But “anti-muslim” propaganda? Not to any large extent. More like anti-palestinian.
The Isrealis are by no means the poster-boys for tolerance, true. But, compared to the Palestinians under their terrorist leader, they come out as definately the 'good guys".
At least it wasn’t titled The Protocols of the Elders of Mohammed. 
I know a few other people already asked about this, but since I haven’t seen an answer yet, I’ll chime in as well.
Saint Zero said:
I would like to know what it is you believe to be “Bullshit” about this. As far as I know, when the Arabs controlled the Wall (for example), they prevented Jews from going there. Yet now that Israel controls the Temple Mount, they don’t prevent Muslims from going to their holy site.
Furthermore, I think we had a perfect example of this situation when the Israelis briefly turned over Joseph’s Tomb to the Palestinians – who immediately began wrecking the place. 
Kimstu, you’re putting words into his mouth. He speaks of language and culture as effects of nationhood, not causes.
“Ethnic uniqueness”? :rolleyes: The interested parties in the Middle East conflict are cousins ethnically speaking).
Nitpick: the Iraqis I’ve met personally spoke Farsi, not Arabic. They considered themselves Persians, not Arabs.
I would also caution against assuming that because Farah is Arab-American that he has no axe to grind against the Palistinian community.
That Joseph Farah article from http://www.worldnetdaily.com reeks on so many levels. And I am mostly pro-Israeli.
I mean, for God’s sake, they were advertising “Left Behind, the Movie” there last time I looked around…
His article “Myths of the Middle East” was published on October 11, 2000. It has since been followed up with More Myths of the Middle East.
IMHO:
This stuff about Palestine never existing, about there being no language known as Palestinian,etc.
Ag, let me just point out some offending lines :
Who were those Goliathan people? Chances are some of them still stayed around, and had kids that are still in the region to date. Just because they were conquered doesn’t mean that they vanished. These people became Palestinians.
Just because a land was occupied by its neighbors for a long time doesn’t mean that a nation of people lacks legitimacy. Look at Italy, Yugoslavia, Germany, and so forth and so forth. None of these “nationalities” existed before 200 years ago. I’d doubt that you’d find an Italian who would identify himself as an Etruscan today. Or for that matter, a Venetian or a Florentine before an Italian. The concept of nationality can be totally artificial.
The modern Hebrew that Israelis speak did not exist before 1900. It was largely made up by Ben Yehuda. Does this diminish from the legitimacy of the State of Israel?
Language can also be totally artificial and can be constructed on a whim.
This is no better than the Palestinians denying a Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. This is no better than claiming that the Jews need to go back to Europe. The tone of that article in denying Mohammed in Jerusalem is the exact tone that Muslim fundamentalists use to deny the Jewish Temple or the Western Wall in the Old City…
You can’t deny a people legitimacy, on either side of the matter. The simple brute-force explanation is that those people are there. They ain’t goin. So, coexistence needs to be the answer.
By all means debate the Israeli side. Say how Arafat closed schools, how he broadcast anti-Israeli propoganda on state TV and radio, how imams started toning up anti-Israeli rhetoric even before Sharon went to Temple Mount, how he lost world opinion and Camp David and is using riots to gain it back, how the PLO still calls for the destruction of Israel, how Palestinian schools use anti-semitic textbooks, and how the Tanzim lure children into the crossfire and encourage them to throw petrol bombs at Israeli outposts.
Don’t use the Farah article. Please. You will just open yourself up to tons of criticism. You are sinking to the level of Muslim fundamentalism.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by sdimbert *
**
I normally don’t touch these debates with a ten foot pole, but this canard needs to be put to rest. Much like claims of some places having more “history” it rests on
Regardless of whether there was a unified Palestinian identity in 1945, one exists now. Of course it is an invention, ALL identities are invented. (I leave aside the various claims of divine inspiration) Some inventions are older than others. However, there is a group of Arabic speakers who call themselves Palestinians and who feel they have such an identity. The age of such identity might be an empirical question – I suppose you have to read in original Arabic how natives of the region referred to themselves before Israel came into existance (as a modern state).
There are plenty of ways for defenders of Israel to defend their position without stooping to such chicanery.
Double Nitpick: No, you are thinking of IRANIANS. Although some Iraqi nationals speak Farsi. As some Iranian nationals speak Arabic. However the dominant languages are Farsi and Arabic respectively.
A couple of points:
Just for the detial, this is false as far as I know, Quds as it is called in Arabic is mentioned somewhere in regards to Mohammed’s night time journey to heaven, something about ascending from the spot where the Dome of the Rock mosque is. But I agree with you.
Rwanda? Connection? No refugees there, that was a civil war.
All in all the original article and the Farah article bear all the markings of proganda. Truths, half-truths and falsehoods selected to support one’s position. It’s sad, but then since I’ve had the sad occasion to be travelling on business through the region, I’ve seen plenty of both sides. Not terribly helpful to finding a solution.
sdimbert: * He [Farah] speaks of language and culture as effects of nationhood, not causes. *
Huh?! But that’s even sillier. You mean he’s really arguing that it’s the establishment of political nation-states that causes the formation of separate linguistic and cultural groups, rather than the other way around? I don’t see how you get that out of his remarks, and I don’t see how it can be defended even if he does say it.
While I am 100% sympathetic to the Israelis for many reasons, to be fair, one must remember that despite their Biblical claim to Israel, modern Israelis are all recent immigrants, while the Arabs have lived there for generations.
Theodore Herzl, a Jewish Austrian journalist, became convinced that European anti-Semitism, as evinced in the Dreyfus case, made it imperative for the Jewish people to found a nation of their own. Despite initial resistance from
European Jewish communities, Mr. Herzl founded the World Zionist Congress in 1897. Bit by bit, idealistic young Jews bought land from the Ottoman officials and proceeded to found small autonomous communities in Palestine.
After the Balfour Declaration in 1917, the pace of Jewish immigration increased, and then, of course, it became a flood after WWII and the Holocaust.
So the Arabs do have cause to be angry that immigrants (from their POV) have taken over their land and made them essentially prisoners in their own land.
That said, the Palestinians’s affinity for sacrificing their children to get world sympathy is disgusting, and what happened to Joseph’s Tomb shows that that any Jewish holy sites under Palestinian administration will be desecrated.
Arafat could have been the father of a new nation and could haved paved the way for peace and reconciliation with the most dovish Israeli government ever. Instead, he has shown what a loathsome, dictatorial thug he truly is.
I don’t think Arafat could or can accomplish any such thing in his lifetime. He is affraid for his life because any overt friendly jesture towards Israel will be sufficient cause to have him lynched by any one of the hard line factions within his beloved PLO.
He is a puppet leader with a tennuous grip on leadership of Palestinians at best. I’m sure that his popularity in certain UN circles is the only thing that has kept him in his position all these years. His face is almost a mascot for the Palestinian cause.
goboy, that’s not exactly true. Most of the Arabs moved to the current location of Israel in order to get jobs servicing the new population of Jews who had begun to arrive.
Prior to the Zionist movement, the land was practically deserted. There was no organized Arab community there; only nomads. There was a small Arab population in the big cities (such as Jerusalem) but by the same token, there was a small Jewish population there as well, settlements of religious Jews who came to the area well before the big Zionist push.
And most of East Jerusalem was owned by Jews as well until the Jews were driven out in a 1936 pogrom and in the war of 1948.
The Arab hostility for Jews is justified only in their minds. They do not see Israel/Palestine specifically as their land; they see the entire Middle East as theirs and are resentful that anyone else would dare to try and create a nation in the region.
Chaim Mattis Keller
Back to the OP, I think those are mostly not statements that one can judge as “true” or “false.”
Example: << For over 3,300 years, Jerusalem has been the Jewish capital – Jerusalem has never been the capital of any Arab or Muslim entity >> OK, the word “capital” implies some sort of state, and is therefore misleading. However, it is certainly true that for 3,300 years, Jerusalem was either the capital or the spiritual center of world Jewry. And it is true that Jerusalem has NEVER been either capital or spiritual center for any Arab or Muslim entity. Thus, the CONCEPT is true, although one can quibble about the wording.
<< *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. --The only Arab dominion since the conquest in 635 C.E. lasted no more than 22 years. * >> Spiritus Mundi argues that the Jews did not have absolute dominion for the 1,000 years cited. I think that’s quibbling. From 1000 to 600 BC, the area was LARGELY held under Israelite domination; from 550 BC to 70 AD, ditto. Again, I think the CONCEPT is true, although one can quibble about the wording.
As I go down the rest of the statement, I find the same situation. Yes, it would be better stated that Moslems pray towards Mecca, not Jerusalem, and therefore Moslems in between the two turn their backs on Jerusalem.
In short, my general assessment is that the original statements are pretty much on target, although I would quibble a bit with some of the phrasing, which is clearly slanted.
Oy vey.
Kimstu, now you’re putting words into my mouth! 
Farah said:
**
He is not saying that the lack of a discrete language or culture is what prevents Palestine from being a nation. He is simply saying that the lack of these things supports his assertion that Palestine, as a nation, does not exist.
That is what I meant when I said:
**
You replied:
**
In reply, no. Farah is not saying that it is the establishment of a state that causes the formation of linguistic and cultural groups. He is simply saying that most nations have identifiable and discrete languages and cultural groups.
The French people speak French. Do other people also speak French? Yes, but that is the language of the French Nation. There is no such language as Palistinian. The lack of such a language supports the assertion that Palestine is not a nation.
French people wear berets, eat french toast and act snooty. Other people also do these things from time to time, but they are still, nontheless, aspects of a discrete French Culture. Palestine has no such culture.
Farah could just as easily said that there is no such thing as a Palestinian Flag, but they invented one of those a couple of years ago.
Surely you can see that nations (like France, England and Finland) exist in a way that Palestine does not, can’t you?
Are you saying a civil war cannot generate erfugees? How strange. I assume, then, that you will also disallow any Jews who fled from Germany during World War II and any who fled from Russia after the Bolsheviks tok over.
For the record, I believe the UN, (as well as such neighboring nations as Zaire) might quibble with your definition.
Dext
Arguments for occupation based upon kindgoms 2 millenia old are weak enough inherently that I expect them to be accurate when proposed. Though, if I were truly rigorous on such questions I would expect the author to also advocate the abandonment of any territories now controled by Israel which werer not priveledged to enjoy 1000 years of continuous reign.
For that matter, the archaeological evidence supports continuous inhabitation of that region for several millenia before the founding of a historic Jewish state, surely we should track down the cultural descendents of those original inhabitants and give the land to them.
In a sense he’s right, although not in the way you argue. States create nations out of the raw material of some shared identities.
We can say the same for any number of nations. Indeed if we were writing about Germans in the 1840s we might say the very same things. It’s a silly argument which buys into the Romantic but ultimately incorrect, dare I say ignorant, notion of the eternal nation, the ancient people etc.
That I can say there is no distinct Swiss culture says almost nothing at all about the existance or not of a Swiss nationalism, or a Belgian one. Try reading Richard Benedict.
A nation exists when it has a body of people who claim its existance. The Czech nation is not less real for the fact that Czech(oslovak) nationalism created the Czech(oslovak) identity in the late 19th century out of many disperate local identities… Which in fact is really the default condition of most areas up to the creation in the 19th century of our modern ideas about nations.
A good course on the history of nationalism might clear up some of these silly assertions.
The distinctness of the culture and language are of course subjective. Norwegians, Danes and Swedes share extremely similar cultures and languages, to the point which many linguists observe that objectively speaking their seperate languages could be considered a single language with many dialects (the distances perhaps being no farther than among various German dialects compared with standard German, although a good century of standardization has of course probably normalized the dialects also.) It’s really a silly non-argument based on some mythic victorian concepts of the Nation.
An equally indefensible assertion. How does one define “identifiable and discrete languages and cultures”? Non-trivial problem. See above.
Problems:
Modern French is a creation of nation building and intensive efforts through the 19th century of creating a standard language. Most French citizens did not speak French until at least the mid-19th century. Langue d’oc, other dialects and even other languages (noting the differentiation is subjective) were more spoken than standard French. You should read the excellent book Peasants into Frenchmen
The dialects of French (accepting French as the linguistic unit of analysis) too overlap with the French spoken outside of France, both on the Swiss and Belgian borders. The standard of argument you’re using for Palestinians not existing would remove “Frenchness” from a goodly number of French – especially if we looked at the early 19th century where folks in the south west were speaking a langauge closer to Catalan than to standard French, in the south east, to Italian, Breton in Brittany, and highly varient dialects of langue d’oiel towards to the North, German in the Rhine valley etc. ad nauseum.
From all I have read and heard, Palestinian dialect is an identiable dialect cluster (shared of course with neighbors, I would assume as in ALL language cases, the dialects shade into each other.) As such, and from the political-social situation, if there are a group of folks who call themselves Palestinian and think of themselves as a nation, well then golly gee, you’re got a nation on your hands. Of course effective political control of territory and the like is a bit of an issue…
You clearly know very little about France or French culture or the history of the creation of the French state. The diversity within France was immense, before the nation-building efforts --in other words before the massive efforts of the state to homogenize the populations within its borders. The process and history is far too complex to deal with in this kind of forum, but I suggest a reading of critical academic histories of the formation of the French nation, in terms of modern popular nationalism, was a process. As it is for the Palestinians.
Surely I do not. Finland itself is a recent creation, not withstanding your argument from ignorance. France, as I have noted above is not so ancient, in terms of popular nationalism and identity as the name on the map (which itself has covered different territories.) and many a European nation which we would never question only emerged in the late 19th century.
I want to be clear, I am generally a supporter of Israel, but I find this sort of argumentation to be ignorant and largely harmful to an educated understanding of nationalisms. These pissing matches about who’s more ancient, who’s better, who was there first get them nowhere. They’re factually suspect in large part (Israeli and Arab claims that the other really wasn’t present in large numbers etc. smell like the old Afrikaaner claims there weren’t really any (or that many) native Africans around the Cape. All post facto-justifications…
It’d be so much more helpful for both sides to focus on the modern issues rather than stirring the emotional pot as they are.
Ah, sdimbert, I think the source of our problem is the ambiguity of the term “nation”: I was using it to mean just “political nation-state.”
*Surely you can see that nations (like France, England and Finland) exist in a way that Palestine does not, can’t you? *
Now let me make sure we get the terms clear. If “nation” means “political nation-state”, then I certainly see how France and Finland are different from Palestine (so far), because they have universally recognized territory and sovereignty.
But if “nation” means “culturally and linguistically discrete group”, then you seem to be saying that no two groups that are culturally and linguistically the same can be separate nations. In other words, the Palestinians are nationally no more “Palestinian” than they are “Jordanian”. This is at least partly true (although Arabic regional traditions are so diverse that I doubt there are absolutely no cultural traditions specific to the Palestinian Arabs, that is, the displaced descendants of the former Arab occupants of what is now Israel. And they are certainly distinct, despite Farah’s assertion, from other Arabs with different spoken dialects, such as Syrians, Iraqis, and Lebanese).
But I still don’t see what difference that makes in assessing Palestinian demands for a Palestinian nation-state. Farah is saying in his article that the fact (among other things) that Palestinians are not a culturally and linguistically discrete “nation” means that their demand for a “homeland” is just a “phony excuse” for “rioting, trouble-making, and land-grabbing.”
Why? I don’t get that at all. What is the logic in saying that groups of people who are not culturally and linguistically distinct automatically have no claim to political autonomy? By that reasoning, as I pointed out earlier, England and the United States should not have become separate nation-states, nor should North and South Korea.
Yes, most nation-states also have “national” traditions of language and culture (and race) that distinguish them ethnically as well as politically from their neighbors. But Farah seems to be saying—and I reread the cite from his article carefully, and I don’t think this is putting words in his mouth—that the absence of such ethnic distinctiveness helps delegitimize the Palestinians’ claim to autonomy. I still think his position doesn’t make sense: ethnic distinctiveness (since you think “uniqueness” is too strong :)) is an unsatisfactory criterion for making judgements about political self-determination.
First of all, Collounsbury, take a pill or something, OK? Jeeezus. Talk about not seeing the forest because of the trees.
They were examples, ok? F’rinstances to be taken, generally, as examples of a larger, more general idea. Ones which you overlooked in you over-zealous, peremptory and prolix rush to call me “silly” and assert that I “clearly know very little.”
Oh, and uh… thanks for the reading list. Prick. :rolleyes:
Nowthen…
Kimstu:
I think you’re correct… the work we’re stuck on is “nation.” As you put it, “If ‘nation’ means ‘political nation-state,’” then Palistine is different from other nations. That is what I think Farah is getting at.
I mean, if a few thousand Texans decided to rebell against the government and call themselves a “nation,” the folks in Washington would probably not appreciate it (at least, they didn’t last time :D). I think that is what Farah is getting at: that the Palistinan claim of nationhood is baseless from a political perspective. From that perspective, Palestine is no different than Never-Never Land. (BTW, how many different ways can I spell “Palestine” in a single post? :))
Look - if the Israeli’s gave the Palestinians enough land to shut them up for a few days and granted them autonomy, what would be the difference between that “nation” and the countless other Arab nations is the region? Answer - nothing. In that sense, Farah’s thesis is correct: The Palestinians don’t want Palestine so they can have a home; they want Palestine so they can eradicate Israel.
sdimbert, I think we’re getting closer to mutual understanding (if the mods don’t ban you first for using expressions like “Prick” in GD! :eek: ), but I still don’t get some of your arguments here:
- I mean, if a few thousand Texans decided to rebell against the government and call themselves a “nation,” the folks in Washington would probably not appreciate it […]. I think that is what Farah is getting at: that the Palistinan claim of nationhood is baseless from a political perspective.
Nowwaitaminit. When a few thousand Englishmen in the American colonies decided to rebel against the government and call themselves a “nation”, the folks in London didn’t appreciate it either. But nonetheless, it stuck and here we are, a separate nation. (And it could probably be argued—and I bet Molly Ivins, for instance, would argue it—that Texans have quite as much “ethnic uniqueness” compared to other Americans as American colonists had compared to other Englishmen.) You (well, Farah) can’t just declare all claims of nationhood that aren’t based on differences of language and culture to be “baseless from a political perspective”; some such claims never result in achieving autonomy, but others do. Whether a group of people succeeds in acquiring political sovereignty has much more to do with practical political issues than with some abstract measure of “national authenticity”, which as Collounsbury pointed out is a pretty vague and superficial concept anyway.
Look - if the Israeli’s gave the Palestinians enough land to shut them up for a few days and granted them autonomy, what would be the difference between that “nation” and the countless other Arab nations is the region? Answer - nothing.
?? Gah—wah—hugoogahbahhuh??!?? [/splutter] The difference would be that Palestinians would be allowed to live there and would have political self-determination! Or did you just mean that the Palestinian nation-state would not be very ethnically different from its Arab neighbors? As I said, I don’t think we should be applying some kind of “ethnic-difference” yardstick to determine whether a group of people is “entitled” to political autonomy. (And I am very puzzled as to what you mean by “countless other Arab nations in the region.” What’s “countless” about them?)
*In that sense, Farah’s thesis is correct: The Palestinians don’t want Palestine so they can have a home; they want Palestine so they can eradicate Israel. *
Now this I don’t get at all. It sounds as though you’re saying that (1) if people don’t meet certain “ethnic-difference” standards with respect to their neighbors, then their claims to political autonomy are automatically invalid; (2) the Palestinians recognize this although they won’t admit it; and (3) therefore, their continuing to insist on a homeland is just a ruse to continue the pressure to eradicate Israel.
None of those claims seems very plausible to me. I certainly recognize that many Palestinians (and many other Arabs) have a hostility to Israel that extends beyond the issue of whether the Palestinians have self-determination; but to me, that’s not incompatible with their having a genuine desire for a Palestinian homeland and a sincere belief that they have a right to one. And I don’t think it’s legitimate to ignore their claim just because they’re not “ethnically distinctive.”