One of the most widespread myths promulgated by media coverage of the Mideast conflict is the claim of Palestinian 'dispossession' of land and property at the hands of 'usurping' Israelis.
For example, the entire disputed territory of the West Bank is often referred to in media reports as 'Palestinian lands' ― a term that implies all Israeli presence in that region is illegitimate.
In fact, nearly all Israeli construction in the West Bank took place in non-developed areas that, if previously owned by Arabs, were purchased at significant cost by current Israeli landowners.
In some cases, the dispossession myth extends even to pre-1967 Israel. A Palestinian spokesman describes Israel's birth in this manner:
There is nothing like it in modern history. A foreign minority attacking the national majority in its own homeland, expelling virtually all of its population, obliterating its physical and cultural landmarks, planning and supporting this unholy enterprise from abroad...
This type of deliberate distortion of Zionist and early Israeli history underlies nearly all attacks on the fundamental legitimacy of the Jewish state. In fact, as meticulously documented by Aryeh Avneri in his book Claim of Dispossession: Jewish Land Settlement and the Arabs, 1878-1948:
1) The vast majority of Arabs who left the region during this period did so on their own accord,
2) A large proportion of the population that would come to be known as 'Palestinians' were actually new immigrants to the region during this period, and
3) Jewish immigrants during this period bought huge swaths of land from well-known Arab owners, at high cost, and in official sales.
Yet the myth persists, as Ron Padalny noted in a June 27 National Post column:
The image of Palestinians being thrown out of their homes by the Israelis presents a particular obsession for much of Western media. False stories, such as Edward Said's claim that he grew up in Jerusalem and was made a refugee, have been amplified by the media. (It was later discovered that the late Columbia University professor spent most of his youth in Cairo and his parents did not even own a house in Jerusalem.) Similarly, claims of Yasser Arafat's Palestinian birth were for years accepted by the media at face value, despite ample evidence he was born in Egypt.
-------------------- The light of truth is blinding to most.
More comforting to look only at the shadows of falseness. Posts: 4402 | From: Florida | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
friend of mine just completed a book for someone in the pentagon on this....
this is one of those problems that looks as if it will never be solved, i find it fascinating both actually have fairly reasonable arguments for the land, hopefully they will works something out. overhere it is currently very anti-israeli one of the few places backing israel is the u.s sadly the u.n is still worthless in all these situations.
Posts: 9110 | From: boston, ma | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
Israel has some land they took over after they repelled Arab invasions, and traditionally such land goes to the victor (Israel).
Should we give the USA back to the native Americans here before we took their land? They didn't even invade us - we invaded them.
If you argue from moral principle the USA should turn over the USA to the native Indians, and Israel should keep the land they won in fighting off an invasion.
Might makes right - The USA keps its land and so does Israel.
-------------------- The light of truth is blinding to most.
More comforting to look only at the shadows of falseness. Posts: 4402 | From: Florida | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
not arguing moral, palestinians were in those lands until un gave em to israel. israel took a little extra during 7 day war or whatever it was called. now palestinians fighting back saying its not right. the terrorists don't just want west bank and gaza, they want it all. They have waged war for it and that war continues daily.
Israel fights back in an attempt to repel these invasions. protect there citizens, its a violent cycle i don't see many political solutions.
Posts: 9110 | From: boston, ma | Registered: Jan 2004
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quote:Originally posted by keithsan: not arguing moral, palestinians were in those lands until un gave em to israel. israel took a little extra during 7 day war or whatever it was called. now palestinians fighting back saying its not right. the terrorists don't just want west bank and gaza, they want it all. They have waged war for it and that war continues daily.
Israel fights back in an attempt to repel these invasions. protect there citizens, its a violent cycle i don't see many political solutions.
Realize your post had nothing to do with morality - just introducing it.
As far as your saying that Palestinians were on the land before UN gave it to Israel, there never has been a Palestinian state. The land was very sparsely populated - nobody wanted it - which is why the UN designated it for Israel.
As far as the Gaza strip, per my original post: a large proportion of the population that would come to be known as 'Palestinians' were actually new immigrants, and Jewish immigrants during this period bought huge swaths of land from well-known Arab owners, at high cost, and in official sales.
-------------------- The light of truth is blinding to most.
More comforting to look only at the shadows of falseness. Posts: 4402 | From: Florida | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
there was no palestinian state, but, if you read old maps, that area was called palestine and was mainly populated (sparsely or not) by palestinians. They were the people that none of the surrounding countries wanted, but, these same countries all stick up for them now.....
As far as your morality thought, I wasn't taking the bait Posts: 9110 | From: boston, ma | Registered: Jan 2004
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Yes, worthless land largely. No oil and not much water.
Moral principles can be valid, but like any generalization, exceptions abound.
Trying to codify relative realities is a nightmare that makes lawyers rich at the expense of others.
And in the end, might makes right.
Even a principle like free speech depends on power somewhere to enforce it - it is not inherently moral. Free spech is enforced judicially where the rule of law is accepted, and like any general principle, has it exceptions.
Now, try to relate that to anything you said!
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More comforting to look only at the shadows of falseness. Posts: 4402 | From: Florida | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
Power: the palestinians are currently exercising what little they have. In one of the few ways they can, and it is working well or reaking havoc, causing chaos also bringing a repeat of dislike for the israeli's around the world.
A stronger use of force against perpetrators wh will be called civilians to the world would bring more hatred,dislike anti-semiticsm.
If i recall the numbers correctly the building of the wall (we can call it a fence for you) dropped terrorist attacks by about 90% yet the world doesnt want it...
If the past repeats, a compromise is not wanted and will not be accepted.
Fascinating stuff, I got no sollutions.
Posts: 9110 | From: boston, ma | Registered: Jan 2004
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posted
Terrorism is ultimatly self defeating. That is why a compromise with peace will eventuate in Israel and why Iraq will achieve peace.
Much of the world is anti-semitic and this is shown in world-wide apathy when Arabs repeatedly invaded Israel, and in the world's sympathy for the Palestinians subsequently. So the world doesn't care if terrorist attacks on Israel drops - or if they drop in Iraq for that matter.
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More comforting to look only at the shadows of falseness. Posts: 4402 | From: Florida | Registered: Jun 2003
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posted
Sure, suicide bombers won the revolutions in France, the USA, and Russia. Nonsense. These were popular uprisings where the mass of the Army of the citizens won against a dictatorial government.
In Viet Nam, the lack of popular support from the South Vietnamese allowed the more powerful North to win. In Cuba, a hated dictator, whose Army would not fight for, was easliy defeated.
This has nothing to do with terrorism in the mideast.
Tell me where terrorism has won
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Art: This has nothing to do with terrorism in the mideast.
Tell me where terrorism has won
glass:
you call it terrorism? the crown of Engalnd viewed US the same way...
the mideast has a deep underlying anti-US mindset created/influenced by european colonialism they experienced until the last century... just because you think we are different has absolutely no effect on how THEY think...
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that doesn't change the fact that the Brits thought of US as terrorists and lost because they didn't LIVE HERE and we did....
it is important to recognise the goals of your enemy to understand how to defeat them....
i'm not saying the terrorists aren't terrorists, i'm saying that their goals are not just to "spread evil". they have very specific goals... they are trying to spread religious fundamentalism...
we are in a guerilla war in Iraq...you cannot deny that......the terrorists goal is to make sure the Iraq government ends up looking more like Irans than ours at least...
we are having to fight differntly than we have in the past. and we can win, but there is no end in sight, and the insurgency is not in it's last throes, unless you use a 100 year yardstick....
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posted
The goals of the terrorists are not to spread Islam in any form. This is only what they say to justify their evil, but is not what they really want.
The goals of the terrorists are to satisfy their lusts for destruction, power and control. They want to take over countries and rule them with sadistic control and then to take over another country to ad to their empire and increase their power. They use "selling Islam" to justify their movement and attract Islamic zealots to die for them.
Now, understanding the true goals of the terroists, our goals become to kill or capture and hold them, and present an ideology of democracy that will give power to the people to change their lives in positive ways. The people of Iraq thus have a choice and the vast majority are choosing freedom under democracy rather than Islamic enslavement under the terrorists.
That is why we will defeat terrorism in Iraq.
Liberals just don't get it.
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posted
glassman:: eventually, we did fight army to army...
Art: Not eventually, from the beginning. We suffered defeat after defeat at the hands of the British and it is a miracle that we won. You could argue that success was inevitable since the British had to supply from far away, but anyone other than Washington would have given up earlier, and the decisive battle was our last gasp and simply a miracle win for us.
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posted
Obviously Art, you aren't very familiar with the colonial politcs that led up to the Revolution...primarily 1765 to '75 like the Virginai Resolutions.....
or the Son's of Liberty in Massachussettes...
once again you are not addressing the primary issue, which is in specific? the attitude of the British Crown toward the upstart colonists.... how many colonies did Britain and France lose? more than they kept?
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quote:Originally posted by glassman: Obviously Art, you aren't very familiar with the colonial politcs that led up to the Revolution...primarily 1765 to '75 like the Virginai Resolutions.....
or the Son's of Liberty in Massachussettes...
once again you are not addressing the primary issue, which is in specific? the attitude of the British Crown toward the upstart colonists.... how many colonies did Britain and France lose? more than they kept?
Doesn't make it a terrorist battle one bit. The Revolutionary war was army-to-army battles, although our troops were poorly trained, poorly equiped and supplied, and lost many early battles before they slowly learned how to fight and were helped by Washington's leadership.
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Art, Washington was good due to his experience of fighting in the French and Indian war. We, as a country should always back Israel. As far as fighting. They always have and always will. That is until the end of times, as we know them. It goes back to Biblical times and fueds with famalies. And no matter what, it will never be peace in the region.
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Doesn't make it a terrorist battle one bit. The Revolutionary war was army-to-army battles, although our troops were poorly trained, poorly equiped and supplied, and lost many early battles before they slowly learned how to fight and were helped by Washington's leadership.
glassbookworm:
Art, you couldn't be more WRONG.
first of all? i never said that the US Revolutionaries were terrrorists, i said that the Crown and in particular the Dutch East Indies Trading Company DID view them as terrorists..this is fact...
secondly? anybody who has studied the American Revolution knows that Washington NEVER could have won it if he took on the Brits head-on ...he used guerrilla tactics. tactics learned fighting the Native Americans as Tuck pointed out....
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Clinton decides in 96 after his re-election that he will invade Iraq....
He takes his case to the american people...
he tells them that it will cost about 100 BILLION$ a year for 5 to ten years, and about 500 american troops lives/yr... that he will rely heavily on the Guard, and that a lot of middle class americans will lose their jobs and companies that they own, but it will be worth it in the long run....
he says that eventually the iraqi people will probably become our allies and they MIGHT even be able to pay us back by signing lucrative contracts with select american oil companies....
who woulda been screaming the loudest? rush would, that's who......
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Doesn't make it a terrorist battle one bit. The Revolutionary war was army-to-army battles, although our troops were poorly trained, poorly equiped and supplied, and lost many early battles before they slowly learned how to fight and were helped by Washington's leadership.
glassbookworm:
Art, you couldn't be more WRONG.
first of all? i never said that the US Revolutionaries were terrrorists, i said that the Crown and in particular the Dutch East Indies Trading Company DID view them as terrorists..this is fact...
secondly? anybody who has studied the American Revolution knows that Washington NEVER could have won it if he took on the Brits head-on ...he used guerrilla tactics. tactics learned fighting the Native Americans as Tuck pointed out....
OK - understand now.
I'm not sure if Washington's hit and run tactics were guerrilla tactics, since they were conducted army-to-army, but they could be so regarded. Certainly not like terrorist attacks, though sometimes the terrorists attack in small groups and fight it out.
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guerrilla tactics have evolved as technology has...
the japs were building one man suicide subs in WW2... i think i recall that they actually started doing this BEFORE they realised thay would lose... and before they started the kamikaze pilot squads...
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posted
Yes, the Japanese may have originated suicide/homicide bombers.
One tradition many Japanese adhered to was to not surrender - fight till you die, for the Emperor.
That hurt us because we lost soldiers in having to kill all of them, while helping our soldiers in not having to take and care for prisoners (which tied up our resources and men).
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the politico-religious aspects of the area are just as "confusing".... here's a very "brief " description of Jerusalem... hmmmmmm..... The site first came to the attention of Israel's King David, who bought a threshing floor and built an altar on it, intending it for the site of the temple (1 Chronicles 21-22). The Temple Mount is so named because it is the location of the temple built by David's son Solomon (destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.) and its replacement built by Zerubbabel and later enlarged by Herod the Great (ultimately razed by the Roman general Titus in A.D. 70).
Here Jesus of Nazareth worshiped, taught and confronted the money changers, scribes, Pharisees and other religious authorities. After His death and resurrection, Christianity was born in the temple's shadow. His followers continued to worship and teach there for several more decades until the legions of Rome crushed a Jewish rebellion and carted away most of the Jewish population they hadn't killed. A later Jewish rebellion, in 132-135, led to a Roman decree that no Jew was to set foot in Jerusalem, on pain of death.
Centuries later, in 638, Muslim Arabs took the city. In 691 Muslims built the Dome of the Rock on that same Temple Mount, enclosing the spot from which, Muslims believe, Muhammad ascended to heaven. Today Muslims consider it the third-holiest site in Islam, after Mecca, where Muhammad was born, and Medina, where he found refuge and died.
Several more centuries passed before the Crusaders captured Jerusalem, slaughtered Muslim and Jew alike and converted the Dome of the Rock into a church. Their hold on the city lasted less than a century before Muslims recaptured it. Jerusalem changed hands three more times before Muslims took control of the city and held it from 1244 until 1917, when the Ottoman Empire lost its hold in World War I and the city came under British administration.
In 1948 the modern state of Israel was born, and in the 1967 war the Israelis gained control of all of Jerusalem, though leaving the Temple Mount under Islamic authority.
wierd man..... this is what the killing is all about
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Art: Good link. Let me excerpt from it as follows:
The fact is that today's Palestinians are immigrants from the surrounding nations! I grew up well knowing the history and origins of today's Palestinians as being from Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Christians from Greece, Muslim Sherkas from Russia, Muslims from Bosnia, and the Jordanians next door.
- Walid, a Palestinian Arab defector, talking about the recent immigration of Arabs to Palestine. quoted from "Answering Islam"
The current PLO and Arab claim (and mainstream media regurgitation of it) is indeed a very distorted version of `recorded history' and can only qualify as pure Orwellian propaganda. In fact, putting aside all the myths and propaganda, the only area that would qualify historically as truly Arab land, is the Arabian desert peninsula. Unfortunately, it seems that Goebbels was correct in stating that if a lie were repeated often enough, it would come to be "perceived" as truth.
No doubt, some Arabs have lived in the area of the Mandate of Palestine for many centuries, but not as many of them as had the Jews. What is more, Jews had lived in Arab lands since times preceding Islam itself. And yet, these Jews in Arab lands were never regarded as citizens of the Arab lands they lived in and were unceremoniously expelled in the years subsequent to Israel's establishment. In other words, residency alone did not confer national rights on those who inhabited an area. Nor did it make a people out of congeries of Arabs and other nationalities that had come to the area of the Mandate of Palestine while the Jewish people were restricted. The nations of the world recognized this after World War I when the League of Nations determined that the geographical area called Palestine was to become a homeland for the Jewish people, the people that had been continuously associated with this land since ancient times when it was known as Judea and Samaria. -----David Basch
So why did so many Arabs end up in Palestine?
During the British Mandate, even well into the 1940s, Arabs were allowed into "Palestine" in huge numbers without visa or passport, especially from the Hauran District of Syria, while the British continued to do everything possible to prevent Jews from entering, even down to the last minute when all attempts were made to deny entry to thousands of Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis. Only in 1948 were Jewish refugees allowed free entry to their homeland, and that was because Israel had, once again, become an independent nation.
[The Arabs of Ottoman Palestine may have] had certain attachments to the fields they were cultivating but at the same time they were destroying the Land. Parkes stated that "in the wars between villages it was far too common a practice to cut down fruit trees and olives and to destroy crops, and this in the end caused as much loss of life through hunger as was caused by the actual casualties of fighting". He concluded that ".... it is probable that in the first half of the nineteenth century the population sank to the lowest level it had ever known in historic times".
Palestinian leaders claim that Israel is built on Arab land, when the truth is that eyewitnesses such as Mark Twain and Rev. Manning of England who visited the Holy Land in the last century wrote that the land was barren and empty. The population then was less that 5% of today's population. In fact Joan Peters in her book "From Time Immemorial" tells us that the return of the Jews in 1800's and early 1900's created jobs, and Arabs from impoverished areas were drawn into the Holy Land for work. Peters also tells us that in 1948 so many Arabs were new to the area and could not qualify for the UN requirement for refugee status (people forced to leave "permanent" or "habitual" homes) that they added a clause permitting refugee status for Arabs who had been there as little as two years.
Thus the Zionist slogan "The Land without a people for the people without a land" was absolutely correct. The slogan did not mean that there were no inhabitants at all in Palestine, it just indicated that the non-Jewish population constituted a conglomeration of dozens of heterogeneous groups of residents having very little in common, i.e. not constituting a single nation, a people. These residents were not united by any specific national idea. Parkes wrote that the Balfour declaration for the first time established a "unit called Palestine on a political map. ...There was no such thing historically as a 'Palestinian Arab', and there was no feeling of unity among 'the Arabs' of this newly defined area".
So before the creation of the State of Israel, who were the Palestinians?
Until 1950, the name of the Jerusalem Post was THE PALESTINE POST; the journal of the Zionist Organization of America was NEW PALESTINE; Bank Leumi was the ANGLO-PALESTINE BANK; the Israel Electric Company was the PALESTINE ELECTRIC COMPANY; there was the PALESTINE FOUNDATION FUND and the PALESTINE PHILHARMONIC. All these were Jewish organizations. In America, Zionist youngsters sang "PALESTINE, MY PALESTINE", "PALESTINE SCOUT SONG" and "PALESTINE SPRING SONG" In general, the terms Palestine and Palestinian referred to the region of Palestine as it was. Thus "Palestinian Jew" and "Palestinian Arab" are straightforward expressions. "Palestine Post" and "Palestine Philharmonic" refer to these bodies as they existed in a place then known as Palestine. The adoption of a Palestinian identity by the Arabs of Palestine is a recent phenomenon. Until the establishment of the State of Israel, and for another decade or so, the term Palestinian applied almost exclusively to the Jews.
What was the identity of the Arabs of Palestine at the end of the Ottoman Empire?
On August 11, 1919 in a memorandum to Lord Curzon, Lord Balfour stated that "whatever be the future of Palestine, it is not now an 'independent nation,' nor is it yet on the way to becoming one". Professor of history Reverend James Parkes wrote in Whose Land that "before 1914, ... the mass of the population [in Palestine] had no real feeling of belonging to any wider unit than their village, clan or possibly confederation of clans". He stressed the point that "up to that time it is not possible to speak of the existence of any general sentiment of nationality". A Palestinian Arab, Professor of history Rashid Khalidi recently confirmed Balfour's and Parkes' statements that the population of Palestine at the beginning of this century did not represent a distinct nation. In his book Palestinian Identity, he wrote that only at the beginning of the twentieth century did the Arabs of Palestine start to see "themselves as part of other communities, both larger and smaller ones. This identification certainly did not include all sectors or classes of the population. But it did constitute a new and powerful category of identity that was simply nonexistent a generation or two before, and was still novel and limited in its diffusion before World War I".
Are the Palestinians a separate and unique people, different from the other Arabs? When did the notion arise - of the Palestinians as a separate Arab people?
There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture. There has never been a land known as Palestine governed by Palestinians. Palestinians are Arabs, indistinguishable from Jordanians (another recent invention), Syrians, Lebanese, Iraqis, etc. Keep in mind that the Arabs control 99.9 percent of the Middle East lands. Israel represents one-tenth of 1 percent of the landmass. But that's too much for the Arabs. They want it all. And that is ultimately what the fighting in Israel is about today. Greed. Pride. Envy. Covetousness. No matter how many land concessions the Israelis make, it will never be enough.
- Joseph Farah, Arab-American journalist, editor and CEO of WorldNetDaily
The concept of "Palestinians" is one that did not exist until about 1948, when the Arab inhabitants, of what until then was Palestine, wished to differentiate themselves from the Jews. Until then, the Jews were the Palestinians. There was the Palestinian Brigade of Jewish volunteers in the British World War II Army (at a time when the Palestinian Arabs were in Berlin hatching plans with Adolf Hitler for world conquest and how to kill all the Jews); there was the Palestinian Symphony Orchestra (all Jews, of course); there was The Palestine Post; and so much more. The Arabs who now call themselves "Palestinians" do so in order to persuade a misinformed world that they are a distinct nationality and that "Palestine" is their ancestral homeland. But they are no distinct nationality at all. They are the same - in language, custom, and tribal and family ties - as the Arabs of Syria, Jordan, and beyond. There is no more difference between the "Palestinians" and the other Arabs of those countries than there is between, say, the citizens of Minnesota and those of Wisconsin.
What's more, many of the "Palestinians", or their immediate ancestors, came to the area attracted by the prosperity created by the Jews, in what previously had been pretty much of a wasteland.
- New York Times, June 12, 2000 (via CFICEJ's ISRAEL REPORT May/June 2000)
It is mainly in the past few decades that "Palestinian" has been co-opted by the Arabs, as if the name belongs exclusively to them, pretending to have a long history and independent national identity. Until 1967, most of those who now call themselves Palestinians were reasonably happy with their Jordanian citizenship and with calling themselves "Jordanians" Even today, there is strong support among the "Palestinian" majority of Jordan for their Hashemite monarchy, though King Hussein relies on his Bedouin troops when he needs absolute loyalty. The use of a term like "Palestinian" without the suffix "Arab" and the term "Israeli-Occupied Palestine" have served to confuse the public into thinking that there has always been an independent "Palestinian" people which hasn't been given the opportunity for self-determination. In fact, any such failure has been the fault of the government of Jordan, which covers the majority of what was once known as "Palestine" and in which the majority of Palestinian Arabs live.
- David Basch
The actual word "Palestine" came from the Romans, not the Arabs, and there has never been an independent country or state of Palestine, nor a Palestinian rule. Yet we are led to believe that there are Palestinians and then there are Arabs.
"There is no such country [as Palestine]! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria." - Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, a local Arab leader, to the Peel Commission, 1937
The Romans had changed the name of the Land of Israel to "Palestine." But from A.D. 640 until the 1960s, Arabs referred to this same Land as "Southern Syria." Arabs only started calling the Land "Palestine" in the 1960s. Until about the eighteenth century, the Christian world called this same Land, "The Holy Land." Thereafter, they used two names: "The Holy Land" and "Palestine." When the League of Nations in 1922 gave Great Britain the mandate to prepare Palestine as a national home for the Jewish people, the official name of the Land became "Palestine" and remained so until the rebirth of the Israeli State in 1948. During this very period, the leaders of the Arabs in the Land, however, called themselves Southern Syrians and clamored that the Land become a part of a "Greater Syria." This "Arab Nation" would include Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Transjordan as well as Palestine. An observation in TIME magazine well articulated how the Palestinian identity was born so belatedly in the 1960s:
Golda Meir once argued that there was no such thing as a Palestinian; at the time, she wasn't entirely wrong. Before Arafat began his proselytizing, most of the Arabs from the territory of Palestine thought of themselves as members of an all-embracing Arab nation. It was Arafat who made the intellectual leap to a definition of the Palestinians as a distinct people; he articulated the cause, organized for it, fought for it and brought it to the world's attention.
If there was an Arab Palestinian culture, a normal population increase over the centuries would have been expected. But with the exception of a relatively few families, the Arabs had no attachment to the Land. If Arabs from southern Syria drifted into Palestine for economic reasons, within a generation or so the cultural tug of Syria or other Arab lands would pull them back. This factor is why the Arab population average remained low until the influx of Jewish financial investments and Jewish people in the late 1800s made the Land economically attractive. Then sometime between 1850 and 1918, the Arab population shot up to 560,000. Not to absolve the Jews but to defend British policy, the not overfriendly British secretary of state for the colonies, Malcolm MacDonald, declared in the House of Commons (November 24, 1938), "The Arabs cannot say that the Jews are driving them out of the country. . ."
Syrian President Hafez Assad once told PLO leader Yassir Arafat:
You do not represent Palestine as much as we do. Never forget this one point: There is no such thing as a Palestinian People, there is no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria. You are an integral part of the Syrian people, Palestine is an integral part of Syria. Therefore it is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the true representatives of the Palestinian people.
Assad stated on March 8, 1974, "Palestine is a principal part of Southern Syria, and we consider that it is our right and duty to insist that it be a liberated partner of our Arab homeland and of Syria."
The Arabs themselves, who are its inhabitants, cannot be considered but temporary residents. They pitched their tents in its grazing fields or built their places of refuge in its ruined cities. They created nothing in it. Since they were strangers to the land, they never became its masters. The desert wind that brought them hither could one day carry them away without their leaving behind them any sign of their passage through it.
...the Arab leadership realized how much more effective they could make their efforts to "throw the Jews into the sea" if they became Palestinians rather than Arabs. By then, the Jews of this country (the only people called Palestinians before the War of Independence) were named Israelis. Even The Palestine Post became The Jerusalem Post. By adopting the name 'Palestinians' the Arabs succeeded in converting the Arab-Israeli conflict from a war of annihilation against the Jewish population to a struggle of dispossessed natives against colonialist invaders. It was a spectacularly effective canard, eventually adopted by Israel's own fiction weavers, the 'new historians.' - David Bar-Illan, The Jerusalem Post, 'Eye on the Media', November 5, 1999
...after the Six-Day War, when Yasser Arafat and Fatah tried to establish their infrastructures in what they referred to as the West Bank they were rejected by the Arabs themselves. Neil Livingstone and David Halevy wrote in Inside the PLO, "The effort, however, turned out to be one of Fatah's greatest failures, not so much because of Israeli efficiency in ferreting out the secret network as because of Palestinian apathy. At that point many Palestinians living in the West Bank were actually relieved to be out from under the oppressive yoke of Jordanian rule and simply wanted to find some kind of accommodation with the Israelis. Within months Arafat was forced to leave the West Bank on the run". The Arab leaders are well aware of the fragility of the Palestinian identity for the majority of the Palestinian Arabs. This is the main reason why they have not allowed the Palestinian Arabs living in the refugee camps, for almost half a century, to intermingle with Arabs of their countries. Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri confirmed this on February 5, 1998 in an interview with London MBC Television. He said the following; "We do not want to fall into the trap of resettling the Palestinians. This would lead to resettling the Palestinian refugees and their eventual assimilation. The Palestinians themselves have consistently rejected this approach so that their cause and characteristic identity might not be lost".
When Al-Hariri said, "the Palestinians themselves rejected this approach", he missed one important word - leaders. It is the Palestinian leaders who try to prevent the assimilation of the Arabs among the Arabs. It is the Palestinian leaders who today more and more openly declare the Israeli Arabs to be their "property", to be an unquestionable part of the "Palestinian people".
Who is the real enemy of the Palestinian Arabs?
"Arafat himself is one of the world's foremost terrorists. He knows it, we know it, and he knows that we know it. So what's he up to? Muddying the waters, that's what.... The [Jerusalem marketplace] massacre was, he said, nothing to do with him. But where's the evidence the Israelis are trying to starve the Palestinians into submission? There isn't any. Where's the evidence the Israelis have a siege mentality against the Palestinians? Again, there isn't any. The truth is ... the Arab world has repeatedly tried to destroy the only democratic nation in the entire Middle East. If Arafat wants he can make a legitimate deal with the Israelis right now and end the so-called 'state terrorism' against his people. Yet instead he prefers to use his own people as pawns in his own cunning, devious game. It is Arafat himself, not the Israeli people, who is the enemy of the Palestinians." - Editorial (Canada's Calgary Sun, Aug 12, 1997)
"We are slowly and dangerously moving towards a police state where intimidation and threats become the norm instead of the rule of law." - Daoud Kuttab, a prominent Arafat supporter and Palestinian journalist, after he was fired from his job for signing a petition protesting the P.L.O.'s decision to shut down a pro-Jordanian newspaper (Reuters, 6 August 1994)
"I am not Mr. Chairman. I am His Excellency, the President of Palestine." - Yasser Arafat, Chairman of the P.L.O., in response to a greeting by Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt (Jerusalem Post, 17 December 1993)
-------------------- The light of truth is blinding to most.
More comforting to look only at the shadows of falseness. Posts: 4402 | From: Florida | Registered: Jun 2003
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-------------------- Marty When I was born, I was granted a visitors pass to earth. I will enjoy everyday until it has expired. You should too ;) Posts: 1740 | From: NJ, USA | Registered: Oct 2004
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-------------------- Marty When I was born, I was granted a visitors pass to earth. I will enjoy everyday until it has expired. You should too ;) Posts: 1740 | From: NJ, USA | Registered: Oct 2004
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posted
Isn't nice to know how, "The World Turns?" http://tinyurl.com/b5afz Saudi Arabia, Qatar to Fund Palestinians
By MOHAMMED DARAGHMEH, Associated Press Writer 39 minutes ago
RAMALLAH, West Bank - Israel froze the transfer of millions of dollars in tax rebates and customs payments to the Palestinian Authority, and Palestinian officials said Wednesday that Saudi Arabia and Qatar have promised $33 million in quick aid to ease a severe budget crisis. ADVERTISEMENT
Saudi Arabia promised $20 million and Qatar pledged $13 million to help the Palestinian Authority pay January salaries to 137,000 employees, a senior Palestinian official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal was not final.
Earlier, Israel said it was suspending the transfer of $45 million in tax and customs revenues it collected in January while Western nations weigh whether to continue supporting the Palestinian Authority after Hamas, with its history of suicide bombings and rejection of Israel, forms a government.
The Israeli action could cause unrest in the West Bank and Gaza.
Western donors, led by the U.S. and EU, funnel about $900 million to the Palestinians each year, most of it designated for reconstruction projects in the impoverished Gaza Strip and West Bank. They are reconsidering that funding, demanding that Hamas recognize Israel and renounce violence.
The 137,000 people on the Palestinian Authority payroll, including almost 60,000 security officers, are supposed to receive their salaries Thursday. Even with promises of new aid, a Palestinian official said the checks would not be ready until Monday at the earliest.
Even a week's delay could mean hardship for large numbers of Palestinians. The Palestinian economy is in tatters after five years of violence with Israel. Unemployment is 22 percent, and even the meager government salaries support extended families in many cases.
Failure to pay the January salaries could pose the most difficult test yet for Hamas, which has resisted international demands to recognize Israel, disarm and renounce violence.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said Israel was "not out of sync" with the rest of the world in holding up the transfer. He said in the past, when Israel suspected the Palestinian Authority was using funds to support violence, Israel put its money into escrow accounts, releasing it later. He said that would be the practice this time, as well.
Palestinian deputy Finance Minister Jihad al-Wazir, said contacts are in progress with the Israelis and he was hopeful the funds could be transferred in the coming days. He said there are also contacts with world donors aimed at maintaining levels of foreign aid.
Economics Minister Mazen Sinokrot said Israel is in violation of interim peace accords, which require it to transfer the customs and taxes. "The Israeli side is not permitted legally to freeze the money of the Palestinian Authority, which is the money of the Palestinian people," he said, adding that Israel owes $53 million, not $45 million as it maintains.
Regev said Israel and the world cannot be expected to "finance people who believe that the solution is the destruction of Israel by suicide bombings and violent jihad."
In all, the Palestinian Authority needs some $116 million every month to cover the payroll. It has repeatedly borrowed from banks and received additional support from donor countries. However, the Palestinian Cabinet secretary, Samir Hleileh, said it appears unlikely the banks would lend to the government in times of uncertainty.
-------------------- Marty When I was born, I was granted a visitors pass to earth. I will enjoy everyday until it has expired. You should too ;) Posts: 1740 | From: NJ, USA | Registered: Oct 2004
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