Charley Reese: My Palestinian Wife

[laststeamtrain]

My Palestinian Wife

By Charley Reese

Every now and then, the rumor arises that I have a Palestinian wife. Some of my kin were highly amused by a debate on that subject that was being conducted by letters to the editor in their local paper recently.

Apparently, it does not occur to anyone simply to ask me. As a matter of fact, I don't have a wife. I'm a widower, and the one wife I had was a sweet Midwestern girl of Methodist, German and Swedish extraction. I don't have a Palestinian mistress or girlfriend. I don't even have a Palestinian bowling pal.

The recurring Palestinian wife rumor, I believe, is a result of some people finding it impossible to believe that an American would have any sympathy for the Palestinian people without an ulterior motive. That is a credit to the effectiveness of the Israeli propaganda machine, which has, for more than 50 years, stereotyped Palestinians as a wild, violent people. It is a stereotype helped greatly by the news media, which rarely reports in depth on anything foreign, and by Hollywood, where lately the venerable Nazi has been replaced as the chief villain by the Arab terrorist.

Actually, Palestinians are a gentle people. If you get to know some and hear their side of the story, you will feel sympathy for them, too, unless you have a flint heart. The Palestinians were run over by history. I know that various ethnic groups in the United States fiercely contend for the title of victim, but the Palestinians had it imposed on them.

There was nothing they could do when the Ottoman Empire absorbed their land. There was nothing they could do when the British Empire took their land away from the Ottoman Turks at the end of World War I. There was nothing they could do when the British Empire created the Palestine Mandate. There was nothing they could do when the British Cabinet, for reasons historians still argue about, decided Palestine would make a nice national home for European Jews when and if the British Empire ever decided to give up its occupation of Palestine.

That it did in 1947, after considerable encouragement by Jewish terrorist organizations – the Irgun, led by Menachem Begin, and the Stern Gang, led by Yitzhak Shamir. Yes, Jews used terrorist tactics against the British occupation, and now Palestinians are using terrorist tactics against the Israeli occupation.

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20612.htm

[aquart]

1. What part of this story is missing. Oh, I know. PARTITION.

Funny how you never hear that word anymore. It doesn't fit the poor pitiful Palestinian myth. Particularly not with a map. Palestine was a chunk of land. It used to be called Judaea until the Romans tried to eradicate the historical Jewish presence and renamed it Syria-Palestina. What's in a name?

Anyhow, there was this chunk. A tiny bit was bought and slaved over by Jewish Zionists and refugees. What did they do? Show up and just take? Nah. Absentee landlords living it up in Beirut sold out their Arab tenants. They sold the worst land they had to the Jews. The Jews worked their asses off and made the desert bloom. Arabs could have, I suppose. Guess they were too busy feeling oppressed. (Hey, I'm Jewish, I know how that feels.)

The kindly, generous United Nations GAVE (ho, ho, ho) the Jews the tiny amount of land they had BOUGHT. The REST of the land they partitioned as Transjordan, an Arab state. Whatever happened to that land?

When the United Nations voted for Palestinian partition, the Arabs got the lion's share of the Jewish historical homeland. The Jews got a postage stamp of ground without a known valuable mineral in it or on it. Unless you count sodium chloride. I'm pretty sure they got salt.

You might want to ask why the "Palestinians" aren't carrying Transjordan passports.

[tomreedtoon]

2. This is what Rat Boy has been ranting about?

And yes, if you ever saw Reese talking on TV, you'd call him Rat Boy too. Years ago, he was a right-wing columnist for the Orlando Sentinel (back then called the Sentinel Star, or the Sentinel Slur among most of Orlando). He used to do a point/counterpoint discussion with the overweight, pockmarked, somewhat liberal radio host Gene Burns at the TV station where I worked.

The "Burns and Reese" segment (which we used to call "Beans and Rice") taught me two important lessons. One: Political pundits of whatever political stripe are egotistical, out-of-touch loons. Two: Right wing pundits are more egotistical and out of touch than left wing pundits.

So Rat Boy is apologizing for having a foreign-born wife? Or being suspected of having a foreign-born wife? And claims it's all a plot of the International Jewish Conspiracy? Doesn't surprise me in the least.

[laststeamtrain]

3. Yeah. Charley's icky looking. Needs a make-over.

That would make what's he's saying more...ah...uh...what?

"Beans & Rice". Cuban, right?

What a weird post, my friend.

You & I are very much not alike.

I think that's great.