Hamas attacks southern Israel

[Hobbes]

Arab invaders colonized indigenous Jewish lands like the Greeks and Romans and Persians before them. That’s why there’s a Jewish diaspora. Israel has been besieged by Arab nationalists from inside and outside its borders for its entire existence. I don’t know how this makes them the stronger party unless I’m placing the onus on them to solve Islamism and Arab nationalism a priori. A bit ridiculous too considering these are phenomena many empires and countries categorically more powerful than Israel at times exploited and other times tried and failed to solve over the centuries, including the most powerful country ever, the USA. Even at a basic level, how is Israel supposed to solve the problem that most Palestinians don’t want Israel to exist, meaning they support none of the solutions proposed by the international community?

You argue in bad faith as evidenced by your previous reply to me, so I'm only responding to this post and not to you just in case someone else reads it.

If most Palestinians don't want Israel to exist, I think it's worth looking into the cause of this. I also urge anyone seriously interested in the matter to reconsider the following narratives:

a) The region of Palestine has always been torn apart by conflict, so the current situation is normal.
b) Palestinian identity is made up whereas Israeli identity, which is as old as Jewish identity (if not the same thing as it), is not.
c) DNA-based, etic attempts to define nationhood hold any water at all.

[Legio_Italica]

You argue in bad faith as evidenced by your previous reply to me, so I'm only responding to this post and not to you just in case someone else reads it.

Like I said the first time you claimed anyone who disagrees with you is arguing in bad faith, you don’t have to defend your views if you don’t want to, but posting them on a public debate forum with no intention to debate them is a great example of bad faith argumentation.

If most Palestinians don't want Israel to exist, I think it's worth looking into the cause of this.

This is an example of bad faith argumentation. When asked what basis or goal you have in mind for demanding Israel solve intractable problems the rest of the world couldn’t using solutions the people you advocate for don’t support, you simply reassert the premise.

The region of Palestine has always been torn apart by conflict, so the current situation is normal.

It hasn’t always, especially when the Arab nationalists were kept in check by stronger foreign occupiers like the Ottomans. Is that what you’re proposing?

Palestinian identity is made up whereas Israeli identity, which is as old as Jewish identity (if not the same thing as it), is not.

Palestinian identity is the product of the post-WWI surge in Arab nationalism and nationalist ambitions, and the belief these were fundamentally betrayed by western powers colluding with (((them))) as part of a global conspiracy. Objectively, it is much newer than the Jewish quest to someday return home, even if people want to make up (((reasons))) why the Jewish diaspora has no connection to the lands they were expelled from. The integral way this “stab in the back” mythology has influenced Arab “Palestinian” nationalism is part of the reason Hamas’ charter reads like Mein Kampf, or why the leadership of the more moderate Palestinian Authority are nevertheless fellow travelers.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Monday said that the Holocaust was not caused by anti-Semitism, but by the “social behavior” of the Jews, including money-lending.

Abbas said his narrative was backed by points made by Jewish writers and historians, the first being the theory oft-criticized as anti-Semitic that Ashkenazi Jews are not the descendants of the ancient Israelites.

Pointing to Arthur Koestler’s book “The Thirteenth Tribe,” which asserts that Ashkenazi Jews are descended from Khazars, Abbas said European Jews therefore had “no historical ties” to the Land of Israel.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbas-...the-holocaust/

Needless to say, nobody would respond to such remarks from any other world leader with a demand that anyone acting in good faith must empathize with his views, and put the onus on his target to disabuse him of them.

DNA-based, etic attempts to define nationhood hold any water at all.

Reflecting on the curiosity of anti-nationalist Antifa supporters backing antisemitic Islamist Arab nationalists against comparatively secular indigenous people doesn’t mean the relationship between the Jewish diaspora and Israel is based solely on DNA lol. Not to mention that the opposition of the vast majority of Palestinians to a single state with equal rights for all highlights the fundamental importance of ethnicity to their concept of nationhood. Are you suggesting the beliefs you are advocating for are bogus?

[PointOfViewGun]

The area in question (Israel's ultimatum to evacuate in Gaza):

[Ludicus]

In 1492, the Catholic Monarchs gave four months to 300,000 Jews to leave Castile and Aragon.
Netanyahu is much more ambitious; he gave 24 hours to 1.1 million Palestinians to leave the northern area of Gaza, but they have nowhere to go. An unimaginable crime.

One of the most famous Israelis to obtain Portuguese nationality was Tamir Pardo, director of Mossad from 2011 to 2016. He lives here, in Portugal. He spent 36 years in Mossad, reaching the highest position in the organization. Among other roles, he led the electronic surveillance unit, developing new and effective systems using microphones and images.

After leaving, he became a critic of the organization. "There is no external existential threat to Israel; the only existential threat is internal division," he said during a public ceremony, quoted by The Jerusalem Post: “it can lead us to civil war—we are already on the right path for that”.
Pardo also advocated for a diplomatic solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, stating that without it, relations with Arab neighbors would never be normalized.

Palestinian identity is the product of the post-WWI surge in Arab nationalism and nationalist ambitions....

As fa as I know, the slogan "a land without people for a people without land" was used in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Zionists as an argument to establish Israel. The slogan is notoriously false. Historical Palestine, where thousands of Jews migrated after the Holocaust, was not a "land without people." It was predominantly inhabited by Arabs. In the past, Israeli governments, notably Golda Meir's, argued that Palestinians were "invented" ("There was no such thing as Palestinians").

The argument was that initially, the conflict in the region was between Jews and Arabs, not between Jews and a specific Palestinian people. Over time, this thesis became outdated. In the pursuit of peace, there was mutual recognition that, just as Israeli identity was forged in the struggle to establish a Jewish state, Palestinian identity was established in the struggle for the creation of a Palestinian state.
Contrary to Israel's wishes, Arabs who became refugees after 1948 were not absorbed by neighboring countries like Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. Instead, they were also antagonized in a process that helped shape Palestinian identity as that of a people squeezed between Israel and other Arab states.

As Israeli historian Tom Segev also stated, "there is no intelligent person today who argues about the existence of the Palestinian population." Segev also noted that "nations are created gradually," and the Palestinian case is emblematic. The historical process took place entirely in the 20th century, under the eyes of the world, and was extensively documented. Denying this phenomenon only serves to foster an atmosphere of impossibility for peace.

[Cyclops]

You argue in bad faith as evidenced by your previous reply to me, so I'm only responding to this post and not to you just in case someone else reads it.

If most Palestinians don't want Israel to exist, I think it's worth looking into the cause of this. I also urge anyone seriously interested in the matter to reconsider the following narratives:

a) The region of Palestine has always been torn apart by conflict, so the current situation is normal.
b) Palestinian identity is made up whereas Israeli identity, which is as old as Jewish identity (if not the same thing as it), is not.
c) DNA-based, etic attempts to define nationhood hold any water at all.

Fair points. Of course the region has known periods of peace and conflict. My own view is all identities are more or less artificial creations to tie people up or down, and yes the DNA blows all the blue und Biden narratives out of the water.

We had a right wing nut here in Australia called Jack van Tongeren who was gaoled for various crimes. There was a fuss about his imprisonment, would he “infect” the West Australian prison system with Nazism…5000 nazis emerging from our gaols! Panic! Except…the WA prison system is full of indigenous youths, and the govt accidentally leaked that Jack van Tongeren was one eighth Indonesian by descent.

Most purity narratives fall apart at the first puff of wind, and are often associated with mental illness.

[Muizer]

Ok, suppose the IDF invades and occupies North Gaza ............. then what? I'm sure they can hurt Hamas by doing so, but they won't destroy or incapacitate it. So it won't be the end of whatever is planned. What's going to be the next step?

[conon394]

Ok, suppose the IDF invades and occupies North Gaza ............. then what? I'm sure they can hurt Hamas by doing so, but they won't destroy or incapacitate it. So it won't be the end of whatever is planned. What's going to be the next step?

Don't know. Personally I think they (Israel) have been goaded into a trap. Hamas has had far to long to plan tunnels and strong points and they give not a rat's butt about their own civilians. Its going to be a mess and and the end of the day HAmas will still some kind of credibility as freedom fighters unlike spineless Fatah. THe Israelis will look like butchers. And The Egyptian regime will also look bad for not letting Gazans stream out of the place.

[Roma_Victrix]

Don't know. Personally I think they (Israel) have been goaded into a trap. Hamas has had far to long to plan tunnels and strong points and they give not a rat's butt about their own civilians. Its going to be a mess and and the end of the day HAmas will still some kind of credibility as freedom fighters unlike spineless Fatah. THe Israelis will look like butchers. And The Egyptian regime will also look bad for not letting Gazans stream out of the place.

Great. So basically everyone loses but Hamas, which doesn't mind incurring massive casualties on its own side because of their suicidal jihadi martyrdom (at the expense of Palestinian civilians existing around them also being blown to smithereens). Egypt has been quite unstable since the Arab Spring, for that matter, so there is another potential danger there as a runoff consequence of this conflict (Hamas, after all, is an organization rooted in the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, as one of its charity orgs from the 1970s). This is all such a mess.

I guess there is arguably one other winner here, Iran, which has thus far succeeded in delaying the Israeli-Saudi normalization effort.

Ok, suppose the IDF invades and occupies North Gaza ............. then what? I'm sure they can hurt Hamas by doing so, but they won't destroy or incapacitate it. So it won't be the end of whatever is planned. What's going to be the next step?

Yeah, I'm not seeing what the strategic objective here is either, other than Netanyahu maintaining enough popularity and support in the Knesset to keep his own head above water as a wartime prime minister. I guess securing the hostages is the major goal? Kind of hard to argue that with the pummeling airstrikes that might have even killed some of the hostages given the widespread level of destruction of Hamas hideouts in Gaza City. Is Israel just basically planning on turning the northern half of the Gaza Strip into one great big new military installation and directly occupied territory or militarized zone? Or do they expect hundreds of thousands of civilians to stay in the area despite the fighting in the streets? Scenes like Fallujah in the Iraq War come to mind.

As Israeli historian Tom Segev also stated, "there is no intelligent person today who argues about the existence of the Palestinian population." Segev also noted that "nations are created gradually," and the Palestinian case is emblematic. The historical process took place entirely in the 20th century, under the eyes of the world, and was extensively documented. Denying this phenomenon only serves to foster an atmosphere of impossibility for peace.

Yeah, it's not a worthwhile conversation to discuss whether the Palestinians have their own ethnic or national identity, which they clearly do as opposed to other Arab groups around them. For that matter "Arabs" are an enormously diverse group with a multitude of dialects; people in Egypt do not speak the same as those in Iraq, for instance. And that doesn't even take into account the religious sectarianism among them, with different Arabs belonging to the faiths of Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, the Druze religion, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, etc. The Palestinian identity might not have existed in the late Ottoman period, but it sure as hell existed during the period of British Mandatory Palestine following the First World War, especially with the increasing strength of Zionism in the interwar period.

[mishkin]

Ok, suppose the IDF invades and occupies North Gaza ............. then what? I'm sure they can hurt Hamas by doing so, but they won't destroy or incapacitate it. So it won't be the end of whatever is planned. What's going to be the next step?

Israel taking over the scorched earth. They have been expanding since their state was established.

[PointOfViewGun]

Don't know. Personally I think they (Israel) have been goaded into a trap. Hamas has had far to long to plan tunnels and strong points and they give not a rat's butt about their own civilians. Its going to be a mess and and the end of the day HAmas will still some kind of credibility as freedom fighters unlike spineless Fatah. THe Israelis will look like butchers. And The Egyptian regime will also look bad for not letting Gazans stream out of the place.

Meanwhile, Israel gets impunity to carve out West Bank further and Gaza gets even smaller with more population. Soon, individual Palestinian enclaves in West Bank will become new Gazas. Yeah, sure, Israelis will look like butchers. That's hardly an Israeli concern. It's "allies" hardly go beyond saying "bad boy!" anyways.

[alhoon]

Israel taking over the scorched earth. They have been expanding since their state was established.

How sad...

[swabian]

Ok, suppose the IDF invades and occupies North Gaza ............. then what? I'm sure they can hurt Hamas by doing so, but they won't destroy or incapacitate it. So it won't be the end of whatever is planned. What's going to be the next step?

IDF has to defend against those missile barrages at the very least. They have to move in, kill all Hamas terrorists they can get and try and free some of the hostages. They cannot and will not be stopped by the fact that there are hostages. In fact they have most likely already accepted the death of the hostages as any souvereign state would. To kill all of Hamas has priority now.

[Vanoi]

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/exclusive-...212428273.html

The US is sending a second CSG to the Mediterranean. It's looking more and more likely Iran or Hezbollah or both will end up intervening in the current conflict.

[sumskilz]

Yeah, it's not a worthwhile conversation to discuss whether the Palestinians have their own ethnic or national identity, which they clearly do as opposed to other Arab groups around them. For that matter "Arabs" are an enormously diverse group with a multitude of dialects; people in Egypt do not speak the same as those in Iraq, for instance. And that doesn't even take into account the religious sectarianism among them, with different Arabs belonging to the faiths of Sunni Islam, Shia Islam, the Druze religion, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, etc. The Palestinian identity might not have existed in the late Ottoman period, but it sure as hell existed during the period of British Mandatory Palestine following the First World War, especially with the increasing strength of Zionism in the interwar period.

I don’t think the issue is relevant to the legitimacy of land claims, but I would say that Palestinian as an ethnic identity, rather than a regional identity, is a product of the conflict, and it continues to be tied to it. The fact that descendants of Arabs who fled or were driven out in the 1948 war are rarely granted citizenship in other Arab countries also helps to maintain it. In Egypt for example, the children of an Egyptian mother and a Palestinian father are not even considered citizens.

I doubt that the term “Palestinian” was used much as an ethnic identifier in the Mandate Period, for a couple of reasons. First, pre-state Zionists referred to themselves as Palestinian Jews in English, and named a bunch of their institutions as such – the Jerusalem Post was called the Palestinian Post until 1950, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was called the Palestine Symphony Orchestra until 1948, etc. Second, despite foreign journalists seeming to really want Israeli Arabs to be Palestinians, they generally don’t identify as such:

A 2019 Israel Democracy Institute report found that only 13 percent of those surveyed identify as Palestinian (“Jews and Arabs: Conditional Partnership”). Other surveys have similar findings. For example, a 2017 study by Arik Rudnitzky and Itamar Radai found that only 8.9 percent of Israeli Arabs identify as “Palestinian in Israel/Palestinian citizen in Israel” and 15.4 percent identify as “Palestinian” (“Citizenship, Identity and Political Participation… ” p. 22).

A third study, conducted in 2020 by Camille Fuchs of Tel Aviv University, found only 7 percent of non-Jewish people in Israel identify as Palestinian. Similar findings are apparent in the 2017 Shaharit survey.

I know an Israeli Arab girl from Tel Aviv University who identifies as Palestinian. She’s really involved in pro-Palestinian activism from a leftwing perspective. One time I was talking to her about Arabic dialects and she said, “We speak the Shami dialect, because that’s our nation really”. I smiled and replied, “Oh, so the truth comes out.” She quickly blurted out, “Wait, no! Shut up, I will stab you!” I’m pretty sure she was joking. I mean, she was smiling and she hasn’t stabbed me yet. For those that don’t know, Shami is the Arabic term for greater Syria, basically the Levant.

I have a Christian Palestinian-American friend from Bethlehem who claims that the one cultural practice shared by all Palestinian Muslims that differentiates them from other Levantine Arab Muslims is that they sing traditional Levantine wedding songs that have been repurposed. In them, the bride is the martyr who “marries” the Palestinian nation with his or her death. Although, his extended family are all secretly pro-Israeli, which may bias his view.

The term “Arab” has for some also become political. As far as I know, most Israeli Druze don’t refer to themselves as Arabs. There was a mass brawl in northern Israel between Druze and Muslim Arabs that ended with 41 injured. The issue began because some Arabs were wearing Palestinian keffiyehs which infuriated local Druze. Those Arab Israeli Christians who are particularly pro-Israel will often refer to themselves as Arameans rather than Arabs, analogous to Lebanese Christians who refer to themselves as Phoenicians.

On a related note, the Zionist narrative tends to exaggerate Arab mass immigration to the Palestine Mandate, however this is not entirely false:

During World War I, the Jewish population in Palestine declined because of the war, famine, disease, and expulsion by the Turks. In 1915, approximately 83,000 Jews lived in Palestine among 590,000 Muslim and Christian Arabs. According to the 1922 census, the Jewish population was 83,000, while the Arabs numbered 643,000.[4] Thus, the Arab population grew exponentially while that of the Jews stagnated.

In the mid-1920s, Jewish immigration to Palestine increased primarily because of anti-Jewish economic legislation in Poland and Washington’s imposition of restrictive quotas.[5]

The record number of immigrants in 1935 (see table) was a response to the growing persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. The British administration considered this number too large, however, so the Jewish Agency was informed that less than one-third of the quota it asked for would be approved in 1936.[6]

The British gave in further to Arab demands by announcing in the 1939 White Paper that an independent Arab state would be created within ten years and that Jewish immigration was to be limited to 75,000 for the next five years, after which it was to cease altogether. It also forbade land sales to Jews in 95% of the territory of Palestine. The Arabs, nevertheless, rejected the proposal.

By contrast, throughout the Mandatory period, Arab immigration was unrestricted. In 1930, the Hope Simpson Commission, sent from London to investigate the 1929 Arab riots, said the British practice of ignoring the uncontrolled illegal Arab immigration from Egypt, Transjordan, and Syria had the effect of displacing the prospective Jewish immigrants.[8]

The British governor of the Sinai from 1922 to 1936 observed, “This illegal immigration was not only going on from the Sinai, but also from Transjordan and Syria, and it is very difficult to make a case out for the misery of the Arabs if at the same time their compatriots from adjoining states could not be kept from going in to share that misery.”[9]

The Peel Commission reported in 1937 that the “shortfall of land is…due less to the amount of land acquired by Jews than to the increase in the Arab population.”[10]

This quote comes from the Jewish Virtual Library, which is naturally sympathetic to Jewish perspectives, but it is well referenced to academic and primary sources.

On the other hand, the Zionists were indirectly responsible for the growth of the local Arab population by the implementation of measures to eliminate Malaria:

From 1910 onwards, nearly all lands sold to Jews wishing to settle in Palestine, both before and during the British Mandate period, were located in sparsely populated or uninhabitable, highly malarious areas of the coastal region and the valleys of Palestine. In 1923 this land was described by the Palestine Department of Health, ‘In … the Valley of Jezreel, from Merchavia to Beisan … in previous years, there have been severe epidemics of malignant malaria among the newly settled colonists … [and while there is] … much well-watered and fertile land, [it is] at present lying waste on account of malaria …’[1]

In 1920, a map of malaria severity in Palestine was drawn (Figure 3) by the British Mandate Department of Health.[2] This map designated the worst areas (dark blue; spleen rates ranging from 50-100%), highly malarious, and the Department of Health even declared some of these areas as uninhabitable. The 1921 Annual Report of the British Mandate’s Department of Health starkly noted that: ‘Malaria stands out as by far the most important disease in Palestine. For centuries it has decimated the population … an effective bar to the development and settlement of large tracts of fertile lands … it assumes epidemic characters in certain areas wiping out the populations of whole villages in a few months’ time … few regions in the country are actually free from it’ [3]

In 1920, Dr. Israel Kligler, an American public health scientist, and an idealistic Zionist Jew, arrived to settle in Palestine, and during 1921– 1922, he began what initially was a malaria vector management campaign that was to become the first start anywhere in the world of a successful national malaria-elimination campaign. He realised education was as important as the anti-malaria work itself because unless the population at risk appreciated the ongoing need for vigilance and maintenance malaria would return and the original destruction of the mosquito breeding sites would be of little value.[4] Kligler relied on Arab and Jewish co-operation of entire communities— men, women, and children—to assist in the anti-malaria work. This co-operation remained strong, despite attempts to break it by those who opposed it. It was important to him that everyone felt involved. The cooperation endured, and in 1967 the World Health Organization eventually declared malaria eliminated in Israel.

Kligler’s success in malaria elimination in Palestine was so striking that in 1941 the British Mandate reported: ‘In a number of areas where intense endemic malaria had resulted in no population for generations, recent [antimalarial] schemes have created large tracts of cultivatable land’ and ‘… very large areas of what is recognised by all as some of the most fertile land in the country have been re-claimed, after centuries of waste’. Many large tracts which until recently meant nothing but death to those venturing into them, have now been reduced into rich and fertile land free from all danger to health’.[5]

So the myth of the empty land wasn’t entirely a myth either. Rather, it’s more of a narrative built on selective usage of the facts, but I think it’s a narrative that most of the early Zionists actually believed. Naively, the secular Zionists originally thought that the Arab fellahin, who they considered to be descendants of Jews, could be assimilated.

This is a 1935 film that the Zionists used to encourage Jews to immigrant to the Mandate:



As much as one may critique its characterizations, it doesn’t pretend as if the Arabs weren’t there.

[Muizer]

IDF has to defend against those missile barrages at the very least. They have to move in, kill all Hamas terrorists they can get and try and free some of the hostages. They cannot and will not be stopped by the fact that there are hostages. In fact they have most likely already accepted the death of the hostages as any souvereign state would. To kill all of Hamas has priority now.

Fortunately, members of Hamas all have that tattooed on their foreheads. Otherwise, you might get those sketchy definitions that could extend to everybody who has 'connections with hamas', or 'is harbouring members of hamas' .... which, you know, is probably basically is everybody in Gaza whether they wanted to or not.

[conon394]

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/exclusive-...212428273.html

The US is sending a second CSG to the Mediterranean. It's looking more and more likely Iran or Hezbollah or both will end up intervening in the current conflict.

THe USS Battaan and its MEU as well.

[Vanoi]

THe USS Battaan and its MEU as well.

There's been increased activity at the border as well. Israeli and have been hitting an area in Lebanon and Hezbollah claimed hours ago they struck a tank with an ATGM. It's definitely getting hotter.

[Roma_Victrix]

I don’t think the issue is relevant to the legitimacy of land claims, but I would say that Palestinian as an ethnic identity, rather than a regional identity, is a product of the conflict, and it continues to be tied to it. The fact that descendants of Arabs who fled or were driven out in the 1948 war are rarely granted citizenship in other Arab countries also helps to maintain it. In Egypt for example, the children of an Egyptian mother and a Palestinian father are not even considered citizens.

I doubt that the term “Palestinian” was used much as an ethnic identifier in the Mandate Period, for a couple of reasons. First, pre-state Zionists referred to themselves as Palestinian Jews in English, and named a bunch of their institutions as such – the Jerusalem Post was called the Palestinian Post until 1950, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was called the Palestine Symphony Orchestra until 1948, etc. Second, despite foreign journalists seeming to really want Israeli Arabs to be Palestinians, they generally don’t identify as such:

Man, Egyptian law is nuts, but it also goes to show the rivalry between the Palestinians and other Arab nations, especially Jordan and Lebanon where their civil wars in the latter half of the 20th century were ultimately caused by Palestinians who fled there.

Good point about "Palestinian" originally being a regional versus ethnic identifier, although nation states tend to coalesce around a majority ethnic group. I would argue that at the very least there was a sense of proto Palestinian nationalism among Arab-speaking Muslims, Christians, Druze, Jews, etc. in the late Ottoman period, when censorship on newspapers and books were relaxed in the first decade of the 20th century. At the very least the term Palestinian (Arabic Filastini) was applied to people in the southern Levant as far back as 1898 with a translation of a Russian work on the Holy Land by the novelist and translator Khalil Beidas. I would argue this national identity (but not exactly ethnic one) existed among Arabs and others there throughout the period of Mandatory Palestine, and simply coexisted with the anti-Zionist, anti-British, pan-Arab movement that led Syrians like Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam (founder of the militant Black Hand guerilla group) to travel to Mandatory Palestine to instigate a partisan Islamist revolt.

I am generally of the view that such a national identity did not stretch back to the peasant revolt against the Ottoman Elayet of Egypt of the 1830s, that's absurd, but there was at least national identity brewing under the late Ottomans. You're probably right about the ethnic identity thing only coming about after the formation of Israel, though.

I know an Israeli Arab girl from Tel Aviv University who identifies as Palestinian. She’s really involved in pro-Palestinian activism from a leftwing perspective. One time I was talking to her about Arabic dialects and she said, “We speak the Shami dialect, because that’s our nation really”. I smiled and replied, “Oh, so the truth comes out.” She quickly blurted out, “Wait, no! Shut up, I will stab you!” I’m pretty sure she was joking. I mean, she was smiling and she hasn’t stabbed me yet. For those that don’t know, Shami is the Arabic term for greater Syria, basically the Levant.

LOL. Keep us all updated on whether she turns stabby or not and stay safe!
She sounds like a keeper! The crazier they are, the hotter they are, that's a fact.

Also yes, their dialect is the general Levantine Arab one, which is at least different from Arabic in Egypt, Arabic in Mesopotamia, and Arabic in various parts of Arabia.

I have a Christian Palestinian-American friend from Bethlehem who claims that the one cultural practice shared by all Palestinian Muslims that differentiates them from other Levantine Arab Muslims is that they sing traditional Levantine wedding songs that have been repurposed. In them, the bride is the martyr who “marries” the Palestinian nation with his or her death. Although, his extended family are all secretly pro-Israeli, which may bias his view.

So basically Palestinians are samplers like the rapper Vanilla Ice, who takes soundbites of other songs to make them his own.

The term “Arab” has for some also become political. As far as I know, most Israeli Druze don’t refer to themselves as Arabs. There was a mass brawl in northern Israel between Druze and Muslim Arabs that ended with 41 injured. The issue began because some Arabs were wearing Palestinian keffiyehs which infuriated local Druze. Those Arab Israeli Christians who are particularly pro-Israel will often refer to themselves as Arameans rather than Arabs, analogous to Lebanese Christians who refer to themselves as Phoenicians.

Sound the alarm, boys, the Phoenicians are back! Get the salt, we're going to Carthage! /s
I taught a few Druze people English here in the USA more than a decade ago. Fun people. They know how to cook! I am amused that Israeli Arab Christians refer to themselves as Aramaeans, an ancient ethnic group that I was pretty sure died out. Then again, the Assyrians are still around in Iraq/Syria, albeit Christians now and not lion-hunting chariot riders who are conquering and raiding everyone there, demanding tribute on a periodic basis while sporting fashionable braided beards.

On a related note, the Zionist narrative tends to exaggerate Arab mass immigration to the Palestine Mandate, however this is not entirely false:

This quote comes from the Jewish Virtual Library, which is naturally sympathetic to Jewish perspectives, but it is well referenced to academic and primary sources.

On the other hand, the Zionists were indirectly responsible for the growth of the local Arab population by the implementation of measures to eliminate Malaria:

So the myth of the empty land wasn’t entirely a myth either. Rather, it’s more of a narrative built on selective usage of the facts, but I think it’s a narrative that most of the early Zionists actually believed. Naively, the secular Zionists originally thought that the Arab fellahin, who they considered to be descendants of Jews, could be assimilated.

This is a 1935 film that the Zionists used to encourage Jews to immigrant to the Mandate:



As much as one may critique its characterizations, it doesn’t pretend as if the Arabs weren’t there.

Cool stuff, I love side tangents! Thanks for enlightening me about the malaria thing, as I am knowledgeable about the efforts in East Asia to combat it (even using Chinese traditional medicine like the female Chinese chemist and Nobel Prize Winner Tu Youyou). However, I was unaware of the Mandatory Palestine/Israeli efforts, so kudos to Kligler.

So basically, the British - who otherwise cracked down hard on Arab revolts - were trying to give the Arabs in Palestine virtually everything they wanted in terms of statehood and limitation of Jewish immigration, and the Arabs still rejected the proposal. It sounds particularly racist too, limiting where Jews can even buy land (sounds very medieval, like the limitation on property rights for Jews in medieval England before expulsion by Edward I). Just imagine if they had accepted it! There would be no Israel today, but some kind of country called Palestine with a Jewish minority. They kind of shot themselves in the foot there.

Also, that 1935 movie bored me to tears. The sight of camels working a waterwheel on a farm (while impressive for premodern tech) would not have encouraged me to move there.

[PointOfViewGun]

The "Palestinians" who really are largly Egyptians and Lebanese who souped together after 1917, when the humiliating defeat of the Ottoman Jokepire ruptured ripples of hilarity and fun throughout the world, are not an ethnicity. The "Palestinian people" does not actually exist.

The "Palestinians" were offered to have their own souvereign state and - get that - they rejected it. Because their only mode of functioning is to kill Jews. that is all this supposed "ethnicity" cares about.

They voted for Hamas, they shelter Hamas, they believe in Hamas. The only difference between that Gaza Stip rabble and Hamas is selection for able bodied young men who can serve as warriors. They are of the same mindset as Hamas and their lamentations will be with Hamas. Even if they are by themselves in the darkness of the tunnels below Gaza, as the Israeli artillery dictates their heartbeat, they know they will die.

Thank you for this utterly ignorant racist take on Palestinians. This the very same kind of argumentation that Hamas uses.

[mishkin]

Also, that 1935 movie bored me to tears. The sight of camels working a waterwheel on a farm (while impressive for premodern tech) would not have encouraged me to move there.

The writer Albert Cohen, before embracing Zionism himself, made fun of the Jews at the beginning of the 20th century who went to those "wastelands", exposing themselves to having their heads broken by an Arab stone. I don't know whether to say that those were the good times. (they were undoubtedly not good times to be Jewish and lower-middle class in Europe).