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Author Topic:   The beginning of the jihad in Europe?
CanadianSteve
Member (Idle past 6473 days)
Posts: 756
From: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Joined: 06-06-2005


Message 271 of 301 (258934)
11-11-2005 5:08 PM
Reply to: Message 268 by Chiroptera
11-11-2005 3:26 PM


Re: Anti-Semitism
here's the difference. The jews CAN wipe out the palestinians but have chosen not to. The palestinians CANNOT, but they keep trying to.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 268 by Chiroptera, posted 11-11-2005 3:26 PM Chiroptera has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 275 by Chiroptera, posted 11-11-2005 5:41 PM CanadianSteve has replied

CanadianSteve
Member (Idle past 6473 days)
Posts: 756
From: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Joined: 06-06-2005


Message 272 of 301 (258937)
11-11-2005 5:11 PM
Reply to: Message 269 by Chiroptera
11-11-2005 3:28 PM


perhaps your right (even if you couldn't help but express your point immaturely). But that's fine, Ill rephrase it: How long after the Anglo Saxons displaced the celtics did they acquire a moral/pragmatic right to England?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 269 by Chiroptera, posted 11-11-2005 3:28 PM Chiroptera has not replied

CanadianSteve
Member (Idle past 6473 days)
Posts: 756
From: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Joined: 06-06-2005


Message 273 of 301 (258938)
11-11-2005 5:12 PM
Reply to: Message 270 by Chiroptera
11-11-2005 3:53 PM


Re: Anti-Semitism
I'll be glad to refer you to other sources, if the truth matters to you.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 270 by Chiroptera, posted 11-11-2005 3:53 PM Chiroptera has not replied

CanadianSteve
Member (Idle past 6473 days)
Posts: 756
From: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Joined: 06-06-2005


Message 274 of 301 (258945)
11-11-2005 5:28 PM
Reply to: Message 264 by randman
11-11-2005 12:49 PM


Re: Possible solutions
Good points. It's come down to this: Equivalence thinking has run amok. It is the left's religion that all faiths, all cultures, all civilizations are equal in all material ways. To suggest otherwise is to be close-minded and, of course, a racist. Isn't that the left's rallying cry whenever their idealist, but painfully naive, religious equivalence arguments are challenged: "RACIST!!!!!" In fact, they've pretty much added a new dinition of that word: Defensive reaction, meant to shut down discourse and discredit the other party, in the absense of rational response.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 264 by randman, posted 11-11-2005 12:49 PM randman has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 276 by Chiroptera, posted 11-11-2005 5:45 PM CanadianSteve has replied
 Message 282 by Chiroptera, posted 11-11-2005 7:36 PM CanadianSteve has not replied

Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 275 of 301 (258948)
11-11-2005 5:41 PM
Reply to: Message 271 by CanadianSteve
11-11-2005 5:08 PM


Re: Anti-Semitism
quote:
The jews CAN wipe out the palestinians but have chosen not to.
What? Now there is a world-wide organization of Jews that determines "Jewish opinion"? The Jews are a monolithic group of people that all think and behave the same way? Wow! So the Nazis and Klan are right!
Heh. That's funny. By stereotyping Jews (although in a more positive light), you're pretty much demeaning the Jewish people, too.
At any rate (although I know this point will be ignored...after all, you're trying hard to evade it right now), the point is that the language is bigoted and displays racism.
[qs]But the Jews don't plan on doing what they cannot, wiping out the Palestinians with a few military strikes - much as they salivate at the thought.[/quote]
This would have been a bigoted statement had I actually made it. It displays an utter contempt for an entire people. It ignores the actual diversity of an entire people in favor of a stereotype of monolithic attitudes and behavior.
But the palestinians don't plan on doing what they cannot, wiping out ISrael in a few blasts - much as they salivate at the thought.
This is a bigoted statement that you did utter, and in fact you compound your error:
quote:
The palestinians CANNOT, but they keep trying to.
(although at least this time you did not try to portray them as salivating beasts.)
Again, these statements display an utter contempt for an entire people. They ignore the actual diversity of an entire people in favor of a stereotype of monolithic attitudes and behavior.

"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

This message is a reply to:
 Message 271 by CanadianSteve, posted 11-11-2005 5:08 PM CanadianSteve has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 277 by CanadianSteve, posted 11-11-2005 5:48 PM Chiroptera has replied

Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 276 of 301 (258949)
11-11-2005 5:45 PM
Reply to: Message 274 by CanadianSteve
11-11-2005 5:28 PM


Re: Possible solutions
quote:
It is the left's religion that all faiths, all cultures, all civilizations are equal in all material ways.
That may be true, or it may not be; however, I feel that it is telling that no one on this board has made that claim, at least not on this thread. You either refuse to actually read the arguments put to you, or that you cannot understand the arguments put to you, or that you refuse to acknowledge the arguments put to you and instead make up opinions for your opinions. Not only are you a racist, but you are the worst sort of racist, the type who must demonize everyone else as "race traitors".

"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

This message is a reply to:
 Message 274 by CanadianSteve, posted 11-11-2005 5:28 PM CanadianSteve has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 278 by CanadianSteve, posted 11-11-2005 5:51 PM Chiroptera has not replied
 Message 290 by randman, posted 11-12-2005 2:14 AM Chiroptera has not replied

CanadianSteve
Member (Idle past 6473 days)
Posts: 756
From: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Joined: 06-06-2005


Message 277 of 301 (258952)
11-11-2005 5:48 PM
Reply to: Message 275 by Chiroptera
11-11-2005 5:41 PM


Re: Anti-Semitism
First, I thought you had said Jews in place of israel, so i answered in kind. I should have said Israel. As for this:
"the point is that the language is bigoted and displays racism."
Ah, right on cue: A leftist cannot deal with good arguments, so resorts to reflexive, default cries of racist and bigot.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 275 by Chiroptera, posted 11-11-2005 5:41 PM Chiroptera has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 279 by Chiroptera, posted 11-11-2005 5:51 PM CanadianSteve has replied

CanadianSteve
Member (Idle past 6473 days)
Posts: 756
From: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Joined: 06-06-2005


Message 278 of 301 (258953)
11-11-2005 5:51 PM
Reply to: Message 276 by Chiroptera
11-11-2005 5:45 PM


Re: Possible solutions
Whom did i call race baitor?" Please provide the quote.
As for racist and bigot... like i posted elsewhere: Congratulations: you're right on cue.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 276 by Chiroptera, posted 11-11-2005 5:45 PM Chiroptera has not replied

Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 279 of 301 (258954)
11-11-2005 5:51 PM
Reply to: Message 277 by CanadianSteve
11-11-2005 5:48 PM


Re: Anti-Semitism
quote:
Ah, right on cue: A leftist cannot deal with good arguments, so resorts to reflexive, default cries of racist and bigot.
I'll simply let you have the last word on this:
But the palestinians don't plan on doing what they cannot, wiping out ISrael in a few blasts - much as they salivate at the thought.

"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

This message is a reply to:
 Message 277 by CanadianSteve, posted 11-11-2005 5:48 PM CanadianSteve has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 280 by CanadianSteve, posted 11-11-2005 6:10 PM Chiroptera has replied

CanadianSteve
Member (Idle past 6473 days)
Posts: 756
From: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Joined: 06-06-2005


Message 280 of 301 (258966)
11-11-2005 6:10 PM
Reply to: Message 279 by Chiroptera
11-11-2005 5:51 PM


Re: Anti-Semitism
Again, can't deal with the argument, so resort to "racist, bigot."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 279 by Chiroptera, posted 11-11-2005 5:51 PM Chiroptera has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 281 by Chiroptera, posted 11-11-2005 7:25 PM CanadianSteve has replied

Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 281 of 301 (258982)
11-11-2005 7:25 PM
Reply to: Message 280 by CanadianSteve
11-11-2005 6:10 PM


Re: Anti-Semitism
Am I wrong to call you a racist? Your own quote:
But the palestinians don't plan on doing what they cannot, wiping out ISrael in a few blasts - much as they salivate at the thought.
Edited to change "you're" to "your".
This message has been edited by Chiroptera, 12-Nov-2005 12:26 AM

"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

This message is a reply to:
 Message 280 by CanadianSteve, posted 11-11-2005 6:10 PM CanadianSteve has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 283 by CanadianSteve, posted 11-11-2005 7:43 PM Chiroptera has replied

Chiroptera
Inactive Member


Message 282 of 301 (258983)
11-11-2005 7:36 PM
Reply to: Message 274 by CanadianSteve
11-11-2005 5:28 PM


Oops. Almost forgot.
quote:
. It is the left's religion that all faiths, all cultures, all civilizations are equal in all material ways.
You still haven't pointed out who or where anyone on this thread has ever tried to make this claim.

"Intellectually, scientifically, even artistically, fundamentalism -- biblical literalism -- is a road to nowhere, because it insists on fidelity to revealed truths that are not true." -- Katha Pollitt

This message is a reply to:
 Message 274 by CanadianSteve, posted 11-11-2005 5:28 PM CanadianSteve has not replied

CanadianSteve
Member (Idle past 6473 days)
Posts: 756
From: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Joined: 06-06-2005


Message 283 of 301 (258985)
11-11-2005 7:43 PM
Reply to: Message 281 by Chiroptera
11-11-2005 7:25 PM


Re: Anti-Semitism
It is fact that the palestinians want to destroy Israel. No, not every single last one, but oevrall. That is confirnmed in myriad ways: Their text books do not show Israel, only an Arab state. They post photos of suicide bombers, labelled martyrs, all over the public space, including in classrooms. Arafat spoke continuously of destroying Israel in Arabic, while saying something lese in English. terrorist groups, operating with great support from the people, state flat out that tjeir aim is to destroy Israel. Opinion polls reveal that feeling amongst teh majoruty. This is such known fact, virtually no ME scholar says otherwise.
truth is not racist, no matter how ugly that truth. Killing the messenger is not the way to truth. If you want to aim your allegations of racist, aim them at palestinians who refuse to allow any Jews to live amiongst them, while 1 million of their brothers and sisters live in Israel proper.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 281 by Chiroptera, posted 11-11-2005 7:25 PM Chiroptera has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 286 by Chiroptera, posted 11-11-2005 10:55 PM CanadianSteve has replied
 Message 287 by Nighttrain, posted 11-11-2005 11:07 PM CanadianSteve has replied

CanadianSteve
Member (Idle past 6473 days)
Posts: 756
From: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Joined: 06-06-2005


Message 284 of 301 (259001)
11-11-2005 10:02 PM


tehari explains how iran counts on Bush's opponents to make the US to weak to battle
ov. 10, 2005 12:48 | Updated Nov. 11, 2005 21:43
Eye of the Storm: Whose new Middle East?
By AMIR TAHERI
Jerusalem Post
When Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made his "wipe Israel off the map" remarks last month, many diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic rushed to explain, read between the lines and relativize what was an unambiguous statement of Teheran's long-established policy. They expressed the hope that Iran would "clarify" - meaning soften - its position.
That was followed by feverish diplomatic activities, mainly by the United Nations' Secretary-General Kofi Annan, to persuade Teheran to tone down Ahmadinejad's remarks. (Annan was forced to cancel a planned visit to Teheran after the Iranians told him they would not allow any conciliatory phrases into the final communique.)
Last week, however, Iran's "Supreme Guide" Ali Khamenehi, the nation's ultimate decision-maker under the Khomeinist Constitution, not only gave his ringing endorsement to Ahmadinejad's remarks, but went further by offering his "vision for Palestine."
Addressing a congregation at the end of Ramadan, Khamenehi said Iran rejected the two-states formula proposed by the US, and would fight for the creation of a single state encompassing Israel and the Palestinian territories. In such a state, power would be in the hands of Muslims, although some Jews would be allowed to remain, under unspecified conditions.
Khamenehi went further by suggesting that Israel's political and military leaders, especially Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, be tried on charges of crimes against humanity.
WHY HAS Teheran decided to play hardball? The answer is that it wants a clash with the US over the future of the Middle East, and is convinced that it can win.
For almost a quarter of a century the Islamic Republic has been trying to change the status quo in the region while the US sought to preserve it. After 9/11 President George W. Bush transformed the US into an anti-status quo power and introduced major changes by toppling the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Ba'ath in Iraq. Sooner or later a new status quo has to emerge in the Middle East. The question is whether it will be shaped by the US or by Iran.
Ahmadinejad believes that Iran has a better chance of putting its imprint on the new Middle East. The US lacks staying power and Bush is an aberration in contemporary American history. All that the Islamic Republic needs to do is wait until the Bush presidency is either politically destroyed by its opponents in Washington or comes to the end of its term. Then, once Bush is crippled or gone, no American leader would have the stomach for a fight with Iran.
In the meantime, the only regional powers capable of challenging Iran's leadership are out of the race for different reasons. Turkey has decided to become part of Europe, and would not cherish the prospect of being sucked into the Middle East's deadly politics. Egypt, for its part, is heading for a period of instability under an octogenarian leader who just managed to retain power with the support of no more than 12% of the electorate in a rigged election.
Iran, on the other hand, has become more powerful. Internally, the soft-liners have been kicked out, allowing a new generation of radical revolutionaries to seize control of all levers of state power. Iran's oil income is at an all-time high, allowing the new president to buy popular support.
Abroad, while the US is bogged down by the insurgency in Iraq and the periodical resurfacing of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Iran has formed solid alliances in both countries. Iran has also emerged as the main supporter of Palestinian radical movements, some of which had been without a patron since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Next February, Teheran is scheduled to host the largest gathering of radical leaders from across the Muslim world to endorse its one-state formula for ending the Israel-Palestine conflict. Syria, isolated and terrified, has become even more dependent on Iranian support while Iran, operating through Hizbullah, remains a major player in Lebanon.
THE NEW Iranian leadership is also encouraged by the current weakness of the European Union. Germany is apparently unable to form a new government while Britain's influence is fading as Premier Tony Blair becomes a political lame duck. As for France, it is facing a Muslim intifada while its top three leaders are tearing each other apart over who should be a presidential candidate in 2007. Italy is heading for elections that seem certain to spell the end of pro-American Premier Silvio Berlusconi and the return of weak coalition governments.
Closer to home, Iran is positioning its pawns.
After more than a decade of relative quiet, Teheran has also reactivated its network of Shi'ite contacts in the Persian Gulf region.
A Shi'ite coalition was formed in Kuwait last month, while two Shi'ite parties in Bahrain have been told to go on the offensive against the emir and his policy of rapprochement with Israel. Teheran has also resumed contact with Saudi Shi'ite opposition leaders in exile.
In the meantime, Iran's massive military buildup has been accelerated, and it is no longer a mystery that the new leadership is seeking a nuclear arsenal within three to five years.
Teheran also counts on support form China and Russia. Thirsty for energy, China needs Iran, which holds the world's third-largest oil reserves and second-largest gas deposits. A plan, originally negotiated under the shah in 1975, for building 25 oil refineries in China was revived last September as part of Ahmadinejad's "Look East" policy. Russia needs Iran for two reasons: to help counter American influence in the Caspian Basin and Central Asia, and to forestall revolt among Russia's Muslim communities.
Iran also hopes to revive the moribund non-aligned movement as a global anti-American forum, with the help of allies such as President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
The state-owned media in Teheran are in combative gear. Echoing Ahmadinejad's analysis, the Iranian media present the West, led by the US, as a "sunset" (ofuli) power that must be taken on and defeated by a tolue'e (sunrise) Islamic power led by Iran. In that context the destruction of Israel becomes a key element in Teheran's strategy in the Middle East because Ahmadinejad knows that radical Sunni Arabs will not accept the leadership of Shi'ite Iran unless it is perceived as the only power capable of realizing their dream of wiping Israel off the map.

CanadianSteve
Member (Idle past 6473 days)
Posts: 756
From: Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Joined: 06-06-2005


Message 285 of 301 (259002)
11-11-2005 10:15 PM


Israeli columnist on french riots
Again, this is from the Jerusalem post, to which one must subscribe to access on line. hence, i copy and paste.
Middle Israel: France's only chance
By AMOTZ ASA-EL
[JPost ePaper]
Having at last arrived where he had long believed he rightly belonged, a resolute Jacques Chirac immediately got down to the business of restoring France's lost glory, and while at it convincing the world that his was the caliber of de Gaulle, Napoleon and Louis XIV.
Ignoring protests from Washington and Tokyo to Canberra and Wellington as well as Greenpeace and even demonstrators in Tahiti, the newly elected French president blasted a nuclear bomb in the South Pacific, under French Polynesia.
The unperturbed former mayor of Paris then proceeded to conduct a whole series of explosions. Nothing would make him budge; not Japanese prime minister Tomiichi Murayama's personal plea, not Australian foreign minister Gordon Bilne's wry remark that the blasts were a French Christmas present for the region's inhabitants, and not New Zealand prime minister Jim Bolger's memorable statement that one "is left wondering what part of 'no' the French government doesn't understand."
Yet Chirac had resolved to announce to the whole world that a new landlord had arrived in Paris, and that this guy was no sissy and his country was no anecdote; he was a Gaullist patriot, France under his leadership would return to be a world power, and the rest of the world would have to make way.
A decade later, France is the one making way, while Paris is ablaze, Chirac is the one reduced to an anecdote, and the world is in shock: How could the country that only yesterday threw its weight around, scaring some and offending others, now emerge so physically vulnerable, ideologically perplexed, and politically confused in the face of a massive challenge from within?
JUST WHAT fuels the French unrest may take some more time to determine. For now, the jury is still out on the role played by religious fundamentalism and the extent to which the violence is organized.
Still, one major component of the situation can, and should, be discussed already now, and it is post-colonial France's crooked view of the Arab world itself.
Several aspects of the situation cannot be disputed. First, it was but several generations ago that France had hardly any Arab population. Secondly, about a tenth of France is now Arab. And thirdly, for the past 40 years France has spearheaded the pro-Arab approach in the Western world.
Both emotionally and intellectually, then, many Israelis this week could hardly contain their Schadenfreude at the sight of France - the very country that for decades insisted Israel and its conflict with the Arabs were at the heart of the Mideast crisis - now getting a taste of that very challenge, in its very capital, and in complete disregard for the Fifth Republic's time-honored obsequiousness to the Arab world.
Back in France, at the same time, politicians focused on the immigrant population's mistreatment over the decades, resulting in festering slums, social immobility, political powerlessness, destitution and unemployment.
Surely, such soul searching is welcome, indeed long overdue, and if France emerges from this trauma a bit more humble in its attitude toward its own Arabs on the one hand, and less pontificating toward Israel on the other, no one in Jerusalem should be disappointed.
However, to be effective about the roots of their current malaise, the French must look beyond their festering ghettoes to the countries that in the first place discharged all that desperate humanity, and ask itself why those immigrants were in the first place so desperate to emigrate. And such introspection should lead to the grim conclusion that France has for decades been conducting a southern-flank diplomacy that can only be described as mad.
IN RETREATING from Algeria, France not only emancipated that sorry land, it also struck an alliance with the FLN, the movement that led the struggle against French colonialism in the Maghreb. It was soon after that change of course that Paris also started dismantling the alliance it had had with Israel since the mid-1950s, and which dominated its Mideastern policy until the early 1960s.
Initially all this seemed visionary and efficient. The French stopped getting killed in Africa, France itself entered an era of unprecedented prosperity, and as a bonus it also enjoyed special status in the Middle East as a power that, unlike Britain, America and Russia, had ostensibly undergone a counter-colonial epiphany of sorts.
In reality, however, France was actually waltzing with the very regimes that were nurturing the Arab world's backwardness, the ones that squandered the Middle East's petrodollars rather than use them for local development, the ones that presided over some of the world's highest birth, illiteracy and unemployment rates.
All those years, a guilt-ridden France's tragedy was that it treated the Middle East emotionally and ideologically rather than rationally and economically. A more sober outlook would have made it understand that the Mediterranean had come to separate between one landmass with surplus people and another with surplus capital. That the two would meet (the way they did, on a much smaller scale, between Israel and Palestinians after 1967) was inevitable. The only question was whether this would happen by Arab labor moving north, or European capital moving south.
France knowingly chose the former, thus pulling into its midst a Trojan horse and potentially touching off a great migration not altogether unlike the one that destroyed Rome.
It's not too late for France to offset this trend.
However, that entails making the tough choice of confronting rather than pandering to Arab despotism. It means conceding that dictatorship, and not the conflict with Israel, is the root of Mideastern despair, and it means massively investing in the Arab economies themselves, so they finally offer opportunities to their youths at home rather than send them abroad.
The US, which the French so much like to deride for its lack of international conscience and diplomatic vision, actually did all this wisely and successfully vis-a-vis its own potential supplier of indigestible immigration, when it and Canada struck the NAFTA treaty with Mexico, in a move that ultimately led massive capital inflows and created millions of jobs south of the Mexican-American border.
Curiously enough, just when the North Americans were focusing on creating opportunities for their southern neighbors, the French went to the other side of the globe, and got down to the much more urgent business of blasting nukes.
==================================================================
The writer, a senior columnist for The Jerusalem Post and until recently its executive editor, is author of The Diaspora and the Lost Tribes of Israel.

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