The silencing of Professor Alderman

Greystead

But don't you see Melanie, this is a perfectly rational decision in the land were nothing can be allowed to impede the Peace Process, even if it's someone elses. Goodness me, people can't go around questioning whether terrorists should be the ones to dictate our futures. Just think maybe one day Israel will have a wonderful coalition with a Hamas deputy Prime Minister, just like our cuddly Martin McGuiness

blue_&_white_avenger

Melanie, yes indeed, the Jews are a party to it. I see that, yesterday, the Beeb carried a report that some geezer, Mike Leigh, who I've never of (but whom they allege is a film producer and Jewish) has decided not to visit Israel. Along with this is a familiar diatribe against all the drek that the Left & other antisemites dredges up to throw at Israel.
I can confirm that Israel really doesn't need him; at the moment you can't get a hotel room there for love or money.
On a more positive note, maybe when fair-minded people read/hear this nonsense reiterated, it convinces them that nothing the media produces is of any merit?

Jackpot

Isn't it amusing that the some of the most intolerant people would describe themselves as liberal,open-minded and free-thinking.
Muddle-headed fools!

Annie Loyedeer

It is doubly disgusting that this should play out in a city which has seen more than its share of intolerance, violence and bigotry. Does anything change?

george

I actually spoke to the rector of the University, after briefly hearing me accuse her institution of anti semitism, she said the University had no part to play on the panel and it was strictly a matter for the festival people. Right. I suggest everyone call her (see CIF for her name/number) and register a complaint.

Sarah AB

He seems to have been treated very discourteously. If his views are so wrongheaded (according to the other panelists) allowing them to be heard and then countered would seem a useful exercise.

Truthtriumphs

In one sense this is excellent news, because the Israel-haters have scored a spectacular own goal.
What could better illustrate their totalitarian, fascistic mindset than their pathetic exclusion of a harmless academic?

Mark

George
I'm afraid that lack of acountability is the norm in universities from allowing their premises to be used for forums to the duty of care to undergraduates.
Sarah AB. you're spot on.

YG

Stalin is celebrating his victory at our universities.
Those who silence the voice of Israel will soon after silence any democratic conversation.
The 30's are back.
Prepare the concentration camps.

YG

"Jews themselves are party to it ..."
My mother, who is an holocaust survivor calls those Jews kapo's after those Jews who cooperated with the Nazi's against their people.

Louis Berk

Does anyone else find it ironic that a group of NI academics would be investigating the peace process in the middle East at a time when it would be more apt to debate the causes and solutions to the resurgence of nationalist violence in their own part of the world?

Gil

The way Prof. Alderman has been treated is utterly shameful. However, not only was he disinvited but the manner of doing so, on the Friday before the conference, shows utter malice. And note that the organiser says that he should have 'consulted' the other panellists. To 'consult' doesn't mean to give them the right of veto.

Also, if he objected to Prof. A's presence, how can Avi Shlaim ever show his face in academic circles again? What ever happened to free speech and open debate?

Yochanan

A veritable 'crucifixion' is taking place

david elder, australia

"The festivalâ™s director, Graeme Farrow, reportedly told Alderman that he had made â˜a mistake in agreeing to extend an invitation to you Geoffrey without consulting the academics in questionâ™."

Say that again? So bloody what if the other academics objected? If somebody tried a stunt like that down here the reaction would be 'Stuff them!' If they have objections to Alderman's views, let them argue their objections in open debate.

Adam B.

George - thanks. A complaint will be winging its way to them.

Beyond shameful. And since when do panellists dictate who else can be on he panel - at least in a free society? Indeed, are we a free society still? Not if the Israel bashing obsessives have their way.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

At least the Irish produced Connor Cruise O'Brien. One redeeming feature, at least :)

john bruce

Believe it or not Mel, I actually agree with you. This is not the way to hold debates.

The way we make people understand our view is to engage them in debate. To ban them from having their voice is to lose the arguement.

A shocking decision from the University.

BTW Geoffrey Alderman believes anyone who votes for Hamas is a legitimate target for the IDF to murder. Presumably because the party they vote for advocate the destruction of the Jewish state.

Do you believe that anyone who votes for the Yisrael Beiteinu party are also a legitimate target for murder? Seeing as they advocate the mass expulsion of Israeli Arabs out of Israel? Which would obviously be a crime? It's called ethnic cleansing these days.

Is it okay to kill these voters or not?

Julius O'Malley

I disagree with YG over calling the likes of Avi Shlaim "kapos". As Melanie notes Shlaim has built an academic career demonising Israel, culminating in a professorship at one of the Western world most prestigious tertiary institutions. Those who became kapos did so as a ignoble choice in the most extreme of imaginable circumstances: of saving their own skins over being starved, beaten and worked to death. Who could honestly claim with any certainty that they wouldn't have made the same choice. Not me.

Shlaim, however, had a plenitude of choices available to him in life but chose to become an rabidly anti-Israeli historian; opportunistically, perhaps cynically, parlaying the prima facie legitimacy that his Israeli background and, especially, his Hebrew name bestows. Whereas the leading "Revisionist" Israeli historian Benny Morris finally saw the light after Oslo and had the character and intellectual honesty to go public, Shlaim actually sought to discredit both the post-Oslo historiography of Morris and the man himself - despite having previously regarded him as a "good historian".

Nevertheless one would not have expected an academic of Shlaim's standing - Jewish or not - to effectively silence a fellow academic.That Shlaim was one of two prime movers in the disgraceful, but telling, disinvitation of Alderman represents a new low - plainly he doesn't believe he can hold his own against Alderman and has no respect for quaint notions like freedom of debate, academic integrity or intellectual inquiry.

Kennybhoy

But at least the mediaeval rabbis were allowed to speak...

Veracity

Clearly the acadmeics who objected are so unsure of their ground that they cannot have their views challenged in public I hope their students have noted this which negates and calls into question any knowledge they may have been trying to impart.

S. Bronfman

John Bruce; Yisrael Beiteinu do not advocate expelling Arabs but a land swap between Israeli Arab areas and westbank Jewish ones. Get your facts right. You seem to have no problem no Jew (or gay etc) can live safely under Hamas rule.

Derek Pasquill

The left agrees with freedom of speech insofar as it retains the freedom to silence those with whom it does not agree.

Mailman

Sadly yet another example of the intollerance in todays universities.

Mailman

Adam B.

john bruce, you may wish to know that not only does Hamas demand the destruction of Israel - it also advocates the extermination of every Jew on earth.

Kennybhoy

"Professor Alderman.. to let him to take part while sitting on a separate table.."

This is a like a latterday secular vesion of the mediaeval theological disputationes. Right down to the converted/alienated Jew as chief accuser. A truly chilling image.

But at least the mediaeval rabbis were allowed to speak,they were not silenced...

Harold

Adam B.
I know that you have NOT answered my question, nevertheless I will borrow one of your favourite gambits and repeat the question on this, a subsequent thread.

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

I was struck by this. How can someone have a right of return to somewhere they've never been? - I asked you to tell me how you think this applies. Does no-one have a right of return? Some? If some, what criteria distinguish them?

charles soper

Avi Shlaim should be utterly ashamed of his profession of being an academic, after participating in this sham - if he still has any shame left.

Adam B.

Harold, I did answer you.
If you disagree, then tell me why. But don't pretend I didn't answer.

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

What can one expect from the capital of this nasty, narrow little region? Much of their income derives from pr oviding Middle East reporters to the 'unbiased' BBC. They seem to specialise in skeletal, especially ugly and bitter females, and males which seem to be missing vital parts.

Duncan Druhl, Ph.D.

It is not just in Britain, unfortunately. In Canada there was plenty of "free speech" to go around at the University of Ottawa to justify the bash Israel week that the Islamists held earlier this year.

However, when Ann Coulter, an American and no friend to Israel's enemies showed up for a scheduled speaking engagement two weeks after the previous "free speech" event, it seems that the University had run out of that rare speech commodity and it allowed a minor public protest at her conservative views to suffice as a rationale to cancel her address to a crowd only too happy to wade through the rude Liberal Fascists that make up the loudest voice at UoO.

Cowardice in the face of childish bullying is not solely typical of the UK. I think it is surreptitiously injected when officials take any public office in the West, completely eliminating the bravado displayed in their rush to power.

john

All the more reason to cut or abolish university funding!

YG

A picture worth a 1,000 words...
The "Elders Delegation for peace" sitting under the "one plestine" map.
The colation of Israel haters...
http://www.daylife.com/photo/09rf9Vw3cqe3i?q=mary+robinson

DougS

This is so reminiscent of the eco-loonies won't debate AGW with people who they fear would 'clean their clocks'.

It looks like the Israel/Jew-hating lobby is moving into the same sort of territory - no dissension from the party-line allowed.

Harold

Adam B.
You are quite right. I took you to refer only to Palestinians, which is to misread you:

"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...

"The "right of return" is not a "right" at all, and is again a political weapon to destroy the Jewish state."

To be clear, yu say there is no such thing as a right of return. It is absurd.

I will leave that hanging, until the penny drops.

wonderer

Post not accepted first time, so I'll try again:
@John Bruce. S Bronfman has corrected your misstatement about Yisroel Beitenu, but if anyone needs a first hand source they need only refer to the party's English language website, http://www.yisraelbeytenu.com/, which contains, under the heading "Trading Spaces Moving the Border Between Us, Not Among Us", the statement "The responsibility for primarily Arab areas such as Umm Al-Fahm and the “triangle” will be transferred to the Palestinian Authority. In parallel, Israel will officially annex Jewish areas in Judea and Samaria. Israel is our home; Palestine is theirs." That is NOT the enforced movement of people.

Perhaps you could now favour us with chapter and verse for the belief you ascribed to Geoffrey Alderman in your post, though considering how you misrepresented Yisroel Beitenu I shan't hold my breath.

Alex Bensky

Actually, Harold, the "right of return" exists for no one else in the world except Arabs who can claim victimization at the hands of Jews. There is no such right for anyone else.

After World War I about a million Ionian Greeks, whose ancestors had lived in what is now Turkey for thousands of years, fled to Greece and about a quarter of a million Salonikan Turks went to Turkey. None stayed in refugee camps very long and no one is talking about their "right of return."

The number of Europeans displaced by World War II is conservatively estimated at thirty million. The number of Hindus and Muslims who fled between India and Pakistan can never be down but is into the tens of millions. For that matter, the number of Jews who fled Arab lands after 1948 is about the same as the number of Arabs who for various reasons left what became Israel.

With the exception of Palestinian Arabs absolutely no one claims a right of return, any such assertion would be rejected forthwith, and none of them are in refugee camps today. Not one, not a soul.

Of course, everyone else went to people who assumed that we take in our folks, they take in theirs, people make new homes, that's how we bring a measure of peace.

Only the Palestinians have this so-called right and if they weren't in conflict with Jews few would have heard of them and fewer would have cared.

Adam B.

Harold, I saw your little trap from a mile off. (So much for your "reasonable" tone on the previous blog - back to the demonisation game I see).

Your little trap really isn't very clever. Let me tell you why.

Hereditary refugee status is absurd. You cannot be a refugee from somewhere you have never been. The Palestinian Arabs, alone of all refugees on this planet, are labelled as refugees in circumstances where just one ancestor lived in what is now Israel for a whole...two years. Yes, that's right. So individuals arriving from Egypt or Syria to Palestine in the early 20th century, arriving due to the work made available by arriving Jews, and who lived there for two years, are now Palestinian refugees - and their great grandchildren today are refugees, despite living back in Syria for the past 62 years. And remember that a specific Palestinian nationalism was invented in 1967. There were no calls for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Jerusalem when Jordan occupied those lands between 1948-67, nor in Gaza when Egypt occupied that in the same period. No calls at all.

Now if you seriously think this is the same as the ancestral homeland of the Jews, (a land which was not an Arab entity, and had never been an independent Arab state at any time - ever -) a land integral to Jewish religion, culture and history, the land in which the Jews were born as a nation and talked of in their daily prayers for over 2000 years - then you are seriously deluded.

One is not analogous to the other. I hope you can see why.

JS

Adam B, I take my hat off to you. Your patience and good humour in trying to explain anything to Harold is admirable even if, I fear, a waste of time, as he just doesn't seem equipped to "get it". Like trying to explain algebra to a donkey (no disrespect intended to donkeys, or indeed to Harold).

Okey

YG: these un-Jews are worse than kapos because, unlike the kapos, today's collaborators with the nazis' successors do not have the threat of being murdered hanging over them.

Terry in Oz

Those who hate democracy have discovered how to destroy it. simply manage the debate so that it isn't a debate of competing ideas. Rather, the debate nowadays is a discussion between the likeminded, who agree with each other on whatever PC idea they are 'debating'.

So in Israel's case, democratic debate is closed down by ensuring that only Jew haters get to discuss Israel in public.

If we are discussing muslim immigration, the 'debate' is between those who are for forcefed multiculturalism and who ernestly declare, in complete agreement among themselves, that if you against muslim immigration, you are a racist, and you are probably a Zionist too (because PC moonbats actually think that calling someone a Zionist is an insult!!)

Without competing ideas openly debated, democracy dies. And those trying to bury it know this only too well. Like the ones who excluded Israel from the debate on whether it should even exist.

Harold

Adam B.
October 20th, 2010 11:56pm
Whatever your romantic notions about ancient history, and whether or not you think Judaism was understood by the majority of its adherents to find expression in a nation state, the fact that a given population lived in a territory a few thousand years ago does not in law give their descendants, or those of the same faith, any claim in law to establish a nation state there now, nor does it give the remnants of that population who have lived there continuously any claim in law to establish a nation state there against the wishes of the rest of the inhabitants; whereas a population whose ancestors have lived in the territory for generations (in this instance, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) have been acknowledged to have the right of self-determination by the imperial powers that took it upon themselves to hold the territories in trust when the Turks ceded sovereignty. In addition, and whether you like it or not, the descendants of this population who were expelled by Israel by force of arms do have an explicit legal right to return to their land under international law.

Your resort to the canard that they were all recent immigrants seeking to exploit Zionist bounty does not help your case. It is simply false. And the fact that economic migrants did come and go during the Mandate does not affect the rights of the population as a whole. It is fanciful to suggest that the presence of economic migrants means the Palestinians have no right to return to their land, yet anyone who converts to Judaism thereby acquires the right to return to the ancestral home of their forebears.

So, whatever place your argument has in your affections, it has no bearing on the the legal arguments concerning who has a right to what. To say that those whose parents and grandparents and greatgrandparents lived in the land have no right of return, while those whose ancestors may have lived there, or the ancestors of those whose religion they have adopted, have a Right of Return is absurd. You try to bolster your argument with the claim that there was never an "Arab entity" and no demand for a "Palestinian state". Whether true or not, this has no bearing on the rights of the population, as recognised by the imperial powers in the League of Nations and reaffirmed by the UN.

This was no "trick", nor a departure from the tone of our previous discussion. If you recall, it arose out of your denial of any right of return to anyone. You called such a right absurd. I have only sought clarification.

Linda Smith

I wonder if Harold, that legal beaver, would also vociferously proclaim the legality of Nuremberg laws. How about Sharia law, Harold? Ring your bell, does it?

Harold

Linda Smith
October 21st, 2010 1:18pm
It may be that you misunderstood, but the law in question is the international law that Israel says it abides by. In turn, I do not understand what the Nuremburg laws have to do with the question, nor sharia law.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold wrote: "Adam B.
October 20th, 2010 11:56pm
"Whatever your romantic notions about ancient history,"

Not that Harold has romantic notions of "self determination", of course, not to mention ancient history...

" and whether or not you think Judaism was understood by the majority of its adherents to find expression in a nation state, the fact that a given population lived in a territory a few thousand years ago does not in law give their descendants, or those of the same faith, any claim in law to establish a nation state there now,"

..but whether or not "the fact that a given population lived in a territory a few thousand years ago does not in law give their descendants, or those of the same faith, any claim in law to establish a nation state "in law" " - is as irrelevant as the establishment of the nation state of Israel having been recognised "in law" IS relevant. The fact that you couldn't care less whether or not Israel has legal justification to be nation state is, in your case, of course, is by the by...because once you loose the legal argument you hop scothch over to your moral argument. Let's just cut to the chase, Harold dear, and say out loud that you dont think Israel SHOULD exist - law or no law - legal claim or no legal claim. I have smacked you with this rythm stick so many times your toe should be tapping to the beat at least a little by now...SURELY????

"...nor does it give the remnants of that population who have lived there continuously any claim in law to establish a nation state there against the wishes of the rest of the inhabitants;"

Poppycock (same as "twaddle", in case you didn't guess), of course...in legal and moral terms...

" whereas a population whose ancestors have lived in the territory for generations (in this instance, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) have been acknowledged to have the right of self-determination by the imperial powers that took it upon themselves to hold the territories in trust when the Turks ceded sovereignty."

...but again of course, given that you dismiss the legitimacy of whatever was done in this regard by the "Imperial" powers, what does this aspect of your argument matter??? You DO know what "spurious" means, don't you?

" In addition, and whether you like it or not, the descendants of this population who were expelled by Israel by force of arms do have an explicit legal right to return to their land under international law."

..but Harold, you dissembling ninny, you know very well that what you and they define as a "return to their land" does not, in fact, tally with ANY legal argument on the subject. You and they would like it ALL, if possible, and if not all right away, then incrementally via any means possible - campaigns to delegitimise israel; violence of any description; law of return as a sine qua non for any so-called "peace" etc. You're the original "backdoor" (or back passage..though I'm loath to use that descriptiuon in case someone comes after me with an axe for being a gay man) kid... prancing on behalf of the original "backdoor" leaders who invented "nakba" to hide the shame they themselves should feel at the history of their execrable leadership.

"Your resort to the canard that they were all recent immigrants seeking to exploit Zionist bounty does not help your case."

Zionism is not a"case" which needs any help. And your 'canards" are so conspicuous, every time you write I think I have a gaggle of ducks in the room!

" It is simply false."

No , it is simply not false.

"And the fact that economic migrants did come and go during the Mandate does not affect the rights of the population as a whole."

"Does" not or "Did" not? What is relevant, Harold, is what IS (how many times....zzzzz)..

"It is fanciful to suggest that the presence of economic migrants means the Palestinians have no right to return to their land,"

It is more fanciful to think that you will ever get away with convincing Israelis(who are the ones you need to convince) that your definition of "their land" is legal and, more importantly, can help the peace process. Right now, that definition guarantees war. Well done, I say! Pat for you, dear boy, on your "back passage".

.." yet anyone who converts to Judaism thereby acquires the right to return to the ancestral home of their forebears."

Have you tried converting? Hard enough to prove your Jewish these days. You make it sound slam dunk, mate..Anyway, if you are thinking of it, tell me the guy who does your bris. I need a good snipper for my newborn son.

"So, whatever place your argument has in your affections, it has no bearing on the the legal arguments concerning who has a right to what."

Your legal arguments have no bearings on anything, least of THE legal arguments. Think on that, son...

" To say that those whose parents and grandparents and greatgrandparents lived in the land have no right of return, while those whose ancestors may have lived there, or the ancestors of those whose religion they have adopted, have a Right of Return is absurd."

Innit, just? Don't you just find natioanlism a tough one to get the head around...yet you bang on about it all the time, again as if we're in slam dunk territory. Don't you baffle yourself, sometimes?

" You try to bolster your argument with the claim that there was never an "Arab entity" and no demand for a "Palestinian state". Whether true or not, this has no bearing on the rights of the population, as recognised by the imperial powers in the League of Nations and reaffirmed by the UN."

Well, not true Harold. Israel was created at the behest of the UN, after all...not that you consider anything in Israel's favour created by international law - the Law of the "Imperialists" - valid, of course.

"This was no "trick", nor a departure from the tone of our previous discussion. If you recall, it arose out of your denial of any right of return to anyone. You called such a right absurd. I have only sought clarification."

No you haven't. You have sought again, via your preferred back passage, to delegitimise Israel. Enough, harold, Israel is here to stay and IS recognised by International Law,in case you care.

You really have to unbundle your thinking, here, Harold...You are spinning.. Just reading you brings on nausea and a scream for the vomitoun...

Augustus

Harold - You are so keen to promote the rights of the Arab refugees from Palestine and all their 'refugee' children and grandchildren, and how they have all been so outrageously dispossessed, but what about the plight of all those hundreds of thousands of Sephardi Jews who were made homeless from locations in Mandatory Palestine when those parts were conquered by Egypt and Jordan? They were forced to leave in the most humiliating circumstances, and in most cases not only deliberately robbed of their property, but of their bank accounts and valuables as well.

Well, just as Israel took in all those Jewish refugees, as well as those from other Arabic countries who were expelled simply for being Jewish, let Abbas's new Palestinian state take in all the Arab refugees. Or are we all to expect instead a racist Palestinian state next to another Palestinian state with a few Jews living there?

And one of the worst terrorists,
Chairman Arafat, himself an Egyptian, who oversaw much of it, and who dished up the 'Palestinian problem' in front of the world's eyes, and who gave the Palestinians their cause celebre, kept them in tatters and in tents, while raking in for himself untold millions. What kind of logic is that?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold wrote: "Adam B.
October 20th, 2010 11:56pm
"Whatever your romantic notions about ancient history,"

Not that Harold has romantic notions of "self determination", of course, not to mention ancient history...

" and whether or not you think Judaism was understood by the majority of its adherents to find expression in a nation state, the fact that a given population lived in a territory a few thousand years ago does not in law give their descendants, or those of the same faith, any claim in law to establish a nation state there now,"

..but whether or not "the fact that a given population lived in a territory a few thousand years ago does not in law give their descendants, or those of the same faith, any claim in law to establish a nation state "in law" " - is as irrelevant as the establishment of the nation state of Israel having been recognised "in law" IS relevant. The fact that you couldn't care less whether or not Israel has legal justification to be nation state is, in your case, of course, is by the by...because once you loose the legal argument you hop scothch over to your moral argument. Let's just cut to the chase, Harold dear, and say out loud that you dont think Israel SHOULD exist - law or no law - legal claim or no legal claim. I have smacked you with this rythm stick so many times your toe should be tapping to the beat at least a little by now...SURELY????

"...nor does it give the remnants of that population who have lived there continuously any claim in law to establish a nation state there against the wishes of the rest of the inhabitants;"

Poppycock (same as "twaddle", in case you didn't guess), of course...in legal and moral terms...

" whereas a population whose ancestors have lived in the territory for generations (in this instance, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim) have been acknowledged to have the right of self-determination by the imperial powers that took it upon themselves to hold the territories in trust when the Turks ceded sovereignty."

...but again of course, given that you dismiss the legitimacy of whatever was done in this regard by the "Imperial" powers, what does this aspect of your argument matter??? You DO know what "spurious" means, don't you?

" In addition, and whether you like it or not, the descendants of this population who were expelled by Israel by force of arms do have an explicit legal right to return to their land under international law."

..but Harold, you dissembling ninny, you know very well that what you and they define as a "return to their land" does not, in fact, tally with ANY legal argument on the subject. You and they would like it ALL, if possible, and if not all right away, then incrementally via any means possible - campaigns to delegitimise israel; violence of any description; law of return as a sine qua non for any so-called "peace" etc. You're the original "backdoor" (or back passage..though I'm loath to use that descriptiuon in case someone comes after me with an axe for being a gay man) kid... prancing on behalf of the original "backdoor" leaders who invented "nakba" to hide the shame they themselves should feel at the history of their execrable leadership.

"Your resort to the canard that they were all recent immigrants seeking to exploit Zionist bounty does not help your case."

Zionism is not a"case" which needs any help. And your 'canards" are so conspicuous, every time you write I think I have a gaggle of ducks in the room!

" It is simply false."

No , it is simply not false.

"And the fact that economic migrants did come and go during the Mandate does not affect the rights of the population as a whole."

"Does" not or "Did" not? What is relevant, Harold, is what IS (how many times....zzzzz)..

"It is fanciful to suggest that the presence of economic migrants means the Palestinians have no right to return to their land,"

It is more fanciful to think that you will ever get away with convincing Israelis(who are the ones you need to convince) that your definition of "their land" is legal and, more importantly, can help the peace process. Right now, that definition guarantees war. Well done, I say! Pat for you, dear boy, on your "back passage".

.." yet anyone who converts to Judaism thereby acquires the right to return to the ancestral home of their forebears."

Have you tried converting? Hard enough to prove your Jewish these days. You make it sound slam dunk, mate..Anyway, if you are thinking of it, tell me the guy who does your bris. I need a good snipper for my newborn son.

"So, whatever place your argument has in your affections, it has no bearing on the the legal arguments concerning who has a right to what."

Your legal arguments have no bearings on anything, least of THE legal arguments. Think on that, son...

" To say that those whose parents and grandparents and greatgrandparents lived in the land have no right of return, while those whose ancestors may have lived there, or the ancestors of those whose religion they have adopted, have a Right of Return is absurd."

Innit, just? Don't you just find natioanlism a tough one to get the head around...yet you bang on about it all the time, again as if we're in slam dunk territory. Don't you baffle yourself, sometimes?

" You try to bolster your argument with the claim that there was never an "Arab entity" and no demand for a "Palestinian state". Whether true or not, this has no bearing on the rights of the population, as recognised by the imperial powers in the League of Nations and reaffirmed by the UN."

Well, not true Harold. Israel was created at the behest of the UN, after all...not that you consider anything in Israel's favour created by international law - the Law of the "Imperialists" - valid, of course.

"This was no "trick", nor a departure from the tone of our previous discussion. If you recall, it arose out of your denial of any right of return to anyone. You called such a right absurd. I have only sought clarification."

No you haven't. You have sought again, via your preferred back passage, to delegitimise Israel. Enough, harold, Israel is here to stay and IS recognised by International Law,in case you care.

You really have to unbundle your thinking, here, Harold...You are spinning.. Just reading you brings on nausea and a scream for the vomitoun...

Gordon Ross

If the myth of British 'fair play' hasn't already been shattered, this ought to do it !

As for the participation of some despicable members of the Jewish community and people like ex-pat Israeli Professor Avi Shlaim, this is yet another demonstration of their ongoing sucking up to and collusion with the lefty intelligentsia who, together with the British MSM, are spearheading the campaign for the delegitimisation and ultimate destruction of the Jewish nation state.

Professor Shlaim is one of a brace of Israeli Professors who, in seeking after the professional limelight, are happy to join with those bent upon destroying their country. The Israeli authorities ought to strip them of their citizenship.

Adam B.

Harold, I think JR has demolished your argument in excellent fashion. I would just like to add that what you condescendingly call "romantic notions" is central to Judaism - as Melanie has previously pointed out. And your moral equations just don't work - a separate Palestinian nationalism was invented in 1967. That you equate this with a central feature of Jewish identity dating back thousands of years demonstrates a particular fondness for relativism - moral and historical.

As for your legal twaddle, Israel exists - legally.

Live with it.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Why doesn't the British Left focus what meagre intellectual resources it seem to have left on trying to head off the worst economic malaise in the last 70 years +, rather than skulking around in desperate effort to relocate its ideological pulse by finding yet another conveniently "sexy" cause to froth about. Blimey, the Left and Islam. Enough to make one want to drink sulphuric acid...

The Left is in danger of of becoming but a scab which ultimately will fall of the body of relevant politics.

Harold

Adam B.
October 21st, 2010 11:58pm
Behind the steady flow of verbal slurry from John Roosevelt, Adam B. takes cover!

Your additional comments are nothing to the point.

A nationalist state was not central to Judaism.

Palestinian nationalism was not invented in 1967, but in any case is not relevant to the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

You talk of legal "twaddle" (a John Roosevelt clone?). What you feel able to dismiss without being able to understand is called international law.

That you consider John Roosevelt's slurry a worthy riposte speaks volumes for your intellectual laziness and idealogical dogmatism.

Adam B.

Behind a slurry of empty insults, Harold takes cover. Unable to understand the centrality of Judaism's holy places to the religion, (as a self-appointed religious expert),he attacks Israel and its Jewish inhabitants incessantly for living in their ancestral homeland, whilst he elevates a newly invented Arab nationalism over the land above that of the Jews. Unable to say when exactly Palestinian Arab nationalism came onto the scene, he calims it doesn't matter. And unable to grasp the absurdity of the concept that someone can "return" as a "refugee" to somewhere they have never set foot, he continues endlessly and obsessively to excoriate Israel and her people.

A.

John Roosevelt,

Such brief acquaintance, yet I know you so well:

I checked previous threads. I found this (paraphrased for space):

A.N.Other:"There are plenty of rational arguments for Israel."

J.R.:"Oh, so there are no rational arguments for Israel!"

A.N.Other:"I said there are plenty of arguments."

J.R.: "Oh so we have to admit there is no rational argument for Israel, eh?"

A.N.Other:"I'll try one last time: there are PLENTY of rational arguments for Israel."

J.R.: "Silence."

(Does the silence mean you finally got it?)

Also, again and again, ad nauseam, you "argue" (loosely speaking) for some historical or legal assertion by announcing triumphantly "Ah, so you're not an historian or a lawyer, yet you insist on writing your "twaddle"". - You are deaf to the "tu quoque" that negates your argument. And you provide nothing else remotely like an argument in its place. We get instead, "Twaddle!" or "Come clean! Admit you are genocidal/ a Nazi sympathiser/an Islamist".

It may be that you genuinely can't read what is written; that you genuinely can't reason; that you don't feel the need to reason: you feel you know the truth without the need for thought. None of these diagnoses clears you of the twin charges of intellectual dishonesty and verbal diarrhoea.

If you disagree with an argument

Harold

Adam B.
October 22nd, 2010 2:36pm
A bit slippery.

We did not discuss the part the holy places play in Judaism. We discussed the place a nation state plays in Judaism.

I did not "elevate" anyone. I said that the avowed purpose of the League of Nations and the UN was to allow the population of Palestine self-determination. This is not some quibble in law or ahistorical article of faith. It is one of those rarities on this site, a fact. (And before John Roosevelt has another bout of gastric distress, I have repeatedly said that the imperialist carve-up that is the League of Nations and its successor is the only starting-point we have for the modern international law that extends beyond the old law of nations.)

And I continue to find it bizarre that you are comfortable with the cognitive dissonance in asserting both that it is absurd to allow refugees to return to the homes their parents and grandparents were forced off AND that it is self-evidently right and proper that the possible distant descendants and approximate co-religionists of a people who lived in Israel several thousand years ago be allowed to "return" to a land they have had no contact with for centuries upon centuries and in doing so displace the current inhabitants. You appear to think that one group's religious beliefs (or rather the politicisation by a minority of the religious beliefs of a majority of one group) trump another group's civil rights. You should at least provide an argument to this conclusion rather than just assert it.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

A"John Roosevelt,

Such brief acquaintance, yet I know you so well"

You wish, dear...:

"I checked previous threads. I found this (paraphrased for space):"

If you did you are either a dunce or liar or both.

"A.N.Other:"There are plenty of rational arguments for Israel."

J.R.:"Oh, so there are no rational arguments for Israel!"

A.N.Other:"I said there are plenty of arguments."

J.R.: "Oh so we have to admit there is no rational argument for Israel, eh?"

A.N.Other:"I'll try one last time: there are PLENTY of rational arguments for Israel."

J.R.: "Silence."

(Does the silence mean you finally got it?)"

For you, it seems, "paraphrasing" is the nothing but invention.

"Also, again and again, ad nauseam, you "argue" (loosely speaking) for some historical or legal assertion by announcing triumphantly "Ah, so you're not an historian or a lawyer, yet you insist on writing your "twaddle"".

Well, this is certainly a "paraphrase" per excellence. Don't be a deceitful twit, A. just quote my posts accurately and then respond. If you feel the overwhemliming compulsion to invent - sorry, :paraphrase - don't worry, just deal with the posts bit by bit. We will understand.

" - You are deaf to the "tu quoque" that negates your argument."

Really? You would like to think my arument merely consists of some ad hominem attack on Harold (is Harold you?)? It doesn't. The ad hominem remarks are merely as a result of the certainty about the moral world I know this idiot inhabits, inferred from his deliberately specious arguments.

" And you provide nothing else remotely like an argument in its place."

Well certainly, as a result of your insistence on the art of paraphrase, you have failed to address ANY of my arguments, as has Harold (you?). It's a peculiarity of both of you when it comes to your responses to everyone here who thinks you spout twaddle. You go figure..

" We get instead, "Twaddle!" or "Come clean! Admit you are genocidal/ a Nazi sympathiser/an Islamist"."

That..and much else, of course..but you ignore that ..as you would. It's funny how so many "intellectual" who support the Arabs and moslems indulge in this tendency (Have you read The Protocols, by the way?).

"It may be that you genuinely can't read what is written;"

I can and have answered the likes of you and Harold point by point. Oh, that you were capable of some kind of genuine reciprocation!

".. that you genuinely can't reason; that you don't feel the need to reason: you feel you know the truth without the need for thought."

Silly and baseless, A...but in tune with your general MO..

" None of these diagnoses clears you of the twin charges of intellectual dishonesty and verbal diarrhoea."

Ouch. That really hurt, A, but none of it matters at all. You can attempt to rewrite - via the fine art of paraphrase - what I write - just as you do the history of Palestine...but it matters little.

Get used to israel, my friend. It's going nowhere and, despite your persistent vilification of it, it can never be compared with the tyranny of every single moslem state in the Middle East - the cauldron in which Palestinian culture and politics continues to stew as it has always done...a shameful fact which you and your mate, Harold, with dogged persistence ignore.

Get used to the Jews staying in Palestine..and try and focus on genuinely achieving a peace through compromise..

Twaddlemeister deluxe...

Linda Smith

Harold, October 21st, 2:01pm to me:
“It may be that you misunderstand, but the law in question is the international law that Israel says it abides by”.

Harold appears to misunderstood that UN Resolution 194 that mentions return of refugees to their homes if they are prepared to live at peace with their neighbours, is not legally binding.

Resolution 194 does not specify “Palestinian” refugees, and therefore any negotiations on return or recompense to refugees must include the claims of all the Jewish refugees, who are estimated to have been robbed of land more than 4 times the area of Israel.

Of course, living at peace with their neighbours, for Jews and Christians and other infidels does not mean living under Sharia law in a Muslim majority state.

Interestingly, resolution 194 also resolves that Jerusalem and its surrounding villages and towns should be under UN control (as specified in the Partition Plan) and therefore NOT be the exclusive capital of any putative Palestinian State.

The “Palestinians” and Harold are highly selective in their reading.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "Palestinian nationalism was not invented in 1967, but in any case is not relevant to the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes."

When was Palestinian nationalism "invented", then, Harold - 1966??

"You talk of legal "twaddle" (a John Roosevelt clone?). What you feel able to dismiss without being able to understand is called international law."

No, Harold. You are talking complete and utter twaddle again. Repetition is no substitute for the facts (blimey, how many times...!)

"That you consider John Roosevelt's slurry a worthy riposte speaks volumes for your intellectual laziness and idealogical dogmatism"

You're a fine one to talk..but you insist on never responding to any points made, harold. It's..well,..it's a phenomenon....

Now, Harold, regroup with A and come back with more twaddle..We dont mind.

Augustus

Harold - like a 1940s gramophone
needle you are stuck in a
'right to return...right to return...right to return...' groove. Do you really think that millions of Palestinians will ever just get up one morning and proceed to their original homes inside Israel?
The idea is absurd, and the PA and other Arab governments know
this perfectly well, but they continue to lie and deceive these refugees into believing it. That's why they continue to refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. No Arab leader has
yet dared to confront the refugees with the truth, namely that they are not going to move to Israel and return to their former towns and villages and original homes (many of which no longer exist). Why then do they perpetuate this decades long lie? Because they want to avoid responsibility for their plight. What have the Arab governments ever done to improve
their living conditions? Absolutely nothing, on the contrary, Palestinian Arabs living in Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon have long been subjected to racism and other repressive and unjust measures
and laws that have even deprived them of basic rights.
Some governments even receive a payment for each refugee trurning them into nothing more than tradeable stocks. And what does the UN do? It actually encourages the refugees to stay
where they are, because refugees are a gigantic UN jobs
programme costing over US$1bn. per year, a third of all UN refugee resources. The Arab world should be the one to find a solution and settle the issue.
Instead of lying to them the refugees should be offered resettlement in Arab countries, and those who would wish to move to a future Palestinian state should be given that right, but the Arab countries themselves should be urged to absorb them. And what is wrong with them establishing an international fund to help them
resettle, after all they are rich enough? The truth is that the refugees have long been fed with false hopes, and as long as that continues there can be no solution.

A.

John Roosevelt,
Harold (for it is he):Do you feel a lack of rational arguments for Israel (you shouldn't, because of course there are plenty)?
JR:Harold: "Do you feel a lack of rational arguments for Israel"
No rational arguments for Israel, ha?
JR(again):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)- etc.etc.
H:On rational arguments for Israel: "Do you feel a lack of rational arguments for Israel (you shouldn't, because of course there are plenty)?"
JR:Please forgive israel if it fails to apologise to you for not have a "rational argument for its existence".
H: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."
JR:...
...and so on we go as before as if there had been no such rudimentary misreading:
JR: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.etc.etc. etc...

And when I ask you about this performance? -
JR:For you, it seems, "paraphrasing" is the nothing but invention.

wonderer

@Linda Smith
October 22nd, 2010 7:41pm You're right about Resolution 194. Thanks for saving me the trouble of pointing it out. I would just add that, even without the taqiyya aspect, the chances of determining with any accuracy the number of Palestinians prepared to live at peace with their neighbours would be slender at best, although in all likelihood it would vary inversely with the number readmitted.

Adam B.

Absolute nonsense Harold. It is clear from your last post that you regard Jews in Israel as trespassers who displaced the (real) inhabitants. At least we have your real position on the table.

Look Harold, we have been over this before. It was the Arabs who refused the UN partition plan, not the Jews. It was the Arabs who launched a genocidal war, not the Jews. You concede that holy places do play a central role in Judaism - but then ignore the fact that a nation state is the only way the Jews could have access to these places. When Jordan, with the help of the Palestinian Arabs, overran Jerusalem, they expelled every single Jew, and refused access to any holy Jewish sites for the next 19 years - until they were booted out in the Six Day War. These are the holiest sites on earth to Jews Harold - akin to Mecca for Muslims. However, this was not before the Jordanians managed to dynamite every ancient Synagogue of the Jewish Quarter of the Old City, and vandalise the Mount of Olives - a Jewish cemetery. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Arabs held a pogrom in Hebron - holy to Jews - before there was even an Israel, killing Jews and ethnically cleansing anyone left. You have made excuse after excuse for such behaviour on the previous thread, claiming it is "understandable" that such pogroms occurred - remember, this is BEFORE Israel even existed. Your narrative suggests that the Jews have no right to be there at all. You do indeed elevate a recently fabricated "nationalism" (when was it born Harold if not 1967?) - born out of hatred of, and as a result of, the Jewish state, a nationalism with no roots, which has as its goal the destruction of the Jewish state.

It is your intellectual dishonesty which sticks in the gullet.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: I just dont get you...how is it you don't see the difficulty anyone who can spell "tu quoque" would have with the twaddle you keep dishing up?

As a homage to the venerable A (someone who clearly respects and adores you) , let me "paraphrase" your thinking on this topic:

You dismiss the claim of Jews that they have a right to a state in Palestine.

In contrast, you sanctify the right of those who call themselves Palestinians to a state.

Why so? Well, the difference between them, you feel, is that these Palestinians have lived in the land in greater numbers in relatively modern history. Timing, then, and numbers is all....

On the one hand you say Israel is not recognised "in Law" but, on the other, you do say that the Law developed by international institutions like the league and UN is all we have and therefore it's ok...we have to accept that.

The fact that israel was not only created at the behest of the UN but also recognised by it, does not seem to cause you any pause for thought...

..but then it appears you think Israel has no right to be a state "in law" if the other occupants of Palestine do not recognise it....and that this has absolutely no bearing on the Law, as it is, at all, also does not give you pause...

You havealso said that you agree that israel is here to stay - a fait accompli, so to speak.

In the light of the above, one has to infer that you feel forced to accept, then, this state which has no right to be according your "Law",,though your do admit that the institutions which generate your "law" clearly disagree with you..

Need I go on, Harold?

You have to accept israel but you dont accept israel, but you do, but you dont..it has no right to be, but those who bestow legal rights have given it legal right but..but...

A right royal mess you are, Harold., I'm afraid.

Now...the other thing is this:you get louder and louder in your protestations that israel should see the light and recant..just give in...throw in the towel...But you know that wont happen. So, what do you do? You play the vilifiaction game even more stridently, as if that will change anything except, perhaps, contribute to the ethos of war and set back the people you support even further....Does anyone understand the head space ???..and you call yourself an educated man???

As long the narrative gets spun byt the Flotilla flotsam and the harolds, A's, Lyndsay's etc...we can have no peace. None. Ever..and very little compromise...It is impossible. Just cannot happen.

You actually know this, Harold...and,for sure, so do the Arabs and moslem sate and non state actors of the Middle East. They will move on the Palestinian issue only in so far as it suits their other nefarious political agendas. Their genuine conern for the Palestinians is, actually nil. This is a huge tragedy..not least for the Palestinians, of course.

No, too many arabs and moslems are happy with a state of ongoing conflict..because to many interests would be impugned if conflict ended.

So, Harold, it's an awful mess....and even if you get your God to dictate that the jews are imposters and Israel has no right to be, it can't change anything..NOTHING.

You are like the dying man who has dedicated his entire life to proving the earth is flat...

KateA

Anne Wotana Kaye 1
October 20th, 2010 1:34pm

"What can one expect from the capital of this nasty, narrow little region? Much of their income derives from pr oviding Middle East reporters to the 'unbiased' BBC. They seem to specialise in skeletal, especially ugly and bitter females, and males which seem to be missing vital parts."

Well Ms Anne Wotana Kaye perhaps you should find out something about the place instead of parroting precisely the same ignorant vitriol as those who hate Israel continue to do here.

I am Northern Irish Ms Kaye. A NI Protestant taught by my church and by my late father who witnessed the liberation of the concentration camps, to love and honour Israel and the Jewish people.

You are offensive Ms Kaye. Offensive to the NI Protestant people (the majority) and to their representative Lord David Trimble presently in Israel as a trusted friend.

mostly harmless

Maybe they changed their minds when they found out his views re all who voted for Hamas being fair game.

A.

Adam B.
The rigmarole I quoted above was my introduction to John Roosevelt's methods. The same thread introduced me to yours. You were measured and reasonable. What went wrong on the Pallywood thread? Surely there is a better response to the loss of face than to run away and then pop up here as righteous as there? A simple apology.

Harold

Linda Smith
October 22nd, 2010 7:41pm
You are right in at least one respect. I should not simply have said without qualification that it is what interntaional law prescribes. As on every other question to do with the conflict there are Israeli jurists and others who argue otherwise. As on every other question, there arguments do not persuade the majority of the legal profession. I should have made clear that there is indeed scope for interpretation and that the arguments of the Israelis are not always and only a means to say, we will carry on with what we are doing because it is not clear and unambiguous in law that what we are doing is illegal.

Can I ask for clarification. When you say the Jewish refugees lost land four times the size of Israel, are you talking about the Jews from Arab states? If so your reading of the UN resolution is simply wrong, I believe. You may be able to correct me on that.

I don't know why you raise Jerusalem here. It was indeed to be an international city. So, not a capital of Palestine, nor of Israel.

One of Israel's most distinguished legal advocates, Elihu Lauterpracht, said something I think relevant here:

The discretion a state has in matters of nationality "is subject to general principles of law, to legitimate rights of other states, and to those rights of human personality which international law was increasingly recognising beofre the Charter of the UN gave recognition to fundamental human rights and freedoms."

Israel cannot in law simply strip the Palestinians who lived in what became its territory of citizenship; and cannot require other states to take them in instead.

Harold

Adam B.
October 22nd, 2010 10:27pm
Can I just repeat what I have said on many occasions.

The Jewish immigrants in Ottoman times and in the Mandate had every right to be in Palestine.

The attacks on Jewish immigrants by Palestinians were criminal acts. I agree with Ben Gurion and Jabotinsky and the British authorities that they were to some extent a natural, even inevitable (given human nature) response in the circumstances. To be clear, they were nonetheless atrocious.

You harangue me about intellectual honesty. Ben Gurion accepted the notion of partition as a first step to what the Zionists considered necessary for a viable state. There was never any intention of remaining within any borders the UN might think fit to stipulate. The fighting in 1947-8 was not simply as you describe, and there are plenty of sources you can go to to learn better. The first stirrings of a specifically Palestinian nationalism are evident in the 19th century in the resistance to Egyptian rule. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, nationalism found its main expression in pan-Arab or Greater Syrian nationalism, such as Britain had undertaken to recognise in agreements predating the Balfour letter. That the main expression of nationalism was for a Greater Syria in no way allows you to deny that the Palestinians had aspirations for their own state as opposed to imperial rule. In addition, there was already before WW1 a distinct strand of purely Palestinian nationalism. Again, do some work before exclaiming about intellectual dishonesty. (The Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling wrote a history of the Palestinians, for a start.)

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Linda Smith: "Harold appears to misunderstood that UN Resolution 194 that mentions return of refugees to their homes if they are prepared to live at peace with their neighbours, is not legally binding.

Resolution 194 does not specify “Palestinian” refugees, and therefore any negotiations on return or recompense to refugees must include the claims of all the Jewish refugees, who are estimated to have been robbed of land more than 4 times the area of Israel.

Of course, living at peace with their neighbours, for Jews and Christians and other infidels does not mean living under Sharia law in a Muslim majority state.

Interestingly, resolution 194 also resolves that Jerusalem and its surrounding villages and towns should be under UN control (as specified in the Partition Plan) and therefore NOT be the exclusive capital of any putative Palestinian State.

The “Palestinians” and Harold are highly selective in their reading."

Linda Smith is as incisive as ever and I commend her. However, I fear she is nevertheless being too kind to harold and the Palestinian and other Arab and moslem leaderships.

As I have said 'ad nauseam", Harold uses the Law as a plaything in his own pantomime of deceit:

For this master of "back passage" rhetoric and reasoning (A should give him the Nobel prize for "tu quoquery"), the League and the UN are the offspring of the Imperialist powers whom he, by implication (at any rate) detests (after all, the League, for example, he describes as the "imperialistic carve-up"). In truth, he clearly has no time for these institutions nor the "law" they have generated. HOWEVER, he says, this "law" is the "only starting-point we have for the modern international law that extends beyond the old law of nations." So...it is valid or invalid???

Ah,,something a little closer to the invalid, it seems, but not quite there...just close enough to facilitate the next shift up the back passage, it seems...

... "the starting point", hey?...meaning, naturally, that we still have to travel with Harold on the legal journey which - one has to suppose... will be his to determine (or his cronies in Hamas Land...One wonders, then what he has in mind for the "ending point". Where will his wondrously "moral" journey take us? What will be the " finishing point"??? Sharia, Law, perhaps? Mmmm...I wonderrrrrrrrrrrrr....

Harold, with the intellectual dexterity of a sloth on valium, leaves the "back passage", as always, wide open i.e. yeah, yeah, he says - for now the Law he claims Israel is transgressing, is ok. It's a start point. What he means is. if israel is determined by, say, the UN, to be obeying that Law - in terms of right to Statehood - then Harold then says the law is unjust and needs to be changed...Why? Well,m waddaya know, folks..because Israel OUGHT not to have that right that harold falsely claims right now is non existing "in Law". Talk about canards, Harold. You wouldn't now a truthful and logical argument if an Oxford asked to see your "back passage" (and be warned: I've heard it said that some are wont to do so)!!

Harold wants it both ways, you see. This is why he and those he supports, push so vehemently for their "law of return" - dressing it up in the treacle of moral shibbolleths du jour - but intending it not to realise justice for anyone necessarily, but rather the demise of the state of Israel - sooner or later.

Whenever one stamps on Harold's specious assertions about the Law , he then does his usual sufi twirl and screams : but Israel is morally wrong!! They have to concede!! The law is not just! It's the stuff of imperialists!

So Harold and the Palestinians are not being merely "highly selective in their reading" of the Law. THEY COULDN'T GIVE A DONKEY'S FORESKIN ABOUT IT!

Given this is the case, and given indisputably they want Israel wiped off the map one way or the other (if not by means of the gun, then demographics), Israel should deal with the likes of Harold ,and those who support his tendentiousness, with an Iron fist. In any event, Israel has no choice but to do so.

We'll see where the end game leaves us in terms of the Law and with God, but I wouldn't leave it to Harold or the Arabs and moslems be the judge.

Harold

Augustus
October 22nd, 2010 9:38pm
The discussion of a right of return started on a previous thread before Adam B. absented himself. I was not clear on his meaning, so asked for clarification. I still do not understand how in principle there can be a right for Jews but not for Palestinians. In practice, if there is to be peace agreed rather than peace imposed, there will have to be some sort of compromise such as some in Israel and among the Palestinians have proposed.

Much of what you say I think sensible.

However, it is interesting that at the outset, in 1948-9, the UN, the US, and the Arab states proposed that the Arab states take in large numbers of the refugees with financial assistance from the international community. Egypt and the Lebanon said they had the capability to assimilate only relatively small numbers. Syria and Jordan were willing to take larger numbers. Many of the refugees were technically citizens of the state that succeeded the Mandate i.e. Israel and many were refugees from teritory under Israeli occupation. The quid pro quo the Arab states sought was that Israel take back a significant number of its own citizens - that is significantly more than the 100000 Israel offered in negotiation and allow a significant number of refugees to return to their land. The Arab states were unwilling to take all the refugees as this in effect would allow Israel to enjoy the spoils of its ethnic cleansing, and would indeed require the Arab states and international community to finance it. Israel turned down the offer because it wanted as few Palestinians in Israel as it could manage. This seems to me a missed opportunity.

It is interesting that the international community appears to have been very quick to accept Israel's unilateral declaration of independence in one part of Palestine and its military conquest of another in stark disregard of the norms the international community was allegedly trying to establish after WW2. I do not know why it backed off so readily. If it hadn't, there might have been a lasting (if botched) peace deal early on.

A.

Now that his misreading is revealed verbatim, John Roosevelt is silent on the subject (admittedly he is rather taken up at the moment with ranting at passers-by about "back passages"). The question remains whether his startling inability to understand what is written is a deliberate ploy or is he simply lacking. The latter would at least be touching in a way as he harangues the world in general as it passes him by. The former would suggest his poisonous tone is a matter of choice that demeans the cause he persuades himself he is helping. A curious case.

wonderer

@Anne Wotana Kaye 1
October 20th, 2010 1:34pm

Unfortunately Kate A's rebuke was well merited. Orla Guerin was born in Dublin, not Belfast.

Conor Cruise O'Brien,one of Israel's finest defenders, was also from the Republic, and I would draw to your attention and recommend the blog of Denis MacEoin, http://mid-eastplus.blogspot.com/2007/01/protest-is-fine-balanced-protest-is.html . Expert on Islam and staunch defender of Israel, I believe he was originally from Northern Ireland.

Linda Smith

Harold (23 October 10.40am) “Can I ask for clarification. When you say the Jewish refugees lost land four times the size of Israel, are you talking about the Jews from Arab states? If so your reading of the UN resolution is simply wrong, I believe. You may be able to correct me on that.”

“Although Arab leaders point to Resolution 194 as proof that Arab refugees have a right to return or be compensated, it is important to note that the Arab States: Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen voted against Resolution
194. Israel is not even mentioned in the resolution. The fact that plural wording also is used – “governments or authorities” – suggests that, contrary to Arab claims, the burden of compensation does not fall solely upon one side of the conflict. Because seven Arab armies invaded Israel, Israel was not responsible for creating the refugee problem. When hundreds of thousands of Arab Jews, under threat of death, attack and other forms of persecution, were forced to flee Arab communities, the State of Israel absorbed the overwhelming majority of them into the then-fledgling nation………

The scale and the premeditated state-sponsored nature of persecution that prompted the 1948 flight of close to 900,000 Jews from their homes has only recently begun to emerge. Arab publicists have sought to detach entirely the flight of Jews from Arab lands from the Arab-Israeli conflict, claiming they are two separate phenomena, and that Israelis should take up the issue with each respective Arab state that was involved, not with the Palestinians.

Clearly this is a whitewash and attempt to rewrite history. One only needs to reexamine the almost prophetic article in The New York Times two days after Israel declared independence ("Jews in Grave Danger in all Moslem Lands") to confirm the tie. The New York Times reported on May 16, 1948:

"For nearly four months, the United Nations has had before it, an appeal for „immediate and urgent‟ consideration of the case of the Jewish populations in Arab and Moslem countries stretching from Morocco to India."

The country-by-country table estimated the Jewish population-at-risk as 899,000 souls. The article cited the dismissal of Jews in the civil service in Syria, per capita ransom payment of $20,000 by Iraqi Jews seeking to leave Iraq, a forced levy on the Lebanese Jewish community to support the Arab war effort parallel to incitement and physical attacks on Jews, and Jews fleeing to India from Afghanistan. It quoted the UN Economic and Social Council report as saying:

"The very survival of the Jewish communities in certain Arab and Moslem countries is in serious danger, unless preventive action is taken without delay."

Hostility and oppression only grew, ultimately leading to the exodus of almost all Jews from all Arab and Moslem countries from Casablanca to Karachi.
Arab claims that Israel is required to allow refugees a Right of Return are groundless.
http://www.mythsandfacts.com/conflict/10/resolution-194.pdf

Adam B.

Harold, still don't understand?

Let me make it simple.

1. The claims to the land are not of equal standing. For the Jews, it is the ancestral homeland, and has been for 3000 years, albeit with periods of conquest by various powers - none of whom treated the conquered area as a separate entity, but rather part of a larger conqurered territory - and the land is indeed central to Judaism, altough you won't admit this. Neither will you admit that it is only as a Zionist nation state that Jews have been allowed to have access to their holy places (as are other faiths). When under Arab rule, they were denied access. For their part, the Palestinians became a speparate entity with a specific nationalism in 1967. This is a nationalism which has no roots, and grew directly as a result of Jewish nationalism. Simply put, without Zionism, there would be no calls for a new Palestinian state. It would simply be part of Jordan (which itself comprised 80% of Palestine before 1922). Between 1948 and 1967, when Jerusalem was under Jordanian occupation, not one single Arab head of state went to see the city - not one. Now we are to believe that Jerusalem was extremely important to the Arabs all along, and that the entire Old City (what is erroneously called "East Jerusalem" is somehow exclusively Arab and should be part of a new Palestinian state. That includes the Jewish and Armenian quarters, and it is news to me that they are Arab. In addition, there were no calls at all for this land to become a new Palestinian state. My own belief is that Palestinian nationalism, as expressed quite explicitly by Yassir Arafat, is a means to an end. It is not about creating a new state, but rather destroying another one - Israel - in stages. Hence all the energy of Hamas goes into attacking Israel and her people, rather than building and creating the mechanisms of state. Indeed, the Palestinians receive more aid per capita than anyone else on earth, including sub-Saharan Africa, where the need is far greater.

2. For argument's sake, let's say the claims are exactly equal - (which they aren't). In 1948, the Palestinian Arabs and five Arab nations launched a war against the newly born state of Israel - a state which was entitled to be born, and was voted into existence by the UN. The Jews accepted the partition plan, the Arabs rejected it - not because they disputed the borders, but because they refused to accept a Jewish state, of any size, in the Middle East. A Jewish state was rejected in principle. And it still is - hence the ongoing conflict.

As a result of the war of aggression, indeed war of genocide, launched against the Jews, the Arabs lost land. You accepted on another thread that it would be wrong to say that Poland should withdraw back to its 1939 borders, accept millions of Germans as returning refugees and evacuate their own population, due to the consequences of WW2 (and that was a case of deliberate expulsion, unlike Israel and the Palestinians). In short, they started a war with the objective of throwing the Jews into the sea, or killing every last one - and lost.

Do you seriously think that if the shoe was on the other foot, Hamas and Fatah would be considering what to give to the Jews?

Now we can debate the history over and over, and disagree over and over - to no purpose at all. The question I would like to ask you is this: what is your recipe for peace? Do you think it's possible, and what needs to be done to bring it about?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

A: dont be a clot as well as a liar.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "Many of the refugees were technically citizens of the state that succeeded the Mandate i.e. Israel and many were refugees from territory under Israeli occupation."

Let's try and get this straight, Harold: are you saying that the Jews who had lived in Arab and moslems states/domains for centuries were 'technically" citizens of a state no Arab or moslem state recognised as legitimate i.e Israel??? You of all people?? Or is this another of your oft' denied rhetorical flourishes?

"The quid pro quo the Arab states sought was that Israel take back a significant number of its own citizens - that is significantly more than the 100000 Israel offered in negotiation and allow a significant number of refugees to return to their land."

What do you mean: "take BACK a significant number iof its own citizens"? Are you suggesting these Jews had always been citizens of an Israel in which they had never lived, not to mention never existed prior to 1947 - unless, of course, you are suddenly recanting, and buying into the common Zionist notion that israel of 1948 was in fact a reconstitution of the Israel of ancient times?? Your are not, are you, suggesting all these Jews SHOULD have settled in Israel - the state which you consider ought not to exist nor pushing that infamous "back passage" nonsense re the Palestinian Law of Return, for the sole purpose of causing Israel's demise through a demographic swamping? Of course you are, Harold...and even more significantly, you are, in fact, Harold, suggesting "back passage" ethnic cleansing - as well as the the religious preclusivism which is that of Islam in the Middle East. You are, in fact, the Emperor standard bearer for ethnic, religious and political cleansing, which keeps the moslems and Arabs and moslems of the region either in a state of abject social regression or some kind of psychotic hybrid of the worst of Western consumerism and medieval tryranny (e.g Dubai or Saudi Arabia).

"The Arab states were unwilling to take all the refugees as this in effect would allow Israel to enjoy the spoils of its ethnic cleansing,"

...Don't you just love that turn of phrase: "enjoy the fruits of its own ethnic cleansing"..You mean, if the Arab states had settled the refugees and treated them like human beings it would have meant the Jews would have gorged themselves on the notion that their race was pure and masterful??? You are disgusting for having the gall to print such prurient trash. You change your tune from arrogant dismissiveness to unctuous deceit, pretending to addrss Linda Smith's arguments but lossing absolutley no opportunity to spread the kind of repulsive drivel that has filled the anti semitic bestsellers of the Arab and moslem world for scores of years. You would have made a great "back passage" bedfollow of tha nazi sympathiser, the Mufti of Jeruslaem. .

".. and would indeed require the Arab states and international community to finance it."

And that would have been hard for the oil states, I'm sure...after all, they propbably needed to save their "hard-earned" riches to fund their princes in fancy London hotels where they could feel free to realise their moral destiny by beating their man servants to death in some homosexual, drug addled frenzy?? You're pitiful, Harold.

" Israel turned down the offer because it wanted as few Palestinians in Israel as it could manage."

I guess the UK should have imported as many Nazis as they could find, after WW11 but funny how war is not the bridge-builder you assume it is...

"This seems to me a missed opportunity."

Yeah, right. Harold, are you serious? Are you suggesting that the Arabs, having rejected a state which would have made any refugee "issue" negligible; initiated a war against the Jews - in order to wipe 'em off the map; the Jews having defeated the Arabs and held territory it deemed strategically important and let those Arabs who remained within the armistice lines to stay put - with full citizenship rights - the Arabs and moslems are of sound mind when they EXPECT the Israelis to accept all those who left Israel held territory, not to mention their and their progeny - of what ,6 generations or so(?) - to come back to Israel and settle amicably? What, a mere 6-7 million of them?

No, of course you don’t, Harold. This is just a rehashing of the tired old Arab and moslem propaganda ruse. You never thought Israel had the right to exist in the first place and you support and encourage all those who think likewise. You supported the war waged by the Arabs against the Jews in the first place. And since the Arabs lost that war- in a way that shocked the Arab and Moslem world - you have to find a way - by any sleight of hand you can - to reverses the shame of it.

If you and the Arabs and Moslems don’t want to accept Israel as a Jewish state - to live in security - you will get very little in return for this "favour"..and no amount of "back-passage" rhetoric, masquerading as heartfelt, genuine moral concern, will alter that, NOR SHOULD IT!

"It is interesting that the international community appears to have been very quick to accept Israel's unilateral declaration of independence in one part of Palestine and its military conquest of another in stark disregard of the norms the international community was allegedly trying to establish after WW2. I do not know why it backed off so readily. If it hadn't, there might have been a lasting (if botched) peace deal early on."

Trash. The Arabs would have moved against the Jews as they had done since the Balfour declaration and the heady of fantasising that Hitler’s Final Solution would rid the Middle East of the disgusting jew. Your persistence in pushing your gutter hogwash will not change this fact.

Harold

Linda Smith
October 23rd, 2010 9:56pm
If the intention is to try to discover what happened, it is advisable not to rely on such web-sites. Many of the documents have been published. Much historical analysis has been written.

Harold

Adam B.
October 23rd, 2010 10:52pm
I looked back at "Pallywood". What possessed you? Would the decent thing not be to acknowledge your mistake rather than just walk away?

On your latest: In making it simple for me (thank you) you have failed to add to your previous remarks.

Your first point is a combination of non sequiturs. The Holy Land is "central" to Judaism. It does not follow that there should be a Jewish nation state there, established at the expense of the existing inhabitants. That the Holy Land's centrality to Judaism should find expression as a political entity was a minority view within Judaism.

The Palestinians never consituted a nation state. It does not follow that the inhabitants of Palestine had no rights. The League of Nations recognised as much. (To repeat yet again, this is not now a question whether the state of Israel should be recognised. Of course it should. It is a state like any other. It is a question about the "right of return")

Your second point is a repetition of your version of Israel's founding myth, mainly selective truths and half-truths, with some falsifications thrown in.

What do I think a feasible settlement? Given the huge disparity in power between Israel and the Palestinians, there is not going to be one. Israel will finish its work of confining the Palestinians to ghettoes and taking all the land and resources it wants. It will then throw away the key and announce to the world that the Palestinians can call what they have a state if they want (a bit like Barak's dismissive comments in 2000). There will only be something even a little more decent if Israel's sponsor, the US, acts as honest broker instead of simply pretending to while furthering Israel's plans. This seems unlikely.

wonderer

John Roosevelt, I generally agree with you, but when Harold says: " Many of the refugees were technically citizens of the state that succeeded the Mandate i.e. Israel and many were refugees from teritory under Israeli occupation." I took him to mean Arab refugees, ie (a) Arabs who would definitely have been citizens of Israel if the UN partition scheme had been accepted and (b) Arabs who were living in parts of the then proposed Arab state but which were added to the Jewish state as a result of the war of 1948.

I sincerely envy the mental stamina of folk like you and Harold but I sometimes feel that these threads generate more heat than light.

btw is the treatment of Prof Alderman still on the table?

Harold

When I saw how I had strained the wits of the weaker minded here, it came as a relief to see that others did manage to follow what I said (without necessarily agreeing, of course).

When sovereignty over a territory changes hands, the inhabitants of the territory automatically become citizens of the succeeding state. If Israel's UDI is recognised, as it was by the US and USSR, then the Palestinians living there became citizens of the new state of Israel (whether they or Israel wanted it). If it is accepted that the territory Israel acquired by military conquest is part of Israel (which it is de facto despite its manifest illegality), the Palestinians living there became citizens of the new state of Israel. This is a consequence of accepting that the UDI and military conquest produced legal title to the territory and that international law as it stood at the time applied to Israel. In other words, even on its own estimatation of its position, Israel owed more to the Palestinians than it has ever admitted.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Wonderer: thanks for setting me straigh about Harold's statement. I guess I got the rest right, at least?

Anyway, Harold says: "If it is accepted that the territory Israel acquired by military conquest is part of Israel (which it is de facto despite its manifest illegality), the Palestinians living there became citizens of the new state of Israel. This is a consequence of accepting that the UDI and military conquest produced legal title to the territory and that international law as it stood at the time applied to Israel. In other words, even on its own estimatation of its position, Israel owed more to the Palestinians than it has ever admitted"

Perhaps I am dim witted, as Harold surely thinks, but can you make any sense of the above?

What is Harold hoping to achieve by all this - that israel concedes to the palestinian Right of Return or that it trusts the likes of iran and its proxies ever to countenance leaving Israel - under any circumstances - to live in peace? of course not, not least because the rejectionist culture of Jewish power in Middle East is far too deeply embedded in its religious culture. Simple as that.

So Harold should go get his gun, because war it's going to be and rightly so. I believe strongly that even if one agrees in principle that Israel should be prepared to make significant compromises based on 242 with some arrangement with regard to refugees, the iron fist is the only thing these fanatics understand and they will never compromise willingly because they cherish peace.

With luck, Israel will maange to weaken Iran sufficiently to achive the leverage in negotiations it needs, without even being seen to act. I have faith that it is smart enough to do and I suspect that little grub who is president of that country is now beginning to overheat with hot air, as bombs continue to blast away Iran's missiles deep underground and worms eat into the heart of its nuclear and military command and control systems.

We will see who the Gods favour...

JOHN ROOSEVELT

harold: "If the intention is to try to discover what happened, it is advisable not to rely on such web-sites. Many of the documents have been published. Much historical analysis has been written."

Now there's a truly academic refutation, if ever I saw one...very much like all Harold's others.

Get out your references, Harold! Don't be shy!

Adam B.

Harold, you blow hot and cold. I can honestly say I have no idea where you're coming from.

But more than that, you aren't honest. Your hate fuelled posts against the Jewish state clearly demonstrate that you aren't interested in an honest appraisal of the situation. The continued Arab rejectionism of Israel, the rampant and visceral antisemitism, the refusal to make a state with the apparatus of a state, instead of expending all energies on attacking the Jews, refusal to assimilate refugees in order to prolong the struggle and embitter generations to come, the demonisation and vilification of Jews in Palestinian media and schools, the rejectionism of Hamas and Hizbollah and their paymasters in the fundamentalist theocratic tyranny in Tehran, the refusal to recognize the Jewish Nakba, the million Jewish refugees from Arab countries, whose confiscated land adds up to four times the size of Israel, the repeated rejections of offers of a state over the past 62 years, none of this is a problem to you.

No, it's all - and you mean all - Israel's fault, just for daring to be born.

This isn't a debate - it's just an expression of hatred. And I feel it isn't honest.

Adam B.

Harold, you answer your "right of return" question, read Melanie's latest post.

Harold

Adam B.
I am not at all sure why you think it proper to retreat from rational debate into such emotikon. I suppose it is easier to embrace the lachrymose myth than to think hard about what might actually have happened.

On the subject of honesty, I am puzzled by your inability to admit your blunder in the "Pallywood" thread, and simply apologise.

I saw nothing in the latest post explains why there is no right of return for Palestinians but there is for anyone in the world who converts to Judaism.

I had looked for reasoned argument from you.

Linda Smith

Harold, there is no right of return for "Palestinian" Arabs because Israel is not going to commit hari kari and turn itself into a Muslim majority Sharia state. End of story.

Now put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Adam B.

Linda - that's exactly what Harold wants - for Israel to disappear as a Jewish state.

Harold

Linda Smith
October 25th, 2010 10:39pm
First, you offer a bizarre travesty of the history of the negotiations in 1948-9 (courtesy of pottedpropaganda.com); then you switch to a defiant assertion of the "law is what the powerful say it is" doctrine. Neither is particularly helpful if peace is what we're after, and a decent life for as many as possible.

My own opinion is as I said to Augustus. I think Uri Avnery's proposal and others like it offer the only hope of compromise. The US could devote some of the U$billions it spends on weaponry for Israel on financing such a compromise, and the Saudis could divert some U$billions from maintaining the princely lifestyle.

Adam B.

Harold, you should apologise for misrepresenting Israel's founding, and the pogroms which you described as "understandable".

That's what you said Harold. Do you apologise for this?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

"I think Uri Avnery's proposal and others like it offer the only hope of compromise. The US could devote some of the U$billions it spends on weaponry for Israel on financing such a compromise, and the Saudis could divert some U$billions from maintaining the princely lifestyle."

True to form, Harold fails to detail Avnery's proposal. For the record, here are the six salient points of which it comprises:

"One: A Palestinian state will be created, side by side with Israel.

Two: The border between them will be based on the Green Line [pre-1967 border], possibly with agreed exchanges of territory.
Three: Jerusalem will be the capital of both states.

Four: There will be an agreed solution to the refugee problem – meaning that an agreed number will return to Israel, and the others will be absorbed in the Palestinian state or in the present places of habitation while getting generous compensation, for example like what the Germans paid us.

I am not against asking the refugees. Let us put on the table the solution that will be agreed upon – a detailed, clear solution, so that each of the refugees would know the choices they could make – and ask them. In my view the great majority of refugees, if you give them the compensation they truly deserve, the great majority would prefer to stay where they are. Because they have lived there for sixty years already, their sons and daughters got married there, they have opened businesses there.
I think there will remain a problem of some hundreds of thousands for whom a solution will have to be found, and I am in favor of us being full partners and finding a solution.

Five: There will be an economic partnership between the two states, in whose framework the Palestinian Government will be able to defend the interests of the Palestinian people, unlike the present situation. The very existence of two states will to some degree diminish the gap in the imbalance between the two sides. This imbalance exists. We can complain about it, we can cry salty tears about it, but this imbalance exists – and we need to find a solution in the world that really exists, not in an imaginary world that we would have liked to come into existence. We have to find a solution in the real world.

Six: In the longer term, there should be a Middle-Eastern Union on the European model, which might eventually include also Turkey and Iran."

What Harold also fails to add is that if Iran was taken out of the equation politically and finacially, there may some chance - perhaps in many, many years time, when something like Avenry;s proposal stands some glimmer of hope of being realised.

Anyway, I think it's sterling that harold agrees with Avnery that Israel should live in peace ans security. There must a God, after all....

Linda Smith

Harold to me October 25, 2010 10:39pm) “you offer a bizarre travesty of the history of the negotiations in 1948-9 (courtesy of pottedpropaganda.com)”

Harold, you make unsubstantiated allegations devoid of evidence.

“then you switch to a defiant assertion of the "law is what the powerful say it is" doctrine.”

Law IS what the powerful say it is, however much that sticks in your craw. When people don’t like the law, they have a revolution or go to war to depose the erstwhile powerful.

“Neither is particularly helpful if peace is what we're after, and a decent life for as many as possible. My own opinion is as I said to Augustus. I think Uri Avnery's proposal and others like it offer the only hope of compromise. The US could devote some of the U$billions it spends on weaponry for Israel on financing such a compromise, and the Saudis could divert some U$billions from maintaining the princely lifestyle.”

You may be in favour of peace, compromise, and Uri Avnery’s proposal, but your opinions are irrelevant as you are not a player. Why on earth you think the Wahabi Saudis would be in favour of peace with the infidel Jews is beyond comprehension. The Saudis might pragmatically want to hide behind Israel’s skirts to protect them from being subjugated by their soon-to-be nuclear arch enemy Shia Iran, but recognition of Israel as a legitimate Jewish State destroys the essence of Islam, the assertion that the Jews are corrupt liars, distorters of God’s (Islamic) laws revealed to Moses (Musa).

Your opinion of what constitutes “a decent life” might be in accordance with that of Saudi Arabia, but I doubt that the non-Muslim population of Israel would agree, purdah is out of fashion this season, so is the chopping off of hands.

Harold

Adam B.
October 25th, 2010 10:57pm
As a way to avoid admitting your mistake, this is pathetic.

I have not misrepresented the founding of Israel. You have provided no evidence that justifies the accusation.

If you recall, on the attacks on Jewish settlers during the Mandate, I agreed with the British authorites who tried to prevent such attacks, and with Ben Gurion, and with Jabotinsky, that such attacks were understandable in the circumstances. I also said, what you appear to have "forgotten" for the sake of your unwarranted indignation, that the attacks were nonetheless criminal and atrocious.

Selective quotation of what I said to avoid admitting complete misrepresentation of what someone else said. a perfect example of bad faith.

Harold

Linda Smith
October 26th, 2010 3:25pm
What are the "unsubstantiated allegations"? Surely not that pottedpropaganda.com has produced a complete travesty, because I think that can safely be classed as fact, as a quick look in the history books will confirm.

I'll display my little, my very little learning by saying that on the question of law, you appear to adapt Euthyphro's dilemma, does God command it because it is good, or is it good because God commands it? - Is it law because the powerful say it is, or do they say it is because it is law? You are very clear that it is the former: the law is what the powerful say it is. This is plausible, but does not account for all the lawful actions we observe every day around us. It is all too easy to say that Israel can behave as badly as it wants because it can. It is too dependant on the US to be sure of always being so fortunate. I don't think it unreasonable to expect better of Israel, as of Britain, the US, Iran, China, whoever.

"your opinions are irrelevant as you are not a player." Well, doh!

John Roosevelt has done us a service by summarising Uri Avnery's proposal. As I have said repeatedly, some such deal seems to me the most likely to allow Israelis to live in peace ans security, and the Palestinians likewise.

The Saudis have been instrumental in putting forward a perfectly reasonable peace plan. It is not in their interests to have this conflict continue.

"Your opinion of what constitutes “a decent life” might be in accordance with that of Saudi Arabia, but I doubt that the non-Muslim..." You are trying a little too hard here to be snide.

A.

Adam B.
"Harold
October 24th, 2010 10:15am
To repeat yet again, this is not now a question whether the state of Israel should be recognised. Of course it should. It is a state like any other."

"I still do not understand how in principle there can be a right for Jews but not for Palestinians. In practice, if there is to be peace agreed rather than peace imposed, there will have to be some sort of compromise such as some in Israel and among the Palestinians have proposed."

"Adam B.
October 25th, 2010 10:53pm
Linda - that's exactly what Harold wants - for Israel to disappear as a Jewish state."

Your problem with reporting accurately what your opponents say seems not to be a one-off, but a repeated ploy.

As Harold said, it has the reek of bad faith, the same reek as your performance on the "Pallywood" thread.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "John Roosevelt has done us a service by summarising Uri Avnery's proposal. As I have said repeatedly, some such deal seems to me the most likely to allow Israelis to live in peace ans security, and the Palestinians likewise."

"Some such deal", indeed. Harold firstly conspicuously avoided adumbrating Anery's proposal. He now to our astonishment plays hop scotch again and says "some such deal"..Not quite what the "some" or "such" si, but...A little lie his arguments about Law, no. familiar whiff about it?

"The Saudis have been instrumental in putting forward a perfectly reasonable peace plan. It is not in their interests to have this conflict continue."

Yeah right....especially the part about refugees, Harold. A minor ditti, we know...As Shimon Peres rightly said: ""Israel wasn't a partner to the wording of this initiative. Therefore it doesn't have to agree to every word."

"Your opinion of what constitutes “a decent life” might be in accordance with that of Saudi Arabia, but I doubt that the non-Muslim..." You are trying a little too hard here to be snide."

I would save your barbs, if I were you Harold. You clearly have not seen Linda when she gets genuinely snide:)

A: what is it with your "paraphrasing" ? You sound like you have a peculiar strain of Propagandist's Torrets Syndrome.

A.

John Roosevelt
"A: what is it with your "paraphrasing" ? You sound like you have a peculiar strain of Propagandist's Torrets Syndrome."

The paraphrase for brevity was followed by your words verbatim, to allow you no room for denial. You find it irksome that I require you to be honest.

Linda Smith

Harold to me (26 Oct 3:25pm)

What are the "unsubstantiated allegations"? Surely not that pottedpropaganda.com has produced a complete travesty, because I think that can safely be classed as fact, as a quick look in the history books will confirm.

Stop bluffing and show us your evidence. We’re not playing poker.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

A: Your "paraphrase" was a cut and paste job and what you seemed to inferred from stroganoff of deceit made no sense to anyone, except your merry band of apparatchiks, no doubt. "No room for denial" indeed. You give chutzpah new definition, mate.

I have made a series of points and raised a number of question time and time again to this piece of work and he ignores them each time, as he normally does with those who flash the lamp into those hate-glazed pupils of his looking for a sign of life...He and you, for that matter, remind me of why people feel compelled resort to war..and it your attitude is precisely why war will continue in the Middle East.

Enjoy it.

Linda Smith

Harold to me "26 Oct. 5:33pm)

“I'll display my little, my very little learning by saying that on the question of law, you appear to adapt Euthyphro's dilemma, does God command it because it is good, or is it good because God commands it? - Is it law because the powerful say it is, or do they say it is because it is law? You are very clear that it is the former: the law is what the powerful say it is. This is plausible, but does not account for all the lawful actions we observe every day around us.”

You’re right about displaying your very little learning. Philosophy evidently isn’t your strong point. You appear to believe that God commands us to drive on the left.

A.

Mr. Roosevelt,
You fail to meet basic standards. You cannot or will not understand what is said to you. You persist in misrepresentation (since you find your words "make no sense", I will remind you: Harold said there are PLENTY of good arguments in Israel's defence, and you insisted on maintaining that he said there were NO arguments, despite being corrected repeatedly). When I pointed out your error or falsehood, your only response was to call me a liar and indulge in your habitual puerile abuse. This is not decent. It is not honest. Why do you think anyone should engage in debate with you on these terms?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

A: "Mr. Roosevelt,
"You fail to meet basic standards. You cannot or will not understand what is said to you. You persist in misrepresentation (since you find your words "make no sense", I will remind you: Harold said there are PLENTY of good arguments in Israel's defence, and you insisted on maintaining that he said there were NO arguments, despite being corrected repeatedly). When I pointed out your error or falsehood, your only response was to call me a liar and indulge in your habitual puerile abuse. This is not decent. It is not honest. Why do you think anyone should engage in debate with you on these terms?"

Mr A: you dont know what a profound relief it is for you to affirm, on Mr Harold's behalf, that "there are PLENTY of good arguments in Israel's defence". Phew....

That aside (not to mention the profound relief), there are also PLENTY of arguments Harold has employed with which to vilify Israel. I have taken issue with these arguments and also raised questions - none of which go answered by this venerable philosopher/legal pontificator (though, by his own admission, ignoramus).

Why the two of you are liars is very clear: like all good propagandists, once faced with head on refutation of your claims or arguments, you immediately cherry pick something said or written, cut and paste it to suit yet another spurious claim or argument - designed exclusively to distract from the sorry fact that you have been caught up the "back passage", looking for some warm place of refuge. Attack, in your lamentable book, then becomes your best form of defense. Unlike the Israelis, you're not good on the offensive.

I couldn't care less, Mr A, if you debate me or not. Suffice that any trash you get published gets shoved back on the tip - where it belongs.

Adam B.

Harold, I have not made a mistake. You, however, have misrepresented the founding of Israel, cl,aiming that the Arab pogroms against Jews were understandable, even before Israel was declared - legall Harold. You have consistently downplayed the virulent antisemitism which was a driving force behind the Arab states' and Palestinian Arabs' offensive to drive the Jews into the sea. And as for the British authorities "trying" to stop attacks against the Jews, that is simply laughable.

Harold

"Adam B.
October 28th, 2010 6:19pm
Harold, I have not made a mistake."

I don't know if this is simply forgetfulness. Look back to "Pallywood". I prefer to think it is forgetfulness. Otherwise, it is simply rank dishonesty.

"as for the British authorities "trying" to stop attacks against the Jews, that is simply laughable." - Yet again you give the distinct impression that your beliefs are firmly founded on ignorance.

Harold

LindaSmith,
I replied on your curious interpretation of refugee rights and 194, with references as requested. My reply has not appeared, despite repeated efforts.

Adam B.

Harold

Let me make it even plainer.

I have made no mistake you. YOU have. You claimed that the pogroms against Jews were "understandable." Says all we need to know about where you're coming from - unless, of course, you apologise for it now.

Maybe you should try a little honesty.

Lindsay

Adam B.
October 30th, 2010 9:28am
If I interpret your typo aright, you refuse to apologise for your mistake because you were not talking to Harold when you made it. You made your mistake when talking to me. It would be reassuring if you would acknowledge it and apologise for your carelessness or wilful distortion.

Adam B.

Lindsay - no mistake= no apology.

Clear enough?

Lindsay

Adam B.
It is indeed very clear. An apology and correction would have sufficed. But this is shameful.

"Lindsay
October 12th, 2010 7:37pm
C.Gee
October 12th, 2010 6:11pm

The MFA said 7 soldiers were wounded, 4 "moderately" of whom 2 "initially critical", and 3 "lightly wounded". In interviews and in talking to visitors in hospital, 1 soldier said he was shot in the stomach, 1 said he was beaten and stabbed and lost consciousness for 45 minutes, 1 said he was thrown to the lower deck and fractured his skull, and 1 suffered a broken arm when attacked. I assume these are the 4 "moderately" wounded. There is much good evidence for the nature of their injuries..."

"Adam B.
October 16th, 2010 11:08am
...Lindsay, your claims about Israeli casualties are, I'm afraid, simply incorrect. More than one soldier was stabbed. And at least two suffered gunshot wounds..."

"Lindsay
October 16th, 2010 1:22pm
Adam B.
October 16th, 2010 11:08am
I took my information in good faith from the IDF, the hospitals where the wounded were treated, the Israeli press, and the testimony of the commandos. If I am wrong, I apologise. I would appreciate the source of your information."

"Adam B.
October 19th, 2010 7:11pm
Lindsay

The references are freely available - try the Jerusalem Post and Wall Street Journal for starters. I didn't realize I had to do your research for you."

"Lindsay
October 19th, 2010 8:36pm
Adam B.
October 19th, 2010 7:11pm
You contradicted me with such confidence I thought you must have an authoritative source, which is why I asked.

I know official statements have been increasingly vague about gunshot wounds, which suggests there were none. I have only found a figure of seven wounded, two seriously. This is from official sites and the Israeli press. I would be interested where you found your information."

"Adam B.
October 19th, 2010 10:39pm
Lindsay...I guess the Israelis telling you about their casalties don't count then? Two suffered gunshot wounds and several were stabbed and/ or beaten. One was unconscious for 45 minutes whilst there was an attempted kidnapping of three..."

"Lindsay
October 20th, 2010 11:37am
Adam B.
It may be that you research has been no more thorough than mine.

In the immediate aftermath there was some confusion about casualties. I have taken my information from later reports from Israel.

The MFA stated that 7 soldiers were wounded, 4 "moderately" (of whom 2 were "initially critical") and 3 "lightly wounded".

In interviews and in talking to visitors in hospital, 1 soldier said he was shot in the stomach..."

"Adam B.
October 20th, 2010 1:39pm
And what conclusion do we come to about the injuries suffered by the IDF soldiers? What's the big point being made? What's your motive here?"

"Lindsay
October 20th, 2010 4:54pm
Adam B.
This won't do. You began authoritatively with, "Lindsay, your claims about Israeli casualties are, I'm afraid, simply incorrect."..."

"Adam B.
October 21st, 2010 12:11am
You're right Lindsay - it won't do. You started with the false assertion that one Israeli had been injured. You then contradicted yourself by admitting that 7 had been injured."

Adam B.

Lindsay, the shame lies with you. You claimed one Israeli had been stabbed, when it was widely reported that more than one had been stabbed, and two had been shot. Furthermore, you have repeatedly refused to examine the role of the jihadist IHH in the flotilla stunt, and you managed to turn a blog about the endless vilification of Jews and Israel into... a vilification of the Jewish state yet again, on an unrelated topic.

So get off your high horse with your faux indignation.

Lindsay

Adam B.
This will not do.

"You started with the false assertion that one Israeli had been injured. You then contradicted yourself by admitting that 7 had been injured."

This inability to admit a mistake is clearly something deeper than a mere debating ploy.

It is something you will have to overcome if you wish to be taken to be debating in good faith.

Linda Smith

Harold to me 29 October - 4 days ago! "LindaSmith,
I replied on your curious interpretation of refugee rights and 194, with references as requested. My reply has not appeared, despite repeated efforts."

I'm still waiting, Harold.

Harold

Linda Smith
November 2nd, 2010 10:50pm
I'm sorry. There is a limit to the number of times I will attempt to post a comment. I reached that limit a day or two ago. If you really need references from me to get beyond "pottedpropaganda.com", I may try one more time, if you will do likewise and suggest some references (other than "potted...").

Linda Smith

Harold, my mind is boggling as to why your "references" can't get past the Speccie's moderator. Your claim that you have repeatedly tried to post them up rings exceedingly hollow.

Harold

Linda Smith
November 3rd, 2010 11:04pm
You have clearly been more fortunate than me. I doubt it has anything to do with the nature of the references. I have found that perfectly fatuous point-scoring by me and others, and offensive nonsense from some I could name, appears without hindrance. Some posts do not appear first time, but do when re-sent. And some do not appear despite repeated attempts however innocuous their content. But thank you for implying I'm a liar.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Harold: "I have found that perfectly fatuous point-scoring by me and others, and offensive nonsense from some I could name, appears without hindrance. Some posts do not appear first time, but do when re-sent. And some do not appear despite repeated attempts however innocuous their content."

Harold, you know darn well it's a jewish conspiracy...far be it for you to imagine those who oppose you have posts which are not published at all.

Never mind, Harold...we know you love to be part of a victim culture...You bear it like a "sniffy" rag...

A.

It is remarkable that Mr. Roosevelt cannot understand even something as straightforward as Harold's last comment, where he says there is no pattern to what appears and what doesn't, so Ms. Smith's insinuation that he was claiming his references were censored has no basis. Why all the hufing and puffing?

JOHN ROOSEVELT

A: "A.
November 5th, 2010 10:22am
It is remarkable that Mr. Roosevelt cannot understand even something as straightforward as Harold's last comment, where he says there is no pattern to what appears and what doesn't, so Ms. Smith's insinuation that he was claiming his references were censored has no basis. Why all the hufing and puffing?"

Don't waste your time, A, on your posturing. Everyone understands your line as well as that of Harold, Lyndsay, Derek Blades.

There is a very strong consensus, without any doubt whatsoever, amongst most posters here think you all have in common a healthy dollop of the propagandist, using the veil of "human rights" and some determinedly unclarified notion of self-determination, nationalism, sovereignty, the kind of society you feel we should fight for etc - to cover in a miasma so-called "fair-mindedness" your rabid, unbridled detestation of Israel and the Jews in Palestine before their state was created.

You claim not to be anti semitic, though anti semitism - in your case - is, of course redundant. You certainly support a people and religion which has been at the forefront of anti semitism, particularly since Hitler gave it a nice little fillip.You excuse it, as you do everything these people do. You are cemented in the circularity of your arguments, which leads you to be likewise cemented in the circularity of violence which you claim is all Israel's doing but which you feel you have to do nothing to change.

You seem to think that anyone who opposes your attempts to hoodwink, as protecting all Israel's actions internally and externally (you hardly even enter that domain of discussion when it comes to Arab and moslem state and non state actors, of course) - which, unless you're certifiable (not to be ruled out), does not reflect well on such masters as you lot - of history, Law, philosophy and - perhaps most important of all - Logic (of which Harold, for one, is an avid student, if not professor of).

No, we all just abhor the quintessential deceit of your approach to this subject, particularly irksome as it is such a graphic reminder of the same - of the overwhelming majority of arab and moslem leaders over the last 90+ years - which has really infected the ethos of the conflict with what I am positive will prove an incurable virus for scores of years to come, unless nuclear war truncates that process (not to be ruled out, either).

Conciliation and compromise has not, unfortunately, proved a hallmark of the histroy of Islam, not to mention the relations between Arab and moslem states in the Middle East.
I see nothing on the horizon - not least the modus operandi of you and your merry twaddlemeister posters - which will change that.

This is a tragedy for all peoples in the region, not least the Palestinians. That is certainly worth a modicum of "huffing and puffing"...

JOHN ROOSEVELT

A: "A.
November 5th, 2010 10:22am
It is remarkable that Mr. Roosevelt cannot understand even something as straightforward as Harold's last comment, where he says there is no pattern to what appears and what doesn't, so Ms. Smith's insinuation that he was claiming his references were censored has no basis. Why all the hufing and puffing?"

Don't waste your time, A, on your posturing. Everyone understands your line as well as that of Harold, Lyndsay, Derek Blades.

There is a very strong consensus, without any doubt whatsoever, amongst most posters here think you all have in common a healthy dollop of the propagandist, using the veil of "human rights" and some determinedly unclarified notion of self-determination, nationalism, sovereignty, the kind of society you feel we should fight for etc - to cover in a miasma so-called "fair-mindedness" your rabid, unbridled detestation of Israel and the Jews in Palestine before their state was created.

You claim not to be anti semitic, though anti semitism - in your case - is, of course redundant. You certainly support a people and religion which has been at the forefront of anti semitism, particularly since Hitler gave it a nice little fillip.You excuse it, as you do everything these people do. You are cemented in the circularity of your arguments, which leads you to be likewise cemented in the circularity of violence which you claim is all Israel's doing but which you feel you have to do nothing to change.

You seem to think that anyone who opposes your attempts to hoodwink, as protecting all Israel's actions internally and externally (you hardly even enter that domain of discussion when it comes to Arab and moslem state and non state actors, of course) - which, unless you're certifiable (not to be ruled out), does not reflect well on such masters as you lot - of history, Law, philosophy and - perhaps most important of all - Logic (of which Harold, for one, is an avid student, if not professor of).

No, we all just abhor the quintessential deceit of your approach to this subject, particularly irksome as it is such a graphic reminder of the same - of the overwhelming majority of arab and moslem leaders over the last 90+ years - which has really infected the ethos of the conflict with what I am positive will prove an incurable virus for scores of years to come, unless nuclear war truncates that process (not to be ruled out, either).

Conciliation and compromise has not, unfortunately, proved a hallmark of the histroy of Islam, not to mention the relations between Arab and moslem states in the Middle East.
I see nothing on the horizon - not least the modus operandi of you and your merry twaddlemeister posters - which will change that.

This is a tragedy for all peoples in the region, not least the Palestinians. That is certainly worth a modicum of "huffing and puffing"...

A.

...And all that was prompted by my pointing out that Mr. Roosevelt had once again failed to understand what was said to him, namely, on this occasion, that comments fail to appear here fairly randomly and that their failure to appear has little to do with their content - which Mr. Roosevelt managed to take to be an accusation of conspiracy!

JOHN ROOSEVELT

A: it's clear you don't do irony, but don't use it as an excuse to fudge what we all say about you.

A.

Apparently that outpouring of whatever was... "irony". Fine cover for incomprehension.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

A:"A.
November 6th, 2010 11:38pm
Apparently that outpouring of whatever was... "irony". Fine cover for incomprehension."

A, you are more of hop-scotching twaddlemeister than you at first appear..and that is really saying something.

Again,Don't waste your time, A, on your posturing or lame attempts at obfuscation. Everyone understands your line as well as that of Harold, Lyndsay, Derek Blades.

There is a very strong consensus, without any doubt whatsoever, amongst most posters here - that you all have in common a healthy dollop of the propagandist, using the veil of "human rights" and some determinedly unclarified notion of self-determination, nationalism, sovereignty, the kind of society you feel we should fight for etc - to cover in a miasma so-called "fair-mindedness" your rabid, unbridled detestation of Israel and the Jews in Palestine before their state was created.

You claim, not to be anti Semitic, though anti-Semitism - in your case - is, of course redundant. You certainly support a people and religion which has been at the forefront of anti- Semitism, particularly since Hitler gave it a nice little fillip.You excuse it, as you do everything these people you support do. You are cemented in the circularity of your arguments, which leads you to be likewise cemented in the circularity of violence which you claim is all Israel's doing and which you feel you have to do nothing to change.

You seem to think that anyone who opposes your attempts to hoodwink, is protecting all Israel's actions internally and externally (you hardly even enter that domain of discussion when it comes to Arab and moslem state and non state actors, of course) - which, unless you're certifiable (not to be ruled out), does not reflect well on such masters as you lot - of history, Law, philosophy and - perhaps most important of all - Logic (of which Harold, for one, is an avid student, if not professor).

No, we all just abhor the quintessential deceit of your approach to this subject, particularly irksome as it is such a graphic reminder of the same - of the overwhelming majority of arab and moslem leaders over the last 90+ years - which has really infected the ethos of the conflict with what I am positive will prove an incurable virus for scores of years to come, unless nuclear war truncates that process (not to be ruled out, either).

Conciliation and compromise has not, unfortunately, proved a hallmark of the history of Islam, not to mention the relations between Arab and moslem states in the Middle East.
I see nothing on the horizon - not least in terms of the modus operandi of you and your merry twaddlemeister posters - which will change that or signal a change in that.

This is a tragedy for all peoples in the region, not least the Palestinians. That is certainly worth a modicum of "huffing and puffing" about...

A.

One last time. Now, concentrate.

Harold says there is no pattern to the comments that do not appear i.e. NO conspiracy.

Mr. Roosevelt's response ("ironic", allegedly)? - Oh, Harold knows there is a conspiracy. A Jewish(?) conspiracy. Harold likes to play the victim.

Irony? Incomprehension. Yet again.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Oh, A. You ain't half a silly billy...

Give it a rest, now...for everyone's sake.