'Wiping out Israel'

Arts & Culture Culture, Arts, Literature & Linguistics
1

Does this happen in other Muslim countries, to this day i wonder? It’s not that weird, but um when i was growing up in Abu Dhabi, in ALL of the books they used to distribute and publish, even in the foreign ones, wherever the word “Israel” used to appear, it used to be blacked out. Like, i mean, literally blacked out with a black marker. It was in ALL the books (during the 1980s). You could not find one book that was sold there, that had the word “Israel” legible in it. It was state policy to wipe the word out, literally, from the books. i guess one of the rationales behind it, obviously, from the government’s perspective, was that - no such country used to exist and what is today Israel was, some 50 years ago, Palestine. To acknowledge its existence even in print, may have been akin to acknowledging their rightful existence.

i still have some of my books from that time period (that makes me sound so old :o ), and none of them have the word “Israel” legible - they’re all blacked out by a marker. This was true for atlases, geography books, and even a very girlygirl scouts book that belonged to me and my sisters. (i think they were talking about countries in that book, in one section of it, and state policy ensured the word had to be blacked out).

Anyways, did this use to happen in Pakistan as well or any other Muslim country ? i am not 90% certain this doesn’t occur anymore in the UAE.

i think of the damn weirdest, boring threads - thanks i have already been told that :~/

2

You are not 90% certain that this doesn't happen anymore? -It's too early in the morning for me to unravel such statements.

Anyway this is all news to me. How did you know the word Israel was blacked out totally if it was indeed wiped out? It could have been Djibouti?

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Yup..they used to do the same in Saudi in the 1980's, I still have the books as well. By comparison the Israelis sued to go to town on reading up about their Arab neigbours, common sense really ..to defeat your enemy you have to know them.

They also used to pull out pages from books which mentioned how the Arabs were defeated, in the Arab-Israeli wars. But, censorship wasn't restricted to that in Saudi, everything from comics to National geo was blacked out if they showed anything even remotely "suggestive".

The funny bit about censorship is how you have to really understand English movies and books to be able to censor them, so it was kind of funny to see/read what stuff would slip through the net.

4

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by Zakk: *
**The funny bit about censorship is how you have to really understand English movies and books to be able to censor them, so it was kind of funny to see/read what stuff would slip through the net.
[/QUOTE]
*

hmm. That's an interesting point, Zakk. um do you mean in the sense that you have to understand western popular culture?

...i forgot about censoring the Arab-Israeli wars. That was entirely obliterated, i mean we never ever studied that aspect about the defeat. i never learned about it until after i moved out of the UAE. Never thought it was strange, either, until many years later.

Today, it would be inifinitely harder to maintain that type of censorship; you have internet cafes proliferating everywhere. In the early '80s, there was one state-owned channel (channel 33), and that was IT in terms of your tv viewing. i still remember how the 10 0'clock news used to come on - the anthem used to play, then i think they had "Bismillah ar rahman ar raheem" in beautiful calligraphy, then a close-up picture of Sheikh Nahyan. No matter what was happening around the world in terms of intl affairs, the news always began with a discussion of the Sheikh's daily affairs - what had he been upto, which hospitals had he visited, how much money had he given to Palestinians, blah blah blah.

By the way, interesting to note, they had a Caucasian British lady announce the news for like ten years on that state-owned channel. i always wonder what happened to her.

5

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Thap: *
You are not 90% certain that this doesn't happen anymore? -It's too early in the morning for me to unravel such statements.

Anyway this is all news to me. How did you know the word Israel was blacked out totally if it was indeed wiped out? It could have been Djibouti?
[/QUOTE]

Are you serious Thap? Do you really believe that in a sentence such as "When XXXXXXX took over the West Bank in an effort to blah blah" it would mean Djibouti? :D

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  • That's an interesting point, Zakk. um do you mean in the sense that you have to understand western popular culture? *

In the sense that it could be something quite steamy, just worded in nicely.

But, it always made me laugh, anyway literary censorship is still practiced in the Middle East and Pakistan, even though it is impractical in this day and age. I think the best example was the book Jinnah which was banned by Zia ul-Haq because of references to his pork eating.

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I don't know about that, but i've noticed on most of the sites Palestine is not even listed.. but this zionist occupation is always there.

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So it's definately not Djbouti then? How about the Faroe Islands?

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reply to naziism

we spent 400,000 lives,untold treasue and brought the world to the brink of REAL,NOT MOUTHY TALK thermonuclear war.
No one,alive or, dead in the now or the hence,Muslim,Communista,
will ever so help us almight God ,turn the monsters of the Einsatzengruppen,Gehimestazzpoliezie,Shultzenshtaffel,loose on humanity again.
It is the sworn position of The Sovereign United States of America that this will not be permitted.
Conduct your farsical guerilla wars if you must BUT,we as a nation
grow weary of this diatribe of hate,paranoia,and the attempt to re-ignite the crusade.
This crap might fly here but,don't try to peddle it to the American people.
I am not a Jew,I have no extrraction of Jew in me so,can the it's Zionism routine.
My dead litter a thousand graveyard all over the world to defeat the non sensical ravings of lunatic minds.

10

Yeah them smart Arabs didn’t have printing press technology back then. I wonder if they blocked it out in the Quran as well. Bani Israel is mentioned in many places. I wouldn’t put it past them.

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Re: reply to naziism

[QUOTE]
Originally posted by garcia: *
**we spent 400,000 lives,untold treasue and brought the world to the brink of REAL,NOT MOUTHY TALK thermonuclear war.
No one,alive or, dead in the now or the hence,Muslim,Communista,
will ever so help us almight God ,turn the monsters of the Einsatzengruppen,Gehimestazzpoliezie,Shultzenshtaffel,loose on humanity again.
It is the sworn position of The Sovereign United States of America that this will not be permitted.
Conduct your farsical guerilla wars if you must BUT,we as a nation
grow weary of this diatribe of hate,paranoia,and the attempt to re-ignite the crusade.
This crap might fly here but,don't try to peddle it to the American people.
I am not a Jew,I have no extrraction of Jew in me so,can the it's Zionism routine.
My dead litter a thousand graveyard all over the world to defeat the non sensical ravings of lunatic minds.
[/QUOTE]
*

lol!!! What are you talking about, Garcia? Read over what you have written and let me know if it makes any logical rationale to you. What will not be permitted by the "sworn position of The Sovereign United States of America"?

>>Conduct your farsical guerilla wars if you must....<<
Who is this 'your' in your above statement ?

>>,we as a nation grow weary of this diatribe of hate,paranoia,and the attempt to re-ignite the crusade.<<
"Crusade"? Check your historical facts, my misguided friend and let me know whether King Richard's name strikes a chord in your selective amnesia.

You want to talk about guerilla wars, let's talk about the one in Iraq at the moment.

"Hate" and "paranoia"? Sums up the Patriot Act.

How about you look in your own backyard at some of the foreign and domestic policies of your own administration before you rant about the policies of other countries. i'll do the same. Deal?

And before you talk to me about Israel being the only civilized country in that part of the world, how about we tally up how many children/journalists/doctors/ambulance drivers your most civilized nation has slaughtered, and how many homes they've bulldozed. Then we'll talk about hate and paranoia.

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Stop blowing up pizza parlors full of kids and bulldozers would stop. And Patriot LAw is needed after 9/11. We need to keep tabs on folks who are hell bent on destrying our way of life. Laaton kay bhoot baaton say nahin maantey!! USA<USA<USA

13

Pakistani Passport actually say “This passport is not valid for Israel”.

So i guess they dont censor the word “Israel” in Pakistan :stuck_out_tongue:

:bravo:

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Ptv had a policy not to mention india's name in any tv programe except News. They used to say Hamsaya mulk in talk shows and other programe where they had to refer india. I am glad this stupidity is over now.