Edward Said: Oppressed Fraud

edward-saidEdward Said was the world’s second most famous Palestinian. And much like Palestine, his biography was a fake and his culture was nothing more than the advocacy of a perpetual supremacist conflict against the indigenous Jewish inhabitants whom the colonial myth of Palestine was meant to displace.

The great genius of Arab and Islamic supremacism was their pretense that the Jewish story of an indigenous minority resisting their colonialism was really their own story. Having failed to destroy every culture that they had conquered, they instead appropriated their stories, painting their fallen empires as the tragic victims of the imperialism of the very people whom they had conquered and oppressed.

Arabs and Muslims still remained the dominant and domineering group in the Middle East repressing other cultures and religions from North Africa to the Persian Gulf, but they flipped the history books over so that the descendants of caliphs and conquerors who had ground the Jews and other indigenous peoples under their boots could reinvent themselves as the victims of Jewish oppression. The members of vast families and clans spanning the Middle East selectively embraced a Palestinian identity if they happened, at any point in their lives, to find themselves within the borders of the Jewish State.

That is both the larger theme of Joshua Muravchik’s Making David Into Goliath: How the World Turned Against Israel and of its chapter on Edward Said, who helped turn the history books upside down.

Like many of the professionally oppressed, Edward Said came from wealth and privilege. Like Arafat, the world’s most famous Palestinian, Said, the world’s second most famous Palestinian came out of Cairo.

His childhood in “Palestine” was as much of a fiction as Palestine itself. Instead his mother had traveled to give birth in Jerusalem to take advantage of Jewish medical expertise. From that tiny act of occupation came the vast cultural appropriation that the newly baptized “Palestinian” would go on to inflict on the indigenous inhabitants of Jerusalem.

Edward Said’s career trajectory took him deep within academia where he denounced rival scholars for constructing simplistic stereotypes of the Middle East by constructing a simplistic stereotype of them as “Orientalists” who were “othering” the east.

In a typically tribal display of hypocrisy, Edward Said was othering the very people he was accusing of othering his own people.

What Edward Said lacked in scholarship (he thought that the Islamic conquest of what is today Turkey had taken place before the conquest of North Africa) and honesty (he claimed that the PLO rejected terrorism) he more than made up for in manufactured outrage, as Joshua Muravchik documents.

Edward Said transformed the Muslim and Arab colonists into the oppressed indigenous peoples pitted against European colonizers. The complex nuanced realities of legitimate scholars who recognized that Europeans and Arabs had both been imperialists and colonizers in their time were swept aside by Said’s nationalistic polemics.

By damning legitimate scholars as racist colonialist Orientalists, Edward Said was able to impose his own racist and colonialist revisionist history on academia.

The New Left had made Third World nationalism into its new creed. Said’s support of the PLO made him a voice for justice no matter how many lies he told or how his botched scholarship perverted history. Third World nationalists could legitimately call on Western guilt and act as moral voices on campus at the behest of a left that glibly assumed that only political terror would end the cycle of oppression.

The unfortunate truth of human affairs is that everyone is oppressing someone else. The great question that the left has been unwilling to address is who their designated victims are oppressing.

By treating the likes of Edward Said as reservoirs of unchallenged morality, the left had become complicit in the oppression of others. The old lessons of the USSR and the French Revolution, the danger of handing unlimited moral authority to outraged fanatics with an agenda, had not been learned. Instead class made way for race. The elites who had claimed to speak for the workers in France and Russia were dismissed. The new elites were wealthy prep school grads like Edward Said who claimed to speak for a non-existent people in an imaginary country based on three vacations he had taken there.

It was not only a breathtakingly impudent act of colonialism, but one that had severe consequences for the intellectual integrity of academia. Edward Said had staked out his place in the academic revolution by denouncing just about everyone else for their Orientalism. Facts were his weak point, but his tactics were Stalinist. Denouncing potential opponents as a class allowed him to turn his own Orientalism into the Lysenkoism of his field. It was not the quality of his scholarship that won him influence, but the broadness of his denunciation. Said’s work was not inclusive, it was exclusive. It came to bar the door.

In Making David Into Goliath, Joshua Muravchik dissects many of the myths and frauds that Edward Said built up around himself. And yet the myths can never be entirely destroyed because of the crucial role that he played in the alliance between the New Left and Third World nationalists. His ideas helped assign intellectual credibility to the intertwining of two reactionary totalitarian movements struggling to remain relevant by denouncing every newer system of government and thought.

Like many racists, Edward Said’s denunciations of others were really expressions of his own limitations. Said condemned his academic enemies for failing to see the diversity of the east, when it was Said who refused to see the diversity of the west. Edward Said reduced his opponents to crude stereotypes while accusing them of reducing Arabs and Muslims to crude stereotypes.

Edward Said accused his opponents of constructing colonialist myths, but his obsession with Israel led him to promote a colonialist myth in which his imperialist ancestors were the true indigenous people and the Jews, the majority of whom were Middle Eastern refugees, were foreign usurpers.

Edward Said tainted scholarship with this revisionist nationalist history. His defense of Arab and Islamic colonialism in an era in which academia no longer looked kindly on conquerors required him to turn history on its head and manufacture a narrative of oppressed colonizers suffering at the hands of the newly liberated indigenous people whom they had oppressed.

This local perversion of history fitted into the larger global perversion of Orientalism which indicted Middle Eastern scholarship for its intellectual colonialism as part of Said’s effort to colonize the study of the Middle East with his own tribal nationalism. Like a thief who pretends to be a policeman to scare away the other competing thieves he imagines are lurking nearby, Edward Said disguised the imperialism and colonialism of his agenda by dressing it up as anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism.

From his biography to his ideas, from his head to his toes, Edward Said was a fraud. Neither a great scholar not a great thinker, Said’s private nationalism played into a larger intellectual debate taking place within the culture. His work lives on because of grants from Saudi princes and because it serves as a pillar of a post-American academia in which political indictments have taken the place of research.

Arafat hijacked planes in the name of a phony nationalism, but Edward Said hijacked academia. These two Cairo natives had briefly lived in Israel as children and built careers around their imperialist efforts to colonize Israel with myths and violence, with lies and terror, pretending to be the oppressed when they were actually the oppressors.

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  • Sid Goldberg

    The Holocaust:Oppressed Fraud.

  • Hank Rearden

    The Left is that it has to lie to make its argument. It doesn’t have a case if it sticks to the truth. Pathetic that Said is a hero at Columbia.

  • Westisthebest

    Many years ago someone I knew began telling me of Edward Said and how absolutely supremely wonderful he was, and then showed me his photo on a book jacket. I immediately recognized him. I had seen him on TV lying to some naive college kids.
    Great piece of writing Daniel.

    • Jakareh

      And he had that look of arrogant pederasty. The shawl is oh-so-stylish!

  • redleg

    Daniel: You should read Ibn Warraq’s “Defending The West.” The book is a line by line, page by page refutation of Said’s screed on Orientalism.

  • Vel_Non

    Thankfully, very thankfully…

    He’s dead.

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      And edward said is in H E L L where he belongs.

    • StanleyT

      Sadly, very sadly, his influence is very much alive.

      • Vel_Non

        Absolutely so.

        The same is true for his league of supporters, fellow travelers and bedfellows, both inside and outside of academia, the choir to which he preached his agenda, an audience that was all too eager to delight in and to spread his venom and hatred.

  • Paul Austin Murphy

    ‘Islam as Politics: Edward Said’s Account of Islam’

    Here’s Said’s basically Marxist account of Islam… and just about everything else. From the Think-Israel website. It’s largely based on his book *Covering Islam*:

    http://www.think-israel.org/murphy.edwardsaid.html

    And here’s ‘Edward Said on the Innocence of Islam & Guilt of Israel’ from the Faith Freedom website:

    http://www.faithfreedom.org/edward-said-on-the-innocence-of-islam-guilt-of-israel/

  • Winston

    He was mainly ripping off Chomsky.

  • Jakareh

    Tragically, Arab Muslims control over five million square miles of the earth’s surface, as opposed to the 3.7 million of the United States. Israel covers a measly 8,000 square miles. It boggles the mind that Arabs blame the dearth of culture, technology, or achievement of any sort in their vast lands on their not possessing those 8,000 square miles. Adding Israel to the Arab world would not even amount to a rounding error.

  • Pete1776

    The worst thing about Edward Said is that his idiotic view dominate academia especially Georgetown which is heavily involved in training DoD and State Department personnel.

  • Ivorian

    I’d like to thank that sack of pigshit for making me a counter-jihadist!

  • A Copt Who Knows Better

    No mention of the fact that Said’s father was a Palestinian who soldiered in the U.S. Army component of General John J. Pershing’s Allied Expeditionary Force in Palestine during World War I. Or that Edward Said’s Mother was born in Nazareth, and only lived in Cairo at the time of her pregnancy because WW1 displaced the family from Palestine.

    No mention of the fact that Edward Said’s family practiced the Jerusalemite variety of Greek Orthodox Christianity, and that he and his ancestors we’re not Muslims, but indigenous Arab Christians who coexisted and maintained their faith for over a millennia under Islamic Government.

    No mention of the fact that Said spent 1940-1948 in Palestine, attending school in Jerusalem.

    As a Coptic American, who see’s right through the Right-Wing exploitation of the Middle East’s minorities in the service of neocolonialism, I would like to say Fuck you, and Fuck your misinformation.

    It is you, Daniel Greenfield, who intentionally spreads ideological propaganda, not Edward Said. I do not believe that you are so ignorant as to not be aware of all that you left out, or that you simply forgot to mention that Said is not from a Muslim Family. In fact, you intentionally implied that Said was a descendent of Islamic Imperialists, and intentionally omitted his indigenous Palestinian Christian heritage.

    Your sir, are not ignorant. Your a propagandist fuck.

    • mollysdad

      OK, so Edward Said was an Arab Christian and indigenous to historic Israel.

      He was still a dhimmi and a traitor.

      • A Copt Who Knows Better

        Who did he betray exactly? Just trying to find some sort of coherency in your comment.

        • mollysdad

          He betrayed his Divine Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Israel, and cast his lot in with the Muslim infidels who stole the land from the Roman Empire in the 7th century.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Yes, that same “Christian” Byzantine Roman Empire that slaughtered Copts for being “monophysites” after the Council of Chalcedon, facilitating the Islamic Conquest of Egypt. But then again that might not concern you very much because your comments on other posts indicate that your a blood thirsty theocrat.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Have you ever asked yourself why no apostolic Christians or Arab Christians are Zionists? Dispensationalism is a Modern Western idea, not part of the ancient Christian Faith.

          • mollysdad

            Arab Christians are usually not Zionists because they are dhimmi and recognize the superiority of Islam. They also insist that all Jews are Christ-killers and must therefore be exiled until the end of the world. That’s why – with the honorable exception of such men as Raymond Ibrahim – they can’t see the Israelis as allies against a common enemy.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Arab Christians are generally not Zionists because Arab Christians like myself do not believe that Christ commands a Holy War.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Unless it’s by Muslims against Jews

          • American Patriot

            The population of Bethlehem in 1948 was 85% Christian. In 2006, that percentage number had shrunken to 12%. What happened? The Islamist militants drove the Christians out. Those Christians found refuge and citizenship rights in Israel, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. That right there is Islamist persecution of Christians in “Palestine”. Why don’t you talk about that?

          • A Copt Who Knows Better
          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            Yeah, we all know what would happen to Christians in Gaza or the W. Bank if they didn’t tow the islamic-fascist party line WRT Israel, because Hamas and Fatah are allah about freedom.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            http://www.christianpost.com/news/palestinian-christian-western-christians-dont-understand-gaza-israeli-conflict-123272/

            Israeli Occupation happened. You would know that if you listened to those Christians, and not Pamela Geller, who’s job is not to tell you what happened to them, but to defend Israeli Occupation.

          • jzsnake

            What’s next? Oh yeah, Gays are hung in the “occupied territories” due to the Occupation. That’s the ticket. LOL! You my friend are on the wrong side of history.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better
          • Drakken

            Oh that is an easy one, the muslims bred the stupid into you so now your as dumbed down as they are. Congrats, you made it to your race to the bottom.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Where would you rather be a practicing Coptic Christian?

            Egypt?
            Saudi Arabia?
            Syria?
            Iraq?
            Afghanistan?
            Pakistan?

            The West?

            Explain your choice.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Obviously, the West. What everyone here fails to acknowledge is that the West did not afford any protection better than dimmihtude to non-Christians most of the time that a caliphate existed either. They didn’t even tolerate “heretical” Christians until after the protestant reformation. The intentional omission of all of pre-modern history, is exactly what Said was talking about.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Please. Stick to today. 2014.

            There is Freedom, imperfect, for all in the West and little freedom in the Arab/Muslim world.

            Do you blame the West or Arab/Muslim societies for that disparity?

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Yes, I blame colonialism for that disparity. I blame the west, which drew up the borders in the levant, and tried to divide Israel/Palestine into two non-contigious states, almost guaranteeing conflict in both those regions. I blame the British, who put Wahabbis in control of the Gulf and the Americans who paid those radical Islamist monarchs for oil they stole from their people. I blame the West which Islamised Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Egypt in the fight against communism. I could go on all day. But your ideologically unwilling to look at the role history plays in the lack of freedom Arabs have to suffer.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            And you’re typically eager to blame the West for everything wrong with the Muslim world.

            It’s a cultural pathology that sums up the region’s problems quite well. The Arabs are responsible nothing.

            It’s all a ________ conspiracy.

            If only it wasn’t for the CIA, there would be a golden utopia of leftist Arab Nationalist regimes implementing Socialism.

            Maybe allying with the Muslim Brotherhood will work out better than it did the last time around.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Had Arabs drawn the borders of Europe and North America, and used military force to install and remove governments, I highly doubt the West would be doing so good. Your failure to acknowledge that elephant in the room, is the best vindication of Said’s analysis that I have ever seen in my life.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            You mean the way that Muslim invaders did?

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Pretty much.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Arabs / Muslims used military force to impose dictatorships, theocracies and murderous regimes all over the Middle East over 1,400 years.

            There have been many books written about the collapse and retreat of the Arab / Muslim empire that started in Spain.

          • American Patriot

            Who was responsible for the collapse of the Byzantine Empire and the rise of the oppressive Ottoman Empire? That was radical Islam and its cohorts all over the Middle East.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Thanks! You summarize the failure of “Orientalism”.

            Blame others, Americans, British, French, Jews, Western culture for YOUR failures.

            Life is easy when you infantilize entire societies.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            How do you think the West would be doing if Arabs drew the borders in Europe and North America, or installed and removed their governments with military force? Would that just be an insignificant factor in the development of the West?

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Now we’ll see how well things go when ISIS begins drawing the borders.

            It’ll work out so much better I’m sure.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Clearly, I’m an ISIS supporter. Had it not been for Sykes-Picot, there wouldn’t be an ISIS trying to abolish it.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            There were Wahhabi armies long before Sykes-Picot.

            Stop pretending that the Jihad was invented in the 20th century by Europeans.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Perfect.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            But Arabs did NOT draw any borders outside of the Middle East. Arab/Muslim culture was and still is second rate.

            The West and now the East have surpassed the Middle East.

            That is what bugs IslamofFascist regimes like Iran. Next to the West, Islam has been a failure.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            Bangladesh and Pakistain were obviously much better places under British colonialism than they are now under islamic fascist rule.

          • American Patriot

            And I blame the Seljuk Turks and Arab Muslim militants for starting the Crusades by invading the Byzantine Empire. Why don’t you talk about that, fool?

          • mollysdad

            That doesn’t justify or excuse the Arab conquest of the Roman Empire. No, I’m not a bloodthirsty theocrat. I simply recognise that we’re in a religious war against an existential enemy, and that the biblical way to fight this enemy is to do it with the aim of his total extermination under the herem.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            And I think that’s nuts.

          • MukeNecca

            Anybody with such a ridiculously pompous moniker can not be taken seriously. Delving into the prose produced by such a person only confirms that prejudice.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Seeing how the American right paid no attention to Iraqi Christians when they went from 1.8 Million pre-war to 300,000 in the presence of American troops, but now the US Right suddenly cares about them when a democrat is president, or when Israel is bombing Gaza, yes, this is why, I chose to comment under the title, “A Copt Who Knows Better”. But I shouldn’t be taken seriously because of that, on the other hand “mollysdad” who believes in a Christ Commanded Jihad, should be.

          • mollysdad

            That’s one thing I blame the Americans for. They fought a holy war as though it were merely a war of this world. Had they fought it properly, they would have traced the men who slaughtered the Christians at the Church of Our Lady of Salvation right back to the communities that gave them refuge and support. Then they would have wiped them from the face of the earth.

          • MukeNecca

            You are mad.

            And being a Jew and West hater doesn’t make you knowing better anything. The centuries of dhimmitude has finally claimed your wits.
            So, instead of being a crazy Christian, why don’t you convert to islam and become a normal muhammedan?

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            A Jew hating Christian, a concept I’m sure Yeshua wouldn’t be happy with, not only because of the ideology he preached and lived, but because of who he was.

        • MukeNecca

          “Who did he betray exactly?
          The truth.
          Is that coherent enough?

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            MukeNecca that was a great response.

          • MukeNecca

            Thank you.

        • MLCBLOG

          He betrayed the truth, a principle, and therefore all of us.

      • A Copt Who Knows Better

        His family’s home in Israel was confiscated by the “Abandoned Land” regulations and sold to the “International Christian Embassy”. Israel dispossessed him of his personal home, citizenship, and national homeland after a millennia of existence as a “dhimmi”, and you wonder why has a problem with Israel.

        • mollysdad

          His homeland was the United States, as his citizenship was American, though his father.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            His father was Palestinian. His father fought with the US Army during WW1, while the US Army as part of the Allied Expeditionary Force in the Middle East. His citizenship was American by naturalization.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            He wasn’t Palestinian because there is no such nation.

            His mother visited Israel from Cairo to have her baby there.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            His mother was born in Nazareth before the the widespread adaptation of Nation states in Europe or the Middle East. She certainly wasn’t born in Israel. You are correct however that Said’s family was wealthy and well connected. Regardless, they were still deprived of access to the land of their birth and their property.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            They did not live in Israel. They weren’t deprived of anything.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            His entire family are refugees of the Nakba.

          • mollysdad

            My mother’s family were victims of the ‘Vertreibung’. That doesn’t make me a Polish citizen.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Were you born in the Capital of Poland?????

          • mollysdad

            I was born in England and I’m a British citizen.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            That’s great. Said was Born in Jerusalem. So was his father. His mother was born in Nazareth. Yes, this was a British Mandate. But the point is, they were deprived of their citizenship and property after the founding of Israel. Only warped logic can justify that. Any argument that Palestine didn’t ever exist as a nation-state is invalid because we would then be talking about a period of time before the wide-spread adoption of ethnic nation states.

          • mollysdad

            Said was born in Jerusalem to an American father, so he was a US citizen from birth. He had no other citizenship and no affirmative right in public law to be present anywhere but in the US – though he was at liberty to go to any country which would admit him.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            His father was a US citizen but was born in Palestine. His mother was born in Palestine, and he was born in Palestine. I believe that gives him an affirmative right to live in Palestine.

          • mollysdad

            No one has an affirmative right to live anywhere unless the law gives it to him. I have the right to live in the UK because I’m a British citizen. So was my Dad. My mother was a German citizen and so she had an affirmative right to live in Germany. She also had one to live in the UK because she was married to my Dad.

            Only Jews and Israelis (whether or not Jewish) have the right to live within the boundaries of Mandate Palestine. The West Bankers are Jordanian and the Gazans are stateless.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            And who made the Laws that made West Bank residents Jordanians? Or Gazans stateless? Or all Jews everywhere Israelis? What gives those laws legitimacy? Certainly not democracy. It certainly wasn’t democratically elected governments of the people of the land that made those laws, and so they have no legitimacy to Palestinians, and no legitimacy to conscious supporters of democratic self-rule world wide. Those laws are the laws of occupiers, by your own admission.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Using your logic, you would accept Dihimmi status as legitimate if you lived in a Caliphate. But then again, I replying as if you aren’t a theocrat, so I guess you would if you were Muslim.

          • mollysdad

            Actually, no I wouldn’t. That’s because I p*** on Islam.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Dhimmi status? As Dhimmi Copts in Egypt?

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Muslims have just as much right to vote in Israel as Jews do.

            Meanwhile when was the last Palestinian election?

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            No one in the West Bank gets to vote on the laws that govern them in Area C, or Area B, and that regulate their movement from one Palestinian Town to the next. No one in Gaza gets to vote on the Authorities that control their sea, air, and borders.

            and 2007 sir. Hamas agreed to allow the PA to form a technocratic government and send a police force to Gaza to precede elections, and Israel rejected the reconciliation deal. Months before that, Israel left the negotiating table with Fatah on the basis of Abbas only representing half the Palestinian people. It’s all a game to delay the formation of a state. This is something that Likud openly admits.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            They wanted statehood. So they get to vote in their own elections when their dictator decides to hold them.

            If they want to vote in Israeli elections, they have to accept annexation of the West Bank into Israel.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Why don’t Coptic Christians form an independent state in Egypt?

          • JR Kipling

            They had one in Gaza a few years ago. Election night they threw the losers off the tops of buildings. So yes, they had an election.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            The people who live in Gaza are Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian, Iraqi, Saudi.

            They can join their brother Arabs and live the dream – or die trying.

          • MukeNecca

            Sure. He can go to Gaza, the West Bank anytime.
            Oh, is the rat dead, you say? Good!

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Actually, if he were alive, he could not even move to the West Bank.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Edward Said died of a broken NAKBA.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            There is no such country as Palestine. But feel free to make that argument to the King of Jordan.

            See where it gets you.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            The Balfour Declaration (dated 2 November 1917) was a letter from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Baron Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.

            “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

            Of course, the Brits were speaking of the ancient Red haired Greek Sailors, and named Transjordan after them, if you read FrontPageMagazine.

            Incredible.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            Your proffered proof doesn’t support your position, because how can one favor the establishment of a state within another pre-existing state? Your quote just serves to reinforce the idea that Palestine wasn’t a state but a geographic area within the former Ottoman Empire.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            There already is a two-state solution.

            Israel and Jordan.
            Some people must ant a 3,4,5+ state solution.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            As long as all those states are islamic fascist states — like Kurdistan will be or is.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Said was born in Jerusalem because his mother decided to have her next kid there after the last one died in Cairo.

          • guymacher

            And if I were?

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Said’s entire family was ridiculously wealthy and well connected. They were not refugees.

          • iluvisrael

            happy eternal nakba!

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            iluvisrael AKBAR!

          • yoelk

            Nakba ,huh? When the Jews fought off six invading Arab armies, armed by Europe, with nothing more than essentially sticks and guts, and still won its called a Nakba-(“The catastrophe”, for those who do not know the translation).Piss off! You’re just a lying hater, taking up space like your mentor Said. Nothing can be expected to be true from you.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            A Nakba. A Catastrophe that 5 attacking Arab armies, none of which was an army of “palestine” failed to murder the Jews in 1948 in a second Holocaust.

            That’s a Nakba like the the Nakba of the defeat of the Socialist naz-is allies of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Czechoslovakia provided guns and some WW2 planes to Israel in its War of Independence.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Nakba? The failure of 5 Arab armies (none of which was the army of “palestine”) to defeat nascent Israel and continue the Holocaust?

            Happy ETERNAL NAKBA!

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            May there be many more Nakbas in his islamic future.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            INSHALLAH to more Nakbas!

        • A Copt Who Knows Better

          The fact is that the Israeli Government refused him and his family citizenship or livelihood in the country of their birth because of their race. There is no getting around that. That simple fact exposes how fucked up it is that the pro-Israel world puts an incredible amount of effort into attacking Edward Said for defending Palestine.

          • JR Kipling

            Which is exactly as it should be. A nation has every right to preserve itself. If Israel says Edward Said was born in Antarctica and belongs to the penguins then Edward Said needs to start packing warm things and learn to like sardines.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Said didn’t want to move to Israel to spare us the blather about refusing him citizenship.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Pal-e-SWINE can go to the same place Edward Said now resides – H E L L .

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Said was not an Israeli and had never lived permanently in Israel. Nor did he want to.

            Stop pretending that he did.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            It wasn’t an option for him. Your the one pretending to know what he wanted or did not want.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            What’s your basis for claiming that he wanted to move to Israel?

        • Daniel Greenfield

          Said had no family home in Israel. His birth certificate listed no address.

        • SCREW SOCIALISM

          800,000 Jews from Arab lands fled for their lives, lost their property.

          Did Edward Said seek justice for those people – or was his sense of Justice limited by ethnicity – making Edward Said a Racist?

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Yes he did. Had it not been for the founding of the State of Israel, those Jews would have still been there, the societal stability and diversity of the Arab world would not have been set on a path of perpetual decline. Ever ask yourself how those Jews managed to live and even thrive in urban centers without the interference of the west for 1200+ years of Islam?

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            And Jews lived in Europe for even longer – until the Holocaust.

          • American Patriot

            Blah, blah, blah. You are making excuses for Islamic terror. The fact is that whether or not Israel was created, the racist Islamists were still going to kick Jews out of the countries they were living in. By the way, non-Muslims are not even allowed to set foot in apartheid Mecca. What do you have to say about that, fool? Also, why don’t you denounce Muslim militants for starting the Crusades by invading the Byzantine Empire? The East has done bad things too, yet you don’t talk about that because you hate the West.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            No, I love the West, live in it, but I am sick and tired of idiots mocking and jeering at the people of the Arab world whose social order was torn apart by the mistakes of the West. The vast majorities of Westerners acknowledge that, much to the horror of you and the other racist fascists on this page. Not sure what prophetic powers allow you to predict that they Jews wouldn’t have survived and thrived from Morocco to Alexandria to Tehran for another 65 years after doing it for over 1500, but I guess were all entitled to our own opinions.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Survived yes, thrived no.

            Jews did best in North Africa under European colonial rule except for the WW2 period.

            European rule protected Jews in North Africa against Muslim oppression.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Who protected them before that?

          • Daniel Greenfield

            They had to depend on being useful to various Arab Muslim rulers who could order their deaths at any time.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            “mocking and jeering at the people of the Arab world whose social order was torn apart by the mistakes of the West.”

            Did the dog eat your homework too?

            STOP blaming others for problems of your own making!

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            Jews Thrived? In Yemen? Are you stupid?

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            American Patriot AKBAR!

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Afghanistan has no Jews because of the founding of the State of Israel.

            This is what the completely delusional mindset of the Middle East looks like.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Didn’t say Afghanistan, but yeah it’s a pretty well accepted fact that the founding of the state of Israel resulted in a Jewish population transfer that both Arabs (Post 1948, wrongfully nonetheless) and Israel unfortunately wanted.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Muslim persecution of Middle Eastern Jews didn’t begin in 1948.

            That’s blatant historical revisionism.

            Notably also large numbers of Jews fled Muslim persecution to France.

            It wasn’t just about Israel.

            It was about Arab Nationalism and Islamism.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            Um, I don’t think the Jews of Iraq, Syria and Egypt wanted to give away their properties in those respective states at bargain basement prices — that is, if they got anything at all. I also seem to remember anti-Jewish laws being enacted in Egypt and Syria following the establishment of the state of Israel.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            I’d be willing to bet it’s a lot more than that by now. It’s not like Jews have ever stopped fleeing the muslim states of the Mid-East and N. Africa. Afghanistan has exactly one Jew left and he might have already left.

        • Daniel Greenfield

          Said never owned a home in Israel.

          He never had citizenship in Israel.

          He was an anchor baby whom his mother brought to Israel to be delivered there.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Said was from a ridiculously wealthy Arab family that hailed from Nazareth and Jerusalem that owned no property in Israel/Palestine. Consistant.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            His mother came from Egypt to give birth in Israel. His aunt owned property. He did not.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            If he was an “anchor”, he would have gotten birthright citizenship. Your hypothesis about his mother traveling there for the superior Jewish childbirth technology is kind of far fetched, and probably made up.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            It’s in the book discussed in the article.

        • SCREW SOCIALISM

          The property of Jews from Arab entities were taken over by Arab regimes too – without compensation.

          I suggest monetary compensation for both Jews from Arab entities and your “palestinians”..

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            That would have been appropriate, and an option of return, for everyone.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            “Return”? Just as no Jews would return to their homes in brutal Arab entities, Arabs claiming to the “palestinian” will not be returning.

            See the Sudetenland after WW2, Pakistan/India population transfers.

      • MukeNecca

        And a liar

    • jetcal1

      May I suggest you might be better of as a Coptic living under the
      “Right-Wing exploitation of the Middle East’s minorities in the service of neocolonialism” than under the current or regimes that are trying to usurp control?

      • A Copt Who Knows Better

        It is the regimes that the colonial west created or supported and the regimes that have emerged in reaction against those regimes that have made it impossible for Christians to survive in the Middle East. Look at Iraq pre and post Invasion.

        • A Copt Who Knows Better

          Had it not been for the support of the British Air Force, and the continuing alliance of the West with the Saudis, the Wahhabis would have never controlled an inch of land in the Middle East, and their ideology would not have been spread by Petrodollars world-wide.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Then maybe the Ikhwan could have created their own Islamic State.

        • jetcal1

          As opposed to the Ottoman? Frankly, the few Copt I know are all recent immigrants and you sound so unlike them that I wasn’t sure what I was reading.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Were the Ottoman’s better than the Saudis? Yes, absolutely. Not for the West, but for the people of the Middle East. Arabs would have toppled the Ottoman Empire themselves, without giving Wahhabists a state. The Ottoman Empire was barely in control of it’s Arab provinces by the time World War 1 arrived. I’m not sure what you mean by that. Copts are politically diverse you know…

          • jetcal1

            In my limited experience you have differing opinions.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            If the Ottoman Empire was so great why don’t you move to Turkey? After all, some of the proscriptions of dhimmitude are still in force there. You’ll still get to live as a second class citizen in the same way you do in Egypt. BTW, which country in the Mid-East and N. Africa is the only one where Christians and Baha’i are not being persecuted and/or murdered and/or forcibly converted to islam? You might even be able to get it in one guess.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            “What If”. A game every bozo can play.

          • nobullhere

            If the Ottomans were so good, then why did the non-Muslim populations in Greece and the Balkans rise up against them in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as soon as they got the chance to shake Ottoman rule off? That was an evil empire, and evil lies at the heart of Islam, as we have seen all too often over the centuries, and we are seeing it in spadefuls in this century.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Not a fan of the Ottomans any more than the American Revolutionaries we’re a fan of the British. But I doubt George Washington would have appreciated it if the Chinese came and removed the British and put Puritans in control of the former colonies.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            The American colonists sought freedom from the British and later the Israelis sought freedom from the British and the Ottomans.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Substitute the French for the Chinese

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Good thing they didn’t install a fundamentalist religious monarchy, that would have probably mattered.

          • bodica

            There are many generations of Copts living in New York. They are wonderful, kind, intelligent, generous people. Chased from Turkey to Egypt, by the Ottomans no less, their property seized, children enslaved, etc; then recently slaughtered in Egypt, etc.,all while Sauds ‘man in the white house’ played golf.

          • jetcal1

            Why should the house of Saud care? They are not of Islam, let alone the right sect.

        • SCREW SOCIALISM

          So you support ISIS. Beheadings are expressions of “Oriental” culture.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            No, obviously I don’t. Edward Said’s book, Orientalism, was a call for reaction against the West, it was a call for independence and self-determination. It was not a call to be “more oriental”. It was a deconstruction of the Orient-Occident dichotomy. It was a call for culturally existing without imitating, or reacting against, Western Culture. It was a scathing exposure of the absurdity of simplistic comparisons that neglect all historical context.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Is ISIS beheading of prisoners, a manifestation of Arab “independence and self-decriminalization”. A way for Arabs to announce to the World their liberation from Western ideas like suffrage for women, tolerance of minorities?

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            What in the world makes you think that I support ISIS? I’m sitting here posting because it’s interventions like the Iraq war that fuel organizations like ISIS.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            You’re so dense you don’t even know when you’ve been beaten? I never knew Christians practiced Al Taqiyya.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            He’s not a Christian. He’s an Egyptian leftist.

            You’re seeing why the Muslim Brotherhood took over

          • Daniel Greenfield

            You’re thinking of the Arab Spring.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            It’s death and destruction that lay’s fertile ground for these groups. Whether it’s caused by Syria’s civil war, Israeli Air Strikes, or American Invasion, Jihadists feed off of it. So fighting a religious genocidal war against sunnis, as Mollysdad suggests, would do the exact opposite of what he thinks it will. All moral arguments aside.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            But death and destruction are endemic to the Arab/Muslim Ummah.

            Why doesn’t ISIS bring peace to Iraq instead of beheading?

            The cries of Allahu Akbar as the blood flows are manifestations of Socialist Utopia?

          • Daniel Greenfield

            ISIS is bringing peace. By peace it means Islam.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            By “innocent” it only means Islam and the version practiced by the current warlords.

            All others are not “innocents”.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Yep, that’s what I said…

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Jihadists feed off everything. It’s what an unconventional army does. It adapts.

            The problem is the Jihadists not the things they’re adapting to.

          • trickyblain

            Which in turn was GWB’s vision of a by-product of the Iraq War.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Modern Jihadism would not have existed were it not for the work of the CIA fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. I’m trying to stop the United States Government from creating more ISISs. This is an organization that wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the Iraq war.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Wow

            Jihadism was invented by the CIA. Who knew?

            Did the CIA also invent Mohammed or was that the Brits?

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            The CIA wrote the Koran too – with the help of Oxford trained MI6.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Modern Jihadism. Guerrilla organizations that try to topple secular or traditionalist Muslim Governments. Yes, that is a creation of Western Foreign Policy. That is something that has even been written about on this site.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Jihadism is Jihadism. It’s what it’s always been long before the US.

            To the extent that there are any new developments, they were the result of copying Soviet backed Arab nationalist terror groups.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Guerrilla warfare was practiced by muhammed and his bandits back in the 7th century.

            Stop blaming others for your cultural and moral desert.

          • American Patriot

            Mr. Greenfield, the so-called “Copt” also believes that the CIA was also behind the Kingdom of England’s War of the Roses in the 15th century. Who knew?

          • Daniel Greenfield

            The CIA is magic. It’s responsible for everything that has ever gone wrong in the Muslim world.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            And you know who controls the CIA…

          • American Patriot

            Right. In the radical left/Islamists/neo-Nazis’ point of view, the “evil” Zionists supposedly “controls” the CIA and American foreign policy. Who knew? In the left’s worldview, the West is magic and nothing but “evil”. The left is clearly beyond nuts.

          • American Patriot

            Don’t forget that the so-called “Copt” might believe that the CIA was behind Catiline’s revolt to overthrow the Roman Republic in Cicero’s time. Who knew that as well?

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Oh please. Are Arabs/Muslims always puppets of the West? Are Arabs/Muslims incapable of differentiateing between right and wrong?

            I do believe that Socialists see Arabs/Muslims as puppets in the Socialist War against the West. Edward Said was such a puppet.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Welcome to the Muslim world.

            The CIA is behind everything. The CIA created Al Qaeda. Now let’s celebrate the 19 martyrs while denouncing America for faking September 11.

            This is how it works over there.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Group hails 9/11 ‘Magnificent 19′

            http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/09/10/sept.11.ukposter/

            “LONDON, England — A UK-based Islamist group is planning a conference on September 11 hailing the suicide attackers who killed thousands in New York and Washington as “The Magnificent 19.””

          • trickyblain

            Don’t forget the Jews. On 9/11, I was searching for articles on UBL and found a pre-9/11 piece of garbage praising him for his brave resistance and philanthropy. I contacted the author, asking him if he still felt the same. He chastised me for “blaming an Arab” when the facts weren’t in, before telling me the Jews did it.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            The Jews are usually interchangeable with the CIA and the Freemasons, though the CIA is somewhat more popular.

          • American Patriot

            So, in other words, you supported the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, is that right? Just like you supported the Soviet interventions (and occupations of) in Spain, Eastern Europe, North Korea, China, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Angola, Cuba, Nicaragua, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and other places.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Just because I oppose the arming of Jihadists, the CIA financed spread of Islamism in the Arab world, and the use of Afghanistan as a boxing ring between two superpowers, doesn’t mean I support Soviet Imperialism.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            You forgot to blame Mossad.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Ooops. “self-determination”.

          • American Patriot

            There needs to be a book called Occidentalism. That book should be a counterpoint to Said’s Orientalism. You simply hate the West because they are democratic.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            I don’t hate the West. I have a problem with the fascist element in the West that believes sharing the Jihadist worldview is the best way to defeat it.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Do you have a problem with the fascist elements in the Arab/Muslim Ummah?

            Google Images “arab n a z i salute”

            http://www.theblaze.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/NaziHamasHezbollahSalute.jpg

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            What isn’t fascist about islam? Is there some sort of freedom loving, liberty seeking islam I haven’t heard about?

          • American Patriot

            Yes you do. You hate the West and its democratic values. I, as well as many people around the world, have a problem with the Communist element in the East that believes sharing the Islamist world view is good simply because the Islamists, like the radical left, hate the West.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            I don’t hate the West, and neither does Said. What Said fought for was democracy without double standards.

    • Daniel Greenfield

      He wasn’t a Palestinian. There’s no such country.

      I doubt you’re a devout Coptic Christian. You are an Islamist apologist.

      • Lightbringer

        The “Copt” is probably a Muslim posing as a Christian. Remember, on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. Or a rat.

        • Daniel Greenfield

          Yup

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            And since then, it’s been increasingly clear to me that Republicans and Conservatives in the West, especially the ones roaming the halls of power, only care about Middle Eastern Christians when it’s politically advantageous. From 2003-2009 I barely heard a word from Fox News as the Christian population of Iraq dwindled to near extinction. But as soon as election season comes around with Obama in office, or Israel bombs Gaza, the GOP cares again.

            The reason I’m even posting here, is because I’m repulsed by how the American Conservative political machine uses minorities in the Middle East as moral and political cover for interest based interference in the affairs of the Arab world. I’m here to correct the mistake that I made, back when I helped mobilize my community in support of the very forces that are fueling the conditions that threaten it.

            Where is the outrage on the right at the Saudi Monarchy and their role in spreading Salafi/Wahhabi Ideology? Why is Iran, which is home to 35,000 Jews, and actually have fighters on the ground fighting ISIS, vilified and pounded with sanctions and threats of military action, while Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey, are blessed with alliance as they fund jihadists and Salafi madrases world-wide?

            Christians in the Middle East, post-Arab Spring, face more danger in Libya, Syria, and Iraq, than anywhere else. These are the countries in which America’s anti-Iranian and anti-Leftist foreign policy priorities took precedence over the well being of the people that actually live in those countries.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            “Where is the outrage on the right at the Saudi Monarchy and their role in spreading Salafi/Wahhabi Ideology?”

            Have you seen this site before?

            “Why is Iran, which is home to 35,000 Jews, and actually have fighters on the ground fighting ISIS, vilified and pounded with sanctions and threats of military action,

            Because it’s also a state sponsor of terror and has been waging war on the US for decades.

            The Jews in Iran remain an oppressed minority as they are everywhere in the Muslim world.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            I believe the population of all non-muslim religious minorities in Iran is declining annually.

          • Drakken

            Yup, another inbred arab at the low end of the Bell Curve. No wonder why these savages can’t rule themselves without destroying everything. Bring back colonialism, we can at least run things.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Copout, Who is more “conservative”?

            Some people in the US or Ultra Orthodox Muslims who stone women to death over “family honor”?

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            I’m not aware of any moslems who describe themselves as “ultra Orthodox”, nor am I aware of any reformed or protestant or orthodox mosques or muslims anywhere.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Aren’t Wahabbis, Salfis, Khomenists ultra orthodox?

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            Where is the non ultra orthodox in islam again? Where is tolerant islam being practiced again? Which moslem states don’t persecute people of other faiths? Which moslem states don’t have enforced blasphemy and heresy laws (but only for islam)? Where are the reformed or protestant mosques again? Where is the islam that doesn’t teach hatred of unbelievers and especially Jews again?

        • A Copt Who Knows Better

          I’m a proud Copt who attends St. Mary’s Coptic Orthodox Church in East Brunswick, NJ. and St. Ananius in Princeton, NJ, thank You very much. I was also very much a staunch Republican who actually worked on Scott Sipprelle’s campaign during midterms in 2010. I left the party after seeing the results of getting a Republican House, which was basically a legislative body that put sabotaging a democrat president before the well being of the nation and the free world. Post-2011, I choose to seriously reevaluate my political allegiances and critically evaluate the intentions of the folks I previously supported.

          • Drakken

            Obviously educated and indoctrinated beyond your capability ,congratulations leftard, you openly side with those who wish your demise.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            I don’t support Islamists, and Palestinians, Muslim and Christian, do not wish my demise.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Are Coptic Christians in Egypt free to practice their faith without fear of attacks?

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Recent history suggests otherwise.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            Then move to Gaza and wear a big, bold crucifix around your neck.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better
          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            So were the mosques all too filled up w/ammunition, rockets and weapons to have any room for civilians?

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Tell that to the family of US Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

          • American Patriot

            Time for a visit to another anti-Islamist, pro-freedom website: pamelageller.com . Do us a favor and read the website link’s articles about the persecution of minorities in the Middle East.

          • aj nitzberg

            I apologize for the rude and discourteous postings to which you have herein been subject.
            I may disagree with your conclusions, but I am put off by the hostility directed against you.
            Regarding western conservatives ‘using’ Christians in the middle east, better they should support decency for the wrong reasons than not at all. I suggest accepting aid and support whenever offered; it can be very helpful. Get out your message !!!
            I did not know that Said’s parents were indigenous to ‘Palestine’, just his uncle. Are you sure about this ? In any event, said is not a truthful person and his claims, particularly his personal history, can reasonably be met with skepticism.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Appreciated. The internet is a place where people often act much nastier than they really are. It becomes easy to treat your internet opponents as a hostile abstraction than a whole human being. We’re all guilty of it, but it’s great to see people who rise above that. They we’re well traveled, but I’m sure of the families roots in Palestine. Said romanticized much, as do many academics and politicians, but Said’s application of what we know about the relationship between power and knowledge, to the field of Middle Eastern Studies, produced a theory that makes itself self-evident everyday. From the cultural disparity that produced the ugliest of comments on this page, to the internalized repression that produced ISIS, Said’s work on post-colonialism is growing in importance and producing evidence for itself everyday.

            The skepticism is more than reasonable though, and the man’s personal integrity and the value of his analysis very well may not match up.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Are you satisfied by the conditions Coptic Christians live under in Egypt?

            Who treated Copts better? Muslim Brotherhood Morsi or Sisi?

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Who created a situation in the Arab world where people have to choose between military dictatorship and Islamists? Who toppled democratically elected secular governments in Iran and Afghanistan? What event set in motion the death of Arab Nationalism, and who funded the rise of Islamism?

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Arab/Muslim Nationalism that results in Sharia Law is not Democracy – but a Theocracy.

            See the Islamist Regime of Iran and the late Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt.

            Can you EVER take responsibility for your own choices???? Are Arabs/Muslims too primitive to be able to establish a modern society with respect for all people????

            When is Turkey going to acknowledge its responsibility for the Armenian Genocide???

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            The Arab world is incredibly diverse, and maintained that diversity for the last 2000 years, including the 1000+ years of Islamic rule. If that wasn’t so, there wouldn’t have been 800,000 Jews there that moved to Israel after 1948. If that wasn’t true, we there wouldn’t be minorities being persecuted in the modern era for us to sit here and talk about. The only thing that changed that was the Western destabilization and destruction of Arab society.

            What protections did the West have for religious minorities, even Christian ones, prior to the Protestant Reformation? Why did Jew’s prefer Moorish, to Catholic rule in Spain?

          • Daniel Greenfield

            That diversity ended with the dawn of Islam.

            Jews allied with Christians in Spain after forced conversion by the Moors. There were plenty of Jews in Russia. That didn’t mean it was tolerant. It meant that Jews were useful for something.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Not sure how something that hasn’t ended yet, and hopefully won’t ever end, ended in the 8th century.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Islam meant the destruction of indigenous cultures. That is what is happening all over again in Iraq.

            It has meant Arabization and Islamization, cultural, physical and spiritual genocide.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            On this point, I agree with you. But the West at no point slowed this down. Every action they took accelerated it or regenerated it in a more puritanical form.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            The overthrow of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood is an exception and hopefully the first of many rollbacks.

            The Ultra Conservative ISIS needs to be totally wiped out like the national SOCIALISTS of WW2.

            The inevitable destruction of ISIS will restore the faith of the good people of the Middle East in the tolerant values of the West.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Incredibly, we agree on something. Aside from those values belonging exclusively to the West. Let’s not forget that Christianity itself was brought to you from the East.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            … specifically from Israel

          • Daniel Greenfield

            How was the West supposed to slow it down? Intervention and non-intervention didn’t work out too well.

            Temporary colonial rule provided some breathing space, but it has to be up to the people to want to change.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            The Moors weren’t the savages Islamists are today.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            That is exactly what I’m trying to explain.

          • Kebert Xela

            Google the Massacre of Granada.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            What makes you say that? Are you talking about the Moors that ran Spain?

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            The Protestant Reformation was about 6 centuries ago.

            Is the Muslim world behind the rest of the world by over 6 centuries? How long until it catches up – if ever?

          • MukeNecca

            “The Arab world is incredibly diverse, and maintained that diversity for the last 2000 years,

            However diverse the Arab world may be (which it isn’t compared to Europe, for example) the Jew loathing is shared by its members and has been since the so called “prophet” of islam called the Jew the “most vile of all people”. (Or something in that style). And please, in which part of the “incredible diverse” Arab world the characterization of Jews as descendents of pigs and monkeys is unknown, rejected or shunned? How about the vision of the end of the world when the pious muslims will be summoned by a tree to slaughter the Jew hiding behind it?

            “Why did Jew’s prefer Moorish, to Catholic rule in Spain?

            That is a bloody lie worthy of Edward Said:

            The Catholic persecution of Jews never reached the level of muhammedan murderous frenzy of Spain under Almohad rule. Or Yemen or Marocco…

            Here is the excerpt from long and bitter complain by all-times Jewish genius of 13th century:

            “… God has hurled us in the midst of this people, the Arabs, who have persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us, … Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase and hate us as much as they …. we were dishonored by them beyond human endurance, and had to put with their fabrications. …We have acquiesced, both old and young, to inure ourselves to humiliation, as Isaiah instructed us … All this notwithstanding, we do not escape this continued maltreatment which well nigh crushes us. No matter how much we suffer and elect to remain at peace with them, they stir up strife and sedition,..” And so on and on.

            He was not a great friend of the Christians,
            but here was aware that the Christan persecution of Jews was not commanded in
            the New Testament as they explicitly are in Koran and Hadiths. In fact the beleaguered Jews on many occasions sought shelter from Christian mobs in castles of Bishops.

            In any case, the spirit that, 800 years ago, animated the Arab world savagery against Jews 800 is very much alive, indeed thriving, today whereas its Christian correspondent is kept alive only by the Edward Saids and his hating flock. Yes, you.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            I had to look it up. The quote is from Maimonides.

            en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Jews

          • MukeNecca

            I just realized I somehow omitted the name. Thanks for making me aware of the omission. I’m going to fix it.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Maimonidies the AKBARest of the AKBAR!

          • American Patriot

            So you think that Moorish rule in the Iberian peninsula during the Middle Ages was a Shangri-la? It wasn’t. In fact, it was a society where the enslavement on Europeans and non-Muslims was tolerated. Yes, the Kingdom of Spain of the 15th and 16th centuries was also oppressive, but so where the Islamic Moors. In Islamic societies, there are discriminatory laws towards non-Muslims. Why don’t you talk about that?

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            I do. I just don’t do it while omitting all historical context that makes meaningful and fair comparison between distinct civilizations possible.

          • Kebert Xela

            Islam isn’t a civilization. It is every rotten instinct human beings are heir to ratified by mysticism.

          • Kebert Xela

            The thousands of Jews the Moors massacred periodically such as at Granada didn’t.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            Maimonides was given the non-standard trinary choice in Al Andalus of conversion to islam, death or exile. Guess which one he took?

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            No it isn’t “incredibly diverse” and it’s becoming less diverse all the time — especially as they continue to slaughter and forcibly convert people of other faiths to islam. All the Arab states of the Mid-East and N. Africa are totalitarian, Jew hating, islamic fascist theocracies — incl. Egyptistan.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            When are the Kurdish moslems going to admit to their complicity in the Armenian Genocide?

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Who else could have created it but the Arab Muslims who live there?

            How much luck have Western governments ever had trying to push against history in the Middle East? What happened to all the British kings?

            The death of Arab Nationalism was the inevitable result of the forces of history.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            “Inevitable result of the forces of history”? Sounds like Marxist Historical Materialism.

            When I or Edward Said assert that the choices of the West when they were occupying the Arab world made a difference in history that they are responsible for, we are dismissed as dogmatic Marxists, ironically by conservatives who claim to believe that choices make a difference, and free actors are responsible for the consequences of those choices.

            But when conservatives like Daniel Greenfield totally dismiss the impact of colonial occupation, border drawing, serial military interventions, and the removal and installation of governments on the development of another society, dismissing those massively relevant factors in favor of “inevitable forces of history”, his analysis is supposed to be treated as if it’s objective, and not at all an attempt to blame the victim, or vindicate the oppressors.

            Incredible. I couldn’t find better evidence of Orientalism if I tried. I’m done here. Honestly, I respect you for replying, and apologize for my initial expletives. Other than that, my conscious is clear. As a former fan of Frontpagemag, I felt a personal obligation to make sure there was some real engagement here, and I appreciate the fact that you legitimately do as well.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            The Muslim world inevitably reverts back to the same starting point as long as Islam enslaves human minds.

            That makes everything that happened inevitable.

            I would say that Europe did quite well despite Islamic colonialism.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Subtract Turkey, the Balkans, and for a short period of time, Southern Spain, and there’s no such thing.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Sure let’s just pretend the Ottoman Empire never existed.

            But perhaps now we can discuss the impact of Islamic colonialism on Africa.

          • Kebert Xela

            The country you currently claim to reside in began as a small gaggle of mud huts inside a wooden palisade in a malarial swamp on the banks of a insignificant river in Virginia. It was surrounded by people whose culture was tribalist. It became the society of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.

            The country you claim to hail from is ruled by the the descendants of desert tribesman who conquered a more advanced civilization and reduced its largely Coptic Christian population to the status of Dhimmis. They parasitized those Dhimmis for a thousand years, without moving the ideals of human civilization forward one iota. The atavistic neo-primitives who hope to recreate that achievement are the society of the Islamic State.

          • American Patriot

            The Communist dictatorship in Afghanistan was installed by your beloved Soviet Union. As for that Communist thug, Mossadegh in Iran, he was appointed by the Iranian parliament and the Shah, who was in power as head of state, approved and ratified the choice. Mossadegh was an agent of the Soviet Union and Communist China who wanted to turn Iran into a Communist country and a client state of the two Communist regimes. The coup came when Mossadegh got into a power struggle with the Shah, dissolved parliament, suspended civil liberties and imprisoned political opponents. By the way, the Ayatollah welcomed Mossadegh being ousted from power. The Ayatollah also hated the Shah, not because he was autocratic, but because he was secular, pro-Western and because he supported women’s rights. Your left-wing propaganda contradicts historical facts.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            The British government had grown increasingly distressed over Mosaddegh’s policies and were especially bitter over the loss of their control of the Iranian oil industry. Repeated attempts to reach a settlement had failed, and, in October 1952, Mosaddegh declared Britain an enemy and cut all diplomatic relations.[49]

            Engulfed in a whole range of problems following World War II, Britain was unable to resolve the issue single-handedly and looked towards the United States to settle the issue. Initially, the USA had opposed British policies. After mediation had failed several times to bring about a settlement, American Secretary of State Dean Acheson concluded that the British were “destructive, and determined on a rule-or-ruin policy in Iran.”[50]

            The American position shifted in late 1952, when Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected U.S. President. In November and December, British intelligence officials suggested to American intelligence that the prime minister should be ousted. British prime minister Winston Churchill suggested to the incoming Eisenhower administration that Mossadegh, despite his open disgust with socialism, was, or would become, dependent on the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party,[51] resulting in Iran “increasingly turning towards communism” and towards the Soviet sphere at a time of high Cold Warfears.[52][53][54][55] After the Eisenhower administration had entered office in early 1953, the United States and the United Kingdom agreed to work together toward Mosaddegh’s removal and began to publicly denounce Mosaddegh’s policies for Iran as harmful to the country. In the meantime, the already precarious alliance between Mosaddegh and Kashani was severed in January 1953, when Kashani opposed Mosaddegh’s demand that his increased powers be extended for a period of one year.

            The anti-feudal land reforms he initiated we’re intended to limit, not strengthen, the influence of the Tudeh Party. Your right-wing propaganda contradicts historical fact, and serves not to educate, but to numb the consciousness of your fellow citizens and foster an empty, feel good patriotism that hurts your nation and humanity.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Spamming the comments with Wikipedia is not a debate tactic.

            It’s just spam.

          • MLCBLOG

            Maybe you’d better keep on searching. You might find the Truth someday.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            No he won’t because he’s not looking for it.

        • bodica

          He doesn’t sound like any Copt that I know. Then again, the Copts have been badly neglected by the West and largely ignored in this recent conflict so perhaps his anger is recent and raw. On the other hand he doesn’t have the coarseness of the average moslem troll, so I’ll wait and see. Arafat et all exploited Israel’s Christians, hiring them as PR ‘fronts’ for their savage organisations as they were better educated and more articulate. If Said is/was in the pocket of the Sauds, and Columbia U, there’s little reason to trust him, especially since he opened the door to Columbia for the golfer in chief currently changing our laws and dismembering our political and social substructures.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Said was the most ferocious critic of the Saudis and the Saudi-Western alliance. And you are correct. It is western neglect for Arab Christians, except when concern helps Israel or Western interests, that has triggered my anger. You can read my story, which I just posted below. Except I now realize, after researching the history of Western influence in the Arab world, that this has been the game all along.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            The Muslim part of the Arab world is 1,400 years old, and only now starting to experiment with Democracy.

            Doesn’t say much for the people who “invented” the Arabic Number system and “civilization”.

          • American Patriot

            You probably support Assad’s Baathist dictatorship in Syria because it is anti-Western and because it is supported by neo-Communist Russia and Islamist Iran.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Nope, but most “counter-jihadists” naively do.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            I reluctantly support Assad only because his forces are the only ones not slaughtering/enslaving/raping Christians in Syria.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            He sounds like a leftist, which is probably what he is.

            Some leftist Copts aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood during the revolution.

        • A Copt Who Knows Better

          You seem so surprised by my political positions given that I am a Copt. Well did you know that it was a Coptic engineer who helped break the Bar-Levi Line in the 1973 Liberation of the Sinai? Did you know that Copts are banned by their Holy Synod from visiting Israel until the Occupation of Palestine ends? (those that do are banned from communion until they consult a bishop)

          America and Israel’s favorite Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, jailed a modern day (soon to be) Saint, Pope Shenouda III. After signing the peace treaty with Israel, he unleashed the Muslim Brotherhood and Jammah al-Islamiyah on college campuses to marginalize his leftist critics and Nassarist Political opponents.

          Then he added article two in the Egyptian constitution, stipulating that the principles of Islamic Shariah is the main source of Legislation, which secularists haven’t been able to remove to this day. This caused a massive deterioration in the condition of Copts, which triggered the mass immigration of Copts to the West in the 80s and 90s. The Islamists he released from prison eventually killed him, and evolved into Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and then Al-Qaeda, but the US supported all these actions back then. Thank Carter, and Reagan. (Or just thank neocolonialism).

          America has supported the Islamists, from the Wahhabis of the Gulf, to the Ikhwanis in the Republics, to the Jihadis in the Levent, at the expense of the Christian and Muslim population of the Arab world at every juncture in which it made them richer or secured the perpetual developmental superiority of the West.

          From Anwar Sadat in Egypt who jailed my pope and put shariah in Egypt’s constitution and unleashed the Muslim Brotherhood on Nassarist activists, to Zia Ul-Haq who Islamized and destroyed Pakistan, the American right supported it.

          The only consistent position regarding Islamists that U.S. foreign policy has had, is that they will be used to advance short-term US interests.

        • MLCBLOG

          or even a pig

      • A Copt Who Knows Better

        You seem so surprised by my political positions given that I am a Copt. Well did you know that it was a Coptic engineer who helped break the Bar-Levi Line in the 1973 Liberation of the Sinai? Did you know that Copts are banned by their Holy Synod from visiting Israel until the Occupation of Palestine ends? (those that do are banned from communion until they consult a bishop)

        America and Israel’s favorite Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, jailed a modern day (soon to be) Saint, Pope Shenouda III. After signing the peace treaty with Israel, he unleashed the Muslim Brotherhood and Jammah al-Islamiyah on college campuses to marginalize his leftist critics and Nassarist Political opponents.

        Then he added article two in the Egyptian constitution, stipulating that the principles of Islamic Shariah is the main source of Legislation, which secularists haven’t been able to remove to this day. This caused a massive deterioration in the condition of Copts, which triggered the mass immigration of Copts to the West in the 80s and 90s. The Islamists he released from prison eventually killed him, and evolved into Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and then Al-Qaeda, but the US supported all these actions back then. Thank Carter, and Reagan. (Or just thank neocolonialism).

        America has supported the Islamists, from the Wahhabis of the Gulf, to the Ikhwanis in the Republics, to the Jihadis in the Levent, at the expense of the Christian and Muslim population of the Arab world at every juncture in which it made them richer or secured the perpetual developmental superiority of the West.

        From Anwar Sadat in Egypt who jailed my pope and put shariah in Egypt’s constitution and unleashed the Muslim Brotherhood on Nassarist activists, to Zia Ul-Haq who Islamized and destroyed Pakistan, the American right supported it.

        The only consistent position regarding Islamists that U.S. foreign policy has had, is that they will be used to advance short-term US interests.

        • Daniel Greenfield

          Did you know that Arab Nationalism is dead as a doornail and has been replaced by Islamism.

          Do you know how well Christians do under Islamism?

          Do you think anyone here likes Sadat or US foreign policy toward Islamists?

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            I for one, am sorely disappointed that the occupant of the Presidential Palace in D.C. has not implemented any policy to backup his promise that there “must be no future for those who slander the prophet of islam.” It’s like he’s not even trying.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            What do you propose then? The state and a half solution for Israel/Palestine? Perpetual military or monarchal dictatorship in Arab States?

          • Daniel Greenfield

            I don’t propose anything. History will repeat itself regardless of what I say.

            The so-called Palestinian Arabs will continue to be puppets of various Arab and non-Arab countries using them as its proxy armies against Israel.

            And they’ll continue to blame everyone but themselves for it.

        • SCREW SOCIALISM

          Do Muslims bomb Copt churches in Egypt?

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            He’d probably blame zionists for it.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            You know who controls the CIA, MI6, KGB and the Saudis…

        • Kebert Xela

          “a Coptic engineer…helped break the Bar-Levi Lin”

          Was his church one burned down or blown up by the Muslim Brotherhood? Were his granddaughters kidnapped, violated, and forcibly converted? How have Egyptian Muslims shown their appreciation for his quisling collaboration with the genocidal occupiers?

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Not sure. Maybe by overthrowing the Muslim Brotherhood in one of the largest street protests in human history.

          • Kebert Xela

            You mean after that shill for western imperialism, Barack Obama, renounced Mubarak and installed the Muslim Brotherhood in his place? The Barack Obama that insisted on the participation of “non-secular parties” in Egypt’s new government?

            That non-secular party released the Islamist racists and religious bigots from prison as western ‘progressives’ have long advocated. The non-secular party was still conducting terror attacks against as Copts recently as March.

            You feel putting a government that supported systematic violence against Copts, and talked openly of driving them out of the country is showing appreciation? Because Egyptians eventually realized the Muslim Brotherhood aimed at the sort of Caliphate now consuming Iraq and removed them?

            Stockholm Syndrome. I mean that with all the horror and sympathy I can muster.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Copt’s are an integral part of Egypt’s national fabric. Progress needs to be made, but the vast majority of Muslims and Christians in Egypt agree on that. Western extremists who pit them against each other and have been tearing apart the societal fabric of the Middle East since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, are the greatest danger to the Middle East’s Christians.

            Kerbert, Obama is not the first Western leader to support regressive savages in the Middle East. That’s the difference between what I know and what you know.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Just like Christians were an integral part of Iraq and Libya and Syria…

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            KGB Putin supports regressive savages in the Ummah too.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Correct, he is just staunchly anti-Islamist, unless their Shia Islamists. I’ve seen support for him growing in paleo-conservative circles in the US. Worrying.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Not just Shiites. He’s fine with pro-government Islamists inside Eurasia.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Interesting. I need to read more about that. Surely not pan-Islamists though?

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Only if it serves the purposes of Moscow.

            Hardly a new phenomenon. Germany tried to do the same thing in both wars. So did Japan.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            Where? Is he financing islamic fascism in the same way the POSUS is?

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Russia had deals to sell weapons systems to Fascist Iran – to counter attacks on Fascist Irans nuclear programs.

            I don’t know if they were completed.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            … after putting the Muslim Brotherhood into power.

            Notably the new regime hasn’t done all that much to protect Christians. Not that Christians in Egypt were being treated all that well under Mubarak.

            But it’s all the fault of the CIA Jews.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            The Muslim Brotherhood got 22% of the vote in an election with less than 50% turnout. Morsi then one by a 1% margin in a 30 something percent turn-out run-off against Ahmed Shafik, Mubarak’s last Prime Minister.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Might want to count the Salafi parties as well.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            They didn’t have a presidential candidate. Hazem Abu Ismail was disqualified because his mother was American.

        • American Patriot

          The Soviet Union and Communist China’s favorite Middle East dictator, Gamel Abdel Nasser, helped create the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964 in order to try and discredit Israel’s right to exist. Your beloved Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, which caused a decade-long war in that country. The Soviet Union had been intervening in many countries around the world since the 1920s. The USSR was also involved in Spain during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s. Why don’t you talk about that?

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            You do know that America also supported Nasser’s revolution, and had advanced knowledge of the coup plot. It was a shared interest with the Soviets that British Influence in the Middle East be curbed and the recession of the British Empire be accelerated.

            Additionally, resistance to Zionism started far before the creation of the PLO, and Palestine’s indigenous Jewish community was an integral component of that resistance.

            Soviet Imperialism is no better that American imperialism, but the Soviet union is dead, I’m not speaking to Soviets, and I don’t live in the Soviet Union. Perhaps that is a more logical explanation for why I’m not sitting here talking about it than “I love the Soviets become I’m a DIM-oCrat COMMIE LIBTARD”.

          • American Patriot

            Yes. You are a Communist pig, troll. There is no American imperialism. There is Cuban imperialism and Chinese imperialism. Anyway, why don’t you talk about the resistance to Islamofascism? That is because you support Islamism. Zionism is not racism. Islamism is, fool. You probably sympathize with the Muslim Brotherhood, even though they oppress Coptic Christians.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Not a fan of Nasser? I would have assumed you blamed Sadat for destroying Nasser’s amazing legacy of failure.

            The indigenous Jewish communities of the Middle East are far more Zionist than Jews from Europe.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Nasser had his accomplishments. My father would probably be illiterate farmer, and his sisters as well. He is an electrical engineer, and his sisters doctors, thanks to Nasser’s overthrow of the feudal order. Any yes, I resent Sadat’s dismantling of Nassar’s welfare state, which caused both Muslims and Christians to fall back on religious institutions for social services, further laying the groundwork for Islamist dominance, and taking sectarian tension to a level not seen in Egypt since the abolition of the Jizya. Nonetheless, his creation of a single party police state was a disaster. My wish is that Muhammad Naguib had not been overthrown by Nasser, and the multiparty democracy he envisioned, and that existed (there was even a Coptic Prime Minister from the Wafd), could have continued, albeit without the British Presence and the feudal monarchical order.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Except of course it wouldn’t have. Islam has always been a more compelling bond than phony nationalism or socialism propped up by foreign money.

            Ethnicity is strong, but religion is stronger.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            clans stronger too.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            And most importantly, at least to you, Nasser expressed his desire to push the Jews into the sea.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Like I said. I thank Nasser for giving my father the opportunity to get an engineering degree rather than farm, but that’s about it. If there is any one concept that unifies what the rest of the world calls Egypt’s Leftists, it is destroying the state system Nasser created.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            And Nasser enforced antisemitic laws that disenfranchised Jews of the few civil rights and liberties they enjoyed in Egyptistan.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            And yes they are, today. Prior to 1948 they were the least. Thier interests were rapidly changed, Israel caused them to be perceived as a fifth column. I don’t blame them. If a caliphate is established and folks like you treat all Western Muslims as a fifth column, they’re probably going to become very pan-Islamist. I hope things do go that way.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            “palestinians” are perceived as a fifth column – see Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and even the US.

            It was a “palestinian” who assassinated US Senator and Democrat Presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Yes, it sucks for Palestinians. If only they could live where they came from…

          • Daniel Greenfield

            “Yes, it sucks for Palestinians. If only they could live where they came from…

            You’ll have to take that up with the Saudis. In some cases the Egyptians and Sudanese.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            Since they’re all Arabs, wouldn’t that mean Saudi ARABia?

          • Kebert Xela
          • Daniel Greenfield

            Nope.

            They were the most Zionist long before 1948. That was why messianic movements made more of an impact there.

            They were more afraid to speak out and say anything because they were living under Islamic oppression and could be massacred at any time.

            Western Muslims are being treated as incredibly privileged… and that’s exactly what is making them pan-Islamist.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            “Resistance to Zionism” meaning the pogroms committed against Jews by moslems before the creation of the state of Israel? Like the 1929 Yerushalem pogrom?

        • ron

          Sinai was not “liberated” in 1973. In fact the war ended with the israeli forces outside cairo.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Totally correct. The Bar-Levi line was broken, which was an emotional event that deeply affected the political situation on both sides, creating the conditions that would allow a political settlement. It allowed Egyptians to feel that they were negotiating with Equals after the shame and economic collapse of the six day war. It allowed the Israelis to come to the table because they became aware of the false confidence of the IDF post 6-day War. But militarily it was a tactical success and a strategic failure without it’s political component.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            This was in fact the third time the Israelis conquered the Sinai and gave it back to Egypt, for “peace”.

      • A Copt Who Knows Better

        The Balfour Declaration (dated 2 November 1917) was a letter from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Baron Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.

        “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

        Of course, according to the readers and writers at Front Page Magazine, the Brits were speaking of the ancient Red haired Greek Sailors, and named Transjordan after them.

        Incredible.

        • Daniel Greenfield

          The Declaration doesn’t change history. Nor does is it referring to an independent people or an existing country.

          And cutting and pasting the same nonsense a dozen times doesn’t make it more credible.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Ok, I now at least understand what your claiming. I’m not sure why it’s necessary that “the Arabs that resided in Palestine” had to exist as an independent self-governing entity in order for them to be entitled to self-rule in their own land today, but at least your claim that “Palestine never existed” makes sense in light of your extremely narrow definition of existed.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            If you want an independent country based on an irrefutable historical claim… then you need to have had a country.

            Especially when you’re members of the same religion, ethnicity and families as the rest of the region.

            Which is to say that you have no credible claim for an independent identity.

      • annelie

        Well, Mr Greenfield, nation states – as artifices – can be invented and disbanded. There was no ‘Israel’ until it was invented by a bunch of imperialists. Peoples’ belonging to land by language and history is not so easily dismissed. Sorry to say, I find your article one of the worst pieces of blatant Zionist hasbara I have so far come across. Perhaps you should acquire some of E Said’s humanism.

        • Daniel Greenfield

          Israel dates back thousands of years and its history has become embedded in the religions of most of the world.

          Including Muslims.

    • Drakken

      As far as I am concerned, we westerners should bring back colonialism, it keep you savages in check.

      • SCREW SOCIALISM

        Third World savages need guidance that can best come from the West.

        All the Intra-Islam blood letting is tiresome.

    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      Copout Who Knows Nothing Fuck YOU and your Taqiyya.

      INSHALLAH!

    • Judgmentday

      Gee, you make yourself so much more credible with your generous usage of four-letter words and obvious anger. Thanks so much for pointing out your intellectual prowess. I’ll be sure to watch for your posts from now on.

    • American Patriot

      You ignore the radical left-wing exploitation of the world’s population in the name of so-called “anti-imperialism”, when in fact, the radical left are the true imperialists, and you are one of their many useful idiots.

  • EMGoldstein84

    So, what you are saying is that Said is a Palestinean anchor baby…

    • A Copt Who Knows Better

      His mother was born in Nazareth, and his father was born in Jerusalem. This article is propaganda, and the reason Edward Said is so vilified is because his very existence, as a Palestinian Christian American opposed to neocolonialism, invalidates the entire right-wing world view of civilizational relations.

      • JR Kipling

        Edward Said was the epitome of everything wrong in Academia.
        He took a cheap phrase “neo colonialism” and turned it into

        a spinning bauble to hypnotize the weak minded. The one thing you need to know about all of these academic frauds is they could not exist for a moment outside of the classroom. Once they are not talking to 19year olds with no culture, history or sense of allegiance frauds like Said are quickly exposed. BTW. “Colonialism” especially British “Colonialism” was probably the most benevolent force in world history. Without it Said
        would have no America and would be where he belonged . In a mud village wondering which of his cousins to seduce tonight.

        • bodica

          Well said, JR Kipling. ‘Hear, hear!’

      • bodica

        …so you hate the ‘right-wing world view.’ I suspected you were a commie from the start. Get back to your Coptic Christian roots, or don’t call yourself a Copt.

        • A Copt Who Knows Better

          Typical colonialist. What in the world gives you the right to decide that I support the foreign policy of the American right or I am not a Copt.

          “Pope Shenouda III had arguments with then President Anwar Sadat over both the Camp David Accords and what he said was the president’s deficient response to growing Islamism.[8] After a series of protests that led president Sadat to depose Pope Shenouda III, he was exiled by Sadat and sent to the Nitrian Desert, to return three years after Sadat’s assassination following an amnesty by Sadat’s successor Hosni Mubarak.

          His stance toward Israel was encapsulated by his words:

          From the Arabic national point we should not abandon our Palestinian brothers and our Arabic brothers by normalising our relations with the Jews … From the church point of view, Copts who go to Jerusalem betray their church in the case of “Al-Sultan Monastery” that Israel refuses to give to the Copts.

          He also warned that Copts who visited Jerusalem would face excommunication on the premise that there was “no pilgrimage duty in Christianity and it is not a religious pillar, so since this visit can do harm to our national cause and [to the] Muslim and Christian people then we better not visit Jerusalem.” He added that Copts should only go to Jerusalem after peace was established in the region.[9] Some of the Coptic property within the compound of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre(including the Coptic monastery known as Deir El-Sultan) was delegated to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. Upon the application of some bishops, the Coptic Orthodox Holy Synod, based on the direction of Pope Shenouda III, also decided to ask Copts not to visit Jerusalem until the Church possessions and the monastery be returned. In 2006, the Holy Synod renewed the decree, urging Copts not to visit the Christian holy places in Israel, including Jerusalem.[10]

          His view on Palestinian suicide bombers was that it was a “natural reaction to the pressure and depression in which Palestinians live. They do not see any alternative but to explode themselves in the face of an enemy that uses all the means of power with no mercy.”[9]

          • Daniel Greenfield

            All that worked out really well, didn’t it.

            And here you are at a Jewish school while having learned nothing from the fate of Christians under Islamism.

            Rant about the Jews some more. That will fix it all.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            I do not oppose the existence of the state of Israel, and I do not hate Jews. I attend a Jewish Medical School, and I’m highly appreciative for that opportunity. I grew up in East Brunswick, NJ, a major central NJ Jewish community, and have many Jewish friends. I think that Pope Shenouda’s use of the word Jew was inappropriate, but he was clearly referring to Israeli Zionists. He obviously wasn’t talking about Jews anywhere else. As for myself, I haven’t written a word about Jews but about the Israeli government, which claims to be THE Jewish state (Something I find highly inappropriate in the 21st century, very caliphate like, not sure when all of the worlds Jews consented to that). What I oppose is Israeli sabotage of Palestinian Statehood. You can not deny that that is occurring. It is in the Likud’s electoral platform. Netanyahu refuses to deal with Abbas on the basis of him representing only half of the Palestinian people. Abbas then reconciles with a weakened Hamas getting them to agree to subjugation to the PA, and the formation of a technocratic government, which would precede elections that would occur at a time when Hamas has never been more unpopular. And then Netanyahu says Abbas chose Hamas over peace, and he can’t have both.

            What options are you giving Palestinians? Agreeing to be annexed by Israel is not an option. I actually know many Palestinians who hail from Gaza and would accept Israeli citizenship. But Israel (accurately) calls them a demographic threat and obviously isn’t giving them that option. Birth right citizenship is granted to Jews worldwide on the basis of religion, but the right of return for the refugees of 1948 is denied.

            When you overstate the Democratic characteristics of Israel (which supports the Palestinian dictator of area A West Bank, that you mentioned, and directly and undemocratically controls Area B and C of the West Bank), and claim Palestine never existed while failing to mention that transnational empires, rather than ethnic nation states, dominated the era that you speak of, your vindicating Said’s work.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Like there needs to be ANOTHER Arab state in a sea of FAILED Arab entities.

            Carve a “palestine” out of the remnants of Iraq.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Look at pre-World War Two Europe. It was a hot bed of political radicalism, religious division, anti-semitism, dictatorship and war. It ended. The same will happen in the the Arab World. The fact that you think there is something inherently wrong with Arabs and inherently right with Westerners, is exactly the phenomena Said was analyzing.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            It was also a hotbed of other things that transcended that. Same can’t be said for the Middle East.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            WHY is the Arab world so far behind the rest of the world?

            Asian states have also surpassed Arab/Muslim entities.

            And yes, there is something inherently wrong with Arabs.and Muslims. See the mess they are making of the world.

            Why are there checkpoints at every airport in the world?

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            This argument of false equivalence is about the lamest one I’ve read in a while, but I guess defending islamic-fascism requires some liberties w/things like the truth and logic.

          • Kebert Xela

            The Muslim world has been a hot bed of political oppression, religious bigotry, anti-semitism, absurd oriental despotism, and genocidal Islamic supremacism for 1400 years. It hasn’t ended.

            National Socialism and Communism are reactionary anti-reason backwash from the Middle-Ages. Islam is the original darkness the German philosophers of the nineteenth century could only dream of.

            This is not a conflict between Arabs and Westerners. It is a conflict between neo-primitives informed by a deeply racist and intolerant Islamic ideology and the remnant of the civilized world. A much greater mind than Edward Said “When you have civilized men fighting savages, you support the civilized men, no matter who they are.”

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Ah yes, the old “Jew” really means “Zionist” routine.

            Israel as the Jewish State is inappropriate, but Egypt for Egyptians is wholly appropriate. Or France for the French.

            Israel has repeatedly tried to negotiate with Abbas only to have the latter sabotage the talks repeatedly. If you really are from the Middle East, you probably have a good idea of why that happens.

            Being annexed by Israel is an option. It’s not Israel that is reluctant to grant citizenship. Ask the Druze on the Golan Heights. Or Arabs in East Jerusalem.

            Arab Muslims in ’48 Israel can vote. Those in ’67 Israel have to be annexed and request citizenship. I support a referendum on the issue.

            Talk of transnational empires is hot air when you’re arguing for the existence of a place that never actually existed.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            So Russian Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Egyptian Jews, and Ashkenazi Jews all have a right to form a state in Israel, but the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza can’t form a state? I too support a referendum. I don’t see how the fact that modern nation states didn’t exist is an irrelevant fact. Zionism itself is a product of European Nationalism.

            The Romans called the region Palestina Prima, the British called it Mandatory Palestine, and no one called it Israel three millennia, but Palestine never existed and Israel does.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            The region is full of Arab Sunni Muslim states. The Jewish State is tiny compared to them.

            Your Arab Muslims in the West and Gaza would have had a state by now if their leaders didn’t have a whole other agenda.

            There are no Palestinians. There are the descendants of Arab colonists from families that extend across the region.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Your Arabs from Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon can form a 58th state in the remnants of Iraq. They might get lucky and found it on some oil rich plot.

          • Kebert Xela

            Wikipedia, and the Imperator Vespasian don’t agree.

          • American Patriot

            Islamist jihadism itself is a product of radical pan-Africanism, Communism and Baathism. The so-called “Palestinian” nationality was invented by the Soviet Union (with the KGB) and its puppet state, Nasser’s Egypt, in the 1960s in order to try and discredit Israel’s right to exist. Why don’t you talk about that?

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            So please tell me why the British called the region Mandatory Palestine? Or why the UN tried to create two states, on called Palestine? Were they brainwashed by third-worldism before the Egyptian monarchy was even overthrown by Nassar?

          • American Patriot

            The name “Palestine” is not Arabic. It is Latin and the name refers to the Philistines, who were Ancient Greek sailors who had red hair. The Philistines were not Arabs. The Romans named the Holy Land region “Palestine” in 66 AD. Israel has always been the land of the Jews since antiquity. Even the Koran mentions “Children of Israel”. The “State of Palestine” is an artificial invention. By the way, the Palestine Mandate that Britain controlled after World War I also included Jordan. Why don’t you talk about that?

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            The Balfour Declaration (dated 2 November 1917) was a letter from the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Baron Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.

            “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

            Of course, the Brits were speaking of the ancient Red haired Greek Sailors, and named Transjordan after them.

            Incredible.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Can you tell me why Philip Hitti denied there was a Palestine?

            “The Sunday schools have done a great deal of harm to us because by smearing the walls of classrooms with maps of Palestine, they associate it with the Jews in the minds of the average American and Englishman”.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Balfour Declaration, written by the KGB of Course. The KGB also went back in time and told they Byzantines to call Palestine Palestine.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            That’s a regional name. Not the name of a kingdom or country.

          • American Patriot

            Oh, so you sympathize with Hamas? Interesting (sarcasm). What you support is Communist and Islamist totalitarianism. Israel is a democratic state. Gaza is ruled by an Islamic militant dictatorship named Hamas. That’s the difference, fool.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            No, I do not. Only in the imagination of the right or the propaganda of the right, is every critic of Israel’s undemocratic occupation of the West Bank, and Siege on Gaza, an anti-semite or Hamas supporter. Of course I’m sure you believe that the entire Israeli Left, are also Hamas supporters and anti-semites. Or that the Majority of American Jews, a comfortable majority of whom happen to be democrats, and critical of Israeli government policy, are also Hamas supporters.

            I mentioned the reconciliation deal because Netanyahu made it a precondition for peace negotiations and then made it the reason peace negotiations could not happen. The game is obvious.

          • American Patriot

            Yes you are, fool. On the other hand, only in the imagination of the left or the propaganda of the left, is every supporter of Israel and every critic of Islamofascism an “Islamophobe”. Of course, I’m sure you believe that conservative “Palestinians” are also “Islamophobes”, is that right? Or that anti-Islamist Muslims in America and around the world are also “Islamophobes”. Obviously, you don’t like facts.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Actually, I don’t believe that every supporter of Israel, of every anti-Islamist Muslim is an Islamophobe. Every Muslim I have ever worked with on political issues is anti-Islamist.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            … until it suits them to ally with the Islamists.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Like when the winds change and the other side is winning.

            “I’m with the strong horse – as long as it’s strong. When it no longer is, I’ll change my allegiances.”

          • Daniel Greenfield

            The Brotherhood took over Egypt because the left allied with them. Then the left allied with the Egyptian military.

            Now it’s throwing tantrums again. And leftists like our pal here will blame the CIA.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            Always blame the forces hidden in the dark for Islams problems.

            Daughter won’t marry the guy you wanted her to marry? Blame the CIA,Zionists,gays – but stone her to death to preserve “family honor”;.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Actually the left called for early elections, and what it got what a counter-revolution, the reconstruction of the Mubarak regime, and presidential elections that we’re basically a referendum.

          • Jakareh

            With all due respect, but it’s because of appeasers like you that today your people live under the mercy of Muslims, who kill you or take your daughters at will. From Medina under the rule of Muhammad to ISIS, Islam is and has always been the same dreck. If the Copts had resisted the Muslim invaders when there were a lot more of you than them, you would not today be in the situation you are in. No honorable individual accepts being a dhimmi, but in your case the dhimmitude is so profoundly ingrained that although on the far side of the world you mount a desperate defense of your Muslim masters. Arab Muslims control over five million square miles of the world’s surface. That’s enough. In fact, it’s too much.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Seeing as how the The Byzantines sent a military governor and simultaneous Religious Patriarch (who we did not recognise, because he was killing us and enslaving us supposedly for our Miaphysite interpretation of Christology, but really because we wanted Alexandria to be the great Christian city it deserved to be, but they wanted power with the Empire in Rome, so a theological dispute was amplified and Greeks came to Egypt and ruled as an overclass). Regardless, that made it seem sort of ridiculous for us to fight to preserve Byzantine rule when ‘Amr ibn al-’As came in and offered us the Pact of Umar. Had the Western Church put preserving the Christian Faith over the power of the Roman Empire, things might have been different.

          • Jakareh

            I didn’t bring up the Muslim conquest of Egypt in order to rehash an intra-Christian theological dispute. I brought it up to point out that you, and a large but rapidly diminishing contingent of Middle Eastern Christians, blame your troubles on everything except the obvious and indisputable cause: Islam. Perhaps it’s a problem without a solution, but that doesn’t make the fact any less true.

          • Daniel Greenfield

            Yes every critic of the “siege of Gaza” is a Hamas supporter or one of its useful idiots.

          • ygalg

            “undemocratic occupation” what is democratic occupation?

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            Are Christians in Gaza treated as equals w/their moslem “brothers”?

          • American Patriot

            How are those acts of terror a “natural reaction to the pressure and depression” regarding the conditions of the so-called “Palestinians”. Schoolchildren in those territories are taught to hate Jews and to fight for Allah. Islamism is a curse and you act too stupid to realize the truth.

      • SCREW SOCIALISM

        Edward Said was a Propagandist for “Orientalism”.

      • American Patriot

        The very concept of “Palestine” is an invented “country” and “nationality”. Israel is a historical reality.

  • Digli

    Not on topic …exactly..but:
    I don’t look at the headlines of Frontpage magazine articles before I read them anymore, I just look to see If Dan Greenfield wrote them. If he did, I read them no matter what the subject.
    I do the same with VDH articles on NRO.

    • Die Leftard Scum Die

      Whatever.. What’s your point??

    • Daniel Greenfield

      thank you, that’s high praise indeed

  • Vicki mammacub

    He was also buddies with Obama and Muucheelle

  • DogmaelJones1

    At first glance, and then a second, I thought the photo accompanying the article was of Omar “I ain’t done nothin’ wrong” Qadaffi of Libya. If it’s of Said, he was a ringer for the very late psychotic dictator. I wonder what happened to Qaddaffi’s all-girl bodyguard.

    • IslamDownpressesHumanity

      That is an interesting question. I hope they got out while they could.

  • JR Kipling

    I met Said years ago. My immediate impression was that he was a phony. An academic con artist exploiting the gullible. Only now do I see what an uncanny resemblance he had to Col Ghadaffi. Lying and deception is the currency of the Middle East, and Edward Said was one of the more ingenious operators from that region.

  • Lightbringer

    Outstanding piece, Daniel. How on Earth can you keep writing so many good articles? It’s amazing.

    • Daniel Greenfield

      little sleep

  • bodica

    One of the Saudi shills who opened Columbia’s doors for Obama.

  • A Copt Who Knows Better

    So back to the original issue, of Said and Palestine, would anyone like to educate me, and explain why the Byzantines who ruled the Levant prior to the Arab Conquest called Palestine Palestine?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocese_of_the_East#mediaviewer/File:Dioecesis_Orientis_400_AD.png

    Or why the Balfour Declaration, written by the British Foreign secretary in 1917, says this?

    “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

    KGB Infiltration of the 1917 British Government? Islamist Influence on the Pre-Islamic Byzantines?

    • A Copt Who Knows Better

      Wait I know! It was Saul Alinsky! He went back in time with the help of Soviet Physicists so that they could revise history and subjugate the West to Communo-Islam! Classic socialist community organizer tactic.

      • Kebert Xela

        Its ‘Islamo-Fascism’, so wrong bunch of reactionary socialists. The NAZIs were so much chummier with the Muslim Jew haters.

        Saul Alinsky was much more ‘progressive’. He sent his ideas forward in time to put the grandson of an African Muslim in the White House.

        • A Copt Who Knows Better

          And now the Racism goes on display.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

            If it’s OK to portray GWB as a monkey, is it OK to portray BHO as a monkey too?

          • Kebert Xela

            The ‘Racism’ was on display when you began a spirited attempt to tie the legitimacy of Israel to the ancestry of its inhabitants. Denying the Jewishness of Falashas, Russian Jews, or Western European Jews, like Mr. Said. I know this is all (relatively) new for you but here the first person to be reduced to reifying a resort to ‘Racism’ is considered to have conceded any valid reasoned argument.

            BTW. You realize, as an Egyptian, you’re an African, right? Africa is not a country, contra Mr. Biden, and it isn’t a race, it is a continent.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            I didn’t deny their Jewishness. I denied their right to create a nation in Palestine. They have no more right to do so than Native Americans do to overthrow the US government, create an exclusively Native state, and displace Americans from their homes.

            If you can’t see how you mentioning Obama’s African ancestry as if it’s part of some evil conspiracy is racist then you have a problem.

    • Kebert Xela

      Why did Vespasian mint a coin with his face on it and proclaim himself the conqueror of Iudea?

      http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/Sestertius_-_Vespasiano_-_Iudaea_Capta-RIC_0424.jpg

      • A Copt Who Knows Better

        Please reconcile the Balfour Declaration from 1917 with the right-wing claim that Palestine is a construct of Arab and Communist opposition to Israel. Honestly, if you can credibly do that, I might actually be convinced that these claims are serious. At the very least, explain why the Byzantines called Palestine Palestine right up until they lost control of it. If you keep bringing up a coin from the year 66 to legitimize a settler state being created in 1948, I can’t believe that you care about the truth.

        I’m not saying that Jews never had Self-Rule in the Levant. They did. Interestingly, in what is today called the West Bank. I’m exposing the absolute myth that Palestine never existed, when it infact continually existed within the Byzantine Empire, existed after, existed in 1917 when the British promised the Zionists a State in it, and until 1948.

        • Daniel Greenfield

          The only thing that needs to be reconciled is the non-existence of any independent Arab Muslim country or kingdom known as Palestine throughout history.

          Everything else you’re posting is a waste of time.

        • Kebert Xela

          Europeans are chided all the time by anti-neo-colonialists for using words like Burma, Siam, Peking, Bombay, America to refer to places for which the the original inhabitants used a different name. All of a sudden an entire people are reified by the magic of a word that can’t even be pronounced or spelled in Arabic, their primary language?

          No one ever chides English speakers for using words like Cologne or Germany, rather than Köln or Deutschland though. Anti-neo-colonialism only goes so far I guess. End the occupation of Kaliningrad! Free Karjala!

      • A Copt Who Knows Better

        http://www.balfourproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/cropped-stamps2.jpg

        There you go. Definitive evidence of Palestine’s existence, by your coin standards.

        • Daniel Greenfield

          We’re talking historical existence. But nice try.

        • Kebert Xela

          The use of the word Palestine by Europeans to identify the Roman province of Iudea is not in question. If you recall it is your position that the term ‘Israel’ had not been current for three millennia when the Jewish nation was founded, and ‘Palestine’ was the name exclusively used to identify to region during the intervening period. That is simply not true, and if you like I can refer you to maps from the ancient, medieval, and Renaissance, periods which use Iudea alone or in conjunction with ‘Palastina’ etc.

          One thing however is indisputable. There has been and is a nation of Israel There has never been a nation of Palestine or a Palestinian people before they were invented in the twentieth century.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            What is the Balfour declaration calling Palestine? And why were the British concerned that “the Arab Muslims and Christians” in “Palestine” would be disenfranchised?

          • Kebert Xela

            How does what the British or the Byzantines called Israel, help you prove the existence of an historical people who called themselves ‘Palestinians’ despite that word being unpronounceable in Arabic? I’m sure Mr. Balfour had a general concern for the well being of “Burma”, don’t even think of using that term around an anti-neo-colonialist today, the country is called Myanmar.

            What you need is do find the ancestors of the Arab and other Islamic colonists who flocked to the Ottoman province of Palestine in the 19th century and prove that these disparate peoples from all over the Islamic world had been calling themselves ‘Palestinians’ and shared a common culture and ancestry going back to to antiquity. You know, like the Jews.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            What about the Orthodox Christian Arabs of Palestine, Jerusalem specifically, like Said’s ancestors? Are they 19th century migrants?

          • Daniel Greenfield

            They’re certainly not indigenous. But Israel is about the only place in the region where they can avoid extermination.

            More of them are realizing it now. Others choose to continue collaborating with their Islamist oppressors out of racial solidarity with predictable results.

          • Kebert Xela

            There are Christian Arabs serving in the Israeli military. Mr. Said chose to fight for the Muslims who want him, and you, dead or reduced to a second class state of dhimmitude. (Once you are no longer a ‘necessary kuffar’, of course)

          • MukeNecca

            “What is the Balfour declaration calling Palestine?

            That’s an easy one:

            A province of the defeated Turkish Empire corresponding quite closely to the province of the Roman Empire of the same name – Palestine – which was invented and introduced by the Romans to spite and taunt the Israelites (or Jews) who were finally totally defeated after series of bloody uprisings against the Roman conqueror. The Roman victory had to be total and final and therefore the very name of Israel and the reference to her ancient people had to be deleted from history. That is why the neologism Palestine was made to replace Israel. The Romans could have called it anything they fancied – for example Pizza Mayor, Toyota, or Mars. Would the Arabs who arrived to the area some 700 years later reinvented themselves as Pizzerians, Toyotians, or Martians in 1967?

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            Of course they would have! Lying is their religious stock in trade when they can’t merely murder their opponents.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            LOL, I’m sure the few remaining Christians under the PA have a lot more pressing concerns WRT their ongoing persecution and murder by their fellow islamic brothers than worrying about disenfranchisement. All we have to do is look at the change in religious makeup of Bethlehem to prove my point.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Ok, at least I know what you mean now. What I’m trying to explain, is that the right of the Arab Muslims, Christians, and Jews, who lived in historic Palestine before the Zionist project, have more of a historical claim a state there in the present day, than Jews from Britain, to Ethiopia, to Russia. There was an Israel? Sure, no dispute there. All of the worlds adherents to the Jewish faith today constitute a nation called Israel that has a right to form a state in the same place that the Ancient Israelites did? That’s a stretch imo.

          • Kebert Xela

            That Arabs have a right to an Arab state outside the Arabian peninsula is a bit of a stretch. They have the countries of the Chaldeans, Assyrians, Kurds, Syrians, Egyptians, Cyrenaicans, Libyans, Vandals, Mauritanians, Sudanese, Greeks, and conquered a multitude of others, exterminating whole ethnic groups in the process. The Jews have one little country historically occupied by their ancestors for centuries before Mohammed ever thought to marry a 6yr. old.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            Once again, what about the descendants of the Ghassanids, such as Said?

          • Daniel Greenfield

            The colonists can go home to Saudi Arabia? And leave the indigenous Jewish population in peace.

          • A Copt Who Knows Better

            There is no objective evidence in this universe that all of the worlds Jews are indigenous to Israel/Palestine.

          • IslamDownpressesHumanity

            There is no objective evidence that the Temple Mount is in any way holey to moslems. There is objective, archaeological evidence that the Temple Mount and Yerushalem were built by Jews thousands of years before your child molesting, mass murdering, psychopathic prophet was even born.

          • Kebert Xela

            The Ghassanids were clients of the Byzantines and last held territory in Lebanon. Mr. Said could always have tried to wrest his historic homeland from Hezbollah.

            A more practical approach would be one more and more Arab Christians in Israel are embracing. Joining the Israelis against the genocidal forces of Islam. It wasn’t evil neo-colonialist Jews who wiped out whole Christian communities is Iraq less than a month ago. There are no Jews selling innocent Christian girls on Twitter for $150.00.

          • American Patriot

            The Jews, Christians and other peoples, including people of different faiths have more right to the Holy Land than Muslims from Libya, Algeria, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and other countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Why don’t you talk about that?

      • A Copt Who Knows Better

        Whereupon, to exploit the propaganda advantage of this British flirtation with Zionism, leaflets were dropped over German and Austrian territory and pamphlets circulated to Jewish soldiers in the armies of Germany and her Central European allies, proclaiming that ‘the hour of Jewish redemption has arrived. . . . The Allies are giving the Land of Israel to the people of Israel. . . . Will you join them and help to build a Jewish homeland in Palestine? … Stop fighting the Allies who are fighting for you, for all the Jews …. An Allied victory means the Jewish people’s return to Zion’

      • A Copt Who Knows Better

        Balfour stated quite categorically that

        ‘in Palestine we do not propose even to go through the form of consulting the wishes of the present inhabitants of the country …. The Four Great Powers are committed to Zionism. And Zionism, be it right or wrong, good or bad, is rooted in age-long traditions, in present needs, in future hopes, of far profounder import than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who now inhabit that ancient land’.

        • Daniel Greenfield

          What does a modern Brit have to do with the extended history of the indigenous Jewish people of Israel?

          You don’t like colonialism, except when you find it useful.

      • A Copt Who Knows Better

        So there we have it from the author of the Balfour Declaration himself. Every pledge given to the Palestinian Arabs regarding the future of their country was to be ‘violated’ as a deliberate act of policy. The solemn promise of independence which was given by Sir Henry McMahon in 1915 when High Commissioner in Cairo and which secured the support of the Arab armies of Emir Feisal against the Turks in World War I was to be cynically ignored. So too was the Anglo-French declaration of November 1918.

      • A Copt Who Knows Better

        pledging that the Arabs in the territories to be liberated from Turkish rule would be free to choose their own form of government, which had been issued as a reassurance to those who feared that the Balfour Declaration would cancel out McMahon’s undertaking. And any Arab objections to these breaches of faith were to be dismissed as the voice of prejudice of the corrupt ‘effendi’ class of land-owners who had no claim to represent the people of Palestine. This even though Sir Gilbert Clayton, Britain’s leading Arabist of the time and Chief Political Officer to the British army in the Middle East, pointed out that such an argument was not a fair statement of the facts and that not only were the effendis ‘worthy representatives of their class but (that) fear and dislike of Zionism has become general through­out all classes. . . ‘

        • Kebert Xela

          You evaded the question. At length. Six times.

    • Daniel Greenfield

      Who cares what names a conquering empire gave to the region.

      The question is was there ever a kingdom or country called Palestine.

      There was not.

      Your pal Hitti did his best to disavow the existence of any Palestine as a Sunday School fantasy until it became a useful scam to claim that the Muslims living in one place were the “Palestinian people”

  • IslamDownpressesHumanity

    It’s strange that a self declared Coptic Christian isn’t very interested in the fact a million Christians have either been slaughtered or ethnically cleansed from Iraq and Syria.

  • MukeNecca

    Everything worth knowing about the Edward-the-Fraud Said can be found in the “”Edward Said – “My Beautiful Old House” and Other Fabrications””, by Justus Reid Weiner.

    Here is the link:
    http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/991691/posts
    Great reading.

  • A Copt Who Knows Better

    I will leave you all with the words of Edward Said himself, and never comment again. My time is better spent praying for understanding than trying to shatter in almost impenetrable cultural superiority complex.

    “Turning to the Arab world, which has its own informational shortcomings, such as the lack of any academic institution devoted solely to the critical study of the West or the United States, Said reported that, nonetheless, the level of popular awareness is high; the U.S. is the most widely portrayed of all foreign societies in the media. American films, television programs, consumer goods, and magazines exist in profusion throughout the Arab world. “In contrast, hardly any Arab fiction or cultural analysis is devoted to the United States. And if it is, virtually none of it is read in the United States, or has any effect at all, say in New York or Los Angeles, except among expatriate groups. There is, thus, even in culture, an almost absolute disparity in power, and it is this disparity that characterizes the relationship between the Arabs and the U.S., which results on the one hand in a bitterness and dependency leading to Islamism or fundamentalism in some cases, and on the other, on the American side, in triumphalism and ignorance that are extremely depressing, especially after September 11.”

    “I’m not saying that Arabs are innocent,” Said said. “Nor am I saying that the fault is entirely the United States. … There is no monolithic U.S., just as there is no monolithic Arab world or Islam – which has now been compressed into one rather narrow and unforgiving all-purpose formula signifying terrorism, fundamentalism, and fanaticism.”
    Said lamented the “unfortunate triumph of all these idiotic, super-real, and atrophied labels, in which in the Arab world, the U.S. has become shorthand for all our ills, and in the United States the Arabs have become a universal symbol of violence and intransigence and anti-Americanism. The result promises to be unending conflict.”

    - See more at: http://www.aljadid.com/content/said-speaks-out-and-after-9-11-muffling-arab-voice#sthash.ZTRHNFlp.dpuf

  • Berrlinguy

    The German state funds the Barenboim-Said Academy for young musicians in Berlin. Obviously they are misled by conductor Daniel Barenboim about Said.

  • DANSHANTEAL

    Wasn’t he friendly with Obama? You surely must know the difference between an eagle and a buzzard.

  • IslamDownpressesHumanity

    Duh, they don’t look like they’re slapping their chests to me Hajji Light.

  • SCREW SOCIALISM

    Show us videos of shiites doing their outstretched arm salute that is followed by slapping their chests.

    All together now!

  • annelie

    This is the most fraudulent site I have yet come across – by accident, I might add. It is nothing to do with rational discussion but all to do with right-wing Zionist rants about people who are more informed and intelligent than they. You should all be thoroughly ashamed of your lack of information and compassion. You are demonising a people whose land and livelihood, past and future has been stolen and who according to the Geneva Protocol have every right to resist Occupation. You might attend to some of the reports from Holocaust survivors who likewise condemn the actions of this Israeli government as having learned too many tricks from National Socialism.

  • Bubbie

    One of the twentieth century’s most famous Professors of English, Edward Said had a feeble “command” of the English language.