QuakerInfo.com Forum

[Shay]

[Kiahanie]

[michaeldavidjay]

But two states would be a land return -- East Jerusalem and the west bank goes back to Jordan. Why a three state solution?
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Do Friends speak to today's condition, or are we only a historical footnote?

[Kiahanie]

Jordan gave up its claim to the West Bank and Jerusalem 20 or 30 years ago. Most nations (including Arab nations) didn't recognize the Jordanian claim, anyway, the West Bank having been part of the territory the UN set aside for a Palestinian state, but captured by Transjordan during the 1948 war.

Currently, the West Bank is still intended for a Palestinian state. I've never heard anyone talk of returning the West Bank to Jordan. I don't think that would go over very well -Palestinian lands have already been whittled away to less than half that provided by the 1947 UN resolution, to the point where Palestine cannot be a viable state unless the Greenline boundaries of 1967 are restored.
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"There is a field out beyond right and wrong. I'll meet you there." --Jellaludin Rumi

[CelticNorth]

No one in the United States or England would ever consent to surrendering their land by a United Nations decree of partition designed and implemented by politicians of other super powers, but this is exactly what is expected of the Arab and Mulsim population that makes up Palestine. They had every right to refuse the partition of their lands and not recognize the Jewish state, which they did militarily, but were defeated with military arms given to the Zionist by Britian. I find the postion of the BBC untenable, given thier easy access to the history of England in creating the nightmare we now know as the "Middle East". The BBC, if even handed, should be supporting the boycot of Israel as equally as they did that of apartheid South Africa, and demanding the rollback of the illegal Jewish "settlements" in both Gaza and the West Bank. When a comedian is accused of "anti-Semitism" for incorporating issues of Israeli apartheid in a monologue and the BBC feels it has to issue an apology, one can only loose esteem for the BBC.

[michaeldavidjay]

@ McG... huh?


I met someone who lived in Ramalla... and he told me something of its history. Palistine has been occupied and rulled by foriegn powers since ancient times... most recently after the fall of the Ottoman empire, the UK. I had understood that people ablee to leavve had a Jordanian passport.
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Do Friends speak to today's condition, or are we only a historical footnote?

[michaeldavidjay]

By the way -- anyone who claims there was no significant Jewish population in Judea is using numbers produced by a government that... well people are put in prison by the Turks if they consider the Armeanian genocide a historical fact. I don't trust numbers or history provided by turks
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Do Friends speak to today's condition, or are we only a historical footnote?

[CelticNorth]

I think the population statistic most often quoted regarding Jews living in Palestine at the time Theordore Herzel published "The Jewish State" and advocated the Zionist ideology of creating a Jewish homeland for European Jews there, was only around 6% of the population of Palestine, most of whom were centered around Jerusalem. Palestine, as a region of the Ottoman Empire, was conquered and settled by Mulsims in the 7th century. Thats comparable to England back in day of Danelaw and Norse rule by the Vikings. Are Englishmen willing to give the Danes a right of return to ancient lands held in England so they can relive their histroic past ? The best book I have seen on the subject of Zionist claims to Palestine is "A Peace to End All Peace", by David Fromkin, a 1989 New York Times Bestseller for that year. I think what is difficult to discern for many people, especially in conjuction with the BBC "apology", is why speaking up against Isreali transgressions and violation of international law is considered "anti-semetic" ? And just who are the die hard supporters of Israel making these "anti-semitic " claims, which the BBC responds to ? In light of the recent Israeli siezure of East Jersualem lands belonging to Palestinians, it's absurd journalism by the BBC.

[james]

[Anthony]

[CelticNorth]

Good point, James, as I have always felt Zionism itself has gone through various stages of ideological development. It is true its beginnings were a reaction to discrimination through out Europe, but it came to assume a near identical and insidious form of racism itself. Christian doctrine also had a lot to play in the European powers permtting Jewish settlement in Palestine under the British Mandate; as early as the mid-seventeeth century, two English Puritans residing in Holland- Joanna and Ebenezer Cartwright- petitioned their governement "That this Nation of England, with the inhabitants of the Netherlands, shall be the first and the readiest to transport Isreal's sons and daughters in thier ships to the Land promised by thier forfathers, Abraham, Issac and Jacob for an everlasting Inheritance"- guided by the Scriptures, many Puritans believed that the advent of the Messiah would occur once the people of Judea were restored to their native land. I belive that many Christian theologians, even today, quote scripture and the return of the Jews to Isreal as a prerequsite of the Second Coming, and justification for their support of Isreal at any cost. One could successfully argue that "Biblical" guidance from both the Old and New Testaments has been a dose of equal poison when mixed with forgien policy in the Middle East. Both Jews and Christians, clinging to historic identities long eclisped by time and history, are like equal partners in the crime. One shoots the guns, while the other sits in silence.

[michaeldavidjay]

Early Muslim expansion did less to remove Jews than Titus did in the 1st century AD... and far less than the Crusades and the Latin kingdom... Arabs and "Jews" are closer than Arabs and Turks... and, no Zionist would count the Hebrew remnant... they are rather hostile to the tribe of Joseph, for example... who never left Palestine -- as they were not part of the Babylonian captivity.
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Do Friends speak to today's condition, or are we only a historical footnote?

[james]

McGuffey, Anthony...I just don't understand why you can't speak with a little balance and without making gross exaggerations. I have not attempted to justify or excuse the abysmal treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli government. But you both seem to be implying a moral equivalency between Israel's treatment of the Palestinians (once again ignoring the culpability of surrounding Arab countries), and Nazi Germany's treatment of the Jews. Do you really believe that? If so, I can only hope that your delusion is based on ignorance of what has actually happened in these two historical times. The alternative is that you understand the history, and truly can't see the difference. Scary.
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James Riemermann
www.nontheistfriends.org
www.liberalquakers.org

[Anthony]

[Kiahanie]