BS: A very Arab obsession

Subject: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: Wolfgang
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 02:26 PM

A very Arab obsession.

I thought it an interesting article from Al-Ahram written by a Palestinian woman living in England.
In a nutshell: Paranoia and wild imaginings can be comforting when faced with overwhelming state power and pure brute force....The question that must challenge the Arab world today is how to check this dangerous slide into paranoia and self-defeating religious bigotry.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: Peg
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 02:56 PM

that's it! it's all in their imagination!

If this woman is living in England she hardly knows what it's like to be living in a war zone at the moment, does she?

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 02:59 PM

That's a very interesting article, Wolfgang. I wish she had spent some time talking about what she sees as being possible solutions to the problems she mentions. I'm guessing that would have been interesting as well.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: Wolfgang
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 03:18 PM

Carol, well, she can't talk about everything in a short article.
Her solution is a one-state solution in very short, a bit more in a review of one of her many books about the Palestine question.

Peg, sorry, my link must have lead to somewhere else on your computer. Funny things like that happen.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: Ebbie
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 03:51 PM

Interesting article. There sure aren't many answers anywhere, are there.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: artbrooks
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 04:02 PM

Peg, since she starts her article with "On a trip to Jordan undertaken this month just as the illegal Israeli attack on Syria took place, and in the shadow of the succeeding savage Israeli assault on Gaza that killed and maimed scores of Palestinians, I found myself in a gathering of people in Amman concerned at these developments." it would seem that she is not entirely isolated in the safety of England.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 04:41 PM

Thank you very much for that second link, Wolfgang.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: Peg
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 04:50 PM

She may not be isolated, but she no longer lives in the world she speaks of, either, so to speak of the situation as an analyst is very different from speaking of it as a resident.
.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 04:54 PM

I recommend reading the second link, Peg. Her view is certainly colored by her experiences in other places besides Palestine, but she gives a very compelling narrative nonetheless.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: Amos
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 05:27 PM

The premise that all of Israel was stolen from the larger then-Palestine is not entirely correct. A lot of the territory was actually bought and paid for. The problem I have is not knowing exactly what occurred when in the territory. I don't know what was sold and what was stolen and by whom, when.

A

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 05:33 PM

I don't know the whole story either.

I do know it is not Israelis who are blowing themselves up for money to kill innocent people in the name of a god.

I also know there is no one from Israel using a facsimile of the word "jihad"

I also know that Israel is a country that has educated citizens and has an economy that relies on commerce and industry.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 05:46 PM

It wasn't the Palestinians who were paid for it, generally, Amos. It was absentee landlords who were paid. Even though the displaced Palestinians had been living on and farming that land for centuries.

Martin Gibson, the Palestinians don't really fit that description for the most part either. Those kinds of glib platitudes really do have their source in a culture (our Western culture) that promotes racism (or prejudice, or bigotry, if you don't like the word racism in this instance) against Arabs, Muslims, and most especially, Palestinians.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 05:52 PM

BTW, Martin Gibson, the Palestinians, as a people, are one of the most highly educated groups of people in the world. And the people in the Palestinian Occupied Territories have an economy that is based on commerce and industry. The problem is that the aparthied system that Israel imposes upon them is crushing their industry, their business, their livelihood, and their economy. And none of it has anything to do with religion. There are Jewish Palestinians and Christian Palestinians as well as Muslim Palestinians.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 05:56 PM

Lord knows Martin Gibson and I have butted heads a few times. He has usually won because his head is much harder and thicker than mine. (That was meant to be funny, MG.) This time, I agree with him. The Palestinians have been pawns of the various states surrounding them. Israel has made peace overtures in the past. No resolution has ever been reached because it is not in the best interest of hate-mongers to allow peace to happen between Israelis and Palestinians. The Israelis are not the problem. Let's maybe look at countries that have more money than goodwill who cannot find enough cash to help Palestinians build. The Israelis certainly have the technological knowhow, and they would help. They know that the best way to get rid of an enemy is to turn him into a friend.

Bruce Murdoch

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 06:06 PM

Most Israelis want peace, brucie. But the government of Israel wants only land. And their end game (they have stated this themselves), is the removal of all Palestinians from Israel and the Occupied Territories. This is why there will never be peace in the region.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 06:12 PM

I wouldn't like it if someone came and said: "I'm going to take your house and garden, but I'll pay you for it." Would you? (and if not, what's your address, please?)

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 06:55 PM

True, Carol, but neither have the governments ostensibly friendly to the "Palestinian State" been of any help. I do know that many Israelis feel as we do. Enough is enough. Please believe me when I say that it brings no honour to the world when people of whatever country die because of hatred. Allow me to extend your well-stated words just a bit: Good people of whatever language, religion and nationality want this to end, NOW!

I don't mean to sound patronizing when I say the following: You would be a good peacemaker. BM

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 08:12 PM

Good people of whatever language, religion and nationality want this to end, NOW!

I agree with this completely.

I will disagree with the rest of the first paragraph in this regard... it's not really hate that drives this situation. It's something much more cold-blooded than that. The way I see it, it's a very similar situation to what was done to the indigenous people of the Americas by the Europeans. The Europeans who were pulling the strings didn't really hate the First Nations people. They just wanted them gone (or at the very least, out of sight). But they used hate as a tool to accomplish their ends.

I don't mean to sound patronizing when I say the following: You would be a good peacemaker. BM

Thank you, brucie. That's very kind of you.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: mg
Date: 13 Jan 04 - 08:20 PM

I think we have no hope of understanding the situation until we understand the love some people have of particular, exact, pieces of land...their own orange or olive grove that has been in the family for what seems to them forever. Other land won't do. Ultimately it must...those of us who are detached from our ancestral lands, as is anyone whose family immigrated to N.A., can't understand this. We can't understand our own native people and why centuries later they are still mourning the Wallowa hills or Okeefonokee swamps...but it is a real emotion that has to be acknowledged and respected, even if things have gone too far in another direction for it to be gratified....

mg

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: LadyJean
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 01:26 AM

There are plenty of Americans on the left and the right who believe in conspiracies, that are just as absurd. Jim Quinn, who I remember as an A.M. disk jockey playing tunes like "Crimson and Clover", now packs a gun, wears camoflage, and talks about black helicopters on his radio show. Apparently it isn't a gimmick. He believes the stuff he says.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 04:42 AM

I don't agree with much in the second link I just wanted to show where she comes from.

I agree with much what she writes in the first link, as a general observation how people under some conditions can slip into a paranoidal mindset. I didn't like the title (maybe it was not her title, you never know that with newspapers) and I have hesitated a lot before making it the thread title. I think the word 'Arab' in the title makes it a bit looking like this was a predisposition particularly in these people and not something which could happen to others as well under similar circumstances. Perhaps a certain type of religion reinforces such a mindset, but I don't know.

When I recall for instance the posts by Dreaded Guest, I see signs of a similar mindset also in the Mudcat world.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: Wolfgang
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 06:49 AM

This Guardian article (In 1948, thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in what is now Israel, and became refugees. Both sides have blamed each other ever since. But new documents show neither is entirely innocent)

argues convincingly (for me) why a one-state solution would be disastrous despite its initial appeal.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: mg
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 03:42 PM

Well, Arab isn't a religion. Palestinian isn't a religion...and according to at least what used to be affirmative action programs in U.S., Arab wasn't even a recognized ethnicity, which I kept trying to point out to various academic officials.... mg

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 04:05 PM

That's an interesting article in the Guardian today, the one Wolfgang linked to.

However there are some assumptions in it that shouldn't be swallowed without chewing. For example, see this quote towards the end:

(The return of Palestinian refugees) would lead to the conversion of the country into an Arab-majority state, from which the (remaining) Jews would steadily emigrate. Would Jews really wish to live as second-class citizens in an authoritarian Muslim-dominated, Arab-ruled state?...But this "right of return" needs to be weighed against the right to life and well-being of the five million Jews who currently live in Israel, about half of whom were born in the country, have known no other country and have no other homeland. Wouldn't the destruction or, at the least, the forced displacement of these 5 million - and this would be the necessary upshot of a mass Palestinian refugee return, whatever Arab spokesmen say...

In other words, the idea that there could ever be a democratic country country shared between Jews and Arabs is seen as absurd. And yet that is precisely what many founding Zionists were hoping for. If there had been no war in 1948, and no refugees, that is what would have been achieved.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 06:10 PM

I agree with McGrath that Zionism has not been frozen in stone from it's inception.

The only solution to the problem as I see it is a one-state country.
Today Palestinians are second-class citizens in a theocratic-based country. That there would be emnity in this between the two political forces is uncertain.

What some would claim as an obsession, others might see as an appeal to justice. The Hamas component makes it difficult for this stand-off to keep this from being a religious war. The "jihad" is an interpretation of the Koran applied by some militant Palestinians.

The history of Judaism under the Ottoman Empire is not one of second-class citizenship. This has to be reserved for the conquering Christians to later denegrate Judaism, placing their cathedrals over synagogues turned to rubble by invaders.

THere is a cognitive disonance on the part of a schizophrenic Israel
who reveres the noble notion of justice under Judaism and the subjugation of Palestinians in their land.

One state would be for the benefit of both sides.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: artbrooks
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 07:14 PM

The "conquering Christians" BTW, were before the Ottoman Empire, if that refers to the unlamented Crusaders. The Ottomen Empire was not conquered until 1921.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 14 Jan 04 - 11:58 PM

This link is to a website for an organization called, Jewish Voice for Peace. There are many very good Jewish human rights and peace organizations and also very good Palestinian human rights and peace organizations, as well as joint Jewish/Israeli - Palestinian human rights and peace organizations.

I didn't start taking a good look at this one until yesterday, so I haven't used the information in their site very much, if at all, prior to now. I think it's definitely worth checking out. I'm thinking about possibly joining this organization myself, if they'll accept people who aren't Jewish. I'm guessing they probably will.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: GUEST,pdc
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 01:19 AM

Upthread, someone said: "I also know that Israel is a country that has educated citizens and has an economy that relies on commerce and industry."

And on the US.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: mg
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 02:10 AM

that is probably more of where the clash comes from than from religion...people who do commerce and industry are most likely to be unaware of the passion people feel for the exact land..although many probably are of farming heritage themselves...and probably do understand...farmers displacing farmers would probably have done things differently, or at least more apologetically, than those involved in commerce and industry...... mg

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 10:21 AM

In the Guardian article, Benny Morris (whose historic research I very much appreciate) says this:

"Neither can one avoid the standard Zionist rebuttal: "No war - no Palestinian refugee problem", meaning that the problem wasn't created by the Zionists but by the Arabs themselves, and stemmed directly from their violent assault on Israel. Had the Palestinians and the Arab states refrained from launching a war to destroy the emergent Jewish state, there would have been no refugees and none would exist today."

This kind of editorializing isn't one of his strengths. The fact is that the Arab forces were fighting only over land granted to the Palestinians in the partition plan. Israel has always had a policy to never fight any battles on Israeli land. Israel wasn't defending itself against the Arabs in the 1948 war. Quite the reverse is true. The Arabs were defending themselves against the Israelis in the 1948 war:

Statehood and Expulsion 1948

What was the Arab reaction to the announcement of the creation of the state of Israel?

"The armies of the Arab states entered the war immediately after the State of Israel was founded in May. Fighting continued, almost all of it within the territory assigned to the Palestinian state...About 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled in the 1948 conflict."

"The Arab League hastily called for its member countries to send regular army troops into Palestine. They were ordered to secure only the sections of Palestine given to the Arabs under the partition plan. But these regular armies were ill equipped and lacked any central command to coordinate their efforts...[Jordan's King Abdullah] promised [the Israelis and the British] that his troops, the Arab Legion, the only real fighting force among the Arab armies, would avoid fighting with Jewish settlements...Yet Western historians record this as the moment when the young state of Israel fought off "the overwhelming hordes' of five Arab countries. In reality, the Israeli offensive against the Palestinians intensified."

Benny Morris has changed his tone a bit on the Zionist leaders position on ehtnic cleansing. In some of his previous works he has this to say about it:

Ethnic cleansing - continued

"Following the outbreak of 1936, no mainstream (Zionist) leader was able to conceive of future coexistence without a clear physical separation between the two peoples - achievable only by transfer and expulsion. Publicly they all continued to speak of coexistence and to attribute the violence to a small minority of zealots and agitators. But this was merely a public pose..Ben Gurion summed up: 'With compulsory transfer we (would) have a vast area (for settlement)...I support compulsory transfer. I don't see anything immoral in it,'" Israel historian, Benny Morris, "Righteous Victims."

Ethnic cleansing - continued

"Ben-Gurion clearly wanted as few Arabs as possible to remain in the Jewish state. He hoped to see them flee. He said as much to his colleagues and aides in meetings in August, September and October [1948]. But no [general] expulsion policy was ever enunciated and Ben-Gurion always refrained from issuing clear or written expulsion orders; he preferred that his generals 'understand' what he wanted done. He wished to avoid going down in history as the 'great expeller' and he did not want the Israeli government to be implicated in a morally questionable policy...But while there was no 'expulsion policy', the July and October [1948] offensives were characterized by far more expulsions and, indeed, brutality towards Arab civilians than the first half of the war." Benny Morris, "The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949"

More on the subject of Zionist leaders and ethnic cleansing:

"Joseph Weitz was the director of the Jewish National Land Fund...On December 19, 1940, he wrote: 'It must be clear that there is no room for both peoples in this country...The Zionist enterprise so far...has been fine and good in its own time, and could do with 'land buying' - but this will not bring about the State of Israel; that must come all at once, in the manner of a Salvation (this is the secret of the Messianic idea); and there is no way besides transferring the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer them all; except maybe for Bethlehem, Nazareth and Old Jerusalem, we must not leave a single village, not a single tribe'...There were literally hundreds of such statements made by Zionists."

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: GUEST,Carol C.
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 03:13 PM

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 03:21 PM

Sorry about that, Carol C. I didn't mean to put you as a Guest, just typed your name in the wrong place.

Carol C.

It is you who sounds racist, perhaps anti -semetic. It's this kind of Israel bashing that scares the crap out of Jews everywhere because it is now coming from the left-wing.

Sorry, it is Palestinians I am talking about. Here is from today's Chicago Sun-Times. I am sick of PALESTINIANS blowing themselves up in the name of religion. It is sick. It is murder. It is FUCKING IGNORANT!

EREZ CROSSING, Gaza Strip -- A Palestinian blew herself up Wednesday at the Israel-Gaza border, killing three Israeli soldiers and a private security guard and signaling a new tactic by Hamas militants, who had never before dispatched a female suicide bomber.

Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin said the use of a woman was unique for the Islamic group, but holy war ''is an obligation of all Muslims, men and women.''

Israel said it would temporarily close the crossing to Palestinians, preventing thousands of workers from reaching an Israeli-Palestinian industrial zone that is one of the last vestiges of cooperation between the two peoples after more than three years of violence.

The army said four of the seven people wounded in the attack were Palestinians.

The bombing came as efforts to restart peace negotiations remained stalled, with Israel's leaders threatening to impose a new boundary between Israel and the Palestinians if no progress is made soon.

Violence over the last 39 months has killed 2,618 people on the Palestinian side and 909 on the Israeli side.

At the Erez crossing Wednesday morning, a woman identified as Reem Raiyshi, 22, told soldiers she would set off a metal detector because she had an implant to repair a broken leg. She was taken to a special room for a search, where she set off the bomb, said Maj. Sharon Feingold, a military spokeswoman.

''I heard soldiers screaming; the blast was very strong,'' said a Palestinian who identified herself only as Amena.

After the explosion, a makeshift checkpoint structure of corrugated metal had a large hole in the roof, and destroyed desks and computers were scattered nearby.

Two of the dead were immigrants from the former Soviet Union.

The bombing was claimed by Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a group linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement. Before the attack, Raiyshi made a video standing before two Hamas flags.

''This is an indication that resistance will continue,'' Yassin said.

Using a woman as a bomber was aimed at piercing Israeli security, which mainly focuses on men as possible attackers. Other militant groups have used women to carry out bombings, but Hamas had not done so.

''It is possible that the fact that today's attack was carried out by a woman could mean Hamas is having trouble using men to carry out attacks on Israeli targets,'' said Boaz Ganor, an Israeli counterterrorism expert.

Raiyshi had a daughter, Doha, 18 months, and a son, Obedia, 3. Her brother-in-law Yusef Awad said Raiyshi and her husband got in a fight with the rest of the family two months ago and had not been seen since.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: mg
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 03:32 PM

has the U.S. ever offered to take a number of immigrants from Palestine in to ease the population pressure? I (perhaps mistakenly) believe that part of the problem is the refusal of Palestinians to immigrate..but I quite know I could be wrong on this..perhaps a new generation will. I know at least the older generation was skilled at orchardry etc. and suggested bringing some of them to Eastern Washington..home of many (economically struggling sometimes) orchards...and the woman I was riding with said.."would we want them here?" I guess she saw terrorists and I saw farmers... They would of course have to be screened...very carefully... mg

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: TIA
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 03:44 PM

Heard a twentysomething Iraqi in the new Civil Defense Force interviewed on NPR yesterday about the recent (latest) suicide bombing of an Iraqi police station. Not sure I heard correctly, but he seemed to be saying that many Iraqis believe that the U.S. is behind the bombings because they are trying to foment discord between the Shiites and Sunnis, but at the same time, the bombing was justified because it was consistent with bin Laden's call to attack Americans and any who assist them. My God what a muddled viewpoint. I'm looking for a transcript in hopes that I misunderstood. I'm NOT saying that Arabs are muddled, but it makes me wonder how many others think like this, and if they do, what hope is there for peace in the middle east?

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: mg
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 03:51 PM

there is always hope up until the last minute. For one thing, look at how much less influence the Catholic religion has on people these days..including me...and that has happened in my generation....we used to be quite similar in terms of expected behavior etc.   And we were trained to be martyrs..no lie...not in an active way..but passively..victims, not victees. mg

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 04:38 PM

It is possible to argue that the flight of the refugees from Israel, and from the Palestinian territories which were at that time annexed to Israel, was not the result of a pre-determined ethnic cleansing plan, but the kind of things that happens in wars. And of course it possible to argue the reverse. It's a complicated matter.

However what is not open to argument is that the State of Israel refused to allow refugees to return home after the war was ended. It was that decision that institutionalised the refugee problem, and is at the root of the continuing tragedy. It was an act of retrospective ethnic cleansing, and continues to be so to this day.

And of course there is another side to all this, and of course the way in which Palestinians have adopted the nightmare tactics of suicide atrocities is a kind of madness, and a terrible evil. And nothing can change until they recognise that. But nothing can change either without the recognition by Israel and by the friends of Israel that a terrible and continuing crime has been committed against the people of the Holy Land.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:03 PM

Martin Gibson, if I'm an anti-Semite, then I'm in very good company, because there are a hell of a lot of Jews who are saying exactly the same things I'm saying. In fact, I get most of my information from Jewish human rights organizations. If you look into the link I provided about the 1949 war, you'll see that it is a Jewish website. Are these Jews anti-Semites?

Here's what they have to say on the subject:

Any criticism of Israel is traditionally seen by American Jews as harmful to the Jewish people, even if the criticism is true. But "my people, right or wrong, my people" is no different than "my country, right or wrong, my country". Once we start down the slippery slope where the ends justify the means we have left behind any claim to morality. Along with millions of other American Jews unaffiliated with the major U.S. Jewish organizations, we are outraged at the Israeli government's ongoing oppression of the Palestinians and feel that it has been the ruination of the high moral standing of the Jewish people.

CONCLUSION I For Jewish Readers

Calling everyone who criticizes the government of Israel an anti-Semite makes exactly the same amount of sense as calling everyone who criticizes the government of the US anti-American. And I make a point of criticizing the US government whenever I think it is in the wrong. Since the US government and the government of Israel are making me complicit in their crimes against humanity by using my tax dollars for these things, I have a responsibility as a human being to speak up about it. And so do you.

Here's what the the Jews who belong to Jewish Voice for Peace have to say about using the charge of anti-Semitism in the way you have:

Jews have a special role to play in bringing about a change in American and Israeli policy. Israel claims to be acting in the name of the Jewish people, and it is up to us to make sure the world knows that many of us are opposed to their actions. More importantly, as long as even legitimate criticism of Israel is blocked by accusations of anti-Semitism, it is the responsibility of Jews to stand up for universal justice. Because we are Jews, we have a particular legitimacy in voicing an alternative view of American and Israeli actions and policies. As Jews, we can make the distinction between real anti-Semitism and the cynical manipulation of that issue to shield Israel from legitimate criticism.

Jewish Voice for Peace

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:06 PM

Pardon me: If you look into the link I provided about the 1948 war...

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: artbrooks
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:15 PM

Another factor to be considered is the thousands of Jewish citizens expelled from the Arab states after the 1948 war...yet another example of "ethnic cleansing."

The unfortunate fact is that attempting to solve the Israeli/Palestinian issues based upon history, whether that history is based upon fact or folklore, has about as much chance of success as does doing the same in the Balkans. All of the sides involved, and there are many more than two, need to be willing to negotiate from today rather than from 70, 638, 1492, 1897, 1917, 1948 or 1967. Unfortunately, none of them are.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:16 PM

...and lastly - BTW, Benny Morris is an Israeli Jew.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:35 PM

What the hell. This part is worth posting in its entirety:

CONCLUSION I
For Jewish Readers

As we have seen, the root cause of the Palestine-Israel conflict is clear. During the 1948 war, 750,000 Palestinians fled in terror or were actively expelled from their ancestral homeland and turned into refugees. The state of Israel then refused to allow them to return and either destroyed their villages entirely or expropriated their land, orchards, houses, businesses and personal possessions for the use of the Jewish population. This was the birth of the state of Israel.

We know it is hard to accept emotionally, but in this case the Jewish people are in the wrong.We took most of Palestine by force from the Arabs and blamed the victims for resisting their dispossession. If you run into someone's car, for whatever reason, simple justice demands that you repair it. Our moral obligation to the Palestinian people is no less clear. It is time for all Jewish people of good conscience to make whatever amends are possible to the Palestinians in order to live up to the best part of the Jewish tradition - its ethical and moral basis.

Any criticism of Israel is traditionally seen by American Jews as harmful to the Jewish people, even if the criticism is true. But "my people, right or wrong, my people" is no different than "my country, right or wrong, my country". Once we start down the slippery slope where the ends justify the means we have left behind any claim to morality. Along with millions of other American Jews unaffiliated with the major U.S. Jewish organizations, we are outraged at the Israeli government's ongoing oppression of the Palestinians and feel that it has been the ruination of the high moral standing of the Jewish people.

The Israeli government could solve the Palestine/Israel crisis tomorrow. It actually would be in the best interests of its citizens to do so because random acts of terrorism against Israelis would cease if Palestinian demands for a viable, independent state were accepted and compensation for Arab losses made.

Here in America, we Jews are thoroughly assimilated into the mainstream of society and hold positions of power and influence in every field of endeavor. We do not need to be in a defensive mood anymore. We can afford to change out attitude from "is it good the the Jews?" to "Is it good?" At the very least, American Jews need to categorically state that we cannot condone Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian land, and the intentional murder and crippling of Palestinian protestors armed only with rocks, as documented in reports by the UN Security Council, the UN Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Israeli groups like B'Tselem, etc.

According to a survey commissioned by the five largest American Jewish organizations, but suppressed by them afterwards, 20% of American Jews support Palestinian demands and 35% say that Jerusalem should be shared. This, in the face of a near-total blackout of the Palestinian position in our press, is very impressive. Join this growing segment of American Jews by contacting Not In My Name, at www.nimn.org, a group that is spearheading a coalition of Jewish groups to protest the Israeli occupation.

Israel's long-term interests can best be served by supporting Israeli peace groups, like Gush Shalom (www.gush.shalom.org), not the Israeli government and its brutal repression, which just leads to endless violence. Israeli peace groups rightfully criticize their government and we should too, since they claim to act in our name. American groups like the Jewish Peace Lobby, Jewish Voice For Peace and the Middle East Children's Alliance also deserve your support. Don't compromise yout ethics in blind support of bad politics--work for a just soultion instead.

Please write for more free copies of this booklet to the address on the back page and ask your Jewish friends to consider the information presented here. For everyone's sake. Peace.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: artbrooks
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 05:58 PM

Bennie Morris is a historian. Here is more of Professor Morris, from a January 9, 2004 interview:

"There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide - the annihilation of your people - I prefer ethnic cleansing."

Q: And that was the situation in 1948?

"That was the situation. That is what Zionism faced. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on."

Q: The term `to cleanse' is terrible.

"I know it doesn't sound nice but that's the term they used at the time. I adopted it from all the 1948 documents in which I am immersed."

Q: What you are saying is hard to listen to and hard to digest. You sound hard-hearted.

"I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard tragedy. I feel sympathy for the refugees themselves. But if the desire to establish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there was no other choice. It was impossible to leave a large fifth column in the country. From the moment the Yishuv [pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine] was attacked by the Palestinians and afterward by the Arab states, there was no choice but to expel the Palestinian population. To uproot it in the course of war.

"Remember another thing: the Arab people gained a large slice of the planet. Not thanks to its skills or its great virtues, but because it conquered and murdered and forced those it conquered to convert during many generations. But in the end the Arabs have 22 states. The Jewish people did not have even one state. There was no reason in the world why it should not have one state. Therefore, from my point of view, the need to establish this state in this place overcame the injustice that was done to the Palestinians by uprooting them."

Q: And morally speaking, you have no problem with that deed?

"That is correct.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 07:19 PM

I saw an interview with Benny Morris some time not too long after the Isreli military incursions into the Occupied Territories in the spring of 2002. He said that his attitude on the subject of Palestinians and peace between Israel and the Palestinians had changed radically because of Arafat "walking away from" the best offer he could possibly have gotten from Ehud Barak.

A lot of Israelis, like Morris, who prior to that time had hope in the peace process, lost all hope and just gave up on any kind of peace process as a result of that lie, which they were told by President Clinton and Prime Minister Barak. I have documented that lie in this post. In my opinion, that lie is responsibe for the deaths of many, many innocent Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinians.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 07:40 PM

The trouble with saying "But if the desire to establish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there was no other choice (than ethnic cleansing" is logically identical with its obverse, which would be: "If the Jewish state here could not be established without ethnic cleansing, the desire to establish it here could not be legitimate."

And a statement like "It was impossible to leave a large fifth column in the country" would seem to imply support for the minority Israeli view that Palestinians living in Israel today should be expelled to complete the process of ethnic cleansing."

In the long term that way of thinking threatens the future survival of Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: GUEST,Frank Hamilton
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 09:19 PM

The idea that Palestinians should be ethnically cleansed to preserve a Jewish state dooms Israel as a democracy. This sounds like a theocracy. Once again, religion comes to the fore.

I am also disturbed by the attitude of the Sharon government toward suppressing Refusniks. In the US they would be legal as conscientious objectors.

My maternal and paternal grandparents on my mother's side were Jewish.
I am proud of their accomplishments and I could become a citizen of Israel because of this lineage. So you might say (although I'm not a religious Jew but have this heritage) that I don't join in the
view that Israel is being compromised by rapprochment with Palestinians. In fact, it's Israel's only hope and I really believe that deep down the Israeli people know that also. They have to find a way to live with their neighbors successfully or perish. Don't count on the Bush Administration to bail them out. Not that much oil in Israel.

Hamas is making a religious point. It's crazy but these suicide bombers come from committed acolytes of a distorted view of the
Koran. There are heavenly rewards.

Israel's militant theocracy must give way to something reasonable.
Separation of Church and State. I don't believe Judaism in this
way would be compromised at all.

Ironic that Shalom and Salaam mean the same thing.

Frank

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson
Date: 15 Jan 04 - 11:59 PM

You really don't get it.

Carol C. You can print off all of the web site shit and propoganda all you want, much of it is quite unreadable and a total waste of time.

None of you appear to be part of the Jewish community like I am. Israel is the only true democracy in the middle east and though not perfect is the only true point of sanity.

There will never be separation of church and state as Israel was given to the Jews by God. It is the promised land, remember? No one is blowing themselves up over it though, are they?

Whether it's the Bush group or anyone else who gets in, even Democrats, the US will always support Israel. The Jewish community is too well educated, too wealthy to not let that happen. We are only 2% of the population but there is a lot of clout. Please deal with this.

Frank, just because your grandparents were Jewish doesn't mean you have all of this insight into what is going on in the minds of the Israeli population. It's far from a question of oil in Israel. No matter who is in office Bush, or Clinton before him Israel will be supported by this country. It might be the lesser of two evils, but it's a lot lesser.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 12:19 AM

No, you don't get it, Mr. Gibson. It's the policies of the Israeli government that is causing the deaths of so many innocent Israeli Jews. Maybe you don't give a shit about dead Palestinians. Maybe you believe that the only good Palestinian is a dead Palestinian. But for the sake of your brothers and sisters in Israel, you need to face up to reality.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: CarolC
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 12:56 AM

No one is blowing themselves up over it though, are they?

True enough. But they're blowing up a hell of a lot of other people over it instead.

And I'd be willing to bet that if a group of people showed up in your town with their holy book, saying that your neighborhood had been given to them by God, and they presented their holy book as proof, I'd be willing to bet money you wouldn't give it to them. In fact, I'd even wager that you would do your best to try to defend it from them.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: Sandina
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 03:21 AM

OK, I'd like to weigh in here. I'm a Jew on both sides of my family, and a liberal as well. Here's how I see it: both sides' views are fundamentally flawed. I think that the only viable solution is two states, with a shared (perhaps internationally and neutrally monitored) Jerusalem. It is a disgrace indeed that the non-Jewish occupants of what became Israel after 1948 are treated as third-class citizens by the government of Israel, but Ariel Sharon is NOT Israel. The militant Jewish settlers on the West Bank are NOT representative of the Israeli people and they certainly don't speak for the majority of Jews worldwide. But the Likud is terrified of the fanatical religious right (gee, I wonder whether another reactionary political party on this side of the pond is too?) and keeps sucking up to them in the Knesset to keep a shaky and spurious "coalition" going.
But sorry, folks, the State of Israel has a right to exist in some form in the Levant (I hate to use the term "Palestine" or "Palestinians," because they've become so fraught with connotations beyond any geographically correct description). The Jews were expelled centuries ago by the Romans, the early Christians, and the post-Mohammed Muslims alike---and no less unfairly than what happened to the Arab occupants of the area since 1948. Whereas Islam has spread freely throughout the world, Jews have been chased for millennia from country to country and persecuted and exterminated by the *millions* for no other reason than the insane and unjustified threat our ethnicity posed and poses to the majority peoples of our "host" countries. The Holocaust does not give Israel the right to oppress other peoples, but a majority of members of the United Nations felt it did justify the creation of a nation where Jews would be forever safe--in the land from which we were unjustifiedly expelled.
I think the most cogent and sensible viewpoint on this issue is expressed by the NY Times' Thomas Friedman: Israel has a right to exist in its Biblical homeland. Muslims and Arab Christians have a right to exist there too. But each group must have its own sovereignty. Israel is not going away, and it is insulting, simplistic and racist to insist that 1948 should never have happened and that we should all go back to Europe. But it is also insulting and paternalistic to treat the Arab population of the area as less than human. Israel must retreat to its pre-June-1967 borders--BUT it must be allowed to be safe and secure there. "The Occupied Territories" of the West Bank, Gaza, and Golan must be returned and the Jewish settlements dismantled--this gives Israel a terrifyingly narrow buffer, but it beats having no state at all. And the notion that all of Israel is an "occupied territory" is equally ludicrous, insulting, and racist.
I don't know where you've been getting the idea that Israel wants to expel all but Jews from the land--I repeat that the right-wing loonies of the Likud and Shas parties do NOT speak for the majority of Israelis. But it is undeniable that even mainstream Islam and Islamic states have as a goal the dismantling of any Jewish state and not just the expulsion but the extermination of Jews from the Levant. Take a look at magazines, maps, globes, and even official textbooks in the Muslim states and the territory under the aegis of the Palestinian Authority: not only are Jews caricatured as in the most venomous anti-Semitic propaganda of the Nazi and pre-Nazi eras, there IS NO ISRAEL on the maps and globes.
I am heartsick that my fellow progressives are so eager to swallow the anti-Jewish hate propaganda spewed by militant Islam (perhaps because it has a better and more vocal and determined PR apparatus--for instance, that infamous killing of a child in his father's arms at the start of the Intifadeh was finally proven to have been accomplished by Palestinian, not Israeli bullets, but that fact received far less press than the original spin). Face it, David is a far more romantic and appealing figure than Goliath. But the underdog is not always automatically right just because he's the underdog,
Finally, let's not kid ourselves that the Bush Administration has any altruistic, pro-Jewish motives in supporting Israel. Fundamentalist Christian end-times theology (to which most of the Bush Administration's core of power and support subscribes) requires a Jewish-held Holy Land in order for the second coming of Christ at the End of Days--and thereafter, everyone who does not accept Jesus will be destroyed. Gee, that gives me the warm fuzzies.
It's so tempting to say, a pox on both (all three of?) their houses. But the only way out of this mess is to give each side the dignity of its own secure sovereign state, however unsatisfying to each. As an attorney, I know I've engineered a good settlement when each side feels equally screwed.

Subject: RE: BS: A very Arab obsession
From: Wolfgang
Date: 16 Jan 04 - 06:07 AM

(Pedant's corner) McGrath, look up how "modus tollens" for the logical inclusion goes. Your reasoning is that from 'if A then B' follows 'If B, then not A'. Applying modus tollens in the above example comes up with the sentence 'If there was another choice (than ethnical cleansing), (then) the desire to establish a Jewish state here is not legitimate.' Doesn't make much sense on a content basis, but that's the correct logic. Please argue content (you're good at that, though I don't always agree) and not logic.

Now to content: Let me both answer Carol's last question (you once have asked me that directly, Carol) and put the problem of Palestinian refugees/evicted) in persective. I was too young then to be asked but neither my parents nor my great/grandmother were very glad when in a small house (today 2 people live in there) that already housed 4 generations with altogether 2 babies and 7 adults another family of 5 had to be given living room. Those people came from what nor is the western part of Poland and had been evicted. In 1950 (quite close in time to 1948), 8 Million Germans had been evicted from Poland, USSR and Chechoslovakia (allowed to take, in some parts, one suitcase of belongings per adult, in others up to one horse wagon for one family). Quite a big number in comparison with 700,000 Palestinians.

You may say, well, that was a consequence of the war (and worse crimes) for which the Germans have been responsible. I have a deep sympathy for that point of view. But for the millions of Polish people evicted from the Soviet Union (Poland gained land in the west and lost land in the east) that wouldn't hold. They were victims too in the war.

What happened with the millions of (not only German) refugees/forcefully exiled in Europe. Well, they are still living in camps at the borders near their former lands under the worst of conditions, have not been integrated among relations and compatriotes and from their camps make frequent attacks on the people now living where they once did live. They now number (counting everybody who had at least one evicted forefather/mother in direct line) 25 Millions in Germany alone and will, at the first possible opportunity regain all their former possessions. They are a constant threat to peace in Europe. Well, back from irony, the European example shows another way of dealing with such a situation. The willingness to integrate has done a lot for peace in Europe.

Jews have always lived in that area which is now Israel/Palestine (and in many Arab states as a minority). When the war and, more so, the holocaust, forced the Jews who were lucky enough not to fall into Nazi-German hands to flee their homes, many of them looked for a new home at a place were other Jews (and Arabs) were already living. Then the understandable wish came up (among Jews who always had lived there and those who had moved there recently, to have a state of their own. That's a secession and it has happened often in history. Look at the Tamil(s) right now or East Timor or the Kurds (soon) or Kosovo, or...

Usually, the pro secession part of the population is in the minority in the whole country. Often the whole country opposes the wish for secession (Great Britain, for instance). Eventually a secession is successful and then the secessionists get a smaller part of the former large country in which the minority is in the majority. Since the population before was mixed (though with the minority not evenly distributed) the border os the secession leaves at both sides many people who'd prefer to live at the other side. There are often clashes that lead to atrocities on both sides, to evictions and to fugitives.

The foundation of Israel was in my eyes a successful secession which has never been accepted as such up to now by all neighbours. After close to sixty years I'd wish for a bit more of accepting the realities by the Palestinians. Both sides have the understandable wish to live in a country made to their liking. What the Jews look for in a state where they want to wish is so far from what the Palestinians want that there is no peaceful altwernative but two states for a long time. Imagine for a moment a single big Palestinian state in which the quite soon to come Arab majority introduces the Sharia.

Wolfgang