From: davidba@carmel.technion.ac.il (David Ben_Ami)
Subject: Re: Fair Swap
Organization: Technion, Israel Inst. of Technology
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 16:36:47 GMT

In article <1992Sep11.073925.3382@mcs.kent.edu> rayes@Snake.mcs.kent.edu (Sandra Rayes) writes:
>In article <18oep2INNsu8@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu> bx573@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Alan H. Stein) writes:
>>
>>In a previous article, rayes@Snake.mcs.kent.edu (Sandra Rayes) says:
>>
>>>Who's this nut??? What tinker-box did he pop out of?
>>>
>>>Arabs from the southern Arabian peninsula--roughly today's Yemen--migrated
>>>to Palestine in the Fourth Millenium BC...that's two thousand years
>>>*before* Abraham got there.  That sounds pretty permanent to the majority
>>>of sound people.
>>
>>Nobody's claiming that no Arabs were around for a long time.  But the
>>simple fact of the matter is that Arabs have come and gone, with no great
>>attachment to the place, and a large portion of the Arabs who today call
>
>This is pure and simple, B.S., and I know that you want to believe this
>to alleviate Israeli sins against Palestinians.  But you have got to get
>rid of the blinders and realize, whether you like it or not, that
>Palestine has been tended to by Arabs for six thousand years.  Maybe
>the have changed the name they identify themselves as, but they have
>been there nonetheless.  Palestinians love their country, just as I
>love mine.  I know (and visit with often) little old ladies who
>dream of being buried with their relatives in Palestine--nothing
>political about that....they want to rest with their ancestors.  Surely
>a Jewish person can understand that sentiment.

Sandra, I think that reinventing history is a quite developed Palestinian 
history - Whoe ever heard of these "permanent" Arab settlements before
the 1980s? How come these evidence pop out of the bag like magician's 
bunnies? I think that it's not too difficult to create an "instant" 
nationality and to support it with manufactured evidence. A large group
of people were brainwashed to believe many stories about time
immemorial ancestry while their ancestry dates 200-300 years and
developed emotions toward the country in hysterical circumstances (the
30s-40s in Palestine were quite a stormy era). I think that this
nationality-invention games must stop some where otherwise we will have
a "Gallilean" nationality in the Gallilee and so on.

>>themselves Palestinians (itself a rather recent phenomenom, basically the
>>result of the Arab war against the Zionist cancer in the otherwise Arab
>>Middle East) are either recent immigrants themselves, or come from families
>>which themselves came to Palestine to benefit from the economic
>>opportunities that came about with the Zionist influx they hate so much.
>
>More hogwash.  As I have pointed out innumerable times, but many of you
>want to close your eyes and plug your ears, Palestinians have a very
>distinct culture, language, food, etc...from other Arabs.  Cultures
>do not become invented over night, but develop over time.  The Arabs
>of Palestine have identified themselves as Palestinians for at least
>2000 years.  I have recently talked to an elderly lady and asked her
>what nationality her parents were....she was stunned and said to me
>'Palestinian, what else?'  So I said, 'I mean, what town were they
>born in?' She said 'The same town I was born in (Tul Karam)...and
>my grandparents were born there.  Everyone I knew was born there".
>Hardly sounds like a migrating people.

I guess that Iraqis from the north and the South of the country have
pretty distinct cultural traits/dialects etc. (see the Marsh Arabs that
G. Bush cares for so much. Yet, Arabs will cry to heavens if one would
like to seperate this 2 nations (or more) and will complain of Imperialist 
plot to divide Iraq. So I guess playing the dialect game is worth only
when the political agenda is right. Right Sandra?

This personal accounts argument is quite tricky. Is this lady a representative
of Tul-Karem? maybe her memory is not that hot? maybe she's been led to
believe that by countless propaganda and her personal interest dictates
this. I believe that an enormous number of people (5+ million) are
calling themselves Palestinians today, I think that many of them has no
more connection to the country than the average Arab citizen in Egypt/Syria
Morroco etc. They are Arabs who are riding on the "Palestinian wave". 
for example Yaser Arafat himself was born in Cairo to an Egyptian mother.
There are many villages in the Israeli coatal plain that are clearly
inhabited by immigrants: Jisr-e-Zarqa by Sudanese Arabs, in the old town
of Caesaria there was a village of Bosnian Muslems who ran from the Serbs
in the late 1800s, the famous Isreali Arab football player named Rifaat
Turk has very dark skin reminding Sudanese Arabs. There are 2 villages
of Circassian (from the Caucasus in South CIS) Moslems: Kaffer Kanna 
being the greater. There are whole Hamulot (sort of tribes) of Arabs
called Al-Masri (The Egyptian) who came here with the Muhammad Ali 
when hew took it from the Sultan in the 1800s.

>In fact, I would point out that Palestinians, on the whole, were
>*less* migratory than *other* Arabs.  Other countries, such as
>Saudi, had and still have very large migrating populations known
>as badu.  Palestinians, on the other hand, while having some
>Bedouin clans, were known to be Hadhar (townspeople) who are
>settled in a single village and Felaheen (farmers) who
>were tied to their lands.

do you count the Al-Masri Falaheen who came from Egypt to Palestine 150
years ago? I assure you that they consider themselves Plaestinians
"from time immemorial" and their old ladies will recount and swear that
they lived there since the world was created.

>>
>>>As for institutions...ever heard of Al Aqsa???  It USED to be...before
>>>occupation, that is...a powerful religious center...it is mentioned in
>>>the Qur'an and many students of Islamic Shariah were educated there
>>>throught the years.
>>
>>An oasis in a desert.  Little attention was paid to it until the
>>reestablishment of Israel became a realistic possibility.
>>
>Baloney....it is mentioned in the Qur'an...Prophet Muhammad visited
>there and many Muslims from the Sham and even further used to go there
>in lieu of Hajj in Mecca (since they didn't have money and Jerusalem
>was closer).  Al Aqsa is tied with the BEST personalities in Islamic
>history.  I have met a lady who was educated there (pre '67).

El-Aqsa and the Golden Dome were built by Muslim Khalifs who occupied
the country from the Byzantine. Jerusalem has indeed some hioliness to
the whole Arab nation and this is related to their try to attract believers
from the 2 other monotheistic religions to Islam. The Jerusalem mosques
built on the Jewish Temple mount were holy for 1000+ years before the
name Plaestinian was invented. There's no denial that Arabs have holy 
places in Palestine - but this does not constitute National center of
any kind. Lumping the Arabs that were in the vicinity of a mosque (and
even not so in the vicinity) and calling them a "nation" does not wash.

The whole El-Aqsa business was inflated out of proportions since the
30s with the Mufti's political agenda in mind.
 
>>>
>>What ever happened to the claim of one Arab people?  Or do you throw out
>>propaganda ploys when another is more convenient, and then retrieve them
>>when it suits your whim?
>
>Throwing out and retrieving convenient slogans is your trick, not ours.
>Palestinians have always stressed their love for their land and culture.
>Palestinians were traditionally peaceful (at a time when other Arabs
>were fighting) and settled farmers who enjoyed their pace of life and
>were blessed by the proximity of Al Aqsa, a holy site in Islam.
>That has never changed.  What has changed is the fact that Europeans
>have taken their land from them, treated them like animals, and
>assigned to them the role of victim.

They were indeed a  quiet lot of farmers that lived in an almost
deserted country (which they didn't own) - they called themselves
Southern Syrians (I guess you haven't heard of that, Sandra?). 
They indeed loved their "South Syria" and didn't feel any need to
differentiate themselves from the Syrians of say Damscus.
The Europeans you mentioned happen to include over 50% Sepharadic Jews
can you explain why the "ravaging Europeans" invested a fortune in bringing
a host of Oriental people into the country and not as slaves but as equal partners. 
If they were only stealing a country they should have kept it for Europeans only.

Did it occur to you that other European among them your former countymen
yelled at my "European" ancestors. "Auslaender raus" , "Jews to Palestine"
etc. I think most "European" Jews wanted to go to a civilized place -
but from lack of choice came to Palsetine. Jews has no alternative to
Palestine - Plaestinians have 21 alternatives including one (Jordan)
that is actually a Palestinian State.

>
>Sandra.
>>bx573@cleveland.freenet.edu----Alan H. Stein----stein@uconnvm.uconn.edu
David.
-- 
=============================================================================
  David Ben-Ami (irc: bigdav)      |   "I can resist anything but Temptation"
  s2780369@Techst02.Technion.Ac.Il |       Oscar Wilde
  davidba@Carmel.Technion.Ac.Il  davidba@Moav.Techniona.Ac.Il
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