I still can’t get over the inflammatory article I read yesterday. I e-mailed the editor-in-chief of the paper and complained. I encourage everyone else to do so as well. As somebody who has worked in different newsrooms over the last seven years, trust me when I tell you that feedback has an impact. Also, upon hubby’s suggestion, I translated the article into English for those who couldn’t read it in Arabic. Part of the article is below, the rest is in the extended section of this post.
Al-Banna family in al-Salt received greetings for son Raed’s martyrdom in an Iraqi resistance operation
Al-Banna family in al-Salt organized a martyr’s wedding yesterday for their son Raed Mansur al-Banna who blew himself up in an explosive-laden car that he was driving in Baghdad in al-Hilla on March 1.
The father of the martyr proudly received the well-wishers in the tribe’s reception hall in central Jada in the center of the city of Salt. The story of Raed is similar to that of many youth from the city that left for Jihad across the globe. Raed’s appointment with martyrdom came on March 1, when he blew himself up inside an explosive-laden car that he was driving in al-Hilla in Baghdad that resulted in the killing of over 133 people, the majority of whom were Americans.
Raed left his house three months prior to the incident and told his parents he was going to Saudi to perform al Umra (lesser Haj). Raed had just returned from Umra a few weeks before, as he went to take part in the anti-terrorism course organized by the Saudi government, according to his bother Ahmad Mansur al-Banna.
Raed, who was born in 1973, got his BA degree in Law from Muta University in 1995. During the events of September 11, 2001 he was working in California, said his brother. He noted that this incident [Sept. 11] changed him from a normal guy to a religiously devoted one, who committed himself to praying in the mosque while standing side by side with the Egyptian preacher Wajdi Ghanim in the mosques of California.
The news of his martyrdom came two days after he committed the martyrdom operation when someone claiming to be part of the guys of Aljazeera called Raed’s brother and told him the news of the Raed’s martyrdom along with another person from Jordan named Safwan al-Abbadi. He said Raed had been martyred two days previous in an operation executed by the Iraqi resistance.
The caller said that in order to prove that Raed did the operation he would tell his brother the names of Raed’s relatives and that Raed had traveled to the US and UK and had earned a BA in Law and had worked as a lawyer for three years in Jordan. He also said that Raed had requested a payment of $100 be made to someone that had business dealings with him in the US. But the caller said that they should wait before they announced his martyrdom just to make sure.
Nas,
Don’t you think it is a bit weird for you to tell me what the aims of Zionism are? I think I would have noticed if the aims of Zionism were control of a land to the Euphrates. You see this somewhere in Israeli political discourse, and would have seen some attempt to move Jews into the vast area between Israel and the Euphrates. Please more be more specific regarding that website, as I did not see any reference to that through a quick look on the site. On one page they describe “Eretz Israel” as “a small, narrow, semi-arid piece of land on the southeastern coastline of the Mediterranean Sea” This doesn’t seem to indicate a swath of land going to the Euphrates. Also, that appears to be a pretty religious site, which I doubt would reflect the thinking of the secularists that founded Israel (Herzl, Ben-Gurion, etc) or most of the current day government or population.
The Israeli Arabs are not one million Palis that stayed on their land after the 48 war. They have grown to one million in the last 50 years. You say the Israelis would have gotten rid of them if they could. Sure, it might be simpler if they weren’t there, but Ben-Gurion’s explicit response to that in Israel’s Declaration of Independence was to call on them to join in the building of the State. And res ipsa loquitur, the fact that they are there is a testament to the fact that they were not kicked out (the Jews in the Arab countries, or the Jews that were in the areas of Israel/Palestine that Jordan captured in the 1948 war).
You say an occupation changes everything and now you can do whatever you want to fight for it (the boundaries are removed). But most wars involve populations attacked where they live. My family considers their land to be their home. Under your logic, since people like you think they have no right to be there, and many would kick them out of their home, they should not have boundaries in how they fight.
As for the swamp land. It is no longer swamp land – it has been developed into a town and agricultural land. Uh, in this instance, which I have a personal connection to it was unoccupied. It was bought paid for and developed. The people who did that have a right to continue to be on that land. As a Zionist, I also believe they have a right to a nation and an ability to defend themselves. There were many similar instances, and in many cases land was sold (fairly) by Turkish or non-resident Arab landlords.
By Sudan and Rwanda (which I only brought up once), I was just illustrating what happens when the side with the upper hand attacks indiscriminately. There is a clear difference in the way Palestinian and Israeli society view the other side’s civilian casualties, that should be obvious to anyone.
Regarding holy places, you can find recent instances of this discussed here, and when Jordan conquered the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem they destroyed the Temples there, as discussed here.
Regarding the Muslim standards of war. I am not familiar with any particularly clean wars fought by Muslim armies. I can think of a few counter-examples such as the Ottoman invasion of Cyprus or the current conflict in Sudan. Please elaborate on the basis of this.
I’ll flip your last statement around. There are Israelis who have lost their little sisters to terrorist bombs. Under your logic, I should no longer hold them accountable for there actions and if while they serve their army duty they go blow some people away then I should sympathize.
But I don’t. My worldview is different, so I still expect them to behave reasonably. Actions = Reactions indeed. And if we follow your logic, then we come to a very nihilistic result of escalating attacks until the strong eradicate the weak. I don’t see why you would be for this.
I also think it is disingenuous of you to say that you would not blame her brother for strapping bombs to himself because she was killed, when in fact as you have made clear, you would not blame him for strapping bombs to himself simply on the basis that he is fighting “occupation”.
Regards.
Amir, please speak to me respectfully, I am engaging in a healthy debate and not here to be aggressive. So take a deep breath if you plan on replying. If you do not wish to reply or wish for me to reply, then don’t you are free to do so at any time, it’s well within your right.
The aims of Zionism (From the Eufrates & the Tigris in the north till the Nile in the south) was and have always been well known, there are no reasons for consipracies or internet rumors (refer to Theodore Herzl and Rabbi Fischmann, and maps on http://www.ahavat-israel.com/ahavat/). this is the original colonists dream: “the promised land”, the same way i dream of an islamic empire, in both cases reality shatters that. Zionists did not think the palestinians would be a problem. isnt reality beautiful?
The Israeli arabs are about one million palestinians who stayed in their land after the 48 war. They are in a tough situation. If Israelies could get rid of them without getting noticed they would. Reality is poetic that way sometimes.
So lets get back to the main thing. If you are to look at international war ethics, the strictest in history have been the islamic. there are specifics in what you can and can’t do in a war. An occupation changes things because you are now occupied, your land is stolen or robbed from you so you have to fight to get it back instead of fighting to defend it. what changes (in terms of ethics) is that there are no innocent targets, and thats about it. When someone is trying to come into my house i will defend it while upholding my war ethics, i attack only when he is armed. but when he is IN my house and im in the back then im not going to descriminate. This does not mean it is encouraged but the boundry is removed. which is why my disagreement on the policy is to go for the military personel simply because of the immediate threat as opposed to the secondary threat. this is not something ive made up. this is the philosophy of occupation in palestine.
as for the swamp land you purchased and believe u have a right to…when zionists came they did not find a vacant land, there were villages and there were towns. obviously not all were occupied. there are stretches of land in every nation unoccupied, that dosnt mean it can be occupied by a foreign force. Im sure theres some swamp land in Spain, and perhaps we should get that back since we were there for 800 years. there were villages that were completly wiped off the map as if they never existed only in ghost stories. over 400 of them. earthquakes and natural disasters are more merciful.
The occupation cannot be compared to civil wars in rwanda and sudan, and i dont know why ure so keen on the false analogy, but keep in mind there is a difference between a civil war and an occupation. The thousands of palestinians killed are not expendable. This isnt about the numbers, if it were then we would hold off all arguements until the death toll reached the millions. I’m not prepared to do that and neither are palestinians, its more like…umm…whats the word im looking for amir…the one israel and america always use? pre-something or other?
as for hebron? that was in the late 20’s i believe and it was therefore at a time when the zionist immigration began. So if we want to be picky about the dates I chose then fine lets rectify; lived in peace until the zionist colonisation began. (mind u according to zionist sources 60-something jews were killed. deir yassin: over 100 dead and 750 homes lost…are we keeping score?)
As for holy places…in Islam it is forbidden to desecrate holy temples of people of the book i.e. Jews and Christians, nor their clergy. this is another war rule. I dont recall hearing anything about jewish temples being destroyed during the 2nd intifada, but (leaving room for marginal error) if they were and the act was done by muslims then they have gravely erred.
Your concluding statement, amongst the list of what we want…there is no need for one. It’s only one item…we want back our homeland Palestine. No more…no less.
finally, my enemy’s logic. My enemy a few weeks ago sniper shot a 10 year old girl in the head while she lined up to go to school. that is my enemy’s logic. when her brother hears this news i wouldnt blame him for strapping on a few bombs around his waist.
action = raction
Nas –
It must be pretty nice living in such a simple world. “Occupation” is bad, so from that point on disregard any logical and moral considerations. If you have to blow up some people at a Mosque, a funeral, wherever that is either an expression of resistance or a treacherous act conducted by Americans or Israelis to make the resistance look bad. Heck, anyone can verify that in internet rumors. As everyone else sees both the futility and folly of foreign fighters coming into Iraq and killing Iraqi to liberate them from the “occupation”, you cling to the fight.
Did you pick up your knowledge of the “Zionist grand scheme” from internet rumors as well? I wonder why most people in Israel don’t know about this, they really need to do some better marketing, because they are not making good headway on getting over to the Euphrates (Nas you contradict this almost immediately by saying that the initial plan was on getting the Palis to Jordan, never mind). All of you Jordanians watch out, there is nothing the Israelis would love more than to occupy your land too. It would give them, give them, help me out here Nas.
If that is the initial plan, then why do Arabs make up 20% of Israel’s citizenship? And why has their, as well as the Palestinians population been growing at such a fast rate over the last 50 years?
Whatever, call it what you will. You want to kill it an occupation, call it whatever you will. You think this justifies any sort of ridiculousness – fortunately many people don’t think like you. This may shock you, but I believe my cause is just. I don’t intend to be killed or allow my family to be killed – and my people have proved pretty skilled at keeping them alive over the last 50 years. Still, unlike you I expect the people that fight in my name to wage that fight within an ethical context. My family bought land in Israel just like anyone else, and they have a right to live there. It was nobody’s house before, it was a swamp. If people want to try to kill us or take our land from us, they will find that we are not so willing to go along with that, which brings us to where we are today. In a certain sense you are right – there are no rules for war. It is a down and dirty, ugly thing. Perhaps if this goes on longer, I too will lose any taste for restraint. But right now, many of the Palis, with thinking like yours, will kill pretty much any Israeli they can. It should be pretty apparent that the Israeli army could cause much greater carnage than it does. After all most brutal ethnic conflicts get a lot uglier a lot quicker. A few thousand people killed over the last five years? It is not exactly Rwanda or Sudan. But, as a population is subject to brutal attacks expect the public support for mechanisms which restrain their military in protecting them to whither. You hold a huge double standard – you say you cannot destroy places of worship for people of the book, yet numerous Jewish shrines in the West Bank were destroyed during the beginning of the “2nd Intifadah” (not to mention there is this Temple sitting under the Al-Aqsa mosque, but that happened a long time ago, so we let it go). You obviously do not believe in a 2-state solution, because you do not believe Israel should exist, and you also seem to think that everyone else is as cynical about this. Fortunately, they are not. Yes, the Palestinians aren’t likely to follow the Jews to the ends of the earth to kill them, that could be left to whoever was in those areas. The whole point of Israel is to have a Jewish country, with its own military, intelligence services, nukes, whatever else to stand up for Jews just like the Muslims have over 30.
There is little point in continuing this discussion (unless others want to hear it) because we have zero common ground. I don’t think you know very much in detail about the situations, but why bother, it is an “occupation”. For example – “palestinians prior to the 30’s and 40’s was a melting pot of the arab world in terms of religion, muslims, christians and jews lived together”. Ok, tell that to the Jews in Hebron who were ethnically cleansed from there in the 1920’s or the victims of anti-Jewish pogroms in Jerusalem.
In the end you want people to respect your rights, your peoples, and your religious sites, but when it comes down to it you don’t want any restrictions on what you can do. You may find, like so many others have historically, that at one point your enemy adopts the same logic.
With the increasing number of “Martyrs” recently, I doubt that heaven will catch up witht the number of virgins “Hooreyyaat” it is expected to provide! 70 X number of martyrs.
metalordie, i’ll address the last point first and so forth.
first, i said there is no innocent zionist and/or israeli. palestinians/arabs and muslims could care less about the religion of the invaders and occupiers. what they do care about is the invasion and occupation…full stop. palestinians prior to the 30’s and 40’s was a melting pot of the arab world in terms of religion, muslims, christians and jews lived together…the difference? they were all arabs and it was arabian land. I am not going to kill a jew in canada because of israel, that would make no sense.
Any Israeli who is in Israel carrying the Israeli nationality is aiding the occupation and the aggression. This is not fortune telling this is the obvious. if i am working in the programming department of a computer company chances are i know something about programming. that being said, i will re-state once again that their policy should be military personel and not civilians as they are the most immediate threat for the time being. But more importantly they should be military personel specifically when Israel does not attack our civilians. This however is a dream because Israel does not discriminate between civilians and non-civilians, historically or even today. Not enough time has passed for palestinians to forget masacres of villages such as Qaana, Hebron and Dier Yaseen.
When it comes to occupation the quran states: “If ye punish, then punish with the like of that wherewith ye were afflicted.”, hence palestinians are not these evil people who go around looking for kids and women, they attacks civilians on a bus for example after Israelies shell a refugee camp in the middle of the night.
Therefore there is no other way to resist this type of aggression. When you are trying to stop this type of aggression and mass murder you are allowed to use everything in your power to do so. If someone attacked you in a back alley way chances are you wont be discriminating in your response to survive.
Now, back to Iraq. Iraqi clergy have issued several call to arms for muslims to come join them in their fight. I don’t understand why everyone is hyped up on this point? There is an occupation, there are occupiers and there is a resistance asking for help. This is why you see some who are willing to go fight with their iraqi brethern. most of the martyr bombers have been iraqis and not foreign fighters at all. I am not prepared to make an assessment on how far the resistance is working to say they dont need this or that. But if i were to make an educated guess i would say: america is the strongest military force in human history going into iraq full throtle. the iraqi resistance is not well armed, and not well funded, they are not the vietcong for the lack of a better term. Alot of them might as well be considered a militia because they are farmers and villagers. What outdated weapons they have they use and only in situations where they are practically man to man. Martyr operations have the ability to manuever into areas where militia cannot without risking the loss of all their lives and all their weapons in the process, so they risk one man instead. Again this is not something they favour, give them a couple of tanks, a few f-16’s and tommy hawk cruise missles and i’m pretty damn sure martyr operations would stop as there’d be no need for them.
As for what the american military says…i’m not one to take an interest in what my enemy’s army is saying over the radio when their in the middle of a war with my brethern.
Linda,
I am a motorcycle mechanic and I like that lifestyle just fine, thank you.
Leave writing to the pros.
Or is that cons?
well said metalordie. wow, you are such a good writer. ever thought of going into the field of writing 😉
Wowsa. Me and the brewski are really enjoying things. So many ideas have been exchanged here its fascinating.
Okay, foreigners out of Iraq. Pure and simple. If a Jordanian or Saudi wants to blow something up let him go do it in his own backyard. There is a sinister plot to stir a sectarian civil war in Iraq, propagated by the Sunnis of Arabia. Not the Sunnis of Iraq. The US military has already declared that the suicide bombers are foreigners. One tape that was run by Reuters showed a young Saudi who blew himself up when he ran his explosives-laden truck into a US convoy. He killed many gringos.
I still do not condone that kind of suicide mission. One fighter can teach ten fighters and they can teach ten and so on. But to snuff your own life out like that?
Besides, so many US soldiers have been killed by gun fire, RPG and mortar fire. The US Army Stars and Stripes reported three months ago that the number of wounded evaced out of Iraq reached 30,000. Had body armor not been upgraded in the past 20 years, these would have been in body bags. Have you seen their pictures on the Internet? Maimed beyond recognition some. Some with missing limbs all around.
The Iraqi resistance has been very effective without resorting to suicide tactics. However, they have mounted combat operations where they knew most of them would not survive – Ramadi prison breakout operation in November, and so on.
On another note, I am sorry, but it is a sad sign of the times to say there is no innocent Jew. A child is a child is a child. To say in some years they will become such and such is playing God. Pre-destination of that sort is forbidden in Islam, otherwise Tarot cards and the like would be Halal. It is ONLY for God to know the future and ONLY for God to judge us.
If we use that argument, then expect the eradication of 1.5 billion Muslims pretty soon. The counter argument could be there are no innocent Muslims.
Hurts, donnit?
This is not the Islam practised by our forefathers.
the zionist grand scheme is one that stretches from the nile to the iphret river. and if u call what they do know taking care “not to injure pali civilians” then that is laughable.
amir, to israel arabs are worthless. the initial plan was that the arabs would just pick up and leave and those that didnt would be eradicated. the initial plan was to take all of modern palestine. this plan as you can see was attempted but didnt work out so well. to Israel palestinians might as well be living in jordan entirely. this plan did not go so well. so now they have to deal with a new situation.
to arabs it is an occupation. you can declare statehood if you like. you can have someone draw a flag for you and write an anthem. you can even have every united nation member recognize you and support u…u can dress it up all u like…it remains an occupation…no more and no less. to an israeli he is living in a house on a piece of land in a town in a city that is his, that is Israel’s…but not enough time has passed…there is still a living palestinian who says this is my land, my town, my house. it is a living and on going occupation. israel is merely killing time.
so no, there are no rules when it comes to an occupation and ill tell u why.
like i said to linda i believe, when your neighbour is throwing rocks at your house it is one thing to throw rocks back like modern day war, but the rules change once they invade your house. of course by “no rules” im refering to who is innocent and who is not. there are no civilians. other war ethics still apply such as you cannot destroy places of worship for people of the book or rape their women and other atrocities of which the israelies have committed endlessly. but there are no civilians, they are all there for the same reason.
everything else we see is icing on the cake. diplomacy and 2 state solutions…both parties know the realism but they put on a show anyway. arabs, muslims and/or palestinians do not wish the death of every jew for example, they co-existed peaccefully for centuries and continue to do so in other regions. what they dont want are people occupying their lands. if israelies packed up and left then the palestinians wouldnt trail them to the ends of the earth. if the occupying force left my house i would not follow him around endlessly, i would take back my house, what is rightfully mine, that is what i fought for.
im not saying i dont believe in a peaceful solution, i am saying there is NONE. israel does not want any palestinian or state of palestine to exist, and vice versa.
this is not an example of who is just and who is not. if i brought someone off the street and told him palestinians were living on this land, israelies came and took it and now we’re fighting to get it back, even a laymen will be able to judge who is at fault here.
The grand scheme as written by the Zionists? You will have to enlighten me on this.
I am a big fan of reciprosity in general. We are in a conflict. Men have been in conflicts since the beginning of time. Usually, both sides believe they are just. At some points in history people came up with rules to be mutually followed to make conflict more “civilized”. But if one side believes it should kill any member of the other side without any other considerations, then both sides should play by those rules. I’ll bear your position in mind when elections roll around (OK, not really, but if the Pals want to fight a war where they try to kill all Israelis, then there is no need for Israel to take care not to injure Pali civilians). I think you illustrate a point. You clearly do not believe that a peaceful solution is possible, and if that is the case then each side should merely go at it hard to win.