Comments on: Your Friday afternoon news roundup

By: Michael Lonie

Michael Lonie — Sun, 08 May 2011 03:30:22 +0000

UBL may not have been human, but not because he was a Muppet. If he was not, it is more likely that he has now returned to that overly hot place from whence he originally came.

By: pabloschwartz

pabloschwartz — Sat, 07 May 2011 13:39:01 +0000

“If al Qaeda itself says bin Laden is dead, will the lunatics stop pretending that he’s not?”

whoa! there are people who think he’s not *dead*? Benazir Bhutto claimed to have intelligence suggesting he’s been dead for years / a bomb-shell she dropped during a David Frost interview. me? i’ve always wondered whether he was even human. 7 feet tall and 160 lbs? i’m imagining a creature of wire, string and foam. in short, a Muppet.

By: Elisson

Elisson — Fri, 06 May 2011 19:06:04 +0000

Fact is, “historic Palestine” includes not only Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, but all of Jordan. And historically, it was practically deserted, except for a few Bedouin nomads and a thin coating of Jews. The Turks controlled it, virtually all of it held by absentee landlords who oppressed their tenants to a fare-thee-well. It was only when (more) Jews began immigrating from Europe that Arabs also began migrating into “Palestine.” The popular narrative – that the Jews displaced a population of Arabs that had been living in Palestine “from time immemorial” – is utter bullshit, but the Arabs, with British complicity, have done an effective job of selling it.

Under the British mandate, the Jews were to have their national homeland in Palestine. To appease the Saudi Arabs and take some political pressure off them, what is now Jordan was peeled away and handed over to the Hashemite king.