Trans Ladyboy Forum

Go Back Trans Ladyboy Forum > General Discussion
Register Forum Rules Members List Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Bookmark & Share

Reply
 
Thread Tools Search this Thread Display Modes
  #1  
Old 12-09-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default Arab Spring

Ila suggested that I set up a thread to discuss the Arab spring and the Middle east political situation.

What mystifies me is how the Palestinians (Gazinians) believe they won the latest round with Israel. Perhaps the political gurus on the forum would have some ideas on this.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 12-09-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph View Post
Ila suggested that I set up a thread to discuss the Arab spring and the Middle east political situation.

What mystifies me is how the Palestinians (Gazinians) believe they won the latest round with Israel. Perhaps the political gurus on the forum would have some ideas on this.
I would be happy to have a full, detailed discussion of the Palestine question here; I have views that are quite far afield from those of the overwhelming majority of other Jews. But for now I will simply respond to your specific question.

Perhaps this idea of winning the latest round is meant only in the context of the United Nations General Assembly's symbolic vote on November 29 to upgrade the Palestinian Authority's status in the UN. From the PA's perspective, the elevation from "non-member observer entity" to "non-member observer state" is seen as providing new leverage in dealings with Israel, and represents (in the words of Mahmoud Abbas, the PA president) a "last chance to save the two-state solution."

That vote was taken, and the outcome was certainly influenced by, the relentless and disproportionate shelling of Gaza by Israel compared to the shelling of Israeli neighborhoods by Hamas from Gaza.
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 12-09-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

The Gazinians seem to think that the symbolic acceptance of a Palistinian state is going to solve anything. Israel has made it very plain that nothing will happen until the state of Israel is accepted by the Palestinians. They seem to have this naive view that some "hero" is going to "save" them from the sufferiing recieved from Israel.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 12-09-2012
ila's Avatar
ila ila is offline
Moderator
Shecock obsessed
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 6,294
ila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond repute
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph View Post
Ila suggested that I set up a thread to discuss the Arab spring and the Middle east political situation.

What mystifies me is how the Palestinians (Gazinians) believe they won the latest round with Israel. Perhaps the political gurus on the forum would have some ideas on this.
The Palestinians think that they won because they actually did win the PR war. They did this by placing their firing positions in civilian populated areas such as apartment buildings, houses, neighbourhoods. Then they would fire rockets at Israel. The Israelis would return fire to take out the firing positions. Of course there would be civilian casualties and then the Palestinians would invite in the media to look at what the big bad Israelis did. The media, like the dutiful lapdogs that they are, would immediately scream long and loud how vile the Israelis are. The world would then condemn Israel. Meanwhile nothing would be reported on suicide bombers, rocket attacks, etc. on Israel.

Until the media actually report the news instead of giving their own biased opinions the Israelis will always lose the PR war.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 12-09-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ila View Post
The Palestinians think that they won because they actually did win the PR war. They did this by placing their firing positions in civilian populated areas such as apartment buildings, houses, neighbourhoods. Then they would fire rockets at Israel. The Israelis would return fire to take out the firing positions. Of course there would be civilian casualties and then the Palestinians would invite in the media to look at what the big bad Israelis did. The media, like the dutiful lapdogs that they are, would immediately scream long and loud how vile the Israelis are. The world would then condemn Israel. Meanwhile nothing would be reported on suicide bombers, rocket attacks, etc. on Israel.

Until the media actually report the news instead of giving their own biased opinions the Israelis will always lose the PR war.
The Palestinians have lots of legitimate grievances including the relentless colonization of their land by Israeli settlements. But what is more important for the Palistinians, winning media points or developing some kind of dialog with Israel? Israel is a very tiny country, it's about the size of Vermont and is extremely vulnerable to attack and it has very hostile neighbors.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 12-09-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

In my view, Israel is a colonial-settler state that has as little right to exist as white South Africa ever had to exist on the Azanian land. Israel loses the "PR war," as ila calls it, because most people in the world have a visceral negative reaction to colonization and relentless debasement of an entire people.

By the way, randolph, there is no such thing as a "Gazinian." People in Gaza are Palestinians.

Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 12-09-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

SMC
Quote:
By the way, randolph, there is no such thing as a "Gazinian." People in Gaza are Palestinians.


I made up the term Gazinian
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 12-09-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

SMC
Quote:
In my view, Israel is a colonial-settler state that has as little right to exist as white South Africa ever had to exist on the Azanian land. Israel loses the "PR war," as ila calls it, because most people in the world have a visceral negative reaction to colonization and relentless debasement of an entire people.
The Jews and Arabs have both been in Palistine for thousands of years. It would seem that the Jews have a historical right to live in Palestine.
The Europeans have no historical right to live in south Africa. Also, for that matter, we have no historical right to live in North America.
The British well knew that a Jewish state in Palestine would cause endless trouble and they resisted it. I believe it was our doing that had a lot to do with the surviving European Jews succeeding in establishing a Jewish state in Palistine. Unfortunately, they learned a little to much from the Nazis about intolerance.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 12-10-2012
ila's Avatar
ila ila is offline
Moderator
Shecock obsessed
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 6,294
ila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond repute
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by smc View Post
In my view, Israel is a colonial-settler state that has as little right to exist as white South Africa ever had to exist on the Azanian land. Israel loses the "PR war," as ila calls it, because most people in the world have a visceral negative reaction to colonization and relentless debasement of an entire people...
So just where should the Israelis live, smc? They are on their ancestral land. The house of Israel and descendants have lived in the area of Israel for millennia. Even when the people of the twelve tribes of Israel were dispersed throughout the world there were still Israelis living in the area we now call Israel. The Arabs and the Israelis trace a common ancestry back to Abraham who, it is supposed, lived in the area of Israel.

As for the second part of your first statement I would like to know what you base this on. The current theory of evolution states that everyone alive today can trace their ancestry back to one female in southern Africa. Humans migrated out of Africa to colonize the rest of the world so it would be logical to say that no part of the world belongs to one race more than any other race.

Throughout the history of the world there has been one race or tribe moving into another?s area. The Turks, who come from the Asian steppes displaced the Greeks who had earlier displaced the Hittites. In the other direction the Greeks colonized Egypt to point of taking over the ruling class. The Greeks also colonized Sicily and southern Italy and deprived the Etruscans, who were there first, of their land.

The Hungarians are native to the steppes of Asia. The Visigoths who were originally from the area of the Black Sea settled in Spain. The Romans colonized most of Europe, parts of the Middle East, and northern Africa. The Celts drove out the original inhabitants of western Europe and went on to settle in Austria, Switzerland, northern Italy, France, Germany, and the UK. The Celts were in turn conquered by the Romans, the Franks, and the Germanic tribes all of which came out of the vast grasslands of western Asia.

The Scandinavians drove the Suomi north from their native land. They then turned their attention to the south occupying the lands of the Germanic tribes of western Europe.

The Persians tried to expand their empire west without much lasting success. They did however move east into Afghanistan and India.

The tribes of the Americas continually encroached on each other?s land.

So where is the cut-off point where it can be said that no one race or tribe allowed to settle anywhere other than where they are?
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 12-10-2012
franalexes franalexes is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: indoors & outside
Posts: 1,416
franalexes has much to be proud offranalexes has much to be proud offranalexes has much to be proud offranalexes has much to be proud offranalexes has much to be proud offranalexes has much to be proud offranalexes has much to be proud offranalexes has much to be proud offranalexes has much to be proud of
Default

In 1967 Israel was attacked on three fronts. Israel kicked ass and won Gaza, Golan heights and the west bank. Years following, they gave up Gaza. They did so on conditions that the Palestinians would be at peace.
That didn't work out to well.
Israel should never have given up what somebody else lost.


As an added note: We think of 911 as a one time, one day event. In Israel, 911 is an every day event.

Last edited by franalexes; 12-10-2012 at 07:44 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old 12-10-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

In many parts of the world, as Ila points out, people move from one place to another, occupying other peoples land. Usually, the occupier merges with the occupied. The Spanish merged with the Aztecs and other groups in the new world. When the Jews took over a part of Palestine, they did not do this, they did not merge into the existing population. Most of the existing population was expelled. The surrounding countries would not accomodate them, consequently they, the Palestinians, became refugees. The Nazis purged Germany of Jews and other ethnic groups and the Israelis have done much the same thing, purging Israel's lands of non Jews.
It is very problematic that the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust would have been willing to accomodate the Muslims residing in the lands taken over by the Jewish refugees.
Peoples of radically different religious beliefs can live in harmony together as long as an agitator does not inflame intolerance in one group. The US, Europe and Indonesia are some examples.
We will never know whether the Jews and the Muslims could have lived in harmony in a Palestinian state.
I think it can be shown historically that when groups mix together, a synergy is produced that makes the population innovative and dynamic. Look at the US and Canada for example. Of course Muslims and Jews can never mix together, or could they?
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 12-10-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by franalexes View Post
In 1967 Israel was attacked on three fronts. Israel kicked ass and won Gaza, Golan heights and the west bank. Years following, they gave up Gaza. They did so on conditions that the Palestinians would be at peace.
That didn't work out to well.
Israel should never have given up what somebody else lost.
Israel could have easily taken over all of Palestine but what to do with all the Muslims. Well, - ahem - make them convert to the Jewish religion! This is what the Muslims did as they occupied much of the near east. Historically most Muslims did not become Muslims by choice, it was forced upon them.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old 12-10-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

I promise to give a substantive answer to ila's long post above as soon as I am past the current oppression of a huge research grant deadline.
Reply With Quote
  #14  
Old 12-10-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Fran
Quote:
As an added note: We think of 911 as a one time, one day event. In Israel, 911 is an every day event.
True enough that the Israelis are being bombarded by rockets and bombers, however, the damage and casualties are relatively light compared to the severe retaliation inflicted on the Palestinians. The constant harassment of Israel by Hamas is outrageous and is for political purposes. It is to encourage retaliation so Hamas can strengthen their political position in Gaza and the Arab world..
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #15  
Old 12-13-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ila View Post
So just where should the Israelis live, smc? They are on their ancestral land. The house of Israel and descendants have lived in the area of Israel for millennia. Even when the people of the twelve tribes of Israel were dispersed throughout the world there were still Israelis living in the area we now call Israel. The Arabs and the Israelis trace a common ancestry back to Abraham who, it is supposed, lived in the area of Israel. ...


As promised:

ila raises some good points. Let me begin by defining what I mean by a "colonial-settler state."

Not all colonialism is settler colonialism. For instance, Britain colonized a large part of the world to exploit natural and human resources. Under this type of colonialism, administrators and armed forces (and their families) make up the bulk of the non-native peoples in the colony. Settlement by large numbers of people from the colonizer country is neither encouraged nor typical.

Settler colonialism, though, is about land irrespective of the natural and human resources. Settler families move in. They reproduce. They are sometimes backed up by some imperial power, either directly or indirectly, for a time. Over time, the colonization includes direct or indirect depopulation of the previous inhabitants. This may happen through expulsion, wholesale killing, or (least likely) an accelerated birthrate by the colonizers over time. As historian Patrick Wolfe has put it ?settler colonialism destroys to replace.?

Also over time, the settler population establishes its own colonizing authority.

Now, on to Israel.

In the late 19th century, a political movement called Zionism emerged as a response to anti-Semitism, particularly in Eastern Europe. The Zionists concluded that anti-Semitism could not be eliminated, and began to advocate Jewish emigration to an exclusively Jewish state that would be set up somewhere, anywhere. Theodor Herzl, acknowledged as Zionism?s founder, called in an 1896 pamphlet for a Jewish state to be set up in an undeveloped country outside Europe. He also stated explicitly that this couldn?t happen unless one of the major imperialist powers backed the Zionists. After all, they were busy carving up the world for themselves. Herzl posited that if such support could be found, the Zionist movement would conduct itself like other colonizing ventures.

By the way, the Zionists openly considered a big part of Argentina, Madagascar, and Uganda as places for the new Jewish state. These places have absolutely no connection to Judaism or the ?house of Israel? (to use ila?s term). Some religious Jews suggested Palestine, the so-called Biblical ?promised land.?

By the way, it should be pointed out that the overwhelming majority of Orthodox Jews, prior to Israel?s founding, opposed the establishment of a Jewish state in the so-called ?promised land.? This was seen as a direct affront to God, who had made a covenant with Abraham and promised that the Jews would be returned to that place by a Messiah. The establishment of a Jewish state there by men was counter to a central tenet of Judaism.

Back to Herzl. He wrote about Palestine becoming a Jewish state that it would form ?a portion of the rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism.? Already, the Zionists were situating their ideas in the context of a system of colonial domination, and referring to the indigenous people of Palestine as barbarians.

Once Palestine was chosen, the Zionist movement attempted to persuade one of the imperialist powers to support the colonization. They approach Turkey and Germany, but were turned down. (Yes, Germany!). The Zionists didn?t care who they allied with. Herzl approached Count Von Plehve, sponsor of the worst anti-Jewish pogroms in Russia. He wrote to him, ?Help me to reach the land sooner and the revolt [against Czarist rule] will end.? Herzl and other Zionist leaders offered to help guarantee Czarist interests in Palestine and to rid Eastern Europe and Russia of those ?noxious and subversive Anarcho-Bolshevik Jews.? In other words, the Zionists would help the Czarists get rid of people who wanted to fight anti-Semitism. Von Plehve saw an opportunity, writing: ?The Jews have been joining the revolutionary parties. We were sympathetic to your Zionist movement as long as it worked toward emigration. You don?t have to justify the movement to me. You are preaching to a convert.?

Britain took control of Palestine at the end of World War I, so the Zionists turned their lobbying to the British government. Chaim Weizmann argued, ?A Jewish Palestine would be a safeguard to England, in particular in respect to the Suez Canal.? You see how the Jewish state project begins to have less and less to do with anti-Semitism and more and more to do with traditional colonial interests?

On November 2, 1917, Lord Balfour, the British foreign minister Lord Balfour and a notorious anti-Semite, issued the following declaration: ?His Majesty?s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object. ...?

Notably, one of the people who played a very important role in convincing Balfour to make this declaration was General Jan Smuts, the South African delegate to the British war cabinet. Smuts, who later became South Africa?s prime minister (he?s the one who cracked down on Gandhi when he was in South Africa) was a friend of Weizmann?s; the latter often compared the Zionist?s aims in Palestine with the South African idea of creating a racially distinct colonizing population ... and all that entailed. It?s no wonder that later on, when South Africa became an international pariah, the only country that would openly sell arms to the South Africa government and that would invite its athletes to participate in events was Israel!

How did the Zionists create the Israel of today? Small Jewish settlements had existed in Palestine from the late 19th century, but after 1917 the colonization process accelerated considerably. Jewish organizations bought up large areas of land from absentee landlords, displacing large numbers of Palestinian peasants. The Zionists also began to construct an exclusively Jewish ?enclave? economy, organized around the Histadrut, the ?General Confederation of Hebrew Workers? in Palestine. Settlers would refuse to employ Arab labor and they boycotted Arab goods, seeking to destroy Palestinian Arab livelihood in the region.

Then came the 1930s. Fascism was on the rise in Europe. Most Jews didn?t want to leave Europe for Palestine, but the Zionists worked over time to get their colonial power sponsors to encourage such migration. Of all Jewish migrants from Europe in the 1930s, only about 8.5 percent went to Palestine. That number was likely accomplished only because the United States and Britain enacted immigration policies that kept a lot of Jews out, and then encouraged Palestine as an alternative.

[TO BE CONTINUED]
Reply With Quote
  #16  
Old 12-13-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default



Continued:

I want to make a very important point. Zionism and Judaism are not the same. In my opinion, Zionism is actually the primary creator of anti-Semitism in the world today, though, by having successfully created the illusion in the minds of most people that they are the same. I will explain in a moment. First, some facts.

Israel?s founding is justified as a response to the horrors of the Nazi holocaust against the Jews. But here?s a fact: the Zionists frequently collaborated with fascism. In 1933, the Zionist Federation of Germany sent the Nazi Party a memorandum of support that read, in part: ?On the foundation of the new [Nazi] state which has established the principle of race, we wish to fit our community into the total structure so that for us, too, in the sphere assigned to us, fruitful activity for the Fatherland is possible.?

One could argue that this was a survival move, but the truth is that while Jews fought the Nazis in underground armies and in the Warsaw Ghetto over the next years, Zionists did not.

Also in 1933, the congress of the World Zionist Organization defeated a resolution for action against Hitler. The vote was 240 to 43.

Joseph Goebbels wrote several articles praising Zionism. The Nazis funded some Zionist leaders. In 1937, a member of the Haganah, a Zionist militia in Palestine, delivered the following message to the German SS: ?Jewish nationalist circles ... were very pleased with the radical German policy, since the strength of the Jewish population in Palestine would be so far increased thereby that in the foreseeable future the Jews could reckon upon numerical superiority over the Arabs.?

The Zionist movement in the United States, and Britain openly opposed changes in the immigration laws that would have permitted more Jews to find refuge in those countries. The rationale? The fewer other places Jews could flee to, the more likely they would go to Palestine. If more Jews died in the process, so what! In 1938, future Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion wrote: ?If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Yisrael [greater Israel], then I would opt for the second alternative.?

As Jewish organizations in Western Europe and the United States in the late 1930s and early 1940s cried out for help, for public campaigns, for organized resistance, for demonstrations to force the hand of the allied governments to stem the tide of Hitler?s Jewish extermination (which the West was aware of), the Zionists were silent. They sabotaged efforts to save Jews from Hitler. They did not want to rock the boat of the countries that supported converting Palestine to a colonial-settler state for Jews.

Meanwhile, the British colonial regime gave Jews in Palestine privileged status over the indigenous Palestinian Arabs. Jewish capital got 90 percent of all economic concessions. Jews were paid higher wages than Arabs for equal work. This had begun in the 1920s. The British used Jewish settlers to help suppress mass demonstrations by Arabs against landlessness (sales of their homes by absentee landlords, and forced expulsions) and unemployment. From 1936 to 1939, there was a sustained Palestinian uprising, including a general strike that lasted several months. The British relied on Zionist militias to execute leaders and help round up thousands for imprisonment. Thousands of Arab homes were physically demolished, and then the Zionists would step in and stake a ?claim? to the then-unoccupied land.

After World War II, the Brits had to leave Palestine; the UK was tremendously weakened by the war. The other leading powers, including the United States and the Soviet Union, decided to partition the country into separate Jewish and Palestinian section. The Jews at the time were 31 percent of the population; they were given 54 percent of the fertile land. But the Zionist acceptance of this was just to play along, and those who sponsored them knew it. Ben-Gurion had written, in 1938: ?The boundaries of Zionist aspiration include southern Lebanon, southern Syria, today?s Jordan, all of Cis-Jordan [the West Bank] and the Sinai. .... After we become a strong force as the result of the creation of the state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine. The state will only be a stage in the realization of Zionism and its task is to prepare the ground for our expansion. The state will have to preserve order ... with machine guns.

Well, how do you accomplish that? You?d have to expel the Arabs, by force if necessary. Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency?s Colonization Department, wrote in 1940: ?There is no room for both peoples together in this country ... We shall not achieve our goal of being an independent people with the Arabs in this small country ... And there is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries. To transfer all of them; not one village, not one tribe should be left.

The ?Koenig Report,? a Zionist document of the time, was even more direct: ?We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.?

I ask ila, in the context of what he wrote, do the Arabs, who also trace the ?common ancestry back to Abraham,? have any claim on the land of Palestine?

[TO BE CONTINUED]
Reply With Quote
  #17  
Old 12-13-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default



Continued:

Even if none of what I wrote about the Zionists and what they did in Palestine up to and including the World War II period were true, what they did after the war, particularly beginning in late 1947 and especially in 1948, would be enough to characterize the Zionist state as illegitimate. Then, Zionist forces seized three-quarters of the land and expelled close to 1 million Palestinians. Paramilitary groups such as the Irgun and the Haganah carried out massacres. I personally have Palestinian friends whose parents and grandparents were awakened in the middle of the night by Zionists soldiers and forced, at gun point, to flee their homes. One of my friends carries the key to her family?s house around her neck; the house is still there, just outside Hebron (in the West Bank), lived in since 1948 by the same Zionist family.

By the way, future Israeli prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir were leaders of these paramilitary groups, which were as much terrorist groups as anything the West typically reserves that term for today.

Massacres, you may ask. Yes, indeed. There was a famous one in the small Palestinian Arab village of Deir Yassin. Menachem Begin was there to help murder 254 men, women, and children, and steal their land. Later, Begin wrote, in celebration of what had been accomplished: ?All in the Jewish forces proceeded to advance through Haifa like a knife through butter. The Arabs began fleeing in panic, shouting ?Deir Yassin?.?

The official Israeli Defense Forces carried out other massacres. About Dueima, another Palestinian Arab village, an IDF soldier actually wrote about what he was an eyewitness to (and later regretted): ?They killed between eighty to one hundred Arab men, women and children. To kill the children they fractured their heads with sticks. There was not one home without corpses. ... Educated and well-mannered commanders who were considered ?good guys? ... became base murderers, and this not in the storm of battle, but as a method of expulsion and extermination.?

Close to 500 Palestinian villages existed in the territory that came under Israeli occupation after partition in 1947. During 1948 and 1949, nearly 400 of them were razed to the ground. More were destroyed in the 1950s. In 1969, Moshe Dayan, former chief of staff and minister of defense, summarized: ?We came here to a country that was populated by Arabs, and we are building here a Hebrew, Jewish state. Instead of Arab villages, Jewish villages were established ... There is not a single [Jewish] settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab village.?

So, Israel was established with massacres and land grabs. What about the old story that the Zionists had no choice because the survival of the new state was threatened by hostile Arab neighbors? It?s true that there were some military clashes with neighboring countries in 1948, as those countries took small (and largely fruitless actions) meant to look as if they were defending the Palestinians. The rulers of those countries saw an opportunity: the existence of a colonial-settler state in the midst of the Arab world would divert the attention of the Arab masses away from their oppressors in their own countries -- that is, the ruling despots. That would serve the despots interests, which is why the key Arab governments accepted Israel?s founding and were already in negotiation with the new Israeli government.

The ?security? argument for Israel?s continued land grabs has always been a fraud. Moshe Sharett, an Israeli prime minister in the 1950s, wrote as much in his memoirs. He states that the Zionist political and military leadership never believed in any Arab danger to Israel, but that Israel deliberately tried to maneuver and force the Arab states into military confrontations the Israelis were certain the Zionists could precisely so that Israel could destabilize Arab regimes and occupy more territory. Sharrett wrote that Israel?s aim has always been to ?dismember the Arab world, defeat the Arab national movement and create puppet regimes under regional Israeli power? and ?to modify the balance of power in the region radically, transforming Israel into the major power in the Middle East.?

So much for a protective homeland for Jews fleeing anti-Semitism. This, though, explains why the United States backs Israel with more foreign aid than any other country. An Israel that does what Sharett explains serves the interests of the U.S. rulers tremendously. If they have to couch their support for Israel in the language of fighting anti-Semitism, that?s fine.

Before 1947, Jews owned about 6 percent of the land in Palestine. In the process of establishing the State of Israel, the Zionists expropriated 90 percent of the land, the vast majority of which formerly belonged to Arabs. They emptied whole cities of their Palestinian Arab population. They seized factories, rolling stock, orchards, and houses. This is, and continues to be, ethnic cleansing.

Then, to bolster the population, Israel established the ?The Law of Return.? I am a Jew, born in the United States. I am an American citizen. Yet, I can get on a plane to Tel Aviv tomorrow and declare myself an Israeli citizen, a citizen of a land to which I have no claim and no connection other than a supposed Biblical one. My friend Lana, the woman who wears the key around her neck (see above), is also an American citizen. She was born of Palestinian parents who fled to the United States from a refugee camp. Her family are Christians; there are quite a few Christian Palestinian Arabs. Were she to fly with me, she would get off in Tel Aviv and have no such right to claim her citizenship. When she visits her family still in the West Bank, she has to avoid Israel altogether, entering via Jordan and then enduring checkpoint after checkpoint after checkpoint, and humiliation after humiliation after humiliation.

[TO BE CONTINUED]
Reply With Quote
  #18  
Old 12-13-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default



Continued:

After the Six Day War in 1967, Israel occupied further territory including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Some 55 percent of the West Bank land and 70 percent of the water were seized for Jewish settlers, a tiny fraction of the population. In Gaza, 500,000 Palestinians were confined to camps and slums; 2,200 settlers were given more than 40 percent of the land.

I say it again: Israel is an illegitimate state with no right to exist.

Let me end by coming back to my earlier point that Zionism is actually the primary creator of anti-Semitism in the world today. Here?s how I mean that.

The Zionists, aided by the powers in other countries that benefit from the geopolitical role Israel plays that has nothing to do with Jews and Judaism, have perpetrated a tremendous fraud. They have succeeded in equating, in the minds of most of the world?s people, two things that are antithetical: Zionism and Judaism.

Zionism is a political ideology. Judaism is a religion. By its acts, Zionism has demonstrated that it is a ruthless, murdering, colonizing ideology put forth for political power. The central tenet of the Jewish religion is to heal the world.

But the Zionists are smart. At every juncture, throughout their history but especially since the Palestine project began, they have publicly equated opposition to their political ideology as opposition to Judaism. Say something long enough and loud enough, and have powerful allies in your project (especially the United States and the U.S. media, which almost never reports honestly about Israel), and soon enough you?ll have the world believing your lie.

And so, by equating Zionism and Judaism, the Zionists have ensured that generations of Palestinian Arab youth have grown up making this mistake. That is why the Hamas-run television station in Gaza runs children?s programs that are so virulently anti-Semitic. It?s not because Palestinian Arabs are anti-Semitic per se, but because there is a false equivalency that has been constructed. To the person who is living in a refugee camp, oppressed by the Israeli state, Judaism and Zionism have become one and the same. The Zionists maintain this falsehood at whatever cost. Criticize Zionism, and you are labeled an anti-Semite. Hell, they even have created the notion of the ?self-hating Jew? to characterize Jews like myself who are opposed to Zionism.

I could go into tremendous detail about this phenomenon, but I think it speaks for itself.
Reply With Quote
  #19  
Old 12-13-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

SMC
Quote:
As Jewish organizations in Western Europe and the United States in the late 1930s and early 1940s cried out for help, for public campaigns, for organized resistance, for demonstrations to force the hand of the allied governments to stem the tide of Hitler?s Jewish extermination (which the West was aware of), the Zionists were silent. They sabotaged efforts to save Jews from Hitler. They did not want to rock the boat of the countries that supported converting Palestine to a colonial-settler state for Jews.
This is a very interesting account of Zionism and Israel. However, I find the above quote, from the account, very difficult to believe.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #20  
Old 12-13-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph View Post
SMC


This is a very interesting account of Zionism and Israel. However, I find the above quote, from the account, very difficult to believe.
Wow, of everything I wrote, that's all you pick out?!

I will clarify: I mean the official Zionist organizations and their leaderships. In the context of their singular determination on establishing a Zionist colonial-settler state in Palestine, the persecution of Jews served a purpose. They believed it would compel emigrants to choose Palestine.

I will give a specific example, too. In 1937, Jews were streaming out of Germany. American Jewish organizations (non-Zionist) asked Roosevelt to allow more refugees into the United States. At first, he suggested they be "resettled" anywhere but the United States, suggesting Venezuela, Ethiopia, West Africa, and Palestine. In 1940, only 22,000 German refugees were admitted to the United States, and not all of them were Jewish.

Famously, in 1939, Roosevelt's State Department refused entry of a passenger ship loaded with Jews who were fleeing Hitler's Germany. The ship had left from Hamburg, Germany. The original plan was for this ship to land in Cuba and then have the refugees apply for U.S. asylum. But there was a problem landing in Cuba. From off the coast of Florida, telegrams were sent by passengers to the U.S. State Department, requesting U.S. asylum. The requests were spurned -- and historians have unearthed that the American Zionist Organization lobbied Roosevelt heavily to refuse. The Zionists figured that if the ship had to turn back, it could be convinced to go to Palestine.

Rescuing these Jews was secondary to the desire for colonial settlement in the Palestinian Arab lands, which required Jewish bodies! Forget that German U-Boats might have sunk the ship on its return voyage across the Atlantic and through the Mediterranean!

The ship ended up returning to Antwerp, after other countries interceded. But few survivors of the voyage could be found after World War II. Why? They died in concentration camps.

The shameful record of the American Zionists with respect to the St. Louis are completely buried at the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. Reading the record there, you would think that the passengers all lived happily ever after!
Reply With Quote
  #21  
Old 12-13-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph View Post
SMC


This is a very interesting account of Zionism and Israel. However, I find the above quote, from the account, very difficult to believe.
I just read an article in Dissident Voice by William Martin that confirms everything SMC has said. The article goes further outlining the collaboration between Zionists in Palestine and Germany to get German products past the German embargo. I knew the Zionists were a radical bunch of fanatics but I had no idea how ruthless they were and quite willing to pursue the goal of a Jewish state by ignoring the holocaust.
"Lenni Brenner puts it:
… of all of the active Jewish opponents of the boycott idea [of Nazi Germany], the most important was the world Zionists Organization (WZO). It not only bought German wares; it sold them, and even sought out new customers for Hitler and his industrialist backers."


Thanks SMC for bringing out the horrible truth about Zionism.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.

Last edited by randolph; 12-13-2012 at 07:12 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #22  
Old 12-13-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph View Post
I just read an article in Dissident Voice by William Martin that confirms everything SMC has said. The article goes further outlining the collaboration between Zionists in Palestine and Germany to get German products past the German embargo. I knew the Zionists were a radical bunch of fanatics but I had no idea how ruthless they were and quite willing to pursue the goal of a Jewish state by ignoring the holocaust.
"Lenni Brenner puts it:
? of all of the active Jewish opponents of the boycott idea [of Nazi Germany], the most important was the world Zionists Organization (WZO). It not only bought German wares; it sold them, and even sought out new customers for Hitler and his industrialist backers."


Thanks SMC for bringing out the horrible truth about Zionism.
Is it any wonder, then, that the Zionists became so adept at applying the well-honed Nazi concept of collective guilt? Or that in the Second Intifada, they captured young boys who threw rocks at the occupier's tanks and systematically broke their hands, smashing them so they could never be used again? Or that at the same time they speak of "peace" they build settlements in newly stolen lands?

I support the dismantling of the Israeli state and I support the original slogan of the Palestine Liberation Organization for a "democratic, secular Palestine of Jews and Arabs living together." But even for those who support a two-state solution, and believe Israel has any interest in "peace" with its colonized, dispossessed, expelled Palestinian Arabs, I submit to you the following thoughts.

The Israeli settlement policy is a deliberate and cynical rejection of "peace" and any Palestinian state. It speaks to the ultimate objection, the Israeli's "final solution" (if you will): the complete dispossession of the Palestinians until they have absolutely nothing left. Even if you accept the claim of the pre-1967 territory as needed as a homeland for the Jews, nothing of the sort can be said of the post-1967 settlements. They are a land grab for cheap housing. They are payback for the support of evangelicals (who figure tremendously in keeping the American aid dollars flowing to pay for the Israeli Defense Forces and everything else in Israel). And they are simply an expression of the true face of Zionism and its criminal approach to the indigenous people of Palestine. They are about meting out continued suffering and deprivation.

The Zionists, with the help of the U.S. government and media, always try to stake out the high moral ground. This from a political movement that expresses its true ideology by halting ambulances on the way to take wounded civilians to hospitals, deliberately messy air strikes claimed to be "surgical," uprooting orchards and olive groves that pose no security threat (but that represent meager subsistence for the owners), destroying the water supply to the West Bank, curfews that make it nearly impossible for Palestinians to hold down jobs, warehousing food shipments from international aid organizations long enough to ensure that the food spoils ... I could go on and on.

Is it any wonder that young people growing up under such circumstances can be so easily persuaded to strap bombs to themselves and get on buses in Tel Aviv?

Whenever you see a U.S. television report about the civilian neighborhood in Israel, just beyond the Gaza border, that took a rocket from Hamas, remember that those people were placed in a war zone precisely so when they got bombed the cynical Zionists could shout about how the barbarian Palestinians fire on civilians. Meanwhile, count the civilian deaths in Gaza from deliberate bombings of apartment buildings, bombings allegedly to kill one Hamas leader at the expense of dozens of men, women, and children relegated to live there because their family homes were stolen at the point of gun!

Judaism's central tenet is תיקון עולם -- tikkun olam, healing or repairing the world. It is completely antithetical to Zionism, which usurps Judaism for destructive, criminal, murderous political purposes.
Reply With Quote
  #23  
Old 12-13-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Historically, most population groups such as European countries, religions and tribes consider protecting their own people a top priority. Wars are fought to protect their people from invaders. Not so with the Zionists, the only thing that mattered to them was establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. They even colluded with the archenemy of Jews, the Nazis, to foster the establishment of a Jewish state.
It appears that a lot of the younger Israelis are getting fed up with the Zionist paradigm. Dissension within Israel will add to the instability sweeping across the Middle East. Islamists are making every effort to capitalize on the instability. Israel has no friends but us and their enemies are gaining more power and support. Are we going to defend Israel to the last?

I am totally appalled and shocked at what the Zionists did and are still doing. It is amazing how poorly informed we are about the state of Israel.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #24  
Old 12-14-2012
ila's Avatar
ila ila is offline
Moderator
Shecock obsessed
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 6,294
ila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond repute
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by smc View Post


Continued:

...I ask ila, in the context of what he wrote, do the Arabs, who also trace the ?common ancestry back to Abraham,? have any claim on the land of Palestine?

[TO BE CONTINUED]
smc, there are too many posts to reply properly to everything you written so I am only quoting one part of one post, but will reply in general to what you have written.

One can support the presence of Israel and Judaism without supporting Zionism.

To answer the quote, yes, the arabs do have a claim to the land where Israel exists. To properly understand the whole situation one must delve into the history of that area. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah existed from approximately 900 BC. Before that there were the areas of the twelve tribes of Israel which occupied the land from approximately modern day Lebanon and Syria where they border modern day Israel south to the Sinai and east into modern Jordan.

If one believes the Bible then the Jews occupied part of this area before going to Egypt and then returning after the exodus from Egypt. In the meantime Canaanites, Moabites, and Edomites (to name just three peoples) occupied the area and were still there when the Israelites returned (and probably there when the Israelites first lived in the area. It should also be noted that Israel and Judah were not homogenously Jewish.

The Canaanites, Moabites, and Israelites are Semitic people and spoke Semitic languages. It is quite possible that the arabs (Palestinians) are descendants of the Moabites, the Canaanite, and the Edomites as well as others. Note that I have no evidence for the preceding statement. It is purely a guess on my part as the Moabites are direct descendants of Abraham through Lot and his son Moab. As well Palestinians are a Semitic people and Arabic is a Semitic language. Therefore because all these people lived in the area then the Jews and the Palestinians have a claim to the land where Israel currently exists.

There is a theory that there was no exodus of Jews from Egypt, but rather that the Jews were always in the area of Israel and eventually differentiated themselves from others living in the area mainly through the belief in one god, Yaweh.

smc, I have a lot more to add so if we are going to continue this discussion it should be in a separate thread as we are coming close to completely derailing randolph?s original intent. Or better yet we should continue this discussion in person sharing a bottle of Jameson?s and indulging in some good draught beer.
Reply With Quote
  #25  
Old 12-14-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Ila
Quote:
smc, I have a lot more to add so if we are going to continue this discussion it should be in a separate thread as we are coming close to completely derailing randolph?s original intent. Or better yet we should continue this discussion in person sharing a bottle of Jameson?s and indulging in some good draught beer
.

Ila, please continue the discussion, it is very interesting and it is related to the Arab Spring.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #26  
Old 12-15-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph View Post
Ila, please continue the discussion, it is very interesting and it is related to the Arab Spring.
I completely agree. The uprising of the Arab masses against their oppressive governments is intimately linked to the presence of the Zionist state in their midst. Israel has played as much of a role in keeping the Arab masses quiet for decades as have the Arab governments themselves ... a point I think I infer.

So, ila, while I agree that a bottle of Jameson would be an excellent accompaniment, there's no reason we can't discuss here as well.


Quote:
Originally Posted by ila View Post
smc, there are too many posts to reply properly to everything you written so I am only quoting one part of one post, but will reply in general to what you have written.

One can support the presence of Israel and Judaism without supporting Zionism. ...
I am addressing only one of your points. I completely disagree with what you write above about "support ... without supporting Zionism."

The state of Israel has existed for a long time, now. The repressive apparatus is firmly entrenched. The settlements exist. This is not an abstract question of Moabites and Canaanites. It is a concrete political question of the 21st century.

The first steps have to be a) dismantling all of the settlements on post-1967 lands, b) tearing down the barrier wall between Israel and the West Bank, c) guaranteeing the free movement of anyone throughout the territory (which means opening the "circular roads" to Palestinians; I can explain what these are if anyone asks) and d) establishing the right of return for all Palestinians. The latter means acknowledging the Palestinian claim on every home, factory, orchard, grove, and plot of land. It is true that given the Palestinian diaspora, many if not most will not choose to return, but they have a legal claim that should be settled with compensation. Let the U.S. aid go to that instead of Israeli nuclear weapons!

A democratic, secular Palestine is a prerequisite to peace. Not a two-state solution. The thing about legitimate nationalist claims to usurped land is that while they may ebb and flow with respect to their intensity, even from generation to generation, but human history shows that they seem to live on in national groups almost like a gene. Even with a two-state solution, that key around the neck of my friend Lana will live on, and some day one of her children or children's children will want to know why the house was stolen, and the next thing you know the struggle will be renewed. That's why a democratic, secular Palestine -- absent Zionism -- with Arabs and Jews living together is the only answer.

I believe Palestine goes from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, not some carved up faux country that is non-contiguous, jerry-rigged by a colonizer and designed to maintain oppression long after the question of statehood has been "settled."
Reply With Quote
  #27  
Old 12-15-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

SMC
Quote:
The state of Israel has existed for a long time, now. The repressive apparatus is firmly entrenched. The settlements exist. This is not an abstract question of Moabites and Canaanites. It is a concrete political question of the 21st century.
How the state of Israel became a reality is a very interesting story. It goes back to the establishment of a British mandate over Palestine after WWI. The British were pro Arab for economic reasons involving their interests in the Near East (Suez Canal, etc). Arab unrest was a serious concern of the British. Immigration of thousands of Jewish refugees from Europe presented Britain with a real dilemma. Britain attempted to restrict movement to Palestine for fear of causing more problems with the Arabs. At the same time they did not want more Jewish refugees coming into England.
They even forbid Palestinians from offering ransom to the Nazis to allow immigration of German Jews
.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #28  
Old 12-15-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph View Post
SMC

How the state of Israel became a reality is a very interesting story. It goes back to the establishment of a British mandate over Palestine after WWI. The British were pro Arab for economic reasons involving their interests in the Near East (Suez Canal, etc). Arab unrest was a serious concern of the British. Immigration of thousands of Jewish refugees from Europe presented Britain with a real dilemma. Britain attempted to restrict movement to Palestine for fear of causing more problems with the Arabs. At the same time they did not want more Jewish refugees coming into England.
They even forbid Palestinians from offering ransom to the Nazis to allow immigration of German Jews
.
But then the Brits figured out that establishing a "beachhead" in the region served their economic interests in the ways I explained above, which is why they supported the partition and ultimately the establishment of the Zionist state.
Reply With Quote
  #29  
Old 12-16-2012
ila's Avatar
ila ila is offline
Moderator
Shecock obsessed
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 6,294
ila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond repute
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by smc View Post
[FONT="Times New Roman"] I completely agree. The uprising of the Arab masses against their oppressive governments is intimately linked to the presence of the Zionist state in their midst. Israel has played as much of a role in keeping the Arab masses quiet for decades as have the Arab governments themselves ... a point I think I infer.
Are you serious that Israel caused the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt?

Quote:
Originally Posted by smc View Post
So, ila, while I agree that a bottle of Jameson would be an excellent accompaniment, there's no reason we can't discuss here as well.
You know that I don?t live around the corner from so I couldn't seriously be trying to move the discussion away from this site.

Quote:
Originally Posted by smc View Post
I am addressing only one of your points. I completely disagree with what you write above about "support ... without supporting Zionism."

The state of Israel has existed for a long time, now. The repressive apparatus is firmly entrenched. The settlements exist. This is not an abstract question of Moabites and Canaanites. It is a concrete political question of the 21st century.
To dismiss the Moabites, the Canaanites, the Edomites, etc. as abstract is to ignore the history of the whole region. One cannot properly put everything into the context of today?s problems without first understanding the past.

Palestinians and Jews have lived in the area of Israel/Palestine for millennia. This article gives insight to their lineage. Given that they both have a record of continuously living there for so long why should Jews not be allowed to live there?

Quote:
Originally Posted by smc View Post
The first steps have to be a) dismantling all of the settlements on post-1967 lands, b) tearing down the barrier wall between Israel and the West Bank, c) guaranteeing the free movement of anyone throughout the territory (which means opening the "circular roads" to Palestinians; I can explain what these are if anyone asks) and d) establishing the right of return for all Palestinians. The latter means acknowledging the Palestinian claim on every home, factory, orchard, grove, and plot of land. It is true that given the Palestinian diaspora, many if not most will not choose to return, but they have a legal claim that should be settled with compensation. Let the U.S. aid go to that instead of Israeli nuclear weapons!

A democratic, secular Palestine is a prerequisite to peace. Not a two-state solution. The thing about legitimate nationalist claims to usurped land is that while they may ebb and flow with respect to their intensity, even from generation to generation, but human history shows that they seem to live on in national groups almost like a gene. Even with a two-state solution, that key around the neck of my friend Lana will live on, and some day one of her children or children's children will want to know why the house was stolen, and the next thing you know the struggle will be renewed. That's why a democratic, secular Palestine -- absent Zionism -- with Arabs and Jews living together is the only answer.
I agree that two states is not the solution. It should be one secular country with Jews, Christians, and Muslims living together and without fear of one group dominating another.
Reply With Quote
  #30  
Old 12-16-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ila View Post
Are you serious that Israel caused the Arab Spring in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt?
My goodness, ila, calm down. That's not what I wrote at all. I never used the word "caused" nor would I have done so. I agreed with Randolph that the issues are linked, i.e., the Arab Spring and the history from which it springs, and the presence of the Zionists in the region.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ila View Post
You know that I don?t live around the corner from so I couldn't seriously be trying to move the discussion away from this site.
This is why I think perhaps calming down is called for. Did you really think I thought you were trying to move the discussion away? After all we've talked about here? I mean, jeez ...!

Quote:
Originally Posted by ila View Post
To dismiss the Moabites, the Canaanites, the Edomites, etc. as abstract is to ignore the history of the whole region. One cannot properly put everything into the context of today?s problems without first understanding the past.

Palestinians and Jews have lived in the area of Israel/Palestine for millennia. This article gives insight to their lineage. Given that they both have a record of continuously living there for so long why should Jews not be allowed to live there?
I agree with your statement about context, and I did not dismiss that context. But remember we are talking about Zionists beginning in the 19th century taking political action and ultimately colonizing a region in which they hadn't lived for centuries.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ila View Post
I agree that two states is not the solution. It should be one secular country with Jews, Christians, and Muslims living together and without fear of one group dominating another.
I'm glad you agree. The Zionists are vehemently opposed to anything that might allow Palestinian Arabs ever to constitute a majority.
Reply With Quote
  #31  
Old 12-16-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ila View Post
I agree that two states is not the solution. It should be one secular country with Jews, Christians, and Muslims living together and without fear of one group dominating another.
If the mayhem of the past is any indication, these three religious groups would much rather kill each other off than live together. Ironically, they all derive from the Abrahamic source. They believe in the same God, just different names. Christian sects hate each other and Sunnis and Shia Muslims hate each other. The Abrahamic religions are deeply flawed, they are intolerant. Each one firmly believes that them and only them have the word of God. Centuries of conflict are the result. It is very unfortunate that the middle east has lots of oil. Otherwise it would have remained a land of sheep herders and camel jockeys.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #32  
Old 12-17-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph View Post
If the mayhem of the past is any indication, these three religious groups would much rather kill each other off than live together. Ironically, they all derive from the Abrahamic source. They believe in the same God, just different names. Christian sects hate each other and Sunnis and Shia Muslims hate each other. The Abrahamic religions are deeply flawed, they are intolerant. Each one firmly believes that them and only them have the word of God. Centuries of conflict are the result. It is very unfortunate that the middle east has lots of oil. Otherwise it would have remained a land of sheep herders and camel jockeys.
Randolph, are you aware that the term "camel jockey" is racist and derogatory, and has always been characterized as such. It is an affront to the seriousness of this discussion that you used the term here, and an insult to every Arab member of this site (and there are quite a few).
Reply With Quote
  #33  
Old 12-17-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

SMC
Quote:
Randolph, are you aware that the term "camel jockey" is racist and derogatory, and has always been characterized as such. It is an affront to the seriousness of this discussion that you used the term here, and an insult to every Arab member of this site (and there are quite a few).
The term doesn't have to be derogatory (although it usually is), it can be a joke or humorous. My comment was of a vision of the Middle east without oil. After all the three wisemen came to Bethlehem on camels.


Attached Thumbnails
770255_camel_jockey-1.jpg  
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #34  
Old 12-17-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

As I see it.
After WWII Great Briton was severely weakened by the war and was desperately seeking a loan from the US. The US under President Truman saw this as an opportunity to increase the US hegemony in the middle east. Ships loaded with Jewish refugees were being shuttled around and prevented from landing in Palestine. Truman proceeded to take over the situation and allowed the refugees to enter Palestine. Initially the UN attempted to establish a secular state but neither the Jews or the Arabs were in favor of that. The US recognized Israel and proceeded to strengthen its influence in the Middle East to counter increasing influence of Russia in the Middle East. The establishment of the Jewish state and its brutal expulsion of Arabs enraged The surrounding Arab states. Massive US military and financial aid to Egypt eventually weaned Egypt away from Russian influence. The US was then able to get Egypt to come to terms with Israel. This greatly strengthened US hegemony in the middle east and made Istarl a serious power in spite of its tiny size.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #35  
Old 12-17-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph View Post
SMC

The term doesn't have to be derogatory (although it usually is), it can be a joke or humorous. My comment was of a vision of the Middle east without oil. After all the three wisemen came to Bethlehem on camels.
This morning, I asked a student from Saudi Arabia students, an Arab professor colleague from Syria, and two Arab friends. They said the term is racist, period. They don't even use it in their own community (as some young blacks do with the "N" word).

Rather than claim that it "doesn't have to be derogatory" you should repudiate your use of the term.


Reply With Quote
  #36  
Old 12-17-2012
ila's Avatar
ila ila is offline
Moderator
Shecock obsessed
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 6,294
ila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond repute
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph View Post
If the mayhem of the past is any indication, these three religious groups would much rather kill each other off than live together. Ironically, they all derive from the Abrahamic source. They believe in the same God, just different names. Christian sects hate each other and Sunnis and Shia Muslims hate each other. The Abrahamic religions are deeply flawed, they are intolerant. Each one firmly believes that them and only them have the word of God...
You are only partly right. Muslims, Christians, and Jews all believe in the same deity, they just use different names.

Christian sects do not hate each other. They may disagree, but hate is too strong a word. The religious wars between Christians ended long ago.

The Sunnis, Shias, Alawites, etc. have been known to disagree with each other and in some cases it has led to violence.

The three Abrahamic religions are not intolerant. It is some of the people and some of the religious leaders that are intolerant. One should read the religious texts to properly understand this. The Koran even states that Christians and Jews are people of the book. Likewise it is only some people and some religious leaders that have decided that their, and only their, religion has the word of God.

The great enemy to religious understanding is illiteracy. If people were taught to read their own and other religious books they would see how much each religion has in common with the others.

Back in the middle ages the Catholic church kept most citizens illiterate as it is easier to control the masses if they are not able to read for themselves. It is the same thing now in some Muslim countries where the religious leaders let only a select few learn to read and those too are only taught the leaders' version and not the original full Koran.
Reply With Quote
  #37  
Old 12-17-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

I would like to comment on Ila's last comment but I need to think about it.
In the meantime, I would like to point out some interesting research on the Palestinians. First, DNA studies indicate that the Palestinians are essentially identical to the Jews. Second, the residents of Palestine prior to the Muslim invasion were of the Judaism faith. So the ancestors of the Palistinians were Jews! So perrhaps my earlier comment about the Palestinians converting to Judaism is not so far fetched.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #38  
Old 12-17-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

Randolph, you're going to let your earlier comment stand?
Reply With Quote
  #39  
Old 12-18-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by smc View Post
Randolph, you're going to let your earlier comment stand?
In the context that I used the term, I don't think it was offensive. I am sorry if it did offend offend somebody.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #40  
Old 12-18-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Ila --
Quote:
The three Abrahamic religions are not intolerant. It is some of the people and some of the religious leaders that are intolerant. One should read the religious texts to properly understand this. The Koran even states that Christians and Jews are people of the book. Likewise it is only some people and some religious leaders that have decided that their, and only their, religion has the word of God.
In the Islamic (Madrassas) schools in Pakistan and other middle eastern countries the students are taught to memorize the Koran and learn that the infidels (the west especially the US) are evil and a threat to Islam, therefor, they must be destroyed. This is sanctioned by the Koran. The people bombing and killing innocent people are not illiterate, they are well trained terrorists believing they are performing the will of God.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #41  
Old 12-18-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph View Post
In the context that I used the term, I don't think it was offensive. I am sorry if it did offend offend somebody.
First of all, how you can think that referring to people living in the Arab world by that term isn't offensive, given what you've been told, is beyond reason. I can understand if you explained that you didn't think it was offensive when you wrote it. But to write now that you "don't think it was offensive" says that you stick by the use of this racist term in your context, as you wish.

Further, I suggest you Google "politician's apology." You haven't apologized for your own use of a racist term. Instead, you've pushed the issue back on to those who might be offended. Shameful.

Last edited by smc; 12-18-2012 at 12:18 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #42  
Old 12-18-2012
Elonar Elonar is offline
Apprentice Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 60
Elonar is infamous around these parts
Default Return to the subject of the Thread, PLEASE !

A really vigorous and instructive thread, somewhat spoilt by a flurry of point-scoring on the question of what an Arab would find to be a racist remark. On this question, it is my experience that more often than not the most vociferous claimants that a racist offence has been committed come from an entirely different racial group themselves. Oddly enough a friend of mine who owns and runs a camel-racing stable near to Abu Dhabi might have a less condemnatory perspective on the odd use of the term ' camel jockey ' ! However it is a relief to learn from smc that at least three representative arabs have a clear opinion to offer.

Come on boys - get back firmly to the subject of this thread, which is really a good deal more interesting than finger-pointing.

Let's move on now.

__________________
Rollo
Reply With Quote
  #43  
Old 12-18-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Elonar View Post
A really vigorous and instructive thread, somewhat spoilt by a flurry of point-scoring on the question of what an Arab would find to be a racist remark. On this question, it is my experience that more often than not the most vociferous claimants that a racist offence has been committed come from an entirely different racial group themselves. Oddly enough a friend of mine who owns and runs a camel-racing stable near to Abu Dhabi might have a less condemnatory perspective on the odd use of the term ' camel jockey ' ! However it is a relief to learn from smc that at least three representative arabs have a clear opinion to offer.

Come on boys - get back firmly to the subject of this thread, which is really a good deal more interesting than finger-pointing.

Let's move on now.

Your sarcasm notwithstanding (and I would venture a bet that a poll of the hundreds of Arab students at my university would yield the same result from a much larger sample), racism is part and parcel of this discussion. One of the reasons the West has been so successful in gaining the consent of its citizenry with respect to how the Arab world has been dealt with is precisely because Arabs have been debased and diminished as a people in the minds of that very citizenry. If you disagree with that, do so, but to characterize a discussion on racism as a "flurry of point scoring" rather than acknowledging that racist remarks have no place in this discussion and -- in effect -- defending the use of the racist terminology, you have spoken volumes.

Last edited by smc; 12-18-2012 at 02:05 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #44  
Old 12-18-2012
ila's Avatar
ila ila is offline
Moderator
Shecock obsessed
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 6,294
ila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond repute
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph View Post
Ila --

In the Islamic (Madrassas) schools in Pakistan and other middle eastern countries the students are taught to memorize the Koran and learn that the infidels (the west especially the US) are evil and a threat to Islam, therefor, they must be destroyed. This is sanctioned by the Koran. The people bombing and killing innocent people are not illiterate, they are well trained terrorists believing they are performing the will of God.
The Madrassas are run by the clergy. Students are taught the version of Islam that the clergy permits.

The Koran does sanction killing Christians and Jews just because they are Christians and Jews.

If you, randolph, were to travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan to see the terrorists that fight for the Taliban and Al Qaeda then you would be surprised to find out what are their ethnic origins. You would also find that the majority cannot understand Arabic let alone read it. That makes them illiterate in the original language of the Koran. You are right though that they are trained terrorists. You might also note that I left out the adjective "well."
Reply With Quote
  #45  
Old 12-18-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Elonar View Post
A really vigorous and instructive thread, somewhat spoilt by a flurry of point-scoring on the question of what an Arab would find to be a racist remark. On this question, it is my experience that more often than not the most vociferous claimants that a racist offence has been committed come from an entirely different racial group themselves. Oddly enough a friend of mine who owns and runs a camel-racing stable near to Abu Dhabi might have a less condemnatory perspective on the odd use of the term ' camel jockey ' ! However it is a relief to learn from smc that at least three representative arabs have a clear opinion to offer.

Come on boys - get back firmly to the subject of this thread, which is really a good deal more interesting than finger-pointing.

Let's move on now.



Thank you, I agree, lets move on.
Randolph
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #46  
Old 12-18-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph View Post
Thank you, I agree, lets move on.
Randolph
Your fake apology for your own racist terminology will serve you well as a typical politician of the major parties. Let me know when you announce your candidacy.

Shameful! Absolutely shameful!
Reply With Quote
  #47  
Old 12-18-2012
smc's Avatar
smc smc is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Boston area, U.S.A.
Posts: 18,085
smc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond reputesmc has a reputation beyond repute
Send a message via Yahoo to smc
Default

Some years ago, the former U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote, "The Israelis are becoming increasingly like the white supremacist South Africans, viewing the Palestinians as a lower form of life, not hesitating to kill a great many of them."

I mention this to buttress my earlier points about Zionism, but also to reinforce that racism is part and parcel of the Zionist-Palestinian dynamic and hence central to this discussion.
Reply With Quote
  #48  
Old 12-19-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

In 1988 Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote "The Grand Chessboard" a prescient piece on our hegemony in Eurasia. I think as far as our hegemony in the Middle east is concerned, our invasion of Iraq was a critical error empowering Iran. Dr. Brzezinski would probably agree. It also empowered Al Ouida thruout the middle east and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Bush foreign policy will likely go down in history as the turning point in the decline on US influence in the middle east.
We are now standing by as one middle eastern country after another is rebelling against rulers that maintained control over the needs and desires of increasingly restive populations with military hardware supplied mostly by us.
It is interesting to contemplate; what if we had not invaded Iraq would the Iraq people have rebelled on their own, along with their Arab Spring neighbors?

__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
  #49  
Old 12-19-2012
ila's Avatar
ila ila is offline
Moderator
Shecock obsessed
 
Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 6,294
ila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond reputeila has a reputation beyond repute
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by randolph View Post
...I think as far as our hegemony in the Middle east is concerned, our invasion of Iraq was a critical error empowering Iran. Dr. Brzezinski would probably agree. It also empowered Al Ouida thruout the middle east and the Taliban in Afghanistan...[/SIZE]
It did no such thing. Iran already had power and influence throughout the Middle East What it did do is give Iran an opening in Iraq to try to increase their influence there. Al Qaida and the Taliban did not gain any influence as a result of the US invasion of Iraq. Both of the those groups were well established before the invasion of Iraq.
Reply With Quote
  #50  
Old 12-19-2012
randolph's Avatar
randolph randolph is offline
Senior Ladyboy Lover
 
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: S. Calif.
Posts: 2,502
randolph is an unknown quantity at this point
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by ila View Post
It did no such thing. Iran already had power and influence throughout the Middle East What it did do is give Iran an opening in Iraq to try to increase their influence there. Al Qaida and the Taliban did not gain any influence as a result of the US invasion of Iraq. Both of the those groups were well established before the invasion of Iraq.
True Iran has power and influence but Iraq acted as a counter to that power and influence.

There is good evidence that our invasion of Iraq resulted in more Arabs joining Al Quida

Also, the Iraq invasion diverted our attention away from Afghanistan allowing the Taliban to regroup.
__________________
"Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary." R.N.
Reply With Quote
Reply

Thread Tools Search this Thread
Search this Thread:

Advanced Search
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off


Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
Arab good looking guy,wana a sex relashinshep with a nice Tai ladyboy Mo_1982 TS Dating and Cam-to-Cam 0 05-08-2011 09:36 AM
im looking for hot very sxy arab and latin men who want to meet there active shemale dream goddesstsarablatina TS Dating and Cam-to-Cam 8 04-25-2011 10:06 AM


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 10:46 AM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.7
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Copyright © Trans Ladyboy