Islam does not hate christianity

quote:

---

If there is a revolution against it, we may have a chance to return to God.

---

Bollocks. Christianity is a dogma of oppression; its product is willing an obedient slaves. It is NOT an accident that the most vehement support for American Imperialism comes from the nexus of right-wing politics and religion; religion is primarily a conservative influence that rationalises the government as good.A revolution against capitalism would make religion even less significant, as the obfuscatory and propagandist role of the church will no longer be required.This message has been edited by contracycle, 02-22-2005 04:01 AM

Faith has grossly moisrepresented the historical conditions behind taxes on Christians. Christians and Jews have always had favoured status among infidels in the Islamic worls as also being People of the Book. The Medieval Islamic world was also streets ahead of the west interms of multiculturalism. Yes Islamic states did impose taxes on christians as aliens - just like the Christian states imposed taxes on Jews and other aliens. Just like the Byzantines taxed the Venetian conclave in Constantinople.But this is a LIBERAL measure in its time and place - the English simply refused to pay back loans from jews and launched a progrom against them. Sun dry expulsions, massacres, and burnings alive formed the Christian approach to ethnic minorities by contrast to the enlightened Islamic aliens tax.

quote:

---

Could have fooled me and just about the rest of the real world. The bullets that kill Palestinian children come from Israeli guns.

---

No no, lets be clear about this: they come from AMERICAN guns paid for by American taxes."Throughout the world, on any given day, a man, woman or child is likely to be displaced, tortured, killed or 'disappeared', at the hands of governments or armed political groups. More often than not, the United States shares the blame."
- Amnesty International, 1996 from "Human Rights and USA Security Assistance"

quote:

---

Maybe if you lived in a tiny country surrounded by hostile armies sympathetic to these bombers, you'd look at things differenly.

---

Well I have lived under exactly those circumstances and I do NOT see things differently.

quote:

---

srael, in order to survive MUST take these measures to keep the Jehadists of a territory which still refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist

---

Israel is a Western colony, an outpost planted in the midst of Arab lands. It has no right to exist. It is a terrorist state.

quote:

---

It's like if New Jersy were being threatened by every surrounding state of extinction by terrorism because the other states wanted them all (Jersians) wiped out and citizens from those other states were constantly coming and going into N Jersey.

---

No, its not. Its like the Jersians are suddenly displaced and an alien population planted on top of them; the Jersians turned into second class citizens and menial servants, and what little land and livelihoiod they have left to them systematically plundered - while all the while an even greater power funds and supports that tyranny.

quote:

---

Right, all those American made Uzis we send in our annual shipments as part of the International Jewish Conspiracy Accord.

---

When was the last time you actually saw an Israeli soldier carrying an Uzi? You mostly see them carrying M-16's.Oh an by the way, perhaps you can point out to me where the Israeli plants manufacturing Cobra and Apache helicopters are, or Maverick and Hellfire missiles, or were these a gift from Jehovah or what?Israel apparenbtly has the largest fleet of F-16 fighter-bombers outside the US, standing at 200, with a further 102 on order from Lockheed-Martin. This of course is being paid for by the US taxpayer to the tune of over $134 billion since 1949. And of course, Israel recieves further aid, fully 50% of the US Foreign Military Financing, which provides grants to foreign governments for the purchase of American military hardware, services, and training. And even better, Israel enjoys a unique status in US law, being the only country on whose behalf citizens can make tax-deductable donations in the US, to the tune of $1.5 billion/year. And, in 2001 Israel applied for and was granted 800 million in supplementary aid to cover its withdrawal from South Lebanon - so Israel was paid for obeying international law.Israel is a western colony, subsidised, condoned and supported by the USA - and for which the USa can rightly be held accountable."I am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, a description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and West Bank could describe events in South Africa." - Archbishop Desmond TutuThis message has been edited by contracycle, 02-25-2005 04:59 AM

quote:

---

Look like an M-16 to you?

---

No, it looks like the 5.56-mm chambered Galil, a design based on the AK-47 but adapted for NATO ammunation in a combined project between Israel and South Africa, who use this particular folding-stock version under the name of R-5.The Israeli Special Forces Database reports that:

quote:

---

The M16A2 family is the new generation of the M16A1 family now in service in the IDF.

​

The IDF already procured large quantities of the new weapons, using the U.S. FMS funds.

​

The weapons will be issued to all IDF infantry oriented units, including both special and conventional units, starting with the NAHAL infantry brigade and the SF units.
...

​

Currently there are few M16A3, M16A4 and few thousands M4A1 already in service. The goal is that up to 2003 all infantry oriented units including both special and conventional forces will be equipped with the new carbine. At the same time all the old CAR15 will be shifted to the reserve replacing the M16A1 the reserve has for long time complained above.

---

quote:

---

And Hamas is still using those Chinese knockoffs of AK-47s. So I guess the US, China, UK, and Germany are responsible for the problems between Israel and Palestine.

---

Well, considering that the European states here are all themselves ex-Colonial powers, how surprising is this? And there are indeed export guarantee credits offered by BritGov to Israel. Yes, European governments are also culpable - but European governments do not go around loudly asserting that only one side here has the moral high ground, and does not subsidise the Israeli economy or arms purchases to anything like the same degree, and also provide economic aide to the Palestinians.I can see nothing wrong with the provisions of weapons to an occupied people attempting to attain liberty. As they say in the classics: "AK-47: bringing freedom to a country near you".

quote:

---

Who keeps trying to broker peace deals between the two groups? Oh that's right, the US.

---

Thats good weed there, man. The US has systematically sabotaged all negotiated efforts by anyone else by withdrawing approval - and seeing as Israel is on the US's leash, that scuppers them. That is precisely why the domestic pressure on Blair is to get him use his alleged influence with the US to START getting the US engaged with a Middle Eastern peace process, becuase so far the US has only backed Israeli positions, and indeed continues to do so. The US is an active impediment to a solution of the Palestinian problem. After all, look at all those sales buffing up the economy and providing jobs, right?

quote:

---

Not a surprise when we've done as much or more for half of Europe, Russia, the Balkans, the ME, and Asia.

---

VERY good weed. As Amnesty points out however, the facts give the lie to your empty nationalist rhetoric: there is a systematic correlation between US intervention and abuses of Human Rights.

quote:

---

And those EU made tractors the Israelis use to bulldoze the olive orchards? The EU ought to be ashamed.

---

Yes you are quite right it should. And big parts of it are. But the armoured bulldozers to which you refer were manufactured by the American Caterpillar Corporation (yes, anyone out there wearing cats, you are supporting terrorism).

quote:

---

Jewish Voice for Peace and its partner organizations -- the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, SUSTAIN (Stop U.S. Tax Aid to Israel Now), and the Center for Economic and Social Rights -- launched a variety of efforts to pressure the company, including Internet activism, shareholder resolutions, and protests. They announced that today they were asking over 30,000 sympathetic Americans to send a letter to Caterpillar demanding that it halt sales to the Israeli military. Jewish Voice for Peace is also developing a shareholder resolution that it intends to introduce for a vote at Caterpillar's 2004 stockholders meeting.

---

quote:

---

But you raise a really solid, cogent point: if the US just stopped selling weapons to Israel, no other country in the world (certainly not the French, Russians, or Chinese) would ever sell them arms, and then all the problems there would simply evaporate.

---

Haha. Once again American moralism finds European practicality hard to deal with. OK then - surely Bush's complaint against Europe wanting to remove the arms embargo against China is also ridiculous? The European states are extremely cynical in regards there use of arms sales, and export subsidies, no doubt about it - but at least they are not HYPOCRITICAL, simulataneously selling weapons and masquerading as dishinterested honest brokers only trying to do the Right Thing. Well OK, Bliar does.If you think it is acceptable to fund the murder of civilians, even if only on this basis, then you must accept your culpability in the murder of those civilians. If you want clean hands and the moral high ground, then yes, pull out and let someone less moral than yourself fill the gap. But as long as you do it, you cannot complain that you are unfairly labelled.

quote:

---

I'm sure they HAVE gone too far in some circumstances. All I'm doing is answering the absurd TOTAL smear campaign against them that says they never do anything right, they are nothing but evil murderers without any redeeming moral qualities, there are no just reasons for one single thing they ever do. Their side is NOT heard in the media or from any of you except in the briefest and most unsympathetic way, while the Palestinian side is played up with discussions of the pathetic circumstances of each of the victims, all the while ASSUMING perfidious Israeli behavior without the slightest interest in the Israeli side of the story.

---

Thats complete nonsense - studies show precisely the opposite occurs:

quote:

---

THE SAN FRANCISCO Chronicle is 20 times more likely to report on the deaths of Israeli children killed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than it is to cover Palestinian children's deaths, a new study shows.

​

If Americans Knew, a fledgling Berkeley outfit dedicated to disseminating underreported information on Israel and the occupied territories, analyzed the Chronicle's coverage of the region during the first months of the current intifada — a time period the study's researchers chose "because of its significance in forming the context within which all subsequent reporting on the conflict is viewed."

​

Four Israelis under the age of 18 died as a result of clashes that took place from Sept. 29, 2000, the first day of the uprising, through March 31, 2001, according to the report, the preliminary results of which were released May 21 to both the Chronicle and the Bay Guardian. During that period, it found, the Chronicle reported on those incidences in a headline or a first paragraph five times. The deaths of Palestinian minors received such attention only six times, although 93 were killed in that same time frame.

---

And...

quote:

---

... recent research from Glasgow University shows a frightening lack of public awareness of basic facts relating to the conflict. In a sample of 300 young people, 71% did not know that it was the Israelis who were occupying the territories. Only 9% knew that it was the Israelis, and that the settlers were Israeli. There were actually more people (11%) who believed that the Palestinians were occupying the territories and that the settlers were Palestinian.

---

And...

quote:

---

04 August 2001

​

In a major surrender to Israeli diplomatic pressure, BBC officials in London have banned their staff in Britain and the Middle East from referring to Israel's policy of murdering its guerrilla opponents as "assassination". BBC reporters have been told that in future they are to use Israel's own euphemism for the murders, calling them "targeted killings".

---

And...

quote:

---

The Guardian
Middle East coverage is 'dangerous'

​

Reporting the conflict as Palestinian 'attacks' and Israeli 'responses' is sloppy journalism, says Brian Whitaker

​

(April 9) A familiar tale from the Middle East: "Palestinians launched three bombs overnight against the Eile Sinai settlement in the far north of the Gaza Strip. Israeli troops responded with tank shells, destroying a Palestinian border post and hitting two houses."

​

This report, which happens to have come from the BBC, is familiar not only for the events it describes but also for the way it describes them: the Palestinians attack and the Israelis "respond". Military actions by the Israelis are always a "response" to something, even when they strike first. If they haven't actually been attacked, it's a "response" to a security threat.

---

quote:

---

Thirdly, while Israeli actions are reported as a self-justifying "response", actions by the Palestinians are rarely allowed either a proper context or an understandable motive. Obviously there is a limit to what can be said in a news story of 300-400 words, and some journalists will argue that their main job is to report the day's events, not to explain the background. But I am not suggesting they should turn it into a history lecture; merely that they should at least hint at a broader picture and acknowledge that the Palestinians might have some genuine grievances.

​

To do this is neither difficult nor unduly word-consuming. Some news agency reports, for instance, routinely work into their stories a five-word reference to the "Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation". The Israeli occupation lies at the root of the conflict - and yet, more often than not, journalists fail to remind their readers of it. The Guardian's electronic newspaper archive contains all the British national dailies, plus the London Evening Standard. A search of this reveals 1,669 stories published during the last 12 months that mentioned the West Bank.

​

Of these, 49 contained the phrase "occupied West Bank". A further 513 included the word "occupied" or "occupation" elsewhere in the text. That leaves 1,107 stories - 66% of the total - which managed to talk about the West Bank without mentioning one of the key facts. Some journalists - particularly Americans - seem reluctant to treat occupation as an established fact and instead treat it as an opinion which should be attributed to someone. Last October, for example, CCN's Jerusalem bureau chief told viewers that Palestinians were angry at "what they regard as the Israeli occupation". Others resort to euphemisms: the West Bank is "disputed" or "administrated by Israel". Some adopt the practice of Israeli officials by shortening "the Occupied Territories" to "the Territories".

​

Journalists are also rather timid on the question of Jewish settlers, usually portraying them as a target of violence but more rarely as one of the major causes (which they plainly are). Some of the recent stories about the killing of a 10-month-old Jewish baby, Shalhevet Pass, in Hebron made clear that the settlers there are a tiny and particularly fanatical bunch - though many did not. One report described Hebron as a "divided city", when in fact 99.8% of the inhabitants are Arabs. (Jerusalem, on the other hand - with two-thirds of the population Jewish and one-third Arab - is constantly described by Israelis as "undivided".)

​

Over the last 12 months, 394 stories in the archive mentioned Jewish settlers. Of these, seven included the phrase "extremist settler" and eight "extremist Jewish settler". The word "extremist" did occur in 44 of the stories, though not necessarily applied to settlers. Some stories juxtaposed settlers characterised simply as "Jewish" with Palestinians characterised as "extremist". The illegality of the settlements under international law also often escapes mention. The phrase "illegal settlement", used in an Israeli-Palestinian context, appeared only eight times during the last 12 months - and three of those were in readers' letters to the editor.

​

During the early stages of the intifada newspapers were accused of "dehumanising" Palestinians by publishing numbers but not names of those killed. This was contrasted with the wealth of personal information, helpfully provided by the Israeli authorities, about Jewish casualties. The lack of Palestinian names was certainly not due to a conscious policy on the part of journalists and, although there are sometimes difficulties in getting the names, efforts have been made to remedy it. However, last week's search of the archive highlighted another practice which has a similar effect: Jews mainly live in "communities" but Palestinians live in "areas". Palestinian "areas" scored 109 mentions over the last 12 months; "neighbourhoods" scored 15 and "communities" only three (one each in the Guardian, Observer and Independent). In the case of Jews, the positions were reversed: "communities" scored 87, "neighbourhoods" 30 and "areas" 21.

---

There is a systematic media bias in favour of the terrorist state of Israel; to facetiously pretend that the only basis anyone has for defending Palestinians, and criticising Israel, as a non-existant media bias the other way is wholly absurd. It's a conspiracy theory.