Let's talk about Israel and Palestine...

[orthodoc]

Originally Posted by Big Sarge

As far as converting them to Christian as was mentioned in a recent joke, the Islamization of Gaza has put increasing pressure on the tiny Christian minority. Following the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007, Abu Saqer, leader of Jihadia Salafiya, a rival group to Hamas, announced the opening of a "military wing" to enforce Muslim law in Gaza. "I expect our Christian neighbors to understand the new Hamas rule means real changes. They must be ready for Islamic rule if they want to live in peace in Gaza." Sheik Saqer has asserted that there is "no need" for Christians in Gaza to maintain Christian institutions and demanded that Hamas "must work to impose an Islamic rule or it will lose the authority it has and the will of the people."

In October 2007, Rami Khader Ayyad, owner of Gaza's only Christian bookstore, was abducted, beaten and murdered, after his bookstore was firebombed by an unidentified group attacking targets associated with Western influence. According to Ayyad's family and neighbors, he had regularly received anonymous death threats from people angered by his missionary work.

No one on this board ever comments on the suffering of Christians in the Middle East. It's the dirty little secret that no one acknowledges, because it's fashionable to ascribe the sins of European Roman Catholics who lived centuries ago to people today who have never been Catholic, but who have continued in a faith handed down to them for two millennia.

Christian populations predate Muslims in all of the Middle East and North Africa. Of course they do. And, while Christianity spread peacefully in the first few centuries CE, Islam, as it came into being in the 6th century, spread in the way it does today - through violence, enslavement, and genocide. The Christians of the Middle East are the forgotten minority; they are all Orthodox (or a variant); and they deserve more notice, and concern, from the West.

Big Sarge is the first person who has mentioned anything about Arab Christians. If anyone is interested, investigate what has become of the former Christian populations in Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries.
They have been decimated, driven out, and exterminated.

I spent a great deal of time with Muslim residents in WV during the past two years. They were diverse in opinion and level of devotion, as any group would be who held a common religion but had come from different backgrounds. It was a learning opportunity that I appreciated.

Dana, I've not encountered nor read about any Christian group that practiced/practices FGM. Can you provide a reference? If such a thing has ever been documented, it would be such an anomaly, such an outlier, that it should be noted as such. That is not the case in the many Muslim populations that practice FGM. Even if it predated the adoption of Islam by those populations, even if that could actually be confirmed, it was retained as compatible with Islamic mores and practice. That can't be said for Christian communities in general, in the Middle East and Asia.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by orthodoc

snip--

I spent a great deal of time with Muslim residents in WV during the past two years. They were diverse in opinion and level of devotion, as any group would be who held a common religion but had come from different backgrounds. It was a learning opportunity that I appreciated.

--snip

ortho, did any of the Muslim residents you got a chance to learn about first hand display or betray anything like the "love of death" described above?

[Pamela]

TW, God did not give Israel the West Bank. They captured it from Jordan in 1967. After the Arab-Israeli War. Remember that? And ever since, attacks have been launched from there and other places against Israel. Infiltration tunnels have been dug.

Israel has tried many times to avoid civilian death. It is Hamas who hides behind and among civilians in order to cause civilian death and injury and thus garner worldwide condemnation against Israel. The UN is merely a tool used by Hamas to attack their sworn enemy. One of many.

Hamas hides rockets in UN schools making them legitimate Israeli targets. Therefore, such attacks are NOT a war crime.

The party committing war crimes here is Hamas, not Israel. Hamas deliberately targets Israeli civilians yet the international community remains silent and unseeing. How is THAT *not* a war crime?

You did get one thing right though. Americans are NOT getting to see honest, unbiased news coverage of the events there.

[tw]

Originally Posted by Pamela

TW, God did not give Israel the West Bank.

You know that. I know that. But extremists - Likud - say something completely different. Extremist say this land was promised by god to the Jews. If you cannot recognize their extremist propaganda and do not openly criticize it, then you cannot see a solution to what will otherwise be wars forever.

Netanyahu is an expert at torpedoing every peace process. He plays along until he has some trivial excuse for undermining peace. For the same reason why Sharon intentionally restarted the Intafada. Like Sharon, Netanyahu needs violence and hate to keep the people (Palestinians and Jews) from becoming too moderate. Otherwise peace might happen. Then Israel cannot confiscate the West Bank - as god promised.

If not blaming Likud equally with Hamas, then you are not moderate and are in denial. Likud openly called for and assassinated Yitzhak Rabin because he attempted peace with Arab nations. Likud is still smarting from a peace treaty with Egypt and the resulting removal of their Sinai settlements. Likud has long been quite clear about this. Never again. Likud extremists called for and got the murder of Rabin. Anything that might undermine stealing of West Bank land must be evil. Anyone who can torpedo every peace process is a perfect extremist Likud leader.

If grasping reality rather than propaganda, then you know Hamas rockets cannot target anything. And so only 30 Israelis and 2000 Palestinians die. Unlike in Israel, Israel also destroyed most everything Palestinians need to survive including the power plant and desalination plants. And a seven year embargo on anything necessary to have a minimal standard of living. Meanwhile, Israel has lots of new holes in farmland and deserts. Extremist Jews need that embargo and targeted destruction to push moderate Palestinians into the ranks of wacko extremist Hamas. That empowers Likud and justified West Bank land theft.

I don't expect to see logical replies. You have demonstrated only Likud extremist rhetoric. Your posts define all Palestinians are evil and all Jews are good. That alone says you are incapable of thinking like a moderate. I never expect you to admit Likud is as evil as Hamas because Likud propaganda has you completely brainwashed.

You have a choice. And I did this intentionally. First, you will become emotional and angry as an extremist. Or second, you will see the conflict equally from both sides. That second option would have to be a miracle.

Israel could easily separate moderate Palestinians from extremists. But that would undermine Likud. A moderate could see that. But having challenged your emotions, I don’t expect you to respond as a moderate. I don’t expect you to see what could have undermined all this violence. That requires analysis as a moderate. Moderates see extremists on both sides as complicit to and encouraging of this violence. Extrtemists even deny moderates might exist.

[DanaC]

Netanyahu is an expert at torpedoing every peace process. He plays along until he has some trivial excuse for undermining peace

True that. Here he explains in 2001, whilst thinking he is not being filmed, how America is easy to twist and how he sabotaged the Oslo accords.

Go full screen and press for subtitles.

[sexobon]

The obvious solution is for all Palestinians to convert to Christianity so the West will support them and Israel will leave them alone.

That was easy, maybe next weekend I'll reunite North and South Korea.

[DanaC]

Nah: they'd have to change their ethnicity too. No way will the West ever fully empathise with Arabs.

[sexobon]

*sigh* We miss you Lawrence.

[DanaC]

Hahahaha.

Very good .

[DanaC]

As far as I can tell there aren't any Palestinians threatening to cut off your head either.


Hamas are not wahhabists. They have fought against wahhabi groups within Gaza.

http://lubpak.com/archives/1329

[henry quirk]

Just cuz the hydra has multiple heads one shouldn't assume each head represents a separate entity...even if the heads nip at each other, they all share the same body.

And: if you prefer, I'll call them 'Islamic Orthodoxists'.

Or: would you prefer demented religionists?

[Undertoad]

please tell me how things are different for the children in Gaza, for the parents in Gaza

Certainly,

You are appealing to a philosophy that the Islamists do not share.

If you made that argument to them here is what you'd get in return. They would like for their children to die for this cause. It's the fast road to heaven for them. This is not an isolated statement:

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Certainly,

You are appealing to a philosophy that the Islamists do not share.

If you made that argument to them here is what you'd get in return. They would like for their children to die for this cause. It's the fast road to heaven for them. This is not an isolated statement:

I'm not making that argument. Sarge (and others here) are making that argument (THEY are death-loving killers). I'm asking for the justification by those making that argument. I'm asking the people who are doing the killing, or those who support those who are doing the killing to explain to me why that's ok. Your post of an angry, stupid person with a microphone does not explain why the "precision-guided" weapons of the Israelis are killing little kids. It doesn't explain why the loss of Sarge's kids would be devastating and the loss of Palestinian kids "is nothing".

What the fuck happened to Israeli agency? Are they the impotent puppets of fuckwit Muhammad Deif? That's your explanation? If a gunman has his pistol to the head of a hostage and he's hiding behind the hostage, do you shoot through the hostage to kill the gunman??? What the fucking fuck?

[sexobon]

Proposing IRL confrontation is unacceptable here. JBKlyde was banned for it. People have been cutting you slack because of your past record of public service. Don't disgrace that record by trying to commit suicide by sexobon. It's bad enough that you're a burned out alcoholic now.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by sexobon

snip--
Try to lay down requirements here again and I'll not only lock your heels, I'll shove them up your ass. The golden rule is now in effect for you, has-been.

Originally Posted by Big Sarge

If you are man enough, then do it. I don't ask for special treatment. I have no qualms with meeting you any day. If you wish to question my mental stability, then you are welcome to diagnose it in person.

Originally Posted by sexobon

Proposing IRL confrontation is unacceptable here. JBKlyde was banned for it. People have been cutting you slack because of your past record of public service. Don't disgrace that record by trying to commit suicide by sexobon.

It's you, sexobon, who's proposed IRL confrontation; it's you, sexobon, who's threatened physical violence. It's you, sexobon, who courts banning for shit like this. I find you intolerable; I welcome your banning. In the meantime, I ignore you. I find your posts mostly irritating like your deliberate misuse of the golden rule here. You're an unhelpful troll of the first order, and a particularly mean one to boot. I don't miss you when your posts don't display, I won't miss you when you stop making them altogether.