looks like the US grunts are losing it.

[elef]

After Israel declared itself as a state (Soviet Union supported it while the US and UK had problems because of their arab dictator friends and the oil of course) the arab countries ordered the arabs in Israel to leave so they could send in their strong armies and kill all jews.

 

Actually Israel received jews from the arab countries in about the same number as the arabs leaving Israel on order by arab leaders and armies. So there were never any palestinian refugees - just BS and of course good money for the UN and NGOs. All those now empty houses and apartments were never offered to the palestinian arabs as it was in the interest of the arab leaders to create a permanent problem in the ME.

[Old Hippie]

"...Actually Israel received jews from the arab countries in about the same number as the arabs leaving Israel on order by arab leaders and armies. So there were never any palestinian refugees - just BS and of course good money for the UN and NGOs. All those now empty houses and apartments were never offered to the palestinian arabs as it was in the interest of the arab leaders to create a permanent problem in the ME..."

 

 

You are kidding right?

[cavanami]

I worked with a Palestinian man and he told me the story ofhis 80 year old grandmother being thrown out of their family house, tha they had live in for 400 years, by the Jews.

 

Didn't sound very fair to me.

 

Is the USA backing such a country? Is the story true?

 

Not sure, but I have heard a few of these stories, so there must be some truth in there.

[ALHOLK]

I have heard or read many such stories and there are more to be found.

Do a Google search on "deir yassin" and you will find lots of information and links to more.

 

I might add that elef is not entirely wrong as the neighboring arab countries did indeed tell the Palestinians to leave but they were also terrorised and murdered if they didn't leave.

(Edit: added the last paragraph)

[elef]

There were massacres on both sides - jewish terrorist groups were responsible for a lot of killings. Some of the leaders later became respected statesmen as Begin - if the american revolution hadn't succeeded G Washington had been hanged as a traitor - if we use modern terminology he was a terrorist leader too.

[Old Hippie]

The main story I have heard is, Jewish refugees poured into Isreal from many countries, most were not necessarily from the M.E. region...initially there were problems, and then stuff settled a bit...later on, the Isrealis diverted water away from the Palestinian settlements, and more less forced the Palestinians to move out...the idea that there were/are no reugees is rediculis. Who lives in all the refugee camps in Lebanon Isreal bombs on a whim?

 

The idea of other Arab countries giving land for a Palestinian homeland is moot at best...Palestine is their home, that particular piece of land...why settle for another...?

 

This whole mess (one theory anyway) was created as a way of dealing with Jewish refugees who were unwanted in other places, Europe, USA, South America etc...one group of people decided "ok all you guys gety iout, new people are moving in..." no idea how this could be, but I know other more powerful countries were involved...

 

Frankly, I'd recomend cutting off ALL aide to Isreal, until they learn to play nice with their neighbors, stop arming them, and the arab states, and what ever happens happens, stay out of it for 5 years, pretend it doesn't exist...if they all kill eachother, fine, then it is hopefully settled once and for all...and the world has one less headache to deal with...is it practicle? no, but it seems the best solution...that or admit it was all a horrible mistake, and give it all back to Palestine...

 

In any event, as long as their is one muslim and one jew left on the face of the earth, they will make it their life's work to destroy the other, with no regard for the rest of us caught in the middle...neither side is smart enough to realize they will never have what they want, and if they can't get along, then they have to accept that their existance will be based on trying to kill/hurt the others, destroying themselves in the process...pretty damned stupid if you ask me...

 

Reminds me a bit of a sick joke...god comes down to earth and stops a Jew, a Muslim and an athiest, he says "what will it take to bring piece to the middle east?" the Muslim replies "get rid of the jews" the Jew replies "get rid of the Muslims" the athiest says "give these 2 what they want, and the problem will be solved..."

[elef]

OH,

 

it's more complicated than that. I think the pogroms in east europe made the jews to want to return to Palestine, the sionist movement was born and they started to send younger jews to Palestine to buy as much land as possible and create jewish settlements. This continued over the years and more and more of Palestine was owned by jews.

 

Later the ottoman empire was falling and resulted in an arab nationalism - before they had lived in a multicultural empire with different ethnic groups.

 

After WWII they had a problem with jewish survivors in Europe; the british tried to stop them to go to Palestine and actually placed them in concentration camps in Europe and on Cyprus many of those were just rescued from nazi death and concentration camps. The jewish terrorist groups tried to force the british out from Palestine and finally UK had to let them travel to Palestine mostly because of the world opinion.

 

After Israel was declared as a state all arab countries forced jewish citizens to leave and they just had one alternative - to go to Israel.

[McBif]

MaiLuk,

 

It would be much better and easier and cheaper to simply collect the phone records of young Muslim males. That is obviously what the authorities or any sane person would prefer. But they would be crucified by the media and progressives everywhere for "racial profiling". Note that the people who would scream the loudest over profiling are the very people screaming the loudest over the current setup.

 

These records are anonymous at the point of data crunching. If a record turns up with unusual phone traffic to and from, say, Mogadishu, or to the phone number of a suspected terrorist cell in Hamburg, it is investigated further. Makes sense, IMO. I personally would not characterize this as putting the entire popluation "under surveillance".

 

Who complains in the U.S. of the fact that you are forced to tell the government how much is in your bank account, etc.? This isn't even anonymous. I think it is obvious the outcry over phone records is politically motivated, not a genuine concern for privacy.

 

I too like my liberties. We are brothers! It is terrible in the West how we can barely go to the bathroom without asking permission from our betters. That is one of the bizarre attractions of places like Thailand - it is comparatively the OK Corral for us foreigners.

 

But I think we're agreed that a point does come when any government is justified in expanding its anti-terrorism measures. For me it came on 9/11 with the 3,000 dead.

[ALHOLK]

Hi!

 

I have never heard or read that George Washing massacred civilians. Mind you there must have been civilians that suppoerted the English. Yes I believe that he would have been hanged as terrorist. After all Hitler called the resistance in occupied countries terrorists.

 

regards

 

ALHOLK

[Evel_Penivel]

What is now Israel was 150 years ago one of the most miserable and wretched corners of the Ottoman Empire. It was very sparsely populated. When the Zionists began moving there in the 1880s, they attracted Arabs as well who saw opportunities for jobs and business. The habitable and arable land was virtually 100% owned by absentee landlords in Istanbul, Cairo and Damascus. Talk about Palestinians owning land there for centuries is largely nonsense.

 

There are a few families of Arab Muslims who had roots in Palestine "from time immemorial," just as there were Jews who lived there from Biblical times. But probably 90% of the Muslims and 97% of the Jewish population of Palestine-Israel descend from families that moved to the area after 1880.

 

While these pre-Israel Arabs might have rented homes or worked as "share crop" peasant farmers, very, very few owned any land in Palestine. Because the early Zionists treated them well by the standards of the time, the local resident Arabs and new immigrant Arabs were happy to work with the Zionists to develope the area.

 

However, some Arab leaders, fearing the "progressive" social ideas of the Zionists, were fanatically opposed to Jewish settlement. At the time, Saudi Arabian king Ibn Saud informed a British colonel, H. R. P. Dickson:

 

"Our hatred for the Jews dates from God's condemnation of them for their persecution and rejection of Isa (Jesus) and their subsequent rejection of His chosen Prophet? for a Muslim to kill a Jew, or for him to be killed by a Jew ensures him an immediate entry into Heaven and into the august presence of God Almighty."

 

The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was rabidly anti-Jewish and devoted his life to jihad against the Jews. There were pogroms against Jews in 1920, 1929 and 1936, all instigated on religious grounds (supposed insults to Islam) by al-Husseini. He saw Hilter and Nazism as the solution, as fascism was considered a more compatable form of government with Islam. The grand-daddy of all modern Islamic terrorist groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, was based on the organization of the German and Italian fascist parties.

 

In 1940, al-Husseini requested the Axis powers to acknowledge the Arab right: "... to settle the question of Jewish elements in Palestine and other Arab countries in accordance with the national and racial interests of the Arabs and along the lines similar to those used to solve the Jewish question in Germany and Italy."

 

Al-Husseini spent most of WWII in Berlin as Hilter's guest, making propaganda boadcasts in Arabic and recruiting Bosnia Muslims to serve in SS battalions. He was wanted as a war criminal by the former Yugoslavia. Because of internal Arab disputes after WWII, al-Husseini never played a major role in domestic politics again, but lived as a hero in Cairo until his death in 1974. Palestinians still consider him a national hero. He also happened to be Yassar Arafat's uncle. (Arafat, by the way, was born in Cairo).

 

In the aftermath of WWII, millions upon millions of people were displaced and couldn't return to ancestral lands. That's what happened to a few hundred thousand Arab Muslims. Some left the new state of Israel, others remained (20% of Israel's population today consists of Arab Muslims who are Israeli citizens). In any case, the Palestinian Arabs and their leaders had been pro-Nazi during WWII, while about 25,000 Palestinian Jews fought for Allies. The "Palestinians" backed the wrong side and some of them suffered for it. The same thing happened with the Don Cossacks and other groups in East Europe who had regarded the Nazis as "liberators."

 

Until 1967, there were no Palestinians, even in Arab usage. Palestinians are esentially generic Arabs. I wish anyone could explain the cultural, linguistic, or any other difference between a Palestinian and a Jordanian. If had been important to have a Palestinian homeland, why didn't Egypt and Jordan create in 1948? They controlled the territory back then. It was only when Israel occupied these territories in 1967 that the concept of a Palestinian homeland was minted.

 

EP