Old hebbits die hart
Sorry about that, but I’ve been reading through too many Maltese dictionaries. Meanwhile, Alex Sceberras Trigona was where you would have expected him to be: at a pro-Palestinian anti-Israel demo in Valletta.
Meanwhile, I see that here in Malta, where we speak corrupted Arabic and so understand the meaning of ‘Alla u akbar’, we continue to insist on pretending that its meaning in Arabic is for some reason different to its meaning in ‘Maltese’. And so we persist in doing the British/American thing and ‘translating’ it as ‘God is great’.
Allah u akbar means God is greatER.
It’s not a small difference, but a fundamental one: whatever you do, whatever happens, God is greatER than all of it.
The Times, Tuesday, 6th January 2009
Muslim community in protest against Israeli onslaught
The Muslim community yesterday marched through Republic Street, Valletta, in a peaceful protest against the Israeli attacks on innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Some 200 members of the Maltese Muslim Community braved the evening chill and chanted: “Free, free Palestine, occupation is a crime” and “Stop the occupation, stop the aggression” as they carried Palestinian flags and posters through the capital.
Their message was spelt out on a large banner that read: “We call upon the free world to apply pressure on the Israeli government to stop the ongoing massacre and break the siege”. Before the protest started, a group of Muslims gathered in a corner of Freedom Square for their evening prayers to Allah whom they thanked during the protest as they chanted: “Allah hu akbar” (God is great).
At the forefront of the crowd, which protested in Valletta’s wet roads, was a line of children, one of who carried a poster reading: “Why are we being killed?” Behind her, an adult carried a poster showing Palestinian children killed during the war that has been going on since mid-December.
The protesters questioned what the United Nations was doing to stop the massacre as another banner accused the UN of being “blind, deaf and dumb”. They also emphasised the importance of the EU’s role “to control the Israeli military machine”.
Labour Party international secretary Alex Sceberras Trigona, representatives of Moviment Graffitti and television host Peppi Azzopardi were among those present.
In another protest held last week various non-governmental organisations condemned the violence that led to the death of innocent civilians when Israeli troops attacked the Gaza Strip on Sunday.
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It might also mean… Our God (Allah) is greater than your God.
[Daphne – Not at all. It’s not a statement about the power or hierarchy of god/s but a repetition of the belief that God is above and beyond everything. And in case you missed it, it’s the same god.]
What’s the point in highlighting Sceberass Trigona’s presence? You may have a million things against the man (many of them justified no doubt) but I don’t get your point here.
[Daphne – Back to the future…..]
I think her point is that this guy will be vying to become Malta’s next Foreign Minister if Pl wins the next election.
For people like me who think that it’s not okay for future ministers of their country to demonstrate in favour of terrorist organisations, that’s a big point.
For the ambassador in Malta of a democratic country like Israel, it’s probably even bigger – although his diplomatic skills have been trained by years of having a certain patriarch of the DeMarco dynasty as foreign minister and president of the republic.
Well, there was Peppi too there. I bet that Peppi is in a better position to influence the way people think than AST will ever be…
[Daphne – He’s a television presenter. He can do what he pleases and his behaviour carries no wider implications. Bianca Jagger and Annie Lennox led the pro-Palestinian demo in London last week. They got their picture in the papers and that’s about it. Things would have been different had David Cameron sent the shadow foreign secretary to march alongside them.]
200 Muslims protesting in Valletta? That’s more than those protesting in the West Bank according to some internet sources. Still the number is of concern given what Hamas stands for – suicide bombings and the total destruction of Israel.
btw – before we all agree that the israelis should stop the occupation, let’s define ‘occupation’. Hamas thinks that ‘occupation’ means all land occupied by the Israelis in 1947 – think about that.
The problem with these protesting guys – and with too great a number of the Palestinians in Gaza – is that it is always OK with them when Hamas or Hizbollah [that roughly translates to ‘partners of God’]target Israeli civilians – ne’er a peep from them then; but they all come out in force when Israel acts in legitimate defence of its citizens – and that only after months of forebearance.
It would be far better indeed were the protests to be directed against Hamas and the assorted bunches of terrorists – groups all led by cowardly individuals who distort religion to incite others to turn themselves into human bombs targeting persons going about their daily lives.
It is indeed unfortunate that many innocent lives are being lost within Gaza as a result of current IDF incursion, however the solution is not yet another ceasefire, but for international pressure to be exerted upon all these terrorist groups to put an immediate stop to provocative attacks and pointless killings – and ideally for the whole sorry lot to pile up their stock of rockets and suicide belts and to then climb on top of the pile before setting off the detonator.
It is only then that Gaza and the West Bank may start on the road to progress and normality.
I agree that terrorism is not the way to elicit sympathy for one’s cause. It seems too that Israel is hell-bent on annhiliating the Palestinians to gain more land. The Hamas are playing right into Israel’s hands with their ‘terrorism’ and firing of rockets into Israel. This is not the way to deal with a military force of Israel’s magnitude. Think about David and Goliath ! I really think the United Nations should do something about this mad war which is causing so much hardship and agony to both sides I suppose.
[Daphne – Er, David and Goliath? David won.]
“[Daphne – Not at all. It’s not a statement about the power or hierarchy of god/s but a repetition of the belief that God is above and beyond everything. And in case you missed it, it’s the same god.]”
Is it? The pre-Islamic idol worshipped by the tribe Mohammed (pbuh) is said to have been born into was called Al_illah. When he went victoriously into the Kaba and ordered the demolision of all three hundred plus idols the various Arab tribes worshipped, the only one that was not knocked off its pedestal was in fact Al_Illah.
[Daphne – Christianity, Judaism and Islam are all rooted in the Old Testament. So clearly, it is the same god, evolved by us to suit our individual needs and requirements.]
Ethel, it is Hamas, not Israel, that is in the wrong. Israel is not looking for more land. Go back 60 years – it was the Palestinians who sought to drive the Israelis into the sea but, as has been the case in successive similar attempts over the years, only managed to demonstrate their incompetence.
Truth is that the Israelis, despite ongoing threats (Muslim extremists still openly threaten to ‘wipe Israel off the map’), a succession of co-ordinated attacks and ongoing terrorist activity by neighbouring Arab states, have made a success of their land. The Palestinian leaders, on the other hand, have sought to follow a culture of death; turning their Muslim beliefs into blasphemy by killing innocent people for the greater glory of God.
It is safe to conclude that a significant majority of Palestinians would be perfectly happy with the territory that they currently hold and to get on with living normal lives, were it not for the intimidation they are subjected to by cowardly ponces in balaclavas and by the mindless lot that go about in pointless parades chanting meaningless slogans, burning USA flags and, lately, and even more ridiculously, carrying shoes mounted on sticks.
Hamas is a terrorist organisation that has usurped the legitimate rule of the Palestinian Authority in the Gaza strip. It is wrong to equate Hamas and its terrorist acts with the legitimate action taken by Israel in defence of its citizens. Both the European Commission and the UN should stop pussyfooting and should refer to Hamas by what it really is, a terrorist organisation which is destabilising and destroying what could otherwise be a normally-developing region. Any other stance taken by the EC and UN would be indirectly supporting and legitimising Hamas and the atrocities that Hamas and other terrorist groups commit.
The press regulalrly report the list of NGOs attending a particular protest or the statements issued by the same organisations.
I am amazed at the number of NGOs present in Malta, who attend protests and constantly issue statements and counter statements. These NGOs seem to mushroom at a very fast rate, but then one realises that many are just one-man shows. In a particular case, the same person even represents two or three different organisations, giving the impression that there are so many left-wing movements in Malta.
@Michael Vella
You are entitled to your opinion of course but I thought that the land which belonged to the Palestinians was given to Israel after World War II by the Allies and that is what started it all. Of course in war I reckon both sides are in the wrong. Whatever, please answer this question ‘what exactly makes a person/group become a ‘terrorist’ in your opinion ?
Following the reasoning of some contributors the FFI and FTPF that helped to liberate France were terrorists.
@ Michael Vella: The EU declared Hamas to be a terrorist organisation ages ago.
@Jason Spiteri.
AST is Labour’s Foreign Relations Secretary and not the Foreign Affairs shadow minister. As far as I know, AST went there representing himself and not his party – even if, I must admit, a person in his position is not a common private citizen and thus his presence does reflect on his party.
@Daphne. Would it be acceptable for a BBC journalist to participate in such a protest?
@Ethel. Israel annihilating the Gazans? So why did they evacuate Gaza? How is it that Israel has a Muslim sitting on its cabinet?
[Daphne – No, a BBC journalist who participated in the equivalent demo in London (or elsewhere) would be subjected to disciplinary proceedings. But Joe Azzopardi is not a PBS journalist. He is a contracted producer and show-host. The equivalent of a BBC journalist would be Ruth Amaira or any one of her news-team colleagues.]
You should check out this video:
http://youtube.com/v/EC69xFrQ-MM.swf
Ethel – After WWII is when the land division took place. The origin goes back well before that, a crucial turning-point being the collapse of the Ottoman Empire after WWI when borderlines for the various new states in the Middle East were established. There were both Hebrews and Muslims in Palestine at the time and both are entitled to occupy the land. The post-WWII territorial division was accepted by the Israelis – a division recognized at international level, but not by the Arabs who stamped their feet and decided to embark on an unprovoked and totally unjustified attack aimed at finishing off what the Nazis had started, only to end up with egg on their face. A process the Arabs chose to go through again and again for the following half-century …and with the same result.
I do not agree that in war BOTH sides are wrong – especially in this case when the Arab side openly declares that its aim is to annihilate an entire people and to wipe a nation off the map, which is what Hamas, Hizbollah, and all similar groups still say they intend to do.
As regards your question as to what “makes a person/group become a terrorist”, more aptly, perhaps you would let us know how you refer to Hamas and Hizbollah – Avengers of God, maybe?
@Alfred Mangion: The situation you refer to was the opposite to that in Palestine. In France the groups concerned were legitimately fighting against an aggressor forcibly occupying their land.
In Palestine, Hamas and Hizbollah are resorting to terrorist acts against innocent and defenceless civilian targets, with the sole aim of taking over a territory to which they have absolutely no right and that can never be theirs.
The Israelis only occupied adjoining territory in response to unprovoked attacks on their own land and, in all cases, withdrew to their own borders once the threats were seen to be neutralised.
The Arabs in the West Bank have started to recognise realities and to see sense. Not so the Arabs in Gaza where the prevalent culture is, to quote a local woman of Palestinian origin as reported in the media this week, for women there to produce “13 or 14” children so as to increase their numbers of their race – this in a territory with unemployment at 50% or more, illegitimately by power-hungry goons whose interpretation of the Muslim faith is one of ongoing blasphemy.
@ H P Baxxter: “The EU declared Hamas to be a terrorist organisation ages ago.”
Yes – and now the EU should be consistent, stop talking about a ‘ceasefire’, and should unequivocally tell Hamas and Hizbollah that their actions are unjustified and unjustifiable, and that it is they that should put a stop to their attacks.
Had Hamas ceased firing rockets on Israeli civilians two weeks ago – better still had not done so in the first place – the IDF would not be in Gaza today.
Dear Ethel, the Jews of Palestine were given just 20% the mandate of Palestine. Now, does that mean that the Arabs of Palestine had no land where to live? It’s also interesting to note that while Israel integrated its Muslim population, the Arab part of Palestine (i.e. Jordan) forced all Jewish residents to leave, bulldozed Jewish-owned homes and used tombstones from Jewish graveyards as road construction material (zrar). To this day it is illegal for a person to be both a Jordanian and a Jew. Now…who tried to annihilate who?
Ganni, are you by any chance the same Ganni, the Sant apologist, who was famously anti-EU before the referendum but turned Europhile the moment Sant expediently dropped his dissenting mantra? If not, accept my apologies. But if you are, I see you’re still an apologist, this time trying to explain what you see as an anomaly in AST… other than being a great supporter of the Khazars living on Palestinian land. Pity Joe Mifsud has been ousted from his IntSec job – you’d have had a tough time apologising on his behalf.
I won’t answer again on the Khazar racialist theory – already did in another thread. AST is a zionist? Oh, didn’t know that :O (jekk fhimtek sew insomma). Anyway, I don’t have to cover up for anyone. They can do that themselves. And no, I’m not some other Ganni you might know.
No, Ganni, ma fhimtnix sew.
@Michael and Gianni
I give up trying to reason with you and not for lack of arguments. You are both so completely biased that it is useless wasting energy. Stick to your opinions if you must. I am simply saying that when things come to a head and it is war, yes, both sides are always to blame. There is absolutely no justification for wars.
[Daphne – What would you have done had you been Winston Churchill in the late 1930s – let the Nazis invade? Allow them to march all over Europe and take control? Use peaceful negotiation to dissuade Adolf Hitler from his mission to eradicate Jews, gypsies and the mentally and physically handicapped from the face of the continent? Turned the other cheek?]
Never in my life have I turned the other cheek even in difficult situations, and never expected others to do so although there is no doubt that they did ! Anyway, what is wrong with trying to use peaceful negotiation but it seems that the production of armaments and weapons of destruction is too much of a good ongoing business, and maybe it is not in some countries’ interest that there are no wars. I may be a dreamer but I still do believe that peoples of different religions can, with great goodwill, come together.
Ethel: “I am simply saying that when things come to a head and it is war, yes, both sides are always to blame. There is absolutely no justification for wars.”
Ethel, get real: Neville Chamberlain came back from Germany proudly displaying an agreement negotiated with Adolf Hitler that purportedly assured ‘peace for all time’. A short while later Hitler started WWII. A peace pact was also signed between Hitler and Stalin, but that did not stop the Nazis from invading the Soviet Union. The Japanese attacked the USA base in Pearl Harbour while deluding the US government of their true intentions. North Korea invaded South Korea without warning. The Syrians, Jordanians, Egyptians attacked Israel several times and always without valid reason or provocation. Need one go on?
It is never both parties that are to blame for war; one side is the aggressor, the other is the legitimate defender. In the Israeli/Palestinian scenario, it is Hamas and Hizbollah who are the aggressors; the Israelis are simply and legitimately acting in defence of their homeland and of their people.
Hamas and Hizbollah are claiming something that is not theirs and so are totally to blame for all the consequences of their aggression, including the sufferings and death of the people in Gaza.
Ethel – “I may be a dreamer but I still do believe that peoples of different religions can, with great goodwill, come together.”
It may be in a different context maybe, but a look through the racist comments on http://www.timesofmalta.com whenever there is an article concerning immigrants will show you that you are living in a dream world.
Ethel, peace negotiations are always a good thing. But how can Israel hold talks with Hamas if 1) Hamas refuses and 2) Hamas has sworn to destroy Israel? Israel has been able to make peace with Egypt and Israel had to pay a price, i.e. giving back the Sinai. However Israel was ready to pay that price in order to have somewhat good relations with its neighbour. If you were the PM of Israel, what would you do in face of constant rocket attacks from Gaza? Would you just sit back?
And by the way, people of different religions do live together in Israel ;)
Amanda – sometimes living in a dream world is not a bad thing – it helps one survive – otherwise there will be more than the 30,000 in Malta and all over the world suffering from depression ! Still, sometimes dreams do come true – who would have dreamed that America would have the president they have today which is a good thing because it shows that Americans are changing. Things are happening in the world today that we never dreamed of (and I am not talking only about wars !!) and I still think that things will do change in the coming years – hopefully for the better but not in my lifetime or yours. – I still have hopes for mankind whilst being fully aware of what is going on around me.
Gianni – when there are two sides who are utterly obstinate one can only try and really try, to get them together using diplomatic means. Agree that if I were attacked I would defend myself but surely an eye for an eye is not the solution. Please believe me when I say that I try not to take sides but my nature has always been that of siding with the underdog in whatever situation in life because I think the strong do not really need support. Of course I do see what is really bad and what is good but still think that war is not the solution whoever tries to convince me to the contrary.