Dex,
I assumed that the charter I found was the most up-to-date. It is the first link that appears when one conducts a websearch for “PLO Charter.”
Here’s what I found:
http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/05.Jan.1999/Features/Article-21.html
Long story short: The displaced Jordanians (aka Palestinians) have been saying since 1996 that they were going to revise the charter, but it hasn’t actually been done.
No I disagree. Jordanians aren’t Palestinians nor vice versa.
Think Hatfields and McCoys, with the McCoys ruled by a clan out of (what is now) Saudi Arabia mostly as a reward for thier work in the Arab revolt against the Turks in WWI.
The Israelis of course are the Yankees or revenuers depending on what era you’re thinking about in mountain U.S. history.
Think of the anarchy called Lebanon. No majority but a collection of clans. Largest, the Sunni, are the most apolitical (as far as Lebanon goes) and not compeletely radicalized against Israel. Next are the Shiites, led by the Hezbohlah, then come the Christians, bending in the wind, and finally the Druze, also blowing this way and that. Easy of Syria to dominate but difficult to completely control.
Thanks to all who are posting!
This is one of the most informative threads I have found so far. A nice thumbnail version of a cruelly complex subject.
If there are any SD’ers out there who consider themselves sympathetic to the PLO, I would very much like another viewpoint on the subject.
In the interest of getting all points of view, and not denigrating any who have posted so far.
Regards,
Shodan
Possible origin of tensions as expressed to me some time back by an Islamic wholesailer I used to deal with.
About eight years back I was a bead retailer (yeah beads, hippies and stuff) and I used to do a lot of business with several wholesailers from various countries in Africa and one of them was Muslim and of African and Arabic ancestry. Anyhow the topic of religeous philosophy came up one time because he needed to pray in my stockroom and borrowed a bowl of water. After he had prayed I asked him about Islam because while I had been raised in a Jewish home and was aware of the tensions I had little understanding of them. To me Arab and Hebrew are both Semites and have more in common than say Jew and Christian or Muslim and Buddhist so I never got the whole hostility thing. I mean sharing real estate seems like a simple concept.
Anyhow, what I was told is that while Muhammed was still alive and beginning to form his prophecies into a cohesive religeon him and his followers prayed towards the city of Jerusalem not the current city of Mecca. At some point Muhammed asked a group of Hebrew Rabbis and leaders of state to join him in prayer in the hopes of brotherhood in a new revalation and was rejected so flatly that he turned his back on Jerusalem toward the place from which he had come. Mecca.
It should be noted that after a search on this I have been unable to reconcile much of this information, but geographically there is not much to argue about and would explain a large tradition of hostility and lack of reconcilliation. Most of the information I have been able to obtain on this subject is very slanted either toward glorifying or villifying Islam and Muhammed. If there are any Muslim readers who are familliar with this version please respond an let me know.
My own belief on this is that like all modern hostilities this one is pretty muich a case of people in power abusing the fears and prejudice of those lacking power to maintain their own hold on the throne(s).
Israel may be the “true” home of the Jews, but I’ll stay here on the west coast. It’s a hell of a lot better climate and I can’t believe god wants me to live anywhere where I need to keep a gas mask in the glove compartment.
zen101
D.F.A.
Zen101-
I’m not a muslim…I’m a jew. But I have heard this story before from a few different sources.
I have no means of verifying it however.
**WIGGUM wrote:
The Israelis are Jewish, and the Palestinians are Muslims. There is obviously religious friction there, but what does it all boil down to?**
One thing I’ve never understood is this religious friction. The best I’ve been able to understand is that both sides, Jews and Muslims, believe they are the proper worshippers of the One God and the others are ‘simply not doing it right.’
Is it really that simple or have I missed some important point?
My apologies if I’ve glossed over major points of theology here, but I’ve never understood the antagonism between these two peoples.
Btw, thanks CKDextHavn for a great explanation of the 20th century history of land now known as Isreal.
I have never heard this story before, and yes, I have studied Islam. This sounds like a Hadith, which is sort of the Islamic equivalent of Midrash. (Or, stories that have no biblical/qur’anical basis.) Not that this really matters - faith is faith.
Israel and California have near-identical climates, at least in the more populated areas. (There’s plenty of desert in both places, and not many people live in either.) It’s more humid on the Mediterranean coast than the Pacific Coast, but Jerusalem or the Galilee and the San Fran Bay Area have extremely similar weather. (Although it snows more in Jerusalem.)
Sorry for the little hijack, but if I had a nickel for everyone asks about living in the deserts of Israel, I’d, well, have a couple dollars, probably. 
[hijack] Not to say there’s not deserts, there, Kyla, because the Judean desert is awesome, in every sense of the word. One can understand how someone would go wandering in that desert and come back with visions of God.
To me, one of the most amazing spots in Israel is at Hebrew University, atop a small mountain, right at the dividing line between desert and fertile lands. On your left, desert and barren unimaginable. On your right, orchards and grasslands. And you imagine some prophet in Biblical times standing there, saying, “I set before you this day two paths, good and life [pointing right] and evil and death [pointing left]; choose good that you might live.” Adds an enormous dimension to Biblical poetry to know the geography.
Mohammed himself was enthused by Judaism, proclaiming all Arabs to be descendents of Abraham, and calling for Jews and Christians alike to join him in a true brotherhood of man. Mohammed (like Paul) was convinced that the Jews were the natural allies of his new religion; when the Jews firmly rejected him, Mohammed turned against them. However, followingthe death of Mohammed, the hostility against the Jews (primarily a political expediency) vanished. Mohammedans of that era were more tolerant of other religions than the Romans. Many Jews helped the Mohammedeans, for example in building the city Medina. Jew and Arab lived side by side in peace during the Islamic Empire, approximately 650 - 1500 AD. There was a Jewish Golden Age during that period, generating great names in philosophy, medicine, science, mathematics, and linguistics. Quick example: Ibn Daud introduced Arabic numerals and the concept of the zero into European mathematics.
The hostility arose again during the Crusade period, but it is not the case that there has always been hostility.
Israel and California have near-identical climates, at least in the more populated areas. (There’s plenty of desert in both places, and not many people live in either.) It’s more humid on the Mediterranean coast than the Pacific Coast, but Jerusalem or the Galilee and the San Fran Bay Area have extremely similar weather. (Although it snows more in Jerusalem.)
Sorry for the little hijack, but if I had a nickel for everyone asks about living in the deserts of Israel, I’d, well, have a couple dollars, probably. **
[/QUOTE]
My version if the west coast is a little cooler and greenr still. I’m an Oregonian and enjoy a climate which is more agreeable with my love of headcolds and Robotussin.
zen101
D.F.A.
The PLO is a political orginization that is hard to be sympathetic with. (it’s hard to be sympathetic with any political organization)
The palastinian people deserve much sympathy. They are currently living much like blacks in the USA did under jim crow. The ‘peace settlement’ that has been much discussed recently would have set up a political system almost exactly like apartide in South Africia.
The PLO has provided some social welfare projects for the palastinian people.
It’s difficult to say good things about the PLO, but it’s also difficult to say good things about Isreal.
IIRC, (and I don’t have a cite for this right now) Israel and South Africa are supposed to have cooperated on the development of nuclear weapons during the '70s and '80s when they were both pariah nations. South Africa may have eliminated their nuclear capability in the early '90s, but Israel has certainly retained nukes in light of its hostile neighbors. They wouldn’t be useful against the Palestinians, but if there were another Arab-Israeli war… ::shudder:: 
I can’t beleive that this is true.
As far as I know, Palastinian Israelis have citizneship. They enjoy the same rights as Jewish Israelis, non-Jewish Israelis, etc.
Of course, Palastinian refugees who continue to demand succession from Israel meet with the same treatment that Southerner Successionists (black or white) did during the period preceeding the American Civil War.
Can anyone who knows more than me and labdude deliver the Straight Dope?
I’m not gonna joke and say that Israeli Arabs are treated equally in Israeli society than Jews. They generally stick to themselves, and their income is far, far less than the Jews per capita.
But Israeli Arabs do have full rights of travel, full human rights, and full voting rights. This alone separates them from blacks in apartheid South Africa or Jim Crow. Rabin made some great strides in trying to eliminate this bias, but I believe he was the last to directly address the issue.
The Palestinian Arabs are another story. They generally live in land which is “occupied” – they are not citizens of anywhere, and so they don’t have voting rights. I do believe, in the days before the Palestinian Authority, that they were protected under Israel’s human rights laws, and they definitely (at least while borders were open, which is when there is no violence) had rights of travel.
I’m not going to get this tossed to GD (there is this thread over there now), but today’s incident in Ramallah (where 2 captured Israeli soldiers were killed in a Palestinian police station) confirms my worst fears about the peace process. If Arafat can’t control his population, even if he supports peace, he does not possess a mandate to negotiate.
BREAKING NEWS! Isreal is attacking Arafat’s base in retaliation for the two killings. The shit is hitting the fan right now, folks.
wevets, both you and Jeff_42 are correct. Admittedly, I’m basing my knowlege of this on an International Security class I took 3 years ago. According to the nuclear theory and deployment we learned then, Israel does have nuclear weapons. IIRC, we actually included them in the acknowleged nations. Like I said, this was 3 years ago, but if they had 'em then, they sure as hell have 'em now. sigh
One question that bothers me is; Ariel Sharon, the Likud leader, visits the Western Wall and this visit set off the original riots?
WHY?? How is that one man visiting the Western Wall would cause the Palestians to go crazy? It isn’t like he showed up in a tank and was aiming the turret gun at the mosque that ia built on the Temple Mount.
I honestly don’t see how one man, albeit hostile to the Palestians in general, could derail the peace process (which I feel has been done). All I can find in the news reports is that the Palestians feel he “defiled” the mosque by his visit here.
Freyr:
**
This is an excellent question.
I don’t want to launch a debate, and for more on this, feel free to look at the current Great Debates Thread on this subject, but understand a few things:
1 - The claims that Sharon “swaggered” into the Mosque with am “enourmous contingent of armed guards” in a “colonial” fashion are baseless and untrue.
2 - When Sharon got into the compound he saw piles of rocks already stockpiled for the obvious purpose of throwing down onto the Kotel Plaza… before his visit.
Your question is valid; the story does not add up.
If you head to this CNN news article about today’s developments in the Middle East and head down to the bottom of the page, you will see a blue box (on the right) with a list of additional information. One of the links is a Timeline of the conflict in Israel, beginning in 1000 BCE and ending in the present day.
It’s a good resource that speaks directly to the OP’s question.
I can’t link directly to it because it is a javascript link.