12 million Jews.
1 billion Moslems.

And people such as Al Mujahid believe that the Jews are more powerful. Wow! No wonder we have a serious problem.

Hossein Nouri, a paraplegic painter, paints a portrait of the Virgin Mary in front of the Danish embassy during a protest over the publication of cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammad in several newspapers in Tehran February 13, 2006. REUTERS/Raheb Homa…

Yes I do come across as quite hostile, that’s because I do play the devil’s advocate a lot. I’m not jingoistic and anyone who starts making exaggerated claims – I’ll instantly start questioning them.

I’m distrustful of governments in general anyway, no reason to single out the Israeli one. People I have more faith in, but not in large numbers. They usually have a herd mentality.

Maybe Sharon is changing or maybe he’s trying to outflank his opposition… I don’t think we’ll find out properly. Life for Palestinians (and Israelis) has gotten progressively worse so I’m not really an admirer of politicians on either side to be honest.

sometimes it seems to me that for a reasonable and sensible bloke you come across as very distrustful of the motives of israel’s people and government – and i think that’s a shame, because i know them well enough to know how much israel wants nothing more than to co-exist with the palestinians. admittedly the “you’re an antisemite for criticising israel! to the barriers!!” and the “it’s an apartheid crime against humanity” brigade have been round here quite a lot recently and i can sympathise if you’re feeling a bit hectored and in the middle.

i know you’re not a fan of sharon’s and neither have i been for as long as i have been aware of him. i have had an instinctive distrust of his motives. but in the last couple of years, i’ve come to believe that he really meant to change and to try and change the course of the arab-israeli conflict, as well as the dynamics of israeli politics – and, in this, i hope he has made a success. for that he deserves plaudits – in comparison to netanyahu, who quite frankly scares the tits off me and is nothing but a rabble-rousing scaremongering populist with no realistic ideas about how to actually achieve peace – if he cares about it at all.

i have to believe that people can change – even sharon. i tried to believe that arafat had changed, even though he hadn’t.
i have to believe that hamas will realise that their future is coexistence, not the cloud-cuckoo-land of “bomb the yahoods into the sea” – and in that i am really reaching.

i think we all owe it to the israelis and palestinians to expect better of both.

b’shalom

bananabrain

Who said the Muslim community did not have double standards?

as for modern humour, look no further than the quip that the first word sharon will say when he (hopefully) wakes up will be “shwarma!”

other than that, i’m a bit fed up of this tone towards israel. i mean, fair is fair and i’m the first to say that they’ve got to do their bit to drive towards peace, but this idea that “they’ve got loads of weapons and the ability to subdue a population, so they can afford to be funny” is frankly ridiculous. as we all know, all the tanks and jets in the world don’t protect you against a suicide bomber. and let’s not forget that the israeli army is needed not to “subdue the palestinians”, but to defend the country against its hundreds of millions of neighbours, most of which are sworn to its destruction and have oil revenues up the wazoo, totalitarian governments, virtually no democracy (and what there is is run by religious nutters) and certainly very little freedom of speech. i mean, for feck’s sake, look at a map. the middle of israel is 15 KM across!! it’s fecking TINY. the israelis certainly don’t see themselves as this hulking military menace. have a look at this piece in today’s ha-aretz for a start:

http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasen/spages/683434.html

in regard to the country being run by generals, that is an established tradition that comes out of the state being 58 years old and *still* virtually the only country in the world whose right to EXIST is under attack. is it surprising in a society where everyone has to do military service (conveniently, this means that for hamas and its friends, there’s no such thing as an israeli “civilian” – and even tel aviv is considered a “settlement”) that security credentials are considered a sine qua non for being the country’s leader? amir peretz of the labour party is about the first politician with a chance for power that hasn’t been a general (if you don’t count shimon peres and golda meir) and even so, the fact that someone is a general doesn’t mean they don’t want peace. anyone ever heard of the “allon plan” here? i thought not. in fact, even sharon’s a case in point. having done his bit for most of the last half-century to settle the arab israeli conflict by force, he finally started trying something else – with enormous success. finally, the fact that someone’s a general or has security credentials is no guarantee that they will be a successful politician – both ehud barak (an ex commander-in-chief) and bibi netanyahu (an ex-special forces captain) have been spectacular failures on the security front – although netanyahu, who i detest, signed the ross accords and made a pretty decent fist of reforming the economy, while barak got the israelis out of lebanon – another unilateral disengagement which did nothing to appease the hatred that israel is held in.

in short – they do something and they get no credit. they do nothing and they are vilified for perpetuating the status quo. is it any wonder jews worldwide feel singled out? let’s hear some noise in the muslim world about darfur! and let’s hear some decent humour from the palestinians while we’re at it. angry people burning stuff just isn’t very funny.

b’shalom

bananabrain

Which is a pity, because it rocks.

Steve M…. mmm.. yeah but it wasn’t the point I was getting at.

Goethe girl – not a big fan of him to be honest… its too right-wing for me.

It doesnt matter if it was a set up because it is so funny – if something is funny it overrides all other issues.

Can you imagine if the police prosecuted someone for a banner like that? His barrister would have a field day: “Irony, your honour”

That has to be a set up, it’s just toooo funny to be true??

That is fukkin’ hilarious man I’m laughing out loud