The continuation of my Israel experience thread

[Hax]

No, you are the one who's lying.

I deal with Muslims on a daily basis. I attend classes , I discuss religion and I talk with Muslims on a daily basis in an academic environment. We have a Jewish girl in our class as well. There has never beenany kind of anti-Jewish sentinment express by anyone, and we have the most diverse kind of Muslims there; Shi‘ites, Sunni converts, Ahmadiyya, Sufis, Turkish supporters of Milli Görüs, Kemalists, etc.

You are not going to tell me who is a "proper" Muslim and that a real Muslim should hate Jews, because in that case, you are severely disconnected from reality. And I mean severely. You're not in any kind of position to pass out any judgement concerning this issue. Unless you believe that the only kind of real Muslims are those in Hamas, well boy, have I got news for you:

Hamas doesn't care about people. They're politicians in the worst sense of the word; my father (a Muslim) has personally talked to members of Hamas and he was less than stellar about them, in fact, he outright despises them for their consistent betrayal of the Palestinian people. Hamas is not interested in helping anyone, they only care about themselves.

How did you enjoy pointing out that Hamas actually is antisemit in the heart of the leeftist church, universities. They all know it's true but you are not supposed to point that out BAD HAX NEINNEINNEINNNEIN.

There are idiots everywhere; I bet that more than half of the people there don't have a basic understanding of Arabic or studied Islamic fundamentalism in the 20th century. I despise people like Gretta Duijsenberg for their betrayal of the legacy of what happened in Europe between 1939 and 1945, in my opinion, they're possibly the worst kind of political scum; to leech off and to abuse the Holocaust while simultaneously expressing support for a self-proclaimed (!) fundamentalist, terrorist organisation. They cannot be condemned hard enough.

Gaza is a welfare state. I don't buy the "unemployment" numbers because a lot of money flows into the country. People who work in the black market still make money but are also counted as unemployed. If they wanted to, they could turn their prime strip of real estate into the next Monte Carlo but their culture won't allow it and they'd loose their sources of free money.

I think I'm going to try to explain this as kindly as I can, but this is one of the worst things I've heard so far. There was an Israeli journalist who said exactly the same thing; "If they wanted to, they can turn Gaza into the next Dubai"; this is basically on the same level of discourse as "Palestine already exists, it's called Jordan" and "The Jews can live in Madagascar".

As an interesting note, after the lecture I went for drinks with the same Jewish girl I mentioned earlier and some of her friends (all of them Israelis themselves). Of course, after a couple of beers people got more loose-tongued and spoke more freely. The proposition that Gaza would magically turn into some kind of wonderland is an idea that has consistently been spread by right-wing Israeli media to justify the siege and blockade of the Gaza strip.

Economic sustainability of the Gaza strip would be a most excellent development. However, Israeli policy is currently directed towards denying any kind of economic self-sustainability or independence. The dismemberment of the Palestinian provinces I mentioned earlier had the goal of severely diminishing the Palestinian economy to the degree that they became completely dependent on humanitarian assistance. As to why? Well, don't forget that Gaza was the stronghold of Arab resistance against the Israelis, and there is a theory that this is just a way for punishment. I don't know. However, there is an undeniable fact, whether you like it or not, and that is that Israel's blockade and siege of Gaza have ground the economy to a near-halt.

In a sense, you're definitely correct. Gaza is a welfare state. Gaza has never been given the opportunity, neither by Israel nor by Hamas (and I can't stress this last point enough) to have their own functioning economy.

Yeah, well unfortunately thats seems to be a cornerstone of religious Muslims.

Ultra-orthodox. Salafis. Jihadis.

My grandfather was a member of the Sufi Rahmaniya movement (who incidentally, also led the Turkish resistance against the French in Algeria). From what I've heard (I've never known him personally), he was one of the most humble people my parents ever knew.

This is just my personal opinion; from what I've personally experienced with Muslims here (there's just one guy, a Dutch convert whom I very much dislike) and abroad that they are helpful, humble and very hospitable.

Interesting opinion. It reminds me of what was said about Iraq: We invaded a subsidized welfare state with a poor work ethic and told them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Naturally, they objected.

So the presence of foreign troops on their soil and the fact that a pro-western Shi‘ite-majority government was appointed had totally nothing to do with it.

Those damn Ay-rabs and their laziness.