[Coach]

ATLian,

>Coach,
>
>true, the Palestinians don't get their houses destroyed in
>Jordan, but they (the Palestinians) aren't going around
>bombing Jordanians. If they did that, they'd be out of Jordan
>in a hurry. So it's unfair to use that analogy.

Palestinians have lived in Jordan for centuries and it is only those who moved after 1947 who are considered as "Palestinain refugees". During the Ottoman Empire upto 1917, there was hardly such thing as a Palestinian identity. This is why a lot of confusion was brought by the 1917 Balfour Declaration when the British gave parts of Palestine to the Jews. If you look at the population of Jordan, they are mainly Palestinians, so bombing Jordanians would bombing themselves. So the analogy stands if you understand the demographics of the Middle East.


>You forget that after the UN drew the original borders,
>creating both a Palestine and an Israel, the Arab countries
>attacked Israel so as to erase/obliterate the country. So we
>can argue about who is violating who's borders forever.
>Also, let's assume Uganda attacked Kenya for no reason. If we
>attacked them back, pushed their forces back to Kampala, and
>"conquered" land until Jinja, then I believe we have the right
>to keep it. Those are the consequences of such an attack. SO I
>think it was justified for Israel to keep the land they got
>from their various wars with the Arabs who initiated the wars
>with the sole intention of destroying all the Jews and
>annexing all the land of Israel.

Arabs did attack Israel because they didn't want Palestine to be given out to Jews from Europe. Jews have NEVER been persecuted by Muslims during the time they controlled Jerusalem. Christians on the other hand have repeatedly massacred Jews in the Middle East and also in Europe and the last straw was when Hitler massacred them on a large scale. Now, if Christian Europe have been killing Jew for millenia, why should the Palestinains pay for their guilt?

Plus, you are making it sound as if Israel fought the war alone, USA and GB were backing them with weapons and a lot of funding, remember that this hapenned during the Cold War when the Arabs were aligned with Soviet and Israel decided to back USA. This is why the USA initially supported them.

Even if Israel won the wars with the Arabs and took their lands, they have no right to treat them in an inhumane fashion. If the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem, West Bank and Gaza fell under Israeli control, the inhabitants have to be treated humanely acording to the Human Rights Convention. Or doesn't it apply to Muslims?



>First of all, if you look at mistreated Muslim's, you'll see
>that 99% of the mistreatment comes from Muslim governments.
>Most Muslims killed are killed by their despotic leaders like
>Saddam Hussein, or killed by rebels like the ones who've been
>causing grief in Algeria, or killed by
>Muslim-country-vs-Another-Muslim-country war like in the Iran
>- Iraq war. I once read a stat (can't recall it right now)
>which said something like of every 1000 Muslims killed in the
>Arab nations, only 1 dies as a result of action by Israel.
>That means 999 of every 1000 are killed as a result of a
>Muslim leader's orders or some other Muslim leader. So my
>question is this - isn't it hypocritical to have Muslims
>making all this noise against Israel for killing ONE Muslim,
>while saying nothing when Saddam and the Saudi police kill 999
>Muslims?

Muslims kill each other just as Africans, Asians, Europeans and S Americans do. This happens in pretty much the whole world. Even if Pol Pot killed 1 000 000 Cambodians, the USA is not free from blame after putting land-mines in the whole country.

Let's talk about the despotic leaders in the Muslim countries one by one and the role USA and GB has played in supporting them.

IRAN
In 1952, the CIA and US govt overthrew a democratically elected leader called Mossadeq and replaced his govt with a puppet regime. This regime was led by Shah and Iranian Oil was privatised and owned by Americans and British. They tried to uproot Islam and the Persian culture and atempted to replace it with western culture. The Iranians rose up under the leadership of Khomeini and a Revolution took place. Iranian oil was once again back in Iranian hands and the Americans and British were thrown out. This alarmed the west and they were afraid that the ripples from this revolution would spread all over the Middle East. This meant that control of oil in the Middle East would no longer be in the hands of the west but back to its rightfulk owners. So, the USA funded Saddam and encouraged him to attack Iran because over 60% of Iran are Shi'a Muslims and Saddam was used to stop the effect of the revolution crossing over the border. This war went on for 8 years and Saddam (with funding from the west) lost! Iranian oil is still owned and run by Iranians. have you heard of the Iranian govt killing its own people?


IRAQ
Saddam came in with the support of the CIA and the US govt. He was supported by them from the moment he took power to the moment he invaded Kuwait in 1991. What led to the invasion is a long story, but if you do some research, you'll find out that Saddam invaded Kuwait with the blessings of G Bush Sr. Iraq was fought by the Americans from the skies and tons of Depleted Uranium was dumped on their land. Saddam gased Kurds in Halabjah in 1988, but what did the west do? They were actually selling him the gas and weapons he was using on the Kurds and the Shi'ites. They supported him because they knew that if a civil war was to break out, Iraq would be divided and the oil would end up with the Kurds and the Shi'ites and not with Saddam's Sunnis. This was the classical divide and rule the British used on Africans for a long time.

Now let's talk casualties...How many people has Saddam killed? Probably hundreds of thousands. How many have died as a direct or indirect result of the Americans/British? You do the math. During the first Gulf War, tons of DU was dumped on Iraq. Although the US said that they had fought a "clinical" war with very little casualties, reality is that 88% of their bombs MISSED the targets (this is available iformation and can be found if you do a google). Plus, the media was completely shut out and military press-conferences were held where the world was shown pictures of a few bombs that have hit some targets.

Then sanctions were imposed on Iraq to limit the influence of Saddam. Everyone including the UN knew that these sanctions were targetting civilians but nothing changed becaus the USA and GB enforced them. Over 1 000 000 iraqis (mostly children) have died as adirect result of the sanctions. If you want us to discuss this issue at length you are more than welcome.

Then there was the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Over 25 000 civilians have died as result of bombings by the "coalition". many continue to die since the invasion and the land has fallen to disaray.


ALGERIA
In 1992, a general elections were held where an Islamic party won the elections by over 92% of the votes. The west (led by France) did not want this (although it was totally democratic) and they led the overthrow of the new govt. Civil war broke out and hunders of thousands died as a result. This was a clear indication that the west did NOT want democracy in Muslim countries and preferred despotic regimes.

Tje list goe on and on and we could discuss the role the west has played in killing Muslims for a long time. Muslims do kill each other like any other people of the world, but no where in the world are despotic regimes supported by the west as they are done in Muslim countries.



>Secondly, being more specific to the palestinian issue, the
>Muslim world is quick to condemn the treatment of the
>Palestinians by the Jews, while they over-look the crazy
>treatment that these same Palestinians endure in other Muslim
>countries. Of all countries in the gulf that had Palestinian
>refugees, only Jordan has granted them citizenship. The rest -
> Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria - efectively told the
>palestinians to f*ck off. So the Palestinians live in
>deplorable conditions in those countries and there they are
>treated as 2nd or 3rd class citizens.


Jordans population is mainly Palestinian, so no suprise there. Arab countries have done a lot for the Palestinain people, remember they (as you mentionned above) even went to war with Israel to try and liberate them. Palestinians live everywhere in the Middle East, bring me any evidence where they are treated inhumanely and I will show you that this is not only limited to them but to all because the govts thatdo these are despotic. In the Middle East, no one is treated worse than the Africans and Asians. The govts are incompetent and racist. They are so stupid that they would rather treat western expats kindly but treat their fellow Arabs in a inhumane manner. This is not only limited to Palestinains.

Saddam and the Iraqi govt has been supporting Hamas for a long time and gave every family of a suicide bomber $18 000. This was bothering Israelis and was one of the reasons Saddam was overthown, although WMD's was the official reason given although everyone knew there were no WMD's in Iraq. Scott Ritter and Hans Blix told them, but they had other motives and therefore went ahead anyway.



>During Saudi Arabia's oil boom, they needed thousands of
>workers to come do the menial jobs in Saudi. The natural
>people to use were Palestinians - fellow Arab Muslims who
>understood the language, culture, religion, and were even from
>the same climate etc. But the Saudis outright rejected the
>appeals by Palestinians to use Palestinians as those workers.
>Instead they went to Asian workers, especially South koreans,
>who are as far removed from the Islamic culture as anyone can
>be. That's like Kenya rejecting thousands of willing Tanzanian
>workers and "importing" Vietnameese to come work. Clearly it
>shows that the kenyans have some beef with the Tanzanians...

This is nothing directed towards Palestinains. There are 7 million expatraites working in Saudi Arabia and most of them are western. remember that the Saud family is an oppressive monarchy that would have been ovrethrown a long time ago if it weren't for the support of the Americans. The Bush, Saud and Bin laden family work together to shut out the average Saudi and the USA does all it can to stop the overthrow of this despotic regime. Did you even know that the average saudi is poor? I bet you didn't know that. Unemployment is rife and people are dissatisfied with their leaders, but anyone who dares rise up against them is dealt with violently and referred to as Al-Qaida. I would like all the despotic regimes in the Midle East to be deposed, but by their own people. USA supports the dictators it wants and when they fail to listen to Washington, the media rae told that they are evil and that is the beginning of the end.


>Finally, Kuwait expelled thousands upon thousands of
>Palestinians from Kuwait in some very inhuman ways.
>
>I can name very many attrocities committed by the Arab nations
>against Palestinian refugees. Why don't you ever hear Muslims
>commenting on that? All they'll comment about is the Israeli
>treatment. These Arab countries are united in ranting and
>raving about Israel's attrocities, while they do nothing for
>Palestinians.


Atrocious means extremely brutal, barbaric and very cruel. Where in Arab countries have the Palestinains been treated in this manner? Where in the Middle East are they denied healthcare, education and basic human needs?



>I believe that for the Arab leaders, the Palestinian issue is
>but a Photo Op, so their people can see they really care. I
>believe the Arab leaders will always want Palestinians to
>suffer under Israel, coz that's the ONE thing that unites all
>Arab countries, and it focuses their (these Arab countries)
>citizens attention from the rot that is going on in their
>countries. If the Palestinian issue was ever resolved, then
>suddenly you'd have a chap in Syria wondering where to focus
>all that Israeli-anger, and I strongly suspect it would end up
>being directed towards his government, which would culminate
>in results that are non-desirous to the leaders.


This might be what the despotic leaders in the Middle East want, but definately not the population. The British and Spanish people were against the invasion of Iraq, but their govts went ahead and supported the Americans. Most govts in the world do not do what their people want.



>I'll agree with that "One man's freedom fighter is another
>man's terrorist." That is why we Africans widely consider
>Mandela to be our greatest freedom fighter, but Thatcher
>called him a terrorist.

Very true. The party which wants to stop the uprising would use any means necessary, and the buzz word "terrorist" is today used on any group fighting for freedom. Where did the terms "freedom fighters', "guerillas" etc disappear to today? Even the Chechens fighting for independece from Russia today are called terrorists by the Russians.



>Coach, again I'll ask. The Taliban and Saddam killed more
>Afghanistanis and Iraqis than the West have killed. Why isn't
>there that same sort of anger focussed towards Saddam and the
>Taliban? Why didn't you have massive protests against the
>Taliban in Riyadh, or suicide bombers blowing up Taliban
>officials in Kabul?


Today, the thing that controls public opinion is the media. What did people know of the Taliban pre-9/11? Basically nithing! Did you know that the wages of the taliban officials was paid by USA? Yes, they were even welcommed to Houston in 1998 in order to discuss a pipeline deal. This is teh same Taliban that was later branded terrorists. But were they tyranical, opressive, unjust and cruel before 9/11? Of course they were, but they were supported by the Americans and that's why the media didn't talk much about them. The same applies to Osama bin Ladin, he was under the CIA payrole for decades but the media branded him evil when he turned against the USA.

Any leader in the world who tries to do something for his people and refuses the USA influence to their country is usually represented negatively by the media. The CIA even recently tried to overthrow Hugo Chavez, the man is a hero for his people and I sincerely wish the African leaders learn from this man. But he is not "good" in the eyes of the Americans simply because he tends to the needs of his people and doesn't dance to tunes recorded in Washington.