Jara

Well said, Biff As usual you cut to the quick. There you go, Pro. The answer to your question. Islam and the West? They don't go together. Never have, never will. Debate over. You got what you wanted. What delights will you be giving us next? Islam and the rat plague: is there a link? Is Bomber Thompson a secret Muslim? Jack Watts? Did Muslims crucify Jesus? Sharia law: how long have we got till they take over? All discussed in a polite, mature manner of course.

OK, home now. Decided to maintain my perfect record of no new threads. Just a quick reply here. Read a beautiful article in today’s Age by Arnold Zable (Rising to fight the far right) , which recounted very moving incidents of courage, love and self-sacrifice in the Holocaust. Then I glanced at Demonland and saw Pro’s new topic and I groaned. I’d hoped we were finished with all this. And I asked myself how did Goebbels and the Der Sturmer crew whip up such hatred in the 1930s? By trawling though the events of their day – Depression, War, unemployment – and finding hateful things to say about a particular minority group. This is exactly what Pro does. He scans the Net looking for anything which will caste Muslims in a bad light and sticks it here. He gives us a constant barrage of stories about rape, murder, creeping Sharia law. All on a football website which is available to kids. How do you counter such stuff? Only way I can think of is to post more positive stories. I’ll try one. For quite a few years now I’ve worked in International education, and for various reasons found myself working with Saudis, especially women. They usually wear the niqab. In their own society, these women are ground breakers: in coming to the west, they have shown great courage. When they get back home, they are the ones pushing for a more pluralist society: to be allowed to drive, stand for government. When they first arrive here, they are so keen and curious to learn about Australia. They tend to be very nice, very shy and not at all political. And yet, often within a few weeks, they start to notice the hostility. I’ve had students who’ve been spat at, who’ve had their veils pulled off. And I ask myself, where does this hostility come from? Why do we denigrate their otherness rather than praise their achievements? Sure, Islamic terrorism has a lot to do with it, but so does the negativity whipped up by the kind of Youtube clips posted here. To the mods, I’d ask: would you support this kind of cherry-picking – hmmm - maybe not the right adjective – more turd-picking - racism if it was directed against Jews, or blacks (believe me, it’s out there, and just as easy to find)? I’ll try to finish on a positive note. Had a lovely young student come back a see me a while ago – I’d taught her when she’d just arrived, and she’d gone on to do undergraduate Biomedicine. She was so excited, wanted to let me know she’d been accepted into Medicine. I asked what her plans were, kind of assuming she’d be staying in Australia and getting rich, but she said she was going to go back to her own country, because there was a crying need for female doctors. Her country was Afghanistan Try to remember these little vignettes when you’re looking at the bovver-boy film-clips I fear Pro is busting to deluge us with.

Im out with daughter and friends this arvo but when I get home I'll be starting up a new topic (my first ☺) It will be called The rise and fall and rise again of Racism in the West. Let's keep it civil and mature.

I think that poll was referring to Palestinians across the whole of Israel, not just in Gaza. I imagine the ones in Gaza are not quite so amenable right now, given that (according to Wikipedia) 112 of them have just been killed and a further 13,190 injured. (Casualties on the other side, by the way, are listed as: "1 - slightly injured", whatever that means - probably a sniper who got blisters on his trigger finger)

We weren't talking about Curtis Chang. We were talking about unarmed children in Gaza, the youngest a baby.

It's okay, Ethan. You and Pro can sleep safely in your bed. I looked it up. Hamas itself isn't regarded as a terrorist organisation in Australia. Unless Dieter has mentioned the Izz ad Din al Qassam brigade (spelling?) he's in the clear.

Here t'is, in all of its glory. Those of you who are supporters of the Israeli army in this discussion, do you really want to be one the same side as the type of person who could write that last sentence?

Pro i thought your post about how you wouldn't be wasting any tears on dead kids because of what they'd grow up to become (or something like that) was the worst post I've seen on Demonland. Says more about you than it does about the situation in Gaza.

Look up the Two State solution on Wikipedia. A clear majority of Palestinians accept it. You are quite simply wrong.

He may be right about the evolution (if Pro's anything to go by )

I'm not - I abhor violence of any sort (as do most of us here) - call out bullies wherever I see them, be they Isis or the IDF - I've published a few things about the Chinese plutocracy which make me worry whether I'll be able to go back there - as for the Russians - hate those kleptocratic thugs (as I write this I'm looking at the picture of a friend of mine who died on the MH17) - am really p'd off that the West lets them invest their ill-gotten gains here. That said, it's often easier to criticise governments closer to us - we have more influence - makes you appreciate living in a democracy. Imagine trying to complain about China - what's the point? they'll be running the world in a few years PS I wouldn't tell the Russians they're not European - they get a bit sensitive about that

Hey Wrecker - I suppose we've all been killing each other for hundreds of thousands of years. Re your second point, no, I don't have those figures in my head and I'm too tired to look for them. But I'd have actually thought it was kind of obvious. Have I got my wires crossed? I thought all of those anti-Western Islamic groups cite the occupation of Palestine as one of the reasons for their hatred (along with invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, etc). I don't want to be interpreted as giving any kind of support to those groups at all. I can't stand them. I find myself agreeing with Christopher Hitchens on this - he was a fierce critic of Islamo-Fascism, but he was also extremely critical of Israeli oppression of the Palestinians (mind you he lost me at the end, when he came out in support of the invasion of Iraq) I started this turn of the thread when I expressed my sadness at the killing of 100 unarmed protesters in Gaza. That's still the main point of it for me. I'm not anti-Israeli, and I'm certainly not anti-Semitic - I've got Jewish friends and I really liked many things about the country - I just wish it would stop being so brutal.

Yes, that's exactly what I was thinking, although it's hardly likely to happen. Could I suggest another scenario? At present everybody's worried (quite rightly) about Chinese expansion to the north. They've already got the Darwin port, vast parcels of land, growing military bases. Suppose, in the not too distant future, they were to ally themselves with the Aboriginal population of the NT (about 60,000 people - a quarter of the Territory's population, who've maintained "physical cultural and religious ties to the land")? By your logic, Grape, this alliance would be legally entitled to drive out the white inhabitants, cram them into the slums of Tennant Creek and shoot them when they demonstrate?

I'll look at this more thoroughly later on, but let clarify. Why exactly are you saying it was Jewish land? (I'm not sure what period you're talking about - do you mean when Israel was established?) Re your second point, of course its heart-breaking that more people didn't escape the Nazis.

Thanks, Pro - that was very informative, but in all those descriptions of the Balfour Declaration, the Anglo-American Concorde or whatever it was, etc. I must have missed the bit where they asked the existing inhabitants of the country what they thought about foreigners coming in and taking their land. I'm surprised, actually - I'd have thought you, of all people, would have been sensitive about foreigners coming into the country. You don't seem to like them coming into yours.

When I said "we", I meant the world. The establishment of Israel was one of the prime reasons for the current Muslim hostility towards the West, which threatens and degrades us all. When I say "we", I am sympathising with both the children shot in Gaza and the children being blown up in pizza places in Tel Aviv (and as a matter of fact, I have travelled on buses wondering if there's a suicide bomber on board - have travelled twice through much of the Middle East, very conscious of the fact that I was a Westerner. Haven't had any rockets fired at my house - have you?). Could I ask you a question? Do you agree with my basic premise: That the establishment of Israel on Palestinian land was a tragedy? Here's another: how do you think the arrival of millions of Jewish settlers in Palestine in the thirties and forties would have looked to you had you been a young Palestinian losing the land that his family had farmed for generations?

Hopefully Dieter's answered some of your questions, but here's a few comments. OK, the Cohen article wasn't exactly chock-full of hard information - I didn't say it was - what I liked about it was it was presumably written by somebody who shared my horror at the ongoing, one-sided massacres of unarmed protesters. Do I support a Jewish homeland? My ancestors came from County Cork, were driven out by British imperialism. What would the folks there think about me coming back 180 years later to claim the family farm? Not much, I suspect. A Jewish homeland would have been a great idea if they could have found an empty one, but they couldn't (didn't they even consider The Kimberly? Africa? Brazil?) The fact that the Zionists came back and stole, with the aid of British imperialists, Palestinian land was a disaster for which we are all still paying a price. The fact that they are still being allowed to do it is an inditement on us all. All this stuff about Peel commissions, Sykes Picot, Balfour etc is all colonialist crap: there should have been only one question: did the existing inhabitants want it? If they didn't, end of story. I have every sympathy for the Jews of Europe and their terrible history - I think I mentioned I had friends there - their parents had gone through horrific experiences at the hands of the Nazis - I heard about some of them first-hand - but you don't alleviate one suffering by inflicting another on somebody else. That said, obviously, Israel is there now - it's not going anywhere, so of course I "accept" it, whatever that means - as i also said, I really liked the place - when I first went there, in the late eighties, I was working in Aboriginal communities in Central Australia, and could see similarities - my friends there were supporters of the peace movement - they were regarded as lefty radicals by the mainstream, as was I in Central Australia, but theirs was a tougher gig and I admired their courage. The only solution I can see at present is the two state one. Maybe, with time, education and the growth of secularism, the old enmities will fade.

Good article. I'd challenge the Russian to refute it but I think he's got me on ignore. And even if he hasn't he'd probably just reply with a YouTube clip of Netanyahu's mother-in-law.

Ok now I get it. No wonder he doesn't like you - you know, how those Russians hate Germans...

Hey - hang on - before you ignore me - that last sentence makes no sense - Balwyn's physically challenged son of...wtf? Have you forgotten to take your tablets again?

Hmmm... that just about confirms my last post. Small man syndrome.

Life's too short (and so, I suspect, are you)

Now listen, Russian. I've already wasted ten minutes of my life looking at your Israeli/Christian zionist videos. I'm not wasting any more time refuting their simplistic arguments - why don't you do it for me? You seem so keen. Just look up the PLO's website, or some such thing - I'm sure you'll find just as much propaganda from the other side.

Oh god - why do I do it? - I wasted another 5 minutes of my life looking at another of The Russian's wanky clips because I thought - oh well, this guys from a University - he might have something to say - then I looked it up. Prager University is NOT A UNIVERSITY. It is an online channel established to broadcast the views of more lunar-right American gazillionaires.

Pro, you're nowhere near as scary now we know you're just a Russian troll bot.