Friday, September 9, 2011

One Muslim's Perspective: What Utahns don't know about Palestine

This is the third installment in The Culturalist's 2011 Series on Islam. 

Ever have one of those days when your own ignorance hits you in the face? That was me a few weeks ago. I realized that all the information ever presented to me on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been markedly myopic. Why is it that I'd  never heard the Palestinian side of the story, not once?

Rose Shultz
I finally found an excellent primary source who let me interview her this week. Rose Shultz is a Utahn, and a convert to Islam. She worked for Salt Lake City Police Department for 16 years, and recognized after 9/11/2001 that the police here were profiling Arabs. This led to her great quest for knowledge, which has included three University of Utah Bachelor's degrees (Political Science, International Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies), and several trips to Palestine. She is currently working on a doctoral dissertation.

Before answering my interview questions, Rose gave
a little background.

Rose on the availability of information about Palestine:
Very little in American (especially Utah) academics reflects the truth about the Palestinian issue. So I studied the region intensely for nearly a year collectively. I lived with Palestinian families and pro-Palestine Israeli Jews, so in essence I could walk the walk so-to-speak. I certainly have many personal perceptions on the issue; however, there is a plethora of factual information available also in the region. The problem is that since 1951 (when John Dewey facilitated the USA government taking control of the school systems throughout the nation) none of the factual resources about Palestine have been allowed into academia. Then Israel makes it very difficult and risky (as well as torturous) to get into the occupied territories. So Palestine was the world's best kept secret (championed by American Zionists) until the inception of the internet.
Q: What should Utahns know about what's basically happening in Palestine?
A: What Utahns should know about Palestine, what they do know, and the information they will be fed from most Utah officials, are entirely different. The basis they are taught is all wrong. First, the Israeli Zionist Jews are not the Jews of the Bible or any other Holy Book, the real Jews [the ones who were native to the region] are against Zionist Israel. And in America some of the biggest supporters of Palestinians are Jewish. Israel was produced out of nationalism, not religion.
One of my dear friends, Hedi Epstein, is an 87 yr. old Holocaust survivor, and she was right there with us going in tunnels to get into Gaza, and dodging Israeli bullets. She will tell you that Israel exploits the Jewish faith, and is a mercenary, blood thirsty empire.
Israelis are not Semitic, the Palestinians (Muslim, Christian and Jewish) are the Semitic people of the land. "Anti-Semitic" is a Zionist propaganda tool. The definition of Semitic is people who derive their language from ancient Aramaic; the only 2 languages are Arabic and ancient Hebrew, and are indigenous to the land. The Zionists took the hyphen out of Hebrew and changed the language to adapt to a military entity. They also wrote the Talmud and propagate it as a Holy book. Only the Palestinian Jews are the Jews from the land, the rest of the Israelis are from Europe and the USA. And many of them are converts to Judaism. One cannot claim an ancient land when they converted to the nationality. The people of Palestine are the same indigenous people that have lived in Palestine for over 10,000 years.



When USA President Truman declared that Palestine was a land without a people for a people without a land in 1948, it was a lie. It was also the most significant statement made in American history, that has effected this country in such a negative way, we could see our demise because of it. Palestinian Muslims and Jews lived peacefully together for thousands of years (long before Islam was named Islam, Muslims have been around for tens of thousands of years). After the Christian crusades (better known around the world as slaughters) in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when Sultan Saladin freed the Palestinians from crusader occupation, some Christians remained,and some Palestinians became Christians. They were allowed to stay in Palestine if they agreed to lay down their arms. And that is how Christians got there. They have lived as brothers and sisters ever since.
When people say the Israel/Palestine conflict has been going on for a long time, that statement is false. The conflict is only as old as the Zionist invasion beginning in 1937. Relative to the ancient history of the land, the conflict is a blink of an eye. Americans should know that when the Zionists took over Palestine it was by force and slaughter. In the first year the Zionists had destroyed more than 437 Palestinian villages and cities which were thriving and progressive. And the Israelis have continued the slaughters even until today. There are not 2 sides to the conflict, only one, the Palestinians have never been given a voice (more than 63 years) until now. There isn't a place in the land seized and named Israel that isn't covering piles of Palestinian bodies. More than 37,000 children, women and elderly. The photos that are finally being released in Istanbul are more horrendous than you could imagine....much worse than those of the Holocaust.
Turkey signed a secret treaty with the USA and Britain agreeing to seal all Palestinian records, then Turkey would not be occupied. Now Prime Minister Erdogan is standing up for the Palestinians and releasing all of the records. There are also very interesting records in Turkey that explain the lobby efforts from the LDS church in taking over Palestine. Zionist Israel was created at the same time, by the same people as the LDS church. Zionist Israel is synonymous with Zionist Utah, and there are facts that the officials of Utah/LDS church will not be able to whitewash forever.
Q: Some Utahns believe that Israelis have made more than their share of peace efforts, and that the conflict only drags on because of Palestinian stubbornness. What would you say to someone who thinks that?
A: I get annoyed when people say that Israel has made any concession for peace, because they have made none (except the brave non-Zionist Jews that come into the occupied territories to stand with the Palestinians). Israel has never wanted peace and they will never allow it. The Israeli flag was designed with a specific purpose. The star of David in the center, meaning the country of Israel, from the top blue stripe which symbolizes the Mediterranean Sea, to the bottom blue stripe, symbolizing the Euphrates River. If you ask any Zionist in Israel they will tell you that. That is why Israel ordered the USA into Iraq (verified by Tony Blair interview for the Telegraph UK).
It is difficult to explain how nefarious the Israel Zionists really are. I have lived there and it still seems surreal that they are getting away with the horrific things they do. I can give you pages and pages of incidents that happened just during the time I was there. The illegal Israeli settlements are taking over Palestinian homes that are thousands of years old. Separating neighbors with huge apartheid walls (the Israeli apartheid wall is 11 times longer than the Berlin wall, and 3 times higher in some places). The original Palestine/Israel partition from the United Nations made it very clear that all Palestinians living in any part of the land would be allowed to remain and live in peace....therefore Israel has been illegal as long as it has been implanted. Israel refuses to allow refugees to return (another violation of International law) to their homeland, and those they occupy are restricted and tortured. Israel will not stop unless they take over all of the land that they covet.

Foreigners that get into occupied Palestine; like I have, are never in danger from the Palestinians; however, we are always in danger from the Israelis. I have asked the soldiers before how they can just shoot children and deny basic rights to people? They say Because we do what we want, and the USA will pay for it. I have heard Israelis say more than 100 times "Americans are so stupid, we can make them believe anything." Sadly, for the most part that is true.
I held a 3 year old girl while a doctor sewed her toes back on (Israeli soldiers plant land mines in Palestinian play grounds) with no anesthetic, because Israel restricts humanitarian supplies, they want the Palestinians to die. I was 10 feet away from a Palestinian women at a checkpoint, she was pregnant and asked if she could go ahead because it was very hot. The Israeli soldier shot her in the baby, killing both of them. They then seized all of our cameras. I still got a picture of them in the morgue with a second of 5 cameras I got into the territories. The pictures I got home to America I got here vaginally. You don't think imagery security at airports is really for security do you? The corrupt USA congress (92% of all USA Senators and Representatives are lobbied by Zionists, bought off to support Israel) allocates billions to Israel to manufacture all of our airport security equipment, then we buy it from them at top dollar! And the airport police will not hesitate to seize any ones pictures from Israel.
Q: I read on Wikipedia that some say Zionism is a racist ideology, or that Israeli settlement was more like colonization than simple immigration. What's your take on that?
A: Think of it this way....say Zionists from all over the world decided they wanted Utah. So they made wealthy investments (Lehman Bros., Goldman Sachs, AIG are all Israeli Zionist organizations) and poured money into propaganda saying that history gave them Utah, so the Utahns had no right to it. Then they lobbied some modern day Christians that could create an empire out of fear...like....convincing their followers that this was the last days and Jesus was coming, or rapture, things like that, for quick wealth. They produced 2 huge terrorist/mercenary organizations underground; Haganah and the Stein Gang (later to become the Zionist military and president), then convinced everyone else in the world that Utah actually had no one living in it.
Then one dark night the Zionists invaded Utah from all directions. They swept into homes and started fires, causing the Utah people to flee. The children who rode on their fathers or brothers shoulders, or in their mothers arms had a 40% chance of surviving if they could make it to the next county. Children who were on foot were shot in their tracks, and thousands of parents had to choose which child would be easier to save and leave the others behind. No one in the world knew what was happening in Utah. The Zionists finally allowed Utah survivors to gather in.... let's say Sanpete county, and they took over everything else in the state. It didn't take long for the Zionists to fund bulldozers and heavy equipment to flatten what was once Utah cities, burying the dead under the new foundations. The Zionists contained the Utah survivors in Sampete behind high walls and electric fences, and cut off all communications.
Over the next 5 months over 100,000 Zionists from all over the world came to live in Utah. Then 8 months later after the world applauded the "new Utah, land of Zionists" more mercenaries went into Sanpete county in the late night, under a new moon. They raped 2000 women and children (becasue the new holy book they wrote allowed sex with girls as long as they were over 6) and beheaded every boy/man between the ages of 12-26. The Utah survivors were never allowed to go back to their home counties, and they wouldn't know for over 25 years if anyone had survived from their families that didn't make it to Sanpete. When the world found out about the Utah Sanpetes, the Zionists had enough wealth to convince then that the Sanpetes were terrorists and interlopers, so the world would hate them. 20 years later the Zionists decided they wanted Sampete too. So they blew up a USA army base in Idaho, then blamed it on the Sanpetes, and the world bought it. That allowed the Zionists to take over more than half of Sanpete (because really they wanted the whole state of Utah) in what they convinced people was the 6-day war...only they never mentioned that the Sanpetes were not armed. That condensed the total indigenous Utah population into half of one country. But that wasn't enough either, the Zionists wanted the rest of Sanpete, so they started building settlements all over Utahn Sanpete, to split the people up like swiss cheese. This is Palestine..only the Palestinians do not have a nation to turn to, and the Israelis have convinced the world that the Palestinians are terrorists so they cannot immigrate anywhere. They have been deprived of their identity.

The ambush that actually occurred, you might be familiar with, was the USS Liberty. During the 6 day war in June 1967 some people in Europe had discovered the Palestinian situation and began to campaign against Israel, so Israel decided to steal more Palestinian land (they also took the Golan Heights from Syria, the West Bank from Jordan, Gaza from Egypt, and occupied Southern Lebanon). The USS Liberty was a highly decorated naval vessel, carrying 200 USA navy man. They were stationed in the Mediterranean off of Algeria. Israel flew over them and bombed the deck, killing several sailors and taking out the communications tower. But the other sailors were able to rig another communications apparatus and call out for help. They clearly stated on air that Israel had bombed them from the air. There was a huge American flag flying on the ship. The fifth fleet stationed in the Persian Gulf suited up to respond to the call for help. Pres. Lindon Johnson ordered them to stand down and let the ship go to the bottom. Then the Israelis torpedoed the USS Liberty from their submarine, blowing a huge hole in it and killing more USA sailors. Luckily a Russian ship happened on the scene and scared off the Israelis, then towed the ship to safety. Israel attacked the USS Liberty to blame it on the Egyptians, so the USA would send troops and they could justify the 6 day war. The surviving crew from the Liberty was put under gag order by the Johnson administration, with threats to their families if they talked. Since the Freedom of Information Act 2005, now the crew is speaking out.

The Zionists (Israeli Jews and Christian Zionist supporters) are very much racist. They are from white Europe, and white Christian America. Some pictures of the Christian Jesus makes him look European. He was from Palestine--Bethlehem is Arab/Turkish: brown skin! The people from the first century were very brown. Jesus, born of Mary (Muslims also love Jesus, he is a Prophet to us, and Mary a single mother because God loves the strength of women) resembled a Bedouin Arab not an English ballet dancer! When you visit the West Bank or Gaza, and then Israel, it is like night and day literally. That is also why Israelis so often get skin cancer and rashes, and Palestinians don't. That region was designed for dark skinned inhabitants. The Israelis do recruit Ethiopians for the IDF (I call it IOF) to work on the borders. But they deport them as soon as they finish their time.
Zionism is more than an ideology, it is intense nationalism that thrives on wealth (USA tax dollars), power and hate. It is a military complex. The settlements are more than just colonizers too. They are mean, hateful, horrible people. They have Israeli/American protection to build these giant resort type mini cities that only the Jews can go to. They all have swimming pools while the regions is loosing water resources from settlers squandering it. The Israelis have illegally tapped all of the Palestinian aqueducts, and they pollute the natural springs than run in ancient Nablus. Palestinian Jews and Muslims have lived together in Nablus for more than 6 thousand years. I picked olives from trees that were there thousands of years before Jesus. The settlements are not only illegal under international law (the same international body that declared the state of Israel), but they are for white Jews only (also against international law) and they are destroying the land.
Q: I've read that Waqf (the belief that the land was a gift from deity to all Muslims until the resurrection) is the reason Muslim Palestinians feel so strongly about their right to live in the Holy Land without sharing it. What's your interpretation of that doctrine?
A: A distinct problem Americans have with their view of Islam is the failure to separate culture from religion. But it is also why Americans convert to Islam, because we can see it and feel it without cultural baggage. The best example of a democratic Islamic country is Indonesia, it is also the largest Muslim population in the world. Arab countries only constitute about 27% of the Muslims in the world. Anyway the only book we believe is the Holy Book/word of God is the Qur'an. That is the only book I go by. Arabs consider the Hadiths to be Holy books, when in fact they were written by men and are supposed to be advice only. But since many Hadith scholars are Arab, the Arabs like to incorporate them into the religion. The Qur'an describes a simple guide for life from God, the most gracious and most merciful. It contains everything anyone needs to know.
Waqf يوقف is just Arabic for hold/held, and the word changes depending on the sentence it is in. It is not Islam to say any place is for Muslims only. On the contrary, we believe that all places in the world are for God (hence why Muslims are so respectful of the land, and always kill animals for food mercifully-halal). Islam cannot be compelled or proselytized, and it works as a democracy when culture can be avoided. Islam welcomes all people from all races and faiths. Israel demands that the Holy Land is theirs, they say "God gave it to me", Palestinians say the land is from God to share with the world.
The issues surrounding Holy sites are political. First, if you go by the Bible, and ruins still visible, the temple of Salomon is actually on the southeast of the Dead Sea, modern Jordan, with all of the other Roman ruins. When Pompey marched into ancient (Jewish) Jerusalem, with his army, to take the temple, he stopped on the east side of the Dead Sea for logistics just prior to entering the temple mount. And no one questions the distance to Masada walked by the Jewish Zealots, in relation to the temple. But Israeli propaganda has made claim to the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque only because they want it. Non-Zionist Jews will tell of the actual location of the ruins; however, the Zionists have the last days believing Christians (especially the evangelicals) attacking the Muslim Holy site as well.
Israel has moved the Garden of Gethsemane three times now, each time to relocate for more lucrative tourist revenue. Israel fabricates most things, just like they are now saying they found the place the criminals hung on crosses (so without admitting the death of Jesus they can still collect Christian money). The fact is that site is an ancient Palestinian village that was there long before the time of Jesus, and wasn't altered until the Zionists invaded it in 1947, then bulldozed it. I went there myself and dug around the area. It doesn't take much digging to find Palestinian terrace landscaping and broken Palestinian pottery. Not to mention the 3000 yr. old olive tree orchard that was planted by Palestinians. No hill with crosses.

The reason that non-Muslims are not allowed to go into the Dome of the Rock or Al Aqsa is because in 2000, Israeli Commander, then PM Sharon took Israeli soldiers in the mosque and vandalized it, setting off the second intifada. Israeli settlers and soldiers have opened fire on Palestinians praying in the Mosque and Dome as well. Before that happened anyone could go to the site. But it doesn't mean that Islam had anything to do with it. That is why I vehemently reject Saudi Arabia. I despise the Saudi family and consider them to be occupiers of my Holy Cities of Meccah and Medina, even more so than the Israelis occupy Palestine and Jerusalem. At least the Israelis are nationalist Zionists on their face and word. The Saudi family claims to be Muslim and that gives Americans a distorted idea of Islam. Saudi's are the worst example of Muslims, and Islam rejects kingdoms without exception. Also the Saudi's won't allow non-Muslims into Meccah, that is not Islam.
Q: In your opinion, what would be the ideal resolution to the conflict?
A: The only solution is for Israel/Palestine to be one state with equal rights and representation for everyone. They cannot be a Jewish state, that is just not possible. And it is shameful for Americans to condone the "Jewish state" idea. The world doesn't like double standard, so if the USA accepted Israel as a Jewish state...while out of the same mouth condemns the Islamic Republic of Iran (a Theocracy is a Theocracy no matter what religion it represents) it will further isolate us away from the world. The USA is already condemned world wide for our complacency towards Israeli war crimes and human rights violations, and the massacres in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now with the Arab uprisings that are wonderful and historical, coupled with the loss of Israel's only Middle East ally--Turkey (who just expelled alliance with Israel formally 2 days ago) Israel is in big trouble. And if they are so arrogant to believe that the USA will incur any cost to save them; regardless of the fact that they brought this onto themselves, then they will go down, and take America with them. Congress will keep feeding them American money, and supply the Israeli military before the American military (a practice they began doing 45 years ago) but the American people are finally waking up to the reality of Israel's dirty and illegitimate history, and only take so much.

If Israel wants to survive it must open up the country. Tear down the walls and give access to the roads to everyone. They must give up the absurdity of a Jewish State (especially since the Jewish population is a tiny speck against the world's majorities, which is what should be represented) and allow all of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homeland, or be compensated. The Palestinians will surely outnumber the Israelis, and at that point they must also sustain equal rights for all. Israel must face its past and be accountable for the obscene practices it has ruled with. That is the only way. A 2-state solution will never work, and Abbas is just as corrupt as Mubarak was. Hamas should be recognized as a legitimate governing body in Gaza (they were democratically elected by the people) and removed from the stupid American Israeli hate list--also known as terror group list. Before Hamas was elected, Israelis were killing Gazans every day. Hamas restored order and principle to the Gazan community. Israel was so angry that Hamas won the election that they never even gave them a chance before implementing the outrageous and vile inhumane blockade.

Thank you, Rose--this is very enlightening.

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