The European press uncritically accepted the portrayal of a massacre at Jenin and to this day I think that if you polled a thousand random EU college students, a majority would say that they believes that Israel committed a massacre there. It is my belief (and we’ve debated this ad nauseum in the past) that the European Press and public opinion is biased against the Israeli POV, and that such is reflected in funding with no strings attached.
There is little doubt that monies have funnelled through the PA to terror organizations.
But it is clear that the EU prefers to pretend that the PA is other than run by a group of corrupt thugs who line their own pockets while being driven around in luxury cars and funnelling money away from real state building and into a perpetuation of the terror reprisal cycle. Those monies are not contigent upon the the PA taking “concrete steps to arrest and bring to justice those who commit terrorist acts”, they are there no matter what.
Now if you have some reason to believe that the EU will do other than continue to fund a corrupt structure that minimally allows money to be funnelled to terrorism, and that takes no concrete actions to stop it, then please educate me … oh, they did threaten over some schoolbooks once …
OH Dseid, I won’t contest that. That wasn’t my point, but yours is well made and I agree that more pressure should be applied to the PA and that the EU is being too flippant on this issue. My point was that the PA receives funds from many sources, the EU being only one. Your previous statement made it look like the PA was a subsidiary to the EU, that it is not.
This response isn’t just a river in Egypt. The New Republic is a liberal magazine, not conservative, but they are demonized in order to ignore their message.
What I find striking is the widespread unwillingness to criticize Palestinian culture. I could understand someone posting that they deplore Palestinian homophobia and other negative aspects of their culture, but justice demands supporting the Palestinian position regardless. However, I see no such criticsms.
There is an unwritten political correctness rule that criticizing the culture of certain groups automatically brings forth a charge of “racist.” Maybe the Palestinians are one of these groups.
While you’re incorrect on their stance toward gays, you’re not too far off on their analysis of the middle east situation. Of course, when the boss is Jewish, you’d hardly expect them to take the other side.
And december, they’re not considered to be a far-left bastion of liberal thought anymore, except by themselves and a few conservatives. With the current staff, including the fairly new second-in-command, they are all over the map in their views, with one exception, that being their middle east stance.
An institution’s desire to be associated with a certain mindset doesn’t make it so. The Cato Institute would like you to believe that they are “market liberals”, but most of us just refer to them as “bought.”
I again find it noteworthy that DMC took the trouble to point out that the New Republic is not far left (although nobody said they were) and that they’re pro-Israel. However DMC cannot spare a sentence to deplore the bad treatment of gays by the Palestinian Authority or to acknowledge the better treatment by Israel.
If someone posted an anti-gay statement by Jerry Falwell, a dozen posters would immediately pile on (and rightly so.) But, faced with anti-gay torture by Arafat’s government, there’s just silence. Does being “open-minded” and not pro-Israel require closing one’s eyes to what the Arafat regime actually does?
I don’t think you’re going to manage this one december. Nobody wants to be hard balled into taking a stance… that doesn’t mean everyone disagrees with you, it just means that your position is getting what it deserves… no comment.
"Nobody wants to be hard balled into taking a stance" – That’s a good point, Sparc – now.
However, when the link and quote were first posted, there had not yet been pressure to criticize the PA’s treatment of Tayseer. Nobody had been “hard balled” yet.
What I see on this thread is no criticism of the PA without pressure and no criticism of the PA with pressure. In short, no criticism of the PA.
Actually, you’ve used them in the past to try and give the viewpoint of the opposite stance you took. Anyone who is truly the opposite of you is about as farrrrrrrrr left as I can imagine. While I don’t agree that that describes their viewpoints, your prior use of them in that fashion led me to believe that you did.
The day a poster on this board puts up a thread titled: “Resolved: Gay treatment by the Palestinians is fully justified”, is the day I’ll tear them a new one. I deplore many things, but I don’t make it a habit to put a “me too” post in every thread remarking on them, nor do I list them all in an encyclopedic sized post. It’s called Great Debates, not Great Agreements. I have stated many times that I find fault with the Palestinians in many areas, but the difference between you and I is that I also find fault with many Israeli policies. For the record, regarding your thoughts on the Palestinian’s treatment of gays, I’ll have to say “me too”, which is more than you’ve said regarding the bigotry of the Israelis against their own Arab citizens. Bigotry sucks shriveled donkey balls, but both sides in the Middle East are guilty of it. One proudly claims not to be, and uses that to garner support, so I argue against their position.
No, but supporting Israel in everything it does does require a lowering of the lids. Do I really have to link to every single post I’ve made denouncing this or that regarding the Palestinians and Arafat? Most of them have been in your threads, so if you’d actually read them, you’d be fully aware of where I stand. If you haven’t read them, then at least I have a better understanding of why you seem to never answer most of the questions that are raised.
Actually, you’ve used them in the past to try and give the viewpoint of the opposite stance you took. Anyone who is truly the opposite of you is about as farrrrrrrrr left as I can imagine. While I don’t agree that that describes their viewpoints, your prior use of them in that fashion led me to believe that you did.
The day a poster on this board puts up a thread titled: “Resolved: Gay treatment by the Palestinians is fully justified”, is the day I’ll tear them a new one. I deplore many things, but I don’t make it a habit to put a “me too” post in every thread remarking on them, nor do I list them all in an encyclopedic sized post. It’s called Great Debates, not Great Agreements. I have stated many times that I find fault with the Palestinians in many areas, but the difference between you and I is that I also find fault with many Israeli policies. For the record, regarding your thoughts on the Palestinian’s treatment of gays, I’ll have to say “me too”, which is more than you’ve said regarding the bigotry of the Israelis against their own Arab citizens. Bigotry sucks shriveled donkey balls, but both sides in the Middle East are guilty of it. One proudly claims not to be, and uses that to garner support, so I argue against their position.
No, but supporting Israel in everything it does does require a lowering of the lids. Do I really have to link to every single post I’ve made denouncing this or that regarding the Palestinians and Arafat? Most of them have been in your threads, so if you’d actually read them, you’d be fully aware of where I stand. If you haven’t read them, then at least I have a better understanding of why you seem to never answer most of the questions that are raised.
Aright, good december. Again, your showing your true colour. It’s not only the PA want to criticize, but Palestinian culture per se. Your point seems to be to dehumanize Palestinians, demonstrate how they are inferior in all regards. Their culture is so moraly reprehensible that defending their right to self-determination is defending everything one aught to be against.
You will latch on to any information you can find to achieve this goal. I think Sparc has already mentioned this: if you were to judge entire peoples by single incident of gay bashing, few would come away clean. Certainly, its especially troubling that the authority that is supposed to defend the public was involved. But the problem is that the Rule of Law is so unestablished in Palestine that there are few checks on what individuals in a position of authority do. They are free to live out their darkest fantasies. Which is certainly very troubling. But that the Rule of Law is not esablished is not a consequence of the degenerate nature of Palestinian culture!
If the Rule of Law was not more established in America, we would still be lunching blacks on street corners and shoving broomsticks up every gay person found showing their sexuality in public.
So the question is: how does one begin the arduous process of establishing the Rule of Law in Palestine?
I’m beyond supsecting that “sand nigger” is a word that might accidentally slip from your lips. Have you ever even been in a country with a culture of Arabic origin?
I think we should create a new variant of Godwin’s law, for people who must constantly invoke racism. The use of the term ‘sand nigger’ is particularly offensive, as it seeks to associate anyone critical with the culture in the Arab world or Palestine in particular with a disgustingly virulent form of racism.
I’ll be happy to criticize Palestinian culture, thank you. And I don’t have a racist bone in my body. The culture in Palestine has nothing to do with ethnicity or skin color or any other defining group characteristic, any more than Amish culture is determined by the white skin color of its main adherents.
Palestinian culture is the result of, A) a long, difficult occupation, B) A state of almost constant lawlessless due to the ineffective policing of the PA, C) Active promotion of hatred by Palestinian leaders over many years. D) the lack of a solid economy, coupled with heavy financial aid from the rest of the world, much of which comes with strings attached (i.e. money for suicide bombers from Iraq and Saudi Arabia).
After all this time, I’m convinced that Palestinian culture is sick. Children play suicide bomber games. Thousands cheer in the streets when innocent children die in Israel or the United States. Non-conformists are persecuted, tortured, and killed.
I had earlier posted, “There is an unwritten political correctness rule that criticizing the culture of certain groups automatically brings forth a charge of “racist.” Maybe the Palestinians are one of these groups.”
Thank you, ethic for so dramatically confirming the practice of demonizing anyone who criticizes any aspect of Palestinian culture. Perhaps some of you felt intimidated. Maybe you chose not to criticize Palestinian homophobia, because you didn’t want to be called a racist.
No. I would have liked to visit some when I was in the Middle East, but most of them would have barred me at that time. I’m Jewish and my passport stamp showed that I had visited Israel.
According to Palestinian, ex-treasurer, Jawad Ghussein, Arafat moved up to $8 million to his personal account every month and was aware of widespread corruption.
So, why does the EU continue to give Arafat money without adequate controls?
These are allegations, not facts. The documents he has that “proves” it haven’t been cited. For the record, they accuse him of stealing $6.5 million. Would you also have us believe that fact, since it’s also been alleged?
Some of us would like some evidence, no matter which side it supports.