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pelsar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 09:47 AM
Original message
If I were a Palestinian
As someone who is familiar with the conditions of the Palestinians in Gaza, do you feel empathy toward them?

"Ehud Barak once said that if he were a Palestinian he would join a terror organization. If I were in their situation, I would make our lives bitter. I would not blow up women and children. I'm totally opposed to that. But yes, I would fight against the foreign occupier. When you take a person and put him up against the wall and don't leave him many options, then what do you want him to do?


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/809590.html

its not a surprise, many (most?) of us have also come to that conclusion.....
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Howardx Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 02:24 PM
Response to Original message
1. good article
i need to start reading haaretz more often.
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pelsar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 02:59 PM
Response to Original message
2. a word about hate.....
Edited on Sat Jan-06-07 03:01 PM by pelsar
a relevant "take" from the Chinese view of Japan.....

its show that "hate" is selective, more so it can also be manipulated. Its relevant because whereas the present occupation may be humiliating , bad etc, its long term affects are up to the palestinian govt. As far as others go who "hate" the "rogue" israeli govt, well thats no more than selective hatred.


http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200612/fallows-china

http://www.howardwfrench.com/archives/2006/11/27/postcards_from_tomorrow_square_our_man_in_shanghai_samples_budget_beer_survives_subway_scrimmages_and_starts_living_the_contradictions_of_chinaas_breakneck_modernization/



Postcards From Tomorrow Square


Frankly, we hate the Japanese,” an undergraduate at a prestigious Chinese university told me, in English. The main difference between his comment and what I heard from countless other young people was the word frankly.
Why should this be surprising, given the centuries of tension between China and Japan? Mainly because of the people who expressed their hostility in the most vehement form: students in their teens and early twenties. They had not been born, nor had their parents (nor even, in many cases, their grandparents), when Japanese troops seized Manchuria in the 1930s, bombed and occupied Shanghai, and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians during the Rape of Nanking. Wartime memories die hard, but you expect them to be most intense among actual participants or victims, and therefore to fade over time. Israeli teenagers aren’t obsessed with today’s Germans. I was not able to spend much time at universities talking with students when I was in China in the 1980s, but I don’t remember anything comparable to today’s level of bile.

.......

There is one tantalizing further twist to the syndrome. When I have asked young people why they should be so wrapped up with events seventy years in the past, the reply is some variant of: “We Chinese are students of history.” There are certain phrases you hear so often that you know they can’t be true, at least not at face value. Yes, China’s years of subjugation by Western countries and Japan obviously still matter. But the history that is more recent but less often discussed is that of the Cultural Revolution, from 1966 to 1976, when the parents of today’s college students were sent into the countryside and often forced to denounce their own parents. In an eloquent new book called Chinese Lessons, John Pomfret of The Washington Post recounts the ways that his classmates from Nanjing University, where he was an exchange student in the early 1980s, bore the emotional and even moral imprint of those years. They’d been made to do things they knew were wrong, and they found ways to rationalize away that knowledge. So far every student gathering I’ve been to has included a volunteered reference to the evil Japanese, and none has included a reference to the evils of Chairman Mao (whose picture is still on every denomination of paper money) and his Cultural Revolution.
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breakaleg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 03:17 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. The Japanese hate the Chinese too. It's taught to them.
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pelsar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 04:05 PM
Response to Reply #3
4. from an I/P point of view...
Edited on Sat Jan-06-07 04:06 PM by pelsar
its seems rather pointless....they are not engaged in any kind of hostilities...no real border disputes, no real or imagined threats (that i know of, but i dont know much about it)....meaning it seems to be based on history that each govt obviously chooses to keep teaching....
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breakaleg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 04:25 PM
Response to Reply #4
5. It's simple bigotry. Did you know that there are many Koreans that have been living in
Japan for generations, who are not entitled to receive Japanese citizenship? These people carry Korean passports and many have never even been to Korea. They have difficulty finding jobs, so many start their own businesses. They marry other Koreans because the Japanese want nothing to do with them. The teach their children not to play with the Korean children even in kindergarten. They sacrifice a lot to put them in private schools in the hope that they will be mistaken for being American with their perfect English.

It's not pretty.
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pelsar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 05:13 PM
Response to Reply #5
8. its ridiculous
to use simplistic description
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idontwantaname Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 07:48 PM
Response to Reply #4
12. delete
Edited on Sat Jan-06-07 07:53 PM by idontwantaname
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idontwantaname Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 07:48 PM
Response to Reply #4
13. japan/china/I/P
actually there is not a open disgust or ill feelings toward the chinese or koreans in japan. definitely among some there is, but those people will always find someone to hate. i do feel japan is a bit nationalistic and its citizens are a bit mind controlled and i do not feel the average person puts much energy into international affairs. so in the end it is merely general ignorance and level of acceptance. if a person insists on being ignorant and racist they will hate any korean or chinese person they come across... but i do not feel many japanese are this way. when they finally meet that korean/chinese person they will be pleasantly surprised how nice and interesting a chinese/korean can be!

that being said it is somewhat recognized that japan(as an entity) is antikorean and antichinese. this i have heard from koreans and chinese. so while the japanese of japan are quite contrary, perhaps its the govt and leaders policies and attitudes which many focus on.
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UndertheOcean Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 04:25 PM
Response to Original message
6. Relevant Ben Gurion quote:
I don't understand your optimism. Why should the Arabs make peace? If I was an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural:They think(disputed) we have taken their country. Sure God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it's true, but two thousand years ago, and what is that to them? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing: we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations' time, but for the moment there is no chance. So, it's simple: we have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out.

* Nahum Goldmann (translated by Steve Cox), "The Jewish Paradox" (Fred Jordan Books/Grosset & Dunlap, New York), p. 99.
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pelsar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 05:12 PM
Response to Reply #6
7. eventually...
the arabs, with the help of the israeli arabs will see that israel can actually help them improve their standard of living....its been noted on Al jazeer that not just the jews but israeli arabs have a far higher education and standard of living than arabs in the surrounding countries

and yes it will mean compromising..but that too is a good value to have
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UndertheOcean Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 05:20 PM
Response to Reply #7
9. Did Al-Jazeera really report that ?
If so they are not even close to how Americans perceive them...Any how do you get access to it in the US ... can you order it from the local cable company (our Apt complex doesn't allow satellite dishes)


When I lived in the region I always felt that they had an Islamic bent (maybe slight) , although they were professional.
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pelsar Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 05:40 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. we have an advantage....in israel
the israeli "arab desks" watch them...and there is an arab israeli reporter who works for them. In general they are incredibly anti israel (their Editor-in-Chief blames israel for the lack of health care in jordan.... http://www.worldpoliticswatch.com/article.aspx?id=395)

but the israeli reporter is a bit more objective, it was he who put out the report of the education and income levels...and it was reported. He also interviews politicians for thems as well, which is also new.
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oberliner Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 08:41 PM
Response to Reply #6
14. Have you read the Goldmann book?
Mr. Goldmann had some interesting insights into the conflict over the years.
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idontwantaname Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 07:24 PM
Response to Original message
11. interesting post, thanks. n/t
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IndianaGreen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Jan-06-07 08:56 PM
Response to Original message
15. I would tell you that killing Jews because of your grievances is just WRONG
Terrorism accomplishes absolutely nothing! Killing innocent people puts you on the same moral plane as the oppressors.

The flip side of the coin is that whatever historical wrongs may have been committed against your people does not give one a blank check to retaliate against the innocent.

It reminds me of a line a recent film about the Crudades in which the hero says that no Christian was alive when the Christians slaughtered all the Muslims when they conquered Jerusalem, and that no Muslim was alive when this slaughter took place. No one has a claim on Jerusalem, because all have a claim to it.
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