MistakenMobius
Member
Stolen to the Ottoman Empire, it rightfully belong to turkey.
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The blockade of Gaza is more than 10 years old
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The ways in which the Levant was dissected and partitioned by the West is disgusting. Sykes-Picot was solely in the interests of Britain & France and not the Levantine peoples. The blockade of Gaza, Hamas, Al-Qaeda, ISIL, etc. these are all creations of the West. You reap what you sow and past attempts to hold back the Near East and Arabic world have resulted in these modern boundary, religious and terrorist hotbed issues.
The Palestinian armed groups that are firing rockets indiscriminately at Israel are committing war crimes. You think you would partake in that? Would you go so far as to say that Israel's actions excuse the rocket attacks, that they are justified?
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
Well, if the the Ottoman Empire wouldn't haven't collapsed in WWI, the world would have been a very different place, that for sure and a far better one. No Saudi Arabia, no partition of the middle east, and no zionist state. We wouldn't see thing as ISIS as the Ottoman Empire was very well organized at a religious level. You barely see any salafism in Turkey or the Balkans.
But they have their part of responsibility for the dreadful fiscal reform they imposed on the arabs countries in the 19th century. They basically, from european advices, imposed feudalism when early Ottoman empire was decentralized and more like a commonwealth.
European nations played with arabs ressentiment against the turks but it was already there. And i say that as a strong opponent of arab nationalism against Ottoman Empire. The early revolt of the arabs against the colonial attacks in the muslim world was made in the name of the Ottoman Empire like the revolt of the great mystic Emir Abdel Qader al Jaizari from Argelia in the early 19th century.
Trouble is war crimes begat war crimes. There's no moral right or wrong in this war as both Hamas and the Israeli government are both committing them.
TestOfTide
Banned
My apologies. I was mixing up the fact that the British had been heavily involved with that land starting in the mid 19th century and the fact that in the early 20th century it was considered British Territory.
I don't get that feeling from the OP, or from many others in this thread.
if i lived in a prison city with no hope for a better future and no prospects with an oppressive totalitarian government coming in periodically to murder thousands of my friends and countrymen while the rest of the world either does nothing or assists in the atrocities then yes, i would probably be doing some pretty stupid shit in an attempt to make even the smallest difference. why not? what the hell would i have to lose? even if i got shot or bombed it would at least be faster and less painful than slowly being crushed to death by the weight of american money in the toxic wasteland that used to be my homeland.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
We should make a comparison between civilian casualties from Hamas and from IDF to see if there is an equivalence.
I certainly don't support bombing civilian area like Hamas does, but it's really disgusting to see that if you do it by plane or by tanks, this is not deemed as terrorism.
Just give them tanks and F16 and i guarantee you that you wouldn't see any suicide attack on public transportation.
His Majesty
Banned
That's the cost of going to war and losing. Might as well say that the Balkans were stolen from the Ottoman Empire.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
The whole WWI was "i attack you because i fear that you'll do the same". The Ottoman Empire involvement in WWI was because Germany promised them that they will stop together the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire who started in early 18th century by direct invasion from european armies starting with North Africa.
I think the Balkans is a little different because it was an autonomous armed revolt, at least in some parts, and you also have the fact that large chunk of the Balkans were christians who didn't identify with the Ottoman Empire as well as the arabs muslims.
TestOfTide
Banned
I understand what you are saying and I don't necessarily even disagree with it, but if I could I would like to ask a hypothetical of an unlikely situation:
Let's say that hypothetically the next Israeli election ends up with someone more moderate than Netanyahu becoming Prime Minister and whoever is POTUS at the time ends up working with both this new Prime Minister and Palestinian leaders to push for peace.
I assume that at the very least, even if RIGHT NOW the stuff like rockets is understandable, you understand that in the hypothetical scenario I mentioned, it would be imperative for both Israel and the Palestinians to not do that stuff long enough for peace to be possible.
The reason I ask is because even as recently as the 90s we actually were moving towards peace.
israel holds all the cards and has all of the power in this relationship. the burden of peace is on them and before anything else they need to stop this blockade whether it leads to a permanent 2-state treaty or not.
casablanca
Member
How do you fight against a colonizer?
TestOfTide
Banned
I never said that Israel wasn't mainly at fault for this conflict, but I would like you to answer the question please.
Do you at least agree that if, in the future, someone DOES get Israeli leadership to truly come to the table for a real peace agreement (ending the blockade and/or recognizing the Palestinian state) that the rockets and such should stop for at least long enough to get a step in the right direction?
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
No. One is a wealthy state with unwavering backing from the west the other can barely function on it's own. It cannot even collect taxes without it passing through Israel first. What is more reprehensible is Israel encourages the violence. You have the West Bank who's policy is capitulation is subject to ethnic cleansing with stolen land, imprisonment without due process, displacement killing and no freedom of movement. Yet in Gaza while enduring terrible collective punishment through starvation can at least travel without Israeli checkpoints within Gaza.
The problem is Israel does not negotiate in good faith and encourages the violence to push these inhumane collective punishment polices. Not that some Palestinians are resisting.
the rockets should stop now because they're not really accomplishing anything, but i'm not going to waste my time talking about what some utterly helpless and hopeless palestinians should or shouldn't be doing. even if they did stop now israel would be pursuing the same policies.
His Majesty
Banned
Well, yes. But if you join the losing side in a World War (and as an aggressor) then you don't have too many legs to stand on during the peace negotiations.
The dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire is largely a result of their failed military campaigns against Austria in the 17th and 18th century. Technologically they couldn't keep up with Western Europe anymore, corruption (janissaries, extravagancy) was rampant and lead to a lot of internal problems including dissent among minorities in the empire. I wouldn't really attribute their downfall to direct invasions from Western nations but more to their own inability to adapt and evolve.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
It's what i said earlier, the western nation only fueled what was already there. However, i think that the main responsible for arabs revolt was the tanzimat of the 19th century, the westernization of the Empire especially the lands reforms. I don't think that the problem was the lack of adaptability, but the centralization and "modernization" of the Empire taking Europe as a model without going through what Europe have paid to attain the hegemonization that allowed them to form coherent modern-state.
I won't say that the Central Forces was the aggressor, they felt compelled to attack. Germany was sure that England will invade them and it's very difficult to know what would have happened if Germany won't have invaded Belgium. I tend to see history more as the result of contradicting interests than the result of a personal leadership.
God Dayumm
Banned
Different Jews, different people. Not all Jewish people are genocidal maniacs that sympathize with the actions of Israel
If that is your only way of fighting, maybe you shouldn't.
Dayner_Kurdi
Banned
Gaza is such huge mess thanks to series bad decisions from both sides, they are also unwilling to admit it ;/
TestOfTide
Banned
I wasn't talking about now, I was talking about in the future in a hypothetical where it COULD make a difference between war and peace.
lmao. It belonged to the Turks about as much as it belonged to the British.
The Ottoman Empire would not have survived the century any more than the significantly more stable and powerful British empire. The winds of change and all that. The only reason it survived as long as it did was that it was a useful geopolitical balancing tool.
Nah. The British had traditionally been the main advocates for the Ottomans. It was more related to naval armament, and the Turks betting incorrectly on Britain vs Germany.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
The Ottoman Empire have their Caliphate credential directly by what was left of the Abbasi Caliphate. They had all authority over muslims lands. English had non.
A muslim land cannot be ruled by a foreign non-muslim ruler. And Palestine is a muslim land since Umar conquest. Most palestinians totally identified themselves with the Ottoman caliphate and didn't perceived it as a foreign force.
That the old view about the "old man of Europe", now we know that Ottoman Empire was much more strong than we used to think. Many people until today consider themselves Ottomans. Many Arabs sided with the Ottomans against the english.
This is too simplistic. How did the British, and let us call them British not English, rule over muslim areas like Pakistan, and later much of the middle east? Essentially this happened because the British state was able to project power in the area that was understood as somewhat legitimate by the other powers. The Turks and British ruled by an understanding of military might. The Turks had more legitimacy on the ground because of Turkish control of the holy cities sure, but that's a difference of degree not kind.
Why not? Also you realize that this has happened many times in the last 400 years or so.
Also I doubt most Palestinians identified with the Ottomans so much as did not see it as illegitimate. That is a pretty big difference. There wasn't a real sense of Ottoman, as opposed to Turkish, nationalism.
Its degree of weakness was exaggerated at the time, but that doesn't mean the empire was strong by the 19th century let alone the 20th. Look around you. What other empires of the 19th century are still with us today? The Ottoman Empire was certainly weaker by the earlier 20th century than at least the British, Germans, French, and Russians. The empire was really only around at this point because Britain used it as a tool to check the Russians.
When? Certainly not in the period we are talking about. The Arabs fought the Ottoman Empire with the British. Part of the issue in Palestine stems from the Arab Revolt in the first place.
The UNSC was a joke since the day it was founded. They just made the 'victors' of WWII decide what will and will not be allowed. How many things did the Soviets veto, the US vetoes almost every anti-Israel motion. For 60+ years now, the North Korean people have been subject to Big Brother/Nazi like total control and brainwashing. Generations of family are punished in gulags and concentration camps. People are literally starving to death in some parts and yet nothing is done because China is a permanent member of the UNSC with a veto vote.
This isn't changing anytime soon. The buildup of settlements in Palestine territory in the West Bank has reduced it to a fraction of even 1990 levels. At this point, I don't think a two state solution is even viable. You have a small little strip of land in Gaza and an increasingly small West Bank with East Jerusalem never being given back by the Israelis. Protests of thrown rocks are met with bullets and bombs etc.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
Of course it´s a difference of kind and not of degree. How much time the British ruled India ? And how much time did the Ottomans ruled the Hijaz and Sham ? There you have a difference of kind.
Ottoman Caliphate was not a foreign power or an invading power, it was a muslim rule ruling a majority of muslims in these lands, so when France invaded North Africa, the arabs and berbers revolted in the name of the Ottoman Empire for instance. The British couldn´t not even maintain themselves a century.
It´s how muslim faith works, you cannot be ruled by a foreign non-muslim ruler.
People had the Ottoman identity card and refer themselves as "osmaniyya", you can find some people old enough today in Cairo or Syria to consider themselves Ottomans. Even non-muslims.
One can only wonder what would happen if the Ottoman Empire would have discovered the oil at the right moment.
Not all the Arabs, most of the Ottomans soldiers in the region were arabs, not turks.
In Irak, even the shiite clerics (who were not recognize by the ottomans btw) launched a full scale jihad against the British in the name of the Ottoman caliphate.
I was speaking about Umar ibn Al Khattab in the 7th century, if we are speaking about legitimacy of rule you get to take in account what is considered a legitimate rule by the local populations. Since the 7th century until 1948, Palestine was under muslim rule except for 80 years under the Crusaders.
The Ottoman Empire had far more legitimacy than all those arabs state of today combined.
Crash Station
Member
This isn't even remotely true. Anti-semitism was a thing in the arab world before Israel. Ever hear of the pogroms in Algeria in the 30s? What about the Farhud in Iraq? Even going further back, the Damascus affair led to some bullshit. What about the Mawza Exile?
And to say it has no theological or historical roots is open to interpretation. There's more than enough scholars that have determined references to Jews in the Quaran are "mostly negative".
And then you got accounts from high-ranking leaders in governments (both radicalized and otherwise) that don't give a shit about the Palestinian people but would be cool with wiping Israel and the Jewish people out of existence. There's more than enough evidence that many used the Israel-Palestine conflict to kick them out of several countries in the middle east.
It's intellectually dishonest to say otherwise when you've clearly done your research. No, it never openly reached Nazi levels, but that being the bar doesn't say much.
Father_Brain
Banned
Sadly, persecution is not an inherently ennobling experience, it turns out.
Why is Israel so important to us? Why does everyone who runs for president have make sure the public knows they are pro Israel? Why do we give them so much money? Do we not have enough allies in the region?
I am voting for Hillary, I just wish that the United States could either back off from Israel or get some change for the people in Gaza.
I am voting for Hillary, I just wish that the United States could either back off from Israel or get some change for the people in Gaza.
Get rid of ask the tech in your house them. You'd be surprised what Israeli science contributes towards directly and indirectly.
Google it.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
Farhud in Iraq was related to the zionist movement in Palestine and Algeria´s pogroms is the result of the "divide to conquer" politics of France occupier. They gave an higher status to the jews, they were basically french citizen while muslims where colonized subjects.
This is not endogenous anti judaism, this is modern and highly contextual. You have nothing in Islam that justify the hatred of jews theologically as you can find in Christianity. Just search the pogroms in Europe, it´s constant over the centuries. You have no such thing in muslim history until the 20th century.
About Mawza exile, it´s also highly political (i admit that i never heard of that):
You cannot deem an episode like that as antisemitic it doesn't make any sense. It's like saying that 6 day war was anti-arab or anti-jew. These are just political conflicts between differents tribes. It's like this nonsense about the so-called "antisemitic pogrom" of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ against Banu Qurayza. It's an overreading of history with modern lenses.
I am not here to say that you oppression against religious minorities is absent of islamic history, it´s totally false. But you don't have the same attitude of historic christianity against the "people who killed God", first because muslims don't believe that Jesus was crucified and secondly because the idea of Jesus as God is absent in Islamic theology.
So you don't have a specific anti-jewish sentiment in muslims history as you'll find in christian europe. You have many example of jewish-muslims alliances, like in Marrueco were the jews introduced in their own religious practice the celebration of the victory over Portugal and they praise "The day were we freed our country" speaking about Marrueco.
You're saying the difference was that the Ottomans were in the area for a longer time. Longer. That is a difference in degree, here time, not kind.
At this point it wasn't because it was normalized. It absolutely was a foreign power that invaded the area when it took control of it.
Again this happened though. That clearly isn't a true statement.
I guess don't know enough about this issue of identity to say much about this. Clearly it isn't a majority of the population that would do this, and frankly I'm not going to believe this without scholarly work that corfmims both the existance of the identity and argues for it being a national identity instead of something else.
I doubt it would have changed much. The West probably would have further supported seperatist movements in Arabia at least.
I'm not sure what most of the soldiers' ethnicity matters? Most of them would have been fighting for a paycheck. I'm also not sure if invoking specters of dead states later is actually any sort of declaration of allegiance to them.
Legitimate rule by the individuals is one element, but before the end of WWI not a particularly important one.
You're also hand-waving over the power transfers that happened between Muslim states
The Ottomans had not been in Palestine for 13 centuries.
I also hope you are realizing you are arguing for imperialism here.
TestOfTide
Banned
Good or bad the US has always been backing Israel because it is political suicide to not support them.
But just remember that as soon as moderates get in power again in Israel, the US will be right there to support a push for peace again like in the 90s.
Crash Station
Member
See my edit. The references in the Quran to Jews are interpreted in different ways. According to Frederick M. Schweitzer and Marvin Perry, these references are "mostly negative"
Why does that matter if the result is the same as something based on "revenge"? Political or not, the victims were clear, and they were people that followed a specific faith or were culturally related to that faith. It's the same as saying the rise of radical Islam is based on politics when it does have basis in scripture. What you said was that anti-semitism in the middle east is 100% based on Israel, which is false.
And I could go all day with these events. What about the Allahdad incident in 1839?
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
You should try to learn arabic history from arab sources and then you can compare how the Ottomans and the British/French/Spanish were considered.
It's like saying that the Roman Catholic Empire was imperialist toward France and Spain, it's doesn't make any sense. And when i said that you cannot accept to be ruled by a foreign power, it doesn't matter if they actually succeed to do so. They forced themselves over the muslims populations. They didn't have any legitimacy for the reason i told you. In the other hand, if the ruler is muslim it doesn't matter if he turk or arab. It's why Napoleon in Egypt even pretended to have converted to Islam, and France presented themselves in the 19th century as a "great muslim nation".
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
Today it's the case. All the anti semitic theory actually fuelling the middle-east are european: the Protocols and Hitler's Mein Kampf. You don't have this kind of things endogenous to the muslim world. You don't have anything like anti-jewish book of Martin Luther neither.
Having a political or armed conflict with jews is not antisemitism. You cannot turned any past conflict where jews was involved as an anti semitic attack. I would go as far as saying that even the Allahdad event you mentioned was not specifically a issue of antisemitism per say. It could have happened, and i am sure this kind of stuff happened all the time in history, against any religious or ethnic minorities. Antisemitism is a specific attitude of systematic rejection of jewish for being jewish. I invite you to read the book "Jews of Islam" by Bernard Lewis, who cannot be considered as pro-muslims, he recognized that Jewish enjoyed by large a high status in islamic civilization unlike jews in Europe.
About those scholars who say that, i don't know them but i know the Quran. Jews are deemed People of the Book and synagogues are glorified as place where God's names are uttered. You have some passage that speak about specific events in Medina but don't have a general implication unlike you can find in the Gospel about the "Synagogue of Satan" and that kind of thing.
I'm not a historian of the Arab world, so I really don't have the time to do that.That being said I highly doubt that you know that much of the modern historiography on the Middle East.
Also the obvious counter to this is that you should sturdy Britain and France, not sure what the Spanish have to do with this, before you dismiss a comparison.
It doesn't make sense because it didn't happen. What is the Roman Catholic Empire? Are you talking about the Holy Roman Empire? If the Holy See had conquered France, Spain, and Germany you can bet we'd be talking about something similar to this.
As did the Turks when they conquered originally. They gained legitimacy by presenting stability. The British did the same thing in the Persian Gulf for instance.
Also what is the point of the statement if outside powers clearly have done what you said they cannot do?
Yes, it's useful to appear Muslim. I'm not challenging that.
Just because the Ottomans shared the majority religion with some, not all, of those places it conquered does not absolve it from many of the critiques of empires.
Crash Station
Member
What about the leaders and other public figures that have said their hatred of Jews has nothing to do with Palestine? Are they lying? Are they using a false justification of history? Are they inspired by Europe (in which case we're arguing semantics, the end result is the same)?
What about this quote from Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah:
"If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli."
I frankly don't even care if this was imported from Europe or has always been political in nature even before European intervention. Anti-semitism is anti-semitism, and to say it's all on Israel even before the state was established is unfair even if they undoubtedly emboldened it.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
You seem to don't even understand the concept of legitimacy of power in islamic political thought. It's not like you have to present "stability" and that it. You're power must be in relation with the power of the Prophet through the Caliphate institution. So saying that between British and Ottoman rule there is only a difference of degree and not of nature is not understanding at all the issue.
Another crucial issue is obviously the rule of Shari'a. Any political power who don't rule by Shari'a lack legitimacy in the best case.
I was referring about the Catholic Church when it have a political power over every ruler of Europe. It would be like saying that the Vatican was an imperialist force against France and Spain.
And yes Spain invaded muslims land and they try to take over North Africa as well.
Golden_Pigeon
Banned
I am not saying that every arab anti semite limit is critics to Israel, they indeed hate all jews, but the "arab antisemitism" per se was borned with the zionist movement, so it have a political cause. Unlike western anti semitism.
Nasrallah is not the best example to find a antisemite unrelated to zionism.
Discotheque
Banned
Is this true or just libel? cause god damn that makes me have an extremely low opinion of that person.
Vigilant Walrus
Member
Chomsky speaking about Israel and its relationship with the US: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dqw2yUQdACs
Tallshortman
Member
Lol by this logic are you saying nearly the entire Arab world belongs to turkey since they were part of the ottoman empire before it's dissolution?
m_shortpants
Member
Go find any thread about Israel. It's like clockwork.
Crash Station
Member
We're going in circles here. All I'm contesting is your declaration that anti-semitism in the Arab world is 100% (as in there's NO other reasons) due to Israel. There's no "different kind" of anti-semitism that is somehow not anti-semitism. That's deflection (and maybe even justification). The Allahdad was anti-semitism, the Mawza Exile was anti-semitism, incidents of ethnic cleansing in Medieval North Africa like Morroco/Algeria/Libya which saw Jews living in ghettos was anti-semitism, being forced to convert to Islam or face death in medieval Yemen/Morroco/Baghdad was anti-semitism. And the list goes on and on.
ClosingADoor
Member
All these things went through conquest at the time. The Spanish lands were invaded by Muslims about 1500 years or so ago. Later on another kingdom got it back by conquest. It's silly to think Spain somehow was taken from the Muslims and they got a right to it.
The Ottomans got their empire through conquest. They were not nice guys, no empire is. They oppressed people just as much as any other empire if they got in their heads they wanted their own land.
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