The last Antisemitic Events

[Tahuti]

Since your original contention was that the British didn't unambiguously supported either side, I'd say you've now in fact contradicted yourself. If Britain hadn't agreed to the plan to move Jews 'back to Israel' there wouldn't have been a conflict with Palestinians in the first place. So much for unambiguity.

I referred to the end of the mandate in 1948, not overall. I notice you overemphasise Britain's conflict with the Palestinians, as much as Ajidica overemphasises Britain's conflict with the Jews of Palestine.

 

[Traitorfish]

One thing I've always been a bit confused about, if it was justified for the Haganah, Palmach, Irgun, and Sten gangs to fight for Israel against the British -using what can only be described as terrorist tactics- why is it not justified for Palestinians to fight for a Palestine against the Israeli government?

Potentially, one could argue that the early Zionist rebels were justified in that they intended to establish a socialist republic, giving their campaign a social emancipatory character which the Palestine campaign, offering nothing more than the dictatorship of capital with a differently-accented management, lacks.

However, it's not my impression that this is a justification that many Zionists (much less their gentile supporters) would be comfortable with.

 

[Tahuti]

Potentially, one could argue that the early Zionist rebels were justified in that they intended to establish a socialist republic, giving their campaign a social emancipatory character which the Palestine campaign, offering nothing more than the dictatorship of capital with a differently-accented management, lacks.

However, it's not my impression that this is a justification that many Zionists (much less their gentile supporters) would be comfortable with.

Irgun and Lehi were more similar to Fascism though. It is true that many in the Haganah were Labour Zionists, though most were only Zionists in the general sense, lacking an ideological perspective outside of Zionism itself. Orde Wingate was an early Christian Zionist for religious reasons.

Israel is a modernist state, though one that serves traditional ends. I am rather ambivalent on which side to support in regards to the 1948 war, despite I'd root for Israel in for every subsequent Arab-Israeli conflict.

 

[Ajidica]

Israel is a modernist state, though one that serves traditional ends. I am rather ambivalent on which side to support in regards to the 1948 war, despite I'd root for Israel in for every subsequent Arab-Israeli conflict.

Even during the Suez Crisis or Six Day War?

 

[Squonk]

Irgun and Lehi were more similar to Fascism though. It is true that many in the Haganah were Labour Zionists, though most were only Zionists in the general sense, lacking an ideological perspective outside of Zionism itself. Orde Wingate was an early Christian Zionist for religious reasons.

Israel is a modernist state, though one that serves traditional ends. I am rather ambivalent on which side to support in regards to the 1948 war, despite I'd root for Israel in for every subsequent Arab-Israeli conflict.

How can you be ambivalent?
Israelis: minority, yet trying to claim all or almost all of the land
Palestinians: majority, also claiming all of the land

Israelis: recent immigrants
Palestinians: indigenous people

Israelis: urban population, like almost any other colonial population
Palestinians: domination in almost all countryside, and most of the cities

Israelis: started massacres even before the war. During the war ethnically cleansed the territory of their opponent while claiming they just fled themselves, in an apparently evil manner
Palestinians: conducted some massacres in retaliation

Israelis: well-trained, well-organised, well-armed
Palestinians: well, not so.

Palestinians had the ethnic right to the land... had the historic right... were the weaker side... even with "foreign Arab help" they were. Israelis had no doubts they would win that war, you can read the memoirs of Zionist leaders... and Palestinians had an ethnic cleansing conducted upon them...

How can someone actually knowing the facts support Israelis, only because "they deserve a state" and because almost two milennia earlier there was some Jewish state in part of Palestine, I don't really know.
Perhaps they should have been given what Peel comission wanted to give them... but even that is a stretch. Because they were not indigenous. If Turks decided to come back to Central Asia, and from there somewhere around Mongolia... If Americans decided to come back to UK and claimed part of Britain or all of it for their own...

 

[Traitorfish]

Irgun and Lehi were more similar to Fascism though. It is true that many in the Haganah were Labour Zionists, though most were only Zionists in the general sense, lacking an ideological perspective outside of Zionism itself. Orde Wingate was an early Christian Zionist for religious reasons.

This is true. I should have added that it's not a defence I find particularly convincing; Zionist "socialism" strikes me as an attempt to court Bundists and Communists, rather than a serious project. (I honestly don't find much to like on any side of the conflict. The Zionists were contemptuous of the rights of Palestinians, the Palestinians were dominated by aristocratic landowners, and the British were the British.)

 

[luiz]

Squonk's post was bizarre even for CFC's standards.

How can you be ambivalent?
Israelis: minority, yet trying to claim all or almost all of the land
Palestinians: majority, also claiming all of the land

I'm pretty sure Israelis outnumber Palestinians.

Israelis: recent immigrants
Palestinians: indigenous people

Recent? Most Israelis were born in Israel. What difference does it make for how long their ancestors have lived in the land? Are you some sort of racial lunatic who believes there is a magic bond between a people and their ethnic homeland?
And neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians can be considered either fully indigenous or of fully immigrant background.

Israelis: urban population, like almost any other colonial population
Palestinians: domination in almost all countryside, and most of the cities

So urban dwellers should have less rights than country folk? That's pretty bad news for black Americans (or actually nearly all racial minorities in the US). Are black Americans also a "colonial population"? They're certainly a minority, and they're certainly urban.

The notion that Israel is a colonial society is Nazi nonsense. Most people there are natives, with no ties to any other country. How's that a colonial society?

Israelis: started massacres even before the war. During the war ethnically cleansed the territory of their opponent while claiming they just fled themselves, in an apparently evil manner
Palestinians: conducted some massacres in retaliation

Both sides conducted massacres in the war and the turbulent events that preceded it. Both sides engaged in terrorism. Only one does now.

Israelis: well-trained, well-organised, well-armed
Palestinians: well, not so.

So? Is the weaker side always right?
The Confederates were much weaker and less armed than the Union, and the Axis were much weaker than the Allies. So what?

Palestinians had the ethnic right to the land... had the historic right... were the weaker side... even with "foreign Arab help" they were. Israelis had no doubts they would win that war, you can read the memoirs of Zionist leaders... and Palestinians had an ethnic cleansing conducted upon them...

Ethnic right? OK, mein fuhrer, I think you should stop right there... I'll ask you one thing, though. Who has the "ethnic right" to Turkey? Or to Egypt?

How can someone actually knowing the facts support Israelis, only because "they deserve a state" and because almost two milennia earlier there was some Jewish state in part of Palestine, I don't really know.
Perhaps they should have been given what Peel comission wanted to give them... but even that is a stretch. Because they were not indigenous. If Turks decided to come back to Central Asia, and from there somewhere around Mongolia... If Americans decided to come back to UK and claimed part of Britain or all of it for their own...

Here's what you in your deluded racial romanticism does not seem to grasp: much like the Turks are no longer a Central Asian invader, much like Americans are no longer British colonists living across the pond (in fact most Americans don't even have British ancestry), modern Israelis are likewise not European transplants living in the ME. Most were born there; there have always been a Jewish community in the region; they can trace their roots to all the world - including, for millions Israelis, the Middle East itself. One of the largest groups of Israelis descend from Jews who have inhabited Middle Eastern countries for millennia and were pretty much expelled. Where should they move, according to your theory of "ethnic right"? How are Israelis whose ancestors lived in Morocco or Egypt different from Palestinians, many of whom also trace their families to those countries, or were even born there (such as Arafat)?

Also, how is an Israeli whose grandparents came from several different countries, who has never lived anywhere except Israel, who has no ties to any country except Israel, any less of a native than a Palestinian? Where should he move to? How is he not entitled to stay and fight for his homeland?

 

[kramerfan86]

I believe the gist of his argument was the original foundation of Israel not this exact moment (weak argument for this exact moment). In that original moment everything he said was true. it basically was a highly aggressive colonization effort that the locals failed to resist and they were promptly ethnically cleansed out of their lands.

 

[Tahuti]

Even during the Suez Crisis or Six Day War?

Yes. By then the Arab states were eating out of the hand of the Soviets, so there is a bonus to Israel's credit for undermining the USSR.

It is a shame the Arab monarchies were overthrown. Aside from my admittedly unconditional favour for aristocratic polities, the Arab monarchies also were - to their credit - unlike the later Palestinian groups, as the Arab monarchs viewed the Arab-Israeli conflict as just a war for land and honour instead of that ideological nonsense about Pan-Arabism the later Arab republics and the Palestinians would use as Casus Belli. Arab-Israeli coexistence may have been achieved much earlier than 1979 if it weren't for their collapse. If a there were a button to restore the Muhammed Ali dynasty, I would've pressed it for sure.

This is true. I should have added that it's not a defence I find particularly convincing; Zionist "socialism" strikes me as an attempt to court Bundists and Communists, rather than a serious project. (I honestly don't find much to like on any side of the conflict. The Zionists were contemptuous of the rights of Palestinians, the Palestinians were dominated by aristocratic landowners, and the British were the British.)

Well, it is interesting to note that even the most radical Revisionist Zionists like Ze'ev Jabotinsky imagined Palestinians as having full rights and participating citizens. The main problem of Zionism is perhaps that it tries too hard to get the Jews back to Israel. It would have been interesting if the British continued to allow for Jewish migration and extended the mandate well into the 1950s or even later, until around the time when the Arab gulf monarchies also received their independence from Britain. Maybe Zionists and Arab nobility would have converged against the Arab Nationalists.

 

[Ajidica]

Yes. By then the Arab states were eating out of the hand of the Soviets, so there is a bonus to Israel's credit for undermining the USSR.

Not really. Egyptian relations with the Soviets during the Suez Crisis wasn't particularly strong by any stretch of the imagination. Remember Egypt had just ousted King Farouk (or someone else, don't remember off the top of my head) and was doing what basically every other newly independent state was doing: shopping around for which superpower would give them the most money with fewest strings attached for domestic development. Nasser initially favored working with America -a position that was strengthened after America's condemnation of Britain and France during the Suez Crisis- but only began making his way to the Soviet camp after as American support for his projects at the World Bank began to wane for a variety of reasons.

Obviously, Soviet-Egyptian relations were closer during the Six Day War, but it is pretty much impossible to describe the relation as 'eating out of the hand of the Soviets'. If anything, the Soviets spent most of their time trying to keep Nasser happy and on their side so as to maintain influence in the Middle East. (Never mind that Nasser never had any intention of actually starting a war with Israel- why would he when behind the scenes talks with the Israeli government had lead to relatively amicable interactions and on a few occasions security cooperation with regards to Palestinian fedayeen.)
If you want I can go back and get citations, but I think it is sufficiently that Egypt -far and away the most influential and relevant player on the Arab side of the conflict- was doing anything but eating out of the hand of the Soviets. (Especially as the Soviets spent most of their energy in the Middle East trying to keep working relations with the United States and avoid a kerfuffle that would trash detante.)

Arab-Israeli coexistence may have been achieved much earlier than 1979 if it weren't for their collapse.

If anything, it was the Israeli military victory in the Six Day War that trashed Arab-Israeli coexistence rather than anything on the Arab side. As mentioned above, prior to the Six Day War Egyptian-Israeli relations had opened up through backdoor channels and were surprisingly amicable. Nasser had no desire to fight an expensive war when there were more pressing domestic needs at home. Two things changed in Israel following the Six Day War: First, their military dominance was fully established so they had less of a need to maintain peaceful, accommodating relations with their neighbors. Secondly, the more accommodating wing of the Labor party lost power and saw the more conservative and hawkish Likud party take over.

 

[Borachio]

Also, how is an Israeli whose grandparents came from several different countries, who has never lived anywhere except Israel, who has no ties to any country except Israel, any less of a native than a Palestinian? Where should he move to? How is he not entitled to stay and fight for his homeland?

Yes. But, equally, why aren't the Palestinians also entitled to stay and fight for their homeland?

There's only one piece of land, but two peoples fighting for it. They can't both have it, can they? It seems to be a zero-sum game, at the moment.

 

[Mouthwash]

If anything, it was the Israeli military victory in the Six Day War that trashed Arab-Israeli coexistence rather than anything on the Arab side. As mentioned above, prior to the Six Day War Egyptian-Israeli relations had opened up through backdoor channels and were surprisingly amicable. Nasser had no desire to fight an expensive war when there were more pressing domestic needs at home. Two things changed in Israel following the Six Day War: First, their military dominance was fully established so they had less of a need to maintain peaceful, accommodating relations with their neighbors. Secondly, the more accommodating wing of the Labor party lost power and saw the more conservative and hawkish Likud party take over.

Ensuring that the existential threat to Israel was over seems like a good enough reason. Nasser treated the Israelis like America treated Saddam Hussein in the 80's. He needed them as something to focus his particular brand of demagoguery on. He never actually believed that the status quo would remain. The Arab armies could have easily conquered Israel if they attacked in concert, but, as you pointed out, probably not right then. I don't know why you don't see the problem in that, but I don't like living under conditions that, with the flip of a coin, might end my entire country in a single stroke.

 

[Traitorfish]

What's a "homeland", anyway? If it's defined individually, then there's no obvious reason that it should overlay neatly onto the borders of a nation-state. Can our young Jew really claim, as an individual, that his home is Israel in its entirety, and not just (say) Tel Aviv? It'd be hard to support any nationalist program on an aggregate of such localised individuals.

So the "homeland" must be collective, not something attributed to our young Jew as an individual, but to a community with which he identifies with. But this gets tricky for Israelis, because Jews aren't from anywhere in particular, or more accurately they're from a lot of places in particular: from Lisbon and Algiers and Berlin and Warsaw and London and Moscow and New York and a hundred thousand other places; some are even from Palestine. But that's no basis for a national project, so Jewry must be re-made as Israeli, a community native to Palestine not only as individuals but as a community. (The Zionists didn't seem to think it necessary to ask the Jews if they wanted to be so remade, confident that they would be grateful in the long run. Nationalists tend to be presumptuous like that.)

But this community of Palestinian Jews is a creation of 1948, because only with the creation of the state of Israel do the various particular Jewish communities of Palestine find themselves forced together under a shared "national" banner. So the problem remains, that the Israeli presence is a novel one, and has come at the expense of the Palestinians. And while that acknowledgement is not incompatible with a defence of the existence of Israel, it demands a certain humility, a certain willingness to concede that the Palestinians, too, might claim to be an indigenous national community in Palestine, a demand that the more vocal Zionists and pro-Zionists make virtually no effort to satisfy.

There is no satisfying logic by which the current borders of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine can be seen as justly representative of Israel and Palestinian national "homelands".

 

[Tahuti]

Not really. Egyptian relations with the Soviets during the Suez Crisis wasn't particularly strong by any stretch of the imagination. Remember Egypt had just ousted King Farouk (or someone else, don't remember off the top of my head) and was doing what basically every other newly independent state was doing: shopping around for which superpower would give them the most money with fewest strings attached for domestic development. Nasser initially favored working with America -a position that was strengthened after America's condemnation of Britain and France during the Suez Crisis- but only began making his way to the Soviet camp after as American support for his projects at the World Bank began to wane for a variety of reasons.

Obviously, Soviet-Egyptian relations were closer during the Six Day War, but it is pretty much impossible to describe the relation as 'eating out of the hand of the Soviets'. If anything, the Soviets spent most of their time trying to keep Nasser happy and on their side so as to maintain influence in the Middle East. (Never mind that Nasser never had any intention of actually starting a war with Israel- why would he when behind the scenes talks with the Israeli government had lead to relatively amicable interactions and on a few occasions security cooperation with regards to Palestinian fedayeen.)
If you want I can go back and get citations, but I think it is sufficiently that Egypt -far and away the most influential and relevant player on the Arab side of the conflict- was doing anything but eating out of the hand of the Soviets. (Especially as the Soviets spent most of their energy in the Middle East trying to keep working relations with the United States and avoid a kerfuffle that would trash detante.)

Well, that's only partially true. Egypt did assist the Fedayeen to strengthen its Pan-Arab credentials after the Nasserist coup, which in turn was supported by both the USA and USSR, to undercut the power of France and Britain, ironically the same rationale for the two power's consensus in regards to Israel.

If anything, it was the Israeli military victory in the Six Day War that trashed Arab-Israeli coexistence rather than anything on the Arab side. As mentioned above, prior to the Six Day War Egyptian-Israeli relations had opened up through backdoor channels and were surprisingly amicable. Nasser had no desire to fight an expensive war when there were more pressing domestic needs at home. Two things changed in Israel following the Six Day War: First, their military dominance was fully established so they had less of a need to maintain peaceful, accommodating relations with their neighbors. Secondly, the more accommodating wing of the Labor party lost power and saw the more conservative and hawkish Likud party take over.

1967 was arguably an existential conflict from the Israeli perspective. The Arab countries prepared for a debellatio of Israel, or at least appeared that way. If it wasn't the case - which I genuinely doubt - it could be a prime example of an Hobbesian trap.

Anyway, even if you were right, the Hashemites were toppled in Iraq in 1958 and the Muhammed Ali's in 1952, way before the Israeli victory of the six-day war. Monarchist Iraqi prime minister Nuri As-Said simply viewed the Arab-Israeli conflict as a conflict between powers rather than an all out total war where the opposition is completely evil and what not and was prepared to let the issue of the Palestinian refugees go. There was way more chance they would fold and furthermore, probably wouldn't genocide the Jewish population the PLO possibly might do in the event of an Arab victory. After all, it was a matter of land, not the people that were on that land, which is the driving force for the PLO, even after all those peace rounds they do not believe in sincerely.

But this community of Palestinian Jews is a creation of 1948, because only with the creation of the state of Israel do the various particular Jewish communities of Palestine find themselves forced together under a shared "national" banner. So the problem remains, that the Israeli presence is a novel one, and has come at the expense of the Palestinians. And while that acknowledgement is not incompatible with a defence of the existence of Israel, it demands a certain humility, a certain willingness to concede that Palestine, too, might be said to exist, that the more vocal Zionists and pro-Zionists make no effort to display.

Well, the return of Palestinian refugees would not be incompatible with the ideal of a Jewish state if the Jewish state were an autocracy. In some ways, Modern Israel is still far cry from this idealised Jewish state. Many of Israel's excesses and other unjustifiable acts are the result of its desire - a righteous one - to stay Jewish within the framework of democracy. Being a Jewish and democratic state is not possible at the same time in the long run, and it is well established what I think of democracy.

 

[Mouthwash]

So the "homeland" must be collective, not something attributed to our young Jew as an individual, but to a community with which he identifies with. But this gets tricky for Israelis, because Jews aren't from anywhere in particular, or more accurately they're from a lot of places in particular: from Lisbon and Algiers and Berlin and Warsaw and London and Moscow and New York and a hundred thousand other places; some are even from Palestine. But that's no basis for a national project, so Jewry must be re-made as Israeli, a community native to Palestine not only as individuals but as a community. (The Zionists didn't seem to think it necessary to ask the Jews if they wanted to be so remade, confident that they would be grateful in the long run. Nationalists tend to be presumptuous like that.)

Jews and Zionists are far from mutually exclusive, and indeed in the Middle East they are often seen as one and the same (particularly by Muslim fanatics). The only Jewish groups who actively resist identification with Zionism are Haredi sects like the Satmar, for whom nationalism and secularism are seen as goyish concepts. Furthermore, I think you're making a false distinction between nationalism and identity. Early Jewish anti-Zionism focused on the idea of our mission in the world, which was to be scattered among the goyim and bring spiritual perfection to Earth. But there's nothing by which to say that Jews didn't exist as a "nation" without a homeland (or even a place to exist conterminously). You can take Breslov and Satmar and Zionists and all of them are going to find plenty of common ground together, far beyond anything that could be regarded as a few cultural similarities.

There is no satisfying logic by which the current borders of the State of Israel and the State of Palestine can be seen as justly representative of Israel and Palestinian national "homelands".

Why does it need to be?

 

[Traitorfish]

Jews and Zionists are far from mutually exclusive, and indeed in the Middle East they are often seen as one and the same (particularly by Muslim fanatics). The only Jewish groups who actively resist identification with Zionism are Haredi sects like the Satmar, for whom nationalism and secularism are seen as goyish concepts.

I didn't mean to suggest that Jews and Zionists are mutually exclusive.

Furthermore, I think you're making a false distinction between nationalism and identity. Early Jewish anti-Zionism focused on the idea of our "mission" in the world, which was to be scattered among the goyim and bring spiritual perfection to Earth. But there's nothing by which to say that Jews didn't exist as a "nation" without a homeland, or even a place to exist organically.

Yet that is the whole and entire point of the Zionist movement. Zionism was always a nation-building project, like the nationalisms of Southern and Eastern Europe, which required that Jews come to share a territory and a state, and thus come to form an authentic nation. This was precisely where the Zionists broke with the Bund and their policy of national-cultural autonomy, which proposed the cultivation of Jewishness within a multi-national state. If they had been content to see nationhood in the diaspora, they would not have been Zionists.

Zionists only discovered a "Jewish nation" in the diaspora once Israel was firmly established and in need of a pre-history. Nation-states generally do, because recognising their own historical transience makes states uncomfortable.

Why does it need to be?

Perhaps it doesn't need to be. But if it doesn't, then there's no reason that Israeli claims to "homeland" should be respected, either, which I don't gather most Israelis would be comfortable with.

 

[Squonk]

I believe the gist of his argument was the original foundation of Israel not this exact moment (weak argument for this exact moment). In that original moment everything he said was true. it basically was a highly aggressive colonization effort that the locals failed to resist and they were promptly ethnically cleansed out of their lands.

Exactly... it's strange that he couldn't grasp it.
And I discuss it because without understanding the origin of the conflict one can not understand it, not to mention solve it.

I'm pretty sure Israelis outnumber Palestinians.

It was about the initial point...
And actually, even today Palestinians altogether are more numerable than Israelis.

[/quote]
Recent? Most Israelis were born in Israel. What difference does it make for how long their ancestors have lived in the land? Are you some sort of racial lunatic who believes there is a magic bond between a people and their ethnic homeland?
[/quote]

No, but actually Zionists and Israelis were and are such "racial lunatics"...

And neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians can be considered either fully
indigenous or of fully immigrant background.

Oh stop it.
Of course Palestinians have much better right to call themselve indigenous. They are result of accumulation of cultures in this place since thousands of years. Jews are results of a single culture that guested in this land for a couple centuries, then moved elsewhere, and returned several decades ago. Almost all of Israelis' forefathers didn't live in Israel/Palestine a century ago! While practically all of Palestinians' forefathers did...

[/quote]
So urban dwellers should have less rights than country folk?
[/quote]

Not quite. I just means that they were scattered in several places in the country, being a majority / large minority in several small places. They couldn't claim any territory, because they weren't a majority in any large territory.

The notion that Israel is a colonial society is Nazi nonsense. Most people there are natives, with no ties to any other country. How's that a colonial society?

There's nothing "nazi" in claiming Israel was created as a colonial society. It is an outremer country created by immigrants on a foreign soil thousands of kms from their place of origin, in a place where their culture, language etc was virtually non-existant against the wishes of the autochtonous population. And it still is colonial, sadly. It forcily and brutally occupies a foreign territory for many decades, ignores rights of its citizens, establishes its own settlements on land owned by someone else. Israel is creation of colonialism and reproduces XIX-century uebernationalistic politics against the indigenous population while describing any criticism of its outrageous policies as "antisemitic" and "nazi", as in your case.

Both sides conducted massacres in the war and the turbulent events that preceded it. Both sides engaged in terrorism. Only one does now.

You're a person that would say "well, both Jews and Arabs lived in Palestine prior to Zionism", while it would be 95% Arabs and 3% Jews... Nominally true, but completely distorted.

Palestinians didn't engage in terrorism priore to the end of the end of the 60's (after Arabs lost the Six-day war and it was obvious Israelis would not be defeated in direct combat). Or perhaps at minimal level.
While the Jewish terrorism against UK in the ww2 days is much reknown.
There are instances of Jewish terrorism even today, too, even though they don't really "need" it, unlike Palestinians.

The massacre(s) you mention, and I remember one big one, the massacre of the bus heading for Hebrew University, was in responce to Dayr Yasin massacre...

And it's disgusting that you put Arabs and Israelis in 1948 on the same level. Arabs didn't have interest in war crimes. Jews did, because they needed territory to settle with Jews, so they had to get rid of the original inhabitants and that's what they did, and what they thought about since the 30's...
Now of course, Arab countries started, in responce to Zionism and even as early as in the 30's, to mistreat their own Jews, but it's not Palestinian fault. Palestinians didn't profit from Iraqi Jewish property - Iraqis did. Nor can Palestinians be held responsible for it.
Any possible Arab crimes during this war pale in comparison with the expulsion of half of the Palestinians from their homeland, and that's nearly all in the places Jews conquered.

So? Is the weaker side always right?
The Confederates were much weaker and less armed than the Union, and the Axis were much weaker than the Allies. So what?

Not always right, but one should at least have pity when it's being mistreated. And the irony is that Israelis like to portrait itself as a David in this conflict, while they were the stronger one.

Confederates were evil in the sense that they supported slavery, but were right in defending their independance.

Axis were not quite weaker, and I would say they were stronger until USA joined the war. They almost succeeded you know.

Ethnic right? OK, mein fuhrer, I think you should stop right there... I'll ask you one thing, though. Who has the "ethnic right" to Turkey? Or to Egypt?

Whoever is the majority there, although I have another idea how to solve these matters, which is to accumulate the percentage of population in disctricts of the disputed region and to give to one side as many districts as 100%s it would get.
You are very... well, how to put it... peculiar to think I deny Turkish ethnic rights to Turkey for example. I am partly Armenian and I spend some time here and elsewhere discussing the Turkish denial of 1915 etc. And nevertheless I believe Armenia today could at best get Ani ruins and Ararat slopes, just across the border, because Turks who live there are already born there and can not be held responsible for the sins of their grandparents. The same, while I think Czechs are evil for stabbing Poland in the back and taking Cieszyn away from us, today Poles became a minority there, so at best we could claim several villages in the south of the region now... because the situation's changed. The same, what happened to Germans after ww2 was a giant ethnic cleansing which had an excuse in the unheard and unspoken monstrosities Germans did during the war, but to change it would be unfair too... etc. And the same is for Israel. I believe Israel should exist in 1967 borders. It had no right to exist in 1948. It has now. Poles had the ethnic rights to Cieszyn in 1918-19, Czechs do now. Germans had the ethnic rights to Lower Silesia in 1939, Poles do now. Armenia (probably!) had the ethnic rights to the shores of Van lake in 1914, nowdays probably non-existand Kurdistan does, and as it does not exist, it's in Turkish hands.
Now Czechs, Poles, Israelis etc gained their ethnic rights by ethnic pressure (like in the case of Cieszyn) or cleansing. But such a long time has passed that it has to be accepted.

The difference in the case of Israel is that due to subsequent Israeli (and to lesser extent Arab) politics, the conflict that surrounded the ethnic cleansing is still alive. And Jews still pursue the same policy of land-grab. I believe we should even force Israel to accept 1967 borders. It's sad that Israel succeeded by its ruthless and heartless policy, but it can not really be undone. But we should at least stop it from futher landgrabs.

Here's what you in your deluded racial romanticism does not seem to grasp: much like the Turks are no longer a Central Asian invader, much like Americans are no longer British colonists living across the pond (in fact most Americans don't even have British ancestry), modern Israelis are likewise not European transplants living in the ME. Most were born there; there have always been a Jewish community in the region; they can trace their roots to all the world - including, for millions Israelis, the Middle East itself. One of the largest groups of Israelis descend from Jews who have inhabited Middle Eastern countries for millennia and were pretty much expelled. Where should they move, according to your theory of "ethnic right"? How are Israelis whose ancestors lived in Morocco or Egypt different from Palestinians, many of whom also trace their families to those countries, or were even born there (such as Arafat)?

Also, how is an Israeli whose grandparents came from several different countries, who has never lived anywhere except Israel, who has no ties to any country except Israel, any less of a native than a Palestinian? Where should he move to? How is he not entitled to stay and fight for his homeland?

You are deluded because you do not fight my opinions, because your opinion about what you think my opinions are... You didn't even read my post properly, just were verbally masturbating with your self-crowned rightousness...

I didn't claim Turks are some transplants... au contraire, my post were showing how RIDICULOUS would it be for them to return to Central Asia.

Jews had no right to "come back" after two millenia and claim Palestine for themselves... Just as Turks have no right now to claim Kazakhstan or whatever for themselves. You didn't even trouble to read my post properly or tu turn your brain on.

If anything, it was the Israeli military victory in the Six Day War that trashed Arab-Israeli coexistence rather than anything on the Arab side. As mentioned above, prior to the Six Day War Egyptian-Israeli relations had opened up through backdoor channels and were surprisingly amicable. Nasser had no desire to fight an expensive war when there were more pressing domestic needs at home. Two things changed in Israel following the Six Day War: First, their military dominance was fully established so they had less of a need to maintain peaceful, accommodating relations with their neighbors. Secondly, the more accommodating wing of the Labor party lost power and saw the more conservative and hawkish Likud party take over.

I don't think so. Nasser actually wanted to unite the Arab world, hence the union with Syria, for example, and attempts at union with other countries.
The propaganda was actively anti-Israeli. Enough to see "Saladin", an Egyptian super-production about the ruler who unites Egypt with Syria (as Nasser did) and to help Arab refugees (which didn't really exist much in original history, but it's an obvious bow to Palestinian refugees) wants to start a war against Kingdom of Jerusalem (a foreign colonial land established in Palestine = Israel)...

And just look... Israel divides Arab world in half.

Also, Nasser was not afraid of costly wars. He had a costly Yemeni civil war going on. In fact it is strange he acted Israeli card when he was already busy.

And the truth is that, as long as I know, Egypt was not militarily ready for this conflict, but its political moves, such as banning UN (perhaps Nasser didn't expect to succeed) made it look as if Israel was really in danger and allowed Israeli military to convince the goverment to seize the opportunity and to attack.

 

[Dostayer]

During Nasser regimen the Jews of Egypt had to flee (and by the commandeering all of their property), I don't understand what"co-existence" you are talking about, he blocked Straits of Tiran and made public deceleration the the Arab nations are ready to destroy Israel (he even glorified himself with this intent) , and supported the Fedayeen, saying there was "Co-Existence" Is to rewrite history...
The only nation that can be said that wasn't hostile is Jordan

Anyways: 3 Israeli teenagers were kidnapped in the Western Bank...

 

[kramerfan86]

Yea well when you hitchhike in territory you are actively trying to steal from its local residents its not shocking bad things happen. Not to say they deserved it, but its not a stunning end result from being stupid.

 

[Dostayer]

Actively trying to steal?
Gush Etzion was a group Jewish Settlements Prior to the 1948, fell into the hand of Jordan after the conquest of the main Village the Arabs massacred the defenders after they surrendered, they resettled in the area after Six Days war.
So who's stealing Who's lands?

Anyways it is only 1 event in a series of events in the last year (the murdering of a soldier who slept in a bus near Haifa, The demo charge in a bad in Bat-Yam) that made the whole situation really tense.

But I do agree that Hitchhiking in that particular area isn't the smartest thing to do.