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Zak

Your post is littered with basic errors and elaborates untruths, Dan. I shall respond to these, but I assume from the outset that my points will probably only confound a comprehension that, shall we say, ‘lacking’. I will quote a part of your response before refuting it.

1- “harsh accusations based on no facts whatsoever (like the entire section of “an affront to international law”)”

If you knew anything about International Law, then you would know that several of the points she renders are relevant. To give a simple yet pertinent example, she says ‘visit collective punishment…on the entire population of Gaza [and]… disproportionate military action ‘. Again, if you knew anything about International Law (rather than just how to ramble about it confusedly) then you would know that both collective punishment and disproprtionate military actions are contraventions of International Law and International Humanitarian Law.

2- “You refer to the West Bank and Gaza strip as being “occupied.””

Yes, that’s because they are. And if you read any UN report or reference to the territory, you will see them clearly referred to as Occupied Palestinian Territories. I’m going to be nice and let you work out why that is– consider it today’s homework

3- “When Israel declared independence in 1948″
Are you referring to the creation of the European colonial settler state that massacred and de-homed and de-possessed over a million Palestinians in total? Are you referring to UN Resolution 194 which declares that the Palestinian refugees are entitled to return to their homeland (’Al-Awda’) but are constantly denied this right by the Zionist state? Of course, that it is only one of countless UN Resolutions that Israel continues to ignore; indeed, Israel has violated more UN Resolutions than any other state in the world. You like to talk about facts and statistics, so that might be some food for thought…

4- “So when you say “the occupied West Bank,” what you are saying is that Israel is occupying Jordanian territory, as the Palestinian-Muslims never had a state there”

Firstly, your ignorance is alarming and hypocritical considering you had a rant about Dr Starkley’s apparent lack of knowledge. Palestine has never been just Muslims, so to reduce the existing and priorly-existed population to Palestinian-Muslims not only reveals your ignorance, but largely manifests your ulterior motives. Palestine is, and always has been, a place for Christians, Muslims and Jews. There are Palestinian Christians suffering in Palestine at the hands of Israel, yet you attempt to erase them for history altogether. That is deplorable.

Secondly, you’re attempting to conflate Jordanians and Palestinians to coerce the now unified entity into your own agenda. It is both foolish and disingenuous. The Palestinians, regardless of whether they had a state or not, have lived on and owned the land (Historic Palestine) for centuries; they cultivated the land and planted the olive trees. This is about more than a state; that is about a history and a home. It is, once again, hypocritical that you accept with alacrity the UN’s partitioning of Palestine yet do not give even an infinitesimal amount of time to the UN Resolutions Israel has broken or the UN’s Fact Finding Mission (’The Goldstone Report’) that accused Israel of War Crimes and possibly Crimes against Humanity. Double standards, thy name is ‘Dan’.

5- “Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005″

Israel maintained control over Gaza’s borders; imposed a crippling, callous, death-spiralling siege; retained control of air space and territorial waters; the population registry; all export and import abilities; and crossings.

So, in sum, your statement should really read ‘Israel transformed Gaza into the world’s biggest open prison’.

And we have seen exactly why they did this during the brutal attack of January last year. Any doubts about the motivations for Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip were consolidated during that attack, as it became clear that they intended to run Gaza into the ground. And they are continuing to on a day-to-day basis. ‘Punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population’, to quote the Mission behind the aforementioned Goldstone Report, is what Israel intended to do.

Furthermore, Ariel Sharon was unambiguous at the time that the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005 was to consolidate and expand illegal settlements in the West Bank. It was giving up a little bit of illegal land to gain a lot more illegal land. It was also to try and further legitimise the land-grabbing apartheid wall (almost universally condemned). Read his speeches to members of the Knesset for further evidence, starting with this one:

http://www.pmo.gov.il/PMOeng/archive/speeches/2004/04/speeches7887.htm

Or perhaps read Ben White, who refutes this point particularly well.

Only someone with a desperate desire to distort the truth, such as yourself, would see it in any other way.

And that is an apt way to round off this response. It is becoming alarmingly clear to the vast majority of people what Israel is doing. The others continue to make excuses and believe only what they want to; they reject fact unless it concurs with their own prejudices. These are people of hate rather than people of justice, but they are a growing minority and the irony is that they are ostracised not only from the conflict but from the world itself.

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Mido

Before I even reached the end of your response Dan, you confirmed everything I always knew about Zionists; namely that the (un)reality they inhabit is characterised by a degree of fantasy rarely witnessed outside of Israel (well maybe in the USA also). Some of your comments were actually so amusing I couldn’t tell if you were being serious;
- ‘You refer to the West Bank and Gaza strip as being “occupied.” That is simply not true.’
- “the occupied West Bank,” what you are saying is that Israel is occupying Jordanian territory’
- Since Jordan has expressed zero interest in wanting the West Bank back, I would hardly call that an “occupation.”
…..
Eh? I suggest you go and read about history properly, and not the regurgitated tripe from the Jerusalem Post. You use the usual historical manipulations so resonant of Zionism that I’ll regrettably condescend to address some of your points. First of all the 1947 UN Partition Plan referred to an ‘Arab Palestinian’ state, and not ‘transjordan’ or an ‘egyptian’ state. (This is sheer irony as the UN apparently enshrines the right to self-determination, yet proceeded to divide up a land without any official approval from the indigenous population). What happened in 1948 is referred to in the English language as ‘annexation’. It has been so extensively documented (and frankly I am embarrased for you that I have to repeat it here) that Israel and Jordan had a secret agreement in place, during 1947-48, to partition Palestine. So yes, Jordan and Israel did both ‘annex’ the land alloted by the UN to Palestine. How you managed to surmise that this annexation suddenly became legitimate is truly beyond me, unless of course you assume that given Palestine was also referred to as ‘cis-jordan’ during this time, it suddenly ‘became’ part of Jordan. Quick obvious note; the prefix ‘cis’ was merely a geographical observation.
I suggest you do some reading. A good start would be the Zionist writer Shlomo Sand, and his book ‘The Invention of the Jewish People’, though of course his book only reiterates what everyone knew anyway. I’ll leave you with some quotes taken during the history of that beloved land of Eretz Israel (though of course that is not a well-defined term considering how Israel has spread like a cancer):

David Ben-Gurion, first PM of Israel said;
”Let us not ignore the truth amongs ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves … The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down.”
(Reference; Flapan, ‘Zionism and the Palestinians’, pp 141-2)

Chaim Weizmann, President of the World Zionist Organistaion, said;
“With regard to the Arab question – the British told me that there are several hundred thousand negroes there but that this matter has no significance”
(Reference; Yosef Heller, ‘Bama’avak Lamdina’, 1985, p.140)

Prime Minister Golda Meir said;
“It is not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist.”
(Reference; London Sunday Times, June 15, 1969)

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Mido

In short ‘The Common Humanist’ (we have met before, ahem), Israel is beyond the point of no return. The two state solution is virtually impossible to implement. Israel has constructed illegal settlements all over designated Palestinian territory (and does so even now), and the idea of these being removed anytime soon is highly unlikely. The Haredi Jews, staunch advocates of settling anywhere in the land they consider Eretz Israel (which would actually include most of present-day Jordan also) have vast influence over the Knesset and for them, removing any settlement is tantamount to the greatest shame. There is a common refrain in Israel which translates into something along the lines of ‘we are all settlers’, giving an indication of the immense difficulty encountered when attempting to remove even one settlement, let alone the countless others which have proliferated cancer-like all over the land of the indigenous Palestinians.
Ehud Barak said something in the realm of reality (how ironic) this week;

“The simple truth is, if there is one state [including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza] it will have to be either binational or undemocratic … The lack of a solution to the problem of border demarcation within the historic Land of Israel – and not an Iranian bomb – is the most serious threat to Israel’s future.”

To think settlers, the most influential group in Israel would ever accept Palestinians living as equal citizens in the land they apparently claim as ‘God-given’, is well impossible basically. In reality, they don’t answer to the state of Israel, they answer only to their Rabbis (hence why the Israeli Supreme Court is basically pointless). One must identify the problem, which is Israel, and any solution in the future, sad as I am (not) to say it, will see military force deal the hand of justice Israel has escaped for far, far too long.

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Bejeweled

A quick note on this quite ridiculous assertion: “In terms of Right of Return – Israel affords this because it is the historical jewish homeland and after the holocaust this had added impetus. ”

We might as well give back England to the Ancient Romans.

And, Europe had no right to alleviate its guilt at the expense of thousands and thousands of people.

Right of return is all good and jolly, but there are peaceful ways of co-habiting without creating an apartheid state with jewish-only state, roads and settlements. Something went seriously wrong right from the establishment of Israel, (perhaps the notion that you can forcefully remove a bunch of people and draw a couple of borders) – as such, peace is an unachievable cry today.

“So no more settlements in the WB? Agreed? No more silly rocket attacks into Israel ”

It’s not a little game of tit for tat, and certainly not a proportionate game. You might as well be comparing the tragedy of Haiti with Michael Jackson’s death. Your perception of levels of proportion, blame, and the Palestinian situation are seriously skewed.

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The Common Humanist

Bejewelled,

My view is skewed because I look at the situation from a position of – ‘we are where we are?’ Hardly.

Israel isn’t going anywhere. Deal with it.

To Israel supporters – give the Palestinians the justice they deserve. They aren’t going away either.

That’s my position.

BTW Israel isn’t a Jewish Only State. 25% of its citizens are Arab Muslims and Christians. Unlike say, Saudi Arabia, which is a racist state through its banning of people of the Jewish faith from its territory.

Anyways, back to I/P, comprehensive deals are going to have to be done sooner or later – probably along the lines of the one I outlined earlier.

And then the rest of the world can relax somewhat.

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Afloat

Having just read this post of yours, I regret going in to hyper mode in the below post. Hah.

You were far more reasonable here; although I disagree with the second half. The Saudi’s are racist, but they’re nothing compared to the Israelis.

The Saudi state wasn’t created on the back of genocide or ethnic cleansing. The Saudi’s haven’t started anywhere near the number of wars with their neighbours of a different faith.

The only reason there are a significant number of Arab Muslims in Israel is that a small minority managed to remain following the mass expulsion in 1948. Members of the Israeli Knesset regularly express their regrets regarding the Zionists not having expelled the remaining Arabs earlier (Arabs reproduce like rabbits- not good for Israeli demographics).

The two Arab political parties that had limited activity have also recently been banned from taking part in elections. All in the name of Democracy.

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Afloat

Common Humanist..

My approach thus far has been entirely political and not religious. I find it impossible to have a “dispassionate” approach when people are facing oppression, regardless of their faith. You’ll find me writing with the same passion when it comes to every crisis; from US exploitation of the Haitians, to the Belgian exploitation of the Congolese. You’ll also find me writing with the same passion when it comes to the vile regimes in the Islamic world; from the Saudi’s to the Pakistani’s.

Having read your comments before, I didn’t expect you to pull out the old holocaust line; as Bejwelled highlighted earlier, it’s an entirely spurious argument. Just because one community suffered immensely, that it should be given damages at the expense of another, is ridiculous. What did the Arabs of Palestine have to do with the Holocaust?

As I explained earlier, the whole “historical Jewish land” argument is also ridiculous. North America is the historic Native American land. Greater Australia is the historic Aboriginal land. If the Book of Joshua is to believed, then it means that justification for a Jewish homeland is based on land taken by war 3,300 years ago and lost by war 2600 years ago. You don’t have a point here. Furthermore you completely ignored large chunks of my earlier response;

“Barely 10% of Jews living today have any historic link to the region, and even if this figure is larger, or that the twelve tribes story is correct; that was well over two thousand years ago! The Mexicans and Native Americans have more of a right to re claim North America. In fact screw it, we ALL may as well re claim Africa, as scientists believe it is where mankind originated from.”

If I may add to this; according to the writings of H.G. Wells and MANY others, the majority of Jews living today are the descendents of a Turkish tribe referred to as the Khazars, who converted to Judaism between 620-740AD, with no genetic connection to the land whatsoever. Today, the majority (some figures are put this high as 95%) of Jews are of the Ashkenazi tribe, descendents of the Khazars.

Furthermore, let me repeat; the Jews left Palestine 500 years BEFORE the Muslims took over. And they only began to return because the Muslims INVITED them.

Going by your argument of historical links… there is ample evidence to suggest non- Jewish semites lived in the region for centuries (it’s acknowledged in the Bible for a start). Would their descendents, whoever they are, have a valid argument if they wished to reclaim Israel?

Moving on to your calling Likud & Hamas equally childish. It’s not Hamas that continually breaks ceasefires. Hamas is the democratically elected government of Gaza. After its election, Israel, the EU and the US saw to it that it that Gaza was economically strangled; collective punishment for the people’s voting for the wrong party. Hamas’s rockets have killed fewer than 10 people in the past 10years. Contrast this to Israel’s doings; having killed over 7,000 Palestinians in the same time period, with all manner of weaponry; laser guided missiles, F16’s, helicopter gunships and bombs. The Palestinians have a right to armed struggle.

Although there are valid arguments for and against violent resistance, the often childishness of Hamas cannot be compared to that of Likud. During Olmerts stay in power, the Fatah government engaged in over 200 talks with the Israelis. The outcome was zilch. Illegal settlements expanded, more territory was annexed, more Palestinian families were evicted from their homes, more prisoners were held without charge in Israeli dungeons, and so on. Ironically, the only negotiations on whose results people regularly wait eagerly, are those Hamas has with Israel; prisoner exchanges and so on. There is a very famous saying that you will hear the Palestinians, especially the Gazans, use a lot: “its better to die standing than to live on your knees”.

Your assertion that the Palestinians “left” Palestine in 1948 is, again, ridiculous. The only link their being expelled from the region has to the Ottoman Empire, is that with the Empires collapse, Muslims weren’t in a position to fight Western Imperial powers. The Palestinians were ethnically cleansed; this is admitted by the top most Israeli scholars on the issue, i.e. Zionists such as Benny Morris, and former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Benami. I advise you to read “The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine”, by Ilan Pappe, an Israeli professor who teaches at Exeter University.

Coming back to the expulsion of Jews from some Arab lands; it was the direct result of the creation of the Zionist state. In modern day terms, we had a situation similar to what we saw in the former Rhodesia, South Africa and Yugoslavia; whenever there is one ethnic minority ruling over a majority of another ethnicity, hostilities regularly ensue. Although often, the blame lies with both sides, we must ask who the initial aggressor was.

Here are a few excerpts from the findings of a British Royal commission chaired by Lord William Peel in 1936, alongside a prior inquiry headed by Sir Thomas Haycraft; both aimed to ascertain the causes of the turmoil in the region;

“the root of the trouble… was the Arab fear of a steady increase of Jewish immigration, which would ultimately tend to their political and economic subjection.”

“There can be no doubt that racial animosity on the part of the Arabs, consequent upon the disappointment of their political and national aspoirations and fear for their economic future, was the fundamental cause”.

Referring to Arab-Jewish hostilities, the commission’s report stated they were a result of “first, the desire of Arab for national independence; secondly, their antagonism to the establishment of the Jewish “national home” in Palestine, quickened by their fear of Jewish domination”.

More importantly, it went on to state;

“Nor is the conflict in its essence an interracial conflict, arising from any old instinctive antipathy of Arabs towards Jews. There was little or no friction… between Arab and Jew in the rest of the Aarab world until the strife in Palestine engenderd it. And there has been precisely the same political trouble in Iraq, Syria and Egypt- agitation, rebellion and bloodshed- where there are no “National Homes”….. “THAT IS WHY IT IS DIFFICULT TO BE AN ARAB PATRIOT AND NOT TO HATE THE JEWS”.

Just to prevent any childishness on part of any other contributors; these aren’t my words. Look up the above stated sources for yourself. And besides, I don’t hate the Jews. Far from it, I hate Zionists

In summary, Common Humanist; I think you’re doing what too many pseudo historians do. You’re trying far too hard to come across as neutral. Although I think you’re trying to be fair; you’ve erred in convincing yourself that both sides are equally to blame when it simply isn’t the case. I’ll finish in the words of the late Howard Zinn; “you can’t be neutral on a moving train”.

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The Common Humanist

Afloat,

I never asserted the Palestinians left Palestine in 1948.

Also, Hamas does indeed regularly break ceasefires. As do the Israelis.

I am overall neutral on this issue (in that I am on no-ones side, not that I don’t care) – yes I see the justice of a fair settlement for the Palestinians and why that is absolutely necessary. But also the anti jewish, anti semitic discourse and language that forms much of the debate over I/P sickens me. It is also the approach of much of the Palestinian body politic that is counter productive over the years. Non violent protest in the form of the US Civil Rights Movement would have, in the 70s and 80s brought far more progress but I realise that developments on the ground (that damned wall for one) make that difficult these days.

Hamas may well have been elected but I don’t see another set of elections looming (one man one vote once?) but they are a bunch of far right religious thugs – much like Hezbollah infact.

Having said that I don’t think the Israeli Govt has played fair at all – ref settlements and the near lack of progress through negotiations to date – as you point out so vividly.

So where do you see things going and what would you like to happen?

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