Well, the day has finally arrived. I now find myself in agreement with the secretary general of the Arab League.
Recently, at the end of the Arab League Summit, Amr Musa declared that peace could not arrive until there was withdrawal from occupied territories, the creation of another state and the return of refugees.
He's basically correct. So what if he got a few details mixed up?
Native Copts in Egypt -- millions of them -- had their country overrun by conquering, settling and subjugating Arabs. To this day, they never know when the next murder will occur, when the next church will be burned down, and they have learned that to survive they must consent to the forced Arabization process. Their leaders have even written that for Israel to "get along" it too must consent to a variation of this. Pretty pathetic. Uncle Boutros instead of Uncle Tom. But the same breed, if you know what I mean. Just imagine the world-wide outcry if Israel did this to Israeli Arabs.
The majority Berber population of North Africa saw its lands overrun as well over the past centuries by conquering, settling and subjugating Arab hordes, creating Arab empires. Berbers who dared to insist on keeping their own pre-Arab language and culture have been murdered for trying to do so. A look at any number of websites dealing with Berbers in this regard is revealing indeed.
In 1968, Ismet Cherif Vanly wrote The Syrian Mein Kampf Against the Kurds (Amsterdam). A Kurdish nationalist, he described the murderous and brutal Arabization policies that settling, conquering, and occupying Syrian Arabs employed against the Kurds, who predated them in the land by thousands of years. Settling, conquering, and occupying Iraqi Arabs did likewise to Mesopotamia's ancient native Kurds (the Hurrians, Guti, Kassites and Medes of old), Assyrians and other non-Arab peoples as well -- Jews included.
Literally millions of native African Blacks have been butchered, maimed, enslaved, turned into refugees (all of this still going on today), seen their lands forcibly Arabized, and such. And not just in the Sudan.
Imperialism is evidently only nasty when non-Arabs so indulge.
Half of Israel's almost six million Jews originated in the Arab/Muslim world. They too predated the Arabs in many of those lands that they were forced to flee as refugees, leaving far more property and valuables behind than Arabs who fled in the opposite direction after the latter's brethren invaded a reborn Israel in 1948.
Alexandria's famous Egyptian Jewish community was prominent centuries before Jesus. The Jews of Iraq had been there at least since the days of the Babylonian exile and captivity under Nebuchadnezzar. The Jews of Yemen were on the Arabian peninsula before Muhammad was born. In what is called the Hijra, the prophet of Islam fled Mecca to Medina, a date palm oasis on the peninsula where the Jews were still prominent. When they would not convert to his new faith (based largely on their own), nor accept his religio-political leadership, he butchered and enslaved them. Later, Jews also took part in the resistance against the Arab imperial invasions of North Africa in the 7th century CE.
Etc., etc. and so forth.
So, considering Amr Musa's above demands:
* It's time that the Africans of southern Sudan gain independence from the Arabs who have butchered, subjugated and enslaved them over the centuries -- long before the hypocrites in the United Nations recently first started to mutter anything at all about this.
* It's time for thirty million truly stateless people -- the Kurds -- to finally get their sole state. They were promised one after World War I, but saw it sacrificed on the altar of British petroleum politics and Arab nationalism. An Arab Iraq was pieced together in its stead.
Trusting Arab leaders, whether Shi'a or Sunni, is probably not a wise decision (regardless of what Foggy Bottom says) given the track records of Arabs of any stripe towards the non-Arab Kurdish people. Arabs, with almost two dozen states already -- including one carved out of almost 80% of the original 1920 borders of "Palestine", today called Jordan -- have an American-sponsored Road Map to help them create yet another; yet, somehow, the same folks demanding justice for Arabs seem deaf, dumb and blind regarding Kurds.
* And it's time for the subjugation of North Africa's huge Berber populations to come to an end, and for those folks to be able to decide if they want to remain forcibly tied to Arabs or not. If not, then why should they not get territory to create a Berber state, if Arabs can have yet a second Arab state carved out for themselves in "Palestine"?
You see, Mr. Musa, justice should not be exclusively for Arabs.
* Unfortunately for the Copts, there is not too much to offer. So, many more will yet become refugees.
The above list of victims of Arab imperialism is by no means complete. Just ask native Christian, Semitic, but pre-Arab Lebanese, for example.
The hypocrisy of the conquering, racist and subjugating Arab League is nauseating enough. That the latter, however, is widely supported in its demands on Israel by much of the rest of the world should be appalling to anyone with any semblance of fair play. I thought Dubya knew better. Unfortunately, despite his comments last April, it now looks like I was wrong. A cruel April Fool's joke, indeed; played on Mr. Ariel Sharon and on his tiny, vulnerable country.
Despite all of the international pressure on it to consent to becoming a reincarnated 1938 Czechoslovakia, ready to sacrifice itself for another "peace in our time", Israel must now muster the strength to do what it must. The only appropriate response to all of this should be to counteroffer the Arab League peace for peace, not consent to slowly being eroded via the Arabs' openly admitted "Trojan Horse" destruction-in-stages plan. And Israel must free itself from the belief that it has to allow Arabs to determine the rules of the road if widespread violence erupts again. Mahmoud Abbas' folks in the Palestinian Authority have said that they would support quiet only as long as Israel continues to cave in to all of their demands. And they're the "moderates".
Millions upon millions of non-Arabs became refugees because of the Arabs. Many of these people fled to America, Great Britain, Germany and elsewhere. They're not returning to those "Arab" lands. Likewise, Arabs will have to take care of their own, far fewer, refugees -- created in a war that they started.
The "occupied territories" Amr Musa speaks of are disputed lands, not purely "Arab". Jews have as much of, or more of, a right to be on those lands as Arabs have. Much has been written about this, UN Resolution 242 indirectly addressed this, and leading experts such as Eugene Rostow, William O'Brien, Arthur Goldberg, Lord Caradon and others have been quite vocal on this matter, as well.
Jews have a word describing demands such as those made by Amr Musa. It's called chutzpah.
Israel must have leaders who will respond to such so-called Arab "prerequisites for peace" by telling them where to stuff them.
Recently, at the end of the Arab League Summit, Amr Musa declared that peace could not arrive until there was withdrawal from occupied territories, the creation of another state and the return of refugees.
He's basically correct. So what if he got a few details mixed up?
Native Copts in Egypt -- millions of them -- had their country overrun by conquering, settling and subjugating Arabs. To this day, they never know when the next murder will occur, when the next church will be burned down, and they have learned that to survive they must consent to the forced Arabization process. Their leaders have even written that for Israel to "get along" it too must consent to a variation of this. Pretty pathetic. Uncle Boutros instead of Uncle Tom. But the same breed, if you know what I mean. Just imagine the world-wide outcry if Israel did this to Israeli Arabs.
The majority Berber population of North Africa saw its lands overrun as well over the past centuries by conquering, settling and subjugating Arab hordes, creating Arab empires. Berbers who dared to insist on keeping their own pre-Arab language and culture have been murdered for trying to do so. A look at any number of websites dealing with Berbers in this regard is revealing indeed.
In 1968, Ismet Cherif Vanly wrote The Syrian Mein Kampf Against the Kurds (Amsterdam). A Kurdish nationalist, he described the murderous and brutal Arabization policies that settling, conquering, and occupying Syrian Arabs employed against the Kurds, who predated them in the land by thousands of years. Settling, conquering, and occupying Iraqi Arabs did likewise to Mesopotamia's ancient native Kurds (the Hurrians, Guti, Kassites and Medes of old), Assyrians and other non-Arab peoples as well -- Jews included.
Literally millions of native African Blacks have been butchered, maimed, enslaved, turned into refugees (all of this still going on today), seen their lands forcibly Arabized, and such. And not just in the Sudan.
Imperialism is evidently only nasty when non-Arabs so indulge.
Half of Israel's almost six million Jews originated in the Arab/Muslim world. They too predated the Arabs in many of those lands that they were forced to flee as refugees, leaving far more property and valuables behind than Arabs who fled in the opposite direction after the latter's brethren invaded a reborn Israel in 1948.
Alexandria's famous Egyptian Jewish community was prominent centuries before Jesus. The Jews of Iraq had been there at least since the days of the Babylonian exile and captivity under Nebuchadnezzar. The Jews of Yemen were on the Arabian peninsula before Muhammad was born. In what is called the Hijra, the prophet of Islam fled Mecca to Medina, a date palm oasis on the peninsula where the Jews were still prominent. When they would not convert to his new faith (based largely on their own), nor accept his religio-political leadership, he butchered and enslaved them. Later, Jews also took part in the resistance against the Arab imperial invasions of North Africa in the 7th century CE.
Etc., etc. and so forth.
So, considering Amr Musa's above demands:
* It's time that the Africans of southern Sudan gain independence from the Arabs who have butchered, subjugated and enslaved them over the centuries -- long before the hypocrites in the United Nations recently first started to mutter anything at all about this.
* It's time for thirty million truly stateless people -- the Kurds -- to finally get their sole state. They were promised one after World War I, but saw it sacrificed on the altar of British petroleum politics and Arab nationalism. An Arab Iraq was pieced together in its stead.
Trusting Arab leaders, whether Shi'a or Sunni, is probably not a wise decision (regardless of what Foggy Bottom says) given the track records of Arabs of any stripe towards the non-Arab Kurdish people. Arabs, with almost two dozen states already -- including one carved out of almost 80% of the original 1920 borders of "Palestine", today called Jordan -- have an American-sponsored Road Map to help them create yet another; yet, somehow, the same folks demanding justice for Arabs seem deaf, dumb and blind regarding Kurds.
* And it's time for the subjugation of North Africa's huge Berber populations to come to an end, and for those folks to be able to decide if they want to remain forcibly tied to Arabs or not. If not, then why should they not get territory to create a Berber state, if Arabs can have yet a second Arab state carved out for themselves in "Palestine"?
You see, Mr. Musa, justice should not be exclusively for Arabs.
* Unfortunately for the Copts, there is not too much to offer. So, many more will yet become refugees.
The above list of victims of Arab imperialism is by no means complete. Just ask native Christian, Semitic, but pre-Arab Lebanese, for example.
The hypocrisy of the conquering, racist and subjugating Arab League is nauseating enough. That the latter, however, is widely supported in its demands on Israel by much of the rest of the world should be appalling to anyone with any semblance of fair play. I thought Dubya knew better. Unfortunately, despite his comments last April, it now looks like I was wrong. A cruel April Fool's joke, indeed; played on Mr. Ariel Sharon and on his tiny, vulnerable country.
Despite all of the international pressure on it to consent to becoming a reincarnated 1938 Czechoslovakia, ready to sacrifice itself for another "peace in our time", Israel must now muster the strength to do what it must. The only appropriate response to all of this should be to counteroffer the Arab League peace for peace, not consent to slowly being eroded via the Arabs' openly admitted "Trojan Horse" destruction-in-stages plan. And Israel must free itself from the belief that it has to allow Arabs to determine the rules of the road if widespread violence erupts again. Mahmoud Abbas' folks in the Palestinian Authority have said that they would support quiet only as long as Israel continues to cave in to all of their demands. And they're the "moderates".
Millions upon millions of non-Arabs became refugees because of the Arabs. Many of these people fled to America, Great Britain, Germany and elsewhere. They're not returning to those "Arab" lands. Likewise, Arabs will have to take care of their own, far fewer, refugees -- created in a war that they started.
The "occupied territories" Amr Musa speaks of are disputed lands, not purely "Arab". Jews have as much of, or more of, a right to be on those lands as Arabs have. Much has been written about this, UN Resolution 242 indirectly addressed this, and leading experts such as Eugene Rostow, William O'Brien, Arthur Goldberg, Lord Caradon and others have been quite vocal on this matter, as well.
Jews have a word describing demands such as those made by Amr Musa. It's called chutzpah.
Israel must have leaders who will respond to such so-called Arab "prerequisites for peace" by telling them where to stuff them.