Israel's actions in Gaza is an act of self-defense == Morally and legally

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Yahya Merchant on January 27, 2009 at 7:50am

http://annainpalestine.blogspot.com/2009/01/sophies-choice.html

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Permalink Reply by Neri Bar-On on January 27, 2009 at 7:56am

Yahya,

It is the same fiction as Jews introduce after WW-I

It created hate toward all Germans, just because they are German. Today Germany is a friend of Israel, I pray that Palestine Modern National state will be friend of Israel in the future.

If such event happened, and I can accept that it may, what does it mean for peace activist? is it a reason to go away from peace and declare one side as Evil so to justify violent aggression?

Permalink Reply by Ron on January 27, 2009 at 3:58pm

I don't understand why anyone serious about peace would use someone like this woman as his credibility. AND then connect the story to one condemning Pres elect Obama on Jan 15 2009 for the blood of generations and generations of Palestinians even before his inaugeration.

There are serious, credible Jewish people who support Palestine and Palestinians. Why not work with people who can help instead of just stirring up angst for the joy of making things worst.

Why don't Arabs work with people like Rabbi Ascherman and other Rabbis
www.rhr-na.org/news/arik-ascherman-arrested

AND; the group that Ali Caksu mentioned: Breaking the Silence
www.shovrimshtika.org/about_e.asp

instead of people like Anna and Osha Neumann who have absolutely no chance of helping the Palestinian cause? In fact; they are very poor spokespeople for true, rational help to Palestinians and Israelis seeking peace.

Look at what was written in 2006.... when will Arab and Israeli leaders finally get serious about doing their duty to the citizens of Palestine, Israel, Lebanan, Syria, Egypt and Jordan.

http://www.shalomctr.org/taxonomy_menu/1/128/3/167

Seems there are Israelis and Palestinians who understand there will never be peace as long as a rocket flies and a jet retaliates. etc

http://www.adalah.org/eng//israeli%20attack%20on%20gaza.php

What do the Israel people think the Palestinians feel about Nethanyahu's desire to put even more settlers into the West Bank?

Palestine and Israel must find peacemakers willing to make or Iran and other players are going to make decisions for both of you that neither side will be able to survive.

Let's all right now take 60 seconds to hold the memories of all the people who have died and been wounded on all sides because of the failure of politicians to make peace in the region.

There are many families who have lost much.

Permalink Reply by Ron on January 27, 2009 at 4:39pm

You insult Palestinians and Israeli alike when you use a source like this to point your point. Google Anna and you'll see she has no credentials, no credibility.
However, linked to that post; I found this:
http://www.shalomctr.org/taxonomy_menu/1/128/3/167

My sense is if you have hundreds of Rabbis in support of Palestine; go with that. if you want peace. Jews and Moslims working together for peace!

My sense is when you choose to work with Rabbis working for peace you have a better chance of peace than someone who makes a living traveling stirring up crap as Anna does.

http://www.shalomctr.org/taxonomy_menu/1/128/3/167

Permalink Reply by Ron on January 27, 2009 at 3:36am

As someone who sees both sides of the story; I'd like your source on this too.

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Permalink Reply by Basil Keilani on January 27, 2009 at 6:14am

Yahya, I can't agree with your use of the words "barbarian chosen people" on a peace site.
I am a Palestinian, and I do not believe in bigotry, though I can understand bigotry in time of war from Palestinians and Israelis. It is not productive. When you use the word barbarian, you are trying to say that you are better, but the truth is humanity has a sickness still, and it has not learned enough from World Wars I and II. The conflict in Israel with the Palestinians is a manifestation of that with the cover of Judaism, Islamicism, two kinds of nationalism etc..... You quoted a story, but you gave no source to it. I do have a source where a friend's friend lost two nephews who went to the roof to see what was going on.
They weren't Hamas members or anything, they were just teenagers who didn't know what was going, and their lives were just ended for no reason.

I criticized others for not clarifying their sources. This stuff doesn't belong on a peace site.
If it were me, I would ban people on both sides for engaging in excessive propaganda on a peace site or for engaging in bigotry.

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Permalink Reply by Neri Bar-On on January 27, 2009 at 7:28am

Basil,

The Question of Free Speech and mepeace.org dialog

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Permalink Reply by Ron on January 27, 2009 at 7:42am

This peace site is a reflection of life itself. I think people would join a peace site to promote peace; or to at least try to learn what the other side is thinking. A while back,
someone cursed me because I am an American. Ok; so I stand cursed. How does anyone think cursing someone because he is American, Israeli, Palestinian, Egyptian, etc is going to help peace?

So the truth is... people who stir up crap just to stir up crap, hate their own people.
They are know serious people.

I'm a believer that when someone comes to a site like this; with people open to working for peace; and is only negative, destructive, abusive... their agenda isn't peace.

So, the challenge has been given to Yahya; find the proof in his story... something more credible than a blog somewhere. We'll see what he does in honor of the children he mentioned.

Until EVERYONE can acknowledge that the children don't deserve what happened to them; there is no chance for peace. If a government, an army, a soldier can look at a 2 year old and see the enemy who needs to be killed; EITHER SIDE; then they don't want peace.

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Permalink Reply by Paul RETI on January 27, 2009 at 8:01am

Yes to all Ron wrote above.

Thanks Ron for locating Yahya's sources and putting it all in real context in your post http://www.mepeace.org/xn/detail/661876:Comment:197444

There is no need to add anything to that.

Permalink Reply by Yahya Merchant on April 12, 2009 at 9:11pm

Well of course anything that criticizes Israel is meaningless, false and anti semitic as we are all aware. So listen to a Rabbi instead!

http://www.theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/the_brid...

Incidentally no child should ever fear death at the hands of anyone. Nor for that matter any human being except where self defense or oppression makes it impossible to avoid. I have never killed anyone even during 11 years of military service! However my taxes are being used to provide the kind of action that occurred in Gaza. What are my options?

Permalink Reply by Chris on January 16, 2011 at 12:29am

I really liked the reply in regards to how Arabic from Palestine, Syria and Lebanon has Aramaic influence.
It is true that Arabic speaking nations have many different cultural and linguistic influences from civilizations other than just Arabians from the Gulf regions.

Palestinians who 100 years ago considered themselves part of the greater Syria province have a rich culture; however, this is further complicated because Syrian Jews, Aramaic speaking peoples in Syria, Kurds, Circassians and Armenians have all been a part of this 'greater Syria province' that is today various nations. One could argue then that an Israeli whose parents are Syrian Jews in Aleppo or Damascus would have just as much right to Palestine since there was plenty of freedom of movement between the 'Greater Syria' region that is now seperated between these different nations.
Even under Ottoman times there were movements between the populations under their rule.
Someone correct me if I am wrong but is there not a gate or quarter in old Jerusalem that was called something like 'Maghrebi' due to that area once being a place that North Africans moved to during the 19th century? How is that different from the great immigration of Moroccan Jews to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s?
Then what happens in the future if there was a Palestinian nation and an Israeli Jew whose parents were Syrian Jews or Egyptian Jews wanted to live there? Could he claim to be a Jewish Palestinian?
I find it funny how some Palestinians and Israelis can speak as if their civilizations are different when in all reality the "Jewish world" was a part of the Arab world and the "Arab/Islamic" world was not truly only Arab and Islamic.
Go to history written by Middle Easterners and remember how Arab Muslims had Kurdish rulers like Salah addin.Or how the architect of Alhambra in Andalusia was a Jew who supposedly modeled the Alhambra after the Second Temple in Jerusalem. How about the great translations of Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Farsi that were translated into Arabic, thus creating a flourishing Arabic civilization built on other predecessors. And then later the use of Arabic by Jews in the region.

I always thought how it was funny and laughable that a Russian claiming to be a Jew would struggle so hard to learn Hebrew compared to an Arab. I have many Muslim friends in Syria who learned Hebrew much faster than the Yiddish/Slavs who called themselves "Hebrews". I lived in Paris as a 10 year old and visited the Jewish neighbourhood of 'Belleville'. They are primarily if not completely 'Mizrahim'. The old Rabbi exclaimed to me that the only difference between an Arab and a Jew other than a Mizrahi Jew having a religion separate from Islam or Christianity is that Jews also have a language that they used for over a millenium for the purpose of not just religious education but also academic education. That was Hebrew and in some cases Aramaic as well. He pointed out that was the main identity that made the difference. It reminds me of my Iraqi Assyrian friends who cling fiercely to the Assyrian dialect of Aramaic as their identity but in all other cultural aspects from cuisine to art/music, there is no major difference between them and an Iraqi Muslim Arab.However I feel that as we delve into the ancient history of the region we see that with Arabic becoming the main means of communication in the region over the centuries, it then became the norm to clsssify everything artistic and musical in the region as "Arab" even though many things have preexisted that term in their local geography.
The Oud is supposed to have been an Assyrian invention that all middle easterners use now. But some people say it was invented by Arabs. Islamic architecture was influenced by pre Islamic Persian influences as well.

I found it fascinating when I lived in Damascus and my Muslim friends would show me the grandest old Damascene homes that had courtyards and vines with gorgeous wood work and masonry and tell me that the Syriac speaking Christians were mostly responsible for the famous Damascene wood work and masonry as well as Silver smithing and Damascus silk being a Jewish dominated field.

Most of the greatest artistic homes in old Damscus were built and designed by Christians and Jews, yet that all came to be known as Islamic civilization.

How can Arabs and Jews be different?

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Permalink Reply by Chris on January 16, 2011 at 12:35am

I really liked the reply in regards to how Arabic from Palestine, Syria and Lebanon has Aramaic influence.
It is true that Arabic speaking nations have many different cultural and linguistic influences from civilizations other than just Arabians from the Gulf regions.

Palestinians who 100 years ago considered themselves part of the greater Syria province have a rich culture; however, this is further complicated because Syrian Jews, Aramaic speaking peoples in Syria, Kurds, Circassians and Armenians have all been a part of this 'greater Syria province' that is today various nations. One could argue then that an Israeli whose parents are Syrian Jews in Aleppo or Damascus would have just as much right to Palestine since there was plenty of freedom of movement between the 'Greater Syria' region that is now seperated between these different nations.
Even under Ottoman times there were movements between the populations under their rule.
Someone correct me if I am wrong but is there not a gate or quarter in old Jerusalem that was called something like 'Maghrebi' due to that area once being a place that North Africans moved to during the 19th century? How is that different from the great immigration of Moroccan Jews to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s?
Then what happens in the future if there was a Palestinian nation and an Israeli Jew whose parents were Syrian Jews or Egyptian Jews wanted to live there? Could he claim to be a Jewish Palestinian?
I find it funny how some Palestinians and Israelis can speak as if their civilizations are different when in all reality the "Jewish world" was a part of the Arab world and the "Arab/Islamic" world was not truly only Arab and Islamic.
Go to history written by Middle Easterners and remember how Arab Muslims had Kurdish rulers like Salah addin.Or how the architect of Alhambra in Andalusia was a Jew who supposedly modeled the Alhambra after the Second Temple in Jerusalem. How about the great translations of Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin and Farsi that were translated into Arabic, thus creating a flourishing Arabic civilization built on other predecessors. And then later the use of Arabic by Jews in the region.

I always thought how it was funny and laughable that a Russian claiming to be a Jew would struggle so hard to learn Hebrew compared to an Arab. I have many Muslim friends in Syria who learned Hebrew much faster than the Yiddish/Slavs who called themselves "Hebrews". I lived in Paris as a 10 year old and visited the Jewish neighbourhood of 'Belleville'. They are primarily if not completely 'Mizrahim'. The old Rabbi exclaimed to me that the only difference between an Arab and a Jew other than a Mizrahi Jew having a religion separate from Islam or Christianity is that Jews also have a language that they used for over a millenium for the purpose of not just religious education but also academic education. That was Hebrew and in some cases Aramaic as well. He pointed out that was the main identity that made the difference. It reminds me of my Iraqi Assyrian friends who cling fiercely to the Assyrian dialect of Aramaic as their identity but in all other cultural aspects from cuisine to art/music, there is no major difference between them and an Iraqi Muslim Arab.However I feel that as we delve into the ancient history of the region we see that with Arabic becoming the main means of communication in the region over the centuries, it then became the norm to clsssify everything artistic and musical in the region as "Arab" even though many things have preexisted that term in their local geography.
The Oud is supposed to have been an Assyrian invention that all middle easterners use now. But some people say it was invented by Arabs. Islamic architecture was influenced by pre Islamic Persian influences as well.

I found it fascinating when I lived in Damascus and my Muslim friends would show me the grandest old Damascene homes that had courtyards and vines with gorgeous wood work and masonry and tell me that the Syriac speaking Christians were mostly responsible for the famous Damascene wood work and masonry as well as Silver smithing and Damascus silk being a Jewish dominated field.

Most of the greatest artistic homes in old Damscus were built and designed by Christians and Jews, yet that all came to be known as Islamic civilization.

How can Arabs and Jews be different?

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