Palestine?s Questionable Profit Motive

[Thinker822]

Dear Mr. Ashinoff,
 
I think you are getting your facts mixed up.
 
Israel's attack on Gaza was not a retaliatory attack. Israel has been blockading Gaza for the past two years, preventing needed food and medicine from getting through. Then, they entered a cease fire with Hamas. In November of 2008--before Hamas launched their rockets--Israel launched a "pinpoint" attack on a tunnel which had been previously (there is no proof it was being used at that time) for smuggling, killing six Hamas militants. They followed that up with two airstrikes and shooting missiles at a mosque and schools. It was after that when Hamas started launching their rockets. If you don't believe me you can google it.
 
Israel responded to Hamas's retaliation with a complete invasion of Gaza. Israel is slaughtering hundreds of innocent civilians. Are you really so callous as to suggest these Palestinians who are living in a complete hell on earth are "parading" their children in front of the cameras? Really? Because to me it looks as though they are terrified, dumbstruck, and in mourning.
 
If someone were to turn the tables and suggest that Holocaust victims have been milking their losses, would you really feel the same way? Would you say the same if the press were covering a school that was bombed in the U.S.? A Palestinian life is worth the same as an Israeli one, as an American one. Your apathy in this regard is disturbing.
 
Furthermore, do you really mean to suggest that an entire religion is evil? The hostility that you feel is directed towards Israel is not because of the teachings of Islam, it is because of the hundreds of years of colonization and oppression that the Middle East has undergone. It is because in the 1940s, when the Balfour Declaration was created, thousands of Palestinians were displaced from their own homes, in their own country. It is because Israel has slowly taken over more and more of land that once belongs to Palestine. It is because Israel has been starving Gaza, suffocating Gaza, and now killing Gaza.
 
I do not mean to suggest that Islamic extremism isn't a serious problem; because it is, and I do not condone it. But Israel shares the blame in what the extent of Islamic extremism has become. When a group of people are backed into a corner, they are going to lash out--with whatever means they have, even suicide bombings; this is NOT Israel's position, as the entire world has been appeasing Israel and has given them carte blanche while they turn a blind eye for years, but this IS Gaza's position--it is Palestine's position. (Look at a map of Israel's ever-growing expansion as they invade even more of Palestine's territory) That doesn't make it right, but you need to understand the hand Israel has played in this.
 
Israel is not the victim here, she is the vicious aggressor. Look at what has been done to Gaza in the past week--Israel has blocked all exits out of Gaza while she bombs innocent civilians. Israeli militants ram any ships carrying medical aid. They bomb schools, mosques, and ambulances (even under temporary cease fires) and there are NO HAMAS where they have bombed. The UN school had no hamas, the ambulances they bombed today had no Hamas--Israel is massacring an entire people out of sheer vindictiveness.
 
ISRAEL needs to relearn the lessons of history--as do all the world leaders who are standing on the sidelines and letting this tragedy continue.

[SmartChic]

I think the whole idea behind your article is very disturbing.

[Allan J. Ashinoff]

Don't kill you if we disgree? Thats more Islam's thing. Suggestion a book called Infidel by Ayaan Hirst Ali.


There are a great many areas to explore in what you've written and I appreciate your offering them for discussion.

It?s just not right. The day Israel was created, Palestine ceased being a sovereign country. It just disappeared. In my opinion that is a crime against the people of Palestine.

Actually, The word Palestine was a geographical term used by the British when they occupied the region. By Arab scholars accounts it never was a place or a people.

"There is no such thing as Palestine in history, absolutely not," Dr. Philip Hitti, an Arab historian representing the Muslim world, told the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in 1946.

A fact most choose to ignore is that the region was studied well before the creation of Israel in the 1940s. Numerous accounts from a variety of non-Jewish sources claim that the land was vacant and populated only by bedouin migratory people who had no cities, towns or governmental structure. Only after Israel was formed and Syria and Egypt doubled back on their pre-creation promise (which was facilitated by the British) to absorb these nomadic peoples were those bedouins truely homeless. It was only after the 6 day war that the Palestine and Palestinian came to be.

Today those people (the Palestinians for lack of a better word) are fodder for Islam and its hatred. I believe Iran wouldn't hesitate for a second to Nuke the entire region and make Myrters fo the entire "Palestinain" people they claim to love.

*whew* I'll revist this when I have more time. I have to go to work.

[Paul]

You say that you shouldn't have an opinion on something unless you are completely uneffected by it. To have an association with something you automatically invalidate yourself and become bias.

Terrorism is something that pushes itself into your life. You don't seek it out. So no one on this earth who has heard or seen islamic terrorism either in person or on TV is automatically biased and their opinions can't be looked at with objectivity? Seems a tall order that no one, not even yourself, can live up to.

Let me clarify. I said that when it comes to a conflict, usually both sides (and thus anyone associated to or belonging to either of those two sides) have a biased opinion. That is a fact. It doesn't mean that their opinions don't matter - obviously. It just means that when they discuss the conflict with people who are not associated with or affected by it, there is practically no point to the discussion. Because wether you want it to or not, it will eventually come down to "but I am right!" - simply because that is where your heart is. And that's not a bad thing. A lot of the time conflicts are settled by the very parties that were engaged in it. I am merely talking about a discussion.
Now, obviously, there are exceptions to this. There are things that we are ALL affected by. But then again if you live in a country where (Islamic) terrorists have had a field day and I don't, there's a discrepancy right there. I live in Germany and the only terrorism we have seen was the RAF (Red Army Fraction) - a group of quasi-communists who killed a lot of people, kidnapped and killed a politician, and so on. So while your image of terrorists would be muslim Arabs who want to destroy your country, my image of a terrorist is nothing like it. Yes, I know of the islamic terrorists. But the only terrorists that I have been affected by, came from my own country. Have the same nationality and religion as I do. It makes a world of difference, especially as far as a discussion is concerned.
Another exception to my statement of bias is religion. You can't really understand a religion looking at it from the outside.

Last I checked Christianity wasn't spread by conquest as Islam was.

Then please check again.
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04543c.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades

I also don't remember ever hearing about Christians attaching bombs to their children for salvations sake.

That's because for the most part, Christians fought in wars where they had the choice of using weapons. The muslim terrorists in the East for the most part don't have that option. I think it's safe to assume that they'd rather use other means of "defeating the infidels" than killing their children.
Of course I completely abhor such perverted ways of killing off your own children. It's sick.

I know American Islamic people that I call friends. But there is a line with our friendship that they impose.

That's too bad (and I don't mean that in a sarcastic way)... My brother in law Navid is from Iran and while he himself is strictly atheist, two of his brothers are muslim and so is his mother. One of his brothers has married a Christian, as well as obviously Navid marrying my sister who is Christian too.
There are liberal Muslims and orthodox ones. Just as it is with Christians.