Demonstration against Israeli bombing of Gaza in London on Saturday.

[SmilleysPeople]

If anyone is intersted.

It's at 12.30pm along Embankment, nearest tubes Embankment and Charing Cross.

It's being organised by Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coaltion and numerous other groups.

I will bump this sporadically, but if anyone else would like to help promote this, plaese bump too.

I will be there.

I don't think I've claimed that at all Rev - where please?

Yes, but if they are 'cultural Christians' then surely they aren't really Christians. It is all about the engagement with your faith surely. If that isn't there how can one be termed a Christian (in this context).

It is FFS!

WWII
Shoah
British mandate in Palestine
Land grab
refugee camps

secular means not religious, sacred, or spiritual and not subject to or bound by religious rule.
It simply means that you have an identity historically marked by traditions but do not lead your life nor think through a religious spectrum.

A bit like going on a shopping & food frenzy at christmas but using contraception and living out of wedlock.

My post of 11:40 was in response to Pan about the IRA. I was explaining why my perspective on them was different to his. You read more into my post than was there.

I am underlining the Shoah as many on this thread keep mentioning the radicalisation of young Palestinian men as a result of the past few years. They never seem to mention the corollary, that Israeli young men have been radicalised in the same way by the events of the Shoah and therefore will defend Israel.

Exactly Slim, just as I grew up (and still live) in a largely christian culture, hymns at school, xmas etc. I know far more about christianity than other religions, but I'm not a believer.

Anyway, lets not get sidetracked here!

Slim22 - not sure what your last point to me was?

Re strating a thread asking Muslims what Ummah means to them - I would but I fear it would be misinterpreted as inflammatory in the current context. Whislt I appreciate Slim22's view I am really looking for practicing Muslims to expound on this website - none have yet done so.

Had anyone else previuosly heard of it bore I mentioned it?

I am a bit scared tbh of looking for other Muslim websites to read the forums and their points of view for fear of what i will find which only entrenches my own position which is that Israel must think of its own security first and foremost and last.

Yes Scary, but does that mean the rest of us should stand by and let them go at each other's throats until they have anihilated each other?

No, but there needs to be a balanced response with an understanding that until Hamas retracts its aim of wiping Israel off the map, and proving that it means it, then Israel will always react or be prepared to react in this way.

Sorry Lisa, not to you to scaryteacher. I disagree that the problem is religious.

If we did not have hamas and the Eretz Israel mythology the problem would have been settled me thinks.

So if one of the Arab nations offered the Palestinians land for their own, would the problem be solved? What is driving Hamas's demands for the eradication of Israel? Why threaten Jewish children worldwide if it is not religious?

Lisa why do you equate Palestinians and arabs with "muslim websites".
Look on Al Jazeera. Thats a reputable news outlet.
Look on BBC arab world.
Look on Al Hayat or Shark Al Awsat (respectiveley "Life" and "middle east:: sort of like the International herald tribune and the Times for the arab world)

This is where I say please please please educate yourself and use proper sources.

No Scary why would they? They did not steal any land from the Palestinians.

Jordan is already 70% palestinian refugees.
Syria and Lebanon have absorbed huge numbers already.

Don't you all know that?

i know this is going to sound terribly naive, but if Muslims accept Abraham, Moses and other Jewish figures as prophets, and if Ishmael and Isaac were half brothers, why do Muslims not accept the Jews' right to the land of Israel? I can understand the practical problems of ownership, and moving a new population into a land already populated, but surely the Jews' right to live there is acceptable if the Old Testament is taken as truth? I still feel the treatment of the Palestinians has been unacceptable not to mention unwise, but just wondering about this issue.

Why threaten Jewish children worldwide if it is not religious?
This is really beyond me.

The only explanation I can get is that they feel jews have had their "payback cheque" from the horrors of the Shoah at their expense ( or that of Palestinian brothers.
So basically Colonial power contrites for its sins against Its own jews by creating another wrong against a people that had nothing to do with it.
They "decolonise" by giving their land to another people that has no claim but religious over it.
And it's Isaac and Ismael again.

The legal problem of annexation IS NOT religious. It is for the International community to resolve this.

Ruty you really want to live by the old testament in this day and age?

Fair enough then. under that proposition, I would like to see Israel give Palestinian back their right of way on their land and stop settlements AND allow return of refugee.
Not 2 peoples 2 measures.

Treat them as you would want to be treated.

Ruty, perhaps because they had been living there themselves for generations? Nevertheless actually they did live peacefully side by side after the founding of Israel. To this day 20% of Israel's population are arabs and they get on with life peacefully. Problems arose from Israel's refusal to allow the return of refugees, the 1967 expansion into neighbouring lands (hence "occupied territories"), settlements built in these areas etc etc.

Just on a point of order btw there are many christian Palestinians (Yasser Arafat's wife for 1).

But don't the Jews have an historic claim to the land as it was Judea before the Romans got to it? The temple was there for centuries before the Romans destroyed it. Logically, as Islam did not begin until the 7th century AD (or CE if you prefer), the Jewish claim must predate the Palestinian one?

However, I think at this point it is useless looking back at the roots of the claims. The International community will have to start from where the two sides are and try to get a compromise from that.

I don't think a UN peace keeping force would achieve anything either.

Sorry but I think it is religious.

Not saying it can't be solved in our time by political means but I don't think it will ever be resolved permenantly by political means.

Slim22 - you say use "proper" sources to access muslim opinions. How is one to know this is not a "proper " source? Much of the forum is not given over to discussing the Israeli /palestinain conflict but to disucssing matters of faith/ parenting and aspect of Muslim religious life which I found really interersting and illuminating. It was only when one accessed the Israel debates that this hatred was exposed. That is what made me question whether this was an extremist sight at all or representative of what the real muslim believes?

Btw - i do not think you will find either Al Jazeera or BBC Arab World espousing to the world at large what their journalists really feel about the Jews do you in all honesty? I htink the realm, honest view point is more likely to be found in a grass roots website where the users are free of international relations constraints and the need to produce acceptable televsion/reporting etc and can say what they really feel ( not saying btw that Ummah is representative - just that I feel a website/forum is where you are more likely to get a feel for whether Muslims do really hold these views about Jews ( not Israel but Jews ) than on a news or reporting channel.

Just like MN really - if you wnt to know what modern day mums really feel about breastfeeding will you find out more from watching documenataries/reading articles or from teh people who are actually doing it or not doing it?

Lisalias, I have not looked at the specific muslim website which you refer to, but I can imagine what may be on it (calling for destruction of Israel and west in genral etc?), and that if I did I too would be very scared.

BUT the Israel/palestinian conflict was not historiaclly about muslim extremism, the Palestinians were not orginally fundemental about Islam, they were on the whole, liberal and mostly secular muslims. (there also were many Christian Plaestinians) BUT they are becoming and have become, more extreme as the years of oppression goes on, hence the move of support from fatah to Hamas, allowing fundemental muslim groups such as Hamas, to use them as pawn against the West.

The teatment of the Palestinians by Israel gave many Arabs a reason to hate and distrust the US, the rise of muslim fundematlism may be a separate phenonmenon originally, but it gives justification and reason for its cause. It can 'use' the imjustice.

Surely that is obvious?

I was on the march on Saturady. I am a white middle class christian women, I was afraid that 70% of the protesors were muslim/arab and so so angry with the west and the US. 99% of them are reasonable poele british citizens who will only use poliical presssure to try to change what they feel is a huge injustce against thier poeple, but all it takes is for a tiny percetage to use this anger, for it to spill over into a joining fundementalist organistaion that hates the west and jews.

and Israels actions this week will I am afraid start that process for some. More exremism will be created, more terrorists. It is so self defeating.

So, if you really are scared by fundementalism (as am I) then you should be camapigning for a just settemant for the Palestinians. This will not stop the separate extremist groups, but it will stop them being able to use Palaestine and Israel as a justification and reason for their existence.

Slim22 - your post of 12:44 was in the same vein as the ones on Ummah. Do you subscribe to this view in your post or do you just post it as an explanation that has been offered to you but that you disagree with?

Slim22- sorry - one more thing - nothing and that is nothing can "pay back " for losing your whole family in the Holocaust so any perception of a "pay back " is wrong headed. "Payback" implies some kind of deal. I call it more of a guilt offering from the table of the victorious alllied powers who acknowledged finally the persectuino of the jews throughtout the centuries and that , they , the nations of the world had failed to keep the jews safe and needed to pay heed to the cry for our own homeland where a holocaust would never again be possible.

Antiqueicecream - a well reasoned post. I am afraid however that i do not agree. Your argument runs thus - in order to get rid of fundamentalism and try and prevent the hatred appease to the demands and it will go away. Sound familiar? From recent histroy 60 years ago.

I am afraid that I differ from you in thinking that this will not go away . It will not go away if 2 states are offered, it will not go away if refugees are allowed in , it will not go away if Hamas demands are acceded to. I believe that the hatred of the Jewish people will not go away even if Israel were dismantled and given to Hamas/the palestinians.

It will just reappear and reform in another direction and for anyohter reason - maybe the Jewish people should pay reparations/maybe they should reamin and work for hte palestinians /maybe they should have been killed so they cannot disperse and pollute the world and start more rumblings for a homeland etc. All of this and more was on that webiste Ummah so it seems we jewish people really have no escpae or place to run doesn't it?

'the nations of the world had failed to keep the jews safe and needed to pay heed to the cry for our own homeland where a holocaust would never again be possible' yes indeed Lisa, and now the world is failing to keep the Palestinains safe and ignoring thier cry for a 'homeland' where thier oppression by Israel would not be possible.

I am sure no one thought that given a homeland the jrews would meet out punishment to another group simiar to that which they had themselves experienced. Indeed many jews who supported the creation of Israel became very disillusioned and ashamed of the state that had been created.

Scary, what next then, Normans Out of Britain? Saxons Out?