Israel, Palestine and the Arab/Israel Conflict
- Thread starter goofyfish
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"Back"? By the same logic you have given, it was never theirs, either. Why should the Arab claim to the land weigh more than the Jewish claim?nirakar said:
Actually, in 1948, the Israelis accepted the UN partition plan. The armistice "green" line was a result of war, not politics. Would you have the Israelis simply stop at their border during a war? That would have been a marvelously bad military decision, as I'm sure you'll agree.
As you say, Jordan annexed the West Bank and Egypt took Gaza. Until the 1967 war, the Palestinian Arabs did not consider themselves a seperate peopl, and this was key in their refusal of the UN partition plan (instead calling for a Lower Syria to be unified with the Syria of today). So, ironically, the modern concept of Palestinians builds on something they adamantly refused in 1948, but is now a central part of their mythos and claim to the land.
Actually, it can quite easily be argued the Egypt started the 1967 war with the closing of the Tiran straits (which was an act of war). Also, like in 1948, the Israelis are not military fools: When the Egyptians line up their army along the Sinai border, calls for war, and throws out the UN peacekeeping force there, they do not stand by idly until attacked. (They did make that mistake in the 1973 war, though, to Golda Meir's eternal shame.)
Say what? How on earth can they be justified in trying to exterminate the jews in pre-partition Palestine (which was their declared goal with the war, cf. Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem)?
The armies of Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon, as well as complements from several other arab states weren't enough, you mean?
No, it wasn't. You might argue that the proportion of Palestine was unduly large considering the ratio of Jews to Arabs, but that claim is but to shame by the fact that a large proportion of Arabs became citizens in Israel, and that Israel also had to cope with a huge immigration of 600,000 to a million refugees, as Jews in the Arab world fled or were forcibly exiled during the following.
Don't you find it interesting that such a tiny* country could handle such a refugee problem, even recovering from a war and building a state, while the entire Arab world apparently could not deal with a refugee problem at the very most of comparable size? How can anybody be a refugee for 57 years?
Hell, after WW2 there were millions of refugees (I've heard the figure of 18 million) in Europe alone, yet there are no permanent refugee camps of the Palestinian sort, here. The westward displacement of Poland by 200 km (annexing a larger area of Germany than Israel occupies in total, by the way) created a million German refugees alone, yet you don't hear about them sitting in camps in eastern Germany, and blowing themselves up in Gdansk, Krakow or Warsawa, do you?
*I've been there. I come from a very small country myself (Denmark) and even I think it's tiny. A couple hours of travel will get you where you want to go. I never spent more than two hours getting anywhere and I was all over the place (Well, not the Negev, but then I don't consider deserts that interesting).
Zephyr said:
Yes it was ethnic cleansing because people moved only because they were scared of what would happen to them if they did not move. The fears were not without merit. There was raping and killing by both Hindus and Muslims.
The national governments did not organize the ethnic cleansing but they were not capable of providing the security to stop ethnic cleansing.
The Ashkenazi Jews are perhaps 1/3 descended from people who lived in Israel more than 1700 years earlier. The Palestinians are descended from the people who had been living there for the previous thousand years and are also descended from the same ancient Israelis that the Ashkenazi Jews are desended from. We modern people just don't believe in removing one people so that other may move in any more. The Palestinians were there in the houses made by their grandfathers picking the olives on trees planted by there grandfathers and by modern standards the soon to be Israelis did not have a right to take their land.funkstar said:
Militarily Israel did almost everything right. It was the UN that sinned when they created the unjust partition plan. With 20/20 hindsight we now know that the Palestinians were stupid to not accept the partition plan despite it's injustice.
Had Israel given back the land that they gained in the 1948 war they might have had peace for the last 50 years or they might have been driven out of Israel. We can't know. Had the UN given Israel about 20% of Palestine, that would have been fair.
I believe South Syria was the name for the place prior to the British. Jerusalem was the big city for most of current Israel. People went to Damascus or Cairo for bigger cities. The fact that Palestinians were not much more of a separate from their neighboring peoples than people in northern and southern California are from each other does not mean that they should have to give up their homes to the unfortunate, often victimized by christian europeans, stateless jewish people.
It is an Irony that Palestinians now have a more defined identity. The Arabs wanted to be one big Arab nation. The British and French after WW1 decided that they were not going to allow the Arabs to be one big Arab nation.
I agree
Was exterminate their word or was it drive out? Palestinians had no right to exterminate Jews but they did have the right to not be displaced by Jews or anybody else. If you had been a Palestinian land owner in the new Israeli state would you have believed that the Israelis would let you keep your land? Israel has shown by allowing it's Arab citizens to stay that some Palestinians would be allowed to keep their land but Israel has also shown by not allowing the right of return that Israel was not willing to be a 40% Arab state.
The Palestinians were also aware that it was very unlikely that the Israelis would be sattisfied with the UN partition for very long when the Israelis lobbied for more land and most Israelis believed they have a god given right to all of historic Israel.
You would have thought that would have been enough for the Palestinians defeat Israel, but history shows that those armies were not enough.
An Israeli historian unearthed details on a secret Jordanian pact with Israel. I read that other than one accidental battle, Jordan and Israel did not fight in 1948.
I think the Arab position is that to let these people settle in other nations is to surrender to an unjust victory by Israel. Palestinians are not allowed to stop being refugees.
The Poles had somewhere to go.
Then you understand why having to take all day to go a 20 kilometers would make Palestinians angry.
Whom do you propose Israel should have returned that land to? There was no Arab Palestinian state, remember?nirakar said:
Why? The Arabs of the British mandate already got 80% of it in Transjordan...
Why not? There was already a large Jewish presence in Palestine, and the establishment of a National Home for the Jews there was part of the League of Nations mandate. After the atrocities of WW2, it seems perfectly appropriate to make good on that promise. People often hold the view that I can't argue for the state of Israel's existence by referring to the Holocaust, but that's just rubbish.
Exterminate, drive into the sea, let the streets run red with jewish blood, etc. Their meaning was very clear.
This is true, and it's a demographics problem. Israel is a Jewish state, first and foremost. There's no sense in establishing a national home for the Jews with the Jews as a minority. That was the entire point of the partition plan.
See, this I don't believe. Of course the Israelis lobbied for as much land as they could, but that does not equate with a war-faring desire for a Greater Israel than they ended up with. In fact, in every war since the 1948 war, Israel has ended up giving back almost all the conquered territory. As has been mentioned in the thread already, the dominant foreign policy in the short history of modern Israel has been "land for peace".
Interesting. Do you have a link?
So why is Israel blamed for this?
As did the Germans. As do the Palestinians.
Of course. I can also understand why being blown up in the supermarket would make Israelis angry. It isn't a quid pro quo thing, by the way, the checkpoints really do work to reduce the terror attacks, as does the infamous fence.
Really, states don't live on a land, peple do. I would have given the rights to have the state to the people who were there prior to the 1948 displacement.funkstar said:
If A corporation sells you poisoned toothpaste and half your family dies that corporation, not some other corporation, is responsible for compensating you. The Palestinians owed no debt to the Ashkenazi and other non-Palestinian Jews. So why should they have to pay to compensate the Ashkenazi Jews for the crimes that were done to them. If the League of Nations or the UN want to evict the Palestinians from land that rightfully belongs to the Palestinians then the UN as global city hall has the obligation to give the Palestinians just compensation for their property. Saying "you got cousins living near by, go live with them and stop your bitching" is not righteous.
Jordan fades into desert. Jordan was not a suitable place for refugees with agricultural backgrounds. And once again, those Palestinians never should have been refugees.
Lets suppose that Israelis start hiring the people of Dafur out of their refugee camps in Chad to serve as agriculural workers and domestic servents. Then suppose the UN says it is so sad what Sudan has done to these people, and they have no state, we the UN have decided to give them half of Israel as a state because many of these people are already living in Israel. Would that be justice?
Are you calling for Germany to compensate the Palestinians and give them a home in Germany?
If you nobody is willing to compensate the Palestinians for the loss of their homes, trees, and fields then nobody should have taken these things away from the Palestinians.
The Israeli half of Palestine was drawn to be the largest possible state that would still have a Jewish majority. I don't believe the Jews would have tolerated such a large Palestinian minority even if the Palestinians had accepted the Partition. Lebanon was drawn the same way to be the largest possible Christian State. 55% Majorities are not stable majorities. The French and British stupidly created trouble in my opinion. These messes are their messes with the USA and the Soviet Union joining in at the end.
I think the point of the Partition might have been a poorly thought out plan to use the Jews as a base against any possible future German Arab alliances should Germany pop back as an enemy it did after WW1. A key to defeating Germany is to deny it oil. Control of the Suez canal would be important. Jews deserved something good after WW2 but I can't buy the UK, US, USSR and France as doing anything in foreign policy for non-Machiavellian reasons and they expended pollitical with smaller nations to get the 1947 partition vote.
Would you have me believe that the main motive for those Israelis who were upset at the withdrawl from Gaza was that the withdrawl weakened Israeli security? The Withdrawl clearly lowered the cost of Israeli security. Can we agree that if we pretend that the history of Jews having lived in Israel and religious belief that the land of Israel was given by god to the Jews did not exist, then while pretending such, wouldn't the choice of soon to be Israel as a homeland for the Jews have been a very bad homeland for the Jews due to the existence of the Palestinians already making that small dry land a relatively crowded place? Suppose we were looking for a homeland for the Roma/gypsies rather than the Jews, would Palestine have been considered? The point Is the desire to restore greater, or at least medium Israel is at the heart of everything that has happened in Israel.
Tel Aviv was peripheral to Historical Israel but the West Bank was the heart of old Israel. To renounce claim on the West bank now might would infuriate many Jews. Palestinians are not stupid. They no that some Jews could have no internal peace until the West Bank is Jewish. Am I wrong? Are there not many Israelis who could not give up on making the West bank Jewish even if Israel somehow became secure without a Jewish West Bank?
What land did Israel give up? The Sinai? That land while large by Israeli standards was not central to historic Israel even though moses passed through it. That land was too dry. Giving back that land made peace with the most potentially dangerous of Israel's neighbors. That was a good deal for Israel.
Had to re-google
Didn't find exactly what I wanted.
Put these names (shlaim glubb pail abdullah meir) in a search. All results will be relevant. Most results will be defenders of the traditional Israeli narative critisizing the dissident Israel historians but from there it fans out. You know how Goggle works. Avi Shlaim is not the guy I got my Abdullah worked with Israel story from but he seems to be the advocate of that getting the most attention from the supporers of the traditional narative. I am not sure which guy I first heard it from. Maybe Benny Morris. Somebody had 1948 battle details and troop movements to support the idea that Abdullah and Israel were trying to avoid engagement but the junior oficers were never told that theory. I could not find that source again quickly.
Israel is not blamed for that, But the Palestinians have nowhere to go because of that. There are many Palestinians in the USA but Palestinians from the occupied territories can't just come to the USA. Only the few who can jump through the legal hoops can come to the USA. The same is true for Palestinians wishing to go to other Arab nations.
Germany welcomed Germans. I don't know that Austria (a german nation) would welcome poor ethicly German Ukrainians today. Jordan does not want more Palestinians. What is Israel supposed to do, force the USA to force the world to force the UN to create an international coalition to force Jordan to accept the rest of the Palestinians so that Israel does not have to impose undemocratic colonial rule on a conquered people? The Palestinians have nowhere to go and they should not have to go. If they are forced to go they should be given enough money to repurchase something similar to what they were forced to leave behind.
Leaving voluntarily out of feer and then not being allowed back is ethnic cleansing just as if they were rounded up and trucked to the border. Being forced to beg their cousin in the USA for a plane ticket and help with a visa because life in your village that you were emotionally attached to has been made very very difficult by Israel is also like being put on a truck and driven to the border.
The Palestinians are not welcome to go to any other nation and they are not welcome to stay where they are.
I don't debate that the wall and check points work. Ethnic cleansing would also work. Some Palestinians think that making them miserable enough to leave and sneak into Jordan with only what they can carry is the other purpose of the checkpoints.
The Palestinians must stop the terrorism but sometimes it seems that nothing scares the israeli government more than Palestinians not doing terorism. When ever the Palestinians are sucessfull at gving peace a chance for a little while the Isaelis seem to go and shoot up some neighbohood or assassinate some enemy leader as if the wanted to provoke the Palestinians.
Efraim Karsh versus Avi Shlaim, Bush Haters versus Bush Lovers, One truth, two sets of alleged facts, People believe what they want to believe.
http://www.meforum.org/article/92
By Avi Shlaim:
Karsh and I clearly differ in our interpretation of what transpired at the secret meeting between Golda Meir and King `Abdallah of Transjordan on November 17, 1947. Extensive quotations from the reports of all three Jewish participants support my account of this meeting. But Karsh gives a highly selective and tendentious account designed to exonerate the Jewish side of any responsibility for frustrating the U.N. partition plan. It is true (as my book explains) that `Abdallah did most of the talking at this meeting and that no binding decisions were taken, due to the fact that the United Nations was about to vote on partition. That said, the two sides went a long way to coordinate their positions. `Abdallah began by outlining his plan for pre-empting the mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, and explored the Jewish response to his capturing the Arab part of Palestine and attaching it to his kingdom. Meir replied that the Jewish Agency would view such an attempt in a favorable light, especially if `Abdallah did not interfere with the establishment of a Jewish state, avoided a military confrontation, and declared that his sole purpose was to maintain law and order until the United Nations could establish a government in that area.
http://www.meforum.org/article/92
By Avi Shlaim:
Karsh and I clearly differ in our interpretation of what transpired at the secret meeting between Golda Meir and King `Abdallah of Transjordan on November 17, 1947. Extensive quotations from the reports of all three Jewish participants support my account of this meeting. But Karsh gives a highly selective and tendentious account designed to exonerate the Jewish side of any responsibility for frustrating the U.N. partition plan. It is true (as my book explains) that `Abdallah did most of the talking at this meeting and that no binding decisions were taken, due to the fact that the United Nations was about to vote on partition. That said, the two sides went a long way to coordinate their positions. `Abdallah began by outlining his plan for pre-empting the mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, and explored the Jewish response to his capturing the Arab part of Palestine and attaching it to his kingdom. Meir replied that the Jewish Agency would view such an attempt in a favorable light, especially if `Abdallah did not interfere with the establishment of a Jewish state, avoided a military confrontation, and declared that his sole purpose was to maintain law and order until the United Nations could establish a government in that area.
nirakar said:
what about all of the jews who already lived there? you can't ignore them.
<>
nirakar said:
actually, the british conqured israel in 1917, can you blame them for stealing palestinian lands? i mean, they ruled the area. in that case, israel
could not be a palestinian land, not even a jewish land, but a british land.
pallestinians owned some territories but the jews owned some of theirs too.
also, jews bought the land they had, so they couldn't steal their own land.
nirakar said:
more than half of israel is a desert, so what?
israel and jordan share the same conditions, you don't have any point here.
the palestinians could have been living in their own state, but they refused.
nirakar said:
it could not be done. "palestine" was never a state, but israel is.
the UN can't give half of america just to solve the population problem in china.
as you might see, it's not the same thing.
nirakar said:
how can you steal something that someone had abandoned?
nirakar said:
why not? more than a million lives in israel right now.
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aaa said:
Jews had owned 10% of of Israel/Palestine in 1947/1948 and they were 30% of the population. If Israel had to be partitioned because Jews could not be a minority any more and would need to be a majority in order to have the right to recieve more Jewish immigrants, then how much of Israel/Palestine could you (the UN) give them and still be fair to the Palestinians?
Something between 10% and 30% of the land going to Israel is the most that would look fair to me.
Did the crimes against Jews in other nations somehow turn fairness to Palestinians into a non-Issue?
Yes I blame the British, but they did not steal Palestinian lands, they stole the right to govern. The Ottomans and everybody before them also stole the right to govern. The British allowed land ownership to remain as it was under the Ottoman Empire. Much of the land was always owned by absentee landlords living in cities like Cairo, Damascus, Haifa, Jerusalem, Damascus, and Beirut. Much land was owned by the local people. Tenant farmers, who got kicked off the land their families had worked for centuries, when the absentee landlords sold to the new European Jewish immigrants, were the first Palestinians to get angry at Jewish immigration. The small population of Arab Jews in Palestine had been living in relative peace with their Christian and Muslim neighbors for centuries prior to the European immigration that began at about 1880.
Half of Israel is desert. I believe that for Jordan it is more like 95% desert.
The UN can do anything the people pulling the strings at the UN say they can do. What does being a state have to do with anything? Darfur is not a state. If the USA, UK, Russia and China want the UN to create a new state for the people of Darfur Carved out of Sudan, or even carved out of Chad, then that new state will be created. If the big powers want to under the name of the UN, kick all the Israelis and Palestinians out of Israel/Palestine and give the land to the people of Darfur, they can do it, but it would not be easy and Israel might use it's nukes. The big powers won't even give Darfur minimal help when the cost is low, so Israel has nothing to fear from the UN. The point of my rediculas scenario is just to show that Palestinian lack of statehood has no meaning when judging the morality of what the UN did to the Palestinians.
Of course the UN just gave the moral cover in 1947/8. The UN most rely on other armies to enforce their decrees. In Israel's case Haganah and the IDF did the work. If they had failed, we don't know that any big power would have rescued the Jews and we don't know how merciful the Palestinians would have been.
If I leave my home in New Orleans because hurricane katrina is comming, then i want to come back and a police man is living in my home and says get lost, you abandoned your home so It belongs to me now, was my home stolen from me? If I buy a lunch, and then when the lunch comes, I leave it on the table to go wash my hands, and when I get back somebody else is eating my lunch, and I say, "thats mine get away", and they show a gun and say "you abandoned it, now get lost and let me eat in peace or I will put a bullet in your head", then did they steal my lunch?
Do you still stand by the idea that the temporary abandonment changes the morality of Israel denying the right of return? The fact that their cousins tried to take Israels land from Israel is a better defense for not giving back the property that that they did not defend, but if this happened among neighbrs in a town ruled by just laws the police and judge would make the guy, Israel give back the land and Israel for stealing land and Arab cousins for trying to steal Israels land, would probably get some jail time.
When Israel explains why a single state solution can not be considered at this time, they say 40% Arab is not Jewish enough. Now part of that is fear of Palestinian birth rates; but Isralis want to be a Jewish state. A 60 percent Jewish, 40% Arab state surrounded by other Arab states, never knowing whether your Arabs will be loyal to the Jewish state or loyal to their Arab identity would not be acceptable to most Israelis.
If some Palestinians had to be driven off their land to make a secure state for Jews, then they should have been properly compensated. Somebody, Israel, Germans and other nations that mistreated Jews, the UN, and the UK should give the Palestinians who lost their land compensation for the full value of what the lost plus a bonus because the event was forced and they have suffered as refugees.
But, as unfortunate as that is, the landlord - absentee or not - has the right to do as they like with the land. Where's the outrage at what was done to Jewish land appropriated by the Ottomans and given to the same landlords during the same period?
Geoff
geoff
do you have any idea on the muslim religion, it seems that you do anyhting to put down non judeo/christians. Please can you expand on you hatred.
Also israel should withdraw from the OCCUPIED territoriesin conjunction with resolution 242, and others.
Additionally arent the israeli jews coming out with the same nonsense as saddam did when he invaded kuwait by send this was all iraq anyway!!
As you are saying Palestine is historically israel
your thoughts
do you have any idea on the muslim religion, it seems that you do anyhting to put down non judeo/christians. Please can you expand on you hatred.
Also israel should withdraw from the OCCUPIED territoriesin conjunction with resolution 242, and others.
Additionally arent the israeli jews coming out with the same nonsense as saddam did when he invaded kuwait by send this was all iraq anyway!!
As you are saying Palestine is historically israel
your thoughts
geoff
are you also saying that the israelis have not done anything wrong at all!!
if so you are as stupid as you are warped minded!!!!!!
are you also saying that the israelis have not done anything wrong at all!!
if so you are as stupid as you are warped minded!!!!!!
Zack,
I am not putting down "non judeo/christians", as I myself am neither "Judeo" nor "Christian". How could I put down all non-Judeo-Christians when I clearly am neither?
I do however disagree sharply with religious philosophies that demand the murder of apostates and homosexuals, harsh, savage punishments for those deemed to have "defamed the Prophet", that treat women as second class citizens (according them half property rights and value in legal testimony as men, besides making the legal placement of a judgement for rape nigh impossible) and non-"Believers" as third class citizens with punitive taxation and restrictions on religious display. As a non-"Believer", or "kufr" myself, I am repulsed by such legalized oppression - to say nothing of murder - and I encourage all people everywhere to make their displeasure at such a system known.
I have no evidence to hand whether to say Israel is historically Israel or "Palestine" (which did not, as I recall, exist as a nation in 1948) but I will say that the fact that the Jewish settlers to the region had to fight for mere survival testifies to their right to have settled the land. Similarly, I was not in favour of the return of any other land taken in 1967 or 1973, as those territories were confiscated for the legitimate purpose of border protection from the clearly bitterly hostile surrounding powers.
Geoff
I am not putting down "non judeo/christians", as I myself am neither "Judeo" nor "Christian". How could I put down all non-Judeo-Christians when I clearly am neither?
I do however disagree sharply with religious philosophies that demand the murder of apostates and homosexuals, harsh, savage punishments for those deemed to have "defamed the Prophet", that treat women as second class citizens (according them half property rights and value in legal testimony as men, besides making the legal placement of a judgement for rape nigh impossible) and non-"Believers" as third class citizens with punitive taxation and restrictions on religious display. As a non-"Believer", or "kufr" myself, I am repulsed by such legalized oppression - to say nothing of murder - and I encourage all people everywhere to make their displeasure at such a system known.
I have no evidence to hand whether to say Israel is historically Israel or "Palestine" (which did not, as I recall, exist as a nation in 1948) but I will say that the fact that the Jewish settlers to the region had to fight for mere survival testifies to their right to have settled the land. Similarly, I was not in favour of the return of any other land taken in 1967 or 1973, as those territories were confiscated for the legitimate purpose of border protection from the clearly bitterly hostile surrounding powers.
Geoff
Also, what does:
"Additionally arent the israeli jews coming out with the same nonsense as saddam did when he invaded kuwait by send this was all iraq anyway!!"
Your hatred seems to be clouding your writing a bit.
And please refrain from personal insults, as I have done nothing to warrant such insults other than rational present a position with which you do not agree.
Geoff
"Additionally arent the israeli jews coming out with the same nonsense as saddam did when he invaded kuwait by send this was all iraq anyway!!"
Your hatred seems to be clouding your writing a bit.
And please refrain from personal insults, as I have done nothing to warrant such insults other than rational present a position with which you do not agree.
Geoff
Geoff
Apologies for the personal insult - i take it back. i have been suffering from flu which has not been nice.
Please could you however put forward a source from Islamic scriptures which justifies the 2nd paragraph of your first post back to me.
Once you have sent me this i will be able to counter your outlandish statements.
geoff you must remember that just becuase some idoits in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or wherever, say they are following Islamic law does not really mean that they are. you know as well as Ithat one of mans faults is to always distort literrature to there own advantage through various mis-interpretations.
And geoff with regards to Israel, as already mentioned they have already got Nukes and have had them sicne 1968. they can destroy every Arab capital Including cairo, Bhagdad, Riyhad, damscus, etc... So i do not know why they need to steal land for security reasons.
Even without Nukes the Israeli Army can beat all the shambolic armies of the Arab Middle-east combined. i think there is far more to it then secuirity??!!??!
Apologies for the personal insult - i take it back. i have been suffering from flu which has not been nice.
Please could you however put forward a source from Islamic scriptures which justifies the 2nd paragraph of your first post back to me.
Once you have sent me this i will be able to counter your outlandish statements.
geoff you must remember that just becuase some idoits in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan or wherever, say they are following Islamic law does not really mean that they are. you know as well as Ithat one of mans faults is to always distort literrature to there own advantage through various mis-interpretations.
And geoff with regards to Israel, as already mentioned they have already got Nukes and have had them sicne 1968. they can destroy every Arab capital Including cairo, Bhagdad, Riyhad, damscus, etc... So i do not know why they need to steal land for security reasons.
Even without Nukes the Israeli Army can beat all the shambolic armies of the Arab Middle-east combined. i think there is far more to it then secuirity??!!??!
Zakariya04 said:
So you retract your insult, then add another. Curious.
For sources I recommend Q 4:11, Q 4:34, Q 26:4, and Q 9:1 onward. There are others. al-Buhkari also strikes me as a useful reference:
"If a man changes his religion [from islam], kill him." - Mohammed
Are you invoking the existence of "moderates"? Where are they, these obscure and cryptic people? Why are they not to be found in those places in which islam forms a majority of the population? Why is the oppression of sharia, the intolerance of islam, the murder of apostates and homosexuals more prevalent in those places than anywhere else? It seems from all the arguments I've heard that the only place one can be a "real" muslim is in the West, which vehemently prohibits such expressions of "faith". Yet the West is tolerant, seculo-Judeo-Christian. Can one only be a real muslim as a minority? Why can none of the countries you named, nor any other islamic nation, behave as "true" muslims? I submit that the problem runs deeper than the hunt for a monolithic non-entity, and I have no wish to repeat the islamic experiments of the 7th-12th centuries where islam became dominant and was not dominated. It seems that none of these societies ever found this "true" islam you obliquely refer to. Where is it? Why can it never be practiced when islam becomes the majority?
...
Israel can indeed beat all the shambolic armies of the Middle East combined - until the day they can't. Their enemy is not, contrary to much assumption, mindless. They have victory objectives, and they pursue them quite intentfully, too.
Best of luck with your flu.
Geoff
Geoff
Thank you for your kind thoughts with regards to my flu.
I am not sure what i offended you about in my recent post, but aplogies again.
Now Geoff, i dont know what to say, i could come out with loads of references frrom the Quran to show Islamic tolerance, Womens rights, and how we are a peacfull religion. But whats the point as you will then come out with some other reference of 8 words, to show how muslims oppress women, hate non muslims etc..
If you do want some sources of where tolerance and all that are explained please shout.
Now Geoff, as you are aware the meaning of Islam is "Submission" to Allah (or God - Allah is only the arabic translation for God). This means that all the Prophets of God were Muslims including Jesus, Moses, Abraham and Noah.
You are quite right though, these so called islamic nations in the middle-east etc, are controlled by a load of fuck wits, who disgrace the religion of Islam. The islamic religion is uinfortunately be controlled by a few dogmatic fanatics, rather like the christians before the renasance. So what the islamic religion needs is a renasance too.
If you had not of guessed i am a muslim, my mum isnt but my dad is, however my dad never imposed it on us, and i actually went to a Church of england school. Most of my knowledge of islam has come from my own research and learnings.
So when you come out with you various staements about islam being intolerant etc.. I can understand where you are coming from as we have regressed 2000 years + over the last 100years of so. We are like the christians were in the Dark ages.
Anyway geoff going for a nap - take it easy
Thank you for your kind thoughts with regards to my flu.
I am not sure what i offended you about in my recent post, but aplogies again.
Now Geoff, i dont know what to say, i could come out with loads of references frrom the Quran to show Islamic tolerance, Womens rights, and how we are a peacfull religion. But whats the point as you will then come out with some other reference of 8 words, to show how muslims oppress women, hate non muslims etc..
If you do want some sources of where tolerance and all that are explained please shout.
Now Geoff, as you are aware the meaning of Islam is "Submission" to Allah (or God - Allah is only the arabic translation for God). This means that all the Prophets of God were Muslims including Jesus, Moses, Abraham and Noah.
You are quite right though, these so called islamic nations in the middle-east etc, are controlled by a load of fuck wits, who disgrace the religion of Islam. The islamic religion is uinfortunately be controlled by a few dogmatic fanatics, rather like the christians before the renasance. So what the islamic religion needs is a renasance too.
If you had not of guessed i am a muslim, my mum isnt but my dad is, however my dad never imposed it on us, and i actually went to a Church of england school. Most of my knowledge of islam has come from my own research and learnings.
So when you come out with you various staements about islam being intolerant etc.. I can understand where you are coming from as we have regressed 2000 years + over the last 100years of so. We are like the christians were in the Dark ages.
Anyway geoff going for a nap - take it easy
I'm afraid I differ somewhat. I've yet to read anything specifying equal treatment of women and men in the Quran - in fact, the Quran gives them "distinct and special roles" but only treats in their equality as before God. That is, that they are equally prone to punishment or reward - but then Mohammed revokes even that by saying that the vast majority of the denizens of hell are women. The Quran does, however, specify that they essentially have half the value of men, and modern islamic practice codifies this in the halving of blood money value for the murder of women. I agree that the islamic world needs a Renaissance - but I hold no hope whatever that it will ever occur. The Quran is meant to be the word of God, directly handed to Mohammed rather than recorded in posterity, so how can parts of it be refuted without rejecting the whole?
The Bible goes on about women not being teachers and growing their hair long and covering their heads, but frankly that's only ol' Timothy talking, not Jesus, and I wonder a bit about the inclusion of those books in the NT. Seems political, not too religious.
Geoff
The Bible goes on about women not being teachers and growing their hair long and covering their heads, but frankly that's only ol' Timothy talking, not Jesus, and I wonder a bit about the inclusion of those books in the NT. Seems political, not too religious.
Geoff
ok Geoff you are right i am worng, women are treated differently to men, in fact they are treated on a higher level then us mere men. One thing which perhaps you have not read geoff is that the Quran says that the first second and thrid most important people in your life is you mother, that equates to the mum being 3 times more important than the dad, and with this you have to show 3 times the respect.
Alsoat the time of the Prohpeht women were given the opportunity to divorce 100's and 100's of years before the west caught on to this concept, amongst other rights for women.
Anyway back to Israel, you have to agree it is unfair that they are able to have nukes and then cry if another mideast state even thinks abiout developing one!!
Dont you think israel by having such weapons is inciting other mideast staest to develop them.
Alsoat the time of the Prohpeht women were given the opportunity to divorce 100's and 100's of years before the west caught on to this concept, amongst other rights for women.
Anyway back to Israel, you have to agree it is unfair that they are able to have nukes and then cry if another mideast state even thinks abiout developing one!!
Dont you think israel by having such weapons is inciting other mideast staest to develop them.
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