So can be said for (some of) the Palestinians.

How much, of which parts, of Levant...?

BTW, what if the US sold some land in Iraq to the Japanese after the 2003 war...?

Sure, it helped their failing economy.

You left out the British Mandate totally. BTW, Haganah may have begun as a loosely organized local defence force, but its role, AFAIK, has drastically changed in later years. By 1947, it's become a full-fledged military.

The fact that Israel was able to create a state like out of thin air (which wasn't, but that idea has been spread to imply something like divine intervention) might have showed that, 1) the "might" of the Arab states at that time is questionable at best, 2) the Israelis had a stronger military force and better strategies than the Arab armies, or 3) a combination of both.

I can't turn back the clock and see how it would happen, but I wonder they wouldn't have been, if not the Jews took Palestine by force like that.

The contentious issue of whether to recognize Israel is a Jewish state or not is, in my opinions, that there are 1.2M Israeli Arab, to recognize Israel as a Jewish state means to legitimize the discrimination against them.

The Israeli Declaration of Independence stated that "the State of Israel would ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex, and guaranteed freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture".

So if Jewish people remain the majority, then it's a Jewish state by number count.

Again, it's in my opinions that you're over-generalizing, as if you've held country-wide census. I personally find (some of) the local people, be it Jews or Palestinians, more accommodating than you.

Make no mistake, I'm not against the Israelis, and I've defended them before Palestinians, during discussions, that's. But I think it's wrong for Israel the state to continually oppress the Palestinians, and they are not allowed to defend themselves, as if every Jew is a patron saint and every Palestinian (Muslim) is a terrorist.

(Assuming you're a US citizen) If one day, some people from the opposite of Alaska come and take your land, expulse you and your family from your homes, make you live in tents (which later become brick houses), kill your cousin who fight against them, all the while telling you that their ancestors had lived in North America 2000 years ago, and have their sacred text to support them, so that they've a sacrosanct title deed to the land...

What would you do?

I'm a Christian and one who's not totally ignorant of the history and religious significance of this land, I've read the Bible from the beginning to the end all over 2 times, flipped all over the pages from Genesis to Revelation in worships, Sunday schools, fellowships over the years. Started reading the Qur'an (with an exegesis not written by some Wahhabi imams) not long ago. Understand that the failures and internal scuffles of the Arabic "leaders" had as much importance as the Israeli military might in shaping the 1948 Nakba and following defeats. That some people always exaggerate and over-dramatize certain events to their own benefits, like the one mentioned by the OP...

Not that I consider myself well-versed in the conflict and, as Paul's taught, I still have much to learn (1 Corinthians 8:2). But to consider it's a Middle Eastern-only phenomenon is disingenuous in my opinions.

Just try to put your feet into their shoes for a little while.

BTW, I think it's Hamas' official stance to refuse to acknowledge Israel's right to exist...? The PLO and PA have long accepted the fact that there's a state called Israel here in Palestine. They don't agree that it's a "Jewish state" though.

Cheers.

I'm photographing in the Middle East, in particular Palestine these days, but I would argue that the mere act of choosing which place to go, picking up one's camera, framing his shot, choosing what to focus on, pressing the shutter at which moment, and afterwards, choosing which one to publish, with with what captions to write, all doing it consciously or sub-consciously, is "biased".

The problem is that people *think* there is an absolute objective out there, and their views are that one. So, when you see something in the news is consistent with your school of thought, then it's objective reporting. If it doesn't, then it's biased.

Of course I'm generalizing, and there are people out there who really *think*. And I'm a Christian and think this post-modernism deconstruction thing leads one nowhere. One has to pick his stand somewhere, but keep it ready to be challenged at any time.

Who said that, something like "Faith is treading a line everyday between believe and disbelieve"...?

Oopps... I intended to add a "sarcasm" tag to the first paragraph but failed... Guess I need to learn more about posting on Slashdot...

Does it even matter? People often believe what they want to believe. As long as there's an audience for your reporting. It doesn't have to be objective at all.

Although I don't necessarily agree with everything about the post-modernism deconstruction, there is some insight within that school of thought.

To a certain extent, I have to admit that what you said is right, especially for the people making decisions in air-con rooms.

But there are real people on the ground who're indeed suffering, and I'm not meaning only the Palestinians, but also the Israelis.

It's such a polarized topic though.

I wish there is, but people believe what they want to believe anyway.

I'm sorry, but I've yet to meet one local people who've expressly told me that he/she would like to "erase Israel from the map". (FYI, not all Palestinians are Muslims, and I didn't ask everyone of them if they're Muslims).

You may argue that they're just faking it. But I have been intimidated in the refugee camps, and being thrown rocks at as well. So if they want to fake it, it's a pretty poor act, isn't it?

And I'm not sure of who the Palestinian handlers you're talking about, because I'm travelling mostly by myself these days.

Cheers.

Good point. Reminds me of Susan Sontag's On Photography.

The mere act of consciously picking up one's camera and pressing the shutter means it's staged.

All too often we gobble down news information, be it newspaper, TV, photographs, blogs and etc. without exercising our critical mind.

The same can be said of many other things, like parental or religious teachings, but in the western countries, it seems that we usually consider "news" with higher creditability, sometimes so much that we don't even consider that they can be fake.

And does universal objectivity even exist...?

In particular, in conflicts as polarised as the Israeli-Palestinian one, objectivity often means it's in line with with your expectation. Or what the idiom says... We believe what we want to believe.

You're very, very insensitive.

I cannot deny that sometimes people are willing to do abhorrent things to further their agendas, but to say that like it's a common thing for Muslims to do is defamatory.

And you've never heard Christians or western people doing such things?

Disclaimer: I'm a Christian from Hong Kong but currently in Palestine, documenting and experiencing the situation myself, and I came on my own expense.

I thought the major reason that the low-skilled labour wages are higher in the US and EU was because of minimum wage laws and more developed economies...?

One has to consider that the Hong Kong economy has only really developed in the past 50 years or so.

Nonetheless, even though low-skilled labours from mainland China are not allowed to come to Hong Kong for work (legally), they do have a major effect on Hong Kong's low-skilled labour market, because the factories have been moved to mainland China.

Besides, low-skilled labour having higher wages are not necessarily a good indicator, if most of them are unemployed. That was and still is one of the major concerns for Hong Kong's low income public since the minimum wage law went into effect earlier this year.

Cheers.

I agree. But I still don't understand why you called Hong Kong's (and Singapore's also, FWIW) economy "hybrid". It's my understanding that no economy is of pure capitalism, it's always a mixed. But we usually define an economy based on its most prominent and common characteristics, and if the US and European countries have free market/capitalist economies, I think Hong Kong's should be classified as one as well.

Cheers.

By your logic, the low income in the "unskiled" labour class in the US is influenced by the low cost of production in mainland China, which leads companies moving their factories and call support centres there, and so the poverty in the US results from communism as well...?

Would you mind to say a bit more about how Deming's theories are being mis-applied in education and medicine? I would like to hear more about that.

Thanks in advance.