Issues you may need to discuss with your MENA SO

[Reynaldo 0]

You just don't tell a Palestinian they're not Palestinian. That's zionist talk. That's what I thought was soooo strange about what WOM and Mahmoud were saying to me. It took me aback coz anyone who knows about the displaced of Palestine knows that's when you do that, you're looking for a fight.

i have to mark today down. wom gets the zionist label thrown back at her

By the way, are we zionists here or anti-zionists?

[Ban Hammer 13,206]

You just don't tell a Palestinian they're not Palestinian. That's zionist talk. That's what I thought was soooo strange about what WOM and Mahmoud were saying to me. It took me aback coz anyone who knows about the displaced of Palestine knows that's when you do that, you're looking for a fight.

i have to mark today down. wom gets the zionist label thrown back at her

By the way, are we zionists here or anti-zionists?

best to just dig a deep hole when that word starts flying around.

[Bosco 1]

You just don't tell a Palestinian they're not Palestinian. That's zionist talk. That's what I thought was soooo strange about what WOM and Mahmoud were saying to me. It took me aback coz anyone who knows about the displaced of Palestine knows that's when you do that, you're looking for a fight.

i have to mark today down. wom gets the zionist label thrown back at her

By the way, are we zionists here or anti-zionists?

you have both

[Reynaldo 0]

best to just dig a deep hole when that word starts flying around.

I don't know...

I don't think anyone here denies the Holocaust, but taking people out of their homes and putting fences between them and your people sounds a little like apartheid....

And I don't think even the original zionists would be happy with what people are doing on its name...

ETA: I am not an anti-zionist, I just good things should not be used as reason to do bad things (i.e. the cruzades...)

Edited January 8, 2007 by Reynaldo

[Ban Hammer 13,206]

You just don't tell a Palestinian they're not Palestinian. That's zionist talk. That's what I thought was soooo strange about what WOM and Mahmoud were saying to me. It took me aback coz anyone who knows about the displaced of Palestine knows that's when you do that, you're looking for a fight.

i have to mark today down. wom gets the zionist label thrown back at her

By the way, are we zionists here or anti-zionists?

you have both

zionists to the left, anti-zionist to the right for this wedding.

best to just dig a deep hole when that word starts flying around.

I don't know...

I don't think anyone here denies the Holocaust, but taking people out of their homes and putting fences between them and your people sounds a little like apartheid....

And I don't think even the original zionists would be happy with what people are doing on its name...

ETA: I am not an anti-zionist, I just good things should not be used as reason to do bad things (i.e. the cruzades...)

sometimes fences make good neighbors

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Talking about zionism on mixed public forums is like

[Reynaldo 0]

Talking about zionism on mixed public forums is like

I know, but I am surprised that no one tried to flame me or anything because of what I said...

Strange....

Not that I was trolling or anything, it is just a tough subject...

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Maybe the hotheads are all at a hothead convention

[Ban Hammer 13,206]

Maybe the hotheads are all at a hothead convention

the true cause of global warming........

[Reynaldo 0]

Maybe the hotheads are all at a hothead convention

Or flaming someone else in some other foreign language...

Maybe the hotheads are all at a hothead convention

the true cause of global warming........

[Kez/JWolf 6]

I have met many many people here in America that claim to be from all sorts of places.... just because there great great great grandfather came from there....

Well I am sorry but the perfect answer was given to a lady on a flight to dublin by the cabinstaff... the passanger was claiming because her grandfather came from dublin she was Irish and therefore she was Irish..... the cabin staff asked her if she held a Irish passport.. the lady said NO... she was then told very politly that if she had no irish passport then she was not Irish....

So may be the answer here is if you have or qualify for a passport from palastine the you are from palistine if you have a passport from America then you come from the USA...

My husbands family came from Russia and yes they are Jews does he claim to be from Russia NO he is 100% American.. I was born and brought up and lived my life in Scotland until 2005 so as far as I am concered I am Scottish...

All this ####### about I am 5th generation whatever is just hot air.... if you were not born there and dont live there then you dont come from there....

Kez

[Ban Hammer 13,206]

All this ####### about I am 5th generation whatever is just hot air.... if you were not born there and dont live there then you dont come from there....

Kez

then how did they get here if they didn't come from there?

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Szsz,

It's very difficult to hold a meaningful discussion with someone who doesn't seem to even remember what she writes from one post to the next.

You began with this:

Building on the argument from the "Honor Killing" thread that no one here would want to marry an MENA man who would advocate murder, how many know and agree with their SOs view about Jews and the nation of Israel? Arab media is unrepentant in villifying Jews as a whole and calling for the destruction of Israel. The hatred there is laid bare.

Do your views mesh regarding that topic?

I responded that your comment about Arab media was a sweeping generalization, and that it wasn’t true. Then I specifically answered the questions you posed – stating my husband's particular attitudes and opinions on the matter of the Jewish people and the state of Israel, especially with regard to his being a Palestinian who has lived under Israeli occupation all his life. I went on to address the "hatred" you cite in your own original statement. I said that "hatred" is not quite the proper characterization of much of the anti-Israeli sentiment in the Middle East. And I answered your question of whether or not my husband and I are in agreement in our opinions.

Well for some reason my answers irritated you, although you'd specifically asked us to write about our personal discussions of the subject. You characterized my answers as some kind of personal attack on you, accusing me of creating a “misleading makeover” of your statement, even denying that you’d ever said anything about "destruction of Israel”:

Wow, WOM, that's a misleading makeover of my statement. It's simply not true that I said ALL Arab media, nor did I include anything about a "call for the destruction of the state of Israel." I'm also not in denial about what is broadcast.

If this thread is going to go off track, it will be because of embellishments like this.

You actually accuse me here of “embellishing” your remarks, even though I quoted you word-for-word, and everyone can still see what you wrote. You kept up the denials for several more posts before finally admitting that it's what you'd written in the first place.

Meanwhile, you continued to be express personal offense to my answers to your questions, as if stating our opinions on the topic you asked about was somehow an attack on you:

I didn't say ALL either, nor did I add anything about destroyng Israel. You added that, and you didn't have to.

I wasn't looking for a particular answer, and couldn't care less what you view is. I don't appreciate you aimming your answer at me for an invalid reason.

Next, you initiate a very insulting "who's more Palestinian than who" game – a game which you subsequently have the nerve to blame me for starting. But it was actually you, with this remark:

I AM Palestinian, as is my family; I'm not just married to one. I don't need a lecture on how it is there or the atrocities that have and do go on or who gets along with whom. Why you think I do is not because of anything I actually said. I'm not interested in a "who's more offended by the Israeli government than who. No one has to agree here, but I would GREATLY appreciate it if emotion doesn't overtake reading comprehension, opening the door for negative assumptions.

When I responded that my husband and all his family ARE born-and-raised Palestinians, and that they agree with what I'd written about their attitudes about Jews and Israel, you became quite upset, and began to accuse me of starting some kind of “ranking” game. You can’t even admit that it was you yourself who started it, in an attempt to dismiss my responses. If it’s such a terrible argument to make, why in the world did you say it in the first place ?

I answered you that being of a certain heritage does not turn you into a person who lives in that country, and I used my own family to make a point. You either didn't get it at all, or consciously chose to be offended about things I never said or even insinuated.

Let me break it down more simply for you: one's heritage (just like one's marriage) does not turn one an "instant expert" in anything. Babies are not born knowing history and politics and culture. They have to learn it. But attaining this knowledge is not dependant on one’s ethnicity -- it's possible for anyone to be come an expert on any subject in the world. One does not need to be a 4th generation American-born Palestinian to have credible or even extensive knowledge of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. And "not" being Palestinian oneself does not preclude one from attaining that knowledge. In fact, many experts on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict are not Palestinian (or Israeli) at all.

BTW, you really know nothing more about me than that I am 4th generation born in the US. You don't know about my background, where I grew up or have lived, nor where my family lives. You make sweeping comments about French ancestry assuming it relates to my background. You make ALOT of assumptions. Then you ASSume that they have meaning and that they are true. Bad habit on your part.

You say I don’t know everything about you. Well of course not, and I’ve never tried to say that. Nor have I offered any “assumptions” about you as you claim – I have merely referred to statements you made about yourself here on VJ.

By the same token, you should realize that you don’t know everything about me, yet you have assumed (and clearly stated) that what I know is based “just” on being married to a Palestinian.

The fact is, marrying a Palestinian doesn't make you an expert on Palestinians. I have family too, but I'm not going to go into some pissing contest with your pride to prove who is more Palestinian than whom.

I would win, I assure you. I am not Palestinian by injection, and I wouldn't be less Palestinian by divorce.

This is intentionally very insulting as well as quite misleading – a blatant attempt to dismiss my comments by characterizing my remarks as based solely on the fact that I happen to be married to a Palestinian. However, this is actually baseless.

I have never claimed to be the "definitive expert" on all things Palestinian. But I do have extensive personal experience in Palestine, which I’ve cited many times here on VJ. Your attempt here to shut me down on the basis of my ethnicity is simply the tactic of a bigot. I've spent years studying the history and politics of this particular area, and years travelling to the West Bank (as well as Jordan) -- and all this began long before I ever met my husband. I've personally worked in both the media and in human rights in Palestine, I’ve written extensively on the matter, I've worked inside the camps, and I have direct experience with the issues of the conflict. I've been there and seen it with my own eyes, and yes, during some of the very worst of hostilities. Even the "divorce" that you so casually insert into your argument could not erase all this knowledge and experience.

So your attempts to dismiss my input with childish insults about me being someone who is "just married to a Palestinian," even "Palestinian by injection" (!!!) are quite off the mark. You were very quick to pull the "I'm-a-Palestinian-so-you-can't-tell-me-anything" card. But it seems that you forgot that my Palestinian husband is right here beside me, seeing and agreeing with everything I'm writing, and he even told you so himself. This appears to be what really burns you up. My husband has lived in Palestine all his life, and he told you that you’re wrong. He spoke to you in Arabic, as a Palestinian to a Palestinian, in the native language of Palestine. Many other Arabs would do the same. He told you that people in this thread, including me, are responding to the very words you wrote. And after reading your responses to my comments, he told you how you're not even making any sense any more.

Yet despite your insinuations that one must be a "real" Palestinian in order to be able to offer one’s opinion about Palestinian issues, you simply ignore what a very "real" Palestinian has told you. In fact, it seems that you summarily dismiss anyone and everyone who may hold even a slightly different opinion than you do -- even when someone like my husband, who has far more personal experience with Palestine than you do (I am sorry to be blunt, but it’s the truth, despite your oblique references to unmentioned experiences -- he’s lived there all his life, and you admittedly haven’t) steps up to tell you you're way off here.

I don't know if you have some kind of issue with Arabs who marry non-Arabs. I would hope not, although I have seen you make some not-so-veiled condescending remarks about this subject in the past. But you need to come to terms with the fact that not all non-Arab spouses are ignorant, gullible ninnies with little or no clue of Arab culture and history, even when compared to yourself. In fact you should know this from reading some of the extremely knowledgeable posts from non-Arab spouses on this very forum.

You have presented yourself on VJ time and again as some kind of credible scholar on Islam and the "true" meanings of Qur'an and Hadith -- what the texts say and what they don't say, which Hadith are reputable, etc. I am certainly not an expert in this subject, nor have I ever claimed to be one, and it never occurred to me to question you about your opinions in these matters (although I could ask my father-in-law, as he IS an expert who is well known in Palestine.)

But since you prefaced this discussion with a blanket statement about Arab media "vilifying Jews" and "calling for the destruction of Israel" – a generalization which I know to be untrue -- I spoke out about it. I then accepted your explanation that it wasn’t what you meant. But you just couldn’t move on without stooping to some supercilious remarks about me “just” being married to a Palestinian.

Now, it is revealed that you don't even understand Arabic, as you required a translation of what my husband wrote – and note, this was in plain and simple Arabic, not the elaborate language of Qur'an or the more polished language of Arab media. Yet you profess to have done extensive research in Islamic studies.

This is a very interesting development, to say the least.

I like to discuss issues without personal attacks – it’s quite childish -- and I think my record on this board shows that. As your VJ record shows, however, you continue to insist on making personal attacks a large part of your “arguments” on various topics across the board. Well, this one blew up in your face, too.

[Sofiyya 1,687]

All this ####### about I am 5th generation whatever is just hot air.... if you were not born there and dont live there then you dont come from there....

Kez

then how did they get here if they didn't come from there?

Who said I was FROM Palestine anyway? My great grandfather and grandfather were. I said I'm Palestinian, and I am. Keep your voluntary immigrant stories out of this. We didn't leave voluntarily, we were pushed out. There's a difference. Think of it as if China finally gave up Tibet so the Dali Lama could go home. Much more like that than Europeans escaping Europe on their own. Lots of you went to Palestine, btw.

[Kez/JWolf 6]

Their ancestors may have come from there... but they were born and raised here in America... that makes them American... same if I have children thay would be born here in the USA that would make them American... yes there Mother would be Scottish but they would be American... and if they had children of their own in years to come they to would be american and so on and so on.... they could not claim a british passport they would have no right to live and work in the UK and would not be classed as being Scottish/British....

Kez