🚀 go-pugleaf

Mike Fox wrote:

> Todd Morman wrote:
> >
> > I think this counts as must-reading:
> >
> > http://electronicIntifada.net/coveragetrends/rejoicing.html
> >
> > They make 4 points about the footage itself, and then 4 points about the
> > lack of context in the presentation of the footage. Then, this quote:
>
> Their first four points are basically "the Palestinian people weren't
> really celebrating"

Which is a completely accurate statement. "The Palestinian people" weren't
doing anything. A group of Palestinians at the lowest level of the economic
scale, who have been under constant occupation for the last 34 years and have
thus had plenty of time to train their children to hate America (I don't
endorse that, I just note it, along with the shell casings the children see
with "made in the USA" stamped on them), spontaneously expressed their
frustration and rage at U.S. helicopters firing missiles at them.

What a surprise. Can you think of a more likely group to support someone like
bin Laden? I can't.

However, there were *no* celebrations (I assume cameras would surely have
caught them as they caught these) in other Palestinian towns that haven't been
shelled on a near-daily basis. That is a meaningful fact, I think. Plus,
dozens of Palestinian organizations in the U.S. and Middle East have expressed
outrage at the bombings. A local activist told me this weekend that a
Palestinian-American she knows lost both of his parents in the World Trade
Center last Tuesday. Why would anyone except the most desperate support that
kind of attack?

> and then their second four points were basically
> "but they were justified in hating American anyway."

Anyone who fails to see that there are reasonable grounds for many in the Arab
world to feel rage at the United States is a fool. Violence is another thing
entirely, but the rage that's completely understandable.

Look, I know some Palestinians are violent fucks, but those folks, while they
clearly influence policy and try to derail any peace process, also clearly
don't speak for the majority of their people, who are as human and/or inhuman
as any other political or ethnic group.

todd like duh morman