"This is MY land! God gave it to me!"

WATCH THIS.

No, I haven't yet learned to embed videos. You'll just have to click the link.

So what we have is a UK (possibly BBC, I'm not sure) film crew being threatened by a couple of young Israeli punks.

It's pretty typical offensive young male behaviour but what distinguishes it from most of that stuff is some specifically Israeli/Zionist attitudes. I'm not even concerned with the part where the mouthiest of the kids says, "we killed Jesus! We're proud of it!" which did make me laugh, frankly.

It's the attitude that they can just go into Palestinian homes, threaten people, and back it up by saying, "it's my land! God gave it to me!"

One can't help feeling that this attitude is probably pretty widespread in Israel.

That's quite a potty mouth for a so called chosen child of God. Think God will get the bar of soap?

Also I don't see what's so funny about the killing Jesus part.

But yes, drunk young male. Show me one drunk young male who isn't an idiot.

reply to post by rich23


Hey, cheer up, rich23. I just spoke with god and told him what the Zionists have been doing and he changed his mind and said ya'll can take that land back from them baby killers. Ain't that good news? I'm elated! Now, please excuse me, I'm gonna phone Ahmadinejad and tell him he can go ahead with his plans.

I think the part about killing Jesus is funny a) because it's just a sadly mis-aimed attempt to wind up the camera crew, b) because when I was young and wanted to upset someone or wind them up I myself might have said anything to do so, and c) because I regard religion in general as superstitious nonsense used to control people and elicit tribal responses. That goes double for Christianity, which has arguably been responsible for more bloodshed on the planet than any other faith, not that I've done the numbers.

Or, to be strictly accurate, those professing themselves Christian are just as likely to commit war crimes as anyone else.

As I said in the OP, I don't think it's just a drunk kid mouthing off. I think he got that attitude from his parents. The settlers seem to be the most extremist of the bunch in Israel, and it's not just kids who have that attitude. This punk is unusually obnoxious, though. Which that observant hairstyle makes even funnier, for me.

And in the story it says he's drunk. I can't smell his breath from here butit doesn't look to me as though he's that drunk.

Oh please, no one has ever heard drunk, charged up guys make stupid threats! One sneeze would have knocked these knuckleheads out. The blasphemous part made me laugh, it reminded me of Hank the Angry Drunken Dwarf from Howard Stern yelling "go have sex with Jesus Christ!"

Oh please, read what I actually wrote. Where did these attitudes come from? Those kids learned those attitudes somewhere. The fact that they might be drunk - and I'm not sure they are - excuses nothing.

Whats your point? Shall I post the thousands of Islamic videos showing their so-called holy connection to the land? Or maybe a video where Muslim soldiers behead their enemies. What is funny is that this video has been posted before. And you know in what context? As a reply to a video showing the atrocities of Muslims! Talk about hypocrisy....I wish I could down rate you for your pathetic attempt at propaganda.

Er... right. Just because I think what Israel's up to is vile I must therefore be pro-Muslim, right? Wrong.

However, we in the West are the ones who are funding Israel and the US in particular has shielded them from the disdain of the world by using its UN veto.

We're also engaged in wars of conquest in two Muslim countries to secure access to oil and to try to impose puppet regimes, again. So I can understand why it's going to radicalise Muslims. So did the security services which warned our beloved leaders about this.

And it's not as if they haven't had experience. One example that springs to mind is the reaction to years of the Shah's rule in Iran. There was a modern, democratic government in Iran but Mossadegh wanted to kick out the multinationals so Iran's oil wealth would be used to benefit its own people. That couldn't be allowed to happen, so Kermit Roosevelt helped to install a puppet government!

(Groan...)

The CIA trained and equipped one of the most vicious secret police cadres on the planet - they're very good at that kind of thing - and the Imams eventually stepped in to fill the need of the people for the end of the Shah's yoke.

CIA intervention led directly to Islamic radicalisation.

Likewise the Zionist land-grab has led, ultimately, to where we are now, with me expressing a natural disdain for an apartheid regime, and you defending their crimes against humanity.

I hope that's cleared up that little misunderstanding.

Originally posted by rich23
"This is MY land! God gave it to me!"

Last I saw - EVERYONE over there says this kind of thing.

Israeli and Hamas.

God's chosen people. The people of the 'convert or die' religion.

They both think they are entitled and right.

Truth is - none of them are.

A) I am ashamed that those Israelis behaved as they did.
B) They were not drunk.
C) Morons could be found everywhere.
It was realy ironic ne of idiots "I am going to kill you and Palestinians. You... You... Nazi." Yeah. Which one of them is more like Nazi, him or journalist?
As for your assumption that Israelis think this way - it is just that. You cannot extrapolate from what two teenage representatives of extreme right said to general intent of millions of people.

Video aside, the land should belong to those that will take care of it better.
I mean, Israelis gave up some land that eventually got neglected by the Paletinians. We're talking about good working nurseries and green houses that are now completely gone and useless.
For what?

Don't pigeon hole an entire group of people based on the actions of some young crazy spoiled brat.

Besides, it's better to take land than nuke it.

FlyersFan : if you can post a link where a member of Hamas says, "this is my land, Allah gave it to me, then please do.

As far as I know, their argument is, "this is my land until I was forcibly evicted quite recently."

Edited to make clear it's a response to FlyersFan

[edit on 18-1-2009 by rich23]

Originally posted by Alxandro
Video aside, the land should belong to those that will take care of it better.
I mean, Israelis gave up some land that eventually got neglected by the Paletinians. We're talking about good working nurseries and green houses that are now completely gone and useless.
For what?

Can you provide any links to back up this assertion? I can certainly support the case that the Israelis have repeatedly bulldozed Palestinian olive groves.

This article is only one example.

The destruction of the olive groves is continuing at Huwwarah. Sixty other olive-farmers in the village have suffered losses: they estimated 2,500 olive trees have been torn up by the Israeli army or Jewish settlers.

Two weeks ago the Palestinian Authority announced that in the past seven months 25,000 olive trees had been uprooted in the West Bank and Gaza.

But of course, it's all in the name of security. Olive groves can be used as cover by Palestinians, says the IDF. Nazi-style collective punishment? not a bit of it.

Besides, it's better to take land than nuke it.

The above, I think, is a real contender for "dumbest comment I've ever seen on ATS". Sorry, but there it is.

Originally posted by Sara1
That's quite a potty mouth for a so called chosen child of God. Think God will get the bar of soap?

Also I don't see what's so funny about the killing Jesus part.

But yes, drunk young male. Show me one drunk young male who isn't an idiot.

Its very funny because jews do not believe that jesus has come the first time yet. That is why they always cheer "Next year in Jerusalem" at the end of the passover feast.

reply to post by rich23


I never said you were pro-Muslim

I was pointing out how the same video you posted was used as a response to counter an Islamic extremist video. My overall point, which I thought was pretty clear, was that you can find idiots on both sides.

So, please save me and everyone else the lecture and next time start your thread with a constructive point instead of propaganda.

ZeroKnowledge - I starred your post.

Nice handle, too, modesty and irony are enchanting qualities.

Originally posted by ZeroKnowledge
A) I am ashamed that those Israelis behaved as they did.
B) They were not drunk.
C) Morons could be found everywhere.

A) Good for you.
B) Glad we agree.
C) Can't they just.

And you're right with the Nazi thing, too, and for an Israeli that can't be easy to admit. If I may make a small point, that kind of fascist reaction can only issue from a people living in fear. Whether it's Nazi Germany or late 20th-century America or Israel, it's the fear that makes people act that way.

However...

As for your assumption that Israelis think this way - it is just that.

Ouch! Please read my posts again. If you can point to anything I've said that necessarily tars all Israelis with the same brush, please do so and I'll immediately issue a grovelling apology. That was never my intent. If you elect to reply to this, please either show me where I erred or admit that you misread my posts. I just want to clear that issue up.

[quote#You cannot extrapolate from what two teenage representatives of extreme right said to general intent of millions of people.

Absolutely. I'm fully aware that there are many Israeli Jews who would condemn this kind of conduct. It's a difficult and intractable situation. However, what I've seen about settlers inclines me to think that they'd tend to be more aggressive than many Israelis - they'd need to be to go and take land directly from people who are living on it. I've several times run across articles like this one...

Last October extremist religious Jewish residents of the Palestinian city of Akka (Acre), who were forcefully implanted in the old town in the middle of Palestinian residents and in the suburbs around the city, had perpetrated a wave of attack against their Palestinian neighbors, fired at them with automatic weapons, and set fire to some Palestinian homes. All this was happening under the sight and protection of Israeli police and soldiers, who arrested any Palestinian trying to protect his home. Watch their terror in Akka here.

You seem like a reasonable person with a moral compass. You probably have some idea of what the IDF is doing, and probably understand that the long-term goal of successive Israeli governments is ethnic cleansing.

Is this how you see it? If not, then how do you see it? And if so, how does it make you feel?

reply to post by rich23

One can't help feeling that this attitude is probably pretty widespread in Israel.

This is the reason for "extrapolation" and "assumption" lines.
There are extremist groups, they are certainly not small - thousands of people surely. Their main idea is that whole land of Israel is only for Jews, just as presented in all its "glory" in this video.
Majority of those groups come from settlers (definition of Israelis who live behind 1967 borders) movement, but even in this sector they are a minority.
There are about 200000 settlers and yet incidents of harassing Palestinians/destroying property/or even physically harming them are not wide spread. Ideally of course it should be 0 of those incidents but with charged ideology, conflict and constant friction it is not possible. By the way - there are cases of Palestinians doing the same to Israelis, settlers or not.
And here we come to Acre case.
Acre was indeed supposed to go to independent Arab state according to 1948 partition plan. It had Arab majority. But due to refusal of Arab side to accept to partition plan war started and Acre was captured in 1948. Nobody right now (i mean in talks between Israel and Palestine) considers Acre a Palestinian city. It is Israeli city with Israeli citizens (Arabs or Jews). There could be no settlers there.Israeli Arab living in Tel Aviv is settler? Why then Israeli Jew living in Acre is settler? Two thirds of population of Acre are Jews. In old city center majority are Arabs but once again - Jew living there is not a settler. No more then English person in Scotland.
Indeed there were riots in 2008 in Acre when Arab taxi driver passed through Jewish neighborhood in Yom Kippur and got stoned thrown at him by Jewish residents. The whole thing got out of control pretty quick and Jew and Arab youth started to attack each, police, property and such. Both sides blamed each other for escalation , but from my point of view Yom Kippur is not a reason to throw stones. I am not even sure that it is allowed. I am pretty sure though that Arab does not have to obey to Jewish holiday rules. Even if there was loud music coming from his car and such (as it is described by witnesses).
If you want to read something closer to truth about this incident then hmmm... source (if it can be called so) that you quoted:
www.nytimes.com...

Originally posted by rich23
One can't help feeling that this attitude is probably pretty widespread in Israel.

Unfortunately, that is how many will think. It's important to understand that not all Jews think like this. Majority or minority, I don't know. But certainly not all.

These punks are simply creating more "anti-semites". They are doing their people no favours.

As soon as any race implies it is better or more important than others, it will naturally turn others against them.

Originally posted by rich23
I'm not even concerned with the part where the mouthiest of the kids says, "we killed Jesus! We're proud of it!"

Which "God" are they referring to if he gave this land to people who brag that they killed someone famous for doing good?

These kids are really shooting themselves in the foot...

[edit on 19/1/09 by NuclearPaul]

Originally posted by rich23

Originally posted by Alxandro
Video aside, the land should belong to those that will take care of it better.
I mean, Israelis gave up some land that eventually got neglected by the Paletinians. We're talking about good working nurseries and green houses that are now completely gone and useless.
For what?

Can you provide any links to back up this assertion? I can certainly support the case that the Israelis have repeatedly bulldozed Palestinian olive groves.

Just what you asked for, and it didn't take me very long to find it.

In the meantime, Hamas could successfully prepare for the next round. It acquired Iranian rockets that were equally inaccurate but carried larger warheads, had a longer range and contained numerous tiny steel balls, in order to increase the civilian casualties over a larger radius. Again, the inaccuracy of the rockets guaranteed that they could only be sent into random civilian targets. But now the rocket range covered a population of close to one million Israelis and the damage is much more significant.

Larger and better rockets were now stored in mosques, schools, hospitals and normal apartment buildings. Mortars were added to the menu of shooting at Israeli civilians. Schools financed by the UN were used in order to launch mortar shells and missiles. The greenhouses left intact by the withdrawing Israelis were destroyed, their metal parts were converted to primitive rockets and their locations became favorite launching areas. Launching rockets at the Israeli population brings a much better income than growing strawberries and flowers in greenhouses.

full story

and another..

The Israelis left behind a horticulture industry based on multimillion-dollar hi-tech greenhouses, hoping the withdrawal would allow Gaza to become the nucleus of a peaceful and prosperous future Palestinian state. Instead, Hamas destroyed the greenhouses in a few weeks and turned Gaza into a den of violence and oppression, killing hundreds of Palestinian opponents and instituting Shari'a law.

link too

BTW, I'll repeat again what I stated earlier, only this time using quotation marks to emphasize what many seem to believe:

It is better to "take land" than it is to nuke it.

Thanks for your reply.

Originally posted by ZeroKnowledge

One can't help feeling that this attitude is probably pretty widespread in Israel.

This is the reason for "extrapolation" and "assumption" lines.

My intention was simply to show why I was thinking along those lines. I'm open to correction, and I apologise for any offence caused.

It's also a pleasure to converse with someone who's not an extremist. At times it seems like this site is full of people (or maybe I'm just meeting the wrong ones) who just want to wipe out the Palestinians.

Maybe I'm an optimist, but I can't help thinking there's a way for everyone to get along. But it would involve giving the dispossessed Palestinians a big enough chunk of land to themselves, with adequate water supplies, and not lots of tiny bits.

But I'm an optimist and I realise that the intricacies of the history - even the last couple of decades - are very difficult to grasp.

There are extremist groups, they are certainly not small - thousands of people surely. ... Majority of those groups come from settlers (...) movement, but even in this sector they are a minority.

Question. One argument I've come across is that the long-term goal of Israeli governments for the past many years is essentially to drive out the Palestinians. Do you think this is true?

There are about 200000 settlers and yet incidents of harassing Palestinians/destroying property/or even physically harming them are not wide spread.

Now, I've definitely formed the opposite impression from what I've read. Please understand I'm not calling you a liar! I'm just trying to figure out what's going on. I need to do more reading, which may take a while.

One thing occurs to me, though. I know very well that propaganda is part of the media in any state. I've seen through enough of it in my own country, and in the US, where I lived for a while. If you have a look at
you';; see a very careful study showing that in the US media, Palestinian casualties are under-reported and Israeli casualties are over-reported, giving a distorted picture of the situation. Please view the video, I'd like to know what you think.

Now if the so-called "Jewish lobby" in the US can distort the picture as badly as you see in the video, can you be sure that the picture you're getting from Israeli media is accurate?

If there is distortion there, it would account for the discrepancy in our perceptions.

By the way - there are cases of Palestinians doing the same to Israelis, settlers or not.

Of course. I'm not making anyone out to be blameless or saintly here.

And here we come to Acre case.

Ow ow ow. My head hurts. It's ALL SO COMPLICATED! Thanks for a great summary, though. And I liked the thing about an Englishman living in Scotland.

Which by the way is an interesting situation. Scotland's been part of the UK since the early 17th Century, but now the Scots can see the North Sea oil wealth (which, if they were an independent country, they'd be entitled to) bypass their economy almost completely. That's led to a big resurgence in the desire for independence... which won't happen because of the oil.

And to understand what's going on better, I'm clearly going to have to get some maps.

I've shied away from Israeli history, politics and geography in the past because it's all so complicated. I read a summary of the situation years ago by Chomsky and it's just insanely convoluted. Nowadays, the attacks on Gaza make me cross because I don't like civilians being targeted - and a few other high-profile cases like Rachael Corrie are pretty shocking to me, too. So my dilemma is that I want to be able to debate the issues here but without doing anyone's side an injustice, and without making a fool of myself.

Thanks for your account of the Yom Kippur incident in Acre...

...but from my point of view Yom Kippur is not a reason to throw stones. I am not even sure that it is allowed. I am pretty sure though that Arab does not have to obey to Jewish holiday rules. Even if there was loud music coming from his car and such (as it is described by witnesses).

Kind of dumb on the taxi driver's part, but I do like your comments about the situation. Is it right to disturb a religious festival? No. Is stone-throwing and rioting the answer? No.

When I posted the thing about Acre I just found the first thing I could that illustrated the point I was trying to make. I'll have a look at your link, re-read mine, see what else I can dig up, and get back to you.

Thanks for your post.