A new proposal. Opening up a debate

[Hanial83]

Assalumo Allykom everyone,

It is always my pleasure to share with you every single interesting activity in my school:) . The only thing I am asking you is to forgive me for not being active enough in your forum since my time is not always serving me well:D . Having participated in some debates about the Crisis of the Middle East, and the ongoing war between what is called the “Zionist Entity” :mad: :mad: and the People of Palestine and Lebanon, it came up to my mind the importance of opening up this debate with you in this forum. I really want to know if we are enough far in the way of our thinking from the western societies. Throughout the debates I have observed, the only thing that made me feel more interested in attending these debates; even though whatever they say is totally go against what I believe in, is the critical and analytical thoughts they have been applying for any matters. Simply, they like to argue and cannot give up easily. They are so attentive in their argument. :eek:

Anyway, I believe it is a good initiative to start building up ourselves as young people to serve our countries properly. The debate is going to motivate your critical and analytical thinking. Thus, come up with any interesting topic that is good to argue about.
I am enthusiastically asking the director of this forum to give us his perception about this initiative and if he does have any advanced proposal about it, I encourage him to feel free to bring it up.

So brother and sisters, lets beat them down and teach them the true debate and it fine aims.
Waiting for your reply about this proposal, and in the mean time take care of yourself and stay cool!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:) :)
WA assalumo allykom

[Big brotheR]

Good idea Hanial. Hmmm i always wanted this place to be for learning English and most importantly NO POLITICS. But now i see it is a must that i make room for such debates which i hope will improve our English and widen up our scopes!!


Where shall we start from, Hanial?

[Johnderondon]

I think this new section is a very good idea because

1. It will, as you have indicated, help to sharpen language and thought

and

2. I have argued before that the Palestinian cause is poorly represented in the Western Media. Well, this forum may not be prime-time TV but it is still accessible to english speaking Westerners and that will be more people who have heard what Palestinians have to say.

Where shall we start from, Hanial?

May I suggest a good start would be to set some rules and remind everyone how to debate properly.

I think one of the best pieces of advice I`ve heard about criticising what someone else has written is that one should look first, not at what is wrong with the post but how it could look right to the author. Only when one understands the perspective of the author, and what he really means, should we proceed to analyse the faults.

As for rules, may I suggest that they be rather lenient? I feel that only personal attacks, foul language and obvious `trolling` or should be subjected to moderator action. Free speech is at the heart of honest debate and even objectionable viewpoints are better aired and criticised than locked away and ignored.

But mostly I hope members remember that this forum is primarily for advancing english language skills - so if we disagree over politics here I hope we can still have fun in the other sections together.

[Hanial83]

Hello everybody,:) :)

It pleased me to go over through your replies about my proposal. I have gone through what you two have said in your replies and what is really concerned that the aim of this forum is to improve the non-native speakers’ skills in English. I am totally agreeing with what you are brining up, and I give my full support to your concern. But let me tell you that, the more the members have the opportunity to talk about such huge topics (politics), the more they will be getting much better in their spoken skills. By the way, it is not going to be about politics all the time. I am thinking of outlining other interesting matters. So, don’t worry about it. We will be debating about social life, economical situations, Islam in the western societies, and education in our countries. I believe each one will be having fun with us in this nice collection of various topics.:D :D

Once more, you are most welcome to come up with any further advanced suggestion.

We all are going to be lenient, respectful, and supportive to each other.

see you soon, Salammmmm Hani

[Hanial83]

“Bush blamed Syria and Iran for fomenting trouble by supporting Hezbollah.
“Syria and Iran sponsor and promote Hezbollah activities all aimed at creating chaos, all aimed at using terror to stop the advance of democracies," the president said.”

Early last week Bush had his weekly Whitehouse press briefing. It happened that the entire journalist rained him by many tough questions concerning Israeli sever reprisal against Lebanon.

The Israeli barrage came right after a day of the Hezbollah military activities near the borders area. It has been 3 weeks in a row since the beginning of the ongoing war against Lebanon. 4 sever atrocities have been committed against the people of Lebanon, some 800 people; mostly children have been killed by the Israeli bombardment of the Lebanese southern suburbs, and literally, the infrastructure is completely down.

Lebanon and its people are under attack. Its civilians people are under the fire of the Israeli warplanes. Everybody; as I do too believes that Lebanon and Palestine have been experiencing the same dilemma.

The very first quotations are reflecting the stand of the western world toward the case of Palestine and Lebanon.

What is your stand toward these grave situations

[Johnderondon]

The very first quotations are reflecting the stand of the western world toward the case of Palestine and Lebanon.


Absolutely not, Hanial.

Mr. Bush`s quote reflects the stand of the current US Government ( which is, admittedly, a large and important part of the `Western world`) but it does not represent the entire West, or even all of America, and certainly not me.

One only has to look at the many demonstrations that have been held in the West protesting against Israeli aggression.

To make clear my own position towards Israel and its neighbours I would first stress that I am wholeheartedly opposed to any acts of violence towards non-combatants of whichever side.

I think, considering the last 50 years of war and death, that the creation of the State of Israel can be seen as a very bad idea however it exists and any solution that calls for the destruction of Israel is both impracticable and a path that will lead, successful or not, to untold suffering for millions.

I consider myself a pragmatist on this issue and support what I perceive as the `greater good` rather than `absolute justice`.

Having read some of the thoughts of Mr. Marwan Barghouti I find little to criticise. I feel his attitude to settlers overly simplistic but otherwise I agree with his points.

http://www.mediamonitors.net/fletcher3.html

The current crisis in Lebanon has, I believe, more to do with Mr. Olmert trying to show his electorate that he is a tough man and worthy successor to Sharon than with any clear policy (or even thought). It seems to me that Israel has got itself into a terrible situation in Lebanon. It began its campaign with the stated aims of rescuing its soldiers. When it became clear that they were unable to do that the rationale for the war changed to `destroying Hizbollah`. Now that it has dawned on Olmert that he can`t do that either the message changes again and now the war is about creating a `buffer zone`.

Olmert is in trouble in Lebanon. He needs to be able to declare victory to the Israeli people in order to justify his war but it is far from clear what sort of victory he can claim. Hizbollah are largely undamaged, the Israeli soldiers still imprisoned and the IDF reduced to attacking Lebanese infrastructure in an attempt to show that they are at least doing something.

Meanwhile the Lebanese death toll approaches one thousand and the country demolished. Similar destruction is continuing in Gaza (although in the West it has been eclipsed by Lebanon in the newspapers), Israel will fail in its objectives and instability in the region will be guaranteed for another generation.

Call me a cynic but I suspect that there are people on both sides of the border who benefit from this tragic situation.

Sad, sad, sad.:(

[Hanial83]

Probably I should have been more accurate when I presented the issue. I did not mean that the entire western communities are biased in their perception of what is happening in the Middle East, but you can tell that the bulk of the westerners are!!!!!! I am not blaming any of them, but feeling sad because they cannot help in that. I did mentioned in one of my threads that (westerners minorities barely can be heard in public) I read some their writing and felt their pain fully. It is hard for them to get their voices to reach the other people. If you noticed, I specified that big media sources like CNN, FOX NEWS, NBC TV, SKY TV, and sometimes BBC are the problem of the western media.:D

Once more, not all the westerners are bad. I believe there are many who can do lots of things, but they need more active positions. We need to hear their voices.;)

Hopefully, I am not offending you. Salam:)

[Johnderondon]

Hopefully, I am not offending you. Salam:)

Never fear, Hanial. I doubt very much if you would ever offend me. I am quite thick-skinned for one thing and I am used to Western forums which are usually very confrontational and often vulgar.

And secondly, in debate, we are testing ideas and thoughts. Please feel free to attack any ideas I propose however you see fit. If the thought is a good one, it will stand on its own merit. If it is a flawed idea then I am better off rid of it and will stand indebted to you. I will defend my thoughts, of course, and I hope you will take this in the same spirit when we find something that we disagree on.



Once more, not all the westerners are bad. I believe there are many who can do lots of things, but they need more active positions. We need to hear their voices.;)

There may be more voices than you think. But you are correct - you will not hear them much on CNN or BBC and not at all on Fox! As I have said, elsewhere, the pro-Israeli lobby is extremely skilled at spreading its propaganda and, where it leads, many other media sources follow.

I would like to ask the members here a question. What sources do you get your news from? And how much confidence do you have it those sources?

I use:

The Independent newspaper ( reliable news but a day behind everybody else, tries hard to maintain a neutral balance in reporting, editorial policy is largely pro-Palestinian) 8/10

BBC TV news ( reliable news, tries to maintain a neutral balance but errs on the side of being pro-Israeli, editorial policy varies) 6/10

Al-Jazeera English .net (reliable news, tries to maintain a neutral balance but errs on the side of being pro-Arab) 7/10

I also use:

http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml

http://informationclearinghouse.info/index.html

[Johnderondon]

Further to our discussion of media bias I came across this piece by Robert Fisk

"...The BBC is back to its old craven self, referring in a report from Israel to the tiny sliver of Lebanese territory taken at great cost by Israeli troops as Israel`s "security zone" - Israel`s own proposterous title for what must be the most insecure piece of land on earth.

It is, of course, an "occupation zone" but not, it seems, if it is occupied by the Israelis. Had Hizbollah seized Israeli territory - they did after all provoke this savage conflict with their own reckless crossing of the border - would the BBC be calling it Hizbollah`s "security zone" in Northern Israel? Would they hell."

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article14519.htm

In another article he notes the BBC`s use of the term "British-born Muslims" as a form of `soft` racism. He points out, correctly, that the term should be "British Muslims" or "muslim Britons".

To some observers, these may seem as trivial points compared to the real-life tradegies that are being prosecuted every day.

But in the West these words are tiny, low grade weapons that are being used continually to undermine the Palestinian (and Lebanese) cause.

Stolen land becomes `disputed territory`

Limbs and blood, death and grief become sanitised as `collateral damage`.

:mad:

I`d still like to hear what media sources the members here use a lot.

[Big brotheR]

still, bbc is much better than cnn. or as my friend likes to put it, cnn is worse than bbc.


I watch aljazeera. I read the1- guardian, 2- bbc, 3- haartz,4- ynetnews, 5- islamonline.net 6. cnn

[Shakespeare]

right