Saudi Arabia Sentences Palestinian Poet To Death For Apostasy

His conviction was based on a witness who claimed to have heard his cursing God, as well as his poems.

Source: Reuters

RIYADH, Nov 20 (Reuters) - A Saudi Arabian court has sentenced a Palestinian poet to death for apostasy, abandoning his Muslim faith, according to trial documents seen by Human Rights Watch, its Middle East researcher Adam Coogle said on Friday. Ashraf Fayadh was detained by the country's religious police in 2013 in Abha, in southwest Saudi Arabia, and then rearrested and tried in early 2014. The verdict of that court sentenced him to four years in prison and 800 lashes but after appeal another judge passed a death sentence on Fayadh three days ago, said Coogle.




"I have read the trial documents from the lower court verdict in 2014 and another one from 17 November. It is very clear he has been sentenced to death for apostasy," Coogle said.
Saudi Arabia's justice system is based on Sharia Islamic law and its judges are clerics from the kingdom's ultra conservative Wahhabi school of Sunni Islam. In the Wahhabi interpretation of Sharia, religious crimes including blasphemy and apostasy incur the death penalty.
In January liberal writer Raif Badawi was flogged 50 times after his sentencing to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for blasphemy last year, prompting an international outcry. Badawi remains in prison, but diplomats say he is unlikely to be flogged again. 
Saudi judges have extensive scope to impose sentences according to their own interpretation of Sharia law without reference to any previous cases. After a case has been heard by lower courts, appeals courts and the supreme court, a convicted defendant can be pardoned by King Salman.
Fayadh's conviction was based on evidence from a prosecution witness who claimed to have heard him cursing God, Islam's Prophet Mohammad and Saudi Arabia, and the contents of a poetry book he had written years earlier.
The case went to the Saudi appeals court and was then returned to the lower court, where a different judge on November 17 increased the sentence to death. The second judge ruled defense witnesses who had challenged the prosecution witness' testimony ineligible.
Saudi Arabia's Justice Ministry or other officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

French sociologist Alain Touraine paper on "The End Of Society"

                                              The End of Society

The main impact of the idea of modernization, in both its positivist and its liberal version, came from its assumption that all social structures and systems of social control are crumbling. Modern societies can no longer be ― 57 ― defined by principles, values, and norms but instead are defined by change, the triumph of instrumental rationality, and the destruction of all absolute principles. Positivists believed that these evolutionary changes would lead to a scientific society governed by political engineers. Liberals predicted that society would be transformed into a market in which all goods and services would be priced according to their utility. But this confidence in reason and change could not exclude a deep-seated anxiety: how would it be possible to introduce order into change, that is, to maintain the unity of society, the continuity of law, and the possibility of education in a society that would be like a stream in whose waters one cannot step twice? Beyond the diversity of its thinkers and schools, sociology is a general interpretation of modern society: its central purpose is to understand the interdependence of order and movement. We must be clear on what classical sociological thought was if we want to understand the importance and the novelty of neomodernist thought, which challenges the solutions that were elaborated by classical sociology during the period of Western industrialization. What we call classical sociology was actually a limited moment in the history of social thought, a moment from which we are probably departing, that was built around the central notion of society. Modernity can be defined as a process of growing differentiation of economic, political, and cultural subsystems. But the concept of society gained a central importance during the long period that corresponded to a limited development of modernity, when economy, politics, and culture were still closely interrelated. In merchant societies, the state was intervening into economic life to protect roads and ports, to check weights and measures, and to ensure the reliability of currencies. European national states eliminated the power of feudal landlords, private wars, and all obstacles to the circulation of people and goods. They imposed the realm of law over their territories. Of course the state was not only a maker of laws and a judge. It was an absolute power and a maker of wars as well. But the idea of the national state and a direct correspondence between a nation and the state gained ground, first in England and France, then in Sweden. Finally, it triumphed with the American and French revolutions and the Rousseauian ideal of the people's sovereignty. Before the Renaissance, social thought was the comparative history of civilizations, that is, religions. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries it became political philosophy. Society meant the polity for Hobbes, Locke, Montesquieu, and Rousseau. Tocqueville was more the last of these great political philosophers that the first sociologist. These political philosophers opposed the social to the nonsocial as order to chaos. The idea of the national state as a unifying principle was then, at a ― 58 ― higher level of modernization, replaced by the idea of capitalism, because the central agent of social change was no longer the national state but the bourgeoisie. The concept of capitalism is not a purely economic one because it identifies the economic structure with the process of global change. This identification supposes the existence of strong links between "civil society" and the state, between economy and politics. The idea of society finally appeared as a combination of the national state and capitalism. Thus the idea of society, like the earlier idea of the national state, is an effort to link what the process of modernization tends to separate: economics activity, political and military power, and cultural values. Durkheim among the great classical sociologists has the most anguished awareness of the decomposition of social order and of the necessity to give the idea of society a central role, both in sociological analysis and in the reconstruction of social order. Parsons, in contrast, was more optimistic and gave us a triumphal image of society. He identified society with rationality without sharing Weber's and Durkeim's preoccupation with the consequences of modernization. The idea of society is to a large extent a myth. It tries to overcome the growing separation of the main elements of social life by introducing a central principle of social organization. This sociologism is criticized by those who observe that modern societies are built on power, exploitation. and was as much as on rationality, law, and science. I am not, however, directly interested in these well-known criticisms. My central preoccupation is with the consequences of contemporary hypermodernization, a development that appears to destroy all unifying myths that try to bring together individualistic culture, constantly changing economic activities, and a state that is more and more directly defined by its political, military, and economic competition with other state. The importance of the idea of society is that contemporary hypermodernization appears to destroy it, and it is doing so as rapidly as industrialization destroyed the idea of the national state and led to the notion of society. The main characteristic of contemporary modern society is the extreme separation between the state and social life, a separation that can no longer be overcome by another unifying myth. This separation is felt very intensely in Europe, the continent where the first national states were created. The economies and cultures of European nations have become transnational; their citizens use a higher and higher proportion of foreign products and, even more important, they are subordinated to the nuclear superpowers. The separation between the state and social life was felt less intensely in the United States during the years immediately after World War II, which explains the broad influence of Parsons's sociology. But from the 1960s on, American citizens became conscious of ― 59 ― the separation between state and society. But unlike European countries, their own state had acquired imperial influence, had become a nuclear superpower, and thus could no longer be reduced to a political institution like congress or municipal bodies. At the same time that military power and international strategy are separating themselves more and more from internal policies, mass consumption is overcoming the barriers of social and economic stratification. Although some sociologist maintain oldfashioned ideas in this area, socioeconomic status clearly has decreasing predictive power in explaining consumption patterns and political choices. Often it is more useful to consider upwardly or downwardly mobile groups or ethnic subcultures than socioeconomic strata in explaining social behavior. These observations are sufficient to describe the analysis of those who believe in the waning of social movements. Their central idea is that social movements have existed only inasmuch as they were at the same time political movements. They believe that only action against state power gives unity and a central importance to protest movements, which otherwise tend to be diverse and limited. Peasant movements in seventeenth-century France became important only because they opposed state taxes in addition to the domination of the landlords. If it had not been unified by political action, especially by that of the socialist parties, whose main purpose was not to transform working conditions but to conquer political power, what we call the labor movement would have been only a series of limited protest movements. The predominant role of political action in the labor movements is demonstrated by the fact that socialist parties have played their most important role in countries where unions were relatively weak and where purely political problems were more central than social problems, for example, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and France. The idea of socialism as a global social movements has been more actively developed in these countries than in Great Britain or the United States. This observation leads many to conclude that a social movement is actually a mixture of social protest and political action. This mixture often leads to contradictions, as demonstrated in the Soviet Union during the first years after the revolution. Following the logic of this analysis, if political action and social protest now tend to be more and more separated, social movements must disappear. Liberals, when they go beyond a superficial apology for technological progress and abundance, defend an idea that is as powerful as the ideas of progress and rationalization that were introduced by their predecessors. This idea is the triumph of individualism, that is, the separation between individual needs and aims and state problems. Individualism destroys not only the public space, from institutions to socialization agencies, but also the very possibility of social movements. On one side, liberals ― 60 ― say, we see the presence of individuals, with their sexuality and violence as well as their need for security and their efforts to climb up the social ladder. On the other side is the state, which is first of all a military power and which is often able to absorb social life and manipulate it, as in communist countries, or to identify itself with nationalist and religious forces, as in many Third World countries. Protest movements appear against the state. They range from the dissidents and the refuseniks in the Soviet Unions to the mass movement in the United States opposing the Vietnam war and include movements opposing the permanent threat of nuclear war. But these antistate movements cannot be identified as social movements. This hyperliberal view is highly original and creative. It has been reinforced by the necessity to find a way out of structuralist pessimism. If social domination is complete, if the whole of social organization functions as a system of social control that maintains inequality, privileges, and power, if social movements are impossible and social actors illusory, and if nothing exists but integration, manipulation, expulsion, and stigmatization, then the only possible exit is individualism. This was Barthe's and Foucault's answer at the end of their lives and it is also the "California" answer. It is an aesthetism, the search for pleasure, friendship, and voluntary groups, and it is directly inspired by ancient Greece. According to this view, the real objective of the new social movements is to get rid of society, not to transform it. The new social movements are very far from the social movements that struggled for political freedom and social justice, that is, the social ideas corresponding to the unifying myth of the past. The new social movements recognize as their central value the autonomy of individuals and groups. They try to express this autonomy by withdrawal, sectarian behavior, or terrorism. No longer do social movements seek to control the main cultural resources and models of society through conflicts in which enemies are defined by a process of social domination. This liberal criticism of the so-called new social movements is much more interesting than the vague analysis that lumps various currents of opinions, revolts, social demands, innovations, and antistate campaigns together under this name. The hyperliberal view is far removed from both nineteenth-century optimism and the ideology of classical sociology. This latter body of thought believed in the progressive triumph of civil society over the state and the churches and the parallel development of social and economic integration with social and political movements. This ideology has been particularly strong in the United States, where it is another version of the American dream: the effort to build a society that is at the same time economically dynamic, politically democratic, and socially open to organizational demands and protests. This is why classical sociology was more ― 61 ― influential in the United States that in Europe, especially between the two world wars and during the 1950s. Before I consider the issue of the existence of new social movements, we must recognize as a partial conclusion that the image of a civil society in which opposite and complementary social movements conflict with each other while sharing the same confidence in the idea of progress is an illusion. This illusion, however, is still alive. It was directly present in Italian unionism between 1969 and 1975 and in the ideology of self-management that culminated in the LIP strike in France during this same period. These unionists sought to free their movement from the control of political parties and to create a society dominated by face-toface conflicts and negotiations between management and workers. But we know today—and we should never have forgotten—that the state never can be reduced to the political expression of civil society and cultural demands cannot be identified with programs of social transformation. Culture, society, and state power are more and more separated from each other. The consequence is that no social movement can bear in itself a model of an ideal society. Their actions are limited. Either the cultural and political unity of the national society is strong, which limits social conflicts and movements, as has generally been the case in the past, or this unity is weak or absent and nothing can integrate cultural demands, which are more and more individualized. The history of modernization is not the victory of the market and economic actors over states and churches but the decomposition of community, the growing separation of state economic activity, and personality problems. At the end of the decomposition of "society," defined as interrelated economic, cultural, and political systems that are integrated by institutions and socialization processes, it seems logical to announce the end of social movements, which are destroyed by the double triumph of individualism and state power and can no longer transform a society that has disappeared. If we consider not only the most industrialized countries but also the rest of the world, the most important collective movements today are not social movements, such as socialism, communism, or unionism, which have been largely transformed into the ideological bases of state power, but rather the Islamic movement and, more broadly, the movements calling for identity, specificity and community that link cultural demands and state power and suppress, generally in a violent way, public space and social movements. The world appears divided into two parts: Western countries that are dynamic, individualistic, anomic, and deprived or freed from collective action, and Third World countries that are dominated by cultural or even religious nationalism. In between these two parts the communist world crushes both individual demands and collective ― 62 ― action; its use of the vocabulary of the labor movement only emphasizes communism's destruction. In such a situation, is it not logical to consider that social movements take place only in historical settings in which principles of social integration and open social conflicts coexist? Without a principle of social integration based on a legitimate state, no central social movement can be created; without open social conflicts and a recognized plurality of interests, social movements are reduced to rebellions. Social movements were, according to this view, directly linked with societies integrated by unifying myths—of the national state or society—as well as with autonomous economics relations. We now observe their decomposition in countries where an absolute state tolerates no diversity and imposes its rule in the name of a communitarian destiny. 

October death toll and casualty numbers are in

Health Ministry: 80 Palestinians, Including 17 Children And 4 Women, Killed Since October 1st

by IMEMC News 

The Palestinian Health Ministry reported Sunday that the number of Palestinians killed by the Israeli army and armed Israeli paramilitary settlers in the period between October 1 and the evening of Sunday evening November 8, has reached 80, including 17 children and 4 women, while more than 3000 Palestinians have been injured.

The Ministry said 60 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, and 18, including a mother and her child, have been killed in the Gaza Strip, and one in the Negev.

On Sunday, the soldiers shot and killed a young Palestinian man identified as Salman Aqel Mohammad Shahin, 22allegedly after ramming four Israeli settlers with his car, near the Za’tara roadblock, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

The Health Ministry stated that 1248 Palestinians have been shot with live army rounds in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and 1808 have been shot with rubber-coated steel bullets; 1008 of them required hospitalization and 800 received treatment by field medics.

In the West Bank, 826 Palestinians were shot with live rounds, 895 with rubber-coated steel bullets, while in the Gaza Strip, 422 were shot with live rounds, and 113 with rubber-coated steel bullets.

The Ministry also said that 247 Palestinians suffered fractures and bruises after being assaulted by Israeli soldiers and paramilitary settlers, and 24 suffered burns due to Israeli gas bombs and concussion grenades.

Among the wounded Palestinians in the West Bank are 370 children; 180 shot with live Israeli army fire, 120 with rubber-coated steel bullets, 30 were directly shot with gas bombs and concussion grenades, and 40 were beaten by soldiers and settlers. 170 children have been injured in the Gaza Strip, most of them with live army fire.

List of those killed since October 1st:

West Bank and Jerusalem:

1. Mohannad Halabi, 19, al-Biereh – Ramallah. Shot after allegedly grabbing gun and killing two Israelis. 10/3
2. Fadi Alloun, 19, Jerusalem. Israeli claim of 'attack' contradicted by eyewitnesses and video. 10/4
3. Amjad Hatem al-Jundi, 17, Hebron.
4. Thaer Abu Ghazala, 19, Jerusalem.
5. Abdul-Rahma Obeidallah, 11, Bethlehem.
6. Hotheifa Suleiman, 18, Tulkarem.
7. Wisam Jamal Faraj, 20, Jerusalem. Shot by an exploding bullet during protest. 10/8
8. Mohammad al-Ja’bari, 19, Hebron.
9. Ahmad Jamal Salah, 20, Jerusalem.
10. Ishaq Badran, 19, Jerusalem. Israeli claim of 'attack' contradicted by eyewitnesses. 10/10
11. Mohammad Said Ali, 19, Jerusalem.
12. Ibrahim Ahmad Mustafa Awad, 28, Hebron. Shot at protest by rubber-coated steel bullet in his forehead. 10/11
13. Ahmad Abdullah Sharaka, 13, Al Jalazoun Refugee camp-Ramallah.
14. Mostafa Al Khateeb, 18, Sur-Baher – Jerusalem.
15. Hassan Khalid Manassra, 15, Jerusalem.
16. Mohammad Nathmie Shamasna, 22, Qotna - Jerusalem. Allegedly grabbed gun of Israeli soldier on bus and killed two. 10/13
17. Baha’ Elian, 22, Jabal Al Mokaber-Jerusalem.
18. Mutaz Ibrahim Zawahra, 27, Bethlehem. Hit with a live bullet in the chest during a demonstration.
19. Ala’ Abu Jammal, 33, Jerusalem.
20. Bassem Bassam Sidr, 17, Hebron. Killed in Jerusalem after Israeli shoted that he 'had a knife' - but no knife was present.
21. Ahmad Abu Sh’aban, 23, Jerusalem.
22. Riyadh Ibraheem Dar-Yousif, 46, Al Janyia village Ramallah( Killed while harvesting olives)
23. Fadi Al-Darbi , 30, Jenin – died in Israeli detention camp.
24. Eyad Khalil Al Awawdah, Hebron.
25. Ihab Hannani, 19, Nablus.
26. Fadel al-Qawasmi, 18, Hebron. Shot by paramilitary settler, Israeli soldier caught on film planting knife near his body.
27. Mo'taz Ahmad 'Oweisat, 16, Jerusalem. Military claimed he 'had a knife'. 10/17
28. Bayan Abdul-Wahab al-'Oseyli, 16, Hebron. Military claimed she 'had a knife', but video evidence contradicts that claim. 10/17
29. Tariq Ziad an-Natsha, 22, Hebron. 10/17
30. Omar Mohammad al-Faqeeh, 22, Qalandia. Military claimed he 'had a knife'. 10/17
31. Mohannad al-‘Oqabi, 21, Negev. Allegedly killed soldier in bus station in Beer Sheba.
32. Hoda Mohammad Darweesh, 65, Jerusalem.
33. Hamza Mousa Al Amllah, 25, from Hebron, killed near Gush Etzion settlement.
34. Odai Hashem al-Masalma, 24, Beit 'Awwa town near Hebron.
35. Hussam Isma’el Al Ja’bari, 18, Hebron.
36. Bashaar Nidal Al Ja’bari, 15, Hebron.
37. Hashem al-'Azza, 54, Hebron.
38. Moa’taz Attalah Qassem, 22, Eezariyya town near Jerusalem. 10/21
39. Mahmoud Khalid Eghneimat, 20, Hebron.
40. Ahmad Mohammad Said Kamil, Jenin.
41. Dania Jihad Irshied, 17, Hebron.
42. Sa’id Mohamed Yousif Al-Atrash, 20, Hebron.
43. Raed Sakit Abed Al Raheem Thalji Jaradat, 22, Sa’er – Hebron.
44. Eyad Rouhi Ihjazi Jaradat, 19, Sa’er – Hebron.
45. Ezzeddin Nadi Sha'ban Abu Shakhdam, 17, Hebron.Shot by Israeli military after allegedly wounding soldier, then left to bleed to death.
46. Shadi Nabil Dweik, 22, Hebron. Shot by Israeli military after allegedly wounding the same soldier, then left to bleed to death.
47. Homam Adnan Sa’id, 23, Tal Romeida, Hebron. Shot by Israeli soldiers claiming 'he had a knife', but eyewitnesses report seeing soldiers throwing a knife next to his dead body. 10/27
48. Islam Rafiq Obeid, 23, Tal Romeida, Hebron. 10/28
49. Nadim Eshqeirat, 52, Jerusalem. 10/29 - Died when Israeli soldiers delayed his ambulance.
50. Mahdi Mohammad Ramadan al-Mohtasib, 23, Hebron. 10/29
51. Farouq Abdul-Qader Seder, 19, Hebron. 10/29
52. Qassem Saba’na, 20, shot on motorcycle near Zaatara checkpoint. 10/30
53. Ahmad Hamada Qneibi, 23, Jerusalem. Soldiers claimed 'he had a knife'.
54. Ramadan Mohammad Faisal Thawabta, 8 month old baby, Bethlehem. Died of tear gas inhalation.
55. Mahmoud Talal Abdul-Karim Nazzal, 18, al-Jalama checkpoint near Jenin. Israeli troops claim 'he had a knife', but eyewitnesses contradict that claim. 10/31
56. Fadi Hassan al-Froukh, 27. Beit Einoun, east of Hebron. 11/1.
57. Ahmad Awad Abu ar-Rob, 16, Jenin.
58. Samir Ibrahim Skafi, 23, Hebron. Shot by Israeli soldiers after his car hit a soldier who was on the street - it is unknown if he hit the soldier intentionally or accidentally. 11/4 59. Malek Talal Sharif, 25, Hebron, shot dead after the army claimed he attempted to stab a settler. 11/5 60.Tharwat Ibrahim Salman Sha’rawi, 73, shot dead by the army in Hebron.
61. Salman Aqel Mohammad Shahin, 22, Nablus.
62. Rasha Ahmad Hamed 'Oweissi, 24. Qalqilia. Carried suicide note and knife, but did not attempt to attack anyone.

Gaza Strip:

63. Shadi Hussam Doula, 20.
64. Ahmad Abdul-Rahman al-Harbawi, 20.
65. Abed al-Wahidi, 20.
66. Mohammad Hisham al-Roqab, 15.
67. Adnan Mousa Abu ‘Oleyyan, 22.
68. Ziad Nabil Sharaf, 20.
69. Jihad al-‘Obeid, 22.
70. Marwan Hisham Barbakh, 13.
71. Khalil Omar Othman, 15.
72. Nour Rasmie Hassan, 30. Killed along with her child in an Israeli airstrike. 10/11
73. Rahaf Yahya Hassan, two years old. Killed along with her mother in an Israeli airstrike. 10/11
74. Yahya Abdel-Qader Farahat, 23.
75. Shawqie Jamal Jaber Obeid, 37.
76. Mahmoud Hatem Hameeda, 22. Northern Gaza. 77. Ahmad al-Sarhi, 27, al-Boreij.
78. Yihya Hashem Kreira.
79. Khalil Hassan Abu Obeid, 25. Khan Younis. Died from wounds sustained in protest earlier in the week.
80. Salama Mousa Abu Jame’, 23, Khan Younis.

Non-Palestinian killed by Israeli mob:
Eritrean asylum-seeker Haftom Zarhum killed in Beer Sheva bus station by angry mob who mistook him for a Palestinian- 10/18

Names of known Israeli casualties during the same time period:

1 & 2. 10/1 - Eitam and Na’ama Henkin, both aged around 30 years old, killed in drive-by shooting near Itamar settlement.
3. 10/3 - Nahmia Lavi, 41 - Rabbi for Israeli military. Killed in Jerusalem stabbing attack near Lion's Gate when he tried to shoot the attacker but had his weapon taken.
4. 10/3 - Aaron Bennet, 24. Killed in Jerusalem stabbing attack near Lion's Gate.
5. 10/13 - Yeshayahu Kirshavski, 60, bus shooting in East Jerusalem
6. 10/13 - Haviv Haim, 78, bus shooting in East Jerusalem
7. 10/13 - Richard Lakin, 76, bus shooting in East Jerusalem (died of wounds several days after the attack)
8. 10/18 - Omri Levy, 19, Israeli soldier with the Golani Brigade who had his weapon grabbed and turned against him by an Israeli resident.

An additional 2 Israelis that were initially claimed to have been killed in attacks were actually killed in car accidents.

[source: http://www.imemc.org/article/73804]

Palestinian gets shot attempting to stab Israeli

No excuse for this kind of madness. Taking a knife to a gunfight is the definition of insanity. Palestinian leadership should stop incitement and stop sending these people on suicide missions. Their cause is just but acts like these do nothing to advance it. In fact, it has the apposite  effect, only serves the interest of fanatics on both sides - Arabs and Jewish.  It is disgusting that Palestinian leadership has nothing to offer it's tormented and oppressed people than more suicidal acts of desperation. They need to be proactive in shaping the struggle against the occupation. It MUST be non-violent. It must include all segment of Palestinian society to take part in the non-violent struggle for independence or equal rights within Israel. Otherwise, these "lone wolf" incidents are nothing more than acts of insanity.

Got blocked from Jpost

So much for willing to listen to the other side. I just learned the JPost blocked me from posting on their website. It is amazing considering how I went to great lengths to be as sympathetic - and of course it was genuine, as I can possibly be. I posted nothing that can in anyway be construed as provocative or incendiary much less be violating the terms of agreement, yet I find myself being blocked because of my views. That clearly shows how the right wingers have little tolerance for any viewpoint that is counter to theirs. They don't want to hear it, don't want to entertain the notion their views might be wrong. I went the extra mile to be fair - meaning I criticized the Arab side just as harshly, if not more so than Israeli, and limited my commentary to facts but still to no avail, I got blocked and had my postings completely deleted from their website. Luckily, I was able to copy and post some here ( can be found in posting in October 2015) and you can decide if this was worthy of getting blocked. Here are  images of what I found when going to my account.

The EU labels products from settlements pt. 2

Jethro Cohen  Joe420k • 2 hours ago

Occupied from who? When was there ever a state of Palestine from which these lands were occupied from? There was one big slab of land called the British Mandate of Palestine. Since 1947 there have been a series of wars which resulted in territorial changes. What right do the Europeans have to select an arbitrary point in history, and declare all Israeli activity beyond that point "illegal"?

Joe420k  Jethro Cohen • 2 hours ago

***Yawn*** Please do me a favor and enjoy your life to the fullest humanely possible but layoff the drugs.

   

    

Gee  Joe420k • an hour ago

So when did the land become Arab? Name a single law or treaty that gives them that land. Bet you can't and won't even try

Joe420k  Gee • an hour ago

law? treaty? What are you smoking. Land ownership is determent who has a deed to it. Arabs have deeds, Jews have guns. It's called might is right. It's not Jewish values but it is Zionist values.

clownsaround  Joe420k • an hour ago

Arabs do not have deeds, liar. Mos Arabs rented, and Jews owned land, and bought more land.

Only the Arabs use "might is right." The only claims Arabs had to the land is that they controlled it. They no longer control it.

Jethro Cohen  Joe420k • an hour ago

Jews have deeds to you liar. The early Zionists purchased vast amounts of land legally from the Arabs... that is until the Arabs started murdering anyone who sells to Jews. I don't know why you persist in supporting these violent and immoral people.

Joe420k  Jethro Cohen • an hour ago

We are talking about land post 67. Go buy a clue. I support peace and justice. Stealing land is hardly the way to go to achieving that.

Jethro Cohen  Joe420k • an hour ago

Yes, everyone talks about post '67, as if things were rosy before then. Clue: they weren't. The Arabs have been intent on eliminating the Jewish presence in the Middle East since the 1920s at least. They tried to destroy a nascent Israeli state in 1948. Borders were never established after each war concluded. Then Israel decisively won the 1967 war. Do you think muslim attitudes towards Israel magically changed after 1967? They didn't! They still intend to destroy Israel. That mean nothing to you? There is no difference to pre-67 and post-67, so it makes no sense for you to continually refer to 1967 as if it holds some special significance... If you did some research and used that tiny brain of yours, you'd realise that when Jordan signed a peace treaty with Israel, they effectively gave up all claims to the land that Israel captured in 67. They did not ask for it back. This actually gives MORE credibility to Israeli sovereignty in post-67 areas.

Gee  Joe420k • an hour ago

Liar - they do not. Try again. And yes moron territorial claims are based upon laws and treaties - you sure are stupid

Jethro Cohen  Joe420k • 2 hours ago

When one has run out of arguments, one resorts to personal attacks. Congratulations.

Joe420k  Jethro Cohen • an hour ago

Arguments? You call spouting delusions as argument? Read the article Einstein. The EU considers the land as OCCUPIED and not part of Israel. Can I make it any clearer?

Jethro Cohen  Joe420k • an hour ago

Yes, DUH!! And I am saying that they are not qualified to make such a judgement. They simply decided amongst themselves what Israel's borders are, despite the fact that Israel is the first sovereign nations to "occupy" those contentious lands. The Europeans are intent on gifting that land to the Palestinians, even though "Palestine" was divided up in 1947 and 77% of that land became Jordan.

Joe420k  Jethro Cohen • an hour ago

The EU wants no part of war crimes. By accepting items from the occupied territories they will be involved in war criminal activities in enriching the criminals. There are laws against knowingly buying and selling items known to be the result of criminal activity. DUH!!

Gee  Joe420k • an hour ago

And they have no authority to do so.

Daniel1  Jethro Cohen • 2 hours ago

Such is the catholic brain, and I use the term loosely.

clownsaround  Joe420k • 2 hours ago

Arabs in West Bank/Gaza have no right to Israeli citizenship. Also, Israel doesn't control that many Arabs, so what you are complaining about?

Joe420k  clownsaround • 2 hours ago

You have a right to be clueless.

clownsaround  Joe420k • an hour ago

What I said is correct. Deal with it.

Joe420k  clownsaround • an hour ago

Israel has no right to deny Palestinian the right to citizenship. They are the natives. Indians have citizenship in America and South America? Maori's have citizenship in New Zealand? Aboriginals have citizenship in Australia? Why the Jews can't extend this right to the non-Jewish inhabitants? Or let them be free for the love of Moses!!!

•

clownsaround  Joe420k • an hour ago

Of course they do. Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza have no right at all to citizenship in the Jewish state.

Jews language/religion/culture are indigenous to the land, and no other. Jews are the genetic and cultural descendants of the actual people who lived in the land in antiquity. So Jews, not Arabs, are the natives of the land called Palestine.

Arab culture, language, religion are foreign to the land and there is no evidence the vast majority of Arabs who call themselves Palestinian have any deep roots in the land.

The ancestral Jewish homeland was partitioned to give Jews' self-determination. Arabs have no right to deny Jews their self-determination.

Jethro Cohen  clownsaround • 2 hours ago

He's complaining because he hates the idea of Jews living in Judea.

Joe420k  Jethro Cohen • 2 hours ago

I love Jews living in Judea and Jewtopia. Just keep it real. Starting with the fact the Torah does not replace a deed to ownership of land. Can we agree on that?

           RAS PUTIN  Joe420k • an hour ago

Nope, no deal.

Jethro Cohen  Joe420k • an hour ago

Judea is simply a geographical name for the land where Jews lived (thousands of years before Islam, I might add). It has nothing to do with Torah, it's simple geography and anthropology. No one disputes that Arabs came from Arabia. Likewise, Jews are from Judea and have every right to live there.

Joe420k  Jethro Cohen • an hour ago

Sorry. You seem detached from reality. Judea is a biblical term in every sense of the word. It has no meaning outside of the Torah.

Jethro Cohen  Joe420k • an hour ago

It's an ancient term that describes a known geographical location. What part about that do you have trouble understanding?

Joe420k  Jethro Cohen 
An ancient term that came from where? It is nowhere to be found but in the Torah. No Torah, No Judea. What part of that don't you understand?

Daniel1  Joe420k • an hour ago

GFY

Jethro Cohen • 2 hours ago

The European opposition to the Russian annexation of Crimea lasted about...1 week? But they remain unwilling to recognize Israeli authority in areas they have had full control of for nearly 50 years! And the opposition remains just as strong as ever. Wonder why the hypocrisy? The EU is just the UN all over again.

o   

Joe420k  Jethro Cohen • 26 minutes ago

In Crimea they had a thing called an election. The referendum to join Russia passed overwhelmingly. No surprise as the majority are Russian speakers. Israel needs to have a similar referendum in the West Bank and let them vote on, to join Israel, Jordan, or to be independent? Who in their right mind can find fault in having people vote? Let everyone in the West Bank vote, including settlers and let us see what the majority wants? That is not going to happen because freedom of choice is afforded only to the chosen.

Jethro Cohen  Joe420k • 2 hours ago

You are an actual id1ot. I'm surprised you even bothered to mention that sham election. Maybe if the election happened BEFORE the Russian invasion, the outcome may have been more believable. But to hold a sham election after invading... Let's just say that's a very Russian way of dealing with things.

SeaDog_NJ  Jethro Cohen • 2 hours ago

The Russians are experiencing economic sanctions because of their actions in Crimea.

common sense  SeaDog_NJ • 2 hours ago

Yes. I can tell by the all the actions of Putin to the "non war" in the Ukraine as well as the EU "non reaction." Oh and don't forget Putin's new adventures in what was once "Syria..."

Daniel1  SeaDog_NJ • 2 hours ago

Notice their grave distress

SeaDog_NJ  Daniel1 • 2 hours ago

I read the article and noticed Hotovely's grave distress.

Daniel1  SeaDog_NJ • an hour ago

I noticed something else. She is a young woman with possibly a great political future. Polish catholics see things differently from the rest of us, Dog.

Jethro Cohen  SeaDog_NJ • 2 hours ago

Do you think for one minute the Russians give a darn about the sactions? Will that make them leave Crimea? Will it? No, of course it won't. It's all about money and power. Might makes right. The Russians know that sanctions are meaningless when Western Europe needs their gas and their oil. Maybe Israel needs to take a page out of Russia's playbook, and stop caring what everyone else thinks, and do what is right for themselves.

RAS PUTIN  Jethro Cohen • an hour ago

Exactly... time to MAN UP.

DaranUK  Jethro Cohen • 2 hours ago

Ah but Iran has the gas reserves, Egypt just discovered a very large field, Cypriots (unlike Israel) have cleared the way for their production and if the mess in Libya can be brought under control. Russian will never get the leverage it once had again. 'Begging us' to use the infrastructure Russian co's have spent billions putting in place in the 'end'.

Jethro Cohen  DaranUK • an hour ago

Don't underestimate how dangerous Putin is. He is a man of limitless ambition. If he finds himself hamstrung like that, he is not one to bow out gracefully. I do not know how he will react, but given his reputation, violence and bloodshed are going to be the likely result.

DaranUK  Jethro Cohen • an hour ago

Given the oligarchy behind him looking for who 'follows' it's likely to be his end, in one 'form' or another.

יוסף בן-ישראל  Jethro Cohen • 2 hours ago

The difference is that Russia made the annexation formal. We don't.

James of Zion • 2 hours ago

So, is it time to get rid of Bibi and replace him with someone who is a lot tougher and crueler? The Muzzies have had it to good for to long.

o   

Elana_Rachel  James of Zion • 2 hours ago

No, it's time for the 'very' right wing to stop doing our enemies' jobs for them by constantly attacking Israel's elected government.

גַבְרִיאֵל  Elana_Rachel • 2 hours ago

I guess Israel could just relabel their settlement products as "Made in Palestine with genuine Palestinian Labor" but the Hebrew and Arabic with a kosher seal looks funny to me.

Holocaust Survivor  Elana_Rachel • 2 hours ago

New elections may be just what we need. Things have not been going well.

Elana_Rachel  Holocaust Survivor • 2 hours ago

We just had elections.

People need to go to sleep for several years if they can't stand reading the news or knowing what's going on.

גַבְרִיאֵל  Elana_Rachel • 2 hours ago

Too many Palestinian knife attacks for that yet.

יוסף בן-ישראל  Elana_Rachel • 2 hours ago

It's time to annex Elana. That's cannot last longer.

Elana_Rachel  יוסף בן-ישראל • 2 hours ago

No, it's time for people to stop acting like the PM must be the messiah this split second or they will go stark raving mad.

וסף בן-ישראל  Elana_Rachel • 2 hours ago

Nobody says that he is not the Messaih, he should act as if he was.

Elana_Rachel  יוסף בן-ישראל • 2 hours ago

He's not the messiah and it's not his job to act as if he thinks he is the messiah.

The 'very' right wing needs to stop being something else that Israel has to survive.

It's not fair - we have enough challenges facing us already.

גַבְרִיאֵל  Elana_Rachel • 2 hours ago

Since when have we ever stopped sticking our noses into everybody's business? I doubt the right has a monopoly on yente.

יוסף בן-ישראל  Elana_Rachel • 2 hours ago

How do you know that he is not the Messiah?

גַבְרִיאֵל  יוסף בן-ישראל • an hour ago

So far as I can tell he hasn't parted Iran like the Red Sea or split the earth to swallow Palestinian knife attackers but hey, maybe Mashiach wouldn't do that anyways?

RAS PUTIN  יוסף בן-ישראל • 2 hours ago

Because he doesn't have the fangs or the claws.

Ashkenazi Genius  יוסף בן-ישראל • 2 hours ago

Dont need a messiah, just a leader.

יוסף בן-ישראל  Ashkenazi Genius • 2 hours ago

Actually that is what a Messiah is, a leader. The one who save the Jewish People.

Elana_Rachel  Ashkenazi Genius • 2 hours ago

We need a new 'very' right wing that doesn't give Israel more problems when we already have enough.

גַבְרִיאֵל  Elana_Rachel • an hour ago

Right. That will happen just as soon as we have a single united orthodoxy under Mashiach.

Elana_Rachel  יוסף בן-ישראל • 2 hours ago

When the time comes, we will know.

The world will flip on its head and realize what bozons they've been all these thousands of years.

This hasn't happened yet - nowhere close.

גַבְרִיאֵל  Elana_Rachel • an hour ago

Bozons? Aren't they little monkeys that imitate subatomic particles? ^o^

Elana_Rachel  גַבְרִיאֵל • an hour ago

It's a software engineer's version of calling someone a "bozo," I think.

RAS PUTIN  Elana_Rachel • 2 hours ago

You have no business with "wings" unless you're a bird.

גַבְרִיאֵל  RAS PUTIN • an hour ago

I prefer mine with garlic butter myself.

RAS PUTIN  גַבְרִיאֵל • an hour ago

I like mine hot. :)

James of Zion  Elana_Rachel • 2 hours ago

Hey..