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Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

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Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#671

Post by runarberg »

3v1n0 wrote: post #593
woutr_be wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding the “foreigners can’t stay here”, from what I know, this is because it requires extra work for hotels, they need to report your stay to the local police station, so usually smaller hotels, or the ones in non touristy cities just don’t do that. (And I believe that any tourist, needs to report their address to the local police station within a few days)

Something similar happens in Cuba as well. There are cheaper places where only locals can go (and till some years ago, also the other way around was true)

Wow, I travelled in Cuba in 2007 and I was completely unaware of this. I was aware of the double economy and how there are some buses that the locals don’t use and vis-versa (same is true in my country; in both cases it is more about price and convenience then access). But hotels for locals only completely missed my attention.

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#672

Post by rhizome »

dronesoul wrote: post #537
chii wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are a thousands-year old country china, the ethnicity, is indeed thousands years old. CCP, however, is barely over 70 yrs old.

to be even more correct, china isn't one culture or one ethnicity. it covers a huge area, and especially before modern times, it was composed of a lot of different cultures and ethnicities, with a shitload of different languages and customs. CCP and other earlier powers (Emperors?) just brought them all, or large chunks, under a common flag.

Think bigger. There is cultural knowledge going back further than any particular political or economic system. China has seen those come and go within its own borders, too.

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#673

Post by betsushikime »

gataca wrote: post #636
banannaise wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

re: outrage at Israel and not at Syria, etc.: 1. Israeli bombings, unlike actions in Syria and Yemen, are directly funded by the United States, which makes them a highly relevant issue for Americans and for people concerned with America's role in geopolitics. 2. Visibility. Israel is given extreme favor in US political circles, but that ironically works against it in this case. Their struggles are highly visible, but…

Will start with point 1: Take Europe instead of just the US - protests in Europe against Israel with no equivalent against Iran or Russia, both of whom funded and sent troops to Syria where Assad has committed actual genocide leading to displacement of millions. Europe trades with Russia and Iran and could apply economic pressure. Where were the mass protests in the face of a humanitarian catastrophe or nerve gas att…

> Take Europe instead of just the US - protests in Europe against Israel with no equivalent against Iran or Russia, both of whom funded and sent troops to Syria where Assad has committed actual genocide leading to displacement of millions.

The reason for this is that most people around most of the world see the US as the greatest threat to world peace and the prosperity of nations, with China probably second and Iran and Russia very distant contenders. This is certainly true in the Arab world, but in Europe also.

Remember also that the US, under president Trump, went back on a peace deal with Iran, leaving the EU in a very difficult position, between the US rock and the hard place of even more strife in the Middle East. And for many of us, the Middle East is next door, not half a world away as it is for the US. I appreciate of course that Israel is in the Middle East but that's exactly the point. For Europeans, a large region right at our doorstep full of people armed to the teeth and chomping at the bit to kill each other, not to mention that at least one of them is a neuclear power, is a very pressing matter.

Or, if you want a different perspective, Europeans see Israel as closer to European culture (you're even in Eurovision!), a secular democracy with an educated and modern population that can be influenced by international politics and by the popular opinion in European countries. So it makes sense that they would try to influence you.

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#674

Post by benja123 »

DSingularity wrote: post #626
benja123 wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Christian population in the Christian towns of the Westbank (Bethlehem) and in Gaza have been decreasing steadily for the past 70 years - this has nothing to do with the occupation of the Westbank and Gaza and everything to do with persecution by the local population. This trend is not confined to just the Westbank and Gaza and is in fact a trend that is occurring across the entire Middle East where in the past 1…

If by persecution by the locals you mean the Jewish Israelis — sure. But if you are trying to imply that the Muslim Arabs persecuted the Christians get out of here. By wide margins the European Christian crusaders killed more Arab Christians then any other ethnic group. Palestinian Christians and Muslims have coexisted for a long, long time. To the point that the holiest of Christian churches are often entrusted to M…

The fact is Christians have been persecuted in the Middle East for 100s of years. Under the Ottoman Empire Christians (and any non Muslims) had to pay a Jizya tax - which is persecution (unless you believe it is okay to tax people for being another religion), moreover you had numerous massacres of Christian populations by the Ottoman Empire (one example of this is the Armenian genocide, but you also had cases of Greek, Maronites and other Christian group being murdered at a large scale). Now with that said, Europe was no better, and often worse when it came to its treatment of minorities at that time.

Regardless, the fact that historically Christians (and other minorities) were treated relatively well in the Middle East does not change the reality that for the past 100 years Christians and other minorities are facing massive persecution in the Middle East and in some cases genocide or ethnic cleansing.

Some examples of persecution Christians currently face (by no means complete)

- In Egypt, Copts can not perform any repairs on their churches without government approval, moreover in the past 10 years alone 100s have been killed by mobs attacking them.

- In Saudi Arabia, Christians can not practice their religion in public.

- In Iran Christians that converted from Islam face the death penalty

- Turkey two Byzantine Era churches, Hagia Sophia and the Church of the Holy Saviour, were just converted to mosques.

- In Gaza Christian business and places of worship are regularly attacked by Islamic extremists, often with tacit approval of the ruling Hamas.

And this is just the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the type of persecution Christians face in the Middle East today.

Now let’s for a second talk about Jews of the Middle East. A 100 years ago the Jewish population in the Middle East (outside of Israel/Palestine) was nearly 1 million and yet today it numbers maybe a few 100.

Ask yourself where are the Jews of Syria, Algeria, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq etc? All had relatively large Jewish communities until recently. Persecution, violence and yes, ethnic cleansing is what decimated the Jewish population of the Middle East (outside of Israel).

The reality is, one of the few countries in the Middle East where religious minorities do not face any major persecution is Israel. Yes, you have had individual cases of extremists attacking minorities - but this is true for every country in the world, and when it does happen they are usually caught and brought to justice. This is why the fastest growing religious community in Israel is Islam and this is also why the Christian population in Israel is continuing to grow (unlike in the areas in the Westbank under the Palestinian Authority rule and Gaza under Hamas rule, where the Christian population is decreasing at an alarming rate). Does it mean Israel is perfect when it comes to how it treats minorities? Nope. But, when it comes to its treatment of minorities it is no where near as bad as the rest of the Middle East and is not much worse (and in some cases better) than the EU and the US.

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#675

Post by doublepg23 »

runarberg wrote: post #671
3v1n0 wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something similar happens in Cuba as well. There are cheaper places where only locals can go (and till some years ago, also the other way around was true)

Wow, I travelled in Cuba in 2007 and I was completely unaware of this. I was aware of the double economy and how there are some buses that the locals don’t use and vis-versa (same is true in my country; in both cases it is more about price and convenience then access). But hotels for locals only completely missed my attention.

Any info on how you setup your Cuba trip?

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#676

Post by DSingularity »

benja123 wrote: post #674
DSingularity wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by persecution by the locals you mean the Jewish Israelis — sure. But if you are trying to imply that the Muslim Arabs persecuted the Christians get out of here. By wide margins the European Christian crusaders killed more Arab Christians then any other ethnic group. Palestinian Christians and Muslims have coexisted for a long, long time. To the point that the holiest of Christian churches are often entrusted to M…

The fact is Christians have been persecuted in the Middle East for 100s of years. Under the Ottoman Empire Christians (and any non Muslims) had to pay a Jizya tax - which is persecution (unless you believe it is okay to tax people for being another religion), moreover you had numerous massacres of Christian populations by the Ottoman Empire (one example of this is the Armenian genocide, but you also had cases of Gree…

> Ask yourself where are the Jews of Syria, Algeria, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq etc? All had relatively large Jewish communities until recently. Persecution, violence and yes, ethnic cleansing is what decimated the Jewish population of the Middle East (outside of Israel).

Yeah, please stop with your disinformation. Zionists try to present the migration to Israel from Arab lands as if it was somehow equivalent to the Palestinian Nakba. Lets see what some of those migrants say about this. Yisrael Yeshayahu, a former Knesset speaker who migrated from Yemen said "We are not refugees. [Some of us] came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations." -- basically he came because he was a zionist. Another former speaker Shlomo Hillel said "I do not regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists" [1]. Iraqi-born Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, speaking of the wave of Iraqi Jewish migration to Israel, concludes that, even though Iraqi Jews were "victims of the Israeli-Arab conflict", Iraqi Jews aren't refugees, saying "nobody expelled us from Iraq, nobody told us that we were unwanted" [2]. It is truly despicable to paint those who came to Israel from other parts of the Middle East as colonizers looking to steal the property of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs as victims.

> And this is just the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the type of persecution Christians face in the Middle East today.

Again, I know it would be seemingly convenient for you -- a defender of Apartheid Israel -- to find another nation which behaves like Israel (in its persecution of other races/religions). Nonetheless, even if what you are saying is true -- and I believe many of the Muslims of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria would reject this -- what you are proving is nothing. This is just a whataboutism/red herring/tu quoque. How about Israel starts treating the Arab Muslims and Christians with dignity, stops abusing their rights, stealing their property and land.

Just remember -- you are here defending a country which has institutionalized racism and apartheid.

[1] http://www.haaretz.com/hitching-a-ride-on-the-magic-carpet-1... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20050814015754/http://www.haaret...

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#677

Post by DSingularity »

belorn wrote: post #665
DSingularity wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the time of the British mandate the Jewish minority — 2% of the population — owned a total of 8% of the land. So, my point was, why do you blame the Arabs for not accepting the partition plan which came to impose a forceful transfer of land from the majority to the minority. When you consider the facts you can clearly see why the Palestinians opposed the initial partition plan of Palestine.

Yes, but then my initial comment above about the Jewish population and the arab population is not confusing land and people. The Jewish population owned 2%, and the arab population owned X amount of land, while Y amount of land was owned cooperatively by individuals of both. It would be interesting to know what X and Y is. The partitioning of land was obviously unfair after world war 2. I doubt anyone actually disagr…

Its not just a land conflict from the war though. This is different than the way you are painting it -- that some British officer threw up his hands and said "I don't know whose land this is, here you have it".

If you look at the history of this area, what happened was Jewish terrorist groups (haganah[2], lehi[3], Irgun[4]) started going around murdering Palestinian villagers[1]. When the Palestinian villagers ran the Zionists settled their lands.The land and property was stolen from the Palestinians. They were terrorized into fleeing their lands and were never allowed to return!

So somehow, in the modern day when we all know this as fact, we are supposed to just accept that these people and all their dependents are condemned to eternal refugee status? Thats not the worse part. While the Palestinians are condemned as refugees any random Jewish people born in Europe or America are allowed to emigrate to Israel to settle those lands. This is why Israel is an Apartheid state.

How is this not absurd and how is it moral?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haganah [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(militant_group) [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#678

Post by cutemonster »

eloff wrote: post #621
cutemonster wrote: post #491

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Palestinians, but they're hardly the good guys Do you need to write "the Palestinians"? Sounds as if everyone were to blame for the rockets, but less than 1% of the people in Gaza, are in Hamas military wing. Would it be weird to write "Hamas" instead about those who fire rockets? Or "terrorists in Hamas". (but please don't blame everyone for what a few are doing) And in the same way, I wouldn't say that the Is…

No. I feel for the plight of the Palestinian people. I don't give a rat's ass for Hamas. Don't forget Hamas is the legitimate elected government in Gaza, you cannot just say they're a fringe group not supported by the people of Gaza. Now Palestinians also encompass the West Bank where Hamas is not the government. But part of the reason for these rocket attacks is Hamas trying to demonstrate that they're the represent…

> Don't forget Hamas is the legitimate elected government

What do you think is the background for that?

I had a look at Wikipedia about Hamas, look how they grew more popular and became more violent:

> ... Jewish settler in military fatigues, massacred 29 Muslims at prayer in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron [year 1994] in the West Bank during the month of Ramadan. An additional 19 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces in the ensuing riots

> ... Hebron massacre had a profound effect on Hamas' militancy. For its first seven years, it attacked only what it saw as "legitimate military targets," Israeli soldiers and military installations.[77] But following the massacre, it felt that it no longer had to distinguish between military and civilian targets

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Origins

Seems to me it's a spiral of dislike and violence, driven by a few violent people among both groups.

Then, about the elections: (same Wikipedia page)

> ... Hamas ran on a platform of clean government, a thorough overhaul of the corrupt administrative system, and the issue of rampant lawlessness.[190][191] The PA, notoriously riddled with corruption ...

Does it sound as if the voters voted for rocket attacks? Or did they vote for stopping corruption (and then, years later, turns out Hamas is equally (or more) corrupted and worse in so many other ways)

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#679

Post by benja123 »

DSingularity wrote: post #676
benja123 wrote: post #674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact is Christians have been persecuted in the Middle East for 100s of years. Under the Ottoman Empire Christians (and any non Muslims) had to pay a Jizya tax - which is persecution (unless you believe it is okay to tax people for being another religion), moreover you had numerous massacres of Christian populations by the Ottoman Empire (one example of this is the Armenian genocide, but you also had cases of Gree…

> Ask yourself where are the Jews of Syria, Algeria, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq etc? All had relatively large Jewish communities until recently. Persecution, violence and yes, ethnic cleansing is what decimated the Jewish population of the Middle East (outside of Israel). Yeah, please stop with your disinformation. Zionists try to present the migration to Israel from Arab lands as if it was somehow equivalent to the Palestin…

Ah yes - All 1 million Jews in Arab lands were so happy they just packed up and ran to Israel once they got the chance.

Look, I have relatives and many friends that escaped those countries because they were being persecuted and in some cases we’re under the threat of death. You trying to change history because it doesn't fit your narrative doesn't change what actually happened.

The reality is Yemenite Jews have faced legal persecution and violence for many years. Read up about the pogroms like the Adyen Riots of 1947 where nearly 100 Yemenite Jews were murdered.

Did some Yemenites came before Israel existed? Absolutely, as did Jews from all over the world. After all it is the most religiously significant place in Jewish religion - it is only natural that some would come and choose to make a life here. That does not change the fact that Jewish communities across the middle east faced (and still face) significant persecution.

I can give you countless examples of pogroms the Jews in the middle east faced before the state of Israel even existed, the Farhud pogrom in Iraq in 1941, the massacre of Jews in Constantine in 1934, the Hebron and Safed Massacres of 1929 in which 2000 year old Jewish communities were wiped out and there are many many many more. There were also and in some cases still are unjust laws, real apartheid laws, that exist persecuting against Jews and Christians. In Iraq you had laws that denied Jews the right to a bank account, or to work in many professions, including government positions, you had laws in Algeria that denied the Jews citizenship and laws in Libya that effectively denied Jews citizenship. And again - this is only the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the type of persecution Jews faced and still face today across the Middle East.

As far as you calling Israel an Apartheid state, plenty of Israeli Arabs would disagree with you. I have provided some links to a few of them[1][2][3]. The majority of Israeli Arabs are proud to be Israeli [4] and of Israel’s achievements. Does Israel have some racism? For sure - so does the US, the UK, France etc.. - that does not make it an apartheid state. Arab Israelis make up 20% of the states population and they have the same right as anyone else in the country and that is best demonstrated by the fact that the third largest political party is in fact an Israeli Arab party.

As for the Palestinians in the Westbank and Gaza - I truly hope to see them form a successful state beside Israel where they can enjoy those same democratic rights (the rights Mahmoud Abbas has denied them since 2006 when he last allowed an election). We were extremely close to achieving this in the past and I hope we achieve it in the future.

Now you never actually even tried to counter my argument about the persecution and real apartheid like laws christians face in the rest of the Middle East. Are you denying that 100s of Copts christians have been murdered in Egypt in the past 10 years? or the laws in Saudi Arabia that deny Christians the right to practice in public? Or that you can be put to death in Iran for converting from Islam to Christianity or the fact that Turkey just turned two historic Byzetine churches into mosques?

Now regardless of the above argument - and since you raised the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (I did not - I spoke about the persecution of minorities in the Middle East and how it has effected the demographic balance). The only way we will get to a solution to this conflict is when we all start acknowledging each others suffering and start talking about the other sides suffering as well. I as an Israeli am willing to do that and I also will continue to fight any racism I see here in Israel (both by how I vote and by how I act). But this conversation has to be based on facts, those facts do not ignore the other sides suffering. It's a complicated conflict and there is no easy solution, but hopefully, through dialogue we can celebrate small baby steps in the right direction. However, I will not stand by when you or any other try to deny the suffering of any side and the persecution of minorities (doesn't matter if they are Jewish, Muslim, Christian[5], Bahai, Druze etc..) in the Middle East.

[1] - Yoseph Haddad - https://www.facebook.com/YosHaddad

[2] - Israeli Ambassador George Deek - https://twitter.com/GeorgeDeek

[3] - Mohammad Kabiya - https://twitter.com/mohammadkabiya as just some of the examples.

[4] - https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/both-jews-and-arabs-say-...

[5] UN watch on the decline of Christians in Iraq and Syria - https://youtu.be/kbJ2su1rwAs

Re: Why is the Gaza Strip blurry on Google Maps?

#680

Post by runarberg »

doublepg23 wrote: post #675
runarberg wrote: post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, I travelled in Cuba in 2007 and I was completely unaware of this. I was aware of the double economy and how there are some buses that the locals don’t use and vis-versa (same is true in my country; in both cases it is more about price and convenience then access). But hotels for locals only completely missed my attention.

Any info on how you setup your Cuba trip?

I simply flew there from Spain
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