Israel's charge sheet

[Dr Mindbender]

Yehida: 13 December 1947
Khisas: 18 December 1947
Qazaza: 19 December 1947
Al-Sheikh Village: 1 January 1948
Naser Al-Din: 13-14 April 1948
Abu Shusha: 14 May 1948
Beit Daras: 21 May 1948
Tantura: May 22-23, 1948
Dahmash Mosque: 11 July 1948
http://www.iol.ie/~afifi/BICNews/Harbinger/harbinger18.htm
Dawayma: 29 October 1948
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Hebron/...a/Story670.html (http://www.palestineremembered.com/Hebron/al-Dawayima/Story670.html)
Sharafat massacre: 7 Febraury 1951
Kibya massacre: 14 October 1953: 9:30 pm
Kafr Qasm massacre :29 October 1956
AL-SAMMOU' MASSACRE :13 November 1966
THE SABRA AND SHATILA MASSACRE :15-18 September 1982
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1779713.stm
OYON QARA MASSACRE :(RISHON LEZION: 20 May 1990)
THE IBRAHIMI MOSQUE MASSACRE :25 February 1994
THE JABALIA MASSACRE: 28 March 1994
ERETZ CHECKPOINT MASSACRE : 17 July 1994
Jenin massacre: Thursday, 18 April, 2002
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1937048.stm
Gaza beach blast: June 9, 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_beach_blast


Resources-
http://www.allaboutpalestine.com/massacre.html#yehida
http://www.radioislam.org/islam/english/to...#AL-SAMMOU' (http://www.radioislam.org/islam/english/toread/massac2.htm#AL-SAMMOU')
http://www.palestinecampaign.org/archives.asp?list=102
Anti-zionist Jews
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/
http://www.nkusa.org/
http://www.jewishfriendspalestine.org/

[Jazzratt]

As Israel is an imperialist nation and this is a fascinating and informative resource would you be willing to have it added to the sticky?

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 12:43 pm
As Israel is an imperialist nation and this is a fascinating and informative resource would you be willing to have it added to the sticky?
Absolutely, that was my hope.

[Jazzratt]

I've added it, but I'm keeping this thread here in the hope that it sparks some discussion and so that there is a higher chance that Zionist-Apologists like graffic will be more likely to have a butchers.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 12:50 pm
I've added it, but I'm keeping this thread here in the hope that it sparks some discussion and so that there is a higher chance that Zionist-Apologists like graffic will be more likely to have a butchers.
Or failing that, at least he'll be too busy blabbing here to troll the rest of the boards. Keep the crap in the valley, as it were.

[Dean]

Originally posted by Ulster [email protected] 15, 2007 12:41 pm
Beware shocking images-
http://www.halturnershow.com/IsraeliAtrocities.html
Hal Turner? I hope you didn't know who you were linking to.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by Dean+September 15, 2007 01:07 pm--> (Dean @ September 15, 2007 01:07 pm)
Ulster [email protected] 15, 2007 12:41 pm
Beware shocking images-
http://www.halturnershow.com/IsraeliAtrocities.html
Hal Turner? I hope you didn't know who you were linking to. [/b]
er no, can you enlighten me? Pardon my ignorance. Let me guess, hes a US fash? My bad. :( :blink:

[RedAnarchist]

Originally posted by Ulster Socialist+September 15, 2007 02:12 pm--> (Ulster Socialist @ September 15, 2007 02:12 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 01:07 pm

Ulster [email protected] 15, 2007 12:41 pm
Beware shocking images-
http://www.halturnershow.com/IsraeliAtrocities.html
Hal Turner? I hope you didn't know who you were linking to.
er no, can you enlighten me? Pardon my ignorance. Let me guess, hes a US fash? My bad. :( :blink: [/b]
Just looked him up on Wikipedia -hes a white nationalist. Which means that, rather than feeling sorry for the Palestinians, he's using those pictures to attack Jews and show them as inhuman.

[Dr Mindbender]

thanks for that dean. Off he comes, yoink.

Shame, those were powerful images, if only theyd been posted by a comrade.
BTW this isnt a one-man oratory, feel free to contribute.


BTW Oi Jazzrat! I thought this was getting 'stickied'?

[spartan]

Why dont you have Palestinian charge sheet as well? It is only fair if you dont wish to be seen as biased. Or are all the Palestinian Islamist Nationalist scum perfect saints to you?
DEATH TO ZIONISM! AND DEATH TO ISLAMISM!

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by Ulster [email protected] 15, 2007 01:15 pm
BTW Oi Jazzrat! I thought this was getting 'stickied'?
I added the post to the Imperialism sticky, giving the credit to you. I also removed the link to the WN site. (It's a shame because it makes a powerful statement about the Violence of the Zionist state).

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 02:03 pm
Why dont you have Palestinian charge sheet as well?
Because it would be a fairly short list.


It is only fair if you dont wish to be seen as biased. Or are all the Palestinian Islamist Nationalist scum perfect saints to you?

The Islamists in Palestine are a bunch of child killing whacko ****s. The inhabitants of Palestine are victims of colonial expansion. Try to keep up.


DEATH TO ZIONISM! AND DEATH TO ISLAMISM!#

Nice rhetoric. Devoid of meaning, but nice all the same.

[BobKKKindle$]

Why dont you have Palestinian charge sheet as well? It is only fair if you dont wish to be seen as biased. Or are all the Palestinian Islamist Nationalist scum perfect saints to you?

Even if Palestinian attacks had resulted in a similar level of destruction and loss of life; which is of course not the case; the fact remains that the Palestinians are under the control and subjagation of an imperialist power and thus such attacks can be accorded greater moral legitimacy than Israeli brutality, which is used to maintain the status quo and expand Israeli interests, through discouraging revolt and facilitating oppression.

Attempts to reach a peaceful solution have thus far not been successful because the Israeli state is unwilling to make concessions; consequently the Palestinians have turned to the only tool available in order to express their views and undermine Israel - attacks against Civilians and isolated forces, as the Palestinians do not have access to the military technology needed to directly confront the IDF.

Get your politics straight, you fool.

[spartan]

consequently the Palestinians have turned to the only tool available in order to express their views and undermine Israel - attacks against Civilians and isolated forces, as the Palestinians do not have access to the military technology needed to directly confront the IDF.
No side in any conflict should resort to attacking civilians no matter how desperate the situation gets. The terrorists are the ones with the weapons attacking unarmed civilians who happen to be a part of a state who's politicians and military personal get a hard on when bulldozing Palestinian civilians houses. The fact is the Palestinians would get alot more sympathy for their struggle if they stopped performing cowardly terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians who for all we know could be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. Palestinians who resort to attacking Israeli civilians because the Israeli military attacked Palestinian civilians are making a mistake as they are making themselves look as bad as Israel and are missing a perfect opportunity to take the moral high ground. I know alot of people here will say that it is retaliation but the only people to suffer from all sides retaliatary attacks are civilians on all sides who might not support either sides aims. Of course it is too late now for the Palestinian resistance to take the moral high ground as they have resorted to even more horrific attacks then Israel ever could and have consequently sunk to a lower level than Israel ever could! All in all the history of the Palestinian struggle will be one of missed opportunities and using peoples suffering (like the Israeli Zionists do also) as an excuse to further the suffering of everyone else who is not connected to the conflict (such as civilians). no side in this silly conflict represents the peoples intrests. Many claim to and many hide behind labels such as "Marxist-Leninist" to "prove" this but at the end of the day these groups only intrests now are in seizing power in a volatile situation that could end up going anywhere. And the supporters on this forum of either of the sides in this conflict are the most foolish of all the sides.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 02:03 pm
Why dont you have Palestinian charge sheet as well? It is only fair if you dont wish to be seen as biased. Or are all the Palestinian Islamist Nationalist scum perfect saints to you?
DEATH TO ZIONISM! AND DEATH TO ISLAMISM!
Because the Palestinian movement in general is a bona fide progressive movement that deserves our solidarity, not our reprimand. The workers struggle and the palestinian struggle for self determination are one and the same.

[Dean]

Originally posted by Ulster Socialist+September 15, 2007 01:15 pm--> (Ulster Socialist @ September 15, 2007 01:15 pm) thanks for that dean. Off he comes, yoink.

Shame, those were powerful images, if only theyd been posted by a comrade.
BTW this isnt a one-man oratory, feel free to contribute.


BTW Oi Jazzrat! I thought this was getting 'stickied'? [/b]
I noticed that they seemed a bit racist in how they portrayed the thing.. more references to Judaism than Israel, or something (it just came across as racist, I don't remember exactly why). SO I looked at the front page, and I recognized the name as some right-winger, then saw he was a white nationalist.


spartan
Why dont you have Palestinian charge sheet as well? It is only fair if you dont wish to be seen as biased. Or are all the Palestinian Islamist Nationalist scum perfect saints to you?
Because it's about imperialism. Palestine is hardly a major imperial power, or an imperial power at all.


DEATH TO ZIONISM! AND DEATH TO ISLAMISM!
Zionism can be seen as a racist ideology, but it doesn't have to be. Considerign its history, I would say anti-zionism is not a bad stance, but not fully informed.

Islamism, however, is hardly somethign to be fought in and of itself. It's like saying "Christianityism" is the enemy because of the crusades. What makes it an different than Islam or Christianity? The politicization? That's nonsense, all social ideas carry political weight. Like all religions, it has been used positively and negatively. You might as well say "death to Judaism" as well, because it is certainly used as a justification for Zionism, but the problem is evident: not all Jews support Zionist ideologies. To me, saying "death to Islamism" is tantamount to saying "death to transcendentalism." Both have elements of unreality, and are "opposing viewpoints," but I don't see a particular danger from individuals of the sort.

[Revolution Until Victory]

Why dont you have Palestinian charge sheet as well?

grow up and don't be such an idiot. The Israel charge sheet was brought up coz of imperialism. the Palestinian liberation movment is the anti-imperialist force here. See the difference?

According to your logic, why don't we also have a sticky for the ANC "crimes" in South Africa? or the NLF "crimes" in Algeria? and what about a Native American "crime" sheet? or ZAPU and ZANU one in Zimbabwe? You know, after all, we only want to be balanced and not biased :rolleyes:

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 04:59 pm

consequently the Palestinians have turned to the only tool available in order to express their views and undermine Israel - attacks against Civilians and isolated forces, as the Palestinians do not have access to the military technology needed to directly confront the IDF.
No side in any conflict should resort to attacking civilians no matter how desperate the situation gets.
Who is saying civilians should be attacked??


The terrorists are the ones with the weapons attacking unarmed civilians who happen to be a part of a state who's politicians and military personal get a hard on when bulldozing Palestinian civilians houses. The fact is the Palestinians would get alot more sympathy for their struggle if they stopped performing cowardly terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians who for all we know could be sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.
The terrorists are also the ones bombing the Palestinian people. Why can only one side be called terrorist in your view? Is Israel morally auperior?

And the Palestinians are not a monolith. The Israelis are sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but I'm not going to blame some random Arab if another person from Palestine decides to kill civilians. That's like saying "the Jews would get more sympathy for the Holocaust if they weren't killing Palestinians today." It's meaningkess; the Holocaust was a terrible tragedy regardless of context, just like a bus being bombed in Israel or Palestine is equally tragic.


Palestinians who resort to attacking Israeli civilians because the Israeli military attacked Palestinian civilians are making a mistake as they are making themselves look as bad as Israel and are missing a perfect opportunity to take the moral high ground. I know alot of people here will say that it is retaliation but the only people to suffer from all sides retaliatary attacks are civilians on all sides who might not support either sides aims.
It doesn't matter if they support either side; what matters is that they are peaceful civilian who are not posing a threat to anyone.


Of course it is too late now for the Palestinian resistance to take the moral high ground as they have resorted to even more horrific attacks then Israel ever could and have consequently sunk to a lower level than Israel ever could!
Complete bullshit. Israel is clearly much more violent. Read the facts for once. (http://www.ifamericansknew.org/)


All in all the history of the Palestinian struggle will be one of missed opportunities and using peoples suffering (like the Israeli Zionists do also) as an excuse to further the suffering of everyone else who is not connected to the conflict (such as civilians). no side in this silly conflict represents the peoples intrests. Many claim to and many hide behind labels such as "Marxist-Leninist" to "prove" this but at the end of the day these groups only intrests now are in seizing power in a volatile situation that could end up going anywhere.
Most Palestinian activists are peaceful, even in the face of attacks by the Israeli army. Thanks for trying to belittle the honorable people that are activists in Israel / Palestine, though.


And the supporters on this forum of either of the sides in this conflict are the most foolish of all the sides.
Like your clear support of Israel?

Every time you post something on the issue, it is either pro-Israeli or defeatist (such as suggesting a nuclear attack on the region). You know NOTHING of the conflict but you speak as if you know the reality of every individual in the struggle. I know Israeli citizens who are activists for the Palestinians, becasue they see the Apartheid for what it is. You need to read about the damn conflict before coming here with this xenophobic bullshit.

[spartan]

Like your clear support of Israel?
I am not a supporter of the Racist and criminal stae of Israel! I hate it as much as i hate the Islamist reactionaries in Palestine. You see unlike some here i choose not to side with either of the sides in this conflict.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 12:06 pm

Like your clear support of Israel?
I am not a supporter of the Racist and criminal stae of Israel! I hate it as much as i hate the Islamist reactionaries in Palestine. You see unlike some here i choose not to side with either of the sides in this conflict.
no one is siding with the islamists, we are siding with the progressive elements within the palestinian cause, many of whom are legitimate socialists and comrades. Why cant you understand that distinction? Next you'll be saying we should disown irish republicanism because of its synomonism with roman catholicism.

[spartan]

Any group that allies with Religions no matter what they call themselves are ultimately (Perhaps with the groups themselves not knowing it) reactionaries. And how exactly are those Protestant and British hating Nationalists the IRA looked upon favourabley by some of the Left? You do realise that Nationalism and all Religions will be killed off and wont exist after the revolution right? Unless of course you want there to be a counter-revolution? Because that is what will happen if we allow these silly petty groups to survive! I am not fighting for state Socialism here you know! I am fighting for the global Proletariat not some obscure Nationality or Religion that wont exist when we succeed.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 12:06 pm

Like your clear support of Israel?
I am not a supporter of the Racist and criminal stae of Israel! I hate it as much as i hate the Islamist reactionaries in Palestine. You see unlike some here i choose not to side with either of the sides in this conflict.
...and that is why a thread directed at Israel's clear imperialism merited a response to the point of "Palestinians are evil too!"

Seriously, read about the conflict. I'd suggest Amnesty International (http://amnesty.org) for starters.


Any group that allies with Religions no matter what they call themselves are ultimately (Perhaps with the groups themselves not knowing it) reactionaries. And how exactly are those Protestant and British hating Nationalists the IRA looked upon favourabley by some of the Left?
NEWSFLASH: RELIGIONS HAVE BEEN USED AS JUMPING POINTS FOR MAJOR LIBERATION MOVEMENTS SINCE THE BEGINNING OF HISTORY! spartan SHOCKED!

In a CNN - exclusive interview, spartan noted, "I had no idea that religion and politics were intertwined. I thought it was just black and white, you know, the preacher rapes the choir boy and when the revolution comes we would kill every Catholic off. I'm just shocked that religion and politics are in bed."


You do realise that Nationalism and all Religions will be killed off and wont exist after the revolution right?
Right. Neither will any false logic; in fact, we'll all know every fact in the world and all mistruths will just disappear!


Unless of course you want there to be a counter-revolution? Because that is what will happen if we allow these silly petty groups to survive! I am not fighting for state Socialism here you know! I am fighting for the global Proletariat not some obscure Nationality or Religion that wont exist when we succeed.
A counter revolution against your purist neofascist ideology? I would certainly hope so. I won't fucking stand for some prick telling others they don't have the right to be religious.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 17, 2007 05:14 pm
Any group that allies with Religions no matter what they call themselves are ultimately (Perhaps with the groups themselves not knowing it) reactionaries. And how exactly are those Protestant and British hating Nationalists the IRA looked upon favourabley by some of the Left? You do realise that Nationalism and all Religions will be killed off and wont exist after the revolution right? Unless of course you want there to be a counter-revolution? Because that is what will happen if we allow these silly petty groups to survive! I am not fighting for state Socialism here you know! I am fighting for the global Proletariat not some obscure Nationality or Religion that wont exist when we succeed.
Do Palestinian socialists ally with the islamists? I dont know, they are fighting a common cause against a common enemy but as far as im aware the similarities end there. In any case, they are an oppressed minority group fighting for their very existance at the brunt end of the beourgiouse hegemony so for that reason alone, in the immediate context, they must have our solidarity.
Also i have to agree with dean, i dont want to live in a society whose government is actively violently attacking or killing religious people. To do so would be to attack individual atonomy, Marx and Lenin never attacked religion per se, only in its institutionalised form. The destruction of the status quo and the healing of the rampant disparity and alienation will remove the root causes and need for religion for us.
BTW I never said the left looks favourably upon the IRA, but Irish republicanism in general. It may have escaped your knowledge but there are republican groups with socialist leanings, such as the Irish republican socialist party and republican socialist movement. There are no equivalent groups on the loyalist/unionist side. Read up on the 'starry plough movement' to improve your education on this.

[spartan]

When the revolution succeeds it would be dangerous to say the least to have a significant minority of people in our society who would believe in something other than the revolution. Religious belief is ultimately reactionary and has been successfully wielded by most historical tyrannical empires and nutjobs to keep the people under the control of the current ruling order. Also Religious belief is silly! I mean what sort of idiot believes in fairies and angels for fuck's sake! The fact is a significant amount of people have been under the control and influence of Religion not just since Capitalist times but also Feudal times! And i will be damned if the Proletariat let these shit practices survive into Communist times! It has to end some time! (How about we start during the revolution?).

[Dr Mindbender]

You're missing the point. Religious dogma is a direct consequence of capitalist causes to the ills of society- poverty, alienation social exclusion etc. Once these factors have been removed, which you could call the 'lifeblood' of religion then the 'need' for it will be vanquished and the preachers will lose their power and influence. Then and only then, will religion go quietly into the night.
Direct violent influence against them is only going to if anything, prolong religion because it puts them on the moral pedestal and reinforces the need to believe in 'an almighty divine goodness vs the evil satanic communist state'. You cant scare people to co-erce them into belief or non belief. Once you do that, you are no better than the theists.

[spartan]

Ulster Socialist:
You're missing the point. Religious dogma is a direct consequence of capitalist causes to the ills of society- poverty, alienation social exclusion etc. Once these factors have been removed, which you could call the 'lifeblood' of religion then the 'need' for it will be vanquished and the preachers will lose their power and influence. Then and only then, will religion go quietly into the night.
Direct violent influence against them is only going to if anything, prolong religion because it puts them on the moral pedestal and reinforces the need to believe in 'an almighty divine goodness vs the evil satanic communist state'. You cant scare people to co-erce them into belief or non belief. Once you do that, you are no better than the theists.
I understand your point now it's just that i hate Religion and people who defend it because of the overwhelming bad it has done to the Proletariat. But i suppose that after the revolution Religion will just wither away and die of it's own accord if we dont touch them (Which gives them an excuse to cling on to their beliefs which they will feel are under attack) so amen to that.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 03:21 pm
Ulster Socialist:
You're missing the point. Religious dogma is a direct consequence of capitalist causes to the ills of society- poverty, alienation social exclusion etc. Once these factors have been removed, which you could call the 'lifeblood' of religion then the 'need' for it will be vanquished and the preachers will lose their power and influence. Then and only then, will religion go quietly into the night.
Direct violent influence against them is only going to if anything, prolong religion because it puts them on the moral pedestal and reinforces the need to believe in 'an almighty divine goodness vs the evil satanic communist state'. You cant scare people to co-erce them into belief or non belief. Once you do that, you are no better than the theists.
I understand your point now it's just that i hate Religion and people who defend it because of the overwhelming bad it has done to the Proletariat. But i suppose that after the revolution Religion will just wither away and die of it's own accord if we dont touch them (Which gives them an excuse to cling on to their beliefs which they will feel are under attack) so amen to that.
I dont like religion either (believe me I probably have more reason to hate it than most, hailing from my part of the world) but that said i defend people's right to believe in it, as long as theyre not forcing it down other people's throats, either literally or by moral blackmail.

[graffic]

You could list any countrys war crimes in that fashion and it would be very similar to Israels. The US's would probably be even worse, one of your few noted sources comes from a white nationialist aswell ;)

Why do you make a thread about Israels charge sheet and not Irans or South Koreas?

[Dr Mindbender]

Finally, was wondering how long it would take him to acknowledge this thread...
....right here goes...


Originally posted by graffic+--> (graffic)
You could list any countrys war crimes in that fashion and it would be very similar to Israels[/b]
No, doubt, but Israel has managed to commit 500 years of other country's atrocities in the space of 50 years. Also, Israel was one of the few countries (I should say occupation instead of country) set up for the specific purpose of protecting anglo american interests.

Originally posted by [email protected]

one of your few noted sources comes from a white nationialist aswell ;)
...which has already been duly noted and corrected, I am not american nor do I live there so I am not privvy to who is what there.

graffic

Why do you make a thread about Israels charge sheet and not Irans or South Koreas?
Iran and South Korea are not oppressive states hellbent on ending the existance of a legitimate soverignty of disposessed people (well the ROK probably would like to see the end of the DPRK but that is for an entirely different thread)

[graffic]

Israel has managed to commit 500 years of other country's atrocities in the space of 50 years. Also, Israel was one of the few countries (I should say occupation instead of country) set up for the specific purpose of protecting anglo american interests.

500 years of other countries atrocities in the space of 50 years? Explain.

If you think Israel was set up for the "specific purpose" of protecting anglo American interests then you are either a racist or a very ignorant person.


...which has already been duly noted and corrected, I am not american nor do I live there so I am not privvy to who is what there.

Ok thats fair enough, as long as you realised and corrected it thats fine.



Iran and South Korea are not oppressive states hellbent on ending the existance of a legitimate soverignty of disposessed people (well the ROK probably would like to see the end of the DPRK but that is for an entirely different thread)

Exactly.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by graffic+--> (graffic)
500 years of other countries atrocities in the space of 50 years? Explain.[/b]
I believe the catalogue of blood at the beginning of this thread demands no more explanation.

graffic

If you think Israel was set up for the "specific purpose" of protecting anglo American interests then you are either a racist or a very ignorant person.
Perhaps then, you can explain why the British set Israel up and armed it with so much gusto, and why Israel recieves more aid from america than large sections of the american populace.

Care to explain how I am a racist, or do you want to retract the statement now to avoid looking like a fool?

[Phalanx]

I believe the catalogue of blood at the beginning of this thread demands no more explanation.

You are very, very wrong.

Look at Sudan, who committed atrocities against its black population, causing 200,000 dead (and counting).

Look at Syria, who, at Hamah, killed 40,000 of its own citizens in cold blood and levelled the city in 1982.

Algeria, who massacred entire towns during its civil war with the Islamists.

I could go on, but look at the bloodshed your anti-imperial front has caused.

Nothing to be proud of.

[Dr Mindbender]

1- Im not proud of it, These atrocities (if historically accurate) you speak of were likely done in the name of political islam/religion, not socialism.

2-Is this somehow supposed to get Israel off the hook?

[graffic]

Care to explain how I am a racist, or do you want to retract the statement now to avoid looking like a fool?

Your not a racist, the way you described the state of Israel earlier was very similar to how Neo-Nazis describe it though.


Perhaps then, you can explain why the British set Israel up and armed it with so much gusto, and why Israel recieves more aid from america than large sections of the american populace.

Read the Mandatory you goon, things were very different in 1948.

As for the funding that Israel recieves from America, I couldnt give a fuck whether they did or they didnt. You'll have to ask the US forign secretey on that one.


Is this somehow supposed to get Israel off the hook?

No of course not, but since you are an internationalist not a nationalist or a racist, you should treat all nations equaly.

You look at Israel and no one else. Justify this.

[Phalanx]

Originally posted by Ulster [email protected] 19, 2007 07:05 pm
1- Im not proud of it, These atrocities (if historically accurate) you speak of were likely done in the name of political islam/religion, not socialism.

2-Is this somehow supposed to get Israel off the hook?
1. Algeria and Syria operate under the guise of "socialism" and anti-imperialism. The crimes of Islam are far greater than that list.

2. No, but you grossly overstate the actions of Israel. 70,000 Palestinians dead over the course of 58 years is miniscule compared to the death toll in Darfur after just 4 years.

It really makes me wonder why leftists are so anti-Israel


Perhaps then, you can explain why the British set Israel up and armed it with so much gusto, and why Israel recieves more aid from america than large sections of the american populace.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia get equal amounts of military aid from the United States.

And speaking of aid, using your logic why did the Soviet Union send so much aid to the Arabs when its populace was far worse off than the Americans?

Israel was also a cold war ally of America, so why should America abandon one of its allies?

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 06:41 pm

I believe the catalogue of blood at the beginning of this thread demands no more explanation.

You are very, very wrong.

Look at Sudan, who committed atrocities against its black population, causing 200,000 dead (and counting).

Look at Syria, who, at Hamah, killed 40,000 of its own citizens in cold blood and levelled the city in 1982.

Algeria, who massacred entire towns during its civil war with the Islamists.

I could go on, but look at the bloodshed your anti-imperial front has caused.

Nothing to be proud of.
Yeah, real bastions of anti-capitalism and liberation those nations are.

[Phalanx]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20, 2007 03:38 pm
Yeah, real bastions of anti-capitalism and liberation those nations are.
Algeria was supported by Che and many other socialists.

Anyway, the true point of that post was to highlight how leftists are obsessed with Israel and bend over backwards to try to prove that Israel is the most evil nation on earth.

[Dean]

Originally posted by Phalanx+September 20, 2007 08:46 pm--> (Phalanx @ September 20, 2007 08:46 pm)
[email protected] 20, 2007 03:38 pm
Yeah, real bastions of anti-capitalism and liberation those nations are.
Algeria was supported by Che and many other socialists. [/b]
...and Che was obsessed with killing. He is not my idol; he had psychological problems and people like them can be very dangerous when they get into power. He was great for the Cuban revolution, however, just not for the purging of ~= 200 people who no longer posed a threat to the Cuban people, considering that they were already imprisoned.


Anyway, the true point of that post was to highlight how leftists are obsessed with Israel and bend over backwards to try to prove that Israel is the most evil nation on earth.
Then why did you say "I could go on, but look at the bloodshed your anti-imperial front has caused."? That was not our front, for one, and for another those nations have nothing to do with liberation - what we are concerned with. You can't look at some other nations' crimes and attempt to absolve those of another one. The reason we speak of Israel so much is because of its widespread support and ignorance of it's reality in the U.S.. I do agree that the other nations need to be addressed, however.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by Phalanx
1. Algeria and Syria operate under the guise of "socialism" and anti-imperialism. The crimes of Islam are far greater than that list.
They may call themselves 'socialist' but then so did Hitler and we can all agree that he was not a progressive figure.
The fact is, that the world is dominated by a single economic system which renders all current socialist/communist 'nations' meaningless. You cannot have 'free market socialism', and it is precisely that economic idea that is wreaking havoc across Africa and the rest of the 3rd world. Desperation and poverty breed bloodshed, however Israel enjoys the security and prosperity of a developed nation. So what is their excuse?

[Andy Bowden]

Yes, how dare Che support the Algerian movement for independence and not express disgust for events which happened 25 years after his death.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by Andy [email protected] 21, 2007 10:08 pm
Yes, how dare Che support the Algerian movement for independence and not express disgust for events which happened 25 years after his death.
Ha ha! Great logic! Wish I'd known that! :lol:

[Dean]

Originally posted by Andy [email protected] 21, 2007 10:08 pm
Yes, how dare Che support the Algerian movement for independence and not express disgust for events which happened 25 years after his death.
Viva Che! :P

[A Suvorov]

Originally posted by Red_Anarchist+September 15, 2007 01:13 pm--> (Red_Anarchist @ September 15, 2007 01:13 pm)
Originally posted by Ulster [email protected] 15, 2007 02:12 pm

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 01:07 pm

Ulster [email protected] 15, 2007 12:41 pm
Beware shocking images-
http://www.halturnershow.com/IsraeliAtrocities.html
Hal Turner? I hope you didn't know who you were linking to.
er no, can you enlighten me? Pardon my ignorance. Let me guess, hes a US fash? My bad. :( :blink:
Just looked him up on Wikipedia -hes a white nationalist. Which means that, rather than feeling sorry for the Palestinians, he's using those pictures to attack Jews and show them as inhuman.[/b]
As for Hal Turner- yes, he's a White Nationalist and all that and therefore we can discount the vast bulk of his trash. However, we can't disregard out of hand the 'evidence' he and others have collected with regard to Israeli trangressions- if you want the dirt on Israel, White Nationalists are the Wal-Mart of resources; they've got it all, even if it is susceptible to being overblown at times.

If you want the 'official' list of transgressions, one need only pull up a list of United Nations resolutions that have been passed against them (and just as quickly vetoed by- you guessed it- the good old US of A). I'll try and find the link to the current list of UN resolutions; doubtless many of the incidents listed in the original post will be mentioned.

[A Suvorov]

Originally posted by [email protected] 19, 2007 09:19 pm
Israel was also a cold war ally of America, so why should America abandon one of its allies?

The Cold War is over- Israel served its purpose then. Interesting to note, though, that Israel's prominence in American politics didn't take really until the 70's when the Holocaust Machine went into high gear- and, interestingly enough, at the same time Israel needed massive military aid from the US to keep itself from being overrun by it's Arab neighbors whom it was continually irritating.

In short, Israel played the Victim Card and the American population bought it hook, line, and sinker and now we are faced with Israeli needs being more important than our own. (Can you say: AIPAC?)

Think of this: how much more stable would the Middle East be if Israel didn't exist to begin with? Think of how much less tension there would be- how much easier it would be to deal with ME nations without the Israeli millstone about our necks?

Obviously, I'm not advocating for the destruction of modern-day Israel (I myself was THAT close to joining the IDF in the late 80's)- but I AM saying that in order to save ourselves from future even more colossal mistakes in the region we MUST divorce ourselves from Israel and look to our own national security instead of theirs.

[Revolution Until Victory]

Obviously, I'm not advocating for the destruction of modern-day Israel

Oh NO! God forbid!!! no one advocates the distruction of Israel!!!!

What a disgusting taboo which, unfortunatly, so many of our "leftist" or "anti-imperilaist" comardes have fallen into.

Destroying and completely demolishing and eradicting the Zionist settler-colony (Israel) should be the goal of every anti-imperialist and leftist in the world.

Destroying and completely demolishing and eradicting colonialism and imperilaism is a goal shared by all anti-imperilaists and leftists. Thus, the goal of destryoing Israel should be shared by all leftists/anti-imperialists.

I can harldy think of a true leftist who would claim "Obviously, I'm not advocating the destruction of moder-day Rhodesia". Sorry, but I would instantly dismiss you as an imperilaist apologist if you even remotly implied you are against destroying French colonialism in Algeria, Portuegese coloniaism in Mouzambique, European colonialism in Zimbabwe, and any other colonial experience in the "thirld world". Thus, I, and any leftist, would instantly dismiss anyone as an imperilaist apologist if he/she even implies he/she do not advocate the distruction of Zionist colonialism in Palestine, in the form of Israel. There is no reason any leftist would oppose the destruction of colonialism and imperialism anywhere in the world.

There should be no objection whatsoever from any self-respecting leftist against ending colonialism.

Saying I'm against destryoing Israel or all that "coexistance" hippie crap is a blatant compromise with colonialism and imperilaism.

Israel, just like French Algeria, Rhodesia, Aparthied South Africa, Portugese Angola, and all other settler-colonies should be completely destroyed and crushed.

"We never trust imperilaism. In no way at all. Not an iota!"- Che

[graffic]

Destroying and completely demolishing and eradicting the Zionist settler-colony (Israel) should be the goal of every anti-imperialist and leftist in the world.


Congratulations!

You win the award for most stupid, bigoted, ill thought out post of the day!

[Revolution Until Victory]

lol, graffic, don't think you can pull me over for another 24 long OI thread, full of your trollish crap. I made the mistake twice already, I will not repeat it for the third time!!!

SAY NO TO THE TROLL!!!!

[bcbm]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18, 2007 06:25 am
When the revolution succeeds it would be dangerous to say the least to have a significant minority of people in our society who would believe in something other than the revolution. Religious belief is ultimately reactionary and has been successfully wielded by most historical tyrannical empires and nutjobs to keep the people under the control of the current ruling order. Also Religious belief is silly! I mean what sort of idiot believes in fairies and angels for fuck's sake! The fact is a significant amount of people have been under the control and influence of Religion not just since Capitalist times but also Feudal times! And i will be damned if the Proletariat let these shit practices survive into Communist times! It has to end some time! (How about we start during the revolution?).
Quit talking about "the revolution" as though it will solve all of the world's problems and cure "the proletariat" of any reactionary actions or thoughts. There won't be any "the revolution." It will take many revolutions to get anywhere near the society we envision and even if those succeed, plenty of problems and reactionary ideas will remain. Beyond that, your adherence to conventional morality in armed struggle is at odds with your talk of revolution and cleansing people of reactionary ideas. The struggle against capitalism and the state will be a bloodbath, from both sides. It will not be some glorious purge: it will be fucking ugly.

[WWKMD?]

RUV, just one question of tactics.

Just how do you go about destroying a radical right wing state from outside when it is in possesion of hundreds of nuclear weapons?

The Israeli Air Force, according a high ranking Israeli Military Analyst named Martin Van Creveld, has all major European Capitals on its target list just incase the Europeans decide to start actively opposing the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (its allways good to have leaky faucets like this). So Id like to know how you believe outside "destruction" is possible when we are talking about a state with Nuclear Arms which, at least in my opinion, would not be hesitant to use them should they feel threatened enough.


I think that there must be a mass refusal to Zionism coming from inside Israel for any replacement of the Zionist regime to occur. You can not militarily defeat a nuclear powe, this is why in the last 50 years, no state, no matter how crazy or greedy, has ever dared attack one.

If you disagree, Id deffinately like to hear you out.

[Spirit of Spartacus]

Apartheid-states need not be "destroyed" from outside. They crumble from within.

Apartheid in Israel must fall, and it is the Arab Palestinians alone who are capable of winning that struggle.

And by the way, RUV is correct. It is imperative for us, as revolutionary leftists, to call for the downfall of apartheid in Israel.

When we call for smashing this unjust state, we are NOT calling for ethnic cleansing or genocide aimed at the Jewish people. We are simply saying that the Arab people have a right to return to their lands. We are calling for a one-state solution, with equal rights for both Arabs and Jews.

Israel, as we know it today, is a colonial entity, a settler-state. We are calling for an end to this Apartheid state, and we want it replaced with a new state which allows both Arabs and Jews to live with dignity.

[Revolution Until Victory]

RUV, just one question of tactics.

Just how do you go about destroying a radical right wing state from outside when it is in possesion of hundreds of nuclear weapons?


Good question.

2 words: People's War.

We have to learn from history and past anti-imperilaist struggles. No model fits Palestine better than Aparthied South Africa. In South Africa, European colonizers ethnicly cleansed the original inhabitants, colonized the area and took over the land, and confined the natives into "homelands" or bantustans on less than 15% of thier original homeland while the colonizers took over the rest and established their settler-colony. This is almost exaclty what happned in Palestine. How did the anti-imperilaist struggle progress and attain victory in South Africa? At first, there was peaceful protest (not mentioning the wars between the different tribes and colonizers hundreds of years ago. I'm talking of more modern times). The South African masses realized peaceful protest, at least in the case of South Africa, wouldn't work, and thus, in 1961, the armed revolution was declared, through People's War. Apartheid South Africa, in case you didn't know, was actually a nuclear power. Yet, revolutionary violence and popular guerilla warfare in the context of People's War brought down nuclear colonialism in Africa. I agree with you, in a classical war, no country in the right mind would dare attack a nuclear power. It would be a disaster. But notice here we are not talking of bourgeoisie classical, conventional war, rather, of revolutionary war, People's War. It is hit and run attacks with decisve battles between the military and the small bands of guerillas that encercle thier enemy and would gradually win more terretory. Nucleare weapons and air bombing are of almost no use in a People's War against irregular guerrillas. The nuclear weapons of the Zionist colony and its superior air force are great for classical confrontations, yet they are queit worthless for a revolutionary, guerilla warfare. The guerrillas, hid in their bases in the mountains and other ground unaccesable to the enemy, face little to no threat from air bombing or nucleaer weapons.
In other words, I totally agree with you, defeating Israel through a classical war is a joke. It is simply impposible. However, it isn't like the Palestinians have this state and a classical army that would fight a conventional war with Israel. Far from it. The Palestinian arab people are using revolutionary violence through popular gurrilla warfare in the context of People's War. Israel can easly crush a classical army, but all imperialists, reactionaries, and colonizers can't stand a chance against the masses who lead a People's War and a long and bitter war of liberation. It worked before and will work again.


I think that there must be a mass refusal to Zionism coming from inside Israel for any replacement of the Zionist regime to occur.

Anti-colonialism and anti-zionism from with in is helpful, yet not neccesary. The war of liberation could survive with out it.


You can not militarily defeat a nuclear powe, this is why in the last 50 years, no state, no matter how crazy or greedy, has ever dared attack one.

Exaclty, a classical army fighting a conventional war would never dare challange a nuclear state. But as I said, what we have here is a classical army against irregular guerillas fighting a People's War. Nuclear weapons are of no threat. Why was guerilla warfare invented in the first place? it was for the specific reason of poor and weaker people taking on a more powerful army.

People's War and guerilla warfare, if applyed correctly, can achieve wonderful things.

This is from the PFLP platform:


Conventional War Is the War of the Bourgeoisie. Revolutionary War Is People's War

The Arab bourgeoisie has developed armies which are not prepared to sacrifice their own interests or to risk their privileges. Arab militarism has become an apparatus for oppressing revolutionary socialist movements within the Arab states, while at the same time it claims to be staunchly anti-imperialist. Under the guise of the national question, the bourgeoisie has used its armies to strengthen its bureaucratic power over the masses. and to prevent the workers and peasants from acquiring political power. So far it has demanded the help of the workers and peasants without organising them or without developing a proletarian ideology. The national bourgeoisie usually comes to power through military coups and without any activity on the part of the masses, as soon as it has captured power it reinforces its bureaucratic position. Through widespread application of terror it is able to talk about revolution while at the same time it suppresses all the revolutionary movements and arrests everyone who tries to advocate revolutionary action. The Arab bourgeoisie has used the question of Palestine to divert the Arab masses from realising their own interests and their own domestic problems. The bourgeoisie always concentrated hopes on a victory outside the state's boundaries, in Palestine, and in this way they were able to preserve their class interests and their bureaucratic positions.
The war of June 1967 disproved the bourgeois theory of conventional war. The best strategy for Israel is to strike rapidly. The enemy is not able to mobilise its armies for a long period of time because this would intensify its economic crisis. It gets complete support from U.S. imperialism and for these reasons it needs quick wars. Therefore for our poor people the best strategy in the long run is a people's war. Our people must overcome their weaknesses and exploit the weaknesses of the enemy by mobilising the Palestinian and Arab peoples. The weakening of imperialism and Zionism in the Arab world demands revolutionary war as the means to confront them.

http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g245/comradezero/pflp.jpg

[WWKMD?]

Big difference between Palestine and South Africa is that White South Africans never comprised more than 10% of the total population. In "Israel", Jewish Israeli's comprise 90% of the population, and even if you take all of Palestine (given its borders defined by the British or Ottomans) as a whole, its still nearing 50/50.

While the practises of Aparthied SA and Zionist Israel may be extremely similar, this demographic difference is too large to be ignored, and I believe this is what necessitates co-operation between the Palestinian and Israeli people for a solution.

Basically, what I believe is that it is inevitable that Palestinian and Israeli blood will mingle. Whether this happens in the veins of future generations, or on the cold streets, is up to both the people of Palestine and Israel.

[Raj Radical]

The only thing that "Zionist" means is that you believe Israel has a right to exist.

Since 95% of the world believe that the only free and functioning democracy in the middle east and the most developed nation in the entire region has a right to exist, being a Zionist doesn't mean that you're a crazy IDF fundamentlist with a bulldozer, it just means you aren't out of your fucking mind.

Those who spout this rabid anti-Israeli rhetoric are the same leftists who support PRC and the USSR. They see it as the party line and are more than happy to blindly tow it without seeing it for what it truely is: A borderline antisemitic fad for the tragically uninformed.

Most of you are more interested in the destruction of Jewish Israel than in the construction of the Palestinian Authority, and you betray the Palestinians when you parrot their extremist fringe. You're Hamas when you need to be Fatah.

And that is abhorrant.

[Dean]

Originally posted by Raj [email protected] 08, 2007 05:22 am
The only thing that "Zionist" means is that you believe Israel has a right to exist.

Since 95% of the world believe that the only free and functioning democracy in the middle east and the most developed nation in the entire region has a right to exist, being a Zionist doesn't mean that you're a crazy IDF fundamentlist with a bulldozer, it just means you aren't out of your fucking mind.

Those who spout this rabid anti-Israeli rhetoric are the same leftists who support PRC and the USSR. They see it as the party line and are more than happy to blindly tow it without seeing it for what it truely is: A borderline antisemitic fad for the tragically uninformed.

Most of you are more interested in the destruction of Jewish Israel than in the construction of the Palestinian Authority, and you betray the Palestinians when you parrot their extremist fringe. You're Hamas when you need to be Fatah.

And that is abhorrant.
No, zionism is a specific belief in Israel's right to exist as a jewish theocracy.

To call anti-Israeli sentiment antisemitic is to conflate Israel with a false, monolithic image of Jews, which is itself racist. I find it disgusting that people try to justify a state and it's actions by claiming that any opposition to that state is racist. That means you are saying that the state is equivalent to the ethnic or religious group, which is generalizing and xenophobic. You may not realise it, but support of Zionism gained popularity in Europe as an anti-semitic movement, supported by Hitler and attempting to drive the Jews out of europe and into the currrent ghetto - Israel. As Erich Fromm put it as early as 1922, after leaving a prominent Zionist organization he helped to create, "the Zionists are no better than the swastika - bearers."

go to Amnesty.org (http://amnesty.org) and you will find a myriad of atrocities that justify a strenuous criticism of the Zionist state.

[Revolution Until Victory]

Raj, your still here?? How the hell weren't you restriced yet? All of your zionist/imperialist/colonial-apologist friends (such as Okicim, graffic, izzi Israeli, etc.) have long been restriced.

Anyways, Zionism is a 19th century, traditional, racist, colonial movment developed at a time when capitalist European imperialism all around Europe was in full swing during the 19th century.


The only thing that "Zionist" means is that you believe Israel has a right to exist.

Yup, that's exactly what Zionism is, the right of a Zionist, racist, settler-colony to exist (aka, colonize and steal Palestinian arab land; establish a colony on the land, homes, properties, and expense of the Palestinian Arabs). In other words, a Zionist is an imperilaist who believes in the "right" (!!!) of the Zionists to colonize Palestine. Must be great people them Zionists!!!

In other words, Zionists (aka, imperilaists and colonizers) got no place among the left.

Zionism is the imperilaist movment to colonize Palestine, in the same sense that the French imperialist campaign was aiming to colonize Algeria, or the Portugese imperialist camaign was aiming to colonize Angola. Zionism should be opposed in the same way French, Portugese, or any other European imperilaist colonial agression should be opposed.

In other words, Fuck off.


Since 95% of the world

:lol:


the only free and functioning democracy in the middle east

1. doesn't really matter what people believe. If people bielive something was right, it doesn't necessarly make it so. Of course, if we take your lunatic figure of 95%. It doesn't matter if it was 100% actually.

2. Israel is NOT a democracy. You are reeking imperilism Raj Fuck. Aparthied South Africa, the European settler-colony that was the best friend of the Zionist settler-colony, said the same thing. They used to bark, "South Africa is the only democracy in Afria", while in reality, those coloniailsts were the only WHITE democracy in Africa. In the same sense, the Zionist settler-colony is the only JEWISH democracy in the Middle East (actually, in practice, it isn't even a jewish democracy, sense not all jews are equal). I have already explained this long ago to both you and graffic. Btw, tell me, is it a requriment to be a troll if you are a Zionist? or is it just you and graffic?


has a right to exist

1. If they believe so, doesn't necessary mean it is right

2. They don't

3. many people believed Nazism, slavery, racism, etc. were right. Does this really make it so? is that your best argument?


being a Zionist doesn't mean that you're a crazy IDF fundamentlist with a bulldozer, it just means you aren't out of your fucking mind.

lol, who ever said such a thing? who ever sugested that a Zionist is an "IDF fundamentlist"??

A Zionist is a racist, imperialist, colonizer.


Those who spout this rabid anti-Israeli rhetoric are the same leftists who support PRC and the USSR. They see it as the party line and are more than happy to blindly tow it without seeing it for what it truely is: A borderline antisemitic fad for the tragically uninformed.

don't even bother fucker. No one will even take the effort to refute this. Would anyone take you seriously if you claimed opposition to French colonization of Algeria was "anti-white"?? so why are you bothering now?


Most of you are more interested in the destruction of Jewish Israel than in the construction of the Palestinian Authority

yet again, you are 100%. This is what we care about, a complete end to Zionist colonialism. We do not just don't care about the "PA", no, we oppose it, in the same way we oppose the South African Bantustans. The "PA" is lie and an innocent term for a Bantustans on less than 20% of the Palestinians orignial homeland. Same plan put forth by the European colonizers in South Africa. Sorry, palestinian Arabs reject the imperilaist settlement of the Bantustans and choose to continue the revolution until the total eradiction of colonialism.


You're Hamas when you need to be Fatah.

That's an achievment you are not yet restricted. Good job.

[graffic]

Anyways, Zionism is a 19th century, traditional, racist, colonial movment

Zionism is the national liberation of the Jewish people, basically that the Jews - like any other nation are entitled to a homeland.

Zionism does not discriminate against anyone, Jews are automatically entitled citizenship but non-Jews are able to become citizens under naturalization procedures similar to those in other countries.

The Zionist movement has produced a state which protects the religious and political rights of Christians and Muslims. Its hard to say the Palestinian Arab movement will produce a similar state when in nearly all Arab/Muslim countrys citizenship is defined by native parentage.


“...For the first time in history, thousands of black people are being brought to a country not in chains but in dignity, not as slaves but as citizens.”

William Safire


In other words, a Zionist is an imperilaist who believes in the "right" (!!!) of the Zionists to colonize Palestine. Must be great people them Zionists!!

Zionism has nothing to do with colonizing anywhere. Stop trolling.




the only free and functioning democracy in the middle east

1. doesn't really matter what people believe. If people bielive something was right, it doesn't necessarly make it so. Of course, if we take your lunatic figure of 95%. It doesn't matter if it was 100% actually.

What do you mean what people believe?

Israel is the most free and democratic country in the Middle East. Thats a fact, so either produce some facts which prove otherwise or shut the fuck up.

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by Raj [email protected] 08, 2007 05:22 am
95% of the world
Source for this number? Cite it now *****.

[graffic]

To call anti-Israeli sentiment antisemitic is to conflate Israel with a false, monolithic image of Jews, which is itself racist.

First of all most criticisms made at Israel are not anti-semitic. Some Neo-con goons in Washington will throw the term "anti-semitism" at every person who criticises Israel, however I don't.

People do however sometimes step over the mark, and that should not be ignored.

Going back to your original point - Israel is a Jewish nation, just the same as France or Italy, so to conflate Israel with an image of Jews is not racist.


You may not realise it, but support of Zionism gained popularity in Europe as an anti-semitic movement, supported by Hitler and attempting to drive the Jews out of europe and into the currrent ghetto - Israel.

Hitler was a fan of Israel because the Jews would all be in one place and therefor easier to exterminate.

[Revolution Until Victory]

Zionism is the national liberation of the Jewish people

oh oh I know this game!!!

let's just turn black inot white and white into black!!!

:rolleyes:

Terrorism is counter terrorism. Anti-colonial resistance is terrorism. Apartheid and racism is equality. Capitalism is Socialism. Inhabited land is empty land. Imperialist expansion is liberation. Colonizers are freedom-fighters.

Zionism is a racist, imperilaist, colonization movment in palestine. The Jewish people are not occupied or colonized to be "liberated" or to need a national-liberation movment. Some Jewish people, who are the Zionist colonizers, are the ones colonizing others. They are the counter-revolutionaries. They are the colonizers. But again, we are playing your stupid Zionist game.


basically that the Jews - like any other nation are entitled to a homeland.

No that's not "basically" what it is and stop being such a fucker.

That's not what Zionism is about. No one was talking about who is entitled to a homeland or not. The issue here is no people on earth got the right to colonize another and establish a colony on thier ruins and expense.


Zionism does not discriminate against anyone, Jews are automatically entitled citizenship but non-Jews are able to become citizens under naturalization procedures similar to those in other countries.

Yawn, tell us whenver you are done trolling.


The Zionist movement has produced a state which protects the religious and political rights of Christians and Muslims.

Such a fucking sick lie.


Its hard to say the Palestinian Arab movement will produce a similar state when in nearly all Arab/Muslim countrys citizenship is defined by native parentage.

OMG!!!!

can you seriously possibly get any more childish and ignorant than this????

The palestinian Arab movment is progressive, anti-imperilaist, and socialist. It aims at establishing a Socialist one Arab state after dissolving the boundaries drawn by the imperiliasts. It's no.1 enemy are the arab regimes and the reactionary tools of US-Zionist colonialism. In other words, the "arab movment" you are talking about is against those reactionary regimes that are tools, agents, and collaborters of zionist imperialism.


“...For the first time in history, thousands of black people are being brought to a country not in chains but in dignity, not as slaves but as citizens.”

Another sick and disgusting lie.

[graffic]

Terrorism is counter terrorism. Anti-colonial resistance is terrorism. Apartheid and racism is equality. Capitalism is Socialism. Inhabited land is empty land. Imperialist expansion is liberation. Colonizers are freedom-fighters.

Zionism is a racist, imperilaist, colonization movment in palestine.

*sharp intake of breath*

You really are the undisputed king of debating, literature and linguistic skills my friend. Your like the Stephen Fry of the revleft.

I put across a point which proves your point wrong, you then type a paragraph of scarcy not quite witty - shit. You then give me the same fucking point you originally argued. You can't just assert your same point when Ive proved you wrong, you have to prove what your saying with facts and evidence - your like a defiant infant who must have his own way.


That's not what Zionism is about. No one was talking about who is entitled to a homeland or not.

Zionism is about a homeland, so i think it makes sense that we are talking about it.



The issue here is no people on earth got the right to colonize another and establish a colony on thier ruins and expense.

Thats a fair point.

However we are discussing Zionism, not what the Israeli state is today. Youve completely missed the fucking point (as usual).



The Zionist movement has produced a state which protects the religious and political rights of Christians and Muslims.

Such a fucking sick lie.

Prove. It. Wrong.


OMG!!!!

I'm sorry I thought i was talking to my younger sister on MSN for a moment


can you seriously possibly get any more childish and ignorant than this????

Than what? Than arguing with you? Ive now learnt that choosing to argue with such an inane (quite fucking nuts) person like you was a quite "childish, foolish" thing to do in the first place and Ive learnt my lesson, the hard way.


The palestinian Arab movment is progressive, anti-imperilaist, and socialist. It aims at establishing a Socialist one Arab state after dissolving the boundaries drawn by the imperiliasts.

Here it is! The same roll of denial you continualy type with no fucking evidence. This is bullshit and you know it is, please stop it.



Another sick and disgusting lie.

How is that a fucking lie?



RUV: Ive had enough, from this point onwards I will refrain from replying to your posts and answer people who are better educated in the topic.

[Faux Real]

Originally posted by Raj [email protected] 07, 2007 10:22 pm
The only thing that "Zionist" means is that you believe Israel has a right to exist.
Exactly, because it shouldn't exist. It should be one state with Arabs and ethnic Jews, and anyone else who would want to live there amongst each other. A two state solution will not bring anything to an end. There will still be animosity amongst the neighboring Arab states against Israel and vice versa.

Since 95% of the world believe that the only free and functioning democracy in the middle east and the most developed nation in the entire region has a right to exist, being a Zionist doesn't mean that you're a crazy IDF fundamentlist with a bulldozer, it just means you aren't out of your fucking mind.
That figure is meaningless as 'free and functioning democracy' is a blind, misguided idea that most of those 'people of the world' believe to be a democracy. I certainly hope they don't wish Israel to be the same type of democracy as the United States, which isn't even a democracy but a constitutional republic! Sure, lets let Israel become a settler colony, oh and let them just because they're a democracy, just like how the United States was founded. :rolleyes:

Those who spout this rabid anti-Israeli rhetoric are the same leftists who support PRC and the USSR.
Nah. We examine the historical precedents for the creation of it and realize it was unnecessary and created more harm than what it's worth. I hate the PRC and was dissapointed with the USSR after Lenin btw.

They see it as the party line and are more than happy to blindly tow it without seeing it for what it truely is: A borderline antisemitic fad for the tragically uninformed.
The only anti-semetic fad here is your unequivocal belief in that all Jews support Israel in the same manner. Also, anti-semetic includes hatred amongst Arabs as well.

Most of you are more interested in the destruction of Jewish Israel than in the construction of the Palestinian Authority, and you betray the Palestinians when you parrot their extremist fringe. You're Hamas when you need to be Fatah.
Once again, exactly because there shouldn't even be a "Jewish Israel". If anything it should be a Palestine-Israel, that is of course until there are no more nations after a leftist revolution. Why is being able to criticize Israel an impossible task anyway?

Also, the reason to go after the Israeli government itself first instead of the PLO is because all the power to end this occupation and apartheid rests within the Israeli government which is not on the verge of ending such repressive operations against the already dessimated Palestinian population. Open up your eyes.

And that is abhorrant.
Indeed.

[WWKMD?]

I love when the Zionists come out to play. Their such silly little nationalists, arent they?

Saying "Israel doesnt have the right to exist" is not that radical of a statement. Nations do not have the right to exist. Canada does not have the right to exist. the United Kingdom does not have the right to exist. Saudi Arabia does not have the right to exist. Abstract lines on a map, supported by colourful cloths in the wind do not have the right to exist, they only exist because people make them exist in their own minds, and this is a destructive human tendacy which we should see to eradicating in the 21st century.

This does not mean "lets kill all the Israeli's and make Palestine an Arabs-only clubhouse" or any of that paranoid zionist nonsense, it just means remove the ethnocentric state of Israel and replace it with a secular, multicultural one that caters to the rights of all the people who live there equally. Call it "Canaan" or "south Levant" "State #3954" or whatever, the name of the state is hardly important, the rights of the Palestiniand to return to their homes, and the rights of the Israeli's to live peacefully with their neighbours and fellow citizens is what matters.


Zionism is about a homeland, so i think it makes sense that we are talking about it.
How about the Roma People? They originate from India about 1000 years ago, moved to Europe and Western Asia, faced huge amounts of percecution from the White Christian Europeans eventually culminating in the murder of 3 million of them in the Holocaust (Porajmos). Should they not be entitled to take over a portion of India, kick all the people who live there out, and establish a Roma State? By your logic, they have it coming every bit as much as the Jews, hell, Anti-Zyganism is still a HUGE problem in Europe, Roma villages are still burned down with no punishment for the burners.

The fact is that there are tens of thousands of ethnicities, and only 192 nations, Why do some deserve a homeland and others dont? Even if you were to create a homeland for the Jews, Zionism was started by mostly German, French, British, Polish and Russian Jews, shouldnt their homeland have been somewhere in Northern Europe? After all that was their home at the time, not some far off ancient land some ancestors lived in.


Zionism may not have turned out so bad if its leaders had been smarter than they were. Palestine was a very poor location of the creation of a Jewish State. You do not place a state which has the intention of ending discrimination against a people right in the middle of a highly populated place which has had other people living on it for the last 2000 years. Thats bollocks. If the Zionists were smart, they would have seized on WWII and built the Jewish State in Former East Prussia.

Why There?

-The Germans are the ones who killed so many Jews, they are the ones who should have ceeded land
-East Prussia was depopulated by the Soviets, and the only Germans who want that land back are right wing radicals.
-East Prussia is closer to the actual homeland of Ashkenazic Jews, who initiated the zionist idealogy in the first place.
-East Prussia is closer to other European States, which is exactly what Israel is, a European State. I think History has taught us enough that bad things happen when you make European States outside of Europe.


Creating a Jewish State in Palestine, aside from being the catalyst for horrendous attrocities and an ongoing ethnic cleansing, was likely one of the top 10 Most Stupid choices of Human History.

[Revolution Until Victory]

Fuck. Me.

very good.



You really are the undisputed king of debating, literature and linguistic skills my friend. Your like the Stephen Fry of the revleft.

very funny.


I put across a point which proves your point wrong, you then type a paragraph of scarcy not quite witty

What what??? you what? "put acorss a pint which prove your point wrong"?? haahaaa. Please, keep putting across those pionts of yours that "prove my point wrong". Graffic, you are a disgrace to Zionism!!


you then type a paragraph of scarcy not quite witty - shit. You then give me the same fucking point you originally argued. You can't just assert your same point when Ive proved you wrong, you have to prove what your saying with facts and evidence - your like a defiant infant who must have his own way.

keep on barking and embarissing yourself.


Zionism is about a homeland, so i think it makes sense that we are talking about it.

Zionism is about a piece of land to colonize, no question about it. But the issue at hand isn't about denying a people the right to have a homeland. You know this, long ago, so don't be such a dumbshit.


Thats a fair point.

However we are discussing Zionism, not what the Israeli state is today

as far as colonialism is conserened, Zionism and the current Israeli state are the exact same: an imperiliast, racist, colonial campaign.


Youve completely missed the fucking point (as usual).

really? it was me who missed the piont? not acutally you who can never make one single post with out changing the subject.


Prove. It. Wrong.

I. Did. Prove. It. Wrong. Over. 20. Times. But. You. Are. A. FUCKING. TROLL.


I'm sorry I thought i was talking to my younger sister on MSN for a moment

I'm sorry, I thought I was "talking" to my little dog for a moment. Never stops barking.


Than what? Than arguing with you?

no, than claiming the Palestinian liberation movment got the same goals as the reactionary arab regimes while both aim at destryoing each other. Too complicated? do I have to use some colors maybe??


Ive now learnt that choosing to argue with such an inane (quite fucking nuts) person like you was a quite "childish, foolish" thing to do in the first place and Ive learnt my lesson, the hard way.

Good. Now fuck off and stop annoying us with your lunatic, trollish, nonsense.


Here it is! The same roll of denial you continualy type with no fucking evidence. This is bullshit and you know it is, please stop it.

You are truly pathetic.


How is that a fucking lie?

no matter how hard I try, I couldn't "argue" with a dog. It could bark as much as it can, but nothing would change. keep trolling, it might get you somewhere sometime.


RUV: Ive had enough, from this point onwards I will refrain from replying to your posts and answer people who are better educated in the topic.

WOW!!!!! this is the best thing you have ever posted in your stay at revleft! THANKS!!

[graffic]

I love when the Zionists come out to play. Their such silly little nationalists, arent they?

Its either Jewish Nationialism or Palestinian Nationalism.



remove the ethnocentric state of Israel and replace it with a secular, multicultural one that caters to the rights of all the people who live there equally.

Israel is a secular state and the people who live there are equal.


The fact is that there are tens of thousands of ethnicities, and only 192 nations, Why do some deserve a homeland and others dont?

Thats not the issue, were not saying others don't deserve their own states.


Even if you were to create a homeland for the Jews, Zionism was started by mostly German, French, British, Polish and Russian Jews, shouldnt their homeland have been somewhere in Northern Europe?

Why shouldnt it be in Palestine? Why should Arab intolerance be a factor in this?

Jewish immigration to Palestine was stimulated by the Pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. The Jewish calendar and Jewish holidays and festivals all originated in Israel and revolve around its seasons and conditions. Jews pray toward Jerusalem and recite the words “next year in Jerusalem” every Passover. Jewish religion, culture and history show that it is only in the land of Israel that the Jewish commonwealth can be built.



Creating a Jewish State in Palestine, aside from being the catalyst for horrendous attrocities and an ongoing ethnic cleansing, was likely one of the top 10 Most Stupid choices of Human History.

I disagree, why should the Jews returning to their homeland cause such mayhem? There are other reasons and solutions

[Revolution Until Victory]

Its either Jewish Nationialism or Palestinian Nationalism.

yet another false and childish anology. That's as stupid and as disgusting as equating French nationalism with Algerian/Arab nationalism during the French colonization of Algeria!!

One form of nationalism, the one upheld by the Zionist colonizers, divides the working class and is reactionary because it is imperialist. The nationalism of the Zionist colonizers is imperiliast and colonial. Just like any other European nationalism colonizing a "third world" nation. On the other hand, the Arab nationalism of the Palestinians, is progressive, beacuse it is anti-imperialist. The Arab nationalism of the Palestinians is the same progressive nationalism of any other opressed "third world" people fighting against imperialism. The nationalism of the imperialist is reactionary; the nationalism of the opressed is progressive.

"Jewish nationalism" (aka, Zionist colonial nationalism) is the exact opposite of Palestinian Arab nationalism.


Israel is a secular state

No it is not, even though this issue is actually irrelivant. But if you weren't a troll, you wouldn't be making those stupid statments for the 10th time now.


and the people who live there are equal.

oh yeah yeah I know, and there is no moon, and the earth is flat, and the sun sinks into the sea at night!

no where are people less equal on earth than in the Zionist settler-colony, BOTH in law and in practice (and before you start barking, don't be a troll and admit that I have provided the evidence long ago countless of times)


Thats not the issue, were not saying others don't deserve their own states.

err...the Zionist colonialist movment, like all other capitalist-imperialist, colonial aggressions, aim at denying a group of people thier homeland, colonize it, and establish on it thier own racist settler-colony.


Why shouldnt it be in Palestine?

umm....lets see...coz there were actually HUMAN BEINGS (no it wasn't empty, nor were they sub-human) living there; it was thier homeland. It shouldn't be in Palestine for the same reason Rhodesia shouldn't be in Zimbabwe.


Why should Arab intolerance be a factor in this?

I really like it how Zionists play with words like this. "Arab intoleracne"??? are you serious? I guess Hitler could've said "why can't we go on with our holocaust? why should Jewish intolercane be a factor in this"??

Really, how dare them brown Arabs be "intolerante" to the fact they are getting colonized? how dare they?

How dare the victim refuse the crime commited against him by the imperilaists?? such barbarians!!


Jewish immigration to Palestine was stimulated by the Pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe.

did I mention you were a troll??

two wrongs don't make a right. Whatever opression a group of people face, it doesn't in no way justifiy the opression they commit against others.


The Jewish calendar and Jewish holidays and festivals all originated in Israel and revolve around its seasons and conditions. Jews pray toward Jerusalem and recite the words “next year in Jerusalem” every Passover. Jewish religion, culture and history show that it is only in the land of Israel that the Jewish commonwealth can be built.

That's just pure bullshit; trademark bullshit.


why should the Jews returning to their homeland cause such mayhem?

wtf?

Jews "returning"?? to "thier homeland"???

Like wise, I can say, why should Arabs returing to thier homeland (Spain and Portugal) cause such mayhem.

The "Jewish returning to thier homeland" caused such mayhem coz they weren't returning in the first place, nor was it thier homeland!!

The statement should have read, why should the Zionists colonizing Palestine coz such mayhem?? hmmm...

[WWKMD?]

Originally posted by [email protected] 09, 2007 03:34 pm
Its either Jewish Nationialism or Palestinian Nationalism.
Did the Multi-ethnic secular state that I was talking about seem like Palestinian Nationalism to you? Nationalism in itself is an increasingly outdated 19th century idea. It will die by the 22nd century, and mark my words, even if the Zionists achieve their goals of expelling the Palestinian population and creating their enlarged Jewish State, Israel will not survive the next century, it will be amalgamated into a larger world State. The World State could either be good or will be bad, as things are going it looks like it will be bad, but thats when socialists must push for the good, decentralized ideal of world governance.

Thats another subject on its own however.

Let me explain to you the difference between Palestinian and Israeli Nationalism. Israeli Nationalism is reactionary nationalism, it is the nationalism of those who already have power and wish to continue their power. Palestinian Nationalism is the Nationalism of those without power who are striving for self-determination, there is a huge difference. Israeli and Palestinian Nationalism is as much different as British Nationalism was from Indian Nationalism in the 40's. Huey p Newton, a black rights activist in the 60's, wrote a good interview on this, unfortunately I can only find this on Hippyland.com, so ignore the tie-dye background and check out what he has to say.

http://www.hippy.com/php/article.php?sid=76


Israel is a secular state and the people who live there are equal.


Israel is a more or less secular state, but its "Jewish State" component is more ethnic than religious, and here is where it is not equal. The closest thing you have to equality between Arabs and Jews in Israel is the Palestinians with Israeli Citizenship, which makes up about 10% of the Palestinian populace, and they are "equal" in the way that African-Americans are "Equal", that is to say, equal on paper, but discriminated against by the authorities and economically oppressed in reality. Now, whatabout the inhabitants of the Occupied Terrirories who must wait hours upon hours at checkpoints (which I could go through in a matter of minitues being a white Canadian) to cross one of the many Jews-Only roads? Is this equality? Whatabout the fact that Arabs can not buy new land in Palestine? Or howabout the fact that all marriages must be conducted by a religious authority, in effect making marriage between Arabs and Jews near impossible to get? Is this what you call Equality? My God, I have a Palestinian friend who can not return to his home unless he gets a Canadian Citizenship, how the fuck is that equality?

I could go on with examples, but the statement you made was stupid enough to testify to itself.


Thats not the issue, were not saying others don't deserve their own states.
So why not create a Druze, Samaritan, and Circassian State within Israel? Do they not deserve their own States?
Ethnocentric states are futile and pointless. They do not protect their citizens from Genocide, as the State of Israel was supposed to do. Think about it this way, how many Holocausts have the Germans killed Homosexuals in since 1945? Perhaps its time for a Gay State (lets make it in the Isle of Man).


Why shouldnt it be in Palestine? Why should Arab intolerance be a factor in this?

Yes I suppose they are the bad guys. I mean, if a bunch of people come into your homes, force you out and establish a state which does not allow you in, how dare you be intolerant!

Arabs and Jews have been living side by side for millenia. It is not Jewish Immigration that is the problem, it is the establishment of a Jewish State, which by its very nature is exclusive to non-Jews, especially including the Palestinian people who have resided on that land for generations. This is the problem. If you ar going to create such a state, do it on uninhabbited land, dont kick people out to save yourselves from discrimination.

It was not their land. Plain and simple. If you are going to take land after a terrible genocide, why take it from a people that had absolutely nothing to do with the genocide?? The Germans owed the Jews big, the Palestinians did not.


Jewish immigration to Palestine was stimulated by the Pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe. The Jewish calendar and Jewish holidays and festivals all originated in Israel and revolve around its seasons and conditions. Jews pray toward Jerusalem and recite the words “next year in Jerusalem” every Passover. Jewish religion, culture and history show that it is only in the land of Israel that the Jewish commonwealth can be built.

You cant base 20th century politics on some silly old Bronze Age Mythology. Whether that mythology is Judaism or Christianity or Islam is irrelevent, it has no relevence to the modern world. God did not promise Palestine to the Jews because God does not exist. But with your saying "The Jewish people allways focussed around Palestine" I will ask you a counter-question: Do all Muslims have to live in Mecca?

There was a funny saying of Zionists who were largely non-religious: "They dont believe in God but he promised them that land"

Jewish Culture? Whatabout the Yiddish speaking Jews of Europe who were very much European? Jewish Culture, or at least Ashkenazic Culture, is a European Culture. It is just like even though a Canadian may identify as "Polish" or "Irish" the fact of the matter was that they were born in Canada, they are Canadian, and not the culture of their dead ancestors. And the Jewish ancestors from Palestine are quite dead, 2000 years is a long fucking time to hold a claim on a land.


I disagree, why should the Jews returning to their homeland cause such mayhem? There are other reasons and solutions

Christ you are ignorant. Suppose some people have traced your home as their ancestral hub-point and they decide to go back and kick you and all your neighbours out. Would you smile and say "Its good land, we kept it warm for you"? Dont be so ridiculous. Next youll be spouting some racist bullshit about the "Demographic Threat" or "Terrorists Terrorists Everywhere".

[Revolution Until Victory]

WWKMD?, just a brief piont. Palestinian Arabs inside the settler-colony are discriminated against in pratice, no questin about it, but they are also discriminated against ON PAPER and in the LAW.

[graffic]

Israeli Nationalism is reactionary nationalism, it is the nationalism of those who already have power and wish to continue their power. Palestinian Nationalism is the Nationalism of those without power who are striving for self-determination, there is a huge difference.

Israeli Nationalism isnt reactionary though, the Israelis don't wish to denie the Palestinians power or a state, most Israelis will accept a two state solution giving self determination to both groups. It is the Palestinain authoritys that denie Israel has a right to exist as a state at all, this is the main obstacle to peace.



Now, whatabout the inhabitants of the Occupied Terrirories who must wait hours upon hours at checkpoints (which I could go through in a matter of minitues being a white Canadian) to cross one of the many Jews-Only roads? Is this equality? Whatabout the fact that Arabs can not buy new land in Palestine? Or howabout the fact that all marriages must be conducted by a religious authority, in effect making marriage between Arabs and Jews near impossible to get? Is this what you call Equality? My God, I have a Palestinian friend who can not return to his home unless he gets a Canadian Citizenship, how the fuck is that equality?

The checkpoints are a major security issue for Israel, the constant terroism and attacks on innocent civilians are what pushed the Israeli government to tighten control on what goes in and out.

The only distinction between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel is that the latter are not required to serve in the Israeli army. Israel is no more discriminatory in its policies than the U.S or the U.K.

I don't think you can argue that your Palestinain Arab state will be anywhere near the standard of Israel.


Arabs and Jews have been living side by side for millenia.

Myth.



It was not their land. Plain and simple. If you are going to take land after a terrible genocide, why take it from a people that had absolutely nothing to do with the genocide?? The Germans owed the Jews big, the Palestinians did not.

Thats not an argument, you can't erase the past. If we were arguing as the state was being created then yes I might agree with you, but today Israel is here and its not going anywhere anytime soon.

[Revolution Until Victory]

Israeli Nationalism isnt reactionary though,

what a fucking ignorant dipshit. Zionist nationalism is imperialist nationalism is colonial nationalism = reactionary nationalism. Arab Palestinian nationalism is nationalism of the opressed, nationalism of the anti-imperialist = progressive.

Mao:


The specific content of patriotism is determined by historical conditions. There is the "patriotism" of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler, and there is our patriotism. Communists must resolutely oppose the "patriotism" of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler. The Communists of Japan and Germany are defeatists with regard to the wars being waged by their countries. To bring about the defeat of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler by every possible means is in the interests of the Japanese and the German people, and the more complete the defeat the better.... For the wars launched by the Japanese aggressors and Hitler are harming the people at home as well as the people of the world. China's case, however, is different, because she is the victim of aggression.


the Israelis don't wish to denie the Palestinians power or a state,

:rolleyes:


most Israelis will accept a two state solution giving self determination to both groups

horseshit. No such thing as a "2 state solution". There is the Zionist colonizers who aim at maintaining thier settler-colony, and there is the 2 Palestinian bantustans on less than (much less actually) 20% of thier original homeland! That's not a "2 state solution" you lying ****, that's a Bantustan solution, the imperilaist settlment, the same "solution" the South AFrican masses rejected and destryod. Palestinians reject the Bantustan solutions (aka, "2 state solution") and fight for TOTAL liberation. Palestine from the River to the Sea. Why should the Palestinian Arabs accept the European colonialist settlment while their South African comrades rejected it?


It is the Palestinain authoritys that denie Israel has a right to exist as a state at all, this is the main obstacle to peace.

1. The "Palestinian Authority" (aka, the Palestinian Bantustans) do not deny the "right" of the Zionists to colonize and steal. The PA is lead by US-Zionist collaborators. Don't give them that much credit. It is the colonized masses that refuse to ever give the Zionists the right to colonize them.

2. The main obstacle to peace is Zionist colonialism.


The only distinction between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel is that the latter are not required to serve in the Israeli army.

Note to everyone on revleft that doesn't know. Graffic is a major troll. He got poven wrong on the issue of Zionist discrimination and racism countless of times. He just likes keep going in circles. He loves this game.


Israel is no more discriminatory in its policies than the U.S or the U.K.

Truely pathetic.

This statment you gave could be right if you said "Israel is no more discriminatory in its policeis than the US before the 1960s"

In other words, Israel dicriminates against the Palestinian Arabs the same way US discriminated against the African Americans before the 1960's and during jim crow, where the discrimination, aside from being in pratice, was also ON PAPER and in the LAW, just like the Zionist settler-colony.


I don't think you can argue that your Palestinain Arab state will be anywhere near the standard of Israel.

of coure you can't if you were a bigoted, racist, fuck like yourself. btw, I mean according to the standards you constantly lie about. But, no question about it, the Palestinian Arab state will be no way like the Zionist racist settler-colony.


Myth.

<_<


Thats not an argument, you can&#39;t erase the past.

What the fuck??

you are unbelievable.

So If I stole your car two months ago you can&#39;t reclaim it sense "you can&#39;t erase the past"???

you are a lunatic. pure and simple.


If we were arguing as the state was being created then yes I might agree with you, but today Israel is here and its not going anywhere anytime soon.

Israel is a settler-colony established on the lands, homes, properties, and expense of the natives. It should be eradicited. All other former colonies were crushed on the same bases. Today, Israel is here. However, it will be going away, very soon, through the Peoples&#39; War.

[WWKMD?]

Israeli Nationalism isnt reactionary though, the Israelis don&#39;t wish to denie the Palestinians power or a state, most Israelis will accept a two state solution giving self determination to both groups. It is the Palestinain authoritys that denie Israel has a right to exist as a state at all, this is the main obstacle to peace.

Ummm....Israeli Nationalism is all about the claim that the land belongs to the Jews and the Jews alone. I have never heard a Palestinian Nationalist say that the land belongs to Palestinians alone, never heard one talk about "driving the Jews to the Sea" or any other Zionist misconceptions and Paranoia&#39;s.

Jewish Nationalists talk about a Demographic threat to justify their (internationally illegal) immigration policies (IE not allowing the people who were forced from their homes in 48 to return, even as immigrants).

The goal of Zionism is clear, turning the land into a Lebensraum of sorts.



The checkpoints are a major security issue for Israel, the constant terroism and attacks on innocent civilians are what pushed the Israeli government to tighten control on what goes in and out.

bullshit. Most of those checkpoints are in the west bank and do not even enter Israel. Tell me the harm of letting a person go from town to town. Sure, there is a chance that they are terrorists, but you may be a disgruntled white boy with a gun and a will to kill all jocks, why dont they check you on your way to school? Detain you for hours on end, and how the fuck can you justify that there is a seperate line for Jews and Internationals that they let pass through in no time? How can you justify the Jews Only roads or settlements? How can you justify all this which even according to the UN is grossly illegal?

Zionism is racism.


The only distinction between Jewish and Arab citizens of Israel is that the latter are not required to serve in the Israeli army. Israel is no more discriminatory in its policies than the U.S or the U.K.

I think RUV can answer this better than I can, but lets take the status of African-Americans, who have the same rights on paper as White Americans. Does this mean that they arent oppressed? No, there is still huge amounts of discrimination by police, by employers, and de facto segregation between blacks and whites. It hardly matters that they have "equal rights" when this is merely some nice words on paper. They are still below white americans in terms of economics, which defines the most crucial part of their oppression at this point, as well as the unspoken racism of cops and employers.

I view Arab Israeli&#39;s situations in a very comparable light to those of African Americans (RUV correct me if Im wrong), and it must be remebered that Arab Israeli&#39;s hold far more privileges than 90% of Palestinians, even if they are still mistreated in Israel.

But I suppose your one of those white kids who claims racism ended in the 60&#39;s with civil rights.


I don&#39;t think you can argue that your Palestinain Arab state will be anywhere near the standard of Israel.

Why not? Because them Ay-Rabs could never build a solid society?

Your racism is becoming more and more clear.




Arabs and Jews have been living side by side for millenia.


Myth.

For one example, when the Catholics took Spain over from the Moors, they soon decreed that all Jews and Muslims must either become catholics or get the fuck out. Many Jewish people moved to Palestine from Spain at this point, where they enjoyed much better rights than anywhere in Christian Europe at that point in time. Jews, Muslims and Christians during the Ottoman period were often friendly families in the same village. Indeed, Palestine has known very little violence from the end of the Crusading Period to World War I. European Imperialists of course fucked that all up, just like they fuck pretty much anything they touch.


Thats not an argument, you can&#39;t erase the past. If we were arguing as the state was being created then yes I might agree with you, but today Israel is here and its not going anywhere anytime soon.

Funny, earlier you said Palestine was the only logical place for a Jewish State, Now that Ive provided you with a clearly superior option and youve agreed with me, you reject its merit as an arguement? I was arguing against what you had to say about the necessity of Palestine as a Jewish State, and now that Ive proven that historically that is bollocks, you dont think its an arguement?



Graphic, just so I know where your coming from, are you an Israeli or a Yank?

[Revolution Until Victory]

WWKMD?, inside the Zionist settler-colony, the Palestinian Arabs&#39; situation is similar to the situation of the African Americans during the Jim Crow period, not now. In other words, in the US, today, dicrimination against African Americans is only in practice, not in paper or in the law. In the Zionist settler-colony, the disrimination against the Arab Palestinians is BOTH in practice AND in law and paper. I have proven Graffic wrong countless of times before in this issue, yet he is a troll, and keep repeating his stupid arguments over and over. I will not bother post the evidence for probably the 20th time now to graffic, but I will for you.

Here is a very brief list of the the many racist LAWS in the Zionist settelr-colony:

1. Law of Return (1950)

2. Law of Absentee Property (1950)

3. Law of the State&#39;s Property (1951)

4. Law of Citizenship (1952)

5. Status Law (1952)

6. Israel Lands Administration Law (1960)

7. Construction and Building Law (1965)

8. The new law banning marriage between citezens of the Zionist settler-colony and those of the "Palestinian territories" (2002)


Graphic, just so I know where your coming from, are you an Israeli or a Yank?

he is from the UK, and told us that he got a Jewish, extreme Zionist uncle who effects his thinking.

[WWKMD?]

Thanks for the information, RUV, could you possibly ellaborate on the 2002 law banning marriage?

I only asked because Graphic&#39;s arguements sound very much like American (possibly Christian) Zionist rhetoric. I didnt think he was an Israeli though, sounds very western to me.

[Revolution Until Victory]

The law means that if Palestinian Arabs inside the Zionist settler-colony marry Palestinians from the "PA", they will have to leave and live in the "PA" or live seperatly inside the settelr-colony. The law is aimed at decreasing the number of Palestinian Arabs inside the settler-colony.

[Raj Radical]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 08:21 pm
I love when the Zionists come out to play. Their such silly little nationalists, arent they?

Saying "Israel doesnt have the right to exist" is not that radical of a statement. Nations do not have the right to exist. Canada does not have the right to exist. the United Kingdom does not have the right to exist. Saudi Arabia does not have the right to exist. Abstract lines on a map, supported by colourful cloths in the wind do not have the right to exist, they only exist because people make them exist in their own minds, and this is a destructive human tendacy which we should see to eradicating in the 21st century.

This does not mean "lets kill all the Israeli&#39;s and make Palestine an Arabs-only clubhouse" or any of that paranoid zionist nonsense, it just means remove the ethnocentric state of Israel and replace it with a secular, multicultural one that caters to the rights of all the people who live there equally. Call it "Canaan" or "south Levant" "State #3954" or whatever, the name of the state is hardly important, the rights of the Palestiniand to return to their homes, and the rights of the Israeli&#39;s to live peacefully with their neighbours and fellow citizens is what matters.


Zionism is about a homeland, so i think it makes sense that we are talking about it.
How about the Roma People? They originate from India about 1000 years ago, moved to Europe and Western Asia, faced huge amounts of percecution from the White Christian Europeans eventually culminating in the murder of 3 million of them in the Holocaust (Porajmos). Should they not be entitled to take over a portion of India, kick all the people who live there out, and establish a Roma State? By your logic, they have it coming every bit as much as the Jews, hell, Anti-Zyganism is still a HUGE problem in Europe, Roma villages are still burned down with no punishment for the burners.

The fact is that there are tens of thousands of ethnicities, and only 192 nations, Why do some deserve a homeland and others dont? Even if you were to create a homeland for the Jews, Zionism was started by mostly German, French, British, Polish and Russian Jews, shouldnt their homeland have been somewhere in Northern Europe? After all that was their home at the time, not some far off ancient land some ancestors lived in.


Zionism may not have turned out so bad if its leaders had been smarter than they were. Palestine was a very poor location of the creation of a Jewish State. You do not place a state which has the intention of ending discrimination against a people right in the middle of a highly populated place which has had other people living on it for the last 2000 years. Thats bollocks. If the Zionists were smart, they would have seized on WWII and built the Jewish State in Former East Prussia.

Why There?

-The Germans are the ones who killed so many Jews, they are the ones who should have ceeded land
-East Prussia was depopulated by the Soviets, and the only Germans who want that land back are right wing radicals.
-East Prussia is closer to the actual homeland of Ashkenazic Jews, who initiated the zionist idealogy in the first place.
-East Prussia is closer to other European States, which is exactly what Israel is, a European State. I think History has taught us enough that bad things happen when you make European States outside of Europe.


Creating a Jewish State in Palestine, aside from being the catalyst for horrendous attrocities and an ongoing ethnic cleansing, was likely one of the top 10 Most Stupid choices of Human History.
You&#39;re absolutely right&#33; Destroy the colonialist state of Israeli&#33; Hell, then we should also dismantle the newly formed Palestine, since their Muslim Imperial forebearers stole the land from the Byzantines. Give it to the Byzantine Greeks? Than we should "destroy" the Greek "imperial colonialist" nation and give it to the Western Roman Italians, then the Jews again, than destroy that country and give it to the canaanites, etc. etc.

See where this logic gets us? There should be a historical statute of limitations, and it should be the present. We look towards the future, not backwards. A two-state solution is the only solution for somebody who lives in reality.

Spouting profanities and hatred filled rants and posting with no real substance? The tell tale sign of a impotance.

[Raj Radical]

Originally posted by Revolution Until [email protected] 09, 2007 04:25 pm

Its either Jewish Nationialism or Palestinian Nationalism.

yet another false and childish anology. That&#39;s as stupid and as disgusting as equating French nationalism with Algerian/Arab nationalism during the French colonization of Algeria&#33;&#33;

One form of nationalism, the one upheld by the Zionist colonizers, divides the working class and is reactionary because it is imperialist. The nationalism of the Zionist colonizers is imperiliast and colonial. Just like any other European nationalism colonizing a "third world" nation. On the other hand, the Arab nationalism of the Palestinians, is progressive, beacuse it is anti-imperialist. The Arab nationalism of the Palestinians is the same progressive nationalism of any other opressed "third world" people fighting against imperialism. The nationalism of the imperialist is reactionary; the nationalism of the opressed is progressive.

"Jewish nationalism" (aka, Zionist colonial nationalism) is the exact opposite of Palestinian Arab nationalism.


Israel is a secular state

No it is not, even though this issue is actually irrelivant. But if you weren&#39;t a troll, you wouldn&#39;t be making those stupid statments for the 10th time now.


and the people who live there are equal.

oh yeah yeah I know, and there is no moon, and the earth is flat, and the sun sinks into the sea at night&#33;

no where are people less equal on earth than in the Zionist settler-colony, BOTH in law and in practice (and before you start barking, don&#39;t be a troll and admit that I have provided the evidence long ago countless of times)


Thats not the issue, were not saying others don&#39;t deserve their own states.

err...the Zionist colonialist movment, like all other capitalist-imperialist, colonial aggressions, aim at denying a group of people thier homeland, colonize it, and establish on it thier own racist settler-colony.


Why shouldnt it be in Palestine?

umm....lets see...coz there were actually HUMAN BEINGS (no it wasn&#39;t empty, nor were they sub-human) living there; it was thier homeland. It shouldn&#39;t be in Palestine for the same reason Rhodesia shouldn&#39;t be in Zimbabwe.


Why should Arab intolerance be a factor in this?

I really like it how Zionists play with words like this. "Arab intoleracne"??? are you serious? I guess Hitler could&#39;ve said "why can&#39;t we go on with our holocaust? why should Jewish intolercane be a factor in this"??

Really, how dare them brown Arabs be "intolerante" to the fact they are getting colonized? how dare they?

How dare the victim refuse the crime commited against him by the imperilaists?? such barbarians&#33;&#33;


Jewish immigration to Palestine was stimulated by the Pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe.

did I mention you were a troll??

two wrongs don&#39;t make a right. Whatever opression a group of people face, it doesn&#39;t in no way justifiy the opression they commit against others.


The Jewish calendar and Jewish holidays and festivals all originated in Israel and revolve around its seasons and conditions. Jews pray toward Jerusalem and recite the words “next year in Jerusalem” every Passover. Jewish religion, culture and history show that it is only in the land of Israel that the Jewish commonwealth can be built.

That&#39;s just pure bullshit; trademark bullshit.


why should the Jews returning to their homeland cause such mayhem?

wtf?

Jews "returning"?? to "thier homeland"???

Like wise, I can say, why should Arabs returing to thier homeland (Spain and Portugal) cause such mayhem.

The "Jewish returning to thier homeland" caused such mayhem coz they weren&#39;t returning in the first place, nor was it thier homeland&#33;&#33;

The statement should have read, why should the Zionists colonizing Palestine coz such mayhem?? hmmm...
Last time I checked, during the Algerian War, 80% of the population of Algeria wasn&#39;t French.

Zionism has produced a western-democracy and the most developed nation in the middle east, while Pan-Arabism has created theocratic dictatorships where autocratic monarchs spend oil money on bentleys and if there is anything left, throw some of it down to the poor.

Neither system is ideal, but western-democracy is admittedly a step above arab dictatorships.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 06:13 pm

To call anti-Israeli sentiment antisemitic is to conflate Israel with a false, monolithic image of Jews, which is itself racist.

First of all most criticisms made at Israel are not anti-semitic. Some Neo-con goons in Washington will throw the term "anti-semitism" at every person who criticises Israel, however I don&#39;t.

People do however sometimes step over the mark, and that should not be ignored.

Going back to your original point - Israel is a Jewish nation, just the same as France or Italy, so to conflate Israel with an image of Jews is not racist.
No, that&#39;s ignorant. I can&#39;t create an image of Muslims or Persians just based on what I know of Iran, nor can I create an image of jews based on Israel. That is xenophobic, pure and simple.





You may not realise it, but support of Zionism gained popularity in Europe as an anti-semitic movement, supported by Hitler and attempting to drive the Jews out of europe and into the currrent ghetto - Israel.

Hitler was a fan of Israel because the Jews would all be in one place and therefor easier to exterminate.
I can&#39;t explain why he liked the concept of zionism. I expect, and this has been my closest understadning of most defenses of Israel and Nazism, that the concept of race war and race - nationalism are behind them.

And just like nationalism is tantamount to racism, so is racial nationalism or religious nationalism. It is not liberation, and in zionism&#39;s case it is not liberation in any sense of the term.

[Revolution Until Victory]

You&#39;re absolutely right&#33; Destroy the colonialist state of Israeli&#33; Hell, then we should also dismantle the newly formed Palestine, since their Muslim Imperial forebearers stole the land from the Byzantines. Give it to the Byzantine Greeks? Than we should "destroy" the Greek "imperial colonialist" nation and give it to the Western Roman Italians, then the Jews again, than destroy that country and give it to the canaanites, etc. etc.

lol, that&#39;s the fraud false logic of the Zionist imperialist apologists. The hebrews had thier kingdom in Palestine some 2000 years ago, they can&#39;t return after a long 2000 years claiming I was once here. It doesn&#39;t work like that. According to that logic, every nation would start claiming "the limitation is the present" and launch imperilaist wars and colonize other nations, on the basis that what counts is today, the present, and that going back further would get us to many differnt peoples. That would obviously be some bullshit. The world would turn into a mad-house. Many places around the world have been inhabited/conqured by many other people&#39;s and tribes, yet colonizing a land some 1500-2000 years ago is one thing, and colonizing a land in our modern times in the last 50 years is a total different issue. Your pathetic attempts to dissolve any difference between colonization thousands of years ago and colonization in our moder times are quiet pathetic and aren&#39;t even funny. Don&#39;t be such a troll like graffic. You have brought up this issue long ago and was debunked, if I remember correctly, by Wikitopia and BreadBros. I still remeber. Graffic is a bad influene on you.


A two-state solution is the only solution for somebody who lives in reality.

Didn&#39;t I just say you were a troll??

A "2 state solution" :lol:


Last time I checked, during the Algerian War, 80% of the population of Algeria wasn&#39;t French.

lol, last time I checked, the situation in Algeria was completley different form that in Palestine. In Palestine, the Palestinian Arabs were ethnicly cleansed and expelled from thier homeland, while the Zionist colonizers took over the land. In Algeria, there was no seperate political entities for the natives and the colonizers, unlike Palestine and South Africa. But anyways, the percentage is totally irrelivant. Not the first time Zionists change the subject and bring up totally irrelivant crap.


Zionism has produced a western-democracy and the most developed nation in the middle east

no it hasn&#39;t. Zionism have produced a racist settler-colony on the expense of the Palestinian Arabs. It isn&#39;t a democracy. It is as democratic as Aparthied South Africa.


while Pan-Arabism has created theocratic dictatorships where autocratic monarchs spend oil money on bentleys and if there is anything left, throw some of it down to the poor.

Even though this is irrelivant to the issue (what a surpise, zionists spouting irrelivant bullshit&#33;&#33;), it wasn&#39;t Pan-Arabism that created those reactionary regimes. It was US-Zionist imperilaism that created them. Those reactionary regimes you talk about are the no.1 enemy of Arab nationalism and the Palestinian liberation movment. They are the product of Western imperilaism.


Neither system is ideal, but western-democracy is admittedly a step above arab dictatorships.

That was exaclty the goal of the Western imperilaists when they maintained those agents and tools.

[Raj Radical]

Originally posted by Revolution Until [email protected] 10, 2007 05:59 am

You&#39;re absolutely right&#33; Destroy the colonialist state of Israeli&#33; Hell, then we should also dismantle the newly formed Palestine, since their Muslim Imperial forebearers stole the land from the Byzantines. Give it to the Byzantine Greeks? Than we should "destroy" the Greek "imperial colonialist" nation and give it to the Western Roman Italians, then the Jews again, than destroy that country and give it to the canaanites, etc. etc.

lol, that&#39;s the fraud false logic of the Zionist imperialist apologists. The hebrews had thier kingdom in Palestine some 2000 years ago, they can&#39;t return after a long 2000 years claiming I was once here. It doesn&#39;t work like that. According to that logic, every nation would start claiming "the limitation is the present" and launch imperilaist wars and colonize other nations, on the basis that what counts is today, the present, and that going back further would get us to many differnt peoples. That would obviously be some bullshit. The world would turn into a mad-house. Many places around the world have been inhabited/conqured by many other people&#39;s and tribes, yet colonizing a land some 1500-2000 years ago is one thing, and colonizing a land in our modern times in the last 50 years is a total different issue. Your pathetic attempts to dissolve any difference between colonization thousands of years ago and colonization in our moder times are quiet pathetic and aren&#39;t even funny. Don&#39;t be such a troll like graffic. You have brought up this issue long ago and was debunked, if I remember correctly, by Wikitopia and BreadBros. I still remeber. Graffic is a bad influene on you.


Way to completely miss the point, once again, and revert to safe, simplistic labels and petty insults.

South Africa is comprised of an 80% Black majority and Israel is comprised of an 80% Jewish majority. The original Jewish settlers of Israel from the first aliyah in the 1880s and their children (who established the state of Israel) are all dead, and their grandchildren are in nursing homes.

Comparisons to Algeria or South Africa are simply absurd. A fairer comparison would be to America. Colonists came from their homelands escaping religious persecution, colonized the land and established a country for themselves, at the expense of the indigenous peoples. Palestinians and Native Americans are now both oppressed minorities who deserve better treatment to say the least, but nobody in their right mind would say that they, exclusively and by historical right, have sole claim to the land.

The South African Apartheid was denying the majority of the nation the right to self-determination. What you&#39;re suggesting, by destroying a country and installing a rule of the few for nationalistic and nostalgic reasons, is the exact same.

[Revolution Until Victory]

Raj, you are the one to miss the point, like usual.


The South African Apartheid was denying the majority of the nation the right to self-determination. What you&#39;re suggesting, by destroying a country and installing a rule of the few for nationalistic and nostalgic reasons, is the exact same.

no one was suggesting the 20% arabs of Israel will rule over the Zionist colonial majority. The Palestinians aren&#39;t just those 20% in Israel. What will happen is that the Palestinian Arabs, the true owners of the land, will end colonization. They are twice as much as the Zionist colonizers, not a mere 20% as you want us to believve.

The Zionist settler-colony should be destryoed for the same reason all other colonies were destroyed.


A fairer comparison would be to America.

you serious?? that&#39;s totally ridiculous.

the natives of America are different from those of Palestine in

1. they were colonized hundreds of years ago (starting to count from the day the settler-colony was established and declared independent from the mother country in the 18th)

2. The natives today are the clear minority. The situation you desribed before would perfectly fit for the case of the US, in which the natives are the minority compared to the colonizes. In the case of Palestine, however, in no way are the native the minority. The natives are at least twice as much as the colonzers, of course, unless you want to be stupid and only take the 20% figure inside Israel.
The natives of America were KILLED and reduced by about 95%. The Palestinian Arabs, on the other hand, were instead expelled and ethnicly cleansed. The Palestinian arabs were kept alive, yet expelled, unlike the natives of America who were killed. What you are doing with your anology is claiming that those Palestinian arabs who were expelled don&#39;t exist, like thier native comrades in America.


but nobody in their right mind would say that they, exclusively and by historical right, have sole claim to the land.

That&#39;s bullshit. The colonizers, no matter how many they ethnicly cleansed and brought form overseas to form a majority, can never deny the natives their rights.
"nobody in their right mind" would admit the natives, and not the colonizers, have sole claim to the land? you sure? Raj, seriously, don&#39;t be a troll. I have given you evidence of the UN and Ben-Gurion themselves admiting Palestine belonged to the Palestinian Arabs and not to the colonizers. Just Ignore Graffic.

[graffic]

I have never heard a Palestinian Nationalist say that the land belongs to Palestinians alone, never heard one talk about "driving the Jews to the Sea"

Are you being scarcastic? The main aim of Palestinain Nationalism is to abolish Israel completely.

Have you never heard of Hamas?


Tell me the harm of letting a person go from town to town.

People might get blown up funnily enough, you really have no idea about Israel and the territories



How can you justify the Jews Only roads or settlements? How can you justify all this which even according to the UN is grossly illegal?

Zionism is racism.

This isnt Zionism, this is the Israeli authorities dealing poorly with terroism threats.

Zionism does not discriminate against anyone.



lets take the status of African-Americans, who have the same rights on paper as White Americans. Does this mean that they arent oppressed? No, there is still huge amounts of discrimination by police, by employers, and de facto segregation between blacks and whites. It hardly matters that they have "equal rights" when this is merely some nice words on paper. They are still below white americans in terms of economics, which defines the most crucial part of their oppression at this point, as well as the unspoken racism of cops and employers.

So youve worked out that Israel discriminates as bad as America. What are you trying to prove? If your going to call Israel a racist state you can call the U.K and the US racist states aswell.



Why not? Because them Ay-Rabs could never build a solid society?

Your racism is becoming more and more clear.


No because if you study the Middle east you&#39;ll realise I&#39;m right.


Graphic, just so I know where your coming from, are you an Israeli or a Yank?

No I&#39;m from the U.K.

[graffic]

No, that&#39;s ignorant. I can&#39;t create an image of Muslims or Persians just based on what I know of Iran, nor can I create an image of jews based on Israel. That is xenophobic, pure and simple.

It doesnt matter what you perceptions of Iran are, Israel is a Jewish state therfore to conflate Israel with an image of jews is not racist.

Is it racist to conflate Americans with an image of Christians?

[Revolution Until Victory]

Zionism does not discriminate against anyone.

yeah, and the moon is made out of cheese&#33; How is that silly game going?


So youve worked out that Israel discriminates as bad as America. What are you trying to prove? If your going to call Israel a racist state you can call the U.K and the US racist states aswell

no you lunatic troll. This have been explained to you long before. UK and US and Israel share racism in practice. However, the Zionist settler-colony is different form the UK and the US in the aspect that racsim there is in the LAW and on PAPER.

[graffic]

You seem to think that everything the Israeli government does is "Zionism", the checkpoints are not part of Zionist Idealogy, the IDF is not part of Zionist idealogy. Zionism does not discriminate against anyone, I&#39;ll say it again as you don&#39;t seem to understand - Zionism is purely the self-determination of the Jewish people.

Lets see these so called papers then RUV.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 04:04 pm


Are you being scarcastic? The main aim of Palestinain Nationalism is to abolish Israel completely.


Wasnt the original aim of the zionist settlers to abolish palestine completely? Other than religious dogma, can you provide legitimate rationale as to why this is any more acceptable?

[graffic]

There was no intention from the Zionists to abolish anything, there is and has never been a country called "Palestine".

Palestinian Nationalism never existed until Israel the Jewish state came along.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 06:02 pm
There was no intention from the Zionists to abolish anything, there is and has never been a country called "Palestine".
What utter BS. what was it called prior to 1946 then? I think you&#39;ll find nearly all maps and sources did refer to it as &#39;Palestine&#39;.

[graffic]

Educate yourself Ulster:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine

Palestine is one of the many names used to describe the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River and various adjoining lands.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 06:08 pm
Educate yourself Ulster:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine

Palestine is one of the many names used to describe the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River and various adjoining lands.
Well done you completely avoided the question. Nowhere on that link did it say that between the crusades and the british mandate was it referred to as anything other than &#39;palestine&#39;.

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 03:39 pm

Zionism is the national liberation of the Jewish people, basically that the Jews - like any other nation are entitled to a homeland.

Presuming that Jews do need a country of their own, why have it in Palestine (which belonged to another people) when most Jews were in Europe?

The thought that people have the right to a country for their "own people" is horribly racist anyway? Should we be having countries expecially for whites? Especially for Christians?

Even if you do believe people should racially seperate themselves, why do you think Jews have the right to make their homeland somewhere where othe rpeople lived? Why was it allright to expel millions of Palestinians? Why is it allright to refuse to allow them back into their own lands? Why is it allright to have left millions languishing without statehood for decades stuck in refugee camps? Why don&#39;t you answer these questions before you make yet another sad attempt to justify apartheid.

[Demogorgon]

Incidentally if Israel really is this lovely country wanting a nice safe homeland for Jewish people, why does it discriminate against Jewish Palestinians as brutaly as it discriminates against other Palestinians?

[Dr Mindbender]

the argument for a jewish homeland in the middle east because it will make them &#39;feel safer&#39; is against common sense anyway. Seeing as how 99% of the middle east hate israel, surely it would be more sensible to have it as far away from there as possible. Maybe Easter Island or somewhere. lol.

[graffic]

Originally posted by Ulster Socialist+October 10, 2007 06:13 pm--> (Ulster Socialist @ October 10, 2007 06:13 pm)
[email protected] 10, 2007 06:08 pm
Educate yourself Ulster:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine

Palestine is one of the many names used to describe the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River and various adjoining lands.
Well done you completely avoided the question. Nowhere on that link did it say that between the crusades and the british mandate was it referred to as anything other than &#39;palestine&#39;. [/b]
There has never been a country called Palestine, thats what we were arguing.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by graffic+October 10, 2007 06:18 pm--> (graffic &#064; October 10, 2007 06:18 pm)
Originally posted by Ulster [email protected] 10, 2007 06:13 pm

[email protected] 10, 2007 06:08 pm
Educate yourself Ulster:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine

Palestine is one of the many names used to describe the region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River and various adjoining lands.
Well done you completely avoided the question. Nowhere on that link did it say that between the crusades and the british mandate was it referred to as anything other than &#39;palestine&#39;.
There has never been a country called Palestine, thats what we were arguing. [/b]
so because it wasnt an official government of sorts, that makes it okay to disposess them?

It reminds me of that Eddie Izzard gag about flags and the british in India :lol:

Indians: &#39;&#39;You cant have our country you bastards, its ours&#33;&#39;&#39;

British Officer:...&#39;&#39;Do you have a flaaag??&#39;&#39; *points gun*

EDIT: here it is :lol:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEx5G-GOS1k

[graffic]

The thought that people have the right to a country for their "own people" is horribly racist anyway? Should we be having countries expecially for whites? Especially for Christians?

No in a fantasy world there would be no countrys, there would be no wars etc. However were currently in the real world so we have to be realistic about whats going on.

Since all Nationalism is evil in your eyes why should the Jews be denied self determination and the Palestinians given it then?

Let me just point out that I&#39;m (and most Israelis) not against Palestinian self determination, I&#39;m against Palestinian Nationialsim which advocates the destruction of Israel.


Why was it allright to expel millions of Palestinians?

Millions? The correct figure is more like 400,000.

However, the propaganda used to generate sympathy in the west is exagerrated beyond proportion.

The truth is that from the beginning of World War I, part of Palestine&#39;s land was owned by absentee landlords who lived in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut. About 80 percent of the Palestinian Arabs were debt-ridden peasants, semi-nomads and Bedouins.

Jews at the time actually went out of their way to avoid purchasing land in areas where Arabs might be displaced. They purchased land that was largely uncultivated, swampy, cheap and, most important, without tenants.

Many Arab landowners had been so terrorized by Arab rebels they decided to leave Palestine and sell their property to the Jews. It is a myth that Jews stole Arab land.

As for the Palestinians being expelled, that was a disgrace how the operation was managed at the time. I will admit that, one of the reasons the Arabs were treated badly was because of the way Jews had been treated in surrounding Arab countrys:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/images/refs.gif

This is showing the number of Jewish refugees driven out by pogroms and other anti-semitic violence. The number of Jews fleeing Arab countries for Israel in the years following Israel&#39;s independence was nearly double the number of Arabs leaving Palestine.

Arab leaders also encouraged Palestinians to flee because of invading armys.


“The [refugee] problem was a direct consequence of the war that the Palestinians — and...surrounding Arab states — had launched.”

Benny Morris from the Guardian.

[Revolution Until Victory]

Ulster, you seem to be ignorant of typical Zionist crap.

That is among the most used Zionist stupidity. "Palestine never existed". All it means is that the there was no government for the Palestinian Arabs sense they were colonized by the British.


There was no intention from the Zionists to abolish anything, there is and has never been a country called "Palestine".

Yawn, zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz


the checkpoints are not part of Zionist Idealogy, the IDF is not part of Zionist idealogy.

True. But in the same sense, torture and house demolishings by the European colonizers in South AFrica wasn&#39;t considered "colonial ideolgoy", yet, those were methods in which the colonial ideology was implemented. Same thing with Zionism.


Zionism does not discriminate against anyone, I&#39;ll say it again as you don&#39;t seem to understand - Zionism is purely the self-determination of the Jewish people.

This is getting really stupid. Zionsim is racsim. Zionism is the racist colonial movment to colonize Palestine

[Revolution Until Victory]

Since all Nationalism is evil in your eyes why should the Jews be denied self determination and the Palestinians given it then?

lol, no one ever said this. "Jewish self-determination" (aka, colonization of Palestine) shouldn&#39;t be on the expense of others. Very simple.


Let me just point out that I&#39;m (and most Israelis) not against Palestinian self determination, I&#39;m against Palestinian Nationialsim which advocates the destruction of Israel.

and that&#39;s supposed to make you and "most" Zionist colonizers somehow good and all nicey nice people?


Millions? The correct figure is more like 400,000.

stop being such an idiot. no one takes you seriously. Even Benny Morris, the racist, fanatic Zionist admitted that those expelled during 1948 was 800,000, and 300,000 during 1967


The truth is that from the beginning of World War I, part of Palestine&#39;s land was owned by absentee landlords who lived in Cairo, Damascus and Beirut. About 80 percent of the Palestinian Arabs were debt-ridden peasants, semi-nomads and Bedouins.

Jews at the time actually went out of their way to avoid purchasing land in areas where Arabs might be displaced. They purchased land that was largely uncultivated, swampy, cheap and, most important, without tenants.

Many Arab landowners had been so terrorized by Arab rebels they decided to leave Palestine and sell their property to the Jews. It is a myth that Jews stole Arab land.

form which Zionist bullshit site did you copy and past this??

but even the above crap doesn&#39;t prove anything&#33;


It is a myth that Jews stole Arab land

tell that to the greatest ever Zionist, Mr. Ben-Gurion. He obviously disagrees with this bullshit. In a UNCCP document dated July 4, 1947, oral evidence were presented at a public meeting were Ben-Gurion was present. Ben-Gurion was discussing the “disparities between Jews and Arabs” in Palestine. He stated:


I shall mention only a few [referring to the disparities between Arabs and Jews]. There is the disparity in numbers. There are some 600,000 Jews in Palestine and some 1,100,000 Arabs. There are no reliable figures in this respect. There is an even greater disparity than that. The Arabs own 94% of the land, the Jews only 6%. The Arabs have seven States, the Jews none...

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 06:43 pm
No in a fantasy world there would be no countrys, there would be no wars etc. However were currently in the real world so we have to be realistic about whats going on.

Since all Nationalism is evil in your eyes why should the Jews be denied self determination and the Palestinians given it then?


Well if we are going to like the idea of countries, e can go back to the first point, why iot was alright to expel millions in order to make such a country? You have still not explained to us why you think it perfectly acceptable to break up families, slaughter thousands, bulldoze homes and dispossess an entire netion for the sense of making an artiificial state.

And you are continuously bringing up this red herring about Palestinian nationalism. That is not the point. The point is to eradicate apartheid and have a non racial Palestinian state. Nobody says Jews can&#39;t live there, Jews have always lived there, and indeed for many it will prove better because lets face it Jews with the wrong skin colour know all about discrimination in Israel too.

You however seem to wish to defend apartheid with these constant red herrings. Why haven&#39;t you got the courage of your own convictions to debate the actual point?

[Raj Radical]

Originally posted by Revolution Until [email protected] 10, 2007 02:48 pm
no one was suggesting the 20% arabs of Israel will rule over the Zionist colonial majority. The Palestinians aren&#39;t just those 20% in Israel. What will happen is that the Palestinian Arabs, the true owners of the land, will end colonization. They are twice as much as the Zionist colonizers, not a mere 20% as you want us to believve.

Your entire premise is based on a falsehood.

Approx. 80% of Israelis are Jewish. There are anywhere between 2.5 to 3.0 Million Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank. Even if you don&#39;t include the hundreds of thousands of Jews living in the West Bank (and Gaza up to 3 years ago before they were forced out. Jews being thrown from their homes? Oh but they deserved it, Raj&#33;), Palestinian Arabs still won&#39;t form a majority.

Your logic essentially boils down to this, a 2 year old Jewish girl with no knowledge of the conflict is an imperial colonist, while a 2 year old Arab girl is the rightful heir to the land. This is bigotry fueled by blind nationalism.

Of course, this is all before the fact that most Palestinians, by far, support a two-state solution over a 1 state. I could have just said this and ended the debate right away, but you, RUV, would have certainly found a way to convince us that an armchair activist with presummably no connection to the conflict knows whats best for the Palestinians, more than they do.

Ahh

[Revolution Until Victory]

Your entire premise is based on a falsehood.

no it is not. That is your premise that is based on total falsehoods and half-truths.


Approx. 80% of Israelis are Jewish.

20% of the Zionist settler-colony are Palestinian Arabs. Ok.


There are anywhere between 2.5 to 3.0 Million Palestinians living in Gaza and the West Bank

err...no, this is false. In the West Bank and Gaza, there are around 4 millions Palestinian Arabs, not 2.5-3 million.


Even if you don&#39;t include the hundreds of thousands of Jews living in the West Bank (and Gaza up to 3 years ago before they were forced out. Jews being thrown from their homes? Oh but they deserved it, Raj

lol, it&#39;s minimum justice that the colonizers get thrown out form the land they colonize. That&#39;s basci common sense.


Palestinian Arabs still won&#39;t form a majority.

of course they would. Palestinian Arabs today number around 11 million as opposed to 7 million Zionist colonizers = clear majority.


Your logic essentially boils down to this, a 2 year old Jewish girl with no knowledge of the conflict is an imperial colonist, while a 2 year old Arab girl is the rightful heir to the land. This is bigotry fueled by blind nationalism.

lol, A 2 year old Zionist colonizer who lives on stolen lands, homes, and properties, is a...colonizer (surprise&#33;). A Palestinian 2 year old girl is the rightful owner of the land passed on by her grandparents. This is not fueld by "blind nationalism", it is fueld by anti-imperilaism, anti-colonialism, and basic logic and common sense.


Of course, this is all before the fact that most Palestinians, by far, support a two-state solution over a 1 state.

that&#39;s just a lie. Palestinian Arabs, like the South African masses, reject the imperiliast settlment of the "2 state solution", aka, the Bantustan solution. Only the collaborators and the cowards would accept such a thing. But for the Palestinians, those scum of the earth don&#39;t exist. They are dead. Traitors, for us, are not alive, and they have died, a very lowly, and cheap death.


I could have just said this and ended the debate right away, but you, RUV, would have certainly found a way to convince us that an armchair activist with presummably no connection to the conflict knows whats best for the Palestinians, more than they do.

Ahh

lol, Raj, I&#39;m an "armchair activist"??? you shitting me? "with no conncetion to the conflict"??? HAAAAHAAA.

I&#39;am a Palestinian arab from Palestine&#33;&#33; I couldn&#39;t be any more "connected" to the conflict. I know what is the best for MY people. sorry, failed again Raj.

[Raj Radical]

Originally posted by Revolution Until [email protected] 11, 2007 04:26 am


RUV, most of the posters who I debate this issue with draw upon their solidairty and sympathy for the Palestinian plight as their chief worry and inspiriation, you, however are another brand entierely.

You are an avowed bigot and hardline nationalist who is driven by an unbridled hatred of another people for simple existing. I was under the impression that these were grounds for Restricted Membership, but I guess if you have a Marx quote in your signature it clears you.

Let&#39;s review the abhorrent bullshit you&#39;ve spouted:

- 2 year old Jewish girl in Jerusalem is a colonist

- 2 year old Arab girl in Jerusalem is the only legitimate citizen.

- Palestinians civilians being evicted is evil imperialism and useful propoganda.

- Jewish civilians being evicted is justice.

In otherwords, people should be judged and punished for something they cannot control. In this case, belonging to a different ethnicity.

As for your comment that Palestinians who accept a two-state solution are traitors who deserve to die, it looks as though there wouldn&#39;t be many Palestinians left if they all took your advice: http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/15253

Only 10% of Palestinians see a Palestinian-ruled nation as the most alluring route, while 46% see a two-state solution as best.

Israel should retract to the 1967 borders, give complete autonomy to the West Bank and Gaza and destroy racist legislation that treats Israeli Arabs as lesser than Jews.

Two nations: Palestine and Israel. Any other options will only end in massive bloodshed and chaos.

[Revolution Until Victory]

You are an avowed bigot and hardline nationalist who is driven by an unbridled hatred of another people for simple existing

no I&#39;m not. This is a pethetic accusation that doesn&#39;t deserve any refutation. It all depends on the context. You are right, if I was a "nationalist" of an imperialist country, I should be retricted the moment I register, sense that "nationalism" would be extremely imperilaist and reactionary. However, this is not the conext. The context here is a third world nation, fighting at the front line the battle against capialist imperialism. True, I&#39;m a nationalist, but at the same time, an internationalist. My nationalism, Arab nationalism, isn&#39;t reactionary. My nationalism is the nationalism of the opressed. My nationalism is anti-imperilaist. My nationialism paves the way for the workers revolution towards political power, contorl of the means of production, and total freedom and emancipation and end of exploitation, not just in Palestine, but elsewhere. My nationalism is progressive and internationalist.
As Mao said, all communists could be and must be nationalists (reffering to the nationalism of the victim of imperilaism, not the reactionary natioanlism of the imperilaist). So you attempts to ristrict me on the basis of being nationalist are futile.

Mao:


Can a Communist, who is an internationalist, at the same time be a patriot? We hold that he not only can be but also must be. The specific content of patriotism is determined by historical conditions. There is the "patriotism" of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler, and there is our patriotism. Communists must resolutely oppose the "patriotism" of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler. The Communists of Japan and Germany are defeatists with regard to the wars being waged by their countries. To bring about the defeat of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler by every possible means is in the interests of the Japanese and the German people, and the more complete the defeat the better.... For the wars launched by the Japanese aggressors and Hitler are harming the people at home as well as the people of the world. China&#39;s case, however, is different, because she is the victim of aggression. Chinese Communists must therefore combine patriotism with internationalism. We are at once internationalists and patriots, and our slogan is, "Fight to defend the motherland against the aggressors." For us defeatism is a crime and to strive for victory in the War of Resistance is an inescapable duty. For only by fighting in defense of the motherland can we defeat the aggressors and achieve national liberation. And only by achieving national liberation will it be possible for the proletariat and other working people to achieve their own emancipation. The victory of China and the defeat of the invading imperialists will help the people of other countries. Thus in wars of national liberation patriotism is applied internationalism.

The issue of bigotry is something you and Graffic should defend yourself from, not me.


who is driven by an unbridled hatred of another people for simple existing.

True, I have an unbridled hatred for my colonzier. That&#39;s natural. All natives hate thier colonizers to death. Nothing wrong with this.


I was under the impression that these were grounds for Restricted Membership

What are they? progressive, anti-imperialsit, internationalist, nationalism of the opressed? or anti-colonialism? I would guess those would be the grounds for restriciton on a right-wing forum, not a revolutionary leftist one.


but I guess if you have a Marx quote in your signature it clears you.

what Marx quote in my signature?

This: "Workers of the world and Opressed Peoples, Unite&#33;"?

that&#39;s not by Marx.


- 2 year old Jewish girl in Jerusalem is a colonist

of course she is. This, however, doesn&#39;t mean she is responsible for it. Children are innocent and are not responsible for thier actions. In other words, I have nothing against her. She is innocent.


- 2 year old Arab girl in Jerusalem is the only legitimate citizen.

the land belong to her people, expelled and ethnicly cleansed by Zionist colonizers.


- Palestinians civilians being evicted is evil imperialism and useful propoganda.

Of course, except I don&#39;t see were did you get the "useful PR" shit??


- Jewish civilians being evicted is justice.

Zionist colonizers (I don&#39;t care about thier relegion) returning the lands, properties, and homes they have been colonizing is basic, minimum justice.


In otherwords, people should be judged and punished for something they cannot control. In this case, belonging to a different ethnicity.

A truely pathetic way to put words into my mouth, but a nice try.


As for your comment that Palestinians who accept a two-state solution are traitors who deserve to die, it looks as though there wouldn&#39;t be many Palestinians left if they all took your advice: http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/15253

Only 10% of Palestinians see a Palestinian-ruled nation as the most alluring route, while 46% see a two-state solution as best.

sorry, don&#39;t believe those surveys. There are many ways, such as the questions asked, the interviewr, etc, could effect the outcome. The results are impossible. Besides, its only a survye of those in the West Bank and Gaza bantustans only.


As for your comment that Palestinians who accept a two-state solution are traitors who deserve to die, it looks as though there wouldn&#39;t be many Palestinians left if they all took your advice

lol, do you realize there was only 1,198 Palestinians questioned in this survey???


Israel should retract to the 1967 borders,

Israel should retract to the pre-1948 borders. Israel should retract from the face of earth and join all other former settler-colonies. They should all hold hands in the trash bin of history. Palestinian Arabs reject the bantustans solution, and will not be tricked by the imperialist settlment.


give complete autonomy to the West Bank and Gaza

yup, same way the European colonizers were attempting to give "full autonomy" and "independece" to the 9 native "states" (aka, bantustans) in south Africa. But we all knew what happned latter, right??


Two nations: Palestine and Israel.

The lie that imperialist apologists never cease to reapet. That statment means One Zionsit settler-colony and Two Bantustans: Palestine and Israel.


Any other options will only end in massive bloodshed and chaos.

umm, this is a long and bitter war of liberation. This is a People&#39;s War waged through popular guerilla warfare and revolutionary violence. This is the price of freedom. Of cousre there will be plenty of bloodshed and chaos. This is no picnic in the park. This is the war of liberation.

[Raj Radical]

FACT: The majority of Palestinians support a two-state solution. In fact, only a minuscule fraction endorse a single Palestinian state.

You: They only interview 1200 Palestinians.

(1200 is a standard for opinion polls, by the way. And As opposed to you being 1 Palestinian?)

FACT: Jews make up a majority of the population in Palestine.

You: Not if you count the Palestinians outside of Palestine.

(Sure, than include all the Jews outside of Israel. And the same way that Afrikaans comprised a majority if you include all of the Dutch in the Netherlands.)

Brilliant, RUV. You are honestly the most immature and uninformed poster I have had the displeausre of having a dialogue with. According to you, exclusive nationalism is excusable if you&#39;re from a third world nation.

And Apparently the Arab-Nationalism that has produced nothing but theocracys and dictatorships is a "peoples movement&#39;. While the Jewish nationalism that gave birth to the most successful labor commune movement (kibbutzim) in the history of the world, and which has created the most developed and most democratic nation in the middle east is a "reactionary evil". (For the record, I consider both exclusive-Zionism and Pan-Arabism are racist archaisms. But we should overcome our biases and recognize the evil and merits are both)

Oh, and what&#39;s more, any capitalist or authoritarian regiemes that Pan-Arabism has created can be attributed to Western-influence, even if these systems existed centuries before any western economic hegemony, but the evils that Zionism produce such as the treatment of Palestinians are all to fall upon Zionism and are to serve as a justification for blowing up a wedding full of women and children.

Before we go, here are a few more links for you to ignore or try and discredit:

http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2006/p19e.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archi...ArchiveId=18163 (http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archive/archive?ArchiveId=18163)
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/art...pnt=173&lb=hmpg (http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_related/173.php?nid=&id=&pnt=173&lb=hmpg)

[Faux Real]

Originally posted by Raj [email protected] 11, 2007 12:56 am
And Apparently the Arab-Nationalism that has produced nothing but theocracys and dictatorships is a "peoples movement&#39;. While the Jewish nationalism that gave birth to the most successful labor commune movement (kibbutzim) in the history of the world, and which has created the most developed and most democratic nation in the middle east is a "reactionary evil".
I&#39;m sorry but I ROFL&#39;ed at that.

I&#39;ll edit this later and reply when I wake up.

[graffic]

Why do you only respond to parts of my posts Demogorgon?


The point is to eradicate apartheid and have a non racial Palestinian state

There is no Apartheid in Israel. That is a lie used in the west to generate sympathy for the Palestinian cause.


Nobody says Jews can&#39;t live there, Jews have always lived there, and indeed for many it will prove better because lets face it Jews with the wrong skin colour know all about discrimination in Israel too.

You can&#39;t argue about Israel being discriminatory to its citizens.

RUV posted some Laws in Israel which are discriminitory; Although there are no laws which specifically include the term "right to equality" the Israeli Supreme Court has consistently interpreted "Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty" and "Basic Law: Freedom of Occupation (1994)"as guaranteeing equal rights for all Israeli citizens. Much the same as the US and the UK.

Israeli Arabs are also much better off economically than neighbouring Arabs. The Israeli Democracy institute found that 75% of Arab Israelis would support a Jewish state of Israel so long as it guaranteed rights for minorities.

[Revolution Until Victory]

The majority of Palestinians support a two-state solution. In fact, only a minuscule fraction endorse a single Palestinian state.

You: They only interview 1200 Palestinians.

(1200 is a standard for opinion polls, by the way. And As opposed to you being 1 Palestinian?)

dumbass, I don&#39;t care about those "surveys". They don&#39;t mean that most Palestinians accept the imperiliast settlment or not. Stop being such an idiot and repeating that "the majority of Palestinians". The Palestinian people are in the WB, Gaza, and East jerusalem Bantustans, inside the Zionist settler-colony, and the reufgees around the world. Those intervied were only inside the WB and Gaza Bantustans.


Jews make up a majority of the population in Palestine.

You: Not if you count the Palestinians outside of Palestine.

yes, I didn&#39;t dey this. Zionist colonizers are the majority right now in Palestine. But how did this majority come into being?? naturally?

NO, it came into being through ethnic cleansing and expulsion. The Palestinian people are not just those who are in the Zionist colony and the Bantustans, but also the refugees who were expelled in 1948 and 1967. The Palestinian people, including those who were expelled outside of Palestine, have the right to return to Palestine according to UN resolution 194.


Sure, than include all the Jews outside of Israel. And the same way that Afrikaans comprised a majority if you include all of the Dutch in the Netherlands

lol, those are the childish remarks you would expect from a Zionist.

how the hell does the situation of the Dutch citezens of the imperilaist Netherlands even remotly compare to the situation of the Palestinian Arabs expelled by thier colonizers around the world and thier decendants??

And how the hell does the situation of the Jewish people around the world compare to those of the expelled Palestinians?? oh oh I know, they were once in Palestine over fucking 2000 years ago&#33;&#33;

never mind those Palestinians you refuse to recongnize were officaly recognized by the UN and have the right to return.

Seriously, Raj, You are honestly the most immature and uninformed poster I have had the displeausre of having a dialogue with.


According to you, exclusive nationalism is excusable if you&#39;re from a third world nation.

uhhh...this is not according to me&#33;

this is common sense. If you are from a third world country fighting imperilaism, you nationalism will be anti-imperilaist and will pave the way for the socialist revolution in that country and elsewhere by weakning imperilaism. So the nationalism of the opressed is anti-imperilasit, internationalist, and progressive. However, there is no excuse whatsoever for the "nationalism" of the agressor and imperilaist. It is purely reactionary.


And Apparently the Arab-Nationalism that has produced nothing but theocracys and dictatorships is a "peoples movement&#39;.

no it hadn&#39;t. The reactionary dictatorships are US-Zionist imperilasit products, the enmies of Arab nationalism.


While the Jewish nationalism that gave birth to the most successful labor commune movement (kibbutzim) in the history of the world,

:rolleyes:


and which has created the most developed and most democratic nation in the middle east is a "reactionary evil".

I agree, same way as European nationalism have developed the most democratic nation in Afria (Apartheid South Africa).


Oh, and what&#39;s more, any capitalist or authoritarian regiemes that Pan-Arabism has created can be attributed to Western-influence, even if these systems existed centuries before any western economic hegemony,

what????


Before we go, here are a few more links for you to ignore or try and discredit:

http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2006/p19e.html
http://english.aljazeera.net/English/archi...ArchiveId=18163
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/art...pnt=173&lb=hmpg

same issue with the first one.

[graffic]

Don&#39;t argue with RUV RajRadical, he will just respond to whatever you post, and if he is proven wrong he will simply assert the same point over and over again.

------------------------------------


dumbass, I don&#39;t care about those "surveys". They don&#39;t mean that most Palestinians accept the imperiliast settlment or not. Stop being such an idiot and repeating that "the majority of Palestinians". The Palestinian people are in the WB, Gaza, and East jerusalem Bantustans, inside the Zionist settler-colony, and the reufgees around the world. Those intervied were only inside the WB and Gaza Bantustans.

Just accept the point you conch.

How the fuck would you get an opinion poll of the entire Palestinian population?



If you are from a third world country fighting imperilaism, you nationalism will be anti-imperilaist and will pave the way for the socialist revolution in that country and elsewhere by weakning imperilaism.

This is not Imperialism, this is Jewish self-determination - the funding Israel recieves from the US is a response to Arab Nationalism (advocating the destruction of Israel) - the US is simply helping Israel in defending itself, Israel would not have to defend itself if it were not for hardline Arab Nationalists like yourself. So the Palestinians are in a sense fighting an oppressor but this does not mean their Nationalism is ok.

The Palestinians recieve funding from Iran which recieves funding from China and Russia. The Palestinian cause is not anti-imperialist.

[Revolution Until Victory]

How the fuck would you get an opinion poll of the entire Palestinian population?

1. you don&#39;t need an opnion poll to realize that the people reject their colonizer

2. Those polls could be much better if they included people not just in the Bantustans, but the Palestinians who are in Israel and expelled in the Arab states and around the world. They are Palestinians, you know, and thier opnion coutns.

3. The only way I would maby accept this if it wasn&#39;t an opnion poll but some kind of popular election. let the people choose between the imperilaist settlment and the anti-colonial solution and we will see.


This is not Imperialism, this is Jewish self-determination

no it is not. You do not get "your self-determination" by colonizing other people and building a colony on their expense. That&#39;s colonization, not self-determination.


the funding Israel recieves from the US is a response to Arab Nationalism (advocating the destruction of Israel) - the US is simply helping Israel in defending itself,

no one was talking about US funding.


Israel would not have to defend itself if it were not for hardline Arab Nationalists like yourself. So the Palestinians are in a sense fighting an oppressor but this does not mean their Nationalism is ok.

:blink:


The Palestinians recieve funding from Iran which recieves funding from China and Russia. The Palestinian cause is not anti-imperialist.

:lol:

[graffic]

Originally posted by Revolution Until [email protected] 11, 2007 04:00 pm
3. The only way I would maby accept this if it wasn&#39;t an opnion poll but some kind of popular election. let the people choose between the imperilaist settlment and the anti-colonial solution and we will see.



Its quite clear from all your posts that you have no clue about "the People", did you miss my post earlier?

Israeli Arabs are also much better off economically than neighbouring Arabs. The Israeli Democracy institute found that 75% of Arab Israelis would support a Jewish state of Israel so long as it guaranteed rights for minorities.

[Andy Bowden]

There has never been a country called Palestine, thats what we were arguing.

There was never an independent East Timor till 1999 either. Whether or not a country has &#39;existed before&#39; is totally irrelevant from a Socialist viewpoint on a nations right to self determination, and the subsequent democratic freedoms (however limited) that grants the working class of that country.

[Demogorgon]

Originally posted by [email protected] 11, 2007 03:23 pm
There is no Apartheid in Israel. That is a lie used in the west to generate sympathy for the Palestinian cause.

FOr heavens sake, you are barely any better than the anti-semites who say the Holocaust is a lie used to generate sympathy for Jews, simply dening racism and human rights abuses won&#39;t make them go away.

Ben Gurion and his cronies openly stated that they were modelling their state on South Africa. The South Africans understandably were enthusiastic about this and were probably Israel&#39;s closest allies. Should any objection be raised over this back in South Africa, the government there had a good answer to justify the very close friendshio. John Vorster who was Prime Minister in the seventies told parliament clearly "Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state". His exact words. His successor PW Botha developed the friendship to new heights when he signed (at the time) secret deals with Israel for access to nuclear weapon technology.

And it wasn&#39;t just the White South Africans who noticed the similarities. Desmond Tutu was in Palestine just a couple of years ago and remarked that the situation with respect to apartheid there was just as bad, if not worse, than the apartheid he had known back in South Africa.

In Israel certain jobs are legally restricted by race and many many more are restricted in practice. Palestinian&#39;s living within Israel (and we are not even talking about the Bantustans here where it is worse again) have considerably lower incomes and life expectancies. And of course lets not forget again the jewish people of Arabic origin suffer from systematic discrimination as well (though perhaps not to the same extent). There is no ambiguity when it comes to the 900 or so Palestinian Jews who suffer some of the worst discrimination in the entire area.

So please do not insult millions of people by denying their suffering because it suits your political ends.

[graffic]

Israel has problems, but calling it an Apartheid state just isnt true.


Ben Gurion and his cronies openly stated that they were modelling their state on South Africa.

Thats not true. I quote Ben Gurion himself - talking to Palestinian nationalist Musa Alami in 1934:

"We do not want to create a situation like that which exists in South Africa, where the whites are the owners and rulers, and the blacks are the workers. If we do not do all kinds of work, easy and hard, skilled and unskilled, if we become merely landlords, then this will not be our homeland"



The South Africans understandably were enthusiastic about this and were probably Israel&#39;s closest allies.

Probably? Again this isnt true.


Should any objection be raised over this back in South Africa, the government there had a good answer to justify the very close friendshio. John Vorster who was Prime Minister in the seventies told parliament clearly "Israel, like South Africa, is an apartheid state". His exact words.

You hear lots of people accusing Israel of Apartheid, yet when they are shown the facts they have nothing to say. Just the same as people who call George Bush and Tony Blair "Hitlers" of our time. Its personal opinion.


In Israel certain jobs are legally restricted by race and many many more are restricted in practice.

Again this is Propaganda used to generate sympathy for the cause.

When asked what governments they admire most, more than 80 percent of Palestinians consistently choose Israel because they can see up close the thriving democracy in Israel, and the rights the Arab citizens enjoy there. By contrast, Palstinians place Arab regimes far down the list, and their own Palestinian Authority at the bottom with only 20 percent saying they admire the corrupt Arafat regime in 2003.

This was found in a study by James Bennet.

[graffic]

Originally posted by Andy [email protected] 11, 2007 09:02 pm

There has never been a country called Palestine, thats what we were arguing.

There was never an independent East Timor till 1999 either. Whether or not a country has &#39;existed before&#39; is totally irrelevant from a Socialist viewpoint on a nations right to self determination, and the subsequent democratic freedoms (however limited) that grants the working class of that country.
Yes but its not as if Palestinians have been pushing for their own state for centuries is it? Palestinian self-determination never existed until 1947 - when the proposal for a Jewish state started to be put into practice.

The Arab states rejected partition and intended to set up a "United State of Palestine", the roots of the new phenomenon "Palestinian Nationalism" are firmly in Arab intolerance to a Jewish state. I would love to say Palestinian Nationalism is purely the self-determination of the Palestinians (who are are also treated like shit in other countries) but its not. It is a tool for surrounding Arab countries to use against Israel.

And why are they against Israel?

(1947, This is before Israel has commited any war crimes etc, the Jewish state was simply being created.)

The answer is this: The Muslim view is that Israel is a Naqbah (catastrophe), an affront to their religious faith. As such, Israel must be resisted by all available means and eradicated as soon as possible. This is the view the majority of the Arab countries share.

"This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades".

Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the Arab League.

On May 15, 1948 with the termination of the Mandate, the declaration of the State of Israel, and the British departure, the states of the Arab League (armies from Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia) invaded the new country with the declared intent of destroying it. Mufti el-Husseini, one of the worst Nazi collaborators, called for Jihad against Jews in a 1943 broadcast from Radio Berlin during the height of the Holocaust:

Kill the Jews wherever you find them, this is pleasing to Allah.

The Iraqi Prime Minister even said all the Arabs would need would be "a few brooms" to drive the Jews into the sea. All they were waiting for was the British and said, "once we get the green light from the British we can easily throw out the Jews."

In summary its quite clear that Palestinian Nationalism is a tool used by Arab leaders to drive their Fundamentalist views on Israel and Jews. Palestinian self-determination is good in its self, but anyone who supports this should know what their united with.

[Andy Bowden]

That the demands for Palestinian independence didn&#39;t manifest themselves until recently (put into context of hundreds of years etc) is irrelevant.

Very few Jews in Europe backed Zionism until after WW2. Previous to WW2 the idea of uprooting from Europe to live in a land hundreds of miles away on the basis that they lived there 2000 years ago had little support.

The Arab rejection of partition differs from the Israeli view only in its transparency. Ben Gurion and the rest of the Zionist movement accepted the 1947 partition as a stepping stone for further expansion, not on a genuine belief or vision of two states for two peoples.

Ben Gurion made it clear that he would accept a Jewish state in a part of Palestine to build up support, and then "abolish partition" - which in practical terms meant Jewish rule over majority Arab areas.

Thats why Palestinian nationalism grew in response to "Jewish self-determination" - because the practical realities of trying to create a Jewish ruled country in an Arab nation requires the removal of, and or restriction of democratic rights of all or most of the Arab population.

In 1948 this meant the expulsion of the majority of the Arab population - whether it was deliberate or &#39;born of war&#39; as Benny Morris argues, the Arab radio broadcasts is a myth that has been buried. Today it means rule of the West Bank by Israel, but without formally annexing it, lest Israel face millions of Arab voters.

[graffic]

Thats why Palestinian nationalism grew in response to "Jewish self-determination" - because the practical realities of trying to create a Jewish ruled country in an Arab nation requires the removal of, and or restriction of democratic rights of all or most of the Arab population.

The Jewish ruled country was not created in an "Arab nation". It doesnt require the resitriction of any rights of the Arab population. The restriction of rights grew out of Terroism which is rooted in anti-semitism.



Very few Jews in Europe backed Zionism until after WW2. Previous to WW2 the idea of uprooting from Europe to live in a land hundreds of miles away on the basis that they lived there 2000 years ago had little support.

It doesnt matter. My point was that Palestinian Nationalism was a response of Jewish self-determination, in other words Palestinians Nationialsm has more to do with the destruction of Israel than with Palestinians self-determination.


Ben Gurion and the rest of the Zionist movement accepted the 1947 partition as a stepping stone for further expansion, not on a genuine belief or vision of two states for two peoples.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/images/peel.gif

1937: The Peel Commission - to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. The Arabs rejected the plan because it forced them to accept the creation of a Jewish state. The Zionists opposed the Peel Plan&#39;s boundaries because they would have been confined to little more than a ghetto of 1,900 out of the 10,310 square miles remaining in Palestine. Nevertheless, the Zionists decided to negotiate with the British, while the Arabs refused to consider any compromises.

Lets make this clear, Jewish Nationialism has never outruled a vision of a two state solution. It is Palestinian Nationialsm with the backing of Fundamentalists that has always campaigned for the complete eradication of Israel and nothing else.

The Palestinians and supporting Arab states have rejected every oppurtunity of Palestinian self-determination which also gives the Jews self-determination.

[Andy Bowden]

The Jewish ruled country was not created in an "Arab nation". It doesnt require the resitriction of any rights of the Arab population.

It was created in the Palestinian mandate, which had an overwhelming Arab majority before the inception of the Zionist movement. In order to create a homogenous, or overwhelming Jewish majority in such a circumstance it was neccessary to expel many of the native Arabs, which was of course what happened.


. My point was that Palestinian Nationalism was a response of Jewish self-determination, in other words Palestinians Nationialsm has more to do with the destruction of Israel than with Palestinians self-determination.

Palestinian nationalism is a response to "Jewish self-determination" in that the "self-determination" required a) in 1948, the expulsion of Arabs and b) from &#39;67 onwards the effective military dictatorship of Israel over Arab areas without a Jewish majority to "self determine".


Lets make this clear, Jewish Nationialism has never outruled a vision of a two state solution. It is Palestinian Nationialsm with the backing of Fundamentalists that has always campaigned for the complete eradication of Israel and nothing else.

You can "make it clear" all you like, it doesn&#39;t change the facts that the Zionist movement never gave up their claim to all of Palestine.

"No Zionist can forgo the smallest portion of the Land Of Israel. [A] Jewish state in part [of Palestine] is not an end, but a beginning ..... Our possession is important not only for itself ... through this we increase our power, and every increase in power facilitates getting hold of the country in its entirety. Establishing a [small] state .... will serve as a very potent lever in our historical effort to redeem the whole country." (Righteous Victims, p. 138)

Zionism has obviously ruled out two state solutions countless times, it would take a pretty deliberate blindness not to see it - Golda Meir denied the Palestinians even exist; how does that fit in with "Jewish Nationalism has never outruled a vision of a two state solution"?

The PLO first declared their willingness to accept the State of Israel in 1988 - Israel responded by invading Lebanon precisely to put an end to the PLO peace offensive.

There was also the Jarring initative supported by Egypt, in which the UAR (Egypt) would accept the existence of Israel in return for the Sinai. Again, denied by Israel who wanted to retain Sharm el-Sheik. Egypts proficiency in the 1973 October war forced Israel to compromise - an advantage the PLO has never had.

[graffic]

It was created in the Palestinian mandate, which had an overwhelming Arab majority before the inception of the Zionist movement. In order to create a homogenous, or overwhelming Jewish majority in such a circumstance it was neccessary to expel many of the native Arabs, which was of course what happened.

The Arabs were expelled because of many different reasons. Yes Israel needed a Jewish majority to achieve the idea of a Jewish state. What you don&#39;t understand is that nearly twice as many Jews were expelled from Arab countrys before Israel&#39;s creation. The Jewish state was a refuge for Jews from persecution in neighbouring Arab countrys, Israels policy of ethnic cleansing was more of a practical issue than a "get rid of all the Arabs" racist issue.

That can&#39;t be said for the reasons Jews were driven out of Arab countrys in the first place, Jews were driven out by pogroms and other anti-semitic violence.



The PLO first declared their willingness to accept the State of Israel in 1988 - Israel responded by invading Lebanon precisely to put an end to the PLO peace offensive.

The PLO is very floppy on the whole issue, some members say they accept Israel other members demand liberation of the whole of Palestine. The PLO doesnt represent anywhere near the majority of Palestinian opinion either.

Its also quite hard for Israel to fully trust and take seriously an organisation such as the PLO which recieves most of its income through illegal arms dealing, drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud, etc.


There was also the Jarring initative supported by Egypt, in which the UAR (Egypt) would accept the existence of Israel in return for the Sinai. Again, denied by Israel who wanted to retain Sharm el-Sheik. Egypts proficiency in the 1973 October war forced Israel to compromise - an advantage the PLO has never had.

Yes what your saying is correct, however your cherry picking the facts. Israel has offered countless agreements which have also been turned down by the Palestinians.

“If the Israelis can make compromises and you can&#39;t, I should go home. You have been here 14 days and said no to everything. These things will have consequences. Failure will end the peace process.....”

Bill Clinton to Yasser Arafat.

Its quite clear that the Israelis have always been more interested in Peace than the Arabs. Had Arab governments not gone to war in 1948 to block the UN partition plan, a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Galilee and the Negev would be celebrating the 54th anniversary of its independence. Had the Arab states not supported terrorism directed at Israeli civilians and provoked six subsequent Arab-Israeli wars, the conflict could have been settled long ago, and the Palestinian problem resolved.

Israel, with a fraction of Arab land and wealth, took in 820,000 Jews driven from Arab countries in the 1950&#39;s. The Arabs&#39; refusal to do the same with the Palestinians shows they are more interested in using the refugees as a political weapon against Israel than they are in truly solving the problem.

[Dean]

Originally posted by Raj [email protected] 11, 2007 07:56 am
You: Not if you count the Palestinians outside of Palestine.

(Sure, than include all the Jews outside of Israel. And the same way that Afrikaans comprised a majority if you include all of the Dutch in the Netherlands.)

Brilliant, RUV. You are honestly the most immature and uninformed poster I have had the displeausre of having a dialogue with. According to you, exclusive nationalism is excusable if you&#39;re from a third world nation.
Include all the Jews in the world? What, so all Jews are Zionist now? Lovely.

[Revolution Until Victory]

of course, I ignore graffic and his trollish complete nonsense that he have been repeating for ages.

But just one point I will adress.


The PLO doesnt represent anywhere near the majority of Palestinian opinion either.

really??

The sole legitamite representative of the Palestinian people is its resistance. The PLO, an umbrella orgnization for most of the factions, is the sole legitamite representative and this is recognized internationally. The "election" in 2006 that were the product of Oslo in which only 1/3 of the entire Palestinian people were able to vote doesn&#39;t represent anything. Despite the last "elections", the PLO is still recognized as the sole legitamite representative of the Palestinian people. Btw, I&#39;m not defening the PLO as it is now, but I&#39;m talking of an inhanced PLO, rejecting any peace or compromise with Zionism and containing all the factions.

[Andy Bowden]

The Jewish state was a refuge for Jews from persecution in neighbouring Arab countrys, Israels policy of ethnic cleansing was more of a practical issue than a "get rid of all the Arabs" racist issue.

Thats some impressive intellectual gymnastics there - but at least you recognise it was ethnic cleansing.

The fact that Israels policy was &#39;practical&#39; - in that it was neccessary for its aims - doesn&#39;t make it not racist; rather it shows the policy itself was racist if the practicalities of it required ethnic cleansing.


The PLO is very floppy on the whole issue, some members say they accept Israel other members demand liberation of the whole of Palestine. The PLO doesnt represent anywhere near the majority of Palestinian opinion either.

At the time of its recognition of Israel the PLO had the overwhelming support of the Palestinian populace. That there are rejectionists in the PLO is obvious - there are also rejectionists in Israel.

The difference is that no Israeli political party has recognised Palestine in its internationally recognised borders - the PLO did with Israel.


Had Arab governments not gone to war in 1948 to block the UN partition plan, a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Galilee and the Negev would be celebrating the 54th anniversary of its independence.

Assuming that the Zionist movement allowed it to exist, and did not move to "abolish partition", to use Ben Gurions phrase.


Had the Arab states not supported terrorism directed at Israeli civilians and provoked six subsequent Arab-Israeli wars, the conflict could have been settled long ago, and the Palestinian problem resolved.

Israel has a meticulously documented record of human rights abuses against civilians far above and beyond atrocities committed by the PLO.

To say the Arabs provoked 6 wars is nonsense - the October war was a direct result of Israel refusing to return the Sinai for recognition of Israel; the invasion of Lebanon was solely aimed at destroying the PLO as a political force.

I dont know what other of the six wars the Arabs are meant to have provoked - 48, 56, 67, 73, 82 I know of - is the sixth the recent conflict in the Lebanon? Or one of the Intifadas?

The 1967 war itself has been spun far in advance of the facts, ignoring considerably larger Israeli assaults on Arab countries before the war than vice versa; the attack on Samu in Jordan for example, condemned by even the US, and what Moshe Dayan admits were now deliberate provokations regarding Syria in land disputes etc.

[graffic]

Thats some impressive intellectual gymnastics there - but at least you recognise it was ethnic cleansing.

The fact that Israels policy was &#39;practical&#39; - in that it was neccessary for its aims - doesn&#39;t make it not racist; rather it shows the policy itself was racist if the practicalities of it required ethnic cleansing.

Yes it was a racist policy. However going back to the original point - the point is the Zionist movement did not set out to do this, Jewish self-determination did not wish to disposses anyone.

When you are being attacked on all corners after just establishing yourself as a state with 800,000 + Jewish refugees seeking refuge its hard for a government to do everything perfectly. Thats not to say that the Zionists were responsible for all the Arabs expelled anyway, many left because of invading armys. If the 800,000 + Jews had not been expelled from neighbouring Arab countrys and the Arabs had not declared war on Israel the Zionists could have handled the situation more effectively.



The difference is that no Israeli political party has recognised Palestine in its internationally recognised borders - the PLO did with Israel.

It depends what you mean by internationally recognised borders.

Historic Palestine included not only Israel and the West Bank, but also all of modern Jordan.

[Andy Bowden]

When you are being attacked on all corners after just establishing yourself as a state with 800,000 + Jewish refugees seeking refuge its hard for a government to do everything perfectly.

Were not talking about a government not doing everything "perfectly" - were talking about a deliberate project of ethnic cleansing.

The expulsion of Jews from Arab countries is no justification for this, or explanation. Its like backing Serb ethnic cleansing in Bosnia based on what happened at Krajina.


It depends what you mean by internationally recognised borders.

The recognised borders of Palestine, recognised as being the entirety of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem; a postion that has been reinforced time and time again in the UN with only the oppostion of Israel, the USA and a few other bastions of freedom such as Micronesia, Dominica etc.

[graffic]

Originally posted by Andy [email protected] 17, 2007 05:33 pm

When you are being attacked on all corners after just establishing yourself as a state with 800,000 + Jewish refugees seeking refuge its hard for a government to do everything perfectly.

Were not talking about a government not doing everything "perfectly" - were talking about a deliberate project of ethnic cleansing.

The expulsion of Jews from Arab countries is no justification for this, or explanation. Its like backing Serb ethnic cleansing in Bosnia based on what happened at Krajina.

The deliberate project of ethnic cleansing is not something I admire or am proud of, however the fact Zionists in 1947 expelled Arabs is not an argument against the state of Israel. The fact you see 800,000 Jewish refugees and the persecution of Jews in Arab countries as "nothing to do with the situation" is quite bigoted to say the least. Twice as many Jews were expelled from Arab countries than Palestinians from Palestine, why is it not acceptable for Jews (a mixture of Holocaust survivors and refugees pushed out of Arab countries by anti-semitism) to establish a state for their own safety when they are being persecuted in every other Arab country?

Israel is a direct consequence of the persecution Jews recieved in Arab countries and Europe. Why do you choose to ignore Jewish persecution which is on alot larger scale than what the Palestinians had to suffer.

Why is the Nationialsm and self determination of 400,000 Palestinians more justified and important to you than the Nationialsm and self-determination of 800,000 Jewish refugees + Holocaust survivors?

Why are the rights of Palestinian refugees rights more important to you than Jewish refugees?

Israel is the victim not the root of all evil.

http://www.buffalo-israel-link.org/Joel3_files/image012.jpg

[Andy Bowden]

The fact you see 800,000 Jewish refugees and the persecution of Jews in Arab countries as "nothing to do with the situation" is quite bigoted to say the least.

The forced deportation of Jews from the Middle East was neither the trigger nor the cause of the expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from the the mandate. The expulsion of Palestinian Arabs was seen as a political neccessity to establish a stable Jewish majority within the newly-founded Israeli state.

The expulsion of Jews from the Arab countries did not change that neccesity.


why is it not acceptable for Jews (a mixture of Holocaust survivors and refugees pushed out of Arab countries by anti-semitism) to establish a state for their own safety when they are being persecuted in every other Arab country?

Because of the neccessary expulsions and ethnic cleansing neccessary to forge such a state in an area of land that was a) not empty, and b) primarily populated by Arabs, who needed to be expelled to establish a majority-Jewish state.


Why are the rights of Palestinian refugees rights more important to you than Jewish refugees?

If Jewish refugees wished to return to the Arab countries then they should have every right to, as should the Palestinians to return to their own countries.


Israel is the victim not the root of all evil.

Israel is not a &#39;victim&#39; it is has actively violated the most basic principles of international law and basic human rights, as catalogued by every mainstream human rights group in the word for decades.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by graffic+--> (graffic)Why is the Nationialsm and self determination of 400,000 Palestinians more justified and important to you than the Nationialsm and self-determination of 800,000 Jewish refugees + Holocaust survivors?[/b]
The numbers arent the issue. The issue is that the Palestinians were in charge of the land before the zionists went back in 1946. The second issue is that they didnt apply peaceful means, which is inconsistent with the zionist version of events that the land was not already occupied.

graffic

Why are the rights of Palestinian refugees rights more important to you than Jewish refugees?
Not all jews are zionist ... http://www.nkusa.org/
...and by a significant proportion a lot feel no need to emmigrate to a land where they would be in danger anyway.


EDIT: Typo.

[graffic]

The forced deportation of Jews from the Middle East was neither the trigger nor the cause of the expulsion of Palestinian Arabs from the the mandate. The expulsion of Palestinian Arabs was seen as a political neccessity to establish a stable Jewish majority within the newly-founded Israeli state.

Exactly, and why do you think Israel needed a Jewish majority?


The expulsion of Jews from the Arab countries did not change that neccesity.

No, but my point is that why are the Jews at fault for creating a homeland when they are being persecuted in every other Arab country?

Why are the Jews wrong for expelling Arabs but the Arabs are not wrong for expelling the Jews?


Because of the neccessary expulsions and ethnic cleansing neccessary to forge such a state in an area of land that was a) not empty, and b) primarily populated by Arabs, who needed to be expelled to establish a majority-Jewish state.

Its either wrong or its right.

Jews were persecuted in every Arab country and in Europe. They return to their homeland and establish a state - why are the Palestinians justified in building their own state at the expense of Israel "because" they have been under occupation (which is debatable) for x amount of years.

Why is the suffering Palestinians have endured enough to justify them their own state? Why does absolutely nothing in your book justify the Jews to build their own state?


If Jewish refugees wished to return to the Arab countries then they should have every right to, as should the Palestinians to return to their own countries.

Neither groups would find it easy to do just that.

Palestinians are not accepted into their neighbouring Arab states because the Arabs are using the refugees as a weapon against Israel.

Jordan is the only Arab country where Palestinians as a group can become citizens.


“The Arab States do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don&#39;t give a damn whether the refugees live or die.”

No Jew in their right mind would leave Israel (the most developed and democratic country in the Middle East) for an Arab country. Especially when you consider the amount of anti-semitism in the Arab world.

[graffic]

The numbers arent the issue. The issue is that the Palestinians were in charge of the land before the zionists went back in 1946. The second issue is that they didnt apply peaceful means, which is inconsistent with the zionist version of events that the land was already occupied.

Different people have lived in the land for centuries, why do the Palestinians have a greater claim to the land than the Jews? Especially considering the fact that there has never been a Palestinian state yet there was once a Jewish state Israel. Arab states also occupy 90% of the middle East.

[Revolution Until Victory]

please just ignore graffic. He&#39;s going in his trollish circles yet again.


Exactly, and why do you think Israel needed a Jewish majority?

The issue here isn&#39;t why, but how.


No, but my point is that why are the Jews at fault for creating a homeland when they are being persecuted in every other Arab country?

They are at fault for making a mistake. Simple. A persectuion they suffer by others doesn&#39;t justifiy their mistake. Two wrongs don&#39;t make a right. The Zionsit colonizers are at fault for establishing a Zionist settler-colony on the lands, homes, properties, ruins, and expense of the Palestinian Arabs. Nothing justifiys this colonial agression. The issue of "arab persecution" is a typical Zionist exageration. first of all, before the Zionist colonial invasion, Arabs and Jews were living in peace through out the arab world. So it was the Zionist colony that was the reason for any latter problems between Arabs and Jews in the Arab world, not the other way around. The Jewish people weren&#39;t being persecuted in the Arab world before Zionist colonialism, rather after it.


Why are the Jews wrong for expelling Arabs but the Arabs are not wrong for expelling the Jews?

1. True, there were Jews expelled, but many others were terrorized by Zionist terrrorists in false-flag operations, in such places as Iraq and Egypt. Many Jews left coz of persuation by Zionists, forced expulsion by Zionists, and terrorist attacks by Zionists on Jewish temples.

2. It was wrong to expell any Jewish person from any Arab country. Who said it was ok?


Jews were persecuted in every Arab country and in Europe.

1. no, the Jewish people were persectued in Europe, not in every Arab country before Zionist colonialism.

2. Even if that was true, 2 wrongs don&#39;t make a right. The operssion they might face doesn&#39;t justifiy any opression they might inflict on others.


They return to their homeland

They didn&#39;t "return" to "thier homeland". You can&#39;t show up after 2000 years claiming "I was once here and now I&#39;m back&#33;&#33;&#33; get off your land, thanks for watching it for me". Zionist colonizers invaded the homeland of the Palestinian Arabs and colonized it.


and establish a state -

more like a racist settler-colony.


why are the Palestinians justified in building their own state at the expense of Israel "because" they have been under occupation (which is debatable) for x amount of years.

What the fuck are you talking about??

The Palestinian Arabs have the right for self-determination on all of thier homeland. Palestine from the river to the sea. They are not building it on the expense of anyone.


Why is the suffering Palestinians have endured enough to justify them their own state?

what? no one here was talking about the suffering. The Palestinian Arabs have a right to a state derived from the right of self-determination. Nothing to do with any suffering they might have endured.


Why does absolutely nothing in your book justify the Jews to build their own state

because you don&#39;t give the right to people to establish thier states based on the suffering they have experienced. It is based on the right of self-determination.
The Zionists have no right to establish a settler-colony on the expense and ruins of the Palestinian Arabs. No amount of suffering can justifiy this.


Neither groups would find it easy to do just that.

It isn&#39;t about what is easy and not. It is about justice and rights.


No Jew in their right mind would leave Israel (the most developed and democratic country in the Middle East) for an Arab country.

1. That&#39;s an old one. Israel is a racist settler-colony not a democracy

2. through out the Arab world, with few exeptions, Jews are protected and not discriminated against from Morocco to Syria to Bahrain.


Different people have lived in the land for centuries, why do the Palestinians have a greater claim to the land than the Jews?

Because the Jewish people were once there over 2000 years ago. How on earth can they "come back" after this and have a greater claim to the land than those who have been living there for over a thousand years and thier ancestors, the Cannanites, were the first inhabitants, imigratting from the Arabian penensula?

[graffic]

A persectuion they suffer by others doesn&#39;t justifiy their mistake. Two wrongs don&#39;t make a right. The Zionsit colonizers are at fault for establishing a Zionist settler-colony on the lands, homes, properties, ruins, and expense of the Palestinian Arabs.

Your whole argument is based on "two wrongs make a right"

How are Palestinians today justified in building their own state at the expense of the lands, homes, properties, and ruins of 7.2 Million Israelis - of whom the vast majority have nothing to do with the conflict.

Jews living in Israel are not "colonisers" either, they are citizens born into the nation of Israel and have nothing to do with stealing or dispossing anyone.



So it was the Zionist colony that was the reason for any latter problems between Arabs and Jews in the Arab world, not the other way around.

Thats completely false. I have no reason to provide evidence for this, it doesnt matter which side of the conflict you are on, anyone with any knowledge of Middle East history will tell you this is wrong.


The Jewish people weren&#39;t being persecuted in the Arab world before Zionist colonialism, rather after it.

Not only is that completely wrong, it also contradicts what you said further down in your own post:


True, there were Jews expelled



The Palestinian Arabs have the right for self-determination on all of their homeland.

How can you call yourself a revolutionary leftist and talk this Nationialist and racist drivel at the same time.

Not once have I claimed Israel is the Jews and the Jews only land, it is anyones land. I am opposed to Arab expansionism destroying the only Jewish state in the Middle East, I&#39;m not claiming that it is the Jews land and knowone elses - the Jews have historical and cultural ties there which is why the state was made there. It isnt "their" land. That sort of logic is inheritantly racist, claiming that certain races of people have a right to certain parts of land.



2. through out the Arab world, with few exeptions, Jews are protected and not discriminated against from Morocco to Syria to Bahrain.

Most Arab states are ruled by oppressive, dictatorial regimes, which deny their citizens basic freedoms of political expression, speech, and press.


The Arab Human Development Report published by a group of Arab researchers from the UN Development Program concluded that out of the seven regions of the world, Arab countries had the lowest freedom score. They also had the lowest ranking for "voice and accountability," a measure of various aspects of the political process, civil liberties, political rights and independence of the media.

If I was a female Israeli I would prefer to live in Israel where I would be treated as a normal citizen not as a second class citizen. There are understandable worrys for Jews choosing to live in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen.

Here are just a few examples;

Algeria: In 1994 , the terrorist Armed Islamic Group - GIA declared its intention to eliminate Jews from Algeria. Following the announcement, many Jews left Algeria and the single remaining synagogue was abandoned. All other synagogues had previously been taken over for use as mosques.

Egypt: Anti-Semitism is rampant in the government-controlled press, and increased in late 2000 and 2001 following the outbreak of violence in Israel and the territories. In April 2001, columnist Ahmed Ragheb lamented Hitler’s failure to finish the job of annihilating the Jews. In May 2001, an article in Al-Akhbar attacked Europeans and Americans for believing in the false Holocaust.

Iran: There is too much to wright about Iran, the president is a publicly known Holocaust denier.


At least 13 Jews have been executed in Iran since the Islamic revolution 19 years ago, most of them for either religious reasons or their connection to Israel. For example, in May 1998, Jewish businessman Ruhollah Kakhodah-Zadeh was hanged in prison without a public charge or legal proceeding, apparently for assisting Jews to emigrate

Iraq: Most Jews barely leave their homes at all for fear of being kidnapped or executed, and look for an opportunity to definitely leave the country.

Link (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/02/AR2006100201317.html?referrer=emailarticle)

Lebanon: Because of the current political situation, Jews are unable to openly practice Judaism. In 2004, only 1 out of 5,000 Lebanese Jewish citizens registered to vote participated in the municipal elections. Virtually all of those registered have died or fled the country. The lone Jewish voter said that most of the community consists of old women.

Libya: Thousands of Jews fled the country after Libya was granted independence and membership in the Arab League in 1951. After the Six-Day War, the Jewish population of 7,000 was again subjected to pogroms in which 18 were killed, and many more injured, sparking a near-total exodus that left fewer than 100 Jews in Libya.

I hope you take your comment back RUV that Jews are not discriminated in any Arab countries. I will provide more evidence that anti-semtism exists and stops jews living in the other countries listed if you want me too.

---------------

This proves that it is completely ignorant to say that Jewish refugees would be happy to return to their native Arab countrys. It doesnt prove that anti-semitism existed before Israel but I&#39;ll prove that to you aswell if you want.

[Revolution Until Victory]

Your whole argument is based on "two wrongs make a right"

lol, my whole refutation is based on "2 wrongs don&#39;t make a right" coz YOUR whole argument is based on 2 wrongs make a rigth&#33;&#33;&#33;


How are Palestinians today justified in building their own state at the expense of the lands, homes, properties, and ruins of 7.2 Million Israelis - of whom the vast majority have nothing to do with the conflict.

here we get to the really ridiculous crap. The palestinians have a right to practice their right to self-dermination on all of thier homeland: Palestine for the river to the sea. It will not be on the expense of anyone. Those are not Zionist lands, homes, and properties (needless to say, Zionist owned homes and properties will not be toched, i&#39;m talking of the lands, homes, farms, and properties of the Palestinain Arabs). The vast majority of the Zionists have everything to do with the conflict. In fact, they are the ones that got the most to do with the conflict since they are the colonizers. A colonial experience would never work without the colonizers; the army are their to protect the colonizers. So the Zionist colonizers have to do with the conflict more than anyone, including the military.


Jews living in Israel are not "colonisers" either, they are citizens born into the nation of Israel and have nothing to do with stealing or dispossing anyone.

I really have no idea why would I accept to go around in your trollish circles again. Anyways, this will hopefully be the last time. Being born into the settler-colony doesn&#39;t deny they are colonizers, this was the case all over the former colonies throughout Africa and Asia, including settler-colonies that have lasted way way more than "Israel".
The Zionist colonizers of today have everything to do with dispossesion and theft. If I steel a car and give it to another one, both me and him would be thieves. That other person can&#39;t say "I didn&#39;t steal it". The Zionst colonizers are stealing and colonizing Palestinian lands, homes, farms, and properites and denying the Palestinian Arabs the right to return.


How can you call yourself a revolutionary leftist and talk this Nationialist and racist drivel at the same time.

yet more lunatic ignorant shit.

This got nothing to do with racism or reactionary nationalism. You claim Palestine belong to the jews based on myths and rituals, I claim Palestin belong to the Palestinian Arabs based on recognized documents and land deeds recognized by the UN. Two different thinga. While I completely oppose private ownership of the means of production, this in no way mean I will allow a bourgeousie colonizer to steal it and own it instead. My goal is workers owning the means of production, not imperialsits and colonizers doing so&#33;&#33;
If you have noticed, I always recognized the fact that the Zionist colonizers legally own around 5.8% of Palestine.


Not once have I claimed Israel is the Jews and the Jews only land, it is anyones land

no its not. I believe the means of production should be in the hand of the producers to prevent exploitation and alienation. However, we live in a current capilaist world in which what I believe isn&#39;t a reality. I reapte, opposing private ownership of the means of production doesn&#39;t mean accepting the colonization other people and the theft of their lands by the colonizers and imperialists.


I am opposed to Arab expansionism destroying the only Jewish state in the Middle East

Arab expansion??

that was funny.

Reminds of me of the Indian expansion to destroy the only Biritsh-indian colony in Asia, or the Algerian expansion to destroy the only French-Algerian colony in Africa :rolleyes:


I&#39;m not claiming that it is the Jews land and knowone elses

from a capitalist poin of view, and from the point of view of the reality we live in today, you have a right to claim what belongs to the owners of the land of Palestine as belonging to those owners only, who happen to be Jewish. This is legally accepted. The Zionist colonizers own 5.8% of Palestine. This is what they legally own and is thier land and not anyone else&#39;s.


the Jews have historical and cultural ties there which is why the state was made there.

stop using this pathetic excuse. Any people can claim "cultural and historical ties" to any place and setup thier settler-colony. The Palestinian Arabs can cliam "cultural and historical ties" to Spain and Portugal and creat a settler-colony.


It isnt "their" land.

It is their land based on legally recognized documents by the UN and land deeds. It isn&#39;t based on race. Same way as 5.8% of Palestine is Zionist owned and is perfectly "their" land. (again, that&#39;s the world we live in today, but I totally oppose it)


That sort of logic is inheritantly racist, claiming that certain races of people have a right to certain parts of land.

it&#39;s your own "logic" that&#39;s inheritly racist and stupid. Certian parts of the land belong to certain people who have land deeds documents recognized by the UN. It got nothing to do with race. 5.8% of Palestine happned to be legally purchased by Zionists, which means this part belongs to them. Nothing racist in it.


Most Arab states are ruled by oppressive, dictatorial regimes, which deny their citizens basic freedoms of political expression, speech, and press.

completley agree with you.


and concering you copy and paste nonsense, do you think, I, or anyone for that matter, take your "sources" and utter crap seriously??

I still can&#39;t understand why did I actually respond to you.

[Handala]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 02:03 pm
Why dont you have Palestinian charge sheet as well? It is only fair if you dont wish to be seen as biased. Or are all the Palestinian Islamist Nationalist scum perfect saints to you?
DEATH TO ZIONISM&#33; AND DEATH TO ISLAMISM&#33;
Well, the Palestinian Islamist Nationalist are not fighting Israelies or other ppl to seek their Empire. They are fighting them to gain their freedom. So let&#39;s please distinguish and understand those brigades ideas and thoughts before attacking them.

[Handala]

Originally posted by [email protected] 20, 2007 06:17 pm

A persectuion they suffer by others doesn&#39;t justifiy their mistake. Two wrongs don&#39;t make a right. The Zionsit colonizers are at fault for establishing a Zionist settler-colony on the lands, homes, properties, ruins, and expense of the Palestinian Arabs.

Your whole argument is based on "two wrongs make a right"

How are Palestinians today justified in building their own state at the expense of the lands, homes, properties, and ruins of 7.2 Million Israelis - of whom the vast majority have nothing to do with the conflict.

Jews living in Israel are not "colonisers" either, they are citizens born into the nation of Israel and have nothing to do with stealing or dispossing anyone.



So it was the Zionist colony that was the reason for any latter problems between Arabs and Jews in the Arab world, not the other way around.

Thats completely false. I have no reason to provide evidence for this, it doesnt matter which side of the conflict you are on, anyone with any knowledge of Middle East history will tell you this is wrong.


The Jewish people weren&#39;t being persecuted in the Arab world before Zionist colonialism, rather after it.

Not only is that completely wrong, it also contradicts what you said further down in your own post:


True, there were Jews expelled



The Palestinian Arabs have the right for self-determination on all of their homeland.

How can you call yourself a revolutionary leftist and talk this Nationialist and racist drivel at the same time.

Not once have I claimed Israel is the Jews and the Jews only land, it is anyones land. I am opposed to Arab expansionism destroying the only Jewish state in the Middle East, I&#39;m not claiming that it is the Jews land and knowone elses - the Jews have historical and cultural ties there which is why the state was made there. It isnt "their" land. That sort of logic is inheritantly racist, claiming that certain races of people have a right to certain parts of land.



2. through out the Arab world, with few exeptions, Jews are protected and not discriminated against from Morocco to Syria to Bahrain.

Most Arab states are ruled by oppressive, dictatorial regimes, which deny their citizens basic freedoms of political expression, speech, and press.


The Arab Human Development Report published by a group of Arab researchers from the UN Development Program concluded that out of the seven regions of the world, Arab countries had the lowest freedom score. They also had the lowest ranking for "voice and accountability," a measure of various aspects of the political process, civil liberties, political rights and independence of the media.

If I was a female Israeli I would prefer to live in Israel where I would be treated as a normal citizen not as a second class citizen. There are understandable worrys for Jews choosing to live in Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen.

Here are just a few examples;

Algeria: In 1994 , the terrorist Armed Islamic Group - GIA declared its intention to eliminate Jews from Algeria. Following the announcement, many Jews left Algeria and the single remaining synagogue was abandoned. All other synagogues had previously been taken over for use as mosques.

Egypt: Anti-Semitism is rampant in the government-controlled press, and increased in late 2000 and 2001 following the outbreak of violence in Israel and the territories. In April 2001, columnist Ahmed Ragheb lamented Hitler’s failure to finish the job of annihilating the Jews. In May 2001, an article in Al-Akhbar attacked Europeans and Americans for believing in the false Holocaust.

Iran: There is too much to wright about Iran, the president is a publicly known Holocaust denier.


At least 13 Jews have been executed in Iran since the Islamic revolution 19 years ago, most of them for either religious reasons or their connection to Israel. For example, in May 1998, Jewish businessman Ruhollah Kakhodah-Zadeh was hanged in prison without a public charge or legal proceeding, apparently for assisting Jews to emigrate

Iraq: Most Jews barely leave their homes at all for fear of being kidnapped or executed, and look for an opportunity to definitely leave the country.

Link (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/02/AR2006100201317.html?referrer=emailarticle)

Lebanon: Because of the current political situation, Jews are unable to openly practice Judaism. In 2004, only 1 out of 5,000 Lebanese Jewish citizens registered to vote participated in the municipal elections. Virtually all of those registered have died or fled the country. The lone Jewish voter said that most of the community consists of old women.

Libya: Thousands of Jews fled the country after Libya was granted independence and membership in the Arab League in 1951. After the Six-Day War, the Jewish population of 7,000 was again subjected to pogroms in which 18 were killed, and many more injured, sparking a near-total exodus that left fewer than 100 Jews in Libya.

I hope you take your comment back RUV that Jews are not discriminated in any Arab countries. I will provide more evidence that anti-semtism exists and stops jews living in the other countries listed if you want me too.

---------------

This proves that it is completely ignorant to say that Jewish refugees would be happy to return to their native Arab countrys. It doesnt prove that anti-semitism existed before Israel but I&#39;ll prove that to you aswell if you want.
You can&#39;t judge the Palestinians patriots&#39; actions with those from the Israelies, and you can&#39;t compare their fighting and defense to those from the Israelis. Just because Israelies are OCCUPAYING their country, invaded it, killed their people and forced millions to leave the country.

[graffic]

here we get to the really ridiculous crap. The palestinians have a right to practice their right to self-dermination on all of thier homeland: Palestine for the river to the sea. It will not be on the expense of anyone.

Yes it will, I repeat it will be at the expense, lands and homes of 7.2 Million Israelis.


Those are not Zionist lands, homes, and properties (needless to say, Zionist owned homes and properties will not be toched, i&#39;m talking of the lands, homes, farms, and properties of the Palestinain Arabs).

You have continuely made clear you want the "total eradication" of Israel.

They are Zionist lands homes and properties, Israel is just the same as any other country the U.S, Japan etc.



The vast majority of the Zionists have everything to do with the conflict. In fact, they are the ones that got the most to do with the conflict since they are the colonizers. A colonial experience would never work without the colonizers; the army are their to protect the colonizers. So the Zionist colonizers have to do with the conflict more than anyone, including the military.

So people who are born into Israel are thieves and colonisers?

You believe in killing Non-combatents?



The Zionist colonizers of today have everything to do with dispossesion and theft. If I steel a car and give it to another one, both me and him would be thieves.

Not all the land is stolen though, this is pathetic.



If I steel a car and give it to another one, both me and him would be thieves. That other person can&#39;t say "I didn&#39;t steal it".

I just sprayed my coffee all over my keyboard after reading this

If you steel a car and give it to someone, the person recieving it has a choice whether to take it or not. Israeli babies dont get asked whether they want to be born and brought up in Israel&#33;


You claim Palestine belong to the jews based on myths and rituals,

rituals? Why is the guy not banned?



I claim Palestin belong to the Palestinian Arabs based on recognized documents and land deeds recognized by the UN.

Don&#39;t be stupid its not as black and white as that.



and concering you copy and paste nonsense, do you think, I, or anyone for that matter, take your "sources" and utter crap seriously??

Yes RUV all the evidence i researched and posted of anti-semitism in the Arab world its all fiction. Keep singing with your fingers in your ears nutjob, your a disgrace to Palestinians and the Palestinian cause.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21, 2007 09:02 am

here we get to the really ridiculous crap. The palestinians have a right to practice their right to self-dermination on all of thier homeland: Palestine for the river to the sea. It will not be on the expense of anyone.

Yes it will, I repeat it will be at the expense, lands and homes of 7.2 Million Israelis.
...and yet, only at the expense of their national identity. I wouldn&#39;t worry too much if the U.S. became subsumed into another state, abolishing apartheid conditions in the act.

Why do Israelis have to leave their homes for peace to prevail? I&#39;m wouldn&#39;t be too surprised if some of the more recent settlements would be dismantled, but that is hardly as bad as continuing the apartheid conditions and barring Arabs and Palestinian - sympathetic Jews from Israel. When you take one man&#39;s house / land and give it to another person, who in turn lives in it for years, "justice" will certainly be grey. None of the settlers, however violent and racist they often are, deserve to lose their homes; but when they are products of theft and agents of irritation for the region, they are at odds with the peace process.

The way to peace is NOT, and NEVER WILL BE in dividing Jews and Arabs. Unfortunately, the Israaeli government, some major Palestinian organizations and most of the western world seems to think that it is a racial issue. It&#39;s not.

A girl I know was talking to a Palestinian family who had lost their child in the conflict. She asked them if they liked Jews; they replied that they didn&#39;t. Then she asked if they would like Jews if they could live peacefully beside them. This confused them; Palestinian families, especially close to Jewish settlements, are routinely harassed by violent Jewish Nationalists. But they said that if it were possible, they would support it. She told them then that she was Jewish. They were surprised, but still acted friendly. In the end, they let her stay at their home with them, since she needed a place to sleep that night.

Of course, on the other side, the Israeli media has filled the population with so much fear that its no wonder that settlers are violent. But despite all this fear and warmongering, most Israelis support a peaceful resolution. They are tired of war; it has not and will not accomplish anything for them. And on the Palestinian side, most protest against Israeli oppression is peaceful, but that is not aired. They, also, overwhelmingly support peace against war.


I read from various Israeli and Palestinian news sources, as well as personal accounts on a daily basis. That is why the messages preached here are so confusing to me. Why do some of you support random violence against Israeli citizens? Why do others among you try to defend the overwhelmingly negative actions of Israel? Who cares if someone is a settler; perhaps even a violent one - isn&#39;t living in the same house for years worth something? Isn&#39;t losing your house, even 60 years ago, also worth some recognition? Why should Palestine and Israel be divided?

Maybe knowing people there changes my perspective, but I just cannot possibly fathom how a discussion on the right of return can be reduced to a statement that more or less says that Jews and Arabs can&#39;t live together peacefully. That, to me, is very condescending. And it is even more disturbing that atrocities on either side are justified by political arguments.


Yes RUV all the evidence i researched and posted of anti-semitism in the Arab world its all fiction. Keep singing with your fingers in your ears nutjob, your a disgrace to Palestinians and the Palestinian cause.

Obviously, there has been antisemitism for centuries. This includes the Arab and Persian nations. But it was not only stoked, but created as a whole new anti-semitism when militant Jewish Nationalists started colonizing Palestine, as early as the 1910. Of course, this culminated into the formation of the Israeli state, with some help from anti-semitism in Europe and Russia in particular. However, in Palestine in particular, Jews and Arabs lived side by side very peacefully, in fact there were many Jews in Palestine who were against Nationalist Zionism for the very reason that it divided Jews from Arabs where such distinctions were inappropriate and wrong.

[graffic]

Why do Israelis have to leave their homes for peace to prevail?

First of all an Arab state is not the answer to peace, even RUV admits he has no interest in peace. However if there was an Arab state yes Israelis would most likely have to leave in order to achieve a nationial identity Arab state.


When you take one man&#39;s house / land and give it to another person, who in turn lives in it for years, "justice" will certainly be grey. None of the settlers, however violent and racist they often are, deserve to lose their homes; but when they are products of theft and agents of irritation for the region, they are at odds with the peace process.

Products of theft - yes to a certain degree. They are not responsible for the way Arabs have reacted to a Jewish state though.


The way to peace is NOT, and NEVER WILL BE in dividing Jews and Arabs. Unfortunately, the Israaeli government, some major Palestinian organizations and most of the western world seems to think that it is a racial issue. It&#39;s not.

Get this:

The Israeli government does not want to seperate anyone. However they are forced to, to protect their nation and security around them. Palestinian Nationalism backed by Islamic fundamentalism however does want to separate people.

It is quite clearly a religous and racial issue, the solution is that both sides should acknowledge their wrongs and accept one another. I have repeatadly acknowledged the major fuck ups the Israeli government has had over the years, and I have condemned violence against Palestinians. RUV and other Palestinian Nationialsts have done quite the contrary however, they continue to deny Hamas are anti-semitic and they continue to blame Israel as the cause of barbaric terroism against non-combatents.

There should be two states beside each other giving the self-determination to both Palestinians and Jews.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 04:13 pm

Why do Israelis have to leave their homes for peace to prevail?

First of all an Arab state is not the answer to peace, even RUV admits he has no interest in peace. However if there was an Arab state yes Israelis would most likely have to leave in order to achieve a nationial identity Arab state.
It doesn&#39;t have to be Arab identity; I don&#39;t think anyone is saying that. It would be Palestinian / Israeli identity, in other words regional rather than ethnic.



When you take one man&#39;s house / land and give it to another person, who in turn lives in it for years, "justice" will certainly be grey. None of the settlers, however violent and racist they often are, deserve to lose their homes; but when they are products of theft and agents of irritation for the region, they are at odds with the peace process.

Products of theft - yes to a certain degree. They are not responsible for the way Arabs have reacted to a Jewish state though.
That theft, and the perpetuation of new theft and discrimination is the primary reason for the response.



The way to peace is NOT, and NEVER WILL BE in dividing Jews and Arabs. Unfortunately, the Israaeli government, some major Palestinian organizations and most of the western world seems to think that it is a racial issue. It&#39;s not.

Get this:

The Israeli government does not want to seperate anyone. However they are forced to, to protect their nation and security around them. Palestinian Nationalism backed by Islamic fundamentalism however does want to separate people.
Really? Why does Israel have the "right of return" for Jews but not Arab Palestinians? Why are they trying to maintain an "ethnically Jewish" majority within the state? That is obviously discrimination and an attempt to split two peoples.


It is quite clearly a religous and racial issue, the solution is that both sides should acknowledge their wrongs and accept one another. I have repeatadly acknowledged the major fuck ups the Israeli government has had over the years, and I have condemned violence against Palestinians. RUV and other Palestinian Nationialsts have done quite the contrary however, they continue to deny Hamas are anti-semitic and they continue to blame Israel as the cause of barbaric terroism against non-combatents.

There should be two states beside each other giving the self-determination to both Palestinians and Jews.
...and you have denied many of the crimes of Israel. It is very easy to fall into calling things black and white, but also very dangerous.

However, it is NOT an ethnic or religious issue. Those are only the faces that the sides like to show (not always, but often). And it is usually talked about as if it was about religon, rarely ethnicity. But its quite simply not. The Israelis feel threatened because of the media and terrorist attacks; the arabs feel threatened for those exact same reasons as well as others. Their is a culture of fear and paranoia there which is probably even stronger than that seen in the U.S. right now, and religious extremism is used to mask the fear that these people have that they might "have to" kill or be killed. Race is little more than a front; there are real, material and psychological reasons for the fighting in Palestine / Israel, and religion plays a minor role in the actual compulsion for violence.

[graffic]

It doesn&#39;t have to be Arab identity; I don&#39;t think anyone is saying that. It would be Palestinian / Israeli identity, in other words regional rather than ethnic.

The current Israeli state is the most democratic state in those terms. Arab Israelis have virtually all the same rights as Jewish Israelis, the threat of terroism prevents Arabs from having completely equal rights to Jews. Its still the most positive and democratic state in the Middle East in those terms though.


That theft, and the perpetuation of new theft and discrimination is the primary reason for the response.


The response to Jews building a state on "Arab land" is completely out of porportion to what the Jews and the British did.


But its quite simply not. The Israelis feel threatened because of the media and terrorist attacks; the arabs feel threatened for those exact same reasons as well as others. Their is a culture of fear and paranoia there which is probably even stronger than that seen in the U.S. right now, and religious extremism is used to mask the fear that these people have that they might "have to" kill or be killed. Race is little more than a front; there are real, material and psychological reasons for the fighting in Palestine / Israel, and religion plays a minor role in the actual compulsion for violence.

If the reasons for conflict are not religous and race ones, what are they Demogorgon?

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23, 2007 05:44 pm

It doesn&#39;t have to be Arab identity; I don&#39;t think anyone is saying that. It would be Palestinian / Israeli identity, in other words regional rather than ethnic.

The current Israeli state is the most democratic state in those terms. Arab Israelis have virtually all the same rights as Jewish Israelis, the threat of terroism prevents Arabs from having completely equal rights to Jews. Its still the most positive and democratic state in the Middle East in those terms though.
Western democracy is a joke, no different than the faux democracies in the rest of the middle east. And there certainly are discriminatory laws, most importantly the ant-arab policies on passing through and settling in Palestine and Israel.



That theft, and the perpetuation of new theft and discrimination is the primary reason for the response.


The response to Jews building a state on "Arab land" is completely out of porportion to what the Jews and the British did.
The Jews didn&#39;t do it, a select set of militant Zionists did with the backing of Soviet, English and U.S. money.



But its quite simply not. The Israelis feel threatened because of the media and terrorist attacks; the arabs feel threatened for those exact same reasons as well as others. Their is a culture of fear and paranoia there which is probably even stronger than that seen in the U.S. right now, and religious extremism is used to mask the fear that these people have that they might "have to" kill or be killed. Race is little more than a front; there are real, material and psychological reasons for the fighting in Palestine / Israel, and religion plays a minor role in the actual compulsion for violence.

If the reasons for conflict are not religous and race ones, what are they Demogorgon?
..Dean?

They are, for one, occupation, human rights abuses, terrorism, imperialism... the list goes on. Israel has nothign to do with Judaism except in that it seeks to put the Jews in a ghetto away fromt the rest of society. The entire backing of the ISraeli government is about maintaining power, influence and intelligence in the middle east. In a word, AIPAC is responsible for the conflict.

[graffic]

Western democracy is a joke

There is alot that could be better yes.



no different than the faux democracies in the rest of the middle east.

er.. <_< saying things like that really make it hard for me to take you seriously.


And there certainly are discriminatory laws, most importantly the ant-arab policies on passing through and settling in Palestine and Israel.

The laws in Israel are no different to the Church of England in the U.K or the Vatican in Italy. Claiming the Israeli government is running some sort of fucked up racist state hellbent on denying people freedom is completely baseless, Israel has no choice but to deny Arabs certain rights purely for security reasons.


They are, for one, occupation, human rights abuses, terrorism, imperialism... the list goes on.

Israel isnt an aid to US Imperialism, US Imperialism is an aid to Israel - (mainly because of the large Jewish-American population and other shared values and visons) keeping it alive, the argument that Israel is part of the Imperialist movement and destroying Israel is destroying a part of US Imperialism doesnt make sense. That doesnt matter anyway, the number of Palestinians opposing Israel in the name of anti-Imperialism is a minority compared to the number opposing Israel for religous reasons. As was reflected in the recent elections.

It also sickens me when people say the terroism and barbarity is an understandable reaction to the "occupation".

What is Israel occupying? a miniscule section of Arab land (which the Jews have a legitimate claim too) - not a state. There never was a state called Palestine and the people living there were Arabs indistinguishable from Jordainians and Syrians. The Palestinian Arabs were the only group of refugees in world history who were not accepted into their native states. Arabs occupy 99% of the Middle East, Jews occupy 1/10 of the landmass, the "occupation" like everything Israel does is blown way out of proportion by anti-Israelites.

Your still missing an obvious fact dean, there was opposotion and violence towards Israel and Israelis before Israel had abused any Human rights, before Israel had done anything wrong. The reasons for the conflict are quite clearly race and relgion - mainly religon.


Israel has nothign to do with Judaism except in that it seeks to put the Jews in a ghetto away fromt the rest of society.

Religion doesnt play a major role in the Israeli government (unlike the Palestinian authority), but Judaism has fuck loads to do with Israeli culture and the people - Incase you didnt know the majority of people who live in Israel are Jewish ;)


The entire backing of the ISraeli government is about maintaining power, influence and intelligence in the middle east.

Prove this to me.

[Andy Bowden]

What is Israel occupying? a miniscule section of Arab land (which the Jews have a legitimate claim too) - not a state.

Israel has no legitimate claim to the West Bank or Gaza.

Supporting the occupation there on the basis of a historic connection that existed 2000 years ago (while ignoring 2000 years of non-Jewish settlement, and actively trying to deport and restrict the democratic rights of non Jews) is a nonsense that would be laughed out of any other territorial dispute in the world.

Imagine if the "historical connection" and "we were here 2000 years ago" argument was used in Yugoslavia for example.

The fact that Palestine has never previously existed as a state is not a reason to deny its independence now. The United States never existed until its revolution, East Timor never had independence till 1999. Palestinians now clearly form a national consciousness of their own, with a desire for a Palestinian state free from Israel and not a part of Jordan or Egypt.

If you don&#39;t support the rights of Palestinians to form a state where they form a majority (in the West Bank and Gaza) your not a left-winger and your not a democrat; you are tacticly supporting a military dictatorship which has no relationship to &#39;security&#39;.


The reasons for the conflict are quite clearly race and relgion - mainly religon.

Though obviously not the religious claims of Zionists who want to control an Arab majority West Bank against the will of its inhabitants...


Your still missing an obvious fact dean, there was opposotion and violence towards Israel and Israelis before Israel had abused any Human rights, before Israel had done anything wrong.

The inception of the Zionist movement had violence. You accepted earlier that what happened to the Arabs was ethnic cleansing but posed "But why did Israel need a Jewish majority though?" as if that somehow made it acceptable.


Israel has no choice but to deny Arabs certain rights purely for security reasons.

Yeah, like moving to Israel if they marry an Israeli citizen. If an Israeli marries a Jew and your ok though. This is the same justification (security) Gaddaffi et al used to expel their Jewish populations.


prove this to me

http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDisp...0&enZone=Views& (http://www.israel21c.org/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=Views%5El265&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&enVersion=0&enZone=Views&)

"Despite the troubling questions regarding Israel&#39;s strategic behavior in the summer of 2006, Washington still understands that Israel remains its most reliable ally in the Middle East and the eastern Mediterranean. There is no other state in the Middle East where an American airplane can count with certainty on being welcomed in the near future. Even American allies such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey may have second thoughts about hosting an American presence and all of them have a record of denying the US military use of their facilities. Moreover, the stability of their regimes cannot be taken for granted as all of them grapple with modernization and are threatened to various degrees by Islamic radicals.

Israel is one of the few countries in the world that does not see US primacy in international affairs as a troubling phenomenon. Unlike much of the rest of the world, Israel is not preoccupied with how to tame American power. In fact, Israeli foreign policy displays an unequivocal pro-American orientation.

Simply put in order to maintain its military occupation of captured arab territories/military strength and status of living for its citizens Israel needs vast US aid. The same cannot be said of all other Arab countries in the region; all of them are at risk of having their pro-US governments toppled, Israel is not.

[WWKMD?]

The laws in Israel are no different to the Church of England in the U.K or the Vatican in Italy.

Fuck the CoE vatican as well. they are both based on the same fucked up book of Bronze Age mythology that says that a certain sky-fairy gave a certain peice of land to a certain chosen people. When you base a state on Mythology, be it Christian, Islamic, or Jewish, it is bound to be messed up. Thats why the land needs to be both secular and multiethnic, Not purely Jewish nor Islamic or Christian.


Claiming the Israeli government is running some sort of fucked up racist state hellbent on denying people freedom is completely baseless, Israel has no choice but to deny Arabs certain rights purely for security reasons.


If you granted all Palestinians the same rights as all Israeli&#39;s, including the freedom to build and move around in their land as much as the Jews can, you would see these "security" issues completely dissappear. The Israeli&#39;s face far less security issues than the Palestinians, why should the Israeli&#39;s have more of a right to safety?

How is it fair that a friend of mine who was born in Gaza can not return to his homeland unless he gets a Canadian Citizenship? Was he a threat to security?

Israel isnt hellbent on making lives bad for Arabs, they arent doing this for shits and giggles. The Zionists dont really give a flying fuck about how many or few rights Palestinians have as long as they are not in Palestine. They wish to create a state based on Ethno-religious lines, and whether it is a Jewish state in Palestine or a White State in South Africa, the end result is the same: rights being denied to people not represented by the state. In South Africa, it was segregation to the fullest extreme, in Palestine it is a system of encouraging Palestinians to leave and never come back by making life unbearable under occupation. My friends family left when he was young, and I as a White Canadian can travel around in his country millions of times more easily than he could.

Justify that with your cryptoracist rhetoric.

[Revolution Until Victory]

Israel isnt an aid to US Imperialism, US Imperialism is an aid to Israel - (mainly because of the large Jewish-American population and other shared values and visons) keeping it alive, the argument that Israel is part of the Imperialist movement and destroying Israel is destroying a part of US Imperialism doesnt make sense

that&#39;s ridiculous. Like all of your "arguments".

The Zionist settler-colony was created as an imperilaist tool. It still is and will continue to be.


That doesnt matter anyway, the number of Palestinians opposing Israel in the name of anti-Imperialism is a minority compared to the number opposing Israel for religous reasons. As was reflected in the recent elections.

That&#39;s so pathetic its not even funny. The last "elections"?? which one? the one were only 1/3 of the entire Palestinian people were allowed to vote??
so lets say that 1/3 of the Palestinian people oppose Israel for relegious reasons (which is totall bullshit since less than half of the 1/3 voted for Hamas and they did so not for relegious reasons), how is that a majoirty? 1/3 is a majority?? :lol:

Hamas won not coz of relegion. There was only three real choices: PFLP, Hamas, and Fatah. Fatah were traitors and corrupt. We are left with Hamas and the PFLP. The PFLP during around the time of the elections had no leadership. It was completley destroyed by Israel. The secretary-general was assasinated, the new one was imprisoned, and even his deputy was imprisoned. Besides, Hamas runs massive socail services, while the PFLP, the only movment that doesn&#39;t recieve aid from the Arab states (coz it oppose them and aims at destroying them), unlike Hamas, didn&#39;t have the aid that would allow it to run those social services. The only obvious choice was Hamas.

The Palestinian Arabs oppose the Zionist settler-colony because of anti-imperilaism and anti-colonialism.


What is Israel occupying? a miniscule section of Arab land (which the Jews have a legitimate claim too)

the Zionist settler-colony colonize Palestine form the river to the sea of which it got no legitamite claim too. It colonize "Israel proper" and the West Bank and military occupy Gaza.

[WWKMD?]

I am of Canaanite ancestry, and my people lived there 4000 years ago before we were kicked out. The Canaanite people have suffered far too long without a state, so we should go back and re-establish Canaan. We have a legitimate claim to it because this is where our ancestors lived.





Now you do see the flaws in this logic, dont you graffic?

Your British, so should you not get off that land as the Celts belong there, not Anglo-Saxons?

[graffic]

Israel has no legitimate claim to the West Bank or Gaza.

Israel should withdraw to its pre-1967 borders.

Israel offered to withdraw from 97 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of Gaza, it is the rejection of that proposal, coupled with incessant Palestinian terrorism, that has forced Israeli troops to carry out operations in the territories.

The Palestinian authority should end the violence, reform its institutions, and elect new leaders so that peace talks may resume.


Supporting the occupation there on the basis of a historic connection that existed 2000 years ago (while ignoring 2000 years of non-Jewish settlement, and actively trying to deport and restrict the democratic rights of non Jews) is a nonsense that would be laughed out of any other territorial dispute in the world.

Imagine if the "historical connection" and "we were here 2000 years ago" argument was used in Yugoslavia for example.

Yeah because my whole case for Israel is based on the "historical ties" :huh: . I don&#39;t give a fuck about the historical ties to the land, the only time Ive mentioned them is in response to one of the many lies used to justify your cause "Israel has no ties to the land".



If you don&#39;t support the rights of Palestinians to form a state where they form a majority (in the West Bank and Gaza) your not a left-winger and your not a democrat

I support the widely recognised two state - solution. You have misunderstood me.



Yeah, like moving to Israel if they marry an Israeli citizen. If an Israeli marries a Jew and your ok though. This is the same justification (security) Gaddaffi et al used to expel their Jewish populations.

The exact same thing happens in every other state in the Middle East. There are stupid laws like this in Western countrys, you could analyse the law in the US or the UK and you would find flaws there also. The only people who talk about these laws are armchair activists like yourself who are sucked in by propaganda used in the west which paints an utterly false picture of Israel.

Why is it then that 80% of Palestinians admire the Israeli state the most? With the American system next best, followed by the French and then, distantly trailing, the Jordanian and Egyptian.



Israel is one of the few countries in the world that does not see US primacy in international affairs as a troubling phenomenon. Unlike much of the rest of the world, Israel is not preoccupied with how to tame American power. In fact, Israeli foreign policy displays an unequivocal pro-American orientation.

Why should they see the US as a troubling phenomenon, the US gives Israel aid. Why would they be hostile to US planes landing on Israel?


The same cannot be said of all other Arab countries in the region

The Palestinians recieve aid from China and Russia.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 24, 2007 09:11 pm

Western democracy is a joke

There is alot that could be better yes.



no different than the faux democracies in the rest of the middle east.

er.. <_< saying things like that really make it hard for me to take you seriously.
...and justifying racism for "security reasons" makes it hard to take you seriously.



And there certainly are discriminatory laws, most importantly the ant-arab policies on passing through and settling in Palestine and Israel.

The laws in Israel are no different to the Church of England in the U.K or the Vatican in Italy. Claiming the Israeli government is running some sort of fucked up racist state hellbent on denying people freedom is completely baseless, Israel has no choice but to deny Arabs certain rights purely for security reasons.
Ok. Israel is still racist and discriminatory. What did you plan to gain with that disgusting bit of apologetics?



They are, for one, occupation, human rights abuses, terrorism, imperialism... the list goes on.

Israel isnt an aid to US Imperialism, US Imperialism is an aid to Israel - (mainly because of the large Jewish-American population and other shared values and visons) keeping it alive, the argument that Israel is part of the Imperialist movement and destroying Israel is destroying a part of US Imperialism doesnt make sense. That doesnt matter anyway, the number of Palestinians opposing Israel in the name of anti-Imperialism is a minority compared to the number opposing Israel for religous reasons. As was reflected in the recent elections.

It also sickens me when people say the terroism and barbarity is an understandable reaction to the "occupation".
Why? Anti-Arabism in Israel is pretty understandable in the case of many Israelis. It doesn&#39;t make it less fucked up.


What is Israel occupying? a miniscule section of Arab land (which the Jews have a legitimate claim too) - not a state. There never was a state called Palestine and the people living there were Arabs indistinguishable from Jordainians and Syrians. The Palestinian Arabs were the only group of refugees in world history who were not accepted into their native states. Arabs occupy 99% of the Middle East, Jews occupy 1/10 of the landmass, the "occupation" like everything Israel does is blown way out of proportion by anti-Israelites.
So what? If A group took my home town, I&#39;d be fighting tooth and nail to get it back despite the fact that it only represents <1% of Virginian land, let alone the miniscule amount of land it means to the whole US.

Why do you think such little land might matter to me? Because it&#39;s my fucking home, not some arbitrary bit of land that a "race" has a right to. Why the fuck should I care how much land the Arbas occupy, or the Jews for that matter? I care only about whether or not someone will arbitrarily take someone else&#39;s house. I don&#39;t know why it&#39;s somehow justifiable for a "race to take land from another race" just because, well, it&#39;s only 1/10. What about the individual members of those races? I guess they don&#39;t matter to you. Once again, a human rights issue is turned into a racist one by comrade graffic.


Your still missing an obvious fact dean, there was opposotion and violence towards Israel and Israelis before Israel had abused any Human rights, before Israel had done anything wrong. The reasons for the conflict are quite clearly race and relgion - mainly religon.
No, it was about taking other human beings&#39; land. Why, in 1920, did Erich Fromm leave the Zionist movement and call the Zionists "no better than the swastika-bearers," after he had spent five years trying to encourage Jewish Nationalism? Not only that, but this extremely devout Jew turned to supporting the Palestinian cause. Why? because the Zionist colonizers were stealign land, taking over peaceful villages, and massacring people. But you&#39;re right, Israel hadin&#39;t abused human rights before the state was opposed - it was opposed long before, due to the human rights abuses of its supports prior to its creation. So there&#39;s your reason.



Israel has nothign to do with Judaism except in that it seeks to put the Jews in a ghetto away fromt the rest of society.

Religion doesnt play a major role in the Israeli government (unlike the Palestinian authority), but Judaism has fuck loads to do with Israeli culture and the people - Incase you didnt know the majority of people who live in Israel are Jewish ;)
How does that change that Israel is about putting the Jews in a compound, far away from the rest of the industrialized world?



The entire backing of the ISraeli government is about maintaining power, influence and intelligence in the middle east.

Prove this to me.
A huge portion of US intelligence on the middle east is gathered there. The Mossad is the largest / most powerful intelligence - gathering force in the world. Israel has repeatedly bombed other nations like Iraq and Iran when they have been at war with the U.S.

But no - they could care less about the U.S. or its power in the region. Sure, have another Soma.

[graffic]

...and justifying racism for "security reasons" makes it hard to take you seriously.

Why do you have an image of the Israeli prime minister masturbating furiously over checkpoints and the wall? You seem to think the Israeli government implements these laws purely to stoke the fire. Well theres no evidence in that, its a stupid and ignorant attempt to demonize Israel. I never have "justified" Israelis bulldozing Palestinian homes, in most cases the homes have been terroists so its been understandable however like any human run organisation the Israelis have made mistakes.

If I was to support someones house being bulldozed it still wouldnt be as fucked up as supporting someone blowing themselves up in a shopping centre to forward a medieval theocracy.

My problem is that you honestly think the Israeli government are inheritnantly racist and evil - the Arabs blowing themselves up are not, they are merely "fighting an oppressor" :lol:

Its trendy to be against the state and say stuff like "the IDF targets children&#33;". People who make these claims are usually deluded leftists who have no clue or connection to the conflict, so unless you have evidence to say that Israels government are purposefully racist I suggest you stop embarrising yourself. Its not funny anymore.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 26, 2007 07:14 am
Its trendy to be against the state and say stuff like "the IDF targets children&#33;". People who make these claims are usually deluded leftists who have no clue or connection to the conflict, so unless you have evidence to say that Israels government are purposefully racist I suggest you stop embarrising yourself. Its not funny anymore.
Trendy? I don&#39;t know what compels your racist rhetoric, but I can assure my interest in human rights is not about "trendiness."



...and justifying racism for "security reasons" makes it hard to take you seriously.

Why do you have an image of the Israeli prime minister masturbating furiously over checkpoints and the wall? You seem to think the Israeli government implements these laws purely to stoke the fire. Well theres no evidence in that, its a stupid and ignorant attempt to demonize Israel. I never have "justified" Israelis bulldozing Palestinian homes, in most cases the homes have been terroists so its been understandable however like any human run organisation the Israelis have made mistakes.
I don&#39;t All I&#39;m saying that Israel is encouraging racism in the media and by action it is actively racist. If you wanna say that is excusable, then good for you, but obviously you can&#39;t prove this to be incorrect.


If I was to support someones house being bulldozed it still wouldnt be as fucked up as supporting someone blowing themselves up in a shopping centre to forward a medieval theocracy.
Assuming the shopping centre has people in it, I agree. What&#39;s your point? You think I value Palestinian houses more than Israeli lives?? I would suggest you re-read the fourth post up of mine. In it, I clearly state that Israelis and Palestinians have equal right to live in the region. It seems your taking your criticism of someone else to a universal sense against Palestinian rights.


My problem is that you honestly think the Israeli government are inheritnantly racist and evil - the Arabs blowing themselves up are not, they are merely "fighting an oppressor" :lol:
Again, I never said anything like this. As I point out, "understandable" was never used by me as a moral justification. Furthermore, I don&#39;t think Israel is inherantly racist. That is another new criticism that is more a phantom than related to any real statements of mine.

[Andy Bowden]

Israel offered to withdraw from 97 percent of the West Bank and 100 percent of Gaza, it is the rejection of that proposal, coupled with incessant Palestinian terrorism, that has forced Israeli troops to carry out operations in the territories.

Source? If your reffering to the Barak offer, the land ceded was nowhere near 97% and was carved into 3 chunks, with no territorial links to one another.

If you could provide some maps, etc of what was offered from the Israeli foreign ministry website we might be able to ascertain what was actually offered.


don&#39;t give a fuck about the historical ties to the land, the only time Ive mentioned them is in response to one of the many lies used to justify your cause "Israel has no ties to the land".

Then why do you mention them? "Historical ties" is the same justification used for expansion from Hitler in Poland to the various wars in Yugoslavia.


The exact same thing happens in every other state in the Middle East. There are stupid laws like this in Western countrys, you could analyse the law in the US or the UK and you would find flaws there also. The only people who talk about these laws are armchair activists like yourself who are sucked in by propaganda used in the west which paints an utterly false picture of Israel.

What laws are there which disallow citizenship in a western country based on race? There arent any.

You talk about &#39;painting an utterly false picture of Israel&#39; but dont actually contest the fact that Israel discriminates on the basis of race, allowing those of Jewish ethnicity to marry and settle freely in Israel but not Arabs.


Why is it then that 80% of Palestinians admire the Israeli state the most?

In terms of how it treats its own citizens Israel does grant far more freedom of speech and freedom of assembly etc than the Saudis, Egyptians etc. The % does not deal with what Palestinians think of how Israel acts in the Occupied Territories.


The Palestinians recieve aid from China and Russia.

Which is an absolute pittance compared to what Israel recieves from the US. The two aren&#39;t remotely comparable, either in size or in nature.

[graffic]

Source? If your reffering to the Barak offer, the land ceded was nowhere near 97% and was carved into 3 chunks, with no territorial links to one another.

Camp David 2000 (http://palestinefacts.org/pf_1991to_now_campdavid_2000.php)

The offer gave the Palestinians the whole of Gaza and 95% of the West Bank + "Religious Sovereignty" over the Temple Mount.

Arafat and the Palestinians declined the offer.


Then why do you mention them? "Historical ties" is the same justification used for expansion from Hitler in Poland to the various wars in Yugoslavia.

The Palestinians claim to the land is purely a historical tie, just a more recent one.

The only time I mentioned them was in response to leftists claiming there are no ties whatsoever.


What laws are there which disallow citizenship in a western country based on race? There arent any.

You can&#39;t just get citizenship to any country easily. Israels policys are not unique in this way.


You talk about &#39;painting an utterly false picture of Israel&#39; but dont actually contest the fact that Israel discriminates on the basis of race

I&#39;m arguing that its completely unreasonable to criticise Israel on the issue of race, when compared to other states Israel is not alot different.


In terms of how it treats its own citizens Israel does grant far more freedom of speech and freedom of assembly etc than the Saudis, Egyptians etc. The % does not deal with what Palestinians think of how Israel acts in the Occupied Territories.

I&#39;m sorry did you personally do the survey yourself? 80% of Palestinians admire the Israeli state for what it does inside and outside of the Occupied Territories. This shows how illinformed and misguided you are in your understanding of the Palestinian people, in other words your more Palestinian than the Palestinians themselves.

[Andy Bowden]

You should really read what you link to,

http://palestinefacts.org/pf_1991to_now_campdavid_2000.php

The details were not disclosed formally, but according to media reports Barak&#39;s offer included:

*Israeli redeployment from 95% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip
*The creation of a Palestinian state in the areas of Israeli withdrawal
*The removal of isolated settlements and transfer of the land to Palestinian control
*Other Israeli land exchanged for West Bank settlements remaining under Israeli control
*Palestinian control over East Jerusalem, including most of the Old City
*"Religious Sovereignty" over the Temple Mount, replacing Israeli sovereignty in effect since 1967

So the details - ie the actual offer - were not formally revealed; they were only speculated in the media. The Israelis have not formally revealed Baraks offer because to do so would to contradict the propaganda myth they have created around it.


[b]The Palestinians claim to the land is purely a historical tie, just a more recent one.

Historical in that they live in the West Bank and Gaza, and were not settled there after 1967, as Israeli settlers were.


You can&#39;t just get citizenship to any country easily. Israels policys are not unique in this way.

Israels policy is unique in that it discriminates on race. Thousands of Arabs are granted citizenship in countries across the West, as racist as their laws, institutionalised their racism is in police, courts etc at least it does not immediately bar people citizenship on the basis of race the way Israel does.


I&#39;m arguing that its completely unreasonable to criticise Israel on the issue of race, when compared to other states Israel is not alot different.

Except that it is very very different, as shown above Israel discriminates on race.


80% of Palestinians admire the Israeli state for what it does inside and outside of the Occupied Territories.

If 80% of Palestinians supported the Israeli occupation, why do they continue to vote for parties like Fatah and Hamas which are opposed to it? Its not just that anti-occupation parties are dominant, theyre totally homogenous. There is no Palestinian movement of any kind that supports joining with Israel.

You might allege this is because they are repressed by Fatah etc, but if 8 out of 10 Palestinians supported them it would manifest itself in some way. As such it clearly doesnt.

If 8 out of 10 Palestinians did support the Israeli governments actions in the west bank Israel would have formally annexed the West Bank and Gaza decades ago; so that the 80% of Palestinians who support Israels occupation of the West Bank could vote for it in the Knesset.

Israel doesnt because even the most deluded Zionists know that the Palestinians support independence for the West Bank and Gaza, and there is near total unanimity against settlements, checkpoints, and the military occupation in general among Palestinians.

[graffic]

So the details - ie the actual offer - were not formally revealed; they were only speculated in the media. The Israelis have not formally revealed Baraks offer because to do so would to contradict the propaganda myth they have created around it.

So it was all a myth in your eyes then? :lol:


Historical in that they live in the West Bank and Gaza, and were not settled there after 1967, as Israeli settlers were.

Its still a Historical tie. So you support the Palestinian opinion that Jews should be barred from living in the West Bank?


Israels policy is unique in that it discriminates on race. Thousands of Arabs are granted citizenship in countries across the West, as racist as their laws, institutionalised their racism is in police, courts etc at least it does not immediately bar people citizenship on the basis of race the way Israel does.

The Israelis can&#39;t just give Palestinians full citizenship though. Thats absurd logic.


The security requirements of the nation, and a violent insurrection in the territories, forced Israel to impose restrictions on Arab residents

Do you dispute this? Do you believe Israel is morally and ethically wrong in doing this?

If Israel were to give Palestinians full citizenship, it would mean the territories had been annexed. Obviously no Israeli government has been prepared to take that step. The restrictions your referring to which are imposed on Arab residents in the West Bank and Gaza are vital to Israels security. Yes it is racist, its necessary for security however - not because the Israeli government are Nazis. The lack of Palestinian independance is not caused by Israels policy, its caused by the failure of the Palestinians leadership to give up terroism and agree to live at peace beside Israel.

Settlements have never been an obstacle to peace anyway. From 1949-67 when Jews were forbidden to live in the West Bank, Arabs still refused to make peace with Israel.



If 8 out of 10 Palestinians did support the Israeli governments actions in the west bank Israel would have formally annexed the West Bank and Gaza decades ago; so that the 80% of Palestinians who support Israels occupation of the West Bank could vote for it in the Knesset.

The point is that 8 out of 10 Palestinians would rather live in Israel than any other country. This contradicts the many claims that Israel is an "apartheid state" and discriminates against its Arab citizens.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 28, 2007 08:03 pm

Israels policy is unique in that it discriminates on race. Thousands of Arabs are granted citizenship in countries across the West, as racist as their laws, institutionalised their racism is in police, courts etc at least it does not immediately bar people citizenship on the basis of race the way Israel does.

The Israelis can&#39;t just give Palestinians full citizenship though. Thats absurd logic.


The security requirements of the nation, and a violent insurrection in the territories, forced Israel to impose restrictions on Arab residents

Do you dispute this? Do you believe Israel is morally and ethically wrong in doing this?
Why does immigration have to be "all or none"? There&#39;s a reason that Hispanics are sneaking into the U.S. - the immgration laws in place require waiting lists and limitations on immigrants per year. Israel doesn&#39;t "have to be racist" at any point; if your statement is accurate, that 80% of Palestinians want to live in Israel, then it follows that most Palestinians are no threat to Israel.

The fact is that race does not determine criminality. Israel&#39;s immigration policies - and every state has them - have no need to be racist. Jews have been denied citizenshp to Israel for marrying Arabs. There has been a steady push for more Jewish citizenship, an attempt to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel. That&#39;s just a bad policy, and will only encourage more conflict, racism, including anti-semitism. Israel has done a terrible thing, and that is to have compared itself to the Jewish people; in doing so, it has made itself untouchable, encouraged anti-semitism and anti-arabism, and shamed the Jewish people and religion. It is to Judaism what the crusades were to Christianity. And it is truly sick to see people continue to think that institutionalized racism and warmongering can somehow help such a sordid situation. I suppose you think that those Palestinians who are anti-semitic are justified in their belief, since it is often Jews who tear their houses down, take their farmland, etc.? The logic is really just the same, however fucked it is.


If Israel were to give Palestinians full citizenship, it would mean the territories had been annexed. Obviously no Israeli government has been prepared to take that step. The restrictions your referring to which are imposed on Arab residents in the West Bank and Gaza are vital to Israels security. Yes it is racist, its necessary for security however - not because the Israeli government are Nazis. The lack of Palestinian independance is not caused by Israels policy, its caused by the failure of the Palestinians leadership to give up terroism and agree to live at peace beside Israel.

Settlements have never been an obstacle to peace anyway. From 1949-67 when Jews were forbidden to live in the West Bank, Arabs still refused to make peace with Israel.



If 8 out of 10 Palestinians did support the Israeli governments actions in the west bank Israel would have formally annexed the West Bank and Gaza decades ago; so that the 80% of Palestinians who support Israels occupation of the West Bank could vote for it in the Knesset.

The point is that 8 out of 10 Palestinians would rather live in Israel than any other country. This contradicts the many claims that Israel is an "apartheid state" and discriminates against its Arab citizens.
Really? If one takes the term to refer to all of the occupied territories as well, then Israel has astoundingly apartheid policies. Why, the Arab ghetto that is the West Bank is about to lose power to nearly all of its citizens and infrastructure.

[Andy Bowden]

So it was all a myth in your eyes then?

Until you can provide actual hard evidence that Israel made the concessions - 95% of the West Bank, in one contiguous block etc then it is, as your link said all it is is speculation in the press.

The % Barak was supposed to have offered varies almost every time its brought up; It would be clearer if the actual details of what Israel was prepared to offer were formally released.


Its still a Historical tie. So you support the Palestinian opinion that Jews should be barred from living in the West Bank?

The issue isnt Jews living in the West Bank, its that the settlements are ruled under the law of a foreign power, and often abuse the rights of indigenous inhabitants; in terms of water, land ownership etc.


The Israelis can&#39;t just give Palestinians full citizenship though. Thats absurd logic.

The security requirements of the nation, and a violent insurrection in the territories, forced Israel to impose restrictions on Arab residents

Do you dispute this? Do you believe Israel is morally and ethically wrong in doing this?

Very easy to turn that the other way round. Gaddaffi could not keep Jews in his state. Israel is the state for all Jews, they would obviously rebel against him...

The fact that you (and Israel) equate banning Arabs from citizenship with "security concerns" shows that you dont have much faith in Israels status as a country which treats Arab and Jew equally, and in which Arabs are loyal to Israel.

In any case it shows you think some sides have bluer blood in this. Arabs are forbidden from living in what is now Israel - a land many have been born and lived in - while you complain about Jews not being able to "live" in the West Bank, in an existence far different from that of returning refugees, more similar to colonies.


The lack of Palestinian independance is not caused by Israels policy, its caused by the failure of the Palestinians leadership to give up terroism and agree to live at peace beside Israel.

No, the PLO recognised Israel in 1988. Israel kept a war because they do not want to give up the territories they have seized. Israel has previously rejected Arab peace offers ie the Jarring initiative and only relented when military force has left pushed them to the negotiating table.


Settlements have never been an obstacle to peace anyway. From 1949-67 when Jews were forbidden to live in the West Bank, Arabs still refused to make peace with Israel.

Israel continued aggression against its neighbours after 1949, against Arabs - conducting a military raid on Samu in Jordan which was condemned even by the US and what Moshe Dayan now admits were deliberate provocations in the Golan.


The point is that 8 out of 10 Palestinians would rather live in Israel than any other country. This contradicts the many claims that Israel is an "apartheid state" and discriminates against its Arab citizens.

This poll changes every time its brought up. Next post it will be 8 out of 10 Palestinians think Sharon was too soft...

8 out of 10 Palestinians admire the Israeli govt, and according to a NYT article has its basis in,

"They saw that, for its own citizens, the Israeli system had distinct virtues. This is not easy for even ardent Palestinian democrats to acknowledge.

Yet since 1996, Dr. Shikaki has been polling Palestinians about what governments they admire, and every year Israel has been the top performer, at times receiving more than 80 percent approval. The American system has been the next best, followed by the French and then, distantly trailing, the Jordanian and Egyptian."


http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E2DD1139F931A35757C0A9659C8B 63

In terms of the actual Israeli system - for its own citizens - it is an advanced bourgeois democracy, with the freedom of speech etc denied at many times to Palestinians by the PA etc.

This doesnt equate with support for Israeli policies, or even a desire to live in Israel though. The poll found the next most popular system was the American, but its pretty well documented that the American policy of backing Israel, invading Iraq amongst others are highly unpopular on the Arab street.

In other words theres a differentiation between admiring a system which is more democratic than monarchies, and supporting everything a government does thats elected through that system.

[graffic]

Until you can provide actual hard evidence that Israel made the concessions - 95% of the West Bank, in one contiguous block etc then it is, as your link said all it is is speculation in the press.

The % Barak was supposed to have offered varies almost every time its brought up; It would be clearer if the actual details of what Israel was prepared to offer were formally released.

It varies from 95%/97%/87% and even some reports claiming 73%. Israel would have withdrawn from 63 settlements. Unless every single report is false my point still stands that it was a very generous offer. Most reports cite 100% of Gaza was offered. Most of the European states followed Clinton in seeing the Israeli offers as very forthcoming and placing the onus for the summits&#39;s failure on Arafat. During the peace proposals Yasser Arafat famously said to Bill Clinton; "your a great man" - Clinton replied; "No I&#39;m not I&#39;m a failure, and you made me one".



The fact that you (and Israel) equate banning Arabs from citizenship with "security concerns" shows that you dont have much faith in Israels status as a country which treats Arab and Jew equally, and in which Arabs are loyal to Israel.


You should actually visit Israel or read about the current conflict before making senseless unfounded comments. The majority of Arabs are loyal to Israel, some however are not, and in case youve had your head in a fucking box for the past 20 years Israel isnt exactly the safest most secure nation at the moment. Its not about Israel failing to have faith in its own status, its about finding the best way to deal with Israeli Women and children being blown to pieces on a daily basis.



Arabs are forbidden from living in what is now Israel

Have I misunderstood you?

[Andy Bowden]

It varies from 95%/97%/87% and even some reports claiming 73%.

So there is not even a solid statistic in this offer; it varies wildly, depending on who is telling the story. Its the diplomatic equivalent of the Chinese whisper.


Israel would have withdrawn from 63 settlements. Unless every single report is false my point still stands that it was a very generous offer.

If Israel had granted between 73-87% of the West Bank that still leaves a significant 13-27% of the West Bank still under Israeli control.

Under those circumstances what areas are under Israeli control become critical when examining the viability of the proposed state. For example, if the 10% of the USA which constituted its borders with Mexico and ports were controlled by a foreign power its integrity would be in question.

Likewise a Palestinian state in the West Bank which was seperated into 3 blocks, as one of the interpretations of the offer shows, would also be under effective Israeli control.

http://www.mediamonitors.net/images/campdavid.jpg

This map could be inaccurate. Again we will never know because the Israeli offer was so generous, they presumably cannot release maps of it, or formal details. :rolleyes:

At the end of the day though, the PLO and Palestinians had upheld their international obligations as far as the UN was concerned; they recognised Israel. Everything else they forfeited - control of some areas of East Jerusalem, the West Bank etc - was a gift to Israel, not a right Israel had.

The entire world - including Europe - , with the exception of the USA, Israel and a few principalities have repeatedly called on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza in its entirety.


Its not about Israel failing to have faith in its own status, its about finding the best way to deal with Israeli Women and children being blown to pieces on a daily basis.

Which constitutes a ban on the nig - whoops Arabs. Stop digging. Israel denies citizenship to people based on race. Jews can get in, Arabs cant. Purely on the basis of race, regardless of security checks. End of story. Unless your prepared to go all out and defend that, everything else is just apologetics.


Have I misunderstood you?

In the context of Arab refugees from the 48 war, they are not allowed to return to Israel - where many were born - while as I said settlers are allowed to live in the West Bank under far different circumstances from that of returning refugees. But I should have qualified it by explicity reffering to refugees from 48 there.

[graffic]

So there is not even a solid statistic in this offer; it varies wildly, depending on who is telling the story. Its the diplomatic equivalent of the Chinese whisper.

It "varies widely" from being reported as generous to even more generous. So my point still stands that it was a generous offer.


At the end of the day though, the PLO and Palestinians had upheld their international obligations as far as the UN was concerned; they recognised Israel.

Once.


The entire world - including Europe - , with the exception of the USA, Israel and a few principalities have repeatedly called on Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza in its entirety.


The Palestinians had the chance to do the next best at Camp David but they declined.



Which constitutes a ban on the nig - whoops Arabs. Stop digging.

Why do you refuse to acknoweldge Israels security problems?



In the context of Arab refugees from the 48 war, they are not allowed to return to Israel - where many were born - while as I said settlers are allowed to live in the West Bank under far different circumstances from that of returning refugees.

Refugees that became refugees as a direct consequence of the war the Arabs waged against Israel. Refugees who were refused citizenship by their native countrys, the only group of refugees in world history who were not allowed into their fellow Arab states. If all refugees were to return to Israel, Israel would cease to be a Jewish state and the facist Arab governments would have their victory. Arab expansionism would go from 90% of the Middle East to 100%. Jews would yet again be driven out of the Middle East by anti-semitism.

[hajduk]

ustashe(fascists from Croatia) are using the Zionacies like exuse for existing fascism in Croatia and way of struggle against Zionacies,paradox isnt it?
two fascist groups fighting against each other,what do you think to use this situation so then we can make situation where they destroy himselfs to the end?

[Y Chwyldro Comiwnyddol Cymraeg]

Originally posted by [email protected] 31, 2007 04:58 pm

The Palestinians had the chance to do the next best at Camp David but they declined.


Camp David, are you joking. No Palestinian leader could accept those proposals

[Andy Bowden]

It "varies widely" from being reported as generous to even more generous. So my point still stands that it was a generous offer.

Israel holding well over 20% of the West Bank would not be &#39;generous&#39;; likewise an offer which would transfer an albeit large amount of land to Palestinian control - but in which Israel had control of borders, highways cutting through it etc would not be an acceptable condition for statehood.


Once.

The PLO continue to recognise Israel. Which is more impressive than Israel recognising Palestinian sovereignty in the entire West Bank and Gaza, which is a "never".


The Palestinians had the chance to do the next best at Camp David but they declined.

Nope, Israel refused to live up to its obligations set to them by the international community. As such Camp David failed.


Why do you refuse to acknoweldge Israels security problems?

Because I do not accept the racist argument that if your an Arab you should be discriminated against purely on your race. Of course the real story there is Israels demographic problems, not its security.


Refugees that became refugees as a direct consequence of the war the Arabs waged against Israel.

No the majority of Arab refugees were forced out directly by Israeli ethnic cleansing. Benny Morris, no friend of the Palestinians has documented this extensively.


If all refugees were to return to Israel, Israel would cease to be a Jewish state and the facist Arab governments would have their victory.

Well at least you accept that Israels status as a Jewish state is based upon the existence of massive ethnic cleansing.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Israel created the refugee problem. During the war, the produce on land was requisitioned, and the property was seized and later recompensated as a &#39;legal purchase&#39; from Arab landlords, which placed the livelihood of millions of poor peasants at stake. There were many who simply relocated to areas not far from their farms, but were declared "present absentees" and had it appropriated anyway.

The threat of massacre was always present also. In Deir Yassin, the Israeli Defence Forces bulldozed and massacred an entire village. Ramle and Lydda are worthy of mentioning to. The inhabitants were rushed out of their houses in both of these towns, and forced to march while being shot along the way from the area.

As for Israel&#39;s &#39;security problem,&#39; they have access Anglo-American military technology and communication, and are far more armed, organized, and supplied than any other force in the region. It is a small nation-state, but that does not render it weak by any means, considering that the most powerful imperialist states in the world are financing them.

[graffic]

You have to think about both sides of the conflict. You only ever think about the Palestinians, you have no regard for Jewish self - determination. The Arabs have 90% of the Middle East, the Jewish state deserves more respect than what you give it. I&#39;m sorry but I stand by the view of most of the European states at the time that the offer at Camp David was extremely generous.

You keep bringing up the PLO recognising Israel, as if the PLO is some sort of peaceful organisation waiting patiently for the Israelis to talk peace. Mahmoud Abbas said right from the start he believes Israel is a "cancer". The PLO recieves most of its funding from illegal arms dealing, drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud, etc. It was estimated the PLO had &#036;50 billion in secret investments around the world including Zimbabwe and Somalia. What does the PLO recognising Israel even mean anyway?

Very original argument there Andy about ethnic cleansing creating the Jewish state ;) Virtually every state I can think of was created through ethnic cleansing, its not pretty. The Majority of Palestinian terroist organisations which share your cause want ethnic cleansing to take place worse than what happened to the Palestinian Arabs.

[Labor Shall Rule]

The excuse "Arabs have ninety-percent of all territory in the Middle East, so why aren&#39;t the Palestinians going there" does not justify the capitalist actions of plunder and rape in the region.

It seems that you believe there are no alternatives to apartheid. The Palestinians are blood drunk, uncivilized monsters that need a healthy dose of &#39;democracy&#39; by Israel. Any consistent anti-capitalist would denounce this xenophobic, racist trash and uphold the principle that a unified republic that respects the basic democratic rights of both Jewish and Palestinian workers is the only chance for resolving the conflict.

To merge the territories would be harmful to the ethnic character of Israel, considering that it would mean that the Palestinian population would outnumber the Jewish population, and &#39;ruin&#39; the religious and ethnic tradition that it has upheld for decades. As so, there has been an &#39;ethnic clensing&#39; that is centered on misplacing and moving Palestinians to other regional locations through violence, while constructing barriers and sending in colonizers to spread their influence. If we are truly progressive, then we would ignore the social construct of ethnicity, and press for working class unity in the area, rather than racial expansionism.

I do not criticize the oppressed for taking up small arms, crude rockets, defect weapons, and rocks and bodies to fight the best equipped standing army in the world. They have been denied democracy, are being cleaned out of their own homes and sent into tents in the desert, and are denied the basic necessities of life.

[Labor Shall Rule]

*Bump for Graffic

[Spirit of Spartacus]

You have to think about both sides of the conflict. You only ever think about the Palestinians, you have no regard for Jewish self - determination.

Jewish self-determination at the cost of other people&#39;s self determination? Nonsense.


The Arabs have 90% of the Middle East, the Jewish state deserves more respect than what you give it.

That is the logic of a pathetic robber or bandit. It is not the logic of someone with the slightest concept of justice or fairness.

A thief cannot dictate terms when confronted by the person he/she robbed.



I&#39;m sorry but I stand by the view of most of the European states at the time that the offer at Camp David was extremely generous.


It&#39;s like me stealing your money, then promising to return you some of it if you don&#39;t ask for the rest, and saying that it is a "generous offer".


Very original argument there Andy about ethnic cleansing creating the Jewish state wink.gif Virtually every state I can think of was created through ethnic cleansing, its not pretty.

First, the majority of nation states today were NOT created through ethnic cleansing.

And as for those who really were created through ethnic cleansing, I doubt if any of them reaches the scale of Israel&#39;s crimes.
Even if they did reach Israel&#39;s criminal level, its not like we endorse ethnic cleansing and massacres in the Balkans.


The Majority of Palestinian terroist organisations which share your cause want ethnic cleansing to take place worse than what happened to the Palestinian Arabs.


Absolute bullshit.

Zionist ethnic cleansing of the Arabs is a fact.

A possible future ethnic cleansing by Arabs against the former colonizers is a remote possibility at best (if it is a possibility at all).

[hajduk]

there is good boocks about this issue by Edward W. Said he was arab jewish who beeing concerned about Izrael and Plaestine whole life so i advise you comraders to read
here some links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Said
http://www.edwardsaid.org/
http://www.123exp-biographies.com/t/00031284081/

[Andy Bowden]

You have to think about both sides of the conflict. You only ever think about the Palestinians, you have no regard for Jewish self - determination.

There has never been any serious regard for Palestinian self-determination by the Israelis - if there was then they would not continue to keep the details of Camp David a secret.

There is no Israeli party that would ever consider any of what was proposed at Camp David to be applied to Israel.


The Arabs have 90% of the Middle East, the Jewish state deserves more respect than what you give it.

The Blacks also had 90% of Africa - that wasnt a justification for apartheid in South Africa or Zimbabwe. On the ground Palestinians have ceded 78% of their homeland - shouldnt the Palestinians be allowed the other 22%?

And Israel is not worthy of &#39;respect&#39; given its documented and massive violations of human rights, ranging from collective punishment to extrajudicial executions.


The PLO recieves most of its funding from illegal arms dealing, drug trafficking, money laundering, fraud, etc.

Any sources for that which arent Mossad?


What does the PLO recognising Israel even mean anyway?

That they have no territorial claim to Israel; that they recognise its right to exist. In practice this has meant a compromise on the refugee question.


Very original argument there Andy about ethnic cleansing creating the Jewish state Virtually every state I can think of was created through ethnic cleansing, its not pretty.

Well thats alright then. Just dont pretend your defending democracy etc, or are any different from people like Milosevic who carried out expulsions to maintain ethnic dominance.

Wars are brutal we must defend (insert state here), ethnic cleansing happens.

Its a morally bankrupt argument. And also inaccurate, several countries became independent without ethnic cleansing.


The Majority of Palestinian terroist organisations which share your cause want ethnic cleansing to take place worse than what happened to the Palestinian Arabs.

The sole legitimate representative of the Palestinians, the PLO, has already recognised Israels right to exist - and has done so since 1988. Even before that the official PLO position was one democratic state for Jews, Christians and Muslims - not ethnic cleansing.

Within Israeli public opinion however (and in Sharons cabinet at one point) are forces which see the "transfer" ie mass expulsion of Palestinian Arabs to Jordan - as the only solution.

Militarily Israel can do that. The Arabs (who are now no longer a homogenous block against Israel) cannot.

[hajduk]

read and see what Edward W Said is and what was he think about this

As a pro-Palestinian activist, Said campaigned for a creation of an independent Palestinian state. From 1977 until 1991, Said was an independent member of the Palestinian National Council who tended to stay out of factional struggles.[39] He supported the two-state solution and voted for it in Algiers in 1988. In 1991, he quit the PNC in protest over the process leading up to the signing of the Oslo Accords, feeling that the Oslo terms were unacceptable and had been rejected by the Madrid round negotiators. He felt that Oslo would not lead to a truly independent state and was inferior to a plan Arafat had rejected when Said himself presented it to Arafat on behalf of the US government in the late 1970s. In particular, he wrote that Arafat had sold short the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in pre-1967 Israel and ignored the growing presence of Israeli settlements. Said&#39;s relationship with the Palestinian Authority was once so bad that PA leaders banned the sale of his books in August 1995, but improved when he hailed Arafat for rejecting Barak&#39;s offers at the Camp David 2000 Summit. Ultimately, Said came to prefer and to support a state that would afford Palestinians a home with equal human rights in place of the Jewish state of modern-day Israel.

Although Said denied aiming the rock at Israeli soldiers, an eyewitness account in the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir asserted that Said had positioned himself less than 30 feet from Israeli soldiers manning a two-story watchtower before throwing the rock over the border fence, though it instead hit barbed-wire. "One stone tossed into an empty space scarcely warrants a second thought", he later said, labeling the stone-throwing as "a symbolic gesture of joy". The stoning was witnessed by Israel-based television journalist Dennis Zinn, who suggested "the Lebanese line up and wait to throw their rocks until soldiers and civilians are exposed."

While the photo provoked criticism from some Columbia faculty and students as well as from the Anti-Defamation League, the provost issued a statement defending Said&#39;s act on the grounds of freedom of expression, a position echoed by his supporters on campus.

In June 2002, Said, along with Hadrr Abdel-Shafi, Ibrahim Dakak, and Mustafa Barghouti, helped establish the Palestinian National Initiative, or Al-Mubadara, an attempt to build a third force in Palestinian politics, a democratic, reformist alternative to both the established Fatah and Islamist militant groups, such as Hamas.

Said observes:
Above all we must, as Mandela never tired of saying about his struggle, be aware that Palestine is one of the great moral causes of our time. Therefore, we need to treat it as such. It&#39;s not a matter of trade, or bartering negotiations, or making a career. It is a just cause which should allow Palestinians to capture the high moral ground and keep it........

I have spent a great deal of my life during the past 35 years advocating the rights of the Palestinian people to national self-determination, but I have always tried to do that with full attention paid to the reality of the Jewish people and what they suffered by way of persecution and genocide. The paramount thing is that the struggle for equality in Palestine/Israel should be directed toward a humane goal, that is, co-existence, and not further suppression and denial. ”

It is important to note that while Said was seen - and indeed, often appropriated by various Islamic groups - as a global intellectual defender of Islam, Said himself denied this claim several times, most notably in republications of Orientalism. Said&#39;s primary objectives were humanistic and not Islamic; his vision for Palestine and Israel&#39;s peaceful co-existence necessarily took Islam into consideration, but emphasized the needs of Palestinians and Israelis as two ethnic groups whose basic needs, such as food, water, shelter and protection, were to be valued above all else.

Said notes that "in all my works I remained fundamentally critical of a gloating and uncritical nationalism.... My view of Palestine ... remains the same today: I expressed all sorts of reservations about the insouciant nativism and militant militarism of the nationalist consensus; I suggested instead a critical look at the Arab environment, Palestinian history, and the Israeli realities, with the explicit conclusion that only a negotiated settlement between the two communities of suffering, Arab and Jewish, would provide respite from the unending war." He notes that every Arabic publisher who was interested in his book on Palestine "wanted me to change or delete those sections that were openly critical of one or another Arab regime (including the PLO), a request that I have always refused to comply with."

Furthermore, he was one of few Palestinian activists who at the same time acknowledged Israel and Israel&#39;s founding intellectual theory, Zionism. Said was one of the first proponents of a two-state solution, and in an important academic article entitled "Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims," Said argued that both the Zionist claim to a land - and, more importantly, the Zionist claim that the Jewish people needed a land - and Palestinian rights of self-determination held legitimacy and authenticity. In this way Said stood out among the crowd of Palestinian activists as one who could simultaneously stand at the center of Palestinian nationalism on the one hand and intellectual, meta-nationalistic humanism on the other. This uncanny self-assurance in both base political and elite intellectual spheres helped raise his status in the intelligent public’s eye.

Said&#39;s books on the issue of Israel and Palestine include The Question of Palestine (1979), The Politics of Dispossession (1994) and The End of the Peace Process (2000).

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 05:08 pm
As a pro-Palestinian activist, Said campaigned for a creation of an independent Palestinian state. From 1977 until 1991, Said was an independent member of the Palestinian National Council who tended to stay out of factional struggles.[39] He supported the two-state solution and voted for it in Algiers in 1988. In 1991, he quit the PNC in protest over the process leading up to the signing of the Oslo Accords, feeling that the Oslo terms were unacceptable and had been rejected by the Madrid round negotiators. He felt that Oslo would not lead to a truly independent state and was inferior to a plan Arafat had rejected when Said himself presented it to Arafat on behalf of the US government in the late 1970s. In particular, he wrote that Arafat had sold short the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in pre-1967 Israel and ignored the growing presence of Israeli settlements. Said&#39;s relationship with the Palestinian Authority was once so bad that PA leaders banned the sale of his books in August 1995, but improved when he hailed Arafat for rejecting Barak&#39;s offers at the Camp David 2000 Summit. Ultimately, Said came to prefer and to support a state that would afford Palestinians a home with equal human rights in place of the Jewish state of modern-day Israel.

Although Said denied aiming the rock at Israeli soldiers, an eyewitness account in the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir asserted that Said had positioned himself less than 30 feet from Israeli soldiers manning a two-story watchtower before throwing the rock over the border fence, though it instead hit barbed-wire. "One stone tossed into an empty space scarcely warrants a second thought", he later said, labeling the stone-throwing as "a symbolic gesture of joy". The stoning was witnessed by Israel-based television journalist Dennis Zinn, who suggested "the Lebanese line up and wait to throw their rocks until soldiers and civilians are exposed."

While the photo provoked criticism from some Columbia faculty and students as well as from the Anti-Defamation League, the provost issued a statement defending Said&#39;s act on the grounds of freedom of expression, a position echoed by his supporters on campus.

In June 2002, Said, along with Hadrr Abdel-Shafi, Ibrahim Dakak, and Mustafa Barghouti, helped establish the Palestinian National Initiative, or Al-Mubadara, an attempt to build a third force in Palestinian politics, a democratic, reformist alternative to both the established Fatah and Islamist militant groups, such as Hamas.

Said observes:
Above all we must, as Mandela never tired of saying about his struggle, be aware that Palestine is one of the great moral causes of our time. Therefore, we need to treat it as such. It&#39;s not a matter of trade, or bartering negotiations, or making a career. It is a just cause which should allow Palestinians to capture the high moral ground and keep it........

I have spent a great deal of my life during the past 35 years advocating the rights of the Palestinian people to national self-determination, but I have always tried to do that with full attention paid to the reality of the Jewish people and what they suffered by way of persecution and genocide. The paramount thing is that the struggle for equality in Palestine/Israel should be directed toward a humane goal, that is, co-existence, and not further suppression and denial. ”

It is important to note that while Said was seen - and indeed, often appropriated by various Islamic groups - as a global intellectual defender of Islam, Said himself denied this claim several times, most notably in republications of Orientalism. Said&#39;s primary objectives were humanistic and not Islamic; his vision for Palestine and Israel&#39;s peaceful co-existence necessarily took Islam into consideration, but emphasized the needs of Palestinians and Israelis as two ethnic groups whose basic needs, such as food, water, shelter and protection, were to be valued above all else.

Said notes that "in all my works I remained fundamentally critical of a gloating and uncritical nationalism.... My view of Palestine ... remains the same today: I expressed all sorts of reservations about the insouciant nativism and militant militarism of the nationalist consensus; I suggested instead a critical look at the Arab environment, Palestinian history, and the Israeli realities, with the explicit conclusion that only a negotiated settlement between the two communities of suffering, Arab and Jewish, would provide respite from the unending war." He notes that every Arabic publisher who was interested in his book on Palestine "wanted me to change or delete those sections that were openly critical of one or another Arab regime (including the PLO), a request that I have always refused to comply with."

Furthermore, he was one of few Palestinian activists who at the same time acknowledged Israel and Israel&#39;s founding intellectual theory, Zionism. Said was one of the first proponents of a two-state solution, and in an important academic article entitled "Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims," Said argued that both the Zionist claim to a land - and, more importantly, the Zionist claim that the Jewish people needed a land - and Palestinian rights of self-determination held legitimacy and authenticity. In this way Said stood out among the crowd of Palestinian activists as one who could simultaneously stand at the center of Palestinian nationalism on the one hand and intellectual, meta-nationalistic humanism on the other. This uncanny self-assurance in both base political and elite intellectual spheres helped raise his status in the intelligent public’s eye.

Said&#39;s books on the issue of Israel and Palestine include The Question of Palestine (1979), The Politics of Dispossession (1994) and The End of the Peace Process (2000).
This is taken straight from the Wikipedia article

I just ordered his book, &#39;Out of Place&#39; from Ebay. He&#39;s a great guy, I&#39;ve seen his lecture on the so-called culture war.

[hajduk]

Originally posted by Dean+November 01, 2007 05:22 pm--> (Dean @ November 01, 2007 05:22 pm)
[email protected] 01, 2007 05:08 pm
As a pro-Palestinian activist, Said campaigned for a creation of an independent Palestinian state. From 1977 until 1991, Said was an independent member of the Palestinian National Council who tended to stay out of factional struggles.[39] He supported the two-state solution and voted for it in Algiers in 1988. In 1991, he quit the PNC in protest over the process leading up to the signing of the Oslo Accords, feeling that the Oslo terms were unacceptable and had been rejected by the Madrid round negotiators. He felt that Oslo would not lead to a truly independent state and was inferior to a plan Arafat had rejected when Said himself presented it to Arafat on behalf of the US government in the late 1970s. In particular, he wrote that Arafat had sold short the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in pre-1967 Israel and ignored the growing presence of Israeli settlements. Said&#39;s relationship with the Palestinian Authority was once so bad that PA leaders banned the sale of his books in August 1995, but improved when he hailed Arafat for rejecting Barak&#39;s offers at the Camp David 2000 Summit. Ultimately, Said came to prefer and to support a state that would afford Palestinians a home with equal human rights in place of the Jewish state of modern-day Israel.

Although Said denied aiming the rock at Israeli soldiers, an eyewitness account in the Lebanese newspaper As-Safir asserted that Said had positioned himself less than 30 feet from Israeli soldiers manning a two-story watchtower before throwing the rock over the border fence, though it instead hit barbed-wire. "One stone tossed into an empty space scarcely warrants a second thought", he later said, labeling the stone-throwing as "a symbolic gesture of joy". The stoning was witnessed by Israel-based television journalist Dennis Zinn, who suggested "the Lebanese line up and wait to throw their rocks until soldiers and civilians are exposed."

While the photo provoked criticism from some Columbia faculty and students as well as from the Anti-Defamation League, the provost issued a statement defending Said&#39;s act on the grounds of freedom of expression, a position echoed by his supporters on campus.

In June 2002, Said, along with Hadrr Abdel-Shafi, Ibrahim Dakak, and Mustafa Barghouti, helped establish the Palestinian National Initiative, or Al-Mubadara, an attempt to build a third force in Palestinian politics, a democratic, reformist alternative to both the established Fatah and Islamist militant groups, such as Hamas.

Said observes:
Above all we must, as Mandela never tired of saying about his struggle, be aware that Palestine is one of the great moral causes of our time. Therefore, we need to treat it as such. It&#39;s not a matter of trade, or bartering negotiations, or making a career. It is a just cause which should allow Palestinians to capture the high moral ground and keep it........

I have spent a great deal of my life during the past 35 years advocating the rights of the Palestinian people to national self-determination, but I have always tried to do that with full attention paid to the reality of the Jewish people and what they suffered by way of persecution and genocide. The paramount thing is that the struggle for equality in Palestine/Israel should be directed toward a humane goal, that is, co-existence, and not further suppression and denial. ”

It is important to note that while Said was seen - and indeed, often appropriated by various Islamic groups - as a global intellectual defender of Islam, Said himself denied this claim several times, most notably in republications of Orientalism. Said&#39;s primary objectives were humanistic and not Islamic; his vision for Palestine and Israel&#39;s peaceful co-existence necessarily took Islam into consideration, but emphasized the needs of Palestinians and Israelis as two ethnic groups whose basic needs, such as food, water, shelter and protection, were to be valued above all else.

Said notes that "in all my works I remained fundamentally critical of a gloating and uncritical nationalism.... My view of Palestine ... remains the same today: I expressed all sorts of reservations about the insouciant nativism and militant militarism of the nationalist consensus; I suggested instead a critical look at the Arab environment, Palestinian history, and the Israeli realities, with the explicit conclusion that only a negotiated settlement between the two communities of suffering, Arab and Jewish, would provide respite from the unending war." He notes that every Arabic publisher who was interested in his book on Palestine "wanted me to change or delete those sections that were openly critical of one or another Arab regime (including the PLO), a request that I have always refused to comply with."

Furthermore, he was one of few Palestinian activists who at the same time acknowledged Israel and Israel&#39;s founding intellectual theory, Zionism. Said was one of the first proponents of a two-state solution, and in an important academic article entitled "Zionism from the Standpoint of its Victims," Said argued that both the Zionist claim to a land - and, more importantly, the Zionist claim that the Jewish people needed a land - and Palestinian rights of self-determination held legitimacy and authenticity. In this way Said stood out among the crowd of Palestinian activists as one who could simultaneously stand at the center of Palestinian nationalism on the one hand and intellectual, meta-nationalistic humanism on the other. This uncanny self-assurance in both base political and elite intellectual spheres helped raise his status in the intelligent public’s eye.

Said&#39;s books on the issue of Israel and Palestine include The Question of Palestine (1979), The Politics of Dispossession (1994) and The End of the Peace Process (2000).
This is taken straight from the Wikipedia article

I just ordered his book, &#39;Out of Place&#39; from Ebay. He&#39;s a great guy, I&#39;ve seen his lecture on the so-called culture war. [/b]
did you see other links i put it?

[graffic]

The excuse "Arabs have ninety-percent of all territory in the Middle East, so why aren&#39;t the Palestinians going there" does not justify the capitalist actions of plunder and rape in the region.

Nothing justifys anything through your tunnel vision. Why were the Palestinan refugees not integrated into their fellow lands by their Arab brothers? Why don&#39;t you ask yourself that question?


uphold the principle that a unified republic that respects the basic democratic rights of both Jewish and Palestinian workers is the only chance for resolving the conflict.

The Jewish state is the most advanced and democratic in the Middle East, the Israelis have been trying to achieve this for 60 years. The rights denied to Palestinians are a direct result of Arab aggression.



To merge the territories would be harmful to the ethnic character of Israel, considering that it would mean that the Palestinian population would outnumber the Jewish population, and &#39;ruin&#39; the religious and ethnic tradition that it has upheld for decades.

The Arab population out numbers the Jewish population in every Arab country in the Middle East. Why do you favour the Arab ethnic characther and religous tradition over the Jewish one?


They have been denied democracy, are being cleaned out of their own homes and sent into tents in the desert, and are denied the basic necessities of life.

Agreed, the Arabs are responsible for the refugee problem.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 09:00 pm

The excuse "Arabs have ninety-percent of all territory in the Middle East, so why aren&#39;t the Palestinians going there" does not justify the capitalist actions of plunder and rape in the region.

Nothing justifys anything through your tunnel vision. Why were the Palestinan refugees not integrated into their fellow lands by their Arab brothers? Why don&#39;t you ask yourself that question?

probably for the same reasons that many nations refuse to pick up the pieces after another countries crisis and subsequent exodus. It isnt their fault, or their problem.
Plus most of these places are developing themselves so it would have been an unfair burden.
Anyway, I&#39;m sort of glad they didnt intervene it would have created a disastrous precedence against future Palestinian autonomy.

[Labor Shall Rule]

I regard this misplacement and murder as an attack on my class. I believe it was Hitler that said, "...the Jews can leave Germany, their Eurasian brothers to the East will embrace them with wide arms." As Spirit of Spartacus has said, this is the logic of a thief.

As for its &#39;democracy,&#39; it is a state controlled by key representatives of the bourgeoisie, who continue pay service to British and American imperialism in the region. The creation of Israel, along with the coup against Mossadeq in Iran, the defeat of Nasser in Egypt, and the overthrow of secular elements in the Baath Party while raising it to a status of a client party, are just minor examples of how foreign investment in crude oil and cheap labor was protected.

Edward Atiyah once remarked, "why are the Arab nations obligated to take them (the Palestinians) in anyway? It is their country, it is not their duty to house them." Though this is as cruel as refusing to give a vagabond a quarter as he is begging, this is the mentality of the society that we live under. It would of cost millions to constuct public housing, to grant insurance to, and to feed and protect hundreds of thousands of people. It would of also rubbed against the interests of foreign capital if such actions were taken, provoking external attacks from imperialist countries.

Where did I ever say that I favor "Arab ethnic character"? I am making the point that the Jewish nationalists who control foreign policy are inherently opposed to the one-state solution, simply because they want to maintain the Jewish character of Israel. It is a racist proposition, similiar to the British Nationalist Party&#39;s call for "keeping Britain British."

[Revolution Until Victory]

The Palestinian authority should end the violence, reform its institutions, and elect new leaders so that peace talks may resume.

The collaboraters should end the anti-colonial resitsance??

"reform its institutions"???

"elect new leaders so that peace talks may resume"?? so Abbas-Fayad-Dahlan are not collaborating well enough? the imperialist aren&#39;t happy with them?? You want better "leaders" (aka, US-Zionist imperialist tools and collaboraters) to resume "peace talks" (surrender talks)?

what?


Yeah because my whole case for Israel is based on the "historical ties" . I don&#39;t give a fuck about the historical ties to the land, the only time Ive mentioned them is in response to one of the many lies used to justify your cause "Israel has no ties to the land".

stop lying, that&#39;s your whole argument, aside from "the whole world recognized Israel" :lol:


I support the widely recognised two state - solution. . You have misunderstood me.


no one have misunderstood you. We all now you support the "widely recognized" imperialist settlment.


Why is it then that 80% of Palestinians admire the Israeli state the most?

As have been said before, it&#39;s about how the Zionist settler-colony treates its own colonizers in the law.


If I was to support someones house being bulldozed it still wouldnt be as fucked up as supporting someone blowing themselves up in a shopping centre to forward a medieval theocracy.

There we go again, the child-eating muslims&#33;&#33; no one is fighitng for a "medival" theocracy. Stop being such an idiot.


The Palestinians claim to the land is purely a historical tie, just a more recent one.

What a joke. The Palestinian Arab claim to the land isn&#39;t "historical", neither 2000 years ago or a hundred years ago. It is current day offical documents and land deeds. Just coz they were colonized in 1948 doesn&#39;t mean they lost thier ligitamite claims to the land. The Palestinian Arabs are currently the true owners of the land, nothing "historical" about it. The colonizer got no claim whatsoever.


Its still a Historical tie. So you support the Palestinian opinion that Jews should be barred from living in the West Bank?

Colonizers shooud be barred from colonizing. Period.


You should actually visit Israel or read about the current conflict before making senseless unfounded comments. The majority of Arabs are loyal to Israel

haahaaa. And you have visted the Zionist settler-colony??

"The majority of Arabs are loyal to Israel"??

how the hell can you come up with such crap?


its about finding the best way to deal with Israeli Women and children being blown to pieces on a daily basis.

the best way?? very simple: A total end of Zionist colonialism.


Refugees that became refugees as a direct consequence of the war the Arabs waged against Israel.

how many times have you repeated this lie on this thread only??

Zionist colonial ethnic cleansing and expulsion began before one arab soldier set a foot on Palestine. In fact, half of the total amount of expelled Palestinian Arabs took place during that time&#33;&#33;


you have no regard for Jewish self - determination.

no one should have any regard for colonization, being it Jewish or any other ethnic group.


The Arabs have 90% of the Middle East,

:rolleyes:


The Jewish state is the most advanced and democratic in the Middle East,

yup, just keep repeating it unitl it become true.

[Andy Bowden]

Why were the Palestinan refugees not integrated into their fellow lands by their Arab brothers? Why don&#39;t you ask yourself that question?

Why do the Palestinian refugees keep a hold of the keys to their houses, and deeds to them even to this day? Because despite their shoddy treatment by Arab regimes, they still want to return to their homes.

The argument that is advanced by apologists for Israel on the refugee question would not be accepted anywhere else in the world.

"Why isn&#39;t Albania looking after all the Kosovar refugees eh? Nothing to do with us Serbs".


Agreed, the Arabs are responsible for the refugee problem.

No, it is the direct responsibility of those who forcibly expelled them.

[hajduk]

more Said oppinions about issues on Middle east


"I don&#39;t think the planning for the post-Saddam, post-war period in Iraq is very sophisticated, and there&#39;s very little of it. Grossman and Feith testified in Congress about a month ago and seemed to have no figures and no ideas what structures they were going to deploy"

"It&#39;s a very fateful moment in a way because of this deeply unpopular and reckless war that a small group within the American administration has decided to wage against Iraq, and, in a way, against the whole Arab world. My strong opinion, though I don&#39;t have any proof in the classical sense of the word, is that they want to change the entire Middle East and the Arab world, perhaps terminate some countries, destroy the so-called terrorist groups they dislike and install regimes friendly to the United States. I think this is a dream that has very little basis in reality. The knowledge they have of the Middle East, to judge from the people who advise them, is to say the least out of date and widely speculative," argued Said.

The question of who advises the current American administration on its Middle East policy was one recurring throughout the discussion. "The two greatest outside influences on the administration&#39;s Middle East policy," Said pointed out, "are Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami. Bernard Lewis hasn&#39;t set foot in the Middle East, in the Arab world, for at least 40 years. He knows something about Turkey, I&#39;m told, but he knows nothing about the Arab world."

Lewis has developed a theory of "concentric circles" which seems to be influential in Washington, but which Said and other critics take issue with.

"This is the notion that the Middle East is divided into three circles: an outer circle of deeply antipathetic regimes and anti-American people, a second circle of pro-American people and anti- American regimes, and a third inner circle of pro- American regimes and pro-American people -- that would be the Gulf. The others are Egypt, Jordan and Morocco for the second, and Syria and Libya probably for the outer circle. In other words, there&#39;s a non-homogenous Arab world, and it&#39;s the role of American policy to change that so that it all becomes pro-American regimes and pro-American people."

"Ajami has said many times that there will be flower-throwing on the streets of Basra and Baghdad when the Americans are welcomed as liberators. That&#39;s the world we&#39;re in. There&#39;s a deep contempt for other ideas, certainly tremendous hostility to Europe, and to the large number of American people and institutions, about which I wrote in the last issue of Al-Ahram Weekly, which oppose the war and oppose such policies. And, as far as I can tell, they&#39;re impervious because there&#39;s a fortress mentality which is historically characteristic of cabals and putschist regimes."

Scenarios for a post-war, most probably a post- Saddam, Iraq were also part of the debate, as was the effect the war would have on the Arab region.

Said: "I don&#39;t think the planning for the post- Saddam, post-war period in Iraq is very sophisticated, and there&#39;s very little of it. [US Undersecretary of State Marc] Grossman and [US Undersecretary of Defense Douglas] Feith testified in Congress about a month ago and seemed to have no figures and no ideas what structures they were going to deploy; they had no idea about the use of institutions that exist, although they want to de-Ba&#39;thise the higher echelons and keep the rest."

"The same is true about their views of the army. They certainly have no use for the Iraqi opposition that they&#39;ve been spending many millions of dollars on. And to the best of my ability to judge, they are going to improvise. Of course the model is Afghanistan. I think they hope that the UN will come in and do something, but given the recent French and Russian positions I doubt that that will happen with such simplicity."

Iraqi scholar, Sinan Antoon, then pointed to reports that the cost of the current war in Iraq, including humanitarian assistance, was estimated to be 150 billion dollars, which would be paid from Iraqi oil revenues and from frozen Iraqi assets. The opposition figures that the Americans have lined up to take power have all agreed to that, meeting with oil executives and agreeing to the privatisation of Iraqi oil.

Said doubted that things would be so simple, saying that it would take years before Iraqi oil revenues begin coming in. "We&#39;re not talking about three or four years, we&#39;re talking about now," he said. "There&#39;s a major economic crisis. We went in a matter of a year and a half from a budget surplus to a major budget deficit in the US, which is going to increase exponentially over the next two years. There is no money. I think the war is a desperate attempt to try to recover some confidence in the economy and in the country. We&#39;re not talking about 150 billion dollars from Iraqi oil, we&#39;re talking about a trillion dollars . The calculations of the ten-year cost of the war go up to trillions."

Mursi Saad El-Din then asked Said whether the participation of the British in the invasion, given their role in establishing the Hashemite dynasty in 1917 and the original role played by Gertrude Bell in drawing up the map of the region, would allow them to play a role in the rehabilitation of Iraq.

"I have no information," Said responded, "but my opinion is that the Americans want to do the whole thing. I don&#39;t think they want the British or the UN. I think the idea is to do everything themselves and maybe make use of British experts, but the serious work is going to be done by the Americans -- the appointments to the ministries, running the post-war government, etc. And the British [would] have a very small role."

Senior Al-Ahram political analyst Salama Ahmed Salama asked Said for his views regarding the conservatism of the current American administration, and how he judged it. Was it just a passing phase?

"It&#39;s the worst administration I&#39;ve seen since I went there in 1951. The whole [conservative] trend is a very artificial one made up essentially of three main currents. One is the Christian current, which is isolated from the rest of the country. [But] it&#39;s a lot of people, 70-80 million. This is George Bush&#39;s main constituency. Second, the neo-conservative movement, which has been developing over the period since the end of the 1960s, as a reaction to the 1960s. But it is now narrower and narrower and more focused. That&#39;s why you have people like [Richard] Perle and [Paul] Wolfowitz in positions of power, because they&#39;ve made an alliance with the isolationist right wing within America. And these people are toughened, especially after 9/11. They are right-wing, anti-immigration, anti- diversity on the campuses and elsewhere, and they have a very narrow constituency of fear and contempt."

"And the third group that feeds into this is the Washington establishment, these think tanks in Washington which have taken the intellectual class and turned them into policy salesmen who have no peer review. I can now name maybe ten magazines that publish stuff which nobody referees. They have become an entirely local group that feeds off the government. And I think this is an extremely dangerous but in the end dead-ended [group]."

"The opposition to the war is, I think, an opposition to all of that. It&#39;s an opposition to the fundamentalists, who stand, for example, against the theory of evolution. And these are the people pushing for the war. And that&#39;s why I think the movement against the war, despite the fact that it is flagging a bit because of loyalty to the boys and girls abroad, as some of the Democrats are saying now, will grow. I think that Bush will not have a second presidency. In fact, I and many others are convinced that Bush will try to negate the 2004 elections: we&#39;re dealing with a putschist, conspiratorial, paranoid deviation that&#39;s very anti- democratic."

"This is why finally I think candidates in the Democratic primaries next year will include people like Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich, [maybe even] Ralph Nader. I think those are very important things for us, especially now given the war and what I&#39;m sure will be its complications. I think that&#39;s the role of the intellectual, to provide resources for hope. They cannot be found in the conventional alleys of power."

"And don&#39;t forget, we have a very dramatic economic recession. With lots of people out of jobs there&#39;s a wide perception that the social security system is about to be privatised, and this war then becomes a kind of folly. Bush is already spending something like two billion dollars a day. Who&#39;s going to pay for this? I think that&#39;s why the French and the Germans and the others&#39; reactions are so important. [They] don&#39;t want to be part of [the] so- called reconstruction effort. And look what they did in Afghanistan. They didn&#39;t do anything. They bombed the place and they haven&#39;t helped at all. So I think it&#39;s a very important moment for this."

Aziza Sami pointed to a growing perception that the Arab regimes have reached the "end of their history" in some sense, no one knowing what will happen next in the Arab world. For many, the only option seems to be a kind of people&#39;s movement, a reaction coming from the non-state sector. In this sense she asked Said whether the formal Arab political systems have really reached the end of their lives and whether there is a way the Arab masses can begin to find new directions.

"I don&#39;t think anybody really knows the answer to that," responded Said. "Regimes have a way of staying on, particularly in imperial moments such as this."

However, Said drew attention to what he called a "very lamentable emerging current in America and England" of neo-imperialism, the thought that there is an acceptable and benign form of imperialism, as carried out by the US. This, he explained, has even lead to revisions in the history of the former British empire by historians such as Nial Ferguson and David Armitage, who argue that the empire wasn&#39;t that bad, since it brought order and certain countries benefited from it.

Said: "The advent of this new imperialism, with the cabalist or putschist mentality that I believe exists in Washington, and with the highly dubious results of the elections of 2000 in which Bush lost the popular vote but got the presidency, has suggested to many people the complete failure of American democracy. More and more people are thinking in terms of direct democracy, such as on the streets, and in terms of various alternative ways of looking at governance in this new world with a single global power that has the ability to project military power all over the world and carry on two, three wars at the same time. For that&#39;s what the Rumsfeld vision is: not only preemptive but also simultaneous war. In such a position, we&#39;re all in the same boat, those of us who don&#39;t believe in that, whether American or not American."

"And I would think the same thing applies here to the best of my knowledge and ability to judge. That is to say, there&#39;s a failure of rule. The powers that be in the Arab countries seem to be at best able to keep down demonstrations, and so on and so forth."

"But I think there are enough movements from below, whether human-rights movements, ecological movements, women&#39;s movements, ethnic movements, that favour, in America, the disuniting of America, which is very important. And maybe the same is true here. In other words, I think the Westphalian system, which ordered the state system of the world, has failed. And I think it&#39;s failed internally. There&#39;s been a desire on the part of the right wing in the United States, since the Clinton administration, to attack very heavily independent thought and anything that appears to challenge the prevailing order, and of course this increased after 9/11."

Political analyst Mohamed Sid-Ahmed pointed out that after 9/11, it first appeared that the main confrontation was between imperial America and terrorism. But something new has developed since then, reversing the game. Mass movements that began with Seattle, the anti-globalisation movement that has acquired global dimensions ever since, and Porto Allegre, and the more recent demonstrations worldwide against the war in Iraq, are changing the balance, putting the Bush administration on the defensive. This is a phenomenon, he argued, that has widespread implications, including the extent to which the image of Islam as "terrorist" and "extremist" is being replaced by regimes claiming to follow a moderate Islam.

Said concurred but added that the problem for outsiders was that what meets the eye are the official regimes. "The rest of the world identifies the Arabs with their regimes. There doesn&#39;t seem to be anything else. And we haven&#39;t in the Arab world, I don&#39;t think, developed a way of addressing these counter-currents in an organised or at least in a significant way. After 9/11 there were the attempts of groups, let&#39;s say of Egyptian intellectuals, who wanted to respond and write letters and show that we&#39;re not all Osama Bin Laden. But that&#39;s not quite the same thing. The problem is the regimes themselves, which after all claim to represent their people. There&#39;s a crisis of representation, which I think is difficult to overcome."

"What&#39;s very interesting also is the perception, and this is a footnote to what Mohamed Sid-Ahmed said, that the opposition to the US in the Arab world and Europe and elsewhere is not an Islamic opposition. It&#39;s on a much wider basis, which is very important. I myself believe very strongly that it&#39;s important for those of us who are not part of this state system to be able to address what I call the &#39;other America&#39;, because there are vast possibilities of mutual benefit, and Porto Allegre is a terrific model for that."

The Palestinian predicament and events in occupied Palestine naturally found their way into the discussion, eventually dominating the roundtable. Mohamed El-Sayed Said raised several issues relating to Palestinian nationalism, referring to the chaos that has characterised the Palestinian Intifada since its inception, which "reflects the increasing gulf between both the intelligentsia and the political elite on the one hand and the new generations on the other, particularly in the refugee camps in Gaza but also in the West Bank. I believe this is an issue of grave concern given the immense sacrifice paid without, at least until this moment, any real political gains."

He was also alarmed by how the Palestinian middle-ranking leadership had lost its direction in the course of the Intifada: "You&#39;re having an Intifada without a real head, and there is a question of how to restore minds and reason in such a great act of resistance. Even the general slogan of &#39;Intifada for Liberation&#39;, was exaggerated to the point of suicide...Since you&#39;re actually asking Palestinians on their own to complete the cycle and push forward to the end destination, you&#39;re actually asking them to do something that they couldn&#39;t possibly do, even in terms of numbers. Such chaos is disastrous when it comes to a struggle," he insisted.

Finally El-Sayed Said raised the problem of finance. "Arab funding and Arab money was a part of [Palestinian] corruption since the very beginning. Now we know that the Palestinians need economic assistance and help, so how can we possibly track or streamline economic and financial assistance for the strengthening of the body politic of the Palestinian community, the Palestinian national movement?"

Said was similarly uneasy about the militarisation of the Intifada, but "one of the main elements in the creation of the mubadara [the democratic initiative] of Mustafa Barghouti and Haydar Abdel-Shafi and others, is precisely the issue of leadership of the Intifada and [its] militarisation."

He conceded, however, that it was a sensitive issue for the Palestinians since no one wanted to be seen to be capitulating to the Israeli occupation, especially as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon kept making statements like "we want to break them." No one wants to just give up, he explained. "The funny part of it is that there is no instrument for giving way, for surrendering; we don&#39;t have even that capacity. I mean Arafat has in effect surrendered, and nobody seems to be interested. Which is why everybody is now looking for other ways."

"I think the question of money and new contacts has emerged from this mubadara as well. There has been a great deal of European interest in the mubadara precisely because it&#39;s led and represented by several hundred people all of whom have reputations for transparency and who are dedicated to their organisations, whether they&#39;re medical organisations or relief organisations. That&#39;s very impressive."

"As for the gaps [referred to] between the camps and intelligentsia, there are two other groups which are [also] extremely important: the Palestinians who are Israeli, a million of them, and the shatat, the diaspora Palestinians. Now, wherever you go there are people who say we really have to organise ourselves and are beginning to do that. In places like Britain there is a very strong solidarity movement. I think, being basically anarchistic, it&#39;s working through other groups, like divestment campaigns, anti-war campaigns, human-rights groups. Because we can&#39;t deal with Israel and the US head on, they&#39;re just too powerful, we don&#39;t have the means to deal with them. To me the answer is in the emergence of an unconventional mentality that is willing to break with all the old slogans."

Finally, the participants reverted to scenarios for post-war Iraq, conceding that the picture was blurred. "I don&#39;t think anybody has any idea," concluded Said. "All the available scenarios for the Middle East that I&#39;ve seen are full of suppositions. One writer whom I recommend to your attention is Thomas Powers. He&#39;s the best writer on the situation now. He&#39;s written an article entitled "The Man who would be President of Iraq" for the New York Times and he thinks there&#39;s no doubt that once [the American administration is] through with Iraq they&#39;re going into Iran. If that&#39;s the case, if there&#39;s an attempt on Iran, who&#39;s going to stop them from thinking the same thing about Syria? There are all kinds of scenarios going around involving Israel. [The American administration] wants a new friendly axis: Turkey, Israel and India. That&#39;s the new strategic thinking. What is this going to do to the Arab world with that kind of regime in Iraq? Those are the things that are being discussed -- non-Arab dominance [in the Middle East]. A lot of Iraqis, like Kanan Makiya, have been speaking about the &#39;de-Arabisation&#39; of the Arab world, not just of Iraq. I don&#39;t really know what to say because everything could go wrong. I don&#39;t know what the war is going to be like."

But will the Iraqi people remain submissive, Aziza Sami questioned. "I don&#39;t know. I think they [the American administration] think so. Take my words very literally: the [American] government has very few advisers on the Middle East. The old Middle East people at the State Department, [the Arabists] of whom maybe the last person is [Robert] Burns, have been emasculated. They don&#39;t exist anymore, and they have no influence at all. And the new people, like Thomas Friedman, don&#39;t know Arabic, travel around the Arab world and are received in rooms like this and give [the administration] advice about what the Arabs are saying and the Arab street, and so on and so forth."

"As against that our voices are never heard. Al- Ahram Weekly is one of the few things that people read, and it is having an effect, slowly. So cowed and so frightened has the US press become that even when Robert C Byrd gave his great Senate speech a month ago it wasn&#39;t reported. You couldn&#39;t find it in the NYT. It&#39;s unbelievable, there&#39;s such an atmosphere of fear, so the only thing left are the alternative radio stations, alternative publications, and if you follow them, and establish some kind of relationship, I think that&#39;s where the action is. And that&#39;s why the Weekly is a fantastic resource. Many Americans read it. They read your columnists as alternatives to what they get in America."

[graffic]

probably for the same reasons that many nations refuse to pick up the pieces after another countries crisis and subsequent exodus. It isnt their fault, or their problem.

Many nations choose to do the ethical thing and help with the situation, its quite clear why the Arab nations refused to take in the refugees.


Anyway, I&#39;m sort of glad they didnt intervene it would have created a disastrous precedence against future Palestinian autonomy.

It would have solved the refugee problem.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by graffic+--> (graffic)Many nations choose to do the ethical thing and help with the situation, its quite clear why the Arab nations refused to take in the refugees.[/b]
I&#39;m not referring to those nations that do the &#39;ethical thing&#39;. Those nations that do so can usually afford to because they are 1st world economies.

graffic

It would have solved the refugee problem.
What, so the zionists and pro-Israelis can say, alright so you refugees have a new nationality and sanctuary now, so fuck off and don&#39;t come back&#33;?
There would&#39;nt have been a refugee problem if they hadnt come in, all guns blazing (literally).

[hajduk]

Edward W. Said "A new current in Palestine" february 4. 2002

After sixteen months, the Palestinian intifada has little to show for itself politically, despite the remarkable fortitude of a militarily occupied, poorly armed, poorly led and still dispossessed people who have defied the pitiless ravages of Israel&#39;s war machine. In the United States the government and, with a handful of exceptions, the independent media have echoed each other in harping on Palestinian violence and terror, with no attention at all paid to the thirty-five-year-old Israeli military occupation, the longest in modern history. As a result, official US condemnations of Yasir Arafat&#39;s Palestinian Authority since September 11 as harboring and even sponsoring terrorism have coldly reinforced the Sharon government&#39;s preposterous claim that Israel is the victim and the Palestinians the aggressors in the four-decade war that the Israeli army has waged against civilians, property and institutions without mercy or discrimination. The result today is that the Palestinians are locked up in 220 ghettos controlled by the army; Merkava tanks and American-supplied Apache helicopters and F-16s mow down people, houses, olive groves and fields on a daily basis; schools and universities as well as businesses and civil institutions are totally disrupted; hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed and about 20,000 injured; Israel&#39;s assassinations of Palestinian leaders continue; and unemployment and poverty stand at about 50 percent--all this while Gen. Anthony Zinni drones on about Palestinian violence to the wretched Arafat, who can&#39;t even leave his office in Ramallah because he is imprisoned there by Israeli tanks, while his several tattered security forces scamper about trying to survive the destruction of their offices and barracks.

To make matters worse, the Palestinian Islamists have played into Israel&#39;s relentless propaganda mills and its ever-ready military by occasional bursts of wantonly barbaric suicide bombings that finally forced Arafat in mid-December to turn his crippled security forces against Hamas and Islamic Jihad, arresting militants, closing offices, occasionally firing at and killing demonstrators. Every demand that Sharon makes, Arafat hastens to fulfill, even as Sharon makes still another one, provokes an incident or simply says--with US backing--that he is unsatisfied, that Arafat remains an irrelevant terrorist (whom he sadistically forbade from attending Christmas services in Bethlehem) whose main purpose in life is to kill Jews. To these logic-defying congeries of brutal assaults on the Palestinians, on the man who for better or worse is their leader and on their already humiliated national existence, Arafat&#39;s baffling response has been to keep asking for a return to negotiations, as if Sharon&#39;s transparent campaign against even the possibility of negotiations weren&#39;t actually happening, and as if the whole idea of the Oslo peace process hadn&#39;t already evaporated. What surprises me is that except for a small number of Israelis (most recently David Grossman), no one comes out and says openly that Palestinians are being persecuted by Israel.

A closer look at the Palestinian reality tells a somewhat more encouraging story. Recent polls show that between them, Arafat and his Islamist opponents (who refer to themselves unjustly as the resistance) get somewhere between 40 and 45 percent popular approval. This means that a silent majority of Palestinians is neither for the Authority&#39;s misplaced trust in Oslo (or for its lawless regime of corruption and repression) nor for Islamist violence. Ever the resourceful tactician, Arafat has countered by delegating Dr. Sari Nusseibeh--a Jerusalem notable, president of Al-Quds University and Fatah stalwart--to make trial-balloon speeches suggesting that if Israel were to be just a little nicer, the Palestinians might give up their right of return. In addition, a slew of Palestinian personalities close to the Authority (or, more accurately, whose activities have never been independent of the Authority) have signed statements and gone on tour with Israeli peace activists who are either out of power or otherwise seem ineffective as well as discredited. These dispiriting exercises are supposed to show the world that Palestinians are willing to make peace at any price, even to accommodate the military occupation. Arafat is still undefeated so far as his unquenchable eagerness to stay in power is concerned.
Yet at some distance from all this, a new secular nationalist current is slowly emerging. It&#39;s too soon to call this a party or a bloc, but it is now a visible group with true independence and popular status. It counts Dr. Haidar Abdel Shafi and Dr. Mustafa Barghouthi (not to be confused with his distant relative, Fatah militia activist Marwan Barghouti) among them, along with Ibrahim Dakkak, professors Ziad Abu Amr, Mamdouh Al-Aker, Ahmad Harb, Ali Jarbawi, Fouad Moughrabi, legislative council members Rawiya Al-Shawa and Kamal Shirafi, writers Hassan Khadr and Mahmoud Darwish, Raja Shehadeh, Rima Tarazi, Ghassan Al-Khatib, Naseer Aruri, Elia Zureik and myself. In mid-December, we issued a collective statement that was well covered in the Arab and European media (it went unmentioned in the United States) calling for Palestinian unity and resistance and the unconditional end of Israeli military occupation, while keeping deliberately silent about returning to Oslo. We believe that negotiating an improvement in the occupation is tantamount to prolonging it. Peace can come only after the occupation ends. The declaration&#39;s boldest sections focus on the need to improve the internal Palestinian situation, above all to strengthen democracy, rectify the decision-making process (which is totally controlled by Arafat and his men), assert the need to restore the law&#39;s sovereignty and an independent judiciary, prevent the further misuse of public funds and consolidate the functions of public institutions so as to give every citizen confidence in those that are expressly designed for public service. The final and most decisive demand is a call for new parliamentary elections.

However else this declaration may have been read, the fact that so many prominent independents--with, for the most part, functioning health, educational, professional and labor organizations as their base--have said these things was lost neither on other Palestinians (who saw it as the most trenchant critique yet of the Arafat regime) nor on the Israeli military. In addition, just as the Authority jumped to obey Sharon and Bush by rounding up the usual Islamist suspects, Dr. Barghouthi launched the nonviolent International Solidarity Movement, comprising about 550 European observers (several of them European Parliament members) who flew in at their own expense. With them was a well-disciplined band of young Palestinians who, while disrupting Israeli troop and settler movement along with the Europeans, prevented rock-throwing or shooting from the Palestinian side. This effectively froze out the Authority and the Islamists, and set the agenda for making Israel&#39;s occupation itself the focus of attention. All this occurred while the United States was vetoing a Security Council resolution mandating an international group of unarmed observers to interpose themselves between the Israeli army and defenseless Palestinian civilians.

The first result of this was that on January 2, after Barghouthi held a press conference with about twenty Europeans in East Jerusalem, the Israelis arrested, detained and interrogated him twice, breaking his knee with rifle butts and injuring his head, on the pretext that he was disturbing the peace and had illegally entered Jerusalem (even though he was born there and has a medical permit to enter). None of this has deterred him or his supporters from continuing the nonviolent struggle, which, I think, is certain to take control of the already too militarized intifada, center it nationally on ending occupation and settlements, and steer Palestinians toward statehood and peace. Israel has more to fear from someone like Barghouthi, who is a self-possessed, rational and respected Palestinian, than from the bearded Islamic radicals that Sharon loves to misrepresent as Israel&#39;s quintessential terrorist threat. All they do is arrest him, which is typical of Sharon&#39;s bankrupt policy.

So where are Israeli and American liberals, so quick to condemn violence while saying little about the disgraceful and criminal occupation itself? I seriously suggest that they join brave activists like Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions and Louisa Morgantini, an Italian member of the European Parliament, at the barricades (literal and figurative), stand side by side with this major new secular Palestinian initiative and start protesting the Israeli military methods that are directly subsidized by taxpayers and their dearly bought silence. Having for a year wrung their collective hands and complained about the absence of a Palestinian peace movement (since when does a militarily occupied people have responsibility for a peace movement?), the alleged peaceniks who can actually influence Israel&#39;s military have a clear political duty to organize against the occupation right now, unconditionally and without unseemly demands on the already laden Palestinians.

Some of them have. Several hundred Israeli reservists have refused military duty in the territories, and a whole spectrum of journalists, activists, academics and writers (including Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, David Grossman, Yitzhak Laor, Ilan Pappé, Danny Rabinowitz and Uri Avnery) have kept up a steady attack on the criminal futility of Sharon&#39;s campaign against the Palestinian people. Ideally, there should be a similar chorus in the United States, where, except for a tiny number of Jewish voices making public their outrage at Israel&#39;s occupation, there is far too much complicity and drumbeating. The Israeli lobby has been temporarily successful in identifying the war against bin Laden with Sharon&#39;s single-minded, collective assault on Arafat and his people. Unfortunately, the Arab-American community is both too small and beleaguered as it tries to fend off the ever-expanding Ashcroft dragnet, racial profiling and curtailment of civil liberties.

Most urgently needed, therefore, is coordination among the various secular groups that support Palestinians, a people against whose mere presence geographical dispersion (even more than Israeli depredations) is the major obstacle. To end the occupation and all that has gone with it is a clear enough imperative. Now let us do it.

[hajduk]

Edward W. Said "What Israel has done" may 6. 2002

Despite Israel&#39;s effort to restrict coverage of its destructive invasion of the West Bank&#39;s Palestinian towns and refugee camps, information and images have nevertheless seeped through. The Internet has provided hundreds of verbal as well as pictorial eyewitness reports, as have Arab and European TV coverage, most of it unavailable or blocked or spun out of existence from the mainstream US media. That evidence provides stunning proof of what Israel&#39;s campaign has actually--has always--been about: the irreversible conquest of Palestinian land and society. The official line (which Washington has basically supported, along with nearly every US media commentator) is that Israel has been defending itself by retaliating against the suicide bombings that have undermined its security and even threatened its existence. That claim has gained the status of an absolute truth, moderated neither by what Israel has done nor by what in fact has been done to it.

Phrases such as "plucking out the terrorist network," "destroying the terrorist infrastructure" and "attacking terrorist nests" (note the total dehumanization involved) are repeated so often and so unthinkingly that they have given Israel the right to destroy Palestinian civil life, with a shocking degree of sheer wanton destruction, killing, humiliation and vandalism.

There are signs, however, that Israel&#39;s amazing, not to say grotesque, claim to be fighting for its existence is slowly being eroded by the devastation wrought by the Jewish state and its homicidal prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Take this front-page New York Times report, "Attacks Turn Palestinian Plans Into Bent Metal and Piles of Dust," by Serge Schmemann (no Palestinian propagandist) on April 11: "There is no way to assess the full extent of the damage to the cities and towns--Ramallah, Bethlehem, Tulkarm, Qalqilya, Nablus and Jenin--while they remain under a tight siege, with patrols and snipers firing in the streets. But it is safe to say that the infrastructure of life itself and of any future Palestinian state--roads, schools, electricity pylons, water pipes, telephone lines--has been devastated."
By what inhuman calculus did Israel&#39;s army, using dozens of tanks and armored personnel carriers, along with hundreds of missile strikes from US-supplied Apache helicopter gunships, besiege Jenin&#39;s refugee camp for over a week, a one-square-kilometer patch of shacks housing 15,000 refugees and a few dozen men armed with automatic rifles and no missiles or tanks, and call it a response to terrorist violence and a threat to Israel&#39;s survival? There are reported to be hundreds buried in the rubble, which Israeli bulldozers began heaping over the camp&#39;s ruins after the fighting ended. Are Palestinian civilian men, women and children no more than rats or cockroaches that can be attacked and killed in the thousands without so much as a word of compassion or in their defense? And what about the capture of thousands of men who have been taken off by Israeli soldiers, the destitution and homelessness of so many ordinary people trying to survive in the ruins created by Israeli bulldozers all over the West Bank, the siege that has now gone on for months and months, the cutting off of electricity and water in Palestinian towns, the long days of total curfew, the shortage of food and medicine, the wounded who have bled to death, the systematic attacks on ambulances and aid workers that even the mild-mannered Kofi Annan has decried as outrageous? Those actions will not be pushed so easily into the memory hole. Its friends must ask Israel how its suicidal policies can possibly gain it peace, acceptance and security.

The monstrous transformation of an entire people by a formidable and feared propaganda machine into little more than militants and terrorists has allowed not just Israel&#39;s military but its fleet of writers and defenders to efface a terrible history of injustice, suffering and abuse in order to destroy the civil existence of the Palestinian people with impunity. Gone from public memory are the destruction of Palestinian society in 1948 and the creation of a dispossessed people; the conquest of the West Bank and Gaza and their military occupation since 1967; the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, with its 17,500 Lebanese and Palestinian dead and the Sabra and Shatila massacres; the continuous assault on Palestinian schools, refugee camps, hospitals, civil installations of every kind. What antiterrorist purpose is served by destroying the building and then removing the records of the ministry of education; the Ramallah municipality; the Central Bureau of Statistics; various institutes specializing in civil rights, health, culture and economic development; hospitals, radio and TV stations? Isn&#39;t it clear that Sharon is bent not only on breaking the Palestinians but on trying to eliminate them as a people with national institutions?

In such a context of disparity and asymmetrical power it seems deranged to keep asking the Palestinians, who have no army, air force, tanks or functioning leadership, to renounce violence, and to require no comparable limitation on Israel&#39;s actions. It certainly obscures Israel&#39;s systematic use of lethal force against unarmed civilians, copiously documented by all the major human rights organizations. Even the matter of suicide bombers, which I have always opposed, cannot be examined from a viewpoint that permits a hidden racist standard to value Israeli lives over the many more Palestinian lives that have been lost, maimed, distorted and foreshortened by longstanding military occupation and the systematic barbarity openly used by Sharon against Palestinians since the beginning of his career.
There can be no conceivable peace that doesn&#39;t tackle the real issue, which is Israel&#39;s utter refusal to accept the sovereign existence of a Palestinian people that is entitled to rights over what Sharon and most of his supporters consider to be the land of Greater Israel, i.e., the West Bank and Gaza. A profile of Sharon in the April 5 Financial Times concluded with this telling extract from his autobiography, which the FT prefaced with, "He has written with pride of his parents&#39; belief that Jews and Arabs could be citizens side by side." Then the relevant passage from Sharon&#39;s book: "But they believed without question that only they had rights over the land. And no one was going to force them out, regardless of terror or anything else. When the land belongs to you physically...that is when you have power, not just physical power but spiritual power."

In 1988 the PLO made the concession of accepting partition of Palestine into two states. This was reaffirmed on numerous occasions, and certainly in the Oslo documents. But only the Palestinians explicitly recognized the notion of partition. Israel never has. This is why there are now more than 170 settlements on Palestinian land, why there is a 300-mile road network connecting them to each other and totally impeding Palestinian movement (according to Jeff Halper of The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, it costs &#036;3 billion and has been funded by the United States), and why no Israeli prime minister has ever conceded any real sovereignty to the Palestinians, and why the settlements have grown on an annual basis. The merest glance at the accompanying map reveals what Israel has been doing throughout the peace process, and what the consequent geographical discontinuity and shrinkage in Palestinian life has been. In effect, Israel considers itself and the Jewish people to own all of Palestine. There are land ownership laws in Israel itself guaranteeing this, but in the West Bank and Gaza the settlements, roads and refusal to concede sovereign land rights to the Palestinians serve the same function.

What boggles the mind is that no official--no US, no Palestinian, no Arab, no UN, no European, or anyone else--has challenged Israel on this point, which has been threaded through all of the Oslo agreements. Which is why, after nearly ten years of peace negotiations, Israel still controls the West Bank and Gaza. They are more directly controlled by more than 1,000 Israeli tanks and thousands of soldiers today, but the underlying principle is the same. No Israeli leader (and certainly not Sharon and his Land of Israel supporters, who are the majority in his government) has either officially recognized the occupied territories as occupied or gone on to recognize that Palestinians could or might theoretically have sovereign rights--that is, without Israeli control over borders, water, air or security--to what most of the world considers Palestinian land. So to speak about the vision of a Palestinian state, as has become fashionable, is a mere vision unless the question of land ownership and sovereignty is openly and officially conceded by the Israeli government. None ever has and, if I am right, none will in the near future. It should be remembered that Israel is the only state in the world today that has never had internationally declared borders; the only state not the state of its citizens but of the whole Jewish people; the only state where more than 90 percent of the land is held in trust for the use only of the Jewish people. That Israel has systematically flouted international law (as argued last week in these pages by Richard Falk) suggests the depth and structural knottiness of the absolute rejectionism that Palestinians have had to face.
This is why I have been skeptical about discussions and meetings about peace, which is a lovely word but in the present context usually means Palestinians are told to stop resisting Israeli control over their land. It is among the many deficiencies of Arafat&#39;s terrible leadership (to say nothing of the even more lamentable Arab leaders in general) that he neither made the decadelong Oslo negotiations ever focus on land ownership, thus never putting the onus on Israel to declare itself willing to give up title to Palestinian land, nor asked that Israel be required to deal with any of its responsibility for the sufferings of his people. Now I worry that he may simply be trying to save himself again, whereas what we really need are international monitors to protect us, as well as new elections to assure a real political future for the Palestinian people.

The profound question facing Israel and its people is this: Is it willing to assume the rights and obligations of being a country like any other, and forswear the kind of impossible colonial assertions for which Sharon and his parents and soldiers have been fighting since day one? In 1948 Palestinians lost 78 percent of Palestine. In 1967 they lost the remaining 22 percent. Now the international community must lay upon Israel the obligation to accept the principle of real, as opposed to fictional, partition, and to accept the principle of limiting Israel&#39;s extraterritorial claims, those absurd, biblically based pretensions and laws that have so far allowed it to override another people. Why is that kind of fundamentalism unquestioningly tolerated? But so far all we hear is that Palestinians must give up violence and condemn terror. Is nothing substantive ever demanded of Israel, and can it go on doing what it has without a thought for the consequences? That is the real question of its existence, whether it can exist as a state like all others, or must always be above the constraints and duties of other states. The record is not reassuring.

[graffic]

Why do the Palestinian refugees keep a hold of the keys to their houses, and deeds to them even to this day? Because despite their shoddy treatment by Arab regimes, they still want to return to their homes.

If the Arabs had accepted the 1947 UN resolution not a single Palestinian would have become a refugee. An independant Arab state would have existed beside Israel.


The argument that is advanced by apologists for Israel on the refugee question would not be accepted anywhere else in the world.

“The Arab States do not want to solve the refugee problem. They want to keep it as an open sore, as an affront to the United Nations and as a weapon against Israel. Arab leaders don&#39;t give a damn whether the refugees live or die.”

Left wing British journalist Benny Morris: “The [refugee] problem was a direct consequence of the war that the Palestinians — and...surrounding Arab states — had launched.”

Resolution 194 in 1948 called for Israel and the Arab states through negotiations to solve the refugee problem.

that refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which under principles of international law or in equity should be made good by Governments or authorities responsible. Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of refugees and payment of compensation...

The UN recognized that Israel could not be expected to repatriate a hostile population that might endanger its security. The solution to the problem, like all previous refugee problems in world history, would require at least some Palestinians to be resettled in Arab lands. The Arabs rejected the resolution because it would lead to accepting a Jewish state in the Middle East.


“The Palestinian demand for the &#39;right of return&#39; is totally unrealistic and would have to be solved by means of financial compensation and resettlement in Arab countries.”

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak

Ulster socialist
I&#39;m not referring to those nations that do the &#39;ethical thing&#39;. Those nations that do so can usually afford to because they are 1st world economies.


Yes, because Israel was a "1st world economy" in 1948 when it took in 820,000 Jewish refugees who were forcibly expelled by Arab nations. Israel suffered great expenses taking in the Jewish refugees, Israel has consequently maintained that any agreement to compensate the Palestinian refugees must also include Arab compensation for Jewish refugees. To this day, the Arab states have refused to pay any compensation to the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were forced to abandon their property before fleeing those countries.

Its nothing to do with the Arab states is it though Ulster socialist? The Arab states can expell 820,000 Jewish refugees and remain innocent. Yet Israel expels 500,000 Arabs and suddenly everyone demands all refugees must be returned. Why can Israel resettle Jewish refugees expelled by Arab states but the Arab states refuse to resettle Arab refugees expelled by the Jewish state? Which is more wrong?

Considering nearly twice as many Jews were expelled from Arab states than Arabs were from Palestine.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by graffic
Yes, because Israel was a "1st world economy" in 1948 when it took in 820,000 Jewish refugees who were forcibly expelled by Arab nations
Wait a minute, wait a minute... ... I thought the entire purpose of Israel&#39;s establishment was to act as a sanctuary to every jew in the world. Are you now denying that&#39;s the case?

Not that i&#39;m defending the expulsions by the arab countries but don&#39;t you think that it might in some way be a response to what the zionists did to the palestinian refugees?

[Labor Shall Rule]

Respond to my fucking post Graffic.

[graffic]

I thought the entire purpose of Israel&#39;s establishment was to act as a sanctuary to every jew in the world. Are you now denying that&#39;s the case?

You said the Arab states could not be expected to take in refugees because they were not 1st world economies. I responded by giving you an example of Israel taking in twice as many refugees at great economic cost when Israel was barely even at the economic standard of the surrounding Arab states. Basically your excuses for the Arab states not resettling Arab refugees are futile. There are no excuses.

[graffic]

As for its &#39;democracy,&#39; it is a state controlled by key representatives of the bourgeoisie, who continue pay service to British and American imperialism in the region.

So you can oppose Jewish self-determination because of the state which controls the people. Youshould be against both sides of the conflict with that logic then.



It is a racist proposition, similiar to the British Nationalist Party&#39;s call for "keeping Britain British."

So does every other state in the Middle East. Why should Israel be picked out for being racist and be forced to take more Arabs in, to "stop the idea" of a Jewish state. Hell every other state in the Middle East is an Arab state with an overwhelming Arab majority, but that tiny Jewish state with their Jewish majority - racist fucks&#33;

[Labor Shall Rule]

Its virtually impossible to debate with an apologist for genocide that pulls so many justifications out of his ass for pushing a people off their land.

[hajduk]

The Clash of Ignorance
by Edward W. Said

Samuel Huntington&#39;s article "The Clash of Civilizations?" appeared in the Summer 1993 issue of Foreign Affairs, where it immediately attracted a surprising amount of attention and reaction. Because the article was intended to supply Americans with an original thesis about "a new phase" in world politics after the end of the cold war, Huntington&#39;s terms of argument seemed compellingly large, bold, even visionary. He very clearly had his eye on rivals in the policy-making ranks, theorists such as Francis Fukuyama and his "end of history" ideas, as well as the legions who had celebrated the onset of globalism, tribalism and the dissipation of the state. But they, he allowed, had understood only some aspects of this new period. He was about to announce the "crucial, indeed a central, aspect" of what "global politics is likely to be in the coming years." Unhesitatingly he pressed on:

"It is my hypothesis that the fundamental source of conflict in this new world will not be primarily ideological or primarily economic. The great divisions among humankind and the dominating source of conflict will be cultural. Nation states will remain the most powerful actors in world affairs, but the principal conflicts of global politics will occur between nations and groups of different civilizations. The clash of civilizations will dominate global politics. The fault lines between civilizations will be the battle lines of the future."



Most of the argument in the pages that followed relied on a vague notion of something Huntington called "civilization identity" and "the interactions among seven or eight [sic] major civilizations," of which the conflict between two of them, Islam and the West, gets the lion&#39;s share of his attention. In this belligerent kind of thought, he relies heavily on a 1990 article by the veteran Orientalist Bernard Lewis, whose ideological colors are manifest in its title, "The Roots of Muslim Rage." In both articles, the personification of enormous entities called "the West" and "Islam" is recklessly affirmed, as if hugely complicated matters like identity and culture existed in a cartoonlike world where Popeye and Bluto bash each other mercilessly, with one always more virtuous pugilist getting the upper hand over his adversary. Certainly neither Huntington nor Lewis has much time to spare for the internal dynamics and plurality of every civilization, or for the fact that the major contest in most modern cultures concerns the definition or interpretation of each culture, or for the unattractive possibility that a great deal of demagogy and downright ignorance is involved in presuming to speak for a whole religion or civilization. No, the West is the West, and Islam Islam.

The challenge for Western policy-makers, says Huntington, is to make sure that the West gets stronger and fends off all the others, Islam in particular. More troubling is Huntington&#39;s assumption that his perspective, which is to survey the entire world from a perch outside all ordinary attachments and hidden loyalties, is the correct one, as if everyone else were scurrying around looking for the answers that he has already found. In fact, Huntington is an ideologist, someone who wants to make "civilizations" and "identities" into what they are not: shut-down, sealed-off entities that have been purged of the myriad currents and countercurrents that animate human history, and that over centuries have made it possible for that history not only to contain wars of religion and imperial conquest but also to be one of exchange, cross-fertilization and sharing. This far less visible history is ignored in the rush to highlight the ludicrously compressed and constricted warfare that "the clash of civilizations" argues is the reality. When he published his book by the same title in 1996, Huntington tried to give his argument a little more subtlety and many, many more footnotes; all he did, however, was confuse himself and demonstrate what a clumsy writer and inelegant thinker he was.

The basic paradigm of West versus the rest (the cold war opposition reformulated) remained untouched, and this is what has persisted, often insidiously and implicitly, in discussion since the terrible events of September 11. The carefully planned and horrendous, pathologically motivated suicide attack and mass slaughter by a small group of deranged militants has been turned into proof of Huntington&#39;s thesis. Instead of seeing it for what it is--the capture of big ideas (I use the word loosely) by a tiny band of crazed fanatics for criminal purposes--international luminaries from former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi have pontificated about Islam&#39;s troubles, and in the latter&#39;s case have used Huntington&#39;s ideas to rant on about the West&#39;s superiority, how "we" have Mozart and Michelangelo and they don&#39;t. (Berlusconi has since made a halfhearted apology for his insult to "Islam.")

But why not instead see parallels, admittedly less spectacular in their destructiveness, for Osama bin Laden and his followers in cults like the Branch Davidians or the disciples of the Rev. Jim Jones at Guyana or the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo? Even the normally sober British weekly The Economist, in its issue of September 22-28, can&#39;t resist reaching for the vast generalization, praising Huntington extravagantly for his "cruel and sweeping, but nonetheless acute" observations about Islam. "Today," the journal says with unseemly solemnity, Huntington writes that "the world&#39;s billion or so Muslims are &#39;convinced of the superiority of their culture, and obsessed with the inferiority of their power.&#39;" Did he canvas 100 Indonesians, 200 Moroccans, 500 Egyptians and fifty Bosnians? Even if he did, what sort of sample is that?

Uncountable are the editorials in every American and European newspaper and magazine of note adding to this vocabulary of gigantism and apocalypse, each use of which is plainly designed not to edify but to inflame the reader&#39;s indignant passion as a member of the "West," and what we need to do. Churchillian rhetoric is used inappropriately by self-appointed combatants in the West&#39;s, and especially America&#39;s, war against its haters, despoilers, destroyers, with scant attention to complex histories that defy such reductiveness and have seeped from one territory into another, in the process overriding the boundaries that are supposed to separate us all into divided armed camps.

This is the problem with unedifying labels like Islam and the West: They mislead and confuse the mind, which is trying to make sense of a disorderly reality that won&#39;t be pigeonholed or strapped down as easily as all that. I remember interrupting a man who, after a lecture I had given at a West Bank university in 1994, rose from the audience and started to attack my ideas as "Western," as opposed to the strict Islamic ones he espoused. "Why are you wearing a suit and tie?" was the first retort that came to mind. "They&#39;re Western too." He sat down with an embarrassed smile on his face, but I recalled the incident when information on the September 11 terrorists started to come in: how they had mastered all the technical details required to inflict their homicidal evil on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the aircraft they had commandeered. Where does one draw the line between "Western" technology and, as Berlusconi declared, "Islam&#39;s" inability to be a part of "modernity"?

One cannot easily do so, of course. How finally inadequate are the labels, generalizations and cultural assertions. At some level, for instance, primitive passions and sophisticated know-how converge in ways that give the lie to a fortified boundary not only between "West" and "Islam" but also between past and present, us and them, to say nothing of the very concepts of identity and nationality about which there is unending disagreement and debate. A unilateral decision made to draw lines in the sand, to undertake crusades, to oppose their evil with our good, to extirpate terrorism and, in Paul Wolfowitz&#39;s nihilistic vocabulary, to end nations entirely, doesn&#39;t make the supposed entities any easier to see; rather, it speaks to how much simpler it is to make bellicose statements for the purpose of mobilizing collective passions than to reflect, examine, sort out what it is we are dealing with in reality, the interconnectedness of innumerable lives, "ours" as well as "theirs."

In a remarkable series of three articles published between January and March 1999 in Dawn, Pakistan&#39;s most respected weekly, the late Eqbal Ahmad, writing for a Muslim audience, analyzed what he called the roots of the religious right, coming down very harshly on the mutilations of Islam by absolutists and fanatical tyrants whose obsession with regulating personal behavior promotes "an Islamic order reduced to a penal code, stripped of its humanism, aesthetics, intellectual quests, and spiritual devotion." And this "entails an absolute assertion of one, generally de-contextualized, aspect of religion and a total disregard of another. The phenomenon distorts religion, debases tradition, and twists the political process wherever it unfolds." As a timely instance of this debasement, Ahmad proceeds first to present the rich, complex, pluralist meaning of the word jihad and then goes on to show that in the word&#39;s current confinement to indiscriminate war against presumed enemies, it is impossible "to recognize the Islamic--religion, society, culture, history or politics--as lived and experienced by Muslims through the ages." The modern Islamists, Ahmad concludes, are "concerned with power, not with the soul; with the mobilization of people for political purposes rather than with sharing and alleviating their sufferings and aspirations. Theirs is a very limited and time-bound political agenda." What has made matters worse is that similar distortions and zealotry occur in the "Jewish" and "Christian" universes of discourse

It was Conrad, more powerfully than any of his readers at the end of the nineteenth century could have imagined, who understood that the distinctions between civilized London and "the heart of darkness" quickly collapsed in extreme situations, and that the heights of European civilization could instantaneously fall into the most barbarous practices without preparation or transition. And it was Conrad also, in The Secret Agent (1907), who described terrorism&#39;s affinity for abstractions like "pure science" (and by extension for "Islam" or "the West"), as well as the terrorist&#39;s ultimate moral degradation.

For there are closer ties between apparently warring civilizations than most of us would like to believe; both Freud and Nietzsche showed how the traffic across carefully maintained, even policed boundaries moves with often terrifying ease. But then such fluid ideas, full of ambiguity and skepticism about notions that we hold on to, scarcely furnish us with suitable, practical guidelines for situations such as the one we face now. Hence the altogether more reassuring battle orders (a crusade, good versus evil, freedom against fear, etc.) drawn out of Huntington&#39;s alleged opposition between Islam and the West, from which official discourse drew its vocabulary in the first days after the September 11 attacks. There&#39;s since been a noticeable de-escalation in that discourse, but to judge from the steady amount of hate speech and actions, plus reports of law enforcement efforts directed against Arabs, Muslims and Indians all over the country, the paradigm stays on.

One further reason for its persistence is the increased presence of Muslims all over Europe and the United States. Think of the populations today of France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Britain, America, even Sweden, and you must concede that Islam is no longer on the fringes of the West but at its center. But what is so threatening about that presence? Buried in the collective culture are memories of the first great Arab-Islamic conquests, which began in the seventh century and which, as the celebrated Belgian historian Henri Pirenne wrote in his landmark book Mohammed and Charlemagne (1939), shattered once and for all the ancient unity of the Mediterranean, destroyed the Christian-Roman synthesis and gave rise to a new civilization dominated by northern powers (Germany and Carolingian France) whose mission, he seemed to be saying, is to resume defense of the "West" against its historical-cultural enemies. What Pirenne left out, alas, is that in the creation of this new line of defense the West drew on the humanism, science, philosophy, sociology and historiography of Islam, which had already interposed itself between Charlemagne&#39;s world and classical antiquity. Islam is inside from the start, as even Dante, great enemy of Mohammed, had to concede when he placed the Prophet at the very heart of his Inferno.

Then there is the persisting legacy of monotheism itself, the Abrahamic religions, as Louis Massignon aptly called them. Beginning with Judaism and Christianity, each is a successor haunted by what came before; for Muslims, Islam fulfills and ends the line of prophecy. There is still no decent history or demystification of the many-sided contest among these three followers--not one of them by any means a monolithic, unified camp--of the most jealous of all gods, even though the bloody modern convergence on Palestine furnishes a rich secular instance of what has been so tragically irreconcilable about them. Not surprisingly, then, Muslims and Christians speak readily of crusades and jihads, both of them eliding the Judaic presence with often sublime insouciance. Such an agenda, says Eqbal Ahmad, is "very reassuring to the men and women who are stranded in the middle of the ford, between the deep waters of tradition and modernity."

But we are all swimming in those waters, Westerners and Muslims and others alike. And since the waters are part of the ocean of history, trying to plow or divide them with barriers is futile. These are tense times, but it is better to think in terms of powerful and powerless communities, the secular politics of reason and ignorance, and universal principles of justice and injustice, than to wander off in search of vast abstractions that may give momentary satisfaction but little self-knowledge or informed analysis. "The Clash of Civilizations" thesis is a gimmick like "The War of the Worlds," better for reinforcing defensive self-pride than for critical understanding of the bewildering interdependence of our time.

[hajduk]

Punishment by Detail
by Edward Said

Aside from the obvious physical discomforts, being ill for a long period of time fills the spirit with a terrible feeling of helplessness, but also with periods of analytic lucidity, which, of course, must be treasured. For the past three months now I have been in and out of the hospital, with days marked by lengthy and painful treatments, blood transfusions, endless tests, hours and hours of unproductive time spent staring at the ceiling, draining fatigue and infection, inability to do normal work, and thinking, thinking, thinking.

But there are also the intermittent passages of lucidity and reflection that sometimes give the mind a perspective on daily life that allows it to see things (without being able to do much about them) from a different perspective. Reading the news from Palestine and seeing the frightful images of death and destruction on television, it has been my experience to be utterly amazed and aghast at what I have deduced from those details about Israeli government policy, more particularly about what has been going on in the mind of Ariel Sharon. And when, after the recent Gaza bombing by one of his F-16s in which nine children were massacred, he was quoted as congratulating the pilot and boasting of a great Israeli success, I was able to form a much clearer idea than before of what a pathologically deranged mind is capable of, not only in terms of what it plans and orders but, worse, how it manages to persuade other minds to think in the same delusional and criminal way. Getting inside the official Israeli mind is a worthwhile, if lurid, experience.

In the West, however, there&#39;s been such repetitious and unedifying attention paid to Palestinian suicide bombing that a gross distortion in reality has completely obscured what is much worse: the official Israeli, and perhaps the uniquely Sharonian evil that has been visited so deliberately and so methodically on the Palestinian people. Suicide bombing is reprehensible but it is a direct and, in my opinion, a consciously programmed result of years of abuse, powerlessness and despair. It has as little to do with the Arab or Muslim supposed propensity for violence as the man in the moon. Sharon wants terrorism, not peace, and he does everything in his power to create the conditions for it. But for all its horror, Palestinian violence, the response of a desperate and horribly oppressed people, has been stripped of its context and the terrible suffering from which it arises: a failure to see that is a failure in humanity, which doesn&#39;t make it any less terrible but at least situates it in a real history and real geography.

Yet the location of Palestinian terror -- of course it is terror -- is never allowed a moment&#39;s chance to appear, so remorseless has been the focus on it as a phenomenon apart, a pure, gratuitous evil which Israel, supposedly acting on behalf of pure good, has been virtuously battling in its variously appalling acts of disproportionate violence against a population of three million Palestinian civilians. I am not speaking only about Israel&#39;s manipulation of opinion, but its exploitation of the American equivalent of the campaign against terrorism without which Israel could not have done what it has done. (In fact, I cannot think of any other country on earth that, in full view of nightly TV audiences, has performed such miracles of detailed sadism against an entire society and gotten away with it.) That this evil has been made consciously part of George W Bush&#39;s campaign against terrorism, irrationally magnifying American fantasies and fixations with extraordinary ease, is no small part of its blind destructiveness. Like the brigades of eager (and in my opinion completely corrupt) American intellectuals who spin enormous structures of falsehoods about the benign purpose and necessity of US imperialism, Israeli society has pressed into service numerous academics, policy intellectuals at think tanks, and ex-military men now in defence- related and public relations business, all to rationalise and make convincing inhuman punitive policies that are supposedly based on the need for Israeli security.

Israeli security is now a fabled beast. Like a unicorn it is endlessly hunted and never found, remaining, everlastingly, the goal of future action. That over time Israel has become less secure and more unacceptable to its neighbours scarcely merits a moment&#39;s notice. But then who challenges the view that Israeli security ought to define the moral world we live in? Certainly not the Arab and Palestinian leaderships who for 30 years have conceded everything to Israeli security. Shouldn&#39;t that ever be questioned, given that Israel has wreaked more damage on the Palestinians and other Arabs relative to its size than any country in the world, Israel with its nuclear arsenal, its air force, navy, and army limitlessly supplied by the US taxpayer? As a result the daily, minute occurrences of what Palestinians have to live through are hidden and, more important, covered over by a logic of self-defence and the pursuit of terrorism (terrorist infrastructure, terrorist nests, terrorist bomb factories, terrorist suspects -- the list is infinite) which perfectly suits Sharon and the lamentable George Bush. Ideas about terrorism have thus taken on a life of their own, legitimised and re- legitimised without proof, logic or rational argument.

Consider for instance the devastation of Afghanistan, on the one hand, and the "targeted" assassinations of almost 100 Palestinians (to say nothing of many thousands of "suspects" rounded- up and still imprisoned by Israeli soldiers) on the other: nobody asks whether all these people killed were in fact terrorists, or proved to be terrorists, or were about to become terrorists. They are all assumed to be dangers by acts of simple, unchallenged affirmation. All you need is an arrogant spokesman or two, like the loutish Ranaan Gissin, Avi Pazner, or Dore Gold, and in Washington a non-stop apologist for ignorance and incoherence like Ari Fleisher, and the targets in question are just as good as dead. Without doubts, questions, or demurral. No need for proof or any such tiresome delicacy. Terrorism and its obsessive pursuit have become an entirely circular, self-fulfilling murder and slow death of enemies who have no choice or say in the matter.

With the exception of reports by a few intrepid journalists and writers such as Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, Amos Elon, Tanya Leibowitz, Jeff Halper, Israel Shamir and a few others, public discourse in the Israeli media has declined terribly in quality and honesty. Patriotism and blind support for the government has replaced skeptical reflection and moral seriousness. Gone are the days of Israel Shahak, Jakob Talmon, and Yehoshua Leibowitch. I can think of few Israeli academics and intellectuals -- men like Zeev Sternhell, Uri Avneri, and Ilan Pappe, for instance -- who are courageous enough to depart from the imbecilic and debased debate about "security" and "terrorism" that seems to have overtaken the Israeli peace establishment, or even its rapidly dwindling Left opposition. Crimes are being committed every day in the name of Israel and the Jewish people, and yet the intellectuals chatter on about strategic withdrawal, or perhaps whether to incorporate settlements or not, or whether to keep building that monstrous fence (has a crazier idea ever been realised in the modern world, that you can put several million people in a cage and say they don&#39;t exist?) in a manner befitting a general or a politician, rather than in ways more suited to intellectuals and artists with independent judgment and some sort of moral standard. Where are the Israeli equivalents of Nadine Gordimer, Andre Brink, Athol Fugard, those white writers who spoke out unequivocally and with unambiguous clarity against the evils of South African apartheid? They simply don&#39;t exist in Israel, where public discourse by writers and academics has sunk to equivocation and the repetition of official propaganda, and where most really first-class writing and thought has disappeared from even the academic establishment.

But to return to Israeli practices and the mind-set that has gripped the country with such obduracy during the past few years, think of Sharon&#39;s plan. It entails nothing less than the obliteration of an entire people by slow, systematic methods of suffocation, outright murder, and the stifling of everyday life. There is a remarkable story by Kafka, In the Penal Colony, about a crazed official who shows off a fantastically detailed torture machine whose purpose is to write all over the body of the victim, using a complex apparatus of needles to inscribe the captive&#39;s body with minute letters that ultimately causes the prisoner to bleed to death. This is what Sharon and his brigades of willing executioners are doing to the Palestinians, with only the most limited and most symbolic of opposition. Every Palestinian has become a prisoner. Gaza is surrounded by an electrified wire fence on three sides; imprisoned like animals, Gazans are unable to move, unable to work, unable to sell their vegetables or fruit, unable to go to school. They are exposed from the air to Israeli planes and helicopters and are gunned down like turkeys on the ground by tanks and machine guns. Impoverished and starved, Gaza is a human nightmare, each of whose little pieces of episodes -- like what takes place at Erez, or near the settlements -- involves thousands of soldiers in the humiliation, punishment, intolerable enfeeblement of each Palestinian, without regard for age, gender, or illness. Medical supplies are held up at the border, ambulances are fired upon or detained. Hundreds of houses demolished, and hundreds of thousands of trees and agricultural land destroyed in acts of systematic collective punishment against civilians, most of whom are already refugees from Israel&#39;s destruction of their society in 1948. Hope has been eliminated from the Palestinian vocabulary so that only raw defiance remains, and still Sharon and his sadistic minions prattle on about eliminating terrorism by an ever-encroaching occupation that has continued now for 35 years. That the campaign itself is, like all colonial brutality, futile, or that it has the effect of making Palestinians more, rather than less, defiant simply does not enter Sharon&#39;s closed mind.

The West Bank is occupied by 1,000 Israeli tanks whose sole purpose is to fire upon and terrorise civilians. Curfews are imposed for periods of up to two weeks, without respite. Schools and universities are either closed or impossible to get to. No one can travel, not just between the nine main cities, but within the cities. Every town today is a wasteland of destroyed buildings, looted offices, purposely ruined water and electrical systems. Commerce is finished. Malnutrition prevails in half the number of children. Two thirds of the population lives below the poverty level of &#036;2 a day. Tanks in Jenin (where the demolition of the refugee camp by Israeli armour, a major war crime, was never investigated because cowardly international bureaucrats such as Kofi Annan back down when Israel threatens) fire upon and kill children, but that is only one drop in an unending stream of Palestinian civilian deaths caused by Israeli soldiers who furnish the illegal Israeli military occupation with loyal, unquestioning service. Palestinians are all "terrorist suspects". The soul of this occupation is that young Israeli conscripts are allowed full rein to subject Palestinians at check-points to every known form of private torture and abjection. There is the waiting in the sun for hours; then there is the detention of medical supplies and produce until they rot; there are the insulting words and beatings administered at will; the sudden rampage of jeeps and soldiers against civilians waiting their turn by the thousands at the innumerable check points that have made of Palestinian life a choking hell; making dozens of youths kneel in the sun for hours; forcing men to take off their clothes; insulting and humiliating parents in front of their children; forbidding the sick to pass through for no other reason than personal whim; stopping ambulances and firing on them. And the steady number of Palestinian deaths (quadruple that of Israelis) increases on a daily, mostly untabulated basis. More "terrorist suspects" plus their wives and children, but "we" regret those deaths very much. Thank you.

Israel is frequently referred to as a democracy. If so, then it is a democracy without a conscience, a country whose soul has been captured by a mania for punishing the weak, a democracy that faithfully mirrors the psychopathic mentality of its ruler, General Sharon, whose sole idea -- if that is the right word for it -- is to kill, reduce, maim, drive away Palestinians until "they break". He provides nothing more concrete as a goal for his campaigns, now or in the past, beyond that, and like the garrulous official in Kafka&#39;s story he is most proud of his machine for abusing defenceless Palestinian civilians, all the while monstrously abetted in his grotesque lies by his court advisers and philosophers and generals, as well as by his chorus of faithful American servants. There is no Palestinian army of occupation, no Palestinian tanks, no soldiers, no helicopter gun-ships, no artillery, no government to speak of. But there are the "terrorists" and the "violence" that Israel has invented so that its own neuroses can be inscribed on the bodies of Palestinians, without effective protest from the overwhelming majority of Israel&#39;s laggard philosophers, intellectuals, artists, peace activists. Palestinian schools, libraries and universities have ceased normal functioning for months now: and we still wait for the Western freedom-to-write-groups and the vociferous defenders of academic freedom in America to raise their voices in protest. I have yet to see one academic organisation either in Israel or in the West make a declaration about this profound abrogation of the Palestinian right to knowledge, to learning, to attend school.

In sum, Palestinians must die a slow death so that Israel can have its security, which is just around the corner but cannot be realised because of the special Israeli "insecurity". The whole world must sympathise, while the cries of Palestinian orphans, sick old women, bereaved communities, and tortured prisoners simply go unheard and unrecorded. Doubtless, we will be told, these horrors serve a larger purpose than mere sadistic cruelty. After all, "the two sides" are engaged in a "cycle of violence" which has to be stopped, sometime, somewhere. Once in a while, we ought to pause and declare indignantly that there is only side with an army and a country: the other is a stateless dispossessed population of people without rights or any present way of securing them. The language of suffering and concrete daily life has either been hijacked, or it has been so perverted as, in my opinion, to be useless except as pure fiction deployed as a screen for the purpose of more killing and painstaking torture -- slowly, fastidiously, inexorably. That is the truth of what Palestinians suffer. But in any case, Israeli policy will ultimately fail.

[graffic]

Originally posted by Labor Shall [email protected] 04, 2007 01:19 pm
Its virtually impossible to debate with an apologist for genocide that pulls so many justifications out of his ass for pushing a people off their land.
In other words you can&#39;t argue with my points. ;)

Its their land?

The idea of a "palestinian people" only came into being in the 1960s when the Arabs in the West bank, gaza and eastern Jerusalem who only considered themselves Arabs up to this point realised they couldn&#39;t legitimately claim the right to self-determination because of the number of Arab countries already so claimed they weren&#39;t only Arabs, but a separate nation in order to try to sway world opinion in their favour. The rulers claimed a unique history then dragged the people into going along with it to try to achieve their goals no matter how unjustified.

By your logic we should destroy the current Israeli state and give it to the Palestinians, then destroy the newly formed Palestinian state and give it to the Byzantine Greeks. Then we should destroy the Greek "imperial colonialist" nation and give it to the Roman Italians etc etc.

[Dr Mindbender]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 10:49 am


You said the Arab states could not be expected to take in refugees because they were not 1st world economies. I responded by giving you an example of Israel taking in twice as many refugees at great economic cost when Israel was barely even at the economic standard of the surrounding Arab states. Basically your excuses for the Arab states not resettling Arab refugees are futile. There are no excuses.
No you misquoted me. I meant that one of the key factors in a country deciding wether or not it can afford to take in more people is wether or not it can afford to. This isnt necessarilly a rule of thumb however.

Israel has no such get out of jail card because the whole rationale behind it&#39;s establishment was to act as a homeland for the jews so how can it justify refusing entry to jewish people out of inconvienience? They kicked the Palestinians out, so they have made their proverbial bed, so to speak.

[Fascist-Hunter]

The idea of a "palestinian people"

This is not true and you know that. But anyway, does that matter? You can call them "cat", "coca-cola" or "tree" or whatever. These people exist and they were living there a long time before, no matter what you or others call them. Would it make any difference if they were called Chinese or Klingons before???

I think that it is quite clear that the only possible solution would be a two state solution or a state where both groups could live together equally.

Anyway...

Graffic, why are you wasting your time here? You are using ideas that can only be understood from an irrational point of view, e.g. a nationalist point of view. Since most guys here on revleft support progressive ideas you will probably not find much support for your ideas.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 07:09 pm
Its their land?

The idea of a "palestinian people" only came into being in the 1960s when the Arabs in the West bank, gaza and eastern Jerusalem who only considered themselves Arabs up to this point realised they couldn&#39;t legitimately claim the right to self-determination because of the number of Arab countries already so claimed they weren&#39;t only Arabs, but a separate nation in order to try to sway world opinion in their favour. The rulers claimed a unique history then dragged the people into going along with it to try to achieve their goals no matter how unjustified.
So what if all that were true? The fact is, and you know this, that the Palestinian people - call them what you want - lived in the given territories, were kicked out or otherwise taken over, and refused both the right of return and the right of self-determination.

Nobody is saying that any ethnic or national group needs to leave the region. Quite contrarily, the argument is that both those who were born and raised there and those who have cultural roots there should have a right to live there freely - which means Jews, Christians, Arabs, Semitic peoples, Palestinians, Israelis, all have a right to live in the area.

Nobody is suggesting kicking anyone out of their house, unless that land is distinctly someone elses who has lost it within the last 50 years, and then depending on circumstances.

You are more or less trying to say that the Palestinian peoples have brought their suffering on themselves, and furthermore that Israel is free of any blame for its known atrocities - because they are issues of "security."

But that is not why arabs aren&#39;t allowed in. It has nothing to do with that. Most Palestinains want peace with Israel; doing background checks on immigrants might be reasonable for the state, but not based on race. The reason many Arabs are not allowed in what was once their homeland has everything to do with an attempt to make and sustain a theocratic, racist regime based on Zionism. Jews have every right to live in Israel and Palestine, but when it comes at the expense of another people it is wrong - and it is the same for the Palestinians. Israel, however, is denying entry for all but Jews and a few others, and actively denying entry for Arabs; the same Arabs 80% of which you claim want to live in Israel. They, as a people are not a security risk, and certainly not as an ethnicity, as is pracised there.


By your logic we should destroy the current Israeli state and give it to the Palestinians, then destroy the newly formed Palestinian state and give it to the Byzantine Greeks. Then we should destroy the Greek "imperial colonialist" nation and give it to the Roman Italians etc etc.
Those regimes are long gone - by hundreds of years - but if Greeks, Italians or Palestinians want to live in Israel, they should be more than welcome. Unfortunately, due to Israel&#39;s racist policies, they are not. People like you, who promote the very attacks on the Palestinian peopel which do end up causing security risks for the Israel population, are the reason why the violence continues. This xenophobic, violent and dangerous ideology threatens the security of all peoples in the region.

[hajduk]

Who&#39;s In Charge?
A Tiny, Unelected Group, Backed by Powerful Unrepresentative Interests
By EDWARD SAID

The Bush administration&#39;s relentless unilateral march towards war is profoundly disturbing for many reasons, but so far as American citizens are concerned the whole grotesque show is a tremendous failure in democracy. An immensely wealthy and powerful republic has been hijacked by a small cabal of individuals, all of them unelected and therefore unresponsive to public pressure, and simply turned on its head. It is no exaggeration to say that this war is the most unpopular in modern history. Before the war has begun there have been more people protesting it in this country alone than was the case at the height of the anti- Vietnam war demonstrations during the 60s and 70s. Note also that those rallies took place after the war had been going on for several years: this one has yet to begin, even though a large number of overtly aggressive and belligerent steps have already been taken by the US and its loyal puppy, the UK government of the increasingly ridiculous Tony Blair.

I have been criticised recently for my anti-war position by illiterates who claim that what I say is an implied defence of Saddam Hussein and his appalling regime. To my Kuwaiti critics, do I need to remind them that I publicly opposed Ba&#39;athi Iraq during the only visit I made to Kuwait in 1985, when in an open conversation with the then Minister of Education Hassan Al-Ibrahim I accused him and his regime of aiding and abetting Arab fascism in their financial support of Saddam Hussein? I was told then that Kuwait was proud to have committed billions of dollars to Saddam&#39;s war against "the Persians", as they were then contemptuously called, and that it was a more important struggle than someone like me could comprehend. I remember clearly warning those Kuwaiti acolytes of Saddam Hussein about him and his ill will against Kuwait, but to no avail. I have been a public opponent of the Iraqi regime since it came to power in the 70s: I never visited the place, never was fooled by its claims to secularism and modernisation (even when many of my contemporaries either worked for or celebrated Iraq as the main gun in the Arab arsenal against Zionism, a stupid idea, I thought), never concealed my contempt for its methods of rule and fascist behaviour. And now when I speak my mind about the ridiculous posturing of certain members of the Iraqi opposition as hapless strutting tools of US imperialism, I am told that I know nothing about life without democracy (about which more later), and am therefore unable to appreciate their nobility of soul. Little notice is taken of the fact that barely a week after extolling President Bush&#39;s commitment to democracy Professor Makiya is now denouncing the US and its plans for a post-Saddam military-Ba&#39;athi government in Iraq. When individuals get in the habit of switching the gods whom they worship politically there&#39;s no end to the number of changes they make before they finally come to rest in utter disgrace and well deserved oblivion.

But to return to the US and its current actions. In all my encounters and travels I have yet to meet a person who is for the war. Even worse, most Americans now feel that this mobilisation has already gone too far to stop, and that we are on the verge of a disaster for the country. Consider first of all that the Democratic Party, with few exceptions, has simply gone over to the president&#39;s side in a gutless display of false patriotism. Wherever you look in the Congress there are the tell-tale signs either of the Zionist lobby, the right-wing Christians, or the military-industrial complex, three inordinately influential minority groups who share hostility to the Arab world, unbridled support for extremist Zionism, and an insensate conviction that they are on the side of the angels. Every one of the 500 congressional districts in this country has a defence industry in it, so that war has been turned into a matter of jobs, not of security. But, one might well ask, how does running an unbelievably expensive war remedy, for instance, economic recession, the almost certain bankruptcy of the social security system, a mounting national debt, and a massive failure in public education? Demonstrations are looked at simply as a kind of degraded mob action, while the most hypocritical lies pass for absolute truth, without criticism and without objection.

The media has simply become a branch of the war effort. What has entirely disappeared from television is anything remotely resembling a consistently dissenting voice. Every major channel now employs retired generals, former CIA agents, terrorism experts and known neoconservatives as "consultants" who speak a revolting jargon designed to sound authoritative but in effect supporting everything done by the US, from the UN to the sands of Arabia. Only one major daily newspaper (in Baltimore) has published anything about US eavesdropping, telephone tapping and message interception of the six small countries that are members of the Security Council and whose votes are undecided. There are no antiwar voices to read or hear in any of the major medias of this country, no Arabs or Muslims (who have been consigned en masse to the ranks of the fanatics and terrorists of this world), no critics of Israel, not on Public Broadcasting, not in The New York Times, the New Yorker, US News and World Report, CNN and the rest. When these organisations mention Iraq&#39;s flouting of 17 UN resolutions as a pretext for war, the 64 resolutions flouted by Israel (with US support) are never mentioned. Nor is the enormous human suffering of the Iraqi people during the past 12 years mentioned. Whatever the dreaded Saddam has done Israel and Sharon have also done with American support, yet no one says anything about the latter while fulminating about the former. This makes a total mockery of taunts by Bush and others that the UN should abide by its own resolutions.

The American people have thus been deliberately lied to, their interests cynically misrepresented and misreported, the real aims and intentions of this private war of Bush the son and his junta concealed with complete arrogance. Never mind that Wolfowitz, Feith, and Perle, all of them unelected officials who work for unelected Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, have for some time openly advocated Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Gaza and the cessation of the Oslo process, have called for war against Iraq (and later Iran), and the building of more illegal Israeli settlements in their capacity (during Netanyahu&#39;s successful campaign for prime minister in 1996) as private consultants to him, and that that has become US policy now.

Never mind that Israel&#39;s iniquitous policies against Palestinians, which are reported only at the ends of articles (when they are reported at all) as so many miscellaneous civilian deaths, are never compared with Saddam&#39;s crimes, which they match or in some cases exceed, all of them, in the final analysis, paid for by the US taxpayer without consultation or approval. Over 40,000 Palestinians have been wounded seriously in the last two years, and about 2,500 killed wantonly by Israeli soldiers who are instructed to humiliate and punish an entire people during what has become the longest military occupation in modern history.

Never mind that not a single critical Arab or Muslim voice has been seen or heard on the major American media, liberal, moderate, or reactionary, with any regularity at all since the preparations for war have gone into their final phase. Consider also that none of the major planners of this war, certainly not the so-called experts like Bernard Lewis and Fouad Ajami, neither of whom has so much as lived in or come near the Arab world in decades, nor the military and political people like Powell, Rice, Cheney, or the great god Bush himself, know anything about the Muslim or Arab worlds beyond what they see through Israeli or oil company or military lenses, and therefore have no idea what a war of this magnitude against Iraq will produce for the people actually living there.

And consider too the sheer, unadorned hubris of men like Wolfowitz and his assistants. Asked to testify to a largely somnolent Congress about the war&#39;s consequences and costs they are allowed to escape without giving any concrete answers, which effectively dismisses the evidence of the army chief of staff who has spoken of a military occupation force of 400,000 troops for 10 years at a cost of almost a trillion dollars.

Democracy traduced and betrayed, democracy celebrated but in fact humiliated and trampled on by a tiny group of men who have simply taken charge of this republic as if it were nothing more than, what, an Arab country? It is right to ask who is in charge since clearly the people of the United States are not properly represented by the war this administration is about to loose on a world already beleaguered by too much misery and poverty to endure more. And Americans have been badly served by a media controlled essentially by a tiny group of men who edit out anything that might cause the government the slightest concern or worry. As for the demagogues and servile intellectuals who talk about war from the privacy of their fantasy worlds, who gave them the right to connive in the immiseration of millions of people whose major crime seems to be that they are Muslims and Arabs? What American, except for this small unrepresentative group, is seriously interested in increasing the world&#39;s already ample stores of anti-Americanism? Hardly any I would suppose.

Jonathan Swift, thou shouldst be living at this hour.

[hajduk]

Interview with Edward W. Said
By David Barsamian, November 2001

Urbane and sophisticated, Edward W. Said is in many ways the quintessential New Yorker. His love for the city is palpable. "New York," he says, "plays an important role in the kind of criticism and interpretation which I have done." He mirrors the city&#39;s restless energy and diversity. In addition to his great love for literature and his unflagging interest in politics, he is an inveterate devotee of opera and classical music. An accomplished pianist, he opens his home on New York&#39;s Upper West Side to artists, writers, and musicians from all over the globe.

He&#39;s been a New Yorker since 1963 when he accepted a position at Columbia, where he now holds the position of University Professor. Born in Jerusalem and educated at schools there and in Cairo, Said came to the U.S. in the early 1950s and attended Princeton and Harvard. There&#39;s lots of talk these days about public intellectuals. Much of it is hot air. Edward Said is the real thing. His creative intellectual talents and abilities are infused with passion and a sense of outrage at the hypocrisies, contradictions, and indignities of what passes for political commentary, particularly when it comes to the Middle East. He is no doubt the most prominent spokesperson for the Palestinian cause in the United States.

His productivity and range of interests are impressive. A relentless and indefatigable worker, he maintains a rigorous schedule while struggling against leukemia. A prolific author, he most recently published Reflections on Exile and Power, Politics, and Culture. Much of his political writing is not only excavating buried memories and affirming the Palestinian presence but also pointing toward a future where peace is possible.

We have done many interviews over the years, and what always strikes me is his tremendous intellectual energy and, yes, enthusiasm to talk. He remains doggedly hopeful. His oppositional role is "to sift, to judge, to criticize, to choose so that choice and agency return to the individual," he says. He envisions a community that doesn&#39;t exalt "commodified interests and profitable commercial goals" but values instead "survivability and sustainability in a human and decent way. Those are difficult goals to achieve. But I think they are achievable." I talked with him by phone in late September.

Q: The events of September 11 have bewildered and confused many Americans. What was your reaction?

Said:
Speaking as a New Yorker, I found it a shocking and terrifying event, particularly the scale of it. At bottom, it was an implacable desire to do harm to innocent people. It was aimed at symbols: the World Trade Center, the heart of American capitalism, and the Pentagon, the headquarters of the American military establishment. But it was not meant to be argued with. It wasn&#39;t part of any negotiation. No message was intended with it. It spoke for itself, which is unusual. It transcended the political and moved into the metaphysical. There was a kind of cosmic, demonic quality of mind at work here, which refused to have any interest in dialogue and political organization and persuasion. This was bloody-minded destruction for no other reason than to do it. Note that there was no claim for these attacks. There were no demands. There were no statements. It was a silent piece of terror. This was part of nothing. It was a leap into another realm--the realm of crazy abstractions and mythological generalities, involving people who have hijacked Islam for their own purposes. It&#39;s important not to fall into that trap and to try to respond with a metaphysical retaliation of some sort.

Q: What should the U.S. do?

Said:
The just response to this terrible event should be to go immediately to the world community, the United Nations. The rule of international law should be marshaled, but it&#39;s probably too late because the United States has never done that; it&#39;s always gone it alone. To say that we&#39;re going to end countries or eradicate terrorism, and that it&#39;s a long war over many years, with many different instruments, suggests a much more complex and drawn-out conflict for which, I think, most Americans aren&#39;t prepared.There isn&#39;t a clear goal in sight. Osama bin Laden&#39;s organization has spun out from him and is now probably independent of him. There will be others who will appear and reappear. This is why we need a much more precise, a much more defined, a much more patiently constructed campaign, as well as one that surveys not just the terrorists&#39; presence but the root causes of terrorism, which are ascertainable.

Q: What are those root causes?

Said: They come out of a long dialectic of U.S. involvement in the affairs of the Islamic world, the oil-producing world, the Arab world, the Middle East--those areas that are considered to be essential to U.S. interests and security. And in this relentlessly unfolding series of interactions, the U.S. has played a very distinctive role, which most Americans have been either shielded from or simply unaware of.

In the Islamic world, the U.S. is seen in two quite different ways. One view recognizes what an extraordinary country the U.S. is. Every Arab or Muslim that I know is tremendously interested in the United States. Many of them send their children here for education. Many of them come here for vacations. They do business here or get their training here.The other view is of the official United States, the United States of armies and interventions. The United States that in 1953 overthrew the nationalist government of Mossadegh in Iran and brought back the shah. The United States that has been involved first in the Gulf War and then in the tremendously damaging sanctions against Iraqi civilians. The United States that is the supporter of Israel against the Palestinians.

If you live in the area, you see these things as part of a continuing drive for dominance, and with it a kind of obduracy, a stubborn opposition to the wishes and desires and aspirations of the people there. Most Arabs and Muslims feel that the United States hasn&#39;t really been paying much attention to their desires. They think it has been pursuing its policies for its own sake and not according to many of the principles that it claims are its own--democracy, self-determination, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, international law. It&#39;s very hard, for example, to justify the thirty-four-year occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. It&#39;s very hard to justify 140 Israeli settlements and roughly 400,000 settlers. These actions were taken with the support and financing of the United States. How can you say this is part of U.S. adherence to international law and U.N. resolutions? The result is a kind of schizophrenic picture of the United States.

Now we come to the really sad part. The Arab rulers are basically unpopular. They are supported by the United States against the wishes of their people. In all of this rather heady mixture of violence and policies that are remarkably unpopular right down to the last iota, it&#39;s not hard for demagogues, especially people who claim to speak in the name of religion, in this case Islam, to raise a crusade against the United States and say that we must somehow bring America down.

Ironically, many of these people, including Osama bin Laden and the mujahedeen, were, in fact, nourished by the United States in the early eighties in its efforts to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. It was thought that to rally Islam against godless communism would be doing the Soviet Union a very bad turn indeed, and that, in fact, transpired. In 1985, a group of mujahedeen came to Washington and was greeted by President Reagan, who called them "freedom fighters."These people, by the way, don&#39;t represent Islam in any formal sense. They&#39;re not imams or sheiks. They are self-appointed warriors for Islam. Osama bin Laden, who is a Saudi, feels himself to be a patriot because the U.S. has forces in Saudi Arabia, which is sacred because it is the land of the prophet Mohammed. There is also this great sense of triumphalism, that just as we defeated the Soviet Union, we can do this. And out of this sense of desperation and pathological religion, there develops an all-encompassing drive to harm and hurt, without regard for the innocent and the uninvolved, which was the case in New York. Now to understand this is, of course, not at all to condone it. And what terrifies me is that we&#39;re entering a phase where if you start to speak about this as something that can be understood historically--without any sympathy--you are going to be thought of as unpatriotic, and you are going to be forbidden. It&#39;s very dangerous. It is precisely incumbent on every citizen to quite understand the world we&#39;re living in and the history we are a part of and we are forming as a superpower.

Q: Some pundits and politicians seem to be echoing Kurtz in Heart of Darkness when he said, "Exterminate all the brutes."

Said: In the first few days, I found it depressingly monochromatic. There&#39;s been essentially the same analysis over and over again and very little allowance made for different views and interpretations and reflections. What is quite worrisome is the absence of analysis and reflection. Take the word "terrorism." It has become synonymous now with anti-Americanism, which, in turn, has become synonymous with being critical of the United States, which, in turn, has become synonymous with being unpatriotic. That&#39;s an unacceptable series of equations. The definition of terrorism has to be more precise, so that we are able to discriminate between, for example, what it is that the Palestinians are doing to fight the Israeli military occupation and terrorism of the sort that resulted in the World Trade Center bombing.

Q: What&#39;s the distinction you&#39;re drawing?

Said: Take a young man from Gaza living in the most horrendous conditions--most of it imposed by Israel--who straps dynamite around himself and then throws himself into a crowd of Israelis. I&#39;ve never condoned or agreed with it, but at least it is understandable as the desperate wish of a human being who feels himself being crowded out of life and all of his surroundings, who sees his fellow citizens, other Palestinians, his parents, sisters, and brothers, suffering, being injured, or being killed. He wants to do something, to strike back. That can be understood as the act of a truly desperate person trying to free himself from unjustly imposed conditions. It&#39;s not something I agree with, but at least you could understand it. The people who perpetrated the terror of the World Trade Center and Pentagon bombings are something different because these people were obviously not desperate and poor refugee dwellers. They were middle class, educated enough to speak English, to be able to go to flight school, to come to America, to live in Florida.

Q: In your introduction to the updated version of Covering Islam: How The Media and The Experts Determine How We See The Rest of The World, you say: "Malicious generalizations about Islam have become the last acceptable form of denigration of foreign culture in the West." Why is that?

Said: The sense of Islam as a threatening Other--with Muslims depicted as fanatical, violent, lustful, irrational--develops during the colonial period in what I called Orientalism. The study of the Other has a lot to do with the control and dominance of Europe and the West generally in the Islamic world. And it has persisted because it&#39;s based very, very deeply in religious roots, where Islam is seen as a kind of competitor of Christianity.If you look at the curricula of most universities and schools in this country, considering our long encounter with the Islamic world, there is very little there that you can get hold of that is really informative about Islam. If you look at the popular media, you&#39;ll see that the stereotype that begins with Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik has really remained and developed into the transnational villain of television and film and culture in general. It is very easy to make wild generalizations about Islam. All you have to do is read almost any issue of The New Republic and you&#39;ll see there the radical evil that&#39;s associated with Islam, the Arabs as having a depraved culture, and so forth. These are impossible generalizations to make in the United States about any other religious or ethnic group.

Q: In a recent article in the London Observer, you say the U.S. drive for war uncannily resembles Captain Ahab in pursuit of Moby Dick. Tell me what you have in mind there.

Said: Captain Ahab was a man possessed with an obsessional drive to pursue the white whale which had harmed him--which had torn his leg out--to the ends of the Earth, no matter what happened. In the final scene of the novel, Captain Ahab is being borne out to sea, wrapped around the white whale with the rope of his own harpoon and going obviously to his death. It was a scene of almost suicidal finality. Now, all the words that George Bush used in public during the early stages of the crisis--"wanted, dead or alive," "a crusade," etc.--suggest not so much an orderly and considered progress towards bringing the man to justice according to international norms, but rather something apocalyptic, something of the order of the criminal atrocity itself. That will make matters a lot, lot worse, because there are always consequences. And it would seem to me that to give Osama bin Laden--who has been turned into Moby Dick, he&#39;s been made a symbol of all that&#39;s evil in the world--a kind of mythological proportion is really playing his game. I think we need to secularize the man. We need to bring him down to the realm of reality. Treat him as a criminal, as a man who is a demagogue, who has unlawfully unleashed violence against innocent people. Punish him accordingly, and don&#39;t bring down the world around him and ourselves.

[graffic]

The fact is, and you know this, that the Palestinian people - call them what you want - lived in the given territories, were kicked out or otherwise taken over, and refused both the right of return and the right of self-determination.

Your right Dean

Forget the United Nations&#39; plan of a two-state resolution, forget the 1937 Peel Commision, forget 1947 when Israel accepted Resolution 242 where the United Nations called for the return of territories captured in exchange for full peace and secure boundaries. Forget the years 2000-2001 where Ehud Barak along with President Bill Clinton offered the Palestinians everything they were asking for -- a state made up of 97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, a capital in Jerusalem, control of East Jerusalem, control of the Temple Mount, 30 billion dollars in a compensation package, and symbolic return of several thousand refugees.

Forget all of this and you are correct the Palestinians have never been offered the right to self-determination.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 06:41 pm

The fact is, and you know this, that the Palestinian people - call them what you want - lived in the given territories, were kicked out or otherwise taken over, and refused both the right of return and the right of self-determination.

Your right Dean

Forget the United Nations&#39; plan of a two-state resolution, forget the 1937 Peel Commision, forget 1947 when Israel accepted Resolution 242 where the United Nations called for the return of territories captured in exchange for full peace and secure boundaries. Forget the years 2000-2001 where Ehud Barak along with President Bill Clinton offered the Palestinians everything they were asking for -- a state made up of 97% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, a capital in Jerusalem, control of East Jerusalem, control of the Temple Mount, 30 billion dollars in a compensation package, and symbolic return of several thousand refugees.

Forget all of this and you are correct the Palestinians have never been offered the right to self-determination.
Yes, it would have been great for the PLO to accept such scraps.

That all ignoring that this is the PLO and the Israeli State - neither of which are keen representatives of their own populations. I was talking about PEOPLE, and I know you love to conflate people with mechanical regimes, but those treaties have nothing to do with helping the people, only dealing with the violent conflict between a few specific entities.

[Phalanx]

Originally posted by Ulster Socialist+November 02, 2007 07:21 pm--> (Ulster Socialist @ November 02, 2007 07:21 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected]
Many nations choose to do the ethical thing and help with the situation, its quite clear why the Arab nations refused to take in the refugees.
I&#39;m not referring to those nations that do the &#39;ethical thing&#39;. Those nations that do so can usually afford to because they are 1st world economies.

graffic

It would have solved the refugee problem.
What, so the zionists and pro-Israelis can say, alright so you refugees have a new nationality and sanctuary now, so fuck off and don&#39;t come back&#33;?
There would&#39;nt have been a refugee problem if they hadnt come in, all guns blazing (literally). [/b]
Oh please, spare us the tears for the poor, poor Arab leaders of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Both countries love to express their solidarity with the Palestinians, and clearly have the money to help integrate Palestinians into other Arab nations, yet they do nothing.

The Palestinian cause is purely propaganda for the Arab leadership. They couldn&#39;t care less about the plight of the Palestinians. The Palestinians serve as a funnel for their people to express their rage, because in their countries they can&#39;t openly oppose their own governments.

[Phalanx]

Yes, it would have been great for the PLO to accept such scraps.

That all ignoring that this is the PLO and the Israeli State - neither of which are keen representatives of their own populations. I was talking about PEOPLE, and I know you love to conflate people with mechanical regimes, but those treaties have nothing to do with helping the people, only dealing with the violent conflict between a few specific entities.

The Partition plan gave the Palestinians the most arable land in the land of Israel. I wouldn&#39;t call it scraps, it&#39;s just stubbornness on the side of the Palestinian leadership.

Arafat was an absolute fool to reject the Oslo accord, but what can you expect from someone with so much blood on their hands.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 07:20 pm
The Partition plan gave the Palestinians the most arable land in the land of Israel. I wouldn&#39;t call it scraps, it&#39;s just stubbornness on the side of the Palestinian leadership.

Arafat was an absolute fool to reject the Oslo accord, but what can you expect from someone with so much blood on their hands.
That&#39;s not the point. The point is that people were still refused access to live where they were born, among other wrongs. I can&#39;t speak for the PLO, I don&#39;t care what their stance is (except insofar as it hurts Israels and Palestinians; the PLO is not my &#39;ally&#39;), my point is that it is wrong. The U.S. and Russia might have terrible policies in regards to the region, but my point is to point out specific entities which are directly exacerbating human rights violations. I find it disgusting that you and &#39;graffic&#39; think you can collectively blame, punish or ignore the rights of the Palestinian people, especialyl by citing PLO / Israeli decisions.

Again, this is not about some fucked-up regime - it is about the rights and dignity of the Israeli and Palestinian people. I have no doubt that the PLO is not particularly helpful in this collective issue, but the point is that neither is Israel - something you both refuse to admit, to the point of defending racist policies. I&#39;m sorry, but if a nation encourages racist policies - be they disallowign Jews from entering the Temple Mount or disallowing Palestinians from entering or living in Israel - then not only are these policies clearly wrong, but they will incite violence.

[Revolution Until Victory]

In other words you can&#39;t argue with my points.

:lol:


Its their land?

Yawn, what a lunatic.


The idea of a "palestinian people" only came into being in the 1960s when the Arabs in the West bank, gaza and eastern Jerusalem who only considered themselves Arabs up to this point realised they couldn&#39;t legitimately claim the right to self-determination because of the number of Arab countries already so claimed they weren&#39;t only Arabs, but a separate nation in order to try to sway world opinion in their favour.

That&#39;s just a complete lie. Even though the Arabs are one people and any divide between them, such as Jordanian, Lebanese, Saudi, Palestinian, Tunasian etc, is imperialist imposed, the Arabs in Palestine were identifiying themselves as such over a thousand years ago before the 1960&#39;s.

But anyways, this is completely irrelivant. It doesn&#39;t matter what they call themselvses or when they choose their name. But one can anyone expect from a Zionist troll??

[graffic]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 07:20 pm

Yes, it would have been great for the PLO to accept such scraps.

That all ignoring that this is the PLO and the Israeli State - neither of which are keen representatives of their own populations. I was talking about PEOPLE, and I know you love to conflate people with mechanical regimes, but those treaties have nothing to do with helping the people, only dealing with the violent conflict between a few specific entities.

The Partition plan gave the Palestinians the most arable land in the land of Israel. I wouldn&#39;t call it scraps, it&#39;s just stubbornness on the side of the Palestinian leadership.

Arafat was an absolute fool to reject the Oslo accord, but what can you expect from someone with so much blood on their hands.
Prince Bandar at Taba called Arafat&#39;s rejection of the offer "a crime against the Palestinian people and against all the people of the region"

[Phalanx]

That&#39;s not the point. The point is that people were still refused access to live where they were born, among other wrongs. I can&#39;t speak for the PLO, I don&#39;t care what their stance is (except insofar as it hurts Israels and Palestinians; the PLO is not my &#39;ally&#39;), my point is that it is wrong. The U.S. and Russia might have terrible policies in regards to the region, but my point is to point out specific entities which are directly exacerbating human rights violations. I find it disgusting that you and &#39;graffic&#39; think you can collectively blame, punish or ignore the rights of the Palestinian people, especialyl by citing PLO / Israeli decisions.

Wow, you really have to read up on your modern Middle East history. The 55% of Palestine that had been set aside for Jews had a sizable Arab minority, about 45%. They were to remain where they were, and they wouldn&#39;t by any means be refused access to where they live. Now, after years of Arab aggressiveness Israel is less likely to give up the territory they captured.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 07:09 pm
By your logic we should destroy the current Israeli state and give it to the Palestinians, then destroy the newly formed Palestinian state and give it to the Byzantine Greeks. Then we should destroy the Greek "imperial colonialist" nation and give it to the Roman Italians etc etc.
No, I never proposed that. I thought I said we should have a one-state solution? Israel would oppose this because of their policies bent towards racial expansionism. The Palestinians would outnumber the Israelis if such a solution was proposed, which would, as I made clear, stale the Jewish character that their country has held for decades. There would also be a higher &#39;cost&#39; for giving Palestinian workers the same political and social opportunities of their Jewish counterparts.

To have this, we must first defeat imperialism, which includes chasing out American, French, British, and Israeli forces from the region, it doesn&#39;t mean &#39;pushing them into the sea,&#39; or &#39;giving land back to the people who deserve it.&#39; I am not arguing for national chauvinism, but for creating conditions that would speed up the drive towards socialism.

[Andy Bowden]

Why dont we actually look at what Palestinian refugees want?

http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2003/ref...3.html#findings (http://www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2003/refugeesjune03.html#findings)

Only 17% of Palestinian refugees (surveyed in Jordan and the Lebanon) want to remain in their host countries with full citizenship rights. Now obviously that should be granted, and its a disgrace both countries do not do so.

But the fact is most Palestinian refugees want to return to either a Palestinian state in the West Bank or Gaza, or to Israel. You can&#39;t blame that not happening on Arab leaders.

[Phalanx]

And why do you think that is? Maybe if the Arab nations would allow them to live outside of the refugee camps and make some sort of effort to integrate them, Palestinians would warm up to the idea.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 08:03 pm

That&#39;s not the point. The point is that people were still refused access to live where they were born, among other wrongs. I can&#39;t speak for the PLO, I don&#39;t care what their stance is (except insofar as it hurts Israels and Palestinians; the PLO is not my &#39;ally&#39;), my point is that it is wrong. The U.S. and Russia might have terrible policies in regards to the region, but my point is to point out specific entities which are directly exacerbating human rights violations. I find it disgusting that you and &#39;graffic&#39; think you can collectively blame, punish or ignore the rights of the Palestinian people, especialyl by citing PLO / Israeli decisions.

Wow, you really have to read up on your modern Middle East history. The 55% of Palestine that had been set aside for Jews had a sizable Arab minority, about 45%. They were to remain where they were, and they wouldn&#39;t by any means be refused access to where they live. Now, after years of Arab aggressiveness Israel is less likely to give up the territory they captured.
Right, maybe they "were to remain where they were" but clearly they couldn&#39;t. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_exodus)

[Phalanx]

Again, read up on your Middle Eastern history if you think that Israel was solely responsible for the exodus. Granted, in Lod and Ramle, Yitzak Rabin and his soldiers evacuated 50,000 people, but in the vast majority of cases people fled out of fear of a massacre that never came or were encouraged by the Arab leadership to get out so the Jews would be and easier target.

Why is it that I always hear of the 700,000 Palestinians that fled, but never the 900,000 Jews that were forced out of Arab countries?

[Phalanx]

Oh yeah, and after the exodus, and the 900,000 Sephardic Jews coming into Israel, Ben-Gurion had no choice but to put the new immigrants into the abandoned villages of the Palestinians. Israel was a poor country and it wasn&#39;t easy integrating 900,000 people to a country of 700,000. In fact, the residents of Sderot are made up mostly of the descendents of Sephardic Jews that fled Arab countries. And many of you approve of attacks on those residents.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 12:53 am
Again, read up on your Middle Eastern history if you think that Israel was solely responsible for the exodus. Granted, in Lod and Ramle, Yitzak Rabin and his soldiers evacuated 50,000 people, but in the vast majority of cases people fled out of fear of a massacre that never came or were encouraged by the Arab leadership to get out so the Jews would be and easier target.
So people who fled out of fear don&#39;t have a right to return to their homeland?


Why is it that I always hear of the 700,000 Palestinians that fled, but never the 900,000 Jews that were forced out of Arab countries?
Don&#39;t get off topic. I am not bringing up the Native American exodus and genocide though it clearly mirrors the Palestinians&#39; strife.

Or is it all a "we were more oppressed than you&#33;" argument for you? Seriously, I don&#39;t care if 5 trillian Jews, Englishmen, Asians, or whomever were forced to leave a given region - it doesn&#39;t justify the forced expulsion and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people; such crimes would be a terrible thing in their own right, and certainly don&#39;t justify similar actions - contrarily, they show even the more why it is wrong to expel, murder, and steal from a people.

Plus, the Zionist massacres were clear indications that it was time to leave for anyone who valued their life. If you read the article, which comes from and is fiercely guarded by the heavily pro-Zionist members of Wikipedia (believe me, I spent a long time on that topic there) you will find clear indication that there was good reason for Arabs to feel threatened in Israel. And I&#39;m sure that the Jews had good reason to be threatened by many Arab countries, but the point remains - two &#39;wrongs&#39; don&#39;t make a &#39;right.&#39;

It&#39;s really fucking sick that you think you can justify the expulsion of Arabs by saying that the same happened to Jews.


Arab leadership to get out so the Jews would be and easier target.
Ohhhh, the evil Arab leadership&#33; I&#39;m so scared&#33; Wait - does this have anything to do with the common Arab people that were expelled? I don&#39;t think so. Furthermore, you ever notice that I say "Palestinian" when referring to the oppressed people, "PLO" when referring to their leaders (who have mixed local support) and "Israel government" when referring to the state&#39;s actions (which also have mixed Israel support), while you say "Arab leaders" and "Jewish Government"? It is clear that you are trying to shroud a human rights crisis in racist terminology - either that, or the more latent forms of your clearly racist agenda are surfacing.

NEWSFLASH: RACE DOESN&#39;T DICTATE MORALITY&#33;
Phalanx stunned, claims, "Don&#39;t Palestinians kill babies?"


Oh yeah, and after the exodus, and the 900,000 Sephardic Jews coming into Israel, Ben-Gurion had no choice but to put the new immigrants into the abandoned villages of the Palestinians. Israel was a poor country and it wasn&#39;t easy integrating 900,000 people to a country of 700,000. In fact, the residents of Sderot are made up mostly of the descendents of Sephardic Jews that fled Arab countries. And many of you approve of attacks on those residents.
So you have accomplished one thing - proving that the ethnic cleansing of the militant, Zionist Regime succeeded. Also, The fledgling state had a lot of military and economic backign from both the US and the USSR - until the USSR saw that Israel was going to support the US over Russia, at which time measly amounts of military aid (little more than guns) were given to the Arabs while the U.S. rolled in tanks and missles.

[Phalanx]

Don&#39;t get off topic. I am not bringing up the Native American exodus and genocide though it clearly mirrors the Palestinians&#39; strife.

It&#39;s not off topic at all. The expulsion of Jews from Arab countries was a result of Arab frustration at losing the War of Independence.


Or is it all a "we were more oppressed than you&#33;" argument for you? Seriously, I don&#39;t care if 5 trillian Jews, Englishmen, Asians, or whomever were forced to leave a given region - it doesn&#39;t justify the forced expulsion and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people; such crimes would be a terrible thing in their own right, and certainly don&#39;t justify similar actions - contrarily, they show even the more why it is wrong to expel, murder, and steal from a people.

If it weren&#39;t for the fact that you consistently overreact to Israel&#39;s past opposed to other nations I would agree with you. But since you focus on Israel alone in past atrocities makes you seem very ignorant.


Plus, the Zionist massacres were clear indications that it was time to leave for anyone who valued their life. If you read the article, which comes from and is fiercely guarded by the heavily pro-Zionist members of Wikipedia (believe me, I spent a long time on that topic there) you will find clear indication that there was good reason for Arabs to feel threatened in Israel. And I&#39;m sure that the Jews had good reason to be threatened by many Arab countries, but the point remains - two &#39;wrongs&#39; don&#39;t make a &#39;right.&#39;

The lone Israeli massacre during the War of Independence was Dier Yassin. Do you remember the Hadassah medical convoy massacre or the Gush Etzion bloc? Israelis had nowhere to flee like the Palestinians did; their only choice was to stand and fight.


It&#39;s really fucking sick that you think you can justify the expulsion of Arabs by saying that the same happened to Jews.

Now you&#39;re just putting words in my mouth. The fact remains, you leftists leave Israel&#39;s hand in the exodus overblown, when the finger should be pointed at Arab leadership.


Ohhhh, the evil Arab leadership&#33; I&#39;m so scared&#33; Wait - does this have anything to do with the common Arab people that were expelled? I don&#39;t think so.

Can you read? I just stated Arab leadership was responsible for Palestinians leaving Palestine. They have everything to do with common Palestinians from fleeing.


Furthermore, you ever notice that I say "Palestinian" when referring to the oppressed people, "PLO" when referring to their leaders (who have mixed local support) and "Israel government" when referring to the state&#39;s actions (which also have mixed Israel support), while you say "Arab leaders" and "Jewish Government"? It is clear that you are trying to shroud a human rights crisis in racist terminology - either that, or the more latent forms of your clearly racist agenda are surfacing.

Maybe before calling me a racist you could improve your reading comprehension skills. When I refer to "Arab leadership" I mean leadership of the Arab world, not exclusively the Palestinians. And the only time I used the word "Jew" was when I was sarcastically referring to Arab leadership&#39;s propaganda.


So you have accomplished one thing - proving that the ethnic cleansing of the militant, Zionist Regime succeeded. Also, The fledgling state had a lot of military and economic backign from both the US and the USSR - until the USSR saw that Israel was going to support the US over Russia, at which time measly amounts of military aid (little more than guns) were given to the Arabs while the U.S. rolled in tanks and missles.

Now you&#39;re just completely stupid. Russia gave the Arab governments much more than guns. The Soviet Union gave Arab governments hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid before the Six Day War. After the Six Day War, the Soviet Union replaced all Arab armies&#39; arsenal within 3 years. The US didn&#39;t start supporting Israel significantly until after the Six Day War.

[Revolution Until Victory]

but in the vast majority of cases people fled out of fear of a massacre that never came or were encouraged by the Arab leadership to get out so the Jews would be and easier target.

That&#39;s just pure bullshit.


Why is it that I always hear of the 700,000 Palestinians that fled, but never the 900,000 Jews that were forced out of Arab countries?

Another lie. Many of those were forced by Zionist agents, terrorized through False-Flage operations, or convinced to do so.


Oh yeah, and after the exodus, and the 900,000 Sephardic Jews coming into Israel, Ben-Gurion had no choice but to put the new immigrants into the abandoned villages of the Palestinians.

haahaaa, what the fuck are you trying to justify?? Palestinian Arabs were ethnicly cleansed by Zionist colonizers, in thier place, Zionist colonizers from around the world were put in thier place. What is exaclty your ponit??


In fact, the residents of Sderot are made up mostly of the descendents of Sephardic Jews that fled Arab countries. And many of you approve of attacks on those residents.

Exactly. Sedrot is made up of Zionist colonizers (their ethnicity, wether 1st class colonizers or 2nd class colonizsers, is really irrelivant, unless you are some kind of racist, which you in fact are...) colonizing and uspuring Palestinain Arab homes, lands, farms, and properties. Like the rest of "Israel", Sedrot (the orginal Arab town that Sedrot is built on is called Najd) is built on the expense and ruins of natives, for the benfit of the colonizer. Now how is that supposed to make us cry for the colonizers of Sedrot? Fuck them. If anything, those facts should make us support the struggle against those colonizers, their military, and settler-colony even more.

[Revolution Until Victory]

It&#39;s not off topic at all. The expulsion of Jews from Arab countries was a result of Arab frustration at losing the War of Independence.

thus said the Zionsit, racist loony.


The lone Israeli massacre during the War of Independence was Dier Yassin

:wacko:

I love it how Zionist racist fucks join revleft yet turn out to be more right-wing, more imperialist, more racist, and more Zionist than some open extreme, racist, Zionist right-wingers such as Benny Morris, who as a historian, would laugh at your utter crap.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 02:00 am

Don&#39;t get off topic. I am not bringing up the Native American exodus and genocide though it clearly mirrors the Palestinians&#39; strife.

It&#39;s not off topic at all. The expulsion of Jews from Arab countries was a result of Arab frustration at losing the War of Independence.


That may be true, but the point doesn&#39;t change that many Palestinians were forcefulyl expelled from their homeland. Hence, it is irrelevant to the point - it is nothing more than a smokescreen.



Or is it all a "we were more oppressed than you&#33;" argument for you? Seriously, I don&#39;t care if 5 trillian Jews, Englishmen, Asians, or whomever were forced to leave a given region - it doesn&#39;t justify the forced expulsion and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people; such crimes would be a terrible thing in their own right, and certainly don&#39;t justify similar actions - contrarily, they show even the more why it is wrong to expel, murder, and steal from a people.

If it weren&#39;t for the fact that you consistently overreact to Israel&#39;s past opposed to other nations I would agree with you. But since you focus on Israel alone in past atrocities makes you seem very ignorant.

The topic is Israel&#39;s charge sheet. Hence, discussion is specifically aimed at Israel&#39;s crimes; when the Apartheid wall is discussed, for instance, it is completely relevant to discuss the purported reason for its creation - Palestinian terrorism - but when I discuss the expulsion of Palestinians, it is quite irrelevant how other nations, regardless of ethnicity, may have acted in response to a related war. For instance, if I am talking about the bombing of Dresden, it might be very relevant to point out the Holocaust as a justification, right or wrong. However, if I am discussing the Holocaust, the bombing of Dresden loses its significance, since it does not justify the genocide or otherwise relate to its morality. In the same sense, the explusion of Jews - while repulsive and clearly wrong - is not relevant to an argument about the morality of expelling Palestinians from their homeland.





Plus, the Zionist massacres were clear indications that it was time to leave for anyone who valued their life. If you read the article, which comes from and is fiercely guarded by the heavily pro-Zionist members of Wikipedia (believe me, I spent a long time on that topic there) you will find clear indication that there was good reason for Arabs to feel threatened in Israel. And I&#39;m sure that the Jews had good reason to be threatened by many Arab countries, but the point remains - two &#39;wrongs&#39; don&#39;t make a &#39;right.&#39;

The lone Israeli massacre during the War of Independence was Dier Yassin. Do you remember the Hadassah medical convoy massacre or the Gush Etzion bloc? Israelis had nowhere to flee like the Palestinians did; their only choice was to stand and fight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massa...rab-Israeli_war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_massacres_committed_during_the_1948_Arab-Israeli_war)

And so what if it was? So what if every Israeli atrocity was a fabrication? Would that mean that people who left their land en masse for fear of death have no right to return? Should I be able to scare a person into leaving land so that someone else can take it, then deny them the right to even return, let alone settle, there? The point, like many others you pose, is irrelevant. The human rights violations, once again, are not justifiable by the presence of either antisemitism or the lack of anti-arabism.




It&#39;s really fucking sick that you think you can justify the expulsion of Arabs by saying that the same happened to Jews.

Now you&#39;re just putting words in my mouth. The fact remains, you leftists leave Israel&#39;s hand in the exodus overblown, when the finger should be pointed at Arab leadership.
Zionism primarily incited the massacres, violence, racism, and ultimately expulsion and exodus of Palestinian peoples. Just like I blame the U.S. for the recent exodus from Iraq - regardless of the other forces involved, the U.S. was both a catalyst and a sustainer of the degrading state of Iraq.



Ohhhh, the evil Arab leadership&#33; I&#39;m so scared&#33; Wait - does this have anything to do with the common Arab people that were expelled? I don&#39;t think so.

Can you read? I just stated Arab leadership was responsible for Palestinians leaving Palestine. They have everything to do with common Palestinians from fleeing.
Sure, the massacres, militant zionism, and increased racism have nothing to do with it.



Furthermore, you ever notice that I say "Palestinian" when referring to the oppressed people, "PLO" when referring to their leaders (who have mixed local support) and "Israel government" when referring to the state&#39;s actions (which also have mixed Israel support), while you say "Arab leaders" and "Jewish Government"? It is clear that you are trying to shroud a human rights crisis in racist terminology - either that, or the more latent forms of your clearly racist agenda are surfacing.

Maybe before calling me a racist you could improve your reading comprehension skills. When I refer to "Arab leadership" I mean leadership of the Arab world, not exclusively the Palestinians. And the only time I used the word "Jew" was when I was sarcastically referring to Arab leadership&#39;s propaganda.
That&#39;s the point. You refuse to talk about things in terms of specific peoples or organizations, but of "Arabs" and "Jews," drawing a revolting, racist picture of the conflict. Every atrocity and human rights abuse of Israel is in some way or another attributed to the "Arab leaders," regardless of their degree of influence. Blaming the exodus on Arabs, despite it being the result of increased violence, massacres and terrorism committed by the Zionists and Local peoples, is disgusting. It is clear, as when any colonizing force enters, that the subsequent response - in this case ethnic cleansing, racism and expulsion - are almost certainly their fault. In this case, it is more than clear, considering that the aforementioned responses were mostly committed by the Zionists, or as a response to zionist theft or violence.



So you have accomplished one thing - proving that the ethnic cleansing of the militant, Zionist Regime succeeded. Also, The fledgling state had a lot of military and economic backign from both the US and the USSR - until the USSR saw that Israel was going to support the US over Russia, at which time measly amounts of military aid (little more than guns) were given to the Arabs while the U.S. rolled in tanks and missles.

Now you&#39;re just completely stupid. Russia gave the Arab governments much more than guns. The Soviet Union gave Arab governments hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid before the Six Day War. After the Six Day War, the Soviet Union replaced all Arab armies&#39; arsenal within 3 years. The US didn&#39;t start supporting Israel significantly until after the Six Day War.
You&#39;re right; they had plenty of funding from the British. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1948_Arab-Israeli_War#The_British_Mandate_administration_and _training_of_local_Arabs_and_Jews) Except in regards to the Palestinians (how on earth does simply arming "all Arab armies" do anything for the Palestinians, who have no army?) Still, Israel has always been more well - funded and backed than the Palestinian people.

[Andy Bowden]

And why do you think that is? Maybe if the Arab nations would allow them to live outside of the refugee camps and make some sort of effort to integrate them, Palestinians would warm up to the idea.

Read the link. That option is presented in the survey - "Receive fair compensation for the property, losses, and suffering and stay in host country receiving its citizenship or Palestinian citizenship".

17% of Palestinians would take that option - the option of living outside of refugee camps and integration - but the majority still want to return to either a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and or negotiated territories ceded by Israel, or Israel itself.

[hajduk]

THE DESERTION OF ARAFAT
by
EDWARD SAID

Israeli pressure on Palestinians was stepped up even further in the days following the dreadful events of September 11th. Predawn raids were launched on the West Bank towns of Jenin, Jericho and Ramallah, destroying security outposts, government buildings and family homes. In the Beituniya district of Ramallah, shells hit a coffee shop, a mosque and a kindergarten—all perfectly acceptable ‘collateral damage’, and scarcely worth a mention in the Western media. Such Israeli aggression has, after all, been the norm for nearly a year now. Over 600 Palestinians have been killed since the Al-Aqsa Intifada began—four times the number of Israeli deaths; and 15,000 wounded—twelve times more than on the other side. Regular IDF assassinations have picked off alleged terrorists at will, most of the time killing innocents like so many flies. In August, fourteen Palestinians were openly murdered by Israeli troops using helicopter gunships and missiles, to ‘prevent’ them killing Israelis, although at least two children and five bystanders were also slaughtered, to say nothing of many wounded civilians.

Equipped with the latest in American-donated fighter-bombers, helicopter gunships, uncountable tanks and missiles, a superb navy and a state-of-the-art intelligence service, not to speak of its own nuclear weapons, Israel has been grinding down a dispossessed people without any armour or artillery, no air force—its one pathetic airfield in Gaza is controlled by Israel—army or navy, or any of the protective institutions of a modern state. Israel’s cruel confinement of 1.3 million people in the Gaza Strip, jammed like so many human sardines into a tiny pale surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, and of nearly two million in the West Bank—all of whose entrances and exits are controlled by the IDF—has few parallels in the annals of colonialism. Even under apartheid, F-16 jets were never used to bomb African homelands, as they are now sent against Palestinian towns and villages.

Behind this ruthless military pounding lies a longer-term logic. The destruction of Palestinian society which began in 1948, with the expulsion of 68 per cent of its native inhabitants—of whom 4.5 million remain refugees today—has continued through the thirty-four years of occupation since 1967. Decades of daily pressure on a people whose main sin is that they happen to be there, in Israel’s way, have sought to make life impossible for Palestinians, forcing them to give up any resistance, or to leave—as 150,000 have done for Jordan since last year. Community leaders have been jailed and deported by the occupation regime, small businesses crippled by confiscation, farms subject to demolition, universities closed down, students barred from classrooms. No Palestinian farmer or entrepreneur can export their goods directly to any Arab country—their products must pass through Israel, just as taxes are paid to Israel. In a word, the aim has been, as the American researcher Sara Roy has named it, to de-develop Palestinian society.

Today, divided into about 63 non-contiguous cantons, punctuated by 140 Jewish settlements with their own road network banned to Arabs, Palestinians have been reduced to mass unemployment—60 per cent are jobless—and penury. Half the population of Gaza and the West Bank live on less than &#036;2 a day. They cannot travel freely from one place to the next within the occupied territories but must endure long lines at Israeli checkpoints, which regularly detain and humiliate the elderly, the sick, the student and the cleric for hours on end. Some 150,000 of their olive and citrus trees have been punitively uprooted; 2,000 of their houses demolished; wide swathes of their land either expropriated for the implantation of more settlers—there are currently about 400,000—or destroyed for military purposes.

As for the Oslo ‘peace process’ that began in 1993, it has simply re-packaged the occupation, offering a token 18 per cent of the lands seized in 1967 to the corrupt Vichy-like Authority of Arafat, whose mandate has essentially been to police and tax his people on Israel’s behalf. After eight fruitless, immiserating years of further ‘negotiations’, orchestrated by a team of US functionaries which has included such former lobby staffers for Israel as Martin Indyk and Dennis Ross, more abuses, more settlements, more imprisonments, more suffering have been inflicted on the Palestinians—including, since August 2001, a ‘Judaized’ East Jerusalem, with Orient House grabbed and its contents carted off: invaluable records, land deeds, maps, which Israel has simply stolen, as it did PLO archives from Beirut in 1982. Such has been the upshot to date of Ariel Sharon’s gratuitously arrogant visit to Jerusalem’s Haram Al-Sharif on 28 September 2000, surrounded by 1,000 soldiers and guards supplied by Ehud Barak—an action unanimously condemned even by the Security Council. Within a few hours, as the merest child could have predicted, anti-colonial rebellion broke out—with eight Palestinians shot dead as its first victims.

Sharon’s ‘restraint’

A few months later Sharon was swept to power essentially to ‘subdue’ the Palestinians—to teach them a lesson, or get rid of them. His record as an Arab-killer goes back 30 years, before the Sabra and Shatila massacres that his forces supervised in 1982, and for which he has now been indicted in a Belgian court. But he is no fool. With every Palestinian act of resistance, his forces ratchet up the pressure a notch higher, tightening the siege, taking more land, cutting off further supplies, launching deeper incursions into Palestinian towns like Jenin and Ramallah, making life more intolerable for the victims of the occupation—while with each turn of the ratchet, his propaganda machine explains that Israel is merely ‘defending’ itself, ‘securing’ areas and ‘re-establishing control’, with the sole aim of ‘preventing terrorism’. Sharon and his minions even attack Arafat as an ‘arch-terrorist’, although he literally cannot move without Israeli permission, in the same breath that they explain ‘we’ have no quarrel with the Palestinian people. What a boon for that people&#33; With such ‘restraint’, why should a full-scale invasion, carefully bruited about to intimidate the Palestinians, be necessary?

In the United States, where Israel has its main political base and from which it has received over &#036;92 billion in aid since 1967, Palestinian victims remain nameless and faceless, barely rating a mention on national news programmes. Matters are different with the Jewish dead. The terrible human cost of the suicide bombings in Haifa or Jerusalem settled quickly into a familiar explanatory framework. Arafat hadn’t done enough to control his terrorists; their hatred threatens incalculable harm to ‘us’ and our strongest ally; Israel must firmly defend its security. Thoughtful observers will add: these people have been fighting tiresomely for thousands of years anyway; there has been too much suffering on both sides, and the violence must be stopped; although the way Palestinians send their children into battle is yet another sign of how much Israel has to put up with. So, exasperated but still restrained, Israel invaded unfortified Jenin with bulldozers and tanks. In America, Israel has so far won the public relations war that it might seem scarcely necessary for it to put several more million dollars into a media campaign—using ‘stars’ like Zubin Mehta, Itzhak Perlman and Amos Oz—to further improve its image.

A major debate on American television this August between Palestinian Authority minister Nabil Shaath and the new Labour leader Avraham Burg, Speaker of the Knesset, confirmed the pattern—and demonstrated, yet again, the inability of the Authority and its spokesmen and women to speak up for the Palestinian people. Burg could smugly enunciate one brazen falsehood after another: that Israel has always wanted peace; that Israel is striving to remain calm while Palestinian terrorists—encouraged by the Authority and Arafat, who controls everything—threaten Israeli children with brutal murder; that, as a democrat and peace lover, he was concerned there was no real Palestinian peace camp; that the only difference between Shaath and himself was that he, Burg, was able to exert a restraining influence on Sharon while Shaath could exercise none on Arafat. All making the point, in classic propaganda style—a lie will be believed if it is repeated often enough—that it is Israel that is victimized by the Palestinians. Shaath could only respond with cringing servility to this farrago of lies, plaintively repeating that the Palestinians also want peace; that they long for the return of Oslo; that they are trying to be restrained; that they treat as scripture the AIPAC-sponsored Mitchell Report (whose main authors, Warren Rudman and Mitchell himself, were among the highest paid members of the Israeli lobby during their Senate careers).

Given the precious opportunity to deal with a sanctimonious thug like Burg, why is it that spokespeople like Shaath, Abed Rabbo, Erekat, Ashrawi and rest are not capable of simply reminding him that Israel is daily indulging in war crimes? Of pointing out the fact that literally millions of people are unable to travel, to buy food, to get health care? That hundreds of people have been killed, thousands of houses demolished, tens of thousands of trees uprooted, vast acres of land confiscated, that settlements continue—and all this during a ‘peace process’? Could they not once speak as human beings, rather than third-rate imitations of Kissinger and Rabin? Even a normally reliable spokesman like Ghassan Khatib seems to have been infected with the virus. Of course it is necessary to respond to questions about truces, agreements and so forth; but are these people so remote from the daily horror of Palestinian life that they cannot even mention it? The reply to questions about the Mitchell Report or the Powell visit has to make the basic point: so long as there is a military occupation of Palestine by Israel, there can never be peace. The overwhelming majority of the violence—tanks, planes, missiles, checkpoints, settlements, soldiers—comes from the Israeli side.

Arafat’s derelictions

Yet as the Israeli noose tightens around the Palestinians, Arafat is still hoping that the Americans will rescue him and his crumbling regime. Now more than ever, he and his coterie continue to beg for American protection. The Palestinian people deserve better. We have to say clearly that with Arafat and company in command, there is no hope. What kind of a leader is this, who has spent the last year grotesquely fetching up in the Vatican and Lagos and other miscellaneous places, pleading without dignity or even intelligence for imaginary observers, Arab aid, international support, instead of staying with his people, and trying to aid them with medical supplies, practical organization and real leadership? What the Palestinians need are leaders who are really with and of their people, who are actually doing the resisting on the ground, not fat cigar-chomping bureaucrats bent on preserving their business deals and renewing their VIP passes, who have lost all trace of decency or credibility.

Arafat is finished. Why don’t we admit that he can neither lead, nor plan, nor take a single step that makes any difference except to him and his Oslo cronies who have benefited materially from their people’s misery? All the polls show that his presence blocks whatever forward movement might be possible. We need a united leadership capable of thinking, planning and taking decisions, rather than grovelling before the Pope or George Bush while the Israelis kill his people with impunity. True leaders of a resistance movement respond to popular needs, reflect the realities on the ground, and expose themselves to the same dangers and difficulties as everyone else. The struggle for liberation from Israeli occupation is where every Palestinian worth anything now stands. Oslo cannot be warmed over or resuscitated as Arafat and company would like. What is required now are mass actions designed to press on with resistance and liberation, rather than confusing people with talk of a return to Oslo—who can believe the folly of that idea?—or the stupid Mitchell Plan.

What of Israel, stuck in a futureless campaign, flailing about mercilessly? As the Irish poet and critic, James Cousins, said in 1925: any colonial power will be in the grip of ‘false and selfish preoccupations that stand in the way of its attention to the natural evolution of its own national genius, and pull[ed] from the path of open rectitude into the twisted byways of dishonest thought, speech and action, in the artificial defence of a false position.’ All colonisers have gone that way, learning or stopping at nothing, until at last—as Israel turned tail from its twenty-two year occupation of Southern Lebanon—they exit the territory, leaving behind an exhausted and crippled people. If the Zionist enterprise was supposed to fulfil Jewish aspirations, why did it require so many new victims from another people who had nothing to do with Jewish exile and persecution in the first place?

Behind the braggadocio and savagery of Sharon’s government, Israeli self-confidence has been falling. True believers in Zionism in the original sense seem to be fewer and fewer. An authoritative Israeli observer has summed up the current scene: ‘Zionism has become no more than an affair of politicking apparatuses and slogans . . . Zionism today? An ideological bric-a-brac where anyone, right, left or centre, secular, traditionalist or integrist, can find something to justify their passions of the moment. Israel has well and truly entered the post-Zionist era’. [1] Naturally, that does not mean a sudden enlightenment has descended on Israeli public opinion. The slow modification of Zionist faith in its original form, as a genuine salvationist nationalism, has often left behind something worse—a sub-ideological racism, filled with hostility and contempt for Arabs. But this sump of prejudices, gathering beneath the hollowed-out, decaying trunk of official doctrines, is much less easy to trumpet round the world as a mission statement of Israel’s existence than the original Zionist message. Those who think that Israel’s international position is as strong as ever, as Perry Anderson has argued in this journal, are greatly mistaken. [2] However relentlessly biased the editorial or opinion pages of the leading American—or, to a somewhat lesser extent, European—press, not to speak of newscasts, may be, the days when the legitimacy of the Palestinian right to national sovereignty could be completely ignored have passed. Many ordinary Europeans and Americans no longer accept the notion that Israel enjoys some special moral status, which makes its policies of dispossession and assassination pardonable. The occupying power still has its imperial protectors abroad. But in the court of world opinion it has grown more isolated, and Israelis know it.

That is what explains the desperate expedients to which its friends in the United States have resorted, as they thrash about in search of a way to extricate Israel from the impasse of its attempts to suppress the new Intifida. Edward Luttwak, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, exulted in ‘the display of uniquely advanced military capabilities’ by Israel that allowed the IDF to decapitate Mustafa Zibri in Ramallah and murder scores more Palestinian leaders at will. [3] Graham Fuller, former Vice-Chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA, urged the construction—literally—of a Berlin Wall round the occupied territories, patrolled from within by ‘international forces’, to incarcerate the Palestinians. [4] Thomas Friedman, star columnist of the New York Times, opined that ‘the only solution may be for Israel and the US [sic] to invite NATO to occupy the West Bank and Gaza and set up a NATO-run Palestinian state, à la Kosovo and Bosnia’. [5] What all these brutal and senseless schemes betrayed was a fear that Israel was losing. A real Palestinian leadership would have known how to expose this. The appalling events of September 11th, however, will now doubtless reconfigure the political geography of the Muslim and Arab worlds in unforeseen and dangerous new ways—for all concerned.

17 September 2001

__________________________________________________ ________________


[1] Elie Barnavi, ‘Sionismes’, in Elie Barnavi and Saul Friedlander, Les Juifs et le XXe siècle, Paris 2000, pp. 229–30.

[2] Perry Anderson, ‘Scurrying towards Bethlehem’, NLR 10, July–August 2001.

[3] ‘Israel’s Retaliation is on Target’, Los Angeles Times, 30 August 2001.

[4] ‘Build a Berlin Wall in the Middle East’, Los Angeles Times, 14 August 2001.

[5] ‘A Way Out of the Middle East Impasse’, New York Times, 24 August 2001.

[graffic]

That may be true, but the point doesn&#39;t change that many Palestinians were forcefulyl expelled from their homeland.

Why do the Palestinian refugees have more rights than the Jewish refugees?


Would that mean that people who left their land en masse for fear of death have no right to return? Should I be able to scare a person into leaving land so that someone else can take it, then deny them the right to even return, let alone settle, there?

So after the facts have been proved wrong you&#39;ve clinged onto one indistputable argument against the state of Israel. The Zionists expelled a portion of 400,000 Arabs to form their own Jewish state. So your whole crusade against Israel is basically a crusade for victims of Land theft. It doesnt matter that anti-semitism drove Jews out of Europe and the rest of the world, it doesnt matter that twice as many Jews also lost their homes in Arab countrys. Nothing matters. The single most important thing in this conflict is the Palestinian Arabs who lost their homes in 1948, returning them to their homes is all that matters. Your more interested in the destruction of Jewish Israel than the creation of a viable Palestinian state, you betray the Palestinians when you support their extremist fringe.

Your logic is basically this:

A 2 year old Jewish boy with no knowledge of the conflict is an imperial colonist, while a 2 year old Arab boy is the rightful heir to the land.

[Andy Bowden]

So after the facts have been proved wrong you&#39;ve clinged onto one indistputable argument against the state of Israel. The Zionists expelled a portion of 400,000 Arabs to form their own Jewish state.

Actually the UNWRA recorded some 914,000 Palestinian Refugees from the 1948 war. Though this is higher than an earlier figure of 700,00 claimed by the UN.


It doesnt matter that anti-semitism drove Jews out of Europe and the rest of the world, it doesnt matter that twice as many Jews also lost their homes in Arab countrys.

Jews should have the right to live anywhere in the Middle East or in Eastern Europe - provided it is not at the expense of the indiginous populations expense, as is the case with the network of settlements across the West Bank.

I have no problem raising that demand. So do Palestinians - which you accept were forcibly expelled in 1948 - have the right to return to their homes?

[Comrade Rage]

Originally posted by graffic+November 06, 2007 12:49 pm--> (graffic @ November 06, 2007 12:49 pm) So after the facts have been proved wrong you&#39;ve clinged onto one indistputable argument against the state of Israel. The Zionists expelled a portion of 400,000 Arabs to form their own Jewish state. [/b]
And your point is what------that doesn&#39;t matter?&#33;

The fact that the Zionists displaced a nation that had done Jews NO WRONG UNTIL THAT POINT means a lot to me, and a lot to any one who understands freedom.

I think a nation that was built on human rights violations such as the ones committed by American and Zionist colonizers has no legitimacy.


Originally posted by graffic+--> (graffic) So your whole crusade against Israel is basically a crusade for victims of Land theft. It doesnt matter that anti-semitism drove Jews out of Europe and the rest of the world, it doesnt matter that twice as many Jews also lost their homes in Arab countrys.[/b]
err... Countries?
Yes anti-Semitism drove the Jews out of Europe, you&#39;re not talking to holocaust deniers here. But does that justify all the crap that Israel has pulled in the middle east??
NO&#33;&#33;&#33;

I am sick and fucking tired of this load of bollocks that the Zionists use to justify killing more Arabs. &#39;Anyone who criticizes Israel is an anti-Semite.&#39;


[email protected]
Nothing matters. The single most important thing in this conflict is the Palestinian Arabs who lost their homes in 1948, returning them to their homes is all that matters.
Actually I&#39;m also interested in the Arabs who lost their homes in 1949-2007 also--which is no small number&#33;


graffic
Your more interested in the destruction of Jewish Israel than the creation of a viable Palestinian state, you betray the Palestinians when you support their extremist fringe.
Funny, I always thought I betrayed the Palestinians if I were to support the government that restricts their travel, speech, and all forms of national life. :rolleyes:

Seems to me like you&#39;re more interested in keeping a militarized apartheid in place than Jews and Arabs living together.

[Revolution Until Victory]

Why do the Palestinian refugees have more rights than the Jewish refugees?

typical disgusting Zionist lies and crap.



So after the facts have been proved wrong

What??


The Zionists expelled a portion of 400,000 Arabs to form their own Jewish state.

1. The number of Palestinian Arab expelled during 1948 was over 800,000. Even rabid, racist Zionists like Benny Morris admit this.

2. Stop your pathetic attempts to justify colonialist genocide and ethnic cleansing by say they did this to "form thier own Jewish state". Yes, they committed ethnic cleansing to establish thier racist, settler-colony.

3. The Zionists expelled and ethnicly cleansed the vast majority of the Palestinian Arabs who were expelled. The Arab leadership got nothing to do with it


So your whole crusade against Israel is basically a crusade for victims of Land theft.

The whole "crusade" against "Israel" is a crusade against colonialism, equal to the "crusade" againt Rhodesia or French Algeria.


It doesnt matter that anti-semitism drove Jews out of Europe and the rest of the world,

preciecly, since this doesn&#39;t justify anything.


it doesnt matter that twice as many Jews also lost their homes in Arab countrys

more shameless and pathetic lies.


Your more interested in the destruction of Jewish Israel than the creation of a viable Palestinian state

Currenlty, the no.1 goal of all communists worldwide concering the Zionist issue is the total eradiction of "Israel" and Zionist colonialism, a Palestinian Socialist state would follow, after liberation, not before.


Your logic is basically this:

A 2 year old Jewish boy with no knowledge of the conflict is an imperial colonist, while a 2 year old Arab boy is the rightful heir to the land.

lol, stop embaressing yourself and being so desparate to copy and paste what other people had said and had been discussed long before. Pathetic.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 05:49 pm

That may be true, but the point doesn&#39;t change that many Palestinians were forcefulyl expelled from their homeland.

Why do the Palestinian refugees have more rights than the Jewish refugees?
Do they? I&#39;ve consistantly been saying that Jews and Arbas have just as much right to live wherever they want in the region. What comment could possibly make you think I thought otherwise?



Would that mean that people who left their land en masse for fear of death have no right to return? Should I be able to scare a person into leaving land so that someone else can take it, then deny them the right to even return, let alone settle, there?

So after the facts have been proved wrong you&#39;ve clinged onto one indistputable argument against the state of Israel. The Zionists expelled a portion of 400,000 Arabs to form their own Jewish state. So your whole crusade against Israel is basically a crusade for victims of Land theft.
Not just land theft; all the crimes of the Israeli state.


It doesnt matter that anti-semitism drove Jews out of Europe and the rest of the world, it doesnt matter that twice as many Jews also lost their homes in Arab countrys. Nothing matters. The single most important thing in this conflict is the Palestinian Arabs who lost their homes in 1948, returning them to their homes is all that matters.
No, those things matter in their own right, as I have pointed out time and time again. But none of them justify theft of land, ethnic cleansing and racist laws. The point of the thread, as I have pointed out time and time again, is the crimes of the Israeli state.



Your more interested in the destruction of Jewish Israel than the creation of a viable Palestinian state, you betray the Palestinians when you support their extremist fringe.
Not at all. If you weren&#39;t too ignorant to distinguish between me and other members, you might notice that I have not proposed any distinct solution to the conflict except the end to violence on both sides. I even pointed out in another thread, which I believe you participated in, that I was uncertain if I supported a one state or two state solution. It would certainly be better to have a single state in the region, as it would bring the people together and alleviate racial and cultural strife, but I don&#39;t know that that is particularly viable right now.


Your logic is basically this:

A 2 year old Jewish boy with no knowledge of the conflict is an imperial colonist, while a 2 year old Arab boy is the rightful heir to the land.
Really? When did I even condemn people for living in Israel, let alone:
-claim that they have any less rights than Palestinians
-or make a moral judgement on someone for their religion
-or propose the destruction of Israel
-or claim that Jews should leave the region (another form of judgement based on religion)?

I think you&#39;ll be hard pressed to find evidence for any of these extremist positions in my posts.

------

Returning to the point on Jewish plight, I would be very interested to see all the crimes commited against the people. Perhaps you should make a new thread devoted to that specifically, but one thing needs to be made clear: no peoples&#39; plight justified the plight of another people.

This goes for the Palestinians, too, and it explains my uncertainty on where I stand in regards to the settlements and residents of Israel: if someone grew up and lived their entire life on land that was stolen before their birth, how do you resolve the problem of land rights? It certainly can&#39;t be at the expense of innocent people who simply grew up where they were born, but at the same time the expelled people need to have some kind of compensation or rights returned. That is why I support the right of return, but not the expulsion of anybody even from the settlements, except those most recently established. This is a grey issue, but nobody deserves to lose their homeland; for those who have, something must be done to rectify the situation besides pretending that Jewish plight somehow excuses crimes done against another person.

EDIT: fixed terminology in last sentence

[hajduk]

Crisis for American Jews

by Edward Said


Why is American Jewish support for Israel more fanatical than even
anti-Arab sentiment among Israelis?

A few weeks ago, a vociferous pro-Israel demonstration was held in
Washington at roughly the same moment that the siege of Jenin was
taking place. All of the speakers were prominent public figures,
including several senators, leaders of major Jewish organisations,
and other celebrities, each of whom expressed unfailing solidarity
with everything Israel was doing. The administration was represented
by Paul Wolfowitz, number two at the Department of Defence, an
extreme right-wing hawk who has been speaking about "ending"
countries like Iraq ever since last September. Also known as a
rigorous hard- line supporter of Israel, in his speech he did what
everyone else did -- celebrated Israel and expressed total
unconditional support for it -- but unexpectedly referred in passing
to "the sufferings of the Palestinians." Because of that phrase, he
was booed so loudly and so long that he was unable to continue his
speech, leaving the platform in a kind of disgrace.

The moral of this incident is that public American Jewish support for
Israel today simply does not tolerate any allowance for the existence
of an actual Palestinian people, except in the context of terrorism,
violence, evil and fanaticism. Moreover, this refusal to see, much
less hear anything about, the existence of "another side" far exceeds
the fanaticism of anti-Arab sentiment among Israelis, who are of
course on the front line of the struggle in Palestine. To judge by
the recent antiwar demonstration of 60,000 people in Tel Aviv, the
increasing number of military reservists who refuse service in the
occupied territories, the sustained protest of (admitted only a few)
intellectuals and groups, and some of the polls that show a majority
of Israelis willing to withdraw in return for peace with the
Palestinians, there is at least a dynamic of political activity among
Israeli Jews. But not so in the United States.

Two weeks ago the weekly magazine New York, which has a circulation
of about a million copies, ran a dossier entitled "Crisis for
American Jews," the theme being that "in New York, as in Israel, [it
is] an issue of survival." I won&#39;t try to summarise the main points
of this extraordinary claim except to say that it painted such a
picture of anguish about "what is most precious in my life, the state
of Israel," according to one of the prominent New Yorkers quoted in
the magazine, that you would think that the existence of this most
prosperous and powerful of all minorities in the United States was
actually being threatened. One of the other people quoted even went
as far as to suggest that American Jews are on the brink of a second
holocaust. Certainly, as the author of one of the articles said, most
American Jews support what Israel did on the West Bank,
enthusiastically; one American Jew said, for instance, that his son
is now in the Israeli army and that he is "armed, dangerous and
killing as many Palestinians as possible."

Guilt at being well-off in America plays a role in this kind of
delusional thinking, but mostly it is the result of an extraordinary
self-isolation in fantasy and myth that comes from education and
unreflective nationalism of a kind unique in the world. Ever since
the Intifada broke out almost two years ago, the American media and
the major Jewish organisations have been running all kinds of attacks
on Islamic education in the Arab world, Pakistan and even in the US.
These have accused Islamic authorities, as well as Arafat&#39;s
Palestinian Authority, of teaching youngsters hatred of America and
Israel, the virtues of suicide bombing, unlimited praise for jihad.
Little has been said, however, of the results of what American Jews
have been taught about the conflict in Palestine: that it was given
to Jews by God, that it was empty, that it was liberated from
Britain, that the natives ran away because their leaders told them
to, that in effect the Palestinians don&#39;t exist except recently as
terrorists, that all Arabs are anti-Semitic and want to kill Jews.

Nowhere in all this incitement to hatred does the reality of a
Palestinian people exist, and more to the point, there is no
connection made between Palestinian animosity and enmity towards
Israel and what Israel has been doing to Palestinians since 1948.
It&#39;s as if an entire history of dispossession, the destruction of a
society, the 35 year old occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, to say
nothing of massacres, bombardments, expulsions, land expropriations,
killings, sieges, humiliations, years of collective punishment and
assassinations that have gone on for decades were as nothing, since
Israel has been victimised by Palestinian rage, hostility and
gratuitous anti-semitism. It simply does not occur to most American
supporters of Israel to see Israel as the actual author of specific
actions done in the name of the Jewish people by the Jewish state,
and to connect in consequence those actions to Palestinian feelings
of anger and revenge.

The problem at bottom is that as human beings the Palestinians do not
exist, that is, as human beings with history, traditions, society,
sufferings and ambitions like all other people. Why this should be so
for most but by no means all American Jewish supporters of Israel is
something worth looking into. It goes back to the knowledge that
there was an indigenous people in Palestine -- all the Zionist
leaders knew it and spoke about it -- but the fact as a fact that
might prevent colonisation could never be admitted. Hence the
collective Zionist practice of either denying the fact or, more
specially in the US where the realities are not so available for
actual verification, lying about it by producing a counter-reality.
For decades it has been decreed to schoolchildren there were no
Palestinians when the Zionist pioneers arrived and so those
miscellaneous people who throw stones and fight occupation are simply
a collection of terrorists who deserve killing. Palestinians, in
short, do not deserve anything like a narrative or collective
actuality, and so they must be transmuted and dissolved into
essentially negative images. This is entirely the result of a
distorted education, doled out to millions of youngsters who grow up
without any awareness at all that the Palestinian people have been
totally dehumanised to serve a political- ideological end, namely to
keep support high for Israel.

What is so astonishing is that notions of co- existence between
peoples play no part in this kind of distortion. Whereas American
Jews want to be recognised as Jews and Americans in America, they are
unwilling to accord a similar status as Arabs and Palestinians to
another people that has been oppressed by Israel since the beginning.

Only if one were to live in the US for years would one be aware of
the depth of the problem which far transcends ordinary politics. The
intellectual suppression of the Palestinians that has occurred
because of Zionist education has produced an unreflecting,
dangerously skewed sense of reality in which whatever Israel does it
does as a victim: according to the various articles I have mentioned
above, American Jews in crisis by extension therefore feel the same
thing as the most right-wing of Israeli Jews, that they are at risk
and their survival is at stake. This has nothing to do with reality
obviously enough, but rather with a kind of hallucinatory state that
overrides history and facts with a supremely unthinking narcissism. A
recent defence of what Wolfowitz said in his speech didn&#39;t even refer
to the Palestinians he was referring to, but defended President
Bush&#39;s Middle East policy.

This is de-humanisation on a vast scale, and it is made even worse,
one has to say, by the suicide bombings that have so disfigured and
debased the Palestinian struggle. All liberation movements in history
have affirmed that their struggle is about life, not about death. Why
should ours be an exception? The sooner we educate our Zionist
enemies and show that our resistance offers co-existence and peace,
the less likely will they be able to kill us at will, and never refer
to us except as terrorists. I am not saying that Sharon and Netanyahu
can be changed. I am saying that there is a Palestinian, yes a
Palestinian constituency, as well as an Israeli and American one that
needs to be reminded by strategy and tactics that force of arms and
tanks and human bombs and bulldozers are not a solution, but only
create more delusion and distortion, on both sides.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 12:46 pm
Crisis for American Jews

by Edward Said


Why is American Jewish support for Israel more fanatical than even
anti-Arab sentiment among Israelis?
These Edward Said articles are interesting, but you should probably put them in another thread, as they don&#39;t relate directly to the threads you have been putting them in (and you also don&#39;t offer your own ideas after posting them...).

[hajduk]

Originally posted by Dean+November 07, 2007 06:04 pm--> (Dean @ November 07, 2007 06:04 pm)
[email protected] 07, 2007 12:46 pm
Crisis for American Jews

by Edward Said


Why is American Jewish support for Israel more fanatical than even
anti-Arab sentiment among Israelis?
These Edward Said articles are interesting, but you should probably put them in another thread, as they don&#39;t relate directly to the threads you have been putting them in (and you also don&#39;t offer your own ideas after posting them...). [/b]
i totally agree with Said and his thaughts who are related to this issue and thread
and on the other hand it will be to arogant from me to describeing his oppinions becouse what was he saying before also happening know

[Dean]

Originally posted by hajduk+November 07, 2007 06:28 pm--> (hajduk @ November 07, 2007 06:28 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 06:04 pm

[email protected] 07, 2007 12:46 pm
Crisis for American Jews

by Edward Said


Why is American Jewish support for Israel more fanatical than even
anti-Arab sentiment among Israelis?
These Edward Said articles are interesting, but you should probably put them in another thread, as they don&#39;t relate directly to the threads you have been putting them in (and you also don&#39;t offer your own ideas after posting them...).
i totally agree with Said and his thaughts who are related to this issue and thread
and on the other hand it will be to arogant from me to describeing his oppinions becouse what was he saying before also happening know [/b]
That&#39;s not the point. Of course his papers have relevance, but it is much more reasonable to make a new thread devoted to it or type a short argument in regards to the topic and link to the paper. As much as I admire Said, I don&#39;t think it&#39;s reasonable to post his articles in every thread - please, start a new thread for these; it&#39;s clear that you&#39;re interested in his works, and it would be a lot more likely to draw responses if a thread was devoted to his articles, which have a much wider scale than the topics you&#39;ve been posting them in.

[hajduk]

Originally posted by Dean+November 07, 2007 10:05 pm--> (Dean @ November 07, 2007 10:05 pm)
Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 06:28 pm

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 06:04 pm

[email protected] 07, 2007 12:46 pm
Crisis for American Jews

by Edward Said


Why is American Jewish support for Israel more fanatical than even
anti-Arab sentiment among Israelis?
These Edward Said articles are interesting, but you should probably put them in another thread, as they don&#39;t relate directly to the threads you have been putting them in (and you also don&#39;t offer your own ideas after posting them...).
i totally agree with Said and his thaughts who are related to this issue and thread
and on the other hand it will be to arogant from me to describeing his oppinions becouse what was he saying before also happening know
That&#39;s not the point. Of course his papers have relevance, but it is much more reasonable to make a new thread devoted to it or type a short argument in regards to the topic and link to the paper. As much as I admire Said, I don&#39;t think it&#39;s reasonable to post his articles in every thread - please, start a new thread for these; it&#39;s clear that you&#39;re interested in his works, and it would be a lot more likely to draw responses if a thread was devoted to his articles, which have a much wider scale than the topics you&#39;ve been posting them in. [/b]
look dean i dont understand why you against Saids issues when he been devoted to this problem and he was a Palestian activist so he is more than valiable to bee on this thread

[hajduk]

Low point of powerlessness
By: Dr. Edward Said



Sixty years ago, the Jews of Europe were at the lowest point of their collective existence. Herded like cattle into trains, they were transported from the rest of Europe by Nazi soldiers into death camps where they were systematically exterminated in gas ovens. They had offered some resistance in Poland, but in most places they first lost their civil status, then they were removed from their jobs, then they were designated official enemies to be destroyed, and then they were. In every significant instance they were the most powerless of people, treated as insidious, potentially overpowering enemies by leaders and armies whose own power was far, far greater; indeed, even the idea of Jews representing a danger to the might of countries like Germany, France, and Italy was preposterous. But it was an accepted idea, since with few exceptions most of Europe turned its back on them during their slaughter. It is only one of the ironies of history that the word used most frequently to describe them in the hideous official jargon of fascism was the word "terrorists", just as Algerians and Vietnamese were later called "terrorists" by their enemies.

Every human calamity is different, so there is no point in trying to look for equivalence between one and the other. But it is certainly true that one universal truth about the Holocaust is not only that it should never again happen to Jews, but that as a cruel and tragic collective punishment, it should not happen to any people at all. But if there is no point in looking for equivalence, there is a value in seeing analogies and perhaps hidden similarities, even as we preserve a sense of proportion. Quite apart from his actual history of mistakes and misrule, Yasser Arafat is now being made to feel like a hunted Jew by the state of the Jews. There is no gainsaying the fact that the greatest irony of his siege by the Israeli army in his ruined Ramallah compound, is that his ordeal has been planned and carried out by a psychopathic leader who claims to represent the Jewish people. I do not want to press the analogy too far, but it is true to say that Palestinians under Israeli occupation today are as powerless as Jews were in the 1940s. Israel&#39;s army, air force and navy, heavily subsidised by the United States, have been wreaking havoc on the totally defenceless civilian population of the occupied West Bank and Gaza strip. For the past half century the Palestinians have been a dispossessed people, millions of them refugees, most of the rest under a 35 year old military occupation, at the mercy of armed settlers who systematically have been stealing their land and an army that has killed Palestinians by the thousands. Thousands more have been imprisoned, thousands have lost their livelihood, made refugees for the second or third time, all of them without civil or human rights.

And still Sharon makes the case that Israel is struggling to survive against Palestinian terrorism. Is there anything more grotesque than this claim, even as this deranged killer of Arabs sends his F-16s, his attack helicopters and hundreds of tanks against unarmed people without any defences at all. They are terrorists, he says, and their leader, humiliatingly imprisoned in a crumbling building with Israeli destruction all round him, is characterised as the arch-terrorist of all time. Arafat has the courage and defiance to resist, and he has his people with him on that score. Every Palestinian feels the deliberate humiliation inflicted on him as a cruelty without political or military purpose except punishment, pure and simple. What right does Israel have to do this?

The symbolism is truly awful to register, and is made even more so by the knowledge that Sharon and his supporters, to say nothing of his criminal army, intend what the symbolism so starkly illustrates. Israeli Jews are the powerful ones. Palestinians their hunted and despised Others. Luckily for Sharon, he has Shimon Peres, perhaps the greatest coward and hypocrite in world politics today, going round everywhere saying that Israel understands the difficulties of the Palestinian people, and "we" are willing to make the closures slightly less onerous. After which not only does nothing improve, but the curfews, demolitions, and killings intensify. And of course, the Israeli position is to call for massive international humanitarian aid which, as Terje- Rod Larsen correctly says, is in effect to cajole international donors into actually underwriting the Israeli occupation. Sharon must surely feel that he can do anything and not only get away with it completely but somehow even to manage a campaign whose purpose is to give Israel the role of victim.

As popular protests grow worldwide, the organised Zionist counter- response has been to complain that anti-semitism is on the rise. Only two days ago Harvard University President Lawrence Summers issued a statement to the effect that an anti-divestment campaign led by professors -- an attempt to pressure the university into divesting itself of shares in American firms selling military equipment to Israel -- was anti-Semitic. A Jewish president of the country&#39;s oldest and richest university complains of anti-semitism&#33; Criticism of Israeli policy is now routinely equated with anti-semitism of the kind that brought about the Holocaust, even though in the United States there is no anti-semitism to speak of. In the US, a group of Israeli and American academics are organising a McCarthy-style campaign against professors who have spoken up about Israeli human rights abuses; the main purpose of the campaign is to ask students and faculty to inform against their pro-Palestinian colleagues, intimidating the right of free speech and seriously curtailing academic freedom.

A further irony is that protests against Israeli brutality -- most recently Arafat&#39;s humiliating isolation in Ramallah -- have taken place on a mass level. Palestinians by the thousands defied curfews in Gaza and several West Bank towns in order to go out on the streets in support of their embattled leader. For their part, the Arab rulers have been silent or powerless or both together. Every one of them, including Arafat, has for years openly stated a willingness for peace with Israel; two leading Arab countries actually have treaties with it. Yet all Sharon gives in return is a kick to their collective bottoms. Arabs, he says repeatedly, only understand force, and now that we have power we shall treat them as they deserve (and as we used to be treated).

Uri Avnery is right: Arafat is being murdered. And with him, according to Sharon, will die the aspirations of the Palestinians. This is an exercise short of complete genocide to see how far Israeli power can go in sadistic brutality without being stopped or apprehended. Today Sharon has said that in the event of a war with Iraq, which is definitely coming, he will retaliate against Iraq, thus no doubt causing Bush and Rumsfeld the nightmares they rightly deserve. Sharon&#39;s last attempt at regime change was in Lebanon during 1982. He put Bashir Jemayel in as president, then was summarily told by Jemayel that Lebanon would never be an Israeli vassal, then Jemayel was assassinated, then the Sabra and Shatila massacres took place, then after 20 bloody and ignominious years the Israelis sullenly withdrew from Lebanon.

What conclusion is one to draw from all this? That Israeli policy has been a disaster for the entire region. The more powerful it becomes, the more ruin it sows in the countries around it, to say nothing of the catastrophes it has executed against the Palestinian people, and the more hated it becomes. It is power used for evil purposes, not self-defence at all. The Zionist dream of a Jewish state being a normal state like all others has come to the vision of the leader of Palestine&#39;s indigenous people hanging on to his life by a thread, while Israeli tanks and bulldozers continue to wreck everything around him. Is this the Zionist goal for which hundreds of thousands have died? Isn&#39;t it clear what logic of resentment and violence is at work in all this, and what power will come from the powerlessness that can now only witness but will certainly develop later? Sharon is proud to have defied the entire world, not because the world is anti-Semitic but because what he does in the name of the Jewish people is so outrageous. Isn&#39;t it time for those who feel that his appalling actions do not represent them to call a halt to his behavior?

[graffic]

Do they? I&#39;ve consistantly been saying that Jews and Arbas have just as much right to live wherever they want in the region. What comment could possibly make you think I thought otherwise?

Attacking the one Democratic Jewish state in the Middle East while supporting the aims of Arab dictatorships. Come back to me with some evidence that Jews are treated as equal citizens in "every other Arab country" and you will have a valid point to make.

My issue is you blow up the way 500,000 Palestinians were treated and dumb down the way twice as many Jews were treated, this is racist and where is the justification in this?

[Revolution Until Victory]

oh oh, Graffic wants to play the famous "lets run in circles" Zionist game. I will join.


Attacking the one Democratic Jewish state in the Middle East

here is the first circle. for probably the 20th time now, "Israel" isn&#39;t the only democratic state in the middle east. It is the only RACIST Zionist settler-colony in the Middle East, same way as Aparthied South Africa wasn&#39;t the only "Democracy" in Africa, rather, the only WHITE democracy in Africa.


while supporting the aims of Arab dictatorships.

what a troll. Second circle. For the 30th time, the aims of those reactionary imperialist tools isn&#39;t the liberation of Palesitne or the distruciton of the Zionist settler-colonies. The aims of those US-Zionist collaboraters are almost identical to those of the US and "Israel".


Come back to me with some evidence that Jews are treated as equal citizens in "every other Arab country" and you will have a valid point to make.

haahaahaa Graffic talking about "evidence"&#33;&#33;&#33;

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 04:34 pm

Do they? I&#39;ve consistantly been saying that Jews and Arbas have just as much right to live wherever they want in the region. What comment could possibly make you think I thought otherwise?

Attacking the one Democratic Jewish state in the Middle East while supporting the aims of Arab dictatorships.
I could care less what the dictatorships in the region are concerned with; if they supported Israel, would that somehow justify the palestinian cause in your view?

Or is it just because you can keep throwing around the term "Arab" + a negative that makes the dictatorships such a great topic of discussion for you?


Come back to me with some evidence that Jews are treated as equal citizens in "every other Arab country" and you will have a valid point to make.
I don&#39;t give a fuck if Jews are treated poorly in every nation in the world; as we pointed out with the palestinian case, one people&#39;s strife doesn&#39;t justify anothers&#39; oppression. This means, numbskull, that I don&#39;t support the oppression of Arabs or Jews. Too bad you think one is ok.


My issue is you blow up the way 500,000 Palestinians were treated and dumb down the way twice as many Jews were treated, this is racist and where is the justification in this?
-I don&#39;t dumb it down; all i say is that it doesn&#39;t justify oppression. As I pointed out, it is understandable why Zionist settlers might be violent, even though it is atrocious.

-The palestinian people not only endured oppression, but continue to endure it. You try to dumb this down by pointing to the faults of other nations in their treatment of Jews. What a mockery of all that is decent.

-You calling racism when you already said it was justifed for security reasons? Why should I care? All I have to do is say that racism against Y is justified for the preservation of X people who were hurt by Z. It all makes sense.

-"Returning to the point on Jewish plight, I would be very interested to see all the crimes commited against the people. Perhaps you should make a new thread devoted to that specifically, but one thing needs to be made clear: no peoples&#39; plight justified the plight of another people."

Your arguments are a joke. You have consistantly reiterated points that are only reasonable to argue if you outight ignore what I have said. Your indefensible defense of a racist, xenophobic regime is laughable, because you have resorted to calling me "racist" because I said that one peoples&#39; plight isn&#39;t a just cause to harm another&#33; It&#39;s like you don&#39;t even speak the same language.

[hajduk]

Edward Said on Immediate Imperatives in Palestine

The daily hemorrhage of Palestinian lives and property accelerates without respite. Both the Arab and Western media report horrifically sensational suicide bombings, complete with pictures and names of the victims as well as gut-wrenching details. I do not hesitate now to say again that these efforts are morally repugnant and politically disastrous on all sorts of grounds. But what I find just as awful is the fact that Israel kills a far larger number of mostly unarmed Palestinian civilians — a 90-year-old man here, a whole family there, a mentally disabled youth today, a nurse yesterday, and so on — and refuses to stop or in any way place restrictions on its troops who have visited mayhem on the Palestinians unremittingly for far too many recent months. Most of the time, however, these dreadful slaughters are reported on the back pages of newspapers and never mentioned on TV. As for the continued practice of extra-legal assassinations, Israel is allowed to get away with phrases from journalists who use words like "alleged" or "officials say" to cover their own irresponsibility as reporters. The New York Times in particular is now so clotted with such phrases in reporting on the Middle East (Iraq included) that it might as well be re-named "Officials Said".

In other words, the fact that illegal Israeli practices continue to deliberately bleed the Palestinian civilian population is obscured, hidden from view, though it continues steadily all the time: 65 per cent unemployment, 50 per cent poverty (people living on less than &#036;2 a day), schools, hospitals, universities, businesses under constant military pressure, these are only the outward manifestation of Israeli crimes against humanity. Over 40 per cent of the Palestinian population is malnourished and famine is now a genuine threat. Non-stop curfews, the endless expropriation of land and the building of settlements (now numbering almost 200), the destruction of crops, trees, houses have made life for ordinary Palestinians intolerable. Many are leaving, or as is the case with the inhabitants of Yanun village, must leave because settlers&#39; terror against them, the burning of their houses, and threats against their lives make it impossible to stay. Ethnic cleansing is what this is all about, although Sharon&#39;s demonic plan is to do it in tiny daily increments that won&#39;t properly be reported and are never seen cumulatively as part of a general pattern. With the Bush administration backing his policies unconditionally, no wonder that Sharon can afford to say "we are placing no restriction on our operations. Israel is under no pressure. No one is criticising us or has the right to do so. We are talking here about Israel&#39;s right to protect its citizens." (Reuters, IHT 15 November, 2002). Why this kind of arrogance goes unanswered or isn&#39;t immediately associated with the kind of thing for which Slobodan Milosevic is now being tried in the Hague is a sign of how mendacious the international community has become. With US cover, Sharon kills Palestinians at will under the guise of fighting terrorism.

Were this not bad enough, there is in addition the sorry state of Palestinian and Arab politics, many of its leaders and elites never more corrupt, rarely more injurious to their people as now. Neither collectively nor individually have these people put up any systematic strategy, much less even a systematic protest against Washington&#39;s announced plans to re-draw the map of the Middle East after the invasion of Iraq. All these regimes can do now seems to be either to market themselves as indispensable to the US or to suppress any sign of dissent in their midst. Or both together. The unseemly bickering and disorderliness of the Iraqi opposition in London — under the watchful eye of the US&#39;s Zalmay Khalizad, an AUB graduate, once a neighbour of mine in New York, now a neo- conservative protégé of Cheney and Wolfowitz — gives an excellent idea of where we are as a people. Representatives who represent only themselves, the condescending imperial patronage of a power that is about to destroy a country in order to grab its resources, the tyrannical, discredited local regimes (of which Saddam&#39;s is the worst) ruling by terror, the absence of any semblance of democracy within, and without, such regimes — these are not reassuring prospects for the future. What is especially noticeable about the general situation is the powerlessness and silence of the overwhelming majority of the people, who suffer their humiliation within an envelope of overall indifference and repression. Everything in the Arab world is done either from above by basically unelected rulers or behind a curtain by undesignated, albeit resourceful, middlemen. Resources are bartered or sold without accountability; political futures are designed for the convenience of the powerful and their local sub-contractors; human compassion and care for the citizens&#39; well being have few institutions to nurture them.

The Palestinian situation embodies all this with startling drama. As the culmination of its 35-year-old military occupation the Israeli army has spent the last nine months destroying the rudimentary infrastructure of civilian life on the West Bank and in Gaza: people there, in effect, live in cages, with electrical and concrete fences or Israeli troops to guard and interdict their free movement. Yasser Arafat and his men, who are at least as responsible for the current paralysis and devastation because of what they signed away in Oslo, and for having given legitimacy to the Israeli occupation, seem to be hanging on anyway, even as extraordinary stories of their corruption and illegally acquired wealth dribble out all over the Israeli, Arab and international media. It is deeply troubling that many of these men have recently been involved in secret negotiations with the EU, with the CIA, with the Scandinavian countries on the basis of their former credibility as surrogates and servants of Arafat. In the meantime Mr Palestine himself continues to issue orders and ludicrous denunciations, all of them either futile or years out of date; his recent attack on Osama Bin Laden is one example, as is his retrospective acceptance of the Clinton plan of 2000. Still, he and his henchmen like the sinister Mohamed Rashid (aka Khalid Salam) continue to employ large sums of money to bribe, to corrupt, and to prolong their rule past all decency. No one seems to be paying attention as the infamous Quartet announces a peace conference and reform with one voice on one day, withdrawing the plan the next, while encouraging Israel in its repression on the third day.

What could be more preposterous than the call for Palestinian elections, which Mr Arafat of all people, imprisoned in an Israeli vice, announces, retracts, postpones, and re-announces. Everyone speaks of reform except the very people whose future depends on it, i.e. the citizens of Palestine, who have endured and sacrificed so much even as their impoverishment and misery increases. Isn&#39;t it ironic, not to say grotesque, that in the name of that long-suffering people schemes of rule are being hatched everywhere, except by that people itself? Surely the Swedes, the Spanish, the British, the Americans and even the Israelis know that the symbolic key to the future of the Middle East is Palestine, and that is why they do everything within their power to make sure that the Palestinian people are kept as far away from decisions about the future as possible. And this during a heated campaign for war against Iraq, during which numerous Americans, Europeans and Israelis have openly stated that this is the time to re-draw the map of the Middle East and bring in "democracy".

The time has come for the emperor who claims to be wearing new clothes, which he calls democracy, to be exposed for the charlatan he really is. Democracy cannot be imported or imposed: it is the prerogative of citizens who can make it and desire to live under it. Ever since the end of World War Two, the Arab countries have been living in various states of "emergency", which has been a license for their rulers to do what they want in the name of security. Even the Palestinians under Oslo had a regime imposed on them that existed first of all to serve Israel&#39;s security, and second, to serve (and help) itself.

For all sorts of reasons, among them that the cause of Palestine (like the liberation of apartheid South Africa) has always served as a model for Arabs and fair-minded idealistic people everywhere, it is today imperative that Palestinians take steps to restore the fashioning of their destiny to their own hands. The political stage in Palestine is now divided between two unattractive and unviable alternatives. On one side there is what is left of the Authority and Arafat, on the other the Islamic parties. Neither one nor the other can possibly secure a decent future for the citizens of Palestine. The Authority is so discredited, its failure to build institutions so basic, its corrupt and cynical history so compromised in every way as to render it incapable of being entrusted with the future. Only rogues will pretend otherwise, as some of its security chiefs and prominent negotiators are now pretending. As for the Islamic parties, they lead desperate individuals into a negative space of endless religious strife and anti-modern decline. If we speak of Zionism as having failed politically and socially, how can it be acceptable to turn passively to another religion and look there for worldly salvation? Impossible. Human beings make their own history, not gods or magic or miracles. Purifying the land of "aliens", whether it is spoken of by Muslims, Christians or Jews, is a defilement of human life as it is lived by billions of people who are mixed by race, history, ethnic identity, religion or nationality.

But a large majority of Palestinians and, I think, Israelis, know these things. And fortunately a political alternative already exists that is neither Hamas nor Arafat&#39;s Authority. I am speaking here of an impressive formation of Palestinians in the occupied territories who in June of this year announced a new Palestinian national initiative (moubadara wataniya). Among its leaders are Dr Mustafa Barghouti and Dr Haidar Abdel-Shafi, Rawia Al-Shawa, and many more independents who understand that in its weakened state Palestinian society is being targeted for "reform" by parties whose real interest is to liquidate Palestine as a political and moral force for years to come. Idle talk of elections by Arafat and his lieutenants is meant to reassure outsiders that democracy is on the way. Far from it — these people simply want to continue their corrupt and bankrupt ways by any means possible, including outright fraud. The 1996 elections, it should be remembered, were conducted on the basis of the Oslo process, the main aim of which was to continue Israeli occupation under a different title. The Legislative Assembly (al majlis al-tashri&#39;i) was in reality powerless before both Arafat&#39;s edict and the Israeli veto. What Sharon and the Quartet now propose is an extension of the same unacceptable regime. This is why the National Initiative has become the inevitable choice for Palestinians everywhere.

In the first place, unlike the Authority, it proposes liberation from, rather than cooperation with, the Israeli occupation. Second, it is representative of a broad base in civil society and therefore includes no military or security people and no hangers on of Arafat&#39;s court. Third, it argues for liberation and not a readjustment of the occupation to suit elites and VIPs.

Most important, the initiative — which I am happy to endorse enthusiastically — puts forward the idea of a national unified authority, elected to serve the people and its need for liberation, for democratic freedoms, and for public debate and accountability. These things have been put off for far too long. The old divisions between Fatah, the Popular Front, Hamas, and all the others, are meaningless today. We cannot afford such ridiculous posturing. As a people under occupation we need a leadership whose main goal is to rid us of Israeli depredations and occupations, and to provide us with an order that can fulfil our needs for honesty, national scope, transparency and direct speech. Arafat has a history of double talk. Barghouti, on the other hand — I use him as an example here — takes a principled line, whether he addresses Palestinians, Israelis, or the foreign media. He has the respect of his people because of his medical services in the villages, and his honesty and leadership have inspired everyone who has had contact with him. I also think it is very important that the Palestinian people should be led now by modern, well- educated people for whom the values of citizenship are central to their vision. Our rulers today have never been citizens, they have never stood in line to buy bread, they have never paid their own medical or school bills, they have never endured the uncertainty and cruelty of arbitrary arrest, tribal bullying, conspiratorial power grabs. Barghouti&#39;s and Abdel-Shafi&#39;s examples, as do those of all the main figures in the initiative, speak to our need for independence of mind and responsible, modern citizenship. The old days are over and should be buried as expeditiously as possible.

I conclude by saying that real change can only come about when people actively will that change, make it possible themselves. The Iraqi opposition is making a terrible mistake by throwing its fate into American hands, and in so doing paying insufficient attention to the needs of the actual people of Iraq who now suffer the terrible persecutions of autocracy and are about to be subject to an equally terrible bombing by the US. In Palestine it should be possible to have elections now, but not elections to re-install Arafat&#39;s ragged crew, but rather to choose delegates for a constitutional and truly representative assembly. It is a lamentable reality that during his 10 years of misrule Arafat actively prevented the creation of a constitution despite all his ridiculous gibberish about "Palestinian democracy". His legacy is neither a constitution nor even a basic law, but only a decrepit mafia. Despite that, and despite Sharon&#39;s frantic wish to bring an end to Palestinian national life, our popular and civil institutions still function under extreme hardship and duress. Somehow teachers teach, nurses nurse, doctors doctor, and so on. These everyday activities have never stopped if only because necessity dictates unstinting effort. Now those institutions and those people who have truly served their society must bring themselves forward and provide a moral and intellectual framework for liberation and democracy, by peaceful means and with genuine national intent. In this effort Palestinians under occupation and those in the shatat or diaspora have an equal obligation to make the effort. Perhaps this national initiative may provide a democratic example for other Arabs as well.

[graffic]

Or is it just because you can keep throwing around the term "Arab" + a negative that makes the dictatorships such a great topic of discussion for you?

Arab dictatorships are fucking negative, face up to it. They are negative for the working Arabs, negative for the region and negative for anyone who supports peace in the Middle East.

My original point was that you attack Israel - the one democratic Jewish state in the Middle East - and claim to want "Jews and Arabs to live wherever they like in the region". How does destroying Jewish self-determination, destroying the only democratic state in the middle East get us closer to "Jews and Arabs living wherever they choose in peace"?


I don&#39;t give a fuck if Jews are treated poorly in every nation in the world; as we pointed out with the palestinian case, one people&#39;s strife doesn&#39;t justify anothers&#39; oppression. This means, numbskull, that I don&#39;t support the oppression of Arabs or Jews. Too bad you think one is ok.

When have I supported the oppression of Arabs?



Your arguments are a joke. You have consistantly reiterated points that are only reasonable to argue if you outight ignore what I have said. Your indefensible defense of a racist, xenophobic regime is laughable, because you have resorted to calling me "racist" because I said that one peoples&#39; plight isn&#39;t a just cause to harm another&#33; It&#39;s like you don&#39;t even speak the same language.

Everytime I attack your argument you sit on the fence and claim you don&#39;t support any particular view on the issue so its virtually impossible to debate.

[hajduk]

QUOTES of EDWARD SAID

"I have spent a great deal of my life during the past 35 years advocating the rights of the Palestinian people to national self-determination, but I have always tried to do that with full attention paid to the reality of the Jewish people and what they suffered by way of persecution and genocide. The paramount thing is that the struggle for equality in Palestine/Israel should be directed toward a humane goal, that is, co-existence, and not further suppression and denial.”

I have been unable to live an uncommitted or suspended life. I have not hesitated to declare my affiliation with an extremely unpopular cause.

I urge everyone to join in and not leave the field of values, defintions, and cultures uncontested.

For the intellectual the task, I believe, is explicitly to universalize the crisis, to give greater human scope to what a particular race or nation suffered, to associate that experience with the suffering of others.

Look at situations as contingent, not as inevitable, look at them as the result of a series of historical choices made by men and women, as facts of society made by human beings, and not as natural or god-given, therefore unchangeable, permanent, irreversible.

[hajduk]

Here is the link for another reason why Edward Said was the greatest Palestine activist who even throw the rocks on Zionacies and who was knows what really happened about Izrael charge sheet
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/650/op11.htm
Edward Said was really kick zionacies in the head and the ass

[Led Zeppelin]

Hajduk, either link to the article/speech or don&#39;t post it if it&#39;s that long. I have removed your long text so you can edit your post to link to it when you see this.

I&#39;m also going to PM you this to make sure you get the message. I thought this was a one time thing but you seem to be doing it quite often...

Thank you.

[hajduk]

here is another good interview with Edward Said made by David Barsamian
http://www.isreview.org/issues/18/Said_part1.shtml

[hajduk]

Is Israel more secure now?

By Edward Said

http://www.counterpunch.org/saidsecure.html

[hajduk]

Edward Saids thoughts about Israel charge sheet
http://www.matrixmasters.com/wtc/esaid/esaid.html

[Comrade Rage]

To all Zionists like Graffic, etc:

How can you justify the establishment of Israel, and displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs, when the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics had already set up a piece of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR) for the specific purpose of accomodating Jewish refugees?

Moreover, how can you critique the leaders for inaction during the Holocaust, and not give Joseph Stalin credit for this act of compassion?

I&#39;m very interested in hearing your response&#33;

The area I&#39;m talking about is highlighted in blue. It still exists after the USSR became Russia (capitalist) in 1991.
http://i220.photobucket.com/albums/dd298/COMRADE_CRUM/Autonomous_oblast_of_Russia.png

[hajduk]

Knowing Israel for what it really is
By Edward Said
http://www.zmag.org/meastwatch/saidisis.htm

[graffic]

Ha..

Stalin eliminated military officers during the purges, including the most senior ones. He also rejected the massive amounts of intelligence warning of the German attack.

Your argument is completely unreasonable. Jews were driven out of Russia by religous and racist pogroms. This stimulated Jewish immigration to Palestine.


The Balfour Declaration gave Jews the right to a homeland in "Palestine":

His Majesty&#39;s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

It specifically referred to "the historical connections of the Jewish people with Palestine" and to the moral validity of "reconstituting their National Home in that country." The term "reconstituting" shows the fact that Palestine had been the Jews&#39; home.


The Mandate was formalized by the 52 governments at the League of Nations on July 24, 1922.

Not all Arab leaders opposed the Blafour declaration - Emir Faisal, son of Sherif Hussein, the leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks, signed an agreement with Chaim Weizmann and other Zionist leaders during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The fact that the leader of the Arab nationalist movement and the Zionist movement could reach an understanding is significant because it demonstrates that Jewish and Arab aspirations were not necessarily mutually exclusive.


Mark Twain visited Palestine before Israel was established, he described it as: “...[a] desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds-a silent mournful expanse....A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action....We never saw a human being on the whole route....There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”

[Comrade Rage]

Originally posted by graffic+November 17, 2007 12:01 pm--> (graffic @ November 17, 2007 12:01 pm) Ha..

Stalin eliminated military officers during the purges, including the most senior ones. He also rejected the massive amounts of intelligence warning of the German attack. [/b]
...and he focused most of his intelligence on the Wehrmacht&#39;s Army Group Central as well, giving Operation Blau a good chance of success.

And what do Stalin&#39;s multiple tactical errors during WWII have to do with this argument?


Originally posted by [email protected]
Your argument is completely unreasonable. Jews were driven out of Russia by religous and racist pogroms. This stimulated Jewish immigration to Palestine.
The pogroms were from Czarist times, not Josef Stalin.

And technically from a different entity, since Russia did not exist then. A new government called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which contained the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. Stalin can not be held accountable for crimes committed against the Jews by the Czars.


graffic quotes the Balfour Declaration


The Balfour Declaration gave Jews the right to a homeland in "Palestine":

His Majesty&#39;s Government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.

It specifically referred to "the historical connections of the Jewish people with Palestine" and to the moral validity of "reconstituting their National Home in that country." The term "reconstituting" shows the fact that Palestine had been the Jews&#39; home.


The Mandate was formalized by the 52 governments at the League of Nations on July 24, 1922.

Not all Arab leaders opposed the Blafour declaration - Emir Faisal, son of Sherif Hussein, the leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks, signed an agreement with Chaim Weizmann and other Zionist leaders during the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The fact that the leader of the Arab nationalist movement and the Zionist movement could reach an understanding is significant because it demonstrates that Jewish and Arab aspirations were not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Mark Twain visited Palestine before Israel was established, he described it as: “...[a] desolate country whose soil is rich enough, but is given over wholly to weeds-a silent mournful expanse....A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action....We never saw a human being on the whole route....There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.”
In the paragraph I underlined graffic reminds us of the fact the Palestinians and Arabs were accomadating to the Jewish homeland, even though it&#39;s creation was simple land-theft.

That changed when Israel began to mistreat the Palestinian Arabs and make them prisoners in their own homeland.
That changed when Israel grabbed even more land.
That changed when Israel closed it&#39;s borders.
That changed when Israel established segregation.

You want to know why these things happened? Because Zionism isn&#39;t about a safe Jewish homeland. It&#39;s the Nationalism, stupid&#33;

[graffic]

And what do Stalin&#39;s multiple tactical errors during WWII have to do with this argument?

You were trying to say Stalin deserves some credit for his acts of compassion. :lol:



The pogroms were from Czarist times, not Josef Stalin.

And technically from a different entity, since Russia did not exist then. A new government called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics which contained the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. Stalin can not be held accountable for crimes committed against the Jews by the Czars.

Yeah because anti-semitism evaporated when Stalin came to power :lol: .Why would the Jews want to return to what was virtually a ghetto in Russia right next to where their friends and familys had been driven out a few years back. The Land of Israel was the best place for the Jewish commonwealth to be built.



That changed when Israel began to mistreat the Palestinian Arabs and make them prisoners in their own homeland.
That changed when Israel grabbed even more land.
That changed when Israel closed it&#39;s borders.
That changed when Israel established segregation.

It changed when surrounding Arab states invaded and attempted to destroy Israel and all Jewish settlements.

My point was that not all Arab leaders were against the creation of a Jewish state. Most were against it, if you do some research on the actual subject rather than making up fictious facts then you&#39;ll see that I&#39;m right. Arab aggression forced Israel to make all of those decisions, Ive proved this many times in this thread - so I don&#39;t have to repeat myself read through the thread.


You want to know why these things happened? Because Zionism isn&#39;t about a safe Jewish homeland.


Zionism is about Jews having a homeland, nothing more nothing less. Do some fucking reading and then come back to me. I&#39;m sick of having diaogue with people on this subject who have nothing more than a few soundbytes rattling round in their head mixed up with propaganda.

Zionism means the Jews are entitled to a homeland just like the French, British, American, Japanese etc. Too bad you see the one Jewish state as "wrong". The self determination of Arabs who only considered themselves "Palestinians" up until 1960 who became refugees as a result of a war waged on Israel by Arabs - their self - determination backed by religous extremism is more important to you than Holocaust survivors, and Jewish refugees (made refugees by Arab states) self determination. And don&#39;t give me this shit about stealing land, most of the land was not stolen - some of it was. This crime is blown way out of proportion within context of the situation. Virtually every country today is built on stolen land.

[Dr Mindbender]

the same argument could be applied to say there should be a &#39;buddhist homeland&#39; yet strangely enough no-one is advocating forcing the Chinese back out of Tibet, even though in the historical context such an action would arguably be far more justifiable than what the British and Zionists did to the native Palestinians.

[graffic]

If Buddhists had suffered centurys of persecution and there was a serious movement for it then - maybe, yes. There would also have to be a previous "Buddhist" homeland that they would be returning too for it to be comparable to Israel.

[Dean]

Originally posted by [email protected] 10, 2007 03:05 pm

Or is it just because you can keep throwing around the term "Arab" + a negative that makes the dictatorships such a great topic of discussion for you?

Arab dictatorships are fucking negative, face up to it. They are negative for the working Arabs, negative for the region and negative for anyone who supports peace in the Middle East.
Right, and I already pointed out that I don&#39;t support them - I "faced up to it." The point is that you can&#39;t blame the vile acts of Israel on another country&#39;s disinterest in them but so much. Clearly, they should help the Palestinian people and have refused to do so in any meaningful sense (except when it furthers their own political interests) but that doesn&#39;t shift the blame away from Israel. In other words, if I rob a man and a bystander watches, the bystander is only responsible insofar as he didn&#39;t help, not in the sense that he created the problem or is to blame. I would be.


My original point was that you attack Israel - the one democratic Jewish state in the Middle East - and claim to want "Jews and Arabs to live wherever they like in the region". How does destroying Jewish self-determination, destroying the only democratic state in the middle East get us closer to "Jews and Arabs living wherever they choose in peace"?
The term "democratic" is a joke in regards to nearly all "democratic" institutions we see today. But let&#39;s ignore that fact. Lets assume Israel was, for its citizens, a truly free and democratic organization.

So what? would that justify their ruthless expansionism? Would that justify the continued violence by settlers, the support of such acts by the state, the creation of more colonies, etc., based on the fact that the Jewish theocracy were free for its own citizens? The argument is just the same for defense of U.S. imperialism - so we are freer than the Iraqis were, does that justify our occupation of their nation - especially if we show no interest in spreading our better values, but of forcing capitalist markets on the populace?



I don&#39;t give a fuck if Jews are treated poorly in every nation in the world; as we pointed out with the palestinian case, one people&#39;s strife doesn&#39;t justify anothers&#39; oppression. This means, numbskull, that I don&#39;t support the oppression of Arabs or Jews. Too bad you think one is ok.

When have I supported the oppression of Arabs?
By claiming that a violent and oppressive state should not even be criticised, or else I am faulty of "attacking Jewish determinism" (which ISrael has no interest in anyhow) you are justifying the violence of the state against its victims - via racism as a "security measure" for instance - and those victims are primarily Arabs.




Your arguments are a joke. You have consistantly reiterated points that are only reasonable to argue if you outight ignore what I have said. Your indefensible defense of a racist, xenophobic regime is laughable, because you have resorted to calling me "racist" because I said that one peoples&#39; plight isn&#39;t a just cause to harm another&#33; It&#39;s like you don&#39;t even speak the same language.

Everytime I attack your argument you sit on the fence and claim you don&#39;t support any particular view on the issue so its virtually impossible to debate.
That&#39;s because you attack my right to make the arguments I do more than the actual statements themselves, and attempt to make me look violent and unreasonable by claiming that I don&#39;t support Jewish Determinism and that I suport the destruction of the Israeli state - two things I have made abundantly clear that I support and am uncertain about, respectively.

[graffic]

The point is that you can&#39;t blame the vile acts of Israel on another country&#39;s disinterest in them but so much. Clearly, they should help the Palestinian people and have refused to do so in any meaningful sense (except when it furthers their own political interests) but that doesn&#39;t shift the blame away from Israel. In other words, if I rob a man and a bystander watches, the bystander is only responsible insofar as he didn&#39;t help, not in the sense that he created the problem or is to blame. I would be.

No, because the Arab states have been a hell of alot more than just a "bystander", they have been actively involved in creating the current conflict. Right from the very beginning when Palestine was divided by Imperial powers - the Jews accepted it and the Palestininans rejected it. What Ive been trying to say is that it is the rejection of the Jewish state by Arabs which has caused the conflict. The rejection of the Jewish state is fronted and led by religous and secular extremists, we as leftists must stand in solidarity with the democratic forces in the Middle East against the extremist reactionary fringes. There are many democratic Palestinians who accept Israel as a state and wish to agree to peace - we should be supporting these people not the extremists.

Leftists supported Israel at the beginning when there was a clear cut between good and evil. Israelis were Holocaust survivors trying to build a Jewish democratic homeland that would always be open to Jewish immigrants and refugees. On the other side were the Holocaust perpetrators - the Egyptian army was made up of former Nazis. Among them was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem - the recognized leader of the Palestinian people. These were indicted war criminals who spent most of the war years with Hitler in Nazi Germany.

Since the US&#39;s increase in support for Israel and subsequent clashes which Israel has mostly won. Israel is no longer the underdog its seen as the "big bullie" in the Middle East, so what we now have is deluded leftists supporting anti-Israel forces in the Middle East regardless how unjustified their actions are.



The point is that you can&#39;t blame the vile acts of Israel on another country&#39;s disinterest in them but so much.

Disinterest is the wrong word. You seriously think the Israeli government is inheritantly evil and bad. Thats just as bad as me saying all Palestinians are terroists with bad plans. You think the Palestinians Terroism is "understandable" because of what the Israelis have done to them, why is it then that Jews were targeted before Israels advent. The Hebron massacre 1929, before the occupied territories, before the settlements. The victims were not armed Zionists they were rabbis and students, innocent people - they were massacred because they belonged to the wrong religion. In all its years, Israel has killed fewer civilians than any other comparable country.

Israel is the only country in modern times that has never dropped bombs on enemy capitols in retaliation for bombs dropped on its own civilians. You forget that in 1948, Egypt dropped bombs on a Tel Aviv bus station, killing many people. The 1967 War began when the Jordanians lobbed 1600 bombs into West Jerusalem. In the &#39;73 War Syria tried to kill civilians in Galilee. But Israel never bombed Cairo or Damascus. When Israel did bomb on the outskirts of Beirut during the Beirut War, it tried its best not to kill innocent civilians.

Of course you&#39;ll deny this and say Israel did try to kill innocent civilians :lol:

The Palestinian leadership and its Allies are to blame - not Israel. It&#39;s not Israel who has stolen money from the Palestinian people, not Israel who turn Palestinian children into suicide bombers. Yasser Arafat&#39;s primary victims have been the Palestinian people. He has stolen his people&#39;s lives from them.


"if Palestinian statehood is a reward for terrorism, then terrorism is coming to a theater near you."


By claiming that a violent and oppressive state should not even be criticised, or else I am faulty of "attacking Jewish determinism" .

ha

When have I said that? Just read the Israeli press and you&#39;ll see there is plenty of criticism of Israel and its policys. Show me a single instance where a major Jewish leader or Israeli leader has ever said that criticizing a particular policy of Israeli government is anti-Semitic. You won&#39;t find any, its made up by Israels enemies in order to justify their criticism.

It is bigoted to single out Israel - to single out the Jewish nation and blow its faults out of proportion and beyond any kind of recognition, and it is anti-Semitism to continually compare Israel to Nazism. To compare a democratic state that is trying its best to conform to the rule of law and has never killed innocent civilians deliberately or willfully to the Nazi regimes that killed Jews discriminately can only be motivated by hatred and bigotry.

Criticism should be constructive. I&#39;m Pro-Palestinian the only difference between me and other deluded leftists is that they are anti-Israel. I&#39;m just glad there are still alot of people on the left who havnt gone completely nuts.

[Andy Bowden]

When Israel did bomb on the outskirts of Beirut during the Beirut War, it tried its best not to kill innocent civilians.

Not according to just about every human rights organisation in the world. Amnesty and others have documented extensive reports of unlawful killings by Israel in the 1982 Lebanon war. (http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGMDE150421996#UKB)

Continually repeating "Israel only targets terrorists" might be comforting as some kind of prayer, but it has about as much solid backing in the real world as the DPRKs democratic processes.

[graffic]

This is the point where I stop taking you seriously. The IDF does not hunt down civilians. It certainly doesnt help that terroists live and hide amongst innocent palestinians.

The civilians would not be at risk if the Palestinian authority arrested the terroists, the murderers did not choose to hide among noncombatants and the civilians refused to protect the killers. The terroists themselves do not care about the lives of innocent Palestinians - this is why terroism is counter-productive. There might be individual cases of IDF soldiers braking the codes of conduct like any army - this doesnt mean however the army as a whole is targeting civilians.

[Andy Bowden]

First of all you were reffering to Lebanon, in what I presumed was 1982; when the PA did not exist and would not have any jurisdiction in Lebanon.

The IDF does not hunt down Palestinian civilians for fun - what it does do however, as has been documented extensively by multiple human rights organisations for decades, is show little regard for Palestinian life in maintaining control of the West Bank, and its military operations to crush the PLO, Hezbollah etc.

The accusations that its all the Palestinians fault for using human shields is laughable; the fact is that it is the IDF who regularly use Palestinians as human shields in the West Bank etc in military operations.

IDF use of Palestinian civilians as human shields. (http://www.btselem.org/english/Human_Shields/20060720_Human_Shields_in_Beit_Hanun.asp)

[graffic]

There would have been zero deaths if the PLO had not used innocent Lebanese peoples land as their base to attack Israel.

Israel has every self-interest in minimizing civilian casualties, whereas the terrorists have every self-interest in maximizing them -- on both sides. Israel should not be condemned for doing what every democracy would and should do: taking every reasonable military step to stop the killing of their own civilians.

You cherry pick some scenarios where Israeli soldiers have acted against their commanders interests. That is a disgrace and I am with you on condemning the soldiers actions, however this proves nothing.

You can prove that in a few scenarios Israeli soldiers have acted against their commanders wishes. Just like any army the IDF has made mistakes, the IDF known as one of the most moral armys in the world.

[hajduk]

The One-State Solution
By Edward Said
http://members.tripod.com/~TheHOPE/said.htm

[Andy Bowden]

The IDF are not known as one of the most moral armies in the world; who is this &#39;known&#39; by? And in comparison to what other armies? If you just want to make statements then like I said, they may be very comforting as a prayer of some form but they have no relationship to reality.

The reality is IDF abuses have been documented in so many cases, over so long that it is simply not credible to label them as a few abuses here and there.

IDF policy of use of human shields is not a few bad apples, it is an established military strategy used by the Israelis. The fact the Israeli Supreme court had to ban it shows that (although in practice it still continues).

And in the exceptionally rare cases that IDF soldiers are pulled up for murdering civilians the punishment is frankly insulting,

Nahum Korman, a 37-year-old Israeli citizen, sentenced to six months community service for the killing of an 11-year-old Palestinian child, Hilmi Shawasheh. He was also ordered to pay 70,000 shekels to the victim&#39;s family. (http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE150042001?open&of=ENG-2MD)