Is it racism to call the Palestinians backwards?
Or is it the truth?
posted by Ryan Ringer @ 7/19/2006 02:30:00 p.m.
6 comments
Because I can only subject my poor friends and family to my political rantings and ravings for so long.
Or is it the truth?
posted by Ryan Ringer @ 7/19/2006 02:30:00 p.m.
6 comments
6 Comments:
How dare you speak the truth!
Only if you don't put it into context.
Given that this is a sensitive time your post is rather provocative.
So, it is racist to accuse Israel of promoting a regime of apartheid because of their discriminatory laws and human right abuses vis-a-vis the Palestians?
It’s a universal phenomenon but certainly more institutionalized in some parts of the world and societies than others. I think Clear Grit was simply using the Palestinians as an example and contrasting it to the more secular and open-minded, tolerant view regarding homosexuality and gay rights that holds sway in Israel. I don’t think that it warrants attracting the epithet “racist” in any way. Definitely meant to be provocative though...
Palestinians had their homes and businesses confiscated to make room for the Nation of Israel back in 1948. Many of them still have the keys to those homes, but have been living in camps behind barbed wire, so yeah, they probably are backward.
I'm not saying it should have been the Israelis living in those camps instead, of course. Just that that's how it is.
Unfortunately for the Palestinians, they don't seem to be highly thought of by the Arab nations who might have been disposed to help them the way the US has helped Israel.
That may be racism on the part of the Arabs, too. I don't know much about that part of their history.
cherniak-wtf -- You'd have to be more specific about what you're talking about regarding these "Jim Crow" laws.
EX-NDIP:
Actually, the emirate of trans-Jordan was created for the Hashemite Amir Abdullah in the 1920s, who was tasked with controlling a tribal region outside of the direct influence of the British or French mandates as a British client. Also the UN didn't create Israel - the mandate of Palestine was to be divided into two states, a vision that was pre-empted by the Israeli declaration of independence and a civil war between the Haganah & Irgun Jewish militias and a variety of Arab state and non-state groups. Again, although it is true that some Arab governments called upon Palestinean civilians to flee the conflict zone, many more fled actual or rumoured Jewish massacres of Arab civilians, the most notorious of which were committed by Irgun to ensure that the new Israeli state would be territorially continuous, rather than divided into holdings along ethnic lines. Finally, although the Jewish population had some connection to the land dating back to the period before the Diaspora in the 1st century AD, the Palestinians have an equally valid claim, as the Levant region had a continuous majority Arab presence from the 8th century conquest from the Byzantines until 1948, the year of the founding of Israel. Therefore, one might wonder which claim is more valid, or if both are at least equally so. Perhaps before you accuse me or anyone else of "revisionist" history you might consult a history text such as William Cleveland's "A History of the Modern Middle East" (3rd Edition) as get your facts straight so this debate can be conducted on the basis of historucal fact rather than dogmatic assertion.
Regards,
Dal Grad
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