www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Crimes Against Humanity

Interesting reading [msnbc.msn.com] on the relation of the Bush White House to the law.

Dear Bob,

I really didn't want to continue this, but you mentioned some things that have to be clarified.

You said:

"The Greek Orthodox abbess, (is it Stephanopoulos?), who drove me to Taybeh showed me places along the road where people were shot and she drove very fast and in the middle of the road out of fear of soldiers and settlers. To blame Palestinians for this is to blame the victims."

I say:

Excuse me! The Israeli's had suicide bombings everyday. Shouldn't they be on edge. You know Bob, I don't think the Palestinians are the victims...underdogs, yes! There is a difference between being a victim and being an underdog...or at least that is how they try to present themselves.

You said:

"When Turks expropriated parts of Cyprus, Greek Cypriots resisted with violence. Why would Palestinian resistance to expropriation be seen differently?"

I say:

Hey! Some of the men tried to fight, and disappeared forever. The people ran for their lives, (they know the Turks well), and settled in refugee camps.

Well a decade later they were out of the refugee camps, and became established in their new homes. The section of Cyprus that was not under occupation became very, very wealthy. The part though that was occupied, and is still occupied by Turkish troops, was re-settled by Turks from the mainland. Originally it was the wealthiest part of the island.

Not now though! If I recall correctly, all the orchards at the time turned into poppy fields. I think we started paying them to change their crops. It is quite poor you know!

You said:

"Zenovia slanders the Christian family I wrote about by saying that they are being harassed and having their home wrecked "because the Palestinians are deliberately using those houses to shoot at the Israelis." How would she know this?"

I say:

I recall a Palestinian Christian woman on TV saying that the Palestinians come into their homes and shoot at the Israeli soldiers, and in response the Israeli's shoot at the house. Was she lying? But then again, weren't they using the Church of the Nativity to fight against the Israeli's? If they can use Christian churches, why wouldn't they use Christian homes?

You said:

"Zenovia asks what the Israelis are supposed to do. As the big power in the region they can negotiate, withdraw, follow the hundreds of UN resolutions supporting Palestine, tear down the wall and the checkpoints, stop the enclosures of Palestinian villages, recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine and negotiate the return of refugees. They will find negotiating partners in the forces seekinbg to reconstitute the PLO. The Israeli Labor candidate for Prime Minister--a really wonderful guy--can do this and more if he wins."

I say:

In other words, you are saying that Israel should cease to exist as a Jewish state...which of course is exactly what would happen when you say that the Muslim Palestinians should be given the right of return. In other words, Muslims must be in the majority because they are not allowed by their religion to be under the 'leadership' of anyone not a Muslim. It's in the Koran. Nor is any land once occupied by Muslims fall under the leadership of those who are not Muslims.

Of course you know that means Spain, Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria, Roumania, etc. etc.

You know Bob, what really should have been done, is that the Israeli's should have paid for the Palestinian lands and homes that were taken away from them. The problem though, is that Israel absorbed many, many Jews from Muslim countries, and they were forced by those countries, to leave pennyless.

Sooo! Why not have the Arab countries give the money due the Jews to the Palestinians instead.

Look Bob, first of all the Palestinian suicide bombers are not 'martyrs' in Christian thinking. They are murderers! And also, I wasn't born yesterday...believe me. I know that the former prime ministers of Israel Shamir and Begin were terrorist themselves at one time. I also know that logically and as a democracy, Israel is in the wrong.

But it is this very logic of the West that is being used by the 'Islamists' for their core beliefs in establishing Islam throughout the world.

When I mentioned the book the 'Bloody Borders of Islam', I was not talking specifically about Palestine. I was talking about the Muslim world and how it 'reasons' (by the sword) in relation to people of other faiths. If their reasoning was not different than other people, then why would they say they are being 'humiliated' by the Israelis.

I don't recall Germany saying it was 'humiliated' after the war, or Japan, or Italy or any of the countries that were occupied by them, etc. etc. Something is seriously wrong here.

I'm not saying they have to copy and adapt to the West, (we're far from perfect), but neither does the rest of the world have to adapt to them...as they obviously want.

Of course it means there will never be peace in the world unless it's under either one or the others terms. Too bad!

Zenovia

Admin- Club Gitmo ? You have been listening to Rush Limbaugh too much. And then you question my sources? I do read mainstream media, but also every alternative I can find. I long ago learned that if one is going to attempt to find the truth, one ought to read every side, factor in the prejudices, and make tentative conclusions.
At any rate, the Islamic and American conservative sites I linked cited many mainstream publications; they are handy because they serve as a kind of clearinghouse for what is out there. To hold that one ought to stick to the mainstream to have authentic news strains credibility. In World War II, stories of Nazi atrocities appeared in dispatches from leftist resistance groups and were largely ignored by the major papers.
For some information on the bucolic conditions at "Club Gitmo" see this story from Australia [commondreams.org] or this Amnesty International report [web.amnesty.org]

Again, in the end we are talking at cross purposes; your Americanist faith holds to the benevolence of the Empire. I was raised in this faith, and know its seductive power, but have freed myself from its shackles.
-Daniel

Ah, yes! You are free from the horribly seductive evil that is America. I�m sure that your plans to leave this horrible place are well along. Tell me, are you relocating to Baghdad, Riyadh or Tehran? Or maybe one of the suburbs of Paris?

Yes, we do disagree very much. I see America as a bright light in a world that is full of evil. Our society is far from perfect; there is a lot of work to do. Yet we are so far ahead of most of the world in guaranteeing human rights that people are still dying trying to get here. Our representative democracy and capitalistic market economy are � even with all the glitches � the envy of most of the world. Except, of course, those nice Islamists who wish to destroy the West and establish a worldwide caliphate.

Mistakes happen, of course, but we do have a system in which those mistakes can be and are addressed. I don�t know what - if anything - happened at Gitmo. I do know that the terrorists are trained to cry torture from the first moment they are captured. But guess what? If it�s true, America offers the possibility for redress of wrongdoing. Iraq under Hussein, Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iran, Saudi Arabia and many other countries don�t recognize such things as human rights, let alone have a process of redress should they be violated.

Daniel, your belief that America is intentionally targeting civilians in Iraq for death and purposely violating human rights is just ludicrous.

Back to my question for thought from an earlier post. Your responses seem to indicate that you are morally satisfied to walk away from people in a burning building, happy that you have encouraged them to band together help them selves. How sad. I would rather face the Lord knowing that I tried to do something and made mistakes. I would never be content knowing that not only did I refuse to help, but spent all my time condemning those who did attempt to help for the mistakes they might have made.

As one who was a professional military interrogator for 20 years and served in Vietnam and lastly Iraq, I believe that regarding Gitmo two mistakes were made: first concentrating all these terrorists and criminals in one central facility and second, allowing the media and public to know everything that was going on there. In the interests of national security some things need to be keep secret and Gitmo is one of them.

Zenovia doesn't want to continue the discussion and that's fine with me. I was hoping that there would be coherent responses to the points I made, articles and writers I suggested and links I provided. Perhaps they were overwhelming.

Zenovia says that there were "suicide bombings everyday." There were never suicide bombings every day.

Zenovia says that some Cypriots fought for their land and country against expropriations. I agree and I'm glad that they did. If it was correct in Cyprus, it is correct in Palestine. This seems especially true since, as Zenovia admits, some Cypriots were "settled in refugee camps." Palestinians--a large per centage of whom are already in refugee camps and have been since 1948--know very well how terrible that is. If we support Cyprus on principle, we should also support Palestine.

Zenovia shows that resettled people can build a better society. Perhaps. But even that does not argue for resettlement as a policy and it does not make displaced people feel better. And it is not justice.

Zenovia and I agree, apparently, that economic development in the wake of expropriations needs to be thought out. And we are both dismayed by what the Turkish government has done in occupied Cyprus. Zenovia, for whatever reasons, does not see a principle against occupation and forced resettlement here which applies elsewhere and in Palestine while I do. Readers can decide if they agree or not.

Zenovia supposedly heard "a Palestinian Christian woman on TV saying that the Palestinians come into their homes and shoot at the Israeli soldiers, and in response the Israeli's shoot at the house." Perhaps, but without a citation, time and place this is impossible to check or respond to. Armies do this sort of thing; it is the kind of action which makes war untenable.

But how does Zenovia get from that point to her attack on one Palestinian Christian family in particular? And is she not grieving over their loss? Does her failure to at least comment on the killing of the altar boy from the Church of the Nativity by Israelis say anything about her or her politics? And--following Zenovia's logic--what does it say about zionism that so few Jews mourned this killing?

The Church of the Nativity was not used to "fight against the Israelis." The Palestinian fighters were forced into the Church under fire. It was clrearly an action gone wrong and one which should not have occured. But it is another matter to blame all Palestinians for this or to suppose from that event that Palestinian Christians are victims of other Palestinians on the basis of religion or that Israelis are justified in attacking them.

Zenovia says that I believe that "Israel should cease to exist as a Jewish state." Perhaps. It might be more correct to say that I have not made my mind up on what a solution might be--one state or two states or the kind of federation hoped for by some Palestinian Christians--and I said this in my posting. I believe that a lack of certainty in matters like this can be healthy. Zenovia is apparently more comfortable with black and white.

Part of the problem for me is one of principle. If Israel can exist as an exclusively Jewish state and do so by forcing out Arabs, then Turkey is justified in its genocide of Armenians, the US is justified in killing the Indians, the idea of a renewed Caliphate gains currency and legitimacy, the Kurds and Assyrians face uncertain futures and Russia is justified in expelling Jews, Catholics and others. Do we want a world so divided by religion and ethnicity?

I did not say, as Zenovia claims, that "Muslim Palestinians should be given the right of return." I said that all Palestinians should have a negotiated right to return. This is a principle of international law and should not even be up for debate. The right to return is the only possibility that Christian Palestinians have of increasing their numbers and influence. If you cede this right--and no one but Palestinians can legitimately cede such a right--you cede Palestine to the Jews.

Zenovia thinks that "the Israeli's should have paid for the Palestinian lands and homes that were taken away from them." And they did so in some cases. But what about people who did not want to sell? And why was it up to the Jews in the first place?

I wish that Jews had not been expelled from Egypt and sold by Russia and other states. And I agree with Zenovia--I think--that they should have been reimbursed for lost property. This is a matter of principle and the rule of law. Zionism bears some responsibility here for fanning the flames of civil discord in some cases. And early postwar Arab nationalism, and even Ba'athism, was, at least in part, a joint Muslim and Christian undertaking at some points. There is plenty of blame to go around.

I said in my post--and it seems that Zenovia intentionally ignored this--that my point of view and the program of the Labor candidate for Prime Minister of Israel are very similar.

I never said that "the Palestinian suicide bombers are... 'martyrs' in Christian thinking." In fact, neither I nor Maria Khoury ever said this. Zenovia raises this as kind of a red herring without asking me what I think.

A nuanced view of this subject can be grasped by seeing the film "Paradise Now." I encourage everyone to see it.

For the record, I didn't say that "Shamir and Begin were terrorist themselves at one time." This comes from Zenovia.

I did once hear a Greek Bishop denounce Begin as the Antichrist. I don't know if this is the case or not, but if the Church speaks in this way then I am at least obligated to consider it.

I don't understand Zenovia's points about humiliation. She seems to think that an entire people can only speak with one voice. I can't imagine a time or a people this has been true for, but it is more likely to be the case when people have an elected government and can carry on the functions of civil society. Such conditions are almost totally non-existant in occupoied Palestine.

Zenovia says things like "...as they obviously want." Nothing she thinks is obvious seems so to me. This concept of a "they" also keeps coming up. I have tried to believe--in line with Church teaching--that there is no Other or "they." Church teaching aside, in the context of Palestine there are no certain majorities on
any question. I can document this with polling data accepted by most reliable news agencies. This is so because civil society--the rule of law, mediated relationships between the state and the individual and equal access to and participation in civil affairs--is impossible under occupation.

Be well.

bob r.

Admin- In my scenario you are rooting for the arsonists.
And I don't intend to go anywhere; I am an American and I love America. I want to stick around and rescue her reclaimed from the imperialists who have kidnapped her...
Daniel

Daniel,

You mentioned that you love America but hate the American Empire.

Personally, I'd like to see this country go back to a time when a majority of our citizens were farmers.

But empire could mean a lot of things. Are you longing for the days prior to 1898? or 1846? or even 1803?

Can you clarify?

Thank you