Or if you had no time to read through mountains of websites ....
... then this video is for you: Life in Occupied Palestine (2009)
There is no torture porn in there. So if you've wandered in looking for images of men being shot or children losing their limbs, or rivers of blood, you will be disappointed.
But if you are able to reason without bias, you will glean information that you never knew about how Palestinians are being treated everyday.
Contrary to what most people think and/or claim, this is not about religion as much as it is about land.
Many non-Muslims are put off by aggressive Muslim support for Gaza. But I urge you to cast aside your prejudices and watch the video with an open heart and a rational mind.
Seriously my fellow Malaysians, this is getting embarrassing!
It is 2014 - not 1974! We have the internet for ridiculous amounts of information and people choose to forward emails or share Facebook updates of fake pictures: those of Palestinian children purportedly being shot, or photoshopped pictures of bombings/smoke/destruction.
All these do the cause of Palestine a disservice, because the issue is real - Palestinians are being persecuted everyday.
That is simply not right, regardless of whether you are black, white, brown, yellow, red, orange, male, female, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Bahai, Taoist, Shinto, Sikh or Confucian.
It's a human rights issue!
If you thought it was religion-based, here is a bit of information for you:
- Malaysia has a Christian population of 9.2% (according to 2010 census).
- Palestine has a Christian population of 11% (and some say it's more! Palestinian Christians are treated/persecuted in exactly the same way as Palestinian Muslims by the Zionists. In this aspect, there is no discrimination at all).
- Percentage-wise, there are more Christians in Palestine than there are in Malaysia!
If you don't have time to watch the video (because it is an hour long, after all), then I suggest you view specific bits.
Muslims: watch between mins 27:00 to 30:00. Watch it a few times if you have to. Learn what the word 'Refusenik' means. Figure out the difference between Jews, Israelis, and Zionists.
Christians: If you lived in an area that had only one water tank, and people urinated into it and threw dead chickens, in an attempt to make you leave the place, just think about how you would feel. There is a lot said about violent protest in Gaza. Nothing is being reported about non-violent resistance like that espoused by Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi. So watch between mins 43:17 to 50:43 at least.
Not all Palestinians are violent, foaming, mad Jihadists. No more than the Israelis are benign, innocent victims minding their own business.
If you are one of my fellow Malaysians who took to the streets - along with tens of thousands of others - to protest the Malaysian government's use of the ISA on political prisoners, then the fact that 10% of almost 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners are detained indefinitely in Israeli prisons should resonate with you.
I don't do sensation. I like facts, because they speak for themselves.
Hope that helps.
6 comments:
Hmm .. The entire world's a mess with sporadic islands of sanity eh.
Yes, it's a total mess.
And people insist on supporting whoever they identify with, regardless of whether their assumptions are correct or not.
A lot of people see Israel as the minority victim. They see Hamas as the bully. Actually, it's the other way round.
Israel is taking land from Palestine. It is subjecting the Palestinians to constant checkpoints in their own land!
Travelling only 30 miles would take you and me less than an hour (without Malaysia's infamous traffic congestion, ahem!), but these people end up having to spend at least 2 hours on the road because of the queues that checkpoints cause.
And then there is one road for Palestinian cars and another for Israeli cars. Is the double standard fair?
Hamas are not the good guys. But the Palestinians are not evil either. People need to stop conflating the two, as if Palestinians and Hamas are the same thing.
We are Malaysians, but we're not all UMNO! We don't believe in treating our poor and homeless badly, we don't try to slip taxpayer money into our pockets. And we don't all try to rouse trouble with racism like Perkasa and ISMA.
The non-Muslims don't understand that supporting Zionist Israel is like supporting Perkasa and ISMA.
Most non-Muslims have no problem with Malays. Most non-Muslims have no problem with Muslims. But most non-Muslims have a problem with Perkasa/ISMA.
And yet, they don't think it weird or inappropriate to support Zionists who are exactly like Perkasa/ISMA.
I'm sharing this with my few friends, Cranky - both for your write-up, and for the video you've shared (which I plan to see in a bit).
Thanks Pat. I know a lot of people have already made up their minds about who right or wrong. War is wrong, but bullying and human rights abuses is not something I believe my God would want me to stand by and casually observe - regardless of whether they are Christian, Jewish or Muslim.
I suggest you read up on the history of Israel before you blog. It only shows your ignorance.
Ethan, tell me what you know that I don't.
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