Israel has gone to great lengths to remove mention of the Nakba – the Palestinian catastrophe of 1948 – from textbooks, public discourse, and the public space. But as state efforts to ban Nakba commemorations increase, so does interest in the issue, with more and more Israelis believing that dealing with the matter is a prerequisite to ending the conflict. This short clip surveys this year’s particularly dramatic Nakba Day events.
This video was produced by Israel Social TV, an independent media NGO working to promote social change, human rights, social justice and equality, and to mobilize its viewers towards activism.
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caden
Ok, fine, the “nakba” was the worst tragedy that has ever happened to a people. The holocaust, American indians, Rwanda, Cambodia, Nothing compared to the Palestinians. Israel is evil. Are we done now.
XYZ
I don’t agree that the the flight/expulsion of the Palestinians in the 1948 War has been expunged from the Israeli conciousness. Ever since the Oslo “process” got going, the refugee issue has been front and center and it is pretty clear to most Israelis that the Palestinians can not agree to a compromise peace with Israel because of it, i.e. the Arab side must insist of full Israeli acceptance of the right of return of the refugees.
The refugee issue has always been around and has been discussed publicly and all Israelis were aware of it. IT was a major issue at the UN in the 1950′s and President Kennedy pressed Prime Minister Ben-Gurion about it during BG’s visit to the US.
What has been rejected, rightly, by Israelis, both the government and the population, is the demand that Israel accept that it is somehow guilty of some sort of crime in being involved in flight/expulsion of the refugees. In other words, Israel is supposed to admit guilt in trying to survive the War of 1948 which the Arabs forced on it.
This situation is similar to one I heard regarding Japanese attitudes to the American use of the Atomic bombs against them in World War II. I heard an interview with a Japanese citizen who lived through that period and he said he was frequently hearing complaints from other Japanese that the Americans were guilty of some sort of crime in using the bombs. The interviewee would reply to those making the complaints with the following question: If Japan had the bomb first, would you have viewed it as justified in using it against the Americans? Almost all say “Yes”. So he then asked them what they are complaining about regarding the Americans dropping it first.
It is the same with the Palestinian refugees. In the War (i.e. jihad) that the Arabs started in order to thwart the partition of Mandatory Palestinian, the Arab side had every intention of slaughtering or driving out the Jewish population of the yishuv. They said so openly. Thus, Israelis have no reason to feel guilty that they prevented this happening and that the Arabs feared that the Jews would do to them what they were proclaiming they would do to the Jews.
sh
“Are we done now.”
Not yet, Caden. It has to be recognized by the state. Why should we have to scrabble and scratch in order to learn our own history when it could be taught in our schools and remembered alongside the joys, with the sorrow felt by those who have to struggle against police and Knesset bills to commemorate it? Hanin Zoabi said it. The Nakba’s our history not only hers.
Ahad Haadam
Caden, no, not done. It is not enough acknowledging the nakba in words but in actions: right of return and/or compensation.
XYZ, you are repeating Zionist mythology, which unfortunately most Israelis still believe, despite the fact that it has been thoroughly debunked by both Palestinian, foreign and Israeli historians!
Israel is guilt of the crime against humanity of ethnic cleansing, regardless of what and who started the conflict. Even if the Arab states “started the war against Israel” (myth), Israel would still be guilty of the crime of ethnic cleansing.
Read some independent books before forming your opinions on Zionist mythology, which is taught in Zionist schools.
sh
XYZ I don’t know how long you’ve been here or where you live, but I had no clue about the refugees for several decades and even when it dawned, the breadth of it still took a while. When it does finally sink in, you look at every stone you pass with different eyes for there is precious little near them that will relate their recent history. Interesting too that any attempts to remedy that by applying for or putting up a sign of your own are trashed and snatched in the wink of an eye. Even the rare mention put up by the JNF gets vandalized.
Richard Witty
1947-49 was not one war. It was at least two. One a triangular (or more) war between Palestinians, Zionists and British, then a more than triangular war between Zionist and land-grabbing Jordanian, Egyptian, Syrian organized armies.
There is no unified “Arab” war. That is an oversimplification.
As, the assertion that Zionists sought to remove all the Palestinians, and that all refugees were expelled by force, and that great-grandchildren of refugees that have been denied civil rights for 60+ years by Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Jordan for a period, have equivalent right of return status to exiles from say Bosnia, three years after the war there.
They are different assertions.
What should guide negotiations and dissent, is the effort to realize universal good, a healthy and democratic Palestine, and a healthy and democratic Israel, so that more than a self-appointing vanguard believe that they self-govern in a single state.
In a word, peace. (Peace meaning stability resulting from mutual health, not the word “quiet”, or “order” pretending to be mutual health).
The children born are a blank slate. They are innocent, not inheriting the political or moral sins of their fathers, by any interpretation.
They deserve a decent life. A present to future good life in their safe and loving home.
Its up to us that are adults to construct that good life, NOT to exagerate our fears, or our demands.
Ahad Haadam
Richard, you created a new, unique version of history which indicates complete ignorance despite your declared good intentions.
Richard Witty
Perhaps you can clarify what you mean Ahad Haadam.
What do you disagree with?
max
@SH, I can think of precedences in which peace was achieved by the winner hitting so hard that the loser understands that it’s better to accept reality; I can think of precedences in which the winner accepts his faults once it makes no difference; I can think of precedences of a population realizing the cost that its aggressive (maybe minority) population segment forced upon them.
But I can’t think of a precedence of peace being reached because the winner accepts its responsibility to the loser’s catastrophe.
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To compound the problem is the question of relative responsibility and how it compares to other, similar wars: did the Israeli side indeed act in ways that places it as below the accepted norm?
I think that the general judgement of educated people is that the Israeli side acted within the upper side of the norm.
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The problem the sides face is the incomparable way ‘the world’ managed the issue of the Palestinian refugees, which – I believe – has less to do with a genuine concern to the Palestinian people and more to do with Antizionism.
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I think that talking about the Nakba is counterproductive when trying to reach a compromise (in contrast to fact gathering for historical records), similar to the talk about the Jewish Rights for the ‘whole of Israel’, whatever is hiding behind the term.
Kolumn9
Nakba shmakba. Watched the video. The Arabs they got to talk about the issue basically suggested that ‘peace’, ‘co-existence’ and ‘building alternatives’ depends on accepting a narrative in which the creation and existence of Israel is an as yet uncorrected tragedy. Apparently winning a war where the other side wanted to destroy you is a sin and continuing to defend yourself is a tragedy.
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The Jews present are just useful idiots who think this is about history while like pretty much all historiography it is really about framing the present and the future. Once a society accepts that its self-identity is poisoned it will seek positive forms of identification elsewhere. This is precisely the point of all these commemorations and narratives – to undermine and delegitimize Israeli identity from the inside so as to cause people to seek alternatives to the Israeli identity and the state of Israel. Those societies whose identities are mired in eternal guilt have no future and this is what this Nakba narrative is about. It is purely political.
Richard Witty
Kolumn9,
I think you should have more confidence in what Israel is than to consider harming Palestinians unnecessarily for your fear of how Israel might be known.
If Israel acted with kindness AND firmness, rather than primarily firmness towards the Palestinians, the relationship would be much improved, both ways.
Still waiting for Ahad’s specific description of history that he disagrees with my description.
Richard Witty
The question of whether nakba was “tragedy” or “evil” is a very big one though.
As tragedy, remedy is possible. As described as evil, only warring is possible.
I don’t know anyone that would describe a state of war as more just or democratic than a state of consented compromise.
Kolumn9
Richard, Nonsense. The Palestinians are fighting against Israel in an ideological war for legitimacy. At its core is a demand for Israel to be eliminated. The Nakba commemorations are an explicit core component of the same narrative, and yes, the point of having large public events to mark it is to pursue the political delegitimization of Israel. The point is to paint Israel as “evil” and to paint any and all of its actions as illegitimate. It is part and parcel of the whole Israeli apartheid narrative whose goal is to mobilize both Jews and Arabs [ and outsiders ] under this narrative to look for ‘alternatives’ to Israel, which is a gentle way of calling for the dismantlement of the state in the interest of replacing it with something else. Notice that the same group of people promotes the idea of ‘Israeli Apartheid’, and often opposes the two state solution both in practice and in principle. The BDS campaign is the ‘practical’ arm of this movement. The purpose of this movement is not peace with Israel, but a mythical idealistic peace without Israel, or ‘after Israel’.
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As to firmness and kindness. Until there is some kind of negotiated settlement acts of kindness are considered either weakness or are accepted as expected or ‘just’. This is relatively normal given the perception of the Palestinians that Israel and all of its actions are illegitimate and the conflict is a zero-sum game.
max
K9, do you not think that more humane interaction between army /authority and Palestinian population would improve the relationship? Alternatively, do you think that group punishment is effective? Do you think that allowing young officers to implement policies – which are not known to you or I – affecting human lives is right?
In short: do you not think that – PA and Israeli dreamers aside – official Israel is always acting right?
If not, that I think that you should accept that Richard’s call, though no one can tell if effective, is the right direction to follow. Again, even if it won’t lead to peace.
Richard Witty
Kolumn9,
To the extent that Israel continues to expand, it is a zero-sum game relative to Palestine, and to understand that element as a zero-sum is realistic.
I know some that regard all Israeli actions as illegitimate, and some that understand the importance of compromise.
Ironically, by concluding that peace is not possible, and then that there is no action that you need to take to make peace, you are complicit with the Palestinian militants that you condemn.
You agree.
I personally acknowledge the tragedy of the nakba, more than the tragedy, particularly as it continues, and that too many rationalize it continuing as either a good or that they no other choice.
Its a poverty of character, not a strength, not a source of pride, to consider that one is incapable of constructing better relations, if not close friendship.
K9,
If one were to judge the whole of the society by what irritates (definitely said, but with no assessment as to what extent the value is held, or what alternative relations would be considered), then Israel would look very bad.
There are Kahanists in the region. There are people that burn mosques, olive groves, destroy homes.
From their actions and statements, are we to assume that all Israelis are fascists, or that worse that all Jews are?
I don’t that “all Palestinians are ….”, nor that “all Jews are ….”
I takes actually finding out for oneself, definitively NOT believing what one is told, whether by state, by media, by friends, by rabbis, by solidarity.
CigarButNoNice
How come the descendants of American cowboys are right as rain when they verbally acknowledge what their forefathers did to the Native Americans, and NOTHING BEYOND that verbal show of contrition, yet with the Israelis it is not enough that they acknowledge the Nakba, but they must pay through the nose with real, tangible stuff like the Right Of Return, State Of All Its Citizen and general commission of Jewpuku? Is that a double standard I smell?
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@Richard Witty: “Perhaps you can clarify what you mean Ahad Haadam.” You’re wasting your time. All the clarification from Ahad you’ll ever need is from his blog, where he calls Zionism a “Nazional Movement” (sic, with “z”). For this “Zionists = Nazis” adherent, no tactic is too foul to demonize the Jewish state.
sh
Max, can you think of a precedent for a small people that has not governed the country with which it is both identified and identifies itself for two thousand years, being handed part of it on a plate by an international body? I’m not sure there’s a precedent for a country that has no declared borders either. Following the order of the rest of your post:
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I think the general judgment of educated American people these days is based on Israeli doublespeak. The USA is afflicted by its own doublespeak which is why it is less troubled by it than other countries.
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The problem the sides face is the way Israel managed the issue of the Palestinian refugees and the way it erased the history of its internal refugees. The world was quite pro-Zionist from 1948 until 1967. Genuine concern for the Palestinian people is frequently connected to an equally genuine concern for Israel. We are making it increasingly difficult for our friends.
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Talking about the Nakba is actually the only way to reach a compromise and only when a compromise is reached will the ground be laid for a genuine peace. There is no shortcut. We have to deal with a core issue, which is that we chased people who had been living here for centuries from their towns and villages. We didn’t beat them in battle because most of them didn’t fight. And then we removed the evidence so that they would have nowhere and nothing to come back to. We have neighbors, we live in the Arab world. Our allies from afar cannot be expected to indefinitely defend a tiny people that imagines itself to be a villa in a jungle.
Ahad Haadam
cigarbutt, I have no problem calling Zionism a Nazional movement. If anything remotely resembling what Zionists have done (and are still doing) to Palestinians was done to Jews anywhere in the world, that state would be rightly called Nazi.
Also, there is no question that Nazism and Zionism sprout from the same seed which is European romantic nationalism, while Zionism, on an ideological level, is arguably worse because it set to create an ethno state through colonial immigration on a land populated by others. The Germans didn’t immigrate to Germany to ethnically cleanse the Jews and confiscate their property and land.
max
SH – I think that too many Israelis aren’t aware of the gratitude they owe the world’s nations for the creation of the Jewish Home. As I wrote above , I also think that treating the Palestinian population respectfully is right, regardless of the political outcome. But all this has nothing to do with the Nakba, especially as it is used as an alternative to the Jewish Home.
Ahad Haadam
Richard, I recommend you read Birth of the Refugee Problem, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine and The Gun and the Olive Branch. This is what these books establish (of course it is also corroborated by Palestinian historians). This is just in a nutshell, if you want to know more, you’d have to read them:
The arch-myth of expulsion and return has a sub-myth about “Arabs trying to throw Jews into the sea and Jews prevailing”. That myth was busted by modern Israeli historians (as well as Palestinian and foreign historians) who proved that the Jews in Palestine were by far militarily superior to the essentially defenseless native rural population, which enabled them to carry out the ethnic cleansing of Palestine with relatively little resistance. Moreover, this widely publicized myth tells how fledgling Israel heroically fights the armies of 5 Arab countries at once and prevails. Once again, the same Israeli historians proved that (a) the Arab countries (ruled by colonial nominated despots who reluctantly) sent small auxiliary forces at the pressure of their populace to come to the aid of the Palestinians in reaction to the ethnic cleansing by Jewish forces that was taking place in Palestine for some time (the ethnic cleansing campaign started in November 1947 while the first Arab states’ forces were sent in May 1948) (b) those forces that were sent were hardly a match, both numerically and by quality, to the well organized and armed Jewish forces, which had been trained by the British rulers of Palestine.
CigarButNoNice
@Ahad: “while Zionism, on an ideological level, is arguably worse”
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Just when I think I found the lowest of the low, comes a lower.
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Speaking of shared roots, maybe you should look in the mirror for the ties that bind Nazism, your Communism, and the Palestinians’ Islamism. The similarities uncovered when lifting the mask of the superficial differences is uncanny.
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Peace will come when the Arabs stop wishing to ethnically cleanse the Jews from their (Jews’) own land, Eretz Yisrael and none other no matter what you anti-Zionists say.
Ahad Haadam
cigarbutt, I see where you are coming from. “Eretz Yisrael”, “Jews’ land”, etc. with people like you I learned long time ago it is useless to debate.
CigarButNoNice
@Ahad:
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Because nothing says “fruitful debate” like your assertion that Zionism is worse than Nazism.
Richard SM
@Richard Witty, @XYZ
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‘The Gun and the Olive Branch’ David Hirst, London: Faber and Faber, 1977.
“The rise of the State of Israel – in frontiers larger than those assigned to it under the Partition Plan – and the flight of the native population was a cataclysm so deeply distressing to the Arabs that to this day they call it, quite simply, al-nakba, the Catastrophe. . . . Deir Yassin was, as Begin rightly claims, the most spectacular single contribution to the Catastrophe.
[Deir Yassin, an Arab town that had in fact refused to be used as a base for operations against the Jewish Agency by the foreign Arab volunteer force, was the site of a massacre of 250 innocent Arabs by the Jewish terrorist groups Irgun and the Stern Gang in April 1948.] In time, place and method it demonstrates the absurdity of the subsequently constructed myth [that Arab leaders had called on the Palestinian refugees to flee]. The British insisted on retaining juridical control of the country until the termination of their Mandate on 15 May; it was not until they left that the regular Arab armies contemplated coming in. But not only did Deir Yassin take place more than five weeks before that critical date, it also took place outside the area assigned to the Jewish State. It was in no sense a retaliatory action. . . .”
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‘The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: the Israel Defence Forces Intelligence Branch Analysis of June 1948,’ Benny Morris, Middle Eastern Studies, 1986.
“A great deal of fresh light is shed on the multiple and variegated causation of the Arab exodus in a document which has recently surfaced, entitled “The Emigration of the Arabs of Palestine in the Period 1/12/1947-1/6/1948. . . .” Dated 30 June 1948, it was produced by the Israel Defence Forces Intelligence Branch during the first weeks of the First Truce (11 June-9 July) of the 1948 war. . . . Rather than suggesting Israeli blamelessness in the creation of the refugee problem, the Intelligence Branch assessment is written in blunt factual and analytical terms and, if anything, contains more than a hint of “advice” as to how to precipitate further Palestinian flight by indirect methods, without having recourse to direct politically and morally embarrassing expulsion orders. . . . On the eve of the U.N. Partition Plan Resolution of 29 November 1947, according to the report, there were 219 Arab villages and four Arab, or partly Arab, towns in the areas earmarked for Jewish statehood – with a total Arab population of 342,000. By 1 June, 180 of these villages and towns had been evacuated, with 239,000 Arabs fleeing the areas of the Jewish state. A further 152,000 Arabs, from 70 villages and three towns (Jaffa, Jenin and Acre), had fled their homes in the areas earmarked for Palestinian Arab statehood in the Partition Resolution, and from the Jerusalem area. By 1 June, therefore, according to the report, the refugee total was 391,000, give or take about 10-15 per cent. Another 103,000 Arabs (60,000 of them Negev beduin and 5,000 Haifa residents) had remained in their homes in the areas originally earmarked for Jewish statehood. (This figure excludes the Arabs who stayed on in Jaffa and Acre, towns occupied by Jewish forces but lying outside the 1947 partition boundaries of the Jewish state.) . . . [The report] stress[es] that “without doubt, hostile [Haganah/Israel Defense Force] operations were the main cause of the movement of population. . . .” Altogether, the report states, Jewish — meaning Haganah/I.D.F., I.Z.L. and L.H.I. — military operations . . . accounted for 70 per cent of the Arab exodus from Palestine. . . . [T]here is no reason to cast doubt on the integrity of I.D.F. Intelligence Branch in the production of this analysis. The analysis was produced almost certainly only for internal, I.D.F. top brass consumption. . . . One must again emphasize that the report and its significance pertain only up to 1 June 1948, by which time some 300,000-400,000 Palestinians had left their homes. A similar number was to leave the Jewish-held areas in the remaining months of the war.”
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‘The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-51,’ Ilan Pappé, I.B. Tauris, 1992.
“The plan, inter alia, aimed at extending Jewish rule in Palestine. . . . from 1 April 1948 to the end of the war, Jewish operations were guided by the desire to occupy the greatest possible portion of Palestine. . . . By 15 May 1948, about 380,000 Palestinians had become refugees. By the end of the war the number was doubled and the U.N. report spoke of 750,000 refugees.”
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‘The Birth of Israel: Myths and Realities,’ Simha Flapan, New York: Pantheon, 1987.
“It wasn’t until April 30, 1948, two weeks before the end of the Mandate, that Arab chiefs of staff met for the first time to work out a plan for military intervention. Under the pressure of mounting public criticism, fueled by the increasingly desperate situation in Palestine – the massacre of Dir Yassin, the fall of Tiberias, the evacuation of Haifa, the collapse of the Palestinian forces, the failure of the A.L.A., and the mass flight of refugees – the army chiefs of the Arab states were finally compelled to discuss the deployment of their regular armies.”
XYZ
Ahad Ha’Adam-
Your rewriting of history is breathtaking. The “British-trained” Jewish forces. That’s a laugh! Yes, Orde Wingate gave training to some Hagana people that was very useful in defending the Yishuv against attacks by the Mufti’s armed gangs in the 1930′s but this was woefully inadequate for fighting the Arab forces that had tanks and artillery in 1948. Wingate was thrown out of the country by his British masters for his efforts. IT was the Arab armies, particularly Egypt, Iraq and Jordan that had British training.
It is true that some Jewish officers received training from the British as part of their service in the Second World War, but there was nothing systematic about it and it was for lower-level officers. That is why Ben-Gurion brought in the American David “Mickey” Marcus…because only he had the training to direct larger formations.
Did you forget that 6,000 Jews were killed in the war-1% of the entire population? That is hardly “overwhelming superiority”.
Ahad Haadam
XYZ, the facts speak for themselves: the Jewish forces were about double in number and vastly superior to the combined Arab forces so there was no “miracle” as some simple minded Jews were made to believe.
Even more importantly, the part where the Zionist fairy tale collapses is that Dir Yassin, the ethnic cleansing of Jaffa, Haifa and many other villages was BEFORE a single Arab state sent some measly forces to try to rush to the aid of the defenseless Palestinians and save whatever was left of Palestine.
XYZ
SH-
Your claim that the world was “pro-Zionist” up until 1967 needs to be clarified. What you mean by “the world” means “part of the European Social Democratic Left”. In case you have forgotten, during the 1950′s there was a constant drumbeat by the UN for Israel to return the refugees. President Eisenhower considered Israel nothing but a burden and a pain in the neck. Presidents Truman and Eisenhower refused to sell weapons to Israel. The only one who would during the 1950′s and early 1960′s was France because of its Algeria problem and then after 1962 when they had left Algeria they pretty much pulled the plug on arms sales…this is long before the official embargo that preceded the Six-Day War.
Before the Six-Day War (the then Jewish-owned) New York Times wrote in an editorial that it should be finally admitted that the creation of Israel was a mistake.
Yes, there were European and American Social Democrats who like Israel because of its supposed socialism and the kibbutz movement (which was already in decline) but to say Israel was “popular” around the world is quite a stretch. It was in 1967 when Israel showed its muscle and that Jews were no longer going to be pushed around and be eternal victims that Israel gained significant popularity around the world. The Progressive/Leftists assume that the best way to be popular around the world is to be a victim, which the Palestinians try to sell today even when they were the agressors (much like Germany afte World War I), but most people in the world respect people who stand on their own and are not pushed around and have self-respect.
Kolumn9
@RichardWitty The conflict would be seen as a zero sum game regardless of Israel’s actions in the West Bank. It has been zero sum for 100 years and I never suggested that seeing it thus is unrealistic or unreasonable. In fact it continues to be zero sum even within the green line.
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I like the quote that ‘some think Israeli actions as illegitimate and some support compromise’. The ideology of every Palestinian faction grants no legitimacy to Israel. Thus it is most certainly possible to generalize that Palestinians see Israel and her actions as illegitimate. Those that want to compromise are a subset of the Palestinians that don’t think they can win 100% in the zero sum game rather than those that think Israel is legitimate. Wonderful. You point to Kahanists which are a banned party in Israel and whose implicit representatives ( get less than 4% of votes. Great. I point you to Hamas and Islamic Jihad that actually WIN elections. Find me a Meretz among the Palestinians if you want to play the equivalence game. Find me a Labor Party. Find me any Palestinian party that openly accepts that Jews have a legitimate claim to any of the land. Good luck.
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The only way good relations can exist between Israel and the Palestinians under the present circumstances is if the Palestinians abandoned their demand for a state and accepted the status quo. As that is unlikely, so are good relations. To pretend otherwise is delusional.
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@Max, no I don’t think that ‘a more humane relationship’ between the Israeli army and the Palestinians would improve the relationship. The relationship on a day-by-day basis is perfectly cordial in the vast majority of interactions. At the same time, given the dynamic of the situation on the ground a better relationship is simply impossible. That dynamic is the Palestinian population demanding changes to the status quo and Israel not accepting the demands. Is Israel just in rejecting the demands? Yes. The Palestinians are not going to change the status quo except via negotiations and via accepting the validity of legitimate Israeli interests. Any policy that undermines such a stance is only going to prolong the conflict.
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Is collective punishment effective? It depends on what you call collective punishment and what you consider to be effective. For example, let’s say over the course of 3 years there is a high likelihood of a suicide bomber leaving the West Bank on the way to kill Jews. Is it collective punishment to set up checkpoints and build a wall to keep said suicide bombers out? My answer is no. It is a legitimate security precaution. Do the Palestinians see it as collective punishment? Certainly. A small group of militants are responsible while the vast majority of peaceful Palestinians suffer. Are such measures effective in preventing suicide bombings? Yes. Definitely.
sh
“The only one who would during the 1950′s and early 1960′s was France because of its Algeria problem and then after 1962 when they had left Algeria they pretty much pulled the plug on arms sales…”
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XYZ the French pulled the plug on arms sales only after 1967, and pretty sharpish. The planes that bombed the Egyptian airforce in June 1967 were Mirages and Mystères. Both Europe (and not necessarily only Western Europe) and the USA backed Israel even if they did grumble about the refugees a bit. And we had good relations with African countries, supplied aid to them, their leaders came to visit us.
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Perhaps you’d care to share the NYT piece you mentioned with us.
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“The Progressive/Leftists assume that the best way to be popular around the world is to be a victim, which the Palestinians try to sell today even when they were the agressors (much like Germany afte World War I), but most people in the world respect people who stand on their own and are not pushed around and have self-respect. ”
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You see everything in terms of victim or victor. There is a vast space between the two where most ordinary people live. That’s the place where people want to interact and get on with each other reasonably well. Take a look at where Israel is in the Global Peace Index 2012. Nine from the bottom out of a list of 158, just below Pakistan. Nice, huh?
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“but to say Israel was “popular” around the world is quite a stretch”
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I didn’t. I said the world was quite pro-Zionist.
Richard Witty
XYZ,
The sin of not doing what is possible, not taking the personal risk to make an effort, is a sin, a wrong.
I’ve met many that have hated (an imprinting of hatred that becomes unconditional or very difficult to reconsider) in both Palestinian and pro-Israeli advocacy.
I can’t site numbers. I don’t know how many Israelis hate Arabs as an unconditional attitude, or how many Palestinians hate Israelis or Jews in general.
Your 4% number is misrepresentative, probably intentionally so.
I often state, and I’ll state again, that there is an odd marriage, an unintended collusion, on the part of threatening Palestinian solidarity with threatening Israeli solidarity (not all are threatening), to stop reconciliation and peace.
There is a lot to distrust, but at most distrusting is void, a political ideology formation by silhouette rather than by construction.
Trust is built intentionally, even with risks. Thats what is called courage.
I suspect that in some ways you secretly like comments like Ahad’s that confirm that peace is “impossible”, when in fact it is merely distracted and neglected.
Richard Witty
Ahad,
I’ve read most of your “recommended” literature.
The significance of the nakba as an experience (a great disappointment, and an objective suffering) is undeniable to my mind. Experience is history. Even if we don’t want to see it, it still exists. If we are truly agents of the ONE, then we will act to make “HIS” sentiment the reality, intimate compassion for all living.
The significance of the nakba as an ideology is more sinister. It is simultaneously an attempt to deny the experience of the Jews and Israelis, including what they saw, heard, and read.
And, an attempt to form an official interpretation for the mobilization of denial of the other.
That Ilan Pappe indulged in historical misrepresentation (interpretation and editorial selection) in his “description”, is sad. The truth is compelling enough (to compassion as the original video referred).
The truth is that there were multiple opportunists in 47 – 49, that there were literally no holy, innocent victims in the conflict.
That describes that criticism of the “official” pro-Israeli caricature is a cheap shot. Its a straw-man invocation, a putting words into others’ mouths for malevolent ends.
sh
@K9 – “You point to Kahanists which are a banned party in Israel and whose implicit representatives ( get less than 4% of votes”
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Kach is the name of the banned party in Israel. Kahanists, however, are all over the show, including in our current coalition. Our Foreign Minister was a Meir Kahane supporter, MK Ben Ari is not ashamed of being Kahanist, neither are Marzel and Ben Gvir. Kahanist graffiti is scrawled all over the country, Kach T-shirts are still worn in our capital and don’t get anyone arrested, a whole host of notables attended the marking of the 20th anniversary of his death in 2010 which took place at one of Jerusalem’s poshest hotels. Posters go up in Jerusalem neighborhoods every fall advertising the annual commemorations of his assassination in Tapuah and precious few are torn down or defaced.
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http://www.jpost.com/Features/InThespotlight/Article.aspx?id=193556
““We’ve gone mainstream,” event organizer and prominent right-wing activist Itamar Ben-Gvir told the Post.
“You can even see this in the Knesset, Kadima and even the Labor Party are adopting the beliefs of Kahane. People used to be against Rav Kahane in the Knesset, treating him the same way they’re treating Hanin Zoabi, saying he was disgusting, he’s dangerous. And today they understand that all those things he said, he was right.”
The crowd chanted “The nation of Kahane lives” and “Kahane was right” and cheered wildly at videos of Kahane’s old speeches when he made statements like “Send the Arabs away!” “
XYZ
SH-
You apparently didn’t understand what I wrote about France. Michael Oren, in his book about the Six-Day War points out that France was drastically cutting back its arms sales BEFORE the embargo that it announced just before the war. The Mirage jets and other weapons you mentioned had been delivered earlier.
Interestingly enough, Olmert, among other “peace advocates” have adopted Kahane’s slogans. Kahane said there must be a forceable separation of populations. The only difference is that Olmert said he can’t throw Arabs out, so he would throw out Jews instead. On the occassions I encounter Kahanists I ask them if they are happy that the Left has adopted their philosophy. Gush Katif was the actual implementation of Kahane’s views.
XYZ
SH-
BTW-Israel has good relations with African countries again, Israel now also has good relations with India, Vietnam, China and Russia which was not the case before 1967 at all, so I don’t understand your claim that 1967 supposedly ruined everything for Israel.
sh
@XYZ – “Michael Oren, in his book about the Six-Day War points out that France was drastically cutting back its arms sales BEFORE the embargo that it announced just before the war.’
I’m glad you read Oren’s book so thoroughly and that you added that “just” to your “before the war”. Unlike Oren, I was here during that war, before it and also in its aftermath. If you don’t understand my claim and want clarification that may help you wean yourself from Oren, you could read this NYT piece, also from 2010:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/opinion/01bass.html
Richard Witty
Arguing over the “significance” of history is a distraction from the present.
Don’t get distracted. Keep your eye on the prize.
Ahad Haadam
Richard, you, like most Zionists are whitewashing the Nakba. The war crime (and crime against humanity) of ethnic cleansing was committed and the victim of that crime was the Palestinians and perpetrator was Jewish. Period. It’s not a narrative or “victimhood” but an undisputed historical fact that you are trying to obfuscate and trivialize.
The Nakba is not an “ideology”. If you were honest, would you claim that the Holocaust is a sinister ideology? Apparently, a crime to you is only one that is committed against Jews and which the world must commemorate and compensate. When Jews commit a crime against others, it becomes a “sinister ideology”. I can’t help but be disgusted at this duplicity and hypocrisy. Contact me when you grow a conscience.
Richard Witty
As I said Ahad. The experience of the nakba is undeniable. There is no rational nor moral basis to denying persons and communities their experience.
What is subject to discussion is the interpretation of the events. To claim that 1947-9 was only an Israeli, now escalated to Jewish, act of ethnic cleansing ignores three critical realities.
1. Ethnic cleansing of Jews from the West Bank was accomplished by the Palestinians, affirmed and completed by the Jordanians. During the 1948 war, there was a determined siege of Jerusalem, a siege not primarily on Zionists, but on the long-resident Palestinian Jewry that primarily resided in Jerusalem.
2. That following the 1948 war, the Arab population of then Israel comprised 18% of the total population of Israel, a significant minority. And, those 18% (now over 20%) do have nearly full civil rights in Israel proper. The issues that are often cited as discrimminatory are also areas that many Jewish Israelis that aren’t related to an administrator experience. (You want a building permit. Who do you know?)
3. That in actual documentation of every citation of indignity to Palestinians, of ethnic cleansing, there is some demonstratively documented qualification to each claim.
Deir Yassin for example.
The Irgun undertook a massacre. Orthodox neighbors of the Deir Yassin community confronted the Irgun (too late, obviously and sadly), and stopped the massacre from killing a hundred more.
Plan Dalet. Plan Dalet was NOT a roadmap to ethnic cleansing, so much as a contingency plan in a political circumstance.
Even the 49-51 laws prohibiting return, day in court, and then annexation of “abandoned” lands, existed in the context of formal repeated statements following the war by Palestinian exiles and solidarity of their less than benevolent intentions towards the Israeli/Jewish civilians in Israel (military or not). Confirmed by repeated and repeated incidents of snipering, shelling of towns.
The prohibition from return in that context was arguably not even a violation of international law, as the Geneva laws (1949, after the 1948 war), was set “following cessation of hostilities”.
Contact me when you grow a conscience.
You prove XYZ’s point. Is that your intention, to prove that hostilities have not ended yet even, that the Geneva laws then do not even yet apply?
Ahad Haadam
Great logic: you expel people and then blame them for being hostile and use it as an excuse to prevent them from returning to their homes, confiscate their lands, etc.
Hitler could have used a propagandist like you. Let’s see: Jews “started it” when Jewish lawyers implemented Versailles and Grynzpan shot Von Rath. Jewish hostility mandated that we expel all Jews from Germany, confiscate their property and prevent their return.
BTW, my Jewish grandmother was in the old city of Jerusalem – not a hair on their head was touched as she had lived in peace with her Arab neighbors long before the Zionist invasion which mandates that a Jew cannot live peacefully with an Arab. She was evacuated by Jewish forces, but she was never at risk of anything.
Either way, I do not hold double standard like yourself, I believe that every person whether Jewish or Palesinian should get their property and residence back that they have lost in a war. These are also the rules of the Geneva Convention which you try to subvert in your favor to deny the obvious: that Israel prevents refugees rights because of demographic concerns, not security ones. If you deny this, you might as well write a book on how water is actually dry or the sun is cold.
Ahad Haadam
The worse people I know are ones like yourself who pretend to understand the Palestinian plight but are in essence propagandists for the state of Israel who provide the fig leaf for its endless violations and abuses.
max
@AH – “my Jewish grandmother was in the old city of Jerusalem – not a hair on their head was touched”
And I know of a Palestinian family who stayed in their house and have never been bothered since
.
Richard brought up some interesting reasoning based on facts and cause & effect considerations, and all you can say is “you expel people and then blame”?
Richard Witty
Ahad,
A conscience requires respect for all person’s rights, in EVERY setting.
You ill-serve good intent by one-dimensional reasoning. It prohibits decisions, instead relying on conformity to an overly simplistic party line.
And, it throws Israeli democracy to the wind, in the renunciation of efforts to persuade for a plausible mutual benefit.
Mikesailor
For Richard W. in his attempt to whitewash the past; and XYZ, K-9 and the deniers of history, some appropriate quotes on your use of hackneyed hasbara to defend the ‘Jewish’ state and Zionism:
We must expel Arabs and take their places.”
– David Ben Gurion, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.
“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”
– David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.
“There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
– Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp. 121-122.
“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”
– David Ben Gurion, quoted in The Jewish Paradox, by Nahum Goldmann, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1978, p. 99.
“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country.”
– David Ben Gurion, quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.
“If I knew that it was possible to save all the children of Germany by transporting them to England, and only half by transferring them to the Land of Israel, I would choose the latter, for before us lies not only the numbers of these children but the historical reckoning of the people of Israel.”
– David Ben-Gurion (Quoted on pp 855-56 in Shabtai Teveth’s Ben-Gurion in a slightly different translation).
David Ben Gurion
Prime Minister of Israel
1949 – 1954,
1955 – 1963
____________________________________________
And then there are these gems showing the ‘modern’ Zionist thinking. Without the ‘excuse’ of Palestinian demands or imminent ‘war’ from the outside. Much as Sharon’s formulation of the exit from Gaza: to ‘freeze’ the ‘peace process’ doe the settlement and complete subjugation of the West Bank:
“There is no such thing as a Palestinian people… It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.”
– Golda Meir, statement to The Sunday Times, 15 June, 1969.
“How can we return the occupied territories? There is nobody to return them to.”
– Golda Meir, March 8, 1969.
“Any one who speaks in favor of bringing the Arab refugees back must also say how he expects to take the responsibility for it, if he is interested in the state of Israel. It is better that things are stated clearly and plainly: We shall not let this happen.”
– Golda Meir, 1961, in a speech to the Knesset, reported in Ner, October 1961
“This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy.”
– Golda Meir, Le Monde, 15 October 1971
As you can see, the Zionist have never been interested in a ‘peaceful coexistence’ with the Palestinians, not then and not now. Any other whitewashing is merely that: putting the proverbial ‘lipstick on a pig’. Tell me Richard, what was the sanction imposed by the state of Israel on the killers at Deir Yassin? I seem to remember that Menachem Begin was elected to the Prime Minister-ship of Israel. And what of the countless other thefts, killings and maimings of civilians? None as far as I can tell. What Israeli democracy? A democracy for Jews and a ‘Jewish’ state for everyone else? Grow up Richard.For to paraphrase Faulkner: The past is not really past. For me, the most galling part of this mess is that it continues. The Israeli Jews continue with the ‘ethnic cleansing’ and brutality with nary a sanction is sight. So, what are you defending with denial or belittlement of the Nakba?
Richard Witty
MikeSailor,
Its a misrepresentation, lie, to quote out of context.
Ben-Gurion was no angel, and neither was Golda Meir, but the context of Zionism was a war, and for survival.
Begin was a terrorist, no question and absent a state of war should have been disqualified from running.
As to elect Marwan Barghouti currently would be to elect a former terrorist.
Following the rationally vigorous war for Israeli survival, now that Israel is strong, there is no excuse for current cruelty. (There are real and undeniable bases for defense.)
It takes skill and genuine humanity to distinguish.