I attended Mr. Pipes’ talk on Thursday. The mood was set by the police in the lobby and one standing guard in the auditoriun during the presentation. His talk focused on Muslims taking over the world and subjecting all of us to Shria law. This is an unlikely outcome. Not all Muslim activists have the above goal. According to wifes of Al Qaeda fighters, in Afganistan, they are fighting against the West’s taking Muslim land and killing Muslims and supporting those (Israel) who do.
Palestinian Arabs I spoke to in Jordan and Syria want acknowledgement/compansation for their parents having been violently expelled from their homes in the land now called Israel and never being allowed to return. Those in the West Bank want a Palestinian state, an end to the 42 year oppressive Israeli occupation, an end to confiscation of their land to build settlements and the separation wall, the right to go on their farm land and not be attacked by Jewish settlers, freedom of movement, jobs, etc. Yes, Hamas does want a Muslim state, but only about 5 % of Palestinians go along with that.
The Mullahs in Iran want to stay in control and keep the majority of the oil and natural gas money for themselves. Their days are numbered. They know their reign will end as they have been putting money in European banks I was told during my time there. Iranians do like American culture, but make no mistake they remember how we overthrew their democratic government in 1953, supported Iraq’s invasion of their country and the 8 year war that followed and the oppressive sanctions we have against them.
Pipes sees one Muslim view point when there are many. This is not the thinking of an intelligent person, but that of a peddler of fear who has an agenda to preserve Israel as a Jewish majority state. So why then would it be so wrong for Muslims, who are being killed everyday by US bombs and Israeli soldiers, to want to have their own state?
Jews don’t believe in Jesus or his message because they see him as blasphemer, yet his life and message never contradicted any Jewish laws. Muslims say they believe in Jesus and his message, but yet contradict him by leaning on laws and even creating a whole new set of them. Christians look at Jesus as a demigod or as God, or something of sort, yet threw out Jewish laws to pick up state laws (although based on hand picked Jewish laws). Nobody seems to be listening to his message. Laws are for those who don’t make moral judgments on their own. If anyone strive to be religious in any form, they will find the same set of extremely high standards in their heart. Morally living your life is the teaching in the Torah, Scriptures, Koran, and your own judgment. Subjecting others to punishment is a man made law, not a God given moral. Jews, Muslims, and Christians don’t have any right or religious backing in forcefully subjecting others to their laws. Israel, Palestine, and even America are all wrong in doing so. Calling out Israel does not validate Palestine. Politics and religion do not overlap. Excepting freedom by choosing a beliefs for yourself, while attempting to away that freedom from someone else by choosing their beliefs for them, is the most hypocritical and prevalent problem in the attempt to conjoin morals and laws. Whomever supports any religious state, supports suppression. Whomever supports any religious state, supports suppression. Whomever supports any religious state, supports suppression.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C756NOPyDA&feature=related
I support a religious state. I call it “my soul.”
Cheers,
Way to ruin my whole rant, Mitch.
I do not support a religious state. It gets in the way of freedom of religion. Church and state should be separate.
Muslims, I spoke with, see Moses and Jesus as great prophets to be honored.
I was taught that Jesus brought in a philosophy of love and forgiveness as opposed to an eye for and eye.
The Torah teaches love and forgiveness too, which is in opposition to an eye for an eye law. Both the Torah and Koran teach laws so that nations built of the unloving and unforgiving can prosper. Laws are for those without morals. Laws try to balance fear and fair punishment. Punishments attempt to be fierce enough to scare people into not breaking laws, yet humane enough to not disenchant the people. Either way laws speak to those who look to break the law. If laws were dropped people would not prosper because we do not practice forgiveness and love. Laws are made for those who refuse righteousness. Jesus was teaching to those who want to accept righteousness. So theirs no contradiction, just two different set of people. One set needs to be bound by laws and the other set strives for morality above laws.
Anyone who accepts love and forgiveness as a personal belief does not need any laws or government. Love requires morality and forgiveness. With morality you won’t commit evil and with forgiveness you don’t need punishment for those who commit evil against you.
Whew! I’m sure glad I gave up religion.
Taoism is so much simpler and easier to practice than Christianity ever was. Plus there’s no guilt and no eternal consequences. I really don’t understand why people burden themselves with all of that silly superstitious nonsense.
Go Agnostics!
Sue-
Now that Jerry Falwell’s dead, there’s really nothing to fear about Christianity, either. After all, wasn’t it Falwell who once said,
By comparison, there’s really no rational basis to question Islam, is there?
The lack of understanding of Middle East history is breathtaking. The Arabs left that land on command from their leaders, the goal being, when “Israel is banished into the sea, you can return”. Well, Israel didn’t get banished into the sea. The Palestinians have had in excess of fifty years to make something of the land they have and haven’t done sh–, but have played the victim card. When they’ve been offered generous concessions in the past, they’ve rejected them, because the concessions include Israel remaining a viable state.
Kehoff, it is your lack of the facts of when Palestinians left their homes in 1948 that is “breathtaking.” You are falling for false myths. I have met with Palestinians and their decendants who fled to Jordan and Syria in 1948. All told of Arab villages being destroyed and the occupants killed by Jewish soldiers. Some told of being told by British soldiers to flee to neighboring countries for a few weeks and then they could return. They have never been allowed to return to their homes.
I have spoken with Palestinain Arab refugees in Bethlehem and Galilee ( in the Israeli occupied West Bank). They told of the 1948 violence; and some showed us their homes and farmland that was taken by Jews.
Israel has never put the Right of Return of Palestinian refugees on the table as required by UN Resolutions. Only a few days ago Israel said no way would the Rof R be considered. At Oslo Arrafat gave away most of the West Bank water and made other concessions which made Palestinians most unhappy with him. Thus, not getting the R of R addressed in subsequent negotiations would be unacceptable.
The Israel government believes that all of Palestinian belongs to Jews and all Arabs need to leave. Remember this is the “Promised Land.” Israel’s laws and policy are made to make life unbearable for Arabs so they will leave. I have spent time in Israel and the West Bank and met with many Israelis, Palestinains, UN Representatives, Rabbis for Human Rights, a settler, Israeli Committee Against House Demolition, etc.
kehoff,
Your statement: “The Palestinians have had in excess of fifty years to make something of the land they have and haven’t done sh–, but have played the victim card,” shows that you have absolutely no clue as to what’s been going on since 1967 in the Middle East. You’ve heard the lies and believed them, so you never bothered to find the truth.
Israel is a military occupying power over the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinians do not have control over their land and resources, Israel does. Israel controls building, transportation, water and electrical infrastructure, imports and exports, the Gaza coastline and all airspace over the occupied palestinian territories. Movement is severely restricted and impacts the Palestinian economy.
Israel is slowly squeezing the Palestinian people to death, so that Jews can permanently control eratz Israel; Samaria and Judea, and prevent a Palestinian state from ever being created.
Educate yourself, don’t rely on the lies and myths you’ve been told.
The bad news for the Palestinians is they have no track record of having the ability to get together a cohesive state, in contrast to the very cohesive democratic society that exists in Israel. It’s dubious if given their own state that it would have good odds of surviving its own implosion.
“ability to get together a cohesive state”
thats laughable
The Real Cost Of US Support
For Israel – $3 Trillion
By Christopher Bollyn
While it is commonly reported that Israel officially receives some $3 billion every year in the form of economic aid from the U.S. government, this figure is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many billions of dollars more in hidden costs and economic losses lurking beneath the surface. A recently published economic analysis has concluded that U.S. support for the state of Israel has cost American taxpayers nearly $3 trillion ($3 million millions) in 2002 dollars.
“The Costs to American Taxpayers of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: $3 Trillion” is a summary of economic research done by Thomas R. Stauffer. Stauffer’s summary of the research was published in the June 2003 issue of The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
Stauffer is a Washington, D.C.-based engineer and economist who writes and teaches about the economics of energy and the Middle East. Stauffer has taught at Harvard University and Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Stauffer’s findings were first presented at an October 2002 conference sponsored by the U.S. Army College and the University of Maine.
Stauffer’s analysis is “an estimate of the total cost to the U.S. alone of instability and conflict in the region – which emanates from the core Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
“Total identifiable costs come to almost $3 trillion,” Stauffer says. “About 60 percent, well over half, of those costs – about $1.7 trillion – arose from the U.S. defense of Israel, where most of that amount has been incurred since 1973.”
“Support for Israel comes to $1.8 trillion, including special trade advantages, preferential contracts, or aid buried in other accounts. In addition to the financial outlay, U.S. aid to Israel costs some 275,000 American jobs each year.” The trade-aid imbalance alone with Israel of between $6-10 billion costs about 125,000 American jobs every year, Stauffer says.
The largest single element in the costs has been the series of oil-supply crises that have accompanied the Israeli-Arab wars and the construction of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. â?To date these have cost the U.S. $1.5 trillion (2002 dollars), excluding the additional costs incurred since 2001,â? Stauffer wrote.
The cost of supporting Israel increased drastically after the 1973 Israeli-Arab war. U.S. support for Israel during that war resulted in additional costs for the American taxpayer of between $750 billion and $1 trillion, Stauffer says.
When Israel was losing the war, President Richard Nixon stepped in to supply the Jewish state with U.S. weapons. Nixon’s intervention triggered the Arab oil embargo which Stauffer estimates cost the U.S. as much as $600 billion in lost GDP and another $450 in higher oil import costs.
“The 1973 oil crisis, all in all, cost the U.S. economy no less than $900 billion, and probably as much as $1,200 billion,” he says.
As a result of the oil embargo the United States created the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to “insulate Israel and the U.S. against the wielding of a future Arab ‘oil weapon’.” The billion-barrel SPR has cost U.S. taxpayers $134 billion to date. According to an Oil Supply Guarantee, which former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger provided Israel in 1975, Israel gets ‘first call’ on any oil available to the U.S. if Israel’s oil supply is stopped.
Stauffer’s $3 trillion figure is conservative as it does not include the increased costs incurred during the year-long buildup to the recent war against Iraq in which Israel played a significant, albeit covert, role. The higher oil prices that occurred as a result of the Anglo-American campaign against Iraq were absorbed by the consumers. The increase in oil prices provided a huge bonus for the leading oil companies such as British Petroleum and Shell, who are major oil producers as well as retailers. The major international oil companies recorded record profits for the first quarter of 2003.
The Washington Report seeks to “provide the American public with balanced and accurate information concerning U.S. relations with Middle Eastern states.” The monthly journal is known for keeping close tabs on the amount of U.S. taxpayer money that goes to Israel and how much pro-Israel money flows back to Members of Congress in the form of campaign aid.
The journal’s website, http://www.wrmea.com, has an up-to-date counter at the top that indicates how much official aid flows to Israel. While the counter currently stands at $88.2 billion, it only reflects the minimum, as it does not include the many hidden costs.
“The distinction is important, because the indirect or consequential losses suffered by the U.S. as a result of its blind support for Israel exceed by many times the substantial amount of direct aid to Israel,” Shirl McArthur wrote in the May 2003 issue of Washington Report.
McArthur’s article, “A Conservative Tally of Total Direct U.S. Aid to Israel: $97.5 Billion – and Counting” tallies the hidden costs, such as interest lost due to the early disbursement of aid to Israel and funds hidden in other accounts. For example, Israel received $5.45 billion in Defense Department funding of Israeli weapons projects through 2002, McArthur says.
Loans made to Israel by the U.S. government, like the recently awarded $9 billion, invariably wind up being paid by the American taxpayer. A recent Congressional Research Service report indicates that Israel has received $42 billion in waived loans. “Therefore, it is reasonable to consider all government loans to Israel the same as grants,” McArthur says.
Support for Israel has cost America dearly – well over than $10,000 per American – however the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been extremely costly for the entire world. According to Stauffer, the total bill for supporting Israel is two to four times higher than that for the U.S. alone – costing the global community an estimated $6 to $12 trillion.
What’s your answer to the Jewish people being expelled from Arab lands? No one seems to want to discuss that. Arabs are presently part of Israeli society and are included in the Israeli government. You also never discuss how neighboring Arab countries treat their own “brothers”, the Palestinians, as a pariah; they don’t want them and do little to help them. If Israel were my country, I would be fearful of allowing people that want my destruction to just blend back into the population.
You obviously have an agenda against Israel and I’m not sure why. Just try to see it from their point of view for once. Your venom against them seems way out of proportion.
Life is unfair for Palestinians living in Israel. For example they pay the same taxes as Jews but only get about 4 % of their taxes spent on them, they rarely get their building permits approved, etc. Just drive around a Palestinain neighborhood in Israel and see the disrepair, etc.
The Romans expelled the Jews from Palestine. Untrue is your statement that Arab countries have not helped the Palestinians. Neighboring Arab states took in around 700,000 Palestinians in 1948 when they were violently expelled from their homes by the Jews. Countries like Jordan have given them citizenship, etc. Arab countries gave land for Palestinian refugee camps that still exist today. See below:
Jordan 10 camps, 338,000 refugees in camps, 1,951,603 refugees
Lebanon 12 camps, 222,776 refugees in camps, 422,188 refugees
Syria 9 camps, 125,009 refugees in camps, 461,897 refugees
Arabs were not responsible for the barbaric treatment of the Jews in Europe. Arabs felt that giving the majority of Palestine to the Jews was illegal. A resolution passed by the UN General Assembly gave about 77 % of Palestine to the Jews making Israel a legal state. This provided an international charter for the legitimacy of Israel. It is unjust but not illegal in my opinion. “What is legal is not necessarily just.”
I am someone who speaks out against injustice, I am NOT anti Semitic or pro Palestinian. I am pro justice.