Posted on 12/12/2011 9:22:07 AM PST by Former Fetus
Newt Gingrich is taking a lot of flack for telling a Jewish cable channel that the Palestinians are an "invented people." Those comments were the subject of a lengthy segment of last night's Republican presidential debate and will, no doubt, inspire angry commentary from the pro-Palestinian left as well as concern from others who will say that Gingrich's attitude is unpresidential (as Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum seemed to imply) and will not help the cause of peace.
This leaves us with three questions: Was Gingrich right? If so, what implications should this have for U.S. policy? And even if he was correct, was it wise for him to say it?
>>SNIP<<
it must be said it was refreshing to hear a major American political figure state the truth about the history of the Palestinians and to say the myths they have created have been in service to one goal only: the destruction of Israel
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Newt is right but I’m not sure what his point is. Let’s face it, for 3500 years nobody has had any claim to that land other than by force of arms.
. . . many of those who now call themselves Palestinians are the descendants of Arab immigrants into the country from surrounding countries who came to find work that was available when the Jews began to rebuild the land.
Muzzies everywhere seem to want to move to places where the economy is run by infidels. In Malaysia and Indonesia, it is the ethnic Chinese who keep these Muslim countries economically viable. In Saudi Arabia, it is foreigners who pump the oil and keep the infrastructure together. Why do you suppose that is?
I ain't giving my house back to any Navajo!
The Turks are not going to go back to Asia.
The Franks are not going to go back to Eastern Europe.
The Normans are not going to go back to Norway.
The Arabs in North Africa are not going to go back to Arabia.
NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN.
Where would be the morality if we asked Massachusetts to cede territory in order to gain acceptance of the rest of us?
Will Gingrich recognize the right of Americans to their own country? Obviously, the Dem-RINOs consider Americans to be an invented people since they are intent on making us a minority in our own country through immigration and anti-traditional family policy.
Nor anywhere else than the ME. We don't have the Apache or Sioux territory because they lost, we won. The Basque are still dreaming of a homeland in Spain, and the Irish, well, you get the picture. Gaza, West Bank, and Golan are all Israel because Israel won. There's no reason to give anything back now. With Gaza shooting rockets daily, why not push them into the ocean? The Gaza lands came from Egypt. They don't seem to want the land back. The Golan Heights cannot be given back for strategic reasons, and the West Bank, well it's the home of Jerusalem and we know what the Bible says about Jerusalem. Before The Israeli wars, the Palestinians were just people that could have been called the desert tribes or the Bedouin tribes. Palestine was like saying the Sahara desert people or the western southwest people. Palestine was an area not a country or a state.
The Indians live on reservations we gave them, not necessarily their ancestors land. The Pals live in Gaza because the Israeli's allow them to.
The only reason any of this is "controversial" is because Gingrich said it. No one is trying to stop Pals from having a state. They just don't get to dictate the terms to the winners.
Unless someone forces them.
“They just don’t get to dictate the terms to the winners. “
Yes - if someone forces them - through force of arms - then yes - I suppose they might! ;)
But our points stand - nobody had any claim other than force of arms that anybody was willing to recognize.
Conquest is a perfectly legitimate way to gain territory for your people. Conquest is, in fact, the usual way territory is gained. There is hardly a civilization on Earth that has not at one point moved to their present location and taken it via military conquest.
Peace cannot be built on lies.
The next American president (assuming it’s not Obama, who is hopeless on Isreal) should ask any relevant Palestinian leader if there are any conditions under which he and his people would accept an Isreali state in the Mideast.
If the answer is “no”, or if it is equivocal, we should tell them we can’t take any part in influencing Isreal to make concessions, or even participate in peace talks as long as the Palestinians maintain that position.
Good information here to back Newt’s statement.
http://www.peacefaq.com/palestinians.html
Actually, any place they've been has forcefully kicked them out in order to survive (look up Jordan and "Black September," the events from which the terrorist group took their name). Those places that didn't kick them out... The Gaza strip after Israel pulled out and Lebanon (Beirut in particular) have been destroyed.
The so called palis have been groomed to be used as cannon fodder against Israel, both towards the destruction of Israel AND as a scapegoat for the arab and muslim populace for their miserable existence at the hands of their rulers. Sort of an "Emmanuel Goldstein" sort of thing.
Mark
Right up to a point, but then the author used a double fallacy.
“That said, it must be conceded that even if the Palestinians did invent themselves in the last 100 years, it is pointless to deny they do exist now.”
This is incorrect. The Palestinians DO NOT exist as a people. If anything, they are Jordanian Arabs, since there are more Palestinians in Jordan than there are the ruling Bedouins, and twice as many as dwell in Israel. Add to this, that they do not have anything in the “territories” that passes for a serviceable government that abides by any international norms.
“Millions consider themselves to be part of a distinct Palestinian people with a common history and destiny. The United States and Israel both understand that their desire for self-rule must be accommodated so long as it does not infringe on the rights and security of Israel.”
Wrong again. From the American point of view, this is like the “Aztlan” argument. Even though between legal Mexican Americans and illegal aliens, these 20 million might *want* to have self rule in the American southwest, they do not have any *right* to self rule, because it *inherently* violates the rights and security of the United States.
There is no Aztlan, as there is no Palestine.
The Palestinians exist *only* because of the bad judgment of the Israelis in *not* kicking out a hostile, alien people, whose foreign allies have tried several times to destroy Israel with aggressive war.
No other country on Earth would tolerate such mischief from a disloyal minority. And this, oddly enough, is why Israel has become a pariah nation. Because it has *refused* to do what is necessary to defend its own “rights and security”, instead relying on hopes, wishful thinking, and blather to try and neutralize a serious threat.
As such, Israel annoys the rest of the world, because it refuses to deal with its own problems.
Only to Americans with a truncated sense of history (that for all too many seems to reach no further back than WW II) is an empire that collapsed in 1920 “ancient history”. And folks in the Middle East, whether Christian, Muslim or Jewish, still regard historical events that are what most scholars would call “ancient history” or at least “early medieval history” as very much real and important to the politics and culture of the day — the Jews base their land claims on events recorded in the Bible, the Muslims on conquests in the seventh century. Though as you point out the Israeli claim to their lands is based at a practical level on what use to be called “right of conquest”.
Who are the “palestinians” in jordan and how are they different than jordanians?
Anybody: what is the historical use of Palestine before the Ottoman empire. Did the Romans call the area Palestine and what is the source of the word? Did they call everyone in the territory Palistinians or Jews or what?
Of course, we all know the answer to that!
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