Comments on: Between anger and denial: Israeli collective memory and the Nakba

By: me

me — Tue, 30 Oct 2012 14:34:18 +0000

The Myth of the empty Land of Palestine

By: dino

dino — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 10:41:31 +0000

No,is not worthy.The last equivalence between Nakba,a history well documented by important historians and the so called Jewish Nakbha about which until now nothing was known,excepting the Israeli actions in some Arab countries done with the the goat to scare the Jews and convince them to leave for Israel,this equivalence is a trick produced by the disgusting member of Israel beyteinu Danny Aylon,a mean and stupid propagandist with a false appearance of gentleman who launched also the new slogan:”No justice for blah,blah,blah..will not be peace”.What this rascal wants is to invent always reasons to dodge peace.

By: Hossein

Hossein — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 15:21:39 +0000

What happened to the Jews in the Arab world? As far as I know nothing. You mean to “what happened to ews in the Christian world”

By: Steve

Steve — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 04:49:31 +0000

What? You need MORE recognition of your victimhood while continuing to deny the same to others?

By: gabi

gabi — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 07:06:14 +0000

Kulomn 9 – my last post was addressed to Noam – in error. Sorry both to you and Noam. But the same comments apply. You say the British did no accept the partition – but they were the main decision makers. They had the Mandate. They had to be consulted as to where the boundaries of each state should be, and as to how the areas were to be made contiguous; how and where crossings could work best. So I don’t understand that part of your post.
Nevertheless, Cheers and Shalom.

By: gabi

gabi — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 02:11:22 +0000

Noam – I can’t accept your logic. The Arab states did not come in to fight for the Palestinians until after Israel declared the State of Israel. Before that date, and from 1946 but mostly 1947 and early 1948 some of the area allocated to the Palestinians had been depopulated by the various Jewish terrorist organisations. The British couldn’t control them, (that’s the main reason why they decided to give up on the Mandate) neither could the Palestinians. What you are saying is that cleansing of those villages was OK because the Arabs had rejected the Partition Plan. And you no doubt would also say that the reason there were so many refugees was because the Arab armies told the villagers to leave to give them a clean target (some Israelis tout this nonsense) The fact is that some 250,000 to 300,000 refugees fled Palestine before May 1948 – almost half of the total number of Palestinian refugees. That can only be explained by the fact that the Irgun, Stern gang, Haganah, Palmach etc were determined to gain the whole of the land between th Med. and Jordan. In fact Ben Gurion said that accepting the Partition Plan did not mean they had to give up their claim to Transjordan! (So I guess once the West Bank goes, Jordan is next?) Also, you seem to be saying that because of the Jewish population of Jerusalem, the PP couldn’t work – so . . .? On the one hand the Jews accepted it, but really not. Cheers.

By: Kolumn9

Kolumn9 — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 22:15:22 +0000

Gabi, your logic doesn’t make sense. Yes, the Jews accepted the partition. The Arabs rejected it and got reinforced with units from the outside (ALA). The British did not accept the partition decision. The mere acceptance by the Jews of the partition decision would not have translated into the creation of a Jewish State. The War for Independence had to be fought for that to happen. As for the expanded borders, once the partition plan was rejected by the other side it made no military or political sense to adhere to the extremely indefensible borders of the partition plan. For one thing the Jerusalem corpus separatum that the partition plan had proposed had no chance of being implemented while the area of Jerusalem has a very large Jewish population.

There is absolutely no contradiction between accepting the partition plan while acting forcefully once the partition plan was rejected by the other side in order to deal with the military and political reality created by the situation.

By: gabi

gabi — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 09:10:05 +0000

Noam I suppose that what I’m essentially saying is that on the one hand Israel describes its actions in Palestine in 1947/1948 as their “War of Independence” while on the other hand they say they accepted the partition plan. If they had accepted the partition plan, then what need was there to fight a war of independence because the partition plan already gave them that.

By: gabi

gabi — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 06:59:16 +0000

Noam – what I’m saying is that neither Israel nor the Arabs accepted the Partition plan – Israel took more land than was allocated to it in the PP before 14/15th May 1948. That is a matter of record. They had already launched a war. Just ask the British. In fact back then the Jews called it their War of Independence. They were talking about this well pre creation of Israel, not post. And why should the Arabs have accepted the PP? The UN gave away 55% of their land to a body who was at that time less than 13% of the population. As to the PLO “lying”- actually, if you read the Likud charter you will see that it is Israel who is lying when it talks about 2-states.
Further, if you read Ben Gurion’s own account of the lead up to the establishemnt of the State of Israel, he had been saying for many years that the Jews would gain all that land (even talking of land up to the Euphrates) and not the “right” to the land. And his actions clearly show that he was not merely wistfully talking about the “right” but was talking about establishing the fact. And would have done so, as I said. Read Illan Pappe, and Ben Gurion himself on the subject.
Cheers.

By: Noam

Noam — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 05:46:51 +0000

Gabi, as far as I know, Ben Gurion talked about the Jewish “right” over the whole land. However he DID accept the partition plan. This is not unlike Abbas talking about the “right” for Acre , Jaffa and Haifa every second speech, however accepting partition of historic Palestine along the ’67 lines.

Rhetoric is one thing, pragmatism, and as long a pragmatism prevails, Israel and Palestine can BOTH have an unfulfilled right to all of the Mediterranean islands, for all I care.

I’m not convinced by your assertion that had the Arab side accepted partition, the Yishuv would suddenly alter its decision and launch a war. What is this based on? It’s like saying the PLO is lying when it declares it will settle for 2-states.