PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Special Features
By Uri Avnery
Proclamation of the State of Israel
Page 1 of 2
Translation
mwcnews.net/content/view/22381/26/
1948
ONE DAY, I hope, a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission", on the South African model, will be set up here. It should be composed of Israeli, Palestinian and international historians, whose job will be to establish what really happened in this country in 1948.
In the 60 years that have passed since then, the events of the war have been buried under layer upon layer of Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish and Arab propaganda. A quasi-archeological excavation is needed in order to expose the bottom layer. Even the eye-witnesses who are still alive sometimes have problems distinguishing between what they actually saw and the myths that have twisted and falsified the events almost beyond recognition.
I am one of the eye-witnesses. In the last few days, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary, dozens of radio and television interviewers from all over the world have been asking me to describe what actually happened. Here are some of these questions and my answers to them. (If I repeat things I have already written about, I apologize.)
- How was this war different from others?
First of all, it was not one war but two, which followed one another without a break.
The first war was fought between the Jews and the Arabs in the country. It started on the morrow of the UN General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947, which decreed the partition of Palestine between a Jewish and an Arab state. It lasted until the proclamation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. That day marked the start of the second war - the one between the State of Israel and the neighboring countries, which threw their armies into the battle.
This was not a war between two countries for a piece of land between them, like the wars between Germany and France over Alsace. Neither was it a fratricidal struggle, like the American Civil War, where both sides belonged to the same nation. I categorize it as an "ethnic war".
Such a war is fought out between two different peoples who live in the same country, each of which claims the whole country for itself. In such a war, the aim is not only to achieve a military victory, but also to take possession of as much of the country as possible without the population of the other side. That is what happened when Yugoslavia broke up and when, not by accident, the odious term "ethnic cleansing" was born.
- Was the war inevitable?
At the time, I hoped until the last moment that it could be avoided (about that, later.) In retrospect it is clear to me that it was already too late.
The Jewish side was determined to establish a state of its own. This was one of the fundamental aims of the Zionist movement, founded 50 years earlier, and was strengthened a hundredfold after the Holocaust, which had come to an end only two and a half years before.
The Arab side was determined to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state in the country which they (rightly) considered an Arab country. That's why the Arabs started the war.
- What did you, the Jews, think when you went to war?
When I enlisted at the beginning of the war, we were totally convinced that we were faced with the danger of annihilation and that we were defending ourselves, our families and the entire Hebrew community. The phrase "There Is No Alternative" was not just a slogan, but a deeply felt conviction. (When I say "we", I mean the community in general and the soldiers in particular.) I don't think that the Arab side was imbued with quite the same conviction. That was their undoing.
This explains why the Jewish community was totally mobilized from the first moment on. We had a unified leadership (even The Irgun and the Stern Group accepted its authority) and a unified military force, which rapidly assumed the character of a regular army.
Nothing like this happened on the Arab side. They had no unified leadership, and no unified Arab-Palestinian army, which meant they could not concentrate their forces at the crucial points. But we learned this only after the war.
- Did you think that you were the stronger side?
Not at all. At the time, the Jews constituted only a third of the population. The hundreds of Arab villages throughout the country dominated the main arteries that were crucial to our survival. We suffered heavy casualties in our efforts to open them, especially the road to Jerusalem. We honestly felt that we were "the few against the many".
Slowly, the balance of power shifted. Our army became more organized and learned from its experience, while the Arab side still depended on "faz'ah" - the one-time mobilization of local villagers equipped with their own old weapons. From April 1948 on, we started to receive large quantities of light weapons from Czechoslovakia, which were sent to us on Stalin's orders. In the middle of May, when the expected intervention of the Arab armies was approaching, we were already in possession of a contiguous territory.
- In other words, you drove the Arabs out?
This was not yet "ethnic cleansing" but a by-product of the war. Our side was preparing for the massive attack of the Arab armies and we could not possibly leave a large hostile population at our rear. This military necessity was, of course, intertwined with the more or less conscious desire to create a homogeneous Jewish territory.
In the course of the years, opponents of Israel have created a conspiracy myth about "Plan D", as if it had been the mother of ethnic cleansing. In reality that was a military plan for creating a contiguous territory under our control in preparation for the crucial confrontation with the Arab armies.
Page 2 of 2
Translation
- Do you say that at this stage there was not yet a basic decision to drive all the Arabs out?
One has to remember the political situation: according to the UN resolution, the "Jewish state" was to include more than half of Palestine (as it existed in 1947 under the British Mandate). In this territory, more than 40% of the population was Arab. The Arab spokesmen argued that it was impossible to set up a Jewish state in which almost half the population was Arab and demanded the withdrawal of the partition resolution. The Jewish side, which stuck to the partition resolution, wanted to prove that it was possible. So there were some efforts (in Haifa, for example) to convince the Arabs not to leave their homes. But the reality of the war itself caused the mass exodus.
It must be understood that at no stage did the Arabs "flee the country". In general, things happened this way: in the course of the fighting, an Arab village came under heavy fire. Its inhabitants - men, women and children - fled, of course, to the next village. Then we fired on the next village, and they fled to the next one, and so forth, until the armistice came into force and suddenly there was a border (the Green Line) between them and their homes. The Deir Yassin massacre gave another powerful push to the flight.
Even the inhabitants of Jaffa did not leave the country - after all, Gaza, where they fled, is also a part of Palestine.
- In that case, when was the start of the "ethnic cleansing" you spoke about?
In the second half of the war, after the advance of the Arab armies was halted, a deliberate policy of expelling the Arabs became a war aim on its own.
For truth's sake, it must be remembered that this was not one-sided. Not many Arabs remained in the territories that were conquered by our side, but, also, no Jew remained in the territories that were conquered by the Arabs, such as the Etzion Bloc kibbutzim and the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Jewish inhabitants were killed or expelled. The difference was quantitative: while the Jewish side conquered large stretches of land, the Arab side succeeded only in conquering small areas.
The real decision was taken after the war: not to allow the 750 thousand Arab refugees to return to their homes.
- What happened when the Arab armies entered the battle?
At the beginning, our situation looked desperate. The Arab armies were regular troops, well trained (mostly by the British), and equipped with heavy arms: warplanes, tanks and artillery, while we had only light weapons - rifles, machine guns, light mortars and some ineffective anti-tank weapons. Only in June did heavy arms start to reach us.
I myself took part in the unloading of the first fighter planes that reached us from Czechoslovakia. They had been produced for the German Wehrmacht. Over our heads "German" planes on our side (Messerschmitts) were fighting "British" planes flown by Egyptians (Spitfires) .
- Why did Stalin support the Jewish side?
On the eve of the UN resolution, the Soviet representative, Andrei Gromyko, gave a passionately Zionist speech. Stalin's immediate aim was to get the British out of Palestine, where they might otherwise allow the stationing of American missiles. A sometimes forgotten fact should be mentioned here: the Soviet Union was the first state to recognize Israel de jure, immediately after the declaration of independence. The US recognized Israel at the time only de facto.
Stalin did not turn his back on Israel till some years later, when Israel openly joined the American bloc. At that time, Stalin's anti-Semitic paranoia also became apparent. The policy-makers in Moscow were then of the opinion that the rising tide of Arab nationalism was a better bet.
- What did you personally feel during the war?
On the eve of the war, I still believed in a "Semitic" partnership of all the inhabitants of the country. One month before the outbreak of war I published the booklet "War or Peace in the Semitic Region", in which I propounded this idea. In retrospect it is clear to me that this was far too late.
When the war broke out, I immediately joined a combat brigade (Givati). In the last days before I was called up I managed - together with a group of friends - to publish another booklet, entitled "From Defense to War", in which I proposed conducting the war with a view to the nature of the subsequent peace. (I was much influenced by the British military commentator Basil Liddell Hart, who advocated such a course during World War II.)
My friends at the time tried very strongly to convince me not to enlist, so I could remain free for the much more important task of voicing my opinions throughout the war. I felt that that they were quite wrong - that the place of every decent and fit young man at such a time was in the combat units. How could I stay at home when thousands of my age-group were risking their lives day and night? And besides, who would ever listen to my voice again if at the crucial moment of our national existence I did not fulfill my duty?
At the beginning of the war I was a private soldier in the infantry and fought around the road to Jerusalem, and in the second half I served in the Samson's Foxes motorized commando unit on the Egyptian front. That allowed me to see the war from dozens of different vantage points.
Throughout the war I wrote up my experiences. My reports appeared in the newspapers at the time and were later collected in a book entitled "In the Fields of the Philistines, 1948" (which will soon appear in English). The military censors did not allow me to dwell on the negative sides, so immediately after the war I wrote a second book called "The Other Side of the Coin", disguised as a literary work, so I did not have to submit it to censorship. There I reported, inter alia, that we had received orders to kill every Arab who tried to return home.
- What did the war teach you?
The atrocities I witnessed turned me into a convinced peace activist. The war taught me that there is a Palestinian people, and that we shall never achieve peace if a Palestinian state does not come into being side by side with our state. That this has not yet happened is one of the reasons why the 1948 war is still going on to this very day.
Special Features
By Uri Avnery
Proclamation of the State of Israel
Page 1 of 2
Translation
mwcnews.net/content/view/22381/26/
1948
ONE DAY, I hope, a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission", on the South African model, will be set up here. It should be composed of Israeli, Palestinian and international historians, whose job will be to establish what really happened in this country in 1948.
In the 60 years that have passed since then, the events of the war have been buried under layer upon layer of Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish and Arab propaganda. A quasi-archeological excavation is needed in order to expose the bottom layer. Even the eye-witnesses who are still alive sometimes have problems distinguishing between what they actually saw and the myths that have twisted and falsified the events almost beyond recognition.
I am one of the eye-witnesses. In the last few days, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary, dozens of radio and television interviewers from all over the world have been asking me to describe what actually happened. Here are some of these questions and my answers to them. (If I repeat things I have already written about, I apologize.)
- How was this war different from others?
First of all, it was not one war but two, which followed one another without a break.
The first war was fought between the Jews and the Arabs in the country. It started on the morrow of the UN General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947, which decreed the partition of Palestine between a Jewish and an Arab state. It lasted until the proclamation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. That day marked the start of the second war - the one between the State of Israel and the neighboring countries, which threw their armies into the battle.
This was not a war between two countries for a piece of land between them, like the wars between Germany and France over Alsace. Neither was it a fratricidal struggle, like the American Civil War, where both sides belonged to the same nation. I categorize it as an "ethnic war".
Such a war is fought out between two different peoples who live in the same country, each of which claims the whole country for itself. In such a war, the aim is not only to achieve a military victory, but also to take possession of as much of the country as possible without the population of the other side. That is what happened when Yugoslavia broke up and when, not by accident, the odious term "ethnic cleansing" was born.
- Was the war inevitable?
At the time, I hoped until the last moment that it could be avoided (about that, later.) In retrospect it is clear to me that it was already too late.
The Jewish side was determined to establish a state of its own. This was one of the fundamental aims of the Zionist movement, founded 50 years earlier, and was strengthened a hundredfold after the Holocaust, which had come to an end only two and a half years before.
The Arab side was determined to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state in the country which they (rightly) considered an Arab country. That's why the Arabs started the war.
- What did you, the Jews, think when you went to war?
When I enlisted at the beginning of the war, we were totally convinced that we were faced with the danger of annihilation and that we were defending ourselves, our families and the entire Hebrew community. The phrase "There Is No Alternative" was not just a slogan, but a deeply felt conviction. (When I say "we", I mean the community in general and the soldiers in particular.) I don't think that the Arab side was imbued with quite the same conviction. That was their undoing.
This explains why the Jewish community was totally mobilized from the first moment on. We had a unified leadership (even The Irgun and the Stern Group accepted its authority) and a unified military force, which rapidly assumed the character of a regular army.
Nothing like this happened on the Arab side. They had no unified leadership, and no unified Arab-Palestinian army, which meant they could not concentrate their forces at the crucial points. But we learned this only after the war.
- Did you think that you were the stronger side?
Not at all. At the time, the Jews constituted only a third of the population. The hundreds of Arab villages throughout the country dominated the main arteries that were crucial to our survival. We suffered heavy casualties in our efforts to open them, especially the road to Jerusalem. We honestly felt that we were "the few against the many".
Slowly, the balance of power shifted. Our army became more organized and learned from its experience, while the Arab side still depended on "faz'ah" - the one-time mobilization of local villagers equipped with their own old weapons. From April 1948 on, we started to receive large quantities of light weapons from Czechoslovakia, which were sent to us on Stalin's orders. In the middle of May, when the expected intervention of the Arab armies was approaching, we were already in possession of a contiguous territory.
- In other words, you drove the Arabs out?
This was not yet "ethnic cleansing" but a by-product of the war. Our side was preparing for the massive attack of the Arab armies and we could not possibly leave a large hostile population at our rear. This military necessity was, of course, intertwined with the more or less conscious desire to create a homogeneous Jewish territory.
In the course of the years, opponents of Israel have created a conspiracy myth about "Plan D", as if it had been the mother of ethnic cleansing. In reality that was a military plan for creating a contiguous territory under our control in preparation for the crucial confrontation with the Arab armies.
Page 2 of 2
Translation
- Do you say that at this stage there was not yet a basic decision to drive all the Arabs out?
One has to remember the political situation: according to the UN resolution, the "Jewish state" was to include more than half of Palestine (as it existed in 1947 under the British Mandate). In this territory, more than 40% of the population was Arab. The Arab spokesmen argued that it was impossible to set up a Jewish state in which almost half the population was Arab and demanded the withdrawal of the partition resolution. The Jewish side, which stuck to the partition resolution, wanted to prove that it was possible. So there were some efforts (in Haifa, for example) to convince the Arabs not to leave their homes. But the reality of the war itself caused the mass exodus.
It must be understood that at no stage did the Arabs "flee the country". In general, things happened this way: in the course of the fighting, an Arab village came under heavy fire. Its inhabitants - men, women and children - fled, of course, to the next village. Then we fired on the next village, and they fled to the next one, and so forth, until the armistice came into force and suddenly there was a border (the Green Line) between them and their homes. The Deir Yassin massacre gave another powerful push to the flight.
Even the inhabitants of Jaffa did not leave the country - after all, Gaza, where they fled, is also a part of Palestine.
- In that case, when was the start of the "ethnic cleansing" you spoke about?
In the second half of the war, after the advance of the Arab armies was halted, a deliberate policy of expelling the Arabs became a war aim on its own.
For truth's sake, it must be remembered that this was not one-sided. Not many Arabs remained in the territories that were conquered by our side, but, also, no Jew remained in the territories that were conquered by the Arabs, such as the Etzion Bloc kibbutzim and the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Jewish inhabitants were killed or expelled. The difference was quantitative: while the Jewish side conquered large stretches of land, the Arab side succeeded only in conquering small areas.
The real decision was taken after the war: not to allow the 750 thousand Arab refugees to return to their homes.
- What happened when the Arab armies entered the battle?
At the beginning, our situation looked desperate. The Arab armies were regular troops, well trained (mostly by the British), and equipped with heavy arms: warplanes, tanks and artillery, while we had only light weapons - rifles, machine guns, light mortars and some ineffective anti-tank weapons. Only in June did heavy arms start to reach us.
I myself took part in the unloading of the first fighter planes that reached us from Czechoslovakia. They had been produced for the German Wehrmacht. Over our heads "German" planes on our side (Messerschmitts) were fighting "British" planes flown by Egyptians (Spitfires) .
- Why did Stalin support the Jewish side?
On the eve of the UN resolution, the Soviet representative, Andrei Gromyko, gave a passionately Zionist speech. Stalin's immediate aim was to get the British out of Palestine, where they might otherwise allow the stationing of American missiles. A sometimes forgotten fact should be mentioned here: the Soviet Union was the first state to recognize Israel de jure, immediately after the declaration of independence. The US recognized Israel at the time only de facto.
Stalin did not turn his back on Israel till some years later, when Israel openly joined the American bloc. At that time, Stalin's anti-Semitic paranoia also became apparent. The policy-makers in Moscow were then of the opinion that the rising tide of Arab nationalism was a better bet.
- What did you personally feel during the war?
On the eve of the war, I still believed in a "Semitic" partnership of all the inhabitants of the country. One month before the outbreak of war I published the booklet "War or Peace in the Semitic Region", in which I propounded this idea. In retrospect it is clear to me that this was far too late.
When the war broke out, I immediately joined a combat brigade (Givati). In the last days before I was called up I managed - together with a group of friends - to publish another booklet, entitled "From Defense to War", in which I proposed conducting the war with a view to the nature of the subsequent peace. (I was much influenced by the British military commentator Basil Liddell Hart, who advocated such a course during World War II.)
My friends at the time tried very strongly to convince me not to enlist, so I could remain free for the much more important task of voicing my opinions throughout the war. I felt that that they were quite wrong - that the place of every decent and fit young man at such a time was in the combat units. How could I stay at home when thousands of my age-group were risking their lives day and night? And besides, who would ever listen to my voice again if at the crucial moment of our national existence I did not fulfill my duty?
At the beginning of the war I was a private soldier in the infantry and fought around the road to Jerusalem, and in the second half I served in the Samson's Foxes motorized commando unit on the Egyptian front. That allowed me to see the war from dozens of different vantage points.
Throughout the war I wrote up my experiences. My reports appeared in the newspapers at the time and were later collected in a book entitled "In the Fields of the Philistines, 1948" (which will soon appear in English). The military censors did not allow me to dwell on the negative sides, so immediately after the war I wrote a second book called "The Other Side of the Coin", disguised as a literary work, so I did not have to submit it to censorship. There I reported, inter alia, that we had received orders to kill every Arab who tried to return home.
- What did the war teach you?
The atrocities I witnessed turned me into a convinced peace activist. The war taught me that there is a Palestinian people, and that we shall never achieve peace if a Palestinian state does not come into being side by side with our state. That this has not yet happened is one of the reasons why the 1948 war is still going on to this very day.
posted by:
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Philippines
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Re: PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Tue, May 13, 2008 - 1:29 PM> ONE DAY, I hope, a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission", on the South African model, will be set up here. It should be composed of Israeli, Palestinian and international historians, whose job will be to establish what really happened in this country in 1948.
ONE DAY, I hope, a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission", on the South African model, will be set up here. It should be composed of Israeli, Palestinian, Arabs and international historians, whose job will be to establish what really happened during the ethnic cleansing of Jews in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s.
Will the Arabs/Palestinians ever be willing to acknowledge their mistakes and crimes? -
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Re: PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Tue, May 13, 2008 - 3:17 PM
Steve, find me the name of the Jewish kid that beat you up in junior high, and I'll get in touch with him and have him apologize to you. -
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Re: PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Tue, May 13, 2008 - 5:24 PMAndrew, Uri Avnery wrote this, not Steve. . .what do you say to him? He fought for Israel and after that chose peace activism.
How can you fault him? Is he harming you? Is he harming Israel? -
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Re: PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Tue, May 13, 2008 - 9:52 PM<Andrew, Uri Avnery wrote this, not Steve. . .what do you say to him? He fought for Israel and after that chose peace activism.
How can you fault him? Is he harming you? Is he harming Israel? >
Obviiously, Jewish kids must have beaten up Uri Avnery as a child and he is now filled with anti-semitic self-loathing. Clearly there is no other possible explanation for a Jewish person to be critical of the actions of the Israeli government.
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Re: PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Wed, May 14, 2008 - 3:39 AM
Lorenzo, here's an interesting line that I wish the interviewer had followed up: 'This was not yet "ethnic cleansing" but a by-product of the war.'
What do you think that he meant by that? As I have stated many times, many people WERE NOT evicted, but fled because of war, or because of suggestions by people like the Grand Mullah..... Not all were evicted, and that's a fact, and that I believe is what he's referring to. Too bad that the interviewer did not follow up on that line.
Oh, here it is: 'The Arab spokesmen argued that it was impossible to set up a Jewish state in which almost half the population was Arab and demanded the withdrawal of the partition resolution. The Jewish side, which stuck to the partition resolution, wanted to prove that it was possible. So there were some efforts (in Haifa, for example) to convince the Arabs not to leave their homes. But the reality of the war itself caused the mass exodus.'
Hmm. Sounds like Uri Avnery disagrees with all of those here that say that the Israelis drove out a million people. Interesting.
He suggests that the war drove people out.
Now, I am not saying that the Israelis did not drive people out - of course they did. But I have said all along (for 20 years now) that while some hundreds of thousands were unquestionably driven out, a similar number ran away during a time of war for one reason or another. Avery says the same thing. Are those of you that call me names for saying THE EXACT SAME THING going to then say the same thing to Avnery? I doubt it.
Will those of you that have called me names for saying this admit that you were wrong? I doubt it.
Avnery continues: 'For truth's sake, it must be remembered that this was not one-sided. Not many Arabs remained in the territories that were conquered by our side, but, also, no Jew remained in the territories that were conquered by the Arabs, such as the Etzion Bloc kibbutzim and the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Jewish inhabitants were killed or expelled.'
Not to mention the half of a million plus Jews that were driven out of the countries in the Middle East that not many of you care about. Why is that? Why the double-standard?
Here's the main point: 'The real decision was taken after the war: not to allow the 750 thousand Arab refugees to return to their homes.'
True. And, I agree with that act. How could Israel allow back in those that may have just fought against them? Would YOU have allowed them back in after you have returned home to your family after fighting, as he puts it, facing "the danger of annihilation"? Would YOU allow undoubtedly many of those same people back in whom just tried to kill you, Lorenzo? Would YOU put your family in such danger?
War is an ugly thing, but Israel did not ask to be attacked 60 years ago.
<The atrocities I witnessed turned me into a convinced peace activist.>
Undoubtedly.
Lorenzo, I know a bit about this man. Is he for a one-state solution?
My point through all of this is that I went after Steve because he seems to have some kind of..........issue............with Israel. There are TONS of countries out there that we fund that are horrible........yet he fixates on Israel. There are tons of countries out there that do FAR WORSE THINGS to not just the countries around them, but their own citizens.......yet he fixates on Israel.
Perhaps I am wrong, but I do find it interesting that he spends so much time fixating on Israel while ignoring the actions that contribute to the matter and miasma at hand. I find it interesting that he will seemingly purposefully ignore FACTS that go against his agenda......... So, I have to wonder what that agenda is.
We all want peace, Lorenzo. Avnery, me, you......... But, I want the kind of peace that is not only POSSIBLE, but also one that will result in a lasting peace.
That's why I suggest that all parties go back to Camp David, dust of the 'road map' and go back along that road.
I want the process that is based on a REALISTIC plan for peace, not demands to which Israel will NEVER capitulate.
<Is he harming Israel?>
Yes. His efforts to manipulate the information that he parrots does harm the process, because stupid, no, not stupid, but uneducated people will sadly believe him, and this harms the peace process. His efforts strengthen those that agree with him that are similarly manipulative or stupid/uneducated.
Everyone that pushes for a peace that does not take into consideration Israel's strong position in this negotiation is doing the whole region a disservice. Maybe they don't know that they are doing a disservice? I don't know, but they are. They are like someone who gives a person who is gut-shot a drink of water. Why do they give that person a drink of water? Out of a sincere interest to help alleviate that person's distress, or out of a want to harm that person? Who knows?
Remember Lorenzo, Israelis think of it as "the danger of annihilation", not just bad living conditions. How would YOU react if you were facing "the danger of annihilation"? -
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PROCLAMATION OF STUPIDITY
Mon, May 19, 2008 - 11:35 AMandrew:
< But the reality of the war itself caused the mass exodus.
It must be understood that at no stage did the Arabs "flee the country". In general, things happened this way: in the course of the fighting, an Arab village came under heavy fire. Its inhabitants - men, women and children - fled, of course, to the next village. Then we fired on the next village, and they fled to the next one, and so forth, until the armistice came into force and suddenly there was a border (the Green Line) between them and their homes. The Deir Yassin massacre gave another powerful push to the flight.>
<Sounds like Uri Avnery disagrees with all of those here that say that the Israelis drove out a million people. Interesting.
He suggests that the war drove people out.>
Exactly and he describe the process of what happened. He is saying the Palestinians were driven out by the Israeli military. There is no other way to read this. Also above he rebuts your claim that they left for any other reason than the violence caused by the war. -
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Re: PROCLAMATION OF STUPIDITY
Mon, May 19, 2008 - 2:05 PM<It must be understood that at no stage did the Arabs "flee the country". In general, things happened this way: in the course of the fighting, an Arab village came under heavy fire. Its inhabitants - men, women and children - fled, of course, to the next village.>
It must be understood that you are either lying or you are ignorant of the facts.
No, that is NOT true. The real number of those that left their villages BEFORE any invasion due to the suggestion and pressure of community leaders like the Grand Mufti, who extolled 'his people' to get out of the way of the invading armies that upon the genisis of Israel were to drive the Israelis "into the sea".
Do you really not know this fact? The only question is how many tens or hundreds of thousands left of their own will or were pushed out in the manner that you suggest.
<Exactly and he describe the process of what happened. He is saying the Palestinians were driven out by the Israeli military.>
Read it again - that's not what he said.
<There is no other way to read this.>
Except of course to read his actual words? Go find that thread and cut and paste where you saw him say this expressly.
<Also above he rebuts your claim that they left for any other reason than the violence caused by the war.>
I don't think so.
There has been thread after thread QUOTING the Grand Mufti when he got on the radio telling his people to get out of the way so that they do not get harmed and allow those five armies to invade. You are either ignoring that fact or you are ignorant of it. Which one?
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PROCLAMATION OF STUPIDITY
Tue, May 20, 2008 - 12:35 AMandrew:
<No, that is NOT true. The real number of those that left their villages BEFORE any invasion due to the suggestion and pressure of community leaders like the Grand Mufti, who extolled 'his people' to get out of the way of the invading armies that upon the genisis of Israel were to drive the Israelis "into the sea".
Do you really not know this fact? The only question is how many tens or hundreds of thousands left of their own will or were pushed out in the manner that you suggest. >
If it were a fact you could cite it so others could read it. You haven't perhaps because it's part of the myth about Israel/Palestine in 1948. YOU WON'T POST ANY RESPONSE TO THIS BECAUSE THERE IS NO TRUTH TO YOUR CLAIM.
<But the reality of the war itself caused the mass exodus.
It must be understood that at no stage did the Arabs "flee the country". In general, things happened this way: in the course of the fighting, an Arab village came under heavy fire. Its inhabitants - men, women and children - fled, of course, to the next village. Then we fired on the next village, and they fled to the next one, and so forth, until the armistice came into force and suddenly there was a border (the Green Line) between them and their homes. The Deir Yassin massacre gave another powerful push to the flight. >
YOU DO THIS ALL THE TIME andrew YOU CLAIM THE WORDS DON'T MEAN WHAT THEY SAY. As I've said there can be only two answers to that, you are either lying or since you do this all the time you are sick. DELUSIONAL He describes the process by which the Palestinians are driven out by the IDF. Which part do you not understand? SO ABOVE ARE THE ACTUAL WORDS. HIS ONLY CLAIM IS THAT PALESTINIANS WERE DRIVEN OUT BY THE ISRAELI ARMY.
<I don't think so.
There has been thread after thread QUOTING the Grand Mufti when he got on the radio telling his people to get out of the way so that they do not get harmed and allow those five armies to invade.>
Again cite a source. Just as in this case you could be making this up, have it partially or wholly wrong. So if it is a fact and not myth please bring it forward. Just because someone has posted it in the past doesn't mean you can quote it without presenting it with the source. Or just as in this case you could be misrepresenting it.
I KNOW YOU WILL NOT RESPOND BECAUSE YOU NEVER DO. FROM TIME TO TIME YOU HAVE POSTED INTERESTING ARTICLES, BUT FACTS AND USABLE INFORMATION. NO. -
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Re: PROCLAMATION OF STUPIDITY
Tue, May 20, 2008 - 1:13 AM<I KNOW YOU WILL NOT RESPOND BECAUSE YOU NEVER DO. FROM TIME TO TIME YOU HAVE POSTED INTERESTING ARTICLES, BUT FACTS AND USABLE INFORMATION. NO. >
Y'r not very bright. Active - but obviously not bright. Read the rest and weep, bay-bee!
<If it were a fact you could cite it so others could read it. You haven't perhaps because it's part of the myth about Israel/Palestine in 1948. YOU WON'T POST ANY RESPONSE TO THIS BECAUSE THERE IS NO TRUTH TO YOUR CLAIM.>
No, you only wish that it was not a fact. We have had a lot of threads about this exact issue over the years, and there have been more than enough cites to easily prove this point. One was a UN report in fact.
The fact is that you won't believe ANYONE because it goes against your agenda. I show Averney's exact quotes about it and you act like I took him out of context even though we looked at his exact words. He said EXACTLY what I said in terms of how the Grand Mufti told people to get out of the way, the only difference is that he did not say the same thing as that UN report and all of the other scholarly cites that we found at the time.
OK. So, you don't want to accept Averney's claims because they are difficult for your agenda even though 'your' side quotes Averney all the time. Fine. How about Benny Morris? He's quote by 'your side' all the damned time. How about this bit by Mr. Morris:
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In a letter to the Irish Times of February 21, 2008, Benny Morris makes his current views on the refugee problem quite clear however.
Madam, - Israel-haters are fond of citing - and more often, mis-citing - my work in support of their arguments. Let me offer some corrections.
The Palestinian Arabs were not responsible “in some bizarre way” (David Norris, January 31st) for what befell them in 1948. Their responsibility was very direct and simple.
In defiance of the will of the international community, as embodied in the UN General Assembly Resolution of November 29th, 1947 (No. 181), they launched hostilities against the Jewish community in Palestine in the hope of aborting the emergence of the Jewish state and perhaps destroying that community. But they lost; and one of the results was the displacement of 700,000 of them from their homes.
It is true, as Erskine Childers pointed out long ago, that there were no Arab radio broadcasts urging the Arabs to flee en masse; indeed, there were broadcasts by several Arab radio stations urging them to stay put. But, on the local level, in dozens of localities around Palestine, Arab leaders advised or ordered the evacuation of women and children or whole communities, as occurred in Haifa in late April, 1948. And Haifa’s Jewish mayor, Shabtai Levy, did, on April 22nd, plead with them to stay, to no avail.
Most of Palestine’s 700,000 “refugees” fled their homes because of the flail of war (and in the expectation that they would shortly return to their homes on the backs of victorious Arab invaders). But it is also true that there were several dozen sites, including Lydda and Ramla, from which Arab communities were expelled by Jewish troops.
The displacement of the 700,000 Arabs who became “refugees” - and I put the term in inverted commas, as two-thirds of them were displaced from one part of Palestine to another and not from their country (which is the usual definition of a refugee) - was not a “racist crime” (David Landy, January 24th) but the result of a national conflict and a war, with religious overtones, from the Muslim perspective, launched by the Arabs themselves.
There was no Zionist “plan” or blanket policy of evicting the Arab population, or of “ethnic cleansing”. Plan Dalet (Plan D), of March 10th, 1948 (it is open and available for all to read in the IDF Archive and in various publications), was the master plan of the Haganah - the Jewish military force that became the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) - to counter the expected pan-Arab assault on the emergent Jewish state. That’s what it explicitly states and that’s what it was. And the invasion of the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq duly occurred, on May 15th.
It is true that Plan D gave the regional commanders carte blanche to occupy and garrison or expel and destroy the Arab villages along and behind the front lines and the anticipated Arab armies’ invasion routes. And it is also true that mid-way in the 1948 war the Israeli leaders decided to bar the return of the “refugees” (those “refugees” who had just assaulted the Jewish community), viewing them as a potential fifth column and threat to the Jewish state’s existence. I for one cannot fault their fears or logic.
The demonisation of Israel is largely based on lies - much as the demonisation of the Jews during the past 2,000 years has been based on lies. And there is a connection between the two….
Morris had made similar statements previously in interviews and articles, surprising many who had used his writings in support of Arab Palestinian claims.
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How about that? Care to argue with him too?
OK. So, Benny is not trustworthy either all of a sudden, 'eh?
How about this one?
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The Arab League League considered plans for massive persecution of Jews, which were eventually implemented and resulted in massive expulsion of the Jews of Arab countries. The Arabs began rioting in Jerusalem, attacking Jewish towns and transportation, while the British looked on. The Jews counter attacked, and Arabs began leaving Palestine, as their disorganized leadership crumbled. As early as January 30, 1948, The Jaffa newspaper, As Sha’ab warned, “The first of our fifth column consists of those who abandon their houses and businesses and go to live elsewhere….At the first signs of trouble they take to their heels to escape sharing the burden of struggle.”
The warning was to no avail. The exodus of Arab refugees continued. In the largest cities, Haifa and Yaffo-Tel-Aviv, Arab attacks on Jewish neighborhoods were met by more effective Jewish counterattacks. At the end of April, Arabs fled Yaffo and Haifa en masse, despite the pleas of the British and of Israeli authorities.
According to the US Consul in Haifa, “. . . local mufti-dominated Arab leaders” were urging “all Arabs to leave the city, and large numbers did so.” (Aubrey Lippincott, U.S. Consul General in Haifa, April 22, 1948 )
Likewise, Jamal Husseini, the nephew of Grand Mufti Hajj Amin El Husseini, reported to the UN that, ”
“The Arabs did not want to submit to a truce; they rather preferred to abandon their homes, their belongings and everything they possessed in the world and leave the town. This is in fact what they did.” ( Jamal Husseini, Acting Chairman of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, speaking to the United Nations Security Council. UNSC Official Records (N. 62), April 23, 1948, p. 14. )
Time Magazine of May 3, 1948, reported of Haifa:
“The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by orders of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city. More than pride and defiance was behind the Arab orders. By withdrawing Arab workers, their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa. Jewish leaders said wishfully: “They’ll be back in a few days. Already some are returning.”
According to Palestinian Nimr al Hawari, in his book, Sir Am Nakba (the Secret of the Nakba) published in Nazareth in 1965, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri as Said stated,
“We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down.”
This would seem to be fairly unequivocal proof that the Arabs began the war, and moreover, that Arab leaders actually encouraged the flight of the refugees at the start of the war.
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Don't like that? Kinda inconvenient to your agenda, 'eh? I mean, that's the Jaffa newspaper, Muslim writers.. not a Jewish newspaper or Jewish writers. So.......
Read the rest and weep yourself: unmia.com/archives/95 . It goes on and on - all well documented and cited.
How about this one: "The war created about 780,000 Palestinian refugees who fled or were evicted from Jewish held areas. Gaza fell under the jurisdiction of Egypt. The West Bank of the Jordan was occupied by Jordan and later annexed, consistent with secret agreements with the Jewish leadership made before the outbreak of hostilities."
Yes, but you know more than this site: www.mideastweb.org/timeline.htm
Here's another one:
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'By April 1948, a month before Israel’s declaration of independence, and at a time when the Arabs appeared to be winning the war, some 100,000 Palestinians, mostly from the main urban centres of Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem, and from villages in the coastal plain, had gone. Within another month those numbers had nearly doubled; and by early June, according to an internal Hagana report, some 390,000 Palestinians had left. By the time the war was over in 1949, the number of refugees had risen to between 550,000 and 600,000.
Why did such vast numbers of Palestinians take to the road? There were the obvious reasons commonly associated with war: fear, disorientation, economic privation. But to these must be added the local Palestinians’ disillusionment with their own leadership.
The British High Commissioner for Palestine, General Sir Alan Cunningham, summarized what was happening:
The collapsing Arab morale in Palestine is in some measure due to the increasing tendency of those who should be leading them to leave the country. . . . In all parts of the country the effendi class has been evacuating in large numbers over a considerable period and the tempo is increasing
Hussein Khalidi, Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, was more forthright. "Forty days after the declaration of a jihad, and I am shattered," he complained to a fellow Palestinian. "Everyone has left me. Six [AHC members] are in Cairo, two are in Damascus-I won’t be able to hold on much longer. . . . Everyone is leaving. Everyone who has a check or some money - off he goes to Egypt, to Lebanon, to Damascus."
The desertion of the elites had a stampede effect on the middle classes and the peasantry. But huge numbers of Palestinians were also driven out of their homes by their own leaders and/or by Arab military forces, whether out of military considerations or, more actively, to prevent them from becoming citizens of the Jewish state. In the largest and best-known example of such a forced exodus, tens of thousands of Arabs were ordered or bullied into leaving the city of Haifa against their wishes and almost certainly on the instructions of the Arab Higher Committee, despite sustained Jewish efforts to convince them to stay. Only days earlier, thousands of Arabs in Tiberias had been similarly forced out by their own leaders. In Jaffa, the largest Arab community of mandatory Palestine, the municipality organized the transfer of thousands of residents by land and sea. And then there were the tens of thousands of rural villagers who were likewise forced out of their homes by order of the AHC, local Arab militias, or the armies of the Arab states.
n an interview with the London Telegraph in August 1948, the Palestinian leader Emile Ghoury blamed not Israel but the Arab states for the creation of the refugee problem; so did the organizers of protest demonstrations that took place in many West Bank towns on the first anniversary of Israel’s establishment. During a fact-finding mission to Gaza in June 1949, Sir John Troutbeck, head of the British Middle East office in Cairo and no friend to Israel or the Jews, was surprised to discover that while the refugees
"express no bitterness against the Jews (or for that matter against the Americans or ourselves) they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states. "We know who our enemies are," they will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their home. . . . I even heard it said that many of the refugees would give a welcome to the Israelis if they were to come in and take the district over."
The prevailing conviction among Palestinians that they had been, and remained, the victims of their fellow Arabs rather than of Israeli aggression was grounded not only in experience but in the larger facts of inter-Arab politics.
www.aijac.org.au/review/20...ay266.html
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So..................... Wanna argue with those DIRECT QUOTES? Of course you will. To have to admit that many a tens or even perhaps hundreds of thousands of Pals left because of the bad directions of their own people? HA! You could not stand to be honest with the facts.
And, I have not even found that UN report that was so well cited and supported as to be unimpeachably factual.
I could go on and on. I found another ten sites saying similar things, but I think that I have shown you enough cites to show even YOU that you're wrong.
We shall see then. We'll see how honest you are. This is a test - this is only a test.
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
PROCLAMATION OF STUPIDITY
Tue, May 20, 2008 - 5:52 AMandrew:
< But, on the local level, in dozens of localities around Palestine, Arab leaders advised or ordered the evacuation of women and children or whole communities, as occurred in Haifa in late April, 1948.>
<Arab attacks on Jewish neighborhoods were met by more effective Jewish counterattacks. At the end of April, Arabs fled Yaffo and Haifa en masse, despite the pleas of the British and of Israeli authorities.
According to the US Consul in Haifa, “. . . local mufti-dominated Arab leaders” were urging “all Arabs to leave the city, and large numbers did so.” (Aubrey Lippincott, U.S. Consul General in Haifa, April 22, 1948 ) >
Ok. It appears you threw everything at me except the kitchen sink. But to get started, you have provided the quote of Aubrey Lippincott which appear to be quite clear. His remarks also support the information above that on the local level arab leaders advised evacuation. So that is clearly one or two points for you.
<According to Palestinian Nimr al Hawari, in his book, Sir Am Nakba (the Secret of the Nakba) published in Nazareth in 1965, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri as Said stated,
“We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down.”
This would seem to be fairly unequivocal proof that the Arabs began the war, and moreover, that Arab leaders actually encouraged the flight of the refugees at the start of the war. >
For this I'll give you another point. (I'll give you another point for the quote from Time.) But I believe the statement at the very end may be an overstatement. That is the following:
<This would seem to be fairly unequivocal proof that the Arabs began the war, and moreover, that Arab leaders actually encouraged the flight of the refugees at the start of the war. >
I'm just not sure that this means: " that Arab leaders actually encouraged the flight of the refugees at the start of the war. " It appears to me that it could mean just to take precautions. About who started the war I have no information and that wasn't the point we were talking about.
Ok. On to Benny Morris.
<In his books and articles about the subject, Israeli historian Benny Morris has long equivocated and often contradicted his own conclusions. Thus, different advocates could draw any lessons they desired from much of Morris’s writing: there was a plan to expel Arabs, there was no plan, the exodus was the work of transfer advocates, the exodus was due to fear in the Arab population, the exodus was due to breakdown of social structures among the Arabs. He has often been quoted in support of the claim that the Arabs of Palestine were expelled by the Zionists according to a pre-arranged plan.>
In light of this I'm not taking a position on his information one way or the other. It does make me want to question it. Why has he said so many different things?
On to Avnery: I'm really confused. Now it seems you are saying something different from what you said before. So on this point let's start over, I'll tell you what it means to me. You tell me what you are saying. Are we talking about the same quote?
<<But the reality of the war itself caused the mass exodus.
It must be understood that at no stage did the Arabs "flee the country". In general, things happened this way: in the course of the fighting, an Arab village came under heavy fire. Its inhabitants - men, women and children - fled, of course, to the next village. Then we fired on the next village, and they fled to the next one, and so forth, until the armistice came into force and suddenly there was a border (the Green Line)
between them and their homes. The Deir Yassin massacre gave another powerful push to the flight. >
To me Avnery is very clearly saying Palestinians were driven out of Israel by the military forces. He gives the method:
<In general, things happened this way: in the course of the fighting, an Arab village came under heavy fire. Its inhabitants - men, women and children - fled, of course, to the next village. Then we fired on the next village, and they fled to the next one, and so forth, until the armistice came into force and suddenly there was a border (the Green Line)
between them and their homes. >
He even says they are driven out of Israel, ie" beyond the Green Line.
I will continue to deal with the rest of this as I am able. Thank you for posting this information. I hope you see that I am not rejecting everything you said. In fact I think I've said I accept quite a bit of it. -
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Re: PROCLAMATION OF STUPIDITY
Tue, May 20, 2008 - 7:25 PM<His remarks also support the information above that on the local level arab leaders advised evacuation. So that is clearly one or two points for you.>
I'm not trying to get "points", Steves - just trying to be honest with the facts. And since you always say that I never present any facts or cites....well...
<I'm just not sure that this means: " that Arab leaders actually encouraged the flight of the refugees at the start of the war. " It appears to me that it could mean just to take precautions.>
Um..............that part that says "encouraged the flight of the refugees"? The transitional verb, "encouraged" seems to me to suggest that the subject of that sentence, the "Arab leaders" did something to "encourage" them into a "flight of the refugees". What's not to understand there? Seems pretty clear to me.
<To me Avnery is very clearly saying Palestinians were driven out of Israel by the military forces. He gives the method:>
A) he does not say that specifically the Israelis fired on the villages for ONLY the reason of driving out this "flight of the refugees" (to use another author's phrase).
B) That the war caused the "mass exodus" is relevant. No war - no "flight of the refugees" in the numbers that there was, right? Separate subject to be sure, but relevant all the same to the discussion.
<I hope you see that I am not rejecting everything you said. In fact I think I've said I accept quite a bit of it.>
I recognize this and appreciate it.
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Good question
Sat, May 17, 2008 - 3:09 AM<Will the Arabs/Palestinians ever be willing to acknowledge their mistakes and crimes?>
If someone is not willing to acknowledge a mistake or crime does that mean that you should not?
Bad Question or whatever:
<Steve, find me the name of the Jewish kid that beat you up in junior high, and I'll get in touch with him and have him apologize to you.>
This is irrelevant and detracting from logical discussion. Attacks on Steve will not get answers, they only show how little substantive discussion one has to add.
<How can you fault him? Is he harming you? Is he harming Israel?>
I asked myself this same thing. However, if one is a defender of Israel's actions, they may use attacks to deflect conversation concerning the actions of Israel. I guess it would be a flimsy defense mechanism. Adam did give us understanding that at least there are some in Israel who believe that Arabs need to be held accountable, and that they have reservations about submitting when others refuse. It is a relevant argument. One may tend to feel cheated if one gives when another does not. It is an issue of pride that both sides need to deal with.
The irony is that both sides are being cheated. There are people who have profited rather generously from this conflict. I do not mean Israel in terms of land grabbing, but I mean defense contractors. When one considers how much Israel spends on false defense instead of development, the cost is ludicrous. Then when one adds up what the American taxpayer pays, the figures are astronomical. This money is going to a few, rather than many people. It is pure elite profiteering. Billions of dollars invested in economic growth would have ended poverty in the region. Cooperation could have been used as a model to be repeated where volatile groups need to coexist, like Africa, Bosnia, etc.
I wonder if Africans will get it right before anyone else? The cradle of civilization returning us to Civilization.
I wonder how things will go in Rwanda? I wonder how things will go in Kenya?
I have stated this time and time again, an need to restate it:
Arabs and Jews
Why not try to fight poverty together as much as much as you idiots fight each other. Spend the same energy and money you spend trying to destroy Israel, and Hold on to Green lines, into eliminating poverty. And yes try fucking each other in a sexual way rather than oppressive way. Jews and Arabs that fuck each other sexually rarely fight. In fact, they adhere to more liberal beliefs. I posted some shit a while back of mixed families of Jews and Arabs that do not act like maniacs.
The reality:
1) We are all the same and have many things in common
2) People who are smart enough to know that people are fucking idiots take advantage of people's incompetence and are able to make them believe in division and hate. The people who take advantage of the stupid people do so for their own gain, as dividing and conquering is very effective.
to get back to topic:
Yes, a truth and reconciliation commission is necessary, as Palestinians live in Apartheid, or something more evil. The only problem is this:
The people who profit from the conflict will not want any truth to be attained. Reconciliation on their terms alone, but no truth.
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Re: Good question
Sat, May 17, 2008 - 11:22 AMKilla:
> to get back to topic:
> Yes, a truth and reconciliation commission is necessary, as Palestinians live in Apartheid, or something more evil.
Ignorance and bigotry. Just what everyone expects from Killa.
Arab countries have cleansed all, or almost all of their Jews, but you don't seem to see any evil in that. What hatred causes you to only speak of the crimes of Jews?
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PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Wed, May 14, 2008 - 12:37 AMAdam, andrew & Kelly:
You three can deal with anything but facts can't you? Adam, I watched most of those videos you posted. They talk about the 40's not the 20's and 30's. If you wanted to post something about the 20's or 30's you'd have to post some facts not the weak ass religious accounts of battles you've posted before.
Bad things were happening to millions of people during and after WWII. Why do you think Jews have a monopoly on suffering? Bad things happened to Jews, to Muslims, to Hindus, to Palestinians and many europeans during and after WWII. I'm not trying to discredit the Holocaust just to point out that there was wide spread terror caused by new found nationalism, continued colonialism and other factors. Peoples and nations were trying to adjust to a new reality.
Why should Jews be given any special remorse when they fit into this puzzle in the same manner Hindus, Muslims, eastern europeans and asian do. Look at the new countries and new governments being formed after WWII. China, Vietnam, Algeria, Israel, Pakistan the countries of eastern europe. There was a worldwide struggle for nationalism. Many of them broke out around religious and racial issues.
For Jews to want special consideration during a time of world wide struggle weakens your position instead of making it stronger.
Many of the Jews who speak truthfully about Israel have seen war and the oppression of the Palestinian people. They speak the truth because they have not sold their souls to zionism or some other "ism". It was find for Russians to speak out against the Soviet Union but you can not understand the same truth from a Jew or an american such as President Carter. -
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Re: PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Wed, May 14, 2008 - 10:54 AMSteve4:
> Adam, andrew & Kelly:
> You three can deal with anything but facts can't you?
Hahahahaha.....
You need to pay more attention. And you need to stop grouping us together.
Andrew and I have very differing beliefs on some things.
Kelly was being ironic.
> Bad things were happening to millions of people during and after WWII. Why do you think Jews have a monopoly on suffering? Bad things happened to Jews, to Muslims, to Hindus, to Palestinians and many europeans during and after WWII.
I don't. I've said repeatedly, in regards to the Middle Eastern conflict that has going on since 1920, _both_ sides are among the victims and _both_ sides are the criminals.
I don't know how much more clear I can be about that.
> Why should Jews be given any special remorse when they fit into this puzzle in the same manner Hindus, Muslims, eastern europeans and asian do. Look at the new countries and new governments being formed after WWII.
Look at the new countries and new governments being formed after WWII. Indeed!
Of all of the scores of states created during the same timeframe, the Jews just got one tiny state for themselves. And even that, they had to fight for.
> Many of the Jews who speak truthfully about Israel have seen war and the oppression of the Palestinian people. They speak the truth because they have not sold their souls to zionism or some other "ism"
You speak of the growing tide of Nationalism around the world without a bad word, but then slam the idea Israeli nationalism.
This certainly borders on bigotry against Jews.
Why is it that you condemn the "ism" of Israeli Nationalism, but not Syrian, Jordanian, Lebanese, or Egypt Nationalism? -
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Re: PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Thu, May 15, 2008 - 3:48 AM<Why is it that you condemn the "ism" of Israeli Nationalism, but not Syrian, Jordanian, Lebanese, or Egypt Nationalism?>
Um, because it's not the Jews.....oops, I mean the Zionists committing the mistreatment? It'd be kind of inconvenient to find blame on these countries because that would force many here to have to recognize that this issue is not all Israel's fault.
The Syrians and the Lebanese mistreat their Pal refugees - but no one says a word about it. In Syria, there are many camps for the Palestinians, but except for some reasonable exclusions, the Pals pretty much are kept in the camps by the Syrians. Same in Lebanon. www.economist.com/world/afr...ystory.cfm
Oops. Same in Egypt. www.arts.mcgill.ca/mepp/new...-abed.htm
These countries get a pass, because the refugee problem is 'the fault of Israel', even though the fact is that many of these people were made refugees ONLY because of the attacks against Israel in the wars since '48. No wars - hundreds of thousands of these people would be in Israel, not in Lebanon, or Syria or Jordan or Egypt.
Why do these people not put blame where it's due? Why not say, 'Yes, Israel IS responsible for hundreds of thousands of people driven out of what is now Israel, but some hundreds of thousands also left on their own for different reasons during the wars against Israel.' What's wrong with telling the truth? I hear that it'll set you free or something.
So, again - to answer your question, Adam - people never say anything about these other nationalistic countries because they want to make it Israel's fault, whether or not it actually IS Israel's fault.
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PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Thu, May 15, 2008 - 8:37 AMAdam:
<I've said repeatedly, in regards to the Middle Eastern conflict that has going on since 1920, _both_ sides are among the victims and _both_ sides are the criminals. >
This is one of the areas where you have problems with the facts. If we were to accept your view that both sides are the criminals, we would be left with nowhere to go with regard to the conflict except that both sides are stupid. While I'm sure that the Palestinians have done things that are stupid this view ignores the facts around the conflict.
The Palestinians were living here before the Zionists and Israeli's drove them out. We know Jews were here before 100 AD but that does
not give them some right to come and drive out Palestinians. It's like you take a ground level view of the conflict and refuse to admit that there are reasons and causes behind the battles.
<Look at the new countries and new governments being formed after WWII. Indeed!
Of all of the scores of states created during the same timeframe, the Jews just got one tiny state for themselves. And even that, they had to fight for. >
Most everybody did have to fight for their new freedoms in one form or another. Most everybody got only one country also, one country for the Vietnamese, one for the Hindu's, eventually two countries for the Muslims of India and one country for the Algerians. Even in close situations, one people can not be substituted for another. The Syrians are not the same as the Lebanese.
Why do I pick on Zionist more than Syrians? Because from the beginning (1880's) the programs of the Jews, Zionists and Israeli's has been based on a lie and the settlers usually have chosen to drive out the Palestinians rather than live with them.
Is my view unfair? I don't think so. From what you've shown me the Jews being driven out of other countries in the middle east happened mainly around and after WWII. What has been happening in Palestine started much earlier and is still going on.
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Re: PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Thu, May 15, 2008 - 3:41 PMSteve4:
> This is one of the areas where you have problems with the facts. If we were to accept your view that both sides are the criminals, we would be left with nowhere to go with regard to the conflict except that both sides are stupid.
Not in the least. Today, _both_ sides need to start making reciprocal steps towards peace.
> Most everybody got only one country also, one country for the Vietnamese, one for the Hindu...
Most everybody gone one country. Right. Do the Jews deserve less?
Can you find another example where these people's neighbors told them they had no right to exist as a state, and continued 60 years of violence in a quest to destroy them?
> The Palestinians were living here before the Zionists and Israeli's drove them out. We know Jews were here before 100 AD but that does not give them some right to come and drive out Palestinians.
> Even in close situations, one people can not be substituted for another. The Syrians are not the same as the Lebanese.
Jews have been living in the Middle East continuously for 3500 years.
One people cannot be substituted for another. Really? What if they used to be the same people?
Are the Bangladeshi people the same as Pakistani people?
Probably not. But if they're different people, then that happened after the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.
Similarly, the Syrians, Lebanese, Palestinians, and Jordanians were all one people until the 1930s. The Palestinian people, as a Nationality, were created somewhere between 1920 and 1967.
And according to some, the Palestinians, as a people, were specifically created as a tactic to destroy Israel: Let's create a new people. Let's exclude them from all of the crimes of their Arab brothers, and paint them solely as the victims. Then we can paint Israel as nothing but an evil, guilty, oppressor. You, sir, are falling exactly into that trap.
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism."
Will you comment on that quote?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuheir_Mohsen
Who wrote it? A senior member of the PLO.
> Why do I pick on Zionist more than Syrians? Because from the beginning (1880's) the programs of the Jews ... From what you've shown me the Jews being driven out of other countries in the middle east happened mainly around and after WWII. What has been happening in Palestine started much earlier and is still going on.
Before WWII, there was no place for Jews to escape to. They just had to suffer, or be killed, where they lived. Then, around the time of WWII, they finally had a place to flee and be safe. But ever since, their homeland has been under attack by people who wish to destroy it.
Arab countries have, in part, stopped driving out Jews because their countries are Judenrein. Once there were flourishing Jewish communities, today there is not a single Jew left in Saudi Arabia and Libya. Many other Arab countries are down to just a couple of hundred Jews, who live in fear.
What if Israel cleansed every single Arab from the West Bank and Gaza. Then, no one could claim that Israel was oppressing the Arabs in the West Bank. Right?
I'm not suggesting this. I'm making a comparison. I'm telling you what the Arab countries have done. Can a country be praised for not oppressing a group they've already ethnically cleansed?
What do you think would happen in a country like Iran or Syria, if the remaining Jews acted in revolt against the oppression of the government? Do you dare even ponder such questions? Did you know that Syria massacred 20,000 of it's own people in Hama for acts of revolt.
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PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Fri, May 16, 2008 - 4:46 AMAdam:
<Not in the least. Today, _both_ sides need to start making reciprocal steps towards peace. >
You've finally said something I can agree with. But tell me this why has this not worked in the past? In other words after Camp David all the progress was tossed out instead of trying to work together from that point. It is things like this that make it look like Israel has always had a plan to drive out the Palestinians.
< Do the Jews deserve less? >
No. I think the Jews have a right to live in the area call Palestine/Israel. The Palestinian people have a right to have their own state in this area also. Or they can both live in one state. What I don't think has a right to exist is the ever expansive militaristic state known as Israel. I think it would be almost impossible to go back to the what the situation was in 1948. I think it could happen that there could be a settlement around the 1967 borders. But I'm beginning to think a one state solution is both possible but offers the most for everyone.
But I think the most important thing is the point you made above. But how do you get them to do that? Not only that but they have come to agreements in the past then thrown them out rather than keep them and try to work forward. When I have suggested to you even minor things to begin work on, you've basically said it's impossible.
Don't you see that the sides have to agree on something and then work from there? But they don't seem to be able to do that. You and I can argue over the conflict forever but that doesn't bring any progress (That we know of.). So now only how do they reach agreement, which they have been able to do to some degree, but get them to work together?
Another question in the same vein, how do you get people on both sides to see a just and peaceful solution as better than what they have now? In other words I'm sure many Israeli's are happy kicking Palestinian butt and we know there are Palestinians who don't think there is solution at this time other than violence. I think if there were two strong leaders there could be a start but we don't even have one strong leader on either side. Plus the US is a great hinderance even when it's not being outright criminal it's too inflexible.
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Re: PROCLAMATION OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
Fri, May 16, 2008 - 11:13 AMSteve4:
> Plus the US is a great hinderance even when it's not being outright criminal it's too inflexible.
Bush is clearly an idiot who sees the world only in black and white.
But, I think he was correct in labeling Hamas as a terrorist group that could not be negotiated with.
His plan was basically to suffocate the people in Gaza, while bribing the people of the West Bank with 2.4 billion in aid.
Did it work? Maybe so. Hamas finally backed down on their absolute vow to destroy Israel. But what Bush won't do, and what the next President might, is to quickly adapt to the shifting situation and make peace with Hamas, now that their willing.
> But tell me this why has this not worked in the past? In other words after Camp David all the progress was tossed out instead of trying to work together from that point.
The Arab League had the Khartoum Resolution: "No Peace with Israel; No Recognition of Israel; No Negotiations with Israel". Hamas and Hezbollah have similar things.
> But how do you get them to do that?
Only rarely do people chose to have peace because it's the right thing to do. Far more often, people hold off on peace until it's in their own self-interest.
The Arab League changed their minds, only after it became in their own self-interest to have Israel as an ally against the expanding power of Iran and Shia extremists.
Hamas started to change it's mind, only after Israel imposed a lockdown so tight, it seemed there was no other escape but to talk peace.
Only Hezbollah, and perhaps Iran, remain staunchly against peace with Israel. How do you change their minds? That's a tough nut to crack. I don't know how to create peace with them. I don't know how to make peace in their self-interest.
But we could potentially end up with a shifted Middle East, with Israel, Palestine, and the Arab League all allied together against Hezbollah and Iran.
Now, what about Israel. Israel is a functioning democracy. That makes things double-tough. Any peace process has to clearly show the Israeli majority that peace will make them more secure, rather than less secure.
I think _only_ a comprehensive agreement with Israel, Hamas, Fatah, and the entire Arab league, could accomplish that.
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