“Internet giant Google has changed the tagline on the homepage of its Palestinian edition from ‘Palestinian Territories’ to ‘Palestine’. The change, introduced on 1 May, means google.ps now displays ‘Palestine’ in Arabic and English under Google’s logo. Using the word Palestine is controversial for some. Israeli policy is that the borders of a Palestinian state are yet to be agreed.” Good but daring move.
In the US, it’s almost taboo to support anything other than Israel’s supremacy in the region, and recognizing Palestinians as people deserving of fundamental civil and human rights is very controversial in the US.
However, many American conservatives already swore off Google and switched to Bing (Or, at least said they would) because the Google doodle on Easter Sunday featured farm labor organizer Cesar Chavez to commemorate his birthday, rather than anything relating to Jesus. So, at least in the US, there will likely be a lot of noise in conservative news channels, but it probably won’t effect their bottom line too much.
At any rate, I suppose I’ll be getting the popcorn ready.
You’re actually pretending to be a lefty here, right? No actual liberal I’ve ever met is this frothing or braindead.
I like how you use “left” in a derogatory way but I guess you’re American and you guys don’t actually have a political spectrum.
Worth remembering that Jesus wasn’t a white man with blue eyes…. he was a brown man.
Not sure how many of the white US religious right realise that?
Ummm pretty sure he was a raptor.
http://sweetraptorjesus2.ytmnd.com/
There is no historical evidence whatsoever that the biblical Jesus ever existed. The teachings of “Jesus” are little more than a rehash of Buddhism. The gospels are essentially a mishmash (virgin birth, resurrection etc) of Eastern religious myths.
Still, he certainly wasn’t Caucasian.
caucasian != exclusively_european; // true
unclefester,
“There is no historical evidence whatsoever that the biblical Jesus ever existed. The teachings of ‘Jesus’ are little more than a rehash of Buddhism. The gospels are essentially a mishmash (virgin birth, resurrection etc) of Eastern religious myths.”
I don’t have religious faith in the bible, but even if certain events were factually true, it’d be impossibly difficult to actually prove any of them. In 2000 years, I doubt there will be historical evidence that you or I existed either. Jesus is more significant than all of us whether he actually existed or not. It surprises me how far people are willing to accept religious interpretations of history on faith alone.
It doesn’t even matter. The Jewish, Islamic and Christian faith are all essentially the same. They teach the same things – and as long as you stick to the non-crazy aspects of it, they all come down to “don’t be a dick”.
People don’t like to hear it, these three religions are like Ubuntu variants. Some superficial difference, but they’re all one and the same to an outsider.
Actually, “don’t be a dick” ranks pretty low on the list of rules/guidelines of those religions. eg, in most enumerations of the Ten Commandments, the first “don’t be a dick” rule comes in at around 5. This is not even touching Leviticus or Sharia.
As long as you stick to the non-crazy aspects of them, you’d get nothing like any of the core of those religions. Or to put it another way, there is no non-crazy aspect to them, as they are defined by their craziness. Everything else is common humanitarianism.
You mean would have been, as “was” implies that the fellow actually existed. I’ve got my doubts there.
Which has quite an obvious reason – current power groups in PA are all pro fascist (be it Hamas or Fatah). Voicing support for them would be rather weird. Not that having an autonomy is bad in itself. That’s not really the place to discuss 1 state or 2 state approaches. But all decent people agree that having a fascist governed autonomy is bad. That’s the basic reason for US attitude. What’s surprising is that Europe at large is ignoring this and cheers to Hamas, Fatah and co. rise to power through democratic means (the democratic part is not true anyway, but let’s pretend). They seem to forget that the fact that fascists can come to power democratically doesn’t make them any less fascists.
Edited 2013-05-03 22:46 UTC
Yes: lobbying and pressure.
You know, just because you’re not unilaterally for everything Israel does doesn’t mean you’re for everything the other side does.
Actually, this isn’t true, at least not these days. I think you’re being melodramatic here.
Popular support for Israel has big gaps in society. One thing I took away from the Arab Spring is that we started to question supplying arms to the perceived freedom fighters in Egypt, to the Libyan freedom fighters, etc… not really knowing what the US was getting in bed with, and remembering the CIA supporting al Qaeda against the Soviets. I think we’ve already begun to question support for Israel with the same critical eye.
In the 2012 election cycle, conservatives were rushing to claim that they would bring the US more closely aligned with Israel after Obama has let the relationship cool.
The question these days is who are they and will we just be exchanging one problem for another?
Both parties like to threaten to boycott big decisions in some way.
Check out the threats of conservatives and liberals threaten to move to Canada when something doesn’t go their way, as if depriving us of their company would be so detrimental.
The naming of disputed territories isn’t really typical OSnews fair, and I would really prefer that it not happen too often.
I guess it is when a major technology company seemingly takes a controversial stand on it.
But ok, maybe OSNews should not concern itself with company policies regarding censorship or worker conditions either?
Edited 2013-05-04 03:26 UTC
At the risk of starting a political debate (or a flamewar as they’re sometimes indistinguishable) I have to say this. I don’t support either of them. I’d much rather the rest of the world step back and let the two resolve their differences in their own way. If they want to blow one another all to hell, I’m not one for getting in the way of it. I don’t generally favor getting involved in another’s quarrels unless asked by all sides to do so.
That being said, I do have marginally more sympathy for Palestine over Israel. What Israel and their allies did during the formation of that so-called country was essentially to move in, kick Palestinians out of their homes and off of their land, and take it by brute force because they claimed they had a right to it. Put yourselves in that position and I think each and every single one of us on this forum would be pretty fucking pissed if that happened to us because of an ages-old religious feud. However, both sides have committed so many atrocities against their enemy and against their own people that I cannot really feel anything for either of them at this point. I’m not fond of theocracy no matter what form it takes or who’s at the helm. It’s not a popular viewpoint here in the US, but I’ve never been one to silence my own opinions for popularity. The right to express ourselves is one thing we used to stand for around here, and I’m damned if I’ll give that up even if everyone else in this country seems to have done just that.
40+ years of illegal occupation and no end in sight. At least people across the world are starting to realise that the plight of the Palestinians. Good on you, Google.
1. There never existed a Palestinian state in history nor a Palestinian people. Find one history book written before the 20th century which mentions them.
2. Israel was not created on someone elses land. It was the reestablishment of a country which was destroyed many years ago and then occupied by foreigners (some of which suddenly decided in the early 20th century that they are a people). During this entire time, Jews always lived in Israel even though they were prosecuted by both the Christian crusades and the Muslim hordes.
3. 70% of the Jordanian population is Palestinian. If it were a democracy, Jordan would be the Palestinian homeland.
4. Israel defended the land of Israel against the Assyrians, The Babylonians, the Hellenist empire, the Egyptians, the Romans, the British and the Arabs. I doubt Google will be the one to take her land away.
5. As long as Jews live and thrive in their homeland.on the ground, The Palestinians can have all the cyberspace in the world as far as I am concerned!
×¢× ×™×©×¨×ל ×—×™ 🙂
Edited 2013-05-05 19:42 UTC
Some of your claims are a little strange…
Other people also lived on that land (Canaanites, hint, hint…).
You mean… lost the land to all of them…?
You mean make them go away by terrorist methods even though they would have gone and given you the land anyway, and even though they had been there to protect you?
This one last part is correct.
As for 5, I don’t know — it would be so nice if at least the cyberspace was something that we all (all nations, all people) could share together. It comes very close to that now, I just hope it won’t change in the future.
Some replies to your replies…
Israel sometimes lost and sometimes won. Even when it lost, if eventually was able to overthrow its occupiers. It was only destroyed by Rome after existing for 1,000 years.
Yet the more interesting fact is looking at who is around today of all these great empires yet Israel exists.
When Israelis visit the Forum in Rome, they like to take pictures of themselves in front of the arch of Titus ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arch_of_Titus ) showing the V sign. Rome is in ruins yet Israel flourishes.
I fail to recall any acts of terror against civilians. Even the few attacks against British posts in Israel were usually objected to the majority of Jews. Compare that to the widely supported attacks specifically carried out against civilians by Arabs.(Heck, they massacre each other left and right across the ME, you can only imagine what they want to do to Jews)
I can’t argue with that 🙂
China still exists. We came before you and we’re still here. And we did all this without being God’s Chosen People.
I have a huge respect for the Jews, but people like you are giving your kind a bad name. You belittle your people’s modern successes by pandering to ancient jingoism.
I don’t understand why you think I insulted China. China never tried to destroy Israel or the Jews. My remarks were only about those who had conflict with Israel.
Edited 2013-05-06 06:12 UTC
It doesn’t matter. You make it seem like it is some kind of heroic feat to outlast those empires – as though you deserve it more because of it.
Edited 2013-05-06 06:25 UTC
I guess I didn’t make my point clear. It simply that when determining if a piece of land belongs to this or that people, I would expect reasonable people to understand that a country which existed on said land for thousands of years and protected its rights to that land against overwhelming odds would have more rights to it than a group of people who were invented 100 years ago.
The term Palestine was given by the Romans to the province.
Secondly, just because the people didn’t have a name doesn’t mean they didn’t exist, and it certainly doesn’t mean that they can be treated as non-existent.
Even in Australia, it took a while, but we discarded the concept of Terra Nullis. The aboriginal population didn’t have a name either. It doesn’t make the British invasion more right.
You claim Palestinians were a group invented 100 years ago. Well, the concept of the nation-state didn’t exist until a few hundred years ago. So by your own argument, there has been no such thing as a state of Israel because you’re just hitching on a concept invented a few hundred years ago.
Thus, you have no rights, by your very own argument. Well done.
Some replies:
Do you know why they changed the name to Palestine? the Roman emperor Hadrian renamed the land of Israel and Judea as Palastina (‘Palestine’) after the ancient enemies of the Jews – the Philistines. Because of his hatred of the Jews, it was meant to be an insult to dishonor them and remove their history.
They existed as Arabs. Most Palestinians have as much in common with each other as an Arab in Syria to an Arab in Egypt. I didn’t say they didn’t exist. The “people” (nation) didn’t exist.
So Jews who lived in Israel for thousands of years (and others who returned home to Israel after exile) or like the British? and the Arabs who invaded over the course of the past few hundred years are the aboriginal population? Interesting.
If the concept of the nation-state didn’t exist until a few hundred years ago what was the Kingdom of Israel? Israel’s claim to the land of Israel has nothing to do with nation-state.
If Israel’s claim has nothing to do with nation-state, as you have just said, then you cannot say the inhabitants of the area had no claim to the land just because they weren’t organized into a modern nation-state. Having a “name” or a “nation” is not a valid criteria of ownership, or non-ownership.
Do you see that you just argued against yourself? Or are you so blinded by your nationalism that you can’t see logic?
Oh you mean just like the non-Jewish people that has lived on the land now known as Israel much longer than the current state of Israel has existed?
And they are welcome to stay. No one is kicking them out. All Arabs citizens have full rights and if the Arabs in Judea and Samaria would demand it I’m sure they would get citizenship too.
But they do not have the right to take away parts of someone elses (very small country) to create yet another Arab country.
Don’t confuse national rights with individual rights. I am talking about national.
Edited 2013-05-06 08:53 UTC
But you are kicking them out. Building illegal settlements while negotiations are happening.
But you have a right, apparently…
Oh the irony.
What Arabs are being kicked out?
Why is it that Chinese have a right to build in China but Israelis don’t have a right to build in Israel?
because they are building their settlements in palestine, not in israel
if you want to draw parallels to israel/palestine try something like china/tibet
LOL. Your friend kwan_e (Who has also been attacking me on my posts) would not be happy to hear that!
But in answer to your question: It is only your misguided opinion that Israel/Palestine is like China/Tibet. If you really learn the history of the region you will understand that Israel was there 1000s of years before anyone mentions a Palestinian people or country.
Not to mention that comparing China’s 9,706,961 square km size (1.3 Billion people) to Israel’s 22,072 square km size (6 Million Jews) is laughable.
China is the largest country in its region while Israel is surrounded by two dozen Arab and Muslim countries sworn to its destruction who decided that even tiny Israel needs to give up land to create yet another radical Muslim dictatorship that murders gays and women who “dishonor” themselves (This is happening now in Gaza).
Furthermore, Israel is surrounded by 300 Million Muslims who have been artificially divided into countries – hence the reason why there is so much infighting inside these countries. The Arabs are historically divided into “Hamulot” (large families). They are one nation basically which is why there is no “Palestinian People” they are the same as a Jordanian, Egyptian to Syrian Arab (which are the place they came from to Israel)
If all the information you get is from the blatantly one sided media you will only know lies and half truths about what is going on. Try seriously learning about the history and you may have your eyes opened.
Uh, no. Unlike you, I have a sense of human rights. I can see past my own nationality and culture and historical superstitions to make a sane and impartial judgement on things.
There is NOW. That’s all that matters. NOW. Not what happened a thousand years ago or a hundred. And guess what, you’re just as foreign to the original inhabitants a thousand years ago as the Arabs are to you.
You have no entitlement to your ancestors achievements. What matters is now, and NOW is the result of the international community, not your racist justification of land ownership.
The blatantly one-sided media is zionist.*
* I’m not saying Israel has no right to exist. I fully support it, NOW that it’s there, not because it was there a thousand years ago. Just stop breaking international law regarding legal borders.
If all you want to look at is NOW and ignore the past then the fact that right NOW Israel rules the total of its country should be acceptable to you. no?
Illegal settlements. How many times do you intend to ignore those two words. You’re not just ruling the country, you’re invading parts that are decidely not your country.
Who decides they are illegal? What do you mean “decidedly not your country”? Why doesn’t China leave Tibet?
Prove to me why Judea and Samaria belong to a country that never existed before?
Edited 2013-05-08 10:01 UTC
The same international community that gave your country a chance in the first place.
Because the CCP doesn’t want to. I don’t excuse it. You can’t try to paint me as a hypocrite, because I don’t hold views to Tibet the same way you hold views to your country.
Again, if you are going to argue that a people must be organized into a modern nation state to be able to exist unmolested, then you must similarly argue Israel has no right to exist.
So stop it.
You mean the same community that is made up of dozens of Arab countries + all the countries that depend on their oil + all the world powers who align themselves against American allies like Israel (Russia, China) + the countries who follow those world powers verses tiny Israel? I mean come on! You know politics is what determines what countries support. It has nothing to do with right and wrong or facts. For example, Russia supports Assad who is massacring his people because they don’t want Western countries to get influence in Syria.
The Arabs can bring up any anti Israel resolution at the UN and have a majority. They could decide Israelis were little devils with tails and according to you that would become fact because they have a majority.
It seems that only when it comes to Israel, it needs to do what the world tells it regardless of how dangerous it is to its existence.
I’m not sure how to answer your “nation state” comments. We are talking about a piece of land and to whom it should belong, that is all. Does it belong to Israelis or to Arabs. I was just saying that if you think it should belong to Arabs, you should give me your reasoning for it (and No, saying “because the word community says so” isn’t a reason)
At no point after WWII was anyone obligated to give you a country. So stop acting as if it was divinely ordained.
Stop believing that Israel was given on a silver platter. Everything the Jews built in Israel was done by themselves. On the ground, everyone and everything was fighting against them from the swamps and dessert which the Jews turned into thriving farmland to the British who forbade Jews to immigrate to the Arabs who invaded the second Israel declared independence. The “world” didn’t lift a finger to help Israel. Israel created itself despite the world.
SO, because of one UN vote to support Israel in 1947, suddenly you feel like the world gave Israel a country?!
People should try watching a documentary about the Six-Day War and the periods immediately preceding and following the war. Many parts of modern Israel were literally a desert less than a hundred years ago. The accomplishment of turning this desert into an arable, livable and prosperous land in a matter of decades is an amazing accomplishment that nobody but the Israeli people can take credit for.
I mentioned “illegal settlements”. That is, those settlements are illegal under UN law. Have some respect for the law that made your country possible.
Might as well save your energy. It’s no good trying to have an intelligent debate with someone who refuses to look beyond their own religion.
Oh I see. So what you’re saying is that we should also give most of the land on the north american continent back to the native indians and the population that isn’t native indian will have to relocate to, I dunno, Mexico or something. Maybe we could give them Minnesota or Alaska.
Sounds like a good plan. Perfectly reasonable. I cant see why it would meet any resistance from anyone.
Your the one who wants to change the current situation whereby the rightful owners are the current rulers.
That’s not what your holy book says.
Your holy book says your people went in and genocided and murdered and raped and took child wives from the children of those you murdered.
Oh wait, you were talking about after WWII.
How convenient of you to pick an arbitrary point in history to reset to that conveniently benefits you. :shocked:
This is really not OSNews-related but as one who lives in the region I felt I could provide my own viewpoint to this (rather daunting) conflict…
I think you’re all wrong in supporting, or even favouring one side or another. There can’t, and won’t be any kind of co-existence if both sides aren’t equal in the first place.
For those who side with the Palestinians: well, when they have their state both sides will benefit. You can force Israel to recognise a state, but then again are you advancing peace? Aren’t you preparing the grounds for yet another conflict to erupt?
The Jewish settlement in Palestine bought lands from the Arabs. As Zionism (the Jewish national movement) , and later WWII, lead more Jews to migrate the Arabs began to feel threatened and later reacted with their own national movement, but not before they tried to obliterate the new state of Israel with 5 armies (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and even Iraq). That’s not an excuse to kill innocent people or occupy their territory, but it gives you an idea of the constant threat Israel has face on a daily basis (even with the peace treaty with Egypt I can’t go there as an Israeli). By the way Israel is not present in Gaza since 2005 and in the West Bank there are about 350,000 Jews, and some of them have lived there for tens of generations. To complicate matters even more, some Palestinians are of Jewish origins, and that’s just one reason why you can’t make a clear cut between what’s Israel and what’s Palestine. Anyway it’s not a coincidence that the Jews returned to this land, because they were not wanted anywhere else (I’ve already mentioned Europe, but there were also massacres in the Arab countries and forced deportations to Israel). Jews had to flee their homelands with no belongings to a new state. But that scenario was everywhere during the 20th century, and if the Palestinians want a brighter future they should start building cities to replace the old refugee camps, just as Israel developed itself.
For those who are pro-Israel: demonization of either side won’t help any of them, it only magnifies even more the hatred. Being afraid of others is a stupid strategy to live by, and it’s even more stupid to refuse to acknowledge one’s right to self-definition (both sides fail here actually). The constant need to stay alert, to punish whole populations just because of a few radicals is taking its toll on Israeli society, and it becomes heavier by the day. If we really want peace and security we have to make Palestine a reality (that means even working towards mutual understanding between Hamas in Gaza, and Fatah in the West Bank, as absurd as it might sound these days). It makes no sense to me that there are people who choose to ignore the hardships many Palestinians have to withstand just because settlers want to live among them (with the ultimate goal to drive them off). It doesn’t have to be this way, why there are so few Israeli Jews who know Arabic? Isn’t it insane to ask for peace without even knowing how to hold a conversation with your partner? (I’m not proud of it, but my Arabic is in a very bad shape, but I’m learning at least to some extent) Or maybe it says that people aren’t really interested to see an end to the war… You shouldn’t long for “better partners” because they don’t exist, you should try to make better partners and then you won’t have to face the wall, trying to fend off all the attacks. Of course the Palestinians are the perceived heroes, they are the ones who take actions to make themselves a better future. Now all that Israel does are poor reactions to the ever-degrading state in the Middle East.
So, if you don’t like one national movement or the other, dislike them all, because in the end nationalism is on the way to segregation and racism. While Imagine (John Lenon’s song of course) is still far ahead of us, I think it should be the ultimate goal for ever-lasting peace and prosperity (I really believe it). Hate no one, try to understand the difficulties of both sides and bridge them.
Oh, and about Google? Good for them, just also add Tibet, Kurdistan, the Basque country, and dozens of other ethnic groups. Then I’ll appreciate their sincere effort.
This is a non-story. As far as I’m aware, where Google have a site specific to a TLD, they use the local name of the territory covered by that TLD. Google.mk goes by ‘Google Macedonia’, for example, rather than ‘Google FYROM’, as it’s known to all international organisations. The authority that governs the territories to which the .ps domain has been allocated has recently restyled itself ‘State of Palestine’ from ‘Palestinian Territories’. The change to the caption at google.ps very likely just reflects that, and nothing more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Partition_Plan_for_Pale…