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A Jihad Watch reader recently took issue with my noting that the world had never heard of the “Palestinian” nationality before the 1960s: "‘You are absolutely wrong on all counts. First of all there was never any Palestine to begin with... so who exactly do you mean by Palestinians?' There were also no "Israelis" as such until Israel was officially created. Both identities are constructed ones. Again, so what? In the end, they're fighting over land. If either side wanted peace, they'd have it by now. As it is, there are people on both sides who have profited, and continue to profit, from the continuation of hostilities."
No, but the word "Palestinians" and the invention of the "Palestinian people" was a deliberate construct. It did not begin right away. It was not the term used, ever since there were Arabs in what Western Christendom called "Palestine." The local Arabs never used the phrase until after the defeat in the Six-Day War. And then, having jettisoned Shukairy a few years before, the Arabs collectively decided, with a little help from public-relations advisers in the West, to thoroughly redo their presentation.
The most important thing was to redefine the conflict. No longer are all those Arabs against a tiny Jewish state. No. Now, by an act of optical illusion, the tiny Jewish state would be transformed into a vast empire, this Greater Israel. Why, the same BBC newscasters who routinely refer to Lebanon as that "tiny country" and to Jordan as that "tiny country" -- I hear it all the time -- for some reason never use that epithet with Israel. Never. Not once. Yet that Greater Israel, even if it came into being, would be all of the size of Massachusetts, and less than one one-thousandth the size of the Arab states.
But the absurdities pile up. It was time to rename the local Arabs, both those in the territories won by Israel that were part of the original Palestine Mandate (Gaza, the "West Bank" -- quondam Judea and Samaria) and those who had been called simply, and a bit too easily, "Arab refugees" -- by every single Arab spokesman at the U.N., the Arab League, and elsewhere. These were the people living in those villages (always described as "refugee camps," though some are full-fledged cities, and all have stores and built-up areas; these are not tent cities, the kind of thing that refugees in Darfur must endure) in Jordan, Lebanon, and so on.
The term "Israeli" was not deliberately invented to score political points. Far from it. The Jews of Israel are really what is in play here, the survival of a Jewish state, of the right of the Jews to have a state.
It is absurd to equate the deliberate and sinister creation of this fake "Palestinian identity" (google "Zohair Mohsen" and "Palestinian people" for more) for political ends, with the simple term "Israeli" to describe those who are citizens of the state of Israel.
So let's do it otherwise. Let's, more truthfully, talk about Arabs and Jews. Arabs and Jews in the Middle East. Do the Jews who come from the Middle East have a right to a state? Remember, a million of them in 1948, having endured for centuries the life of dhimmis under Muslim rule (save in those places, such as North Africa, where the brief rule by European powers led to Jewish emancipation from the burden of living under Shari'a -- thanks in Algeria to the loi Cremieux of 1870), left the Arab countries where they had lived, and most fled to the state of Israel. Do the Jews have a right to a state, a state that can be defended against permanent Muslim aggression, or do they not?
And as for the local Arabs, their numbers have been exaggerated -- few bother to consult the Ottoman cadastral or demographic records, such as they are, in pronouncing on the subject of "Palestine," and fewer still put that "Palestine" and the non-Muslim and non-Arab minorities of the Middle East into their proper light, their proper perspective. Do the Kurds also, now is perhaps the time to add, have a right to an independent state? And Lebanon, by rights, should remain a haven, a final haven, for the Arabic-using Christians -- not all, by a long shot, are Arabs -- in the Middle East.
So there it is. A Jewish state, permanently imperiled, and asked to voluntarily make itself still more imperiled. And the implacable relentless Arabs, using salami tactics, and their vast unearned wealth, to apply every kind of pressure to get the world's Infidels to join in the gang-up, and to push Israel back to clearly indefensible borders, without control of vital aquifers, without control of traditional invasion routes, eight miles wide at its waist, from Qalqilya to the sea. And this is the one country, the only country, that the most persecuted tribe in human history, having recently been the victim of the most unbelievable crime in human history, that exists for that tribe to embody its national identity without any doubts or need to conform to what others would have.
And on the other hand, there are the Arabs, who have denied or attempted to deny every non-Muslim and non-Arab people in North Africa and the Middle East -- Kurds and Berbers and now blacks in Darfur and Christian Copts and Maronites and Assyrians and Chaldeans and others -- their rights, in some cases their linguistic and cultural rights, in others their rights to control or profit from their own natural resources, in still other cases, to enjoy freedom from Arab political masters. Those Arabs have denied these peoples the right to speak their own non-Arab languages (see the case of the Berbers), retain their own culture. They have even mass-murdered them in the Sudan and Iraq, with the other Arabs looking on, openly or silently supporting them, and blocking all attempts to stop the murder.
And those same Arabs, with their 22 states, have also been the beneficiaries of unmerited wealth, having nothing to do with their own efforts, their own industry or entrepreneurial flair. The rich Arabs and Muslims have received, for doing absolutely nothing, some ten trillion dollars since 1973 alone, and we all know the arms, and the luxurious palaces, and the call girls, and the yachts, and all the rest of it, that they have spent their money on, including the mosques and madrasas and Da'wa and propaganda on behalf of Islam -- through buying up journalists, creating academic centers, dangling possible contracts before greedy businessmen, and all the rest of it.
And a few parting words for that Jihad Watch reader: do you still wish to tell us you are morally neutral when it comes to Arabs and Jews in that little affair in a dusty sliver of land on the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean? You surely are not the moral idiot you have painted yourself to be. Surely you have not thought this all through. Surely history, including the last millennium or two, or at least back to the beginning of Islam's conquests and subjugations, and the fantastic story of what happened to the Jews, those who remained, and those who made their way out of the Middle East, should make some impression on you.
Assuming you are free of the usual mental pathology that explains so many cases of such "neutrality" in this case, one hopes you reconsider your declaration of "neutrality" -- as unacceptable a position as declaring moral neutrality between the Allies, and Nazi Germany, during World War II.
Posted by Hugh at November 29, 2007 11:34 AM
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That's me he's calling an idiot, of course. Nice job, Hugh (or Robert, or Hubert Fitzspencer--whoever you are). Very mature and professional.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at November 29, 2007 11:48 AM
Also, it is quite telling that not a single statement in Mr. Fitzspencer's post refutes my contention that BOTH "Palestinian" and "Israeli" are constructed identities. That, and that alone, was the main subject of my gripe. Has anyone refuted it?
...anyone?
...I thought not.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 11:54 AM
RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 11:54 AM
He did, quite clearly. The term Israel dates back five millennium to the Torah.
Ignorance (including yours) is key to Islamic survival.
Thank you Hugh and Robert for your clear expertise and insight.
Posted by: jindle86 at November 29, 2007 12:23 PM
Yes, you've been refuted. The concept of national identities as "constructed" is of course a favorite meme of the post-modern intellectual. But as the grand poobah of deconstruction, Jacques Derrida, took pains to point out, the fact that the practice of constructing a concept such as national identity is unavoidable, does not mean that all such attempts are equal in terms of their rationality or morality. Hugh has pointed out that basis for the construction of the Palestinian identity was a recent and cynical one, whereas the nation of Israel is a construction the Jews have practiced since time immemorial. So there!
Posted by: DowntownRod at November 29, 2007 12:23 PM
Roobart, I don't think his point is to refute you (he admits early on they were constructed, one out of reaction {Palestinian} and one out of formation {Israeli}). His point, from what I gather, is to show you the reasons why the "Israelis" were given the ability to become such.
I never understood why Empires and Empires of Islamic leadership conquer and subjugate, continue spread and when they annex certain areas it is OK, but after the Ottomans are on the losing side WWII there is somehow this new "rule" that in modern wars the losers get to retain their land? Very curious to me.
This goes along with the extremely convexing "Occupied lands" arguments of muslims when all they've been doing (especially in the case of the holy land and former byzantine empire) is occupying "other people's" lands since the late 7th century. Obviously, the only reason why Islam proceeded was because it a) conquered and b) occupied --- and never with any sort of appeal in any fashion to equality. Why should westerners, even pirate-like colonialists, feel bad about or made to feel bad about their activities when given the historical context of the world, namely "Whoever wins writes history" and "To the victor go the spoils"?
People don't read history, Hugh, methinks.
As a side note, I'm reading Runciman's First Crusade right now, it is very interesting.
Palamas (trying to practice Hesychasm before the invaders come)
Posted by: Palamas at November 29, 2007 12:29 PM
"That's me he's calling an idiot..."
-- from a posting by comical Roobart Sbunsar above
No, mon vieux, I did not call you an idiot. I did something different.
What I wrote was this:
"You surely are not the moral idiot you have painted yourself to be. Surely you have not thought this all through. Surely history, including the last millennium or two, or at least back to the beginning of Islam's conquests and subjugations, and the fantastic story of what happened to the Jews, those who remained, and those who made their way out of the Middle East, should make some impression on you."
I said "surely you are not the moral idiot you have painted yourself to be."
Why not put that brush away, with which you are not merely painting yourself, but now tarring-and-feathering yourself, and holding yourself up to ridicule? Why not take up something that Islam hates even more than painting, music, free and skeptical inquiry, humor, and so on. Yes, why not take up sculpture.
My Russian billionaire friends (magari!) tell me that at the latest billionaire's fair everyone wanted his very own equestrian statue, modelled on the one that Catherine the Great placed in Petersburg. So don't worry. You'll have a market. Billionaires never go out of style.
Posted by: Hugh at November 29, 2007 1:14 PM
"My Russian billionaire friends (magari!) tell me that at the latest billionaire's fair everyone wanted his very own equestrian statue, modelled on the one that Catherine the Great placed in Petersburg."
...I'm sorry--WHAT??
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 1:30 PM
"The term Israel dates back five millennium to the Torah."
The TERM Israel, yes. Not the nation-state of Israel as it was understood in 1948 and is understood today. "Nation" meant something entirely different millenia ago. I do not believe it is correct to claim that their claims to "a nation of Israel" back then were precisely the same as was the idea of establishing a state of Israel in the 20th century. Different times, different concepts.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 1:32 PM
"'Nation' meant something entirely [emphasis added] different millenia ago"
Posted by: The LORD of the Worms
Oh, this is so fascinating! Do tell, how were the meanings so entirely different? Further, could you explore how only the "TERM" Israel existed in a vacuum millenia ago, with no real world construct?
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at November 29, 2007 1:50 PM
You know. The Bronze Horseman, the statue to Peter the Great erected by Catherine the Great, Ekaterina II. The one that has two inscriptions, or rather one inscription in two languages.
There's the Latin:
"Petro Primo Catharina Secunda MDCCLXXXII" in Latin.
And there's the Russian:
"Петру первому Екатерина вторая, лето 1782" in Russian.
They mean the same thing. To Peter the First From Catherine the Second. It's a great and lapidary line.
Great, and also lapidary, is the 1833 Petersburg poem by Pushkin, "The Bronze Horseman" in which a poor Evgenij, living in a city whose proportions are not made for men, and that overwhelms him, is caught in the famous flood.
Read "Mednij Vsadnik" in English, or possibly in French. And while you are reading the poem, make sure to read Roman Jakobson's article on Pushkin's play with verb forms -- perfective and imperfective -- as a device (priyom) in "The Bronze Horseman."
And then,if you stop being a moral idiot about Israel, I will help you change your imperfect(ive) statements into more perfect(ive) ones.
What a deal. Up to you -- the first person singular of the Russian non-existent verb "optovat' -- buster.
at November 29, 2007 1:54 PM
"Read "Mednij Vsadnik" in English, or possibly in French."
I can read it just fine in Russian. What I don't understand is why we're talking about bronze horses all of a sudden. It seems a bit off-topic, maybe?
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 1:58 PM
(or bronze horsemen, as it were)
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 1:59 PM
Perhaps Naseem's incoherence is rubbing off on everyone. Well, stranger things have occurred on this forum.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 2:06 PM
"we're talking about bronze horses all of a sudden. It seems a bit off-topic, maybe?"
-- from a posting above
No, one thing followed logically upon another. Nothing a-batons-rompus about it. I suggested you take up sculpture. Mention of sculpture made me think of the Russian rich, now in the news because of the Millionaire's Fair just held in Moscow -- and so I joked that there was a solid market for your future works.
That, in turn, led to my reply to your "what?" which I took to mean -- "what's that statue you are talking about?" If that was not it, and what you meant was "why are you speaking about sculpture" my response is that the logical links and also leaps should be clear.
If you read Russian, then I hope the play (it's an old joke) on the made-up verb "optovat'" amused you.
Did it?
Posted by: Hugh at November 29, 2007 2:28 PM
Roobie Kube,
Post 478805 above is just for you. (Yes, it's what you always wanted: YOU are the star of this thread.)
Waiting.
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at November 29, 2007 2:29 PM
Time to pop the corn and sit back to enjoy the show!!
Posted by: mepeteart at November 29, 2007 2:44 PM
Yes, yes. Optovat', up to you, I get it. Quite amusing. As for sculpture, I doubt I'll be taking it up anytime soon.
(I was in Cairo when that delightful old man Ali Gomaa declared sculptures to be haram--now, THAT was even more amusing)
"'Nation' meant something entirely [emphasis added] different millenia ago"
Posted by: The LORD of the Worms
Oh, this is so fascinating! Do tell, how were the meanings so entirely different? Further, could you explore how only the "TERM" Israel existed in a vacuum millenia ago, with no real world construct?"
Well, as long as you acknowledge my superiority.
What I meant was simply that, even if there was talk of a NATION of Israel back then, it didn't mean anything even remotely resembling what we mean by "nation" today. So to speak of continuity between then and now in this regard is erroneous.
That's all I meant.
at November 29, 2007 2:53 PM
Last few posts by Roobart were at, successively, 1:30, then 1:32, then 1:58, then 1:59, then 2:06. And then there seemed to be a comparatively long wait, not until 2:53, a full 47 minutes later, for you to reply re "optovat'."
I have a question for you about your description of having been to Cairo (no doubt you visited the Yacobian Building while there) where "that delightful old man Ali Gomaa declared sculptures to be haram--now, THAT was even more amusing."
What was it about that "delightful old man Ali Gomaa" whom you found so "amusing"? Was it that he "declared sculptures to be haram"? Why was that merely "amusing"? Do you think he was out on a limb, a detour and frolic of his own? Or have you forgotten that Muhammad himself would not enter a house that had dogs and statuary in it, and ever since statues, sculpture, has been banned in Islam? See Al-Qaradawi. See anyone at all. What was the point of singling out Ali Gomaa, and talking about him and his judgment condescendingly, as if he were some kind of crazed freak in his declaration, when he was merely being a perfectly orthodox Muslim?
Please explain.
Posted by: Hugh
at November 29, 2007 3:05 PM
Last few posts by Roobart were at, successively, 1:30, then 1:32, then 1:58, then 1:59, then 2:06. And then there seemed to be a comparatively long wait, not until 2:53, a full 47 minutes later, for you to reply re "optovat'."
...if that's meant as an expression of doubt regarding my knowledge of Russian, I'd be perfectly willing to submit to a proficiency test of your making.
--didn't visit the Yacoubian Building (there's more than one, actually), though I did see Al Aswani speak at AUC.
"What was the point of singling out Ali Gomaa, and talking about him and his judgment condescendingly, as if he were some kind of crazed freak in his declaration, when he was merely being a perfectly orthodox Muslim?"
I suppose you're right--not much about this ruling that was unusual. Still, for a city like Cairo, which does have a fairly vibrant ("underground," I guess you can say) arts scene, it wasn't something I expected. Generally the Al-Azhar fellows are a tad more circumspect.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 3:14 PM
(that is, they say the usual jihadist stuff, but only when no one's listening--most of the time, anyway)
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 3:16 PM
Please do go to my post about Ed Husain. On the thread, a question, sweetly posed, awaits you.
Posted by: Hugh at November 29, 2007 3:40 PM
"Please do go to my post about Ed Husain. On the thread, a question, sweetly posed, awaits you."
Question answered.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 3:52 PM
Roobart,
Why in the world do you keep insisting that Robert and Hugh are one and the same? Isn't it quite obvious from their respective writing styles that they couldn't be more different?
Hugh Fitzgerald is combative, bombastic, verbose, undeniably prolific, and thoroughly, THOROUGHLY entertaining. Robert on the other hand is always measured, deliberate, precise, and at-best, OCCASIONALLY indulges in a little awkward humor.
For anyone who has ever studied the words of Robert Spencer - either spoken or written - it couldn't be more evident that he is a man of great personal integrity. To suggest that he's playing an elaborate on-going charade like this is to question his integrity.
Please dispense with this fantasy of yours.
Posted by: Cornelius at November 29, 2007 3:52 PM
"Roobart,
Why in the world do you keep insisting that Robert and Hugh are one and the same? Isn't it quite obvious from their respective writing styles that they couldn't be more different?"
Then how do you explain the fact that I've never seen a photo of Hugh Fitzgerald on this or any other website?
...wait...it just hit me! Hugh Fitzgerald is none other than reclusive American author Thomas Pynchon!
HA! And you thought I couldn't figure it out!
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 3:57 PM
"it didn't mean anything even remotely resembling what we mean by "nation" today."
Doesn't sound much like an answer. How so? Naked assertion?
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at November 29, 2007 4:01 PM
"Doesn't sound much like an answer. How so? Naked assertion?"
I mean, "nation" back then was something much more abstract and metaphysical--something granted to them by God, if you will. Today, "nation" is a wholly secular concept, defined borders and such. Not sure if that makes any sense. Eh, if it seems I'm just rambling, ignore me.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 4:04 PM
For god's sake, what isn't these days presented as a "constructed" identity? Is being "French" or "English" (or "British") or "American" -- pace Hector St.-John Crevecoeur's "what is this new thing, this American?" -- a "constructed" identity? Yes? No? Mebbe? Yes, "identity," we are told, is "constructed" and "fluid." You can be anything you want to be, and no nasty Westerners have a right to hold onto an identity, their own, which of course doesn’t, being American or Western Europoean, exist. Other lands have “identities” and can hold onto them. But the United States, England, France, and all those other places to which so many others, especially Muslims who arrive, their inculcated hostility undeclared at customs, packed carefully in their mental package, and to be unpacked as soon as they are safely in the country.
We live in an age when so many things are claimed not to embody any truth based on the considerable evidence of one’s senses (including the “eyesight” that permits one to read books), but are claimed, rather, to be "socially constructed." Think of the kind of words Terri Gross, in those intolerable NPR interviews, likes to dwell upon with her quests, questioning them about “coming to terms” with, or “discovering” or something0-or-other, with their own "Sexuality" and "Identity.” And of course “race” is merely a social construct, isn’t it, which is why the man who parachutes into Beijing, or Iowa, or the Congo, doesn’t notice the slightest difference in the kind of people he happens to meet..
Oh, did I forget to mention "reality"? Yes, nowadays "reality” also doesn't exist. It's merely "constructed." And we all thought it was just jesting Pilate who said "there is no such thing as truth." You can learn about all this from Gayatri Chakravarti Spivak, and Judith Butler, and even the equally-impenetrable-prosist Homi Bhabha (who, by the way, should mind his self-conscious manners and wait before attempting to walk out of a lecture-cum-concern when it only has a few minutes ago).
You, Roobart (isn’t that what they learn to mouth at RADA for the crowd scenes: “Roobart, Roobart, Roobart?) know perfectly well the "identities" which are being discussed here, and which you claim are equally "constructed,” are in fact not so. Get rid of those easy and pious symmetries that may please some, but not, I fear, Mnemosyne, a hard muse to please.
The war in the Middle East is that between Arabs and Jews, not between “Israelis” and “Palestinians” (you know, the Two Tiny Peoples business, each of those Tiny Peoples “struggling for its homeland). Long before there was an Israel, there were Jews living in Yemen, in Iraq, in Syria, in North Africa, in Iran (before expelled by the Muslims from the Jazirat al-Arab, they were even on the Arabian Peninsula; Hebrew lettering has been found on ruins in northwestern Saudi Arabia, Land of the Midianites). The appropriation of the term "Palestinian" -- as in "Palestinian people" -- and its deliberate promotion from adjective to noun (as in "the 'Palestinians'") -- was a deliberate and tendentious act of propaganda. The term "Israeli" per contra, is nothing more than a description of "the citizens of a nation-state called Israel" (not all of whom, by the way, are Jews), and it would be far more accurate to describe the business in Annapolis, or Camp David, and the conflict itself, as being not between "Israeli" and "Palestinian" but between Arab and Jew, or still more accurately, between Believer and Infidel, for the source of the conflict is to be located in Islam, and the refusal in Islam to countenance an Infidel state or power, of any size, controlling land, of any amount, that was once ruled over by Muslims.
If Israel happens to have been at the forefront of Arab Muslim efforts, that hardly means that the same claim is not made on Spain, Sicily, the Balkans, Greece, Bulgaria, Rumania, much of Hungary, almost all of India, and so on. Nor, of course, does the fact that places formnerly part of Dar al-Islam are at the top of the Islamic To-Do List (Recover Lands), mean that the claim to the rest of the known world has disappeared, or would disappear, if the denizens of Dar al-Islam managed to recapture every inch of land once part of Dar al-Islam. No, they have bigger fish to fry -- the whole world. And surely at the SOAS there are books, if not courses, that will let you in on that not-exactly well-kept secret.
Tell me. If the Arabs of Iran, those around Ahwaz, where all the Iranian oil is pumped, in Khuzistan, were to go for broke and try to fight off "the Persians" and create a separate, well-funded state for the ethnic Arabs, and began, for the purposes of propaganda, to call themselves the "Khuzistanian people," would you claim that the term "Khuzistanian people" is not more of a "construct" than the term "Persian people" or "Persians"? Think about that for a bit.
You surely know, or perhaps you don't but I do, having read all the records myself, that nowhere in the thousands of pages of U.N. records in which Israel and the Arabs are discussed, prior to the Six-Day War, is the term "Palestinian people" used by any Arab diplomat, from Jamal Baroody, the Lebanese who represented Saudi Arabia for so long, on down. Nor did any of the Arab leaders, or their spokesmen, refer to the "Palestinian people." Care to explain why?
The leader of As Saiqa, one terrorist group under the PLO umbrella, Zuhair Mohsen, “is widely known for having made the following statement in a March 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw”:
The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.
For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.
And there are many other remarks like this, sometimes by Arabs, and sometimes even by those engaged in “Arab refugee” work before it was taken over completely by “Palestinians” and other Arabs.
See, for example, what Elfan Rees, the special advisor on refugees to the World Council of Churches, wrote in 1957 in The Refugee Problem Today and Tomorrow:
"I hold the view that, political issues aside, the Arab refugee problem is by far the easiest postwar refugee problem to solve by integration. By faith, by language, by race and by social organization, they are indistinguishable from their fellows of the host countries. There is room for them, and land for them, in Syria and in Iraq. There is a developing demand for the kind of manpower that they represent. More unusually still, there is the money to make this integration possible. The United Nations General Assembly, five years ago, voted a sum of 200 million dollars to provide 'homes and jobs' for the Arab refugees. That money remains unspent, not because these tragic people are strangers in a strange land, because they are not; not because there is no room for them to be established, because there is; but simply for political reasons."
You can read the U.N. records, the records of what every Arab said, threatening or cajoling, from 1948 or well before 1948, right up to the Six-Day War, and even for a short period beyond, and it is only then that, out of the blue, comes this phrase “the Palestinian people.”
Stop making me waste me time having to repeat what all educated people know, or should.
Treve de betises. Cut the crap.
at November 29, 2007 4:22 PM
"Not sure if that makes any sense. Eh, if it seems I'm just rambling, ignore me."
Kind of hard to do, when you're the star of your thread.
I will grant you that as we've "filled the earth", borders have become limiting, even modestly permanent from the perspective of a single lifespan, but transitioning from a theocracy to a secular democracy negates heritage (geneological, historical, etc.) in your view? A theocracy with fluctuating geographic borders can't be a nation?
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at November 29, 2007 4:46 PM
Roobart,
I think Hugh brought up sculpture to say that there is an alternative to "painting" onself a "moral idiot", and that alternative is "sculpting" oneself through learning and understanding.
The "sculpting" analogy seems useful because it gave him leeway to play with the idea that "sculpting" onself through learning and understanding is a threat to Islam in the same way literal sculpture is often treated as a threat within Islam.
I'm sorry to spell this out but some of the confusion over this in the above discourse is like nails on a chalkboard to me.
Regarding your comment on Ali Gomaa, I suspect that if he had been a Westerner speaking out against a form of expression under threat by the rightwing over here, or you had been in Egypt as something other than a tourist of one sort or another, you wouldn't have found his position on statues "amusing". You'd have found it threatening.
"Amusing" is one of the last words I'd use to describe that position the context of a society with statuary and sculpture at the historical core of its culture, and in which religious extremists have in the past threatened to destroy the collective national inheritance in the Luxor area, and in which related extremists *have* in fact destroyed major historical statuary in Afghanistan.
at November 29, 2007 4:47 PM
Roobart,
I think Hugh brought up sculpture to say that there is an alternative to "painting" onself a "moral idiot", and that alternative is "sculpting" oneself through learning and understanding.
The "sculpting" analogy seems useful because it gave him leeway to play with the idea that "sculpting" onself through learning and understanding is a threat to Islam in the same way literal sculpture is often treated as a threat within Islam.
I'm sorry to spell this out but some of the confusion over this in the above discourse is like nails on a chalkboard to me.
Regarding your comment on Ali Gomaa, I suspect that if he had been a Westerner speaking out against a form of expression under threat by the rightwing over here, or you had been in Egypt as something other than a tourist of one sort or another, you wouldn't have found his position on statues "amusing". You'd have found it threatening.
"Amusing" is one of the last words I'd use to describe that position the context of a society with statuary and sculpture at the historical core of its culture, and in which religious extremists have in the past threatened to destroy the collective national inheritance in the Luxor area, and in which related extremists *have* in fact destroyed major historical statuary in Afghanistan.
at November 29, 2007 4:47 PM
Errata Sheet:
"Hugh Fitzgerald is combative, bombastic, verbose, undeniably prolific, and thoroughly, THOROUGHLY entertaining."
Well, I'd strike "bombastic" and "verbose" as not being the right words, not expressing what I know you are attempting to express. But that's okay.
The main point is that to assume that two clearly distinct individuals must be one, just because one of those two does not put up a photograph of himself, for someone's delectation, is absurd. When was the last time you saw a photograph of Ibn Warraq? Or of another dozen people who write about Islam in ways not likely to please Al-Qaradawi? Does one have some kind of obligation to do so? Why?
We clearly have different interetss (he's interested in Islam, and I'm bored silly by Islam), in books, in music, in art, in all kinds of things. He believes in God. I don't. What more do you want by way of distinguishing features. And surely only someone with a tin ear could conceivably mistake the prose of one for the prose of the other, and that point, by Cornelius, needs no entry on an errata sheet.
Nope, no multiple personalities or would-be Pessoas round here.
Of course, Robert does get all the groupies, while I sit at home by the telephone, waiting. But that's another story.
Posted by: Hugh at November 29, 2007 4:48 PM
" Today, "nation" is a wholly secular concept, defined borders and such. Not sure if that makes any sense. Eh, if it seems I'm just rambling, ignore me."
Hard to do when you're the star of the show.
A theocracy is not a nation? Why do you say biblical Israel had no geographic borders? A theocracy reconstructed as a secular democracy must concede its geneological and historical heritage?
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at November 29, 2007 4:49 PM
Roobart,
I think Hugh brought up sculpture to say that there is an alternative to "painting" onself a "moral idiot", and that alternative is "sculpting" oneself through learning and understanding.
The "sculpting" analogy seems useful because it gave him leeway to play with the idea that "sculpting" onself through learning and understanding is a threat to Islam in the same way literal sculpture is often treated as a threat within Islam.
I'm sorry to spell this out but some of the confusion over this in the above discourse is like nails on a chalkboard to me.
Regarding your comment on Ali Gomaa, I suspect that if he had been a Westerner speaking out against a form of expression under threat by the rightwing over here, or you had been in Egypt as something other than a tourist of one sort or another, you wouldn't have found his position on statues "amusing". You'd have found it threatening.
"Amusing" is one of the last words I'd use to describe that position the context of a society with statuary and sculpture at the historical core of its culture, and in which religious extremists have in the past threatened to destroy the collective national inheritance in the Luxor area, and in which related extremists *have* in fact destroyed major historical statuary in Afghanistan.
at November 29, 2007 4:50 PM
Sorry about the near duplicate post, getting error messages.
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at November 29, 2007 4:59 PM
ROOBART: "Then how do you explain the fact that I've never seen a photo of Hugh Fitzgerald on this or any other website?"
Quite obviously, he desires his anonymity...criticizing the "religion of peace" the way he does with his usual alacrity, it's hard to fathom why.
Perhaps Hugh should appear in a photo with Robert wearing Groucho nose, mustache and glasses.
Honestly Roobart, as if Robert Spencer doesn't have better things to do in life than to squander his precious time creating a false persona!!!
Me thinks you're slightly paranoid.
Posted by: Cornelius at November 29, 2007 5:00 PM
Imagine if France were conquered by ”Germany” (not its real name) in last big war, so it ceased to exist as a nation, but then the Germans sold the land back to the French at inflated prices, and France once again became a nation. The remaining Germans were allowed to stay, but most left thinking Germany was about to attack again and regain all the land. In this fictitious example is the equivalence of what happened to Israel. She was a nation, conquered first by Romans and later by Arabs, then bought back land, invited Arabs to stay, they left fearing Arab invasion, and now once again reestablished as a state called Israel.
Where’s the problem? Why are Arabs having such a hard time with this? Well… in fact we know the answer… it’s in their war manual. Once Arabs conquer land (for Allah) it can never revert back to the original inhabitants. Grow up Arabs, accept reality, and stop whining. Get over it. Israel stays, and your Palestinian state is at this point, since you can’t seem to agree on anything except united in your hatreds, there is no state called Palestine. There is absolutely NO equivalence between the two.
at November 29, 2007 5:00 PM
(Sorry for the multiple postings. Blank page here apparently means comment with through, do not hit the back button.)
Posted by: hope_and_justice at November 29, 2007 5:02 PM
PS - "Hugh Fitzgerald" is a nomme de guerr.
Posted by: Cornelius at November 29, 2007 5:05 PM
"The Palestinian people does not exist."
I think the Palestinians would disagree. We can believe they don't exist all we want. It won't change their perception of themselves one bit.
"[if] you had been in Egypt as something other than a tourist of one sort or another, you wouldn't have found his position on statues "amusing". You'd have found it threatening."
I was there for two years, as a student--I think that qualifies as something "other than a tourist of one sort or another." As for it being "amusing": quite simply, I'm done being pissed off at jihad. What's the point? It's so ridiculous, so against everything I believe, that all I can do is laugh. Otherwise, I'll just become the world's youngest person to die of a heart attack.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 5:06 PM
"Quite obviously, he desires his anonymity...criticizing the "religion of peace" the way he does with his usual alacrity, it's hard to fathom why."
Robert Spencer is far more critical of Islam than Mr. Fitzgerald is, yet Mr. Spencer's picture IS available, whereas Mr. Fitzgerald's isn't. I find it rather strange, that's all.
(Ibn Warraq's situation is far different. He's not relevant to this discussion)
Frankly, I see no harm in admitting that Mr. Hubert Fitzspencer is, in fact, a real person. We all admire him, don't we?
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 5:12 PM
(and yes, I'd accept "a photo with Hugh wearing Groucho nose, mustache and glasses")
at November 29, 2007 5:14 PM
"When was the last time you saw a photograph of Ibn Warraq?"
About five minutes ago. Pictures of him DO exist, floating around on the Web. They aren't that hard to find.
(I know, I know--four posts in a row. Perhaps I ought to get a life.)
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 5:20 PM
ROOBART: "Robert Spencer is far more critical of Islam than Mr. Fitzgerald is, yet Mr. Spencer's picture IS available, whereas Mr. Fitzgerald's isn't."
On the contrary, Robert maintains a degree of diplomatic decorum and often employs qualifiers in his criticisms of Islam, something Hugh rarely if ever does.
My dossier on Hugh Fitzgerald is that he is....
1) a government employee or perhaps in the military
2) in his late fifties
3) unmarried
Extrapolated from things he's written. As always, I could be wrong.
Posted by: Cornelius at November 29, 2007 5:33 PM
Let me say, though, that I'm not making light of the situation. If there are indeed reasons for Mr. Fitzgerald to maintain secrecy--death threats, etc.--then the promptings of some random poster (namely, myself) should matter not at all.
It's just simple curiosity. If there are reasons for said curiosity to remain unsatisfied, the world won't come to an end.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 5:36 PM
That's me he's calling an idiot, of course.
Of course. That was not too hard to figure out.
But, please stick around, it is not impossible someone may disagree...
Eh, if it seems I'm just rambling, ignore me./i>
Oh you’re rambling all right, but, like Nassem’s your rambling is sometimes very funny. So please keep on rambling, otherwise where else can we find gems like that:
Then how do you explain the fact that I've never seen a photo of Hugh Fitzgerald on this or any other website?
If you were here long enough you’d know that Hugh’s photo is available for a fee that may vary from a couple of dollars to a few hundred dollars. Idiots pay considerably more than an regular person and buffoons more than idiots. Or the other way round - you'd better ask Hugh.
If you are both a buffoon and an idiot that can be a bit costly. But if you have money to spend you should definitely inquire with Hugh.
at November 29, 2007 5:40 PM
PS - I just noticed your last post Hugh. Hilarious!
"Of course, Robert does get all the groupies, while I sit at home by the telephone, waiting."
Yep. Pamela ain't hard on the eyes.
Posted by: Cornelius at November 29, 2007 5:42 PM
"Oh you’re rambling all right, but, like Nassem’s your rambling is sometimes very funny. So please keep on rambling, otherwise where else can we find gems like that"
Glad I can oblige.
"If you were here long enough you’d know that Hugh’s photo is available for a fee that may vary from a couple of dollars to a few hundred dollars."
Afraid I'm a tad short of cash at the moment...Damn you, weak dollar!
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 5:43 PM
"Glad I can oblige."
Well keep on obliging, Rockstar, and answer the questions. (Post 478929)
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at November 29, 2007 6:20 PM
""Glad I can oblige."
Well keep on obliging, Rockstar, and answer the questions. (Post 478929)"
Which question is that again?
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 6:32 PM
It did not begin right away. It was not the term used, ever since there were Arabs in what Western Christendom called "Palestine." The local Arabs never used the phrase until after the defeat in the Six-Day War.
You can read the U.N. records, the records of what every Arab said, threatening or cajoling, from 1948 or well before 1948, right up to the Six-Day War, and even for a short period beyond, and it is only then that, out of the blue, comes this phrase “the Palestinian people.”
So I guess the 1964 version of the Palestinian National Covenant, with its references to the "Palestinian people" and the "Palestinian Arab people," was actually issued in or after 1967 and backdated to 1964? Or is it that its authors somehow don't qualify as "[t]he local Arabs"?
Posted by: Seamus at November 29, 2007 6:44 PM
"Which question is that again?"
This one:
A theocracy is not a nation? Why do you say biblical Israel had no geographic borders? A theocracy reconstructed as a secular democracy must concede its geneological and historical heritage?
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at November 29, 2007 7:04 PM
Hugh:
What is this you're saying now? I thought you got all the groupies.
Yrs
Robert
at November 29, 2007 7:29 PM
"Hugh:
What is this you're saying now? I thought you got all the groupies.
Yrs
Robert"
I can see it now--"Jihadwatch/Dhimmiwatch collapses due to dispute over groupies."
Surely the two of you can learn to share!
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 29, 2007 7:38 PM
"I can see it now....(blah, blah)"
Chickencrap.
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at November 29, 2007 8:41 PM
Aahh - I, for one, am disappointed...Roob has been allowed to save face by dissembling and has not answered all the questions posed to him. You GO Concerned Citizen!! Out the impostor!!!!!
Posted by: mepeteart at November 29, 2007 9:04 PM
Hugh,
In your 4:22PM comment you stated
"And we all thought it was just jesting Pilate who said 'there is no such thing as truth.' ",
however Pilate's words were "What is truth?" Pilate was responding to Jesus' words "You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."
(see the book of John chapter 18 verses 37 and 38).
Pilate said to Jesus' accusers after this statement "I find no fault in him [Jesus]" and sought to release Jesus after this. There is no hint that Pilate was jesting. The context leads me to believe Pilate was not in a jesting frame of mind (see also chapter 19 verse 8 "Therefore when Pilate heard that saying [that Jesus was the Son of God - in verse 7] he was the more afraid"). Pilate tried to reason with the crowd three times and but they demanded Jesus's death. Finally Pilate literally washed his hands in front of them and said "I am innocent of the blood of this just person. You see to it" (in Matthew 27:24).
It is true that after this the soldiers mocked him by striking him and saying "Hail, King of the Jews" and so forth, but there is no indication that Pilate took this issue in a jesting manner. Neither should we.
Bill
Posted by: Bill at November 29, 2007 10:49 PM
Silly Rabbits, Roobart "is for kids."
I know, it is somewhat entertaining and that he is enjoyable to engage, but his chronic overposting of witless, warped banter is a distraction to the vital, pedagogical nature of this site, especially for readers who have not yet made their presence here explicitly known.
For the last time hopefully, for those of you, if it is all possible at this point to not be "in the know" about Roobart, aka "GetBornAgain", and all the silly, yet purposefully combative tripe that he utters, here is a not-so gentle reminder:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017928.php#comments
Please, Hugh, I beg you. Enough is enough already, at least under that particular moniker.
The real fun is who first can reveal the return of Roobart, almost assureded to occur, in his next intentionally destructive, yet unwittingly ignorant appearance, albeit under his new moniker of course.
Now that sounds like a fun game to me.
Posted by: awake at November 29, 2007 11:36 PM
"somewhat entertaining"
Okay, awake, you've busted us again. It's just that sometimes these attention whores disappear for a while after they are made a spectacle.
At least he was bright enough to realize that he had dug himself into an untenable position and ran while he still could.
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at November 30, 2007 12:19 AM
"Silly Rabbits, Roobart "is for kids."
I know, it is somewhat entertaining and that he is enjoyable to engage, but his chronic overposting of witless, warped banter is a distraction to the vital, pedagogical nature of this site, especially for readers who have not yet made their presence here explicitly known.
For the last time hopefully, for those of you, if it is all possible at this point to not be "in the know" about Roobart, aka "GetBornAgain", and all the silly, yet purposefully combative tripe that he utters, here is a not-so gentle reminder:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/017928.php#comments
Please, Hugh, I beg you. Enough is enough already, at least under that particular moniker.
The real fun is who first can reveal the return of Roobart, almost assureded to occur, in his next intentionally destructive, yet unwittingly ignorant appearance, albeit under his new moniker of course.
Now that sounds like a fun game to me."
...a tad obsessed, are we? Seriously, always thinking about me, being incapable of going a single post without mentioning me--I mean, I'm flattered and everything, but I'm sure it ain't exactly healthy.
Hey, I'm just looking out for ya, buddy.
Posted by: RoobartSbunsar at November 30, 2007 7:24 AM
Just to add my historical two cents. The nation state as we know it is a modern invention. That is why you read "the people of Israel or the land of Israel." The modern nation of Israel was maned in respect to the ancient land and people of Israel. Now as to Palestine and the Palestinians, Palestine was the name the Romans bestowed on the land formally known as Judea. Throughout the last two millennium, it referred to Jews. After the Six Day War it was co-opted by the Arabs. Smart people my cousins, they learned from the Nazis if you repeat a lie often enough, people believe it.
Posted by: eneri at November 30, 2007 8:05 AM
Please - can someone at this juncture provide a link to the online English text of the 1948 Declaration of the State of Israel?
And could someone also provide links to the English texts of: the PLO declarations of 1964 (which uses the rhetoric of Pan-Arabism), the 1968 PLO charter (which uses the rhetoric of western nationalism and 'revolution'), and the Hamas Charter (which does away with the pan-arab or the nationalist fig-leaves to reveal the naked jihad agenda that was operative at bottom all along, no matter what rhetoric it was clothed in for western or for soviet consumption).
Let us say that the difference in tone and content between the Jewish and the Arab Muslim 'founding' statements is, to say the least, revealing.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at November 30, 2007 8:22 AM
Bill-
My comment on Pilate relied on a recognition of a lne that begins an essay by Francis Bacon: "What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer." I took the "jesting," and then played fast and loose with the truth of "what is truth," changing it to "there is no such thing as the truth" to update it to these academic days and daze, when some teach that "there is no such thing as the truth" which is, like (gender, race, your-most-troubling-category here) is "socially constructed" or "constructed" in some other way, but most definitely isn't there to be found, located, arrived at, and then held up for inspection, tested and re-tested for its efficacy in explaining both the data already collected, and data that will be collected in the future.
Just a joke, by a jesting pilot, in my little Cessna that for some reason never gets off the ground. Possibly I'll have to re-attach a wing, or two.
Posted by: Hugh at November 30, 2007 8:58 AM
Roobartsbunsar:
You must not have read Hugh's post. The whole thing was a response to your statement and he went into the whole issue of the contruction of "Palestinian" and "Israeli", noting that these are not equivalent constructions.
I myself, in the thread in which you originally brought up this matter, pointed out that Israelis in ancient times were called the Israelites.
You are being deliberately obtuse and provocative, which generally comes from pushing a line and ignoring responses to it. But hey, if that's your thing, go ahead. Just don't expect anyone to be impressed by it.
Posted by: carpediadem at November 30, 2007 9:47 AM
Roobartsbunsar posted:
"Different times, different concepts".
Different times, different idiots.
at November 30, 2007 9:50 AM
Please - can someone at this juncture provide a link to the online English text of the 1948 Declaration of the State of Israel?
And could someone also provide links to the English texts of: the PLO declarations of 1964 (which uses the rhetoric of Pan-Arabism), the 1968 PLO charter (which uses the rhetoric of western nationalism and 'revolution'), and the Hamas Charter (which does away with the pan-arab or the nationalist fig-leaves to reveal the naked jihad agenda that was operative at bottom all along, no matter what rhetoric it was clothed in for western or for soviet consumption).
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace%20Process/Guide%20to%20the%20Peace%20Process/Declaration%20of%20Establishment%20of%20State%20of%20Israel
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/cove1.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Peace/PLO_Covenant.html
http://www.mideastweb.org/hamas.htm
at November 30, 2007 10:35 AM
Let us say that the difference in tone and content between the Jewish and the Arab Muslim 'founding' statements is, to say the least, revealing.
Do you find the "tone" of this statement by the Arab League upon the establishment of Israel?
"The Governments of the Arab States recognize that the independence of Palestine, which has so far been suppressed by the British Mandate, has become an accomplished fact for the lawful inhabitants of Palestine. They alone, by virtue of their absolute sovereignty, have the right to provide their country with laws and governmental institutions. They alone should exercise the attributes of their independence, through their own means and without any kind of foreign interference, immediately after peace, security, and the rule of law have been restored to the country. At that time the intervention of the Arab states will cease, and the independent State of Palestine will cooperate with the (other member) States of the Arab League in order to bring peace, security and prosperity to this part of the world. The Governments of the Arab States emphasize, on this occasion, what they have already declared before the London Conference and the United Nations, that the only solution of the Palestine problem is the establishment of a unitary Palestinian State, in accordance with democratic principles, whereby its inhabitants will enjoy complete equality before the law, (and whereby) minorities will be assured of all the guarantees recognized in democratic constitutional countries and (whereby) the holy places will be preserved and the rights of access thereto guaranteed."
Posted by: Seamus at November 30, 2007 10:40 AM
My god, Cornelius, what detective work. Exactly right, in every respect.
Posted by: Hugh at November 30, 2007 10:45 AM
Roobart,
"I was there for two years, as a student--I think that qualifies as something "other than a tourist of one sort or another.""
My point with the "of some sort or another" is that it depends upon how you took the experience, and what your learned from it, and how you reacted to it. Not the pretense for being there or the timespan.
"As for it being "amusing": quite simply, I'm done being pissed off at jihad. What's the point? It's so ridiculous, so against everything I believe, that all I can do is laugh. Otherwise, I'll just become the world's youngest person to die of a heart attack."
So there's nothing in between? There's no possibility of reaching an intellectual but emotionally detatched understanding that jihad is a threat, and thus threatening to what one values, and thus something with which to be intellectually concerned?
If you're a tourist, the people who will be suffering the brunt of the rise of Islamism are not those you particularly empahtize with--it is different if you are an *empathetic* diplomat, student, or even few-weeks visitor. A tourist need not be concerned with threats to the people in the area, because they are more part of the atmosphere than real people the tourist really need think about as people. In avoiding an early heart attack, a tourist can afford to be "amused", not having the impetus to become emotionally detached but intellectually concerned. A tourist need not be quite that serious.
I'm not sayig you are this necessarily; it is probably not so black and white. I am saying that the "amused" comment strongly gives this impression. You paint and sculpt yourself as you choose.
Posted by: hope_and_justice at November 30, 2007 12:01 PM
Hugh,
Thanks for the reply. Maybe in this case Francis Bacon was mistaken. Good take off with the Cessna without wings line ---
"Just a joke, by a jesting pilot, in my little Cessna that for some reason never gets off the ground. Possibly I'll have to re-attach a wing, or two."
You are the pilot (play on the word "Pilate" and the little Cessna (light plane) is the light joke (that -- ah shucks -- didn't quite take off - due no doubt to the lack of education of this reader and due in no part to Francis Bacon nor Hugh), and the wing or two need(s) to be attached because of the lack of stay(s)(as in "would not stay for an answer").
Better to be on the ground with no stays than in the air with no wings.
at November 30, 2007 1:45 PM
Hugh,
Thanks for the reply. Maybe in this case Francis Bacon was mistaken. Good take off with the Cessna without wings line ---
"Just a joke, by a jesting pilot, in my little Cessna that for some reason never gets off the ground. Possibly I'll have to re-attach a wing, or two."
You are the pilot (play on the word "Pilate") and the little Cessna (light plane) is the light joke (that -- ah shucks -- didn't quite take off - due no doubt to the lack of education of this reader and due in no part to Francis Bacon nor Hugh), and the wing or two need(s) to be attached because of the lack of stay(s)(as in "would not stay for an answer").
Better to be on the ground with no stays than in the air with no wings.
at November 30, 2007 1:46 PM
'seamus' - and by the way, I am not necessarily assuming that your screen name indicates even the smallest particle of Irish descent, would you say that Dublin is on English land? - that Cardiff and Carnarvon are English, not Welsh? - that inverness and Edinburgh are ENGLISH land and rightfully and forever under English sovereignty, not Scottish? Since you seem to believe that Jerusalem and the holy land are rightfully and exclusively Arab Muslim land.
And would you, perhaps, argue that since the Muslims violently invaded Spain and occupied it for some 800 years, that it was in fact the grossest injustice, after all that time, for the native Spanish Christians to take it back, as they did, and boot out their tormentors and exploiters? The Jews - in regaining control of Jewish land after centuries of Muslim occupation and misrule - did no more than the Spanish did, or the Maltese, the Sicilians, the Greeks, the Hindus (Islam occupied the greater portion of India for centuries), the Bulgarians, the Serbs.
I have already read each of the documents. I am sure others here will also peruse them. In that at least you have been of service. But be warned, we may not read the 'Arab' documents in the same way that you probably do.
In the 1964 document when I read it, I saw clearly that being 'Palestinian (Arab)' was subsumed within pan-Arabism, which is in fact just another name for ...Islam. Since Islam is the vehicle and rationalisation of Arab imperialism, the distinction between pan-arabism and the ummah is a distinction without a difference. I have read Jacques Ellul's masterly analysis of the 1968 'Palestinian' Charter - which, he concluded, was "a perfect expression of the Jihad". So much for those who think it expresses secular nationalism or socialist revolution.
The statement that you posted, by the members of the Arab League, may be summed up by a famous bon mot - "every word in it is a lie, including 'the' and 'a'".
To cite just the most easily demonstrable example. When the Jordanian Arab Muslims occupied a large part of Jerusalem 1949-1967, outside Jews were DENIED access to the holy sites there, the Jewish inhabitants were expelled, and the Christian inhabitants were bullied unmercifully, so that many of them left. FIFTY-EIGHT jewish synagogues in the Jordanian-controlled area were DESTROYED. The ancient Jewish cemetery was desecrated, and the headstones were used in...latrines, so that the Muslims could exercise their allah-given superiority and feel the delicious pleasure of humiliating the Infidel dead... by pzzing on the names of Jews. How sick is THAT?
So that pious nothing about how in an Arab [Muslim-dominated] 'Palestine' the holy places would be preserved, and access guaranteed, is purest nonsense. They had no intention of doing anything of the sort.
And as for the 'promise' about treatment of minorities: nothing in the track record of the Arab Muslims, anywhere, including the land of Israel, up to that date, suggests that, had they won the 1948 war instead of losing it, they would have treated the defeated Jews with any sort of moral restraint. They were all fired up for an orgy of rape, plunder and slaughter.
Baghdad pogroms, anyone? But going back a bit further, I will quote, for everyone here, the words of an Australian soldier, Trooper 358 of the Australian Light Horse, who passed through 'Palestine' in 1916 and 1917, and had plenty of opportunity to observe its inhabitants and how they treated one another. He writes, concerning the Jewish communities he passed through:
"Lots of them have had a hard time from the Turk. They seem to live between two devils, the Turk and the Arab. APPARENTLY THE TURK PREVENTS THE ARAB FROM MASSACRING THEM OUTRIGHT [my emphasis added] because the Jews are a very handy people to squeeze taxes from..." - Ion L Idriess, The Desert Column, 1932; 1982 reprint, page 284.
Idriess' observation and his information is 100 % accurate, judging from everything else I have read. It could be taken as a nutshell summary of centuries of Jewish dhimmitude, as described by Bat Yeor, and Antoine Fattal, and Goitein (A Mediterranean Society), and anyone else who has thoroughly gone into the revolting details of how Muslim-dominated societies have generally treated their non-Muslim populations.
I don't believe the platitudes expressed in that statement by the Arab League, specially now I know about taqiyya and kitman; I note particularly that little throwaway line about 'LAWFUL inhabitants'. For I know that Muslims believe kuffar, anywhere, to be UNLAWFUL inhabitants of lands that should rightfully belong to, and be dominated by, Muslims. Thus even the Irish government, in Ireland, would be seen by many traditional Muslims as...unlawful, because non-Muslim; indeed, the Irish inhabit their Irish land 'unlawfully', since they are Catholic Christians, not Muslims.
My final shot has to do with the all-pervasive culture of deception in Arabised, Islamised lands. I have posted it elsewhere but I will post it again. It is a cri de coeur from an American contractor in Iraq who had spent months drowning in that culture of deception:
"After being in this snake pit for some time, I find it absolutely hilarious that anyone thinks that "diplomacy" or "negotiations" or "agreements" with any Middle Eastern [Muslim] leader during a crisis can possibly result in anything productive. They have no reservations -- none -- about lying about anything and everything. There words and agreements mean absolutely nothing. How far can negotiations really take you under such conditions?"
I conclude: all promises, all public statements made to non-Muslims, by folks such as the 'Arab League', ESPECIALLY the ones that sound the nicest, that use western-derived language of rights, nationalism, justice, law - or popular revolution, 'liberation', etc etc - must be prima facie assumed to be...empty.
We Infidels, Jews and others, need to learn to ignore the verbal flim-flam and to look only - closely and dispassionately - at what Muslims, Arab Muslims and indeed all Muslims, have done in the past, over and over, and its congruence with the teachings of their religion, Islam. At what they are still doing - for example, to Copts, to Southern Sudanese Christians, to that baptist bookshop owner, Rami Ayyad, in Gaza. Look at what they have done, and what they do, for that is the clearest predictor of what they are likely to do, wherever they achieve domination.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at November 30, 2007 7:27 PM
If we are "cutting the crap" , then the admission must be made that even if the "Palestinian" label was merely a cynical political tactic , this tactic has altered reality. The reality is that the people of Gaza and what is called the West Bank have become a distinct subset of the Arab peoples .. in the same way Arabs from 'Kuwait' are 'Kuwaiti'. Of course the Palestinians are defined by their failure and outcast. They have garnered a claim to title by virtue of by the longevity of their presence ( however contrived) - a sort of "squatters right " to title. The facile dismissing of the legitmacy of such a people as some sort of 'civilian army' to wage a proxy war by Arab's against Israel with out acknowledging their 'morphing ' into a separate people forged by a legtimate struggle against occupation and self determination is unworthy. ( I use the word "occupation" as understood by we in the West , not as understood by the Palestinians..I guess there in lies the rub.)
at November 30, 2007 11:50 PM
"this tactic has altered reality"
Nice try, but you are the one suffering from "altered reality".
"garnered a claim"
Longevity has not in and of itself begat legitimacy.
Short course:
WW2
Ottomans lose
Empty dust bowl
British Mandate
Israel created 1948
"The facile dismissing of the legitmacy is unworthy."
I got rid of your clauses for clarity. There. Whaaa? Would a less facile dismissal be more worthy? Did you mean unfounded, inappropriate, dated, what?
"of such a people"
Okay, some innate qualities here being left to the imagination. That they are "a subset of the Arab peoples"? That they are "defined by their failure and outcast"??
"as some sort of 'civilian army' to wage a proxy war"
Yes, but "terrorists", is usually more accurate. I guess I missed their trying to work through the jurisprudence and political system of the sovereign entity directly.
"with out acknowledging their 'morphing ' into a separate people"
I'll acknowledge they've become numerically larger, and are currently buoyed by the fortune of powerful advocates lusting after petrodollars.
"forged by a legtimate struggle against occupation and self determination"
Ah, we finally arrive. ("for self determination"??) What of the Israeli's "legitimate struglle against attempted occupation and for preserving self-determination?
"legitimate struggle against occupation"
And here we simply disagree. Personally, I like Hugh's narrative regarding this. Time for you to posit yours for consideration and dissection.
Posted by: Concerned Citizen at December 1, 2007 7:54 PM
Though he didn't realize it, Roobart's bewilderment was actually as to Hugh's use of the term "magari," for an utterly fascinating discussion of which (the word, not Hugh's use of it -- there are limits to anyone's philological curiosity), see an earlier thread on one of these two sites. As to Derrida (eleven pounds of sh*t in a ten-pound bag), the construction of national and other identies, etc., please shovel all that crap out of your brain, or as Samuel Johnson put it, clear your mind of cant. The Master certainly found his own personal identity sufficient every time he cashed a check, or when he had his attorney write a threatening letter to someone who had allegedly breached his property rights in a literary work by publishing an "unauthorized" translation (which somehow was a "wrong" translation and a "bad" act). The utterly cynical, ad hoc, bad-faith uses to which these concepts are put may be seen in the comparison of the national rights of the People of Israel, and the supposed rights of the local arabs of the southwest corner of Greater Syria. Look at the best, strongest arguments for such nationhood -- in Pappe, Kimmerling, Khalidi, and Porat -- and you will see that the thing simply does not exist. See also the discussion in I think Grossman's Yellow Wind, of how different the Arabs in Israel (within the 1948 boundaries) now are from those from the same village a hundred yards away across the green line. Different mores, culture, ways of speaking, etc. Has a new arab people now been created out of the arabs living within Israel's 1948 borders, and who now have their own national rights, in addition to those living in "The West Bank"? (a term which, as Hugh has pointed out, is ahistoricial and absurd). Not to mention Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. And would that same courtesy as to national rights be extended by these same arabs to the Jews of each and every Arab state if they went back after Israel has been placed sous rature? not to mention to the Christians of those lands? Why should they not get their own states? It's bad enough that the childish concepts of deconstruction (and Greenblatt's new historicism) have ruined literary study, but let's not let them pollute the rest of life -- especially for the Jews of Israel, but really for all of us, the stakes are too high.
Posted by: Marc at December 2, 2007 3:04 PM
In Hugh's "cut the crap" comment's post I disagree with this:
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity."
Hugh's narrative assumes that those "Arabs" in the West bank or Gaza are part of an larger amorphous Islamic Arab collective an that they can be re-absorbed at will. This is of course is wishful thinking. The "Palestinian people" do exist and where created in the period post 1967. The rejectionist policy of the PLO and the Arab States of the time as well as the cold war dynamic were factors. Also there was the dis-stablising effect of "Palestinian" resistance ie the PLO on the neigbouring States , in particular Jordan. Jordan doesnt want the West Bank ,its poison. Just like the Egyptians dont want Gaza , the 'concentration camp' they formed by rounding up all those " Palestinians" in the 1950's ( which again reaffirms my point). But also a factor was the lack of forsight in Israel's inability to pacify and counter the effect of Islam in the occupied terrorities as well as the PLO propaganda narrative. What of winning the hearts and minds ( if possible), of installing their own militia ( heck the Alawites run Syria ok).The "wise old owl's" in the Jewish State's party back rooms must have seen the writing on the wall after the 6 day war , then after Arfat's address to the UN in 1974 which defined it as a struggle of national liberation. Israel is now reaping the whirlwind of its failure to create a proto State , one which it could live side by side with.Israel thought the occupation would go on and on and on...until the intifada changed everything.
The Palestinian people are a reality , wishing it not is unhelpful...they are bastard children birthed by warring parents , one of which was indifferent ( Israel)and belatedly tried to make amends. The other, a Madman ( Arafat)backed by a other madmen who subscribe to a mad ideology. Yes its "Raising Cain" applied to a people. The madmen have sway....
at December 3, 2007 12:12 AM
'seamus' - and by the way, I am not necessarily assuming that your screen name indicates even the smallest particle of Irish descent, would you say that Dublin is on English land? - that Cardiff and Carnarvon are English, not Welsh? -
No, but neither would I assert that Colchester, Winchester, or St. Albans were on Welsh land, even though they were founded by Celtic Britons, who made them their homes before the rapacious Anglo-Saxons invaded and drove those Celts (those they did not kill) into Wales. And even if the Saxons had succeeded in conquering even Wales and Cornwall, driving their inhabitants overseas into a Celtic diaspora, I would not agree that 1,300 years later, those scattered Celts would be entitled to force the Saxons to partition England to provide them with a Celtic homeland.
And would you, perhaps, argue that since the Muslims violently invaded Spain and occupied it for some 800 years, that it was in fact the grossest injustice, after all that time, for the native Spanish Christians to take it back, as they did, and boot out their tormentors and exploiters?
The Spanish resistance movement known as the Reconquista began immediately after the Moslem invasion and continued, off and on, until 1492. The Christians didn't wait for 800 years and then suddenly decide to reconquer Moslem Spain. (If they had, their effort would no more have been justified than was Italy's attempted reconquest of the territories of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, which the Italians justified on the grounds that those provinces had been part of the Roman Empire, before the Moslem conquests.)
Posted by: Seamus at December 3, 2007 6:54 PM
The crux of the matter is the refusal of Muslim Arabs and of Dar al-Islam to concede the existence of a Jewish State. Israeli Jews are bonded together by a shared history, a continuous presence, a distinctive culture and creed, shared institions and a unique language--Modern Hebrew.
The Arab nation, so-called, has steadfastly and consistently rejected a two-state solution--in 1937, in 1947, and in 1967. Each time, they lost more and more ground to the fortunes of war or the ebb-and-flow of empire; only now do they make a pretense of accepting what they had emphatically rejected earlier. They seek a return to a status quo ante more favorable to them, and intolerable for the continued peaceful existence of Jews in the land of their origins.
Arab Muslims seek nothing less than incremental attainment of ultimate and totally complete victory.
Posted by: John C at December 4, 2007 9:56 PM
The underlying premise of the Balfour Declaration in 1917 supposed the establishment of Arab states coexisting with the Jewish National Homeland. But it was the Jews themselves, native, neighboring, or immigrant, who hitherto had and thenceforth built that National Homeland.
Posted by: John C at December 4, 2007 10:06 PM
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