Syrian Ambassd. speaks of Syria's peace initative; Shuns acknowledging Israeli press

[Heresson]

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Heresson
Aflaq has little to do with contemporary Ba'ath, my dear.

yeah, I just love how theyve liberalized their views.

[LordShiva]

Isn't Aflaq some sort of life insurance company for small businesses or something?

[Spiffor]

Originally posted by Ogie Oglethorpe
Ben Aflaq

[Heresson]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


yeah, I just love how theyve liberalized their views.

Anyways, Israel is a racist state... none other civilised country does stuff like it does... but enough to say that it supports immigration but only of people of Jewish origin, and for some time - only of jewish faith. It i

[Ned]

H, your State is the home of many "camps" that justify Israel the way she is, a refuge for the Jews.

[Sirotnikov]

H, doesn't your country have a unique immigration right for displaced poles?

I'm quite sure I read it does.

Just like Russia has for displaced Russians, and Germany has for displaced Germans.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Heresson


Anyways, Israel is a racist state... none other civilised country does stuff like it does... but enough to say that it supports immigration but only of people of Jewish origin, and for some time - only of jewish faith. It i

"In 1977, an Israeli cargo ship nearing Japan spotted a leaking boat crammed with 66 Vietnamese men, women and children.

They were among hundreds of thousands of "boat people" fleeing their war-ravaged country following the end of the Vietnam War. Despite desperate SOS signals, the refugees, who were out of food and water, had been ignored by passing ships from East Germany, Norway, Japan and Panama.

The Israeli ship picked up the passengers and took them to Israel. There, Prime Minister Menachem Begin authorized their permanent admission to Israel, comparing their plight to that of European Jewish refugees seeking a haven in the 1930s.

What happened to the Vietnamese refugees, and the hundreds that followed them, in the Jewish state?

One of the opening scenes of the Israeli film The Journey of Vaan Nguyen features one of the original refugees, Hanmoi Nguyen, who has been in Israel for 25 years. He works in a Tel Aviv restaurant, lives modestly and with his wife is raising five Israeli-born, Hebrew-speaking daughters.

The oldest girl, Vaan, is a writer, has served in the army and feels Israeli - except for her looks. In the up-front style of her fellow sabras, they keep asking her whether her eyes are slanted because she eats so much rice and if she is related to a Chinese martial arts star.

In the evenings, Hanmoi Nguyen writes Vietnamese poetry and joins his friends in nostalgic songs about the beautiful land they left behind.

He had been the son of a wealthy landowner in Vietnam and he dreams of returning to his native village to reclaim the ancestral property and settle scores with the Communist functionary who kicked him out at gunpoint.

He scrapes together enough money for the trip and returns to a land and a people he hardly recognizes. In a curious parallel to the Holocaust survivors who returned to their homelands to reclaim their old homes, he is met with suspicion and hostility by the new inhabitants and red tape by officials.

Even the hated Communist functionary, like the Nazi bully in Germany, is now a nice old man, who urges that bygones be bygones.

After a few months, daughter Vaan joins her father to search out her own roots. She is happy that people on the street look like her, but has trouble negotiating the language and has no patience with the elaborate circumlocutions of social intercourse.

To the natives, Vaan herself has become a foreigner, and she laments, "I am a tourist, I am an Israeli."

The agony of being suspended between two civilizations, without being fully at home in either one, is sensitively, at times heartbreakingly, portrayed. But the film by Israel's Duki Dror, in Hebrew and Vietnamese with English subtitles, is not without humor.

One hilarious scene shows the newly arrived boat people being welcomed by an effusive Jewish Agency for Israel representative in Hebrew, of which the polite audience doesn't understand a word.

Shortly afterward, an equally enthusiastic integration official tries to teach the refugees a lively Chanukah song.

On the other side, the returned father tries to explain Israel to puzzled Vietnamese villagers. He finally comes up with, "They have one lake and eat strange foods."

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by lord of the mark



"In 1977, an Israeli cargo ship nearing Japan spotted a leaking boat crammed with 66 Vietnamese men, women and children.

They were among hundreds of thousands of "boat people" fleeing their war-ravaged country following the end of the Vietnam War. Despite desperate SOS signals, the refugees, who were out of food and water, had been ignored by passing ships from East Germany, Norway, Japan and Panama.

The Israeli ship picked up the passengers and took them to Israel. There, Prime Minister Menachem Begin authorized their permanent admission to Israel, comparing their plight to that of European Jewish refugees seeking a haven in the 1930s.

What happened to the Vietnamese refugees, and the hundreds that followed them, in the Jewish state?

One of the opening scenes of the Israeli film The Journey of Vaan Nguyen features one of the original refugees, Hanmoi Nguyen, who has been in Israel for 25 years. He works in a Tel Aviv restaurant, lives modestly and with his wife is raising five Israeli-born, Hebrew-speaking daughters.

The oldest girl, Vaan, is a writer, has served in the army and feels Israeli - except for her looks. In the up-front style of her fellow sabras, they keep asking her whether her eyes are slanted because she eats so much rice and if she is related to a Chinese martial arts star.

In the evenings, Hanmoi Nguyen writes Vietnamese poetry and joins his friends in nostalgic songs about the beautiful land they left behind.

He had been the son of a wealthy landowner in Vietnam and he dreams of returning to his native village to reclaim the ancestral property and settle scores with the Communist functionary who kicked him out at gunpoint.

He scrapes together enough money for the trip and returns to a land and a people he hardly recognizes. In a curious parallel to the Holocaust survivors who returned to their homelands to reclaim their old homes, he is met with suspicion and hostility by the new inhabitants and red tape by officials.

Even the hated Communist functionary, like the Nazi bully in Germany, is now a nice old man, who urges that bygones be bygones.

After a few months, daughter Vaan joins her father to search out her own roots. She is happy that people on the street look like her, but has trouble negotiating the language and has no patience with the elaborate circumlocutions of social intercourse.

To the natives, Vaan herself has become a foreigner, and she laments, "I am a tourist, I am an Israeli."

The agony of being suspended between two civilizations, without being fully at home in either one, is sensitively, at times heartbreakingly, portrayed. But the film by Israel's Duki Dror, in Hebrew and Vietnamese with English subtitles, is not without humor.

One hilarious scene shows the newly arrived boat people being welcomed by an effusive Jewish Agency for Israel representative in Hebrew, of which the polite audience doesn't understand a word.

Shortly afterward, an equally enthusiastic integration official tries to teach the refugees a lively Chanukah song.

On the other side, the returned father tries to explain Israel to puzzled Vietnamese villagers. He finally comes up with, "They have one lake and eat strange foods."

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Ned
H, your State is the home of many "camps" that justify Israel the way she is, a refuge for the Jews.

You ARE aware they were built by Germans

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
H, doesn't your country have a unique immigration right for displaced poles?

I'm quite sure I read it does.

Just like Russia has for displaced Russians, and Germany has for displaced Germans.

1) Jews are not "displaced" in Europe. It's their true home.
2) It's a matter of numbers. Poland does support coming of Poles from Kazakhstan and inner Russia to Poland, but they are not that large in number and been leaving there for a half of century only, and were forced to it.

lotm, your story is nice and touching, but "one sparrow does not mean it's spring already", as a polish proverb says.

And Israeli state is occupying illegally other states' lands and settles people there. It's using immigration to change the ethnic structure of its lands.

[Ned]

Since Poles were also victims of the Holocaust, I would think you would understand why Israel is necessary.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Heresson
1) Jews are not "displaced" in Europe. It's their true home.

You prove yourself quite ignorant of masses of Jews coming from African, Arab and Persian Gulf countries. Not to say about clans of Ethiopian, Hindu and Vietnamese Jewish descendants.
Is their true home also in Europe? Where exactly?

You're also welcome to check out the European Jewish prayers, art and poetry throughout the centuries - portraying longing to their true home in Zion (ie Jerusalem / Israel)

2) It's a matter of numbers. Poland does support coming of Poles from Kazakhstan and inner Russia to Poland, but they are not that large in number and been leaving there for a half of century only, and were forced to it.

Jews haven't exactly left the mediterranian on a holiday trip.

They were kicked out and dispersed. Later to be continuously kicked out from western European countries (England, Spain, France) eastwards and finally concentrating in large numbers in the "Mestechko" between Poland and Russia.

And Israeli state is occupying illegally other states' lands and settles people there. It's using immigration to change the ethnic structure of its lands.

Changes to the ethnic structure of the land were not as one-sided as you are lead to believe.

Large numbers of Arabs living between Jordan and the sea have immigrated there during the latter half of the 19th century.

That immigration (due to economic and political changes in the region of "Palestine" due to influx of European visitors and money) also changed the ethnic structure in said lands.

Arab unrest (as in: unprovoked violent attacks on Jewish settlements) in the 1920's have caused vast Jewish communities to flee and completely vacate large Jewish populations in the Galilee and the West Bank.

That would also be changing ethnic structure of the lands.


I also contest the phrase "other state's lands".
Except for the Golan heights which did legally belong to a different state, none of the areas Israel occupies since 1967 were ever legally attributed to a foreign sovereign state.

They were merely previously occupied by different occupants (Jordan, Egypt).

The last legal sovereign was the British Mandate, and the Ottoman Empire prior to that.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Heresson
Aflaq has little to do with contemporary Ba'ath, my dear.

I find it funny how you apply 'equal' standards to Israel and Syria when coming to discuss racism, hatred and ethnical opression.


Syria:
Has countless of official statements and laws expressing racism and hatred of Jews.
Has committed countless murders of minorities in its own territory and in Lebanon, as late as the 80s.
Has actively and agressively occupied a sovereign state (Lebanon) and still operates in its territory.

And while there is no proof for change in any of those policies - You claim this is no longer relevant, based on lack of recent evidence.


Yet Israel is easily labeled "Racist" based on no evidence of such magnitude as Syria, despite having a large minority community and unique laws of equality and freedom in the middle east.


Doesn't that strike you as odd?

[Eli]

Doesn't that strike you as odd?

I believe he was struck by a falling piano as a kid. That explains everything.

[Arcite]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

Yet Israel is easily labeled "Racist" based on no evidence of such magnitude as Syria, despite having a large minority community and unique laws of equality and freedom in the middle east.

Doesn't that strike you as odd?

Speaking of racism, though I guess this is more an institutionalized racism:

Discarded blood protest in Israel

About 200 people have protested in Jerusalem against a decision by the Israeli health ministry to reject blood donated by Ethiopian-Israelis.

At least 11 people were injured in clashes with police.

The protestors said that the practice was racism against Ethiopian-Israelis. The blood has been discarded because of concerns that it may be contaminated.

Officials say that blood could not be donated by people from specific countries where Aids was endemic.

"We are healthy people, like everyone else," protestor Galit Maarat, 24, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying. "This is unjust, a terrible affront."

Dr Boaz Lev, the associate director in the Israeli Health ministry, told the BBC Network Africa programme: "This risk group is not specific to Israel. All over the world, it is considered a risk group. Obviously we don't want to subject out patients to even the slightest risk if you can avoid it."

Israel's Channel 2 TV recently reported that the health ministry had revived its practice of discarding blood donated by Ethiopian-Israelis.

There were similar protests a decade ago when the practice emerged. Correspondents say that many people in the Ethiopian-Israeli community feel they are the target of racial discrimination.