Mr Carter And Hamas

[CatherineM]

I was also wondering how the shape of the Middle East would be right now if the Israelis had taken the land offered to them in either Australia or South America. I think it was in Argentina. I know it was vacant, and more fertile.

I live on land, as probably most of you do as well, that was once Native land. If the government voted tomorrow to return it to the first nations, I'd be pretty mad. What they'd want with this old condo, I don't know, but they are fighting in the national courts for it. I guess I'd dig up the apple trees I planted last year for sure. It does make me think about how angry the Palestinians were when the UN voted to give away their land to the new nation of Israel.

And before you start calling me an anti-Semite, I'm far from it. I'm somewhat comforted by the Jewish control of Jerusalem. I think they are more respectful of our shrines and pilgrims. I was just wondering how things would be different now if Israel was a nation in South American rather than the middle east.

[Deb]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1506685' date='Apr 22 2008, 12:43 PM']To make peace you always have to sit down with people that have caused terror. We had to sit down after WWII with the men involved in genocide in Europe and in Asia. Roosevelt had to sit down with Stalin. MacArthur had to sit down with the Japanese that sent his men on the Death March. Can you image how hard that was? How do you guys think that peace in the middle east is going to happen? They have been fighting over that same scrap of land for millennium. Everyone has a claim to some part of it from some time in the past. I'm surprised that the decedents of the Philistines haven't started bombing everyone too so they could reclaim Gaza.[/quote]


I am not even sure it could be done on this site.

[Madame Vengier]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1506702' date='Apr 22 2008, 12:34 PM']I was also wondering how the shape of the Middle East would be right now if the Israelis had taken the land offered to them in either Australia or South America. I think it was in Argentina. I know it was vacant, and more fertile.[/quote]

It wasn't their homeland. Israel is their homeland. The land God gave to them 4,000 years ago. It is theirs and no one has a right to take it from them.

Honestly can't understand how this is up for debate amongst Catholics. Their history is in our BIBLE.

[CatherineM]

Yes, and the Great Spirit gave the land under my condo to the Papaschase First Nation 13,000 years ago.

[Deb]

Hmm, us so called Americans have only been here for about 600 years and we murdered just about all the native people and took their land. Maybe we should give it back to them now. It isn't like they even got up and left and then returned.

[Mercy me]

[quote name='Deb' post='1506131' date='Apr 21 2008, 09:42 PM']I love Jimmy Carter. He was actually a President who lived his faith while in office. He just wasn't enough of a hypocrite to pretend to be anything than other than what he was. A man who truly cared for all the people of the world.
He has done more for more people that most citizens of this country and certainly more than any of the Presidents, past or present.
hate (don't hate, appreciate) (don't hate (don't hate, appreciate), appreciate) speech against anyone isn't really a part of Phatmass. At least not since I have been here. You know who you are.
Windbaggery.[/quote]

Carter did a lot for me. When gas was rationed and the lines at the gas stations were hours long, I made good money selling coffee from my little thermos to all those people waiting in line. Mortgage rates were 20%. Inflation and double digit inflation. As I child I dreamt of visiting Iran where my dad spent so much time. Somehow I doubt that I will get there anytime soon. Thanks to Mr. Carter's disastrous foreign policy the Shite radicals were given a country to base themselves and will soon have nuclear weapons. Yes, he cared but he was incredibly incompetent. As the expression goes, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."

[Madame Vengier]

[quote name='CatherineM' post='1506955' date='Apr 22 2008, 05:58 PM']Yes, and the Great Spirit gave the land under my condo to the Papaschase First Nation 13,000 years ago.[/quote]

Catherine, the discussion isn't about Native Americans. It's about Israelis. Can you not talk about Israelis without bringing in other groups?

And furthermore, the history of the Native American peoples is not in our Bible. You did sort of conveniently ignore that point that I tried to make.

[Aloysius]

[quote name='Madame Vengier' post='1506939' date='Apr 22 2008, 07:49 PM']It wasn't their homeland. Israel is their homeland. The land God gave to them 4,000 years ago. It is theirs and no one has a right to take it from them.

Honestly can't understand how this is up for debate amongst Catholics. Their history is in our BIBLE.[/quote]
yes, and our theology teaches that the Church is the New Israel and that the destruction of the Temple was a sign of the transference of the covenant to the Church and the end of their claim to the Holy Land. Even their own Orthodox Theology always taught, prior to the creation of the secular Zionist state, that they had been exiled from the Holy Land and could only re-enter it if the Messiah led them. if a Catholic wishes the Holy Land to be the land promised to Israel in political reality right now, that Catholic ought to believe that Christendom should be in control of the Holy Land because the Church is the New Israel. However, most Catholics hold that the promised land is to be sorted out in the End Times when the earth is remade and renewed, ie that there should be no attempt to bring a political reality that brings the New Israel into control there. No more than there should be a political reality for the New Israel than there should be a false Israel based upon the continuation of the old covenant which was fulfilled (though really that false Israel is based upon secularist zionism and nothing more)

it shouldn't be a debate among Catholics: we should agree with the Orthodox Rabbis who used to teach that the Jewish people had been exiled from the Holy Land and could not re-enter it except if led by the Messiah, and that if they did so it would cause massive problems. If you don't agree with the former statement, at least you have to be honest and agree that the latter statement was true because that has been the source of most of the violence of the past 50 years. This is what the Orthodox Rabbis tried to tell the secular Zionists when they were first coming up with this plan but sadly they did not listen and founded a secular European colony under the guise of a continuation of a covenant which has long since been fulfilled and offered in its completeness through the Catholic Church.

the Jewish people lived for over a millenium in Europe. that makes them Europeans. everywhere but here European Colonialism is condemned as horrid and barbaric, but here where these colonists oppress the native Palestinians, we are asked to shut up or else be labeled anti-semitic.

it is most definitively unCatholic to support the nation of Israel's occupation of Palestinean lands. For there is no longer Jew or Gentile in Christ, the Jews have no more claim to that land than the Palestinians... and actually they have less of a claim to it because they have a millenium of European descent.

I couldn't go up to Inishowen in Donegal and declare that myself and my family deserve to own land there... and we've only been gone a century. My whole family couldn't really try to re-establish governing control over there, even though it's only been about 5 centuries since the last cheiftan of our clan lost power. And the Jews who lived in Europe more than a millennium did not have the right to take that land from the Palestinians.

[CatherineM]

Madame-I was bring up the Native Americans because the Palestinians feel the same way about the loss of their land 60 years ago as the Natives feel about the loss of their land 100-200 years ago. Yes, I believe that our Bible is the inspired word of God, but not everyone that we share this planet with believes what I do. You do understand that we have to share the planet? Where in the New Testament does Christ say that we are allowed to just trample over everyone because we have the "true faith." The point I was trying to make, which apparently was lost on you, is that I would feel the same as the Palestinians if someone came in and took my property away to give it back to someone who hadn't had a claim to it in many years, had given up their rights to it by vacating it, by losing it, by selling it, etc. My neighbors and I would probably be very much like the Palestinians in fighting it in the streets if necessary.

[Aloysius]

moreover, Catholic theology (The New Covenant fulfills the Old), anthropology (there is no longer Jew nor Greek...), ecclesiology (the Church is the New Israel and Ancient Israel is no more), and eschatology (the heavenly Jerusalem will descend in the end) explicitly rejects the idea that the Jews have a divine right to the Holy Land in the present world. At the End of Time, the Holy Land as promised to the Chosen People, the New Israel, will be restored to what it was always meant to be. On this we can agree with the orthodox Jewish theology (rather than modernist liberal Jewish theology and secular Zionism): Israel will return to the Promised Land when the Messiah comes in glory.

the present state of Israel is NOT the tribe of Israel, it is NOT the true Israel, it is a modern secular nation-state which claims the name of a biblical people; it is formed by people who are descended from people who lived there millenia ago, but who have since taken root in Europe and are as much a part of European Tradition as any other race of people in Europe are. If there were an Irish colonial nation-state in Iran it would be no different, because the celts originally migrated from as far away as Persia and have just as much claim to hold a nation-state in that area as European Jews have a claim to hold a nation-state in Palestine.

[praying4carmel]

I believe Carter Said "Energy self sufficiency is the Moral equivalent of war"

Considering that most of you on this phorum were not alive during the 70's like we were, with Gas Lines and the Like, I believe that you don't have the necessary Livinghistory to make comments on what he is doing with Hamas. And he is NOT a Jew Hater.

Our grandparents, your great grandparents, Plopped Israel down in the Middle east after the war because of collective guilt over the Holocaust etc. How would you feel to be displaced? Also the Jews building a wall around themselves etc was not cool either.

Until Humility reigns on all sides we will continue to have these conflicts.

Remember that Mao and Stalin also were Merciless Killers not just Hitler. Mao's Numbers make Hitler and Stalin look like schoolkids.

The real enemy here is the devil, as well as our greed for oil.

[Aloysius]

more closely associated with the topic though: Both sides, those who have used terror against civilians and those who have oppressed civilians in fear of terror used against them, must be sat down and peace must be ironed out. I think it's sheer racism that make us expect it impossible to accomplish; it was accomplished with the IRA in Northern Ireland... unless the Palestinians are offered something to help them have a legitimate sense of self-government, this will not stop.

remember: amongst the Palestinians are not just Muslims (who deserve as much human dignity, freedom, and political rights as anyone in and of themselves), your brother Christians number among them as well and are definitely living under an OCCUPATION that has been imposed upon them. any freedom loving American is a hypocrite for opposing a Free Palestinian State.

like I said: Carter was not the best president in my opinion... in fact he was probably one of the worst ever in my opinion... though let me give him the highest praise I have to offer him: he ranks high in my book amongst the most well-intentioned presidents in history. and this action though well-intentioned will probably not do anything. i find it admirable that amidst the frustrating double talk of Israel and the US official governments, he's trying to actually sit down with the people who are involved... but nothing's going to happen until Israel actually commits itself to restoring the rights of the Palestinian people.

[Deb]

[quote name='Mercy me' post='1507215' date='Apr 23 2008, 12:34 AM']Carter did a lot for me. When gas was rationed and the lines at the gas stations were hours long, I made good money selling coffee from my little thermos to all those people waiting in line. Mortgage rates were 20%. Inflation and double digit inflation. As I child I dreamt of visiting Iran where my dad spent so much time. Somehow I doubt that I will get there anytime soon. Thanks to Mr. Carter's disastrous foreign policy the Shite radicals were given a country to base themselves and will soon have nuclear weapons. Yes, he cared but he was incredibly incompetent. As the expression goes, "the road to hell is paved with good intentions."[/quote]

Don't blame Carter for what was transpiring in the early 80's. I remember well the first oil crisis and gas rationing because it occured in 1973 during the Nixon years. Opec refused to ship oil to countries that supported Israel. This was during the Yom Kippur war. The second oil crisis began in 1979 when the Shah of Iran was overthown and Iran became a Muslim run country. After the U.S. overthrew the popular PM of IRan in 1953 and supported the Shah, things started to get really good in Iran. Unfortunately, that meant it was getting westernized and the Shah was supporting Israel. So, he was forced to flee. Oil production fell in Iran after than and did not start to come back til sometime in 1980. Then, Iraq invaded Iran (which Reagan supported) Iran's oil production nearly stopped and Iraq's dropped also. Voila! Energy crisis.

Carter was in office for four years following eight years of Republican screw ups with Nixon and Ford and after a very expensive failed war in Vietnam. Don't blame Carter for the clandestine messing with other countries which was part of our history since WWII. Carter did not have enough time to bring on the 80's recession or ME decade.
I would rather have a man who lived by his moral values in charge of my country than one who just pretends to. At least then I do not have to be ashamed of things like dealing with countries that violate human rights or of living in a country that does the same.

[praying4carmel]

[quote name='Deb' post='1509540' date='Apr 25 2008, 03:05 PM']Don't blame Carter for what was transpiring in the early 80's. I remember well the first oil crisis and gas rationing because it occured in 1973 during the Nixon years. Opec refused to ship oil to countries that supported Israel. This was during the Yom Kippur war. The second oil crisis began in 1979 when the Shah of Iran was overthown and Iran became a Muslim run country. After the U.S. overthrew the popular PM of IRan in 1953 and supported the Shah, things started to get really good in Iran. Unfortunately, that meant it was getting westernized and the Shah was supporting Israel. So, he was forced to flee. Oil production fell in Iran after than and did not start to come back til sometime in 1980. Then, Iraq invaded Iran (which Reagan supported) Iran's oil production nearly stopped and Iraq's dropped also. Voila! Energy crisis.

Carter was in office for four years following eight years of Republican screw ups with Nixon and Ford and after a very expensive failed war in Vietnam. Don't blame Carter for the clandestine messing with other countries which was part of our history since WWII. Carter did not have enough time to bring on the 80's recession or ME decade.
I would rather have a man who lived by his moral values in charge of my country than one who just pretends to. At least then I do not have to be ashamed of things like dealing with countries that violate human rights or of living in a country that does the same.[/quote]

Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!!! DEB!!!!

[Deb]

[quote name='praying4carmel' post='1509547' date='Apr 25 2008, 01:10 PM']Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!!! DEB!!!!
[/quote]

Thank you.

I noticed MercyME didn't have a response to that.