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Who Are the Palestinians???
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| melech_mike |
Who Are the Palestinians?
Yashiko Sagamori
25 November 2002
A rebuttal:
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":
1. When was it founded and by whom?
2. What were its borders?
3. What was its capital?
4. What were its major cities?
5. What constituted the basis of its economy?
6. What was its form of government?
7. Can you name at least one Palestinian leader before Arafat?
8. Was Palestine ever recognized by a country whose existence, at that time or now, leaves no room for interpretation?
9. What was the language of the country of Palestine?
10. What was the prevalent religion of the country of Palestine?
11. What was the name of its currency? Choose any date in history and try and find the approximate exchange rate of the Palestinian monetary unit against the US dollar, German mark, British pound, Japanese yen, or Chinese yuan on that date.
12. Have the Palestinians left any artifacts behind?
13. Do you know of a library where one could find a work of Palestinian literature produced before 1967?
14. And, finally, since there is no such country today, what caused its demise and when did it occur?
If you are lamenting the "low sinking" of "once proud" nation, then please tell me, when exactly was that "nation" proud and what was it so proud of?
And here is the least sarcastic question of all: 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 by Israel in the 1967Six Day War?
I hope you avoid the temptation to trace the modern day "Palestinians" to the Biblical Philistines: substituting etymology for history wonīt work here.
The truth should be obvious to everyone who wants to know it. Arab countries have never abandoned the dream of destroying Israel; they still cherish it today. Having time and again failed to achieve their evil goal through military means, they decided to fight Israel by proxy. For that purpose, they created a terrorist organization, cynically called it "the Palestinian people" and installed it in Gaza, Judea, and Samaria. How else can you explain the refusal by Jordan and Egypt to unconditionally accept back the "West Bank" and Gaza, respectively, in the aftermath of the 1967 war?
The fact is, Arabs populating Gaza, Judea, and Samaria have much less of a claim to nationhood than the American Indian tribe that successfully emerged in Connecticut with the purpose of starting a tax-exempt casino: at least that tribe had a constructive goal that motivated them. The so-called "Palestinians" have only one motivation: the destruction of Israel. In my book that is not sufficient to consider them a "nation" -- or anything else -- except what they really are: a terrorist organization that will one day be dismantled.
In fact, there is only one way to achieve piece in the Middle East. Arab countries must acknowledge and accept their defeat in their war against Israel and, as the losing side, should pay Israel reparations for the more than 50 years of devastation they have visited upon it. The most appropriate form of such reparations would be the removal of their terrorist organization from the land of Israel and acceptance of Israelīs ancient sovereignty over Gaza, Judea, and Samaria.
That will mark the end of the Palestinian people. What are you saying again was its beginning?
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Yashiko Sagamori is a New York-based Information Technology consultant. |
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| Izzy |
| quote: | Originally posted by TranceGiant
Halas... |
hehe |
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| melech_mike |
lama halas?
Lets see the answers to this one!! |
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| Cyrus King |
| quote: | Originally posted by melech_mike
lama halas?
Lets see the answers to this one!! |
These are all questions made to reinforce the straw-man fallacy argument.
What were Isreali's considered before their nation was formed? |
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| oDrori |
| quote: | Originally posted by Cyrus King
These are all questions made to reinforce the straw-man fallacy argument.
What were Isreali's considered before their nation was formed? |
If you are a religous man and believe in the old testament, god has supposedly given the jews the land from Sinai (or the mid sea, can't remember) to the Prat (or whatever it is called in English) river which means Iraq . |
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| Cyrus King |
| quote: | Originally posted by oDrori
If you are a religous man and believe in the old testament, god has supposedly given the jews the land from Sinai (or the mid sea, can't remember) to the Prat (or whatever it is called in English) river which means Iraq . |
This means nothing to me...again.. religion shouldnt be interchanged with historical fact. |
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| oDrori |
| quote: | Originally posted by Cyrus King
This means nothing to me...again.. religion shouldnt be interchanged with historical fact. |
Then whatever the territories were when the Romans conquered the land of Israel. |
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| PeacefulWarrior |
Palestine was a part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Palestine had been ruled from Constantinople by the Turkish sultans for nearly 500 years and was populated largely by Arab farmers, most of whom had never heard of Zionism.
In 1917 imperialist Britain created a national homeland as is stated in the Balfour Declaration. The Balfour Declaration involved a promise by an imperial power to establish a nationanl home for a MINORITY in a county that had a population which WAS NOT recoginzed in that declaration. The existing non-Jewish populations were the 92 percent majority of the country. (as cited in MEIRP) Their national and political rights were IGNORED in a declaration which promised national and political rights to the Jewish people.
Some twenty years later, the British declared their tactics and reasons for the Balfour declaration a failure in a document known as the "White Paper on Palestine," which repudiated Zionism and the Balfour Declaration. |
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| Cyrus King |
| You learn something new everyday...thanks for the post Peaceful warrior. |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| quote: | | 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": |
Palestine never was a country. It was always a colony or a region. But that doesn't mean there are no palestinians. Are there no Kurds because they don't have their own country? |
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