REPORTER: Isn't it cowardly to have bombs carried in baskets to public places by Muslim women?When you take away a person's home, a person's dignity, and finally, a person's hope for a better future, who in the hell is surprised when they resort to violence?
LARBI BEN M'HIDI: Is it any less cowardly to bomb villages from planes with napalm? Give us your planes, and we'll give you our baskets.
Israel calls the Haram al-Sharif the “Temple Mount” because Jews believe it was the site of the Second Temple destroyed during Roman times. In recent years, Jewish settler groups – some with close ties to the Israeli government – have advocated building a “Third Temple", which would necessitate the destruction of the existing Muslim holy sites.Silly question: Is there anything explicit in the holy texts of either religion saying that it would be out of the question to share a temple/mosque with people of another religion? Or, if not, any specific mutual incompatibilities (e.g. a temple must have something orange in it, and nothing orange is allowed in a mosque, or whatever)?
Among other documents due to be released is an Israeli offer to transfer Israeli Arabs citizens to the territory of a future Palestinian state.... so I can't see the context for myself, but is there anything to indicate that it would be mandatory?
You saw with your own eyes what the LORD did at Baal Peor. The LORD your God destroyed from among you everyone who followed the Baal of Peor, but all of you who held fast to the LORD your God are still alive today. . .Yeah, that guy is like the worst S.O. in the world. Imagine having an omnipotent stalker.
Be careful not to forget the covenant of the LORD your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the LORD your God has forbidden. For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the LORD your God and arousing his anger, I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. The LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the LORD will drive you.
Among other documents due to be released is an Israeli offer to transfer Israeli Arabs citizens to the territory of a future Palestinian state.
During the last two years, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has suffered serious setbacks. Other than for a brief, fleeting moment, Israelis and Palestinians have had no direct political contact and there is little hope, for now at least, that this will change. Any faith Israelis and Palestinians may have in the possibility of an agreement is collapsing.posted by russilwvong at 11:04 PM on January 23, 2011
The US, sponsor of that process, has seen its credibility badly damaged. The Obama administration was repeatedly rebuffed—by Israel, from whom it had demanded a full halt in settlement construction; by Palestinians it pressed to engage in direct negotiations; by Arab states it hoped would take steps to normalize relations with Israel. An administration that never tires of saying it cannot want peace more than the parties routinely belies that claim by the desperation it exhibits in pursuing that goal. Today, there is little trust, no direct talks, no settlement freeze, and, one at times suspects, not much of a US policy.
Less visible but equally grievous is the growing loss of interest in negotiations on the part of Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Two years ago, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, was somewhat confident that, with a strong US push, Israel could be convinced to reach a historic deal. Since then, his confidence has been fading. Benjamin Netanyahu began his prime ministership in March 2009 with an ambivalent commitment and apparently little motivation to reach a peace deal with the Palestinians. During the period that followed, his commitment and motivation significantly diminished. For both leaders, facing publics more disenchanted than they are, it has become a political liability to project belief that negotiations can yield something. Without genuine engagement by the leaders, progress in the talks—direct, indirect, or otherwise—will be unattainable.
The current impasse has exposed a problem that runs deeper than misjudgments and missteps. Almost two decades after the peace process was launched, little remains of the foundational principle that each side has something of value to which the other aspires and thus something it can offer in exchange for what it wants. Israel holds a monopoly over all material assets. It controls Palestinian land, natural resources, and lives. Israel’s economy is flourishing, its security for now seemingly assured. Its occupation of Palestinian territories is subsidized by Western powers that purportedly seek its end. Although not as satisfactory as Israelis would like, the status quo is not as unpleasant as their adversaries would wish. Israel has become accustomed to the way things are.
"in terms of American interests and regional peace, there is plenty of peril in democracy. It was not democrats, but Arab autocrats, Anwar Sadat of Egypt and King Hussein of Jordan, who made peace with Israel. An autocrat firmly in charge can make concessions more easily than can a weak, elected leader — just witness the fragility of Mahmoud Abbas’s West Bank government. And it was democracy that brought the extremists of Hamas to power in Gaza. In fact, do we really want a relatively enlightened leader like King Abdullah in Jordan undermined by widespread street demonstrations? We should be careful what we wish for in the Middle East.""Angry Arab" As'ad Aboukhalil wrote:
Those Zionist hoodlums basically want 300 million Arabs to be crushed by the various tyrannies provided Israeli occupation interests are served in the region. Do you see why Arabs blame (rightly) Israel for many of the region's problems? They know that it is--in addition to its occupation and war crimes--an extension of the tyrannical order there.posted by Gnatcho at 11:20 PM on January 23, 2011 [5 favorites]
The United States for decades has supplied a variety of military assistance to Indonesia, a multi-ethnic archipelago of a country that is home to some 241 million people and, not incidentally, the world’s largest Muslim nation. During this period, Indonesia was ruled primarily by dictatorial leaders, and as a result, American military aid often was controversial. In 1998, Indonesians took to the streets to oust their longtime strongman, Suharto, opening up a period of democratic reform. But internal conflicts, some ethnic, some religious and others purely local, continue to roil the nation, and human rights groups still view the Indonesian military as a serial abuser of human rights. That set up a dilemma for Washington, which during the 1990s curbed severely its military ties with Indonesia’s armed forces, only to ramp it up again after the events of September 11, 2001. The 9/11 attacks convinced U.S. policymakers that confronting al-Qaeda-linked terrorist networks in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia, had to take priority. (source)Obviously, the bit that's important is not that Indonesia is a democracy. It's that Indonesia's government takes orders and is useful to us, just like Egypt. And I'll guarantee you that if Indonesia ever stopped taking orders, all of the violence against Christians would be front page news as evidence of a "new" member of the evil empire, just as we suddenly remembered Saddam's crimes when it became useful to us as a pretense for invasion.
« Older A template for every awful Facebook discussion you... | Catfish: Filmmakers Ariel Schu... Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Why would they? They've taken it anyway, and they're just in the process of moving those of undesireable ethnicities on so it can be settled by the "right sort of person".
posted by rodgerd at 3:09 PM on January 23, 2011 [2 favorites]