Ha'aretz is continuing to divulge soldier testimonies from Gaza. You can find the fullest report yet here. The messianic fervor that fueled the Israeli policy of collective punishment is laid bare.I'm not going to comment on it yet, just go read it.
There is another report in today's Ha'aretz that I do want to comment on. Uri Blau's article "'No virgins, no terror attacks'" describes the practice of Israeli soldiers getting custom clothing printed with their unit's insignia along with graphics and text. Below are some examples of shirts that were printed, along with some of the images. These images only appeared on Ha'aretz's Hebrew-language website:
A T-shirt for infantry snipers bears the inscription "Better use Durex," next to a picture of a dead Palestinian baby, with his weeping mother and a teddy bear beside him. - A sharpshooter's T-shirt from the Givati Brigade's Shaked battalion shows a pregnant Palestinian woman with a bull's-eye superimposed on her belly, with the slogan, in English, "1 shot, 2 kills."
- After Operation Cast Lead, soldiers from that battalion printed a T-shirt depicting a vulture sexually penetrating Hamas' prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh
- A "graduation" shirt for those who have completed another snipers course depicts a Palestinian baby, who grows into a combative boy and then an armed adult, with the inscription, "No matter how it begins, we'll put an end to it."
- There are also plenty of shirts with blatant sexual messages. For example, the Lavi battalion produced a shirt featuring a drawing of a soldier next to a young woman with bruises, and the slogan, "Bet you got raped!"
- A few of the images underscore actions whose existence the army officially denies – such as "confirming the kill" (shooting a bullet into an enemy victim's head from close range, to ensure he is dead), or harming religious sites, or female or child non-combatants.
- "Let every Arab mother know that her son's fate is in my hands!" had previously been banned for use on another infantry unit's shirt. A Givati soldier said this week, however, that at the end of last year, his platoon printed up dozens of shirts, fleece jackets and pants bearing this slogan.
"It has a drawing depicting a soldier as the Angel of Death, next to a gun and an Arab town," he explains. "The text was very powerful. The funniest part was that when our soldier came to get the shirts, the man who printed them was an Arab, and the soldier felt so bad that he told the girl at the counter to bring them to him." - In 2006, soldiers from the "Carmon Team" course for elite-unit marksmen printed a shirt with a drawing of a knife-wielding Palestinian in the crosshairs of a gun sight, and the slogan, "You've got to run fast, run fast, run fast, before it's all over." Below is a drawing of Arab women weeping over a grave and the words: "And afterward they cry, and afterward they cry." [The inscriptions are riffs on a popular song.]
- Another sniper's shirt also features an Arab man in the crosshairs, and the announcement, "Everything is with the best of intentions."
- A shirt printed after Operation Cast Lead in Gaza for Battalion 890 of the Paratroops depicts a King Kong-like soldier in a city under attack. The slogan is unambiguous: "If you believe it can be fixed, then believe it can be destroyed!"
These shirts have to get the approval from IDF commanders and are a military tradition, although the explicit nature of these shirts seem new. Bar-Ilan University Sociologist Dr. Orna Sasson-Levy is quoted as saying the shirts are "part of a radicalization process the entire country is undergoing, and the soldiers are at its forefront." Israeli anti-militarism activist Sergeiy Sandler, who works for the important organization New Profile, emailed this article out saying the shirts are "a long-standing tradition in Israeli military units; you see those shirts, although usually with less outrageous designs, on the streets all over the place. A picture's worth a thousand words, isn't it?"
I don't imagine these types of shirts are unique to Israel. I bet there are similar ones created by US soldiers in Iraq. But the shirts do point to an environment where mass war crimes can be carried out. They reflect a mindset where Palestinian life is disdained, when it's even acknowledged. One of the soldiers says it best in their testimony describing the killing of a mother and her two children: "the atmosphere in general, from what I understood from most of my men who I talked to … I don't know how to describe it …. The lives of Palestinians, let's say, is something very, very less important than the lives of our soldiers. So as far as they are concerned they can justify it that way."
Related posts:
- UN fact finding mission finds that Israeli actions in Gaza amounted to war crimes, and possibly crimes against humanity
- Tell the State Department to investigate Israeli war crimes in Gaza
- Israeli army strip-searches… an ultra-Orthodox battalion
- The case builds for Israeli war crimes in the New York Times
- Israeli soldier testimony from Gaza: ‘we should kill everyone there [in the center of Gaza]. Everyone there is a terrorist.’
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I can't help but think that this insanity is brought to us by those who fear assimilation.
…
Thanks, Adam. Unspeakably horrifying.
More quotations:
'Yossi Kaufman, who moderates the army and defense forum on the Web site Fresh, served in the Armored Corps from 1996 to 1999: "There's all sorts of black humor stuff, mainly from snipers, such as, 'Don't bother running because you'll die tired' – with a drawing of a Palestinian boy, not a terrorist. There's a Golani or Givati shirt of a soldier raping a girl, and underneath it says, 'No virgins, no terror attacks.' I laughed, but it was pretty awful.
When I was asked once to draw things like that, I said it wasn't appropriate."
Sociologist Dr. Orna Sasson-Levy, of Bar-Ilan University, author of "Identities in Uniform: Masculinities and Femininities in the Israeli Military," said that the phenomenon is "part of a radicalization process the entire country is undergoing, and the soldiers are at its forefront."
"There is a perception that the Palestinian is not a person, a human being entitled to basic rights, and therefore anything may be done to him."
Could the printing of clothing be viewed also as a means of venting aggression?
Sasson-Levy: "No. I think it strengthens and stimulates aggression and legitimizes it. What disturbs me is that a shirt is something that has permanence. The soldiers later wear it in civilian life; their girlfriends wear it afterward. It is not a statement, but rather something physical that remains, that is out there in the world.
Beyond that, I think the link made between sexist views and nationalist views, as in the 'Screw Haniyeh' shirt, is interesting. National chauvinism and gender chauvinism combine and strengthen one another. It establishes a masculinity shaped by violent aggression toward women and Arabs; a masculinity that considers it legitimate to speak in a crude and violent manner toward women and Arabs." '
*************************
The union between nationalism and misogyny was made as the English, as well, as they stole their empire. The "early modern" English labeled the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish as "feminine" in order to make them easier to conquer and kill.
Sorry:
The union between nationalism and misogyny was made BY the English as well, when they stole their empire. The "early modern" English labeled the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish as "feminine" in order to make them easier to conquer and kill.
Haaretz really is the greatest newspaper in the world right now. It helps everyone to advance the cause of justice.
Israelis are filth.
The wearing of these t-shirts by the killers resembles primitives who wore the peeled off skins or other body parts of their victims. Wearing relics of victims must be a very old custom, and probably serves some psychic purpose to prevent the killer from being consumed by animal instincts.
I would like to see the t-shirts the US snipers created after their rampage in Fallujah.
During the Israeli bombing destruction of Lebanon I went on the internets and tried to find a t-shirt with the image of Nasrallah, but the only ones I could find were from Israel with a bulls eye included.
Tommy
http://t-shirts.cafepress.com/item/light-tshirt/110257648
God help the Israelis. They have channeled Nazism in its most heinous and venal form. Much like Hitler's Final Solution that saw its Jewish populace as sub-human, the architects of Operation Cast Lead clearly saw the Palestinian populace as sub-humans and their rules of engagement reflected it. It's nauseating, and cannot be disregarded by the world community.
What about the Holocaust-denying Iranian cartoons? Or the children's programming on Arab TV portraying Jews (that's JEWS, not ISRAELIS) as apes and pigs? Or the multi-part "documentary" produced in Egypt, I believe, "Horseman without a Horse" (or something to that effect) graphically depicting "Jews" killing a Mulsim boy for his blood for Jewish rituals?
A little balanced outrage would be nice, or is that too much to ask from this soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations crowd?
If you are outraged, you could wear one of these:
http://shop.cafepress.com/fuck-israel
I wonder where the money for these things goes?
What about the cartoons? What about TV programming
Sharazi, what about real life?
Your idea of "balance" is being just as outraged about cartoons or a TV show as we are about actual military attacks?
A "sophist" you certainly are Shirazi. But sophisticated, no! A simple No.2 with a dash of No.3 Why not throw in a little No.4 or 1? And you can't call it sophisticated unless there's a reverse-twist or double-knot logic.
Shariza, I have long experience in Israeli apologetics and Hasbara. I used to go to the meetings and luncheons with my Mom (of blessed memory) as long ago as the 60's. Take it from me, Shariza, if you want to do a better job of it, to make the case for Israel and WIN, start here:
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-make-case-for-israel-and-win.html
The methods and techniques reccomended in the post I'm sending you to are based on the findings of authoritative halachic Rabbis. Don't be a schmendrick Shirazi, learn to make the case for Israel and WIN!
"The "early modern" English labeled the Welsh, Scottish, and Irish as "feminine" in order to make them easier to conquer and kill."
Susie Kneedler
I always suspected the authenticity of kilts. Turns out I was right.
Could someone please translate these shirts for me?
Could someone translate these shirts for me?
Please, if possible, translate this one too.
Good Question, Shirazi Sophist! How do you balance outrage?
Would balance be achieved by putting up a picture of shirt with picture of a pregnant Jewish woman with bulls-eye and inscription: "one Quassam, two kills" ? Should some Israeli start to wear those on the streets of Jerusalem so that some balance be restored?
Using hasbara talking point no 2 ("Arabs suck") really should be done a bit more cleverly to achieve a desired effect.
The quassam rockets are terrible!!!!!!
They hardly kill ANY Israelis.
1. The smaller, the more difficult. [steel]
2. [slight ambiguity without vowels] Let us not relax until certainty of the kill, samurai/socialist Zionists [an abbreviation pun] [violet]
3. If you believe it can be fixed, then believe it can be destroyed! — actually the top line is really too small to read. I am just matching the description [orange]
4. Let every Arab mother know that the fate of her son is dependent on my [two] hands! [black]
5. Better use durex [untranslated] [blue]
6. Only the Lord forgives. [red]
[I don't always perceive colors correctly.]
Because of the form of negation
2. [slight ambiguity without vowels] Let us not relax until certainty of the kill, samurai/socialist Zionists [an abbreviation pun] [violet]
is probably better translated as
2. [slight ambiguity without vowels] We will not relax until certainty of the kill, samurai/socialist Zionists [an abbreviation pun] [violet]
BTW, I have see this form of crap as far back as the 50s, and pop Hebrew songs have long been bloodthirsty and derogatory toward the native Palestinian population, Arabs, and Muslims in general.
all translate to:
"we wear diapers. they are instantly soiled if we are near to a palestinian 10 years or older. keep your distance."
anti semites murdering in semite land
we hate what we are not: human
Supporters of Israel need to have their homes and businesses burnt to the ground. They need to be run out of our communities, like the neo Nazi vermin they are.
why is it hell to back out of comments
There is NO SUCH SCENE, according to the ADL's plot summary of Horseman Without a Horse, and if anyone would have complained about false "Jewish rituals, it certainly would have been the ADL:
http://www.adl.org/special_reports/protocols/protocols_plot2.asp
"Horseman" used the plot device of the (false) Protocols in order to tell a story(not a documentary) about a real Egyptian journalist in the early part of the 2oth century, as well as a story about Zionism in Palestine during that time.
While containing stereotypes of Jews (and of the British and Turks as well) it was hardly much different than typical Western films that stereotype Arabs as bloodthirsty villains.
And the holocaust cartoons from Iran were meant to make a point about Western hypocrisy on "censorship", which viewed cartoons mocking Mohammed as a fine example of freedom of the press, but a holocaust cartoon as an abomination, not fit for publication.
As for "Arab TV", whatever that is, calling all Jews "apes and pigs", if that really happened and wasn't just another case of Memri purposely mistranslating, then it surely is a case of hateful religious bigotry, but it is not an act of a government's military condoning the murder of women and children. ( And I've heard similar bigotry about Muslims -and occasionally about Christians- from Israel's Arutz Sheva radio. Do you ever get incensed about that? )
So those three things are equivalent in your mind with militarily approved T-shirts on soldiers from a state's army depicting and celebrating the killings of children and the raping of women? You've got a warped sense of equivalence there.
Rykart…
Let me make this clear: the outrage at the t-shirts and other graphics depicted here, in addition to the testimonials from soldiers about the events in Gaza, are justified. I am not denying you nor anyone else here the basis for being infuriated. In fact, you have my blessing and sympathy in that regard.
My issue is the classic double standard when it comes to all things Israel. Admit, please, that Israeli atrocities outrage you more than any other committed by Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, or any other Islamic terrorist organization. There is no shame if you hold Israel and Jews to a higher ethical and moral standard for whatever reason — just be honest about it.
This is how I see it: Israeli soldiers in visible uniforms deliberately violate rules of warfare and target innocent civilians in the middle of a war zone —> OMG! War crimes! Crimes against humanity! Down with Zion! Or, as you poetically put it earlier, "Israelis are filth!"
But what about this: Hamas/Islamic Jihad/et al send a suicide bomber to detonate a 30 kg nail bomb in the middle of cafe or disco, with the intent to kill women and children only. The bomber gives no warning, the cafe is not in the middle of an active war zone, and he cannot be identified or distinguished as a soldier/combatant. What then? *crickets*
Both sides are deserving of our anger and outrage. BOTH SIDES. I am an Iranian-American, I was born in Iran, I am familiar with that part of the world. The Arabs aren't the saints you imagine them to be any more than the Israelis are. I don't want to get into a debate about who-started-what-first. That would be pointless. The bottom line is that each side has its animals. If you try to remember this and, heaven forbid, acknowledge it from time to time, you will come off looking less like a bigot and more … oh, I don't know … credible.
Naturally, the crypto-anti-Semitic crowd here can't understand it, but the T-shirts are an anti-PTSD campaign on the part of Israeli Army Officers. By making sure that the soldiers who took part in the Gaza attacks are never victims of shifting moral perspectives, or crypto-anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism, the chance of PTSD is significantly lessened.
Just one of the ways Israelis of the more elite ranks take care of the rank-and-file Israeli. Touching, isn't it? They treat those boys like they were their own sons!
But here, where crypto-anti-Semitism masquerades as anti-Zionism, I'm sure you wouldn't understand. You're all a bunch fagilas anyway, and so are your kids!
You know what? Us Zionists need to start pulling down some pants and seeing who is a real Jew, like they used to in the old days!
Every Jew who fails to denounce Israel is contributing to the portrayal of ALL Jews as Israel-sympathizers, i.e vermin who deserve annihilation.
"Durex", BTW, is a condom brand.
Funny. I thought Jews didn't get tattoos.
Nobody deserves annihilation. Period.
shirazi
you write:
"My issue is the classic double standard when it comes to all things Israel. Admit, please, that Israeli atrocities outrage you more than any other committed by Hamas, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, or any other Islamic terrorist organization. There is no shame if you hold Israel and Jews to a higher ethical and moral standard for whatever reason — just be honest about it."
ok..I'll be honest about it. Yes! The behavior, including crimes, of an oppressed and brutalized people could never possibly cause in me the outrage I feel toward the one causing the oppression with a massive military raining phosphorus on children and cutting off food and water to an entire population. Why on earth would I hold both sides equally responsible, any more than I would hold Jews and Nazis equally responsible for the holocaust? Or white settlers and their Indian victims, who also committed many brutal crimes?
Your argument implies that Israeli actions are a RESPONSE to Arab violence. I reject that completely because it does not square with the facts.
You raise the issue of double standard. There is indeed a double standard. Al qaida kills 3000 people, many of them, Bush supporters and this is the worst atrocity in human history. The US massacres 3-4 million in Indochina and 1.5 million in iraq and this is called "spreading democracy."
I'm jewish.
The Arabs have a perfect right to attack the United States and Israel.
So do the Vietnamese, Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, Laotians, Cambodians and a lot of other people we've massacred.
and until we apologize for our disgraceful foreign policy and apologize to the victims, that will remain the case.
sorry..until we apologize and pay reparations…etc
Cognitive dissonance warning: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1064578.html
Oh tree, where do I begin with you? The indoctrination of the Arab/Islamic masses through the use of TV programs that teach them to hate Jews can and does directly lead to violence (see Aaron Beck, "Prisoners of Hate: The Cognitive Basis of Anger, Hostility, and Violence"). There is an equivalence, the difference is in the manifestation and the length of time it needs to gestate.
Beyond that, I have seen far worse in the Arab/Iranian press, but I don't expect you to see it let alone be able to read it.
You may resume your Israel-hate.
Oh come on, Shirazi…it's RIDICULOUS! It's just fucking ridiculous!
Do you honestly think that the Palestinian child, whose only contact with a Jew is the heavily armed piece of shit who breaks his family's door down and levels his weapon at the boy's mother, before a tank drives over their olive grove needs classroom training in "hating jews." ????
ugh.
can't deal with you people any more.
My issue is the classic double standard when it comes to all things Israel.
You must have a huge problem with the Special Relationship. Why single out Israel for billions of dollars in annual military aid? It's an OUTRAGE!
You must have a huge problem with the Special Relationship. Why single out Israel for billions of dollars in annual military aid? It's an OUTRAGE!
Um, what about the aid we give to Egypt? Last I checked, that was in the "billions of dollars" too. And for what?
Okay rykart, you win: Israel is the embodiment of evil. The Arabs in that part of the world were a happy, peace-loving industrious bunch until the Brits and the French came along with their "colonialism," only to be replaced by those Jews. (Let's ignore the 500,000 Jews who were displaced from their homes in the Arab world in '50s. That's too difficult to rationalize.) Let's get the Jews out of historical Palestine and give it back to the Jordanians/Egyptians. We know they'll put it to good use. And then, once that happens, Nasrallah will lay down his arms because, you know, Hezbollah is *only* about "the resistance" and "the occupation." It's not like the Arabs have their own history of expansionism or conquest. Nope. They're content with historical Mecca, Medina, and the rest of dar al-Islam. We'll have to give up al-Andalus (Spain), but that's okay because it doesn't belong to the Spaniards … right? Okay, so once we do this, and banish the neocons and their beloved "Lobby" to a remote Pacific island, all will be well in the world. Religious tolerance will come to Saudi Arabia, Iran won't hang its homosexuals and stone teenaged girls, the Taliban will stop blowing up elementary schools, Egypt will stop oppressing its Coptics, the Sunnis and Shi'a will stop their fighting in Iraq, and we will have nothing left to vent about. I'll spend more time with my kids, you'll spend more time making some of your own, and liberal Jews everywhere will have to find someone or something else to torture themselves over.
Where do I sign up for this alternate world? I want in!
Oh, I forgot to add: Marg barg Isra-el!
(for any of you who understand Persian)
Eretz Israel uber alles!!!
A little balanced outrage would be nice, or is that too much to ask from this soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations crowd?
Posted by: Shirazi Sophist
I think most of us know the level of savagery in the Moslem world. What most Americans do not know is that the Israelis are just as bad. The real double standard is that my tax dollars are funding the Israeli atrocities. I will happily let the two savage warring tribes go about killing each other, but I protest that the weapons for one of those tribes is provided by the US.
shirazi
Who has had warm and fuzzy things to say about the Taliban? Certainly, not me. No one is claiming arab regimes are any bastions of freedom, tolerance, etc. Religious fundamentalism (Jewish, Hindu, Moslem, Heaven's Gate, Scientology, Shinto Buddhist, what have you) is plainly a perversion of the mind, from which all manner of human calamities ensue. No argument.
I agree completely that no state has a monopoly on morality.US crimes during and after WWII (including the gratuitous atomic mass murders at Hiroshima and Nagasaki) are a sickening disgrace. Does this fact excuse what the Nazis did? Obviously, no.
You are clearly relying on Mooser's excuse #4…everybody sucks. That says nothing about culpability for the crimes under discussion here. Culpability for THOSE crimes falls entirely—yes entirely, on the Israelis.
Do not send your Neo cons to my end of the world.This is an excellent article thank you……..shirazi f–k israel,…if you can read between the lines…
Israeli atrocities outrage…
Israeli atrocities outrage some Americans because all Americans subsidize the killing. Whenever Israel commits a crime, the blood is also on my hands, which is why my emphasis is on ending military aid to Israel and prosecuting Americans who have joined with the Israelis to commit those atrocities. Arab atrocities committed against Israelis are not subsidized by Americans, so no guilt needs assuaging. Americans have not subsidized any attacks by Islamic antagonists since the Soviets left Afghanistan, and Americans should end all aid, military and economic, to Israel until it withdraws to its legal, 1947 borders.
There is a double standard because America favors Israel over Israel's neighbors. If America is going to subsidize the defense of Israel's borders, it should also subsidize the defense of the other side of those borders just as vigorously and generously.
The same could be very easily said about the Israelis and their television indoctrination. My sister is a Jewish Israeli. She's subjected to the indoctrination there everyday. Even in the US, we are subject to television indoctrination, so I fail to see why "their" indoctrination is so much worse than our own, especially since our own indoctrination has led to much more death and destruction. You are the one with the double standard, but you fail to see it.
And "rykart" has a point that the Palestinians have no need to be indoctrinated by TV to see the worst in the behavior of the Israelis. Your cognitive dissonance here is that you fail to see that continuous ethnic cleansing, belligerent and humiliating occupation and ongoing Israeli denial of human rights against Palestinians is the source of all the violence. You can't "teach" Palestinians that all Israelis are wonderful people as long as Israel treats Palestinians as less than human. Their experience in life will always negate that "teaching".
The core wrong here is not the violence. The violence(from both sides) is a result of the unfair and strangulating domination of one people (Jewish Israelis) over another (the Palestinians). This is not a case of equal sides to blame. Israel could have ended the occupation any day it wanted to over the past 40 odd years. Any day that it wants to, it can begin to treat all its citizens as equals. Any day that it wants to, it could begin compensating or repatriating those it ethnically cleansed. Israel has the power to do all this. The Palestinians have none of that power. They are not equally to blame for the situation. And even the violence is not equal. Many Israelis have been killed or wounded over the last 8 years, but nearly 3 times as many Palestinians were killed in ONE MONTH, just in Gaza. And ten times as many Palestinians have been killed in the last eight years.
My sister takes the bus, and worries about a suicide bomber, although there have been none recently, but she does not have to worry about her home being destroyed, her land being expropriated, her livelihood destroyed, nor does she have to be humiliated and treated like dirt by young boys with guns, while waiting for hours at checkpoints that serve no purpose other than to harass her and her compatriots, and make her life miserable. She has the full protection of the law should someone try to take her property or harm her in any way, rather than rely on the second tier of a two tiered legal system that gives others more rights than her solely because of her religion. Her situation is in no way analogous to the Palestinians, either as citizens in Israel, or as benighted subjects in the occupied territories. I don't believe that all Arabs are saints. No ethnicity is. But Arabs are entitled to the same human rights as anyone else, and Israel is a country based on denying them their rights. If you want the violence to end, you must end the inequality and injustice.
"Just because Germany has turned to the Right and has expelled us [the German Jews] it simply does not follow that the principles of the Right are therefore to be rejected. On the contrary, only on the basis of principles of the Right — fascist, authoritarian, imperial — is it possible in a dignified manner, without the ridiculous and pitiful appeal to the 'inalienable rights of man,' to protest against the mean nonentity [Hitler]."
- Leo Strauss
tree
Pretty much perfectly said.
I post again (if anyone has interest in such matters) a fine article on the treatment of the bedouin by Israel. I think it's an important and badly neglected situation as it truly exposes a viciousness and greed that can not be linked in any way to Arab violence…these are desperately poor, completely unarmed nomads.
http://www.ameu.org/printer.asp?iid=45&aid=80
Yeah, plenty of bad regimes around, not just Israel.
I'm also against GIVING F-16s and Apache Helicopters to. . .
Iran, Saudi Arabia, Albania, Kosovo, Kazackhstan, Somalia, Ukraine, Georgia, Azarbaijan — and Hamas — among others.
The billions in aid to Egypt are part of the original Camp David agreement — a percentage of the US aid to Israel as a kind of hush money/incentive for the Egyptians to abandon the Palestinian cause and make peace with Israel.
That dough is still paying dividends for US policy, as even a cursory look at the news of Egypt's role around Gaza demonstrates; and at least a good portion of the money is food and infrastucture aid — or simple graft, which does less harm in the scheme of things than the white phosphorus and cluster weapons we give to Israel.. .
Well, Shirazi, I believe we should cut off all aid to Egypt as well as Israel.
But unlike Israel, Egypt hasn't used our tax dollars to commit war crimes and massacre children.
You also have a deeply twisted understanding of history and concept of reality. Returning stolen lands to the PALESTINIANS is not the same as returning Spain to the Muslims. I guess the it didn't occur to you that European Jews "returning" to Israel 2,000 years later would be just as unacceptable.
"…until the Brits and the French came along with their "colonialism," only to be replaced by those Jews."
Ever heard of the Balfour declaration?
(Let's ignore the 500,000 Jews who were displaced from their homes in the Arab world in '50s. That's too difficult to rationalize.)
You mean after 750,000+ Palestinians were forced out of their homes and into refugee camps in the '40s?
Religious tolerance will come to Saudi Arabia, Iran won't hang its homosexuals and stone teenaged girls, the Taliban will stop blowing up elementary schools, Egypt will stop oppressing its Coptics, the Sunnis and Shi'a will stop their fighting in Iraq, and we will have nothing left to vent about.
Personally, I couldn't care less what people do in their own countries as long as I'm not forced to fund their racist ideologies or annual atrocities. I don't want to invade, occupy, oppress, torture or massacre anyone and I don't want it done on my behalf. I don't want to be coerced, guilt-tripped or deceived into supporting a government whose policies defy everything I believe in.
It's that simple.
So why do you have a problem with that?
I would LOVE one of those shirts–anyone know if I can get them anywhere?
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