What's the fucking deal with Palestinians?

swallowedwords wrote:

Are you Chinese, or do you just live/work in China? If you are Chinese, it seems quite comical for you to criticize America and talk about those who violate the rights of others.

As for your question re: what nationality I am, and where I happen to be living; this is completely irrelevant.
Maybe you'd care to explain why my criticizing U.S foreign policy seems comical to you?

swallowedwords wrote:

I strongly disagree with you here. Everywhere there are Muslims in the world, there is trouble/conflict. Many people actually think "Islam" means "peace," but it happens to mean "submission".

How enlightening. Though I think you may have forgotten something here. Are you suggesting that all of us non-Muslims are naturally more civilized? Let me give you a few clues as to how civilized we are, and of what a great example we set for the ignorant people of the Middle East....

The Holocaust
Hiroshima
The Rape of Nanking
The Bosnian war - The massacres at Tuzla and Srebrenica
Rwanda genocide
The bombing of the road to Basra 1991

swallowedwords wrote:

I would hope that one day all Muslim countries resemble Turkey, then progress will be made.

Sure...
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/1881/kurdistan96/Photo2.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/1881/kurdistan96/Photo5.jpg

swallowedwords wrote:

Turkey, unlike most Muslim countries, is the most democratic. Ataturk's reforms after 1923 were revolutionary after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Even before Ataturk, Turkey was known to be much more tolerant of Non-Muslims than it's Muslim neighbors. Turkey even took in Jews that were being persecuted in Spain at the time of the Inquisition.

Tell that to any Greek Cypriots, or Kurds. I'm sure they'd have a few things to say about it.


Turkey's War Crimes
http://www.kurdistan.org/Articles/crimes.html

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Congress/1881/kurdistan96/Photo2.jpg
'These pictures and the heinous crimes they show are not aberrations. These scenes are repeated often in southeastern Turkey, the historical land of the Kurds. Armed with East German rifles, West German armored vehicles and sophisticated American weapons, Turkish soldiers are creating the largest moonscape on the face the earth, raining death and destruction on the Kurds and their land. House Concurrent Resolution 136 of the 104th Congress notes that more than 2,650 Kurdish villages have been destroyed in this most recent Turkish assault on the Kurds.'



http://www.serendipity.li/wot/us_terr_st.htm
'Chomsky: It's very simple. If they do it, it's terrorism. If we do it, it's counter-terrorism. That's a historical universal. Go back to Nazi propaganda. The most extreme mass murderers ever. If you look at Nazi propaganda, that's exactly what they said. They said they're defending the populations and the legitimate governments of Europe like Vichy from the terrorist partisans who are directed from London. That's the basic propaganda line. And like all propaganda, no matter how vulgar, it has an element of truth. The partisans did carry out terror, they were directed from London. The Vichy government is about as legitimate as half the governments the US has installed around the world and supports, so yes, there was a minor element of truth to it, and that's the way it works. If somebody else carries it out, it's terror. If we carry it out, it's counter-terror. I think perhaps one of the most dramatic examples right at this moment is a place where I just was a couple of weeks ago, southeastern Turkey. Southeastern Turkey is the site of some of the worst terrorist atrocities of the 1990s.

ES: This is the attacks on the Kurds.

Chomsky: The attacks on the Kurds created a couple of million refugees. It left much of the countryside devastated. Tens of thousands of people killed. It was every imaginable barbaric form of torture you can dream of. It's all well documented in Human Rights Watch reports and so on. How did they do it? Well, they did it with a huge flow of U.S. arms, which peaked in 1997. In that one year, the arms transfers to Turkey from the United States were higher than the entire Cold War period. You know up until the counter-insurgency started. But look at the way it's treated. This massive international terrorism run and supported by the United States is considered a great triumph of counter-terrorism.

If you read the State Department reports on terror they praise Turkey for its success in showing how to counter terror. You read a front page article in the New York Times and it praises Turkey for showing how to deal with terror. Turkey was selected as the country to provide the forces for what they call the international force for Afghanistan. Actually it's for Kabul alone. It's Turkey that's being paid by the United States extensively to carry out the repression of terror, thanks to their achievements in countering terror — namely by carrying out some of the worst terror of the 1990s. Massive ethnic cleansing and atrocities with U.S. support. Now you know this is a real achievement of the intellectual culture to be able to do this. But it illustrates very well the answer to your question. Terror and counter-terror. If some enemy state did this, we'd be not just outraged, we'd be bombing them.'

evenkat wrote:

I can agree with you that our mainstream media definitely takes the side of Jews over the Palestinians in the US. However there is no doubt in my mind that European media takes the side of Palestinians. Here's why:

Britain was in control of Palestine prior to, during and for a short time after World War II.

After world war II Europe was destroyed and was trying to rebuild. Millions of Europeans were displaced but especially the Jews because they didn't know what to do with the Jews so they basically were kept in the same camps and then shipped around. Of course they were not killed but the conditions and treatment remained terrible which was even done in front of reporters and cameras at one point. The Jews didn't feel welcome in Europe and wanted to go to Palestine because ironically back then the Palestinians treated Jews better than Europeans.

Now again Britain was in control Palestine but Britain didn't want the Jews to go to Palestine which caused problems because Jews really weren't welcome anywhere. Therefore the UN decided to create an Israeli state in the Middle East. However the increasing numbers of Jews to the Middle East began to create problems with Arabs and the fighting began. Many countries wouldn't recognize Israel at all.

So basically this problem was created by ill treatment of the Jews by the British government, of course the Nazis and many European governments. It seems nothing has changed. It's much easier to demonize the Jews than to take responsibility for what has happened.

Read up

http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/displacedjews_2.htm

Nothing in what you've posted here demonstrates that the European media takes the side of Palestinians.


Greasing Up to Power
Posted July 13, 2004
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/07/13/greasing-up-to-power/
'The Glasgow study shows that BBC and ITN news reports are biased in favour of Israel and against the Palestinians.(7) Almost three times as much coverage is given to each Israeli death as to each Palestinian death. Killings by Palestinians are routinely described as “atrocities” and “murders”, while Palestinians deliberately shot by Israeli soldiers have been reported as “caught in the crossfire.”(8) In the period the researchers studied, Israeli spokespeople were given twice as much time to speak as Palestinians. Both BBC and ITN reports have described the West Bank as part of Israel.(9) By failing to explain that the Palestinians are living under military occupation, following the illegal seizure of their land, correspondents routinely reduce the conflict to an inexplicable “cycle of violence”. Even this cycle is presented as being driven by the Palestinians: the Israelis are reported as “responding” or “retaliating” to Palestinian attacks; violence by the Palestinians is seldom explained as a response to attacks by Israelis.(10) Both networks regularly claim that the US government is seeking peace in the region (ITN has described it as “even-handed”) while omitting to mention that it is supplying some $3 billion a year of military aid to Israel.(11)'

And you're right about pro-Israel bias in the U.S. It's even more blatant:
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/net-report.html

evenkat wrote:

Now does this make it right what the Jews are doing to the Palestinians? No but they've learned from the best . They are still fighting for their survival in a world that doesn't want them anywhere.

You can easily say ship the Jews around again and go back to 1967 borders, however their population has increased so much it would cause overpopulation and the problems that come from overpopulation.

Would it? Do you have any evidence to support these claims?
Not that they're in any way relevant of course. If you think that the illegal occupation can be justified on the grounds of over-population within Israel then I wish you the best of luck.

evenkat wrote:

It's not easy!

No. But It's also not as complicated as people like to pretend.

_FiveAgainstOne_ wrote:

and for your information, Hamas, your "terrorist organization", actually said they'd start having peace negotiations if Israel went back to the 1967 borders.

This is true:

HAMAS calls for 'end of bloodshed' 3/28/2006
http://www.standwithus.com/news_post.asp?NPI=738

'In a conciliatory message to Israeli voters on the eve of the election, Palestinian Prime Minister-designate Ismail Haniyeh said Hamas wanted to end the bloodshed and the longstanding conflict in the region.

"We don't want a whirlpool of blood in this region," Haniyeh told reporters in Gaza City as he prepared to present his cabinet to the Palestinian Legislative Council for a vote of confidence.

"We want the rights and dignity of our people. We also want to put an end to this complicated conflict that has been going on for decades." Hamas leader Haniyeh said his movement's victory in the January 25 parliamentary election was not the reason why the conflict was continuing. "On the contrary," he added, "Hamas's presence in power marks the beginning of resolving the crisis."

...He added that the Palestinians would not accept the future borders of a Palestinian state as defined by Israel...

Haniyeh stressed, however, that his cabinet was entitled to pursue the fight against Israeli occupation. "Hamas was elected on the basis of the principle of defending the legitimacy of resistance to the occupation," he said...

He said his cabinet's program would emphasize the Palestinians' right "to defend themselves against Israeli measures and challenges."[/b]

Incoming Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar took a more militant stance when he declared on Sunday that Hamas would not "give up one inch of Palestine." Addressing a rally in Beit Sahour on the second anniversary of the assassination of former Hamas leader and founder Ahmed Yassin, Zahar said, "Even if the US gave us all its money in return for recognizing Israel and giving up one inch of Palestine, we would never do so even if this costs us our lives." He said Yassin had sacrificed his life "for the sake of the Aksa Mosque and Palestine and his blood would therefore not be wasted. Our right to pursue the resistance will remain as long as the occupation continues over our lands and holy sites."