arafat dies
Out of context: Reply #76
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stop fighting. Tfsmag is entitled to his opinion.
But i ain't no pacifist, and i'm not down with all this masochistic turn the other cheek talk.
"Terrorism is the only weapon of the weak".
- Jean Paul SartreBack in the 70s, the Palestinians were a non-people. They didn't exist in international vocabulary. Israel had embarked on a project of genocide(and to a point still has) where it tried to erase the existence of Palestinians. It did this by denying there were such a people as Palestinians. That there was ever a country called Palestine. It was always Jews against the Arabs. The Palestinians were expected to drift into and dissapear into the populations of Egypt and Jordan and Syria etc... fuck off back to Mecca where they come from etc... Even to this day Israel refers to Palestinians in its own borders as Israeli Arabs - not Palestinians.
The Palestinians have been in a struggle for the very survival of their people from extinction. In the 50s it was the Egyptians and Syria and other countries that went to war against Israel. When Israel invaded its neighbours in 1967 again it invaded Jordan and Syria and Egypt and Lebanon. When those countries declared war on Israel trying to regain the land Israel had stolen - again the Palestinians were completely left out of the loop. And then when those countries started making peace with Israel - they did it without regard or consent with the Palestinians. Palestinians had been completely ignored until the 70s.
The Palestinians a nation of refugees. Lower than the American negro. Helpless by-standers to history who had events thrust upon them. Expelled from their own homes.
Until they started hi-jacking and setting off bombs, during the 1970s noone even knew they existed. No one even knew there was such a thing as a Palestinian cause. In the West it was alwasy poor helpless Israel being bullied by its Arab neighbours. The Palestinians have throughout the 20th century been and continue to be an irrelevance.
It wasn't until people like Yasser Arrafat stood up and gave them the option of the gun and the olive branch that the world was shocked into attention. Culminating in the Munich Olympics.
This ain't South Africa where a minority is exploiting a majority and you can have a figure like Mandela emerging. Or the minorty British controlling the Indians where Gandhi emerged. The Indians and Africans weren't going no where. The Palestinians however could dissapear out of all existence and no-one would bat an eyelid. And no-one did
The Black Panthers said "Revolution is violent. If you're afraid of violence, then you are afraid of revolution." Not that i agree with their sentiments entirely, but fuck it. They are fighting for justice. Making Arafat out to be just another world leader like Bush etc.. is pretty ignorant. Arafat was a revolutionary fighting for justice. The blood of innocent Israeli's is on the hand of Israel itself. Like the Black Panthers' said - "If you push a panther into a corner, it will lash out and attack you".
It is interesting to note that once the PLA had achieved recognition and shown the world that the problems of the middle east aren't abotu Israel's relationship with it's neighbours - BUT THE EXISTENCE OF THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE - that in 1988 Araffat denounce terrorism.
So what if following 2001 he did nothing to stop Hamas and others sending suicide bombers? Sharon asked for it.
Not that Arafat was a great leader. But he was fighting for justice and he gained recognition for his people. So respect and RIP.
And laurus - all i'm saying, is share the land. You have as much right to live there as the Palestinians - NO MORE. Those terrirtories Israel holds can not be the exclusive property of the Jewish diaspora.
and winter - what the fuck u on mate?