Israel/Palestine (from ATSNN)

Jam, good to hear from you too. However, you have to note practical issues as well with Hebrew.

While out on the disapora, Jews were a minority, and could not actually use Hebrew in public, or to interact with the better part of society. When they returned, they didn't have a common SPOKEN language, but a common written one.

I don't think it matters, though. It'd be nice to all get along, but of late it is Palestinian violence screwing the peace process. That is, at least, my point of view.

DE

It doesn't matter that 'some guy' who started this thread doesn't think there is such a thing as a Palestinian, there are 4.8-5 million Palestinians in Palestine that think otherwise, especially since their parents were born in Palestine and so were their's and so were theirs, and so were theirs..going all the way back to where anyone can remember, very few of the zionists were their to see that period in the history of Palestine so I guess they'll never know, because they were never there.

zionists were there 4,000 years ago huh, yea whatever i guess it was the same people, whatever certainly doesn't mean they should have more rights than the indeginous population..

[edit on 27-2-2006 by jajabinks]

Jamhun,

Palestinians are a nation, they are united under a common language, most are of a common ethnicity,

The same ethnicity as the Syrians, most of the Jordanians and a large part of the Lebanese.

and they are bound to a geographical region.

OK I'll give you that.

As well, if you do some research, you will find that Arabs differ a lot in their tribal affiliations, which is what made it so hard for them to organize around world war 1.

That is true for nearly all nationalities and does not mean that it is a pre-requisite for a separate country. The Lebanese consist of Sunnis, Shiites, Christians and Druze which fought (and still fight) for the longest of time yet they live under one flag.

What I am saying is that the term palestinian nation was artificial and used as a tool by the Arab world against the Jewish state.
The Jewish nation though is unique with its own tongue and religion.

jajabinks (oooh I love the names on ATS),

In the 1800s in the US the southerners wished to seceded from the union and create their own country separate from the Yanks. They claimed differences from the north. That does not mean that they were different - how many million southeners were there? The US has not been split. The Palestinians are no different from the Syrians, most of the Jordanians and some of the Lebanese. Their national ambitions were artificial and created in order to be used as a weapon against Israel.
I am not saying that the Palestinians do not deserve self determination, rights or reparations. I think that the Palestinians issue should be addressed and resolved in a manner that minimizes its adverse effects on Israel.

Hidden reality and jajabinks,
A little correction to your claims:
'Palestinian Jews' were always in the area (although not a majority of the population). Jews were a majority in Jerusalem since the early 1800s (probably earlier since that was the first time a census-like activity was undertaken), Jewish presence were significant in Hebron, Safed and Tiberias as well for ages.


Regarding the issue of the use of Hebrew. Hebrew was the language used in the bible and most prayers. Jews prayed for ages in Hebrew and studies Hebrew in order to be observant Jews. Aramaic was also a language used in prayer and in Talmud but played a secondary role. In general Hebrew was not used for the reason DeusEx pointed out and for the reason that observant Jews defined Hebrew as a holy language used only for prayer.

Originally posted by jajabinks
It doesn't matter that 'some guy' who started this thread doesn't think there is such a thing as a Palestinian, there are 4.8-5 million Palestinians in Palestine that think otherwise, especially since their parents were born in Palestine and so were their's and so were theirs, and so were theirs.

But having parents who have parents that were born in that area says nothing about being a Palestinian.

• The word itself derives from "Peleshet", a name that appears frequently in the Bible and has come into English as "Philistine". The name began to be used in the Thirteenth Century BCE, for a wave of migrant "Sea Peoples" who came from the area of the Aegean Sea and the Greek Islands and settled on the southern coast of the land of Canaan. There they established five independent city-states (including Gaza) on a narrow strip of land known as Philistia. The Greeks and Romans called it "Palastina".
  
  The Philistines were not Arabs, they were not Semites. They had no connection, ethnic, linguistic or historical with Arabia or Arabs. The name "Falastin" that Arabs today use for "Palestine" is not an Arabic name. It is the Arab pronunciation of the Greco-Roman "Palastina" derived from the Peleshet.
  
  
• Look at the term "Palestinians" short before the state of Israel was born:
  
  At that time, everybody living in the area of the area called "Palestine" under the the British mandate (1918 to 1948) has been called ""Palestinian" - regardless it they where Muslims, Christians, Druzes, Jews.....
  
  
• After the 1967 war, the PNC (Palestinian National Charter [the charter of the PLO]) defined who is a Palestinian:
  
  
  
  • Arab citizens who were living normally in Palestine up to 1947, whether they remained or were expelled" and their descendants through the male line.
    
    AND according to Article 6 of the PNC:
    
    
  • Jews who had normally resided in Palestine until the beginning of the "Zionist Invasion" [ed Riwka: which means before 1917]
    

According to that Article 6, my family would be "Jewish Palestinians"; since the family clan of one part of my parents has been in that area far, far, far longer than up from 1917.

Originally posted by maldives01
that if you take an average guy off the street ...
all he really wants is peace

Dunno' about that.
These folks look 'average' to me.



[edit on 2/28/2006 by FlyersFan]

Sigh..i really wish folks would find out more before using the bastardisation of name creation by the British of an ancient landmass by artificially calling it as Palestine.

Palestine never existed prior to the british mandate. It was part of the ottoman empire over arabian lands long decadent and totally made up of corrupt despots. England of the past saw their weakness and swallowed them whole as part of the portfolios of colonnial conquest.

Just like the normal corporate takeover strategies, the brits carved the lands up into minor kingdoms made up of despotic tribal leaders who could curry the best favour among the english for easier divide and control tactics.

Trans Jordon is also a new name on the 19th century map.

Either we accept recorded history as a fact that happened or we deny the truth of our own history of even a minute ago as a pact of lies, for the jewish people had long occupied a larger landmass than the current one today.

As much as we, civilised and enlightened modern men are shocked and dismayed by the barbarity of ancient rulers with the maxim '' Whoever cannot defend their own land, either thru stupidity or mismanagement, shall lose it to conquerors'', we must accept the fact that Israel lost out regularly to conquerors, from Persia to Rome to Ottomans, etc.

However, no mighty king has ever been able to assimilate the jews, for the clung on to their history and roots. Powerful kings may have conquered the lands but not the hearts of these sturdy jews. And it is the hearts of the population that gives life to a or any nation. Thus, in reality, the jews were never conquered.

But are the jews today following the path of past conquerors to create a new enlarged territorial map on earth? The past 50+ years had shown no such ambitions, but i cant say as much for Israel's neighbours though. All Israel seek is a space to call their home, to practice their faith or secular views in peace and freedom. And it was granted to them by the offical United Nations, where they won legitimately by a majority of vote, voted by other nations who share the planet.

And so, what of Palestine? Who are Palestinians but an extension of Israel's neighbours? Check your history books -

who sold the jews supposedly useless land parcels during the ottoman periods which turned into envious green paradises thru jewish hardwork?

who said they will take care of Palestinians while they fight the jews?

Who in reality took care of those arabs who choosed peace in the fights?

Who ejected and rejected the palestinians when they seek refuge in their lands?

Who told them to reject the UN mandate to create an equal living space with jews?

Who told them to live in unemployment, turn down jobs creation, education creation, health and hygiene while submitting the case to eject jews, who were prepared to share the land with them, into the seas before the UN council?

Seek the truth and only the truth - no matter how harsh it may be, than to live in total ignorance. No one owes anyone a living, but you owe it to yourselves to know the truth or die living a lie.

Originally posted by ArchAngel
Answer the fundamental question.
If not Palestine what was it called from 1922 to 1947?
Did the land just rise up out of the sea with Jews already living on it?

Many many people have answered this question over and over again. None the less, I want to answer this question again with;

"Palestine" is a name that the murderous Roman emperor Hadrian gave to the land of Eretz Yisrael in order to break the bond of Jewish people with Israel. He named it as "Palestine" after the Philistines, the longtime enemy of the Jews. Doing so he hoped, would break forever the tie between the Jews and Eretz Yisrael.
The term "Palestine" itself is not native to the land of Israel. It is a derivative from the Hebrew word "polshim" which means foreign invader, which through use came to be "plishtim" for the Philistinians. Thus, those who would call themselves as Palestinians would be referring to themselves as "foreign invader"!

Perhaps the best insight into the land, in the 19th century could be from Mark Twain.

In 1867, Mark Twain visited the Holy Land and described it in the strongest terms possible as a wretched, diseased, impoverished, nearly desolate wasteland - The few spots of greenery, Twain said, "seem mere toy gardens set at wide intervals in the waste of a limitless desolation.... [The land of Israel] sits in sackcloth and ashes."
"A desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds - a silent mournful expanse.... A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action.... We never saw a human being on the whole route.... There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country." (The Innocents Abroad)Source

Also from the British Commission Report 1913:

"The western part, towards the sea, was almost a desert.... The villages in this area were few and thinly populated. Many ruins of villages were scattered over the area, as owing to the prevalence of malaria, many villages were deserted by their inhabitants."Source

Lewis French, Director of Development for the British Government, wrote in 1931:

"We found it inhabited largely by fellahin who lived in mud hovels and suffered severely from the prevalent malaria.... Large areas ... were uncultivated.... The fellahin, if not themselves cattle thieves, were always ready to harbor these and other criminals. The individual plots ... changed hands annually. There was little public security, and the fellahin's lot was an alternation of pillage and blackmail by their neighbors, the Bedouin." Source

And follow this with many mediatins that followed the Balfour Declaration we have :

First Congress of Muslim-Christian Associations met in Jerusalem in February 1919 to choose Palestinian representatives for the Paris Peace Conference, the following resolution was adopted:
"We consider Palestine as part of Arab Syria, as it has never been separated from it at any time. We are connected with it by national, religious, linguistic, natural, economic and geographical bonds."

In 1937, a local Arab leader, Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi, told the Peel Commission, which ultimately suggested the partition of Palestine:
"There is no such country [as Palestine]! 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented! There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria."

The representative of the Arab Higher Committee to the United Nations submitted a statement to the General Assembly in May 1947 that said "Palestine was part of the Province of Syria" and that, "politically, the Arabs of Palestine were not independent in the sense of forming a separate political entity." A few years later, Ahmed Shuqeiri, later the chairman of the PLO, told the Security Council: "It is common knowledge that Palestine is nothing but southern Syria".
Source

All these statements clearly show that not only have the Arabs never seen Palestine as a separate entity but also the very notion of a separate state of Palestine is alien to them.
Most Arabs emigrated from neighboring regions to the British Mandate of Palestine to avail the greater economic opportunities that the returning Zionist chalutzim cultivated. Most are not indigenous to the region and are nothing more than immigrants themselves.

The British separation of the region only caused the divide the land and named it as Palestine for its historical context. Little did they know its true meaning or it’s how much political mileage this decision would carry in the future.

IAF

Originally posted by FlyersFan

Originally posted by maldives01
that if you take an average guy off the street ...
all he really wants is peace

Dunno' about that.
These folks look 'average' to me.



[edit on 2/28/2006 by FlyersFan]

Hi FF, average? Why do you think that they look "average"?

And what's a picture of two women protesting Danish cartoons in Pakistan got to do with this thread? ( Pakistan I think you may find is several thousand miles from the region in question)

Sorry to be pedantic, but I think it's important to stay on topic whatever your views

[edit on 28-2-2006 by maldives01]

[edit on 28-2-2006 by maldives01]