Jean C Z Khoury,

Wow, that sounds really bad. Do me a favor. Since my internet access is controlled by the Zionist Media and the Mossad, can you post a few links showing the “daily destruction of civilians” … “in the big concentration camp of the ‘Land of Israel’” (aka Zionist Entity)?

Thanks.

There is no comparison between Lebanon – which strives to have a place for all of its 18 communities

Really? When is the last time Israel had a civil war whereby Jews killed tens of thousands of Jews?

Yes Jean, there really is “no comparison”.

Just go read what is happening in the big concentration camp of the “Land of Israel” – daily destruction of civilians on the sole basis of their ethnicity.race.religion.

There is no comparison between Lebanon – which strives to have a place for all of its 18 communities – and the racist rubbish society of the “Land of Israel” – a collection of concentration camps, divided one from the other by barbed wires, tanks, walls, mad fully armed nazi settlers and an army and constitution to back it all up.

http://www.maannews.net/en/

Meanwhile, where are the screams about the “Endless War”?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090702/wl_nm/us_afghanistan_9

The Land of Hopenchange marches on…

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1097224.html

Sofia al-Riachy,

Which Arab-Israeli citizens are unable to vote? How many Arab-Israelis representatives sit in the Knesset?

Perhaps your dislike of Israel has played havoc with your objectivity.

In Lebanon, every one no matter which of the 18 sects is able to vote – including those whose parents left from Australia, Brazil, U.S. – that right is guaranteed.

In Israel, millions are denied the right to either vote or to return – because Israeli “stability” is ensured by defining those millions as “stateless persons” scattered around the place – from the Iraq/Jordan border, to Gaza, to WestBank to Lebanon.

How on Earth any one could compare Lebanon’s democracy to the nonsense “Israeli democracy” which denies around 50 per cent of its legitimate people a vote – or the right of residence – is beyond me.

It is like the nonsense we used to hear from South African whites in the 1980s – “South Africa isn’t a perfect democracy, but it is the best in Africa (except Botswana)…”

It was pretty silly to call apartheid S.A. an “imperfect democracy” – it is silly to call Israel an imperfect democracy – it just isn’t, it denies around four million legitimate citizens the right to vote or residence.

As we know from the Lebanese civil war, it is not the right of return that destabilizes a country, it is the power plays of the sects in it. Why are the Lebanese afraid to have a census? Why is the Christian power artificially propped up? Why are only the Shia allowed to have a militia?

Israel is stable because each person has one vote and all votes are equal. You cannot say that yet for Lebanon. The longer the Christians insist on being dis- proportionally represented, the more destabilized Lebanon will be.

As the last 60 years have shown, it is INTERNAL strife that brings down countries and makes them weak. External enemies only help unite a country. Through its ultra-fair proportional voting system, freedom of speech and consistent economic growth, Israel has managed to keep very united internally while other countries have faltered.

I am sorry but I am not familiar with what you are talking about in regards to a comedian blocked from performing – if it is true then that is terrible but I do know there are of course very many Jewish people who visit, work and live in Lebanon – famous Jewish contemporary thinkers like Noam Chomsky have had very highly-attended public meetings in Beirut – other great intellectuals like Hersh, Avenry, Finkelstein – they have all been warmly received.

And there Jewish people of Lebanese descent in Brazil, Canada and the U.S. do business and spend parts of their time in Lebanon.

Lebanon is different from Israel, and Lebanon is different from other Arab states as well.

The comparision is for me is not between Israel versus the Arab states, but between Lebanon and all of the states in the region that confer legal and constitutional privileges (i.e. Sunni in Saudi Arabia, Jewish in the Land of Israel, Alawi in Syria etc.)

To me the fundamental difference about Lebanon is that it tries to balance all officially resident sects.

And a fundamental difference between Israel and Lebanon is that whereas Israel has a “Right of Return” based on sect/race/ethnicity or whatever you want to call it that by definition excludes those from a sect/race/ethnicity that have an equal claim to live in the Land of Israel. They have no right of return, their property expropriated.

In Lebanon, all 18 officially recognised sects have a right of return – that some left during the civil war doesn’t mean they are never allowed to return, and their property rights are 100 per cent protected.

That is a fundamental difference between these two neighbouring States and makes me more optimistic for the future of the northern state (but this isn’t to say anything against Israelis, just the tragic constitutional framework they are burdened with which commits them to an endless war with the other sects which has an equal claim to the same piece of land, the Land of Israel).

AIG,

I have to agree with Sofia al-Riachy, and moreover, I think every other country in the Middle East “has a brighter future for its people” too including Eygpt, Syria, Jordan, and Iran.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2006/01/18/Arab-Israeli-comedians-offer-dark-humor/UPI-32521137633714/

http://www.themediaoasis.com/humor/humor.htm

http://www.myspace.com/ipcomedytour

Gaza is blockaded because Hamas is at war with Israel, not because the Palestinians are Muslim or Christian. In the West Bank things are improving because Abbas is serious about security.

About your views, what can I say except that this is what Arabs have been saying for the last 60 years over which Israel has only grown stronger considerably relative to the Arabs. Maybe it is time to re-examine it?

I will leave you with a simple thought. An Arab has no problem performing a stand up comedy show in Israel and talking about whatever he likes. A Jew cannot do that in Lebanon or any other Arab country. Thereby lies the whole difference.

To me, Israel is on a tragic road because this idea of having a State for one ethnic/religious sect in a geographic area that is claimed by more than one ethnic/sect is a recipe for literally endless conflict – by design and by definition.

The Chrisian Palestinians in Ramallah and Jerusalem that even as we speak are having their houses destroyed and their land stolen by a State which is by definition at its core a remnant of 19th century central european racialist ideology. The Israeli navy such stopped a ship full of medicines getting into Gaza – blockaded just because they are Muslim and Christian, they are allowed to be suffer on the express order of people in Tel Aviv: We are not talking about indifference here but specific, government policies against entire civilian populations as one might expect in a totalitarian society like Sudan or Iran or Syria – but in this case it is Israel.

Terrible crimes have happened in the past to Palestinians inside of Lebanon -
Tel al Zaataar, Jisr el Pasha, Sabra, Shatilla) and God help us for these crimes.

Lebanon – like Israel and Cyrpus – has a big job ahead of it for domestic workers’ rights.

As for the 400,000 Palestinians inside of Lebanon – it is tragic how they are, because of their race, not allowed to live in the Land of Israel. But they’ll never stop fighting for the right to live in the Land of Israel. At the moment, Hizbullah has them under control but if Hizbullah is ever weakened, the Palestinians will no doubt start fighting again in that endless Israeli-Palestinian cycle …

So I think that over the long term Lebanon has a better future than Israel because Lebanon attempts to be a place which is shared amongst its 18 officially recognised communities, including the Jewish community which is re-building its Beirut prayer house damaged by the Israeli army in 1982.

http://www.thejewsoflebanonproject.org/