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Edward,

Thank you my friend. (Habeebee as we say) I would kiss Chinese soil simply for having you as her son.

....and American soil as well, particularly the South (I'm a Confederate sympathizer)

In IC XC
Samer

Subaho L'abo L'Abro vala Ruhu Kadeesho!

Habibi Samer,

did I get that right? I have no arabic - all I can say is "peace be with you", "Lord have mercy" and "thank you "! I shall be visiting the Antiochian Orthodox Cathedral in London for Liturgy with my Orthodox Youth Fellowship friends tomorrow morning to pray for peace in Palestine - as a sign of solidarity with our brothers in that suffering.

"For the peace from on high and for the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord!"

Yours in Domino,

Edward

This is an interesting thread, one that I wish I had more time to read in full, but I'm pressed for time. The next chance I get, I will certainly read everything here. One note just for Edward. What he wrote was Syriac, and pretty good for a Chinese Russian Catholic.

aRCG,

While it is awfully tragic that Palestinians are blowing themselves up to kill and killing other people in the process. I'm not sure we are the ones to quarterback their tactics. While I think SamB goes to far by equating the Israelies as Nazi's, I think we need ask ourselves why are Israeli troops sniping Palestinian kids that are throwing rocks and stones? Most adults of the free and Western world would consider this excessive force. Infact your average white anglo saxon protestant of America would be ready to grab their personal hunting rifles... and go hunt for these US regulars. We romantize are own adventure of hunting and gunning down "red coats" when they killed our children in moveies like Mel Gibson "Patriot". But we can stand with a straight face and lecture the Palestinians on peace? I for a while had an atittude of some indifference - while holding a personal opinion that Israel should exist but also a Palestinian statehood. But now after seeing two young women on the front page Newsweek who are dead, one a Palestinian suicide bomber the other a Jewish Israeli. I am moved with great saddnes. The Palestinian woman - Ayat Al-Akhras and the Israeli woman - Rachel Levy both died at the exlposive devise Ayat set of that she carried on her person. Both these young women were attractive and could have had a long life a head of them. I feel we, I, have somehow let them down. When young women go to blow themselves up and our bright face young girls like Rachel die as a result -- somewhere are world has gone wrong. Gravely.

SamB,

That you would somehow demonize the US for the destruction of the Holy Land and equate Israel on par with the beast we knew of as the Nazi machine, and then to condenm the US as being worst in the Balkans then the Ottomans, and to further somehow exonerate the Confederate South as the great victims... only insults US citizens and insults their intelligence.

Be sure Israel has conducted no reign of terror on the Palestinians that can be equated to the level of terror that was inflicted on the American blacks of the American south. I think if we were to lift the shirts of the Palestinians there backs would demonstrate this. Further the divide and conqure skeem that was conducted on the men and women of the black families still shows it's effects to this day. No less to speak of the events that happend like the rape of many black women and at least one occurrance of a white "master" ripping the child from the belly of a black mother and then stomping the child to death.

What this all boils down to is that Islam is Evil. Islam is like a cancer across the land and whenever it takes root there is violence. For example, Pakistan, Afghastan, Sudan etc...

I do not blame the Pal. people because they do not know our Lord. It grives my heart to know the Pal. Christians are caught up in this conflict.

Please remember to post with respect towards those who do not share our faith in Christ.

Please remember to post with respect towards those who do share our faith in Christ.

This is why the study of theology is so important. Islam in it's self is not evil. And remarks like these are inflamitory. I would say that Islam has a culture of hatred toward the Christian West and well... Jews in particular. I would also say that to this day some of this might be expressed in their theology - Sunni/Shiite. There's other things I would say but I don't want to get into a bash Islam thing, because I don't think it is pertenite to this discussion only feeds into prejudices about Islam.

In my opinion the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is closer to the situation of Ireland then Taliban world hate.

By the way half my bloodline is German (Catholic German I'm sure), so Abdur if the Palestinians are decendants of the Crusaders as you say, wouldn't the possibilty exist that someone of Palestinian nationality could share blood relations with me - way down the line? If so aren't they an extended family of mine?

I would never attack and individual or a race of people. We are all children of God! Christ said to Love your Neighbor as yourself. My neighbor is everyone.

However, I do not have to accept nor condon a theology or a set of beliefs that were generated by a man.

It is truly sad what the Pal. have to go through every day. I do keep them in my prayers.

God Bless.

I don't believe in pure, separate, or distinct bloodlines.

According to my religion, we are all of one common set of parents.

I know that within the Ottoman Empire, their was a great deal of intermarriage between different ethnic groups, even religions. Within Islam, marriage to non-Muslims is not prohibited, but it might be frowned upon by local custom. Mohammed had a Christian wife.

After the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, millions of them found refuge in the Ottoman lands, including Bosnia and Greece, where at least some of them became high functionaries within the government.

Certainly, some of them were assimilated into the Islamic culture and they probably married Turks and Bosnians. So, I am sure at least some Slavic Muslims and Turks also have Jewish blood.

Mehmed Sokolovic was a Serb who converted to Islam and became the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire. He married a Turkish woman and their offspring were obviously of mixed Serbian and Turkish blood.

(BTW: He had a relative--brother? half-brother?--who was an Orthodox monk and he became the Patriarch of Pec after Mehmed convinced the Sultan to allow for the establishment of a Serbian Patriarchate. Mehmed Sokolovic never forgot that he was a Serb!)

I believe it was Ali Pasha who was the son of an Italian Muslim father and a Turkish or Albanian mother. In other words, there has been a great deal of the mixing of races and ethnic groups within certain parts of the Islamic world.

Therefore, it makes all the sense in the world to me that Crusaders were absorbed into the Christian and Muslim Palestinian communities.

Salaam,

Abdur

[ 04-13-2002: Message edited by: Abdur Islamovic ]

First it was isolationism...The US didn't care about anyone...

Now its imperialism...The US interferes too much.

The bottom line is: you can't win with these people like Sameer who attack the US and what it has. People like that are jealous and envious.

As I recall, Yasser Arafat rejected the Barak plan that would have given the Palestinians 97 percent of the West Bank, and control of Eastern Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.

A peace agreement undoubtedly would require Israel to permit the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and to return the Golan Heights to Syria. A Palestinian state in the West Bank would remove what little strategic depth Israel currently has, placing its enemies within nine miles of the sea along much of the length of the Jewish state. And once again, Syrian gunners would look down from the Golan on Israeli towns beyond Galilee. Both circumstances would imperil the security of Israel and make lasting peace unlikely.

Go take your pro-palestinian tirade elsewhere.

Linuxmachine

[ 04-13-2002: Message edited by: linuxmachine ]

Watch the video "Jerusalem: Occupation set in stone" and you will know what the Israelis have been doing to Palestians (and Armenians!) for decades!

another resource: www.al-bushra.org [al-bushra.org] bya Roman Catholic priest.

anastasios

[ 04-13-2002: Message edited by: anastasios ]

Linuxmachine,

you Americans speak some much about the US as the land of the free, and that America is the defender of democracy and human rights worlwide...

Why then , are you so offended, you seem horrified and outraged to hear someone critize the policies of the US government?

Isn't free speech and the right to critize a government a basic part of the democratic system?

It's meet and right ( ) to object to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and to critize the policies of war and execive force by the current Israeli government..

BUT, we should also ask ourselves, how would it be to a Christian or a Jew in a Palestinian state??

What is life like for Christians in Egypt, or Jews in Iran???

Why is it that Muslims fight on the Israeli side against their fellow Muslims? Because they are well aware of the fact that Arab regimes are almost universally repressive regimes, and notoriously corrupt.
Arafat's regime is no different.

Privately, not a few Palestinian Muslims prefer to live under the Israelis rather than a Palestinian regime that will prove to be as repressive and corrupt as that of Syria or Iraq.

I write "privately," because those who express pro-Israeli sentiments are branded as "Jew spies and collaborators" and summarily executed.

BTW: When you survey the casuality lists, study the fine print. It is in the fine print that you will find the statistics on those Arabs "suspected" of being Israeli spies. The operative word is "suspected." Does any civilized country hang "suspects ?"


Am Yisroel chai!

Abdur

PS-If the suicide bombers have their way in Israel, their next target will be America and moderate Muslim communities. Then they will specifically declare war on the "Crusaders," i.e., Christians of the West.

From their point of view, Christianity is a violent and corrupt religion that spreads its "disease" wherever it is established.

Once these godless fanatics taste victory, it will be, for them, payback time; payback time for the millions of Muslims who--they believe--have been slaughtered by Christians.

[ 04-14-2002: Message edited by: Abdur Islamovic ]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Maximus:
[QB]

Maximus wrote:

"This is why the study of theology is so important. Islam in it's self is not evil. And remarks like these are inflamitory. I would say that Islam has a culture of hatred toward the Christian West and well... Jews in particular. I would also say that to this day some of this might be expressed in their theology - Sunni/Shiite. There's other things I would say but I don't want to get into a bash Islam thing, because I don't think it is pertenite to this discussion only feeds into prejudices about Islam."

Millions of Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, native religionists, etc., also believe that Christianity is inherently evil and the cause of all the world's problems.

Extremists--on all sides-- are completely obtuse to rational thought. One just must learn to live with their irrationality and become a missionary of your own faith among their people as a way to counter their erroneous thinking.

Locally, we will try that missionary experiment among our Hispanic neighbors who suffer from very serious and critical social and domestic problems that their current religious affiliation does not have the ability to resolve.

They have approached us. It would be immoral to ignore their sincere desires to reform their lives through the agency of Islamic Sufism.

What better way is there for Muslims to fight the demonization of our faith but to aggressively invite and welcome to reformed Islamic communities those from outside our communities who show a keen interest in reformed Islam?

Let these new converts--who will carry no ethnic baggage that outsiders can associate with fanaticism and terrorism--become witnesses of true Islam to their families, friends, and neighbors.

These new converts can become our first line of defense against those who insist on labeling all of us savages.

We could perform no greater service for the Palestinian Muslims.

Salaam y Adios!

Abdur

[ 04-15-2002: Message edited by: Abdur Islamovic ]