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jstan
climber
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Jan 31, 2011 - 12:53pm PT
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"Just not much."
RokJox
has become a poet!
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Jan 31, 2011 - 12:59pm PT
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Fatty;
Understand that. I was only referring this general animosity towards the U.S.A., and not towards Western Civilization overall.
Get the movie "The Kingdom of Heaven" the next time you go to the video store. Good story, and sufficiently bloody to sate anyones appetite for bloodshed...
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tarek
climber
berkeley
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Jan 31, 2011 - 01:20pm PT
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KlimbingKafir,
It's going to take longer than your lunch hour to explain the history of Jews in the "Arab World." While one could gather thousands of comments from individual Arabs and Israelis alike, each calling for the extermination of the other--that does not shed light. Most are peaceful. This is self-evident, as there is still huge coexistence.
Most Arabs distinguish between the invasion of European/Eastern Bloc Jews into Palestine (i.e., people with no genetic claim to the land, like Caucasians, etc. here in the U.S.) from the Jews who have lived among Arabs for millennia--and are in fact "Arab Jews." Only about half of the Jews in Israel are Semitic. Remember, many Arab Muslims and Christians in Palestine are themselves descended from Jews.
What's one common Arab term for Jews? It's "cousin," for good reason.
In Cairo, Damascus, and other major Arab cities, for example, there is a very long history of Jews living peaceably with Muslims and Christians. Certainly these periods were interrupted by episodes of violence--but the longevity of the co-existing communties is clear. It all began to go really bad in the 20th C., with the heavy arrival of European Jews in Palestine.
But now they are there, and--I might add--some are among the most courageous people anywhere in the way that they oppose Israeli government policies. In any case, It is unlikely that the apartheid state of Israel will endure in its present form for many decades. Way too many pressures from all angles, including internal Jewish ones.
Fattrad,
Your ignorance of the region, hitched to a lumbering lust for violence, is so stunning as to be comical. There are probably dozens of non-crazy, right-leaning Israelis who would go out of their way to tutor you, as you would constitute an embarrassment to their side. Seek some help.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jan 31, 2011 - 01:25pm PT
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A CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS.
No it isn't. That's complete bullsh#t. Stop meddling and people will stop hating us.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jan 31, 2011 - 01:27pm PT
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Fattrad,
Your ignorance of the region, hitched to a lumbering lust for violence, is so stunning as to be comical. There are probably dozens of non-crazy, right-leaning Israelis who would go out of their way to tutor you, as you would constitute an embarrassment to their side. Seek some help.
Worth repeating.
Fatty for all your supposed knowledge and mideast connections you're actually pretty narrow minded. In your own way you're an idealist, not the "realist" you think you are.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Jan 31, 2011 - 01:42pm PT
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It's not really a "Clash of Civilizations," but a clash of religions. Both Islam and Christianity have propagated through the sword. It has little to do with the character of the peoples involved, since the Palastinians and Egyptians are also "Semites" as well as the Jews.
The earlier post re: influx into Israel by non-Semitic Jews from Europe can be revealing. Simply refer to the Encyclopaedea Britannica and look under Khazars, and Kingdom of the Khazars. this is the origin of the so-calld Ashkenazi Jews, vs. the Sephardic Jews of the Holy Lands.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
mammoth lakes ca
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Jan 31, 2011 - 01:42pm PT
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Fattrad..I suppose you will tell us you dated Golda Meir...?
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dirtbag
climber
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Jan 31, 2011 - 01:45pm PT
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your problem is that you believe in whirled peas.
No, I don't. I'm not a pacifist. I just don't believe in meddling. Iran--1953--f*#ked everything up for years, not you're silly CofC baloney.
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jan 31, 2011 - 01:52pm PT
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While religious leaders and corrupt politicians may have emphasized "them" vs. "us," most of the people living in the Near East have coexisted with other ethnic groups and other faiths for over a millenneum. Both the Seljuks and the Ottomans generally left their conquered people in place, with the result that the region -- together with the Balkans (former Ottoman territory) has been a polyglot of amazing variety.
My mother's family lived in the village of Bhamdoun, in the mountains east of Beirut, in the summer. In the building where I stayed in 1970, there was a Druze family on the first floor, my mother's brother (Armenian Evangelical) on the second floor, and a Maronite Christian family on the third floor. All got along just fine, while back in the US, rangers and hippies were fighting it out in Stoneman Meadow. Once the Lebanese Civil War started in 1975, the Armenians, Druze and Maronites were all allegedly enemies of each other.
The sad history of the Levant and Palestine has been domination by outside forces, whether Egyptian, Assyrian, Persian, Seleucids and Romans or Ottomans, British, French, American, Russian and Iranian. The area is too small in population and resources to defend itself, and too important as a trade route for outsiders to leave alone.
Looking at the broader Middle East, I think Iran offers the most sobering lesson. America cannot keep an unpopular regime in power indefinitely. Any popular regime will be popular because it does what its population wants, not what America wants. I see a strong parallel in Egypt. We cannot keep Mubarak in power if the people of Egypt don't want him. If nothing else, the Egyptian army itself will turn against him, as parts of it already have. When his rule ends, the US will not have a particularly compliant state. I see those as the choices. Neither is all that promising for those who want to impose US interests there, but supporting the people, and not the government, of Egypt is, to me, the obvious moral choice, and more in our long-term interest of peace and stability in a critical region.
John
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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Jan 31, 2011 - 01:54pm PT
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Both Islam and Christianity have propagated through the sword.
I strongly disagree that Christianity's main propogation was through the sword -- at least not through the swords of Christians. The way of Christian expansion was lit by burning martyrs.
John
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Jan 31, 2011 - 02:00pm PT
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John-
A good post. Rational, at least.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jan 31, 2011 - 02:00pm PT
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I know our support of dictators have often ended very, very badly.
And your Japan example doesn't really work well.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Jan 31, 2011 - 02:09pm PT
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John-
What were the Crusades, other than spreading the faith by means of the sword? Also, in the 1500's the Church of Rome suppressed Protestantism by force. Maybe not the sword, but a barbeque at the stake was equally effective.
Jacques de Molay was slowly roasted alive over a slow fire for "heresy" as the leader of the Knights Templar, and Gnosticism was supressed by Church violence. By the way, the de Molay roast job was done on a Friday the 13th, which has led to the fear of that particular day of the calendar.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Jan 31, 2011 - 02:12pm PT
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Fatty-
Yes, I agree with Pat Buchanan and Rand Paul. Maybe a bit of neo-isolationism is better than neo-conservatism? We should STFO.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jan 31, 2011 - 02:16pm PT
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No it doesn't work well fatty.
There isn't a situation similar to Japan going on in the Mideast. Neocons have been hyping their so-called C of C as some kind of fight against a new Axis of Evil, and it just isn't so.
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KlimbingKafir
climber
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Jan 31, 2011 - 02:29pm PT
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Tarek,
I was under no illusion of trying to write any sort of history of the region, just trying to give some perspective from the ground here.
These issues are embedded incredibly deeply into religious and national psyches. 1948 resonates strongly with a majority of people here in Syria as well as all other countries in the region I have visited and worked in.
There is no simple solution, especially from armchair generals painting the situation in black and white. Living here and having family on the receiving end of a million dollar cruise missile will change anyone's perspective.
And I agree, there are amazing peace activists at work inside Israel as well as many outside. Those are the voices we should listen to.
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Brokedownclimber
Trad climber
Douglas, WY
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Jan 31, 2011 - 02:31pm PT
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A.C.--
Huckabee is a dick. Another discredited neo-con. Doesn't stand a chance of getting the nomination.
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Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
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Jan 31, 2011 - 02:52pm PT
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I strongly disagree that Christianity's main propogation was through the sword -- at least not through the swords of Christians. The way of Christian expansion was lit by burning martyrs. The grotesque violence done over the last 1,700 years by Christians in the name of their faith, and still being done or advocated by some extremists, speaks for itself. Not that Christians are any better, or worse, than any other faith or belief system in their willingness to resort to violence.
Yes, some brands of Christianity like torturing and burning "heretics", to 'purify' their communities and beliefs. But most violence in the name of Christianity has been good old-fashioned war, repression and imperialism. And there's been lots.
Virtually all wars are promoted at the time as "Christian" wars - even those where both sides are some brand of Christianity, or even the same brand.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jan 31, 2011 - 02:53pm PT
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dirtbag,
How about the Islamic leadership of Sudan staging genocide of Christians and Animalists in Darfur?? Yes, I know there was some oil involved also????
I would have sent in US troops.
Would you go to war for anything, I thought not. Whirled Peas, you are naive.
The evil one
Bullsh#t. I've supported going after the Taliban in Afghanistan. Why? Because they attacked us. I also think we bungled that badly.
I do not support propping up dictators. It has worked against us. Wake up Fatty. You are the Naive one, you and your neocon bombs for peace fantasy. Anyone who doesn't have a throbbing boner for war must be a peacenik in your book, because you are an extremist.
For all your name dropping and supposed knowledge, you are living in fantasyland, a very destructive one.
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dirtbag
climber
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Jan 31, 2011 - 02:58pm PT
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And btw Fatty, STFU about your reserve deputy experience.
It is not the same as being in a war. Join up and quit getting other people's kids killed for a change.
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