This isn't a promising start for Newt as the front-runner of the GOP race for the Presidential nomination.

Newt, the historian, must have suffered an acute case of amnesia.

How else to explain his assertion that the Palestinians are an "invented" people. This is obnoxious in the extreme, and it ignores the bare truth of history.

Consider:

1. The Ottoman empire chose the losing side in WWI. It was a vast entity composed of a myriad of peoples, tribes, and cultures stretching from North Africa, Southern Europe, the Holy Land and on East to Mesopotamia. It was broken up under auspices of the League of Nations into many countries.

2. Most of these newly-minted nations had not existed prior to Ottoman Rule.

a. Before them there was the Caliphate states run from the Near East.
b. Before that, there was the Byzantine Empire.

At no time, in no era, will you find a country named Saudi Arabia, nor Jordan, nor Iraq, Algeria...

And yet we have those entities today. No one questions their legitimate existence. Among them was created the geographic entity of Palestine.

The only difference between Palestine and Iraq is one was granted nationhood, while the other has spent a century languishing in limbo.

Somehow Newt convolutes this enduring injustice and turns it into a validation that proves itself: the Palestinians have no state, ergo, they aren't a people, even though most of the Ottoman empire was converted into states that never had existed either!

I know why he did it. He was pandering to the Born-Agains and the Jewish vote in the USA.

It doesn't make it accurate.

It doesn't make it right.

It certainly is NOT Presidential.

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"Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless, and do no wrong". (Knight's Oath, Kingdom of Heaven)

The surge of Newt is incredible. Such a despicable man. Where are the Republicans minds? Political subgroups become have been known to become nations.

The Palestinians are real. They need and have a right to their homeland.

No political bias in that response.

With that logic, the Democrats, Republicans, and Libertarians could all have their own slice of the country, each creating their own independent nation - Democrata, Republica, and Libertaria. It would be an interesting exercise. I wonder if, over time, each would have their own lingual dialect with each eventually developing into separate and distinct languages? That wouldn't be much of a stretch because each group seems to be speaking a totally different language now.

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"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program." - Ronald Reagan

And that bullshit would be..............

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"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program." - Ronald Reagan

Apparently you disagree with this premise. On what do you base this opinion? AND does this have anything to do with the countries of Democratica, Republica, and Libertaria?

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"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program." - Ronald Reagan

Didn't the U.S. kinda start that way ?

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Sanity is not statistical

[quote=FounDit][
Your idea of splitting the country was argued ad nauseum at this post by Joseph Glantz. You may be interested in reading it. I lost interest in it myself.


So.......... because YOU lost interest in it, I am forbidden from bringing it up again?
I simply responded to a previous poster. She inferred that some 'groups' are capable of forming their own 'national' boundaries, like the Palestinians. I responded to that. It's one of the reasons they call this the 'web'.

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"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program." - Ronald Reagan

In this case society(UN)tries to manage perceived problems in the world
and before you know it, unitended consequenses begin to unfold, again.
Mortal enemies don't ever seem to be able to live together very well.
Go figure! Palestinians are just repeating the history of the region.
So fight it out and may the conquerer take all. For now! Just an opinion.

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Off to Singapore for a spell!

Newt has about as much respect for historical fidelity as he has for his four wives. This week in his latest effort to convince the Conservative Unconvinced, Newt made his fourth pledge (current spouse present) not to commit adultery, having committed adultery in his previous three tries. The Lord loves recidivists, but only a fool believes them.

What has Newt's marital infidelity to do with Palestine, you ask? Well, my argument is that the Truth with a capital "T" is as malleable as candle wax, squishy if you get my meaning, in the hands of a pandering demagogue like Newt. Palestinians, Schmallestinians, it's all the same. The Truth is "what it takes" to get elected. Invalidate the Palestinians to get the Jewish and Conservative vote, and historical fact be damned!

I agree one hundred percent with HWNN1961's statement of the facts and opinions regarding Palestine and Newt.

Gratified am I in you!


and Us.

And in Ex.


You "get it"

The rest, that forget that the USA, Austraila, other nations are "invented' miss the point.

Here is the BOTTOM LINE:

If a people believe that they exist....

THEY DO.

Sorta like people coming home to the near east after 2000 years away? Sound like anyone familiar you hypocrites?

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"Be without fear in the face of your enemies. Be brave and upright that God may love thee. Speak the truth always, even if it leads to your death. Safeguard the helpless, and do no wrong". (Knight's Oath, Kingdom of Heaven)

Just curious regarding the specific wording of your post. WHEN did the land now called Israel ever officially become THEIR lands - meaning the Palestinians? And if it's true that they ever DID have a 'land', then why isn't Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan also being accused of occupying some of it?

Also, how do you explain the fact that Zahir Muhsein, a member of the PLO, said that there is no such thing as a "Palestinian people' and was created for political purposes only, with no relevance to a people in search of a homeland?

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"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program." - Ronald Reagan

I want to see a copy of that Trouw interview. Can't find it anywhere, only people referring to a translation of it that is everywhere on the internet. I think I might have sourced (edit:no) the translation to Tsafrir Ronen who died in 2008, but his article had no references. The online Trouw archive doesn't go further back than 1994.
I want to see the article because it is interesting, it may well exist, but it seems clear to me that practically no one using this argument on the internet has ever seen this article, and no organization has ever commissioned a second translation of it, though there are many that would have good reason to do so. That should make people on both sides of the debate suspicious.

Edit: I might have been wrong about Ronen being the source of the translation, Farah published it much earlier. (If his article was originally from 2002, but wnd.com isn't very clear about this––why is the copyright from 2011?) It does gives some hope.

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The opposite of hatred is love; the opposite of tyranny is love; the opposite of censorship is love; the opposite of evil is love; the opposite of politics is love; the opposite of war is love; the opposite of god is love.–– Salman Rushdie
Broadly speaking, it is held that getting money is good and spending money is bad. Seeing that they are two sides of one transaction, this is absurd; one might as well maintain that keys are good, but keyholes are bad. Whatever merit there may be in the production of goods must be entirely derivative from the advantage to be obtained by consuming them. –Bertrand Russell
Never believe a liar. Papa, angry people burn our home.

Finns (with Estonians, Karelians and Ingrians) could claim much of the North-Western Russian territories - because our ancestors lived there long before. Finno-Ugrian peoples (aforementioned added with Hungarians) could claim half of the Europe from Denmark to Black Sea and to Urals because that area was inhabited by Finno-Ugrian tribes some 8000 years ago, long before Indo-European Germanic, Baltic and Slavic peoples arrived.

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I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.

Right on the target, Jeech!
And if there are any Neanderthals left they could claim most of the modern Europe to be their lands. Cro Magnons came afterwards.
(Not sure whose descendants modern Finns are ;-)

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I don't know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve.