Mark Steyn, on the ugly elephant in the “Palestinian” living room:
If Muslims are so revolted by Jews that they cannot tolerate any living among them, well, they’re free to believe what they want. What is less understandable is the present position of the United States government. The President and his Secretary of State have made it very clear that they regard a few dozen housing units in Jerusalem as a far greater threat to Middle East peace than the Iranian nuclear program. Why is it in the interest of the United States to validate, enthusiastically, the most explicit and crudest bigotry of the Palestinian “cause”?
It’s not bigotry if it’s directed at the Jews, of course.
What the Administration doesn’t understand is that to the Palestinians, “disputed territory” == “all of Israel”.
As I got near the end of your excerpted intro blurb, in a split second I thought, “…because in the modern world being anti-semitic isn’t considered wrong or bigoted or even a bad thing.”
Then the next line said, “It’s not bigotry if it’s directed at the Jews, of course.”
I guess it’s not an un-common thought then. I don’t get it, but I guess I’m not alone either.
The other thing I don’t get is why it’s a horrible thing whe the Israelis kill one “palestinian” [I use a small “p” because there’s really no such thing] but when the Egyptians kill 6 or the Syrians kill 20, it’s not even news here. And I know it happens, I’ve had friends stationed over there or in Saudi, who say it happens off and on, but no big whoop.
Seems like bigotry to me, on both hands for that matter.
It’s a lot easier to attack a liberal western democracy than people who will, you know, actually kill you.
We refer to the living descendants of the first peoples to arrive in the Americas as “Native Americans.” So why don’t we refer to Israelis as Native Palestinians? Of the extant ethnicities that live in that region, Jews have had the longest presence.
Maybe we can think of the Jewish settlers in the West Bank as illegal aliens. That way leftists will have to support them.
Brilliant!
Where’s Jim to “explain” why the Israeli settlements aren’t in the U.S. interest? He asserted it in a previous thread. I’d just be curious…
[We refer to the living descendants of the first peoples to arrive in the Americas as “Native Americans.” So why don’t we refer to Israelis as Native Palestinians?]
This brings up something I’ve been ranting about for years. There are no such things as “Native Americans”. At best the earliest ihnabitants of the Americas could be referred to as “Native Siberians”. The only actual “natives” anywhere are the early inhabitants of the Olduvai Gorge and the Great Rift Valley. Everybody else on the planet is an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants.
Native Siberians…they’re Russkies! Alert the John Birch Society.
“Palestinian” is a loaded term. After Rome conquered the Jews and destroyed the Temple, it renamed the land “Palestine” — land of the Phillistines — in an attempt to obscure its Jewish character. The leaders of the people who are now called Palestinians want to do to modern Israel what the Romans did to ancient Israel. Why should we humor them by accepting their terms?