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"Talking to newsmen at Chaklala Airbase before his departure, Musharraf said the world should resolve the problems faced by the Ummah urgently, to get rid of terrorism and extremism.President Musharraf said an urgent solution of problems is must due to gravity of situation in Iraq, Iran, Palestine and Lebanon."
-- from this article
What is "Palestine" as referred to so blithely by Musharraf, and reported as if it were not to be questioned? The toponym "Palestine" was used in Western Christendom to refer to that land on both sides of the river Jordan which roughly corresponded to Biblical Palestine. More recently, it was the name given to that territory set aside by the League of Nations under the Mandate for Palestine for the establishment of the Jewish National Home that became the State of Israel -- after Israel successfully defended itself from the attacking Arabs during the War of Independence.
The use of the word "Palestine" by Arabs and Muslims is an attempt to efface Israel, and to replace it by a term that reifies that which does not exist -- an Arab "Palestine." It is not an innocent matter, devoid of meaning. Those non-Muslims who, like Blair, may refer to "Palestine" are in fact behaving, nolens-volens or perhaps willingly, as mouthpieces for Arab propaganda. No one who uses the term "Palestine" at present is doing anything other than furthering the Arab and Muslim worldview.
After each appearance of the word "Palestine" in the Western, i.e., non-Muslim press, there should be an indication that there is not now (and many hope there never will be) a state called "Palestine." It is as phony as a state called "Mandela" which some black-power advocates wished, a dozen years ago, to carve out of parts of Boston, or the "Caliphate" that was created by a certain Turk in Cologne and which attracted a few thousand potential inhabitants.
There is a "Palestinian" Authority. There are local Arabs carefully renamed after 1967 as the "Palestinian people" -- a phrase that appears nowhere in the statements of any Arab leader, or U.N. ambassador, or any other public figure, between 1948 and 1967. And even after the Six-Day War, it took several years for the new phrase, as with any propagandistic effort, to stick. There is not now a "Palestine." What was known in the West as "Palestine" is the current state of Israel and includes the land to which it had right by the terms of the League of Nations' Mandate. Israel has a legal, historic, and moral claim to that land that is much more considerable than anything concocted by the Arab Muslims. There are Arabs and Jews in Israel, as there are Arabs and Kurds in Iraq and Arabs and Berbers in Algeria and Morocco, and Arabs and Copts in Egypt. But there is not, even if the phrase is used a hundred million times, a distinct "Palestinian people." And there is no "Palestine" that should rightly be referred to without the reporter or news agency quoting someone using the phrase taking the time to simply indicate its not referring to a real country -- lest the ignorant be confused.
Here is how Musharraf's little comment, deplorable for many reasons, should appear if the Khaleej Times report is reprinted or quoted:
"President Musharraf said an urgent solution of problems is must due to gravity of situation in Iraq, Iran, Palestine [sic] and Lebanon."
One mo' time:
Palestine [sic], Palestine [sic], Palestine [sic].
Such a country does not exist. Muslims, both of the Slow and the Fast Jihad variety, would like it to exist. Infidels understand that the existence of such a state would create for Israel an intolerable threat to its existence, and would almost certainly lead after a suitable interval to Israel's disappearance and to the loss of the Holy Land to the Western world. That would be a colossal blow to Western morale, which is already still reeling, subliminally, from the effects of the Nazi murders and widespread participation or support by others in those murders and the battening on that loot. It would lead not to a sating of Muslim appetites in the world but to a whetting of those very appetites. For there is no such thing as "compromise" with Infidels. Either the forces of Islam can keep fighting, or they must stop fighting temporarily, or seek new instruments of warfare, if they are defeated on the battlefield. But the state of war between Dar al-Islam and Dar al-Harb continues forever, and is not affected by a temporary hudna, or by the inability of Muslims, for the moment, to attack.
Triumph in one area -- and the disappearance of Israel would be a great triumph -- does not lead to a willingness or desire to stop working steadily for the spread of Islam, and against all barriers to its ultimate dominance everywhere. The Qur'an does not say, and Allah never said: Win back from the Jews any land that they may control, and stop there. The Qur'an does not say, Allah never said: Take back all the lands that once were part of Dar al-Islam, including Spain, Sicily, parts of southern France, Greece, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Rumania, Bulgaria, much of Hungary, most of India, and so on, and then the Jihad can stop. No: Allah commands that the world belongs to him, and to Islam, and to the Believers. Why should it be otherwise?
Indeed. Why should it be otherwise?
Posted by Hugh at January 21, 2007 2:36 PM
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I'd be more than happy to append [sic] everytime I type Palestine, Palestinian, Pali,... [sic],[sic],[sic] Too bad there isn't an autocorrect feature here like in MS Word that would enable that to happen automatically.
Can one of the JW administrators write a script that automatically appends [sic] behind the above terms?
Other than that, I'll append it whenever I write Palestine, except when I'm referring to the geographical entity that fits this description: for instance, when I type "King Richard I set off for Palestine", I won't append [sic] in those cases.
Posted by: Infidel Pride![[TypeKey Profile Page]](https://swap.stanford.edu/was/20100322163935im_/http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at January 21, 2007 2:50 PM
How about the ummahs problems in Thailand, China, Philippines, Indonesia, and on and on. I don't think the ummahs problems willl ever end.
Posted by: TheOmegaMan at January 21, 2007 3:00 PM
For my part, I have used scare quotes (e.g. The Israel/"Palestine" Conflict) ever since coming to the same conclusions.
Posted by: ZionistYoungster at January 21, 2007 5:35 PM
Moqtada Sadr calls for a solution to the "palestinian [sic] question" in Iraq:
Leave or die!
(How did the infidels get him to say this?)
see report (posted at January 21, 2007 2258 (GMT+02:00) here: http://www.debka.com/
Posted by: TINBH at January 21, 2007 5:58 PM
Biblical Palestine is equal to Biblical Philistia which is equal to the southwestern corner of Isreal; it is just a bit bigger than the Gaza Strip.
The name Palestine was applied to the greater area comprising Judea, Samaria, Galilee and Perea by an imperial occupying force (Rome) who did so to help quash the idea of a Jewish homeland. That was ca. 135 AD, and therefore extra-biblical. Even the ancients knew the value of changing the past as a means of shaping the future.
Cheers
Posted by: Mr. Arbroath at January 21, 2007 6:33 PM
So what is an equitable way to deal with the Arabs who live in the occupied West Bank?
Posted by: mitch_b at January 21, 2007 7:02 PM
Propaganda, big deal ! You can scare anyone into believing any kind of nonsense, if they're dumb enough. J.Edgar Hoover had a field day with the public, realizing how dumb American citizens were back then. As long as America's money is over there in the Middle East, propaganda will always be used to keep it there !
Posted by: Jeff at January 21, 2007 7:24 PM
"So what is an equitable way to deal with the Arabs who live in the occupied West Bank?"
-- from a posting above
The question is phrased in a tendentious way. The "West Bank" -- a phrase that has no history to support it, but was invented by the Jordanian Arab government in 1948 to describe that territory, part of the Mandate for Palestine that had been set aside for the Jewish National Home but had been captured by the Arabs during that war -- is not "occupied" in the sense recognized by international law. A truly occupied territory, as Occupied Paris, is territory to which the Occupying Power has no legitimate claim other than that of conquest.
But in the case of Judea and Samaria (toponyms used during the past two thousand years, and certainly used by, among others, not only geographers but by the people of Western Christendom, and of course -- it goes without saying -- by Jesus), a/k/a "West Bank," this is not "occupied" territory because the claim of Isarel to it is based on the disposition of the vast formerly Ottoman domains after World War I, and by the League of Nations and its Mandates Commission (on which sat a great many distinguished people who had a sense of history, and knowledge of the various peoples in what the Arabs managed to get the world to call "the Arab world" when it is full of all kinds of non-Arab and non-Muslim peoples). Israel's claim to this territory resides not on military conquest but on a series of legal, moral and historic claims, of which the most important is that based on the Mandate, and the second on the normal rearrangement of borders after every war (look at a map of Europe, for god's sake -- look for one example at how Italy came to possess what had been the Austrian Sudtirol, now the thoroughly-italianzied Alto Adige, or look at all the changes that took place in favor of the victors after World War II). Finally, there is also the substantial claim under Resolution 242, which requires that Israel only withdraw to "secure and defensible borders" and any borders that do not include the territory Israel does not now posseess or control would not be "defensible" for they would not allow it to control the heights of Judea, from which all of the coastal plain of Israel can be controlled, nor the traditional invasion route from the west to the Mediterranean, that could cut Israel, deprived of the "West Bank," in two in less than a half-hour. And of course
"secure and defensible borders" can only be defined by those doing the securing and the defending, not by those who would, if they could, eliminate forever the non-Muslim sovereign state of Israel.
As for the local Arabs, they do quite well with their enormous amounts of Jizyah and U.N. aid. They seized the best land before Israel retook the area in 1967, while the Israelis had in not all, but almost all, cases, to make do with the "state and waste lands" that were formerly possessions of the Ottoman government, then fell under the control of the British, then of the Jordanian government, and now of the Israeli government (more than 90% of the land is owned by the state, not by private parties, all over the area).
They can be left alone, and given as much local autonomy to run their own lives as is consonant with Israeli security. They need not be made citizens; nor need any acts by them that endanger the state be tolerated for a minute. As in the rest of the Western world, expulsion of those bent on Jihad, or bent on changing the political and legal institutions, can be dealt with by prompt expulsion. The Arabs made out like gangbusters; they were promised a single Arab State after World War I and came away with 22 members of the Arab League. They possess the largest amount of unearned wealth in human history, and have received, in the last one-third of a century alone, ten trillion dollars. Everywhere that Arabs rule they have denied equal rights to non-Arabs and to non-Muslims. A very tiny group of Arabs -- those in the "West Bank," can be forced to endure living in a state that they do not control, on land that no one of any sense, after World War I, thought should belong to the Arabs.
For the history of the Middle East is not, though some appear to think it is, of Muslim Arabs alone. There are Maronites, many of whom use Arabic but do not consider themselves to be Arabs, however intent the Arabs were at Taif to force them to do so. There are Copts. There are Berbers. There are Assyrians and Chaldeans (they are not the same). There are Armenians. There are tiny peoples: Mandeans and Samaritans. It is time to stop using, and stop thinking, in terms of the Arab Muslims, and to consider the claims, and defend the claims, of all the others.
And that should begin, but hardly end, with Israel.
Posted by: Hugh at January 21, 2007 8:17 PM
"So what is an equitable way to deal with the Arabs who live in the occupied West Bank?
Posted by: mitch_b"
Get rid of them? But no other muslim country wants them.
Hugh's answer is much more intelligent!
Posted by: Gramfan at January 21, 2007 9:42 PM
I have recently been acquainted by "The Jerusalem Sabeel Document" http://www.sabeel.org/etemplate.php?id=39 which I was provided by a Presbyterian minister. To quickly summarize, it states that "it is moral and right for Israel to return the whole of the areas captured in 1967, i.e. the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, to the millions of Palestinians who need their own small sovereign state."
The group making this argument assumes that when the land is given back, the Israeli settlers currently in the area will return to Israel and the West Bank will become a destination for those displaced in 1948. When this happens, justice will have been served and the Palestinians will grow to live with the Israelis because they will become trading partners. The minister added that if this happens, tourism will take off because many people want to visit the holy land without fear for their safety.
The counter argument is that if this does happen, the government of the country will very soon take an aggressive approach to Israel because Islam teaches to always conquer land for Islam. The country will be majority Muslim so even if set up democratically initially, they will vote in a hard liner instead of a moderate because the religious leaders will tell voters to do this. Israel will continually be harassed by rockets and other means while a buildup of soldiers and weapons starts in the new country which will be supported with money and weapons by other Muslim governments.
If this did happen, Israel would have to spend absorbingly to protect this boarder, which is not a natural military boarder.
Eventually, this country will invade Israel and Israel will be in trouble because it has no natural defensive terrain to work with.
So the mistake made by this group is that they have the pollyannaish hope that if this land is given back, the new state will not act like Muslims.
Let me know if I understand if this summarizes the counter-argument correctly.
Posted by: mitch_b at January 21, 2007 10:38 PM
The Sabeel Center is run by Naim Ateek, a "Palestinian" propagandist and islamochristian. He's clever, but transparent. I wouldn't waste a minute on their stuff. They mainly burrow within certain Christian denominations, using when they can Carter-like simpletons and antisemites (and the two have been known to go together), and of course to exploit the contacts made by "Palestinian" ministers in this country -- there's one down in Atlanta, a Presbyterian, who's far less Christian and far more Muslim in his political agenda, and there are others. Ateek's success, for example, with that resolution in the Presbyterian Church, relied on all three: the usual "Peace" people who identify the "Palestinians" as 1) a separate peole and 2) who overlook the real demographic history of the area and 3) ignore the context, the context of Jewish hiatory, including the history of those Jews who remained under Arab Muslim rule in the Middle East and now form half the Jewish population in Isarel; the out-and-out antisemites (who of course will be found wherever the matter of Israel comes up, and who are likely to represent, say, about 10% of any given Western population; 3) those who promote the islamochristian view because they have innocently swallowed, out of amazing ignorance that remains untreated, the Naim Ateek or Sabeel Center "history" of the area. It's quite a fantasy, and of course the other fantasy is that about how Muslims will most certainly react, have always reacted, to the compromises or acts of good will offered by Infidels -- not with compromises or corresonding acts of goodwill, but with triumphalism, a sureness that the Infidels are yielding, that Islam is on the march. That feeling can be temporarily prevented, but never ended unless Islam itself comes apart, is so weakened by a show of Infidel resolution, everywhere that any Infidels are challenged, and a simultaneous exploitation of divisions and potential sources of demoralization within Islam. And that is what is not know being done, but can and perhaps will be done, just in time.
Posted by: Hugh at January 22, 2007 12:15 AM
I was actually at a talk today by the Atlanta Presbyterian minister you mentioned which spurred my earlier question. He thinks that if Israel gives the West Bank back to create a Palestinian state, peace will ensue and the area will become a tourism hotspot as Christians, Jews, and Muslims from all over the world converge to see the holy land.
During a break in his talk, I posed the question about how peace could happen without a renouncement of the Jihadist ideology. He told me that Jihad is a circular concept that was hard for him to explain that apparently has nothing to do with attacking non-Muslims. I am sure he truly believes this, which explains his viewpoint.
He also is not just any minister, but was a recent moderator of the Presbyterian Church General Assembly.
Can you recommend any U.S. Christian church policy which you think provides a reasonable solution which addresses Muslims as you see them (and I believe they are)? Apparently the Baptists and many Evangelicals just want to get rolling with Armageddon so they think Israel should take everything it can and most other churches want to make peace by continually giving into the Muslims.
at January 22, 2007 12:56 AM
Mitch B
I suggest that you check out Dexter Van Zile and the Judeo-Christian Alliance for a Christian perspective that doesn't have a bringing on the "End Times" agenda. Van Zile has been very active (and effective) in speaking out against the "divestment" movement that has infected various Protestant denominations.
http://www.judeo-christianalliance.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=63
I can't claim, as a secular Jew, to being the most highly informed on the subject, but speculate that there are not a lot of drooling "End Timers" among pro-Israel Christians. I think this is a conspiracy theory smear deployed by the Palestinophilic factions to discredit the pro-Israel forces by painting them as simple-minded pro-Bush, right-wing fundamentalists -- the corollary to Ahmadinejad's Shiite Islamic milinarialism. I base my opinion on the understanding that Christians leave it to the Divine to be the one to "bring it on" and not (nuke empowered) humans.
Posted by: waterdragon52 at January 22, 2007 8:22 AM
"He thinks that if Israel gives the West Bank back to create a Palestinian state, peace will ensue and the area will become a tourism hotspot as Christians, Jews, and Muslims from all over the world converge to see the holy land."
-- from a posting above
No, he doesn't think that for one minute. That is merely what he says he thinks. There is a difference. If he is an intelligent man, he knows perfectly well how Christians have fared under Muslim rule, and he should know what has happened and is happening to the "Palestinian" Christians right now. The only place where "Christians, Jews and Muslims" now live together with full rights for the Christians and Jews as well, is in a place that exists, and that he is working to reduce to a condition of maximum peril with his sinister smiling plausibility for his American audience of innocents. That place is called Israel.
at January 22, 2007 1:02 PM
Historically, the term "Palestinian" was used only for Christians, Jews, and Samaritans. The Muslims were simply "Arabs" or "Turks". It was only when the Grand Mufti, Faisal Husseni, following his nazi advisors, co-opted the term for his own reasons. Even the Balfour Declaration uses Palestinian in the plural referring to the various "communities" in Palestine.
Posted by: Provoslavni at January 22, 2007 1:24 PM
mitch_b: Israel in many ways is a red herring used by Muslims. Thees people pretend that they are only enraged because Israel won't kake concessions to the poor Palestinians. But upon closer scrutiny we see that---
There are Islamic-instigated conflicts raging out of control across the planet. Places that come to mind include Kashmir, Chechnya, the southern Philippines, the Indonesian islands of Sulawesi and Timor, southern Thailand, Somalia, Sudan, Chad, the Balkan Peninsula, west Africa, Algeria, even France.
Once Israel is brought under islamic control (which is the real goal of islam's at the moment)Islam and its hordes of jihadists will move on to another location (preferably, in their jihadist minds, to one near you) to further their military conquest of humanity.
Do not blame this situation on fervent Christians in the US, they are not responsible for any of this nightmare going on worldwide. Islam's teachings are the real villain. Read the Kuran if you doubt me.
Posted by: pythagoras at January 23, 2007 9:05 PM
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