The New York Times continues to push the myth that Israel was once liberal and democratic, and is now growing detached from these values. Now it publishes an op-ed by a former Knesset speaker, which promotes this notion and similar misconceptions about the United States and the U.S.-Israel relationship.
Only a couple of weeks after its unusual editorial arguing that Israel’s democracy is in peril, the New York Times has published an op-ed in the same vein, written by a prominent Israeli public figure. Avraham Burg, a former speaker of the Israeli Knesset, who almost became leader of the Labor party in the early 2000s, has moved sharply to the left over the past few years, and is now very far from the Israeli mainstream. Yet in many ways, his article perpetuates classic liberal myths about Israel (impressively refuted by Yossi Gurvitz), which have already appeared in NYT’s editorial.
Burg takes these misconceptions one step farther, applying them not just to Israel but to the United States and to both countries’ relationship as well. He argues:
My generation, born in the ’50s, grew up with the deep, almost religious belief that the two countries [Israel and the US] shared basic values and principles. Back then, Americans and Israelis talked about democracy, human rights, respect for other nations and human solidarity. It was an age of dreamers and builders who sought to create a new world, one without prejudice, racism or discrimination…. Where is that righteous America? Whatever happened to the good old Israel?
It is certainly true that Israelis and Americans “talked about” all these values a generation ago. However, that has not changed. And neither have their actions: in the 1950s and early 1960s, Israel and the United States were not fully committed to democracy, internally or externally, nor respectful of other nations. And whereas Americans have significantly strengthened their internal democracy since the Civil Rights movement (not without some recent backsliding on voting), in all other respects, we are witnessing a continuity rather than a sharp break.
From its inception in 1948, Israel imposed a military government on its Palestinian citizens, which was abolished less than a year before the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza began. The United States had Jim Crow. Externally, both countries advocated for democracy only when it suited them, and did not hesitate to support heinous and repressive regimes: Israel with South Africa during apartheid; the United States around the world – with one of the most blatant examples being Iran, where the CIA instigated the military overthrow of a democratically elected government by a tyrannical monarch.
Burg laments that “what ties Israel and America today is not a covenant of humanistic values but rather a new set of mutual interests: war, bombs, threats, fear and trauma.” Yet an honest observer of the two countries’ relationship is likely to conclude the opposite. After a brief romance in 1947-1948, when the U.S. led the effort to create and recognize Israel, the two countries had a complicated and often tense relationship, shaped by geopolitical interests in a decolonizing Middle East during the Cold War. The dynamic began to change after 1967, and this change accelerated with the rise of the pro-Likud American evangelical right in the 1990s. Today, the relationship seems more detached from calculated interest than it has ever been, although the values that bind it are more xenophobic than humanistic.
Burg goes on to make some peculiar statements about Israel’s past:
In the early years of statehood, the meaning of the term “Jewish” was national and secular. In the eyes of Israel’s founding fathers, to be a Jew was exactly like being an Italian, Frenchman or American.
To the best of my knowledge, one can become a Frenchman or an American in a (relatively) secular process (that will surely not expel all biases or discrimination). However, it was never possible, not even during the time of the “founding fathers,” to become a Jew except through (arduous) religious conversion, or through birth. Burg, of all people, should know that quite well.
So how can he be so mistaken? One clue can be found in the following sentences:
We never gave much thought to the Palestinian Israeli citizens within the Jewish-democratic equation… Moreover, we never predicted the evil effects of brutally controlling another people against their will.
The key word in this text is “we.” Who is “we?” Jewish Israelis thought a lot about Palestinian Israeli citizens, but they mostly thought of how to exclude them from the state’s protection, and this was no less true in the 1950s and 1960s than it is today. It was during that period, after all, that massive amounts of Palestinian land were confiscated from citizens, and – as mentioned above –military rule was imposed on them. Few Israelis may have warned about the dangers of the 1967 occupation (mainly because most supported it), but the prediction was certainly made at the time, if one wanted to listen.
Nonetheless, there was a group, to which Burg clearly belonged, that never gave much thought to these issues and never predicted what was to come. These were the people who willfully ignored what was going on, and many of them did so for the U.S. as well as Israel. It is that willful ignorance which has brought us here.
Now, when the world’s aesthetic standards for democracy are a little higher, and Israel’s public figures are a lot less eloquent, the New York Times and Israelis like Burg are startled. They shouldn’t be. Nor should they believe that “a nondemocratic Israel, hostile to its neighbors and isolated from the free world, wouldn’t be able to survive for long.” So far, the country’s nondemocratic character and its hostility towards neighbors have not caused the “free world” to sever its ties; and after 64 years, the Israeli model seems as sustainable as ever.
The problem is not Israel’s resilience – right now, at an all time peak – but rather its moral character and just conduct. In order to change it, one must first recognize that the problem runs much deeper than a recent, sharp and unexpected anti-democratic turn; and that the US has never played the role of a shining humanistic beacon to which Israel aspires, and is unlikely to play such a role in the future.
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Prometheus
@Ahad
The real Ahad Haam would be ashamed of you.
In your oh-so-nice-and-righteous theory you are conveniently skipping some historical events while blatantly lying about others.
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As of Palestinian national inspirations – the Palestinian nation has de-facto arisen around 1967 and as any other nation they indeed have rights for the country of their own.
However since they have never had any country before they have to accept what is given by the international community, regarding other nation’s interests.
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Eventually the Palestinians are going to realize and accept this simple fact – not only them have a right for the country.
Ahad Haadam
Prometheus, please tell me how on the Zionist planet the fact that “they didn’t have a country” allows Jews from Europe to ethnically cleanse them and confiscate their houses and property?
Jack
Richard Witty,
Of course nationalism “isnt bad” if you love ethnic pure nations. Especially in this case is nationalism very bad since there were already people living on the land.
“self governing” funny, here you come demanding a state for a certain people, then you deny the same right for palestinans, only urging “self governing”.
berl
Prometheus,
you don’t have any clue about the topic. The real Ahad Haam, first of all, would be surprised by your ignorance.
Please read H. GERBER, Remembering and Imagining Palestine, Palgrave, New York 2008, and then come back and try to write something useful.
Ahad Haadam
Not only he is ignorant, he is also trying to co-opt the international community in a clear deception. If Zionists had any regard for the international community, the Jewish State would be along the partition lines, the refugees would be repatriated and there wouldn’t be a single settlement beyond the green line. But here comes the man with the gun, Prometheus, and declares his wishes to be those of the international community…
Richard Witty
Nationalism has nothing to do with “purity”. That is a straw man formula.
ALL national orientations have some that are “us” and some that are “them”, each by different definitions.
To retain their democratic character, national and democratic states have to afford equal rights to all in a color blind manner, equal due process before the law. NO state does so perfectly. Literally NONE. There are too many definitions of what that would mean, so it is even theoretically impossible.
Therefore, the relation between equal rights/due process, and democracy is a question of degree with an inherent tension, requiring reminder of the importance of the equal due process element.
Palestinian definition of nation sometimes includes Israelis, sometimes includes Jews, sometimes excludes, depending on who you are talking to and what their emotional state is.
It is sickening to me to hear advocates of Palestinian equal rights advocate in any way for less than equal rights for Jews that currently reside in Israel or even in Palestine, even the settlers.
Ahad Haadam
In Hebrew we call this the “robbed Cosack”, an apt allegory: an apartheid state that is committing ethnic cleansing and holding millions of people without basic rights for generation is crying foul, even “sickened” at the thought that the same rights they apply to Jews should be applied to gentiles, as if we are calling to put Jews under military occupation.
Jack
Richard Witty,
Nationalism is a view that base its argument on things that connect a certain group of people (ethnicity, religious etc). In such a state there is no space for people belonging to another ethnic or religious group. And as history have showed extreme nationalism is not something good.
Prometheus
“how on the Zionist planet the fact that “they didn’t have a country” allows Jews from Europe to ethnically cleanse them and confiscate their houses and property?”
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These historic events are not connected.
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Palestinians were cleansed due to one simple reason – their hostility towards Jews.
Ahad Haadam
Planet Israel, so you believe ethnic cleansing should be made acceptable and legal if the population is hostile to you? Does anywhere in international law it says “ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity, except when the population is hostile?”
What if the population is hostile to others, such as Germans?
Jack
Promoethus,
So palestinians have the right to invade Israel if they want, and if the israelis show “hostility toward palestinians” they have the right to ethnically cleanse them?
Where do you found your legal arguments? Middle ages? Because apparently you reject that ethnic cleansing is a grave crime and have been for atleast 60 years.
Prometheus
@Berl – I see. So that’s why they turned down the partition plan and rejected the Jews right to have own state. Too bad that the members of UN counsel did not read the book back in 1948.
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@Ahad Haam
If Palestinians had any regard for the international community they would accept the partition plan and would have their own state couple generations ago.
Richard Witty
“In such a state there is no space for people belonging to another ethnic or religious group. And as history have showed extreme nationalism is not something good.”
You are again applying the strawman argument equating nationalism with “national purity”. There is no requirement that a nation will adopt a “national purity”. That is a choice made or not, a policy made or not.
I agree with you that extreme nationalism is bad.
Israel is actually a case in point in which ethnic minorities within Israel do have mostly equal due process before the law. I agree that that is not good enough, but that is the effort to reform, not revolution.
Ahad Haadam
And that’s when you realize that Planet Israel has left the bounds of the solar system. It is now floating in space, where earthly rules and logic do not apply.
Jack
Richard Witty,
Then you obviously dont know what nationalism is. Israel called the “jewish state” which clearly implies purity along ethnic and religious lines.
Prometheus
Jack,
“So palestinians have the right to invade Israel if they want, and if the israelis show “hostility toward palestinians” they have the right to ethnically cleanse them?”
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Well, they certainly have a right to try to do that, and they are surely exercising this right every now and than. For the partial list of attempts see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_in_Israel
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“Where do you found your legal arguments? Middle ages? Because apparently you reject that ethnic cleansing is a grave crime and have been for atleast 60 years.”
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So Middle Ages or mere 60 years? You got to make up your mind.
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Ethnic cleansing was perfectly legal throughout the history of humanity until very recently and still remains widely accepted and practiced.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing#1940s
Palestinian Arabs have tried to ethnic cleanse Jews more than once so it’s only natural that they are now receiving the treatment they were trying to subject others to.
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They rejected Jews all and any rights but could not stand their ground and now are complaining and whining. Palestinian refugees have no more rights than any of other refugee groups – and certainly no right to return – as no other refugee group have.
Rejection of statehood has it’s prices. Their leaders should have known better.
Prometheus
“Then you obviously dont know what nationalism is. Israel called the “jewish state” which clearly implies purity along ethnic and religious lines.”
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What YOU obviously don’t know is that anyone has right to became a Jew, so speaking of ethnic purity is pure stupid. As of religious lines – you obviously have no problem with Islamic states – like Saudi Arabia or Iran, neither you have a problem with the Christian states, such as Costa Rica, Liechtenstein, Malta, Monaco, Vatican, Greece, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and numerous others.
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It’s only a Jewish state which would not let you sleep – oh these bad bad Jews, they can’t have a country to live in, can they?
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You are just so full of it, dude…
berl
Prometheus,
what you have written now is not connected to your previous post.
In any case the palestinians had all the right to reject a resolution that gave to them the 42 of the total land (ok, israel got the negev, but also almost all the coastal plan), although they were until few years before the 9/10 of the total population.
The fact that that was an unacceptable imposition does not mean that the jews did not have the right to have their own state. there is not any contradiction at all.
“Too bad that the members of UN counsel did not read the book back in 1948″: once again study better the issue.
The counsel never took any decision. It was only the general assembly – i.e. the US and the states under their influence – that suggested the partition. in fact it was not at all a binding resolution.
Jack
Promotheus,
No not everyone is considered a jew, even though what does that have to do with anything? Nationalism is still there, even your argument hold that absurd view. Basically ‘if you dont convert you must leave this place’, which just prove the absurdity with nationalism in 2012. It doesnt work.
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The question were how reasonable it was to justify a nationalistic idea on top of another people. As far as Iran and european states they have immigration for all kinds of people (and there is no christian states). On the aftermath of the Iraqwar and also Afghanistan war both Iran and european states have accepted millions of immigrants, how many did Israel accept? Get my point about purity?
Ahad Haadam
Why do you even bother addressing someone who claims that ethnic cleansing is legal if the cleansed population is “hostile” (of course, as long as the ethnically cleansed population is not Jewish..)? As I said before, these guys live on a different planet that is floating in space. You will have more luck reaching common ground with a rock.
Ahad Haadam
Products of Zionist indoctrination, subscribing to the dogma that Jew=victim therefore anything that a Jew does is justified.
Richard Witty
“Then you obviously dont know what nationalism is. Israel called the “jewish state” which clearly implies purity along ethnic and religious lines.”
Hard to know why you didn’t acknowledge that I spoke of nation-formation and application as distinct from “nationalism”.
That’s why I call your response straw-man, rather than reasoned.
There is nothing necessarily pure/exclusive in a nation, say one that Avram Burg supports, Israel.
If it adopts such purist views, it is a choice (a bad one), but one that can be changed without changing the nature of the state.
Why the assumpation of binary limits to the basis of people’s association? Only Good/bad is 7 year old logic.
Jack
Richard Witty,
Becuase Nationalism is all about the formation of a state. You cant take the nation out of the nationalism.
Richard Witty
Loopy Jack. You must be an anarchist then to find all nations by definition offensive.
By that same token then, Palestine would be a gross abuse of human rights. Then France would be a gross abuse of human rights. Then every state on the planet would be a gross abuse of human rights.
And, Palestine would be the first test of a nation that is somehow not a nation.
Its a flawed definition. Maybe it works in your mind, but it doesn’t work in the minds of the vast majority of people on the planet that are participants in democratic nations.
Jack
Richard,
Like I said you apparently dont know what nationalism is. You might be looking for another word though.
Most states were indeed brute when they are created often hundreds of years ago. Today however these states have developed, for one they doesnt refuse immigrants entry just because they dont belong to the “correct” ethnic/religious group.
Gil Franco
The idea that the Arabs in Palestine (and elsewhere) rejected partition because the details were unfair to them is a crude cover for their obvious chauvinism. Tellingly, they suggested no fairer alternative as they were opposed in principle to any Jewish sovereignty. The 47 plan did not require a single Arab or Jew to move or lose his house or land. Both states were to have large minorities from the other community. The notion that underlies the Arab rejection, that there is something offensive about Arabs being a minority is Jewish polity, is unadulterated ethnic supremacism.
Richard Witty
Nationalism varies. To make “nationalism” of only one caricature stripe, is to misrepresent it, rather than to represent it.
What do you think of Palestinian nationalism?
Gil Franco
Does anywhere in international law it says “ethnic cleansing is a crime against humanity, except when the population is hostile?”
“What if the population is hostile to others, such as Germans?”
In fact, many millions of Germans were what you call “ethnically cleansed” around the same time as Arabs in Palestine left or were forced to leaved. So were tens of millions Poles, Finns, Greeks, Turks, Indians, Pakistanis etc. You must be busy trolling around the internet denouncing the nationalism of the countries they left on other websites.
berl
Gil Franco
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1) “million of Germans” were expelled fro the sudetes, i.e. not from 400 of their most important cities/villages. although traumatic, they had moreover a huge state, germany, were to go. palestinians on the contrary didn’t have another palestine where to move. So please don’t make these groundless comparisons.
2) With your colonialistic logic israel should today annex all the settlements and the by pass roads (i.e. a big majority of the West Bank) just because no palestinian would be expelled from there.
3) No one asked to the Palestinians to accept or to reject anything in 1947, as well as in 1917 and 1922. but, if they would ask them, they had all the right to reject it.
4) In the planned Israeli state there was almost a 50%/50% between the 2 populations. But while one in big part just arrived from other continents the other was in the region since centuries. From the point of an indigenous this is not easy to accept. Why a palestinian was supposed to accept that unfair imposition is a mistery to me and to all the persons that don’t live on the zion-planet. This does not mean that the Jews didn’t deserve or need to have a state on the post. Once again, there is not any contradiction in it.
5)The Palestinians simply tried to defend their own environment and the natural resources that they needed for their present and future. More or less like the present day Palestinians in the OPT.
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6) once again, why a population that until few years before represented less than 1/10th of the total people on the spot was supposed to receive the 58% (included negev, but also almost all the coastal plan) of the total land subjected to the partition? Is it fair? If you were a palestinian you would have accepted it? I doubt, strongly.
Ahad Haadam
Gil Franco – yet another “genius” – the Palestinians rejected partition just like anybody would reject partition of his homeland with colonial immigrants who were not even born in the country. in 1947 around 90% of the Jewish population was not even born in Palestine, including all the “founders”/ethnic cleansers.
Try to imagine a UN resolution to partition France between the French and the Muslim immigrants who have immigrated in the last 20-30 years (and these are legal immigrants, as opposed to Zionist colonial immigrants who immigrated against the will of the population under the British gun, and are therefore technically invaders).
/End of discussion with you, as you proved ignorant to boot – repeating Zionist talking points without a shred of thought.
Jack
Richard,
Equally problematic but not as problematic because like other states they would most likely not ban non arabs from living in their state. Thats the difference.
Jack
Gil Franco,
No ethnic cleansing is never ok.
And people that were cleansed during the world war was allowed to return. Thats the difference.
berl
“And people that were cleansed during the world war was allowed to return. Thats the difference.”
That’s not true Jack. At least not always. Many were not allowed.
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The real point is that germans could resettle in Germany as well as the other populations. Of course it was traumatic also for them. But it is not comparable to what happened to the palestinians that lost most of their villages and didn’t have another Palestine, big for example such as Pakistan of Germany, where to resettle.
Riuchard Witty
Jack,
Not sure what you are responding to above.
Peace is in the present, NOT in the past. The only way to even tokenly remedy the past is through some future-oriented development compensation plan.
You know, for the children and future children.
Gil Franco
Berl, with all due respect, you make distinctions that are without a difference. Of course, they had another Palestine to go to, what is now the West Bank and Gaza as well as all the neighboring countries which are very close culturally. The fact that they were not necessarily welcomed in those places the same way other refugees were in Europe and South Asia merely begs the question. Why losing Jaffa while keeping Nablus Hebron and half of Jerusalem is not comparable to losing Breslau, Konigsberg or Izmir is part of some calculus only known to you.
Gil Franco
By the way, a main point I was trying to make about the ’47 partition plan was that it didn’t require the Arabs or the Jews to “lose” anything. Individuals from both communities got keep their homes and property in both states. The losses resulted from the rejection of the plan and subsequent war. There did not need to be a single refugee from either community.
Gil Franco
And another thing, I don’t think there is really anything to disagree with in Roi’s column. Well said.
Jack
Gil Franco,
But palestinians didnt want to tear up the land, why would they and why wasnt this accepted by the other side?
Gil Franco
Jack, the Arabs should have accepted the partition because it was better for them than all the available alternatives. The Jews were (mostly) in favor because, as they saw it, they were determined to exercise self determination in their historical homeland.
Jack
Gil,
The other alternative, the one palestinians proposed would obviously been the best alternative for palestinians. Why wasnt this accepted?
Ahad Haadam
From my experience with Zionists (heck, I used to be one myself) is that they cannot grasp the fact that Jews in Palestine are/were colonial immigrants, not different from European settlers in North American or South Africa. Why is that? Because they accept the Zionist arch-myth of “expulsion and return” as fact. They simply cannot understand that there is no such thing as “return of a nation to its historic homeland” after 2000 years. An INDIVIDUAL person would need to produce a property deed from 2000 years ago and prove that it was confiscated from him and he was expelled (as opposed to having sold his house and immigrated) in order to be granted the right to return. A “nation” certainly does not have this right. The need for the use of “nation” to claim rights that individuals would never dream of is just a ruse created to justify colonial dispossession. That is of course unique to Zionism because none of the other colonial settlers ever had the chutzpah to claim “national rights to the land” by people who were no more and no less colonial immigrants from Europe, settled in Palestine by the greatest colonizer of all times: Great Britain.
berl
Gil Franko,
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I “make distinctions that are without a difference for you”, but for the Palestinians they make/made a huge difference.
The “neighbouring countries” are not Palestine. If you study the writing of al-din al ramli in the XVI cent. (“filastin biladuna”=filastin our land), the nabi musa festival, or the dabkha or many hundreds of other things, you will understand how offensive is for a palestinian to hear that he is/was supposed to move in lebanon or in a land that has no historical, cultural and religious value (jordan).
It is offensive expecially because the request usually comes from people born and raised in other continents: persons that often apply in a selective way their holy scriptures.
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As for 1948, Israeli/Jewish forces occupied 5 mixed cities, 9 fully Arab cities and 500 enterely Arab villages. Afterward Israel razed to the ground 400 of these 500 villages and distributed that land. The expulsions have deprived of their home 750,000 Pals, Christians and Muslims.
You propose that most of this people were supposed to resettle in Jordan and then you say that you don’t understand why I tell you that for a German is not exactly the same to lose Breslau and to resettle in their big country: Germany. 500 villages razed and “judaized” is something astonishing that you will not find in other contexts.
for example the palestinian village of Bayt Dajan became Beit Dagan, the kibbutz “Sasa” was created on the ruins of “Sa’sa’”, “Amka’” on the Palestinian village of “Amqa”, the moshav “Elanit” (“oak tree” in Hebrew) was built on “al-Shajara” (tree in arabic)…ect…ect..
Please tell me where you can find something like that in relation to the other contexts that you mentioned and why the palestinians deserved such a treatment just because they didn’t accept the 42% of their land
…
“it didn’t require the Arabs or the Jews to “lose” anything”: are you serious? the palestinians were supposed to get 42% of the historical palestine, without almost the entire coastal plan and they were until few years before the 9/10th of the total population. Do you really think that this is nothing?
Perhaps nothing for people that come from other continents and get the land almost as a gift, but not for the indigenous population.
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The losses was already there in 1917, al well in 1922 and 1947: 3 key years in which no one bothered to ask anything to the 9/10 of the local population, the one that ironically the british and the mandate text called “the non jewish population in Palestine”.
berl
Gil Franko
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PS
The Haifa case (included by the non binding resolution of 1947 in the “Jewish state”):
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“In 1854, Haifa had a population of 2,070 Arabs (1,200 Muslims, 870 Christians) and 32 Jews.
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Under the British Mandate Haifa District was then home to approximately 20,000 inhabitants, 96 percent of them Arabs (82 percent Muslim and 14 percent Christian), and four percent Jews.
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By 1945 the population had shifted to 53 percent Arab (33 percent Muslim, 20 percent Christian) and 47 percent Jewish.”
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Today of course all the palestinians would pay in order to go back and accept such an imposition. But at the time it looked, rightly, so unfair that could not be accepted passivily.
Gil Franco
Beryl, keep ignoring the point and perpetuate the rejectionism that has gotten the Palestinian Arabs to the sad place they are today. Under the partition plan, Arabs got to keep every square inch of land that they owned in Palestine. Some of them with their land were to be included in a Jewish majority state and would still be there if the war had not been launched. That this was unacceptable to the Arabs was nothing more that Arab chauvinism which you obviously support. No one had to leave their home to go anywhere under the plan. When they lost the war and became refugees they could have been absorbed in other parts of the homeland (just as the Jewish refugees of the Old City, the Etzion Block were) and the neighboring countries were. The West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza are part of Palestine, right?
Ahad, with the fake name, you were supposed to be ignoring me, remember? The thing about self determination is that a people gets to make that determination for themselves. That is why it is called self determination. That you don’t think Jewish claim’s to self determination aren’t up to snuff are wholly irrelevant to what Jews determine for themselves. As Mr. Maor points out, Israel is prospering as never before, and as far as they are concerned you can go pound sand.
Richard Witty
Ahad Haadam,
Your interpretation of Zionism is a somewhat of a strawman argument.
You are dialoging with a theme that you are arguing with, while that theme is NOT the basis of the current right for Israel to be Israel.
The current basis of Israel even as guaranteed Jewish majority state, is self-governance.
If you are a believer in democracy then you will afford the current residents of the Israeli jurisdiction, the right to self-govern.
Simple.
What happened in the past, how we got to this moment, is interesting, and certainly there are many material unresolved claims, that deserve the light of day and remedy.
But, democracy is in the present, not in the past. To deny the current majority in the jurisdiction the right to self-govern, is to commit an abuse on democracy in the present, in your own life, by your own words and actions.
To deny Palestinians the right to self-govern is an abuse of democracy.
To deny Israelis the right to self-govern is as well.
By any implication, or emphasis.
Ahad Haadam
No, Richard. I do not warrant Jews a right to “self govern” on a land they ethnically cleansed. No matter how you try to spin this, you will not avoid the facts. No person should lose his home and village because of the invented “right of colonial immigrants to self govern” that you take as dogma. With this, I end the conversation with you.
Just let us know what things look like from outside the solar system.
Gil Franco
Richard, Ahad promises to end conversations but never does. He knows that the Arabs in Palestine lost their homes because they refused to recognize the Jews’ right to self determination, started a war designed to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its native Jews, and rather than have both their own state in Palestine and live in the Jewish state as well. He also finds it appalling that the Jews buried evidence of their unbroken inhabitation of Palestine under all those mosques and Arab villages.
Richard Witty
One definition of persecution is to punish the children for the sins of their fathers.
It is definitively a reverse racism, as odd as that may sound to him.
It is the basis of all reactionary ideology “you were not invited here”.
But, even the interpretation of colonialism, betrays the definition of what colonialism is. Colonialism is NOT the desire to settle in a place, or even to conquer it and settle.
Colonialism is an external economic relationship of an elite class in a foreign state that never comes to reside en masse in a locale.
The hired soldiers, the hired administrative assistants of the colonial elite, are NOT colonialist. They are working class, struggling, innocent. Even those that voluntarily migrated simply to make a living in a place that they considered safe, even the most safe of any available, are not colonists.
The invocation of colonialism is a reactionary ideology, by definition, a means to selectively deny equal rights in the present, to an ethnic or other group (for any basis).
NOONE in any place in the world today, is “original”. The Palestinians included. Everyone migrated from somewhere, in some recent period, as human life is a response to social and environmental conditions.
From outside the solar system, the best that can be done is healing. That includes mutual forgiveness and restoration of health.
Both of those are not being done, but the retributive ideology prohibits them from getting done. Who will trust someone that damns whole societies, when restoration of the societies is possible?
berl
GIL FRANKO,
You write: “Some of them with their land were to be included in a Jewish majority state and would still be there if the war had not been launched. That this was unacceptable to the Arabs was nothing more that Arab chauvinism which you obviously support.”
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My answer:
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Weizmann to Balfour, 4th may 1918:
“The Arabs who are superficially clever and quick witted, worship one thing, and one thing only – power and success. [...] The British Authorities [...] knowing as they do the treacherous nature of the Arab, they have to watch carefully and constantly that nothing should happen which might give the Arabs the slightest grievance or ground of complaint. [...] The present state of affairs would necessarily tend towards the creation of an Arab Palestine, if there were an Arab people in Palestine. It will not in fact produce that result because the fellah is at least four centuries behind the times, and the effendi (who, by the way, is the real gainer from the present system) is dishonest, uneducated, greedy, and as unpatriotic as he is inefficient.”
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Please tell me why the Palestinians were supposed to accept without saying anything that immigrants from other continents that considered them as Weizmann wrote to Balfour few lines above, were supposed to accept your peaceful plan without saying anything. Just in order to make you feel better?
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To compare “the Old City, the Etzion Block” to 750.000 refugees is like to compare in soccer maccabi haifa to barcelona.
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“the neighboring countries” were never palestine. Read Haim Gerber, Remembering and Imagining Palestine, Palgrave 2008, because your ignorance on this aspect is quite deep.
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The point is that the zionist succeded to buy the 6% of the total palestine and go more than 55% of teh total land. While the population that few years before represented the 9/10 of the total persons on the spot got the 42%, with JErusalem as an “interational area”. If this is normal for you is not my problem.
Gil Franco
I am only boring everybody here with another comment so that I can be the 100th. I promise it will be my last, and you can believe me unlike the fake Ahad Ha’am.
Rather than keep their homes in Jaffa, Haifa and numerous village, the Arabs in Palestine with the assistance of their compatriots from the neighboring countries, they launched a war that killed fully one percent of the Jewish population of Palestine, equivalentt to 700,000 Brits or 3 million Americans. They preferred this course of action to suffering the indignity of living in a Jewish majority state in part of the country. Fortunately this chauvinism seems to have diminished on their part. Evidence of this can been seen in the loud objections by Israeli Arabs whenever the subject of attaching Arab communities in Israel to the future Palestinian Arab state. It gives me hope that these immoral and self-defeating attitudes can be overcome and will no longer obstruct the creation of an Arab state as called for the in the partition plan.