545 Comments on “Open Thread”
-
Lairedion says:
Weather forecast for the area I live:
Lot of sunshine, a few clouds, max temperatures up to 16º C. In the upcoming weekend a temporary low pressure area causing max temperatures to drop just under 10º but Monday they’re on the rise again. No rain or other precipitation expected.
Just tellin’ in case you cannot follow the news by yourself but must rely on this thread.
-
Arie Brand says:
Realest said:
i really dont understand why Israel could prosper to become a developed nation with high technological advancement while Palestinans are still scraping in shit and sweat. Call it fate, foreign assistance, discrimination, rich jews or whatever … it looks like Natural Selection and Mother Nature has spoken.
Realest, now really … can’t you do any better than “Mother Nature”?
You put under a largely agricultural population (as that of the Palestinians before the Zionist immigration) a group of mainly non-agricultural origin, with, on average, a higher education and a readier access to capital – add to that political-military events which deprive the agricultural group of such little capital it has in the form of land and housing and actually lead to its ghettoisation and you get the result for which you deem “Mother Nature” responsible.
-
@Arie
I can do better than Realest.
It’s mohammedanism, the culprit, for the backwardness, of the arabs.
-
realest says:
@ Arie Brand said
You put under a largely agricultural population (as that of the Palestinians before the Zionist immigration) a group of mainly non-agricultural origin, with, on average, a higher education and a readier access to capital – add to that political-military events which deprive the agricultural group of such little capital it has in the form of land and housing and actually lead to its ghettoisation and you get the result for which you deem “Mother Nature” responsible.
a little paraphrasing from wiki: “The Arabs are the worst farmers in the world. Their implements of husbandry are so rude and primitive that a sample of them would surprise even a cotton-planter of South Carolina.”. That was 1854, totally irrelevant.
Palestine could have borrowed from any one of those oil-rich Arab countries ….. after all the Arab league did gang up on Israel during the 1948 war. Access to capital means access to higher education-sanitation-industrialization which would breed a generation of Nintendo and MTV kids who we call today’s leaders. And we all could see how helpful Egypt have been during Israel’s bombardments on Palestine; so much for solidarity. I’m not going for a slugfest on this one. The way I see it, if you take away all the factors and leave both sides with only sticks & stones, Israel would still come out ahead. Hell, Fatah and Hamas are still fighting for control over a couple of slums.
-
<
-
And we all could see how helpful Egypt have been during Israel’s bombardments on Palestine; so much for solidarity
You mean Mubarak and his crowd. Unfortunately for the Likudniks Egypt’s attitude is likely to change.
The way I see it, if you take away all the factors and leave both sides with only sticks &/ stones, Israel would still come out ahead. Hell, Fatah and Hamas are still fighting for control over a couple of slums.
The way people now talk about Gaza as a slum (a slum of Israel’s making) they once talked in Russia, Poland, Romania and Galicia about the poverty stricken Jewish “shtetls”. It is amazing, Realest, how much store you seem to set by genetics. Do I have to remind you that all this talk about genetics (you call it – with capitals- Natural Selection and Mother Nature) was not all that very long ago turned against the Jews as ‘Untermenschen’? It is also amazing for another reason. There is considerable genetic similarity between Palestinians and Jews which stands to reason seeing that they come from the same region. The likelihood is that the Palestinians form that part of the original population that was at one stage, whether forcibly or not, converted to Islam. Though particularly the Ashkenaze Jews seem to have picked up all kinds of ‘admixtures’ in their wanderings the basic picture remains the same.
Some years ago I wrote in greater detail about this on Tony Karon’s blog ‘Rootless Cosmopolitan’.
-
Bringing this topic on the spotlight: http://monitorindonesia.com/2011/03/ancaman-pancung-di-saudi-bnp2tki-optimis-darsem-pasti-bebas/
DARSEM, an indonesian worker, waiting execution in Saudi Arabia (for killing her SAUDI employer who wanted to RAPE her).
As of 5 March 2011, Indonesian government hasn’t been able to collect the BLOOD MONEY demanded by the family of that PERVERTED SAUDI male for the release of DARSEM.
4.7 Billion rupiahs or 540500 USD.
-
I referred in an earlier post to the revelations of Israel Staff Sergeant Furer (res.) about what is happening at the checkpoints Palestinians continuously have to go through for even the most trivial journey. Furer wrote a book about it entitled Checkpoint Syndrome.
He gave an interview on it to Gideon Levy of the Israeli quality paper Haaretz.
Here are some fragments:At the checkpoint, young people have the chance to be masters and using force and violence becomes legitimate – and this is a much more basic impulse than the political views or values that you bring from home. As soon as using force is given legitimacy, and even rewarded, the tendency is to take it as far as it can go, to exploit it much as possible. To satisfy these impulses beyond what the situation requires. Today, I’d call it sadistic impulses…
…
“Today it’s clear to me that that boy whose father we humiliated for the flimsiest of reasons will grow up to hate anyone who represents what was done to his father. I definitely have an understanding of their motives now. We are cruelty, we are power. I’m sure that their response is affected by elements related to their society – a disregard for human life and a readiness to sacrifice lives – but the basic desire to resist, the hatred itself, the fear – I feel are completely justified and legitimate, even if it’s risky to say so.Read on:
-
ET says:
There has been intermittent strife between the Israelites and the Palestinians, formerly known as Philistines, all the way back to a millennium BC. Any chance to attenuate this eons old conflict has been wiped out since the birth of Islam when the hate became institutionalized. It is a hopeless situation, exacerbated by the inequality of economic development. But Israel is also the vanguard of the West against a possible onslaught of political Islam. As long as the conflict remains focused on this tiny stretch of land it will be easier to control. Macchiavelli wouldn’t have managed it any other way.
-
Hans says:
Six great religions have been born in the immediate area to Israel, three of them are now not worth more than the spaghetti monster, individually they steered the world for thousands of years. the newer religions claim that some of the older pyramids were built before the Earth came into being. The issue is still hovering in the air, how can very wise and rational people and groups become so weird and more or less stupid as soon as they will show their religious side. To say that something created by the gods who actually is created by the stars get old and explodes, such religious claims must be viewed as ridiculous today. Quantum physics, I have had as a main theme in my life now for a long time, and quantum physics can now prove how wrong religions is. a frightening conclusion is that religions rampage is increasing among the people who are prevented from receiving adequate training, think so fantastically stupid it is when students are taught they holy books inside out instead of math, physics, etc.. many say, it is important to have power over language. we are often not aware that it is the media, politicians and religious interest groups who have power over language today. power over language.
The written and said words forming sentences, understanding, contexts, frameworks and discourses which very much affects people’s perceptions of how society looks like, what problems exist, what the problems are due and how those problems can be solved. If you have power over language, we can define the problems that exist, what the problems are due and how those problems can be solved.
* Hope it was not too messy *, love u, wherever you are -
ET
when the hate became institutionalized. It is a hopeless situation, exacerbated by the inequality of economic development. But Israel is also the vanguard of the West against a possible onslaught of political Islam. As long as the conflict remains focused on this tiny stretch of land it will be easier to control. Macchiavelli wouldn’t have managed it any other way.
Institutionalized hatred? I have already referred to the small Jewish community that lived through the centuries in Jerusalem, without being disturbed by its Moslem neighbours. When the Brits came with the ‘Balfour declaration’ they stressed that the bringing about of a ‘National Home’ for the Jews should in no way detract from the rights of the existing population. The hatred came about when it became clear that the Zionist settlers had quite different plans in mind and has ever since been kept alive by their mistreatment of the locals (an early Dutch Zionist settler, the poet Jacob Israel de Haan, took this so much to heart that he started to work for peace with the Arabs – he was liquidated in 1924 by the Haganah, according to the assassin on the order of the fellow who later became the second President of Israel (Yitzhak Ben-Zvi).
“Vanguard of the West”? My foot. As Walt and Mearsheimer have made abundantly clear it is the pro-Israel lobby that through the magic of political spin and the even stronger magic of campaign contributions has managed to present a political liability as an asset. Fine vanguard that during the first Iraq war virtually had to be bribed to keep its head below the parapet and stay out of the affair.
Congress is ‘ Israel occupied territory’ as Senator Fulbright observed long ago. One can’t expect a change of heart there. But I see signs that Europeans are increasingly restive about this all. The recent tongue-lashing of Netanyahu by Angela Merkel provides one example here.
-
Hans wrote
Quantum physics, I have had as a main theme in my life now for a long time, and quantum physics can now prove how wrong religions is.
Funny thing however is that even leading scientists don’t rule out religious thought all together, especially not the monist religious philosophies from the East. Nobel Prize winner Niels Bohr from Denmark even chose the Taoist YingYang symbol for his coat of arms.
An interesting book about the parallels between oriental mystic traditions and modern physics is ‘The Tao of Physics’ by Fritjof Capra.
-
That’s what I mean, how can intelligent, creative people be so nearly paralyzed whenever religion comes into the thinking and totally disorganized in all but religion, research ranges from string theory, particle physics and nuclear physics at the nano level today, progress has been amazing since Louis de Broglie, Max Born, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrödinger and Paul Dirac took over the search for Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. with this I would say that Bohr lived in an age where the church and the Danish royal family paid for much of his brilliant research, when it is in this way it can be hard to kill the hand that feeds you. Well what do you do if you want to continue with the funniest and most important you know, you compromise, of course, and hope for the best.
Niels Bohr, and his sponsors did not always agree, if I remember correctly.
love u, wherever you are -
I’ve found this edition of The Tao of Physics in Swedish, will buy it and read. books of this kind can often be very interesting, when moving in a borderland between ideologies and nano physics mystery and the minds fantasy.
-
Arie Brand
Institutionalized hatred?
The Koran is there for everyone to read. The hate became institutionalized after the Battle of the Trench in 627 in Medina and the subsequent invasion of the Jewish tribe Banu Qurayza, when all the men were beheaded.
Even when small communities managed to live side by side for extended periods, the fact remains that in case of conflict the verses in the Koran provide sanction for the revival of the ancient feud. Allahu akbar is the fuel that keeps the fire burning when all peace plans fail or are worn out, whoever or whatever is to blame. Do you think this conflict would have dragged on this long if the Balfour Declaration had made provision for a homeland in Uganda or in Navajo land in Arizona?
-
I think it is a fairly well accepted fact that, overall, the Jews were treated better in Islamic communities than in the Christian ones. It was not their experience in the former ones that inspired them to look for a place that was originally so misleadingly called a “National Home”.
And of course if they had ended up in Uganda with the intent to lord it over the local population and to take their lands and homes they would now be at loggerheads with the Ugandans – and you would be hard put to it to refer to the Koran to ‘explain’ it.
Incidentally, Muhammad was apparently not anti Jewish enough to scorn a defensive pact with the Jewish Banu Qurayza. The fact that they betrayed him led to their ultimate fate. But whatever is the case it seems to me absolutely outlandish to blame this remote historical event for the alleged ‘institutionalisation’ of the hatred between Palestinians and Jews. Sergeant Furer’s explanation seems to me a bit more persuasive.
-
But whatever is the case it seems to me absolutely outlandish to blame this remote historical event for the alleged ‘institutionalisation’ of the hatred between Palestinians and Jews.
It is not exclusively about the Palestinians and the Jews. Like I said earlier the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is as old as 2 millennia and its nature has been purely territorial. Later it has been hijacked by Islam and has become an issue for the entire Muslim ummah, crystallized in this tiny corner of the Mediterranean?
What could be the reason for the grudge of the Iranians against the Israelis besides the solidarity among brothers-in-faith? Sense of justice? My foot. Do you hear them fulminate about Darfur? They need a common enemy to keep the ranks closed and the minds focused on what is written in the holy book so they won’t start asking embarrassing questions. Read some of the posts here in Indonesia Matters from Indonesian Muslims about Israel and you will notice the indoctrinated hatred jumping off the page. I wonder if they even have the faintest idea of what and where it’s all about besides what is told them to believe.
Nothing of what I’m writing here is an apology for inhumane behaviour from either side. I’m only trying to explain what could be the reason for the protraction and escalation of a local conflict that has evolved into a never ending story holding everyone hostage. Or do you think that if the Israeli soldiers start distributing flowers and the settlers retreat behind the lines drawn by the UN partition in 1947 this conflict will be over?
Think again. -
Like I said earlier the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is as old as 2 millennia
It isn’t. Such blanket statements are made to portray as an ‘inevitable historical fact’ a situation that is perfectly explainable from what has been done over the last one hundred years or so and is still being done today. Evading responsibility by hiding behind ‘history’ just won’t do.
Or do you think that if the Israeli soldiers start distributing flowers and the settlers retreat behind the lines drawn by the UN partition in 1947 this conflict will be over?
They don’t have to distribute flowers – they just have to piss off. Incidentally, the Palestinian demand is not that the Israelis withdraw behind the 1947 partition lines. As I wrote before they have already acquiesced in the fact that Israel increased its area from 55 % of the territory to 78% and have accepted the armistice line (the Green Line) that was the border until 1967 as the future border.
All such predictions about whether or not states can live together in the future are worthless. It was said of France and Germany in 1945 that they could not – and look at the situation now.
-
Obama has received many kind of inspiration through life. It started with his Kenyan father who converted to Islam, was drunk and drove himselves to death against a tree. He hated England and the West. Obama has always spent time with the worst US-haters and haters of the Western system,
Obama rushes into the conflict in Palestine and destroy the Oslo negotiations that began in 1990’s, and never have a house in Jerusalem has been negotiating obstacles until Obama gave the order to Abbas that they would not do a thing but Obama would fix it! and somehow manage Obama to get into negotiations to stop new construction in the 3000 years old capital, and that is some Abbas has never ever cared about a few house in Jerusalem. without a doubt I think Obama is the dumbest motherf*cker who stumbled into this conflict. Palestinians pulled herself NOT out of conversations because of some houses in Jerusalem – it was Obama’s completely insane reaction that caused it!myself I do not think we can stop the conflict within them next 50-100 years, the wave of democracy in Arabia is probably that which opens up possibilities beyond what our minds know now, then have thoughts on wealth, work for himself and not to enrich a dictator, quality of life to all, work for all, dreams of becoming a tourist, when Palestinians start to go on package holidays, then we have peace in the region.
Who cares about Jerusalem? more than the stubborn Jews, of course, as in a thousand years have had “Next year in Jerusalem” as the salutation for some reason.
LOVE WHERE EVER U ARE OR WHAT U ARE
-
Boohohoo it’s all Obama’s fault…
-
Ari, Which Palistine group are you referring too? I can name at least three that claim to represent the people and all have a very different opinion of what conditions must be met for peace. Not that I think it will ever happen.
-
Laugh..Those obsessed with BO never fail to make me laugh.
-
Lairedion Says:
Boohohoo it’s all Obama’s fault…
How do you mean, historically, or for Harakat al-Muqawama al-Isl?miyyah.
-
Hans, read Oigal’s comment. Enough said.
Personally I don’t care much for the guy or any other US president. There is another thread on this site in which nutters can air their frustrations and obsessions towards BO.
-
Arie Brand
All such predictions about whether or not states can live together in the future are worthless. It was said of France and Germany in 1945 that they could not – and look at the situation now.
You seem to have a high stake in this question with more sympathy for the Palestinians because they are the underdogs. But you will agree that every peace plan so far has failed and that not only Israel is to blame for this. Suicide bombings and missiles invite retaliation and only perpetuate the vicious circle. Every nation wants safe borders and will take measures to protect them. But in my opinion this conflict has grown beyond its limited territorial aspects and has become a virtual sectarian battleground for the Muslim world against an historical enemy, sanctioned by scripture.
You said they had managed to live in Jerusalem side by side peacefully in the past. What do you think is needed to end the misery and make the 2 ‘tribes’ live together again as good neighbours?
-
Ari, Which Palistine group are you referring too? I can name at least three that claim to represent the people and all have a very different opinion of what conditions must be met for peace. Not that I think it will ever happen.
Oigal I didn’t speak of conditions for peace in general but acceptance of the 1967 borders.
There are, on the Palestinian side, only two main players here: Fatah and Hamas (the AI-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade is not a political factor).
Fatah has made it clear long ago (already in the eighties) that it is willing to accept the 1967 borders for a future Palestinian state.
And what about Hamas?
See this comment from Shlomo Brom on the major policy speech the Hamas leader Khaled Mashal gave halfway 2009:
On the face of it, the political principles presented by Mashal are not highly different from the formal PLO stances presented in negotiations with Israel since the start of the Oslo process. According to these principles, Hamas is prepared to accept a political solution that mandates a Palestinian state in the 1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital and with the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
See:
http://www.inss.org.il/upload/(FILE)1246765519.pdf
See also the following comment by Henry Siegman, erstwhile Executive Director of the American Jewish Congress (for some reason I couldn’t get it into a block quote)
“Hamas has made it abundantly clear that its charter – like the PLO’s charter which Arafat famously dismissed in 1989 as “caduque” (obsolete, expired) well before it was formally annulled – no longer represents Hamas’ ideology. Its various proposals for a long-term hudna (ceasefire) with Israel, if it were to agree to a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 borders, clearly contradict its charter.”
See:
http://www.peacebuilding.no/eng/Publications/Noref-Reports2/US-Hamas-policy-blocks-Middle-East-peace (click on “full article”)
Fatah and Hamas differ on other conditions (inter alia demilitarization of a future Palestinian State and return of the refugees) concerning which Fatah is inclined to make concessions to Israel and thus far Hamas is not.
It is all academic anyway as long as Netanyahu is in power because N. has made it abundantly clear that he is against any peace that involves giving up territory conquered in 1967.
There is also personal bad blood between Netanyahu and Mashal, since the former arranged for having the Hamas leader assassinated by Mossad. You might know the details but others might not. The Mossad agents almost achieved their purpose by inserting a deathly nerve gas into Mashal’s ear. They didn’t manage to do it unobtrusively, however, and were chased down by Mashal’s bodyguard and arrested. It all happened in Jordan and a furious King of Jordan, apprised of the details, demanded that Netanyahu would have the antidote handed over. Originally Netanyahu refused and it took the intervention of then President Clinton to get that antidote to Jordan.
It is in view of the recent passport affair, in which another militant leader was murdered by Mossad, of interest to note that the would-be murderers of Mashal entered Jordan on forged Canadian passports. I haven’t heard of any Canadian protests against this. When it comes to Israeli misdeeds Ottowa is habitually as quiet as a mouse.
-
You said they had managed to live in Jerusalem side by side peacefully in the past. What do you think is needed to end the misery and make the 2 ‘tribes’ live together again as good neighbours?
The cards are virtually all in Israel’s hands. If they stop blockading and starving Gaza and are willing to hand over the spoils of the Six Day War a beginning can be made. But, as I already said, there is very little chance for that as long as Netanyahu is in office.
For the rest I strongly recommend Siegman’s article of which I gave the link in the post above.
-
The Australian journalist Paul McGeough wrote a book, providing background, about that botched assassination attempt on Khaled Maschal entitled “Kill Khalid” . This is from a review by Duncan Campbell-Smith in the Times Literary Supplement:
For Netanyahu himself, the episode was hugely damaging. He had authorized the assassination personally, in defiance not only of that private letter from Hussein six months earlier but also of wiser councils within his own government. (Thus did Hussein discover, in Professor Shlaim’s words, that Netanyahu “was devious, dishonest and completely unreliable” – a judgement McGeough amply endorses at several points.) The ensuing breach with Hussein undermined Netanyahu’s credibility with his colleagues and the wider public, and contributed directly to his defeat and temporary withdrawal from politics less than two years later.
But the man is in business again.
See http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/the_tls/article6287680.ece
-
I belatedly found out that Canada did withdraw its ambassador from Israel after it was detected that the Israeli agents who tried to murder Mashal had used Canadian passports.
Related Stories
- None
Copyright Indonesia Matters 2006-2025
Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Contact
Around 20 injured in explosion in Jerusalem
Published March 23, 2011, at. 16:02.
A bus was rocked by a powerful explosion outside Jerusalem’s central bus station on Wednesday. Some 20 people have been injured in the blast, some of them seriously.
The explosion occurred shortly after 15 o’clock, and shook buildings several hundred yards away.
AFP correspondent saw many wounded people on the ground.
Dozens of ambulances and fire trucks rushed to the scene.
According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, it is unclear whether there is a suicide – something that Jerusalem has been spared for many years.
Recently a major bus bomb exploded in the city was in January 2004 when a dozen people were killed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has set up his trip to Russia because of the explosion in Jerusalem, Israeli television reported. (FNB)