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February 20, 2010 10:00am by David Farrar

General Debate 20 February 2010

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General Debate

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TimG_Oz

“biased…pre-ordained…what’s the basis of those allegations? Just that you don’t agree with me?”

What? You think you’re not biased???? You think you have a balanced, middle ground view????
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February 21, 2010 12:53am
Luc Hansen

Tim, yes.

Hurf, genocide does not necessarily entail body count. Erasing a culture, as Israel is trying to do to Palestinians fits the definition.

I’m interested in why you think I’m so wrong. What’s your reasons? What’s your take on history? How do you justify kicking off their land a peasant people who, if nothing else, had their land and their rules and were not harming anyone?
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February 21, 2010 1:00am
Hurf Durf

Yes, Luc, I too am enraged at Israel’s continuing subjugation of Palestine’s thriving arts community. The fiends!

kicking off their land a peasant people

They’re not doing a very good job, are they? They’re still there.
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February 21, 2010 1:06am
TimG_Oz

“Tim, yes.”

If you believe that, then you are seriously on another planet – must be some wicked drugs you have.
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February 21, 2010 1:15am
Patrick Starr

“must be some wicked drugs you have”

I would have though LSD after his genocide definition, The hallucinations are very apparent, but is he having an uncontrollable urge to laugh?
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February 21, 2010 8:39am
kaya

Can we have a separate Jewish/Palestinian/ME topic area along with the religious one? This is getting tedious.
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February 21, 2010 9:23am
KiwiGreg

Either that or stop responding to some pretty obvious, and poor quality, trolling
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February 21, 2010 9:31am
virtualmark

Luc. Your arguments rest on fudging semantics about language. Grow up a bit and put aside the terminology of whether we call them Jews, or Judeans, or Yehudi, or spacemen. I believe you’re a lawyer by training(?). If so it shows. Your language obfuscation would do Bill Clinton proud.

What is clear is that there was a Judean/Jewish presence in Judea/Israel/Palestine from about 1300BCE. They weren’t the only population in that area, but there was enough of them that they had their own social structure, their own identity and yes their own religion.

They have stayed in that area ever since although their numbers have waxed and waned, mainly as the result of hostile action from non-indigenes like the Romans, the Crusaders, the Ottomans etc. Probably quite naturally many of the descendants of that original group dispersed to other regions which, at they time they dispersed to them, were more hospitable and accommodating than their homeland.

In the last 120 years an increasing number of the dispersed population have returned. The returnees aren’t 100% pure descendants of the original dispersers … quite naturally there’s been a bit of intermarriage, intermingling and a bit of cultural assimilation over the centuries they spent away from their original homeland. But their cultural identity has been clearly shown to have retained links to their original homeland, so they are partly-immigrants to that original homeland and partly-returnees.

Now sure, they aren’t the only indigenous group in Palestine. But they too have a right to be there.

And what’s clear is that through history there has been ongoing disputes about who are the rightful occupiers of that land. As with nearly all international disputes it has been settled by force. That offends many of our modern sensibilities, but it is the way geopolitics work.

What’s also clear is that there has been Israeli malfeasance, and Palestinian cock-ups. Both sides are to blame for the current problem. Neither side seems adult enough to commit to a solution. It isn’t just the nasty Israelis bullying the poor misunderstood Palestinians. The Palestinians have repeatedly self-destructed.
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February 21, 2010 10:24am
virtualmark

Luc, interestingly enough … it seems the term “Palestinian” and that population’s self-identity as such (as opposed to identifying as Arabs for example) only dates back 120 years or so. So just how solid is their connection to that place?

There were Jews in Judea/Palestine long before there were “Palestinians”. So to adopt your favoured strategy of nit-picking over names, how about you drop reference to Palestinians when referring to anyone present in Judea/Palestine prior to about 1900. I don’t know if you’d prefer to refer to pre-1900 “Palestinians” as Ottomans, Sanjaks or Arabs. Your call if you like.
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February 21, 2010 10:28am
Luc Hansen

For hurf, from Wikipedia, genocide, the definition:

“Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group.”

To say that Palestinians have not been subjected to systematic destruction of their ethnicity and their cohesiveness as a group simply illustrates wilful ignorance of reality. The actions of Serbia against Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s, broadly similar but arguably many times more savage than that visited upon Palestinians, so far, were described by no other than Simon Wiesenthal as genocide – he should know.

virtualmark – i have tried to point out facts to you but you continue to regurgitate Israeli religious-based propaganda. There has never been dispute over who are the rightful occupiers of the land. There have been a passing parade of conquerors, the latest of which is currently dominant.

Israel Finkelstein clearly demonstrated the Bible bears no relation to historical fact, other than in the broadest sense i.e. that kernels of historical events were enlarged into events of monumental proportions. There was no exodus, no expulsion, no returnees to speak of. Jews, not the European kind, have had a minor presence in the land over millenia, co-existing initially with pagans, then Christians and Muslims. there were local, indigenous folk.

To close this out, as it’s no use beating one’s head against a brick wall of denial continually, it’s bad enough on climate change, you should read Shlomo Sand’s “When and How the Jewish People was Invented” available now from Whitcoulls.

While I have some queries I would love t address with the author, it will put you guys on the right track.

What disgusts me is how history and myth gets misappropriated for such self-interested and savage purposes, and how we seem to lose any moral compass, of justice and of compassion.

kiwigreg, as regards trollling, this topic was introduced on this thread by MikeNZ 10.36pm. I never start these discussions, but I am always ready to step in and argue for the other side.

See my blog for other invaluable reads.
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February 21, 2010 12:15pm
virtualmark

Luc, interesting that you think I “regurgitate Israeli religious-based propaganda”. I don’t have any particular axe to grind one way or the other on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. I think both sides have done good and bad deeds over the last 100 years, both sides have made good and bad decisions, both sides are pig-headed juveniles who are incapable of resolving their differences in an adult manner.

To some extent my view is “a pox on both your houses”. Hey, I wish it was more “good luck to you both”. But after seeing 100 years of spitting on each other I am inclined more towards that quote from Shakespeare.

You on the other hand are clearly from the pro-Palestinian camp. Lots of “Israel bad, Palestinians noble savages” type thinking.

But that’s just one-dimensional cartoon thinking – which is exactly how most of your posts read to me. They’ve got as much depth as the plot of “Avatar”, but at least James Cameron acknowledges Avatar is fiction … you seem to believe most of your stuff is objective fact and the basis for a real resolution.

The real reason the Middle East issue rumbles on year after year with no resolution is because there’s too much of the one-dimensional cartoon thinking you exhibit. No doubt you’re passionate and sincere in your support of the Palestinian cause. But you’re more one-eyed than a rabid Cantab, and seriously you are part of the problem not part of the solution.
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February 21, 2010 12:33pm
Luc Hansen

VM, your personal attacks me are unfounded.

Your statements of Jewish “return” to Palestine may as well have have been taken straight of the Israel mfa website. You need to understand the difference between myth and reality.

Regardless of all that, I have often said here and everywhere that I completely understand why Ashkenazi Jews, indigenous Europeans who converted to Judaism long ago, wished to escape centuries of pogroms in Europe. I sympathise with them over the way they were picked out for systematic attacks as the “whipping boy” of European bully boys.

I fail to see how that is one-eyed.

I also advocate that as increasing numbers of Israelis are born in Israel, one cannot expect them to leave. It’s now their homeland too. In fact, I don’t advocate that anyone leave. By the way, Israel recently proudly announced that 50% of its citizens are Israel born. But 20% are Arab Palestinians, so when that is taken into account, only 30% of non-Arab Israeli citizens are born in the country. In other words, fully 70% of non-Arab Israelis are immigrants. Imagine how the true locals feel about this!

But still, we are talking 10,000,000 people currently living in a land mass the roughly the size of Northland, one largely a bunch of immigrants who have lied and bullied their way into the land, with the connivance of the then dominant western powers, the others who are the descendants of the original inhabitants. Even Israeli archaeologists largely acknowledge this.

Let’s just have one person, one vote rule, with safeguards against discrimination as we have here, and accord all those people equal human rights.

Where’s the bias in that?
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February 21, 2010 9:18pm
virtualmark

Luc … remember my allegation of one-dimensional cartoon thinking … well how about “one largely a bunch of immigrants who have lied and bullied their way into the land, with the connivance of the then dominant western powers, the others who are the descendants of the original inhabitants” as an example?

lied and bullied, connivance, original inhabitants … really???? Your language suggests you see the Israeli-Palestinian situation with all the moral depth of a spaghetti western. Might I suggest real life is a tad more complex and multi-layered than you wrote it.

I have never seen the Israel mfa website, and wouldn’t go out of my way to seek it, so any statements I make are not from there. When I refer to Jewish return I am simply referring to it in the context of how Palestine/Israel/Canaan (and in particular Jerusalem) has been a central part of their cultural self-identity and religious beliefs for about 3,000 years now. They see it as a “return” to their spiritual home. My reference to it is simply a courtesy to use the same terms as they prefer to use. Just as I am happy to call the Palestinian exodus the Nakba.
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February 21, 2010 10:26pm
MikeNZ

LUC
You are a snake in the grass.
VM’s attacks on you are totally founded.

You know full well that is not what the Islamics want.
They want one vote once and then no more Israel.
They have never ever wanted peace.

The reason is that Israel is an affront to Islam.

But you know and understand this.
You are a liar of the highest order.
Oh so sweet and gentle and fair.
You are a bullshitter and a useful idiot of the OIC.
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February 21, 2010 10:27pm

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