What is your background/interest in the Middle East?

[daveman]

I was in the Air Force. The assignment to Oman was voluntary, but the trip to Iraq and Afghanistan wasn't so much. But it had to be done, and I was the guy to do it, so I went.

What I learned from the Omanis, and from an Iranian kid whom I met there (he desperately wanted to get an American visa so he could go the the US and study) was that they're just like us -- only saddled with political and religious leaders who force hatred of Jews upon them.

Mr. Abdullah, an Omani national whom I worked with in the US Embassy in Muscat, once said to me in a discussion about Israel, "Mr. David, why can't people just get along?"

Mr. Abdullah is a wise man.

Wow, that really is awesome stuff.

And it also mirrors my own experience.

I will always remember sitting on a balcony in Damascus with a Syrian family. They were all speaking English to be polite to their guests, but they got into a big argument which got very heated - was it about Israel? No. The US? No. They were arguing about why the kids school had such poor teachers.

It was the mirror image of discussions I hear in Finland every week!

Everywhere you go, people are just people.

 

[JStone]

I was in the Air Force. The assignment to Oman was voluntary, but the trip to Iraq and Afghanistan wasn't so much. But it had to be done, and I was the guy to do it, so I went.

What I learned from the Omanis, and from an Iranian kid whom I met there (he desperately wanted to get an American visa so he could go the the US and study) was that they're just like us -- only saddled with political and religious leaders who force hatred of Jews upon them.

Mr. Abdullah, an Omani national whom I worked with in the US Embassy in Muscat, once said to me in a discussion about Israel, "Mr. David, why can't people just get along?"

Mr. Abdullah is a wise man.

Wow, that really is awesome stuff.

And it also mirrors my own experience.

I will always remember sitting on a balcony in Damascus with a Syrian family. They were all speaking English to be polite to their guests, but they got into a big argument which got very heated - was it about Israel? No. The US? No. They were arguing about why the kids school had such poor teachers.

It was the mirror image of discussions I hear in Finland every week!

Everywhere you go, people are just people.

Except, where Jews are apes and pigs as taught in the quran

 

[Lipush]

I was in the Air Force. The assignment to Oman was voluntary, but the trip to Iraq and Afghanistan wasn't so much. But it had to be done, and I was the guy to do it, so I went.

What I learned from the Omanis, and from an Iranian kid whom I met there (he desperately wanted to get an American visa so he could go the the US and study) was that they're just like us -- only saddled with political and religious leaders who force hatred of Jews upon them.

Mr. Abdullah, an Omani national whom I worked with in the US Embassy in Muscat, once said to me in a discussion about Israel, "Mr. David, why can't people just get along?"

Mr. Abdullah is a wise man.

Wow, that really is awesome stuff.

And it also mirrors my own experience.

I will always remember sitting on a balcony in Damascus with a Syrian family. They were all speaking English to be polite to their guests, but they got into a big argument which got very heated - was it about Israel? No. The US? No. They were arguing about why the kids school had such poor teachers.

It was the mirror image of discussions I hear in Finland every week!

Sometimes we tend to forget that most of us are regular people who gain nothing of wars.

That reminds me, that my father and mother traveled abroad few years back, they were on the train, and when getting down from it, my father noticed a woman with a stroller, having hard time managing it from the train down to the station. Always the gentleman, my father asked if she needed help with the little one. She thanked him kindly and said "yes". After carrying the stroller down, she could hear his foreign accent, and asked curiously, after admitting she was Iranian, where did he came from. Natually, without thinking much, he said he was Israeli. The woman was all . She couldn't believe a Zionist will help a Muslim woman (she was with Hijab). my father felt embarrassed and walked away.

 

[Saigon]

Except, where Jews are apes and pigs as taught in the quran

And yet none of the posters on this thread who have spent real time in the Islamic world agree with you.

You are as filled with hatred as any Muslim I have ever met, and I can't imagine why you think your ill-informed hatred is any better than theirs.

 

[Saigon]

Sometimes we tend to forget that most of us are regular people who gain nothing of wars.

That reminds me, that my father and mother traveled abroad few years back, they were on the train, and when getting down from it, my father noticed a woman with a stroller, having hard time managing it from the train down to the station. Always the gentleman, my father asked if she needed help with the little one. She thanked him kindly and said "yes". After carrying the stroller down, she could hear his foreign accent, and asked curiously, after admitting she was Iranian, where did he came from. Natually, without thinking much, he said he was Israeli. The woman was all . She couldn't believe a Zionist will help a Muslim woman (she was with Hijab). my father felt embarrassed and walked away.

That's a great story - our prejudices so rarely match the reality. But maybe that contact made her think also a little more....

I think it is really easy for all of us to believe the cliches and news images. Before I went to Africa I just thought of starving children and HIV and malnutrition and the animal life, and of course those things are there too, but there really is so much more that we NEVER see on TV.

I wish everyone had a chance to visit Jerusalem and Damascus and Beirut to have their own firsthand look...

 

[JStone]

Except, where Jews are apes and pigs as taught in the quran

And yet none of the posters on this thread who have spent real time in the Islamic world agree with you.

You are as filled with hatred as any Muslim I have ever met, and I can't imagine why you think your ill-informed hatred is any better than theirs.

And yet quran teaches 1.5 billion pedophile worshippers that their allah turned Jews into apes and pigs.

 

[daveman]

Wow, that really is awesome stuff.

And it also mirrors my own experience.

I will always remember sitting on a balcony in Damascus with a Syrian family. They were all speaking English to be polite to their guests, but they got into a big argument which got very heated - was it about Israel? No. The US? No. They were arguing about why the kids school had such poor teachers.

It was the mirror image of discussions I hear in Finland every week!

Everywhere you go, people are just people.

Except, where Jews are apes and pigs as taught in the quran

I never met anyone in Oman who felt that way.

 

[JStone]

Everywhere you go, people are just people.

Except, where Jews are apes and pigs as taught in the quran

I never met anyone in Oman who felt that way.

You need to get out more. I've met Arabs shocked to learn that there are actual Jews having been taught that they all were turned into apes and pigs as per the shitty quran rag

 

[Saigon]

You need to get out more.

Says the person who has never been to the Middle East to a person who has lived in Oman.

You have to laugh, don't you?

He's quite right, Stone, I don't think I've ever heard a Muslim say anything remotely like that, and I have met ten times as many Muslim people as you have.

 

[daveman]

Except, where Jews are apes and pigs as taught in the quran

I never met anyone in Oman who felt that way.

You need to get out more.

You're kidding, right?

How many Middle Eastern countries have you lived in, again?

 

[JStone]

I never met anyone in Oman who felt that way.

You need to get out more.

You're kidding, right?

How many Middle Eastern countries have you lived in, again?

I've met Arabs shocked to learn that Jews actually exist having been taught that Jews were all turned into apes and pigs.

I'm always amenable to educate the uninformed

 

[Iridescence]

The title of the OP is "What is your background/interest in the Middle East?"

So Roudy and JStone.

Let's hear what your personal views are about the subject?

Just told you. Talk to people who have lived there as minorities. Talk to Christians, Jews, Bahaiis etc. Islam is not tolerant, Islam is not peaceful. Islam is oppressive, backwards, anti freedom, anti progress, and persecutes women and minorities. Muslims are always mourning or angry. It is not a "loving" religion. It is a religion you must submit to. Understand?

The Israel / Plaestine conflict is based on Muslim hatred and intolerance. Remove that from the picture, the conflict is non existent. That is the truth.

Ps. You know jackshit about the Koran. Muslims prey on weak and ignorant morons like you.

Palestine was a Roman invention. The correct name of the country is Israel.

This is interesting, JStone, you have been very demanding of attention with your blustering spews, so perhaps you could further elaborate on this particular point.

Are you suggesting, as it may seem, the Palestinian want a divorce from the lineaged union with Israel. To the Palestinians, it is about independence and self-sustainability apart from being under Israeli control. Now, accordingly, this is said to mean the possession of land... and recognition as an independent state... However, to Israel, it is likely not at all about the land but rather more about the people, the genetics, the ownership of bloodlines. To allow Palestine their desired separation would mean to have bred a substantially equipped rival in which Israel has invested in to the point that such a separation would perhaps mean far more detrimental to Israel than the refusal to acknowledge and accommodate Palestinian demands does for Palestine.

JStone, you seem accomplished at downsizing poster intellect and diminishing potential, so flare your corrective spew and help us to collectively understand what your point is if it is not a derivative of the above.

Israel is a pharmaceutical force. Anyone who does not understand why the importance to support Israeli agendas is what it has become may not understand what position our country is in as a historically recognized Christian nation. Quite the thorn, isn't it?

 

[Saigon]

You need to get out more.

You're kidding, right?

How many Middle Eastern countries have you lived in, again?

I've met Arabs shocked to learn that Jews actually exist having been taught that Jews were all turned into apes and pigs.

JStone -

Answer the question.

 

[JStone]

Just told you. Talk to people who have lived there as minorities. Talk to Christians, Jews, Bahaiis etc. Islam is not tolerant, Islam is not peaceful. Islam is oppressive, backwards, anti freedom, anti progress, and persecutes women and minorities. Muslims are always mourning or angry. It is not a "loving" religion. It is a religion you must submit to. Understand?

The Israel / Plaestine conflict is based on Muslim hatred and intolerance. Remove that from the picture, the conflict is non existent. That is the truth.

Ps. You know jackshit about the Koran. Muslims prey on weak and ignorant morons like you.

Palestine was a Roman invention. The correct name of the country is Israel.

This is interesting, JStone, you have been very demanding of attention with your blustering spews, so perhaps you could further elaborate on this particular point.

Are you suggesting, as it may seem, the Palestinian want a divorce from the lineaged union with Israel. To the Palestinians, it is about independence and self-sustainability apart from being under Israeli control. Now, accordingly, this is said to mean the possession of land... and recognition as an independent state... However, to Israel, it is likely not at all about the land but rather more about the people, the genetics, the ownership of bloodlines. To allow Palestine their desired separation would mean to have bred a substantially equipped rival in which Israel has invested in to the point that such a separation would perhaps mean far more detrimental to Israel than the refusal to acknowledge and accommodate Palestinian demands does for Palestine.

JStone, you seem accomplished at downsizing poster intellect and diminishing potential, so flare your corrective spew and help us to collectively understand what your point is if it is not a derivative of the above.

Israel is a pharmaceutical force. Anyone who does not understand why the importance to support Israeli agendas is what it has become may not understand what position our country is in as a historically recognized Christian nation. Quite the thorn, isn't it?

Your unintelligible gibberish aside, palestine was a Roman invention to call Israel.

Remember, so I don't have to remind you, again

 

[Saigon]

JStone -

Answer the question.

(The thing is - I am not trying to humiliate you here. I know you've never been to the Middle East, and that is just how it is. I'm not saying you should be ashamed of that. What I am saying is that you might show a little more maturity when dealing with people who so obviously have a deeper take on this issue than you do. You don't have to agree with every word people say, but you do have to understand that they are more qualified than you are, or will likely ever be. )

 

[Iridescence]

Cool....they must have been amazing countries to go to. Although I'm not ure Iraq is on my travel list for the immediate future.

I was in the Air Force. The assignment to Oman was voluntary, but the trip to Iraq and Afghanistan wasn't so much. But it had to be done, and I was the guy to do it, so I went.

What I learned from the Omanis, and from an Iranian kid whom I met there (he desperately wanted to get an American visa so he could go the the US and study) was that they're just like us -- only saddled with political and religious leaders who force hatred of Jews upon them.

Mr. Abdullah, an Omani national whom I worked with in the US Embassy in Muscat, once said to me in a discussion about Israel, "Mr. David, why can't people just get along?"

Mr. Abdullah is a wise man.

What religion except islime specifically singles out Jews and Christians as targets for hatred, persecution and MASS MURDER?

WHY are such singled out may be the more appropriated question.

JStone, would you like to present your insight as to WHY? Perhaps if we better understood the WHY, we would better, collectively recognize the WHO.

 

[JStone]

JStone -

Answer the question.

(The thing is - I am not trying to humiliate you here. I know you've never been to the Middle East, and that is just how it is. I'm not saying you should be ashamed of that. What I am saying is that you might show a little more maturity when dealing with people who so obviously have a deeper take on this issue than you do. You don't have to agree with every word people say, but you do have to understand that they are more qualified than you are, or will likely ever be. )

SAIGON

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4Vp642ERhM&feature=related]Sound-Effects - Crowd Laughing - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Saigon]

JStone, would you like to present your insight as to WHY? Perhaps if we better understood the WHY, we would better, collectively recognize the WHO.
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I totally agree.

JStone -

Either answer the question, or leave the thread.

 

[JStone]

I was in the Air Force. The assignment to Oman was voluntary, but the trip to Iraq and Afghanistan wasn't so much. But it had to be done, and I was the guy to do it, so I went.

What I learned from the Omanis, and from an Iranian kid whom I met there (he desperately wanted to get an American visa so he could go the the US and study) was that they're just like us -- only saddled with political and religious leaders who force hatred of Jews upon them.

Mr. Abdullah, an Omani national whom I worked with in the US Embassy in Muscat, once said to me in a discussion about Israel, "Mr. David, why can't people just get along?"

Mr. Abdullah is a wise man.

What religion except islime specifically singles out Jews and Christians as targets for hatred, persecution and MASS MURDER?

WHY are such singled out may be the more appropriated question.

JStone, would you like to present your insight as to WHY? Perhaps if we better understood the WHY, we would better, collectively recognize the WHO.

The more "appropriated" question is why are you so dumb?

 

[hjmick]

Is it just me, or is someone in this thread coming across as an arrogant, pretentious douchebag?