Cackle from the Dean's Office
Here's an illuminating article from the Washington Times:
UMM-AL-FAHM, Israel — Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has won no friends in this sprawling Arab city with a proposal that the community and others like it might be ceded by Israel to a future Palestinian state.
WTF????
Although Israeli Arabs of Umm-al-Fahm share much with their fellow Arabs in the neighboring West Bank, the former say they are more concerned about preserving the rights they enjoy as Israelis — including access to jobs, free speech, a democratic vote and a measure of political freedom.
But, but, but, aren't the Israelis the mean, terrible Palestinian oppressors?
"We have a saying here," said Shoaa Saad, 22, "that the 'evil' of Israel is better than the 'heaven' of the West Bank."Here you can say whatever you like and do whatever you want — so long as you don't touch the security of Israel. Over there, if you talk about [Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser] Arafat, they can arrest you and beat you up."
You, you, you mean, you WANT to stay under Israeli domination???
Mr. Saad spoke while serving sweet tea and cakes in father Nabil's family-run restaurant that, until the start of the Palestinian uprising in September 2000, catered equally to Arabs and Jews who wandered in from a nearby Israeli highway.
Ohhhh! Well, screw THIS guy. I mean, he's just the son and future heir of a thriving and successful business, and we all KNOW how terribly corrupt and evuuuuul business people are! Besides, he doesn't speak for all Palestinians living in Israel!
Palestinian political leaders were as quick to denounce the idea of a swap as were their Israeli-Arab counterparts. Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia said the scheme was "undebatable and unacceptable," and senior Israeli-Arab legislator Ahmed Tibi called it a "racist project" aimed at protecting Israel's Jewish majority.
"It's the Jooooooos fault!!!"
"The problem is we're treated here as B-class citizens, but we're seen [by West Bank Palestinians] as 'almost Jews,' " said Issam Abu Allo, 29, one of three young Israeli-trained lawyers who discussed their situation over a late-night dinner at a pizza parlor. "Mr. Sharon seems to want us to join an unknown state that doesn't have a parliament, or a democracy, or even decent universities," said Mr. Allo, who studied law and social anthropology at predominantly Jewish colleges in Haifa and Netanya.
What part of "Arafat had his chance, and he's fucking blown it" that you don't understand?
Before the intifada, or uprising, residents of Umm-al-Fahm readily found jobs in Israeli cities, mainly in the construction industry. But the strains between Jews and Arabs during the intifada have left a legacy of deep distrust.
"Yes, yes! It's the Joooooos fault!"
Many Jews recall that a group of hard-line Islamists was elected to the city council and that local youths at one point had blockaded the adjacent highway, leading to violence in which three young men were fatally shot. Often overlooked is that Israeli Arabs also have died in the bus bombings targeting Jews. At least two Israeli Arabs acted heroically to help thwart or end terror attacks, one of them suffering injuries in a suicide explosion after calling police with a cell phone to alert them to the danger.
THAT brave and good man surely doesn't want to be traded out to a future "Palestine". In Israel, he's a hero. In Arifatistan, he'd be shot as a collaborator.
"The last three years of the intifada have made our position much worse," Mr. Allo said.
Got a clue, huh?
"Israelis are suspicious of us now. Jobs are being closed to us. I was kept for two hours at the airport. I know a guy who was held several hours at the airport — just because his surname was Arafat."The lawyers agreed that "blowing up buses is not the way to bring peace," but they also supported the Palestinian mantra that the attacks were the result of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Ohhh. They're LAWYERS. It obviously didn't occur to them that they were detained because they are lower forms of life and scum of the earth.
Despite generally good experiences with Jewish classmates at Israeli colleges, the lawyers considered themselves culturally different and distant from the Jews.
Like I said, f*cking scum of the earth. Education and working together is supposed to help give you insight and sympathy into other cultures, leading to peace on earth and good will to all men. People who get this blessing, but who fail to learn this, are prime candidates to become terrorists, like the well-educated Saudis on the 9/11 flights. Or they become Lawyers. I need my reading glasses to be able to detect the distance between them, for it is certainly not spacious.
The restaurant-owning Saad family expressed a far stronger affinity after years of trade with Jewish customers. "We used to prefer Jewish customers because they really told us how good our food was and, unlike our Arab brothers, never argued over the price," Mr. Saad said. "Now we get one Jewish customer a week on average — and I can see how scared he is as he walks nervously in and looks all around. I hope the good situation we had before the intifada comes back, but I doubt it."
There you have it. The Market transforms where the Academy fails.
hattip Israpundit.
Posted by ptah at February 18, 2004 07:55 AM