BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem
From: bobad
Date: 31 Jan 18 - 08:29 AM

Joe, the census I linked to that found little Arab presence in Palestine was from 1695 - the crusades took place in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries - try to keep coherent.

You say: There was no system that allowed the Palestinians to take ownership of the lands where they lived. The Jews legitimately bought the land from the absentee landlords, leaving the Palestinians without homes. I'm having a hard time understanding why Bobad considers that to be justice.

First off, you you say leaving "Palestinians" without homes. FYI at this time the world understood that "Palestinian" meant "Jew", the non Jews were Christians and Arabs.

As for no system that allowed the Palestinians to take ownership of the lands where they lived the system was the same as it was for the Jews, why would it have been different? Besides, the land was mostly unused, barren and sparsely populated, it was only once the Jews improved the land and started industries that the influx of Arabs from neighbouring countries began. To somehow attempt to denigrate the Jews for acquiring land by legal means contrasted by how most of the Middle East and North Africa was taken by force from the indigenous population by the Arabs smacks of racism. As a matter of fact the entire tone of this thread is beginning to smack of racism as it usually does with the usual suspects. I will leave you all now to carry on with your Jew bashing - have fun.

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jan 18 - 08:40 AM

"No surprise there considering the behaviour of the Irish government during WWII."
Staying neutral in a war that need not have happened if the allies hadn't stood by while Hitler was happily turning the Jews into second-rate citizens in preparation for exterminating six million of them seems a laudable enough action to me
The Jewish population of Ireland has nothing but praise for the treatment they receive in Ireland - go look it up
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jan 18 - 08:49 AM

Jewish/Irish relations and HOW IT IS BEING FOULED UP BY ISRAEL
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 31 Jan 18 - 07:30 PM

And what precisely has the Irish government in WW11 got to go with today?

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Jan 18 - 08:25 PM

"And what precisely has the Irish government in WW11 got to go with today?"
Bobad and Keith have a "racist" thing about Ireland
The former has accused Ireland of being Antisemitic on numerous occasions, the latter thinks that all Irish children have been "brainwashed to hate Britain"
Bobad, of course, believes everybody who accuses Israel of anything, from massacring refugees to dropping litter, is "a Jew hater"
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem
From: Joe Offer
Date: 31 Jan 18 - 10:16 PM

Bobad, I am curious about the history of both Jewish and Arab peoples in Palestine. I join discussions like this to try to learn, to test out ideas and to see what other people have to say, and then

Whack!

- I get hit upside the head by some sophomoric know-it-all who has all the answers and thinks me The Enemy, when all I was trying to do was think and discuss. And in this thread, I get the

Whack!

from both sides.

But basically, I'm not interested in what Jews or Arabs were were in the past. The past is good for providing context and understanding, but what I'm worried about is now. And NOW is the time when Israeli bulldozers are destroying Palestinian homes to build these hideous "settlements." How can that be just?

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 01 Feb 18 - 04:37 AM

"sophomoric know-it-all who has all the answers and thinks me The Enemy"
Joe
I was born almost exactly six months before the secret Wannsee Conference took place, where the Nazis first sat down and carefully planned the murders of up to and probably more than ten million human beings (we tend only to remember six million of them nowadays)
The events coming from that conference affected my and my family's lives - for me, it meant I didn't get to know the man who was the greatest and most important influence on my life and thinking until I was about ten years old - my father.
He and his parents cared enough about their fellow human beings to take to the streets when they learned what was happening in 1930s Germany, he went to Spain because of those events, was wounded, captured and persecuted and mentally tortured for the period of his captivity
When he returned home, he found himself with an MI5 record as a "premature anti-fascist", blacklisted from a promising career and condemned to Eternal Damnation by his/your Church (luckily, he had shaken off the spiritual bogeymen that your church had saddled him with in his youth)
He passed on to me in the 15 years I knew him up to his death, a deep concern about how human beings treat each other.
The events of Europe in the 1930s and 40s have formed a large part of my thinking throughout my life, and were added to by the Jewish People I knew and befriended in the four years I lived in Manchester
You came back from Israel with and anodyne picture of what was happening in Israel, berating us for not having been there and telling us we would like it if we went - completely at odds with my own interpretation of the events there.
You have been both dismissive of those who didn't accept your rose-tinted picture and abusive towards the arguments we have put forward, refusing to respond to any of them - you still haven't done so.
You complain about being abused, yet you have done your share of abusing.
You moved gradually from your rosy, uncritical picture of Israel, to fence-sitting and now you appear to be edging into maybe a rational discussion (nobody is asking for surrender - just an exchange of ideas and experiences)
Your complaining about being whacked by both sides is, in my opinion, the result of your shifting position - unfortunately that's the way arguments are conducted on this forum (guilty as charged on that one)
What concerned me most is that someone who I respect (while disagreeing with strongly on some subjects) took the position you did on so obvious (to me anyway) a massive abuse of humanity - a repetition of history where the victims have become the perpetrators.
I apologise if I have overstated my case - put it down to a poor upbringing - but please don't reduce my concern for something that has occupied a large part of my life and thinking to an academic study ("some sophomoric know-it-all")
It's a little more than that, to me anyway
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem
From: Greg F.
Date: 01 Feb 18 - 08:59 AM

How can that be just?

Because God gave then the land to do with whatever thay want.

Next question.

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem
From: Joe Offer
Date: 01 Feb 18 - 04:25 PM

I admire your passion, Jim. I am sorry that you are so quick to judge me. I prefer to explore issues before coming to conclusions.

My description of my observations was hardly "anodyne." From the very first post, I described the outrage of the settlements, the violent conduct of the soldiers, and the fact that non-Jewish citizens of Israel are treated as second-class citizens.

All of this stuff that you condemn, is your imagination of what I think. Same goes for your endless condemnations of what you think I think of the Catholic Church.

I prefer to carefully gather facts and explore alternatives and find solutions that are constructive, peaceable, and beneficial for all. That takes careful thought and discussion.

Quick condemnation doesn't accomplish anything.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 02 Feb 18 - 07:43 PM

Israel uses tourism to legitimise illegal settlements. All over the internet today. Here's a snippet or two from the Guardian report.

Israel is developing archaeological and tourism sites to legitimise illegal settlements in Palestinian neighbourhoods of Jerusalem, European Union diplomats in the city have warned.

A leaked report acquired by the Guardian cited projects in parts of East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel since 1967, that are being used as a political tool to modify the historical narrative and to support, legitimise and expand settlements.

The report identified settler-run excavation sites in the heart of majority-Arab districts, a proposed cable car project with stops on confiscated land and the designation of built-up urban areas as national parks....

...Marginalisation of Palestinians, who comprise about 37% of the city's residents, continued unabated, with more than 130 building demolitions and the displacement of 228 people, it said...

...Archaeology and tourism development by government institutions as well as private settler organisations established what it said was a "narrative based on historic continuity of the Jewish presence in the area at the expense of other religions and cultures." Chief among them, the report warned, was the City of David, a government-funded archeological park in the Palestinian neighbourhood of Silwan that provides tours in the ruins of ancient Jerusalem.

The site is operated by a settler organisation "promoting an exclusively Jewish narrative, while detaching the place from its Palestinian surroundings."

Approximately 450 settlers live under heavy protection in Silwan, the report said, alongside almost 10,000 Palestinians. Continued evictions of Palestinian families and the increased Israeli security presence have created a particular tension, it warned.

More recently, a cable car project approved by the Israeli cabinet in May plans to connect West Jerusalem with the Old City, part of Jerusalem internationally recognised as occupied....

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem
From: Joe Offer
Date: 02 Feb 18 - 10:00 PM

I don't completely understand the status of East Jerusalem. We stayed at an Arab-owned hotel in what we were told was East Jerusalem, but we were on the west side of the infamous Wall. If I'm understanding the story correctly, Israel "annexed" the portion of East Jerusalem that is west of the Wall - and this is valuable commercial property. I'm wondering if the Arabs living there became Israeli citizens. The Wall is 708 kilometres (440 mi) long. Along its length, it cuts off various Palestinian enclaves and denies 25,000 Palestinians access to Palestine.

It is true that before the Wall was built, Jewish Israelis did have reason to fear suicide bombers, especially in Jerusalem. Suicide bombings were a frequent occurrence, and the number of suicide bombings has dwindled to almost nothing. But in building the Wall, the Israelis did not take the needs of Palestinians into consideration, and that's a major injustice.

And then there's Gaza. The Gaza Strip is one of the most densely populated places in the world. It is 41 kilometers (25 mi) long, and from 6 to 12 kilometers (3.7 to 7.5 mi) wide, with a total area of 365 square kilometers (141 sq mi). That's about twice the size of the Sea of Galilee, and a little bit smaller than Lake Tahoe in California - with a population of 1.85 million. It has a border with Egypt that is 11 kilometers (6.8 mi) long, and it has been able to get supplies from Egypt off and on - mostly off, I understand. Otherwise, its other land borders are adjacent to Israel, and Israel currently does allow Gaza to import non-military goods through Israel. Its Mediterranean coastline is 40 kilometers (25 mi).

There is a small resort, Al-Bustan on the beach north of Gaza City. Between 1967 and 2005, Israel established 21 settlements in Gaza, comprising 20% of the total territory. I'm imagining that these Jewish "settlements" were ritzy seaside condominium complexes like I saw all around the Palestinian territory outside Jerusalem. In 2005, Israel evicted all 9,000 Jewish settlers from Gaza and abandoned its efforts to occupy the Gaza Strip. Gaza is not far from Tel Aviv, and short-range missiles have occasionally been fired from Gaza into the outskirts of Tel Aviv.

I didn't get a chance to visit Gaza, so all I know is what I read. Gaza does show signs of progress, however. Th literacy rate is very high, and there are college level schools in the Gaza Strip.

I've said this before, and some people have scoffed. But I think it's important to realize that more and more, Palestininians are becoming proud of their nation and its ability to continue existing and growing in defiance of all efforts by Israel to control it.

My sister has hosted a number of Palestinian exchange students in Wisconsin, and I have met at least two or three of them. These are good kids, and they're smart, and they're proud of Palestine and defiant against Israel.

-Joe-

---

This looks like an interesting article from the Jerusalem Post: Living in Jerusalem Behind the Wall. It's an interesting article, and the photos are especially disturbing. I thought I hadn't seen the refugee camps, but our bus drove right past the Qalandiya camp on the highway to Tel Aviv just west of Jerusalem, and through the neighborhood described in the article. We couldn't see much. It was a crowded area, and there was a big prison adjacent to the military checkpoint we went through. Our guide said the prison was for Arab political prisoners.

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem
From: robomatic
Date: 03 Feb 18 - 08:03 PM

There is a clear distinction to be made in this and other threads. between folks who can make clear statements of facts and events and link to useful articles from outside this thread, yet be critical of Israel while open to ideas and concepts and refrain from ad hominem attacks. I have no problem with these posters. There are other posters who are contentious and abusive and repetitive. They do not have anything new to add but they insist on bringing in the same old tropes (Nazis especially. What reason is there to bring up Nazis except to be personally offensive?) and they are easily provoked into personal observations. They are ultimately not convincing even to themselves (or they wouldn't be so repetitive and self-righteous).

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 03 Feb 18 - 08:29 PM

Well maybe. But contentious and abusive and repetitive people are important in this world. They are the way we get things changed. I dare say the Suffragettes were regarded as contentious and abusive and repetitive in their time, as were the people who, contrary to establishment wishes, opposed Mosley and fascism in the East End in the thirties. I suppose that Harvey Weinstein and his fellow-travellers regard some of his women victims as contentious, abusive and repetitive. It would be very nice for the Israeli regime if all their adversaries were non-contentious, non-abusive and non-repetitive, we know that. We know how much inconvenience contentious, abusive and repetitive people cause the powers that be. We call it democracy, actually. Your job, if you disagree with them, is to take them on, not try to shout them down as inconveniences.

Subject: RE: BS: Trump Station in Old Jerusalem
From: robomatic
Date: 03 Feb 18 - 11:13 PM

You by any chance a relation of George Bernard? You don't write like him (yet).

I agree with the sentiment of your last post but it doesn't really change my post. We are not on the streets here, we're in a forum using words to spread heat and light. It is our choice how we choose to do that. My comments were of course my opinion (and of course it's right).