I was just out about an hour ago with a group of Sudanese friends having a smoke and the topic concerning Iran’s nuclear capabilities came up. They are all supporting Iran’s use of nuclear weapons against Israel which I think is completely idiotic. When I asked why they said Israel’s intention is to take control over the region. As proof supporting their claims they asked me to go and look at the Israeli flag. According to them the upper blue line represents the Euphrates and the lower blue line represents the Nile. In between is the Star of David. So yes you get it.
It would be helpful if any Jews could clarify this issue to me. Previously I had a lot of wrong preceptions about Jews and Zionism but I managed to educate myself on the various issues. However I missed this one. Just incase you’re wondering, neither do I like the brutal system of the Israeli government against innocent Palestinians nor that of suicide bombers against innocent Jews. Call me naive but I believe large scale open minded dailogues and diplomacy are the long-term solution to this problem. Now if you may regarding the flag.
SudaneseThinker
SudaneseThinker
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
it is not nile and euphrat, but two stripes resemble jewish prayer shawl talit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talit
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_flag#Claims_of_.22Nile_to_Euphrates.22_territorial_ambitions
for quick info…
Don Rodrigo is right: it represents the traditional prayer shawl. But it’s interesting that I’ve heard a different version of the lie: the rivers were supposed to be the Tigris and the Euphrates.
This argument has been used by Arab radicals for, as far as I recall, at least 3 decades. It’s interesting to note that once you start a slander, it takes on a life of its own.
By the way, good blog, Sudanese Thinker. I found you by way of the Big Pharaoh. Keep on blogging!
ST,
It is unfair to compare actions of bombers and Israeli Government. Israel never intentionally targets civilians. Take the current situation in Gaza. It’s taken months of shelling from Gaza for Israel to start responding in a clear attempt to stop shelling.
Negotiations are most certainly the way forward. Should be conducted in good face, not under threat of violance.
I find it unbelievable in the Arab world that once a rumour starts it becomes fact. The internet is a wonderful way for this idiocy to once and for all be proven false. Almost all the reasons that Arabs have for their hatred of Jews and Israel are built on lies. Most Arabs also believe that Israel is puposefully killing Palestinians and don’t even consider that most of the Palestinians being killed are in the process of committing a terrorist act against Israeli civilians. The goal of all Palestinian militant groups is to destroy Israel. Israel has not only the right but also the obligation to defend her own citizens. Israel acts out of self defence and Palestinians are getting killed in the process. Israel is bending over backwards to try to come to a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians but when the Palestinians goal is to destroy Israel and the Jews with no compromise, it is very difficult.
By the way SudaneseThinker, good on you for asking and listening because that is very rare.
the blue is the color of the fringes on pray shalles no more no less. The ave. Israeli just wants to live in peace. YOu will notice a moderate party won the last Israeli election.
The question I have for muslims is how come Jordan & Egypt did not creat a Palestine state when they controled the west bank, gaza and the jewish qt of the old city of Jerusalem? During the Black September revolt in Jordan the jordanians killed 20,000 pali. arabs. how come that is never mentioned?
yochanan,
“The question I have for muslims is how come Jordan & Egypt did not creat a Palestine state when they controled the west bank, gaza and the jewish qt of the old city of Jerusalem? ”
The answer to that is simple. Egypt & Jordan didn’t evict hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, demolish their homes, destroy their livelihood in order to build settlements & replace them with Egyptians & Jordanians. Israel wouldn’t have to create a Palestinian state either if it was willing to recognize them as citizens & protect their lives & private property. However Israel isn’t willing to do that because it’s worried about demographics & because by nature it’s a state concerned only with the rights of Jews. You can’t hold millions of people under your power, refuse to protect their rights & also refuse to give them a state that will protect them. It’s either one or the other.
“During the Black September revolt in Jordan the jordanians killed 20,000 pali. arabs”
That’s not true. The Black September events were a result of the PLO’s attempts to overthrow the Jordanian government. Civilians from both sides were killed in street fighting between the Jordanian security forces & PLO militiamen.
It was 100% the PLO’s fault. No one blames Jordan. Both the Jordanian people & the Jordanian government behaved with considerable restraint for many years. Palestinians were war refugees who were granted asylum in Jordan.
That did not give them the right to form political organizations of any type & try to challenge the authority of the host government or impose their rule on its citizens. The vast majority of Palestinian civilians in Jordan itself were very unhappy with the way the PLO was behaving in Jordan.
Any other state would have responded in the same way probably a lot sooner than the Jordanian government did if refugees from neighboring countries had tried to behave like a state within a state.
More on the Black September events here.
So a Talit is a prayer shawl “cloak” that is worn during the morning Jewish services. Wow that was a close one. Good thing I didn’t fall for one of those retarded conspiracy theories again.
shlemazl,
“It is unfair to compare actions of bombers and Israeli Government. Israel never intentionally targets civilians. Take the current situation in Gaza. It’s taken months of shelling from Gaza for Israel to start responding in a clear attempt to stop shelling.”
Forced evictions by the Israeli government are an act of aggression on civilians and so are Hamas’s actions.
yochanan,
I agree with LouLou
Frankly speaking I don’t like judging any issues while being emotionaly involved. Emotions blind logic. Moreover I would NOT want to trade humanity for patriotism/”religiosity”. I think that is the biggest error most people make.
LouLou said: ” Egypt & Jordan didn’t evict hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, demolish their homes, destroy their livelihood in order to build settlements & replace them with Egyptians & Jordanians”
But Egypt did evict the Jews. My mother is from Egypt and in 1956 all the Jews had 3 days to leave and had to leave everything behind. The same thing happened to Jews throughout the Middle East. Jews in Iraq for example were there since the destruction of the First Temple. In the 1920’s Jews were over one third of the population. They were all made to flee and lost everything. The Palestinians wouldn’t have been refugees in the first place if the surrounding Arab countries hadn’t tried to destroy Israel in 1948 when Israel was legally established as a state. And it is not true that Israel is only concerned about rights of Jews. The Arabs living within Israel have equal rights. Palestinians in the territories are different because that is disputed territory.
A Jordanian friend of mine from Palestinian origins made a trip to Israel recently to get a knee surgery. I asked him how they treated him and he said people there were quite friendly (to my surprise) and also that there are many Jewish Arabs living there very happily. So judging from what he said I guess race isn’t the issue but maybe religion is.
so melanie,
yes you’re right about what Arab countries did back then at those time. It was wrong of them to do that but it’s also wrong as LouLou stated what Israel has done to the Palestinians.
Melanie,
If it’s true that Egypt evicted Egyptian Jews then that’s wrong. But Palestinians have no control over what the Egyptian government did.
As for the 1948 war I don’t want to get into an argument about whose fault it was because it’s immaterial. It doesn’t matter why refugees left. Defenceless civilians will always flee a war zone. They have no choice. But usually after the war they should be allowed to go back home.And it’s definitely not right that they should lose their land, homes & private property.
And Melanie it’s not true that Israeli Arabs have equal rights.They also suffer from evictions & expropriation as well as other forms of discrimination.
I don’t have time now but I’ll post some links later.
LouLou,
“But Palestinians have no control over what the Egyptian government did” True but Jews were evicted by most Arab countries and yet those same Arab nationals are hypocritical especially since Israel won a war which it fought in defense not aggression.
Also the Egypt connection is not so loose because Arafat was born and grew up in Egypt until university and reinvented himself as a Palestinian refugee. In fact his family who were Palestinians fled to Egypt not because of Israel but because of a family feud with another Palestinian family. His uncle the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem formed an army in Bosnia and fought with the Nazis during WW2 and was personally responsible for the mass-murder of over 200,000 Jews.
How many arab/muslim states?
how many jewish states?
Iran wants to wipe israel off the map. Enough said. The Iranians are saying they plan to nuke israel.
loulou for peace you get peace. end terror attacks
loulou you did not answer the question WHY DIDN’T JORDAN AND EGYPT CREATE A PALI. STATE FROM THE WEST BANK, GAZA & THE JEWISH QT. OF THE OLD CITY OF JERUSALEM.
the real answer is because the Palistine issue is just a club to attack Israel with. In reality the majority of the inhabitants of Jordan are the same arabs as the palistians in fact the kingdom of trans jordan was once part of the british mandate of palistine. It was the first division of it the second one was to be the u.n. partion on 1948 which you know who rejected it.
BTW one point that I think was totally missed here was that so many Muslims think it perfectly OK to use nuclear weapons on Israel. That is..exterminate over 5 million Jews. And Muslims cry Islamophobia is on the increase. PLEASE look in the mirror and ask what is it that makes other people fearful.
Yochanan,
I’m not a terrorist & this is the last thing I have to say to you. I don’t have to talk to people who tell me to ‘end terror’. Do you have proof that I’m a terrorist?
Melanie,
“Arab nationals are hypocritical especially since Israel won a war which it fought in defense not aggression. ”
Well Arabs don’t see it that way naturally. They think Israel tried to establish a state exclusively for Jews on land where Jews owned 6-10% of the land. Palestinians saw this as a threat to their land. The vast majority of Palestinians at the time either worked on farms & olive groves or owned them. Very few of them had any education or any other skills. So losing land was a matter of life or death to them.
Neighboring Arab countries were worried about an influx of refugees into their territory which is exactly what happened actually.
Note that in the case of Kosovo the main reason why Serbia’s neighbors supported the war against Serbia was that they didn’t want the influx of Kosovar Albanians. They had all sorts of economic & demographic reasons for that.
Today one reason for the tension between Chad & Sudan is that Chad doesn’t like being stuck with 300000 penniless Sudanese refugees to feed. I think you’ll find that in international politics it’s rarely appreciated when you suddenly burden your neighbors with hundreds of thousands of mouths to feed.
But arguing about who was in defence & who was in attack isn’t going to solve anything now. I doubt that you can get both sides to agree on that.
As for Jews who were expelled from Arab countries, if they lost property then they’re also entitled to compensation from those Arab countries & they should continue to demand it. I know that both the previous King of Morocco & the present one have invited Moroccan Jews to return if they wish. And some of them did come back from Israel & other places to visit relatives in Casablanca - which is my hometown - & which still houses most of the Jews left in Moroccan. Quite a few Muslim families in Casa also have Jewish family names because they’re descendants of Jewish converts. I also don’t think any Moroccan government ever had a policy of expelling Jews. Or if so at least I haven’t heard of it.
“BTW one point that I think was totally missed here was that so many Muslims think it perfectly OK to use nuclear weapons on Israel.”
It’s never OK to use nuclear weapons on anyone. I know Israel is an object of a lot of unreasoning hate in the Muslim world. This is one reason why I’d like to see the Palestinian conflict resolved sooner rather than later. Israel already has peace treaties with Egypt & Jordan. It has withdrawn from Lebanon. All that is left is the Palestinian issue.
With all due respect to both sides I don’t think this conflict deserves the attention it gets. There are much worst conflicts. Personally I’m sick of hearing about it. It’s been almost 60 years. But unfortunately I think that while it continues this culture of blaming Israel & the West will never go away & we’ll never make any progress.
LouLou I couldn’t have said it better myself but I disagree on one point.
“But unfortunately I think that while it continues this culture of blaming Israel & the West will never go away & we’ll never make any progress.”
Personaly LouLou, I think it will go away but not any time soon.
BP made a great statement in his recent Sufism blog
“Islam today is not as much spiritual as it is a sociopolitical ideology.”
Until we get back to the spiritual side of the religion and change what’s inside our hearts nothing will improve I believe.
Drima,
“Until we get back to the spiritual side of the religion and change what’s inside our hearts nothing will improve I believe.”
Our problem is not religious at all. Arab nationalist movements back in the 60’s were all somewhere between socialist & communist. They were extremely secular & anti-religion. And yet they were all very repressive & they all revolved around conspiracy theories & the evil imperialist West too.
Part of our sickness as societies is that we’ve been powerless to change our destiny for centuries. We were ruled from Turkey - the Ottoman Empire - for 700 years & then by European colonialism for 200 years. Then during the Cold War we had another 50 years of being caught between the US & the Soviet Union. We got used to some powerful outside power deciding everything & therefore being to blame for everything. We lost the culture of self-criticism, of being proactive in deciding our fate. We don’t believe we can anymore. This is why we are either apathetic or frustrated & dangerous. That’s why we keep producing ideologies that feed on apathy & the frustration. Doesn’t matter what you call the ideology -Nasserism, Baathism, Islamism etc….we will take it & twist into something hopeless & angry. I always disagreed with BP about religious reform being a priority. Islam is whatever our societies make it. And we are sick societies. Political & social reform will produce a Liberal Islam. If people have access to a proper education, a free press, a vibrant civil society they will feel empowered to voice their opinions & contribute something to their country peacefully. Then they will stop being passive & apathetic & dangerous ideologies will lose their appeal. I don’t believe it can be done the other way around.
through “spiritutality” we can learn to manage feelings such as anger and frustrations but as you said religion is not everything to it but i still believe it is a priority. Think about why Osama Bin Laden is doing what he’s doing. He’s rich as hell and can live a better life than Donald Trump. He had political power back in his country and was part of the royal family. What does he fight for then? “religious” beliefs. Islam is being misunderstood by Muslims and we need to change that. It’s also the social problems that have to be settled. In the case of Sudan there are so many social problems causing everything you’ve been hearing about for the past 20 years. We got to deal with issues such as racism and “class” or prestige.
“The answer to that is simple. Egypt & Jordan didn’t evict hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, demolish their homes, destroy their livelihood in order to build settlements & replace them with Egyptians & Jordanians.”
That is not an answer to the question. Jordan and Egypt could and should have created a Palestinian state.
Also, Jordan did evict hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and destroy their livelihoods once the Palestinians showed hostility towards Jordan.
“Israel wouldn’t have to create a Palestinian state either if it was willing to recognize them as citizens & protect their lives & private property.”
Israel did that before the first Arab attack. Recall that the Arab exodus from Israel started during the war of independence, not before.
If you want to blame Israel for not allowing their enemies to become citizens, that’s fine. But I hardly remember any Arab country granting citizenships to groups that want to destroy them.
What you said Israel should have done, Israel tried; but to no avail.
(There was a Jewish community in Hevron and many other places in what became the Arab part of Palestine. Do you remember what happened to these communities?)
That sounds reasonable about the 2 blue lines on Isreali flag. Isrealis tried conquering Saudi Arabia, Egypt, promised land extending to Iraq. They keep raping Palestinean women, abusing men and slaughtering children. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_al-Durra There is always a judgement day.
Inexplicablehoodlum.
When many Muslims look at a cross they don’t realy get pissed I believe. Put a Star of David infront of them, the majority will get pissed and see nothing but evil. Same goes for the American flag. Some will see evil and others will see freedom.
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