Specially considering they didn't pay a dime to purchase it.

The Quraysh willfully surrendered Mecca

P.S : Since you're so fluent in Islamic history, need I remind you. The piece of land which we are actually discussing about now was also willingly surrendered to Omar Ibn Khatab the second caliph by the Byzantines and it was he who removed the ban of jews living in the holy land which the Romans had imposed and brought them back in.

And the Jews should make all their land claims with the Italians.

Let's leave the Italians out of it. They can't even navigate their own freaking islands these days.

And since we are still playing propaganda propaganda with fiddly here is one, sorry couldn't find a youtube link ( guess my youtubez Bullshitter is not as strong as fiddlys ), the real fun starts close to the 2 min mark

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=65 ... 61&fref=nf

And the Jews should make all their land claims with the Italians.

More Memri junk and the last one is really not helping your cause, you're so washed up in your propaganda you cant even realise which is for and against you.

Anywho. Hamas, present leadership will not ever recognize Israel in the event of a peace deal.
I say present as there have been many reports of a deep division within Hamas.
Those in the leadership, not in Gaza are firm in their commitment.
Those in Gaza, not all, but closer to that round going off on the top of their house are open to a negotiated settlement.
Would that be correct?

If you can put your emotions aside for a moment perhaps you can explain to me why you think the Memri items are 'junk'? Do you think that their innumerable videos are forgeries of some sort being made in a Jewish-run studio somewhere?

I can understand taking umbrage with their translations of Arabic to English. Really, I can. My father-in-law, who grew up in Germany and was a member of the Hitler Youth and the Wehrmacht used to slam the 'translations' of portions of German newsreels from the period. He made it clear that many times the German narrator was saying nothing even remotely close to what the English-language subtitles were saying.

I can imagine that being the case with Memri.

But in all of the years I'd chat with my father-in-law he never once questioned the authenticity of the newsreels themselves.

Are you questioning the authenticity of the videos posted on Memri? If so, then that's a very heady charge to make. That's an awful lot of people needed to make such a conspiracy work.

In any case, I am curious as to why you think these videos are 'junk'?

Brian Whitaker, the Middle East editor for The Guardian newspaper at the time, wrote in a public email debate with Carmon in 2003, that his problem with MEMRI was that it "poses as a research institute when it's basically a propaganda operation".[5] Earlier, Whitaker had charged that MEMRI's role was to "further the political agenda of Israel." and that MEMRI's website does not mention Carmon's employment for Israeli intelligence, or Meyrav Wurmser's political stance, which he described as an "extreme brand of Zionism".[3] Carmon responded to this by stating that his employment history is not a secret and was not political, as he served under opposing administrations of the Israeli government and that perhaps the issue was that he was Israeli: "If your complaint is that I am Israeli, then please say so." Carmon also questioned Whitaker's own biases, wondering if Whitaker's is biased in favor of Arabs—as his website on the Middle East is named "Al-Bab" ("The Gateway" in Arabic)—stating: "I wonder how you would judge an editor whose website was called "Ha-Sha-ar" ("The Gateway" in Hebrew)?[5]

Norman Finkelstein has described MEMRI as "a main arm of Israeli propaganda".In 2006, Finkelstein accused MEMRI of editing a television interview he gave in Lebanon in order to falsely impute that he was a Holocaust denier. In an interview with the newspaper In Focus in 2007, he said MEMRI uses "the same sort of propaganda techniques as the Nazis" and "take[s] things out of context in order to do personal and political harm to people they don't like".[42]
Selectivity

Several critics have accused MEMRI of selectivity. They state that MEMRI consistently picks for translation and dissemination the most extreme views, which portray the Arab and Muslim world in a negative light, while ignoring moderate views that are often found in the same media outlets.[3][39][39][40][41] Juan Cole, a professor of Modern Middle East History at the University of Michigan, argues MEMRI has a tendency to "cleverly cherry-pick the vast Arabic press, which serves 300 million people, for the most extreme and objectionable articles and editorials.... On more than one occasion I have seen, say, a bigoted Arabic article translated by MEMRI and when I went to the source on the web, found that it was on the same op-ed page with other, moderate articles arguing for tolerance. These latter were not translated."[43] Former head of the CIA's counterintelligence unit, Vincent Cannistraro, said that MEMRI "are selective and act as propagandists for their political point of view, which is the extreme-right of Likud. They simply don't present the whole picture."[44][45] Laila Lalami, writing in The Nation, states that MEMRI "consistently picks the most violent, hateful rubbish it can find, translates it and distributes it in e-mail newsletters to media and members of Congress in Washington".[39] As a result, critics such as Ken Livingstone state, MEMRI's analyses are "distortion".[46][47]

A report by Center for American Progress, titled "Fear, Inc. The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America" lists MEMRI as promoting Islamophobic propaganda in the USA through supplying selective translations that are relied upon by several organisations "to make the case that Islam is inherently violent and promotes extremism".[48]

MEMRI argues that they are quoting the government-controlled press and not obscure or extremist publications, a fact their critics acknowledge, according to Marc Perelman: "When we quote Al-Ahram in Egypt, it is as if we were quoting The New York Times. We know there are people questioning our work, probably those who have difficulties seeing the truth. But no one can show anything wrong about our translations."[44]

In August 2013, the Islamic Da'wah Centre of South Australia questioned the "reliability, independence and veracity" of the Middle East Media Research Institute after it posted what the centre called a "sensational de-contextualised cut-and-paste video clip ... put together in a suggestive manner" of a sermon by the Sheikh Sharif Hussein on an American website. According to the two-minute video, which was a heavily condensed version of the Sheikh's 36-minute speech delivered in Adelaide on 22 March, Hussein called Australian and American soldiers "crusader pigs" and stated "O Allah, count the Buddhists and the Hindus one by one. O Allah, count them and kill them to the very last one." According to MEMRI's translation, he also described US President Barack Obama as an "enemy of Allah, you who kiss the shoes and feet of the Jews" and predicted that "The day will come when you are trampled upon by the pure feet of the Muslims."[49] MEMRI's rendition moved leading Liberal senator Cory Bernardi to write to the Police Commissioner charging that under Australia's anti-terrorism laws, the video clip was "hate speech", and requesting that action be taken against Hussein. The South Australian Islamic Society and the Australian Buddhist Councils Federation also condemned Hussein's speech. Widespread calls from the public for the deportation of Hussein and his family followed news reports of the video. A police spokeswoman stated "Police will examine the entire content of the sermon to gain the full context and determine whether any crime has been committed." Hussein himself declined any comment on the contents of the video. However, the Da'wah Centre charged that by omitting the context of Hussein's statements, MEMRI had distorted the actual intent of the speech. While admitting that the Sheikh was emotional and used strong words, the Centre stated that the speech was delivered in relation to the mass rape cases in Iraq, the birth defects due to use of depleted uranium and the Burmese Buddhist massacre. This, the Centre claimed, was omitted from the edited MEMRI video.[50][51][52][53][54]
Alleged translation inaccuracy
See also: Tomorrow's Pioneers § Translation controversy

The accuracy of MEMRI's translations are considered "usually accurate" though occasionally disputed and highly selective in what it chooses to translate and in which context it puts things,[55] as in the case of MEMRI's translation of a 2004 Osama bin Laden video, which MEMRI defended.[5][47][56][57][58]

Following the 7 July 2005 London bombings, Al Jazeera invited Hani al-Sebai, an Islamist living in Britain, to take part in a discussion on the event. For one segment of the discussion in regard to the victims, MEMRI provided the following translation of al-Sebai's words:

the term civilians does not exist in Islamic religious law. Dr Karmi is sitting here, and I am sitting here, and I’m familiar with religious law. There is no such term as civilians in the modern western sense. People are either at war or not.[59]

Al-Sebai subsequently claimed that MEMRI had mistranslated his interview, and that among other errors, he had actually said:

there is no term in Islamic jurisprudence called civilians. Dr Karmi is here sitting with us, and he's very familiar with the jurisprudence. There are fighters and non-fighters. Islam is against the killing of innocents. The innocent man cannot be killed according to Islam.

By leaving out the condemnation of the "killing of innocents" entirely, Mohammed El Oifi writing in Le Monde diplomatique argued that this translation left the implication that civilians (the innocent) are considered a legitimate target.[46] Several British newspapers subsequently used MEMRI's translation to run headlines such as "Islamic radical has praised the suicide bomb attacks on the capital"[60] prompting al-Sebai to demand an apology and take legal action. In his view, MEMRI's translation was also "an incitement to have me arrested by the British authorities".[61]

Halim Barakat described MEMRI as a "a propaganda organization dedicated to representing Arabs and Muslims as anti-semites". Barakat claims an essay he wrote for the Al-Hayat Daily of London titled The Wild Beast that Zionism Created: Self-Destruction, was mistranslated by MEMRI and retitled as Jews Have Lost Their Humanity. Barakat further stated "Every time I wrote Zionism, MEMRI replaced the word by Jew or Judaism. They want to give the impression that I'm not criticizing Israeli policy, but that what I'm saying is anti-Semitic."[42][62][63] According to Barakat, he was subject to widespread condemnation from faculty and his office was "flooded with hatemail".[64][65] Fellow Georgetown faculty member Aviel Roshwald accused Barakat in an article he published of promoting a "demonization of Israel and of Jews".[66] Supported by Georgetown colleagues, Barakat denied the claim,[67] which Roshwald had based on MEMRI's translation of Barakat's essay.[66]

In 2007, CNN correspondent Atika Shubert and Arabic translators accused MEMRI of mistranslating portions of a Palestinian children's television programme.

"Media watchdog MEMRI translates one caller as saying - quote - 'We will annihilate the Jews'," said Shubert. "But, according to several Arabic speakers used by CNN, the caller actually says 'The Jews are killing us."'[68][69]

CNN's Glenn Beck later invited Yigal Carmon onto his program to comment on the alleged mistranslation. Carmon criticized CNN's translators understanding of Arabic stating: "Even someone who doesn't know Arabic would listen to the tape and would hear the word 'Jews' is at the end, and also it means it is something to be done to the Jews, not by the Jews. And she (Octavia Nasr) insisted, no the word is in the beginning. I said: 'Octavia, you just don't get it. It is at the end.'" Brian Whitaker, a Middle East editor for the Guardian newspaper (UK) later pointed out that the word order in Arabic is not the same as in English: "the verb comes first and so a sentence in Arabic which literally says 'Are shooting at us the Jews' means 'The Jews are shooting at us.'"[55]

Naomi Sakr, a professor of Media Policy at the University of Westminster has charged that specific MEMRI mistranslations, occurring during times of international tension, have generated hostility towards Arab journalists.[70]

Brian Whitaker wrote in a blog for The Guardian newspaper that in the translation of the video, showing Farfour eliciting political comments from a young girl named Sanabel, the MEMRI transcript misrepresents the segment. Farfour asks Sanabel what she will do and, after a pause says "I'll shoot", MEMRI attributed the phrase said by Farfour, ("I'll shoot"), as the girl's reply while ignoring her actual reply ("I'm going to draw a picture").[71] Whitaker and others commented that a statement uttered by the same child, ("We're going to [or want to] resist"), had been given an unduly aggressive interpretation by MEMRI as ("We want to fight"). Also, where MEMRI translated the girl as saying the highly controversial remark ("We will annihilate the Jews"), Whitaker and others, including Arabic speakers used by CNN, insist that based on careful listening to the low quality video clip, the girl is saying "Bitokhoona al-yahood", variously interpreted as, "The Jews [will] shoot us"[71] or "The Jews are killing us."[72]

MEMRI stands by their translation of the show, saying: "Yes, we stand by the translation by the very words, by the context, by the syntax, and every measure of the translation."[72]

In response to accusations of inaccuracies and distortion, Yigal Carmon, said:

As an institute of research, we want MEMRI to present translations to people who wish to be informed on the ideas circulating in the Middle East. We aim to reflect reality. If knowledge of this reality should benefit one side or another, then so be it.

In an e-mail debate with Carmon, Whitaker asked about MEMRI's November 2000 translation of an interview given by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to al-Ahram al-Arabi. One question asked by the interviewer was: "How do you deal with the Jews who are besieging al-Aqsa and are scattered around it?" which was translated as: "How do you feel about the Jews?" MEMRI cut out the first part of the reply and combined it with the answer to the next question, which, Whitaker claimed, made "Arabs look more anti-semitic than they are". Carmon admitted this was an error in translation but defended combining the two replies as both questions referred to the same subject. Carmon rejected other claims of distortion by Whitaker, saying: "it is perhaps reassuring that you had to go back so far to find a mistake ... You accused us of distortion by omission but when asked to provide examples of trends and views we have missed, you have failed to answer." Carmon also accused Whitaker of "using insults rather than evidence" in his criticism of MEMRI.[5]

Whitaker claims that although Memri's translations are usually accurate, they are selective and often out of context. He stated: "When errors do occur, it's difficult to attribute them to incompetence or accidental lapses ... there appears to be a political motive