Vice Chair of Jordan’s Parliament: “Hating the Jews is a Great Honor For Me”

khalil atteh

Here is Jordanian parliamentarian Khalil Attieh heroically burning an Israeli flag in parliament while gingerly holding it away from him so his suit doesn’t catch fire. Apparently Khalil wasn’t ready for his virgins just yet.

The Vice Chairman of the Jordanian Parliament however has spent much of his time ranting about Israel. The Jewish State is the only other topic in the parliament besides increasing subsidies.

He also called Saddam a “martyr” and recited the Koran in memory of the Muslim terrorists who massacred Rabbis in a synagogue.

So this interview should come as no surprise.

MP Khalil Attieh: By Allah, it is an honor to incite against the Jews. It is a great accomplishment to provoke and incense them. Let us continue with similar decisions, because this is what the Jordanian people want. Our people in Palestine expect us to support them, and to recite Koranic verses for the souls of their martyrs.

Attieh’s definition of ranting about the Jews as a “great accomplishment” explains why Jordan is such a mess. Some countries actually accomplish things.

Others rant about the Jews.

MP Khalil Attieh: As my colleague said, if this is terrorism, we are terrorists. Indeed, I make use of the hatred of the Jews, as all Arabs should, because the Jews respect neither treaties nor human beings. They respect nothing. That accursed ambassador did me a great honor by saying that I hate the Jews. Yes, I hate the Jews. I hate the Jews. I hate the Jews.

What have the Jews ever given us?

1. The Bible that your Koran plagiarized

2. The cathode ray tube that helped make the television you’re using to rant about the Jews possible

You’re welcome

  • Bamaguje

    It is unfortunate that despite all these overt Muslim Jew hatred, many in the West still subscribe to the canard that the Arab-Israeli conflict is about territory.
    Consequently, the French parliament just recognized Palestinian state.
    May be Israel should recognize Corsican independence.

    • Hi there

      The Kurds should be recognized by Israel, just to spite the Obama admin. America is allowing the only army fighting ISIS go without basic equipment in order to appease the ineffective Iraqi leaders.

  • reyol

    Of course! It makes perfect sense. How could it be otherwise? Allah created a whole race of people for no other reason than to test Khalil Attieh’s ability to hate them. And he passed with flying colors by saying it three times. Good job! Not bad! Now that he got that out of the way, maybe he should have a cool, refreshing glass of Jordan River water, courtesy of Israel. One’s mouth gets dry trying to think.

  • Hi there

    Hating this vile man would be my greatest pride, except I don’t have any Jordanian flags sitting around waiting to be toasted, so my hatred and courage obviously don’t approach that of Attieh.

    Too bad.

    • Hi there

      And I have actual reason to hate this piece of work, so that would make me a right-wing extremist, a distinction never accorded on anyone of the Muslim faith or Arab lineage.

    • Dan

      I’ve always wondered how they have Israeli flags always ready to burn, did they get them in bulk at Costco or something?

  • Sara

    What have the Jews given us? Let’s see. I’m sure this turd has taken penicillin which has saved his worthless life. Fleming discovered it, but Ernst Chain, a Jew, purified it so that it became actually usable. Just an example on a personal life and death kinda level.

  • muchiboy

    “That accursed ambassador did me a great honor by saying that I hate
    the Jews. Yes, I hate the Jews. I hate the Jews. I hate the Jews.”

    A) Well,you might want to ask, “why?”.

    I can think of many reasons,starting with 1) Occupation,2) Displacement and 3) Ethnic Cleansing.We,of course,are meaning occupation of the Palestinian Homeland by Zionists and the (European ,etc.) Diaspora,the displacement of Hundreds of Thousands of Palestinians,and the ethnic cleansing,de facto and/or otherwise,of the Palestinian People.It is problematic here,distinguishing “bad behavior” from the “person or People”.
    More recently,I can think of the arguable slaughter of 500 Palestinian children in Gaza.

    B) Well,you might want to ask, “why not?”.

    For me,it is simply not Christian.And maybe not Islamic.It certainly is inhumane and unconscionable in light of the history of hate,especially that kind of hate we know as “Antisemitism”.

    What have the Jews ever given us?

    To the world,much.But to the Palestinian People,this is the wrong question.Indeed,it is a slap in the face,and a contemptuous one at that.It screams “Denial” like that not seen since “Holocaust Denial”.

    • Daniel_Greenfield

      Islamic hatred of Jews predates the rebirth of Israel by over a thousand years.

      There are no “Palestinians”. The term is used to promote a false claim by the Arab Muslim conquerors to displace and ethnically cleanse the indigenous Jewish people.

      • muchiboy

        “There are no “Palestinians”.
        One would need to be Deaf,Dumb,Blind,Ignorant with a Zionist agenda to believe this.As I have said before,it is Denial as dangerous and with analogous roots similar to Holocaust Denial.Both examples are to be condemned.

        “Islamic hatred of Jews predates…”
        As a scholar you have the advantage here,Daniel.From the little I know,and it is little,I will not take your word for it,but give you a very qualified “benefit of the doubt”.A thousand years of hatred is a lot of hate over a very long period of time.It would be a scholarly task to argue vigorously.

        “Jews had fought side-by-side with Muslim soldiers to defend the city, and as the Crusaders breached the outer walls, the Jews of the city retreated to their synagogue to “prepare for death”.”

        Range of opinion

        Claude Cahen[2] and Shelomo Dov Goitein[3] argue against historic antisemitism in Muslim lands, writing that discrimination practiced against non-Muslims was of general nature, and not targeted specifically at Jews.[4] For these scholars, antisemitism in Medieval Islam was local and sporadic rather than general and endemic.

        Bernard Lewis[5]
        writes that while Muslims have held negative stereotypes regarding Jews throughout most of Islamic history, these stereotypes were different from European antisemitism because, unlike Christians, Muslims viewed Jews as objects of ridicule, not fear. He argues that Muslims did not attribute “cosmic evil” to Jews.[6] In Lewis’ view, it was only in the late 19th century that movements
        first appeared among Muslims that can be described as antisemitic in the European forms.[7]

        Frederick M. Schweitzer and Marvin Perry state that there are mostly negative references to Jews in the Quran and Hadith, and that Islamic regimes treated Jews in degrading ways. Jews (and Christians) had the status of dhimmis.
        They state that throughout much of history Christians treated Jews worse, saying that Jews in Christian lands were subjected to worse polemics, persecutions and massacres than under Muslim rule.[8]

        According to Walter Laqueur,
        the varying interpretations of the Quran are important for
        understanding Muslim attitudes. Many Quranic verses preach tolerance towards the Jews; others make hostile remarks about them (which are similar to hostile remarks made against those who did not accept Islam). Muhammad interacted with Jews living in Arabia: he preached to them in hopes of conversion, he fought against and killed many Jews, while he made friends with other Jews.[9]

        For Martin Kramer,
        the idea that contemporary antisemitism by Muslims is authentically Islamic “touches on some truths, yet it misses many others”. Kramer believes that contemporary antisemitism is due only partially to Israeli policies, about which Muslims may have a deep sense of injustice and loss. But Kramer attributes the primary causes of Muslim antisemitism to modern European ideologies, which have infected the Muslim world.[10]”

        “Unlike the crusaders who had barred Jews from living in Jerusalem, Saladin was tolerant towards his Jewish subjects. Under his rule, they were welcomed back into Jerusalem in 1190.”

        “In 1187, at the head of the Ayubbid
        Dynasty, Saladin reconquered the city of Jerusalem from the Crusaders. Looking on from the 20th century one cannot help but notice the difference between Saladin and the Crusaders. In 1099 the city was ravaged. The synagogues were burnt down and the inhabitants, Jews and Moslems alike, were massacred. The Ayubbid conquest was conducted very
        differently. Saladin relieved the Christian inhabitants of a
        considerable amount of money and clearly asserted Moslem superiority in a fashion that was no doubt most humiliating. But there was no massacre. Saladin allowed free religious practice to both Christians and Jews who wished to remain in the city under Moslem rule and safe passage out to those who did not.”

        • SCREW SOCIALISM

          Jordan is “palestine” – that’s the East Bank of the Jordan River.

        • Daniel_Greenfield

          Muslim anti-Semitism dates back to the Koran and to Mohammed’s ethnic cleansing of Jews.

          Jews were explicitly singled out in Islamic holy books and persecuted by Islamic government.

          Western scholars continue to insist that the experiences of Middle Eastern Jews don’t matter and that Jews in Christian countries had it worse. That is their issue.

          • muchiboy

            While you are bashing the Arabs over Antisemitism,Daniel, never forget that the Holocaust was carried out by European Christians.The Death Camps and ovens were not located in the ME,but in Europe.
            The fact that most Jews are blind to the impact of the Palestinian Nakba and their part and culpability in it is both unconscionable and a warning that we have changed little,much less learned little,since the Holocaust.Jews,and Humanity,should know better.

          • SCREW SOCIALISM

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

            We should feel as sorry for Pal-e-SWINES Nakba as we feel sorry for the defeat of national Socialists in 1945.

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            It was also carried out by European Muslims.

            If the Nazis had taken the Middle East, they would not have needed death camps.

            The Nakba was the reaction of the Arab Muslims to their failed attempt to perpetrate another Holocaust.

          • muchiboy

            If I didn’t know better,Daniel,I would think you are going to some length to minimize the role of the European Christian in the Holocaust in order to demonize Muslims.That is disgusting,Sir.Let me repeat,Daniel,and I suggest you leave it at that,the Holocaust was owned by Europeans and Christians.Period.

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            Tell that to the Mufti of Jerusalem and the Muslims in the SS.

            The Holocaust primarily took place in Europe. It was not limited to Christians.

          • Stosh777

            Oh, please. We have the “Nakba” shoved in our faces every day by the Arabs, the UN, various Eurotrash, and others like you who only seem to see one side. The bottom line is that there were 2 sets of refugees, not just one. Jews took in their brothers. The Arabs preferred to use theirs as pawns in a long and disgusting political game to try to destroy Israel.

            The Jews have suffered enough in their history at the hands of both Christians AND Muslims that their need and right to a homeland is incontrovertible. The notion that it is the Jews, who have suffered through pogroms, an inquisition, forced conversions, and expulsion…all in the Muslim world…who need to make concessions is obscene.

          • muchiboy

            o, Stosh777, would that be something like “we have the “Holocaust” and
            “Death Camps” shoved in our faces every day by the Jews”? Jews should
            know better to make such hurtful statements.Whatever happened to “Never
            Again”? Never Again applies to all the vulnerable and innocents of
            Humanity.

            And ,yes,Jews took in their Brothers and Sisters,after
            throwing out,aka,displaced and ethnically cleansed,their semetic
            cousins,the Palestinian Arabs,from their own Homeland.

          • muchiboy

            Yes,Jews have
            suffered at the hands of Christians and Muslims.Now pile the bodies of
            all the Jews killed by Christians and the Muslims and tell me which pile
            is bigger? Don’t forget the 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust,and
            the 1 million Jewish Children. Maybe even pile the bodies of Palestinian
            children killed by Zionist Israel and the bodies of Israeli children
            killed by Terrorist Hamas and compare the two piles.

      • hiernonymous

        Interesting side note: The Committee on the Hebrew Language built on Ben Yehuda’s work to finish resurrecting Hebrew as a living language in order to give all of those “indigenous Jewish people” a common language to use in their new home.

        The term “Palestinian” in its modern context appears at almost precisely the same time.

        • Daniel_Greenfield

          Hebrew didn’t need resurrecting. It was a living language that was regularly in use in Judaism.

          • hiernonymous

            Well, no. It was a liturgical language, roughly comparable to the use of Latin by the Roman Catholics. It was learned and used as a religious language; it was nobody’s native language, and was not suitable to be used as such. The first attempts to resurrect it as a living language occurred in Germany in the early 19th century, but the real effort was undertaken by Eliezer Ben Yahuda when he emigrated to Palestine.

            Here is a nice article on Ben Yehuda and his single-minded efforts to update and encourage the use of Hebrew as a living language.

            Here is what Israel’s Academy of the Hebrew Language has to say:

            Mendele [Mokher Sefarim] is considered the father of two literary languages, Hebrew and Yiddish, which until then had been relegated to less academic usages. Mendele was very precise in his writing and found it difficult to express fully his ideas in a Biblical Hebrew-based Hebrew. He therefore decided to create a Hebrew language of his own.
            In Mendele’s Hebrew there is significant exploitation and influence of Mishnaic Hebrew, both in terms of grammar and lexicon; he also utilized Aramaic. Mendele turned to other sources as well: the siddur (prayer book), Medieval Hebrew, the widely-known Rashi commentaries, and other popular texts.
            Mendele was successful in his new literary Hebrew, but he had no interest in reviving the language as a spoken tongue. Indeed, in one of his short stories he even mocks those who try to speak Hebrew. Spoken Hebrew needed a different patriarch, which it found in Eliezer Ben-Yehuda.

          • CowsomeLoneboy

            “Hebrew didn’t need resurrecting. It was a living language that was regularly in use in Judaism.”

            More Greenfield truth. Living language. Yeah, and Latin is still alive and well, too, in RC masses. Waiting for an acknowledgement that he might have been somewhat mistaken. I probably will live only another 20 years or so, though, so perhaps I should find another pastime.

          • hiernonymous

            Accuracy is not the objective at FPM.

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            Hebrew was not the equivalent of Latin. It remained the original base language of the Jewish people who continued to create new languages based on it, e.g. Yiddish.

            It never ceased to be a living language.

          • hiernonymous

            Yes, there were living languages that were “based on” Hebrew – Yiddish and Ladino are two excellent examples. Yiddish and Ladino, however, are based on Hebrew (and German, and Spanish, respectively) – they are not Hebrew, German, or Spanish. They are separate languages. Italian and French are ‘based on’ Latin, but they are not Latin.

            And, no, Hebrew is not a precise equivalent of Latin, which is why I used the qualifier “roughly.” It’s the equivalent for our purposes – that is, they are similar in that Hebrew was nobody’s mother tongue – it was not, prior to the revival, spoken by anyone as his first language. It lacked the vocabulary and grammar by which one could conduct day-to-day business or to express thoughts on a wide variety of matters. It was used for religious purposes. The differences are not germane to our discussion. One such is that Latin tended to be taught and learned either as a component of part of a standard classical secondary education, or, within the context of the Church, by older individuals as part of their religious studies. Hebrew, by contrast, was often taught at a much younger age in Jewish communities – but still as a component of one’s religious education, not as a language intended to – or capable of – serving as a language of daily business and life.

            You find yourself arguing stubbornly against an uncontroversial comment, and against the information presented by, of all possible groups and organizations, the Academy of Hebrew Language itself.

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            Hebrew-based jargons were created when Jews adapted to a local language. Jargons deriving from Hebrew wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t a living language based used by Jews.

            Hebrew was the mother tongue of Jews, which is why they crossbred it with numerous languages in the diaspora, from Arabic to German.

            “It lacked the vocabulary and grammar by which one could conduct day-to-day business or to express thoughts on a wide variety of matters.”

            I assume you base this on a familiarity with the language? No.

            Hebrew couldn’t be used to conduct business or express thoughts, yet somehow people did both in it. If only you had been around to tell them it was impossible.

            But since you’re just a notorious troll, let me cut this nonsense short.

            Arabic, your favorite language, was also being modernized around the same time. The process continued even much later.

            You can get off here now.

          • hiernonymous

            You seem to be ignorant of the basics. Yiddish, for example, used the local vernacular as its base and for its primary grammatical construct, and included Hebrew words from the liturgical Hebrew. You’ll find that Yiddish is actually much more similar to German than it is to Hebrew.
            Similarly, Ladino is a Romance language with The addition of Hebrew vocabulary, not the other way around.

            If you want to take refuge in deliberate ignorance, I’ll simply point out that Israel’s Academy of the Hebrew Language is in on the trolling. You’ve yet to respond to the uncomfortable fact that the story of the creation of Modern Hebrew is detailed on its site, complete with the attributions I have already cited.

            “I assume you base this on a familiarity with the language? No.”

            I base this on a familiarity with basic linguistics and the well-documented history of the revival of Hebrew and the creation of Modern Hebrew.

            “Arabic, your favorite language, was also being modernized around the same time. The process continued even much later.”

            Actually, German is my favorite foreign language. The issues with Arabic are something else entirely, btw.

            Again, it’s fascinating that you are so upset by a very uncontroversial observation.

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            I always appreciate lectures on a language I speak from someone who does not speak it, but read an article about it.

            Judeo hyphenated languages were built by Jews combining a common language with Hebrew. The addition was Hebrew, a language which they spoke, to a new language of their exile.

            A variety of languages were being modernized in the 19th and 20th centuries. The modernizers invariably exaggerated the necessity and importance of their work.

            Your focus on Hebrew and pretense that it didn’t exist as a living language beforehand is dishonest and out of context.

          • hiernonymous

            “I always appreciate lectures on a language I speak from someone who does not speak it, but read an article about it.”

            Unless you are much, much older than you appear in your videos, you weren’t around when Modern Hebrew was created, so the fact that you have subsequently learned to speak it offers you no particular insight into its origins.

            As for “read an article on it,” well, no, my experience is a bit more extensive than that, but that’s neither here nor there.

            You’ve repeatedly failed to address the fact that the history of the language I presented is that presented by the Academy of the Hebrew Language.

            I also invite you to do some rudimentary research into basic linguistics. Yiddish, Ladino, and other “hyphenated” languages, as you put it, generally consist of the local vernacular with a great deal of Hebrew vocabulary incorporated. Nobody has suggested that there was no Hebrew vocabulary to incorporate; what is well known is that the vocabulary belonged to a liturgical language that was not in use for everyday life. Neither language is classified as a Semitic language of the Afro-Asiatic language family; they are generally considered by linguists to be Germanic and Romance languages, respectively, of the Indo-European family.

            By way of comparison, Turkish, Persian, and Spanish contain a very large number of Arabic words, but they are not variations of Arabic, nor are they Semitic languages. English famously contains thousands of words of French origin, but it is not a variant of French, nor is it a Romance language.

            Note, again, that the Academy of the Hebrew Language notes that even the individual who decided to bring this liturgical language into a state suitable for writing academic papers in thought that the idea of using it as a spoken, everyday language was futile; it was not for nearly another century that Ben Yahudi’s work would bear fruit on that front.

            “Your focus on Hebrew and pretense that it didn’t exist as a living language beforehand is dishonest and out of context.”

            Your accusation is either an admission of ignorance or an act of cynicism. The state of Hebrew in the 18th and 19th centuries is a matter of well-established record, as is the process by which Modern Hebrew was created. The most charitable interpretation of your post is suggested by the fact that your name is an anagram for Denial.

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            You’re trying to condescendingly lecture me on two languages that I speak and you don’t.

            I think you’ve reached peak arrogance and peak trolling.

            I also invite you to do some rudimentary research into basic linguistics. Yiddish, Ladino, and other ”

            I invite you to do some rudimentary research into the fact that I speak Yiddish and you don’t. And that I just twice told you what you insist on repeating back to me.

            Also rudimentary research will tell you that people create hyphenated languages to bridge two languages already in use.

            But feel free to continue claiming that Hebrew did not exist as a living language until modern times. If you do it enough times, history will be proven wrong.

          • hiernonymous

            You’re trying to deflect by conflating being able to speak a language with a knowledge if linguistics and linguistic history. I’m not sure whether you should be inspiring exasperation or pity.

            “Audis are German cars.”
            “No, they’re not, they’re American.”
            “Um…Audi is a German company.”
            “Do you own an Audi? Do you drive one every day?”
            “No.”
            “Well, I do. And I bought mine right here in America. I can’t believe you are condescending to tell me about a car that I drive and you don’t!”

            “I invite you to do some rudimentary research into the fact that I speak Yiddish and you don’t.”

            Okay, let’s do some research into that. “Speaking Yiddish” implies that you know some of its words and can use them to communicate. What, exactly, about that implies any knowledge hat sieves about linguistics? About the formation and history of the lanfpguage? Do you suppose that everyone who speaks English instinctively knows about the migrations of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, about the Norman Conquest, the Vikings, and can distinguish between the Latin influences left by the retreating Romans from the Latin influences of the evangelizing Church?

            So let’s observe that I haven’t simply made an unsupported assertion. Let me direct your attention up from your latest bout of hollow posturing to the citation of the A adept of the Hebrew Language, the Israeli institution that serves as the center of expertise for Modern Hebrew, and note that they have no problem acknowledging the history of Modern Hebrew. In your several posts, you have deftly avoided any mention of the Academy and the history that it publishes to the world.

            As for The linguistic nature of Yiddish, well, let’s have a look. Let’s begin with some sources you won’t dismiss as politically biased. Jewfaq.org’s article on Yiddish notes

            A hybrid of Hebrew and medieval German, Yiddish takes about three-quarters of its vocabulary from German, but borrows words liberally from Hebrew and many other languages from the many lands where Ashkenazic Jews have lived. It has a grammatical structure all its own, and is written in an alphabet based on Hebrew characters. Scholars and universities classify Yiddish as a Germanic language, though some have questioned that classification.

            The Jewish Virtual Library traces the history more finely, noting that Yiddish began as a dialect of German, incorporating elements of religious Hebrew, and achieved the status of an independent language as Jews fleeing persecution encountered Slavic and other linguistic influences. Here’s a lengthy but relevant excerpt:

            Beginning in the tenth century, Jews from France and Northern Italy began to establish large communities in Germany for the first time. Small communities had existed, and spoken German, for some time, but the new residents along the Rhine river arrived speaking a Jewish-French dialect known as Laaz. The new arrivals punctuated their German speech with expressions and words from Laaz; additionally, they probably reached into Scriptural and Rabbinic literature and incorporated idioms into their daily speech. Thus, a modified version of medieval German that included elements of Laaz, biblical and Mishnaic Hebrew, and Aramaic came to be the primary language of western European Jews. The collective isolation that came to characterize Jewish communities in the aftermath of the Crusades probably contributed to the shift from regular German to a modified, more Jewish form.

            Old Yiddish

            In the thirteenth century, the Jews tended to migrate eastward to escape persecution. Thus, Yiddish arrived in eastern Germany, Poland, and other eastern European territories for the first time. The exposure of Yiddish to the Slavic languages prevalent in the east changed it from a Germanic dialect to a language in its own right. Consequently, a division began to develop between the eastern Yiddish of the Jews living in Slavic lands, and the western Yiddish of the Jews who had remained in France and Germany.

            Omniglot, a useful online reference of languages, introduces Yiddish thusly:

            Yiddish is a Germanic language with about three million speakers, mainly Ashkenazic Jews, in the USA, Israel, Russia, Ukraine and many other countries. The name Yiddish is probably an abbreviated version of ייִדיש־טײַטש (yidish-taytsh), which means “Jewish German”.

            We could go on, but I think I’ve made the point: the comments I am offering are not politically charged distortions trying to minimize your heritage, they are the mainstream and uncontroversial linguistic understandings of these languages. Modern Hebrew was an act of intentional creation, taking a liturgical language and expanding and updating it for use as a native tongue. Yiddish is not Hebrew; it is a Germanic language that incorporates extensive Hebrew vicabulary. There are some scholars who argue about the proper classification of Yiddish, but it’s indisputable that my comments reflect the orthodox, mainstream positions on both issues.

            If you wish to continue disagreeing, why not start supporting your comments, rather than simply posturing? And if you ARE going to continue to argue from authority, could you at least start claiming some relevant authority? Just because you can drive a car doesn’t mean you understand how its engine works.

          • Daniel_Greenfield

            Shorter Hiero: “I know more than you about a language I don’t speak because I googled the topic on the internet”

            1. The “institution” you keep citing has a political agenda. If you actually knew something about the subject, you would understand the problem with citing as an authoritative source the institution most committed to that particular historical narrative.

            2. Cutting and pasting material from the internet does not mean you know anything about a language. The material you’re cutting and pasting is also irrelevant to the issue.

            You would know that if you actually knew anything about linguistics.

            Haitian Creole is more French than anything else. When an migrating group is bridging two languages, it infuses its existing language into the new language bastardizing the new tongue rather than the old one.

            Jews layered Hebrew over a variety of new languages that they encountered in a process going back thousands of years. They were using their mother tongue to adapt to a new language.

            3. “ Just because you can drive a car doesn’t mean you understand how its engine works.”

            You usually know more about the engine than an internet troll who read about a car last week, but has never actually driven one, been in one or has ever seen it function.

          • hiernonymous

            You are still substituting posturing for substance.

            Let’s start by dismissing the stupid commentary about “googling.” At the most charitable, you know nothing of my background on this subject; at the least charitable, you know and are deliberately being dishonest. At any rate, it’s irrelevant – you’re attempting to argue from authority, and you either do not understand or do not want to understand that you are trying to pass off Skill Set A as expertise in Field B. As we are engaged in a discussion on the Internet, it is convenient to cite sources that are available in the internet, but rather than actually refuting or addressing the arguments and supporting data, you spend your time engaging in ad hom. The fact is that, online or off, Yiddish is most widely considered a Germanic language with some Hebrew (and Slavic) vocabulary, as opposed to a Semitic language with borrowed German vocabulary (or a creole, but we’ll get there); such an observation is unremarkable, uncontroversial, and it would be a step in the right direction if you could provide more than empty preening if you wish to dispute it.

            As a matter of coincidence, I am actually teaching my students about the nature of contact languages at this time, which brings us nicely to the next point.

            Yiddish is not a creole. I invite your attention to Ellen Prince’s study of Yiddish as a contact language; its introductory sentence is the caveat “[b]y any conventional definition of ‘creole language’, Yiddish is not a creole, not in its genesis and not in its form.”

            Creoles are languages that result from the collision of two languages, generally in situations where there is no easy resort to a lingua franca, and traditionally held to be a natural progression from a pidgin (though some scholars dispute that the pidgin is an indispensable step.). Yiddish was not created through any such process. It began strictly as a dialect of German, and over time, acquired an increasingly Hebrew vocabulary that is estimated to approach 20% of the total.

            Again, this isn’t some left-field assertion, and dismissing the sources that I have cited in support because they are accessible electronically may satisfy you emotionally, but don’t address the argument. There are some outlier positions on Yiddish – Weinreich’s “fusion” proposal, for example – but you are going to have to do better than keep repeating “I speak Yiddish” to establish, for example, that Yiddish is a creole. It’s not clear, though, that you understand what a creole actually is, beyond some fuzzy idea that it mixes different languages.

            Another problem you have let creep into your ‘logic’ is your unsupported, and unsupportable, assertion that the adoption of Hebrew vocabulary into Yiddish somehow proves that Hebrew was in use as a living language at the time of said adoption. This flies in the face f not only the best understanding of what actually occurred in Yiddish, but is contradicted by other historical examples. An excellent example is the infusion of Latin vocabulary into English. The bulk of such vocabulary dates not to Anglo-Saxon interaction with remnants of Roman civilization in England, but from subsequent religious missions to Britain. In short, much of the presence of Latin vocabulary in English was the result of precisely borrowing of words from a liturgical language.

            With respect to Yiddish directly, I invite your attention to Joshua Fishman’s “Post-exilic Jewish languages and pidgins/creoles: mutually clarifying perspectives.” Apart from his direct discussions of the title topic, it’s worth noting that when he discussed the constituent components of the language, he notes them as in the following extract:

            By the beginning of the twentieth century, the harmony of the fusion between the four major components of Yiddish (Hebrew/Targumic, Romance, Germanic and Slavic) is highlighted by advocates of the language.

            Presumably, you understand the implications of the nomenclature “Hebrew/Targumic.

            “You usually know more about the engine than an internet troll who read about a car last week, but has never actually driven one, been in one or has ever seen it function.”

            Here’s a difference in our approaches: my observation is an analogy rooted in understanding and accepting your assertions about what you know, and pointing out the logical limitations and inapplicability of same. Your rejoinder is simply a sexed-up “you don’t know anything.”

        • Stosh777

          Actually, until 1948, when one referred to “Palestinians”, they were referring to Jews living in that area. The Arabs preferred to be known as southern Syrians, or (gasp!) as Arabs.

          To this date there is no such thing as a distinct “Palestinian” language, so based on your logic, the notion of a “Palestinian” people is a totally artificial construct.

          • hiernonymous

            “Actually, until 1948, when one referred to “Palestinians”, they were referring to Jews living in that area.”

            This might have come as a surprise to the delegates of the Syrian-Palestinian Congress of 1921.

          • Stosh777

            Interesting that you choose a conference whose name was adapted from the Pan-Syrian conference of 1919 due to the change in the status of Palestine by the French-British agreement of 1920. If anything, that conference shows the lack of a separate national identity for the so-called Palestinians.

          • hiernonymous

            I’d certainly agree that the development of a distinct Palestinian identity begins there.

          • Stosh777

            Which just goes to show how artificial it is. In terms of language, ethnicity, and culture, there is little or no difference between Palestine’s Arabs and those of the surrounding countries. Even “Palestinian” leaders as late as the 1970s admitted this truth, that there was no basis for a separate Palestinian identity, except as a device to combat the hated Jews. It is long past time the wider Arab and Muslim world called a halt to this tragic farce.

          • hiernonymous

            “Which just goes to show how artificial it is.”

            I think it just shows how recent it is. Identity is often forged by circumstances. One suspects that Russia’s recent aggression has done a great deal to cement a Ukrainian identity. Nobody in 1946 identified as an Israeli; that changed quickly enough. French identity was galvanized by the Hundred Years’ War; England’s war on France more or less created a national identity.
            Nor is it necessary to have a unique language or dialect to have a sense of national identity. Don’t know if you’ve ever traveled to Central America, but there’s very little difference in the language of the various CA republics, yet they are intensely nationalistic. There’s probably less difference between the English of Canada and the English of the northern U.S. than there is between the Arabic of Palestine and the Arabic of Syria or that of Jordan (and there sure as heck is a gulf between Palestinian Arabic and Egyptian), yet even the famously friendly and patient Canadians will bristle if you suggest that they are Americans.

            I think you’re also in danger of conflating two separate issues. The matter of the right of the people who lived in Palestine to not be displaced and dispossessed is separate from the issue of “Palestinian identity.”

            That said, it’s clear that a distinctive Palestinian identity now exists and has done so for a couple of generations. When Daniel denies that Palestinians exist, he does so for the well-worn reason that if one can define away one party to a conflict, the other wins by default.

          • Stosh777

            Nobody identified as Israelis in 1946 but millions of people identified as Jews due to a common religion and history that set them apart from those around them, whether Christians or Muslims. There was never anything that set the “Palestinians” apart from their Arab neighbors, which means that there should be no obstacle to their assimilating among them. The Jews survived in exile as a people for 2000 years. I don’t think the “Palestinians” would have a snowball’s chance in h**l of surviving that. They should have been resettled years ago, much like the Germans of Silesia or the Sudetenland, or the Finns of eastern Karelia.

            You posit some “right not to be displaced” that you made up out of whole cloth. What about the right of the nearly 1 million Jews who lived in the Arab world in 1947 to not be displaced? Anti-Israel polemicists complain about “collective punishment”…but nobody says a word about the collective punishment of 1 million people who the Arabs took their frustrations out on after being defeated in ’48-’49. Important Jewish communities existed in Iraq and Egypt a millenium before the Arabs came. Perhaps, in the context of a settlement where the Sephardim and Mizrahim are compensated for the properties stolen by the Arabs after Israel’s independence, the Palestinian Arabs could also be compensated for their losses, but the notion of a “right not to be displaced”?…sheer bunkum.

          • hiernonymous

            1. Of course it was wrong to displace the Jews. What sort of mentality thinks that wrongs can happen on only one side of a controversy or conflict?

            2. It’s hard to see how anyone who accepts the enlightenment principles of life, liberty, and property could argue that the right to be secure in one’s home and property is “bunkum.”

          • Stosh777

            Nice of you to admit that displacing the Jews was wrong. Then I’m sure you’d agree that a solution of compensating each group for their losses, while allowing them to remain in the countries where they’ve been living for the past 60+ years, would be both fair and expeditious.

            On your second point: The “Palestinians” were participants in a war, just like the Sudeten Germans and the Finns at the time of their displacement. Your right to be secure in your home goes out the window when you make war on your neighbor…that’s been true in all wars. They lost that war, and as a hostile population, lost that so-called right, same as the aforementioned Germans and Finns. The Jews of the Arab lands never attacked anybody, therefore their rights should have been unimpeded. There is a difference.

            There were tens of millions of refugees after WW II, and only the Arabs were arrogant and obnoxious enough to refuse to resettle theirs…it is time that they recognized the poverty of that moral position.

          • hiernonymous

            I think that a solution of compensation and a two-state solution, recognizing the Palestinian State where the Palestinians have been living for the past 60 years, and the Israeli State without rewarding or recognizing its encroachments into the land that you correctly note have been the home of the Palestinians since the war.

            You write as if it were universally acknowledged that the mass deportation of Rumanian, Sudeten, East Prussian, etc, Germans was right.

          • Stosh777

            I don’t know of any serious academics or politicians supporting a German “right of return”, i.e. irredentism. If that’s what you’re about, then there’s nothing to talk about here.

            When you initiate a war of aggression, as the Germans did in 1939 and the Arabs did in 1948, you bear the consequences. The Arabs formerly of Palestine should be resettled where they’ve been living, namely Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and elsewhere. Those still in Palestine should be able to live within whatever borders and under whatever conditions they negotiate with the Israelis. Unilateral declarations or actions are not the way to go for either side in my view, and I believe that recognizing a Palestinian state before there is a comprehensive peace agreement with Israel would be counterproductive.

          • hiernonymous

            No, I don’t think a right of return within Israel proper should be part of the solution.

            I agree that a unilateral declaration is counterproductive, as is the colonization of occupied territories via settlements. A negotiated 2 state solution seems the most promising possibility.

    • Sara

      What about the original Jewish Nakba, Ron? The displacement and the ethnic cleansing of the Jews and the occupation of their land by the Arabs?
      The Jews have taken much? Almost funny, Ron. All the Jews want is their own very small country, unlike the Arabs who want the world.

      • muchiboy

        I’m not laughing,Sara.I know what Jews have lost over time and place.As with the Palestinians,you would have to be deaf,blind,dumb,ignorant with an Antisemitic agenda not to know that.As to the Jews just wanting their own very small country,well,Sara,that so happens to be where the Palestinian People lived out their lives,had their homes,went to school and the markets,farmed,lived in their neigborhoods,towns,villages and cities,gave birth,died and were married,had careers,loved,had dreams,etc.
        Zionism was the death of those dreams,to satisfy Jewish,(i.e.Zionist,Diaspora),dreams.
        Call me what you will,Sara,I don’t like it and at every opportunity I will tell Zionists and the Diaspora what they have done.I would like to think that I would have done the same if I had been able to when the Holocaust was decimating European Jews.Never Again means never again to anyone,anywhere,anytime,anyhow.

        • SCREW SOCIALISM

          Never Again means Israel has the right and tools to defend itself and defeat attackers – which it was unable to do in WW2 and the Holocaust.

          It’s your Pal-e-SWINIANS who hide behind women and children, who use women and CHILDREN as Human Shields – as the world saw this past summer in Gaza.

        • hitz

          Muchiboy hates dem joos because he has such a tiny pecker!

        • BenZacharia

          In the year 135 Rome changed the name from Judea Capta to Syria Palæstina. Thereby changing the political sub-division designation of the people from Judeans to Palestinians. The goat rapers came later. byte me.

        • SCREW SOCIALISM

          Pal-e-SWINIANS denied their supremacist aims?

          PRICELESS.

          Happy Eternal Nakba to Pal-e-SWINE!

        • Sara

          It’s interesting that you sympathize with the self-inflicted misery of the now called Palestinians. The bottom line is that they hate Jews more than they love themselves.
          You are for some reason unable or unwilling to look beyond the manufactured facade. The only reason Palestinian nationalism exists is to destroy Jewish nationalism. And for opportunists like Arafat and Abbas to make millions along the way.

          • muchiboy

            Like a game of Dominos,Sara,one tragedy impacts and follows another.We can blame,or we can heal one another.Really,there is more than enough blame to go around,and around,and around………

          • Sara

            Sounds nice on paper.

          • muchiboy

            And eaisier said than done,Sara.Seems that most of what’s written on paper is after the war is done,the women and children dead,the towns and cities leveled,as a Treaty.A tad late,don’t you agree?

          • Sara

            You might want to bring that up with the Palestinians, they don’t want peace. They’re a sick society with an absurd pride/shame culture. They take pride in death, as you see with suicide bombers, honor killings, etc.
            Jews cherish life.

          • muchiboy

            I have said it before and I will say it again,Sara,Islam is in crisis and needs to be dragged into Modernity,kicking and screaming if necessary,preferably by Muslims themselves.
            That said,Zionists and the Diaspora,by way of occupation,displacement and ethnic cleansing, have played a not insignificant role in the Palestinian condition.Jews may cherish life,Sara,but it seems they also cherish the ethnic cleansing of another vulnerable and innocent People.The ethical contortions in trying to reconcile the one with the other must be overwhelming.

          • Sara

            And how do you want Israel, or any civilized nation, to get along with barbaric enemies?
            Israel is not interested in ethnic cleansing, but only in defending its people.

          • muchiboy

            Great question for 9 PM,Sara.

            But I guess it wouldn’t make any difference if we had all year to answer.Is there enough good will and magnanimosity among both Peoples to at least engage in a conversation that would address the core issues,leaving nothing,and I mean nothing,off the table? And then there is trust.But trust can be won,over time,grudgingly,with guarantees,perhaps.We can think of winners and losers,and without doubt the Jews have more to lose than the Palestinians,given all their victories,to date.But to be fair,they,both Peoples,would need to compare the relative loses incurred to the benefits of Peace.Israeli’s are re known for innovation Sara,so innovate.

      • muchiboy
    • SCREW SOCIALISM

      800,000 Jews were ethnically cleansed, forced to leave with just the clothes on their backs, from Arab countries after 1948 – so it’s a wash next to the 600,000 Arabs who left Israel in 1948.

      Arabs left Israel in 1948 with the understanding that with them out of the way, the FIVE ATTACKING ARAB ARMIES,

      NONE of which was the army of an existing “palestine”,

      would be able to slaughter anyone they ran into, Jews, without worrying that they might butcher a fellow Muslim.

      As if Arabs/Muslims show concern for the lives of others. See ISIS, Al Qada, Taliban, Boko Haram, Muslim Brotherhood, Fascist Iran for examples.

      That’s PRE-ISIS too, who today butcher everybody – Arabs/Muslims are the victims of “militant” Arabs/Muslims who behead fellow Arabs/Muslims.

      Happy ETERNAL NAKBA to Pal-e-SWINE and its Fanbois!

    • hitz

      Muchiboy hates dem joos because he has such a tiny pecker

  • herb benty

    Very astute article. What a pile of crap this Jordanian twit is. The “Jews break treaties”, ah no, it’s the Muslims that do not honor treaties. And, “they respect nothing”? Define that sir……I thought so. Islam has LOST all respect from the part of the world that is still sane. Kidnapping, molestation, mutilation, beheading, crucifying, burying alive, stoning to death, lashings, acid attacks, bombings, well, my God said I can hate evil. I hate Islam, Lord Jesus Christ my Saviour, I hate Islam.

  • hitz

    Time to liberate the occupied East Bank

  • tickletik

    This man is doing us a great service. The more we ignore him and pretend that we can bribe and supplicate our enemies into friendship, the more his sort will make it clear that we cannot.

    At some point the pain and suffering they inflict on the lower classes (the proletariat who actually pay the price for elite policy) will be greater than the benefits that the same proletariat receives for that policy. Benefits can be emotional as well as material. For example, the common man does not want any real responsibility at all, he wants the kond of responsibility that comes without consequences. Hence why he is so willing to give up his freedoms in return for trinkets and platitudes.

    In any case, the Israeli policy maker will either play this down as “clownishness” or he will ignore it entirely and the common Israeli will go along with this.

    However clownish or not, this Arab is also policy maker for Arabs and the common Arab will take cues his from this “clown”. Which means you can expect more fighting and more killing.

    At some point the common Israeli who bears the brunt of that fighting will either start taking care of himself (diverging from his current policy makers) which will lead to him actively start seeking new policy makers (revolution, mobs, torches, pitchforks, public hangings). Or the Israeli policy maker will decide to switch direction.

    So I am personally grateful that that fat pig of a clown calling himself a Vice whatever chose to publicly engage in his antics as I find the current status quo to be little better than shameful cringing weakness and corruption.