gypsy8522

nicknack,

As there is 1 million jews out of Arab countries that became refugees, there is also more than 4 million muslims and christians out of Israel that became refugees after 1948. I know there are Arab jews who imigrated to Europe, just like there are many muslim and christian Arabs who imigrate to countries all over the world. I am talking in general, the jews who come FROM Europe that are European. I also know about the jews from India and Ethiopia, I didn't bring them up because they are discriminated against just as much as those who come from Middle Eastern origin. I saw a whole documantary on Ethiopians in Israel, how badly they are treated and the type of racism they have to face on a daily basis. I just want to let you know this documentary was not produced by an arabic network, it was on the BBC, just incase you're going to call in propaganda.

Aisha Azar

Dear Gypsy,
No,we do not vote for our president. The voting thing is really just a sham. The people who elect the president of the United States belong to a body called the Electoral College. Supposedly it is easy to find out who they are, but when Walter Cronkite, a very respected journalist, tried to do so some years ago, he could not find out who the current members were. They are "elected officials" is about all we know on average. This is how it is done. Originally the U. S. Constitution said that legislators from the individual States would choose the members of the E. C. and what happens is that there is no name of any electoral college member on any ballot usually, but in theory when a state votes for president, then the state's citizens have indicated who they want for president and then the state representatives from the winning party choose who will be in the electoral college. Very confusing, but it sure gives the politicians the power to do whatever they please, and they do, just like everywhere else in the world. ( Gee, maybe those political science classes were worth it!)
The first time he was elected, Bush did not win the popular vote fairly and he did not take office for about 3 months, I think, after the election because there were so very many discrepancies in the voting. Gore, in theory, won the popular vote, but the Electoral College chose Bush. As one Supreme Court judge made very clear at the time, Americans have a lot of gall thinking they should be able to elect the president anyway. This is a Republic, not a democracy, and most people who live outside this country do not seem to realize that unless one is very, rich and has the right set of friends, they will never be elected to anything more important than dog catcher.
There were many discrepancies found in the second alleged voting process that put Bush in for a second term. Again, "Americans" did not vote for Bush, some Americans voted for him. Strangely, the only person that I know who voted for him in either election is a Saudi who has dual citizenship ( and no, the Saudi government does not know about it). It was her one and only time voting and she will never do it again.
To blame the problems in the Middle East on the American "right to vote", is totally incorrect. We, in reality have no right to vote. Only money can get a person a high government position. It costs many millions to even run for office.
Just as we may not know that much about the workings of Arab countries, please believe me, you are way off base with the American citizen and our power to influence our politicians, unless of course, we are very, very rich. it works that way everywhere, does it not? It would be like saying all Saudis are
in the pockets of the American government, or All Egyptians are, just because their governments are.
Regards,
A'isha

Dipali

Dear Gypsy,
I don’t think I agree with you in that statement, Actually many European and American people can speak at least a couple of languages. Why they don’t bother to learn Arabic or Hindi, Well I think learning a different language is not that easy especially to understand and speak fluently when you don’t have much access to meet people who can speak the language, Or even if you have an access for how long, So I will bring it down to personal capability,

Gypsy once again I never said West don’t flaunt their power , off course they do. it’s a two way game, What I said if you look at the history of Asian countries you will find they did some horrible things to each other and they still do when they think they can. Before and during WW2 Japanese did some horrible things to the Chinese , India and Pakistan killed 100 of thousands of innocent civilians in wars, Its not a glorious history really, They can do it without the help of West. What I want to say is we cannot justify any type of killings or violations of human rights in any form or shape whether it happens in USA or Iraq or China, We cannot justify throwing agent orange on human being just like we cannot justify sneaky attacks on innocent people in London tube way. The western people are as weary as any other human beings on this planet about the current situation in Middle east, Regarding crimes and violence in Western countries seems high because they usually get reported, Honestly how many women in Egypt or in India go to the police and tell they are physically assaulted by their relatives. Not that people support rape of women but because the stigma attached to it. You and I may be lucky to live and raise our voice on different subjects but not many of my country men and women can. There are many people in West who genuinely think about a peaceful world and angry against their own governments policy on war as many Egyptian angry against Hossney Mubarak because of his policy. Iraq war is a disaster to the whole world, Like it happened in Vietnam And the American government is very much a part of it. But American government should not be solely blamed for the Iraqi chaos or any middle eastern problem. I always try my best to see problem from a universal point of view rather than believing what I want to believe.
Kind Regards

Dipali

Dear Aisha ,
Regarding that thread I was actually more confused than anything. I suppose you are right , I should worry about their intelligence.

I am not really careful with my words , I should have mentioned when I say USA I don’t mean every citizens of USA but the government of USA and their policy.. I think I know you enough to figure it out why the FBI visit you. Do you offer coffee when they arrive.

ps- Thank you for explaining the president election process

Aisha Azar

Dear Dipali,
Yeah, I think we were all a little confused by that video clip. Talk about bad fusion. I think that one wins the award on all counts!!

These days, as an American, I am very sensitive to being lumped in with the government, which is certainly not MY government, if I were to have any real influence.
RE drinking coffee with the Feds: I did offer them some the first time they came to my house. They declined, but one of them did eat some of my chocolate!! I now know NOT to let them in my house at all, as is my right, unless they have a warrant..... in theory... though the Patriot Act may have changed all that. Oh, yeah, and if you try to implement the Freedom of Information Act to see what records the FBI has on you, they will send you a polite letter saying they have no records on you, after you jump through many fine hoops trying to get the info they said they had. They make it as difficult as possible.I should be scared to death to even mention all this in public. I have also been advised that it is probably a good idea to make it as public as I can.
Regards,
A'isha

Dipali

Dear Aisha...

Sounds like Russia in 1960 or McCarthy era. In Australia we have a secret agency called asio , They have an office in Melbourne which is listed in the Yellow pages. They were almost disbanded as they really didnt have anything much to do until 9/11 ,then they got a new lease on life and are now busily checking on anybody who uses certain words on the phone or whatever they do. My relatives live in Madison -Washington area, And I am sure when we phone each other the FBI listen to it, I can hear them , truly!

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nicknack

Actually Gypsy the most reliable number of Arab refugees in 1948 sums up to about 539,000, and the resulting refugees from the 1967 conflict is between 125,000 (Israeli estimate) and 250,000 (UNRWA estimate), there were also 17 000 Jews who became refugees from the areas of Judea and Samaria which Jordon occupied... so if you add up all the figures at the time there was basically a population exchange (although you can't call it equal as one group left of their own accord, while the other was forcefully expelled by government planned anti semitic campaigns) . The numbers you have now (the 4 million)are so because unlike every other case like this, those refugees were not absorbed into the host country, refugee status in this case is passed down from father to son to grandson, so with population growth you'll get the current 4 million. Also that number cannot be taken as accurate due to the fact that to qualify for refugee status a person had to be an Arab who entered Israel up to two years before the rebirth of the Jewish state (hence it's impossible to tell how many had been resident for over three generations, and who were recent immigrants). The UN also admits that the current total includes 1,463,064 Jordanian citizens who can at no rate be considered refugees.... The numbers are futher clouded by the fact that "UNRWA registration figures are based on information voluntarily supplied by refugees primarily for the purpose of obtaining access to Agency services, and hence cannot be considered statistically valid demographic data; the number of registered refugees present in the Agency's area of operations is almost certainly less that the population recorded." (that's a direct quote from the 97-98 report of the Commissioner-General).

And I am well aware of the problems facing the newly absorbed Ethiopian community (although I wouldn't get my facts from the BBC), a lot of new immigrants are subject to discrimination, even those of European decent, for example one of my friends who left the Ukraine at aged 7 was subject to intense bullying at school purely for speaking Russian and having a typically Russian name (he has since attempted to erase every clue to his former soviet identity, even his name). But the Ethiopian community faces more problems, coming into a modern society, retaining strict old fashioned family hierarchy, a dichotomy which has resulted in an increased level of domestic violence within the community. Another major internal problem is Ethiopian Christians attempting to come into the community and proseltysing them, this has created a rift in places with many Beta Israel protesting the return of the Falash Mura whom the missionaries often hide among. Although intergration is a slow process it's happening more and more as the second generation come into the working world.

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nicknack

I think it also has to do with local population too, speciffically when it comes to language learning at schools, for example a large majority of schools around the Nottingham area offer Urdu (just one example) at GCSE level (that's the exam taken at the end of comulsory education at 16), this is because we have a large muslim minority (I know there are over about 20 muslim places of worship (including those in residential buildings) in the Nottingham area) who come from Urdu (and also Gujarati) speaking areas. I'm guessing the same goes for many US schools teaching Spanish.... Due to both the predominance of the Latino community and culture.

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gypsy8522

The number increased over the years, that is due to the fact that the Israeli government kept 'expanding its lands' by forcing people out of their homes and building more settlements. It would be really sad if anyone tried to deny this. In this case, the accuracy of the figure doesn't really matter. What matters is that there's more than 4 million people who's homes were demolished, they are either living in refugee camps or in one of the arab countries and they are not allowed to return to live there or visit their families without being humiliated, in many cases they're denied entrance all together. The Jordanian citizens you mentioned were 'adopted' and granted citizenship by king Hussein. Only because these people live in Jordan now doesn't mean their homes didn't exist somewhere else before, and not too long ago. Anyway, I don't see why a European with no connection to Middle Eastern culture would have more of a right to own a house and live in Israel but a palestinian has only right to live as a refugee.


I didn't get my facts from BBC, this wasn't reported on the news. I watched the documentary and heard stories from Ethiopians as they talked about the racism and name calling they experience every day of their lives. I am sure it took a lot of guts to speak up knowing the threats they could possibly be facing after that. Plus I would much rather 'get my facts' from a British news channel than watch bias crap on American networks which are funded by one specific religous group.


Ethiopians are facing more problems than others mainly because they are black from african descent and because there are others who see them as 'less jewish' than themselves.


Eastern Europeans are many times looked at as the trash of Europe, obviously these aren't going to be the dominating group of europeans. No disrespect to any Russians reading this, but everyone knows how they are treated like second class citizens. Again, these aren't the 'Europeans' I was referring to. And this isn't about politics, its about racism that has occured and is still occuring in Israel. It is enough they claim that palestinian people have no history, so it is hardly surprising how they treat others.

nicknack

No those numbers relate to refugees resulting from the conflicts of 1948 and 1967, and all generations born after. The Israeli government is not "expanding its lands", if they wanted a big ol chunk of desert they would have kept Sinai (even though it was a pretty effective buffer zone). Now just to make this clear I am not NOT supporting building of settlements, they are full of the right wing religous nuts that would have a lot of problems with me, people actually pay little kids to go and aggrivate the residents stirring up trouble, and even though they play a part in securing the border the part of the security budget spent protecting them could be well used elsewhere (for example education, housing, better facilities for the Bedouin, building some decent bomb shelters up north, road safety, care of the elderly..... the list goes on and on). But the fact is those settlements are built on purchased land (the majority of it bought pre 1948 from absentee land owners), they're seperated from any Arab area (mainly due to the fact that any Arabs living close by sold up and moved to Israel).... the cold hard truth is that there's nothing in the realm of international law that says it's illegal. And removing the settlements wouldn't quell the uprising, when polled 67.1% of palestinian Arabs rejected ending the uprising in return for "ending Jewish settlement". I know perfectlly well that those Jordanian citizens were palstinian Arabs, Jordan was founded as an Arab palestinian state (out of three quarters of the British Mandate of Palestine created from the Sykes-Picot agreement, in an attempt to create one Arab Palestinian state and one Jewish Palestinian state), over 70% of the population class themsleves as Arab palestinian, so why wouldn't they be too.

These days you will find the Arab population of Israel increasing, due to palestinan Arabs fleeing to Israel, mainly the homosexual community and Arab Christians which is not suprising as the Christian population of Bethlehem has gone from 80% to 20% since control of the area was handed over to the palestinian authority. Arabs in Israel have the same civil rights as everyone else, they hold seats in the Knesset, teach at top universities, go to the same universities alongside Jews, Circassions, Armenians, Bai'hai... come to Israel and see for yourself, have a walk around old Jaffa you'd be suprised at what you see (others have been like this guy Print Version - A Muslim in a Jewish Land), you'd be very welcome, as a matter of fact if I graduate from a dorm room to an apartment when I get to university there, you'd be welcome in my home.

I didn't mean to imply that you got your information from the BBC, what I meant is that everyone should take any factual BBC output with a grain of salt, they have the worst record in the history of broadcasting for bias, incompetence, cover ups (refusing to release the findings of the inquiry into the bias of their coverage (freedom of information be damned)), scapegoating (Greg Dyke being a prime example)..... they can't even provide a decent catering truck on location (seriously if anyone ever finds themselves on a bbc set, try to avoid the food unless it happens to be either a sandwich or a cup of tea).

Yes there are bigots in the country who have a problem with Ethiopians. But theirs is a minority view, and not one of mainstream society, I've never witnessed any discrimination against my Ethiopian friends when out, but then maybe we're hanging around the good neighbourhoods. And it's true what you mentioned about some people seeing the as less Jewish, this has nothing to do with skin colour and everything to do with certain religous people believing that their version of of Judaism is the only one (lord I'm looked down on by certain groups becasue I belong to a progressive community(that and I'm a mongrel)).

And which Europeans where you referring to? I don't think there are any European Ashkenazi Jews who aren't of Eastern European extraction, Ashkenazic culture outside of Europe is generically Eastern European due to the constant migration through the area (although I'm not sure where the small Italian population are catergorized).... And what's with the claim that Israelis deny arab palestinians have a history, of course they do, it's large and varied as they came from all over the middle east.... that's a lot of history.

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