Israelis? You mean Palestinians, surely?
I read DtC’s OP and couldn’t help thinking that the argument could be – and, by the Muslim extremists, is – made that the West in fact is waging an undeclared war on Islamic culture through the example and economic imposition of its own; that all aggression against Western interests is simply fighting back to repel the West’s cultural imperialism that seeks to corrupt Muslim society.
But then, accepting that your opponent’s viewpoint may have some aspects of validity might – horrors! – require you to treat him as a human being rather than a demon incarnate.
No, Israelis. I heard the same claims, though I don’t believe them. The idea was that the Isrealis in question were happy that something would finally prompt the mighty U.S. to crush the Arab fundamentalist movement. Sort of like how some of the Allies might have reacted (secretly) when Pearl Harbor was bombed (“Hooray! Now the U.S. is really in the game and on our side”).
There were four Israeli youths, who were in NYC at the time, who looked kinda’ “swarthy”, and were stupid enough to engage in some black humor (which I can tell you, is the only way we stay sane here) in the middle of the street in NYC on 9/11
Sort of reminds me of the story, a few days after Rabin was murdered, where a bank teller asked the people out in front of him “who’s next?”, and someone shouted “Peres!”. Turns out the guy was actually a left-winger… contrary to Urban Myths, however, I don’t think he was actually arrested…
That’s just how we vent.
Anyway, these youths got themselves picked up by the police. Seems they didn’t have their papers in order, either 
Ended up in prison for a few months until they were extradited to Israel.
The notion that they were happy about 9/11 was raised early in the game, but lowered quite quickly afterwords.
I can’t seem to find any reference in English to this incident on the net right now - if anyone is interested I’ll give it another try later tonight
Dani
EddyTeddyFreddy:
Not necessarily disagreeing with your point, but would you defend some other folks who made the same theoretical argument as the one you wrote? Such as, say, the Southern secessionists in the 1860s:
(“Those goddamn Yankees want to destroy our treasured way of life. They want to take away our rightful property, the darkies. The Yankees seek to destroy our traditional culture. They slapped tariffs to dominate the South economically! We must repel these infernal aggressors, by any means necessary.”)
Did the pro-slavery Southerners have a point?
Whatever it was, was settled by a war. 
I could see that perhaps they think we’re trying to wipe them out, but I also think they’re mistaken.
If you’ll notice, GoHeels, I didn’t say that believing the West is out to destroy your culture and treasured way of life justifies suicide bombings. Because it doesn’t. I am saying that Westerners need to understand what is motivating the hatred towards us from part (not all) of the Muslim world in order to develop effective policies to deal with that hatred. Because it isn’t going to go away if we just ignore it.
If you start from a conservative Muslim viewpoint, yes, you can make the argument that the West is corrupting Islamic culture and society, just by the temptations of its existence and visilibity to Muslim populations. Heck, we are trying to change fundamentalist Islamic teachings on such points as women’s rights in Afghanistan, right?
I personally think the Muslim world would be better off with more democracy, more acceptance of other faiths and cultures, and for damned sure more rights for women. But any such changes will have to come from within the Islamic cultures – it can’t be imposed from the outside, and attempting to force it on the unwilling only strengthens the resistance.
As to the pro-slavery Southerners: Yes, they did have a point – if you accept the premises from which they argued. Obviously, the North did not; morally, I would say the refusal to accept those premises was correct. Even in that case, to regard Southerners as tragically misguided brothers who, regrettably, must be brought to right thinking by a last resort to force is way different from considering them all a bunch of bloody-minded worthless traitors who must be eradicated for the good of all. The former view accepts the Confederates’ surrender and tries (with whatever success or failure) to reintegrate the South into the Union; the latter treats the South as conquered territory, executes or imprisons all authority figures, and parcels out the spoils to the victors.
Islamic extremists (who probably make up about 10-15% of the muslim population according to Daniel Pipes) http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-pipes102201.shtml have declared war on the west, but usually just in principle (no actions). I can’t speak of where the other 85-90% stand but are people hiding their heads in teh sand about this fact? 1stchristian was wrong when he said Islam has declared war on the west when only about 10-15% of muslims fit that category, but he still had a point, just an exaggerated one. about 50% of muslims dislike the US (i cant speak of their views on teh west as a whole though) and 10-15% are fanatical religious fanatics.
I think we are all approaching this from the wrong angle. So obviously I must have the right one!
First, we need to consider this being’s username. 1stChristian. Now, being the first Christian means that one is incredibly fucking old. I mean, old that would put Methusaleh to shame. Maybe even Dick Clark, too. And what comes with age, other than Depends, AARP and senior citizens discounts (and arthritis, hemmorhoids, liver spots, constipation, renal failure…)?
SENILITY!
It is obvious to ME that 1stChristian is senile … being, after all, over nineteen centuries old. And 1stChristian probably has LOTS of stories to tell us, though in this advanced stage of senility I doubt any of them would make more sense than Ozzy Ozbourne singing “Take Me out to The Ball Game”. But still, we must humor this individual, because he obviously has words encrusted with something equally old (though not shiny, I think) to impart unto us.
Let us therefore let him say his peace, nod and smile knowingly and pretend we agree, while someone fetches a nurse to give him his afternoon dose. Then when he falls into a blissful sleep, we can laugh and point and draw funny faces on him and talk about what stupidhead he is.
You do know who Daniel Pipes is don’t you? He’s an individual who has been noted for years for his rather extreme racism towards Arabs and Muslims in general. Getting information from Daniel Pipes about Muslims is like getting information from David Duke about Jews.
I’d be interested if it’s not a lot of trouble for you. Thanks.
Stratocaster - Preliminary results - convinced myself that I have the facts right… link. Since this is in Hebrew, I’ll keep on looking for something you can convince yourself from
Dani
OK - this is the best I can do for now… doesn’t actually mention the “black humor” (which is mentioned in the Hebrew version), but clearly if they were only deported for illegal residence, then nothing else was found on them…
Dani
Thanks, Dani. I will also assume that if there was any truth to the claims (beyond that of “black humor”), it would have been more widely reported in the U.S.
Demostylus, we prefer that you do not post a personal name/address at the SDMB even if it’s available at another website. Thank you.
Oops. Sorry.
mmmmmmmm…
If I recall well there was some US president named GW.Bush, also known as King Bush II, who said something about a crusade…
As some of you surely are able to understand, this word has a rather extremely heavy loaded meaning when it drops into Muslim ears, especially M.E. Muslim ears…
As for Palestinians dancing on the street while the WTC events happened: There were surely some of them and also a lot of children I saw dancing on TV screens and there were surely some among them who were genuine Palestinian filmed while “caught on the act of celebrating the WTC catastrophy”.
What was not brougt into the comments of course, was that they could hardly know what they were rejoicing about since what is the WTC for a Palestinian child or even an adult…
What was also not heard on US based and most of the other coverage was that some people threw candies at the children to make them rejoice. You hardly hear such comments when you don’t pay attention to different views on the same event.
For those who want now come with some unfounded claim that I heard that from “Muslim source” (since such a thing is accepted by many to make everything suspicious on forehand because their media bring only The Truth -hear my silent laugh here - and ours are Liars) : Sorry. It was not.
In addition there were also a lot of pictures showed that had absolutely nothing to do with the comments given on them = those pictures were shot years before on extremely different = extremely other locations in extremely different = extremely other circumstances.
Thus I have - to my great surprize - seen images of very Muslim looking refugees being brought as Palestinians (no dancing was to be seen, but some women with scarfs and some bearded men and some children cloathed poorly and un-western always does the trick, no?) which I recognized for what they were not = in any case no Palestinians filmed while they were “dancing in the streets” while my friend died in the WTC.
This I can know because I had - and still have - those same so called “dancing Palestinians” on videotapes. Those tapes predating a few to many years the “dancing Palestinians” they supposed to have “caught at the act of rejoicing because the WTC was hit”.
In fact: the children shown on those video’s must have been almost - upto - completely adult at the time they were supposed to be “filmed live while rejoicing the burning WTC”. And I guess that for some of the adults life already had come to an end when they were shown as Palestinians celebrating the WTC catastrophy.
As for those Israelis dancing while the WTC towers were burning.
That is a story brought by several sources in several countries. With several versions attached to it. (And notice to Coldfire: That includes Dutch languaged written media).
As for the member who is the issue of this thread: If he (or she) was ever in the Israeli army, he shoudl be familiar with what that army happens to do when Palestinian children throw stones at the military occupiers, no?
He should also be aware of it that “Islam” is a religion. Not a country, not an army, but a way of practicing the worship of God.
So since he claims that “Islam” declared war on the West, I am waiting for his explanation how he actually sees a way of worshipping God declaring war on anything or anyone.
A drawing will do.
Salaam. A
I’ve noticed that, with Israelis. It’s very… how shall I put this. It’s very inaccessible, to an outsider. As a Dutchman, I’m familiar with a healthy dose of black humour, but not to the razorsharp extent I’ve seen it employed by Israelis. I can understand it, mind you - it has to be hell to live with the dangers your guys face every day. For us, black humour is mere fun - for you, it’s a genuine outlet valve.
FWIW, the Peres joke cracked me up. I don’t know if that makes me a bad person (I was a huge Rabin fan), but so be it.
Interesting story about the 4 Israeli youths, too. I had never heard that before.
Naw, just makes you an Israeli-of-honor. You decide whether that makes you a bad person or a REALLY AWFUL one… 
And I can probably come up with 2 or 3 more of those black jokes without thinking too much. Mind you, that’s just the ones that actually work in English (:eek:/:))
(seriously - thanks for the kind words!)
Dani