You are a difficult, man. If I say Yes now, you necessarily would misunderstand it, I must conclude by the way you were led to ask me this question, but in the way you would understand it it wouldn'T be true. If I say No, it wouldn't be true as well.

I can't say it and found it any better then I did in that text, and it illustrates that I was not the first setting up these demands: Siddharta and Jesus said very much the same. Who am I to say they were wrong?

Read it or don't, whatever yo choose is okay. As I said in that other topic, I expect or demand nobody to read or to like it (I know by experience that most do not like it, for it tells them to change themselves), and I also have no intention to defend or to change or to summarize it any further. Do, or don't, that simple.

"If you meet Buddha, kill Buddha" http://www.langkawi.dk/smileys/b330.gif (Zen).

Only the first crusade could be said to habe been successful, all others failed over a longer or shorter period of time. As the attempt to recapture land that before was conquered by Islam from the Byzantines, they definetly came to an end long ago. But that retake was only temporary.

Sound advice from an Arab. The Palestinians would be well served to listen:

http://jewishworldreview.com/0706/ibrahim.php3

I suggest you learn a little history.

I was trying to steer the conversation away from addressing religion directly. Although religion and all its stupidity is why the so called "holy" lands are still a source of conflict. To my understanding the whole point of the crusades (apart from poltilcal agenada from the church at the time) was to take the holy lands back from the grasps of islam. So if the bloody crusades ended, then why is this land still being fought over? Palastine? I don't think so. The undertone to palastine is that its a Muslim state. Arabs don't want anyone but muslims in the holy lands, so naturally they rally to Palastine.

So from that perspective the crusades never really ended. Or.. maybe they did end but they resumed under a different guise. Either way its not over. Those ragheads still call westerners infidels and crusaders for crying out loud... kind of a clue as to their mentality. Im going to keep saying this, because of the nature of the area being fought over.. that area being the birth place of two of the worlds largest religions. There will be no lasting peace until one side or the other ceases to exist. It just wont happen any other way.

Ah, I see you were refering to Christians in Lebanon, my mistake, I didn't read the topic carefully and thought it was refering to Christians worrying about Israel. As for Christians in Lebanon, I really don't care. They are not "my own people".

Have you ever thought of adopting? :p

This goes beyond "Holy Land"...

My history might be a bit fuzzy, but weren't the twleve tribes of Isreal around in that area a LONG time before there ever was an Islam?

Skipping over a couple thousand years of history (where the area was owned by a whole bunch of different peoples/cultures/nations - ie the Romans, the Persians, the Ottoman Empire, etc.) we find that the Arabs agreed to let the Isrealis have their own independent state back in '17 according to an agreement crafted by the British. Then they proclaimed independence from Britian (it was British territory prior to '48).

This was not an example of a bunch of Isrealis that one day decided to march into into some foreign land as conquerors.

Also, I feel that Isreal has been quite tolerant of their neighbors, considering what they have to deal with. In '48, Isreal offered a deal with surrounding countries, like Jordan, that would allow 75,000 Palestinians to legally immigrate to Isreal, but none of the surrounding Arab countries wanted them. To this day, Isreal is one of the few countries that will accept palestinian as immigrant citizens; Egypt, Jordan and other Arab countries won't, Palestinians in these contries are still only offered refugee status.

I believe that all this has more to do with perversion of Islam than with "Holy Lands". This is similiar to the period of Christianity that was darkened by the crusades. (as a Christian I will never defend the crusades.) Basically, a bunch of power mongers hiding behind their religious front (the early organized Papacy) decided that they could ignore the teachings that were the foundation of their faith and go out looting and questing for glory killing whoever got in their way. The crusades were wrong and it is a good thing that they ended.

I believe the same thing is happening today with Islam. The cause of the problem is not Arabs (or Persians in the case of the Iranians) nor is it the pure teachings of the religion of Islam. Just as most Christians during the crusades weren't evil people, niether are most Muslims. However, there are those Muslims today that are no better than those that participated in the crusades. They use religion to gain power and pervert their teachings so that they can go around causing all sorts of problems (I have never read the Koran, but I have tried to do some research and I can't find an instance where Mohammed said it was alright to kill innocent children and other Muslims).

So, now we've got a bunch of Islamic radicals that go around blowing people up, attacking innocents and making a general nuisance of themselves. They do it in the middle east (and around Africa), Europe, the US, China, Indonesia, Russia...I didn't know that all these places were Muslim holy places. If this was about "Holy Land", the only one dealing with this problem would be Isreal. (Yeah, the argument can be made that Christians aren't any better, citing the crusades, the inquisition, etc. The difference is that we "got smart" and cut that stuff out a long time ago.)

It is my opinion that the motive for this kind of behavior is a simple grasp for power and the fear of losing what power they have. (A good example are progressive Muslim countries where women can vote - even these countries are targets from radicals because heaven forbid the men don't have absolute power over their women). The zealot nut jobs who run these countries indoctrinate and pervert the typical Not-Evil-Basically-Decent-Human-Being type Muslims that make up the majority of their population and send a bunch of poor kids who don't know any better to blow themselves up (BTW, if their cause is so righteous, why aren't the leaders strapping the bombs on?) I find it hard to belive that normal human nature (flawed though it be) is not to strap a bomb onto your own kid.

So, how do we stop it? I don't believe that we have to wipe out any cultures, religions or whole races of people; nor do I think it would be possible to erradicate nut-job radical Muslims, there will always be those (just as there are radicals who pervert the teachings of Chritianity and Judiasm). The answer to the problem is to remove the nut jobs from power, let the average Muslim taste true freedom, and not allow the nut jobs the opportunity to indoctinate future generations of Muslims with hate filled and warped doctrine.

I am not naiive; this is not an easy task. Those seeds of power were sown a long time ago and they have used all that time to spread their atrocious ideology, but it must be done!

And it should not be done just in the Middle East, it should be done everwhere where there are murderous cowards preying on the ignorance and poverty of their populations for their own sick ends.

The one universal, basic human right is freedom; freedom to belive what you want (without the fear of being beheaded), the freedom to raise your family with your beliefs and the freedom to protect what you have worked for. That's all the Isrealis want. They want to go to work, to school, to go about everyday life without the fear of being bombed. The UN agreed- they called for the disarmament of Hezbollah and for a buffer zone of Lebanese troops to protect Isreal from Hezbollah. But like always, the UN is a prostate, dated and useless organization whoese mandates are useless. So the Isrealis have stepped up to the plate. (If your neighbor was throwing grenades at your house and the city police didn't do anything about it, you would protect your home yourself, wouldn't you?)

So if the UN isn't going to follow it's own charter to protect the innocent (reminds me a lot of Ruwanda, Sudan, Sierra Leone, East Timor, et al...) then someone has to do it.

I carried a rifle for the US Army for twelve years, saw combat, was shot in the line of duty and contracted a rare nervous system disease due to exposure to "unknown agents", so I say this knowing full well the ramifications of what I am about to say:

We are not the world's police force, but we are a super power. We have the moral obligation to put our young men and women in harm's way in order to protect the life and freedom of innocent people all over the world. Our obligation to free people from the bonds of oppression (in this case the opression caused by governments owned by Islamic radicals who want to see the total annihilation of other nations) is no less a mandate today than it was when we went to Europe to help them fight Nazis. It is the same thing- powerful nut jobs raising hell and killing people need to be taken out by someone with enough guns and guts to do it. That's why we went to Germany, that's why we went to Afghanastan and Iraq (regardless of what a bunch of clueless people say about W's quest for oil) and that is why we should support Isreal (though I doubt we need to run to their rescue, I trained with some Isrealis at Ft Bragg and those guys are pretty bad-ass). This obligation is the price we must pay willingly for the freedom and prosperity.

This is why the US and other peace loving people should supprt Isreal, now more than ever. (Luckily, there are a few other countries that still remember that evil exists and needs to be eliminated for the good of all mankind; countries like Isreal, England, Australia, Poland, etc.) Then the US and these other countries (forget the UN) need to go and do the same thing everyhwere there is tyranny. We need to overthrow every warlord, every dictatorship government and spread real freedom to these places. Only then will the world be a truly safer place. Idealistic? Yes. Difficult? Most definately. Necessary? Absolutely!

(I find it amazing that people who live in freedom loving countries don't realize or remember the struggles and conflicts that were necessary to make them that way...)

Just my 2...or rather 4 cents worth.

Have they got any oil for sale?:lol:

:lol:

Excellent post Perkins, just one little statement:

Islam is technically a culture in and of itself, a primitive, backward, and violent culture. Get rid of Islam, and we get rid of the headache.

But other than that, it was an excellent post.

Btw, do you go to HK94 forums? I seem to recognze your writing (typing in this case) style but I can't seem to connect it to a name.

All mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated...As therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come: so this bell calls us all: ...No man is an island, entire of itself...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Couldn't resist!

JCC

Sorry, I don't. I googled "HK94" forums, but I have never posted anything to it; this is one of the only three forums I participate in and I am brand new here.

Palestine is the focal point, and its creation goes all the way back to the 1st century when, after a failed Jewish revolt, the Roman emperor Hadrian expelled most Jews from what was then Judea and renamed this Roman province Syria Palestinia, or Palestine. Roman administration of Palestine (as part of the Eastern Roman Empire, also known as the Byzantine empire) ended around the 7th century when the region was conquered by the Arabs. Throughout this period boundaries were shifted around and then in the 11th century there was the Turkish invasion, followed by several centuries of crusades from the Europeans, and then finally in the 16th century things began to settle down as the region was fully incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. This takes us closer to the present time, but first a brief detour.

From the late 19th century onward there was a serious interest among the scattered Jewish peoples, who having throughout history been persecuted and treated like 2nd class citizens and with suspicion and scorn by the host cultures where the Jews were always a minority and often a convenient scapegoat, to create a Jewish a homeland where they would not be persecuted and not be treated like 2nd class citizens. This somewhat fractured movement (it was never a cohesive movement that everyone subscribed to) was given the name "Zionism" and a land for the people to settle in was chosen (what was then the region of Palestine, formerly Judea, presently Israel) though the leaders had not agreed yet as to whether they would create there a simple Jewish "homeland" or a full fledged Jewsish state.

In 1876 Rabbi Joseph Nantonek applied to the Ottoman Sultan for permission to settle Jews in the Palestinian region and this request was denied, the Sultan being disinclined toward any large scale immigration into Palestine he replied that almost all the lands of Palestine were occupied and that the autonomy sought by Nantonek went against the Ottoman administrative principles of the state. Nevertheless, significan Jewish immigration into the area did begin to occur, and the new immigrants created collective farms and in 1909 founded the city of Tel Aviv. However throughout the last decade of the 19th century the total number of Jews in Palestine was never more than 60,000 out of a total population of 500,000. Thus, though they had begun to emigrate to the region in earnest, they remained a very small minority at that time.

The 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement envisioned that most of Palestine would become an international zone once freed from Ottoman control, however the Balfour Declaration of 1917 laid plans for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine eventually and in 1918 the British led Egyption Expeditionary Force captured Jerusalem in December of 1917 and defeated Turkish forces in Palestine only a year later.


To the best of my knowlede, the crusades and various other political upheavels aside, that up until this point the Arabs and Jews in the region lived more or less peacefully together - that is, that terrorism in the region as it has come to be characterized was not a problem there. When the Jews began to settle in Palestine in small numbers they were ignored. When they began to come in larger numbers and it became evident that their goal was to occupy Palestine and turn it into a Jewish state, that's when things began to change.

From 1920-1948 this region was referred to formerly as Palestine and adminstered under the British Mandate. This mandate however was short lived, owing to a deterioration of conditions in Palestine as the result of armed attacks against the British by the Jewish militant factions that included the Lehi (referred to by the British as the "Stern Gang" and considered a terrorist group that had gone so far as to offer an alliance with Nazis against the British) and the Irgun (also classified by the British as a terrorist organization), and owing decling World Opinion against Britian as the result of a British policy that prevented Jewish Holocaust survivors from reaching Palestine. And finally, too, there was the cost of maintaining in Palestine a 100,000 man force at a time when the British economy was in ruins in the wake of WWII. Thus in 1947 Britain announced it would terminate its mandate in Palestine, and handed responsibility for the region to the newly created U.N.

The U.N. General Assembly announced a partion plan for Palestine that would partition the region into two separate states: a Jewish state, and an Arab state. Jewish leaders accepted the plan, Arab Palestinian leaders did not, nor did neighbouring Arab states. On May 14, 1948 the state of Israel was proclaimed, the following day the British Mandate ended, and then began the Arab-Israeli war of 1948.

The Arabs lost that war, the wars that followed, but the conflict remains and it will always remain and it comes down to this: you can not occupy, by force and by fiat, a piece of land where you are the hated minority - unless you are willing to exert the kind of iron grip, repression, terror, and collective punishment through the full force of the state's military might, such as what Saddam Hussein employed to keep his hold over the Shia majority that despised him.

Nevertheless, Israel, because of its Jewish peoples' horrific history as victim of crimes innumrerable in almost every place they've ever inhabited, demands an autonomous homeland where no government can victimize and persecute them and where they can exercise self-determination. I sincerely believe they have that right, that it is owed to them, and most of the world also believes this as well.

The problem is they (and the U.N.) picked the wrong place to put it.

Some sources for the historical info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_o...salem_%2870%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerusalem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_%28group%29

While you're working on that one, allow me to suggest a few other minor headaches we might want to get rid of as well:

a. poverty
b. famine
c. disease (all diseases)
c. global warming
d. nuclear proliferation

I could probably think of a few other little headaches that are easily solved, but I'm not in the mood right now as I have an actual headache of my own - part of the common cold we still haven't found a cure for. If you can at least cure that then get back to me on it please.