home

Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World

By Jeralyn, Section Foreign Affairs
Posted on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 01:53:12 PM EST
Tags: (all tags)
Share This: Digg! StumbleUpon del.icio.us reddit reddit

A friend sent me this. I didn't find a source for it other than the Feb. 2006 The Jewish Magazine, but I find it provacative and food for thought. What do you think?

The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000, or 20% of the world population.

They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1988 - Najib Mahfooz

Peace:
1978 - Mohamed Anwar El-Sadat
1994 - Yaser Arafat
1990 - Elias James Corey
1999 - Ahmed Zewa

Economics:
(none)

Medicine:
1960 - Peter Brian Medawar
1998 - Ferid Mourad

The Global Jewish population is approximately 14,000,000, or about 0.02% of the world population.They have received the following Nobel Prizes:

Literature:
1910 - Paul Heyse
1927 - Henri Bergson
1958 - Boris Pasternak
1966 - Shmuel Yosef Agnon
1966 - Nelly Sachs
1976 - Saul Bellow
1978 - Isaac Bashevis Singer
1981 - Elias Canetti
1987 - Joseph Brodsky
1991 - Nadine Gordimer World

Peace:
1911 - Alfred Fried
1911 - Tobias Michael Carel Asser
1968 - Rene Cassin
1973 - Henry Kissinger
1978 - Menachem Begin
1986 - Elie Wiesel
1994 - Shimon Peres
1994 - Yitzhak Rabin

Physics:
1905 - Adolph Von Baeyer
1906 - Henri Moissan
1907 - Albert Abraham Michelson
1908 - Gabriel Lippmann
1910 - Otto Wallach
1915 - Richard Willstaetter
1918 - Fritz Haber
1921 - Albert Einstein
1922 - Niels Bohr
1925 - James Franck
1925 - Gustav Hertz
1943 - Gustav Stern
1943 - George Charles de Hevesy
1944 - Isidor Issac Rabi
1952 - Felix Bloc h
1954 - Max Born
1958 - Igor Tamm
1959 - Emilio Segre
1960 - Donald A. Glaser
1961 - Robert Hofstadter
1961 - Melvin Calvin
1962 - Lev Davidovich Landau
1962 - Max Ferdinand Perutz
1965 - Richard Phillips Feynman
1965 - Julian Schwinger
1969 - Murray Gell-Mann
1971 - Dennis Gabor
1972 - William Howard Stein
1973 - Brian David Josephson
1975 - Benjamin Mottleson
1976 - Burton Richter
1977 - Ilya Prigogine
1978 - Arno Allan Penzias
1978 - Peter L Kapitza
1979 - Stephen Weinberg
1979 - Sheldon Glashow
1979 - Herbert Charle s Brown
1980 - Paul Berg
1980 - Walter Gilbert
1981 - Roald Hoffmann
1982 - Aaron Klug
1985 - Albert A. Hauptman
1985 - Jerome Karle
1986 - Dudley R. Herschbach
1988 - Robert Huber
1988 - Leon Lederman
1988 - Melvin Schwartz
1988 - Jack Steinberger
1989 - Sidney Altman
1990 - Jerome Friedman
1992 - Rudolph Marcus
1995 - Martin Perl
2000 - Alan J. Heeger

Economics:
1970 - Paul Anthony Samuelson
1971 - Simon Kuznets
1972 - Kenneth Joseph Arrow
1975 - Leonid Kantorovich
1976 - Milton Friedman
1978 - Herbert A. Simon
1980 - Lawrence Robert Klein
1985 - Franco Modigliani
1987 - Robert M. Solow
1990 - Harry Markowitz
1990 - Merton Miller
1992 - Gary Becker
1993 - Robert Fogel

Medicine:
1908 - Elie Metchnikoff
1908 - Paul Erlich
1914 - Robert Barany
1922 - Otto Meyerhof
1930 - Karl Landsteiner
1931 - Otto Warburg
1936 - Otto Loewi
1944 - Joseph Erlanger
1944 - Herbert Spencer Gasser
1945 - Ernst Boris Chain
1946 - Hermann Joseph Muller
1950 - Tadeus Reichstein
1952 - Selman Abra ham Waksman
1953 - Hans Krebs
1953 - Fritz Albert Lipmann
1958 - Joshua Lederberg
1959 - Arthur Kornberg
1964 - Konrad Bloch
1965 - Francois Jaco b
1965 - Andre Lwoff
1967 - George Wald
1968 - Marshall W. Nirenberg
1969 - Salvador Luria
1970 - Julius Axelrod
1970 - Sir Bernard Katz
1972 - Gerald Maurice Edelman
1975 - Howard Martin Temin
1976 - Baruch S. Blumberg
1977 - Roselyn Sussman Yalow
1978 - Daniel Nathans
1980 - Baruj Benacerraf
1984 - Cesar Milstein
1985 - Michael Stuart Brown
1985 - Joseph L. Goldstein
1986 - Stanley Cohen [& Rita Levi-Montalcini]
1988 - Gertrude Elion
1989 - Harold Varmus
1991 - Erwin Neher
1991 - Bert Sakmann
1993 - Richard J. Roberts
1993 - Phillip Sharp
1994 - Alfred Gilman
1995 - Edward B. Lewis

The Jews are not promoting brain washing the children in military training camps, teaching them how to blow themselves up and cause maximum deaths of Jews and other non Muslims.

The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics.

The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels.

Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems.

Regardless of your feelings about the crisis between Israel and the Palestinians and Arab neighbors, even if you believe there is more culpability on Israel's part , the following two sentences really say it all:

If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence.
If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel.

< Katrina Anniversary: Open Thread | Late Night Music: New Orleans (Johnny Cash and Arlo Guthrie) >

  • The Online Magazine with Liberal coverage of crime-related political and injustice news

  • Contribute To TalkLeft


    • Display: Sort:
    Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World | 39 comments (39 topical)
    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#1)
    by roger on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 02:25:44 PM EST
    As pointed out in the link, one of the members of the committee resigned over Arafat's prize. One further thought; the arab world produced the world's greatest mathematicians and scientists for centuries, now they produce religious fanatics.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 02:29:12 PM EST
    Listen to Wafa Sultan on the very same subject.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#3)
    by rdandrea on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 02:38:07 PM EST
    Sounds like two more teams needed for "Survivor"

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#4)
    by Peaches on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 02:45:39 PM EST
    It might be illuminating to compare population percentages and Nobel prize winners of Jewish ancestry to Asains? Chinese? Then to Catholics. After that to Protestants. Then we can compare nobel prize winners of jewish ancestry to Latin Americans. How about Africans? I wonder what would happen if we compare Native Americans, Aborigines, etc.? What is it we are trying to uncover here? Are we investigating the procedure for choosing Nobel prize winners, making a comment on Jewish genetic superiority, or observing another statistic revealing disparities between the colonizers and colonies - East/west - north/south or developed and developing?

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#5)
    by scribe on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 02:48:23 PM EST
    IMHO, even if well-intended this sort of article is the kind of piece which can be used for many purposes, a lot of them ill. One could easily draw from it the same conclusions anti-black racists did about the futility of educating blacks while they were simultaneously justifying separate-but-equal segregation. Or, for that matter, the racists' arguments about the propensity of blacks to commit crimes - if the cops are looking at blacks as criminals, they'll find crimes there. The prior comment about using the list to militate for better education in the Muslim countries has some merit, but I opine one would also have to look toward the fact that most of those countries have entrenched lousy political systems, that the policies of better-developed countries toward the Muslim countries have been, for a long time, intended to allow extraction of whatever resources those countries held, with the wealth derived therefrom shipped out of the country, too (and used to perpetuate the pliant regimes), and that in the event a Muslim should make it to a better developed country, he or she is likely to be relegated to a low station through discrimination. I believe (without having done exacting research) one would find many of the Jewish recipients from earlier days were from Central Europe (where there were good-sized assimilated or semi-assimilated Jewish communities and education was available), and the Americans' names did not become prominent until after de facto anti-Semitic discrimination in elite US universities passed from the scene post-WW II. Today, anti-Muslim discrimination is the favored new style, and until that (and 20 or 30 more years) passes, we will not see any appreciable change in the composition of such lists. There are better ideas than lists such as this.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#6)
    by jondee on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 02:53:24 PM EST
    Roger - Just wait till I publish the white vs black Nobel winners. If you liked this one, you'll really like that one.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#7)
    by Edger on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 03:03:18 PM EST
    the arab world produced the world's greatest mathematicians and scientists for centuries, now they produce religious fanatics. Funny, isn't it. Just like the christian world, or any other society, they produce the best and the worst and everything in between. And that makes them, gasp, human (with all the failings and promise that that implies)...

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#8)
    by squeaky on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 03:07:14 PM EST
    Take the guns away from the Arabs and give them bows and arrows? According to the logoc here Israel would do just what America did to the 'Indians' and take their land. Scribe has it right. Phrenology used to be the bees knees. It is dangerous to stereotype, nothing good can come of it. Oscar: Wafa Sultan saw her teacher get blown away by the Muslim Brotherhood. Now she is a neocon. What do you think that the Lebanese people think about the Israelies now that they have seen their children get blown up by US cluster bombs?

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 03:10:49 PM EST
    You people! Comparing this list of two long-ago civilized societies to a list of, say, black vs. white is ridiculous. Historically, central and southern Africa has not had the civilization and education that "whites" have had. Saying that the above is like comparing black and white would be just as absurd as comparing German scholars to Tuhoe scholars.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#10)
    by Sailor on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 03:28:35 PM EST
    We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.-A. Coulter
    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#11)
    by Lww on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 03:29:45 PM EST
    Tl, I always knew they were smarter than me. That's a no-brainer. The problem was I had a nagging feeling they thought they were a little better than me. Just got naggier.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#12)
    by Edger on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 03:34:58 PM EST
    We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity.-A. Coulter
    The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell."


    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#13)
    by soccerdad on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 03:55:43 PM EST
    sounds like your basic excuse to kill Muslims. Yep they are inferior its ok to kill them. Thats waht has been expressed her by the likes of PPJ et al. So if the Asians are better than the Jews can we kill the Jews? or the Ameriacans or who ever else is below. Lets see who else we can purposely denigrate to help our political ends. Fits right in with the Israelis assuming they are morally superior to everyone no matter how many people they oppress. The last paragarph is pure BS. I'm really tired of the Israelis whinning like they are going out of existence when they are the ones with Nukes, F16's, atomic subs. There are members of Likus who have called for the destruction of all Palestinians and Syria. There are lunatics everywhere.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 04:02:10 PM EST
    What is it we are trying to uncover here?
    I see it as much more of a cultural statement than a statement about race. Jewish people have been historically oppressed (That there are only 14,000,000 in the world today speaks to the scope of the Holocaust, which killed 6,000,000). And Jews have never enjoyed majority status anywhere other than Isreal. But in spite of this adversity, and a relatively minescule population, the Jewish people have racked up a laundry list of laudable accomplishments in a wide variety of fields. The collective accomplishments of the islamic world add up to a fraction of this list, despite having a population 1000 times larger. The point that I think the lists are "trying to uncover" is that maybe the islamic world should stop worrying about Isreal and jihad and turn its attention toward more productive endeavors. Another message might be to admonish the the islamic and western worlds for acting like Jews are the source of the World's problems. They aren't. In fact, they've done a lot of good and the isamic world could learn a thing or two from their example.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#15)
    by jondee on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 04:02:46 PM EST
    Scratch Begin and Kissinger if you're going scratch Arafat. Or, you could posthumously nominate Meyer Lansky; he had his moments.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#17)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 04:34:15 PM EST
    edger, Point well taken. I should have put a time qualifier on my statements, maybe the last 50-100 years. There's no denying the vast accomplishments of the ancient islamic world. But I think that if you compared those ancient accomplishments against those of Europe during the pre-renaisance dark ages, it would look a lot like the inverse of the list above. And I think that would be a fair commentary on where those respective cultures were at that point in time. I think it's a fair comparison here too.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#18)
    by jondee on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 04:50:51 PM EST
    As Blake said, "A truth that's told with bad intent is worse than all the lies you can invent." One of the winners, Yitzak Rabin was murdered by the type of people that glory in lists like this.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#16)
    by Edger on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 04:53:07 PM EST
    Hues: The collective accomplishments of the islamic world add up to a fraction of this list, despite having a population 1000 times larger. The Golden Age of Islam "The accomplishments of Islam's Golden Age are too numerous to mention. Massive translation and copying projects made Greek, Roman, and Sanskrit knowledge available to Arabic-speaking scholars across the empire. Medieval Europe received the Hellenic classics that made the Renaissance possible mostly through Arabic translations. Building on Hellenic, Persian, and Hindu sources, physicians within the Islamic Empire advanced medical knowledge enormously. Perhaps their most significant single achievement was the establishment of medicine as a science based on observation and experimentation, rather than on conjecture. Islamic scientists developed the rudiments of what would later be called the scientific method. Seventy-five years after the death of Prophet Muhammad (s), the first of many free public hospitals was opened in Damascus. Asylums were maintained throughout the empire for the care of the mentally ill. In the early 10th century, Spanish physician Abu Bakr al-Razi introduced the use of antiseptics in cleaning wounds, and also made the connection between bacteria and infection. Al-Hasan published a definitive study on optics (the science of light and vision) in 965. Thirteenth-century Muslim physician Ibn al-Nafis discovered and accurately described the functioning of the human circulatory system. Islamic veterinary science led the field for centuries, particularly in the study and treatment of horses." (see the link for much more)

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#19)
    by Edger on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 04:58:05 PM EST
    Hues - Your points are well taken, also. I think really that I posted that out of my usual tendency towards looking for and encouraging the best from people. Did you see the second to last paragraph in the link?
    For more than 1,000 years the Islamic Civilisation remained the most advanced and progressive in the world.
    I don't know of any societies since Rome and Egypt for which that can be said, but for most of my life I've worked in marketing and sales and if I've learned anything from that it's that life is somewhat like a roller coaster. The top of the hill is the place to worry because the track goes downhill from there, but at the bottom of the hills the track has nowhere to go but... up.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#20)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 05:05:28 PM EST
    Sigh. You know Muslims/Arabs are the low persons on the totem pole when racist claptrap like this is posted on purportedly "left" sites. Starting from the title "Some thoughts on Israel and the Arab World" - The first line of the email forward says: The Global Islamic population is approximately 1,200,000,000, or 20% of the world population. Just as not all Arabs are Muslim, so not all Muslims are Arabs. I have no idea what percentage of the Global Islamic population is Arab, but maybe someone can look it up if it's needed. There are, however, longstanding Muslim communities in China, Indonesia, Russia and other Eastern European countries, the UK, etc, etc, etc. In addition to what scribe and Peaches and others have said above, I don't follow the Nobel prize committee and how they describe their winners, but is religion a part of it? Have there been non Christian, non Jewish winners of Nobel prizes, and if so, where are the religions listed? And, more importantly, why? The Jews don't hijack planes, nor kill athletes at the Olympics. The Jews don't traffic slaves, nor have leaders calling for Jihad and death to all the Infidels. The religious Jewish community has its nutters as well - in fact, a Jewish attempted terrorist was arrested, convicted and put in prison in CA not too long ago; his target was mosques and other Muslim centers - but, as with the 1.4 billion or so Muslims, they are the minority. I won't get into the Christian nutters, although I think they are running our country, sigh. Perhaps the world's Muslims should consider investing more in standard education and less in blaming the Jews for all their problems. This is just flat out racist nonsense. A good many of the "world's Muslims" are highly educated, have doctorates and phds and all the other little papers, are teachers, scientists, philosophers, astronomers, doctors and so and and so on, as well as farmers, laborers and etc. Some may blame the Jews, or more accurately Israel, for many situations but especially for the Palestinian issue, but they don't all do so out of ignorance and being religiously brainwashed. There are any number of issues and points of view to be addressed regarding problems in the middle east, Muslims worldwide and the radicals in their religion, Western fear of Muslims, anti Arab racism, anti Jewish racism and more besides, but the starting place for debate shouldn't be "Jews are smart and contribute to society, Muslims are stupid and do nothing but blow people up because they are ignorant and blame Jews for their problems" or whatever this tripe is saying. This sort of thing does neither Jews nor Muslims any favors.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#21)
    by soccerdad on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 05:28:05 PM EST
    a thought provoking article by URI AVNERY Well worth the read.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#22)
    by Richard Aubrey on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 05:59:12 PM EST
    Most of the scientific and mathematical accomplishments of the ancient Arab world consisted of saving and passing on nuggets from Persia, India, and the Hellenistic world as it was transmitted through the Byzantine Empire. Unfortunately for a great many people, that form of Islam lost to a more severe type in many places. The Seljuk Turks were reasonably civilized for that time and place. For that reason, or some other, the less civilized Ottoman Turks took over. Lesson there, someplace. But the history lesson is about as useful as remembering the Irish saved civilization when trying to figure out what to do about the IRA.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#23)
    by Linkmeister on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 06:57:19 PM EST
    The only thing one should take from this letter is that Islam really really needs the equivalent of the Reformation.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#24)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 08:00:35 PM EST
    puh-leeeeeeze The Jerusalem Syndrome

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#25)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 08:02:57 PM EST
    I'm with Nanette on this one. This Jewish woman personally could do without "food for thought" like this one. I'm not as good at articulating the reasons why stuff like this bothers me (though seems to me it's generally unproductive if not dangerous to talk up the supposed intrinsic superiority or inferiority of this group versus that, and this piece conveniently leaves out a whole lot o'history.) Let me just say that I've seen plenty of stuff like this forwarded around the internets -- it doesn't really shed much light on anything. It's just intended to promote one side over the other. Maybe not "brainwashing" but it's certainly propaganda! Anyway, material like this is NOT why I read TalkLeft. Keep doing the great commentary and news updates you do and leave the gross stereotyping to FreeRepublic.com (who have already printed this piece anyway) p.s. Who the blankety-blank is "Nadine Gordimer World" when she's at home? Nadine Gordimer I'm familiar with. Ditto "Najib Mahfooz" may be some clown, but Naguib Mahfouz is a great novelist -- the Cairo Trilogy is terrific.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#26)
    by Andreas on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 08:43:52 PM EST
    Talkleft wrote:
    If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence.
    That is not correct. As long as Israel is not dismantled there will be no peace.
    Israel continues to pound Gaza and the West Bank with a daily barrage of artillery shells, missile strikes, and assassinations and arrests of alleged militants. While Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government has agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon, it has given no indication that it intends to suspend its criminal offensive in Gaza. The Israeli Defence Forces' (IDF) "Operation Summer Rains" is now in its ninth week. With the full backing of the Bush administration, Tel Aviv aims to obliterate what remains of Palestinian economic and social infrastructure and terrorise the defenceless population into submission.
    Israel maintains offensive in Gaza and the West Bank By Rick Kelly, 29 August 2006

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#27)
    by Aaron on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 08:50:59 PM EST
    Approximately 12% of the world's Muslims are Arab.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#28)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 03:51:10 AM EST
    TL: Spot on! Nanette:
    Just as not all Arabs are Muslim, so not all Muslims are Arabs. I have no idea what percentage of the Global Islamic population is Arab, but maybe someone can look it up if it's needed.
    1. You could look it up. Your point would have been better made. 2. Muslims are practicers of Islam, a religion. There are all colors of people who are muslim.
    Sigh. You know Muslims/Arabs are the low persons on the totem pole when racist claptrap like this is posted on purportedly "left" sites.
    How can it be racist if there are White, Asian, Arab, and black muslims? I think you have the terms bigoted and racist confused. Happens alot, especially here. Sailor: Try to stay on topic, PPJ! oops, sorry Sailor. Andreas: where do you want to send the Jewish inhabitants of the former Israel once you dismantle the country?

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#29)
    by roger on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 04:42:33 AM EST
    Jondee, Congrats! Two slurs in one sentence. When will you try for three? Andreas, Rhetoric like that only fuels the conflict, is that what you really want? Linkmeister, Go to Turkey, I think that you would like much of what you see. The Turks show that one can be modern and Muslim, keeping the best of both.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#30)
    by roger on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 04:52:26 AM EST
    Some sad news

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#31)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 05:45:12 AM EST
    This is a very strange post for this site. It's really odd that you posted it without comment as it involves so many social, political, racial and historical assumptions. The kind of assumptions you usually seem apt to challange. What does it mean to you?

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#32)
    by jimakaPPJ on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 06:16:21 AM EST
    Andreas finally writes something true, even if unintenionally:
    That is not correct. As long as Israel is not dismantled there will be no peace.
    For more information. The list of awards, achievements, whatever you want to call it, is a demonstration of the differences in culture, not individual capabilities.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#33)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 06:54:13 AM EST
    As she stood chatting with some other students on the university courtyard, armed members of the Muslim Brotherhood began shooting at one of her teachers, killing him on the spot. "They filled his body with bullets as they shouted 'Allahu akbar! Allahu akbar! (God is greatest!)'," she recalls. She says they killed him because he was an Alawite, a member of the same Muslim sect as the Syrian president Hafez al-Assad, whom they wanted to overthrow, even though he had nothing to do with politics.
    Oscar: Wafa Sultan saw her teacher get blown away by the Muslim Brotherhood. Now she is a neocon.
    Squeaky, I would be surprised if she wasn't, along with hundreds if not thousands of other people who have witnessed their tutors being murdered. And killed for what reason, non other than they taught, and heaven forbid them if they taught girls. Remember all the killings in Iran? murdered for being a teacher. Iraq will end up the same way, hasn't it already, weren't members of some olympic team recently murdered for wearing shorts, and they were men. It's a dark age religion practised by dark age people in dark age countries and results in dark age oppression and dark age cruelty. Wafa Sultan was spot on.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#34)
    by squeaky on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 07:17:49 AM EST
    Oscar-
    Wafa Sultan was spot on.
    I disagree. I agree with her that extremists who kill others in the name of some supernatural nonsense should be condemned. Her spot onness is rather spotty though. She speaks of only religious extremists who are muslims. Not a peep about others killing in the name of religion. It is not surprising that the neocons have made her the arab postergirl to eradicate moslems. She has given the extremist jews a total pass. Extremist Jews have a history of committing terrorist acts which continue to this day. They must also be condemned as well. There is no justification for any murderous acts in the name of the supernatural.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#35)
    by tps12 on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 07:49:53 AM EST
    Reminds me of this. It's all too transparent what agenda is behind this kind of "provocative" comparison -- scribe is over-generous in considering that this could possibly be "well-intentioned."

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#36)
    by jimakaPPJ on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 06:17:30 PM EST
    tps12 - I was taught it isn't bragging if you can do it. I repeat. The lists show the difference in cultures, not individual capabilities.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#37)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 07:05:31 PM EST
    Wile E. Coyote
    1. You could look it up. Your point would have been better made.
    I could yes, but I don't know how much better it would have made my point. I've found that people who believe that Arab = Muslim, and vice versa, will continue to do so, no matter what facts are presented. However, Aaron is more optimistic (and a more patient researcher) than I am, and he has found the statistics - thanks, Aaron! Approximately 12% of the world's Muslims are Arab
    2. Muslims are practicers of Islam, a religion. There are all colors of people who are muslim. Sigh. You know Muslims/Arabs are the low persons on the totem pole when racist claptrap like this is posted on purportedly "left" sites How can it be racist if there are White, Asian, Arab, and black muslims? I think you have the terms bigoted and racist confused. Happens alot, especially here.
    No, I meant racist. Whoever made this list seems to have only required that the persons have some sort of Arab or Middle Eastern ethicity, regardless of where they were born and raised, or what religion (if any) they practice. I've only looked into a few names on the list and I've found Muslim, Christian and, apparently, none. So, no... this list has nothing to do with Muslims of any color, but with people of Arab ethnicity of any nationality, and Jews... the part about the billion Muslims is just put there to obscure that, I think.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#38)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 07:27:41 PM EST
    Comment by Edger: BB:
    It's ok to kill the ones that want to kill you. That's all anybody has ever said!
    Not quite all. Most of them, you included, have completely ignored all the history behind the conflicts that leads people to want to kill in retaliation for all that they have suffered. Some of them have decided, as you and others trying to sell your mad w.o.t. vision have, that "It's ok to kill the ones that want to kill you" too. The question becomes who will have the guts to take the higher road and stop? You? Or them? Or no one? Someone is going to have to go first. We have to if they will not. It starts with each of us. When you say "It's ok to kill the ones that want to kill you" what you really mean is "It's ok to deny your share of responsibility for the past and keep killing the ones that want to kill you because you've been killing them". Do you really want the conflict to never end? This is not an elementary school playground. Think. I know it It hurts to do so and you'd rather not, but do it anyway... it's one of the only viable options you have left. The only other option is perpetual war, and more death, on both sides.

    Re: Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World (none / 0) (#39)
    by roger on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 07:36:53 PM EST
    TL, There is a problem, in that Israel unilaterally disengaged from the west bank. The land taken over by the Palestinaian authority was used to launch attacks. BOTH sides need to stop the violence. If one side stops anole, nothing gets accomplished.

    Some Thoughts on Israel and the Arab World | 39 comments (39 topical)