Demonising the victims

Gilbert Belwether

...a rise in xenophobic and religious nationalism, with any discussion of Palestinians' civil rights confined to a dissident margin...

This is quite correct. Go look at the polls asking what percentage of Israelis believe that Jewish and Arab citizens deserve equal rights. The numbers are dwindling. Xenophobia and religious nationalism are very much on the rise in Israel by any reasonable definition. Just look at our foreign minister.

...Why is Israel blamed for xenophobic and religious nationalism when Abbas has said repeatedly that the Palestinians will never accept Israel as a Jewish state? Why isn’t he blamed for xenophobia and religious fanaticism?...

Well, here's one Israeli who devoutly hopes that neither the Palestinians nor anyone else ever recognizes Israel as a "Jewish state". Would you want to live in an "Anglican state" or an "Anglo-Saxon state"? States belong to their citizens, not to a religious or ethnic group. This is Civics 101 stuff. This is why Fayad was right to reject the 'two states for two peoples' wording, which was Israel's attempt to get such recognition in by the back door. (And how come it's Fayad fault the meeting blew up when Ayalon was equally stubborn? What's wrong with just 'two states', anyway?)

...Why is Israel blamed for ignoring civil rights when the Palestinians -- along with the Observer, Roger Cohen and all who want every last settler out of the territories -- are campaigning for the ethnic cleansing of every single Jew from a future state of Palestine?...

Because the settlers have no right to be there. It isn't their land. You can't settle populations in disputed territory. Israel has never even made an official claim to the territories because it knows no one would recognize it. When the dispute is resolved (not that it ever will be), each state can decide who it will allow to immigrate into its territory. No 'creating facts on the ground' until then, especially when only one side has the power to do so.

Gilbert Belwether

By the way, does anyone else find it ironic that Ms. Phillips wants Israeli nationality to be defined by religion, yet angrily rejects the suggestion that religious nationalism is on the rise?

rippon

The historical record clearly shows that Israel has always favoured expansion over security.

red trev

I could not agree more.In my book,Anti-semitism is Anti-semitism no matter how one dress's it up.Long live free and civilised Isreal

Pilgrim

The only voice of truth that I can find anywhere in the world. Its about time the Israeli government dug their heels in and told everyone to butt out. Time for Israel to stand alone and be proud of their existance and then defend it. Keep writing Melanie, hopefully you will get through to some of the biased media and have them report the truth for a change.

Kev

To compare the Iraeli and Palestinian regiemes siply ask yourselft the question "If there was to be an international border five miles from my house, would I prefer it to be the Israeli border or the Palestinian border?"

I'd have the Isaelis every time.

fludent

Great article. To the 'malevolent shapers' list should be added the BBC, and The Graudian. Maybe that goes without saying.

George

If building in Judea and Samaria is an "obstacle to peace", why hasn't the building of Rawabi been frozen? Or is it only Jews who aren't allowed to build? Surely not - after all, that would be racist, which is not a liberal trait at all.

Derek BLADES

Ms Phillips asks "How can the settlement freeze be the make or break issue when,....?" and goes on to list a number of reasons why she thinks that the settlements are not the issue.

Clearly most of those involved in the negotiations - Abbas, Mitchell, Clinton, Obama for example - think that the expansion of settlements is indeed a stumbling block to negotiations for a two state solution. How do these knowledgeable and intelligent people come to the opposite conclusion from that of Ms Phillips?

I suppose their reasoning is that since the negotiations are about giving back the occupied territories to the Palestinians, Israeli government support for further encroachment by the settlers could be seen as a signal that the Israelis are not negotiating in good faith.

Beer Moth

Yet again, a powerful statement to remind us of the contortions and duplicity that infest the 'intelligentsia' of the West in its present state.

Kate

Fortunately some relatively easy answers to your questions:

How can the settlement freeze be the make or break issue when, during the ten months that the freeze was on, Abbas refused to negotiate at all with Israel?

Abbas entered negotiations in March. These were scotched by the Ramat Shlomo announcement during Biden's visit. He re-entered in July and laid out his position on all final status issues. The Israelis refused to discuss final status until they were in direct talks.

How can the settlements be the make or break issue when the Palestinian response to the forced removal of the settlers from Gaza was not peace but war?

Because we are talking about an agreed withdrawal and the end of hostilities and claims, not the unilateral pulling back from a small part of occupied territory.

How can the disputed territories be the issue when Israel has twice now offered to give up more than 90 per cent of these territories to the Palestinians, only for them to refuse it twice point blank (and in 2000 start a campaign of terrorist murder against Israel instead?)

Because Abbas is not Arafat. Arafat should have accepted Camp David or the Taba Accords that came after it. Abbas was in no position to accept Olmert's vague offer, made about a month before the latter was due to leave office and against the backdrop of specific warnings by Livni that Abbas should not sign anything with her lame duck predecessor.

Why is Israel blamed for xenophobic and religious nationalism when Abbas has said repeatedly that the Palestinians will never accept Israel as a Jewish state? Why isn’t he blamed for xenophobia and religious fanaticism?

He hasn't said anything of the sort. Words matter. Don't twist them. He's said that it is not for the Palestinians to recognise Israel as any particular kind of state. State's recognise each other's sovereignty, not their ethnic make up. The UK recognises Israel not the Jewish state of Israel. Abbas knows that Israel will, of course, remain predominantly Jewish. I agree that he could, tactically, do more to signal this in public. But, I guess he doesn't want to make further rhetorical concessions on "the right of return" (however limited he knows that will be) when he is getting absolutely nothing from the Israelis on settlements (absent a 10-month moratorium that saw as many housing units completed in the West Bank during that time as any comparable 10-month period over the past five years).

Why is Israel blamed for ignoring civil rights when the Palestinians -- along with the Observer, Roger Cohen and all who want every last settler out of the territories -- are campaigning for the ethnic cleansing of every single Jew from a future state of Palestine?

They haven't. They have said openly that any settler wanting to stay in the Palestinian state as a Palestinian citizen can do so. Some of the more enlightened settlers are now even exploring this as an option since they have more connection to the land/holy sites than they do to the state of Israel.

How can Salaam Fayad be ‘very serious’ about peace with Israel when he stormed out of a meeting with Israel’s deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon after Ayalon refused to approve a summary of the meeting which said ‘two states’ but did not include the words ‘two states for two peoples’ – a walk-out that tells us that even the supposedly super-moderate Fayad refuses to accept that the goal is the ‘two state solution’?

He didn't. Ayalon was making it up. The Norwegians had to actually had to publicly call him out as having lied.

Bob

Benjamin Franklin Quote:

"A nation which sacrifices an ounce of liberty for an ounce of security will deserve neither and lose both."

Very appropiate in this case

Shaun Harbord

Gilbert Belwether, well said. The idea that Israel is a "Jewish" state means that Muslims, Christians and other non-Jews are implicitly excluded. Religion should be a matter of private conscience not state prescription - same with
"the Islamic Republic of....." insert name of your choice.

Larry in Tel Aviv

So many Jew-hating liars post here, none of whom naturally address the facts laid out by Phillips and others. The Palestinians (Hamas and Fatah both included) have never accepted Israel's right to exist. Abbas is emphatic on this point, and the Fatah constitution still calls for Israel's destruction. Abbas is a Holocaust Denier who praises terrorists and suicide bombers as "martyrs", calls Hamas "brothers in arms" and attends the unveiling by Fatah "moderates" of a statute of terrorist Dalit Mugrabbi in Ramallah quite recently, she who machine-gunned Jewish men, women and children to death in a bus attack in 1978 near Haifa, where he praises her as a national Palestinian hero.

The Jews abandoned Gaza and the settlements there, Hamas took over and proceeded to launch hundreds of rockets into Israel resulting in the Gaza War last year, the rocket strikes continue, nobody with a brain could even pretend it has anything to do with the Jews building in the West Bank or Jeruslem. Hezbollah continue to plot Israel's destruction and have amassed thousands of rockets, armed by Syria which plots the same - what does that have to do with the Jews building homes? Where have Hamas and Fatah in the West Bank even pretended to accept Israel's existence to their own people and even pretended such acceptance would come when the Jews abandon their towns in the West Bank? Nowhere. The charter of the PLO from the early 1960s calls for Israel's destruction, no settlements at the time, in fact the West Bank was under Jordanian control. There have been pogroms against Jews over the centuries by Arab Muslims and the Turks - maybe it was the fault of the Jews for having homes to live in.

Iran seeks to wipe the state of Israel out with nuclear bombs, maybe if the Jews stop building homes Iran will change its plans, right?

Interesting that people above who blame Israel for no peace, either ignore the fact that Abbas is an extremist (and all the other obvious facts I mention and plenty I don't) or else they portray this supporter of suicide bombers and a Holocaust Denier as a peace-loving moderate. Well they would, that's just the point.

When dealing with Jew-haters (including the self-haters), in principle you are dealing with morons averse to facts and history. This begs the question - what comes first, their Jew-hatred or their obtuseness? Or can they be seen as distinct and seperate?

kate

An addendum. Where you are right, of course, is that settlements are not the main obstacle to peace. They are only one of a many. And the biggest ones are Jerusalem and refugees where the Palestinian "moderates'" red lines are more unreasonable than the Israeli "moderates'" ones. But the reason why they are the focus now - and the pressure is therefore on Israel - is one of sequencing. Stopping settlements is the first step in building a credible peace process. The second step will also require disproportionate pressure on Israel because it is Israel that will have to move the most (simply because on most of the final status issues it literally holds the ground - water, Jerusalem, borders: and, conversely, the PA has done it's job in the West Bank on security and is incapable of doing that job in Gaza). It's not a reflection of Israel being the "bad guys" that they need to feel the heat at this stage, it's just a matter of reality on the ground. If Israel can be persuaded to offer a half-way decent deal to Abbas then the heat will turn on the Palestinians to accept that deal.

It would, indeed, be in Israel's own interests to follow this sequence. If that deal were rejected decisively by the Palestinians then they would occupy the clear moral high ground. And before you say it, Camp David didn't do that. The US mishandled the process to the extent that multiple narratives emerged and nothing was ever written down to show what exactly was offered and what was rejected.

All this presupposes, of course, that you support a two-state solution. But I don't know if you do. What you never do in these blogs is to set out your own vision for middle east peace. You simply criticise others' efforts. What do you want to see? Two states? Continued occupation? One state with variegated levels of civil rights? Or, as you have hinted in the past but never said outright, the Jordanian option (here you may be straying, of course, from Bibi who has said that Israel must retain the Jordan valley in case their is a coup against the Hashemites. I doubt he'd be keen to see the Jordanian army deployed to within 10km of Jerusalem). Why don't you use this blog to set out definitively your vision for peace?

Abracadabra

Personally, I just want to see Ms Phillips' response to the election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader, only five years after Michael Howard was Tory leader.

How's that 'British anti-Semitism' meme going, Melanie?

Raymond Douglas

Thank you again Melanie. Your critics are pygmies compared to you. Your honesty and intellectual rigour, far outshine your opponents. May our good lord continue to bless and sustain you.

Andy Whittaker

Psalm 122 instructs that we should '...pray for the peace of Jerusalem...' - until there is true and genuine peace in Jerusalem (Israel) there will never be (there never can be) peace in the world.

Daar

Gilbert Belwether
You know nothing about Jews
The correct analogy is "Jewish state" = British /French / Italian state"

Wongiranger

Demonisation is a critical concern for all supporters of Israel, yet not extending the moratorium - in spite of Netayahu's domestic political considerations, plays directly into the hands of Israel-bashers. Surely it is better to call the Palestinians' bluff and expose their prevarication and duplicity regarding meaningful negotiations, than to be painted as the obstacle to peace?

GaryO

Looks like the Arabs are now controlling the media. Now that they have a US and UK administration on their side, the Arab lobby in both US and UK are in full swing.

BTW, I stopped reading Time magazine a long time ago.

mark

Any chance of anyone on this blog who wish to support MP's arguments doing so without name calling "Jew haters" or implying anti semitism.

I'm not asking this to be provocative. I think MPs blog is useful in widening the scope of debate on this issue, it is good to have a plainly pro-Israeli government position stated in the media. But the rudeness shown to those who disagree, and the name calling and allusions to anti semitism diminish the useful role this blog could serve.

Mark

Just to add to my previous post. I really don't see "how your critics are pygmies" can help a persuasive argument. Is it just me?

Andre

Larry in Tel Aviv - well said. Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, Iran et al simpply want to see Israel wiped out and have publicly said so many times. What we in the West need to realize is that these peole also want to see our civilization expunged from the map and replaced by a sharia style theological dictatorship. Most people in the west cannot see this happening and remain dangerously complacent. Israel's struggle against Islamic terrorism, racism and hatred is out struggle too. Of course Israel is and will always be a Jewish state - just as my country, should remain British

kate

Larry

As you say facts matter. On two of the crucial ones you use to support your argument you are mistaken:

Abbas did not attend the unveiling of a statue of a terrorist.

The PLO recognised Israel in 1988. Abbas has repeatedly spoken of a complete and comprehensive peace that will last for generations and see two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side.

You are right about the Fatah charter which remains reactionary and unpleasant. And you would be right to say that Abbas may not be able to deliver the Palestinian people. But to say he is not "moderate" is simple ignorance. Destroy this man, as the current Israeli government seems hell bent on doing, and you will get something a lot more unpleasant in its stead. That would be a tragedy for all the people of the region.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Derek Blades: "Clearly most of those involved in the negotiations - Abbas, Mitchell, Clinton, Obama for example - think that the expansion of settlements is indeed a stumbling block to negotiations for a two state solution. How do these knowledgeable and intelligent people come to the opposite conclusion from that of Ms Phillips?"

Clearly Ms Phillips is totally misguided. The Palestinian leadership/s have wanted nothing but to follow International law since 1967 and indeed since 1947. The Palestinian leadership/s have ALWAYS taken a leaf out of their Arab and moslem brothers' books - inspired by the depth of humanitarianism which has - since the 7th Century - been well now to pervade their culture /s i.e. to fight for the glories of secular, democratic statehood - where the rights of all are enshrined by Law. The Hamas Charter is their blue print. Iranian political practice their workshop.

The wars against the Jews from 1947 and the riots against them before that, were mere expressions of frustration that visions for a brighter future for all in Palestine was just not being realised - largely because of the nefariousness of good old imperialism.

Godbless Hamas and Fatah and Hezbollah and the Ayatollahs! The world knows that if we can only get those Jews to tame their lust for land and opressing others, the sun will shine once again on the Middle East. Oil dollars can then flow to the hospitals and schools and the NGO's and the Councils for Human Rights. Stones will all be laid down and women will run free. Gay men will don their make up and mince down to the local parade, proud to be...well, gay. Newspapers and radio stations, Tv Channels and the internet - will all be flourishing expressions of man's desire to be FREEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!

Ah, the thought of it all! If only.....

Please, Mr Abbas, make it happen for us.

I suppose their reasoning is that since the negotiations are about giving back the occupied territories to the Palestinians, Israeli government support for further encroachment by the settlers could be seen as a signal that the Israelis are not negotiating in good faith.

Paul

Ah, again the myth of the generous Israeli offer of peace at Camp David

Have a look at this map and see if you would have accepted the offer

http://unitedcats.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/israels-generous-offer/

Palestine consisting of 4 Bantustans (inlcuding Gaza) with complete Israeli control of its borders with the outside world and airspace. Loss of Jordan valley. Extra-territorial settlements within what Palestinian territory there was. No presense in Jerusalem.

No wonder Ben Ami the fmormer Israeli foreign minister (who was on the Israeli negotiation team) says HE would have rejected Camp David if he were a Palestinian.

I second Kate's comments - Melanie lets have your plan to solve this. Two state solution? Expulsion and colonisation? Or carry on as now with one state with Palestinians as a permanently subjugated underclass?

tiki

A FREEZE doesn't bring PEACE! The WORLD wanted a 'freeze of 10 month, they got their
'freeze of ten month, so what's all the complaining and
demonisation about? It's very simple,......Israel is the JEW of the 1930/40, plain and simple! It's always 'their fault, it's 'never enough, they are 'always to blame for the worlds incapability to deal with problems, they are being 'used if ratings slump for a politician/party. Same scenario, but hopefully not the same outcome, for Israel doesn't
repeat history, it writes new one, namely of the strong and independed Israeli/Jew who doesn't tolerate being bullied, told what to do or being led to the slaughter without a fight to win. That's the difference about then and now....only the WORLD doesn't like this scenario!

Mjolnir de Jersiaise

BLADES says: "How do these knowledgeable and intelligent people come to the opposite conclusion from that of Ms Phillips?"

Well, Neville Chamberlain was a "knowledgeable and intelligent person" who came to the opposite conclusion of Winston Churchill; was Neville Chamberlain correct?

Abracadabra

'You know nothing about Jews
The correct analogy is "Jewish state" = British /French / Italian state" '

No. The correct analogy is "British /French / Italian state = Israeli state" '

Rachel

Israel should stop negotiating as of this moment. It just needs to hold on and be as strong as possible.

Historically, the Arabs as well as the invented “Palestinians” (they didn’t exist until the 1960s) didn’t want peace nor coexistence with Israel, and since war hasn’t succeeded in destroying Israel, they use any other available means (terror, negotiations, propaganda, cooperative/gullible western media, useful idiots, red-green alliance and so on).
Anyone being even minimally informed about what Arabs views are, and what the Arab media, politicians and school teaching say, will know that.

Second, if Israel holds for, say, another 20 years, the situation will change dramatically. Europe is being Islamised in an ever increasing speed. This will alter European politics. As recent elections indicate, the (far) Right is gaining power. This, in all probabilities, will bring (again) extreme realities to Europe, including dramatic increase in anti-Semitism, as is already evident. Many Jews would immigrate to Israel (as they are already doing from France, Norway etc). This will further strengthen the country.

Third, if in the meantime, an alternative to oil will be found, the Arab states will gradually degenerate back to pre-oil era, never to be heard of again. Just think: pre-1973, before the oil shock and aviation terror; the two most important exports from the Arab world, who paid attention to that part of the world (think of black Africa at present ). Just consider, despite so much wealth, the Arabs still lag behind in every civilised human index (with the Palestinians the least backward). Moreover, they still insist on returning to the Middle-Ages and dragging us with them.

All the commentators above who insist on blaming Israel while discussing minutiae, refuse to let these facts confuse them.

The Jews always served as the canary in the coal mine, now it’s epitomised in attitudes to Israel. The way Israel is presently treated by the world only serves as evidence to indicate the extent of the rot.

Gordon Ross

Oh dear, the bigots are qick off the mark as ever!

Remember that Hitler's antagonism towards the Jews had nothing to do with their religion, but because of their non-'Aryan' blood, witness those Jews in Germany whose forebears had converted to Christianity several generations earlier. If their origins became known, they went to the gas chambers with the rest ! Something those Jews in the UK who feel so 'English', 'Scottish' etc. should bear in mind.

The 'Jewish' in 'Jewish state' refers to the ethnicity of the majority (just like the 'German' in 'Germany'), not to their religion, and the bigots whose comments appear above well know that there is complete freedom of religion in the Jewish state for Christians, Muslims and others living there, including the Baha'i, who have a beautiful temple and centre in Haifa, Israel. In Muslim Iran, they are persecuted.

Gordon Ross

Abracadabra, 'Arab' state = Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon etc. etc. 'Jewish' state (the one and only) = Israel !

Dave M

"States belong to their citizens, not to a religious or ethnic group."

So, let's get this right. China doesn't belong to the Chinese people. Japan doesn't belong to the Japanese people. Russia doesn't belong to the Russian people.
I think you're confusing American and E.U. citizenship policy and assuming all other countries wish to follow a similar course.
I see no reason at all why Israel shouldn't be recognized as a Jewish State the same as Russia or China. Needless to say I have Estonian friends who would also like to consider Estonia is an Estonian country, linked culturally to Finland by language and culture.
The problem is now Israel's main ally is probably too divided to deal with the issue. Republican America is still with Israel but the Democrats are lukewarm.

Dave M

"The idea that Israel is a "Jewish" state means that Muslims, Christians and other non-Jews are implicitly excluded."

That's not what the Israelis mean at all. There is no State prohibition of religious choice and neither was there any such prohibition in Catholic Spain or Orthodox Russia. Spain and Italy may be Catholic historically but you can see a wide range of other religions. That doesn't however stop Spain being Catholic.
Israel just happens to be Orthodox Judaic at the root base of its history. It is not Christian. It is not Muslim. However, it is tolerant of whatever religion may be chosen other than Judaism.
Unless you'd like to see Russia perhaps now call itself Catholic because "Greek Orthodox" excludes other faiths.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Paul: "Ah, again the myth of the generous Israeli offer of peace at Camp David

Have a look at this map and see if you would have accepted the offer

http://unitedcats.wordpress.com/2009/02/02/israels-generous-offer/"

Nabka indeed. They rejected the state offered in resolution 181, too, but I guess that's "ancient history"; and we know what the New Historians think of "ancient history".

Come on: the Arabs and moslems dont want Israel to exist. Anything they accept: '67 boarders; Partition Plan boarders - whatever -all represents and extension of the "catastrophe" that has caused an inoperable condition in the Arab and moslem psyche.

Dismiss the reality of the influence of the Moslem Brotherhood. Dismiss that of Hezbollah and Iran. Dismiss that of Hamas. Dismiss that of iran. The entire malaise is Israel's fault. If not for israel, after all, we would all have nirvana on Earth (though e may still be doing a little killing on the side around pakistan, Iraq..blah, blah..)

It is truly either the cynical propaganda of the 5th columnists for islam and the Jihadists themselves or the unbearably naive Lib - lefties who think that Arabs and molslems - want nothing more than spread their vision of Justice throughout the globe.

Complete and utter rubbish and ignore the fact at your peril, anyone who truly cares for peace.

Peace will only be achieved if these blinkers are taken off and the deliberate obfuscation and dissemination of false narratives stops.

Israel, like any other state, will be circumspect and distrustful of those it has fought a life and death struggle with - continuously - since its birth as a state. This is fact, not prescription. That circumspection and distrust has to be assuaged for concessions to be made. Force will not hack it. This is fact, not prescription.

If there is no Arab/moslem leader with the capacity to infuse the regional and local moslem constituencies with the need for compromise for a genuine and lasting peace, and take steps to make that happen - in the hope that Israel will respond in kind - there will continue to be war. This is fact, not prescription.

If Iran does not make the effort to assuage the world's concerns re its intentions re its nuclear program, the likelihood is that there will be war or certain conflict of one dimension or another. This is fact, not prescription.

Time to get to grips with the facts and stop bitching about the implication of b*llsh*t and not facing up to them.

phil

This blog has immediately descended into a free for all between who is and who is not an anti-Semite ,who the hell cares ?-it is obvious who is ,and that their opinions count for nothing -what is the real problem confronting the world is the opinions of the ordinary caring people who do have an influence on all our futures ,they are influenced by the media ,articles such as this and those in places like the guardian etc-They sell their papers by being controversial and raising the temperature of so many of those who know nothing other than what they are told in these papers and the TV programmes -SoundBits!
------------------
What is the solution? I have no idea ,but what I do know is that too many shout their opinions and raise the level of hate and distrust without admitting like me that there is no easy solution .One thing is patently obvious though,there has to be a two state solution with compromises from both sides ,a PERIOD FOR CONFIDENCE TO BUILD AND COOPERATION, that will never happen whilst threats to the safety of the Israeli people is at stake -fair ? it depends on your point of view ,but it is the truth ,and those that fan the flames of hate bear a heavy responsibility for any lack of progress -
---------------------
I have said elsewhere that the two parties should be left to discuss and hopefully find those compromises without the interference of so many who just wish to spout on a matter that is so complex ,no doubt with little or no knowledge of the real facts and problems .Will what I have said make a difference ,of course not ,there are too many dedicated to causing trouble and too many know alls who cannot keep quiet -Do those like blades and rippon et al really care for the Palestinians ? Only they know ,but what they do know is that they are a huge impediment to the peace process by sowing the seeds of distrust with every word they write .

Y.G

The Israel haters turn the truth upside down.
The fact is that Israel did not place any pre conditions to the peace process. Israel could, for example, demand that the "right of return", which means the destruction of Israel, will be denied by Abbas before any negotiations start. Abbas is putting pre conditions on the negotiations, and this is why he is to be blamed.
As for Camp David, I trust president clinton words that Arafat is the one to be blamed. As always, the Arabs refuse to any peace deal when it comes to the final moment.

Eric the Red

So if Britain and the bbc and guardian are not anti Israel, what the devil is the definition of anti Israel. It must not be their double standard or the outrageous misrepresentations of their Israeli reporters. It cannot be how they continue to post poised propaganda pictures or the ignoring of the calls to murder Jews and destroy Israel by "moderate" Palestinian Muslims. Please someone tell me how to recognize it. Is expelling all the Jews from your country a clue, or using vulgar imagery of Jews in by your famous writers? How about being mad at a country for defending itself by using your country's passports while ignoring another country using your passports for espionage?
Seems to me this must be very complected or very simple, but it's clearly not obvious or everyone could see it right in front of their eyes.

MikeW

Perpetually playing the victim does not always make it so. Whatever you believe, its not the media that portrays Israel in a negative light its the deeds that are done. It's sad but it does not appear that there is a genuine desire for peace on either side.

Abracadabra

"If their origins became known, they went to the gas chambers with the rest ! Something those Jews in the UK who feel so 'English', 'Scottish' etc. should bear in mind."

In the space of five years, the leaders of both our major political parties have been Jewish; until the May general election, our foreign minister was Jewish; the editor of The Times is Jewish, and the Speaker of the House of Commons is the son of a Jewish taxi driver.

Instead of anxiety, British Jews should be mighty proud!

Osred

The issue as to whether a state wants to define itself by religion is irrelevant. What is relevant is what that religion wants to do to its resident non believers and to its non-believing neighbours.

Islam and declared Islamic states' record on this is appalling. Israel's is exemplary.

Meir Cohen, Jeruslem

It is frightening how the world looks like the 1930's.
Hitler and Stalin divided europe beteen them and the western world back then sacrified Czechoslovakia and the Jews to those Evil forces.
The Nazis of today are the Islamists, the Stalinists of today are the leftists and Israel plays the role of both Czechoslovakia and the Jewish people.
I hope that there are enough good people in the world today to fight those evil forces.

Augustus

It all sounds so neat and dandy. First Israel drives away the Palestinians in 1948,
takes away the rest of their land in 1967, and then proceeds to bomb Arabic neighbours
such as Lebanon in 2006. But as luck would have it, there's another side to Israel which wants to make peace and give concessions, and respects the moderate and national aspirations of the Palestinians. This other face of Israel needs to be supported, not that bad, colonial, aggressive and expansionist Israel that Melanie Phillips supports but the world condemns. and who wouldn't want peace and reconciliation?

Alas, the reality has very little to do with all that. The peace that the people Melanie quotes wants is based on the mythical belief and false premise that if Israel gives more concessions, hands over more land, in fact all the land it conquered in 1967, militarization will suddenly stop, and when the Arabs have equal rights peace will automatically follow. But unfortunately, Israel will never survive without using force. Whatever the outcome of the settlements issue which has become a political fiasco, Israel will always need an army in the West Bank. Before the Six-Day War kibbutzim and border places were regularly fired upon and infiltrated, Jordan, Syria and Egypt backed the Mujahedeen who got into Israel and layed mines, shot Israelis, which provoked Israel to fight back. Because of the presence of the army in the West Bank and the capture of the Golan Heights and Sinai there came an end to that. More recently the army has been needed in the West Bank to prevent a Hamas takeover.

Concessions in the past have only increased
violence on the part of the Arabs, as happened with the 2nd intifada after Israel
agreed at Camp David to give the Palestinians 95% of the West Bank and all of Gaza, and including all Arab parts of Jerusalem with shared sovereignty in East Jerusalem. The withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza have shown the same prospects. Hamas and Hezbollah were able to increase their hostility without hindrance, which they were unable to do during Israeli occupation.

The truth therefore, is that, given Israel's right to exist (at least according to the PA), it can only achieve that by continuously defending itself against her enemies by using frequent force and to show that it won't be intimidated. The mantra that Palestinians have recognized Israel for ages and have offered peace in exchange for its evacuation of all the occupied territories as a standard retort to
Palestinian criticism just won't wash. If Arab peace plans contained any real seriousness to make peace they wouldn't dictate pre-terms. The violence against Israel, against the Zionist cause, against Jewish self-determination, is far older than the occupation. The real Israel, the one so many in the West either don't understand or want to know about, can only survive as the Jewish state it should be allowed to be with a strong army to keep it safe.

Michael White

Mr Belwether, you counsel as follows: "...Go look at the polls asking what percentage of Israelis believe that Jewish and Arab citizens deserve equal rights. The numbers are dwindling."

Only dwindling? Following a terrorising and long lasting missile barrage I'm not surprised they are dwindling.

I can't imagine how a poll of the Palestinians might look on a reversed basis.

Mailman

And quite right of the Israeli's to reject any discussions unless they were face to face! I mean, lets get serious here people! If you cant meet the otherside of the table like real adults then there is no point in having discussions at all if you are having to do them through 3rd parties all the time!

BTW, I thought the worlds media were controlled by the evil juices? Funny way they them evil juices show their control isnt it!

Mailman

Alex Ross

Dave M,

Are you suggesting that Russia only belongs to ethnic Russians (i.e. not Russian citizens who are Tatar, Chechen, Bashkir or Chuvash)? Likewise does China only belongs to the Han Chinese (and not also the Tibetans, Uyghur or Zhuang?)

Surely, as has been suggested my many commentors, Israel belongs to all its various peoples - Jews, Arabs, Armenians, Druze, Bedouin...

Raymond Douglas

Mark, my blog was just a general remark in support of person who brings us a perspective we get rarely in mainstream media. Apologies if I offended you.

Andre

Abracadabra Would that British Jews could be proud of Britain; but how do they feel as Muslim youth drive police off the streets shouting 'hamas hamas jews to the gas?' Threatened? Explain the presence of guards outside Jewish kindergartens and security at synagogues. Meir Cohen's post above yours is an accurate picture of the world tonight. Is Cameron our Neville Chamberlain? Iran's nuclear bomb acquisition our Munich? I hope not but to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln I hear this fire bell ringing in the night.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

So many useful idiots,
So few Melanies....
With the media of today
and the likes of some commentators here in 1940,
this newspaper would have been written in German, and there was no Jewish problem around.

Wonderful world, beautiful people.

Edward McLaughlin

Gilbert Belwether

'Would you want to live in an "Anglican state" or an "Anglo-Saxon state"?'

Either of those would be fine thanks.

Abracadabra

@ Andre

Anecdote is not data.

Go to the front page of The Times website - Britain's most famous newspaper, edited by a Jew, reporting on the new Jewish leader of the Labour Party.

Britain is the safest place in the world for Jews to live - more so, certainly, than Israel.

Derek BLADES

JOHN ROOSEVELT addressed a long post to me which, in all honesty, I must admit that I could not understand. His last paragraph, however, did seem to make sense. Let me repeat it here:

"I suppose [Abbas', Mitchell's, Clinton's and Obama's] reasoning is that since the negotiations are about giving back the occupied territories to the Palestinians, Israeli government support for further encroachment by the settlers could be seen as a signal that the Israelis are not negotiating in good faith."

Well said JOHN! Something we can finally agree on.

charles soper

Well written Melanie, spot on!
If only Israelis critics would apply 1% of their opprobrium on a consistent basis to the Palestinian factions - the peace process would surge forward. That they won't and don't reveals all too plainly the real motivation behind the criticism.

Adam B.

Gilbert Belwether, we do live in an Anglican state.

Shows what you know.

And do you think a Palestinian state would be a state for all religions? If so, why are all the Jews expected to leave? Look at the Islamist religious police in place in Gaza. Would you like to live under such a system?

Dave M

"Are you suggesting that Russia only belongs to ethnic Russians (i.e. not Russian citizens who are Tatar, Chechen, Bashkir or Chuvash)? Likewise does China only belongs to the Han Chinese (and not also the Tibetans, Uyghur or Zhuang?)"

No, we're not talking absolute extremes here but on a general basis. I'm aware not all inhabitants of Russia are 100 per cent Russian, although this did matter during the communist period. Still, Krushchev was Ukranian and Stalin Georgian whereas Lenin was half Jewish/Armenian.
However, broadly speaking we define Russia by Russian language, Orthodox Church, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky and so on. We define China also in broad terms. So, my point is the same for Israel. Jerusalem, like it or not, is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and cradle of Christianity. The heritage of Jerusalem is not Arab based. There is something specific that defines Jewish culture, Russian culture, Chinese and Japanese culture.

mark

Raymond douglas . No offence taken at all

Abracadabra

@ Andre

I should have said, Thank you for your courteous reply.

Let me respond that, as we both know, there's a strong incentive for friends of Israel (which I hope we all are) to suggest that Jews are facing the worst of times. Such a suggestion not only supports Israel's role as 'The Land of Last Resort', it also justifies any Israeli treatment of the Palestinians and paints Israel's critics as mere anti-Semites.

But, but, but - my friend, can't you raise even half a cheer that (for the second time in five years) the son of a Holocaust survivor is the leader of a major political party?

Larry in Tel Aviv

to Kate, further up, yes you are right re Abbas, he did not attend the unveiling of the statute of Mugrabbi. I was relying on a fudgy memory. Thanks for the correction.

However point is Abbas doesn't accept Israel's right to exist as the sovereign Jewish state, insists that he can never accept that. He is a Holocaust Denier who praises suicide bombers as martyrs, is thus a terrorist supporter if not a terrorist himself (look at his background) and he has promised to follow the path of that arch-terrorist Arafat. There is much more to be said about Abbas and terrorism but I leave off..

Fatah has called for Israel's destruction since its founding.
I think it's pathetic that the Netanyahu govt is too afraid to tell it as it is, we need to pull no punches and we are not doing that. We have our backs to the wall, and we need to call a spade a spade. Cravenness is not going to get us anywhere except embolden our enemies.

Any other ethnic group criticised for building homes anywhere, at the highest levels of international govts, and is such building by any other ethnic group other than the Jooos seen as an obstacle to peace? Obama and his ilk are more concerned about the Jooos building homes the horror the horror, than they are about the drug war on the border with Mexico, mass rape and pillage and murder in Africa, the destruction of the Amazon, terror in Pakistan and Afghanistan (actually the fault of the Joos building), bombings in Iraq (ditto), tyranny and oppression in Iran, North Korea and Sudan and Zimbabwe, oppression of women throughout the Islamic world and Syria's arming of Hezbollah, oppression of Christian minorities in Egypt, Syria, and Turkey's growing radicalism and its violent confrontations with the Kurds etc etc.

Getting more worked up about Joooos building - shock gasp horror the inhumanity of it - than murder, rape, pillage, tyranny and oppression from Latin America to Africa, the Muslim Middle-East, Asia and elsewhere is anti-Semitism plain and simple. I guess it's too obvious for a lot of people to see that. Says a lot about the times we live in.

Gordon Ross

Abracadabra's "In the space of five years the leaders of both our major political parties have been Jewish............... and the Speaker of the House of Commons is the son of a Jewish taxi driver".

So what! All that means nothing; likewise the fact that I am third generation UK born on my father's side and second generation on my mother's side.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Derek Blades: Oh what a clever socks!

Derek, poor thing, can never seem to understand anything much, let alone my posts...and same goes for Harold and Lyndsay...all using the same catchphrases and gambits. Must come form their habit of book burning...endemic amonst the bigoted classes, as we know.

Glad you liked the bit cut and pasted from a poster I was intending to respond to.. Yours was another brave, incisive post, for which I thank you.

Harold

George
September 28th, 2010 5:11am
"...Or is it only Jews who aren't allowed to build? Surely not - after all, that would be racist, which is not a liberal trait at all."

There is nothing particularly liberal about your implied argument. It would serve, for example, to justify new builds in the Warthegau.

Louis Berk

What I find fascinating about the current state of the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is that Melanie predicted the outcome of these talks (and any future ones) in her article "Israel and the Blackmailer Paradox", (see her website July 26th 2010). Israel is in such a lose-lose situation with respect to world opinion that it cannot make its position any worse by stepping up and mirroring the intransigance of the Palestinians which the media casts as standing up for their rights. In other words, OK Abbas if you want to scupper these talks because of the end of a moratorium on building on the West Bank, fine, but be aware we will not talk to you or any Palestinian representative again within the lifetime of this Presidential administration AND we'll build even more settlements. How do you think that will go down with your electorate?

Harold

I think am beginning to learn the language: What this means is that international law has nothing to do with it. Israel wields the big stick, so Israel will decide what is and what is not an obstacle to peace. It may be that international law calls this territory occupied territory where settlement by Israel is illegal. But it is territory Israel wants. Anyone who disputes its right to take it is a terrorist and an aggressor, or living in cloud cuckoo land where they don't understand how the iron fist (or its modern Lockhead etc. equivalent) works. Israel wields the big stick. Of course, this is wrapped in talk of Israel as the victim etc. But we have learned to take this as window-dressing for propaganda purposes, or as a barrage of righteous noise to stun opponents. If you doubt it, consult C. Gee et al., experts on law and dialectics.

MikeW

"Getting more worked up about Joooos building - shock gasp horror the inhumanity of it - than murder, rape, pillage, tyranny and oppression from Latin America to Africa, the Muslim Middle-East, Asia and elsewhere is anti-Semitism plain and simple."

come on you mean that anyone that does not agree with you and actually says so is an anti semite? You make some great points but let yourself down.

Dai from Edinburgh

I am still mystified why the world should expect this one victor to return its strategically necessary spoils to a brutal and callous enemy that is still rabidly bent on its complete destruction. Name another nation victor that has been perpetually pressed - indeed pressed at any level - as Israel has been to surrender captured ground - ground taken both for its protection and also re-claimed as of historical right - to its enemy.

Abracadabra

"Abracadabra's "In the space of five years the leaders of both our major political parties have been Jewish............... and the Speaker of the House of Commons is the son of a Jewish taxi driver".

So what! All that means nothing; likewise the fact that I am third generation UK born on my father's side and second generation on my mother's side."

If such a list of Jewish achievement "means nothing" to you, then I think you are lost.

Gilbert Belwether

Michael White, I'm talking about Arab citizens of Israel, not Gazan Palestinians. The civil rights of the former should not be affected by the terrorist acts of the latter.

Adam B., if you lived in an "Anglican state" in the same sense that Israel is supposed to be a "Jewish state", this would mean things like: all converts to Anglicanism can receive immediate citizenship, and only they can do so; certifying people as Anglicans for immigration purposes is in the hands of the most conservative subset of the Anglican clergy; marriage between Anglicans and non-Anglicans is not permitted (unless you get married abroad); significant quantities of state lands are reserved for the use of Anglicans; etc. Maybe you would like to live in such a state. Most people wouldn't.

By the way, why is it that criticism of Israel around here is automatically taken to imply praise for the Palestinians? How exactly is it countering my arguments to say things like "Well, a Palestinian poll would be even worse" or "Well, the Islamists in Gaza are even more fanatic"? There are nationalist jingos and religious crackpots on both sides. The conflict isn't really between Jews and Arabs, but between reasonable people who want to live and let live, and nutters who'd rather play rock-paper-scissors with their flags and bibles until they reduce the place to rubble between them. Have you ever stopped to think who Ms. Phillips's counterparts on the Palestinian side might be? Would they be the moderates who are willing to compromise, or the bible-and-flag-thumpers to whom all concession is treason? That's the thing about nationalists: they never realize that their worst enemies are actually in the same camp as themselves.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "What this means is that international law has nothing to do with it. Israel wields the big stick, so Israel will decide what is and what is not an obstacle to peace."

You got that right.

"It may be that international law calls this territory occupied territory where settlement by Israel is illegal."

This is a typically tendentious bit of Haroldian twaddle. If you are referring to the terms of 242, cite the full context relevant to territories captured by israel in '67. CONTEXT, comrade. Context!

"But it is territory Israel wants. Anyone who disputes its right to take it is a terrorist and an aggressor, or living in cloud cuckoo land where they don't understand how the iron fist (or its modern Lockhead etc. equivalent) works. Israel wields the big stick. Of course, this is wrapped in talk of Israel as the victim etc."

No, Harold. More twaddle. You want to paint a picture of Israel the imperialist state and the Palestinain as the victim; and make this the only historical interpretation of the relationship between Jew and moslem in Palestine. Again, complete twaddle. Pure propaganda. Even you have said - to defend some other bit of twaddle - that the history is more complicated. Don't paint history any coulour that suits your twaddle du jour.

"But we have learned to take this as window-dressing for propaganda purposes, or as a barrage of righteous noise to stun opponents."

You are stunned by the light of any truth, Harold, because you are a bigot and are not used to it.

"If you doubt it, consult C. Gee et al., experts on law and dialectics."

If you have any sense at all, you will certainly consult C Gee. He has more erudition and wisdom in his disgarded foreskin, not to mention eloquence , than you and those you support put together can ever dream of. You should feel privelaged that he wastes his time trying to set you on the straight and narrow.

Twaddlemeisters like you belong in Teheran with those fit for worms - if you get my meaning ( and beware of the worm in blond wig carrying a tennis racquet).

Adam B.

Gilbert Belwether

Your post is replete with misconceptions and errors of logic. Firstly, Judaism is not a direct equivalent with being Anglican. It is you who made the equation, and it is faulty. Jews are a people as well as a religion - and have always seen themselves that way. As such they have a common cultural identity which is based around, but not exclusively on, religion. This is not the case with the Anglican Church. Secondly, large parts of the UK are indeed owned by the Anglican Church, and there are constitutional restrictions and demands that the Head of State (our Queen) be the Head of the Church. As such the Head of State is, to this day, not allowed to marry a Catholic. We have a state church.

Israel has every right to be a Jewish state - your contention is that Israel has no right to exist precisely because it is a Jewish state. This is a racist argument. There are numerous examples of other state religions, or exclusive religious laws, in many countries of the world (and Israel does NOT have such exclusive laws - there is freedom of worship - unlike, say in Hamas controlled Gaza or Saudi Arabia, the likes of which we hear no criticism of from you). So why is Israel the exception - why do you single it out for your vitriol?

I believe it's called hypocrisy.

maddy1

Is it possible to give the Israelis more Arab or muslim land from somehwere, they seem to do so much good with it?

A friend

Hm, it seems to me that every country should be xenophobic to some degree, otherwise they might let in a group of religious fanatics that want to blow apart their people and destroy their way of life. Know what i mean?

Andre

Abracadabra yes I am happy to cheer Ed's background of which he spoke quite movingly.

Gilbert Belwether

Adam, the 'common cultural identity' of Jews is as nebulous as it is irrelevant. I as a secular Israeli have more in common culturally with a British atheist than with an Orthodox Jew. And in any case, for all the legal purposes I cited - which are much more far-reaching than your Anglican parallels - the authority to define someone as Jewish or otherwise rests squarely with religious institutions, and particularly reactionary ones at that. Culture doesn't come into it.

The larger point is that this is an internal Israeli question. Demanding that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, when even many Israelis don't want their country to be so defined, is ridiculous.

I don't know where you got the idea that I think Israel has no right to exist. Not everyone's opinions fit so neatly into the Manichaean worldview of Melanie and her followers. And I don't 'reserve my vitriol' for Israel. First, there was no vitriol in any of my comments, only statements of deplorable fact; and in any case, in commenting on a blog post which denies the rise of religious nationalism in Israel it seems appropriate to stick to that topic rather than preaching to the choir with denunciations of the Gaza Islamists, the Saudis or any still more irrelevant fanatics.

Fernando Carreras

"By the way, does anyone else find it ironic that Ms. Phillips wants Israeli nationality to be defined by religion, yet angrily rejects the suggestion that religious nationalism is on the rise?"

NO, actually, what I, a non Israeli and non Jewish person who is also a layman in the matter, find exceedingly ironic, is that someone who apparently lives in Israel, should demonstrate such ignorance as yourself.

Judaism is part of the Jewish identity as part of Hebrew culture, which doesn't mean at all that Jewish identity is determined by religion.

Maybe you should read the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus by Baruch Spinoza - the perfect atheist, extraordinary philosopher, and one of the most thoroughly decent human beings to ever walk the Earth - to clear up your confusion. For example, in Chapter III: Of the Vocation of the Hebrews, and Whether the Gift of Prophecy Was Peculiar to Them, Spinoza establishes the legitimacy of Jewish people for political independence (Zionism), and that is why he is considered the first modern Zionist.

Sarah AB

There are plenty of fair points in the post - but Kate raises some good points too I think. I understand a reluctance to take steps which might compromise one's country's security - but the settlement issue doesn't seem to fall into the same category - and whoever 'gives in' will get the moral high ground too.

phil

JOHN ROOSEVELT
September 28th, 2010 10:55pm--"" He has more erudition and wisdom in his disgarded foreskin,"" --John I know you were referring to C,Gee here but you may have hit the nail on the head ,in that our friend harold is talking through his own ,it would account for a lot :)

Gordon Ross

Abracadabra, "All that" does, in fact, mean nothing to me personally, but perhaps I should have said that "All that counts for nothing", since in my view the Jewish contribution to this country, which has been over generous, is not appreciated .

phil

Gilbert Belwether
September 29th, 2010 8:14am -Do you have an opinion on whether Great Britain should be a Christian state and that our Queen can remain defender of the faith ? You live in a state that is so obviously Jewish and in fact was formed for the protection of the remainder of the Jewish people ,a people that would have been decimated even further had it not came into being.You have all the privileges of living there and yet wish to deny its legitimacy to call itself a Jewish state ,does it not strike you as somewhat hypocritical? Maybe a spell in a Muslim state as a Jew would open your eyes to reality ,that is of course if you could find one that would allow you in .

George

Gilbert - the 1948 Declaration of Independence created Israel as a Jewish state: "Accordingly we, members of the people's council, representatives of the Jewish community of the land of Israel and of the Zionist movement, are here assembled on the day of the termination of the British mandate over the land of Israel and, by virtue of our natural and historic right and on the strength of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, hereby declare the establishment of a Jewish state in the land of Israel, to be known as the state of Israel."

Paul

Dai from Edinburgh "... Name another nation victor that has been perpetually pressed - indeed pressed at any level - as Israel has been to surrender captured ground - ground taken both for its protection and also re-claimed as of historical right - to its enemy."

Germany during both world wars (when they were winning). Japan 1931-45. The USSR in eastern Europe 1945-89 and Afghanistan. China in Tibet now. All the European colonial powers in the 20th century. Britain in Ireland for centuries. South Afica in Namibia. Iraq in Kuwait 1990-91 etc etc etc

All the above claimed strategic interests and/or historic rights to occupy someones else land and deny them self-determination. Its very common for occupying powers to be pressured to leave.

Adam B.

Gilbert Belwether, you are something of a narcissist aren't you? Of course culture and identity has everything to do with it. You don't feel part of that identity. Fine - you speak for yourself. But don't presume to speak for all Jews, the vast majority of whom don't think as you do. They do indeed feel a common cultural heritage, and feel part of the same people. It would be ridiculous to claim that every single Jew on earth feels this way - but your personal feelings do nothing to negate the point. You are of course free to choose where you want to live. And speaking of Hama sand Sauid is far from irrelevant - we live in a world which, in case you hadn't noticed, singles out Israel and holds it to different standards to any of its neighbours. This occurs because many of these vociferous critics simply hate Israel, or Jews generally. That uyou are oblivious to this fact, and the fact that discussion about Israel often occurs in a vacuum, without any context of the region, seems rather disingenuous.

And you haven't responded to the points I put to you about other nations having EXCLUSIVE religious laws, or the fact that the UK itself has a state religion.

Adam B.

Belwether, perhaps you could also address the racism inherent in your argument that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state? Do you therefore think that every country with an identity based around religion (or any other criterion) should cease to exist, or should exist, but without an identity? In which case, why should it exist at all - what makes it a seperate entity from its neighbours?

Skeptic

>>>>>The historical record clearly shows that Israel has always favoured expansion over security.

You mean, like the security Israel got when it established Arafat's kleptocracy in the WB and Hamas' theocracy in Gaza?

What was that Arafat called the Oslo accords -- oh yes, the "staged plan" for Israel's destruction by first getting some land, using it as a terrorism base against Israel, and then demanding more?

Somehow I can see why the Israelies are skeptical of giving up land bringing security.

Oh, and they DID give up the entire Sinai peninsula for peace with Egypt. That is more than any other nation ever gave, proportionally speaking, for any sort of peace agreement.

Naturally you "forgot" that.

Gordon Ross

Sarah AB, even if Israel 'gives in' (and I sincerely hope that it won't) it will never "get the moral high ground". No, no, the Arabs must be appeased at all costs.

Skeptic

>>>>>>>>>Hm, it seems to me that every country should be xenophobic to some degree, otherwise they might let in a group of religious fanatics that want to blow apart their people and destroy their way of life. Know what i mean?

Stop posting obvious truths, it's Islamophobic and non-PC.

Abracadabra

@ Andre

"Abracadabra yes I am happy to cheer Ed's background of which he spoke quite movingly"

Didn't see that. Got a reference?

Abracadabra

"the Jewish contribution to this country, which has been over generous, is not appreciated"

I've posted a - very partial - list of Jews in the UK's top jobs. Would you like a list of Jewish peers, MPs, showbiz folk, authors, journalists, etc, etc?

With the obvious exception of Israel, no country on the planet is as open to Jewish self-improvement.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Paul: "All the above claimed strategic interests and/or historic rights to occupy someones else land and deny them self-determination. Its very common for occupying powers to be pressured to leave."

If you think this is analagous to the "pressure" expressed in UN Res 242 you are mistaken.

Whilst the UN has called on Israel to withdraw from land captured in the '67 War, it does so as part of a full and final settlement of the conflict, not to mention the fact that it was - as everybody surely knows here - specifically to avoid defining precisely what that "withdrawal" would look like.

Historical analogies and legal disputation aside, it is clear that if anyone wants a vaguely viable settlement, Iran has to be dealt with so that the the petrol is drained for the engines of at least some of the likely principal spolers - hamas and Hezbollah.

Compromise on land will surely have to take place and 242 the likely basis for that - especially as it is most anti Zionists' basis for sanctifying their vilification of Israel (after all, they cannot use International Law to justify a return to the Partition lines or something else which would reverse their beloved nabka). There is no mutual trust at all between the relevant parties, so right now it looks like it will remain a case of who is holding what cards...and whether or not the potential spoilers of any agreement can be neutered.

Politics is a hard game, we know...but we live in hope, as the cyber worm continues to turneth in iran...

Andre

Abracadabra Ed was speaking at the Lab Conf I believe - it might make you cringe but I thought it well meant and genuine.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/labour/8030824/Ed-MIliband-buries-New-Labour.html

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Abracadabra: "With the obvious exception of Israel, no country on the planet is as open to Jewish self-improvement."

Thanks for this.

Just curious: which country in Europe are moslems best placed for "self improvement"?

Abracadabra

@ Andre

Yes, slightly cringe-making, as you suggest. But you can't argue with its accuracy:

'In a highly personal part of the speech, Mr Miliband disclosed how both his Jewish mother and father fled the Nazis from different parts of Europe.

“They arrived with nothing,” Mr Miliband said. “This country gave them everything.'

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Skeptic: "Stop posting obvious truths, it's Islamophobic and non-PC."

What's "Islamicphobic"? I missed that one...

Abracadbra

@ Roosevelt

'Just curious: which country in Europe are moslems best placed for "self improvement"?'

Britain, I hope.

Robert 'Johnstein'

to those that claim the term 'Jewish state' is unacceptable, [willfully] forget that in this regard, Israel is the exception to the rule; no other nation currently and any other time in history that I can cite, is identifiable both for their unique ETHNICITY and RELIGION.

none. ever.

ergo the phrase stands.

Augustus

A formal peace agreement with the Palestinians would clearly shield the Arabs from Israeli retaliation, preemption, and even self-defense, for as a law-abiding country they would be loathe to violate a US-sponsored
peace treaty. Between 1948 and 1967, for example, Israel continually retaliated against Egypt for its sponsorship of terrorist attacks. After the Oslo Agreement the deadliness of the attacks - which Egypt facilitated by working closely with terrorist organizations - increased, but Israel doesn't retaliate. In 2007 when Israel bombed a Syrian nuclear reactor,
there is no way it would have done so by violating a peace agreement with Damascus. So if the Golan Heights were abandoned in a peace deal, what would prevent Syria from re-launching a nuclear programme? And with 'peace' shielding them from Israeli preemption Arab states would engage in a military build-up, mobilize without fear of Israel gaining a strategic advantage, and strike all together.

Not only does peace in such circumstances lack an historical precendent, and not only does peace fail on economic grounds, but it fails
most importantly of all, by putting Israel in grave danger of a concerted Arab military build-up. That is the true Sword of Damacles. The peace process pundits imagine that a peace treaty would end domestic
anti-Israeli incitement and violence, but that's nonsense.
Why would young Palestinians suddenly forget that the Jews took over what they have been led to believe is their land, and that newspapers would cease
all anti-Israeli rhetoric? No
international agreement can control that. There are various kinds of peace and no peace is
eternal, but this particular peace could be more dangerous than war, and would be totally useless if it laid the foundation for another war and left Israel in an inferior position to wage the next war should it break out. Grassroots
hatred cannot be magically democratized away on paper while national perceptions remain unaltered. Israelis are a rational people who have conducted their project against
all odds, but now the calls for compromise and accomodation on their part stem from irrational moralist fallacies with the presumption that the chaos can be settled by negotiation rather than by wearing it down by attrition. The land walked by Abraham should not be stirred from her course.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Abracadabra:"Abracadbra
September 29th, 2010 1:49pm
@ Roosevelt

'Just curious: which country in Europe are moslems best placed for "self improvement"?'

Britain, I hope."

I guess that may explain why, after "Jack", "Mohamed" is the most popular "christian" name in England :)

....but, never fear: "There'll always be an England...dadadadada...."

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Robert Johnstein: "to those that claim the term 'Jewish state' is unacceptable, [willfully] forget that in this regard, Israel is the exception to the rule; no other nation currently and any other time in history that I can cite, is identifiable both for their unique ETHNICITY and RELIGION.

none. ever."

..and add to that "moral behaviour".

ergo the phrase stands.

Abracadabra

@ Roosevelt

The Muslim population of Britain is somewhere between 2 and 3 per cent. Three per cent does not overwhelm 97 per cent, whatever demographic fantasies are peddled by interested parties.

Dave M

"Judaism is part of the Jewish identity as part of Hebrew culture, which doesn't mean at all that Jewish identity is determined by religion."

It's also important to bear in mind that this whole Palestinian issue is, in actual fact, to do with Islam's claim to Jerusalem. The Iranian clerics, for example, use the Palestinian issue in order to try and drive Jews (or Jewish influence) from the region and to establish an Islamic Jerusalem. It's not as if this is a purely ethnic struggle. So the connection between cultural and religious identity works in many ways. A significant part of the Islamic World won't accept Jerusalem was historically Jewish before Christianity and Islam followed on later in history. This is why Israel insists on recognition as a Jewish State. Without such recognition, it will be impossible to get into realistic negotiations because how can you negotiate with people who ignore history?
Also, I should add Western powers who choose to buckle under and ignore Israel's struggle (in the hope peace will follow) will be making a massive and costly mistake. So far, Russia, the U.S. and China have all experienced their own problems with militant Islam. France has even increased national security recently over the burkha ban and threats that have followed from that. This war is not only confined to Jerusalem.

Harold

Augustus
September 29th, 2010 3:17pm

I'm not sure how many times I have had the same treatment from you - the gambit "I am studying what you say and will get back to...(Silence)..."

I suppose it is much politer than those who rail at my inability to answer their questions and then abruptly disappear when the answer is repeated (yet again), or those who carry on ranting regardless. You are much more civilised, which makes discussion much easier.

Anyway, given what you say here, which appears to preclude any peace settlement, how do you see the future?

Skeptic

>>>>>>>“They arrived with nothing,” Mr Miliband said. “This country gave them everything."

It's cringe-making only if misunderstood as if he meant the country "gave them everything" in the sense of "let them live on the dole".

Clearly that's not what he meant, but that the country gave them freedom and lack of prosecution for their belief and race.

Which is something else entirely.

Beer Moth

Abracadabra

I would question your figure of 3% but even if it were as low as that, what that leaves me thinking is that if just a 3% muslim population manages to make such a negative impact, then just think how much worse things will get when this is raised - as on the present demographic trajectory it undoubtedly will - to 10%...20%.

Augustus

Harold - Personally I do not see
a peace settlement inclusive of all the issues in the short or medium term. The stumbling blocks are too great. Netanyahu might change his mind on settlement freezes, Abbas might stop threatening to boycott negotiations, but at the end of the day it could take decades to
come to a conclusive agreement.
In the meantime, the longer Hamas declares such rounds of talks 'useless', and people like Ahmadinejad continue their aggressive stance against Israel, the longer the turmoil will last. It's not a question of precluding the fact that peace might be attainable, but a question of being challenged to do something that might be impossible.

Derek BLADES

Adam B. tells Gilbert Bellwether "you speak for yourself. But don't presume to speak for all Jews, the vast majority of whom don't think as you do."

I wonder how Adam B knows how the "vast majority" of Jews think. I have quite a lot of Jewish friends in the United States, Britain and France and I think most of them would back Gilbert's views about Palestine and Israel. Adam B's views about the settlements and the two state solution are really quite extreme and my impression is that he is actually in a minority among the global Jewish population. In reality of course neither he nor I know the truth of the matter so let us just judge Gilbert’s views on their merits and not make the silly claim that he only speaks for himself.

D. Roberts

Despite his "no Jews allowed in Palestine" policy, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas still demands the “right of return” for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians and their descendents to Israel. A Jewish nation whose Arab citizens already constitute 20% of it's population, have the right to vote and be represented by Arab parties in the Knesset.
At the recent Washington talks Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said "...We must learn to live together, live next to one and another, and with one another...".

Yet Palestinian leader Abbas has recently reiterated in Cairo that "...I will never agree that there will be a single Israeli among us on Palestinian soil..."

If Jews were allowed to remain in a future state of Palestine, with a guarantee of the same rights that Israel gives to Arabs within it's own borders, there would be no need to remove the so called 'settlements' or any necessity to halt peace talks over Israeli construction building in Jerusalem.

Indeed, if the true priority of the Arab world is nationhood for the Palestinian people, instead of just ridding themselves of the Jews, then a negotiated settlement could rapidly arise.

If the 14% of Jewish 'settlers' living among 2.2 million Palestinians are an obstacle to peace, why are 1.4 million Arab citizens in Israel no risk to the 6 million Israelis? While the evacuation of Israeli Arab villages is seen as a violation of human rights, how can the evacuation of Jewish 'settlements' in the West Bank be any different?

Harold

Augustus
September 29th, 2010 8:13pm

Thank you for replying.

Can I ask: what peace do you think Israel can offer the Palestinians while it continues to take whatever is of value in the West Bank? What would it consider leaving for them to build their "state" in?

A second question: Israel and the US have sub-contracted much of the security work within the West Bank to Abbas and Co. They get money and weapons, and get to be Important People. In return, they keep the West Bank quiet. Is Hamas wrong to say that peace negotiations between the US and Israel and their security subcontractor is something of a farce?

Adam B.

Blades, perhaps you could elucidate on your theory that my views are extreme - this coming from a man who tells us he has read the Hamas charter and finds nothing antisemitic in it - the calls to kill all Jews, the rejection of any negotiations, and calls for jihad against the infidel pose no problem to you.

If you had studied Jewish history Blades, (instead of relying on your handful of fellow far leftist travellers) and current thinking amongst Jews - there was a recent poll conducted by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, you would know that there are reams of evidence supporting my view that the vast majority of Jews feel a common cultural identity. Not only that, but that an overwhelming majority support the state of Israel. Indeed, in the poll conducted in February, 90% of British Jews described Israel as "the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people," whilst three quarters categorized themselves as Zionists. 82% said Israel played a "central" or "important but not central" role in their Jewish identities. This blasts your "doubts" out of the water.

It must hurt you so much. Do the research.

And Blades, I'm not Jewish. Your assumptions reveal much about you.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: " suppose it is much politer than those who rail at my inability to answer their questions and then abruptly disappear when the answer is repeated (yet again), or those who carry on ranting regardless"

Oh yes, dear..What a load of old twaddle.

Abracadabra

@ Beer Moth

"I would question your figure of 3% but even if it were as low as that, what that leaves me thinking is that if just a 3% muslim population manages to make such a negative impact, then just think how much worse things will get when this is raised - as on the present demographic trajectory it undoubtedly will - to 10%...20%."

It is 3pc.

Immigrants always have more babies than the locals - and then subsequent generations drop to the social norm. The demographic future of Britain is relatively stable. By contrast, most US babies are now non-white, and by 2050 the country will have a white minority.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/25/national/main6616593.shtml

Gilbert Belwether

(This doesn't seem to have gone through for some reason, so I'm trying again.)

No one seems able to address my main points, which are (a) that it's unreasonable and dishonest for the Israeli government to demand, as a precondition to further talks, that the Palestinians agree to something on which Israelis themselves do not agree; and (b) that whether or not there exists some nebulous Jewish cultural identity, for practical purposes the definition of 'Jewish' in Israel is religious since it is in the hands of Orthodox rabbis.

On 'Jewish cultural identity', if you think there is some set of beliefs or attitudes that unite a Tel-Avivi agnostic, a Yiddish-speaking rabbi from Mea Shearim, Stephen Fry, Melanie Phillips, a Russian immigrant to Israel who speaks no Hebrew but whose mother was Jewish by the rabbis' definition, and an American immigrant ditto, but excludes a Hebrew-speaking Israeli Arab from Jaffa or Haifa, then there's nothing I can do for you. Civil rights in a democracy are not based on such fictions but on the simple fact of citizenship.

Fernando's long comment basically says only that Jewish identity consists of Hebrew culture - does that mean you're not a Jew if you don't speak Hebrew, or if (like many Israelis) you know more about Lady Gaga than about the Talmud, Maimonides, Bialik, Spinoza, Buber, etc.?

Adam B neatly reverses the truth when he accuses me of presuming to speak for all Jews, when this is in fact what the Israeli government is falsely doing. Whether the UK should have a state religion is up to its own citizens, but imagine if the UK demanded that Northern Irish Catholics should recognize it as an "Anglican state" as a precondition of peace talks. And as I said, the exclusive religious laws in Israel are much more far-reaching. As for racism, you can't have it both ways: either Jews are a culture and not a race, in which case racism doesn't come into it, or they are a race, in which case the idea of a "Jewish state" is itself racist by definition.

The canard about "How would you like to live in a Muslim country" is not worth addressing.

Antonia

Gilbert Belwether, I truly don't believe that you are familiar with any Jews. I am an agnostic, my parents are atheists and we have always viewed being Jewish as our national origin, our ethnicity and not as our religious identification. The same went for all the Jews I knew. As a matter of fact, while I knew many Jews, I have first encountered Jews practicing Judaism upon coming to the US.
For most of the Jews from post WW2 Eastern Europe, Jewish identity is tied primarily, and often exclusively, to our ethnicity -- after all we were always aware of being a distinct Semitic people living in the world of Slavs. Even if only one of our parents, a father, was Jewish, we considered ourself were considered by others, Jewish.
Jewish identification based solely on religion is a new thing and largely in the West were incidence of non-Jews converting to Judaism actually happens, even if not often. Such conversion were extremely rare prior to the second half of the 20 century.
We Jew are a nation; we have national aspirations to self-determination and we fully deserve to have those aspirations recognized.

Derek BLADES

JOHN ROOSEVELT answers one of his critics with this:

"Oh yes, dear..What a load of old twaddle."

My question to the moderator is this. Why do you censor thoughtful and thought-provoking comments from those who disagree with the mainstream views of this blogsite, yet give space to playground idiocies of this sort?

If space is precious I suggest you reserve it for those with something interesting to say.

phil

Gilbert Belwether
September 30th, 2010 1:05am You have written another "learned tome" and not addressed the questions put to you in my post-
phil
September 29th, 2010 10:57am -a snide reference to living in a Muslim country was the best you could do -is it any wonder you are being treated with disdain here ?.I believe you are entitled to your view ,however much it is disliked by the majority ,but I do not believe you have the right to be so disrespectful in your comments and then expected to have the respect of your fellow contributors.

phil

Derek BLADES
September 30th, 2010 7:22am -Much as I dislike addressing you ,I will say what I believe is an overwhelming view of those that post here -I believe you are a fortunate man that your views are allowed here at all ,they are invariably,both untrue , anti Israeli,and in some cases just disgusting as in your hateful remarks some time ago about Camerons child .JR invariably puts your remarks to the sword with the best weapon available to us -THE TRUTH .So I suggest you be more grateful to our moderators in the future ,if I was one we would never hear a word from you ,but I suppose you are seen as a figure of fun and therefore serve some purpose .

Gordon Ross

Thunderous applause for Antonia!

This is the kind of stuff that needs to be rammed down throats in this war of delegitimization that is now being waged so vigourously against the Jewish people.

'Am Yisrael chai' (the Jewish nation lives)!

Adam B.

No Belwether, it's not an either or - Jews are a people and a religion. You can be both. Why is this so difficult to understand?

Your point remains muddled - you say it's up to the citizens of the UK whether they have a state religion, but going by your logic, this means there must be full agreement, which of course there isn't, and nor could there be. 60 million people aren't all going to agree. It is astonishing that you think all Israelis should agree. However, there is a consensus in Israel, which is a parliamentary democracy and answerable to the people. And your denial of cultural connections between Jews is simply intellectually dishonet. Look at the figures I provided to Blades (who surprise surprise has gone quiet). It seems a vast majority of Jews do feel this common cultural bond, even if you personally do not. It is indeed you who is casting doubt on what a clear majority thinks.

Gordon Ross

Abracadabra, anti-Semitism is endemic in the UK. The political correctness that has become such a major element in UK culture is, of course, overriden when it comes to the Jews, and open expression / demonstation of anti-Semitism is on the increase, most notably as an offshoot of the British media propaganda war against the Jewish state.

All Jews here, of whatever political or ideological persuasion, are identified with Israel. While this is cause for pride among many of us, there are regrettably some contemptible weak-kneed ones who regard it as a stigma.

Jews who speak up on behalf of our brothers and sisters in the Land of Israel risk being accused of 'dual loyalty', something that I believe has happened to Melanie on several occasions.

Jews who have become prominent in parliamentary and political circles here risk being accused of conspiracy, a well-used item of anti-Semitic propaganda throughout the centuries. Not too long ago, a Father of the House of Commons, the revered Tam Dalyell suggested that there was a 'Jewish cabal' at work in the corridors of power.

No thanks, Abracadabra, I don't need the list you offer, since I'm familiar with all the details. A very rosey picture indeed, but superficial, to say the least.

MikeW

GR - Anti semitism is not endemic in this country any more than racism is. Of course it exists but is not deemed acceptable in any circles in which I've travelled. I realise there is a common but understandable persecution complex with you guys but its your imagination if you think you are treated worse than any other ethnic or religious minority.

phil

Gordon Ross
September 30th, 2010 10:44am---"'Am Yisrael chai' (the Jewish nation lives)!""-and hopefully side by side and in conjunction with all peaceful nations ,especially those that helped save us from destruction -we should not forget that , and that we sing God save the Queen as our national anthem,pray for our royal family and sing the Hatikvah as a show of love for the nation of the Jewish state ,our ally .

Augustus

Harold (29/9,10.14pm) -

All I know is that the Prime Minister said that the West Bank
economy has been growing at about 8%p.a., so with Israeli know-how there is no reason why
the economic situation there would deteriorate. It would depend on the regime controlling it. Yes, I understand that the PA do police
terrorism and arrest people who
shoot innocents, such as recently. But they also say and broadcast different objectives in Arabic than they do for the
English speaking media, and Hamas is no doubt a prime appeasement target for them. It's about time the US envoy condemned such double-talk if he hasn't already done so, otherwise Arab sincerity is just a farce.

Harold

Augustus
September 30th, 2010 2:20pm

I'm not sure I've read you aright. Are you saying that growth in the economy of the bits of the West Bank Israel has currently allowed to the Palestinians is sufficient to preclude the need for Israel to give the Palestinians any more?

I agree that free trade between the Palestinians and Israel would help. However, the Palestinians are still confined to a series of separate ghettoes; 8%pa growth on very little remains very little for quite some time; and I am sure you took part in a discussion a while back about how gangster capitalism works - the gangsters get rich and the populace remains impoverished and in fear - and Israel and the US are set on establishing in the West Bank just such gangster capitalism (it has served the US well throughout its empire).

On "double talk": recall Mr. Netanyahu last time round boasting of how he signed up to agreements with the US and Palestinians but then acted to scupper them. "Double talk" is in the armoury of every politician.

So, am I right to interpret you as saying that Israel should not give the Palestinians any more than the existing ghettoes; and that even the chosen subcontractor is not an acceptable partner in negotiation? In other words, Israel should continue to build settlements and the Palestinians should cease their resistance and accept their lot.

John.

Gilbert Belwether, Paul: Many states have held on to land taken from others in war - as well as not doing so - the whole of North and South America was taken form the indigenous natives and will never be given back, they were then, in their turn, taken from the conquerors, and are not about tobe returned. Likewise Russia took a third of Finland - Karelia and has kept it, as well as Kalinagrad in the Baltic and Eastern Poland, and Poland has taken some of what was Eatern Germany and is unlikely to give it back. Even in Wales, Monmouthshire, west of the Bristol Channel, has been incorporated into Wales, without the consent of its citizens and will never be returned. And so on. Israel has right of conquest to the so-called "occupied territory", just as much as all these other places have a right to hold what they hold. It is also forgotten that the whole of Ottoman Palestine - i.e. Israel, the "Palestinian" territories and Jordan - was originally promised to the Jews for their new state. Inspite of most of it then being given away to other people without the consent of the Jews, the original agreement has never been abrogated, repealed rescinded or annulled. So, in fact, Israel has still got the right to incorporate into itself all of what originally comprised Ottoman Palestine. Any other state of affairs exists only on the sufferance of Israel. This is almost never stated. Apart from this, the so-called "Palestinians" are mostly the recent progeny of Syrians, Egyptians and Libyans.

Harold

John.
September 30th, 2010 3:30pm

Whatever the position before WW2, the position since is that the acquisition of territory by war is not allowed by international law.

If all parties now concede to Israel the territory it acquired by war in 1947-8 (as appears to be the case), it can be argued that it has a legal claim on this territory. (If those dispossessed continue with their complaint, this argument can be reasonably disputed. However, the complainants are sufficiently realistic that token return for some and compensation for all, in lieu of justice, will surely be gratefully accepted, for the sake of peace. This at least appears to be the message of opinion poll after opinion poll.)

Israel does not have even this claim over the West Bank, which in international law is unequivocally occupied territory.

There are those who say international law has no hold over Israel: Israel took the land by force and will keep it by force. Israel, however it happens to bend and twist its interpretation of international law, nevertheless maintains that it abides by it. So Israel cannot openly use this argument.

Palestine was not promised by the League of Nations to the Zionists, nor were they promised a state.

Whatever you think the current composition of the Palestinian population, the inhabitants of Palestine at the time the Mandate was imposed were acknowledged by the League of Nations to have rights, which Britain in the exercise of the Mandate harmed, contrary to its undertakings to the League of Nations.

Gilbert Belwether

For the last time, there are two separate questions here: whether Israelis should decide to define their country as a Jewish state (and what it means if they do), and whether it's justifiable for the Israeli government to require such recognition from the Palestinians. Melanie's post was about the second, and the point I keep making is that it is not justifiable.

Antonia, I am Jewish by most definitions and have most of my life among Jews. You might be surprised how many Israeli Jews agree with me, particularly because whatever one's opinion of Jewishness as a culture, in its practical implementation in Israel it comes down to religion as evaluated by Orthodox rabbis. And then there's the opinion of Israeli Arabs, whose views about the character of their country no one seems to regard as having any weight at all.

By the way, there is no principle by which any group that sees itself as culturally and ethnically distinct deserves a sovereign state. If there were, the number of countries in the world would be in the thousands rather than the low hundreds.

Phil, I still can't see any argument in your comment I could possibly address (except for the one about Britain's national religion which I have addressed already).

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Mike W: " I realise there is a common but understandable persecution complex with you guys but its your imagination if you think you are treated worse than any other ethnic or religious minority."

Persecution/Perseshmoosen - as long as you love your holocaust! Oh dear...

To you, Harold, and Derek Blades: what a load of old twaddle. None of you deserve serious rebuttals.

Derek is boringly dilly. Harold, being so eroticised, it seems, by his own intellect, is slightly more fun, so let's play some more...

Harold: realistically, Israel will not do Palestinians any big favours any more, so stop your ossified, lefty crocodile tears and stop being such a preadolescent whinger.. Pointless crying about that, silly. Better, I think, that you encourage - instead - the present Palestinian PM. He has the right idea i.e. use at least some of his 'nation's" energy in getting on with development - social, political and economic -instead of blubbering incessantly and cementing the Palestinian identity in nothing but the tortured image of the victim. If his attitude had been prevalent in the Palestinian leadership since the 20's - instead of playing extermination hop scotch with Hitler and thinking of blood and virgins all the time - Palestine likely would have been a prospering Independent state many, many years ago - with boarders at least similar to those of the Partition Plan.

You blame Israel now for its "occupation". You blamed Israel before '67 for its "occupation". You blamed the Jews before the nabka - for their intended "occupation". Before 1917? Aaah, let's leave that out of it...

The jews are in a no win situation with you lot. They may as well play hard ball with ya. Keep you crying and whinging instead of getting on with nation building (you know, making use of the handouts to give ya a leg up); and we can all join 'em in looking at how this wonderful cyber worm is creeping - at last - into the very soul of the Ayatollah-imperialist regime. God be with us all on that one. Ya neva know: we may just get away with no general conflagration.

NotaSheepMaybeaGoat

When people claim that the Palestinians want peace with Israel, remember Yasser Arafat's words "Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine, and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel."

Gordon Ross

Phil, you live in cloud cuckoo land if you really believe that Britain is, in any real meaning of the term, an ally of Israel.

The late Golda Meir, one of Israel's outstanding Prime Ministers, cannot be quoted often enough on this: "With friends like these, who needs enemies".

Abracadabra

@ Gordon Ross

"anti-Semitism is endemic in the UK. The political correctness that has become such a major element in UK culture is, of course, overriden when it comes to the Jews, and open expression / demonstation of anti-Semitism is on the increase, most notably as an offshoot of the British media propaganda war against the Jewish state."

My sympathy goes out to you, Gordon. And to your family and friends.

Abracadabra

"All Jews here, of whatever political or ideological persuasion, are identified with Israel."

When the Lab and Tory parties chose Miliband and Howard as leaders they not only demonstrated their own lack of prejudice but also their belief that a Jewish leader wouldn't harm their chances with the British voter.

Adam B.

Belwether, I think most Israelis HAVE decided on what the Jewishness of their country means - I think its you who has the problem. And it is completely disingenuous to claim as you do that Israelis who disagree with Orthodox influence therefore have a problem with their country being Jewish. Many secular Israelis feel passionately about defending Israel as a Jewish state, as you well know.

You then go on to suggest that groups with a cultural identity (is that an admission that Israel does?) do not necessarily deserve a state - so are you saying Israel has no right ot exist, or that it does have the right, but not based on cultural considerations - in which case, on what considerations? And Israeli Arabs have a greater voice in Israel than their Arab brethren in neighbouring countries. How many Arabs in Syria and Jordan can establsih their own political parties and vote? How many leaders can stand in parliament and criticize the country (as happens frequently in the Knesset and also in the free press in Israel - unique in the region).

You are a very confused man.

Sharon

Derick Blades askes: "How do these knowledgeable and intelligent people come to the opposite conclusion from that of Ms Phillips?"

Because they are not particularly knowledgeable and intelligent. If they were knowledgeable they would know that Palestinians are a recent invention (since 1964) and never had a state, never having been a people other than all those indentified as living in th British Mandate of Palestine for several decades. They would know that amongst those citizens who held Mandate passports were Jews, Arabs - both Christian and Muslim - and many others of differing beliefs. If they were intelligent they would know that Islam is a political imperialistic doctrine that is fast gobbling up their domain and it will not be long before we will all be either Muslims or Dhimmis living under Sharia law.

Harold

"Israel will not do Palestinians any big favours any more..."

Surely I am allowed to bring such asinine to the attention of an appreciative audience. As I said, you couldn't make them up. It's the "any more" that raises it to the level of genius.

" Palestine likely would have been a prospering Independent state many, many years ago - with borders at least similar to those of the Partition Plan."

They keep on coming.

Gilbert Belwether

Adam, if you think 'most Israelis have decided' then you must not visit Israel or read the Hebrew press very often. There is a vigorous ongoing debate. And as I said, even if it's true that most Israeli Jews want a 'Jewish state' in some (usually very vague) sense, this is not true of Israel's Arab citizens, and the Palestinians certainly can't be required to take sides in this debate against their Israeli Arab cousins.

Israel has a 'right to exist' in precisely the same sense as any other state, i.e. its citizens have the right to democratic self determination. This right is not based on a shared culture or identity, in Israel or anywhere else.

I don't you if you think it's a compliment to compare Israel with undemocratic Arab states - this is damning with faint praise. I certainly hope my country is more democratic than Syria or Jordan. People keep repeating this type of argument, but it's rather like saying "If you think your taxes are too high, well, how would you like to live in communist China?"

Anyway, it looks like we've all shot our quivers empty by now and are repeating ourselves. You'll excuse me if I don't stoop to returning your ad hominem insults about ignorance, confusion and so on.

C.G.

Gilbert Belwether:

"By the way, there is no principle by which any group that sees itself as culturally and ethnically distinct deserves a sovereign state. If there were, the number of countries in the world would be in the thousands rather than the low hundreds."

Agreed as to the first proposition. So upon what principle are the Palestinians demanding sovereign state? That the Arab nations, from which they are not culturally and ethnically distinct, will not allow them citizenship or equal treatment under their jurisdictions?

And as to the second: so what if there were thousands? Thousands of national ghettoes, all preserving their ethnic and cultural distinction. Does it not suit your multicultural, pluralistic, racially diverse, criteria for democratic, secular statehood? Fair enough, but why then support a two-state solution between Jews and Arabs, especially when both, in your view, would be racist, sectarian and anti-democratic?

Or do you actually prefer the one-state solution - achieved either by Israel asserting sovereignty over the West Bank (who needs Gaza?) and giving everyone the vote, and equal rights under Israeli law (after all, despite certain religious rules, Israel is far closer to being the sort of state you approve of, than Palestine.) This would certainly internalize the war. Insurgency or civil war would make security even more difficult for Israel. Israel would become another Iraq, but the principle of pluralism, diversity etc. does "deserve" a state - even a dysfunctional one.

I take it you would move - to Dearborn or Bradford, perhaps?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Bellwether: "For the last time, there are two separate questions here: whether Israelis should decide to define their country as a Jewish state (and what it means if they do), and whether it's justifiable for the Israeli government to require such recognition from the Palestinians. Melanie's post was about the second, and the point I keep making is that it is not justifiable."

Who cares about "justifiable"? The Palestinians dont. Why dont they recognise Israel as Jewish state? Because they have a refined sense of what the justifications are for statehood in general or is it part of their digest of tactics vis a vis Israel in particular?

Don't talk disingenuous twaddle. It aint rocket science: The Palestinians cannot recognise Israel as a "Jewish" state simply becasue it will make its strategy of incremental moves towards a Uni State impossible.

Their Law of Return is inextricably connected with this strategy - another thing they will never give up or even compromise on.

Resolution 242 - for the Palestinians (and harold and his clones) - is a smoke screen. Their interpretation of it - though not promulgated, of course - is predicated on their definition of the refugee issue which in turn is predicated on their strategic aim of a achieving a uni state - oh, yeah, secular and democratic..blah, blah... - and reversing their nabka i.e realising their dream of pushing the Jews into the sea.

I dont believe you are Jewish or Israeli. I believe you are Harold. If not, you may as well be.

You are are all twaddlemeisters par excellence...and your propaganda i.e. deliberate obfuscation and manipulation of the truth - will not affect negotiations. Israel has always had the number of the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian leadership has always been - in itself - a nabka. The real nabka.

What the UN has become and EU is with regard to the Middle east conflict is a measure of the degree of cynicism with which International Relations is infused. That has always been the case, of course, but today it has become much more interesting and complex because of the sophistication of technology and mass communications.

You lot think you can use the media effectively to fight the propaganda war. I think you have made inroads, for sure, but you underestimate your enemy, as always, and think that you will move forward powered by your curdling dreams alone. You are wrong. More than that is needed for a culture to rise from the ashes, especially if those ashes were caused by its own appalling incapacities.

Israel is a small country with many faults, to be sure. However, no country on Earth is without the same faults or similar faults and, in most cases (especially Arab and moslem) even much worse. It can and should hold its head high and never be cowed by the false arguments and untruths persistently peddled in this war.

If you are jewish and Israeli, it is a testament to the health of that state's democracy and civilisation that you feel free to express your twaddle without fear of stoning or being beheaded. You should thank any God you can lay your hands and mind on for that.

Derek BLADES

Adam B. wrote "Look at the figures I provided to Blades (who surprise surprise has gone quiet)."

I did in fact reply to you ludicrous statistics. Our moderator chose not to print it – preferring to leave room for the phool gang.

Assuming this get's past the censor's eagle eye, let me refer to another of your postings "And Blades, I'm not Jewish. Your assumptions reveal much about you." What it reveals about me is that I made a reasonable, but apparently incorrect, assumption. Let me apologise for the slur. It was unintended.

Mike Homfray

The mistake was the misplaced guilt of the allies in creating Israel in the first place. We now suffer from the inevitable consequences of trying to give away someone else's country to assuage guilt
Germany should have been the country to provide land for Israel. Historical or religionist claims to land are not acceptable, and expecting the Palestinians to 'go sway' was never realistic.

That doesn't excuse the very poor leadership of much of the Palestinian leaders, but it certainly doesn't excuse settlement. They simply shouldn't be there.

Adam B.

Bades, you mean you made the assumption that anyone defending Israel against lies and distortions must be a Jew? What does that say about you?

And then you say the statistics are ludicrous. Why? Do you think the poll is faulty, and if so, why/ Do you have evidence to the contrary, or do you just make judgements based on prejudice rather than evidence?

Harold

C.G.
October 1st, 2010 2:29am

...so neither a two-state nor a one-state solution...so Israel carries on settling the land and the Palestinians live in ever smaller ghettoes, because they are Bad People, and they are Bad People because they resist Israel settling the land and confining them to ever smaller ghettoes...that is just their tough luck - there are haves and have-nots and to those that have... (I can just hear the reort, "Finally he gets it!")

The underlying argument here presumably applies more generally. Germany in WW2, had its calculations turned out right, would have settled Poland, Belorussia, the Ukraine, and that would have been fine. Its only mistake in this regard was to get beaten. The Soviet Union really ought to have annexed eastern Europe after it had transferred all the ethnic Germans...

The case for Israel gets ever clearer with every legal disquisition and every rant on this blog.

Adam B.

Belwether, you still haven't revealed on what basis countries have a right to self-determination, as apparently you don't think it is based on shared values, cultural identity, religion, shared history, or anything else - which flies in the face of reality. If you look at most countries of the world, you will find these are the ingredients which glue a country together. That is not to say that there are never any debates about identity (and unfortunately many Western countries, including Israel, have started to engage in a process of self flagellation and self doubt, exponents of which seem to include you). Meanwhile, the theocracies and dictatorships of the Middle East have no such self doubts, so whilst you agonize over your identity, and your purpose, your enemies do not. That really isn't very smart.

I really can't help you with your problem - if you feel so unJewish, leave and go to one of the countries which don't believe in anything at all.

Miranda Rose Smith

Keep up the good work, Ms. Phillips. For those of you who celebrate a two-day Yom Tov (Shemeni Atzeret and Simchat Torah)Hag Sameach and Shabbat Shalom.

Harold

One very curious thing about this whole discussion is that Melanie Phillips devotes a lot of energy to defending the asserion that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is moral, founded on the principles of Judaism and Christianity; and international jurists who support Israel and Israeli lawyers expend a lot of ingenuity on defending the assertion that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is legal according to the tenets of international law; yet the stalwarts and diehards here insist that it has nothing to do with morality or international law, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot, a wuss, a tool of the Islamists etc. etc. etc.

Curioser and curioser.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Bellwether: "For the last time, there are two separate questions here: whether Israelis should decide to define their country as a Jewish state (and what it means if they do), and whether it's justifiable for the Israeli government to require such recognition from the Palestinians. Melanie's post was about the second, and the point I keep making is that it is not justifiable."

Who cares about "justifiable"? The Palestinians dont. Why dont they recognise Israel as Jewish state? Because they have a refined sense of what the justifications are for statehood in general or is it part of their digest of tactics vis a vis Israel in particular?

Don't talk disingenuous twaddle. It aint rocket science: The Palestinians cannot recognise Israel as a "Jewish" state simply becasue it will make its strategy of incremental moves towards a Uni State impossible.

Their Law of Return is inextricably connected with this strategy - another thing they will never give up or even compromise on.

Resolution 242 - for the Palestinians (and harold and his clones) - is a smoke screen. Their interpretation of it - though not promulgated, of course - is predicated on their definition of the refugee issue which in turn is predicated on their strategic aim of a achieving a uni state - oh, yeah, secular and democratic..blah, blah... - and reversing their nabka i.e realising their dream of pushing the Jews into the sea.

I dont believe you are Jewish or Israeli. I believe you are Harold. If not, you may as well be.

You are are all twaddlemeisters par excellence...and your propaganda i.e. deliberate obfuscation and manipulation of the truth - will not affect negotiations. Israel has always had the number of the Palestinian leadership and the Palestinian leadership has always been - in itself - a nabka. The real nabka.

What the UN has become and EU is with regard to the Middle east conflict is a measure of the degree of cynicism with which International Relations is infused. That has always been the case, of course, but today it has become much more interesting and complex because of the sophistication of technology and mass communications.

You lot think you can use the media effectively to fight the propaganda war. I think you have made inroads, for sure, but you underestimate your enemy, as always, and think that you will move forward powered by your curdling dreams alone. You are wrong. More than that is needed for a culture to rise from the ashes, especially if those ashes were caused by its own appalling incapacities.

Israel is a small country with many faults, to be sure. However, no country on Earth is without the same faults or similar faults and, in most cases (especially Arab and moslem) even much worse. It can and should hold its head high and never be cowed by the false arguments and untruths persistently peddled in this war.

If you are jewish and Israeli, it is a testament to the health of that state's democracy and civilisation that you feel free to express your twaddle without fear of stoning or being beheaded. You should thank any God you can lay your hands on for that.

Gordon Ross

Abracadabra, on your expressions of sympathy, you've obviously forgotten that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.

Maybe you should do a little reading and research on anti-Semitism in Britain. For example,take a look at an article by Professor Shalom Lappin, Professor of Computational Linguistics at King's College, London in November 2007, entitled 'This Green and Pleasant Land: Britain and the Jews', in which, among other things, he quotes from the writings of historian Arnold J Toynbee, who viewed the Jews as an illicit people who have no right to be a nation.

As for the Labour and Tory Parties' election of Howard and Milliband as leaders, no doubt their nominal 'Jewishness' was of little or no significance, since I believe it is known that neither of them feel particularly connected to their heritage.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "ne very curious thing about this whole discussion is that Melanie Phillips devotes a lot of energy to defending the asserion that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is moral, founded on the principles of Judaism and Christianity; and international jurists who support Israel and Israeli lawyers expend a lot of ingenuity on defending the assertion that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians is legal according to the tenets of international law; yet the stalwarts and diehards here insist that it has nothing to do with morality or international law, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot, a wuss, a tool of the Islamists etc. etc. etc.

Curioser and curioser"

A ducker and a diver.....here a duck, there a duck.....everywhere a duck, duck..HAROLD! Enough, comrade! You know the truth!

The truth is a simple one: we don't object to your twaddle because we do not believe International Law is useful tool or your ought is as good as an is to a blind man! You know that, don't you? No, no, no, Harold. We object to you using anything you can grasp on to, as you squirm, duck and dive..to help you demonise Israel - come what may - as part of your strategy to get rid of the Jew in the Middle East and thus reverse the nabka which has caught you all in its sway, like a tic caught in treakle.

WE know you love Jews, so you're not anti semitic. It's not that. You just think Israel - is. ipso facto, immoral...so all your talk of international Law and "settlements" is actually otiose, otiose, otiose... and downright deceitful...You are addicted to the veil. Not the same perhaps as that of your brothers in arms, but the one that covers the truth of your genuine intent.

Now, I suggest you go wash your mouth out and get into bed.

Gordon Ross

Mike Homfray appears to be a new contributor, but trots out the same old platitudes about Israel's allegedly wrongful existence and the alleged rights of the so-called 'Palestinians'.

People like him need to be constantly reminded that, thanks to British duplicity, some 70% of the Jewish homeland was lopped off in the early 1920s to create what is now known as 'Jordan' and given to British puppets, the Hashemites. Since some 90% of the population there today is already so-called 'Palestinian', all they need do, if it pleases them, is change the name to 'Palestine', but of course it doesn't suit them at all. They blatantly and repeatedly declare that they will never recognise Israel's right to exist and that their intention is to eliminate it.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "Harold
September 30th, 2010 11:41pm
"Israel will not do Palestinians any big favours any more..."

Surely I am allowed to bring such asinine to the attention of an appreciative audience. As I said, you couldn't make them up. It's the "any more" that raises it to the level of genius.

" Palestine likely would have been a prospering Independent state many, many years ago - with borders at least similar to those of the Partition Plan."

They keep on coming."

A brilliant, brilliant refutation, Harold! Incisive, comprehensive, open, honest, compelling...

Twaddlemeister...

MikeW

JR your patronising rubbish and inability to have a discussion without crying anti-semite or descending into personal abuse is symptomatic of your paranoia. Everyone has an agenda and you can see through it all! You spout pure sophistry sprinkled with defamation and have the misguided notion that you occupy the moral high ground. It's laughable.

Gilbert Belwether

Adam B: "Belwether, you still haven't revealed on what basis countries have a right to self-determination"

C.G.:"So upon what principle are the Palestinians demanding sovereign state?"

I've already answered both these questions: "Israel has a 'right to exist' in precisely the same sense as any other state, i.e. its citizens have the right to democratic self determination." It isn't countries that have rights, it's human beings.

C.G., I support a two-state solution because it's the only one I think has even a remote chance of working at the moment, that's all. I'd rather not get into that discussion, though; I have some things to do this year.

Gilbert Belwether

I have nothing to say to John Roosevelt, except to wonder what exactly he thinks a "nabka" is.

Abracadabra

"As for the Labour and Tory Parties' election of Howard and Milliband as leaders, no doubt their nominal 'Jewishness' was of little or no significance, since I believe it is known that neither of them feel particularly connected to their heritage."

I see: Howard and Miliband disagree with you so they aren't real Jews.

I came here hoping to find delight over Milliband's triumph - but some of you are oddly similar to the British anti-Semites you detect everywhere: you are dismayed by Jewish success.

Derek BLADES

Gordon Ross speaks of "British duplicity" in the founding of Israel. All that was specified in the Balfour Declaration was that the Zionist could establish a homeland in the territory of what was then Palestine. The notion that this authorised the Zionist to take over the entire territory under the British mandate is one of the sillier fantasies shared by many contributors to this blog.

Mr Ross's solution is apparently that the Arabs remaining in the occupied West Bank and Gaza should pack their belongings and leave for Jordan. The idea is so potty that I am tempted to dismiss Mr Ross as seriously disturbed and to think that his contribution would be best ignored. Unfortunately, I am beginning to realise that this is almost mainstream thinking on this blog.

Abracadbra

"His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine"

Adam B.

Blades, Israel didn't take over the "entire territory", as you claim. 2/3rds became the Palestinian Arab entity called Jordan (Transjordan initially). Israel declared itself independent in accordance with the UN partition plan, which the Jews accepted and the Arabs rejected. The fledgling Jewish state was then invaded by 5 Arab armies, who duly lost the conflict they began. Jordan seized Judea and Samaria and the Old City of Jerusalem, ethnically cleansing all Jews from those areas, whilst Egypt grabbed Gaza. Israel's Arab neighbours then launched another attempt to eradicate Israel in 1967, which they, again, duly lost. Israel returned the entire Sinai peninsula ina peace treaty with Egypt, withdrew from parts of Judea and Samaria to create the palestinian Authority and withdrew from Gaza, mistakenly in the name of peace.

Your gripe appears to be that Israel didn't lay down and die.

Adam B.

Belwether, you haven't answered. Countries are independent entities for a reason. Following your logic, we should all have one single world government, as there is no such thing as common identity or shared values.

Harold

"...part of your strategy to get rid of the Jew in the Middle East and thus reverse the nabka which has caught you all in its sway, like a tic caught in treakle..."

It is invidious to choose just one snippet from such a rich source!

"A brilliant, brilliant refutation! Incisive, comprehensive, open, honest, compelling..."

Harold

And there's more!

"JOHN ROOSEVELT
September 28th, 2010 10:55pm
Harold: "What this means is that international law has nothing to do with it. Israel wields the big stick, so Israel will decide what is and what is not an obstacle to peace."

You got that right."

Compare.

" we don't object to your twaddle because we do not believe International Law is useful tool... No, no, no, Harold. We object to you using anything you can grasp on to, as you squirm, duck and dive..to help you demonise Israel..."

I am absolutely right that for Israel international law has nothing to do with it, only force. Yet I use the fact that I am absolutely right about to demonise Israel...er...no...

Israel thinks law has nothing to do with it...so, if I say Israel thinks law has nothing to do with it, then...I am demonising Israel...er...no

It takes talent to write this stuff; a miracle to understand it.

Augustus

Derek Blades - The point about Jordan is that, with the exception of that country, no Arab states want anything to do with the Palestinians, and are unwilling to give them citizenship. The territory which would be allocated to a Palestinian state would probably
be too small to house all of the
so-called refugees. Most refugees who are still alive were quite young in 1948, the others are really only descendants who never actually saw Palestine. There have been polls conducted and most have said that they would want to go to Israel even though many places where they came from no longer exist, where their fields
may now have turned into a housing project or office development. Then there is the undoubted fact that a mass of new Arab immigrants on that scale would put an end once and for all to Jewish self-determination. The large numbers combined with the higher
birth rate would soon create a majority Arab state. Perhaps you
would welcome that and go along with Sakher Habash of the PA, who once said: "To us, the refugees issue is the winning card which means the end of the Israeli state."

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Gilbert Belwether: why shouldn't The Palestinians recognise Israel as jewish state or moslem state? Do you think they should recognise Israel a state at all? Do they? Under what preconditions?

Your questions are spurious.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: “I am absolutely right that for Israel international law has nothing to do with it, only force. Yet I use the fact that I am absolutely right about to demonise Israel...er...no...”

No Harold. NO! You’re a bl**dy addict of the twaddle! Just can’t help it.

Let me repeat: you couldn't give a duck’s feathers for International Law except when you can use some notion of its contravention to helpyou in your undying quest and primary strategy of delegitimizing Israel. Your allusion to it, therefore, is totally and utterly deceitful. You are a porkie man.

As I have said, your notion that Israel is a naughty law breaker falls flat in its pool of twaddle, when we drag you back – beyond ’67 - and see you whinging still – that your precious land which you claim Israel is “occupying” now – in contravention of the Law – is not occupied by Israel at all – but by Transjordan. Yet Israel is still an "occupier” to you, of course, but your narrative elides seamlesslesly into something else i.e. Israel is still the demon but just not one that you can throw the legal book at. So what do you then do? You squirm and twist and grapple for something else. Ah, yes, Israel is just..just..immoral(!!)). Yes, that's it!... ‘cause those Jews had every intention of manipulating the new imperialist world – actually the Law Makers whose good works (in generating International Law) you purport to celebrate and use a big stick to whack Israel with – yes, the UN…...bad ole Israel is not a Law breaker, now, but just immoral and the Law weak and manipulable.. In other words, Law/Shmaw, Israel is the demon!!!!

..Jeez, Harold. A redefinition of twaddle, is you, mate. Time you realised you OUGHT to reactivate dem neurons...and talk some sense.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold:At best, like Hamas and the other spoilers in the Arab and moslem anti Zionist world, you pay lip service to Peace.

You begrudgingly "agree" there should be a "two state " solution.

This should be based, you say, on International Law.

Your interpretation of the law includes a stricture that all Palestinian refugee, including their offspring etc, from the '47-'49 War be allowed to return to their homes.

This, you know, would mean the demographic swamping of israel and signal its demise as a viable state. Everyone knows this is a deal breaker in any negotiations.

To achieve this end, you have to demonise Israel - from the perspective of today and the "settlements" i.e. Israel, "the occupier". This helps garner Western support and pressurises israel to refrain from using "facts on the ground" to improve its negotiating position.

When the kybosh of International Law deserts you, you delegitimise Israel's rights to statehood - using standard left wing tropes to support your position.

All well and good except this:

- you will not manage to prise away US support for Israel.

- noone in the West truly trusts you(despite the todying to Islamic voters etc)- even the Left, actually, when push comes to shove. Noone really believes the Arabs are capable of having anything but what the West considers a totalitarian religious political outcome of sorts. After all, the West has been at war with what actually represents tits true fears regarding these peoples - for years.

- you make the mistake of leaving Israel little choice but to sabotage you and your cronies. Peace negotiations, therefore, inevitably become a mere war dance. Foreplay before actual death and destruction. Even the fact that you guys could care less, since your people are always used as cannon fodder, anyway - and Israelis have major internal political constraints when it comes to potentially loosing their kids in war - Israel has no choice but to fight you and try and deter you.

- you also dont realise the implications - ever growing - of the contradiction between the Palestinian PM's efforts to build the institutions and economy of a de facto state but, at the same time, deliberately maintianing the refugee camps in the West Bank and elsewhere - the age old tactic of your great "liberationists" ever since the nabka. That, just doesn't wash anymore and, as the spotlight focuses on this crime against humanity, your cause will - as always - be overshadowed by catastrophe and shame.

Also: the current Iranian regime, without whom the spoilers are severely weakened, is not in a good way. Its "body" is rotting, showing increasing signs of being consumed by worms.

So, my advice is to stop wasting your time with the side shows of pushing the Pappe line and denigrating the Benny Morris's. It has nothing to do with what is happening on the ground, nor will it be effective in influencing what will happen.

As a card carrying aparatchik - almost certainly a willing one - of the radical Islamic propaganda club - you should realise, just as Goebbels did when he visited Hitler in his bunker as the Russians moved into Berlin - your game is all but up.... and The Guardian, the BBC and any number of doppelgangers who pose with you in these posts, will not save you or your immoral, illegal cause.

Gordon Ross

Abracadabra: "Howard and Milliband disagree with you, so they aren't real Jews". Disagree with me about what ! I have no idea and really don't care whether they agree or disagree with me about anything.

You are expert at deliberate misinterpretation. All I am saying is that the two politicians may be Jews by birth but are not, I understand, particularly interested in their heritage. This can unfortunately be said of many Jews here and elsewhere, and no doubt of some Englishmen, Germans, French etc. etc. with regard to their heritage.

Cut the twaddle, and do catch up on your reading and research !

Gordon Ross

Yes, Blades, I am "seriously disturbed", as no doubt are others who contribute to this blog, by the slippery contortions of people like you in your fevered attempts to discredit and delegitimize the renaissance of my people in our ancestral homeland.

Your trumpeted support of the so-called 'Palestinians' is simply camouflage for the ongoing demonstration of your irrational, inherited hatred of Israel, simply because it is the Jewish nation-state.

If little green Martians or even Venusian purple people-eaters were to be substituted for your so-called 'Palestinians', you'd purport to be just as fervent a supporter of their 'cause'!

Derek BLADES

Augustus. Your comment of 1 October was very helpful and I than you for it. So that we understand your position better, let's eavesdrop on a couple of so-called refugees in a so-called refugee camp.

"Ahmed. I've been talking to that young man from the ministry. He told me that nice Jewish couple who took our farm have sold it. It's gone commercial. A parking lot for McDonalds, he said".

“Well Nada, that means we should just forget about it and get on with our lives. A relief really. Brings a sense of closure. Know what I mean? But Eh! Where the heck are we going to live?"

"No problem Darling. The man from the ministry said we should go to Jordan. They’ll give us a piece of land to start again. Well, it's only a sand-dune really but at least it’ll be ours!"

"Sounds great Nada. I always loved making sand castles when Mum and Dad took me to the beach. Bet the kids will love it too. When can we get going?”

"Just as soon as you put out that funny stuff you're smoking and dig out the suitcases”

Adam B.

Oh dear - Blades thinks he's funny.

And how typical of those Jews to sell off Israel to McDonald's - anything for a quick buck, right Blades?

Beneath contempt.

Augustus

Derek Blades - Why not focus on the the bigger picture? What was essentially a minor conflict between Palestinians and Zionists, which later escalated into a larger conflict
between the Israelis and the Arabs, has become essentially a
rogue Islamic state led war against our Western model of liberal democracy, a war that aims to destroy Israel as a first stage. I hope you would agree that, as far as a growing diaspora of Palestinian refugees are concerned, demands
should not be made of Israel that would never be expected of
another democratic state. Or is it just that 'the Jew is always
guilty'? Whatever it is, your apparent sympathy for the suffering Palestinians translates into more than just
sentimentality IMO.

Derek BLADES

Augustus asks me to "focus on the the bigger picture?"

The problem is that bigger picture strikes me as one of the wackiest conspiracy theories I have encountered for some time. For the record, here is what he says:

"[an] essentially .. minor conflict between Palestinians and Zionists, ... escalated into a larger conflict
between the Israelis and the Arabs, [and] has become essentially a
rogue Islamic state led war against our Western model of liberal democracy..."

My case rests.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Derek BlADES: "I rest my case"

Well, clearly there is a God after all.

Harold:At best, like Hamas and the other spoilers in the Arab and moslem anti Zionist world, you pay lip service to Peace.

You begrudgingly "agree" there should be a "two state " solution.

This should be based, you say, on International Law.

Your interpretation of the law includes a stricture that all Palestinian refugee, including their offspring etc, from the '47-'49 War be allowed to return to their homes.

This, you know, would mean the demographic swamping of israel and signal its demise as a viable state. Everyone knows this is a deal breaker in any negotiations.

To achieve this end, you have to demonise Israel - from the perspective of today and the "settlements" i.e. Israel, "the occupier". This helps garner Western support and pressurises israel to refrain from using "facts on the ground" to improve its negotiating position.

When the kybosh of International Law deserts you, you delegitimise Israel's rights to statehood - using standard left wing tropes to support your position.

All well and good except this:

- you will not manage to prise away US support for Israel.

- noone in the West truly trusts you(despite the todying to Islamic voters etc)- even the Left, actually, when push comes to shove. Noone really believes the Arabs are capable of having anything but what the West considers a totalitarian religious political outcome of sorts. After all, the West has been at war with what actually represents tits true fears regarding these peoples - for years.

- you make the mistake of leaving Israel little choice but to sabotage you and your cronies. Peace negotiations, therefore, inevitably become a mere war dance. Foreplay before actual death and destruction. Even the fact that you guys could care less, since your people are always used as cannon fodder, anyway - and Israelis have major internal political constraints when it comes to potentially loosing their kids in war - Israel has no choice but to fight you and try and deter you.

- you also dont realise the implications - ever growing - of the contradiction between the Palestinian PM's efforts to build the institutions and economy of a de facto state but, at the same time, deliberately maintianing the refugee camps in the West Bank and elsewhere - the age old tactic of your great "liberationists" ever since the nabka. That, just doesn't wash anymore and, as the spotlight focuses on this crime against humanity, your cause will - as always - be overshadowed by catastrophe and shame.

Also: the current Iranian regime, without whom the spoilers are severely weakened, is not in a good way. Its "body" is rotting, showing increasing signs of being consumed by worms.

So, my advice is to stop wasting your time with the side shows of pushing the Pappe line and denigrating the Benny Morris's. It has nothing to do with what is happening on the ground, nor will it be effective in influencing what will happen.

As a card carrying aparatchik - almost certainly a willing one - of the radical Islamic propaganda club - you should realise, just as Goebbels did when he visited Hitler in his bunker as the Russians moved into Berlin - your game is all but up.... and The Guardian, the BBC and any number of doppelgangers who pose with you in these posts, will not save you or your immoral, illegal cause.

Harold

"... your immoral, illegal cause."...

So it IS about morality and law?...or...?

"...you have to demonise Israel - from the perspective of today and the "settlements" i.e. Israel, "the occupier"...

If I want to demonise Israel (which I don't), I am advised to use the "perspective of today" because from that perspective Israel is an occupier...yes, well...

"...Your interpretation of the law includes a stricture that all Palestinian refugee, including their offspring etc, from the '47-'49 War be allowed to return to their homes."...

Um...an actual quote? - "the complainants are sufficiently realistic that token return for some and compensation for all, in lieu of justice, will surely be gratefully accepted, for the sake of peace. This at least appears to be the message of opinion poll after opinion poll."

I am like "Goebbels" and someone else apparently is "Hitler" and the "Red Army" is outside the gates...

What? Where?...I mean...What?

Do we have here a saboteur subtly undermining the cause he purports to support by exposing it to ridicule?

Augustus

Derek Blades - You refuse to accept that democracy and economic wellbeing has become
threatened by extremist Islamic political ideology, and yet the signs are abundantly clear throughout the world. Don't just take
my word for it, or those who speak out against Islam, listen to those who know the
Koran and the Hadiths in detail, such as Ala Maududi, the most influential Pakistani thinker of the 20th Century. I quote: "Islam
is not just a religious conviction, but a revolutionary ideology, and the Jihad is based on this religious crusade to destroy
the states and governments anywhere in the world who resist the ideological programme of Islam". Al Sina, the Iranian refugee who lives in Canada points out that there is a golden rule at the heart of all religious thought which says, 'we should all treat others as we would wish to be treated', But
in Islam that rule applies only to fellow believers and not to unbelievers. Al Sina says: " The reason why I am against Islam is not because it is a religion, but because it is an imperialist political ideology based on supremacy wrapped up in a religious framework, and because Islam doesn't follow the golden rule towards all
people it attracts those of violence." The West appears to have lost its ability to see the danger and understand the truth
because we have lost our ability to value our freedoms. Politicians of practically all parties, universities, trades unions, the media; they all speak of equality, but refuse to acknowledge that women have less rights than men, and unbelievers less rights than followers of Islam. But Israel
for one doesn't accept that universal Islamification is irreversible. They want to retain their freedom and culture. If any
folk will fight to retain freedom they will.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: you're maKing Fred Astaire look clumsy of foot...

...and you are squirming, but without the efficacy of other worms doing the rounds, it seems…

My point is a simple one: your position vis a vis peace is - like that of the entire governing class of the Arab and moslems in the Middle East - now, and for the last 90 years - quintessentially deceitful.

Some of you - these days - purport to approve (however unwillingly) of a two state solution.

However, because of your deal-breaker position on refugees, you clearly do not support a genuine two state solution, but a uni state solution.

The uni state solution is either the fantasy of well-intentioned Israel humanitarians – like Merlon Benvenisti – or the tactic of Arab moslems and their propagandists who want to rid the Middle East of Jews and Israel. In either case, a perceived disaster for Israel and a recipe for continued war 9as you well know, of course…and would you have it otherwise?). Even if this were untrue, it is firmly believed by those with whom you would need to negotiate. Slightly inconvenient (or, not at all, if war is your aim), but true – and, in effect, the same thing.
So, Harold, forget the lying. It will not work. If you aren’t lying and just suffer from the congenital misguidedness of the preadolescen “believer” who divides the ideological between those who “know” and the infidel - focus on how to build trust so you lot can stand some chance of achieving anything worthwhile in the future. It’s the only way you will raise yourself up from your self-inflicted catastrophe (Gilbert, have little doubt that if I am ignorant of what the nabka is, your friends shouldn’t be) – which is the hallmark of your political leadership for the last 100 years. Hamas is the latest, graphic testament to that – your ticket, you believe, to the western democratic club. A smart move at the time, to be sure, but has proved - like so much of the political “creativity” of your nationalist movement, ultimately to be another nail in the coffin of the people you claim to represent (oh so democratically).

What you have always been left with - after your frenzied promulgating of Pan Arabism and with Pan Islamism - is nothing but the dead skin of propaganda which always eventually falls off the flesh of real people, leaving that skin raw and exposed. The soul of the people, of course, remains increasingly mired in the impotence of corruption.
It is truly disgusting to behold and you should fell profound shame.
It’s about time the Arabs and moslems had a one single inspirational and positive leader. Perhaps that will only happen when the oil runs out and you have to do some seriously creative thinking…

Adam B.

I assume Harold, that you believe that Jewish refugees from Arab lands be able to return/reclaim their property/ be awarded compensation? And if various Arab countries refuse, they will be made to accept by the UN - for the sake of peace? And that by "Jewish refugees" we mean all descendants of refugees?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Israel is the last bastion of neo colonisers and barbaric regimes akin to Nazi Germany or Apartheid South Africa.

This is a common position of the ant Zionist.

No doubt, I guess, many anti Zionists would argue that all the Arab states have a right to statehood, based on the liberal notion of national self-determination. I say liberal as opposed to a notion that even if a country is a fascist dictatorship (or something closely akin to it) which murders its own people and forbids the standard freedoms of liberal society, should enjoy the right to statehood.

Syria is a police state, guilty - for example - of murdering for 10-40,000 of its own citizens in just under 1 month. In addition, those killed were supposedly members of the Moslem Brotherhood, which is the alma mater of Hamas (Robert Fisk has written brilliantly on this massare).

Jordan: how many Palestinian “fighters” were killed by the Hashemite regime during Black September – another magical figure of 40,000? Perhaps it was only 39 999.00.

Egypt is a police state in all but name. To this day - to mention just one "minor" example it persecutes its Copts.

In Lebanon, Hezbollah is threatening a coup if the Lebanese Govt. proceeds with its indictment of Hizbullah members of the Hariri assassination.

Iraq: a complete and utter travesty of internecine mayhem and hatred and has been since it gained indpendence. How many of it's own people did it allow to be slaughtered in its war against Iran - +- 500,00? How many did Saddam massacre with chemical weapons and all manner of others? For what liberal cause?

Iran: a theocratic dictatorship, fast vying with the Taliban as top of the class when it comes to the murderous treatment of its own.

Anti Zionists think Israel has no right to statehood because it does not fit their frame of self-determination…and, by virtue of the fact that it has achieved statehood, not to mention the manner in which it did so (however confused and connfusing the case put to support this idea may be) – it is barbarous, exclusivist, apartheid and even Nazi-like…
…and, presumably, uniquely so. In other words, the culture of intolerance of all other Arab states is good by comparison and, certainly sufficiently so to justify one in supporting this right of self-determination and not Israel's.

The Palestinians are already in a state of "low level" civil war. Hamas’s Charter is viscously Islamic fundamentalist and Hamas is already responsible for one putch against Fatah and maintains a regime in gaza of draconian denial of civil rights to those who live there.

Refugee camps are still maintained – in all their degradation – by the Palestinians despite their capacity to assimilate these impoverished hoards into normal Palestinian society – even on the West bank, where the economy is now growing at one of the fastest rates in the world.

On what basis, therefore, are we to feel even vaguely confident that an Independent Palestine would imitate the political and social mores of it pan Islamic and/or pan arabist brothers and sisters - that of all other Arab and Moslem states in the region? Or, should that not concern any of us would-be supporters of self-determination - for whom human rights form the very foundations of our ideological persuasions?

Are we being asked to support a future state which may well ape its Arab and molsem neighbours, and institute religious fundamentalist and/or the general usurpation of the social rights which most of us would give our lives to protect and certainly allow our children to give theirs for??

If so, we have become an amoral society and morality have merely become the plaything of propaganda designed to uphold what politics renders convenient at any given time...and, as such, we deserve all the horror and violence that comes our way..

Harold

One last time:

"Um...an actual quote? - "the complainants are sufficiently realistic that token return for some and compensation for all, in lieu of justice, will surely be gratefully accepted, for the sake of peace. This at least appears to be the message of opinion poll after opinion poll."

Given the evident inability to read and understand, I am going out on a limb here, but it appears that at least we have established that morlaity and law have a bearing on the subject.

Harold

Adam B.

I will not spend any more time on you beyond pointing out that this very subject was discussed in detail, I think with Linda Smith, on a recent thread and it was discussed before you disappeared in a puff of righteous indignation rather than answer questions put to you.

Harold

Gordon Ross,

You share a fault with most apologists for Israel here. When presented with an argument you disagree with, you do not provide a counter-argument, but accuse your opponenet of trying to "deligitimise" Israel. This contributes nothing to rational discussion. It is not even effective in shouting down those you disagree with. It is a lame alternative to "Anti-semite!" and its variants (although also less poisonous). Do you feel a lack of rational arguments for Israel (you shouldn't, because of course there are plenty)?

Eli

Bravo, you've exposed again the anti-Israel double-standart that has infected left-liberal media.

Adam B.

I see Harold, so you won't stoop to answer.

What a great way of avoiding a difficult question which threatens your world view. Still, being the towering intellect that you are, I'm surprised that you stoop to talk to anyone other than the man in the mirror.

Eli

Just a comment on the obtuse comments by Gilbert Belwether (a fake name, I suppose). To be Jewish is to be a member of the Jewish people as well as to practice Judaism. Until the 20th century they were persecuted for their faith, but even after many of them abandoned it, they were still persecuted for their blood.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: you're tap dancing with clogs on, comrade...

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "Do you feel a lack of rational arguments for Israel"

No rational arguments for Israel, ha? Off with its head, then, brother!

One wonders if there is a rational argument for you, Harold...

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold is the consummate propagandists. I am just curious why so...

What is it this man finds worth of emulation in the Arab and Moslem political/religious world? Even if he finds Israel and the Jews (at least those who dared wish for a state in Palestine and then had the audacity and barbarity to realise it, surely he must - if he is the bleeding heart liberal he purports to be - have some reservations about what he is attempting to exterminate and put in its place?? Or has he excavated some social and political mores in the region which he feels confident the Palestinians - in the full flush of independence - will realise - becoming a beacon of light in a world of darkness?

Perhaps it's just that Hariold wil fight and die for RIGHT - no matter what the consequences - the means and intent being paramount, the ends of no importance by comparison?

This is the world according to Harold - kill for Justice evn if justice is never achieved and those with whom you fight have no history of it whatsoever...and the fight brings nothing but death and degradation in its wake.

Harold, you are barking...and so much so that even all the trees that you may have ascended - in your madness -have fled in horror.

Apart from Harold's complete incapacity even to mitigate his compulsion to establish that there is " no rational argument for Israel" (the depth of arrogance of this statement aside, at the whiff the masters of the Final Solution, here, make one gag) - why does he never address what kind of state he genuinely foresees for the new Palestine and how it will sustain itself in the context of the tyrannical states of the Arab and moslem Middle East?

WE are done with Harold's attempts to rationalise Israel if, for no other reason that it redefines irrelvance.. In he here and now, Harold should come clean - come out of the fetid catacombs of bigotry, and discuss what prescribes for the new world of justice and human rights in his cherished world of arabs and moslems.

I'm all ears...

Harold

On compensation for the Jewish communities in Arab states: "this very subject was discussed in detail, I think with Linda Smith, on a recent thread and it was discussed before you disappeared in a puff of righteous indignation rather than answer questions put to you."

On rational arguments for Israel: "Do you feel a lack of rational arguments for Israel (you shouldn't, because of course there are plenty)?"

As I said, "Given the evident inability to read and understand..."

Enough.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

harold" "On compensation for the Jewish communities in Arab states: "this very subject was discussed in detail, I think with Linda Smith, on a recent thread and it was discussed before you disappeared in a puff of righteous indignation rather than answer questions put to you."

On rational arguments for Israel: "Do you feel a lack of rational arguments for Israel (you shouldn't, because of course there are plenty)?"

As I said, "Given the evident inability to read and understand..."

Enough."

Down and out, comrade? I am not surprised. A familiar story....

Harold

"you are barking...and so much so that even all the trees that you may have ascended - in your madness -have fled in horror.

Apart from Harold's complete incapacity even to mitigate his compulsion to establish that there is " no rational argument for Israel" (the depth of arrogance of this statement aside, at the whiff the masters of the Final Solution, here, make one gag)..."

I am contemplating an anthology, to include the specimens from this thread, with a provisional title something along the lines of "Those Who Agree with Melanie: Should It Give Her Pause?"

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "I am contemplating an anthology, to include the specimens from this thread, with a provisional title something along the lines of "Those Who Agree with Melanie: Should It Give Her Pause?""

Lame. comrade..Very lame...

Harold: your positon on the Middle east will not help bring about the kind of compromise required for a two state solution that will stand a chance of survival.

You support those whould anihilate Israel and whinge that Israel is strong enough to defend itself.

You rpretend to have a notion of what is right and wrong in war...arrogating to yourelf the mantle for judge re Israel (you make no judgements about any others whom it is fighting who would stand no chance whatsoever of occupying any place in the world of genuine liberal values) - playing hopscotch between the domains of the Law and morlaity - skipping onto the one when it suits and the other, when you have played out the first. No real connection between the two and neither with any value unless it serves the particular narrative you are coppting to score a cheap point.

You're a hope twaddle meister with the courage only to be pedantic...a true sign, I fear, of the way of the future.

Thank God Israel is strong...and thank God Israel knows a twaddlemeister when it scurries through the fetid sewers of the propaganda world.

The Jews know who they are dealing with.They have had generations of bitter experience.

Harold

More specimens (keep them coming):

"Thank God Israel is strong...and thank God Israel knows a twaddlemeister when it scurries through the fetid sewers of the propaganda world."

Note the unintentional ambiguity in the syntax: is it the twaddlemeister who scurries? or is it Israel?

"The Jews know who they are dealing with.They have had generations of bitter experience."

Bathos again, instead of reason.

And all oblivious!

My work as editor is done for me.

Harold

And best of all, we have:

"Nabka".

- It's a neologism, apparently. Its usage indicates that it means, "Of course there was ethnic cleansing: how else could a Zionist state be established in Palestine?"

- "Nabka".

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Yes, Yes , harold.

Harold, a Zionist state was established because the UN conspired against Islam and some Arabs.

My guess is that the UN conspired less - in proposing a state for the Palestinians - than proposing that there be no Palestine, assigning that land to Transjordan and Egypt.

Anyway, didn't take long for Egypt and Transjordan to grab that real estate and keep the notion of an independent Palestine nicely buried.

The Jews are an inconvenient lot, I have to say. Just when you think it easy to ethnically cleanse them - Hitler being the much admired model for that before '47 (and even today) in the Arab and moslem world, of course - they turn around and "cleanse" you lot. Well waddya know! Perhaps God pays debts without words, after all?

Life's a bitch, as I've told you so many times before. Deal with it.

JOHn ROOSEVELT

Harold: your work as editor, indeed. You're an arrogant joke.

Please forgive israel if it fails to apologise to you for not have a "rational argument for its existence". I'm afraid Israel, however, along with the rest of us, just may feel you shot yourself in the nabka with that one.

At last our comrade is out the closet!

Gordon Ross

Guys, I've delayed long enough in pointing out to you that the word is spelt NAKBA or NAQBA !

Funny that 'they' blame the British for this, when the latter sabotaged the re-birth of the Jewish nation-state rather than fostered it.

The Balfour Declaration was not worth the paper it was written on, and 'they' and their brothers in the wider 'El Araby' are responsible for their NAKBA !

Harold

And yet more! A cornucopia of dross!

"The Jews are an inconvenient lot, I have to say. Just when you think it easy to ethnically cleanse them - Hitler being the much admired model for that before '47 (and even today) in the Arab and moslem world, of course - they turn around and "cleanse" you lot. Well waddya know! Perhaps God pays debts without words, after all?"

"they turn around and "cleanse" you lot..."

Hmm. Indeed.

"God pays debts without words, after all..."

...God?...

Hmm.

And one last attempt to test whether you can read and understand, or, as appears to be the case, not:

"Do you feel a lack of rational arguments for Israel (you shouldn't, BECAUSE, OF COURSE, THERE ARE PLENTY)?"

"BECAUSE OF COURSE THERE ARE PLENTY."

One final favour: Could you clarify whether "Nabka" is indeed a neologism of your own invention, or whether Gordon Ross is right (in an otherwise less than cogent contribution!) and you simply blundered.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Gordon Ross: "Guys, I've delayed long enough in pointing out to you that the word is spelt NAKBA or NAQBA !"

A catastrophe by any other name...:))

jOHN ROOSEVELT

Oh, Harold, I have blundered. Missed my editor. You win, bud...

..and so does Israel.

It's a veritable catastrophe for you.

Derek BLADES

It would be interesting - or at the very least amusing - to hear what JOHN ROOSEVELT sees as a desirable outcome for Israel. As he is apparently against peace talks to produce a two state solution, I suppose what he has in mind is some kind of "greater Israel" incorporating the occupied West Bank - minus the Palestiinians who currently live there.

Could he confirm that this is indeed what he has in mind?

Harold

jOHN ROOSEVELT
October 5th, 2010 12:10am

I will take your omission of certain of your previous jeering and jibes as belated and typically ungracious acknowledgement that you simply failed to read what I wrote.

This I suppose is progress of sorts, as is your admission that morality and law have a bearing on the conflict, although apparently not on Israel's role in it.

In a rare flash of accuracy you have recognised the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. It is as worrying as it is startling that you see it as God's work.

I can anticipate your reply to Mr. Blades: You are in favour of a two-state solution as advocated by Uri Avnery AND (!) Benny Morris. However the "Arabs" in their innate evil make such a solution impossible. Therefore Israel will be forced to carry on appropriating land and killing Palestinians. If the "Arabs" were to accept everything Israel demands of them, then Israel might be willing to consider the possibility of reflecting on whether it would be in Israel's interests to contemplate whether or not to study the question of whether at some point and with suitable guarantees it would look not unfavourably on the eventuality of the Palestainians calling such ghettoes as Israel deemed prudent to allow them a sovereign state, it would also generously allow certain Israeli citizens to be dumped in such a state and if any in the diaspora fancied exchanging one prison for another, they would be allowed free passage into the said sovereign state - and Israel would undertake not to smirk at the very idea while securing all access to and diverting all natural resources from such a Palestinian sovereign state (I'm sorry, there was a definite smirk there)...

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Derek Blades: "Derek BLADES
October 5th, 2010 2:29am
It would be interesting - or at the very least amusing - to hear what JOHN ROOSEVELT sees as a desirable outcome for Israel. As he is apparently against peace talks to produce a two state solution, I suppose what he has in mind is some kind of "greater Israel" incorporating the occupied West Bank - minus the Palestiinians who currently live there.

Could he confirm that this is indeed what he has in mind?"

Dear Derek, you are not new to this blog, so I am aghast that you have missed my posts which have addressed what I deem to be "a desirable outcome for Israel" and what, in reality, I think possible. Nonetheless, for the record, here we go again:

I know of few in Israel who do not want peace. I also do. If you have ever fought in a war or had relatives and friends killed in one, you would understand.

The majority of Israelis would, I am sure, go for a version of the two state solutiion based on 242 - at least, in principle. This has been shown time and again. I would also.

There are a few major issues which preclude this "peace", however:

- most israelis believe that the Arabs and moslems do NOT want a two state solution. They believe they are merely paying lipservice to it, using a spin on the refugee issue to push for what will mean the eventual crumbling of the Israeli state and the institution of a uni state. The Arabs and moslems have done nothing to assuage these concerns effectively. I concur with this view 100%. I do not trust that moslem fundamentalism will not continue to have sufficent influence on the Arab and mioslem policy-makers for this crucial strategic aim of theirs to change.

-Most in Israel believe that Iran,and the islamist organisations it has fomented and supports, do not want a two state solution (though I cant, for the life of me, understand what Ahmedinejad, Hizbollah and Hamas have done, said or written to have promoted that idea). Whatever deal is negotiated with Abbas, most Israelis believe it cannot hold without eradicating this influence. I agree with this view.

- Most Israelis have seared into their psyches a view of the history of the last 90 years in terms of Jewish experience with Arabs and moslems which is not very "nice" and has undermined trust (you go figure, but true). To be sure, this may not be Harold's or your view of the history, but the reality is that Israelis, for the most part, have another view. It does not put Arabs and moslems in a great light. Their support for the Nazis hasn't really helped that alot. Moreover, Isreali culture is far closer to Western European, as you would surely concur, and they have trouble living with a culture that treats its own in a way that is anathema to it. Like it or not this is the reality of a common Israeli mindset (and mine) which makes any deal-making very difficult. This doesn't mean it is impossible, as has been proven in the case of Egypt and jordan, but not easy.

- the marriage of Islamic fundamentalism and liberal-leftism is, in my view, a very unholy one. It does nothing but throw up even more impediments to peace, in my view. Conflating the demonisation of capitalism, with the demonisation of jewish nationalism whilst, at the same time, allowing and enabling the effects of fundamentalism which are totally and utterly against any pretense of upholding humanitarian values - is a concoction destined to end very badly indeed - for all concerned. It is an alliance of convenience which will eventually break down - leading only to more conflict. Too many anti Zionists have jumped on the same ideologically confused and confusing flotilla - under the illusion that catchphrases alone will bind the very different elements in the mix together - are a substitute for meaningful policies for change and peace. As with recent attempts of the Turkish flotilla to break the Israeli blockade - all in the name of so-called "justice" - all that resulted was the death of 9 people. This kind of disaster (though most involved - andy you, I am sure - would probably see any propaganda victory worth the killing) will continue, I believe, and will make peace-making even harder.

I have stated before that I have great respect for Uri Avneri and his notion of a two state solution - which is predicated on a refugee solution which would not "swamp" israel. I do not share his faith in the Arab and moslem cultures, however, when it comes to the making of Peace. He trusted Arafat, just like Chomsky and Finkelstein trust Hizbollah; and you, no doubt, trust Ahmedinejad. I didn't trust Arafat. I dont trust Hizbollah or Ahmedinejad.. Avneri feels that Hamas and the fundamentalists can be changed or harnessed in the cause for Peace. I dont.

I believe that the debate right now over acceptance of Israel as a jewish state underscores israeli and my concerns that the Arabs and moslems have one single intention - to reverse the NAKBA (there you go, Harold) of '48 - and eventually get rid of Israel. if not true, clearly they have their work cut out for them to change the Israeli (and my) mindset. This is a reality, like it or not.

Whilst the propaganda war continues as is - with the likes of you and Harold - in the name of "justice" and the desire of getting jews and Israeli's to see the "truth" - persisting with the idea that if we can only "prove" that "there is no rational argument for Israel" - the cause of peace-making will in no way be served. This vomitous echo of Hitler's policy of the Final Solution will do nothing but incite Israelis and Jews to bunker down even more and find new ways to protect themselves. Given how smart they can be, I believe this does not augur well for Arabs and moslems and does not augur well for Peace. I blame you and those whom you support for this and call it nothing but a continuation of what i have always deemed shameful and catastrophic in the politics of the Arabs and moslems vis a vis the jews and Israelis. if nothing else, it ensures war.

If there is civil war again in Lebanon - now highly likely - and Iran continues in its incapacity to demonstrate that its intentions vis a vis Israel and the world are, in fact, "honourable" (as Israel and the rest of the world will have it), few in Israel ( and I agree) believe that Peace is a possibility. This is very different from not wanting peace and not conceding that the two state solution is the best idea for achieving it - in principle, at least.

BENNY MORRIS has it right, as far as I am concerned. The Israelis and Arabs/moslems are too different to live together - just as the Arabs and moslems have shown by their ethnic cleansing of Jews over the last 60 years (as many israelis and jews and I see it), underpinned by common Islamic belief that the Jews are vermin (as many israelis, jews and I see it) .Again, this is how it certainly appears.

In conclusion, a few things seem crystal clear to me:

- there has to be compromise on both sides.

- the Palestinians have been used as the political football and cannon fodder for the Arab and moslem world in the Middle East even well before israel was formed. Relative to israel, even with a kind of Arab and moslem regional support, they have little power to impose a peace settlement according to their islamic fantasies of seeing the end of the Jews in the region. This is simply a reality.

- Israel cannot make peace without a monumental change in its perception of Arab and moslem intentions.

- a peace deal certianly is no guarantee of peace. It's what comes after - in terms of the culture of peace, which is critical.

...and if you find the above all terribly amusing, Derek, you will only underscore what is my present certainty i.e. that Peace - as I and many Israelis (I am sure) would like it - will not be achieved.

Gordon Ross

Uh oh, the "Greater Israel" propaganda piece is back again (Blades).

I believe that it was back in the 1920s that there was an exchange of population arrangement between Greece and Turkey as part of their territorial adjustments. One would think that such an arrangement would be just the thing to resolve the Israel / Arab problems, especially when there has already been a major forced one way movement of thousands of Jews from the vast Arab lands surrounding Israel, resulting in the destruction of ancient communities that were founded long before the advent of Islam and the resulting Arab conquest of those lands. Ah, but alas, no, this would not be possible in this case. One must never forget that when Jews are involved, the usual standards are not to be applied. Special rules for them !

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "I will take your omission of certain of your previous jeering and jibes as belated and typically ungracious acknowledgement that you simply failed to read what I wrote"

Don't, since I have..and you have said absolutely nothing of note. I do not feel I have to gracious to you, Harold. I find you dispicable

"This I suppose is progress of sorts, as is your admission that morality and law have a bearing on the conflict, although apparently not on Israel's role in it."

You have a familiar whiff about you, harold - your deliberate miscontructions of what i say to attempt lamely to prove another of your spurious points reeks of a history of bigotry that i abhor. You may think that israel is uniquely immoral in this conflict and inhabits a region full of states and political movements that you consider to be otherwise. That's why i consider you despicable. You have not once had the courage to defend yourself on this score. It's where your edifice of moral superiority crumbles into dust.

"In a rare flash of accuracy you have recognised the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. It is as worrying as it is startling that you see it as God's work."

You don't do irony, I guess. Either did the Nazis. Nor do the Jihadis.I believe that unless you get a Truth and Reconciliation Committee going, along the lines of Bishop Tutu's, your assertions that Israel is guilty - and uniquely so - of ethnic cleansing will have no utility whatsoever. You can have Pappe and Morris there to slug it out. Even if both the arabs and moslems as well as the Israelis are guilty, it only means anything if it affects the degree of compromise necessary to achieve a Peace agreement which can hold. Otherwise it is merely fodder for your propaganda trough.

"I can anticipate your reply to Mr. Blades: You are in favour of a two-state solution as advocated by Uri Avnery AND (!) Benny Morris. However the "Arabs" in their innate evil make such a solution impossible."

What a genius! I wonder if this is because I have stated it to you time and again..twaddlemesier?

"Therefore Israel will be forced to carry on appropriating land and killing Palestinians."

I think the killing will continue on both sides because the Arabs and molsems want nothing but Israel to disappear - at least as Israel perceives it (for the most part). It will continue to do what it deems best for its own defense. So, yes. You got it.

As for 'expropriation" of land? Maybe. I dont think Israel "should" necessarily build on more land - even if uninhabited by Arabs - unless it serves as effective leverage in meaningful negotiations. I guess the settlements will ease up a little, anyway, for now...

"If the "Arabs" were to accept everything Israel demands of them, then Israel might be willing to consider the possibility of reflecting on whether it would be in Israel's interests to contemplate whether or not to study the question of whether at some point and with suitable guarantees it would look not unfavourably on the eventuality of the Palestainians calling such ghettoes as Israel deemed prudent to allow them a sovereign state"

Some version of this, for sure. Cannot see an alternative, can you? Unless you're on the psychotropics (are you, still?).

" it would also generously allow certain Israeli citizens to be dumped in such a state and if any in the diaspora fancied exchanging one prison for another, they would be allowed free passage into the said sovereign state - and Israel would undertake not to smirk at the very idea while securing all access to and diverting all natural resources from such a Palestinian sovereign state (I'm sorry, there was a definite smirk there)..."

Your rhetoric aside (you dont do cartoons of jews, too, with blood dripping...?), it is a truism that Israel will negotiate an agreement which suits it. The degree to which it compromises will depend on the degree to which the impediments it perceives - as I outlined above - are addressed satisfactorily for them. This is obvious.

If you think that Resolution 242 should not be the basis for a full and final settlement and the current Arab and moslem definition of refugee issue and its solution will be a deal breaker for israel, of course there is no chance of Peace. You would have to be a very silly propagandist to think otherwise, i think.

Harold, whoever "owns" the moral high ground - you, me, Chomsky, Nasrallah, Ahmedinejad, the Moslem Brotherhood, Mickey Mouse (was walt Jewish?)... this will be the reality:

...guys like you actually using 242 as a ruse to undermine the spirit of 242 and continuing to move along the path of trying to destroy Israel will militate nothing but If Israel continuing to fight you tooth and nail. In all probability this will condemn the Palestinians never to have a state at all and never to destroy israel. Sincerely, you would be crass not to see that, surely? This is not what I necessarily want. Nor what (I believe) Israel wants.

Harold, face the facts: line of argument merely reinforces the road to conflict, like it or not. Until that changes, and the culture of acceptance remains aloof amongst arabs and moslems, of course there can be no peace - however much we may want it and however much you stamp you little, bigoted feet in your tap dance of deceit.

phil

JR Gordon et all why as I have asked so many times are you responding to these stupid Israel haters .you are just giving them space to argue -let them be ,they can talk to each other they will enjoy it and you can get on with your lives -It is becoming an obsessive pastime for you all stop it for goodness sake .

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Gordon Ross: "One must never forget that when Jews are involved, the usual standards are not to be applied. Special rules for them !"

How obtuse can you get !!:))))

Dont you get it, Gordon? harold has denied the Jews any counter arguments. Israel hs no "rational argument", therefore,"to exist"..and the Jews of israel have to allow our dear Harold to be the neo Gauleiter doing the enforcing of his version (still not comprehensively exposed to us despite the constant requests) of right.

Even if you love a good Gauleiter, harold is stark raving if he thinks this is the ay to get a state like israel to bow down and walk to the cattle trucks, so to speak.

Oh, Harold,perhaps, is just a romantic dreamer...Maybe we should tolerate him a little more, poor dear...

JOHN ROOSEVELT

phil
"October 5th, 2010 12:29pm
JR Gordon et all why as I have asked so many times are you responding to these stupid Israel haters .you are just giving them space to argue -let them be ,they can talk to each other they will enjoy it and you can get on with your lives -It is becoming an obsessive pastime for you all stop it for goodness sake ."

You are right, Phil.

Gordon Ross

J Roosevelt and others, the NAKBA that the Arabs are always on about as the root of all their troubles is the Balfour Declaration of 1917, not 1948. Hence my previous remark that it was not worth the paper it was written on, since the British sabotaged rather than fostered the re-birth of the Jewish state in the Land of Israel.

Gordon Ross

Phil, there was a time, way back, when I used to urge you, through these columns, not to respond to these vicious bigots, but you always insisted that it was necessary to counter their arguments. They are not "stupid"; they have an agenda, and they are dangerous enemies of the whole Jewish nation, not just Israel.

Harold

John Roosevelt

Sigh.

" the idea that if we can only "prove" that "there is no rational argument for Israel" "

"Israel hs no "rational argument", therefore,"to exist".."

You are right and I am wrong: you genuinely, but truly astonishingly, have not been able to understood what has been said:-

"Do you feel a lack of rational arguments for Israel (you shouldn't, BECAUSE, OF COURSE, THERE ARE PLENTY)?"

Oh, never mind. One day, if you work at it...

I am impressed by the hard-headed realism of your analysis:

"Most Israelis" hold views that allow them to continue to exploit the land they took by force and (regrettably, of course) to persecute the Palestinians.

(As an interesting aside, "Most Israelis" no doubt would acknowledge, if they thought about it, that their views are not rational: they appear to assume not just that there are some Arabs who want Israel to cease to exist, but also that there are some Arabs who have any conceivable practical possibility of actually causing Israel to cease to exist. Look at the IDF. Now look at the militias of Hamas and Hizballah. Look at Israel's sponsor, the US. Now read the Western security establishment's assessment of Iran, its military capabilities and its intentions. Certainly, John Roosevelt in a previous thread, admitted that there is no practical possibility of an existential threat, but quickly rallied to say that it doesn't matter whether it is possible, only that Israelis believe it to be possible. In other words, irrational beliefs must be allowed to dictate continued exploitation and expropriation, oppression and slaughter. I suspect the Israeli security establishment is not entirely governed by such irrationality, however useful its prevalence may be to them.)

So on this hard-headed analysis, only if the Palestinians can somehow persuade "most Israelis" that their views are mistaken will "most Israelis" contemplate serious negotiation. The serious negotiation will naturally be only about what Israel might throw the Palestinians once the Palestinians have agreed to everything Israel demands. Serious negotiation will only take place therefore once the Palestinians have conceded everything there is to concede. Nice.

But then Israel did win the "war" and the US is its friend, so 6m plus human beings must pay.

" Most Israelis have seared into their psyches a view of the history of the last 90 years in terms of Jewish experience with Arabs and moslems which is not very "nice" and has undermined trust (you go figure, but true). To be sure, this may not be Harold's or your view of the history, but the reality is that Israelis, for the most part, have another view."

- Perhaps you could do something genuinely useful and stop peddling the error-strewn view of history you refer to "seared" into the psyche of Israelis unwilling or unable to comprehend a more balanced account.

Let me finish with a few more gems for the anthology, in no particular order:

"This vomitous echo of Hitler's policy of the Final Solution will do nothing but incite Israelis and Jews to bunker..."

"the Jews of israel have to allow our dear Harold to be the neo Gauleiter doing the enforcing of his version (still not comprehensively exposed to us despite the constant requests) of right."

"Even if you love a good Gauleiter, harold is stark raving if he thinks this is the way to get a state like israel to bow down and walk to the cattle trucks, so to speak."

Oh dear.

These specimens of what you think appropriate in argument have been informative (in a roundabout sort of way) but also entertaining (in a slightly guilty gawping at the poor unfortunates sort of way). Thank you.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold" You're doing an aeweful lot of sighing,, huffing and puffing..

I recommend you take off your tap dancing clogs and have a snooze.

..sorry, Phil...I just...

Harold

They are not "stupid"; they have an agenda, and they are dangerous enemies of the whole Jewish nation, not just Israel."

Perhaps we should start a companion volume.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "(As an interesting aside, "Most Israelis" no doubt would acknowledge, if they thought about it, that their views are not rational: they appear to assume not just that there are some Arabs who want Israel to cease to exist, but also that there are some Arabs who have any conceivable practical possibility of actually causing Israel to cease to exist. Look at the IDF. Now look at the militias of Hamas and Hizballah. Look at Israel's sponsor, the US. Now read the Western security establishment's assessment of Iran, its military capabilities and its intentions. Certainly, John Roosevelt in a previous thread, admitted that there is no practical possibility of an existential threat, but quickly rallied to say that it doesn't matter whether it is possible, only that Israelis believe it to be possible. In other words, irrational beliefs must be allowed to dictate continued exploitation and expropriation, oppression and slaughter. I suspect the Israeli security establishment is not entirely governed by such irrationality, however useful its prevalence may be to them.)"

Yet again, Harold, you are being truly dense. Are you seriously confusing the idea that many Arabs and moslems want Israel's demise, and are prepared to carry on fighting to that end, with the likelihood that the genuine demise of israel is nothing but the dream of the fanatic? Do you honestly think that anyone here thinks I confuse these two things? Don't be a twat. Every state will defend itself against attacks on its citizens. How it does so, depends on the nature of the attackers and the situation on the ground. For sure the IDF are quite experienced in determining the best way to address such violence.

Now, back to bed. Pronto!

Do you honestly believe that because, perhaps, the Arab and moslem world cannot detsroy Israel, this should prevent israel from wantin g to put a stop to Arabs and moslems killing its people?

Harold...You seriously need ...I dunno, mate..not sure if there is medication...

Lindsay

John Roosevelt,
I probably shouldn't come in at the end of an exchange, but I would like you to clarify something.

You appear to say that a peace deal is impossible, because there are many "Arabs" willing to keep fighting.

This seems to imply that a peace deal would deny Israel the right to self-defence, which is a very curious notion. I am puzzled how you arrived at it.

You also say, "Every state will defend itself against attacks on its citizens. How it does so, depends on the nature of the attackers and the situation on the ground. For sure the IDF are quite experienced in determining the best way to address such violence."

A state has a right to defend its citizens. There is no dispute about that. And how it may defend its citizens does indeed depend on the nature of the threat. There is no dispute about that either.

I am not sure whether you are in one of your phases of denying that international law has anything to do with it, or one of your phases of denying that you ever denied that international law had anything to do with it. Anyway, under international law, the appropriate and permitted response to a threat is not simply for the IDF, or any other army, to decide. There are laws.

That many "Arabs" may intend to fight is not sufficient reason for the illegal occupation and expropriation of land, settlement of population on such land, and oppression and slaughter of its inhabitants.

To repeat, that there may be "Arabs" intent on attacking Israelis does not make it justifiable for Israel to expel, imprison, discriminate against, oppress, (and in thousands of instances kill) individuals who together comprise a population of several millions.

You make a very reasonable assumption, that there will be those who continue to attack Israelis. You take a principle that no-one here disputes, that a state has the right to defend its citizens. And you appear to believe that you can prove from these that peace is impossible. I am puzzled how you think your argument works.

Adam B.

So Harold won't answer about Jewish refugees. I wasn't talking compemnsation exclusively - as apparently you are. I was referring to "right of return" and the right to have refugee heritage (which is what it has become) granted on a hereditary basis. If it's good enough for the Palestinian Arabs, surely the Jews are entitled to it as well. Just think, every Jew with Russian grandparents will be able to say they are refugees as well - or do you think it right that the Palestinians exclusively have this privilege?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: "John Roosevelt,
I probably shouldn't come in at the end of an exchange, but I would like you to clarify something.

"You appear to say that a peace deal is impossible, because there are many "Arabs" willing to keep fighting."

Really? I didn't say that or mean that.

"This seems to imply that a peace deal would deny Israel the right to self-defence, which is a very curious notion. I am puzzled how you arrived at it."

I am sure you are, possibly because I didn't arrive at that.

"You also say, "Every state will defend itself against attacks on its citizens. How it does so, depends on the nature of the attackers and the situation on the ground. For sure the IDF are quite experienced in determining the best way to address such violence."

A state has a right to defend its citizens. There is no dispute about that. And how it may defend its citizens does indeed depend on the nature of the threat. There is no dispute about that either.

"I am not sure whether you are in one of your phases of denying that international law has anything to do with it, or one of your phases of denying that you ever denied that international law had anything to do with it."
I guess the same could be said of you, Liyndsay, not to mention harold.

" Anyway, under international law, the appropriate and permitted response to a threat is not simply for the IDF, or any other army, to decide. There are laws."

Indeed.

"That many "Arabs" may intend to fight is not sufficient reason for the illegal occupation and expropriation of land, settlement of population on such land, and oppression and slaughter of its inhabitants."

Clearly not according to the Law, but that's a given.

"To repeat, that there may be "Arabs" intent on attacking Israelis does not make it justifiable for Israel to expel, imprison, discriminate against, oppress, (and in thousands of instances kill) individuals who together comprise a population of several millions."

Well, be that as it may, it a fact that will likely continue repeating itself and being disputed by lawyers and pundits like yourself.....and it will do so because of what I said. It's simply the reality of the conflict, Lyndsay, not a mere function of your digest of prescriptions or anyone else's.

:"You make a very reasonable assumption, that there will be those who continue to attack Israelis. You take a principle that no-one here disputes, that a state has the right to defend its citizens. And you appear to believe that you can prove from these that peace is impossible. I am puzzled how you think your argument works."

Stay puzzled, Lyndasy. Notwithstanding your puzzlement, it has been the case for the last 60 years and nothing I have detailed has changed. Simple facts on the ground.

Lindsay

Point: "...that there may be "Arabs" intent on attacking Israelis does not make it justifiable for Israel to expel, imprison, discriminate against, oppress, (and in thousands of instances kill) individuals who together comprise a population of several millions."

Counterpoint: "Well, be that as it may, it is a fact that will likely continue repeating itself and being disputed by lawyers and pundits like yourself..."

It is indeed a "simple fact on the ground" that Israel expels, imprisons, discriminates against, oppresses, (and in thousands of instances kills) individuals who together comprise a population of several millions."

At least we agree on this, just as you agree with Harold that morality and law have something to do with it (although your acceptance of law seems very wobbly in this latest effort).

Tell me when I have suggested that law has nothing to do with it.

You seem unable to follow through the implications of what you say. You say a peace deal is impossible, because of the "Arabs". You agree it is not because the "Arabs" can destroy Israel (or even, I would suggest, do serious damage). You say it is because there are "Arabs" who will continue to fight Israel regardless. It would appear to follow that you think that " a peace deal is impossible, because there are many "Arabs" willing to keep fighting."

This does raise the question, Why would a peace deal prevent Israel defending its citizens against the "Arabs" who you think are intent on attacking them? Of course, it doesn't. So, if Israel can continue to defend its citizens, why does the alleged intent of some "Arabs" to try to attack them make a peace deal impossible? (Here is one instance where an analogy with the IRA, the Provisional IRA, the Real IRA etc. ad nauseam might help.)

George

Lindsay,

The official representatives of the Palestinians (the PA, the PLO, Fatah and Hamas - take your choice) make no secret that their ultimate aim is the total eradication of the State of Israel. What possible motivation is there for Israel to enter into any kind of peace talks with these people?

Okey

In this debate no one seems to have referred to "the elephant in the room", namely The Kingdom of Jordan.
The armchair champions of the "Palestinians" seem to have no problem with the fact that 80% of the territory of "Palestine" has been occupied since 1922 by a foreign people, the Hashemite Arabs from the Arabian peninsula, who were transplanted to Eastern "Palestine" by imperial Britain. If the pro-"Palestinian" posters here were genuine and sincere, they would be screaming about all the illegal Hashemite settlements in 80% of "Palestine", where 60% of the population, viz., "Palestinians", are treated as inferiors and denied basic rights.

Harold

Adam B.

I am sorry, you are quite right that I concentrated on compensation as the (potential) real world question.

I have read that there were refugees from Iraq who wished to return once they found out what their lot was to be in Israel. I doubt if any wish to do so now (like Polish Germans, perhaps, whose parents - those lucky enough to survive long enough to reach the West - were relieved to have avoided Soviet rule). I have read that refugees from other Arab states preferred the US if they had the money, or at least Europe. I do not know if any of those now living there or in Israel wish to go back to their ancestral home. However, if we take this hypothetical wish to return seriously, then, Yes, I do think the refugees have a right to rebuild their communities - just as I think the current Jewish community in Iran are full citizens of their state and should be treated as such. Of course, you do raise a good point, that there cannot be a clearcut rule that applies regardless of circumstances. I do not believe that we Celts should claim our right of return from the periphery of Europe. I do not believe that we Europeans should claim our right of return to Africa. I am not even sure whether the descendants of Jews who emigrated from Tsarist Russia should claim a right of return to the Pale, or simply content themselves with visiting their place of origin. I am not sure whether you are arguing that the lack of a clearcut rule means that no-one should consider themselves to have a right of return. I would be more pragmatic. The two-thirds cleansed Palestinian population has a right of return in law. In terms of politics, the compromise proposed by various Israeli groups and Palestinian groups - whereby some return to what is now Israel and some receive compensation and many settle in a Palestinian state alongside Israel - seems to be the best that can be done in the circumstances.

I trust this answers your question, and I apologise for not giving a fuller answer before.

John.

Okey: I referred to it on the 30th of September - see above. But I might as well have been talking to the wall!

Okey

John: you were not "talking to the wall." The thrust of my reference to the "Palestinian" territories occupied by the foreign transplant which goes by the name of "Jordan", however, was different from yours; I was highlighting the hypocrisy and/or the anti-Jewish animus and /or perverse self-flagellation- which, ironically, stems from hyper-narcissism- (in the case of posters who claim to be Jews).

Lindsay

George
October 6th, 2010 11:38am
All the organisations you mention have offered to negotiate on a two-state peace deal.

Given that none of them is ever going to be able to eradicate Israel, or even do it serious harm, I see no reason not to negotiate, if Israel is serious about peace.

I have no wish to defend the absurd rhetoric of the dispossessed, but I think I can understand why the dispossessed would feel it to be one further defeat and humiliation if they had to give it up and acknowledge that Israel somehow had the right to dispossess them as it did. I can see no reason (except their own psychic health) why they should be required to give up a wish they cannot fulfil that the state that took their land should cease to exist. Such wishes do Israel no harm.(Similarly, I can't imagine that most Mexicans are keen to celebrate the loss of their land to the US, or the native Americans to celebrate the genocide that allowed that great nation to fulfil its manifest destiny - but they all live with its overpowering presence nonetheless.) Of course, it is obvious why Israel would demand it of the Palestinians' representatives, as confirmation of their absolute surrender - as victor, why should it not?

But, if peace is the goal, is there not a compromise? The Palestinians have recognised Israel's existence, and could be required to acknowledge that nothing they do can be allowed to put its existence in jeopardy; and Israel can drop the insistence that they acknowledge Israel's "right" to UDI and conquest in 1947-8 and Israel's "right" to be a "Jewish" state and not a state of all its citizens (or spell out in detail how a "Jewish" state can nonetheless be a state of all its citizens whether they are Zionists or not).

That the Palestinian populace has repeatedly indicated a preference for a two-state solution, and the organisations that purport to represent them (with varying degrees of illegitimacy) offer to negotiate a two-state solution is surely sufficient recognition for purposes of negotiation.

I can understand that Israel is sensitive about the dubious nature of its foundation, and so demands that those it dispossessed acknowledge its right to dispossess them - but surely it is powerful enough not to care what such weaklings think. (To be clear, the history of Israel's foundation has no bearing, I think, on its status now or on the right of its citizens to live in peace.)

Of course, Israel is not going to do anything to compromise its own security - but I fail to see how a peace deal could make it less secure than it is now. It will continue to have one of the most powerful armies in the world and one of the most sophisticated security regimes, and will continue to enjoy the protection of the world's only super-power. Palestine will be impoverished, powerless, and beholden to its enemies.

(It is comic to imagine that "President" Abbas would dream of giving up the money, prestige, and protection given him by the US, especially as the "security" forces at "his" command are trained, financed, armed,and controlled by various US agencies.)

Of course, all this presupposes that Israel is serious about peace. It is the victor. It has the power to do as it pleases. If the price is not great, it will continue until it has expropriated all it wants. I suspect this to be its strategy now as it has been all along. Many supporters of Israel point out that this is how realpolitik works. It is hard to argue.

But can Israel continue to take what it wants if this requires it to confine in ghettoes a population of at least six million, and rising? I do not know the answer.

Adam B.

Harold, I appreciate that you have addressed the issue. However, I think that perhaps you miss a point.

There is a reason why Palestinians, alone of all refugees on this planet, have refugee status given on a hereditary basis. There is also a reason why, after 62 years, they and their descendants living in neighbouring Arab countries, have not been granted citizenship of those countries, nor assimilated into them - despite being fellow Arabs.

The reason is simple - it solves the problem. The whole point of continuing the problem is political - to be used as a weapon against Israel, ensuring that peace is impossible, of continuing a grievance culture (or even creating it, as, contrary to your assertion about "cleansing", it is agreed a large portion of the refugees were not "cleansed" at all but left themselves, believing they would soon return). If the problem gets solved, then the wider goal of eliminating Israel becomes less urgent.

And that does indeed remain the goal.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: stop.

I was talking about what is, not what ought to be..and neither you nor Harold can stomach that.

I have not said peace is impossible. I have said it will not happen in the circumstances of the present realities.

Stop moralising and get down to how to square the perceptions of the various groups on both sides and the relative balance of power between them.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lindsay
October 6th, 2010 9:24pm
“George
October 6th, 2010 11:38am
All the organisations you mention have offered to negotiate on a two-state peace deal.”

Not one has offered to compromise on the Law of Return and this is the certain deal breaker.

“Given that none of them is ever going to be able to eradicate Israel, or even do it serious harm, I see no reason not to negotiate, if Israel is serious about peace.”

Israel is perfectly willing to negotiate. To say otherwise is simply untrue.

“I have no wish to defend the absurd rhetoric of the dispossessed, but I think I can understand why the dispossessed would feel it to be one further defeat and humiliation if they had to give it up and acknowledge that Israel somehow had the right to dispossess them as it did.”

Indeed, but it gets negotiations nowhere because too many of those you call the “dispossessed” will not stop fighting till they have reversed what they perceive to be their dispossession.

“I can see no reason (except their own psychic health) why they should be required to give up a wish they cannot fulfil that the state that took their land should cease to exist.”

You hit the nail on the head. This is precisely what too many of them think to make Peace a possibility.

“Such wishes do Israel no harm”.

None at all, unless you construe the continuous killing, maiming, threatening of its citizenry as “harm”. Perhaps you don’t construe 9/11 as “harm” to the US..Ah, well..Different strokes, as they say…

“(Similarly, I can't imagine that most Mexicans are keen to celebrate the loss of their land to the US, or the native Americans to celebrate the genocide that allowed that great nation to fulfil its manifest destiny - but they all live with its overpowering presence nonetheless.)”

Sure, but if the Mexicans were to ape the Palestinian violence against Israel in their response to the US, I guess things might get messy for ‘em.

“Of course, it is obvious why Israel would demand it of the Palestinians' representatives, as confirmation of their absolute surrender - as victor, why should it not?”

The “should” is irrelevant. Israel will do what it feels it wants and can do – whatever that finally turns out to be. To be sure, everyone will take a view on whether or not it is right or wrong. Obvious, I think. Lyndsay,you always want to give everything that happens a moral spin. Deal with what is happening and likely to happen in terms of what each player wants and the power it has to leverage their position to get it. I think it’s called an analysis of the negotiating positions.

“But, if peace is the goal, is there not a compromise? The Palestinians have recognised Israel's existence,”

Hamas hasn’t. Islamic Jihad hasn’t. Hezbollah hasn’t. Iran hasn’t. Noone has recognized it as a Jewish state either. Even so, Israel is open to negotiations. The Palestinians have set preconditions.

“and could be required to acknowledge that nothing they do can be allowed to put its existence in jeopardy;”

You think that Israel should predicate its willingness to give in to Palestinian preconditions for talks and conditions for a full and final agreement on their assessment of whether or not it can be destroyed? Are you out of your mind? This is kiddies playground talk, Lyndsay. You have no grasp of how states operate, it seems…

“ and Israel can drop the insistence that they acknowledge Israel's "right" to UDI and conquest in 1947-8 and Israel's "right" to be a "Jewish" state and not a state of all its citizens (or spell out in detail how a "Jewish" state can nonetheless be a state of all its citizens whether they are Zionists or not).”

..but Israel wont. Deal with this reality, not what you think you would like to see happen. Israel simply will never do that, just like the settlers will never renounce their conviction that Sumaria and Judeah was given to the Jews by God. Sorry. Reality bites, whether we like it or not. …

“That the Palestinian populace has repeatedly indicated a preference for a two-state solution, and the organisations that purport to represent them (with varying degrees of illegitimacy) offer to negotiate a two-state solution is surely sufficient recognition for purposes of negotiation.”

For sure..which is no doubt why Israel has shown total willingness to negotiate. Negotiations are not agreements. They consist in the process of arriving at an agreement. You think one starts with an agreement and then the negotiations are mere ratifications of them? I suggest you go back to school on that one…

“I can understand that Israel is sensitive about the dubious nature of its foundation”

No it isn’t , by and large…. though there is, like in any vibrant democracy, a healthy debate on its history and politics. Can the same be said of Palestinian society or that of and other Arab and moslem group/state in the region? Don’t think so, but that’s by the by, I guess…. Your remark is clearly deliberately tendentious and provocative, as always..

“and so demands that those it dispossessed acknowledge its right to dispossess them “
Not true, according to the Israelis, by and large, of course…Hence one reason for the ongoing the conflict..obviously.

“but surely it is powerful enough not to care what such weaklings think.”

If what such “weaklings” think means that Israel’s citizenry is threatened, then it has an obligation to care…I know this may not be an obligation recognisd by other states in the region - vis a vis their own citizens - but Israel is not a police state or a theocratic dictatorship (by any standars, but certainly by comparison with these states).

“(To be clear, the history of Israel's foundation has no bearing, I think, on its status now or on the right of its citizens to live in peace.)”

It doesn’t ,whether you think it should or not, of course…but it surely would if it were weaker than the “dispossessed”…obviously..

“Of course, Israel is not going to do anything to compromise its own security - but I fail to see how a peace deal could make it less secure than it is now. “

Spot on, depending on the nature of the deal, of course, and whether or not it was a Peace deal in name only…which, it seems clear, it would be destined to be given the constellation of forces which may influence the current situation.

“It will continue to have one of the most powerful armies in the world and one of the most sophisticated security regimes, and will continue to enjoy the protection of the world's only super-power.”

You can bet on this, I think.

“Palestine will be impoverished, powerless, and beholden to its enemies.”
For sure, if “beholden” means that the deal is not merely a precursor to achieving the next stage in the ultimate strategy of destroying Israel. The continuous attempt to do so will, of course, mean there will be no effective peace. Israel will not want to give up anything only for this eventuality to be the result. Obviously..

“(It is comic to imagine that "President" Abbas would dream of giving up the money, prestige, and protection given him by the US, especially as the "security" forces at "his" command are trained, financed, armed,and controlled by various US agencies.)”

Perhaps..which is what Hamas and various other violent anti Zionist actors think. This is why Israel will not give an inch unless forced to or unless it sees a change in this view. In other words, Israel will have to be convinced of genuine compromise on the part of these actors for it to compromise – at least, willingly..Obvious, of course…

“Of course, all this presupposes that Israel is serious about peace.”

Of course Israel is serious about peace but not at the cost of maintaining and increasing threats to itself. Obvious, of course…

“It is the victor. It has the power to do as it pleases.”

Not quite. Another tendentious and disingenuous statement. Silly.

“If the price is not great, it will continue until it has expropriated all it wants.”

Quite possible..There are some crazy religious dudes in Israel these days..and breeding almost as fast as the Palestinian extremists. Makes you think, don’t it? Maybe they will coopt the Jihadi philosophy and don black masks soon. Then we’ll all be in le merde.

‘I suspect this to be its strategy now as it has been all along. Many supporters of Israel point out that this is how realpolitik works. It is hard to argue.”

Realpolitik/realshmolitik! It’s a fact on the ground. Whether or not we like it is another matter. If I were the Palestinians, I would negotiate very fast now. It would have been a lot easier in 2000 or’67, frankly. Missed opportunities, as was the Partition Plan.. politically speaking…

“But can Israel continue to take what it wants if this requires it to confine in ghettoes a population of at least six million, and rising? I do not know the answer.”

Does anyone? But if it feels it can, then what is serious crying and tragedy now, will increase exponentially. The choice really is: negotiate or go back to war…I think war is not the best option for anyone or, at least, not for the Palestinians.

In short, Lyndsay, you’re like a sulky, petulant child: Israel has dispossessed the Palestinians! It’s the mighty one! The victor! The bully! What can it loose?! Please give us what you want, oh master, you will still be more powerful.!!!! You sound like you have created a madrigal for the dysfunctional preadolescent.

If you care for the suffering of all concerned, like all of us you should encourage negotiations and reasonable compromise on both sides. You should encourage everyone concerned to eschew religious extremism. If not, it will be war…I have NO doubt about that, whether I want to conquer the world and make it Jewish or not (now here’s a thought)…

Harold

Adam B.
October 6th, 2010 11:39pm

We agree on something: the Palestinian refugees should have been offered the option of citizenship in the countries where they took refuge.

You will not be suprised that I disagree with some of the rest of what you say. I doubt that the over-riding concern of the host states is to get at Israel. They certainly looked on it (whether accurately or not) as an interloper, an agent of imperialists, and an aggressor. Nevertheless, their hostility was tempered by realism (the desire of regimes to stay in power) and they made frequent, if quiet, efforts at accommodation. I think it more likely that their main concern was (in some ways) akin to the concern of Israelis about the effect of such an influx on their society and their economy - plus affront at being expected to foot the bill.

You are correct in saying that many Palestinians fled the fighting expecting to return to their homes when the fighting was over, as was their right. That they were shot at if they tried suggests to me a policy of ethnic cleansing.

That many fled of their own accord on the approach of war does not negate the historical record (Israeli documents and eye-witness accounts). Sufficient has been released already to make it beyond dispute that Israel cleared the towns and villages as a matter of deliberate policy, and killed civilians when it deemed it necessary pour encourager les autres.

Harold

Adam B.,
I didn't get from what you said how you would define a hereditary right of return and whether you think anyone has such a right, or whether you think the concept too vague to have an application at all.

Lindsay

John Roosevelt,

We agree on many of your beloved facts on the ground.

We also agree that Israel is willing to put up with the nuisance of negotiation. It has strung it out for a good 30 years and more. And, as Ariel Sharon's close advisor, Dov Weisglas, said, it will look to string it out yet further, preferably for another 15, 20 or 30 years, until the work of colonisation is complete.

On the content of past negotiations you are disingenuous, or possibly not well informed, at least certainly inaccurate. What Israel wanted in the occupied territories was clearly set out in 1967 (when its senior law officers confirmed that what it wanted was illegal). All it has ever offered is the bits that would be left, as ghettoes (aka a "state" or reservation) for the Palestinians. The intention has always been clear. As Gen. Eitan said in 1983, when Israel has settled the land, all the Palestinians will be able to do is stagger around "like drugged cockroaches in a bottle." Israel is still working on it.

I think we can also agree that Israel will continue to get its way. Its behaviour is that of what the US likes to call a "rogue state". The only thing that could persuade Israel to engage in serious negotiations with the intention of reaching a sustainable peace is a change of heart by its sponsor, and fellow rogue state, the US. Unlikely, but not impossible. If the rest of the world were to treat Israel as is appropriate for a rogue state, its actions might be constrained to some extent, but not much. So, in the meantime, the Palestinians will have to like it or lump it, which I take to be what you like to call the fact on the ground.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: "I think we can also agree that Israel will continue to get its way. Its behaviour is that of what the US likes to call a "rogue state". The only thing that could persuade Israel to engage in serious negotiations with the intention of reaching a sustainable peace is a change of heart by its sponsor, and fellow rogue state, the US. Unlikely, but not impossible. If the rest of the world were to treat Israel as is appropriate for a rogue state, its actions might be constrained to some extent, but not much. So, in the meantime, the Palestinians will have to like it or lump it, which I take to be what you like to call the fact on the ground."

You cant help yourself. Lyndsay. Your attempts at approaching this conflict are anchored in nothing but invective against Israel. You are thus inebriated by your own self righteousness.

Why don't you - as I have veritably pleaded with you and harold and your kindred spirits or ghouls - leave your moralising to one side and try and dela with real negotiations.

Of course you will have a hard time with the Jews. They are Jews, after all, even those who call themselves "secular" - which I guess is why so many of 'em want recognition of Israel - by the Arabs and moslems - as Jewsih state. Anathama to you flag-waivers for "Justice" and supporters of Arab and moslem civil society in the Middle East (you go figure).

Just think of what can be negotiated and how best to ensure that whatever can be can hold. maybe think of confidence measures - ways to mitigate the mutual mistrust etc..ways of geting this thing going..,

You arrogantly refer to Israelis saying certain things which you feel condemns Israel and proves that your condemnation is justified. However, you are as vehement in avoiding doing same for Arabs and molsems, dismissing all that has been said, in the name of islam and "justice", against the Jews - as, at worst, understandable in the circumstances. It's atrocious gobledygook or the worst order.

All your rhetoric will - as I have repeated endlessly - do nothing for those you so slavishly support. You pretense at caring so much for the 'dispossessed" will go the way of so many of such arrogantly lofty cause-fanatics - the resulting in more death and destruction with no prospect of respite.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: "The only thing that could persuade Israel to engage in serious negotiations with the intention of reaching a sustainable peace is a change of heart by its sponsor, and fellow rogue state, the US. Unlikely, but not impossible. If the rest of the world were to treat Israel as is appropriate for a rogue state, its actions might be constrained to some extent, but not much. So, in the meantime, the Palestinians will have to like it or lump it, which I take to be what you like to call the fact on the ground."

What would you say to the notion that the only thing which would lead to a change of heart amongst you favourite "rogue states" - the US and Israel - would be a change of heart amongst Islamic extremist 'rogue states" like Iran, and Saudi Arabia..and semi and non sate actors like Hizbollah, hams, islamic Jihad and Fatah?

Which states are not "rogue" in your book, then? Lichtenstein? Andorra, perhaps?

Adam B.

Harold, thanks for your reply.

Regarding hereditary status - I think the concept is ridiculous. How can someone be a refugee from somewhere they've never been? It has been granted to the Palestinians to keep the problem alive and kicking, and to creat a grievance culture against Israel for decades. It is simple politics.

As for Arab neighbours footing the bill, this could have been achieved several times over if the oil rich countries like Saudi, Kuwait, Oman and the Emirates had helped, and the defence spending of despotic tyrannies like Syria and Iraq has, for years, been out of all proportion.

I profoundly disagree with your assertion that here was a policy of widespread ethnic cleansing. That is not to say there are cases of it, and much of the evidence is either contradictory or extremely complex (too complex to go into here), but a widespread policy simply would not have left Israel with a 20% Arab population. Compare and contrast to the almost total eradication of Jewish communities throughout the Arab world (in the 1920's Baghdad was 40% Jewish - 40%! Now not one Jew lives in the entire country. So when it comes to ethnic cleansing, one side has certainly been more adept at it than the other.

Lindsay

"Just think of what can be negotiated and how best to ensure that whatever can be can hold. Maybe think of confidence measures - ways to mitigate the mutual mistrust etc..ways of getting this thing going..,"

Please take this opportunity to tell us: what can be negotiated, how can it be made to hold, how can mutual mistrust be overcome, how can "this thing" be got going?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Lyndsay: "Please take this opportunity to tell us: what can be negotiated, how can it be made to hold, how can mutual mistrust be overcome, how can "this thing" be got going?"

I think I have told you already, Lyndsay..but since both you and Harold are so incapable of responding to anything suggested to you, I dont mind doing your work for you again:

If the Islamicists in the mix - Hamas, Islamic Jihad, parts of Fatah, Hizbollah, Iran etc - don't modify their extremism and accept a Jewish state, there can be no peace.

If they do this, and the Palestinians moderate their demands on refugees - more moderate numbers, to start with at least, then one serious impediment to progress will be out the way.

If the Palestinians - including the main, potential rejectionists like Hamas etc, agree to the idea of a full and final settlement and not just Hudna, based on 242, then there can be progress made, in my view.

If Iran is kept far from weaponising its nuclear proram and Hexzbollah reined in and prevented from a putch in Lebanon and being supplied with the kind of weaponry which will force Israel to respond to that threat, then there can be serious progress.

The religious extremists in Israel are an increasing problem. The longer the impediments mentions on the Arab and moslem side become, the stronger the Jewish extremists will become. This will make everything somewhat harder.

Non eof this will happen, of course. Extremism will remain the order of the day, Israel will continue to maintian its "might". The world will continue to delude itself about Islam. And you will continue to think Israelis and many Jews are all imperialist, brainwashed infidels who know nothing of Justice, history, Law and Human rights.

It's a wicked world, indeed...

Harold

Adam B.
October 7th, 2010 7:22pm

Your response is thought-provoking.

You are clear that, once a population has been driven out, dispersed, exiled, or cleansed(whatever term you think appropriate), it can have no right of return.

We can agree that common humanity would require the host states to grant the refugees citizenship and other states with the means to provide them with charity. I think we should also agree that it was never going to happen. These states would baulk at financing what they would consider a war crime, and would be reluctant to join the Palestinians in helping finance the Zionist project. The recent behaviour of the EU shows that even states bound by treaty and(allegedly) common interest are averse even to lending money to each other. The calibre of the regimes in the oil states, both those kept in power by the US and those who from time to time have tried to rebel, argues against the farsightedness your proposal would require. And this is without getting into the labyrinthine intricacies of the rivalry between and within the Arab states (to give just one recent example, the US and the Saudis are busy arming the Lebanese Christians and hiring Sunni jihadists - i.e. al qaeda - to open a second front against Hizballah when Israel next invades).

On ethnic cleansing, I cannot understand how you can deny the historical record. Even if we just assume that Palestinians fled of their own accord, the fact that they were not permitted to return, and shot at if they tried (even those who were permitted to stay in Israel), constitutes ethnic cleansing. The Israeli record of military operations also quite clearly contains evidence of a policy of cleansing woven into the purely military planning. Benny Morris has always been a staunch Zionist. Although he has rarely drawn the conclusions from the evidence he has provided, the evidence nevertheless speaks for itself. He, like Ben Gurion, regrets that the job was not finished. It is a good question why it wasn't at the time. Israel has managed to expel several thousand over the decades, and has had plans to expel the whole population in time of war since at least the 1950s (Ariel Sharon unsurprisingly was the author of one such plan). It has cost Israel a great deal of effort in policing and in intricate bureaucracy to keep its Palestinian citizens powerless and discriminated against.

I think it simplistic to compare the forcible eviction of the Palestinians in time of war to the forced emigration of the Jewish communities as a result of the complex interaction between the Arab states, Israel, and the Zionist underground organisations - but I don't know enough about the subject. It is clearly one of the great tragedies arising from the creation of Israel and its conflicts with its neighbours that these communities were uprooted and dispersed under threat from their fellow countrymen.

Adam B.

Harold, thanks again for your response. I don't think it is a simple matter of "historical record" - the records themselves are often contradictory, or present a complex picture where several things were going on at once. Whilst not excusing ethnic cleansing of any sort, (and there are doubtless cases of it), it is somewhat rich for the Arab states or the Palestinians to complain of it when they were engaging in ethnic cleansing themselves - and long before Israel came into being. The anti-Jewish riots in Hebron and elsewhere in the 1920's, and attacks on Jewish villages dating back to the 1880's, testify to this. During the war of 1948, the Jordanians and Palestinian Arabs completely ethnically cleansed Jerusalem of its Jewish inhabitants (and the rest of Judea and Samaria - some of today's settlements are actually re-establishments of settlements ethnically cleansed in 1948), and then systematically destroyed the ancient synagogues of the city, and the ancient Mount of Olives cemetery. The recent Arab protests about the rebuilding of the Hurva synagogue are a case in point - what the media didn't tell you is that the synagogue was destroyed in a deliberate policy by the Jordanians in 1948, and was simply being rebuilt. So, pot, kettle and black come to mind.

I appreciate that you view the elimination of the Jewish communities of Arab countries with sympathy. However, you describe such ethnic cleansing as being committed by "fellow countrymen." The Jews were never considered "fellow countrymen", but dhimmis. This is a system of apartheid (still in use today with other minorities), which dictates where you can live, what kind of job you are allowed to have, indeed, almost every aspect of your life. You live as a tolerated second class citizen - and sometimes not so tolerated (i.e. occasional pogroms).

Lastly, I don't quite agree that people NEVER have a right of return - but in this case, there has been an ongoing war for over 62 years (and even beyond that). It is difficult to see how a country can welcome back a hostile population whilst war is still being waged. And after 62 years, the number of refugees who actually even lived in what is Israel today is small. I agree that, for some individuals who were innocent and got caught up in events, it is a tragedy. I understand that. But I can't see how it can be resolved whilst a state of war exists.

Lindsay

JOHN ROOSEVELT
October 8th, 2010 1:40am

I read this with what you said about "ways to mitigate mutual mistrust" in mind, but I was not entirely surprised by your interpretation of "mutual".

The curious thing about the term of art coined by the US that so exercised you is that it is intended to apply to those who disregard international law, but is used by the US only against those who disobey it, for allegedly doing what the US (and Israel) do as a matter of course. By its own definition the US is a rogue state, and so is Israel.

One last question (purely rhetorical, because the answer will not be worth waiting for): "you will continue to think Israelis and many Jews are all imperialist, brainwashed infidels who know nothing of Justice, history, Law and Human rights." - Why do you persist in writing such stuff which nothing anyone has ever said comes close to justifying?

Harold

Adam B.
October 8th, 2010 3:26pm
I hope I nowhere said that the history of 1947-8 is simple! What I would say is that the evidence already published makes it difficult to deny that there was deliberate systematic ethnic cleansing (whatever else was going on).

I also hope no-one would take me to be defending Jordan's actions.

One sad/ironic fact is that no Jewish settler would want to remain once Jordan had annexed the land, whereas many Palestinians fully expected to carry on with their lives as before in what became Israel. (Indeed, there is documentary evidence of concern in the senior ranks of the Yishuv that many Palestinian peasants seemed content to assume that their way of life would be unaffected by this change in ruler as by previous changes.)

I think you are stretching a point when you compare the events of 1947-8 to the recurrent riots and attacks on Jewish settlers during he Mandate. To put it glibly, anyone who can show sympathy for the Israeli settlers' habitually aggressive and violent behaviour towards the neighbouring villagers should have no difficulty understanding the fears and actions of the Palestinians faced with an influx of immigrants, whose presence they considered a betrayal by government. Two communities forced into close proximity tend to clash. Less glibly, I suggest you consult the reports dutifully prepared by British officials after each incident.

On the Jewish communities in Moslem states, I would say that they were indeed fellow countrymen, whose treatment may have been civilised by Christian standards, but was wholly unacceptable nonetheless. That the communities flourished is pretty damned impressive, and makes their demise all the more to be regretted.

I am not clear what criteria you apply to determine when there is a right of return. (I am not clear what criteria I would apply myself. In this instance, international law saves me from my own confusion. People of goodwill on both sides have proposed compromises that would allow a practical solution.)

It is not quite right to call the Palestinian population hostile. Those who remained have mostly sought simply to live their lives like anyone else - as was the intention of most of those who sought to return to their property but were fired upon. This is not a credible motive for their exclusion. Talk of a "state of war" between the refugees and the state of Israel is too loose to justify the exclusion of civilians from their homes. Any peace deal would include a resolution of the refugee problem: it surely can't be maintained therefore that a currently existing "state of war" (if there is such)precludes a resolution.

Adam B.

Harold, we don't agree because we are starting from different viewpoints.

I believe that Israel was fighting a defensive war against an enemy of 5 Arab armies intent on genocide in 1948. As such, whilst I feel sorry for individuals who were not filled with antisemitic hatred losing their homes, I also consider that others were quite happy for such a genocide to take place. The massacres in Hebron and elsewhere during the previous half century were fresh in the collective Jewish memory - and I reject utterly that it was the result of the Jews being aggressive.

One could argue the tragedy of Germans who were forced in their millions to vacate the whole of western Poland (Prussia), or the Sudetenland, but in the context of the end of WW2, I think it would be misplaced.

I believe if the roles were reversed, and the Arab armies were victorious in 1948, we would not be discussing the injustice of Jews losing their homes, but their mass slaughter.

You say the Palestinians are not hostile - but what are Israelis meant to think when Palestinians vote for Hamas, an organization which not only calls for Israel's demise, but for the extermination of every Jew on earth? The leader of Fatah is a Holocaust denier, and says he will never, even after a peace treaty, recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Official PA television broadcasts sermons calling for the killing of all Jews, and virulent antisemitism appears daily in the Palestinian press. I think that's pretty hostile - these aren't fringe elements - it's the mainstream.

I think you may be confusing the attitudes of Israeli Arabs with Palestinians living elsewhere (the attitudes have developed differently).

As for the state of war excluding people returning, the number of stateless Palestinians not living in "their homes" is now quite small, unless of course you mean by "their homes" people who have never even set foot in the country. The answer was for these refugees to be housed and assimilated into the societies of neighbouring fellow Arabs, and to get on with their lives. Germans from the Sudetenland did not become stateless refugees in Germany, kept in camps for 62 years and denied opportunities, keeping alive a victim culture through endless hatred and propaganda. They became part of a modern successful democracy.

Why couldn't the Palestinians do the same?

Israel has always, and still does, cover the sins of the failed Arab states. Hatred against a common enemy acts as a glue, so continuing the hatred against Israel is of paramount importance to the despots. That is why the Palestinian refugee problem persists.

Harold

Adam B.
October 8th, 2010 11:06pm
The Yishuv/Israel had every right to defend its people in 1947/8 wherever they were in Palestine. This does not make the fighting purely defensive. The Israeli high command did not consider it purely defensive. The Arab states who were half-hearted at best and grossly incompetent did not consider their intervention wholly offensive. By the time they did intervene the Palestinians had been driven from most of the Mandate territory. Whether Israel's action was offensive or defensive, it gave Israel no justification for driving the populace from their land.

The killings during the Mandate were understandable - the immigrants were, in the eyes of the inhabitants, interlopers intent on taking their land. I want to be clear, however, that they were indefensible. It is not enough simply to "reject utterly" - you must study the evidence.

I do happen to think the treatment of the ethnic Germans after WW2 a crime, understandable but indefensible.

I think in your response to what I said about Palestinian refugees you are conflating the early years with now. The attitudes of Palestinians now after 60 years of oppression is not relevant to what happened then.

On the question of poisonous anti-semitism and the prospect for peace, if you want a dyed in the wool example, there is always Anwar Sadat, who made peace.

I think we have discussed the question of the assimilation of refugees into the neighbouring states.

You touch once more on the right of return. Who do you think has a right of return, and why. And why do you think Israel should be allowed to pick and choose which parts of the international law it purports to uphold it will observe? As I have said, there are plenty of proposals for compromise that take into account Israel's concerns and that should at least be a starting-point for serious negotiation.

I do not know what you mean when you say Palestine covers the sins of the Arab states and provides a glue. Most surveys of opinion show that their populations have a shrewd idea how important the Palestinians are to their rulers.

John.

Okey: I agree with you and I was addressing my slightly uncharitable remark not to you but to those who attack you!

Harold

Adam B.

For information:

A contemporaneous IDF document summarised the IDF's own understanding of the causes of the displacement of 390000 between December 1947 and May 1948 (i.e. before Israel's UDI). The first three categories were 1. Direct hostile Jewish operations against Arab settlements (by Haganah/IDF) 2. The effect of such hostile operations on nearby settlements (especially the effect of the fall of large neighbouring population centres. 3. Operations by dissident groups (i.e. the Irgun Zvai Leumi and Lohamei Herut Yisrael). These three categories the IDF estimated accounted for 70% of the dispacements. 70%. The next three categories are 4. Orders and decrees by Arab institutions (undefined) and irregulars 5. Jewish whispering campaigns to frighten Arabs and 5. Jewish expulsion orders.

How the remaining 300-400000 were expelled in subsequent months is well known, with operations and massacres documented in some detail.

There has been a lot said about Arab broadcasts ordering the population to leave to facilitate an invasion by Arab armies. No such broadcasts have been traced.

Declassified documents indicate the opposite, that the Arab High Command and Arab states sought to stem the flow of refugees. An example: a letter from the AHC dated March 1948, "The AHC has resolved that it is in the interests of Palestine that no Palestinian should be permitted to leave the country."

Documents drawn up for the British Foreign Office by the security services provide corroboration, stating that the story of the Arabs ordering the Palestinians to leave was "inaccurate Jewish political propaganda". "The facts are: 1. that very many fled owing to the brutality and atrocities of IZL and Haganah. This policy of intimidation has been pursued consistently 2. Jewish settlers have systematically moved into the houses and taken the land of teh Arab refugees 3. Teh Jews have obstructed UN efforts to obtain return of Arab refugees to their homes..."

As I understand it, the Lebanese Army never crossed into Palestine, the Syrian Army made a limited incursion with small forces and retreated after five days, the Arab Legion did not cross the UN Partition Plan's boundaries into the proposed Jewish state, but did enter Jerusalem and did secure the West Bank as agreed in a secret understanding with the Zionists (this is still disputed). The main fighting between the Arab Legion and the Haganah was in territory alloted to the Palestinians in the proposed partition. The Egyptian forces crossed Israeli territory to link up with the Arab Legion, by-passing Jewish settlements to do so. The Egyptian contingent was 10000 strong and largely incompetent. They were the only ones to engage Israeli forces on Israeli territory.

Harold

"How can someone be a refugee from somewhere they've never been?"

How can someone have a right of return to somewhere they've never been?

The question has a certain resonance, but I am more pragmatic than some in trying to answer it.

Skeptic

For the record, the IDF reports today that Friday morning it killed two of the terrorists responsible for the murder of the four settlers.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: do you feel there is one example of an Arab and/or moslem state in the Middle East which functions in a way you want us all to admire and respect?

Is there one, in your view, which you would say is morally superior to `Israel?

Harold

JOHN ROOSEVELT
October 10th, 2010 3:54pm
Does your question have a bearing on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians? Not a lot. "Arab states are bad states, therefore Israel must oppress the Palestinians" - no, it doesn't really work, as an argument.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold:" Declassified documents indicate the opposite, that the Arab High Command and Arab states sought to stem the flow of refugees. An example: a letter from the AHC dated March 1948, "The AHC has resolved that it is in the interests of Palestine that no Palestinian should be permitted to leave the country."

Strange, for there are also declassified letters from the archives of the Araba Higher Committee - and one from Amin al-Husayni and Gen. Nur ad-Din Mahmud dated 14th April 1948 which reads: " ..and any exodus of local villagers will not go amiss, whatever the circumstances. We know how the jews will try and make capital of every opportunity that is afforded them but any success will be short lived and the people will be ours to return at will. So they should fear not in fleeing from the hands of the jews who will, certainly, be fighting their final battle."

You go figure.

Adam B.

Harold, thanks for your thoughts. I must say, you seem to have a very particular view of how wars are fought. You cannot fight a completely defensive war and hope to win - especially in a land as small as Israel. It means taking the fight to the enemy - of course it does. I remember reading Israeli military strategists laughing at Nato planners who talked of a 300km defensive buffer - because they need to think about a country which is 11 miles wide at its narrowest.

I do not accept that "most of the Arab population had been driven from the Mandate territory". Nor do I accept that the Arabs attacking Jewish villages and settlements in the decades leading up to the re-establishment of Israel (and since for that matter) is "understandable." Why is it understandable? It was not Arab land. It was not privately owned - the Jews had bought it, or settled other (state) land legally. It was neither Arab in the sense of being part of an Arab independent entity, nor privately owned by Arabs. One thing led to the Arabs attacking the Jews - sheer intolerance. They may have felt that this was "their" land, but that doesn't make it so. Jews had every right to be there. Indeed, I think this is the crux of the entire conflict to this day. It isn't about precise borders - it is about whether the Arab world can accept a Jewish nation in the Middle East - whatever its borders. At the moment (and for the past century), they haven't.

Whilst this history is all very interesting, and we could debate endlessly about what happened 62 years ago, where does this get us now?

Harold

JOHN ROOSEVELT
October 10th, 2010 10:36pm
I suspect you may be inadvertently quoting what referred specifically to Haifa as if it was intended to refer to the whole of Palestine.

Events in Haifa are very interesting in themselves. Benny Morris has provided a very detailed account of events. He conveys something of the chaos, confusion, conflicting orders, and misunderstandings that always seems on a closer view to attend military actions. I can't remember if he mentions the terror attacks starting back in December 1947, or the details of Operation Scissors and Operation "Cleansing the Leaven", or the advice of the British commander in the city that the Palestinians should leave for their own safety. I think he does mention that the mayor, Shabtai Levi, pleaded with the Arabs to stay, but that Mordechai Maklef of the Carmeli Brigade was in practice the man in charge. According to his orders, now in the Haganah archives, after all the confusion and cross-purposes, his men were to "kill any Arab" they met and "torch anything flammable". When the Palestinians gathered near the port to leave in panic the Carmeli Brigade set up mortars in the surrounding hills and fired on them (according to the Brigades own log).

If the letter does reflect the mad mufti's opinion on what should happen generally, his advice to get out is clearly sound, his notion of triumphant return clearly deluded (as ought to have been very clear).

Harold

Adam B.
October 10th, 2010 11:11pm
Your final question is a very good one. The history gets us nowhere, except in one respect - it may persuade Israelis to realise that the Palestinians have strong claims on the land too.

One question of current importance you do not clearly address:

"How can someone be a refugee from somewhere they've never been?"

How can someone have a right of return to somewhere they've never been?

How you interpret this and how you think it should work in practice would be very interesting to learn.

Lindsay

They would appear to have ducked. When the going gets tough, the tough get going - in the opposite direction.

There are a couple of things about the refugees that struck me.

First, British intelligenece and US intelligence had listening posts that picked up all the radio traffic. They picked up no broadcasts from Arabs instructing the Palestinians to leave their homes. They did pick up broadcasts telling them to stay put (allegedly - I think Erskine Childers the source). If instructions to stay proved so ineffectual, why would instructions to leave, supposing there were such - unless they coincided with what mortal fear dictated? (I have an implausible picture of all those peasants clustered round their newly acquired radio sets.)

Secondly, regardless of why they fled Israeli attacks, their right to return is not in any way affected. So the whole question is irrelevant.

Lindsay

Lindsay
October 12th, 2010 12:18pm

- Can I withdraw my first paragraph? Adam B. has been providing courteous and thoughtful responses throughout this thread.

Adam B.

Harold

If one accepts the principle of hereditary refugee status ad infinitum, people could claim to be refugees from all sorts of places. The concept is absurd. There have always been movements of people - but the problem hasn't usually been deliberately kept alive as a means of warfare.

It depends how you decide to judge "claims to the land." I think that, when the Palestinian Arabs and neighbouring Arab states decided to try to eradicate any Jewish presence in the mandate of Palestine, (and that was the openly stated goal), they really lost the moral authority to claim it at all after they lost in their attempt. This of course does not lessen the personal tragedy of an individual, but then, as one Israeli who had fled Iraq as a Jewish refugee with nothing said - "I'll tell you what - we'll call it a swap." (The number of Jewish refugees actually surpassed the number of Palestinian refugees. One group was welcomed and assimilated, the other was kept apart and indoctrinated with hatred. The results are truly tragic).

I don't share your views about the German expulsions from Poland and the Czech republic - after what Germany had tried to do to those countries, no-one had the stomach to say the Poles or Russians were being unjust. Indeed, it would have been somewhat obscene to say so at war's end. But again, those Germans expelled did not continue with a victim complex for th past 62 years. There is no "Geramn refugee" problem in Europe after 6 decades. Why is there in the Middle East?

The "right of return" is not a "right" at all, and is again a political weapon to destroy the Jewish state. Indeed, Abbas the Holocaust denier has just made clear yet again that he will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state - and this has been the gameplan all along. Two state solution? Yes - so long as one of them isn't Jewish. Thus Fayyad just stormed out of the talks when Danny Ayalon wanted to add to the text "two states for two peoples."

In my view, the Arab world as a whole still hasn't come to terms with a Jewish presence in the Middle East. And that is why we have this unending and interminable conflict.

The perpetuation of the refugee problem (and make no mistake, it hs been deliberately calculated to be perpetuated rather than solved, both by Palestinian leadershps and tyrannical dictators of the region), is designed to be a weapon of war.

wonderer

Posted late yesterday but didn't appear:-
Lindsay
October 12th, 2010 12:18pm. Some years ago I heard a Palestinian, who was one of the refugees of 1948, say during a BBC radio documentary, that the main impetus for flight came from a rumour started by Arab leaders that the Jewish forces were raping Arab women.

Also, and I concede that this is only anecdotal evidence, I remember a conversation in the 1960s with an Australian lady, who was rather hostile to Israel. She said that she had worked for a period of about two years in a number of middle eastern countries, where she had met about 50 Arab refugees, all of whom without exception said that they had fled on the advice of the Arab leadership.

Harold

Adam B.
October 12th, 2010 10:48pm
In a discussion of Zionism and its consequences, your comments on the absurdity of a hereditary right of return are surprising but refreshing.

You are right that we could argue over the history endlessly.

If what you say about 1947-8 is intended as an accurate summary, it is fair to say that it is simply wrong.

I find it disconcerting how those who argue for the Zionists alternate between claiming a moral right and denying that morality has anything to do with it (I think this applies to some of your contributions on earlier threads. I am sorry if this is wrong.)

Given what the Yishuv planned and executed, I think it difficult to deny the Palestinians a right to resist. Such a right is enshrined in the UN charter. And both Ben Gurion and Jabotinsky said that were they in the Palestinians' place they too would fight to the death against those taking their land. (Ben Gurion and Jabotinsky could be brutal in pursuit of their interests, but they were realists.)

I long assumed Israel's legal claims to be soundly based on terms laid down by the League of Nations and the UN. Further study shows to be questionable. I am no lawyer or historian so I put it no more strongly. I think this irrelevant to the resolution of the conflict now only if Israel recognises that its claims are not better founded than those of the Palestinians.

It is not the case that the expulsion of the Palestinians and the expulsion of the Jews in Arab lands constitutes a population swap. The actors were different and the expulsions followed from different sequences of events. Briefly, the Palestinians were not responsible for the subsequent actions of Arab states; and the Arab states had no authority to act for the Palestinians.

(What you say about the ethnic Germans after WW2 is reasonable enough. For those who reached the West, assimilation was not a problem. I'm not sure what those stuck in East Germany would say.)

You repeat assertions about the Arab states perpetuating the refugee status of the Palestinians purely to get at Israel. I would be interested in the evidence (this is not a rhetorical flourish but a request for references). Similarly with the Palestinian leadership, if that is not an oxymoron (again, not a rehetorical flourish - where is the analysis of their policies and intentions?)

It is now an accepted and established fact that the Arab states made repeated efforts at accommodation with Israel from early on. It is also an established fact that Israel has been repeatedly aggressive. I do not mean that the conflict is all Israel's fault, but that there were always two sides, both by turns aggressive or reasonable, each making frequent mistakes and often acting in bad faith. (Israel has always been clearly the more effective.) It is not enough simply to say that the Arab states have not accepted Israel's presence. Israel is an interloper in their eyes (understandably), and has been aggressive in taking what it thinks to be its by right.

The Palestinians resist Israel's insistence that they recognise Israel as a "Jewish" state and accept "two states for two peoples". You take this as evidence that they do not want peace. This is not so. These formulations seem to imply that the refugees have no rights; that the Palestinian citizens of Israel must embrace Zionism and accept second class status; or that the proper place for them is not Israel. To insist that the Palestinians accept this before negotiations can begin is a curious notion of what it means to negotiate, let alone negotiate without preconditions.

Adam B.

No Harold, you've completely lost me now. I have to say that I completely disagree with almost every statement you made in your last post.

I will try to write why when I have a moment.

Harold

Adam B.
October 13th, 2010 11:06pm

The points I am making are simple enough. It must be that I have expressed them badly.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "“I find it disconcerting how those who argue for the Zionists alternate between claiming a moral right and denying that morality has anything to do with it (I think this applies to some of your contributions on earlier threads. I am sorry if this is wrong.)”

Not only these, Harold, surely?? ..and by the way, those who argue for the anti Zionists – how many varietals are there of those? I am curious…

“Given what the Yishuv planned and executed, I think it difficult to deny the Palestinians a right to resist.”

No it’s not. It’s very easy. Anyway, if they want to resist, let them do so, I say.

“Such a right is enshrined in the UN charter.”

It doesn’t need to be. It could be enshrined on the outside of Qassem, for all the Palestininas care (and it is, of course). It makes little difference. They will find a rationale, one way or other.

“And both Ben Gurion and Jabotinsky said that were they in the Palestinians' place they too would fight to the death against those taking their land. (Ben Gurion and Jabotinsky could be brutal in pursuit of their interests, but they were realists.)”

Good on 'em. Anyway, weren’t they all, except too many of the Arab leaders, who believed they would push the last Jew into the Med. Oh dear…brutal indeed…

“I long assumed Israel's legal claims to be soundly based on terms laid down by the League of Nations and the UN. Further study shows to be questionable.”

Apart from "assumption" being the mother of all f*ck ups. what “further study”?

“ I am no lawyer or historian”

You got the right.

“so I put it no more strongly.”

Well that’s a shock and half..

“I think this irrelevant to the resolution of the conflict now only if Israel recognises that its claims are not better founded than those of the Palestinians.”

Hopscotch anyone? This is “realism” with a twist, no? ☺))

“It is not the case that the expulsion of the Palestinians and the expulsion of the Jews in Arab lands constitutes a population swap. The actors were different and the expulsions followed from different sequences of events.
"

What? Twaddle.

'Briefly, the Palestinians were not responsible for the subsequent actions of Arab states;"

Tru, but there were no Palestinians to take the responsibility of state actoions, anyway, at the time, so youyr point has little meaning. What is meaningful, however, is that that Ilsamic resitance were great supporters of the notion of the Final Solution and the umma and Arab nation was at one when it cam to the hatred of the Jew and the ethnic cleansing of the jew.

" and the Arab states had no authority to act for the Palestinians.”

Are you an expert in truisms, harold? But of course the arab states DID. And the Palestinian leadership gave its wholehearted support to the Arab states when it came to expunging the Jew from moslem and arab lands. Who you trying to kid, mate? I guess this is Harold, the non-historian, talking – or have you changed hates (I mean "hats"), Harold, to the omniscient one?

“(What you say about the ethnic Germans after WW2 is reasonable enough. For those who reached the West, assimilation was not a problem. I'm not sure what those stuck in East Germany would say.)
You repeat assertions about the Arab states perpetuating the refugee status of the Palestinians purely to get at Israel. I would be interested in the evidence (this is not a rhetorical flourish but a request for references). “
Not a rhetorical flourish, ha? :))) Tell, you what: I’ll show you mine if you show me yours…

“Similarly with the Palestinian leadership, if that is not an oxymoron (again, not a rehetorical flourish - where is the analysis of their policies and intentions?)”

Oh gosh, we have to get the evidence out all over again...What is the point???

“It is now an accepted and established fact that the Arab states made repeated efforts at accommodation with Israel from early on”

No it is not, except in your head. No amount of repitition will make it established or factual. ...

“ It is also an established fact that Israel has been repeatedly aggressive.”

:)) Wow. Really? As oppose to who?

“ I do not mean that the conflict is all Israel's fault,”

Phew..take that down, everyone…

“ but that there were always two sides, both by turns aggressive or reasonable, each making frequent mistakes and often acting in bad faith. (Israel has always been clearly the more effective.)”

You say tomaaaatoes, and I say tom...Welcome to the real world, oh omniscient one.

“ It is not enough simply to say that the Arab states have not accepted Israel's presence. Israel is an interloper in their eyes (understandably), and has been aggressive in taking what it thinks to be its by right.”

..not enough(?), perhaps, but true nonetheless. A minor detail, to be sure…☺))

“The Palestinians resist Israel's insistence that they recognise Israel as a "Jewish" state and accept "two states for two peoples". You take this as evidence that they do not want peace. This is not so.”

Of course not! Just means they want peace on their terms – the eradication of Israel. Minor detail again.

“ These formulations seem to imply that the refugees have no rights; that the Palestinian citizens of Israel must embrace Zionism and accept second class status; or that the proper place for them is not Israel. To insist that the Palestinians accept this before negotiations can begin is a curious notion of what it means to negotiate, let alone negotiate without preconditions.”

Well, aren’t the Palestinians laying down preconditions? Of course you think those are justified, but they are preconditions nonetheless. A bit like terrorists, right – one man’s terrorist is another’s…blah, blah. So inane, Harold, it’s dizzying.

The Palestinians are right. The Israelis are right. The Palestinians want peace. The Israelis want peace. The Palestinians are brutal. The Israelis are brutal. Harold is not an historian, but he pontificates about history. Harold is no legal expert, but he pontificates on the Law as though he were.

Life’s such a mystery, innit Harold?