Shia of Lebanon against Israel's frequent assaults. Hamas has no right to defend the people of Gaza from the continuing assaults of those who made most of the families who now "exist" there refugees in the first place. And Iran has no right to defend itself against the repeated and credible threats by Israel and the US to topple its government."

No. Where you get that from? Bu the fact is that all these players are not simple in defence mode and for you to pretend so is silly.

" Only if they all give up any pretence to such rights (enshrined irrelevantly enough in the UN charter) will we be able to discuss whether or not Israel has the right to act as it does."

You have invented this one, dear. Twaddle.

" And even then it will be otiose, since they will all in effect have surrendered and thrown themselves on Israel's mercy, grateful for any full and final settlement Israel deigns to allow."

We live in hope.

"Or we are told the Enemy think they were given Palestine by God, so no negotiation is possible - after all, God promised the land to the Zionists..."

No, no, no! The moslem Enemies think God promised it to them, silly! Get the problem?

"I am not sure if you are one of those who boldly asserts the Zionists' and Israel's rights to this that and the other, throws in the odd non sequitur to support the assertion, and then slinks off in silence rather than answer any objection."

Your objection is that Israelas usurped Palestinian rights. The answer to it is: of course they have, at least according to the Palestinians. According to God? Well, that's a hard one to verify but probably not. God's a mate of the Jews.

So, you objections have been answered and leaves you nowhere, which is where you belong. You're a dead end merchant who wants us all to believe that propaganda is a substitute for a peace process - just like Hamas does. Wont wash, dear. You know as well as everyone what the moslem agenda is and it is not Peace. So, stop talking rhetorical twaddle.

I would hope you are one of those who thinks Israel has reasons good enough to defend robustly and cogently. Such are vanishingly rare here.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: back to your rhetorical twaddle again..

"Augustus,
Like all the others who come to Israel's defence here, you assert its right to Palestine."

Acute observation, Harold!

"I am sure you are not one of those who pretends to think that, because the Enemy does not believe in such rights (allegedly), the Zionists do not need to have had any to justify taking Palestine. (This argument is often put forward after claiming the Zionists had every right - a combination difficult to reconcile)."

No, Harold. You got this wrong. It's not because Israel's Enemies dont believe it has rights to Israel that it believes it doesn't need any to do whatever with. No, no. It's that this is simply an indication that all these Enemies pretenses that they will agree to a meaningful Peace with israel is total bunk.

"We are also to believe that Hizballah has no right to defend the Shia of Lebanon against Israel's frequent assaults. Hamas has no right to defend the people of Gaza from the continuing assaults of those who made most of the families who now "exist" there refugees in the first place. And Iran has no right to defend itself against the repeated and credible threats by Israel and the US to topple its government."

No. Where you get that from? Bu the fact is that all these players are not simple in defence mode and for you to pretend so is silly.

" Only if they all give up any pretence to such rights (enshrined irrelevantly enough in the UN charter) will we be able to discuss whether or not Israel has the right to act as it does."

You have invented this one, dear. Twaddle.

" And even then it will be otiose, since they will all in effect have surrendered and thrown themselves on Israel's mercy, grateful for any full and final settlement Israel deigns to allow."

We live in hope.

"Or we are told the Enemy think they were given Palestine by God, so no negotiation is possible - after all, God promised the land to the Zionists..."

No, no, no! The moslem Enemies think God promised it to them, silly! Get the problem?

"I am not sure if you are one of those who boldly asserts the Zionists' and Israel's rights to this that and the other, throws in the odd non sequitur to support the assertion, and then slinks off in silence rather than answer any objection."

Your objection is that Israelas usurped Palestinian rights. The answer to it is: of course they have, at least according to the Palestinians. According to God? Well, that's a hard one to verify but probably not. God's a mate of the Jews.

So, you objections have been answered and leaves you nowhere, which is where you belong. You're a dead end merchant who wants us all to believe that propaganda is a substitute for a peace process - just like Hamas does. Wont wash, dear. You know as well as everyone what the moslem agenda is and it is not Peace. So, stop talking rhetorical twaddle.

I would hope you are one of those who thinks Israel has reasons good enough to defend robustly and cogently. Such are vanishingly rare here.

Harold

Augustus
September 26th, 2010 9:11pm

Now you have explained what you mean when you call the occupation legitimate (while, I think, failing to answer any other question raised, like what claim the Zionists had to the land and why the inhabitants had no claim).

There are three subjects on which your comments are particularly interesting: 242, self-defence, and self-determination.

242. Israel was alone in its interpretation as regards the timing of its withdrawal from occupied territory. Even the US agreed with the international community, at least until the Reagan administration. (I am talking about the official positions of governments. Individuals within delgations would have different opinions.) Note in passing that Israel's interpretation does still acknowledge that it has to withdraw (excepting very minor, mutually agreed swaps). Note also that Israel's senior law officers at the time advised that it would be illegal to retain the territory or build on it.

Self-defence. Israel has had some very distinguished jurists among its advocates and apologists, who have come up with some truly ingenious justifications. Conquest by defensive attack is one such. It has not met with any great enthusiasm within the community of international jurists. It would appear to be a wholly unwarranted departure from the letter and spirit of the law.

However, let us assume for now that it is correct: self-defence as defined in law still does not cover Israel's actions in 1967. I will not pretend to be able to justify this assertion here. Nevertheless, I think you should study the detail of Israel's actions in the months and years before war broke out. You will find its aggressiveness difficult to reconcile with the notion that it feared for its very existence (you need not take my word for it, Moshe Dayan and others were very clear in describing what they did). I think it possible (just about) that Israel's preemptive attack was defensive in the sense that it (possibly) did not seek to acquire territory, merely to reassert the deterrent force of the IDF (as explained by the military men at the time). In closing the straits and breeching a tacit understanding on the DMZ, Egypt appeared to be undeterred, thus challenging the very foundation of Israeli diplomacy. Israel (by which I mean officialdom, despite the odd panic, not the Israeli people) knew that the forces Egypt deployed in the DMZ were insufficient to pose a threat. It knew the straits were not crucial to its economy. It knew it faced neither imminent wholesale attack nor existential threat. When its security chiefs went to Washington for permission to attack, they agreed with US security officials that Israel could easily defeat all comers. Israel did not face an existential threat and had not pursued all other means to resolve the conflict. It cannot therefore claim to have acted in self-defence in the sense required by law. So, even if it were to be the case (which it isn't) that self-defence justifies the acquisition of territory, Israel's actions cannot be called self-defence. (We have no chance of knowing the whole story until official records of all parties are released, but on the evidence the 1967 war looks like an incident supportive of the cock-up theory of history.)

Self-determination. This gained currency in the context of decolonisation as a criterion for determinig who the colonial power should cede sovereignty to - they hit on the revolutionary idea of letting the people decide i.e. the population of the colonies they were retreating from. How this could reasonably apply to the Jewish citizens of many different states around the world is not obvious. However, assume that it could be: in the period in question, the Zionists represented a very small proportion of all Jews. Self-determination, whatever it might have meant in this instance, would not have resulted in a Zionist state.

You appear in the end to fall back on the argument that the Zionists wanted a state and the Zionists mustered enough force to get one - which, unedifying as it is, may be all that it comes down to. To sustain itself, then, Israel may have to depend indefinitely on the steady import of US subsidised weaponry. All the shrill righteous rhetoric may be considered by those who emit it to be good propaganda in support of this effort to exert force to suppress the locals - but to beleive it would be sheer hypocrisy.

Augustus

Harold - I am still studying your post of 27th Sept., which,
I must admit has an interesting layout. I am not really convinced about the arguments that the war was not truly legally defensive, and you appear to have omitted the quite important and mysterious role the Soviets played visa vi Syria. One thing that does amaze me, however, is why, say post 1967, the Jews have been repeatedly cast in the role of
naughty European colonists, and Israel a racist entity based on the superiority of the Jews, when throughout history they had undoubtedly been badly treated, humiliated, and made to feel inferior to their rulers
who were often, but not always,
Muslims.

jOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: Can't you just seem them? Harold, hair down down to his waist, waistcoat, multi coloured bell bottoms and platform boots...beaded and bangled up..guitar languishing on the floor beside him...with his lover, Lyndsay ,crossed leg...flaxened haired...floral cotten kaftan...draped on the sofa making circles in the air - and little tweeting noises...and the TV in the corner of the room -- blaring out a John Wayne movie which Harold is watching......transfixed. ...and the tension guilds...

He has asomewhat haunted, looney-tunes look of a man who has had a vision. Well indeed he has! There's our legend John - our iconic cowboy - having just sliced the Indian's throat and taken his scalp. Harold's eyes are glistening through the purple haze of joss stick and dope smoke... Harold has truly seen the light.

Yes my friends, on that fateful day - perhaps back in '67, just days before the IDF inflict on the hapless Arabs a second nabka - our Harold is policitised (not circumcised). The world, he knows now, is divided between the "haves" and "have nots"; the "victims" and the "victimisers"; the "hypocrites" and the Lords of truth not war.

To this day, Harold - like a child with an overactive thyroid - eyes a-bulging with his intoxicating sense of self righteousness, knows.,,. Yes, Lord, he KNOWS.....that Israel is hypocritical and survives by might alone but has no moral basis for its existence. The spirit of the Lord has taken Harold, folks . He can see nothing but evil across the Jordan. Those Jews are unique - their state unlike any other in the region: they survive by might! They are hypocites! They are uniquely vicious and cynical in their victimising ways...!! Praise be to God!!!

Harold, get a grip. Grow up. John Wayne is dead and in fact he was just acting. What state behaves differently from Israel in these essentials - either in the Middle East or anywhere on Earth? In what way is Israel different? What are you saying? What point are you making that has any meaning whatsoever?

Stop looking back in your vein attempt to deligitimise Israel as if anything you say pertaining to it cannot be applied 10,000 fold to every state which surrounds it. Please contribute something which is anything but redundant twaddle.

Talk about a new tomorrwow. Tell us how the Middle East can change it's ways. How can the theocratic dictatorships develop a more eqauble and civilised future for their populations? How can we develop a culture in which peace has any real meaning and will stand a chance of wide support - and the kind of might necessary to preserve it without victimising anyone. Tell us this, harold.

Stop mixing your dope and John Wayne. It's a lethal brew and not at all good for your health - mental and otherwise.

Harold

Augustus
September 27th, 2010 8:10pm
I think it is correct to say that textbooks of international law (certainly Western ones) when discussing self defence tend to cite Israel's claim for the six day war. They never in fact endorse it, but they do quote it as if it were the standard exemplar. However, if you read what they say about the principles that apply, and if you read in detail the history of the events leading up to the war, you will find it difficult to agree that Israel's claim is justified. (I do think Israel did not want war, but overdid its aggression and provocation; likewise, the Arabs did not want war, but overdid their provocations - Syria believed Israel's threats, and Nasser was forced by his pan-Arab ambitions to inulge in reckless posturing; the Soviets were incompetent; and the US should not have given the go-ahead.)

If you know anything more about Soviet intentions I would be interested. Yevgeny Primakov has written on Soviet policy, but obviously it is difficult for the layman to sift out the truth from the self-serving "terminological inexactitudes". There is also a conspiracy theory book out about Soviet attempts to destroy Dimona. My guess is that the Soviets, like everyone else in this instance, miscalculated and thus further increased the momentum for war.

One thing I said I think is wrong. I said everyone except Israel agreed on the question of the timing of Israel's withdrawal. As I understand it, US Ambassador Goldberg went from room to room saying one thing to the Arab states and another to Israel. There was however complete unanimity on the illegality of Israel retaining the territories.

I am not sure what your second point refers to. As I understand it, the Zionists were largely European colonists. THe citizens of Israel come from a variety of backgrounds. Israel is criticised for its discriminatory actions towards its Palestinian citizens and its subjugation of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. This has nothing to so with the history of the Jews. It has to do with Israel, and it has to do specifically with its treatment of Palestinians.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

It is quite extraordinary that Harold, after his scores of posts, has only managed to make clear that he thinks israel is the result of Jewish imperialism and, as such, is the victimiser of the moslems (in particular ) of Palestine.

I guess we can infer, at least, that Harold thinks Imperialism is wrong and some form of national self determination is right.

He doesn't elaborate on this but it seems clear that he feels strongly that the Arabs and moslems of Palestine have a right to a state and not the Jews.

Does this mean, therefore, that there is not one other moslem arab state in the Middle East that has the same right or has Harold come up with some other sanctimonious theory which enables these moslems in statehood and not the jews a theory which remains firmly cemented in the lower depths of his contorted psyche?

Does this addict of twaddle feel that dynastic tyranny is a morally sound basis for statehood? Does he support the statehood of all the Arab moslem entities in the region states - the blazoning hallmark of which is dynastic tryranny, and all of which having been born of Imperialism he purports to despise - at least when it comes to the state of the Jews (he is not anti semitic)?

Harold bangs on about "occupation" and the "stealing" of others' land, as if he has some clear basis for determining how land is rightly apportioned, when it is not stolen, who should be the judge of that and what value the relationship between rights and land should in fact have.

We still dont really know what Harold thinks is a just society - one worth fighting for or worth us fighting others about - others whom he feels are impeding the development of those just societies he wishes to emulate or thinks can be created. We dont know if he feels the notion of justice is irrelevant when it comes to evaluating all societies or merely that of an enemy i.e in this case, Israel....and, if he does feel he should apply a notion of Justice equally to all societies, why that state in particular is an enemy any more so than all other societies ( in this case, all other Middle Eastern) who are as unjust or worse.

Do you think he imagines and independant palestine has the promise of being a better society that the country - israel - he compulsively rails against - or better than the tyrannies of ALL other Arab and moslem states in the Middle East?

You see, Harold - like so many who love to vilify israel (not jews, of course, just the state) - seems never to make clear - particularly in the context of the Middle East - why israel - IN THAT CONTEXT - should be singled out at all, no matter what it may have done with regard to settlements, the sport of tennis or the fashion of wigs.

You see, I dont think Harold is qualified to make pronouncements about how evil israel is. He is not qualified because he will not pronounce, with equal fervour, on what is right if israel is wrong - and what is right with regard to any of those whom Israel calls it's mortal enemies.. What is right about Palestinian politics at all, with regard to this conflict and the way it has ALWAYS conducted itself vis a vis its own people? What is right about same with regard to Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Jordan etc? Is it not right to put the criticisms of Israel's actions towards the Arab and moslem states in the context of how they have always behaved not only towards Israel and the Jews - their pogroms, exterminations, expulsions, ethnic cleansing, apartheid policies etc - but towards each other and their own peoples?

Is it not right to doubt the sanctimonious pronouncements of Iran, without whom Hamas and hizbollah would not exist, when it hangs a woman for adultery and would have stoned her if not for the international outcry, not to mention kills those who protest peacefully the stolen elections by its theocratic masters? is this not relevant? If not, what meaning does Harold's obsessive criticisms of Israel have at all? Are they to be compared with the conduct of Jesus, but no other states - to be viewed in vacuo - no other states which can be said to have histories which make Israel look anything less than saintly?

Harold is a ducker and diver. He's a man of sound bytes. Push him to come out the closet and tell mummy the truth about his real proclivities and he squirms and whimpers like the psychotic who has nothing to fear but his own repressed demons.

He she put put on a good psychotropic and sent to be early - probably without any supper.

Skeptic

>>>>>>>Anyone building in the Holy Land on any scale is going to find "holier than thou" difficult to pull off without hypocrisy. Israel is not exempt.

So, you're against the hypocritical "tolerance" mosque in NYC over the graves of the 9/11 victims?

How about criticizing, say, the Muslim Arabs' attempt to turn a church in Nazarath into a mosque, against the will of Christian Arabs?

Or the PA deliberately making Betlehem -- the birthplace of Jesus according to tradition -- into a Muslim city by "squeezing out" Christian Arabs?

Or the Jordanian army's use of Jewish tombstones for paving latrines after 1948?

It's not "building in the holy land" that bothers you, it's Jewish dhimmis building where the believers don't want them to.

Muslims building anywhere, crudely and deliberately riding over the sensibilities and feelings of the dhimmis, is just fine.

One had to know who is boss, after all.

Harold

Skeptic
September 30th, 2010 7:24am

Do try not to be so silly.

Skeptic

>>>>>>Do not try to be so silly

Oh, I'm *sure* you can point out *tons* of examples of yourself publicly posting things on this (or other) discussion boards condemning Muslims building where it offends non-Muslims, right?

What, you can't?

You never actually condemned Muslims building anything anywhere regardless of other people's feelings, only Jews and Christians building things that hurt Muslims' feelings?

Gee, what a curious coincidence, dhimmi.

Skeptic

The real reason for the problem is here:

1940: The Grand Mufti, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini, requested the Nazi powers to acknowledge the Arab right “to settle the question of Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries in accordance with the national and racial interests of the Arabs and along the lines similar to those used to solve the Jewish question in Germany and Italy.”

2002: the Mufti's nephew, Yasser Arafat: "our hero al-Husseini is "a symbol of Palestinian Arab resistance."

He sure was. Makes you wonder, though, about those "early Palestinians": did they constantly randomly kill themselves for being also Jews, practicing the usual "Palestinian resistance" of mass murder?

Harold

Skeptic
September 30th, 2010 7:08pm

To repeat: Try not to be so silly. Instead, try reading the exchange as a whole. It may save you futile, because misdirected, indignation.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "You appear in the end to fall back on the argument that the Zionists wanted a state and the Zionists mustered enough force to get one"

ah, derrrrrrrrrrrr!

Harold seems to be an horrific cross between nurse Rachet and Mcmurphy, after he was lobotomised.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold's nonsense has to stop.

He wants to impose his prescriptions for justice in Palestine on Israel. Nothing less will do.

To give his prescriptions weight, Harold wants us to believe Israel is somehow on less morally compelling foundations. Israel is mired in the "is" as opposed to the loftier "ought". It is because it wants to be and can be so because it is stronger than those he feel it ought to different.

This "ought", of course, is Harold's "ought". What he doesn't seem to realise is Israel has its own "ought" (funny that). In other words, it doesn't agree with Harold's prescriptions.

He also fails to acknowledge (very strange) that if his "ought" had ever been imposed on Israel, Israel would not exist today and, very possibly, not one Jew would have survived in Palestine. But Harold is still whinging because his "ought" and the is i.e what Israel thinks is the "oght" we should uphold, are different. You can hear his wails over all of Sumaria and Judea.

So the "is" that now Harold's "ought" has to come to terms with is that those whom he feels should prevail as far as his "ought" goes" will have to live with the "is". This is what ought becomes when it no longer is or has a chance to be.

So is Harold right about his ought or are his is right and his ought irrelevant because it does not exist in the realm of the is?

What ought a negotiator to do in the circumstances? Well, that is, for sure, entirely a question of what is, for it is certainly plain twaddle not to realise that you will never stand a chance of realising what you think ought to be unless you start with what is.

Is this not so, Harold?

Skeptic

>>>>>>>To repeat: Try not to be so silly. Instead, try reading the exchange as a whole.

I'll take that as an admission that, no, you never actually criticized any Muslims building anything anywhere, regardless of the feelings of others. THAT is fine. Jews building where Arabs don't want them... well... that's another issue.

Just as I thought, dhimmi.

Harold

Septic
October 1st, 2010 10:27am

Sigh.

Never mind.