Here's an attractive short video showing something of the work among Palestinians of the MDG Achievement Fund, a UN humanitarian initiative which is financed by the Spanish government. If you blink, you may miss the eyebrow-raising map of "Palestine" that a child is about to colour-in, and the big key (symbolising the return of the "refugees," or perhaps more accurately the land's "liberation" from the River to the Sea) that a smiling little girl is holding.
Eretz Israel is our unforgettable historic homeland...The Jews who will it shall achieve their State...And whatever we attempt there for our own benefit will redound mightily and beneficially to the good of all mankind. (Theodor Herzl, DerJudenstaat, 1896)
We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)
With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)
We offer peace and amity to all the neighbouring states and their peoples, and invite them to cooperate with the independent Jewish nation for the common good of all. The State of Israel is ready to contribute its full share to the peaceful progress and development of the Middle East. (From Proclamation of the State of Israel, 5 Iyar 5708; 14 May 1948)
With a liberal democratic political system operating under the rule of law, a flourishing market economy producing technological innovation to the benefit of the wider world, and a population as educated and cultured as anywhere in Europe or North America, Israel is a normal Western country with a right to be treated as such in the community of nations.... For the global jihad, Israel may be the first objective. But it will not be the last. (Friends of Israel Initiative)
They want to make what they call Falastin (Israel) beautiful; someone ought to point out to them the Israel is already beautiful and it was achieved in the last 130 years or so, by the Jews!
ReplyDeleteIf indeed, the Palestinians are the indigenous people of Palestine, what they waiting for? They had about 1250 years to make the place beautiful with no Jew in sight to “steal their land”.
Let us see how “beautiful” the place was; Mark Twain visited Palestine in 1868, about 25 years before the First Aliya (Jewish immigration to Palestine at the end of the 19th century) and this is how he summarised his impression of Palestine just as when he was about to board a ship in Jaffa to go back home:
“Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are unpicturesque in shape. The valleys are unsightly deserts fringed with a feeble vegetation that has an expression about it of being sorrowful and despondent.”
…..
“Every outline is harsh, every feature is distinct, there is no perspective -- distance works no enchantment here. It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land.
Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies.”
…..
“ -- about whose borders nothing grows but weeds, and scattering tufts of cane, and that treacherous fruit that promises refreshment to parching lips, but turns to ashes at the touch.”
…..
“about that ford of Jordan where the hosts of Israel entered the Promised Land with songs of rejoicing, one finds only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins of the desert;”
…….
“The noted Sea of Galilee, where Roman fleets once rode at anchor and the disciples of the Saviour sailed in their ships, was long ago deserted by the devotees of war and commerce, and its borders are a silent wilderness; Capernaum is a shapeless ruin; Magdala is the home of beggared Arabs; Bethsaida and Chorazin have vanished from the earth, and the "desert places" round about them where thousands of men once listened to the Saviour's voice and ate the miraculous bread, sleep in the hush of a solitude that is inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes.”
(From Mark Twain’s Innocent Abroad, Chapter 51)
Where are the Palestinians?
That smiling little girls somehow makes me think of Aisha, the child bride of Mohamed - when will she fullfill her "destiny"?
ReplyDeleteAs for the tone of this advertisment: I am always nauseated by hypocrisy, especially when dripping with sentimentality as this little number is. YUK.
I must say, the people in the video are very good-looking!
ReplyDelete