even culturally and in secular terminology, semitic people are everyone from the middle east. there are semitic jews, and non-semitic (ashkenazi, ethiopian, south african, sephardic, etc) jews. there are semitic muslims, and non-semitic muslims (asian).
Well, if I moved to the middle east it wouldn't make me a Semite because I come from the line of Japheth. But yes, I know what you're arriving at.
yes. i'll i'm saying is that the radical contigent are generally called "zionists," and one can be against them without being against zion, true zionism, or israel. because, really, the zionist movement is technically over, now that israel is a state and has an official hebrew language.
Your point is duly noted. Well articulated.
depends. do you think american indians should be allowed to have casinos?
While I don't personally like it and it irritates me that a group who's stated goals are preserving the enviornment, the passing on of Native American heritage, among other things, can fall so hard for the almighty mammon. But, they are allowed to have them so we must let them be until, or unless its amended. I just refuse to spend one cent in them.
palestine had the land for the better part of 2,000 years. israel moved in, relocated the palestinians, and continues to make their lives generally bad (example in a bit). i think they have some cause to be pissed, yes. but i think it's also ridiculous for them to blame all of their problems on israel. and their methods are to be despised. the problem, to me, is that radical contingents of both israel and palestine sound exactly the same.
That's what I'm saying. They haven't been there for 2,000 years. But even if they were living there for 2 days, Palestinians have a right to exist in Palestine/Israel. What they don't have the right to do, {speaking about HAMAS, not your average citizen} is to attack and blame Israel for all of life's problems. I think Israel going into the West Bank and forcing Jews out of their own homes that they payed for, was more than a compromise... But it wasn't enough, was it? Because most unfortuantely, people like Hamas and the PLO can't be reasoned with. If you give them an inch, they'll demand a foot. If you concede to give them a foot, they'll want a meter, and so on. They just won't be satisfied until Israeli's are dead or living in Antarctica. But the innocents is always hard to stomach. They did nothing but exist. As if war, and arguments, and strife wasn't bad enough all on its own, this makes it all the worse.
well, they do stomp through the streets, don't they?
No, they patrol their streets because everyday some a-hole Cleric convinces young, impressionable men and women to do the work they refuse to do themselves.
they consider it neccessary for their own protection, and so they have imposed a military state and essentially martial law on palestine, or at least the region that directly borders israel proper. since palestine is entirely contained within their official border, they can do whatever they'd like in their own country.
Well, its an unfortunate event. Everyone would like the alternative, which is diplomacy. But diplomacy has failed. No country wants to intentionally place its citizen under Marshal Law. Sometimes it is for the greater good that it is done.
like build a wall down the middle of it. the wall sounds like a good idea, doesn't it? check everyone who's coming through, etc. i agree, sounds good. the problem is that it's not one wall -- it's a network of walls, designed to divide the west bank in such a way so as to interrupt the daily lives of most palestinians.
Why shouldn't separate Palestine and Israel? Palestinans have made it clear that they want to be sovereign and Israel has made it clear that they want to be soveriegn. So, soverien they shall be. I guess its as asinine as asking why Canada and America have borders. Because we are separate countries.
there are stories about people having to take 12 mile detours to cross the street. they figure, if they can stop palestinians from moving around, they can stop communication of terrorists. and they might be right. ...but at what point does palestine become one giant ghetto? this is the same logic that relocated the japanese on the west coast of this country in ww2, and frankly, the same logic that spawned concentration camps for the jews. this is not a slippery slope we should be going down.
Well, I've never heard about that. I'm not doubting what you're saying, just that I've never heard that before. If that's the case, I think a compromise should be met to alleviate that annoyance.
they're bombing a residential area in lebanon right now. yes, that's WHY hizballah is there -- instant martyrs.
Yeah, you got that right. Martyrdom.
yes. well, there has to be a better way.
The only way to make it better is to separate them. But the League of Nations gave that land, and some people, myself included, feels that it was by Divine authority that it happened. But I'll try not to get into those aspects. But I have to wonder, if the Arab world is so concerned about the Palestinian plight, then why hasn't Syria, Jordan, Iraq, or whoever else offered to take the displaced refugees? I happen to believe that it works out to Islamo-fascist benefit to drive a wedge between Ishmael and Issac.
well, thank you. (man, btw). and no, i am certainly not anti-semitic.
I think the Hebrew font was a dead giveaway. LOL!
and actually, brenna isn't either, i'll vouch for her. she's just, well, she's kind of an asshole sometimes. she should be more careful and word things better. she's gotten in trouble for it before, and will get in trouble for it again.
Ah, Brenna's a good girl. I've been on too many forums to know the difference between someone who can be reasoned with and someone who is a polemicist, i.e. someone who argues just to argue. Brenna can be reasoned with, even if we hardly see eye to eye.
you also have to remember that most of the jews we go to school with are not israeli jews, or even semitic jews, but spoiled boca ("diaspora at its finest") jews, generally coming here from new york. and really, their crazy opinions on the israel/palestine conflict tend to be a little... well nuts, and out of touch. not that there aren't crazy people from israel too; there are, but they get more credit for their opinions.
All the bratty, Americanized Jews that I know seem largely indifferent to what's going on over there. But that almost seems worse to me. Almost.
well, what i think you probably mistakenly implied is what i'm often saying -- nazism greatly affected the european jews, the ones who returned to their homeland after the war to establish the state of israel. they are damned fearful of anything like that ever happening again, and really i don't blame them. that should NEVER happen again. but the problem is that the things that many of the more zionist members say are basically the same arguments of nazism. the nazis rounded up and tried to destroy the jews because they viewed them as a threat to their society. all i'm saying is that racism is racism, and we should be careful of the consequences.
No one one race or creed or nation or state or city is immune to having nutjubs somewhere within its confines. Israeli's are no exception to the rule. And should there be any engaged in ANY inappropriate matter, they should stand before a tribunal and tried on those allegations. If found guilty, then they should serve justice.
-isms evolved
Yeahm, its what I like to call, the "ism schism."
for instance, i'm rather anti-feminist. not because i'm against womens' rights (which i am ALL for) but because feminism has diverged from this focus, and is now largely sexist postmodern bullshit. same deal with zionism. i can be against radical and racist zionism, but be all for the original intent of it.
I find myself in opposition to feminism only because I feel that it detracts from femininity and inadvertently demonizes their own professed tenets. I think anything "radical" whether leftwing or rightwing is shockingly ignorant.
not true. i speak more hebrew than most jews i know, and i'm not jewish. yes, really, i am continually suprised by this myself. (what do they teach kids in hebrew school?) sephardic jews traditionally speak ladino or spanish, european and american jews english, ashkenazi tend to speak at least some yiddish, and ethiopians, um, whatever language they speak in ethiopia.
Alright, well there is Tiberian Hebrew and many other derivatives of Hebrew, as you pointed out, but I think the core of Jewishness has never been lost. With how many times they've been dispersed and how long those intervals were, its pretty amazing that they managed to keep it alive. The only other culture that might be comparable, are Gypsy's.
most of the jews here are secular
Where is "here?" Or, there, rather...?
and i know a fair portion of the ones in israel are too. "jewish" also works as a cultural definiton, not neccessarily a religious one. the traditions are closely to the culture, yes, and come from the religion -- but that doesn't mean that cultural and religious jews are practically the same group.
Yeah, like I said, I know alot of secular Jews. But to me, their traditions are so rooted in Judaism that its hard for me to understand how they can separate the two into two entities.
i know a lot of athiests that celebrate christmas too.
Good point. However, Christmas is just a bastardization of Christianity, Norse pantheism, and Etruscan paganism.... Right down to the Christmas tree.
well, not exactly. rome burned jerusalem. not all of israel. but maybe i missed that day in school. *shrug*
What i meant by scortched (not sure if there is a "T" in there and am too lazy to look it up), but the land was reputedly very fertile. It literally changed climates into a desert in no time after they left.
traditionally, the jews were sheep-herders and nomads in their early days. you gotta start somewhere. can you fault the ancient people who inhabited the land after the diaspora for not immediately establishing an empire? they did, eventually, though, didn't they?
Yeah, I guess they were like most people in those days. Your livestock was your livlihood for most people.
i don't think that's the only site holy to islam in israel. i could be wrong, i don't know a whole lot about islam.
I don't know either, all I do know is that the Dome of the Rock is pretty critical to the Islamic faith.
actually, i should mention something somewhat ironic. deuteronomy and joshua mention driving the philistines/palestinians out of the promised land, and depict israel conquering them. but by all archaeological evidence available, it looks like the exodus and conquest of the holy land never actually happened
I think you are thinking of the......? Crap, i can't remember their names. The Edomites? No, I don't think that;s it. But they did drive away a peoples thousands of years ago. As well, they did fight against the Palestinans/Phillistines quite often. Themost famous story being David and Goliath. But it should be made known that the Palestinians today come from Arab stock, which migrated much later in history. The Biblical Phillistines, I believe, were most closely related to Assyrians, Akkadians, Babylonians, and Sumerians, which aren't Arab at all.
Anyway, good post.
“Always be ready to give a defense to
everyone who asks you a reason for the
hope that is in you.” -1st Peter 3:15
When I lived in Miami, I had the "privalege 
, of going to a private school. It was lame. And there were a gazillion uber-rich Jews. But at the same time there were a gazillion uber-rich gentiles too, and Brazilians, and Cubans, and whatnot. The "J.A.P." concept isn't lost on me. And though I've been to Boca only a handful of times, but it didn't take very long to understand that its a haven for shallow-minded and materialistic people. Eh.... (*shrugs*) They might get backhanded by reality one day.
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