as an apostate, have you not consider to change your name to a suitable for liberated individual?
It's like BD and CocoPop said, it becomes part of your identity. I've thought of changing mine on many occasions but could never quite bring myself to do it, though I wouldn't rule it out. And I have an Islamic name, and I've never even been Muslim. Fuck, I don't even share my Arabic surname with the family that raised me. All my relatives in the US save my half-sister have Irish surnames and regular ole Christian given names. When I was growing up a begged my family to change my name. They repeatedly told me no, that I had to wait until I was 18, and I could change it then. I longed for the day I became an adult and could change my name, but once I actually got there, couldn't do it.
Only Palestinians who have Western passports are not allowed to fly to Israel. They have to cross by land from Jordan.
What about with US passports?
This Palestinian immigrant I knew once told me a story about how he was walking down a street in Israel and some racist older Israeli was following him with a vicious dog that kept barking and was on one of those quick-release chains. He crossed the street to get away from him, but the other guy crossed too and was getting closer.
So the Palestinian dude tells him "You better not let that dog hurt me, I'm an American citizen!" Israeli doesn't believe him, so homie (his name was Jihad actually
) shows him his US passport and the Israeli dude's eyes got a scared look in them and he immediately left. Guess he figured the cops would go a lot harder on him if he hurt an American citizen versus some regular old Palestinian sand nigger on the street.
Membership has its privileges.
Also, preventing Palestinians who are citizens of Western nations from flying there-- how and by whom exactly is this enforced? Can they not even get on the plane?
While I don't necessarily dispute that claim, I certainly wouldn't base any claim about freedom on a report by Freedom House. It's funded by the US State Department and several conservative, corporate-funded foundations. So you basically get "Freedom around the world according to the US State Department."
Very, very biased stuff. For instance they have Bolivia, Ecuador and Venezuela listed as "Partly Free" in contrast with most of their neighbors, with very little justification for it-- the one thing they all have in common is that they are strongly opposed to US foreign policy and foreign corporate interests there. Now Bolivia they had listed as "Free" in 2002, 2003, and 2004. But since 2005 it's been listed as only "Partly Free". Hmmmm-- what happened during that time? Oh, right, the people revolted against IMF-imposed "liberalization policies" including privatizing the water supply, and then Evo Morales, former leader of the coca growers union was elected President and quickly made it clear he intended to reduce the interference of foreign powers (especially the US) in Bolivia's affairs, was not down with the Drug War or the Washington Consensus, and might even nationalize oil and gas reserves.
Their websites maps only go back to 2002, but I'd bet ya dollars to donuts Venezuela moved into the "partly free" column from the "free" column sometime between 1999 and 2000, when Chavez first got elected.
Furthermore, if they were to include criteria like incarceration rates, the US wouldn't be faring nearly as well as their European counterparts in the rankings.
EDIT: Another example of clear "World According to the State Department" bias is listing the Palestinian Occupied Territories, Transnistria, Abkhazia, and NKR under "Disputed Territories" but Kosovo is not.
Topic: ygalg replying BlackDog