Nobody but Ilhan Abdullahi Omar

[Redneck_Buddha]

I have always referred to the Palestinians as Transjordanians. Albeit with Egyptian guns to their heads, the Jordanians massed troops against Israel leading up to the Six Day War. That's a good way to get "your" land seized in the spoils of war.

In reality, what was originally a crushing defeat for the Arab world turned out to be a golden opportunity to use the stateless population as political pawns. The Arab world has absolutely no interest in absorbing or otherwise making life better for the Palestinian people. In fact, the Palestinians have it orders of magnitude better within the disputed territories than they do as refugees in certain other locations. Ever sat surrounded by relatively affluent, young Palestinians at a hoity toity, hipster restaurant or coffee shop in Ramallah, Jericho, or Hebron? I have.

And now, we see the worst of the worst violators of human rights at the head of the UN Human Rights Council, while they continue to elevate the narrative of "apartheid" victims being abused by an illegitimate, racist government.

[MaduroBU]

I have always referred to the Palestinians as Transjordanians. Albeit with Egyptian guns to their heads, the Jordanians massed troops against Israel leading up to the Six Day War. That's a good way to get "your" land seized in the spoils of war.

In reality, what was originally a crushing defeat for the Arab world turned out to be a golden opportunity to use the stateless population as political pawns. The Arab world has absolutely no interest in absorbing or otherwise making life better for the Palestinian people. In fact, the Palestinians have it orders of magnitude better within the disputed territories than they do as refugees in certain other locations. Ever sat surrounded by relatively affluent, young Palestinians at a hoity toity, hipster restaurant or coffee shop in Ramallah, Jericho, or Hebron? I have.

And now, we see the worst of the worst violators of human rights at the head of the UN Human Rights Council, while they continue to elevate the narrative of "apartheid" victims being abused by an illegitimate, racist government.

The leadership of Arab nations and Their often oppressed peoples are very distinct groups. Saddam and his ilk were thrilled to have people to blame for the consequences of their despotism.

[The Annoyed Man]

I'll stand up and say that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians concerns me. The Palestinians have not made themselves a very sympathetic group, between atrocious leadership and bring used as an excuse to exterminate Jews by all of Israel's neighbors since 1948. Israel has a unique mandate as an ethno-state (something that we in the West wouldn't tolerate under virtually any other circumstance), but they're also a Western democracy. They're also unqiue in that the religious and political climates of their neighbors put them in a strategic position that we cannot understand in the West. Giving up Golan would put all of Northern Israel (including Tel Aviv) in Syrian artillery range, while giving up the West Bank would make a 9 mile wide strip of land connecting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. If you live in Texas you think "Who cares?". If you have relatives who remember how they maintained 10:1 kill ratios in wadis along the Golan to save the country, those strategic and tactical considerations are very real. "On Both Banks of the Suez" and "The Heights of Courage" are great reads, but they also put into perspective how close and personal the Yom Kippur war was versus the conflicts that we can recall which all took place an ocean away. The Israeli position toward Palestineans hinges upon an absolute unwillingness to allow them to act as a third column or as a means of cedeing strategically vital territory (e.g. WB or Gaza, particularly with no Sinai buffer).

I think that there are valid criticisms of Israeli policy toward Palestinians, but it's also extremely easy to forget how much history goes into those conflicts. It's also too easy for us to minimize the fear and reactions of a group of people who have faced extermination at least twice in the span of 30 years. You cannot encapsulate the complex decisions in a Twitter post or a Facebook rant, and if you do, it's bound to appear (or maybe actually be) an anti-Semitic trope that does nothing to advance important discussions.

Some of the harshest critics and some of the most ardent defenders of Israeli policies are Jews. That diversity of opinion is supported by a shared understanding that NONE of the opinions voiced are motivated by anti-Semitism. That safety is a necessary precursor to meaningful debates on Israeli policy, and Omar's flippant comments completely undermine it. I don't know if she hates Jews or if she is just a moron, but it is clear that she moved her own aims backward by saying something idiotic.

What a great post! Thanks for helping to separate the wheat from the chaff. I agree with BitterClinger though, when he quoted Netanyahu’s famous aphorism - that if the Palestinians gave up their weapons tomorrow, there would be peace. if Israel gave up her weapons tomorrow, there would be another holocaust.

Until the PA gives up and stops selling their toxic “from the river to the sea” nonsense to western leftists, those leftists will continue to feel empowered to give voice to their anti Semitic inner totalitarians.

[Bitter Clinger]

Israel is surrounded by 22 Arab countries that are 640 times her size and contain 65 times her population. The Arabs have greater than 99% of the Middle East and complain that Israel is "occupying" their land! Without the West Bank which was recaptured from the Arabs in 1967, Israel would be only 9 miles wide at its narrowest point with the strategic high ground given over to her enemies, as it was after stopping the Arab invasion that occurred with independence from Britain in 1948.

13 Million inhabitants of Israel are surrounded by 2.1 Billion Muslims. In 2011 Israel was 75.4% Jewish, 20.6% Arab, and 4.1% minority groups.

There are far FEWER Palestinian "refugees" in the West Bank than there were Jewish refuges forced to flee their homes in Arab countries after 1948. The Arab population in Israel has grown since 1948, the Jewish population in Arab countries has declined to almost nothing.

[The Annoyed Man]

I am really enjoying this discussion.

[joe817]

I am really enjoying this discussion.

As am I.

[powerboatr]

I am really enjoying this discussion.

me to, very much
I had forgotten a whole bunch of history.

[G26ster]

Great Britain split Palestine in two after World War 2. The Jews got the small piece.



How soon people forget.

Based on this 1920-1948 map, the Palestinians must be demanding Jordan give back their land too? Also, on a map from 800BC, I can find the Kingdom of Israel right in the middle of where it is now, but I can't seem to locate Palestine.

[Beiruty]

[Beiruty]

[Beiruty]

We the people

[G26ster]

Show me Palestine on this map from 800BC. I see Israel, where is Palestine?



By Oldtidens_Israel_&_Judea.svg: FinnWikiNoderivative work: Richardprins (talk) - Oldtidens_Israel_&_Judea.svghttp://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/map-of-isr ... ah-733-bce, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.p ... d=10872389

[Bitter Clinger]

The Jews have no where else to go. The Palestinian Arabs wish to complete the unfinished work of the Nazi's and exterminate the Jews from the 0.4% of the land area that the Jews occupy in the otherwise virtually all Muslim Middle East.

The Arabs were aligned with the Nazis in WWII and like all extremist far left wing ideologies, and as we see here today in our own schools and universities, the Arabs know that they must first corrupt their own children and turn them into Jew murdering terrorists (like the Nazis did with the Hitler youth). Meanwhile the Israelis continue to provide advanced medical care to seriously ill Arab children who might otherwise perish.

One cannot witness this and deny the existence of both good and evil in the world.



Israeli Doctors Save Desperately Sick Palestinian Teen Despite Middle East Politics
http://www.breakingchristiannews.com/ar ... l?ID=23415

[ninjabread]

"And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea even unto the Mediterranean Sea, and from the Wilderness unto the River: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee."
- Exodus 23:31

Note: the eastern boundary of the Promised Land may be the Euphrates rather than the Jordan.

[PriestTheRunner]

...
"And I will set thy bounds from the Red Sea even unto the Mediterranean Sea, and from the Wilderness unto the River: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee."
- Exodus 23:31
Note: the eastern boundary of the Promised Land may be the Euphrates rather than the Jordan.

Double fulfillment (if you subscribe to it) is an INCREDIBLE thing...

https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/grac ... 3-2_13.pdf

"These are the words which I spake unto you while I
was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which
were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets,
and in the psalms concerning me."

According to Christ's own words, the message of the Old Testament was the coming Messiah. We should not be surprised then to discover that the prophets looked first at their own situation, but ultimately at the coming Messiah. (We have already observed that double reference prophecy is usually fulfilled ultimately in the person of Christ or the affairs of His kingdom.)

I also am greatly enjoying this thread.


(And another example:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?s ... ersion=ESV

Psalm 83 English Standard Version (ESV)
O God, Do Not Keep Silence
A Song. A Psalm of Asaph.
83 O God, do not keep silence;
do not hold your peace or be still, O God!
2 For behold, your enemies make an uproar;
those who hate you have raised their heads.
3 They lay crafty plans against your people;
they consult together against your treasured ones.
4 They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation;
let the name of Israel be remembered no more!”
5 For they conspire with one accord;
against you they make a covenant—
6 the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites,
Moab and the Hagrites,
7 Gebal and Ammon and Amalek,
Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre;
8 Asshur also has joined them;
they are the strong arm of the children of Lot. Selah

9 Do to them as you did to Midian,
as to Sisera and Jabin at the river Kishon,
10 who were destroyed at En-dor,
who became dung for the ground.
11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb,
all their princes like Zebah and Zalmunna,
12 who said, “Let us take possession for ourselves
of the pastures of God.”

13 O my God, make them like whirling dust,[a]
like chaff before the wind.
14 As fire consumes the forest,
as the flame sets the mountains ablaze,
15 so may you pursue them with your tempest
and terrify them with your hurricane!
16 Fill their faces with shame,
that they may seek your name, O Lord.
17 Let them be put to shame and dismayed forever;
let them perish in disgrace,
18 that they may know that you alone,
whose name is the Lord,
are the Most High over all the earth.