I watched Avatar twice in cinema with 3D and i got some implications about of it even though iam not fond of films or watching them since long time.
As a palestinian frankly i explain it as at the end of conflict the weakest party will win the battle even if the enemy breaks the tree of truth . I think as israel tried to propagande false allegations towards and daily try to break the tree of truth, but at the end they will fail as truth never dies.
I liked the scene when tsomey ( iam not sure of his name) tell the people to gather all other neigbors and villagers ( as i can understand) to follow them and fight the enemy.
i feel that many western people understand the truth and they are not with israel for its aggression and occupation of other land and try to kill its people in palestine.
Even though in islam we dont beleive in avatar as one soul goes to other, but i can understand the aim of the film and i think the truth and the victory of the oppressed people as in palestine may come from the honest and just western people who can argue and know how the technology and power and money wants to dominate and steal other land and kill its people with no human feelings.
Do u like it and find some interpretation as i found ?
I liked the movie though I found the themes annoyingly predictable and trite. Not really surprising given the far-Left politics of the director. Of course, I saw Israel in the role of the indigenous people courageously taking back their land and defending it against all odds from encroaching Arab invaders. I guess it all depends on your point of view.
Make sure you read Tony's excellent review on Avatar on oD. He captures the source of my annoyance with the film very well.
I think Tony should consider a side-job as a movie critic. :-)
http://www.opendemocracy.net/tony-curzon-price/avatar-blues-and-hopelessness-of-pandora
Thanks, Mike, glad you liked it :)
With my daughters getting to the age of enjoying films that are not impossible to sit through, maybe I'll write more of them ...
By the way iron mike, if u think logically, you will not say the reverse. i think you didnt understand the movie. How u r telling that israel wants to take back the land while even the film shows different nature in everything, they are different from Americans ( represents for me here israel ) in their clothes, their language, their style of life and what they worship ( i represent the sacred things with mecca whom cant be enter for non muslims ).
The native people living in their land since long time and have generations after generations and preserving their culture and all the surrounding peoples are the same, long creatures, with tail and with all different style of life, but remaining they have hearts and feelings and Created by God.
I want to say that the surrounding people whom tsomy called for unity to defend the enemy are the arabs and muslims surroundings whom sharing with history, language, same culture and same way and style of life and they are living in their countries and didnt launch a war for others, only defending their land and home and if you watch the film well, the people of pandorma says that this is our land and we will not leave it .
It is the truth and palestine is for its native people whom still live there from centuries and sacred for them . Watch it again and put your self as your land was stolen by those whom hold technology with no hearts . You know well what i mean .
i want to ask you iron mike. As history told us that America was inhibited by red indians before the establishment of USA by war. If e.g now the red indians and native people of America has the force, power , money and technology and wants back their land , do u deliver it to them as they were the native people living there?
can you answer me this question pls ? if yes or no, can u tell me wy?
The Jews claim to Israel far precedes the Palestinians who also have a legitimate ties to the land. To me, both are the indigenous people and rightful heirs to the land which they too have a physical and spiritual connection. The Jew's claim is as valid as the Palestinians. The Palestinian people will have accept and share this inheritance or live forever in turmoil. That is a reality which you are unwilling to accept and one that I am unwilling to compromise.
Native Americans today now have autonomous government within their borders, but with all the rights of American citizenship. They enjoy priviledges and federal funding not available to other citizens. They are a good example of an indigenous people living in peace and harmony today after a brutal and losing war in the past. Perhaps you should study their example more closely.
perhaps u should study with israel government their example, you admit that the native americans today have autonoumous and they have full citizenship and we are the palestininas have nothing in our land.
Even the arabs who hold israeli citizenship now are suffering and many of their homes are to be destroyed in east jurasalem. Moreover other palestinians are in prison and cant go and see their relatives in the same country. Eg. the palestinians whom living in hebron cant go to live in jurasalem or even visit it untill they will take permission from israeli government and that is also difficult. please give us the same rights as given to native americans then claim what ever u want to claim!!!!
"The Jew's claim is as valid as the Palestinians. The Palestinian people will have accept and share this inheritance or live forever in turmoil."
There is no "inheritance" because there is no more such a thing as Jewish People as there is a Catholic People or a Buddhist People. Why should those who make an utterly ridiculous claim to be descendants of the tiny minority who were expelled 2000 years ago have precedence over those who have a much more credible claim to be the descendants of the vast majority who stayed? The Jews that live there have just as valid a claim to citizenship as anyone else who lives there - though they have no right whatsoever to the property which was stolen from Palestinians and must return it. Jews (or anyone else) who do not live there have no claim at all to citizenship. The Israelis will have to accept this or live foerver in turmoil
I was not aware there was a statute of limitations of 2000 years on an inheiritance in British common law? Too bad common law does not apply. If the claim was valid 2000 years ago, it precedes Palestinian claims, especially since Palestine has been a geographic and cultural region and never a country in over 2000 years.
If either of you think the Israelis are going to wake one morning and say, "Oops, I guess that whole country thing was a mistake" and pack up their stuff and leave, it's not going to happen. So while we argue to infinity on claims of inheritance, we can only deal with the reality we have, not the reality we want.
As a Catholic Christian, I am part of a "Christian People," though my inheritance is in the next world, not in Rome. But that makes my inheritance no less real and there is no statute of limitations associated with it. While Israel has a secular multi-cultural state, there can be no denying it's character as a "Jewish state". That is a cultural and spiritual cornerstone of Israeli society.
"If the claim was valid 2000 years ago, it precedes Palestinian claims, especially since Palestine has been a geographic and cultural region and never a country in over 2000 years."
My point was that it wasn't valid 2000 years ago. The idea that the Jews as a people were expelled from their homeland by the Romans is total bollocks. The Zealot rebels were killed and their supporters would almost certainly have been dragged away as slaves, some escaped into exile. But they numbered a tiny proportion of the Jewish people - we're talking small single figure percentages. The vast majority of Jews stayed where they were, many converted to Islam or Christianity and their descendants were thrown off their land by the descendants of the people converted to Judaism by the Zealot exiles.
There's plenty of respectable histiography to support this view. Zionist historians don't even bother to challenge it seriously. No serious evidence has been produced to support either the AD 70 exodus or the equally mythical forced expulsions following the Arab invasion of the 7th century.
You're quite enthusiastic about suggesting reading matter for others so I'll take the liberty of suggesting to you The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sands of Tel Aviv University. It puts paid to your nonsense of "indigenous people courageously taking back their land and defending it against all odds from encroaching Arab invaders" in no uncertain terms.
"While Israel has a secular multi-cultural state, there can be no denying it's character as a "Jewish state". That is a cultural and spiritual cornerstone of Israeli society. "
The only way of preventing that denying is by enforcing a system of apartheid which cannot be accepted by anyone who believes in democracy.
I don't think the Israelis will wake up one morning and change their minds. I believe that sooner or later they will be forced to accept that they have no choice.
You are continually shifting your argument, Mike. A few days ago you were all for using the Bible for finding the spiritual truth and now you want to treat it as a land register.
You say native Americans must be happy to have autonomy in a very tiny portion of the land they lost in the last 100-500 years (instead of owning all of it), but Jews are naturally the owners of the land some of them lost 2000 years ago. You seem to say that the claim to a bit of land becomes more convincing the longer ago someone’s ancestors left that bit of land. Are planning to move to the Rift Valley? Following your own logic you should.
The last 60 years give Israel a strong claim, but not the myths of being the descendants of the landowners 2000 years ago.
How can you say that Israel’s character is by right a Jewish state and Palestinians have as valid a claim to the land? These two concepts are conflicting.
Then you did not read what I wrote carefully enough. The Old Testament scriptures provide absolute evidence of a spiritual connection between the Jewish people and the land. Secular history supports the historicity of their roots in the land. Their presence is documented fact, not myth. Roman history is pretty clear on that point. I do not accept BC's suggestion that an exiled people are not entitled the claim to the land from which they were exiled. That's why I support Palestinians claim to the same land.
The concepts are not conflicting because I support sharing the land--something the Palestinians are unwilling to do.
Read it again. What I said was, “...there can be no denying its character as a "Jewish state". My characterization of Israel as a “Jewish state” is merely pointing out what is actually written in Israel's declaration of Independence.
This is not my claim--it's the claim of the state of Israel. Tell them they have no right to define the character of their country while you reserve the right of your country to defne its own character. Good luck making that argument.
A very patronising remark.
There is no such thing as a Jewish people, there is a Jewish religion. I don’t dispute the spiritual connection between Jews and the land (which is existing for two more religions, though). It just doesn’t constitute a claim to the land (you even used the word inheritance!), it’s purely spiritual. Even if Jews were a people they would have lost their claim by now. Do you want to reverse all migration of the last 2000 years?
Israel’s claim to the land is based on a UN resolution, and this gives Palestinians an equally valid claim to a state on their part of the land. Palestinians have offered a very sensible peace plan for negotiations while Israel favours a plan that’s nothing more than a reservation but certainly not a sovereign Palestinian state. It’s idiocy to blame the Palestinians.
Israel has a Palestinian minority. These Israeli citizens have the right to a representation including the “character” of their state. The minorities in my country, although much smaller, have the same right not to be excluded, by the way. We seem to be fairly successful in that, or have you heard of any Sorb or Danish protests lately?
It wasn't meant to be. I simply pointed out what I'd written and you misquoted.
Just because you choose to redefine terms like "murder" and "Jewish People" does not make it a fact; it makes it your opinion and you are welcome to it. But the state of Israel disagrees with you, as do I.
I agree that Palestinians also have a claim on the land and have consistently supported that claim. However, their claim does not supercede that of the Jews or the mandate of the United Nations. So move on to a settlement that includes both of them. That is the only reasonable compromise and one Palestinians are unwilling to do. If you doubt it, ask Abdulksaida yourself.
They do have representation. They can also use the democratic process to change the constitution if they wish to recharacterize the state and if they are unhappy with the result, they have the right to leave.
No-one has the right to define their country in terms which exclude some of it's inhabitants - especially when those it's excluding were originally in the majority.
Nonsense. You can argue the morality of defining a country, but not the "right" to do so. "Rights" have to have a basis and you have no basis or standing to challenge the Israeli constitution.
OK then, We'll put it a different way. No-one who believes in democracy CAN define a country in such a way. For those who have contempt for democracy of course, it's not a problem.
I haven't seen it.
bigC's point needs to be shouted from the rooftops - I wonder how many of Israel's external supporters who are on the Likudnik side of the debate are aware of it. Framing the debate in terms of historic inheritances is (a) incoherent and (b) completely unproductive. As you say, the US doesn't take the far stronger historical claims of Native Americans seriously (and are highly unlikely ever to do so, given the relative numbers involved).
You can shout BC's point from all the rooftops you wish, but clearly this is not as cut and dried an issue as you and he wish to believe.
Certainly there is plenty of debate on Jewish historic inheritance that is quite coherent even if you find it unproductive. Here is a mere fraction of the critics of BC's hallowed source.
From Wikipedia:
Israel Bartal, dean of the humanities faculty of the Hebrew University, in a commentary published in Haaretz,[9] writes that Sand's basic thesis and statements about Jewish historiography are "baseless".
Bartal answers to "Sand's arguments (...) that no historian of the Jewish national movement has ever really believed that the origins of the Jews are ethnically and biologically "pure" [and that] Sand applies marginal positions to the entire body of Jewish historiography and, in doing so, denies the existence of the central positions in Jewish historical scholarship." Bartal refers to Sand's overall treatment of Jewish sources as "embarrassing and humiliating." He adds that "The kind of political intervention Sand is talking about, namely, a deliberate program designed to make Israelis forget the true biological origins of the Jews of Poland and Russia or a directive for the promotion of the story of the Jews' exile from their homeland is pure fantasy." Bartel summarizes his critique of Sand's characterization of Jewish historiography as follows: "as far as I can discern, the book contains not even one idea that has not been presented earlier in their books and articles by what he insists on defining as "authorized historians" suspected of "concealing historical truth,"" and calls the overall work "bizarre and incoherent."[9]
Tom Segev wrote that Sand's book "is intended to promote the idea that Israel should be a 'state of all its citizens' - Jews, Arabs and others - in contrast to its declared identity as a 'Jewish and democratic' state" and that the book is generally "well-written" and includes "numerous facts and insights that many Israelis will be astonished to read for the first time".[8]
Anita Shapira wrote "Sand bases his arguments on the most esoteric and controversial interpretations, while seeking to undermine the credibility of important scholars by dismissing their conclusions without bringing any evidence to bear."[10]
For Ofri Ilani, "(...) most of [the] book does not deal with the invention of the Jewish people by modern Jewish nationalism, but rather with the question of where the Jews come from."[6]
Hillel Halkin has cited the book as an example of the notion that there is "no book too foolish to go un-admired by someone."[11]
Jeffrey Goldberg likened the book to Arthur Koestler's The Thirteenth Tribe, another book with a controversial thesis on the genesis of the Jewish people published in 1976.[12] "Today," Jeffrey Goldberg said, "The Thirteenth Tribe is a combination of discredited and forgotten." Goldberg also accused Sand of having disingenuous motives:
A nice lot of waffle Mike. As I said, no serious evidence to the contrary - the debate is of the same balance as creationism/evolution or chemistry/homeopathy. In other words, one side is evidence based, the other is faith based.
I love the Tom Segev quote
" intended to promote the idea that Israel should be a 'state of all its citizens' - Jews, Arabs and others - in contrast to its declared identity as a 'Jewish and democratic' state"
If it is not a state of all it's citizens how can it be democratic? The state of denial necessary to declare this is the intellectual equivalent of those yoga positions where you risk getting your neck stuck in your buttocks.
But getting back to the point, Bartal's understated (we're talking ethnic homeopathy here!) admission of weakness of the ethnic and biological purity of the so called diaspora knocks your "indigineous people" suggestion out of the park.
Mike,
If you had read what I wrote carefully enough, you would have noticed that I never said that the Palestinians’ claim superceded that of the Jews or the mandate of the UN. Actually it was me who mentioned the UN resolution while you were talking of reversing the migration of 2000 years, with the exception of migration to America of course.
The Palestinian minority in Israel suffers discrimination, they are second-class-citizens. There are many laws to ensure that. Recent polls show that about 70% of the Jewish Israelis are in favour to strip this minority of citizenship and deport them.
A democratic state is the state of all of its citizens, and minorities are entitled to protection.
Why is that surprising? If the Palestinians consistently favor a terrorist options instead of using the democratic options available to them, of course public opinion is not going to favor them.
A democratic state is a also social contract with obligations by its citizens as well. All citizens including minorities are equally subject to those obligations and Palestinian citizens as a whole, have not lived up to those obligations.
What are you talking about? Can you substantiate these claims?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
I don't want to appear patronizing, but you really have never read Thomas Hobbes (1651), John Locke (1689) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1762)? Social contract is pretty basic and foundational concept to western democracy. Try Lohn Locke, Second Treatise on Government. It's still my favorite.
Have I overestimated your intelligence?
Can you substantiate these claims?
You may have overestimated your own if you are incapable of phrasing a question more precisely the first time.
This is not a claim. This is a question based on a conditional statement of observation. If this condition is a public perception (rightly or wrongly), why do you find it surprising that 70% might feel this way? Given Palestinian choice of the terrorist group Hamas to represent them and their long history of targeting innocent arabs and jews with indiscriminate violence, I suggest their perception may be well founded and their reaction understandable.
as usual iron mike speaks nonsense regarding palestinians rights. As u deny our right to return to our homeland and you defend israel government in all its aggression and terror towards the owner of the land whom are palestinians so you will never be a logic and sense person.
Do u also support the musad who killed mahmood from hamas in dubai stealing 11 names of european identity and commit a murder in the hotel and killed an innocent man. His fault is that he defends his land and wants to live their and didnt occupy any country.
Israel now steal others passports of europeans as 6 british and 1 french and other germany and a women from ireland with 2 others. really shame and shame and cowerness.
All groups of history defend their existence and their country and palestinians are the same and hamas are one of them and hamas didnt launch a war and occupy others country like now USA and British and israel.
If you want a jewish country , so let all muslims country unite in one country and do u help in establishing that country? of course the west dont like e.g one united muslim country . so if you accept for the jewish , so let all arabs and muslim countries be one country as USA . So as their is jewish country only, so others will take execuse to have only muslim country and see what problems would be created. At that time their will be conflict and more wars.
Israel depends only on its weapons and the support from America and she has no right to occupy our country and let us refugee.
If all Arab nations want to unite and form one big happy Islamic empire, they already have the means to do so and I would certainly encourage it. After all, it would be great entertainment because the truth is they do not have the will to do so and would probably kill each other in the attempt. Why should I oppose it?
Mike u lie always, palestinians since 60 years tried all peacful means to return to their countries and israel always escape from peace .
Israeli propaganda is lying always and iam wondering about those israeli men and women and how they think? they know that they are stealing others homes and how they can live in it ? really iam wondering. These days the truth become false and no honest people in this world, they are very very rare unfortunately.
if u try to link that jewish are linked to palestine also christians and jesus then is a palestinian or called what ever u like it. So do u mind if the christians once claim that palestine is for them and come and occupy it and let also the jewish leave it . Really nonsenses and also jewish lived in many places and never God promised a land to anyone. God knows that those israeli when occupy palestine , they will torture thier people and rule injustly and kill its native people , it is also mentioned in Quran what they will do with innocent people, but at the end , the victory would come to the real inhabitance of the land and the people who lived their for centuries and never harm any jew for his relegion and you know where jewish were killed and tortured . They tortured in europe and not in palestine when lived with muslims.
Shame on you mike for your defending the terror state whom killed others outside palestine and 11 men killed one innocent man with bellow and suffocate him. Really cowerness and justice inchallh one day will prevaile and criminals will be punished.
of course they will kill each others as you know spies will be send from israel and others whom support israel as not to do it . I know that , all now care about money and power and dont care about the truth, but one day will come as truth will come when jesus will desend again and rule justly and be muslim also. I know it will be not near , but sure it will come and that is what we muslims believe .
Sure...Israeli spies are responsible. That's why Shia and Sunni kill each other too. It's so much easier to blame the Jews than take responsibility.
Good luck with that. Jesus never renounced his people, even as they condemned him to death. Nor afterwards when he rose from the dead. No reason to believe he is going to abandon them when he comes back the final time. More likely, he will not look kindly upon those who continue to persecute his people. Be forewarned.
"Good luck with that. Jesus never renounced his people, even as they condemned him to death. Nor afterwards when he rose from the dead. No reason to believe he is going to abandon them when he comes back the final time. More likely, he will not look kindly upon those who continue to persecute his people. Be forewarned."
As a moderator I should berate you for proseletysing (and threatening) but I can't resist poking fun at you for seriously believing that the Christ figure from the Bible would really associate himself with a movement which has created the crusades, the inquisition and the murder of 6 million Jews.
Mike, a majority of Jewish Israelis wants to strip their Palestinian fellow-citizens of their citizenship and expel them for demographic reasons. It’s another wave of ethnic cleansing.
Your claim that these Palestinians “favor a terrorist options instead of using the democratic options available to them” or “have not lived up to those obligations” [as citizens] is extraordinary. Mere repetitions don’t make your claim more convincing. Please substantiate it. It can’t be too hard to supply a link, can it?
You know I was thinking of seeing this movie.....now after reading this I'd rather not bother.
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