Posted on YouTube: July 12, 2014
There is a large influential Palestinian community in Chile, though it is about 99% Christian, and often multi-generational Chilean.
Probably in Santiago, Chile, where it is winter right now.
News
Palestino Soccer Jersey Debate Continues
Posted on YouTube: January 6, 2014
Gerardo Gorodischer, President of the Jewish Community in Chile, against the Palestino Jerseys
In this post (Click Here). we discussed how a Palestinian-Chilean soccer team had caused a controversy by adopting a soccer jersey that had a map of Palestine which wiped Israel off the map.
The Palestinians in Chile are about 500,000 in number, though because of intermarriage some sources give lower figures. They are the largest Palestinian community outside of the Mideast. They are the largest CHRISTIAN-Palestinian community in the world, surpassing even the number of Palestinian-Christians in the Mideast.
About half of the world’s Palestinian Christian live in Chile. They tend to form an elite, with power far above their numbers in the Chilean population.
At 3% of Chile’s population, the Palestinians are 10% of the Chilean Senate. Almost all are Christian. The majority have ancestors who went to Chile before 1947; and who fled Muslim tyranny, not Zionism. Though some were refugees after 1948.
Most are second, third, fourth, and fifth generation Chilean. Most are only part-Palestinian. Almost all (99%+) are Christian – usually Eastern Orthodox Christian, or Roman Catholic. Most do not even speak Arabic. Though Arabic classes are spring up and many are re-discovering the Arab roots.
Yet, they are highly radicalized against Israel. Since Chile is the economic powerhouse of South America, and the Palestinians are the elites of Chile, their influence can sway a continent.
The reasons for this integrated, intermarried, and assimilated Palestian community in Chile to adopt a Palestinian cause which is today associated with Islamic radicalism are manifold and various; but frankly just amazing.
Yet, it is so!
This Uruguayan News Source, Adinet (Click Here), is reporting that the Chilean team remains defiant.
The Jewish community is furious and fighting back. They have protested to the Chilean Soccer Federation. However, the Chilean Soccer Federation said that in order to sanction the Palestino Soccer Club, another team must protest – which has not happened, yet.
This is not going away.
Chilean Society has historically been very friendly to Jewish people. In fact, they were taking in refugees from the Holocaust as late as 1940, long after most nations shut their doors to the Jews.
The Jewish community in Chile, while small, is not powerless; though it has nowhere near the clout of America’s ADL or AIPAC.
16% of Chile is pro-Zionist Evangelical Christian; and they are growing in numbers and power, as well.
While Palestinian Christians are elite and rich, they are headed for a clash with a growing Evangelical movement. This will not go away.
We shall see what happens.
Palestino Soccer Team infuriates Chile’s Jews
Chile’s Jewish community outraged over Palestinian soccer team’s jerseys
Many in Chile’s Jewish community are outraged over a Palestinian soccer club’s jersey that depicts all of Israel as Palestinian land.
Club Deportivo Palestino of Chile released its new jersey that includes the number “1” in the shape of Israel and the Palestinian territories, implying all of the land is Palestinian, The Associated Press reported.
The president of Chile’s Jewish Community, Gerardo Gorodischer, is demanding an apology from the club and asking Chile’s soccer association to pull the jerseys.
Some of this reaches the absurd.
The ultimate answer to the Mideast may be to relocate the Palestinians out of the contested areas. I know that sounds awful; but the destruction of Israel would be worse.
I am not some heartless person. The Palestinians in the Mideast are besieged by both the Israelis and the Palestinian’s fellow Arabs. This abuse has driven the Palestinians nuttier and more violent than they were to begin with.
I am NOT going to diminish the Palestinian’s violence, nor the abuses the Palestinians are forced live under – whether under Israel’s harsh military control, or the even harsher Arab rule in Syria, Lebanon, Eygpt, etc.
However, there are 22 Arab states. Should Israel be destroyed to create a 23rd Arab state?!
I think not!
Compensated relocation of the Palestinians to elsewhere – as bad as that sounds – may be the only solution left, outside of eventual nuclear war.
There are no happy endings in the Mideast.
Tamara, the woman behind Syrian refugees
Tamara, the woman behind Syrian refugees in Argentina
Tamara Lalli brings an anecdote by the Santiago del Estero-born percussionist Domingo Cura. The story goes that on Sundays the ground in the Argentine Northern province moves down because Syrian women are cooking the traditional Middle East Kibbe dish as they rhythmically pound the meat and wheat using their pestles and mortars.
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But the homeland Tamara was born in and left when she was 11 years old is changing forcing thousands to flee across its borders and seek refuge in the Southern part of the world as rebel groups continue to defy the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
New immigration: The exodus
Only in the past two years Argentina has received more than 300 Syrian families most of them staying in Buenos Aires. Although visa procedures might turn “bureaucratic”, the South American country is among the few granting assistance to those swelling in the list of this 21st century exodus. “In Europe this is impossible”, Tamara affirms and adds that Arab neighboring countries have long decided to reject entry to her countrymen.
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The Syrian-Lebanese community in Argentina accounts actually for around10 percent of the country’s 40-million population.
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Tamara Lalli is the daughter of Toufic, a Syrian-Lebanese who married Neife, an Argentinean descendant from Syrians. She was born in Yabrud located 80 km north of the capital Damascus. She has two sisters. A non-practicing Muslim, she married an Argentine Christian and allowed her two daughters to choose their own religion. “One is a Christian, the other one is still thinking about it”, Tamara says.
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Clearly, this women assimilated; and so did her daughters, one of whom has already chosen Christianity.