May 16, 2024 • 29 mins
Joe Abbott, a Christian Palestinian living in Birmingham provides a new way to look at the fighting and Human abuses happening in Gaza and now in the West Bank. He also provides a historic background for what got us to this point, and offers his ideas for how we may be able to achieve stability in the region.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Welcome to Viewpoint Alabama, a showwhere we talk about the things going on
in and around our state and aroundour world. I'm your host this week,
John Mounts, and every week wetry to find a way to bring
you a new viewpoint. That's thename of the show, right Viewpoint Alabama
viewpoint or perspective on world events.And this week I'm bringing someone to you
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who, at first glance you mightthink you disagree with, but he might
change your mind on some things.Joseph Abbott is a Palestinian Christian. He
was born in Palestine, moved toAmerica when he was very young, and
he has grown up here in Americaand for the last thirty or forty years
right here in Birmingham, Alabama.And Joseph, welcome to Viewpoint. Thank
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you, John. I appreciate theinvite. Thank you. A lot of
people here Palestinian. They think,well, they're all Muslim, But Palestine
is it's a place, it's nota religion, correct, So just a
clarification on what Palestine is. Ifwe have to look at history, we
go back to nineteen forty eight,where the country of Palestine did exist.
There was something called Palestine. Itwasn't a full fledged government. It was
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actually controlled by the English and rightafter World War One, because that's how
far we go back World War one. Actually we can go back before that,
but let me start at World Warone where the League of Nations,
where of course we had the AccessPowers and the Allies right and the Allies
won over the Access Powers. Sowhen the Access Powers lost, Turkey aligned
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itself with the Access Powers. NowTurkey controlled the Middle East. They controlled
the Levant we consider greater Syria.Jordan didn't exist back then. Palestine was
part of Syria. Lebanon was partof Syria. Jordan was actually part of
Syria, and this was during theOttoman Empire, so before the English were
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giving the mandate after World War Oneto take over the area and sort of
bring democracy and bring him up tothe to I guess you're Bean standards,
and so they took control of thatarea and Syria became a French mandate.
Palestine comprised of present day Israel andJordan back then, and so it was
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all one area called Palestine, butit was actually part of southern Syria,
so it was all part of theSyria region as a whole. And so
when English took control of this area. They were supposed to create a Palestinian
country, and then somehow they wereinfluenced by our Jewish brethren in England and
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they started talking to him about forminga Jewish state in Palestine. Now,
in Palestine, which is present dayIsrael, we had a local Jewish community.
We had Palestinian Jews. They comprisedabout ten percent of the population,
and US Christians we comprised about tenpercent of the population. I know,
it goes back and forth. Theysay eight percent for Jews and ten percent
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for Christians, and then eighty percentwere Muslim. So our Muslim brothers and
sisters were eighty percent of the populationin the Palestine area region which is southern
Syria, and Christians comprised about tenpercent. That's US. And then we
had Palestinian Jews. We've always hadPalestinian Jews in Palestine. As we know,
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present day Israel is Palestine. Isit part of Israel? Is it
adjacent to Israel? Was it carvedout of Israel as we understand it,
Because as I understand Israel the waywe know the country, it was created
after World War Two? Was itnineteen forty eight that they created Israel?
And then Palestine is part of that, or Palestine is how does that work?
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In nineteen forty eight, the Englishactually got tired of governing the area
because it was they started arming oneside, they started arming the Jewish side,
and so the Jewish side wanted togo ahead and take over the whole
country, and they wanted to expectthe Palestidians. And so because they wanted
to create a Jewish homeland, andyou recall after what happened in Germany and
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Hitler and the European powers decided theywanted to funnel Jewish immigrants into a small
country but the size of New Jersey. So they funneled all these illegal immigrants
that weren't supposed to all come here. They were all supposed to come to
the US. England was supposed toopen its doors to Jewish refugees coming out
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of Germany. Instead they wanted thefunnel them here into Palestine. You're talking
from like Jewish people from Germany,Yes, from Poland, Francewish. See
there's Judaism is a religion, rightright, It just like Christianity is a
religion. Islam is a religion.There were European Jews that came up with
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an ideology called Zionism. I don'tknow if you've ever heard the terms of
m. Yeah. In fact,I will talk about that because Zionism is
brought up a lot, and Idon't think everyone fully understands it. So
maybe you can explain. I canexplain Zionism is because you hear it tossed
around almost as a pejorative, andI don't think anyone understands exactly what it
is, Okay, So let usaddress Zionism. So Zionism is a political
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movement. It's not even a religiousmovement. It was actually created by atheists,
Jewish atheists, and you know,some Jews out of Europe created Communism.
We know Marx right Angles were bothas capital yes, well they were
both of the Jewish faith, butthey were atheists. Their backgrounds were Jewish,
but they were professed atheists. Andsome of the Jewish atheists out of
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Europe concocted Zionism. It was actuallystarted by Christian Zionists in the early eighteen
hundreds, and the Christian Zionists inEngland, mostly Protestants, thought they had
a Jewish problem in Europe, thathey, what can we have all these
Jewish ghettos, poor Jewish Jewish ghettos, and they don't mix with a lot
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of people, and how can we, how can we, how can we
get rid of them? And thenalso from a theological perspective, look at
the Bible. In the Bible itsays when the people of Israel come back
to Israel, that means it's goingto be armageddon. So how can we
speed up armageddon and kill basically,get two birds with one stone is funnel
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the Jews out of Europe, sowe can get rid of them here into
the Holy Land. And this wayChrist will come back as in Revelation.
So here we have Christian Zionists fromEngland taking a divine right, which is
only God can stop the end ofthe world, right right, only God
can do it. So they said, well, why don't we help this
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alone? Hasten hasten, Yeah,And that's the beginning of Zionism. What
has happened is because a lot ofus don't really understand what's going on in
the Middle East. Right fully,we understand little bits and pieces of it.
Only when it comes to our attentionbecause of nine to eleven or something
happens, and then we go there'sa problem in the Middle East, and
now it's over here. And thenwe were very quick. I think in
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our society we are big on lookingat things like a one or a zero.
You're either you're with us or you'reagainst this kind of thing. And
so I say, where this country, We're a Christian nation and they're the
Muslims over there and they're the badpeople. And they kind of and they
kind of draw a line there andthey say, okay, well, where
where does Israel. Where do theJewish people of Israel fault? Well,
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okay, we're going to put themon the Christian side, and so where
the Muslims fault, Well, they'regoing to be on the on the bad
side. And you see what I'msaying there. They draw this distinction,
and that's I think the reason whythere's a lot of confusion as to why
where Palestine fits into all this,and especially where some of these organizations maybe
can speak to this, these organizationsthat have kind of sprung up, these
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terrorist organizations, they use Palestine astheir launching point to attack Israel. But
in doing so, there's a lotof collateral damage. You're actually not far
off. It is a one onzero and I'll give you just a small
analogy. So John, you livein a house, Yes, I do.
One day you're a Christian. Iam, okay, and I'm a
Christian too. So one day John, God talks to Joe and he says,
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you know what, Joe, John'shouse is actually your house. So
me, Joe, I come knockingon your door and I ask you,
Hey, by the way, Iknow you're Christian. You're a god fearing
man. I'm a god fearing man. God talked to me last night.
God said that your house is myhouse. And I said, but God
didn't tell me that. Right herewe are, This is exactly where we
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are. We as Christians, asPalestinian Christians, as Palestinian Muslims, lived
in homes for centuries. All ofa sudden we're told by the English they're
promising our homes to Jews from Europe, not even Jews from Palestine, because
they have their homes. Jews fromPalestine had their own homes and they were
neighbors. We're all neighbors, Muslims, Christians, Jews. We all live
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together in peace. Until something calledthe Balfour Declaration nineteen seventeen, where the
Foreign Secretary of England promised a Jewishorganization, a Zionist Jewish organization, not
a Jewish organization, a Zionist Jewishorganization. So it's a politically motivated,
politically charged organization that, hey,we're going to give you Palestine as your
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new homeland without consulting us, thePalestinians. So we lived in our homes.
All of a sudden, in nineteenseventeen, England, which doesn't own
Palestine as a caretaker, promised ourhomes to these Jewish refugees from Europe,
which is insane, right because againyou told me your home is your home.
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You wouldn't leave your home. Soour homes were promised by the English,
which had no right to promise ourhomes to another minority that they wanted
to get rid of. Interesting.So, in other words, what you
have as an illegal immigration situation justkind of flipped on its head, where
the government is importing these people into create a new country inside of a
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country, and that's what created thepresent day political When I say Israel,
I'm not talking about like tribes ofjude I'm not talking biblical Israel. I'm
talking about the Israel at such aswe know it today. On a map.
Yes, that is how we understandIsrael to be, and a lot
of people, I guess don't havethe historical background to understand exactly what went
into its creation. So nevertheless,here we are now because I wasn't alive
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when all that happened. You weren'talive when all that happened. Now we're
living here after all that's happened,and we're looking around going what do we
do? We have people living here, they're living, and it'd be great
if they can live amongst each other. Yet we're always fighting. What resolution
do you imagine would be workable forall these people? So I guess we
don't have enough time today. Butyou know there's been many resolutions put forward,
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right, many peace of chords putforward, sure, right, And
they always blame the Palestinians. Andthe reason they blame the Palestinians is because
there's something behind. There's some liesand deception that they're trying to put forward.
And I'll give you a perfect example. In nineteen forty eight, a
lot of our Jewish brethren are someare not all of them. Some are
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actually waking up lies in deception bytheir own Jewish government. It's a Zionus
Jewish, which is different from JudaicJudaism, the religious Judaism, which is
just like Christianity or Islam, it'sthe same thing. So in nineteen forty
eight there was a war in Juneright where the Israel calls it independence and
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the Palestinians called it the Nakba Nukmameans catastrophe. Why catastrophe because the Palestinians
were pushed out of their homes.So the deception was and is and still
is going on, is that innineteen forty eight, there was a city
called Haifa, which is a portcity, a major port city. In
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nineteen forty eight, the English ofcourse controlled it up until June where they
disengaged and in January they took acensus of Haifa and also Jaffa, which
is another major city. In Haifa, there were seventy five thousand Arabs in
January of nineteen forty eight January ofnineteen forty eight. By March, again,
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this is way before June of nineteenforty eight when the war started.
By March, seventy two thousand Arabswere pushed out of their homes, out
of Haifa and pushed to wear Lebanon, okay, across the border, because
it's literally fifteen twenty minutes in Haifa, you can be at the border in
Lebanon. So Jewish gangs were goingaround terrorizing Arab homes, Palstini in Arab
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homes. If you don't leave,we're going to kill your family. A
lot of more civilians, so theyjust left because of fear. Where you
know these are they're not armed,they're not arms because the other sides armed,
armed by the English. A lotof money coming into the Jewish side,
I'm sorry, the Zionus Jewish side, and they had armed gangs called
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they are Gone is one of thebig ones. And so they were going
around terrorizing Arab homes. If youdon't leave your home, we're going to
kill you. By March John ByMarch of nineteen forty eight, seventy two
thousand Arabs were forced out. Thecity was empty. There was a lot
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of illegal Jewish immigrants all throughout thestreets because they were landing on the beaches
illegal immigrants, and the English weretrying to push them off Aith. We
can't have any more illegal but theykept coming. They couldn't push them back,
so all of a sudden, theseJewish European immigrants were walking the streets,
and so the Zonus Jewish militias started, Okay, we got to force
these Arabs out of their homes andgive it to Jewish homes in Jaffa.
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And Jaffa had one hundred and twentythousand Arabs by March of nineteen forty eight,
one hundred and seventeen thousand that werepushed out. There's only about two
three thousand left that head. Sohere we have a situation where they were
pushed to love it on. Theones in Jaffa are the ones they were
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pushed them to Gaza and some ofthe other areas were pushed into the West
Bank. And we'll talk about thedifferences. So in nineteen forty eight,
by March, all of a sudden, this fledgling country called Lebanon because it
was established in nineteen forty six bythe French, is getting an influx of
all these Palestinian refugees. A poorcountry getting an influx of these Palestinian Arab
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refugees that were pushed out of theirhomes. And these people are not they're
not all the same religion, right, They're not necessarily all Muslim, Christian,
Muslims and Christians, but not Jewish. Not Jewish. The Jewish people
were allowed to stay, but ifyou were a Muslim or Christian, because
you were not Jewish, you werepushed out of your home into Lebanon.
Again, they're trying to create aJewish state, and so the Ethno states.
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So they were ethnically cleansing Haifa.They were ethnically cleansing Jaffa, which
is the largest, one of thelargest cities, and other small villages all
throughout and Jerusalem and other areas.So this was ethnic cleansing and right in
nineteen forty eight. This is aview point Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network.
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My name is John Mountain. I'mspeaking with Joseph Abbott. He is
a Palestinian Christian who lives here inBirmingham. And I'd like to actually walk
this back just a little bit becauseI want to make sure people understand who
you are, where we got youfrom. You are not we didn't just
we didn't just bring you in fromthe Middle East. You've lived here,
you're a Birmingham resident, You've livedhere for fifty years, yes, absolutely
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so. And you are a practicingChristian yes, absolutely, And so you
believe, like a lot of Christians, a lot of the same things that
Jesus Christ died for our sins onthe cross and all that kind of erss,
all that kind of stuff. SoI just want to make this distinction
because, like I said, veryquickly, people go, well, if
you're against if you're against the occupationby the Jewish people, then you must
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be a Muslim. So that's notthe case. You are a Christian,
but you have a problem with essentiallywhat's happening to the people who are living
in Gaza. To me, John, it's a right or wrong issue.
It's not really a Christian or aMuslim issue. It's a right or wrong
issue. And we go back tothe analogy of your house. Right,
your house is your house has nothingto do with religion. Right has nothing
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to do with that. Whether you'rea Christian or Muslim. If I come
and push you out of your houseagain, you own your house every legal
mean, by every legal means.You own your house generationally or you just
bought it, but still you ownit. Has nothing to do with your
religion. That's why it's really notabout Christianity and Islam or Judaism for that
matter, because there's an abuse ofJudaism with the political movement of Zionism.
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They abuse Judaism and misuse it.Same thing with Christian Zionists sort of look
at the Bible literally, and it'sokay for us to be pushed out of
our house as Christians are Muslims,because we're trying to make it usher in
armagain. I'm trying to rebuild theNew Temple right, I believe today as
part of revolution. So they're lookingto do that. Well, the situation
we're in right now in Israel andwhat's happening in Palestine. Hamas, there
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was an attack that happened, andmaybe you can speak to what happened who
was involved in First of all,I guess I assume you believe that it
was Hamas that carried out the attack. There's no question about that. That
was Hamas, that attack that happenedin October, Right, it was Hamas,
Right? And now who are whatis Hamas? Okay, let me
explain what Hamasa is. So inthe political spectrum, the Palestinian political spectrum,
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it's about twelve political parties, Hamasis one of the political parties.
As you can imagine twelve political parties. They're one another actually significant and large,
and they actually controlled and governed Gaza. And Hamas is sort of an
outgrowth of an Israeli strategy to divideand conquer. Back in the late eighties,
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the Israeli government was looking favorable towardssome Muslims, some of our Muslim
brother and they were saying, youknow what, why don't you go ahead
and start opposing the nationalists, thepolitical nationalists, the Palstamian nationalists. Once
you start opposing them, so theystarted supporting them in a roundabout way,
so eventually even letting in funding,letting in financial funding. Aido. So
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Hamas is a political party that usesIslam as part of its platform to garner
adherents. So, for example,like I think back to what happened in
nineteen I think it was seventy nine, where we basically created the Mujahadeen or
we fund mujia Hideen so that wecould basically start a proxy war with Russia
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without us being involved in it.So much the same way they created this
proxy part of the divide and conquer. And this is actually the old English.
The English Empire did this quite well, and the Israelis learned. The
Americans learned from it. Us Americans, we learned. We did that in
Afghanistan, we did that in Iraq, if you recall, and Syria too,
supported the Bajahdine in Syria as wellas Americans, and so this is
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akin to that. So the sowhat you're saying is what happened with that
attack that happened on October. Itwasn't the first time it happened. I
mean, they've been at war forfor quite a while, but that particular
attack, it was. It waspretty brutal, it was, and it
got a lot of attention. Solet me give you an analogy about that.
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And so, so let's say youhave somebody who lives in a fancy
house, right, a mansion.Gentleman lives there. He lives there with
his family, mansion. Every hasa business. Every morning, he has
breakfast with his family and then walksout and he has a gardener, you
know, probably a living gardener,right, And every morning he walks out
and he kicks the gardener, justkeeps walking and goes to his office.
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Next morning, same thing, nextmorning, same thing. One day,
the gardener walks into his house,kills his old family, and we're focused
on of course, murder is wrong. Killing is wrong. As a Christian,
I believe killing is wrong. Murderis wrong, but we don't focus
on the evil of that man andhis inhumanity of what he was doing.
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So the analogy is the Palestinians arein a prison. Gaza was a prison,
and somehow Hamas, which governed Gaza, decided to break out, and
some believe they went a little overboardbecause they did attack military installations, but
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some believes they either went overboard.And then obviously there are other elements besides
Hamas because when they opened the gate, when they crashed through that gate,
a lot of other people that camethrough that were not Hamas. They were
just regular citizens and there was achance for them to obviously see their homeland
because I understand they were breaking intotheir homeland, which is Palestine, so
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it's not like they don't belong oneither side of that fence. But they
were in a cage, and sothat was a repercussion. That was a
breakout from the prison oh Gaza.And of course we have a lot of
other people in the world who don'tmind stirring turmoil in the Middle East.
So that's why you have somebody likesay Iran, who says, you know
what, this is a great operation, because Iran's not particularly fond of Israel,
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and so if you're a friend,if you're an enemy of my enemy,
then you're my friend kind of thing. And so then Iran doesn't mind
helping Hamas in their war with Israel. So Iran, that's an interesting topic
that you bring in around, becausethat could be a whole show on its
own. I'll tell you why thisis really no longer about Hamas or Iran,
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even though they're participants, even thoughthey're players, even though they're active
participants in this. This is aboutethnic cleansing, This is about genocide.
This is about something that is clearlyun American humane, against our American values.
And so this ceased to be aboutHamas after October seventh, October eighth,
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October ninth, because let's say,if Hamas did a military action against
the Israelis, then Israelis obviously cando a military action against Hamas. They
don't have the right to kill civilians. We as Palestinians, are against killing
civilians against As a Christian, I'mpersonally against either side killing civilians. But
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this ceased to be about Hamas orIran. But this is now. We're
talking about in humanity. We're talkingabout something that is un American. We're
talking a violation of our American principles, of our tax dollars being wasted and
killing innocence. And years ago Iused to go on the radio and debate
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Jewish scientists from here from Birmingham.I think we were talking about briefly on
the other state. And one thingthey would never admit to John is that
we have innocent civilians on our side. Imagine that, Imagine that the other
side doesn't admit that we have innocentcivilians. We have to admit that they
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have because we want to do theright thing. We want to be honest
as a Christian, as a godfearingMuslim, would be honest that there is
an innocent civilian on the other side. Regardless if you're unarmed, you're an
innocent civilian. I don't care whatthey say or anybody says. So the
other side never admits that we haveinnocence. That's why you see that you're
seeing the genocide that we're seeing now, That's why you're seeing the revenge,
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vicious revenge enacted by this Israeli governmentagainst many, many innocents. We could
be conceivably, I mean, we'relike seven months into this. We're probably
up to fifty thousand dead in sevenmonths. Now when you look at the
Russian Ukrainian War, they didn't getto fifty thousand and seven months. Well
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do you think because one of thethings, and this could be misinformation,
this could be propaganda. But oneof the things that I have heard,
and that's the problem I've heard itis that the is that Israel claims that
a lot of the Palestinians are alot of the people with hamas. They
utilize civilians essentially as a shield,like they will hide weapons at a hospital,
or they will they will you know, put tunnels underneath a school or
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whatever, so that when the Israelisstrike, they're going to necessarily take out
civilians or they risk taking out civiliansin order to attack. Is that the
case, or is that again usedas propaganda? Not not necessarily true,
it's it's uh intellectually dishonest, it'spropaganda. So that means under every school
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as a hamas terrorist. That means, I mean, it's just it's just
intellectually dishonest, and we go backto that point. I was just making
that they don't consider any Palestinian aninnocent civilian. Just just just marinate on
that for a second. So thatmeans we have so all these little kids
being killed and bombed are the faultof Hamas, not the bomb from the
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Israeli jet coming in discriminately embombing ahousehold full of innocent children, men and
women. And even if they're afterone individual, you have no right to
take out a whole building under whatwhat American law do we allow that?
Well, what part of humanity,what part of Christianity, what part of
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Judaism allows that? The answer isnone or Islam none? Well, justice,
let me because we're running out oftime here, and I do want
to get to this because here inAlabama we have to live our lives.
But we do have a little bitof saying things because we have representatives in
Washington, DC who supposedly are upthere to represent us and also spend our
money on things. So we cantalk with our representative vi it Gary Palmer
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or Terry Sewell, whoever you representativemay be, and you can make your
voice heard. What do you thinkwhat what's your opinion as to what we
should be asking our representation in Washingtonto be doing about the situation in the
Middle East right now? A greatquestion, John, And we need to
look at our tax dollars, right, if you're fiscally responsible as an individual,
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right, or even politically right,if you belonged to one political party
or another and you want fiscal responsibility, don't you think we want to reign
in our foreign assistance and the billionsthat go to wars, they go to
intractable wars. Because we have schoolshere, the Birmingham Schools need a lot
of money to be schools, roads, help our veterans, homeless. We
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have so many needs in this countrythat I think directing that aid. They
just approved eighty six billion dollars togo out to I think twenty six to
Israel, maybe sixty some odd toUkraine, and maybe twelve to Taiwan.
And those are all and not Israel'sa rich country, Taiwan's a rich country,
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and Ukraine is actually is quite welloff. So we're sending eighty billion
dollars. But we have a lotof homeless here, We have schools here
that need money, we have infrastructurefalling bridges. And that's what I would
tell our politicians is think about this, think about our American values, think
about fiscal responsibility, think about whatyou do with our tax dollars and our
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tax dollars that go to genocide.It's just uncomfortable in so many ways.
It's so disturbing and disgusting. That'swhat I would say to our politicians.
And so, there is there aplace our listeners can go to find out
because we've covered a lot of ground, and I know we just scratched the
surface. Is there a place ourlisteners can go to find out more about
some of the things you're saying awebsite or something like that, because your
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viewpoint is not well is not wellrepresented out there. And again it's a
one and zero kind of thing,and people don't really understand the nuance of
where you're coming from with this thing, because I think you make a lot
of great points, but at thesame time they get lost sometimes in the
it's us or them mentality that alot of people have. There's a lot
of news sites that have sprung upbecause mainstream are the media of today,
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whether it's Fox News or CNN orMSNBC or the Washington Post or the New
York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, they have been taken over
by people that are just putting outpropaganda. Unfortunately, they're putting out misinformation
sort of leading to a lot ofmisconceptions, a lot of brain I call
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it brainwashing. We can call ityellow journalism, we can call it propaganda,
but we can call it. SoI don't fault a lot of Americans,
my fellow Americans that don't understand becausewhat they're being fed by mainstream media
is deception and lies. So thereare new media that are popping up.
I think I can think of onesomething called Breakthrough News as one website that
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I go to that gives that's prettyopen and honest in terms of what's going
on. And among other websites,but I can get back to you on
some websites, but there's a lotof There's something called the electronic Intafada,
which is pretty fair in terms ofalso into fada just means uprising basically,
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it's all it means. But soan uprising against the media. Electronic intafada
basically, that's a good source forwhat's going on that gets into the granular
in terms of what's going on aswell. Joseph Abbott, thank you so
much of your palacity and Christian livingin Birmingham for enlightening all of us on
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what's happening. And I think everybodyhopefully has a better understanding, even if
only cursory, and people should goout and do their own research. Joseph,
thank you for being my guest today. John. Thank you. You've
been listening to Viewpoint Alabama, apublic affairs program from the Alabama Radio Network.
The opinions expressed on Viewpoint Alabama arenot necessarily those of the staff,
management, or advertisers of this station.
Welcome to Viewpoint Alabama, a showwhere we talk about the things going on
in and around our state and aroundour world. I'm your host this week,
John Mounts, and every week wetry to find a way to bring
you a new viewpoint. That's thename of the show, right Viewpoint Alabama
viewpoint or perspective on world events.And this week I'm bringing someone to you
(00:24):
who, at first glance you mightthink you disagree with, but he might
change your mind on some things.Joseph Abbott is a Palestinian Christian. He
was born in Palestine, moved toAmerica when he was very young, and
he has grown up here in Americaand for the last thirty or forty years
right here in Birmingham, Alabama.And Joseph, welcome to Viewpoint. Thank
(00:45):
you, John. I appreciate theinvite. Thank you. A lot of
people here Palestinian. They think,well, they're all Muslim, But Palestine
is it's a place, it's nota religion, correct, So just a
clarification on what Palestine is. Ifwe have to look at history, we
go back to nineteen forty eight,where the country of Palestine did exist.
There was something called Palestine. Itwasn't a full fledged government. It was
(01:08):
actually controlled by the English and rightafter World War One, because that's how
far we go back World War one. Actually we can go back before that,
but let me start at World Warone where the League of Nations,
where of course we had the AccessPowers and the Allies right and the Allies
won over the Access Powers. Sowhen the Access Powers lost, Turkey aligned
(01:32):
itself with the Access Powers. NowTurkey controlled the Middle East. They controlled
the Levant we consider greater Syria.Jordan didn't exist back then. Palestine was
part of Syria. Lebanon was partof Syria. Jordan was actually part of
Syria, and this was during theOttoman Empire, so before the English were
(01:53):
giving the mandate after World War Oneto take over the area and sort of
bring democracy and bring him up tothe to I guess you're Bean standards,
and so they took control of thatarea and Syria became a French mandate.
Palestine comprised of present day Israel andJordan back then, and so it was
(02:14):
all one area called Palestine, butit was actually part of southern Syria,
so it was all part of theSyria region as a whole. And so
when English took control of this area. They were supposed to create a Palestinian
country, and then somehow they wereinfluenced by our Jewish brethren in England and
(02:35):
they started talking to him about forminga Jewish state in Palestine. Now,
in Palestine, which is present dayIsrael, we had a local Jewish community.
We had Palestinian Jews. They comprisedabout ten percent of the population,
and US Christians we comprised about tenpercent of the population. I know,
it goes back and forth. Theysay eight percent for Jews and ten percent
(02:57):
for Christians, and then eighty percentwere Muslim. So our Muslim brothers and
sisters were eighty percent of the populationin the Palestine area region which is southern
Syria, and Christians comprised about tenpercent. That's US. And then we
had Palestinian Jews. We've always hadPalestinian Jews in Palestine. As we know,
(03:19):
present day Israel is Palestine. Isit part of Israel? Is it
adjacent to Israel? Was it carvedout of Israel as we understand it,
Because as I understand Israel the waywe know the country, it was created
after World War Two? Was itnineteen forty eight that they created Israel?
And then Palestine is part of that, or Palestine is how does that work?
(03:44):
In nineteen forty eight, the Englishactually got tired of governing the area
because it was they started arming oneside, they started arming the Jewish side,
and so the Jewish side wanted togo ahead and take over the whole
country, and they wanted to expectthe Palestidians. And so because they wanted
to create a Jewish homeland, andyou recall after what happened in Germany and
(04:06):
Hitler and the European powers decided theywanted to funnel Jewish immigrants into a small
country but the size of New Jersey. So they funneled all these illegal immigrants
that weren't supposed to all come here. They were all supposed to come to
the US. England was supposed toopen its doors to Jewish refugees coming out
(04:26):
of Germany. Instead they wanted thefunnel them here into Palestine. You're talking
from like Jewish people from Germany,Yes, from Poland, Francewish. See
there's Judaism is a religion, rightright, It just like Christianity is a
religion. Islam is a religion.There were European Jews that came up with
(04:48):
an ideology called Zionism. I don'tknow if you've ever heard the terms of
m. Yeah. In fact,I will talk about that because Zionism is
brought up a lot, and Idon't think everyone fully understands it. So
maybe you can explain. I canexplain Zionism is because you hear it tossed
around almost as a pejorative, andI don't think anyone understands exactly what it
is, Okay, So let usaddress Zionism. So Zionism is a political
(05:11):
movement. It's not even a religiousmovement. It was actually created by atheists,
Jewish atheists, and you know,some Jews out of Europe created Communism.
We know Marx right Angles were bothas capital yes, well they were
both of the Jewish faith, butthey were atheists. Their backgrounds were Jewish,
but they were professed atheists. Andsome of the Jewish atheists out of
(05:32):
Europe concocted Zionism. It was actuallystarted by Christian Zionists in the early eighteen
hundreds, and the Christian Zionists inEngland, mostly Protestants, thought they had
a Jewish problem in Europe, thathey, what can we have all these
Jewish ghettos, poor Jewish Jewish ghettos, and they don't mix with a lot
(05:53):
of people, and how can we, how can we, how can we
get rid of them? And thenalso from a theological perspective, look at
the Bible. In the Bible itsays when the people of Israel come back
to Israel, that means it's goingto be armageddon. So how can we
speed up armageddon and kill basically,get two birds with one stone is funnel
(06:15):
the Jews out of Europe, sowe can get rid of them here into
the Holy Land. And this wayChrist will come back as in Revelation.
So here we have Christian Zionists fromEngland taking a divine right, which is
only God can stop the end ofthe world, right right, only God
can do it. So they said, well, why don't we help this
(06:36):
alone? Hasten hasten, Yeah,And that's the beginning of Zionism. What
has happened is because a lot ofus don't really understand what's going on in
the Middle East. Right fully,we understand little bits and pieces of it.
Only when it comes to our attentionbecause of nine to eleven or something
happens, and then we go there'sa problem in the Middle East, and
now it's over here. And thenwe were very quick. I think in
(06:58):
our society we are big on lookingat things like a one or a zero.
You're either you're with us or you'reagainst this kind of thing. And
so I say, where this country, We're a Christian nation and they're the
Muslims over there and they're the badpeople. And they kind of and they
kind of draw a line there andthey say, okay, well, where
where does Israel. Where do theJewish people of Israel fault? Well,
(07:18):
okay, we're going to put themon the Christian side, and so where
the Muslims fault, Well, they'regoing to be on the on the bad
side. And you see what I'msaying there. They draw this distinction,
and that's I think the reason whythere's a lot of confusion as to why
where Palestine fits into all this,and especially where some of these organizations maybe
can speak to this, these organizationsthat have kind of sprung up, these
(07:38):
terrorist organizations, they use Palestine astheir launching point to attack Israel. But
in doing so, there's a lotof collateral damage. You're actually not far
off. It is a one onzero and I'll give you just a small
analogy. So John, you livein a house, Yes, I do.
One day you're a Christian. Iam, okay, and I'm a
Christian too. So one day John, God talks to Joe and he says,
(08:03):
you know what, Joe, John'shouse is actually your house. So
me, Joe, I come knockingon your door and I ask you,
Hey, by the way, Iknow you're Christian. You're a god fearing
man. I'm a god fearing man. God talked to me last night.
God said that your house is myhouse. And I said, but God
didn't tell me that. Right herewe are, This is exactly where we
(08:24):
are. We as Christians, asPalestinian Christians, as Palestinian Muslims, lived
in homes for centuries. All ofa sudden we're told by the English they're
promising our homes to Jews from Europe, not even Jews from Palestine, because
they have their homes. Jews fromPalestine had their own homes and they were
neighbors. We're all neighbors, Muslims, Christians, Jews. We all live
(08:45):
together in peace. Until something calledthe Balfour Declaration nineteen seventeen, where the
Foreign Secretary of England promised a Jewishorganization, a Zionist Jewish organization, not
a Jewish organization, a Zionist Jewishorganization. So it's a politically motivated,
politically charged organization that, hey,we're going to give you Palestine as your
(09:07):
new homeland without consulting us, thePalestinians. So we lived in our homes.
All of a sudden, in nineteenseventeen, England, which doesn't own
Palestine as a caretaker, promised ourhomes to these Jewish refugees from Europe,
which is insane, right because againyou told me your home is your home.
(09:28):
You wouldn't leave your home. Soour homes were promised by the English,
which had no right to promise ourhomes to another minority that they wanted
to get rid of. Interesting.So, in other words, what you
have as an illegal immigration situation justkind of flipped on its head, where
the government is importing these people into create a new country inside of a
(09:50):
country, and that's what created thepresent day political When I say Israel,
I'm not talking about like tribes ofjude I'm not talking biblical Israel. I'm
talking about the Israel at such aswe know it today. On a map.
Yes, that is how we understandIsrael to be, and a lot
of people, I guess don't havethe historical background to understand exactly what went
into its creation. So nevertheless,here we are now because I wasn't alive
(10:15):
when all that happened. You weren'talive when all that happened. Now we're
living here after all that's happened,and we're looking around going what do we
do? We have people living here, they're living, and it'd be great
if they can live amongst each other. Yet we're always fighting. What resolution
do you imagine would be workable forall these people? So I guess we
don't have enough time today. Butyou know there's been many resolutions put forward,
(10:37):
right, many peace of chords putforward, sure, right, And
they always blame the Palestinians. Andthe reason they blame the Palestinians is because
there's something behind. There's some liesand deception that they're trying to put forward.
And I'll give you a perfect example. In nineteen forty eight, a
lot of our Jewish brethren are someare not all of them. Some are
(10:58):
actually waking up lies in deception bytheir own Jewish government. It's a Zionus
Jewish, which is different from JudaicJudaism, the religious Judaism, which is
just like Christianity or Islam, it'sthe same thing. So in nineteen forty
eight there was a war in Juneright where the Israel calls it independence and
(11:20):
the Palestinians called it the Nakba Nukmameans catastrophe. Why catastrophe because the Palestinians
were pushed out of their homes.So the deception was and is and still
is going on, is that innineteen forty eight, there was a city
called Haifa, which is a portcity, a major port city. In
(11:45):
nineteen forty eight, the English ofcourse controlled it up until June where they
disengaged and in January they took acensus of Haifa and also Jaffa, which
is another major city. In Haifa, there were seventy five thousand Arabs in
January of nineteen forty eight January ofnineteen forty eight. By March, again,
(12:09):
this is way before June of nineteenforty eight when the war started.
By March, seventy two thousand Arabswere pushed out of their homes, out
of Haifa and pushed to wear Lebanon, okay, across the border, because
it's literally fifteen twenty minutes in Haifa, you can be at the border in
Lebanon. So Jewish gangs were goingaround terrorizing Arab homes, Palstini in Arab
(12:35):
homes. If you don't leave,we're going to kill your family. A
lot of more civilians, so theyjust left because of fear. Where you
know these are they're not armed,they're not arms because the other sides armed,
armed by the English. A lotof money coming into the Jewish side,
I'm sorry, the Zionus Jewish side, and they had armed gangs called
(12:58):
they are Gone is one of thebig ones. And so they were going
around terrorizing Arab homes. If youdon't leave your home, we're going to
kill you. By March John ByMarch of nineteen forty eight, seventy two
thousand Arabs were forced out. Thecity was empty. There was a lot
(13:20):
of illegal Jewish immigrants all throughout thestreets because they were landing on the beaches
illegal immigrants, and the English weretrying to push them off Aith. We
can't have any more illegal but theykept coming. They couldn't push them back,
so all of a sudden, theseJewish European immigrants were walking the streets,
and so the Zonus Jewish militias started, Okay, we got to force
these Arabs out of their homes andgive it to Jewish homes in Jaffa.
(13:43):
And Jaffa had one hundred and twentythousand Arabs by March of nineteen forty eight,
one hundred and seventeen thousand that werepushed out. There's only about two
three thousand left that head. Sohere we have a situation where they were
pushed to love it on. Theones in Jaffa are the ones they were
(14:03):
pushed them to Gaza and some ofthe other areas were pushed into the West
Bank. And we'll talk about thedifferences. So in nineteen forty eight,
by March, all of a sudden, this fledgling country called Lebanon because it
was established in nineteen forty six bythe French, is getting an influx of
all these Palestinian refugees. A poorcountry getting an influx of these Palestinian Arab
(14:26):
refugees that were pushed out of theirhomes. And these people are not they're
not all the same religion, right, They're not necessarily all Muslim, Christian,
Muslims and Christians, but not Jewish. Not Jewish. The Jewish people
were allowed to stay, but ifyou were a Muslim or Christian, because
you were not Jewish, you werepushed out of your home into Lebanon.
Again, they're trying to create aJewish state, and so the Ethno states.
(14:50):
So they were ethnically cleansing Haifa.They were ethnically cleansing Jaffa, which
is the largest, one of thelargest cities, and other small villages all
throughout and Jerusalem and other areas.So this was ethnic cleansing and right in
nineteen forty eight. This is aview point Alabama on the Alabama Radio Network.
(15:11):
My name is John Mountain. I'mspeaking with Joseph Abbott. He is
a Palestinian Christian who lives here inBirmingham. And I'd like to actually walk
this back just a little bit becauseI want to make sure people understand who
you are, where we got youfrom. You are not we didn't just
we didn't just bring you in fromthe Middle East. You've lived here,
you're a Birmingham resident, You've livedhere for fifty years, yes, absolutely
(15:31):
so. And you are a practicingChristian yes, absolutely, And so you
believe, like a lot of Christians, a lot of the same things that
Jesus Christ died for our sins onthe cross and all that kind of erss,
all that kind of stuff. SoI just want to make this distinction
because, like I said, veryquickly, people go, well, if
you're against if you're against the occupationby the Jewish people, then you must
(15:52):
be a Muslim. So that's notthe case. You are a Christian,
but you have a problem with essentiallywhat's happening to the people who are living
in Gaza. To me, John, it's a right or wrong issue.
It's not really a Christian or aMuslim issue. It's a right or wrong
issue. And we go back tothe analogy of your house. Right,
your house is your house has nothingto do with religion. Right has nothing
(16:14):
to do with that. Whether you'rea Christian or Muslim. If I come
and push you out of your houseagain, you own your house every legal
mean, by every legal means.You own your house generationally or you just
bought it, but still you ownit. Has nothing to do with your
religion. That's why it's really notabout Christianity and Islam or Judaism for that
matter, because there's an abuse ofJudaism with the political movement of Zionism.
(16:37):
They abuse Judaism and misuse it.Same thing with Christian Zionists sort of look
at the Bible literally, and it'sokay for us to be pushed out of
our house as Christians are Muslims,because we're trying to make it usher in
armagain. I'm trying to rebuild theNew Temple right, I believe today as
part of revolution. So they're lookingto do that. Well, the situation
we're in right now in Israel andwhat's happening in Palestine. Hamas, there
(17:03):
was an attack that happened, andmaybe you can speak to what happened who
was involved in First of all,I guess I assume you believe that it
was Hamas that carried out the attack. There's no question about that. That
was Hamas, that attack that happenedin October, Right, it was Hamas,
Right? And now who are whatis Hamas? Okay, let me
explain what Hamasa is. So inthe political spectrum, the Palestinian political spectrum,
(17:29):
it's about twelve political parties, Hamasis one of the political parties.
As you can imagine twelve political parties. They're one another actually significant and large,
and they actually controlled and governed Gaza. And Hamas is sort of an
outgrowth of an Israeli strategy to divideand conquer. Back in the late eighties,
(17:52):
the Israeli government was looking favorable towardssome Muslims, some of our Muslim
brother and they were saying, youknow what, why don't you go ahead
and start opposing the nationalists, thepolitical nationalists, the Palstamian nationalists. Once
you start opposing them, so theystarted supporting them in a roundabout way,
so eventually even letting in funding,letting in financial funding. Aido. So
(18:19):
Hamas is a political party that usesIslam as part of its platform to garner
adherents. So, for example,like I think back to what happened in
nineteen I think it was seventy nine, where we basically created the Mujahadeen or
we fund mujia Hideen so that wecould basically start a proxy war with Russia
(18:40):
without us being involved in it.So much the same way they created this
proxy part of the divide and conquer. And this is actually the old English.
The English Empire did this quite well, and the Israelis learned. The
Americans learned from it. Us Americans, we learned. We did that in
Afghanistan, we did that in Iraq, if you recall, and Syria too,
supported the Bajahdine in Syria as wellas Americans, and so this is
(19:04):
akin to that. So the sowhat you're saying is what happened with that
attack that happened on October. Itwasn't the first time it happened. I
mean, they've been at war forfor quite a while, but that particular
attack, it was. It waspretty brutal, it was, and it
got a lot of attention. Solet me give you an analogy about that.
(19:26):
And so, so let's say youhave somebody who lives in a fancy
house, right, a mansion.Gentleman lives there. He lives there with
his family, mansion. Every hasa business. Every morning, he has
breakfast with his family and then walksout and he has a gardener, you
know, probably a living gardener,right, And every morning he walks out
and he kicks the gardener, justkeeps walking and goes to his office.
(19:52):
Next morning, same thing, nextmorning, same thing. One day,
the gardener walks into his house,kills his old family, and we're focused
on of course, murder is wrong. Killing is wrong. As a Christian,
I believe killing is wrong. Murderis wrong, but we don't focus
on the evil of that man andhis inhumanity of what he was doing.
(20:18):
So the analogy is the Palestinians arein a prison. Gaza was a prison,
and somehow Hamas, which governed Gaza, decided to break out, and
some believe they went a little overboardbecause they did attack military installations, but
(20:40):
some believes they either went overboard.And then obviously there are other elements besides
Hamas because when they opened the gate, when they crashed through that gate,
a lot of other people that camethrough that were not Hamas. They were
just regular citizens and there was achance for them to obviously see their homeland
because I understand they were breaking intotheir homeland, which is Palestine, so
(21:02):
it's not like they don't belong oneither side of that fence. But they
were in a cage, and sothat was a repercussion. That was a
breakout from the prison oh Gaza.And of course we have a lot of
other people in the world who don'tmind stirring turmoil in the Middle East.
So that's why you have somebody likesay Iran, who says, you know
what, this is a great operation, because Iran's not particularly fond of Israel,
(21:25):
and so if you're a friend,if you're an enemy of my enemy,
then you're my friend kind of thing. And so then Iran doesn't mind
helping Hamas in their war with Israel. So Iran, that's an interesting topic
that you bring in around, becausethat could be a whole show on its
own. I'll tell you why thisis really no longer about Hamas or Iran,
(21:48):
even though they're participants, even thoughthey're players, even though they're active
participants in this. This is aboutethnic cleansing, This is about genocide.
This is about something that is clearlyun American humane, against our American values.
And so this ceased to be aboutHamas after October seventh, October eighth,
(22:08):
October ninth, because let's say,if Hamas did a military action against
the Israelis, then Israelis obviously cando a military action against Hamas. They
don't have the right to kill civilians. We as Palestinians, are against killing
civilians against As a Christian, I'mpersonally against either side killing civilians. But
(22:30):
this ceased to be about Hamas orIran. But this is now. We're
talking about in humanity. We're talkingabout something that is un American. We're
talking a violation of our American principles, of our tax dollars being wasted and
killing innocence. And years ago Iused to go on the radio and debate
(22:53):
Jewish scientists from here from Birmingham.I think we were talking about briefly on
the other state. And one thingthey would never admit to John is that
we have innocent civilians on our side. Imagine that, Imagine that the other
side doesn't admit that we have innocentcivilians. We have to admit that they
(23:14):
have because we want to do theright thing. We want to be honest
as a Christian, as a godfearingMuslim, would be honest that there is
an innocent civilian on the other side. Regardless if you're unarmed, you're an
innocent civilian. I don't care whatthey say or anybody says. So the
other side never admits that we haveinnocence. That's why you see that you're
seeing the genocide that we're seeing now, That's why you're seeing the revenge,
(23:38):
vicious revenge enacted by this Israeli governmentagainst many, many innocents. We could
be conceivably, I mean, we'relike seven months into this. We're probably
up to fifty thousand dead in sevenmonths. Now when you look at the
Russian Ukrainian War, they didn't getto fifty thousand and seven months. Well
(24:00):
do you think because one of thethings, and this could be misinformation,
this could be propaganda. But oneof the things that I have heard,
and that's the problem I've heard itis that the is that Israel claims that
a lot of the Palestinians are alot of the people with hamas. They
utilize civilians essentially as a shield,like they will hide weapons at a hospital,
or they will they will you know, put tunnels underneath a school or
(24:22):
whatever, so that when the Israelisstrike, they're going to necessarily take out
civilians or they risk taking out civiliansin order to attack. Is that the
case, or is that again usedas propaganda? Not not necessarily true,
it's it's uh intellectually dishonest, it'spropaganda. So that means under every school
(24:42):
as a hamas terrorist. That means, I mean, it's just it's just
intellectually dishonest, and we go backto that point. I was just making
that they don't consider any Palestinian aninnocent civilian. Just just just marinate on
that for a second. So thatmeans we have so all these little kids
being killed and bombed are the faultof Hamas, not the bomb from the
(25:04):
Israeli jet coming in discriminately embombing ahousehold full of innocent children, men and
women. And even if they're afterone individual, you have no right to
take out a whole building under whatwhat American law do we allow that?
Well, what part of humanity,what part of Christianity, what part of
(25:26):
Judaism allows that? The answer isnone or Islam none? Well, justice,
let me because we're running out oftime here, and I do want
to get to this because here inAlabama we have to live our lives.
But we do have a little bitof saying things because we have representatives in
Washington, DC who supposedly are upthere to represent us and also spend our
money on things. So we cantalk with our representative vi it Gary Palmer
(25:48):
or Terry Sewell, whoever you representativemay be, and you can make your
voice heard. What do you thinkwhat what's your opinion as to what we
should be asking our representation in Washingtonto be doing about the situation in the
Middle East right now? A greatquestion, John, And we need to
look at our tax dollars, right, if you're fiscally responsible as an individual,
(26:10):
right, or even politically right,if you belonged to one political party
or another and you want fiscal responsibility, don't you think we want to reign
in our foreign assistance and the billionsthat go to wars, they go to
intractable wars. Because we have schoolshere, the Birmingham Schools need a lot
of money to be schools, roads, help our veterans, homeless. We
(26:33):
have so many needs in this countrythat I think directing that aid. They
just approved eighty six billion dollars togo out to I think twenty six to
Israel, maybe sixty some odd toUkraine, and maybe twelve to Taiwan.
And those are all and not Israel'sa rich country, Taiwan's a rich country,
(26:55):
and Ukraine is actually is quite welloff. So we're sending eighty billion
dollars. But we have a lotof homeless here, We have schools here
that need money, we have infrastructurefalling bridges. And that's what I would
tell our politicians is think about this, think about our American values, think
about fiscal responsibility, think about whatyou do with our tax dollars and our
(27:18):
tax dollars that go to genocide.It's just uncomfortable in so many ways.
It's so disturbing and disgusting. That'swhat I would say to our politicians.
And so, there is there aplace our listeners can go to find out
because we've covered a lot of ground, and I know we just scratched the
surface. Is there a place ourlisteners can go to find out more about
some of the things you're saying awebsite or something like that, because your
(27:40):
viewpoint is not well is not wellrepresented out there. And again it's a
one and zero kind of thing,and people don't really understand the nuance of
where you're coming from with this thing, because I think you make a lot
of great points, but at thesame time they get lost sometimes in the
it's us or them mentality that alot of people have. There's a lot
of news sites that have sprung upbecause mainstream are the media of today,
(28:03):
whether it's Fox News or CNN orMSNBC or the Washington Post or the New
York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, they have been taken over
by people that are just putting outpropaganda. Unfortunately, they're putting out misinformation
sort of leading to a lot ofmisconceptions, a lot of brain I call
(28:26):
it brainwashing. We can call ityellow journalism, we can call it propaganda,
but we can call it. SoI don't fault a lot of Americans,
my fellow Americans that don't understand becausewhat they're being fed by mainstream media
is deception and lies. So thereare new media that are popping up.
I think I can think of onesomething called Breakthrough News as one website that
(28:48):
I go to that gives that's prettyopen and honest in terms of what's going
on. And among other websites,but I can get back to you on
some websites, but there's a lotof There's something called the electronic Intafada,
which is pretty fair in terms ofalso into fada just means uprising basically,
(29:10):
it's all it means. But soan uprising against the media. Electronic intafada
basically, that's a good source forwhat's going on that gets into the granular
in terms of what's going on aswell. Joseph Abbott, thank you so
much of your palacity and Christian livingin Birmingham for enlightening all of us on
(29:30):
what's happening. And I think everybodyhopefully has a better understanding, even if
only cursory, and people should goout and do their own research. Joseph,
thank you for being my guest today. John. Thank you. You've
been listening to Viewpoint Alabama, apublic affairs program from the Alabama Radio Network.
The opinions expressed on Viewpoint Alabama arenot necessarily those of the staff,
management, or advertisers of this station.
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