Don’t take it from me, take it from palestinian Mudar Zahran (hat tip: Carl).
I guess it won’t surprise you to know Mudar Zahran has been threatened with death before.
Don’t take it from me, take it from palestinian Mudar Zahran (hat tip: Carl).
I guess it won’t surprise you to know Mudar Zahran has been threatened with death before.
So why isn’t the “Jordan is Palestine” idea official Israeli government policy? I suspect that is because it is significantly ahistorical, and serves to undermine Israel’s long term survival in the Middle East. This idea that “Jordan is Palestine” plays into the hands of those among the Palestinians who not only agree that Jordan is Palestine, but also that Syria is Palestine and that Israel itself is Palestine. I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but you don’t have to believe me, listen to the very conservative Daniel Pipes on this issue.
Ever since Black September of 1970, the Jordanian monarchy has been friendly toward Israel to the point of signing a peace treaty. Accordingly, the Israeli government is properly mum on this issue, even though it would be best if the Hashemites retook western Arabia, including the Muslim holy places, from the Saudis and left Jordan to be a Palestinian Arab state.
I hope you’re not saying that the Hashemites should take control of the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount, both Muslim holy sites. I don’t think Israelis would take kindly to this idea, Norman.
Dome of the Rock is no more a Muslim holy site than the Taj Mahal. It’s historically important, being old and grand, but wouldn’t you think a “holy” site would be mentioned in the Quaran? By the way, my husband served in Miluim at Ramallah when they opened the tunnels, which really was a full war situation for IDF. A 19 year old was shot dead in the jeep next to him. After the fighting was finished, the soldiers got a quick glimpse of what it was they were risking their lives for. They felt like the soldiers who fought for the Kotel and prayed at it after, he said.
When we went through, this time as tourists, 9 years later, I couldn’t understand what the conflict could have been about. The archaeological dig in no way undermined the Dome of the Rock. However, it is in the tunnels, that the different layers of building structures are demonstrated, and the tunnels demonstrate definite proof that the Western Wall was there before the Muslims built built
I’m certainly no theological scholar of Islam, but I do believe that the Muslim faithful do consider both the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa mosque as holy sites. I’m always amazed at how some “rapture-ready” Christian tour groups are so emotionally invested in the idea that these holy sites be destroyed and the sacred Jewish temple be built in their place. Some tour guides will photo-shop out any hint of a Muslim presence at the Temple Mount in today’s Holy Land group photos that they sell as mementos of their trips to the eager participants.
I am also no Islam scholar, but here are some facts: No mention of Al Aqsa or Jerusalem in Quaran. None. When Jews anywhere in the world pray, they face the Western Wall. When Muslims pray, they face Mecca and literally lean, and raise their behinds to Al Aqsa. Holy for Islam is not necessarily what we think of as holy. Things can become holy because any old cleric has called on them to be. It is considered to be against Islam to allow another religion to be the main religion of an area once “conquered” by Islam. Therefore the calls of Hamas etc for destruction of Israel, complete with the maps of future Palestine drawn to include all of Israel, are termed “Jihad” or “holy war”
I was referring, of course, to Mecca and Medina, the real holy sites.
It can’t be Israel’s policy, mainly because of the king and the royal family. If the royal family are toppled, it will be very difficult for the Palestenians to make a case for another state specifically in West Bank and Gaza if they have control in the area of Jordan. They will have to then admit that they are more interested in destroying Israel than land to have for a homeland. However, they already claim the Right of Return as a precondition before any negotiations, which is absurd. Why would you want the right to return to a country you hate and want to destroy? On the other hand, Israel has a peace treaty with Jordan’s government, or the king, so they can’t support an uprising agains him, plus who knows how precarious that would be for Israel. Don’t forget that before 67, there was no Palestine either, but no one heard cries of liberation from occupation against Jordan, Egypt, Syria or Lebanon. How did the Palestenian homeland manage to disappear for 19 years, to then reappear with gusto? If you look up on youtube a speech which Bibi Netanyahu makes when he is 28 years old, in US, he basically said the same thing as Mudar – really fascinating.
This was the official position of Likud until recently.
“So why isn’t the ‘Jordan is Palestine’ idea official Israeli government policy?”
How many times, Jim, do you have to be told this: Israel’s leadership for the past few decades has been terminally stupid, willing to do anything to gain acceptance in “world opinion” (Marxist-shaped anti-nationalist doctrine really), no matter the price in Jewish lives. Quoting Israeli government policy is no proof of the sanity of a position.
“I suspect that is because it is significantly ahistorical,…”
It was born of the idea of taking opportunity of an historical injustice: Britain’s carving out of 3/4 of the Jewish National Homeland in 1922 to give to the Hashemite kings. Adherents of the “Jordan is Palestine” idea thought that, if there had to be yet another state given to the Arabs, it should be on the part taken away in 1922 instead of the remaining post-1922 land. An attempt to minimize the injustice done.
For my part, I don’t care where the Arab colonists in the post-1922 British Mandate territories move to, as long as they go. For all I care, they’re welcome to go to Jordan or Jamaica, Iraq or Iceland just the same. All I want is for them to stop squatting on Jewish land.
And how many times do I have to point out that Israel is still a democracy whose people elect a government which will represent the broad interests of the country? No governing coalition will ever follow your course of action to eliminate the Palestinians living on the West Bank. Not only will diaspara Jews be opposed to such a policy, but Israelis themselves. Wake up and smell the bubbly, fizzy, ziontruth. You’re a citizen of a sovereign state, like other nations of the world and not merely a collection of Jews who have settled in the middle east.
“And how many times do I have to point out that Israel is still a democracy whose people elect a government which will represent the broad interests of the country?”
For the past few years, the people have made their decision to vote according to who the least bad candidate is. There is currently no candidate whose policies reflect the will of the Israeli Jewish public.
“No governing coalition will ever follow your course of action to [expel] the [Arab settlers] living [in Judea and Samaria].”
As things stand now, that’s true. But you shouldn’t bank on that “no governing coalition will ever” bit. A majority of Israeli Jews already want the barrage of Kassam rockets coming from Jew-free Gaza to be taken care of with extreme prejudice; once a government rises out of the ranks of the public and not out of old-guard establishment dung-for-brains politicos, you’ll see about your “never.”
And that attempt to equate me with the Nazis (your word “eliminate” which I amended to “expel”) is duly noted. I’ll keep that in mind.
“Not only will diaspara Jews be opposed to such a policy, but Israelis themselves.”
You don’t know about the Israeli Jews themselves. Stop reading Haaretz, it doesn’t reflect anyone but the fraction of a percent of incurably stupid Israeli Jews who have let all the lessons of the entire 2000s decade roll off them like water off a duck’s back.
“You’re a citizen of a sovereign state,…”
It’s time the state fulfilled the role nation-states were originally conceived for, before the madness of multiculturalist oikophobia plunged us into Bizarro World: The protection of its resident nation by any means possible. Wake up you, Jim, and realize that such nation-states as are ready to drive out all the interlopers within and near them are the only ones that are going to survive.
I never equated you to a Nazi. You’re much more like an overzealous attendee of a Star Trek convention, probably not to be taken all that seriously in the full light of day. Rant away, Mr. Spock. And live long and prosper.
never heard of anything so stupid. Europeans moved to Palestine and killed the natives, just like in Austraila, New Zealand, U.S etc. Problem is these guys want to fight back… Now you want want people to believe they should go somewhere else… Guys, people aren’t so dumb, its only a matter of time, keep it up..
To use the quote by Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts”. There were no native Palestenians in a land of “Palestine”. The whole area including what is now Israel and Jordan and most of the Middle East was the British Mandate of Palestine. Before that, it was all under The Ottoman Empire. The area was partitioned and most of the Arab states were drawn up not long before Israel (look it up). There were many “native” Jews living in the British Palestine, and many European Jews who migrated to Palestine in the 1800s and early 1900s fleeing the Pogroms of Eastern Europe. There were also about 800000 Jews expelled from the Arab and Muslim states, such as Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Yemen, Tunisia, between 1948 and before 1967, after they had lived there for centuries. Have you ever heard them crying for their right of return and claiming permanent refugee status? They were all absorbed into Israel. In addition, many of the “natives” you refer to, had only moved to the area for work from other areas, just before 1948. You can however choose not to let facts get in your way. Besides that, the post was actually linking to a Muslim Palestenian from Jordan stating the facts.
And may I add – how stupid it is to keep blabbing about “Europeans moved to Palestine and killed the natives”, when many Jews in Israel come from Arab countries and also from the West Bank and what is called Israel today. When the British arrived in Australia there were no white people and no one except the Aborigines had ever lived there. In contrast to Israel whre Jews have been living for thousands of years, even before Muslims. The whole story is completely different, and there are those who pretend it’s exactly the same, just because it is convenient for them to think so, never mind the actual history and facts.
You’d think so, but according to the crackpot from Dave’s post “The Islamic Preacher Who Was kidding” – Muslims were in Australia before Aborigines!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I spat coffee all over my screen when I heard that new piece of history.
Hey, dude, where’s my car?
Are you saying that all NON Aboriginal/ Maori/ American Indian people should get out of Australia/ New Zeland/ U.S.? By the way, are you perhaps also suggesting that Jews came and killed the natives in Australia, New Zeland, U.S. etc? Because the Europeans who came to Israel were Jews, and you stated that it was just the same as in Australia, New Zeland, U.S. – so same Europeans?
In addition, not to be too politically incorrect, but if the “bad, colonialist Europeans” – (lets not call them Jews either) came along and killed the “natives”, why is their population exploding?
Bring on the troll patrol!
“never heard of anything so stupid.”
Never seen anyone both stupid and evil like you anti-Zionists.
“Europeans moved to Palestine…”
Most Israeli Jews today are of Arab-land extraction. But don’t let the facts get in the way of a new Racial Theory.
“…and killed the natives,…”
The Jews and only the Jews are the indigenous people of Palestine. Arabs are the indigenous people in the Arabian Peninsula and settler-colonist land-thieves everywhere else, including Palestine.
To be an anti-Zionist is to aid an imperialist, colonialist cause. Zionism is indigenous resistance against Arab/Islamic imperialism. Go back to Stormfront, you neo-Nazi scum.
The current Jordanian king’s great grandfather was assassinated by a Palestinian ON the al Aqsa mount in 1951 because the king had dared suggest that peace with Israel was not only possible but advantageous. His son was a mental defective and the kingdom went to HIS son, the current king’s father. And the rest, as they say, is history.