Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Still Trying to Fool Us
IMRA brings us Palestinian leadership's familiar ambiguity with regard to their specific "liberation" goals:
How about all of East Jerusalem, plus the Western Wall? Maybe. Depends what he means be Occupied Palestinian lands.
How about the whole holy city of Jerusalem, East and West? Maybe. Depends what he means be Occupied Palestinian lands.
How about all of Jerusalem, plus all Arab towns and villages in Israel, plus everything within 20 miles of a mosque? Maybe. Depends what he means be Occupied Palestinian lands.
How about Israel -- the entire Jewish state? Maybe. Depends what he means be Occupied Palestinian lands.
How about Spain too? Maybe. Depends what he means be Occupied Palestinian lands, and whether "Palestinian lands" is a euphemism for lands formerly under Islamic conquest.
How about Omaha, Nebraska? Probably not yet. But if the world is an Islamic Caliphate just waiting for Osama to declare it, then we're all just visiting.
It really would be nice if these statements included a public declaration of exactly what is meant by "Occupied Palestinian Lands". By that, I mean a declaration of what Qurei and friends are implying to their Arabic speaking citizens and allies, not what a group of UN spokesmodels could probably agree on over coffee and croissants.
If you really, really liked this -- or even really, really hated it -- there's lots more:
This statement, coming immediately before the expected Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, plays naturally into assumptions that Palestinians don't just want Gaza, but the West Bank and maybe a morsel of Jerusalem too. Hey, that's bad enough. But before we blithely limit our description of Qurei's appetite, let's see if we can unambiguously identify what exactly he considers inedible:
Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei said on Monday that there is no solution to the Palestinian issue until restoring (sic) all the Occupied Palestinian lands.
How about all of East Jerusalem, plus the Western Wall? Maybe. Depends what he means be Occupied Palestinian lands.
How about the whole holy city of Jerusalem, East and West? Maybe. Depends what he means be Occupied Palestinian lands.
How about all of Jerusalem, plus all Arab towns and villages in Israel, plus everything within 20 miles of a mosque? Maybe. Depends what he means be Occupied Palestinian lands.
How about Israel -- the entire Jewish state? Maybe. Depends what he means be Occupied Palestinian lands.
How about Spain too? Maybe. Depends what he means be Occupied Palestinian lands, and whether "Palestinian lands" is a euphemism for lands formerly under Islamic conquest.
How about Omaha, Nebraska? Probably not yet. But if the world is an Islamic Caliphate just waiting for Osama to declare it, then we're all just visiting.
It really would be nice if these statements included a public declaration of exactly what is meant by "Occupied Palestinian Lands". By that, I mean a declaration of what Qurei and friends are implying to their Arabic speaking citizens and allies, not what a group of UN spokesmodels could probably agree on over coffee and croissants.
