Terror and moral imbecility

Mike Walsh

The moral and intellectual cowardice that characterizes the western mainstream news media isn't going to change any time soon. Thanks for continuing to stick it to them, and for staying on top of the stories they'd rather ignore.

Gershon

No doubt we will get an equally imbecilic comment from William Hague which will, of course, include that the mantra that the main obstacle to peace is the continued Israeli building of "illegal settlements".

Beedeekay

Once again Melanie, you have hit the nail on its proverbial head.

My wife and I have been in our holiday home in France since Friday and although we have frequently been watching Sky and BBC news, were unaware of the Gaza rocket attacks or Israel's response.

The western media is not only an active player in the Middle East but is directly culpable in the anti - semitism which is sweeoing the world.

Mikael Grut

How does Horowitz know that Palestinians killed the Fogel family? Nobody has been arrested. And even if they were killed by Palestinians, collective punishment is not acceptable. The Germans used to do that sort of thing during the war. Finally, as regards the rockets from Gaza, the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves. They want to return to the homes from which they were expelled during the ethnic cleansing of 1948.
Yours sincerely,
Mikael Grut

Merlyn

..And Israel should say so".

How do we get them to stand up for themselves?

Problem is the government here has no control of the media and is being led by it.

Western media know exactly what they are doing, using the Jews as a scapegoat to punish so that the Western actions are not questioned.

lucien

there is nothing more evil than one who will never recognise evil. If the brutal mass butchering of the Fogel family is not recognised as evil by the British MSM and enlightened liberals it is hardly likely that this infamy will be either

Truthtriumphs

The peerless Harold Evans wrote this in 2006, in response to the response "We are all Hezbollah now" by the left in 2006, (to the outcry at Israel's attempts to stop the missiles raining down, dispatched from Hezbollah's
arsenals.)
His comments are just as applicable to today's events.

"Are we not the cleverest of tacticians? (referring to the terrorists).If the human shield works, we are free to attack, and if it fails, Israel will bear the odium. What does it matter that our cruel deceit violates Article 58 of the Geneva Convention?"

Israel is always put into a lose lose situation, and Jewish life is cheap.
And she doesn't have oil.

Therein is the essence of the problem.

blue_&_white_avenger

Michael Grut: there are far more Jews who might like to return to their homes in Arab countries, from where they were ethnically cleaned in 1948, 49, 56, thru' to '67.
But they don't resort to slitting babies throats to drive home their point.
In case you've not noticed, Muslims are responsible for all the terrorist outrages around - 7/7, 9/11, Bali, Mumbai, Egypt against Copts, Iraq against other Christians plus now the Fogel family & previous some 200 acts of wanton terrorism in Israel up to 2006. Their proud Arab brothers lead the field in terrorism, kidnapping & bombings - it's what they excel at.

Jerry

In the United States, if you sit in the getaway car and someone is killed during the commission of a bank robbery, you are just as culpable for murder as the person who pulled the trigger. By ever so slight extension, the press who makes murder an acceptable alternative to war is culpable of murder as well.

mickey

Thankfully, we have you to turn to for an impartial and scrupulously honest appraisal of the situation in the Middle East.

Liz

Melanie, it is now 18:56 South African time. Still no mention of this outrage on the Daily Mail online front page. And I thought Jews owned the media....funny that.

Herbert Thornton

Melanie -

Most of the western media - including in particular the BBC - constantly seek to instill into western populations a frame of mind that makes them unable to recognise the direction in which current events are leading: the media are foolishly dedicated to the kind of opinion-forming that is undermining western civilisation. If not checked will lead it to the result that our civilisation has effectively committed mass suicide.

The media not only encourage the forces that are bent on destroying Israel and exterminating all Jews, but facilitate those same forces' ambitions to achieve an eventual Islamic takeover of Europe.

I would be unfair to wolves to draw a likeness, so it is more fitting to say that the media - and mainstream British politicians too for that matter - are like an assorted collection of scavengers - jackals, hyenas, and vultures - in sheeps' clothing.

What you write about the media is entirely correct, but I think nonetheless that you understate the breadth of their malevolence - and its effectiveness - in influencing human affairs.

NotaSheep

The Independent take the biscuit for this comment - 'Police said it was a "terrorist attack" - Israel's term for a Palestinian strike.'

Truthtriumphs

Mikael Grut.

"Finally, as regards the rockets from Gaza, the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves. They want to return to the homes from which they were expelled during the ethnic cleansing of 1948".

You are confused.
"Ethnic cleansing" was what the Arabs did to the Jews who had lived for more than 1,000 years in their countries.
They turfed them out, penniless.
When 5 Arab armies attacked the fledgling Jewish state in 1948 with the stated aim of driving the Jews into the sea, and lost, the resultant displacement of people was the consequence of losing a defensive war. It's what always happens.
According to your warped logic, all those displaced Jews from Arab lands are then entitled to bomb, murder, dispatch missiles etc.to "defend themselves to reclaim their homes"...as are millions of other ex-refugees worldwide.
But they don't.

Your sentiments are
"a sign either of profound ignorance or a depraved indifference to human life".
With apologies to Harold Evans.

N"L from Israel

@melanie:
Such bomb attack is planned for weeks.
It can't be a "response" to something happened yesterday.

@Gurt - Please answer:
Who started the 1948 war?
What was the goal?
Can you please explain why after the so called "1948 ethnic cleansing by Israel" there were a lot of arabs inside the Israeli state and 0 jewish people inside Gaza and the west bank?

David Makowsky

Mikael Grut - How do we know Israelis expelled "palestinians?" from their homes? No one was was arrested. And even if they were expelled by Israelis collective punishment like the rockets from Gaza is not acceptable. Finally Jews have a right to take possesion of all the land since they are legally and morally entitled to it.

Jerry

What is important to know about those at BBC and The Guardian is that the deaths of Arabs is no more important to them than the deaths of Jews. It would seem that the only deaths that they really count as important is their own.

Andy Gill

The BBC interviewer, whoever he is, should be boycotted by all Israeli politicians and public figures. If he can't do his job impartially, which he clearly can't, Israelis should refuse to speak to him.

cba

Melanie, the Fogel slaughter was absolutely disgusting in every detail, but in the interests of accuracy I point out that four were stabbed to death. The throat of eleven-year-old Yoav Fogel, z"l, "was sliced so deep that his head was nearly detached from the body" according to the paramedic who was the first responder at the Fogel's home. You can read his account of the horrifying butchery here: http://cifwatch.com/2011/03/22/idf-paramedic-who-arrived-at-itamar-shortly-after-brutal-attack-provides-first-hand-account/

Raymond in DC

The "obscene moral equivalence" was evident in the words of none other than President Obama, who said, "I condemn in the strongest possible terms the bombing in Jerusalem today, as well as the rockets and mortars fired from Gaza in recent days", with no hint of culpability. But then after offering "condolences for those injured and killed", he fell into full even-handed moral equivalence mode by adding, "we also express our deepest condolences for the deaths of Palestinian civilians in Gaza yesterday."

Unlike Obama, at least your own William Hague had the decency to focus on the fact that Israel is the victim here - expressing "the UK’s unwavering support for the people of Israel in the face of such horrific acts".

Most unseemly were the pro-forma condemnations from Abbas and Fayyad who condemned the act "whoever" was responsible, while noting how it undermined the Palestinian cause. No hint that the act was wrong, evil, immoral, sinful or inhuman, rather only an instrumental "it hurts our cause".

Dai of Edinburgh

Maybe the civilian caring UN should expand their intervention in Libya to include Gaza in order to stop the constant rocket attacks and cold bloodied slaughter of innocent Israelis. I'm reading too much Enid Blyton to my grandchildren.

Adam B.

Mr Grut, it takes, as Melanie has said, a particular degree of bone-headed malevolence to turn this terror attack into yet another chance to bash its victims.

There are 1.2 million Arabs in Israel. Compare and contrast to the fact that there is not one Jew left in Iraq (Baghdad was 40% Jewish within living memory for some). Nor is there a single Jew in any areas administered by the Palestinians.

You tell me who has been more adept at "ethnic cleansing".

Abbish

Thank you for this elucidation of something I've been trying to express and something 95% of the media seems to miss.

david

The Jews of Israel and the Fogel family are shat upon with honesty by Vultures.....the bbc has become an endless joke with the never ending punchline being the latest lie.

Grumpy true Zionist

people, people lets not get bogged down in the red herring/m grut debate
its irrelevant...a smokescreen

we, will hunt down, and lay waste to the murderous scum (and their handlers) and extract a 'pricetag', whether it be in a fancy hotel in dubai, or in the back streets of damascus, we will extract a price - know this

not a debate (on bbc) but a 'price'

Eyes open

Can one of the commenters who referred to collective punishment please explain how the targeted killing of terrorists on their way to fire rockets at civilians can be defined as this?

The death of civilians is terrible but in this case cannot be defined as collective punishment without ignoring most of the facts.

Also of note is that the IDF immediately started an investigation into the possible failure of intelligence that led to the loss of innocent life.

Shaun Harbord

"The Israeli bombing of Gaza's terror infrastructure had been an attempt to deter further such attacks; regrettably, some Gazan civilians had been killed in the process." Plainly, by your own evidence, the Israeli bombin is not working; it's not having the desired effect. So why not abandon that tactic as a failure and try something constructive instead?

Santorum

The BBC haven't ignored the rocket attacks. They reported the latest incidence yesterday .

Julius O'Malley

Indeed the Western media is a player in the MIddle East and has been since the 1960's at the latest. The tragedy is that generations of media "consumers" (as the Gramscian propagandised cohorts of 'Media Studies' and 'Communications' undergraduates en route to becoming Western "journalists" are trained to so regard the citizenry of their nations) still believe they receive their news from 'observers'.

Michael

Let's stop misidentifying the real culprits in this disgraceful perversion. It's not the "media" at work here, but individual journalists who should be individually named, shamed and shunned by decent people wherever they go.

Realistic

To Mikael Grut - Actually there were arrests made in the Fogel Family murder. In general, Israel does not make the details public until the investigation is complete for security and legal reasons. Horovitz knows.

Thomas

We all agree it is wrong to target civilians. Even civilians enjoying the spoils (where would we all be otherwise!). Even citizens of a state committing crimes (where would we all be otherwise!).

We are all comfortable agreeing that civilians get killed when they are not targets (although we do regret it extremely). If their government is bad (we think), then it is simply their bad luck. We use precision weapons. Our soldiers are ethical to a fault. But collateral damage happens. Boys gathering firewood. Boys gathering scrap metal. Wedding parties. Schoolchildren in class. If bad people live in their midst, bad things happen. It may be we who kill them, but the baddies are the ones responsible.

If thugs in Fallujah kill mercenaries come to kill them, then the citizens of Fallujah must perforce suffer.

30000 killed collaterally present no moral problem. 3000 killed indiscriminately or deliberately do. If some terrorist kills 3000 of ours and our state kills 30000 of his, to condemn not just the terrorist, but our state too, is moral relativism of the worst sort. If some state kills none of ours but we kill 300000 of theirs because our state thinks theirs a threat, to condemn not just their state, but our state too, is moral relativism of the worst sort. If our state is built on land they lived on (think of your classic Western), to condemn not just them for refusing to leave us in peace to enjoy the land...

Beside our exploits (we the US and Britain), the actions of Israel are very small beer. The condemnation of Israel (by us in Britain and the US) is disproportionate. It is a perfect example of the mote and the beam.

Nevertheless, even for Israel it is worth providing some statistics. They are for the year to the end of January. They do not argue for moral relativism. They do provide some context for our moral responses to the events of the last month. To a lesser extent than Cast Lead, or 2006, or most intervening years, but still... The figures are for deaths only, injuries are not included.

Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces – 147.
Palestinians killed by Israeli civilians – 5.
Israeli security forces personnel killed by Palestinians – 4.
Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians – 7.
Palestinians killed by Palestinians – 37 (good work, the PA!)

Some further breakdown:

Palestinian minors killed by Israeli security forces – 19.
Israeli minors killed by Palestinians – 1.
Palestinians not taking part in hostilities killed by Israeli security forces – 46.
Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces where it is “unknown” whether or not they were taking part in hostilities – 17 (best to be sure, just in case!)
Palestinians taking part in hostilities killed by Israeli security forces – 78.

2010 was a relatively light year.

We all agree that it should always be accepted that Israel only ever "retaliates". We have written the history of the last hundred years to prove this to our satisfaction. (A bit like us in Britain and the US - we are always simply going about our business looking after the interests of the corporate capitalism we all benefit from, when we are inexplicably attacked and are forced to retaliate. We have written our history to illustrate this universal truth.)

We in Britain, the US, and Israel appear to be very sure of our own virtue, very sure we should be afforded unswerving obedience, very sure we are within our right to kill those who disobey or attack us or who simply get in the way. We all agree. Why should those whose families we kill?

Okey

In 1948 the Arabs ethnically cleansed the "West Bank", Gaza and East Jerusalem of Jews by massacring all but a tiny number of survivors.
The "Michael Gruts" of this world don't care about that. They're in the mendacity business.

Okey

Thomas: don't cloud the issue.
The Arab-Muslim-leftist axis is determined to wipe out Israel and its Jewish inhabitants. Then they will proceed with phase 2.
The axis would very much prefer Israel and the Jewish People to passively endure slow extinction. That won't happen whether you like it or not.

jim comfortr

Oh Melanie, you are always so right. I wish it were not so, however the world seems to be against Israel and the Jewish people. Will it ever end.

Ian Hills

Terrorist groups have always been loved by left wing organisations such as the BBC, and I for one will not be paying them to spread hate propaganda any longer. The license fee can go to hell.

Gerry

The woman who was killed was British, but I doubt that will make any difference to the BBC or the Guardian. They'll probably say she had no business being here.

Anna

"The interviewer asked whether this bomb attack was most likely in response to the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza in which eight civilians, four of them children, had been killed."

Umm... I wonder if the same BBC journalist would ask the same question his dear PM or mr. Sarkozy/Obama right now. I mean about this little bombing they happen to promote in some little remote country named Libya.

Thomas, there's no question it's wrong and immoral to kill civilians no matter on which side they are.
As for statistics you provide in your post - in our part of the world you can't trust it completely. Just a couple of months ago IDF was accused of killing some poor palestinian woman by gas during the Bil'in demonstration. It took a couple of days for IDF to reveal that she has died from cancer in the nearby hospital (possibly because of cancer mistreatment, but I digress) and didn't participate in demonstration at all.
I know that you'll say those are Israeli realeased numbers - yet the problem is they are based on Palestinian reports which couldn't be verified in each and each case. And we just happen to reveal now and then that they distort the numbers including downright lies about the actual facts.
By the way those tactics were and are applied in many other conflicts as well. Mr. Gaddafi now anyone? Do you think those victims numbers and cause of their death can always be checked and verified?

Bob

The Israelis fall for it every time whenever a BBC Journalist gets in their faces with a microphone.

Just say that, "On past performance you report the news in a biased fashion and we refuse to speak to you"

Anna

In addition to my earlier post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/finally-a-hamas-leader-ad_b_798429.html

John

The Media is simply the enabler and facilitator of antisemitism. One day they will be judged for these crimes. Of course, not only the media but also simpletons like Mikael Grut.

Derek BLADES

"Horovitz replied correctly that the recent atrocity of note had been the cold-blooded massacre of the Fogel family ...."

Not really. The more recent atrocity was the killing by the IDF of eight Palestinian civilians including four children.

Are Palestinian lives worth less than Israeli lives?

"...and if Israel should take military action to stop the attacks, the world ..."

What nonsense. Israeli "miltary action" never stops anything. It just adds to the death toll on both sides and further alienates Israel's few remaining supporters.

JJS

Blades, show me where anybody has said Jewish lives are more important than Palestinian ones? You keep accusing us of thinking that but clearly it's the likes of you who actually think that. Unless, of course, you think they're worth less. So either way you show your hypocrisy. Worm your way out of that one! (And you'll try....)

Davod

This from the VOA transcript "Palestinian officials say Israeli military strikes in the Gaza Strip have killed eight people, including four civilians, as tensions continue to rise on the Israel-Gaza border...Also Tuesday, Palestinian sources said an Israeli airstrike near Gaza City killed four Islamic Jihad militants. Israel said its warplanes fired on militants about to launch rockets at Israel..."

Seems that four of the dead are not civilians.

Grumpy true Zionist

see that the poster boy for the 'palistinian victim society' has laid down another gem for world order:

'What nonsense. Israeli "miltary action" never stops anything. It just adds to the death toll on both sides and further alienates Israel's few remaining supporters.'

so derek blades (he /she /it), pray tell...wtf would be your response to the seious uptick of mortars/katushas and now grad rockets fired into a country very close to my heart

turn the other cheek perhaps-order another round of gee n' tees, write your local council, cancel your membership of the cricket club.......nah

if ya got any balls, what you do, is get out there, and kick them in the nuts.....until it registers

there now explained it in a vernacular that maybe even you as a confused, 'give the shop away' brit might on a good day comprehend

Derek BLADES

In commenting on statistics quoted by Thomas in his thoughtful piece on "collateral damage", Anna writes "As for statistics you provide in your post - in our part of the world you can't trust it completely."

For well documented statistics on the conflict, Anna should click on www.rememberthesechildren.org. The 1457 Palestinian children and the 124 Israeli children killed since September 2000 up to the end of last year are listed by date giving their name, age and circumstances of death. The organisation explains how its statistics are compiled and how its records are maintained.

In the period mentioned, collateral damage - or just plain death - “happened” to Palestinian kids over ten times more often than to Israeli kids. And there are people on this blog who betray the Israelis as victims! Makes you wonder doesn't it Anna?

Carl

@Davod - but at least four are civilians. Is it the latest stance that it doesn't matter if it is military from either side that gets killed, or does this just apply to Palestinians and not Israelis?

veryneat

Unfortunately, this is a clear indicator that the delegitimisation campaign is working. This is the nightmare scenario: making the world safe for another holocaust.

veryneat

Unfortunately, this is a clear indicator that the delegitimisation campaign is working. This is the nightmare scenario: making the world safe for another holocaust.

Thomas

Anna
March 24th, 2011 6:59am
Could I just mention that there are organisations who take the trouble to investigate these deaths. They talk to the families and consult the hospitals and read the death certificates. The listen to the IDF.

The IDF, it has to be said, tends to change its story on such incidents so frequently that it must on occasion be guilty of being less than frank.

And there is a keenness to believe that the deaths are hoaxes that at least matches the keenness of the Palestinians and their fellow travellers for martyrs.

And the alleged victims do tend to end up very actually dead with wounds that suspiciously and coincidentally correspond to what the doctors say and the eyewitnesses claim. And this is year in and year out.

I think you just have to accept that the statistics are accurate. It is not plausible that there are so many hoaxes that manage to produce so many corpses.

Another thought: We all instinctively respond to terrorism with the same horror. Look at footage of Gaza or of Jerusalem yesterday. The response of those there is the same and is echoed by our own response. We all condemn terrorism as atrocious and barbaric. But that does not get us very far.

We have here a people who got the land by terrorism condemning the terrorism of the people who lost the land.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Tonight, the BBC reported on the nature of the rebel opposition to Gadhafi.

To illustrate that the rebels at least had enthusiasm for "the cause", showed anti Gadhafi cartoons - one of which portrayed him as a Jew - the ultimate insult..The BBC reporter, of course, made no mention of the degree to which Jew hatred is part of the dna of this great 'democratic"movement (as opposed to the extent to which Islamism informs it).

Interesting...

Yasmin Khan

More people should be standing up for the truth and supporting people like Melanie Phillips. The media is actively helping the enemies of the Western Democratic World by twisting the truth. Chapeau Ms. Phillips for your courage!

Adam B.

Thomas, utter nonsense. The land was not "lost", nor was it "gained" by terrorism.

Hanna

Derek BLADES

Many Palestinian children have died and been accidentally killed as a result of their elders' terrorism; but not one of them has been 'murdered'.
Unlike ALL the Jewish children
in your statistics.

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Mikael Grut.

"Finally, as regards the rockets from Gaza, the Palestinians have the right to defend themselves. They want to return to the homes from which they were expelled during the ethnic cleansing of 1948".

Mr Grut . like the great Jihadi preacher worshipped by so many of the hallowed Egyptian deomcratic revolutionaries - Qaradawi - feels that there is no cuplable killing of a Jew in Israel (or anywhere) - man, woman, 3 month old baby - because the state of Israel has committed injustice against the Palestinians.

When the Palestinian bombs kill those who have nothing to do with the injustice that this mullet wants us to believe he understands or cares for - like the British bible student - then, I guess, the British Govt has every right to murder as many palestinians as it sees fit - whatever age, whatever sex, armed or not...

..or has this sublime fool some other, albeit secret formula to justify killing innocents? Perhaps, like NATO seems to i.e. when it chooses to intervene in Libya for humanitarian reasons, but not Iran, Syria. Yemen etc.?

This twit represents the moral malaise which has has infected the body politic of most of the world. No discussion makes a difference to the lunacy.

If he is not one already, he should become a journalist or politician.

Derek BLADES

Mikael Grut raises an important point about rocket fire from Gaza. The villages in Southern Israel that are under attack are precisely those where the Palestinian refugees formerly lived. They are telling the Israelis that if they choose to live on land which the Palestinians believe is rightfully theirs, they must accept the consequences.

I am sure that even JOHN ROOSEVELT will agree that the Palestinians have a good point there. Just calling Mr Grut a twit is less than helpful.

Please try to understand the other chap's point of view for once. Difficult for a closed mind but not impossible.

Grumpy true Zionist

'Just calling Mr Grut a twit is less than helpful.'

you're right
how about 'ignorant' twit

Truthtriumphs

Drek BLADES
March 24th, 2011 1:43pm

"Horovitz replied correctly that the recent atrocity of note had been the cold-blooded massacre of the Fogel family ...."

I see, so, according to you it's acceptable to break into a home, stab to death sleeping, defenceless children....resistance....
but it becomes terrorism when the IDF target Hamas rocket launchers, embedded in the civilian population of Gaza ( breaking Article 58 of the Geneva Convention), to try to stop the rocket bombardment directed at Israel's southern towns which terrorise and kill civilians.

It's well documented that the Arab world spends billions of dollars on proaganda, far more, in fact, than on feeding the "starving Palestinians".
You wouldn't be one of those in its employ, by any chance, would you?

Truthtriumphs

Drek BLADES
March 25th, 2011 8:20am

"Mikael Grut raises an important point about rocket fire from Gaza. The villages in Southern Israel that are under attack are precisely those where the Palestinian refugees formerly lived. They are telling the Israelis that if they choose to live on land which the Palestinians believe is rightfully theirs, they must accept the consequences".

Ah, so now you admit that it wasn't enough to withdraw totally from Gaza.
The only acceptable endgame is the total withdrawal of Jews from Israel itself.
That's the Blades recipe for peace, is it?
Except that the Arabs are busy killing each other all over the ME, aren't they, old chap?

And by extrapolation of your exquisite logic, all the Jews brutally evicted from their homes in Arab countries, penilless, where they had lived for 1,000 years plus, are thus entitled to bombard Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, lebanon, Tunisia, Algeria etc. etc. because they are entitled to retrieve the homes and land which are rightfully theirs.

You're doing a great job, Blades, of exposing the true nature of the anti-Israel lobby, for all to see.
Carry on the good work!

Mr R

Blades does an unexpected about turn and asks "Please try to understand the other chap's point of view for once. Difficult for a closed mind but not impossible." WHEN HAVE YOU EVER DONE THAT?????????

He also says: "They are telling the Israelis that if they choose to live on land which the Palestinians believe is rightfully theirs, they must accept the consequences." Of course, their mere belief does not make it true, does it? Especially as their "belief" has no legal or moral basis. So M Grut's "important point" is important only to those who wish to justify existing anti-Semitic feeling and inculcate more where it does not yet exist.

Eugene

A big part of the problem is that Israel hasn't got the guts to "say so" and has thus been actively participating in its own delegitimisation.

Truthtriumphs

Drek Blades.

"In the period mentioned, collateral damage - or just plain death - “happened” to Palestinian kids over ten times more often than to Israeli kids. And there are people on this blog who betray the Israelis as victims!"

It's what happens when your weltanschaung is "we love death more than you love life".
It's what happens when you dress toddlers up as suicide bombers, and teach them that death and martyrdom is what Allah wants.
It's what happens when you bring up children with hatred in their hearts, and a love of violence and conflict.
Get it, old chap?

Thomas

Adam B.
March 24th, 2011 11:05pm
"The land was not 'lost'". It most certainly was. "...nor was it "gained" by terrorism." It most certainly was. Dip into the archives of the Israeli militias and the IDF and the witness statements of victims who survived.

Hanna
March 25th, 2011 3:25am
It wasn't murder. It was accidental. It was the fault of someone else. Phew! We're in the moral clear then.

Can I suggest you consult Remember the Children. Hold your nose and read the record compiled by B'tselem and any other human rights organization that has bothered to look into the matter. (I know they are every last one of them ideologically unsound, and the corroborated facts they report therefore untrustworthy - but give it a go.) Be radical - read Goldstone (boo! hiss!), read a journalist who doesn't rely on the MFA or the IDF. Be even more radical - read a history book. Take the first war in Lebanon, for example, or the second, or the third. Take the history of the occupation of the West Bank. In fact, take any history that has to do with Israel and the Palestinians. Try reading a version that has not been written by a staunch Zionist.

See how your certainty that Israel is morally in the clear bears up.

Truthtriumphs
March 25th, 2011 4:05pm
Is the moral degradation you display so proudly caused by ignorance or...moral degradation?

Adam B.

No Thomas, it was not "lost" because it was not Arab to begin with. You cannot "lose" what you did not own. That you start from such a skewed stance demonstrates that all else that follows is bound to be false.

charles soper

Well written, Melanie Phillips.
The Western ostrich is digging in.

Thomas

Adam B.
March 25th, 2011 11:47pm
Squatters in their own homeland. Clearly they had to be evicted -and the most efficient way was to terrorise them (and use terror on Britain to persuade it that stopping them evicting the squatters was too costly).

Okey

Thomas, don't you feel even a tiny pang of guilt, shame or at least discomfort when you use the word "morality"?
Your posts suggest that there is a dissonance between your ability to articulate the word and your comprehension of it.

Mikael Grut

TO DAVID MAKOWSKY PLEASE
'How do we know Israelis expelled "Palestinians" from their homes?'. Read for example 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine' by the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe (ISBN 978-1-85168-467-0).

zeitgoose

Thomas

your defence of the terrorism is "you look into it and you'll find that the israelis are not in the clear morally"

it is hardly surprising that the enemies of israel believe that the palestinians have the right to pursue their goals by any means, whilst the israelis are not morally entitled to defend themselves.

but how dare you accuse anyone of moral degradation?

wonderer

@Derek BLADES
March 25th, 2011 8:20am

"The villages in Southern Israel that are under attack are precisely those where the Palestinian refugees formerly lived. They are telling the Israelis that if they choose to live on land which the Palestinians believe is rightfully theirs, they must accept the consequences."

Until they were driven out by the Egyptians in the 1948 war there were Jewish communities in what is now the Gaza Strip that had been designated for inclusion in the Arab state proposed under the UN partition plan. Your logic would justify Israel shelling those areas without provocation.

Thomas

zeitgoose
March 26th, 2011 11:50am
Thomas

your defence of the terrorism is "you look into it and you'll find that the israelis are not in the clear morally"

"Defence of terrorism"? Good try.

Thomas

Okey
March 26th, 2011 10:26am
You do righteousness very well. You seem to think it sufficient.

Martha

Thomas, you do righteousness very well.About as well as you do logic.And morality!

JOHN ROOSEVELT

Derek Blades: "What nonsense. Israeli "miltary action" never stops anything. It just adds to the death toll on both sides and further alienates Israel's few remaining supporters."

Blades implies that the opposite would be true if only Israel would not indulge in military action - whatever the reasons for it (blood lust or self defense....you ask God which, 'cause it's so hard to understand...of course).

Well, we know for sure that Israel would thereby kill less Palestinians..but do we know that Palestinians would kill less Jews? Do we know that there would be more supporters of Israel, as a result, or is Blades merely concerned with Israel (whom he so profoundly cares for ) alienating those "last remaining ones" - including those who the Islamists (and many on the Left) wether explicitly or, when pushed, imply that they think conspiratorially rule the world?

Blades, of course, is being typically disingenuous.

Firstly, he couldn't care less to preserve that "small island" of the "few remaining supporters" of the country he clearly despises.

Secondly, he couldn't care less if the Palestinians keep killing Jews with impunity, even if they are three month old babies who would have their throats slit (No, no, don't get upset! This would all be in the name of 'freedom fighting"...the unfettering of those Jewish chains!!).

Thirdly, Blades has no clue - at best - if Israel's desired (by him) passivity, in the face of the deliberate murdering of its civilians by Palestinians (an irrefutable Crime against Humanity sanctioned by its leaders and apologised for, if not incited, by the likes of the BBC, Guardian, the Blades' of this world etc)..would do anything at all to convince those who inform the Palestinian leadership agenda, not to mention that of all the other most significant players reigned against Israel in the fight for Palestinian "freedom", that they could now see a way of genuinely accomodating the jewish state and , finally, agreeing to recognition of its right to exist as a jewish state.

None of these anti Zionist mullets, who pretend that if only Israel would play nice and not defend itself; if only there were no Settlements and the Green Line would become the official boarder of Israel/a new Palestinian state, Allah would allow peace to stick to Jew and Moslem alike.

..but where do they - does Blades - get this from? Is there anything at all one could point to (let alone that Blades EVER points to) that convinces that this is the case? Do they really want us to believe that the Qutbist ideology that has infused the Moslem Brotherhood, Hamas and Islam in the entire Middle East and beyond, counts for little or that it does but is in fact, merely some gorgeous variant of Western liberalism and would accept the Jew as a force in the Middle East or the world?

Do these people really believe that this form of Islam - the most influential in the entire world of Islam - does not hold - as a central tenet of faith - that anyone who does not follow their religious path is against them and God - be they (particularly) Jew, Shiite, secularist or "reformist/liberal" moslem?

No. Blades doesn't care...For some reason - and we cannot know if it's some kind of clinical condition of intellectual and spiritual anomie or something more mundane (to impress a moslem girlfriend, or because he is a paid PR man for "the cause") - he persists in spinning the same old tropes - conflating , in lofty tones, seeming practical political panaceas with hysterical moral outrage - farting against the thunder of the Jew's imperialism and love of sacrificing the babies of the non believers, so to speak.

In short, this man Blades, is a mess...and, as such - along with his comrades - a painfully graphic measure of the tragic mess which is this conflict and, I'm afraid, the Palestinian and wider Arab and moslem political and social culture of the Middle East.

Now, of course, the narrative will take on a new hue...i.e. the arab "street" is now rising up to claim the true democratic ground that the tyrants (not Jews?) have prevented them from occupying. That all they want is "freedom" and "democracy" - the good of all Mankind...and this, we see, is illustrated in their grafitti and slogans , their tirades against their tyranical leaders - the daubings on their walls and their cartoons so many of which feature Stars of David and/or vocal accusations to embrace the universal conviction that those who have kept them in chains are, at best, Jew-lovers.

Jew hating is the one common denominator of the the "revolutionary Spring" which has "broken out" across the Arab and moslem world - causing the liberal-left and intelligentsia in general in the West, to get so intoxicated with the terrible beauty of it all! Jew hating underscores the notion that some things just never change...particularly in the Arab and moslem Middle East.

WE need to remain vigilant in the face of the persistent deceit Blades and those like him. Israel should be prepared to fight till the last....This malaise of intellectual and moral anarchy will not go away...

Thomas

Terrorism is to be condemned without equivocation and without exception.

We all condemn Palestinian terrorism.

Why is Israel to be an exception, either in the past or now?

The rationalisation for making an exception now appears to be that Israel can ignore the ruling of the international community on occupation but insist it is upholding the ruling of the international community on self-defence (it is not).

In other words, hypocrisy.

Adam B.

Thomas, it was not their land. That's the point.

I trust you are as worked up about the real ethnic cleansing of a greater number of Jews from the Arab world?

Adam B.

Mikail Grut, Pappe, by his own admission, does not approach the conflict with an attempt at impartiality.

Read Benny Morris' destruction of Pappe "history".

Thomas

Adam B.
March 26th, 2011 6:44pm
You imply that Benny Morris Mark II is impartial?

How we all laughed!

The Palestinians were the inhabitants i.e they lived there. They had lived there for generations. But the land apparently belonged to absentee landlords and the Turks (under Ottoman law). The absentee landlords sold the land the Jewish immigrants (well...6% of the land, which isn't nothing). State lands passed to Britain (well, legally not quite - Britain held them in trust for the inhabitants), and Britain passed the state lands to the Zionists (well, legally not quite, but why spoil a good story that justifies - at least for the morally obtuse - ethnic cleansing).

Have you ever bothered to look beyond your favourite little websites to study the history of the Jewish exodus from Arab states?

Proud Israeli

Comments like Grut's below are the horrible evidence to the hipocracy Israelies are facing. Palestinians made that massacre, not anyone else.
Regarding the rockets from Gaza, the Palestinians are not defending themselves. They attac using means of terror against civilian population.
The proof that the Palestians do not want any compromize is that they do not accept Israel at all, even not in 1948 borders.
Do people like Grut want to help the Palestinians? They better convince them to be realistic and accept the existence of Israel. Until then, Israel will defend its citizens.

Adam B.

Thomas, your claims are absurd, and based on revisionist nonsense. The idea that all Arabs living in Israel had been farming the land for generations, whilst the Jews fell out of the sky is an ahistoric myth, (did you not hear of the Arab immigraion which ran aslongside Jewish immigration? that is why Palestinian "refugees" are counted as Arabs and their descendants who lived there for a total of two years) as is your claim that Israel is not "quite" legal. Not many countries have been made legal through a UN vote, but Israel is one of them.

On what legal basis does the UK exist? Really, you need to do better than that.

Anna

Oh dear,
I had earned the response from Derek Blade himself! What an honor. :)

And Thomas as well.(I liked how his comments echoed those of Blades).

All the Israelis who read this will have a good laugh about Betzelem co-operation with that site you take your statistics from. I know I had.

Ann

Thomas, how about commenting AFTER being in possession of the facts, not before? Regurgitating the lies emanating from the UN etc is no substitute for the actual history of the Middle East.
See:
http://llphfreedom.blogspot.com/2011/02/essay-by-howard-grief-legal-rights-and.html
Howard Grief: Legal Rights and Title of Sovereignty of the Jewish People to the Land of Israel and Palestine under International Law.

Adam B.

Apologies for the poor English in the last post. Rather, it should read that the term Palestinian "refugee" applies to any Arab who lived in Palestine for a total of two years and their descendants in perpetuity. The same criteria do not apply to any other set of refugees in the world, including the Jewish refugees from Arab lands.

Derek BLADES

JOHN ROOSEVELT had the impertinence to refer to me as one of the "mullets" who "pretend that if only Israel would play nice and not defend itself.... Allah would allow peace to stick to Jew and Moslem alike."

I do not "pretend" anything, I do not believe that Allah plays any significant role in the matter, and I do not want Israel to stop defending itself.

I want Israel to stop stealing Arab land in the occupied territories and sit down to peace talks leading to a two state solution. JOHN ROOSEVELT my not have noticed but this is also what the United States, the United Kingdom and the United Nations would like to see happen.

Some of the less gifted contributors to this blog have referred to me as a schmuk and a schmoe. Mullet is a new one. Where does a mullet rank vis-a-vis a schmuk and a schmoe?

Derek BLADES

@ Ann

Howard Grief bases his claim that Israeli citizens have the right to steal Arab land in the occupied territories on “global political and legal settlement, conceived during World War I and carried into execution in the post-war years between 1919 and 1923." (I quote from the web page you cite.)

Mr Grief is referring to agreements reached during what is now usually termed the "colonial period". I suggest you take a look at the more recent rulings of the United Nations and International Court of Justice. As I think I have mentioned earlier, the Wikipedia pages on the Israeli settlements will give you the generally accepted view on the illegal nature of the settlements. Google "wiki Israeli settlements" and all will be revealed.

Thomas

Adam B.
March 27th, 2011 2:05am
You're not given to honesty. Did I say that all Palestinians farmed the land?

There were approx. 730k Palestinians, Muslim and Christian, and 60k Jews, Palestinian and immigrant at the end of WW1. There were approx. 1.3m Palestinian Muslims and Christians in 1947, and 600k Jews (200k of them citizens of Palestine). There were Arab immigrants in the 1920s, many of whom left in the 1930s as the troubles got worse and jobs dried up. How many of the Jews were immigrants?

To repeat, there was a settled population of approx. 800k in Palestine at the end of WW1. It was an agrarian society. There were city dwellers. There were peasants. They had lived in Palestine for generations. Most were Muslims. Some wre Jews (who did not fall from the sky).

No amopunt of pettifogging propaganda from you changes the facts.

By 1947, Jewish immigratns had managed to buy something like 6% of the land.

The state lands of the Ottoman Empire did not pass to Britain. Britain administered them in trust for the people (including native Jews and, thanks to the Mandate, immigrants).

Britain gave up as Mandatory Power. The proposal for partition caused a civil war. The UN tried to set up a new trusteeship. Israel proclaimed its independence unilaterally and acquired the land by force. Ottoman state lands were not acquired legally by Israel. Land owned by Palestinians was not acquired legally by Israel.

Again, your propaganda does not change the facts.

Adam B.

Thomas, you mix truth with utter nonsense. Israel declared independence, and was legally entitled to. It was then illegally attacked by 5 armies from surrounding Arab neighbours, who illegally tried to wrest control of the areas designated as Jewish under the UN partition plan (which the Jews accepted and the Arabs rejected). There was nothing legal about this Arab attempt at genocide, whilst there was eveything legal and above board about Israel's declaration of independence.

What is your point here? What is the endgame in your little scenario?

Adam B.

I take it Thomas, that as you don't think any state land belongs legally to Israel, you also don't regard any state land as belonging to the Palestinian Authority or the Hamas administration in Gaza.

Don't you?

Truthtriumphs

Thomas
March 26th, 2011 7:16pm

"The Palestinians were the inhabitants i.e they lived there. They had lived there for generations. But the land apparently belonged to absentee landlords and the Turks (under Ottoman law). The absentee landlords sold the land the Jewish immigrants (well...6% of the land, which isn't nothing). State lands passed to Britain (well, legally not quite - Britain held them in trust for the inhabitants), and Britain passed the state lands to the Zionists (well, legally not quite, but why spoil a good story that justifies - at least for the morally obtuse - ethnic cleansing)".

So are the Arabs in the Holy Land - Natives or Aliens?

Before the beginning of the 20th century, there were practically no Arabs in the Holy Land. Historically, a "Palestinian" people never existed. The English name "Palestinian", to describe the local Arab population, was invented AFTER the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. The Arabs who now claim to be natives of the Holy Land have migrated to Palestine and invaded the land after 1917, from neighbouring Arab countries. The Jews, despite 2000 years of persecution and forced conversions by various conquerors, have throughout most of history been the majority population in the Holy Land. In Jerusalem Jews were always the largest demographic group, except for periods when conquerors specifically threw them out and prevented them from returning.
When General Allenby, the commander of the British military forces, conquered Palestine in 1917/1918, only a few thousand Muslim Arabs resided in the Holy Land. Most of the Muslims in the area either came from Turkey under the Ottoman Empire, or were the descendants of Jews and Christians who were forcefully converted to Islam by the Muslim conquerors. These Muslims were not of Arab origin.

It is important to note that estimates and censuses conducted by the Muslim conquerors were biased. Therefore, the only reliable data is provided by non-Muslim sources. Tourists and politicians, Arabs and non-Arabs alike, have documented their observations of the population in the Holy Land beginning more that a thousand years ago.
•The historian James Parkes wrote: "During the first century after the Arab conquest [640-740 CE], the caliph and governors of Syria and the Holy Land ruled entirely over Christian and Jewish subjects.

•In year 985 the Arab writer Muqaddasi complained: "the mosque is empty of worshipers... The Jews constitute the majority of Jerusalem’s population".

In 1377, Ibn Khaldun, one of the most creditable Arab historians, wrote: "Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel extended over 1400 years... It was the Jews who implanted the culture and customs of the permanent settlement".

In 1695-1696, the Dutch scholar and cartographer, Adriaan Reland (Hadriani Relandi) , wrote reports about visits to the Holy Land. He was fluent in Hebrew and Arabic. He documented visits to many locations. He writes: The names of settlements were mostly Hebrew, some Greek, and some Latin-Roman. No settlement had an original Muslim-Arab name with a historical root in its location. Most of the land was empty, desolate, and the inhabitants few in number and mostly concentrated in Jerusalem, Acco, Tzfat, Jaffa, Tiberius and Gaza. Most of the inhabitants were Jews and the rest Christians. There were few Muslims, mostly nomad Bedouins.

In 1835 Alphonse de Lamartine wrote: "Outside the city of Jerusalem, we saw no living object, heard no living sound. . .a complete eternal silence reigns in the town, in the highways, in the country."
In 1844, William Thackeray writes about the road from Jaffa to Jerusalem: "Now the district is quite deserted, and you ride among what seem to be so many petrified waterfalls."
In 1857, the British consul in Palestine, James Finn, reported: "The country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants and therefore its greatest need is that of a body of population."
In 1866, W.M. Thomson writes: "How melancholy is this utter desolation. Not a house, not a trace of inhabitants, not even shepherds, to relieve the dull monotony ... Much of the country through which we have been rambling for a week appears never to have been inhabited, or even cultivated; and there are other parts, you say, still more barren."
In 1867, Charles Wyllys Elliott, president of Harvard University, wrote: "A beautiful sea lies unbosomed among the Galilean hills, in the midst of that land once possessed by Zebulon and Naphtali, Asher and Dan ... Life here was once idyllic, charming ... It was a world of ease, simplicity, and beauty; now it is a scene of desolation and misery."

In 1867, Mark Twain - Samuel Clemens, the famous author, toured the Holy Land. This is how he described the land: "There is not a solitary village throughout its whole extent - not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles, hereabouts, and not see ten human beings. ... No man can stand here by deserted Ain Mellahah and say the prophecy ["and your land shall be desolate and your cities waste"] has not been fulfilled ... We had left Capernaum behind us. It was only a shapeless ruin. It bore no semblance to a town, and had nothing about it to suggest that it had ever been a town ... These unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barrenness... A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but is given over wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse... the country is infested with fierce Bedouins, whose sole happiness it is, in this life, to cut and stab and mangle and murder unoffending Christians. Allah be with us! ... A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life and action. We reached Tabor safely. We never saw a human being on the whole route ... After a while we came to a shapeless mass of ruins, which still bears the name of Bethel. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country... No landscape exists that is more tiresome to the eye than that which bounds the approaches to Jerusalem. It was such a dreary, repulsive, horrible solitude! ... Ancient Jericho is not very picturesque as a ruin... The journey to the Dead Sea, the Jordan and Bethlehem was short, but it was an exhausting one. Such roasting heat, such oppressive solitude, and such dismal desolation can not surely exist elsewhere on earth... Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince....It is a hopeless, dreary, heart-broken land. Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. ... one finds only a squalid camp of fantastic Bedouins of the desert... Nazareth is forlorn... Jericho the accursed, lies a moldering ruin, ... Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation, ... is untenanted by any living creature... Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village... The noted Sea of Galilee ... was long ago deserted ... Capernaum is a shapeless ruin; Palestine is desolate and unlovely."
In 1874, Reverend Samuel Manning wrote: "But where were the inhabitants? This fertile plain, which might support an immense population, is almost a solitude.... Day by day we were to learn afresh the lesson now forced upon us, that the denunciations of ancient prophecy have been fulfilled to the very letter -- "the land is left void and desolate and without inhabitants."
In 1881, the British cartographer Arthur Penrhyn Stanley wrote: "In Judea it is hardly an exaggeration to say that for miles and miles there was no appearance of life or habitation."

In 1892, B. W. Johnson writes: "In the portion of the plain between Mount Carmel and Jaffa one sees but rarely a village or other sights of human life... A ride of half an hour more brought us to the ruins of the ancient city of Cæsarea, once a city of two hundred thousand inhabitants, and the Roman capital of Palestine, but now entirely deserted."

In 1913, a British report, by the Palestinian Royal Commission, quotes an account of the conditions on the coastal plain along the Mediterranean Sea: "The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track, suitable for transport by camels or carts. No orange groves, orchards or vineyards were to be seen until one reached the [Jewish] Yabna village. Houses were mud. Schools did not exist. The western part toward the sea was almost a desert. The villages in this area were few and thinly populated."

Any more proof needed ?

C.Gee

Thomas:

“Again, your propaganda does not change the facts.”

“In fact, take any history that has to do with Israel and the Palestinians. Try reading a version that has not been written by a staunch Zionist.”

Do you think that this sort of thing lends you objectivity?
And if objectivity, also authority?

I have read nothing that reveals anti-Zionism to be the considered logical, legal, or moral conclusion of disinterested observers. If you start with the idea that Jews are political outlaws, then that is where you will end up. And that is where Jews end up. History will prove indisputably that that is the case, over and over again.

Okey

Thomas, D. Blades and other suchlike, your propaganda cannot alter the truth about the justice of Zionism and Israel, and the injustice and mendacity of Israel's enemies, both near and far.

Nachman

Melanie

saw you on Israel TV absolutely awesome - we are so fortunate to have someone as articulate forthright and unafraid to speak the truth. Thank you I am sure it opened a number of Israeli eyes to what is going on in the UK and the West. The clip of the interview has gone viral!

Thomas

C.Gee
March 28th, 2011 12:46am
"Do you think that this sort of thing lends you objectivity?"

- No. I have at least tried to read the versions of both sides and of "neutrals". This is more likely to provide an understanding of events that the approach of such as Adam B. They appear to rely wholly on propaganda websites.

" If you start with the idea that Jews are political outlaws, then that is where you will end up."

Oops. Now that is what I would call an illegitiamte, not to say dishonest, move. Anything but objective or authoritative.

Thomas

Truthtriumphs
March 28th, 2011 12:22am
I see you persist in grotesque denial.

The Ottoman official records are not to be trusted? They surely had an interest in accurate figures, for taxation, if nothing else. But the Ottomans, you see, were Muslims.

British records are not to be trusted, because...er...because the Muslims lied to them and they were taken in. Britain had very little experience in the administration of native populations.

Only tourists, and explorers are to be trusted! Mark Twain!

We can all play this game. Laurence Oliphant reported, in 1882, that the Plain of Esdraelon, where the JNF were keen to buy land was "a huge green lake of waving wheat."

During the Mandate, the Shaw Commission looked into the question whether JNF land purchases were displacing Arab tenant farmers. It found that "there is no alterntive land to which persons evicted can remove." There was "no further land available which can be occupied by new immigrants withour displacing the present population." Can I remind you that by 1947, the Jewish immigrants had purchased something less than 10% of the land - what then does the Commission's findings tell you about population density before then?

There are academic historians, ethnograhers etc. who have made a serious study of the area. Make a serious effort to seek them out instead of repeating stale lies from propagandists.

Thomas

Martha
March 26th, 2011 2:26pm
I have tried a couple of times to say you are quite right that I'm as likely as any to lapse into self-rightousness. I suspect we all are when body parts are flying.

Look again at what Truthtriumphs said. He said, in effect, that, if the parents are bad (and teach the children bad things and dress them up as bad people), then the children will die. And he concluded, with ineffable smugness, "Get it, old chap?"

No doubt what he intended to say, but didn't, was that, if the children and their families live in the vicinity of bad people who do bad things, then the children are at risk of death. If bad people insist on firing rockets indiscriminately at the civilians living in the villages they (or their parents or grandparents)were evicted from (which we all agree is a crime), then they put the children in harm's way and it is entirely their fault if they come to harm - if they are killed or injured by flechettes, DIME bombs, phosphorus, cluster bombs, tank shells, aerial bombardment by fighter jets or helicopters, plain old rifle fire or mysterious experimental weapons that burn unstoppably through flesh and bone or shatter internal organs without exterior wounds or...

I am sure you are as good at logic as righteousness and can detect something of a nonsequitur here.

Adam B.

I note Thomas that you have not been able to respond to either of the points I put to you. Instead, you keep repeating that I read propaganda websites - without providing evidence for that claim either.

Where does that get us? I could equally say you read propaganda websites. Try sticking to the merits of an argument instead of these childish and baseless ad homs.

Thomas

Adam B.
March 28th, 2011 7:21pm
I am so chastened by your stern rebuke that I cannot bring to mind any two points of yours worthy of response, and scrolling back I cannot find any. Remind me.

Adam B.

My points of 28th March 12.15am and 12.18am.

Namely, do you regard any possession of state land by the palestinian Authority and Hamas as illegal - as you do so with Israel? Also, clarify whether you regard Israel's declaration of independence as illegal, but the subsequent Arab attempt at genocide with mass invasion by five Arab countriesas legal.

Thomas

Adam B.
March 29th, 2011 6:46pm
You ask me whether Israel's UDI was legal. You think it was. What is it you think bestowed that legality? I suspect you have overlooked what actually happened at the UN.

I would say that Israel's UDI was successful. I don't think it can claim any more. And I don't think by now that it needs to.

You ask whether the "Arab attempt at genocide with mass invasion by five Arab countries is legal".

The Palestinians' representatives refused to accept that Palestine be split up, at the behest of foreign powers, and more than half given to a minority of its inhabitants and an unspecified number of foreign immigrants. The Palestinians' representatives were not very representative, but the opposition of the Palestinian population to Britain and to Zionism had been very evident and persistent since Ottoman times. So, while many of them would no doubt have carried on as they had since time immemorial, with just yet another imperial power in government, it is fair to say that the opposition of the representatives reflected the feelings of the people.

The Arab states came to the defence of the Palestinians at the specific request of their representatives. They came to prevent Palestine being supplanted by a state for a minority if its inhabitants, a state established with foreign aid. By the time they had got their ramshackle act together, they came in practice (though they failed) to try to prevent the further slaughter and eviction of Palestinians as Israel conquered the whole territory.

Bloodcurdling threats by such incompetents did not frighten the Israelis - they knew they could win. The British and Americans were equally confident the Israelis could win. The generals of the armies of the Arab states were equally confident the Israelis could win, which is why they told their governments as much. These stories of massed armies intent on genocide may coincide with what Ben Gurion and his genrals said in public, but in private their opinions were very different. The more you read about it, the more you will understand the reasons for their confidence.

Whether the intervention of the Arab states was legal or not is not clear. We can go through some of the arguments if you wish. My answer is that I don't know.

You ask whether I think the land belongs to the PA and Hamas.

Clearly some representatives or other, preferably chosen in an appropriate way, would have to represent the Palestinians in any negotiations with the representatives of the Israelis to achieve a settlement to the conflict. I would hate to think they would be either the PA or Hamas.

Palestine was held in trust by the Mandatory Power for its people. The Mandatory Power relinquished its role as trustee and neglected its duties. The UN failed to provide a successor and failed to find agreement between the parties in Palestine. Israel by a combination of UDI and military conquest acquired about 75% of the territory. Palestinian civil society by contrast imploded.

In these circumstances, who has legal title to the land? I don't know. What is clear is that the Palestinians had at least as good a claim as the Israelis. At least as good.

I would be interested to know how you think it legal for Israel to appropriate the property of the Palestinians it had expelled, who had a legal right to return but were shot at if they tried.

Steve

Thomas

"I would be interested to know how you think it legal for Israel to appropriate the property of the Palestinians it had expelled, who had a legal right to return but were shot at if they tried."

And I would be interested to hear what you think should happen to all the jewish property and land appropriated by Syria, Jordan, Iraq etc. and whether you think the decendents of these people are morally entitled to bomb these places until they get THEIR houses back.

Thomas

Steve
March 30th, 2011 12:14am
There you are again. I've noticed you turn up to hurl one or other of the "debating points" from the manual, and then disappear when required to debate.

I think the relevant states, including Israel, should be pursued for compensation - just as many of the Palestinians are going to have to make do with pursuing Israel for compensation.

I think Israel should be honest about its role in the exodus (if US officials as well as Israeli are to be believed). I think the Arab states should finally open their archives, at least to the extent that Israel, Britain etc. do. We might then get closer to the whole story.

Adam B.

Thomas

That was a study in avoiding answering the questions. You made the accusation that Israel’s declaration of independence was illegal. I asked you to provide the basis for such a claim. Instead of providing it, you have avoided a substantive reply by merely turning the question round to me, asking me why it is legal. If you make such claims, you need to be able to back it up. You have not.

You then say it does not matter anymore in any case. So why did you bring it up? Because you wish to delegitimize Israel altogether. Your position is extreme Thomas. We are not talking about this or that policy, or disputed territory. For you, the very existence of the Jewish state in any form in the region is anathema. That is not the position of someone who has any answers to current problems (except a very final one).

You go on to present the Arab invasion of Israel by five armies as completely legitimate. I asked you why this was legal – there was no UN mandate for such an invasion, and the stated aims of the invasion was to ethnically cleanse all Jews from the region. Indeed, all Jews who lived in areas overrun by Arab forces (that is ALL Jews, every last one) were either killed or ethnically cleansed from those areas. Furthermore, the ancient synagogues of Jerusalem were systematically destroyed and the Mount of Olives desecrated. None of this is legal Thomas. Yet your bending over backwards and sideways to present this war of genocide as merely a legitimate response to the UN sanctioned rebirth of Israel is absurd – and again demonstrates a disturbing extremism.

Finally, you have been caught out on your claim that Israel has no legal entitlement to state land within its borders. I asked you whether the Palestinian Authority under Fatah or Hamas then had legal entitlement to state land in territories administered by them. You admitted you didn’t know. Yet it is strange that, whilst you would deny Israel and rights to any state land, you have no problem with the Palestinian authorities claiming legal entitlement to state land that they run. In other words Thomas, you shamelessly operate a transparent double standard, which is not based on any legal argument at all.

pterodactyl

"As usual, Israeli victimisation is thus denied in an obscene moral equivalence – which invariably turns Israel from a victim attempting to defend itself into the aggressor"

Thomas

Adam B.
March 30th, 2011 10:32am

You said that the Palestinians could not lose their land, because they never owned it. I took you to mean, not land in private ownership (which they did own, obviously), but Ottoman “state lands”. It is often said that the state of Israel inherited this land simply by conquest. Unfortunately, this gives it no legal claim at all (unless its victims accept their loss). I took you to be relying on the notion that there was some sort of legal transfer, from the Ottomans to Britain, as the Mandatory Power, and from Britain to Israel (perhaps via the UN). I pointed out that this argument cannot work. Britain did not own the land and nor did the UN. So, Israel did not acquire the state lands legally from Britain or the UN.

You then said, “as you don't think any state land belongs legally to Israel, you also don't regard any state land as belonging to the Palestinian Authority or the Hamas administration in Gaza.”

Well, no. I said that Israel did not acquire the state land legally. The League of Nations and its successor, the UN, acted as trustee for the people of Palestine, who were ultimately sovereign. The people of Palestine in 1947 comprised the Muslim and Christian population and the one third of the Jewish population who were citizens, and no doubt the other two thirds could quickly have been granted citizenship. (Some argue that the Mandate bestowed Palestine on Jews wherever they happened to live. I do not know the basis for this claim. I have seen no evidence in the treaties to support it.) The state land presumably belonged legally to the people of Palestine and was for them to use as they saw fit.

So much for the history. Now, sixty years after Israel took the lands, the question is how the parties can come to a belated legal settlement. The government of the state of Israel obviously represents the former Jewish citizens of Palestine and their descendants. Whoever wins a free and fair election in the West Bank, Gaza, and among the diaspora, would presumably represent the rest of the citizens of Palestine and their descendants. As I said, I hope that this does not mean either the PA or Hamas. Whoever it is, the Palestinians have already bowed to the reality of the balance of power and recognized Israel within the armistice lines. In other words, they accept that the private land and state land illegally acquired by Israel is now Israeli (although the settlement will have to include some form of restitution - return for some and compensation for all; luckily Israel kept very detailed records of what it purloined).

This is as far as my knowledge goes. Israel acquired the land illegally. Any settlement of the matter now will require negotiation between the representatives of the two parties to the dispute. The precise legal status now of the land in question I am, as I said, ignorant of. I don't know if your legal expertise goes beyond mine.

As to your other question: I said that Israel did not acquire state or private land legally. You said something more general: that Israel was made legal by the UN, that the UN provided Israel with a “legal basis”, that Israel was legally entitled to declare its independence (and presumably was therefore entitled to take Ottoman state lands within its self-declared borders). You now insist that it is for me to say why your claims about the UN sanctioning the creation of Israel are false, and not for you to say why they are true. This is an odd way to present the burden of proof. I have explained my assertion. You feel yourself exempt from explaining yours. “If you make such claims, you need to be able to back it up.”

“You then say it does not matter any more in any case.” Well, no. I said, “I would say that Israel's UDI was successful. I don't think it can claim any more. And I don't think by now that it needs to.” It makes little difference to the continued existence of Israel. It has the fourth or fifth most powerful army in the world and the support of the only superpower. It may matter a great deal to the Palestinians. If the world, and in particular the US, comes to acknowledge that Israel's claims of “legitimacy” and righteousness are a smokescreen (white phosphorus, if you will) to hide a simple land grab, then it may be that the world, and the US in particular, will be less willing to wink at Israel's completion of its annexation. (So I suppose you could argue that, while it may not matter for Israel's continued existence, it does matter as justification for its continued expropriations.)

“You go on to present the Arab invasion of Israel by five armies as completely legitimate.” Well, no. This is careless. I said, “Whether the intervention of the Arab states was legal or not is not clear. We can go through some of the arguments if you wish. My answer is that I don't know.”

You say that you then “asked why this (invasion by Arab states) was legal”

Let me remind you what you did say:

“Israel declared independence, and was legally entitled to. It was then illegally attacked by 5 armies from surrounding Arab neighbours, who illegally tried to wrest control of the areas designated as Jewish under the UN partition plan (which the Jews accepted and the Arabs rejected). There was nothing legal about this Arab attempt at genocide, whilst there was everything legal and above board about Israel's declaration of independence.” You then demanded, “clarify whether you regard Israel's declaration of independence as illegal, but the subsequent Arab attempt at genocide with mass invasion by five Arab countries as legal.”

I answered your question: Israel's UDI had no sanction from the UN; and I do not know whether the Arab states had any legal right to come to the aid of the Palestinians when asked. Now you ask why. Again, the burden of proof is with you. It is you asserted that Israel's UDI was legal and the intervention of the Arab states illegal. If you give your reasons, I will do the same.

I hope this is clearer for you than my previous attempt to answer.

Adam B.

Thomas, you appear to be labouring under several misapprehensions - and take several assumptions on your part to be beyond question.

Firstly, you have been unable to explain with any evidence your accusation that Israel declared itself illegally. The UN partion vote is as clear as can be. Israel declared independence in the areas assigned to it under the UN partition plan. The Arabs as a totality (not just the Palestinian Arabs under the Nazi collaborator Grand Mufti) rejected it. They did not reject it because they disputed the borders - they rejected it in principle - that principle being that there should be no Jewish state, whatever its size. Simultaneously, they did not want any Jews to live in an Arab state - hence the calls to drive the Jews into the sea. It really wasn't much of a choice for the Jews.

The Palestinians did not "ask" for assistance from the neighbouring Arab states, who did not wait for any such requests. They illegally launched an invasion of the UN recognized territory of Israel. In addition, the Palestinians as well as the Arab armies engaged in a mass programme of ethnic cleansing against Jews (expelling all from the Old City of Jerusalem, the holiest site on earth for Jewish people - despite the fact that Jews comprised the majority population of that city) and massacring of Jewish villages - whilst they also held pogroms against their own Jewish populations inside their own borders.

As for "state" land, it is quite obvious you have no idea what you're talking about. State land is administered by the governing body of the land, and yes, during the British Mandate, that would mean the British authorities. It is untrue that the Palestinians have accepted Israel and recognize it - indeed, this is a widely held, false belief. Hamas rejects not only Israel, but the right of any Jew to live on this planet - indeed, it is committed to the genocide of every living Jew in its founding charter. As for Fatah of the Palestinian Authority, its Holocaust denying leader Abbas has repeatedly made clear what he means by "recognition". He "recognizes" that Israel does exist, that there is a country called Israel, but he does not recognize its right to exist, and he does not recognize it as a Jewish country. Nor does he accept that any Jew should be permitted to live in a future Arab state of "Palestine".

So no Thomas, you are wrong about Israel being "illegal" and you are wrong about its use of state land. Indeed, I think your views are extreme, not based in reality and motivated by a deep seated hatred - to the degree of wishing to delegitimize an entire country.

Thomas

Adam B.
March 30th, 2011 11:24pm
So confidently wrong on every count. We come back to my previous advice - extend your reading beyond Zionist propaganda.

Adam B.

Thomas

No. It is you who have made a series of false accusations, without any evidence whatsoever. When called to provide it, you have not.

It is clear that you have been indoctrinated through selective reading material. Please research in greater depth.

Steve

Thomas,

I have made it abundantly clear on these blogs, several times, that I am no legal expert and have no vested interest in this matter. I merely find the aggressive and thinly veiled anti-Jewish rants of the likes of you, Blades and others extremely depressing and curiously captivating.

You people continually claim that Israel is intransigent and aggressive whilst demonstrating not a single hint of anything that would make it impossible to describe you as anything but intransigent and aggressive. The fact that you cannot see this would be an hilarious irony if the stakes weren’t so high for real people who are really affected by these matters.

I try not to waste time debating with people who clearly have closed minds and it seems increasingly clear that you are another one of those people. You know the type; they are absolute un-disputed experts on international law and Middle Eastern history. They are absolutely sure that they understand the motives of every Palestinian and Israeli that has ever existed. And they know for certain that the problem is always Israel and only Israel. In other words they refuse to grow up.

I will, however ask again - What do you think should happen to all the Jewish property and land appropriated by Syria, Jordan, Iraq etc.? Do you think the descendents of these people are morally entitled to bomb these places until they get THEIR houses back?

Thomas

Adam B.

Your original contention was that the Palestinians couldn't lose their land because they never owned it. I can see why you might think this of state lands, and consider Israel's acquisition of them legal, relying on the legitimacy of its UDI. I have yet to find you explain why you think this of land privately owned.

You think 181 made Israel's UDI legal.

One of the sub-committees of the ad hoc committee working on the resolution asked for an advisory opinion from the ICJ, to determine whether the Balfour Declaration violated the right of the Palestinian population to self-determination, whether the indigenous population had the right to determine the status of Palestine, and whether the General Assembly had the power to propose or enforce a territorial settlement on Palestine. The ad hoc committee narrowly decided against, prompting the sub-committee to criticise the majority for giving insufficient weight to the “juridical aspects of the Palestine question”.

The ad hoc committee voted 25 for, 13 against, with 17 abstentions, to recommend partition, with the Jewish Agency and the Arab Higher Committee to establish two states with economic union, with a transition of two years. Jews were 30% of the population (only 1/3 of them citizens of Palestine). They owned 6% of the land. Partition would give them 56% of the territory, with 499k Jewish inhabitants and 509k Arab. The proposed Arab state would have749k Arabs and 10k Jews.

In the Assembly, most initially considered the resolution an infringement of the rights of the Palestinians. By order of the White House, the US used “every form of pressure direct and indirect to make sure of the necessary majority” (Under Secretary of State Welles). “The pressure and arm twisting applied by American and Jewish representatives in capital after capital to get that affirmative vote are hard to describe”(Dean Rusk). The State Dept. feared that the prestige of the UN would be damaged were the “notoriety and resentment attendant upon the activities of US pressure groups” to become public. In the event, the resolution just managed to get the required two-thirds majority (after 8 abstentions were “persuaded” to vote for). The Assembly voted 33 for, 13 against with 10 abstentions. Those voting for were all of Christian lineage. Those against were Muslim. At the time, someone pointed out that those who voted against accounted for 29% (480m) of the population represented at the General Assembly; those who voted for 34% (560m); and those who abstained, 38% (625m). 400m were not represented at all.

In March 1948, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution calling on its permanent members to work out how partition could be effected. By this time, the prime mover for partition, the US, was already having second thoughts. A report to the Secretary of State noted the Palestinian Arabs rejection of partition and said that, in light of their rejection, partition ran counter to their right of self-determination and should be abandoned. Britain also told the Security Council it would not implement partition if either party objected. In April, at the urging of the US, the Security Council, realising that partition was impractical and unenforceable, asked the General Assembly to “consider further the question of the future government of Palestine” i.e. four months after working to get the Assembly to approve partition, the US had now asked the Assembly to abandon it. The US was now working to avoid further violence by making Palestine a UN trusteeship.

When Britain had put the matter to the UN, it was asking the Assembly, under Article 10 of the Charter, to exercise its power of recommendation. In the Security Council discussion that led to the abandonment of 181, the US said that Assembly recommendations have “only moral force”.

181 contemplated voluntary compliance: a UN commission “after consultation with the democratic parties and other public organizations of the Arab and Jewish states” would “select and establish in each state a provisional council and government.” Since there was no cooperation with such a commission, 181 remained a recommendation only.

181 also “requested” the Council to “determine as a threat” any attempt “to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution.” But this too was a recommendation only. The US commented on it, “that the Charter does not empower the Security Council to enforce a political settlement made pursuant to a recommendation of the General Assembly.” The recommendation was in any case against foreign powers preventing the two parties voluntarily establishing two states.

181 did not purport to convey title to territory, and, since partition had not been accepted by the parties, no territorial rights were created. 181 had failed. It was a dead letter.

Israel has insisted that the General Assembly was legally competent to determine the future status of Palestine and that Resolution 181 carried binding force. But to repeat, the General Assembly is not a legislature. Articles 10, 11, and 14 of the Charter give it only the power of recommendation. It thus has no legal authority to impose partition. It has no power to convey title. It cannot assume the role of territorial sovereign.

It has been argued that this may apply in general, but Mandate territories are different.. The argument relies on the ICJ opinion on Namibia. The assembly asked whether South Africa was required to conclude a trusteeship with the UN and whether it had the power to modify the status of the mandate territory unilaterally. The court found that the Assembly had supervisory powers, but those powers based on Article 10 i.e. on its power to recommend. It was also argued, in a minority opinion, that, since South Africa's actions were disallowed by the terms of the mandate, authority to resolve the matter devolved on the other members of the League and the people of South West Africa as third party beneficiaries. This was also the opinion of the US and of the subcommittee charged with looking at the question: “neither the Assembly nor any other organ of the UN is competent to enforce a solution with regard to a mandate territory.” There is much more to argue over in this case. But the ICJ was asked its opinion on a case involving a Class C Mandate where the Mandatory Power was attempting to incorporate the mandate territory against the wishes of the population. The ICJ did not give an opinion on whether the Assembly had the power to decide the status of a mandate territory (let alone a Class A Mandate) against the wishes of its population.

If Resolution 181 were considered a binding determination of future status, it would violate the rights of the population to self-determination, since partition would be enforced against the wishes of the majority. Moreover, the population had specific rights under the UN Charter, which states that the rights of a people under a League of Nations mandate may not be altered to its detriment.

It has been argued that even if the Arabs of Palestine once had a right to self-determination, they forfeited it by not establishing a state as recommended in Resolution 181. But Resolution 181 proposed a solution that would violate the Arabs' right to self-determination. They cannot be considered to have forfeited their right to self-determination by rejecting a proposal which would have violated that right.

Another argument is that even if the General Assembly did not have the power to issue a binding decision, the Security Council “re-affirmed” Resolution 181 and thereby made it binding. Reference is made to Security Council Resolution 42 in which it asked its five permanent members to make recommendations regarding “instructions the council might usefully give the Palestine Commission to implement the resolution of the General Assembly”. Reference is also made to Resolution 46 calling on the parties to do nothing that would frustrate the claims of the other. And Resolution 54 in which the Council decided a truce should remain in force “until a peaceful adjustment of the future situation of Palestine is reached.”
But none of this language implies an affirmation of Resolution 181 by the Security Council. When in April 1948 it realized that the resolution was unrealistic it abandoned it. And even if the Council had “re-affirmed” it, that would not be enough to make it binding. The Security Council does not have the power to dispose of territory.

In short, 181 was a dead letter. It provides no legal basis for Israel's unilateral declaration of independence and subsequent conquest of most of Palestine.

Steve

Thomas,

Cutting through the wind-baggery, is it accurate to sum up your position as follows:

When the UN, ICJ etc. votes or decrees against Israel they are un-disputable legal bodies. When they act in support of Israeli positions they are not.

Is that it?

I am stilll waiting for confirmation of your support for the use of violence by and/or the payment of reparations to dis-enfranchised Jews. Will that be coming any time soon?

Adam B.

Steve, all of Thomas' verbiage demonstrates two things:

1. He has not made a case that Israel is "illegal", despite his previous allegations that Israel declared itself "illegally".

2. He has not been able to prove that Israel has no jurisdiction over its state land (whilst he would gleefully accept Palestinian control over state land. He has at least backed away from his previous ridiculous assertion that the governing body of a territory has no power iover state land).Instead, we get a long opinion (not a legal case) as to why he thinks the UN's partition plan was wrong (note he says the Jews owned 6% of the land, but doesn't say how much was in Arab ownership. Nor does he mention the little fact that 80% of Palestine had been given over to the Arabs in 1922 to form Transjordan, current day Jordan. Nor does he mention the Arabs were given the fertile ground in the partition plan, and the Jews given mostly desert wilderness). Like you said, he likes the UN when it suits him.

This is extremist nonsense, and doesn't get anyone anywhere. It simply serves the purpose of delegitimizaion, which is really the agenda here.

In any case Thomas, the Arabs did not reject the Partition plan for the reasons you have problems with it. They didn't dispute borders, or land ownership. They rejected the notion of any Jewish state, whatever its size - outright. They rejeceted that any Jew could remain to live there at all. No amount of wriggling gets you out of this.

Don't hold your breath for any answers about Jewish refugees from Arab lands anytime soon.

teresa

Bravo Thomas. When it comes to legitimacy I'm for facts and due process and so are you. It can be a lonely [and somewhat tedious] position to take when among the ideologically committed, but I, too, recommend the study of the facts of history from a broad range of authorities and the complete avoidance of national myth/fantasy from both sides.

Steve

Adam

"...(note he says the Jews owned 6% of the land..."

I assume also that he means 6% of the whole mandate region, including modern day Jordan to make sure that the statistics are skewed as far as possible to suit his self-righteous World view.

Richard

Adam B.
April 1st, 2011 11:55pm
I fear you misunderstand what Thomas has written. The alternative is that you are dishonest.

Israel based its claim for the legality of its declaration of independence on Resolution 181. It was a recommendation only, and the Security Council in the end rejected it in favour of a UN trusteeship. It provided no legal basis for Israel declaration. What then is its legal basis? There is none. Thomas has made his case. You made no effort to provide a substantive response.

Israel declared its independence in the territory designated in Resolution 181. This declaration had no legal basis. It conquered the rest of its territory. Territory taken by military force is not legally acquired. Israel's claim to state lands rests on its illegal acquisition. Thomas has taken the trouble to prove this to you. You have not managed a rebuttal.

Thomas does mention a few of the facts that make the partition a grotesquely unjust proposal. His main purpose is to inform you of the sequence of events and the international law of the time that caused Resolution 181 to be a dead letter before Israel tried to rely on it for its claim to legality. You cannot dismiss the history or the law just because it doesn't suit you.

The Mandate Treaty between Britain and the League of Nations that promised a Jewish National Home in Palestine gave Britain the option to treat the land east of the Jordan differently from the land west of it. If you think the mandate created an obligation to help the Zionists, then you have to accept that it also allowed Britain to establish Trans-Jordan. Trans-Jordan has nothing to do with the population of Palestine and is irrelevant to the discussion (though a standard trope on the propaganda websites you rely on).

You are misinformed on the allocation of prime agricultural land.

I am not sure what you refer to when you say he likes the UN when it suits him. He applies its principles consistently and points out that Israel does not.

The Palestinians did indeed reject a Jewish state in their homeland. Thomas has not said otherwise. He has merely reminded you of some of the principles of international law which give them just cause to reject a Jewish state in their homeland. They did not reject Jews living in Palestine. They had lived with Jews in Palestine for centuries.

He replied immediately on the question of refugees from Arab states. I join him in advising you to acquire a better grasp of the facts before getting too righteous.

The quality of your response to Thomas is deplorable.

Adam B.

Richard, this is revisionist nonsense. Israel was the party which was attacked. Your argument is that Israel should not exist, and has no right to exist, whilst you applaud Arab rejectionism. I do not have the time to respond in detail at the moment but will respond in a few days.

Richard

Adam B.
April 2nd, 2011 12:39pm
The term "revisionist" is bandied about as if it ends the dispute. Revision to Zionist myth is much needed. You really should go back and study the civil war in Palestine and the intervention of the Arab states and not rely on myths as shaky as the foundations provided by Resolution 181. None of the arguments put forward for the legitimacy of Israel's establishment stands up to scrutiny. Israel is now very evidently a state like any other. The only point in showing how false are its claims to righteousness is to try to prevent the completion of its colonial imposition on the native population and bring it to negotiate peace in good faith. Given the poor quality of your response to Thomas, I do not expect much from anything you might say to me.

Richard

Steve,
As with maps, so with statistics, I am able to help you out, although again, I suspect, you will ignore my help. Jewish immigrants had purchased 6% of the land in Mandate Palestine (Trans-Jordan does not come into it). In the territory notionally allocated to the Zionists in the partition, Jews owned 11% of the land. In every region of Palestine, the Jewish immigrants were in a minority. In their notional stae under partition, they were in a minority.

Okey

Richard: you are absolutely mistaken. Territory taken in a war of defense is legally taken.
In 1947-48 first the pre-state Jewish community was attacked by the Arab forces of "Palestine" and Arab mercenaries under Kawakji; then in 1948 israel was invaded by 6 Arab states' armies. This occurred while Arab leaders were constantly threatening the Jews with genocide.
In 1967 similar circumstances obtained.
Arab terrorism, obduracy and intransigence should be met with Israeli resistance, including extensive construction of communities in Judea and Samaria.

Richard

Okey
April 2nd, 2011 8:39pm
I am afraid it is you who are completely mistaken. The UN had explicitly outlawed the acquisition of territory by military force. Calling the application of military force "self-defence" does not change this.

The civil war in Palestine does not make the taking of land legal. (A civil war in which the Palestinian Arabs, after their decimation by the British in the revolt of the late 1930s, were ill-prepared and disorganized, and the Zionists very well organized and battle-hardened).

The Arab states did indeed say that they would use force to stop any Zionist state being established. (It is not clear whether this was illegal). They knew that they were in no position to do so. They intervened only in territories not allocated to Israel in the proposed partition (which by this time was not the UN's preferred outcome). It is perfectly reasonable, given the killing and evictions underway, and the request of the Arab Higher Committee, that the Arab states came to the defence of the population who were being ethnically cleansed. The David and Goliath myth is just that.

The only Arab state with a half-competent army was Jordan, and it had an understanding with the Zionists and with Britain that it would annexe the West Bank.

This war gives Israel no justification for its acquisition of territory.

That 1967 was "self-defence" is also simply false, as the military and political leaders have long since admitted. It is merely propaganda that does not bear scrutiny.

The notion that Israel has simply been defending itself by expropriating more and more of the West Bank is laughable.

The history of negotiations in the last forty years shows the notion of Israeli willingness to make peace and Palestinian intransigence equally laughable.

Okey

Richard: you and I live in parallel universes.

Richard

Okey
April 3rd, 2011 12:05pm
Let us see if we can help you into the real world. Let us take 1967. Let us consider just a few things said by Israel's military and political elite.

General Rabin: "I do not believe Nasser wanted war. The two divisions he sent into Sinai would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it."

General Peled: "the thesis according to which the danger of genocide weighed on us in June 1967 and that Israel struggled for its physical existnece is only a bluff born and develped after the war." "Our general staff never told the government that the Egyptian military threat represented any danger to Israel."

Ezer Weizman said that, had Egypt attacked, Israel would have defeated it, "maybe thirteen hours would have been needed instead of only three". He said that Jordan had offered little opposition. He said that Syria posed "no real threat". He said, "a country does not go to war only when the immediate threat of destruction is hovering...We entered the Six-Day War in order to secure a situation in which we can mangae our lives as we see fit without external pressures."

Menachem Begin: "The Egyptian Army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him." Israel's intention was "to take theinitiative and attack the enemy, drive him back, and thus assure the security of Iarel and the future of the nation."

There is more, much more, that proves that Israel's war was not simply in self-defence.

Recall that you asserted that self-defence justified Israel's annexation of the West Bank. It does not.

Okey

Richard, people who think like you about the conflict clearly would have preferred the following scenario in 1967 rather than the one that was actually played out. It's clear from your post:
in the face of the Arab world's publicly proclaimed threats of genocide against Israel, and mobilisation of its armies and their deployment on Israel's boundaries, and in the face of Egypt's mining of Israel's lifeline to the Red Sea and beyond, Israel sits back, relaxes, and, having mobilised its reserve forces, thus paralysing its economy and entire civilian life, waits patiently for its lifeblood to ebb away, thus making it an even easier prey for the Arabs.

Forget it. There'll be no more low-cost genocides against the Jews. If israel goes under, others, too, near and far, will also go under. Is that what you and your ideological buddies want?

Richard

Okey
April 5th, 2011 11:45am
What a silly response! Instead of responding in kind to reason and evidence, you resort to insinuations and frothing at the mouth. This indicates that somewhere in there is an inkling that you have lost the argument and must stick to your prejudices by other means. Disappointing.

Okey

Well, Richard, having declared yourself "the winner" of your argument against me, do you feel better?

Adam B.

Richard, the condescension in your replies is ill deserved. Your history is indeed revisionist, as you try desperately to paint 3 million Jews in 1967 as aggressors to 100 million Arabs. You seem to like quotes (in your case, lifted out of context as is the habit of most Israel delegitimizers) so here are a few for you to chew on:

“All Egypt is now prepared to plunge into total war which will put an end to Israel” - Cairo Radio

“As of today, there no longer exists an international emergency force to protect Israel….The sole method we shall apply against Israel is a total war which will result in the extermination of Zionist existence”. - Cairo Radio’s Voice of the Arabs broadcast

“Our forces are now entirely ready not only to repulse any aggression, but to initiate the act ourselves, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland of Palestine. The Syrian army, with its finger on the trigger, is united. I believe that the time has come to begin a battle of anihilation.”- Syria’s Defence Minister Hafez Assad (later to be Syria’s President).

"We want a full scale, popular war of liberation… to destroy the Zionist enemy" - Syrian president Dr. Nureddin al-Attasi speech to troops

"Taking over Sharm el Sheikh meant confrontation with Israel (and) also meant that we were ready to enter a general war with Israel. The battle will be a general one and our basic objective will be to destroy Israel” - Gamal Abdel Nasser speech to the General Council of the International Confederation of Arab Trade Unions

“The existence of Israel is an error which must be rectified. This is our opportunity to wipe out the ignominy which has been with us since 1948. Our goal is clear - to wipe Israel off the map” - President Aref of Iraq

“Those who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will survive.” - Ahmed Shukairy, chairman of PLO in Jordanian Jerusalem, asked in news interview what will happen to the Israelis if there is a war

Ah yes, those aggressive Jews Richard!

Richard

Adam B.
April 10th, 2011 11:05am
This is pathetic.

I quoted Okey senior Israeli generals and politicians talking amongst themselves. You quote me the propaganda of the moment. I think it indisputable which is the more useful in trying to determine what happened.

And you have nothing to say in response to Thomas or even my brief summary of your misinterpretations of his detailed rebuttal of your propaganda.

3m against 100m is not the least of your silliness. The US, when giving Israel the green light to attack, agreed with the intelligence assessment of the Israelis' themselves that they would have no problem defeating Egypt, Syria and Jordan, individually or collectively.

Adam B.

Richard, these are the rantings of a fantasist. If you truly believe that the combined forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, who outnumbered the Israelis several times over in men and weaponry, including the latest untested Soviet weaponry which neither the Israelis nor the Americans were familar with, was no match for Israel, and that the war's outcome was a forgone conclusion, then you are indeed a fantasist. It is interesting to note that the Arab states themselves did not share such a view, and were confident on the eve of the Six Day War. By contrast, there was a very real feeling in Israel that this could be the end.

Of course, as you are unable to deal with the content of the quotes provided to you, namely, that the Arab states were indeed planning a war of extermination against the Jews of Israel, you simply dismiss it as "propaganda of the moment". It wasn't just"of the moment". These were the sentiments being expressed openly by Arab governments long before, and since as well. How do they tally with your confident assertion that the Arabs didn't want war? And you ignore all the events which led up to the war, the endless terror attacks coming across the borders which wree conducted with the assistance from the Arab governments, then crucially Nasser's ordering the withdrawal of the UN peacekeeping forces (what is your explanation for this?) the massing of the Arab armies on Israel's borders, then the (illegal) closing of the Straights of Tiran to Israel. Denying such evidence with lame cries of "pathetic" just isn't good enough.

Adam B.

In addition Richard, you have not addressed Okey's point about the declaration of genocidal intent from Arab leaders - let me guess, it's just "rhetoric" and they didn't really mean it, right?

Nor does it strike you as odd that Jordan, which was not an ally of either Egypt or Syria, decided that it would join the military alliance of these countries in attacking Israel. Hussein's actions are hardly those of a leader who knows that the Arab states are about to be defeated, thus demonstrating the absurdity of your thesis.

Richard

Adam B.

If you term the words of the Israeli high command and government the rantings of fantasists, who are you willing to accept as authoritative?

You do know that the public utterances of politicians and military spokesmen are compounded of rhetoric, partial truths, and outright falsehood?

I decided against taking you through the military, political, and diplomatic history in the years and months in the run-up to the Six Day war.

Instead, I refer you to a work by someone who is certainly critical of Israel, but considers the war the inadvertent consequence of misjudgements on all sides (I don't agree with him and I think the record requires a stronger conclusion - but he's the expert). He cannot be dismissed easily. Read "defending the Holy Land" by Zeev Maoz. He served in the IDF in the War of Attrition, the Yom Kippur War, and War on Lebanon. He also served in the occupied territories. He was for a time on the team advising Yitzak Rabin on strategic matters. He was director of the MA programme at the IDF's National Defence College. He was head of the Graduate School of Government and the Jaffee Centre for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University.

Adam B.

Nice try Richard, but you have, again, avoided the real issue here - so I'll ask you again:

1. Why did Nasser order the UN peacekeepers out?
2. Why did Jordan join Egypt and Syria in a military alliance, especially in light of your contention that the Arabs didn't want war and thought they would lose?
3. How do you explain away the genocidal threats from Arab leaders?
4. Why did Egypt and Syria and Jordan continue promoting the fedayeen attacks against Israeli civilians?
5. Why did Egypt, illegally, close off the Straight of Tiran, and then mass troops in the Sinai?

Were all of these a sure sign of peaceful intent on the part of the Arab states? Laughable.

Crucial, of course, to your quotes, is context. Many Israeli generals thought they could indeed beat the Egyptians in the Sinai - but only if Israel struck first, and early enough. Timing was everything (and your quotes, out of context, ignore the timeline).

Your agenda here is quite transparent. You aren't interested in a historical debate - you're all about delegitimizing Israel altogether. That isn't fair comment, and it isn't honest. Indeed, it is bigotry.

Richard

Adam B.

"Many Israeli generals thought they could indeed beat the Egyptians in the Sinai - but only if Israel struck first, and early enough."

"Ezer Weizman said that, had Egypt attacked, Israel would have defeated it, "maybe thirteen hours would have been needed instead of only three". He said that Jordan had offered little opposition. He said that Syria posed "no real threat"."

Instead of wriggling, devote your energies to reading the reference I gave you. Once you have educated yourself, you may resume.

Adam B.

Richard, why not address the questions I put to you?

Who's wriggling now?

Mikael Grut

Violence is horrible, but the Israelis also use violence against the Palestinians, who are trying to get their country back. During World War II the resistance movements in occupied Europe had to use bombs etc. against the Nazis, because they did not have an army. Sanctions against Israel until the refugees are allowed to return, is the only thing that could stop this violence.