Shocking facts about Israel and Palestine [Archive]

ComradeMan

26th September 2011, 10:05

conrademan .much of that article youve wrote is wrong until partition zionist landowners abroad had been buying palestinian land for 30 years 6%in 48..

Well if you have an issue with facts and stats that I tried to find- after acknowledging that it is a tricky area then please say what the actual facts and stats are and in context. I didn't pull the figures out of a hat they are all available online.

ie the racist jewish national fund-still in existance today

Could you explain why it is a "racist" organisation and in which case why it has been involved with the Palestinian Authority since 2009? The stats I have seen say that the JNF currently possesses about 13% of the total land and most of their activities seem involved with planting trees and water projects- not insignificant if you consider the terrain.

btw the fellahin you dismiss,are the palestinian peasantry.

Where did I dismiss them? I posted a statistic of land bought and sold.

as for the christian churches,nearly all are owned by the athens govt.

Wrong: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/mar/22/israel- the Greek Orthodox Church is the second largest landowner in Israel after the state. According to this article the Greek Orthodox Church owns/owned (at printing) about 10, 000 dunams (dunam= 1000 m2, i.e. 1 km2) of land in Israel. The Knesset itself sits on land that is leased from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

Now, could you find something that confirms that the Greek Orothodox Church is "owned by the athens [sic] govt."?

why do you and other zionists delegitimise an entire people.

Who is delegitimising an entire people? Zuhary Mushin's comments are verified online. Could it not be argued that Jordan has delegitimised the people of the West Bank- once they were Jordanian and all of a sudden they became "Palestinians".... to be then treated as second-class citizens in Jordan- although Jordan is the only Arab nation to grant Palestinians full citizenship the refugee camps are still there depending on charity and UNRWA etc.

why is that racist allowed on a socalled left wing forum??

What's racist about posting facts and statistics that you refuse to acknowledge or counter?

all his post tried to say is that the PALESTINIANS dont exist..or didnt

By quoting a "Palestinian" leaders own words and history?

I am not defending heavyhanded Israeli government policy or legalistic justifications of demolishing people's homes- hell, there are a lot of Israelis that don't either but that's not the issue here. The issue here is that you. amongst others, constantly misrepresent and distort the issues and in so doing cloud any possibiliies of addressing the real problems.

I think who legally ownes the land is something we do not need to look at at all. We are leftists after all and we do not recognize the ownership of means of production...let alone that ownership being in any way shape or form a basis or precondition for having the right to oppress others.

I agree with you in part but the trouble is that this conflict is not really a leftist one in the sense that the "oppressed" are claiming land-ownership and land rights too so inevitably we have to look at who owned what and who sold it to whom.

But as long as we are looking into the buying and selling process...The selling of land is more often than not done under huge pressure and against below market prices. More often than not people have no choice to sell their land because they are left with precious little means of procuring a future and survival for themselves or their families.

From what I have read the land was sold at astronomically high prices for the times. Here is a source- again, I can't vouch for it but....

"During a visit to Palestine in 1930, John Hope Simpson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hope_Simpson), a British politician, noticed: "They [Jews] paid high prices for the land, and in addition they paid to certain of the occupants of those lands a considerable amount of money which they were not legally bound to pay". It was believed that Jews were paying as much as $1,000 to $1,100 per acre in Palestine for non arable land in 1944. At that same time, one could buy rich arable land in Iowa for a mere $110 per acre.[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine#cite_note-jvl-6)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Arabs_in_Palestine.html

We can not support the state of Israel because that state is based on burgeoisie politicis, capitalism, racism, genocide, nationalism, colonialism and religion. Such a state has no right to exist.

Or we can not support the state of Palestine because that state is/would be based on burgeoisie politicis, capitalism, racism, genocide(???), nationalism, colonialism and religion. Such a state has no right to exist.

In the meantime the zionist state is responsible for the continued oppression and exploitation of the Palestinians by not only the state itself, but also by their own burgeoisie and by the militant factions which frutstrate the effective organisation of the working class and the possibility of a socialist solution to the problem.

Come off it- you can't blame Israel for what Palestinians do to other Palestinians unless you are alleging that Israel is behind that too.

Not surprising at all for someone following the events for some time like me. Israel is a rogue religious state created to serve imperialist interests in the area(and appease reactionary jews).

Zionism is not a religious organisation as such- in fact there is no one organisation and no one real ideology in a uniform sense. In fact it's surprising for someone who follows the events for some time that you miss that Israel is far from what Orthodox religious Jews would call a religious state in a Jewish and halakhic sense and some even stand against Israel for this reason. Also that Zionism itself started as secular left movement as a response to anti-semitism and racism in Europe. How reactionary of those Jews to want to escape anti-semitism or perhaps re-settle somewhere where they could live in peace after centuries of pogroms, discrimination and the Holocaust....

ohh wait, there aren't many influent and powerful roma capitalists unlike jews, so I guess the "logic" doens't applies to them. :rolleyes:

So all Jews are rich and powerful capitalists.... ah, I see--- anti-semitic arguments don't take long to come out in these threads....

Seth

26th September 2011, 17:00

Also that Zionism itself started as secular left movement as a response to anti-semitism and racism in Europe. How reactionary of those Jews to want to escape anti-semitism or perhaps re-settle somewhere where they could live in peace after centuries of pogroms, discrimination and the Holocaust....

So genocide is just defending your people, gee who does that sound like...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/49/Star_of_David.svg/150px-Star_of_David.svg.png = http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Nazi_Swastika.svg/200px-Nazi_Swastika.svg.png

PhoenixAsh

26th September 2011, 18:38

I agree with you in part but the trouble is that this conflict is not really a leftist one in the sense that the "oppressed" are claiming land-ownership and land rights too so inevitably we have to look at who owned what and who sold it to whom.

I do not think that approach is sensible. Ultimately this is a conflict initiated by zionist imperialism with the intend of reclaiming a jewish kingdom which has not existed for over 2000 years based on religious ideals and goals and which, incidentally, itself was conquered from different ethnic groups at that time by using the exact same approach as then: removing and subjegating the people who live there and driving them out of the region.

The conflict is in essence imperialist, religious and burgeoisie in nature and it can not be solved based on aspects of any of these.

The only solution is dissolving the state of Israel and creating a new and secular state based on socialist principles and economics in which everybody who currently lives in the region is seen as equal in all respects and the MOP are held in communal/workers ownership.

This is a far cry from what should actually happen: abolition of all states everywhere...but it is the only workable solution for the region.

From what I have read the land was sold at astronomically high prices for the times. Here is a source- again, I can't vouch for it but....

"During a visit to Palestine in 1930, John Hope Simpson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hope_Simpson), a British politician, noticed: "They [Jews] paid high prices for the land, and in addition they paid to certain of the occupants of those lands a considerable amount of money which they were not legally bound to pay". It was believed that Jews were paying as much as $1,000 to $1,100 per acre in Palestine for non arable land in 1944. At that same time, one could buy rich arable land in Iowa for a mere $110 per acre.[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine#cite_note-jvl-6)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Arabs_in_Palestine.html

What you indicated represented a purchase of about 6% of the entire region in 1943 (see your link). That is a long, long, long way of from the current 70-78% of the land that is in effective Israeli controll....and a far, far cry from the 65% they claimed when they unilatterally declared the state of Israel.

After 1948 Israel initiated their land policy and Zionist tennent that no land should be owned by non-Jews. This is also referenced in your link And that policy first and foremost is directed at the Palestinians and Arabs in Israel....heavy pressure is put on them to sell and often below market prices and value.

Or we can not support the state of Palestine because that state is/would be based on burgeoisie politicis, capitalism, racism, genocide(???), nationalism, colonialism and religion. Such a state has no right to exist.

I think most of what you claim here remains to be seen....as it stands now the Palestinians are structurally oppressed and discriminated against by the state of Israel and Israel is effectively executing a policy of gradual genocide.
Everything that resukted from their unilateral creation of the religious Jewish state is as far as I am considered their own fault. They pressed for their own state instead of a unified secular state with both groups....they chose instead to initiate a reconquista of Palestine.

Come off it- you can't blame Israel for what Palestinians do to other Palestinians unless you are alleging that Israel is behind that too.

Offcourse I can. Just as much as I can blame the Nazi's for the horrible exploitation in some of the Jewish ghetto's during WWII.

They created the current situation. They continue to execute racism and oppressive policies and they continue to press and besiege the Palestinians....they continue to thwart any form of development of the Palestinian areas. THAT creates the society Palestinians live in and hampers any normalisation of social live. The Palestinians face continued struggle and racism...what the hell do you expect would happen??? Offcourse that is entirely to blame on the Israeli and Zionist politics.

PhoenixAsh

26th September 2011, 19:10

So all Jews are rich and powerful capitalists.... ah, I see--- anti-semitic arguments don't take long to come out in these threads....

I agree with this to some extend. The concept that this lobby is evil and spurious because Jews are doing it is ludicrous, racist and anti semitic.

That does not mean the lobby is not spurious and evil though....or that there is not a huge pro-Israel lobby (both by Jews and non Jews). There is and it is evil and spurious in nature...it is that because it is a lobby for support of a country which is racist, genocidal and imperialist NOT because Jews and non Jews in support of Zionism are doing it.

What concerns me is that any reference to a Israel Lobby is immediately countered by accusations of anti-semitism...especially by pro-Israeli groups and induviduals. But the Israeli press itself often refers to this lobby. The Israeli government has openly admitted that its main foreign policy goal is to influence teh decision making in other nations in order to garnish support and that is pumps large amounts of funds in backing organisations and induviduals (like politicians) who speak on its behalve.

In a 2004 speech Goldberg said "There has been an awful lot of talk in the last few years about the rise of the Jewish lobby and the influence of the Jewish lobby. It used to be that you couldn’t talk about this sort of thing. When I wrote [the book] Jewish Power in 1996 ... I was accused by various Jewish lobbyists of inflating and buying into the old myths of international Jewish conspiracies simply by the use of the title."[4] Goldberg disagrees with the sensitivity towards the use of the term, arguing that: "There is such a thing as a Jewish lobby, that the network of organizations that works together to put across what might be called the Jewish community’s view on world affairs is not insignificant, it's not an invention, but it is not some sort of all-powerful octopus that it’s sometimes portrayed as these days."[4] Mearsheimer and Walt wrote in 2006 that "even the Israeli media refer to America's 'Jewish Lobby'",[21] and stated the following year that "AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents and the Israeli media themselves refer to America's 'Jewish Lobby'."[22]

RGacky3

26th September 2011, 19:16

The Jewish ghetto is a great analogy, hell, I bet a lot of extra problems were caused by Jewish leadership and corruption inside the Jewish ghetto as well, BUT, the reason for them being forced into ghettos was the Nazis.

OHumanista

26th September 2011, 20:25

Ahh so I am anti-semite because I object to genocide when it is the jews that are doing it? Really? I mean really?
It is not anti-semitism to point out that rich capitalist jews are doing things for their own interest. It is not about jewishness, it is about being capitalist, imperialist and opressing and brutalizing the people of any given region in the world.
So no, I am not anti-semite(ridiculous overused word used to attack anyone who disagress with a single jew in the planet), I eagerly await the day the jews themselves will overthrow their lunatic govenment.

EDIT: Also your logic is flawed, what you fail to mention is that these poor opreseed jews are moving into already inhabited land and repeating the atrocities they suffered on others. And there is and will never be any justification for that. Plus Israel is non-religious, then what is that on their flag, a pretty star? Why are Orthodox Jews allowed to carry out sentences as if they were judges on their districts? Why is everyone who is not a jew excluded from everything? You can't create a "home" for a people by building it on top of someone else's home.

ComradeMan

26th September 2011, 20:29

I do not think that approach is sensible. Ultimately this is a conflict initiated by zionist imperialism with the intend of reclaiming a jewish kingdom which has not existed for over 2000 years based on religious ideals and goals and which, incidentally, itself was conquered from different ethnic groups at that time by using the exact same approach as then: removing and subjegating the people who live there and driving them out of the region.

No, the original Zionist programme was to give Jews a safe homeland, a homeland which in 2000 years of diaspora, persecution, extermination and marginalisation they had never forgotten. So, the Jews are allowed to be Jews when they are in Europe and persecuted but not Jews when they are in the Holy Land... Apart from the fact that an ongoing Jewish presence was ever present in the region and the fact that the modern state of Israel constitutionally grants equality to all regardless of religion.

No one asked sections of the Arab community to attack the Jews for daring to buy land and settle in "Israel" despite having been complicit in selling the land and no one asked every Arab bordering nation to attack the 1948 Israel either.

The only solution is dissolving the state of Israel and creating a new and secular state based on socialist principles and economics in which everybody who currently lives in the region is seen as equal in all respects and the MOP are held in communal/workers ownership.

Like that's going to happen and also this conveniently avoids the issue of the millions of Jewish people born in the territory and their rights to self-determination and also the fact that a lot of Christian, Druze and Arab-Israelis would rather, truth be known, be part of Israel. It's not like the Palestinian political voices are calling for what you ask for is it? A Hamas/Fatah state is not exactly a socialist dream, is it?

This is a far cry from what should actually happen: abolition of all states everywhere...but it is the only workable solution for the region.

Yeah sure, that's all fine and good but unfortunately that's not what the majority of the people involved in either side of the conflict are demanding- be they Zionists or Palestinians.

What you indicated represented a purchase of about 6% of the entire region in 1943 (see your link). That is a long, long, long way of from the current 70-78% of the land that is in effective Israeli controll....and a far, far cry from the 65% they claimed when they unilatterally declared the state of Israel.

The lands that were confiscated from the Ottoman Sultan became government property and thus with the declaration of the state of Israel they became property of that state. Those lands had never belonged in any legal sense to the Palestinians as they had priod been property of the Ottoman Turks.

After 1948 Israel initiated their land policy and Zionist tennent that no land should be owned by non-Jews. This is also referenced in your link And that policy first and foremost is directed at the Palestinians and Arabs in Israel....heavy pressure is put on them to sell and often below market prices and value.

This is completely false and untrue. Unlike in the PA where selling land to a Jew is punishable by death, in Israel Israeli-Arabs have equal access to government owned lands in fact about half of the agricultural land leased by Arab-Israelis is leased directly from the Israeli government. JNF lands are not the same as government lands and indeed there is a bias towards selling to an eventual Jewish ownership- however JNF lands comprise only about 13% of total Israeli land however in practice even JNF lands are leased to non-Jews, e.g. the Kibbutz Re'em used for Bedouin pasture etc. Very often a kind of land-swap is done between the Israeli government and the JNF to get around things. Under Israeli law there are no restrictions on land vending or purchase whatsoever. The ILA has also been know to operate a kind of affirmative action policy in favour of Arab-Israelis. A quarter of an acre in "Jewish" areas having a lease of approx. $24,000 whereas in Bedouin/Arab areas such as Rahat $150.
http://www.meforum.org/370/can-arabs-buy-land-in-israel

I know Arab-Israelis who basically say that apart from the average everyday bigot in the street they have not such a bad deal as Arab-Israelis.... ;)

I think most of what you claim here remains to be seen....as it stands now the Palestinians are structurally oppressed and discriminated against by the state of Israel and Israel is effectively executing a policy of gradual genocide. Everything that resukted from their unilateral creation of the religious Jewish state is as far as I am considered their own fault. They pressed for their own state instead of a unified secular state with both groups....they chose instead to initiate a reconquista of Palestine.

Which Palestinians? Palestinians in the territories who are shunted from pillar to post by the Arab natiions and their own leadership? The same Palestinians who in a bid for statehood are condemned by sections of their own leadership?

The religious Jewish state that guarantees equal rights for all, exempts non-Jews from compulsory military service and certain taxes, allows non-Jewish political parties, mayors, governemt ministers and so on and has offered the "Palestinian" autonomist movements countless offers and compromises to be refused every time because at the core of this lies another issues, sections of the Palestinians do not want the Jews in the region at any cost whatsoever.

As usual the normal innocent people on the ground, be they Jews, Christians, Druze or Muslim suffer.

ComradeMan

26th September 2011, 20:32

Ahh so I am anti-semite because I object to genocide when it is the jews that are doing it? Really? I mean really?
It is not anti-semitism to point out that rich capitalist jews are doing things for their own interest. It is not about jewishness, it is about being capitalist, imperialist and opressing and brutalizing the people of any given region in the world.
So no, I am not anti-semite(ridiculous overused word used to attack anyone who disagress with a single jew in the planet), I eagerly await the day the jews themselves will overthrow their lunatic govenment.

Well first show me where the Jewish mass extermination camps are in Israel and show me evidence of deliberate cultural genocide in Israel etc etc and then also show me with evidence how the "Jewish capitalist conspiracy" is supporting Israel ( a lot of Jews don't you know) and also explain to me how come there are Arab-Israelis in the Knesset etc and then I might be inclined to take your slanderous allegations of genocide and denial of anti-semitism seriously.... but I won't hold my breath. ;)

ComradeMan

26th September 2011, 22:03

you are joking !you post yet another racist zionist article and get accused of racism,and yet your calling the guy antijewish.... pot and fkin kettle..

Err... what "zionist article"? Could you specify? Where is the racism too? As usual you have little facts to back up your lies and distortions, half-truths and misrepresentations and the best you can come up with is to accuse people of racism.

Well please, as I asked you (repeatedly) post some neutral and objective sources and references to back up the claims. Genocide is a "big" word so there must be some "big" examples.

She was talking of the genocide of palestinians by the isreali state ....stop spinning things

He was also talking about Israel being advantaged because of an implied conspiracy of rich capitalist Jews.... where have we heard that sort of thing before? :rolleyes:

It would be nice if you actually posted some sources and facts, as neutral as can be expected given the topic, to back up your counter-claims--- it's strange how you seldom do that..... I wonder why?

PS- It's spelt "Israeli" :rolleyes:

RGacky3

26th September 2011, 22:13

Genocide is a "big" word so there must be some "big" examples.

From 1987 till now 7978 palestinians killed in the conflict, 1620 of them under 18.

on the Israeli side 1503 killed 142 of them under 18.

May not be genocide, but its pretty nasty.

He was also talking about Israel being advantaged because of an implied conspiracy of rich capitalist Jews.... where have we heard that sort of thing before? http://www.revleft.com/vb/shocking-facts-israel-t161643/revleft/smilies/001_rolleyes.gif

No, he pointed out that there are wealthy pro-Israeli interests in the west, be it wealthy Jews or wealthy fundementalist Christians, whereas you don't have the same when it comes to the Roma .....

enough with the eyes, your gonna get a headache.

Rafiq

26th September 2011, 22:36

Why is the zionist allowed here?

Do you have any evidence to back up that accusation?

But I thought racists and ethnic chavunists were banned?

Do you have any evidence to back up your accusation, that I am a racist/and or ethic chavunist?

Can you at the least, provide everyone with the slightest detail of me mentioning race at all in this discussion?

Can you provide us with the smallest detail of me mentioning discrimination or offensive (in the revolutionary socialist sense) text regarding ethnicity?

No?

Then shut your fucking mouth before you make such half-assed barely comprehensible accusations.

ComradeMan

26th September 2011, 22:41

From 1987 till now 7978 palestinians killed in the conflict, 1620 of them under 18. on the Israeli side 1503 killed 142 of them under 18.

150 of which died in during the Battle of Gaza and according to 2007 stats around 600 a result of intra-palestinian violence. But it's not really a numbers game...

"Palestinian political violence has targeted Israelis, Palestinians, Jordanians,[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_political_violence#cite_note-loc-8) Egyptians[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_political_violence#cite_note-sinai2-9) and citizens of other countries.[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_political_violence#cite_note-casualties-10) Israeli statistics state that 3,500 Israelis[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_political_violence#cite_note-casualties-10)[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_political_violence#cite_note-Ref_a-11) have been killed and 25,000 have been wounded as a result of Palestinian violence since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. These figures include soldiers as well as civilians, including those killed in exchanges of gunfire.[13] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_political_violence#cite_note-Ref_b-12)[14]" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_political_violence#cite_note-Ref_c-13)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_political_violence

May not be genocide, but its pretty nasty.

Nasty it is, but don't use the word "genocide" with clear politcal motives if it may not be the case.

No, he pointed out that there are wealthy pro-Israeli interests in the west, be it wealthy Jews or wealthy fundementalist Christians, whereas you don't have the same when it comes to the Roma .....

Cleverly nuanced, but that's not what he said, is it? He implied clearly that the "rich" Jews allow for a world in which Israel is justified. He did not mention any other group but "Jews". :rolleyes:

...ohh wait, there aren't many influent and powerful roma capitalists unlike jews, so I guess the "logic" doens't applies to them. :rolleyes:

Rafiq

26th September 2011, 22:42

Let's understand something:

Calling things 'Zionist' because they don't agree with Freepalestine's views is not acceptable.

This world view of all politicians going about to further the 'Zionsit' agenda is antisemitic at best.

Politicians, media, etc do not exist to protect the interests of the imaginary 'Zionist' class. They exist to protect the interests of the Bourgeoisie of their own nations, Israel is no exception.

It would be like calling Israelis tea partyers.

Tafsir

27th September 2011, 01:50

Interesting video. It'll be interesting to see what happens in regards to Abbas and his motion at the UN.

PhoenixAsh

27th September 2011, 02:21

No, the original Zionist programme was to give Jews a safe homeland, a homeland which in 2000 years of diaspora, persecution, extermination and marginalisation they had never forgotten.

Well they should have because no Jew is more than 2000 year old and therefore holds no title to any land...land...which they themselves conquered by displacing ethnic indiginous tribes. They have no claim to that land on the basis that their ancient ancestors lived there. If they do...let them show those deeds and property certificates you keep going on about.

In this connection it has been observed with satisfaction that at a meeting of the Zionist Congress, the supreme governing body of the Zionist Organization, held at Carlsbad in September, 1921, a resolution was passed expressing as the official statement of Zionist aims "the determination of the Jewish people to live with the Arab people on terms of unity and mutual respect, and together with them to make the common home into a flourishing community, the upbuilding of which may assure to each of its peoples an undisturbed national development"'.

From the Churchill White papers

So, the Jews are allowed to be Jews when they are in Europe and persecuted but not Jews when they are in the Holy Land... Apart from the fact that an ongoing Jewish presence was ever present in the region and the fact that the modern state of Israel constitutionally grants equality to all regardless of religion.

That last part is bullshit because you damned well know that the Knesset and the Supreme Court have already established that the delcaration of independence does not old any legal status concerning the supposed equality and freedom of religion. Something which has time and time again been confirmed by both policies amde by the Knesset and rulings by the Supreme Court

They can be Jdws werever they please...they simply can not create a unilateral state at the expense of others in territory lied on for centuries by others.

And that ever present Jewish community? No more than 5% of the population So that is NO reason at all to sujddenly establish a Jewish state on 70% of the land.

You have no arguments here.

No one asked sections of the Arab community to attack the Jews for daring to buy land and settle in "Israel" despite having been complicit in selling the land and no one asked every Arab bordering nation to attack the 1948 Israel either.

Nobody asked the Jewish Europeans/Russians to come to the country and arm themselves and start terrorist attacks and provocative sedditious actions....nobody asked them to unilaterally fight for a seperate religious state which is racist and seclusive in nature.

So again...you have no argument here.

Like that's going to happen and also this conveniently avoids the issue of the millions of Jewish people born in the territory and their rights to self-determination and also the fact that a lot of Christian, Druze and Arab-Israelis would rather, truth be known, be part of Israel. It's not like the Palestinian political voices are calling for what you ask for is it? A Hamas/Fatah state is not exactly a socialist dream, is it?

What is your point? That I must somehow cry rivers for the fact that the Jewish immigrants came to the countryn with the full intend of stelaing it away from the original population? Where was THEIR concern for those people?

Yeah sure, that's all fine and good but unfortunately that's not what the majority of the people involved in either side of the conflict are demanding- be they Zionists or Palestinians.

I do not give a fuck what they are demanding. That is what is going to work...nothing else.

The lands that were confiscated from the Ottoman Sultan became government property and thus with the declaration of the state of Israel they became property of that state. Those lands had never belonged in any legal sense to the Palestinians as they had priod been property of the Ottoman Turks.

And neither did they belong to the Jewish people. So again...no argument there.

This is completely false and untrue. Unlike in the PA where selling land to a Jew is punishable by death, in Israel Israeli-Arabs have equal access to government owned lands in fact about half of the agricultural land leased by Arab-Israelis is leased directly from the Israeli government. JNF lands are not the same as government lands and indeed there is a bias towards selling to an eventual Jewish ownership- however JNF lands comprise only about 13% of total Israeli land however in practice even JNF lands are leased to non-Jews, e.g. the Kibbutz Re'em used for Bedouin pasture etc. Very often a kind of land-swap is done between the Israeli government and the JNF to get around things. Under Israeli law there are no restrictions on land vending or purchase whatsoever. The ILA has also been know to operate a kind of affirmative action policy in favour of Arab-Israelis. A quarter of an acre in "Jewish" areas having a lease of approx. $24,000 whereas in Bedouin/Arab areas such as Rahat $150.
http://www.meforum.org/370/can-arabs-buy-land-in-israel

I know Arab-Israelis who basically say that apart from the average everyday bigot in the street they have not such a bad deal as Arab-Israelis.... ;)

Yeah and this is a nice pice of Israeli propaganda which has been disproven time and time again. you know this and you decie to continue to ignore it. I am not going to whipe the floor with this bullshit again.

But here goes:

The city of Rahat is the one new Arab city that has been established since Israel was created in 1948. In January 2010, a bill proposed by Ahmed Tibi, an Arab Member of the Knesset, that called for land to be allocated equally to Jews and Arabs was rejected by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation. The bill was designed to provide counterbalance to a bill passed two weeks earlier that states that reception committees of Israeli communities can exercise discretion as to who may reside in their towns. According to Haaretz, "One consequence of that [the latter] bill is that Israeli Arabs would not be able to live in those towns if the reception committees decide so."[3]

The Israel Land Administration manages both the land directly owned by the Government and the Jewish National Fund (JNF) land. The JNF's charter prohibits it from leasing land to non-Jews. In addition, the Jewish Agency, an organization that promotes Jewish immigration to the country and develops residential areas on both public and JNF land, as a matter of policy does not lease land to non-Jews. In 2000, the High Court ruled that the State may not allocate land to its citizens on the basis of religion or nationality, even if it allocates the land through a third party such as the Jewish Agency. The Court's decision precludes any restrictions on the leasing or sale of land based on nationality, religion, or any other discriminatory category. With respect to this ruling, official JNF policy has not changed; no other cases arose after the initial 2000 ruling during the period covered by this report.[4]
In October 2004, civil rights groups petitioned the High Court of Justice to block a Government bid announcement involving JNF land that effectively banned Arabs from bidding. The Government then halted marketing of JNF land in the Galilee and other areas of the north, where there are large Arab populations. In December 2004, Adalah petitioned the High Court to require the Government to apply nondiscriminatory procedures for allocating land and to conduct open land sales/leases to Arabs as well as to Jews. In January 2005, the Attorney General ruled that the Government cannot discriminate against Israeli Arabs in the marketing and allocation of lands it manages, including lands that the Israel Land Administration manages for the Jewish National Fund. Adalah criticized the Attorney General, however, for also deciding that the Government should compensate the JNF with land equal in size to any plots of JNF land won by non-Jewish citizens in government tenders.[4]

SO THIS IS POLICY BASICALLY FROM 2005....that means...pay attention:

SINCE 1948 the state of Israel was racist and discriminatory in its land policies

Which Palestinians? Palestinians in the territories who are shunted from pillar to post by the Arab natiions and their own leadership? The same Palestinians who in a bid for statehood are condemned by sections of their own leadership?

The religious Jewish state that guarantees equal rights for all, exempts non-Jews from compulsory military service and certain taxes, allows non-Jewish political parties, mayors, governemt ministers and so on and has offered the "Palestinian" autonomist movements countless offers and compromises to be refused every time because at the core of this lies another issues, sections of the Palestinians do not want the Jews in the region at any cost whatsoever.

As usual the normal innocent people on the ground, be they Jews, Christians, Druze or Muslim suffer.

You know full well that...as I stated before those rights are only guaranteed in the declaration of independence and which the Knesset and teh Supre Court time and time again ruled DOES NOT HAVE LEGAL status. In otherwords: they whipe their asses with the socalled equal rights you read in them because they have been declared OPTIONAL. By the Knesset and by teh Supreme court. And many, many policies and rulings have confirmed this approach.

So no...you are WRONG. As usual on this subject. But then again...you will never see that nor do you want to see that. You are in full supprt of Israel and its racist and genocidal policies. The continued oppression of Palestinians and the continued attacks and refusal to accept even the most basic forms of international law.

Israel violates and ignores daily more than 224 UN resolutions on the topics ranging from human rights, war, land settlement, agression against citizens, collective punishmenst, occupied territories. Not to mention the violations of the Geneva convention.

So no...agian...you keep defending this abomination. This semi and crypto fascist state as something which is supposedly righteous. Something which came about by large scale terrorism, mass murder, expulsion, theft and continued oppression.

But you simply refuse to open your eyes.

I will simply say: go to west bank. Go visit the occupied territories. Go visit the slums outsie the tourist zones. Take a look how those Palestinians you claim are so wel accepted within Israel truely live and treated on a daily basis.

PhoenixAsh

27th September 2011, 02:28

iscrimination is a built-in part of life and the laws of the country. Remember that what we are dealing with here (and the basic issue of contention in the conflict between Zionism and all of us native Palestinians) is a conflict over land.

As a Palestinian I am disqualified by law from equal access to land ownership or use. This is given a deeper expression in the form of the Law of Return granting any Jewish person anywhere in the world automatic citizenship with all the benefits that accrue with it of access to land, housing, financial and social assistance, and to the symbols of the state while no Palestinian who is not born here can dream of ever becoming a citizen.

Recently laws were passed specifically to prevent our children from marrying other Palestinians and from the right to bring their spouses under the standing laws of family unification applicable to Jewish citizens.

The absolute majority of land we, the Palestinian citizens of the state of Israel since its establishment in 1948, once owned has been confiscated for the benefit of our Jewish co-citizens through a maze of some three dozen laws specifically designed for the purpose. Were it not for the 1976 uprising that has come since to be commemorated as Land Day, we would have lost the remainder. We, nearly one-fifth of the total population of Israel, now own about 3 per cent of its land. After all, we are dealing with what has been defined by Zionism as “the land of Israel” in an ethnic sense, a definition that excludes us, Palestinians. The last stroke in the continuing saga of disenfranchisement is the requirement from us to pledge allegiance to Israel as the state of the Jews. And once we take such an oath, it would be up to the same racist crowd to define what constitutes a breach of it, a process inevitably leading to our expulsion one way or the other.

Our youth, unlike Jewish youth, are exempt from conscription. Positions from which they are disqualified on this basis when they seek employment run the gamut from civil aviation all the way down to the manufacturing of ice-cream.

The worst part of the daily discrimination that we meet with is the fact that much of the final decisions on so many little items are left to the discretion of low-level bureaucrats. These, by and large, have been brought up on a deeply self-centred world-view that sees the world as one of constant struggle between “us”-the-Jews and “them”-the-goyim and considers one’s duty as serving his own people. This, of course, leaves me out of “the favours” many officials consider it their duty to do their clients. Intentional obstructionism is more often what we face.

Another area in which this phenomenon is evident is the differential implementation of the law. Take, for example, the practice of house demolition within Israel. Mind you, we are not speaking here of the savage collective punishment practised by the Israeli occupying forces against Palestinians in the occupied territories. We are speaking of the practice of demolition of homes built without permit within Israel proper.

In absolute numbers there are more illegally constructed structures in Jewish communities, but the demolition is practised almost exclusively against Arab home owners. The basis for the construction of homes without permit is also rooted in discriminatory practices in the laws of zoning which in many cases have retroactively criminalized all residents of many villages whose existence predated the state itself. Such “unrecognized villages” are frequently the site of home demolitions.

The cumulative end result of all the openly discriminatory laws, the hidden disadvantages, and the differential application of the rules and regulations are clearly seen in comparative figures from officially published data of the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics.

As a public health practitioner I can point to the single most telling indicator of the well-being of a community, that of infant mortality rate (IMR), or the number out of a thousand infants born in a certain year who die before their first birthday. This statistic regarding the most vulnerable segment of a population reflects such community attributes as the income level, the level of education, the sanitation, etc.

The relative ratio of the IMR between Arabs and Jews in Israel has run at the level of almost exactly 2 since statistics were ever collected on both groups. In the last decade it has been on the rise, a reflection of increasing discrimination. One could look at many other statistics such as the level of poverty, education, housing, etc. and the gap is obvious, but IMR sums it up best.

It is worth reading the whole interview carefully. Israel now has a Foreign Minister from a party whose major election platform was the need for further action against Israeli Arabs.

http://www.redress.cc/palestine/atibbs20090408

PhoenixAsh

27th September 2011, 02:32

he Palestinian Minority in the Israeli Legal System

Israel's Declaration of Independence (1948) states two principles important for understanding the legal status of Palestinian citizens of Israel. First, the Declaration refers specifically to Israel as a "Jewish state" committed to the "ingathering of the exiles." While such references to the Jewish nature of the state permeate the Declaration, it contains only one reference to the maintenance of complete equality of political and social rights for all its citizens, irrespective of race, religion, or sex. There is a tension between these two principles, in that the first emphasizes the Zionist character of the state, which privileges one group, the Jewish people, and the second mentions the universal status of each citizen in a democracy.

Discriminatory laws

Adalah's report to the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, issued August/September 2001 and entitled Institutionalized Discrimination Against Palestinian Citizens of Israel, identifies more than 20 laws that discriminate against the Palestinian minority in Israel. The report shows that the Jewish character of the state is evident in numerous Israeli laws. The most important immigration laws, The Law of Return (1950) and The Citizenship Law (1952), allow Jews to freely immigrate to Israel and gain citizenship, but excludes Arabs who were forced to flee their homes in 1947 and 1967. Israeli law also confers special quasi-governmental standing on the World Zionist Organization, the Jewish Agency, the Jewish National Fund and other Zionist bodies, which by their own charters cater only to Jews. Various other laws such as The Chief Rabbinate of Israel Law (1980), The Flag and Emblem Law (1949), and The State Education Law (1953) and its 2000 amendment give recognition to Jewish educational, religious, and cultural practices and institutions, and define their aims and objectives strictly in Jewish terms.

Government discrimination

Further, the discretionary powers entrusted to various government ministries and institutions - including budget policies, the allocation of resources, and the implementation of laws - results in significant de facto discrimination between Jewish and Palestinian citizens. For example, a report issued by the Ministry of Interior confirmed that Arab municipalities received a fraction of the total funds allocated by the national government per resident to Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories and to development towns populated exclusively by Jews. Moreover, the Ministry of Religious Affairs affords a small percentage of its budget to the Arab Muslim, Christian, and Druze religious communities. Funds for special projects such as the renewal and development of neighborhoods and improvements in educational programs, services, and facilities are also disproportionately allocated to Jewish communities. To date, Israeli authorities have rarely used their discretionary powers to benefit the Palestinians minority.

Land expropriation

Most importantly, the Israeli government has maintained an aggressive policy of land expropriation, adversely affecting Palestinian land and housing rights. For example, the National Planning and Building Law (1965), retroactively re-zoned the lands on which many Arab villages sit as "non-residential." The consequence of this is that despite the existence of these villages prior to the establishment of the state, they have been afforded no official status. These "unrecognized Arab villages" receive no government services, and residents are denied the ability to build homes and other public buildings. The authorities use a combination of house demolitions, land confiscation, denial of basic services, and restrictions on infrastructure development to dislodge residents from these villages. The situation is severely acute for the Arab Bedouin community living in these unrecognized villages in the Naqab.

The Basic Laws

In 1992, the Knesset passed two important Basic Laws - The Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty and The Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation - which, for the first time, contain "constitution-like" protections for some civil liberties and human rights. The Basic Laws, considered a mini-bill of rights by Israeli legal scholars, do not explicitly protect the right to equality. On the contrary, this Basic Law emphasizes the Jewish character of the state, and undermines the rights of "non-Jewish" citizens. However, even with the passage of these Basic Laws, Israel still has no law that "constitutionally" guarantees the right of equality for all. Although several ordinary statutes protect the equal rights of women and people with disabilities, no Basic Law or general statute guarantees the right to equality for the Palestinian minority.

According to Supreme Court Chief Justice Barak, the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty empowers the Supreme Court to overturn Knesset laws which are incompatible with the following enumerated rights: the rights to dignity, life, freedom, privacy, property, and the right to leave and enter the country. While the right to equality is not expressly included, a 1994 amendment to this Basic Law states that the principles enunciated in the Declaration of Independence are part of the values protected by the Basic Law. As a Supreme Court panel stated in 1994, "The equality principle is incorporated in the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. This incorporation means that the principle of equality is raised to the level of a high normative constitutional right."

Supreme Court Decisions

Numerous landmark decisions delivered since 1994 appear to indicate an increased willingness on the part of the Supreme Court to apply the equality principle in cases involving the rights of gays and lesbians, women's rights, and age discrimination. The Supreme Court has held that a partner of a gay man or lesbian must be recognized as a 'spouse' to avoid discrimination based on sexual orientation for purposes of receiving benefits from an employer; that the army's policy of prohibiting women soldiers from registering for pilot courses is illegal gender discrimination; and that women must be afforded appropriate representation on government corporate boards and in top managerial positions in public institutions.

The Supreme Court has also very recently delivered some forward-looking decisions in cases involving the rights of Palestinians in Israel. In March 2000, the Supreme Court held in the Qa'dan case that the State is prohibited from allocating "state land" based on national belonging or using "national institutions" such as the Jewish Agency to discriminate on its behalf. This case involved the right of a Palestinian family - citizens of Israel - to live in the Jewish settlement of Katzir.

Further, in April 2000, the Supreme Court held that funds for religious cemeteries must be distributed equally to Jewish and Arab religious communities, according to the percentage-of-the-population criteria. The Court in this case ruled that national belonging is irrelevant to the interest implicated in the policy at hand - the interest in a dignified burial - and thus the discrimination constitutes a violation of the principle of equality.

Moreover, in response to a petition demanding fair representation of Palestinian citizens on the Israel Lands Administration Council (which, prior to the filing of the petition, did not have a single Arab member), the Supreme Court in July 2001 issued a decision endorsing the application of fair representation standards. The Council agreed to reinstate a previous Arab appointment, and the Court, in its ruling, asked the Council to consider appointing an additional Arab representative. Most importantly, the Supreme Court held, for the first time, that the state has a positive obligation - albeit not a statutorily recognized one - to guarantee fair representation of Palestinian citizens in public bodies, especially those vested with decision-making powers.

Despite these important new rulings, it is necessary to emphasize three important points: (1) an extended bench of the Supreme Court has not recognized the principle of equality as a "constitutional right" in any written decision to date; (2) the Supreme Court has not ordered the initiation of affirmative action programs as a remedy, even after a finding of state discrimination against Palestinian citizens; (3) the Supreme Court remains very reluctant to rule on cases presenting serious challenges to the dominant political ideology of the state, or requiring fundamental changes in Israeli society or political culture, even when these cases are grounded on strong legal reasoning.

International human rights conventions

Israel has ratified the most important international human rights conventions, which contain minority rights protections. According to these international instruments, the Palestinian community in Israel constitutes a national (Palestinian), as well as an ethnic (Arab), linguistic (Arabic), and religious (Muslim, Christian, Druze) minority, and as such is to be afforded minority rights protections. While Israel's international human rights obligations are not currently binding on Israeli domestic courts, these principles provide persuasive authority for mounting minority group rights claims. Recent developments in Israeli domestic law and international human rights law provide support for claims of group discrimination and the state's obligation to afford positive rights to the Palestinian minority in Israel. It should, however, be noted that Israel has no independent Human Rights Commission which can uphold such claims.

PhoenixAsh

27th September 2011, 02:35

Despite Israel's ratification of the ICCPR and its guarantee to protect all of its citizens against discrimination, Palestinian Arab citizens in Israel are discriminated against in a variety of forms and denied equal individual rights because of their national belonging. Though this discrimination is politically motivated, the Israeli legal system is part of this political context. As well as offering limited provisions for equality or political participation to members of the Palestinian Arab minority, the law in Israel subjects them to three types of discrimination: direct discimination against non-Jews within the law itself, indirect discrimination through "neutral" laws and criteria which apply principally to Palestinians, and institutional discrimination through a legal framework that facilitates a systematic pattern of privileges(1)

The "Jewish and Democratic State"

The Declaration of Independence in 1948 defined Israel as both a Jewish and democratic state, committed to the "ingathering of the exiles," and to guaranteeing equality to all its citizens. Yet insofar as Israel defines itself as Jewish, it overrides and compromises the extent to which it can be democratic.

Israel as a Jewish state has been legally defined as resting on three minimum conditions: where Jews form the majority, where Jews are entitled to special treatment and preferential laws, and where a reciprocal relationship exists between Israel and the Jewish people in the diaspora. Yet in all these conditions, the Palestinian Arab minority is both excluded and hence discriminated against: by privileging Jews, the state treats others as second-class citizens.

Constitutional Equality

Israel does not have a formal constitution, but has drawn up a series of Basic Laws that form a constitution in evolution. Prior to 1992, none of these Basic Laws guaranteed any basic rights. However, in 1992 the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom was passed (2) which subsequently authorised courts to overturn Knesset laws that were contrary to the right to dignity, life, freedom, privacy, property and the right to leave and enter the country.

Specifically, however, it did not include the right to equality. Further, section 1A of the law states that it aims to anchor "the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state." Given the lack of an explicit law that constitutionally protects equality for all citizens, this emphasis on the Jewishness of the State again compromised the equal rights protection for the Palestinian Arab minority.

Political Participation

Palestinian Arabs rights to run for elections to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, are also limited by their acceptance of the notion of the Jewish state.

These limits are expressed in the Law of Political Parties (1992) and, in particular, the amendment of section 7A(1) of the Basic Law: The Knesset whichprevents candidates from participating in the elections if their platform suggests the "denial of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people." Under this section a party platform that challenges the Jewish character of the state, that for example calls for full and complete equality between Jews and Arabs in a state for all its citizens, can be disqualified, as lists have been in the past.(4) The law demands that Palestinian Arab citizens may not challenge the state's Zionist identity.

Direct Discrimination

There are two main examples of laws that discriminate against Palestinian Arabs by directly distinguishing between Jews and non-Jews:

* Citizenship Rights & the Law of Return: National identity is the main factor in deciding the acquisition of citizenship in Israel. The Law of Return grantsevery Jew the right to immigrate to Israel. The Nationality Law automatically grants citizenship to all Jews who have done so, and also to their spouses, children,s grandchildren, and all their spouses. This privilege is for Jews only. Palestinian Arabs can only get citizenship by birth, residence (after meetinga cumulative list of conditions) or naturalisation.

* Special Status of Jewish Organisations: As a result of the World Zionist Organisation- Jewish Agency Law, the Jewish National Fund, Jewish Agency,and World Zionist Organisation have special constitutional status in Israel and are known as quasi-governmental bodies. They are Jewish organisationswhich explicitly aim to benefit Jews only, but have authority for certain governmental functions, including developing the land and housing projects and settlements. Their activities are co-ordinated with the government and are given tax benefits, and they have a lot of influence on decision-making boards (particularly in agriculture and land use).

The Palestinian Arab minority is excluded entirely from these functions as either beneficiaries or participants. Further no government organisations perform the same functions for non-Jews. Consequently, Palestinian Arab needs are systematically disregarded.

Indirect Discrimination

More widespread is the use of "non-discriminatory" criteria in statutes that lead to differences in the treatment of Jews and the Palestinian Arab minority:

* Military Service: Many government preferences and benefits in Israel are conditioned on performing military service. Whilst military service is technicallycompulsory for all citizens, by discretion the vast majority (90%) of Palestinian Arabs are not required to serve; whereas the majority of Jews do. As a consequence, they do not receive the wide range of benefits, including larger mortgages, partial exemptions from course fees, and preferences for public employment and housing. The discriminatory factor is that in many cases the link between the benefit offered and the requirment for military service is tenuous, often as in employment opportunities, and that government offices provide benefits beyond what is legislated. The most celebrated example of this was the level of state child benefits, which until 1997 were conditioned on military service, rather than more obvious socio-economic factors. The impression that this is a mechanism for privileging Jews is borne out by the fact that Jewish Yeshiva students, who like Arab citizens do not serve, are granted the benefits anyway, a policy which has been upheld by the courts.(6)

* Place of Living: The government categorises the country into different zones and awards different statuses and benefits to different towns. For instance, it denotes certain areas national development areas, which then makes them eligible to receive benefits including special tax incentives for industry, educational programmes, and housing incentives. These areas are supposed to be determined according to socio-economic criteria. Yet the zones are drawn to include a disproportionate number of Jewish localities rather than Palestinian Arab ones. For example, in the 1998 classification, outof the 429 localities accorded Development Area A status, only 4 were Arab, despite the fact that Arab towns and villages are consistently at the bottom of the socio-economic scale. The zoning was used to exclude the vast majority of the Palestinian Arab minority from these benefits.

Institutional Discrimination

The Palestinian Arab minority in Israel is discriminated against by the aspects of the legal system which allow the government to adopt discriminatory policies, or the discretionary power that can be used by officials to maintain a systematic pattern of preferences.

The Palestinian Arab minority in Israel is discriminated against by the aspects of the legal system which allow the government to adopt discriminatory policies, or the discretionary power that can be used by officials to maintain a systematic pattern of preferences.

Budgets & Resource Allocation: The Budget Law, which governs state funds, does not specify what proportion should be earmarked for minorities; the decision lies with officials’ discretion. Due to their lack of representation in government offices, Palestinian Arabs receive substantially less funding for e.g. local government budgets (usually 50% less), and have less resources allocated for welfare budgets, school facilities or other education programmes.

Often this discrepancy is justified by the government running projects in cooperation with the Jewish Agency, thus necessitating only Jewish beneficiaries.(7)

Uneven Implementation of the Law: There are three ways in which the implementation of the law adversely affects the Palestinian Arab minority:

1) Positive statutes that the State is expected to enforce or services that the State is required to provide can simply not be implemented in Palestinian Arab communities, such as the Compulsory Education Law, and the provision of truant officers or counsellors, despite the fact that Arab students form 75% of those who drop out of school throughout the whole country.

2) Laws that apply to both Jews and Arabs can be selectively or predominantly implemented on Palestinian Arabs, such as land confiscation laws or house demolitions.

3) Laws can be implemented with different criteria for Jews and Arabs, such as criteria for family assistance in education programmes or production quotas for agricultural production. Often differences in quotas are maintained due to a lack of Arab representation in decision- making authorities.

The judicial review of this institutional discrimination is limited. To date, there is not one court case where the Supreme Court has accepted a case of discrimination against the Palestinian Arab minority and ruled to protect its rights. It usually accepts the claim of the State that its policies serve national priorities and thus are not discriminatory, or that different treatment between Jews and Arabs is legitimate, as they are different groups.(8) Even when historical discrimination is admitted, the court will not rule to close the gaps, arguing that responsibility lies with the decision-making of the executive.(9)

Recommendations for Action:

Israel should undertake a review of all its legislation, beginning with the laws detailed in this factsheet, to ensure that they are consistent with its obligations under Article 26 of the ICCPR, and offer effective protection from discrimination to all citizens. In particular, Israel should draft a basic law that explicitly entrenchesthe right to equality.

Beyond legislation, Israel ought to conduct a thorough reappraisal of the policies of its ministries so as to eradicate a pattern of institutional discrimination against the Palestinian Arab minority, and provide equality in terms of budgetary allocations.

Most importantly, Israel must find the political will to achieve change and work towards full equality for all its citizens.

Further Information:

* D. Kretzmer, The Legal Status of the Arabs in Israel (Westview Press, 1990)
* Adalah, Legal Violations of Arab Minority Rights in Israel (Adalah, 1998)
* HRA & F. McKay, The Social, Economic & Cultural Rights of Minorities: The Palestinian Arab Citizens of Israel (HRA, 1998)

Notes:

1. For a similar schematic analysis see Kretzmer, The Legal Status of the Arabs in Israel (Westview Press, 1990) p. 48
2. In 1992 the Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation was similarly passed.
3. Forward to The Arabs in Israel, cited in Adalah, Legal Violations of Arab Minority Rights in Israel (Adalah, 1998) p. 9
4. For example, El-Ard v. District Commissioner, 18 PD II 340 & Sabri Jiryis v. District Commissioner, 18 PD IV 673, Yerdor v. Central Elections Committee, 19 PD III 365, Neiman v. Chairman of the Central Elections Committee, 39 PD II 233. It is true that since this ammendment came into effectno lists have been disqualified under section 7A(1), however the legal power still remains there to do so.
5. Kretzmer pp. 42-43
6. For example, Wattad v. Minister of Finance, 38 PD III 113
7. For example, the Shahar education programmes offered to weak and disadvantaged students, in which a third of Jewish students have participated,were not until 1998 offered in any Arab communities.
8. For example, Wattad, or Bourkan v. Minister of Finance 32 PD II 800, Agbariah v. Minister of Education 45 PD 222
9. For example, The Local Council of Daliyat El-Carmel et al v. Prime Minister (unpublished), cited in Adalah p. 25.

RED DAVE

27th September 2011, 02:37

This is a complex issue and it is hard to find truly objective or neutral sources on the matter. I think it all goes back to the original issue of land ownership and who actually held the legal title to the said lands. This is unfortunately a nightmare to research as the records are not clear and very often go back into the Ottoman period with patchy and scanty evidence.Whatever it is, it is not a legal issue. It is now, and always has been, a political issue.

The trouble is that "Palestine" did not belong in a legal sense to the "Palestinians" in any more sense than "England" belongs to the "English" or "France" belongs to the "French".Like I said, it isn't a legal issue. It certainly didn't belong to the Jews, ether. (BTW, I'm an antizionist Jew.)

We have to look at who actually owned the land and who actually sold it. We also need to bear in mind that a huge, almost half if I am not mistaken, area of land had belonged to the Ottoman Sultan and thus became "government" land under the mandate, in addition to this we find a lot of wealthy absentee landlords and of course land held by religious groups and other entities.Quibbling, unless you're ready to give huge parts of the USA back to the Native Americans.

In the 1930s the Jewish settlers through various agencies actually bought the land. I read a figure of by 1943 around 6% of the land had been bought for a total of around $560,000,000; approximately half of the land had been purchased from non-"Palestinians", a quarter from Arab landowners and just under 10% from fellahin (peasant Bedouin).Again, this is irrelevant, especially since laws of land transfer back then were murky.

The then King of Transjordania, King Abdulla made the rather unflattering comment back in the period: "It is made quite clear to all, both by the map drawn up by the Simpson Commission and by another compiled by the Peel Commission, that the Arabs are as prodigal in selling their land as they are in useless wailing and weeping."Wow! The king of a country putting people down. How weird is that?

By about 1947 "Jewish lands" totalled around 463,000 acres and I have found the following stats:-

45,000 bought from the Mandatory Government
30,000 bought from Christian Churches (note that the Church(es) are still some of the biggest landowners in Israel-Palestine and lease out the land to the State of Israel- including the land on which the Knesset sits and large areas of Jerusalem.)
387,500 bought from Arabs

Again, this is only marginally relevant.

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct... While as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan." -- PLO Executive Committee member Zuhayr Muhsin (1936-1979)- March 31st, 1977, interview given to newspaper Trouw (Netherlands).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuheir_Mohsen- see: James Dorsey, Wij zijn alleen Palestijn om politieke reden, Trouw , 31 March 1977Funny that the Iraelis don't think the Palestinians exist either. However,m a remark by one Palestinian leader out of many needs to be evaluated, not taken at face value.

I have also seen that it has been alleged that in more recent times that senior members of the Palestinian Authority have/had been selling land to settlers. http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=188736Could be as they're a bunch a crooks.

Fact is, the Palestinian people have rights that have been tromped on. Until these are addressed, probably only possible by a socialist government, the conflict will go on and on and on.

RED DAVE

Apoi_Viitor

27th September 2011, 03:18

Everything that resukted from their unilateral creation of the religious Jewish state is as far as I am considered their own fault. They pressed for their own state instead of a unified secular state with both groups....they chose instead to initiate a reconquista of Palestine.

After the very liberal, secular Wiemar Republic collapsed into the Nazi state (well that, along with over 2,000 years of harsh repression...), it's quite understandable that many Jews were unwilling to settle for anything less than a Jewish State.

The Palestinians face continued struggle and racism...what the hell do you expect would happen??? Offcourse that is entirely to blame on the Israeli and Zionist politics.

If you are going to absolve moral responsibility in regards to the actions of the Palestinians, you might as well be consistent and apply the same criteria for the Israelis. As I mentioned before, the historical oppression of Jews, along with the Holocaust has led to specific developments within the consciousness of Israelis. These include a very strong passion for self autonomy and a conceptual framework that perceives any threat to their self autonomy as a threat to their people themselves.

They created the current situation. They continue to execute racism and oppressive policies and they continue to press and besiege the Palestinians....they continue to thwart any form of development of the Palestinian areas. THAT creates the society Palestinians live in and hampers any normalisation of social live. The Palestinians face continued struggle and racism...what the hell do you expect would happen??? Offcourse that is entirely to blame on the Israeli and Zionist politics.

Of course I agree that the Palestinians are victims of Israeli repression and racism. But I think that quick moral judgments about the actions of Israeli citizens without consideration or understanding of why they behave that way is unfair.

ComradeMan

27th September 2011, 11:55

Well they should have because no Jew is more than 2000 year old and therefore holds no title to any land...land...which they themselves conquered by displacing ethnic indiginous tribes. They have no claim to that land on the basis that their ancient ancestors lived there. If they do...let them show those deeds and property certificates you keep going on about.

On that basis then certain Palestinian claims to the lands of their ancestors are equally mendacious. It's interesting to note that Hamas for one are not shy in claiming their Canaanite heritage and disputing the whole messy situation on the basis of their interpretation of Islam.

But you keep avoiding the subject of who bought and sold the land to whom and who legally held the land in the first place.

That last part is bullshit because you damned well know that the Knesset and the Supreme Court have already established that the delcaration of independence does not old any legal status concerning the supposed equality and freedom of religion. Something which has time and time again been confirmed by both policies amde by the Knesset and rulings by the Supreme Court

Israel, like Britain and some other countries does not have a written constitution. The Israeli Supreme Court has always upheld that the Basic Law: Human Rights and the Basic Law: Dignity and Occupation (amended in 1994). Furthermore Israel has laws against racism and is party to the UN ICERD and UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education. What you assert about the declaration is correct however you miss out the fact that in in 1994 with the amendments to the two Basic Laws cited the Israeli government lent validity to the declaration with the words "in the spirit of the principles included in the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel".

"According to Shi’ite Pakistani-American scholar Tashbih Sayyed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tashbih_Sayyed), the Muslim Arab citizens of Israel are afforded all the rights and privileges of Israeli citizenship. He noted that Israel is one of the few countries in the Middle East where Arab women can vote. In contrast to the non-Israeli Arab world, Arab women in Israel enjoy the same status as men. Muslim women have the right to vote and to be elected to public office. Muslim women, according to Sayyed, are more liberated in Israel than in any Muslim country. Israeli law prohibits polygamy, child marriage, and female sexual mutilation.[58] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Israel#cite_note-Israel-57)
Arab-Israeli women actively participate in government and public life. Nadia Hilou (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Hilou) was the second Israeli-Arab woman to serve in the Knesset."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Israel
http://www.muslimworldtoday.com/land30.htm

They can be Jdws werever they please...they simply can not create a unilateral state at the expense of others in territory lied on for centuries by others.

Well you'd have to abolish a lot of countries on that basis wouldn't you? What you are basically saying here is that unlike any other people in the world and as guaranteed under international law the Jewish people do not have the right to self-determination if they so choose.

And that ever present Jewish community? No more than 5% of the population So that is NO reason at all to sujddenly establish a Jewish state on 70% of the land.

The point was not about the right to declare a state it was about the fact that the Jewish people had never been entirely absent from the land, you are also forgetting the reason why the majority of Jews were absent from the land too- they were forced out and barred from entry and the ones that did remain were victims of massacres and oppression.

Nobody asked the Jewish Europeans/Russians to come to the country and arm themselves and start terrorist attacks and provocative sedditious actions....nobody asked them to unilaterally fight for a seperate religious state which is racist and seclusive in nature.

Is that really what happened? Why were those Russian and Ukrainian Jews so keen to go to Palestine? Not in part because of the upsurge in violence against them in the early 20th century? You are also ignoring the many pogroms against the Jewish people in the Islamic world throughout the 19th and early 20th century: Aleppo (1850:1875), Damascus (1840: 1848: 1890), Beirut (1862:1874), Dayr al-Qamar (1847), Jaffa (1876), Jerusalem (1847:1870:1895), Cairo (1844:1890: 1901–02), Mansura (1877), Alexandria (1870:1882: 1901–07), Port Said (1903:1908), and Damanhur (1871:1873:1877: 1891). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world#Nineteenth_century

Within Palestine the Arabs started attacking Jews under the Mandatory Government when there was still no Jewish State and the Jews made up only about 11% of the population. The 1929 riots were a load of bullshit started when certain sheikhs tried to invoke discriminatory laws of the Ottoman period to forbid a screen between males and females praying at the Western Wall- a lot of people on both sides were killed and injured because of it.

Nobody asked the Arab/Islamic nations to start attacking, and killing Jews in other nations with the net result that post 1948 up to one million Jewish refugees arrived in the only place in the Middle-East they would be safe. These people were not Zionists, they were not citizens of the newly founded state of Israel, they were just Jewish people attacked for being Jews. You cannot deny that this has also affected post-1948 politics, demographics and social attitudes.

So again you conveniently miss out a lot of factors that always seem to paint the Jews in the worst possible light and the Palestinians/Arabs as mere passive victims of the whole situation when in actual fact sections of the Arab world (of which the Palestinians are a part) are also responsible for the situation.

What is your point? That I must somehow cry rivers for the fact that the Jewish immigrants came to the countryn with the full intend of stelaing it away from the original population? Where was THEIR concern for those people?

Who bought the land from whom and who sold it to whom? Stealing is a big word...

I do not give a fuck what they are demanding. That is what is going to work...nothing else.

Except it's never going to work if that's not what the vast majority on either side of the conflict will accept- great strategy here.:rolleyes:

And neither did they belong to the Jewish people. So again...no argument there.

Who bought the land from whom and who sold it to whom?

Yeah and this is a nice pice of Israeli propaganda which has been disproven time and time again. you know this and you decie to continue to ignore it. I am not going to whipe the floor with this bullshit again.

Apart from strong rhetoric and denouncing things as propaganda you don't actually refute or disprove anything. There are solid facts with sources- something you are not providing. An as for denouncing the opinions of Arab-Israelis- why is that their opinions are only valid when it suits a certain political agenda? :rolleyes:

The city of Rahat is the one new Arab city that has been established since Israel was created in 1948. In January 2010, a bill proposed by Ahmed Tibi, an Arab Member of the Knesset, that called for land to be allocated equally to Jews and Arabs was rejected by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation....

And I applaud Ahmed Tibi and would be the first to acknowledge that Israel does have problems of institutionalised racism (like most other countries do including the "friendly" unofficial apartheid of the Netherlands). I have never argued that Israel was the "perfect" state and a beacon of harmony and tolerance amongst the nations, far from it. But countering distorted and false claims about the country is not the same as throwing up examples of where it has severe failings.

So no...you are WRONG. As usual on this subject. But then again...you will never see that nor do you want to see that. You are in full supprt of Israel and its racist and genocidal policies. The continued oppression of Palestinians and the continued attacks and refusal to accept even the most basic forms of international law.

Hysterical and rhetorical bullshit from start to finish.

Why is it that if you are so concerned about the plight of the Palestinians whenever a severe criticism against the abuses of human rights of Palestinians by other Palestinians is broached you and others instantly start screaming "Israel" and conveniently ignore the other issues.

Israel violates and ignores daily more than 224 UN resolutions on the topics ranging from human rights, war, land settlement, agression against citizens, collective punishmenst, occupied territories. Not to mention the violations of the Geneva convention.

Let's have a look at the UN Security Council Resolutions-not just the resolutions that condemn a particular action/incident etc- decided by the Security Council, i.e. US, UK, Russia, China, France and the ten other members. We also have to call into question the "neutrality" of these resolutions and their members but leaving that aside I found this little interesting source, again, I cannot vouch for the accuracy.
http://www.zcommunications.org/un-resolutions-being-violated-by-countries-other-than-iraq-by-stephen-zunes

According to the article I found exlcuding 31 for Israel, I also found Turkey & Turkey/Cyprus 23 violations, other countries with violations include Morocco, Armenia, Russia, Indonesia and Croatia. Now again without wishing to defend Israel why is that of this rogues gallery only Israel is the state that basically has to dismantle itself? Abolish its own existence?

You keep building up these rhetorically loaded attacks that don't actually change the fact that many of the claims and "facts" stated here about Israel by some are mendacious and distorted and secondly you keep trying to poison the well by implying that anyone who objects to this is de facto the most hardcore, rightwing, zionist that ever existed.

Israel has a right to exist inasmuch as any other nation has a right to exist.

ComradeMan

27th September 2011, 11:57

double post- please delete

PhoenixAsh

27th September 2011, 12:11

After the very liberal, secular Wiemar Republic collapsed into the Nazi state (well that, along with over 2,000 years of harsh repression...), it's quite understandable that many Jews were unwilling to settle for anything less than a Jewish State.

Not understandable if you consider the way they wanted to create that state and at whose expense. We are not talking about a country or region whic h was uninhabited. They wanted to create that state in an inhabitted region...by excluding the inhabitants of that region. Even going so far as to claim these people did not matter and that it was religious duty to reclaim that land. Now...that is IMO far from understandable.

If you are going to absolve moral responsibility in regards to the actions of the Palestinians, you might as well be consistent and apply the same criteria for the Israelis. As I mentioned before, the historical oppression of Jews, along with the Holocaust has led to specific developments within the consciousness of Israelis. These include a very strong passion for self autonomy and a conceptual framework that perceives any threat to their self autonomy as a threat to their people themselves.

The two sides of this equation however are not equal. Since the vast majority...>90%...of the Jews who were in the area when the state of Israel was delcared were not born in that region for more than one generation since thousands of generations of living elsewhere. In other words...none of these people lived there. They carved out a nation by immigrating to the region enmasse to create their own state with the specific intent to do so at the expense and with the disregard of the people who lived there.

Now...that means they are on the offensive. Not on the defensive. In other words...they have become pupertrators and the oppressors. Actions, which they have undertaken out of their own free will, and which are responsible for the reacion it causes.

Of course I agree that the Palestinians are victims of Israeli repression and racism. But I think that quick moral judgments about the actions of Israeli citizens without consideration or understanding of why they behave that way is unfair.

I know exactly why they behave that way. And personally I hardly think it is unfair to make a judgement, moral or objective, based on the historical developments.

The state of Israel is based on the mythology of the poor victim...they wrap themselves in that argument at every possible opportunity
and this is supposed to cover the most heinous and most blatant acts of racism and aggression.

In fact the entire idea of normalising the Jewish position in the world (at the basis of parts of Zionism) by creating their own nation is heavilly flawed. Especially since that creation was well known, certainly in the years leading up to the creation of Israel, to cause war, conflict and increased anti-semitism in the region. The creation of the state of Israel was therefore in direct violation of the concept of normalising the international position of Jews and continues to be so....not to mention that is was "doing upon to others..."

So no...I have no understanding for Israeli citizens who wish to perpetuate the situation they have pleaced themselves in. I think the notion of Zionism and the notion of the mythology of the victim are flawed in its roots and have no merrit and never had any merrit.

PhoenixAsh

27th September 2011, 12:45

On that basis then certain Palestinian claims to the lands of their ancestors are equally mendacious. It's interesting to note that Hamas for one are not shy in claiming their Canaanite heritage and disputing the whole messy situation on the basis of their interpretation of Islam.

Why? It is exactly what the Israelies are doing. They introduced that notion. HAMAS is a recent organisation. It did NOT exist before the creation of the state of Israel...and the only reason it exists is the fact that Zionists decided to carve out a nation at the expense of the population which actually lived there. HAMAS was created in 1987....which was 39 years AFTER Israel was created.

So again...you skip a few decades there.

But you keep avoiding the subject of who bought and sold the land to whom and who legally held the land in the first place.

We have been over this. I do not care.

Israel, like Britain and some other countries does not have a written constitution. The Israeli Supreme Court has always upheld that the Basic Law: Human Rights and the Basic Law: Dignity and Occupation (amended in 1994).

No they didn't.

Furthermore Israel has laws against racism and is party to the UN ICERD and UNESCO Convention against Discrimination in Education. What you assert about the declaration is correct however you miss out the fact that in in 1994 with the amendments to the two Basic Laws cited the Israeli government lent validity to the declaration with the words "in the spirit of the principles included in the declaration of the establishment of the State of Israel".

In other words....46 years after the delcaration Israel finally took some steps to try to become a respectable nation de jure.

Again...skipping a few decades there....

"According to Shi’ite Pakistani-American scholar Tashbih Sayyed (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tashbih_Sayyed), the Muslim Arab citizens of Israel are afforded all the rights and privileges of Israeli citizenship. He noted that Israel is one of the few countries in the Middle East where Arab women can vote. In contrast to the non-Israeli Arab world, Arab women in Israel enjoy the same status as men. Muslim women have the right to vote and to be elected to public office. Muslim women, according to Sayyed, are more liberated in Israel than in any Muslim country. Israeli law prohibits polygamy, child marriage, and female sexual mutilation.[58] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Israel#cite_note-Israel-57)
Arab-Israeli women actively participate in government and public life. Nadia Hilou (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Hilou) was the second Israeli-Arab woman to serve in the Knesset."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Israel
http://www.muslimworldtoday.com/land30.htm

Read my posts above yours.

Well you'd have to abolish a lot of countries on that basis wouldn't you? What you are basically saying here is that unlike any other people in the world and as guaranteed under international law the Jewish people do not have the right to self-determination if they so choose.

NOT in land lived on by others....where they do not have any roots for generations and I contest that self determination means creating a religious independent state.

If they so choose....they chose to do so in a land which they did not own (to use YOUR argument) in which they formed a 1/3 minority and at the expense of the other 2/3.

The point was not about the right to declare a state it was about the fact that the Jewish people had never been entirely absent from the land, you are also forgetting the reason why the majority of Jews were absent from the land too- they were forced out and barred from entry and the ones that did remain were victims of massacres and oppression.

The Jews you were talking about were not forced out. Unless you can show me that the majority of the immigrants to Palestina were over 2000 year old....which you probably (taking a wild guess here) can't.

So this would make as much sense and has as much validity as the Dutch suddenly enmasse migrating to Pensylvania and New York...because of centuries old ties with that land...and beginning a terrorist struggle to create their own country and because they were expelled at one point in history.

Is that really what happened? Why were those Russian and Ukrainian Jews so keen to go to Palestine? Not in part because of the upsurge in violence against them in the early 20th century? You are also ignoring the many pogroms against the Jewish people in the Islamic world throughout the 19th and early 20th century: Aleppo (1850:1875), Damascus (1840: 1848: 1890), Beirut (1862:1874), Dayr al-Qamar (1847), Jaffa (1876), Jerusalem (1847:1870:1895), Cairo (1844:1890: 1901–02), Mansura (1877), Alexandria (1870:1882: 1901–07), Port Said (1903:1908), and Damanhur (1871:1873:1877: 1891). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world#Nineteenth_century

I do not care. Really...I do not give a shit about any of those arguments at all. Not because the pogroms were justified or not horrible.....
But Because NONE of these arguments in any way shape or form justify the creation of an independent Jewish state at the expense of the Palestinians.

These arguments amount to nothing less than I would kick the shit out of some twelve year old kid and bully the kids in my street because I myself am bullied at school.

Within Palestine the Arabs started attacking Jews under the Mandatory Government when there was still no Jewish State and the Jews made up only about 11% of the population. The 1929 riots were a load of bullshit started when certain sheikhs tried to invoke discriminatory laws of the Ottoman period to forbid a screen between males and females praying at the Western Wall- a lot of people on both sides were killed and injured because of it.

Yeah we have been over this before and you know fully well that that agression was in large part caused by the fact that the zionists smuggled weapons into the territories and were themselves planning violence.

Nobody asked the Arab/Islamic nations to start attacking, and killing Jews in other nations with the net result that post 1948 up to one million Jewish refugees arrived in the only place in the Middle-East they would be safe. These people were not Zionists, they were not citizens of the newly founded state of Israel, they were just Jewish people attacked for being Jews. You cannot deny that this has also affected post-1948 politics, demographics and social attitudes.

And NOW do you see the insanity of the argument: creating our own na5tion will make our people save? Do you finally get that?

The entire concept of the state of Israel....from its earliest conceivement in the 19th century...and the entire execution of it in the late 30's and 40's was flawed to its core.

The whole ideology of Zionism is not only racist in itself...it is also deeply anti-semetic.

So again you conveniently miss out a lot of factors that always seem to paint the Jews in the worst possible light and the Palestinians/Arabs as mere passive victims of the whole situation when in actual fact sections of the Arab world (of which the Palestinians are a part) are also responsible for the situation.

NO...in fact they are NOT. Who immigrated to the land with the specific intent to carve out a nation at the expense of the population living there????

All other factors are irrelevant.

And all your arguments...well basically they come down to somebody sticking their hand willingly and knowingly into a waspsnest and then acting all surprised they get stung. You can hardly complain when you stick your hand in a wasps nest that you are getting stung. So no...you can't claim to be the victim of those really nasty and vicious wasps!!!!. Period.

Who bought the land from whom and who sold it to whom? Stealing is a big word...

And it is entirely accurate. As YOUR own links have shown you.

Except it's never going to work if that's not what the vast majority on either side of the conflict will accept- great strategy here.:rolleyes:

Hey personally I would settle for the complete destruction of Israel.

Who bought the land from whom and who sold it to whom?

You keep going on about ownership...we have already well and clearly established that the land policies of the state of Israel have been discriminatory. You keep "forgetting" that.

Apart from strong rhetoric and denouncing things as propaganda you don't actually refute or disprove anything. There are solid facts with sources- something you are not providing. An as for denouncing the opinions of Arab-Israelis- why is that their opinions are only valid when it suits a certain political agenda? :rolleyes:

I do not have to refute it...it has already been refuted several times. In fact I made several posts above which refute it.

And I applaud Ahmed Tibi and would be the first to acknowledge that Israel does have problems of institutionalised racism (like most other countries do including the "friendly" unofficial apartheid of the Netherlands). I have never argued that Israel was the "perfect" state and a beacon of harmony and tolerance amongst the nations, far from it. But countering distorted and false claims about the country is not the same as throwing up examples of where it has severe failings.

Yes I think it is very importat to counter false claims of the right to a religious state based on racism at the expense of a population. We agree on that.

Hysterical and rhetorical bullshit from start to finish.

But oh so completely true

Why is it that if you are so concerned about the plight of the Palestinians whenever a severe criticism against the abuses of human rights of Palestinians by other Palestinians is broached you and others instantly start screaming "Israel" and conveniently ignore the other issues.

Because the only time it is brought up is by you and other supporters of Israel to deflect from the topic of the debate.

Now...I would very much like to point out to you the various Jews throughout history who supported pogroms on other Jews. I would like top point out to you the Jews who willfully collaborated with the Nazi's in WWII. But the fact of the matter is that they are irrelevant to those debates and do not in any way shape or form lessen the culpability of the purpetrators....and creators of the situation.

So...the argumenst about those abuses are often merely disengenious as their only purpose it the deflection from the focus of the debate and they serve to cover up the fact that we are not talking about the PA here...we are talking about the racism and imperialism of Israel.

Let's have a look at the UN Security Council Resolutions-not just the resolutions that condemn a particular action/incident etc- decided by the Security Council, i.e. US, UK, Russia, China, France and the ten other members. We also have to call into question the "neutrality" of these resolutions and their members but leaving that aside I found this little interesting source, again, I cannot vouch for the accuracy.
http://www.zcommunications.org/un-resolutions-being-violated-by-countries-other-than-iraq-by-stephen-zunes

According to the article I found exlcuding 31 for Israel, I also found Turkey & Turkey/Cyprus 23 violations, other countries with violations include Morocco, Armenia, Russia, Indonesia and Croatia. Now again without wishing to defend Israel why is that of this rogues gallery only Israel is the state that basically has to dismantle itself? Abolish its own existence? [/quote]

Again your argument always comes down to the kindergarten argument: but they are doing it too.

THe fact that there are more than 200 resolutions concerning human rights, civil rights, violations of international law, violations of the Geneva convention by Israel...ONLY pertains to Israel. Wether or not other nations have these kind of resolutions too is completely irrelevant.

Again,...you are deflecting in order NOT to deal with their content.

You keep building up these rhetorically loaded attacks that don't actually change the fact that many of the claims and "facts" stated here about Israel by some are mendacious and distorted and secondly you keep trying to poison the well by implying that anyone who objects to this is de facto the most hardcore, rightwing, zionist that ever existed.

I think they are not.

Israel has a right to exist inasmuch as any other nation has a right to exist.

I do not agree.

ComradeMan

27th September 2011, 13:59

Why? It is exactly what the Israelies are doing. They introduced that notion. HAMAS is a recent organisation. It did NOT exist before the creation of the state of Israel...and the only reason it exists is the fact that Zionists decided to carve out a nation at the expense of the population which actually lived there. HAMAS was created in 1987....which was 39 years AFTER Israel was created.

Why not justify the Nazis then and exhonerate them from guilt as they only emerged as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. Yet again, you decided to pick and choose with your application of history. One moment it does not count and the next moment it does.

So again...you skip a few decades there.

Only if you ignore the fact that Hamas has its origins in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood that had been active in the area since the 1950s. There was no sudden abiogenesis of Hamas in 1987. :rolleyes:

We have been over this. I do not care.

So you get to decide do you? Because you do not care..... :rolleyes: Despite the fact that it is one of the major issues in the whole fucking situation and the charge of the "Jews stole the land" is frequently used by the opponents of Israel so therefore needs to be addressed. The only reason why you are avoiding this, it seems, is because this issue actually suddenly blurs the whole good guy-bad guy paradigm that a lot of anti-Israel argumemts rest upon.

No they didn't.

Err yes they did... Now this court has a checkered history, the votes on marriage being the most contentious (and note, not unanimous either) on the other hand they also overturned an attempt in 2009 to ban Arab political parties (United Arab List-Ta'al and Balad) from running for election to which Ahmed Tibi responded by saying that "fascism" had been defeated although he added the struggle was not over. The Supreme Court also was also appointed the first Arab-Israeli judge in 1999 Abdel Rahman Zuabi.

In other words....46 years after the delcaration Israel finally took some steps to try to become a respectable nation de jure.

How grudging of you.... Israel can't win can it? If it does make a positive development or progressive action then it's too little too late if it doesn't it's just further proof why this "evil" state should be abolished? It took the apartheid state of South Africa decades to establish a democratic society, racism and problems still exist, but no one, not even the black South Africans, ever argued that South Africa should be abolished.

Again your argument always comes down to the kindergarten argument: but they are doing it too.

No it isn't- it does not, and I think I stated that, justify Israel but it points out the fact that as far as I know this rage against Israel is the most fanatical of all in that it demonises Israel above and beyond all other states (few of whom have a particularly great track record) and openly calls for the destruction of that state.

THe fact that there are more than 200 resolutions concerning human rights, civil rights, violations of international law, violations of the Geneva convention by Israel...ONLY pertains to Israel. Wether or not other nations have these kind of resolutions too is completely irrelevant.

Now if we have a look at who sponsors these UN resolutions in general don't you think that Israel may have a case to say they are one sided or at least biased?

For example, if we take a look at UN resolution A/RES/62/56 2007 we find that is was sponsored by 16 members of the "Organization of the Islamic Conference". Do you think that is a neutral resolution? Let's look at the nations involved at the time Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic,Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Not one of these states (at the time) other than Egypt had full diplomatic relations with Israel nor could really be considered to be "neutral" on the subject of Israel. In fact looking through a lot, admittedly not all, of those resolutions and who puts them forward it's interesting to see who the main voices against Israel are.

Again, I am not denying human rights violations in Israel- as stated before there are sadly few countries that have a clean track record but let's have a look at the UN Human Rights Council that have passed at least around 26 resolutions against Israel, on this council we find those great paragons of human rights, Saudi Arabia :crying: China and Libya (at the time under Ghaddaffi). This was the same council that set up the Durban II Conference in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched a virulent attack on Israel and basically denied the Holocaust as "ambiguous" and "dubious"- this led to many countries walking out. Iran has such a great human rights record too, this of course the same Ahmadinejad who threatened to "wipe Israel off the map". :rolleyes:

I do not care. Really...I do not give a shit about any of those arguments at all. Not because the pogroms were justified or not horrible.....But Because NONE of these arguments in any way shape or form justify the creation of an independent Jewish state at the expense of the Palestinians.

This tactic of yours of just wrting off arguments and saying you don't care- conveniently ignoring material reasons and historical factors and so on just undermines your position- it's also surprising from someone on the left, who I suppose at least, would espouse some form of historical materialism.

IHey personally I would settle for the complete destruction of Israel.

And you wonder why the Israeli rightwing is growing? What a vile and shockingly ignorant comment- you know full well what that would mean for the ordinary people on the ground, but you don't care because you sit in your little ivory tower casting judgement knowing full well that the consequences won't affect you directly.

No one is arguing that zionism has not caused grave problems, no one is arguing that Palestinians (Muslim/Arabs) have not been victims along with other minorities, no one is trying to defend every action taken by every successive government of Israel and no one is arguing that Israel is a perfect society- I don't many in the Israeli government would even argue that.

However completely ignoring the reasons why the state of Israel came about in the first place, completely ignoring the role of the Arab/Islamic nations within the greater Middle-Eastern conflict, presenting one-sided, distorted and rhetorically charged slanders against an entire nation in it's entirety and calling for the wholesale destruction of a state is completely different.... and furthermore it does nothing to help the Palestinians either.

PhoenixAsh

27th September 2011, 15:33

Why not justify the Nazis then and exhonerate them from guilt as they only emerged as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. Yet again, you decided to pick and choose with your application of history. One moment it does not count and the next moment it does.

But isn't this exactly the strategy you are following? You state the Jews have a rights to create their own nation because of progroms and prosecution....in other words...you are the one claiming they are not responsible for kicking out the Palestinians, their racism against them and their continued imperialist aspirations at the expense of Palestinians because of previous prosecution.

So no I do not agree. What you fail to acknowledge is that there is a substantial difference. I explained this to Apoi.

The Jewish immigrants to Palestine came there with the specific intent on creating thir own nation. They inflicted this wish upon the population living there and with blatant disregard for the population living there. They were not natives to that land and they were certainly not entitled to it.

So they created their own state an drove those people out. THe state itself was religious and racist in its very nature and declaring it immediately made, by the very proclamation of the state, every non-Jew a second rate citizen who was neither considered equal nor their own ethnicity taken into consideration.

That is an act inflicted in another region based on something that happened somewhere else. Instead of countering and batteling those situations they chose to inflict the exact same thing on others.

Those people where then put on the defensive. Not only to fight for the land they lived on, not only to fight for judicial and legal equality and recognition of the fact that they in fact were the majority population but also the fact that they had to basically fight for their own livelyhoods and continued survival.

Only if you ignore the fact that Hamas has its origins in the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood that had been active in the area since the 1950s. There was no sudden abiogenesis of Hamas in 1987. :rolleyes:

Again...1950's. The Brotherhood only came to that region because of the situation which was created by the declaration of the state of Israel.

You seem to have trouble forgetting the laws of cause and effect.

* Israel is a cause...the MB and eventually HAMAS are the effect.
* Jewish zionist massive immigration with the intent to create their own nation was the cause of tensions before. The effect was increased polarisation between Jews and Arabs.

However you turn this...the fact remains that zionism created the problems in the first place.

So you get to decide do you? Because you do not care..... :rolleyes: Despite the fact that it is one of the major issues in the whole fucking situation and the charge of the "Jews stole the land" is frequently used by the opponents of Israel so therefore needs to be addressed. The only reason why you are avoiding this, it seems, is because this issue actually suddenly blurs the whole good guy-bad guy paradigm that a lot of anti-Israel argumemts rest upon.

It needs to be admitted, yes. You continue to FAIL to provide any evidence that Jews owned the vast majority of the land. In fact...the evidence you have put forth decries that as your own evidence has shows that Jews in fact owned about 6% of the land.

So there is NO argument in land ownership which justifies teh state of Israel which at the time of its creation claimed 60% of the available land for 33% of the population (the very vast majority of which were recent arrivals to the region).

Your continued attempt to bring the subject in the debate only serves to obfuscate the fact that the rest of the land was stolen and unilatterally appropriated at the expense of the people living there.

Err yes they did... Now this court has a checkered history, the votes on marriage being the most contentious (and note, not unanimous either) on the other hand they also overturned an attempt in 2009 to ban Arab political parties (United Arab List-Ta'al and Balad) from running for election to which Ahmed Tibi responded by saying that "fascism" had been defeated although he added the struggle was not over. The Supreme Court also was also appointed the first Arab-Israeli judge in 1999 Abdel Rahman Zuabi.

Again...1999 and 2009. Which is decades after 1948. Your continuously bring so called evidence of very recent legislation and judicial actions into the debate. You continue to ignore the decades of racism and discrimination.

You also continue to ignore the fact that as recent as 2007 the supreme court legitimised settlements in which Palestinians were driven of their land.

How grudging of you.... Israel can't win can it? If it does make a positive development or progressive action then it's too little too late if it doesn't it's just further proof why this "evil" state should be abolished? It took the apartheid state of South Africa decades to establish a democratic society, racism and problems still exist, but no one, not even the black South Africans, ever argued that South Africa should be abolished.

And? You are now basing your defense of Israel on another vile apartheids regime?

No it isn't- it does not, and I think I stated that, justify Israel but it points out the fact that as far as I know this rage against Israel is the most fanatical of all in that it demonises Israel above and beyond all other states (few of whom have a particularly great track record) and openly calls for the destruction of that state.

Yes...I think Israel is a vile abomination. That has nothing to do with Jews at all but with the very nature of that state. In my opinion Israel is comparable to a malign cancer which is going to expand and continue along its set path if it is not rooted out to destroy the Palestinian people in the region. NOT because it is a jewish state...but because of its very concept and goals.

I also think the continued existance of the state of Israel (and its entire concept) is currently the root cause of a vast amount of international problems including an obstacle in the way of any form of proletarian international class awareness.

This disagreement we have mainly stems from the fact that you recognize the state of Israel as legitimate and I do not recognize the state of Israel as legitimate....as a result of that ANY claims by the state of Israel or in favor of the state of Israel are void on the ground that the state itself is illegitimate in nature and in how it came about. Not only because this is like a thief defending his right to the things he stole but also because all arguments in favor of legitimacy of Israel so far have been completely and utterly failing to provide a legitimate basis for it.

* Look at the landownership argument
* The argument that Jews somehow have a right to their own state in the land of others
* The argument that an illegitimate state somehow can claim the right to defend its conintued existance
* The argument that the state is justified to discriminate against Palestinians and deny them their rights

That is basically what it comes down to.

Now if we have a look at who sponsors these UN resolutions in general don't you think that Israel may have a case to say they are one sided or at least biased?

No...simply put...THEY violate international law. THEY should stop doing so. Whoever points out that violation is irrelevant.

For example, if we take a look at UN resolution A/RES/62/56 2007 we find that is was sponsored by 16 members of the "Organization of the Islamic Conference". Do you think that is a neutral resolution? Let's look at the nations involved at the time Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syrian Arab Republic,Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Not one of these states (at the time) other than Egypt had full diplomatic relations with Israel nor could really be considered to be "neutral" on the subject of Israel. In fact looking through a lot, admittedly not all, of those resolutions and who puts them forward it's interesting to see who the main voices against Israel are.

And this is rellevant why? Again...Israel violates international law...then goes on to claim it is not bound by those international laws because of the people who oppose that violation?

Doesn't this argument you put forth here strike you as a tad bit hypocritical? Isn't this exactly the same as White South Africans claiming that their racism is justified and can continue because mostly pepople sympathetic to the situation of black people support the denouncement of the politics????

Yes...it is...

Again, I am not denying human rights violations in Israel- as stated before there are sadly few countries that have a clean track record but let's have a look at the UN Human Rights Council that have passed at least around 26 resolutions against Israel, on this council we find those great paragons of human rights, Saudi Arabia :crying: China and Libya (at the time under Ghaddaffi). This was the same council that set up the Durban II Conference in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched a virulent attack on Israel and basically denied the Holocaust as "ambiguous" and "dubious"- this led to many countries walking out. Iran has such a great human rights record too, this of course the same Ahmadinejad who threatened to "wipe Israel off the map". :rolleyes:

Agian...your defense is tantamount to: they were doing it too

If I speed on the highway and get a ticket...the defence "but several other cars were doing that too" is completely laughable and unaccepted. YET somehow defenders of Israel think THEY are exempt from this logic and continue to argue this point.

Who the fuck cares about what SA or Iran does? THAT is completely irrelevant to what Israel does.

Or do you think ISrael is somehow justified to continue along thier path because Iran is also questionable? And that this is somehow a valuid argument?

This tactic of yours of just wrting off arguments and saying you don't care- conveniently ignoring material reasons and historical factors and so on just undermines your position- it's also surprising from someone on the left, who I suppose at least, would espouse some form of historical materialism.

I have disproven your claims to those material reasons....in fact...you yourself disproved them by the sources you cited who basically said that your extrapolated argument was wrong.

I have not denied any historical factors. I denied them to be justifications for the legitimacy of Israel.

And you wonder why the Israeli rightwing is growing? What a vile and shockingly ignorant comment- you know full well what that would mean for the ordinary people on the ground, but you don't care because you sit in your little ivory tower casting judgement knowing full well that the consequences won't affect you directly.

What would that mean for the people on the ground? Because you seem to be certain that that would to lead to mass extermination...a rather spurious assumption based on racism in the first place and supposed genocidal anti-semitism of the Palestinians. In fact I made that statement to be able to say this and point this out.

The whole argument WHY Israel should be supported and the whole argument WHY the zionist movement started in the first place in that region are based on racist principles and notions.

It itself has become an argument for its continued perpetuation of support for not only the state of Israel but the policies it makes. It is a legitimisation POST FACT and a vicious circle argument.

The zionist movement is based on the principle that Jews can NOT peacefully coexist with others in one nation. It ALWAYS claims, will claim and has claimed that others are inherrently anti-semitic and hate Jews. that is a rather large and ultimately racist assumption even based on ample historical annecdotes. It refuses the concept of multi ethnic states based on complete and utter equality by its very nature and concept...and that is exactly what the state of Israel does.

The state of Israel is a state based on the concept of equality for specific groups. It will do ANYTHING to protect that nature because it is its entire prupose of existance and therefore it can not and should not be allowed to continue to exist because inherrently THAT is a racist position which excludes all others and makes them secondary citizens. The state of Israel as it is is in its very essence and goal an oppressive entity. It specifically excludes others from being equal.

You however continue to defend that very nature and claim that it is justified and legitimate....and you accuse me of an Ivory tower?

I also like to point out to you that this is also the case because the state of Israel is completely equated with its citizens. Not only is this factually untrue but apparantly you think the state embodies its citizens and that destroying the state means destroying the citizens.

Your argument here serves to perpetuate the continued segregation based on mistrust of others. Inherrently this makes your earlier comparison to South Africa and its 1948 apartheid policy very apt. That policy was amongst others also instated out of fear that whites would be dominated and prosecuted by blacks in the future.

So unless you change the entire nature of Israel that state will always be fundamentally racist and oppressive and based on unequal citizenship. And changing the nature of Israel means destroying the state of Israel.

No one is arguing that zionism has not caused grave problems, no one is arguing that Palestinians (Muslim/Arabs) have not been victims along with other minorities, no one is trying to defend every action taken by every successive government of Israel and no one is arguing that Israel is a perfect society- I don't many in the Israeli government would even argue that.

...

However completely ignoring the reasons why the state of Israel came about in the first place,

I am not ignoring that I am denying that that is any justification for legitimacy.

completely ignoring the role of the Arab/Islamic nations within the greater Middle-Eastern conflict,

I am not...

If you create a nation based on theft and unlateral appropriation of the bast part of the land for a minority of people who do not live in the region and never lived there with the sole intent to make that nation racist in the first place....yeah...then pretty much you can expect people to get very, very pissed.

Now it may not be nice that they wage war against you. And it may not be nice that you continuously have to defend your illegitimate claim to nationhood. But ultimately...hey...those are the consequences of your own actions....none of which would have happened if they would have created a union state in the first place.

So no I am not denying their role. I am however, acurately, saying that if you willingly and knowingly stick your hand into a wasp nest to destroy it then the wasps get angry and will sting you. That is not the fault of the wasps. That is entirely your own fault.

I had to explain this to a six year old....its not without reason I brought this argument up in the first place....he understood.

Sure I felt sorry for the kid and felt his pain but ultimately that is what is going on here.

presenting one-sided, distorted and rhetorically charged slanders against an entire nation in it's entirety and calling for the wholesale destruction of a state is completely different.... and furthermore it does nothing to help the Palestinians either.

Yeah...I think I pretty much covered that above.

ComradeMan

27th September 2011, 16:49

But isn't this exactly the strategy you are following? You state the Jews have a rights to create their own nation because of progroms and prosecution....in other words...you are the one claiming they are not responsible for kicking out the Palestinians, their racism against them and their continued imperialist aspirations at the expense of Palestinians because of previous prosecution.

Who are the ones responsible for the Nakba? Who are the ones that unanimously attacked Israel in disregard of the UN resolution of 1947 (seeing as you like to quote the UN)? Who were the ones who actually encouraged many Arabs to leave because they were sure of a victory?

The Jewish immigrants to Palestine came there with the specific intent on creating thir own nation.

... because they were being systematically chased out of other countries.

They were not natives to that land and they were certainly not entitled to it.

It seems the Jews were not allowed to be natives of any land. Are you now arguing for the "biological" right to live in a country?

You continue to FAIL to provide any evidence that Jews owned the vast majority of the land. In fact...the evidence you have put forth decries that as your own evidence has shows that Jews in fact owned about 6% of the land.

Well in fact most of the land had belonged to the Ottoman Sultan... not the Palestinians and remained government land. To this day most JEWS cannot buy land in Israel because it's owned by the government and leased. There are no restrictions on private land ownership however there never was, and still is not, a lot of private ownership by any group. Currently they are talking about privatising land ownership held by the state so that situation may change.

This disagreement we have mainly stems from the fact that you recognize the state of Israel as legitimate and I do not recognize the state of Israel as legitimate....

Because you say so, unlike the UN of course who you like to cite a lot. :rolleyes:

If you create a nation based on theft and unlateral appropriation

Show me one example where Israel has taken land from an Arab or non-Jew who had legal title to that land. This stupid propaganda of they "stole" the land is just rificulous. Where did all the money go then? i.e. the money that was paid for the land? Where are all the absentee Arab landlords, the Jordanian royal family and so on- prepared to give the money back in exchange for the land they sold. :rolleyes: Yeah all the land they sold at extortionate prices because they thought they could make a quick buck easily and didn't actually give a shit about the people who were there?

Your whole argument is basically just beating a war-drum and refusal to deal with any facts in detail. Your whole premise of the Jewish people have no right to self-determination, ignoring the situations that lead to situations (unless of course it's to blame Israel for Hamas etc ) and the fact that you basically work from a pre-decided premise that under no way, shape or form has Israel any right to exist and fuck the other seven million and more people who just so happen to live there, not all of whom are Jews either- around 50% of whom are descended from or are people who actually fled there from Arab lands post-1948 etc etc show that you are not willing to actually discuss the matter at all.

PhoenixAsh

27th September 2011, 17:40

Who are the ones responsible for the Nakba? Who are the ones that unanimously attacked Israel in disregard of the UN resolution of 1947 (seeing as you like to quote the UN)? Who were the ones who actually encouraged many Arabs to leave because they were sure of a victory?

Zionist aspirations offcourse and subsequently the state of Israel.

All those things would not have happened if there was no zionism to fight for an independent Jewish state on the land inhabited by others.

... because they were being systematically chased out of other countries.

And this is supposed to justify their claim to Israel?

It seems the Jews were not allowed to be natives of any land. Are you now arguing for the "biological" right to live in a country?

This is blatantly untrue.

Well in fact most of the land had belonged to the Ottoman Sultan... not the Palestinians and remained government land. To this day most JEWS cannot buy land in Israel because it's owned by the government and leased. There are no restrictions on private land ownership however there never was, and still is not, a lot of private ownership by any group. Currently they are talking about privatising land ownership held by the state so that situation may change.

Except for the fact that we already mentioned the ways in which Israel uses its own laws to discriminate and appropriate land owned by non-Jews...especially Arabs and Palestinians.

Because you say so, unlike the UN of course who you like to cite a lot. :rolleyes:

O how convenient...so the state of Israel has a right to exist because a UN recogizes it but has no authority on any other subject? Because that is exactly what Israel is doing....and what you seem to argue in favor of and defend judging by your arguments.

Show me one example where Israel has taken land from an Arab or non-Jew who had legal title to that land.

Why should I? I was not the one intrioducing the land ownership argument. In fact I do remember quite clearly in saying that landownership was completely irrelevent to wether or not Israel is a legitimate state.

This stupid propaganda of they "stole" the land is just rificulous.

Really?

So when they owned, as you say it, 6% of the land in 1943...and about 10% of it in 1948...how exactly did they come about the rest of the 50% of the land they got? And how come that in between 1948 and now only a few percent of the land in Israel is owned by palestinians...how do you explain the reduction of ownership?

Where did all the money go then? i.e. the money that was paid for the land? Where are all the absentee Arab landlords, the Jordanian royal family and so on- prepared to give the money back in exchange for the land they sold.

Up untill 1948 the total land onwnership by Jews was 10%. We have already covered this.

:rolleyes: Yeah all the land they sold at extortionate prices because they thought they could make a quick buck easily and didn't actually give a shit about the people who were there?

Again...you mean that 10% of the region?

Your whole argument is basically just beating a war-drum and refusal to deal with any facts in detail. Your whole premise of the Jewish people have no right to self-determination, ignoring the situations that lead to situations (unless of course it's to blame Israel for Hamas etc ) and the fact that you basically work from a pre-decided premise that under no way, shape or form has Israel any right to exist and fuck the other seven million and more people who just so happen to live there, not all of whom are Jews either- around 50% of whom are descended from or are people who actually fled there from Arab lands post-1948 etc etc show that you are not willing to actually discuss the matter at all.

Indeed because I hardly think that any of that matters at all. The state of Israel is illegitimate. The Jews from arab land by the way...fled...BECAUSE of the very creation of that state and the backlash from it. Which would not have needed to happen if the state which was created was a union state (like was the proposal of the Arabs) instead of a unilateral JEWISH state in land where they were in fact the minority...and only had 30% because 90% of that number immigrated there with the specific intent to create that land in the two preceding decades.

Now...the state of Israel gave fuck all about the 1.5 million Palestinians and continues to give fuck all about the Palestinians. Instead of creating a union state they continue to fight for the sole existence of a state which is fundamentally racist in nature and its core concept (something which you did not adress) and continues to fight to keep that state as segregated as possible with a costitution and purpose which basically makes any non-Jew a second rate citizen who is not equal. You keep ignoring that THAT is the purpose of Israel and the concept of Zionism.

I on the other hand have clearly expressed what I think should happen: abolition of the state of Israel and its racist concept and creation of a socialist, secular union where everybody is fully equal. I also think we should eradicate Jewish and non-Jewish zionism as they are both racist concepts.

THIS however can NOT happen when you keep adhering to the concept, nature and core of the state of Israel...which as I have now explained several times...is fundamentally racist in nature by its entire conception and purpose.

Israel keeps to fight for its very existence. And as I have explained that very existence is RACIST in nature. It denies people the right to live in their land and subjegates them to a system which is ultimately created for the sole purpose of giving Jews a national independent home. That notion in itself is racist...why can't you see that?

Now the notion that Israel and only Israel can somehow protect its inhabitants is flawed....and I seriously detest the implication that without the state of Israel those 7 million people are fucked. That argument comes down to: racism for racism sake.

Apoi_Viitor

27th September 2011, 19:12

I know exactly why they behave that way. And personally I hardly think it is unfair to make a judgement, moral or objective, based on the historical developments.

Maybe. But I'm not sure how or even if it is possible to reconcile historical materialism with concepts of morality. If the actions of individuals can be explained by historical developments, then they ultimately have little control over their own behavior.

ComradeMan

27th September 2011, 20:10

Zionist aspirations offcourse and subsequently the state of Israel.

Completely one-sided distortion and misrepresentation. Yeah, it was the Zionists who attacked the fledgling state of Israel despite UN Resolution of 1947.... it seems UN resolutions are only valid if they are against Israel in your books. :rolleyes:

All those things would not have happened if there was no zionism to fight for an independent Jewish state on the land inhabited by others.

How many Arabs were actually displaced from the land? Can you give me exact numbers and statistics pleased? How much of the land was not malarial swamp and desert? Please I'd like to see some stats here from you.

And to the second point all those things would not have happened if anti-semitism, pogroms and persecution had not created the need for a Jewish homeland in the eyes of the Jewish people.

This is blatantly untrue.

I'm sure you'll explain why it's untrue then.....

Except for the fact that we already mentioned the ways in which Israel uses its own laws to discriminate and appropriate land owned by non-Jews...especially Arabs and Palestinians.

The Absentee laws are harsh and not something I would personally go along with but it seill avoids the fact that in effect most Jews don't own the land either- they cannot because most of the land is owned by the state, much as it had belonged to the Ottoman Sultan. Nearly 80% of land in Israel is owned by the state and leased on a non-discriminatory basis, there are no restrictions for the approximately 6-7% of privately owned land. The JNF which could be seen as discriminatory only owns around 13%. The Israeli Supreme Court also instructed the ILA and the JNF to lease lands equally to non-Jews in 2007.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/the-jnf-backed-into-a-corner-1.226525

O how convenient...so the state of Israel has a right to exist because a UN recogizes it but has no authority on any other subject? Because that is exactly what Israel is doing....and what you seem to argue in favor of and defend judging by your arguments.

You are the one who brought the UN into this... but where did I say the UN had no authority? Questioning UN resolutions because of who sponsors them is not the same as saying the UN has not authority whatsoever. You are the one who seems to be in love with your beloved UN all over the place. Like I said before, the UN is only valid then when it's moving against Israel in your eyes? :lol:

Why should I? I was not the one intrioducing the land ownership argument. In fact I do remember quite clearly in saying that landownership was completely irrelevent to wether or not Israel is a legitimate state.

The land ownership argument is fundamental to the discussion and the only reason why you are trying to downplay it is because it's convenient to your "version" of the situation.

So when they owned, as you say it, 6% of the land in 1943...and about 10% of it in 1948...how exactly did they come about the rest of the 50% of the land they got? And how come that in between 1948 and now only a few percent of the land in Israel is owned by palestinians...how do you explain the reduction of ownership?

You don't seem to understand how land ownership has worked in Israel and nor do you distinguish between privately owned land, the JNF and the Israeli State. :rolleyes: The fact of the matter is that only about 6% of the land of Israel is privately owned.

Up untill 1948 the total land onwnership by Jews was 10%. We have already covered this.

Have we already covered this? By "Jews" and who were these Jews? Do you mean Jewish agencies, the government, private individuals? Conveniently ignoring these details I see...

Indeed because I hardly think that any of that matters at all. The state of Israel is illegitimate. The Jews from arab land by the way...fled...BECAUSE of the very creation of that state and the backlash from it.

Rubbish, nonsense, lies and half-truths... like the rest of your stupid, one-sided and bigotted rantings that only choose to look at one side of the story and accept as absolute truth without the shadow of doubt the propaganda of the other side. It's obvious you've already decided and don't even care to consider other views or different issues. Have fun supporting Hamas because I really can't be bothered discussing this with you any more and seek to avoid a flame war.

PhoenixAsh

27th September 2011, 22:14

Maybe. But I'm not sure how or even if it is possible to reconcile historical materialism with concepts of morality. If the actions of individuals can be explained by historical developments, then they ultimately have little control over their own behavior.

Ultimately that is a proces which Marx argued against and I believe, but I am not entirely sure, that this was also one of the themes in anti-Duhring. But Historic Materialism is a means to an end. The Historic Materialist way to analyse history does not produce an encompassing theory which explains every aspect of history or of human behaviour. Nor does HM imply that people have no control over their actions.

And though in Marxism there is a certain rejection of moralism I personally think there is a good argument to be made that Marxism itself is a form of moralism since its entire purpose is to right a structural wrong in society.

But traditionally moralism in the Marxist sense is seen as a means to solve antagonisms rather than taking away their root causes.

Though we can debate about the truth of that vision. Because...naturally...I do not agree with (it as indicated above). Finding the root cause and taking it away implies moral evaluation of the situation caused and the decisionj that it needs to be solved. This is in its very essence a moral judgement. Since obviously the root cause is deemed to create an undesirable effect which needs to be solved in the first place.

Bud Struggle

27th September 2011, 22:33

And though in Marxism there is a certain rejection of moralism I personally think there is a good argument to be made that Marxism itself is a form of moralism since its entire purpose is to right a structural wrong in society.

I always though Marx first and formost as a moralist. The moralism is based on what is fairest for the most people. For (whatever reason) Marx thought that people are logical and it is logical to share everything equally.

And if people were logical I would see a point to Communism. But....

RGacky3

27th September 2011, 22:53

I always though Marx first and formost as a moralist. The moralism is based on what is fairest for the most people. For (whatever reason) Marx thought that people are logical and it is logical to share everything equally.

And if people were logical I would see a point to Communism. But....

Marx was first and formost a analyst of Capitalism, he wrote very little about communism, almost all of what he wrote was analysis of Capitalism and how it works.

Marx was never about sharing things equally, that was never what communism was about.

Bud Struggle

27th September 2011, 23:07

Marx was first and formost a analyst of Capitalism, he wrote very little about communism, almost all of what he wrote was analysis of Capitalism and how it works.

Marx was never about sharing things equally, that was never what communism was about.

You have a trite reading of Maxism.

Marx maintained that Capitalism was essentially illogical and thus flawed. He sugested a timeline by which an essentially logical humanity would figure it's way from Feudalism to Captialism to Communism--by reason and understanding and by use of force to implement that understanding.

All based on the essential reasonableness of humanity.

I think the theory of man's reasonableness has been essentially disproved by the events of the 20th century.

The heart of man is the heart of chaos.

RGacky3

27th September 2011, 23:12

Marx maintained that Capitalism was essentially illogical and thus flawed. He sugested a timeline by which an essentially logical humanity would figure it's way from Feudalism to Captialism to Communism--by reason and understanding and by use of force to implement that understanding.

No thats not what he said, it had nothing to do with humans being logical, europe did'nt figure its way from Feudalism to Capitalism consciously nor though logic or reason, it was nothing more than adapting to changing circumstances and it did'nt happen all at once, or necessarilly, hell, feudalism is still around, hell primative communism is still around.

You have no idea what Marxism is about, why not learn Marx FROM A MARXIST, like Richard Wolff or something.

Marx's big thing was Das Kapital, which was 3 volumes of nothing more than an extensive analysis of Capitalism.

PhoenixAsh

27th September 2011, 23:43

Completely one-sided distortion and misrepresentation. Yeah, it was the Zionists who attacked the fledgling state of Israel despite UN Resolution of 1947.... it seems UN resolutions are only valid if they are against Israel in your books. :rolleyes:

How many Arabs were actually displaced from the land? Can you give me exact numbers and statistics pleased? How much of the land was not malarial swamp and desert? Please I'd like to see some stats here from you.

And to the second point all those things would not have happened if anti-semitism, pogroms and persecution had not created the need for a Jewish homeland in the eyes of the Jewish people.

I'm sure you'll explain why it's untrue then.....

The Absentee laws are harsh and not something I would personally go along with but it seill avoids the fact that in effect most Jews don't own the land either- they cannot because most of the land is owned by the state, much as it had belonged to the Ottoman Sultan. Nearly 80% of land in Israel is owned by the state and leased on a non-discriminatory basis, there are no restrictions for the approximately 6-7% of privately owned land. The JNF which could be seen as discriminatory only owns around 13%. The Israeli Supreme Court also instructed the ILA and the JNF to lease lands equally to non-Jews in 2007.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/features/the-jnf-backed-into-a-corner-1.226525

You are the one who brought the UN into this... but where did I say the UN had no authority? Questioning UN resolutions because of who sponsors them is not the same as saying the UN has not authority whatsoever. You are the one who seems to be in love with your beloved UN all over the place. Like I said before, the UN is only valid then when it's moving against Israel in your eyes? :lol:

The land ownership argument is fundamental to the discussion and the only reason why you are trying to downplay it is because it's convenient to your "version" of the situation.

You don't seem to understand how land ownership has worked in Israel and nor do you distinguish between privately owned land, the JNF and the Israeli State. :rolleyes: The fact of the matter is that only about 6% of the land of Israel is privately owned.

Have we already covered this? By "Jews" and who were these Jews? Do you mean Jewish agencies, the government, private individuals? Conveniently ignoring these details I see...

Rubbish, nonsense, lies and half-truths... like the rest of your stupid, one-sided and bigotted rantings that only choose to look at one side of the story and accept as absolute truth without the shadow of doubt the propaganda of the other side. It's obvious you've already decided and don't even care to consider other views or different issues. Have fun supporting Hamas because I really can't be bothered discussing this with you any more and seek to avoid a flame war.

Ok. Here is the point.

Landownership

Your argument is that Jews purchased the land prior to 1948. I have already shown you that this entire purchase amounted to 6% of the entire region in 1943. So effectively 6% of that region was in Jewish ownership. This hardly justifies the 60% claimed by Israel in 1948.

Now it does not matter if currently 80% of the land is owned by induvidual Jews or is owned by the state of Israel ILA, the JNF or IDA. But it is interesting that you bring this up. Because as I already stated...this means that when the state of Israel was created in 1948 Jews and the state of Israel did not own 80% of the land...in fact...they owned very little of that land...

Now of the 26 million durum the Jews in 1948 owned effectively 5.89%. 12.5 million Durum was directly owned by Palestinians. And 1.5 million durum was owned by others. The rest was public land. Now acter 1948 30% of the land that was Israel was owned by Palestinians. 6% by Jews and the rest was subsequently appropriated public land which now became the direct property of Israel. This means that of the total public land...Israel appropriated for itself the vast majority. In 1949 however the land owned by Palestinians had magically dropped from 30% to 6%...

And I already asked you to explain that fact. Now I will tell you why that happened since you are reluctant to do so.

Israel not only appropriated the land of refugees. It also expelled Palestinians from its borders or from their owned lands. They then proceeded to "nationalise" these belongings. This automatically meant that they were comming in the direct control and became the direct property of Israel.

This is partially because of the so called abandoned area ordinance. Of 1948. All areas which were officially declared abandoned (by Israel offcourse) and devoid of inhabitants (often forcefully expelled) immediately meant that all property on those areas were designated as falling to the state of Israel.

Now this became especially vicious....when we consider the Defence Emergency Regulations. Which state that the IDF can without any further justification designate ANY land as being of being a closed area and remove people from taht area and not allowing them to return. And yes...THAT meant that under tha ABO that land immediately fell to the state. Convenient not?

But wait....

That goes even further than the region of the original state as declared in 1948. As we all kn ow the conquest territories...also came to fall under the Israeli land laws as stippulated by The Area of Jurisdiction and Powers Ordinance, 5708-1948. Which extended these land laws to all parts of Palestine which the MoD defined by proclamation as being held by the Defence Army of Israel.

SO not only did Israel appropriate Palestinian property within its border...it also extended that appropriation to areas it conquered. And to add injury to insult...they even retroactively made this into a law effective on the day of the declaration of Israel.

That is theft. Pretty big one at that.

Now as you have already indicated...in 1995 the SC of Israel declared that there could be no discrimination based on who leases that land. This means that from 1948 to 1995 there was in fact discrimination for leasing lands. Somethig which you keep glossing over and even denied earlier saying everything was conducted fairly or even at the detriment of Jews....

But that discrimination even continued after 1995. As I have shown there was another case in 2007 in which the Supreme Court made yet another ruling about discrimination against the state and against the JNF about discriminatory practices in land lease and also in confiscation and denial of building rights. After every SC case the Knesset made new laws to circumvent these rulings or ministeries dragged their feet to implement the court rulings.

Now that in itself is nice and all the ILA now owns and manages 93% of Israel. But the Israeli law states specifically that the ILA cannot lease land to foreign nationals, which includes Palestinian residents of Jerusalem who have identity cards but are not citizens of Israel. In practice, foreigners may be allowed to lease if they show that they would qualify as Jewish under the Law of Return.

This in effect is harshly discriminatory. Not only has previous property been disowned from refugees...but they now have to lease the lands they previously owned under heavy restrictions provided by the LoR.

Offcourse I can cite several other laws...such as the refugee property law and such which will also immediately make clear how Israel went about their acquisition of land. But I think these will suffice for now.

So if you want to defend Israel on the basis of property...then I suggest you try another route since I am very, very aware of the ownership issues and how they work in Israel....and...you are digging your own grave there.

Since your continued arguing and emphasize on the land onwnership issues basically have led you to show by yourself that Israel stole land and appropriated land which did not belong to it.

United Nations

Now...I did indeed bring the UN into the debate. The reason WHY I bring the UN in the debate is because it is in fact mentioned in the declaration of the state of Israel. And the continued transgression and ignoring of the resolution provided by the body is underlining its hypocracy and because of the argument which follows now...and yes...I set you up.

Israel claims in part to have legitimacy because of the UN. It does so in its own declaration. Now if that is the case and Israel recognizes the UN as the highest authority able to give a country legitimacy and in fact derives its sole constitutional legitimacy from that then it needs to accept that every resolution put foreward by that body is law. Sinced Israel does NOT accept that this undermines this line of reasoning that the UN has in fact any authority on this matter and therefore this means logically that the UN resolutions on which Israel claims its basis are in fact thin air and void.

If you can in fact pick and chose the international laws which suits you...like Israel does since its ver creation...then this means that any foundation based on that body of law is merely subjective.

This solidly deconstructs the UN legitimacy claim....because for that claim to be valid...every resolution needs to be valid issued by that organisation. Since Israel denies the validity of every resolution by the UN...this means that the resolutions on which it basis its foundation are nothing more or less than the same.

Cause and effect

You argue that the fledgling state was attacked after 1948. THis is correct. This has however two problems:

1). The concept that this fledgling state is legitimate
2). The confusion of cause and effect

I will come to point 1 later. Here I will focus on cause and effect.

First off all...the Jewish state of Israel was attacked. If there had been no Jewish state it would not have been attacked. This is a very simple concept.

So what caused the state of Israel to be attacked? Well...quite simply...its declaration. Had the state of Israel NOT been a Jewish state but a union then it would not have been attacked. In fact...most of the Arab nations wanted such a state.

So everything what is happening to Israel now is in fact the fault of the Zionists.

And this logically brings us to point 1.

Legitimacy of the independent Jewish home.

You claim that the wish for independence and self determination is caused by continued discrimination of Jews in Europe and all over the world. That is a very nice argument and essentially true since that is what basically Hertzel was arguing.

Now...Palestinians had very little to absolutely nothing to do with the preceding prosecution in Europe and Russia. Yet their home was exactly where the Zionists wanted to create their own independent and Jewish nation based on some very ancient and long gone kingdom where they had not lived for thousands of generations. They deflected their victimisation by thinking themselves entitled to be justified on that ground to victimising others....and gthey specifically moved into the area with the absolute intent to create their own independent Jewish state.

Now...that is an act. Inflicted upon others. And that simple fact makes the equation of my qualification that everything happening in the region being the cause of Zionism substantially different than your subsequent claim that this happened because of European/Russian discrimination. Teh Zionists in gfact were a hostile invading force.

Now...why are they a hostile imperialist/colonising invading force? Because they did not come to the land to just live there but with the specific intent to create their own state there. In other words they came there to fight against others to create their own land...to take that land as theirs and exclude others from it in certain ways. Now I will come back to this...so don't just jump out of your seat now.

They claim this is their just cause because of the right to self determination. Sure they have that right.

Where you go absolutely and infallably wrong is that you then immediately go from there to saying that that justifies what happened in Palestine and that this right to self determiniation means that this can go against that very same right of the Palestinians. You alse go absolutely wrong that this means that a land can be carved up is justified. And it is also wrong to equate that right with a Jewish state at any place they so chose and desire to have that self determination turn into a Jewish state...again at the expense of the people living there.

Now...I seriously question the notion of there even existing a Jewish people. That, IMO, is like saying there is a Catholic people...or a Ducth people. The only thing Portugese Jews had in comon with Russian Jews is a certain aspect of religion and maybe, maybe somewhere...thousands of years ago...a group of common ancestors. But lets gloss over that and assume for the moment that Jews all over the world DO constitute a "nation".

The right to self determination first and foremost does NOT determine the outcome of that right. And second that right to self determination does not negate that same right of others.

Now creating a specifically Jewish state means you exclude others from that state by its very nature. It is not a state of all the people living there...no...it is a state for Jews. Simple as that.

This means that the unilateral creation of such a state in a region in which Jews make up the minority of the population and the Jewish inhabitants for the vast majority have had no ties in for several millenia directly interveres with that right to self determination of the majority of that population and directly establishes minority rule.

This is exactly what happened. And you know it.

Now...I can most certainly blame everything that happened in the region on the Zionist aspirations. It is as simple as that. It is not very complicated. Without Zionist aspirations we would not have had this problem.

I can go a little further and blame Europe and the US. Absolutely. But the fact of the matter remains that the Zionist aspirations happened and are the direct cause of the creation of Israel and the subsequent problems that those aspirations and creation of Israel caused.

Now Israel as has been amply provided is an imperialist and racist state. It is in my opinion a cancer. The very nature of Israel (which you continue to refuse to adress) is racist. Its sole purpose is to create a state for Jews. Others may live there but they are subordinate to the fact that the state is and should always be Jewish and for Jews. THAT is the entire purpose of Israel....and that entire purpose is simply racist. It ensures that non-Jews are second class by the very definition of the state.

Now...your entire line of reasoning depends on one factor...and one factor only! That you accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel. You do that on several grounds....all of which are extremely shaky at best.

ComradeMan

28th September 2011, 12:44

Under the Mandatory period the British restricted the Jewish immigration to the territory to appease Arab concerns. During the height of the Nazi persecutions in Germany, 1935, a record number of Jews- around 65,000 arrived in the region but restrictions and quotas were still maintained. How many Jews would not have gone to the gas chambers had there been no restrictions on their leaving Europe? I don't know- it's a counter-factual argument but you cannot deny that Anti-Semitism leadi bng to the Shoah also played a huge role in the foundation of Israel.

During the period of WW1 to WWII within the region both Jewish and Arab populations grew by enormous amounts. There was also Arab immigration to the area (which was not restricted by the British) due to the improvements in the standard of living and the economic oppurtunities that were arising. I have found a figure that states the populations at 1948 were approximately 1/3 Jewish and 2/3 non-Jewish in the whole territories. In 1949 the territory of Israel was around 86% Jewish.

Your argument is that Jews purchased the land prior to 1948. I have already shown you that this entire purchase amounted to 6% of the entire region in 1943. So effectively 6% of that region was in Jewish ownership. This hardly justifies the 60% claimed by Israel in 1948.

JNF land is not the same as state land of which we have already seen the vast majority of the territory was due to the legacy of the Ottoman Empire nor is it the same of privately owned land of which there is relatively little in Israel. In 1948 the JNF had acquired approximately 12-13% of the land of Israel on which currently 80% of the population now lives. You also ignore the fact that the transfer of land ownership, i.e. the land purchased from the absentee landlords had little effect on the fellahin as they were in fact re-employed by their new landlords. However there is another fault in your argument, if only about 6-10% of the land was "Jewish" land it hardly backs up claims of dispossession of the land by Zionists which was one of the major pretexts for the all out attack on Israel, does it?

Now it does not matter if currently 80% of the land is owned by induvidual Jews or is owned by the state of Israel ILA, the JNF or IDA....

But it does matter because when you are talking about land "belonging" to people you have to factor in this to the equation.

Now of the 26 million durum the Jews in 1948 owned effectively 5.89%. 12.5 million Durum was directly owned by Palestinians

We've been throught this before- "effectively" owned and "directly owned" are vague terms. The fact that about 80% of the Palestinians did not own their "land" at all. David Ben Gurion also stated that the fellahin were not to be dispossessed of their land. The British Mandatory government overturned and rejected through a series of investigations and commissions (whilst at the same time limiting Jewish immigration) the claims that land was being stolen and also the fact that you refuse to consider is that the Arab population, most of which did not possess any legal title to land, had grown enormously. The rich Arab landlords sitting in Cairo, Beirut and Damascus as well as the King of Jordan thought nothing of selling this land. There is also the fact that a lot of land was just unused desert or malarial swamp.

The fact that between 50-60% of the land was considered as mawat ("dead land") and also by default government land, other land was matruka (public state land). Then there were of course mudawara lands, formerly of the Ottoman Sultan, that were taken over by the British authorities as government land and also at times sold off. There were also miri lands were connected to the Ottoman crown and therefore defaulted to government that were available for lease. In terms of mulk, or private land ownership very little was actually privately owned.

expelled Palestinians

Firstly Israel was at war with the Arab nations and so it was not a war against the Palestinians as such. Secondly there is no official version of what happened. The Palestinians will claim that the Zionists deliberately expelled them with force whereas Israel claims that many left because of the war situation and many were encouraged to leave by their own leaders who were sure of a quick and easy victory- one that never actually materialised. Other historians estimate about half of the 700,000 figure may have been expelled and concede there was no official policy of "expulsion".

Now you also have to see this situation for what it was- a semi-ethno/religious war of nationalism(s). Thousands of Arab-Palestinians had lined the streets to cheer on the invading Arab armies- this was not good PR was it? The Arab leaders ordered Arab civilians to leave, under threat that anyone who didn't would be considered a collaborator, an obstacle in "holy war" and a renegade. Mahmoud Abbas : “The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.” in Falastin a-Thaura, (March 1976) Source (http://books.google.it/books?id=5y8zhmn-q4QC&pg=PA325&lpg=PA325&dq=The+Arab+armies+entered+Palestine+to+protect+th e+Palestinians+from+the+Zionist+tyranny+but&source=bl&ots=BYUi3HW3rC&sig=4B1LDn3hvymbA34ZLEHcZ8K5TEE&hl=it&ei=LueCTsuCJ4eX8QPO-d0J&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CDcQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=The%20Arab%20armies%20entered%20Palestine%20to%2 0protect%20the%20Palestinians%20from%20the%20Zioni st%20tyranny%20but&f=false)

There are countless other sources and comments from periodicals, observers, participants and journals at the time to attest this. So to make out that all 700,000 Palestinian refugees were deliberately expelled by Israel is intellectually dishonest.

Post "nakba" Israel made declarations and overtures to the Arab world with regards the plight of the refugees. David Ben Gurion demanded peace first and then was prepared to consider repatriation. The Arab leaders refused. Israel also offered to unfreeze assets and take back 100,000 refugees in 1949 and again the Arab world refused. The UN issued Resolution 194 that demanded Israel and the Arab states resolve their problems peacefully and that also called for repatriation of the refugees. The Arabs nations rejected this resolution because of its "recognition" of Israel.

So when talking of the refugees you cannot ignore the fact that the Arab nations who attacked Israel, made vain promises to the Palestinians based on a false sense of security about an imminent victory, refused to accept any compromise on the return of refugees, ignored UN resolutions and then conveniently "washed" their hands of the refugees (the plight of the displaced Palestinians in Arab lands is well-known) are also responsible.

Furthermore you have to place this within the context of the mass expulsions of Jews from Arab/Islamic lands that arrived as refugees in Israel- boosting the population by between 700,000 to 1,000,000.

Now as you have already indicated...in 1995 the SC of Israel declared that there could be no discrimination based on who leases that land. This means that from 1948 to 1995 there was in fact discrimination for leasing lands. Somethig which you keep glossing over and even denied earlier saying everything was conducted fairly or even at the detriment of Jews....

No it doesn't and nor have I glossed over it. I showed you a case in which my assertion was confirmed. Cases of prejudice, nepotism and discrimination are always going to exist.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=409186&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

You are also ignoring, conveniently the Arab Waqf that owns land and leases it exclusively to Muslims albeit a small amount of land- the principle is the same.

But that discrimination even continued after 1995. As I have shown there was another case in 2007 in which the Supreme Court made yet another ruling about discrimination against the state and against the JNF about discriminatory practices in land lease and also in confiscation and denial of building rights. After every SC case the Knesset made new laws to circumvent these rulings or ministeries dragged their feet to implement the court rulings.

JNF is not the government of Israel and holds 13% of the land. The Knesset is not the whole of Israel nor is the JNF. The fact that Israel actually has a democratic Supreme Court that rules against the government on such matters is a demonstration of the more democratic nature of this nation that is usually deemed to be so vile whereas no such safeguards exist under the Palestinian Authority where sale of land to a "Jew" punishable by death. :crying:

Now that in itself is nice and all the ILA now owns and manages 93% of Israel. But the Israeli law states specifically that the ILA cannot lease land to foreign nationals, which includes Palestinian residents of Jerusalem who have identity cards but are not citizens of Israel.

But it can lease to any citizen of Israel regardless of whether he or she is Jewish. Many countries have restrictions, limits or outright bans on foreign/non-national ownership/lease of land such as many Arab states, US State laws, Russia and up until recently Switzerland- not just Israel. Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem are not barred from becoming Israeli citizens if they choose but obviously for political reasons most of them don't. Again this is an area for a different discussion.

Now...I did indeed bring the UN into the debate. The reason WHY I bring the UN in the debate is because it is in fact mentioned in the declaration of the state of Israel. And the continued transgression and ignoring of the resolution provided by the body is underlining its hypocracy and because of the argument which follows now...and yes...I set you up.

Which UN resolutions? The General Assembly UN resolutions are not binding under international law- remember the UN itself uses the term "recommendations". However you still ignore the fact that if the Arab nations had followed the UN Resolution of 1947 then there would have been two states, no refugees and perhaps half-a-century of peace and prosperity for all.-

Israel claims in part to have legitimacy because of the UN. It does so in its own declaration. Now if that is the case and Israel recognizes the UN as the highest authority able to give a country legitimacy and in fact derives its sole constitutional legitimacy from that then it needs to accept that every resolution put foreward by that body is law.

No, because no country does that- the resolutions are not necessarily binding under international law and nor is the UN the sole source of international law either nor is it a lawmaking body.

We have to be very careful here. you know full well that UN resolutions have to go to the Security Council in order to become binding if they are voted on as such. To the best of my knowledge UN Resolution 181 of 1948 did not progress and thus left the League of Nations Law of 1922 in force- this leaves us with Article II League of Nations Palestine Mandate 1922 which would be, I presume in the eyes of most, far less favourable to the Palestinians- however Israel is not pursuing that line.

Secondly the legitimacy of a state does not depend solely on the UN- it depends on the other states (most of whom for historical reasons were never recognised by the UN because it didn't exist :lol:). Between 1948-1949 most states, including the USSR, first recognised de facto and then de jure the state of Israel. In addition Israel was admitted as the 59th member of the UN in 1949 (after a couple of rejections).

Sinced Israel does NOT accept that this undermines this line of reasoning that the UN has in fact any authority on this matter and therefore this means logically that the UN resolutions on which Israel claims its basis are in fact thin air and void.

The UN does not work as a single body and plenty of member states have issues with the UN this does not mean they do not recognise the UN as a body.

First off all...the Jewish state of Israel was attacked. If there had been no Jewish state it would not have been attacked. This is a very simple concept.

If there had been no Jews in Europe there might not have been a Shoah. That's not an argument. You could easily argue that if this and if that all the way back through history.

So what caused the state of Israel to be attacked? Well...quite simply...its declaration. Had the state of Israel NOT been a Jewish state but a union then it would not have been attacked. In fact...most of the Arab nations wanted such a state.

So that's why it was attacked? Source please- I am not really sure about that comment.

Who attacked the fledgling Arab states? Remember the whole area had been under Ottoman rule and so none of these nation states had really existed in modern terms for very long. Working on your basis a Palestinian and inevitably Islamic state would have been just as illegitimate and thus we reach and impasse.

So everything what is happening to Israel now is in fact the fault of the Zionists.

That's the silliest amount of over-simplification and reductionism I have ever seen in the debate.

That's a big jump. You use the cause and effect rationale only when it suits you. You completely ignore the anti-Jewish campaigns of the 1920s and 1930s and the effects of WWII and the Holocaust, you also conveniently ignore the fact that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem had colluded with Hitler and planned the total extermination of the Jews in the Holy Land, had been responsible for recruiting around 20,000 Muslim SS who were involved in atrocities in the Balkans and was actually indicted by Yugoslavia for war crimes- except he fled to Egypt were he was never brought to justice.

You claim that the wish for independence and self determination is caused by continued discrimination of Jews in Europe and all over the world. That is a very nice argument and essentially true since that is what basically Hertzel was arguing.

And it's basically what led to the state of Israel. :crying:

Now...Palestinians had very little to absolutely nothing to do with the preceding prosecution in Europe and Russia. Yet their home was exactly where the Zionists wanted to create their own independent and Jewish nation based on some very ancient and long gone kingdom where they had not lived for thousands of generations. They deflected their victimisation by thinking themselves entitled to be justified on that ground to victimising others....and gthey specifically moved into the area with the absolute intent to create their own independent Jewish state.

But this brings us back to the question of who owned what land and how much. Palestine was not, and never had been a state in its own right and was under British mandatory government at the time. You completely ignore what was going on in the Arab/Muslim world at the time and also the fact that the first Jewish settlers bought unarable land that wasn't really being used by anyone. :rolleyes:

Now...I seriously question the notion of there even existing a Jewish people. That, IMO, is like saying there is a Catholic people...or a Ducth people. The only thing Portugese Jews had in comon with Russian Jews is a certain aspect of religion and maybe, maybe somewhere...thousands of years ago...a group of common ancestors. But lets gloss over that and assume for the moment that Jews all over the world DO constitute a "nation".

Arguing that there is no Jewish people is an anti-semitic argument. If you go down that road to you'll find another impasse because one could argue that there is no Palestinian people either- just people who live in Palestine and speak Arabic. The people of the area included Jews, Arab Christians, Druze and various other Christian groups, Muslim Arabs and Bedouins.

The right to self determination first and foremost does NOT determine the outcome of that right. And second that right to self determination does not negate that same right of others.

Which largely the modern state of Israel, admittedly not 100%, has sought to do.

Now creating a specifically Jewish state means you exclude others from that state by its very nature. It is not a state of all the people living there...no...it is a state for Jews. Simple as that.

Except, despite the state of Israel's problems (which I feely admit) non-Jewish Israelis are still Israelis under law with the same rights and the right to vote and choose their own elected Parliamentary representatives. You may note that when Jordan ruled the West Bank this was not the case. England is officially and Anglican State, other than a few archaic things about the monarchy and the PM are non-Anglicans currently excluded from daily life? Within the context of the Middle-East on Israel is surrounded by Islamic states- most of which are Islamic states with varying levels of tolerance to non-Muslims.

I can go a little further and blame Europe and the US. Absolutely. But the fact of the matter remains that the Zionist aspirations happened and are the direct cause of the creation of Israel and the subsequent problems that those aspirations and creation of Israel caused.

But you exhonerate, or just ignore, the Arab world from the equation totally.

Shaky grounds? If you only want to present, and highly selectively, one half of a version of the story, present facts which are distorted and intellectually dishonest and also cherry pick how far you want to go back in history, ignore contexts and make up "semi-false" information then I'd say your claims were on shaky grounds. You seem to be basing your version not on the British records of the Mandate, not on any sources as such and not any defined legal principles- it seems you are basing your version on extreme anti-Israel propaganda- which is just that, one-sided propaganda.

tir1944

28th September 2011, 12:52

Should Israel be dismantled then?
What do the Leftists think about this issue?

PhoenixAsh

28th September 2011, 15:56

ComradeMan

28th September 2011, 16:47

Know what...I am not going to answer your post untill you tell me exactly WHY you think the Zionist aspiration for creating and imperialist and fundamentally racist state is justified in a region which is inhabitted by a majority of non-Jews through aggressive mass immigration.

Anti-semitism, pogroms, persecutions and ultimately the Shoah, i.e. history have shown why the Jewish people may need a homeland and explain adequately why the Jewish people have the right to demand one. It's all very well for people who have the security of a national homeland/state etc to pontificate to those who do not when they have not been in the same position as the Jews. Repeating ad nauseam that it's a "racist" state is just hysterical propaganda tactics. Sure, racism does exist in Israel, as it sadly exists in many countries- does that make them all racist states by definition?

Could you tell me why it was wrong and intolerable to the Arabs that Jews lived in the Holy Land- even before the foundation of the state of Israel and why they went out of their way to attack people who were fundamentally refugees looking for a better life and in material terms had actually done a lot to improve the territory in economic terms?

And why you think this right does not extend to the Palestinian population in Israel. In other words...if people have the right to self determination WHY then can't the Palestinians claim a massive amount of territory in Israel and declare that theirs because gthey have the exact same right of self determination wherever they so chose to have that.

Well you won't address the land issue, the issue of how much land was actually belonging to Palestinians nor the legal issues- because you know you won't have a legal leg to stand on. Nevertheless the pursuit of the two-state solution fundamentally aims at giving Palestinians the right of self-determination in their own territory. Furthermore this could have been achieved a long time ago if the UN 1947 resolution had been respected.

In simplistic terms the canards that the "Jews" stole the land and deliberately drove of the Palestinians have been shown to be just that, canards, distorted at best and false at worst. The "Jews" bought the land, very often from those who would then turn against Israel. The other thing that sticks in the throat of the Arab world probably comes from their overwhelming sense of guilt at the way they mislead and betrayed the Palestinian people and then conveniently washed their hands of them other than when they serve as pawns in the ongoing "cold war" that has been waged against Israel.

PhoenixAsh

28th September 2011, 22:49

Anti-semitism, pogroms, persecutions and ultimately the Shoah, i.e. history have shown why the Jewish people may need a homeland and explain adequately why the Jewish people have the right to demand one. It's all very well for people who have the security of a national homeland/state etc to pontificate to those who do not when they have not been in the same position as the Jews.

This does not answer the question. It only goes as far to explain why Jews have a right to an independent nation. It does not adres why that nation should have been created where it is now nor why it should be created over the backs of the majority of its population.

Repeating ad nauseam that it's a "racist" state is just hysterical propaganda tactics. Sure, racism does exist in Israel, as it sadly exists in many countries- does that make them all racist states by definition?

This racism is inherrent in Israels entire purpose. It is a jewish state which gives specific rights and privileges only to Jewish people and denies them to others and this Jewishness is to be guaranteed at all costs. This is the fundament of Israel. Its very nature. We are not talking about any further laws or policy but simply about the concept and purpose of Israel.

Now what does that entail? And why is that racist?

Israel is a Jewish democracy. In the legal syhstem of Israel this means that there is a duality between democracy and the Jewish nature of the system to which democracy is subjegated.

the Jewish part means that this is a state that by its very nature is intertwined with the history of the Jewish people and a renewal of the of teh Jewish state in the land of Israel, has Hebrew as its official language, Jewish holidays as its official holidays, cultivates Jewish culture and Jewish education. A “Jewish state” is a state whose values are also drawn from its religious tradition, a tradition in which the Bible is the most basic book, and the prophets of Israel are the foundations of its ethics. A “Jewish state” is a state in which the values of the Torah of Israel, the values of the Jewish heritage, and the values of the Halacha(religious law) are among its most basic values.

Now this is essentially saying to the rest of the 45% of the population that was supposed to live there in 1947: fuck you. You do not matter for this state. your culture, your religion, your history, your language, your customs are all of secondary importance to this state because this state is NOT officially for you.

Now when you keep in mind that ALL of this was to be created from scratchh in the land in which a majority of the people are NOT Jewish...and with 45% non-Jews in its borders! Then this is a fundamentally racist policy and strive! It means that you are willfully creating this concept and state at the expense of the very same aspects of those 45% that live within your borders. Not only that but at the expense of the vast majority of people living in the region.

Could you tell me why it was wrong and intolerable to the Arabs that Jews lived in the Holy Land- even before the foundation of the state of Israel and why they went out of their way to attack people who were fundamentally refugees looking for a better life and in material terms had actually done a lot to improve the territory in economic terms?

Because they were NOT fundamentally refugees. You try to make them out to be fundamentally refugees...but those refugees did NOT come to Palestine just to flee they came with the specific intent to create their own state.

Also I completely contest your portrayal of "going out of their way to attack them".

Well you won't address the land issue, the issue of how much land was actually belonging to Palestinians nor the legal issues- because you know you won't have a legal leg to stand on.

I do...and I have more than adequately disproven your claims that most of the land came legally in the posession of Israel. Your simply chose to igniore all the evidence and continue the conc ept of obfuscation by shifting focus between the JNF and the ILA. The simple fact is that 30% of the land within Israel was woned in 1948 by Palestinians...in 1949 that was about 4%. You have NEVER explained how ownership transfered and you NEVER refuted gthe laws which were used to gain those properties. I have shown you these.

You simply do not have a leg to stand on. And you know it. But you refuse to acknoweledge it.

Nevertheless the pursuit of the two-state solution fundamentally aims at giving Palestinians the right of self-determination in their own territory. Furthermore this could have been achieved a long time ago if the UN 1947 resolution had been respected.

First and foremost Israel denied that 2 state solution. Sencondly that so called two state solution completely shifts past the fact that apparantly the Jewish zionists get to chose where they want to execute their right to self determination but the Palestinians have to make due with what is assigned to them...regardless of the fact that it was THEM that lived in the land that is now the state of Israel and were the majority population there instead of an invading force of immigrants who came there with the sole purpose to carve out their own nation. And regardless of the fact that you still have not been able to adequately argue wh the Jewsih right to self determination gets to chose and why the Palestinian minorities in Israel do not get to claim their part of Israel in the execution of that very same right of self determination.

In simplistic terms the canards that the "Jews" stole the land and deliberately drove of the Palestinians have been shown to be just that, canards, distorted at best and false at worst.

No...in fact it has not been disproven. YOu have not posed ANY evidence of the contrary and you have ignored the SPECIFIC LAWS MADE BY ISRAEL WHICH WERE USED TO DO SO...and instead simply claimed that gthey were irrelevant.

In the mean time you have managed to continue to duck out of the explanation why exactly 30% property which was held by Palestinians in the state of Israel in 1948 suddenly evaporated in LESS THAN A YEAR!

The "Jews" bought the land, very often from those who would then turn against Israel.

Again...6%

The other thing that sticks in the throat of the Arab world probably comes from their overwhelming sense of guilt at the way they mislead and betrayed the Palestinian people and then conveniently washed their hands of them other than when they serve as pawns in the ongoing "cold war" that has been waged against Israel.

I simoply do not care...your continued pointing to Israel ignores the fact that even in Israel Deir Yassim, Jaffa, heifa and some other locations were attacked in the weeks before the mass exodus started. And that both Palmach/Hagganah and Irgun gave wide propaganda to these acts with the intyent to freigthen off the Palestinians. THis is EVEN IN ISRAEL said to be one of the major factors in why people fled.

Now...Uri Milstein the Jewish Military History expert...wrote this and cited sources amongst which Moshe Dayan.

Now...what may be also very inconvenient for you is this:

"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.

So yeah....no dice...

ComradeMan

29th September 2011, 12:09

This racism is inherrent in Israels entire purpose. It is a jewish state which gives specific rights and privileges only to Jewish people and denies them to others and this Jewishness is to be guaranteed at all costs. This is the fundament of Israel. Its very nature. We are not talking about any further laws or policy but simply about the concept and purpose of Israel.
Now what does that entail exactly- it sounds good but could you actually evidence what these specific rights and privileges are in comparison to the rights and privileges of all Israeli citizens whether they are Jewish or not? The very concept and purpose of Israel? Is that written in stone somewhere?

Israel is a Jewish democracy. In the legal syhstem of Israel this means that there is a duality between democracy and the Jewish nature of the system to which democracy is subjegated.
Why? Because being “Jewish” is undemocratic? How is democracy subjugated to Jewishness? This is so vague and unclear I think you need to explain.

the Jewish part means that this is a state that by its very nature is intertwined with the history of the Jewish people and a renewal of the of teh Jewish state in the land of Israel, has Hebrew as its official language, Jewish holidays as its official holidays, cultivates Jewish culture and Jewish education. A “Jewish state” is a state whose values are also drawn from its religious tradition, a tradition in which the Bible is the most basic book, and the prophets of Israel are the foundations of its ethics. A “Jewish state” is a state in which the values of the Torah of Israel, the values of the Jewish heritage, and the values of the Halacha(religious law) are among its most basic values.
Judaism is not the state religion of Israel- surprising as it may seem Israel does not have an official state religion. Furthermore both Hebrew and Arabic are official languages of Israel with English a de facto lingua franca and other languages used on a daily basis. The State of Israel is by no means a 100% Judaic state whatsoever, it's not a “Torah State” nor is it a “Halakha State” (in opposition to the Shariah state that some groups like Hamas would propose for “Palestine”). This Jewish State has complete rights and anti-discrimination laws that could not be defined as Halakhic whatsoever and indeed have met opposition from time to time from the conservative/orthodox religious right- examples such as LGBT issues are at the forefront of this. What you are doing is trying to present Israel on a par in terms of religious law with somewhere like Saudi Arabia which is completely false. Indeed, even the Law of Return is far less stringent in its determination of who is a Jew than the Orthodox Rabbinate. Hundreds of thousands of “Jews” who were accepted for the right of return would technically be classified as non-Jews in a strict religious sense. Your whole argument about this Halakhic state you are trying to portray falls to the ground here.

Israel also officially recognises and supports the other religions in the country such as the various Christian denominations, Druze and Bahai. Islam is not officially recognised in such as it was de facto presumed to be from the period of the Ottoman Empire- however since 1961 Shariah courts have exlusive jurisdiction in personal Islamic cases as do the other recognised religions with their various courts and bodies.

But let's have a look at some other countries, The Netherlands has religious holidays such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost that are all based on the Christian faith, and England, an officially Anglican (state religion) nation within the UK has religious national holidays, the Christian Cross on its flag and many symbols connected to the Anglican Christian religion- as does the UK with its three crosses. Greece is officially Greek Orthodox with a cross on its flag and I believe that Norway too is/was up until recently a nation with a state religion. Are we now to argue that all of these nations are discriminatory and portray them as medieval theocracies?

Now this is essentially saying to the rest of the 45% of the population that was supposed to live there in 1947: fuck you. You do not matter for this state. your culture, your religion, your history, your language, your customs are all of secondary importance to this state because this state is NOT officially for you.
Completely false as been shown above.

Now when you keep in mind that ALL of this was to be created from scratchh in the land in which a majority of the people are NOT Jewish...and with 45% non-Jews in its borders!
If the majority of the people in the land are not Jewish how come only 45% of the people within its borders are non-Jews? Last time I did maths 100-45= 55.

Because they were NOT fundamentally refugees. You try to make them out to be fundamentally refugees...but those refugees did NOT come to Palestine just to flee they came with the specific intent to create their own state.
Well let's see about this. As far as I understand it the basic definition of a refugee under international law stems from Article 1A of the UN Convention definition of 1951 in which a refugee is defined as a person who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country “

Are you seriously going to try and say that the people who were fleeing the pogroms in the Islamic world, the pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, the Nazi persecution of the 1930s and then the post-Holocaust refugees along with the later influx of Jews who were expelled from the Arab/Islamic world in the late 1940s do not fit this definition?

Also I completely contest your portrayal of "going out of their way to attack them".
Because you completely refuse to address any issue, and these are historically recorded events, that may actually not be ones in which the “Jews” are the bad guys.

I do...and I have more than adequately disproven your claims that most of the land came legally in the posession of Israel. Your simply chose to igniore all the evidence and continue the conc ept of obfuscation by shifting focus between the JNF and the ILA. The simple fact is that 30% of the land within Israel was woned in 1948 by Palestinians...in 1949 that was about 4%. You have NEVER explained how ownership transfered and you NEVER refuted gthe laws which were used to gain those properties. I have shown you these.
Where have you actually refuted this? Refuting something entails more than shouting “I don't give a shit” or denouncing things as untrue without stats and facts. I'm interested to know where you get this figure of 30% from in 1948. In 1948 approximatelty 70% of the Crown Estates/British Mandate land that had been “inherited” from the Ottoman Empire and had never been owned by the Palestinians became Israeli Government land. 50% of this land was in the Negev which is mostly unarable, uninhabited semi-desert. Approximately 16,9% of land was classified as abandoned and 3,3% was owned by Arab-Israelis/Palestinians leaving around 8-10% as “Jewish” land. Even if we presume that the abandoned land was Palestinian and add the figures together we get around 20,2%- approximately 10% short of your figure.

You have yet to show me one documented example in which a Palestinian who had legal title to the land was dispossessed illegally. I'm not even going to say that it's impossible either- people are people and dirty tricks and dishonest are unfortunately part of life- but what I would like, and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for this either, is at least one source please.

First and foremost Israel denied that 2 state solution. Sencondly that so called two state solution completely shifts past the fact that apparantly the Jewish zionists get to chose where they want to execute their right to self determination but the Palestinians have to make due with what is assigned to them...
First and foremost the two-state solution was basically the UN 1947 resolution that the Arabs would not accept- so your accusation false completely flat. The 1947 resolution was proposed by the UN, I was not aware that the UN were a body of “Jewish” Zionists. Secondly, the two-state solution is what is on the table “now” and therefore your argument carries little weight.

No...in fact it has not been disproven. YOu have not posed ANY evidence of the contrary and you have ignored the SPECIFIC LAWS MADE BY ISRAEL WHICH WERE USED TO DO SO...and instead simply claimed that gthey were irrelevant.
How did “Israel” make all of these laws when for most of the period we are talking about the territory was under first Ottoman and then British Mandatory rule?

I simoply do not care...
Re-phrase- I simply do not want to address this issue because I know if I do it could put a big dent in my argument.

...your continued pointing to Israel ignores the fact that even in Israel Deir Yassim, Jaffa, heifa and some other locations were attacked in the weeks before the mass exodus started. And that both Palmach/Hagganah and Irgun gave wide propaganda to these acts with the intyent to freigthen off the Palestinians. THis is EVEN IN ISRAEL said to be one of the major factors in why people fled.
Except I haven't done that and in my post I acknowledged it. I am under no illusions about what may have gone on by either side and certainly do not condone the actions of the Irgun or massacres of innoncents and never would. I simply pointed out that there were also massacres of Jews too by Arab groups- but I suppose that doesn't count. But I notice you are shifting to now to the position of “one of the major factors”- but you can't just pick one factor and ignore another factor conveniently.

Now...Uri Milstein the Jewish Military History expert...wrote this and cited sources amongst which Moshe Dayan. Now...what may be also very inconvenient for you is this: "The Emigration of the Arabs of Palestine in the Period 1/12/1947-1/6/1948. . . ." ….
The fact that only 16% of these may have owned land is another problem and even if we go up to a maximum of 20% it causes problems re the land-ownership argument. Of couse you also ignore the overtures that were made by the Israeli government to repatriate at least 100,000 Palestinian refugees and that were refused by the Arab leadership whilst at the same time hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from the Arab/Islamic world were arriving. See above. Side note: Another problem is that there seems so be non consensus on exactly how many Palestinians fled- it varies between 400,00 – approx. 700,000- whose figures are we to believe? This is meant sincerely because I have noticed that no two sources ever really seem to give the same numbers.

I could give pages of examples, reports and statements from a variety of sources that support the assertion that the Arab leadership was complicit in this but here's one for you Khaled Al-Azm (1903-1965) Syrian PM and President: “Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of the refugees...while it is we who made them leave.... We brought disaster upon ... Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave.... We have rendered them dispossessed.... We have accustomed them to begging.... We have participated in lowering their moral and social level.... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon ... men, women and children-all this in the service of political purposes .... “ taken fromKhaled Al-Azm, Memoirs [Arabic), 3 vols. (AI-Dar al Muttahida Id-Nashr, 1972), vol. 1, pp. 386-87, cited by Maurice Roumani, The Case of the Jews from Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue, preliminary edition (Jerusalem: World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries [WOJAC], 1975), p. 61.

PhoenixAsh

30th September 2011, 01:14

Are you seriously going to try and say that the people who were fleeing the pogroms in the Islamic world, the pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, the Nazi persecution of the 1930s and then the post-Holocaust refugees along with the later influx of Jews who were expelled from the Arab/Islamic world in the late 1940s do not fit this definition?

Yes.

Well let's see about this. As far as I understand it the basic definition of a refugee under international law stems from Article 1A of the UN Convention definition of 1951 in which a refugee is defined as a person who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country “

Where is the part that that refugee comes to the sheltering land with the intent of establishing their own nation?

They do not fit the description because you forget and leave out the most important part of this description which is that they did not go there to flee...they went there to flee and establish their own state.

These two can not be seperated.

As soon as they moved across the border from their...as you say own country and moved across the border of another region with the intent of establishing their own nation there they stopped being refugees and started being an invading hostile force.

Please not that Jewish refugess who went to other places in the world did not go there with the intent to create their own state. Refugees to England,. Swiss, America, Russia etc. did not go there and did not attempt to create their own state.

Yet the ones that went to Palestinia did. And they went there in the first place because of the goal of establishing their own state. That is hostile intent and that excempts them from any and all defnitions of refugee ship. In otherwords...they did not seek refuge. They sought to create their own state.

What you are doing is trying to present Israel on a par in terms of religious law with somewhere like Saudi Arabia which is completely false.

I am SOOOOO happy that you tried to say that. I really am. Because in fact...my entire description of the state of Israel and its Jewishnes is actually completely based on the description of Aharon Barak....now mr. Aharon Barak is in fact the president of the Israeli Supreme Court.

So yeah...kind of pretty much...nice of you to finally notice.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/isdf/text/barak.html

Now....lets deconstruct your post....

The State of Israel is by no means a 100% Judaic state whatsoever, it's not a “Torah State” nor is it a “Halakha State” (in opposition to the Shariah state that some groups like Hamas would propose for “Palestine”).

You know what...funny you should say that. Here is what the president of the Supreme Court has to say about it.

What are the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish state from the heritage aspect? We learn about these values from the “world of Halacha” (religious law).

So in the opinion of the president of the Supreme Court...the state of Israel IS a Halakha state.

Now what does that entail exactly- it sounds good but could you actually evidence what these specific rights and privileges are in comparison to the rights and privileges of all Israeli citizens whether they are Jewish or not? The very concept and purpose of Israel? Is that written in stone somewhere?

You know it is. That is the whole reason we have this debate. If there was no Jewish state then it would not have been a problem.

Why? Because being “Jewish” is undemocratic? How is democracy subjugated to Jewishness? This is so vague and unclear I think you need to explain.

Well...that kind of surprises me that I have to...because it is kind of obvious. It means that there can be no democratic way in which the Jewishness of the state can and would be allowed to change.

Now...according to Isaelis and offcourse the SC president I cited...the Jewishness means also equality...and we can see for ourselves that that equality is a load of crap. Now the subtility lies in the fact that the state is in nature Jewish. This means that Jewish people are granted more rights and privileges than others. This is evident in a lot of laws. In other words...not even you can debate that fact...equality in non existent.

Judaism is not the state religion of Israel- surprising as it may seem Israel does not have an official state religion. Furthermore both Hebrew and Arabic are official languages of Israel with English a de facto lingua franca and other languages used on a daily basis.

Can you tell me exactly what the SC ruled in 2000 on the matter of Arabic as a second official language?

But again...this is not about what Hamas proposes for Israel. Stop deflecting the arguments in that direction. This debate is purely and solely about the right of Israel to exist and the nature of that state.

It is however a Jewish state. It has been at the moment the state was delcard and when 45% of the people within its border were Palestinians...including 6% other non-Jews...

Now I know you have difficulty understanding the concept of what Jewish means in respect to "Jewish" state...but I described it to you perfectly well.

This Jewish State has complete rights and anti-discrimination laws that could not be defined as Halakhic whatsoever and indeed have met opposition from time to time from the conservative/orthodox religious right- examples such as LGBT issues are at the forefront of this.

These so called rights are a complete sham and you are very much aware of that. They have been from the very conception of the state of Israel. So much so are they a sham that only recently the SC ruled that they should be respected more....and even in THOSE verdicts they left many ifs and buts and exceptions.

Indeed, even the Law of Return is far less stringent in its determination of who is a Jew than the Orthodox Rabbinate. Hundreds of thousands of “Jews” who were accepted for the right of return would technically be classified as non-Jews in a strict religious sense. Your whole argument about this Halakhic state you are trying to portray falls to the ground here.

But they are in fact accepted as Jews. Which means the state of Israel is for them. It is not so much for the non-Jews.

Israel also officially recognises and supports the other religions in the country such as the various Christian denominations, Druze and Bahai. Islam is not officially recognised in such as it was de facto presumed to be from the period of the Ottoman Empire- however since 1961 Shariah courts have exlusive jurisdiction in personal Islamic cases as do the other recognised religions with their various courts and bodies.

Ah..so eventhough there were 45% Arabs living in the region they did not officially recognize the religion.

This should be a wake up call for you there.

But let's have a look at some other countries, The Netherlands has religious holidays such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost that are all based on the Christian faith, and England, an officially Anglican (state religion) nation within the UK has religious national holidays, the Christian Cross on its flag and many symbols connected to the Anglican Christian religion- as does the UK with its three crosses. Greece is officially Greek Orthodox with a cross on its flag and I believe that Norway too is/was up until recently a nation with a state religion. Are we now to argue that all of these nations are discriminatory and portray them as medieval theocracies?

Are you seriously trying to compare other countries with Israel? Because that is the most hillarious attempt ever.

Israel in 1948 should have consisted of 45% Palestinians/Arabs and 6% other non-Jewish groups.

It is laughable that you try to defend the creation of a state which does NOT recognize at least 50% of its holidays of those 50% inhabitants as official holidays in those circumstances.

Again...you are only underlining the inherrent racist chauvinism in the way Israel was created.

If the majority of the people in the land are not Jewish how come only 45% of the people within its borders are non-Jews? Last time I did maths 100-45= 55.

Unfortunately you are forgetting the Christians and Druze...

Because you completely refuse to address any issue, and these are historically recorded events, that may actually not be ones in which the “Jews” are the bad guys.

Zionists but essentially...yes...they are the bad guys.

Where have you actually refuted this? Refuting something entails more than shouting “I don't give a shit” or denouncing things as untrue without stats and facts. I'm interested to know where you get this figure of 30% from in 1948.

I am basing myself on the inventary of the mandate of Palestine which is in our University Library.

Offcourse the number of 30% is an approximation....and there are other sources which state a higher number...

http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Maps/Story573.html

http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/ht/d/ContentDetails/i/2963

http://jordantimes.net/article.aspx?articleNO=174&Israel%20Approves%20Sale%20of%201948%20Palestinian %20Land-174

Which holds about as much factual weight as the Israeli propaganda machine.

In 1948 approximatelty 70% of the Crown Estates/British Mandate land that had been “inherited” from the Ottoman Empire and had never been owned by the Palestinians became Israeli Government land. 50% of this land was in the Negev which is mostly unarable, uninhabited semi-desert. Approximately 16,9% of land was classified as abandoned and 3,3% was owned by Arab-Israelis/Palestinians leaving around 8-10% as “Jewish” land. Even if we presume that the abandoned land was Palestinian and add the figures together we get around 20,2%- approximately 10% short of your figure.

Wel...according to that nice calculation which seems to come right out of the Jewish Virtual Library the number would come to 18.5% (according to the Jewish Virtual Library....which needed to calculate it because it doesn;t have factual numbers :D Lol...which also should be a very, very good indication for you.

But personally I do not care...I DO however care about your explanation which I asked.

So if we take your number....please explain to me HOW the number dropped from 18.5% in 1948 to less than 3% in 1949.

PLease do...I sooooo like to hear your explanation.

You have yet to show me one documented example in which a Palestinian who had legal title to the land was dispossessed illegally. I'm not even going to say that it's impossible either- people are people and dirty tricks and dishonest are unfortunately part of life- but what I would like, and I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for this either, is at least one source please.

First explain to me how landownership went from 18.5% to 3%....in less than a year

First and foremost the two-state solution was basically the UN 1947 resolution that the Arabs would not accept- so your accusation false completely flat. The 1947 resolution was proposed by the UN, I was not aware that the UN were a body of “Jewish” Zionists. Secondly, the two-state solution is what is on the table “now” and therefore your argument carries little weight.

Are you aware tyhat no less than two earlies versions of the partition plan were rejected by Zionists because they were allotted to few sq kms? Because it seems you are not.

How did “Israel” make all of these laws when for most of the period we are talking about the territory was under first Ottoman and then British Mandatory rule?

Are you denying that these laws exist? Or are you very surprised that Israel did not suddenly pop up out of nowhere and that there were in fact plans about the state and what laws it would carry and how it would be governed
long before 1948?

Re-phrase- I simply do not want to address this issue because I know if I do it could put a big dent in my argument.

No...it does not put a big dent in my argument. It is irrelevant for the topic of the debate. I siply do not care how the Arab nations reacted or what THEY are responsible for because it does in no way shape or form lessen the culpability of Israel.

[quote]
Except I haven't done that and in my post I acknowledged it. I am under no illusions about what may have gone on by either side and certainly do not condone the actions of the Irgun or massacres of innoncents and never would. I simply pointed out that there were also massacres of Jews too by Arab groups- but I suppose that doesn't count. But I notice you are shifting to now to the position of “one of the major factors”- but you can't just pick one factor and ignore another factor conveniently.

I stated that even in Israel it is considered one of the major factors. I personally think it is the ONLY factor that is relevant.

The fact that only 16% of these may have owned land is another problem and even if we go up to a maximum of 20% it causes problems re the land-ownership argument. Of couse you also ignore the overtures that were made by the Israeli government to repatriate at least 100,000 Palestinian refugees and that were refused by the Arab leadership whilst at the same time hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from the Arab/Islamic world were arriving. See above. Side note: Another problem is that there seems so be non consensus on exactly how many Palestinians fled- it varies between 400,00 – approx. 700,000- whose figures are we to believe? This is meant sincerely because I have noticed that no two sources ever really seem to give the same numbers.

Israel is under international law obligation to allow 100% of the refugees to return and under international obligation to completely restore their property.

I could give pages of examples, reports and statements from a variety of sources that support the assertion that the Arab leadership was complicit in this but here's one for you Khaled Al-Azm (1903-1965) Syrian PM and President: “Since 1948 it is we who demanded the return of the refugees...while it is we who made them leave.... We brought disaster upon ... Arab refugees, by inviting them and bringing pressure to bear upon them to leave.... We have rendered them dispossessed.... We have accustomed them to begging.... We have participated in lowering their moral and social level.... Then we exploited them in executing crimes of murder, arson, and throwing bombs upon ... men, women and children-all this in the service of political purposes .... “ taken fromKhaled Al-Azm, Memoirs [Arabic), 3 vols. (AI-Dar al Muttahida Id-Nashr, 1972), vol. 1, pp. 386-87, cited by Maurice Roumani, The Case of the Jews from Arab Countries: A Neglected Issue, preliminary edition (Jerusalem: World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries [WOJAC], 1975), p. 61.

Yes...but unfortunately you can not disprove that all of this would have happened if it weren't for the fact that the Zionists unilaterally created their own racist apartheid state at the expense of the Palestinians in a land they did not come from.

Ergo...you can do that however much you like...but it is again: cause and effect.

ComradeMan

30th September 2011, 16:09

Yes.
Well then your position is completely ridiculous in terms of historical analysis.

They do not fit the description...
All of them? Including the sections of the Haredi and Orthodox community who object to the state of Israel on religious grounds? Do you have any sources that state exactly how many of the refugees who arrived in the period were actually intent on creating a new state, or the state of Israel as eventually emerged, right from the outset? How many just wanted a new home where they felt they could be safe?

As soon as they moved across the border...of another region with the intent of establishing their own nation there they stopped being refugees and started being an invading hostile force.
By leasing land, buying from legal landowners, planting trees and draining swamps? You also forget that there was an approximate Arab immigration from outside of the region that, according to some at least, numbered up to 100,000 during the period. As the economic prospects improved and as the pay for labour increased to a level above that of the neighbouring countries countless thousands of people went in search of higher pay and better oppurtunities.

Here's a fairly "balanced" (in my opinion) article that also highlights the difficulties with the estimates.
http://www.meforum.org/522/the-smoking-gun-arab-immigration-into-palestine

Please not that Jewish refugess who went to other places in the world did not go there with the intent to create their own state. Refugees to England,. Swiss, America, Russia etc....
Because for the Jews that went to England, America, the Netherlands etc they were not returning to the "promised land" were they? Since the earliest time of the diaspora Jews have returned to the Holy Land and have not forgotten their roots in the territory. Not for nothing do Pesach and Yom Kippur conclude with the phrase "Next year in Jerusalem". Well in the 16th century for example, the Jewish population of "Palestine" was estimated up to 25%- many of course were Jews who has been expelled from Spain. Throughout the history of the region there have been periods of immigration, from the Arab world and the wider Mediterranean, Jews and Muslims alike.

But let's take our time period, for our argument of the 1880s-1947- that's 67 years also ignoring the fact that modern Zionism has to begin at the World Zionist Organisation First Congress in 1897. You cannot ignore the fact that changing "material conditions" have their effects on the aspirations of the people who arrive. The people who eventually survived the Holocaust and arrived in Israel cannot be compared to the Old Yishuva of the past.

Your definition of the intent on arrival is still not a negation of the fact that these were indeed refugees.

I am SOOOOO happy that you tried to say that. I really am. Because in fact...my entire description of the state of Israel and its Jewishnes is actually completely based on the description of Aharon Barak....now mr. Aharon Barak is in fact the president of the Israeli Supreme Court.

But does he compare it to a theocratic state on a par with Saudi Arabia? Does he falsely claim that only Hebrew is the official language or completely ignore the state support of other religions with their own bodies and courts or does he falsely try to imply that the official state religion of Israel (which doesn't have an official state religion) is some form of Judaism? Does he imply that Torah and Halakhic law are somehow identical to the laws of Israel and to the detriment of others? In the article to which you link he speaks of vaguer terms such as "values"- you could argue that many nations in Northern Europe have "Protestant" values even though they may be ever more secular in belief. The article also closes by saying that just decisions (in the case the allocation of land to Jews and Arabs alike) is the "fulfillment of Zionism" which "views Irael as a national home for Jews". This is hardly the denouncement of Zionism or the call for the complete destruction of the state of Israel that you seem to advocate.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/isdf/text/barak.html

You know what...funny you should say that. Here is what the president of the Supreme Court has to say about it.

What are the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish state from the heritage aspect? We learn about these values from the “world of Halacha” (religious law).So in the opinion of the president of the Supreme Court...the state of Israel IS a Halakha state.
Err... that's not what he says at all, and he wouldn't say that either. What he does do is he draws too positive principles from Halakhic law, i.e. love your neighbour and do what is good, and states that they underline the values of the state of Israel as a Jewish state. However state decisions are not made according to the Halakhic laws and many laws and policies of the state of Israel are not halakhic by any means, apart from the fact that it would be impossible because there are so many different interpretations of Halakha amongst different groups of Jews. Israel is no more a Halakhic state than, by loose analogy, England is a theocracy under the Canon Law of the Ecclesiastic Courts of the Church of England.

You know it is. That is the whole reason we have this debate. If there was no Jewish state then it would not have been a problem.
Well why not take it further and say if there had been no Jews there would not have been problem. Whether you like it or not, in 2011 there is a Jewish state and we cannot turn back the clock therefore the "if" arguments on that scale are just a waste of time.

Well...that kind of surprises me that I have to...because it is kind of obvious. It means that there can be no democratic way in which the Jewishness of the state can and would be allowed to change.
That makes no sense at all and it's not obvious whatsoever. Are the Swiss Cantons that officially recognise Roman Catholicism undemocratic? Is England fundamentally undemocratic because it is officially Anglican or is Greece because it is officially Greek Orthodox? What about the state religions/churches of the Scandinavian countries? Is the Netherlands undemocratic in that two large political parties are based on religious values?

Now...according to Isaelis and offcourse the SC president I cited...the Jewishness means also equality...and we can see for ourselves that that equality is a load of crap.
Well you might be able to... but let's say I don't, can you explain why other than just using expletives?

Now the subtility lies in the fact that the state is in nature Jewish. This means that Jewish people are granted more rights and privileges than others. This is evident in a lot of laws. In other words...not even you can debate that fact...equality in non existent.
Which laws? Be precise. You'll also note that criticism comes from within Israel and is also dealt with inside Israel by Israeli bodies and authorities. So please be precise....

No one was arguing that Israel was the "perfect" nation, but yet again this is what seems to happen in debates on Israel- the anti-Israel camp scrutinise every last detail of a self-admitted imperfect society and then hold the country up as invalid for it's shortcomings. Is Israel the only country in which accusations and cases of institutionalised racism and nepotism have been made? So why not call for all of those countries to be "wiped from the map" from the "river to the sea"? FFS. :rolleyes:

Can you tell me exactly what the SC ruled in 2000 on the matter of Arabic as a second official language?
It enforced the application of Israeli law, with precedents going back to pre-Israeli 1922 British laws, that state Arabic as the second offficial language of the territory- now understood as the State of Israel. Despite the efforts of some to change this situation, to date Arabic is still an official language. Furthermore, in 2008, on 2007 Knesset approval, the Arabic Language Academy was established in Haifa on a par with the equivalent for the (modern) Hebrew language. Now there are constantly those who call for dropping Arabic as an official language and rows about road signs in either language but at the same time in 2010 another proposal was made to make Arabic a compulsory subject in Northern Israeli schools for fifth graders.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11075326

There is no consensus within the state and the Supreme Court has actually protected Arabic in the past. In addition to this Jews of Yemeni and Mizrahi origin, especially the older generation, still use Arabic as their language.

It is however a Jewish state. It has been at the moment the state was delcard and when 45% of the people within its border were Palestinians...including 6% other non-Jews... Now I know you have difficulty understanding the concept of what Jewish means in respect to "Jewish" state...but I described it to you perfectly well.
It seems you don't really have an idea of the Jewish state seeing as your definition was based on an apparent misinterpretation of one document written by one judge from a source that further down in this thread you seem to decry. :rolleyes::confused:

These so called rights are a complete sham and you are very much aware of that. They have been from the very conception of the state of Israel. So much so are they a sham that only recently the SC ruled that they should be respected more....and even in THOSE verdicts they left many ifs and buts and exceptions.
How many Dutch-Moroccan or Dutch Turkish "mp's" are there? How many political parties? Why is it that Turkish, Moroccan and Surinamese have some of the lowest rates of eduction in the Netherlands? Why is that of the immigrant populations, even those born and educated in the Netherlands have up to double the rate of unemployment? Now, we hope that the Netherlands with its reputation as a tolerant and progressive society will address these problems and work from within to resolve them- we certainly don't call on the complete destruction of the Netherlands as a state, do we?

Why are there then Arab politicians in Arab parties in the Knesset? Now it's a sad fact, and yet another challenge to Israeli society, that the 2000s have seen a radicalisation of both sides of the community that tends towards intolerance and bigotry that is not helped by the inflammatory comments and actions of their so-called political leaderships. I have never denied that bigotry and discrimination exist in Israel, those things exist between groups as well so it's not just a Jews versus others argument- but this is by no means representative of Israel in all of its entirety or Jewish Israeli society as one monolithic block (which it isn't) and you also have to concede that there exist the people, groups and official bodies- such as the Supreme Court- within the state that fight against this- many of whom do not de facto negate the very legitimacy of the state itself. A nation is not synonymous to its government.

But they are in fact accepted as Jews. Which means the state of Israel is for them. It is not so much for the non-Jews.
Non-Jews can emigrate to Israel too and become naturalised citizens without having to become "Jewish".... :rolleyes:

Ah..so eventhough there were 45% Arabs living in the region they did not officially recognize the religion.
I applaud you for a disingenuous trap here... but I am afraid it doesn't work. Firstly, there was seen to be no need due to historical reasons dating from Ottoman and even pre-Ottoman times, secondly Islamic affairs were recognised as "devolved" to the Shariah courts (recognised since 1961), thirdly a non-Islamic support/interference in Islamic affairs might well be construed as haraam and be potentially explosive- it was left well alone. The religion was recognised but not officially touched by the state of Israel.

Are you seriously trying to compare other countries with Israel? Because that is the most hillarious attempt ever.
Well say why it is instead of just using mockery. Do European countries with sizeable Muslim populations officially recognise or make any accommodation for Ramadan? As a matter of fact other religious holidays are factored into business calendars and even the civil service schedules along with a freedom to choose the weekly day of rest if one wishes and the IDF, which has hundreds of Muslim soldiers, also makes special arrangements too- especially for Ramadan.

Offcourse the number of 30% is an approximation....and there are other sources which state a higher number...
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Maps/Story573.html

Except that is a map of the whole territory, not of the 1947 UN partition. It conveniently lumps in Palestinians and "others", ignores the fact that leasehold and usufruct are not synonymous to land ownership and so on...

The proposed Jewish state was majority Jewish and the propose Palestinian/Arab state was majority Arab and both proposals exlcuded Jerusalem (where Jews were a majority)! The majority of the land that Jews were granted was actually poor land, semi-desert and so on. The UN partition was also based entirely on demographics.

Which holds about as much factual weight as the Israeli propaganda machine.
Except I have looked at as many sources as possible- including Palestinian/Arab, UN and British ones. :rolleyes:

Wel...according to that nice calculation which seems to come right out of the Jewish Virtual Library the number would come to 18.5% (according to the Jewish Virtual Library....which needed to calculate it because it doesn;t have factual numbers :D Lol...which also should be a very, very good indication for you.
Except the Jewish Virtual Library is sourced and includes British reports, UN reports and Arab sources too. It's also not the only source either.... :rolleyes: But if you assert the numbers are not factual then you have to explain why they are not factual. It's also interesting that you use this source yourself when it suits you---- further evidence of cherrypicking, no?

So if we take your number....please explain to me HOW the number dropped from 18.5% in 1948 to less than 3% in 1949.
Well you still haven't managed to give the one example I asked for that would at least back up the claim of "stealing the land"- seeing as stealing/theft implies illegal acquisition. As for the second part, simple maths- albeit approximate- if 16% of Palestinian property had been abandoned. 18.5-19% - 16% = 2.5-3%. The 3% representing those who stayed. :rolleyes:

Are you aware tyhat no less than two earlies versions of the partition plan were rejected by Zionists because they were allotted to few sq kms? Because it seems you are not.
What's that got to do with the plan of November 1947 that was accepted by the majority? The Arab reaction was negative because... they would accept no partition whatsoever- they claimed all of Palestine regardless of demographics. Are you aware that the Arab states had also been complicit in interfering and causing problems with the earlier proposals? You are aware that the communist National Liberation League in Palestine, under Soviet guidance, and also the King of Jordan did accept the plan. Because it seems you are not. Yet again you are trying to build up this strawman that I am somehow trying to exhonerate all Zionists from all blame, which is not the case. You, on the other hand, refuse to acknowledge in any way shape or form the role of the Arab leadership and the Arab league or some "awkward" facts that don't usually enter the general Palestinian narrative.

Are you denying that these laws exist? Or are you very surprised that Israel did not suddenly pop up out of nowhere and that there were in fact plans about the state and what laws it would carry and how it would be governed long before 1948?
No, I am asking you how "Israel" made these laws before it existed?

No...it does not put a big dent in my argument. It is irrelevant for the topic of the debate. I siply do not care how the Arab nations reacted or what THEY are responsible for because it does in no way shape or form lessen the culpability of Israel.
Your argument has such a big hole in the middle of it that it could be easily mistaken for a beygl. :D

Here you go again- you completely negate one entire side of the geo-political debate. You don't care about how the Arab nations reacted despite the fact that their reaction was a major factor in the whole debacle? Come off it.... The culpability of Israel- now you are beginning to sound like some Old Testament prophet. Again creating one monolithic structure in terms of the debate.

I stated that even in Israel it is considered one of the major factors. I personally think it is the ONLY factor that is relevant.
And where did I deny that it was a factor? I actually pointed it out in a post- but the trouble is that you completely deny all the other factors. With all due respect to your opinion, of which you are entitled, what you personally think cannot be used as determinative in the argument.

Israel is under international law obligation to allow 100% of the refugees to return and under international obligation to completely restore their property.
Well this is not actually so black and white under international law whatsoever. The UN Resolution 194 Article 11 is not binding and does include the phrase "the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so" which in the ongoig "state of war" is difficult to achieve and to which Ben Gurion also alluded. We also get into the problem of the larger number of Jewish refugees who fled from the Arab world to Israel and the problem of counter-claims.

Yes...but unfortunately you can not disprove that all of this would have happened if it weren't for the fact that the Zionists unilaterally created their own racist apartheid state at the expense of the Palestinians in a land they did not come from.
Stop begging the question all the time. Can you disprove that all of this would not have happened had it not been for the sell-out and subsequent manipulation of the Palestinian people by their own "Arab leaders"? As for the apartheid racist analogy you also forget that whilst the West Bank was under Jordanian control from where approximately 40,000 Jews were forced to flee and selling land to Jews was punishable by death (ironic considering the history of the Jordanian royal family according to some sources) Arab-Israelis were at least guaranteed some kind of equality.

Ergo...you can do that however much you like...but it is again: cause and effect.
Except in analysing the effects you choose which causes suit your argument.