List of great muslim/arab inventions or discoveries

[a_person]

Quote from destroyer:

it is traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 13th century,[2] though some have extended it to the 15th[3] or 16th[4] centuries."
LOL, some still believe that the earth is flat, some still believe that there is no god but Allah. What some people claim is irrelevant when virtually all historians agree that it ended in the 13th century.

<del>2008-13th century = 708 years</del
21st - 13th century = 8 centuries

you can not say that the muslims did not contribute anything for the past 800 years. The very best thing you can say without ridiculing yourself is "the middle eastern muslims have hardly contributed anything the past 700 years".
Fine with me, I can only add that the Turkish contribution was extremely marginal at best both quality and quantity-wise and the only reason they did contribute at all was because they were significantly more westernized and less islamized than the rest of the Islamic world.

Your claim was that muslims have made NO contributions, so finding one that holds it's ground is enough. Which I did.
It's called splitting hairs - to argue about very small differences or unimportant details. We are discussing principles, not numbers, trends not absolute values. We are talking about the destructive power of Islam on science, technology and human brain. The existence of 2 or 3 (or 30) inventions during 700-800 years does not change these undeniable facts.

Trouble is, if you take islam out of the world history, the western renaissance, enlightenment and finally the industrial age might not have come for another few centuries:
This is not in dispute but the same can be said about the dinosaurs, they also played a role in the evolution of this planet. Except of course dinosaurs don't blow themselves up in restaurants and malls trying to prove that their culture is still the best, that their beliefs are the only valid beliefs, and that they are the only ones who have grievances. Muslims do.

 

[destroyer]

Quote from a_person:
Actually I have not. Your long, boring and baseless rants were completely without substance, you failed to back up a single accusation you made,

Every single statement I've made in this thread can be accounted for and backed up by more or less indisputable evidence. Meaning that even if you might find some flaws or exaggerations, the bigger picture I've painted remains more or less absolutely true. BUT - and there's a great BUT here - when talking to someone who knows virtually nothing about the history of his own country, nor the history of the middle east, it is simply not easy for me to know when I have to dig up the evidence and when it's OK to simply mention some facts when making a point. That is not to say I will not provide the documentation for my statements, I'm simply saying that you need to give me some room. The situation is extremely complex and the reasons for the middle eastern anger towards the US can not be documented and proven beyond any doubt in a single post. You need to let us take one issue at the time and get to the bottom of each aspect of the situation systematically. Do you think you can do that?

Quote from a_person:
your basic point was that Osama Bin Laden representing the arab people does not like our policies in the middle east and therefore our policies should change regardless of how legal and legitimate they might be. There is absolutely no other way to interpret your diatribes.

No that is not my basic point. My basic point is that the US government is fucked up and that because of its extraordinarily high level of non-constitutional bullshit, the US have done some bad things in the middle east that have made the people there fiercely angry at you. That is -NOT- to say the terrorists are right or that the middle eastern leaders have done nothing wrong - on the contrary, I've said several times now that they are not any better than the US. But when talking to an american, it's as useless to keep bringing that up as it is to bring up the mistakes of the US when talking to muslim terrorist supporters.

Quote from a_person:
I am not interested in responding to your anti-Israel rant either.

That's obvious, you can't comment on it without either 1. admitting some rather horrible stuff about your beloved master state, or 2. throw logic and reason out of the window. But hey, it's OK, I didn't expect any response anyways.

Quote from a_person:
Having lost every single point and having failed to support every absurd claim you made it's quite obvious that you are trying to introduce as many red herrings as you can.

I haven't lost a thing, I just need more time to do this (I kind of have a life away from the computer too, you know). Just have a little patience, I'll get back to every single statement I've made, one by one.

Quote from a_person:
Good luck with that, a pretty typical approach of an american hating terrorist sympathizer, when a debate is lost start bashing Israel, Bush and the war in Iraq regardless of whether it has anything to do with the debate. [/B]

First of all, my rant about Israel was a direct response to this comment: You argue that the US is Israel's client state and that at the same time Israel is the US's client state. And you argue that not just in one post but in one sentence. I thought you wanted me to explain myself. Now that I've done it, I'm suddenly the wrongdoer? Second, Israel, Bush and the war in Iraq is tied up in the whole thing and cannot be ignored just because it's hurtful for the war lovers to talk about. And third, I don't hate americans, I respect the american people. You're the one who think it's OK to send your neighbors 18 year old kid to die for something highly unamerican. You're no patriot, you and your like-minded are currently the biggest threat to the american way of life.

Quote from a_person:
This thread is a good example - having accused the US of 99% of the killing and gross violations of international laws in the middle east, the emotional person who did it had neither enough intelligence to support his claims nor enough intellectual honesty to apologize for smearing the entire country. All he was capable of doing was posting one emotional rant about body parts, the war in Iraq and Israel after another.

Let's take a closer look at the initial 99% comment:

"However, the way you are fighting terrorism is as if you're the victims of world war III. And yet, you're the ones doing 99% of the killing!"

As you can see, the comment concerns only the war on terror. Bringing in arabs who kills arabs in this case is like bringing in the Kosovo war, or WWII for that matter; Its got nothing to do with the war on terror between terrorists and americans.

Now, let's take a closer look at the numbers of fatalities in the war on terror, starting from Bush declared war on the terrorists and up until this day:

Americans killed in the Afghanistan war: 534
Americans killed in the Iraq war: 4,114
Total: 4648.

Arabs/Muslims killed during this same period of time at the hands of americans: About 30-60 000 combatants

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Terrorism_casualties

Add the american 5000 to the terrorist 50000 and the americans will have done 90% of the killing. Now add the civilian fatalities by the hands of americans in both wars, and your percentage wil climb closer to 99%.

Is this a very lose estimate? Absolutely, it's as lose an estimate as when you said 99% of modern terrorists are muslims. It's OK to do estimates like this when the point we're delivering is not depending on the estimate to be 100% accurate. The point I was making is that America is owning this war; that the opponents are getting crushed like bugs.

Are you following me? Can you leave this 99% mantra now, so we can focus on the stuff we actually disagree about?

 

[destroyer]

Quote from a_person:
<del>2008-13th century = 708 years</del
21st - 13th century = 8 centuries

Actually, the 13th century ended in the end, and we're in the beginning of the 21th century, so it's more like:

2008-1299 = 709 years.

Quote from a_person:
you can not say that the muslims did not contribute anything for the past 800 years. The very best thing you can say without ridiculing yourself is "the middle eastern muslims have hardly contributed anything the past 700 years".
Fine with me, I can only add that the Turkish contribution was extremely marginal at best both quality and quantity-wise and the only reason they did contribute at all was because they were significantly more westernized and less islamized than the rest of the Islamic world.

Or another way of saying it, is that the western world was very islamized with their great universities, love for logic, philosophy and science and all those things. Read this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab-Norman_culture
Quite interesting.

Quote from a_person:
Your claim was that muslims have made NO contributions, so finding one that holds it's ground is enough. Which I did.
It's called splitting hairs - to argue about very small differences or unimportant details. We are discussing principles, not numbers, trends not absolute values. We are talking about the destructive power of Islam on science, technology and human brain. The existence of 2 or 3 (or 30) inventions during 700-800 years does not change these undeniable facts.

I'd love to stop splitting hairs and focus on the issues, although it seems like you prefer to discuss these petty things rather than your government, Israel and the wars.

Quote from a_person:
Trouble is, if you take islam out of the world history, the western renaissance, enlightenment and finally the industrial age might not have come for another few centuries:
This is not in dispute but the same can be said about the dinosaurs, they also played a role in the evolution of this planet. Except of course dinosaurs don't blow themselves up in restaurants and malls trying to prove that their culture is still the best, that their beliefs are the only valid beliefs, and that they are the only ones who have grievances. Muslims do. [/B]

Sure, the dinosaurs where great too. But the contribution of the dinosaurs did not come as late as the contribution of the islamic world, and it did not (together with greek achievements) lay the very foundation of the scientific age we're in right now. I think there's a significant difference there.

 

[a_person]

the US have done some bad things in the middle east that have made the people there fiercely angry at you.
And predictably you completely failed to back up your claims. You've failed to come up with a single example of these "bad things". You could not come up with an example of a single American violation of international laws prior to 9/11, you could not come up with a single example of a bomb we dropped on their heads prior to 9/11, you could not even come up with any action which can be considered so grossly immoral (by western standards) that no other western country besides the US would do that.

Second, Israel, Bush and the war in Iraq is tied up
9/11 took place before the war in Iraq, the USS Cole attack, first WTC attack, the attacks on african embassies took place long before the war in Iraq. Your attempts to explain and justify the mindset of the arab street and arab/muslim terrorists by the war in Iraq simply does not hold water. Terrorism caused the war in Iraq, the war in Iraq did not cause 9/11 and all other preceding attacks.

Quote from destroyer:
Let's take a closer look at the initial 99% comment:

Americans killed in the Afghanistan war: 534
Americans killed in the Iraq war: 4,114
Total: 4648.

Arabs/Muslims killed during this same period of time at the hands of americans: About 30-60 000 combatants

Add the american 5000 to the terrorist 50000 and the americans will have done 90% of the killing. Now add the civilian fatalities by the hands of americans in both wars, and your percentage wil climb closer to 99%.

Is this a very lose estimate? Absolutely, it's as lose an estimate as when you said 99% of modern terrorists are muslims. It's OK to do estimates like this when the point we're delivering is not depending on the estimate to be 100% accurate. The point I was making is that America is owning this war; that the opponents are getting crushed like bugs.

Are you following me? Can you leave this 99% mantra now, so we can focus on the stuff we actually disagree about?

Wow, what a load of crap, your "americans are doing 99% of the killing" smear is suddenly reduced to "american troops are 10 times more successful than Iraqi combatants and Taliban". Of course you didn't forget to add Iraqi civilian casualties but conveniently did not add the casualties of 9/11 and other terror attacks. At any rate we do kill 10 combatants or more for each dead american soldier and we are damn proud of our military (not necessarily the mission). If we could kill 1000 combatants, militants and terrorists we'd be even happier.

 

[a_person]

Quote from destroyer:

I'd love to stop splitting hairs and focus on the issues

What issues? I think we've agreed on just about everything. The Muslim world has not been making any contributions to humanity worth talking about for centuries, American troops lost 4,000 soldiers and killed 30,000-50,000 combatants in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war in Iraq was a bad idea and its implementation was worse, our support of Israel cannot be called illegal or immoral by any stretch of imagination, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan did not cause 9/11 and other major terror attacks, 9/11 and other major terror attacks caused the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The war in Afghanistan and the first gulf war were sponsored by the UN and supported by the entire world, we have political, diplomatic, economic and military ties with the government of Saudi Arabia and a few other Middle Eastern dictatorships, the rest of the world has economic, political, military and business ties with them too.

Did I miss anything? Oh, did I mention that Islam has not contributed anything positive to humanity for a very long time? Cause that's what this thread was all about until you sidetracked it with your incessant and baseless anti-american diatribes.

 

[destroyer]

Quote from a_person:
the US have done some bad things in the middle east that have made the people there fiercely angry at you.
And predictably you completely failed to back up your claims.

Considering the fact that you don't want to let me spend time on compiling some documentation for you, I guess I could just tell you to read [insert a bunch of books here]. Oh, you don't want to buy them? Well, I'll scan them for you then! You don't have the time to read? How am I supposed to be able to make my case if you refuse to let me take the time to compile something AND refuse to educate yourself?

It seems like you're doing everything in your power to prevent this debate from becoming about the case. Are you afraid that you might not like the information I'll be putting forward?

Quote from a_person:
You've failed to come up with a single example of these "bad things". You could not come up with an example of a single American violation of international laws prior to 9/11, you could not come up with a single example of a bomb we dropped on their heads prior to 9/11

You really should know the history of your country if you're going to be an effective protector of the warmongers. Saying that the US have not dropped a single bomb on their head, is simply making it too easy for me.

The December 1998 bombing of Iraq (code-named Operation Desert Fox), where somewhere between 600 and 2000 iraqis lost their lives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Desert_Fox

There you go. Yes, yes, sanction by the UN, yattayatta, still demonstrates how little you know.

Quote from a_person:
you could not even come up with any action which can be considered so grossly immoral (by western standards) that no other western country besides the US would do that.

The unconditional financial, political and moral support for Israel for starters. There's a whole bunch of other issues, but let's stick to this one for now. I'll be providing some information soon.

Quote from a_person:
Second, Israel, Bush and the war in Iraq is tied up
9/11 took place before the war in Iraq, the USS Cole attack, first WTC attack, the attacks on african embassies took place long before the war in Iraq. Your attempts to explain and justify the mindset of the arab street and arab/muslim terrorists by the war in Iraq simply does not hold water. Terrorism caused the war in Iraq, the war in Iraq did not cause 9/11 and all other preceding attacks.

You cannot possibly believe the terrorists came out of nowhere. For centuries there where no beef between islam and the west. The terrorism-thing is a new thing that started out with the palestinians and continued with egyptian and saudi terrorists. I mean, even if you think the US is absolutely 100% innocent in creating the angry muslims prior to 911, you must be able to see that SOMETHING caused it - something new, something that came about around the 1960s-1970s that was not there before. Now if Islam was the driving force behind this terrorist problem, like you seem to be saying, we would have had the same situation ever since islam was created, it wouldn't be a modern phenomenon.

Quote from a_person:
Wow, what a load of crap, your "americans are doing 99% of the killing" smear is suddenly reduced to "american troops are 10 times more successful than Iraqi combatants and Taliban". Of course you didn't forget to add Iraqi civilian casualties but conveniently did not add the casualties of 9/11 and other terror attacks.

The 911 fatalities was before the war on terror was officially declared by GWB. Obviously I have to adjust the numbers of fatalities on both sides if we're going to take all US/middle east-fatalities the last few decades into account, but that has got nothing to do with the point I was making.

Quote from a_person:
At any rate we do kill 10 combatants or more for each dead american soldier and we are damn proud of our military (not necessarily the mission). If we could kill 1000 combatants, militants and terrorists we'd be even happier.

Proud of your military... Your government sent your youngest men to distant lands and commanded them to kill a bunch of regular iraqi men serving their own country just like the americans. Men that had nothing to do with neither the 911 attacks nor any other hypothetical future attacks on the US nor on any other western country. The Taliban are real oppressive sons of bitches, but most of the taliban fighters killed didn't have much to do with any sort of attack on the US either.

And the price you are proud to have paid for this is almost 5000 dead young americans. That's 5000 american families who have lost their sons and daughters. Without making the US any safer. Quite the contrary. Without supporting the mission of course. The true meaning of patriotism clearly does not even exist in your consciousness, you ought to be absolutely outraged at your governments incompetence and the rest of the warmongers who supported this vicious, illegal, unconstitutional act that the Iraq war is. Though that might be hard, because you where probably one of its strongest supporters before things went wrong.

 

[destroyer]

Quote from a_person:
What issues? I think we've agreed on just about everything. The Muslim world has not been making any contributions to humanity worth talking about for centuries, American troops lost 4,000 soldiers and killed 30,000-50,000 combatants in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war in Iraq was a bad idea and its implementation was worse, our support of Israel cannot be called illegal or immoral by any stretch of imagination, the war in Iraq and Afghanistan did not cause 9/11 and other major terror attacks, 9/11 and other major terror attacks caused the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The war in Afghanistan and the first gulf war were sponsored by the UN and supported by the entire world, we have political, diplomatic, economic and military ties with the government of Saudi Arabia and a few other Middle Eastern dictatorships, the rest of the world has economic, political, military and business ties with them too.

Did I miss anything?

I don't think you missed anything, but you're wrong on a couple of points. Namely the ones about the support of Israel being 100% moral, and the one about the US not doing anything prior to 911 that might have pissed just about any people off, muslim or not. I'll get back to these points later on.

Quote from a_person:
Oh, did I mention that Islam has not contributed anything positive to humanity for a very long time? Cause that's what this thread was all about until you sidetracked it with your incessant and baseless anti-american diatribes.

Again with the dirty techniques. Have you been schooled in the art of debating by Bill O'Reilly or something? This thread was not about "Islam not contributing anything positive to humanity for a very long time", it was about whether Islam or arabs ever had contributed anything to the world at all. Once that was documented, it became about islam and its lack of later contributions. Something that fairly obviously demonstrated that the thread starter was not actually interested in islamic contributions, but rather to make the point that islam is a savage religion.

So as it turns out, the discussion in this thread ought to be on whether or not islam actually is a savage religion. The documentation and argumentative reasoning provided for this statement is the stuff crazy, angry muslims have done and said to the US lately. Now if nobody is allowed to point out a few facts about the somewhat complex relationship between the US and the muslim world, how on earth is anybody going to be able to debunk the point made in the initial question?

Quote from a_person:
until you sidetracked it with your incessant and baseless anti-american diatribes.

You're really shameless, aren't you? I believe I've made my feelings about the constitution and the american people quite clear. But since you keep bringing it up, let me give you the facts: I mostly watch CNN, not BBC, I love american movies, and the music I listen to is virtually all american. I have served under General Wesley Clark, an american who I have tremendous respect for and hope will influence the Washington politics for years to come. I have a great deal of admiration for great americans like Noam Chomsky and Jimmy Carter, and I love the books and philosophy of Ayn Rand (I know how contradictory that is. Don't bother to mention it).

So why do you keep repeating this insulting notion that I hate america? I don't know whether it is because that is how your kind debates (you try to paint everything in black and white and make any disagreements with your views out to be synonymous with agreeing with the bad guys), or if it's because you lack the level of intelligence required to figure it out, so I'll spell it out for you as directly as I can:

My attacks on your policies is by no means directed at the american people nor the american way of life; it is directed at your filthy news corporations (Like FOX) who distort your reality and give you a hard time making informed decisions, the despicable special interest lobbies who have a documented overwhelming control over your congress and even your presidents, the fact that Cilian Murphy got another role in the new Batman movie.

When Senator John Murtha went public with the retraction of his support of the war on Iraq, he was met with fierce anger and hatred by fellow congressmen. The worst part was the way they almost shouted at him, like he was some sort of nazi. This is a man who has served in the military, who has fought for his country, bled for his country, and he was almost choking in tears while speaking about how he had realized it was wrong to send americans overseas to die. This, the fact that this sort of thing can happen in the US - the fact that people are so distorted they can't even see when their own is being innocently lynched, is what I'm attacking.

Not only is it wrong and disgusting, it is dangerous as well. While the american economy and general influence in the world is declining, both China and Russia are on the rise. If the world stays on its current course, in just a couple of decades, either China or Russia, or both, will be the leading superpower, while the US might be reduced to something like Russia in the late 90s. And if these countries does not have the necessary fundamental respect for western freedom and human rights, what do you think is going to happen to the world? Who's going to stand up for our values? The European Union? Let's face it, the EU are pushovers.

Islam is not, and has never been, a significant threat to the US, nor to the western world in general. All the O'Reillys, the Hannitys, the Bushes and the people like yourself who are making the war on terror into something it is not, are completely ignoring these real threats. Bin Laden have already dragged you into two wars that are depleting your economy and he has made you give up your own civil liberties, for the sake of protection against something that kills less people than freaking lightning. Bin Laden said specifically in the speech I referred you to earlier that this IS what he wants. This IS his plan. You and your so-called patriot friends are letting him have his victory, and if america does not recover from it's current state of rapid decline, it will be on you.

 

[destroyer]

I've been trying to compile as much information and documentation as possible in one or two posts, but to give an accurate and complete coverage of the entire Israel/Palestine-conflict with it's full documentation in so few words is simply not possible. So instead, I'll take on the most established myths about the conflict and highlight some of the worst crimes, and if you disagree on anything I will be ready to get into the details on any part. I will choose my words in a way that every single statement I make can be 100% backed up by irrefutable sources.

Ever since the beginning of the conflict, the Zionists and their supporters have been spewing out vicious lies in order to distort people all over the world, from the infamous late 19th/early 20th century phrase "A land without a people for a people without a land", and all the way up to Joan Peters' From Time Immemorial and the latest rewrite of her book The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz. The image propagated by these vicious liars tells us that 1) the land was an empty wasteland when the Zionists started to arrive and that the arabs we now call Palestinians came to the country to enjoy the fruits of the Zionists, 2) the Arabs started all the wars, 3) the Palestinians fled their homes of their own free will or by command of the arab forces during these wars 4) the balance was in favor of the Arabs, and Israel won by some miracle, and 5) the Palestinians wrecked all peace negotiations, not the Israelis. And of course the classic 6) the Palestinians aren't even a people.

This was the common perception of the conflict for several decades, so much that older people in my country still believe in it. However, with the rise of the information age and with the help of some truly noble people, things are changing rapidly. The intellectual Zionist rhetoric is shifting from "We've never done anything wrong, we're perfect" to "Alright so we screwed them, but it had to be done".

1) The land was not an empty wasteland before the Zionists started arriving. On the contrary, there where villages, towns and cities covering the entire northern area, inhabited by a people who had lived there since the dawn of civilization. This is confirmed by every single relevant field of research, from history, archeology and anthropology to DNA research. The myth is debunked fairly thoroughly in these articles:

http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2136
http://www.capmag.com/article.asp?ID=2138
http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/citation/2000/1030/1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian

2) This one is not that controversial, so unless you have any doubts, I'll leave it for now.

3) "The BBC monitored all Middle Eastern broadcasts throughout 1948. The records, and companion ones by a United States monitoring unit, can be seen at the British Museum. There was not a single order or appeal, or suggestion about evacuation from Palestine, from any Arab radio station, inside or outside Palestine, in 1948. There is a repeated monitored account of Arab appeals, even flat orders, to the civilians of Palestine to stay put." (Erskine Childers (a British researcher and UN official) , quoted by Sami Hadawi in “Bitter Harvest”)"

The Palestinians did not flee their homes by free will during the wars either; they where beat up, raped, tortured, murdered, massacred, and burned. Palestinians have been claiming this ever since the first war, but due to the superior academic skills of the Zionist perpetrators it was completely ignored for decades. Until now, that is. After IDF archives was declassified some time ago, several historians have been writing about what really happened and they all seem to come to the same conclusion: Some really bad things were done to the civilian population. This does not necessarily mean that the intention to do a population transfer (or an ethnic cleansing to use a stronger expression) was carried out intentionally, although it is documented beyond dispute that such a plan was in fact under heavy discussion; this whole matter is still under heavy debate by scholars. What is clear however is that such a population transfer did take place. Against the will of the Palestinians. And even though most of the people who where removed are now dead, some of them and their descendants are living in refugee camps still awaiting the basic human right of return (UDHR article 13, UN resolution 194). Something that kind of explains why Israel is best served by maintaining a controlled state of war for as long as imaginably possible. You can read extensively about this in these books:

Zeev Sternhell, The Founding Myths of Israel (Princeton: 1998)
Benny Morris, Righteous Victims (New York: 1999)
Uri Ben-Eliezer, The Making of Israeli Militarism (Bloomington: 1998)
Martin Gilbert, Israel: A History (New York: 1998)
Sasson Sofer, Zionism and the Foundations of Israeli Diplomacy (Cambridge: 1998)

Obviously I don't expect you to read any of these books, but if you dispute the claim, I'll be happy to get into the details with you; I can point out relevant sections, explain the evidence (the IDF archives) or anything else you wish.

4) I believe this one has been pretty much cleared up and accepted as well. It is now well accepted and agreed upon that the Arab forces were severely unorganized and untrained and far less equipped. While the Israeli forces was highly trained and supported by the US amongst others with equipments and intel. I will provide documentation for this as well if needed.

5) Anyone with the ability to see both sides of the story can see that Israel did everything in its power to prevent the peace processes of going too far, either by suddenly deciding to attack Palestinian leaders labeled as "terrorists" (which in turn would be answered by Palestinian militias), or by demanding so much that the Palestinian leaders would be lynched by their own people if they went on with it. There are tons of articles and books about this, so for starters I'll just give you a couple of titles and a documentary:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6604775898578139565

Now I'll be the first to say this documentary's primarily focus is the Palestinian side of the story and almost completely ignores the Israeli side, but the facts presented are all true; I've checked them myself and ready to take on any dispute you might have. Even though it covers the peace processes extensively, its primary focus is the US media coverage on the conflict, which also should be of interest to every American.

Couple of books on this issue:

Uri Savir, The Process (New York: 1998)
Nicholas Guyatt, The Absence of Peace (London: 1998)

 

[destroyer]

6) This one is not as much a myth as it is a question of definition. This claim that "palestinians have never existed and will never exist" is very popular amongst Zionists: http://www.google.no/search?q=palestine+myth

Although it is true that the Palestinian national identity is somewhat new, it is equally true that the people who everybody started to call Palestinians some decades ago did in fact have a distinctive culture and sense of nationality separated from the rest of the world. Most people back then identified with their village, town or region rather than a bigger nation, so the closer a village was to another, the closer they where culturally. There was some talk about a palestinian nation as early as in the 19th century, although nobody can deny that if the whole Israel thing had not happened, the Jordanian people and the Palestinian people probably would have been one people today. This is kind of ironic; Israel sort of created the Palestinian people with its distinctive national identity. Because even though there was some cultural differences between the Palestinian areas and the Jordanians areas, it is the fact that the Palestinians lost their homes to the invaders that unites them and separates them from everybody else. This is as legitimate a reason for feeling a sense of national identity as any other, and the notion that "palestinians cannot be palestinians because they didn't exist in the 18th century" is ridiculous; there are no rules as to when a people can call itself a people other than the fact that they have to feel like a people, something that the Palestinians obviously does.

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So what do you do when you lose your home twice or three times? What do you do when your neighbor village is burned to the ground? What do you do when your sister or mother gets raped? What do you do when you get screwed over by virtually everybody; the British, the UN, the French, the Arabs, the Zionists, and last but certainly not least, the United States? If someone came to America - forget about your sense of pride in nation and allegiance to the constitution, imagine you just live in a free land - if someone came to your place, threw your family around, stole your property - the property of your forefathers - shot your neighbor and burned down your town in order to build their own on top of it, what would you? How would you feel if, on top of this, the invaders tried to change your history, your identity, your very existence for the sake of looking better in the worlds eye? Imagine this going on for six decades, imagine being born into it and knowing nothing but this sort of oppression. My country was under Nazi occupation for four short years, by an occupier who didn't even want to hurt us; they wanted us to join them - and some of my people fought them in every way possible. Even if you're right about Muslims being savages and barbarians, no people on earth would accept what they went through without fighting. It is not incomprehensible at all that one in every hundred thousand of the people subjected to this kind of life goes absolutely insane and wants to give their life to hurt the enemy. It is simply the nature of humanity; some can't handle it.

So what does all of this have to do with the US? I believe it is safe to say that we have established that the US foreign policy is under heavy influence by the Zionists, and that the American people, whether their views are distorted or not, have virtually no say in the matter. The US have been supporting Israel on many levels from the very beginning and this support has been unconditional from the 70s and up until this day (with the possible exception of the Carter presidency). If you still do not agree with this, I'll be glad to get into the details on this as well. Some examples include House Representatives Dick Armey, James Inhofe and Tom DeLay's resolution to support Israels claim to the whole of Judea and Samaria, with comments like "the Palestinians who are now living on the West Bank should get out of there.", "the most important reason is [that] God said so…. Look it up in the book of Genesis…. In Genesis 13:14-17…. This is not a political battle at all. It is a contest over whether or not the word of God is true.". These are all Republicans as far as I know. Democrats are just the same: When Senator Hillary Clinton visited Israel the last time, she was welcomed by the leader of a party (Moledet) officially committed to transferring the Palestinians all the way out. There are literally thousands more examples like this. How should the Palestinians relate to that? How would you answer to something like that?

 

[a_person]

Quote from destroyer:

to give an accurate and complete coverage of the entire Israel/Palestine-conflict

As expected all your endless ramblings in this thread boil down to content-free anti-american rants, unsubstantiated accusations of violations of International laws by the US, absurd and baseless claims that the US is doing all the killing and of course the obligatory Israel-bashing based on revisionist historians most of whom don't believe in Israel's right to exist in the first place.

Yawn, you could not be more predictable and more boring.