Occupation 101

[Marc39]

How about the role fair elections played in the rise of Hamas?

"The road to Gaza's present misery began, as many things do, with an election.

"In 2006, Palestinian voters rejected the corruption, nepotism and incompetence of the long-ruling Fatah Party and elected Hamas, the *Islamic Resistance Movement - surprising no one except the US State Department, which had brushed aside *Israeli concerns that Hamas would prevail in a fair election."

And other odd fascists.

No love for the Pallie women who have acid thrown in their faces by Hamas for dressing immodestly?

Israeli Arab Journalist Khaled Abu Toameh

Here is some last-minute advice to the group of women who are planning to organize another aid ship to break the Israeli naval blockade on the Gaza Strip: Do not forget to wear the hijab and cover other parts of your body before you arrive at the Hamas-controlled area. And make sure that none of you is seen laughing in public. Otherwise, you are likely to meet the same fate as other Palestinian women who have been physically and verbally abused by fundamentalist Muslims in the Gaza Strip.

Some women in the Gaza Strip have had acid splashed in their faces for allegedly being dressed "immodestly" or for being seen in public with a male who is not a husband, father, brother or son. Just recently, Hamas's Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice stopped female journalist Asthma al-Ghul under the pretext that she came to the beach dressed "immodestly" and was seen laughing in public. "They accused me of laughing loudly while swimming with my friend, and for failing to wear a hijab," she told a human rights organization in the Gaza Strip. "They also wanted to know the identity of the people who were swimming with me at the beach and whether they were relatives of mine." This incident came only days after a Hamas judge ordered all female lawyers appearing in court to wear headscarves and a long, dark colored clock under their black robes. By seeking to help Hamas, the women who are planning to sail to the Gaza Strip are in fact encouraging the fundamentalist movement to continue oppressing Palestinian women living there. Wouldn't it have been better and more helpful had the same group of female activists launched a campaign to promote women's rights under Hamas? Or to protest against the severe restrictions imposed by Hamas on all women, including the right to stroll along the beach alone or to wear a swim suit?

Moreover, it is ironic (and sad) that some of the women who are behind the new flotilla adventure come from Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Kuwait - countries that not only have killed Palestinians, but also continue to oppress them and impose severe restrictions on them. As for the Egyptian women activists, it would be helpful if they would advise their colleagues to sail toward Egypt, whose authorities are also imposing a blockade on the Gaza Strip and continuing to prevent humanitarian aid from entering the area. The Egyptians are also continuing to prevent tens of thousands of Palestinians from using the Rafah border crossing to travel abroad.

Have the Kuwaiti women on the planned trip ever thought about protesting against the mistreatment of Palestinians in their emirate? Following the 1991 Gulf War, Kuwait expelled some 400,000 Palestinians who were part of a thriving immigrant community in the emirate. The Palestinians were being punished because of the PLO's support for Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait a year earlier.

Most recently, Palestinians complained that Kuwait denied entry permits for members of a Palestinian team of disabled athletes who were supposed to take part in an international tournament in the emirate. "The decision came from the Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry under the pretext that the team members hold Palestinian passports," CNN quoted Palestinian sources as saying. And why don't the Lebanese women who are planning the journey to the Gaza Strip organize a tour to Nahr al-Bared, a Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon that was totally destroyed by the Lebanese army in 2007? According to a recent report in the Electronic Intifada Web site, "reconstruction of the camp is delayed, the area is a military soon with restricted access, and the camp's economy is stalled and residents are largely employed." The same report states that before the war, "around two-thirds of Nahr al-Bared's labor force worked within the camp's boundaries. As Palestinian refugees face heavy legal and social discrimination in the Lebanese labor market, working outside the camp is difficult."

Lebanon, Syria and Jordan have more Palestinian blood on their hands than any other country.

Love of the Land: On Breaking Israel's Naval Blockade

 

[georgephillip]

"This is a time for truth.

"For America is about to make a momentous decision: whether to launch a series of wars in the Middle East that could ignite the Clash of Civilizations against which Harvard professor Samuel Huntington has warned, a war we believe would be a tragedy and a disaster for this Republic.

"To avert this war, to answer the neocon smears, we ask that our readers review their agenda as stated in their words.

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

"As Al Smith used to say, 'Nothing un-American can live in the sunlight.'

"We charge that a cabal of polemicists and public officials seek to ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America’s interests.

"We charge them with colluding with Israel to ignite those wars and destroy the Oslo Accords.

"We charge them with deliberately damaging U.S. relations with every state in the Arab world that defies Israel or supports the Palestinian people’s right to a homeland of their own.

"We charge that they have alienated friends and allies all over the Islamic and Western world through their arrogance, hubris, and bellicosity.

"Not in our lifetimes has America been so isolated from old friends.

"Far worse, President Bush is being lured into a trap baited for him by these neocons that could... cause America to forfeit years of peace won for us by the sacrifices of two generations in the Cold War.

"They charge us with anti-Semitism—i.e., a hatred of Jews for their faith, heritage, or ancestry.

"False.

"The truth is, those hurling these charges harbor a 'passionate attachment' to a nation not our own that causes them to subordinate the interests of their own country and to act on an assumption that, somehow, what’s good for Israel is good for America."

Those with a "passionate attachment" to the Jewish state are anti-American.

That's the truth this time demands.

The American Conservative

 

[Marc39]

"This is a time for truth.
amconmag.com

BOGUS "con" website.

 

[docmauser1]

"This is the entrance to the Gaza Strip: a 250-metre long causeway of exposed concrete slabs about five metres wide, surrounded by barbed wire, CCTV cameras and motion sensors, and closely *monitored by remote-controlled machine guns mounted on the huge concrete walls that mark the border around the Erez Crossing Terminal.

The madrasa virii are contained.

 

[docmauser1]

Gaza's present misery began, as many things do, with an election.

Entailing the collective responsibility, of course.

 

[P F Tinmore]

Gaza's present misery began, as many things do, with an election.

Entailing the collective responsibility, of course.

Not to mention scraping the bottom of the barrel for Israel's elections.

 

[Marc39]

Gaza's present misery began, as many things do, with an election.

Entailing the collective responsibility, of course.

Not to mention scraping the bottom of the barrel for Israel's elections.

Islam condoning wife beating is scraping the bottom of the barrel, jihadist
MEMRI: Egyptian Cleric Sa'd Arafat: Islam Permits Wife Beating Only When She Refuses to Have Sex with Her Husband

 

[P F Tinmore]

Entailing the collective responsibility, of course.

Not to mention scraping the bottom of the barrel for Israel's elections.

Islam condoning wife beating is scraping the bottom of the barrel, jihadist
MEMRI: Egyptian Cleric Sa'd Arafat: Islam Permits Wife Beating Only When She Refuses to Have Sex with Her Husband

Seen it.

 

[Marc39]

Not to mention scraping the bottom of the barrel for Israel's elections.

Islam condoning wife beating is scraping the bottom of the barrel, jihadist
MEMRI: Egyptian Cleric Sa'd Arafat: Islam Permits Wife Beating Only When She Refuses to Have Sex with Her Husband

Seen it.

Dinner is late. Allah says beat your wife
MEMRI: Egyptian Cleric Sa'd Arafat: Islam Permits Wife Beating Only When She Refuses to Have Sex with Her Husband

 

[P F Tinmore]

Islam condoning wife beating is scraping the bottom of the barrel, jihadist
MEMRI: Egyptian Cleric Sa'd Arafat: Islam Permits Wife Beating Only When She Refuses to Have Sex with Her Husband

Seen it.

Dinner is late. Allah says beat your wife
MEMRI: Egyptian Cleric Sa'd Arafat: Islam Permits Wife Beating Only When She Refuses to Have Sex with Her Husband

Seen it.

 

[docmauser1]

Gaza's present misery began, as many things do, with an election.

Entailing the collective responsibility, of course.

Not to mention scraping the bottom of the barrel for Israel's elections.

See, palistaniacs are such unbelievable madrasa assholes!

 

[georgephillip]

Like you're kosher pork?

 

[Marc39]

Like you're kosher pork?

Mahomet = Pedophile

Sahih Bukhari 5, 58, 236...

Narrated Hisham's father:

Khadija died three years before the Prophet departed to Medina. He stayed there for two years or so and then he married 'Aisha when she was a girl of six years of age, and he consumed that marriage when she was nine years old.

 

[georgephillip]

"The Palestinians, apparently, live beyond the pale of citizenry and political life. They dwell beyond a political system based on a Jewish majority, and this without the benefit of a wall.

"Once this society that lived – and still lives – under occupation evolved its struggle for national sovereignty and for separation in an independent state comprising Palestinian citizens Israel responded with plans to separate from the Palestinians on its own terms.

"What Israel wants to separate itself from is the largest possible number of Palestinians living on the smallest possible area of land.

"The self-rule plans negotiated with Egypt in January 1980, the Oslo Accords, the Camp David proposals, the unilateral withdrawal schemes by Sharon and Olmert, the Geneva initiative by the Zionist Israeli left, and the separation wall, are merely different manifestations of such thinking."

A Short History of Apartheid

 

[Marc39]

"The Palestinians, apparently, live beyond the pale of citizenry and political life. They dwell beyond a political system based on a Jewish majority, and this without the benefit of a wall.

Jews are the Palestinians since the Romans renamed Judea, the correct historical geographic name for the land, "Palaestina" 1500 years after Jews were living there and 500 years before the Muslim intruders invaded.

Your history lesson for the day.

Former PLO Leader Zuheir Mohsen...

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.

Zuheir Mohsen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Arab American Journalist Joe Farah...

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.

Palestine has never existed -- before or since -- as an autonomous entity. It was ruled alternately by Rome, by Islamic and Christian crusaders, by the Ottoman Empire and, briefly, by the British after World War I. The British agreed to restore at least part of the land to the Jewish people as their homeland.

Myths of the Middle East


Arab Commentator Azmi Bishara...

Well, I dont think there is a Palestinian nation at all. I think there is an Arab nation. I always thought so and I did not change my mind. I do not think there is a Palestinian nation, I think its a colonialist invention - Palestinian nation. When were there any Palestinians? Where did it come from? I think there is an Arab nation. I never turned to be a Palestinian nationalist, despite of my decisive struggle against the occupation. I think that until the end of the 19th century, Palestine was the south of Greater Syria.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3n5-yG-6dU[/ame]

 

[georgephillip]

"t is difficult to describe the maze of walls and barriers constructed around the villages in the vicinity of Jerusalem. It is difficult to imagine the ugliness brought about in the course of controlling people and land: gates and observation towers, double walls, barbed and electrical wires.

"What we have here is a wide-scale recreation of the detention camp which Giorgio Agamben called the essence of the modern fascist state.

"This is a place where the exception becomes the rule, and the state of emergency becomes permanent, to use the words of Walter Benjamin."

A Short History...

 

[Marc39]

"t is difficult to describe the maze of walls and barriers constructed around the villages in the vicinity of Jerusalem.

Israeli Arab Journalist Khaled Abu Toameh: Arabs And Muslims Run To Israel

Many Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have a dream: to work or live in Israel. Some even say they are prepared to pay large sums of money to obtain Israeli citizenship. Others pay a lot of money to Palestinian and Jewish traffickers who help them bypass checkpoints to enter Israel in search of work and good life. These are not self-hating Palestinians. Nor are they "pro-Israel traitors" who support the Zionist movement. Many Palestinians feel that neither Fatah nor Hamas has done enough to alleviate their suffering. Many Fatah leaders who stole billions of dollars of international donations earmarked for the Palestinians have invested their fortunes in hotels, tourist resorts and real estate firms in the West. Hamas, on the other hand, prefers to spend millions of dollars on purchasing [and smuggling] large amounts of weapons, including rockets and ammunition.

It is a disgrace for Arab and Muslim dictators, particularly those who make billions of dollars from selling oil, that their constituents have to seek work and refuge in Israel and the West. It is also a disgrace for Fatah and Hamas that thousands of Palestinians cannot find jobs or a good life in the two Palestinian states in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Arab and Islamic regimes are spending billions of dollars on building new mosques and madrasas while nearly half of their people are illiterate and live under the poverty line. University graduates in these countries are forced to search for work in the West because of poor working conditions and lack of opportunities.

The absence of good government, transparency, accountability and democracy in these countries is driving Arabs and Muslims to seek work and a better life not only in North America and Europe, but even in places like Israel. In many ways, these Palestinians are not different from the African immigrants who try to infiltrate Israel every day through Egypt. The immigrants come from Sudan, Ethiopia, Eretria, Nigeria and other African countries.

Like the Palestinians, the Africans are prepared to pay a lot of money to get into Israel. Egyptian traffickers charge up to $1,000 for each immigrant. But for the African immigrants, the journey is also a very dangerous one. In the past three years, Egyptian border guards have shot and killed dozens of African men and women who tried to cross the border into Israel. While the Egyptians are killing the African immigrants, Israel is providing the lucky ones who manage to cross the border with jobs, as well as medical and social services. True, Israel is not 100% perfect. But an African Muslim or Christian still prefers Israel to countries like Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran. As a "refugee" from Darfour, Sudan, who now lives in Tel Aviv, explained: "I feel more secure in the Jewish state than in Sudan or any Arab or Islamic country."

For many Palestinians, it is easier to find a job in Israel and Canada than in any Arab or Islamic country, most of which impose strict travel and work restrictions on them. Palestinians cannot enter most Arab and Islamic countries without a visa. One can understand why a Palestinian needs a visa to enter the US or any European country Many Palestinians from the West Bank who visit Arab countries often find themselves thrown into detention centers for weeks, months and years without trial. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Palestinians are believed to be languishing in prisons throughout the Arab world, especially in Syria and Egypt.

The Iconoclast - New English Review

Khaled Abu Toameh...

Most Arabs in Jerusalem prefer to live under Israeli rule for a number of reasons. First, because as holders of Israeli ID cards they are entitled to many rights and privileges that Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip don't enjoy. They include freedom of movement and social, economic, health and education services that Israeli citizens are entitled to.

Redividing Jerusalem means bringing either the Palestinian Authority of Hamas into the city. The Arab residents of Jerusalem have seen what happened in the West Bank and Gaza Strip over the past 16 years and are not keen to live under a corrupt authority or a radical Islamist entity.

Over the past few years, many Arab residents of the city who used to live in the West Bank have abandoned their homes and returned to Jerusalem. They did so mainly out of fear of losing their rights and privileges as holders of Israeli ID cards. But many of them also ran away from the West Bank because they did not want to live in territories controlled by militiamen, armed gangs and corrupt leaders and institutions.

Yahoo! Groups

Khaled Abu Toameh...

Arabs living in Israel have always enjoyed free and unlimited access to medical services. Israeli hospitals have always been full of Arab patients, who often heap praise on doctors and nurses for offering them the best treatment.

Even Arabs from neighboring countries have been seeking medical treatment in Israeli hospitals. Many Arabs in Jerusalem are extremely grateful to the Israeli medical teams for their services. Hundreds, if not thousands, of Arabs can testify how these paramedics and doctors saved their lives.

Just two weeks ago, a 65-year-old Arab woman in Jerusalem who suffered a heart attack talked about how the Magen David medical team that rushed to her home had literally saved her life. Magen David paramedics should be commended for the great work they are doing to offer the best medical treatment to patients -- regardless of their nationality and religion. They should be commended for endangering their lives to enter Arab villages and neighborhoods to save lives.

Why do PalArabs attack ambulances? (Khaled Abu Toameh) : South Capitol Street

 

[Ropey]

Is this Tinmore for real? Must be from the (very) deep South. They have some of the same Inbreeding Homozygous Coefficients that are found (granted, in far higher degrees) in the Muslim countries. This is why they never get anything done. It is why there is not one country in the Middle East that was created by Arabians. Not one! Incoming and outgoing Empires created the Arabian countries because they were no more than itinerants. To this day, they are still following the throwback methods of two thousand years ago and with degrees of inbreeding in the seventies it is easily seen that their best have been decimated in these thousands of years.

But of course, this is not politically correct, so no one speaks to these deleterious effects to the Muslim people. And this inbreeding predates Islam! Mohammad constrained inbreeding when he said that true believers should marry in the distant, not the near.

They did not listen. Massive inter-generational inbreeding has truly done them in.

 

[Marc39]

Is this Tinmore for real? Must be from the (very) deep South. They have some of the same Inbreeding Homozygous Coefficients that are found (granted, in far higher degrees) in the Muslim countries. This is why they never get anything done. It is why there is not one country in the Middle East that was created by Arabians. Not one! Incoming and outgoing Empires created the Arabian countries because they were no more than itinerants. To this day, they are still following the throwback methods of two thousand years ago and with degrees of inbreeding in the seventies it is easily seen that their best have been decimated in these thousands of years.

But of course, this is not politically correct, so no one speaks to these deleterious effects to the Muslim people. And this inbreeding predates Islam! Mohammad constrained inbreeding when he said that true believers should marry in the distant, not the near.

They did not listen. Massive inter-generational inbreeding has truly done them in.

The ignorant Arab wasn't even clever enough to figure out he had oil under his own feet. The infidel US oil companies had to show them.

 

[Ropey]

The ignorant Arab wasn't even clever enough to figure out he had oil under his own feet. The infidel US oil companies had to show them.

Indeed! And I extend this to say that if we allow any movement that turns the West into Democratic apologists for their modernity rather than staunch Republican advocates for the West's true strengths, then we are walking backwards. Those such as the one we were speaking of are the ones who would have kept America out of World War II until too late.

They are still here today and are still as lost as they were in thirty nine.