Oy vey! I got a Jewish anti-Muslim propaganda e-mail!

Great Debates
1

The e-mail’s subject is “BRIEF FACTS ON THE ISRAELI CONFLICT”

In the spirit of e-mail forwards, let’s discuss…

I know that part about where Muslims and Jews face when praying is nothing important, for example. This is just rites which show a difference in how they worship and Muslims don’t “turn their back” on Mecca as much as they don’t feel worthy to look at it, from what i recall.

Yer pal,
Satan

*I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR:
Six months, two weeks, three days, 13 hours, 52 minutes and 59 seconds.
8023 cigarettes not smoked, saving $1,002.89.
Extra life with Drain Bead: 3 weeks, 6 days, 20 hours, 35 minutes.

I slept with a REPUBLICAN moderator!*

2

I wasn’t aware that Jews faced a specific direction when they prayed. As for the Muslims, I was under the impression that they FACED Mecca. Wouldn’t they only have their backs to Jeruseluem if they were between the 2 cities?

That being said, there is a whole lot of propaganda going around on both sides. Can a side survive if they don’t respond with their own version of ridiculous claims?

3

Satan, I got the exact same e-mail. My friends who sent it are Jewish. I’m Jewish too, so I’m not about to make an issue about this unless the facts within there can be refuted. I would like to call them on it, certainly.

One of the numbers I find skeptical is 100,000,000 refugees. That’s 2,000,000 a year for 50 years, which is quite a bit for a country as small as Israel.

4

I think they meant refugees worldwide. Frankly, I’m surprised the number is that small, considering.

5

Satan,

Why do you call this “anti-Muslim”?

6

Bullshit. Pure and Simple. The Israelis have been just as zealous about it as the Jordanians were.

And on the prayer thing. Um… Muslims do pray towards Mecca. We will leave out the problem they’ve had about figuring out where mecca was in the old days. Since Mecca is east of Jerusalem, naturally they would face away from it, but only if they are East of J-town to begin with. Otherwise, geography takes over. I suppose Mohammed Joe Bob in Antartica only needs to orient himself a few degrees north.

This makes for fascinating reading.

7

I’d like to see some cites for that, please,

8

That e-mail forward you received is essentially true, although the bit at the beginning linking the Davidic Kingdom to modern Israel is dicey logic, at best. Countries get conquered. Israel is 52 years old, period (well, until next May, at least).

And Muslims pray toward Mecca. No doubt for some, this means praying with their backs to Jerusalem, but it’s certainly not intended to specifically spite Jerusalem. It is true, Freedom2, that Jews pray facing Jerusalem (and Jews in Jerusalem pray facing the Temple Mount, that famously disputed bit of land).

Saint Zero:

That is so not true. Heck, the Israelis put the Muslim Waqf in charge of Jerusalem’s Muslim holy sites after the 1967 war! By contrast, the only Jewish place of worship in East Jerusalem that was not destroyed between 1948 and 1967 was the Western Wall…and that was built over!

Israel has, if anything, been excessively protective of Muslim holy sites. There have been times that Israel has diverted the intended construction of roads for the sake of Muslim graves in that path while Jewish graves in similar situations were merely built over (this prompted much protest from the Orthodox community, but it still ended up being done).

9

That Israel exists due to a diplomatic/political victory as well many military ones is a fact. That it has a right to exist is also a fact recognized by most world nations and the UN councel.

That it has made friends with fomer enemies (ex. Egypt, Jordan) is to it’s credit. It was a peace and friendship not easily won. That it cannot make peace with a people, many of whom have a legitimate and just claim to live freely (but not violently) within its borders is a cause of much tsuris for all Israelis and many Jews around the world.

My dad once stated his opinion on this subject and I recall his words to this day - In 1948, when Israel achieved statehood, the decision should have been made to include all indigent people living in Israel proper as Israeli citizens. Arab and Jew alike should have been told that they would be treated equally in all respects as citizens of Israel and would thus benefit equally under national rule. They would each be alowed equal access to self determination but not at the expense of the other. Was that done effectively or at all? I’m not sure. I know that as more and more Jews were arriving in Israel, the Arab land owners who rented their land to the Palestinian farmers and workers simply chose to sell their land to the Jews for elevated profit and evict their Palestinian renters. At the same time the Palestinians were being encouraged to leave Israel and join the neighbouring Arab military forces in order to win back “their” land through force and push the Jews into the sea.

That was the plan. The Arabs played both ends against the middle and ultimately lost. But the real losers were not the Egyptians, Serians and Joradanians. The real losers were the Palestinians. Once the military aggressions by surrounding Arab forces failed, the host Arab nations had no further use for their poor cousins - the Palestinians. They certainly did not have enough conviction to actually die for the Palestinian cause. Nor did they care enough to invite the Palestinians to live as full citizens on their soil. I think if they had, the Palestinians would stop being the stick with which to hit Israel, while avoiding suffering any personal pain. So the Palestinians became the poor wretches (in large part) to be used by various Islamic fundamentalists as cheap pawns in the game of harrassment of Israel and it’s safety. Palestinians are now simply cannon fodder for either side in this continuing conflict.

Perhaps it all could have been avoided if Israel made a greater jesture in the beginning to the displaced Palestinians. If they were successfully integrated into Israeli politics and economy (they are marginalized now at best) then they would have less of an ax to grind and be less tempted to listen to self indulging fundamentalists. Palestinians, instead of having nothing to lose would have as much to lose as any other Israeli. I understand that there are handfulls of Palestinians who managed to live and prosper in Israel. They are actively involved and integrated in the Israeli society and though they may not have proportional representation in gov’t, they never-the-less do infinately better than the average uneployed, disenfranchized, rock throwing Palestinian living in the Gaza who relies on Israeli border guards to let him out of his ghetto daily to search for a job inside Israel’s borders.

10

I’m pretty sure. As Dex and others have pointed out numerous times in related threads, Israeli Arabs are not persecuted against by Israeli law. Does de facto racism exist in Israel? Of course. Is that the fault or responsibility of the Israeli government? I don’t think so.

I hear an awful lot of talk about the Palestinians. Allow me to excerpt from:

He says more. Lots more. But that’s enough for now. The fact of the matter is that the Israeli claim to more land than they have ever had autonomous control over in the Modern Era is backed by overwhelming historical and archeological data, while the Arab claims to those lands are illegitimate.

There is no “downtrodden Palestinian people.” There is no Palestinian people at all. It’s an invention of modern media and politics.

11

There’s a good amount of media/political invention going on on both sides, unfortunately. Consider the statement from the OP’s original exhibit: For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital. Oh, come on! For most of that period, there hasn’t been a Jewish state! Jerusalem has always been the holy city, true, but to assert that it has always been the “capital”, with that word’s implications of a seat of political sovereignty, is just more newspeak.

12

Allow me to express the other half of my father’s argument on the issue…:slight_smile: I hesitated before because it seems a fairly aggressive (but in my opinion valid) alternative:

Throw the bastards out and keep them out at all costs. Retain conquered land if it was taken due to enemy provocation and offers a strategic advantage against further aggression. In other words, keep Golan, West Bank, Gaza, etc… Exchanging land for peace is a sign of weakness as does willingness to negotiate with former and current day terrorist. Allow no tollerance of extreme violent descent from those who still live inside the borders. Criticism through peaceful demonstration and proper political process in fine but violent demonstrations and attacks on the general populace are causes for legal persecution and expulsion from the country.

As for Palestinians being a real people or not, that is of far less importance. For the sake of convention, the displaced Arabs of the region (and those that have come to join their cause over time) have alligned themselves under one flag and leader (Arafat). Now this may be a fluid group and their leader may not represent all their factions, but the world, and the US in particular has reconized this particularly large special interest group as Palestinians. I don’t know if it was for ease of reference or simple oversite (doubt the latter). In truth it matters very little. This is a group of Arabs which has given tacit agreement to be represented by their leader in negotiating the best autonomy deal they can find in the area. Couple that with the anti-Israeli sentiment which is rampant in the area and you have what amounts to a partisan Arab army of half literate and economically inviable transients with nothing left to lose. A pretty desperate and dangerous combination as we well know.

If you are aguing the point that “Palestinians” as a group should be ignored by Israel as a whole (except at borders where they should be turned away on site and by military force if necessary) then I might be tempted to agree with you, as would many others. Israel shoould deal politically with established Arab nations and not disenfranchized groups of Arabs claiming to belong to a non-existing nation. But somehow that seems too simple. For reasons unclear to me, Israel has chosen to negotiate with and give up land to these people. Something has compelled them to do so and I’m not sure that an article by an Arab journalist dismissing a Palestinians as a fictional group is enough to convice Israel, America and the rest of the world to simply ignore their demands and erase them from the political arena as if they do not exist.

So call them what you want. But they are pissed, they are represented by a common recognized leader and they are a serious problem to Israel’s national security unless they are dealt with one way or another.

13

What can be done with them? As I see it they won’t be satisfied with anything less than kicking the Israelis out of Israel. Arafat seems to be playing the game where he pretend to give a few compromises in order to gain some piece of land or whatever and then small groups of “uncontrolled militants” break the agreement eventually followed by the more organized groups. Then back to the negotiating table for more concessions. What can be done now? We can talk about what might have been done years ago, sure, but what can be done now? I have no ideas. Is there any hope for reconciliation in the next millenium? I don’t see it.

14

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by sdimbert *

I hear an awful lot of talk about the Palestinians. Allow me to excerpt from:

Thanks, sdimbert–I was going to post that one myself, I saved it 'specially for a thread like this, but as it turns out, I accidentally tossed it.

15

BW,

Thanks for the thanks! Heh…

BTW, can you tell me in what publication that article originally appeared? I received a copy via email.

16

No clue. I may be able to find out by this weekend, though. I’ll keep you informed.

17

The column originally (I think) appeared at http://worldnetdaily.com . Farah is a columnist for them.

While I want to believe everything he says in the column, it concerns me somewhat that the site (and Farah) appear to be on the extreme right wing of US politics (from my somewhat left-of-center point of view). Farah himself has collaborated with Rush Limbaugh, who I don’t consider a generally reliable source. Certainly, it is a logical fallacy to dismiss everything he says because of the people with whom he associates. However, it does make me approach his statements with some caution.

(Make no mistake–I think the Palestinians are far more at fault in the current situation than the Israelis, but I don’t consider Israel to be completely blameless in all cases.)

Rick (hoping for peace, but not too optimistic at the moment)

18

Preface: I am no expert, and speak mainly from things I’ve gleaned here and there.

  1. I was under the impression that “Palestine” was an elision of the “Philistines” mentioned in the bible. Surely the Romans didn’t make the term up off the top of their heads, and identified it with some non-Jewish local tribe or people.
  2. The territory that is now Israel has been home to many people and tribes over the last five thousand years and longer, just like everywhere else on earth. In ancient times, especially, the region was populated by nomadic tribes that wandered without respect for modern boundaries. For most of history, the cultural group we now call the Jews has been the dominant one in the region of Jerusalem, but to imply that the territory of Israel has been home to Jews, exclusively, until recent times seems like a stretch.
  3. To characterize the Palestinians as Arab is not incorrect, just as it is not incorrect to characterize the Egyptians as Arab. But the Egyptians are also…well, Egyptian. They were conquered by the Arabs, and mixed with them. The lines there do indeed go back to the builders of the pyramids, and Egypt was obviously not empty before the Arabs showed up. In the case of the Palestinians, they certainly feel that they have ties to the place that predate the Arab expansion, and I do not find the notion inherently ridiculous, as implied in the email. Although I am not prepared to defend it since I am not an expert, the assertions of the obviously biased author of the email are not particularly persuasive to me.
  4. The assertion of Palestinian statehood is pretty modern, that’s undeniable. Of course, there wasn’t much chance of it happening under the Turks or British, so the fact that it coincides with the birth of modern Israel is hardly surprising and DOESN’T necessarily mean it is solely a reaction to that event. As for this political identity being young, in and of itself, so what? The assertion of Italian statehood really only dates from the nineteenth century.
  5. Jerusalem has been handed back and forth many times in history. Heck, even European crusaders ruled it for awhile. It has been under Jewish control for a larger percentage (by a long shot) of time than it was under any other group, to be sure.
  6. Jerusalem has never been an Arab or Muslim capital, that I’m aware, but so what? I’m not sure what the point there is. (Jerusalem has certainly been subjected to rule from Muslim capitals, under the Ottomans for example).
  7. Muslims do not face away from Jerusalem when praying, that is factually incorrect. They face towards Mecca, which may or may not be away from Jerusalem, depending on where you are. Again, though, so what? The point of the overall email seems to be to denigrate Palestinian claims to Israeli territory, and I’m not sure what this has to do with it.
  8. “In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.”
    That has long been the historical account given by Israel, although there are people who claim to know first hand that it was otherwise. I seem to remember seeing somewhere that this was being contested now even by some Israeli historians, but I don’t have the cites unfortunately, and I have no solid evidence to give you here. At any rate, this claim does seem strikingly at odds with what I’ve observed of human nature.
  9. Arab refugees were indeed not very welcome in the lands they fled to, much like many of the Jewish refugees from Germany in the forties. I’m not sure that in any way absolves the country they were fleeing from of anything.
  10. Israel has been very good about protecting the holy sites of all faiths and keeping them open; they should be commended. I’m not sure what the Jordanian record is; I would not be surprised to learn it is not as good as that of the Israelis, as asserted. They should be condemned for it.
    My final take on this email is that it is, with a few exceptions, factually accurate (or let us say, not technically inaccurate) as far as I can judge. But it seems to be a selective and slanted presentation of information, intended to oversimplify a complex situation. For me personally, the bottom line is, neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians have impressed me with their maturity, humanity, desire for peaceful coexistence with people not of their own ethnicity, or ability to grapple with a point of view other than their own. Distortions that seek to put the blame or the pettiness entirely on one side, besides being disingenuous, reflect poorly on the author.
19

Israel became a nation in 1312 B.C.E., two thousand years before the rise of Islam. – Arab refugees in Israel began identifying themselves as part of a Palestinian people in 1967, two decades after the establishment of the modern State of Israel. True, but to tie the modern nation of Israel to the nation created circa 1312 BCE is tenuous at best.

Since the Jewish conquest in 1272 B.C.E. the Jews have had dominion over the land for one thousand years with a continuous presence in the land for the past 3,300 years False. The Jews never enjoyed a thousand years of dominion for any of their kingdoms. Jewish states were never powerful enough to long remain independent of the major powers in the Middle East. Presence in the land for 3,300 years is true, but it is no less true for the other Semitic populations in the area. Religious conversion does not erase history.

For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital False. Capital implies a state.

*Jerusalem is mentioned over 700 times in Tanach, the Jewish Holy Scriptures. – Jerusalem is not mentioned once in the Koran. * I bow to those with specific knowledge of the respective scriptures, but I have no reason to believe this is inaccurate. Of course, since I do not consider God a valid real estate broker I do not find the fact particularly compelling.

*Jews pray facing Jerusalem.–Muslims pray with their backs toward Jerusalem. * False. Some Jews pray facing Jerusalem (I have Jewish relatives who do not.) The location of Jerusalem is irrelevant to how a Muslim faces when praying.

In 1948 the Arab refugees were encouraged to leave Israel by Arab leaders promising to purge the land of Jews. Sixty-eight percent left without ever seeing an Israeli soldier.-- The Jewish refugees were forced to flee from Arab lands due to Arab brutality, persecution and pogroms. Accurate in some details, but couched in inflammatory language.

*Arab refugees were intentionally not absorbed or integrated into the Arab lands to which they fled, despite the vast Arab territory. Out of the 100,000,000 refugees since World War II, theirs is the only refugee group in the world that has never been absorbed or integrated into their own peoples’ lands. * False. Many Palestinians, even the large majority, have not been assimilated into other Arab lands. However, they are by no means the only refugee population that has not been absorbed into “their own people’s lands”. Ruwanda, anyone?

Jewish refugees were completely absorbed into Israel, a country no larger than the state of New Jersey. Some? True. All? False. I seem to recall that other countries also absorbed Jewish refugees after the war (and during the cold war).

*The Arabs are represented by eight separate nations, not
including the Palestinians.-- There is only one Jewish nation. * True (depending on how you count Arab nations).

*The Arab nations initiated all five wars and lost. --Israel defended itself each time and won. * True, though “defended itself” minimizes the fact that Israel remains in control of lands taken through conquest.

*The P.L.O.'s Charter still calls for the destruction of the State of Israel. * True, AFAIK.

*Israel has given the Palestinians most of the West Bank land, autonomy under the Palestinian Authority, and has supplied them with weapons. * Generally true, though “autonomy” is somewhat overstating the reality.

Under Jordanian rule, Jewish holy sites were desecrated and the Jews were denied access to places of worship. --Under Israeli rule, all Muslim and Christian sites have been preserved and made accessible to people of all faiths. True, AFAIK.

The points about the UN record toward Israel seem largely accurate, but I note that the message makes no mention of the fact that the formation of the modern nation of Israel owes a fair amount to the UN mandated division of Palestine in 1947.

20

And as long as we’re making objections, here are a couple of nitpicks to Farah’s article:

There is no language known as Palestinian. There is no distinct Palestinian culture.

Well, there is a dialect of spoken Arabic called Palestinian-Jordanian, but that doesn’t detract from his point that Palestinians and Jordanians are ethnically similar. Still, by that reasoning, the United States and England (or the United States and Canada) shouldn’t have become separate nations either. I think ethnic uniqueness is probably not a very good criterion for determining the formation of nation-states.