Thanks to GEC and to this post
If you are so sure that ” Palestine , the country, goes back through most of recorded history,” I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine :
- When was it founded and by whom?
- What were its borders?
- What was its capital?
- What were its major cities?
- What constituted the basis of its economy?
- What was its form of government?
- Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat?*
- Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation?
- What was the language of the country of Palestine ?
- What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine ?
- What was the name of its currency? Choose any date in history and tell what was the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against the US dollar, German mark, GB pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese yuan on that date.
- And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur?
Palestine has been referred to by MSM and by its supporters as a “once proud” nation. Please tell me, when exactly was that “nation” proud and what was it so proud of?
If the people you mistakenly call “Palestinians” are anything but generic Arabs collected from all over — or thrown out of — the Arab world, if they really have a genuine ethnic identity that gives them right for self-determination, why did they never try to become independent until Arabs suffered their devastating defeat in the Six Day War?
Come on, liberal people. What are the answers to those questions?
*Yasser Arafat was never the President, King, Dictator or Emperor of any country or region. He was President of a group that called themselves the Palestinian National Authority. He was also Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). There was no country named "Palestine."
*Yasser Arafat was never the President, King, Dictator or Emperor of any country or region. He was President of a group that called themselves the Palestinian National Authority. He was also Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). There was no country named "Palestine."
20 comments:
Joe, I am assuming the DM in your title is me... Why would you assume the point which you are contesting is my viewpoint?
I've never asserted one way or another any particular view on many of the Middle East issues because I don't claim to know enough of the facts, or the issues from the many different sides.
My comments challenging Glenn were from a perspective where he asserts ownership of a country, thus establishing a right in perpetuity to a specific group, yet is unable to apply that standard universally.
Dave: if the shoe fits, wear it. I think Joe is correctly challenging all of your ilk who defend the 'nation of Palestine' and attribute non-existent history and honor to this non-entity.
Perhaps you haven't weighed in on this fallacy personally, but your liberal buddies sure have.
In truth, modern day 'Palestinians' are simply discarded Jordanians, Egyptians, Syrians and more recently Lebanese.
Good, solid post, Joe. Keep it up.
DM: Just like certain physical attributes are common to all birds (say, wings), certain political attributes are common to all liberals. Hatred of Israel is one of those.
Fredd: Thanks. Notice how many fewer liberals show up when challenged with the unchallengable.
Joe, ou aew asserting certain facts not in evidence. If what you assert is true, that all liberals hate Israel, which may be true for some, why can't liberals use that same logic and assert correctly, at least with your logic, that all conservatives are racists?
Fredd, no, there is no shoe wearing here. Joe, a person who claims to follow Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior, made a statement about me that not only is demonstratively not true, but about which he has no evidence.
He is just plain wrong, and in this case, a bad witness for his faith.
"If you are so sure that ” Palestine , the country, goes back through most of recorded history,” I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine."
I, like Dave, have never asserted anything of the sort anywhere on your blog, my blog or anyone's blog. So please take my name off your list, since your assertion connecting me to that opinion is completely false.
I ask that you be more careful with your sweeping generalizations before accusing people of things they've never said.
Your answer to Dave is snide and unworthy of you, it reveals what reasonable people would see as prejudice: you believe all liberals think alike instead of understanding that we are individuals with our own individual thoughts and opinions various issues.
Would you like Dave and me to believe that just because you're conservative that you're a racist and a person who hates everyone in the LGBT community, because many on the extreme right are and do?
DM: "...why can't liberals use that same logic and assert correctly, at least with your logic, that all conservatives are racists?"
Because that is not a logical jump.
SK: I didn't accuse you of anything. I challenged you to answer some simple questions. In fact, I said, "If..." If you are not so sure, why are you so upset about it?
You ARE liberal. I was challenging liberals to answer those questions. There is no requirement, just a challenge.
"Your answer to Dave is snide and unworthy of you."
"Snide" is my middle name. My answer is completely worthy of me.
"... please take my name off your list...?
List of what? List of liberals? Have you abdicated your liberalness?
Hallelujah!
"... please take my name off your list...?
This list: A Challenge to XO, Ducky, DM, Craig and SK (et al.)
If you are so sure that ” Palestine , the country, goes back through most of recorded history,” I expect you to be able to answer a few basic questions about that country of Palestine"
SK: That's exactly what I said. It is a challenge to a group of people. You are, and will remain, one of them.
If you are not up to the challenge, that's OK.
I will quote from your quote: "If you are so sure that..."
Did you see the word "if" in that sentence? "If" is the conditional. So the sentence means: "Under the condition that..."
I did not say that IS your contention, I said IF it is your contention. While I AM asserting that it PROBABLY is your contention, I am not asserting that it IS your contention.
You liberals read what you want to into statements and then get mad at the meaning you have ascribed to the statement, instead of what the statement actually says.
In other words, you know what I mean, in spite of what I say. You are a mind reader, is that right?
The reason liberals aren't jumping into this is because the entire list of questions is based on a false premise. One that I have never heard from any liberal. The idea of a "once proud nation of Palestine".
That's bogus. No one has ever claimed that.
The region into which the modern day state of Israel has inserted itself has been known as Palestine since biblical times.
It was known as Palestine to the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans and well into the 19th and 20th century when it was part of the Ottoman Empire.
The region historically known as Palestine was never the exclusive land of any one people and certainly not the Jews.
Over the millenia it has been home to Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, Tjekker, Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and Muslims.
There was, at one time, an area within Palestine known as the Kingdom of Israel but it only lasted for about 100 years.
So the notion that the Jews and the Jews alone somehow have exclusive rights to an area that has been populated by and fought over by many different ethnicities, religions, tribes, nations and factions for thousands of years is preposterous.
The indigenous population of Palestine, known collectively as Palestinians, have just as much right, if not more, to call that land home than the Jews who declared it to be all theirs a mere 67 years ago.
But your argument, as voiced in that ridiculous list of questions, seems to be that unless a soverign, European style government existed, prior to 1947 that the land was "up for grabs".
It's like saying that since Native Americans had not formed a continent wide Parlimentary style government that united all tribes, elected a president and established a currency before the Europeans got here that it was perfectly OK for us to slaughter them all and take their land for our own.
Ridiculous.
XO: "...has been known as Palestine since biblical times."
Simply not a fact.
"So the notion that the Jews and the Jews alone somehow have exclusive rights to an area..."
I don't know anybody who claims that.
"...the land was "up for grabs".
Wrong conclusion.
So, if I read you correctly, you do not know the answers to the questions I asked. Is that right?
Joe, was I censored?
Ducky: Not to my knowledge. Why?
Ducky: You do realize that you have to click on the "Publish Your Comment" button, don't you? I checked my comments and my spam. There is nothing there from you on this post.
Joe - "XO: "...has been known as Palestine since biblical times."
Simply not a fact."
Yes, Joe, it is a fact.
The first clear use of the term Palestine to refer to the entire area between Phoenicia and Egypt was in 5th century BC Ancient Greece. Herodotus wrote of a 'district of Syria, called Palaistinê in The Histories, the first historical work clearly defining the region, which included the Judaean Mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley.
Approximately a century later, Aristotle used a similar definition in "Meteorology", writing "Again if, as is fabled, there is a lake in Palestine, such that if you bind a man or beast and throw it in it floats and does not sink, this would bear out what we have said. They say that this lake is so bitter and salt that no fish live in it and that if you soak clothes in it and shake them it cleans them," understood by scholars to be a reference to the Dead Sea.
Later writers such as Polemon, and Pausanias also used the term to refer to the same region. This usage was followed by Roman writers such as Ovid, Tibullus, Pomponius Mela, Pliny the Elder, Statius, as well as Roman-era Greek writers such as Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom and Roman-era Judean writers such as Philo of Alexandria and Josephus.
The area has ALWAYS been known as Palestine.
Joe - "So, if I read you correctly, you do not know the answers to the questions I asked. Is that right?"
There are no answers to the questions because they are bogus questions based on a false premise in an extremely lame attempt at a "gotcha".
It's like the old chestnut of asking a man "Have you stopped beating your wife? Yes or no!"
The underlying premise is false so the questions are meaningless, yet this is somehow viewed as the ultimate logical trap by conservatives who wouldn't know a logical argument or an actual fact if it slapped them in the face.
Joe, the name "Palestine" has referred to a region rather than a nation state.
As XO says, you're trying to rig the game.
I have never before seen such a lazy attempt at "copy & paste" propaganda as this opinion piece and such a terrible attempt to deny the existence of Palestinians as a people. Almost as bad as attempts by people who deny the holocaust. An Israeli Jewish Historian named Ilan Pappe would be a good start. His books have all the answers you seek to get to know Palestinians and their right to this land. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilan_Pappé
Answers are also here: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=480_1270066077
Asad: I've been studying the Middle East since before you were born. Only I'm not biased by being from there.
Joe, why not continue your "studies"
"The problem was, the Jewish homeland was not empty. As the two rabbis dispatched from Theodor Herzl’s first Zionist Congress in Vienna, sent to Palestine like the biblical spies who first entered Canaan, reported back: “The bride is beautiful but she is married to another man.”"
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