Gardener

There is the Arab position, there is the Jewish position, and there is what actually happened. THe Arab narrative focuses on the Jews, claiming several hundred thousand arabs were forcefully evicted from their homes, and refuses to acknowlege the 1 million Jews now absent from Arab land. The Jewish narrative focuses on the Ababs, claiming the Arabs expelled them from their home, and that the several hundred thousand Arabs now absent from land now called Israel left oftheir own volition.

I really do not see the practicality of your taking the view point of just one side because that viewis not valid. What actually happened is that 700-800 thousand Arabs left Israel through a combination of harrassment, expulsion and voluntarily means, while 1 million Jews left Arab lands through a combination of harrassment, expulsion and voluntary means.

Why you think it wise to adopt one side's point of view is beyond me , but I am more interested in what actually happened, myself. Thus the pointing out the flaws in your analogy. It wasn't flawed from the standpoint of the Arab street point of view, but it WAS flawed in terms of objectivity.

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You lack lust; you're so lackluster. Is that all the strength you can muster?

Simon W. Moon

Me either. I was just offering an explanation of it.

The two, the "Arab street" PoV and 'objective reality' aren't at all the same thing. I was not trying to be objective. Rather to explain why the map and its 'message' are useless xpt for propaganda purposes. AFAICT, the intended audience of the map is English speaking folks who not only lump Turks, Persians et al in with Arabs but who also see the mess as something that somehow involves "being fair."

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"The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile."
- Napoleon Bonaparte to Berthier 11 Nov 1798 Napoleon on the Art of War

Trajan Octavian Titus

Lost would imply that it was there's to begin with.

They weren't doing the alotting because it wasn't theres it was a British protectorate and before that part of the Ottoman empire, and before that Christian land, and before that Roman land, and before that Jewish land.

It was never Arab land to begin with not only that but the parts that were partitioned off to become Israel by the UN were majority Jewish, the Arabs were offered 43% of the Palestinian mandate west of the Jordan and all of the land East of the Jordan and still that wasn't enough for them.

As Gardener explained that is a false analogy a better analogy would be if there was $100 (British Mandate of Palestine) owned by a third party (Britian) who was awarded that money in a lawsuit by a judge (League of Nations) against your relative (Ottoman Empire), and he gave you (Muslims residing in Palestine) $90 (90% of the Mandate) and another person (Jews residing in Palestine) $10 (original partition) and then you and five of your friends (Muslim Palestinians, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria) jumped the guy with $10 to try to steal his money but he knew Karate and then kicked your a$s and took $20 (land taken in the Israeli war of indepence) from you out of the $90 you were granted by the third party and then went and bitched about the guy who was given the $10 and the guy who took the $20 and tried to kill them both for the next 50 years.


It's perfectly relevent when people bitch about the unjust occupation of Muslim land.

Simon W. Moon

Whooshed again.

__________________
"The barbarous custom of having men beaten who are suspected of having important secrets to reveal must be abolished. It has always been recognized that this way of interrogating men, by putting them to torture, produces nothing worthwhile."
- Napoleon Bonaparte to Berthier 11 Nov 1798 Napoleon on the Art of War

Trajan Octavian Titus

Hay buddy I don't really care what the Arab point of view is, according to the Arab point of view you and I are Dhimmi Kufar second class citizens descended from apes and pigs and the entire world belongs to Islam and they have the right to kill, convert, or subjugate anyone who stands in the way of obtaining that goal. The "Arab point of view" is so detached from reality that it's not even worth a rebuttle any more than Hitler's bolsterings were over Czchekoslavakia, they should not be granted any legitimacy by offering up supposition to lend them credulity rather they should be dismissed out of hand.

MSgt

All people hear is "American foriegn policy," but few even know what it is and was. It's the scapegoat for everything wrong in the ME. Sure, it has angered some and not been especially helpful to "Islam" as fanatics complain about, but it has largely been to the benefit of Muslims. The first concern of any American government is of course to define U.S. interests and to devise policies for their protection and advancement. In the period following the Second World War, American policy in the Middle East, as elsewhere, was dominated by the need to prevent Soviet penetration. The US regretfully relinquished the moral superiority of the sidlelines (where our critics sit) and became involved in stages: first supporting the crumbling British position and, then, when that clearly became untenable, interveing more directly and, finally, replacing Britian as defender of the Middle East against outside attack, specifically from the Soviet Union. Here's a short summary of the key topics that shaped the region as far as America is concerned...


A) The immediate postwar need was to resist Soviet pressure on the norther tier-to secure the Soviet withdrawal from Iranian Azerbaijan and to counter demnads on Turkey. This policy was clear and intelligible, and, on the whole, successful in saving Turkey and Iran. But the attempt to extend it to the Arab world by menas of the Baghdad Pact backfired disasterously and antagonized or undermined those it was intended to attract. The Egyptian leader, Nasser, seeing the pact as a threat to his leadership, turned to the Soviets; the pro-Western regime in Iraq was overthrown, and friendly regimes in Jordan and Lebanon were endangered to the point that both needed Western military help to survive. By 1955, the Soviets leapfrogging across the region made both the threat and the means to counter it changed radically. The northern tier held firm, the Arab lands became hostile or at best nervously neutral. This is where the our relationship with Israel entered a new phase. Consider the situation during the Cold War.....

1) The Soviet Union, which retained and extended the imperial conquests of the czars of Russia, ruled with no light hand over tens of millions of Muslim subjects in Central Asia and in Caucasus. Russia's interests in the Middle East was not new and it extended far back in time.

2) With the defeat of the Axis, the Soviet Union was strongly entrenched in the Balkans and threatened Turkey on both frontiers. They were inside Iran, refusing to leave while the British were pulling chocks. They stayed, apparantly with the intention of adding what remained of Azerbaijan to the Soviet Union. With American support, the Turks were able to refuse the Soviet demand for bases in the Straits, while Iranians dismantled the communist state in Azerbaijan.

3) The Turks and Iranains had a long experience of Russian imperialism and were correspondingly wary. The Arab states' experience of imerialism was exclusivley Western and they took their chances with the Soviets. By 1955, the Russian-Egyptian arms agreement brought Russia back into the Middle East.

4) American dealings with Israel was cautious and limited in the decade following the Soviet's significant role in creating it. After the Suez War of 1956, the US intervened, forcefully and decisively, to secure the withdrawal of the Israeli, British, and French forces. With the Soviet Union's relationship with Egypt as military supplier against Israel, Israel became a natural ally to America. But it wasn't until 1967 that Israel began relying on America for its weaponry and not the French and other European suppliers.

5) 1979 brought the most dramatic illustration of the clearest and most obvious case of imperialist aggression, conquest, and domination when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. The OIC managed to hold a meeting in Islamabad in 1980 to discuss the Afghan-Soviet issue. South Yemen and Syria boycotted the meeting, Libya's delegate delivered an attack on America for Israeli support, and the PLO representative abstained from voting and even defended the Soviet action. The OIC did little to help their fellow Muslims. Some funds and weapons from Egypt and Saudi Arabia were sent and the Arab volunteers that attended the conflict were organized largely by the US.

Throughout the successive crises that have shaken the region, there has always been an imposing political, economic, and cultural American presence, usually in several countries-and this, until the Gulf War of '91, without the need for any significant military intervention. And even then, their presence was needed to rescue the victims of an inter-Arab aggression, unrelated to either Israelis or Palestinians. America has been on the whole..successful in the Middle East.

B) Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a new policy has emerged in the Middle East, concerned with different objectives. Its main aim is to prevent the emergence of a regional hegemony-of a single regional power that could dominate the area and thus establish monopolistic control of Middle Eastern oil. This has been a successive policy from one administration to the next. The policy to prevent prevent such a hegemony was to encourage, arm, and when necessary support a regional and therefore mainly Arab security pact. The presumed enemy was no longer the Soviet Union, and regional rulers started taking a more sober view of the world and their place in it. But such a pact, based on unstable regimes ruling volatile societies, is inherently precarious. Such was the and is the case with Saddam HUssein and the House of Saud. By invading their neighbors and/or abusing their people, they place the American government between a rock and a hard place as the ultimate scapegoat used by Muslim governments and religious fanatics for "supporting" them. By embracing the shah, the US procured his overthrow. By fostering Saddam Hussein, it nurtured a monster. In both cases, Muslims replaced both with extreme terror - a religious freak that would grow to alienate even his closest earlier supporters and brutalize Islam in Iran.....and secular slaughter in the absence of a brutal baby sitter.

Our critics will focus on oil as the major focus for American "greed." Sure people got rich along the way. Welcome to life on Earth. But the oil resources in the Middle East was largely something to deny the Soviets as well and we weren't bringing oppression and "rulership" to the deserts. Our roles were to deny the Soviets of resources and encourage friendships with the West. Our critics will also focus on CIA activity as the ultimate scapegoat for angers and "legitimacy" in terror. But even this was minimal and only incorprated the support of other Muslims who would be more friendly to the West and deny the Soviets. It had absolutely nothing to do with "attacking Islam" as so many preach or to "oppress Muslims" or "occupy" their lands as Radicals insist. The history of America in region counters all these fanatically desperate claims. Arabs and Persians made up their own minds for allegiances and they were every bit involved in this Cold War along side the two super powers. Given the long history between the Christian world and the Muslim world, religious fanatics chose the West as their object to rally the faithful to combat modernism, no matter what the Soviets had done and were doing. Nationalist leaders chose Nazi Germany or the Communist Soviet Union. Were it not for the American policy in the Middle East, those Muslims in charge who made those decisions were sending their entire region in the blackness that was Poland and Uzbekistan.

C) America is entering a new phase in policy for the Middle East since 9/11. Given the events in Iraq and Lebanon, it appears that it seems to be directed towards giving the majority the right to vote on their own laws and governance in the wake minority Sunni rule-and just wait and see what happens in Bahrain sooner or later. The messy process of democratization and globalization will not immediately solve these problems in the Middle East as former OSD's thought. As is the case with all disputes involving religion or ethnicity, loyalties die hard, but they are less likely to command bloodshed if they are divorced from social, economic, and political injustices (as they lived throughout eh Cold War). This of course, incorporates not only America's economic interests and securities, but allows the region the opportunity to get back on track before Frenchmen, Brits, and Russians pulled out the crayons for which the Russians didn't want to stop. It also paves the way for Muslims in the Middle East to live as their brothers and sisters do in America where they are truly free. But there should be no argument that with all of America's stumbling along and errors along the way after WWII, squaring off with the Soviet Union and, later, local religious fanaticism; we have inherited this mess and have been left holding the bag as the victors throughout the 20th century.

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MSgt
Semper Fidelis
USMC

EAGLE1

[QUOTE][QUOTE=Trajan Octavian Titus;617946]Indeed. Yet just like Ireland, it existed because the people on it considered themselves Palestinians and the total land given to the Jews outwieghed their numbers.


Why would they do that? If your neighbour's house is taken over and he stays in yours do you accept he's now got some of your house or do you help him get his back?

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Forgetting an awful lot of recent history arent we?

Nah they were the strongest and best trained (by the British) force in the area by some margin.

Indeed. Not forgetting the original idea of continued expansion. In fact the settlements continued long after the even last war and continue today. The idea is to build crowd the Pals into little slums until they piss off to Jordan. Trouble is, they wont go.




Takes alot more than just chemicals to make a programme. Much more important in fact is the signal of approval you give by all the other nice things you do for them while theyre being so nasty.



Justifying massacres are we now ToT? Thought you were against such things. Only a few choice words required to tease out the truth of your postion = we do massacres, its cool, they do massacres = how terrible.

Jenin

You absolutely do, and without any reasonable correspondence to facts of anthropology or history. I talk about Palestinian indigenous rights to their homeland, you resort to asserting it was Christian land before it was Muslim. I am talking about people who are denied fundamental rights according to international law and humanity, you turn the debate into a religious clash of civilization..putting me into a defensive position where I try to sincerely answer you rhetoric with facts only to eventually be targeted by yourself as a radical. Christian and Muslim Palestinian natives in the occupied territories are denied citizenry by the occupying force, taxed heavily, and entrapped in bantustans and ghettos. I hope you get an opportunity to visit Palestine and see for yourself the extent and methodology of the Zionist project on the ground.

Let me be clear. Every occupying force in the world is a threat to world peace. Israel occupies palestine and syria, and blackmails palestinians daily to get them to accept the zionist terms of a settlement. This has been going on since Israel's creation and it is evident and well documented. They also happen to have nukes, spy on the united states drug enforcement agency, US military, and control and run AMDOCS which has oversight along with another affiliate of almost all US domestic telecommunications.

Islam? Is that what you are implying here? Be more specific, state your facts, and expect me to read them carefully and digest them with skepticism.


Bush the extremist unilateralist police chief of the world with his harbored agendas defines himself as a 'Christian'. There are plenty of extemist groups that declare themselves christians and jews.

I don't fully understand your point. I think it is very weak. Please elaborate.
You claiming Byzantium's colonies in the middle east are Christian territory seems to project the opposite of what I assume you are trying to point out.

So there is a muslim ummah, or nation. All muslims are brothers and sisters to each other. This was a teaching of all the prophets peace be upon them. Prophet Moses taught the same thing, as did prophet Jesus.

Shia states? Besides Iran, which state is officially a shia state?
Bahrain is a constitutional monarchy. With shia and sunni representatives.
Iraq, is supposed to be a federal republic.
Preaching venom? I do admit preachers in Iran, Iraq and elsewhere might preach against the falshoods of the other sect. This is as normal (and disturbing) as Pat Robertson's televised rhetoric or Jimmy Swaggart's. Or the propaganda pamphlets full of lies handed out by Evangelicals all across the nation. I fail to see your singling out of Islam here.

Whats my agenda, compadre?


LOL. Muammar Qaddafi, leader and founder of the AFRICAN UNION, who has been ostracized from the arab league, is according to you, a popular pan-arab leader. When you know what you are talking about, we will stop this charade. It is true Qaddafi had proposed arab unity before, but he was never ever ever recognized as a great pan arabist as you claimed he was to arabs. I am simply refuting your rhetoric. Gamal Abdul Nasser is the closest thing to anybody ever getting huge popular support and recognition as a pan-arab leader in the middle east.



Just as radicals everywhere celebrate perceived great leaders. Example, bush. "Evangellical Radicals" raise and wave American flags at rallies due to his perceived patriotism for invading Iraq on false pretense and turning a blind eye to the Zionist colonization of Palestinian land. They support him, and support the rights of Zionism to destroy Palestinian national identity and get rid of them.

The Bathist party was a nationalist secular party. Iraq was a one party dictatorship. The US is a two party dictatorship. Shia held high positions in the government. They were generals, ministers, Professors ect. Saddam expunged and destroyed any Sunni or Shia religious groups that questioned his authority. He banned ashura, and it's bloody practices. Any state in the world would do that. He destroyed Sunni and Shia religious organizations and kept the Bathist secular dictatorship supreme. To assert Saddam's treatment of shia is exclusive is wrong. He fought Iran, and the sunni-shia propaganda became mainstream during that time. He was supported by the US and the Saudis for this.

It was secular Bathist Iraq fighting Iranian shia theocracy. It was wrong, but it was not a sunni-shia war in Saddam's eyes. Syria officially supported Iran. Arab states, with US backing and encouragement, supported Saddam. US gave him sattelite images, technical reconnaissance assistance, weapons, and international legitimacy. Saddam started a war with Iran citing the Algeris Agreement illegitimate after the fall of the Shah. He wanted a strategic strip on land on the persian gulf to expand Iraq's shoreline. He had been encouraged by the US for attacking Iran. Sunni-Shia propaganda was used no doubt, but to generalize this as a sunni shia battle is a gross generalization on your behalf.


How I wish I had the free time that you do on this site. Duty calls here. I will be continue this later.

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"A child becomes a man when he knows what came before him" -- Anonymous
"Conquerors, my son, consider as true history only what they themselves have fabricated"
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/The%...ut%201948.html

Shayah

Eretz Yisrael. Israel. The land where all the ME Jews who weren't massacred emigrated to. Around a million ME Jews were ethnically cleansed by the Arabs after 1948.

Volker

According to wikipedia not even the number of all Jewish people who left Arab countries for all different reasons together since 1948 is a million, estimations go from 758,000 - 881,000. The number of these who had to leave was probably much lower.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_...rom_Arab_lands