“The Arabs started the war” has been a long-standing Israeli argument against the commemoration and amendment of the wrongs of the Nakba. But the truth is that the Nakba is what happened during and after the war – not how it began.
This really isn't a "who started" kinda fight. Photo by Claud334/Flickr
Shlomo Avineri has an op-ed in Haaretz this weekend, rather misleadingly proclaiming that “The truth should be taught about 1948.” The gist can be summed up in two words, “they started,” but for fairness’ sake, here are the arguments Avineri presents in support of this contention:
On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany invaded Poland. That is truth, not narrative. On December 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked and destroyed the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor. That is truth, not narrative… Not every claim in the German narrative [of territorial claims against Poland] was baseless, but the factual truth is clear: On September 1, 1939, it was Germany that attacked Poland, not Poland that attacked Germany… It’s impossible to ignore the fact that the American and British attitude contained a whiff of white racism against the rising “yellow” power in East Asia. But the truth is that on December 7, 1941, it was Japan that attacked the U.S., not the U.S. that attacked Japan.
Alongside the Israeli-Zionist claims regarding the Jewish people’s connection to its historic homeland and the Jews’ miserable situation, there are Palestinian claims that regard the Jews as a religious group only and Zionism as an imperialist movement. But above and beyond these claims is the simple fact – and it is a fact, not a “narrative” – that in 1947, the Zionist movement accepted the United Nations partition plan, whereas the Arab side rejected it and went to war against it. A decision to go to war has consequences, just as it did in 1939 or 1941.
And so on, and so forth. The problem with Avineri’s answer to the question of “who’s to blame for the beginning of the war in 1948″ is that politically speaking, the question itself is no longer relevant. The Israelis will forever claim that “the Arabs” stupidly rejected the partition plan and went to war because they couldn’t suffer to yield one small corner of the Middle East to a non-Arab nation. The Palestinians and many Arab states will reply that the partition plan was perverse from the start, allocating less than a fifth of the population about 50 percent of the land. As for the war itself, they’ll say the casus beli was the Nakba, which already began its relentless advance in the “phony war” prior to the actual five-armies incursion. (As a side note, this was indeed the official pretext, but I hope readers forgive me if I don’t take much stock in the claim. The notion the same Arab states that abused and disenfranchised the Palestinian refugees for sixty-three years once cared about the same people so much that they ever so selflessly intervened seems absolutely bizarre. To my mind, the motives for their invasion were considerably more banal than humane. )
But what caused the war isn’t and has never been the true challenge of the Nakba. The true challenge is what happened after the war was caused. Even if we accept Avineri’s argument that “they started”, it’s still unclear why Israel had to expel neighborhoods, towns and villages; and if, somehow, we accepted that, it’s very unclear why this had to be accompanied by massacres; and even if we accept (heaven forbids) that massacres and expulsions happen in wars, no amount of “they started” can excuse the still-standing ban on the refugees and survivors to return. In other words, if someone picks a fight with my on my street, and I proceed to not only soundly beat him but to burn his house, kill and expel his family, and then his banish all his neighbors neighborhood, taking over their properties and violently preventing them from coming back, “who started” will need to be reported in the newspapers, but will form a very weak defense in any court.
The numerous historical parallels Avineri uses to reinforce his argument, then, do little other than assist him to drag the coach before the horses. The issue here is not how the Germans justified the invasion of Poland, or how the Japanese claimed the American refusal to negotiate the embargo was a cause for war before they bombed Pearl Harbor. In the case of Israel-Palestine, the question is what happened after the dice for war was cast. If, after all responded to Pearl Harbor by occupying almost 80 percent of Japan, violently expelling two-thirds of the Japanese population and subjecting the remaining third to 20 years of military rule; and then occupied the rest of Japan and engaged in 43 years of occupation and colonization – the status of Pearl Harbor in history would’ve been quite different: An important, even pivotal development, but not really what the major unresolved wrong of the conflict is about.
June 18, 2011
11:32 am
I realize that it is a holy mantra of the Israeli Left, which prides itself on it supposedly being “pragmatic”, to say that we should move beyond the past and think only of the future. It is true that in the West, and even more so, the United States, there is a strong sentiment in this direction. America asked its immigrants to give up their old ties and prejudices and create a new reality as Americans first and foremost. But things are not so simple, even there. For instance, Irish-Americans, many of whom trace their roots back to the 1840′s, still maintain strong anti-British sentiments and were quite active in supporting the IRA terrorist groups financially and politically, although this has seemed to have diminshed in the last couple of decades.
However, here in the Middle East, this has no relevance. Here it is ALL about the past.
At the Barak-Arafat Camp David talks in the year 2000, Barak offered to hand over Judaism’s holiest place, the Temple Mount to Arafat, lock, stock and barrel. All he had to do was agree to an additional clause in the agreement that says that “the Jews also view the Temple Mount as a holy place”. He adamantly refused to do this, even after Clinton subjected him to a harangue. He said the Jewish claim was a fraud, there never was a Temple there and he would never back up any such Jewish claim. Now, one could say, “look, they are giving you the Temple Mount, what would it hurt to be practical to agree to the clause, which has no operational meaning in any event, you will be free to do what ever you want there”. But he wouldn’t do it. To him, it was all principle and it was all history, even if the history he was clinging to was a false one.
Similarly, during the First Gulf War in 1991, Saddam Hussein kept promising everyone that it would be “the mother of all battles”. I remember that everyone in the West laughed about this, but this was a reference to a battle fought by the early Muslim community that every Iraqi school child knew about. Here, ancient history was converted into a modern concept which was being used to motivate Iraqi soldiers to go out and die. It was no laughing matter to them.
Therefore, if we keep saying “it doesn’t matter what the truth about the 1948 War was”, while the Arab side keeps insisting on their (false) version of it, our Israeli side will not be getting our story out to the world and uniniformed people will say “since the Israeli themselves do not answer the charges of the Arab side, they themselves admit that the Arabs are right” and we have lost the battle.
PS- Shimon Peres has always said there is no point in trying to explain the Israeli arguments , the only thing that matters is having the “right policy” (i.e. telling everyone we want peace and are willing to give everything up). I think the real reason is that Peres and those like him themselves DO NOT believe in Zionism or Jewish rights in the country, they were simply born into the situation and enjoy being in power, so it is very uncomfortable trying to defend Israel’s position, which they themselves don’t believe in.
June 18, 2011
12:47 pm
Well, I’m the first one to agree with Avineri that there is only one narrative but since when is rejecting a UN plan to give part of your home away on a par with Germany invading Poland? (Netanyahu has rejected all of several peace plans plus the UN resolutions he doesn’t fancy much, without consequences of that magnitude.)
Avineri seems to have forgotten that while military contingents from Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt invaded Palestine (and it wasn’t altruism that motivated them), the Palestinians were already here. That is truth, not narrative.
June 18, 2011
12:49 pm
Ben,
All your words do nothing to address Dimi’s main point. The indigenous people should have been allowed to return.
June 18, 2011
1:51 pm
Ben Israel – no amount of “hasbara” will ever explain or excuse Israel’s blatantly illegal disenfranchisement of an entire people of their human and civil rights for more than four decades. The “fact” that the land belongs to the Jews (a “fact” that will NEVER hold up in ANY international court) does not discount the hard fact that Israel is keeping close to 4 million people in a perpetual state of limbo, with no rights, no land, no water, no travel privilages, no education, no liberty and certainly no state. I tell you this in confidence, this seemingly perpetual system is breaking up as we speak. The world has had its fill of Israel and its God-given “rights” to subject another people to treatment that Israel itself would no allow others to do to its people. In the coming decade, Israel will find itself in the same corner that South Africa occupied about 20 years ago. You may think I am exaggerating or overly pessimistic, but the South African apartheid regime thought so too, back then. They didn’t see the storm coming until it was too late. I sincerely hope Israel learns from history, though I have a feeling that in Israel today the bible holds more credence than a history book.
June 18, 2011
2:00 pm
While I agree with Ben that history matters, DirectRob actually has a point in his response. The simple answer is that Israel did not let anyone ‘return’ since it wasn’t feeling particularly suicidal then, and since that the refugees simply did not have any right of return.
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(The second issue is that the article does deal with history – but with a somewhat twisted interpretation. e.g. The Arabs did not reject partition because it was ‘unfair’ in the sense they did not get enough. In fact, a decade earlier they rejected a partition which gave them 90% of the land. They rejected partition because they wanted everything – but Dimi knows that well. In a similar manner, the war started much earlier than May 15th – Dimi is talking about the invasion of the Arab armies later, etc. etc.)
June 18, 2011
2:41 pm
Ethnic cleansing is a war crime. Theft is a plain crime. Both are obvious human rights violations. Neither can be justified by assigning to the victims to an allegedly hostile collective and punishing them for that collective’s alleged actions. ’nuff said.
June 18, 2011
2:46 pm
“As a side note, this was indeed the official pretext, but I hope readers forgive me if I don’t take much stock in the claim. The notion the same Arab states that abused and disenfranchised the Palestinian refugees for sixty-three years once cared about the same people so much that they ever so selflessly intervened seems absolutely bizarre.”
Errr… why again?
The two notions of…
a) … wanting to prevent proto-Israel from expelling the Palestinians to their countries and…
b) … being quite unsatisfied when Israel did in fact expel the Palestinians on an unprecedented scale…
… seem to go together rather well, from a practical and political point of view.
June 18, 2011
7:45 pm
Koshiro-
No, Ethnic Cleansing is NOT necessarily a war crime. 12 million Germans expelled from eastern Europe after World War II, 300,000 Krajina Serbs expelled from Croatia in the 1990′s, 300,000 Greek Cyriot expelled from northern Cyprus in 1974, a few million Hindus and Sikhs expelled from Pakistan AFTER the initial partition violence had ended, thousands of Jews expelled from Palestinian territories before and after 1948 (actually starting in 1929) etc, etc, etc, etc.
June 18, 2011
8:37 pm
1. there would have been no war had there not been an invading occupational force.
2. it does matter that people begin to realize the racist, murdering, raping, and pillaging nature of the Israeli state.
3. rewrite history all you want, but as long as we have children, there’s going to be someone to challenge your fictions.
June 18, 2011
9:16 pm
@DR
Why were the Arabs expelled? Because They lived proximate to Jews, and posed a threat therefore. Japan and San Francisco are separated by the world’s largest ocean. Your historical analogies are worse, and you missed the point of Avineri’s piece. “In the case of Israel-Palestine, the question is what happened after the dice for war was cast.” Ok, so you just want us to forget about everything Arabs did to demonstrate they were not willing to live peacefully with the Jews. How sublimely dogmatic of you. You are just pushing Abbas’ propaganda sans analysis.
June 19, 2011
1:54 am
Point is, it’s not the invaders who suffered the consequences. Those who did are those who lived here who ended up being considered a fifth column not only by the invaded, but by the invaders themselves. But obviously analogies with Germany and Japan are easier on our collective digestive system than facing that.
The real question, as Dimi Reider says, is how the foul mess that ensued and, after more than three score years, is ongoing with a vengeance, is to be cleared up. Maybe another article detailing that mess and its negative effect on both Israeli culture and Judaism itself (viz BI’s deceitful categorization above of the Temple Mount as real estate belonging not to God, but exclusively to one of the two religions to which it is sacred, i.e. davka the one the adherents of which are forbidden to set foot on it by their own highest religious authority), is in order.
Religion has its own logic: The Jewish religion is beautiful, intricate, challenging, inspiring and has sustained and survived over thousands of years bringing cultural and social benefits to areas far from it. But its artful insertion into the field of real estate, the religious nature of which obliges all who hold it sacred to OWN it instead of contenting themselves with the ability to freely access it by making peace with its neighbours, chains it to savagery that cannot but portend its decline.
June 19, 2011
2:14 am
SH’s claim that Judaism is “beautiful” but supposedly has nothing to do with “owning real estate” is a complete distortion of traditional Judaism. If SH wants to make up his or her own new form of Judaism, that is their priviledge, but one should not make false claims about what its traditions values.
June 19, 2011
2:59 am
Koshiro, diaries and memories of Arab leaders in 48′ were released long ago (albeit the official internal records were not released). You can check one analysis on 1948 Syria [1] by Prof. Landis (a name you may recognize given he’s often interviewed on a certain current event).
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I have some disagreements with Landis’s thesis [I think he had to put some crap in to allow him to keep access to Arab sources? No other explanation why he puts in some arguments which are contradicted by his own supplied quotes... Same might be said about his current analysis], but his (often damning) quotes are accurate, and pretty well show the Arabs thought of war before the partition resolution even existed, and before any fighting happened. The quotes don’t show much concern for the Palestinians, though ‘saving Palestine’ ‘saving Jerusalem’ etc. does features prominently – I guess the Arabs cared more about the land.
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Here’s an example about events in Sept. 1947:
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“Another wake-up call came later in the month when Britain announced that it would abandon its ill-conceived mandate to the authority of UN, thereby dashing lingering Arab hopes that Britain would oppose the UN decision. ****Widespread demonstrations broke out in Syria’s major cities. The Syrian public was unanimous in demanding Syrian intervention in Palestine; the parliament quickly gave voice to the country’s wishes by unanimously calling for action in Palestine as well**** [emph mine - Y. Note this happens before any would-be cleansing]. The Arab League followed suit by denouncing partition in its turn [note no crap about 'unfair' partition - just 'we oppose any partition' - Y.]. As one Syrian deputy remarked, ****”the public’s desire for war is irresistible.” Unable to turn back the tide of war fever that swept the country in September, the government decided to ride it into the unknown.****”
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[1]
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/L/Joshua.M.Landis-1/Syria_1948.htm
June 19, 2011
3:12 am
Ben,
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International law changes with time.
Ethnic Cleansing, today, is definitely a war crime even by ‘customary’ law alone. However, this was not the case in the 40s and for some time afterwards (I’m not sure whether the term even existed until the Yugoslavia civil war?). Intl. law had to have been different then, otherwise the entire Allied war command and politicians would have been at the dock in Nuremberg too (for this and lots of other stuff like bombarding civilians), not to mention anyone in power during your other examples.
June 19, 2011
4:06 am
It is beautiful, BI. True, it can also be terrible. These attributes are not unique to Judaism, they exist in the other two religions associated with these parts as well. I’ve no idea of your background, but mine’s religious, from the same denominations from which the distorted Judaism that really began to take root in Israel after 1967 sprang. What’s regrettably forgotten is that not all (what used to be known as) “modern orthodox” took the same route and that religion has priorities. Those priorities ceased being those of conquest a couple of thousand years ago or more.
June 19, 2011
7:24 am
@DR, here’s what you say in fact: [the so called] Human Rights [as defined by a world majority of countries in which you wouldn’t want to live because of their Human Rights practice] should [by law?] override all other aspects of life, including national sovereignty.
The original cause of the problem is irrelevant, as by applying suicidal actions, Israel could have corrected the wrongs done by its enemies [and let them try again, until they succeed].
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The fact is that the Palestinians never agreed with what you claim would solve the problem. They’ve never agreed to a Jewish State even on a single m2 in Israel. If you think otherwise, you’ll have to prove it as the historical facts are against you.
The fact is that while they felt weak, they were hiding their root drive beneath ambiguous statements to the world, but never to their own people, and that now that they feel stronger they don’t even hide their aim of having a Jew-free Palestinian state side by side with a bi-national Israel.
For me, so called Human Rights that equal the destruction of the Jewish State are bogus, and the fact is that they’re not being applied in any other place in the world.
I’ll make a short leap of little imagination: their goal is the original Mandate Palestine, including Jordan and all that’s West of the Jordan River.
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But let’s be more constructive: what do YOU think would be the formula that will guarantee the existence of a Jewish State in Israel, and what makes YOU think it’ll be accepted by the Palestinians?
June 19, 2011
7:32 am
Make not, when you work a deed of shame,
The scoundrel’s plea, “My forbears did the same”.
Al-Ma’arri
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Chasing a family from there house and their land for no other reason than you want the space they occupy for your group is a hideous crime.
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This was the crime in 48 and even now is repeated over and over within Israel and the West Bank.
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Letting the refugees and their descendants return and giving them full civil rights is not suicidal, it is the least the state of Israel can do to undo some of the harm done.
June 19, 2011
7:52 am
Directrob, the harm done was the death of over 6,000 Jews and around 10,000 Arabs because of Arab aggression.
Reversing history is not an option, despite Abbas’ efforts, and “narratives” don’t replace facts.
June 19, 2011
8:51 am
Max, it is not reversing history, it is going forward. If a major earthquake does not destroy the overcrowded Palestinian Bantu states it is even unavoidable.
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By the way in the “Holy land”, narratives do replace facts. It keeps hundreds busy every day.
June 19, 2011
9:26 am
Reversing cause and effect to fit with a narrative is very much reversing history; or do you have a better definition?
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The Holy Land, just like the Holocaust as reasons for Israel’s legitimacy are mostly used by anti-Zionists, as they feel that can use them against Zionism.
The cultural & religious meaning of Israel to the Jews – the root of Zionism targeting Israel – has been transformed into a legal claim early in the 20th century. Those people weren’t religious so any reference to Holy is ludicrous.
As well, Zionism preceded the Holocaust; the Holocaust was the modern atrocity of what has already been part of the Jewish national reason for a Home.
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Zionism is the acceptance of a Secure, Democratic, Jewish – by any order – State in Israel.
Unfortunately, many people have a short memory; prefer to address the effect rather than the cause; and believe that turning the other cheek (as long as it’s not theirs) is the right diplomatic motion.
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Back to my challenge: what in your opinion is the right solution that will be accepted by the Palestinians and keep Zionism alive?
June 19, 2011
10:02 am
Max,
A solution accepted by the Palestinians that keeps Zionism alive:
2 states, 67 borders, open borders, no land swaps, all settlers either return to Israel proper or are disarmed and become Palestinian citizens, Refugees in Lebanon and Syria return to Israel or are compensated, free travel between Palestine and Israel.
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A right solution:
Stop the ethnic rubbish and make a secular state with a modern constitution with equal rights for all within the borders of the current Israeli state minus the Golan heights. Let refugees return.
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I have no interest in keeping Zionism alive, not even as defined by you. I would formulate it as a democratic state at peace with its neighbors and guaranteed universal human rights for all people within its borders. Being “Jewish” should be a personal thing, not something the state is involved with.
June 19, 2011
10:40 am
1. Being a Jewish State was the definition during the creation of Israel – it’s what all the nations having diplomatic relationship with Israel agree to, although they prefer not to see it explicitly written. See the UN proposal and Israel’s declaration of independence
2. There’s nothing in the ME to support your view that your proposal will provide safety to the Jews in Israel; there’s not even the slightest reference to the situation prior to ’67
-> so – unfortunately – your proposal is nothing more than a wishful dream. You’re willing to set the Jews in Israel as guinea pigs for a Utopian idea – are you surprised that the people there disagree with you?
June 19, 2011
11:03 am
Directrob, Your proposal, with the known context of Hamas’ and even PA’s track record in Human Right abuses, religious extremism, application of “democratic” values, methods in dealing with adversaries (see free-fall experiments…) is nothing short of hilarious.
June 19, 2011
12:03 pm
I think that Directrob’s apparent ignorance of the contextual information reflects +972′s biggest dishonesty.
regardelss of whether the reports are objective or not, +972 claims to provide “Independent reporting and commentary from Israel & the Palestinian territories”, while absolutely ignoring events that may harm the Palestinian position, solely focusing on perspectives that would slander Israel.
Way to go!
June 19, 2011
7:30 pm
Directrob-
How come you let the Arab states off the hook with their ethno-religious defintions of their states? For example “The Arab Republic of Egypt”? Or the fact that all the countries of the Arab/Middle East give special place to discriminatory Sharia law in their constitutions?
The first clause of the Palestinian constitution says they are Arabs, part of the Arab umma and are working towards Arab unity? How are the Jews living in the West Bank who are going to remain supposed to feel about that?
June 20, 2011
12:54 am
I haven’t taken the time to read every comment… I just balked at the first one. Arafat’s inability to accept Barak’s proposal at Camp David in 2000 probably had very little to do with any statement about the haram al sharif area being holy to Judaism and had most to do with the fact that the sum-total of the offer was in no way a sovereign state.
Have a look at Tanya Reinhart’s book on the subject for the details.
June 20, 2011
3:21 am
#directrob
Orange is a colour and an fruit that bears that colour.
Confusing the two is just means of obfuscation.
Jewish is an ethnicity as well as a Religion. Wishing to have a Jewish land is like wishing to have an Irish land or Italian land. A lands that upholds certain values, goals, history etc.
By saying you want a “secular state” which Israel is already, you mean let’s transform the only democratic, prosperous country in the ME into something else…
June 20, 2011
3:27 am
@Craig: so “a Jewish state” is an inherently discriminating one, because a Muslim can become an Italian, but he can’t be a Jew.
June 20, 2011
4:17 am
Is it? so how come Israel is the only place in ME where Arabs have equal rights by law ?
Again you are using ambiguous language here. A Muslim/Jew/Christian/Hindu/etc can become an Italian *citizen*, they can NOT become Italians. which of course shouldn’t affect their status vis-a-vis the law. Which is the case for both Italy and Israel.
June 20, 2011
6:37 am
Noam, with your view, I guess you’ll have to call for the re-definition of Estonia, where the state “shall guarantee the preservation of the Estonian nation, language and culture through the ages”.
It may be a small price to pay for enforcing your view of what should be legal and accepted world-wide, but when you further apply the implications to Japan, you may find it more difficult to do.
June 20, 2011
1:01 pm
Craig,
For me someone is Jewish if he or she calls him/herself Jewish. It is the only definition I know. It actually is not very interesting to know. Basically all humans are the same whatever their religion or whatever the ethnicity they think to belong to.
June 20, 2011
9:50 pm
@ Rimi , its all about “who started” , who travelled thousands of kilometers to occupy, murder, steal ,lie and claim connection to the land.I’ve never seen such hypocrisy from the most powerful countries whether in the 40s or in 2011,to allow burglars to keep their loot based on a myth.
June 21, 2011
1:10 am
@directrob,
so what are you saying? When it comes to Jews the nationalistic sentiments are inappropriate, and we are all human beings, ye right, I don’t know where you come from but in Europe that ain’t the case.
Disregarding your double standards, when the Arab/Muslim world will share your views you may have a point, till than…
June 21, 2011
4:34 am
Why should Israel be the first (or only) one to give up their ethnic/religious (in this case being a Jewish State), but not the Muslim or Christian States the world over?
It seems like the “post nationalists” for the most part channel all their ideology into Israel, while ignoring the dozens of Muslim states (some of which do not allow Jews or Christians to become citizens).
June 21, 2011
2:48 pm
Post-nationalism, as an ideal, is so far completely unformed. A utopian ideal that can only exist today in the relm of the abstract, epecially in our region.
Nationalism is at the very least tasteless, and at most deadly. None-the-less, even a “one state solution” is not post-nation – it is just a reformation.
The palestinian mainstream, as in israel, are clearly extremely nationalistic (thanks in no small part to our conflict). The future monolithic state of europe might be a more fertile enviroment for the project.
June 21, 2011
6:38 pm
The Jews started the conflict by claiming land that is holy to Islam and Christianity. Palestine has no historical or religious significance to Jews. Perhaps the Carnegie deli in NYC is their holy temple
July 3, 2011
9:52 am
This comment has been removed for violating the commenting rules of the blog
July 13, 2011
3:09 pm
@DIRECTORB
“Letting the refugees and their descendants return and giving them full civil rights is not suicidal, it is the least the state of Israel can do to undo some of the harm done”(DIRECTORB)
Really? Read up about what happened in:
1. The Balkans
2. Rwanda
3. Lebanon
4. India/Pakistan
In the first three, the utopia turned into a nightmare when one ethnic group turned against one another (watch this space about Lebanon, it will happen again). Even in India, where a large Muslim population remained, there is simmering hatred between the groups which erupts from time to time into local massacres.
Compare all that to Israel, which has a 20% Arab minority who on the whole have been treated well. However, if as you suggest, the exiled Arab population would be allowed to return and the Arabs would become a majority, do you imagine that the Jews would be treated better than Egypt’s Copts? Or Iraq’s Kurds? I put it to you that the Jews would more likely be treated like Rwanda’s Tutsis.
That’s why, I call letting Arab refugees return as suicide for Jews. What would you call it?
July 13, 2011
3:27 pm
Oh by the way, what should be done with the 700,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries? Should they be made to return too?
Cool, that would be a good solution. They could again be treated as tolerated dhimmis and be subjected to pogroms as they were in the old days. Every time something went wrong in society, there were the Jews to be blamed and kicked.
July 15, 2011
12:21 am
Actually, the Nakba is really about “why didn’t the Arabs, after 30 years of non-stop murderous violence against the Jewish National Home as guaranteed by the League of Nations, and several major plans to compromise during those Mandate years offered by the british and in some cases agreed to by the Zionist Organization leadership, not agree, after they saw their diplomatic rout, to the UN Partition and accept some sort of compromise?”. That’s the question they need answer because they continued that behavior pattern ever since and ocntinue to do so even now.
They declare war – economic, personal, political and ideological – and wonder how they ended up up as they did.
August 17, 2011
11:48 pm
If prior to invading Poland, Germany had demanded it for an Aryan state and successfully gotten the League of Nations to support a division of Poland giving 56% for this Aryan state, I think the Poles might have rejected the proposed division too.
August 18, 2011
12:28 pm
Yisrael Medad, you continue to ignore facts: the Arabs of the Land of Israel were there for centuries; they did not settle in the land of Israel in order to persecute Jews, but to live; most Zionists chose to look down upon them; some noble Zionists, e.g. Asher Ginzburg, warned against this repeatedly and predicted, in Ginzburg’s case as early as 1891, what would result from the rash Zionists’ “economic, personal, political and ideological” contempt for the Arabs of the Land of Israel. It all came true.
Why did God put the Arabs there, Yisrael Medad? Why did he make them also whole and complete human beings in his image, instead of what the rash Zionists implicitly alleged them to be: primitive props, capable only either of submissively receiving the blessings of civilization, or of refusing and being rightly suppressed?
As your post cites only decisions by international bodies that partly favor your position, and doesn’t cite moral principles, perhaps you find less support from those principles for your interpretation of history and your glib prescriptions. Continue, G-d records your thoughts and words.