Londonistan continues to provide British hospitality to genocidal fanatics

JOHN ROOSEVELT

..and now. we must be very careful that our very own Foreign Secretary is not massacred by some Moslem "warrior", desperate to rid the world of gay 'scum". Oh, sorry, just used the Finnish word- I mean, Amnesty Int. word,, reserved for israel!

Gets so confusing...

Archie

Indeed, Miss Phillips, and the truly frightening aspect of all this is that the progeny of these "British subjects" who were born here all have British passports. Madness!

The Luddite

The Lefts love affair with Islamic-fascism maybe coming to it's end. But that appalling flirtation will curse this land for a generation and more.

AY

.. also don't forget that their goals are global. In Palestine Islamists murder Jews in road ambushes on pretext of "settlements". While in the UK, they de-facto create large Sharia-compliant settlements, - already known as sources of crime, mob violence, suicide bombings, roadside bombs, airline terror plots etc. Not to expect more from there, like mortar fire and road ambushes, would be just naive. As article shows, this is the same terror staff.

Michael White

But I've read the attached - everything seems to be fine....would also draw attention to the last sentence.

http://www.timeout.com/london/big-smoke/features/2993/Is_London-s_future_Islamic.html#articleAfterMpu

John Birch

Hey The Luddite.

Was it the left who armed Bin Laden and the Islamo-Fascists in the 1980s? Is Ronald Reagan a left-winger in your universe?

Bob

To John Birch

I agree with you. We should have backed the Russians instead of arming their enemies.

Afghanistan only has two industries.
1. The Drug Trade
2. Renting out space to terrorists for which are paid for this in Petro Dollars.

Nothing but trouble comes from Afghanistan

We are sending OUR soldiers to build THEIR country. How crazy is that.

rippon

There's an excellent book on this subject:
'Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam' by Mark Curtis

C.Gee

John Birch:

The left at the time were apologists for the USSR, believing that it promised the surest way to the defeat of capitalism.

Now, after the fall of the iron curtain, the post-national left has seen the potential for systematic dismantling of the institutions of the capitalist West through an alliance with activist Islam.

MatKay

UK has not helped to contain the Islamic terrorists. It never leveraged its contacts - for all our sakes I wish it had. I still believe in better late than never.

Drakken

This alliance and collusion of the left with these so called human rights organizations will come to a conclusion that the left will not see coming, and if I dare say it, bloody and brutal not seen since the first part of the last century.

In the Wilderness in America

John Birch

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Bob

Unfortunately, it was a Hobsian choice.

John Edwards

Calling the Occupied Palestinian Territories "Judea and Sumaria" will not alter the reality of their status as occupied territory in international law.

Roy

Unfortunately it seems Melanie is the only one around who is keeping a tab on such things. One can only assume the new guns running the nation have a death wish for any independent British thought or action to stay the rot. This body refuge is allowing the maggot to pupate to then spread to infect the whole multicultural carcase of susceptible cheeses around the globe.

TomTom

Without voters noticing Britain joined the EU, introduced RIPA, Civil Contingencies Act, EDMOs and invited lots of exiled-French Muslim fanatics to London in the 1980s.

One day the dopey British will wake up to find they are Dhimmis in a Muslim land funded by Saudi money.

Geert Wilders has received another death threat - call for his beheading - but in Britain it is not even reported. Dhimmis Indeed !

Andrei

C.Gee
September 3rd, 2010 4:11pm
John Birch:

The left at the time were apologists for the USSR, believing that it promised the surest way to the defeat of capitalism.

- Left at time did no such thing. This as response to point US and UK funded and armed Islamist jihadis is completely inadequate.

Andrei

Drakken
September 3rd, 2010 6:51pm

Still not mucho.

sleeping dolls

AY: "While in the UK, they de-facto create large Sharia-compliant settlements, - already known as sources of crime, mob violence, suicide bombings, roadside bombs, airline terror plots etc. Not to expect more from there, like mortar fire and road ambushes, would be just naive."

Could you give some examples of these extremely scary "settlements" in the UK?

Oflife

As the cricketing scandal has proven, (not to mention the appalling treatment of Hague by the media), Britain is all about money and fame, not ethics or freedom. The left have been fooled and bought - hook, line and sinker.

Gordon Ross

In response to John Edwards, calling Judea and Samaria(the heartland of the Jewish homeland)the 'West Bank' will not alter the fact that they are Jewish territories occupied by the so-called 'Palestinians'. They, in small part, may be descended from Arabs who invaded the Jewish homeland following the advent of Islam, but, in major part, are descended from Arabs and others who who entered that homeland from surrounding countries during the last 100 or so years in the hope of benefiting from the agricultural/industrial revolution which resulted from the Jewish renaissance.

When the British came along following World War 1, they of course encouraged that immigration, and then in the early 1920s lopped off some 70% of the Jewish homeland to create for the Arabs what is now Jordan, with a 90% 'Palestinian' population.

So, the 'Palestinians' already have their cake, but also want to eat the Jewish cake by having yet another state, to be formed out of the remaining 30% of the Jewish homeland, and by swamping Israel with 'returnees' from the camps created by their brother Arabs who declined to integrate them into their own societies.

International 'law', highly questionable, be blowed !

Andrei

If West had interests of Afghans at heart, most of all girls and women, would have supported Soviet ally. Of course soviet invasion not legal and almost as bad as Americans interference in Korea Vietnam Indonesia Nicaragua rest of central and south America Phillipines...Typical example of Western hypocrisy that jihadis "freedom fighters" then terrorist threat to "free world" - same jihadis with same agenda.

Derek BLADES

No need to ponder "if civilisation survives". The very fact that Hamas representatives operate freely in London is in itself proof that we live in a civilised society. Amjad al-Salfiti and Mahmoud Ahmed Abd al-Rahman al-Ramahi are spokesmen for Hamas which, in case we have forgotten, won a majority of seats in the last free election held in the occupied West Bank. I would be concerned at the future of our civilisation if Hamas was prevented from operating a base in our capital city. After all, it already houses plenty of pro-Israeli organisations. It is useful and healthy to hear all sides of an argument.

C.Gee

Derek BLADES:

What a gent you are. Play cricket much? Useful to hear both sides of the "argument", is it? Are you the umpire?

The sides are fire and firefighter. Civilized to accomodate both is it?

The Palestinian elections are like stethoscopes on a witch-doctor - juju to ward off curses by the West of "grubby little dictatorship".

Meanwhile, in Hezbollebanon, also a democracy, that civilized society has now amassed four times as many rockets has it had before the last war with Israel.

The rockets can reach every Israeli city. And the arsenals and launchers are in and close to schools and hospitals.

I expect we are in for a cracker of a re-match, eh?

Linda Smith

Derek Blades lauds Hamas as �civilised� and welcomes Hamas representatives operating �freely in London� as �useful and healthy to hear all sides of an argument�.

Presumably, therefore, Derek Blades has no objections to the Judophobic genocidal Hamas Charter.

cyllan

and what are the jews doing to defend themselves, there were 4 israelis gunned down last week.

any protest? march? complain?

anywhere? nothing?

what a joke

Louis Berk

Flame me if you must but dare I point out that in Blair's interview with Andrew Marr and later on radio he repeated his view that we must confront and defeat militant islam? If he can influence his own party and his strange love-child Cameron then perhaps this country will finally turn against its spectacularly inverted support of islamic fascism.

Augustus

Clearly there is something very sick with any nation who provides facilities to those who wilfully abuse moral rhetoric such as human rights, humanitarian aid, and peace activism whilst hiding behind clearly immoral acts in a very violent and vicious war against Israel. These people should have no legal rights to operate in Britain whatsover.

Andrei

Gordon Ross
September 4th, 2010 1:34pm
Could you tell me where this version of history comes from? Thank you.

Also what is meant by snort of derision at international law.

Derek BLADES

C.Gee tells me that "[Lebanon] has now amassed four times as many rockets has(sic)it had before the last war with Israel." This had nothing whatsoever to do with anything I wrote, but as the poor fellow obviously has his knickers in a twist about Lebanon, let me set him straight.

When he refers to "the last war with Israel" I assume he is referring to the last time the IDF air force dropped bombs on several Lebanese cities killing more than a thousand Lebanese civilians.

In view of the carnage regularly wrought upon any country unfortunate to share a boundary with Israel, the Lebanese government would be acting irresponsibly if it did not seek some form of deterrence.

AY

"..The very fact that Hamas representatives operate freely in London is in itself proof that we live in a civilised society.."

Well, then live in this civilized society yourself, and let others know where to put fence between your "civilized society" and civilized society of people with reason and consciousness.

Everyone can open Wikipedia and ensure that Hamas comitted and took responsibility for 80+ suicide bombings, 7/7 style, aimed strictly at unarmed civilians. Not even talking about small things like drive-by shootings, ambushes, car bombs and rocket fire. Once they bombed a discoteque killing 20 teenage girls, another time about 30 pensioners in a hotel.
Even Egyptians and PA handle them like plague. They are defintely enemies of human race both in practice and ideology - and those who laughably mention these and similar cannibals in context of "civilization", are responsible for the humped mess presently overwhelming social/cultural life in the UK. What a low stuff, below plinth, honestly.

AY

Derek you are in a deep submersion obviously.

IDF bombed not Lebanese civilians but Lebanese terrorists sponsored and armed by Iran, in response for the acts of war.

On the question of bordering, please everyone consider an imaginary situation - it's up to you to choose now if in 3 miles from your house there will be Gaza, or Israel. One, two, three, bingo.

Augustus

Derek Blades - You conveniently forget that for Hezbollah the destruction of Israel has always been deemed a religious duty. Hezbollah only understands the language of violence, and Israel's military is the only force that was then,
and remains, capable of confronting those fanatics. The infrastructure that was attacked was done only insofar as it was relevant to the arming and operations of Hezbollah. The Lebanese civilian population had been forewarned with leaflets and radio messages prior to the attacks on residential areas. The difference is that whenever
Hezbollah fires rockets it tries to kill as many civilians as possible, whereas Israel would always try to limit civilian casualties. And in any event, Hezbollah itself is not bothered by the deaths of Shiite
Muslims who succumb when they place their rockets directly in the middle of Shiite residential
districts.

In your haste to condemn Israel yet again you have managed to side with an organization which even the Lebanese Prime Minister distanced himself from at the time, and in so doing you are siding with genocidal Islamism. This is not well thought out and is either naive or deliberately deceptive.

J Sherifi

This Genocidal fanatics in Britain are not only dangerous towards non muslims but also to muslims specially educated moderate muslim women, you don't see the harassment and abuse the muslim women get by this kind of people, most of the fanatics immigrated when Tony Blair was a prime minister it is going to take years to clean the mess he left, wake up! British people.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

C.Gee
September 3rd, 2010 4:11pm
"John Birch:

The left at the time were apologists for the USSR, believing that it promised the surest way to the defeat of capitalism.

Now, after the fall of the iron curtain, the post-national left has seen the potential for systematic dismantling of the institutions of the capitalist West through an alliance with activist Islam."

Spot on..and the fact that the most common first names in the UK right ow are Jack and Mohammed, is neither here nor there, I guess...but an interesting backdrop to the current political constellations here.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Andrei
September 4th, 2010 2:01pm
"If West had interests of Afghans at heart, most of all girls and women, would have supported Soviet ally. Of course soviet invasion not legal and almost as bad as Americans interference in Korea Vietnam Indonesia Nicaragua rest of central and south America Phillipines...Typical example of Western hypocrisy that jihadis "freedom fighters" then terrorist threat to "free world" - same jihadis with same agenda."

Can you run that one by us a gain - slowly - Andrei?

Just try and focus on what it is in the Hamas Charter and Islamic state practice that attracts you and should attract anyone in the West. I have to presume there is something in Sharia Law that you find eminently superior to the Law which is applied in the West...or maybe something got lost in translation?

WE can build a discussion from that...

phil

Derek BLADES
September 4th, 2010 2:20pm
"No need to ponder "if civilisation survives". The very fact that Hamas representatives operate freely in London is in itself proof that we live in a civilised society. Amjad al-Salfiti and Mahmoud Ahmed Abd al-Rahman al-Ramahi are spokesmen for Hamas which, in case we have forgotten, won a majority of seats in the last free election held in the occupied West Bank."

blades-Is this analagous to the nazis winning an election in the thirties ,and committing the atrocities too numerous to display and then saying that it would be right to let them operate in the UK.Do I need to remind you of their latest "heroic" action of slaughtering 4 innocents including a pregnant woman ,or even their declaration of further slaughter in their determination to scupper the peace talks ? It is pointless saying to you that your cover is blown ,it has been for a long time ,but one can still wonder what sickness dwells in a mind that allows one to send us such stupidity ,is it just a desire to be noticed ?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Derek BLADES
September 4th, 2010 9:29pm
C.Gee tells me that "[Lebanon] has now amassed four times as many rockets has(sic)it had before the last war with Israel." This had nothing whatsoever to do with anything I wrote, but as the poor fellow obviously has his knickers in a twist about Lebanon, let me set him straight.

When he refers to "the last war with Israel" I assume he is referring to the last time the IDF air force dropped bombs on several Lebanese cities killing more than a thousand Lebanese civilians.

In view of the carnage regularly wrought upon any country unfortunate to share a boundary with Israel, the Lebanese government would be acting irresponsibly if it did not seek some form of deterrence."

Where there is hoe, there is Derek. here are the guys who purport to have a love fest for Human rights and they all seem addicted to the cowboys and indians view of the world.

So, Derek, you recommend that the Lebanese Govt give Hezbollah it's blessing i.e Iran and Syria..and puts the entire country in the firing line of the IDF in the next war. Good on ya, mate, but my lebanese friends who dont live in the West beirut and the south of the country, may not agree with you.

It looks like you buy into to the tit for tat , eye for an eye philosophy, after all. Where does your International Law fit in with that..ooops, i forgot..it may be Sgaria Law that gets your toe do the merry dance, after all.

Oh well. All augurs well for Peace, I guess.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Augustus: "In your haste to condemn Israel yet again you have managed to side with an organization which even the Lebanese Prime Minister distanced himself from at the time, and in so doing you are siding with genocidal Islamism. This is not well thought out and is either naive or deliberately deceptive."

Spot on. You're very kind to Derek, Augustus. I hope he appreciates it.

Derek, how does Hizbollah deal with gays and adulterous women, you reckon? Let us understand if you have any love for this organisation apart from its rabid anti US/Zionist position. I can understand that this may doevetail with yours but does anything else about these people turn you on? Or doesn't it matter? Does it not matter what kind of society that would love to see - what "peace" reign amonst all mankind? The "Umma" mean nothing to you? Just a weapon that you are happy to use to achieve some other agenda, which you will disregard once it has served it purpose?

What I am getting at is: what do you really believe in? On what is your hatred Israel and the US based? Do these state actors behave in ways that you feel some other state doesn't? Are the Arab and moslem states and Jihadi non state actors examples of internal and external practice which the US and Israel and the rest of us should admire and emulate? How can we make any sense of you want to appear to support??

We know states behave badly all the time. We know non state actors do, too. You cannot, reasonably, rest your case against one or two, if it/they behave/s the same or better than the one/s you would rather support.

So, Derek, we know you think Israel is an Imperialist, racist, nazi, apartheid-like state, but compared with..? Hizbollah?? Hamas? Iran??

We know that the you may think the holocaust - the syatematic, state- sponsored massacre of 6 MILLION JEWS - is the same - EXACTLY the same - as the CONSTANT behaviour of Israel; that it, therefore, deserves everything it gets from anyone on earth...but..surely...

...you have to be kidding...

At least the William Hagues of this world are pretty up front re the nature of the basis for their policies. He wants Turkey in the EU, not because its islamisation is something he loves, but rather because he thinks the UK can make a buck out of the place. Likewise the Middle East. He would care less about Arab states, the palestinians etc if not for the oil...Not "nice", perhaps, but more honest, at least, than you and your lot.

Like Harold, bless him, you need to come out of the closet. Stop the catchphrases and the obfuscation. It's deafening...and does meaningful debate, not to mention policy-making, very few favours.

Marcella

Israel in the late 80s helped promote Hamas in the occupied territories as acounter to the PLO and Palestinian nationalism. Dennis Ross the then US ambassoder to Israel warned them you really do not know who you are dealing with here.
It was part of the age old colonial philosophy of divide in rule.

Louis Berk

AY: "On the question of bordering, please everyone consider an imaginary situation - it's up to you to choose now if in 3 miles from your house there will be Gaza, or Israel. One, two, three, bingo."

Exactly.

Marcher Baron

"... dare I point out that in Blair's interview with Andrew Marr and later on radio he repeated his view that we must confront and defeat militant islam?" That would be the same Blair who presided over the policy of multiculturalism combined with unlimited immigration from the third world, presumably?

Lindsay

Augustus
September 5th, 2010 12:17am

Hizballah has said that it will abide by the decision of the Palestinian people on a peace agreement with Israel. The majority of Palestinians in opinion poll after opinion poll have voted for a two-state solution as outlined by the UN, the Arab League etc.

"The infrastructure that was attacked was done only insofar as it was relevant to the arming and operations of Hezbollah." I suspect you have not made any effort to discover what Israel did target - it would be a push to argue for instance that the airports, oil depots, roads, residential properties had much to do with Hizballah (there is a limit to how many civilian houses etc. can shelter dastardly command centres).

" Hezbollah itself is not bothered by the deaths of Shiite
Muslims who succumb when they place their rockets directly in the middle of Shiite residential
districts." Organisations ranging from human rights groups (boo, hiss) to the UN (boo, hiss) to the US Army (oh), found no evidence that Hizballah stored or fired its rockets from built-up areas.

The rest of your comment is up to the same standard (as usual).

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Marcella
September 5th, 2010 12:42pm
Israel in the late 80s helped promote Hamas in the occupied territories as acounter to the PLO and Palestinian nationalism. Dennis Ross the then US ambassoder to Israel warned them you really do not know who you are dealing with here.
It was part of the age old colonial philosophy of divide in rule."

What's your point?

John Holland

Can anyone explain to me why, when talking about the blame for the rise of 'Islamo-fascism', the Right lay so much of the blame on the moral cowardice and/or anti-capitalist conspiracies of the left, yet the historical fact of the American Right's policy of materially aiding Bin Laden and the Taliban to further their own geo-political ends in the 1980's, is largely dismissed as slightly unfortunate, at worst. Surely, a grotesque evasion of culpability?

Augustus

Lindsay - The reason for your post (Sept.5th) is obscure, other than ad hominem. (boo, hiss)? Unifil in the details then.

C.Gee

John Holland:

Check the following dates:
Jimmy Carter's accession to the Oval Office.
The USSR's invasion of Afghanistan.
The (CIA) arming of Afghan insurgents.
The Iranian Islamic revolution.
Ronald Reagan's accession to the Oval Office.
The fall of the Iron Curtain.
The rise of the Taliban to power from the rubble of civil war. (Check out the parts played by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan).

But it might also be worthwhile to research foreign policy (of which covert operations was a part) during the Cold War and its continuity (or change) from American administration to administration.

Then lay blame. The candidates for blame do not actually offer themselves from Left or Right, nor directly from realists, isolationists, neo-cons, liberationists or other schools of wonkery.

The partition of India - and the thinking behind it - may account for a great deal. Intellectual history is the hardest history to do.

rippon

Spot on, John Holland.

Augustus

John Holland - For years Islamism was able successfully to mislead the West into thinking that 'occupation' of Gaza and South Lebanon was the cause of terror attacks into Israel. But Islamism in the region isn't really about changes of regional policy, it's
raison d'etre is the ultimate eradication of the country itself. Of course, ultimately, this holy hatred doesn't depend on whether one is Jewish or not.
The single measuring stick is whether one blindly obeys Sharia
and dedicates one's life to the Koran. And this hate wouldn't disappear were Israel to cease to exist, because this creed calls for a genocidal wave of hate to spread across the globe. Ahmadinejad himself has said that the conflict in Palestine was nothing more than 'the front line between the Islamic world and the world of arrogance'. The men and women of Israel's military are the front line against this apocalyptic programme. But many in the West judge both sides by the same moral criteria, but Israel's cause is a just one, and when it's enemies strike with their waves of holy hatred,
it will strike back hard in the cause of self-defense and freedom from tyranny. Besides, if anyone can deflate the ridiculous images of those little turbaned bearded men across the Muslim landscape, Israel can.

Drakken

Appeasement of hezbo and hamas will never come to a good end, better to confront them now,for when they start their merry little jihad I don't think the Israelis will be as nice as last time. World opinion and so called intl law be damned.

Trumpeldor

@John Edwards,

For the 1000000 th time,I will remind you that "under international laws",Jews are entitled to settle the whole former British Mandate
You just read the different clauses of San Remo 1920 International conference which are still binding and valid !

Y.Gal

And while we are talking, another muslem suicide bomber killed 73 other muslems while they were protesting against ... yes - Israel.
Actually, since the beginning of this year, 18,000 muslems were killed by their "brother" muslems, with very few and tiny articles covering it in the media.
The leftist media is ignoring and covering up for those killings because Israel and US are not involved.
The western world is really sick.

Neil Saunders

To Derek BLADES

Do you believe that representatives of the BNP should be allowed to operate freely in London as a mark of civilisation, openness and freedom of debate? If not, why not?

(Incidentally, I detest the BNP, and do not support them.)

Lindsay

Augustus
September 5th, 2010 11:22pm
The point is very clear: the assertions of yours I refer to are false.

C.Gee
September 5th, 2010 11:23pm
As I understand it, the point is very simple: the US (and UK) funded and armed the "jihadis" and Afghan resistance (Taliban-to-be) and warlords, and encouraged Saudi Arabia to do likewise. It does not take much intellectual history to understand that the West was not much bothered with extreme Islamism when it served its then larger purpose of containing the Soviet Union.

Trumpeldor
September 6th, 2010 8:15am
And for the umpteenth time, it is not clear what you think follows from the fact that the Mandate power was to allow Jews from Europe to settle in Palestine.

Marcella

In response To John Rosevalt.at 8:15.
My point is Arafat and the PLO were demonized then by the extremists in jerusalem, much in the same way HAMAS is today. HAMAS are presented in the west as suicidal global jihadis. This is inaccurate. They are the latest group that represent Palestinan nationalism and violent resistance to occupation. The likelihood of an agreement without them in the talks is slim.
As Yitkak ( break their Bones) Rabin said , you only get peace by talking to your enemies.

Trumpeldor

@Lindsay,
"the Mandate power was to allow Jews from Europe to settle in Palestine."

Well ,since you give so much authority to current UN,why do you refuse to award the same authority to SDN which preceded UN and recognized these SAN REMO clauses ?????
These same clauses may not be legally abrogated and are built in UN chapters since they are still binding ,valid and far older !

George

Marcella,

Yitzhak Rabin was correct when he said that you make peace with your enemies. However, you can only make peace with an enemy who is interested in making peace as an end unto itself. An enemy who sees a peace treaty as a means to achieving another end (your total obliteration) isn't worth making peace with.
The only way Hamas (and other fundamental Muslims) will make peace with Israel is when they cease to be Muslims. The way they interpret their religion, any land captured for Islam remains Islamic land in perpetuity and no other sovereignty can be permitted there (by the way, this would also include most of Spain and Portugal). The US President, as one who received much of his schooling in Muslim schools, is very aware of this, yet he insists on dragging Israel to the negotiating table.

Trumpeldor

@Lindsay,if you do not agree,take a lawyer

Summary of Israel's Legal Rights to the West Bank

Ted Belman - 12/7/2009

1. According to international law, the Jewish people are the sole beneficiary of Self-determination in the land of Palestine. The rights of the Jewish People to Palestine are enshrined in 3 legally binding international treaties. These rights have not expired and are still in full force and effect.

a. The 1920 San Remo Resolution, (Passed by the San Remo Supreme Council. This council was given the power of disposition by the Great Powers and was convened for the purpose of dividing what was the Ottoman Empire i.e redrawing the borders of the Middle East and giving its land to its original inhabitants.)
b. The 1922 Mandate for Palestine,

c. The 1924 Anglo-American Convention on Palestine.

2. The British Mandatory was not a sovereign. All its rights and obligations relating to Palestine, emanated from the Mandate of Palestine. The Mandatory was a trustee for the League of Nations, and it was not given the power to take any steps which violated the terms of the Mandate. It could not change the terms of the Mandate at its pleasure, as it did in the following two cases:

1. Ceding 77.5 % of Palestine to Trans Jordan (in 1922)
2. Ceding the Golan to Syria (in 1923) .

3. The Mandatory violated article 5 & article 27 of the Mandate when it ceded the and 77.5% of Palestine to Trans Jordan and the Golan to Syria:

ART. 5. “The Mandatory shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power.”
ART. 27: The Mandatory had no right to amend the Mandate terms without the full consent of the League of Nations or its Mandates Commission.

4. In the 1924 Anglo American Convention the U.S. agreed to support Great Britain as a Mandatory so long as the Mandatory abided by the San Remo Resolution. The sole purpose of the Resolution regarding Palestine was:

a) Drawing the borders of Palestine,
b) Reconstituting Palestine as a National Homeland for the Jewish world – wide,

c) Recognizing the Jewish People’s historical connection to the land.

There was not even one word in the Mandate or the Anglo American convention about creating an Arab land in Palestine

5. The Lodge-Fish Resolution of September 21, 1922, was a Joint Resolution passed by both houses of the U.S. Congress and signed by President Warren Harding, endorsing the Balfour Declaration with slight variations. This made the text of the Joint Resolution part of the law of the United States until this very day.

“Resolved by the Senate and House of representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that the United states of America favors the establishment in Palestine of a national Home for the Jewish people…”
6. Under American Law when a joint resolution is passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives in an identical form and then signed by the President, it becomes the Law of the U.S.

7. Both the Lodge- Fish Resolution and the Anglo American Convention underwent the above noted process (see point 6). Therefore reconstituting Palestine as a National homeland for the Jewish People worldwide and recognizing their historical connection to the land became part of US LAW.

8. The 1924 Anglo American Convention on Palestine included the whole text of the Palestine Mandate. The Palestine Mandate included the Balfour declaration preamble committing to reconstitute Palestine as a National homeland for the Jewish People worldwide and to recognize their historical connection to the land. It did not mention anything about creating an Arab State in Palestine. The Mandate explicitly prohibited ceding any land in Palestine to any foreign powers or changing the terms of the Mandate without the League’s expressed permission. That permission had to be unanimously passed by all members. That never occurred. (see Grief Pg 204. )

9. The significance of the above (see #8) is that no decision made by The US or Britain, may be in conflict with the terms of the Mandate or the Anglo American Convention. France, Italy and Japan sat on the San Remo Supreme Council - along with the US and Britain - approving the San Remo decision. After the Supreme Council approved the San Remo decision , the resolution was further approved by the League of Nations and its 51 members. This resolution became a binding international Treaty. The Treaty became Res Judicata. Consequently all the above noted countries are bound by their own approval. Thus they are prevented from changing their approval without Israel’s consent.

10. No decision, Policy or measure taken by subsequent American administrations may be in conflict with the Terms of the Palestine Mandate. (The sole purpose of the Mandate was-to reconstitute Palestine as a national homeland for the Jewish People world- wide and recognize their historical connection with the land.) Under the Doctrine of Estoppels the US is estopped from making policies, taking any steps, measures, spending any monies on policies, which run contrary to its covenants and undertaking under the Anglo-American Convention of 1924, because among other things they are violating US Law.

11. Both their Excellencies, the Emir Faisal and Abdullah approved the League of Nations decisions. At different points in history, Emir Faisal, in an agreement with Weitzman, agreed to support the Zionist claim on both sides of the Jordan river and later Abdullah, agreed with Churchill to support the Zionist claim to the territory from the Jordan river to the Mediterranean, including Judea and Samaria and Gaza, and the Golan Heights. The Supreme Council did not want to approve the final borders of Palestine on both sides of the Jordan until they had the approval of Emir Feisal –see Professor Gauthier re: minutes of San Remo Conference

12. All rights emanating from the three international treaties were approved by the League of Nations and inherited by the United Nations. They did not expire. The United Nations had no right to vary them.

The UN has no right to pass a resolution which ran contrary to an existing earlier decision/ resolution on its books.
The UN or Britain are not sovereigns and had no right to change borders at its pleasure.

The same Supreme Council that drew the borders for Iraq Syria and Lebanon, gave Israel the right of to its borders from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. This was approved by the League, its members Britain, France, Japan and Italy. They have no right to vary that which they had approved.

14. The General Assembly does not have the right to create enforceable resolutions or borders. So even if the Arabs had accepted the Green Line, these borders would not have been legally enforceable.

15. - The Partition Plan only demarcated the cease fire lines. It had no binding legal force;

- It was not approved by the Arabs. In order for the Green Line to have had any sort of legal significance that approval would have been necessary at the very least;
- The General Assembly has no power to change borders. Therefore its decision or advice was insignificant from a legal perspective.

-The UN has no power to vary an existing valid international treaty which the League of Nations - its predecessor - had approved. (Res Judicata). The UN inherited from the League of Nations the granting to Israel of the lands between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.

-The UN has no power to draw new agreements which run contrary to existing valid International Agreements or treaties which it had inherited from its predecessor, the League of Nations.

- No borders decided by the San Remo Conference and approved by the League of Nations, save those of Israel were ever challenged or changed;

- In 1923 Britain - the Mandatory and Trustee of the Palestine Mandate of 1922, and of the British American Convention of 1924 - contrary to the explicit terms of the Mandate, ceded the Golan to Syria. (See “From Time Immemorial, Pg—236″);

“This treaty which was concluded by the principal powers, in affect, as representative of the League of Nations, is binding on the League, particularly after it approved it. The League cannot therefore change the mandate provisions. (Nor, of course, does the Mandatory have that right)” (*1651 pg 404) Gauthier

Significant precedents:

1. The Vienna decision on treaties: According to Howard Grief:

Rights gained from Mandates don’t cease at the expiration of the Mandate

The principle of law that rights once granted or recognized under a treaty or other legal instrument do not expire with the expiration of that treaty or instrument is now codified in article 70(1)(b) of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (the Treaty on Treaties). This article states that “unless the treaty otherwise provides or the parties otherwise agree, the termination of a treaty… does not affect any right, obligation or legal situation of the parties created through the execution of the treaty prior to its termination”.

As a result, Jewish rights to Palestine and the Land of Israel remain in full force today under international law.

The South Africa decision on Mandates — Basically says the same thing –Rights gained by a country through a mandate don’t expire at the expiration of the mandate. (Professor Gauthier)

Article 80 of The UN charter—No right gained by a country through a mandate will expire as a result of the expiration of the mandate.

Augustus

Lindsay - Hezbollah's infrastructure in the 2nd Lebanese war included an enormous rocket arsenal (more than 20,000), all as a result of
the help given by Iran and Syria
which had turned a guerrilla terrorist organization into an advanced military infrastructure in Lebanon. And since that war those countries have continued to help Hezbollah rehabilitate its military capabilities (in direct
contravention of Res.1701). In whatever way you try to challenge Israel's response, and for whatever reason, it is a plain fact that Hezbollah used
Lebanese civilians as human shields, and their extensive infrastructure was positioned and hidden by Hezbolloah in populated areas. And from within those towns and villages
deliberate rocket attacks were directed against civilian targets in Israel. That strategy
is not only the characteristic of the warfare waged against the state of Israel by Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations, but also against the entire international community in this 21st Century.
By siding with these fanatics out of a perceived mistaken perception that Israel somehow uses disproportionate force against a weaker foe, you, and others, are today's fifth columnists in a war against the axis of evil.

Dave M

It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if at some point in the coming years, all of this support for Islamic extremism will provoke an international incident. Let's suppose the U.K. is successfully used as a platform by extremists to launch an attack on either Russia, Israel or the U.S.? What would be the reaction? In the case of America, you can only imagine even the Obama administration would run out of patience but probably be more tactful than Israel or Russia in demands to sort it out. The Russians have already sent bombers into out airspace on previous occasions and part of that was linked to the shelter of Chechnyan extremists in London.
The trouble is politicians over here seem incapable of stopping the growth of extremist groups as it's now become so advanced. So, it would seem that sooner or later the scales will tip. If the Londonistan situation begins to endanger the security of other countries, I think then we will see something done about it. One thing's for sure, the Americans, Russians and Israelis already have intelligence operating within our borders with a view to keeping track of the extremists.

Trumpeldor

@Lindsay,

San Remo clauses are so overpowering that I am not even sure Bibi is entitled to negotiate over borders since the authority over the WHOLE Palestinian Mandate has been awarded to....the Jewish People .

Linda Smith

Marcella (6 Sep 11.49am) falsely asserts
“HAMAS are presented in the west as suicidal global jihadis. This is inaccurate”

Instead of making ignorant false statements, I suggest Marcella reads the genocidal HAMAS Charter,, available online, and also Andrew Bostom’s factually based article “Imam Feisal Rauf and the Genocidal Hamas Covenant”
http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2010/08/25/imam-feisal-rauf-and-the-genocidal-hamas-covenant/

phil

Marcella
September 6th, 2010 11:49am Resistance does not include slaughtering innocent women and children on their own streets ,as your heroes did the other day -they are cowards and murderers with a desperate desire not to have peace with Israel ,so your description only serves to demean those of the Palestinians who are working to make a better life for all in the region.

KateA

sleeping dolls
September 4th, 2010 10:38am

"Could you give some examples of these extremely scary "settlements" in the UK?"

Try reading:
http://www.civitas.org.uk/press/prcs91.php

"Most reports on sharia courts cite five, working in London, Manchester, Bradford, Birmingham and Nuneaton. However, in his research for this report, [Dr] Denis MacEoin has uncovered at least 85, operating largely out of mosques."

Lindsay

Trumpeldor,
I do recognise that the Mandate Power was authorised by the League of Nations to allow European Jews to settle in Palestine (although why anyone considered it to have this power is another very interesting question). I am asking you what you think follows. I think it is an axiom in law that the intentions of the parties as expressed in the contemporary legal documents are paramount and no retrospective interpretation by such as Mr. Belman, however learned, can trump them. Go study the Mandates as ratified by the League of Nations and the travaux leading up to their ratification and you will find a much more complicated picture. (It is not clear why he places so much weight on discussions and agreements with the US, which was not a member of the League of Nations.) I quite agree that the UN was the successor organisation to the League of Nations and was bound by the terms laid down by it for the Mandates (although it is still a mystery why its authority was deemed such as to allow it to ignore the rights of the inhabitants of territories for which it was in effect trustee). It is the fact that the UN recognised itslef as successor to the Leaghe of Nationa that explains why many UN officials (and US officials) were very doubtful that the partition proposal was legal. The Muslim states requested that the question be put to the International Court of Justice. It is regrettable that it was not.

(Another footnote to show that things are more complicated than you appear to believe: read the proviso Faisal attached to the agreement with Weizman.)

C.Gee

Trumpeldor:

But, as I am sure that you will be told in some detail (with citations and quotes) by those who are morally outraged that Jews should benefit from Great Power politics, all that makes no difference to International Law, as set forth in UN General Assembly resolutions, UN committee findings, International Court of Human Rights, the court of public opinion, Professor Khalidi's treatise on the right to resistance, Edward Said's critique of orientalism, NGO reports, the Lancet and the customary and traditional Jewish Exception clause imputed to any treaty, statute or universal declaration and which by extension overrides ex post facto bills of attainder in the case of the Jewish State.

When understood in this legal context, "Mandatory" has a technical definition by which it should be understood in the sense of "Voluntary" or "Old Hat".

Lindsay

"phil
September 6th, 2010 4:33pm
Marcella
September 6th, 2010 11:49am Resistance does not include slaughtering innocent women and children on their own streets ,as your heroes..."

- You remain resolutely ignorant of what Israel inflicts on the population of the occupied territories. Such ignorance is presumably necessary to allow your self-righteousness free rein.

phil

C.Gee
September 6th, 2010 5:53pm I believe that some of the legal opinions produced here by the extraordinary gathering of lawyers who represent the "international community" can be found amongst the ravings of DEREK AND CLIVE and can be found on utube by putting in that duo through your browser ,I am not allowed here to tell you who are being referred to in their conversations, but I am sure you will get the gist-may Dudley and Peter rest in peace ,they made more sense than some of those who entertain us here .:)

Marcella

After 9/11 Ariel Sharon forever the opportunist tried to include the conflict with Palestine in George Bush war on terror. That meant referring to Palestinians as muslims and equating violent resistance to occupation and groups such as HAMAS identical to Al qaeda. This served the purpose of getting the green light from the US in his violent excesses in the 2nd Intifada. It was also used in the propaganda war to frame Israel as victims and in the frontline of the war on terror. The subtext being the conflict being about religion rather than land.
HAMAS are presented as genocidal maniacs who want to kill all jews and their crude charter from 1988 is often quoted. The reality is HAMAS claim all the land from the Jordan to the Med as do the the religious jews in the settler community, both are prepared to use violence to achieve their goals.
While all political violence is ugly it is important to note HAMAS brutal though they are never operate outside the occupied teritories or Israel and their rise has been due to the corruption in Fatah and the vacuum of not having a political solution
One other thought. The one size fits all agenda in relation to Islamic extremism which the Pro Israeli lobby has adopted, prevents a proper ,rational analysis of the current threat presented globally from radical Islam

Drakken

Lindsey, I really don't know how to get you to understand the reality on the ground. It is so simple my dear, you are not a citizen of the world holding hands and singing kumbaya. You are a citizen of the country you are from. If you side with the barbaric savages that makes you complicit and a collabrator to the enemies of the West. There is no middle ground any longer. So what is it going to be ?

sleeping dolls

Kate A
The "settlements" in the UK described by AY were "sources of crime, mob violence, suicide bombings, roadside bombs, airline terror plots" and are about to become sources of "mortar fire and road ambushes"

As I'm sure you're aware, your link makes no mention of these.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Marcella
"September 6th, 2010 11:49am
In response To John Rosevalt.at 8:15.
My point is Arafat and the PLO were demonized then by the extremists in jerusalem, much in the same way HAMAS is today."

You seem to be implying that you need to be an extremist to "demonise" Hamas. If so, you are quite wrong. All you need to be is someone who doesn't believe in an Islamic State, stoning women, murdering gays and throwing your own people off the tops of buildings etc.

"HAMAS are presented in the west as suicidal global jihadis. This is inaccurate."

Indeed it is worse. Would you want to live under the regime of Hamas? Is there anything about a fundamentalist islamic regime that gets your 'liberal" juices flowing?

"They are the latest group that represent Palestinan nationalism and violent resistance to occupation."

Not the latest, perhaps, but be that as it may. You are right but if you are implying, thereby, that
its notion of "occupation" is what most Western humanitarian's, nationalists etc would think it to be, you are quite wrong. Hamas and Hezbollah - like Ahmedinejad - believe that all lands once conquered by Mohamed and his heirs - in their Imperial surge across the world - which are now in the hands of "non-believers" - are "occupied lands". This puts the issues/cause/fight in a very different light.

'The likelihood of an agreement without them in the talks is slim.
As Yitkak ( break their Bones) Rabin said , you only get peace by talking to your enemies."

Again..You are right, of course...but the situation, alas, is even more challenging that sitting down with Hamas. There many spoiler of Peace in the region - most of them nutty fundamentalists. I doubt Ahmedinjad and his proxies in Lebanaon will be too happy with a Hamas settling down to a peace deal - based on 242 or even a return to Partition Lines of 181. This all redhering stuff as you and any responsible student of this subject should know. It mere crassness to believe otherwise, flying in the face of 100 years of scrupulously documented history..unless you belong to the Flat Earth Society..

sleeping dolls

Phil: OMG - I loved Derek and Clive! Does this mean we have something in common?

John Holland

Augustus- thanks for your response, but it had very little to do with my question.
Laying the blame for everything on one clearly defined enemy is satisfying, but, obviously, simplistic. The Right needs to accept their part of the blame for the rise of Islamism.

Linda Smith

I see Marcella’s still at it: “While all political violence is ugly it is important to note HAMAS brutal though they are never operate outside the occupied territories or Israel….”

It is important to note that HAMAS is a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood which operates globally.

Don't let facts get in the way, Marcella, they might choke you.

Marcella

In response to John Rosevalt @7:18
HAMAS are Sunni Arab and are spirtually and ideologically closer to Saudi Arabia rather than Iran. Their funding is also mainly from the Saudis approx $14 millon dollars compared to $2 million from Iran.
When Khalid Mishal seeks counsel on stategy is first stop is always Riyadh not Tehran.
Understandbly the right wing media in the west down play this link as the case for war with Iran is built.

Lindsay

"Drakken
September 6th, 2010 6:45pm
Lindsey, I really don't know how to get you to understand the reality on the ground."

I suspect reality has come up and hit you (all unrecognised) more than once. It is not unknown for head trauma to cause character change, in this instance uncontrollable aggression. Useful in a grunt or squaddie on the field of battle, no doubt, but otherwise a liability.

Lindsay

C. Gee

" traditional Jewish Exception clause imputed to any treaty, statute or universal declaration and which by extension overrides ex post facto bills of attainder in the case of the Jewish State."

What? I mean...What? shome mishtake shurely?

C.Gee

Trumpledor:

Re Lindsay @ 6.40. Her comment is Exhibit A to my case.

Augustus

Marcella can't stand having her Hamas heroes described as 'genocidal maniacs', and possibly thinks naively that, given time, Hamas will moderate
its political wing. But this is
to forget the reality that Hamas
is completely supported by Iran.
And this is more than just ideological support, but involves large injections of cash, weapons, and training. In exchange for that Iran requires a decisive influence in Hamas affairs. Thus, Hamas' rule in Gaza is in reality far less powerful than many may think. And if Marcella thinks that Hamas, by any stroke of the imagination, could develope 'a political solution', she should
remember the totalitarian nature of the ideolgy in question: Every action is subject to the ultimate goal, the creation of Islamic rule in the whole of the Palestinian territories (including Israel).
That means education, religion,
art, everything must fall under that principle. The best solution Hamas would ever offer the Jews would be Dhimmi status
as second class citizens. Hamas has on more than one occasion proposed a Hudna (armistice), which often includes the right of return of all refugees and their descendants, as well as the release of all Palestinian prisoners. It would then, according to such terms, be up to the next generation to decide whether to resume the armed conflict. And what would happen during this period of peace? Just as Hezbollah amassed
20,000 rockets in six years, Hamas could prepare for a future
conflict unhindered and build up a formidable arsenal. And what reason is there to believe that Hamas wouldn't do that given the facts?

phil

sleeping dolls
September 6th, 2010 7:22p-Was I mistaken I thought we already had .I hope I am a citizen of the world with a sense of humour and a care for all the victims of this never ending problem .Something indeed that is never apparent from the few who post here with no wish to see an end to it .I am told I cannot name names,lest it be seen as ad hominem attacks , but it easy to see who they are anyhow .Keep an open mind SD ,all is not what it appears .

phil

Lindsay
September 6th, 2010 6:02pm -Please be good enough not to address me ,I have no wish to hear either your uncouth views of me nor your twisted visions of the problems that so many of us would like to help resolve. .It is more than obvious that you have no such wish ,so you will understand why I see you a as total waste of our time. So many intelligent and knowledgeable people here have tried to enlighten you ,but that is an impossible task ,it is not stupidity as you obviously have a brain ,just an immovable hatred that pervades all that you write ,so as I said leave me out ,I am bored with you .

phil

Drakken the lady appears to have given a fine analysis of the problem but sadly?picked on the wrong person -a look in the mirror might help her.:)

""
Lindsay
September 6th, 2010 9:25pm

"Drakken
September 6th, 2010 6:45pm
Lindsey, I really don't know how to get you to understand the reality on the ground."

I suspect reality has come up and hit you (all unrecognised) more than once. It is not unknown for head trauma to cause character change, in this instance uncontrollable aggression. Useful in a grunt or squaddie on the field of battle, no doubt, but otherwise a liability.""

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lindsay believes Israel to be illegitimate.

She believes, therefore, it has no right exist.

She purports to believe that she is a rigorous upholder of 'rights'.

In the case of the Arab-Israeli conflict, she recognises only Arab and moslem rights.

According to her credo, the murder of civilians is totally justified. Hamas was right to massacare civilians the other day.

She also believes Hamas was right because , if nothing else, it acted out of revenge for what Israel has done to those Hamas represents. Like the jews, she's an eye-for-an-eye kind gal.

Lyndsay has done here forensic property searches. She knows who "owned" what land in the region over the last 2 hundred years plus. She infers from this scrupulous work, that the Arab moslems of Hamastan have the "right" to a sovereign state but no Jews allowed and no Jews allowed a sovereign state either.

In the name of the upholding of property rights, Lyndsay condones the killing of civilians and the Hamas Charter - a rabidly anti semitic, racist, Islamo-fascist document.
In the name of the support for property "rights", Lyndsay also supports the Iranian regime and Hezbollah.

One can only imagine that she supported The Grand Mufti's dream of a Final Solution of the Jewish Question, also - all in the name of the upholding of property "rights".

One really has to wonder what moral planet this woman is on. What is this woman's ideology she is outraged that writers here do not support?

Lyndsay looks terribly so many crippled, has been Left wingersdeprately searching for anything to bring their ideology back from the grave. Anything goes, if only this can be achieved.

Should we support Islamo fascist societies merely on the same, basis on which Lyndsay supports it..or perhaps Lyndsay will shed light on the reasons for her support of the kind of totalitarian intolerance and brutality that anyone with an inking of genuine notion of Western Humanitarian thought would abhor...

..of course she wont, because in Lyndsay's world, anything goes as long as it isn't jewish/Israel or American...Absolutely anything.

Lyndsay makes no attempt whatsoever to give us insight into whether or not she has any awareness of what her position against Israel leads her to support. Perhaps she finds somethin g in the hamas Charter which appeals to her moral sense. If so, it would be interesting to hear what it is. Perhaps there is something about the stoning of womend and the murder of gays which finds worthy of her approval. if so, Lyndsay, let's hear it from you. Let's here what it is abnbout all Moslem socities in the Middle east which you find so worthy of your support and such a felcitous basis for vilification of israel.

Hams has no shame in coming out. Nor should you, Lyndsay. Come on, let's hear it: "I'm an Islamo-Fascist masquerading as some kind of Western liberal and I'm proud of it!!"

...then you can join the next Hams unit out to murder pregnant women and feel proud, too...

martinR

All this seemingly endless chatter in comments sections here and other sites. It will not change anything, decisions are made elsewhere that will change the reality we all live in regardless how much people bicker and bitch on-line.

To even begin to make your views heard it will have to be on the street, face to face with those you fear. They are already there waiting for you all! Go on, I dare you.

Trumpeldor

@Lindsay,

Should you just admit that Judea Samaria status (5000 km2) is murky or disputed, you would make a good step forward .

Lindsay

JOHN ROOSEVELT
September 6th, 2010 10:56pm
What a silly rant.

Marcella

In response to Linda Smith.
HAMAS are not my hero's. I was trying to provide some balanced analysis amid the hysteria and mis-information.
I actually believe in the two state solution which judging by some of the comments on this thread a lot of the apologists for Israel and their violent excesses do.

Lindsay

Trumpeldor
September 7th, 2010 9:18am
The International Court of Justice (many of whose judges, incidentally, are good friends of Israel) gave as its unequivocal opinion that the West Bank is occupied territory. What are the grounds for thinking this murky? What are the grounds for disputing it? You would take a significant step towards understanding the position of the Palestinians if you were to stop relying on a version of history that is simply propaganda. All I said was that the situation is more complicated than the propaganda allows.

Dave M

"I actually believe in the two state solution which judging by some of the comments on this thread a lot of the apologists for Israel and their violent excesses do."

Many Israel supporters also would go along with the two State solution. I would also support it but sadly the honest truth is it's not likely to succeed. The Chinese often remark that Russia was like their Big Brother before liberals in America and Europe started to push for political reform via Gorbachev. The result was catastrophic for Russia's superpower status and even internal security. Fortunately Russia managed to regain some of its economic/military clout but now China is Russia's Big Brother.
In other words if Israel listens too much to western liberals, I doubt it will help matters at all.

Trumpeldor

@Lindsay,

We are circling around.....
Read number 9 on my post .
"9. The significance of the above (see #8) is that no decision made by The US or Britain, may be in conflict with the terms of the Mandate or the Anglo American Convention. France, Italy and Japan sat on the San Remo Supreme Council - along with the US and Britain - approving the San Remo decision. After the Supreme Council approved the San Remo decision , the resolution was further approved by the League of Nations and its 51 members. This resolution became a binding international Treaty. The Treaty became Res Judicata. Consequently all the above noted countries are bound by their own approval. Thus they are prevented from changing their approval without Israel’s consent.

I think it is explicit enough
Peace will come when all arabs will be transferred,east of the Jordan River .It was a final point

Linda Smith

Now, now, Marcella - whether you or I “actually believe in the two state solution” is neither here nor there, as we are not parties to the negotiations - I take it you are neither Israeli nor “Palestinian”?

If you would care to study the balanced analysis derived from the facts on the ground, you will learn that neither Fatah nor Hamas “actually believe in the two state solution.

For today’s homework I suggest you acquaint yourself with the unambiguous utterances of Fatah and Hamas, denying the existence or legitimacy of an Israeli Jewish State reported regularly on Palestinian Media Watch. (some attention to the correct use of the apostrophe would also not go amiss).

Marcella

In response to Linda Smith.
What Israel do you wish they would recognize? the 1948 one or 1967 or the ever increasing colonized West Bank one? also why should they recognize a Jewish state that oppresses its minority citizens ( See the Or comission for details)

Lindsay

Trumpeldor
September 7th, 2010 12:46pm
This is utterly wrong. Nothing in the Mandate granted by the League of Nations gifted Palestine west of the Jordan to Jewish settlers.

The detail of the history (which is NOT what Zionist propaganda makes it out to be) is secondary to peace.

The International Court of Justice has ruled unequivocally on how things now stand in law.

The Palestinians have acknowledged that Israel exists and accept (what they have no way of changing) that Israel exists in the territory within the Green Line, even although much of this territory was acquired by military conquest, thus illegally.

What they and the international community other than the US ask is that Israel recognise a Palestinian state in the West Bank (with direct links to Gaza)territory which Israel is now busy expropriating (again after military conquest). This is territory that no international body gifted to Israel or denied to Palestinians. That it was annexed by Jordan and then by Israel in no way changes this.

That Israel is unwilling suggests that it seeks a "peace" that looks,not like what you propose (which I think is supported only by a minority), but like every plan put forward by Israel since Oslo, namely a series of discrete ghettoes surrounded by Israeli settlements, military bases, roads, and fences. This is clearly unjust. It is motivated simply by the desire to acquire more land and resources.

Linda Smith

In response to Marcella, Fatah and Hamaz won’t recognise any Israel, wherever its borders are finalized.

Recognition of a State, Jewish or otherwise, does not depend on whether or not it oppresses its citizens. On your criteria, we would not recognise most of the States in the world - particularly the Islamic ones.

You appear to be oblivious of the fact that the Christians have fled the hospitality of the Palestinian Authority, while Israel is besieged by non-Jewish African refugees. Funny that black non-Jewish Africans choose "racist" Israel as a bolthole.

PS “comission” has 2 s’s.

Linda Smith

Lindsay says “The Palestinians have acknowledged that Israel exists and accept (what they have no way of changing) that Israel exists in the territory within the Green Line…. ”

No they don’t. Read the truth on Palestinian Media Watch. For example reported on 29 August 2010

‘ “PA TV to kids: Israeli cities
Haifa, Jaffa, Lod, Ramle, Acre
are all "occupied cities"

Official Palestinian Authority TV continues to teach children that all of Israel is "occupied Palestine." A repeating message on the children's show The Best Home, currently broadcast three times a week during the month of Ramadan, is that all Israeli cities are "occupied" Palestinian cities.‘

http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=2962

phil

JOHN ROOSEVELT
September 6th, 2010 10:56pm
John , In spite of linsdays claim that your post was a rant -it was of course the truth , a state that when confronted with it she resorts to running for the hills ,we are giving to much credence to her ,and when if ever she shows that she is interested in peace and justice for all she will be worthy of a debate -you are wasting your time as sadly you have with others of the same mindset ,but I do admire your effort as you well know .Try my mindset which is ,do not give a damn for the criticism of those that would never help me or us when we really needed it .,nor do I care what opinions they have of me .

C.Gee

Lindsay:

Would you please cite the law which proclaims that it is illegal to acquire territory by military conquest? As far as I am aware, law merely states that title to territory gained in a defensive war is better than title gained in an aggressive war. In the case of Israel, it has better title to the West Bank, which it gained in a defensive war. Jordan gained it in an aggressive war. The Palestinians (as Arabs without affiliation to any sovereign) have no claim to title of any sort, except by way of Israel ceding control over portions of the territory to some quasi-entity of Arabs called "Palestinians". That entity's sovereignty is built upon international recognition of the PLO as the "sole, legitimate representative" of something called the Palestinian people, identifiable only as Arabs who live or had lived (even for as short a time as a few days) within certain boundaries within the Mandate. Legal? Legitimate? Just?

Does that law you rely on "grandfather" the territory gained through military conquest (including portions of the Ottoman Empire after WW1) globally and throughout history up to its own passing? What is the cut-off date?

How does your law suggest it be enforced and by whom?

The International Court of Justice (more properly, of Politics) may be as unequivocal as it likes. It is the judicial arm of the United Nations. Its opinion on the legality of the security fence being built in the territories on the West Bank is advisory - as Israel did not submit to the jurisdiction of the court. The opinion was sought by the UN general assembly at the instigation of the Palestinians. Many learned jurists have shredded the opinion, and many have argued that the court had no basis upon which to assert its jurisdiction.

Was the ICJ asked to issue an opinion on the "Zionism is Racism" declaration?

Perhaps you have another garbled "axiom" of legal interpretation which suggests that political opinion if expressed through the United Nations is supreme law.

You say:

"This is territory that no international body gifted to Israel or denied to Palestinians. That it was annexed by Jordan and then by Israel in no way changes this."

Love the "or denied" legal basis for Palestinian claims (despite the Arab's vehement refusal of partition!) ! The territory is in sovereignty limbo. What has housing development by Jews or Arabs on legally acquired land in this limbo-land got to do with the eventual establishment of sovereignty over it? Upon what legal basis should territory be gifted to a sovereign without a certain population - Jews?

The UN and individual nations, including Israel, are prepared to "gift" some land to the "Palestinians" - based on no legal foundation whatsoever except Israel's willingness to cede control under certain security conditions. Resolution 242 simply recognizes the negotiability of the territorial concession to Arab interlocutors (the original Arab belligerents are no longer at the table, though they breathe on Abbas's neck) in post-war settlements. The war is ongoing.

Lindsay

C. Gee
This is so garbled I can't begin to know where to start. There may, for all I can discern, be a good argument hidden in there.

Perhaps I can leave you to look at the Covenenant of the League of Nations, the Kellog-Briand Pact, the Stimson Doctrine, the United Nations Charter, the 1949 4th Geneva Convention, the 1969 Vienna Convention, the 1970 Declaration...If need be, I can suggest some textbooks on international law. Then perhaps you could restate your case.

I would be interested to know who are these learned jurists who have "shredded" the advisory opinion of the ICJ and questioned its jurisdiction.

Marcella

In response To Linda Smith @4:53pm
Not sure what hilighting my spelling mistakes adds to the debate other than revealing your need to humiliate and perhaps running pretty low on counter arguments to my points

C.Gee

Lindsay:

Your supplying of a reading list does not establish a) that you have read the items on it, even though the list is short, or
b) that if you have read them, you read them with understanding, or
c) that the items would prove your side of the argument, or
d) that I have not read them, or
e) not read more than those items, or
f) would agree with your views if I had read those items.

Your responses on this thread do not suggest you are someone trained in law or legal reasoning or for whom reading comes easily. Well tried, though.

AY

love this roundelay with "international law".

As far as terrorists are in charge in Arabic Palestine, any mentioning of "law" is irrelevant. This is bloody jungle, talking lawyerish is ridiculous, the same as to lecture crocodiles on priority of human rights.

Germany became responsible of international law AFTER Nazis were defeated, but before - there was only one letter in the law on genocidal psychos, and it is everyone's duty and obligation to confront and overpower them, to prevent further murders.

Is it inertia? hey people awake - your opponents imply that there is some "law" vindicating these killers..

Linda Smith

In response to Marcella @ 8:39pm - commission has 2 “m”s. I observe that you have responded only to my comment on spelling. Evidently you are running pretty low on counter arguments to my substantive points demolishing your fatuous “antizionist” jibes.

You related to Rachel on the Blair thread by any chance?

David, Thailand

the closer the croc gets to the Left hand, the more they feed it.

Andrei

C Gee
"Love the "or denied" legal basis for Palestinian claims"

- I understand what is said, what is your problem with it? Any title Israel would have to West Bank rest on League of Nations Mandate. It gives no such title. In same way, only such Mandate could say (however bizarre) inhabitants of West Bank have no right to live there. It does not say this. Inhabitants have right to self-determination as said in League of Nations and UN charter which I think Israel signed (but maybe not?)

C.Gee
September 7th, 2010 10:30pm
- This is very easy way to not tell us what you base statement on that acquisition of territory by war is legal. Since it is not and is clearly denied in interntaional law Israel signed up to the onus is on you to give good reason to think otherwise - not attempt to dismiss question with (failed) effort at intellectual superiority "I am more clever than you, I do not need to give reasons for what I say, it must just be accepted". With this you make yourself ridiculous.

phil

C.Gee
September 7th, 2010 10:30pm -congratulations ,you have totally demolished lindsay and in a most forensic way .She will be back of course because that is what she does ,but I doubt that she will retain any credence.

phil

C,GEE ,could I ask a favour please ,can you let me have a translation of the Andrei post@
Andrei
September 8th, 2010 9:39am
it is totally beyond my ability to understand ,and in any case he is unable to reply to any questions I pose him :)

Augustus

Andrei - you post drivel (and too much of it). But for your information, Jewish roots are sunk very deep in the hill country of Judea and Samaria. The term 'West Bank' was coined
when the Hashemite kingdom renamed the area the West Bank of the Jordan in order to falsify a claim to the land. And historically Israel's right to this land is even greater than its claim to the land within its pre-1967 borders. Abraham settled in Hebron, not Haifa, all of the Patriarchs are buried in the Cave of Machpellah, the Ark of the Covenant came to rest in Shiloh,
not Tel Aviv, and King David hailed from Bethlehem, not Herzliya. What is more, for 1500
years the West Bank was part of a thriving Jewish nation. The very word 'Jew' comes from part of the region, Judea. Except for brief periods of expulsion,
from the Hebrews entry into the Promised Land under Joshua to the present, i.e. almost 4000 years, There was a continuous Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria.

Lindsay

C Gee
"Your responses on this thread do not suggest you are someone trained in law or legal reasoning..." That you feel able to make this judgement implies that you do have the requisite training. This may explain your skill in avoiding telling us whether you have read the documents and how you manage to interpret them as allowing the acquisition of territory by war. I take it you are relying on the likes of Stephen Schwebel, Yehuda Blum and Elihu Lauterpracht. They are very distinguished jurists (although other equally distinguished jurists have voiced regret that they put their undoubted legal talents at the service of a political cause in the form of polemics). Their argument rests on a premiss that historical research is making more an more dificult and another that the consensus in the legal world rejects - they say that Israel's wars of 1948 and 1967 were defensive and that wars of defense allow acquisition of land where wars of aggression do not. The claim that Israel's wars were defensive is difficult to maintain. The notion that wars of defense permit the acquisition of territory is a far-fetched interpretation of law which I would like to see you elucidate and defend. You may do better that the learned jurists, or, then again, you may not. Their efforts are both tortuous in their logic and transparent in their tendentiousness - no mean feat. I urge others to read them and the commentaries on them. I urge them then to compare and contrast with the account in any standard text in international law.

(I recall, C. Gee, that your legal training allowed you to describe armed robbery as a legal transfer of property rights. It will take a similar virtuousity to transform the learned jurists' brief for Israel into an objective opinion of the law.)

John Holland

John Roosevelt - Lindsay was right about one thing; your diatribe (Sept 6 10:56) was indeed a rant, a ludicrously over-heated imputation of offensive beliefs never stated by him/her in anything I have read.
Why can't you argue the point instead of vilifying an imaginary hate figure who delights in the massacre of innocent babies? I know most web-sites foster an absurdly Manichaean sense of absolute right and wrong, but that was embarrassing.

Lindsay

C Gee
And, to anticipate another possible argument, to call the teritory "terra nullia" will not do either.

Augustus
And nor is ancient history relevant in this context, nor is the continuous presence of small communities of Jews. The League of Nations appointed Great Britain, in effect as trustee, to look after the interests of the inhabitants of Palestine, not of a minority of the inhabitants, whether or not their ancient ancestors lived in the land since time immemorial, as was the case with many Jews and many Christians and Muslims. Nor did the Mandate allow Great Britain to let in European settlers to the detriment of the inhabitants.

Augustus

Lindsay - How comforting the self-appointed cause of championing the rise of the Palestinian people from the ash heap of history, and how liberating the image of the Jew as oppressor, and the State of Israel as the subjugatory power in your Utopian world order that
would, at any cost, be cleansed
of destructive, national, religious, and historical passions. And your reference to 'European settlers' belies no doubt an underlying desire not to recognize Israel as a Jewish state at all, just like the PA now appears to have regurgitated in the present efforts to come to terms.

Adam B.

Interesting, Lindsay, that you seem so content in defending imperialism, British imperialism in this case, to justify your case that Jews should be denied entry to palestine - you pay special attention to European Jews (presumably those who had just survived the Holocaust and had nowhere to go) - whilst you ignore the greater number of Jews ethnically cleansed from Arab lands.

You deal in fantasy. Perhapds you can explain why a "Palestinian" is defined as someone who hd lived for two years in mandate Palestine, and why refugee status is deemed hereditary, alone of all refugees on earth.

Linda Smith

Ho, Ho, tucked away in Lindsay’s diatribe at 3:19pm, this little gem “The claim that Israel’s wars were defensive is difficult to maintain.”

1948 not defensive!! The Partition Plan declared Britain’s withdrawal date as August 1948. The Jews had no choice but to declare a State and fight for their lives against a genocidal foe. Pull the other one. Lindsay!

By the way, half the Jews in Israel are of Middle Eastern, not European origin. The creation of their own Jewish State enabled the Jews of the fledgling State of Israel to rescue their brethren in 1949 in an airlift from the Yemen where they had suffered 1400 years under the yoke of Islam, forced to go barefoot amongst other Koranic inspired humiliations and persecutions.

Reason enough to justify a Jewish State in the Middle East for anyone honestly interested in "universal human rights".

C.Gee

Andrei:

Any attempt at intellectual superiority on my part, whether failed or successful, is entirely in the mind of the beholder.

The mistake I make is to assume that the history and relevant law and some, at least, of the vast amounts of legal and political commentary on both sides, has been read and understood.

There is no umpire to decide who wins the debate, though people look to versions of history and interpretations of law and the opinion of UN judges which suit their own views and clothe them in disinterested authority. Prejudice finds rationales.

The Israel/Arab dispute has founded an industry of historians and lawyers who delegitimize Israel on standards (moral and legal) that apply to no other nations, least of all her enemies. Yardsticks and criteria , rules of interpretation and due process, are all cut to fit .

The history of Israel is impugned as the Jewish narrative, while the Palestinian narrative is offered not just as a competing narrative, but the truth.

The wars that Israel fought - which would, in terms of the law of war ( lower case, I leave it to you to research the treatises) give it better title to the land than its adversaries. As you can see from Lindsay's recent post, history and precedent are being arranged to deny that these wars were defensive - and thereby to weaken Israel's strength of title relative to the Arabs'.

At what point does the "law" of war - to the victor the spoils - not apply? The award of the Mandate itself was a spoil of war. The answer may lie in the complications of Nuremberg trials and the birth of human rights law. From the outrage of what happened to the Jews emerged a system of principles articulated by international institutions on majoritarian procedures under which the Jews alone, as a nation-state, are, ironically, unable to benefit. This system of principles is not law, but politics. ( Yes, this is my opinion. There is no point in simply lining up authorities on one side against the authorities on the other. )

But "it beat its enemies in war" is an argument for Israel that is just one part of the structure of legitimacy which anti-Zionist are determined to bring down. There are battering rams even against the definition of "Jew" - it being important to some to deny a blood link in the European Jew settlers to the people who lived in ancient Israel and their descendants who never left. Every term in the Mandate is jiggered: the right to self-determination of the Jews was not meant as a right to a nation-state and by non sequitur, this lack of a right justifies the self-determination rights of Arabs to set up another Arab nation-state within the territorial boundaries of the Mandate.

One might think that the fact that the Jews beat the Arab armies could be adduced by pro-Zionists to moot the wrangling over Mandate meaning. Despite the claims making a legal case for war by the Arabs, the legal argument became moot with the decision to wage war, which was won by the Jews. They set up a sovereign state, recognized by the world except for their enemies. (As a sub-industry, many historians are now busy arranging facts to show that the Arab military strength was weaker, and the Jewish military advantage was greater, than any Jewish narrative of bravery against huge odds would have the world believe.)

The perfidies of the Great Powers against the Jews and the Arabs are very interesting to read, but no readings, interpretations, structuralist takedowns of orientalism, "human rights" legal scholarship, or Palestinian archeology are going to create a history that denies Israel its legitimacy without an army to ram it down Israel's throat.

How outrageous that those non-indigenous, dregs of Europe and Asian converts, those shysters who twisted the terms of the Mandate to self-determine a state where they were not wanted, those illegal immigrants who defied laws barring entry into Mandate territory, those belligerents who fought a war as a pretext to masacre indigenous Arabs and to send them into exile and steal their land, those thieving, greedy settlers who spread themselves all over Mandate territory, those colonialists and cultural imperialists who corrupted Arab Arcadia into squalid capitalist modernity - yes, those so-called "Jews", those racist Zionists - how outrageous that they continue to fight for the nasty myth they call Israel, when they haven't a legal leg to stand on!

Lindsay

C.Gee
September 8th, 2010 10:53pm
This is disappointing but not altogether surprising. You loftily dismiss what I say, implying you have the superior expertise in history and law to supply a killing refutation. When invited to do so, you don't. Instead you revert to luxuriating in righteous indignation without intellectual content. The natural conclusion is that you were merely bluffing.

phil

C.Gee
September 8th, 2010 10:53pm -BRAVO-even though your efforts will be shredded by a lady that rewrites history and the law :)

Andrei

C. Gee
I tried to answer last night - so many comments do not appear!

Why this and not legal reasoning you seemed to promise? Did you think threat enough and you will not be required to make good on it? I think it would be education for many of us if you give us these "shredding" arguments.

Linda and Adam,
Jewish forces attacked territory not for them in proposed partition weeks before Arab states intervened to defend Palestinians. I think Jewish settlers had every right to defend their own in this territory whoever it was proposed for - but this is very much not all Jewish forces did. I think it time Israel's supporters stopped relying on account of 1947-8 that is not complete and not completely accurate. Go and look at detail of planning and execution of campaign of Jewish forces.

Andrei

Adam and Linda
I also wanted to say, I think argument about Jewish settlers referred to Mandate period. It was not about refugees from Holocaust. (Main people who could have helped Jews from Germany in 1930s are US and Britain itself - it is they who failed the Jews.) Jewish refugees from persecution in Arab states sought refuge in Israel after 1948 I think. Part of argument that talked of post-1948 was about acquisition of territory by war, not about make-up of settlers.

Harold

C.Gee
September 8th, 2010 10:53pm
There are more words and less spittle in your rants than in those of John Roosevelt, but paragraph for paragraph I am not sure there is any more sense.

Your second paragraph appears to belie your first - it is condescending. You yourself have not met the challenge to demonstrate your own reading or understanding of the history or the law or the commentary on either.

Your third paragraph says, "Prejudice finds rationales." Very true, but the purpose of scholarship in law as in history is surely to try to see beyond the rationales to the reasons. As far as I can see, you have been challenged with an interpretation backed by reasoning and evidence, and have replied with an ever more heated repetition of dogma. Your cause surely deserves better, and you hinted you were able to provide it.

Your fourth paragraph may be true, or may not, but does not address those trying to judge Israel by the same standards they apply elsewhere.

The same applies to your fifth paragraph.

Your sixth paragraph raises the question, What "law of war" do you mean? - the law that Israel won, so Israel can take what it wants? This is merely to assert what has to be proved, that territory can be acquired in war or that Israel is exempt from international law as it evolved in the twentieth century.

Your seventh paragraph acknowledges that international law has evolved over time. What you appear to argue is that the law as it has evolved is used uniquely against Israel, which is simply false. I agree with you that international law is inextricably bound up with history (it has evolved) and politics (it is formed and deformed by those in power). For example, the US feels able to ignore international law when it suits (e.g. in Nicaragua) and Israel can likewise get away with it, as the client of the US. The evolution of international law has been towards the development of laws applied equally to all. Whether it will ever approach that ideal in the face of the arrogance of power is of course doubtful (whether the power in question is the US, China, Russia, India or warlords in some land no-one can be bothered about so long as the natural resource exports continue, like the Congo...), but there should at least be a concerted effort to hold power to account.

Your eighth paragraph contains two unrelated points. The link between those of Jewish faith around the world and the Holy Land I have not seen denied anywhere. It is included, of course, in the Mandate. The purpose of the Mandate, in the charmingly paternalistic manner of imperialists down the ages, was to prepare the inhabitants of the Mandate territory for self-government. The Mandate was a form of trust, with the Mandate power not sovereign but trustee. The clauses about the Jewish National Home, added to the Mandate for Palestine, were explicitly not to interfere with the self-determination of the inhabitants at the time the Mandate came into effect. The potential for the two responsibilities to prove mutually incompatible is clear, and is the source of the conflict between the Jewish settlers and the inhabitants of Palestine. There is no non sequitur, simply promises that cannot both be fulfilled (if we assume that the "Jewish national home" referred to a state, as the drafters of the Balfour letter did, but the drafters of the League of Nations Mandate did not).

Your ninth paragraph seems simply to assume what has to be proved, again.

As to your tenth paragraph: If history, law etc. produce evidence and arguments that show the Zionist version to be wrong, there is no point trying to ram it down anyone's throat. The accumulation of evidence will persuade those with open minds. Those with closed minds will not be persuaded. The hope has to be that the more a balanced view spreads, the less acceptable it will become to use a false version of history to justify persecuting the Palestinians.

Your final paragraph does not contribute to your argument.

Augustus

Lindsay - "And nor is ancient history relevant..."

How about more recent history?
Throughout the Mandate era periods of peaceful coexistence
far exceeded those of violent eruptions, and the latter were the work of only a very small fraction of Palestinian Arabs.
But unfortunately for both Jews and Arabs the hope and wishes of ordinary people were not taken into account. That's because where there are authoritarian communities hostile to the notion of civil society, or liberal democracy, they rarely are. During that period also, far more ordinary Arabs were murdered by their alleged brother betters than any Jews or Britishers. They had committed the crime of 'selling Palestine' to the Jews. All this is mentioned in Colonial Office files which became available in 2008. In fact one Arab gang leader, styling himself 'leader of Jaffa, Ramallah, and Lydda Area'
wrote as much in 1938 to a fellow gang leader: "Our rebellion has become a rebellion against the villages and not one against the Government or the Jews."

There is no opinion in the international community, legal or otherwise, which can claim with any justification whatsoever, any 'original sin' of Israel's founding, or make any case that Jews deliberately
and agressively dispossessed Palestine of its native inhabitants, or made victims of them.

C.Gee

Lindsay and Andrei:

My reply may have got lost in the ether. If this is a repeat - I apologize.

Suffice it to say:

There is no "killing argument". There is war.

Am I a lawyer? Would you believe me if I said I were? Would you feel vindicated if I were to tell you I am a modern major general?

There is very little point in conducting legal arguments - so easily googled, cut and pasted - in this anonymous forum of self-appointed experts who make up rules as expedient - for example, the rule that if a commenter fails to answer a question then he admits defeat, or proves his ignorance. The debate, indeed the war, has gone on precisely because there is no Solomon to do justice and supply the last word.

At the risk of sounding "lofty", I know the dance very well.

For authority on my views, please see Prof. X's rebuttal of Prof. Y's analysis of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which you can find a reference to in the footnote to the special brief of Sierra Leone to the ICJ in the matter of border guards. (No, don't bother - that was a bit of jest, another craven dodge).

I know you will tell me that Prof. X is a Jew, and an outlier from mainstream "standard" thinking and Prof. Z has demolished him in his Amnesty International Report.

One jurist's shredding is another jurist's toilet paper.

If this leaves you unsatisfied, may I suggest you simply give up in disgust? If I admit here and now to wanting to avoid a full-blown legal argument with either of you, perhaps I can save you the trouble of a last, scornful word? Unless, of course, it would afford you some pleasure. In which case, go right ahead...

Happy 5771. How time flies.

C.Gee

Harold:

Your final paragraph misses the point that my final paragraph said it all.

Tant pis. But thanks for taking the time to establish the futility a) of reasoned argument - whether or not supported by authority, or
b) of rising to the challenge of producing evidence and reasoning when one's interlocutor can recognize it at once as narrative and obfuscation.

Lindsay

C Gee tells us that there is no reasoning or authority can help us judge right and wrong. What does he then rest his judgement on? Blind prejudice? Or what? Or is this just an easy way out - it allows him to tell those who contradict him that they clearly know nothing of law or history, but at the same time avoid having to demonstrate any such knowledge himself. A great time saver no doubt, but, again: C Gee expresses very strong opinions, yet now tells us they have no basis in reason no foundation in authority...Shome mishtake shurely?

I am no expert on card games, but is this not what is called a busted flush?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

John Holland: I couldn't care less how embarrassed you are by what I say (and imagine, I thought "Manichean" was a kinda cigar tilI I read your post....).

Know this: what is VERY simple (and this may come as a relief to the world of unfathomable complexity your intellectual beacon - dearest Lyndsay - inhabits - is the fact that if Lyndsay and Harold,Andrei and you want peace then dont expect there to be a hint of it if your plan for it is based on some faux two state solution i.e one actually predicated on a "settlement" of the refugee problem which is a mere ruse ultimately to establish a uni state solution. It wont happen.

Whatever you think of the balance of justice in relations between the Jews and Moslems...and wherever your views emanate from - it is of absolutely no significance when it comes to moving away from war unless you accept israel as a Jewish stte which will not accede willingly to its own demise. Call israel "really weird, man", in this respect..or keep taking the chemicals. Who cares. It's how it is.

Israel - whatever you or I may think - will continue to fight to survive. Live with it. Encourage Hamas to keep up the good fight, if you want. Apologise by default or design for the theocratic totalitarianism of the moslem states of the Middle East, if you like. Apologise by default or design for the societies which would - by popular demand - stone women and murder gays, if you like. Believe Israel started all the wars in its history and wants nothing more - and has ever wanted nthing more - than to murder Arabs and the Moslem. None of it maters a whit except in that you would have to be some redefinition of idiotic not to realise that this view will guarantee that war will continue... and that those you support will continue to die and live in a culture of brutality and violence.

Or shut up...which, if that came to pass, of course would prove that there is a God, after all....so that those who want peace can be encouraged in their negotiations to that end.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Oh gosh, I am curious to know if our moral crusader - Harold - gets his moral juices flowing only as a result of Israel's "persecution" of the Palestinians. Does he get equally out of sorts by the behaviour of any other state or non state actor in the Middle East?

Come on, Harold. Let's hear a little more of your other cherished causes, if indeed there are any. Any other "baddies" out there (let's stick to the region, for now) you cant bear? Israel the only one?

The Luddite

Many on the left do not support Islamofascism, in any shape or form. Some on the political-left, sadly do. But, they no longer follow a political viewpoint but have developed a mental illness. Socialism is NOT!! compatible with medieval religious intolerance.

Harold

I hope some of you managed to stay the course long enough to enjoy the bathos of C Gee deflating. Strident opinions. Shrill criticism of opponents. Yet when challenged to defend what he says, he suddenly turns all post-modernist - there are only "narratives". No rationality. No evidence. No authority. Only blind prejudice and brute force - the arguments of bullies and bigots through the ages. At least there is now no pretence of being right.

phil

How long more will this ridiculous discussion continue .C GEE,Trumpeldor ,JR et al have explained to the Israeli detractors ad nauseam the various laws that pertain in the area with full back ups to their opinions ,and are immediately insulted by those that so obviously know less .
-----------------------------
Whether they are right or wrong, the opposition never have managed to tell us why the "refugees" who hate the Jews so much ,wish to live amongst them ,particularly when the Jews have been persecuted and removed from the Arab lands .The matter of Jerusalem has been discussed many times and its relative unimportance to Muslims ,ieven when they were offered half ,it was rejected, it is of course just another method of causing arguments .To any person who really cares about the future for both Israelis and Arabs it should be patently obvious that the peace process must be supported and that a two state solution must be the way forward .Economic success ,good education and health,along with boundaries ,water and trade for a new Palestine state will flow with that peace and the expertise of the Israeli nation together with the backing of many other nations will ensure that it happens .
------------------------
Those that continue to sow the seeds of hatred thereby ensuring the failure of the peace process will bear a heavy burden of guilt.We have all just seen the" heroic" action of hamas who are intent on stopping any progress. The past is the past and all the clever remarks here that never seem to end will offer nothing for the future of the unfortunate children of both peoples .History is to read and learn from ,to understand ones mistakes ,the future is what is more important ,so may I ask please cut out the negativity and start on constructive suggestions of how to go forward -I ask this more in hope than expectation because thread after thread we see the detractors criticising and arguing and never even once do they offer a viable solution ,they just come and go with different names and alias -never a word of criticism for hamas ,hesbollah dinnerjacket and the cowardly murderers of innocent civilians ,nor a word of praise for anything good that the Israelis may do .It is time for them to reflect on the harm they do to those they support ,yes those that will never get a chance of a decent life until this enmity which is being stoked up will abate .

Augustus

Phil - I admire very much what you have to say. You are, of course, quite right, the ping-pong being played here by the armchair bigots 'in the interests of the Palestinians'
trying to press a campus legal logic on everyone is quite frankly puerile. Heaven knows what they have against Jewish settlers of the past! And if anyone trys to argue with them, you are told in no uncertain manner that, either you haven't answered them to their complete
satisfaction, or (as Harold has done) a paragraph by paragraph
refutation (how uneducated is that!).

The truth really is that the enemy is not the religion of Islam as such, but those Muslims
who want, and wanted in the past, to make Islam the enemy by waging war on others, and very much including war on other Muslims, through propaganda, organized gangs, violence, and most importantly
the seizure of state power, in order to install totalitarian regimes and wage war on everyone else, including non-
Islamist Muslim governments. That is the way it has been, and whether or not these specific groups are violent at any particular time or place is less important than the goals they are striving to achieve with all the strategies and tactics at their command. And it must not be forgotten that the battle against the West, or Israel, is generally of less significance than the greater battle among Muslims themselves for control over interpreting Islam as well as the quest for political control.

phil

Augustus
September 10th, 2010 1:04pm Thanks for the kind words ,do you not find it strange that those who come here to berate us are probably neither Palestinian nor Muslim ?,probably sitting in comfort, far from any action pontificating with selections from web sites which are incredibly biased .I cannot compete with the education shown here by C.Gee and others whom I much admire ,but I can offer some common sense and compassion which seems a long way from what is being sent here by the "oppo"They have no price to pay for the trouble they cause The Israelis and Palestinians certainly do

--- shana tovah tikvotenu if that is appropriate.

Linda Smith

Augustus you say “The truth really is that the enemy is not the religion of Islam as such, but those Muslims who want, and wanted in the past, to make Islam the enemy by waging war on others…..
"
Your false dichotomy suggests you know nothing about the religion of Islam, so I recommend you take a decko at Robert Spencer’s Qur’an Commentary. http://www.jihadwatch.org/quran-commentary.html

phil

Linda Smith
September 10th, 2010 3:37pm For heavens sake Linda leave Augustus alone ,you are not the font of all knowledge and insulting someone who posts like him does you no credit at all .We may not agree with a lot of what you say but we do not queue up to humiliate you, and he does make a lot more sense than you .

Augustus

Linda Smith - I understand your point, but I was in fact referring to Islam (not Islamism) as a functioning religion which in itself, could not function in the world purely as a warring ideology. It is the dire Islamist enemies, often mistaken as friends merely because they don't show violent tendencies at present, or because they may say soothing words to Western audiences but wait in the wings to execute some radical cause,
who are the real enemy of the free world. The moderate
peaceful Muslims (of which there are many) are shunned as inauthentic because they don't agree with the radicals. And those radicals use valid interpretations from the Koran, just as those who oppose them use valid interpretations. As Geert Wilders, the Dutch politician, and someone whom I much admire, has said: "I've nothing against Muslims or Islam
itself." It is this conflict which is the true dichotomy of the set-up, and which would be sufficient to contaminate any religion you care to name. Israel itself has many critics
who are not Muslims (witness this blog), and some of the harshest ones are Jewish. A good example of this inter-religious battle is Iran. First the post-revolutionary repression, reaching a peak in a series of stolen elections and regime violence against fellow innocent Muslims, who now hate the very revolutionaries who they had firstly so passionately welcomed. Another example of the twisted logic of the Islamist is when the imam of the 'Ground Zero Mosque' told an audience that the West had more Muslim blood on its hands than Muslims had killed innocent Westerners. In other words, if a soldier kills a Taliban in self-defence that is equivalent to terrorists killing
civilians on buses or subways.
And if people like that were really sincere in their moderate beliefs they would first denounce the murdering Muslims, and choose the democratic side in the struggle.
If they refuse to take sides one cannot expect them to be moderate in their behaviour towards the West.

Adam B.

Andrei, the Arabs attacked Jews in land that was destined to become the Jewish state - and long before 1948.

So what's your point?

Andrei

Like adam on subject of pulling out intestines of commando and C Gee on acquisition of territory by war etc. - they sneer and then they duck out. If arguments agaisnt what they say are so weak, why do they not demolish them? If arguments for what they say so strong, why do they never share them with us? Why do they always shy away and retreat trying to sound as lofty and superior as they can? And why does self-respect not encourage them to do better?

John Roosevelt and Linda have one idea each and just repeat again and again whatever, with different insults for variety.

Augustus and Phil - well...It is good editor gives the latter special protection.

Augustus

Andrei - I'm sure C.Gee or Adam B. can answer you better than I can, but as you include me in your antagonism I would like to say that it is true that there have been religious zealots of all faiths through the ages. This is true of some Zionists, as it is of Christians (witness the tiny Christian group in Florida we'd never heard of before). But the viciousness with which, first Jewish settlers, and later the state of
Israel, was confronted, not by mainstream Arab inhabitants, but by lofty Muslim leaders, cannot be defended. Any sane person knows that sensible and practical assimilation is possible (it happened all the time in America), and that the only extreme alienation which disrupted the whole caboodle for the best part of a century
came from the continuous pool of
Muslim discord.

phil

Andrei
September 11th, 2010 5:03pm that is the best joke this year -if you only knew some of the things I would like to say to you ,but it is me who gets moderated ,probably for the best ;),because you write the most rubbish I have ever seen here and you do not reply to difficult questions . Stop complaining and learn some sense ,you may find yourself better dealt with.

Andrei

Augustus

You say Adam and C gee can answer. Perhaps. That is what I complain about - they never do answer - they sneer and then they retreat into superior silence - but they never do answer.

It is delusion that most of inhabitants welcomed settlers and Israel - why should they? If you were Palestinian (or as you like to say "Palestinian") how could you possibly see them as anything other than interlopers? On "assimilation" read reports from authorities on each bout of rioting and violence and causes, including provocation of Zionists and refusal to recognise "Palestinians" reasonable concerns about settlers who make no secret they want to become majority and make own state in land of "Palestinians" - from early 20 century till 1940s. From 1947-8 on read more balanced history of wars and expropriations than I think you have till now. I suspect you have read recently Efraim Karsh ridiculous book.

Phil
Trust me, I answered your "difficult" questions. I think editor aware you want to feel part of discussion even although not up to it.

Linda Smith

Augustus, religious Muslims believe that the Koran is literally God’s word. Is a moderate Muslim one who has torn out half the pages?

Augustus

Andrei - So you refute the fact that the Zionist movement had from the start been amenable to existence in a Jewish state of a substantial Arab minority that would participate, (and this is important) ON AN EQUAL FOOTING throughout all sectors of the country's public life? And when it came to the drafting of a constitution, Arabs and Jews were to be united
in sharing, both the prerogatives, and the duties, of statehood. You cannot just dismiss these things and try to convince people so offhandedly that 'Zionists refused to recognize Palestinians." You have quite simply been brainwashed into confusing a militant wing of the Zionist movement with the mainsteam.

Andrei

Augustus
I should have said also, which is perhaps what you meant, that there is much evidence many "Palestinians" wanted just to get on with their life if they were allowed to as had for generations under different rulers - this is what they wanted up to and beyond 1948 (when about 7000 took up arms, which leaves how many hundred thousands who didn't?) - until mostly transferred or subjugated. But perhaps this is not quite what you had in mind.

Augustus

Linda - IMO a moderate Muslim is someone who doesn't falsely use the banner of Islam to engage in destructive acts. And how one third of humanity uses or abuses the Koran is really down to what their priorities are.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Andrei: "John Roosevelt and Linda have one idea each and just repeat again and again whatever, with different insults for variety"

Phew, Andrei. They should call you the Demolition Man!

What is the "one idea" you speak of, Andrei?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Andrei: "I should have said also, which is perhaps what you meant, that there is much evidence many "Palestinians" wanted just to get on with their life if they were allowed to"

Really? Please cite your sources.

"as had for generations under different rulers - this is what they wanted up to and beyond 1948 (when about 7000 took up arms, which leaves how many hundred thousands who didn't?) - until mostly transferred or subjugated. But perhaps this is not quite what you had in mind."

Wow, there has to be Nobel prize for History in here somewhere! Please allow us all a little access to your authoritative sources for these "facts", Andrei. You are a revelation!

phil

Andrei----"-Phil
Trust me, I answered your "difficult" questions. I think editor aware you want to feel part of discussion even although not up to it." ---
-------
There lies the problem Andrei I do not trust you ,you say I want to enter the discussion,what discussion ,you do not have one ,you just assert facts which are untrue ,so there is no discussion just an argument ,and forgive me I would rather read the learned opinions given here by many other than you ,and nameless others ,who seem only able to prolong the agony of both peoples in order to preen themselves with the nonsensical facts they produce .You may have noted that almost every supporter of Israel here are looking for a way forward to enhance the lives of all,not so the detractors ,strife is all they seem to want and sadly so far they are winning and the poor people are losing .

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "Shrill criticism of opponents. Yet when challenged to defend what he says, he suddenly turns all post-modernist - there are only "narratives". No rationality. No evidence. No authority. Only blind prejudice and brute force - the arguments of bullies and bigots through the ages. At least there is now no pretence of being right."

...but in contrast to that "ignoramus" and "bigot", C Gee, our General of the Army of the Righteous - dear Harold - has his finger firmly on the historical "truth" pulse:))

The Truth, I think, according to Harold, is that the history of post WW1in the Middle East was defined by a fundamentally illegitimate prevailing power - the Mandate and the League of Nations. These were the love children of imperialism...and, according to Harold, this imperialism was clearly the love child of the Devil. It's a no no. All the follows from it, therefore, is a no no.

-- of course, this is true, for Harold, only when it comes to any argument he may brew up with his coven, against Zionism and the Jews of Palestine.

When it comes to his support for the "inhabitants" of Palestine (as opposed to the "settlers" - and note his careful, and thoroughly manipulative, use of nomenclature throughout all his posts, he will grasp at the law which is rooted in the institutions of international organisation, born of this imperialism, whenever it suits - cynically abandoning any consistency in his argument at all.

Harold sees the conflict of the Middle East in terms of the "settler" and the "inhabitants", the "occupier" and the "persecuted occupied". This - well, let us dare say, Manichean - view of the conflict, he anchors firmly in developments at least from 1917 and Balfour's billet doux to them bad ol' Jewish folk.

What, I wonder, is the real ideological framework within which Harold couches his world view? He see what came after WW1 - in terms of institutions and source of International Law - as imperialist. He therefore discounts it. He thereby maintains - albeit too often implicitly - that the Jews could have no just cause in Palestine and Zionism was/is, by definition, illegitimate.

Harold seems to believe that "self_determination" is ok. Clearly, he has a notion of what is acceptable self determination and what is not. We know that Jewish self determination for Harold is not but Arab and moslem is. Maybe this doesn't apply to some Arab and moslem self determination, however. maybe, when pushed, he might think that Jordan or Saudi Arabia or Syria are not states which are the true fruits of self-determination...but let's not go there, it will just confuse us more...

Why? What is it that makes one kind of self determination kosher (if you will pardon the expression...we could say Hallal, if you prefer) for Harold and the other not? Clearly he is too keen an intellect to make this all a matter of just a numbers and dates game e.g. "my 500 people lived here for 234 years compared with your 436 for 498 years"etc. No, we have to suspect it is something else...

...and, in the name of the "self determination" - which our Harold wants us to assume is morally acceptable - that is, a principle that we are to assume embraces a digest of mores and social and political characteristics we should all want to uphold and support - he does what? Well, friends, our sanctimonious leader of the Good wants us to support those groups which unequivocally are nothing like the kind of societies Harold would like us to believe he is touting!

How can this be, Oh Lord? Harold, to be sure, isn't one of those on the Left who only fell out of love with Zionism after '67 when Israel became an "occupier" and an "oppressor". Perhaps he is one of those lofty leftist spirits who supported the Soviet Pact with the Nazis or other regimes - from Cuba through to Ethiopia under Colonel Mengistu to Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge etc. No, no, that can't be right. After all, we know what happened to Human Rights there, don't we? And we know that Harold is vilifying Israel because they are the bastion of the contravention of these rights - at least in the Middle East (though one suspects, judging by his virulent objection to this state, might extend that to the whole world!).

No, it's something else....it must be. It must be some notion of liberal democratic capitalism, I guess...or one that is married with a New Leftism...one that posits the view that Human Rights can and should be realised via alliances with entities which reflect the very antithesis of Human Rights - unless Harold has another definition of these rights and is just trying to hoodwink us all. In other words, it's the ideology of the grand paradox: we are to support totalitarianism in the name of democracy; murder in the name of peace; Hitler and the Final Solution in the name of freedom and self determination (just like our friends the grand Mufti and so many Arabs and Moslems during the 30's and 40's, in particular) and so on...No act of violence should be condemned - whatever it is - if it is one against the perceived "foe". Pregnant women, children...murdering gays, censorship, political persecution...it's all just dandy... for a Harold ...if it suits his lofty purpose...the stimulating of his ideological member, so to speak, in some form of moralistic self-abuse he wants us to view as genuine love-making and the potential gestation of world which we should all be prepared to die for.

Harold, come clean, mate. Stop the sophistry. Stop the propagandistic deceit. Tell us what you really believe in. How do you see this Brave New World of ther Middle East under your moral guidance and what means do you think justifies you intended ends. Stop the distraction of anchoring the debate in demonisation of Israel, your attempts to cement the argument in the demi world of circularity and the archaeology of obfuscation - scraping deeper and deeper at the wrong "dig of History".. Just tell us what you feel we need to buy into here? Are we saying: give the Palestinians a state; ideally one which would be inherited from the Jewish state and that one would disappear; no matter if this one becomes a theocratic dictatorship along with the other Arab and moslem ones of the region? Is this what all your pedantry is to lead us to? All this based on some implicit political and social "ideology" which conflates some notion of democracy (alla Hamas election) with totalitarianism (alla how Hamas now rules those who voted for it - like our Man in Teheran - Ahmedinejad)? You know, anything goes as long as the people "choose"?

Messy, innit, Harold? When you start the unbundling process, it's a little scary where you're at.

..but come out, come out, wherever you are..a little catharsis never hurt anyone.

AY

Andrei, Harold, could you please answer unequivocally only two simple questions -

1) Do you condemn Hamas as terrorist organization

2) Do you support right of Jews to live in a national state in Palestine

If you answer yes, one can continue arguing on details. Otherwise, one can just safely neglect by your further opinions.

Andrei

JOHN ROOSEVELT
September 11th, 2010 11:11pm
You are right - I am not historian so not wise to make such sweeping summary of research of other people. But on this question as on many diary of Ben Gurion interesting place to start (see December 1947). Israel has recently made embargo on many state documents longer by decades - but still there is enough available.

Here is other good quotation, from July 1948 when Israel faced existential threat from overwhelming Arab armies - "The weak link in the Arab coalition is Lebanon. Muslim rule is artificial and easy to undermine. A Christian state should be established whose southern border would be the Litani (Ariel Sharon not first to try this). We shall sign a treaty with it, By breaking the power of the Legion and bombing Amman, we shall finish off Transjordan and then Syria will fall. If Egypt still dares to fight - we shall bomb Port Said, Alexandra and Cairo..."

Israel should by now be mature enough state for honest history not myths. Zionists thought 78% of Palestine minimum they need for Jewish state. Zionists thought Jewish state in 78% of Palestine need Jewish majority. Given partition proposal and demographics drastic action needed. Palestinians resist loss of land - of course they do. Zionsist know they are stronger. Result? War of Independance for Israel results in 78% of Palestine and very few Palestinians. For Palestinians - Nakba.

Your single idea? - that Hamas, Hiszballah, Iran only purpose destruction of Israel. So no peace signed by them to be trusted. So no peace. Israel willing for peace but enemies make it impossible. So Israel has to carry on taking land and killing Arabs. So Israel right and Israel gets what wants.

Andrei

AY
September 12th, 2010 12:12pm
Your questions are not so simple. But yes I condemn Hamas terrorism as means of resistance. And citizens of Israel have same rights to live in peace as citizens of any other state. Do you condemn Israel's wanton killing and maiming of civilians? And do you think Palestinians have right to self-determination in what is left of Palestine, that is West Bank and Gaza with free access between them? Then perhaps further discussion. If not, this is hypocrisy.

Harold

JOHN ROOSEVELT
September 12th, 2010 10:53am
We have been through this many times before: Why denounce what hasn't been said? You end up carried away by your own righteous indignation to such heights of folly as:

" Perhaps he is one of those lofty leftist spirits who supported the Soviet Pact with the Nazis"

" it's the ideology of the grand paradox: we are to support totalitarianism in the name of democracy; murder in the name of peace; Hitler and the Final Solution in the name of freedom and self determination"

Who can take you seriously? How can you take yourself seriously?

I will try to explain (yet again) just one point. The only reason to trawl through the history again is because those who support Israel in its treatment of the Palestinians present a propagandist version of history which they seem to think justifies Israel's every action. A more realistic understanding of the past might make them more amenable to compromise.

The League of Nations was indeed an imperialist sham: it assumed that "advanced" nations had some right to "look after" less advanced or primitive peoples. Nevertheless, it is the foundation on which the UN rests, and the UN is the foundation on which current international law rests. We have to start somewhere, and I think that means we have to start with the League of Nations - and in the question of Palestine, with the Mandate (since in relinquishing sovereignty, the Turks signed it over to the League of Nations in trust for the inhabitants until such time as they were deemed ready to express their self-determination.) The trouble with starting with the Mandate is that Israel's advocates have been very successful in promoting a false interpretation of it as simply an endorsement of the Balfour Declaration.

Does a more accurate understanding of the Mandate and of the UN partition proposal give any reason to assert that Israel should not now be accorded the same rights and any other state? Of course no, as I have told you many times.

The rest of what you say, as I take it, is best not taken seriously. It is simply a rather poisonous jeu d'esprit. (The inside of your skull would be a very sad place if you truly intended it seriously.)

Linda Smith

Andrei thinks “citizens of Israel have same rights to live in peace as citizens of any other state.” He also thinks “Palestinians have right to self-determination in what is left of Palestine, that is West Bank and Gaza with free access between them“.

Unfortunately, the “Palestinians” agree with the second proposition, but not the first. Andrei is disingenuous in denying what the “Palestinans” themselves assert.

Harold

Just to be clear: Did the Mandate represent an undertaking to the Zionists to allow them a "national home" in Palestine? Yes. Did it bind the Mandate power to help the Zionists create a state in Palestine? No.

Did the UN partition resolution give the Zionists a legal claim to create their own state within the partition territory? I think there is a good case that it did. Of course, it is not clear-cut. As I understand it, the partition resolution required the Security Council to take the necessary measures, but there was not the majority in the Security Council to do so. In the circumstances, the Security Council therefore moved to introduce a temporary UN trusteeship, in an attempt to prevent war. (Unlike C Gee, I am no lawyer, so I do not pretend to know where this leaves the Zionists' claim - as I say, it seems to me as a layman that they must still have had a very strong claim. The UDI was surely perfectly understandable in the circumstances)

Assuming the Zionists did have a claim, and once they had declared UDI, did this give them the right to resort to force? I doubt it. Clearly, the Jewish community had every right to defend its people from attack wherever they were in Palestine. And clearly it was reasonable to defend the territory they could argue they had been promised. This is not in dispute. But that is not the same as saying they had the right to take concerted action to drive Palestinians out of the territory assigned to the Zionists and out of the territory assigned to the Palestinians, as they very clearly did.

Does this mean Israel should not retain the territory it captured in 1948? I don't think anyone is seriously arguing this, not even Hamas. It should however make Israel ready to accommodate Palestinian claims to a state of their own, and do something in reparation for the expulsions, the wholesale expropriation of Palestinian land and property, and for the decades of discrimination against its own citizens just becasue they were "Arabs".

Linda Smith

Ooh, Harold, do you also think Jews have a right to claim compensation for the decades of discrimination against them in Arab States - just because they were Jews?

phil

Andrei
September 12th, 2010 1:03pm you are becoming even more unintelligble by the post-I do not know how anyone can understand anything you write -it is gobble de gook and still you cannot answer anything you are asked ,what on earth do you think you are doing here apart from wasting time ?

Linda Smith

Augustus re your post yesterday at 9:33pm. I guess you failed to follow my link to the Commentary on the Koran. If you had, you would understand the fundamental flaw in your supposition.

Here is another useful link. As I know from your posts that you do like facts, here is another useful link. I hope you will take a little time to visit it. http://www.jihadwatch.org/islam-101.html

Augustus

Harold - You speak of pro-Israeli propaganda, and you and Andrei have often voiced the notion than Israel is basically
founded on 'stolen land' of a disadvantaged and subsequent mass Palestinian refugee problem. But Palestinian leadership (with the exception of Jordan) have refused to provide equal rights to these
Palestinians, and even allow them settlement, quite simply for political ends. They have used a million or more souls as one huge charge against the state of Israel. And UNRWA have co-operated in this indictment strategy by continuously working
to avoid a permanent home solution for these people. And all the while everyone conveniently forgets that an equal amount of original Jewish refugees were driven with complete ruthlessness from Arab
states, many of whom were absorbed into Israel. No compensation was ever forthcoming for them. No UNRWA and no refugee camps came to their aid. And they had lost more worldly goods than all the Palestinians had. The whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict has laid bare one overriding fact: The UN is not a neutral
referee. It is unable to create a system in which countries which systematically abuse human rights can be brought to justice and put under pressure, and in which the UN can be seen to be neutral. The partitioning of regional blocks, power units like the Islamic Conference, the
use of the veto by powerful unsavoury regimes in the Security Council, make it impossible for the UN to operate
according to it's charter. Instead of condemning Israel for not listening to the UN, the world should insist that all countries, large and small, are treated equally.

Linda - I will take a look. Thanks.

Harold

Linda Smith
September 12th, 2010 2:36pm
It is a separate question, but, Yes, I do.

Linda Smith

No, Harold, the expulsions, the wholesale expropriation of Jewish land and property by Arab states are not a separate question - as the Arab states themselves stated at the time. They said they expelled Jews in retaliation for the creation of the State of Israel.

Adam B.

Andrei, how ironic that you, who accuses me of not answering, do not answer what I asked you. What is you point? You said Jews attacked Arabs in territory not assigned to them under the UN partition plan (and I stress that is just your claim). I point out to you that the Arabs attacked Jewish areas well before there was even a partition plan, and after the partition plan attacked all areas assigned to Jews. And in 1948 the Arabs attacked with 5 armies to drive the point home - no Jewish state, of any size - period.

So what point are you making?

Adam B.

Harold I like the way you make the sweeping statement that Hamas acccepts Israel within the 1948 ceasefire lines. On what basis do you make such a statement? hamas not only openly declares its intention to destroy the Jewish state, it mocks the very notion of negotiations and then contends that it is their goal to exterminate every Jew on earth. This is all in its charter.

On what evidence to you say they accept a Jewish state?

Adam B.

Harold, you may like to ponder why it is that 40% of Baghdad was Jewish within living memory of some, whilst not one single Jew resides in the whole of Iraq today. meanwhile, a fifth of Israel is Arab, with a rapidly growing population. The Arab populations in Judea and Samaria also continue to grow.

Tell me, who do you think has been more adept at ethnic cleansing?

Harold

Linda Smith
September 12th, 2010 10:34pm
The Palestinians of 1947-8 were not responsible for the actions of the states of Iraq, Egypt, Yemen etc. in the succeeding decade. A settlement between the Palestinians and Israel is not contingent on Israel's relations with Iraq, Egypt, Yemen etc. So, yes, they are separate.

I have read that the Zionists' own officials warned that the "transfer" of Palestinians would raise hostility to the Jewish communities in Arab countries and put them in jeopardy - which confirms your point that the expulsions were to a large extent a response to the treatment of the Palestinians (and to the slur and suspicion that these communities were somehow Zionists or a fifth column of some sort for what the Arabs looked on as an interloper working for the imperialists). To repeat, this is not the same as saying that restitution for the "transfer" has to be linked to restitution for the expulsions - the parties to the two proposed settlements are different.

I have also read comments by Ben Gurion and Weizmann to the effect that in the absence of high quality immigrants from Europe in sufficient numbers, and given the urgent need for manpower, Israel would have to look to the lesser human material to be found in Arab countries. Did Israel encourage the conditions for the Jewish communities to be expelled? It doesn't absolve the Arab states, whose guilt, as I understand it, is clear. But it does raise questions about the murkier parts of Israel's policies to increase its population. (When the official documents are finally released, it seems, any state that ever was turns out to be cynical to an extent its own citizens find difficult to credit.)

But I have strayed from your point: Clearly, the expulsion of Jews from Arab states was triggered by the creation of Israel and the manner in which it was done. This does not mean that reparations to the Palestinians (which would be part of a peace deal that would benefit both sides) should depend on Israel reaching agreement with other states on compensation for the expulsion of Jews and expropriation of their property.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold:"
Harold
September 12th, 2010 1:43pm

JOHN ROOSEVELT
September 12th, 2010 10:53am
We have been through this many times before: Why denounce what hasn't been said? You end up carried away by your own righteous indignation to such heights of folly as:

" Perhaps he is one of those lofty leftist spirits who supported the Soviet Pact with the Nazis"

" it's the ideology of the grand paradox: we are to support totalitarianism in the name of democracy; murder in the name of peace; Hitler and the Final Solution in the name of freedom and self determination"

Who can take you seriously? How can you take yourself seriously?

I will try to explain (yet again) just one point. The only reason to trawl through the history again is because those who support Israel in its treatment of the Palestinians present a propagandist version of history which they seem to think justifies Israel's every action. A more realistic understanding of the past might make them more amenable to compromise.

The League of Nations was indeed an imperialist sham: it assumed that "advanced" nations had some right to "look after" less advanced or primitive peoples. Nevertheless, it is the foundation on which the UN rests, and the UN is the foundation on which current international law rests. We have to start somewhere, and I think that means we have to start with the League of Nations - and in the question of Palestine, with the Mandate (since in relinquishing sovereignty, the Turks signed it over to the League of Nations in trust for the inhabitants until such time as they were deemed ready to express their self-determination.) The trouble with starting with the Mandate is that Israel's advocates have been very successful in promoting a false interpretation of it as simply an endorsement of the Balfour Declaration.

Does a more accurate understanding of the Mandate and of the UN partition proposal give any reason to assert that Israel should not now be accorded the same rights and any other state? Of course no, as I have told you many times.

The rest of what you say, as I take it, is best not taken seriously. It is simply a rather poisonous jeu d'esprit. (The inside of your skull would be a very sad place if you truly intended it seriously.)"

Tip toe through the tulips, Harold...What an evasive answer. Come out! You pose as the flag waiver for justice. What is the justice you support? You talk of rights, compromise, better treatment for the Palestinians...but actually you end up supporting moslem fundamentalism and apologising for Arab and moslem totalitiarianism - all in its name of some carefully veiled notion of justice. You always end up talking about starting "somewhere"....but you you consistenly fail to adhere to the "somewhere" you want us to start with, once your argument falls off the cliff..If you, as I have said many times, want to adhere to the Law, let the negotiations play out within the Law..Right now, those you support - Hamas - only want to murder in order to prevent that. You either support that position or you dont. You cannot have it both ways - or, yyou can, but don't expect anyone to take you seriously.

Andrei: been at those dreaded websites again, have you? Palestiniansremebered.com, I guess. That you think it somehow delegitimises Israel to say that Ben Gurion was not happy with what he got out of the Partition Plan is silly in whatever language you try and express it. The incontravertible fact is that Jewish/Israeli side accepted it and the Arab/Palestinian side did not...and the Arab/Palestinian side rejected it not because it feared the Jews would not honour its terms but because they rejected the idea of a Jewish state, period.

You and your tap dancing mate, Harold, seem to think that something has changed. You want us all to sit here and believe that the Palestinian and Arab side actually accepts a Jewish state and if only Israel would get real about its history - re how it heinously manipulated Post WW1 neo imperialism to persecute the Arabs and Pslestinians - it would be overwhelmed by contrition and the profound desire to compromise and love its enemies. You then believe that we should have confidence that Peace will reign and the Arabs and Palestinians will realise the kind of world that you berate Israel for not supporting - one of human rights for all and freedom and liberation for all. We know you both are experts bar none in the history of the region.

A bloody joke - the pair of you.

Andrei

Adm B
What I said was not difficult but your question seemed to avoid it. The Zionists I said had right of course to defend their communities wherever, but evidence is Zionists used this to cover concerted plan to achieve what they thought minimum need for state. Arab armies came to defence of Palestinians and only Egypt I think fought in territory UN proposed for Zionists.

Andrei

John Roosevelt

It has been asked why you use so much energy and indignation to denounce what no one has said.

Again you use what looks like deliberate ignorance of history and your One Idea to insist Israel can do no wrong and Palestinians have no rights.

Andrei

Augustus
September 11th, 2010 8:52pm
I do not know how I overlooked comment you made.

I think with respect it is you need to study Zionist thinking in bit more detail. But I do agree there was wide spectrum and thinking did change over time. But in Zionist community and in British government frequent observation that Zionists worked in total disregard of Arab population. I also think you should try to imagine yourself inhabitant of Palestine when settlers start to come and say we will be majority in this land and we will have a state that will be our state but do not worry you will be a permanent minority but with full and equal rights - would you say That is okay, you come in and makes yourself majority in my land I am happy to trust you - but where is this majority to live and who is to have villages and till land? I assume also you do not think how "Arab" citizens treated in Israel since 1948 is example of "equal footing and so on.

Augustus

Andrei - I am still studying your last post, but let me first be clear about one thing, well actually, two things: First, don't forget that in 1922
Britain had already divided up Palestine when TransJordan was created and de facto became an independent Arab State under Hashemite rule. Secondly, Without the Holocaust (loss of six million European Jews), the already established and growing Jewish community would have undoubtedly become very much greater by the time of Israel's founding, and would have had to accomodate far more (legitimate)
Jewish citizens. Thoughts to ponder.

Andrei

Augustus
September 13th, 2010 12:27pm
first point, TransJordan and what British did with it has nothing to do with inhabitants of Palestine west of Jordan (it is like saying England has made state in Ulster for Scottish people who live there, so people who live in Scotland must go there - I know my English history is not right but this is pretend example). Second point, when Britain and other great powers made Britain Mandate power, it was to act as trustee for population of Palestine and to do nothing against interests of population. To let in 11 million would raise question even more - imagine yourself inhabitant of Palestine and you are told, 11 million will come here and make their own state, but do not worry because they will look after your interests - it just makes no sense - however well-meaning more idealistic Zionists (and most Zionists had little interest in question of Arabs), proposition of Zionist majority and Zionist state in Palestine not consistent with interests of inhabitants and no reason why they should accept it other than reason which did prevail, that is, brute force of imperial power and brute force of Zionists.

To say it again, this is history. I do not say now that Israel is not state like any other and its citizens have same rights as citizens of any other state. I am saying acknowledge what the evidence tells us of history.

On question of Holocaust, which I am reluctant to talk about - if ask who let down European Jews in 1930s and again in war and after, I think main culprits Americans and British - Americans in particular had resources to help and it would benefit America so much if had vision to over-ride elctoral worries about racists in America. It is tragedy British and Americans in 20 century tried to divert immigrants from their shores. That is my opinion.

Linda Smith

Now look here, Harold, we’ve all been through this in great detail time and time again. The records and the evidence of the “Palestinian” Arabs themselves prove that most of the refugees “transferred” themselves at the behest of their own leaders, to get out of the way while the Jews were slaughtered, the others fled the war zone of their own accord.

For you to expect Israel to make restitution to those Palestinian Arabs who lost personal wealth as a result of a genocidal War declared on the nascent State of Israel by the Arab nations - without at the same time expecting those Arab nations to make restitution to Jews who also lost personal wealth as a consequence of that War, is yet more evidence of your bigotry. Of course, all the Jewish refugees were expelled and robbed by the Arab nations before any peace treaty was signed, so the c.900,000 Jewish refugees are all war refugees. The land they lost is estimated to be at least 4 times the area of Israel.

Linda Smith

Hey, Andrei, are you Russian? Seem to be if your name and strange grammar are anything to go by.

You're remarkably silent on the role of Russia in all this. What about the pogroms and the persecution of Jews under the communists, causing them all to flee.

phil

Andrei it seems has found my questions too forensic for him to answer if indeed it is him who writes at all !!.The unintelligible posts with the addition of the word "the" and the odd preposition read rather differently ,not always ,but it seems to me that many of his posts are being sent here, with accusations of course ,from an organisation well versed in English .Not the simplistic and uneducated words that they first appear to be .We lose lyndsay and Rippon and gain Andrei ,who will it be next from the bowels of the great Hes/Ham combine ,but watch out here comes Harold ,who knows maybe he writes them ,I do remember him jumping to Andrei,s defence recently .
-----------------
On the subject that Andrei gets so wrong 11M???? I will correct him -he will not reply of course .In the early years of the state, the Labour Zionist movement led by Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion dominated Israeli politics. These years were marked by an influx of Holocaust survivors and Jews from Arab lands, many of whom faced persecution in their original countries. I have many happy memories of Jewish Irraqi friends who were driven out with nothing and a girl friend whose family were thrown out of the Yemen .lived on Dizengoff as bakers before it changed forever-Ahuvah are you reading this ?:) --Consequently, the population of Israel rose from 800,000 to two million between 1948 and 1958,Andrei`s calculations like his accusations woefully wrong as usual Most arrived as refugees with no possessions and were housed in temporary camps known as ma'abarot; by 1952, over 200,000 immigrants were living in these tent cities.In 2010 the population had risen to just over seven and a half million of which more than one and a half million are Arabs -
--------------------------
Andrei can tell someone else how many Jews are living in Arab lands and how many have been compensated for their expulsion and losses -he will not need an abacus ,probably only his fingers .He or whoever is writing for him will find it very difficult to manipulate the figures I have just provided ,but who knows he has jumped through hoops before ,so we will wait with baited breath ,Anyone want a bet that he does not reply ?

Augustus

Andrei - I replied at length to your post of 1.43pm this afternoon, but this has not appeared. Without going through the whole history again I would say that my previous post only mentioned a 'what if' situation regarding the Holocaust. Of course you do know, don't you, that the Arabs had not only previously rejected the British 1922 division of Palestine in which the Jews found that they were only going to get 15% of the Mandate territory, but that they also rejected outright the 1947 UN partition plan which would have given the Palestinians their own country.
It seems that the right of the Jews to a homeland in Palestine
was rigorously opposed by Arabs,
even though the British had given the whole of Transjordan to the Hashemite family in 1922 as a sop because they had lost
Syria to the French and Saudi Arabia to ibn Saud.

Undoubtedly the Holcaust must have played a psychological role
in speedying up the decision to
create Israel, but whatever guilt the allies may have had regarding their complacent role
at the time, it cannot imply that any such decision was meant
to seriously inconvenience the
existing Arabs who dwelt there.

Andrei

Augustus
September 13th, 2010 6:29pm
I am sorry your reply did not appear. I would have better understood what you want to say. I know it is ridiculous of me to say this - my wife only corrects my English now and again - but I do not quite understand what you are saying here. Sorry.

I did understand that mention of Holocaust was as you say only "what if" - not to try to do justice to it which would be not possible here.I hope you understand my mention of Heydrich's 11 million in same sense. With my sometimes good sometimes not so good English I prefer to not say more on that subject. My point was that where settlers come from and what circumstances, for inhabitants of Palestine question is same - Why are we to accept in our land settler majority establishing settler state? Can you understand for inhabitants of Palestine "right" of Zionists to establish state in Palestine is puzzle - why would they not resist?

Remember also point I and others try to make. League of Nations mandate is to hold land in trust until inhabitants ready for "self-determination". Britain added in addition that Mandate should facilitate "Jewish National Home" in Palestine. But must not be to harm of inhabitants rights. Nothing about "this bit of land we give X and this bit we give Y". It was not land for Britain to give. Britain holds it only in trust. Same question with UN. UN took over from League responsibility for Mandate. Mandate is trust for inhabitants. If inhabitants reject what trustee proposes for them, is it legal for trustee to impose it by force? If Palestinians refuse partition which gives more of land to immigrants community (including best agriculture land) - immigrant community still very much minority - how does it give Zionists some special claim to be right, some special claim to any land conquered in civil war and in war with Arab states?

Linda
It is sad but Russian hatred of Jews was cause of refugees fleeing the "Pale", which made British politicians (some who do not like immigrnats and some who do not like immigrants who are Jews) to think of Holy Land as good way to divert them from Great Britain. After that Germans I think worse. Stalin hated Jews in old age - but they did not have chance to escape to West. Emigration to Israel I have heard as much to do with hope for prosperity as fear of persecution. So yes Russia had big part in history and also I think in politics today - I am sorry to say Russians often racists and when they move to Israel hate Arabs.

Adam B.

Andrei, you still haven't answered - what IS your point? What is your motive here? What is your grand conclusion?

And you are incorrect about Egypt being the only Arab entity to attack Jews in the area assigned to Jews in the Partition plan - the Palestinian Arabs did, both before and after the partition plan (and still do).

Adam B.

Harold gets awfully smug claiming that no-one answers him - yet I would point out that he has studiously avoided responding to the point I put to him.

Harold

Linda Smith,
I would be interested to know the source for your version of "transfer" as voluntary. Even Benny Morris has only one quibble with the expulsion at gunpoint, that Ben Gurion did not finish the job.

I do not think it bigotry to distinguish between the expulsion of Palestinians by Zionist forces at gunpoint and the expulsion/emigration to Israel, Europe and the Americas of the Jewish communities of Arab states in the following 10-15 years. Both deserve compensation for illegal expropriation. Each is a matter between different parties: Israel and the Palestinians, and the families of the Jewish emigres (with the help of Israel and the US) and the Arab states. It also seems to me unwise to postpone a peace settlement until it can be coordinated with a wholly separate case.

Adam B.
You ask for an answer, presumably to your question about Hamas, yet you surely know you have been answered on this precise question many times. This is merely the rhetoric of bluster and bluff. The way to find out whether Hamas is serious in its repeated signals that it will negotiate on the Green Line is to negotiate. If Israel can negotiate over ceasefires (the terms of which it never keeps) then it can negotiate on peace.

Augustus

Andrei - Yes, I understand your point, i.e. Wherever settlers come from, and whatever the circumstances are that brings them there, indigenees are liable to be hostile towards them. But in the case of Israel
and the run up to its final establishment there are surely
mitigating if not unique circumstances. These concerns were dealt with in a statement by Winston Churchill in 1922 when he made it clear that there was no intention to create a wholly Jewish Palestine
and that the terms of the Balfour Declaration was only contemplating a Jewish national home within a section of Palestine. He also went on to explain that, "During the last two or three generations the Jews have recreated in Palestine
a community now numbering 80,000
of whom about one quarter are farmers or workers upon the land. This community has its own political organs; an elected assembly for the direction of its domestic concerns; elected councils in towns; and an organization for the control of its schools."
This was already in 1922, so not exactly unestablished in the land of their forefathers.
The truth that emerges about the ordinary Arabs living in Palestine is that they actually favoured partition and were willing to live alongside the Jews because by this time (1947)
the ordinary folk mistrusted their leaders (as witnessed by the very few who joined the Arab Liberation Army), and it seems actually suspected that the other Arab states did not plan on an independent Palestinian state. So, you see, you have to be very careful looking back and using sweeping statements to the effect that settlers were regarded by all as alien invaders.

Linda Smith

Harold, the oral Arab testimonies that the majority of the Arabs fled at the behest of their leaders were included in a BBC TV programme a few years ago. The details went up on these threads when Ms Phillips wrote about the similar admission of Bir Zeit University. This was possibly about a year ago, but I can't remember when and I'm not spending all day searching for the references.

Your view that the Arab refugee claim for compensation and the Jewish refugee claim for compensation are separate negotiations is without merit:

"Some observers have suggested that the dual refugee situation should be understood as a “population exchange” – Arabs fled to Arab countries as Jews fled to the Jewish country, both as a result of the 1948 war, both under conditions which their side regards as forced evacuations. On the other hand, no one on the Arab side has sug�gested the obvious: if Jewish refugees were resettled on land vacated by fleeing Arabs, why not resettle Arab refugees on the lands of Jews who were forced to flee the Arab countries. One reason no one has suggested this is that no Arab state with the exception of Jordan will even allow Arab refugees to become citizens.

Taking into account the Jewish refugees’ assets that were confis�cated when they fled from Arab and Muslim lands, one can conclude that the Jews have already paid massive “reparations” to the Arabs whether warranted or not. The property and belongings of the Jewish refugees, confiscated by the Arab governments, has been conser�vatively estimated at about $2.5 billion in 1948 dollars. Invest that money at a modest 6.5% over 57 years and you have today a sum of $80 billion, which the Arab and Muslim governments of the lands from which the Jews were expelled could apply to the benefit of the Arab refugees. That sum is quite sufficient for reparations to Arab refugees. There is no way of accurately assessing the value of Arab property left in Israel’s control; but there are no estimates as high as a 1948 value of $2,500,000,000. So, hypothetically, the Arab side has already gotten the better end of the deal."
http://www.crethiplethi.com/big-lies-demolishing-the-myths-of-the-propaganda-war-against-israel-part-1/israel/2009/

Andrei

Adam B.
September 13th, 2010 11:03pm
This is strange answer as if you do not understand.

When they are told their land is now to be Jewish state, it is not suprise Palestinians in territory they live in but UN says is to be Jewish state resist. Wrong to resist with violence, but both sides violent (and Jewish militias most effective especially those who Orde Wingate trained in what is now called "counter-insurgency" - terrorise civilians). I am astonished if you think it surprise Palestinians resist. What I said is Zionists have every right, for sure, to defend their people wherever they are. And so do Palestinians. This is break down of civil society or civil war. It says nothing about who has claim to territory. The most Zionists can argue is they defend bit of Palestine they are offered in UN plan and defend their community in settlements outside this territory. This is not right to systematic "cleansing" (term used in Haganah orders) - which is not defense but aggression. Arab states said they will defend Palestinians against UN imposing loss of land on inhabitants. Defence came late and is pathetic beside very efficient Zionist force. Defence came after Zionist forces already some months clearing out of villages and towns. Defence in territory UN did not plan for Zionists. To say resistance of Palestinians gives right to Zionists to take all territory is wrong. To say Arab states refusing to say yes to UN plan that is of legality that is doubtful and Arab states defending Palestinians from Zionist attackong under disguise provided by civil war does not give Zionists right to all of territory. This argument is accepted for years without question but it is wrong. Fact is the Zionist "defense" gave it territory and demographics it wanted and said it wanted in years before (almost - not all territory and some Palestinians stay). There is Latin saying for looking for causes of such events - cui bono?

Linda Smith

Andrei, reading your comment at 14/9, 10:31pm, it strikes me that you are seeking to paint an idealist picture of the world, rather than the world as it is.

Britain, France and the USA, the victors of World War I were not interested in “self determination” of anybody except themselves! Britain and France were seeking to hold on to their Empires and busied themselves carving up the Middle East. France didn’t give Syria “self-determination” - it fought bloody battles to hold onto it. The French were still fighting a war in the 1960s to hold onto Algeria. Britain’s main interest in Palestine was the seaport link with their oil interests in what became Iraq. They played off the Jews and Arabs against each other, hence the careful, devious, wording of the Balfour Declaration. The USA, in talking about “self-determination, was only interested in breaking up the hegemony of the British Empire and increasing its own influence in the world.

All this talk about the principle of “self-determination” is a load of ignorant, ahistorical hogwash, and is only used by antizionists. Arabs/Muslims shriek about “self determination” for themselves but deny “self-determination” for Jews. Do you hear any Arabs/Muslims championing the cause of “self-determination” for the Kurds? Of course not.

Get real, Andrei

Linda Smith

Andre, you wrote:

“To say it again, this is history. I do not say now that Israel is not state like any other and its citizens have same rights as citizens of any other state. I am saying acknowledge what the evidence tells us of history.”

Well, you’re certainly not acknowledging what the evidence tells us of history. You have totally expunged the role of Islam in your exposition, playing the usual antizionist trick of couching your arguments in terms of cardboard cutout “Palestinians” devoid of religious sensibilities.

Jews do not have "the same rights" with Muslims in Islamic states; they are dhimmis. Jordanian law prohibits Jews from being citizens. Only Muslims can be citizens of Algeria since they drove out the French and the Jews in the 1960s, etc.

Most important of all, no Islamic state is going to recognise Israel as a Jewish State, particularly with Jerusalem as its capital, because that would acknowledge that Islam, not Judaism as the Koran claims, is the fake religion. And that is why the "Palestinians" claim the Old City of Jerusalem for the capital of their putative Islamic state.

Andrei

Augustus
September 14th, 2010 1:14pm
I am sorry. I am sure what you say here is very reasonable but I do not see that it is an answer to what we were talking about. It is certain that the British did a lot to foster a Jewish National Home as they said they will do. It is also certain, although this is away from our point, that Zionists, very many of them very educated Europeans, were great success in creating new society and state-in-waiting (if that is correct). Contrast with traditional society of Palestinians very striking and I think explains many things about what happened in coming decades.

But none of this explains to me why inhabitants of Palestine were to accept Jewish state with Jewish majority which is what Zionists made no secret was what they were making. Inhabitants of Palestine had no reason to trust Britain which had made undertaking to all Arabs which has force of treaty but which ignored in Balfour letter. And it is fact that Britain in Mandate legally was only trustee for inhabitants. It is not clear to me how this trust is consistent with promise to Zionists. It is not clear to me why Palestinians were to accept Britain's promise to Zionists. Britain did not own Palestine. Britain was trustee for inhabitants of Palestine until inhabitants allowed to say what they will determine for themself. Inhabitants never if consulted say we want Zionists to make Jewish state with Jewish majority here. To put Balfour letter in Mandate was Britain contradicting rest of Mandate it accepted.

This also is not our point of debate, but I think Britain made serious effort to meet promise to Zionists and treated Palestinians in same way treats other "natives" and when they get "restless" it kills them, arrests them, knocks over their houses and so on. At same time, reports of British officials from very beginning say Palestinians of course resist because it is not fair, and Zionists not sensitive to presence of native population, and promise to Zionists and terms of Mandate not consistent and cannot be both met. I think revolt of 1930s suddenly showed Britain strategic mistake of oppressing inhabitants until they rise up in such sensitive place next to crucial Suez canal at very time empire at risk from rise of Hitler.

But I am far now from main point I ask which is why you think Palestinian inhabitans are to accept what is done to them except because of force?

I also can give quotations from Mr Churchill in 1922:

"the development of the Jewish National Home in Palestine is not the imposition of a Jewish nationality upon the inhabitants of Palestine as a whole, but the further development of the existing Jewish community, with the assistance of Jews in other parts of the world, in order that it may become a centre in which the Jewish pwople as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride." The British Government "never contemplated, at any time, the disappearance or the subordination of the Arabic populationm language or culture in Palestine." Balfour did not contemplate "Palestine as a whole should be converted into a Jewish National Home, but that such Home should be founded in Palestine."

Also, Curzon: what was promised at San Remo "was far from constituting anything in the nature of a legal claim." Also, San Remo, confirmed in drafting of Mandate, makes clear "civil rights" includes "political rights".

Nowhere is there talk of dividing up Palestine and giving a bit to some and a bit to others.

I think you are correct that sweeping statement miss detail. I think you are correct that there were Palestinians and Zionists trying to agree and other Zionists and Palestinians trying to make trouble to get what they want. I think you are wrong if you say Palestinians most of them happy to have zionist settlers making majority state in Palestine, even to have settlers in large number even without zionist state.

phil

CAN any of you guys tell me why you waste your time and effort with andrei ,is it a compulsion even a strangelove reaction ?'.he will not answer legitimate questions but just obfuscates and runs from the real matters .You will not change his mind because he does not want to change it and so you continue to feed a frenzy -It is becoming incredibly boring ,Augustus you are too intelligent for all this ,leave it to Linda she will battle him to a standstill,both will flop from exhaustion when the set is still alive at 98/98 and three days have past even the crowd left town :)

Andrei

Linda
I think you are correct about need for realism about how states behave. Still it is true law is some constraint - as contortions of British government about Iraq show and fact Blair could face court like Pinochet or Milocevic.

Of course you are correct also that Palestinians are Muslims and religion is large part of Palestinian identity just as Judaism of Israeli Jews. But for example Palestinian farmer in early 20 century also has interest in his land, parent now has same interest as any parent in education of child. 6 million Palestinians do not throw themself at Israeli tanks and guns to be martyrs - they have life to live. All opinion polls say Palestinian people want life and will live beside Israel to get such life. Islam will play same part in life of Muslims as other religions and other people - some secular, some very religious, some fanatic - very like Israel. For most their religion includes living at peace with neighbour.

Religious advisor to Mr Barak in Camp David understood what Jerusalem means to Muslims and was shocked by Mr Barak and his way of negotiation. If he can understand, why not you?

Harold

Linda Smith

"Now look here, Harold, we’ve all been through this in great detail time and time again. The records and the evidence of the “Palestinian” Arabs themselves prove that most of the refugees “transferred” themselves at the behest of their own leaders, to get out of the way while the Jews were slaughtered, the others fled the war zone of their own accord."

" the oral Arab testimonies that the majority of the Arabs fled at the behest of their leaders were included in a BBC TV programme a few years ago. The details went up on these threads when Ms Phillips wrote about the similar admission of Bir Zeit University. This was possibly about a year ago, but I can't remember when and I'm not spending all day searching for the references."

This is just shoddy.

"Your view that the Arab refugee claim for compensation and the Jewish refugee claim for compensation are separate negotiations is without merit"

... "http://www.crethiplethi.com/big-lies-demolishing-the-myths-of-the-propaganda-war-against-israel-part-1/israel/2009"

And this is just underwhelming.

Augustus

Andrei - You say, very directly,
that Britain treated the Palestinians as it was wont to treat other 'restless natives' by killing them off if they proved difficult. And I believe that you have implied somewhere that Britain may even not have had the right to promise the establishment of a national Jewish home in Palestine (but you now accept that they have one which they should be allowed to keep). However, according the the American ME specialist on the National Security Council writing in 1993
he said: "Traditional international law would have supported the Allies' right, as victors, to dispose of Palestine as they saw fit. It is noteworthy, however, that Britain and the League took pains to ensure that their 'legislative' decision in favour of the Jewish national home was associated harmoniously
with the Jews claim of historical ties to the land of Israel. They wanted to make clear that the new positive law on Palestine had a definite moral and historical foundation." (Douglas J. Feith)

But our Andrei pooh-poohs all that. He will assert till the Day of Judgement that an indigenous population had been ruthlessly dispossessed in the ME. But as I have pointed out
before: In the Balfour period a
thriving Jewish homeland and community already existed. The Balfour Declaration merely recognised that fact, as did the
L.of N. when it made it a matter of binding international law through its mandate.

Andrei

Augustus
September 14th, 2010 8:30pm
When Mr Feith says "traditional" he can not mean law contemporary with League of Nations, which did not recognise any such right of victor to dispose of spoils. This is just mistake. Perhaps mistake is to take member of US administration whose job is to support Israel as authority on international law at time of League of Nations.

If League of Nations simply recognised Jewish community already living in Palestine there would be no need for all Zionists efforts. Precisely because Zionists looking to make something very much more than Jewish community in Palestine Balfour and British Zionists and insertion in Mandate and so on all were needed.

You have to do better than this if you are to give any support to assertions you make.

Why were inhabitants of Palestine to accept decision of Britain to let Zionists make National Home? I have even read history books saying Jewish community in Palestine also not all very keen on Zionist plan.

Adam B.

I see Harold - so you make your assertion that Hamas wants peace and would accept Israel as Jewish state within the 1948 ceasefire lines on....nothing at all. Not one scrap of evidence to back your preposterous claim. Still, if you can live in fantasy, why bother with reality? Just who is full of bluster and bluff?

Adam B.

Andrei, I'm sure you have no problem with the Chechens resisting Russian domination and brutality, the complete destruction of Grozny with tens of thousands of civilians murdered and terrorised by Russian forces.

Not surpring they "resist" is it?

Adam B.

Andrei, whilst it is fascinating to discuss your revisionist history and the events of the early half of the last century - what is your point? What are you trying to say of relevance to today's problems of the region?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Andrei
September 14th, 2010 10:36pm
Augustus
September 14th, 2010 8:30pm
"When Mr Feith says "traditional" he can not mean law contemporary with League of Nations, which did not recognise any such right of victor to dispose of spoils. This is just mistake. "

This is just not mistake, Andrei. What is mistake is that Russia recognised the state of Isreal in 1949. This BIG mistake which Russia she is rueing the day.

"Perhaps mistake is to take member of US administration whose job is to support Israel as authority on international law at time of League of Nations."

No. Mistake is that Russia supported state of Israel and international law this state is was founded upon.

"If League of Nations simply recognised Jewish community already living in Palestine there would be no need for all Zionists efforts. Precisely because Zionists looking to make something very much more than Jewish community in Palestine Balfour and British Zionists and insertion in Mandate and so on all were needed."

No, what was needed was Islamic action in tolerance of Jewishes. If jewishes were is tolerated by mad Mufti this mess is not coming by mandate Power or any other terrestrial power you can think on.

Time you start to think on Russia and relations with islam for opportunism against US. Is Cold War dead or alive and well and lived in your heart and comrade, Harold's?

Linda Smith

Harold, as I said, I cannot recall the references I alluded to in my earlier post, but there is plenty of video testimony from Arabs available to view on Palestinian Media Watch that proves that the majority of the refugees transferred themselves at the behest of their own leaders. Here is a sample:

In recent years, known Palestinian leaders, writers and refugees themselves are speaking out and candidly blaming the Arab leadership for the creation of the refugee problem. According to these Palestinian accounts the massive departure of Arabs from Israel was willful, the result of orders by the Arab leadership. This contradicts the Palestinian charge that the hundreds of thousands of Arabs who ran in 1948 were expelled by Israel.

In this interview, an elderly Arab resident of a refugee camp, recounts the reason his family left Israel during the war and became refugees:
"This picture was taken a week before we left Ein-Kerem [near Jerusalem] in June 1948, in front of our house. The radio stations of the Arab regimes kept repeating to us: "Get away from the battle lines. It's a matter of ten days or two weeks at the most, and we'll bring you back to Ein-Kerem." And we said to ourselves, "That's a very long time. What is this? Two weeks? That's a lot!" That's what we thought [then]. And now 50 years have gone by." [PA TV (Fatah), July 7, 2009]

Arab MK curses leaders who told Arabs to leave Israel
Source: Palestinian TV (Fatah), Apr. 30, 1999
PA TV: Question by refugee’s son to Arab Muslim leader, Ibrahim Sarsur:
Son of refugee: "Mr. Ibrahim [Sarsur]: I address you as a Muslim. My father and grandfather told me that during the "Catastrophe" [in 1948], our District Officer issued an order that whoever stays in Palestine and in Majdel [southern Israel] is a traitor, he is a traitor."
Ibrahim Sarsur, then Head of Islamic Movement in Israel, now MP:
"The one who gave the order forbidding them to stay there bears guilt for this, in this life and the Afterlife throughout history until Resurrection Day."

View these videos and more at:
http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=567

Video from Palestinian TV (Fatah) Feb. 9, 2010

Arab refugee: Arabs left Israel in 1948 because of leadership’s promise that it would be temporary

”We headed first from Dir al-Qasi [northern Israel] to Rmaich [Lebanon], considering what they (Arab leaders) said at the time: “By Allah, in a week or two, you will return to Palestine.” The Arab armies entered Palestine, along with the Arab Liberation Army. We left – we and those who fled with us – and we all headed for Lebanon. Some people came to Rmaich and others came to the villages on the border, such as Ein Ibl and also to Bint Jbeil. People scattered. And we have about 11 or 15 [refugee] camps in Lebanon.”

C.Gee

Adam B:

I feel your irritation. Have you ever played tennis with a mustard keen, but clumsy, novice? After a while of receiving frying-pan lobs and wild ricochets off the racquet frame, one's own game lurches into fits and starts, shuffles, hops, and lollipop bonks - all because good manners requires that the ball be kept going. Perhaps one should not let it continue too long. After all, it does not do anyone any good to pretend that this is tennis.

C.Gee

Andrei:

I suspect you are relying on Ilan Pappe. He admits to putting ideology (in his case communist) before fact, which he makes up as needed.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Andrei: you know, you are beginning to sound like Harold but with a Russian accent and a little less pomposity (though it does seem to be increasing. Perhaps it’s the whiff of blood?).

Aren’t you beginning to understand how difficult it’s gonna be to make peace? Look at you guy/s and the panoply of anti Zionist positions that habitually do the rounds and to which you both make a hearty contribution:

You start with diatribes against Israel for its conduct of specific wars. You want to distinguish its behaviour from that of your Arab and Moslem brothers – the perceived enemies of Israel (though I guess you might want to claim they are in fact friends). The Israelis have NO regard for human rights or International Law! By implication, your Arab and Moslem brothers (and, dare I say it, sisters) – in contrast - do (oh yeah…..).

When pushed about those from whom you wish to distinguish Israel, you scream: what has any Arab and moslem behavior – in war or against their own citizens – to do with the unrivalled barbarity of Israel ???!!!(oh yeah…...).

When pushed about International Law and peace, you scream about an interpretation of Res 242 (you deny there is any justified debate re its meaning) - that would predicate any peace on a solution to a refugee issue which would mean, in effect, the ultimate destruction of the Jewish state (i.e. a uni state solution) – a Jewish state that neither Hamas nor Fatah recognize nor show any signs of doing so.

When pushed further, you say all would be fine if only Israel would return to the ’49 Armistice lines (variously misnamed “boarders” - ad infinitum)…and no doubt will have to agree to a solution of a refugee problem etc, etc.

When pushed further, you say in fact the ’49 lines are actually unjust because they are the result of nasty and very unique Israel behaviour in war, so the Partition Lines are what you really mean.

..and then , when pushed on that, you start to uncage what, of course, is the historical “truth” which only you guys have any notion of i.e. actually, the Partition Plan was an imperialist/Jewish conspiracy (along , no doubt, with all the other Jewish imperialist conspiracies) and is in fact unfair, unjustified and plain illegitimate.

and, finally, when pushed on this, you start sliding back the other way – to the Partition Plan and the notion that one has “to start from somewhere” (Harold, without the Russian twang)…..and then, with a whoosh of the mind which is flying off all its hinges – moral, reason etc – you are back to Human Rights and civilians again or piracy on the high seas and how naughty Israel is; and, if only it realized how naughty, “naughty” is, in its case, it would immediately have a coup de culpibilite and beg the Palestinians for forgiveness and deliver its collective head on the nearest pike for the salivating crowds to gawk at.

All this against the flaccid – though admittedly not quite as strident or frequent – protest – that actually the Arabs and moslems are good guys – they have, if only one read the same wells of truth as you guys - actually accepted Israel’s existence (though they are just keeping that a dirty little secret) and, and,…well, they are just poor, persecuted souls who, if only they were given the chance , would teach us all a thing or two about how to treat ones fellow man with justice and humanity.

Do you not see how truly loony you all sound – not least to the Israelis???? Have you not the first notion of what International Relations is all about? Have you any clue about the nature of political negotiations during times of war and peace?

I would suggest you all take a deep breath and gather (just like our beloved Kate Winslett when she got her Oscar). Realize these facts (and, please, please note that these are not prescriptions):

- Israel is here to stay and 6 million+ people will not commit collective suicide.
- Israel will never give up its identity and raison d’etre i.e it will not give up its Jewish identity (Fatah nows this, which is why it has refused to acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state – even yesterday).
- Israel does not trust the Arab and Moslem culture in general, nor the Islamic fundamentalist players who are in a position to spoil a peace and to influence its making.
- The Arab and moslem Middle East cannot be said by anyone to represent anything vaguely resembling the kind of society Western liberal democratic societies would wish to emulate. That goes for their foreign and domestic policies. It goes for many (though of course not all) of their social mores – attitudes to gays, women, freedom of speech, religion, political activity etc… By undermining the very existence of the Jewish state, you are inevitably giving support to these kinds of regimes. This policy can be the cause and sustainer of war.
- It cannot be said, with any degree of confidence whatsoever, that the Palestinians would treat Jews and Israelis at all well if given the chance to hold sway over them. E.g. in a uni state. The acceptance of the idea that a uni state will be a paradigm of the best democratic practice and rule of law (unless you mean Sharia) would take a vivid imagination indeed. This underscores Israel’s fears about compromise and makes negotiations re Peace very much harder.
- Israel will negotiate from its maximum position of strength whether you think it naughty or not. This is just how states behave – Jewish ones and all others. You go figure.
- To what extent Israel will compromise on anything will depend on many factors, not least on whether or not it feels it worthwhile. That perception will, in turn, involve an evaluation of many factors, both in the international arena and domestic.

This is the reality that anyone who wants peace will have to grapple with and be mindful of – whichever side one supports. It is irrelevant whether or not Harold may think it might be possible that perhaps someone who is a lawyer and know how to interpret legal documents might think there was a legal claim, if only the notion of legality…and the colour of your yamulca..blah, blah….All propagandistic twaddle aimed at demonizing Israel (and pulling the collective 'winkie") without the minimal concern for, or focus on, the real job of negotiating a peace. Noone falls for this nonsense, and we are left staring blankly at the reality before us, have to climb the mountain, pushing the boulder before us – like poor old Sisyphus – only for the boulder to roll down over us, negating any progress and hope for any kind of cessation of the killing.

And you and Harold ( i smell a Bill and Ben thing going' on here) don’t even dare mention Iran and what that lunatic regime is about to unleash on the region and the wider world. Not one iota of concern for that. Why not? Ah yes…it just doesn’t square with your anti US/Israel line.

So, Andrei, no matter what you think re the rights and wrongs of the conflict, this is the reality.

Not sure what your remit is with regard to your writings on this subject, but your position and that of significant other - Harold - and your fellow tap dancers - has nothing to do whatsoever with the real job of making peace.

So, stop your Dr NOesque silliness..and deal with it.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "The way to find out whether Hamas is serious in its repeated signals that it will negotiate on the Green Line is to negotiate. If Israel can negotiate over ceasefires (the terms of which it never keeps) then it can negotiate on peace."

But it has negotiated many times, Andrei..I mean Harold. What's wrong with you? As for Hamas being willing to "negotiate": of course it has, just like Ahmadinejad only seeks nuclear power for "peaceful purposes".

The problem is, of course, that noone except perhaps George - the pussy - Galloway and, Illan Pappe, Norman Finkelstein and Chomsky, believes this. Doesn't mean it's not true, of course, just that somehow - extraordinarily - its propaganda machine in this respect has miserably failed it.

What I suggest is that you and your friends should be recruited to help the cause - of promulgating clearly to the West that what you say is true. It is crucial - and you would all be the first to agree - that the "true", "peaceful" nature of both Hamas and Iran - not to mention Syria, Hezbollah, etc - is known - before a possible strike by the US and Israel on Iran's nuclear sites and/or conventional forces, not to mention very likely on Lebanon and Syria also, takes place..That time looks horrifyingly close, as Obama's strategic choices to save his Presidency are narrowing fast.

I suspect you could be a key to the salvation of the region, if not the wider world - saving perhaps 100's of thousands of lives and preventing the catastrophe on the international Economy that pounding these "foes" would surely would cause.

Please save us, Handrei!!!

phil

C.Gee
September 15th, 2010 5:21am Of course you are so right ,when I feel the need for a snooze I read this thread for a few seconds ,Andrei,s Stuff is coming from an Arab desk not a Russian man and is meant to wind the people up who post here,just leaves out the word "the "to try to fool us ,I am boooored .think I will go and play golf ,not keen on tennis. When I get back I am sure Linda will be still trying for an ace ,she is dogged to say the least .

Harold

I waded through all this stuff. Why is there no effort at all to address anything put to you? Vilification is not refutation.

The one amusing contribution was from C Gee explaining why his responses, which started out in all the pomp of complacent arrogance, deflated so - it was because he was playing against a mere novice, and so couldn't give it his best shot! The fact that the arguments put to him were just too easy to refute put him off!

Linda
You really should try a bit harder. It is not possible to get anything like an accurate picture by looking at a few video clips on Palwatch. As I said, Benny Morris, the advocate (in certain circumstances) of completing the ethnic cleansing he regrets was left unfinished, has at least been honest in gathering much of the evidence, even if not in drawing the obvious conclusions from it. His latest book is daft, but even his recent book on 1948 is full of excellent research as well as tendentious commentary. You do not have to stray far from dogma to find some snippets of truth.

(Adam B.
Instead of your usual gambit, just read the statements of Hamas leaders over the last several years. Read analysis of Hamas, not by its fellow travellers but by perfectly safe Western academics and journalists.)

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "Instead of your usual gambit, just read the statements of Hamas leaders over the last several years. Read analysis of Hamas, not by its fellow travellers but by perfectly safe Western academics and journalists.)"

Oh God, Harold! Quote them! Quote them! I told you, you have to take on the mantle of taking the message of Peace to the people!!!

Please, comrade. Teach...Spread the word of Hamas! Right here, right now!! It is soooooo misunderstood...:))

Tovarish, hold the microfilm up to the light...

Andrei

I will answer one stupid thing from Adam. He thinks I must support it because it is Yeltsin and Putin commit atrocity in Chechnya. I can tell him who support it - your criminal Prime Minister Blair and your criminal President Clinton and Bush.

For the rest I will take good advice and improve my English some other wat, not talking to bigots with closed minds, with fixed ideas but very few.

phil

Andrei
September 16th, 2010 10:00am -its not your English that is the problem its your brain -try eating lots of bananas ,they might help,and say shalom occasionally your mood will change too .

Adam B.

Harold - so you still provide no basis for your sweeping assertion that Hamas wants peace and accepts Israel as a Jewish state. And of course we should simply ignore its antisemitism, its decalred intention to kill all Jews, because...well, they don't really mean it do they? Is that the best you can do?

Empty.

Adam B.

I see Andrei gets a little touchy when Russia's actions in Chechnya are mentioned - in fact, he blames it on the West, not Russia at all - nice blame displacement.

Andrei, what is your point? What are you trying to say? Or are you just interested in debating history in a purely academic sense, withot trying to make it relevant?

Andrei

"Adam B.
September 16th, 2010 11:38am
I see Andrei gets a little touchy when Russia's actions in Chechnya are mentioned - in fact, he blames it on the West, not Russia at all - nice blame displacement."

It cannot just be stupidness of you to twist what is said every time.

Did I say West to blame? No. Do I say you assumed I must support this atrocity because I am Russian? Yes. Is it stupid as it is insulting to assume? Yes. Of course I do not support Russian crimes in Chechnya.

What was my point in this thread? Supporters of Israel think Israel has every right to do everything it has done and Zionists before, and Palestinians have no rights to anything and never will until all stop resisting by violence against Israel violence and taking of land. History you are so careful to avoid debate about shows Palestinians have every right to own land.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Adam B: "Harold - so you still provide no basis for your sweeping assertion that Hamas wants peace and accepts Israel as a Jewish state."

Adam, I have it on very good authority that comrade Harold finds the evidence in the Hamas Charter. In the fine print, that is. Could be wrong and, if so, might well be the micro film he and Hamas use for their communications....of the 'truth"...of..ah....zzzzz

Lindsay

I do't intend to return to this discussion, to hear yet again the bog-standard Roosevelt rant or Adam's cry of "So you can't answer my question. So you can't answer my question. So you can't answer my question etc. etc. etc." drowning out all rational debate.

However: Washington Post July 11 2006, Milli Gazette India September 16 2007, Guardian February 13 2007, Haaretz April 2 2008, New York Times May 5 2009, Wall Street Journal July 31 2009... Any of the many statements by Meshal or Hamad...the Letter from Hamas to President Obama...

Was it really so very difficult for you to find any of this for yourselves?

The former head of Mossad, Ephraim Halevy, gives a typically hard-headed analysis, which you have no doubt read.

There are different factions within Hamas. There are different organizations within Gaza. Any signal of a willingness to negotiate during a colonialist conflict such as this will come with a lot of noise, with rhetoric for the faithful and messages to the enemy, and spoiling tactics from the diehards.

Nevertheless, the message has been clear and consistent and persistent, and picked up by serious people in Israel.

The standard tactic of denial has no merit. It is simply to postpone serious negotiation until Israel has taken all it thinks it can get (i.e. no longer Greater Israel, but everything of value on the West Bank). You simply parrot the tactic of the rejectionists.

Andrei

Sorry. One last thing. Will someone tell me what are books of this Ilan Pappe so I can read some? Thank you.

Augustus

The human rights of Arabs are not only being destroyed by Hamas, but by the PA too. In Arabic, Mahmoud Abbas and his top officials are telling Palestinians that they would never make 'even one concession
to Israel' during the peace talks. In Arabic they are saying
that they will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state, and will never relinquish the right of return of millions of so-called refugees to Israel, and will never make any compromises on Jerusalem. They deviously say in Arabic that Israel is not serious about peace, and that there is no real partner for peace in Israel. But in English, however, the same officials, who ironically offered themselves as peace partners to the Israelis, have launched a campaign, funded by the American taxpayer ($250,000)
saying that they are ready to display flexibility and make
'sacrifices' for the sake of peace. So, Palestinian officials
who try to seek credibility with their own people are now asking the Israelis to believe them with US taxpayers money. You couldn't make it up!

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lynday: Comrade,
I told comrades Harold and Andrei that they had a duty to tell the world the truth about Hamas i.e it is, contrary to what popular rabid, ranting pro Zionist supporters believe, a democratic organisation which represents the quintessence of human rights - and, as such, wants nothing but peace, and not the murder of pregnant women (not to mention their genital mutilation ), let alone when negotiations for Peace are in progress. You and I may know that this latter news is but a venal slur against Hamas's good name, but we are relying on Harold , Andrei and YOU - yes YOU, Lyndsay - to get the truth out there!

And what do you do???You refer the world to the Wall St Journal as evidence? Have you lost you aparatchik marbles? You know what Khaled Meshaal said! Look at the Journal again:

" He also said his organization would accept and respect a Palestinian state based on 1967 borders as part of a broader peace agreement with Israel—provided Israeli negotiators accept the right of return for millions of Palestinian refugees and the establishment of a capital for the Palestinian state in East Jerusalem."

This is the boody Uni state deal he wants a guarantee of - and before negotiations even begin! For God's sake! We cant tell people that! His ignoring of res 242 will kill us! How can we convince the world that Hamas is as you and I dream it is??

For goodness sake, Lyndsay....If you want to take on this job, do it properly or we'll send you to the Gulag....along with all the other....

phil

How many times do we have to hear this from lyndsay and yet she comes back to say it again then repeats the same untruths --
----------
"I don't intend to return to this discussion, to hear yet again the bog-standard Roosevelt rant or Adam's cry of "So you can't answer my question. So you can't answer my question. So you can't answer my question etc. etc. etc." drowning out all rational debate.""""
--------------
She even admits that hamas lies ,tells one thing to its supporters and another to the west,who and what should we believe ?I will take my own advice and remember the words of hitler "who wanted no more" until he took it ,and then murdered 6 million of us .I know for sure who does want peace and does not deviate from that path ,NETANYAHU and I know for sure who says they want to annihilate Israel- hamas ,hesbollah ,dinnerjacket et al ,may I be forgiven for taking their word for it ,and may I also hope I can take lyndsay`s word ,that she will not be back ?

Adam B.

Careful Andrei, you may start coming across as being a bit emotional.

What "right" is that Andrei? Do you have "rights" to land you never owned, whether privately or as an independent entity? From where are such non-existant "rights" bestowed?

As I thought, such "historical discussion" with you is nothing of the kind, but merely yet another attempt to delegitimize Israel.

Adam B.

Yes Anderi, Pappe is all you need to completely consolidate your Israel hatred - Pappe, the man who openly admits his propaganda.

Adam B.

Andrei wrote about Russia's actions:

" I can tell him who support it - your criminal Prime Minister Blair and your criminal President Clinton and Bush."

Not blaming the West? Do you have any basis for your ridiculous allegations? I can't remember any of those leaders supporting Russia's actions.

Adam B.

I wonder if Harold has seen this:

http://www.thejc.com/news/israel-news/38246/hamas-marks-peace-talks-terror-film

Doesn't exactly support his claim that Hamas is itching for peace, and happy to accept Israel as a Jewish state.

Augustus

Lindsay - What is there really to negotiate with religious fanatical terrorists? You, Andrei, Harold et al, support only leaders who are the real road-block to peace. You think
only about all those Jews from
Russia, Poland, Austria etc. who
'confiscated' some God-forsaken
Arabian soil. 'Go back to Poland!' is the real cri de coeur. It is an allegience to a phantom morgana. Israel is a Jewish state, and no negotiations with, or concessions to, or appeasement of political terrorists will ever alter that fact. And it's no use waiting and hovering like a hissing cobra until Israel either gives up, or is forced to give in by outside influences, 'cause that ain't gonna happen.

Andrei

Adam B.
September 16th, 2010 7:26pm
I know it is not good use of time to say this, but...

"What "right" is that Andrei? Do you have "rights" to land you never owned, whether privately or as an independent entity? From where are such non-existant "rights" bestowed?"

This is so wrong (wrong-headed, I think). League of Nations appoint Mandate power as trustee for inhabitants until deemed ready for self-determination. Rights of inhabitants recognized even in imperialist charade - only reason for Mandate is to protect those rights. What you say completely misses the point of legal framework Zionist propaganda so enjoys to use to explain (controversially)why Zionists have legal claim. It is precisely same legal basis as inhabitants but with very much less justification, as all who worked on drafting League of Nations Charter understood. Your claim for legitimacy of Israel much stronger if you find less ignorant story of what happened.

Andrei

I must stop reading this - but comedy makes me come back.

They scream Show evidence Hamas say will negotiate! There is no evidence! All there is is Charter!

Then someone takes two minutes to list very small selection of all evidences. They do not miss beat - Look what say next in one piece of this evidence! They say Right of Return! Demographic Genocide (or nonsense like it).

Do you know nothing of how to negotiate. Hamas says, Israel has taken territory illegally. True. But Hamas says, We will negotiate. Hamas says, Refugees have legal right of return. Again, true. But Hamas ssys, We will negotiate. In same way at Taba, Palestinians set out paper on position of refugees like Hamas position and then they negotiate. And Israelis and Palestinians both say made significant progress.

Hamas not happy to allow sham theatre of negotiations organised by Americans with clown Abbas (who did so much work to sabotage Palestinians at Oslo by his ignorance). And this is evidence they are not serious about peace talks? - Show serious by letting rival take part in charade?

Adam and Mister Roosevelt cannot be serious. Again, simple diversion tactic.

(And footnote, Adam - when Bush wanted "war" on terror, many others who wanted to kill people who get in their way joined in with their own wars on "terror" - the criminal Sharon for one - and also the Russians who say just as Islamists trouble for Americans, also for Russians, and like Americans, Russians have to kill them. And because they want "war" on terror Mister Bush and Prime Minister Blair say okay - you flatten Chechnya and we flatten Afghanistan and then Iraq and then Iran...Where were you in all of last 10 years?

C.Gee

Andrei:

What are books by Pappe? Google and thou shalt find. You already know that. No need to google "disingenuous" either, is there? Your English is just fine for your purposes.

Adam B.

Andrei

All those words and absolutely no meaning in them.

Britain took Palestine as a prize of war from the Ottoman Empire, which had run the area for around 400 years, having itself arrived through conquest. Palestine was merely a district of the Empire, it was not , and had never been, at any time, an independent Arab entity. The land was not Arab in the sense of a state, and nor was the vast majority of it privately owned by Arabs. In fact, even today, a very large proportion of the Holy land is State land. This has absolutely nothing to do with the League of Nations, and your fixation with that entity is most amusing.

Adam B.

Andrei, utter rot. Israel has not taken land illegally, nor is there any legal "right of return."

It doesn't become law because you say so.

Hamas has shown no willingness tro negotiate, (and indeed mocks the very notion of negotiations, devoting an entire chapter of its Charter to the subject), but has shown an abundance of willingness to kill Jews. That you make excuses for this racist, genocidal, antisemitic terror organization tells us all we need to know about you.

By the way, learn some history.

Linda Smith

Harold, you really should try harder. You say “You do not have to stray far from dogma to find some snippets of truth.” I presented the snippets of truth. Please quote the details in the “excellent research” you allege refutes the testimony of the Arab refugees who say they fled at the behest of their leaders, instead of making inadequate vague allusions. The dogma's all yours.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Andrei: "They scream Show evidence Hamas say will negotiate! There is no evidence! All there is is Charter"

Comrade, you cannot do your job by dismissing the document on which Hams is founded. You seem big schmoe when talk like that - specilaly with KGB twang.

If you take job of telling world truth on Hamas - the job I want you take - like other comrades - shape up. What you got to do is count refugees hams want and what land stolen. Then you se true colours of brave Hams and Peace loving.

If you play silly and no shape up, world will want you and Hamas to ship out. I cannot keep this warning on your head for always.

Harold

John Roosevelt's spasm of rage and panic at the mere mention of the Palestinians' legal right of return may be symptomatic. An exposed nerve, perhaps. There were too many Palestinians for the Zionists' purposes in 1922. There were too many in 1947. There are still too many now. How was a Zionist state with a majority of Jews to be achieved without "transfer"? And how was "transfer" to be achieved without violence and coercion? (John Roosevelt, Your mockery of Andrei's broken English is hilarious. Indeed, so hilarious it almost, but not quite, hides the poverty of your response.)

Linda Smith
I have read this thread perhaps more closely than you - you were referred to the works of the thuggish Benny Morris for the evidence you refuse to see.

Adam B.
"By the way, learn some history"

Your tin ear for irony is truly a wonder to behold. Your tactical ignorance does you no credit. Once you have proclaimed your ignorance of everything that led to UDI in 1948 and the conquest of Palestine, the only justification you are left with is brute force.

C Gee
Are you telling Andrei that everything written by Pappe is pure propaganda? Unlike the blessed Benny Morris? Or Efraim Karsh? Or the disgrace Dershowitz? Would it not be more helpful to give him some references - perhaps the more egregious example of Pappe propaganda - to convince him you are right?

Adam B.

Yet again the words of wisdom drip from Harold's lips like the contents drip from my son's nappy. Harold, you proclaimed with great authority that Hamas accepts Israel within the 1948 ceasefire lines, and is willing to negotiate. you have failed to provide any basis or evidence for your absurdly inaccurate claim, whilst you ignore all evidence to the contrary - the antisemitism, the despotic nature of the Hamas regime, the calls for genocide against the Jews.

Indeed, not only do you need to learn history (your latest post exposes your true agenda of delegitimizing Israel altogether), you need to learn current affairs. that may mean looking outside the Guardian once in a while.

Adam B.

JR - hilarious! I too have the sense that "Andrei" is a charlatan and is as Russian as fish and chips.

Lindsay

Augustus
September 16th, 2010 8:54pm

I didn't notice this. Perhaps it would be wise to continue not to notice it, because it is silly.

If you read carefully, you will notice that no-one has said anything about Israelis of European origin being sent back "whence they came" (which would be kind of difficult since they are Israelis living in Israel which is their home).

Similarly, your comments about terrorists. Is it the fact that Hamas is full of religious fanatics that precludes negotiation with it? Or the fact that it uses terrorism? I can't see that the former is sufficient to preclude negotiation; but if the latter, do you think Britain should have refused to negotiate with the Zionist terrorists in the 1930s and 40s?

Adam B.

Lindsay, three things.

1.Britain didn't negotiate with the Irgun.
2. The Irgun did not have as its stated aim the extermination of all British people. There is a difference in mentality - and objective.
3. the Irgun has not been active for around 62 years. But don't let that stop you from getting yet another anti-Israel point in - a point of no relevance to today.

Lindsay

Adam B.
On just about any subject here, if it's done by the "Arabs" it's evil; if it's done by Israel it's good.

1. We're pretending, it would appear, that Irgun and the other terrorists had nothing whatsoever to do with the Jewish Agency (it's not just that the Jewish Agency found them over-enthusiastic on occasion when tactics required something more subtle). It is just another example of that serendipity that has graced the Zionists' efforts - the terrorists' actions just happened to complement the Agency's policies. What luck.

2. It appears that some terrorism is good and some bad. And it appears that the bad terrorism is that committed by terrorists who threaten what they can't deliver. So Irgun et al. are good terrorists because they delivered a Zionist state.

3. It appears that terrorism is time-stamped. If terrorism helped the Zionists to a state in the 1940s, then that is good terrorism. If Hamas use terrorism now in a failed attempt to attain a Palestinian state, then that is bad terrorism. Why? One was sixty years ago and one is now. So the fact that the Zionists achieved their state by terrorism is no reason for the Zionists not to condemn Hamas for...trying to achieve a state by terrorism.

You are endlessly shameless in your advocacy.

Oh, and "JR", you are hilarious!

Adam B.

Lindsay.

I have not said any of what you present in your little diatribe. I love it when Israel haters "think" for you. It's called putting words in someone else's mouth - and it's dishonest.

So what was it you're trying to say to me?

C.Gee

Lindsay:

There is a legal argument for Israel's legitimacy and a legal argument for a state of Palestine. When cleared of all contentious moral notions of desert, one legal basis for a Palestinian state would be a treaty granting control (the right to the monopoly of force) over designated territory by the Israelis to a signatory entity. The legitimacy of the entity as representative of the people, as the duly constituted body authorized to uphold the law, the nature and existence of the law itself, the ability of the entity to enforce the law, the adequacy of the institutional infrastructure (the true indicia of state "viability") - are all as relevant to the terms of the treaty as Israel wants to make them. Given "world opinion" demands for peace, I do not think the Israelis will shine a light too strongly on how the Palestinians will express their self-determination juridically or politically. World opinion has now accepted self-appointed Marxist PLO thugs as the leaders of the Palestinians (despite competition from religious thugs).

Another legal basis for Palestinian state would be UDI by the Palestinians and recognition by other states. So far this has been resisted by the Palestinians (despite the occasional threat) and Arabs, because they are not willing to state the boundaries of the newly declared Palestine - for ideological reasons - and the knowledge that becoming a state actor in the war with Israel would mean all sorts of constraints on their actions and fewer contraints on Israel's actions.

A third would be military victory over Israel.

Which would you approve?

Lindsay

Adam B
Perhaps you could explain what it was you were trying to say to me.

Britain did not negotiate with Irgun. It did negotiate with the Agency. If Hamas were to divide itself, say, into a political wing, a military wing, and a terrorist wing, would you be happy for Israel to negotiate with its political wing?

You say the crucial difference is that Hamas is genocidal. It threatens to do what it, as well as everyone else, knows it cannot ever possibly do. Therefore its terrorists are not to be talked to. Zionism's terrorists however simply killed people. So we can talk to them. Is that what you were trying to say? If not, what?

Augustus said, "What is there really to negotiate with religious fanatical terrorists?" I asked what it was bothered him, the fact that they are religious fanatics or the fact that they are terrorists. Your response seemed to imply that the fact that they are terrorists is a bar to negotiations only now - sixty two years ago it would not have been a problem. In other words, it is not in principle wrong to talk to terrorists, only to these ones. If this is not what you mean, what is it you are trying to say?

Lindsay

C. Gee
Thank you for your interesting comment. I confess I will have to think about it. Can I just ask whether you intend this as an exhaustive list. Also, you seem to imply that the Palestinians are bad in avoiding clarity on the borders they would accept. As I understand it, their mantra is the Green Line with very minor land swaps. As I understand it, Israel has been very careful over the last sixty odd years to avoid an explicit statement of the borders it wishes recognised. Am I right in either of these?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: I is shocked. You have Harold on your knee wif you - Prof Of Logic, I believe - to train you like back in uniform (old days were good)..and you come out with this mad stuff??? You is fired!!

Was Irgun a bunch of good terrorists or bad terrorists? You make up your mind! If Bad, how can Hamas be good? If good, then israel good. You mad!!!! get story right before next round of peace negotiations or hell to buy..pay..

Augustus

Lindsay - You ask about negotiations. Firstly, Hamas is just as much a problem for the PA as it is for Israel. Common sense suggests that any deal with someone who means to destroy you can only lead to
a cease-fire between wars, not a
permanent peace. And, of course,
as we all know, in a real war Israel would only gain more land
than it has now, not less.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: "As I understand it, their mantra is the Green Line with very minor land swaps."

You now vewy well Palestinian mantra is like a bad drug experience full of hallucingenic colours which make mind mashuggah! So be careful how you put out press release. If you say this you must show world where is your song book!

Linda Smith

Harold, India was partitioned in 1947 forming a divided Islamic State (East and West Pakistan). Millions of people relocated, plenty of massacres and bloodshed.

Or is it only the creation of a Jewish State you object to?

Andrei

Before I go there is one thing I want to say. I have had THE English checked so there is no doubt. Why do you think it okay to use national and racial caricature? John Roosevelt thinks I must be KGB - ha-ha - very funny joke (I think he means FSB). I am democrat why would I be FSB? My father was good communist till his death. He hated KGB. My grandfather fought in THE Great Patriotic War. He and his comrades had reason to fear NKVD. Adam B. assumes if Russian then must support crimes in Chechnya. I am a patriot. I think NATO double-crossed Russia. I think Western economists did good job of helping Yeltsin turn our economy into no better than Mafia who control so much of it. But why must I support crimes in Chechnya? You apply THE same lazy game to Muslims, to Arabs, to Palestinians. Without doubt it makes you think you are superior. But it also makes it inevitable you remain ignorant.

Lindsay

John Roosevelt
You have no more to say in pidgin than in ranting English, but I suppose while burbling to yourself you are harmless enough.

Linda Smith
I am not sure why you ask. Partition was another example of disastrous British bungling (with the added ghastliness of Mountbatten). The consequences were even more tragic by a long way than in Palestine, and as in Palestine the bloodshed continues. Two potentially great nations, Israel and India, rose from the mayhem, but I can't help feeling the mayhem could have been avoided.

C. Gee
I am not sure what you intend by your selection of possibilities: the first assumes the territory is Israel's to give, the second and third certainly worked for Israel but are quite clearly not available to the Palestinians. Perhaps you had some satiric or polemic intent?

You say there is a legal argument for Israel's legitimacy. I agree. But again you omit to tell us what you think it is.

I agree with you that if they finally achieve statehood the Palestinian people are in for a fairly unpleasant time, what with the quality of those who have floated to the surface and call themselves their leaders.

Lindsay

Augustus
September 17th, 2010 10:04pm
You make two points which in themselves seem common sense, but when put together do not add up. If everyone knows Israel can take more land by military means, then Hamas knows. Hamas says it wants land back. Hamas is rational at least in the sense of choosing actions it thinks will achieve its ends. Unless you think Hamas capable of disarming the fourth (or whatever it is) most powerful army in the world...?

Augustus

Lindsay - Hamas also knows that Israel is in a disadvantaged position in that it has most to gain by a permanent peace. Peace with the Palestinians means proper recognition and a proper future as a Jewish state.
But Hamas believes only in exclusive rights to Palestine, and that Jews shouldn't have any ruling entity there. That's why they are the warmakers, not peacemakers. The great tragedy is that it only takes one party
to wage war, but two parties to
make peace.

Lindsay

Augustus
Israel is in a "disadvantaged" position? It "has most to gain by a permanent peace"? Make a quick comparison of life in Israel and life in the occupied territories. Look at some calculations of average income. Of the amount of clean drinking water! Of freedom of movement. Get an actuary to do the calculations on life expectancy. Take a bet on which side will have the most children killed in any given period (I doubt you will get anyone to take the other side of such a bet). It would be a very odd world where what you say could be taken to be correct.

Linda Smith

Lindsay answers for Harold, so it appears that Lindsay and Harold are one and the same.

Lindsay, you say “Two potentially great nations, Israel and India, rose from the mayhem but I can’t feeling the mayhem could have been avoided.” How? Partition of India was “self-determination” wasn’t it? - an ideology of which you approve.

C.Gee

Lindsay:

If you agree there is a legal argument for Israel's legitimacy, why should I need to say what it is?

My point was that the creation of a state happens in one or more of those three ways. True for Israel. Could be true for a Palestine. There is no satire or polemic - unless you see satire or polemic in the idea that in international affairs, power legitimizes itself and what it controls. Which is not to say some powers - some states - are not more humanitarian, freer, more moral, etc., than others, but merely that it is fortunate when a good state has the power to sustain itself against bad powers, be they states, alliances of states, global institutions, or state-backed insurgencies or organized crime syndicate.

Resolutions, declarations, treaties, mandates, constitutions, law, regulations - all about power. And supporting the institutional arrangements of power - is the threat of war and actual war.

Lindsay

Linda Smith
Am I not allowed to comment as well on what others say?

C. Gee
You mean there is but one legal argument for Israel? The rest of your comment would seem to indicate that the one argument is brute force (UDI plus military conquest - illegal) plus the hypocrisy ( - legal trappings) that is the tribute of brute force to virtue (to torture La Rochefoucauld's maxim). I acknowledge you are right that international relations are akin to the mafia, with the US the current capo di tutti capi. But that is not the whole story even now, and the scope of the mafiosi can be reduced somewhat further by international law (although clearly those with power and those who benefit from their protection will resist).

I am curious why you suggest Israel signing over territory that is not its, but baulk at a peace settlement as envisaged by the UN and agreed to by all except Israel and the US for several decades. Is the right to dispose of territory that it has no claim to a principle so important to Israel that it is worth avoiding peace for?

Lindsay

Linda Smith
I meant to ask: have you made a study of partition in the Indian subcontinent?

Augustus

Lindsay - To you, it seems, Jews
simply pushed out the original inhabitants of Palestine, took away their rights, murdered them, and after driving them out
took up a 'holier than thou' position. To me, the Jews are the original inhabitants of Israel (a simple fact, with more than enough archeological proof). It's simply a lie that
Palestinians are the original inhabitants, as when modern Israel was founded there weren't any 'Palestinians', and when asked by British Mandate personel, 'What are you?' they would have replied, 'an Arab'.

The area that is now Israel was always the dregs of civilization after the Roman period. Not completely poor, but
certainly not the cream of civilization. And after the Roman period it went steadily downhill. Under Ottoman rule the area was an outpost. An Ottoman official considered it one of the lowest places to be posted to. The inhabitants consisted mainly of Arabs who had settled there from time to time, mostly as semi-nomads, some smallholders, and very few
as merchants. And those relative newcomers always had a problem with the Jews. and that would have been difficult if no Jews were there in the first place. You can censure and berate the Jews as much as you like, and also carry a banner for the murderous El Fatah and Hamas as much as your heart bleeds for them, but you can't alter facts.

Harold

I would like to return the compliment - not answer a question asked of someone else, but ask a question someone else should also be puzzled by: why does C. Gee talk about three ways to provide a legal basis for a Palestinian state and then list three different courses of action each unequivocally illegal as a means of acquiring territory?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Andrei: "but I think Britain made serious effort to meet promise to Zionists and treated Palestinians in same way treats other "natives" and when they get "restless" it kills them, arrests them, knocks over their houses and so on."

This is not how Hamas treated Fatah, right? Or Hizbollah treats those Lebanese who oppose it? Or the Assad family treats the Moslem Brotherhood, for example (read a little re the +- 20000.00 Sunnis killed by Assad at Hama: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-freedom-democracy-and-human-rights-in-syria-2080463.html )

..or King Hussain during Black Spetember...Or the Iranians - now, EVERY DAY. Or the Iraqis - NOW, EVERY DAY, just as under Saddam and before him; or ask the Copts in Egypt;a woman in Saudi; anyone you like in Yemen...

Your observation - decontextualised as always, reduces itself to meaninglessness. You pretend to make some useful distinction to highlight a point of morality - but when one scratches or pokes at you lame efforts, one is compelled to ask what kind of behaviour are you distinguishing? From what? Certainly from no other Moslem or Arab state and/or non state actor in the Middle East.

Robert Fisk may think Israel the "last colonial project" but at least he hasn't got the gall to pretend there is anyone at all in the Arab and moslem Middle East who behaves any better than Israel..which begs that question which Fisk never writes about, it seems: what sort of outcome do you genuinely invisage if the "injustice' caused by Israel is righted? Will this uni state be an oasis of justice and human rights in a desert of tyranny and persecution? If it isn't, will you and the Fisks of this sorry world take responsibility for what you have "fought" so hard to bring about?? I guess not...just like the flotilla flotsam are still so indignantly self righteous over their action to try and break the Gaza blockade, resulting in the deaths of 9. Roll on Pol Pot and Mr Chomsky!

Be careful what you wish for, comrade.

Lindsay

Augustus
September 19th, 2010 6:11pm
No-one has claimed the Palestinians are the "original" inhabitants. No-one should claim the Jews are either. The question is irrelevant to who the League of Nations under the law as it stood at the time should acknowledge as the inhabitants at the time Turkey relinquished sovereignty and passed it in trust to the League of Nations.

Whether the region was backward or not has no relevance either. I am not sure why you raise it.

Your account of the inhabitants is not borne out by contemporary records, nor by scholarly studies of those records. I am not sure what are the sources you are relying on. (As an interesting footnote, Ben Gurion, of all people, was one of those who believed that many of the Palestinians were likely to be descendants of the ancient Jews. In a land criss-crossed by so many invaders and settlers over so many centuries, it is no doubt difficult to determine. One thing that is known is that the Greeks, Romans and Arabs, like most empire builders, did not expel the subject population, but worked them for profit.)

I suppose this is a roundabout way of telling you that your attempt at a response is fatuous.

Linda Smith

Lindsay, stop evading the question. You must be a politician.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: you do seem to live in cuckoo land.

You wish to compare the standard of living of the "Occupied lands of the Palestinians" with israel? To prove what point - that before those lands were "occupied" that standard of living was better...or that these Arabs have a history of rampant economic development which has be retarded, somehow, by the Jew and Israel? Please try not to be such a mendacious twit.

I have never condemned any ordinary folk in the Middle East whatever for their ethnic origin or religion per se. You know this very well. However,it is you who insists on basing your attacks on the false assertion that anyone who condemns your cynical propaganda and obfuscation must be a racist and fanatic. Harold, are own Prof of Logic, should be able to confirm that that just doesn't follow...

Having never addressed any of my questions to you (not to mention Harold and our quaint Russian emigre friend) - being more adroit at mental hop scotch than anything else - i is very reasonable to infer that apart from having a very low opinion of israelis and Jews and a high one for Arabs and moslems, you are wedded to some mish mash of 19th century romantic nationalism, TE Lawrence romance with the Middle East ethos young Arab boys with their flowing robes (or no robes at all, as the case may be) and the desert sands ( all daggers and stallions. with a soupcon of islamic aesthetic), and some vague Stalinist thing - you know, "liberators" (of the downtrodden masses) who have a penchant for the Gulag - at least when it comes to sealing the fate of those who dont agree with them or stand in their way.

You bang on about "self determination" - national rights etc...as if you are the arbiter of moral rectitude - according to your "faith" - a "faith" you so arrogantly seem to believe is a given i.e you explain nothing, actually, of your beliefs, contenting yourself with attacking those of others.

One wonders which states in the Middle East you think have actually been founded according to "rights" which you do find "legitimate". Can you name one? Or are they all "illegitimate"...the Palestinians being the only, true hope for the genuine salvation of the peoples of the region (though one cannot be sure if this would include, for you, the Jews, also).

Is there something, perhaps, about Islam, which you feel dovetails - ideologically speaking - with this notion of of yours of "liberation"? Or do you consider Islam - particularly the virulent, fundamentalist and proactively political kind, just an alliance of convenience (like the Nazi-Soviet Pact, perhaps) i.e a tool to be used, and disgarded when no longer needed, in your quest for nirvana?

Why dont you just lay out - simply and plainly -what kind of society you feel you would like to see in the Middle East? Who should have a right to a state? On what grounds? What kind of state should this be or does that not matter? What part should religion and capitalism play, in this state you imagine, for the good and the brave?? Is there any state - in the international community - with whom it would be legitimate to relate i.e. are there any out there who represent anything that you feel a putative Palestinian state should emulate and feel is not committing the sin of moral compromise by relating to it?

Like your friend Harold, you demonise Israel on many counts - from it being founded on the basis of a Jewish conspiracy with the neo imperialism of the Post WW1 era - to the exploitation of the hapless indigenous people of a land the Jews have and had no right to claim as their own under any circumstances, to the way Israel governs its own people. But with whom - in any respect - are you comparing this "execrable" conduct ? If you are not, what does your critique mean? is it merely predicated on fantasy, puffery, wishful thinking and addled brains not to mention downright bigotry and racism?

Lyndsay, just as I have exhorted Harold (to absolutely no avail, lost - as he does seem to be - in his arcane world of classical trivium), have the courage to talk plainly. Don't answer my questions with questions or merely dismiss me again as you do everyone. I know you think everyone should understand you and what you stand for. After all, Harold seems to have protested that he does in fact think Israel has a right to exist, after all..and you have alluded to what you assert to be the Palestinian "position" of having a Peace based on Israel returning to the Armistice Lines etc - but Lyndsay , this is not enough. It smacks of somersaults..bad disputation generally, and tantamount to the cynical use of tactics in what is no more than a strategy veiled in deceit - deceitful because, in fact, the ultimate aim of that strategy is venal, and the suspicions that your (and Harold's) detractors have about your motives are indeed well founded.

It just wont do...and you know that. Come clean. Unburden yourself and give us all a well earned rest from this charade.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: "international relations are akin to the mafia, with the US the current capo di tutti capi. But that is not the whole story even now, and the scope of the mafiosi can be reduced somewhat further by international law (although clearly those with power and those who benefit from their protection will resist)."

You're beginning to sound like a charicature of Ulrich Meinhof, Lyndsay :))

What are you now saying? International Law is corrupt. The Un is corrupt. The League was corrupt. The Mandate was corrupt. All imperialist "pigs", no doubt....but not quite, right? If you stick to this line, you're in a dead end , your exit cut off by all those cops with their guns trained on you..Mmm..so..

..what do we have? Oh yes..you now think International Law can improve...and you think you are the arbiter of how it should be improved and Israel will be the first state in the history of the Law to help you hone this hallowed tool - to achieve universal peace and love - with the Palestinians, once your "justice" is done, the beacon of light in the ocean of darkness - and no doubt with Ahmedinjejad and his proxies all togged up in their paddle boats, rowing intoxicatedly round the beacon singing "jingle bells"??

I think it's time. Lyndsay, that you tried to evolve from this preadolescent fantasy world - posing as all love and peace (joss sticks on the mantle piece refreshing your oxygen supply) but your fantasy of that old AK 47 getting increasingly graphic.

I think you need a spot in detention, writing 100 times "The ploughman homewood plods his weary way."

Lindsay

John Roosevelt,
You have no more to say in ranting English than in pidgin, but I suppose while you are frothing away to yourself you are harmless enough.

If you were to address what is said, you might get an answer. Why is it you devote so very many words to addressing what hasn't been said?

Linda Smith
Are you objecting to the requirement that you learn about Partition in India before making sweeping generalisations and dubious comparisons?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: Ah, Comrade, stop squirming. Just answer my questions?

:)))) What questions of yours would you like answered? You seem always to ask something along the lines of why israel doesn't want to make peace. Or why do Zionists not agree with your version of history i.e agree that they have "stolen" palestine form the Arabs etc..

Mmm..I have no answer except to say that most Israelis would not agree with you.

That's it, really.Right or wrong....

phil

Linda Smith
September 19th, 2010 9:36pm ---No Linda not a politician ,but one who thinks she has taken over the mantle of the Pope ,who seems to have admitted he is not infallible after all,sincere apologies are the mark of a proper person .
-------------
Lyndsay wants to give lessons on so many subjects ,in a court of law one has to present ones qualifications before being acknowledged as an expert ,so far we have not heard from her on that subject ,she certainly knows very little about the subject of Israel , both its raison dètre,its past, and future path .Yet on a daily basis we are bombarded with the world according to Lyndsay -I find it as fascinating as watching a sausage machine and far less rewarding ,at least I can anticipate the flavour there ,,never with Lyndsay ,-as my old Mum used to say it just the same old two and nine.--even after she promised to go !!

Lindsay

John Roosevelt
"What questions of yours would you like answered?" - Even in something so very simple you can't respond to what is written. It does rather confirm this is "like a broken pencil..."

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: I said to you: "Don't answer my questions with questions or merely dismiss me again as you do everyone. I know you think everyone should understand you and what you stand for. After all, Harold seems to have protested that he does in fact think Israel has a right to exist, after all..and you have alluded to what you assert to be the Palestinian "position" of having a Peace based on Israel returning to the Armistice Lines etc - but Lyndsay , this is not enough. It smacks of somersaults..bad disputation generally, and tantamount to the cynical use of tactics in what is no more than a strategy veiled in deceit - deceitful because, in fact, the ultimate aim of that strategy is venal, and the suspicions that your (and Harold's) detractors have about your motives are indeed well founded."

..and what do you go and do? Evad my very straightforward questions and we just wanna know what you're on about!!

I fear that if the current bacth of palestinian negotiators are anything like as deceitful and evasive as you, we're going to have another nabka on our hands.

C.Gee

Lindsay (and Harold):

Our posts crossed.

One legal argument would be enough! How many do you need to be persuaded? The legal argument for Israel would contain many threads, but as I have said before, I do not choose to air them with you in this forum. One legal basis exists for all states: their existence. Israel exists, Palestine has yet to be created.

My point, to put it as simply as I can, is that a state comes into existence, and continues in existence while it has, or is allowed by other states, the power to assert itself. Power is the use of force. Call it brute force, if you like.

The whole of human affairs (civilization) can be seen as the allocation and arrangement of power (brute force) into what may be called jurisdictions - areas over which power is exerted and by which the power is limited. Any jurisdiction survives by virtue of superior power over competing jurisdictions, or because competing jurisdictions accommodate it.

You say - “I acknowledge you are right that international relations are akin to the mafia, with the US the current capo di tutti capi. But that is not the whole story even now, and the scope of the mafiosi can be reduced somewhat further by international law (although clearly those with power and those who benefit from their protection will resist).”

What is the “whole story”? What is the point of appealing to the jurisdiction of “international law” as an alternative to the principle of brute force, if it has no brute force with which to assert its jurisdiction? And if it did have brute force (borrowed from America or an alliance of states), would not that make of it a mafioso to you who looks to something higher that brute force to legitimize a jurisdiction? When you say “international law” can do something, the response is always: international law and whose army?

Israel is not “signing over territory that is not its”. What Israel has (“owns” very loosely speaking) is the power to control the territory, which it has voluntarily relinquished in part to the PA and Hamas, with undertakings to relinquish more as the quasi-state shows that it abides by the proposed agreements. It might agree to allocate (not to exert) further aspects of its power of control over more territory to a jurisdiction called Palestine, but only on condition that Palestine restrain its brute force, keep its jurisdiction within its allocated territory. This agreed to balance of power is peace. A Pax Zionista. Israel does not baulk at it. It is already unilaterally forbearing to exercise its control within Gaza and the West Bank.

Why the quasi-jurisdiction Palestine has not accepted the many balance of power offers from Israel, is that the Arabs who control militias have never wanted less than control over the whole territory (Israel included), as its continued use of its brute force demonstrates. Anti-Zionists perversely regard the relative weakness of the Palestinian brute force against Israeli brute force as a reason for Israel voluntarily to cede the future Palestine more power. To their eye, the Palestinian “F-11s” and “homemade rockets” are less brutal a brute force than Israel’s superior weaponry. What a strange aesthetic of power “disproportionality” is. Carried into a principle of international law, it states that the power must go to the jurisdiction or would-be jurisdiction that does not have sufficient power to bargain against other jurisdictions and thereby assert itself. The more territory the Palestinians and Arabs demand, the more they insist on a population transfer of potentially insurgent Arabs into Israel, the more they refuse to disarm or make demands for full sovereign control over their army, sea and airspace, the stronger their brute force has to be to achieve all this - but supplied by whom? Iran? Iran plus an alliance with Turkey, Russia or China? Would this balance of brute force satisfy the international aesthetes? Would they then turn their aesthetic sensibilities to the Kurds?

Under your principle of international law based on relative brute force, Al Quaida, “the base” should have jurisdiction over Saudi Arabia, for a start, the Taliban should have jurisdiction over Afghanistan and - why not? - Pakistan.

Humanitarian visions for humanity have been well depicted by Heironymus Bosch.

Linda Smith

Lindsay to me:
“Are you objecting to the requirement that you learn about Partition in India before making sweeping generalisations and dubious comparisons?”

I have no idea why Lindsay assumes I have no detailed knowledge about Partition in India. I repeat the question Lindsay is squirming to avoid answering: Lindsay, you say “Two potentially great nations, Israel and India, rose from the mayhem but I can’t feeling the mayhem could have been avoided.” How? Partition of India was “self-determination” wasn’t it? - an ideology of which you approve.

My use of the phrase “wasn’t it?” was rhetorical, as in n'est-ce pas?.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: You will have to forgive me. I have trawled and trawled and trawled your posts…and I cannot for the life of me find what it is in them you still want me to address.

Is it your very garbled, rhetorical question to C. Gee, perhaps i.e: “Is the right to dispose of territory that it has no claim to a principle so important to Israel that it is worth avoiding peace for?”

Well, again, comrade, you may be right that Israel is avoiding Peace and you may be right that the territory in question is not “its”. On the other hand, you may be wrong. I have made my position very clear many times in these posts on both issues. Many other have, also. Nothing I can say will ever change your view and certainly nothing you bang on about will affect Israel's position in the slightest. What is important is to discuss what will affect Israel and the Arab and Moslem sides in this conflict and how compromise can be reached. Leave your opinion re how heinous Israel is aside and how wonderful you think the Palestinians are. Deal with trying to understand what give and take each side might be encouraged to partake in. Its their perceptions that count, not your prescriptions to one side only. That's just silly.

I can only decipher a few other points made in your posts, all of which I think I have alluded to/addressed in mine. If not, here goes again:
- Hamas: should Israel negotiate with it? Perhaps it should, not least because it will call the organisation’s bluff. I suspect being part of any status quo will not sit well with it and it will reject sitting down with Israel or lay down preconditions it know swill be rejected so it can accuse Israel of being rejectionist. An old party trick which noone really falls for any more. If it does go for negotiations, there is very likely to be another radical, rejectionist group which will take its place. Frankly, I don’t put as much store by negotiating with Hamas as several Governments do..and, it seems, you also.

- Did Israel “steal” Arab land? If conquest in war constitutes “theft”, then yes, of course it did. Over to the lawyers…

- Was The League a reflection of Neo imperialism and/or the interests of the Great Powers? Again, to an extent this is axiomatic. So what? I cant imagine it being otherwise (right or wrong), nor the UN be much more than institution which at best is undemocratic and intrinsically political. Can you?
- Is International Law the only thing we have to hold onto when it comes to tools for international conflict resolution? Again, axiomatic to a significant degree. So what?

You see, Lyndsay, I just don’t get what you really want to achieve and what you think can be achieved.. Leave aside all your catchphrases and rhetoric and what are we left with? Read my last posts to you. Tell us what you really want and envisage as a realistic end game. Tell us if you feel that even if Israel says “ Bring all the “refugees” back you like and we will withdraw to the Green Line. – or even the Partition Lines; Take Jerusalem etc etc..Here’s money in reparations for all the evil we have foisted upon you…what on earth do you imagine will be the result of that? You have serious hope that a new Palestinian society will emerge which we should all feel represents the kind of justice and human rights you we would all love to buy into and have berated Israel for eschewing? You cannot be serious, unless your ideology comprises nothing more than some very arcane concept of property/land ownership and that alone. And nothing else matters to you – or should to us??!!!...Nothing to do with the role of religion? Nothing to do with whether or not a country is capitalist or not? Nothing to do with whether or not a country is theocratic – ruled by Sharia or not? Persecutes women and gays or not? Prevents freedom of speech and congregation or not? You feel Hamas and fatah will live in paece and harmongy? You think Ahmedinejad will let his daughter marry a Sunni? You think the Suadi's will start reading Germain Greer and watch the movie "Milk" in the full fluch of discovery that it is wrong to murder gays?
You are mute on these questions in the context of the players in this conflict (except when it comes to Israel not living up to your lofty standards and, by implication, to those of whom you support). To address them, however – as I have said to you over and over - is crucial if your vilification of the Jews or Israel is to have any traction and significance whatsoever.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: and again:

"..if the principles, standards and values applied by bien pensant Europe to Israel were retrospectively applied to Europe itself in 1930’s and 1940’s it is, in all seriousness, difficult to escape the following conclusions: the editorial pages of liberal newspapers across the continent would portray the Nazi Party as a ‘grievance’-based organization ‘radicalised’ by Western injustice; Nazi Germany’s ‘alleged’ anti-Semitism would be dismissed by BBC journalists as the rhetoric of the oppressed and would be censored out of the reporting; Amnesty International would denounce the Royal Airforce’s bombing campaigns as ‘disproportionate’ since German civilian deaths outnumbered British civilian deaths by 25 to 1; the European Parliament would condemn the targeted assassination of Rheinhard Heydrich in Czechoslovakia as an ‘extra-juridical execution’; and Winston Churchill would be indicted for a long list of ‘war crimes’ by the International Criminal Court in The Hague…Contemporary European values negate the possibility of contemporary European realities. Today’s Europe could not have been built on the basis of the value system now being argued for by the large numbers of the continents own opinion formers. The Allies would have lost WW11."

Lindsay

C. Gee
Thank you for your very clear post.

I do recognise that the position you set out is wholly consistent.

There are two things that do not make it inconsistent, but which do not quite seem to fit. First, you say that there is a legal case for Israel but you do not choose to tell me it; unless that case is simply force, why would you bother with such a legal case? Secondly, why do you get so indignant with those who oppose what Israel is doing to the Palestinians (unless it is simple exasperation at their intellectual unclarity and sentimentality in wanting Israel to be better than it is)?

My main objection to what you say is, as I said before, that, while self-consistent, it is not the whole story: states do not settle the vast bulk of their disagreements by force. Also, because states do resort to force other than in self-defence, this need not mean that the are right to do so and should continue to do so in future. There is a better way.

I think you have pointed out that legal jurisdiction within a state relies on a monopoly of force. International law has no such foundation and so is always going to be more fragile and disputed. Nevertheless, it has proved possible for states to agree norms and abide by them. That international law is fragile is not an argument against trying to make it more robust. It is a force for civilisation to oppose against brute force.

Your argument also seems to have curious consequences for ethics unless you intend it to be applied selectively or unless ethics is simply sentimentality. Within what you recognise as a legitimate jurisdiction is murder wrong only because the perpetrator can be imprisoned? In a world of competing jurisdictions do ethical standards not apply to a state that systematically slaughters the inhabitants of another country it has invaded? Or are you saying there is no ethical standard unless it can be enforced - murder within a jurisdiction is wrong because the perpetrator can be sentenced, but slaughter by a state is not wrong because no-one can stop it?

As I said, I can see that your position is consistent, I am just struggling to work out its implications.

Your last few paragraphs aren't up to the standard of your first few. I think they go somewhat awry.

Lindsay

Linda Smith
Let's start again, then.

When you said to Harold, "India was partitioned in 1947 forming a divided Islamic State (East and West Pakistan). Millions of people relocated, plenty of massacres and bloodshed. Or is it only the creation of a Jewish State you object to?"

And to me, "Partition of India was “self-determination” wasn’t it? - an ideology of which you approve."

What for?

Is it that there was partition in the Indian subcontinent, so Harold must accept it in Palestine? That there was horrendous slaughter in India, so Harold should not complain about the lesser slaughter in Palestine?

And to me, is it that this is how self-determination works, so, since self-determination is part of my ideology, I just have to accpet that it causes horrenodus slaughter?

As arguments these are so lamentable I prefer to assume I'm missing your point. What was it?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: I do sympathise with Lyndsay's desire for a better world. I really do. It's just hard to fathom what her real vision of that world really is.

One also has to wonder if she she believes her vision - whatever it is - has any chance of being realised or even vaguely realised.

I know she thinks Israel has behaved unjustly; that if only it did not do to the Palestinians what it has been accused of doing, the world would surely be better for it..

..but is this the case? What would have happened, does she think, if the Arabs - for example - had defeated the Jews in '47-'49? Would a world - which Lyndsay envisages as a better one - have been realised? And what would that world be?

It seems to me that Lyndsay does not take responsibility for the implications of what she purports to strive for ("be careful what you wish for") and , clearly, C. Gee's very incisive end statement to his brilliant post: "Humanitarian visions for humanity have been well depicted by Heironymus Bosch." did not go down well with our comrade (a revealingly nasty dismissal of it by her, i thought).

The Red Army faction - back in the day - wanted to realise a better world - or so its members claimed. They were against all forms of repression and intolerance, they claimed. They thought capitalism was a dreadful social and economic system based on an essential injustice that they were dedicated to righting.

In the process of righting this terrible, pervasive, wrong, the RAF went a training with their brothers - the PLO. They learned how to fire automatic weapons and blow people up. All for a good cause. They were "freedom fighters", after all.

It didn't take long for one lot of freedom fighters to fall out with the other. The lady fighters amongst the RAF, were wont to parade around the camp naked..smoking dope..and generally doing what European(chic)radicals seem to like to do in those heady days..This made the Palestinian men think little of fighting and more of sex - denied them, of course, by their religion and their obligations to train militarily for their cause. Their officers were very pissed off with the Germans, as a result.

So, the Germans were booted out of Jordan, and went back to Germany to blow people to smitherenes, before ending up in prison and/or committing suicide, and or being killed by the dresded cops...

What world did they truly believe their actions would stand a chance in hell of realising, one wonders?

What world is Bin Laden fighting for?

What world is Hamas and Hezbollah fighting for? Should we aspire to the kind of world Ahmedinejad is imposing in his "domain", as women continue to be sentenced to stoning and lashes for 'adultery"; political opponents are "slaughtered" etc?

Lyndsay, Andrei and Harold etc..need to contextualise their critiques and digests of all-too_often veiled prescriptions. They are a dangerous nonsense, otherwise.

Linda Smith

Lindsay, you still haven’t answered my question. You said “Two potentially great nations, Israel and India, rose from the mayhem but I can’t help feeling the mayhem could have been avoided” I asked you: How?

I repeat,in caps for empasis, in case you overlook it again:

HOW?

phil

September 20th, 2010 5:53pm ABOVE- I posted about you ,and your lack of clarification as to your standing here as an expert - Your lack of the ability to respond defines you as not only rude but scared ,Daily you claim to know about no end of legalities and yet you have never validated your expertise .Why not tell us what it is ?,if you cannot or will not why not keep it to your self? ,we can then read your wishes ,your solutions but without having to be deluged with your opinions ,many of which are plainly off the wall .So far I can award you an A for effort and a C minus for knowledge ,but an A plus for stubbornness .Why C.GEE and JR continue this discussion baffles me .

Lindsay

Linda Smith
September 21st, 2010 6:09pm
As you will see from the passages quoted you did not ask one question only, whether in upper or lower case. As far as I can tell, how? (sorry, HOW?) was not your first question, nor clearly the one you thought most important when you first asked. It appears to have become for you a pretext for the Adam B. Gambit.

I am not sure why you are suddenly unwilling to clarify why you think India relevant to a discussion about Palestine.

AS to HOW? - If Britain had not galloped towards partition with Mountbatten assuring all and sundry that it would be fine (while he concentrated all his energies on the protocol of the handover ceremony and his military advisors warned of disaster) the mayhem may have been avoided. If the cabinet had not agreed Mountbatten's timetable (or forced it on him - I'm not sure it has been determined which). If the Muslim and Hindu politicians had been better statesmen...The list is long, but there is no doubt Britain's actions provide the proximate cause. And Britain could have acted differently.

If the proposal for a temporary UN trusteeship had not been scuppered by the Zionists' UDI and Truman's immediate recognition of it (which startled his own officials) mayhem may have been averted. The Zionists saw their chance, aware that mayhem would ensue, and well prepared to profit from it. The Palestinians did not have the competence or organisation of the Zionists (partly because the British had decimated their leadership and military capability, partly no doubt because the Yishuv was in effect an advanced state-in-waiting whereas the Palestinians were anything but). The Palestinians were ill-prepared to defend their land. The Arab states were half-hearted in their support and intent on their own interests. The mayhem could have been avoided. Once it started, its outcome was in little doubt. Whatever else you may think of Norman Rose's recent book, his title is apt.

phil

Lindsay
September 22nd, 2010 3:15pm WE continue to wait in vain for clarification of your qualifications .You will have noticed that nothing you say is believed and will not be given credibility until such clarification is received .Shortly you will run out of replies .JR obviously sees you as a plaything ,but he will tire of you soon I am sure ,Linda is not easily shook off though ,so you can look forward to a hard time without progress,If I remember correctly Linda is a PSYCHOLOGIST AND MAY BETTER UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM YOU HAVE IN ANSWERING SIMPLE QUESTIONS .

C.Gee

Lindsay:

You ask:

“...why do you get so indignant with those who oppose what Israel is doing to the Palestinians (unless it is simple exasperation at their intellectual unclarity and sentimentality in wanting Israel to be better than it is)?”

This is a quagmire, not merely of intellectual unclarity, but of emotional confusion. What is the difference between simple exasperation and indignation? Tell me, Lindsay, which emotion is the touchstone for your political/moral/legal thinking: indignation, or simple exasperation, at what the Jews are “doing” to the Arabs (it is “systematic slaughter”, after all), or sentimental yearning (condescension?) that the Jews could “be” better? (Sigh! If only they might see the wisdom of voluntary committal to the bin and round-the-clock supervision ). How about feeling some sentimental wishful thinking (or would that smack of orientalism or imperialism?) that the Arabs could be better? (Well, they are naughty, but we must not damage their self-esteem.) Or how about working up a little indignation, or even simple exasperation, or mild annoyance, at what the Arabs are doing to the Jews? ( You're not angry, but you are disappointed at their acting out, but then you understand all about their traumatic childhood of abuse, and their home-made rockets are mostly harmless.)

Something is guiding your emotional instincts, not intellect, something sticky and smelly, a cultural putrefaction. Please do not start on disproportionality. I am well aware of how this aesthetic of war is deployed to concoct a fiction of the Arab as underdog, which permits a (marxian-pavlovian) moral gag-reflex at the sight of Zionists, saving the trouble of thought and analysis.

But if you want to know about my emotional response, let me state it: I find amusing your moral clown act: hugely self-righteous blubbering opinion bestride a tiny bicycle of fiction, pedaling in circles.

The rest of your comment is mere repetition of points already addressed.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: : A senseless, squalid war"..

It seems that Lyndsay wants to make another otiose distinction.No doubt she has a whole bunch of 'em up her copious sleeve which aren't "squalid and senslelss - particularly in the Middle East.

Perhaps she finds the Iran-Iraq war, resulting in about a million deaths a paradigm of one that is not senseless and squalid?

She's a gal and a half, ain't she?? Real intellectual integrity there...

Lindsay

C.Gee
September 22nd, 2010 8:16pm
The spell of lucidity lasted you half of one post, alas.

phil

JR-"She's a gal and a half, ain't she?? Real intellectual integrity there..."-nO John and she shows that by ignoring my requests ,because she has no answer for them .In any court of law she would be told to get out of the witness box if she masqueraded as an expert .She could of course prove useful as one of the "all knowing" and tell us who Jack the Ripper really was :)

Harold

Linda Smith,

To revert to an earlier question of yours - I didn't know that Israel actively supported France in its attempt to keep Algeria: the Algerians had cause to fear Zionists in their midst. The Jewish Algerians chose France when de Gaulle pulled out. Also, Morocco, it seems, wanted its Jewish community to stay. It formed an integral and valuable part of the community. The Moroccan Jews who could afford to chose the US. If such things are indeed true (and, as I say, I was not aware of them), and what with the bombings in Egypt, and no doubt other complications in the story of tragic/heroic exile/return, do you think it possible the question of compensation is more difficult than you presented it, involving so many different states and populations and circumstances? (I still think compensation in some form due to many of those affected.) In addition, I did not see any explanation from you why you disagree that this is distinct from the question of the Palestinian right of return and compensation. It could be argued that it is obstructionist to try to insist that settlement of the two sets of cases be linked, with one (between one set of actors) settled only if the other (between another set of actors) is settled as well. Surely it makes sense to settle the one where people are still dying as a result of the dispute and where the outline of a settlement is clear?

Harold

C. Gee,

" I find amusing your moral clown act: hugely self-righteous blubbering opinion bestride a tiny bicycle of fiction, pedaling in circles."

Your "amusement" is of a somewhat vituperative, splenetic, strenuous, blood-vessel-bursting variety.

Does it not illustrate what I take to be the point?

You say it is all simply a matter of power politics. Israel does what it wants because it has the power. It does it because it wants to and because it can. The Palestinians can threaten all they want, but can do very, very little. And that is all.

Yet, when what you say is questioned, when Israel is criticised, your response is righteous, moralistic, indignant. By your own argument, there is nothing in the question that merits or allows for a moral response. It is simple power politics. And that is all.

So why the venom, the splenetic blood vessel bursting, the moral superiority (in addition to your evident sense of intellectual superiority and of tougher minded realism, which may or may not be merited)?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay, I have to hand it to you: coming back to C.Gee for more punishment takes some doing.

C. Gee: I have changed my fantasy of heaven since reading your posts, each one more wondrous than the last. Just think, that fantasy used to be: My Mozart collection; a good bottle of Borollo and Linda Smith...:)

Welcome to the fantasy and thank you for your priceless posts:))

Harold

It is odd.

All the stuff about the Zionists' moral right to Palestine, about the promise of the imperial powers to give it to them, about the legal right to it that followed from the imperialists' promise, about self-defence by the settlers against attack by the inhabitants, about the justification self-defence provides for taking the land, legally and morally, about the "Arabs" wickedness in not accepting the Zionists' claim, about the Zionists' desire for peace, thwarted by the "Arabs", about the Zionists as representatives of civilisation and the "Arabs" the servants of darkness - it is all just window-dressing. The Zionists wanted the land enough to organise themselves in sufficient force to take it and keep it. As Israel, they will continue to take what they want because they have one of the most powerful armies in the world. And that is the end of it. International law is nonsense. The rights of others are a sentimental fiction. If they try to defend them, they will be killed. Any complaint is vicious anti-semitism.

Or, regardless of its beginnings, Israel is a state like any other, with the same rights, but also the same obligations.

I know which looks to me like the civilised alternative.

Linda Smith

Lindsay’s twaddle will have to wait for another day because I’m busy with real life. Just time for a brief note to Harold re Algeria. The Algerian Jews did not chose to leave as you falsely assert. They were flung out with the French when the French lost the war. The new Algerian government’s policy was that only Muslims could be citizens:

"The Algerian nationality law of newly independent Algeria, promulgated in 1963, granted citizenship only to Muslims, requiring that only those individuals whose fathers and paternal grandfathers had Muslim personal status could become citizens of the new state. All Jewish and Christian residents were driven into exile, even though the Jewish community was considered indigenous to Algeria, as it had been in Algeria longer even before Islam and could trace its presence to Roman times, around 2600 years ago starting in the year 586 BCE.[1]"

Wiki

I wonder who's really hiding under Harold's burkah.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Ladies and Gents, I think it a fair and reasonable verdict - after so many vain attempts to get Harold just to tell us simply and clearly what is his vision of Peace in the Middle East and a better future for all in the region not to mention the rest of the world - that we can now declare him to be congenitally incapable of coming out of the closet. Even the Conservatives have a better track than him in this regard!!

As such, he is - I have no doubt - more a danger to himself than to any Zionist (and, after careful thought, it might just be that he is terrified to tell his mum). This form of repression cannot be good for him (ask Linda, if she is indeed a psychologist). My guess is if he does not go through some kind of cartharsis soon, he may auto combust as a result of pressure build-up from the sheer mass of his own dissemblance.

Here's how it is, Harold, and I know it will hurt..but it may just be that catalyst needed for all good catharses:

- Israel is surrounded by police states. State terror is justified in these states in terms of Islam. This may get your toe tapping, but not Israel's.

- whatever the history, Israel is here to stay. If you and the Islamic police states dont like it, keep fighting. Otherwise, sue for Peace.

- if you wont reach an accomodation with Israel and you follow the path of violence, all you will gain is fast track to the chimera of an orgy of virgins. Your choice.

- It is not in the interests of Syria, Iran, Hamas or Hizbollah - to reach an agreement with Israel except one which would pave the way to its destruction. They will continue, like you, to lie, if they think that can be achieved.

- Israel will continue to get stronger. As we speak, I think many might be surprised about the reality of the balance sheet in the covert war wit its enemies. Time, contrary to how the Islamic propaganda machine would have it, is not on the side of the anti-zionists. Arab and moslem societies have some very debilitating internal conflicts to deal with which will continue to retard their abilities to fulfill their fantasies.

- one thing you can rely on, if the behaviour of the states which make up the international "community" and who are responsible for the generation of the principles of international law continue to be the yardstick by which we measure the behaviour of israel, israel will continue to have ample room to behave as it sees fit. Very sadly, there are no state equivalents to Nelson Mandela in the pantheon of states to inspire us and teach by example.

So, Comrad, you are - I'm afraid - up the proverbial sh*t creek without a paddle - any way you hack it. No smoking joints or reading Little Red Book (s) or little ditties from Chomsky tiny reader on 9-11 will change this.

For your own sake (and, I have to admit, ours too) please go see a doc.

Harold

Linda Smith
"The Algerian Jews did not chose to leave as you falsely assert. They were flung out with the French..."

...Now there's a thing...I didn't say they chose to leave...I said they chose France (not Israel) - just as the Moroccans chose the US if they could, and the European DPs after the War preferred the US if at all possible.

I have another question for you on "transfer". How many of the Palestinians who left their homes during hostilities expected to be shot at by Israel when they attempted to return to their homes? And what was the justification for shooting them?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "The Zionists wanted the land enough to organise themselves in sufficient force to take it and keep it. As Israel, they will continue to take what they want because they have one of the most powerful armies in the world. And that is the end of it. International law is nonsense. The rights of others are a sentimental fiction. If they try to defend them, they will be killed. Any complaint is vicious anti-semitism."

...and the Arabs and moslems have all the oil! Life's a bitch, aint it, comrade?

Now, what do you propose? Give us your weltanschauung, comrade...or should I say Schadenfreude Weltenschaung...