BS: Israel Moves in.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 08 May 09 - 02:21 PM

The Israelis never did comply with Oslo. Never once. The Palestinians did comply with Oslo for a couple of years. However, that's not the point. The point is that the Palestinians have already lost most of what they ever had. The only people who have never made any concessions are the Israelis, who have only taken what belonged to others, and never, ever conceded a thing. Israel is in no position, under international law, to expect the Palestinians to make further territorial concessions.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 May 09 - 02:16 PM

"are supposed to be under full Palestinian control under the Oslo treaty (even though they are, in reality, not at all under full Palestinian control). "



And you claim the Palestinians have met their obligations of the Oslo accords???

If not, why should the Israelis?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 08 May 09 - 02:12 PM

Territorial concessions? The map in the link shows the territorial concessions Israel expects the Palestinians to make and it shows the reality that they are living with now. The water is used to show this reality in stark terms, since their freedom of movement is just as hampered as it would be if they were surrounded by water filled with enemy battleships...

http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/270-palestines-island-paradise-now-with-a-word-from-its-creator/

Note that only the light green areas are supposed to be under full Palestinian control under the Oslo treaty (even though they are, in reality, not at all under full Palestinian control).

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 May 09 - 02:02 PM

The Hamas 'Peace' Gambit
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, May 8, 2009

"Apart from the time restriction (a truce that lapses after 10 years) and the refusal to accept Israel's existence, Mr. Meshal's terms approximate the Arab League peace plan . . ."

-- Hamas peace plan, as explained by the New York Times



"Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?"

-- Tom Lehrer, satirist



The Times conducted a five-hour interview with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal at his Damascus headquarters. Mirabile dictu, they're offering a peace plan with a two-state solution. Except. The offer is not a peace but a truce that expires after 10 years. Meaning that after Israel has fatally weakened itself by settling millions of hostile Arab refugees in its midst, and after a decade of Hamas arming itself within a Palestinian state that narrows Israel to eight miles wide -- Hamas restarts the war against a country it remains pledged to eradicate.

There is a phrase for such a peace: the peace of the grave.

Westerners may be stupid, but Hamas is not. It sees the new American administration making overtures to Iran and Syria. It sees Europe, led by Britain, beginning to accept Hezbollah. It sees itself as next in line. And it knows what to do. Yasser Arafat wrote the playbook.

With the 1993 Oslo accords, he showed what can be achieved with a fake peace treaty with Israel -- universal diplomatic recognition, billions of dollars of aid, and control of Gaza and the West Bank, which Arafat turned into an armed camp. In return for a signature, he created in the Palestinian territories the capacity to carry on the war against Israel that the Arab states had begun in 1948 but had given up after the bloody hell of the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

Meshal sees the opportunity. Not only is the Obama administration reaching out to its erstwhile enemies in the region, but it begins its term by wagging an angry finger at Israel over the Netanyahu government's ostensible refusal to accept a two-state solution.

Of all the phony fights to pick with Israel. No Israeli government would turn down a two-state solution in which the Palestinians accepted territorial compromise and genuine peace with a Jewish state. (And any government that did would be voted out in a day.) Netanyahu's own defense minister, Ehud Barak, offered precisely such a deal in 2000. He even offered to divide Jerusalem and expel every Jew from every settlement remaining in the new Palestine.

The Palestinian response (for those who have forgotten) was: No. And no counteroffer. Instead, nine weeks later, Arafat unleashed a savage terror war that killed 1,000 Israelis.

Netanyahu is reluctant to agree to a Palestinian state before he knows what kind of state it will be. That elementary prudence should be shared by anyone who's been sentient the last three years. The Palestinians already have a state, an independent territory with not an Israeli settler or soldier living on it. It's called Gaza. And what is it? A terror base, Islamist in nature, Iranian-allied, militant and aggressive, that has fired more than 10,000 rockets and mortar rounds at Israeli civilians.

If this is what a West Bank state is going to be, it would be madness for Israel or America or Jordan or Egypt or any other moderate Arab country to accept such a two-state solution. Which is why Netanyahu insists that the Palestinian Authority first build institutions -- social, economic and military -- to anchor a state that could actually carry out its responsibilities to keep the peace.

Apart from being reasonable, Netanyahu's two-state skepticism is beside the point. His predecessor, Ehud Olmert, worshiped at the shrine of a two-state solution. He made endless offers of a two-state peace to the Palestinian Authority -- and got nowhere.

Why? Because the Palestinians -- going back to the U.N. partition resolution of 1947 -- have never accepted the idea of living side by side with a Jewish state. Those like Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who might want to entertain such a solution, have no authority to do it. And those like Hamas's Meshal, who have authority, have no intention of ever doing it.

Meshal's gambit to dress up perpetual war as a two-state peace is yet another iteration of the Palestinian rejectionist tragedy. In its previous incarnation, Arafat lulled Israel and the Clinton administration with talk of peace while he methodically prepared his people for war.

Arafat waited seven years to tear up his phony peace. Meshal's innovation? Ten -- then blood.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 08 May 09 - 01:40 PM

Israeli "Death to Arabs" Facebook group

"Journalist Dimi Reider came across this Israeli Facebook group called 'Death to Arabs'. Take a look

The messages posted on the group's homepage are calling for the killing of Arabs and Leftists. There is a debate amongst the group members, on whether all Arabs should be killed, or only some, while the rest should be deported. The photos uploaded to the group show the late racist Rabbi Meir Kahana and a small Meretz demonstration.

The important thing here is not that there are some several hundred racists in Israel, who wish to see the Arabs gone. We always had those - Kahana followers, transfer supporters, etc. The thing is that these people are not just scribbling graffiti in the dark anymore. They are registered to a public group, with their name and their picture, where all their friends can see them (for those of you who don't use Facebook - when someone joins a group on the site, all his friends get notified. In this case, they will all see some sort of statues line, declaring that 'X has joined the group "Death to Arabs'"). The people on this group don't think that they need to hide. They don't think that there is anything wrong with racism, hate-talk or incitement. In fact, they are rather proud of it."

The group looks as though it is five months old. It currently has 2,165 members. It seems that most of them are minors - your normal Israeli teens. Soon they will join the army.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 08 May 09 - 01:28 PM

It's not I who doesn't approve of him. It's the majority of Palestinians who don't approve of him. It's their call.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 08 May 09 - 11:58 AM

By the way, Abbas is no friend of the Palestinians. He is Washington and Israel's stooge. He works for them. He's only talking tough now because Israel's foolish behavior, and his complicity in it, has made him incredibly unpopular with his people.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 08 May 09 - 11:53 AM

"The world" did not act with outrage at Ahmadinejad's speech. Most of the world enthusiastically applauded that speech. Only the White Western countries (mostly imperialist, mostly colonizers) acted with outrage. Everyone else (all of the brown-skinned countries) thought what he said was very accurate (the Holocaust denial part was not included in the speech he actually gave).

However, I do think it's pretty revealing that some people believe that the White part of the world constitutes "the world". How convenient to have completely eliminated all of the brown-skinned people of the world with the touch of a keyboard. And how typical of those who support colonialist enterprises in the brown-skinned part of the world.

Abbas does recognize Israel. But he does not recognize it as a Jewish state. He recognizes it as a state of all of its citizens.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 08 May 09 - 11:39 AM

Was it ok for Jews to not own land? What the hell is that supposed to mean? The point is that the people who had been living on and farming that land for centuries were being forced into homelessness and being deprived of their livelihoods by a deliberate program that was being forced on them by the newly arrived European Jews, and this caused a backlash resulting in riots and uprisings. The act of aggression was the intentional program of displacement that the European Jews were implementing that they state themselves was for the purpose of committing ethnic cleansing, and for the removal of all Arabs from Palestine. The uprisings and riots were a response to that act of aggression.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: bobad
Date: 08 May 09 - 10:17 AM

Mahmoud Abbas: "I do not accept
the Jewish State, call it what you will"

by Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook

Palestinian Authority president and Fatah chairman Mahmoud Abbas stated unequivocally Monday that he does not accept the Jewish state.

"I say this clearly: I do not accept the Jewish State, call it what you will," he said at a preliminary conference of the Palestinian Youth Parliament in Ramallah.

At the end of the conference, Abbas was presented with a large framed map of "Palestine," covering the entire area of Israel.

The photo of the map being held aloft by a smiling Abbas was featured in a prominent front-page position in both PA daily newspapers. Note that the word "Palestine" appears on the map in English.

The widespread condemnation of Iranian President Ahmadinejad's speech attacking Israel and Zionists at the UN's "Durban II" conference in Geneva made headlines around the world. But Western leaders and media seem reluctant to take the next step: Recognizing that the Iranian leader's views are not an isolated phenomenon, but are widespread in the Muslim world.

Palestinian Media Watch

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: bobad
Date: 08 May 09 - 10:15 AM

When Hatemongering is Common Currency

Itamar Marcus and Barbara Crook

Ottawa Citizen, April 24, 2009 (online edition), April 27, 2009 (print edition)

The world reacted with outrage at the speech by Iranian President Ahmadinejad at the Durban Review Conference on Racism in Geneva. European countries stormed out of his talk and released an array of statements condemning his words.

But the real problem is not that an Ahmadinejad exists, or that he proudly and vociferously spews hatred against Jews and blames Zionism for the world's evils. The problem is that his views are anything but unique in the Muslim world.

Tragically, it seems that Western leaders are using Ahmadinejad as their radical Islamic whipping boy in order to content themselves that they are doing all they can to fight growing radical Islamic racism, its calls for a world without Israel and genocide of Jews, and its espousal of Holocaust denial.

In reality, the strong media and government reactions to Ahmadinejad's hate promotion serve only to highlight their hypocrisy in ignoring the same ideology when it's expressed by Arab leaders who have succeeded in making the Western world's list of "good guys."

Saudi King Abdullah - whom President George W. Bush kissed and to whom President Barack Obama bowed earlier this month -- has blamed Israel for terror attacks in Saudi Arabia: "We can be certain that Zionism is behind everything ... I don't say 100 percent, but 95 percent." [Saudi 1 Television, May 2, 2004]

Grade 9 children in Saudi Arabia are taught that "the hour [of judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them, until the Jew hides behind rocks and trees, until the rocks or the trees say, 'O Muslim! O servant of God! There is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him!"

Earlier this year, the head of the Department of Islamic Studies at Saud University pronounced that "Jews are the enemies of Allah." Dr. Walid Al-Rashudi also prayed for the extermination of all Jews: "Kill them one by one and don't leave even one." [Al-Aqsa (Hamas) TV, Jan. 12, 2009.

It is the very existence of the Jews, not their actions or even their Zionism, that fuels the rhetoric of many Islamic political and religious leaders.

"If the Jews left Palestine to us, would we start loving them? Of course not. . . . They are enemies not because they occupied Palestine. They would have been enemies even if they did not occupy a thing," said Egyptian cleric Muhammad Hussein Ya'qoub.

". . . You must believe that we will fight, defeat, and annihilate them, until not a single Jew remains on the face of the Earth." [Al-Rahma TV (Egypt), Jan. 17, 2009]

Is this any different from Ahmadinejad's calls for a world without Israel?

And look at Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, depicted by the West as a moderate to whom Israel is supposed to offer statehood. But the TV channel directly controlled by Abbas's office regularly runs educational programs to teach Palestinian adults and children alike that there is no state called Israel, and that all Israel's land is actually "occupied Palestine."

Palestinian children are taught that Israeli cities throughout the entire country - from Haifa in the North, to Jaffa (part of Tel Aviv), to Eilat in the south, are all actually Palestinian cities. Videos feature songs about a "Palestine" that erases Israel and a future when the Israeli cities Jaffa and Haifa will be "liberated."

Hamas, which has convinced many Western leaders and journalists that it spends more time building schools than bombing civilians, broadcast a sermon earlier this month depicting the Jews as enemies of humanity, inherently evil, seeking to rule the world and a dangerous threat to Muslims.

"The time will come, by Allah's will, when their property will be destroyed and their children will be exterminated, and no Jew or Zionist will be left on the face of this earth." [Hamas (Al-Aqsa) TV, April 3, 2009]

boy actor Why is Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial so passionately denounced when Palestinian Holocaust denial is so utterly ignored? Hamas TV broadcast a special documentary last year, explaining that the Holocaust was a Zionist scheme to rid the world of elderly and handicapped, and to gain world sympathy. Fatah's PA TV broadcast a children's program that said explicitly that Israel burned Palestinians in ovens.


So why is Abbas presented as a peace partner, Egypt as a peace broker and Abdullah as a friend of the West? Why does the world not react with outrage to calls for "extermination" of Jews from anyone other than Ahmadinejad?

If the West is serious about peace, then all hatred must be condemned. And we must recognize that the real enemies of peace are not only the Ahmadinejads of the world, but the "friends" who have mastered the doublespeak of calling for peace in English while inciting hatred in Arabic.

PMW director Itamar Marcus was in Geneva during the UN Durban II conference and counter-conferences last week, and writes about how ordinary people can be convinced to participate in genocide.


Palestinian Media Watch

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 May 09 - 08:32 AM

" 5 to 1% Jews. In 1882 Jews owned 22,500 dunums of land out of the 26,323,000 dunums which were to make up Mandate Palestine, i.e., .09% of the land. By 1900 there were 50,000 Jews in Palestine, mostly in Jerusalem and Jaffa, although twenty-two settlements existed by then, and Jews owned 218,000 dunums, or .8% of the land."

So, it was OK for the Jews to not own land???? How nice of you to allow that.



" it is far from representing even a large minority of the worlds Jews"

The worldwide Jewish population is 13.3 million Jews. Jewish population growth worldwide is close to zero percent. From 2000 to 2001 it rose 0.3%, compared to worldwide population growth of 1.4%.

      In 2001, 8.3 million Jews lived in the Diaspora and 4.9 million lived in Israel. Just about half of the world's Jews reside in the Americas, with about 46 percent in North America.   (top)

      Approximately 37% of worldwide Jewry lives in Israel. Israel's Jewish population rose by 1.6% the past year, while the Diaspora population dropped by 0.5%.

      Europe, including the Asian territories of the Russian Republic and Turkey, accounts for about 12 percent of the total. Fewer than 2 percent of the world's Jews live in Africa and Oceania.

      Metropolitan Tel Aviv, with 2.5 million Jews, is the world's largest Jewish city. It is followed by New York, with 1.9 million, Haifa 655,000, Los Angeles 621,000, Jerusalem 570,000, and southeast Florida 514,000.

      In 2001, 8 countries had a Jewish population of 100,000 or more; another 5 countries had 50,000 or more. There is not a single Diaspora country where Jews amounted to 2.5 percent of the total population. Only 3 Diaspora countries had more than 1 percent. Gibraltar (24.0 per 1000), United States (20.1), Canada (11.9), France (8.8), Uruguay (6.7), Argentina (5.3), Hungary (5.2), and Australia (5.1)[1] had the highest ratios.

So, 37% is not a large minority? That is about the percentage of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza ( including Jordan, the Mandate Palestine ARAB homeland. And THEY seem to speak for ALL palestinians with no problem

Jordan:Population: 6,198,677 (July 2008 est.)
West Bank:2,407,681 [1] population in the West Bank, excluding Israeli settlers.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Riginslinger
Date: 08 May 09 - 07:23 AM

It looks like European Jews moving to Israel cause the same kinds of problems as Mexicans moving into California. I wonder when war is going to break out there?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 08 May 09 - 06:39 AM

""Look at the Jewish population of Palestine under the Ottomans: Does the territory of Israel reflect even that percentage of the Mandate Palestine total territory?""

They were native to that land at that time. The current state of Israel is composed mainly of European origin immigrant families.

Once again may I remind you that Judaism is a religious faith encompassing virtually every Nationality on earth.

Israel is the country under discussion, and it is far from representing even a large minority of the worlds Jews.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 07 May 09 - 09:15 PM

SYRIAN FOREIGN minister Walid Muallem insisted yesterday that there was no need to amend proposals in a 2002 joint Arab peace plan providing for full normalisation of relations with Israel in exchange for its full withdrawal from Arab territories occupied in 1967, and a "just" solution to the Palestinian refugee problem.

He was reflecting concern in some Arab capitals at reports that the Palestinian Authority, Egypt and Jordan were seeking to modify the plan.

Following consultations with Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, Jordan's King Abdullah recently sounded out President Barack Obama on the shape of a comprehensive plan for resolving the Arab-Israel conflict. Mr Abbas said on Wednesday that this plan would be presented to Mr Obama during meetings later this month.

The plan would set out goodwill gestures to Israel in exchange for Israeli movement on issues important to the Palestinians.

The tripartite plan is meant to demonstrate Arab unity and flexibility at a time when Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu refuses to contemplate creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel.

However, any changes in the broader Arab proposal, reaffirmed by the Arab summit at the end of March, would require acquiescence of all 22 member states of the Arab League which, at present, insists on acceptance of the unamended 2002 proposal.

In addition to Syria, Qatar and Lebanon are likely to reject any softening of the full-withdrawal-for-peace formula and the stance on refugees. Modifications would also be condemned by Hamas, which rules Gaza.

Quartet envoy Tony Blair said the Obama administration was developing a strategy of its own which would have the backing of the EU, Russia and the UN, the other three members of the group.

The strategy will be finalised and presented after Mr Obama's consultations with the Palestinian, Egyptian and Israeli leaders. Mr Obama seeks to launch simultaneous negotiations on the Palestinian-Israeli and Syrian-Israeli tracks with the aim of reaching a comprehensive Arab-Israeli deal.

Meanwhile, Mr Abbas is threatening to appoint a new Palestinian government if Fatah and Hamas do not reach an agreement on a unity coalition during the next round of talks convening in Cairo on May 16th. This would deepen the rift between Hamas and Fatah in the West Bank and weaken the Arab side in negotiations


From the on-line Irish Times

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 09 - 09:09 PM

Israeli textbooks and maps wipe the Palestinians off of the map

Isreal wipes the Palestinians off the map

Some Palestinian maps are fairer than Israeli ones

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Lox
Date: 07 May 09 - 09:09 PM

Hey peace,

Thanks for that last post. I hadn't seen it when I last posted.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Lox
Date: 07 May 09 - 09:03 PM

Hey peace,

I get it that you don't like Carol, but your interruptions are spoiling what for me is a pretty interesting and informative debate.

I like to see you as one of my Mudcat friends. The way you're posting is making me feel pretty uncomfortable.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 07 May 09 - 08:59 PM

Source: Hamas, Gaza militants agree to halt rockets firing on Israel


"www.chinaview.cn 2009-05-06 14:06:50      Print

Special Report: Palestine-Israel Conflicts         

    GAZA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- Islamic Hamas movement and Gaza militant groups had secretly agreed to halt homemade rockets, firing from the Gaza Strip at Israel, a senior well-informed source told Xinhua late Tuesday.

    The source, which spoke in condition of anonymity, revealed that a meeting was secretly held in Gaza city, and was attended by leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements as well as leaders of other minor militant groups.

    "It was agreed during the meeting to avoid the Israeli provocations and not to carry out actions by the Palestinian factions and armed groups that bring back a violent Israeli reaction," said the source.

    Earlier on Tuesday, the local Palestinian media quoted eyewitnesses as saying that they saw Hamas militants searching into cars in northern Gaza Strip and looking for rockets that other militants fire at Israel.

    Hamas has no comment on the report, however, the spokesman of Hamas government in Gaza Taher el-Noono said the deployment of Hamas police "is just a kind of propaganda," aimed at harming the image of his government.

    The reports on the deployment of Hamas police came after Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal, who is based in Damascus, said that his movement decided to halt the rocket attacks on Israel for the time being.

    Mashaal's remarks were made following reports that Egypt had convoyed an Israeli letter to Hamas warning them of a possible military operation in the territory if the rockets continued to be fired."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 09 - 08:45 PM

Defend Ezra Nawi

"Nawi is an Arab-Jewish gay Ta'ayush activist threatened with jail for peacefully obstructing the criminal demolition of a Palestinian shack. He is picked upon because Israeli authorities feel particularly threatened by acts of solidarity with Palestinians coming from people of working class, non-Ashkenazi background (as was the case with Tali Fahima). His sexual orientation makes him also particularly vulnerable.

The solidarity campaign for Ezra Nawi asks:

    To support Ezra, please write a letter or email to the Israeli embassy in your country, and send us a copy to [e-mail]

    Also please consider donating to help defray the legal costs and to support his human rights activities. (http://www.supportezra.net/ )

More about Nawi here and here. We need more people like Nawi, and the place to start is to defend the ones we have. Start now!"

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 07 May 09 - 08:44 PM

"From Nationalist Battle
To Religious Conflict:
New 12th Grade Palestinian schoolbooks
present a world without Israel"

The curricula is two years old.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 07 May 09 - 08:34 PM

Just no end in sight . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 09 - 08:33 PM

If someone thinks they can silence me by following me around and making personal attacks on me and generally harassing me, they're mistaken.


Here's some more background on collaborators...

http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/1189/8911013.html

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 07 May 09 - 07:57 PM

. . . and more

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 09 - 07:55 PM

On the other hand, I think the above poster is also a troll.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 07 May 09 - 07:50 PM

And yet more . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 09 - 07:49 PM

Those kinds of hasbara smear tactic simply don't work any more. Most people are too intelligent to fall for that sort of thing, and now that they've witnessed the kind of hate campaign being waged by the poster with the ironic screen name, they know where the hate is really coming from, and in this thread, it ain't the people who are fighting for Palestinian rights. This is why the movement for Palestinian rights is growing exponentially. People can see where the hate is coming from.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 07 May 09 - 07:44 PM

Thought it would help you swallow or spit out some of the hatred you spew. I figured a glass of liquid feces wouldn't help, because it would be what you're trying to get rid of in the first place.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 09 - 07:39 PM

No, I think I'll continue fighting for the rights of Palestinians, thanks. Others can sit back and sip their lattes while an entire people is being destroyed (with US taxpayer money), but I find that I'm not able to do that.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 07 May 09 - 07:34 PM

If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.
Lao Tzu

Have some decaf!

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 07 May 09 - 07:08 PM

But decaf for you . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 09 - 07:06 PM

So as we can see, there was an official policy of ethnic cleansing by the European Jews against the indigenous people right from the beginning.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 07 May 09 - 07:02 PM

But with extra sugar.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 09 - 06:59 PM

Here's some more from the last link...

The census of 1931 revealed an Arab population (including Moslems, Christians, Druses, etc.) of 861,200 and a Jewish population of 174,600, i.e., 17%. The same estimate of 66,553 bedouin as suggested in 1922 was used, as if no population increase ever occurred among this sector of the Arab population.20 While the doubling of the Jewish population (which was about half European) since the previous census was due primarily to immigration, the increase in the Arab population resulted from natural causes. With further Jewish immigration and land purchases in the thirties, foreclosures by absentee holders of legal title who often resided in Damascus, Beirut, Cairo, and Kuwait dispossessed an ever increasing number of fellaheen. The sale by the Lebanese Sursuk tax farmer family of 240,000 dunums alone displaced almost 9,000 persons.21

By the end of 1936, the PICA, Keren Kayemeth, and Palestine Land Development Company—all Zionist organizations—held title to land as indicated in Table 1. As the former director of Keren Kayemeth commented: "If we add up all these figures, we shall find that no less than 90.6 per cent of all acquisitions were of land which formerly belonged to large landowners, while from fellaheen only 9.4 per cent was purchased."22 While it is not known how many Arab tenants were thereby evicted, in 1936 Jewish landownership amounted to 1,231,000 dunums. It is not surprising that when Arab workers and peasants, sparked by al-Qassam's guerrilla offensive in the countryside, rose up in armed struggle and engaged in general strikes during 1936-39, the feudal elements led by al-Husseini favored a compromise with the British, who, aided by the Zionists, crushed the revolt.

"There is no room for both peoples together in this country," reflected Joseph Weitz in 1940. Head of the Jewish Agency's Colonization Department and in charge of land acquisitions, Weitz continued that "there is no other way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries; to transfer all of them: not one village, not one tribe should be left... ."23

A Survey of Palestine, prepared for the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry in the mid forties, described the continuing dispossession of the fellaheen in the same manner as had the Simpson Report. Legal fictions regarding title rather than traditional rights based on possession continued to insure land transactions between large Arab and Zionist landowners. "The Ottoman land registry records... still constitute the basis of a large number of claims to real rights in Palestine." Yet Arab agriculturists worked "state" lands to the extent that "it cannot be assumed that Government is in possession of extensive tracts of land which are lying idle." In 1944 the Jewish population, determined to be 553,600 (32%) out of 1,739,624 (including the never increasing nomads), held 1,731,300 dunums. "This total area of Jewish land represents 6.6% of the total area of Palestine."24

A smaller official estimate for Jewish landholdings at the end of 1944 set the figure at 1,491,699 dunums as compared to 12,766,524 dunums owned by Arabs and 1,491,690 dunums of public land. This excludes the 10,573,100 dunums composing Beersheba, which bedouin freely inhabited; traditionally basing their rights on use and not on title conferred by what they perceived as outside forces, the bedouin always had their land underestimated because their method of crop rotation involved leaving land fallow for a couple of years, while assessors included only land in current use. In any case, 85% of cultivatable lands were held by Arabs, 13% by Jews, and 3% by the public.25 The proportion of Jewish to non-Jewish landownership is presented in Map 1.

From 1922 until 1945, an estimated 96% of Moslem population growth was due to natural increase, while 72% of Jewish population growth was attributed to migratory increase. While two-thirds of the Jews lived in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, and Jaffa, 70% of Moslems resided in villages, although the latter percentage still indicated a trend toward urbanization. The last official Mandate Government population estimates found 589,341 Jews (31%) out of 1,908,775 persons at the end of March 1947.27 By the end of that year Jews owned 1,734,000 dunums or 6.6% of Palestine, having bought 57% of this land from large Arab landowners, 16% from government, churches, and foreign companies, and 27% from fellaheen.28 Graph 1 and Table 2 summarize the growth of Jewish population and landowner-ship respectively.

The United Nations Partition Resolution of November 1947 provided for a Jewish state of about 57% of Palestine although Jewish landowner-ship was only about 10% of the proposed state. The gerrymandering plan included 498,000 Jews and 497,000 Arabs within the state. Yet for the Zionist leadership, this was too little land and too many Arabs. It was not only the Irgun of Menachem Begin and Moshe Dayan, whose organization exploded bombs in Arab population centers, that desired the new state to consist of the whole of Mandate Palestine or more and to be arabenrein. An expansionist who foresaw an Israel extending from the Nile to the Euphrates, David Ben-Gurion never intended to abide by the U.N. boundaries, and in his state "there was no place for Arabs." Ben-Gurion wanted to attack Arab population centers.

Ben-Gurion remained skeptical about any possibility of coexistence with the Arabs. The fewer there were living within the frontiers of the new Jewish state, the better he would like it. He did not actually say this, but his position was clear—a major offensive against the Arabs would not only break up their attacks but would also greatly reduce the percentage of Arabs in the population of the new state. While this might be called racialism, the whole Zionist movement actually was based on the principle of a purely Jewish community in Palestine.29

On April 9, 1948, 254 unarmed men, women, and children at Deir Yassin, an Arab village west of Jerusalem, were massacred by Zionist terrorists.30 Most of the mutilated bodies were thrown down a well, while others were scattered about the village. While the attack was spearheaded by Begin's Irgun Zvai Leumi and the frankly fascist Stern gang, the commander of the Haganah approved the attack, although Ben-Gurion's party attempted to exculpate itself from blame. According to Begin, the attackers used "large numbers of hand-grenades," and the civilians "suffered inevitable casualties." Deir Yassin was "the first Arab village to be captured by Jewish forces," leading the Arabs to expect genocide at the hands of the Zionists.

Panic overwhelmed the Arabs of Eretz Israel.... Arabs throughout the country, induced to believe wild tales [sic] of "Irgun butchery," were seized with limitless panic and started to flee for their lives. This mass flight soon developed into a maddened, uncontrollable stampede.31

In Jerusalem, Zionist soldiers paraded a few bloodstained Deir Yassin survivors through the streets, and in Haifa Zionist loudspeakers warned the Arabs of more Deir Yassins. "All the Jewish forces proceeded to advance through Haifa like a knife through butter. The Arabs began fleeing in panic, shouting: ÔDeir Yassin!'"32 Sixty thousand Arabs fled Haifa, and almost all of Jaffa's Arab population of a hundred thousand evaporated. Almost 900 villages and five million dunums of land were abandoned as some three-quarters of a million Arabs fled Jewish, Arab, and British armies alike. "The greater part of the agricultural land was in the hands of these villagers."33

In mid May 1948, when Israel proclaimed its existence as a state, Jews were still less than one-third of the population of Palestine. Jewish land-ownership, as a result of the expulsion of the Arabs, jumped from nearly 7% of Palestine to 79%; thus it was military force, rather than a half century of land purchases (largely from Arab absentee landowners), that was the primary method by which the land of Palestine became the land of Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 07 May 09 - 06:59 PM

Latte again . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 09 - 06:58 PM

Clearly I'm not the one in this discussion who wouldn't know a fact if it jumped up and bit me.

The land was far from useless, since it included much fertile land as well as grazing land, and it was the homes and livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of fellahin.

Blaming the Victims


When the European Jews started colonizing Palestine, they adopted the approach of removing the felahin from the land they had lived on and farmed (and/or grazed) for hundreds of years, and after dispossessing them of their homes and livelihoods, they also completely squeezed them out of being able to make a living in other ways.


http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/halbrook.html

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, while title to land traditionally held by Arab peasants was being transferred to Arab and Turkish landlords, another force emerged which was to have the most significant influence on the distribution of land, namely, the Zionist movement which began to support immigration of Jews to Palestine. While reliable statistics do not exist, it has been estimated that Palestine in the second half of the nineteenth century consisted of a population of more or less a half million, of which some 80% were Muslims, 10% Christians, and 5 to 1% Jews. In 1882 Jews owned 22,500 dunums of land out of the 26,323,000 dunums which were to make up Mandate Palestine, i.e., .09% of the land. By 1900 there were 50,000 Jews in Palestine, mostly in Jerusalem and Jaffa, although twenty-two settlements existed by then, and Jews owned 218,000 dunums, or .8% of the land.6

The increase in Jewish ownership was largely prompted by the founding of the Palestine Jewish Colonization Association (PICA) by Baron Edmond de Rothschild, the "Father of the Yishuv" (the Jewish settlement in Palestine) who for decades was to be the largest Jewish landowner in Palestine and Transjordan. Rothschild "bought land from the feudal Effendis, sometimes by bribing the Ottoman administration, and drove the fellahin off the land."7 Some of the same fellaheen were hired to work the land they once cultivated as their own.

A different approach was taken by Zionists of a more purist position than the classic colonialist policy held by Rothschild. "When we occupy the land...we must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us," wrote Zionism's founder Theodor Herzl. "We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own countries."8 In 1907 the World Zionist Organization incorporated the Keren Kayemeth Leisrael (Jewish National Fund), which was dedicated to purchasing land exclusively for Jews and refusing employment to displaced Arabs. Beginning a year later with the building of a suburb outside Jaffa which came to be known as Tel Aviv, Keren Kayemeth was destined to be the major landowner in Palestine.

During the last years of Turkish rule in Palestine, the lands seized from Arab peasants by Arab absentee landlords were in turn being sold to Zionist settlers whose policy increasingly was to deny employment to Arabs. Only 144 Arab landlords owned a total of 3,130,000 dunums in Palestine—in the Jezreel Valley alone the Sursuk family of Beirut and Egypt held title to 230,000 dunums—and "the great majority of land bought by Jews in the period of Turkish rule, and later under the British Mandate,... was acquired from proprietors of large estates."9 By 1914 Jewish ownership of land amounted to 418,000 dunums or about 1.6% of Palestine, and Jews constituted 84,660 (12%) out of a population of 689,275.10

"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people," wrote British Foreign Secretary Lord Balfour to Lord Lionel Rothschild in November 1917, adding that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine," i.e., the overwhelming majority of the population consisting of Moslem and Christian Arabs. Palestine was a land without a people and for a people without a land according to Zionist leader Israel Zangwill, who wrote in 1919:

The power in every country...always resides in the landowning classes. Yet over 30,000 Arab landlords and some 600,000 fellahin are to continue in possession of the bulk of the Holy Land.... [To remedy this situation] measures of race redistribution...will be carried out in Palestine as elsewhere. Thus the Arabs would gradually be settled in the new and vast Arabian Kingdom.... Only with a Jewish majority...can Israel enter upon the task of building up that model state....11

Before October 1920 Jews held 650,000 dunums and land sales quickly increased under the British Mandate. The first significant Keren Kayemeth purchase of seven Arab villages was a factor in the 1921 Arab uprising which led Britain to enact the Transfer of Land Ordinance (1921), whereby the landlord was required to see that tenants uprooted by sales retain land elsewhere. Landlords evaded the ordinance simply by evicting tenants before sale. Comparable acts to protect cultivators passed in the following two decades were also evaded, increasing the number of landless Arabs.12 In any case, the first real census of Palestine, taken in 1922, indicated that Jews numbered 83,794 out of a total population of 757,182. Thus Jews, about three-quarters of whom lived in the Jerusalem-Jaffa area and about two-thirds of whom were European immigrants, constituted 11% of the population.13 Estimates respecting distribution of land indicate that in the same year, excluding freehold fellaheen, three million dunums of the land of Palestine were held by only 120 Arab families.14 By 1927 Jewish land holdings more than doubled from the start of the war to 865,000 dunums— still only 3.3% of Palestine.

A year after the 1929 revolt in which fellaheen and especially bedouin played a major role, the Simpson Report estimated that about 30% of Arab villagers were landless. Unlike the Jews, who had favorable, long-term leases, Arab tenants held land on a yearly basis, terminable at the landlord's will. The economic condition of the fellah was desperate, for scarce capital, heavy debts, rising rent, overtaxation, and high interest were crushing this class. One study showed the average fellah family in possession of about seventy-five dunums, while double that amount would have been required for a decent standard of living.15 Peasants borrowed at 30% interest or more, or sold their land, in order to pay the tithe (which might be a fourth of a fellah's income) and other taxes, debts, and subsistence expenses. Cultivators without land were required to give the landlord whose land they worked about half the produce. The fellaheen were literally bankrupt㬼% of the families in one subdistrict had execution proceedings pending against them, a family's whole crop could be attached for taxes, and imprisonment for debt was extensive. The condition of the fellah was hardly better than under the Turks.16

While the Jewish Agency pressed its claim to all lands owned by the government, considerable areas over which the government had de jure claims had been occupied and cultivated by Arabs for very many years. Not only were areas available for Jewish settlement "negligible," but already Jewish settlements were interfering with the rights of grazing and cultivation of bedouin, the majority of whom wandered in Beersheba as in ancient times. Fellaheen who were evicted from their lands in the countryside, on emigrating to the cities, found that the Histadrut (Jewish Labor Federation) excluded them from employment in Jewish industry and commerce, resulting in serious unemployment.17

Zionist policies faced Arabs with discrimination based on race, religion, or national origin at every turn: Kibush Hakarka (Conquest of the Land) took the Arab tenant's land, Kibush Ha'avoda (Conquest of Labor) prevented the hiring of Arabs as employees, and T'ozteret Ha'aretz (Produce of the Land) imposed a boycott of Arab produced commodities.18 The Constitution of the Jewish Agency (1929), Art. HI, declared: "Land is to be acquired as Jewish property... [and] held as the inalienable property of the Jewish people. The Agency shall promote agricultural colonisation based on Jewish labour, and in all works or undertakings carried out or furthered by the Agency, it shall be deemed to be a matter of principle that Jewish labour shall be employed...." The Keren Kayemeth lease contained the restrictive covenant based on race that the holding shall never be held by any but a Jew and that only Jewish labor could be employed in connection with cultivation of the holding. Jewish lessees who hired or attempted to sell rights to Arabs were to have their own leases terminated.19

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Peace
Date: 07 May 09 - 06:32 PM

Makes a guy want to puke.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 09 - 06:05 PM

Muslims who fight for the "right" of Israelis to commit genocide on the Palestinians and wage a brutal military occupation of their land, yes, just as Jewish resistance fighters (notice how we call them "resistance fighters" rather than terrorists) did to collaborators during World War II.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 May 09 - 05:48 PM

From the 1922 Mandate:

"ART. 6.
The Administration of Palestine ... shall facilitate Jewish immigration under suitable conditions and shall encourage, in co-operation with the Jewish agency referred to in Article 4, close settlement by Jews on the land, including State lands and waste lands not required for public purposes. "


So who is being displaced???

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 May 09 - 05:42 PM

"After the partition, Transjordan remained part of the Palestine Mandate and its legal system applied to all residents, both East and West of the Jordan River, who all carried Palestine Mandate passports. Palestine Mandate currency was the legal tender in Transjordan as well as the area West of the river. This was the consistent situation until 1946, 24 years later, when Britain completed the action by unilaterally granting Transjordan its independence. Thus the British subverted the purpose of the Palestine Mandate, partitioned Palestine and created an independent Palestine-Arab state with no regard for the rights and needs of the Jewish population.

According to Sir Alec Kirkbride, the British representative in the area, Transjordan was:

... intended to serve as a reserve of land for use in the resettlement of Arabs once the National Home for the Jews in Palestine, which [Britain was] pledged to support, became an accomplished fact. There was no intention at that stage of forming the territory east of the River Jordan into an independent Arab state.
In 1925, the British added 60,000 sq. km. of desert to eastern Transjordan forming an "arm" of land to connect Transjordan with Iraq and to cut Syria off from the Arabian Peninsula. The British continued to favor exclusive Arab development east of the Jordan River by enacting restrictive regulations against the Jews, even when Arab leaders sought Jewish involvement in the development of Transjordan."

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Riginslinger
Date: 07 May 09 - 05:41 PM

Frankly, it doesn't sound like a very pleasant place!

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 May 09 - 04:32 PM

"For Jews, the consequences for doing this kind of work often includes being ostracized from family and the Jewish community, which can be an incredibly painful thing."

And for Moslim Palestinians who work for the rights of the Israelis the consequences are torture and death.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 May 09 - 02:33 PM

But T, don't you know that Jews are not allowed to fight back when attacked?


BTW, why is it no-one addresses the fact that Ramallah, which is now the seat of the (Moslim) Plaestinian government was a Christian town back in 1948, when my (past) neighbors were driven out of the West Bank ( for being Christian)?

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Teribus
Date: 07 May 09 - 02:07 PM

Carol you wouldn't know a fact if it jumped up and bit you.

"What the peasants (fellahin) experienced was that strangers from Europe were suddenly showing up and taking their homes and farms. This is a fact, and is a big part of the reason for the conflict."

No Carol what the fellahin experienced and witnessed was that strangers given useless land by the Ottomans made that land productive, either by turning it to agriculture or by transforming it into communities that prospered through trade and industry. No Arabs were thrown out of their homes and farms, in fact quite the reverse was the case in 1920; 1921; 1929; 1936 - 1939 & again in 1947 but in that year the Jews started to fight back having been offered a nation by the UN they accepted the UN's 1947 plan and the State of Israel came into being in May 1948 when the old League of Nations Mandate expired.

Now the Arabs want to turn the clock back to 1947, but they still will not offer the State of Israel peace.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 09 - 01:09 PM

This is why it's not going to happen...

At the AIPAC Policy Conference

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: Riginslinger
Date: 07 May 09 - 12:39 PM

"Absoloutely. We already control the U.S. government, the Canadian government, the European Union, NATO, etc.
The only thing we're having trouble with is the United Nations and Mudcat Cafe. That'll come though."


                I suppose anything is possible, once the media is thoroughly under control.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 09 - 11:32 AM

Calling me names doesn't change the facts. What the peasants (fellahin) experienced was that strangers from Europe were suddenly showing up and taking their homes and farms. This is a fact, and is a big part of the reason for the conflict. That was their experience and no amount of legalese type of arguing will ever change that, and trying to sweep it under the rug by obscuring it under a pile of legalese language, while at the same time denying the existence of these people, not only smacks of racism and bigotry, it is actually quite racist and bigoted.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 09 - 11:26 AM

I should have used the term "alienated" rather than ostracized in my last post.

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 07 May 09 - 11:26 AM

The Mudcat Cafe is anything but kosher.

Too much conflict between those with an hasidic wit (arf arf) and those who do nothing but swine ...

... besides - the dominant fait here is the church of the flying pig ...

Subject: RE: BS: Israel Moves in.
From: CarolC
Date: 07 May 09 - 11:22 AM

While I think that comment was made in jest, I think it's also important to point out that as with Muslims, there is no monolithic entity of Jewishness. Take a look at the people in the links I've been providing. The vast majority of them are Jewish, and they are fighting just as hard for the rights of Palestinians and for an end to Israeli aggression as I am, and some of them are fighting a lot harder, and making huge sacrifices.

For Jews, the consequences for doing this kind of work often includes being ostracized from family and the Jewish community, which can be an incredibly painful thing. In the Mondoweiss blog, one of the owners and contributers, Philip Weiss, was blacklisted for doing this work, and his successful career as an investigative journalist has been effectively ended.

These people deserve our gratitude and not our contempt, even if it's only in jest.