[Big Mac]

Btw, peeb, innocent people do suffer, get displaced and even die in wars. It's an unfortunate fact of life. It was time in 1948 for the nation of Israel to regain independence over a portion of its homeland, and the Arabs had to lose. Sorry, they lost.

The thing that really bothers the Islamist is the attack on his deeply ingrained belief in his religion's superiority. According to Islamic belief Islam is the perfect religion and Muslims are supposed to be triumphant over all others, so the fact that a miracle happened for the Jewish people over the Arabs is deeply disturbing the Islamist's very core. That is why the Islamic world cannot come to terms with the existence of Israel and why the Islamic dictatorship in Iran still acts as if it's 1948 - they cannot stomach the Jewish triumph over them.

[peeb]

I'm troubled by your fatalistic attitude that 'the Arabs had to lose' their homes because 'it was time'. That does not seem to be a logical, or moral, justification for suffering on the scale created.

[Big Mac]

You may be too sensitive a person to handle world realities. Your emotions overpower your capacity to reason.

[peeb]

Erm, no, I just don't see that you are using any reason.

[osiris]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Your emotions overpower your capacity to reason.

The same could be said of yourself and the opinion you so believe in.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by osiris 

The same could be said of yourself and the opinion you so believe in.

Except the facts are on my side, and I'm debating with confidence. All peeb can talk about is how terrible suffering is, without saying anything of substance, mostly because he has very little understanding of the conflict he's discussing.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Except the facts are on my side, and I'm debating with confidence. All peeb can talk about is how terrible suffering is, without saying anything of substance, mostly because he has very little understanding of the conflict he's discussing.

You're quite wrong, I simply pointed out that you have not justified in any way the immense suffering caused. I fail to see how pointing this out is overly emotional, it's a perfectly rational stand. If you are going to cause massive suffering, you should have a good reason - you have not presented one.

[Powerbook]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

That is why the Islamic world cannot come to terms with the existence of Israel and why the Islamic dictatorship in Iran still acts as if it's 1948 - they cannot stomach the Jewish triumph over them.

So Egypt and Jordan do not have treaties and recognitions with Israel? And what exactly is a dictatorship for you - when people actually vote their president?

PB.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by peeb 

You're quite wrong, I simply pointed out that you have not justified in any way the immense suffering caused. I fail to see how pointing this out is overly emotional, it's a perfectly rational stand. If you are going to cause massive suffering, you should have a good reason - you have not presented one.

Here, let me try . . . This may or may not be accurate but it is how I see the issue.

The suffering of the Jews in WWII had to be compensated for in some way. So, the European victors in WWII, instead of promising to make the effected Jews full citizens of their own countries and vow never again to let Jews be persecuted/ostracized/marginalized in their own countries, decided to "give" these Jews an Israeli "home-land" far away from Europe. Doing this created suffering for Palestinians and other Arab peoples living in the land taken to become Israel. So, the solution to one group's suffering became the cause of another group's suffering. . . . and the European powers got rid of most of their Jewish populations without having to appear bad.

(Don't get me wrong. I think the persecution of Jews in WWII was horrific. I think also that the European powers let their underlying anti-Judaism influence their decision as to how to make reparations for the horrors caused by Nazi Germany. I think many of the European powers found it easier to "get rid of" their Jews by establishing a Jewish homeland in Israel that to change their society to become more accepting/welcoming to the Jewish people. Had the Jewish home-land in Israel *not* been established I think you would have continued to see significant anti-Judaism in Europe with those remaining Jews continuing to be marginalized/ostracized and prevented from becoming full equal members of the society in which they lived.)

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by peeb 

I'm troubled by your fatalistic attitude that 'the Arabs had to lose' their homes because 'it was time'. That does not seem to be a logical, or moral, justification for suffering on the scale created.

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

You may be too sensitive a person to handle world realities. Your emotions overpower your capacity to reason.

Originally Posted by peeb 

Erm, no, I just don't see that you are using any reason.

peeb, he isn't using logic or reason. He is simply justifying the "might makes right" argument that led to the creation of the nation of Israel. Big Mac makes an a priori assumption that the decision to create Israel was the right decision so thereby negating any need to use logic or reason to justify the decision.

I don't think there really is any logic to that decision, at least not a logic that took into account the suffering of those to be displaced to make way for Israel. And, if the suffering of those peoples being displaced *was* taken into consideration when these decisions were being made my guess is that the "logical" justification for making the decision is that the suffering of the Jews persecuted in WWII outweighs the suffering of the Arabs and Palestinians displaced by the creation of Israel. Of course, no one would ever come out and say that (Jewish suffering > Arab/Palestinian suffering) but that is my speculation as to what logic might have been used when the decisions were made.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy 

So, the European victors in WWII, instead of promising to make the effected Jews full citizens of their own countries and vow never again to let Jews be persecuted/ostracized/marginalized in their own countries, decided to "give" these Jews an Israeli "home-land" far away from Europe.

The pledges by the world powers to give the land of Israel back to the nation of Israel were made decades before the Holocaust .

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

The pledges by the world powers to give the land of Israel back to the nation of Israel were made decades before the Holocaust .

Really? When?

What world powers did this and where/how did they articulate this pledge prior to WWII?

[Cold Warrior]

The Balfour Declaration is the one I'm familiar with, 1917.

[Big Mac]

. . . and which was accepted by the Class A members of the League of Nations (the equivalent to the UN's Security Council) in 1922. I love dispelling ignorance, however arduous a task it is to do so.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Cold Warrior 

The Balfour Declaration is the one I'm familiar with, 1917.

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

. . . and which was accepted by the Class A members of the League of Nations (the equivalent to the UN's Security Council) in 1922. I love dispelling ignorance, however arduous a task it is to do so.

Thanks for dispelling my ignorance.

Just out of curiosity, where exactly does the Balfour Declaration state that they are "giving back the land of Israel to the nation of Israel"?

[Big Mac]

Read up on it and you'll see.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Read up on it and you'll see.

Umm, I've read the Declaration, some commentaries on it, and the endorsements of it by the US Congress, League of Nations, and a sitting US President. Nowhere does it talk about the "land of Israel". All talk/comments are about the land of Palestine, NOT the land of Israel, becoming a home for Jewish nationals.

And to make things simpler, I will explain the reasoning for my question. By asking this question I am hoping to point out to others your bias when you again make a false a priori assumption about this discussion and then make statements based on that false assumption. You are biased towards the idea and the existence of the state of Israel in Palestine and I want it to be made clear during this debate since you seem to be un-willing to do this yourself. You don't seem to be willing to come out and state your bias in favor of Israel.

Let me ask you one question? Do you think the suffering Jews endured during WWII is greater than the suffering endured by Arabs and Palestinians displaced during the establishment of the state of Israel? Do you think the Jewish suffering in WWII trumps the suffering of diplaced Arabs and Palestinians? I do not. What do you think?

[peeb]

Translation - "Nowhere. I made that up."

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by peeb 

Translation - "Nowhere. I made that up."

No, he certainly didn't make up the Balfour Declaration nor the endorsement of it by other major world powers. That all happened. What he is "making up" is the assertion that these governments were actively seeking the creation of an Israeli nation in Israeli land. He is "making up" the assertion that these governments wanted to re-/establish the nation of Israel in the area known as Palestine when in fact they wanted a "national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country." He is "making up" that the Balfour Declaration was about creating Israel to replace Palestine.

[peeb]

That's what I'm saying.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy 

What he is "making up" is the assertion that these governments were actively seeking the creation of an Israeli nation in Israeli land. He is "making up" the assertion that these governments wanted to re-/establish the nation of Israel in the area known as Palestine. . . .

Do I really have to spell it out for you guys? Do you have even a cursory understanding of the history of the land of Israel? Apparently not. The land of Israel was renamed Palestine by the Romans as an extra act of humiliation for the conquered Jewish people. The name Palestine was chosen to honor the Philistines, the defunct ancient enemy of the Jewish commonwealths. The Romans also tried to rename Jerusalem, but that name did not stick like Palestine did. It just came to be the general name for the region that encompassed modern Israel and Jordan, all of which was promised by the Balfour Declaration to be returned to the Jewish people.

Why do you think the world powers accepted a Jewish homeland in "Palestine"? Just randomly? No, it was chosen because of the recognition it was the ancient homeland of the Jewish people - the land of Israel. The land of Israel is the only place that a Jewish state could exist by Judaism's definition. You see, as opposed to Islam, which aims to dominate the globe, Judaism sets aside the land of Israel as the eternal home of the Jewish nation. Those of us outside of the land of Israel are considered to be in exile, and eventually we will all return home. It would have happened whether or not the world powers consented in 1922 and again in 1948 because it had to eventually happen by God's decree.

But even if you don't want to accept that, this was land that was sparsely populated, held largely in title by absentee Turkish landlords until Jewish immigration and economic development made it a more attractive place to settle in the 20th Century. It is land that was of minimal importance to the Islamic world - of such little importance that the Koran does not once mention Israel or Jerusalem by name. The only reason why there's conflict is, as I said before, the Islamic world cannot stomach the fact that the Jews beat them and have independence in the land God granted them. I don't really feel like expending much more time connecting the dots for you and dweeb. Pick up some history books (and if I may be so bold, the Hebrew Scriptures) and educate yourself instead of posturing as an expert on a subject you know precious little about. It makes you look foolish.

[peeb]

The Romans? Great. So, not in the Balfour Declaration then? Just checking.

[Big Mac]

That post doesn't even make sense, dweeb. What question are you asking? If you want to participate, struggle to form a coherent thought, please.

[peeb]

My thoughts are quite coherent. I'm struggling to see what relevance the Romans are to your claim about the Balfour Declaration. Also, personal insults are not allowed, and make you seem less credible, not more.

[Big Mac]

dcmacdaddy didn't understand my statement that the world powers were agreeing to return the land of Israel to the nation of Israel, so I was trying to explain, in the most simplistic terms I could use, how the land of Israel got the name Palestine and why the world powers were returning it (the land of Israel, a.k.a. the land of Palestine/the Palestine Mandate) to the Jewish people. This isn't difficult material, or at least it should not be. Maybe I'm overestimating your intellectual capacity.

[peeb]

He asked "Just out of curiosity, where exactly does the Balfour Declaration state that they are "giving back the land of Israel to the nation of Israel"?"
You answered "Read up on it, and you'll see"
When questioned further about where the Balfour Declaration says this, you start on some rant about the Romans. Just wondering whether you are going to get back to the point of where the Balfour Declaration says this, or where you trying to distract attention from the fact that it doesn't?

[Big Mac]

You are mighty dense. Perhaps you'd benefit from reading that post rather than dismissing it. I said: "The pledges by the world powers to give the land of Israel back to the nation of Israel were made decades before the Holocaust ." I did not say the Balfour Declaration explicitly referred to the Palestine Mandate as the land of Israel but that it was implied because Palestine is Israel and the Balfour Declaration set it aside for the Jewish people. There would not have been such a pledge if Balfour did not recognize Palestine as the ancient Jewish homeland, nor would that pledge have been accepted at the San Remo conference by the Class A countries had they not understood that fact. Shame on me for trying to teach you something.

[Big Mac]

Here's a question for Taliesin and any other Muslim who wishes to respond: If, as you believe, my people were/are not entitled to regain our land, why hasn't God allowed your people to carry out their intention to destroy the Jewish state there?

[peeb]

OK, so, to be clear, when DCMacDaddy said "Just out of curiosity, where exactly does the Balfour Declaration state that they are "giving back the land of Israel to the nation of Israel"?", it would have been more honest for you to admit that it doesn't say that at all. Instead, you make the false claim that it actually says this, and get called on the fact that that is not true.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Here's a question for Taliesin and any other Muslim who wishes to respond: If, as you believe, my people are not entitled to regain our land, why hasn't God allowed your people to carry out their intention to destroy the Jewish state there?

Erm, perhaps because She doesn't take sides in squabbles like that? Your theology seems pretty infantile.

[Big Mac]

I wasn't asking you dweeb. As a religious person, I was asking other religious people a serious question that goes to the heart of this thread. Do me a favor and stifle yourself.

[peeb]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I wasn't asking you dweeb. As a religious person, I was asking other religious people a serious question that goes to the heart of this thread. Do me a favor and stifle yourself.

Aside from your rude insults, I presume you are not going to admit that you were wrong on the Balfour Declaration issue? I gave you a serious answer to the question you asked.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by peeb 

OK, so, to be clear, when DCMacDaddy said "Just out of curiosity, where exactly does the Balfour Declaration state that they are "giving back the land of Israel to the nation of Israel"?", it would have been more honest for you to admit that it doesn't say that at all. Instead, you make the false claim that it actually says this, and get called on the fact that that is not true.

Once again, I never said that was a direct excerpt from the Balfour Declaration. I said the world powers pledged to give the land of Israel back to the nation of Israel. If you want to be pedantic, I could have said the world powers pledged to give Palestine back to the nation of Israel, but it means the same thing because the land of Palestine = the land of Israel. I have demonstrated why that equation is true. Now why do I have to explain this over and over again?

[peeb]

If you lie, you'll be called on it. Sorry if you find that tedious.

This whole issue you brought up, and got shot down on has been a huge distraction from the point, which is that there is no moral justification for the displacement of one group of people to house another. Even if you were right, you are only claiming that a group of well armed nations said that they would do something, not that it was the right thing to do.

[Big Mac]

I never lied, no matter how many times you want to say I did. And as for suffering, I told you that I don't like human suffering. Unfortunately, however, suffering happens. It's part of the human condition. My people suffered enough for close to 2000 years before regaining sovereignty over our land. The Romans committed genocide against much of our population before dispersing us across the globe. The Christians murdered us throughout the centuries. The Muslims subjugated and humiliated us as third class citizens when we lived under their rule. (Just look at what they do to their women to gain some sense of what they did to the Jews.) It's unfortunate that some suffered and continue to suffer because of Arab intransigence toward Israel, but no other country on earth has sacrificed and conceded as much as Israel has; no other country would be so restrained in the face of perpetual wars, terrorism and propaganda as Israel has. I think if you had real knowledge of the conflict, perhaps you'd have a different view.

[peeb]

I think I might have a different view if you said anything that was relevant to the point. The claim that one group of people suffering over the course of thousands of years gives a group at some other time the right to displace another is ridiculous.
Blaming the Romans is also a stretch. The Romans conquered, displaced and killed many people. It is not relevant to modern politics. The idea that every groups of people gets to leaf through the history book, pick out something they idealize as being the golden age of some group they identify with, and try to re-shape the modern world to correspond to that is ludicrous.
Your ignorant ideas about what 'Muslims' do to 'their' women also don't give anyone any confidence that you have even a remote clue what you're talking about.

[Big Mac]

You concentrate on Arab suffering but you discount Jewish suffering. That's convenient. I may as well be arguing with a wall.

[peeb]

You may be too sensitive a person to handle world realities. Your emotions overpower your capacity to reason.

It's not a game-show. You don't get a prize for suffering, or for the suffering of your ancestors two thousand years ago. Of course I'm not discounting anyones suffering, I'm just pointing out that one person's suffering (or their ancestors') does not entitle them to inflict suffering on others.

[Big Mac]

You're right, simply because a group suffers does not alone give it title to inflict suffering on another group. The only point I was making in response to you is that you brought up suffering so I gave you a superlative example of suffering. I have given you many reasons why Israel's existence is justified, even at the cost of suffering of some. Your rejection of reason is entirely your own choice.

[Big Mac]

Reposted: Here's a question for Taliesin and any other Muslim who wishes to respond: If, as you believe, my people were/are not entitled to regain our land, why hasn't God allowed your people to carry out their 60 year-old desire to destroy the Jewish state there?

[red rocket]

Some historical perspective:

A Basic History of Zionism and its Relation to Judaism

I would like to start with a quotation by Amira Hass, a very courageous Israeli journalist who lives in Ramallah and writes for the most respected though by no means left-wing daily "Ha'aretz" (Il Ard in Arabic, one of many examples of the great similarity of the Arabic and Hebrew languages; both developed from an ancient form of Aramaic). Although threatened several times with sacking, as well as numerous death threats, she carries on.

Hass ends one of her recent articles with this question: is transfer an inseparable part of the founding ideology of the state of Israel, or a twisted mutation, which should not be allowed to rise up against its creator?

Whereas she, as well as the increasing number of refusniks and Israeli peace activists believe the latter (and I respect their sentiments), I do not share them; my belief is that the state of Israel was bound to end up with what we have today.

In order to understand the circumstances that led to the birth of Zionism I shall sketch an outline of the history of Judaism and the Jews.

Even in biblical times there was a great deal of ethnic and even religious mixing in ancient Judea and Israel, which practically all the biblical prophets were perpetually railing against. Moreover, even during that time, there ware Jewish communities established in Arab lands, in Persia, India, East and North Africa. With the destruction of the Temple and the final fall of their autonomous Roman colony in 70 AD, the important families such as the High priests, members of the Sanhedrin, the Judaic internal court which handed Jesus over to the Roman authority and a few others, felt insecure, There had been a number of revolts and uprisings against their hegemony and their collaboration with Rome, Jesus was one non violent example, and so they decided to leave when the Romans pulled out. Most of the indigenous subsistence farmers, craftsmen and small-time traders stayed put and continued their lives as before. Some of these inhabitants were early Christians and form the ancestors of today's Palestinian Christians, others remained Jewish. Modern research suggests that when Islam arrived in the area in 638 AD many of these Jews converted and that they form a considerable part of today's Palestinians. Numerous surnames, such as Mousa, Dini and Canaan, are even nowadays shared by Arab Jews, Muslims and Christians. Incidentally, people with the surnames Da Souza and Sassoon were originally from the Jewish community in Suza, the ancient capital of Persia. Those who left with the Romans later dispersed to other parts of Europe and even central Asia, where there were some trading outposts. The bulk of European Jews, however, consisted of Khazars, inhabitants of an important kingdom in the early middle ages, roughly between the Caspian and the Black sea. One of their Khans or kings converted to Judaism around 740 AD and made Judaism the state religion. In the 9th century Khazaria finally fell to the Viking hordes and its inhabitants dispersed throughout much of Europe. Thus the idea of a "return" of European Jews to their roots is an absurd myth.

The various Jewish communities in Asia (including what is termed the middle east) and North Africa were on the whole well integrated into their respective societies and did not experience the persecutions that later became so prevalent in Europe. In Palestine, for instance, Muslims repeatedly protected their Jewish neighbours from marauding crusaders; in one instance at least, Jews fought alongside Muslims to try and prevent crusaders landing at Haifa's port, and Salah al-Dinl-din (Saladin), after re-conquering Jerusalem from the crusaders, invited the Jews back into the city.

The Jews in Spain under Moorish rule flourished and experienced a renaissance mirroring that of the great Islamic civilisation and culture at the time. As Christianity spread from the north of Spain, Jews were again protected by Muslim rulers until the fall of Granada--the last Moorish kingdom to pass into Christian hands--when both Jews and Muslims were expelled at the end of the 15th century (Jews in 1492 and Muslims 10 years later). Most of the Jews from the Iberian peninsula settled in North Africa and the lands under Ottoman rule, including Palestine, and continued their peaceful co-existence with Muslims with Muslims in those countries. The bulk of Portuguese "converted" Jews (these were forced conversions and such Jews were called Marranos, i.e. pigs, by Jews who had fled or who preferred to die for their faith) settled in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, presumably because they had long established trading connections in that city. In 1655 they were invited hence to Britain by Oliver Cromwell, and most of them were glad to resettle since at the time the Netherlands had just freed itself from the Spanish yoke in 1648 and the shadow of the dreaded inquisition was still uncomfortably close.

The fate of Jewry in European countries was very different: persecutions, killings and burnings were widespread and Jews were forced to live in closed ghettos, particularly in the Russian Empire, where they were confined to the "Pale of Jewish" settlement, an area which consisted of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Byelarus or White Russia. Anyone who wished to move outside these borders needed special permission (although there were large communities in the western and south-eastern part of what had been Poland, but became part of Prussia and Austria respectively) and by the mid-19th century some of the more progressive Jewish communities had established themselves in the big cities of St. Petersburg, Moscow and Kiev.

In central and western Europe religious tolerance, followed by the granting of full citizens' rights and emancipation came relatively early, in the wake of general liberalisation. However, Russian rulers remained opposed to any liberalisation, including religious tolerance and emancipation, and as late as 1881, Tsar Alexander the third initiated a series of particularly vicious pogroms to divert unrest amongst the population, at a time when Britain, for instance, boasted of a Jewish prime minister.

Total segregation was not always imposed from outside, however, but was frequently enforced from within by highly authoritarian rabbis who exercised absolute power over their congregations, often including the right to life and the imposition of the death penalty. Thus it was a major decision for anyone to leave these congregations and to look for a broader education (known as "enlightenment"). In eastern Europe "enlightenment" was a relatively late phenomenon and it found expression initially in the mid-19th century, in a revival of Hebrew language and literature and in the modern idea of Jews seeing themselves as a people.

This distinction between a people and a religion was of course disapproved of by the Orthodox Jews, who still today regard Hebrew as a sacred language to be used solely for prayers and religious studies and the Jewish people and religion as indivisible. The concept of the Jews as people closely mirrored the relatively new European idea of a homogeneous nation state. An exception to this was the socialist "Bund" organisation whose members rejected nationalism and later Zionism.

Some of these early proto-Zionists, calling themselves "Hovevei Zion" (Lovers of Zion), started the first settlements in Palestine in the 1840's with the help of Jewish philanthropists such as the Rothchilds and the Montefiores, and a larger number of immigrants followed after the Russian pogroms of 1881-82. These settlers distinguished themselves by their deliberate segregation from the indigenous population and their contempt for local customs and traditions. This naturally aroused suspicion and hostility in the locals. This exclusivity was largely based on a sense of superiority common to Europeans of the time, who believed they were the only advanced and truly civilised society and in true colonial fashion looked down on "natives" or ignored them altogether.

However, beyond that there was also a particular sense of superiority of Jews towards all non-Jews. This belief in innate Jewish superiority had a long tradition in religious rabbinical Jewish thinking, central to which was the notion of the Jews as God's chosen people. Moshe Ben Maimon (Maimonides) had been an exponent of this theory and quite often thinkers with a more humane outlook, e.g. Spinoza, were excommunicated. The accepted thinking in the religious communities was that Jews must on no account mix in any way with gentiles for fear of being contaminated and corrupted by them. This notion was so deeply ingrained that it quite possibly still affected, albeit subconsciously, those Jews who had left the townships and had become educated and enlightened. Thus the early settlers from eastern Europe transferred the "Stettl" (townlet) mentality of segregation to Palestine, with the added belief in the nobility of manual labour and in particular soil cultivation. In this they had been influenced by Tolstoy and his writings.

The "father" of political Zionism, Theodore Herzl (1860-1904), came from a totally different perspective. Dr. Herzl was a Viennese, emancipated, secular journalist who was sent by his editor to Paris in 1894 to cover the Dreyfuss affair. Dreyfuss had been a captain in the French Army who was falsely accused and convicted of treason, although he was acquitted and completely cleared some years later. The case brought to light the strength of a strong streak of anti-Semitism prevalent in the upper echelons of the French Army and in the French press, with profound repercussions in emancipated Jewish circles. Herzl himself despaired of the whole idea of emancipation and integration and felt that the only solution to anti-Semitism lay in a Jewish Homeland. To that end he approached various diplomats and notables, including the Ottoman Sultan, but mainly European rulers, the great colonial powers of the time, and was rewarded for his effort by being offered Argentina or Uganda by the British as possible Jewish Homelands.

Herzl would have been quite happy with either of these countries, but when the first Zionist Congress was convened in Basle in 1897, he came up against Eastern European Jewry, by far the greatest majority of participants, who, although broadly emancipated and "enlightened" (orthodox Jews at that time completely rejected any Jewish political movement and did not attend the congress), would not accept any homeland other than the land of Zion. Not only had some of them already settled in Palestine, there were strong remnants of the religious/sentimental notion of a pilgrimage and possibly burial in the Holy Land. The last toast in the Passover ceremony is "Next year in Jerusalem"; although this was a religious rather than a national aspiration, and it was common amongst the orthodox communities to purchase a handful of soil purporting to come from the Holy Land to be placed under the deceased's head.

Herzl was quick to realise that unless he accepted the "Land of Zion", i.e. Palestinian option, he would have hardly any adherents. Thus the Zionist movement started with a small section of mainly eastern European Jews who saw the solution to anti-Semitism in what they termed as a return to their "roots" and in a renewal of a Jewish people in the land of their ancestors. Herzl wrote his book "Der Judenstaat" (The State of the Jews) in which he wrote, inter alia, that the Jews and their state will constitute "a rampart of Europe against Asia, of civilisation against barbarism", and again regarding the local population, "We shall endeavour to encourage the poverty-stricken population to cross the border by securing work for it in the countries it passes through, while denying it work in our own country. The process of expropriation and displacement must be carried out prudently and discreetly. Let (the landowners) sell us their land at exorbitant prices. We shall sell nothing back to them."

Some early Zionists, such as Max Nordau, a French Zionist who visited Palestine, were horrified; Nordau burst out in front of Herzl: "But we are committing a grave injustice!" Some years later, in 1913, a prominent Zionist thinker and writer, Ahad Ha'am (one of the people), wrote: "What are our brothers doing? They were slaves in the land of their exile. Suddenly they found themselves faced with boundless freedom ... and they behave in a hostile and cruel manner towards the Arabs, trampling on their rights without the least justification ... even bragging about this behaviour."

But these early Zionists' dismay at the injustices to, and total lack of recognition of, the indigenous population was silenced and indeed edited out of Jewish history and other books, as was some of Herzl's writing. The widely perceived Zionist truism of "a land without people for a people without land" prevailed and within a matter of a few years the immigrants became "sons of the land" (Bnei Ha'aretzor Ibna El-Ard) whereas the inhabitants became the aliens and foreigners.

[red rocket]

The Arab population of Palestine was well aware of the Zionist danger; as early as 1896 a math teacher in Jerusalem wrote in the newspaper "Philisteen": "I have no problems with Jews; it's the Zionists that I am most concerned about." In 1916, after there had been an agreement with the British Government that after the fall of the Ottoman Empire Palestine, Lebanon and Syria (the fertile triangle) would gain independence, leaders of the Arab community called upon every Arab Muslim, Christian and Jew to rise against the Ottomans. Many did so.

Following renewed efforts and lobbying after Herzl's death, the Balfour Declaration in 1917--shortly after Palestine was conquered by Britain--which granted Zionists a Jewish Homeland in Palestine, set the official seal of approval on their aspirations. Protests and representations by local Arab leaders were brushed aside. Lord Balfour wrote in 1919: "In Palestine, we do not even propose to consult the inhabitants of the country and (Zionism's) immediate needs and hopes for the future are much more important than the desires and prejudices of the 700,000 Arabs who presently inhabit Palestine".

Settlements grew slowly for a long time, but the systematic buying up of land, frequently from absentee landlords, which left tenant farmers homeless, contributed to the first Palestinian uprising in 1921-22 and other outbursts of hostilities, including a massacre of some 65 Jews in Hebron in 1929, after orthodox Jews from Eastern Europe had founded a "Yeshiva" (a religious study centre) in the town and had aroused the suspicions and hostility of the indigenous population who prior to this had lived in peace and harmony for hundreds of years with their non European Jewish neighbours. Another contributing factor to growing Arab hostility was the policy of neither employing Arabs nor to buying their produce.

This was termed "Hebrew work for Hebrew workers" and was very much in force when I came to Palestine in 1937. It was, however, not entirely and strictly enforced and there were various examples of co-operation and good neighbourly relations. This was particularly evident in Haifa, where our next door neighbours were Arabs and where large sections of the downtown area were mixed. This lasted until the "liberation" of Haifa, when the most of the Arab population of the city were expelled and only a small, run down area (wadi Nisnas) remained in what became effectively a ghetto. There were other such examples in Jerusalem and other places.

For many years Zionism remained a minority movement of mainly Eastern European Jews, excluding the whole religious establishment, most central and western European Jews. My family's views on Zionism were fairly typical of western European Jews who regarded this ideology as a helpline to those Jews, mainly eastern European ones, who had troubles making ends meet. (Examples: What is a Zionist; Arthur Ruppin). Last but not least, Zionism was quite meaningless to non-European communities, who unbeknown to Herzl and his contemporaries, form the majority of us. These communities were ignored by early Zionists and indeed had little interest in their aspirations until the establishment of the state of Israel and after the "independence" war of 1948-49. After this the new state unleashed a massive propaganda campaign to induce the Sephardi and Oriental Jews to "ascend" to the land of their ancestors, mainly to for demographic reasons- in 1948 only about one third of the population and about 6% of the land were Jews or in Jewish hands--but also as cannon fodder. The same happened in the 1980s with the Jews of Ethiopia. However, upon arrival these non-European newcomers were treated very much as inferior second class citizens. They were sprayed with DDT at their point of arrival and within less than a fortnight the men were drafted into the army, while their families were usually accommodated in inferior reception camps or abandoned Arab houses. My experience (as a reservist in Eilat, our postman in Jlm). This European dominance is still prevalent in modern Israel where for example the national anthem even nowadays speaks about Jewish longing for the East towards Zion, whereas for many of the non-European communities Palestine lies to the West. Sadly, this has led to some groups of Sephardi (non-European) or Oriental Jews becoming extreme right-wing chauvinists, so as to "prove" their credentials.

Immigration ("Aliyah" = "ascent" in Zionist parlance) took off in seriously large numbers with the rise of Hitler, who initially declared himself quite sympathetic to Zionism, as had other right-wing anti-Semites before him. New Jewish settlements mushroomed by leaps and bounds, leading to a bitter and prolonged Palestinian uprising from 1936 till 1939, when it was crushed by the British mandatory powers. But it was not until the end of the 2nd world war and the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 that Zionism started to win the hearts and minds of the majority of Jewish society. Since that time we have witnessed an increasing and deliberate confluence of Judaism and Zionism, to the extent that today it is widely regarded as treason and self- hate for a Jew to criticise the state, let alone Zionism.

In my view, this development was almost inevitable given the preconception of an exclusive Jewish state. Could we realistically conceive of a France purely for the French? England only for the English? (Unless, of course we belong to the National Front or similar groups). In a post-colonial world the notion is completely unacceptable and ridiculous. How then, can Israel and the majority of its citizens justify their claim and yet remain convinced that theirs is a modern, democratic society? (I shall demonstrate later that Israel was never a democracy for its Arab citizens and is no longer a democracy to its own people.) The last resort, when all logical justifications fail, is that God has promised the land to his people, namely us. (This rather begs the question of where this leaves a non-believing Jew). I have found over the years, and particularly in the last 30 or so years, that the numbers of young people wearing the skullcap and generally observing at least some of the religious laws has increased dramatically and I believe this is no coincidence.

The religious establishment has gone along with the general flow and has, indeed, profited from it. Since the late 50's there has also been a notable and frightening change in the orthodox community, which led to the establishment in 1974 of the "Gush Emunim" (the block of the faithful), initiated by Rabbi Tsvi Yehuda Kook the younger in the USA. This is the fundamentalist movement which believes in accepting the state of Israel and striving to make it entirely and exclusively Jewish in all areas that the Torah mentioned as God's promise to his people. (They do not appear to have noticed that nowhere in the Old Testament does God say that the Jews will take the land from its inhabitants). Prior to this time orthodox Jewry played no important role in politics except in pressurising successive governments to introduce more Jewish religious regulations into state law. The ultra-orthodox group "Neturei Karta" (the landless) has never recognised the state of Israel and is exempt from army service. Although Gush Emunim is small in numbers, they wield disproportionate influence and power since successive Israeli governments covertly (and nowadays overtly) endorsed their aspirations. Their followers have been allocated special army units so as to enable them to observe Jewish religious laws and rituals in every detail (although even in the regular army only Kosher food is served and the Sabbath is observed as far as possible). These units have a reputation as dedicated crack-troops. What is less well known but silently condoned is their refusal to give medical aid or even drive wounded persons to hospital on the Sabbath unless they are Jews. But in my view this is an extremely short-sighted and dangerous road, leading in the end to a fundamentalist theocracy much like that of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The fundamentalists' belief is that the Messianic age is already upon us and that any obstacles to a total elimination of any non-Jews in the promised land, i.e. the whole of what was Palestine including the Holy Mount, is God's punishment for sinful Jews, namely all those who are westernised and secular. This fully exonerates, and indeed sanctifies, a man like Baruch Goldstein who murdered 29 Palestinians praying in the Ibrahimi mosque, as well as the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Like the Hamas movement, which was initially encouraged by Israel's secret services, this is another genie that, having been let out of the bottle, can no longer be controlled.

It seems a bitter irony that a movement that initially saw itself as progressive, liberal and secular should find itself in an alliance with, and held to ransom by, the most reactionary forces, but in my view this was inevitable from its inception although the founders, and most of us (including people like myself, growing up in Palestine in the thirties) did not foresee this and certainly would not have wished it.

Growing up in Israel makes it quite difficult to see all the historical falsifications and myths that underpin Zionist ideology except for academics and some of them have indeed researched and publicised the truth, often at great cost to themselves. (Pappe, Teddy Katz).

Nowadays the deliberate blurring of the distinction between Zionism and Judaism, which includes a rewriting of ancient as well as modern history is exploited to stifle any criticism of Israel's policies and actions, however extreme and inhuman they may be. This, incidentally also plays directly into anti-Semitic prejudices by equating Israeli arrogance, brutality and complete denial of basic human rights to non-Jews with general Jewish characteristics.

Zionism has now assumed the all-embracing mantle of righteousness; it claims to represent and to speak for all Jews and has adopted the slogan of "my country right or wrong," with the West tolerating Israel's continuous breaches of human rights that it would not tolerate if perpetrated by any other country. Few Western states and not many Jews dare take a stand against Israel, particularly as many of the former still feel a sense of unease and guilt about the holocaust which Zionists Jews inside and outside Israel have exploited in what to me seems an almost obscene manner.

In the USA, the Jewish Zionist lobby is still strong enough to keep successive governments on board. Moreover, the USA regards Israel as an important strategic ally in its fight against Middle Eastern "rogue" states which have supplanted the Soviet Union as the great satanic enemy of the free world. The latest phenomenon is that of American Christian Fundamentalists who advocate the return of all Jews to their god-given land.

I fear that unless and until Israel is judged by the same criteria as other modern states, this is unlikely to change. It is the duty of all Jews with a sense of justice and a conscience to speak out against the falsifications of history by the Zionist lobby, and the dangerous misconceptions it has led the West to accept.

It is also high time to build a boycott campaign similar to the anti-apartheid one against Israel. (Called for by Mandela and Tutu amongst others).


Hanna Braun, London, September 2001



Bibliography:

Jewish History, Jewish Religion by Prof. Israel Shahak (died 2nd July 2001)

Fundamental Judaism in Israel, Prof. Israel Shahak

A History of the Jews, Ancient and Modern, Ilan Halevi

Western Scholarship and the History of Palestine, Rev. Dr. Michael Prior (ed.)

source

[red rocket]

And here's something else I read fairly recently, fairly apropos I think, considering how people are talking about suffering and such:

Dare To Compare - Israel

By Ghali Hassan

09/26/07 "ICH" -- -- Few days ago, I had a long e-mail message from someone with the “Jews for Peace” group. The message starts: “I am very annoyed by your comparison of Israel with Nazi Germany … There is no Auschwitz in Palestine, and the Palestinians have not experienced a holocaust. Palestinians are free to leave any time they wish.” I do not know anything about the group, but a response is in order:

Thank you for your e-mail. I take it you have never been in Occupied Palestine to see the facts on the ground. Or you are ignorant of Israel’s policies against innocent and virtually defenseless Palestinians with nowhere to go to.

I do not compare Israel with Nazi Germany. Israel is a Zionist settlers’ colony founded on land theft and terror against the Palestinian people; Nazi Germany was not. However, I do – like most people – compare Israeli policies in Palestine with those of the Nazis. If you deny what happened in Palestine in 1948 (Nakba) when thousands of Palestinians were murdered, and an estimated 800,000 Palestinians were terrorised and ethnically cleansed from their homeland in a deliberate and systematic policy of mass expulsion by Jewish terrorist organisations, you deny “the holocaust” ever took place.

Honest Jews who experienced and survived the holocaust have often made the comparison between Israel’s brutal treatment of the Palestinian people and the Nazis’ brutal treatments of Jews and others. I am reminded of a letter to the Israeli Press twenty-five years ago in which Shlomo Shmelzman wrote: “In my childhood I have suffered fear, hunger and humiliation when I passed from the Warsaw Ghetto, through labour camps, to Buchenwald. I hear too many familiar sounds today, sounds which are being amplified by the war. I hear about ‘closed areas’ and I remember ghettos and camps. I hear ‘two-legged beasts’ and I remember ‘Untermenschen’ [subhumans]. I hear about tightening the siege, clearing the area, pounding the city into submission, and I remember suffering, destruction, death, blood and murder … Too many things in Israel remind me of too many things from my childhood”. (Ha’aretz, August 11, 1982). Israel is consciously matching all of Hitler’s crimes, killing and depriving Palestinians of basic human rights. Only the methods are different.

Furthermore, various Israeli politicians today, including the hardcore Fascist Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who migrated from Moldova to Israel in 1978are advocating a harsher policy of ethnic cleansing and mass murder of Arabs in Palestine as a conclusion to Israel’s conquest of Palestine. In fact, a majority of Israeli Jews (64%) advocates this Fascist form of thinking. (Ha’aretz, 22 June 2004).

You write: “Gaza is free”. I am sure you learned this fraud from at least four sources of Zionist propaganda: the pro-Israel Jewish Lobby; the deranged ignoramus American Zionist, Alan Dershowitz; U.S. mainstream media; and the BBC. Gaza is not “free”. Gaza is a large fortified Concentration Camp. Since 2000, the entire population of Gaza (1.5 million) has been under total blockade with disastrous consequences. Anyone who tries to get out risks being murdered.

As a result of this premeditated collective punishment, Gaza has run out of food and medicine. Palestinians, children and infants in particular, are dying of starvation, malnutrition and preventable diseases. Without electricity, hospital and emergency centres operate infrequently, depriving the sick and injured of medical care. So, Gaza is a Camp not much different from the Nazi’s Camps. Indeed, Israelis have started to call Gaza the “Ghetto”.

The criminal blockade of Gaza was tightened after the democratic elections of January 2006. The Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS) won the elections in exactly the manner U.S. and the EU (the West) had called upon them to do – free and fair democratic voting. Unfortunately, “democracy” for the U.S. is only if the elected government serves U.S. interests. The criminal blockade is tightened on daily basis in violation of international law and civilised norms.

You are being naïve about the hyped evacuation of a few thousand illegal Jewish settlers from Gaza. I repeat: This was another Israeli fraud designed for mass propaganda aimed at diverting public attention away from Israel’s terror. As one Israeli Labor politician wrote recently: "The goal is to perpetuate Israeli control in most of the West Bank, and to repel any internal or external pressure for a different political solution. The Palestinians will be left with seven enclaves connected by special highways for their use."

The building of illegal colonies (the so-called "settlements") has accelerated dramatically, along with the illegal Apartheid Wall – described by some as ‘much worse’ than the Berlin Wall – confiscating Palestinian land and water resources and tearing Palestinian communities into small enclaves, dividing them from each other. With the completion of the Wall, some 1.6 million Palestinians will have access to no more than 12 per cent of historic Palestine which makes it impossible to establish a viable Palestinian state. In addition, the Israeli Occupation Force (IOF) is carrying out Israel’s policy of ethnic cleansing, emptying Hebron of its original Arab inhabitants and Judaising the Jordan Valley, building illegal colonies, and making the so-called “Two-State” solution impossible. (See: Régis Debray, Le Monde Diplomatique, August 2007).

Take a look at the new map of the Palestinian Occupied Territories produced by the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA). More than 45 per cent of the West Bank is now off limits to Palestinians. East Jerusalem has been systematically Judaised, its borders inflated, and the Arab Palestinians there have become prisoners in their homes. They are harassed on a daily basis by illegal armed extremist settlers and the IOF. According to IMEMC News, some 1,835 Palestinian families have been forced to move from their homes and at least 15, 000 Palestinians will be denied access to the City when the illegal Wall is completed. All over the Occupied Territories, ethnic cleansing of Palestinians “is in progress” and has been since 1948. (See: Victoria Buch, Occupation Magazine, September 2007).

The Occupied Territories of the West Bank, including major population centres such as Nablus and Jericho, are split into enclaves. Palestinians’ movement between them is restricted by more than 572 roadblocks, an increase of 52 per cent compared to 376 in August 2005. These include 96 manned Israeli checkpoints and 476 unmanned barriers (OCHA). At these roadblocks, increasing numbers of desperately ill Palestinians and newborn babies have died because Israeli soldiers and armed settlers prevent people from reaching hospitals. Israel has already formalised the de facto Ghettoisation of the West Bank through a network of Jews-only highways that bypass and isolate Palestinian towns and villages. Israel has created a system of control the Nazis could only dream of.

You allege that: “Israel offered the Palestinians ‘land for peace’ and a separate state, but the Palestinians refused the offer”. First, peace for Israel, writes Henry Siegman, is a “cover for [Israel’s] systematic confiscation of Palestinian land” and premeditated violence against defenceless Palestinians. Peace without justice is an empty rhetoric. That is why Israeli leaders love all these countless “peace” conferences. That was what the Oslo “Peace Process” was for. (Henry Siegman, LRB, 16 August 2007). That is why Israeli leaders love all these countless “peace” conferences.

Second, you are being very naïve to believe Israel’s manufactured propaganda. The “offer” was a scam. Israel offered the Palestinians nothing. In fact most of Israel’s criminal policies are designed to destroy any chance of a viable Palestinian state. The opportunity of a viable Palestinian state has passed and it is no longer a possibility unless Israel completely withdraws to pre-1967 boarders and implements all UN Security Council resolutions. (See: Hussein Agha & Robert Malley, NYR Books, 09 August 2001).

You also wrote: “Palestinians are free to leave any time they wish”. Where to? Israelis can go where they come from, and most Israelis are dual citizens, and have no problem returning to their homes in the U.S. and Europe. Palestinians have nowhere to go except to their homes in Palestine. Remember the common saying: ‘Jews have always demanded rights when they were in the minority, but they denied others the rights when they are in the majority and exercise power’. Palestinians have an inalienable right to return to their homeland.

[red rocket]

Furthermore, you ignored the numerous diplomatic options offered by Arab nations and rebuffed by Israel. Indeed, all Muslim nations have offered Israel peace and recognition if Israel will renounce violence and accept a just peace. Instead, Israel has rejected every peace offer and continues to perpetuate violence, because violence is the foundation of the “State of Israel”.

According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, PCHR, Israeli Occupation Forces (the Israeli Army) crimes against the Palestinians during the period of 16 -22 August, 2007 were:

· 16 Palestinians, including 3 children, were murdered by IOF in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
· 10 of the victims were extra-judicially executed by IOF.
· 18 Palestinians were wounded by IOF gunfire in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
· IOF conducted 30 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank and two ones into the Gaza Strip.
· IOF arrested 44 Palestinian civilians, including a child, in the West Bank.
· IOF shelled fishing boats and arrested 8 Palestinian fishermen in Rafah.

Of course, Israel’s terror and war crimes continue uninterrupted. Innocent Palestinian civilians, including children, are murdered every day. Israel’s blockade of Gaza (as mentioned above) continues with an international flavour that is causing a humanitarian crisis. The Palestinians are defenceless and unable to effectively retaliate against illegal and brutal occupiers. It’s preposterous to compare Palestinian “violence” with Israeli violence. Israeli Gestapo-like death squads are murdering innocent Palestinian civilians and prominent politicians with ease and impunity.

Israeli war planes continue to fly ‘sonic boom’ raids, terrorising the civilian population and causing mental damage to children and infants, and premature birth and miscarriage among pregnant women. The deliberate murder of Palestinian children (with impunity) for sport, and the use of Palestinian children as human shields by the Israeli soldiers, is war crimes worse than the Nazis’ crimes.

As I write these words, Israeli soldiers killed five Palestinian boys and girls, aged between 10 and 12, in cold blood. The children had only been playing ‘tag’ in the backyard of their home. Two days earlier, Israeli soldiers killed three boys while they were collecting carob fruits. The Israeli alleged: “the children approached the security fence”, Israel’s routine pretext to justify murder. Then the Israeli Army admitted that the killing occurred “by mistake”. Do you remember; when was the last Israeli killed by Palestinians?

Furthermore, at least 11,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are imprisoned without charge or due process in notorious Israeli prisons. Palestinian prisoners are enduring torture and abuse – justified by the Israeli Supreme Court as a ‘necessity’ – not dissimilar from those practiced by the Nazis with complete disregard to human rights and human dignity.

Israel has used, and continues to use, all kinds of weapons to kill Palestinians, including cluster bombs, napalms, and a new “super-weapon” that uses heat and pressure to kill people targeted across a wide area by sucking the air out of people’s lungs and rupturing their internal organs. In addition, Israel’s uninterrupted house demolitions of Palestinian homes and destruction of agricultural land constitute war crimes.

It’s worth noting that Israel’s violence found unconditional military support within the U.S. and European power establishments. The recent $30 billion “aid package” to Israel – paid by U.S. taxpayers – is a case in point, although “Washington’s blind support for Israel exceeds by many times the amount of direct U.S. aid to Israel” (Shirl McArthur, WRMEA, July 2006). Israel’s usefulness is that it justifies U.S. violence and military presence in the region.

Let’s not forget that Israel is a rogue state in possession of the fourth largest military force in the world. Israel amasses an arsenal that includes biological and chemical weapons and more than 200 nuclear warheads. Israel is rightly considered by the overwhelming majority of people around the world as the biggest threat to world peace.

All the above mentioned Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people are so horrendous that they could be easily pass for Nazis’ war crimes against Jews. The whole idea of purely “Jewish State” in Palestine is based on the concept of the “Master Race” adopted in the Nazis’ ideology of Herrenvolk. Indeed, Jews consider non-Jews (Gentiles) as Untermenschen, or lesser humans. In Israel, the 20 per cent Palestinians are despised and denied equal rights in a deliberate discriminatory policy considered worse than South Africa’s Apartheid. Unlike South Africa’s Apartheid, Israel’s Apartheid is a real Apartheid. (See: Chris McGreal, Guardian, 16 February 2006). This racist policy led some Jews to stop associating themselves with Israel in order to deflect criticism away from Jews.

Despite the criminal nature of Israel’s policies, few people dare criticise Israel for fear of being labelled “anti-Semitists”. Israel uses the cliché of “anti-Semitism” and the holocaust to silence its critics. People who are falsely accused of “anti-Semitism” pay dearly, losing their jobs and livelihoods for daring to legitimately criticise Israel. Indeed, anyone who criticises Israel's terror or rationally argues that the pro-Israel Jewish Lobby in the U.S. has a significant influence over U.S. policy is automatically labelled “anti-Semitic”. The holocaust has been turned from a human tragedy into a political tool and a multi-business industry. In addition, Zionist Jews have succeeded in making the holocaust unique and exclusive, belittling countless other genocide. Zionist Jews have mastered the art of ‘religion manipulation’ to justify violence and perpetuate a slow genocide in Palestine.

It should be acknowledged that there is a widespread anti-Semitism campaign directed not against Jews, but against Arabs and Muslims. Pro-Israel Christian Zionists, including the Christian Right and pro-Israel lobbies in the U.S. and Europe, have declared war not only on the Palestinians and Arabs in the Middle East, but also on all Arabs and Muslims around the world. With the bulk of Western media inherently pro-Israel and anti-Muslim, Israel is portrayed as a “victim” defending itself from the Palestinians who are often depicted as “militants” and “terrorists”. In reality, the opposite is true.

In his last article in the Los Angeles Times (16 July 2007), the deputy of HAMAS political bureau, Mousa Abu Marzook, put the Movement’s view like this: “Why should anyone concede Israel’s ‘right’ to exist, when it has never even acknowledged the foundational crimes of murder and ethnic cleansing by means of which Israel to our towns and villages, our farms and orchards, and made us a nation of refugees? … I look forward to the day when Israel can say to me, and millions of other Palestinians: ‘Here, here is your family's house by the sea, here are your lemon trees, the olive grove your father tended: Come home and be whole again’. Then we can speak of a future together.”

Finally, Israel’s existence as a “civilised” nation depends on Israel’s willingness to renounce violence, stop dispossessing and murdering Palestinians, and resume the path of a peaceful democratic coexistence.

I encourage you to carefully read the sources I refer to in this letter and reflect on the long history of Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people before you blindly attack me again for daring to compare Israel’s policies in Palestine with those of the Nazis.

Ghali Hassan is an independent writer living in Australia.

source

Sorry about all the copypasta, but frankly I'm weary of responding to repetitive historical revisionism and fantasy with original material, and these two articles reflect my historical understanding and present‑day impressions quite accurately. Not that I harbour any illusions that any of this will affect Zionist opinions, merely tossing it in for balance.

[Big Mac]

Thanks for thread spamming. Just keep spewing the propaganda.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

You're right, simply because a group suffers does not alone give it title to inflict suffering on another group. The only point I was making in response to you is that you brought up suffering so I gave you a superlative example of suffering. I have given you many reasons why Israel's existence is justified, even at the cost of suffering of some. Your rejection of reason is entirely your own choice.

So, as you seem to be fond of repeating yourself but not actually answering questions posed to you, I will ask you yet again: Do you think the suffering of Jews in WWII is greater than the suffering of Arabs/Palestinians displaced to make way for the state of Israel? Does the long-term suffering of Jewish people all over the world entitle them to create suffering for the Arab/Palestinian peoples of Palestine?

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

dcmacdaddy didn't understand my statement that the world powers were agreeing to return the land of Israel to the nation of Israel, so I was trying to explain, in the most simplistic terms I could use, how the land of Israel got the name Palestine and why the world powers were returning it (the land of Israel, a.k.a. the land of Palestine/the Palestine Mandate) to the Jewish people. This isn't difficult material, or at least it should not be. Maybe I'm overestimating your intellectual capacity.

No, I did understand what you were saying but trying to call you out on the bias you have been showing; a bias that is revealed by your presumption that the world powers were interested in re-/establishing the state of Israel when they made and/or supported the Balfour Declaration. The world powers were interested in establishing a "Jewish homeland" not necessarily re-establishing the nation of Israel. Your bias is in assuming that Jewish homeland=state of Israel in Palestine.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy 

So, as you seem to be fond of repeating yourself but not actually answering questions posed to you, I will ask you yet again: Do you think the suffering of Jews in WWII is greater than the suffering of Arabs/Palestinians displaced to make way for the state of Israel?

I missed that question, sorry. The Holocaust - in which Six Million Jews were systematically murdered - was the most uniquely horrific event in the history of mankind. The loss of property rights of 500-750,000 that the Arabs inflicted largely on themselves, voluntarily, in 1948 is insignificant by comparison. That's not to say many haven't suffered in refugee camps for 60 years or that their suffering isn't unfortunate, but it was no act of genocide, let alone anything to rival the destruction of European Jewry. Now millions of Arabs claim to be descendants of those refugees and demand ridiculously rights against Israel; if you want to take their claim at face value then apparently the refugees were able to do well enough for themselves to have many offspring. One cannot say the same of European Jewry. And once again it should also be noted that a similar number of Jews were forcibly expelled from their homes in Arab and African countries - and were only allowed the clothes on their backs - when Israel declared its independence.

Originally Posted by dcmacdaddy 

No, I did understand what you were saying but trying to call you out on the bias you have been showing; a bias that is revealed by your presumption that the world powers were interested in re-/establishing the state of Israel when they made and/or supported the Balfour Declaration. The world powers were interested in establishing a "Jewish homeland" not necessarily re-establishing the nation of Israel. Your bias is in assuming that Jewish homeland=state of Israel in Palestine.

The Balfour Declaration declares support for "the establishment in Palestine of national home for the Jewish people. . ." That amounts to a home for the Jewish nation in Palestine, a.k.a. the land of Israel. Now are you really claiming to me that that declaration envisioned a Jewish population in the ancient Jewish homeland but lacking Jewish sovereignty? What would be the point in that? Who would enjoy political power other than the Jews in the Jewish national home? I think it's abundantly clear from the language of the declaration that a new Jewish state was envisioned.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

I missed that question, sorry. The Holocaust - in which Six Million Jews were systematically murdered - was the most uniquely horrific event in the history of mankind. The loss 500-750,000 Arabs inflicted largely on themselves, voluntarily, in 1948 is insignificant by comparison. Once again it should also be noted that a similar number of Jews were forcibly ejected from their homes in Arab and African countries when Israel declared its independence.

"The Holocaust was the most uniquely horrific event in the history of mankind."

WW! That's quite a bit of hyperbole there.

So, in your mind no other historical event compares with the attempted destruction of the Jewish population of Europe. OK. Good to know that's how you feel about the grand sweep of human history.

[Taliesin]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

Most of them left their homes voluntarily, peeb. Israel begged them to stay, while their leaders told them to leave so that they won't impede the conquering Arab armies.

There was indeed a very restricted call to leave out of harm's way by some arab armies. This restricted call that was by the way responsible for the leaving of less than 5% of the expelled palestinians was wrongly used in zionistic propaganda to make the case of a voluntary fled, and unfortunately for a few decades it became part of normal history-telling.

Are you familiar with historical revisionism, big mac? Historians sometimes find new and previously undisclosed evidence that puts new perspectives onto normal history and sometimes even questions it and changes it.

For example for a long time it was thought that except for the natives, Columbus was the first european to have reached the new world. Sure for centuries this was put into question as some historians cited chinese, portugueses, arabs, and vikings as having reached the new world before Columbus, but there was no real hard evidence, that is until 1960, when archeological evidence was found that proved that vikings had established seasonal outposts in North-America.

History gets revisited in light of new evidence and reinterpreted, corrected, retold in a whole new light, if necessitated by new hard evidence.

In the case of Israel the zionists created a lot of myths that have been debunked in the last few decades thanks to newly disclosed evidence: There was the myth of the land without people for the people without land, there was the myth of the voluntary leaving of the 700,000 palestinians, there was the myth of Israel's forces being opposed by an overwhelming arab force keen to destroy Israel, and numerous other founding myths.

Thanks to newly opened israeli archives and the war-diaries of Ben Gurion and arabic archives painting a whole other picture of the developments.

That's historical revisionism at its best and in this case not only changes Israel's official founding history but also embarrasses the official arabic history regarding the arabic states, that just freshly stumbled into indepence and partly cooperated with Israel so that they could prevent a palestinian state and seize territory out of greed.

In order to remain credible I highly suggest to update your historic picture. This book is a good start:
Amazon.com: The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities: Books: Simha Flapan

Taliesin