Huh?

sorry anonymass, didn't mean to leave you out - didn't realize so much of that last stuff was yours. thanks to you too.

vanessa and dave, i hope you both realize that you've done something very good here today, all the way down to the less intelligent name calling that characterized your most recent posts. although at times your arguments passed each other's by (vanessa, it would have been nice to see you answer some of dave's six questions, particularly whether you think the jews have a right to a state, because when you say they "stole" palestine, it doesn't seem to leave much room for discussion), it is worth noting that each of you espouses a typical centrist view in the middle east.

we might ask how it can be that two centrist views could be so vehemently opposed to one another?

i think the answer lies in the use of the historical narrative. neither dave nor vanessa grossly misrepresented what most of the world agrees on as historical fact. indeed, the two seem to agree on the facts, but disagree on the relative importance and context of those facts.

i also think the name calling should invoke some empathy and understanding for what the people in the region are going through. dave and vanessa are two intelligent people well out of harm's immediate way. dave and vanessa never have to see each other. by all indications dave is not israeli and vanessa is not an arab. yet they are still driven to ugly name calling by the strength of their convictions and the feeling that the conflict is zero sum. imagine what it must be like for those living in the region. for "moderates" from tyre to haifa.

By the way, interesting article in today's NYT about the rise of sharia law in Indonesia. Ladies and gentlemen: your Islam at work.

An excerpt:

"Across this most religious of Indonesia’s provinces, brown uniformed policemen in black wagons enforce Shariah, or Islamic law. They haul unmarried couples into precincts and arrest people for drinking or gambling. Increasingly, many of the cases are pushed to the ultimate conclusion, public canings at mosques in front of pumped-up crowds."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/01/world/asia/01indo.html?hp&ex=1154491200&en=37c2f26e0c5aa539&ei=5094&partner=homepage

Sounds really peaceful and 'live and let live' to me.

Oh, I see. If someone disagrees with your pathetic uninformed ass, they're part of some collusion. Moron. I thought you were leaving.

Aha, I figured it out, Anonymass/David/Etc...You must be one of these guys, spreading the hate...Good luck, the facts speak louder than words, you dumb f%ck:

http://infowars.net/articles/july2006/300706cyber-soldiers.htm

You poor, misinformed woman. I'm neither a 'hater' (Jerry Springer lingo aside) nor a lobbyist. Just a concerned citizen of the world.

You obviously have your own agenda and, like any typical partisan, you're more interested in screaming your own point at the top of your lungs than responding to the topic at hand.

I don't know what "weak arguments" you're referring to - parts of the Quran itself were quoted in this thread. If that's not a good source for understanding Islam, I'm open to other suggestions. You unenlightened dolt.

PS - Settlers are human scum and they deserve whatever ills befall them. At least we agree on that.

Aside from bad-mouthing Islam you still haven't said anything substantial.

And FYI, I have spent time in the region - both as a traveler, and as part of a delegation of professors. Also, I know several people who live in different parts of the Middle East, including a woman based in Palestine who works with the American Friends Service Committee. She has lived in the West Bank for 6 years. Now if you want to talk about hate then talk to her. She's got pictures too - photos of the "settler" graffiti which is so messed up I won't re-write their words here. She's got pix of Israeli children yelling at and trying to pull the scarves/clothing off of Palestinians as they walk down their own streets. Now if that's not brainwashing of children, then what is it?

As for your Ottoman malarkey, anyone can go back in time and claim that this piece of land is theirs because hundreds of years ago some of their ancestors might have lived on it. If you want to trip back a couple of hundred years and blame the Ottomans, go ahead. But I look at it this way - - when the zionists came in droves to Palestine, particularly in the mid-20th century, they stole, murdered, and caused a mass exodus of Palestinians from their homes. That has happened in our very recent history.

If people came to my parents' house and tried to take it from them claiming that it's their right because a couple of hundred years ago they knew or had some vague connection to the people who lived in the house I would just laugh (before joyfully kicking them to the proverbial curb). And a court of law would agree - the invaders/thieves would be told that what happened hundreds of years doesn't count...

You can keep posting here, and saying Islam = hate and blah blah blah, but your weak arguments just prove you to be the hateful, confused, sad person that you are. You're on a personal mission, I see, but at the end of day the facts will shame you. And what's your deal anyway, like are you a hustler for the Israeli lobby? An ambassador of propaganda? A card-carrying member of some hate group? LOL! (Oh, and for more info on how the Israeli lobby is pulling strings here in the U.S. please read: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/072706J.shtml )

You go to Gaza, go to East Jerusalem. Talk to an old Palestinian man whose childhoold home still stands but which he can't enter because Israeli's stole it and live in it. Talk to a mother who wasn't able to see her son in the hospital before he died because Israelis wouldn't let her cross from Gaza to East Jersuslam. Talk to people in Qalqiliya who live in a walled, contained area where they can't leave, like prisoners. Talk to Palestinians who don't receive water for days because Israeli's have plunked their "settlements" (such a ridiculous, misleading word) on top of water aquifiers (built by Palestinians) and steal the water. You do that you silly hateful man, and then come talk to me. Don't tell me to spend time in the region. I've seen enough for a lifetime, and it still haunts me.

By the way, I want to clarify that when I object to the Israeli government it doesn't mean I'm saying anything about all Jews or their religion per se. I am condemning a hateful ideology (zionism) and its government which has happens to be running Israel. During my travels I met many Jews who were actively fighting against zionism. I just want to clarify that here, because I don't want to be sad like you - hating and blaming a whole religion and people for some extremist group's ideologies.

You can say what you want about Islam, but considering what I've seen as a reporter and as a traveler, the muslims I have met are like any other people - some are great, some are not, most fall somewhere in the middle - just people trying to make a life. And considering the adversity and some of the war/terror crimes committed on them by Israel and the U.S. it's a surprising that more of them are not more hateful...

Goodbye. I don't have time to come back here and try to educate/enlighten you. Though I am glad to have had this opportunity to impart some useful facts and information for people to read and learn about. (It's info they won't typically find in the American mass media) .

You haters and your pro-Israeli lobby will lead to the end of this world if you don't stop your insanity soon. Damn, go to a spa. Get laid. Let it go.

Vanessa's cute little diatribes with the tiresome "actions speak louder than gefiltefish" or whatever nonsense she's spewing doesn't change this simple truth:

There never was a Palestine for present-day Israel to steal. If you want to place blame on the displacement of Palestinians, blame the Ottoman Empire for choosing the wrong team in WWI.

I'm well aware of Israel's behavior the past few decades. Mot many objective people could look at their record and say with pride that there weren't atrocities committed. That doesn't change my basic premise: that Islam is a religion of hatred and that in its present form it must be eradicated (as must all religion, frankly).

Actions speak louder than words: bullshit. Not always. Words in this case representing the curricula of children throughout the Middle East who are taught from the get-go to hate Jews. And so, in that way they are more powerful than actions as indoctrination and the hate-filled Quran are the basis of 90% of "thought" and 99% of "culture" amongst these hardline Muslims. And no, I'm not Jewish. I'm a realist.

You'd probably learn from a little time spent in the region. Actually talk to people who live there to get into the mindset.

One need not be an Israeli apologist to recognize the situation on the ground for what it is.

I'm just a retired investor with a pension. I came here to vote in the elections, because they wouldn't give me an absentee ballot.

Are you Jewish, Dave?

Vanessa,

Okay, let's say you are right. The Jews stole Palestinian land that was rightfully Muslim. Now let's talk about actions. Just answer these six questions:

1) Are the Israelis to blame for what Assad did to the people of Hama in 1982?

2) Are the Israelis to blame for what the Iranians and Iraqis and Syrians and Turks have done to the Kurds?

3) Are the Israelis to blame for Lebanon's last civil war or their next?

4) Are the Israelis to blame for what King Hussein did to the Palestinians during Black September in 1970 in Jordan?

5) Does the fact that the Israelis do brutal things in a brutal part of the world make them wrong? Or just realistic? Or what is your take? In case you don't get my point, I'm asking if you think that acting like a brute amongst brutes means the Israelis are to blame for the region's problems or merely acting tough enough to survive in a tough neighborhood?

6) Do you believe that such a thing as what historians call "The Holocaust" actually happened during WWII, and at least 5.8 millions Jews were murdered during it? And do you think it is in the Jews' interest to have a homeland somewhere on planet earth (obviously you don't think they should have one in The Middle East)?

I'd be really interested in your answers on all six of these questions. Please take the time to respond to all of them. This may be the most interesting discussion I've ever read on this blog.

Peace be upon you.

Aw Dave, you're wrong, I get to use the "shtick" word whenever and wherever I damn well please. I used it above and will use it again and again.

And I repeat - actions speak louder than words. Some fringe group chanting in Iran has nothing on Israel's actual actions - their legacy of war, hate, and brutality. I encourage all readers to look up more info on what I posted above. They will discover some bloody ugly truths about how Israel has behaved ever since it stole the land of the Palestinians, and murdered thousands to keep living on it...building a city like Tel Aviv on the bones of dead Palestinians.

I don't care about some Iranians chanting. The Iranians are the least of my concerns. Thousands of them also came out after 9/11 and had a vigil to commerate the dead here in America.

Now here's the most important part, and swish this around your head for a bit:

The facts speak way louder than your words too, Anonymass or Dave. If all you can come back with is some little post about my choice of language and some cockamamie shtick about a fringe group in Iran chanting, then that's just proof that you've lost the argument.

Vanessa,

If you are going to talk like that, you don't get to use the word "SHTICK."

Also, do you think the "Death To America" chant the Iranians have been doing like bizarro bleacher creatures for 25 years has been mistranslated too? Maybe it's just Farsi for "The America, The."

LOL! Anonymass, you're too funny...

Israel may not have stated as policy of destruction of another country, but they already have done so, starting in 1947 when they took pillaged Palestine (kicking people out of their homes, murdering thousands, pushing the rest into the Gaza strip and West Bank in decrepit conditions where Israel does everything from appropriate water and bulldoze homes and olive groves). And in the past few decades, Israel is going on to country #2 - destroying Lebanon and doing so as we speak.

So maybe they don't state that destructing countries is not their policy. Big whoop. The fact is they already have. Action speaks considerably louder than words.

The problem is with folks like you, who have a boner for putting down Islam, and love quoting that line by Iran's president while ignoring facts. Actions speaks way louder than Iran's new leader's words. (And by the way, by many accounts, his words were not properly translated and taken out of context, by the American press).

But go ahead, do the bidding of the Israeli lobby that's jonesing to fight with Iran...spread the propaganda, but at the end of the day you have to look at the history and the actions.

To get you started:

In the late 1950s, the U.S. with the healthy aid of Israel's Mossad, helped overthrow Iran's democratically elected, non-religious, president Mossadegh. Why? Because Mossadegh wanted to nationalize Iran's oil and get the Brits, Americans, etc. out of the country - - akin to what Venezuela's Chavez is currently doing (let's see how long he lasts before he's uh - eliminated).

So the U.S. installed the puppet Shah. And with the aid of Israel's Mossad they trained the Shah's forces (known as SAVAK) in such brutal methods of torture, etc, that Amnesty International stated SAVAK had one of the worst human rights records in history. Again, and this is all on the books, the U.S. and Mossad did the training...Thousands and thousands of Iranians disappeared, were murdered, and brutally tortured...

One of the worst parts of all this is that Mossadegh (the man that the Iranian's had democratically elected) was a doctor, well-educated, secular...How different Iran would have been now if it wasn't for the murder and torture that the U.S. and Israel initiated in that country.

So you can keep doing that "oh what the Iranian president said" shtick, but at the end of the day, history shows that it has been the U.S. and Israel that has destroyed countries, toppled governments, and trained one of the most brutal security forces in modern history.

As the saying goes "action speaks louder than words". Know your roots. Know your history before you speak your platitudes Anonymass.

If you were to create a chart listing all of Israel's transgressions against their "neighbors" it would read like a murder manual of hate, including the way they got their country in the first place (destruction of Palestine).

Ironically Israel's religion of choice includes 10 commandments (which actually were taken from ancient Hammurabi's Code of Law) and one of those commandments is Love Thy Neighbor. They've done anything but, since taking over Palestine in the mid-20th century.

So keep harping on that dumb line said by Iran's new president. Maybe if Israel didn't f*ck with Iran for decades, history would have been radically different, and this guy would have sweeter things to say.

So I say to you - am I more worried about what some Johnny-Come-lately president of Iran has said (and whose words have probably been taken out of context). Or am I worred about the country whose actually has destroyed two countries to date: Palestine and Lebanon.

Hhhhmmmm, scary indeed. Wake up and get thee some learnin'.

One need not be an apologist for Israel to also see the inherent dangers in Islam.

Israel is and has been committing all sorts of atrocities in the past several decades - that's not really debatable.

However, Israel doesn't state as its policy the destruction of other countries, unlike, say, the president of Iran. This shit starts at the top and trickles down to the masses. That is the problem with Islam.

Gosh all the comments above are like a microcosm of the fighting going on around the world. A bunch of back-and-forth she said, he said malarkey. The fact is, Gothamist did indeed set this scenario up by posting only one photo of the demonstration, and one that showed a fringe group that did not remotely represent the vast majority at the demonstration.

As for the person who said that Jews don't do this kind of thing, please, at the end of the day people are people...Every nation, every religion, every culture, has fringe elements. Over a year ago, I was at Union Square talkig politics with a young man who had a pro-Palestine sign and a bunch of kids who were from Israel, and who spoke very good English, said things that I can't repeat here. The things they said were so horrible that I was shaking. No one has a corner on the market when it comes to virtuosity, that's why the world is such a pathetic mess.

Interestingly, an Israeli professor from Tel Aviv University wrote an article in Israel's Haaretz which discusses some of this, as well as the brutal facts of what Israel has been doing in Lebanon for decades. Read it...and weep:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/742257.html

I'm a little late to the party, but I read through to the end and all I was thinking was pretty much what Dave said.

And it seemed to me that the photo was chosen because it was the easiet to make fun of (just guessing).

IMHO, the whole thing is way too complicated to just be pithy in a post about, but good for you guys for taking a stab. You know how oppression starts? When one of you turns to the other and says "Let's take a pass on the Middle East story, we'll just be asking for trouble."

Now back to our regularly scheduled racist diatribes...

Jen,

We've been leaving it up to journalists for a long while and look where they've gotten us. The only people who ask hard questions on tv anymore are on Comedy Central. And print is dead. Egon called it during Ghostbusters back in 84.

This is a blog. This is the next thing. This is how it works now.

Gothamist can put up this shot without COMMENTary because it is up to US to leave COMMENTS on this blog. And we did. You included. Nice work Jen.

And nice work Garth.

"Please, next time, when it comes to the big issues / world politics / foreign policy / religious wars, don't go there. Leave that up to the journalists who can give it the space and time it deserves."

Like when an fundamentalist Christian pro-lifer threatens the lives of doctors who perform abortion? Would you prefer a more "balanced" portrayal of such an issue in this case?

Doubt it.