Lesser forms of pond life amongst the British intelligentsia

C. Gee

Hoffman describes Sand's views:
"In the book Sand attempts to prove that the Jewish people never existed as a “nation-race” with a common origin. His thesis is that Jews are a rag-tag collection of flotsam and jetsam that at various stages of history just happened to adopt the same religion."
Flotsam and jetsam - wanderers and exiles. Yes, that is true, thanks to bigotry (so forthrightly expressed by the Brit white guy) which so often resulted in Jews' mass dispossession, murder and banishment.
But "what is a Jew?" is a question that obsesses the left. The answer they like: a people out of place. Jews may be everywhere or nowhere, but not in their own place. This is analogous to the definition of dirt as "matter out of place."
It appears that many people, including Shlomo Sand and the BBC, simply prefer the idea - despite genetic reality - of the categorically ambiguous Jew, who may be reviled or favoured depending on the moral or economic climate: grace-and-favour Jews.

Roger K

Dam me but these idiots haven't moved on since the days of Disreali.
Since the beginning of Europe they never learnt that the countries which realy prospered were those that welcomed the Jewish people.
And they wonder why a curse falls upon the nation, even if not from G-d it's from their own hardened hearts.

Brian Moshe

I am not in the least surprised by Jonathan Hoffman's experience. I don't remember the 1930s, they were before my time, but I imagine there was plenty of anti-Jewish pond life to be encountered at all levels of British, Commonwealth and American society although I would be surprised if it was widespread in left-wing circles.

The biggest differences between then and now is that in the 1930s the Holocaust hadn't been revealed to the world and Israel didn't yet exist. Additionally no-one knew what was going to happen, although a few people could make independent, intelligent guesses.

Today we see two factors that didn't exist in the 1930s: a mass Muslim presence in Europe and significant numbers of Muslims in the USA, Canada, and elsewhere.

Ironically, in the 1930s Islam was at one of its lowest ebbs despite the rise of nazism and fascism. Few on Melanie's threads will have experienced pre-war anti-semitism and - if my age and British - will have grown up in a Britain still shocked by the revelations of the Holocaust and generally admiring Israel, and where among most ordinary British even the expression of crude anti-Jewish sentiments was considered shameful and uncouth.

We know from the memoirs of reliable observers that at the highest levels of British and US society there still lurked anti-Jewish sentiments at dinner parties, but these observers seem never to have had the courage to walk out of the dining rooms of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor or other grandee pond life.

I used to enjoy reading a news magazine in the early 1960s called 'Topic' (published by Michael Heseltine) - it was a superb publication and it had a column by the late Alan Brien.

I remember as if it was yesterday a comment Alan Brien made in 1963 when the Norwich Union Insurance Company was embroiled in an anti-Jewish row involving Lord Mancroft.

Brien wrote that the existence of Auschwitz had made it impossible for anti-Jewish jokes or comments to be uttered by or in the company of decent people.

Thirty six years later and people who would recoil from BNP canvassers at their door find it very acceptable once again to not merely make anti-Jewish comments, and increasingly to diminish the Holocaust, but to do so courtesy of Britain's leading 'liberal' newspaper and other prominent left-wing mouthpieces.

The amazing thing is that I meet few white working class people when I am in England who seem anti-Jewish. The main receptacle of the poison is in the intellectual, media, academic and student circles.

Phillip Campbell

Well Melanie,as you know,I'm a great admirer of you so I have to say this.What is British?Who are British?Are we talking of British Citizens or British Indigenous Natives?You certainly are the former,but are you the latter?I belong to the former but in my early twenties I realised that I am not of the latter.How could I be when my ancestors except one,all were of East European Jewish origin.So,I decided to immigrate to Israel where I am living in my own sovereign Jewish Homeland,The State of Israel.I invite you to join me.I fear for Britain with its enforced multi-culturalism.The back-lash will arrive and sooner than we believe.I take my hat off to you and as always wish you well and wish you were here in Israel.

tommy

" British intelligentsia."

becoming rapidly an oxymoron

just Louise

Those bigots would be really swivel-eyed (with astonishment!) if they knew the full extent of the contributions by Jewish people to every field of endeavour in this country over the past few centuries.
Although I encountered a similar bigot - an advisor to the MoD, no less! - at (you've guessed it!) a dinner party (at a gentleman's club; some gentleman, to put such views to a lady with an unmistably Jewish name!) I still think that their ignorant and despicable views are not widespread among the general population.
However, for those who do harbour such bigotry, and seek to de-legitimise Jewish "nationhood" while they're at it, Arthur Koestler's tendentious "The Thirteenth Tribe" made a good starting point.

Justin Case

There is a remarkable irony in the fact that the only people who (against all the odds) have been miraculously preserved as a distinct people -and the only people to whom has a land been promised eternally that these should be the very people that are accused of being without a real identity and without any right to their land. mmmmm....one might be tempted to believe there is a satanic hand at work here!

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy".
Hamlet Act 1 Scene 5

Liz

Unfortunately, this sort of attitude is typical of the entrenched medieval views shared by many, many people in England. It's almost like it's part of their DNA and I don't think multiculturalsm can be blamed for that. Anyway, Melanie, the British "intelligentsia", has always included hypocritical, clueless half-wits. To be deemed part of this posturing rabble is surely more of an insult than anything else.

Gareth

Don't you believe it Philip Campbell.
The vast majority of Brits are and will be with Israel - just like Winston Churchill.
The blowhard intellectuals of the left are good at blowing hard and hating. Good at starting fights - but they never finish them.

Well said Roger K - hardened hearts are weakened hearts and cold, timid hearts are always the most cruel. Look at the Nazis.

Sam ARMSTRONG

"The amazing thing is that I meet few white working class people when I am in England who seem anti-Jewish. "

This is undoubtedly because inside the UK, the working class and the Jews are under genocidal attack from the same enemy - Political Correctness. Because Jews are perceived as successful, they can't be put in the same victim box as black or Asian people, so they get left out of the Marxist definition of power and sidelined like the white working class.

Paulinus

I'd echo Brian Moshe's comments about the white working class. I grew up in an Irish catholic community in Leeds where, at least in the early days, Jews and the Irish lived cheek-by-jowl. In my family, nothing but good was spoken of the Jews (who had prospered and moved to the North of the City) largely because many families were kept from penury in the depression through work as sabbath Goys. Jewish tailoring firms employed the female memebers of my family and were good employers. I never saw a non-Jewish GP until I was in my 20s.

An anecdote: the old, wooden Catholic Church burnt down in the early 1960s. The Jewish community - largely from tailoring - bought/had made a complete set of Mass vestments in every liturgical colour for the new Church: finest damask,, hand-embroidered. I estimate that such vestments if bought/made today such a set would cost in the excess of £50,000.

As you say, I have only encountered the sneery, barely disguised antisemitism of the Left at middle-class dinner parties.

I thought such things died with the liberation of Belsen. Clearly not.

GM Zokante

Great post, Melanie.

Readers might like to examine a masterly analysis / demolition of Sand's "thesis" here:
http://www.isracampus.org.il/Extra%20Files/Anita%20Shapira%20-%20Shlomo%20Sand%20book%20review.pdf

phil

They are invariably miserable people with no confidence in themselves ,so feel better putting down others in order to raise themselves ,I prefer to think of the millions of normal decent people who treat others how they find them ,the rest can accompany a certain "lady" who posts here, on her broomstick may God bless those like Adam B who represents real Christians and balanced minds .

GaryO

Doesn't people like Shlomo Sand and his ilk realise that, despite their theories being debunked and just like the fabricated Protocols of Zion, what they say will be taken as fact by anti-Semites (because it fits in with their agenda nicely, thank you) and will be used against Jews forever more?

He says that he doesn’t put into question the existence of Israel. But is he such a dimwit that he fails to realise that reading his work many, many will.

With Jews like these, who needs Nazis?

Philo

Shlomo Sand is a scholar who has written a scholarly book that has been acknowledged by other scholars to be worthy of serious consideration. He may be wrong in what he says (scholars often are), and I hope someone will write a serious rebuttal. The history of the Jewish people has an enduring fascination, and the more challenging books the better. Simply to call Shlomo Sand a bigot and refer to a poison-precis by a Mr. Hofmann, and to condemn Mr. Sand by association with some idiot individual at a public talk, does not even begin to approach an appropriate rational response - it appears intended simply to preclude all serious discussion.

just Louise

I tried posting this hours ago.
Here's my second attempt:

Brian Moshe, yours is a most incisive view of the situation - it certainly strikes a chord with me. Alan Brien was spot on.
I think there has been a demonstrable philosemitic thread within the British people, discernible at all stratas of society - (the royal Duke of Sussex, Colonel Josiah Wedgwood, David Lloyd George, etc., etc.) However, much of that was rooted in a positive admiration for who Jews were and what they contributed to humanity. There was a philosemitic strand among many believing Christians, and by no means all of it had a conversionist motive.
C. P. Scott, editor of the Grauniad back in the good old days when it was the Manchester Guardian and the voice of traditional liberalism, was arguably the most pro-Zionist non-Jewish newspaper editor in Britain.
Alas, so much leftist support for Jews and Israel was predicated on what Gladstone once termed "anti-anti-semitism", and relied on the perception and status of Jews as victims. It was not, therefore, philosemitism in any true sense. This is one reason why, since 1967, the left has increasingly identified with the perceived "new victims", the Palestinians. This, and the pernicious old stereotype of Jews as rich (breeding leftist resentment and jealousy) and cosmopolitan (breeding rightist ultra-nationalist conspiracy theories), has contributed to the present nasty and poisonous brew.

(In my earlier post I meant "unmistakably", of course).

zkharya

Watch out for the inaugural lecture of SOAS Professor of Israel Studies, Colin Shindler, Brunel Lecture Theatre, SOAS, November 18th, 7.30 pm.

http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/colin-shindlers-inaugural-lecture/

zkharya

"Shlomo Sand is a scholar who has written a scholarly book that has been acknowledged by other scholars to be worthy of serious consideration."

You know that, do you, Philo? That's odd, because the majority of academics in Jewish history that I know of (not neglible, since they are related to the field of my PhD) take a very different view.

Ehud Yaari

As someone who received unfortunately a favorable mention by Mr. sand in his book I allow myself to comment that what he writes/says about the Khazars is simply nonesense...The late Ukrainian historian Prof. Pritzak of Harvard estimated that at best there were no more than 14000 Jews-both immigrants and converts-in the whole territory of the Khazar Empire..

John Edwards

Good comment from Philo.

Not very enlightening just to call people "disgusting bigots"

I also wonder if "the well dressed white guy with a plummy accent" really existed. Perhaps just one of the people telling Jonathan Hoffman to stop shouting "anti-semite" at Sand and embarassing other members of the audience.

Philo

Zkharya,
To start with what is beyond dispute: yes, Shlomo Sand is a serious scholar. If he is to be refuted, it has to be by argument and evidence, not vituperation.

There are many examples of how such debates should go, and plenty of evidence that they add to our understanding in a way that hurling insults cannot.

To take an example from British history: the story of 1940 was for long wreathed in myth. The myth was the creation of Churchill, a skillful mix of fact, spin, and powerful emotion. The myth was unchallenged for years. Historians added detail and corroboration, but never questioned the essentials. From the 1960s onwards, however, it came under scrutiny from every angle, with some trying to demolish it entirely and others to restore it to its original glory. The result? Certainly not agreement - the polemics continue - but there is now general recognition that Chamberlain had good reasons for his policies and prepared for war more thoroughly than Churchill acknowledged, but ultimately was probably in error in 1938 (despite being correct to fear that war would be the end of the Empire); that Churchill was well-endowed with faults and follies and Halifax was duty-bound to consider terms after the defeat of France, but ultimately Churchill was right, heroically so, to insist that Britain stand alone against Germany, whether or not he was aware that Britain was essentially bankrupt and would lose the peace... Some of the historians at either extreme were no doubt betrayed by their belief in their theses into avoidable exaggerations and foolish mistakes in details, which other historians were very willing to correct.

I have been too long over my example, but the point is that we get beyond national myth by subjecting the records of our past to rigorous study, interpretation,and debate not by trying to scare off anyone who raises a question with abuse. This blog has had the appearance of offering abuse not debate.

YA

".. also wonder if "the well dressed white guy with a plummy accent" really existed. .."

precious!!!
(how about Auschwitz?)

how about tons of anti-Semitic posts on CIF and every other British blog, - people who write it every day, do they exist?

how about Steve Bell's blood libel caricatures?

or that British scouts who shouted at 84-old Jewish RAF pilot at Remeberance day - "Let's kill Jews"?

C'mon, it's not nice to deprive your nation of existence.

Tim

Sand's bizarre claims regarding the Khazars remind me of some ludicrous claims made by anti-semites regarding Jews, as found in some websites I blundered into. These never asked the question as to how many Khazars adopted Judaism or in what depth? In any case, after the Khazar Khaganate lost the support of Byzantium, the loss of morale must have been immense. What remained must have been further demolished by the arrival of the Mongols.
Anyway, if so many Russian Jews were Khazar why did they have German-sounding names, if they didn't originally come from Germany and ultimately from Israel?
As someone remarked, it wasn't that bad that whackos like Edouard Droumont wrote 'La France Juive', the real catastrophe was that it was a bestseller, several time over.

Derek BLADES

YA, 13 November wrote "how about tons of anti-Semitic posts on CIF and every other British blog, - people who write it every day, do they exist?"

What I find on CIF are comments about Israel’s current set of leaders and their behaviour towards their Arab neighbours. Most of these comments criticise the Israeli regime but that does not make them anti-Semitic as that term is generally understood. After all, many British Jews criticise Israel’s current policies. To describe these people as anti-Semitic is plain nonsense.

Attempts by YA and others to confuse anti Israeli views with anti-semitism

Jonathan Hoffman

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/b74fdfd2-cfe1-11de-a36d-00144feabdc0.html

Simon Schama rips Sand to shreds in today's FT.

"John Edwards" - your suggestion that I fabricated that incident is beneath contempt.

Fran

Congratulations to Jonathan Hoffman, so often a thorn in the side of people who want to air their hatred of Israel and Jewish Israelis without challenge.

It's sad to see that the BBC, which regularly gives platforms to the anti-Israel lobby has chosen to allot yet more airtime to Sand and his ludicrous theories, this time on Radio 3.

And I am forced to pay for this vile rubbish.

roger

From Schama's FT article:

'..the legitimacy of Israel both within and without the country depends not on some spurious notion of religious much less racial purity, but on the case made by a community of suffering, not just during the Holocaust but over centuries of expulsions and persecutions. Unlike the Roman deportations, these were not mythical.

Sand would counter that such a refuge for the victims could have been in China, or on the moon, for all that Palestine had to do with the Jews. But since his book fails to sever the remembered connection between the ancestral land and Jewish experience ever since, it seems a bit much to ask Jews to do their bit for the sorely needed peace of the region by replacing an ethnic mythology with an act of equally arbitrary cultural oblivion.'

zkharya

Philo,

"Zkharya,
To start with what is beyond dispute: yes, Shlomo Sand is a serious scholar."

But that is precisely what is disputed. Most academics in Jewish history that I know (not a few, as I said) do not take him seriously.

zkharya

"I recently called Mr. Sand in Paris, where he is on sabbatical, to ask if he is concerned that "The Invention of the Jewish People" will be exploited for pernicious ends. "I don't care if crazy anti-Semites in the United States use my book," he said in Israeli-accented English. "Anti-Semitism in the West, for the moment, is not a problem." Still, he is worried about how the forthcoming Arabic translation might be received in the Muslim world, where, he says, anti-Semitism is growing. I ask if the confident tenor of his book might exacerbate the problem. He falls quiet for a moment. "Maybe my tone was too affirmative on the question of the Khazars," he reluctantly concedes. "If I were to write it today I would be much more careful." Such an admission, however, is unlikely to sway the sinister conspiracists who find the Khazar theory a useful invention."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703746604574464023091024180.html

phil

Someone other than me needs to remind,
Derek BLADES
November 14th, 2009 7:27am .that we are all aware of the phrase "some of my best friends are---"-he has too much history here to be judged as confused .

Adam B.

John Edwards, why do you find it so difficult to believe that many anti-Zionists are simply antisemites? I can tell you from experience that the two are often combined. Your only way of dealing with your cognitive dissonance is to call Mr Hoffman a liar. You really need to look inside yourself.

Augustus

Derek BLADES - You make a valid point about anti-Semitism. There is legitimate criticism of Israeli policy without it being anti-Semitic. But it depends how the opposition is expressed, and whether the criticism is reasonable. "Hamas,
Hamas, Jews to the gas" is not a legitimate criticism.
"Israelis are worse than Nazis" is not a legitimate criticism, unless someone can find evidence that Israelis are committing mass genocide. Racists invariably allege things with an obvious motivation to say things which are unrelated to the facts. Holocaust denial is the obvious example. Then there are the beliefs which are associated with anti-Semitism which have been scattered across history since time immemorial, so clearly seen today in fundamentalist Muslim anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Unfortunately, there are so many people who show a complete lack of understanding about Zionism, not to mention Judaism.

Derek BLADES

With a view to reducing thr amount of nonsense circulating on this website, could Adam B tell us what "cognitive dissonance" is?

(This what he accuses John Edwards of in his cryptic posting of 14 November.)

John Edwards

I wasn't at the meeting but it is instructive to note the views of those who were - see the thread to Jonathan Hoffman's post on Harrys Place

Here's a selection:

"I saw you and your acolytes at the Shlomo Sand talk, Jonathan, and I have to say that while I
find his book and views quite disturbing, your behaviour did Israel's case no favours. Do you and your friends honestly think that shouting "anti-semite" and "liar" at the speaker, while not even trying to prove that he is deserving such epithets is helpful?"

"Hoffman and his crew do the Zionist cause no favours with their high decibel abuse of anyone who disagrees with them. It makes them look as if they have no faith in their own argument"

"You (ie Hoffman) obviously didn't notice those laughing at you, and the real Zionists who were cringing at your obnoxiousness"

It puts a different perpective on it all doesn't it.

The same thread carries several well reasoned pieces by someone called Kevin Brook who has written about "The Jews of Khazaria" and is critical of Sand.

But then this row is really about contemporary political concerns not ancient history or genetic archaeology.

Philo

Zkharya, This is surely too easy a way to avoid serious discussion.

Henry Sidgwick

Roger, Could you parse Simon Schama's pronouncements for me: I do not understand how the criterion he asserts for determining the legitimacy of a state can work in practice. And when he talks in his peroration about "replacing an ethnic mythology with an act of equally arbitrary cultural oblivion." - does he mean to say that Israel should maintain its ethnic mythology because the alternative is cultural oblivion? And why does he say the alternative is cultural oblivion?

C. Gee

John Edwards 11/14 at 5:23:

"It puts a different perspective on it all doesn't it."

And that perspective is that of upper Brit society wishing to enjoy a performance by a violin - no, sorry, propaganda - virtuoso, without obnoxious interruption from the tone deaf.

That perspective is well known. It is the perspective of those who know that the Zionist question could so easily be settled, if only there were no Zionists.

Jonathan Hoffman

How telling.

"John Edwards" accepts what he believes to be criticism of me unquestioningly but suggests that I lied about being the victim of an antisemitic incident on Wednesday night.

What utter hypocrisy.

zkharya

"Zkharya, This is surely too easy a way to avoid serious discussion."

Who's trying to avoid serious discussion?

Simon Schama? Colin Shindler? Me?

You want a more detailed critique of Sand? I didn't realise.

OK.

The exile is assumed in rabbinic and Talmudic literature, as it is in Christian and Islamic. The Talmud is an expression of the rabbis’ resolve that every scrap of Jewish law, lore, custom and memory be retained in the face of the catastrophic loss of temple, Jerusalem, Judea and state.

The Mishna and Talmuds are “the book” which Shlomo Sands says is missing (perhaps if he had bothered to consult them?).

There are no “books” on any events in Jewish history, subsequently, for over 1500 years. That does not mean they did not take place.

And there is another book: Bellum Judaeorum. Josephus is too early to realise the loss of temple and Jerusalem is permanent, and he likely hoped for their return to the Jews. But there is no question that he perceives the loss of a Jewish state, of which Jerusalem is the capital.

Soon after Jews fall from favour. We hear no more of Hellenistic Jewish intellectuals, like Philo, whether Roman citizens or no. The destruction of the Alexandrian Jewish communities signals a decline in Hellenistic Jewish civilisation, a decline completed by the Christians. Jews no longer write Greco-Roman historiography. Hellenistic and Roman Jewish works, the provenance, in any case, of an elite, are lost. All Jews, empirewide, are punished for the rebels of Judea by collection of the temple tax. Indeed this likely plays a part in triggering the revolts in Alexandria and Cyrenaica. All Jews are thus identified as “Judeans”, and the Christians continue the policy. But now Jews are not only treated as de facto rebels, or potential rebels, against the Roman state and its gods, they are rebels against their own God, who know favours Greco-Roman gentile Christians, who inherit Jerusalem and Judea, now renamed “Palestine”, from their pagan predecessors, who acted as agents of divine wrath against Israel for rejecting or slaying Christ.

The “myth” of exile arises precisely because it is no longer possible to retain or research information about the past in detail. Except, for Jews, in the Talmud. It is a shorthand that most neatly encapsulates the Jewish experience of dispossession, disfavour, subjugation and displacement. Jews intermingle and intermarry, and the rabbis forge a pan-Jewish identity precisely because they fear Israel will be lost among the nations. Thereafter the tendency is less to convert new as to retain old Jews.

The assumption, indeed the necessity, that Jews are a people dispossessed of temple, city and land for their rejection of Jesus and the prophets only bolsters Jewish self-definition.

And the Christians continue the process of Jewish dispossession of the land of Israel by laws seeking to alienate or marginalise them. Yes, a sizable Jewish community remains in the land, largely in the Galil, whether many Judean refugees likely went.

Shlomo’s assertion that Romans did not exile peoples is idiotic: they certainly carried out tranfer or genocide against Dacia, the only other province, other than Judaea, to be renamed as a consequence.

Cassius Dio says 500 000 Judeans were killed during the suppression of the second Jewish revolt. Exaggeration? Possibly. But ethnic cleansing even by modern standards (and the Palestinian Arab Muslim and Christian experience springs to mind).

Judaea is changed to Syria Palaestina both to likely reflect that “demographic” change and to alienate Jews from the land for ever. It was never complete, sure. But I can tell you that every ancient Christian author, even those living in Palestine, speaks as though Israel has been completely dispossessed from the land, not because it necessarily reflects reality, but because it reflects things as they think they should be.

Which is why Jews have been regarded as a people dispossessed of temple, city and land, in Christendom and Islam, for most of Christian and Islamic history.

Especially Palestinian Christian and Islamic history.

In any case, one consequence of this is that, even in the 19th and 20th centuries, Jews in Europe, North Africa and Asia are regarded as more nationally Judean than, say, European or Arab, and are either killed, or effectively driven out: before 1914, mostly to America, after 1914, mostly to Palestine, or what became Israel.

Which is why the Jewish state of Israel is the second or largest Jewish community today, and certainly the one most identifiably Jewish (hence, unsurprisingly, the especial focus of hatred of antisemites today).

zkharya

Also,

I am a student immersed every day in many of the primary texts in which Sand, a historian in French cinema, is far from a specialist. I can tell you that the assumption that Jews are a people dispossessed of temple, city and land is very ancient. It is a datum of both Christian and Islamic culture and civilisation from their beginnings i.e. the cultures and societies in which most Jews have lived for the last 2000 years. But it is an ancient, traditional Jewish datum too. It is far from a 17th century invention.

Sand’s holding a post-Revolutionary French notion of nationality as the touch stone of its definition is absurd: the Greeks and the Romans regarded Jews as a distinct ethno-national group, along with Syrians and Egyptians.

But, more to the point, Sand’s criterion proves the very opposite of his thesis: the granting to Jews of French citizenship was significant precisely because it was the first time since antiquity that Jews could transcend their (anciently regarded) Jewish ethno-nationality without having first to convert from Judaism to Christianity.

The intellectuals of the French Republic all assumed the Jews were an ethno-national group historically dispossessed because this was not merely how Jews saw themselves, it had been a datum of European culture for nearly 2000 years.

It was precisely this identity Jews were supposed to surrender in order to become French citizens. That was why orthodox rabbis viewed emancipation with such ambivalence, and why Liberal Judaism evolved as a response.

Conte de Clermont-Tonnerre to the General Assembly of the Republic 'To the Jews as individuals everything, to the Jews as a nation nothing.'

It goes without saying that this presupposes Jews to have been a national group of some kind, although this was what Jews needed to abandon to become French citizens.

zkharya

BTW, Philo, it's a shame you seem to know so little about the historical Philo or his significance.

roger

Henry Sidgewick: The existence of the state of Israel is the latest chapter in the narrative of the Jewish people. To give up their 'ethnic mythology', their very identity as a people ,would most certainly result in cultural oblivion, and that goes for any other nation. The difference is that Israel is surrounded by a malevolent force called Islamic Jihad which denies the right of the Jewish state to exist, and whose intention is to annihilate it completely and subjugate or murder the rest of the Jewish people. I call that oblivion. Are you questioning the right of the Jewish people to live in peace in their homeland, where they have been for over 3000 years?

zkharya

"The same thread carries several well reasoned pieces by someone called Kevin Brook who has written about "The Jews of Khazaria" and is critical of Sand."

Very critical. He called Sand's work "propaganda".

"But then this row is really about contemporary political concerns not ancient history or genetic archaeology."

Which, presumably, goes as much for Sand, and you, as anyone else.

Adam B.

Derek Blades

Here's an idea - look it up.

Truthtriumphs

Adam B. to Derek BLADES.
"Look it up".

What a briliant, succinct comment.
But he is too lazy and too entrenched in his own belief system to want to look anything up which might contradict his shallow, lazy, instant opinions.
In other words, a perfect example of cognitative dissonance.
Perhaps Wikipedia could use BLADES as another example of this condition.

Margaret Muller-Johansson

"Well you can't be British if you are Jewish" he said several times, before I told him he was a Nazi. Good for you tell him, this British white guy well dressed, plummy accent, Lefty? probably, the problem with this kind of people is they are either high on alcohol and drugs and that is why they ask stupid questions to people or they are just bullies by nature. After I read this I am ashamed to be British and if some one asks me are you British? I will say No,
I am Dutch...

Philo

Zkharya, Thank you for your response. I do not think Simon Schama's article can be considered serious discussion. Prof. Shindler is an historian I greatly respect. I look forward to reading his contribution. As an outsider looking in on this debate I get the impression that you and Prof. Sand are as it were talking past each other in that he does not dispute much of what you run through for me here. I would be very grateful if you could mention any books or articles that go into more detail. I am on the look out for the work of Efraim Shmueli (I hope he is not another expert on French cinema), but if you could mention any others I would be grateful.
"Philo" is a borrowing of a more recent provenance, namely Hume. I'm sorry for the confusion.

Henry Sidgwick

I would still be interested in a clarification of two points:
"...to coincide with an earlier talk by Sand -- which took place on what happened to be the anniversary of Kristallnacht..." - What is the point of this?
"...such sentiments are not confined to inverterbrate life forms but are now routinely heard in the most refined dinner-party discourse of the British intelligentsia." - Who did the extensive survey necessary to make this generalisation?

Henry Sidgwick

Roger, I thought the brou-ha-ha was caused by the suggestion that it is mythology not history that Zionism dealt in (or rather a mix of history and myth such as every nation concocts).
I still do not understand how identifying a "community of suffering" confers legitimacy on a nation state, nor how it justifies creating another "community of suffering". I think the starting point now should be that Israel exists (doh!) and that there are millions of people who identify themselves as Palestinians who have rights to self-determination.

phil

ADAM I sent this last night so you could enjoy your dinner but I think it got lost ,so as they say here is one I made earlier ,:)------------

SAVE ADAM B THE BOTHER AND HELP THE BLADE he needs it !!-------------

Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognitions" in question may include attitudes and beliefs, and also the awareness of one's behaviour. ------------------..For those not aware ,the blade is a self proclaimed expert on punctuation ,but it is regularly apparent ,not much else .

Enjoy your dinner Adam ,I had a moment to spare:)

phil

Jonathan Hoffman
Jonathan , I think you have not been here very long if you are surprised by the "thoughts of john edwards " he regularly agrees with derek blades so we tend to just pass over what he says -I suppose he feels better for having rid himself of his frustrations ,and do we really care ? I do not and there are too many other articulate posters to keep me occupied .

Wilhelm

'' Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognitions" in question may include attitudes and beliefs, and also the awareness of one's
behaviour.''

HUH ?

just Louise

zkharya - wow, what a megillah! But it's well worth the read. Many thanks.

A full-page of the latest JC was dedicated to the Sands thesis, which can only lend aid and comfort to the enemies of Israel (k'lal and medinat).
Sands' motive is seen clearly in his remarks at the end of that piece, where he seeks to divorce Israelis from the Diaspora and end Israel as a Jewish state.

phil

Henry Sidgwick
November 15th, 2009 11:13am much of what you write I am afraid I do not understand ,possibly my defective education, but this I do and at last it is pragmatic which I do understand -leave the esoteric stuff alone and stick to this style and you could well become popular ------"I think the starting point now should be that Israel exists (doh!) and that there are millions of people who identify themselves as Palestinians who have rights to self-determination." ---If you can impress this amongst those that purport to lead the Palestinians this world could very soon become a better place .

phil

Wilhelm
November 15th, 2009 12:58pm ---huh?
ask the blade -if he can,t understand it at least he can punctuate it -huh

Adam B.

Thanks phil.

Dinner was very nice, thank you!

Fairplay

@zkharya

I second 'justLouise' in her thanks to you for an expert summary of Jewish history.

Wilhelm

Phil, you seem to be obsessed about the BNP.

Are you a member by any chance ?

Henry Sidgwick

Phil, 15th Nov 1.34pm. I have said the same all along - but, as you say, wrapped in an esoteric fog. I agree that it should be impressed upon those who presume to lead opinion among the Palestinians. You may disagree, but I think it should be impressed with at least as much force upon those who presume to lead opinion in Israel.

roger

Henry: In 2000, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak went to Camp David and offered Yasser Arafat 95% of the West Bank, 100% of Gaza and part of the Old City of Jerusalem, along with $30 billion in compensation for Palestinian refugees. Arafat’s response was the launching of the bloody Intifada which targeted innocent civilians in restaurants, malls, schools, and religious services with suicide terror attacks. Had Arafat accepted Israel’s offer at Camp David there would have long been a Palestinian State alongside Israel.

Henry Sidgwick

Roger, A briefing paper for the then incoming Prime Minister Ehud Olmert set out in detail what Ehud Barak offered at Camp David. You will find it was an offer even Arafat could not but decline. I understand that progress was made at subsequent negotiations on some of the outstanding questions,but that Ehud Barak, in the weeks before a general election, did not feel able to continue with them. He closed the negotiations down.

Jacob

Sand ignored the genetic research which clearly shows that, even though there is no "Jewish DNA", there is definite biological-genetic evidence that the Jews are one people.
The researchers found that despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level. Palestinian, Syrian and other non-Jewish Middle Eastern populations were also very close to the Jewish populations. Another research showed that the Jews in different countries are much closer to Jews in other countries that to their non-Jewish neighbors.
The Ashkenazi Jews were not found to be similar to present-day Turkish speakers. This opposes the suggestion that Ashkenazi Jews descended from the Khazars, a Turkish-Asian empire, that converted to Judaism in or about the 8th century CE.
The results support the notion that modern Jews are descendants of the Jews who lived in the Middle East 1900 years ago.
Contrary to Sand's assertion, not only history supports the existence of the Jewish people, so does exact science.

phil

Henry Sidgwick
November 15th, 2009 8:24pm -absolutely, but to all free minds it is obvious that one side seeks peace and the other does not-can you think of one good reason why Israel would rather be at war than be at peace ? The members of my family who live there cannot .

Henry Sidgwick

Phil,
To "all free minds" there are clearly two sides to this conflict.

To be strictly accurate, Israel is not seeking simply to live in peace: it is continuing its settlement of the West Bank. In general, however, I am sure it is true that Israel does indeed seek to live in peace. Israel more or less has what it wants in the way of land and resources. It is close to achieving the status of what Churchill called the satisfied nations, who are thereby proper guardians of the status quo.

Look at it from the other perspective, however. It should not take too much in the way of moral imagination or knowledge of history for supporters of Israel to see the other side's point of view.

It is possible to accept the justice of the Israeli claim to a right to live in peace (as I do), and to accept that an injustice to the Palestinians has to be addressed.

It is not good enough for one side or the other simply to ignore the just claims of the other and to deny any blame for the conflict.

phil

Henry Sidgwick
November 16th, 2009 5:12pm

"It is not good enough for one side or the other simply to ignore the just claims of the other and to deny any blame for the conflict."

I am sure you have noticed that I have never ignored the rights of the Palestinians to a proper life ,in fact I have always written here about my hopes for peace and justice for both sides ,but I cannot agree that there is blame on Israel for the continual war that is foisted upon them.it started in 1948 and has never ceased ,we can talk here until we are blue in the face but nothing changes ,the original terms are always ignored by those like alandale .

We hear the term occupied territories when in fact they are lands that were part of Israel,s first lands ,later taken in war by the ARABS and regained in 1967 after being threatened with invasion yet again .Jerusalem was reunited and open to all peoples -well I could go on but I am sure you know the history as well as I do ,including the ridiculous claims of Syria regarding the Golan heights -they never would have lost it if they hadn't used it as a base to shell innocent people in cowardly attacks -I was one of those in a bus who suffered shells as a visitor ,rotten aim ,lucky me ,They could have it back in the blink of an eye if only they agreed a real and sensible peace agreement, then a Palestinian state would become a reality with a neighbour willing to give all its help to ensure a vibrant ,prosperous and modern nation existed alongside ,but what many of you never face up to is that the leaders of the Arabs do not want peace ,they are happy for their innocents to pay the price for their profitable corruption ,--democracy and transparency would spoil both their financial and political power base -what would they do on Monday if peace was declared on the previous Friday ?I will tell you Henry they would become nobodies ,just the same as those who ran drugs and extortion in Ireland ,They are the villains not the ordinary Arabs who want a full belly and a peaceful life like the rest of us .

It is high time these attacks on Israel and the Jewish people ceased ,because we are the front line of a war that many do not realise they are in and soon enough you will know about it on your own doorstep ,You have witnessed the start with the bombings in our country and still you blame Israel ,ignoring the never ending attacks on even the innocent Muslims all over the globe .Tonight I fear we will see on channel 4 yet another attempt to put us in the wrong ,but ask yourself one question when were you last attacked by a Jew ,and do you shrink in fear when you see one on a plane or a bus ?-You are obviously an intelligent man so I ask you to think again about what is really happening in this sad world .

Augustus

phil - Your apologetic tone is touching. But remember, if the Middle Eastern nations had really felt much empathy for their brothers and co-religionists they would have given them sanctity long ago. But even Egypt, which after all is quite a large country, didn't want them. I wonder why?

phil

Augustus what you have said is what I have said so often but I am at a loss to see any apology in my post,and where was one necessary ?

Henry Sidgwick

Phil,
It would help me if you could explicate your version of history: "We hear the term occupied territories when in fact they are lands that were part of Israel,s first lands ,later taken in war by the ARABS and regained in 1967 after being threatened with invasion yet again..."

It is unfortunate that you elide (again) discussion of the state of Israel with comments about Jews.

I am surprised that a man of your evident humanity can insist on remaining blinkered about the nature of this conflict. A peaceful settlement requires realism and honesty on both sides.

I acknowledge that you always say that you hope for peace and prosperity for the innocent Palestinians, which is laudable. You never say how they are to achieve it other than by allowing Israel to take all it wants and by leaving it in peace to enjoy what it has taken (you may not accept this version of events but you can surely see how it must look from their perspective). This does not constitute a reasonable compromise.

phil

Henry Sidgwick
November 17th, 2009 12:10p
HENRY ,I write too much I know ,but I care a lot too,and I am biased no doubt because I am Jewish ,but please believe I try not to be .I do care what happens to innocent Arabs ,my problem is that I am sure they do not give a damn about me or mine .

Israel was born with borders agreed by the UN ,and you know they were invaded on the day they declared independence ,those lines changed with the war that followed ,half of Jerusalem was lost and other territory too ,what you call the occupied territories were merely retaken ones in 1967.The soul of the Jewish people is entrenched in Jerusalem ,a city now open to all whereas it was banned to all Jews by the Arabs and Mecca is closed to all apart from Muslims .

You must be aware that Israel has no designs on Gaza other than as a peaceful neighbour I realise I am repeating some of the words I used before but truly I do not know what it is that you are confused about .it is in fact me who is confused by what you have written namely "it is unfortunate that you elide (again) discussion of the state of Israel with comments about Jews" please tell me in plain English what you mean .

As to your point .what,s in it for the Palestinians ,I have said so many times that they would have a state both safe and prosperous with a neighbour whose interest it would be to guarantee that to the them -A land fit for children to grow and be educated and access to the best medical services in the world ,an infrastructure paid for by the west ,in fact a place to live and grow in a way they have never had before ,is that not enough for starters ?

The books that you read and from which you quote ,along with the so called international courts are all biased against both Israel and the Jewish people ,so how do you ever think you will reach the truth which is what I hope you seek ,try reading Abba Eban and some of the pioneers ,first of all you will find out what Zionism really is ,just the desire of the JEWISH DISPERSED PEOPLES TO LIVE IN A JEWISH HOMELAND ,free from persecution but not to harm others, not to steal land , not to conspire -just to live in peace .I am not a Zionist either as I am more than happy to be a proud and patriotic Brit ,but I do support the dreams of those who wish to achieve Aliyah .

Henry Sidgwick

Phil, We can agree about almost everything you have written here. There are still one or two points:

"...what you call the occupied territories were merely retaken ones in 1967." If you are talking about territories designated as Israeli in the UN partition, this is just wrong.

"...it is in fact me who is confused by what you have written namely "it is unfortunate that you elide (again) discussion of the state of Israel with comments about Jews" " - "It is high time these attacks on Israel and the Jewish people ceased...etc."

You say, "I have said so many times that they would have a state both safe and prosperous with a neighbour whose interest it would be to guarantee that to the them..." This is laudable. The question is where you envisage this state to be situated, given the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements and of areas out of bounds to Palestinians? Look at a map of what is left to the Palestinians. Where are they to have a state, let alone a prosperous one?

I have read books on Zionism (eg Prof. Shindler and others). I can well see the attraction of Zionism. After the Holocaust I can well understand the force of the argument for a refuge where those Jewish people who wish to can take control of their own defence. What I cannot understand is the blindness (this does not seem too strong a term) to the consequences of Zionism for others, especially those who were living in the territory that now constitutes Israel, and their descendants. The establishment of a "Jewish" state in the Holy Land was always going to infringe the rights of others.

I appreciate you taking the time to explain your beliefs and I appreciate you treating mine with courtesy.

phil

Henry Sidgwick
November 18th, 2009 9:31am
Henry ,I always take time to respond to those who wish to debate and I have no problem with posters who have a different opinion to mine ,This is the way there may be a meeting of minds ,I do object to some who come here to throw around accusations most of which are false and no doubt you will have seen those like alandale get short shrift

Why do I write?, its because I believe we get the society we deserve and if we do not try to change what we perceive as wrong it is our own fault. What I would like to tell you is that the vast majority of Jews have a great affection for Israel(not right or wrong ! ) AND TRULY BELIEVE IN ITS DESIRE TO BE "A LIGHT UNTO NATIONS" A lot of water has passed under the bridge since 1948 and the young people have grown up always at war .Its no wonder some exhibit signs of toughness ,We have seen the Peres attitude being changed to that of Netanyahu,s stance ,its obvious why isn't it ?The Israelis are fed up with constant criticism without a real hand stretched out for peace so now it seems they are going to do what they think is right and take the consequences .It is not my way but I understand them .

You will have seen on the later thread much lengthy discussion between JR and alandale ,what does it achieve ?They have totally opposite objectives one with great patience offers answers whilst the other continues to hurl criticism -I despise that attitude and until it stops nothing will change .I think I have seen your attitude change over the months and assume it is because you have had explanations from a different perspective and now have a more open mind .I hope so anyhow .

Henry Sidgwick

Phil, Thank you for your comments. As it happens my opinions on Israel and the Palestinians have not changed. I suspect we have been blinded by our polemics and have focussed on the points we disagree on. I appreciate what you describe as your ultimate goal in these discussions: mutual understanding and peace and prosperity for both sides.

Henry Sidgwick

Phil, As a footnote, I see you have omitted to tell me where among the growing Israeli settlements the Palestinians can have their peaceful and prosperous state

phil

Henry Sidgwick
November 19th, 2009 9:31am
HENRY that really was not worthy of you ,I am not happy about the settlements either but they are hardly stopping a Palestinian state .They are certainly a serious bone of contention ,but you can read a map as well as me ,I am sure .You will of course remember that east Jerusalem was closed to Israelis prior to 1967 in spite of the previous UN maps .

Henry Sidgwick

Phil, Whether or not it is worthy of me, it is the crux of the matter. As I have said before, go and study a map of the West Bank. Study in particular the areas already annexed by Israel and out-of-bounds to Palestinians. What is left is a network of cantons, not a viable state nor a viable economy. So the question is, where do yo think the Palestinians should have their peaceful and prosperous state? It is not possible on the scraps they have left, yet you tell them to accept Israel as it is.

phil

Henry Sidgwick
November 19th, Henry ,I do not have the time to study all these maps ,but you obviously have, so please can you tell me ,is the land you are complaining about within the original land assigned to Israel in 1948 or are you saying they have substantially accrued more -I genuinely do not know .What I do know is that the Arabs stole east Jerusalem and much of the west bank and you never address that .Jerusalem was open to all until The Arabs took the East and then of course no Jew could set foot in it .You and I are never going to solve this debacle and until people except both reality and the history nor will the combatants

I have much more that I could say about Jerusalem and how far it stretches but for the time being I will just look forward to the benefit of your knowledge on the border lines .

You already know that I am unhappy about some of the land claimed by the settlers and the ideas that some have about their reasons for being there ,I do not go along with the idea that God gave this land to the Jews thousands of years ago .We also have those with extreme ideas just as do the Arabs but my whole ethos says to me "let us sit down as reasonable human beings and work something out ".

.My belief is that we must revert to the lines drawn in 1948 rather than try to guess what deals were done in the garden of Eden ,in other words
"get real".Those that think negotiating is pushing someone's back up against the wall will fail as they always have and that is exactly what is happening now .Netanyahu will never crumble to bullies and he is what we now have after the peace seekers have had egg thrown in their faces .Those that think like me will win in the end if there is ever in fact to be one .The bombers and the bullies have lost since time immemorial and they will again .

We are on our own by now here Henry , so this is not for the gallery ,this is for real .,just you and me.

Henry Sidgwick

Phil,
I will not pretend I am not surprised. However, you have expressed your ignorance frankly and I promise I will not attempt make anything of it. As you say, no-one else is reading this now; and I will not refer to it anywhere else.

If you have the time to devote to the debates here and to expressing yourself forcibly against those you disagree with, you had better find time to check some facts.

Any reputable history book will have a map of the UN Partition Plan adopted as Resolution 181 in 1947. The area allocated to the Jewish state went nowhere near the West Bank, and Jerusalem, surrounded as it was by the Palestinian state, was to be an international city under UN supervision.

It should also be easy to find a map of the 1949 Armistice Agreement. The West Bank was again not a part of Israel. It was annexed by Jordan with Israel's less than wholehearted connivance, (clearly it was not ideal for Israel, especially as regards East Jerusalem, nor was it Israel's last word).

There are maps readily available of the West Bank now. The extension of the boundaries of Jerusalem, the Israeli control of the Jordan Valley, the expanding settlements, the Israeli-only roads, the roadblocks both permanent and moveable, have penned the Palestinians in a series of cantons, or reservations, or ghettoes. This is not a matter for dispute.

As you say, people will have to face up to history and reality, and face down the bullies and the bombers (I suspect that, even with your newly acquired knowledge of a little history, you will not agree with me about who the worst bullies and bombers have been over the years).

We can leave the story of negotiations, and who has been intransigent, and who has failed to keep their promises, for another time.

phil

HENRY SIDGEWICK --"Phil,
I will not pretend I am not surprised. However, you have expressed your ignorance frankly"---- Henry forgive me if I laugh out loud ,that is quite the most pompous and opportunist phrase I have heard in a long time. The discussion has become pointless as you have twisted facts around and well you know it .I gave you a chance and you have abused it so that's it for me ,I told you that we two will not solve the problems and your picking of the parts of history that suit your purpose are a tactic that I am well acquainted with, not only here but throughout my career.I had to deal with my opposite numbers then ,I do not now, so I bid you adieu and leave you to continue with anyone else who may debate with you .I fear I am the last in a long line . Just as something for you to ponder read this ,I do not require an answer but it may be both instructive for you ,maybe even haul you down from your holier than thou attitude .I am a pragmatist and you are a dreamer .I seek a path to peace and you continue to stoke the fires -we must go our separate ways .

In the negotiations with Jordan over Jerusalem, the Israeli representives were very concerned with Jewish access to the Old City. The Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement, signed on April 3, 1949, called for the establishment of a Special Committee to plan for "free access to the Holy Places and cultural institutions and use of the cemetery on the Mount of Olives." Expectations that Jews might visit the Western Wall for Passover 1949 were dashed when the Jordanians violated the Armistice Agreement. These clauses were never honoured and Jews did not again have access to the Western Wall and other Jerusalem sites until 1967. The United Nations was of no assistance in this issue, and ignored the discrimination and violations of the Armistice Agreement. Although UN debates on the internationalization of Jerusalem continued despite the de facto Jordanian usurpation, there was no further mention of the inaccessibility of Jewish holy sites. The Vatican also ignored requests to intervene in order to allow Jews to visit their religious sites.

The Armistice Agreements brought the fighting of the War of Independence to an end, but did not actually end the war between Israel and its Arab neighbours. The Arab states didn't recognize Israel and considered the armistice as only a pause. The Arab regimes considered the existence of Israel in their midst to be unacceptable and they continued to work toward Israel's destruction. They created and sustained a total boycott of Israel in all spheres of political and economic activity. They continued to support armed aggression against Israel, although not again by formal armies until the Six Day War in 1967.

In the Armistice Agreements, the ceasefire lines are defined as follows:

* 5(2). In no sense are the cease-fire lines to be interpreted as political or territorial borders and their delineation in no way affects the rights, demands or positions of any of the parties to the cease-fire agreements regarding the final disposition of the Palestine question.
* 5(3). The fundamental objective of the cease-fire lines is to serve as a line beyond which the armed forces of each of the parties will deploy.

Thus Israel has no "safe and recognized" borders under these agreements, and the cease-fire lines, as the above agreements signed in Rhodes in 1949 make clear, are unacceptable to the Arab countries. The November 1947 borders specified in the UN partition plan could have been the borders, but those borders were rejected by the Arabs at the time, and were not acceptable to Israel later since they proved indefensible against armies and porous to terrorists. Until the Israel-Egypt Peace Agreement of 1979 there was no change in the formal situation as of the 1949 Armistice.

Henry Sidgwick

Phil,
Recall that the crux of the matter under discussion is the West Bank. You said:
"..so please can you tell me ,is the land you are complaining about within the original land assigned to Israel in 1948 or are you saying they have substantially accrued more ..."
I have merely pointed out that none of the West Bank was "assigned" to Israel in 1947,1948,1949 or any time thereafter. You appear still not to have addressed this. You now provide a lot of historical detail that is not to the point but that makes your professed ignorance of what was "assigned" to Israel all the more surprising.

In other words, the question remains, and I am not here trying to make a debating point, I want to know your answer: Where are the Palestinians to have their free and prosperous state? As a map of the West Bank will show you, there is very little of it left to them.

We have both said we support a two state solution. A "path to peace" on these terms requires a viable territory for the Palestinians. I am simply asking where you envisage such a territory?

phil

Henry Sidgwick
November 20th, 2009 9:13am -it is as simple as I have always said -let two parties of goodwill sit down and talk about it -it is amazing what a smile with both eyes and mouth ,together with good intent can achieve .We do not live there ,so there is no point in us pontificating about maps and walls ,walls that never would be there if life was safe .

Henry Sidgwick

Phil,
"My belief is that we must revert to the lines drawn in 1948 ..." We can agree on this (if you do not change your mind when you find out what it means).

On your latest comments we can agree without any ifs or buts on my part.

I do understand (I think) and I do appreciate the unerlying humanity of your position.

phil

Henry Sidgwick
November 20th, 2009 1:19pm -- just try 1949 which is what I should have said .

Henry just to finish this ,you know what my motivation is ,,but to repeat,it is the innate goodness and kindness of the vast majority of the Jewish people not only in Israel but all around the world and their desire for peace and justice for all .

I would at last like to hear what drives you to continue your attack on behalf of a people you probably do not even know and with a knowledge only from what you read .and never experienced . I doubt whether you have ever been in Israel or even talked to the people who live there ,have you met any of the thousands of Arabs who live there happily and would never change their nation ? Have you in fact ever spoken to any of the leaders of either people ?

Finally can you tell me how those that do not and will not recognise the right of Israel to exist can possible make peace ,but remember we are talking about hesbollah and hamas who are the actual decision makers .Please no obfuscation about what they say either,we need to look at what they do,and no repetition .of who was right and who was wrong, its pointless .We need a future not the past

.My questions are simple ,no elite phrases or obscure words , so please humour me and answer in a similar way .

Henry Sidgwick

Phil,
The Partition plan was 1947; the Armistice lines, 1949. Most proposals for a two-state solution accept the Armistice lines (which gives Israel something like 78% of Palestine before partition). You have said you agree (although vague about what it means for Israeli withdrawal). I agree.

I have also said I accept that your motives are good.

You suggest your knowledge, however partial, is greater than mine (presumably to help me to the conclusion that I should not take part in these debates - although I started in the hope of learning, and I have). Members of my immediate family, my mother and uncle, have visited Israel. My uncle was a Church of Scotland minister who regularly took parishioners to the Holy Land. I am acquainted with several Israeli citizens, who represent quite a wide range of political opinion. The only Palestinians I have met are exiles. The only other Arabs I have met were employed in the financial sector, some as representatives of sovereign funds and some as employees of US investment banks. I have read extensively in the history of the region and its current affairs. I started out of interest in British imperial policy and out of a wish to understand how a continuous "peace process" "brokered" by the US through the 1970s and 1980s and 1990s could produce only further expansion of Israel and death and destruction all round. I think this is sufficient to allow me at least to discuss these questions.

Why do I bother? I am convinced an injustice has been done to the Palestinians and the injustice continues. I am convinced the Israeli state has repeatedly resorted to violence to attain its ends when it did not need to. I am convinced Israelis deserve a prosperous and peaceful future. The policies of the Israeli state do not seem well suited to achieve that end (and have played a part in producing the toxic version of resistance now exemplified by Hamas).

Why do I bother? The Israeli state's intransigence is predicated on the unquestioning support of the US and its servants such as the UK. The US could broker a genuine peace. It has sufficient leverage with all sides. In other words, this is a conflict which can be resolved. Public opinion has some very small part to play. In this it is unlike other causes I spend time on: the Tibetans, for example, do not have a hope any time soon of any form of autonomy.

A peaceful and prosperous Israel with a peaceful and prosperous Palestine as neighbour, with the two economies interdependent, is the best way to cause support for extremists to wither. Their violence will be in no-one's interests. Getting there is fraught. The goal may be unattainable. But it is better to try than toinsist there is no-one to negotiate with when there always has been.

PHIL

Henry Sidgwick
November 21st, 2009 11:51am Henry your knowledge of Israelis is as you say very limited and until you go and meet them on site it will remain so .It is a beautiful and vibrant country which would give you much pleasure ,much to see and much to learn ,my suggestion is that you go there and speak on site to Israelis ,you may well find that your conclusions so far have been way off the mark .You will also find out that people speak the truth on the whole and that their desire is peace and a life alongside a prosperous and friendly Palestinian state ,can you think of any reason why they would not ?I HAVE ALWAYS HAD A WONDERFUL SOURCE OF INFORMATION FROM THERE ,MY OWN FAMILY WHO REFLECT EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE CONTINUALLY TOLD YOU .THEY HAVE TOLD ME THAT THERE IS NOBODY TO TALK TO AND IT IS THEY WHO ARE SO DISAPPOINTED (sorry cap lock went awry and I am knackered now :)

Ben-Tsiyon (ha rishon)

I wonder why these columns continue to be congested with the repetitive, long-winded ramblings of Phil and Sidgwick.

I wonder why Phil persists in trying to persuade Sidgwick and his ilk what jolly good chaps we Jews and our brothers and sisters in the one and only land of Israel really are. Such people start out with a particular mindset from which they can never be budged, so why bother; leave them to it !

phil

Ben-Tsiyon (ha rishon) ADAM b told me many moons ago that if you let these criticisms go unanswered ,they will become the acknowledged truth , I DO HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO AND I value my free time so I am sorry you are so bored and I am surprised that HS and I have company here at this late stage .

Henry Sidgwick

Phil,
I have not said anything against Israelis. I take them to be much the same as people anywhere. The testimony of your family, I am sure, is as representative and credible as the testimony of the range of Israelis I have talked to. But the testimony of individual Israelis is not going to tell us what the state of Israel is doing in the name of its citizens (as in the UK, the US, or any state). This requires study of many different sources. I regret that you are unwilling to find out the borders in the Partition, the Armistice lines, or what Israel has done and continues to do in the Occupied Territories. These are necessary data for any discussion of possible resolutions of the conflict. General expressions of goodwill to all mankind are no substitute for practicalities.

phil

Henry Sidgwick
November 22nd, 2009 1:19pm
Henry we travelled a long way since we first met.so it shows that there is still hope for all that do not agree .The Israeli govt has to ensure the safety of its citizens as I am sure you are aware,so if the climate was different no doubt they would not be so tough ,nor would they have a Netanyahu at its head .

Henry Sidgwick

Phil,
"The Israeli govt has to ensure the safety of its citizens..." I agree. I do not think such as Netanyahu will ensure their safety.
I have appreciated this conversation.
Best wishes.
Henry.

watcher

You can see Professor Shlomo Sand(University of Tel Aviv) being interviewed on BBC's Hardtalk here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p1l9q/b00p1l9d/HARDtalk_Shlomo_Sand/

Ben-Tsiyon (ha rishon)

Phil, you may go on for forever and a day with your admirable (I sincerely mean that) efforts to prevent "criticisms" (I think they are largely much more than that) from becoming "acknowledged truths" but, to paraphrase Omar Khayyam, all your efforts will not change one word.

phil

Ben-Tsiyon (ha rishon)
November 25th, 2009 2:08pm -I know !---- but eventually they get fed up telling their lies and others that read here with an open mind see another side .Besides I wasted my life doing sensible things ,now I can indulge myself ,my preference was to be a sports writer but all the good jobs have gone so I WILL HAVE TO MAKE DO WITH THIS :)
Thanks for the kind words ,they do help .

Henry Sidgwick

Phil,
In an idle moment I clicked on this old debate.

What do I find?

"...eventually they get fed up telling their lies ..."

What lies would these be and what sort of hypocrite are you? I thought we had a reasonable and civilized conversation. You now say the civilization was on your part merely a mask or pretence. What else have you said that you didn't mean?

phil

Henry Sidgwick
November 25th, 2009 8:00
Henry my remarks were not in reference to you but there are many others who do exactly what I described .You state your opinions some of which I do not agree with, but others tell outrageous lies and I do not debate with them .You may have seen how I treat alandale whose attitude is so different to yours .We are both entitled to our opinions and we discuss them as we have recently but I will not stand idle when others write fabrications .Ben T thinks I waste my time but you are a good example of why I think I do not .

Henry Sidgwick

Phil,
I will unruffle my feathers.
Cheers.