http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7729886.stm

The UK-based aid agency Oxfam has warned of catastrophe for Gaza and nearby areas of Israel if a truce agreed last June is not maintained.

Oxfam called on world leaders to do everything they could to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza and urged Israel to resume supplies without delay.

Israel has shut border crossings in response to rocket attacks from Palestinian militants in Gaza.

Earlier Israel fired missiles at targets in northern Gaza.

Two Palestinian militants were injured in the attacks, while one Israeli was injured in militant attacks on the town of Sderot.

Palestinian rockets also hit near the Israeli town of Ashkelon, 15km (nine miles) from Gaza. No injuries were reported.

‘Peace endangered’

Oxfam said both sides would suffer if fighting continued.

Take it easy; I’m just exploring the logic of things. To quote myself, “I’m not defending one side or the other. I’m just pointing out some of the facts and logic/lack of logic.”

My thinking is: how do you decide these matters? Traditionally, it’s been decided by the victors of the wars and by possession (9/10ths of the law?). 200 or 300 years ago, the native Americans owned this land. Now the “new” Americans own it. Are we morally required to give it back now that we “know better?” Practically, the answer is of course not.

So the Jewish people owned the land of Palestine 2,000 years ago, and then the “Palestinians” moved in (they weren’t called that until very recently). Then the Jewish people reacquired the land through war and such. Now who should get the land? What if, as in parts of Europe, the land has traded hands many times over the centuries? Which side has the best claim to it? Is the best answer to abolish the sides, at least in a virtual way, and live together peacefully on the land?

P.S. Not sure what my country of ancestry is since my dad’s male ancestor came over 300 years ago and my mom’s ancestors came over about 60 years ago and there were many other ancestors in there from wherever. I’m a mutt.

November 14th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
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Well, if you’re so concerned about people getting their land back after almost 2,000 years of expulsion, I can only assume you’ll be moving yourself and your family back to your country of ancestry in order to cede your land back to the Native Americans. Unless, of course, you are Native American.

November 14th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
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You’re so right, dude. Was it the second or third century AD when the Palestinians began forcibly expelling the Hebrews from their villages with F-15s and armored tanks?

CZ-1 Says:
Haven’t you just described the Jews, only on a different time scale? Palestinians (the large majority of which weren’t born in the land the Palestinians claim) were indigent to the land within recent time. The Jews were indigent to the same land two thousand years ago. Which group is the indigent group? This is the clusterfcuk.

It was palestine for 2000 years……it wasn’t israel until 1947

hussein toasterhead Says:

When you disposess a people from their land, you don’t just take away their farms and jobs and houses, you take away that which they have in common – the thing that binds them as a culture and a people. So much of Palestinian cultural identity is based around their homeland – olive groves and villages and markets and ancestral ties.

When you turn these people into refugees, disperse them in a diaspora around the region and the world, you begin to kill their culture. You may not be physically killing their people, but you are mentally and emotionally killing their culture.

That is genocide. And it’s tied intimately to the loss of land.

Haven’t you just described the Jews, only on a different time scale? Palestinians (the large majority of which weren’t born in the land the Palestinians claim) were indigent to the land within recent time. The Jews were indigent to the same land two thousand years ago. Which group is the indigent group? This is the clusterfcuk.

Both Bush 41 and 43 and Ronald Reagan’s corpse are scheduled to celebrate their collective economic suckitude.

November 14th, 2008 at 11:37 am
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And yes, I know the preferred term is Imazighen, but there just wasn’t time.

Even the use of the term “Palestinian Arab” is an interesting one. Palestinians aren’t really Arab, genetically. Although there’s certainly been some genetic mixing over the years, they’re still closer to Ashkenazi than Yemeni.

“Arab” in this context is a socio-linguistic construct that binds people of very different cultures and cuisines and histories together by a common written (not spoken) language and some shared traditions. It’s really not an ethnic distinction at all.

Mission Accomplished, the destruction of the middle class.
You’ve done a heck of a job, chympie!

November 14th, 2008 at 11:23 am
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Fair enough… If you really want to get existential about it, race doesn’t really exist. It’s a fake construct defined not by whom it divides, but by whom it lumps together.

Are Italians and Germans divided into Latin and Germanic peoples, or united as white Europeans? Are Moroccan Berbers and South African Xhosans divided by thousands of miles of geography and culture, or united as black Africans? Are Han Chinese and Cambodian Khmer divided by vastly different language and culture and imperial histories, or united as Asian?

More often than not, the people making these distinctions are the ones with colonial interests and aspirations, for whom divide and conquer is as much a strategy as unite and assimilate.

Fred Wertheimer, president of the campaign finance reform group Democracy 21, said he is encouraged by the new transition rules aimed at restricting those who work in the administration from cycling into lobbying. “It shows he wants to attack the influence money culture that has permeated the city,” Wertheimer said.

But Tony Podesta, John Podesta’s brother and a top Democratic lobbyist, said the party’s expanding ranks are not going to force him to curtail his work. “I’m not studying for the priesthood or thinking of opening a doughnut shop,” he said.

Democrats Benefiting From Post-Election Lobby Boom

Vestiges, sure. It also has vestiges of colonialism and vestiges of the Crusades. But those aren’t the main issues. Palestinians and Hebrews are the same race – just a few mitochondrial genetic mutations removed from each other.

We’re all the same race and you can make the same comparison among any of us. But I do not believe that racism cannot still be a component, just as it can be in countries where gradations of skin color are a factor. Ashkenazi and Palestinian Arab may share a common ancestry and most of their genetic code, but that doesn’t mean they don’t perceive themselves separately.

Xenophobia might be the more accurate term, but still, racism isn’t entirely inappropriate as a description.

The public confidence has finally dropped. Where the public originally continued to spend despite bad economic news, the news has hit home and people have decreased spending.

Just in time for the Christmas season which is what retailers depend on to make their profit.

Was it ever ?

$500,000 Kennard, Bill Washington DC, Attorney