AIN AL-HELWEH, Lebanon (AFX) - Dozens of Palestinian refugees fired into the air with joy at news of apparent terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, AFP correspondents witnessed.
Guerrillas in military fatigues from various factions fired assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades into the air in the Ain al-Helweh refugee camp at the outskirts of the southern port city of Sidon.
At the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut, Palestinian fighters also went out to the streets as soon as they heard the news from their television sets to fire into the air, a correspondent said.
-Rav
Are you sure you want to take that kind of back-handed slap at America at this particular time? Perhaps a little discretion, a little better judgement would take you a long way toward a proper sensitivity.
But you have the right to say what you want, so if you’d like to stand by that, go right ahead.
Racism, although not unknown here, is NOT that bad here. Any is too much, but America is not a racist place. It has FEW racist people, and they are despised by the vast majority of us. So, technically, racism in this country is “bad enough”, but compare it to anywhere else you’d care to name, and I’d say Americans are pretty dam’ tolerant, anecdotes not withstanding.
racism, I think, has nothing to do with it. I doubt many people will hold grudges against Palestinians here in the U.S. However, I hope that the Palestinians in the middle-east get some hell paid to them.
Hell, let Israel do it. They’ll be gone within 2 hours.
No, i don’t intend to withdraw my statement. However, i agree with everything else Bluesman said. Any racism is too much. I still believe that the US is a great country, but i don’t think that, even after today’s events, we can’t be critical and still love it at the same time.
Throughout the day, i’ve heard numerous cries of “nuke the towelheads!” And “let’s kill those sand rats!” It was the same immediately following the Oklahoma City bombing, which of course was completely unfounded.
Regarding the celebrating Palestinians, i certainly won’t condone such behavior. But given the way Israel has treated the Palestinians, and the US’s support for them, i’m not surprised.
Today I saw a Palestinian man, in tears, weeping uncontrolably. He said the WTC attack was the worst thing he had ever heard, he was totally shocked and horrified, and he felt it was impossible that a Palestinian had committed such a terrible crime against humanity.
Not all of Palestine is celebrating - BBC News correspondents have reported that the misplaced jubilation is confined to small pockets of clearly misguided individuals.
The revelry in the Arab world pissed me off. Especially after our decades long efforts to help them get themselves to the bargaining table. If the Arab contingent feels that we have somehow lent ourselves more greatly to one side or another, rest assured that those of us who’ve felt some compassion for their side are seriously dismayed by the apparent embrace of debased inhumanity by the Palestinians. I’m sure that those true adherents of the Koran can only gasp in absolute despair as we see the base attacks by the deviates that have perverted Islam’s inherent good nature.
Rejoicing or expressing happiness at the news of a terrorist act is NEVER acceptable.
However, we don’t even know if these reports from Palestine are true. Anid if they are, the people involved probably didn’t know the extent of the damage.
So let’s hold off on our judgements for a little while, ok.
I’m with SPOOFE, I’m not surprised that some of the Palestinians are celebrating… but let’s remember that MOST of them are just people like you and me, and ARE NOT celebrating the fact that many people were murdered, or the fact that their own people may be blamed for it…
Palestinians are celebrating because the USA gave Israel tons of weapons which are being used on the Palestinians in a disagreement lately. Doesn’t anyone read the news?
My friends in England, who work for a news organization, said that it could have been China that did this WTC thing.
:eek:
Every time I see this, I wonder if perhaps the law of gravity has not been taught successfully to some people.
I too was infuriated by the images of these people celebrating. We must remember that the vast majority of arabic people are (nearly) as shocked and upset as we are.