Strong words for Israel

[G-Man]

Is death by oven common in Israel as well as the West Bank

You can ask the people of Haiti what happens when buildings don't meet the proper standards.

When is Israel going to annex area C

When there's a final peace agreement and an agreed border.

Except it doesn't work for the Palestinians. Israel simply isn't catering to the needs of that community. Should it? Not if it's a clear case of "us" and "them", and the Palestinians are "them". i.e. aliens, outsiders. Which otoh means Palestinians are not fine and dandy in Israel.

If it's not a matter of Israel implicitly dealing with the situation in terms of "us" and "them", well them the Israeli authorities are simply incompetent. The problem seemingly of course then that the Jewish community in the same place really doesn't seem to experience the same problems?

If the Jews aren building legally and the Palestinians aren't, while territory for construction isn't based on any ethnic division (anyone can buy it, regardless of ethnicity or nationality), how is it Israel's fault? The Palestinians tend to disregard the law. I can understand why they'd do it, but they did so knowingly and they need to face the consequences. And so do Jews who disregard the law (such as the inhabitants of the Jonathan house).
BTW as the data in the link you posted shows, most Palestinians do live in legal houses. This alone can show that if they want to they can certainly obey these laws. And those who choose not to have only themselves to blame.

 

[G-Man]

G-Man is not happy with the "new historians" version of the history of Israel and the zionist project in general, and specifically the 1948 War. I am not surprised as this version basically sent to the trash the official propaganda that was and is still taught in Israel. So G-Man wanted the story told by the people who lived it. no worries; here is what Uri Avnery said about the 1948 War, a war he took part in directly:

http://meretzusa.blogspot.com/2008/05/uri-avnerys-view-of-1948.html

Few highlights: that's for the "our friends did not help us", Uncle Joe himself took the lead:

From April 1948 on, we (Israel) started to receive large quantities of light weapons from Czechoslovakia, which were sent to us on Stalin's orders.


In that case, when was the start of the "ethnic cleansing" you spoke about?

In the second half of the war, after the advance of the Arab armies was halted, a deliberate policy of expelling the Arabs became a war aim on its own.

For truth's sake, it must be remembered that this was not one-sided. Not many Arabs remained in the territories that were conquered by our side, but, also, no Jew remained in the territories that were conquered by the Arabs, such as the Etzion Bloc kibbutzim and the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Jewish inhabitants were killed or expelled. The difference was quantitative: while the Jewish side conquered large stretches of land, the Arab side succeeded only in conquering small areas.

The real decision was taken after the war: not to allow the 750 thousand Arab refugees to return to their homes.


Throughout the war I wrote up my experiences. My reports appeared in the newspapers at the time and were later collected in a book entitled "In the Fields of the Philistines, 1948" (which will soon appear in English). The military censors did not allow me to dwell on the negative sides, so immediately after the war I wrote a second book called "The Other Side of the Coin", disguised as a literary work, so I did not have to submit it to censorship. There I reported, inter alia, that we had received orders to kill every Arab who tried to return home.

1. I believe our last discussion wasn't about 1948 but about the peace agreements, a different issue.
2. While Uri Avnery has taken a part in this war, some of the things he talks about weren't from his own personal experiences.
3. I never denied that there acts of forcing Arabs out of their homes during the 1948 war, acts that by today's standards would certainly be wrong. I just say that we can't know how many Palestinians were forced out and how many left of their own free will (which is supported by what Avnery himself says).
4. If his unit recieved orders to shoot a civilian which would've returned to his village, it would certianly fall under the IDF's definition of a "clearly illegal order", and order which is illegal to issue and illegal to obey.
5. It should also be reminded that an even greater number of Jews has left not only the areas the Arabs took during the war, but also the Arab countries themselves. And just like the Palestinians, some were forced out, and no one knows how many were forced out and how many left of their own free will.
6. The situation of a population exchange has happened in many other parts of the world. These are never very humane, even in modern times, and this one was certainly among the least violent and destructive ones (compare this, for example, with another population exchange that took place at the same time - between India and Pakistan).
7. Regarding the aid Israel recieved - The weapons involved in Balak were mostly weapons purchased by Israel, not recieved from any of our friend. The mere fact that the country you defined as our friend is so because it's the only one that agreed to sell us weapons shows you exactly how much support Israel got. And even that support seems to be linked to Stalin's support for Israel's socialist ideas, and not to the UN resolution. Also, compared this to the support the Arab armies got (most notably the strong links between Britain and the Jordanian legion).
8. I don't see what's the point you're trying to make with this post, but I think we can agree on the basic idea - during the war of 1948 civilians of both sides have left their homes, and many of them were forced to do so.

 

[Silurian]

56 residential buildings, including tents

Where the tents dangerous too.

 

[G-Man]

Where the tents dangerous too.

You didn't provide any link, so I don't know what you're talking about, but from my experience, a tent collapsing can infact be dangerous. In any case, they were illegal, which is enough (and it applies to Jews just as well).

 

[HannibalBarka]

1. I believe our last discussion wasn't about 1948 but about the peace agreements, a different issue.
2. While Uri Avnery has taken a part in this war, some of the things he talks about weren't from his own personal experiences.
3. I never denied that there acts of forcing Arabs out of their homes during the 1948 war, acts that by today's standards would certainly be wrong. I just say that we can't know how many Palestinians were forced out and how many left of their own free will (which is supported by what Avnery himself says).
4. If his unit recieved orders to shoot a civilian which would've returned to his village, it would certianly fall under the IDF's definition of a "clearly illegal order", and order which is illegal to issue and illegal to obey.
5. It should also be reminded that an even greater number of Jews has left not only the areas the Arabs took during the war, but also the Arab countries themselves. And just like the Palestinians, some were forced out, and no one knows how many were forced out and how many left of their own free will.
6. The situation of a population exchange has happened in many other parts of the world. These are never very humane, even in modern times, and this one was certainly among the least violent and destructive ones (compare this, for example, with another population exchange that took place at the same time - between India and Pakistan).
7. Regarding the aid Israel recieved - The weapons involved in Balak were mostly weapons purchased by Israel, not recieved from any of our friend. The mere fact that the country you defined as our friend is so because it's the only one that agreed to sell us weapons shows you exactly how much support Israel got. And even that support seems to be linked to Stalin's support for Israel's socialist ideas, and not to the UN resolution. Also, compared this to the support the Arab armies got (most notably the strong links between Britain and the Jordanian legion).
8. I don't see what's the point you're trying to make with this post, but I think we can agree on the basic idea - during the war of 1948 civilians of both sides have left their homes, and many of them were forced to do so.

1. I believe our last discussion wasn't about 1948 but about the peace agreements, a different issue.

Our last discussion was about your denying the new historian books about the true history of Zionism, the creation of Israel, the 1948 war etc. You tried to discreit their work asking me to see the verrion of the people that were there, and that's why I showed you the Uri Avnery story. The books like "The first Israeli" or "One Palestine Complete" are full of stories like that of Uri Avnery by the way. But I know that in Israel, the only history taught in school is the one written by The Likud ;-)

2. While Uri Avnery has taken a part in this war, some of the things he talks about weren't from his own personal experiences.

So? You sound like a revisionist G-Man, ever trying to discredit the witness.

3. I never denied that there acts of forcing Arabs out of their homes during the 1948 war, acts that by today's standards would certainly be wrong.

They are wron by 1948's standard also, what is this moral relativism you're defending now?
Well at least you do agree that arab civilians were forced out of their homes by the Israeli Military and never allowed to get back once the war was over.

I just say that we can't know how many Palestinians were forced out and how many left of their own free will (which is supported by what Avnery himself says).

I'm going to help you about the estimation :

In the opening pages of "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem", Benny Morris offers the outlines of an overall answer: using a map that shows the 369 Arab towns and villages in Israel (within its 1949 borders), he lists, area by area, the reasons for the departure of the local population (9). In 45 cases he admits that he does not know. The inhabitants of the other 228 localities left under attack by Jewish troops, and in 41 cases they were EXPELLED by military force. In 90 other localities, the Palestinians were in a state of panic following the fall of a neighbouring town or village, or in fear of an enemy attack, or because of rumours circulated by the Jewish army - particularly after the 9 April 1948 massacre of 250 inhabitants of Deir Yassin, when the news of the killings swept the country like wildfire.

By contrast, he found only six cases of departures at the instigation of local Arab authorities.

Military operations marked by atrocities

In "1948 and After" Benny Morris examines the first phase of the exodus and produces a detailed analysis of a source that he considers basically reliable: a report prepared by the intelligence services of the Israeli army, dated 30 June 1948 and entitled "The emigration of Palestinian Arabs in the period 1/12/1947-1/6/1948". This document sets at 391,000 the number of Palestinians who had already left the territory that was by then in the hands of Israel, and evaluates the various factors that had prompted their decisions to leave. "At least 55% of the total of the exodus was caused by our (Haganah/IDF) operations." To this figure, the report's compilers add the operations of the Irgun and Lehi, which "directly (caused) some 15%... of the emigration". A further 2% was attributed to explicit expulsion orders issued by Israeli troops, and 1% to their psychological warfare. This leads to a figure of 73% for departures caused directly by the Israelis. In addition, the report attributes 22% of the departures to "fears" and "a crisis of confidence" affecting the Palestinian population. As for Arab calls for flight, these were reckoned to be significant in only 5% of cases...

However, he says that "the circumstances of the second half of the exodus" - which he estimates as having involved between 300,000 and 400,000 people - "are a different story."

One example of this second phase was the expulsion of Arabs living in Lydda (present-day Lod) and Ramleh. On 12 July 1948, within the framework of Operation Dani, a skirmish with Jordanian armored forces served as a pretext for a violent backlash, with 250 killed, some of whom were unarmed prisoners. This was followed by a forced evacuation characterized by summary executions and looting and involving upwards of 70,000 Palestinian civilians - almost 10% of the total exodus of 1947- 49. Similar scenarios were enacted, as Morris shows, in central Galilee, Upper Galilee and the northern Negev, as well as in the post-war expulsion of the Palestinians of Al Majdal (Ashkelon). Most of these operations (with the exception of the latter) were marked by atrocities - a fact which led Aharon Zisling, the minister of agriculture, to tell the Israeli cabinet on 17 November 1948: "I couldn't sleep all night. I felt that things that were going on were hurting my soul, the soul of my family and all of us here (...) Now Jews too have behaved like Nazis and my entire being has been shaken (10)."

the whole article is here.
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Palestine-Remembered/Story674.html

4. If his unit recieved orders to shoot a civilian which would've returned to his village, it would certianly fall under the IDF's definition of a "clearly illegal order", and order which is illegal to issue and illegal to obey.

Well that is nice and sweet, but when Ben Gurion himself order the Haganagh to not let the refugee return, that means to shoot them if they try.
Looting was also common, even by the Israeli Army (they must be cleaning the houses for the returning refugees):

During the war and afterwards PLUNDERING AND LOOTING were very common. "The only thing that surprised me," said David Ben-Gurion at a Cabinet meeting, "and surprised me bitterly, was the discovery of such moral failings among us, which I had never suspected. I mean the mass robbery in which all parts of the population participated." Soldiers who entered abandoned houses in the towns and villages they occupied grabbed whatever they could. Some took the stuff for themselves, others "for the boys" or for the kibbutz. They stole household effects, cash, heavy equipment, trucks and whole flocks of cattle. Behor Shitrit told his colleagues of the Ministerial Committee for Abandoned Property that he had visited some of the occupied areas and saw the looting with his own eyes. "From Lydda alone," he said, "the army took out 1,800 truck-loads of property." Minister of Finance Kaplan admitted: " As a matter of fact, neither the Ministry of Finance nor the Custodian of Abandoned Property is in control of the situation, and the army does what it wants." The Custodian, Dov Shafrir, told the ministers that the regional commanders and their adjutants wanted to stop the looting, "but not the storekeepers of the various companies and squads."

5. It should also be reminded that an even greater number of Jews has left not only the areas the Arabs took during the war, but also the Arab countries themselves. And just like the Palestinians, some were forced out, and no one knows how many were forced out and how many left of their own free will.

First of all, two wrongs do not make a right. Second the Jews who left the Arab states have done so once the war was over, so the decision to expel and not let the Palestinians refugee come back cannot be as a result, it was planned and done way before. And third, why should the Palestinians be held responsible for the wrong doings of the King of Egypt??!!!! And no one knows is again wrong. You don’t know because you don’t want to know, just read “The First Israeli” for example and you’ll know ;-)

6. The situation of a population exchange has happened in many other parts of the world. These are never very humane, even in modern times, and this one was certainly among the least violent and destructive ones (compare this, for example, with another population exchange that took place at the same time - between India and Pakistan).

It was not a population exchange, stop calling it so. No political agreement was signed between Israel and the Palestinian representative aiming for that. The Palestinians refugee were expelled and/or denied the right to get back to their homes, they were expropriated illegally.

7. Regarding the aid Israel recieved - The weapons involved in Balak were mostly weapons purchased by Israel, not recieved from any of our friend. The mere fact that the country you defined as our friend is so because it's the only one that agreed to sell us weapons shows you exactly how much support Israel got. And even that support seems to be linked to Stalin's support for Israel's socialist ideas, and not to the UN resolution. Also, compared this to the support the Arab armies got (most notably the strong links between Britain and the Jordanian legion).

And the Palestinians had weapons from who?!!! No body. Israel was supported and has been armed by Stalin personally, that is all the communist block and not just one nation. Total weapons received:

Infantry weapons
• 34,500 P 18 rifles
• 5,515 MG 34 machine guns with 10,000 ammo belts
• 10,000 bayonets vz.24
• 900 vz. 37 heavy machine guns
• 500 vz. 27 pistols
[edit] Other infantry weapons
• 12 ZK-383 submachine guns
• 10 ZK 420 semi-automatic rifles
• 500 vz. 26 light machine guns (shipped, yet delivery not confirmed in Czech sources)
[edit] Ammunition
• 91,500,000 7,92 x 57 mm cartridges
• 15,000,000 9mm Parabellum cartridges
• 375,000 13mm cartridges for MG 131
• 150,000 20mm cartridges for MG 151
• 375,000 7.65mm cartridges for vz. 27 pistol
[edit] Aircraft
• 25 Avia S-199 fighters
• 61 Supermarine Spitfire Mk. IX fighters



What was the support the British gave the Jordanian Legion?

8. I don't see what's the point you're trying to make with this post, but I think we can agree on the basic idea - during the war of 1948 civilians of both sides have left their homes, and many of them were forced to do so.

No, during 1948 war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians civilians and a few hundred jewish civilians were forced out of their homes and never allowed to go back because Israel never accepted it and seized the opportunity to expropriate the homes, lands and properties of the so called absentees.

The point I am trying to make is that your position regading the settlement is the same one that was taking place during the 1948 war and ever since Zionism started: creating fait-accomplis. You expelled the Palestinaisn in 1948, and now you say "oh, well let's forget History, and look to the situation today". Now with the settlements, Israel is doing the same thing, they are expanding the settlements and creating facts on the ground while at the same time saying "we're serious about peace, we want to negotiate and share the land with the PLO". How can that be acceptable? it's like sharing a Pizza with some one while eating it at the same time !!!!!
Supporting the settlement and or the settlers is, in Israel, like suporting Hamas in Palestine. It is basically opposing peace.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Netanyahu's brother-in-law called Obama an anti-Semite!

Spoiler :

Dr. Chaggai Ben-Artzi, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s brother-in-law is known for his candid statements, not one who hides behind political etiquette. Speaking to the media on Wednesday, in a number of radio interviews, Ben-Artzi labeled US President Barak Obama “an anti-Semite”, of course leading to the prime minister quickly issuing a statement distancing himself from the comment.

In an interview with Galei Tzahal (Army Radio), he labeled the American president as being “anti-Jewish” as well as “anti-Israeli and an anti-Semite”.

Speaking to Arutz-7 Hebrew Radio, he stated that as unpleasant as it may be to hear, the truth must be said. He called Mr. Obama “a president who was educated by anti-Semitic preacher Jeremiah Wright.”

Not accepting the apologetic tone accepted by the political mainstream, he added, “If Mr. Obama wants a crisis over Yerushalayim, then that is exactly what he will get”, calling on the prime minister to continue as all governments since 1967 have, building and expanding the Jewish capital.

This is why Israel no longer has much credibility with most of the world today. There are far too many reactionary idiots who shape its policies.

 

[G-Man]

(I shortened some of the quotes just to make this more readable. The reply is to your complete comments)

Our last discussion was about your denying the new historian books about the true history of Zionism, the creation of Israel, the 1948 war etc. You tried to discreit their work asking me to see the verrion of the people that were there, and that's why I showed you the Uri Avnery story. The books like "The first Israeli" or "One Palestine Complete" are full of stories like that of Uri Avnery by the way. But I know that in Israel, the only history taught in school is the one written by The Likud ;-)

Most of my school years were under Labour goverments, but regardless - I was questioning your claims, based on these historians, regarding the peace offers.

So? You sound like a revisionist G-Man, ever trying to discredit the witness.

I'm not discrediting him. I'm just saying that he isn't an eye witness to some of the things he says.

They are wron by 1948's standard also, what is this moral relativism you're defending now?
Well at least you do agree that arab civilians were forced out of their homes by the Israeli Military and never allowed to get back once the war was over.

Are they wrong by 1948 standards? Don't forget that this was just three years after WW2, in which all sides have commited acts which are morally much worst, and many of them were seen (at the time atleast) as legitimate methods for fighting a war.

I'm going to help you about the estimation :

I'm sure you're aware of the fact that Morris's work, including the facts he presents, are often heavily criticized. This is even more so when the site isn't quoting him, but using his data for its own purposes and combining it with data from other sources as it sees fit (and it's obvious on which side this site is).
Regardless, even if you look at his data you'll see that only 2% are explicit expulsions (during what he calls the first phase). The biggest factor is military operations which, since they're seperate from the "explicit expulsion" number, I assume didn't explicitly order the population to leave.
Regarding the second phase, it's very non-specific. All it gives is an example, in which "some" of the 250 people killed during a military battle were civilians and without any real details as to how this happened.
Also, note that in Avnery's impressions he mentions that when his unit got to the Arab villages and towns many of the locals have already left - how would such places show up in Morris's map?

Well that is nice and sweet, but when Ben Gurion himself order the Haganagh to not let the refugee return, that means to shoot them if they try.

That's just not true. An army often gets orders to stop civilians from entering certain areas (even during peace time, every army stops civilians from entering its bases and training grounds). It doesn't mean that it's authorized to use lethal force in order to do so.

Looting was also common, even by the Israeli Army (they must be cleaning the houses for the returning refugees):

During the war and afterwards PLUNDERING AND LOOTING were very common. "The only thing that surprised me," said David Ben-Gurion at a Cabinet meeting, "and surprised me bitterly, was the discovery of such moral failings among us, which I had never suspected. I mean the mass robbery in which all parts of the population participated." Soldiers who entered abandoned houses in the towns and villages they occupied grabbed whatever they could. Some took the stuff for themselves, others "for the boys" or for the kibbutz. They stole household effects, cash, heavy equipment, trucks and whole flocks of cattle. Behor Shitrit told his colleagues of the Ministerial Committee for Abandoned Property that he had visited some of the occupied areas and saw the looting with his own eyes. "From Lydda alone," he said, "the army took out 1,800 truck-loads of property." Minister of Finance Kaplan admitted: " As a matter of fact, neither the Ministry of Finance nor the Custodian of Abandoned Property is in control of the situation, and the army does what it wants." The Custodian, Dov Shafrir, told the ministers that the regional commanders and their adjutants wanted to stop the looting, "but not the storekeepers of the various companies and squads."

This is certainly not OK, although as you show yourself it wasn't something which the state supported.

First of all, two wrongs do not make a right. Second the Jews who left the Arab states have done so once the war was over, so the decision to expel and not let the Palestinians refugee come back cannot be as a result, it was planned and done way before. And third, why should the Palestinians be held responsible for the wrong doings of the King of Egypt??!!!! And no one knows is again wrong. You don’t know because you don’t want to know, just read “The First Israeli” for example and you’ll know ;-)

It was not a population exchange, stop calling it so. No political agreement was signed between Israel and the Palestinian representative aiming for that. The Palestinians refugee were expelled and/or denied the right to get back to their homes, they were expropriated illegally.

I'll refer to both of these points together. I'm not saying that the fact that Jews were forced out of their homes makes it right to do so to the Palestinians, I'm just pointing out the symmetry here, and that fact that it is essentialy a population exchange - with Jews moving from Arab lands to Jewish areas and Arabs moving from Jewish areas to the Arab lands. And in BOTH cases, the refugees aren't allowed to return and have been given no compensations (though Palestinian refugees are likely to recieve compensations in a final peace agreemnt).
And if you look at history, a population exchange doesn't require an agreement between the two sides (like in the example I gave you - AFAIK, India and Pakistan didn't sign an agreement that settled the populations exchange).

And the Palestinians had weapons from who?!!! No body. Israel was supported and has been armed by Stalin personally, that is all the communist block and not just one nation. Total weapons received:

Again, the original point you were trying to make is the importance of the UN resolution for the creation of Israel - but you haven't shown any such connection so far between the resolution and the Soviet supplies. Also, note that these aren't very large quantities of weapons and that some of them didn't arrive untill after the war ended.

What was the support the British gave the Jordanian Legion?

Britain established it, equiped it, trained it and had British officers in commanding positions within the Legion.

No, during 1948 war, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians civilians and a few hundred jewish civilians were forced out of their homes and never allowed to go back because Israel never accepted it and seized the opportunity to expropriate the homes, lands and properties of the so called absentees.

I don't see what difference does it make if the Jews in the Arab countires lost their homes at the exact same time that the Palestinians did - the fact is that by the mid 1950s most of them were forced out, and that while hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are equal Israeli citizens, only a fraction of these Jews still remains in their original countries. They too, BTW, lost their homes and property.

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/009518.shtml

(This is an article by an Israeli essayist published in one of Israel's biggest newspapers. I'm posting a link to a blogs site because it's the only place I found this article's Englsih translation).

The point I am trying to make is that your position regading the settlement is the same one that was taking place during the 1948 war and ever since Zionism started: creating fait-accomplis. You expelled the Palestinaisn in 1948, and now you say "oh, well let's forget History, and look to the situation today". Now with the settlements, Israel is doing the same thing, they are expanding the settlements and creating facts on the ground while at the same time saying "we're serious about peace, we want to negotiate and share the land with the PLO". How can that be acceptable? it's like sharing a Pizza with some one while eating it at the same time !!!!!
Supporting the settlement and or the settlers is, in Israel, like suporting Hamas in Palestine. It is basically opposing peace.

While the rest of the discussion is about history, this is probably the most important point for today. The fact is that trying to make a settlment based on history is impractical, for the obvious reason that it all depends on what time of history you look at. On the refugee issue, you choose to look at 1948 as a sort of a "starting point" which should be restored (by allowing Palestinians to return), but there's no real reason to pick that year - what makes the situation there more correct than that of the 1980s, the 1850s or, for that matter, 50AD?
And the situation is no different in regard to the settlements - here your starting point is the years between 1948 and 1967, when no Jews lived in these areas. But what makes this age morally worth restoring more than, say, 1945 - when Jews lived in the old city of Jerusalem, in Hebron and in the etzion block? For that matter - what makes it more moral than 50AD, 1850, today or five years from now?
The fact is that a peace agreement can't be based on how things historically were because each side will just pick the time of history that serves it best and we'll end up trying to divide the land between the way it was during Roman rule to the way it was during salah a-din's time... A peace agreement HAS to be based on the facts on the ground.
Also, don't forget that it isn't just the Israelis who are building. While Israel hasn't built a new settlment in years and has frozen new construction plans in the settlments for the last few months, the Palestinians have several contruction projects underway - most notably, ofcource, Rawabi. So it's obvious that the changes on the ground are hardly one sided.

 

[Verbose]

While the rest of the discussion is about history, this is probably the most important point for today. The fact is that trying to make a settlment based on history is impractical, for the obvious reason that it all depends on what time of history you look at.

You know what the process here resembles?

The bloody mess that was the negotiation of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. It took years, and was a mess, precisely because of the attempt to negotiate, while simultanously trying to establish "new facts on the ground".

The thing about history is that Israel by going on to create "facts on the ground" is in fact very much engaged in the creation of history. It's not as if we today are somehow safely "out" of it. So I'd say the point stands that a major hurdle to peace here is that there's not "freezing" of the situation at any point - which is how I interpret the US ambition right now, to just freeze things to be able to negotiate. And right now it's certainly the Israeli govt. pushing things.

 

[G-Man]

You know what the process here resembles?

The bloody mess that was the negotiation of the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. It took years, and was a mess, precisely because of the attempt to negotiate, while simultanously trying to establish "new facts on the ground".

The thing about history is that Israel by going on to create "facts on the ground" is in fact very much engaged in the creation of history. It's not as if we today are somehow safely "out" of it. So I'd say the point stands that a major hurdle to peace here is that there's not "freezing" of the situation at any point - which is how I interpret the US ambition right now, to just freeze things to be able to negotiate. And right now it's certainly the Israeli govt. pushing things.

1. "Freezing" things is OK when it's short-term. The peace process with the Palestinians has been going on for nearly 20 years, and it still isn't finished. Do you really think any country would agree to having such a situation for decades, including in its capital and largest city?
2. As I said, it isn't only Israel that's building. If you want to freeze the situation for negotiations, why doesn't it apply to the Palestinians?
3. There a lot more factors than just land. Looking at the other issues mentioned in the Oslo accords, unless you suggest that we ban both sides from having babies, from developing their armed forces and stop all changes in international relationships, I don't see how you're going to freeze the conditions for negotiations.

 

[otago]

The British and Americans in WW2 looted civilians on an industrial scale as what happened to the Palestinians, bollocks, that trick you took from the Nazis.
So what friends has Israel got left ? not Europe, not the Antipodies, not Canada, not Turkey.
Better do as Obama wants or he could well decide to leave Israel floating.
I wonder how keen the yanks would be to keep supplies from their own troops the next time a Yom Kipper war starts, not keen at all would be my guess.

 

[Verbose]

1. "Freezing" things is OK when it's short-term. The peace process with the Palestinians has been going on for nearly 20 years, and it still isn't finished. Do you really think any country would agree to having such a situation for decades, including in its capital and largest city?
2. As I said, it isn't only Israel that's building. If you want to freeze the situation for negotiations, why doesn't it apply to the Palestinians?
3. There a lot more factors than just land. Looking at the other issues mentioned in the Oslo accords, unless you suggest that we ban both sides from having babies, from developing their armed forces and stop all changes in international relationships, I don't see how you're going to freeze the conditions for negotiations.

If it's about land, where a freeze makes sense, clearly the Palestinians should return all lands they have occupied or expropriated from Israel. There. It is done. Now get on with it.

And if it's not about land, but somehow about "disciplining" the Palestinians, then just don't bother with the whole thing. You're clearly not interested enough.

 

[G-Man]

If it's about land, where a freeze makes sense, clearly the Palestinians should return all lands they have occupied or expropriated from Israel. There. It is done. Now get on with it.

And if it's not about land, but somehow about "disciplining" the Palestinians, then just don't bother with the whole thing. You're clearly not interested enough.

I made actual arguments. Do you think ignoring them makes your point more valid?

 

[orrery]

Solution:

The U.S. should just annex Jerusalem as its own.

 

[orrery]

Istanbul was once Constantinople.

Jerusalem can be renamed after Benjamin Franklin and we'll call it Franklin.
Lets see, Israel could be re-named something else.

But first thing is first, ban all media outlets from referring to this region as "Holy Lands"

 

[HannibalBarka]

(I shortened some of the quotes just to make this more readable. The reply is to your complete comments).
Most of my school years were under Labour goverments, but regardless - I was questioning your claims, based on these historians, regarding the peace offers.

I was thinking about the fact that the Likud, when they came back to power in 2000, tried to re-write the history books for the Israeli kids, and go back to the old “patriotic” version instead of the one based on the new-historians work. That’s why I called it the Likud version ;-)

I am glad you agree with the new-historian version though ;

Look to page 14 in this article. http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/PerspectivesJun07Hirsch.pdf

Indeed, under the Likud Government there were attempts to re-revise the Israeli educational curriculum so that it will be “more patriotic.” Limor Livnat, the Minister of Education in the Likud Government, reportedly said upon entering office inMarch 2001 that she will “dedicate her life to root out the influence of the revisionist historians.”80

Are they wrong by 1948 standards? Don't forget that this was just three years after WW2, in which all sides have commited acts which are morally much worst, and many of them were seen (at the time atleast) as legitimate methods for fighting a war.

That is just not true. Expelling civilians was wrong by 1948 standard as it is today. The Deir Yassin massacre was a crime in 1948. Expelling and looting was considered criminal in 1948.
You say yourself that looting was not OK (see below). How can looting be wrong and not expelling!!!! The days after the expulsion, the UN called for the return of all refugees, all nations considered it a crime. Saying it was OK back than is just not true.

I'm sure you're aware of the fact that Morris's work, including the facts he presents, are often heavily criticized. This is even more so when the site isn't quoting him, but using his data for its own purposes and combining it with data from other sources as it sees fit (and it's obvious on which side this site is).

Oh I know they are heavily criticized. They have shaken the psyche of many Israeli and non Israelis because they ended a national myth about an “innocent, righteous and few Zionists” fighting a “blood thirsty, uncompromising arab hordes”. Read the link above to see why the new- historians version is so “destabilizing”. The fact that the Minister of Education tried to censor it just show how “embarrassing” it is. The very fact that you are trying to “discredit “ it just shows that. And the link I gave was citing “Le Monde”, a French newspaper that is in no way “anti-israel”

Regardless, even if you look at his data you'll see that only 2% are explicit expulsions (during what he calls the first phase). The biggest factor is military operations which, since they're seperate from the "explicit expulsion" number, I assume didn't explicitly order the population to leave.

No, that is not what Morris says. I’ll show it to you again

"At least 55% of the total of the exodus was caused by our (Haganah/IDF) operations." To this figure, the report's compilers add the operations of the Irgun and Lehi, which "directly (caused) some 15%... of the emigration". A further 2% was attributed to explicit expulsion orders issued by Israeli troops, and 1% to their psychological warfare. This leads to a figure of 73% for departures caused directly by the Israelis. In addition, the report attributes 22% of the departures to "fears" and "a crisis of confidence" affecting the Palestinian population. As for Arab calls for flight, these were reckoned to be significant in only 5% of cases...

So
1. 55% was caused because the Haganah were attacking the place. When someone is bombarding your house or shooting, he is telling you “get out”
2. 15% caused by the terrorists of Irgun and Lehi
3. 2% is explicit expulsion ie the Haganah is not shooting your house, just telling you to get the hell out of it.
4. 1% psychological warfare like this one:
The Haganah broadcast a warning to Arabs in Haifa on 21 April: "that unless they sent away 'infiltrated dissidents' they would be advised to evacuate all women and children, because they would be strongly attacked from now on".[60]

So 73% of the exodus was caused by Israeli troops or Israeli terrorists

Regarding the second phase, it's very non-specific. All it gives is an example, in which "some" of the 250 people killed during a military battle were civilians and without any real details as to how this happened.

No, not really, you did not read it right:

This was followed by a forced evacuation characterized by summary executions and looting and involving upwards of 70,000 Palestinian civilians - almost 10% of the total exodus of 1947- 49. Similar scenarios were enacted, as Morris shows, in central Galilee, Upper Galilee and the northern Negev, as well as in the post-war expulsion of the Palestinians of Al Majdal (Ashkelon). Most of these operations (with the exception of the latter) were marked by atrocities - a fact which led Aharon Zisling, the minister of agriculture, to tell the Israeli cabinet on 17 November 1948: "I couldn't sleep all night. I felt that things that were going on were hurting my soul, the soul of my family and all of us here (...) Now Jews too have behaved like Nazis and my entire being has been shaken (10)."

A forced evacuation of 70000 Palestinians in the Lydda/Ramleh example..

Also, note that in Avnery's impressions he mentions that when his unit got to the Arab villages and towns many of the locals have already left - how would such places show up in Morris's map?

And that contradicts Morris how? Let me explain it to you: Villager hear the Haganah are approaching, many villagers flee, because they don’t want to be bombarded or shoot at, that’s what sane people do (and that’s what Israel says it ask people to do when it bombard Gaza now by the way). When the Haganah get to the village, many villagers have already left. Which part is not clear?

That's just not true. An army often gets orders to stop civilians from entering certain areas (even during peace time, every army stops civilians from entering its bases and training grounds). It doesn't mean that it's authorized to use lethal force in order to do so.

Palestinians refugees were not allowed to get back to their homes once the war was over. Many tried, and many were threatened or killed. Israel razed many arab villages once the war was over explicitly for that purpose. Go read “The first Israeli”, I am not going to write it to you on this forum.

This is certainly not OK, although as you show yourself it wasn't something which the state supported.

They did nothing to stop it, they just personally expressed some “guilt” about it. The Israeli government, Ben Gurion particularly, supported the expulsion plan and expressly denied the refugee the right to return. Their guilt about the looting is just a matter of feeling shameful seeing your own people behaving so low!!!

I'll refer to both of these points together. I'm not saying that the fact that Jews were forced out of their homes makes it right to do so to the Palestinians, I'm just pointing out the symmetry here, and that fact that it is essentialy a population exchange - with Jews moving from Arab lands to Jewish areas and Arabs moving from Jewish areas to the Arab lands. And in BOTH cases, the refugees aren't allowed to return and have been given no compensations (though Palestinian refugees are likely to recieve compensations in a final peace agreemnt). And if you look at history, a population exchange doesn't require an agreement between the two sides (like in the example I gave you - AFAIK, India and Pakistan didn't sign an agreement that settled the populations exchange).

The India/Pakistan exchange was a terrible event that caused the death a suffering of hundreds of thousands, and taking it as an example is just weird!!! A population exchange negotiated and agreed between the representatives of two “peoples” is already a terrible thing. When it is not negotiated and agreed, it is a crime against humanity. You can try and describe the expulsion of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians by the Israeli as a population exchange but it is not. The Palestinians were forcibly cleansed. The fact that many jews left the Arab countries happened years if not decades afterwards, was often due to the end of the colonization of those very countries by the Europeans (in the case of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco for example), and is in no way the Palestinian fault. And you must not forget that many Arab-Jews left because they were encouraged by Israel. Israel used “weird” ways to encourage the Iraqi Jews to leave Baghdad by the way. Read “A History of the Jews : Ancient and Modern” Ilan Halevi.

Again, the original point you were trying to make is the importance of the UN resolution for the creation of Israel - but you haven't shown any such connection so far between the resolution and the Soviet supplies. Also, note that these aren't very large quantities of weapons and that some of them didn't arrive untill after the war ended.
Britain established it, equiped it, trained it and had British officers in commanding positions within the Legion.

The Haganah were better trained, many of the soldiers were WW2 veterans, many of them British by the way. The weapons they received were the top of that period, many german, designed for the Werchmarcht. Open “the first Israeli” by Tom Segev or “”One Palestine Complete” by Morris and you’ll see.

I don't see what difference does it make if the Jews in the Arab countires lost their homes at the exact same time that the Palestinians did - the fact is that by the mid 1950s most of them were forced out, and that while hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are equal Israeli citizens, only a fraction of these Jews still remains in their original countries. They too, BTW, lost their homes and property.
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/009518.shtml

(This is an article by an Israeli essayist published in one of Israel's biggest newspapers. I'm posting a link to a blogs site because it's the only place I found this article's Englsih translation). .

The difference is that in this case your “Population Exchange” scenario is down. No population exchange was planned agreed or even just negotiated. Haganah and the newly established state of Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, period.

While the rest of the discussion is about history, this is probably the most important point for today. The fact is that trying to make a settlment based on history is impractical, for the obvious reason that it all depends on what time of history you look at. On the refugee issue, you choose to look at 1948 as a sort of a "starting point" which should be restored (by allowing Palestinians to return), but there's no real reason to pick that year - what makes the situation there more correct than that of the 1980s, the 1850s or, for that matter, 50AD?
And the situation is no different in regard to the settlements - here your starting point is the years between 1948 and 1967, when no Jews lived in these areas. But what makes this age morally worth restoring more than, say, 1945 - when Jews lived in the old city of Jerusalem, in Hebron and in the etzion block? For that matter - what makes it more moral than 50AD, 1850, today or five years from now?
The fact is that a peace agreement can't be based on how things historically were because each side will just pick the time of history that serves it best and we'll end up trying to divide the land between the way it was during Roman rule to the way it was during salah a-din's time... A peace agreement HAS to be based on the facts on the ground.
Also, don't forget that it isn't just the Israelis who are building. While Israel hasn't built a new settlment in years and has frozen new construction plans in the settlments for the last few months, the Palestinians have several contruction projects underway - most notably, ofcource, Rawabi. So it's obvious that the changes on the ground are hardly one sided.

No you are playing dumb here. We consider 1948 as a more correct date than 50AD for the sale reason Israel had compensation for the Shoah from the German and nada from Italy for the expulsion of the Jews after Bar Kochba in 132AD.

 

[G-Man]

I was thinking about the fact that the Likud, when they came back to power in 2000, tried to re-write the history books for the Israeli kids, and go back to the old “patriotic” version instead of the one based on the new-historians work. That’s why I called it the Likud version ;-)

I am glad you agree with the new-historian version though ;

Look to page 14 in this article. http://www.apsanet.org/imgtest/PerspectivesJun07Hirsch.pdf

Indeed, under the Likud Government there were attempts to re-revise the Israeli educational curriculum so that it will be “more patriotic.” Limor Livnat, the Minister of Education in the Likud Government, reportedly said upon entering office inMarch 2001 that she will “dedicate her life to root out the influence of the revisionist historians.”80

I don't agree with everything new historians say. I agree with the things they say and proove in a reasonable way.

That is just not true. Expelling civilians was wrong by 1948 standard as it is today. The Deir Yassin massacre was a crime in 1948. Expelling and looting was considered criminal in 1948.
You say yourself that looting was not OK (see below). How can looting be wrong and not expelling!!!! The days after the expulsion, the UN called for the return of all refugees, all nations considered it a crime. Saying it was OK back than is just not true.

The fact that these acts were wrong in their own right doesn't mean that they were considered as wrong during war time. Look at how the Soviets treated the Germans just three years earlier, and remember that they were seen as being part of the "good guys" during WW2.

Oh I know they are heavily criticized. They have shaken the psyche of many Israeli and non Israelis because they ended a national myth about an “innocent, righteous and few Zionists” fighting a “blood thirsty, uncompromising arab hordes”. Read the link above to see why the new- historians version is so “destabilizing”. The fact that the Minister of Education tried to censor it just show how “embarrassing” it is. The very fact that you are trying to “discredit “ it just shows that. And the link I gave was citing “Le Monde”, a French newspaper that is in no way “anti-israel”

It still doesn't change the fact that he's come under much criticism from many historians as well.

No, that is not what Morris says. I’ll show it to you again

"At least 55% of the total of the exodus was caused by our (Haganah/IDF) operations." To this figure, the report's compilers add the operations of the Irgun and Lehi, which "directly (caused) some 15%... of the emigration". A further 2% was attributed to explicit expulsion orders issued by Israeli troops, and 1% to their psychological warfare. This leads to a figure of 73% for departures caused directly by the Israelis. In addition, the report attributes 22% of the departures to "fears" and "a crisis of confidence" affecting the Palestinian population. As for Arab calls for flight, these were reckoned to be significant in only 5% of cases...

So
1. 55% was caused because the Haganah were attacking the place. When someone is bombarding your house or shooting, he is telling you “get out”
2. 15% caused by the terrorists of Irgun and Lehi
3. 2% is explicit expulsion ie the Haganah is not shooting your house, just telling you to get the hell out of it.
4. 1% psychological warfare like this one:
The Haganah broadcast a warning to Arabs in Haifa on 21 April: "that unless they sent away 'infiltrated dissidents' they would be advised to evacuate all women and children, because they would be strongly attacked from now on".[60]

So 73% of the exodus was caused by Israeli troops or Israeli terrorists

Actually, that's exactly what I said. The fact is that there was a war. If they left because they were afraid of the fighting it's certainly understandable, but it's very different from being forced out.

No, not really, you did not read it right:

This was followed by a forced evacuation characterized by summary executions and looting and involving upwards of 70,000 Palestinian civilians - almost 10% of the total exodus of 1947- 49. Similar scenarios were enacted, as Morris shows, in central Galilee, Upper Galilee and the northern Negev, as well as in the post-war expulsion of the Palestinians of Al Majdal (Ashkelon). Most of these operations (with the exception of the latter) were marked by atrocities - a fact which led Aharon Zisling, the minister of agriculture, to tell the Israeli cabinet on 17 November 1948: "I couldn't sleep all night. I felt that things that were going on were hurting my soul, the soul of my family and all of us here (...) Now Jews too have behaved like Nazis and my entire being has been shaken (10)."

A forced evacuation of 70000 Palestinians in the Lydda/Ramleh example..

Which as I said, is a very vauge description. Were all 70,000 ordered out? The article says "involving", that's hardly a clear statement. What does "marked with atrocities" mean? etc.

And that contradicts Morris how? Let me explain it to you: Villager hear the Haganah are approaching, many villagers flee, because they don’t want to be bombarded or shoot at, that’s what sane people do (and that’s what Israel says it ask people to do when it bombard Gaza now by the way). When the Haganah get to the village, many villagers have already left. Which part is not clear?

It isn't clear how he considers such a situation - where people left because they were afraid but without Israeli forces ordering them to - in his maps.

Palestinians refugees were not allowed to get back to their homes once the war was over. Many tried, and many were threatened or killed. Israel razed many arab villages once the war was over explicitly for that purpose. Go read “The first Israeli”, I am not going to write it to you on this forum.

I don't see how this is relevant to the point I was making - ordering an army to stop civilians from entering an area is not the same as allowing it to kill them.

They did nothing to stop it, they just personally expressed some “guilt” about it. The Israeli government, Ben Gurion particularly, supported the expulsion plan and expressly denied the refugee the right to return. Their guilt about the looting is just a matter of feeling shameful seeing your own people behaving so low!!!

I don't understand what's the point you're trying to make here. Some soldiers were looting. This was not supported by the goverment. What matter does it make now?

The India/Pakistan exchange was a terrible event that caused the death a suffering of hundreds of thousands, and taking it as an example is just weird!!! A population exchange negotiated and agreed between the representatives of two “peoples” is already a terrible thing. When it is not negotiated and agreed, it is a crime against humanity. You can try and describe the expulsion of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians by the Israeli as a population exchange but it is not. The Palestinians were forcibly cleansed. The fact that many jews left the Arab countries happened years if not decades afterwards, was often due to the end of the colonization of those very countries by the Europeans (in the case of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco for example), and is in no way the Palestinian fault. And you must not forget that many Arab-Jews left because they were encouraged by Israel. Israel used “weird” ways to encourage the Iraqi Jews to leave Baghdad by the way. Read “A History of the Jews : Ancient and Modern” Ilan Halevi.

The vast majority of the Jews who left Arab countries were doing so after they were attacked - is some cases with dozens killed - by the Arabs that serrounded them, with many Arab goverments who treated them as second class citizens and with the goverments' encouragment of anti-semitism essentially forcing them out.

The Haganah were better trained, many of the soldiers were WW2 veterans, many of them British by the way. The weapons they received were the top of that period, many german, designed for the Werchmarcht. Open “the first Israeli” by Tom Segev or “”One Palestine Complete” by Morris and you’ll see.

Again, you fail to make your original point. Yes, the IDF had many soldiers who were WW2 veterans, and yes, the soviets gave Israel some support by allowing it to buy weapons. But how is any of this connected to the UN resolution?

The difference is that in this case your “Population Exchange” scenario is down. No population exchange was planned agreed or even just negotiated. Haganah and the newly established state of Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, period.

The symmetry remains. Neither side signed an agreement (which I don't understand why you think is required for a population exchange, but even so), and the Arab countries essentially forced out hundreds of thousands of Jews. The only part which doesn't fit into this equasion is the fact that Israel has an Arab population of over a million people and they're equal citizens, whereas in Arab countries you barely have any Jews left, and they're often forced to live under Muslim laws.

No you are playing dumb here. We consider 1948 as a more correct date than 50AD for the sale reason Israel had compensation for the Shoah from the German and nada from Italy for the expulsion of the Jews after Bar Kochba in 132AD.

But why is 1948 more correct than, say, today? And if it's correct - how come it is so when talking about the Palestinians but when talking about Israelis you choose 1967? How come the Palestinians building a new city doesn't change the situation but Israelis building in an existing neighbourhood does?

 

[Silurian]

How many cities have the Palestinians built within the Israel

 

[The Imp]

First, Hamas is a big issue - it has killed hundreds of Israeli civilians (not to mention hundreds of Palestinians). Second, the Palestinians have something to give - when the peace process is over, they're expected to end their demands of Israel. The main reason peace has failed so far is because their leaders were unable to do so.




You do realize that Jewish population has lived in the west bank (which is by no legal sense Palestinian territory) for thousands of years, with the only excpetion being the 19 years of Jordanian rule that forced them out? Also, Israel, unlike the Palestinians, has shown its will for an agreement that would give the Palestinians over 95% of the west bank - and the Palestinians refused.




A strong border presence is sufficient when you deal with smuggling of people or weapons. It isn't very effective when dealing with rocket attacks. The fact is that as long as Hamas is in control and as long as it keeps the ideals it has today (remove all Jews from the region and replace Israel is a foundmentalist Muslim country) the entire peace process is in doubt. If they care about their people, let them give up their control to the PA or, at the very least, recognize Israel's right to exist and join the peace process.

Of course Hamas is a big issue. The problem is, how do you stop them? The Israeli response has been to economically strangle the the Gaza Strip. That type of collective punishment simply doesn't work, it just plays into the hands of Hamas.

I need some type of citation on the 95% thing.

I'm no fan of Hamas, but the more liberal Palestinians in the West Bank have not exactly gained much by being more friendly. Correction, they gained about 300,000 Israeli colonists.

 

[G-Man]

How many cities have the Palestinians built within the Israel

Israeli cities aren't generally designated as Jewish or Arab.

Of course Hamas is a big issue. The problem is, how do you stop them? The Israeli response has been to economically strangle the the Gaza Strip. That type of collective punishment simply doesn't work, it just plays into the hands of Hamas.

Israel isn't really trying to solve this problem. The only issue is to reduce their attacks on Israel, and that is being achieved, among other things, by reducing the arms smugglings.

I need some type of citation on the 95% thing.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1135699.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1100365.stm

I'm no fan of Hamas, but the more liberal Palestinians in the West Bank have not exactly gained much by being more friendly. Correction, they gained about 300,000 Israeli colonists.

First, you do realize that hamas took over the Gaza strip after Israel already pulled out, so technically it was achieved by the PA, right?
And second, the west bank Palestinians have a significantly better quality of life, with a very high economical growth and economical connections to the rest of the world and great support from other Arab countries. Hamas, on the other hand, is spending what little money it has on military equipment, leaving its population dependent on humanitarian aid and (ironicaly) money from the PA. Not to mention, ofcource, Hamas's brilliant act of firing thousands of rockets into a much stronger country, leading to a large military operation, whereas in the west bank there haven't been any large scale military operations in years.

 

[sourboy]

There will be no peaceful means to this conflict. Once a large scale war erupts (and it will), distracting the major powers, genocide and/or mass exile will take place.

As for the article, well... Israel and Palestine need to make their own decision. America can guide through rewards. If either side (Israel in this moment) doesn't follow suit, the perks are halted.