Syrian Trucks Stopped in Saudi Arabia
In retaliation to Syria blocking Lebanese trucks from entering Syria, it seems Saudi Arabia has blocked Syrian trucks from entering Saudi Arabia. Its a good move by them, but I guess Saad Hariri had a role in it. I think this could also be the first step in opening talks with Israel. If Syria doesn’t allow Lebanese trucks to enter Syria, then the only other way would be through Israel. Maybe its time the Gulf countries started talks with Israel. Why not? What positive thing have the Palestinians given the Arab world other then creating huge problems everywhere they went.
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Jul 20, 2005
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30 Comments, add your own...
1. nibaq | July 20th, 2005 at 12:45 pm
The only way to deal with teh conflict with Israel if the other Arab countries join in the talks.
We really dont read history books. If 50 years of the same thing isn’t working try another approach.
2. moe | July 20th, 2005 at 12:55 pm
well,yea they cause nothing but troubles in jordan..
3. holla | July 20th, 2005 at 1:46 pm
falasteez.
4. fadibou | July 20th, 2005 at 3:08 pm
I like Saudi strategy. At sultan they are getting less Lebanese fruits those days and getting syrian stuff istead. Let them try to sell it. I will put stickers on them next week.
“We stopped Lebanese trucks after they kicked us out, buy our fruits, they are cheaper, just like us”
5. Mark | July 20th, 2005 at 3:12 pm
actually at the moment you cant find any syrian fruits at sultan since if they cant come into saudi they cant go in to the rest of the gulf.. no other road…
6. iDip | July 20th, 2005 at 3:52 pm
If the syrians are trapped in Jordan, let them try Iraq!
at least they’ll be able to abuse the joradian-iraqi borders by terrorists traficking.
as for saad hariri, check this link & read what’s written next to the country of citizenship:
http://www.forbes.com/static/bill2005/LIR4R2O.html?passListId=10&passYear=2005&passListType=Person&uniqueId=4R2O&datatype=Person
7. moe | July 20th, 2005 at 4:16 pm
heh nice comments fadi
8. Alex | July 20th, 2005 at 6:49 pm
Mark,
Palestinians refugees may be causing problems, but they did not ask to become refugees in the first place - they fled from violence perpetrated by Zionist immigrants (many of them refugees themselves) in their own home country, and weren’t allowed back afterwards.
If the Lebanese think Palestinian refugees are at fault for the problems they may cause in Lebanon, why don’t they just flee these problems in turn, live in refugee camps abroad, and prove they would be any better?
That said, I can understand the Lebanese are not happy with the burden placed on them by the Palestinian refugees. Why not do the same as with the Syrians and demand their “withdrawal” to where they came from? I’m sure they would be happy with it. Don’t think Israel and the U.S. would lend the idea the same support as with the Syrian withdrawal, though.
10. Saf | July 20th, 2005 at 9:58 pm
Alex’s comment is very balanced. But i also agree with Mark that we need to try new and conciliatory approaches. Enough of the propaganda B.S. for the “3orouba” or whatever that was. Also, enough finger pointing. Everyone play in your own backyard and help grow your respective countries and their economy. ‘Nuf said!
11. Ibrahim | July 20th, 2005 at 10:17 pm
http://www.oceancreep.com/blog/?p=49
Dear Mark,
I always had respect for you, as I have respect for all Lebanese here in KSA whom i deal with everyday and love to talk with…
but i really did not expect from you to say this about Palestinians.
i believe that Lebanese have so much hates for Palestinians coz maybe they caused lots of troubles in Lebanon, but also I believe that this was from the past and the situation are different now…
what happened in Palestine is something out of our hands, we didn’t brought Jew and told them to kill us and kick us from our lands, Palestinians flew to other Arabian countries coz they thought that they will get back soon to their lands coz the Arab countries will stick together and fight Israelis.
They were dreaming that time that the Arabs can do something for them coz they believed that Arabs are one nation.
But what they believed in was a dream that we still dreaming of.
A Palestinian dream that will never come true until Arabs wakeup from their sleep.
Anyway this is an old subject we still talking about everyday, and I don’t want to talk more about it …
Yes Mark we are a nation who make troubles everywhere we go, we are a nation who should be burnt coz we don’t have any rights in Palestine.
And Jew has the full rights to take our lands and kill our children’s, coz they are the friend and we are the enemy.
Salutes you Mark salute you and salute the whole Arab nation, the one nation.
12. Mark | July 20th, 2005 at 11:24 pm
You skipped the issue and went directly to lets pitty the palestinians. What happened and is happening in Palestine with Israel is no excuse for the behavior of Palestinians outside of palestine, no excuse.
What the Palestinians did in Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait is worst then what Israel did to Palestine. You have a problem with the Jews solve it. Backstabbing countries like Kuwait will not solve your problem.
If people dislike palestinians its not because of what Israel is doing to them. People dislike palestinians because of what they have done and are doing. You are right when you said, you are a nation that causes trouble everywhere you go. History has proven this.
So please if you are asking for our pitty take it somewhere else. I dislike palestinians for what they did in Lebanon, and for what they did in Kuwait. I am sure not all palestinians are backstabbing selfish people, but I haven’t met one yet.
13. PALFORCE | July 20th, 2005 at 11:50 pm
WOW!
Mark!
Racist?!
didnt know that in you.
I can understand if you had bad experience with people in different times, different places, but hate every single one of them?
WOW thats harsh.
I hope and pray that oneday you will meet a Palestinian who would change your mind, because I know and I met alot of good people (Palestinians, Israelis, Kuwaitis, lebanese, Americans, Indians.. and the list go on)
I just can’t see anyone hate a whole Nation as you described the Palestinians.
But again thats your opinion and I respect it. Everyone is entitled to his opinion no matter how harsh or nice it sound.
Peace
PALFORCE
14. Mark | July 21st, 2005 at 12:12 am
i am not racist. i dont have a problem with palestinians in palestine. i only have a problem with the actions of palestinians outside of palestine.
15. PALFORCE | July 21st, 2005 at 12:25 am
Ok,
Selective racist? LOL
Kidding.
“Those who have not sinned cast the first stone”.
Mark, all people have their own issues, if we gonna go around judging people then we will loose focus on the min issues in life.
I think Palestinians have sufferd alot, and the Palestinian Authority made (and still making) alot of mistakes.
But when it comes to people, their main goal in life is to make sure their children have food on their table.
Certain people have it worse than others.
I hope that we all love one another regardless of gender,race or age. I love you and love you blog and love your humor, I careless where you from, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine!
I dont have time to go around labeling people and pre-judge them.
Sorry if I have bored you with my post, e3tetharaty akhy.
PALFORCE
16. K | July 21st, 2005 at 1:15 am
Mark makes a good point… He just isn’t good at saying it the right way.
The majority of Arabs want Israel out of Palestine. And the majority of Arabs feel that the current situation in that area is out of hand. However, the actions of some Palestinian nationals (I have met some great Palestinians), have soured their name across the Arab world. It’s the same way for Kuwaitis and Khaleejis… the actions of a few in the Arab countries have given us a bad name. We are now seen as spoiled, cocky and irritating.
I suggest everybody takes Marks comments with a grain of salt… at least he is being honest. There are tons of people who share similar thoughts and will change their public position according to the atmosphere.
17. lol | July 21st, 2005 at 3:51 am
lol jews
18. Ibrahim | July 21st, 2005 at 5:29 am
Well, Mark I understand your anger against Palestinians, as I told you I know what Palestinians did in Lebanon and what they did in Kuwait…
But as PALFORCE said that’s not mean all Palestinians are the same you cant judge the whole nation for something happened in the past, every nation contains bad and good people, there is always the bad and the good and the ugly :D
Let me tell you a story happened with me during the first gulf war.
In that time I was living in the east side of Saudi Arabia in Al-khobar, as you know most of Kuwaitis flew to this city when the war began, one of the Kuwaitis families rent an apartment in front of us… so we became friends with them.
their father wasn’t with them so we tried to help them as much as we can, we became like a one family, when the alarms rings in the city we set together in one protected room as a one family …
anyway guess what happened after the war and after a few groups of Palestinians there did that big mistake,
they forgot us and started ignoring us, started to put garbage in front of our door …
why they did that, coz they believed that we Palestinians supporting what happened in Kuwait …
tell me here have we did something wrong in there with them, no …
but this is our problem we always generalize on a behavior from a few gang of people that maybe sometimes all what they need is to make only a problems.
Do you think the rest of Palestinians are happy for what happened in there, they lost their money they lost their cars they lost all what they had …
Anyway it’s a big and long subject that will not lead us to results …
I didn’t want it to be like this, and am sorry if I did react in an aggressive way …
I think “K” comment say it all … Thanks for your great comment, and again am sorry Mark …
19. fadibou | July 21st, 2005 at 5:53 am
On the same subject, I will not repeat what mark said, but with my experience with some palistians who i thought were my friends, they showed me the highest degrees of backstabbing possible by the nature laws of Human Behaviour. But again i have one exception to this rule and this friend is so hard to match.
20. PALFORCE | July 21st, 2005 at 7:04 am
I’m calling for a group hug while singing kumbaya.
21. Mark | July 21st, 2005 at 8:58 am
Ibrahim and I will tell you a story that happened with my family during the Gulf War. Our neighbours were palestinians. We knew them for many years and they had been very good friends of the family. During the war we spent most of our days hanging out together, eating together and us kids playing together. When time came for us to leave, our neighbors told us they would ship all our belongings (furniture, toys, electronics etc..) from our apartment to Lebanon for us once we settled down.
So once we got to Lebanon and settled down we called our neighbors asking them to send us the furniture but they were giving us excuses or hanging up on our phone calls. Finally they told us that they wouldn’t be sending us our stuff and that if we had a problem to deal with it. Later we found out that all our stuff was shipped to their house in Jordan.
22. rampurple | July 21st, 2005 at 12:38 pm
You guys wake up!
Palestenians cause a problem wherever they go in the Arab world. I think all Arab countries supported Palestenians in the past but the Palestenians back stabbed each one of these countries.
Lebanon, Kuwait, Egypt, Jordan, are just some examples.
Some mentioned something about kicking the palestenians out… will this is something being discussed at the moment.. what to do with the refugees in their horrific camps (which are only horrific cause they made them so).
I never met a “good” palestenian either.
Call me a racist if you will and I can call these people sooooo many names.
23. moe | July 21st, 2005 at 1:26 pm
I’m jordanian and i suffer from those palestinians with jordanian passports, look at their accent or way of living!
24. busynow | July 21st, 2005 at 3:52 pm
i agree with mark ,rampurple and fadibou
25. Ramsey | July 22nd, 2005 at 12:07 am
Kinda sucks that alot of you haven’t met good Palestinian—I consider my parents, some of my friends, and myself good people, but ok.
Seems odd.
26. Alex | July 22nd, 2005 at 12:19 am
Mark,
I don’t mean to argue with You on Your own website ;-) and no doubt I don’t have the same perspective on Palestinians as You do. Certainly, their leaders did some stupid things in the past, instead of concentrating to improve their people’s situation (though at the root of the problem remains their expulsion from their home country).
However, I can’t agree with You when You tell what the Palestinian refugees did to their host countries was worse than what the Israelis did to them. Jordanians, Kuwaitis, or the Lebanese didn’t have to flee their countries because of them, right?
Also, You suggest Palestinians solve their problem with the Israelis on their own. Like it or not, as long as they’re refugees, it’s a problem of the neighbouring countries, too (actually, later You concede for Yourselve You had a problem with Palestinians outside their country).
(On a side note, I think solving the refugee problem should be the most important issue in Arab-Israeli peace talks, not just security and the creation of a Palestinian state. I think it’s important for Israel, too.)
In response to rampurple, I find it highly cynical to suggest Palestinian refugees were responsible for the the miserable conditions in the refugee camps themselves. It’s easy to judge from an air-conditioned apartment in one of the richest countries of the world!
Most important of all, I strongly agree it’s rarely ever admissible to judge a people as a whole. In the context of past colonialism and the current events, where would that leave Arabs, where Europeans and Americans?
Thanks for hosting my opinion!
27. fadibou | July 22nd, 2005 at 8:20 am
Ramsey: I have exceptions and it happened to be one of the best people I have met in my entire life. He is one of my best friends and he lives in Dubai. But again the backstabbers I had happened to be the most skilled on earth too :(
28. Saf | July 22nd, 2005 at 2:54 pm
Agree with Alex once again. I am not pro Palestinian or Pro any other “ethnic” group, but I just can’t believe some of the comments above! If it’s not gross generalizations and hate comments then please tell me what it is.
29. rampurple | July 22nd, 2005 at 6:46 pm
Alex… I can only talk about the Palestenian camps in lebanon… Lebanese wouldnt dare go in, the army isn’t allowed in it, they rule their area. They messed up their own camp. No one else did it to them.
30. Latifa | July 25th, 2005 at 5:43 pm
Your just jealous ’cause am black!!!!(random thought)
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