Terrorism: Cause and Remedy [Archive]

Leon

03-21-2004, 05:42 PM

michael

03-22-2004, 06:20 AM

Thanks for your replies – most interesting. But I forgot something. I wonder if this will affect your opinions on the British MPs comments, that they were “a beautiful justification for mass murdering civilians - /sacasm off” or that “this barbarity very clearly defines the low level of consciousness such people inhabit”?

I do agree however, that often “such murderous actions are whole heartdly driven by extreme national and religious fanaticism”.

The British MP I quoted was Richard Crossman. He was writing about Jewish terrorism during the British Mandate.

Just to re-iterate, he commented that the best way to fight terrorism was to “remove the legitimate cause of grievance of every Jew in Palestine” and to “state objectively…the historical causes for the growth of this beastly phenomenon in a decent people”.

He also had something to say on a topic of contemporary interest. Certain British officials felt the Jewish Agency was being less than helpful so suggested replacing it. Crossman countered, “the replacement of the Jewish Agency by another organization” and the disarming of Jewish resistance “would merely provoke the Jews into a fanatical support of the extremists.” (-'Palestine Mission', Crossman, 1947)

It’s probably also a very accurate forecast of what will happen to support for Hamas in the light of Yassin’s death.

Mediocrates

03-22-2004, 06:32 AM

No not really, not unless you assume as I'm sure you will that the very existance of Israel is somehow dedicated to the extinction of Arabs. Anyway Hamas is fighting a political battle with the PA. Sowing anarchy between them can only be a good thing or are we sill on the jag that there are maybe 7 people in all of Palestine who can run the place?

michael

03-22-2004, 06:43 AM

Originally posted by Leon
Didnt the people of East Timor have a legitmate cause of grievance?
Where exactly did the East Timorese homicide bombers go? Were young and old indonesian civilians been sluaghtered in cafes and buses? East Timor is one of many examples and I use it because it is close to home (good old Australia).

If the assessment that Palestinian terrorism is driven by occupation and desperation was accurate than you would see more despereate and occuppied peoples around the world murdering innocent civilians.

Your ignorance is charming.

There were incidents of civilians murders by Fretilin in East Timor, around 150 in one infamous case.

More incidents of 'murdered innocent civilians'? - like Algerian terrorists in France, the IRA in England , Tamil suicide bombers in Sri Lanka, Chechyan terrorists in Moscow, suicide bombers in Iraq?

So I guess this proves your argument - " Palestinian terrorism is driven by occupation and desperation".

Mediocrates

03-22-2004, 06:50 AM

I imagine michael that if Hamas marched down the street and captured and killed a thousand toddlers you'd find a rationale to excuse it. Honestly if you simply want to clap and cheer over terrorism then so be it. I wish you and your hateful paranoia well.

IsraelAdvocate

03-22-2004, 10:12 PM

IsraelAdvocate

03-22-2004, 10:16 PM

Originally posted by michael
Your ignorance is charming.

There were incidents of civilians murders by Fretilin in East Timor, around 150 in one infamous case.

More incidents of 'murdered innocent civilians'? - like Algerian terrorists in France, the IRA in England , Tamil suicide bombers in Sri Lanka, Chechyan terrorists in Moscow, suicide bombers in Iraq?

So I guess this proves your argument - " Palestinian terrorism is driven by occupation and desperation".

Not True.
The so-called occupation did not even begin until 1967.
That being the case, if we follow your reasoning, then there should have been no Palestinian Terrorism before 1967.
In actuality, there has been Palestinian Terrorism for most of the last century, beginning with the first Jewish arrivals in Isael in the late 1800s. So, you cannot argue persuasively that Palestinain Terrorism is due to Israeli occupation.

IsraelAdvocate

03-22-2004, 10:26 PM

Originally posted by michael

It’s probably also a very accurate forecast of what will happen to support for Hamas in the light of Yassin’s death.

Yassin's death will not be the first, I promise you. Be patient.
More of your friends will follow.

In the mean-time, let's make a score card -

Shehada - Dead
Yassin - Dead
Barghouti - Imprisoned
Yasser Arafat - Imprisoned (in compound)
Yehiyeh Ayash - Dead

Saddam Husein - Imprisoned
Udah Hussein - Dead
Kussah Hussein - Dead
Osama Bin Laden - Soon to be Dead

TALIBAN - TOPPLED
BAATH PARTY - TOPPLED
Syrian BAATH PARTY - TOPPLED soon

By the way, Michael, SYRIA HAS BEHAVED VERY BADLY LATELY, TOWARD THE KURDS. ABOUT 20 KILLED IN RIOTS, AND NONE GIVEN THE RIGHT TO CITIZENSHIP OR PROPERTY.

Where is your bleeding heart now? I did not hear you or one European filth open his big mouth for them. It is only when Israel lifts a finger to defend its' self, do you protest.

.

Noam

03-22-2004, 10:48 PM

Leon

03-23-2004, 05:37 AM

Originally posted by michael [/i]
Your ignorance is charming.

Perhaps it is charming (to such an extent that the birds fall of the trees), but what is certain is that your own proven ignroance provides you with a pure bliss:

1. you completley ignore my point as to why Palestinian terrorism pre-dated 1967 (IsraelAdvocate had to bring it up as well).

2. Along with your past posts: ignoring certain points (e.g why it took Autsralia 69 years to grant aboriginies citizenship, not to mention the above point) and picking and chosing certain facts along with the regular misqoutes.

There were incidents of civilians murders by Fretilin in East Timor, around 150 in one infamous case.

Can you provide a full account? Did Fretilin go around murdering Indonesian toddlers, school children and women? Did they blow up cafes, school buses and nightclubs in Jakarta? Was the group founded on the basis of destroying the Indonesian state - murdering its entire population ( where non-military targets such as women, children and the edlerly were the prime targets?)

More incidents of 'murdered innocent civilians'? - like Algerian terrorists in France, the IRA in England , Tamil suicide bombers in Sri Lanka, Chechyan terrorists in Moscow, suicide bombers in Iraq?

Funny that you even bothered to mention Iraq, since the majority of the so called 'freedom fighters' are foreign Al-Queda terrorists from Sudan Yemen, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia etc.
A recent survey, found that a majority of Iraqis were happy under the US than under Saddam. What a suprise.

The IRA and the Tamil tigers took their inspiration from the PLO and were even PLO trained. Yet, their past tactics dont even compare to the PLO and are nowhere near as barbaric. They never resorted to such systematic mass murder of civilians.

And like their Palestinian counterparts, the catholics in Ulster and the Tamils in Sri Lanka (who have a state within a state along with an army) do not have it so tough. There are people who are far more brutualised, yet never adopted the same tactics as the Palestinians, and to a much lesser extent the tactics of the PLO trained Tamil and IRA.

So I guess this proves your argument - " Palestinian terrorism is driven by occupation and desperation".

A women accussed by her terrorist husband of infidelity was sent to blow people up in order to retain her honor.

A 10 year old is bribed into carrying an unknown package to destination in Israel. When he is stopped by the IDF, the terrorists try to activate the hidden bomb inside the package showing total disregard to the life of the 10 year old child.

Yes, it certainly does prove that argument and disproves the fact (constantly driven by that evil zionist group MEMRI) that the Palestinain leadership has no regard for the lives of its people (especially children).

The following actions which are attributed to the Palestinian leadership is pure myth (fabricated by MEMRI):

a. The total brainwashing of Palesitnian people (especially children) and inciting them to voilence

b. Bribing the poor, most unwitting and vulernable folk with false promises of money in this life or 'rewards' in the afterlife

c. drumming the notion of 'honor' into their heads (so regularly displayed in 'Honor' killings among family members or 'honor' homicide bombings).

MGB8

03-23-2004, 10:00 PM

Michael,

You assume the answer to your question, without analyzing it to see if it holds up to the facts.

Many facts point to the idea that "the occupation" is NOT the cause of terrorism.

The facts include:

(1) Arab terrorism against Jews (including the people who are now called Palestinians) predates 1967, and in fact predates the founding of Israel.

(2) Netanyahu tried linking terror attacks to increased settlement building - the idea that if each terror attack threatened land in the WB and Gaza, the Pal Arabs might stop terror. That tactic failed, miserably. In reality, the Fence, a defensive measure to stop terrorism, has drawn more ire than "settlements" in the heart of the WB. Neither of these jives if the "occupation" is the main problem.

(3) The Arabs were offered 97% of the WB, all of Gaza, and half of Jerusalem, and rejected it.

(4) Post Oslo, 98% of the Pal Arabs lived under PA rule, with very limited checkpoints (some - but much less than in many war-torn countries and far less than now) and no curfews, but terror increased, and buliding infrastructure for terror increased, not decreased.

(5) In Arabic, the Arabs have been clear that the main problem is Israels continued existence, not the WB and Gaza.

Let me suggest a different explanation for terrorism.

Terrorism is a rational decision to attempt to achieve what are believed to be achievable political gains by the use of violence on non-combatants.

In this case, the politcal gains are the weakening and eventual destruction of Israel, either by an "internation force", a "bi-national state", acceptance of the Pal-Arab "refugees", which, unlike every other refugee, inlcudes decedants, or simply weakening Israels security position to make it open to invasion.

Because Israel's superior military force is constrained by the International community, due to the power of Oil, these goals seem achievable.

The more possible the goal seems, the more terrorism is an attractive, rational choice.

As Israel raises the costs of terrorism (counter-operations), as well as improves its security position (ie. the fence, which hurts both the military and demographic attempts to destroy Israel), terror becomes a less attractive option.

So, Israel must simply raise the costs of terrorism and improve its security conditions. When it had done the opposite (Oslo), terrorism has INCREASED. When it has done what I suggested (recently), terror has actually decreased.

Hmmmm....

Leon

03-25-2004, 06:46 AM

Michael, here is another example of someone who is trying to display his 'hoplessness' and 'desperation' to the so called brutuality of the so called Israeli 'occupation:'

I don't want to die, says suicide bomb boy

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/03/25/1079939785957.html

Hussam called for soldiers to help him, saying he did not want to blow himself up. But they remained behind the concrete, shouting orders at the boy with the bomb.

After a struggle, Hussam cut free the vest. Then he was ordered to strip to his underwear.

"He's a frightened little boy," said an Israeli military spokeswoman. "Our interest right now is to find out who sent him."

Hussam's parents said he was in 10th grade, a poor student, a bit slow mentally, who often skipped school. "Hussam left home this morning to school, and this was the first we heard of what happened," his mother, Tamam Abdo, said.

"This is shocking. To use a child like this is irresponsible, forbidden."

No, no the Michael's of the world (PLO apologists) would disagree, after all the child (like all other budding 'marytyrs' before him) did such a thing of his own accord and free will - he was only responding to Israeli brutuality and was fully aware of what he was doing (he wasnt vulnerable and no-one pushed him into doing this).

Leon

03-25-2004, 06:51 AM

Amnesty to Palestinians: Denounce use of children
By JPOST.COM STAFF

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1080188581200

Amnesty International issued a report stating that "using children to carry out or assist in armed attacks of any kind is an abomination. We call on the Palestinian leadership to publicly denounce these practices."

The report was published on Thursday in response to Wednesday's foiled attack, in which a 14-year-old Palestinian, Husam Abdu Hawara, was discovered carrying an explosive' belt while attempting to pass through Hawara checkpoint, near Nablus. According to the boy's account, he received NIS 100 to blow himself up near the soldiers, with the additional promise of being awarded 72 virgins in heaven.

Last week, Israeli soldiers discovered a bag of explosive in the possession of an 11-year old Palestinian child at the same checkpoint. The boy, who regularly carried bags for travelers from one side of the checkpoint to the other, was reported not to have been aware that one of the bags on his cart contained explosive.

"Amnesty International has repeatedly condemned suicide bombings and other attacks against civilians by Palestinian armed groups as crimes against humanity. Using children to carry out or assist in armed attacks of any kind is an abomination. We call on the Palestinian leadership to publicly denounce these practices," the report said.

"Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and al-Aqsa Martyrs's brigades, must put an immediate end to the use or involvement of any kind of children in armed activity," it said.

In its report, Amnesty accused Palestinian armed groups of putting pressure on families of those who have been killed while carrying out attacks, including children, not to condemn but to welcome and endorse their relatives' actions.

Over the years, Amnesty International has published annual reports condemning the violation of human rights by Israeli security services in the territories.

Oh Jerusalem

03-26-2004, 02:25 AM

Good ol' Caroline Glick! The Jerusalem Post should do Israel a service and open up a separate free site, CarolineGlick.com, just to archive her articles. Here's this week's. Read it all the way through. Every word is gold:

Column One: Moving to Sept. 12 (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1080188587080)
By CAROLINE GLICK

Speaking Tuesday to the congressionally mandated commission charged with investigating the policy failures that led to September 11, former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright said, "I do think, in all fairness, that 9/11 was a cataclysmic event that changed things."

Albright's statement tells the whole story. There was a world before 9/11. And there was a world after the 9/11. They are not the same world.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld concurred with Albright's assessment when he said, "Imagine that we were back before Sept. 11 and that a US president had looked at the information then available, gone before the Congress and the world and said, 'We need to invade Afghanistan, overthrow the Taliban, and destroy the Al Qaida terrorist network.' Based on what little was known before Sept. 11, how many countries would have joined? Many? Any? Not likely."

The commission's hearings this week dwarfed all other news in the US. Even the IDF's successful strike against Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin was sidelined by the media's attention to the public accounting by top officials from the Clinton and Bush administrations for the decisions they made and did not make.

Commission members grilled these officials as to why they did not send in troops to attack Al Qaida and overthrow the Taliban before Sept. 11. Why did they not respond to the October 2000 attack against the USS Cole in Yemen? Why had they not killed Osama Bin Laden after the Al Qaida attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998? Why had they not armed Predator unmanned aerial vehicles to kill Bin Laden in 1999? Why had they not intercepted the flight that took bin Laden and his top lieutenants from Sudan to Afghanistan in 1996?

Again and again, officials from both the Clinton and Bush administrations explained they did not believe it was reasonable or possible to take military action and, besides, they were trying to act in other ways. The Clinton administration attempted to engage the Taliban. They sent top diplomats to Afghanistan to meet with Taliban officials. Taliban officials were brought to Washington to discuss Al Qaida. Attempts were made to encourage the Saudis and the Pakistanis to pressure the Taliban to cease support for Al Qaida.

At the end of the day, it all goes back to the same thing. There was a reality before Sept. 11 and there was a reality after Sept. 11. And they are not the same.

Much of the attention paid to the commission's hearings revolves around charges of politicization. There is clearly much of that. The commission has an equal number of Democrats and Republicans. The Democrats grill Bush officials aggressively and are relatively mild toward Clinton officials and the Republicans take just the opposite approach.

Yet, in spite of their conflicting party loyalties, commission members are unanimous in their view that the US is at war against Islamic terrorism. So united, the message that emanates from their questioning is that they are all Americans first and foremost and as Americans they wish to work together to learn from past mistakes in order to prevent future attacks against the US and its interests around the world.

Perhaps the main reason that the hearings did not descend into partisan finger-pointing is because after Sept. 11 both sides of the political divide in America understood the new reality. The Bush administration stopped accepting excuses for the Taliban and instead brought down the regime by force. It then invaded Iraq and took down the enemy regime of Saddam Hussein. Congress authorized use of military force to combat terrorists and their state sponsors, passed the Patriot Act and created the new Department of Homeland Security.

Today, all relevant US government resources are being used, both domestically and internationally ,to combat terrorism and to help and indeed force other countries to combat terrorism. Rather than hunkering down behind its oceanic barriers, US forces operate from the Philippines to Uzbekistan. US diplomats engage, cajole and threaten foreign leaders around the world to take action against terror cells. And while actively remaking Iraqi society, the US is laying the groundwork for more concerted action against Syria and Iran.

Osama bin Laden, while an important target, is no longer considered a singular problem by anyone. As Albright put it, "Al Qaida is not a criminal gang that can simply be rounded up and put behind bars. It is the center of an ideological virus that has wholly perverted the minds of thousands and distorted the thinking of millions more. Until the right medicine is found, the virus will continue to spread."

As an Israeli watching the proceedings, I was struck by all of this. I was impressed by what appeared to be an honest reckoning by top US policy makers with what they did and did not accomplish. I was struck by the commissioners' questions. They were intelligent if sometimes belligerent. They were well thought out and stemmed from a clear recognition that the US is at war and must win.

I was equally struck with the sense that Israel, in contending with the Palestinian terror war, is still, after three and a half years, on pre-war footing. Rather than marshalling our military and diplomatic resources to root out terrorists who threaten us wherever they are, we engage in an endless policy of containment geared toward enabling an ultimate Israeli retreat.

On Monday the IDF finally killed Hamas terror chieftain Ahmed Yassin. In commenting on the hit, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz said that Yassin was "the Osama bin Laden of the Palestinian people." No doubt there is much truth to this statement. But what about Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian Mullah Omar? What about the Palestinian Taliban, the Palestinian Authority?

Before Sept. 11, the Taliban told the Americans and their interlocutors that they had no control over bin Laden and that anyway, he was not a threat to the US. Sanctions on the Taliban, although leveled, were ineffective because the Pakistanis continued to arm them and supply them with oil, the United Arab Emirates allowed them to bank and travel abroad and the Saudis continued to finance them. On Sept. 12, 2001, American tolerance for this state of affairs was over.

Yet here in Israel it seems that our tolerance will never run out. We continue to distinguish Hamas from the PA even as PA security forces participate in Hamas attacks and carry them out themselves. We willingly finance the PA even though we know that they use their money to finance terrorists, run schools where children are taught to murder, and indeed build an entire society around the cause of our destruction.

We talk about engaging the PA in negotiations when its leaders embrace Yassin and condemn us for killing him. We speak of easing restrictions on Palestinian travel at roadblocks when Fatah entices prepubescent children to commit suicide while committing murder at roadblocks with promises of virgins in heaven. We speak of "containing" terrorism, when the Palestinians openly declare that their aim is the genocide of Jews and call on the entire Arab and Muslim world to join their fight against us.

As I watched the commission hearings, I tried to imagine similar hearings taking place in Israel. It was impossible. Here we have all the stars of Oslo, from Shimon Peres and Yossi Beilin to Amnon Lipkin Shahak and Ami Ayalon still insisting after three and a half years that they were right and reality is wrong.

We have Prime Minister Ariel Sharon insisting that no concessions will be made in fighting terrorism at the same time that he insists on handing more territory over to terrorists and refuses to order the IDF to bring the sum total of its abilities to bear in destroying the Palestinians' ability to cause us harm.

No battle of ideas has been waged to capture Palestinian hearts and minds by our intellectual elites who still embrace Oslo and think that we are to blame for our mass murder. No sustained initiative to stop international support for the PA has been waged by our diplomats who still insist that at some future date we will wish to negotiate with our Taliban and give them sovereignty.

Describing this state of affairs this week, IDF CGS Lt. Gen. Moshe Ya'alon said, "When necessary – mainly following severe terrorist attacks – it is possible to change the nature of the campaign for a specific time period from a low intensity conflict in which the terrorists have a certain advantage, to a high intensity conflict in which it is easier for a regular military force to employ its power. However even such periods do not ensure a decisive victory."

Well of course not. If an offensive is not sustained until the enemy's forces and will to fight are broken, victory will remain elusive and the fight will go on forever.

This week OC Intelligence Maj. Gen. Aharon Ze'evi Farkash dismissed Hamas's threats of heretofore unseen attacks in retaliation for Israel's killing of Yassin. He noted that to date, Hamas has used all its resources to attack Israel and that there was no reason to believe that these resources will fundamentally change in the aftermath of Yassin's death. That is, everyday our terrorist enemies muster all their capabilities to kill Israelis anyway they can.

It has been said that in Israel, everyday is Sept. 11. The question is, when will our leaders finally take it upon themselves to marshal our resources and move us into a Sept. 12 reality?

michael

03-27-2004, 06:18 AM

Originally posted by Leon

1. you completley ignore my point as to why Palestinian terrorism pre-dated 1967 (IsraelAdvocate had to bring it up as well).

2. Along with your past posts: ignoring certain points (e.g why it took Autsralia 69 years to grant aboriginies citizenship, not to mention the above point) and picking and chosing certain facts along with the regular misqoutes.

The origins of the conflict and the reasons for pre-67 violence can be admitted by some of the most committed Zionists as well as anti-Zionist Jews. Only for the ideologically disciplined is it a complete mystery.

“There is no example in history that a nation opens the gates of its country, not because of necessity…but because the nation which wants to come in has explained its desire to it”- David Ben-Gurion

Or Benny Morris, who has recently criticized the Zionist leaders for not doing the job properly in 1948 and expelling all the Arabs -
“The fear of territorial displacement and dispossession was to be the chief motor of Arab antagonism to Zionism”.

But the basic parameters of the problem were known well before that.

“We are used to thinking of the Arabs as primitive men of the desert, as a donkey-like nation……. but this is a great error”, “Should the time come when the life of our people in Palestine imposes to a greater or smaller extent on the natives, they will not easily step aside.” (‘Letters from Palestine’ – 1891, from ‘The Complete Works of Ahad Ha’am, 1949, p.24)

And just a few years later Yitzak Epstein was harsly critical of settlement in Palestine because it was “overlooking a rather ‘marginal’ fact –that in our beloved land there lives an entire people that has been dwelling there for many centuries and has never considered leaving it” ,
and that what Zionists “forget, mistakenly or maliciously, is that Palestine belongs to others, and it is totally settled” (‘The Crises’ - Hillel Zeitlin , 1905.)

A clear motivation for attacks prior to 1967 was the froced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the refusal by Israel to allow the majority of those who wished to return, to do so.

Can you provide a full account? Did Fretilin go around murdering Indonesian toddlers, school children and women?

The incident occurred in December 1977 ('Timor: A People Betrayed', - James Dunn. p 269)

Unfortunately Falintil did sometimes target civilians as documented by Human Rights Watch.

“The heavy military presence is one element that may be leading to increased support for the opposition to Indonesian rule and the intifada-like activities in East Timor's urban areas” – HRW 1997

“The months of May, June, and July 1997 seemed to mark an intensification of the conflict in East Timor, with guerrilla attacks on both Indonesian military targets and civilians in Dili”(ibid)

Which led HRW to make this call to Falintil to,

“• announce their full adherence to the principles of humanitarian law, particularly Common Article 3.
• announce an immediate cessation of the practice of executing civilian Timorese suspected of being informers or collaborators” (– 'Deteriorating Human Rights in East Timor', HRW, 1997.)

But there certainly were far fewer attacks against civilians in East Timor. That is something to applaud. Though comparing the 2 situations also leads to some disturbing possibilities. The ET resistence primarily attacked military targets which is what most sane people would consider reasonable.
What did it get them? One of the worst per capita massacres of the 20th Century (around 200,000 dead, almost 30% of the population). You could come to the very unsavoury conclusion that terrorism is helpful in limiting the worst excesses of a vastly superior force.

So while I disagree at a moral level with the use of terrorism, I (and I presume even Leon) understand why it occurred in ET, and just perhaps, we even find ourselves sympathizing, just a little, with those who committed these acts in the face of a cruel occupation and an overwhelmingly superior military force.

michael

03-27-2004, 07:23 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Many facts point to the idea that "the occupation" is NOT the cause of terrorism.

The facts include:

(1) Arab terrorism against Jews (including the people who are now called Palestinians) predates 1967, and in fact predates the founding of Israel.

See the post above (#19).

(2) Netanyahu tried linking terror attacks to increased settlement building - the idea that if each terror attack threatened land in the WB and Gaza, the Pal Arabs might stop terror. That tactic failed, miserably. In reality, the Fence, a defensive measure to stop terrorism, has drawn more ire than "settlements" in the heart of the WB. Neither of these jives if the "occupation" is the main problem.

That's an astounding piece of logic. If the Palestinians use of terrorism is caused by the loss of land, then losing more land will reduce terrorism.

If that was Netanyahu's thinking, it might also explain why he released the "arch-terrorist" Yassin from jail in 1997.

Something certainly doesn't "jive".

(3) The Arabs were offered 97% of the WB, all of Gaza, and half of Jerusalem, and rejected it.

Is this a reference to the UN Partition Plan? Funny how when someone offers to let you keep half of your house you might find it a little less than generous.

As David Ben-Gurion said - there is "no example in history" of such an offer being accepted.

(4) Post Oslo, 98% of the Pal Arabs lived under PA rule, with very limited checkpoints (some - but much less than in many war-torn countries and far less than now) and no curfews, but terror increased, and buliding infrastructure for terror increased, not decreased.

Yep 98% lived under PA "rule". But only on about half of the land. Isn't that a curious outcome?

Apparantly it took several months for Arafat to be convinced that the Oslo agreement hadn't actually created a Palestinian state. During 1993 there was little terrorsit activity, this at a time when there was some hope in the territories of a just outcome. But the rapid accleration of settlement construction post-Oslo, juxtaposed reality with Arafats pronouncements, and people chose to believe what they were seeing right in front of them. The first suicide bombings occured in 1994 and from there grew almost as fast as the settlements.

(5) In Arabic, the Arabs have been clear that the main problem is Israels continued existence, not the WB and Gaza.

In Arabic the PLO accepted a just 2 state settlement in accord with Resolution 242, in 1976.

So, Israel must simply raise the costs of terrorism and improve its security conditions. When it had done the opposite (Oslo), terrorism has INCREASED. When it has done what I suggested (recently), terror has actually decreased.

This has been the mantra for a long time and is most notable for its consistency in being wrong or very short lived. The invasion of Lebanon was meant to teach the PLO a lesson - and it did, one that lead to Arafats return to the Occupied Territories and Israeli in-principle acceptance of a Palestinian state. Each extra-judicial killing is meant to "sear Palestinian consciousness" - and it does, but only with revenge, - and increase security. Just like in Jan 1996 when Yahya Ayya was killed. A victory for the IDF and security? In the Feb and March that year, Hamas launched a series of attacks that killed 62 Israelis.

Hope of a just outcome increases the strength of moderate Palestinians while asassinations, land expropriations, more and more settlements, closures, curfews, incursions and the like, help to increase the popularity of Hamas and others who can tell the citizens of the territories - 'see what negotiations get you'.

Many on this foum, choose to see this as suppoort or justification for terrorism. It isn't, it's simply a commonsense approach to problem solving - why does something occur, what can we do about it?

The only person to say something intelligent or reasonable so far is IsrealAdvocate,
"Terrorism is not an acceptable way to address grievences, even if those grievences are legitimate.. Do we give absolution to a convicted murderer who kills his neighbor over a land despute? Ofcourse not! The murederer had a grievence, but that grievence is not a license to kill."

Absolutely true. So in IA's scenario what do we do? Sensible individuals would try to solve the land dispute before any one else gets killed, as well as normal criminal procedures. Only an idiot would suggest blowing up the family home of the murderer as a solution.

One of the Palestinian negotiators (before Arafat got involved) observed that,

"the negotiations are not worth fighting about. The critical issue is transforming our society. All else is inconsequential....We must decide amongst ourselves to use all our strength and resources to develop our collective leadership and true democratic institutions which will achieve our goals and guide us to the future. The important thing is for us to take care of our internal situation and to organise our society and correct those negative aspects from which it has been suffering for generations and which is the main reason for our losses against our foes"- Haidr Abdul Shafi.

This is probably even more true now, than when he spoke these words in 1993.

MGB8

03-27-2004, 08:02 PM

Michael,

You need to go back over your history, badly.

Pre-1948, the Partition, the Arabs were not sovereign over "Palestine", nor had they been for hundreds of years. It was the British, who had conquered the land from the turks.

Yet, as Jews moved into the area, joining the Jews who had remained in the land since biblical times (remember that Jerusalem, while never the arab or muslim appointed capital of the area, was ALWAYS majority Jewish), Arabs began a campaign of violence against the Jews, even as Jews legally purchased land from them and brought money and jobs, slowly changing the land from a third world hole to a modern state.

The British promised all of Palestine to the Jews, as sovereigns, but then gave 78% of that promise to Hashemite Arabs, as sovereigns.

They subsequently divided the remaining 22% again, giving the Jews sovereignty over an indefensible state only where Jews had already purchased and owned the great majority of the land and were the vast majority.

But the Arabs couldn't have even this, so they invaded - in violation of the UN charter, which they are still in violation of, trying to finish Hitler's job. They lost.

Part of the consequences of the Arab attempt at genocide was that they lost land and people were displaced. It happens in all wars, but the Arabs are unwilling to bare the consequences of their actions. Just as they are unwilling to take the consequences of declaring war on Israel today - that Israel wars back.

In 67 the Arabs instigated another war, Egypt declaring war but not firing first, and certainly Jordan firing first, while I believe that Syria did, also. Jordan lost the WB, Egypt the Sinai, and Syria the Golan.

The PLO, by the way, was formed well before 67, While JORDAN, not Israel controlled the WB, and they then stated that they accepted Jordanian sovereignty over the WB. They just wanted to destroy the state where Jews rightfully owned the land and were the vast majority, and kill all the Jews there.

On Yom Kippur in 73 the Arabs again invaded, and Israel reclaimed its lands by repelling the invaders.

As for the PLO announcing that it accepts a 2-state solution, they also renounced ALL VIOLENCE, and committed to preventing violence against Israel and Israelis. Meanwhile they, in Arabic, anounced that this was only a step towards the destruction of Israel , a trojan horse in the plan of phases towards the genocide of the Jews. Their schoolbooks and symbols show all of Israel as part of an Arabic "Palestine", and the "Zionist occupation" means all of Israel, not the WB and Gaza.

In Short, the Arabs LIE. As probably do you Michael, since chances are that you knew all this.

But, You most likely believe that, although there are dozens of Christian countries, and dozens of Muslim countries, that the Jews do not deserve ONE state of their own (certainly not one with borders that are militarily defensible), even where they are the vast majority of the population. You don't care that Jordan is 78% of Palestine, nor do you really care about the Pal Arabs having a state (because then you might consider and support a Pal State which includes land not from Israel - either from the heavily non-hashemite Jordan land, or the mostly unpopulated Sinai)- its only about them taking land from Israel.

Why? Because it appeases the much more populous overall and oil wealthy muslims, and only at the cost of Jewish blood - and who really cares if all the Jews died? Right Michael?

Oh - the fact of the matter is that Hamas and Fatah attacks have gone down since Israel has responded more forcefully, not up. Like facing any bully, when you first punch back, they don't just give up, they try a little harder at first, and only when they realize that the costs aren't worth it, do they stop.

You still try to deny the logic of cost and benefits. If terrorists see that violence is getting them what they want, they commit more terror - see the Lebanon withdrawal quickly followed by the pre-planned Intifada. Meanwhile, the US response to Al-queda's attack has led to no attacks in the US for the past 3 years! Sure, there will likely be an attack in the future, but even the Arab regimes do not support this, and are trying to prevent it, because they know that another attack on the US will lead to devestating consequences to the Arab world.

The real question, of course, is WHY you deny the logic of costs and benefits. Why do you ignore what the Arabs say in arabic, and what their symbols say, and repeat what they say in English even though it contradicts the other two? Why do you try to argue that the Arabs should not bare consequences for their actions - that when they war on Israel, Israel should not war back on them?

This is not about "occupation", its about Jews on land that Islam claims for itself - about Islamic imperialism and Jihadism - and the worst thing is that you probably know it and simply wish to advance their cause.

Noam

03-27-2004, 11:29 PM

Brig Gen Shamni leaving the Gaza Command post had a nice interview in this Maariv weekend ed.
He mentioned this:

DIchter, the head of SHABAK (Israeli CIA) coined the phraze: "THERE IS a BOTTOM TO THE BARREL!"

When Israel Exterminates Yassin, Then Rantisi , then His replacement, then HIS replacement and at the same time liquidate some Lower Operatives of Hamas.... Gaza will become like Yesha--Hamas WITHOUT LEADERSHIP...Without DIRECTION...LOST.
Hamas that is WEAKENED. Then we Liquidate Arafat.

Then WHAT?

Then, AT LAST we will get to the BOTOM OF THE BARREL!!!

We will scratch its bottom...we get rid of most of the murderers and we CREATE A NEW SITUATION IN THE LAND!!!!

Watch Dahlan getting stronger. Watch more and more Palestinian getting it thru their SKULLS that this MAD TERRORISM is DECIMATING THEM (see the 70 "intellectuals" that just signed the petition to STOP TERRORISM)

THERE IS A BOTTOM TO THE BARREL. IT JUST TAKES TIME.

Leon

03-28-2004, 12:22 AM

Originally posted by michael
The origins of the conflict and the reasons for pre-67 violence can be admitted by some of the most committed Zionists as well as anti-Zionist Jews. Only for the ideologically disciplined is it a complete mystery.

“There is no example in history that a nation opens the gates of its country, not because of necessity…but because the nation which wants to come in has explained its desire to it”- David Ben-Gurion

Or Benny Morris, who has recently criticized the Zionist leaders for not doing the job properly in 1948 and expelling all the Arabs -
“The fear of territorial displacement and dispossession was to be the chief motor of Arab antagonism to Zionism”.

But the basic parameters of the problem were known well before that.

“We are used to thinking of the Arabs as primitive men of the desert, as a donkey-like nation……. but this is a great error”, “Should the time come when the life of our people in Palestine imposes to a greater or smaller extent on the natives, they will not easily step aside.” (‘Letters from Palestine’ – 1891, from ‘The Complete Works of Ahad Ha’am, 1949, p.24)

And just a few years later Yitzak Epstein was harsly critical of settlement in Palestine because it was “overlooking a rather ‘marginal’ fact –that in our beloved land there lives an entire people that has been dwelling there for many centuries and has never considered leaving it” ,
and that what Zionists “forget, mistakenly or maliciously, is that Palestine belongs to others, and it is totally settled” (‘The Crises’ - Hillel Zeitlin , 1905.)

Oh goody, quotes, quotes and more quotes.

Mind you, I previously neglected to mention that Arab terrorism well and truly pre-dated the creation of Israel in 1948 and the so called 'expulsion' of Arabs. Some highlights are the Hebron Massacer of 1929, the mass pogroms and riots of the 30's which left hundreds of Jews dead, not to mention blowing Jewish civilians up in buses and market places.

A clear motivation for attacks prior to 1967 was the froced expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and the refusal by Israel to allow the majority of those who wished to return, to do so.

800,000 Jews were forcibilly removed from their native lands and had all their possessions stolen by the Arab regimes. Whilst there is talk of Israel granting Palestinian refugees compensation, Jewish refugees are somehow neglected. So why werent they motivated in blowing Arabs up?

The clear motivation here is the destruction of Israel by the Arab world.

Unfortunately Falintil did sometimes target civilians as documented by Human Rights Watch.

Sometimes target civilians? I asked you to provide a full account of how they went around murdering civilians, but instead I was greeted with a vague cut/paste source on the activities of Falintil and what that group was required to commit to. Any relevance?

Your conclusion was: They sometimes target civilians. Even if it was 'sometimes' it was nowhere near in comparison to PLO tactics - whose its entire war machine is aimed at innocent civilians.

The ET resistence primarily attacked military targets which is what most sane people would consider reasonable.
What did it get them? One of the worst per capita massacres of the 20th Century (around 200,000 dead, almost 30% of the population). You could come to the very unsavoury conclusion that terrorism is helpful in limiting the worst excesses of a vastly superior force.

You just unwittingly agreed to my point earlier - i.e there are people who are far more desparate and are far more aggrieved than the Palestinians, yet they dont resort to such barbaric tactics. East timorese are one example. Tibetians and Kurds (who live under Syrian and Iraqi occupaton) are another.

The difference b/w indonesia (which was under the dictatorship of Suharto at the time) and Israel, is that Israel is a liberal democracy. No matter what tactics are used against it, no matter how unconventional, every time Israel responds, it takes moral and humaniterian consderations - trying to limit civilian casualties as much as possible. If you disagree and were correct in saying the opposite than Palestinian civilian casualties would increase by 1000 fold.

Israel has the fourth strongest army in the world, where as the Indonesian army is nowhere near that rank. Israel can easily crush the entire PLO, without even lifting a finger. Yet humanterian restraints is what keeps it at bay.

And like Indonesia Jordan ranks nowhere near Israel in might, yet in less than a week managed to massacer 11,000 palestinians. Thats more Palestinians killed in less than a week by their brothers than Palestinians killed under Israelis in fifty years of conflict. Where is the outcry?

So while I disagree at a moral level with the use of terrorism, I (and I presume even Leon) understand why it occurred in ET, and just perhaps, we even find ourselves sympathizing, just a little, with those who committed these acts in the face of a cruel occupation and an overwhelmingly superior military force.

No Michael, when innocent civilians are purley and purposly murdered in cold blood, there is no sympathy from me.

Kev

03-28-2004, 12:06 PM

I don't want to die, says suicide bomb boy

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2...9939785957.html

Just received an interesting email about this:

Canadians Help Advocate Israel

Subject: Action Call: Palestinian's advocation of child sacrifice!

Dear Friends,

As you are surely aware by now, the Palestinian boy who was wearing the bomb-vest has been much discussed in the press and even in the House of Commons.

In the House of Commons March 25, 2004

Hon. Steve Mahoney (Mississauga West, Lib.): [ Mahoney.S@parl.gc.ca ] . . .

....Let me talk briefly about the experience that people are feeling in the community about the war in the Middle East. We have terrible tensions. We have assassinations. We have suicide bombings. How could anyone ever understand how a mother could wrap a bomb around a child and then send that child onto a bus to detonate that bomb and kill people? It is not an image that most Canadians could even come close to understanding, but it is reality.

Why does it happen? It happens because there is no hope. It happens because there is no sense that anyone is coming to the table to talk about how we can resolve the differences between the state of Israel and the state of Palestine.
WRONG. It happens because of the "death cult society" that has become the norm through the indoctrination of the Palestinian Authority.
This is indeed nothing new, here is an article about the teaching of kids to kill from Nov. 2000! (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=17707 )

NB>- Please note that we are sure that the above MP (who did lose his nomination and the above was part of his "swan song" final speech at the house) meant well and do not mean to disparage him as surely many have this incorrect understanding.

We are including a special report from PMW as they have done very good research on this topic for several years. Please take a few points from their information and write to the PM and FM as well as your MP to ask that Canada take a role in stopping the incitement to violence that is endemic in Palestinian society. Please also use a form of that letter in contacting your local media outlet to have them cover the story to a greater extent and with the proper context.

Shabbat Shalom

Canadians Helping Advocate for Israe (CHAI)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For addresses of MPs go to: http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/house/PostalCode.asp?Source=SM
Insert your postal code and the contact information for your MP will appear.

The Right Honourable Paul Martin
Email: Martin.P@parl.gc.ca

The Honourable Bill Graham
Minister of Foreign Affairs
Graham.B@parl.gc.ca

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Toronto Sun
editor@tor.sunpub.com

The Globe and Mail
letters@globeandmail.ca

The Toronto Star
lettertoed@thestar.ca

The National Post
letters@nationalpost.com

Oh Jerusalem

03-28-2004, 01:23 PM

There are Canadians and then there are Canadians (http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/001317.php).

michael

04-03-2004, 05:41 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Michael,

You need to go back over your history, badly.

Pre-1948, the Partition, the Arabs were not sovereign over "Palestine", nor had they been for hundreds of years....

I think you’ve done quite enough of “going over.., history badly”.

MGB8 outlines the basic position first put forward by Israeli diplomat Abba Eban in defence of Israeli actions in 1967. However, other opinions and facts exist that provide a rather different view of the events of 1967.

Serious historical accounts tend to congregate around 2 positions on 1967. One,that Israel was mostly to blame for what happened and two, that Israel and the Arab states were equally to blame.

You can’t really blame Eban though, that’s his job – to gain the best possible advantage for his state on the diplomatic front. If you prefer to believe this version, that’s your right. But for anyone who would like to get a broader view, taking in the views of others including independent observers, a slightly different picture to MBG*’s standard fare emerges.

The most glaring anomaly is the claim that the Arab states commenced hostilities in June. Certainly Eban maintained that, but it’s all a bit laboured when Israeli Generals such as Ezer Weizman were quite happy to publicly ridicule this idea, and admit that Israel launched the first attacks. The more common proposition is that Israeli launched a pre-emptive strike in the face of an eminent Egyptian, is the sensible option. This has the distinct advantage of at least being a defendable position.

The other 2 main pillars of this argument are the Egyptian ‘blockade’ of the Straits of Tiran and the Egyptian request to withdraw the UNEF.
That Eilat only received around 6% of Israeli port traffic; that Egypt had proposed an international court adjudication on the legality of this move (Israel declined), combined with the fact that it wasn’t total blockade but one that continued to guarantee ‘free and innocent’ passage to all vessels, including Iraeli flagged ships, just slightly undermines the oft-expressed notion that the ‘blockade’ was an ‘act of war’.
The UNEF withdrawal, again is meant to show clear Egyptian aggression. Possibly. But the UN offered to reposition the UNEF inside Israel, but was refused. The argument is apparently that the UNEF would interfere with defence. If that is accepted than it is at least as possible that Egypt wished it removed for the same reason. Egypt also suggested to re-start the EIMAC, which Israel had unilaterally abandoned in 1956 so it could participate in the British-French attack on the Suez Canal. Israel refused this as well. Strange behaviour from a country threatened with destruction.

So while MBG8 offers a pretty cut-and-dried summary, add a few inconvenient facts and a less certain scene emerges.

michael

04-03-2004, 05:47 AM

Originally posted by Noam
Brig Gen Shamni leaving the Gaza Command post had a nice interview in this Maariv weekend ed.
He mentioned this:

DIchter, the head of SHABAK (Israeli CIA) coined the phraze: "THERE IS a BOTTOM TO THE BARREL!"

When Israel Exterminates Yassin, Then Rantisi , then His replacement, then HIS replacement and at the same time liquidate some Lower Operatives of Hamas.... Gaza will become like Yesha--Hamas WITHOUT LEADERSHIP...Without DIRECTION...LOST.
Hamas that is WEAKENED. Then we Liquidate Arafat.

Then WHAT?

Then, AT LAST we will get to the BOTOM OF THE BARREL!!!

We will scratch its bottom...we get rid of most of the murderers and we CREATE A NEW SITUATION IN THE LAND!!!!

Watch Dahlan getting stronger. Watch more and more Palestinian getting it thru their SKULLS that this MAD TERRORISM is DECIMATING THEM (see the 70 "intellectuals" that just signed the petition to STOP TERRORISM)

THERE IS A BOTTOM TO THE BARREL. IT JUST TAKES TIME.

Yes, but just one problem - it’s all been said before.

An article in Haaretz last year pointed out that in the previous 2 years , the army claimed to have cut the head off the Hamas in Hebron 5 times. Each time it was meant to be the “bottom of the barrel”.

This reminds me of the definition of a fanatic – someone who redoubles their efforts even after they have forgotten their goal.

The former head of Shin Bet was under no illusions as to how successful a strategy this might be,
“ Israeli society, top to bottom, is sinking into confusion. There are no reference points. People mask this reality with swaggering slogans: ‘We will vanquish terrorism!’ At a colloquium, the army chief of staff declares: ‘We are winning’; he evokes the ‘superiority of Tsahal’-- the Israeli army -- and his ‘feeling that the nation is finding its strength’. Then he adds ‘there are today more Palestinian terrorists than a year ago’ and says there will be even more tomorrow! If we are winning, how come terrorists are multiplying?” - Ami Ayalon (23/12/2001)

MGB8

04-03-2004, 03:07 PM

One of the problems with Israelis, particularly the military, is their arrogance, which leads them to put their feet in their mouth, which is then turned around and used by jew/Israel haters like Michael for the creation of revised history.

Serious historians, as michael puts it, note that many Israeli generals admitted that the military campaign was pre-planned.

What does that mean? It means that Israel had prepared for an Arab attack and were ready for it.

This doesn't change the basic facts:

Michael -

Did Egypt blockade the Straits of Tiran, cutting off Israel's oil, before Israel's first shot? Yes or no, michael?

You try to say one blockade is different from the other, and the idea of adjudicating the dispute at the UN, with 59 Islamic countries, while the blockade continued, is ridiculous. You accept the Arab positions, disregarding the key facts - there simply was a blockade on ships of Egypts choosing in the Straits of Tiran. Your arguments don't pass the laugh test.

Did Egypt expel the peacekeepers from the Sinai and move in their tank batallions into the demiliterized zone before Israel fired a shot? Yes or no, michael?

You try to make excuses for the expulsion, except that the Sinai is a much bigger barrier from Egypts population centers than Gaza is to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, no? You also ignore the constant Arab threats, not to mention the fact that the Soviets prevented an earlier invasion by the arabs in '67. Oh, and there is the fact that Israel was surrounded by more populated Arab nations which didn't accept its right to exist... hmmm..

Dividing the Arab countries into separate countries, is it true that Syria and Jordan fired (shelled) Israel before Israel fired back, meaning that even if there is a question because of the pre-emptive strike on Egypt's airforce, that certainly the other two nations could have not fired on Israel and could have avoided going to war?

The bottom line, michael, as much as your jew/Israel hating instincts hate to admit it, is thatg serious historians when interviewing the Arabs got them to admit that thier actions caused the war, and that they were planning to invade (with the expection of Jordan, which made its decision at the last minute).

Had the Arabs not blockaded Israel, had they not kicked out the peacekeeprs, had they accepted Israel's right to exist, the 6-day war would not have happened.

Of course, Michael will also argue that Israel caused the Arabs to invade it on Yom Kippur, too.

Michael, your attempt at revising history is weak, and, ultimately false. The question, of course, remains, WHY do you lie about the history, denying the most basic facts about what events happened and when. I think you just hate Israel, want it destroyed, and the Jews either killed or otherwise ethnically cleansed. That would give you a lot in common with Hitler, like most of the Arab nations today.

Originally posted by michael
I think you’ve done quite enough of “going over.., history badly”.

MGB8 outlines the basic position first put forward by Israeli diplomat Abba Eban in defence of Israeli actions in 1967. However, other opinions and facts exist that provide a rather different view of the events of 1967.

Serious historical accounts tend to congregate around 2 positions on 1967. One,that Israel was mostly to blame for what happened and two, that Israel and the Arab states were equally to blame.

You can’t really blame Eban though, that’s his job – to gain the best possible advantage for his state on the diplomatic front. If you prefer to believe this version, that’s your right. But for anyone who would like to get a broader view, taking in the views of others including independent observers, a slightly different picture to MBG*’s standard fare emerges.

The most glaring anomaly is the claim that the Arab states commenced hostilities in June. Certainly Eban maintained that, but it’s all a bit laboured when Israeli Generals such as Ezer Weizman were quite happy to publicly ridicule this idea, and admit that Israel launched the first attacks. The more common proposition is that Israeli launched a pre-emptive strike in the face of an eminent Egyptian, is the sensible option. This has the distinct advantage of at least being a defendable position.

The other 2 main pillars of this argument are the Egyptian ‘blockade’ of the Straits of Tiran and the Egyptian request to withdraw the UNEF.
That Eilat only received around 6% of Israeli port traffic; that Egypt had proposed an international court adjudication on the legality of this move (Israel declined), combined with the fact that it wasn’t total blockade but one that continued to guarantee ‘free and innocent’ passage to all vessels, including Iraeli flagged ships, just slightly undermines the oft-expressed notion that the ‘blockade’ was an ‘act of war’.
The UNEF withdrawal, again is meant to show clear Egyptian aggression. Possibly. But the UN offered to reposition the UNEF inside Israel, but was refused. The argument is apparently that the UNEF would interfere with defence. If that is accepted than it is at least as possible that Egypt wished it removed for the same reason. Egypt also suggested to re-start the EIMAC, which Israel had unilaterally abandoned in 1956 so it could participate in the British-French attack on the Suez Canal. Israel refused this as well. Strange behaviour from a country threatened with destruction.

So while MBG8 offers a pretty cut-and-dried summary, add a few inconvenient facts and a less certain scene emerges.

michael

04-03-2004, 06:34 PM

Originally posted by Leon
Sometimes target civilians? I asked you to provide a full account of how they went around murdering civilians, but instead I was greeted with a vague cut/paste source on the activities of Falintil and what that group was required to commit to. Any relevance?

First, it’s faint derision “Oh goody, quotes, quotes and more quotes” that I provided information, followed by petulant demands that I must do more! - “provide a full account”.
It would be nice if I had the time to spoon feed Leon, but alas, no. It was obviously too hard to look up the reference I provided.

Relevance?? If I’m not mistaken it was Leon who introduced ET to the discussion, as an example of how occupation doesn’t lead to terrorism. It’s certainly true that it doesn’t necessarily do so, but in this case it did as the HRW reports show, and as I said in “far fewer” cases.

Does Leon perhaps believe that the Falintil killing civilians had nothing to do with “occupation and desperation”? They killed, like Palestinians terrorists, just because it’s their way, or it’s in their blood maybe?

You just unwittingly agreed to my point earlier - i.e there are people who are far more desparate and are far more aggrieved than the Palestinians, yet they dont resort to such barbaric tactics. East timorese are one example. Tibetians and Kurds (who live under Syrian and Iraqi occupaton) are another.

No matter what tactics are used against it, no matter how unconventional, every time Israel responds, it takes moral and humaniterian consderations - trying to limit civilian casualties as much as possible. If you disagree and were correct in saying the opposite than Palestinian civilian casualties would increase by 1000 fold

Unwittingly agreed? If I’d said anything contrary to that, you might be making a point.

It is interesting to consider why terrorism might arise in some situations and not others. Some suggest that there is a ‘middle ground’ where terrorism can arise. At one extreme, massive military slaughter, ala Indonesia, and extreme powerlessness may inhibit the ability to organize sufficiently for terrorists to operate. At the other end, sufficient operating democracy may allow for a political solution, blunting terrorists ability to garner support. This ties in with Hannah Arendt’s thesis that terrorism tends to arise when there is a block in political processes. Superficially, Ireland seems to go against this. The IRA operated in a reasonably democratic society. However, under the Thatcher Govt. committed to pursuing a military solution, the IRA thrived. Under Blair, with a plan of negotiation and co-operation, IRA terrorism has ceased.

As for the fact that there have been, and are, other conflicts with far worse crimes than those committed by Israel, – so what? If my point was that Israel was uniquely evil, Leon would be spot on, but I didn’t and never have suggested that. The discussion was about causes and responses. Is this the lesson that Leon proposes- that might is right, so suffer the consequences? Gen Suharto would agree I’m sure.
Some on this forum seem to lean towards this Indonesian approach, urging further military escalation. It may be worth remembering, that if indeed the overwhelming military approach can have results, that it may take mass slaughter and large scale atrocities of the kind that destroy a society.

What seems to underlie Leons response is a common conflation, perhaps deliberate, that somehow suggesting the existence of legitimate grievances in a conflict amounts to approval of terrorism as a response. Discussion of causal factors, such as occupation, is clearly separate from the issue of whether the responses are legitimate or otherwise.

It's most curious how my original point is no longer so interesting.
Richard Crossmans comments were derided as “moral bankruptcy”, “morally reprehensible” etc when the responders thought it referred to Pal terrorism. Since discovering his “low level of consciousness” was in relation Jewish terrorism, the change is dramatic. No discussion of how others were “far more desperate….more aggrieved” than the Jews, but didn’t “resort to such barbaric tactics”.

Israeli “moral and humanitarian considerations” are often lauded in this context. The rationale is usually pretty thin as Leon demonstrates. His point, crudely put, is the relativist argument. Countries like Indonesia have done far worse, so what is done to Palestinians is reasonable. No doubt Hamas would be quite content to argue that other terrorist actions in other places have been much worse, therefore what they do reflects relative “moral and humanitarian considerations” . Rubbish of course. It’s reasoning at the same level as the child who, in defence of their wrong-doing, cries “But someone else did something worse ”.

The relativist argument is often put forward in defence of appalling actions. So it’s worth remembering why it is that terrorism is rightly condemned and applying those principles to the response to terrorism. Doing so might suggest something like this,

“This right [of the innocent not to be killed] is violated in the most radical way when the terrorist intentionally kills or maims them in order to achieve his or her aims. But it is also violated in a morally unacceptable way when their death …..is not brought about as a means, but as an anticipated side effect, if the harm they sustain is out of all proportion to the aim achieved, and those who do the killing and maiming refuse to take any chance of being harmed themselves in the process. The latter is not terrorism, and is less repellant, morally speaking, than the former. But not much less.
If this is granted, it means that terrorism may not be fought by terrorism. Nor may it be fought by means of a strategy that does not amount to terrorism, but must be condemned on the ground of the same moral values and principles that provide the strongest reasons for our rejection of terrorism.”

MGB8

04-03-2004, 07:04 PM

Michael,

Why do you ignore Arab-Islamic Imperialism - called Jihadism or militant Islam by some, or Pan-Arabism in earlier generations?

Just like Nazi-ism and Communism, these expansionist philosophies are based mostly in a perverse form of pride and a utopian-like vision.

Terrorism happens when a group has political desires and can't
achieve them through traditional political or military means.

Islamic terror is the attempt to achieve Islamic-Imperialist political goals through terrorist means, because the other means aren't available.

It just so happens that with Israel, the political desire of the Pal-Arabs is, as reflected through their speeches in Arabic, their symbols, and their actions - the destruction of Israel and genocide of the Jews - the same goal which the Arabs as a whole have anounced and acted upon for the past 50 years.

You, of course, make every excuse to avoid this reality - which leads me to believe that you are nothing more than a simple Jew hater. It could be that you simply haven't thought about the consequences of your positions and the false version of history that you spout.

The Arabs attacked the Jews for just IMMIGRATING and living to/in Israel pre 48.

They attacked again in 47-48 in overwhelming numbers.

Israel did participate in Britain and France's attempt to control the Suez - which is understandable considering that Israel thought that the act of friendship would be reciprocated, and it did gain them a demiliterized Sinai - a bufer from Egyptian aggression.

It was an Israeli/British/French act of aggression, although there were attacks coming from the Sinai pre-56, another reason which Israel went along with the plan.

To '67:
Nasser had announced his desire to wipe out Israel, a war of anhialation, and actually would have struck first had the Soviet Union not intervened.

They did blockade Israel, even if you make excuses and qualifications - they were stopping ships which were transporting supplies, including military equipment to defend against attacks, and oil, needed to run the military.

but you, michael, seek to esculpate them from the consequences of their actions.

Egypt did expell the peace-keepers and move in their troops.

Syria and Jordan did fire first, after Israel pre-emptively struck their pan-Arab ally, Egypt - but still, they fired first on Israel, nation wise.

Again, why do you try to help the arabs avoid the consequences of their actions?

Finally, the Arabs did support continued terrorism against Israel (including the Olympic massacre, but also other bombing and hijakings and shelling from Lebanon) and then invaded on Yom Kippur, the holliest day of the Jewish year, in another attempt to kill all the Jews of Israel - because, like most still do, they did not accept the existence of Israel in the mideast, or of Jews on land that they claim for Islam.

Why do they hate Israel? Because - as the Arab/Islamic Imperialist saying goes, Dar al Islam must never revert to the ownership of infidels/barbarians.

BTW - Some minority Arabs commited acts of terror against Arab countries, including Egypt, Syria and Jordan. That doesn't happen any more. The reason it doesn't happen is not because those governments negotiated with the terrorists...its because those countries are not held to the unique standard which Israel is held to, and thus could anhialate those groups without care to collateral damage or anything of the sort.

MGB8

04-03-2004, 07:15 PM

BTW, how could the British Mandate of Palestine be considered "completely settled" at the time you claim - there were significantly less than 2 million people there even by 1947, now there are over 10 million.... Means that there was room for at least another 8 million people, no? And plenty of modern Israel and the WB is still sparsely populated and desolate.

Tel Aviv barely existed, and Haifa wasn't much, either....the biggest city was Ramallah.

Mark Twain had called it a desolate wasteland, and when you look at pictures from the period, you tend to agree - there were people there - certainly - but its was a not a concentrated population, with many migrants, and as many (if not more) recent Arab immigrants from neighboring territories as recent Jewish immigrants.

The quote you cite is more exagerated rhetoric than reality, as is Twain's or Brandeis's description of a land without a people.

You have shown a tendancy to rely (and mis-interpret) quotes and not focus on the hard facts. Why don't you cite Nasser's quote of "anhialation of Israel", or the Egyptian general's quotes saying that they knew that their actions meant war - or why do you misuse quotes that say only that Israel had preplanned the military strategy for the predictable 67 war?

michael

04-10-2004, 12:57 AM

Originally posted by MGB8

Michael -

Did Egypt blockade the Straits of Tiran, cutting off Israel's oil, before Israel's first shot? Yes or no, michael?

Cut off Israels oil? – no. As stated earlier, Eilat received only around 5% of Israeli port traffic. Oil from Iran was among that 5%. Does this mean it couldn’t get to Israel? No, it could still go via Haifa. Again, evidence from other observers at the time, cast doubt on whether or not the blockade as announced was even fully implemented. There were reports of a few ships stopped and searched early on, then even that apparently ceased.

You try to say one blockade is different from the other, and the idea of adjudicating the dispute at the UN, with 59 Islamic countries, while the blockade continued, is ridiculous. You accept the Arab positions, disregarding the key facts - there simply was a blockade on ships of Egypts choosing in the Straits of Tiran. Your arguments don't pass the laugh test.

As for the laugh test, - the US accepted the position that a decision through the World Court was an acceptable solution.

This was one opinion on the subject at the time-
“But a right of innocent passage is not a right of free passage for any cargo at any time. In the words of the Convention on the Terrirtorial sea: ‘Passage is innocent so long as it is not prejudical to the peace good order or security of the coastal state’.
In April Israel conducted a major retaliatory raid on Syria and threatened raids of still greater size. In this situation was Egypt required by international law to continue to allow Israel to bring in oil and other strategic supplies through Egyptian territory – supplies which Israel could use to conduct further military raids? That was the critical question of law.”

Did Egypt expel the peacekeepers from the Sinai and move in their tank batallions into the demiliterized zone before Israel fired a shot? Yes or no, michael?

Striclty speaking - no. Israel had conducted military operations against Syria on several occasions. At that stage, Syria and Egypt formed the UAR with a mutual defense pact. In fact, Egypt had failed to make any response at all to the earlier April encounter, when 6 Syrian planes were shot down by Israel. This lead to widespread criticism of Nasser from other Arab leaders. The mobilization of 2 Egyptian battalions into the Sinai occurred after this April conflict.

The UNEF situation also wasn’t quite as striaghtfoward as I had suggested. Initially, Nasser requested that the UNEF forces be repositioned. The UN refused, stating that they must either stay in position or leave completely. Nasser requested the latter.
It’s worth keeping in mind that Israel never accepted the positioning of UNEF within it’s borders.

You try to make excuses for the expulsion, except that the Sinai is a much bigger barrier from Egypts population centers than Gaza is to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, no? You also ignore the constant Arab threats, not to mention the fact that the Soviets prevented an earlier invasion by the arabs in '67. Oh, and there is the fact that Israel was surrounded by more populated Arab nations which didn't accept its right to exist... hmmm..
Earlier invasion? Do you refer to ‘Operation Dawn’? Historians seem divided over wheter or not this really existed. The Egyptian defence minister , Abd al-Hakim Amer, certainly claimed so. Among those that do credit this theory, one view was that Nasser didn’t know about it initially, and when he did, aborted it. As for the role of the Soviets, I’m not quite sure what you refer to. I thought the only significant role they played was to give an exaggerated report of the early May Israeli cabinet decision to strike Syria, which played a significant role in Nasser’s decision to mobilize into Sinai.

As for the Sinai posing a barrier, Israeli opinion on that was interesting - that it was an aid to Israels defence as it mant that Egyptian supply lines were long and inefficent.

Dividing the Arab countries into separate countries, is it true that Syria and Jordan fired (shelled) Israel before Israel fired back, meaning that even if there is a question because of the pre-emptive strike on Egypt's airforce, that certainly the other two nations could have not fired on Israel and could have avoided going to war?
No, that’s not quite true either.

If you narrow down the chronology of events to the last few days prior to the war, you may be able to argue that Syria and Jordan “fired” first. But going back in time just a little, Israel shot down 6 Syrian planes, one over Damascus, in April. The standard response is that this was a ‘retaliation’. Moshe Dayan, later gave an explanation on how these ‘retaliations’ came about,
“ I know how at least 80% of all these incidents there started. In my opinion, more than 80%, but lets speak about the 80%. It would go like this: we would send in a tractor to plow…..in the de-miltarised area, and we would know ahead of time that the Syrians would start shooting. If they did not start shooting, we would inform the tractor to progress farther, until the Syrians in the end, would get nervous and would shoot. And then we would use guns, and later even the airforce, and that is how it went….We thought that we could change the lines of the ceasefire accords by military actions that were less than war. That is, to seize some territory and hold it until the enemy despairs and gives it to us”.
This is exactly how the April incident began.

This tallies with the accounts given by UN observers at the Israel-Syria DMZ. The UN Commander, Carl von Horn, wrote that,
“ property changed hands, invariably in one direction” - Israel's, and that,
“Gradually, beneath the glowering eyes of the Syrians, who held the high ground overlooking the zone, the area had become a network of Israeli canals and irrigation canals edging up against and always encroaching on arab-owned property”.

A US consular cable of July 1964 confirmed the trend,
“ Arabs concerned themselves basically with preservation situation envisioned [under Armistace] while Israel consistently sought gain full control” and that Israel was “emerging victorious largely because UN never able to oppose aggressive and armed Israeli occupation and assertion actual control over such areas.”

Horns’ subsequent replacement as head of the UN forces, Odd Bull, in his memoirs also observed the same pattern,
‘ the status quo was always being altered by Israel in her favour”

In the 6 months leading up to June 1967, there were no civilian casualties along Israels northern border due to Syrian shelling. The Israeli strike on Egypt certainly prompted Syrian shelling. But there was no Israeli response on this front for several days which lead Gen Ezer Weizmann to speculate on Dayans reasoning for finally doing so, “ If indeed the Syrian army threatened to destroy us, why did we wait three days before we attacked it?”. Good question.
Remembering that Syria was part of the UAR, they had little choice but to come to Egypts aid. Under their agreement, the attack on Egypt was also an attack on Syria. The feeble Syrian response feed into the common Egyptian perceptian of the time that - Syria was willing to fight Israel to the last Egyptian.

The case of Jordan is no less instructive. The November 1966 raid (invasion if we want to be accurate) on the village of Samu inside Jordan, killed over 50. By the usual logic applied to Egyptian /Syrian actions, this would amount to an ‘act of war’, but naturally enough is seen only as ‘retaliation’. Again UN and other observers noted that the Israeli actions were a massive overreaction, and that Jordan was in fact doing all in it’s power to prevent guerilla raids, killing many more Palestinian fighters attempting to infiltrate Israel, than the IDF did.

The US Ambassador to the UN, Arthur Goldberg, commented on the Samu raid,
“ I wish to make it absolutely clear, that this large scale military action cannot be justified, explained away or excused by the incidents which preceded it and in which the Govt of Jordan has not been implicated.” – 16 November,1966.

Again, a cose look at the events leading up to the Six Day war offer a slightly more complicated version of events than MGB8's explanation that it was a Hitleresque plot to kill all Jews.

danholo

04-10-2004, 01:27 AM

Everybody should read Michael B. Oren's book "Six Days of War" before anybody says anything about the 1967 war. It's really ridiculous for guys like "michael" trying to tell me, after reading this book, what the truth is. He just makes me laugh.

He tries to pin the war on Israel and make it sound like some "great conspiracy" to gain more territory just like takeo has done here in the past. Nobody really understands that Israel's leaders were truly concerned about Israel's safety and Nasser, on the other hand, never expected Israel to attack. Nobody ever even mentions the false intelligence the Soviet Union supplied to Egypt before this whole conflict started. It was all a political game and Nasser had to pay for it with his whole career.

Read this book. Otherwise - don't say anything. No obscure website, be it pro-Israel or pro-Arab, can measure to the awesome tome the historian Michael B. Oren has conjured up with every single source possible; archives in Israel, Arab countries and Western ones, interviews with the people involved in the conflict from all sides and, of course, newspapers.

The fact is that Nasser never had in mind to destroy Israel. He knew he couldn't do it. He only did it for a political game. The whole Arab world wants to see Israel gone but while they remain in ignorance the leaders sure as hell know what to do when their political career is in jeopardy. Israel is the perfect victim. Arab leaders - except Palestinian - would never want it to be destroyed, at least then. The 1967 war was a severe political miscalculation by Nasser and because Israel was truly concerned about its existence it attacked. One main concern was that the nuclear reactor in Dimona would be attacked - which turned out to be faulty intelligence as well.

READ THE BOOK. I think many have...

michael

04-10-2004, 01:51 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Michael,

The Arabs attacked the Jews for just IMMIGRATING and living to/in Israel pre 48.
Well at least you're in touch with reality with this. Yes, that's exactly why I posted earlier, Ben Gurions comment,
"There is no example in history that a nation opens the gates of its country, not because of necessity…but because the nation which wants to come in has explained its desire to it”-

For some strange reason the Palestinian Arabs weren't so happy about being dispossed of their land. Go figure.

....and then invaded on Yom Kippur, the holliest day of the Jewish year, in another attempt to kill all the Jews of Israel - because, like most still do, they did not accept the existence of Israel in the mideast, or of Jews on land that they claim for Islam.

There is one important point to note on the Arab 1973 'invasion' that MGB8 may not have considered.
That the invading forces attacked Israeli forces on their own land being occupied by Israel in contravention to UN resolutions.

danholo

04-10-2004, 03:32 AM

Originally posted by michael
For some strange reason the Palestinian Arabs weren't so happy about being dispossed of their land. Go figure.

Go figure and read some history. No Arabs were being disposessed of their land. It would be a crappy scenario if this were true but since it isn't, why even talk about it?

It's interesting how you can start/continue a conversation with a totally false premise. The Jews bought land fair and square. For some turnspeakers this is illegal but, alas, it isn't.

There is one important point to note on the Arab 1973 'invasion' that MGB8 may not have considered.
That the invading forces attacked Israeli forces on their own land being occupied by Israel in contravention to UN resolutions.

Incorrect. There were two sides in these resolutions and they urged the parties to solve their differences peacefully. The UN acknowledged that Israel had attacked in self-defense in 1967. No UN resolution was passed which allowed aggression against Israel.

I mean please, where do you get all this bulls#!t from?

michael

04-10-2004, 07:03 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
BTW, how could the British Mandate of Palestine be considered "completely settled" at the time you claim - there were significantly less than 2 million people there even by 1947, now there are over 10 million.... Means that there was room for at least another 8 million people, no? And plenty of modern Israel and the WB is still sparsely populated and desolate.

The problem was ownership of land. Land in the Mandate area was almost completely under Arab ownership. Even by the time of the partition, Jewish ownership was barely 5%. This was the problem facing the Zionist movement, how to gain control of land for settlement.

...but its was a not a concentrated population, with many migrants, and as many (if not more) recent Arab immigrants from neighboring territories as recent Jewish immigrants.

The Arabs-as-recent-immigrants theory is a nice try but wholely lacking in substance. Have you been reading 'From Time Immemorial'?
What this does, backhandedly, is demonstrates the weakness of Zionist claims to historical legitimacy in Palestine.

michael

04-10-2004, 07:33 AM

Originally posted by danholo
Everybody should read Michael B. Oren's book "Six Days of War" before anybody says anything about the 1967 war. It's really ridiculous for guys like "michael" trying to tell me, after reading this book, what the truth is. He just makes me laugh.

He tries to pin the war on Israel and make it sound like some "great conspiracy" to gain more territory just like takeo has done here in the past. Nobody really understands that Israel's leaders were truly concerned about Israel's safety and Nasser, on the other hand, never expected Israel to attack. Nobody ever even mentions the false intelligence the Soviet Union supplied to Egypt before this whole conflict started. It was all a political game and Nasser had to pay for it with his whole career.

Read this book. Otherwise - don't say anything. No obscure website, be it pro-Israel or pro-Arab, can measure to the awesome tome the historian Michael B. Oren has conjured up with every single source possible; archives in Israel, Arab countries and Western ones, interviews with the people involved in the conflict from all sides and, of course, newspapers.

The fact is that Nasser never had in mind to destroy Israel. He knew he couldn't do it. He only did it for a political game. The whole Arab world wants to see Israel gone but while they remain in ignorance the leaders sure as hell know what to do when their political career is in jeopardy. Israel is the perfect victim. Arab leaders - except Palestinian - would never want it to be destroyed, at least then. The 1967 war was a severe political miscalculation by Nasser and because Israel was truly concerned about its existence it attacked. One main concern was that the nuclear reactor in Dimona would be attacked - which turned out to be faulty intelligence as well.

READ THE BOOK. I think many have...

Yes, I've read it. An interesting account, but one that deviates little from Abba Eban's diplomatic representations. Impressively footnoted though with a remarkable bibliography.

D.'s wrong on one rather important point - "Michael B. Oren has conjured up with every single source possible". Arab, Soviet and Israeli Govt archieval material is still mostly not available. So, for instance, what Nasser may or may not have known about 'Operation Dawn' is uncertain, we have mostly Amer's own account to go by.

Many of the qoutes I provided you won't find in Orens' work, which is why I posted them. I was just assuming MGB8 was working from a knowledge of Orens book. For example the quote I posted from Moshe Dayan (post#32),
"We thought that we could change the lines of the ceasefire accords by military actions that were less than war. That is, to seize some territory and hold it until the enemy despairs and gives it to us”.
Oren slates the primary responsibility home to the Syrians. This seems a curious omission given the books publishers describe it as "the most comphrehensive history" on the Six Day War. Dayans opinion on what was happening at the northern border, one might have thought, would rate a mention.

Obviously, no work can quote every source and note every piece of information, choices must be made as to relevance and confidence in the source.
Oren seems to reach a conclusion very much in keeping with the official Israeli view. This may simply reflect an honest appraisal of available information, but glaring ommissions like Dayans' statement (and many others besides) may lead the sceptic to the conclusion that this is not an "uncommonly detached" account, as Oren professes.

MGB8

04-10-2004, 11:22 AM

Michael,

You are an excellent propagandist, but you still obscure the big picture with quotes that are as biased (if not more) as the qoutes and sources you dismiss, you ignore the Arab quotes that clearly expressed a desire and understanding that their actions meant war, and you simply twist the facts to get the results you want.

The quotes of Nasser and his Arab allies are quite clear on their intentions - they were going to shock the world, correct the "mistake" of Israel, and push it into the sea. As much as you wish that these things weren't said and acted upon

On the straights of Tiran,

Its undisputed that Egypt violated the resolution of the 56 war in blockading those Straits. That was an act of war, requiring no further justification - but...

The great majority of Israel's oil at the time came from Iran. In order to not go through those straights, Oil would have either had to go through the Egyptian controlled Suez, or around Africa.

Sure, its possible for Israel to get some Oil without the straights - but the lessening of supply weakens it for an announced upcoming war. Waiting for it to be adjudicated was not a realistic option, either - as Arab armies were massing, communications on an impending attack intercepted, etc. etc. Your attempt to make Israel the aggressor by discounting the practical consequences of Arab actions are laughable and likely motivated by....

Whether or not the blockade was "completely effective" is a ludicrous attempt to excuse the Arabs of responsibility. It was clearly an act of war, intended to weaken Israel - to soften her up for war.

Arab attacks from Jordan and Syria had been ongoing pre 1967 - and Israel responded. But, in terms of excalation of the conflict, it is undisputed that at the start of what is called the 6-day war, Syria and Jordan fired first, declaring war. This was despite Israel's attempt to keep Jordan out of the war - documented, and through UN channels, which would have kept the WB in Jordanian possession.

Its similarly undisputed that the Arabs did violate the 56 agreement again by expelling the UN peacekeepers from the Sinai (who left without fullfilling their agreed commitments) and moving in their armies and tanks. What does Israel, who has now been blockaded on their main OIL port, and has been threatened with annhialation, is surrounded by 250,000 troops from nations who are threatening it, communicating that they will attack, attacking it in low level conflict, and who don't recognize its right to exists - what does Israel make of this? What is Israel supposed to think, to do?

You attempt to blur the picture - but the above is all factually accurate. The Arabs clearly and unmistakably provoked the '67 war, and Syria and Jordan clearly attacked first.

Why do you attempt to blur the picture - I think your last post shows your belief that Israel shouldn't exists (and thus that the Jews, unlike Muslims or Christians, don't deserve ONE homeland, and should be either expelled, which you would call a crime against humanity in another context, or killed - genocide).

MGB8

04-10-2004, 11:40 AM

Michael,

Now, as to your last post about the mandated land of Palestine being "all Arab owned."

This is a LIE.

First, lets chop off the 78% given to the Hashemites from Mecca, because, frankly, I haven't researched the ownership hsitory of that part of the Palestine mandate.

Of the Western part of the mandate, fully %45-55 of the land was STATE OWNED - ie. owned by the sovereign of the territory. It had been owned by the Ottomans, and when the British took control of the mandate, title passed to them.

Much of the rest of the land was owned by absentee landlords, and much of that land was then PURCHASED by Jews.

How is selling land to Jews equal to "dispossesing" Arabs - Arabs sold the land, often for hugely infalted prices.

The original partition gave the Jews sovereignty greatly only over parts where (1) they already owned the land, (2) the land was state owned - ie large chunks of the Negev), and (3) where they had a large demographic majority.

Now, Israelis over time have sympathised with the fact that the Arabs considered themselves sovereign over the land (because the Ottomans were Muslims, and to them sovereignty can only pass from Muslim to Muslim) and that the creation of the Jewish state frustrated the Islamic imperialist/Arab nationalist desire to rule over all that land, even putting some Arabs and Muslims under a sovereignty that was majority not Arab Muslim (oh, the horror).

That sympathy is simply - they had interests that opposed the Jews gaining their own state, even if the Jews are majority and the land justly acquired, so no wonder they attack. But a realpolitik understanding Islamic imperialism and selfish motivations for control of land is different than saying that those motivations are justified or morally correct.

The fact is that the Arabs gained sovereignty over more than 78% of the Palestine mandate throught the partition, and still retain about 78% of it. The fact is that they have 99.5% of the middle east. The fact is that there is very little ethnic distinction between a "Palestinian" and a Jordanian - since non-Hashemite (non-Bedouin or Druze or Kurd) Jordanians are by definition "Palestinian" - they come from mandatory Palestine, or for that matter, on a less legalistic, more historical/ethnic definition - Syrians or Lebanese or Egyptian Arabs (although there are plenty of non-Arab Egyptians).

But, Islamic Imperialism can't stand for once Muslim land to return to its original sovereigns (despite the Koranic and historical acknowledgment of the kingdom of Israel by most Islamic scholars - although denial is more and more common - Islam perverted for Jihadism) who returned to the land, became the majority in large parts (one person, one vote?), and bought large chunks of land (and were legally granted even more).

There are 57 Islamic countries, and many dozen Christian countries - but the Muslims deny the right or good of ONE Jewish country to exist at all. Instead, the propose finishing Hitler's final solution. This is evil - there is no other word.

Instead of saying - well, we got 99.5% of the mid-east, all the oil, and we want to help the "Palestinians" (a term invented in the 60's to mean what it does today - as a tool towards the destruction of Israel) live with their ethnically non-disctinct brothers and sisters in Jordan and Egypt and Lebanon and Syria - the Pal Arabs are kept from citizenship and in squalor as a tool in the war to Conquer Israel (and then the west.)

You seem to support this war abu-"michael"....are you courageous enough to admit it? Probably not.

Mediocrates

04-10-2004, 05:21 PM

Read my post "The Russians Were Coming". After the fall of the CCCP documents surfaced/were declassified that made clear that the CCCP was planning and was on the edge of invading Israel to snuff it out once and for all all during the lead up to the 6 Day War.

Here is the source link:

http://meria.idc.ac.il/journal/2000/issue4/jv4n4a5.html

Excerpt

Editor's Summary: New evidence reveals that during the 1967 Six-Day War the Soviet Union set in motion military operations to assist Egypt and especially Syria, first in seeking to overcome Israel and then in response to Israel’s pre-emptive attack. These potential steps included a naval landing, airborne reinforcement and air support for ground operations. Action was aborted at the last minute due, among other factors, to a firm US response and dissension among Soviet leaders in Moscow.

8:48 a.m. on June 10, 1967 was “a time of great concern and utmost gravity” in the White House Situation Room, according to U.S. Ambassador to the USSR Llewellyn Thompson, one of the presidential advisors present there. (1) A message had just been received over the Moscow-Washington hotline from Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin threatening a Soviet military action that might lead to nuclear confrontation.(2) Newly received evidence now shows the threat was not an empty one: the Soviets had prepared a naval landing, with air support, on Israel's shores.

New evidence summarized in this article indicates that the Soviet intervention was not only planned but actually set in motion before being aborted. Soviet officials interviewed insist that such operations were meant only to deter Israel from overwhelming Egypt and, especially, Syria, as well as to stop the United States from intervening on Israel’s side. In order to achieve this outcome, however, the projected action had to be made known to these adversaries, and this was carefully avoided by the Soviets. Yet details of the operation were kept in total secrecy, have been denied to this day, and remained generally unknown to Israeli and American intelligence.

Thus, unless the Soviets grossly overestimated the other side’s intelligence capability, this indicates that the operation was to be implemented, not just threatened. Moreover, preparations for this operation began well before the Soviets even accused Israel of offensive designs, the supposed reason for the intervention.

Well before 1967, Israel had been targeted by the KGB's Foreign Intelligence (First) Directorate as a theater of operations during a larger East-West conflict. Preparations had been made there for parachuting at least diversionnye razvedyvatelnye gruppy (DRGs--sabotage-intelligence groups) to destroy Israeli targets. During 1964-66, according to documents supplied by the defecting KGB archivist Vasili Mitrokhin, Israel was one of the countries where caches of arms and radio equipment were prepositioned for such operations. Mitrokhin claims some of these were boobytrapped and may be in place to this day.(3) The direct involvement of Soviet personnel on Israeli soil, at least on a small scale, had thus already been considered and approved.

The Soviet Union played a central role in escalating Middle East tensions to the brink of war in 1967, and evidence is accumulating that it actually instigated the conflict. In his recently published memoirs, Nikita S. Khrushchev asserts that the USSR's military command first encouraged high-ranking Egyptian and Syrian delegations, in a series of “hush-hush” mutual visits, to go to war, then persuaded the Soviet political leadership to support these steps, in the full knowledge they were aimed at starting a war to destroy Israel.(4)

The conventional Western chronology of this crisis starts on May 13, 1967 when Egypt made the false charge, based on information provided by the USSR, that Israel was massing forces on its border with Syria in preparation for an attack. But even as the crisis unfolded, on May 26, a U.S. diplomat remarked to a Soviet interlocutor: “It almost seemed as though the Soviet Union had been aware in advance of the coming Near Eastern crisis, since [Communist Party Secretary Leonid I.] Brezhnev had first called for withdrawal of the Sixth Fleet [from the Mediterranean] on April 24.”(5)

The Soviet Ambassador in Tel Aviv, Dmitri S. Chuvakhin, declined an Israeli invitation to see for himself that the charges of troop concentrations were baseless. Twenty-four years later, Chuvakhin maintained in an interview that “[Israeli Prime Minister Levi] Eshkol did pose the question, but unfortunately it isn't a diplomat's assignment to tour frontiers and see whether forces are being massed there or not.”(6) Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban correctly identified the Soviet source of the Egyptians' “bad intelligence” and complained to U.S. Ambassador Walworth Barbour that “talking with the Soviet Ambassador here [is] like talking to someone from a different planet.”(7)

General Muhammad Fawzi, the Egyptian Chief of Staff, did go to Syria to see for himself and reported that “there was no sign of Israeli troop concentrations and the Russians must have been having hallucinations.”(8) But the KGB is reported, by a defector, to have planted agents among Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser's closest advisors (9), and he apparently chose to believe them--or simply stuck to a plan agreed upon previously with the Soviets.

The Soviet press, including Pravda's Cairo correspondent Yevgeny Primakov (later Russia's SVR [Foreign Intelligence] chief, foreign minister and premier) contributed inflammatory allegations about Israel's aggressive intent.(10) For the first time, Moscow sent much of its Black Sea and Northern Fleets into the Mediterranean (11) and discreetly backed Nasser when he demanded the removal of the UN force from Sinai and blocked Israeli shipping through the Gulf of Aqaba to the port of Eilat. The U.S. embassy in Cairo was certain that Egypt had “full Soviet backing” on the latter move and was concerned that the State Department thought otherwise.(12)

Mediocrates

04-10-2004, 05:25 PM

See the point that the takeos of the world will never admit to is that they fully support the extinction of Israel. They bob and weave and try to delegitimize and uninvent the country and hold them up for excoriation at ever turn but it all leads the same place. It would be a takeoist wet dream, national holiday and hit of crack at the same time if Israel were destroyed and all its inhabitants killed, enslaved, driven off. The only thing that varies between their opinion and your run of the mill terrorist is they couch it in pseudo academic terms and present it to you like a fact; similar to claims about phrenology that doctors made in the 19th century about the brains of criminals. In the end it's simply more PC racism, this takeoism.

MGB8

04-10-2004, 06:29 PM

I happen to suspect that "michael" is an in fact a very well educated Arab who believes in the destruction of Israel and the oppression, expulsion or genocide of the Jews there who is simply practicing/testing his propaganda.

He might respond by saying some Israelis call for the expulsion of the Palestinians - which ignores the fact that there is ONE jewish state, while there are many Arab States, and many more Muslim States (and muslim land, including sparesly inhabited land that could be a Pal Arab state....)

The lengths that he goes to try to overcome the big picture - Arab actions and statements regarding 1967, to try to shift Israel into the aggressor spot (which would then hurt Israel's defense of having won the WB and Gaza in a defensive war, among other things...) support this (although michael could simply be a European type "leftist" read: closet anti-semite).

Look at the sillyness of his arguments - Oh Egypt expelled the peacekeepers in contravention of the 56 cease fire/UN resolution - but it must have been only for defensive purposes. Oh, Egypt blockaded the Straights of Tiran, which is where the great great majority of Israel's oil (which feuls its defenses) comes from - but michael says - what about the TVs and wheat that came through Haifa? Why couldn't Israel just wait for the oil to come around Africa or the muslim nation controlled UN to adjudicate this? Who cares if it was an act of war accompanied by beligerent threats and the massing of forces towards Israel?

Oh, Dayan said something about Israel wanting to take land from Syria and Lebanon without war (what - a couple of Acres? Without a full fleged war Israel couldn't exactly take much, much less go up the slopes of the Golan?

Of course, lets ignore Israels attempts to keep Jordan out of the War (the WB)....lets ignore the Arab statements of intention to commit genocide (they were joking, right? Funny funny, lets all laugh and share a latte!).

He then brings up the fact that there were continuing hostilities between Israel and its neighbors since they tried to kill all the Jews in 47-8. I don't know about the Jet incident he talks about - but I'm sure that the portrayal was about as honest as the rest of his garbage - that the planes may have violated Israeli airspace or some other sort of justification...but even without - the bottom line is the three no's and the desire and actions of the Arabs to committ genocide.

in the end, that's all Michael is trying to do - to try to hide the fact that the Arab states want to committ genocide, or at lease excuse the inexcusable. He seems to support the Arab attempt to committ genocide on the Jews.....and what would that make Michael???

Originally posted by Mediocrates
See the point that the takeos of the world will never admit to is that they fully support the extinction of Israel. They bob and weave and try to delegitimize and uninvent the country and hold them up for excoriation at ever turn but it all leads the same place. It would be a takeoist wet dream, national holiday and hit of crack at the same time if Israel were destroyed and all its inhabitants killed, enslaved, driven off. The only thing that varies between their opinion and your run of the mill terrorist is they couch it in pseudo academic terms and present it to you like a fact; similar to claims about phrenology that doctors made in the 19th century about the brains of criminals. In the end it's simply more PC racism, this takeoism.

michael

04-12-2004, 06:00 PM

Originally posted by MGB8

The quotes of Nasser and his Arab allies are quite clear on their intentions - they were going to shock the world, correct the "mistake" of Israel, and push it into the sea. As much as you wish that these things weren't said and acted upon.
There were all kinds of provocations and bellicose statements by all involved, which only served to heighten tensions. All involved share in this responsibility. The main difference is that Israel acted in accord with it’s rhetoric.
Israeli Gen Ezer Weizmann addressed this point when he said,
“ There is no doubt that the Arabs threatened us with destruction, because they wished it….The heart of the question, however, is aimed at our estimation of the Arabs’ capacity to destroy us. Had the Arabs attacked first, they would have also suffered complete defeat. The only difference is that the war then would have been prolonged; to command control of the air maybe 13 hours would have been needed instead of three….” (Ha’aretz, March 29, 1972).

Arab attacks from Jordan and Syria had been ongoing pre 1967 - and Israel responded. But, in terms of excalation of the conflict, it is undisputed that at the start of what is called the 6-day war, Syria and Jordan fired first, declaring war. This was despite Israel's attempt to keep Jordan out of the war - documented, and through UN channels, which would have kept the WB in Jordanian possession
What are we to make of the Israeli raid by a battalion of 4000 on the village of Samu in Nov 1966? The US denounced it as a clear violation of the armistice. By MBG8’s logic elsewhere, Jordan at this point was entitled to attack Israel, not merely as pre-emption, but in self-defense in a clear case of attack by the army of a neigbouring state.
Then there’s the April 7, encounter. Israel provoked the incident as Moshe Dayan describes and shoots down 6 Syrian planes in Syrian airspace. Again, may Syria respond to this ‘act of war’? Apparently not. Retaliation in only an Israeli right, it seems. At this point Egypt may also have responded in light of it’s treaty with Syria. It didn’t. Egypt finally did act in mid-May after the exaggerated warning by the Soviets and comments by Israel PM Eshkol that it would strike again at Syria. Egypts response - removing UNEF and positioning forces, positioning described as “defensive” by the head of UNEF, and announcing the blockade. But, only at this point, do such actions, not involving shooting down of aircraft, nor ‘retaliatory’ raids into another state by armed forces killing dozens, suddenly amount to ‘acts of war’.

Its undisputed that Egypt violated the resolution of the 56 war in blockading those Straits. That was an act of war, requiring no further justification - but...
Undisputed by MGB8.
Remember the opinion I posted earlier? It was by Roger Fisher, Professor in Law at Harvard University. He also said, “ The UAR had a good legal case for restricting traffic through the Straits of Tiran. First, its debatable whether international law confers any innocent right of passage through such a waterway. Despite an Israeli request, the International Law Commission in 1956 found no rule which would govern the Strait of Tiran….I as an international lawyer would rather defend before the International Court of Justice the legality of the UAR’s action closing the Strait than to argue the other side of the case.”
Both the UN and the US position post-‘56 was that the Straits presented complex legal issues which may be best settled through mediation. The UN Secretary General said “a legal controversy exists as to the extent of the rights of innocent passage through these waters”.
The situation post-56 was not fully resolved. The US maintained that Israel could enjoy ‘innocent’ passage through the straits, but that’s all. Pres Eisenhower made it clear that Egypt retained belligerent rights in the strait and that such an act would,
“constitute no justification for the armed invasion of Egypt by Israel”. ie – it could not be considered an act of war.
The UN Secretary-General proposed a moratorium on the blockade and the appointment of a mediator to settle the dispute. Egypt agreed to the request, while Israel through Gideon Rafael, refused both diplomatic initiatives.
So perhaps there’s a new definition of undisputed? What MGB8 really means by undisputed, is undisputed according to his/her preference , despite inconvenient facts.

The great majority of Israel's oil at the time came from Iran. In order to not go through those straights, Oil would have either had to go through the Egyptian controlled Suez, or around Africa.
Sure, its possible for Israel to get some Oil without the straights - but the lessening of supply weakens it for an announced upcoming war. Waiting for it to be adjudicated was not a realistic option, either
Prior to 1957, Israel recieved not just 'some', but all of its oil through routes other than via Eilat and the Straits.
Studies of the dispute show that not a single vessel was stopped or searched in the Straits between May 25 and June 6 – that’s some ‘total blockade’.

Its similarly undisputed that the Arabs did violate the 56 agreement again by expelling the UN peacekeepers from the Sinai (who left without fullfilling their agreed commitments) and moving in their armies and tanks.
This would be a great argument except for one small problem – it’s wrong. This was the UN Secretary Generals comment about Egypts request for UNEF withdrawal. –“There is no official United Nations document on the basis of which any case could be made that there was any limitation on the authority of the Government of Egypt to rescind that consent at its pleasure, or which would indicate that the United Arab Republic had in any way surrendered its right to ask for and obtain at any time the removal of U.N.E.F. from its territory.”

An undisputed violation?

Again, if Egypt is so perfidious for withdrawing the UNEF, what are we to make of Israels actions in refusing to ever allow them to be stationed inside Israel?

Israel, who has now……..has been threatened with annhialation, is surrounded by 250,000 troops from nations who are threatening it
The word 'threatened' is, I guess, accurate enough, but if we keep in mind Gen Weizmann's advice that "capacity" is the real question, then just maybe Israel did not quite face 'annihilation'.

Let’s look at a few dissenting views from, admittedly, very minor actors on the world stage at the time.
CIA chief Richard Helms - “we predicted almost to within a day how long the war would last”.
US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in his memoirs reported that US and British intelligence reports on June 2 predicted Israel would win “beyond a shadow of a doubt”.
Abba Eban himself recorded that US President Johnston told him Israel would defeat Egypt easily, in fact they would “whip the hell out of them”, ('Personal Witness', Eban).
Intelligence sources, and Israeli military sources were only uncertain of one thing- how long would it take Israel to win. Estimates varied from 2 days to 10 with the most pessimistic based on an Egyptian first strike. These same sources predicted little change to the scenario even in the event of a simultaneous multi-front war.
One reason for such confidence was that Israeli officials “recognized something that went unnoticed by most of the rest of the world…..that they [Israel] had nearly as many firstline troops as the combined Arab force” ( ‘Elusive Victory’ - Trevor Dupuy, 1973) . Add Israels complete air superiority, and ‘annihilation’ starts to look like something else all-together.
Gen Matti Peled also ridiculed the idea of a threat of destruction to Israel, “ the Egyptians concentrated 80,000 soldiers in Sinai and we mobilized hundreds of thousands of men against them”

'So to summarise realistically - Its similarly undisputed that the Arabs did not violate the 56 agreement again by expelling the UN peacekeepers from the Sinai (who left not without fullfilling their agreed commitments) and moving in their armies and tanks. What does Israel, who has now not been blockaded on their main OIL port, and has been threatened with annhialation, but where there is no actual risk of such a thing, is surrounded by 250,000 troops from nations who are threatening it, communicating that they will attack, attacking it in low level conflict, and who don't recognize its right to exists - what does Israel make of this? What is Israel supposed to think, to do? '

One possibilty might have been to engage in some hardheaded diplomacy as encouraged by both the US and the UN, and not launching a ‘pre-emptive’ war against it’s neigbours when, as General Weizman said , “ there was no threat of destruction against the state of Israel” -(Ha’artez, March 20, 1972).

MGB8

04-13-2004, 08:36 AM

Michael,

You still try to excuplate the Arabs of responsibility for their actions despite no basis to do so.

Now you are on the "capacity" tack - that they wanted to destroy Israel, were willing to act on it, but some Israeli's believed that they couldn't do it.

You are right, that some (arrogant) Israeli's believed that they were invincible, but other, more conservative ones, did not. As I said above, the arrogance of the Israeli military gets it to put its foot in its mouth more than anything else.

By 1973 the military gap was greater between Israel and the surrounding Arab neighbors. Israel was aware of a potential attack. But, this time, instead of pre-empting, it did nothing.

The result? But for the grace of g-d, Israel was almost destroyed, by FEWER STATES, with weaker numbers, less strategic advantage (except the 1 day surprise of Yom Kippur - oh those brave and noble arabs!) and a relatively weaker military!

In other words, the Israeli military did the right thing in '67, and the wrong thing in '73 - but you advise the latter.

As for the rest of your arguments - they are garbage.

(1) Jodan was never threated with attack by Israel, nor was it blockaded or peacekeepers from a buffer zone kicked out against international law. In fact, Israel was negotiating with Jordan until the last second for an avoidance of war. You analogy is garbage, false and misleading.

(2) Post 56 the agreement was that Egypt would respect Israel's right to use the straights of Tiran - it violated that and committed an act of war by blockading those straights - the effectiveness of the blockade is not all that relevant.

(3) The issue of whether Israel could, over time, get oil from another port is not strategically relevant - the delay in transition from one to the other would weaken Israel's military when its neighbors where massing, had expelled peacekeepers, and where threatening to invade - to not react would have been a violation of Israel's duty to its citizens, and to wait for adjudication just helping its enemies soften it up. But, outside of strategic considerations - the blockade was a beligerent act of war nonetheless.

The question remains, of course, why you try to get around these key, and undisputed, facts, with smoke and mirrors? My guess remains the same - that you wish the destruction of Israel, and the genocide, subjugation, or expulsion of the Jews from their historic homeland and the one and only Jewish state. What does that make you, michael?

Originally posted by michael
There were all kinds of provocations and bellicose statements by all involved, which only served to heighten tensions. All involved share in this responsibility. The main difference is that Israel acted in accord with it’s rhetoric.
Israeli Gen Ezer Weizmann addressed this point when he said,
“ There is no doubt that the Arabs threatened us with destruction, because they wished it….The heart of the question, however, is aimed at our estimation of the Arabs’ capacity to destroy us. Had the Arabs attacked first, they would have also suffered complete defeat. The only difference is that the war then would have been prolonged; to command control of the air maybe 13 hours would have been needed instead of three….” (Ha’aretz, March 29, 1972).

What are we to make of the Israeli raid by a battalion of 4000 on the village of Samu in Nov 1966? The US denounced it as a clear violation of the armistice. By MBG8’s logic elsewhere, Jordan at this point was entitled to attack Israel, not merely as pre-emption, but in self-defense in a clear case of attack by the army of a neigbouring state.
Then there’s the April 7, encounter. Israel provoked the incident as Moshe Dayan describes and shoots down 6 Syrian planes in Syrian airspace. Again, may Syria respond to this ‘act of war’? Apparently not. Retaliation in only an Israeli right, it seems. At this point Egypt may also have responded in light of it’s treaty with Syria. It didn’t. Egypt finally did act in mid-May after the exaggerated warning by the Soviets and comments by Israel PM Eshkol that it would strike again at Syria. Egypts response - removing UNEF and positioning forces, positioning described as “defensive” by the head of UNEF, and announcing the blockade. But, only at this point, do such actions, not involving shooting down of aircraft, nor ‘retaliatory’ raids into another state by armed forces killing dozens, suddenly amount to ‘acts of war’.

Undisputed by MGB8.
Remember the opinion I posted earlier? It was by Roger Fisher, Professor in Law at Harvard University. He also said, “ The UAR had a good legal case for restricting traffic through the Straits of Tiran. First, its debatable whether international law confers any innocent right of passage through such a waterway. Despite an Israeli request, the International Law Commission in 1956 found no rule which would govern the Strait of Tiran….I as an international lawyer would rather defend before the International Court of Justice the legality of the UAR’s action closing the Strait than to argue the other side of the case.”
Both the UN and the US position post-‘56 was that the Straits presented complex legal issues which may be best settled through mediation. The UN Secretary General said “a legal controversy exists as to the extent of the rights of innocent passage through these waters”.
The situation post-56 was not fully resolved. The US maintained that Israel could enjoy ‘innocent’ passage through the straits, but that’s all. Pres Eisenhower made it clear that Egypt retained belligerent rights in the strait and that such an act would,
“constitute no justification for the armed invasion of Egypt by Israel”. ie – it could not be considered an act of war.
The UN Secretary-General proposed a moratorium on the blockade and the appointment of a mediator to settle the dispute. Egypt agreed to the request, while Israel through Gideon Rafael, refused both diplomatic initiatives.
So perhaps there’s a new definition of undisputed? What MGB8 really means by undisputed, is undisputed according to his/her preference , despite inconvenient facts.

Prior to 1957, Israel recieved not just 'some', but all of its oil through routes other than via Eilat and the Straits.
Studies of the dispute show that not a single vessel was stopped or searched in the Straits between May 25 and June 6 – that’s some ‘total blockade’.

This would be a great argument except for one small problem – it’s wrong. This was the UN Secretary Generals comment about Egypts request for UNEF withdrawal. –“There is no official United Nations document on the basis of which any case could be made that there was any limitation on the authority of the Government of Egypt to rescind that consent at its pleasure, or which would indicate that the United Arab Republic had in any way surrendered its right to ask for and obtain at any time the removal of U.N.E.F. from its territory.”

An undisputed violation?

Again, if Egypt is so perfidious for withdrawing the UNEF, what are we to make of Israels actions in refusing to ever allow them to be stationed inside Israel?

The word 'threatened' is, I guess, accurate enough, but if we keep in mind Gen Weizmann's advice that "capacity" is the real question, then just maybe Israel did not quite face 'annihilation'.

Let’s look at a few dissenting views from, admittedly, very minor actors on the world stage at the time.
CIA chief Richard Helms - “we predicted almost to within a day how long the war would last”.
US Defense Secretary Robert McNamara in his memoirs reported that US and British intelligence reports on June 2 predicted Israel would win “beyond a shadow of a doubt”.
Abba Eban himself recorded that US President Johnston told him Israel would defeat Egypt easily, in fact they would “whip the hell out of them”, ('Personal Witness', Eban).
Intelligence sources, and Israeli military sources were only uncertain of one thing- how long would it take Israel to win. Estimates varied from 2 days to 10 with the most pessimistic based on an Egyptian first strike. These same sources predicted little change to the scenario even in the event of a simultaneous multi-front war.
One reason for such confidence was that Israeli officials “recognized something that went unnoticed by most of the rest of the world…..that they [Israel] had nearly as many firstline troops as the combined Arab force” ( ‘Elusive Victory’ - Trevor Dupuy, 1973) . Add Israels complete air superiority, and ‘annihilation’ starts to look like something else all-together.
Gen Matti Peled also ridiculed the idea of a threat of destruction to Israel, “ the Egyptians concentrated 80,000 soldiers in Sinai and we mobilized hundreds of thousands of men against them”

'So to summarise realistically - Its similarly undisputed that the Arabs did not violate the 56 agreement again by expelling the UN peacekeepers from the Sinai (who left not without fullfilling their agreed commitments) and moving in their armies and tanks. What does Israel, who has now not been blockaded on their main OIL port, and has been threatened with annhialation, but where there is no actual risk of such a thing, is surrounded by 250,000 troops from nations who are threatening it, communicating that they will attack, attacking it in low level conflict, and who don't recognize its right to exists - what does Israel make of this? What is Israel supposed to think, to do? '

One possibilty might have been to engage in some hardheaded diplomacy as encouraged by both the US and the UN, and not launching a ‘pre-emptive’ war against it’s neigbours when, as General Weizman said , “ there was no threat of destruction against the state of Israel” -(Ha’artez, March 20, 1972).

danholo

04-13-2004, 09:14 AM

Israel the aggressor raided Samu! We know this! But why on Earth would it go there?! Of course! It is evil!

.... Once again one decides to ignore the cause and effect. Was there actually a reason for Israel to send forces into Samu?

I believe it was a response to cross-border terrorism! Oh my, I guess THEY are allowed to do it, but Israel is NOT to respond.

And then they'll say, but they were terrorists acting on their own. But then I'll say: "They were funded by Arab states!" "Oh really? You lie!"

Quote Michael B. Oren, Six Days of War p. 33:

"...the largest Israeli strike force assembled since the 1956 war... crossed the West Bank border before dawn, November 13, 1966. The operation aimed at punishing Palestinian villages in the Heberon area that had aided and billeted al-Fatah guerrilas..."

Of course the operation didn't succeed as planned - it went horribly wrong - but you are guilty of telling half-truths about Samu and trying to accuse Israel of "aggression" when it is clear that I have a comprehensive book on my bookshelf that REFUTES your one-sided half-truthtelling!

Maybe you have this book as well but you sure can be selective!

Mediocrates

04-13-2004, 09:22 AM

danholo if you have the time you should pull up information on the interwar periods in Israel. Hundreds of Israelis died in terrorist attacks between 49-56 and from 57-63 as well as in the war of attrition 68-70.

Oh Jerusalem

04-14-2004, 12:41 AM

Originally posted by Mediocrates
danholo if you have the time you should pull up information on the interwar periods in Israel. Hundreds of Israelis died in terrorist attacks between 49-56 and from 57-63 as well as in the war of attrition 68-70.
War of Attrition (http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/History/war_of_attrition.html):

The Israeli death toll between June 15, 1967, and August 8, 1970, was 1,424 soldiers and more than 100 civilians. Another 2,000 soldiers and 700 civilians were wounded.

Leon

04-14-2004, 03:38 AM

Poor Michael.
I see that whislt I;ve been away, other posters have managed to make an even bigger fool of you. Even Houdini (the greatest trickster and illusionist of all time) could never have gotten himself out of such an embarressing predicament.

Originally posted by michael
[B]First, it’s faint derision “Oh goody, quotes, quotes and more quotes” that I provided information, followed by petulant demands that I must do more! - “provide a full account”.

Why not? You can always provide statistics: i.e how many innocent civilians (mothers, school children, the sick and elderlly) were murdered in cold blood by Falintil? Not to mention an entire record of their terrorist attacks aimed entirley at innocent civilians. Instead you came up with ONE incident, not caring to go into the specifics of what happened, who got killed and exactly how many (focusing on children and pregnant mothers).

It would be nice if I had the time to spoon feed Leon, but alas, no. It was obviously too hard to look up the reference I provided.

Well, if you're confident enough to post a 'fact'...why just stick a lame foot note and not go into specifics (at least provide a basic outline) as to what happened - i.e statistics as to how many dead, etc? Lets not stick to your usual modus operandi of trying to dodge or skip a question/argument. If your man enough to present a certain argument or 'fact'...you should be man enough to respond point by point to every counter-argument.

Does Leon perhaps believe that the Falintil killing civilians had nothing to do with “occupation and desperation”? They killed, like Palestinians terrorists, just because it’s their way, or it’s in their blood maybe?

I would be interested to know how they killed and who they killed and the level and scope of their terrorist activity compared to Palestinian terrorism - taking into account that there was no comparison with the brutuality of the Indonesian occupation as oppossed to the type of 'occupation' the Palestinians (whose leaders made into Forbes Magazine) are under.

They killed like Palestinian terrorists? Did they pack their explosives with nails dipped in rat poision and aim at school children, teenagers and the elderly (ALMOST always avoiding military targets)? Did 95% of them live under East Timorese autonomy where they were free to hold mass hate rallies (consisting of thousands) which incited and called for the murder of innocent Indonesians and the total destruction of the Indonesian state? With autonomy, were they free to have an indepedent press with newspapers, TV and Radio which likewise incited Nazi type hatred and murder? Did the East Timorese fighters ever get the most vulnerable elements of their society to do the fighting for them: I.e did they bribe mentally retarded school children with a few dollars and promises of sex with virgins if they 'martyrd' themselves - murdering other children their age? Did they force young women whom they accussed of 'adultery' into becoming 'martyrs' for the sake of retaining their 'lost honor' and the 'lost honor' of her family?

Did they start a civil war in two different countries where tens of thousands were killed and try to destroy another? Did they hijack civilian airlines, murder diplomats, bomb schools and embassies around the world, causing terror and murder on ever continent?
Did they recieve UN observer status not to mention billions from the Soviet Union, China, the US and the EU? And as a result did their leaders make it into Forbes magazine?

A previous poster was spot on he mentioned the term 'pseudo-academics,' - an accurate reflection of what you post. I was going to respond to your recent (very long) pseudo-academic thesis (quoted below), but wont because your whole argument centers around the notion that Palestinian terrorism (with all its barbarity) is a response to Israeli occupation.

Why wont I respond? Quite simple: Because I and anothet poster continually brought up the fact that Palestinian terror well and truly pre-dated the 1967 'occupation', not to mention the creation of Israel in 1948. Aarb propagandists like to argue that Palestinian terrorism is a result of the occupation, yet all the evidence shows that its the other way roud. Terrorism against innocent Jewish civilians was at an all time high in the 20's, not to mention the goold old 30's and 40's (when the Palestinian leadership allied itself to Hitelr and participated in the Holocaust). It was at an all time high in the 1950's and early 60's. Between 1953 and 1955 alone, 1000 innocent Israelis (children, men, women) were murdered by Palestinian terrorists who conducted raids into Israeli territory...thats more Israelis killed then in the current intifada...and that was 12 years before the 67 'occupation'!

But, in the usual Michael style you continue to dodge and avoid this argument (like you do with everything else).

on another note: I couldnt help but be amused when you accused me of moral relativism. Fancy been called a moral relativist by a moral relativist...

Unwittingly agreed? If I’d said anything contrary to that, you might be making a point.
It is interesting to consider why terrorism might arise in some situations and not others. Some suggest that there is a ‘middle ground’ where terrorism can arise. At one extreme, massive military slaughter, ala Indonesia, and extreme powerlessness may inhibit the ability to organize sufficiently for terrorists to operate. At the other end, sufficient operating democracy may allow for a political solution, blunting terrorists ability to garner support. This ties in with Hannah Arendt’s thesis that terrorism tends to arise when there is a block in political processes. Superficially, Ireland seems to go against this. The IRA operated in a reasonably democratic society. However, under the Thatcher Govt. committed to pursuing a military solution, the IRA thrived. Under Blair, with a plan of negotiation and co-operation, IRA terrorism has ceased.

As for the fact that there have been, and are, other conflicts with far worse crimes than those committed by Israel, – so what? If my point was that Israel was uniquely evil, Leon would be spot on, but I didn’t and never have suggested that. The discussion was about causes and responses. Is this the lesson that Leon proposes- that might is right, so suffer the consequences? Gen Suharto would agree I’m sure.
Some on this forum seem to lean towards this Indonesian approach, urging further military escalation. It may be worth remembering, that if indeed the overwhelming military approach can have results, that it may take mass slaughter and large scale atrocities of the kind that destroy a society.

What seems to underlie Leons response is a common conflation, perhaps deliberate, that somehow suggesting the existence of legitimate grievances in a conflict amounts to approval of terrorism as a response. Discussion of causal factors, such as occupation, is clearly separate from the issue of whether the responses are legitimate or otherwise.

It's most curious how my original point is no longer so interesting.
Richard Crossmans comments were derided as “moral bankruptcy”, “morally reprehensible” etc when the responders thought it referred to Pal terrorism. Since discovering his “low level of consciousness” was in relation Jewish terrorism, the change is dramatic. No discussion of how others were “far more desperate….more aggrieved” than the Jews, but didn’t “resort to such barbaric tactics”.

Israeli “moral and humanitarian considerations” are often lauded in this context. The rationale is usually pretty thin as Leon demonstrates. His point, crudely put, is the relativist argument. Countries like Indonesia have done far worse, so what is done to Palestinians is reasonable. No doubt Hamas would be quite content to argue that other terrorist actions in other places have been much worse, therefore what they do reflects relative “moral and humanitarian considerations” . Rubbish of course. It’s reasoning at the same level as the child who, in defence of their wrong-doing, cries “But someone else did something worse ”.

The relativist argument is often put forward in defence of appalling actions. So it’s worth remembering why it is that terrorism is rightly condemned and applying those principles to the response to terrorism. Doing so might suggest something like this,

“This right [of the innocent not to be killed] is violated in the most radical way when the terrorist intentionally kills or maims them in order to achieve his or her aims. But it is also violated in a morally unacceptable way when their death …..is not brought about as a means, but as an anticipated side effect, if the harm they sustain is out of all proportion to the aim achieved, and those who do the killing and maiming refuse to take any chance of being harmed themselves in the process. The latter is not terrorism, and is less repellant, morally speaking, than the former. But not much less.
If this is granted, it means that terrorism may not be fought by terrorism. Nor may it be fought by means of a strategy that does not amount to terrorism, but must be condemned on the ground of the same moral values and principles that provide the strongest reasons for our rejection of terrorism.”

michael

04-16-2004, 03:11 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Michael,
Now, as to your last post about the mandated land of Palestine being "all Arab owned."
This is a LIE.
First, lets chop off the 78% given to the Hashemites from Mecca, because, frankly, I haven't researched the ownership hsitory of that part of the Palestine mandate.
Of the Western part of the mandate, fully %45-55 of the land was STATE OWNED - ie. owned by the sovereign of the territory. It had been owned by the Ottomans, and when the British took control of the mandate, title passed to them.
Much of the rest of the land was owned by absentee landlords, and much of that land was then PURCHASED by Jews.
How is selling land to Jews equal to "dispossesing" Arabs - Arabs sold the land, often for hugely infalted prices.

Apologies - you’re right that a large portion of the land was held by colonial authorities.

Land that was sold privately to Jewish settlers, was mostly sold by the few Arab notables who had large land holdings, with scant regard for the consequences of the fellahin using that land.

The question of land tenure and what exactly was ‘state land’ under the Mandate is an interesting one. A large problem for Arab peasant farmers was the interpretation of Ottoman land tenure by the British. Under the Ottoman empire, Arab peasant farmers were recognized to have a variety of rights to the land on which they lived, farmed or grazed. Much of this was lost under the Mandate, particularly through the establishment of certain norms via the Bentwich Report in 1923. Land tenure concepts such as Marat (waste land) were transformed mostly as State Lands under the Mandate, ignoring certain aspects of Ottoman law that granted rights to such land simply through use of it, further complicated by impartial and out-of-date record keeping on land tenure under the Ottomans. This new category of tenure allowed Mandate authorities to lease or sell the land (mostly leased) to Jewish settlers, under the Mandate Charter, at times despite current Arab use of that land. Some land was passed onto to settlers this way, commonly via long term leases or concessions.

The disputes over Zor al-Zarqa and Barrat Qisarya encapsulated many of the problems faced by the Mandate over land tenure and its’ plans to ‘modernise’ the system. It also demonstrated how this process tended to ignore or limit the rights of Arabs. A rather familiar tale for native inhabitants faced by British colonial rules. As has been noted, such legalities were ‘the English mode of warfare’, which institutionalized the transfer of land from native inhabitants to settlers and colonial authorities, then defended by the writers of those rules, naturally, as ‘land justly acquired’.

Thinly veiled threats were also employed against Arab land holders as a mechanism to speed the transfer of land to the Mandate and so to Jewish settlers. Such tactics were known as ‘bargaining under the shadow of law’, as Arab landholders and farmers were often disadvantaged when it came to litigation and this was used as leverage to coerce them to cede their rights in exchange for a ‘settlement’.

Despite this, transfer of land to Jewish ownership was much slower than expected, as fellahin resisted the Mandate Authorities ‘reforms’ and the Mandate itself regularly changed the rules. Jewish ownership of land was still in single digit figures at the time of the Partition plan and this posed a problem for Zionist aspirations. The ‘War of Independence’ was somewhat of a boon as forced expulsions and flight of Arabs solved the ongoing problem of acquiring land.

Oh Jerusalem

04-16-2004, 03:51 AM

Originally posted by michael
The ‘War of Independence’ was somewhat of a boon as forced expulsions and flight of Arabs solved the ongoing problem of acquiring land.
How convenient not to mention that:

1. The War of Independence was started by the Arabs.

and

2. the vast majority of Arabs were no expelled nor forced to flee but rather listened to their Arab leaders to get out of the line of fire.

Thank heavens for scanners!

The reality, as usual, lies somewhere in between. Palestine was certainly not a land empty of all people. It is impossible to reconstruct the demographics of the area with any degree of precision, since census data for that time period are not reliable, and most attempts at reconstruction by both Palestinian and Israeli sources seem to have a political agenda. But rough estimates are possible. The entire population of Palestine (defined for these purposes as current Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip) was probably in the neighborhood of half a million at the time of the First Aliyah in the early 1880s. That same area today supports a population of more than 10 million, and is capable of sustaining a far larger population.
The area that was eventually partitioned into a Jewish state by the United Nations in 1947 contained only a fraction of that number, with estimates varying between 100,000 and 150,000. As a geographic entity, Palestine had uncertain and ever-shifting boundaries. Palestine was not political entity in any meaningful sense. Under Ottoman rule, which prevailed between 1516 and 1918, Palestine was divided into several. districts called sanjaks. These sanjaks were part of administrative units called vilayets. The largest portion of Palestine was part of the vilayet of SyrIa and was governed from Damascus by a pasha, thus explaining why Palestine was commonly referred to as southern Syria. Following a ten-year occupation by Egypt in the 1830s, Palestine was divided into the vilayet of Beirut, which covered Lebanon and the northern part of Palestine (down to what is now Tel Aviv); and the independent sanjak ofJerusalem, which covered roughly from Jaffa to Jerusalem and south to Gaza and Be'er Sheva. It is thus unclear what it would mean to say that the Palestinians were the People who originally populated the "nation" of Palestine.

Furthermore, absentee landowners owned much of the land that was eventually Partitioned into Israel. Accordmg to land purchase records, many lived in Beirut or Damascus, and some were tax collectors and merchants living elsewhere. These landlords were real estate speculators from foreign countries who had no connection to the land and who often exploited .the local workers or fellahin. Like refugees in other countries, the Jewish.refugees in Palestme bought land, much of It nonarable. Palestinian propagandists have wildly exaggerated the number of Arab families actually displaced by Jewish land purchases. Benny Morris is an Israeli historian whose writings have been criticized by some for their "one-sidedness . . . against Israel,"6 and he is frequently cited by Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, and other critics of Israel as among the "new historians" who do not present the "Zionist line." Said has characterized Morris, and other 'revisionist historians," as having "a genuine will to understand the past;" and what they say about it is "without a desire to lie or conceal the past" - high praise indeed from one so harshly critical of Zionism. Morris has been praised by the New York Times Book Review for having written "the most sophisticated and nuanced account of the Zionist-Arab conflict."'He summarizes the historical record as follows: "Historians have concluded that only 'several thousand' families were displaced following land sales to Jews between the 1880s and the late 1930s.,,8 This is a fraction of the number of people displaced by the Egyptian construction of the Aswan Dam, the Iraqi displacement of the Marsh Arabs, and other forced movements by Arab governments of fellow Arabs.

Even years later, when Jewish land purchases were increasing, it was found that "the quantity of Arab land offered for sale was far in excess of the JeWIsh ability to purchase."9 A professional analysis of land purchases between 1880 and 1948 established that three-quarters of the plots purchased by Jews were from mega-landowners rather than those who worked the soil.lo Even as pro-Palestinian a writer as Professor Rached Khalidi acknowledges that there were considerable land sales by "absentee landlords . Palestinian and non-Palestinian)."Il David Ben-Gurion former prime minister of Israel, instructed the Jewish refugees never to buy land belonging to local "fellahs or worked by them."l2 I challenge anyone making the case against Israel to produce any objective data-from census reports, land transfer records, or demographic reports-that contradict this historical reality. No one will be able to do so. Yet the false claim continues to be made that the Jews stole the land from local Arab fellahin. A related claim, and one that is equally false, is that the few fellahin who were dissplaced were all local Arabs who had lived and worked the land "uninterruptedly for 1300 years"13-that they were descendants of indigenous Arabs "whose Canaanite roots were more ancient than Isaiah, Ezekiel, David, and Moses."14

- The Case For Israel, Alan Dershowitz, Chapter 2 - Did European Jews Displace Palestinians (excerpt)

Mediocrates

04-16-2004, 11:41 AM

http://www.israelforum.com/board/showthread.php3?postid=91239#post91239

michael

04-16-2004, 08:24 PM

Originally posted by MGB8
Michael,

As for the rest of your arguments - they are garbage.

(1) Jodan was never threated with attack by Israel, nor was it blockaded or peacekeepers from a buffer zone kicked out against international law. In fact, Israel was negotiating with Jordan until the last second for an avoidance of war. You analogy is garbage, false and misleading.
You're kind of right, Israel didn't threaten Jordan with attack, it just did it. Even Danholo acknowledges this.

(2) Post 56 the agreement was that Egypt would respect Israel's right to use the straights of Tiran - it violated that and committed an act of war by blockading those straights - the effectiveness of the blockade is not all that relevant.
What was recognised generally (but diputed by some) was that Israel could enjoy' free and innocent' passage through the Straits. Hence the comments by US President Eisenhower on Egypts' continued right of belligerency in the Strait, which meant that exercising of that right would - "“constitute no justification for the armed invasion of Egypt by Israel”.

MGB8 is confusing 'free and innocent' passage with unfettered access.

(3) The issue of whether Israel could, over time, get oil from another port is not strategically relevant - the delay in transition from one to the other would weaken Israel's military when its neighbors where massing, had expelled peacekeepers, and where threatening to invade - to not react would have been a violation of Israel's duty to its citizens, and to wait for adjudication just helping its enemies soften it up. But, outside of strategic considerations - the blockade was a beligerent act of war nonetheless.

'beligerent act of war" ?? See above. I'll let you take up the argument with the ex-US President.

Israel recieved 100% of it's oil prior to 1957 through routes other than the Straits.

michael

04-17-2004, 12:25 AM

Originally posted by danholo

Israel the aggressor raided Samu! We know this! But why on Earth would it go there?! Of course! It is evil!
.... Once again one decides to ignore the cause and effect. Was there actually a reason for Israel to send forces into Samu?

Why? 3 Israelis were killed in October and early November.
Does Danholo’s curiosity finish here? Probably. And he’s probably quite content to explain Palestinian actions in a manner he sarcastically ascribes to critics of Israeli actions – ‘But why on Earth… go there?! Of course! …evil!”
But for those whose curiosity doesn’t end so conveniently, let’s repeat the questions, this time referring to Palestinian attacks across the border. “Why?”, “Was there actually a reason”?
Odd Bull head of the UN forces wrote that,
“ The main reason…was that the boundary was so drawn that the Arabs in that area were the victims of great economic hardship, since their villages were cut off from the land which for generations had been the source of their livelihood…..It was these sort of people who were responsible for infiltration over the demarcation line, their aim being to steal from what had not so long ago been their own land, to carry out acts of sabotage, and so on.” (“War and Peace in the Mid-East’, Odd Bull, 1976).

I believe it was a response to cross-border terrorism! Oh my, I guess THEY are allowed to do it, but Israel is NOT to respond.
The US Ambassodor’s response to the Samu raid?
“[The toll] in human lives and in destruction far surpasses the cumulative total of the various acts of terrorism conducted against the frontiers of Israel…..I wish to make it absolutely clear, that this large scale military action cannot be justified, explained away or excused by the incidents which preceded it and in which the Govt of Jordan has not been implicated”.(UN Security Council Nov 16, 1966).

As another observer pointed out even before 1966, Israels’ massive retaliatory raids were, not only illegal, but counterproductive as they “had little lasting effect on infiltration; in fact it gave rise to a new type of border trouble – the raid of revenge…” (‘Violent truce’, EH Hutchinson)

Even if Israels' actions were legal, which they weren't, they failed on the other test of such actions, that of proportionality.

Of course the operation didn't succeed as planned - it went horribly wrong - but you are guilty of telling half-truths about Samu and trying to accuse Israel of "aggression" when it is clear that I have a comprehensive book on my bookshelf that REFUTES your one-sided half-truthtelling!

This is part of the UN resolution regarding the Israeli raid, voted for 14-0, with the US voting in favour,
“that this incident constituted a large-scale and carefully planned military action on the territory of Jordan by the armed forces of Israel,” and “Censures Israel for this large-scale military action in violation of the United Nations Charter and of the General Armistice Agreement between Israel and Jordan”

danholo

04-17-2004, 01:25 AM

Originally posted by michael
You're kind of right, Israel didn't threaten Jordan with attack, it just did it. Even Danholo acknowledges this.

What do I acknowledge?

What did Israel "just do"?

danholo

04-17-2004, 01:35 AM

Originally posted by michael
“ The main reason…was that the boundary was so drawn that the Arabs in that area were the victims of great economic hardship, since their villages were cut off from the land which for generations had been the source of their livelihood…..It was these sort of people who were responsible for infiltration over the demarcation line, their aim being to steal from what had not so long ago been their own land, to carry out acts of sabotage, and so on.” (“War and Peace in the Mid-East’, Odd Bull, 1976).

So because THEY started a war which lost them land they have the right to go and kill people?! What kind of idiotic logic is that?

It is fact that Egypt funded al-Fatah fighters who infiltrated from the West Bank into Israel to commit terror against its civilians. They're reasons don't legalize murder and Israel has the right to respond to attacks against it from foreign soil, does it not?

The US Ambassodor’s response to the Samu raid?
“[The toll] in human lives and in destruction far surpasses the cumulative total of the various acts of terrorism conducted against the frontiers of Israel…..I wish to make it absolutely clear, that this large scale military action cannot be justified, explained away or excused by the incidents which preceded it and in which the Govt of Jordan has not been implicated”.(UN Security Council Nov 16, 1966).

As another observer pointed out even before 1966, Israels’ massive retaliatory raids were, not only illegal, but counterproductive as they “had little lasting effect on infiltration; in fact it gave rise to a new type of border trouble – the raid of revenge…” (‘Violent truce’, EH Hutchinson)

Even if Israels' actions were legal, which they weren't, they failed on the other test of such actions, that of proportionality.

I don't really give a s¤%t what "another observer" has to say. Why weren't they legal? Because terrorists didn't succeed in killing as many people as Israel's failed military operation, it's illegal? Hell no.

Israel has a FULL RIGHT to respond to attacks carried on it from foreign soil, whether you like it or not. Even if "only" one person was killed! (You really don't value human life, do you?) The fact that the operation went horribly wrong. - It was to be a show of power against guerillas so the residents would turn against them - doesn't mean its illegal.

This is part of the UN resolution regarding the Israeli raid, voted for 14-0, with the US voting in favour,
“that this incident constituted a large-scale and carefully planned military action on the territory of Jordan by the armed forces of Israel,” and “Censures Israel for this large-scale military action in [B]violation of the United Nations Charter and of the General Armistice Agreement between Israel and Jordan”

But terrorism doesn't? I really never understood why Israel was never allowed to do anything about cross-border terrorism, according to this, between 1949-1966. Actually, I think by some "observers" Israel is not to do ANYTHING AT ALL when its citizens are actively being murdered by some "resistance fighters". The fact of the matter is that these fedayeen were funded by governments (Egypt) and the Arab league but Jordan had to pay the price. Egypt had conducted an act of war against Israel but, at that time, Israel conducted raids AGAINST those directly responsible for the attacks, which is natural. Don't even know if Israel was aware of who funded these fighters. Of course the public will demand some action against those when its citizens are killed. A fact that "so little" were murdered has little to no meaning because if they could, the terrorists would've killed many more. It's not because of will, it's because of ability.

It was quite clear that Hussein was aware of al-Fatah activity on his soil but chose to do nothing about it. This makes Jordan responsible as well for not trying to stop the murder of Israelis from its own soil.

danholo

04-17-2004, 01:46 AM

Originally posted by michael
Israel recieved 100% of it's oil prior to 1957 through routes other than the Straits.

Yo, cut the . That really has no relevance whatsoever, now does it? I find it wholly ridiculous that you are trying to justify Egypts actions like these. So, was it fair that Israeli ships weren't allowed to go through the straits but Saudi and Jordanian were?

You're a frikkin' racist, you know that?

MGB8

04-17-2004, 02:00 AM

So what is Michael ignoring now in his propaganda campaign?

And, by ignore, we understand the the goal of this disinformation is to justify murder of Jews, nothing less:

(1) Arab terrorism as a result of just Jews moving to the area pre-1948 - that is justification for murder (I guess Europe needs to start killing its Islamic populations, for fear of being crowded out!)

(2) Arabs selling land and the sovereign granting land to Jews which constituted the vast majority of land in the 1947 partition - but michael says that if one Arab selling the land that they rightfully owned had an impact on the arab tenants of that land (often recent immigrants themselves) - this also justifes arab murder of Jews.

(3) the Arabs attacking Israel in 1948 in a war of genocide, and losing, causing territorial losses to the "Arab nation" - but Michael says that the creation of a Jewish state on land that didn't legally belong to Arabs (sold or British, former turkish sovereign land), constitutes justification for Arab murder and attempted genocide of Jews, so the "Arab nation" as they saw, and in many places, still see, themselves, shouldn't have to bare any consequences for their attempted genocide or rejection of the UN Charter (on the state level).

(4) The vast amount of terrorism between the wars (see Michael's justification, above... Israel's existence on non-Arab land, and now on some land lost by the Arabs in a failed attempted genocide is justification for terrorism/attempted murders, says Michael!)

(5) That the Arab world refused to make peace with Israel at any point in between the wars - meaning that Israel really didn't start any new wars - hostilities merely resumed (and they were always running, mostly in one direction, Arabs killing Jews, but, see above - Michael says its justified!) Of course, Michael wants to "blame" Israel for "starting" the 6 day war - just based on the actions of one day, but for Jordan, which Israel was trying to keep out of the war diplomatically (which would have resulted in no WB control for Israel) - Michael goes back months! Jordan didn't attack first in '67, he says, Israel attacked in '66...and don't go back any further into time - Arab attacks don't count!

Of course - he quotes Eisenhower, an ex president, talking prospectively, and not Lyndon Johnson, the president at the time, who saw Israel's action as completely justified as the events occurred. We call this propaganda, folks!

(6) That Egypt, in violation of the approved armistace of '56, blockaded Israel's main oil port (where it got almost all of its oil), which is a violation of international law, an act war - and despite the fact that armies had mobilized around it, peacekeepers expelled (another violation - the UN failed here in leaving without taking the issue to the Security Coucil or something similar), and saying that they were going to invade - Israel should have ignored this, allowed their oil supplies to get low over a few weeks or months as oil found its way around Africa or things got "adjudicated" in the Arab dominated UN (if Jordan said the Earth was flat, it would have 57 votes at the UN for it - at MINIMUM!)...it should have let itself be softened up for an invasion....BECAUSE Jews can't defend themselves, that's not justified - only Arabs trying (and sometimes succeeding) to kill Jews is justified, says Michael.

Because - Michael really wants us to believe that this is about "occupation" - which it is only in that Israel exists on land that Islam says should only be "occupied" by Muslims - and so any infidels, even if they wrote the books that Islam is partially derived from, are "occupiers" and targets of Jihad - Islam has all the justification it needs for genocide. That is Michael's real view.

Of course, if you say it like that, clearly and honestly, Michael's propaganda might have a hard time getting even a shred of support in the West, which is the point of this exercise for him. Of course, that's the point of this exercise for us, too. To be able to quicky cut through Michael's obfuscations and get down to the basic facts and truths, so that the Pal Arabs Big Lies will no longer be effective.

Michael still probably believes that Israel can be destroyed. Remember this, Michael - the day Israel is destroyed...on that day Mecca, Medina, Rydia, Damascus, Cairo, Tehran, Bagdad, Amman, Kuwait City, Beirut....all of them become glass. If Israel must go to heaven, it will send all the Arab states to Hell. Oh...and this doesn't need Israel or Jerusalem to be controlled by Jews to happen - submarines, planes, silos with buttons from other places.... It keeps me warm at night remembering this - I hope it does the same for you.

Leon

04-17-2004, 05:32 AM

posted by MGB8 [/i]
[B]So what is Michael ignoring now in his propaganda campaign?[

Three words come to mind: Waste of time. One is better off staring at a wall.

Oh Jerusalem

04-17-2004, 11:19 PM

Originally posted by michael
You're kind of right, Israel didn't threaten Jordan with attack, it just did it.
Myths & Facts - The 1967 War (http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/myths/mf6.html).

Quote:

Prime Minister Levi Eshkol sent a message to King Hussein saying Israel would not attack Jordan unless he initiated hostilities. When Jordanian radar picked up a cluster of planes flying from Egypt to Israel, and the Egyptians convinced Hussein the planes were theirs, he then ordered the shelling of West Jerusalem. It turned out the planes were Israel's, and were returning from destroying the Egyptian air force on the ground. Meanwhile, Syrian and Iraqi troops attacked Israel's northern frontier.

Had Jordan not attacked, the status of Jerusalem would not have changed during the course of the war. Once the city came under fire, however, Israel needed to defend it, and, in doing so, took the opportunity to unify its capital once and for all.

You'll find more responses to Michael's tripe there as well. Why work so hard? :D

It's time you all bookmarked Mitchell Bard's Myths & Facts site (http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/myths/mftoc.html)

michael

04-22-2004, 04:38 AM

Originally posted by Leon

You can always provide statistics: i.e how many innocent civilians (mothers, school children, the sick and elderlly) were murdered in cold blood by Falintil? ..........
Well, if you're confident enough to post a 'fact'...why just stick a lame foot note and not go into specifics (at least provide a basic outline) as to what happened - i.e statistics as to how many dead, etc? Lets not stick to your usual modus operandi of trying to dodge or skip a question/argument. If your man enough to present a certain argument or 'fact'...you should be man enough to respond point by point to every counter-argument.

"Man enough"?? A little too much testosterone for some perhaps?

But anything to make Leon happy.

The incident occurred on Dec 25, 1975 in Aileu. 150 members of the UDT and Apodeti were executed, apparently because Fretilin blamed them for the invasion.

Leon might like to do a little reading of his own and take a look at the human rights organisations reports from the 1990’s as well as the US State Dept ‘Country Reports’ which include the increasing number of attacks on civilian targets by the Falintil.

I would be interested to know how they killed and who they killed and the level and scope of their terrorist activity compared to Palestinian terrorism - taking into account that there was no comparison with the brutuality of the Indonesian occupation as oppossed to the type of 'occupation' the Palestinians (whose leaders made into Forbes Magazine) are under.
The scope? I’ve already told you several times - “far fewer”.

Again the extremely interesting issue of why terrorism arisesin some situations, is touched on by Leon, though he has nothing significant to say on it. He correctly points out that the Indonesian military occupation was very brutal, so much so that some consider it near-genocide.

I think the question was answered, at least in part, long ago.

In ‘The Prince’ Machiavelli advised that rulers should either treat people well or crush them entirely. Why? Because when only injured people would rise up in revenge; crushed, they would be unable to do so.

Israel is within these 2 extremes. It seems that many on this forum tend towards the crushing option. Going back to Leon’s East Timor situation, this is what the Indonesian military did, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

Is this Leon’s suggested remedy for Palestinian terrorism, to adopt the methods of Suharto?

They killed like Palestinian terrorists? Did they pack their explosives with nails dipped in rat poision and aim at school children, teenagers and the elderly….
“They killed, like Palestinians terrorists, just because it’s their way, or it’s in their blood maybe?”-michael

Obviously the mocking tone doesn’t come across in print. Though the dullest wit may have picked up that I was asking ‘why’ not ‘how’, which seems to escape Leon.
Having established that the ET did unfortunately commit some acts of terrorism, I was ridiculing the idea that maybe there was no reason for it, as is regularly suggested on this forum regarding Palestinian terrorism.

Why wont I respond? Quite simple: Because I and anothet poster continually brought up the fact that Palestinian terror well and truly pre-dated the 1967 'occupation', not to mention the creation of Israel in 1948. Aarb propagandists like to argue that Palestinian terrorism is a result of the occupation............and that was 12 years before the 67 'occupation'!

But, in the usual Michael style you continue to dodge and avoid this argument (like you do with everything else).
The simple answer is that 'occupation', or dispossession, started well before '67.

There’s no doubt that Palestinian terrorism pre-dated ’67 and ’56 and ’48. But so did Jewish terrorism. What do we make of that?

If we accept that my argument (terrorism as a response to real grievances) is wrong, than Palestinian terrorism should not only exist pre –‘67, pre- ‘48, and pre- ‘20 but pre- 1900 as well. After all there is no reason for it, it’s just their way!
But there is no record of Arab terrorism towards Jews in the 19th and 18th centuries. In fact, compared to Europe, the middle east and muslim countries in general were a haven from anti-semitism.

And since Leon so loves information, I’ll provide another quote from an Israeli historian, on the rise of Arab antagonism towards Jews in Palestine. Yehoshua Porath said that it, “was not hatred for the Jews as such but opposition to Jewish settlement in Palestine”. Is that a reason I wonder?

Porath also states that Arabs initially differentiated between the Zionist and non-Zionist communities in Palestine, but “as immigration increased, so did the Jewish communities identification with the Zionist movement…..The non-Zionist and anti-Zionist factors became an insignificant minority and a large measure of sophistication was required to make this distinction. It was unreasonable to hope that the wider arab population, and the riotous mob that was part of it, would maintain this distinction.” (‘The Emergence of the Palestinian-Arab National Movement’, Y. Porath)

Oh Jerusalem

04-22-2004, 04:56 AM

Originally posted by michael
There’s no doubt that Palestinian terrorism pre-dated ’67 and ’56 and ’48. But so did Jewish terrorism. What do we make of that?
Fertilizer? :o

MGB8

04-22-2004, 07:40 AM

Terrorism is an attempt to use violence against non-combatants to create the fear/bullying to achieve political goals.

The differences between grievences and political goals is maybe semantic.

Even Begin recognized that Israel's establishment ran contrary to the local Arabs present political goals.

But either way, the "grievence" is the EXISTANCE of Israel, of a Jewish majority state on land that they WANT for there own. That is racism, it is imperialism, and since their goal has consistently been genocide - its pretty close to Naziism.

We don't always get everything we want.

The Arabs have about 2 dozen states, several close to ethnically identical to the "Palestinians" - "mut" sunni Arabs, so to speak (by mut I mean not clearly one tribe or another).

Meanwhile Israel is the one and only Jewish state, with the main Judeo-Christian holy sites and history, for a minority people (12-16 million as opposed to the hundrends of millions of Christians or Muslims or Arabs), who have time and again been victims of attempted genocide.

The bottom line is that the Arabs lost very little with the Creation of Israel. That's why the Hashemite King Feisal was working WITH the early Zionists, including Herzl, to get the British to leave and to create a Jewish State on the whole of the land between the mediteranean and the Jordan River. It was not a religious or pan-Arabic issue, then. Unfortunately, the house of Saud took over the leadership of the Pan Islamic world and its gone downhill ever since.

No, Michael, the sad part is that you forward the idea that the desire for the destruction of Israel and the genocide of the Jews is a "legitimate grievence".

What does that make you, michael?

Mediocrates

04-22-2004, 08:47 AM

I t makes him the same as all the others. A narrow minded legalistic literalist who refuses or is unable to understand the difference between justice and law, between right and wrong. To them, all worship goes to the "LAW" no matter who wrote it or why. It's the same kind of kowtowing that created the Nuremberg race laws....."It's a law how can it be wrong????" Compound that with a willful indifference to terrorism and you have what you see. Now in the mid east/arab world there is the same cynical adherence to the "LAW" no matter what it says. And it has landed them in the same abattoir of failure.

MGB8

04-22-2004, 04:28 PM

Its also the double standard.

He thinks its perfectly OK for the Pal Sunni Arabs to want a state in lands that they migrated to at some point, but Jews are not allowed the same. He supports the ethnic cleansing of Jews from mid-east lands, but boils at the reverse.

At some point he accused me of saying that Jordan was not entitled to "retaliate" for an Israeli raid into Jordan to stop terror attacks from that town. I never said such a thing. Just as Israel had the right (if not the duty) to stop the cross border terrorism, so Jordan had the right to respond to Israel's incursion. The reality, that Michael ignores, is that Jordan, by allowing the terrorism, had already declared war - but even that's irrelevant since Israel and all the Arab states were still at war - the Arabs still refused to recognize the UN Charter and Israel's rights under it, and still (to this day, of course) promoted the genocide of the Jews.

Michael tries to muddle the clear, overriding facts - but that's the bottom line - the problem is Arab intolerance and imperialism - nothing else. Michael calls these two things "legitimate grievences" - he is wrong.

Canajew

04-23-2004, 01:38 PM

Originally posted by michael
It seems that one of the most difficult concepts to accept, on this board at least, is that there are reasons for terrorism that lay outside one of the popular formulations that Palestinians do so,“for the sake of killing”.

A British MP offers a view which, I think might be accepted by many thinking people.
He said, “many decent’ people “cannot help somehow admiring the terrorists and even assisting them when they seek refuge in their houses”.

To combat the cause the terrorism, what is required is to “remove the legitimate cause of grievances” and to “state objectively…the historical causes for the growth of this beastly phenomenon in a decent people”.

If this is done it would win “support of the moderate elements in suppressing terrorism, and I believe that the majority of the population would turn against the extremists”.

Taking the opposite course (as currently), he says, “would merely provoke…a fanatical support of the extremists”.

I'm starting from the beginning and haven't read the rest of the thread yet, so may be a bunch of posts at once and may repeat what others say later.

However, I feel I must comment on this independently.

Now, the thrust of the MPs argument is, essentially, that people feel low, that they have no respect, either for themselves or from others, and that this creates feelings of despair that cause them to latch onto immoral conduct or immoral codes in order to make themselves feel better. This is routinely seen among deviants within populations, where the outcast, the "quiet kid who never really fit in" develops deep hostility for those they feel are perceived as their betters or those who they feel keep them down. The MP is basically extending this to apply to an entire population.

What's missing in the analysis, of course, is the point that not ALL people who feel different or ostracized react this way, and not all "national" groups who feel themselves oppressed react in this way. The Tibetans are a prime example, though I would suspect their deeply founded cultural identifty and security in the, while not superiority, wisdom of their beliefs allows them to absorb this "shaming" without feeling a need to scapegoat and commit attrocities against some other group, like the ethnic chinese who are in the process of de-tebetining tibet. The Jews also have never shown any inclination to butcher the Germans, if you haven't noticed.

And for those people who feel their "honour" so defiled, killing for the sake of killing can be a wonderful pancea, especially where such killing conveys instant status upon the person and their family within their own broader society, as is the case with the PAlestinians. "Our people may be shamed, but through this I gain honour", so the logic goes. gaining honour is a good thing, for them, and so they revel in their passage from a downtrodden dishonoured victim to a powerful honourable member of their dysfunctional society.

Plus of course we need to add the religious component, you know, the fact they are brainwashed from birth that Jews are descendants of animals and that righteous people kill them etc.. This dehumanization of the enemy, which the Palestinians do to the extent where a genocide could easily result were they in a position to commit one (contrast to the Israelis, who, while rightly pissed off at the Palestinians, do not do anything that is in any way genocidal, notwithstanding their ability to do so if they desired), makes it far easier for them to revel in thier killing for the sake of killing. rather than committing an act of murder against an innocent civilian, they are gaining honour within their society for their righteous, religiously sanctioned act brought about for the noble goal of liberating their peopel from oppression and carried out against sub-human people who have no right to exist at all. This is how they enjoy killing for the sake of killing.

Of more substance it terms of criticising the above observation, is that while this statement might be perfectly logically consistent, and the premise may indeed be valid, it does not allow for the drawing of any reasonable functional conclusion. The Palestinians feel such shame because of their "humiliation". Fine. But what they want is the destruction of Israel to clense their honour. This cannot be accomplished without destroying Israel, obviously, and so the proposed solution of placating them is a non-starter.

While you would like to hold onto their moderates as a source of hope, surely if you have read any history of Arab or Palestinian society that the moderates are hardly ever in a position to excert significant influence, becasue there is no effective force to neutralize the extremists. In all of the Palestinians "struggles" they have killed far more Palestinian moderates than Israelis have killed Palestinians. There is no reason to believe that concessions will allow for moderates to increase their clout. In fact, the converse is likely to be true, as the extremists' control over the dissemination of information and their propensity to use violence to stiffle dissenting opinion is likely to get the Palestinians more worked up as they see the "weakness of the enemy".

As evidence of this behaviour in recent times, one need look no further than the whole Oslo debackle. teh Israelis offered the Palestinians everything they wanted except for the destruction of Israel, and the media and the PA told their people that they were offered nothing but a set of bantuns in which to continue to be oppressed. Thus the moderates had no opportunity to say, wait a minute, we have been offered pretty much everything we say we want (in English, the fact that they want far more is the crux of the matter, of course).

the majority will trun agaisnt terrorism only in exactly the way it did in the 1930s. Where they are made to understand that terror committed in their name is far more costly to their aspirations, their pride, their well being, their honour, than the benefits which are derrived therefrom, they will cease to support it and will actively participate in ferreting it out. While this means that obviously a carrot at the end of the road is necessary to entice them forward, it does not change the fundamentals. Also, the carrot can never obviously be what they ultimately want (the destruction of Israel, either through force of arms or through the fictional "right of return") so they must be made to see that they have lost and have no chance of achieiving this aim, and should "settle" for living in a nation where they can focus on raisdjng their children to be doctors and lawyers and the like rather than suicide killers and can pay attention to education and social development and all those things they seem to demonstrate so little interest in now.

Coddling the extremists by appeasing them will do no better than Chamberlaim's efforts to appease both the Nazis and the Arabs in the 1930s.

At this point, whether the extremists get more or less support is irrelevant. they have enough support. What is needed is to eliminate their ability to inflict damage, let them wallow in their impotence, and show their people that they are leading to destruction. Then they will be abandoned in droves.

Canajew

04-23-2004, 02:54 PM

Originally posted by michael
In fact, compared to Europe, the middle east and muslim countries in general were a haven from anti-semitism.

just felt the need to jump ahead and deal with this ridiculous statement. In Europe, there was antisemitism but Jews were nomianlly granted the same rights as non_Jews. In Arab countries, Jews were legally recognized as second or third class citizens, and had all different sorts of unfair taxes and restrictions placed on them. Not to minimize the maltreatment of Jews in Russia and other places in Europe, but the Arab world had the same base antisemitism that Europe had. The Arabs didn't kill their Jews as long as they remained docile and subservient and things were going well. But if the leader needed an excuse for something or needed to divert attention, Jews got attacked.

The fact that Jews numbering approximately the same as Palestinians who were dispossessed made their way to Israel when they were thrown out of Arab states (and these would be Sephardi, or Arab Jews) significantly undermines your and others claims to repatriation of descendants in Israel. You can come up with lies to argue history all you ...

michael

04-24-2004, 07:14 PM

Originally posted by Oh Jerusalem
How convenient not to mention that:

1. The War of Independence was started by the Arabs.

I think there’s considerable debate about that, but more on that later.

2. the vast majority of Arabs were no expelled nor forced to flee but rather listened to their Arab leaders to get out of the line of fire.

This is one of the standard defenses – that Arabs were told by their leaders to leave. It’s another great argument that suffers only one flaw – lack of evidence.
It's certainly true that Arab civilians were advised to protect themselves or as you put it, to "get out of the line of fire". Civilians are allowed to flee conflict zones and return to their homes after the danger has passed- this is an internationally recognized right. Though this is often construed as a wholesale call for ecavuation which somehow justifies confiscation of Arab property and land.

Fortunately there is evidence available to examine this claim. The BBC Monitoring Service and US intelligence services monitored and recorded radio broadcasts in Palestine (and elsewhere). Reviews the of radio broadcasts during 1947-48 point to only one incident of anything like this occurring, which was a call from the Arab League to neighbouring Arab countries to provide shelter to fleeing “women, the elderly and children.” (September 1947).

Studies of the radio transcripts and newspapers actually show the opposite to what is generally claimed. People were advised to remain in their homes. There were relatively few incidents of calls for people flee their homes and these were mostly in isolated villages close to Jewish populations that couldn't be defended by Arab forces.

Some broadcasts announced that people who fled would be considered traitors. Here are a few examples from the extensive documentary record,

“Those who spread alarming rumours inciting the population to evacuate must be arrested” (Jerusalem Arab Radio, May 15, 1948).

The AHC called for “All Arab employees in Palestine to continue at their posts…” (March 30, 1948)

The most common of the claims is that it was the head of the ALA, Fawzi al-Kaukji, who made these calls for evacuation. Again, the documented evidence tells a different story,

Al-Kaukji called people who fled “cowards who desert their homes” and called for “everyone keep calm and be cautious of battle reports by the enemy who want to create panic among the population.” (CIA Report April 26, 1948)

There is evidence of only one source of broadcasts calling for all Arab residents to flee their homes – and that is the use of loudspeaker vans by Jewish forces which would drive around playing terrifying noises and advising residents to flee.

Here are 2 examples from neutral observers on the use of the loudspeaker vans by Jewish forces and what was broadcast from them,

“Unless you leave your homes the fate of Dier Yassin will be your fate”, (‘Our Jerusalem’, Berta Vesta. Vesta was a Christian missionary in Jerusalem at the time. Interestingly the US edition of his book has this section deleted.)

“The road to Jericho is open! Fly from Jerusalem before you are all killed”, (‘Jerusalem Embattled’, Harry Levin. P.61)

Arab sources also back-up these claims. A Protestant clergyman, Faud Bahnan, said of the claims, “On the contrary, we were daily being urged by our leaders to stick it out and remain where we were”.

While Jewish political leaders often claimed that refugees fled on instruction, an IDF intelligence report gave a different explanation, that in 70% of cases it was the result of “direct hostile Jewish operations” (‘The Emigration of the Arabs of Palestine, 1 December 1947- 1 June 1948’, Hashomer Hatzair Archives)

Arab residents did flee to avoid the fighting, or in fear of their lives, sometimes only a short distance away. When they tried to return to their homes they were often turned away by Jewish forces. Some villages were surrounded by mine fields, barbed wire, or the homes were just dynamited to prevent the residents returning.

The reality, as usual, lies somewhere in between. Palestine was certainly not a land empty of all people. It is impossible to reconstruct the demographics of the area ...........

The relevance of the Dershowizt quote is a little unclear. I’m assuming it something along the lines of justifying Jewish immigration and displacement of fellahin simply because it was possible to increase population density. Perhaps the same argument might be applied to the return of Palestinian refugees – the subsequent population increase in Israel showed that the returning population could have easily been absorbed.
Though his reference to the number of Palestinians in the future state are wrong. The figure of around 150,000 was the number of Palestinians who remained in Israel after the armistice agreements were signed. The number that would have lived in the proposed state of Israel under the Partition Plan was about 200,000.

Even within the partition boundaries, Jewish ownership was little more than a quarter of the proposed new state. This was recognized as a significant problem by the Zionists. Hence in a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Jewish Agency, Menahem Ussishkin summed up the problem for Zionist aspirations posed by Britain’s partition plan,
“The worst is not that the Arabs would comprise 45 or 50% of the population of the new state, but that 75% of the land is owned by Arabs” ( Central Zionist Archives, Executive Committee - June 12, 1938) .

As I said “forced expulsions and flight of Arabs solved the ongoing problem of acquiring land."

MGB8

04-24-2004, 07:42 PM

Michael,

Just come out and admit being what you are....because your clear attempts at deception aren't fooling anyone.

"Displacement" - what does that mean? How is immigration of others when there is no local sovereignty a bad thing - as you are implying?

"Displacement" is just an Arab Propaganda term meaning that the Arabs didn't like that Jews were immigrating to the land, but Arab immigration was ok by them. It is a form of ethnic pre-cleansing.

More than that, much of the land these immigrants came to wasn't taken, especially pre-48, but was PURCHASED, at exorbinant prices. But, as they brought economic vitality to the region, this brought in more ARAB immigration (or was that the displacment of the Jews in those towns.)

When the Sunni Arabs came, many of them recent immigrants to the land, didn't they displace people?

Michael, you are a Jew-hater, nothing more.

You still try to cloud the facts that the Arab armies all invaded Israel, with the well anounced goal of genocide, in 1947-8. You try to cloud that was their goal in 67, were one arab's states acts of war were responded to with a "pre-emptive attack" while 2 others, and the Iraqi army as backup, attacked Israel once again - again with the goal of finishing Hitler's plan.

You ignore 1973, the cowardly attack on Yom Kippur, again with the goal of genocide in mind.

You aren't fooling anyone....you hate Israel/you hate Jews. You are, essentially, the enemy, even if your form of battle is quotes and historical revisionism.

Well, just remember...many have tried to whipe out the Jews....and they've all ended in the trash heap of history. So it will be with you, too. Wether you are an Arabist or a post-nazi-ist European, even American, Jew Hater.....it doesn't matter - your doomed to failure, and to, in my belief, to h-ll.

michael

04-26-2004, 01:54 AM

Originally posted by danholo
What do I acknowledge?

What did Israel "just do"?

It attacked the village of Samu in Jordan.

This is what you said on the subject,
"Israel the aggressor raided Samu! We know this!..."
and
"Was there actually a reason for Israel to send forces into Samu?
............I believe it was a response to cross-border terrorism! Oh my, I guess THEY are allowed to do it, but Israel is NOT to respond." - danholo

michael

04-26-2004, 02:12 AM

Originally posted by danholo

It was quite clear that Hussein was aware of al-Fatah activity on his soil but chose to do nothing about it. This makes Jordan responsible as well for not trying to stop the murder of Israelis from its own soil.

The view of the former Chief of Military Intelligence , Yehoshaphat Harkabi, was that in the 3 years up to June 1967, such Palestinian commando raids resulted in the death of 14 Israelis, of which 4 were civilians.

The response was the kind of indiscriminate and excessive one as seen at Samu and at the Israeli-Syrian border.

It helps to get some idea of the kind of threat these raids posed. Moshe Dayan in a speech to the Knesset in October 1966 said - “There is no major wave of infiltration today. Just because several dozen bandits from al-Fatah cross the border, Israel does not have to get caught up in a frenzy of escalation”

Jordan's response was in fact very strong. Jordanian soldiers killed more al-Fatah commandos attempting to cross the border than did the IDF. Again the UN observers are unanimous on this,
"the Jordanian authorities did all they possibly could to stop infiltration" (Odd Bull)
and
"Jordans efforts to curb infiltrators reached the toal capacities of the country" ('Violent Truce', EH Hutchinson)

Oh Jerusalem

04-26-2004, 03:41 AM

Originally posted by michael
The view of the former Chief of Military Intelligence , Yehoshaphat Harkabi, was that in the 3 years up to June 1967, such Palestinian commando raids resulted in the death of 14 Israelis, of which 4 were civilians.
While Nasser continued to make speeches threatening war, Arab terrorist attacks grew more frequent. In 1965, 35 raids were conducted against Israel. In 1966, the number increased to 41. In just the first four months of 1967, 37 attacks were launched.
- Netanel Lorch, One Long War, (Jerusalem: Keter, 1976), p. 110.

"the Jordanian authorities did all they possibly could to stop infiltration" (Odd Bull)
Odd bull - you said it!
and
"Jordans efforts to curb infiltrators reached the toal capacities of the country" ('Violent Truce', EH Hutchinson)
That's what you get for housing the PLO. Boohoo.

About the Samu Crisis:

El Samu Crisis: November 1966

Background

In order to consolidate its terror efforts against Israel the, the Arab State agreed to Jointly fund a Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) which was to be at the forefront of terror activities against Israel. The PLO was established at a rally in East Jerusalem in 1964. The organization would be based and trained in various towns and refugee camps throughout Jordan.

Crisis

Despite various terrorists attack in to Israel and cross border counter attacks, this particular crisis started for Israel on the 12th of November 1966. A mine laid by Palestinian infiltrators destroyed an IDF half-track. The attack killed three Israeli soldiers and wounded six others. The following day, 13th of November the crisis began for Jordan when Israeli commandos raided the PLO strong hold in the Jordanian village of El Samu. Jordan’s responded to this raid three ways. In order to counter the military actions of Israel, Jordan mobilized its army to El Samu. This action resulted in heavy fighting in and around El Samu with casualties on both sides and among civilians. Although Israeli forces withdrew soon after the fighting broke out, this did not end the crisis.

The Second phase of the Jordanian response was aimed primarily at its large and volatile Palestine population especially in its West Bank towns. Jordan feared violent Palestine riots in response to the Israeli incursions and placed its Military and police force on high alert.

Jordan’s third action was an immediate appeal to the UN where it pointed out that its territory had been invaded by Israeli forces.

By the time the situation reached the UN Israeli forces had withdrawn and all military actions had ceased.

4

The crisis ended for both sides on the15th of November with Jordan ending its state on High alert.

The UN did attempt to hold talks with the Jordanians and Israeli’s but nothing material was accomplished.

This Crisis is seen as a pure states only crisis that Involved Israel and Jordan. Although the PLO was involved as a non-state player in the beginning stages of the crisis it played no major part in its continuation or conclusion. The sphere and the gravity of the crisis are over the damage caused by both sides. According to Brecher the crisis involved serious clashes and therefore its violence level rates a 3.29 out of 10 for severity. The crisis ended unilaterally with Israel withdrawing and Jordan ending its state of Alert.

Both super powers applied political pressure on various fronts, but here was no real change as a result of the crisis.

Oh Jerusalem

04-26-2004, 04:21 AM

Originally posted by michael
Originally posted by Oh Jerusalem
How convenient not to mention that:

1. The War of Independence was started by the Arabs.
I think there’s considerable debate about that, but more on that later.
Is it later yet?

MGB8

04-26-2004, 07:35 AM

OJ,

Thank you for pointing out, clearly, that the raid on Samu was simply retaliation for a succesful PLO attack. How funny that michael hadn't mentioned the attack THE DAY EARLIER at all?

Hmmm...now why would he not do that?

Oh, I forgot, its because he wants to show how Jews moving to lands that they purchased from Absentee Landlords, mainly Arabs, was some sort of new crime against humanity :rolleyes: that jew-hating propagandists have called "displacement" - a sort of pre-ethnic cleansing of lands that didn't belong to them, anyway - and, comically, the largest draw to ARAB immigration to the mandate.

michael

04-26-2004, 07:44 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
So what is Michael ignoring now in his propaganda campaign?

It's quite fortunate for us all that MGB8 has the talent for divining my "real view". It requires quite a talent as the conclusion, that I provide "justification.....for genocide", is mysteriously hidden in my posts.

My original respsones to MBG8's posts was simply to provide some facts that hint at a "less certain scene" than the one preferred.

The hysterical accusations in this latest effort by MBG8, of my "justification" for murder/genocide/terrorism are not particularly original. Though it does make you wonder if MBG8 doesn't have much confidence in the position he so incoherently defends. If he does, why do my rather polite challenges, via the historical record, unleash such a torrent of wild claims?

(1) Arab terrorism as a result of just Jews moving to the area pre-1948 - that is justification for murder (I guess Europe needs to start killing its Islamic populations, for fear of being crowded out!)
Again, a fairly crude misrepresentation of my point which was - why does it happen and what can we do about it?

By way of a corollary - what would be the response to a wave of Indian muslim immigration to Israel on the basis of religous / cultural significance and that the state could absorb a few more residents? Open arms? Maybe.

(2) Arabs selling land and the sovereign granting land to Jews which constituted the vast majority of land in the 1947 partition........... - this also justifes arab murder of Jews.
Wrong - most studies show Jewish ownership at around a quarter of the proposed state. This was a topic of serious concern to Ben-Gurion et al

(3) the Arabs attacking Israel in 1948 in a war of genocide....
Who started is a very difficult question to answer. Of course it all depends on what you decide is starting point. Was it May 15, 1948 or early Dec 1947 when the Partition plan was endorsed by the UN?

Many opt for the Dec ’47 date and claim it was started by the Arabs. On the face of it, it seems plausible. There were Arab riots across Palestine in opposition to the partition resolution. What some forget is that where was a very similar incident 8 years earlier. After the release of the 1939 British White Paper, limiting Jewish immigration and calling for a bi-national state, there were riots and terrorist attacks which killed around 180. But no-one suggests that this was the instigation of a war by the Jews.

Which ever way you lean, I think there is a good argument that who ever or when ever it started, it was bound to occur. Zionists wanted a majority Jewish state, only achievable through some means of population transfer, and Palestinian Arabs were opposed to such a development in Palestine.

Zionist leaders for some time continued to hope that either neighbouring Arab states could be convinced to take the unwanted population, or that with partition, British forces might do the job for them. It became increasingly clear that neither option was likely.

At a British Cabinet meeting on the British Partition Plan (1938), the Secretary of State for India noted “the great difficulty which lay in the transfer into Arab territory of some 250,000 Arabs now located in territory proposed or the Jewish state. It was clear from the report of the [Peel] Royal Commission that land was not available for them in the proposed Arab state.”

The importance of and need for the removal of Arabs from Palestine was a recurrent theme in Zionist thinking.

In 1925 Jabotinsky was under no illusions, that it would “have to be achieved against the will of the country’s Arab majority. An ‘iron wall’ of a Jewish armed force would have to protect the process of achieving a majority”

Joseph Weitz, director of the JNF was clear on the importance of transfer which “does not only serve one aim – to diminish the Arab population. It also serves a second purpose by no means less important, which is to evacuate land now cultivated by Arabs and thus release it for Jewish settlement.” (minutes of the ‘Population Transfer Committee’, 22 November, 1937).

Ben-Gurion is usually portrayed as a moderate on this issue and his public pronouncements are certainly in keeping with this,

“Jewish plans do not entail the displacement of a single Arab” (- Palestine Post, May 11, 1944)

But in private his views were a little different,

In a 1937 letter to his son, he stated that “we will expel the Arabs and take their places” (‘Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs’, Shabtai Teveth)

In 1938 commenting on the prospects of partition “I favour partition…when we become a strong power after the establishment of the state, we will abolish partition and spread throughout all of Palestine”, (Central Zionist Archives, Executive Proceedings, June 7, 1938)

The intial Arab response to the passage of the UN Resolution was a 3 day general strike, which lead to riots.

On Dec 5, 1947 Ben-Gurion ordered “immediate action to expand Jewish settlement in three areas assigned to the Arab state” (‘Political and Diplomatic Documents of the Jewish Agency 1947-1948’).

Jewish terrorist groups responded to the riots and on Dec 12 killed 19 Arab civilians and the following day a further 21.

That day the British High Commissioner reported to London on the events and had this view on what was occurring,
“The initial Arab outbreaks were spontaneous and unorganized and were more demonstrations of displeasure at the UN decision than determined attacks on the Jews. The weapons initially employed were sticks and stones and had it not been for Jewish resort to firearms, it is not impossible that the excitement would have subsided and little loss of life been caused….the AHC as a whole and the Mufti in particular…were not in favour of serious outbreaks” (Alan Cunningham, Dec 13 ,1947)
And then in another report 2 days later, “The provocative action of the Jews and their admission that the Haganah is authorized to take what they call counter-action, but what is in effect indiscriminate action against the Arabs, is hardly having a calming effect”

And on the 17th Ben-Gurion advised that,“In each attack a decisive blow should be struck, resulting in the destruction of homes and the expulsion of the population” (‘Ben-Gurions Diary’, Vol.I)

Israeli historian, Uri Milstein, noted that the Zionists' own Arab experts concluded in Jan '48, “that the Palestinian Arabs were divided and thus the majority among them did not want a war” (Ha’artez, 17 November 1978)

So while the Arabs had certainly responded with violence after the partition plan was approved, it’s not clear that this was an outbreak of war. Zionist leaders, however, had long been quite clear that while they accepted partition, it wasn’t the end of the story and that ideally Arabs should be expelled (in Ben-Gurions words – “out of accord and mutual understanding….. or otherwise”) from the proposed state and that it should eventually extend beyond the borders defined by the UN. The opportunity to do so was not long in coming.

(4) The vast amount of terrorism between the wars ......
You're right here, only the attribution is questionable.
Independent observers and reviews of the period between 1949 and 1967 attribute most of the acts of terroism and instigation of border disputes to Israel. The record at the Israeli-Syrian DMZ is particularly notabe. By 1951 Israeli had laid claim to sovreignty of the entire DMZ in violation of the armistice agreement, and expelled Arab residents and demolished villages.

(5) That the Arab world refused to make peace with Israel at any point in between the wars -

Nothing new in this claim either. Again, any half-reasonable review of the historical record throws up many facts that don't fit in with this view.
The UN set up a Palestine Conciliation Commission to settle the issues between the parties. It made little headway. The opinion of the Chairman of the PCC made this coment as to why,
"The Arabs have made what the Commission considers very great concessions, the Jews have made none so far"

For Israel the problem was that the UN demanded "refugees wishing to return to thier homes........be permitted to do so"

This was something that Israel never intended to do to any significant degree, hence the PCC had it's work cut out for it.

Arab calumny is often cited for the refugees plight. 'They' should have resettled 'them'. Those with convenient memory lapses forget that there was a proposal from Syria to resettle 300,000. Ben-Gurion was opposed to the idea. Abba Eban said "Why aren't we impressed...".

Indeed why? This was Ben-Gurions reasoning ," the issue at hand is conquest, not self-defence. As for the setting of borders-it's an open ended matter...there's no real limit"

A comphrehensive peace settlement meant defining borders, something Ben-Gurion believed could be better settled to Israels advantage through other means.

Of course - he quotes Eisenhower, an ex president, talking prospectively, and not Lyndon Johnson, the president at the time, who saw Israel's action as completely justified....We call this propaganda, folks!
We call this not having a clue, folks!!

Remember MBG8's argument was that closing the striats was "undisputed" as an act of war. The view of the previous US President, the UN Secretary General and international law experts (Roger Fisher), mean it was not "undisputed".

Leon

04-26-2004, 08:06 AM

Originally posted by michael [/i]
[B]"Man enough"?? A little too much testosterone for some perhaps?

But anything to make Leon happy.

Well, if you shorten your name to "Mike" and become more of a man, then yes, I'll be happy.

The incident occurred on Dec 25, 1975 in Aileu. 150 members of the UDT and Apodeti were executed, apparently because Fretilin blamed them for the invasion.

Tell me were these members of the UDT and Apodeti pregnant women, toddlers or entire families dining out or observing a religious holiday at home?

Its intesting how you mention east timorese infighting rather than their reaction to the occupation and targeting of Indonesians- let alone INNOCENT INDONESIANS!

Since we were previously on the topic of moral relativism - the majority of the vicitims who were executed by Freitilin were actual combatants who took part in the conflict - unlike school children and aged pensioners riding on buses.

Leon might like to do a little reading of his own and take a look at the human rights organisations reports from the 1990’s as well as the US State Dept ‘Country Reports’ which include the increasing number of attacks on civilian targets by the Falintil.

Please post the number of attacks on innocent school children, aged pensioners, teenagers, toddlers, pregnant women and families who were eating out or observing a religious holiday, who were wilfully and purposly murdered in cold blood in either East timor in Indonesia itself. Also, go into detail as to methods adopted by the attackers - i.e did they pack their explosives with nails, bolts and rat poinson to generate a maximum impact on their targets - thats toddlers, school children and pregnant women. In addition, include their world wide activities (if there were any): Were they hijacking civilian airlines? Were they going around kidnapping and murdering foreign diplomats? Did they bomb schools and kindergartens in South America and Europe? Did they start two civil wars in two different countries - cliaming the lives of tens of thousands.

Oh and lets not forget : Did they recieve billions in US dollars in aid from all around the world? Did their leaders make it to Forbes magazine? Or were they able to recently transfer US$ 900 million in their own personal bank accounts?

The scope? I’ve already told you several times - “far fewer”.

Well, I got a give you some credit - you've got something right for once.

Again the extremely interesting issue of why terrorism arisesin some situations, is touched on by Leon, though he has nothing significant to say on it. He correctly points out that the Indonesian military occupation was very brutal, so much so that some consider it near-genocide.

Yep so brutual, that it proves my point that "desparation and occupation" is not the driving force behind barbaric Palestinian terrorism, after all despite having ACTUAL grievances (which were no where near in comparison the to the precieved grievances that are spat out of the PLO propaganda machine) the East timorese never matched that of level brutuality. There is simply no comparison.

After all, if the big lie was right, and the mass murder of people dining out in cafes is solely motivated by "poverty", "hoplessness" and "occupation"...than the East timorese would have started an 'intifada' which would have been 1000 fold in comparison to the one that we see now. Cafes, buses and schools in Jakarta would have been blown into oblivion and all of Indonesia would have been burning.

So have any Indonesian families been murdered in resteraunts or in their own homes in Jakarta?

In ‘The Prince’ Machiavelli advised that rulers should either treat people well or crush them entirely. Why? Because when only injured people would rise up in revenge; crushed, they would be unable to do so.

You've just successfully demonstarted that your general knowledge, intelligence and wisdom knows no bounds. Very impressive. It would certainly make another great introduction to a pseudo-academic thesis on history, politicis and reality at large.

Israel is within these 2 extremes. It seems that many on this forum tend towards the crushing option. Going back to Leon’s East Timor situation, this is what the Indonesian military did, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands.

Is this Leon’s suggested remedy for Palestinian terrorism, to adopt the methods of Suharto?

I've drawn two differing conclusions on your personality:

A. That you have a habit of twisting and distorting.

or

B. You're just simply thick-headed.

For your own benefit, I would like to think that you belong in the first category (previous posts back that up), although i'm starting to sway to the second category.

What I suggested was quite simple and elementary (for anyone whose at least half literate to understand): The notion that Terror and murder against innocent civilians is driven by "poverty, despair and hoplesness" is false. Just look at how other, far more desperate, brutualised and occuppied people behaved. And If these people ever fought back it was usually against the military.

On the other, the type of Islamist terror that we see today is solely driven on religious and political fanaticism.

I never implied that I wanted Israel to adopt Surhato's methods. Yet, in the typical Michael style of twisting and distorting (or thick-headedness - depending on how one percieves things) you would like to say that I did imply just that.

What ever feeds into your propaganda, making you sleep better at night...(I suppose like the PLO, you would have secretly liked the idea of Israel adopting Surhatos methods: i.e the more innocent palestinian civilians killed, the better - all to feed into PLO propaganda machine of creating "shahids" and generating more sympathy from the west).

The simple answer is that 'occupation', or dispossession, started well before '67.

There’s no doubt that Palestinian terrorism pre-dated ’67 and ’56 and ’48. But so did Jewish terrorism. What do we make of that?

Did Jewish terror pre-date the pogroms and mass riots of the 19th century? Did it pre-date the Hebron massacer of 1929 - where a pogrom led by newly arrived Syrian settlers destroyed an indeginous Jewish community thousands of years old?

The Haganah, the Irgun and the Stern gang were formed in response to Arab terrorism (which was allied and had the same philosohpy as Nazi germany).

And unlike Arab terrorists, these Jewish terrorists never whole-heartdly devoted their time and energy to one goal: the murder and all out genocide of innocent civilians.

If we accept that my argument (terrorism as a response to real grievances) is wrong, than Palestinian terrorism should not only exist pre –‘67, pre- ‘48, and pre- ‘20 but pre- 1900 as well. After all there is no reason for it, it’s just their way!

But there is no record of Arab terrorism towards Jews in the 19th and 18th centuries. In fact, compared to Europe, the middle east and muslim countries in general were a haven from anti-semitism.

There were pogroms in the 18th and 19th century - but certainly nothing compared to what happened when Taj Amin Al hussieni bacame "Mufti" of Jerusalem (who lived alongside Hitler in Berlin during the War years and had a huge part in the Holocaust) - along with the help of mass Arab/muslim immgration and settlement from Syria Egypt, Jordan and Sudan!!

michael

04-26-2004, 08:10 AM

CONTINUED

(6) That Egypt, in violation of the approved armistace of '56, blockaded Israel's main oil port (where it got almost all of its oil), which is a violation of international law, an act war -..... - Israel should have ignored this, allowed their oil supplies to get low over a few weeks or months as oil found its way around Africa or things got "adjudicated" in the Arab dominated UN

I think I went over this above. Oil could easily be rerouted via Haifa, as it had been proir to 1957. And with the Egyptian vice-President due to arrive in Washington 2 days after the June 6 hostilities, to discuss the issue, the US Secretary of state, Dean rusk, was confident that the emgargo would be lifted or modified, perhaps waiting, just a little, may have been justified.

As for the "Arab dominated UN", MBG8 is 'out there' with this. A US dominated UN may be a little more accurate. But the US envoys had discussed with Nasser not a UN adjudication but one by the World Court.

Because - Michael really wants us to believe that this is about "occupation" - which it is only in that Israel exists on land that Islam says should only be "occupied" by Muslims - and so any infidels, even if they wrote the books that Islam is partially derived from, are "occupiers" and targets of Jihad - Islam has all the justification it needs for genocide. That is Michael's real view.
Where would we be without mind-readers of the calibre of MBG8?

While he's practising his dark-art maybe he could tell us how Christian Arabs and Jews had managed lived in Palestine for so long?

Michael still probably believes that Israel can be destroyed. Remember this, Michael - the day Israel is destroyed...on that day Mecca, Medina, Rydia, Damascus, Cairo, Tehran, Bagdad, Amman, Kuwait City, Beirut....all of them become glass. If Israel must go to heaven, it will send all the Arab states to Hell. Oh...and this doesn't need Israel or Jerusalem to be controlled by Jews to happen - submarines, planes, silos with buttons from other places.... It keeps me warm at night remembering this - I hope it does the same for you.

Hmmm...straight-jacket or chemical restraint. Which is best?

Leon

04-26-2004, 08:21 AM

Is it really desparation and hoplessness...or pure incitment and fanaticism??

Slain Israeli Arab's father begs for sanity in PA
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH

The father of George Khoury, the Israeli Arab student who was gunned down while jogging in French Hill last month, on Sunday appealed to the Palestinian Authority and Muslim religious leaders to stop the campaign of incitement and to work towards restoring law and order.

Elias Khoury, a prominent lawyer from the Galilee who has been living in Jerusalem for 30 years, made his appeal in reaction to the arrest of three young Palestinians who have confessed to the killing of his son. The three claimed that they shot Khoury, a student at Hebrew University, after they mistook him for a Jew.

"The fact that this was a Palestinian cell is something we knew from the very beginning," said the father, who has also represented the PA in Israeli courts.

"We had no doubt that the background for this [murder] was the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What is very painful for me here is the clear-cut evidence that there is a state of complete anarchy, disorder and chaos, in addition to the loss of values and people taking the law into their own hands in order to serve, as it were, the Palestinian cause, or supposedly God's interests."
He called on Palestinians to put an end to the anarchy and start educating their children for peace. "They cannot allow this situation to continue and get out of hand."
In response to the suspects' argument that they committed the murder in order to appease God, Khoury said: "Religious leaders need first and foremost ... to see how these young people are influenced to take religious issues and distort them in the ugliest manner. This contradicts the will of God, the Koran, and Islam because they are taking matters into their own hands."
The father said he was extremely worried by the disrespect for human life, warning that the killings were destroying the interests of the Palestinians. "There is a complete loss of human values," he stressed.

"My message first of all to the religious leaders, the Palestinian leadership, Palestinian society, and to all the enlightened who still value human life in Palestinian society is that they must all rise, gather their courage and say 'Enough is enough.'"
Khoury called for an end to incitement by the Palestinian Authority. "We must begin educating our children and these young people about the right path which has respect for human life. We must teach them how a political culture should exist and how law and order should be observed and maintained," he said.

"These people are committing crimes and damaging Palestinian interests and the religion which they claim to represent or to serve. We need Islamic leaders who will rise and say these things in a loud and clear voice. By staying silent, they only damage Islam and Palestinian society."

Ahava

04-26-2004, 09:55 AM

Originally posted by Leon

"My message first of all to the religious leaders, the Palestinian leadership, Palestinian society, and to all the enlightened who still value human life in Palestinian society is that they must all rise, gather their courage and say 'Enough is enough.'" [/COLOR]
Khoury called for an end to incitement by the Palestinian Authority.

Bless him. May others follow his way.

MGB8

04-26-2004, 02:08 PM

Finally, Michael's true colors are coming out.

What facts do you have for "easily re-routed", Michael? How long does it take to go around the Horn of Africa, since Egypt controlled the Suez? How many days, weeks....and, if Egypt had already mobilized its forces, how long would it take for Israel to be sufficiently soft enought to give Egypt the air and ground military advantage? Does it change that it was an act of war?

The LENGTHS that you go to justify or excuse Arab agression...you show yourself there.

As for the UN - the fact that you don't admit that it IS Arab dominated shows your bias - there are 57 muslim countries that vote as a block. Add in the influence of Oil - the Oil Weapon as the Arabs have called it and the source of Arab power - and that gives the Arabs huge pull. The US has a veto - that's it. It has no dominance more than that - see the recent events over Iraq - If the US dominated, as you now ridiculously claim, how could they be so frustrated at the UN.

Compare to the "Zionism is Racism" resolution, not to mention the fact that the Racism and Human Rights conferences will spend 99% of its time on Israel, but on other nations, such mention of individual states is "counter productive."

As for Jews and Christians in Arab/Muslim lands - generally, its fine as long as the Jews pay the dhimi and are 2nd class citizens......far beyond anything the Arabs can accurately accuse Israel of (considering Arab MPs, Arab's in the IDF, etc...)

Not to mention the Islamization of Christian holy sites like Bethlehem...Islamic imperialism at work again.

I'm glad that Israel's nuclear capacity disturbs you, Michael. Remember that any success against Israel means the utter anhialation of Mecca, Medina, and every major Arab population center. They call it the Samson option for a reason.

Israel's destruction might still be a goal for you, Michael...but understand that the goal has consequences.

Originally posted by michael
CONTINUED

I think I went over this above. Oil could easily be rerouted via Haifa, as it had been proir to 1957. And with the Egyptian vice-President due to arrive in Washington 2 days after the June 6 hostilities, to discuss the issue, the US Secretary of state, Dean rusk, was confident that the emgargo would be lifted or modified, perhaps waiting, just a little, may have been justified.

As for the "Arab dominated UN", MBG8 is 'out there' with this. A US dominated UN may be a little more accurate. But the US envoys had discussed with Nasser not a UN adjudication but one by the World Court.

Where would we be without mind-readers of the calibre of MBG8?

While he's practising his dark-art maybe he could tell us how Christian Arabs and Jews had managed lived in Palestine for so long?

Hmmm...straight-jacket or chemical restraint. Which is best?

abu afak

04-26-2004, 02:48 PM

Originally posted by michael
This is one of the standard defenses – that Arabs were told by their leaders to leave. It’s another great argument that suffers only one flaw – lack of evidence.....

There are so many 'Beauties'/Lies.. hardly know where to start..
But I picked the above for this post.
(could do another few on the '67 war.. but I'll wait for a response to this first)

"No Evidence" eh?

- - - - - - - - - - -- - -- -

"The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, THEY ABANDONED THEM, FORCED THEM TO EMIGRATE AND TO LEAVE THEIR HOMELAND, imposed upon them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe, as if we were condemmed to change places with them; they moved out of their ghettos and we occupied similar ones. The Arab States succeeded in scattering the Palestinian people and in destroying their unity. They did not recognize them as a unified people until the States of the world did so, and this is regrettable".

- by Abu Mazen (ever hear of him?.. the last PM.. abu), from the article titled: "What We Have Learned and What We Should Do", published in Falastin el Thawra, the official journal of the PLO, of Beirut, in March 1976

...

"The Arab streets are curiously deserted and, ardently following the poor example of the more moneyed class there has been an exodus from Jerusalem too, though not to the same extent as in Jaffa and Haifa."

- London Times, May 5, 1948

"The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two. Their leaders had promised them that the Arab armies would crush the 'Zionist gangs' very quickly and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile."

- Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, in the Beirut newspaper Sada al Janub, August 16, 1948

"Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the -Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit.. . . It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."

- The London weekly Economist, October 2, 1948

"It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees' flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem."

- Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station, Cyprus, April 3, 1949

"This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country."

- Edward Atiyah (then Secretary of the Arab League Office in London) in The Arabs (London, 1955), p. 183

"The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by order of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city...By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa.".

- Time, May 3, 1948, p. 25

The Arab exodus, initially at least, was encouraged by many Arab leaders, such as Haj Amin el Husseini, the exiled pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, and by the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine. They viewed the first wave of Arab setbacks as merely transitory. Let the Palestine Arabs flee into neighboring countries. It would serve to arouse the other Arab peoples to greater effort, and when the Arab invasion struck, the Palestinians could return to their homes and be compensated with the property of Jews driven into the sea.

- Kenneth Bilby, in New Star in the Near East (New York, 1950), pp. 30-31

I do not want to impugn anybody but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab States in opposing Partition and the Jewish State. The Arab States agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem, [Daily Telegraph, September 6, 1948

- Emil Ghoury, Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, the official leadership of the Palestinian Arabs, in the Beirut newspaper, Daily Telegraph, September 6, 1948

The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies.

- Falastin (Jordanian newspaper), February 19, 1949

We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down.

- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said, quoted in Sir Am Nakbah ("The Secret Behind the Disaster") by Nimr el Hawari, Nazareth, 1952

....

"The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in."

- from the Jordan daily Ad Difaa, September 6, 1954

"The Arab civilians panicked and fled ignominiously. Villages were frequently abandoned before they were threatened by the progress of war."

- General Glubb Pasha, in the London Daily Mail on August 12, 1948

"The Arab exodus from other villages was not caused by the actual battle, but by the exaggerated description spread by Arab leaders to incite them to fight the Jews"

- Yunes Ahmed Assad, refugee from the town of Deir Yassin, in Al Urdun, April 9, 1953

"[The Arabs of Haifa] fled in spite of the fact that the Jewish authorities guaranteed their safety and rights as citizens of Israel."

- Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, according to Rev. Karl Baehr, Executive Secretary of the American Christian Palestine Committee, New York Herald Tribune, June 30, 1949

"The Arabs did not want to submit to a truce they rather preferred to abandon their homes, their belongings and everything they possessed in the world and leave the town. This is in fact what they did."

- Jamal Husseini, Acting Chairman of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, told to the United Nations Security Council, quoted in the UNSC Official Records (N. 62), April 23, 1948, p. 14

"the military and civil authorities and the Jewish representative expressed their profound regret at this grave decision [to evacuate]. The [Jewish] Mayor of Haifa made a passionate appeal to the delegation to reconsider its decision"

- The Arab National Committee of Haifa, told to the Arab League, quoted in The Refugee in the World, by Joseph B. Schechtman, 1963

.......

" The existence of these refugees is a direct result of the Arab States' opposition to the partition plan and the reconstitution of the State of Israel. The Arab states adopted this policy unanimously, and the responsibility of its results, therefore is theirs.
...The flight of Arabs from the territory allotted by the UN for the Jewish state began immediately after the General Assembly decision at the end of November 1947. This wave of emigration, which lasted several weeks, comprised some thirty thousand people, chiefly well-to-do-families."

- Emil Ghory, secretary of the Arab High Council, Lebanese daily Al-Telegraph, 6 Sept 1948

"Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return."

- Haled al Azm, the Syrian Prime Minister in 1948-49, The Memoirs of Haled al Azm, (Beirut, 1973), Part 1, pp. 386-387

"Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of refugees... while it is we who made them to leave... We brought disaster upon... Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave... We have rendered them dispossessed... We have accustomed them to begging... We have participated in lowering their moral and social level... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon... men, women and children - all this in service of political purposes..."

- Khaled al Azm, Syria's Prime Minister after the 1948 war [note: same person as above]

"As early as the first months of 1948 the Arab League issued orders exhorting the people to seek a temporary refuge in neighboring countries, later to return to their abodes in the wake of the victorious Arab armies and obtain their share of abandoned Jewish property."

- bulletin of The Research Group for European Migration Problems, 1957

One morning in April 1948, Dr. Jamal woke us to say that the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), led by the Husseinis, had warned Arab residents of Talbieh to leave immediately. The understanding was that the residents would be able to return as conquerors as soon as the Arab forces had thrown the Jews out. Dr. Jamal made the point repeatedly that he was leaving because of the AHC's threats, not because of the Jews, and that he and his frail wife had no alternative but to go.

Commentary Magazine -- January 2000

And many more...
Source: Peace Encyclopedia

abu afak

04-26-2004, 02:59 PM

error/'reply' instead of 'edit'/delete please

MGB8

04-26-2004, 04:50 PM

Michael,

Its laughable that you call my posts "hysterical". You see, despite polite language, the REAL issue behind your posts is (1) what are you trying to accomplish and (2) why?

Now, of course, I can only speculate, but its clear, by the points and quotes that you emphasize, and the points and quotes that you completely ignore, that you are trying to blur and revise the history of the mid-east by pointing out all the things, often out of context, that makes Israel look bad, while ignoring or excusing the overriding truths of the Arab Islamic attempts at genocide of the Jews.

You ignore the quotes of the Arabs, backed up by actions, which flatly are attempts to kill all the Jews in Israel.

Why would you possibly spin events, and mislead people as you do? The ONLY plausible reason is to justify the murder of Jews - you yourself haven't suggested an alternate motivation. "Understanding" terrorism is not a real answer, since terror is the targetting of civilians for military attacks for political goals - so understanding those political goals, which is what you espouse, doesn't do anything about the means.

But, back to the overriding facts, which you try so hard to blur...

(1) There was no Arab nation in the Mandate of Palestine, a ROMAN word, by the way, not Arab, before 1948 or at any time thereafter, expect arguably Jordan in the WB from 48-67. While some private land belonged to Arabs, it simply wasn't "Arab land" in terms of sovereignty - as for the ownership of partition Israel - between Jewish Owned Land and SOVEREIGN (BRITISH) owned land, that makes up the great great majority of the land.

You try to analogize to Muslim immigrants to Israel - but there's the rub - Israel IS the sovereign, as well as the one and only Jewish state and historical home of the Jews. THERE WAS NO ARAB SOVEREIGN OF MANDATORY PALESTINE! And yet today, there are 22 Arab nations, who trace their routes to Arabia, not Palestine, although some are ethnically non-Arab - kurds, some bedouins, assyrians, some druze, egyptians who were simply "arabized."

(2) Arabs attempted to genocide the Jews pre-48 just because they were moving to an area which they believed, under Islamic legal principles, was never to return to non-Islamic hands. There was no "Palestinian" national movement, as Syria claimed the land as Southern Syria, and at the time the word Palestinian was most often used to refer to Jews. The Arabs themselves admitted that there was no such thing as Palestine - just Sunni Arabs of the "great Pan-Arab nation."

(3) The Arabs were quite clear and explicit about their goals to kill all the Jews - both in speech and action - the 48 invasion, among other things, but it continued, it NEVER stopped, and continues to this day.

(4) Regarding the 6 day war, the Arabs were clear in their goals then, too - announcing that they would kill all the Jews and push Israel into the sea. Then they acted on those goals. You make excuses - oh, Israel could have taken a week or two to re-route oil around the horn of Africa, while it was militarily surrounded by mobalized armies, who were announcing that they were going to invade - as if that is a realistic or reasonable response. It doesn't pass the laugh test, Michael. Meanwhile, while their certainly was a low level conflict going on in the WB and on the North, it was Syria and Jordan who brought themselves into the war - not the other way around - and that legalizes Israel's taking of the territories from Jordan - making them not occupied but disputed, legally.

(5) You still ignore the clearest example of Muslim/Arab depravity - invading on Yom Kippur - when Israel HAD done as you suggested and ignored Arab military movements and intelligence.

Your reaction to the bringing up of Israel's Nuclear Deterent, which stifles the Arab dream of the destruction of Israel and the genocide of its Jews because it ties the fate of Arab-Islam to it is enlightening, and, finally, honest.

It bothers you. You can't get what you want - the ethnic cleansing of Jews from Israel. Because that's what your point has been from the beginning.

We all know "why" Pal arabs chose terrorism. Not because of poverty or desparation, but because they want the land (for various reasons), they want to genocide the Jews all the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (btw - Jerusalem has always, always, been majority Jewish - the Arabs really don't care about it unless/untill Islamic control of it was/is threatened.) They are not strong enough to do so by military means, so they attack the elderly and children. There's nothing so complicated about this, Michael, other than the depravity of supporting genocide.

But, of course, you have not even denied your desire to see Israel destroyed and the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the land, by genocide if need be.

You see, Michael, a snake can hide in flowers - pretty, mild language in this case, but its goal is to poison none-theless. Saeb Erakat and Hanan Ashwari don't admit that they want the destruction of Israel, and are pretty good about using "mild arguments" to advance their agenda of genocide - Arafat's "plan of phases." You are no different, Michael.

Its not the how that matters, michael, its the "what" and "why". You are trying, very hard, to justify Arab attempt to genocide the Jews, and trying, also very hard, to mask that the above is their clearly announced, and acted upon, goal. And the why...well, one can only speculate...but its not a hard guess.

MGB8

04-26-2004, 10:04 PM

One last point...

Michael is trying very hard to paint Israel and Jews as the aggressor in the conflict.

He argues that the partition was bad because Jews only privately owned %25-30 or so of that land, and only another 50 is percent of the Israel partition land was Sovereign, meaning that maybe 20ish percent of the Israel partition included Arab privately owned land. To which the response is: nu? They were to be a minority population - as a good 15-17% of Israel is now minority Muslim Arab.

He argues that Israel waged a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Arabs. Like any of the best lies, there is some truth to this. There were certainly Jews who wanted to expell the Arabs, and certainly actions towards that end. However, he ignores the, above documented, flight caused by the Arab invasion, and ignores the many Arabs who remained in Israel. He also ignores that some of the expulsions were of combative populations - and people who are the source of fighting - killing their rivals - open themselves to at minimum expulsion.

Moreover, unlike the Arabs, who promised death and genocide to the Jews, those who fled or were expelled survived to be refugees. Of course, the UN policies allowed anyone who wanted to be counted as a refugee (and thus get food and housing) to sign up as one - which led to a huge inflation of the number of refugees from simply poor arabs who were poor, desperate, and needed the food.

Meanwhile, he ignores the essential realities of the conflict.

It was the Arab states who announced that they would committ genocide on the Jews and Israel in 47, and then who invaded Israel (in violation of the UN charter), in an attempt to do so. Was their violence beforehand? Yes. Does that change the Arabs announced goals or actions in futherance of these goals? No.

Granted, in 56 Israel WAS the aggressor, although it was in response to ongoing terrorist attacks from the Sinai, as a puppett of England and France who wanted to control the Suez canal. Yes, Israel escalated here, but it was not completely unprovoked.

In 67 the Arabs announced the same goals as in 48 (which they had been consistently true to, but the volume was ratcheted up again) and mobilized again to act towards those goals, including a blockade of Israel's oil to soften Israel up. Israel pre-emptively struck egypt and Jordan and Syria (both backed by the Iraqi Army) - attacked, and lost territory. Of course, Israel COULD HAVE entered and razed Cairo, Damascus and Amman - but didn't.

After 67 Israel offered all of the territorial gaines back to the Arab states in return for peace and normal relations. The answer: the infamous 3 no's.

Around the world and in Israel Arab terror against Israel continued - ongoing attempt to kill as many Jews as possible.

Then, in 73, STILL pursuing the well publicized goal of pushing Israel into the sea, and the genocide of the Jews, the Arab nations attacked on the holiest day of the Jewish Year. This time the Israelis had gotten arrogant and ignored the military movements and words coming from the arabs beforehand (which people like Michael says that Israel should have done in previous conflicts.)

In the 80, Christians and Shi'ites ASKED Israel to enter Lebanon, to fight the Sunnis.

And since 73, the Arabs have kept announcing the same goals. The PLO charter was never changed. The Maps which claim all of Israel as an Arab state have never changed. Fatah still means conquest. Egypt has a cold peace, but its state media still supports the same genocidal goals. Jordan is a step better, but not so much.

Only one side of this conflict calls for pushing the other into the sea. Only one side dances at the murder of innocents on the other side. In fact, only one side deliberately targets non-combatants - people eating at cafeterias and malls - doesn't matter what their political opinions or actions. Only one side CAMPAIGNS on how many Jews they kill. Only one side has an educational system that denies the others right to exist. Its not the side of the one and only Jewish state. Its the side of the many Arab/Islamic states.

Michael wants us to delve into why the source of terrorism - the Arab desire for the ethnic cleansing and genocide of Jews is somehow justified....and that is what shows him to be what he is.

Leon

04-27-2004, 06:36 AM

Now, of course, I can only speculate, but its clear, by the points and quotes that you emphasize, and the points and quotes that you completely ignore, that you are trying to blur and revise the history of the mid-east by pointing out all the things, often out of context, that makes Israel look bad, while ignoring or excusing the overriding truths of the Arab Islamic attempts at genocide of the Jews.

I disagree.

I dont think michael's "trying" to do anything intentionally. The poor guy doesnt even mean it - he was just born (as I acknowledged in my last post) slightly "thick-headed." Just blame it on his mental condition - its turned him into a compulsive liar...not to mention the subscription meditication that they put him on.

Next time, if you want to post clear, undisputed, facts - post it to someone who could read and has a relativley stable mental condition (and is relativley clear of perscription medication) Just leave this poor guy alone.

michael

04-28-2004, 07:26 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Even Begin recognized that Israel's establishment ran contrary to the local Arabs present political goals.

But either way, the "grievence" is the EXISTANCE of Israel, of a Jewish majority state on land that they WANT for there own. That is racism, it is imperialism, and since their goal has consistently been genocide - its pretty close to Naziism.

A crude argument but not surprising. As MBG8 has been keen to remind me Arab opposition goes back before '67 and even '48 thereby negating 'occupation' as a grievence. Yet, now it's the '"EXISTENCE" of Israel which is claimed to be the problem.

But as has been noted by many, Arab antagonism was a result of "not hatred for the Jews as such but opposition to Jewish settlement in Palestine".

The realities were obvious enough to the early Zionist leaders, typified by Ben-Gurion,
"When we say that the Arabs are the aggressors and we defend ourselves- that is only half the truth....the fighting is only one aspect of the conflict which is in its essence a political one. And politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves."

It's curious how people who are opposed to waves of European immigration into their 'homeland' are guilty of "racism', "imperialism" and "genocide". More so when the recent arrivals hope to establish a state based on ethnicity. The idea that a people of common descent belong as citizens to common state, no matter where they live was a hallmark of 19th German nationalism. Did someone mention "Nazism"?

The bottom line is that the Arabs lost very little with the Creation of Israel.

Yes, just their homes of generations. The merest trifle.

abu afak

04-28-2004, 07:57 AM

And uh.. no response on this point...
before we get to the rest of your lies////
You couldn't have missed it.
So you must have ignored it .. the same technique that has landed you with your warped history.

Originally posted by michael
This is one of the standard defenses – that Arabs were told by their leaders to leave. It’s another great argument that suffers only one flaw – lack of evidence.....

originally posted by abu afak
There are so many 'Beauties'/Lies.. hardly know where to start..
But I picked the above for this post.
(could do another few on the '67 war.. but I'll wait for a response to this first)

"No Evidence" eh?

- - - - - - - - - - -- - -- -

"The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, THEY ABANDONED THEM, FORCED THEM TO EMIGRATE AND TO LEAVE THEIR HOMELAND, imposed upon them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe, as if we were condemmed to change places with them; they moved out of their ghettos and we occupied similar ones. The Arab States succeeded in scattering the Palestinian people and in destroying their unity. They did not recognize them as a unified people until the States of the world did so, and this is regrettable".

- by Abu Mazen (ever hear of him?.. the last PM.. abu), from the article titled: "What We Have Learned and What We Should Do", published in Falastin el Thawra, the official journal of the PLO, of Beirut, in March 1976

...

"The Arab streets are curiously deserted and, ardently following the poor example of the more moneyed class there has been an exodus from Jerusalem too, though not to the same extent as in Jaffa and Haifa."

- London Times, May 5, 1948

"The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two. Their leaders had promised them that the Arab armies would crush the 'Zionist gangs' very quickly and that there was no need for panic or fear of a long exile."

- Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, in the Beirut newspaper Sada al Janub, August 16, 1948

"Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the -Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit.. . . It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."

- The London weekly Economist, October 2, 1948

"It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees' flight from their homes in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem."

- Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station, Cyprus, April 3, 1949

"This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country."

- Edward Atiyah (then Secretary of the Arab League Office in London) in The Arabs (London, 1955), p. 183

"The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by order of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city...By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa.".

- Time, May 3, 1948, p. 25

The Arab exodus, initially at least, was encouraged by many Arab leaders, such as Haj Amin el Husseini, the exiled pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, and by the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine. They viewed the first wave of Arab setbacks as merely transitory. Let the Palestine Arabs flee into neighboring countries. It would serve to arouse the other Arab peoples to greater effort, and when the Arab invasion struck, the Palestinians could return to their homes and be compensated with the property of Jews driven into the sea.

- Kenneth Bilby, in New Star in the Near East (New York, 1950), pp. 30-31

I do not want to impugn anybody but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab States in opposing Partition and the Jewish State. The Arab States agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem, [Daily Telegraph, September 6, 1948

- Emil Ghoury, Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, the official leadership of the Palestinian Arabs, in the Beirut newspaper, Daily Telegraph, September 6, 1948

The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies.

- Falastin (Jordanian newspaper), February 19, 1949

We will smash the country with our guns and obliterate every place the Jews seek shelter in. The Arabs should conduct their wives and children to safe areas until the fighting has died down.

- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Said, quoted in Sir Am Nakbah ("The Secret Behind the Disaster") by Nimr el Hawari, Nazareth, 1952

....

"The Arab governments told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in."

- from the Jordan daily Ad Difaa, September 6, 1954

"The Arab civilians panicked and fled ignominiously. Villages were frequently abandoned before they were threatened by the progress of war."

- General Glubb Pasha, in the London Daily Mail on August 12, 1948

"The Arab exodus from other villages was not caused by the actual battle, but by the exaggerated description spread by Arab leaders to incite them to fight the Jews"

- Yunes Ahmed Assad, refugee from the town of Deir Yassin, in Al Urdun, April 9, 1953

"[The Arabs of Haifa] fled in spite of the fact that the Jewish authorities guaranteed their safety and rights as citizens of Israel."

- Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, according to Rev. Karl Baehr, Executive Secretary of the American Christian Palestine Committee, New York Herald Tribune, June 30, 1949

"The Arabs did not want to submit to a truce they rather preferred to abandon their homes, their belongings and everything they possessed in the world and leave the town. This is in fact what they did."

- Jamal Husseini, Acting Chairman of the Palestine Arab Higher Committee, told to the United Nations Security Council, quoted in the UNSC Official Records (N. 62), April 23, 1948, p. 14

"the military and civil authorities and the Jewish representative expressed their profound regret at this grave decision [to evacuate]. The [Jewish] Mayor of Haifa made a passionate appeal to the delegation to reconsider its decision"

- The Arab National Committee of Haifa, told to the Arab League, quoted in The Refugee in the World, by Joseph B. Schechtman, 1963

.......

" The existence of these refugees is a direct result of the Arab States' opposition to the partition plan and the reconstitution of the State of Israel. The Arab states adopted this policy unanimously, and the responsibility of its results, therefore is theirs.
...The flight of Arabs from the territory allotted by the UN for the Jewish state began immediately after the General Assembly decision at the end of November 1947. This wave of emigration, which lasted several weeks, comprised some thirty thousand people, chiefly well-to-do-families."

- Emil Ghory, secretary of the Arab High Council, Lebanese daily Al-Telegraph, 6 Sept 1948

"Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return."

- Haled al Azm, the Syrian Prime Minister in 1948-49, The Memoirs of Haled al Azm, (Beirut, 1973), Part 1, pp. 386-387

"Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of refugees... while it is we who made them to leave... We brought disaster upon... Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave... We have rendered them dispossessed... We have accustomed them to begging... We have participated in lowering their moral and social level... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon... men, women and children - all this in service of political purposes..."

- Khaled al Azm, Syria's Prime Minister after the 1948 war [note: same person as above]

"As early as the first months of 1948 the Arab League issued orders exhorting the people to seek a temporary refuge in neighboring countries, later to return to their abodes in the wake of the victorious Arab armies and obtain their share of abandoned Jewish property."

- bulletin of The Research Group for European Migration Problems, 1957

One morning in April 1948, Dr. Jamal woke us to say that the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), led by the Husseinis, had warned Arab residents of Talbieh to leave immediately. The understanding was that the residents would be able to return as conquerors as soon as the Arab forces had thrown the Jews out. Dr. Jamal made the point repeatedly that he was leaving because of the AHC's threats, not because of the Jews, and that he and his frail wife had no alternative but to go.

Commentary Magazine -- January 2000

And many more...
Source: Peace Encyclopedia

MGB8

04-28-2004, 08:36 PM

As Michael is pushed, more of his true self comes out. In the post below, he essentially admits that it is in fact the creation and existence of Israel that is the "legitimate grievence" behind terrorism.

Now, his original post was to essentially - lets understand why its ok for Palestinian Sunni Arabs to target and murder Jews in cafes, on buses, at diskos and pizza parlors, celebrating passover, etc.

Now he goes on to the sin of exageration, a common threat among the arabs.

Some Arabs lost "generational homes." This was not a majority - if you look at the population trends over time, you will see that Arab immigration and population increased in speed and intensity just as the Jews began immigrating to the area.

But of course, many many fewer Arabs would have lost those generational homes Michael talks about if the Arabs hadn't attempted the genocide of the Jews. Had they accepted the partition, only a small fraction of the refugees would have become so.

Unfortunately, though, they couldn't bare the thought of being, gasp, under the sovereignty of a majority Jewish, and not Islamic, nation.

Michael, of course, still ignores the fact the resident Arabs neither owned much of the land (tenants) nor were SOVEREIGNS. There was nothing wrong with the Jewish immigration - it wasn't the Arabs' land in the first place to oppose it.

What Ben Gurion recognized is that, because they originally had the population majority, they EXPECTED and DESIRED to become sovereigns of the land (at least under some petty Islamic despot - like all the Arabs are ruled under, except Israeli Arabs), the Jewish desire to return to Zion, their historical and religious homeland, ran counter to the Sunni Arabs political goals.

Jews were being the aggressors in establishing facts on the ground - via land ownership and immigration, that favored the establishment and survival of the Jewish homeland from the Arab conquerors and immigrants who had come either centuries before with the Islamic Imperialist Conquest or along with (and after) the Jewish return from Diaspora.

Nu?

The bottom line remains the same - the immigration was just people moving into an area. This Michael sites as a justification for attempted genocide. Michael shows what he is. Michael is not satisfied with 99% of the middle east under Muslim Arab control. Dar al-Islam shall never return to Dar al-Harb, right? Remember what will happen if Israel ever is destroyed - Israeli subs, planes, and hidden bunkers don't necessarily need a central command to launch the Samson option.

The end of the Jewish homeland will mean the end of the Arab and Islamic homelands. Remember that Michael, and remind your Arab bretheren. Israel will not go away. Ever. If it is pushed to the brink, it will carry every one else over the edge with it. The people of the book returned to their homeland. King Feisal the Hashemite of Saudi Arabia had no problem with it - he planned with Weizman for all the land West of the Jordan to be the Jewish Homeland and the rest of the mid-east to be Arab.

As for the rhetoric against an ethnic homeland - tell that to the Pan-Arab movement - the great Arab nation or the great Islamic nation... or to the Kurds, or to Egyptians, most of whom don't consider themselves Arabs, or, in reality, the French or Irish or Italians or Persians or Koreans or Japanese.

The Christians, by virtue of a huge population, don't really need any religiously defined states, but have many. Ditto Muslims - 57 states. But ONE Jewish state, the homeland, the Jewish Vatican or Mecca/Medina....and this Michael opposes - as he says - "the Jewish settlement in (the British Mandate named after the Roman renaming of Judea post the Jewish Revolt) Palestine - ie. ISRAEL - is the problem." And so he attempts to justify genocide of Jews, based on his ethnicity and the ethnicity of the neighborhood in opposition to the ethnicity of the Jews. We know who the Nazi is.

Originally posted by michael
A crude argument but not surprising. As MBG8 has been keen to remind me Arab opposition goes back before '67 and even '48 thereby negating 'occupation' as a grievence. Yet, now it's the '"EXISTENCE" of Israel which is claimed to be the problem.

But as has been noted by many, Arab antagonism was a result of "not hatred for the Jews as such but opposition to Jewish settlement in Palestine".

The realities were obvious enough to the early Zionist leaders, typified by Ben-Gurion,
"When we say that the Arabs are the aggressors and we defend ourselves- that is only half the truth....the fighting is only one aspect of the conflict which is in its essence a political one. And politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves."

It's curious how people who are opposed to waves of European immigration into their 'homeland' are guilty of "racism', "imperialism" and "genocide". More so when the recent arrivals hope to establish a state based on ethnicity. The idea that a people of common descent belong as citizens to common state, no matter where they live was a hallmark of 19th German nationalism. Did someone mention "Nazism"?

Yes, just their homes of generations. The merest trifle.

michael

04-29-2004, 12:33 AM

Originally posted by Mediocrates
I t makes him the same as all the others. A narrow minded legalistic literalist who refuses or is unable to understand the difference between justice and law, between right and wrong. To them, all worship goes to the "LAW" no matter who wrote it or why. It's the same kind of kowtowing that created the Nuremberg race laws....."It's a law how can it be wrong????" Compound that with a willful indifference to terrorism and you have what you see. Now in the mid east/arab world there is the same cynical adherence to the "LAW" no matter what it says. And it has landed them in the same abattoir of failure.

Mediocrates raises an important point, that of justice rather than legalities. Not surprisingly, I’ll come to some different conclusions.

It is especially interesting on the question of land tenure which came up earlier. MBG8 stated that the land “had been owned by the Ottomans, and when the British took control of the mandate, title passed to them.”. The Mandate in fact did not give sovereignty to the British. The only point of absolute consensus on the question of the Mandates was that the principle of “non-annexation” was accepted. Sovereignty was generally regarded as resting with the inhabitants of the land, the Mandate only holding in abeyance their exercise of that sovereignty. Some opinion held that the Mandates were virtually independent states, under a kind of trusteeship.

British rule was concerned with ‘modernising’ land tenure in Palestine, but served primarily to transfer control to the British Mandate which was then able to make this land available to Jewish settlers. This often involved a process of litigation, which sometimes helped and sometimes hindered this process of transferring control over land. As I said earlier, colonial societies came to know this legal means of acquiring land as the “British mode of warfare”. Such means were of course defended as “land justly acquired”

As pointed out, Jewish settlers were able to purchase land from the few Arab notables who were large land holders, often in absentia. This land was usually worked by fellahin. Sometimes this was a temporary arrangement, and at other times was land use practice over generations. After such sales, fellahin were evicted.

As Mediocrates states this indeed was “adherence to the ‘LAW’”, but I think could probably, quite rightly, be seen as a “narrow minded legalistic” interpretation reflecting an attitude that “refuses or is unable to understand the difference between justice and law, between right and wrong”.

The same principle applies to a 2 state solution. It represents a compromise, providing justice to Palestinians and Israelis - 2 viable states for 2 peoples. The PLO agreed to this long before Israel and the US. Even now the preferred Israeli version is not so much 2 states, but one state and one rubbish tip. Again, Israel, supported by the US, can defend this version from a “narrow minded legalistic” point of view, but not from one of justice.

michael

04-29-2004, 06:20 AM

Originally posted by Oh Jerusalem
While Nasser continued to make speeches threatening war, Arab terrorist attacks grew more frequent. In 1965, 35 raids were conducted against Israel. In 1966, the number increased to 41. In just the first four months of 1967, 37 attacks were launched.
- Netanel Lorch, One Long War, (Jerusalem: Keter, 1976), p. 110.
.[/i]

All depends who you quote. Danholo's favourite, Michael Oren, cites figures of 35 attacks in 1965, 93 attacks for 1966, and 270 in the first few months of 1967, rather than just 37.

What's most interesting is the source of many of these figures - PLO military communiques.

Yehosaphat Harkabi, the former head of military intelligence, had this to say in his 1968 article reviewing the lead up to June 1967,

'To hide it's mediocre results, Fatah inflated it's communiques, which bore no resemblence to what actually took place. Often, reported actions did not take place at all, and the Israeli authorities even had difficulty in identifying them." ("Fedayeen Action and Arab Strategy", Y. Harkabi)

Writers have to make choices, sometimes difficult, about the citation of sources. Are they credible, or are they not? In this case, these same PLO sources also claimed to have killed Israeli PM Eshkol with a missile.

Mediocrates

04-29-2004, 07:08 AM

All this revisionism is charming. You're now arguing whether all the Arabs want to kill all the Jews or some of the Arabs want to kill most of the Jews and whether self defense or strategic interest, if you're Israel is ever a valid reason to survive.

Clearly you fall on the side of let's let the arabs kill all the Jews then we'll talk to them sternly from the pulpit of so called international law.

MGB8

04-29-2004, 07:28 AM

Michael,

Now your logic completely fails, although its a nice attempt.

There is a clear difference between "Annexation" and "Sovereignty". Annexation means adding to the nation - as India once had been part of the British Empire. Sovereignty merely means being the Sovereign - the Authority recognized in charge and practically in charge.

Sovereignty rested in the inhabitants in the mandate? That's a new one. Tell that to the Sunni Arabs in Eastern Palestine Mandate (Jordan) who the British transfered Sovereignty to a foreigh Hashemite? Tell that to the Iraqi king who ruled over majority Shia and also Kurds? What happened to the Kurdish state? What about Lebanon, or Jordan - do their rulers actually represent the inhabitants - remember these were also at some point British or French sovereign.

Michael - the British had sovereignty via a test vehicle (which failed) - the league of Nations - which practically had very little to do with it. They had the right to transfer or do with the land to whomever they wished.

The UN eventually DID partition the land according to its inhabitants, although (gasp) their would have been Muslims on thier own private property but with a Jewish Sovereign over the land.

This is your justification for terrorism - attempted genocide?

michael

05-07-2004, 08:19 PM

Someone is indeed confused.

I was contrasting the principles of "non-annexation" and "sovereignty". It was generally thought that the Mandates did not confer sovereignty, ie. Palestine did not become part of Britian just as Syria did not become part of France. With the formal renouncement of Turkish claims to Palestine in 1923, there was a reasonable argument that as "non-annexation" was the agreed principle, and sovreignity didn't lie with the British, it should therefore lie with the inhabitants.

michael

05-07-2004, 10:48 PM

Originally posted by Leon

“Tell me were these members of the UDT and Apodeti pregnant women, toddlers or entire families dining out or observing a religious holiday at home?

Its intesting how you mention east timorese infighting rather than their reaction to the occupation and targeting of Indonesians- let alone INNOCENT INDONESIANS!

It’s a fairly simple point, understood by most, that terrorism is the targeting of innocent civilians. Again, most understand that lives are of equal worth, rather than being dependant on their ethnic identity. That understood, the killing of an innocent Eat Timorese is a crime equal to that of killing an innocent Indonesian civilian. While I thought that this might be an elementary point not requiring explanation, I was clearly wrong.

Please post the number of attacks on innocent school children, aged pensioners, teenagers, toddlers, pregnant women and families who were eating out or observing a religious holiday, who were wilfully and purposly murdered in cold blood in either East timor in Indonesia itself. ............. Did they start two civil wars in two different countries - cliaming the lives of tens of thousands.

Oh and lets not forget : Did they recieve billions in US dollars in aid from all around the world? Did their leaders make it to Forbes magazine? Or were they able to recently transfer US$ 900 million in their own personal bank accounts?

Leons’ obsession with the details is a little mystifying. While all terrorism is wrong, it may differ in technique, target and scale. This is obvious.

US Aid? No, the East Timorese received none, it all went to the Indonesian military so they could continue their slaughter . What conclusion should we draw about the US?

Yep so brutual, that it proves my point that "desparation and occupation" is not the driving force behind barbaric Palestinian terrorism, after all despite having ACTUAL grievances (which were no where near in comparison the to the precieved grievances that are spat out of the PLO propaganda machine) the East timorese never matched that of level brutuality. There is simply no comparison........After all, if the big lie was right, and the mass murder of people dining out in cafes is solely motivated by "poverty", "hoplessness" and "occupation........................So have any Indonesian families been murdered in resteraunts or in their own homes in Jakarta?
So Leon seems to agree that the ET had legitimate grievances and that it was a prime motivator for their limited terrorism. That was the point I was making. I’m glad we can agree.
Though it should be noted that I haven’t argued anywhere that “poverty” is an issue, this is Leons invention.

Motivation is one thing, opportunity is another, if we are now to look at the explanation for the scale of terrorism. Jakarta being over a thousand kilometres from Dili may have some impact. Leon argues that ET terrorism should be on a grand scale given the level of Indonesion atrocity. Maybe, but I think Machiavelli’s theory has some relevance on this point; the degree of Indonesian brutality being beyond question.

I've drawn two differing conclusions on your personality:
A. That you have a habit of twisting and distorting.

or

B. You're just simply thick-headed.
For your own benefit, I would like to think that you belong in the first category (previous posts back that up), although i'm starting to sway to the second category.

What I suggested was quite simple and elementary (for anyone whose at least half literate to understand): The notion that Terror and murder against innocent civilians is driven by "poverty, despair and hoplesness" is false.

A fairly typical example of answering the point one wishes to answer rather than the one actually made. Leon places in quotation marks the phrase “poverty, despair and hoplesness” as if these were my words. They aren’t of course, they're his. This was the basis of my original question,
“he [Richard Crossman] commented that the best way to fight terrorism was to ‘remove the legitimate cause of grievance of every Jew in Palestine” and to “state objectively…the historical causes for the growth of this beastly phenomenon in a decent people’.” (post#6)

Twisting and distorting, huh?

Well, lets return to the original example - Jewish terrorism. The British simply changed a policy rather than committed atrocities, but this still lead to Jewish terrorism. How does Leon explain this given his rejection of his own proposition ("poverety..." etc), of Richards Crossman’s ideas on legitimate greivences and the absence of Indonesian style brutality?

I never implied that I wanted Israel to adopt Surhato's methods. Yet, in the typical Michael style of twisting and distorting (or thick-headedness - depending on how one percieves things) you would like to say that I did imply just that.

This is what I said, “Is this the lesson that Leon proposes- that might is right, so suffer the consequences?”

No implication that you supported it, but a direct question asking if you did. A rather different thing. So who is "twisting and distorting"?

MGB8

05-08-2004, 10:39 AM

Michael,

You again try, deliberately, to confuse to concepts - one of sovereignty and the other of annexation. You can be sovereign over a territory without it being annexed to the nation as a whole - Guam or Puerto Rico for the US, France has many Islands, Britain too...etc. etc. etc.

There is a clear difference between who, for lack of a better term, "owns" the land - really who is in charge of the land and has the right to dispose of it (the sovereign), and whether the land is part of the state (annexation.)

A sovereign HAS THE RIGHT to annex the land (although they may have agreed not to - as in the case of the mandate), but DOES NOT HAVE TO. For example, Israel HAS THE RIGHT to Annex ALL of the WB (the territories), but if it does so, it, to not be an apparteid state, needs to grant citizenship to the residents of the WB.

Israel, though having the power to annex ALL of the WB, also has the power to annex just PART of the WB, and grant citizenship to only those residents. However, once land is announced annexed, it becomes difficult politically to maintain a claim of sovereignty over the rest of the territories, because the appearance of bantu-stans and the precedent of South Africa - even though there is no parrallel (there was no analog to Muslim-Arab MP, soldiers, Muslim sovereignty over the temple mount/al-aqsa/dome of rock in South Africa).

Originally posted by michael
Someone is indeed confused.

I was contrasting the principles of "non-annexation" and "sovereignty". It was generally thought that the Mandates did not confer sovereignty, ie. Palestine did not become part of Britian just as Syria did not become part of France. With the formal renouncement of Turkish claims to Palestine in 1923, there was a reasonable argument that as "non-annexation" was the agreed principle, and sovreignity didn't lie with the British, it should therefore lie with the inhabitants.

michael

05-12-2004, 03:29 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Michael,

You again try, deliberately, to confuse to concepts - one of sovereignty and the other of annexation.

A sovereign HAS THE RIGHT to annex the land (although they may have agreed not to - as in the case of the mandate), but DOES NOT HAVE TO.

MGB8's post unequivocally demonstrates where the confusion lies.

"A sovereign HAS THE RIGHT to annex the land " - as I explained, the one principle that all agreed upon was that of "non-anexation", ie. the state charged with the Mandate could not annex that land.

As you quite rightly said, those who are "really....in charge of the land..." have "...the right to dispose of it (the sovereign),". Britian did not have this right, as per the one agreed principle of "non-annexation" (not merely a matter of Bristish choice), and so the argument that the inhabitants had sovereignity, follows.

michael

05-12-2004, 07:58 AM

Originally posted by abu afak
There are so many 'Beauties'/Lies.. hardly know where to start..
"No Evidence" eh?

I used the word "evidence" for a very good reason.

The quotes provided are the usual stuff, copied and pasted without much thought. They can be generally divided into 3 categories; accurate but of little relevance to the question, fabrication, and quotes that are reports of events rather than evidence that they actually took place. I’ll start with the first.

"The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, ………..”
- by Abu Mazen (ever hear of him?.. the last PM)
Mazens’ thoughts would be echoed by many Palestinians, that they felt betrayed and abandoned by their Arab neighbours. One reason being that the response was so weak, in that they lacked a unified command and any clear strategy. Often ALA forces were the first to leave villages, and Arab regular forces were poorly equipped and poorly provisioned. Another, being the treatment the Palestinians recieved at the hands of their Arab ‘neighbours’ in the following years.

"The Arab streets are curiously deserted...."
- London Times, May 5, 1948
Yes, a factually accurate description. But noting that people left, sheds no light as to why.

" ...The flight of Arabs from the territory allotted by the UN for the Jewish state ...........which lasted several weeks, comprised some thirty thousand people, chiefly well-to-do-families."
- Emil Ghory, secretary of the Arab High Council, Lebanese daily Al-Telegraph, 6 Sept 1948
Exactly the same event occurred in 1936-9, as middle-class Arab families left Palestine because of the conflict during this period. Most went to neighbouring countries, and then returned when the situation calmed down. No doubt, in 1947-8, they again expected to return to do exactly the same.

"This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders ...."
- Edward Atiyah (then Secretary of the Arab League Office in London) in The Arabs (London, 1955), p. 183
Again, nothing that’s in conflict with quotes I’ve posted. Remember the Israeli military intelligence report that estimated that 70% of refugees fled because of “direct hostile Jewish action”? The remaining 30% may indeed have fled due “partly” to the “unrealistic Arab press” and a variety of other influences, such as fear of “hostile Jewish action”.

And now for the fabrication.
"[The Arabs of Haifa] fled in spite of the fact that the Jewish authorities guaranteed their safety and rights as citizens of Israel."
- Monsignor George Hakim,
"The refugees were confident that their absence would not last long, and that they would return within a week or two. ......."
- Monsignor George Hakim, Greek Catholic Bishop of Galilee, in the Beirut newspaper Sada al Janub, August 16, 1948
The statements attributed to the Archbishop were investigated by Irish writer Erskine Childers,
“I wrote to His Grace, asking for his evidence of such orders. I hold signed letters from him, with permission to publish, in which he has categorically denied ever alleging Arab evacuation orders; he states that no such orders were ever given. He says that his name has been abused for years; and that the Arabs fled through panic and forcible eviction by Jewish troops.” (E. Childers, ‘The Spectator’, 1961)
Inconvenient information can travel a little slowly, but 40 years should be enough. However, this remains an article of faith for the true believers.

And the final category – claims of evidence that are, in reality, claims that evidence exists, but without producing it.
"Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained.....the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the -Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit.. . ...."
- The London weekly Economist, October 2, 1948
This is one of the original sources of the evacuation order claim. Again, Childers investigated the claim. Despite this excerpt from the article often being presented as a quote, or as a British ‘eye-witness’ account, it was second-hand, that is, the journalist had no personal knowledge of the event, he was not in Haifa at the time and was simply reporting what he had been told by an unidentified source. The same article in the Economist (October 2, 1948) goes on to say that the Arab residents of Haifa were “all destitute, as the Jewish troops gave them an hour in which to quit, but simultaneously requisitioned all transport”. For some reason this part of the article is never quoted.

Later, Israeli historians such as Benny Morris also investigated the claims of Arab evacuation orders, using newly opened archives. This was his conclusion,

“I have have no contemporary evidence to show that either the leaders of the Arab states or the mufti ordered or directly encouraged the mass exodus during April. It may be worth noting that for decades the policy of the Palestinian Arab leaders had been to hold fast to the soil of Palestine and to resist…eviction and displacement…”,(Morris, ‘The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem’, p.66)
and
“There is no evidence to show that the Arab states and the AHC [Arab Higher Command] wanted a mass exodus or issued blanket orders or appeals to the Palestinians to flee their homes (though in certain areas the inhabitants of specific villages were ordered by Arab commanders or the AHC to leave, mainly for strategic reasons).” (ibid p. 129).

"It must not be forgotten that the Arab Higher Committee encouraged the refugees' flight ......"
- Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station, Cyprus, April 3, 1949

"The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by order of Arab leaders,..".
- Time, May 3, 1948, p. 25

The Arab exodus, initially at least, was encouraged by many Arab leaders, such as Haj Amin el Husseini, the exiled pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, and by the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine........- Kenneth Bilby, in New Star in the Near East (New York, 1950), pp. 30-31
Again, these are claims which provide no evidence.

In many cases, what is claimed to be evidence of an event, is in fact only a report of an event. This is quite consistent with reviews of the historical records - there are no records of direct calls from Arab leaders for broad evacuations, either on radio or in newspapers, only reports that such things happened. Most interestingly, none of the Zionist records of the time, reviewed by Morris and others, attribute the flight of the Arabs to evacuation orders from Arab leaders.

The best Morris is able to do, is to argue that given there are no such orders to leave, a lack of direct orders to stay implies agreement with the decision to flee.
The only problem with this interpretation is Morris’ own work, which shows that there is documented evidence of Arab leaders urging people to stay. Direct evidence, in their own words, not just second-hand reports of it.
Morris also quoted the IDF intelligence report (covering Dec ‘47- June ’48) which gave the assessment that,
“the AHC decided…to adopt measures to weaken the exodus by imposing restrictions, penalties, threats, propaganda in the press, on the radio….The AHC tried to enlist the help of neighbouring countries in this context.”

What there is evidence of, is calls for women and children to seek safety from danger, first recorded in Sept 1947 (as I posted earlier), and the abandonment, decided at the local level, of some smaller villages that could not be defended.

"The Arab civilians panicked and fled ignominiously. Villages were frequently abandoned before they were threatened by the progress of war."
- General Glubb Pasha, in the London Daily Mail on August 12, 1948

"The Arab exodus from other villages was not caused by the actual battle, but by the exaggerated description spread by Arab leaders to incite them to fight the Jews"
- Yunes Ahmed Assad, refugee from the town of Deir Yassin, in Al Urdun, April 9, 1953

"The Arabs did not want to submit to a truce they rather preferred to abandon their homes,......"
- Jamal Husseini

"The [Jewish] Mayor of Haifa made a passionate appeal to the delegation to reconsider its decision"
- The Arab National Committee of Haifa

This last claim is certainly true. But the appeal was made after most had already left. There was concern that if all the Arabs left, the port and oil facilities could not be operated.
One reason for the mass exodus from Haifa was summarized by the Israeli historian Uri Milstein,
“…Moshe Carmel feared that many Arabs would remain in the city. Hence he ordered that 3 inch mortars be used to shell the Arab crowds on the market square. The crowd…..stormed the boats and fled the city. The whole day mortars continued to shell the city, even though the Arabs did not fight.”.

The British Commander, Gen. Stockwell, had similar observations,
“[i]The Arabs…worried the Jews would overrun their houses and burn them and kill their children and wives. I think they just felt that this was the time to go and get to hell out of it as fast as they could[/I”.(Middle East Centre St Anthony’s College, Oxford, quoted in ‘Palestinian Catastrophe’, M. Palumbo)

And it’s also true that people fled before they were under direct attack. This is a rather normal pattern of civilian displacement in times of conflict.

michael

05-12-2004, 08:01 AM

CONTINUED

"Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes....Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return."
- Haled al Azm, the Syrian Prime Minister in 1948-49, The Memoirs of Haled al Azm, (Beirut, 1973), Part 1, pp. 386-387

"Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of refugees... while it is we who made them to leave... We brought disaster upon... men, women and children - all this in service of political purposes..."
- Khaled al Azm, Syria's Prime Minister after the 1948 war [note: same person as above]

Israeli scholar Yehoshua Porath expressed a view on the significance of these claims,
“Neither….. is the admission of the Syrian leader Khalid al-Azm, that the Arab countries urged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their villages until after the victory of the Arab armies, final proof that the Palestinian Arabs in practice heeded that call and consequently left”,(Y. Porath, New York Review of Books, Jan, 16 ,1986).
(As an aside, The Syrian President expressed no fear of Jewish forces as he claimed that Syria had the atomic bomb, produced locally by a “clever tinsmith”).

Besides Poraths’ point that no causal relationship is proven, the issue is of minimal relevance. Whether people were expelled, fled in fear, or left because instructed to, what is relevant, and undeniable, is that most were forcibly prevented from returning to their homes, despite their wish to do so.

MGB8

05-12-2004, 08:08 AM

Michael,

Several important facts bar your theory.

Number 1 - A sovereign MAY agree to limit their rights. That does not make them not a sovereign, it just means that the sovereign has declared itself limited.

Number 2 - Britain WAS Sovereign - it controlled the governance, the taxes, the police, the military, and immigration. It did this by defeating the former sovereign in war.

Number 3 - If, as you (incorrectly) allege, Britain (and France) was (were) not sovereign - not just Israel but also the creation of Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and all those little Arab states would not be acceptable to you, either. But you have not made mention of those states.

Number 4 - Israel was given over to the majority population of its lands at the time of the Partition - the Jewish People. The Hashemites (when they ruled Mecca and Medina) had agreed to give more - from the Jordan to the Sea.

Number 5 - None of this changes the fact that the Arab peoples did and are attempting the genocide of the Jews, and the destruction of the state of Israel. The Arabs originally conquered the land from others - no demographic changes (immigration) - just war. Then, they try to, again, to finsih Hitler's job (and they did and do refer to it in that way) - and you try to justify this.

Israel exists and will continue to exist - get used to it. It will not committ demographic or strategic suicide. Do the Palestinian Sunni Arabs have some legitimate claims? Sure. Do the Israelis have legitimate claims on ALL of the WB and Gaza. Yes, they do. Nu? Could the Arabs have been satisfied with 99.5% of the Middle East and not started this war of genocide - of course, and but for the family/clan in charge of Mecca/Medina, likely would have and all this bloodshed would have been avoided.

None of these land claims are justification for genocide - which is what the Pal Sunni Arabs are trying to do.

Originally posted by michael
MGB8's post unequivocally demonstrates where the confusion lies.

"A sovereign HAS THE RIGHT to annex the land " - as I explained, the one principle that all agreed upon was that of "non-anexation", ie. the state charged with the Mandate could not annex that land.

As you quite rightly said, those who are "really....in charge of the land..." have "...the right to dispose of it (the sovereign),". Britian did not have this right, as per the one agreed principle of "non-annexation" (not merely a matter of Bristish choice), and so the argument that the inhabitants had sovereignity, follows.

MGB8

05-12-2004, 11:08 AM

Michael,

As to your strains to discount the quotes - you provide quotes of first second and third party sources and say that they are definative evidence. Then, when others do the same, you say, essentially "these quotes don't prove anything...because I say so." What's even funnier is that you provide third party opinions (without the foundation for those opinions) to somehow disprove other third party quotes - above not opinions but in fact reporting of fact.

Look, you have clearly shown what you believe and what you are in regards to this conflict. You have not at any point shown or written anything to support anything other than the conclusion that you want the destruction of Israel - and if that means the genocide of the Jews - so be it.

So, you will believe what you want to believe, no matter how much you have to strain or contradict yourself to do so. Fine. But, it doesn't matter, Michael, because Israel exists, and will continue to do so, and if ever threatened with destruction...revisit my post about mutually assured destruction above. Learn to deal with it. Oh, and fair minded people won't make the same strains and leaps that you do - they realize that not only does Israel have the right to exist, but that it has been the Arabs, through both word and deed, that have been the agressors pursuing ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Jews in their pursuit of Islamic Imperialism. Dar al Islam must never return to be Dar Al Harb....the world will be Muslim at the time of the Messiah...yada yada yada.

michael

05-13-2004, 05:45 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Michael,
As to your strains to discount the quotes - you provide quotes of first second and third party sources and say that they are definative evidence. Then, when others do the same, you say, essentially "these quotes don't prove anything...because I say so." What's even funnier is that you provide third party opinions (without the foundation for those opinions) to somehow disprove other third party quotes - above not opinions but in fact reporting of fact.

My original point was that there is no evidence of calls for an exodus. As a.f. posts show, they are, as you say, 2nd and 3rd hand accounts. Only on the Bishops statements do I use other material to "discount".
For the rest of af's post, while you claim that I "provide quotes of first second and third party sources and say that they are definative evidence", all I do is simply point out that they do not constitute evidence, or that they are irrelevant to the question.

If there was any direct evidence to back your position, it would be a simple enough matter to produce those statements and indicate their source. But every time this argument is put forward the exact same 2nd and 3rd hand accounts are reproduced. If the calls were made, why is it that those statements themselves are never produced, but only references to them? After all, both the British and the US monitoried all radio broadcats throughout the period. The only evidence, direct statments from Arab leaders, is exactly the opposite - calls for Arab residents to stay in their homes.

MGB8

05-13-2004, 06:57 AM

Michael,

Abu Afak provided exactly what you provided quotes. Except that his quotes were better. Why? Because he provided quotes from some Arabs and some non-Arabs, including those broadcast on radio AT THE TIME as well as other media reports of the events FROM THAT TIME. He also provided post-event quotes by Arabs and non-Arabs - all of which indicated that there was a call not for "an exedous" - but for Arab citizens to leave their homes while the Arab armies came in an committed genocide on the Jews. In other words, there were calls for people to be temporary war refugees, like their were in Iraq in this war, and are in any war. These are like "admissions against interest" - credible because it is not in the Arabs political interest to say these things, and yet they were said.

All you provided were post event quotes and accounts - generally not against interest but in support of the political goals of the authors, including lefty Jews.

But the bottom line is this: 48 was a war, a war of agression and attempted genocide by the Arabs who had just been handed 99.5% of the Middle East against their new Jewish Neighbors. That war, like EVERY OTHER WAR, caused refugees - the majority of which, like EVERY OTHER WAR, were people fleeing to avoid the violence.

Were there instances of intimidation, and terrible violence, that ammounted to Ethnic Cleansing on the Jewish part against their neighbor Arabs? Yes.

However, this was the minority, as seen by the many Arabs who continued to live in Israel, as well as the calls for Arabs to remain.

Were there similar acts on a small/local level by Arab residents against Jews - yes, although not on the same scale as, for example, Deir Yassin.

Were there other, military, justifications for taking Deir Yassin and some of the other intra-village combat (that, certainly, did not justify the action once in the village, but did justify attacking the village in general) - yes - many of these villages, including Deir Yassin, were sources of attack on Jews.

Nu? So, what does this all amount to.

The bottom line is the same - the Arab nations tried to wipe out the Jewish people, and failed, and lost territory. In their attempted genocide, many Arabs fled the fighting, as evidenced by quotes and broadcasts at the time and reporting of the conflict at the time, and by the sheer logic that there are refugees from EVERY WAR - people who flee the fighting. The fact that you strain so much to try to say - no, this war was different, unlike every other war there weren't a lot of refugees from the violence, if any at all - well, that just shows the weakness and preposterousness of your position.

minusthejihad

05-13-2004, 07:06 AM

Every now and then I check into this thread to see if its still possible that Michael is trying to revise history.

MGB8

05-14-2004, 08:30 AM

Its the strains and lengths that he goes to in his attempt to revise history that are the most pathetic.

For example, in the above quote, the fact that Britain agreed to waive the right to annex would, to a normal person, indicate that they had it to begin with - you generally don't agree to forgoe doing something that you don't have the power to do - that's nonesensical.

But Michael is trying hard to say - since Britain (and France) agreed not to use a part of their powers, they waived all of their powers. That's not logical - and it didn't work that way historically, since Britain maintained military, civil and immigration control over the lands - they were the sovereign - and if they weren't then Jordan nor Iraq nor Syria (France) etc could have been formed - after all, they were given to minority Arabs, not "the residents of the land."

Add to all the selective ignoring of quotes and resources....

Originally posted by minusthejihad
Every now and then I check into this thread to see if its still possible that Michael is trying to revise history.

michael

05-17-2004, 07:23 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Michael,
Abu Afak provided exactly what you provided quotes. Except that his quotes were better.

Or perhaps, simply more to your liking. But, on this point I half agree. It’s true that a.f. provides “quotes” (actually they’re mostly excerpts), but if you recall, I said that what was lacking was “evidence”, of which a.f. provided none, just the exact same list of “quotes” that you’ll find on every other pro-Israel site.

I also provided excerpts and quotes, but crucially, this included direct quotes (eg. from the BBC transcripts) from Arab leaders calling on people not to flee. So, on the question of whether or not Arab leaders instructed the population to evacuate, the only direct evidence that exists, is of the exact opposite to what a.f. was claiming.

Were there instances of intimidation, and terrible violence, that amounted to Ethnic Cleansing on the Jewish part against their neighbor Arabs? Yes.
However, this was the minority…

A minority? Again, going back to the IDF intelligence report of the period Dec 47 – June 48, quoted by Morris, it claims that 70% of refugees were a result of “direct hostile Jewish actions”.

The fact that you strain so much to try to say - no, this war was different, unlike every other war there weren't a lot of refugees from the violence, if any at all - well, that just shows the weakness and preposterousness of your position.
In fact I make no effort at all say this. Again, my point was clearly the opposite, obvious to anyone paying any attention to what was actually posted.
OJ started this particular topic with this,
“the vast majority of Arabs were no[t] expelled nor forced to flee but rather listened to their Arab leaders to get out……….”

To which I replied, in part, that “…it’s also true that people fled before they were under direct attack. This is a rather normal pattern of civilian displacement in times of conflict”,
and again later,
“Civilians are allowed to flee conflict zones and return to their homes after the danger has passed…”

What is shown, rather than my “preposterousness”, is MBG8’s inability to follow the argument.

That people leave their homes is, MBG8 seems to agree, no strange phenomenon in times of war. The real issue is the refusal to allow them to return.

The other notable issue raised during the course of this discussion is the reference to Palestinians being recent immigrants. It came up 2 or 3 times. I assume that some have been reading that spectacular fraud “From Time Immemorial”?

michael

05-17-2004, 07:28 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Its the strains and lengths that he goes to in his attempt to revise history that are the most pathetic.

For example, in the above quote, the fact that Britain agreed to waive the right to annex would, to a normal person, indicate that they had it to begin with ....
The other rational explanation, obvious to anyone caring to think outside their presumptions, is that you can't give up, or "agree[d] to waive", that which you do not posess.

This is how preposterous MBG8s' logic is - that you don't posess something means that you once must have had it.

Someone is definitely showing signs of "strain". Let's hope that the "normal" people MBG8 refers to, are restricted to a universe of one - himself.

Mediocrates

05-17-2004, 08:06 AM

"Facts speak for themselves" - Diogenes

This thread is a good example of why people would rather be righteous than right. I'm sure the Spartans and Athenians had good facts at their fingertips to before they committed to the Peloponessian War; at least Thucydides thought so. I'm pretty sure that Hitler had a sense that he was on the right side of the facts of Anschluss. Milosevic believes that his facts justify whatever it is he is or will be charged with.

Facts are useful tools, no more no less.

MGB8

05-17-2004, 10:39 AM

Michael,

If you can't give up, or waive, that which you do not posses, then what was the point of the UK via the League of Nations explicitly waiving the right/ability to annex the lands they gained from the Turks?

That makes no sense, Michael. It would be like me waiving the right to bequeet one billion dollars on to person x - I don't do that because I don't have the power to bequeeth that money. If I did do it, especially is something as formal and legalistic as the League of Nations - chances are I'd have the money to bequeeth.

In short, Britain had the power, was the sovereign, waived the power and yet REMAINED the sovereign. And history proves that out, fight with it as you will, Michael.

As for the documented quotes and excerpts that abu afak provided, some where from Arab leaders, other from Arab media - hence the "admission against interest."

These quotes are as much evidence, in fact better evidence, than anything you provide, Michael.

The quotes you provide are from people who's INTEREST it is in to promote the idea.

To Benny Morris - first, he has his own issues, and has been refuted on many of his points. Second, how does he measure what percentage were actually caused by "direct Jewish Hostile actions?" What does percentage of a total cause = cause? What is a direct Jewish Hostile Action? Was it percipitated by direct Arab Hostile Actions?

Again and again you strain in your attempt to justify the Arab continuing attempted genocide against the Jews....what does that make you, Michael?

QUOTE]Originally posted by michael
The other rational explanation, obvious to anyone caring to think outside their presumptions, is that you can't give up, or "agree[d] to waive", that which you do not posess.

This is how preposterous MBG8s' logic is - that you don't posess something means that you once must have had it.

Someone is definitely showing signs of "strain". Let's hope that the "normal" people MBG8 refers to, are restricted to a universe of one - himself. [/QUOTE]

michael

05-24-2004, 01:45 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Michael,

If you can't give up, or waive, that which you do not posses, then what was the point of the UK via the League of Nations explicitly waiving the right/ability to annex the lands they gained from the Turks?

That makes no sense, Michael.

Exactly. As I've pointed out to you repeatedly, Britain didn't "agree" to waive anything, these were simply the terms of the Mandate, ie. no sovereignty.

This is what Winston Churchill urged, in the debate leading up to Britain withdrawal from Palestine, that Britain should,
"lay our Mandate at the feet of the UN and thereafter evacuate the country with which we have no connection or tradition and where we have no sovereignty..." (The Times, August 1, 1946).

As for Benny Morris, he doesn't "measure", "direct hostile Jewish actions", nor do I say that he does. If you read the post again, you'll see that I refer to Morris quoting an IDF military intelligence report for the period Dec '47-Jan '48. It's not his estimate, but the IDF's.

MGB8

05-24-2004, 06:55 AM

Michael,

If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, and it swims and flies like a duck, its likely not a moose. You argue that its a moose.

Britain conquered and took control over the land from its previous sovereign, Turkey (the Ottoman Empire).

It controlled the land, controlled immigration, controlled security, collected taxes, etc. etc. Its walking like a duck, Michael.

After it gave up control, it GRANTED sovereignty to minority Arab tribes (as in Jordan or S.A.), or majority populations (as in Israel, in the Partition areas).

The ONLY non-sovereign thing about their control was that they agreed not to annex the land as part of the British Empire, which was pretty much crumbled at that time. They WAIVED that right, but kept EVERY OTHER right of the sovereign, including the dispossesion of the land, which they used (again, Jordan, Iraq, SA - Syria for France).

You found a quote to the contrary. Congratulations. I don't know if its accurate, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Does that quote change any of the facts above - what Britain had in terms of control over the land, and what it did in dividing up the land, generally to minority tribes over the others in non-representative systems. The ONLY place where the Brits gave over the land to the majority population in a representative system was .... Israel.

Keep arguing that the Duck is a Moose, Michael.

Originally posted by michael
Exactly. As I've pointed out to you repeatedly, Britain didn't "agree" to waive anything, these were simply the terms of the Mandate, ie. no sovereignty.

This is what Winston Churchill urged, in the debate leading up to Britain withdrawal from Palestine, that Britain should,
"lay our Mandate at the feet of the UN and thereafter evacuate the country with which we have no connection or tradition and where we have no sovereignty..." (The Times, August 1, 1946).

As for Benny Morris, he doesn't "measure", "direct hostile Jewish actions", nor do I say that he does. If you read the post again, you'll see that I refer to Morris quoting an IDF military intelligence report for the period Dec '47-Jan '48. It's not his estimate, but the IDF's.

michael

05-29-2004, 07:52 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Michael,

If it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, and it swims and flies like a duck, its likely not a moose. You argue that its a moose.

Keep arguing that the Duck is a Moose, Michael.

My humble apologies.

I didn't realise that you knew more about the nature of Britain's tenure in Palestine than did the former British PM, Winston Churchill.

MGB8

05-29-2004, 04:21 PM

How witty, Michael.

Gee, I wonder, if you asked Churchill whether or not the creation of Israel was with Britain power visa vi the UN, what would he say? How about the Hashemite kingdom of Trans-Jordan? Iraq?

Would you then claim to know more than the former prime minister if he disagreed with your point of view?

If he reconciled those opinions and action by essentially saying that Britain had all the powers of a sovereign but no claim to the land, how would you respond?

Look, this isn't about right or wrong or justice for you, Michael. You have a clear agenda, the deligitimization of Israel and the legitimization of genocide of Jews. We know what that makes you.

Originally posted by michael
My humble apologies.

I didn't realise that you knew more about the nature of Britain's tenure in Palestine than did the former British PM, Winston Churchill.

abu afak

05-29-2004, 06:14 PM

Originally posted by MGB8
Michael,

Abu Afak provided exactly what you provided quotes. Except that his quotes were better. Why? Because he provided quotes from some Arabs and some non-Arabs, including those broadcast on radio AT THE TIME as well as other media reports of the events FROM THAT TIME. He also provided post-event quotes by Arabs and non-Arabs - all of which indicated that there was a call not for "an exedous" - but for Arab citizens to leave their homes while the Arab armies came in an committed genocide on the Jews. In other words, there were calls for people to be temporary war refugees, like their were in Iraq in this war, and are in any war. These are like "admissions against interest" - credible because it is not in the Arabs political interest to say these things, and yet they were said.

All you provided were post event quotes and accounts - generally not against interest but in support of the political goals of the authors, including lefty Jews..."

Originally posted by michael
MGB8: Originally posted by MGB8
Michael,
Abu Afak provided exactly what you provided quotes. Except that his quotes were better.

Michael: : Or perhaps, simply more to your liking. But, on this point I half agree. It’s true that a.f. provides “quotes” (actually they’re mostly excerpts), but if you recall, I said that what was lacking was “evidence”, of which a.f. provided none, just the exact same list of “quotes” that you’ll find on every other pro-Israel site.

Notice Michael Cuts Off your quote and DISHONESTLY suggests the reason "MGB8 thinks they're better are because he liked them more".

But in Fact, MGB8 Said Exactly why he thought they were better: in the rest of the paragraph Michael CUT OFF:

"..Why? Because he provided quotes from some Arabs and some non-Arabs, including those broadcast on radio AT THE TIME as well as other media reports of the events FROM THAT TIME. He also provided post-event quotes by Arabs and non-Arabs - all of which indicated that there was a call not for "an exedous" - but for Arab citizens to leave their homes while the Arab armies came in an committed genocide on the Jews. In other words, there were calls for people to be temporary war refugees, like their were in Iraq in this war, and are in any war. These are like "admissions against interest" - credible because it is not in the Arabs political interest to say these things, and yet they were said..

And he is certainly correct. They are By Arabs and third Parties and made AT THE TIME... and many are "Admissions against Interest"
Not by Anti-Israel revisionist historians like Beeny Morris.

AND in fact, I would call Abu Mazen's writing in Particular, a FIRST HAND account.
As would I call The Iraqi PM's statements in his book of his experience at the time.. 'First Hand' even if he didn't watch the migration himself he was certainly party to the Talk of the time and his book written soon after.

My quotes in no way resemble the Perverted later musings of Porath and Morris.

You want better evidence? Like what?
A video of an Arab family listening to Arab broadcasts and then packing?

This was one of the quotes which does all but that .. but sorry not too many people had home Video Cameras at the time:
"One morning in April 1948, Dr. Jamal woke us to say that the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), led by the Husseinis, had warned Arab residents of Talbieh to leave immediately. The understanding was that the residents would be able to return as conquerors as soon as the Arab forces had thrown the Jews out. Dr. Jamal made the point repeatedly that he was leaving because of the AHC's threats, not because of the Jews, and that he and his frail wife had no alternative but to go.

What I have presented is as good as one can get.. The statements of these people, and Their Leaders, and Their own Newspapers, and Third party ones as well.
All, at the time or very soon after.

Perhaps Michael would like to try some 1967 War Revisionism too?
Perhaps quoting more Beeny Morris?
Or Yasser Arafat?

michael

05-29-2004, 09:20 PM

Originally posted by abu afak
Notice Michael Cuts Off your quote and DISHONESTLY suggests the reason "MGB8 thinks they're better are because he liked them more".
But in Fact, MGB8 Said Exactly why he thought they were better: in the rest of the paragraph Michael CUT OFF:
"..Why? Because he provided quotes from some Arabs and some non-Arabs, including those broadcast on radio AT THE TIME as well as other media reports of the events FROM THAT TIME. He also provided post-event quotes by Arabs and non-Arabs - all of which indicated that there was a call not for "an exedous" - but for Arab citizens to leave their homes while the Arab armies came in an committed genocide on the Jews. In other words, there were calls for people to be temporary war refugees, like their were in Iraq in this war, and are in any war. These are like "admissions against interest" - credible because it is not in the Arabs political interest to say these things, and yet they were said..

And he is certainly correct. They are By Arabs and third Parties and made AT THE TIME... and many are "Admissions against Interest"
Not by Anti-Israel revisionist historians like Beeny Morris.
AND in fact, I would call Abu Mazen's writing in Particular, a FIRST HAND account.

All very interesting and all again failing to address my original point on evidence, or rather the lack of it. As I said, Abu Mazens words are not at all unique, (and don't actualy address the question I posed. Mazen is critical of the Arab states to adequetly defend the Palestinians from, as he said, "Zionist tryanny"). In fact it's easy to find statements from Palestinians much harsher than Mazen's.

There seems to be a singular lack of comphrehension. Much is being made about the importance of statements made "at the time", but this is the most consistent weakness in the provided quotes, that the majority are not "at the time", let alone first-hand. The only ones that are from the time are the second hand reports that claim evacuation calls were made, but which never report the details, ie. who made them, when, and what was actually said. That calls for civilians to seek protection from the fighting is in effect a call to "genocide" is even more difficult to sunstantiate.

You want better evidence? Like what?
Not "better evidence", but any evidence would do.
Both the British and the US monitired all radio broadcasts and local newspapers. Surely it would be the simplest thing in the world to reproduce, verbatim, just one of these calls. It is the complete absence of such a thing that is the major flaw. Conversely, there are, verbatim, on the record calls from Arab leaders for people not to flee but to stay and defend their homes.
Perhaps the reason for the total inability to reproduce these calls is that they were made by carrier-pidgeon?

This was one of the quotes which does all but that .. but sorry not too many people had home Video Cameras at the time:
"One morning in April 1948, Dr. Jamal woke us to say that the Arab Higher Committee (AHC), led by the Husseinis, had warned Arab residents of Talbieh to leave immediately. The understanding was that the residents would be able to return as conquerors as soon as the Arab forces had thrown the Jews out. Dr. Jamal made the point repeatedly that he was leaving because of the AHC's threats, not because of the Jews, and that he and his frail wife had no alternative but to go.

Again, this goes to the core issue - evidence "at the time". This excerpt is from a 2000 issue of Commentary. What is the origianal source of the quote, if indeed it is a qoute? At best we'll have to asume that it is the author reporting on the words of someone who knew 'Dr Jamal', repeating what 'Dr Jamal' heard from the AHC. That's about a 4th-hand account reported 50 years post-event. Given the lack of information it's hard to decide much from this.

But we'll assume that it is accurate and the source is recalling events to the best of their ability. As I've already acknowledged, we know that in some circumstances, villages were advised to evacuate women, children and the elderly due to imminent or ongoing attack, or because they were completely undefended. Could this have been the case in Talbieh? It's hard to know from the above excerpt. Fortunately there other sources. Here's one that's a little better, in the fact that it's 2nd hand rather than 4th hand. It's an account by a former Christian Palestinian resident of Talbieh, related by her son.
"I encouraged mum to tell her own story.........The Jewish fighters (terrorists for some, but freedom fighters for others) advanced on different parts of Jerusalem. Once in Talbieh, they started broadcasting by loudspeaker to all the non-Jewish residents of the neighbourhood that they had forty-eight hours to pack their bags and leave their homes. Many residents, panicking about the advancing Jewish fighters, fled their homes - in the hope of returning once the situation had calmed down. My grandfather, who lived in a beautiful house (with its symbolic lemon tree in the garden) and had a thriving business as a merchant of Persian carpets, refused to forsake his home - even temporarily. However, two days later, a Colonel in the British Army - who was both a family friend and customer - admonished my grandfather that the situation was worsening by the hour and that his family was facing grave danger. He had to go - and now!" - Dr Harry Hagopian. Director, Middle East Council of Churches.

What I have presented is as good as one can get..
On this point af is absolutley right - and that's the problem with the case he wishes to make.
As I noted in my intial reply - some of the quotes posted were simply irrelevant to the question, just news reports that arab residents were fleeing, and some that are simple fabrications.

abu afak

05-29-2004, 10:10 PM

Originally posted by michael
All very interesting and all again failing to address my original point on evidence, or rather the lack of it. As I said, Abu Mazens words are not at all unique, (and don't actualy address the question I posed. Mazen is critical of the Arab states to adequetly defend the Palestinians from, as he said, "Zionist tryanny"). In fact it's easy to find statements from Palestinians much harsher than Mazen's.Another attempt to truncate a quote and Misquote it Mightily by doing so. (Reprehensible tactics.. again)
Mazen not only critical of the "Arab states to adequately defend the Palestinians... against 'zionist tyranny"

He says:"The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, THEY ABANDONED THEM, FORCED THEM TO EMIGRATE AND TO LEAVE THEIR HOMELAND, imposed upon them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe, as if we were condemmed to change places with them; they moved out of their ghettos and we occupied similar ones. The Arab States succeeded in scattering the Palestinian people and in destroying their unity.

"..Instead, Forced them to Emigrate and Leave.."
You left out that Minor part of the quote.

There seems to be a singular lack of comphrehension. Much is being made about the importance of statements made "at the time", but this is the most consistent weakness in the provided quotes, that the majority are not "at the time", let alone first-hand. . The Majority are at or near the Time.. certainly Much closer than anything you have presented.
There seems to be a singular lack of consistency and honesty on these points by You.. not lack of comprehension by anyone else.

Originally posted by michael
All very interesting and all again failing to address my original point on evidence, or rather the lack of it.It addressed your point directly and from sources, as said previously, Making [especially Weighty] 'Admissions Against Interest', and several from 1948 and almost all pre-1954.

It's hard to know from the above excerpt. Fortunately there other sources. Here's one that's a little better, in the fact that it's 2nd hand rather than 4th hand. It's an account by a former Christian Palestinian resident of Talbieh, related by her son.
You Must be Joking!
Against my quotes by Serious Arab personages speaking at the Time and candidly, and before being twisted to fit today's Politics.... (Including a First hand account by Abu Mazen you still can't discount, or even bear to quote correctly, with your BS)

you present a Recollected account by a son of from his mother's Recollection 50 years ago?

This is 'proof'?
Her story, er.. His story... even if true is very localized; Nothing compared to the Wide Situational Command people Like the PM's, Arab League, and Newspapers, I quoted DID. And not comparable in timely a reporting either.
(if you can call that Family Yarn 'reporting' at all)

Your Dishonest Short Quoting of MGB's statement also not answered for... (instead you try it again here) and Your use of 5th Hand Revisionist Beeny Morris, now Way Gone as well.

michael

05-30-2004, 10:13 PM

Originally posted by abu afak

Another attempt to truncate a quote and Misquote it Mightily by doing so. (Reprehensible tactics.. again)
Mazen not only critical of the "Arab states to adequately defend the Palestinians... against 'zionist tyranny"

He says:"The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, THEY ABANDONED THEM, FORCED THEM TO EMIGRATE AND TO LEAVE THEIR HOMELAND, ............... The Arab States succeeded in scattering the Palestinian people and in destroying their unity.

"..Instead, Forced them to Leave.."
You left out that Minor part of the quote

For the sake of brevity I don’t reproduce the entire post, just as you do not.

Mazen gives a straight-foward chronology – entry of Arab forces to “protect”, then abandoning them, followed by emigration. While your implication is that there is a direct action involved, it’s just as possible (in fact more likely) that Mazens’ point is that by abandoning the Palestinians to the “Zionist tyranny”, this “forced” their exodus.

It addressed your point directly and from sources, as said previously, Making [especially Weighty] 'Admissions Against Interest', and several from 1948 and almost all pre-1954.
The 1948 items are newspaper reports, all making second-hand claims or just describing the simple facts – people fled.
The Iraqi PM’s statement – that women and children should avoid conflicts. So what?
John Glubb – civilians evacuted before they were shot at. Sounds very sensible.
Near East Arabic Broadcasting Station (Sharq al-Adna) – a British controlled broadcaster, operated for the dissemination of British propaganda in the region. Perhaps not the best source to quote for a discussion of evidence, which (if not another fabrication) one year later, again makes a claim that such a thing happened.
Falastin report - again, a report that civilians fled conflict.
Edward Atiyah (Secretary of the Arab League) – a partial quote of his statement. There’s nothing wrong with selective quotes as long as they don’t deliberately leave out parts that would undermine the point being made. But what is the very next line of Atiya’s writing that is always left out?
This is it -
“But it was also, and in many parts of the country, largely due to a policy of deliberate terrorism and eviction, followed by the Jewish commanders in the areas they occupied..”.
So now let’s have another look at his quote, but this time with the missing part in bold.

“This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country. But it was also, and in many parts of the country, largely due to a policy of deliberate terrorism and eviction, followed by the Jewish commanders in the areas they occupied….” - Edward Atiyah, ‘The Arabs’ (London, 1955), p. 183.

How's that for an example of "quotes by Serious Arab personages " being "twisted".
But I don’t think that aa was trying to deliberately mislead (though I could be wrong) with this. He was probably unaware of the true nature of Atiya’s statement. But it is important to wonder why he didn’t.
Simply, these quotes confirm a strongly held prior belief, so there is no need to question them. For the true believers, no evidence is required. That misleading quotes such as Atiya’s were exposed over 40 years ago only demonstrates the tenacity to which some cling to these beliefs. Which itself leads to another question –why is it so important for some, to continue to promote this idea?
The edifices of this propaganda story were first constructed and distributed widely from the Israeli Information Office in New York. Two of the main authors were Joseph Schechtman and Dr. Leo Kohn. They were even submitted as a memorandum to the UN.

You Must be Joking!
Against my quotes by Serious Arab personages speaking at the Time and candidly, and before being twisted to fit today's Politics.... (Including a First hand account by Abu Mazen you still can't discount, or even bear to quote correctly, with your BS)

you present a Recollected account by a son of from his mother's Recollection 50 years ago?
This is 'proof'?
Her story, er.. His story... even if true is very localized; Nothing compared to the Wide Situational Command people Like the PM's, Arab League, and Newspapers, I quoted DID...........

Your Dishonest Truncation and replacement of MGB's statement also not answered for... (instead you try it again here) and Your use of 5th Hand Revisionist Beeny Morris....

This at least demonstrates a sense of humour.

I agree that this recollected story is hardly ‘proof’. This I why I hadn’t posted it earlier - I was talking about evidence. Yet it highlights perfectly the problem with aa’s post. Hagopian’s recount of his mothers experience is an example of ‘he said she said’, rather than evidence. This is obvious.

So now let’s look at the January 2000 Commentary excerpt (from a Letter to the Editor) aa produced and apply this logic to it. Like mine, it’s a 50 years old recounting of something told to him by another, but in addition, it’s what this 2nd person said they heard. So whatever judgement aa makes of Hagopain’s recollection, it goes doubly for this ‘Commentary’ excerpt. It’s an example of ‘he said, she said she heard’.
Yet for aa, this later case is an example of evidence contributing to “Wide Situational Command” (whatever that may be) while the former is just a “story”.
Most amusingly, aa then goes on to deride Benny Morris’s work as 5th hand, where in fact Morris wouldn’t use such unreliable 3rd hand accounts that aa so admires, as he prefers to mostly use documentary evidence, such as the IDF military intelligence reports and other official sources.

The problem still rests on the difference between claims and evidence. With all the claims, why is it still, apparently, impossible to produce a single piece of evidence of these orders that are so often alluded to, hinted at and claimed to have been made?

This remains the single most consistent feature of this case. Despite the fact that it’s been argued by the true believers for over 50 years, no-one has ever produced a single piece of documentary evidence to back this up. As I‘ve said repeatedly, despite the monitoring, by both the British and US, of radio broadcasts and newspapers for the period, only evidence to the contrary is available - documented examples of Arab leaders urging people to stay put.

{As for the “dishonest truncation”, I have no idea what this is about. If you can be specific, I’ll happily answer the point.}

michael

05-30-2004, 10:32 PM

Originally posted by MGB8
How witty, Michael.

Former British PM who wasn't really involved in the administration of those territories....

It's always a keen pleasure to be lectured by the ignorant.

Winston Churchill was the British Colonial Secretary from after WWI. Palestine came under his responsibility from the time of the implementation of the Mandate.

abu afak

05-30-2004, 11:16 PM

Originally posted by michael
For the sake of brevity I don’t reproduce the entire post, just as you do not.
No, afraid not 'brevity'.
You cut them off, both mine and MGB's and then replaced with your take; Completely eliminating their meaning and cutting off their Essences/most telling parts.
Despicable... and this excuse doesn't fly; certainly not after a repeat instance. (the first of which you cut off MGB's specifically elaborated reason and replaced it with yours even though he had Given it)

Mazen gives a straight-foward chronology – entry of Arab forces to “protect”, then abandoning them, followed by emigration. While your implication is that there is a direct action involved, it’s just as possible (in fact more likely) that Mazens’ point is that by abandoning the Palestinians to the “Zionist tyranny”, this “forced” their exodus.
AGAIN you Misquote .. Make that Re-Misquote this same quote.
How low can one sink?
He said "...Instead they (the ARAB ARMIES)... FORCED THEM TO EMIGRATE AND TO LEAVE THEIR HOMELAND.. not just "followed by emigration"..
You just can't come to grips with it can you?
Of course, if you could, or could acknowledge it, the argument would be over.. and it is.

The rest of your post just dealing with a few other quotes in my sequence of nearly Two Dozen.. Leaving out many, including the Including several First Hand ones (Iraq and Syrian PM's as well as Mazen.. that makes an amazing 3 local PM's in my list; 2 of the time, and quoted Very soon after) to explain away some with Revisionism of just plain nonsense.

Simply, these quotes confirm a strongly held prior belief, so there is no need to question them. For the true believers, no evidence is required. That misleading quotes such as Atiya’s were exposed over 40 years ago only demonstrates the tenacity to which some cling to these beliefs...Really?
Link? Or how you know Atiyah [Pro-Zionist?] prior "strongly held beliefs" or when they were exposed as 'misleading'?
You just make this stuff up as you go I see.

and let's Compare my case to yours.

Who's quotes/information was more timely/current with events?
Who's quotes/information were made by a wide range of people who were in a position to know at the time?
Who's quotes were made by Third Parties or people making 'admissions against Interest'?

All above as opposed to your Revisionist historians and a 2nd hand Family Sap story .. both acting 'with interest'.

All-in-All it's not remotely close and all can see it.. including you..
Thus, your tactics of Misquoting Devastating quotes, mischaracterizing others, and Leaving out the Vast Majority.

You are Truly a discredit to the board and even the Arab position.

Oh Jerusalem

05-30-2004, 11:45 PM

Originally posted by abu afak
You are Truly a discredit to the board and even the Arab position.
On the contrary! Michael is the epitome of the Arab position. :D

MGB8

05-31-2004, 06:43 AM

In the end, Michael ended up unwittingly supporting the general position with his quotes, that part of the Palestinian refugees were caused by Jewish actions (this doesn't go into what caused the Jewish actions, of course), and part by Arab calls to leave.

As for the other points, Michael deliberately twists facts, essentially lies, but this is nothing new. When I argued that Britain, by specifically stating that it would not annex "Palestine", captured from Egypt, meant that it likely had the power to waive. Why, because it makes no sense for a nation to formally declare that it will not do something it has no power to do, particularly formally and on the record.

It would be like me saying "I will not go to the moon." If I can't go to the moon in the first place, then it is senseless for me to say that.

Meanwhile, he finds one quote, but a former official, which says "Britain didn't have sovereignty over the land." Of course, that doesn't seem to change the fact that Britain controlled the land, immigration, and eventually gave the land to various parties - the only place where it gave the land over to its majorityu residents, being, of course, Israel.

But we'll get to more on Churchill, later.

MGB8

05-31-2004, 07:09 AM

Michael did get me on Churchill and Palestine, however, and is most certainly right about his position. But what of his position on Zionism and on the British role in the mandate:

"'we are trustees, not only for the interests of the Arabs but also for the interests of the Jews. We have a double duty to discharge."

" it has fallen to the British Government, as the result of the conquest of Palestine, to have the opportunity and the responsibility of securing for the Jewish race all over the world a home and centre of national life. The statesmanship and historic sense of Mr. Balfour were prompt to seize this opportunity. Declarations have now been made which have irrevocably decided the policy of Great Britain. The fiery energies of Dr. Weissmann, the leader, for practical purposes, of the Zionist project. backed by many of the most prominent British Jews, and supported by the full authority of Lord Allenby, are all directed to achieving the success of this inspiring movement.

Of course, Palestine is far too small to accommodate more than a fraction of the Jewish race, nor do the majority of national Jews wish to go there. But if, as may well happen, there should be created in our own lifetime by the banks of the Jordan a Jewish State under the protection of the British Crown, which might comprise three or four millions of Jews, an event would have occurred in the history of the world which would, from every point of view, be beneficial, and would be especially in harmony with the truest interests of the British Empire."

"'It is manifestly right', he told the Palestinian Arab leaders on March 28,...that the Jews, who are scattered all over the world, should have a national centre and a National Home where some of them may be reunited. And where else could that be but in the land of Palestine, with which for more for more than 3,000 years they have been intimately and profoundly associated? We think it would be good for the world, good for the Jews, and good for the British Empire."

"'...anyone who has visited Palestine recently must have seen how parts of the desert have been converted into gardens, and how material improvement has been effected in every respect by the Arab population dwelling around. On the sides of the hills there are enormous systems of terraces, and they are now the abode of an active cultivating population; whereas before, under centuries of Turkish and Arab rule, they had relapsed into a wilderness....

'I am told that the Arabs would have done it themselves. Who is going to believe that? Left to themselves, the Arabs of Palestine would not in a thousand years have taken effective steps towards the irrigation and electrification of Palestine. They would have been quite content to dwell - a handful of philosophic people - in the wasted sun-scorched plains, letting the waters of the Jordan continue to flow unbridled and unharnessed into the Dead Sea...."

And a Churchill compatriot:

Ormsby Gore argued, the Arabs in Palestine 'had not hitherto regarded themselves as 'Palestinians', but as part of Syria as a whole, as part of the Arab world'. They could [Ormsby proposed as part of the Peel Commission plan of partition], therefore, be transferred out of many areas allocated to a Jewish sovereign state. 'They would', Ormsby Gore declared, 'be going only a comparatively few miles away to a people with the same languages, the same civilisation, the same religion...'

abu afak

05-31-2004, 03:03 PM

Now that the 'Refugee' cases have been made and michael's debunked..
lets move on to some of his other Wrong assertions, etc. in this string of which there are Many more.
In this post, 242/PLO etc.
...Before we get to further his 'Beauties' about the 1967 War and others on Churchill, Land Ownership (where he's already admitted a Gigantic, fundamental, argument altering, error from 'Jews owned barely 5% and Arabs the rest' to to '50% state owned' correction by MGB... Ooops!)
Amazing what bias and reading Benny Morris can do to one's world view.

Originally posted by michael
".....In Arabic the PLO accepted a just 2 state settlement in accord with Resolution 242, in 1976.."
Not only misleading but outright Wrong.
And I say 'Wrong' generously, as I believe this is an attempt to Further Fudge to put forward his agenda.

Israel Accepted Resolution 242 IMMEDIATELY in a speech by Abba Eban. michael doesn't mention this small detail.
(if he knows it..... If he doesn't, he has no business discussing the issue)

The PLO and Syria Rejected it.
They later accepted .. Syria I believe in 1973, and the PLO in the Run-up to/pressure from the Oslo Talks in 1988 NOT "1976".
Both cite/refer/'accept' the French Mistranslation and Revisionist take most people are under the Misimpression of what 242 means. But which both states know is not the meaning (thus their initial rejection).

Why did Syria and the PLO Reject it?
1. It does NOT recognize or even Mention a Palestinian State.
2. It does NOT say Israel has to return all the land won in it's Defensive, if pre-emptive, War.

It recognizes the Borders were in fact not "Secure and Recognized" and was really the First 'Land for Peace' Statement. It calls for New negotiated borders, in recognition Israel would have to probably take some more land to make the Borders so.

Further re the assertion about the PLO, "accepting 242 and a Two State Solution..."

First, the PLO was created in 1964 BEFORE the 1967 'Occupation' and it was done so to 'Liberate' Palestine from Israel, NOT from Jordan and Egypt who 'occupied' it then and not for the purpose of a "2 state solution".
The Charter has Not been changed despite Promises to do so.

Second, Re the PLO's position on 242:

This, Seven Years after the resolution and Israel's acceptance:
THE PLO'S PHASED PLAN

Political Programme
Adopted at the 12th Session of the Palestinian National Council
Cairo, June 9, 1974

Text of the Phased Plan resolution:
The Palestinian National Council:

On the basis of the Palestinian National Charter and the Political Programme drawn up at the eleventh session, held from January 6-12, 1973; and from its belief that it is impossible for a permanent and just peace to be established in the area unless our Palestinian people recover all their national rights and, first and foremost, their rights to return and to self-determination on the whole of the soil of their homeland; and in the light of a study of the new political circumstances that have come into existence in the period between the Council's last and present sessions, resolves the following:

1. To reaffirm the Palestine Liberation Organization's previous attitude to Resolution 242, which obliterates the national right of our people and deals with the cause of our people as a problem of refugees. The Council therefore refuses to have anything to do with this resolution at any level, Arab or international, including the Geneva Conference."

(and they are correct... and it continues 2-10")
Some Further commentary by IRIS on itThe plan in brief:

1. Through the "armed struggle" (i.e., terrorism), to establish an "independent combatant national authority" over any territory that is "liberated" from Israeli rule. (Article 2)

2. To continue the struggle against Israel, using the territory of the national authority as a base of operations. (Article 4)

3. To provoke an all-out war in which Israel's Arab neighbors destroy it entirely ("liberate all Palestinian territory"). (Article 8)

Today, the Phased Plan remains relevant. Speaking just after the 1993 revelation of the Israel-PLO accord, PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat announced that the historic agreement "will be a basis for an independent Palestinian state in accordance with the Palestine National Council resolution issued in 1974.... The PNC resolution issued in 1974 calls for the establishment of a national authority on any part of Palestinian soil from which Israel withdraws or which is liberated." (Radio Monte Carlo, 1 September 1993)

It is worth noting that the PLO's term for the self-rule council now in place in Gaza and the West Bank is the "Palestinian National Authority," echoing the language of the Phased Plan.

Also note that Articles 5-6 call for a revolution in Jordan to establish a new Jordanian regime which will ally itself with the Palestinian National Authority. Historically, Jordan comprised the bulk of the Palestine territory, and a majority of its residents are of Palestinian origin. The PLO has never recognized the legitimacy of Kingdom of Jordan as a state independent of Palestine. http://www.iris.org.il/plophase.htm

and Arafat referring to it again in 1998
http://www.iris.org.il/quotes/orbittv.htm

michael

06-02-2004, 07:34 AM

Originally posted by abu afak
No, afraid not 'brevity'.
You cut them off, both mine and MGB's and then replaced with your take; Completely eliminating their meaning and cutting off their Essences/most telling parts.
Despicable...

AGAIN you Misquote .. Make that Re-Misquote this same quote.
How low can one sink?
He said "...Instead they (the ARAB ARMIES)... FORCED THEM TO EMIGRATE AND TO LEAVE THEIR HOMELAND.. not just "followed by emigration"..
You just can't come to grips with it can you?
Of course, if you could, or could acknowledge it, the argument would be over.. and it is.
Now it’s getting hilarious.

I’ve committed the “despicable” act of “misquoting”. How so? By not reproducing the quote in it’s entirety, but just parts (relevant parts, IMO).

Aa demonstrates this deep concern by reproducing the Mahmoud Abbas quote like this - “...Instead they [the ARAB ARMIES]... FORCED THEM TO EMIGRATE AND TO LEAVE THEIR HOMELAND..”

But the actual quote was this, “instead, THEY ABANDONED THEM, FORCED THEM TO EMIGRATE AND TO LEAVE THEIR HOMELAND,”

Now I understand what aa is getting at here despite the, I assume, accidental “cutting off”. But by his own loudly and freshly proclaimed standards, he apparently “just can't come to grips with it” and is “despicable” and it must make us wonder of aa, just “how low can one sink?”.

My point was drawing attention to the significance of Mazens’ lament over the act of the Arab forces abandoning the Palestinians and how this might relate to them being forced to leave. That aa left this part out in his critique is, I’m assuming, a mere oversight on his part, rather than him specifically “cut[ting] off their Essences/most telling parts”.

The rest of your post just dealing with a few other quotes in my sequence of nearly Two Dozen.. Leaving out many, including the Including several First Hand ones (Iraq and Syrian PM's as well as Mazen.. that makes an amazing 3 local PM's in my list; 2 of the time, and quoted Very soon after) to explain away some with Revisionism of just plain nonsense.
Yes, you cut and pasted 23 quotes. I addressed 16 of them directly in my first reply (post#96) and then addressed a number of others in subsequent posts, which then constitutes a total of 21 out of the 23, including the comments by the Iraqi and Syrian PM’s. This is dealing with “a few”??? Go back and try again.

Link? Or how you know Atiyah [Pro-Zionist?] prior "strongly held beliefs" or when they were exposed as 'misleading'?
You just make this stuff up as you go I see.
Sorry no link. Despite popular belief, the sum total of human knowledge is not contained within the internet. Libraries and books still exist. If aa could just manage to pry himself away from his PC for a little while…..

But, I’ll save him the trouble.

This debate took place in the British ‘Spectator’ in 1961. It started between Erskine Childers and Jon Kimche. Kimche was defending the Arab broadcasts myth, much as aa does now. Leo Kohn (whom I mentioned earlier) got in on the act, referring to the “wealth of evidence” available to back up the claim. What did he quote to prove this? What a surprise - the exact same excerpt from Edwad Atiyah’s book that aa posted. And naturally, it was also exactly without the subsequent sentence that so dramatically changes its’ meaning.

The author, Edward Atiyah, noted this and wrote to the ‘Spectator’ on June 23, 1961. This is what he had to say,

“It leaves out my very next sentence which reads: ‘But it was also, and in many parts of the country, largely due to a policy of deliberate terrorism and eviction…[etc]’. My second comment is that there is no suggestion whatever in what I wrote that the exodus of the Arab refugees was a result of a policy of evacuating the Arab population.”

Given his concern over the “despicable” practice of mis-quoting, will aa duly contact his source (Peace Encyclopedia?) and ask them to remove the offending item?

I doubt it.

As interesting as this is, it has little real relevance (aside from the techniques of propaganda). Whatever the reason for the flight of refugees, the significant issue was about their return. It was this that necessitated the propagation and defense of the “orders” myth. The Israeli diplomatic position was that those responsible for the flight of the refugees were also responsible for furnishing a solution, hence the considerable energy spent on laying the blame entirely elsewhere and the sensitivity over first hand testimony (such as Yitzhak Rabin’s memoirs) from Israeli participants that they did indeed, deliberately drive people out.

abu afak

06-02-2004, 08:00 AM

Originally posted by michael
[B]Now it’s getting hilarious.

I’ve committed the “despicable” act of “misquoting”. How so? By not reproducing the quote in it’s entirety, but just parts (relevant parts, IMO).
Actually, you not only did it with my quote and cut off the Relevant Parts, you did it intentionally to not have to respond to them and to take the Telling parts out.
As in the First case when MGB said my quotes were better and when on to explain why... You Cut off the reasons why and put in your own suggested only that "he liked them better" and not addressing his well elaborated answer in which he indeed tells why.
(Timely, admissions against interest, etc)

But the actual quote was this, “instead, THEY ABANDONED THEM, FORCED THEM TO EMIGRATE AND TO LEAVE THEIR HOMELAND,”

Now I understand what aa is getting at here despite the, I assume, accidental “cutting off”. But by his own loudly and freshly proclaimed standards, he apparently “just can't come to grips with it” and is “despicable” and it must make us wonder of aa, just “how low can one sink?”.

My point was drawing attention to the significance of Mazens’ lament over the act of the Arab forces abandoning the Palestinians and how this might relate to them being forced to leave. That aa left this part out in his critique is, I’m assuming, a mere oversight on his part, rather than him specifically “cut[ting] off their Essences/most telling parts”.

Still can't come to grips with this one huh?
(Nor the English Language)
Mazen says the the Arab Armies not only abandoned them but also Forced them to leave.. not your vague Disjointed "how this might relate to them being forced to leave."(@@#$%#$^)
No, Mazen is Clear. It is the Arab Armies which not ONLY abandoned them, But also FORCED THEM TO EMIGRATE/LEAVE.
(this is no "how this relates to them leaving" blah blah in there)

And beyond that...
You've got a whole New set of your rebutted garbage to deal with re the PLO/242 etc.
To which there is no answer either.. (this should be even better!)

MGB8

06-02-2004, 04:59 PM

Michael has (finally) admitted that, at least in part, the Arab refugees from Israel were caused by Arab calls to leave. He know says that specific Jewish actions also caused the migration, instead of being the only cause which he was trying to argue before. This new position is likely closest to the truth.

He, of course, does not deal with what caused the Jewish actions - the context which much more often than not does not show an overriding plan of ethnic cleansing, but simply local violence - tit for tat, more of it instigated by the local Arabs than the local Jews. As in any war, violence in 48 caused refugees.

Now, however, Michael goes on to say that it was "Jewish diplomatic actions" that caused the Arab actions and Jewish military actions.

And what was the Israeli diplomatic position in 48? To merely exist. This is what caused the refugee problem. The Arabs, who at the time were guided by the Pan-Arabic Pan-Islamic principles of one great Arab nation (just as the Ottoman empire had been one great Islamic nation), would not accept even the tiny mandatory Israel created by Britain and the UN.

Michael has not addressed Churchill's quotes, either. He is his SOLE source for arguing that Britain not only had no sovereignty over the land, but no right to give sovereignty to anyone but the Arabs (since "residents of the Area would include Jews, and, again, Israel was created with a Jewish majority well after the British outlawed most jewish immigration - which was in its right to do - and Arab immigration to the area began outpacing jewish immigration to it (mid-to-late 30's, this trend changed post WWII)).

Churchill, however, was a Zionist! He stated clearly that the British had an obligation (and the power) to create a Jewish state in the mandate. He chastised the Arabs for their imperialism. Meanwhile, the Arabists in Britain gave soveriegnty over Eastern Palestine not to its residents, but to the Hashemite thrown.

But, maybe Michael is trying to say that the refugee's should have immediately been allowed back into Israel. This point has some idealistic validity, but, given that legally the refugees need only return if they are willing to be peaceful, something highly unlikely at the time - given the amount of voilence that had been occuring, had just occurred, and continued to occur - coupled with the complete Arab rejection of Israel (which continues for the most part to this day...) Israel did not have that obligation. There is no way to sort which refugee is committed to peace and which isn't, and given the amount of hatred and violence of the refugees and Arabs in general towards the Jews, Israel was perfectly in the right to not accept them back.

What was not right was for the Pan-Arab world not to absorb their Arab refugees, but instead, with the aid of the UN, keep them in squalor as second class citizens. The Jews, after all, absorbed all the refugees of that the Arab nations created.

242 speaks of a just resolution to the refugee problem, does it not? Intentionally vague. What is just to one is not just to another. Life isn't fair, so to speak. In this case, however, life was exceedingly fair. The Arabs got what they deserved for rejecting the right of Jews to have their own country on land that for the great part they purchased (or had been "state" land, controlled by the Turks and then Brits) and were a majority on.

People who support genocide deserve nothing. And that is what many Arabs got.

On the other hand, many Arabs remained in Israel, and became Israeli citizens, too.

The disgusting squalor that is the Arab Islamic world is the creation of its residents, and no one else. Let them live in their own filth - morally and in every other way.

MGB8

06-02-2004, 05:11 PM

Oh, a tanget to the humiliation of Michael's false arguments...

I am reading Walter Laquers "No End to War: Terrorism in the 21st Century."

In it, he disposes of the idea that poverty or "injustice" cause terror.

Instead, he cites a fanaticism similar to Hitler's/Nazi, combined with modern governments "rules" which guard against in "over-correcting the problem" - ie. killing a lot of innocents to whipe out the guilty.

However, he also states that terror's success is its own downfall. The more succesful the terror is, the more the modern nation is free to disregard those rules.

That is what will eventually happen in Israel...the terrorists will be too succesful, and a ton of Arabs will be expelled or killed, but the terror is Israel will be eliminated, and the nations of the world, after a large succesful terror attack, will not do one thing about it.

As I wrote in another thread - the Palestinians are surely creating their own destruction.

abu afak

06-02-2004, 05:39 PM

Originally posted by MGB8
"...Churchill, however, was a Zionist! He stated clearly that the British had an obligation (and the power) to create a Jewish state in the mandate. He chastised the Arabs for their imperialism. Meanwhile, the Arabists in Britain gave soveriegnty over Eastern Palestine not to its residents, but to the Hashemite thrown...."

I'm not going back to read the whole string again for the 'Churchillia' and the context of you discussion of him with michael. (not yet anyway)
But suffice it to say, Churchill was a Zionist (as you say) but not Just a Zionist; perhaps the Most Ardent and Important Gentile Zionist of all time.

Some info:
(Spring, 1921)

Challenged that the Jews were not needed to develop Palestine, Churchill replied:

"Left to themselves, the Arabs of Palestine would not in a thousand years have taken effective steps towards the irrigation and electrification of Palestine. They would have been quite content to dwell—a handful of philosophic people—in wasted sun-drenched plains, letting the waters of the Jordan flow unbridled and unharnessed into the Dead Sea."

WinstonChurchill.org

And this article:

The Last Romantic Zionist Gentile

by Dr. Yoav Tenembaum, Tel Aviv,
The Jewish Post of New York, January 1996

Fifty years ago World War II came to an end, and Winston Churchill's Conservative Government lost heavily in the polls. Forty years ago Winston Churchill resigned after having served for the second time as Prime Minister. And thirty years ago Winston Churchill died.
Much has been written on Churchill's attitude towards the Jews and the Zionist movement prior to the establishment of the State of Israel.
But not much is widely known on Churchill's attitude towards Zionism and the State of Israel after 1948.

Referring to the years prior to the creation of the Jewish state, the historian Bernard Wasserstein argues that "No British statesman had a more consistent and more emphatic record of... support for Zionism as a solution to the Jewish problem than Winston Churchill." Churchill considered the establishment of the State of Israel "as one of the most hopeful and encouraging adventures of the 20th century."
Only eight months subsequent to the proclamation of the State Churchill suggested to the House of Commons that:
"The coming into being of a Jewish State in Palestine is an event in world history to be viewed in the perspective not of a generation or a century, but in the perspective of a thousand, two thousand or even three thousand years."

Churchill used to trace his Zionism back to the days of the Balfour Declaration, describing himself as "an old Zionist."

Churchill's attitude toward Zionism remained as passionate and as explicit following his return to 10 Downing Street in 1951. Now, however, with the State of Israel firmly in place, the images he entertained became perhaps more vivid, more colourful, and as ever imbued with historical resonance. Thus, in June 1954, Churchill stated to journalists in the United States that "I am a Zionist, let me make that clear. I was one of the original ones after the Balfour Declaration and I have worked faithfully for it."
This was merely the introduction. He went on: "I think it is a most wonderful thing that this community should have established itself so effectively, turning the desert into fertile gardens and thriving townships and should have afforded refuge to millions of their co-religionists who suffered so fearfully under Hitler, and not only under Hitler, persecution. I think it is a wonderful thing." In a conversation with Israel's Ambassador in London, Eliyahu Elath, Churchill referred to Israel's population as "the sons of the prophets dwelling in Zion."

Churchill's attitude toward Zionism and the State of Israel was distinctively positive, the images he entertained bordering on the romantic. In this respect, Churchill had no equal among British politicians and officials in the first half of the 1950s.
Almost on any question pertaining to Israel, Churchill's rhetoric, more than any other decision-maker or official, was distinctively pro-Israel, reflecting, beyond political considerations and a pure judgment of principle, an emotional attachment to that country and the case it presented.

Thus, on the Suez Canal blockade by Egypt against Israel, Churchill made it clear to the Foreign Office that "I do not mind it being known here or in Cairo that I am on the side of Israel and her ill-treatment by the Egyptians." On the fate of Jerusalem, Churchill urged Evelyn Shuckburgh, Assistant Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, "you ought to let the Jews has Jerusalem; it is they who made it famous."

Churchill argued that there was no better army in the Middle East than the IDF, and wished to rely on Israel rather than the Arab states in setting up a regional system of defence against the Soviet Union. He insisted that Israel should be supplied with more jet aircraft than either the defence establishment or the Foreign Office wished. he went on to stress his point by telling his Foreign Secretary, Anthony Eden, that "To me the greatest issue in this part of the world is not deserting Israel."
In this context, he warned Eden against following in the footsteps of one of his predecessors. "Ernest Bevin, being temperamentally anti-Semitic, made the first mistake of backing Egypt against Israel. I hope... that we both equally condemn the Bevinite anti-Semitic policy."

Churchill was in favour of Israel joining the Commonwealth. "Do not put that out of your mind," he said the Shuckburgh, "It would be a wonderful thing. So many people want to leave us; it might be the turning of the tide." Churchill was Israel's best friend. And as a friend his attitude was shaped by sentiment as much as by pragmatic considerations.
He was emotionally attached to Israel and its people, and his stance was a corollary of this. His oft-repeated, self-declared Zionist sympathies, his emotional attachment to the Jewish people and their restored sovereign entity, permeated his attitude toward Israel and the Arab-Israeli dispute.

He was perhaps the last romantic Zionist Gentile. Or perhaps the last romantic Zionist.

http://www.cdn-friends-icej.ca/isreport/romantic.html

michael

06-05-2004, 07:44 AM

Originally posted by abu afak

Still can't come to grips with this one huh?
(Nor the English Language)
Mazen says the the Arab Armies not only abandoned them but also Forced them to leave.. not your vague Disjointed "how this might relate to them being forced to leave."(@@#$%#$^)
No, Mazen is Clear. It is the Arab Armies which not ONLY abandoned them, But also FORCED THEM TO EMIGRATE/LEAVE.
(this is no "how this relates to them leaving" blah blah in there)

After posting a plethora of quotes, many now discredited, aa seems to rest his hopes on this last one.

But first, it’s worth looking at a few more to see if there is a pattern – short excerpts, either inconclusive, irrelevant, or as the Edward Atiyah episode showed, carefully selected to give an opposite, or very different, meaning to that which author actually held.

Aa provided a very short quote from John Glubb in which he said people fled before they were threatened by direct fighting. As I pointed out in my initial response, this tells us nothing about why they fled. If Glubb’s thoughts are so relevant, why not provide a quote from him on this more interesting (and relevant) question? Perhaps this is why,
“The story which Jewish publicity at first persuaded the world to accept, that the Arab refugees left voluntarily, is not true...The fact is that the majority left in panic flight, to escape massacre (at least, so they thought). They were in fact helped on their way by the occasional massacre - not of very many at a time, but just enough to keep them running” (‘A Fighter with the Arabs’- John Bagot Glubb, 1957. p.251).

Or Kenneth Bilby’s book. Why not take an excerpt from the very same page (p. 31) as the one provided, where Bilby states that there was a policy of forcefully expelling Arabs?

Which takes us to the quote from Abbas. I’ve never seen the original article (and no doubt, neither has aa) so I can’t comment on whether or not the same dishonest treatment of citations is again carried out. So we’ll proceed on the basis of it being a faithful rendering of his words.

Aa doesn’t like my interpretation (quite plausible) that this is a chronology with expulsion following abandonment, which is a causal factor.

Aa prefers a strict literal interpretation. The words are “forced them to emigrate” and therefore direct force must have been used by the Arab armies. This has its own, rather significant, problems.
If indeed, the Arab armies had abandoned them, how on earth did they make them emigrate. Again, with a strict literal interpretation, if they had “adandoned” them, the Arab armies were simply no longer present - how did they “force” anyone to do anything?
The quote (as supplied) only discusses this one factor in Palestinian emigration. For this to be true, it requires a choice to be made. If we are to believe aa’s preferred explanation of Abbas’ words, then the testimonies of people such as Yitzhak Rabin must be wrong. In his memoirs, Rabin claims that he was present when the decision was taken to forcefully, at gun point, expel 50,000 Palestinians from Lyyda. And the many other documented cases of forced expulsions and orders to carry out expulsions, must also be fabrications.

Perhaps Abbas is deluded. Or rather more likely, this quote from aa is of the same quality as the others, such as Edward Atiyah’s, which is, as we’ve seen, extremely poor.

michael

06-05-2004, 08:38 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Michael has (finally) admitted that, at least in part, the Arab refugees from Israel were caused by Arab calls to leave. He know says that specific Jewish actions also caused the migration, instead of being the only cause which he was trying to argue before. This new position is likely closest to the truth.
New position??

MBG8 reaches heights of self-delusion that can only be marvelled at by others.

This topic was first raised by OJ, who claimed that "the vast majority of Arabs were no expelled nor forced to flee but rather listened to their Arab leaders to get out of the line of fire".

I disagreed, arguing that the reverse was true and that there was no evidence of calls for the vast majority to flee, and that calls to evacuate were limited and mostly applied to women, children and the elderly.

So, in my very first reponse to OJ way back on page 5, this is in part what I said,

"It's certainly true that Arab civilians were advised to protect themselves or as you put it, to "get out of the line of fire.........
Reviews the of radio broadcasts during 1947-48 point to only one incident of anything like this occurring, which was a call from the Arab League to neighbouring Arab countries to provide shelter to fleeing “women, the elderly and children.” (September 1947)..........
There were relatively few incidents of calls for people flee their homes and these were mostly in isolated villages close to Jewish populations that couldn't be defended by Arab forces" (post #67)

At least MBG8 is consistent - consistently wrong that is.

Now, however, Michael goes on to say that it was "Jewish diplomatic actions" that caused the Arab actions and Jewish military actions.
Huh?

Michael has not addressed Churchill's quotes, either. He is his SOLE source for arguing that Britain not only had no sovereignty over the land.................
Addressed the quotes? I'm not quite sure what they're meant to demonstrate.

Churchill was a vacillator on the question of Palestine and Jewish immigration. He was intially opposed to both, then supportive and again, as we saw earlier, he became convinced that British policy had been mistaken. His writings also show some rather unsavoury reasoning behind his support.

The only other factor worth considering in relation to the quotes is that during most of this period, what was under consideration was not a majority Jewish state, but the notion of a national home where Jews would not seek to dominate the native population. Had Zionist advocates came out and called for a Jewish majority state in the 1920's or 30's, the support of Churchill and others would have lasted about as long as a snow-flake in hell.

But, maybe Michael is trying to say that the refugee's should have immediately been allowed back into Israel.. .....refugees and Arabs in general towards the Jews, Israel was perfectly in the right to not accept them back.

On the other hand, many Arabs remained in Israel, and became Israeli citizens, too.

The disgusting squalor that is the Arab Islamic world is the creation of its residents, and no one else. Let them live in their own filth - morally and in every other way.

That would have been the right thing to do.

The fate of Arab "citizens" in Israel was interesting. Under such charming ordinances such as the Absentee Property law and others (like the notorius 'Land Acquisition for Public Purposes Ordinance'), Arab "citizens" were treated to the salutary spectacle of the theft of their land by bureaucratic means.

Thre's no doubt that Arab states deserve signigicant opprobium for their treatment of refugees. But what ever is true for them is at least equally true of Israel. You have to wonder sometimes (pessimistic times), given their similiar levels of moral "filth", if the Arabs and Israelis aren't a pefect match to live together.

abu afak

06-05-2004, 09:40 AM

Originally posted by michael
After posting a plethora of quotes, many now discredited, aa seems to rest his hopes on this last one...."
Au Contraire..
Most are still intact and UNanswered.
Including Third Party Newspaper ones (Time, London Times, ad Difaa, Beirut Daily Telegraph, Falastin, New York Herald Tribune, etc).

Also unaddressed.. Khaled Al Aazm's First Hand Information and book, Iraqi PM's Nuri Sad's quote; also First hand... and the quotes of Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, Emil Ghoury:
" I do not want to impugn anybody but only to help the refugees. The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab States in opposing Partition and the Jewish State. The Arab States agreed upon this policy unanimously and they must share in the solution of the problem."(1948)
(And these Timely 'admisssion against interest' compare in quality .. HOW? with your Anti-Israeli Beeny Morris Revisionism/version/Per-version of History?)

which leaves us again with..... but not as Michael Fibs..
NOT 'Solely' with
Aa prefers a strict literal interpretation. The words are “forced them to emigrate” and therefore direct force must have been used by the Arab armies. This has its own, rather significant, problems.
If indeed, the Arab armies had abandoned them, how on earth did they make them emigrate. Again, with a strict literal interpretation, if they had “adandoned” them, the Arab armies were simply no longer present - how did they “force” anyone to do anything?..."

"...Perhaps Abbas is deluded. Or rather more likely, this quote from aa is of the same quality as the others, such as Edward Atiyah’s, which is, as we’ve seen, extremely poor. [/B]
Yes.. alas, I prefer the literal Interpretation to your bizarre biased breakdown into a mere 'Chronology'.. seeking to detach 'They' from what he says Specifically 'They Did'.
The quote could not be clearer.

Mazen "Deluded".. I don't think so. (that's more really Weak/Desperate argument)
He was able to increase his stature and become PM 25 years later.. seeming quite lucid from all I've see and smart enough to exit gracefully when his position became in that Job apparent.

Also Now additionally UNaddressed.. my rebuttall of michaels take on 242/PLO etc.

MGB8

06-05-2004, 05:26 PM

Its amazing how Michael can contradict himself in his own writings, and then not recognize it. That and his very selective (and dishonest) responses.

Oh, and do not let me forget the idea that Michael believes that his logic: "this quote/reference is bad because I say so, while this one is credible because I say so" without regard to logic, credibility, timeliness and motivation of the source, etc., carries any weight.

As his own quotes point out, he originally argued that there the Arab calls for Arabs to flee from the mandate where almost insignificant, and that they barely existed. He said that there was no evidence for those calls. When confronted with evidence that showed that he was wrong, and that there were such calls on a broad basis, he backed off to a more moderate (and accurate) position - that there were Arab calls to flee the ensuing "bloodbath", and there was also local violence, and that both played a factor in the creation of the Pal Arab refugees.

He then ignores his own qoute which tries to blame Israeli diplomacy for the refugees....by so intellecually typing "huh?"

As for Churchill, that was Michael's one and only qoute to support the idea he was arguing that Britain did not have the right to grant the land over to anyone but, essentially, the Arabs....I think he said that sovereignty resided in the residents of the area, but he must not consider Jews residents since Michael opposes the founding of Israel, based on these grounds.

But, the argument he forwards based on Churchill's credibility is contradicted by Churchill's own conclusions! Churchill certainly believed in the founding of a Jewish state in the mandate, for various reasons, and believed that Britain had the power to do so. In essence, despite the quote Michael uses which has Churchill saying that Britain didn't have sovereignty in the mandates, Churchill certainly says and believes that Britain can pass sovereignty on to other parties, in particular the Jews of Israel. This, of course, makes sense considering that Britain also created Jordan, passing soveriegnty there to the Hussein family after they fled Arabia.

Now Michael again tries to re-write history, this time with Churchill and what he supported and didn't support in the 20's and 30's. Churchill wanted a Jewish (majority) state in the Mandate (I hate using the Roman word Palestine, as it has been twisted to death, and but for the Roman renaming could have been the mandate of Judea, the first Roman name for the area.) He's on record again and again supporting that, including the Idea that the Jewish state would spread to ALL of West Palestine.

But Michael continues to attempt to deceive.

Finally, he adds some vague statement about Israeli Arabs...people who are represented in Parliament, have control over the Temple Mount/Al-aqsa, and I believe also have a representative on the Israeli supreme court, although I could be wrong about this.

And what does Michael continue to prove with his never ending attempts at deception? He proves exactly what he is.

Originally posted by michael
New position??

MBG8 reaches heights of self-delusion that can only be marvelled at by others.

This topic was first raised by OJ, who claimed that "the vast majority of Arabs were no expelled nor forced to flee but rather listened to their Arab leaders to get out of the line of fire".

I disagreed, arguing that the reverse was true and that there was no evidence of calls for the vast majority to flee, and that calls to evacuate were limited and mostly applied to women, children and the elderly.

So, in my very first reponse to OJ way back on page 5, this is in part what I said,

"It's certainly true that Arab civilians were advised to protect themselves or as you put it, to "get out of the line of fire.........
Reviews the of radio broadcasts during 1947-48 point to only one incident of anything like this occurring, which was a call from the Arab League to neighbouring Arab countries to provide shelter to fleeing “women, the elderly and children.” (September 1947)..........
There were relatively few incidents of calls for people flee their homes and these were mostly in isolated villages close to Jewish populations that couldn't be defended by Arab forces" (post #67)

At least MBG8 is consistent - consistently wrong that is.

Huh?

Addressed the quotes? I'm not quite sure what they're meant to demonstrate.

Churchill was a vacillator on the question of Palestine and Jewish immigration. He was intially opposed to both, then supportive and again, as we saw earlier, he became convinced that British policy had been mistaken. His writings also show some rather unsavoury reasoning behind his support.

The only other factor worth considering in relation to the quotes is that during most of this period, what was under consideration was not a majority Jewish state, but the notion of a national home where Jews would not seek to dominate the native population. Had Zionist advocates came out and called for a Jewish majority state in the 1920's or 30's, the support of Churchill and others would have lasted about as long as a snow-flake in hell.

That would have been the right thing to do.

The fate of Arab "citizens" in Israel was interesting. Under such charming ordinances such as the Absentee Property law and others (like the notorius 'Land Acquisition for Public Purposes Ordinance'), Arab "citizens" were treated to the salutary spectacle of the theft of their land by bureaucratic means.

Thre's no doubt that Arab states deserve signigicant opprobium for their treatment of refugees. But what ever is true for them is at least equally true of Israel. You have to wonder sometimes (pessimistic times), given their similiar levels of moral "filth", if the Arabs and Israelis aren't a pefect match to live together.

MGB8

06-05-2004, 05:42 PM

Michael's question of "how could the armies have both abandoned and forced the Pal Sunni Arabs to emmigrate" is worth a slightly longer response. Barely.

Firstly, abandon is not a self defining word. How did they "abandon" the Arabs? Did they abandon them by not winning, and allowing them to return? Did they abandon them by abandoning their interests, by arguing that they should leave? These are both reasonable interpretations of what "abandon" means.

Michael most likely want the interpretation that "abandon" means that they did not go to the Arab villages, and thus jews forced them out. However, that interpretation doesn't make sense with the language "they forced them to leave" - they being the Arab armies, since that is the subject of the sentence (and not the Jews.)

All we do know is that the Arab armies announced and acted upon goal was the destruction of a small, discontiguous Jewish state (Majority Jewish and great majority Jewish/State lands) and the genocide of the Jews...as most of these leaders had ties to the Nazis.

MGB8

06-06-2004, 09:03 AM

One more thing that Michael wrotes deserves retort - his quote of "Israel and the Arabs deserve each other" - and incredibly arrogant conceit which claims moral equivilancy between the two groups.

Except that there is none.

If Israel treated the Pal Arabs like the other Arab nations, there would be no more Pal Arabs.

Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia recently expelled their Pal Arab populations.

Syria and Jordan have massacred their Pal Arabs - thousands (estimated about 20 apiece in different, but individual, incidents) within DAYS, if not hours. In response to a 4 year war started by the Pal Arabs against Israel, the 4th largest army in the world has caused less than 4000 fatalities among the Pal Arabs, most of them men, often young men, participating in violence towards Israel.

We have picture after picture of Pal Arab terrorists firing from crouds of their children, and the PLO/Arafat/Hamas/Jihad all encourage this, if you look at their media.

While the Pal Arab media and groups deny the right of Israel to exist, and call for the destruction of Israel - while Arab state media's are virulently anti-semetic and, hand in hand, dishonest - as is are pro-Pal's all over the world - see the Dershowitz article.

While the Arab nations invaded Israel again and again, in an attempted genocide, including on Yom Kippur (where Israel stupidly chose not to pre-emptively strike thinking that they didn't want the flack they got from '67 from the Arabists) - Israel, despite the opportunity, has neither carpet bombed nor entered Damascus, Cairo, Amman, etc.

Despite the fact that Israel has Nukes, it has done nothing to indicate it would use them as anything but a "Samson option" - to take their enemies with them.

While Israeli education teaches about the fact that Pal Arabs did suffer (mostly in political aspirations but also due to the violence) with the creation of Israel, and teaches about peace co-existence, such ideas are anethma to the Pal Arab educational systems as well as those of most of the Arab world...possibly all (I'd only possibly exclude Jordan, and, frankly, I haven't seen their textbooks.)

But Michael, living in isolated Australia, has the chutzpah to make such claims, when he has never really faced the threat of terror, much less the DAILY threat of terror.

So, in addition to being intentionally deceptive, he also presumes to be able to pass judgment.

Oh Jerusalem

06-06-2004, 10:23 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
But Michael, living in isolated Australia
Being upside down all his life might explain his problems.

michael

06-19-2004, 07:13 AM

Originally posted by abu afak
Au Contraire..
Most are still intact and UNanswered.
Including Third Party Newspaper ones (Time, London Times, ad Difaa, Beirut Daily Telegraph, Falastin, New York Herald Tribune, etc).
Yes, that's exactly right - "Third Party". My original claim was of a complete lack of evidence. As I said in my first reply, these 2nd and 3rd hand acounts are not evidence.

Also unaddressed.. and the quotes of Secretary of the Arab Higher Committee, Emil Ghoury:
The fact that there are these refugees is the direct consequence of the action of the Arab States in opposing Partition and the Jewish State."(1948)

Relevance? Ghoury says that Arab responsibility lies with the opposition to partition. Where is the connection to calls to flee?

Though given abu afak's reliance on sources that reproduce the deliberate distortions of Edward Attiyah's words, you have to wonder about the reliability of anything he posts.

Also Now additionally UNaddressed.. my rebuttall of michaels take on 242/PLO etc.

Ah yes, Israels acceptance of UN SC Res 242.

Or should that be non-acceptance. It is true that Israel announced it's acceptance in Febraury 1968. But it was a qualified acceptance.

Israel, in fact, rejected the major elements of 242.

It did not acept that "withdrawal" was a primary aim of 242.

It did not accept that "inadmissability" principle applied to the region. Abba Eban's words to the Security Council were that this central tenant of international order since WWII, was "not relevant".

And it did not accept that "withdrawal" meant from all the occupied territories, save for those mutual and minor adjustments.

So yes, Israel accepted Resolution 242 - except for the parts it didn't like.

michael

06-19-2004, 07:28 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Its amazing how Michael can contradict himself in his own writings, and then not recognize it. That and his very selective (and dishonest) responses.

As his own quotes point out, he originally argued that there the Arab calls for Arabs to flee from the mandate where almost insignificant, and that they barely existed. He said that there was no evidence for those calls. When confronted with evidence that showed that he was wrong, and that there were such calls on a broad basis, he backed off to a more moderate (and accurate) position - that there were Arab calls to flee the ensuing "bloodbath", and there was also local violence, and that both played a factor in the creation of the Pal Arab refugees.

The only thing more amazing than my ability to contradict myself is MGB8's inability to read.

As I pointed out to MBG8 just above, this reply of mine referring to very limited calls for women and children to avoid conflict and that people naturally flee conflict areas, was in my very first post on the subject. First - not second or third or last. So how MBG8 sees that I "backed off to a more moderate (and accurate) position" is anybodies guess.

michael

06-19-2004, 07:46 AM

Originally posted by MGB8

Firstly, abandon is not a self defining word. How did they "abandon" the Arabs? Did they abandon them by not winning, and allowing them to return? Did they abandon them by abandoning their interests, by arguing that they should leave? These are both reasonable interpretations of what "abandon" means.

Yes, it's not quite as clear cut as aa would like to think. And it certainly doesn't make complete sense if you accept aa's interpretation.

michael

06-19-2004, 07:56 AM

Originally posted by MGB8

Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia recently expelled their Pal Arab populations.

Taking lessons from Israel perhaps?

We have picture after picture of Pal Arab terrorists firing from crouds of their children, and the PLO/Arafat/Hamas/Jihad all encourage this, if you look at their media.
And picture after picture of the IDF firing into crowds. Just like the other week in Rafah when a tank fired a shell into a crowd of civilains killing 13 including 6 children. Oops, another infamous IDF "accident".

And how do those tanks get near crowds of civilians? Surely they don't drive them there, do they?

But Michael, living in isolated Australia, has the chutzpah to make such claims, when he has never really faced the threat of terror, much less the DAILY threat of terror.
Yeah, I hear life's hell in Philadelphia.

MGB8

06-19-2004, 08:03 AM

Michael,

Your selective definition of what is and is not evidence is balderdash.

Your definition seems to go "if it supports what I believe, it is evidence, while if it does not, it is not evidence."

That's dishonest.

YOU use 2nd and 3rd hand accounts and quotes as evidence, and yet you claim that AA's somehow are not.

The difference, his quotes and such are MORE credible than your quotes, not less.

You argue that only first hand accounts (even though AA provided first hand accounts) should count - but people involved in a conflict are intrinsically biased. Not to mention timeliness

Meanwhile, 2nd and 3rd hand accounts, which you also use, may have legal "hearsay" problems, but often are more credible, especially when coming from news outlets, who at that time where actually less politically motivated and more accurate than they are today (with all the corporate influence on what to publish and the move towards political based spinning of the news which is so common today.) Ah, I dream of the days of the independent newspaper.

As for 242, I seem to recall the "3 No's" from the Arabs...

As for "limited calls" - that is your SPIN on the evidence, based on very little. We know that there were calls, and that they were broadcast all over the place. We don't know the extent of their effect in relation to the general refugee causing violence that occurs in any war....in this case, a war of genocide against the Jews begun by the Arabs.

Keep trying to revise, Michael....eventually you will have to confront your own dishonesty.
Originally posted by michael
Yes, that's exactly right - "Third Party". My original claim was of a complete lack of evidence. As I said in my first reply, these 2nd and 3rd hand acounts are not evidence.

Relevance? Ghoury says that Arab responsibility lies with the opposition to partition. Where is the connection to calls to flee?

Though given abu afak's reliance on sources that reproduce the deliberate distortions of Edward Attiyah's words, you have to wonder about the reliability of anything he posts.

Ah yes, Israels acceptance of UN SC Res 242.

Or should that be non-acceptance. It is true that Israel announced it's acceptance in Febraury 1968. But it was a qualified acceptance.

Israel, in fact, rejected the major elements of 242.

It did not acept that "withdrawal" was a primary aim of 242.

It did not accept that "inadmissability" principle applied to the region. Abba Eban's words to the Security Council were that this central tenant of international order since WWII, was "not relevant".

And it did not accept that "withdrawal" meant from all the occupied territories, save for those mutual and minor adjustments.

So yes, Israel accepted Resolution 242 - except for the parts it didn't like.

danholo

06-19-2004, 02:41 PM

Originally posted by michael
Taking lessons from Israel perhaps?

1 million Palestinians have Israeli citizenship. They are the only Arabs in the Middle East who have rights.

And picture after picture of the IDF firing into crowds. Just like the other week in Rafah when a tank fired a shell into a crowd of civilains killing 13 including 6 children. Oops, another infamous IDF "accident".

It was an accident. They fired at an abandoned building as a warning. 7 people were killed. 5 of the armed, 2 of them not.

Again, you are lacking any facts but have the nerve to repeat Palestinian propaganda which has been corrected.

And how do those tanks get near crowds of civilians? Surely they don't drive them there, do they?

Actually the crowd of "civilians", many of them armed, came themselves towards the tanks. Not the otherway around. Stop trolling. You really can't fool us. It is ridiculous to attend this board and make up facts to prove your point. It just doesn't work - and its pathetic.

Oh Jerusalem

06-19-2004, 11:43 PM

Originally posted by danholo
It was an accident. They fired at an abandoned building as a warning. 7 people were killed. 5 of the armed, 2 of them not.
Also keep in mind that there were reports that the tank's firing into the building triggered off explosive charges planted along the street.

You reap what you sow, pretty much literally, in this case.

Oh Jerusalem

06-21-2004, 11:33 PM

Field-test certified, good ol' fashion working remedies:

Ya'alon: Destroying terrorists' homes works (http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1087787664038)
By JPOST.COM STAFF

IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Ya'alon has defended the destruction of terrorists' houses, saying Sunday that neighbors and family members of Palestinian would-be suicide bombers have often come forward with information to prevent the pending attacks, in an effort to spare their homes from demolition.

Israel has come under harsh international criticism for demolishing homes of Palestinian suicide bombers.

Speaking to cabinet ministers on Sunday, Ya'alon said that the recent calm is deceptive, and that the motivation of terror groups to carry out attacks is higher than usual.

Ya'alon also reported to the cabinet over 70 incidents of terror attacks in the last week: seven shootings on the highways; one instance of shooting at Kfar Darom; 32 shootings attacks on security forces; 12 cases of mortar fire in the Gaza Strip; five rocket attacks, including one at Sderot; and 19 mine and anti-tank attacks on forces in the Philadelphi Corridor on the border with Egypt.

michael

06-26-2004, 12:50 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Michael,

Your selective definition of what is and is not evidence is balderdash.

Your definition seems to go "if it supports what I believe, it is evidence, while if it does not, it is not evidence."

That's dishonest.

That's MGB8s' interpretation.

First hand accounts and official sources such as IDF Military Intelligence reports are usually considered reliable, though not automatically. Newspaper reports can be, but not if they simply say that something happened without providing any details allowing corroboration, such as what was said, when and by whom. That's why newspapers generally quote individuals, rather than report that they said something.

YOU use 2nd and 3rd hand accounts and quotes as evidence, and yet you claim that AA's somehow are not.
Give an example.

It's worth remembering that I didn't set out to 'prove' something, but to challenge the idea that there was evidence to support OJ claims that the majority of people were not forced to flee but rather fled on instructions.

As for 242, I seem to recall the "3 No's" from the Arabs...
You asked about Israels "acceptance" of 242, which, as I said, was all show and no substance.

As an aside, what is true is that, at the start, Israel was closer to accepting 242 than the Arab states, but gradually moved further away as the Arab states moved closer.

As for "limited calls" - that is your SPIN on the evidence, based on very little.
I feel confident to make this claim because there is documentary evidence of such calls.

We know that there were calls, and that they were broadcast all over the place.
MGB8 shows the strength of the argument with this. 'We know there were calls because we know there were lots of them'. This is priceless stuff.

This is the crux of the problem for the believers in the 'Arab Broadcast' myth. They are mostly convinced by the strength of their own belief. As we've seen, the likes of abu afak happily rely on the old frauds and delibrate distortions of the works of writers such as Edward Attiyah and others.

So now MGB8 claims "they were broadcast all over the place"!

Well then, I'm sure MGB8 will, for all our edification, reproduce just one of these calls, from a primary source.

He needn't bother trying. Just like everyone before him (for over 50 years), MGB8 will be unable to do so. Perhaps he'll do an abu afak and resort to cutting and pasting from the 'Peace Encyclopedia', or other such disreputable source that presents the same old discredited stuff. I think there might be a few that aa didn't post.

It seems that the most recent attempt is the one from the January 2000 issue of 'Commentary', which is a 3rd hand account from a letter to the editor. But abu afak did post that one, so he'll have to try something else.

Rather slim pickings for MGB8, but best of luck.

abu afak

06-26-2004, 12:06 PM

"....According to a research report by the >Arab-sponsored< Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut, however, "the majority" of the Arab refugees in 1948 were Not Expelled, and "68%" left without seeing an Israeli soldier.7

After the Arabs' defeat in the 1948 war, their positions became confused: some Arab leaders demanded the "return" of the "expelled" refugees to their former homes despite the evidence that Arab leaders had called upon Arabs to flee. [Such as President Truman's International Development Advisory Board Report, March 7, 1951: "Arab leaders summoned Arabs of Palestine to mass evacuation... as the documented facts reveal..."] At the same time, Emile Ghoury, Secretary of the Arab Higher Command, called for the prevention of the refugees from "return." He stated in the Beirut Telegraph on August 6, 1948: "it is inconceivable that the refugees should be sent back to their homes while they are occupied by the Jews.... It would serve as a first step toward Arab recognition of the state of Israel and Partition."

Arab activist Musa Alami despaired: as he saw the problem, "how can people struggle for their nation, when most of them do not know the meaning of the word? ... The people are in great need of a 'myth' to fill their consciousness and imagination. . . ." According to Alami, an indoctrination of the "myth" of nationality would create "identity" and "self-respect."8

However, Alami's proposal was confounded by the realities: between 1948 and 1967, the Arab state of Jordan claimed annexation of the territory west of the Jordan River, the "West Bank" area of Palestine -- the same area that would later be forwarded by Arab "moderates" as a "mini-state" for the "Palestinians." Thus, that area was, between 1948 and 1967, called "Arab land," the peoples were Arabs, and yet the "myth" that Musa Alami prescribed-the cause of "Palestine" for the "Palestinians" -- remained unheralded, unadopted by the Arabs during two decades. According to Lord Caradon, "Every Arab assumed the Palestinians [refugees] would go back to Jordan."9

When "Palestine" was referred to by the Arabs, it was viewed in the context of the intrusion of a "Jewish state amidst what the Arabs considered their own exclusive environment or milieu, the 'Arab region.' "10 As the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser "screamed" in 1956, "the imperialists' 'destruction of Palestine' " was "an attack on Arab nationalism," which " 'unites us from the Atlantic to the Gulf.' "11

Ever since the 1967 Israeli victory, however, when the Arabs determined that they couldn't obliterate Israel militarily, they have skillfully waged economic, diplomatic, and propaganda war against Israel. This, Arabs reasoned, would take longer than military victory, but ultimately the result would be the same. Critical to the new tactic, however, was a device designed to whittle away at the sympathies of Israel's allies: what the Arabs envisioned was something that could achieve Israel's shrinking to indefensible size at the same time that she became insolvent.

This program was reviewed in 1971 by Mohamed Heikal,12 then still an important spokesman of Egypt's leadership in his post as editor of the influential, semi-official newspaper Al Ahram. Heikal called for a change of Arab rhetoric -- no more threats of "throwing Israel into the sea" -- and a new political strategy aimed at reducing Israel to indefensible borders and pushing her into diplomatic and economic isolation. He predicted that "total withdrawal" would "pass sentence on the entire state of Israel."

As a more effective means of swaying world opinion, the Arabs adopted humanitarian terminology in support of the "demands" of the "Palestinian refugees," to replace former Arab proclamations of carnage and obliteration. In Egypt, for example, in 1968 "the popularity of the Palestinians was rising," as a result of Israel's 1967 defeat of the Arabs and subsequent 1968 "Israeli air attacks inside Egypt."13] It was as recently as 1970 that Egyptian President Nasser defined "Israel" as the cause of "the expulsion of the Palestinian people from their land." Although Nasser thus gave perfunctory recognition to the "Palestinian Arab" allegation, he was in reality preoccupied with the overall basic, pivotal Arab concern...."

http://www.eretzyisroel.org/~jkatz/refugees2.html

MGB8

06-26-2004, 10:32 PM

Michael,

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the strains that you are going through in the attempt to support your argument.

Your response to the fact that many outlets broadcast the Arab calls for the Pal Arabs to flee is to ...

Accuse them of making it up.

That is to say, you think that it is more likely that news reporters made things up than simply reported what is the case.

Mind you, this is in an era that was not exactly pro-Israel - remember the US almost didn't recognize it at its creation. So an argument of bias as hurting the credibility of the reports is fairly weak.

Your reponse to Arabs who made statements about these calls, which were against their political interests, is to say that for some reason or other they were confused.

Meanwhile, you then say that subsequent accounts given by people, in this case arabs, that fit with their political agendas, are more credible than the impartial accounts or reporters at the time, or the admissions against interest.

Oh, and quotes you don't like...you call them direputable and discredited frauds...with NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER behind those accuations.

We don't just call this revisionism, Michael, although you show how easy it is for someone to try to re-write history (I wonder if Rome existed, Michael - get me some first hand accounts! Oh, that one is a forgery...because I say so...)...

we call your actions dishonest and despicable. As I have always asked...what exactly does that make you?

MGB8

06-26-2004, 10:42 PM

Oh, and as for the evidence counts:

On the side which states that there were Arab calls to flee, we have:

(1) Many independent media accounts at or around the time of these calls stating that they were made.

(2) Subsequent (but fairly contemporanious) statements by Arabs saying that they were made.

(3) Now a US commission report saying that they were made...

versus...

(a) Relatively recent accounts made by people with a political agenda to support propaganda of a mass, systemic expulsion of Pal Arabs with no calls for flight..

(b) Michael saying - if you can't prove to me to my satisfaction that the calls were made, even if I can't prove that they were not - I am going to presume that they were not made...despite all the evidence to the contrary (since that doesn't meet my satisfaction).

Dishonest and despicable. And propagandizing with a goal in mind - and Michael has yet to admit his goal, although he has admitted opposition to the founding of Israel.

David_in_NYC

06-26-2004, 10:59 PM

At this point I am fairly confident in summarizing, that with regards to terrorism, Islam is the cause, and ammunition is the remedy.

There really isn't much more that needs to be said, is there? Keep firing until unconditional surrender, then purge it as surely as was National Socialism?

michael

06-27-2004, 06:05 AM

Originally posted by abu afak
"....According to a research report by the >Arab-sponsored< Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut, however, "the majority" of the Arab refugees in 1948 were Not Expelled, and "68%" left without seeing an Israeli soldier.7

This is more of the same quality from aa.

What we seem to have here is 3 words of quotation, in 2 parts, seperated by words which may or may not bear any relation to the words in qoutation marks. Why not provide a chunk of the article so we can see what it really means.
Or perhaps this is another example of aa cutting and pasting from a website without even the remotest knowledge of the source material?

michael

06-27-2004, 06:27 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Michael,

I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the strains that you are going through in the attempt to support your argument.

Your response to the fact that many outlets broadcast the Arab calls for the Pal Arabs to flee is to ...

Accuse them of making it up.
I think I'll have a good laugh.

MGB8 had a simple task - provide an example of the actual calls made from "so many outlets".

The result - nothing.

That is to say, you think that it is more likely that news reporters made things up than simply reported what is the case.
That because something is reported in a newspaper, this makes it true? - surely no one is this naive.

Just to refresh memories - one of abu afaks newspaper quotes was simply a report that Arabs were fleeing their homes, no mention was made as to why. Another, in The Economist, was a second hand report. The reporter was based in Cyprus and filed the report from there.

Oh, and quotes you don't like...you call them direputable and discredited frauds...with NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER behind those accuations.
Ah yes, like the very short excerpt from Edward Atiyah's book that was carefully cut to give it exactly the opposite meaning to which was conveyed in the book.

Perhaps MGB8 needs reminding of the kind of mendacity that he defends. This was the quote as supplied by abu afak,
"This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country"

and this is the very reveling, slightly larger chunk taken from Atiyah's book,
"This wholesale exodus was due partly to the belief of the Arabs, encouraged by the boasting of an unrealistic Arab press and the irresponsible utterances of some of the Arab leaders that it could be only a matter of some weeks before the Jews were defeated by the armies of the Arab States and the Palestinian Arabs enabled to re-enter and retake possession of their country. But it was also, and in many parts of the country, largely due to a policy of deliberate terrorism and eviction, followed by the Jewish commanders in the areas they occupied…” "

Why on earth would I call this disreputable or discredited? According to MGB8 this constitutes "NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER".

MGB8 is right, somethings are dishonest and despicable, but maybe it's this kind of crude propaganda and those who propagate and defend it.

michael

06-27-2004, 06:46 AM

Originally posted by MGB8
Oh, and as for the evidence counts:

On the side which states that there were Arab calls to flee, we have:

(1) Many independent media accounts at or around the time of these calls stating that they were made.
(2) Subsequent (but fairly contemporanious) statements by Arabs saying that they were made.
(3) Now a US commission report saying that they were made...

Of which MGB8 is unable, in his 2 post reply, to provide a single example of these calls to flee. But there's no shame in that - no one else has ever managed it either (apart from the Sept '47 quote that I provided).

versus...
(a) Relatively recent accounts made by people with a political agenda to support propaganda of a mass, systemic expulsion of Pal Arabs with no calls for flight..

(b) Michael saying - if you can't prove to me to my satisfaction that the calls were made, even if I can't prove that they were not - I am going to presume that they were not made...despite all the evidence to the contrary (since that doesn't meet my satisfaction).

(a)Forgot a few MGB8. IDF Military Intelligence reports at the time assessed the flight of refugees, saying that most fled due to Jewish actions and, rather absentmindedly, omitting to mention at all, that is was really a flight taken on direct orders. How silly of them.
And we'll just ignore the testimony of Jewish soldiers, such as Yitzhak Rabin, who said that they were involved in such expulsions.

(b)I just love MGB8s' logic. In my studipity, the absence of evidence of calls prevents me from believing in them, but I would if only I could follow his example and believe that claims amount to evidence.

I promise I'll try harder.

rhodescholar

06-27-2004, 07:07 AM

Originally posted by michael
)I just love MGB8s' logic. In my studipity, the absence of evidence of calls prevents me from believing in them, but I would if only I could follow his example and believe that claims amount to evidence.

I promise I'll try harder.

I am getting into this late in the game, but your sophistry is rather childish.

It is well known among adults who were ALIVE in the 1940s and 50s and READ the daily rpess reports from AP that the Arabs had issued thousands of leaflets demanding the native population leave the area to protect themselves. There were copies of the banners placed on poles on the web (i do not currently have a link, and you would have to read arabic to translate them).

I ask you, since i was alive and well at the time, as was many of my friends, what evidence WOULD you accept that this is a fact? Outside of being transorted back in time and standing in the midst of an arab priniting press producing the leaflets, and watching them placed in the streets, then what would be suffiicient? I get the feeling you are one of those individuals who demand "evidence," but deny the veracity of every example. It gets tiring dealing with children, and perhaps you fit into that category?

MGB8

06-27-2004, 02:44 PM

Joseph Farah, an Arab Christian wrote an article in which he quoted Arabs from the time period during which the brutal Israeli explusions supposedly happened (The World's Collective Amnesia worldnetdaily.com 9/19/02):

– Emile Ghoury, secretary of the Palestinian Arab Higher Committee, in an interview with the Beirut Telegraph Sept. 6, 1948.

"The Arab state which had encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees."

– The Jordanian daily newspaper Falastin, Feb. 19, 1949.

"Who brought the Palestinians to Lebanon as refugees, suffering now from the malign attitude of newspapers and communal leaders, who have neither honor nor conscience? Who brought them over in dire straits and penniless, after they lost their honor? The Arab states, and Lebanon amongst them, did it."

– The Beirut Muslim weekly Kul-Shay, Aug. 19, 1951.

"The 15th May, 1948, arrived ... On that day the mufti of Jerusalem appealed to the Arabs of Palestine to leave the country, because the Arab armies were about to enter and fight in their stead."

– The Cairo daily Akhbar el Yom, Oct. 12, 1963.

"For the flight and fall of the other villages it is our leaders who are responsible because of their dissemination of rumors exaggerating Jewish crimes and describing them as atrocities in order to inflame the Arabs ... By spreading rumors of Jewish atrocities, killings of women and children etc., they instilled fear and terror in the hearts of the Arabs in Palestine, until they fled leaving their homes and properties to the enemy."

– The Jordanian daily newspaper Al Urdun, April 9, 1953.

I could go on and on and on with this forgotten – or deliberately obscured – history. But you get the point. There was no Jewish conspiracy to chase Arabs out of their homes in 1948. It never happened. There are, instead, plenty of historical records showing the Jews pleading with their Arab neighbors to stay and live in peace and harmony. Yet, despite the clear, unambiguous words of the Arab observers at the time, history has been successfully rewritten to turn the Jews into the bad guys.

The truth is that 68 percent of the Arab Palestinians who left in 1948 – perhaps 300,000 to 400,000 of them – never saw an Israeli soldier. Even more importantly, the revised history has given the guilty a free ride. The Arab states that initiated the hostilities have never accepted responsibility – despite their enormous wealth and their ability to assimilate tens of millions of refugees in their largely under-populated nations. And other states have failed to hold them accountable.

It's bad enough the Arab states created a small nation of refugees by their actions. It's worse that they have successfully blamed that international crime on the Jews. Today, of course, this cruel charade continues. The suffering of millions of Arabs is perpetuated only for political purposes by the Arab states.

They are merely pawns in the war to destroy Israel. There were some 100 million refugees around the world following World War II. The Palestinian Arab group is the only one in the world not absorbed or integrated into their own people's lands. Since then, millions of Jewish refugees from around the world have been absorbed in the tiny nation of Israel.

It makes no sense to expect that same tiny Jewish state to solve a refugee crisis it did not create.

MGB8

06-27-2004, 05:01 PM

Michael has unwittingly given us all a REAL understanding of terrorism: cause & remedy.

You see, Michael follows the exact rationales and justifications for murder that terrorrists have.

To him, the very founding of Israel is the problem.

For him, Israel has no right to exist.

To him, Jews simply should not have been allowed to immigrate to a land, controlled by the British, become a majority in small parts of the controlled land, and been granted control and sovereignty of those small parts - and no muslim or arab should have been made to live under the sovereignty of a non-muslim majority!

It doesn't matter that there was never a state of Palestine, and in fact the very notion of nation states was for the most part foreign to the Arabs at the time.

It doesn't matter that the Arabs didn't have soveriegnty over the mandate - Michael tried to argue that they did, but his ONLY support for that position was a quote by Winston Churchill in which he said the British weren't sovereigns (they just controlled the land, taxes, laws, security, immigration, and the final disposition of the land...), and Michael has been wholely unable to reconcile this quote with the fact that Churchill was a Zionist who also publically told the arabs that they couldn't have even a democratic state in all of Palestine, because of the British obligation to the Jews.

And while Michael tries to cast it as a local national conflict, he isn't able to reconcile the fact that Turkish, Mamaluk and Jordanian control over "Palestinian" land is more or less ok, but only Jewish (and before then, Christian) control over parts of the land is to be fought to the death.

Michael now tries to revise history by saying that Arab media accounts of Arabs calling for Arabs to flee Palestine were likely just errors or made up, because it just had to be wholely the Jews fault that Arabs fled the area - it must have been programmed ethnic cleansing, despite Jewish calls for Arabs to stay, the fact that many Arabs did stay, and the fact that many refugees were allowed back into Israel after the war.

In short, it doesn't matter to Michael that the Arabs attempted genocide on the Jews and lost, and with the loss they also lost control of some territory.

None of this matters, because to Michael, unless the land is controlled by Muslims, things are not ok.

Why is this enlightening?

Because it shows the complete inability and unwillingness of terrorists and those who think like them to accept Israel's existence.

Thus, there is no real compromise - either Israel is destroyed, and the "cause" of terrorism in terms of the complaint of the terrorists is remedied, or the terrorists are killed.

I prefer the latter.

Now, there may be a way to start affecting the belief system of the terrorists and their supporters....and that way is to make them understand that achieving their objectives will cost them a lot more than simply allowing Israel to exist in peace.

That means making sure that every Arab and Muslim understands that if one day, Israel is destroyed, that very same minute Mecca, Medina, and every other major Arab and Islamic city will also be destroyed.

The Samson option.

So, Michael, understand this. The day that Israel is destroyed...that same day the Arab world is turned into glass. Israel need not exist for this to happen. Israel has submarines equiped with Nukes and missles, and silos hidden from Arab rule.

Remind your friends.

abu afak

06-27-2004, 08:38 PM

originally posted by abu afak
"....According to a research report by the >Arab-sponsored< Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut, however, "the majority" of the Arab refugees in 1948 were Not Expelled, and "68%" left without seeing an Israeli soldier.7

Originally posted by michael
This is more of the same quality from aa.

What we seem to have here is 3 words of quotation, in 2 parts, seperated by words which may or may not bear any relation to the words in qoutation marks. Why not provide a chunk of the article so we can see what it really means.
Or perhaps this is another example of aa cutting and pasting from a website without even the remotest knowledge of the source material?

And what have you got al-michael?
The only standard you'll listen is if I put up whole books, Find the 50 Year Old newspapers and present Photocopies? (or travel 56 Light Years away to piick up 1948 Broadcasts)
Even then you will question them for some reason.

YOU are out of control and Irrational. You ask an absurd standard which no one could meet; all the while providing Information and links here INFERIOR to mine (for reasons already outlined, including MGB's point about 'admissions agianst interest', timeliness, etc, etc, etc)

You also Left this damaging portion out.. an omission So material it can only be Construed as an intentional Misquote (again, as several times in this string):

"..After the Arabs' defeat in the 1948 war, their positions became confused: some Arab leaders demanded the "return" of the "expelled" refugees to their former homes despite the evidence that Arab leaders had called upon Arabs to flee. [Such as President Truman's International Development Advisory Board Report, March 7, 1951: "Arab leaders summoned Arabs of Palestine to mass evacuation... as the documented facts reveal..."]

michael

07-04-2004, 07:06 AM

I am getting into this late in the game, but your sophistry is rather childish.

It is well known among adults who were ALIVE in the 1940s and 50s and READ the daily rpess reports from AP that the Arabs had issued thousands of leaflets demanding the native population leave the area to protect themselves. There were copies of the banners placed on poles on the web (i do not currently have a link, and you would have to read arabic to translate them).

I ask you, since i was alive and well at the time, as was many of my friends, what evidence WOULD you accept that this is a fact? Outside of being transorted back in time and standing in the midst of an arab priniting press producing the leaflets, and watching them placed in the streets, then what would be suffiicient?

Not much, you'll be pleased to hear. I was able to provide direct quotes from British/US monitoring stations, of appeals by Arab leaders for people to stay and defend their homes. Given that MGB8 has claimed that these calls to flee "were broadcast all over the place", I thought it wasn't unreasonable for him to produce one, rather than 2nd and 3rd hand claims of them.

He hasn't been able to.

But there's been no trouble reproducing quotes from after the time (some translated from Arabic) from a variety of Arab sources, therefore access to those papers doesn't seem to be a problem. But still - nothing.

michael

07-04-2004, 07:12 AM

michael

07-04-2004, 07:20 AM

Michael has unwittingly given us all a REAL understanding of terrorism: cause & remedy...............

That means making sure that every Arab and Muslim understands that if one day, Israel is destroyed, that very same minute Mecca, Medina, and every other major Arab and Islamic city will also be destroyed.
So, Michael, understand this. The day that Israel is destroyed...that same day the Arab world is turned into glass. Israel need not exist for this to happen. Israel has submarines equiped with Nukes and missles, and silos hidden from Arab rule.

Remind your friends.
Totalitarians would understand this logic all too well. The 'state' trumps all.

For MGB8, the life of every person in the region, individually and collectively, is of lesser importance than the status of one state that he feels particular loyalty towards.

MGB8 may have felt right at home in Stalinist Russia.

michael

07-04-2004, 08:11 AM

And what have you got al-michael?
The only standard you'll listen is if I put up whole books, Find the 50 Year Old newspapers and present Photocopies? (or travel 56 Light Years away to piick up 1948 Broadcasts)
Even then you will question them for some reason.
YOU are out of control and Irrational. You ask an absurd standard which no one could meet;

The standard is one of basic honesty. And yes, for abu afak this does seem absurd and is clearly one he cannot or will not meet.

Earlier aa posted a quote from which seemed to be from the Institute for Palestine Studies, playing upon this aspect to lend it credibilty. Just to remind you all, this was it,

"....According to a research report by the >Arab-sponsored< Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut, however, "the majority" of the Arab refugees in 1948 were Not Expelled, and "68%" left without seeing an Israeli soldier"

It looked pretty suspect, so I checked it out. Aa didn't provide the source, but did so with the link. The link didn't attribute correctly (claiming it was from Peter Dodd and Halim Barakat's book), as it was clearly quoting just 3 words from the source, and was not an excerpt from the source itself. Even more suspect.

Obviously abu afak didn't even go this small step to examine his material. Dodd and Barakats book is titled 'River Without Bridges.- A Study of the Exodus of the 1967 Arab Palestinian Refugees'.
Get it? 1967 Refugees! Aa has posted material relating to the 1967 refugees in a discussion about 1947-48.

But guess what? It's not his fault. Someone else made the mistake first, aa has just regurgitated it without thinking.

The quote provided by abu afak ,which he doesn't attribute and which the website he copied it from attributes not at all (plagiarism), but pretends to quote Dodd and Barakat, is actually from Joan Peters' piece of rubbish 'From Time Immemorial',
"According to a research report by the Arab-sponsored Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut, however, 'the majority' of the Arab refugees in 1948 were not expelled, and '68%' left without seeing an Israeli soldier" ('From Time Immemorial' p13, note 21).

Impressive performance abu afak, quoting a plagiarist!!

This is what the original article said, "The majority of the old refugees (68%) left without seeing the Israelis. By contrast, 42% of the new refugees did so." - (Dodd and Barakat, p.43)
Referring to the 1967 war, not the 1948 war as Peters had erroneously assumed. And this was based on a survey, by the authors, of 37 refugees (which aa would have known if he'd ever read it).

How do we explain abu afak? Is it stupidity, mendacity or gullibility?

First the misrepresentation of Edward Atiyah and now the mangling of Dodd and Barakats work by the proxy of Peters' fraudulent scribblings.
And some of you wonder why I ask for evidence rather than all these oblique references?

Would it be too much to ask for a response from abu afak on his continual misreprsentations?

If it is, do me a favour abu afak and at least read the original book (it is available), you might learn something.

You also Left this damaging portion out.. an omission So material it can only be Construed as an intentional Misquote (again, as several times in this string):
"..After the Arabs' defeat in the 1948 war, their positions became confused: some Arab leaders demanded the "return" of the "expelled" refugees to their former homes [b]despite the evidence that Arab leaders had called upon Arabs to flee. [Such as President Truman's International Development Advisory Board Report, March 7, 1951: "Arab leaders summoned Arabs of Palestine to mass evacuation... as the documented facts reveal..."]

Hmmmm. More quotes from aa.

Another claim of evidence, ie. "documented facts". Why not just produce them?
But then, given this is provided by aa, is it even accurate?

Back to abu afak's reference to the 68% (repeated by MGB8, out of utter ignorance no doubt).

It is true that some refugees fled without ever seeing Jewish forces. There is however a different reason than the one favoured by our confused friends, aa and MGB8.
And we don’t need to rely on newspaper reports written a year later, or fifteen or twenty years later, giving a second-hand account, or an un-named article that quotes (misleadingly) three words from another source. We can get it from the horses mouth. Commander of the Palmach, Yigal Allon explained the situation in Safed in early May 1948 –
“I gathered all the Jewish mayors who had contact with the Arabs in different villages and asked them to whisper in the ears of some Arabs that great Jewish reinforcements had arrived in Galilee and that they were going to burn all the villages in the Hula valley. They should suggest to these Arabs, as their friends, that it was best for them to escape while there was still time. Thus the rumour spread to all parts of the Hula valley that it was time to flee. There was a massive exodus.” (Y. Allon, ‘Book of the Palmach’ p.286)

abu afak

07-04-2004, 12:37 PM

"...Obviously abu afak didn't even go this small step to examine his material. Dodd and Barakats book is titled 'River Without Bridges.- A Study of the Exodus of the 1967 Arab Palestinian Refugees'.
Get it? 1967 Refugees! Aa has posted material relating to the 1967 refugees in a discussion about 1947-48.
But guess what? It's not his fault. Someone else made the mistake first, aa has just regurgitated it without thinking....
So a Book about the 1967 Refugees cannot mention the 1948 Problem as well!
This is certainly amazing al-michael.. I would think one problem very related to the other. Perhaps it is you who is not thinking.. and just posting.. regurgitating.. as it were.

The quote provided by abu afak ,which he doesn't attribute and which the website he copied it from attributes not at all (plagiarism), but pretends to quote Dodd and Barakat, is actually from Joan Peters' piece of rubbish 'From Time Immemorial',
"According to a research report by the Arab-sponsored Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut, however, 'the majority' of the Arab refugees in 1948 were not expelled, and '68%' left without seeing an Israeli soldier" ('From Time Immemorial' p13, note 21).

Impressive performance abu afak, quoting a plagiarist!!
Learn what plagiarism is al-michael.. I should think that would be a pre-requisite for even your discussion tactics.

But if one wants to accuse some of Plagiarism...
More recently Alan Dershowitz was accused of Plagiarizing Peters' Heavily in his new book, The Case for Israel.
No doubt because it was 'rubbish' .. and he had the benefit of 20 years and all the critiques of Peters.
Try again.

Back to abu afak's reference to the 68% (repeated by MGB8, out of utter ignorance no doubt).

It is true that some refugees fled without ever seeing Jewish forces. There is however a different reason than the one favoured by our confused friends, aa and MGB8.
And we don’t need to rely on newspaper reports written a year later, or fifteen or twenty years later, giving a second-hand account, or an un-named article that quotes (misleadingly) three words from another source. We can get it from the horses mouth. Commander of the Palmach, Yigal Allon explained the situation in Safed in early May 1948 –
“I gathered all the Jewish mayors who had contact with the Arabs in different villages and asked them to whisper in the ears of some Arabs that great Jewish reinforcements had arrived in Galilee and that they were going to burn all the villages in the Hula valley. They should suggest to these Arabs, as their friends, that it was best for them to escape while there was still time. Thus the rumour spread to all parts of the Hula valley that it was time to flee. There was a massive exodus. ” (Y. Allon, ‘Book of the Palmach’ p.286)
Oh I see al-Michael!

You're allowed to use a 1948 quote/an 'admission against interest' .. and I can't use Dozens!

This is certainly the Bizarre double standard and inferior argument of al-Michael's I spoke of.

and uh.. You STILL left it out:

Originally posted by abu afak
You also Left this damaging portion out.. an omission So material it can only be Construed as an intentional Misquote (again, as several times in this string):

"..After the Arabs' defeat in the 1948 war, their positions became confused: some Arab leaders demanded the "return" of the "expelled" refugees to their former homes despite the evidence that Arab leaders had called upon Arabs to flee. [Such as President Truman's International Development Advisory Board Report, March 7, 1951: "Arab leaders summoned Arabs of Palestine to mass evacuation... as the documented facts reveal..."]

MGB8

07-05-2004, 10:39 AM

That's right, Michael.

The lives of me and my family are worth more to me than the lives of all those who are trying to kill my family and I, and all those who support them.

Therefor, on a national level, understand that, just like the US would have nuked every russian citizen to hell if it was about to be eliminated by Russia (and vice versa), so will Israel.

I believe that you know the weakness of your position, and are straining and straining to justify it, and in the end, you cannot. You have seen quotes and reports after reports of Arab calls (always with a plural, never "a call") to flee, from various different sources, all as credible if not more so than the vast majority of your sources, and yet you deny, just like the holocaust deniers do.

You remind me of this guy I saw on this episode of the TV show "Cheaters" - a private eye videotaped a man cheating on his wife, and when confronted with the videotape by his wife, the man, straight faced, asked her "what are you going to believe, what I tell you or what's on this tape?"

You've been exposed, Michael, and everyone here can see the strains you are making against the evidence and the truth.

Totalitarians would understand this logic all too well. The 'state' trumps all.

For MGB8, the life of every person in the region, individually and collectively, is of lesser importance than the status of one state that he feels particular loyalty towards.

MGB8 may have felt right at home in Stalinist Russia.

Mediocrates

07-06-2004, 05:42 AM

http://wwics.si.edu/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=72154

The Roots of Terrorism

“Education, Poverty, and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?” by Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Malecková, in Journal of Economic Perspectives (Fall 2003), http://www.aeaweb.org/jep/
Macalester College, 1600 Grand Ave., St. Paul, Minn. 55105.

The notion that poverty and ignorance breed terrorism seems to have a seductive appeal that transcends mere facts. Public figures left and right continue to repeat it, even though there’s little evidence to support it, write Krueger, an economist at Princeton University, and Malecková, a professor at the Institute for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Charles University, Prague.

As a rule, they note, better-off and better-educated people are more likely to support and participate in terrorist or militant acts than their less fortunate peers. In a December 2001 opinion survey of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, for example, 86 percent of adults who had attended high school supported armed attacks against Israeli targets, compared with 72 percent of their illiterate peers. And outright opposition to such attacks was much higher in the ranks of the illiterate: 26 percent voiced opposition, compared with only 12 percent of better-educated Palestinians.

Many studies of those who actually commit terrorist attacks follow the same general pattern. Of 129 Lebanese Hezbollah militants who became Shahids (martyrs) between 1982 and 1994, only 28 percent came from impoverished families (while 33 percent of all Lebanese were living in poverty). Thirty-three percent of the killers had been to high school, compared with only 23 percent of the general population. A study of 285 Palestinian terrorists who carried out suicide bomb attacks for other groups between 1987 and 2002 found that they were nearly twice as likely to have finished high school and attended college as other Palestinians. Two of the bombers were the sons of millionaires.

On the other side of the conflict, a look at the membership of Israel’s deadly Bloc of the Faithful, which killed 23 Palestinians during the early 1980s, turns up teachers, writers, entrepreneurs, a chemical engineer, and other high achievers.

Krueger and Malecková look more to politics than to economics to explain terrorism. People who have “enough education and income to concern themselves with more than minimum economic subsistence” are more likely to become engaged in politics, violent or not. And countries that allow fewer political outlets are more likely to produce terrorists. Comparing the home countries of international terrorists who struck between 1997 and 2002, the authors found that countries with basic civil liberties produced fewer terrorists. When political freedoms were taken into
account, the poorest countries were no worse incubators of terrorism than the richest.

Reprinted from Spring 2004 Wilson Quarterly
This article may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the author. For further reprint information, please contact Permissions, The Wilson Quarterly, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C.
Phone:202/691-4200
E-mail:wq@wwic.si.edu

Mediocrates

07-06-2004, 06:00 AM

Of course oppressing their own miserable people doesn't help much anyway. But I seriously doubt whether committed radical ideological demagogues like 'michael' have any interest in votes.

http://hnn.us/blogs/3.html

PA DENIES PALESTINIAN REFUGEES THE VOTE

Palestinian Media Watch reports that PA seeks to deprive Palestinian refugees from voting in local elections. “The Supreme National Committee for the Protection of the Right of Return – announced yesterday that it opposes the participation of the refugee camps in the local elections that are expected to take place in the Palestinian Territories. The committee justified its objection as protecting the unique status of the refugee camps in Gaza and the West Bank, considering them testimony to the crime that the occupation state made against our nation for 56 years. The committee warned of the dangers of integrating the refugee camps into the urban housing units...” [Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 29, 2004]

For decades any attempt by caring people or organizations to settle the Palestinian refugees has been met by a stiff Arab opposition. As John McCarthy, a U.S. Catholic conference's expert on the refugees told Joan Peters in a February 19, 1978 interview:

"I've worked in the Palestinian structure, trying to say, "let's resettle these people." The governments of Egypt and so on, they all said: "Wait a while," or, "No, we won't do it. The only place they're going to resettle is back in Israel, right or wrong.' ' You must remember - well - these people are simply pawns . . . "

Typical has been a 1976 Libyan ad to recruit workers offered citizenship and other incentives to Arab workers except Palestinians.

Have they no shame?! You may wish to write your representatives on the subject.

michael

07-12-2004, 02:05 AM

...
So a Book about the 1967 Refugees cannot mention the 1948 Problem as well!
This is certainly amazing al-michael.. I would think one problem very related to the other. Perhaps it is you who is not thinking.. and just posting.. regurgitating.. as it were.
Of course it can. But the cited portion of Dodd's paper deals with 1967.

What can't be done, is to pretend that a study of the reasons why refugees fled in June 1967 has anything to do with why they did in 1948.

But if one wants to accuse some of Plagiarism...
More recently Alan Dershowitz was accused of Plagiarizing Peters' Heavily in his new book, The Case for Israel.
No doubt because it was 'rubbish' .. and he had the benefit of 20 years and all the critiques of Peters.
Try again.
What might be the relevance of Dershowitz's book to this? - About zero I think.

You're allowed to use a 1948 quote/an 'admission against interest' .. and I can't use Dozens!

This is certainly the Bizarre double standard and inferior argument of al-Michael's I spoke of.
No, just the same standard that aa is drowning under.

I'm "allowed" to use a 1948 reference because its a primary source eyewitness account (actually an actor in the drama rather than an eyewitness), relevant and accurate. If I've misqouted, made up, or in any other way mistreated the passage from Allon's book, just let me know.

Abu afak's problem is not that there is a double standard, it's just that he can't meet the single standard that exists, which is - don't fraudulently misrepresent the work of others just to suit your argument, eg Edward Attiyah's and now Peter Dodd and Halim Barakat's work.

So abu afak can present dozens of quotes, as many as he likes in fact, but I'll continue to point out their lack of relevance or, as we've seen, the fact that they are deliberate misrepresentations of the basest sort.

and uh.. You STILL left it out:
This is the passage aa is fretting over,

"After the Arabs' defeat in the 1948 war, their positions became confused: some Arab leaders demanded the "return" of the "expelled" refugees to their former homes despite the evidence that Arab leaders had called upon Arabs to flee. [Such as President Truman's International Development Advisory Board Report, March 7, 1951: "Arab leaders summoned Arabs of Palestine to mass evacuation... as the documented facts reveal..."] "

The source is the same one that provided the fraudulent mangling of Dodd and Barakat, but we're asked to trust it anyway.

Credibility rating - zero.

Nevertheless, we'll look at it or aa will see this as proof of something.

The relevant part is apparantly the last line, where the passage claims that there is evidence of Arab calls to mass evacuation. To back this up, it points to another source, which, surprise surprise, also says that there is evidence. Total amount of evidence provided - zero.

More good work from abu afak.

Ever heard of circular arguments? This is a classic example of 'begging the question'.

Mediocrates

07-12-2004, 06:09 AM

All Jews are evil - I have proof. Thank you.

michael

07-12-2004, 08:21 AM

No proof required (and none in existence) - Jewish people are no more or less capable of being so, than anyone else.

Mediocrates

07-12-2004, 09:16 AM

Someone is lacking the irony gene I guess.

Mediocrates

07-13-2004, 05:50 AM

The Ingrates of Jenin

By Judy Lash Balint

IHC Abstract
There seems to no way of pleasing the ‘refugees’ of Jenin. With financial help from Saddam Hussein and United Arab Emirates, 435 apartments were to be built by a British team. The best products such as marble from Italy, tiles from Spain, windows from Belgium, refrigerators from Japan were brought in. How did they show their appreciation? By having a shootout over the size of the building, making it too dangerous for the British to continue the project.

How can their ‘plight’ be taken seriously after such behavior? Compare how the Jews who had to leave Arab countries over 50 years ago prospered and were grateful just to have the bare necessities. At least one good thing comes out of this. It is an eye opener as to what is really going on in this community.

Before his downfall, Saddam Hussein delivered on a pledge to donate $25,000 to 100 Arab families from the Jenin refugee camp whose homes had been destroyed during Israel’s campaign to roust out terrorists there in 2002.

The United Arab Emirates Red Crescent Authority contributed another $29 million to the rebuilding effort in a fit of generosity.

Some 435 apartments were being rebuilt under the auspices of the British Government Department for International Development, but the project ground to a screeching halt recently after the British team fled Jenin when Arab gunmen armed with M-16 rifles fired on their headquarters. The gunmen were apparently voicing their protest at the small size of the new quarters in the “refugee camp.”

According to The Times of London, the three-man team of technical experts called it quits after months of threats and intimidation culminated in the madcap shooting spree.

Project manager Paul Wolstenholme, construction manager Neil Johnston and design manager Mike Luffingham expressed dismay at the violent response from the refugees. The men had been overseeing an unprecedented building effort, in which some of the replacement multi-storey homes featured Italian marble kitchen counters, Spanish tiles, Belgian windows and Japanese refrigerators, courtesy of the Iraqi dictator. “You wouldn’t believe how good the properties are, the finishing is fantastic,” said Johnston.

Several houses are built on two levels, with three rooms and a kitchen on each level, to accommodate the clan-style living arrangements of most refugee camp residents. Many of those who had received Saddam Hussein’s payments added balconies and fancy outside lighting.

The whole thing was beginning to make a mockery out of the appellation “refugee camp.” Where else in the world do refugees live in digs costing $135 per meter? Indeed, several camp residents (among the only people in the world who claim 3rd or 4th generation refugee status) had begun to mumble about how difficult it would be to continue to attract world sympathy for their plight under the new conditions. “We’ve lost the right of return,” a member of the camp’s governing committee told a reporter from the Israeli Ha’aretz newspaper.

But the fuse was lit when one powerful clan allegedly bullied contractors into expanding their building at the expense of the neighbors. In a microcosm of wider Arab negotiating techniques, the aggrieved party decided to shoot it out rather than talk it out.

The Brits had enough when the bullets started to fly. “I have come to help these innocent individuals who lost their houses through no fault of their own - and what do I get but harassment, threats and not one word of thanks,” said one unidentified British worker.

Just one week before, a Jordanian security team ran for their lives after Al Aksa Martyrs’ Brigade gunmen in the camp threatened its members. According to The Jerusalem Post, the ugly little incident started when Al Aksa thugs objected to the Jordanians arriving without prior coordination with Yasser Arafat.

The goings-on in Jenin’s refugee camp provide a window into the havoc that passes for international policy on Arab refugees. UNRWA, the U.N. agency charged with carrying out humanitarian efforts for the Arabs displaced by wars more than half a century ago, has fallen into serious disrepute for perpetuating the misery of its charges. [See UNRWA, A Report by Pearl Herman]

The international community pays little attention to the ridiculousness of the claims of many so-called Arab refugees who find themselves living just a few miles from the villages they inhabited in 1948. Men like Jamal Nashrati, who maintains his two wives and 11 children in one of the new apartments in the Jenin camp. Poor Jamal is still pining for “his” village of Zarin, located exactly 12.5 miles from Jenin. Nashrati was not even born there - his parents are from Zarin.

No other people displaced a few miles by wars that occurred decades ago, and now re-housed for free in dwellings that would be the envy of many a citizen of the Arab world, would have the chutzpa to lay claim to the “refugee” title, nor to the millions in foreign aid being poured into their part of the world.

Almost a million Jews who fled or were forced out of Arab countries in the 1940s and 50s gratefully lived for years in tents and tenements with no foreign subvention whatsoever. They went on to become productive citizens, the backbone of Israeli society, with scarcely a look back at the towns and villages they left behind so long ago. Ask an Israeli Jew of Libyan or Moroccan origin if he considers himself a refugee and he’ll refer you to the closest psychiatrist.

Like almost every Arab leader, the gunmen of Jenin have succeeded in perpetuating the misery of their brethren.

But perhaps they have also accomplished a service by exposing the hypocrisy of a community of self-defined refugees living a little uncomfortably with their Italian marble.

Source: Original text submitted by the author, 28 June 2004.

Abstract written by Marilyn Solomon, an IHC volunteer.

abu afak

07-13-2004, 07:56 AM

What might be the relevance of Dershowitz's book to this? - About zero I think.
As I stated.. just that you said it/Peters' book "rubbish".. and yet here is Dershowitz, with the Benefit of 20 years of Critiques on the book and additional Historic research, still Using it Heavily.

"...I'm "allowed" to use a 1948 reference because its a primary source eyewitness account (actually an actor in the drama rather than an eyewitness), relevant and accurate. If I've misqouted, made up, or in any other way mistreated the passage from Allon's book, just let me know.

Abu afak's problem is not that there is a double standard, it's just that he can't meet the single standard that exists, which is - don't fraudulently misrepresent the work of others just to suit your argument, eg Edward Attiyah's and now Peter Dodd and Halim Barakat's work.

So abu afak can present dozens of quotes, as many as he likes in fact, but I'll continue to point out their lack of relevance or, as we've seen, the fact that they are deliberate misrepresentations of the basest sort...

You can Yak it up all you like.. Your quotes are no better than, mine,.. and Far smaller in Scope and Quality.. and lacking the point that mine are also 'admissions' against interest'... many, by Arab leaders.
An amazing array actually, that has left you beaten.. and on the obviously obnoxious defensive since.
And unlike your quote which proves little, my many show the overall situation from Arab leaders themselves (Abu Mazen, PM of Syra and Iraq, Head of Arab League, High Commisioner for refugees; Local and international Publications (Time, the Economist, ad-difaa, etc etc etc); All AT the time.
and the leaders not Only Eye and Ear witnesses, but important enough to parties to the decisons.
And of course, what they said is consistent with one another, and the publications.
Nothing remotely as deep and wide exists to back your spurious claim.. and now shattered string.

Oh.. and mention should also be made of your Reprehensible tactics earlier in the string.. of cutting off the essences/Meat of my and MGB's posts/quotes when quoting them, and then replacing them with your take. (including your desperate attempted deconstruction of the English language on Mazen's quote(!) )

michael

07-15-2004, 08:27 AM

As I stated.. just that you said it/Peters' book "rubbish".. and yet here is Dershowitz, with the Benefit of 20 years of Critiques on the book and additional Historic research, still Using it Heavily.

I think the "rubbish" is shown quite convincingly, when we compare Peter's use of Dodd's work with the original.

That Dershowitz uses this material says, unfortunately, quite a lot about someone who should know better.

Peters book was reviewed by an Israeli scholar whose opinion on it was this,
"Mrs. Peters's use of sources is very selective and tendentious, to say the least",
"I am reluctant to bore the reader and myself with further examples of Mrs. Peters's highly tendentious use—or neglect—of the available source material"
"Everyone familiar with the writing of the extreme nationalists of Zeev Jabotinsky's Revisionist party (the forerunner of the Herut party) would immediately recognize the tired and discredited arguments in Mrs. Peters's book" -(New York Review of Books, Jan. 16, 1986)

Abu afak continues to trot out these same "tired and discredited arguments".

You can Yak it up all you like.. Your quotes are no better than, mine,..
And unlike your quote which proves little, my many show the overall situation from Arab leaders themselves (Abu Mazen, PM of Syra and Iraq, Head of Arab League, High Commisioner for refugees; Local and international Publications (Time, the Economist, ad-difaa, etc etc etc); All AT the time.
...................
And of course, what they said is consistent with one another, and the publications. ...................
Oh.. and mention should also be made of your Reprehensible tactics earlier in the string.. of cutting off the essences/Meat of my and MGB's posts/quotes when quoting them, and then replacing them with your take. (including your desperate attempted deconstruction of the English language on Mazen's quote(!) )

More hilarious stuff from aa. Unable to respond meaningfully to the exposure of the complete frauds that he's posted, he simply repeats himself.

Head of the Arab League? - you mean the deliberately truncated quote from Edward Attiyah, that gives it the apperaence of supporting your point when its actual meaning is exactly the opposite?

This is great, aa refutes my exposure of this fraudulent stuff, by referring again to the same fraud.

'Crime once exposed has no refuge but audacity', someone once said.

Abu afak still has offered the forum no explanation for the deliberate distorations of the work of Attiyah, Dodd etc. that he posts to make this claims.

Anyone with even a tiny shred of credibilty, would at least acknowledge them and seek refuge in the argument that they believed the source to be credible.

abu afak

07-15-2004, 09:11 AM

I think the "rubbish" is shown quite convincingly, when we compare Peter's use of Dodd's work with the original.

That Dershowitz uses this material says, unfortunately, quite a lot about someone who should know better.

Peters book was reviewed by an Israeli scholar whose opinion on it was this,
"Mrs. Peters's use of sources is very selective and tendentious, to say the least",
"I am reluctant to bore the reader and myself with further examples of Mrs. Peters's highly tendentious use—or neglect—of the available source material"
"Everyone familiar with the writing of the extreme nationalists of Zeev Jabotinsky's Revisionist party (the forerunner of the Herut party) would immediately recognize the tired and discredited arguments in Mrs. Peters's book" -(New York Review of Books, Jan. 16, 1986)

Abu afak continues to trot out these same "tired and discredited arguments".
Again.. and without Citing WHO at LEFTIST 'NY Review of books' (turns out he's using Porath again)
(note here.. I had an/another anti-Israel poster on another board who basically used only 3 sources for his articles in a year(!).. Chomsky, the Leftist anti-Israelers at Ha'aretz/Levy/Hass/etc... and NY Review of Books.. NYRB who has even more wackos .. from Avnery on down)

It should also be noted the negative review of her book by Porath was rebutted by Sanders and Pipes.. Both.

and that Of course.. Dershowitz DOES "know Better" (and the above) and surely looked at whatever it's minor problems. and used it Heavily anyway... as it was still a great/valid source.

More hilarious stuff from aa. Unable to respond meaningfully to the exposure of the complete frauds that he's posted, he simply repeats himself....
You know.. I hate repeating myself.

But in lieu of an intelligent opponent able to absorb what they've read and acknowlege they've been shattered by so many valid and Overwhelming statements from Even Arab sources/leaders!.... one has to.
And let me repeat this again also .. that includes: ..
"your desperate attempted deconstruction of the English language on Mazen's quote"

That was truly a piece of work I won't soon forget. It belongs in the annals of disingenuity along with "what the meaning of is.. is"

MGB8

07-15-2004, 09:29 AM

Michael,

Your quotes come from, for the most part, people who are well after the fact saying things that promote their political or personal interests. Self-serving accounts are often of suspect credibility.

In rebutal, AA and I have cited:

(1) Accounts from News Sources at the time, including Arab News sources;

(2) Reports from those with first hand knowledge (as opposed to from News Agencies, although news agencies do tend to have reporters who gain some first hand knowledge) - who state things that are AGAINST their own interests - and thus more likely to be credible (thus, there is in the law an exception to hearsay called "admission against interest", whereas a parties own statements can be excluded under hearsay - ie. "I said x & y" is hearsay unless it falls under an exception)

(3) A Report by the US government.

Your response to these quotes is limited to (a) Name calling - "Its a fraud because I, Michael, say it is", and (b) willfull blindness ("Well, those News reports were wrong or innacurate because I say so")

In short, your responses are laughable and pathetic - incredible strains on logic. Your arguments are weak and fail, and as much as you try to push the point, everyone knows that your self serving accounts are much more likley to be innacurate than the admissions against interest and unbaised 3rd party accounts - or even BIASED - AGAINST ISRAEL 3rd party accounts, not to mention government investigations brought to rebut your assertions.

In the end, the truth is clear, despite your attempts to cloud it. While there was certainly some instances of Jews encouraging the flight of Arabs, there were also a substantial amount of Arab calls for the local Arabs to flee - substantial enough to cause Arab newspapers to widely report these calls, and for many Arabs to admit to them even though it hurts "the cause".

michael

07-15-2004, 09:49 PM

Again.. and without Citing WHO at LEFTIST 'NY Review of books' (turns out he's using Porath again)

It should also be noted the negative review of her book by Porath was rebutted by Sanders and Pipes.. Both.

Well then, let's look at part of the rebuttal by Daniel Pipes in response to Poraths' critique.

"I would not dispute the existence of those faults. 'From Time Immemorial' quotes carelessly, uses statistics sloppily, and ignores inconvenient facts. Much of the book is irrelevant to Miss Peters's central thesis. The author's linguistic and scholarly abilities are open to question. Excessive use of quotation marks, eccentric footnotes, and a polemical, somewhat hysterical undertone mar the book. In short, From Time Immemorial stands out as an appallingly crafted book."

Hmmmmmm. Quite a rebuttal. I'm now convinced that abu afak is right!

Pipes did defend the central thsis of the book but offered no new information for doing so despite Porath demolition of this part of Peters work.

You know.. I hate repeating myself.

But in lieu of an intelligent opponent able to absorb what they've read and acknowlege they've been shattered by so many valid and Overwhelming statements from Even Arab sources/leaders!.... one has to.
And let me repeat this again also .. that includes: ..
"your desperate attempted deconstruction of the English language on Mazen's quote"

That was truly a piece of work I won't soon forget. It belongs in the annals of disingenuity along with "what the meaning of is.. is"

We need to keep in mind the quality of the information supplied by aa. It's mostly from Peters book, which as Pipes explained is careless, sloppy and hysterical. Yet aa seems to believe that if he keeps repeating it, it becomes valid.

That's been borne out by the quotes aa has supplied such as the frauds from the Greek archbishop, Attiyah, Dodd, the highly selective stuff from Glubb, Bilby etc, and the newspaper quotes that are second or third hand, or simply irrelevant in that they report nothing more than people fled the fighting. Quite a 'house of cards'.

And still on the most obvious frauds and misuse of sources, what has abu afak to say - nothing. Hardly surprising, what can he say on these transparent lies?

Just trust him and his "many valid and Overwhelming statements". Overwhleming they definitely are. Valid? Not even close.

michael

07-15-2004, 10:17 PM

Michael,

Your quotes come from, for the most part, people who are well after the fact saying things that promote their political or personal interests. Self-serving accounts are often of suspect credibility.

If MGB8 really believes this than we can ignore the rest of his post, as he argues a point that most likely does "promote" his "political or personal interests".

But really - D'oh. So we should ignore the claims of the Syrian PM in his memoirs written "well after the fact"?
Oops - well maybe this new standard of MGB8s' only applies to sources that don't suit his views.

In rebutal, AA and I have cited:

(1) Accounts from News Sources at the time, including Arab News sources;
Most second hand (some third), and some many years later so according to MGB8's above reasoning can be discounted.

(2) Reports from those with first hand knowledge (as opposed to from News Agencies, although news agencies do tend to have reporters who gain some first hand knowledge) -
Yes, I think MBG8 is making a distinction here from 'first hand account'. That's good, because almost none were provided. But of course real first-hand knowledge (eye-witness participants) from the likes of Rabin and Allon who were directly involved and give rather different explanations for the flight of refugees, doesn't count.

(3) A Report by the US government.
Which is not provided, but is a report containing what it claims is an excerpt from a US Govt report (of 1 line) which in-turn says that there is such evidence, but of course does not provide it. Did MGB8 provide us with an explanation of hearsay just before? Go figure.

Your response to these quotes is limited to (a) Name calling - "Its a fraud because I, Michael, say it is", and (b) willfull blindness ("Well, those News reports were wrong or innacurate because I say so")
In short, your responses are laughable and pathetic - incredible strains on logic. Your arguments are weak and fail, and as much as you try to push the point, everyone knows that your self serving accounts are much more likley to be innacurate than the admissions against interest and unbaised 3rd party accounts - or even BIASED - AGAINST ISRAEL 3rd party accounts, not to mention government investigations brought to rebut your assertions.
In the end, the truth is clear, despite your attempts to cloud it. While there was certainly some instances of Jews encouraging the flight of Arabs, there were also a substantial amount of Arab calls for the local Arabs to flee - substantial enough to cause Arab newspapers to widely report these calls, and for many Arabs to admit to them even though it hurts "the cause".
"admissions against interest" by serving members of the Jewish forces are irrelevant? Probably biased against Israel.

IDF Intelligence reports that analyse the flight of refugees and never mention calls for mass evacuation as one of the causes? - biased against Israel naturally.

And the "substantial" calls for mass evacuation, so "widely report[ed]" that aa, MBG8, and not anyone else either, in the last 50 years can produce a single report from newspapers at the time, - what was said, by whom, and when. Truly amazing.

Perhaps it did really happen, but as I said in my very first post - there's no evidence, just claims and allegations, to which aa and MGB8 have not added even a speck of dust.

One last point - despite several requests, aa is unwilling/unable to explain or apologise for his posting of delibrate frauds and misrepresentations of various works to support his claims. Can MGB8 help out?

WissNX01

07-16-2004, 12:00 AM

Everybody just likes to point fingers and whine about how Isreal is against human rights. Id love to know how. Besides the fact that when they blow up a Hamas leader and take out his family. I can deal with killing a terrorists family.

Terrorists dont have human rights either, and I doubt they are going to go and sign the Geneva Conventions. In my opinion, people that cant abide by the Conventions, dont have the right to claim another country is abusing them to stop them.

Call terrorists freedom fighters or whatever. They are thugs, criminals and cold blooded murderers. If you just kill the known terrorist, then the family becomes 'freedom' fighters to so they can avenge his death. Its a cycle. So both the US and Isreal see this. Now, they go after the families too.

YOu have two brothers, Big Jihadi and Little Jihadi. Big Jihadi decides he wants to go up against an Isreali tank. He throws his moltov cocktails and throws rocks. Tank commander pops the hatch, takes aim and shoots Big Jihadi between the eyes. LIttle Jihadi finds out. Now he wants to grow up and kill Isreali tanks. He goes to the local mosque, says a few prayers with Cleric Ali-Im-Friggin-Nuts Muhammad, and gets an RPG and an AK-47 for fun.

With an RPG, Little Jihadi thinks he can take out a tank. So, he heads over to where Isreali patrols are going on. On the way, he sees a Jew family in thier car, obviously lost or something. Perfect, a family of Jews to send straight to hell. He fires his RPG, blowing the car to bits. He decides to celebrate, because this is what every whacko with a rifle does, and shoots his AK into the air.

Little Jihadi runs back to Cleric Ali-Im-Friggin-Nuts Muhammad and tells him of his victory, and oh yeah, Allah be praised. Cleric Muhammad thinks this is great. He gets on the horn and tells everyone what has happened. All the local terrorists decide to have a parade or whatever terrorists do.

Little Jihadi goes back to his house, with Mama and Sister Jihadi. Papa Jihadi died years earlier by blowing himself up on a crowded bus. He even killed 20 dirty Jews. So little Jihadi says his prayers to Allah. Before Jihadi finishes, he hears what sounds like a helecopter. He looks out of his window, and an attack chopper is looking right at him. Little Jihadi craps his pants as a nice little Hellfire missile blows him and his Mama and Sister to bits.

The cycle for this family ends. Sister Jihadi is dead. She cant go get pregnant and teach another Jihadi to grow up to avenge a death. Little Jihadi died before he cold pollute the gene pool as well. The neighbors of the Jihadi family didnt like Jews or Isreal before, and blowing the Jihadis up really didnt affect them.

Isreal and the US are targeting thier families, because they are the central breeding ground for these killers. If you dont kill LIttle Jihadi, he grows up to Big JIhadi. Sadly if he grows up, he gets to kill more. It is better to kill him so others dont die by his hand.