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Manxman "observing human rights in Palestine"


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First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Socialist.

 

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

 

Then they came for the Palestinians, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Palestinian.

 

Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

 

An appropriate distortion of Martin Niemoller's quote, as the only real "Palestinians" are the Jews.

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First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Socialist.

 

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

 

Then they came for the Palestinians, and I did not speak out-- Because I was not a Palestinian.

 

Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

 

An appropriate distortion of Martin Niemoller's quote, as the only real "Palestinians" are the Jews.

They're all Arab tribes.

 

Arabs come from Arabia. Jews come from Judea (which was renamed by the Romans as "Palestine" to try to erase the Jewish connection with the land, and is a name later used by the British as well).

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That's the Biblical version. They're all Arabs.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/742430.stm

 

Jews are not Arabs and Arabs are not Jews. They're both Semites.

 

 

You need to go back much further. Before Christianity and judaism and their forebears. The blood lines have remained, they are genetically intertwined with common parentage but at some point some people fell for the abrahamic chestnut and the separation began. Tribalism, in other words.

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quilp, on 04 Apr 2014 - 22:24, said:

Thomas Jefferson, on 04 Apr 2014 - 17:47, said:

Jews are not Arabs and Arabs are not Jews. They're both Semites.

 

You need to go back much further. Before Christianity and judaism and their forebears. The blood lines have remained, they are genetically intertwined with common parentage but at some point some people fell for the abrahamic chestnut and the separation began. Tribalism, in other words.

 

The Jews and Arabs do come from Abraham. He was a real person, as real as Julius Caesar or King Tut. However, Semites existed before Abraham -- he was a Semite himself. Whether Noah existed or not, and whether Shem his son existed or not, one thing is true: there was, without a doubt, once a common ancestor of the Semitic peoples. Shem is as good a name as any.

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I wonder if this bleeding-heart do-gooder is "monitoring" the right people.

PA and Hamas Guilty of Rampant Human Rights Abuses

 

New report from Arabs in Judea, Samaria and Gaza reveals systemic abuses and oppression by PA and Hamas governments.

 

A recent report from January, which the media has kept a tight lip on, has exposed the widespread human rights abuses of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas in Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

 

The report, from the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR), charges PA and Hamas for repeated cases of torture, oppression, assaults on freedom of expression and academic freedoms, as well as ignoring court orders.

 

85 complaints were received in January of unlawful arrests and unlawful seizing of money, with a large number arguing they were thrown in jail for "politically-motivated" charges.

 

While the PA apparently has no problem arresting its constituents on trumped up charges, it has lauded terrorist murderers jailed in Israel as "heroes," and last week allocated an extra $46 million to give released terrorists a bonus despite being in a debt crisis of $4.6 billion as of last July.

 

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/177460#.Uz_tkaLYHXc

 

I have also read reports of rampant sexual assaults by Palestinians against western "humanitarian workers". But don't expect any of this to find its way onto BBC News, a media organisation which had to investigate itself for anti-Israel bias in the Balen Report and refuses to release the report despite repeated requests under Freedom of Information Act. What have they got to hide?

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I always find it interesting when someone starts trying to say there is a moral equivalence between a state and a terrorist group.

 

I think it is blindingly obvious that a state should hold itself to a higher level of account, decency, and human rights than a terrorist group and am not surprised at all that people should criticize it when it fails in this.

 

Hamas is a zealot driven, fundamentalist armed group willing to indiscriminately kill for its political objectives. That is not something Israel should aspire to emulate.

 

The tragedy of Israel's policies and occupations is that it can be portrayed as being close to this. There is an admirable side to Israel - it can be a rule of law accepting country with a strong tradition of holding those in power to account.

 

That sadly is not the whole picture, but neither is the cliche of it as a cold blooded killer, but its political landscape does encompass everything from the most liberal to the most zealot driven "God gives us our right to take" political parties.

 

It's a complex country in a complex region but my view is that its policies are doing too much to create an environment where terrorism against it can thrive and where its soldiers can too quickly become thugs.

 

That is a sad place for a country with the rule of law traditions Israel has to end up.

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