"Matt Silberstein" <RemoveThisPrefixmatts2nospam@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
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On Tue, 18 Jul 2006 04:07:38 -0400, in alt.atheism , "ZenIsWhen"
<ZenIsWhen@MYOB.com> in <12bp5mbg0kr8e81@corp.supernews.com> wrote:

"Matt Silberstein" <RemoveThisPrefixmatts2nospam@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
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On Mon, 17 Jul 2006 09:37:41 -0400, in alt.atheism , "ZenIsWhen"
<ZenIsWhen@MYOB.com> in <12bn4l4b9icm1b6@corp.supernews.com> wrote:

"Matt Silberstein" <RemoveThisPrefixmatts2nospam@ix.netcom.com> wrote in
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On Sun, 16 Jul 2006 12:06:13 -0400, in alt.atheism , "ZenIsWhen"
<ZenIsWhen@MYOB.com> in <12bkovkpiq5ev53@corp.supernews.com> wrote:

"Matt Silberstein" <RemoveThisPrefixmatts2nospam@ix.netcom.com> wrote
in
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On 15 Jul 2006 08:05:53 -0700, in alt.atheism ,
slip_identity@yahoo.com in
<1152975952.955856.65870@s13g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> wrote:

Your tiny kook minority of ISRAEL FIRST will be destroyed.
The world can no longer tolerate your terrorism.

How should Israel have responded when Hamas crossed the border and
killed and kidnapped Israeli soldiers? How should Israel have
responded when Hamas fired rockets at Israeli cities?

How should Israel have responded when Hezbollah crossed the border
and
killed and kidnapped Israeli soldiers? How should Israel have
responded when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israeli cities?

I see your point, but, in that same vein, how should the people who
lived
in
that area for generations have handled the fact that Jewish people,
from
all
over the world, just decided to move in and take over that area for
their
own nation?

They could have worked it out in 1900 rather than trying to kill them.
They could have accepted that Jews did not have to occupy a
subordinate position as Moslem law has required for centuries. They
could have accepted that the Jews bought the land from the Turkish
owners and worked to build up their own economy.

First time I ever heard that.

True none the less. The Palestinians, whatever they are*, have not
owned or controlled that territory pretty much ever. Arabs were not in
charge for centuries. The land was controlled by the Turk (due to
their conquest of the Arabs who conquered others) and owned by
absentee landlords in Damascus and Istanbul. The first waves of Jews
moving back to Israel (and joining the Jewish communities there that
pre-dated the Turks and the Arabs) bought the land from the legal
Turkish owners. The problem is that much of that land had been farmed
by Arabs, often for generations. I can understand objecting to this,
but the Turks had as good a legal ownership as exists.

Just as we hadf "as good a legal ownership" of what is now called the
United
States of America - as though the American indians had absolutely NO claim
to it?

Not at all. The Jews were there *before* the Arabs, before the Turks.
The Turks held the land for 500 years or so. The Arab claim is that
they took the land by force before the Turks took it from them.

(Pennsylvania - my home state - was deeded to William Penn by the English
king.
I mean - it's not like either of these lands were "empty" at the time.)

Right, the Jews were there before the Romans, before the Arabs, before
the Turks. There were, in 1900, communities of Jews in the area that
were over 2,000 years old. Either 500 years is long enough, in which
case it is acceptable to buy the land or it is not, in which case it
was theirs anyway.

Sure, the Jews were in the area - along with OTHER nomadic tribes.

Hmmmmmm ... you say communities of Jews, and the historical evidence coming
out of Haifa (sp) University was that the Jews were a nomadic tribe.

In addition there is a bit of implied racism here. Native Americans
had vastly different notions of property and far inferior technology.
They had no say whatsoever in the transfers involved. I suspect that
both the Turks and the Arab would be quite offended by the comparison.
They had established, culturally complex and sophisticated and pretty
comparable technology (they lagged, but not Native Americans lagged).

?????????

The technical abilities of the American indians has no bearing on the
Europeans taking over the land.

The indian notions of property is, also, not a valid reason to take the land
from them - and shove them out.

They had no say, because the arrogant European colonizers ignored the fact
that "someone else already lived here"!

*Prior to 1900 there was no concept of a distinct Palestinian ethnic
group. They had not indigenous art, poetry, language, dialect, dress,
etc. There was a city/country distinction and others, but no one
talked of Palestinians. It is the single most impressive victory of
the PLO that they created that group. Unfortunately it is an ethnic
group with one unifying aspect: the desire to destroy Israel and push
the Jews into the sea.

In the history of the Jews, as I understand recent discoveries, they were
nothing more than one of many, eastern Mediterranian, local tribes.

If you go back 2500-3000 years. Do you want to do that? Should we
*all* go back to where our ancestors were then? Pick a time and tell
me when the clock starts for rights.

Matt - YOU were the one who started the discussion based on history!

That
they chose THIS sizable piece of land for themselves (much of that claim
based ONLY on OT religious tales)

Nope. Again, continuous presence, continuous communities. The OT
stores give a claim for before 500 BCE (or so, but clearly pre-dating
the Arabs), not after.

Exodus 3

16 "Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, 'The LORD, the God
of your fathers-the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob-appeared to me and said:
I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. 17
And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt

into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites,
Hivites and Jebusites<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<-a land flowing with milk
and honey.'

So, according to the OT, the land was inhabited by people OTHER than Jews,
first!

When you say "Arabs" - who do you mean?

We, collectively, can be called Americans - from the top of Alaska, to the
tip of Argentina.

may mean that they are the only "defined"
group of people, but it doesn;t mean they have any more right to that area
as any of the other "tribes" that existed (and, through generations, came
to
call themselves Palestinians.)

Sorry, but the Palestinians claim comes from the Arab conquest, about
a 1,000 years after clear Jewish presence. I'll play this either way.
Either first in has the rights in which case the Jews and the
Samaritans get the right, occupation gives rights, in which case the
Jews still win. They originally bought land from people who had title
for 500 years. And they have held the land for 60 years now, longer
than the British and longer than any Palestinians have *ever* held it.
Remember, there has *never* been a time when there was Palestinians
control over the area, *never*.

So?
The indians, in their nomadic ways, never said THEY had control over the
land - they just lived there.

Sounds like an "eminent domain" transaction.

Outside people came into a nomadic area (here and in the Eastern
Mediterranian area) - and put up fences and boundaries where none existed
(and laid claim to what was in THEIR own (defined) boundaries.

It is no different than the "American" Indians unifying to fight off
England - taking control of, and giving away, a part of the land that THEY
have been living on for centuries.

It is completely different. Nothing but an arbitrary assignment makes
the Palestinians the equivalent of the Native Americans, they were not
first, they were not longest, etc.

Neither were the Jews.

I have never seen, or heard of, an anthropological study that claims ANY
"people" was in that area FIRST!

Are you willing to hand back your

home to Native Americans?

What does that have to do with anything?

Should all Europeans leave now? Remember,

the Turks took the area some 200 or so years before Columbus, some 400
years before the Puritans. The Iroquois have a *better* claim to New
York state than the Palestinian claim to Israel.

Yes they do.
The Iraquois also have a better claim to New York State than the Jews have
to ANY defined area within the eastern Mediterranian!

Do you wish for some

consistency or it is just easier to ask others to give things up?

The Turks, claiming the land because they fought some OTHER nation for
ownership is the same as England and France fighting over areas of North
America (Pennsylvania) - and the winner claiming the prize (Pennsylvania)
and then selling or giving it away to a prized Englishman.

Your analogy works better if you see the Native Americans as analogous
to the Jews. They were there first and lost those battles.

They were not there first.

There is no scientific evidence (that I am aware of) to support that
......... and even the O.T. says they WEREN'T the first!