No such thing as a Palastinian

Israel & Palestine Forum

For those of you who may not know this, there is no such thing as a "Palastinian" person...racially speaking....

There are simply Arabs and Israelis. Whoever is BORN in Israel is considered an Israeli citizen EVEN if they come from Arab decent. The term "Palastinian" has been used over and over by the Arabs to describe themselves in the the Palastinian area....Now this falsehood has hit the print and media over the decades and many people out of ignorance simply go with it.

Since there are Jews living in Palastine they could also call themselves "Palastinians" too.....IF they wanted to...

Palastine is an AREA within Israel that has Arabs, Jews and perhaps a few other races living there no matter how small the numbers....

So we need to change the term BACK to Arabs instead of calling them Palastinians...

I would invite opinions...thank you.

Well discounting the fact that it was Palestine before it was Israel. I think an arab is anyone who comes from the middle eastern area, the people still need a national identity it's like calling a Welsh or Scotish person British yes we are part of the British state but we also have our own national identity.

Was there even an country called Palistine to begin with?

The question is irrelevant Was there ever a country called the United States before 1776 ? when is the cut off point rbees There is an area called Palestine and there are a people that know themselves as Palestinians Who are descendants of those who've lived there for thousands of years. thats more than you can say for the U.S. Is there a cut off point for the creation on states? when is it? who made it up and why?

In Australia they would be called Aboriginals, in North America we would call them Indians or Native Americans. I am not sure what they are called in New Zealand. These are names the Western world has given some of it's displaced cultures.

The pre-1967 Israel border houses a large population of people who call themselves "Palestinians". They are Muslim and Christians of Arab descent and coexist relatively peacefully with the other people of Israel.

However, there are no Israeli Jews living in Arab countries. In fact, there is very little ethnic and cultural diversity in the Arab world at all. Some Arab countries even boast of their 100% Islamic Arab status. Thus we could argue that Arabs are the indigenous people of most of the Mid-East. Israel has displaced a portion of the original population through British mandates and American money.

While some nations are working together putting men into space, Arab countries are bogged down with outdated issues such as this Palestinian cause. Instead of moving forward and assimilating Israel's culture and talents Palestinian proponents seek to isolate and even annihilate this precious asset. Many Americans think that the vast majority of Arabs don't really care about what the Palestinians are called or where they go; rather, they only want the Jews out of "their" land.
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Israel has won all formal wars with those that have challenged her and is in legal and strategic possession of that land. Thus the Palestinians have taken the same status as the poor Australian Aboriginal, South American Aztec and North American Cherokee Indian.

I say we call them Native Israelis and hope that they get over it and do something productive.

Well quite apart from this being a racist solution this plan has 2 practical faults First the Palestinians are a much larger group than many of the natives in other countries and the Israelis don't want to give the people of the west bank democratic rights in case they get ther result that they have been fighting against, that of becomming a minority in their own 'stolen' land. Second the palestinians are a highly politicised group who probably won't accept being treated as second class humans lying down. As for your suggestion that the Israelis are in 'lawful pocession' . I'm not sure which laws you have in mind. the international laws I'm aware specifically don't recognise right of conquest this explains the 1990 Gulf war over Kuwait.
The formal name for them is Moari, like a lot of natives there are a lot of informal names for them too.

You are correct when you say there are far more Arabs in the region than Israelis but your definition of racism is flawed. If the Arabs in the region were not racists they would certainly tolerate the small minority of Jews that live there. Remember, a large contingency of Arabs want to destroy the Jewish State.

If the Arabs were not racists then there would be large populations of Jews and Christians and Hindus living in Arab lands. There are not. The sad fact is that Middle Eastern Arabs consistently prove themselves to be the most intolerant and culturally biased people on Earth.

In America we have large populations of Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews and Buddhists. We have Irish Americans, Mexican Americans, Italian Americans, Arab Americans, African Americans, Anglo Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Vietnamese and on and on. All of these groups have many thousands or millions of members, and while they don't always get along or get treated fairly, these groups all identify with their ethnic heritage and most identify as Americans. This is why America is so very successful - different cultures work together and learn from one-another.

I believe that until the Arab countries and cultures of the Mid East region learn how to tolerate those that are different they will continue to fall behind and get beaten up by the rest of the world. If Arabs want to stop getting the short end of the stick they need to get over this thing and go build something besides hatred.

If I am as you say wrong in my definition of racism you have not yet made your case and appear to have very little understanding of what you are talking about. First I did not claim Arabs weren't racist ( bigoted for merkava) I claimed you were and I claim Israelis are. it is a common mistake that you can accuse someone else of racism and there by aquit someone else.
As for your claim that arabs aren't prepared to tolerate non muslim minorities you are simply wrong there are and have been christian minorities in Egypt Syria Lebanon and Palestine. there were also Jewish mionorities in each of those countries and Iraq for longer than America has existed. The palestinians were quite happy to accomodate a Jewish minority until they realised that that Jewish minority had plans to sttle displace and replace them. it is common for native peoples to fight this, you'll find the Native Americans fought the United States too if you check. there is a difference bvetween a democracy inviting as many immgrants as it wants to. and a sbject people having others forced on them who intend to replace them.
America for all your claims has been rather erratic about who and what immigrants it cares to accept. Sometimes welcoming sometimes rejecting them Check out whats been happening on the Mexican border. Nor is it my understanding that Americas immigration policies have been racially uniform How many Jews do you have how many Arabs How many people of European descent?
Muslims and arabs have a longer and better history of tolerance than Christian Europe. When the Jews were being chased out of Europe (eg Ferdinand and Isabellas Spain) it was to Muslim countries that they fled.
Tthe development of Arab Nationalism and anti semitism followed from amnd was imported from Europe. Arabs even today never killed 6 million Jews in six years Europeans did.
The Development of Arab Antisemitism has been strongly aided by Israel first obviously by its clai of entitlement over human rights but also in lesser polices. In the Lavan affair The fact that Egyptian Jews were prepared to engage in terrorism on behalf of an enemy of Egypts (Israel ) did not endear Egyptian Jews to Arab Egyptians and they arraned with Saddam hussein to remove all of Iraq's Jew for him.
Your Ignorance and intolerance of Islam doesn't speak very highly of someone who claims to come from a culturally diverse and tolerant country it doesn't seem to have occured to you that Islam with its 1.3 Billion followers might contain within it a broad range of attitudes and beliefs. I don't think you have bothered to learn much about Islam.
Tolerance comes from a recognition that others values are as good as yours it did not take long for the Zionists intolerance to destroy Arab tolerance of Jews.

I guess you have to consider how we define Race America. I imagine that Race, may have a different definition to some then others. In America we define Race as
White - Caucasian
Black - African
Brown - Indian
Yellow - Asian
We don't really care what country or Continent they come from. We say African or African American as in someone having the traits as someone from that area. Aborigines coming from Australia would be considered African race for example, because they have the same traits as Africans. Therefore we find it hard to define those of a particular religion as a race. ie Jew.
We view Jews or Judaism as a Religion. Jews are those who practice the Jewish faith. Just like Islam, Buddhism and Christian. We believe that a Jew can be of any Race. And to become a Jew all you have to do is believe in the same Religious beliefs as all the other Jews. To become Christian you have to believe in the same Religious beliefs as all the other Christians and to become Islamic you must believe in the same Religious beliefs as all Islamics.

If you don't believe this then what is your definition?

Actually it is my firm opinion that you are completely right about Jewish ethnicity and religion I have been having this disscusion with merkava. however let me point out there is a complication here. Althoguh judaism is a religion not a race it is a religion that works by descent through the female line so that creates one problem.
Another problem is common usage . It has ben common to call Jews a race, and/or anti semitism has been defined as racism Example Hitler was a racist and if you asked for evidence many would site his treatment of the Jews.
I will confess to have bewen guilty of 'common usage'.


Ron its my understanding that America has had a white bias in its immigration Policies , the same incientally as New Zealand or Australia historically (but maybe less so in America) it is my understanding that the population of Arab muslims in the U.S. is small and not very visable (I haven't confirmed this yet). That is the point of my post. You may want to be tolerant but they are not a visable enough community for you to get to understand them.

It was also reported recently that 10% of the population in France are Islamic.

Ron I did use the word historically You will understand that part of the makeup of American society is due to historic immigration.
As for bias you could try reading Stephen J. goulds " Measure of a Man" in it he point out that migrants arriving at Ellis Island weere given IQ tests. Unfortunatly IQ tests tend to have a cultural bias in that they were designed by people who used things from their own culture to test the intelligence of others, they also had a bias toward reading ability. This particcular bias was not deliberate.
I've just been to the Arab americam site they a claim there is about 3.5 million americans are arab of which about 23 % are muslim thats not a lot to spread understanding of Arab muslims.
Through out the world there are supposed to be 1.3 billion Muslims. Can I suggest to you the number of identfiable muslims in the U.S. is not representastive of the number of muslims in the world as a whole? and that there might be a Christian bias in america given the high proportion of Christians. Even if this is not a deliberate bias.

Ellis Island exsisted for about 60 years from 1892 to 1954.

I think you are missing my pooint about Ellis Island. No I'm not summing up your immigration history on that, it was merely an example of bias and historical bias at that. But there other side of that historical bias is that all the immgrants who arrived bred children who were americans. any bias that occurred in their acceptance was magnified in their descendants. The result as your figures argue is that just 1/2 a percent of Americans claim to be muslims yet something like a quarter of the worlds population are muslims. My main aim here is to suggest a lack of understanding of how Arabs and arab muslims see things among Americans. based on the lack of visablity of muslims in your society caused by their absence.

Ohg and although my memory is a little rusty I think the IQ test occured more toward the later part of Elis Island immigration. that follows from the usual path of immigration. Welcoming Acceptance followed by fear of being swamped and controls folllowed eitther by a sharp reduction in the numbers accepted or a complete cut off.

There is no doubt that most Americans do not understand Islam. Our Television is trying to educate us but I'm sure a lot of people either don't watch or don't get the channels that carry it. Also our schools are very bad about educating our youth about Islam and that part of the world. We have this thing called separation of Church and State and it extends to education as well. Although it is getting better. And I'm sure the figures have increased as to our Islamic population.

I find it hard lay this back on Ellis Island and our Immigration policies.

Ron I'm noit trying to say Ellis Island and IQ tests represents your entire immigration history I referered to it because I was aware it was one example of how bias was introoduced into American Immigration Policies but it wqas only an example and I used an example because I did not want to exmine your entire Immigration history in detail.
However you yourself introduced the evidence of the result of your immigration Policies
No native americans wer Christian or Muslim before Immigration therefore it is impossile that Americas religious profile grows from any other source than immgratiuon and if there are 0.5% of Americans who are muslim and 1/4 of the worlds population who are muslim it is impossible to explain this difference without reference to the way your Immmigratiopn Policies worked.
Regardless of this you and I agree on my main point that Americans ar not as tolerant as Geek claims.
Let mew agree with you further. I don't believe this is due to intentional bigotry and that Americans are intentiuonally biased but this is due to ignorance I blame too a lack of exposure to muslims.
If the figurees you supply ar e correct of every 100 people you meet 76 will be Christian 1 will be a Jew and not even 1 will be (on average) a muslim and the figure will be lower yet for Arab Muslims.
this has an undeniable (to me ) affect on the chances you have of understanding Arab Muslims.