The I.D.F.

[(((Fergus)))]

They would have to be very old to have experience of that regime:faf: As to the peace plan you posted the other day, its not just 'crazies' who wouldnt like it, it guarantees Israel the land they invaded by conquest in 1967 and flies in the face of natural justice.

But I think we're going round in circles here.

Are you sure we're talking about the same plan? It sets out a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem with an exclusive link to the strip.

Not sure what natural justice it goes against either. The way I see it is that both sides have been c*nts to each other and both have lost land and property to each other (the wider arab world). I'd just call it quits and set up the two states. As equal nations I think they could have a very profitable symbiotic relationship, possibly some kind of economic federation in the far distant future - in which case both could share more of each other's countries.

[(((Fergus)))]

I've already said it would require the destruction of Zionism from within Israel. That merely confirms what I said. :greengrin

:greengrin Trouble is the Palestinians need something now. Too many generations have been wasted already. It was OK for the likes of Arafat and the other playboys to be wined and dined by the heads of the arab world but they did nothing to improve the future for the children of Palestine.



If you want something concrete or more 'feasible' in reply to your previous questions. It's pretty simple again, end the blockade of Gaza which constitutes not only an enormous moral crime but an Act of War as defined by the ICC.

Personally, I would end the blockade and adopt a rope-a-dope strategy till Hamas shot their bolt. Israeli public opinion will not stand for that however - they're not as phlegmatic as me, more choleric - so you, as Prime Minister, will have to be seen to be doing something, e.g., "imposing sanctions against an hostile entity".

Do you think you could persuade Israelis to just allow the rockets/mortars to come in without hitting back? Could you stop vigilantes from taking it out on Israeli arabs?

[LiverpoolHibs]

Personally, I would end the blockade and adopt a rope-a-dope strategy till Hamas shot their bolt. Israeli public opinion will not stand for that however - they're not as phlegmatic as me, more choleric - so you, as Prime Minister, will have to be seen to be doing something, e.g., "imposing sanctions against an hostile entity".

Do you think you could persuade Israelis to just allow the rockets/mortars to come in without hitting back? Could you stop vigilantes from taking it out on Israeli arabs?

Eh? Have we not already established that the Qassams and al-Quds are the Hamas and Islamic Jihad response to the blockade? End the blockade, the rockets stop.

[(((Fergus)))]

Eh? Have we not already established that the Qassams and al-Quds are the Hamas and Islamic Jihad response to the blockade? End the blockade, the rockets stop.

Did Israel just start a random blockade and then the rockets started? :confused: (I'm not 100% sure of this timeline)

[ballengeich]

And, as a genuine question, why are people so quick to defend Israel's 'right' to 'defend its population' against some barely functioning rockets yet the idea of the democratically elected government of Palestine resisting occupation, siege, dispossesion and oppression on behalf of its population is too disgusting to consider?

Could it be, shock horror, that people privilege the lives of Israelis over those of Palestinians?

I don't think that people who question your opinions share the views you've attributed to them in the paragraphs above. I think that they feel that the situation is more complex than you suppose. The answers from both you and Hisbollah to Fergus's question on what you would do as an Israeli PM to deal with attacks exposed your lack of a practical perspective IMO.

I don't regard myself as particularly pro or anti either side, in the sense of having to justify all actions by one or the other faction in order to sustain a theoretical posture. I've agreed with the majority of the points put by Fergus in the debate.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Did Israel just start a random blockade and then the rockets started? :confused: (I'm not 100% sure of this timeline)

The blockade has been in place since the Hamas election victory. Hamas and other groups responded with sporadic rocket fire (that's not to say it wasn't happening before, it was - in response to the occupation of Gaza and Israeli incursions prior to the Hamas victory). With the 2008 ceasefire, rocket fire was stopped in its entirety, Israel breached the ceasefire (and that doesn't include the fact that they didn't lift the blockade to the degree that had been agreed upon) in early November killing a Palestinian farmer and six Hamas members in seperate incidents, Hamas responded with rocket fire (and was, typically, roundly blamed for breaking the ceasefire) and the Gaza War started. Since then intensity of rocket fire has increased or decreased depending on IDF incursions, blocking of aid, settlement building etc. etc. but mainly because of the full reinstatement of the blockade.

No-one really knows any of this because you're just meant to think of Gaza militants as nutty weirdos who just love running round with rockets, cackling as they fire them towards Sderot. When in fact they're considerably more pragmatic about their use.

---------- Post added at 10:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:11 PM ----------


I don't think that people who question your opinions share the views you've attributed to them in the paragraphs above. I think that they feel that the situation is more complex than you suppose. The answers from both you and Hisbollah to Fergus's question on what you would do as an Israeli PM to deal with attacks exposed your lack of a practical perspective IMO.

Ha, aye - of course it did...

[ballengeich]

Ha, aye - of course it did...

Glad you agree. I think that during the 2008 ceasefire both sides were preparing for further action.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Glad you agree. I think that during the 2008 ceasefire both sides were preparing for further action.

That's, erm, good to know...

[(((Fergus)))]

The blockade has been in place since the Hamas election victory. Hamas and other groups responded with sporadic rocket fire (that's not to say it wasn't happening before, it was - in response to the occupation of Gaza and Israeli incursions prior to the Hamas victory). With the 2008 ceasefire, rocket fire was stopped in its entirety, Israel breached the ceasefire (and that doesn't include the fact that they didn't lift the blockade to the degree that had been agreed upon) in early November killing a Palestinian farmer and six Hamas members in seperate incidents, Hamas responded with rocket fire (and was, typically, roundly blamed for breaking the ceasefire) and the Gaza War started. Since then intensity of rocket fire has increased or decreased depending on IDF incursions, blocking of aid, settlement building etc. etc. but mainly because of the full reinstatement of the blockade.

No-one really knows any of this because you're just meant to think of Gaza militants as nutty weirdos who just love running round with rockets, cackling as they fire them towards Sderot. When in fact they're considerably more pragmatic about their use.[
Ha, aye - of course it did...

Sorry to put you to that trouble, I've just been genning up on the BBC website :wink:

What I don't understand is if the blockade is so stringent, how can Hamas keep firing rockets/mortars? Are these from arms stockpiles that Israel hasn't uncovered or are they smuggling them in? If the humanitarian situation is so bad, why don't they smuggle in food instead? :confused: If they combined that with a ceasefire, the blockade would be eased, maybe not much but every little helps. Why don't they do that?

Similarly Israel could do as you say and stop the blockade and leave a "hostile entity" with free rein in Gaza (I would do this, but it probably wouldn't last long). Would Hamas really move for peace or would they use this lull and freedom to import more lethal weaponry? This is probably Israel's quandry. Why should they trust Hamas? Do they have any good faith to go on?

Hamas doesn't have to trust Israel, it's military leverage* is non-existant anyway so they have nothing to lose** and everything to gain.

* As I've said before, Israel's military leverage is short-term only. Long-term, as Bollah says, they only create more trouble for themselves

** Other than pride. Something which drives both sides in this conflict IMO.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Sorry to put you to that trouble, I've just been genning up on the BBC website :wink:

What I don't understand is if the blockade is so stringent, how can Hamas keep firing rockets/mortars? Are these from arms stockpiles that Israel hasn't uncovered or are they smuggling them in? If the humanitarian situation is so bad, why don't they smuggle in food instead? :confused: If they combined that with a ceasefire, the blockade would be eased, maybe not much but every little helps. Why don't they do that?

I think you're imagine these rockets to be something they're not. Both the launchers and the rockets themselves are largely home-made. They're not getting hold of fully assembled and functioning stuff.

Why would you not be able to smuggle both? Both food and material to make rockets (sugar, TNT, fertiliser etc.) come in through the tunnels into Egypt.

It's getting a bit tiresome pointing this out again and again, the blockade is in place because of the Hamas election victory, not because of rocket attacks.


Similarly Israel could do as you say and stop the blockade and leave a "hostile entity" with free rein in Gaza (I would do this, but it probably wouldn't last long). Would Hamas really move for peace or would they use this lull and freedom to import more lethal weaponry? This is probably Israel's quandry. Why should they trust Hamas? Do they have any good faith to go on?

I imagine they know very well that Hamas has a history of obeying ceasefires whereas they have a thoroughgoing habit of breaking them.

[ballengeich]

I imagine they know very well that Hamas has a history of obeying ceasefires whereas they have a thoroughgoing habit of breaking them.

Can you give instances of Hamas obeying ceasefires in the past? From what I can find out, during the ceasefire there was a reduction in incidents, but not a cessation from either side.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Can you give instances of Hamas obeying ceasefires in the past? From what I can find out, during the ceasefire there was a reduction in incidents, but not a cessation from either side.

I just gave an instance. The 2008 ceasefire that collapsed due to IDF infringements and led to the Gaza War.

[(((Fergus)))]

I think you're imagine these rockets to be something they're not. Both the launchers and the rockets themselves are largely home-made. They're not getting hold of fully assembled and functioning stuff.

Why would you not be able to smuggle both? Both food and material to make rockets (sugar, TNT, fertiliser etc.) come in through the tunnels into Egypt.

It's getting a bit tiresome pointing this out again and again, the blockade is in place because of the Hamas election victory, not because of rocket attacks.


If the rockets/mortars are being made and fired "just in time", that suggests a relatively large capacity in those tunnels. If the humanitarian crisis is so great, why waste that capacity on stuff that simply aggravates the blockade?

Putting your Israeli PM hat on again. Suppose you do lift the blockade entirely, let Hamas control its own airspace. Twelve months down the line, Hamas launches a major rocket attack on Israeli cities. What would your response be? (Apart from hiding from your own electorate :wink:)


I imagine they know very well that Hamas has a history of obeying ceasefires whereas they have a thoroughgoing habit of breaking them.

From what I read, Hamas broke the 2008 ceasefire too. Each month from June rockets and mortars were fired into Israel. Five-ten a month, but there was not a ceasefire.

[ballengeich]

I just gave an instance. The 2008 ceasefire that collapsed due to IDF infringements and led to the Gaza War.

I asked whether there was a history of Hamas obeying ceasefires prior to this instance as you claimed. During the ceasefire rocket attacks on Israel were reduced, but did not cease, though there is an argument that these may have come from Hamas's domestic opposition.

I see that Fergus has posted a longer reply, pointing out as usual that wrong is not confined to one side of the conflict.

[LiverpoolHibs]

If the rockets/mortars are being made and fired "just in time", that suggests a relatively large capacity in those tunnels. If the humanitarian crisis is so great, why waste that capacity on stuff that simply aggravates the blockade?

This is getting silly, it does not aggravate the blockade because a total blockade has been in place - apart from a few months when it was semi-lifted during the '08 ceasefire - since Hamas's election, and presumably will be until Hamas fall. It is not, for the umpteenth time, in place due to rocket attacks.

And I have no idea what that 'just in time' means.

The smuggling tunnels are operated by black marketeers, not by the 'state'.


Putting your Israeli PM hat on again. Suppose you do lift the blockade entirely, let Hamas control its own airspace. Twelve months down the line, Hamas launches a major rocket attack on Israeli cities. What would your response be? (Apart from hiding from your own electorate :wink:)

The West Bank/Gaza/East Jerusalem have never been allowed to control their own airspace. The Israelis have always been absolutely sure to maintain that throughout the conflict.

I'm going to stop responding to these Netanyahu-hypotheticals as they're completely meaningless and pointless, sorry.


From what I read, Hamas broke the 2008 ceasefire too. Each month from June rockets and mortars were fired into Israel. Five-ten a month, but there was not a ceasefire.

See the numbers for August onwards. The high number in June were a response to the Israeli raid on Nablus and Hamas's initial inability to reign in the al-Quds Brigades and al-Aqsa Brigades.

If people want another instance, there's the year and half long unilateral ceasefire by Hamas in '05/'06 that ended when the Israeli navy shelled a beach in Gaza, slaughtering seven members of the same family, and Hamas retaliated.

---------- Post added at 11:37 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:36 PM ----------


I asked whether there was a history of Hamas obeying ceasefires prior to this instance as you claimed. During the ceasefire rocket attacks on Israel were reduced, but did not cease, though there is an argument that these may have come from Hamas's domestic opposition.

I see that Fergus has posted a longer reply, pointing out as usual that wrong is not confined to one side of the conflict.

See above, the 18 month unilateral ceasefire.

[hibsbollah]

The answers from both you and Hisbollah to Fergus's question on what you would do as an Israeli PM to deal with attacks exposed your lack of a practical perspective IMO.


I think thats harsh:confused: I gave an example of a state that I consider to be analagous to Israel and how that state managed to resolve its problems. What more do you want, a full set of manifesto promises?:faf:
Stop the blockade, conform with UN resolutions, maybe consider giving Arabs full citizenship (which would have economic benefits for both sides).

[(((Fergus)))]

I think thats harsh:confused: I gave an example of a state that I consider to be analagous to Israel and how that state managed to resolve its problems. What more do you want, a full set of manifesto promises?:faf:
Stop the blockade, conform with UN resolutions, maybe consider giving Arabs full citizenship (which would have economic benefits for both sides).

I must have missed that Bollah, which state did you say was analogous?

[LiverpoolHibs]

It's also worth bearing in mind that 'stimulate and retaliate' is central to how the IDF operate in Gaza, so they attempt to actively encourage rocket attacks from Palestinian militants and hit them once they'd revealed their position.

General Gadi Shamni; "to stimulate the armed individuals to come out and then kill them off."

[ballengeich]

I think thats harsh:confused: I gave an example of a state that I consider to be analagous to Israel and how that state managed to resolve its problems. What more do you want, a full set of manifesto promises?:faf:
Stop the blockade, conform with UN resolutions, maybe consider giving Arabs full citizenship (which would have economic benefits for both sides).
Your analogy was "I would say that Israel should do what De Klerk eventually did, dismantle the tools of their military state and stop oppressing the majority population."

The majority in Israel is Jewish, so your analogy is not entirely accurate. If you treat Israel, the West Bank and Gaza as one population I don't know what the proportions currently are. One state might be an ideal, but I don't think it's a practical option for a long time, so for me the goal is to set up two states which co-operate rather than fight.

Continuing the analogy, De Klerk was able to make changes in the knowledge that his own ethnic group would be able to continue to live under a new regime. I don't think that Israelis could currently have that confidence, particularly given the Hamas charter.

Stop the blockade, yes. Conform with UN resolutions, yes, including the one which allows a Jewish state in Palestine. Ensure that the surrounding countries and Hamas accept this - how?

[(((Fergus)))]

This is getting silly, it does not aggravate the blockade because a total blockade has been in place - apart from a few months when it was semi-lifted during the '08 ceasefire - since Hamas's election, and presumably will be until Hamas fall. It is not, for the umpteenth time, in place due to rocket attacks.

And I have no idea what that 'just in time' means.


As you say, the blockade was semi-lifted. When it kicked off again the blockade was increased again. According to Israel, if rockets aren't fired, the blockade will be eased and this has been borne out in the past. It is therefore in Hamas' hands to at least ease the suffering of their own people. Instead they choose to give a futile GIRUY to Israel and increase the blockade.

BTW Is Egypt still enforcing the blockade as well? If so, do they also get the occasional rocket/mortar?

"Just in time" means manufactured on demand (no stockpiles)




The West Bank/Gaza/East Jerusalem have never been allowed to control their own airspace. The Israelis have always been absolutely sure to maintain that throughout the conflict.


Sure, I'm saying "what if" Hamas was given full control?


I'm going to stop responding to these Netanyahu-hypotheticals as they're completely meaningless and pointless, sorry.


That is the difference, we can switch off from these issues whereas Israel has to take action. All I am asking is to forecast the results of your policy. IMO Hamas would arm itself more effectively and launch a revenge attack. Their whole raison d'etre is to destroy Israel, is it not?



If people want another instance, there's the year and half long unilateral ceasefire by Hamas in '05/'06 that ended when the Israeli navy shelled a beach in Gaza, slaughtering seven members of the same family, and Hamas retaliated.


From what I've read so far Hamas have either been been preparing or carrying out attacks the whole time. And why not? They are committed to destroying the Israeli state. Just don't be surprised if Israel is a) concerned about that and b) takes preventative measures (heavy-handed IMO but then I don't live there and I don't have their information). Hamas has chosen to fight a war from within a civilian infrastructure, so they shouldn't be surprised if that infrastructure suffers in the process. As mentioned before, it is probably intentional as it is in their interests for Gaza to suffer. It attracts international sympathy and weakens support for Israel. Why else persist with such relatively ineffective attacks?

[hibsbollah]

Your analogy was "I would say that Israel should do what De Klerk eventually did, dismantle the tools of their military state and stop oppressing the majority population."

The majority in Israel is Jewish, so your analogy is not entirely accurate. If you treat Israel, the West Bank and Gaza as one population I don't know what the proportions currently are. One state might be an ideal, but I don't think it's a practical option for a long time, so for me the goal is to set up two states which co-operate rather than fight.

Continuing the analogy, De Klerk was able to make changes in the knowledge that his own ethnic group would be able to continue to live under a new regime. I don't think that Israelis could currently have that confidence, particularly given the Hamas charter.

Stop the blockade, yes. Conform with UN resolutions, yes, including the one which allows a Jewish state in Palestine. Ensure that the surrounding countries and Hamas accept this - how?

I'm glad you're now accepting that I did respond to Fergus with policy solutions for the Israeli state, you just dont think they are practical. Anyway, policy isnt just about doing new things, its about stopping doing things. Like all the war crimes detailed in the UN Goldstone Report.

You are now also asking me to forecast what the Hamas response might be to these hypothetical Israeli olive branches. I have no idea, except that it will be hard for the Palestinans to trust individuals like Netanyahu who was the prime exponent of building new settlements on occupied land and the archetypal 'hawk'.

[khib70]

Did anybody watch this epiode of Dispatches when it was on? It highlighted the power that Britain's Israeli Lobby wields over politics and the media.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-42/episode-1
Thought it was only a matter of time before someone wheeled out this sterling example of liberal establishment media anti-semitism. What next - a dramatisation of the Protocols hosted by Orla Guerin?

[khib70]

Eh? Have we not already established that the Qassams and al-Quds are the Hamas and Islamic Jihad response to the blockade? End the blockade, the rockets stop.
No we haven't and you know that very well. Hamas were elected in June 2007The first rocket attack on Israel was in April 2001. Regular rocket attacks started in September 2004 with this heroic Hamas feat of arms:

"September 29, 2004
On the eve of the Sukkot holiday, Yuval Abebeh, 4, and Dorit Benisian, 2, were killed by a Qassam rocket (one of three) fired from Gaza into Sderot. About 30 people were wounded in the attack, for which Hamas claimed responsibility. " Full list here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rocket_and_mortar_attacks_in_Israel_in_200 1_through_2007

Both the blockade and Cast Lead were the result, not the cause of the rocket attacks.

Let's not rewrite history, eh?

[LiverpoolHibs]

As you say, the blockade was semi-lifted. When it kicked off again the blockade was increased again. According to Israel, if rockets aren't fired, the blockade will be eased and this has been borne out in the past. It is therefore in Hamas' hands to at least ease the suffering of their own people. Instead they choose to give a futile GIRUY to Israel and increase the blockade.

As before this is getting silly. The blockade being lifted was part of the terms of the truce, Israel didn't comply properly with the terms and then completely broke them. I'm not sure why this is proving so difficult.

I'll try one more time. The blockade would not be lifted if Hamas ceased all rocket attacks as the blockade is not in place because of rocket attacks. It is in place because Hamas are in government.


BTW Is Egypt still enforcing the blockade as well? If so, do they also get the occasional rocket/mortar?

"Just in time" means manufactured on demand (no stockpiles)

Egypt is enforcing the blockade, yes.


Sure, I'm saying "what if" Hamas was given full control?

But they never would be under any ceasefire rule, another pointless discussion.


That is the difference, we can switch off from these issues whereas Israel has to take action. All I am asking is to forecast the results of your policy. IMO Hamas would arm itself more effectively and launch a revenge attack. Their whole raison d'etre is to destroy Israel, is it not?

Do you not see how silly this is. As per the South Africa comparisons being made, it's like asking me to put on my 'Botha-hat' and suggest what should be done about Umkhonto we Sizwe attacks. Firstly, it's not my prerogative and secondly it pre-supposes that the aggressor in this situation is Hamas and that they're engaged in some kind of war of equals - this is patent bollocks on both counts.


From what I've read so far Hamas have either been been preparing or carrying out attacks the whole time. And why not? They are committed to destroying the Israeli state. Just don't be surprised if Israel is a) concerned about that and b) takes preventative measures (heavy-handed IMO but then I don't live there and I don't have their information). Hamas has chosen to fight a war from within a civilian infrastructure, so they shouldn't be surprised if that infrastructure suffers in the process. As mentioned before, it is probably intentional as it is in their interests for Gaza to suffer. It attracts international sympathy and weakens support for Israel. Why else persist with such relatively ineffective attacks?

Hamas has no choice but to fight from within a civilian infrastructure - and to suggest they do is to debase the debate to an even greater degree than it is already - as the entirety of Gaza is essentially a civilian infrastructure.

The final point is classic imperialist psychology of victim blaming. If you believe the state in question to be fundamentally 'good' you, necessarily, have to find ways in which to extricate it from blame at every given opportunity - no matter how nonsensical and anti-factual you have to be to do this. Yet again you've managed (well, you haven't actually but never mind) to turn Gaza into the aggressor 'state' and Israel into the innocent party under attack through no fault of its own. This is why you keep having to attempt to cast the rocket attacks as the starting point of the conflict despite it being pointed out repeatedly that this is not the case.

As I've already said, the Goldstone Report found no evidence whatsoever that Hamas used civilian infrastructure for military means during the Gaza War. And as the Goldstone Report again says, there were eleven incidents during the same war in which Israel attacked civilian targets (ie. actually civilians, not the numerous cases of destroying the civilian infrastructure) with 'no justifiable military objective'; these include IDF infantry units corralling Palestinian civilians into a building and then artillery units shelling it.

Hamas have repeatedly shown themselves to be willing to enter into negotiations and ceasefires.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Thought it was only a matter of time before someone wheeled out this sterling example of liberal establishment media anti-semitism.

What was anti-semitic about the programme?


What next - a dramatisation of the Protocols hosted by Orla Guerin?

And that's certainly not hugely offensive and inappropriate or anything...


No we haven't and you know that very well. Hamas were elected in June 2007The first rocket attack on Israel was in April 2001. Regular rocket attacks started in September 2004 with this heroic Hamas feat of arms:

"September 29, 2004
On the eve of the Sukkot holiday, Yuval Abebeh, 4, and Dorit Benisian, 2, were killed by a Qassam rocket (one of three) fired from Gaza into Sderot. About 30 people were wounded in the attack, for which Hamas claimed responsibility. " Full list here
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rocket_and_mortar_attacks_in_Israel_in_200 1_through_2007

Both the blockade and Cast Lead were the result, not the cause of the rocket attacks.

Let's not rewrite history, eh?

Jesus wept, could you point out where I said rocket attacks didn't take place prior to the institution of the blockade please?

You're missing the point spectacularly. The blockade is nothing to do with rocket attacks as Israel has repeatedly turned down Hamas's long-standing offer of a ceasefire and negotiation. The blockade is in place as Israel refuses to negotiate with Hamas and wants to exert as much pressure as they can in an attempt to remove them from government.

And I'm not sure even you believe Cast Lead was a result of rocket attacks so talk of me re-writing history is ironic as well as unfounded.

[khib70]

What was anti-semitic about the programme?
From the EU Monitoring Committee definition of anti-semitism:
"Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective – such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.’


And that's certainly not hugely offensive and inappropriate or anything...
No more so than some of the statements casually bandied about regarding Israel IMO.



Jesus wept, could you point out where I said rocket attacks didn't take place prior to the institution of the blockade please?

You're missing the point spectacularly. The blockade is nothing to do with rocket attacks as Israel has repeatedly turned down Hamas's long-standing offer of a ceasefire and negotiation. The blockade is in place as Israel refuses to negotiate with Hamas and wants to exert as much pressure as they can in an attempt to remove them from government.

And I'm not sure even you believe Cast Lead was a result of rocket attacks so talk of me re-writing history is ironic as well as unfounded.
Yes, in common with most people who don't have a blinkered anti-Israel mindset, I do believe that Cast Lead was the result of rocket attacks - as I clearly said in my original post. Please don't tell me what I do and don't believe.

[LiverpoolHibs]

From the EU Monitoring Committee definition of anti-semitism: "Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective – such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.’

Ok, and how does any of that apply to the Oborne programme? You've made the accusation of anti-semitism, which is a pretty serious allegation, you should probably back it up.


No more so than some of the statements casually bandied about regarding Israel IMO.

Eh, by who? On this thread? And that's a pretty awful defence anyway.


Yes, in common with most people who don't have a blinkered anti-Israel mindset, I do believe that Cast Lead was the result of rocket attacks - as I clearly said in my original post. Please don't tell me what I do and don't believe.

Ha, ok.

[Betty Boop]

Thought it was only a matter of time before someone wheeled out this sterling example of liberal establishment media anti-semitism. What next - a dramatisation of the Protocols hosted by Orla Guerin?

Why is criticism of anything Israeli perceived as anti-semetic? Surely Israel should be held to the same standards that are applied to any other country, in respect of international law and human rights? I fail to see how any of the issues raised in the programme could be termed as anti-semetic.

[ballengeich]

Anyway, policy isnt just about doing new things, its about stopping doing things. Like all the war crimes detailed in the UN Goldstone Report.



That's something we can agree about. However, I'm rather pessimistic that either side will wish to moderate its behaviour, at least in the short term.

[hibsbollah]

The majority in Israel is Jewish, so your analogy is not entirely accurate. If you treat Israel, the West Bank and Gaza as one population I don't know what the proportions currently are.

You're right, even with the West bank and Gaza taken into account Jewish or 'white' Israelis are the majority population.

[An Leargaidh]

Well it's only reached seven pages so far but it could well reach 24 this thread :wink:

I think that the Israel/Palestine problems are very similar to the Irish partition problem but obviously for different reasons. The two things in common is that A) the British were once in control of all of Israel/Palestine even if it was at the behest of the UN. B) when the British pulled out they left years of death and misery :agree:

But that was just to show obvious similarities. The sad fact is that people are dying and I don't think this will ever change. What is even sadder and again a similarity with Ireland is that a lot of it is religion based if only at foundation level. According to the CIA, the religious demographics of Israel (not Gaza or West Bank:
Jewish 76.4%
Muslim 16%
Arab Christians 1.7%
other Christian 0.4%
Druze 1.6%
unspecified 3.9%
There are 16 % of the Israel population Muslims living within the Israel part of the country i.e. not in the West Bank or Gaza strip and they live side by side with their Jewish neighbours.

The demographics for the Gaza Strip are:
Muslim (predominantly Sunni) 99.3%
Christian 0.7%

The demographics for the West Bank are:
Muslim 75% (predominantly Sunni)
Jewish 17%
Christian and other 8%

Perhaps the secret is to have all the people of Israel/Palestine living together in one big happy country, not in 'strips' and 'banks'? :timebomb:

I think from reading up about the history of Israel that the Jewish people simply don't want to be beaten around again like they have been for centuries by various governments, e.g. the Nazis, the Russians. Since 1948 they have had Y'eretz Israel, the state of Israel and whether its formation dispossessed Arab Palestinians or not it was voted in by the UN. It is not as if 120,00 Jews just turned up one day in 1948 and said, "Right this is ours mate." Jews had always lived in the land and had steadily been immigrating there well before 1948.

What I don't get is why everyone always automatically sides with the Arab Muslim population? Is this because the British media follow a generatons old Government driven agenda? It's not the IDF that kidnaps journalists and others and holds them prisoner for years or kills them. I have read first hand accounts of the violence which occurred during the creation of Y'eretz Israel in 1948 and it is clear that even then both main sides were just as bad as each other. If you remember back when you were at school, if someone did something bad to you you usually tried to get them back. From all the stuff I've read it's been a lot like that.

Of course you could always blame the USA because the Rothschild family promised the Jews a homeland in Israel if they swayed the American government to enter World War I...

Final point, if a Jambo came and bricked your living room window would you not go and brick the living window of a Jambo back?

Cammy :worms::bye:

[LiverpoolHibs]

What I don't get is why everyone always automatically sides with the Arab Muslim population?

I don't think the thread would have reached the number of pages it had if everyone 'automatically sided with the Arab Muslim population'.


Is this because the British media follow a generatons old Government driven agenda?

So now not only is the British media pro-Palestinian but successive British governments have been as well? I see, the years and years of arms deals were actually going to the PLO and not the IDF...

Do people really believe this stuff when they write it?


It's not the IDF that kidnaps journalists and others and holds them prisoner for years or kills them. I have read first hand accounts of the violence which occurred during the creation of Y'eretz Israel in 1948 and it is clear that even then both main sides were just as bad as each other. If you remember back when you were at school, if someone did something bad to you you usually tried to get them back. From all the stuff I've read it's been a lot like that.

Read some more...


Of course you could always blame the USA because the Rothschild family promised the Jews a homeland in Israel if they swayed the American government to enter World War I...

That sounds like bizarre conspiracist nonsense.

[(((Fergus)))]

I think you make some interesting points there Mickey, however the comparisons with N. Ireland (and S. Africa) are not accurate in that the British in Ireland (and Europeans in South Africa) achieved their presence through violence.

The jews on the other hand must be the only people in history (?) to have bought their land :faf:, paying well over the odds as well. The reason the Jews developed a military force was in response to arab attack on their property. The resulting tit-for-tat continues in the form of blockades and rocket attacks.

[(((Fergus)))]

As before this is getting silly. The blockade being lifted was part of the terms of the truce, Israel didn't comply properly with the terms and then completely broke them. I'm not sure why this is proving so difficult.


I'll try one more time. The blockade would not be lifted if Hamas ceased all rocket attacks as the blockade is not in place because of rocket attacks. It is in place because Hamas are in government.


Why do Israel have a problem with Hamas? Isn't it because Hamas is committed to destroying Israel? Do you think Israel should just ignore that?



Hamas has no choice but to fight from within a civilian infrastructure - and to suggest they do is to debase the debate to an even greater degree than it is already - as the entirety of Gaza is essentially a civilian infrastructure.

The final point is classic imperialist psychology of victim blaming. If you believe the state in question to be fundamentally 'good' you, necessarily, have to find ways in which to extricate it from blame at every given opportunity - no matter how nonsensical and anti-factual you have to be to do this. Yet again you've managed (well, you haven't actually but never mind) to turn Gaza into the aggressor 'state' and Israel into the innocent party under attack through no fault of its own. This is why you keep having to attempt to cast the rocket attacks as the starting point of the conflict despite it being pointed out repeatedly that this is not the case.

As I've already said, the Goldstone Report found no evidence whatsoever that Hamas used civilian infrastructure for military means during the Gaza War. And as the Goldstone Report again says, there were eleven incidents during the same war in which Israel attacked civilian targets (ie. actually civilians, not the numerous cases of destroying the civilian infrastructure) with 'no justifiable military objective'; these include IDF infantry units corralling Palestinian civilians into a building and then artillery units shelling it.

Hamas have repeatedly shown themselves to be willing to enter into negotiations and ceasefires.

Hamas does have a choice. It can choose to protect its civilians by not playing at war. Hamas would rather have its people die a martyr's death than have the humility to seek peace.

BTW I do not think Israel is fundamentally good - there are people making good and bad decisions on both sides all the time. I do think though that at the political level, Hamas are fundamentally unreasonable. You cannot advocate the total destruction of your neighbour and expect to live in peace.

[Betty Boop]

Why do Israel have a problem with Hamas? Isn't it because Hamas is committed to destroying Israel? Do you think Israel should just ignore that?




Hamas does have a choice. It can choose to protect its civilians by not playing at war. Hamas would rather have its people die a martyr's death than have the humility to seek peace.

BTW I do not think Israel is fundamentally good - there are people making good and bad decisions on both sides all the time. I do think though that at the political level, Hamas are fundamentally unreasonable. You cannot advocate the total destruction of your neighbour and expect to live in peace.

You keep banging on about Hamas, as if they were the stumbling block in the peace process. Israel negotiates with Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas, who has refused to stand for re-election, he is that peed off with the continuing expansion of settlements. Do you think there will be any chance of peace while Israel continues to flout International law?

[(((Fergus)))]

You keep banging on about Hamas, as if they were the stumbling block in the peace process. Israel negotiates with Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas, who has refused to stand for re-election, he is that peed off with the continuing expansion of settlements. Do you think there will be any chance of peace while Israel continues to flout International law?

Are Hamas an obstacle to peace, yes or no?

[Betty Boop]

Are Hamas an obstacle to peace, yes or no?

There will be no peace until there is justice for the Palestinians. Hamas whether you like it or not, were elected in a fair and free election.

[hibsbollah]

The jews on the other hand must be the only people in history (?) to have bought their land :faf:, paying well over the odds as well.

Was reading about Haiti today, they had to 'buy' their country too. It was forced to pay 150million francs in gold back to the French as 'reparations' for their independence (and loss of slave trade income) in 1825, and it took them til 1947 to pay it off. They used to spend 80% of their national income paying off their debt every year:rolleyes: No wonder the country is in such a mess.

I digress...

[(((Fergus)))]

There will be no peace until there is justice for the Palestinians. Hamas whether you like it or not, were elected in a fair and free election.

Do you think Hamas' concept of justice for the Palestinians, i.e., destruction of Israel, is just?

[hibsbollah]

Do you think Hamas' concept of justice for the Palestinians, i.e., destruction of Israel, is just?

Depends how you define 'destruction'. If you'e pro-Israel, you define it as 'blowing up the land and everyone who lives there' so Hamas are evil by definition. If you're pro-Palestinian, you define it as 'dismantling of the state of Israel' which is, IMO, a just policy based on what the state of Israel represents.

The translation of the Arabic isnt clear. Recent statements by Hamas describe the Charter as "an essentially revolutionary document born of the intolerable conditions under occupation" in 1988. Marzook added that "if every state or movement were to be judged solely by its foundational, revolutionary documents . . ., there would be a good deal to answer for on all sides,"...(link from wikipedia.)

[(((Fergus)))]

Depends how you define 'destruction'. If you'e pro-Israel, you define it as 'blowing up the land and everyone who lives there' so Hamas are evil by definition. If you're pro-Palestinian, you define it as 'dismantling of the state of Israel' which is, IMO, a just policy based on what the state of Israel represents.

The translation of the Arabic isnt clear. Recent statements by Hamas describe the Charter as "an essentially revolutionary document born of the intolerable conditions under occupation" in 1988. Marzook added that "if every state or movement were to be judged solely by its foundational, revolutionary documents . . ., there would be a good deal to answer for on all sides,"...(link from wikipedia.)

Whichever way it is defined, the vast majority of Israelis - as LH has confirmed - would object. It is therefore unworkable. If Hamas wishes to distance itself from its founding document it could do so by recognising the right of Israel to exist as other Arab factions have done.

The state of Israel may be considered a "racist state", etc., however Judaism is not entirely race-based. Non-Jews are free to convert to Judaism should they so wish. In addition, Israel it is not forcing non-Jews to live on its territory and in fact many minorities do so happily, e.g., Bedouin, Druze.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Why do Israel have a problem with Hamas? Isn't it because Hamas is committed to destroying Israel? Do you think Israel should just ignore that?

They are not committed to destroying Israel, why would they offer repeatedly negotiate on the basis of U.N. Resolution 242 if they were?


Hamas does have a choice. It can choose to protect its civilians by not playing at war. Hamas would rather have its people die a martyr's death than have the humility to seek peace.

You're refusal to accept the facts that are repeatedly presented to you doesn't reflect well. Since taking power Hamas have offered; 1) a ceasefire followed by 2) peaceful negotiations, this has never been off the table. It is illogical to blame Hamas for Israel's refusal to take this up and then to make pointless and inane comments about them preferring their people to 'die a martyr's death'. This is what I was talking about with the constant wrong-headed, exculpatory nonsense supporters of Israel are forced to deal in.


BTW I do not think Israel is fundamentally good - there are people making good and bad decisions on both sides all the time. I do think though that at the political level, Hamas are fundamentally unreasonable. You cannot advocate the total destruction of your neighbour and expect to live in peace.

I have presented you with, I think, plenty of evidence which suggests Hamas are not unreasonable but are, in fact, a thoroughly pragmatic and rational force. You consistently dispute this without producing much in the way of evidence.

On the 'destruction of Israel': Hamas's charter can't really be taken at face value - ie. as a stand alone doocument, it's a piece of political rhetoric which they have increasingly moved away from (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/may/12/hamascondemnstheholocaust) in recent years as hibsbollah has illustrated. They have also, as above, repeatedly shown a willingness to negotiate terms on the basis of the '67 borders, that is not the action of a group bent on destruction.

On a much more interesting and important point; Hamas, or any other Palestinian group or individual, have no moral, legal or political obligation to recognise the right (or legitimacy) of the State of Israel to exist. To do so would be to explicitly legitimise their own expulsion in 1948 and after and all the ensuing disposessions. It would, by extension, be an acceptance of Palestine not having a right to exist. Why on earth would they agree to that? And there is not one piece of international law that requires them to do so.

[(((Fergus)))]

UN Resolution 181 provides the legal basis for coexisting Israeli and Palestinian states. Recognising Israel does not negate the existence of a Palestinian state combining the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The Arabs tried to destroy Israel and failed, they should have the humility to apologise for that and accept that any additional land they lost was as a result of their failed gamble. Humility is not a common characteristic at political level on either side, owever.

As for the "expulsion", not all Arabs were expelled from Israel - many still live there and many left of their own volition.

Incidentally, what do think should happen in the case of the surprisingly similar number of Jews who were dispossessed and expelled from Arab countries after 1948 - people who had not taken up arms against their host state? How can they be given justice? To my mind, even if they call it quits and give the arabs the occupied territories, the arabs as a whole are still getting the better deal.

[LiverpoolHibs]

UN Resolution 181 provides the legal basis for coexisting Israeli and Palestinian states. Recognising Israel does not negate the existence of a Palestinian state combining the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. The Arabs tried to destroy Israel and failed, they should have the humility to apologise for that and accept that any additional land they lost was as a result of their failed gamble. Humility is not a common characteristic at political level on either side, owever.

Good God, this takes the biscuit.


As for the "expulsion", not all Arabs were expelled from Israel - many still live there and many left of their own volition.

Where did I say all Arabs were expelled? Many did not 'leave of their own volition', they fled in the wake of the implementation of the Dalet Plan and the Deir Yassin massacre. Claiming people fleeing for their lives is them 'leaving of their own volition' is phenomenally distasteful.

On your previous points about landsales to Zionists (which you found, inexplicably, so amusing) - the vast, vast majority of these sales were of tracts of Palestinian farmland owned by non-Palestinian absentee landlords and the second largest sellers were Palestinian absentee landlords - amounting to around 94% of all landsales. The picture you were attempting to paint was a complete fabrication.


Incidentally, what do think should happen in the case of the surprisingly similar number of Jews who were dispossessed and expelled from Arab countries after 1948 - people who had not taken up arms against their host state? How can they be given justice? To my mind, even if they call it quits and give the arabs the occupied territories, the arabs as a whole are still getting the better deal.

You see the italics on the 'were' there? That's surely not meant to indicate that palestinians weren't dispossesed, is it? Because that would pretty much render all further discussion pointless.

Have you got figures/links on Jewish dispossesions and expulsions from Arab nations? I'm not doubting you, I'd just like to see how 'surprisingly similar' the numbers are.

How would 'the Arabs' be getting the better deal?

[(((Fergus)))]

"When purchasing land, Jewish migrants were concerned with the displacement of fellahin, agricultural labourers who cultivated the land. “In 1920, Labor Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion expressed his concern about the Arab fellahin, whom he viewed as ‘the most important asset of the native population’. Ben-Gurion said ‘under no circumstances must we touch land belonging to the fellahs or worked by them’”[5]. Because of the desire to displace as little number of people as possible, large tracts of land were purchased in the coastal plain the valley areas since most of the area was uncultivated and swampy. There were two main reasons why these areas were sparsely populated. The first reason being when the Ottoman power in the rural areas began to diminish in the seventeenth century, many people moved to more centralized areas to secure protection against the lawless Bedouin tribes. This resulted in huge migration to the cities leaving the rural area drastically under populated. The second reason for the sparsely populated areas of the valleys and coastal plains was the soil type. The soil, covered in a layer of sand, made it impossible to grow the staple crop of Palestine, corn. As a result this area remained uncultivated and under populated [6]. “The sparse Arab population in the areas where the Jews usually bough their land enabled the Jews to carry out their purchase without engendering a massive displacement and eviction of Arab tenants” [7]."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine

Jewish exodus from Arab lands:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_lands

The reason the Arabs overall get the better deal is that the property left behind by the Jews leaving Arab countries far exceeded in value the property left behind by the Arabs leaving Israel. As you have alluded to yourself, the Arabs did not personally own much of the land they are now laying claim to and there was relatively very little in the way of infrastructure, e.g., roads, factories, etc. The vast majority of the land (something like 70%) was owned by the Ottoman Empire and subsequently the British. For this reason, the UN was within its rights to partition the land as it saw fit.

[LiverpoolHibs]

"When purchasing land, Jewish migrants were concerned with the displacement of fellahin, agricultural labourers who cultivated the land. “In 1920, Labor Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion expressed his concern about the Arab fellahin, whom he viewed as ‘the most important asset of the native population’. Ben-Gurion said ‘under no circumstances must we touch land belonging to the fellahs or worked by them’”[5]. Because of the desire to displace as little number of people as possible, large tracts of land were purchased in the coastal plain the valley areas since most of the area was uncultivated and swampy. There were two main reasons why these areas were sparsely populated. The first reason being when the Ottoman power in the rural areas began to diminish in the seventeenth century, many people moved to more centralized areas to secure protection against the lawless Bedouin tribes. This resulted in huge migration to the cities leaving the rural area drastically under populated. The second reason for the sparsely populated areas of the valleys and coastal plains was the soil type. The soil, covered in a layer of sand, made it impossible to grow the staple crop of Palestine, corn. As a result this area remained uncultivated and under populated [6]. “The sparse Arab population in the areas where the Jews usually bough their land enabled the Jews to carry out their purchase without engendering a massive displacement and eviction of Arab tenants” [7]."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_land_purchase_in_Palestine

Jewish exodus from Arab lands:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_lands

The reason the Arabs overall get the better deal is that the property left behind by the Jews leaving Arab countries far exceeded in value the property left behind by the Arabs leaving Israel. As you have alluded to yourself, the Arabs did not personally own much of the land they are now laying claim to and there was relatively very little in the way of infrastructure, e.g., roads, factories, etc. The vast majority of the land (something like 70%) was owned by the Ottoman Empire and subsequently the British. For this reason, the UN was within its rights to partition the land as it saw fit.

I'm not going to comment too much on the Jewish exodus from Arab lands because, frankly, I don't know much about it at all. I'll look into it, though. Does that figure count in those wishing to live in the newly formed Israeli state? Also, I can't be alone in being slightly discomforted with an attempt to off-set the Nakba with a possibly/possibly not similar event.

However, it has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the issue of Palestine and al-Nakba unless you attempt to make it a conflict between a homogenised Jewish bloc and a homogenised Arab bloc. Which is exactly what you've tried to do consistently in your recent posts, and continued in the (pretty ludicrous) final paragraph, with the constant references to Arabs; it's not about them, it's about Palestinians.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Yehouda Shenhav in Ha'aretz on comparisons between the two exoduses. (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=329736)

[Betty Boop]

For Israel, a Reckoning

By John Pilger

January 15, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- The farce of the climate change summit in Copenhagen affirmed a world war waged by the rich against most of humanity. It also illuminated a resistance growing perhaps as never before: an internationalism linking justice for the planet earth with universal human rights, and criminal justice for those who invade and dispossess with impunity. And the best news comes from Palestine.

Palestinian resistance to the theft of their country reached a critical moment in 2001 when Israel was identified as an apartheid state at a United Nations conference on racism in Durban, South Africa. To Nelson Mandela, justice for the Palestinians is "the greatest moral issue of our time." The Palestinian Civil Society Call for Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS), was issued on 9 July 2005, effectively reconvening the great non-violent movement that swept the world and brought the scaffolding of African apartheid crashing down. "Through decades of occupation and dispossession," wrote Mustafa Barghouti, a wise voice of Palestinian politics, "90 percent of the Palestinian struggle has been non-violent … A new generation of Palestinian leaders [now speaks] to the world precisely as Martin Luther King did. The same world that rejects all use of Palestinian violence, even clear self-defense, surely ought not begrudge us the non-violence employed by men such as King and Gandhi."

In the United States and Europe, trade unions, academic associations and mainstream churches have brought back the strategies and tactics that were used against apartheid South Africa. In a resolution adopted by 431 votes to 62, the US Presbyterian Church voted for "a process of phased selective disinvestment in multinational corporations doing business with Israel." This followed the opinion of the International Court of Justice that Israel’s wall and its "settler" colonies were illegal. A similar declaration by the court in 1971, denouncing South Africa’s occupation of Namibia, ignited the international boycott.

Like the South Africa campaign, the issue of law is central. No state is allowed to flout international law as wilfully as Israel. In 1990, a UN Security Council resolution demanding that Saddam Hussein get out of Kuwait was the same, almost word for word, as that demanding Israel get out of the West Bank. The United States and its allies attacked and drove out Iraq while Israel has been repeatedly rewarded. On 11 December, President Obama announced $2.75 billion "aid" for Israel, a down payment on the $30 billion American taxpayers will gift from their stricken economy during this decade.

The hypocrisy is now well-understood in the US, where consumer boycott campaigns are becoming commonplace. A "stolen beauty" campaign pursues Ahava beauty products which are made in illegal West Bank "settlements," forcing the company to drop its ballyhooed celebrity "ambassador," Kristin Davis, a star of Sex and the City . In Britain, Sainsbury’s and Tesco are under pressure to identify "settlement" products, whose sale contravenes the human rights clause in the EU trade agreement with Israel.

In Australia, a consortium including the French company Veolia has lost its bid for a billion-dollar desalination plant following a campaign highlighting Veolia’s plan to build a light rail connecting Jerusalem to the "settlements." In Norway, the government has withdrawn its support for the Israeli hi-tech company Elbit, which helped build the wall across Palestine. This is the first official boycott by a western country. "We do not wish to fund companies that so directly contribute to violations of international humanitarian law," said the Norwegian finance minister.

In 2005, the Association of University Teachers in Britain (AUT) voted to boycott Israeli academic institutions complicit in the oppression of Palestinians. The AUT campaign was forced to retreat when the Israel lobby unleashed a blizzard of character assassination and charges of anti-Semitism. The Palestinian writer and activist Omar Barghouti called this "intellectual terror": a perversion of morality and logic that says to be against racism towards Palestinians makes one anti-Semitic. However, the Israeli assault on Gaza on 27 December, 2008 changed almost everything. The first US Campaign for an Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel was formed, with Desmond Tutu on its board. At its 2009 conference, Britain’s Trade Union Council voted for a consumer boycott. The "Israel taboo" is no more.

Complementing this is the rapid development of international criminal law since the Pinochet case in 1999 when the former Chilean dictator was placed under house arrest in Britain. Israeli warmongers now face similar prosecution in countries which have "universal jurisdiction" laws. In Britain, the Geneva Conventions Act of 1957 is fortified by the UN report on Gaza by Judge Richard Goldstone, which in December obliged a London magistrate to issue a warrant for the arrest of Tzipi Livni, the former Israeli foreign minister wanted for crimes against humanity. In September, only contrived diplomatic immunity rescued Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister during the assault on Gaza, from arrest by Scotland Yard.

Just over a year ago, 1400 defenseless people in Gaza were murdered by the Israelis. On 29 December, Mohamed Jassier became the 367th Gazan to die because people needing life-saving medical treatment are not allowed out. Keep that in mind when you next watch the BBC "balance" such suffering with the weasel protestations of the oppressors.

There is a clear momentum now. To mark the first anniversary of the Gaza atrocity, a great humanitarian procession from 42 countries – Muslims, Jews, Christians, atheists, old and young, trade unionists, writers, artists, musicians and those leading convoys of food and medicine – converged on Egypt, and even though the American bribed dictatorship in Cairo prevented most from proceeding to Gaza, the people in that open prison knew they were not alone, and children climbed on walls and raised the Palestinian flag. And this is just a beginning.
www.johnpilger.com

[(((Fergus)))]

I'm not going to comment too much on the Jewish exodus from Arab lands because, frankly, I don't know much about it at all. I'll look into it, though. Does that figure count in those wishing to live in the newly formed Israeli state? Also, I can't be alone in being slightly discomforted with an attempt to off-set the Nakba with a possibly/possibly not similar event.

However, it has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the issue of Palestine and al-Nakba unless you attempt to make it a conflict between a homogenised Jewish bloc and a homogenised Arab bloc. Which is exactly what you've tried to do consistently in your recent posts, and continued in the (pretty ludicrous) final paragraph, with the constant references to Arabs; it's not about them, it's about Palestinians.

I think the Arab states are happy to see Israel/Palestine as a pan-Arab problem when it suits them, e.g., opportunity to occupy Palestinian territory or attack Israel, but are less concerned with the creation of a Palestinian state (see Jordan and Egypt's total disinterest in founding a Palestinian state in 1949). Similarly, the (generally muslim) Arabs of Palestine have in the past been willing to be subsumed into a pan-Arab bloc when it suited them and took until the 1960s to develop their own representative organisation.

Anyway, given the involvement of other Arab states in the wars with Israel, I think they have to take some responsibility for the results, e.g., settling Palestinian Arabs in neighborhoods vacated by Jews. They may have already done this.

[hibsbollah]

For Israel, a Reckoning



Unfortunately, Pilger is just fantasising. I just can't take his polemics seriously, they invite ridicule.

[LiverpoolHibs]

I think the Arab states are happy to see Israel/Palestine as a pan-Arab problem when it suits them, e.g., opportunity to occupy Palestinian territory or attack Israel, but are less concerned with the creation of a Palestinian state (see Jordan and Egypt's total disinterest in founding a Palestinian state in 1949). Similarly, the (generally muslim) Arabs of Palestine have in the past been willing to be subsumed into a pan-Arab bloc when it suited them and took until the 1960s to develop their own representative organisation.

(We've done this already, haven't we?!)

I don't think that's true. It's largely a Zionist construction used to legitimise dispossession and occupation. If there's no nation to occupy and no common identity to oppress, then there's no problem and Israel can go about its business however it likes – ignoring international law and dealing with the Palestinian populace as an internal affair. Saying no Palestinian representative group (and I think the implication there is 'identity') existed until the sixties is a complete nonsense. There were any number of disparate nationalist groups during the final years of the Ottoman Empire (and not even the final years, see the revolt of 1834) and even more during the Mandate. Just because an umbrella organisation like the P.L.O. did not exist doesn’t mean there was no organisation.

The 'conflict' between pan-Arabism and Palestinian nationalism is rather more pertinent and interesting. I'd say it's a case of sublimation rather than subsumption. It's what tends to happen in anti-imperialist/anti-colonialist movements – when one expression of national (anti-imperial) consciousness is blocked off it tends to find another way to offer resistance. As a comparison, see the rise of cultural nationalism and Gaelic revivalism in Ireland in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century that came about through the complete and utter collapse of political nationalism in the wake of Parnell's downfall. I think similar happened in Palestine, the '48 war had shown not only that Palestinians were fairly incapable of stopping the Israeli advance but the combined might of the surrounding Arab states were also. However, they had at least shown themselves capable of a fight – therefore pan-Arabism was seen to offer the potential for actual resistance in the future which Palestinian groups would have recognised as being impossible at a unilateral level as a result of the Nakba. And, I don't think it holds that pan-Arabism and Palestinian nationalism should be considered exactly exclusive of one another - that's a mistaken, though really quite common, view; it was a seen as a means to the end of facilitating the return and re-establishing a Palestinian state by people who considered themselves both Arab and Palestinian and had no difficulty reconciling the two – it seems to be something we in the West can’t quite understand. I think that accounts for the almost seamless transition into a raft of explicitly Palestinian militant groups after 1967 – the P.F.L.P. et al.

Secondly, the seeming non-existence of a Palestinian identity between '48/'49 and the founding of Fatah in '54 (and then the PLO in '64) is really no surprise whatsoever given the blow to every aspect of civil society dealt by the '48 war (the loss of Haifa and Jaffa can’t really be underestimated). Finally, it's suited a few overlapping ideologies to construct this idea of one Arab people with loyalty not to any nation state but to 'Arabism' without understanding, or wanting to understand, the subtleties of Arab identity – mainly it’s suited Zionism as the simple conclusion of the (deeply flawed) argument is that displaced Palestinians can therefore just be subsumed into a wider Arab collective without it really mattering very much where that may be.


Anyway, given the involvement of other Arab states in the wars with Israel, I think they have to take some responsibility for the results, e.g., settling Palestinian Arabs in neighborhoods vacated by Jews. They may have already done this.

Apologies, but I'm not sure what you mean here. Are you saying they should or shouldn't do/have done that?


Unfortunately, Pilger is just fantasising. I just can't take his polemics seriously, they invite ridicule.

On the basis of that article and some others I've read recently, he certainly seems to be getting increasingly silly.

[McIntosh]

Are Hamas an obstacle to peace, yes or no?


No, they are part of the solution.

[Betty Boop]

Panorama from Jerusalem on BBC1 now.

[McIntosh]

Panorama from Jerusalem on BBC1 now.

Excellent programme, essential viewing for the apologist for Israel on the thread - the quicker that Israel ceases to exist as an exclusive Jewish state the better.

A disgusting state whose end can't come quick enough.

[khib70]

Excellent programme, essential viewing for the apologist for Israel on the thread - the quicker that Israel ceases to exist as an exclusive Jewish state the better.

A disgusting state whose end can't come quick enough.
You really are a sad, hate-filled individual, aren't you?As if anyone would go to the BBC for an objective, balanced view on Israel, any more than they would ask you.

Despite your continuing intellectual chest-beating, all you seem to be capable of is mindless invective.:yawn:

[(((Fergus)))]

On the point of Israel being a racist state, expel anyone who isn't a Jew, etc., etc., why do you think that, prior to and during the War of Independence 1948, no Druze villages were attacked, no Druze citizens were attacked or killed (by Jews anyway) and no Druze were expelled or fled from Israel? Druze citizens actually served alongside Jews in 1948 and they've served in the IDF ever since.

BTW Here is another source about Israeli Arab opinion concerning Israel:
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs021/1101712342378/archive/1101922202301.html

And here is the website for Justice for Jews from Arab Countries:
http://www.justiceforjews.com/narrative.html

[McIntosh]

You really are a sad, hate-filled individual, aren't you?As if anyone would go to the BBC for an objective, balanced view on Israel, any more than they would ask you.

Despite your continuing intellectual chest-beating, all you seem to be capable of is mindless invective.:yawn:

Projection again, as I've said before your avatar sums you up perfectly. It is also your greatest weakness in being taken seriously but thats an irony in itself.

The absolute worst thing anyone could say about you is that you are a moral blank, whose lazy cynicism and sneering, ironic take on the middle East encapsulates everything that is wrong with you as a human being. But you my friend, are not evil....just in training. If you try harder you will reach the level of your brothers who wear your avatar for real on their uniforms.

[hibsbollah]

You really are a sad, hate-filled individual, aren't you?As if anyone would go to the BBC for an objective, balanced view on Israel, any more than they would ask you.

Despite your continuing intellectual chest-beating, all you seem to be capable of is mindless invective.:yawn:

Just when I thought the standard of debate on here was getting better :rolleyes:

[khib70]

Just when I thought the standard of debate on here was getting better :rolleyes:
How are you supposed to deal with an individual who communicates in a bizarre mix of soundbites and personal insults, and whose hatred for Israel clearly outweighs his concern for Palestinians?

I have no problem with you, or LH or BB, or anyone else taking the Palestinian side on here. Indeed, reading your posts and links can be a learning experience. As a Zionist and supporter of Israel I expect to get a rough ride, and quite enjoy it, to be honest. Putting up with someone who operates at the rhetorical level of the primary school playground while simultaneously, and bizarrely, passing himself off as some kind of omniscient intellectual giant, is quite a different affair.

And neither he, nor anyone else gets to choose my avatars.

[(((Fergus)))]

On the point of Israel being a racist state, expel anyone who isn't a Jew, etc., etc., why do you think that, prior to and during the War of Independence 1948, no Druze villages were attacked, no Druze citizens were attacked or killed (by Jews anyway) and no Druze were expelled or fled from Israel? Druze citizens actually served alongside Jews in 1948 and they've served in the IDF ever since.

BTW Here is another source about Israeli Arab opinion concerning Israel:
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs021/1101712342378/archive/1101922202301.html

And here is the website for Justice for Jews from Arab Countries:
http://www.justiceforjews.com/narrative.html

Also an interesting perspective from a Circassian village to the west of Jerusalem:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghosh#Neutrality_in_Israeli-Arab_conflict

[hibsbollah]

How are you supposed to deal with an individual who communicates in a bizarre mix of soundbites and personal insults, and whose hatred for Israel clearly outweighs his concern for Palestinians?

I have no problem with you, or LH or BB, or anyone else taking the Palestinian side on here. Indeed, reading your posts and links can be a learning experience. As a Zionist and supporter of Israel I expect to get a rough ride, and quite enjoy it, to be honest. Putting up with someone who operates at the rhetorical level of the primary school playground while simultaneously, and bizarrely, passing himself off as some kind of omniscient intellectual giant, is quite a different affair.

And neither he, nor anyone else gets to choose my avatars.

Fair enough, youve clearly had a spat with him on another thread somewhere. I had assumed you were in a bad mood, and you'd come home to find Orla Guerin sitting in your favourite chair, reading her Guardian in some racy underwear:agree:

[khib70]

Fair enough, youve clearly had a spat with him on another thread somewhere. I had assumed you were in a bad mood, and you'd come home to find Orla Guerin sitting in your favourite chair, reading her Guardian in some racy underwear:agree:
Oh, stop it!:drool::wink:

[hibsbollah]

Oh, stop it!:drool::wink:
:faf:

[McIntosh]

How are you supposed to deal with an individual who communicates in a bizarre mix of soundbites and personal insults, and whose hatred for Israel clearly outweighs his concern for Palestinians?

I have no problem with you, or LH or BB, or anyone else taking the Palestinian side on here. Indeed, reading your posts and links can be a learning experience. As a Zionist and supporter of Israel I expect to get a rough ride, and quite enjoy it, to be honest. Putting up with someone who operates at the rhetorical level of the primary school playground while simultaneously, and bizarrely, passing himself off as some kind of omniscient intellectual giant, is quite a different affair.

And neither he, nor anyone else gets to choose my avatars.

The most bizarre in this dialogue is your support for the wicked state that is Israel.

You are correct in one thing as a Zionist you will get no quarter from me I consider your politics on the issue of Palestinian rights to be devoid of any form of humanity. You are in my opinion the ideological bedfellow of the Nazis. However, I am glad that I give you so much pleasure; I can assure you I aim to continue this.

As you will be aware not all Jews support Zionism and some actively seek to build a joint future with the Palestinians, notably the Pears Foundation - http://www.pearsfoundation.org.uk/values_philosophy.html (http://www.pearsfoundation.org.uk/values_philosophy.html) feel free to read it, it a widely respected Jewish foundation. Here is their major report
http://www.pearsfoundation.org.uk/downloads/Forum%20Symposium%20Booklet.pdf (http://www.pearsfoundation.org.uk/downloads/Forum%20Symposium%20Booklet.pdf)

As for you Avatar keep using it, it only undermines you. I leave you with the words of Gerald Kaufman in relation to Hamas and Israel’s future - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8)

[khib70]

The most bizarre in this dialogue is your support for the wicked state that is Israel.

You are correct in one thing as a Zionist you will get no quarter from me I consider your politics on the issue of Palestinian rights to be devoid of any form of humanity. You are in my opinion the ideological bedfellow of the Nazis. However, I am glad that I give you so much pleasure; I can assure you I aim to continue this.

As you will be aware not all Jews support Zionism and some actively seek to build a joint future with the Palestinians, notably the Pears Foundation - http://www.pearsfoundation.org.uk/values_philosophy.html (http://www.pearsfoundation.org.uk/values_philosophy.html) feel free to read it, it a widely respected Jewish foundation. Here is their major report
http://www.pearsfoundation.org.uk/downloads/Forum%20Symposium%20Booklet.pdf (http://www.pearsfoundation.org.uk/downloads/Forum%20Symposium%20Booklet.pdf)

As for you Avatar keep using it, it only undermines you. I leave you with the words of Gerald Kaufman in relation to Hamas and Israel’s future - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMGuYjt6CP8)
For anyone who doesn't understand my problem with Mr McIntosh, see the bit in bold above. This is what sets him apart from others on here with different views to myself.

[McIntosh]

For anyone who doesn't understand my problem with Mr McIntosh, see the bit in bold above. This is what sets him apart from others on here with different views to myself.


Well you are, so if the cap fits wear it - look at the avatar.

You must be a quick reader to have read the Pears report.

Ps, it ain't Mr, however I don't have a problem with that, you've called me a lot worse!

[LiverpoolHibs]

You really are a sad, hate-filled individual, aren't you?As if anyone would go to the BBC for an objective, balanced view on Israel, any more than they would ask you.

Despite your continuing intellectual chest-beating, all you seem to be capable of is mindless invective.:yawn:

What was unbalanced, unobjective or - more importantly - innacurate about last night's Panorama? I notice you still haven't backed up your claim about Peter Oborne and his programme being anti-Semitic (heaven forfend you might be using that as a politicised rhetorical device), I wonder if the same will happen here...

It really was an excellent programme. IPlayer link here (http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pznkh/Panorama_A_Walk_in_the_Park/) for anyone who missed it.


On the point of Israel being a racist state, expel anyone who isn't a Jew, etc., etc.,

Sorry, who suggested Israel expels anyone who isn't a Jew? You can't just make things up.


Why do you think that, prior to and during the War of Independence 1948, no Druze villages were attacked, no Druze citizens were attacked or killed (by Jews anyway) and no Druze were expelled or fled from Israel? Druze citizens actually served alongside Jews in 1948 and they've served in the IDF ever since.

Despite the fact that no-one suggested the above rendering this pretty much pointless, I'll answer anyway since it's an oft-quoted response by people desperate to assert Israel's good intentions.

1) The first point makes it sound like there were hundreds of Druze villages which were spared by the morally sound Haganah. There were only about 10,000 Druze in the Mandate at the start of the '48 war. Druze villages were only left unharmed after the promise of cooperation with the Haganah. If you think that's indicative of Israeli egalitarianism then good for you, but I'm not sure many would agree.

2) The main Druze political motivation during the twentieth century was based on establishing and maintaining their paticularist position - ie. not to be subsumed into a mass of homogenous Arabs. This was very quickly picked up on by Israel and vigorously encouraged whereas Muslim and Christian Palestinians saw their independence as potentially damaging. The Druze saw Zionism as a potential 'off-set' to the non-particular nationalism of other Palestinians. It's what happens in pretty much every single colonialist venture, one ethnic group of the 'natives' (usually a minority group) is privileged above the others - see the British creation of a de facto Tamil ruling class in colonial Ceylon whilst keeping the majority Sinhalese at a 'lower level'. Further tensions were created as the Druze were the only Arab group to support the transfer plan.

3) The radicalism that affected Muslim and Christian Palestinians during the 1920s didn't affect Druze inhabitants as events took place in areas in which the Druze did not live.

4) The final point is the best of the lot, genuinely brilliant. 'And they've served in the IDF ever since.' Hmmmmm, aye that's a huge surprise given that they're conscripted into national service, I mean for ****s sake. The Druze provided, and still provide to this day, a way of bulking up the numbers of the I.D.F. and then providing cheap labour once their national service is finished. There's also rising Druze antipathy to Israel as a result of this - see the 2007 Peki'in riots.

And none of this implies that there haven't been Druze active in the Palestinian movement since its inception up to the present day. There have and there are.


BTW Here is another source about Israeli Arab opinion concerning Israel:
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs021/1101712342378/archive/1101922202301.html

I have no idea what that is.


And here is the website for Justice for Jews from Arab Countries:
http://www.justiceforjews.com/narrative.html

I've already posted responses to this sort of thing. They've been ignored.

[McIntosh]

I've already posted responses to this sort of thing. They've been ignored.

An excellent post as they normally are but dont be surprised by the habit of the Zionist or their apologists in not dealing with the issue or difficult facts. They have a clear agenda if justice for the Palestinians is to take place people like yourself must continue to challenge them and expose the fascism within their positions.

[khib70]

[QUOTE=LiverpoolHibs;2314995]What was unbalanced, unobjective or - more importantly - innacurate about last night's Panorama? I notice you still haven't backed up your claim about Peter Oborne and his programme being anti-Semitic (heaven forfend you might be using that as a politicised rhetorical device), I wonder if the same will happen here...

I refer you once again to the European Monitoring Committee on Racism "Working Definition of Anti-Semitism".

http://www.european-forum-on-antisemitism.org/working-definition-of-antisemitism/english/

In my opinion, the programme fits this definition in terms of alleging a Jewish conspiracy "to control the media, economy, government or other societal institutions." and in terms of " Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations."

And possibly marginally of "Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews."

In addition, sensationalist visuals were tossed around, most strikingly, a Star of David superimposed on a Union Jack. Metaphorical, or what? The Mogen David, is after all, a symbol of Judaism, not just Israel.

That's my analysis, you clearly disagree, as you're more than entitled to do. It's interesting that some Daily Mail and Spectator journalists are more to your liking than others, though.:wink:

As for "Panorama" I didn't see it and therefore was not commenting specifically on it. I was merely repeating my belief that the BBC is not an objective or impartial reporter of events involving Israel. I know you disagree with that too.

Oh and by the way, for McIntosh's benefit, I have read the Pears report, and agree with most of it. It is not in any sense an anti-Zionist document, any more than they are an anti-Zionist organisation. The report in fact has a foreword from the Israeli Minister of Education, on his Ministry's headed notepaper.
Still, why let the facts,etc.

[McIntosh]

[QUOTE=LiverpoolHibs;2314995]What was unbalanced, unobjective or - more importantly - innacurate about last night's Panorama? I notice you still haven't backed up your claim about Peter Oborne and his programme being anti-Semitic (heaven forfend you might be using that as a politicised rhetorical device), I wonder if the same will happen here...

I refer you once again to the European Monitoring Committee on Racism "Working Definition of Anti-Semitism".

http://www.european-forum-on-antisemitism.org/working-definition-of-antisemitism/english/

In my opinion, the programme fits this definition in terms of alleging a Jewish conspiracy "to control the media, economy, government or other societal institutions." and in terms of " Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations."

And possibly marginally of "Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews."

In addition, sensationalist visuals were tossed around, most strikingly, a Star of David superimposed on a Union Jack. Metaphorical, or what? The Mogen David, is after all, a symbol of Judaism, not just Israel.

That's my analysis, you clearly disagree, as you're more than entitled to do. It's interesting that some Daily Mail and Spectator journalists are more to your liking than others, though.:wink:

As for "Panorama" I didn't see it and therefore was not commenting specifically on it. I was merely repeating my belief that the BBC is not an objective or impartial reporter of events involving Israel. I know you disagree with that too.

Oh and by the way, for McIntosh's benefit, I have read the Pears report, and agree with most of it. It is not in any sense an anti-Zionist document, any more than they are an anti-Zionist organisation. The report in fact has a foreword from the Israeli Minister of Education, on his Ministry's headed notepaper.
Still, why let the facts,etc.

You've done exactly what Liverpoolhibs said you were going to do but to your credit you are now admitting that it is just your 'belief'.

P.s. I never described the Pears Foundation as "anti-Zionist" far from it, however I am a lot more balanced than you would give me credit for but as you say don't let the 'facts' get in the way. :wink:

[LiverpoolHibs]

I refer you once again to the European Monitoring Committee on Racism "Working Definition of Anti-Semitism".

http://www.european-forum-on-antisemitism.org/working-definition-of-antisemitism/english/

In my opinion, the programme fits this definition in terms of alleging a Jewish conspiracy "to control the media, economy, government or other societal institutions." and in terms of " Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations."

You're talking absolute, unremitting nonsense. And pretty unpleasant nonsense at that.

Do we have to deny the existence of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain, BICOM or the Israel lobby more generally in order not to be accused of anti-Semitism? This is positively Orwellian.


And possibly marginally of "Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews."

Plumbing new depths of nonsensicality...

Genuinely bordering on beneath contempt. As I've said before, I'm sure you used to be a bit better than this.


In addition, sensationalist visuals were tossed around, most strikingly, a Star of David superimposed on a Union Jack. Metaphorical, or what? The Mogen David, is after all, a symbol of Judaism, not just Israel.

Lazy.

It wasn't a Star of David imposed. It was an Israeli flag. Erm, 'why let the facts' was it?


That's my analysis, you clearly disagree, as you're more than entitled to do. It's interesting that some Daily Mail and Spectator journalists are more to your liking than others, though.:wink:

I don't like Oborne very much at all (although he's a pretty intelligent bloke), I'd pretty much defend anyone from disgusting, unfounded and politically motivated accusations of anti-Semitism, however.


As for "Panorama" I didn't see it and therefore was not commenting specifically on it. I was merely repeating my belief that the BBC is not an objective or impartial reporter of events involving Israel. I know you disagree with that too.

Ah, you didn't see it but you felt perfectly capable of deciding it was unbalanced and subjective. Brilliant...

[Betty Boop]

Also an interesting perspective from a Circassian village to the west of Jerusalem:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghosh#Neutrality_in_Israeli-Arab_conflict

Adalah report to UN slams Israel's treatment of Arabs

By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent


The Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel has presented the United Nations with a highly critical report on Israel's treatment of its Arab citizens.

The report was presented on February 1 in preparation for the meeting of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva next week.

Adalah's appeal is part of a wider effort by Arab organizations to internationalize the discussion around the relationship between Israel and its Arab citizens. Adalah expects the report to serve as a basis for the committee's discussion and thus put intentional pressure on Israel to change its policies.

The report outlines several issues that Adalah claims violate the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), on which Israel is a signatory.

One of the report's claims is that Israel enacts laws and enters into agreements with institutions that exclusively allocate land to Jews.

The report also claims that the laws conditioning certain social and financial benefits on military service, discriminate against most of Israeli Arab population.

An additional issue presented by the report is Israeli legislation allowing severe interrogation methods against detainees suspected of security offenses, most of whom are Arabs.

The report also claims the people responsible for the deaths of 13 Arabs from Israel Police fire during the events of October 2000 were not put on trial.

Further claims in the report are that Israel prevents its Arab citizens from marrying Palestinian partners if they wish to reside in Israel; the state exercises extreme discrimination in the budgets it allots Arab towns; Arab citizens have been evacuated from their Negev homes under the claim that the homes were illegal, and standards for accepting Arab students into higher-education institutions are discriminatory, among others

[(((Fergus)))]

Sorry, who suggested Israel expels anyone who isn't a Jew? You can't just make things up.


So you agree that Israel is happy in principle to allow non-Jews to live in its territory?



4) The final point is the best of the lot, genuinely brilliant. 'And they've served in the IDF ever since.' Hmmmmm, aye that's a huge surprise given that they're conscripted into national service, I mean for ****s sake. The Druze provided, and still provide to this day, a way of bulking up the numbers of the I.D.F. and then providing cheap labour once their national service is finished. There's also rising Druze antipathy to Israel as a result of this - see the 2007 Peki'in riots.


Of course they are conscripted. Why is that some non-Jews are conscripted and others not? Perhaps the same reason some non-Jews were fought against in 1948 and in some cases massacred and driven out: because these groups had shown themselves since at least 1920 to be violent enemies of the Jews. Those non-Jews who were prepared to co-exist peacefully continued to do so. Those who chose not to created a different future for themselves.

[khib70]

You're talking absolute, unremitting nonsense. And pretty unpleasant nonsense at that.

Do we have to deny the existence of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain, BICOM or the Israel lobby more generally in order not to be accused of anti-Semitism? This is positively Orwellian.



Plumbing new depths of nonsensicality...

Genuinely bordering on beneath contempt. As I've said before, I'm sure you used to be a bit better than this.



Lazy.

It wasn't a Star of David imposed. It was an Israeli flag. Erm, 'why let the facts' was it?



I don't like Oborne very much at all (although he's a pretty intelligent bloke), I'd pretty much defend anyone from disgusting, unfounded and politically motivated accusations of anti-Semitism, however.



Ah, you didn't see it but you felt perfectly capable of deciding it was unbalanced and subjective. Brilliant...
Ok, so you disagree. Think you're over-reacting a bit, though. I stand by my analysis of the programme, and its compatibility with the definitions above.

Oh and, regarding "Panorama", I categorically stated that I hadn't seen the programme and wasn't commenting specifically on it. I'll watch it when I get the time.

[LiverpoolHibs]

So you agree that Israel is happy in principle to allow non-Jews to live in its territory?

Of course, as long as they're kept at a 'safe level' and don't resist oppression and dispossession.


Of course they are conscripted. Why is that some non-Jews are conscripted and others not? Perhaps the same reason some non-Jews were fought against in 1948 and in some cases massacred and driven out: because these groups had shown themselves since at least 1920 to be violent enemies of the Jews. Those non-Jews who were prepared to co-exist peacefully continued to do so. Those who chose not to created a different future for themselves.

Ha, the attempted sophistry in that is pretty incredible.

Either that or you have a genuinely bizarre internal logic and/or view of history.

[(((Fergus)))]

Adalah report to UN slams Israel's treatment of Arabs

By Yoav Stern, Haaretz Correspondent


The Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel has presented the United Nations with a highly critical report on Israel's treatment of its Arab citizens.

The report was presented on February 1 in preparation for the meeting of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva next week.

Adalah's appeal is part of a wider effort by Arab organizations to internationalize the discussion around the relationship between Israel and its Arab citizens. Adalah expects the report to serve as a basis for the committee's discussion and thus put intentional pressure on Israel to change its policies.

The report outlines several issues that Adalah claims violate the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), on which Israel is a signatory.

One of the report's claims is that Israel enacts laws and enters into agreements with institutions that exclusively allocate land to Jews.

The report also claims that the laws conditioning certain social and financial benefits on military service, discriminate against most of Israeli Arab population.

An additional issue presented by the report is Israeli legislation allowing severe interrogation methods against detainees suspected of security offenses, most of whom are Arabs.

The report also claims the people responsible for the deaths of 13 Arabs from Israel Police fire during the events of October 2000 were not put on trial.

Further claims in the report are that Israel prevents its Arab citizens from marrying Palestinian partners if they wish to reside in Israel; the state exercises extreme discrimination in the budgets it allots Arab towns; Arab citizens have been evacuated from their Negev homes under the claim that the homes were illegal, and standards for accepting Arab students into higher-education institutions are discriminatory, among others

Not sure why you quoted that in relation to Abu Ghosh but good to see that Israel is being taken to task for human rights issues. Not only that but the news is being reported supportively by a Jew in an Israeli newspaper. This says a lot about the kind of nation Israel is.

[(((Fergus)))]

Of course, as long as they're kept at a 'safe level' and don't resist oppression and dispossession.



Ha, the attempted sophistry in that is pretty incredible.

Either that or you have a genuinely bizarre internal logic and/or view of history.

OK, you explain why some non-Jews are conscripted and others are not.

[LiverpoolHibs]

OK, you explain why some non-Jews are conscripted and others are not.

I'm really not particularly interested, but presumably because Druzes and Circassians (as a mass rather than on an individual basis) have never taken part in any concerted resistance movement against Zionism.

But I'm not sure what the point of this is?

[McIntosh]

OK, you explain why some non-Jews are conscripted and others are not.

Fergus somes Israeli Jews don't join the IDF on religious grounds regardless of the draft.

[Betty Boop]

Los Angeles Jews For Peace Rally

LA Jews for Peace and friends make their voices heard in front of the Federal building on the 1 year anniversary of Israel's Operation "Castlead "

Video Posted January 23, 2010

Los Angeles Jews For Peace Rally

LA Jews for Peace and friends make their voices heard in front of the Federal building on the 1 year anniversary of Israel's Operation "Castlead "



YouTube - Gaza_ Israel Federal Building Protest 1_17_10 (LA).wmv pt 1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yhASJ6cPVc&feature=player_embedded#)

[(((Fergus)))]

Just seen Ross Kemp's documentary on Gaza and Israel which has some fascinating interviewees on both sides, e.g., al-Quds nutters trying to plant a bomb, Jewish settler zealots on a West Bank hilltop, a 24-year-old law graduate turned suicide bomber plus lots of ordinary people with extraordinary stories who just want to live in peace.

YouTube - Ross Kemp: Middle East Gaza 1/5 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWeiAmr_atA)
YouTube - Ross Kemp Middle East - Israel 1/5 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-UArLeF7oM)

You might also be interested in Waltz with Bashir, an animated film about the 1982 war in Lebanon. I thought it was brilliant, although the quality isn't all that great on YouTube.

YouTube - Waltz with Bashir English. part 1 of 9 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeHOH6PSbfM&videos=IajKhAWaMlQ&playnext_from=TL&playnext=1)

[hibsbollah]

Just seen Ross Kemp's documentary on Gaza and Israel which has some fascinating interviewees on both sides, e.g., al-Quds nutters trying to plant a bomb, Jewish settler zealots on a West Bank hilltop, a 24-year-old law graduate turned suicide bomber plus lots of ordinary people with extraordinary stories who just want to live in peace.

YouTube - Ross Kemp: Middle East Gaza 1/5 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWeiAmr_atA)
YouTube - Ross Kemp Middle East - Israel 1/5 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-UArLeF7oM)

You might also be interested in Waltz with Bashir, an animated film about the 1982 war in Lebanon. I thought it was brilliant, although the quality isn't all that great on YouTube.

YouTube - Waltz with Bashir English. part 1 of 9 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeHOH6PSbfM&videos=IajKhAWaMlQ&playnext_from=TL&playnext=1)

I'd rather be stuck in a broken lift for 8 hours with Alan Preston than watch anything with Ross Kemp in it, sorry Ferg:wink:

[khib70]

I'd rather be stuck in a broken lift for 8 hours with Alan Preston than watch anything with Ross Kemp in it, sorry Ferg:wink:
:greengrinMe too.:jamboak:Too many Ross Kemp types on both sides in the Middle East these days!

[LiverpoolHibs]

What epochal event has passed by without me noticing to make Ross Kemp and others decide that he's no longer a sub-standard soap hardman but is in fact the new Carl Bernstein?

Waltz With Bashir is really good though, in spite of it slightly bottling it at one point.

[(((Fergus)))]

I'd rather be stuck in a broken lift for 8 hours with Alan Preston than watch anything with Ross Kemp in it, sorry Ferg:wink:

I thought it would be crap as well but I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Watch the Gaza one at least, there are some particularly good interviews in that. His hard man image took him into places you don't normally see, e.g., talking with a suicide bomber who was about to record his martyrdom video, crawling inside a smuggling tunnel where 2-3 guys die every week. He also managed to get amazing statements from a group of little kids who had lost parents and other relatives. The thing I liked about it was that he wasn't taking sides so you get to see the paradoxes, e.g., the suicide bomber who nearly talked himself out of his mission when he said 'war makes war and peace makes peace'.

---------- Post added at 04:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:24 PM ----------


:greengrinMe too.:jamboak:Too many Ross Kemp types on both sides in the Middle East these days!

You'd be surprised how reasonable he is. At least I thought so anyway. :greengrin

[(((Fergus)))]

What epochal event has passed by without me noticing to make Ross Kemp and others decide that he's no longer a sub-standard soap hardman but is in fact the new Carl Bernstein?

Waltz With Bashir is really good though, in spite of it slightly bottling it at one point.

As I said above, maybe his hardman self-image has taken him into places that other journalists would avoid. Once he's there though, he's remarkably humble and circumspect (as you would be), asking quite simple questions and generally having no agenda (although he does seem a little impatient with the hilltop settlers in the WB and would probably have a word with the al-Quds guys if they came round his manor). He also gets a good cross-section of people which highlights the paradoxes and reveals the conflicts within each side.

[(((Fergus)))]

I'd rather be stuck in a broken lift for 8 hours with Alan Preston than watch anything with Ross Kemp in it, sorry Ferg:wink:

PS If you liked Persepolis and Maus, you will love Waltz with Bashir. I'd get it on DVD though.

http://www.lovefilm.com/film/Waltz-with-Bashir/106705/

[(((Fergus)))]

Fergus somes Israeli Jews don't join the IDF on religious grounds regardless of the draft.

Indeed, although the uptake among haredi jews is apparently increasing (I read in Haaretz the other day).

LH the point I was trying to make is that some ethnic groups were and are happy to live as a minority under Israeli rule. I suppose they were used to it having lived among an Arab majority for many years. What I'm not sure of is why they chose the Israeli side in the 1940s. If the Arabs had won the war, the recriminations against the Druze and Circassians would have been fierce. Did they really know back then that Israel could defeat the combined Arab armies? Or maybe they wanted Israel to defeat them as they didn't want to live under Arab rule?

[hibsbollah]

PS If you liked Persepolis and Maus, you will love Waltz with Bashir. I'd get it on DVD though.

http://www.lovefilm.com/film/Waltz-with-Bashir/106705/ (http://www.lovefilm.com/film/Waltz-with-Bashir/106705/)

I will give it a watch then. Is there an animated Maus movie out now?

[Mon Dieu4]

I will give it a watch then. Is there an animated Maus movie out now?

Have you never seen Stuart Little?:faf:

[(((Fergus)))]

Have you never seen Stuart Little?:faf:

:faf: No, no animated Maus, but it has a similar feel to those books. Apparently Waltz with Bashir is also available as a graphic novel (made after the film) and it may be the best way to see it as the film is quite unrelenting.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Indeed, although the uptake among haredi jews is apparently increasing (I read in Haaretz the other day).

LH the point I was trying to make is that some ethnic groups were and are happy to live as a minority under Israeli rule. I suppose they were used to it having lived among an Arab majority for many years. What I'm not sure of is why they chose the Israeli side in the 1940s. If the Arabs had won the war, the recriminations against the Druze and Circassians would have been fierce. Did they really know back then that Israel could defeat the combined Arab armies? Or maybe they wanted Israel to defeat them as they didn't want to live under Arab rule?

As I've already said, Druzes didn't uniformly back 'Israel' in the '48 war. Druze leaders were essentially told by the Haganah and other Zionist paramilitaries, 'If you cooperate with us, your villages will not be destroyed. If you don't cooperate with us...'

There's no way you can paint that as 'choosing the Israeli side' as they didn't want to live under Arab rule (they are Arabs, by the way).

[Mon Dieu4]

:faf: No, no animated Maus, but it has a similar feel to those books. Apparently Waltz with Bashir is also available as a graphic novel (made after the film) and it may be the best way to see it as the film is quite unrelenting.

:wink:

[LiverpoolHibs]

As I said above, maybe his hardman self-image has taken him into places that other journalists would avoid. Once he's there though, he's remarkably humble and circumspect (as you would be), asking quite simple questions and generally having no agenda (although he does seem a little impatient with the hilltop settlers in the WB and would probably have a word with the al-Quds guys if they came round his manor). He also gets a good cross-section of people which highlights the paradoxes and reveals the conflicts within each side.

:greengrin

I didn't really know what to make of the suicide bomber/martyrdom video bit, given that (as far as I'm aware) the P.R.C./al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades have never carried out a suicide attack and no group has managed to get someone across into Israel from Gaza for such an attack for absolutely ages. I think he either got taken in by a bit of a publicity stunt or wasn't entirely honest about it.

[(((Fergus)))]

As I've already said, Druzes didn't uniformly back 'Israel' in the '48 war. Druze leaders were essentially told by the Haganah and other Zionist paramilitaries, 'If you cooperate with us, your villages will not be destroyed. If you don't cooperate with us...'

There's no way you can paint that as 'choosing the Israeli side' as they didn't want to live under Arab rule (they are Arabs, by the way).

There's passive cooperation and then there's taking up arms - in 1948 and ever since. I don't accept that that was done solely under duress.

Maybe we should ask them why they did it?

BTW the Druze in Israel may be ethnically Arab but they were/are dissimilar enough from most other Arabs in the region to choose the Jewish side. Perhaps the one factor that united those Arab armies was Sunni Islam. The Druze are supposedly an offshoot of Shia Islam. The Circassians in Israel, on the other hand, are Sunni muslims but not Arab. Then again, there are plenty of Sunni Arabs both inside Israel and in the Occupied Territories who are happy to accept the existence of Israel and live in peace with it.

[(((Fergus)))]

:greengrin

I didn't really know what to make of the suicide bomber/martyrdom video bit, given that (as far as I'm aware) the P.R.C./al-Nasser Salah al-Deen Brigades have never carried out a suicide attack and no group has managed to get someone across into Israel from Gaza for such an attack for absolutely ages. I think he either got taken in by a bit of a publicity stunt or wasn't entirely honest about it.

Was thinking that myself. Maybe they just have guys just waiting for their orders. Then again, the whole episode with the bomb on the beach was obviously just done for the cameras - guys sneaking about in case there were Israelis on the beach but with camera lighting on them so they could be filmed. :bitchy: :faf:

[hibsbollah]

Have you never seen Stuart Little?:faf:


:faf:

[LiverpoolHibs]

There's passive cooperation and then there's taking up arms - in 1948 and ever since. I don't accept that that was done solely under duress.

Maybe we should ask them why they did it?

How are you planning to attract Druze posters to hibs.net? :greengrin

I've already offered some possible explanations for it in post #317.

Rashid Khalidi's, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness is very good if you want something more in depth.


BTW the Druze in Israel may be ethnically Arab but they were/are dissimilar enough from most other Arabs in the region to choose the Jewish side. Perhaps the one factor that united those Arab armies was Sunni Islam. The Druze are supposedly an offshoot of Shia Islam. The Circassians in Israel, on the other hand, are Sunni muslims but not Arab. Then again, there are plenty of Sunni Arabs both inside Israel and in the Occupied Territories who are happy to accept the existence of Israel and live in peace with it.

Nope, that's just silly. Neither Iraq nor Lebanon had (or have) Sunni majorities.

[(((Fergus)))]

How are you planning to attract Druze posters to hibs.net? :greengrin

I've already offered some possible explanations for it in post #317.

Rashid Khalidi's, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness is very good if you want something more in depth.


No, I'm going to look for druze.net and start fishing :greengrin




Neither Iraq nor Lebanon had (or have) Sunni majorities.

Didn't they have Sunni leaderships in 1948? Whatever the case, religious denomination couldn't have been the sole factor as I already mentioned, although Israel does seem to have the power to unite Sunni and Shia.

As the annexations by Egypt and Jordan showed, territorial self-interest clearly was a consideration, at least for those countries. That doesn't explain why Iraq waded in. Have you read anything on that?

PS As for post #317 you've basically said that the Druze preferred to live in a Jewish state rather than an Arab one. I totally agree. :o)

[(((Fergus)))]

In the meantime, here's the JCPA take on the relationship between the Druze and Israel:

http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp464.htm
(Scroll down to 'Origins of Druze Political Loyalty')

[LiverpoolHibs]

No, I'm going to look for druze.net and start fishing :greengrin



Didn't they have Sunni leaderships in 1948? Whatever the case, religious denomination couldn't have been the sole factor as I already mentioned, although Israel does seem to have the power to unite Sunni and Shia.

As the annexations by Egypt and Jordan showed, territorial self-interest clearly was a consideration, at least for those countries. That doesn't explain why Iraq waded in. Have you read anything on that?

PS As for post #317 you've basically said that the Druze preferred to live in a Jewish state rather than an Arab one. I totally agree. :o)

Nope, I've suggested some reasons for the (undeniable) relative lack of resistance to Zionism amongst the Palestinian Druze community (although it's growing) - the Druzes under occupation in the Golan Heights are, in contrast, very militant.

[LiverpoolHibs]

In the meantime, here's the JCPA take on the relationship between the Druze and Israel:

http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp464.htm (http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp464.htm)
(Scroll down to 'Origins of Druze Political Loyalty')

Christ....

[(((Fergus)))]

Nope, I've suggested some reasons for the (undeniable) relative lack of resistance to Zionism amongst the Palestinian Druze community (although it's growing) - the Druzes under occupation in the Golan Heights are, in contrast, very militant.

It wasn't lack of resistance though, was it - they joined in. Here's their flag from 1948 http://crwflags.com/fotw/Flags/il_druze.html#idf (you'll find a link there to the original photograph).

Regarding the Druze in the Golan, they have to bear in mind that the Golan may one day be returned to Syrian dictatorship. They can say what they like in Israel and know that there won't be any repercussions in a country where criticism of the state is tolerated. It will even earn them kudos if the Golan becomes Syrian again. If however they embrace Israel and then end up under Syrian control again, then... Here's an article about it:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/03/AR2007060300475.html

---------- Post added at 10:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:21 PM ----------


Christ....

Good, isn't it? :agree:

[LiverpoolHibs]

It wasn't lack of resistance though, was it - they joined in. Here's their flag from 1948 [/URL]http://crwflags.com/fotw/Flags/il_druze.html#idf (http://crwflags.com/fotw/Flags/il_druze.html#idf) (you'll find a link there to the original photograph).

Would that not count as a lack of resistance? I'm certainly not attempting to gloss over Druze involvement in the I.D.F.

We seem to be spending a lot of time on the Druze and, again, I'm slightly confused as to the point of it.


Regarding the Druze in the Golan, they have to bear in mind that the Golan may one day be returned to Syrian dictatorship. They can say what they like in Israel and know that there won't be any repercussions in a country where criticism of the state is tolerated. It will even earn them kudos if the Golan becomes Syrian again. If however they embrace Israel and then end up under Syrian control again, then... Here's an article about it:

[url]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/03/AR2007060300475.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/03/AR2007060300475.html)

I really don't know what this means. They militantly oppose Israeli occupation in order to endear themselves to the ruling elite of Syria in case there's a transference of power in the future? How odd...

They show support for Israel and they're pro-Israel yet they show support for Syria (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3365151,00.html) and they're still actually pro-Israel. The poor buggers can't win!

http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/20122005/1020545/3_wa.jpg (http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/20122005/1020545/3_wa.jpg)


Good, isn't it? :agree:

No, it's quite embarrassingly awful.

[(((Fergus)))]

Would that not count as a lack of resistance? I'm certainly not attempting to gloss over Druze involvement in the I.D.F.

We seem to be spending a lot of time on the Druze and, again, I'm slightly confused as to the point of it.


The example of the Druze demonstrates that Israel is not by definition unable to live in peace with other ethnic groups. As you say, the Druze are Arabs, therefore Israel does not per se have a problem with Arabs. (It does though have a very big problem with some members of some groups of Arabs.)



I really don't know what this means. They militantly oppose Israeli occupation in order to endear themselves to the ruling elite of Syria in case there's a transference of power in the future? How odd...

They show support for Israel and they're pro-Israel yet they show support for Syria (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3365151,00.html) and they're still actually pro-Israel. The poor buggers can't win!

http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/20122005/1020545/3_wa.jpg (http://www.ynetnews.com/PicServer2/20122005/1020545/3_wa.jpg)


The consensus seems to be that the Golan may be given to Syria therefore the Druze have to be careful not to burn their bridges. Personally, I wouldn't like to incur the wrath of the Syrian state forces.

What the ynetnews article doesn't mention is why the 500 Druze protesters on the Israeli side (2.5% of the Golan Druze population) are so keen on the Golan being Syrian. How would they benefit? The Washington Post article does at least give a reason why (some) Golani Druze appreciate living in Israel.



No, it's quite embarrassingly awful.

Pity, it's the only reference I've found so far. Have you managed to find any better sources?

[LiverpoolHibs]

The example of the Druze demonstrates that Israel is not by definition unable to live in peace with other ethnic groups. As you say, the Druze are Arabs, therefore Israel does not per se have a problem with Arabs. (It does though have a very big problem with some members of some groups of Arabs.)

But the only evidence you've suggested for the supposed symbiotic relationship between Druzes and Israelis is one picture of an I.D.F./Unit of Minorities flag and a thoroughly nauseating Israeli article. If you're going to keep on with the Druze argument as if it's indicative of anything, I suppose I'll have to give a proper response...

It's not really anything to do with 'living in peace', it's just an example of realpolitik coupled with a recognition of the positives of having a co-opted and coerced Arab population within Israel, both historically and in the present. There was a 'transfer plan' (just as there was for other Palestinian Arabs) for the 'Israeli' Druzes to be sent to Lebanon and/or Syria but this wasn't chosen as it was seen as preferable to include them within the new state for a number of reasons:

1)It allowed them to exhibit a (fake) benevolence to the local Arab populace to the wider world.

2)The Druze provided them with a reserve army of labour who could be kept in semi-unemployment and casual labour capable of taking up tools whenever they were called upon out of economic and social hardship. Land confiscations after '48 not only allowed the building of Israeli ethnocracy but collapsed traditional Druze agriculture leading to them being forced to labour wherever and whenever the state wanted them (most often in semi-regular security services which further ties them to the Israeli state and allows the project of fostering Israeli-Druze consciousness to continue in a cycle).

3)The minorities units allowed them to strike a blow to non-sectarian Arab unity. The following are the quotes from the first commander of the Minorities Unit, Tuvia Lishansky: "there had been a deliberate policy to recruit as many Druze deserters as possible so as to undermine the trust of the Arab countries in the Druze", and, "[the Druze would be] the sharp blade of a knife to stab in the back of Arab unity." (both from Kais M. Firro, The Druzes in the Jewish State: A Brief History). Co-opting Palestinian Druzes into the proto-I.D.F. would also discourage Syrian and Lebanese Druzes (who were far greater in number than those in 'Eretz Israel') from taking the Arab side in the conflict.

Druze 'particularism' was encouraged as part of a wider strategy to separate them from the Arab community as a whole, knowing that once the collaboration was under way they would be viewed with suspicion by non-expelled Palestinians (the fostering of 'separatism' even going as far as replacing ‘Arab’ with ‘Druze’ as the nationality on I.D. cards). This would be heightened by the fact that, as we've already mentioned, Druze villages were conspicuously un-cleansed; and bear in mind that another reason for Druze units in the I.D.F. is that in the early days of the war all Arabs were forbidden from harvesting their lands, I.D.F. personnel went round Druze villages and granted them acces to their fields if they signed their sons up to the army. This changed as the land purchases and (more often) seizures after the '48 war had little respect for the ethnicities of the Arab population or past cooperation. The Druze, like Christian and Muslim Palestinians were subject to the same concerted effort to create an Arab working class and peasantry economically dependent upon the new state.

The dependence was (and is) further entrenched through the education system, colonialist nonsense about the 'covenant of blood' and essentialist bunkum about Druze loyalty and tekiyya (the process by which Druzes are said to go along with the dominant political forces of the time). As I've already said, every colonial venture requires the privileging of one ethnicity above others in order to cut off unity at the source; it's even got its own term 'segmentation and co-optation' (that sounds better than the bromidic 'divide and rule'...) – and it continues to the present, note the prominence of Druze I.D.F. units in confronting the First and Second Intifada and in the Gaza War.

Since the Seventies there's been an upsurge in Druze anti-Zionist militancy (probably as a recognition of the land seizures that didn't really affect them until later than other Palestinians), a struggle for civil rights coupled with civil disobedience in opposition to seizures (see the previously mentioned Peki'in riots) and a campaign in opposition to conscription into the I.D.F. run jointly with the Israeli Communist Party. It doesn’t really bode well for a colonialist state when even your 'privileged' minority starts to fight back, militantly, against your injustices – see the village of Beit Jan for a case-study of contemporary Israeli-Druze relations.


The consensus seems to be that the Golan may be given to Syria therefore the Druze have to be careful not to burn their bridges. Personally, I wouldn't like to incur the wrath of the Syrian state forces.

What the ynetnews article doesn't mention is why the 500 Druze protesters on the Israeli side (2.5% of the Golan Druze population) are so keen on the Golan being Syrian. How would they benefit? The Washington Post article does at least give a reason why (some) Golani Druze appreciate living in Israel.

This is just ludicrous. Everything they do, even when it indicates the exact opposite is actually evidence of sympathy towards the Israeli occupation? I'm sure there's some kind of psychological term for that.

That isn't a one off event, it's part of a concerted but largely ignored campaign of civil disobedience amongst Druzes of the Golan Heights against the occupation since 1967. The economic annexation has been essentially unavoidable (nearly all Druze land in the Heights has been seized and/or turned over to settlers meaning most Druze have to cross into Israel to work in factories) but they've rejected political annexation on a huge scale. Anyone who accepted Israeli I.D. cards/citizenship was excommunicated by religious leaders and expelled from the community; nearly everyone who accepted one returned them and were forced into door-to-door apologies and giving money to families who had members imprisoned in Israeli jails.

The formal (not to mention illegal) annexation of the Heights into Israel in 1981 was met with a General Strike by Druze residents who worked in Israel, and a pretty incredible campaign of non-violent resistance; harvesting crops against Israeli pronouncements, mass breaking of curfews, construction projects deemed illegal by Israeli authorities were carried out, soldiers were disarmed by groups of women mobbing them. In 1982 Israel ended a 43 day blockade of Druze villages by sending 15,000 troops to storm every single Druze home, remove any Syrian identification papers and leave behind Israeli papers. The next morning saw mass burnings of these.

Although I'm sure that's just more evidence for an attempt to endear themselves to their potential future rulers.

N.B. And it won't be 'given' to Syria, it already belongs to Syria.

[(((Fergus)))]

Firstly, are there any alliances in history that are not (largely) based on Realpolitik?

Strange how, despite all the disadvantages you mention, the Israeli Druze still choose to commit to the State of Israel. In the story you tell, their lands have been stolen, they are cheap casual labour and manipulated cannon-fodder for a nation they actually despise. There are huge Druze communities in Syria and Lebanon, why don't they just emigrate there? What do they have to lose? They only have a crappy wee house on a hilltop in Israel, surely Syria can offer them better than that?

Secondly, you don't need Jews to create divisions between Arab groups. The whole history of the Arab-Israeli conflict is littered with inter-Arab betrayal, beginning with the sale of tenanted land to the Zionists. This being the case, how profound is actually a) Arab nationalism and b) Palestinian nationalism? After 100 years, the Palestinians still haven't created a united national front. Actually, what do they have to unite them other than animosity towards Israel? What do the Palestinians have as a nation that is genuinely unique? If the French and British had allowed a Greater Syria to come into existence after WWI, would there be any such thing as Palestine?

Thirdly, I've been reading Mr Khalidi's book, very interesting it is too, although I would love to see more maps and demographic details The data is too vague to form the picture I need, e.g., 'many fellahin did this', 'many jewish settlements did that'. How many percent? How many were evicted? Where did they go?

He also seems at pains to create a 'Palestinian' identity at a time when there patently wasn't one - other than as a reaction to the Jews, i.e., 1880s, 1890s. That isn't a major issue, though, just feel he's trying to will something into being rather than focus on the facts (which I feel he does well when he's doing it - not that I know the facts but I cautiously trust his research).

What caught my attention though was the 1858 Land Reform when the Arab peasants of the Ottoman empire had the opportunity to lay claim to the land they were on. According to Khalidi, most peasants did not register as landowners as this would have made them liable for tax and conscription. Consequently, urban notables, merchants, clan chiefs, etc., registered large parcels of land in their name - and subsequently sold it to the Jews.

What I hadn't appreciated was that the Arab peasants, when presented with the opportunity to take ownership of the land - with all the rights and responsibilities inherent in that - chose not to. In other words, their connection with the land was deficient to the extent that they were not prepared to pay tax on it or serve in the military that protected it. Effectively, they had begun to dissociate themselves from the land.

This weakness of connection left an opening for the Zionists who, shortly thereafter, stepped into the 'vacuum'. Whether they did this in a generally reasonable and sensitive manner or not, I cannot see yet from Khalidi's book other than the fact that in some cases the Ottomans enforced transfer of title deeds to the purchaser.

Say what you like about Israelis, you cannot accuse them of shirking tax and conscription as their ongoing payment for ownership of the land.

Anyway, I shall be reading more...

PS The Golan is annexed to Israel therefore they will have to 'give' it to Syria.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Firstly, are there any alliances in history that are not (largely) based on Realpolitik?

Christ, it wasn't an alliance.


Strange how, despite all the disadvantages you mention, the Israeli Druze still choose to commit to the State of Israel. In the story you tell, their lands have been stolen, they are cheap casual labour and manipulated cannon-fodder for a nation they actually despise. There are huge Druze communities in Syria and Lebanon, why don't they just emigrate there? What do they have to lose? They only have a crappy wee house on a hilltop in Israel, surely Syria can offer them better than that?

The entire basis of Druze culture is that it's incredibly localised and tied to that locality. Land, and the community on it, is paramount. Maybe that's a further reason for the lack of resistance shown - that to do so would be to risk expulsion and fragmentation which would be to lose everything.

At no point have I claimed that there are no positives for Druzes living in Israel. There undoubtedly are, senior and prominent members of the Druze community are pretty much guarenteed a fairly high level and very well remunerated government post, for example.

And 'commit to the State of Israel' is a sligtly dodgy turn of phrase. There's plenty in that post and others previously that suggest reasons for the relative lack of militancy amongst the community - but that's all.


Secondly, you don't need Jews to create divisions between Arab groups. The whole history of the Arab-Israeli conflict is littered with inter-Arab betrayal, beginning with the sale of tenanted land to the Zionists. This being the case, how profound is actually a) Arab nationalism and b) Palestinian nationalism? After 100 years, the Palestinians still haven't created a united national front. Actually, what do they have to unite them other than animosity towards Israel? What do the Palestinians have as a nation that is genuinely unique? If the French and British had allowed a Greater Syria to come into existence after WWI, would there be any such thing as Palestine?

Sorry? Who said you do 'need Jews to create divisions between Arab groups'? That has literally no relevance whatsoever to anything I've written. Disagree with the content of the post, by all means, but that sort of thing is worse than useless.

Also, it does get slightly tiresome having to constantly repeat stuff I've mentioned before but seems to be ignored. 94% of land sold to Zionist groups was sold by non-Palestinian absentee landlords and (to a much lesser extent) Palestinian absentee landlords. That's got nothing to do with 'inter-Arab betrayal' but is entirely typical of the individualist behaviour of members of the propertied class of the period - whether Arab or otherwise.


Thirdly, I've been reading Mr Khalidi's book, very interesting it is too, although I would love to see more maps and demographic details The data is too vague to form the picture I need, e.g., 'many fellahin did this', 'many jewish settlements did that'. How many percent? How many were evicted? Where did they go?

I haven't read it for over a year, but I seem to remember quite a lot in the way of facts and figures. particularly on land ownership and sales.


He also seems at pains to create a 'Palestinian' identity at a time when there patently wasn't one - other than as a reaction to the Jews, i.e., 1880s, 1890s. That isn't a major issue, though, just feel he's trying to will something into being rather than focus on the facts (which I feel he does well when he's doing it - not that I know the facts but I cautiously trust his research).

You can't just say 'patently'. He presents a consistent and convincing argument for the existence of a Palestinian national identity long before that (that's sort of the point of the book); either refute it with evidence and a convincing argument or don't bother. Just saying 'there patently wasn't one' is meaningless.

Secondly, and this might be going out on a limb slightly, I don't think there's ever been a single ethnic or national identity in the history of the world that isn't/wasn't, if not formed by, crystallised by an external impetus or force, i.e. what it isn't as much as what it is. That's how it works.

And I should probably point out at this point that don't really care at all about ethnic/national 'identities'.


What caught my attention though was the 1858 Land Reform when the Arab peasants of the Ottoman empire had the opportunity to lay claim to the land they were on. According to Khalidi, most peasants did not register as landowners as this would have made them liable for tax and conscription. Consequently, urban notables, merchants, clan chiefs, etc., registered large parcels of land in their name - and subsequently sold it to the Jews.

What I hadn't appreciated was that the Arab peasants, when presented with the opportunity to take ownership of the land - with all the rights and responsibilities inherent in that - chose not to. In other words, their connection with the land was deficient to the extent that they were not prepared to pay tax on it or serve in the military that protected it. Effectively, they had begun to dissociate themselves from the land.

This is a phenomenally distasteful and utterly fantastical leap of logic. Really quite odd.


This weakness of connection left an opening for the Zionists who, shortly thereafter, stepped into the 'vacuum'. Whether they did this in a generally reasonable and sensitive manner or not, I cannot see yet from Khalidi's book other than the fact that in some cases the Ottomans enforced transfer of title deeds to the purchaser.

As, above - the premise of this point is so ludicrous that it doesn't merit a rebuttal.


Say what you like about Israelis, you cannot accuse them of shirking tax and conscription as their ongoing payment for ownership of the land.

Things have taken a bizarre turn.


PS The Golan is annexed to Israel therefore they will have to 'give' it to Syria.

Yeah, illegally....

If Israel withdraws it will be 'returned' not 'given', huge difference.

[Betty Boop]

We will never forget.

YouTube - Gaza 2009: We Will Never Forget (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9mkRiGbgZg&feature=player_embedded#)

[heidtheba]

I was about to remind you that the Head of the UN General Assembly used the word genocide in relation to Israels actions, hence it is 'hysterical' of you to describe Doddie's use of it as 'hysterical'. Herres an al-jazeera link to the story, in the absence of a Daily Mail one:wink:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/01/200911321467988347.html (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/01/200911321467988347.html)

Then I remembered that you have previously said that the UN is a liberal, anti-Western organisation so I decided not to bother:faf:


Interestingly enough, if we use that as evidence, then the UN (certainly their relief effor in Palestine) recently stated they weren't going to be teaching the Holocaust in arab schools there 'because they wanted to focus on human rights instead'... Fair enough say 'focus on arab human rights' but to insinuate that the Holocaust isn't a human rights case is a little more than insensitive given the area we are discussing...
So according to the UN then, the Israelis are committing genocide yet the Holocaust wasn't even a human rights issue...
hmmm

Crap going on with both sides and I only wish I knew the answer.

[hibsbollah]

Israel has finally admitted using WP endangered civilians, response to Goldstone Report this morning.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8490646.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8490646.stm)

[ballengeich]

Israel has finally admitted using WP endangered civilians, response to Goldstone Report this morning.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8490646.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8490646.stm)

Good news. Let's hope Hamas takes similar action.

[(((Fergus)))]

Good news. Let's hope Hamas takes similar action.

Apparently the problem with the Goldstone report is that it will also force the PA and Hamas to reveal the truth of their own alleged actions, e.g., internal repression, summary executions of Gazans plus the terrorist use of rockets and mortars against Israel. That's obviously a can of worms they don't want opened.

LH I'd have thought that in a conflict supposedly relating to land ownership that the fact that Ottoman peasants had the opportunity to gain personal ownership of their land just a few short years before the onset of major Jewish immigration would be of some significance. The connection seems obvious to me.

Also your figure of 94% foreign ownership conflicts with what I read in Khalidi. He states that in the period 1878 to 1936, 52.6% of Yishuv territory was purchased from 'large absentee landlords'. Of the remainder, 9.4% was purchased directly from local Arab peasants (fellahin). For much of that period, these 'large absentee landlords' weren't all that absent at all, e.g., one of the most important landlord families lived in Beirut. Up until 1917, the area of what is now Israel north of the Jaffa/Jericho line was part of the Ottoman Beirut vilayet or province: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ottoman_Syria_1918.png.
This is what I mean when I say that Khalidi's 'Palestine' is at times patently false. He makes geopolitical distinctions that have not yet come into being.

Regarding the Druze, I found this interesting article which synthesises two prevailing theses for the Druze alliance (for want of a better word - actually the author uses the word 'collaboration') - with the Zionists/British and subsequently with their fellow Israelis. (I think collaboration is also more often than not based in Realpolitik (= self-interest) is it not?).
http://surj.stanford.edu/2005/pdfs/Adi.pdf

This is another article which I found insightful, although I think this particular identity crisis might not be entirely representative of all modern Israeli Druze.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/909911.html

Finally, here is a video of some Druze IDF soldiers doing some kind of Arabic rap improv stand-off. (I've included it for entertainment purposes only :wink:.)
YouTube - DRUZE TA7DE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8p2lVR4QLo)

PS One other obvious reason why the Golani Druze are keen to big up Syria is that they have extended family still living there who would would inevitably bear the immediate brunt of any perceived 'betrayal'. No doubt there are some nutters who would rather live in a repressive one-party state, although they've probably already moved there. :wink:

[LiverpoolHibs]

Apparently the problem with the Goldstone report is that it will also force the PA and Hamas to reveal the truth of their own alleged actions, e.g., internal repression, summary executions of Gazans plus the terrorist use of rockets and mortars against Israel. That's obviously a can of worms they don't want opened.

Who doesn't want it opened?

'Apparently' according to whom?

I'd be very surpised if the Goldstone report had any comment to make about the PNA (as distinct from Hamas) as they had pretty much no involvement in the conflict.

Any evidence of Hamas carrying out summary executions in Gaza?


LH I'd have thought that in a conflict supposedly relating to land ownership that the fact that Ottoman peasants had the opportunity to gain personal ownership of their land just a few short years before the onset of major Jewish immigration would be of some significance. The connection seems obvious to me.

It seems absolutely bizarre (and the implication deeply unpleasant) to me.


Also your figure of 94% foreign ownership conflicts with what I read in Khalidi. He states that in the period 1878 to 1936, 52.6% of Yishuv territory was purchased from 'large absentee landlords'. Of the remainder, 9.4% was purchased directly from local Arab peasants (fellahin). For much of that period, these 'large absentee landlords' weren't all that absent at all, e.g., one of the most important landlord families lived in Beirut. Up until 1917, the area of what is now Israel north of the Jaffa/Jericho line was part of the Ottoman Beirut vilayet or province: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ottoman_Syria_1918.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ottoman_Syria_1918.png).
This is what I mean when I say that Khalidi's 'Palestine' is at times patently false. He makes geopolitical distinctions that have not yet come into being.

Except that's not what I said, is it?

I said that the 94% figure is made up of Palestinian and non-Palestinian absentee landlords. Non-Palestinian in the main.

Your second point could be used as textbook example of a non-sequitur.


Regarding the Druze, I found this interesting article which synthesises two prevailing theses for the Druze alliance (for want of a better word - actually the author uses the word 'collaboration') - with the Zionists/British and subsequently with their fellow Israelis. (I think collaboration is also more often than not based in Realpolitik (= self-interest) is it not?).
http://surj.stanford.edu/2005/pdfs/Adi.pdf (http://surj.stanford.edu/2005/pdfs/Adi.pdf)

Erm, that's an undergraduate module paper. And not a very good one.


Finally, here is a video of some Druze IDF soldiers doing some kind of Arabic rap improv stand-off. (I've included it for entertainment purposes only :wink:.)
YouTube - DRUZE TA7DE (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8p2lVR4QLo)

Crikey...


PS One other obvious reason why the Golani Druze are keen to big up Syria is that they have extended family still living there who would would inevitably bear the immediate brunt of any perceived 'betrayal'. No doubt there are some nutters who would rather live in a repressive one-party state, although they've probably already moved there. :wink:

Just out of interest, what would they have to do to make you think that their militant anti-Zionism wasn't just a facade?

[(((Fergus)))]

It seems absolutely bizarre (and the implication deeply unpleasant) to me.


It seems a massive coincidence to me. The implication is that the Arabs had a hand in their own destiny, i.e., they are not the powerless naïfs some portray them to be. The (unpleasant) fact is, if they had taken ownership of the land in the mid-1800s, then no one could have sold it from under them.

Rather than simply playing the victim and blaming the Jews, if I were a Palestinian Arab I would be asking myself how I got myself into my current predicament. Incidentally, if I were an Israeli Jew, hiding in a bunker during the missile season, I would be asking myself the same question.



Except that's not what I said, is it?

I said that the 94% figure is made up of Palestinian and non-Palestinian absentee landlords. Non-Palestinian in the main.

Even that conflicts with Khalidi's figures ('large resident landlords': 24.6%; 'other sources' (government, foreign companies, churches): 13.4%; and fellahin directly: 9.4%). And as I said before, there were no 'Palestinians' in the period prior to the Mandate, only tribal and religious groups, hence the use of that term is false for that time.




Erm, that's an undergraduate module paper. And not a very good one.


You must have a better one then?



Just out of interest, what would they have to do to make you think that their militant anti-Zionism wasn't just a facade?

I'm sure there's a whole spectrum of views: some who have an allegiance to Syria - maybe they were state employees, for example - some who prefer Israel but don't want to cause trouble for themselves or the Druze in Syria and some who prefer Israel and even serve in its forces, etc., etc. It's a question of how many. Whatever the case, actions speak louder than words, and AFAIK there are few if any queuing at the Syrian border.

[LiverpoolHibs]

It seems a massive coincidence to me. The implication is that the Arabs had a hand in their own destiny, i.e., they are not the powerless naïfs some portray them to be. The (unpleasant) fact is, if they had taken ownership of the land in the mid-1800s, then no one could have sold it from under them.

Yeah, if only they'd spent less time farming and sitting round on their ***** and more time constructing a time machine to see what was going to happen thirty years in the future. Lazy ****ers.

You make the 1858 land registration sound like the most normal thing in the world. When, in fact, it was a tactic of Ottoman imperialism that tied those who registered ownership to a period of service in the Ottoman army, payment of taxes and fees to what was seen as an illegitimate external authority and external regulation of land they'd lived on and farmed for years.


Rather than simply playing the victim and blaming the Jews, if I were a Palestinian Arab I would be asking myself how I got myself into my current predicament. Incidentally, if I were an Israeli Jew, hiding in a bunker during the missile season, I would be asking myself the same question.

Do you reckon there are many people who refused to register their land in 1858 still knocking about?

Still cursing not making the time machine, no doubt.


Even that conflicts with Khalidi's figures ('large resident landlords': 24.6%; 'other sources' (government, foreign companies, churches): 13.4%; and fellahin directly: 9.4%). And as I said before, there were no 'Palestinians' in the period prior to the Mandate, only tribal and religious groups, hence the use of that term is false for that time.

Nope. Have you just made that up?

I'm quoting directly from his, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness.

Sources yield the following results regarding those selling land:

Non-Palestinian Absentee Landlords - 143,577 Dunums (58%)
Palestinian Absentee Landlords - 88,689 Dunums (36%)
Local Landlords and Fellahin - 15,200 Dunums (6%)


You must have a better one then?

A better poorly written and historically innacurate undergraduate module paper? Or a better history of the Druze in Israel? I think Kais Firro is considered the best in that field.


I'm sure there's a whole spectrum of views: some who have an allegiance to Syria - maybe they were state employees, for example - some who prefer Israel but don't want to cause trouble for themselves or the Druze in Syria and some who prefer Israel and even serve in its forces, etc., etc. It's a question of how many. Whatever the case, actions speak louder than words, and AFAIK there are few if any queuing at the Syrian border.

That wasn't what I asked, but never mind.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Israel has finally admitted using WP endangered civilians, response to Goldstone Report this morning.

[/URL][url]http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8490646.stm (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8490646.stm)

Hmmm, or have they...

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1146638.html

But the IDF on Monday flatly denied that Division Commander Brig. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg and Givati Brigade Commander Col. Ilan Malka been subject to disciplinary action by GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant. It did not deny that the munitions were in fact used during the war, however.

It's very carefully stage-managed. They 'reprimanded' the officers publicly without actually doing so in private and also avoided saying that white phosphorus was used in violation of the rules of engagement; as to do so would be to invite war crimes charges.

[khib70]

Hmmm, or have they...

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1146638.html

But the IDF on Monday flatly denied that Division Commander Brig. Gen. Eyal Eisenberg and Givati Brigade Commander Col. Ilan Malka been subject to disciplinary action by GOC Southern Command Maj. Gen. Yoav Gallant. It did not deny that the munitions were in fact used during the war, however.

It's very carefully stage-managed. They 'reprimanded' the officers publicly without actually doing so in private and also avoided saying that white phosphorus was used in violation of the rules of engagement; as to do so would be to invite war crimes charges.
The use of white phosphorous never has been and still isn't denied. The IDF position is that it was used to provide cover for forces assaulting Hamas anti-tank positions dug in close to the UN compound. (No surprise there). Its use was considered to be less likely to cause civilian casualties than the alternative - the use of reactive suppressing fire. I find this a great deal more believable than Hamas' ludicrous claim to be aiming their rockets at "military targets".

But, as has been pointed out on the Blair thread, until people say what you want them to say, you're not going to be happy, are you?

[LiverpoolHibs]

The use of white phosphorous never has been and still isn't denied. The IDF position is that it was used to provide cover for forces assaulting Hamas anti-tank positions dug in close to the UN compound. (No surprise there). Its use was considered to be less likely to cause civilian casualties than the alternative - the use of reactive suppressing fire. I find this a great deal more believable than Hamas' ludicrous claim to be aiming their rockets at "military targets".

Firstly, I never said they were still denying using white phosphorus.

Secondly, saying they never denied using it is a complete and utter lie. Ashkenazi said on January 14th that, "The IDF acts only in accordance with what is permitted by international law and does not use white phosphorus." (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5512203.ece)

They were forced to change their position (from about January 17th) due to the mass of overwhelming evidence showing that they did use it.

Thirdly, my comment was on the discrepancy between the Israeli government's public position on the use of white phosphorus shells and the comments by the I.D.F. on whether the officers in question had been disciplined. Your post has no relevance to what I've said.

Fourthly, as nice as it is of you to attempt to exculpate the I.D.F. of war crimes, it is illegal under international war to use white phosphorus or any incendiary device in a civilian area. The I.D.F. used white phosphorus shells in a civilian area (as you've said yourself), hence they are guilty of war crimes. It really is that simple.

Fifthly, you seem to be under the impression the assault on the UNRWA school and hospital was the only use of white phosphorus during the war. It wasn't, use of it in civilian areas was absolutely routine; including using it on targets where I.D.F. ground troops had no intention of going (see the destruction of al-Quds hospital).

Sixthly (and probably most importantly as far as the misinformation goes), there is no evidence whatsoever for any Hamas fighters being anywhere near the U.N. compound. The head of the compound, Paul Ging explicitly stated that there were no militants in the area and that the I.D.F. gave no warning for the start of the attack. He described the Israeli claims as, "total nonsense...there were no militants in our compound, no militants or any firing from our compound."

It's not always sensible to take the I.D.F, at its word...


But, as has been pointed out on the Blair thread, until people say what you want them to say, you're not going to be happy, are you?

It was a terrible, specious argument in that thread and it's a terrible, specious argument in this thread.

[McIntosh]

The term was coined by E. Robert Kelly:
The relation of experience to time has not been profoundly studied. Its objects are given as being of the present, but the part of time referred to by the datum is a very different thing from the conterminous of the past and future which philosophy denotes by the name Present. The present to which the datum refers is really a part of the past — a recent past — delusively given as being a time that intervenes between the past and the future. Let it be named the specious present, and let the past, that is given as being the past, be known as the obvious past. All the notes of a bar of a song seem to the listener to be contained in the present. All the changes of place of a meteor seem to the beholder to be contained in the present. At the instant of the termination of such series, no part of the time measured by them seems to be a past. Time, then, considered relatively to human apprehension, consists of four parts, viz., the obvious past, the specious present, the real present, and the future. Omitting the specious present, it consists of three . . . nonentities — the past, which does not exist, the future, which does not exist, and their conterminous, the present; the faculty from which it proceeds lies to us in the fiction of the specious present

[LiverpoolHibs]

The term was coined by E. Robert Kelly:
The relation of experience to time has not been profoundly studied. Its objects are given as being of the present, but the part of time referred to by the datum is a very different thing from the conterminous of the past and future which philosophy denotes by the name Present. The present to which the datum refers is really a part of the past — a recent past — delusively given as being a time that intervenes between the past and the future. Let it be named the specious present, and let the past, that is given as being the past, be known as the obvious past. All the notes of a bar of a song seem to the listener to be contained in the present. All the changes of place of a meteor seem to the beholder to be contained in the present. At the instant of the termination of such series, no part of the time measured by them seems to be a past. Time, then, considered relatively to human apprehension, consists of four parts, viz., the obvious past, the specious present, the real present, and the future. Omitting the specious present, it consists of three . . . nonentities — the past, which does not exist, the future, which does not exist, and their conterminous, the present; the faculty from which it proceeds lies to us in the fiction of the specious present

I'm confused...

[khib70]

Firstly, I never said they were still denying using white phosphorus.

Secondly, saying they never denied using it is a complete and utter lie. Ashkenazi said on January 14th that, "The IDF acts only in accordance with what is permitted by international law and does not use white phosphorus." (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5512203.ece)

They were forced to change their position (from about January 17th) due to the mass of overwhelming evidence showing that they did use it.

Thirdly, my comment was on the discrepancy between the Israeli government's public position on the use of white phosphorus shells and the comments by the I.D.F. on whether the officers in question had been disciplined. Your post has no relevance to what I've said.

Fourthly, as nice as it is of you to attempt to exculpate the I.D.F. of war crimes, it is illegal under international war to use white phosphorus or any incendiary device in a civilian area. The I.D.F. used white phosphorus shells in a civilian area (as you've said yourself), hence they are guilty of war crimes. It really is that simple.

Fifthly, you seem to be under the impression the assault on the UNRWA school and hospital was the only use of white phosphorus during the war. It wasn't, use of it in civilian areas was absolutely routine; including using it on targets where I.D.F. ground troops had no intention of going (see the destruction of al-Quds hospital).

Sixthly (and probably most importantly as far as the misinformation goes), there is no evidence whatsoever for any Hamas fighters being anywhere near the U.N. compound. The head of the compound, Paul Ging explicitly stated that there were no militants in the area and that the I.D.F. gave no warning for the start of the attack. He described the Israeli claims as, "total nonsense...there were no militants in our compound, no militants or any firing from our compound."

It's not always sensible to take the I.D.F, at its word...



It was a terrible, specious argument in that thread and it's a terrible, specious argument in this thread.
I would take them at their word long before I would do the same with any UN representative.

But then, as I say, truth is just a matter of hearing what we've already decided was what really happened.

And don't be disingenuous regarding misinformation. Your erudition and frequent citations disguise the glaring speciousness of your own arguments. And you can spin like Alistair C on a really good day...."use of it in civilian areas was absolutely routine". Says who? Have you any supporting evidence for this ludicrous statement? You frequently make these, but bury them in yards of verbiage in an attempt to sneak them under the radar.

Still fair play to you, you haven't descended into total pretentious obscurantism like McIntosh.

[LiverpoolHibs]

I would take them at their word long before I would do the same with any UN representative.

Really? Why?


But then, as I say, truth is just a matter of hearing what we've already decided was what really happened.

Well, not really. No.


And don't be disingenuous regarding misinformation. Your erudition and frequent citations disguise the glaring speciousness of your own arguments.

Feel free to point it out. At any time.


And you can spin like Alistair C on a really good day...."use of it in civilian areas was absolutely routine". Says who? Have you any supporting evidence for this ludicrous statement?

The Human Rights Watch dossier (http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/03/25/rain-fire) on use of white phosphorus shells? They state,

"...the repeated use of air burst white phosphorus in populated areas until the last days of the operation reveals a pattern or policy of conduct rather than incidental or accidental usage."

Ludicrous indeed...


You frequently make these, but bury them in yards of verbiage in an attempt to sneak them under the radar.

As above, feel free to point them out at any time...


Still fair play to you, you haven't descended into total pretentious obscurantism like McIntosh.

I couldn't descend to it even if I wanted to, I have literally no idea what it means!

[McIntosh]

I'm confused...

The meaning of the word specious, I didn't know what it meant. So, I asked the fount of all knowledge....the wife (the lady in my avatar) and she didn't. So I put the full meaning in, it on reflection its a bit dense but your use of such an accurate concept was simply brilliant.

[LiverpoolHibs]

The meaning of the word specious, I didn't know what it meant. So, I asked the fount of all knowledge....the wife (the lady in my avatar) and she didn't. So I put the full meaning in, it on reflection its a bit dense but your use of such an accurate concept was simply brilliant.

Ha, I think you've gone awry somewhere.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/specious

[McIntosh]

I would take them at their word long before I would do the same with any UN representative.

But then, as I say, truth is just a matter of hearing what we've already decided was what really happened.

And don't be disingenuous regarding misinformation. Your erudition and frequent citations disguise the glaring speciousness of your own arguments. And you can spin like Alistair C on a really good day...."use of it in civilian areas was absolutely routine". Says who? Have you any supporting evidence for this ludicrous statement? You frequently make these, but bury them in yards of verbiage in an attempt to sneak them under the radar.

Still fair play to you, you haven't descended into total pretentious obscurantism like McIntosh.

My word when it comes to this topic, you seem always to attack me but your forgiven because I've changed my opinion about you because on other issues its clear you are compassionate and caring.

However, when it comes to Israel and the IDF you support them right or wrong. In many ways this is an admirable quality but in this instance it is counter productive both to you and the cause you champion. You know and everyone on the Board knows that the IDF used white phosphorous, regardless of their reason its use in Gaza was both immoral and illegal under international law. Defending the undefendable destroys any opportunity no matter how limited that a meaningful peace can be produced.

The Israeli Government in my opinion is frightened of being in the international dock as just being there will diminish its validity. The demolitions of homes, the settlements in the West bank, the bombings and that dreadful wall are crimes against humanity which only lead to more hatred and will lead to the end of the very thing you hope to preserve - Israel.

[McIntosh]

Ha, I think you've gone awry somewhere.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/specious (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/specious)

Liverpool Hibs, I was being to clever by half!!!!

Before Khibs 70 says anything, I know thats not unusual.

[khib70]

Liverpool Hibs, I was being to clever by half!!!!

Before Khibs 70 says anything, I know thats not unusual.
:greengrin I would have defined "specious" as "superficially attractive". Still, full marks for posting that definition on a football message board:hnet:

I don't support the IDF "right or wrong". Nor do I support anyone else on that basis. In any army there will be those who, for whatever reasons, exceed the rules of engagement, or abuse their position, and their arms, in pursuit of a personal agenda or sheer overzealousness. At least in the case of the IDF, investigations are carried out, and criminal prosecutions follow where appropriate. I believe in this case that the punishment meted out to the two officers held to account for actions taken during Cast Lead is singularly inadequate.

Hamas were also required to carry out investigations into their random missile attacks on Israeli civilian targets. I don't see any reports of the results of these - or maybe I read the wrong newspapers?? In addition, their use of civilians as human shields and their own cynical disregard for the lives and property of their citizens makes the issue of civilian casualties much less cut and dried than many who post on here seem to believe.

Since you have worked for HRW I would expect you to be at least reasonably even-handed in your analysis, as they, for the most part, have been. I don't hear any criticism of Hamas from you on here, though. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that they're not the squeaky clean, noble freedom fighters some people around here seem to think they are.

[Betty Boop]

:greengrin I would have defined "specious" as "superficially attractive". Still, full marks for posting that definition on a football message board:hnet:

I don't support the IDF "right or wrong". Nor do I support anyone else on that basis. In any army there will be those who, for whatever reasons, exceed the rules of engagement, or abuse their position, and their arms, in pursuit of a personal agenda or sheer overzealousness. At least in the case of the IDF, investigations are carried out, and criminal prosecutions follow where appropriate. I believe in this case that the punishment meted out to the two officers held to account for actions taken during Cast Lead is singularly inadequate.

Hamas were also required to carry out investigations into their random missile attacks on Israeli civilian targets. I don't see any reports of the results of these - or maybe I read the wrong newspapers?? In addition, their use of civilians as human shields and their own cynical disregard for the lives and property of their citizens makes the issue of civilian casualties much less cut and dried than many who post on here seem to believe.

Since you have worked for HRW I would expect you to be at least reasonably even-handed in your analysis, as they, for the most part, have been. I don't hear any criticism of Hamas from you on here, though. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that they're not the squeaky clean, noble freedom fighters some people around here seem to think they are.

The only mention of the use of human shields, that I could see came from the Israeli side.

The mission finds that the conduct of the Israeli armed forces constitute grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention in respect of wilful killings and wilfully causing great suffering to protected persons and as such give rise to individual criminal responsibility,” the report’s executive summary said. “It also finds that the direct targeting and arbitrary killing of Palestinian civilians is a violation of the right to life.”

It went on to criticize the “deliberate and systematic policy on the part of the Israeli armed forces to target industrial sites and water installations,” and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields.

On the objectives and strategy of Israel’s military operation, the mission concluded that military planners deliberately followed a doctrine which involved “the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations.”

[McIntosh]

:greengrin I would have defined "specious" as "superficially attractive". Still, full marks for posting that definition on a football message board:hnet:

I don't support the IDF "right or wrong". Nor do I support anyone else on that basis. In any army there will be those who, for whatever reasons, exceed the rules of engagement, or abuse their position, and their arms, in pursuit of a personal agenda or sheer overzealousness. At least in the case of the IDF, investigations are carried out, and criminal prosecutions follow where appropriate. I believe in this case that the punishment meted out to the two officers held to account for actions taken during Cast Lead is singularly inadequate.

Hamas were also required to carry out investigations into their random missile attacks on Israeli civilian targets. I don't see any reports of the results of these - or maybe I read the wrong newspapers?? In addition, their use of civilians as human shields and their own cynical disregard for the lives and property of their citizens makes the issue of civilian casualties much less cut and dried than many who post on here seem to believe.

Since you have worked for HRW I would expect you to be at least reasonably even-handed in your analysis, as they, for the most part, have been. I don't hear any criticism of Hamas from you on here, though. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that they're not the squeaky clean, noble freedom fighters some people around here seem to think they are.

I try to be fair and objective, I sadly like everyone else have my own prejudices but I do try to counter them. I would agree with you about Hamas it is far from being 'squeaky clean' in fact they were heavily criticised in HRW's last report as were the IDF. I personally condemn any organisation, person or agency that abuses human rights - hamas are not exempted. Israeli lives are not worth any more or any less than Palestian lives.

I am at times harder on Israel because I simply expect better of them, that doesn't not mean I do not care what happens to Israeli in fact quite the opposite.

[LiverpoolHibs]

:greengrin I would have defined "specious" as "superficially attractive". Still, full marks for posting that definition on a football message board:hnet:

I don't support the IDF "right or wrong". Nor do I support anyone else on that basis. In any army there will be those who, for whatever reasons, exceed the rules of engagement, or abuse their position, and their arms, in pursuit of a personal agenda or sheer overzealousness. At least in the case of the IDF, investigations are carried out, and criminal prosecutions follow where appropriate. I believe in this case that the punishment meted out to the two officers held to account for actions taken during Cast Lead is singularly inadequate.

Hamas were also required to carry out investigations into their random missile attacks on Israeli civilian targets. I don't see any reports of the results of these - or maybe I read the wrong newspapers?? In addition, their use of civilians as human shields and their own cynical disregard for the lives and property of their citizens makes the issue of civilian casualties much less cut and dried than many who post on here seem to believe.

Since you have worked for HRW I would expect you to be at least reasonably even-handed in your analysis, as they, for the most part, have been. I don't hear any criticism of Hamas from you on here, though. There's plenty of evidence to suggest that they're not the squeaky clean, noble freedom fighters some people around here seem to think they are.

You have a tendency to continue with bogus claims even after you've been pulled up for them...

http://hibs.net/message/showpost.php?p=2308153&postcount=231 (http://hibs.net/message/showpost.php?p=2308153&postcount=231)

The Mission found no evidence, however, to suggest that Palestinian armed groups either directed civilians to areas where attacks were being launched or that they forced civilians to remain within the vicinity of the attacks.

The Mission did not find any evidence to support the allegations that hospital facilities were used by the Gaza authorities or by Palestinian armed groups to shield military activities and that ambulances were used to transport combatants or for other military purposes. On the basis of its own investigations and the statements by UN officials, the Mission excludes that Palestinian armed groups engaged in combat activities from UN facilities that were used as shelters during the military operations.

...and even Israel does not claim Hamas used human shields during the Gaza War.

Guess who did use them?

Palestinian men were forced to enter houses at gunpoint in front of, or in one case, instead of soldiers.

[...]

1089. In more general terms, the Mission notes that the statements of the men used as human shields by the Israeli armed forces during house searches are corroborated by statements made by Israeli soldiers to the NGO Breaking the Silence. The soldier providing testimony 1 speaks of the “Johnnie procedure”: “It was the first week of the war, fighting was intense, there were explosive charges to expose, tunnels in open spaces and armed men inside houses. […] Close in on each house. The method used has a new name now – no longer 'neighbour procedure.' Now
people are called 'Johnnie.' They're Palestinian civilians, and they're called Johnnies […] To every house we close in on, we send the neighbour in, 'the Johnnie,' and if there are armed men inside, we start, like working the 'pressure cooker' in the West Bank.”

[khib70]

The only mention of the use of human shields, that I could see came from the Israeli side.

The mission finds that the conduct of the Israeli armed forces constitute grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention in respect of wilful killings and wilfully causing great suffering to protected persons and as such give rise to individual criminal responsibility,” the report’s executive summary said. “It also finds that the direct targeting and arbitrary killing of Palestinian civilians is a violation of the right to life.”

It went on to criticize the “deliberate and systematic policy on the part of the Israeli armed forces to target industrial sites and water installations,” and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields.

On the objectives and strategy of Israel’s military operation, the mission concluded that military planners deliberately followed a doctrine which involved “the application of disproportionate force and the causing of great damage and destruction to civilian property and infrastructure, and suffering to civilian populations.”
Hmm. The Goldstone report failed to find evidence on a lot of things methinks, especially where Hamas were concerned. Hardly surprising given that the investigators spent most of their time in Gaza as guests of the Hamas leadership.

Some of the bits they missed:-

http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=157&doc_id=1304

It all comes down to who you believe.

[ballengeich]

Hamas were also required to carry out investigations into their random missile attacks on Israeli civilian targets. I don't see any reports of the results of these - or maybe I read the wrong newspapers??

From The Scotsman on Monday
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/world/War-crimes-trials-unlikely-for.6030129.jp (http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/world/War-crimes-trials-unlikely-for.6030129.jp)

It looks like Hamas have told the UN that they will take even less action on the report than Israel.

[hibsbollah]

From The Scotsman on Monday
http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/world/War-crimes-trials-unlikely-for.6030129.jp (http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/world/War-crimes-trials-unlikely-for.6030129.jp)

It looks like Hamas have told the UN that they will take even less action on the report than Israel.

Interesting that the Security Council is the only organisation that can order a special sitting at the Hague. I had mistakenly thought the gen assembly could vote for this. With the US veto on the Security Council there is obviously no chance of this happening...

[Betty Boop]

The rules of engagement.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24583.htm

[Betty Boop]

YouTube - Rabbi Confronts Richard Goldstone at Yale University (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8WWx4CGYVI)

[ballengeich]

The rules of engagement.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24583.htm (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24583.htm)

Do you have a corresponding link to the rules of engagement for Hamas or other Palestinian forces? I'd like to compare them.

[khib70]

Do you have a corresponding link to the rules of engagement for Hamas or other Palestinian forces? I'd like to compare them.
Wouldn't we all?:cool2:

[McIntosh]

Do you have a corresponding link to the rules of engagement for Hamas or other Palestinian forces? I'd like to compare them.

Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right.

I was at an event organised during Jewish Book week at the South Bank and the two main speakers were Tariq Ali and David Badiel - it was chaired by Jonathan Freedman. There was a consensus within this largely Jewish audience that Israel by its action in Gaza had lost legitamacy. Its use of illegal weapons stripped it of any form of moral positioning.

What was surprising were comments from all the main speakers that the two state solution was dead and that a one state secular nation was the only way forward. However, I was surprised by timescales in particular Tariq Ali's remark that it may be in place by the end of the century.

[McIntosh]

YouTube - Rabbi Confronts Richard Goldstone at Yale University (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8WWx4CGYVI)

BB as always you submit thoughtful posts which expose the folly of Zionism and their apologists. Zionist actions do not defend Israel they weaken it as it now being accepted by it's leadership - http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/ehud-barak-israels-apartheid-state (http://www.thejc.com/blogpost/ehud-barak-israels-apartheid-state)

Regardless of this, the clip reminded me of the anguish a friend of mine who had been a pilot in the IDF endured. He emigrated to the US from Israel because he could not stomach the actions of the Israeli government in the occupied territories. A rabbi said he was "a self-hating Jew" he replied "No, I hate you".

[khib70]

Two Wrongs Don't Make a Right.

I was at an event organised during Jewish Book week at the South Bank and the two main speakers were Tariq Ali and David Badiel - it was chaired by Jonathan Freedman. There was a consensus within this largely Jewish audience that Israel by its action in Gaza had lost legitamacy. Its use of illegal weapons stripped it of any form of moral positioning.

What was surprising were comments from all the main speakers that the two state solution was dead and that a one state secular nation was the only way forward. However, I was surprised by timescales in particular Tariq Ali's remark that it may be in place by the end of the century.
Disingenuous. The people who think that two wrongs make a right are the ones who are prepared to justify almost any Palestinian action on the grounds of previous or anticipated Israeli actions.

And the "democratic secular state" solution is an old chestnut which won't work. It would fairly soon be hijacked by Islamists or (less likely but equally unacceptable) by Jewish zealots, leading to civil war and the displacement of one or other section of the population. An internationally recognised two state arrangement is the only solution likely to provide long term peace and stability - provided that the settlements are dismantled and the terrorists disarmed.

[McIntosh]

Disingenuous. The people who think that two wrongs make a right are the ones who are prepared to justify almost any Palestinian action on the grounds of previous or anticipated Israeli actions.

And the "democratic secular state" solution is an old chestnut which won't work. It would fairly soon be hijacked by Islamists or (less likely but equally unacceptable) by Jewish zealots, leading to civil war and the displacement of one or other section of the population. An internationally recognised two state arrangement is the only solution likely to provide long term peace and stability - provided that the settlements are dismantled and the terrorists disarmed.

As you know I would never accept or justify the actions of any party that propogates death or destructions. The actions of some Palestinians are completely unacceptable but these do not merit the actions taken against the general population. Accordingly, I am usually always harsher on the actions of the Government of Israel because I expect more and better from a nation-state subject to international law.

Regardless of this, I would completely accept and agree with your position concerning a two state solution as the only short and long term means to provide peace and security.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Do you have a corresponding link to the rules of engagement for Hamas or other Palestinian forces? I'd like to compare them.

This equating of Hamas' acts during the Gaza War with those of Israel really is as glib as it gets. A number of points:

1) A nation under attack has the explicit right to defend itself militarily. Whether that is the siege of Gaza (an act of war) or the invasion of Gaza.

2) Literally the only military tactic available to the Palestinian resistance is the use of undirected Qassam (and their equivalent) rockets.

3) There is demonstrable evidence that use of these rockets has resulted in halting Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in the past. The 2008 truce was brought about largely through the use of such tactics.

4) The Doctrine of Belligerent Reprisals. It may not be very nice and you can disagree with it all you like, but it exists in International Law.

The law of reprisals is one of the classic instruments to implement the rule of international law. It must be seen as closely connected to the principle of reciprocity, since it allows one state illegally injured by another to react to the violation by an action that would normally breach international legal obligations. The underlying purpose of the law of reprisals is to induce a law-breaking state to abide by the law in future and to respect the demands of law in its further conduct.

Unless anyone can point out otherwise, I'm struggling to see how Hamas have breached international law. Before anyone becomes dreadfully offended by a seeming defence of the tactic, this does not mean that such attacks are to be welcomed or applauded or that they are in any way morally acceptable. However, if we're going to avoid meaningless, hypocritical handwringing, it needs to be recognised that such attacks will continue as long as the occupation, dispossession and oppression of the Palestinian people continues.

[McIntosh]

It needs to be recognised that such attacks will continue as long as the occupation, dispossession and oppression of the Palestinian people continues.

The heart of the issue.

LH, the three critical issues arguably are the status of Jerusalem, the settlers in the occupied territories and water access. What would be your solution for an equitable peace.

[ballengeich]

1) A nation under attack has the explicit right to defend itself militarily.

4) The Doctrine of Belligerent Reprisals. It may not be very nice and you can disagree with it all you like, but it exists in International Law.

The law of reprisals is one of the classic instruments to implement the rule of international law. It must be seen as closely connected to the principle of reciprocity, since it allows one state illegally injured by another to react to the violation by an action that would normally breach international legal obligations. The underlying purpose of the law of reprisals is to induce a law-breaking state to abide by the law in future and to respect the demands of law in its further conduct.



Thank you for two interesting points backing Israel's right to take military action against attacks on its territory from Gaza.

[McIntosh]

Thank you for two interesting points backing Israel's right to take military action against attacks on its territory from Gaza.

I have a question for you, how do you think peace can be acheived?

[LiverpoolHibs]

The heart of the issue.

LH, the three critical issues arguably are the status of Jerusalem, the settlers in the occupied territories and water access. What would be your solution for an equitable peace.

As I've said before, a single state grounded in equal civil, religious, legal and political rights for both Arabs and Israelis.


Thank you for two interesting points backing Israel's right to take military action against attacks on its territory from Gaza.

Christ, at least make it worthwhile...

[ballengeich]

I have a question for you, how do you think peace can be acheived?

Given the calibre of the people who have been unable to solve the problem throughout my life, I realise I can't answer your question.

There are forces on both sides who have utterly incompatible views on how the region should look, so compromises which would allow all communities something acceptable while falling short of what they want ideally is currently virtually impossible.

I'd largely agree with your previous post about three main issues, but there is also a requirement for Israel to feel secure against attack from neighbouring territories. Water access is likely to become a bigger source of conflict in other areas of the world too.

I feel a sense of despair about the prospects.

[McIntosh]

As I've said before, a single state grounded in equal civil, religious, legal and political rights for both Arabs and Israelis

Thanks, but how do you think this can be acheived and what would be your timetable?

---------- Post added at 05:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:19 PM ----------


Given the calibre of the people who have been unable to solve the problem throughout my life, I realise I can't answer your question.

There are forces on both sides who have utterly incompatible views on how the region should look, so compromises which would allow all communities something acceptable while falling short of what they want ideally is currently virtually impossible.

I'd largely agree with your previous post about three main issues, but there is also a requirement for Israel to feel secure against attack from neighbouring territories. Water access is likely to become a bigger source of conflict in other areas of the world too.

I feel a sense of despair about the prospects.

Thanks for this.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Thanks, but how do you think this can be acheived and what would be your timetable?

Eh? It's not for me to lay down a timetable.

The most preferable method for bringing it about would be the large scale radicalisation of the Israeli working class, encompassing a rejection of Zionism and ethnocracy as a mode of state building.

[McIntosh]

Eh? It's not for me to lay down a timetable.

The most preferable method for bringing it about would be the large scale radicalisation of the Israeli working class, encompassing a rejection of Zionism and ethnocracy as a mode of state building.

I was asking when you thought this would realistically take place. Your positioning is very similar to the great Alex Callinicos.

[hibsbollah]

Your positioning is very similar to the great Alex Callinicos.

I agree. A good shot-stopper, but useless at lining up his wall for free kicks:grr:

[khib70]

This equating of Hamas' acts during the Gaza War with those of Israel really is as glib as it gets. A number of points:

1) A nation under attack has the explicit right to defend itself militarily. Whether that is the siege of Gaza (an act of war) or the invasion of Gaza.

2) Literally the only military tactic available to the Palestinian resistance is the use of undirected Qassam (and their equivalent) rockets.

3) There is demonstrable evidence that use of these rockets has resulted in halting Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people in the past. The 2008 truce was brought about largely through the use of such tactics.

4) The Doctrine of Belligerent Reprisals. It may not be very nice and you can disagree with it all you like, but it exists in International Law.

The law of reprisals is one of the classic instruments to implement the rule of international law. It must be seen as closely connected to the principle of reciprocity, since it allows one state illegally injured by another to react to the violation by an action that would normally breach international legal obligations. The underlying purpose of the law of reprisals is to induce a law-breaking state to abide by the law in future and to respect the demands of law in its further conduct.
Unless anyone can point out otherwise, I'm struggling to see how Hamas have breached international law. Before anyone becomes dreadfully offended by a seeming defence of the tactic, this does not mean that such attacks are to be welcomed or applauded or that they are in any way morally acceptable. However, if we're going to avoid meaningless, hypocritical handwringing, it needs to be recognised that such attacks will continue as long as the occupation, dispossession and oppression of the Palestinian people continues.
Probably the best justification for Cast Lead I've seen. Never thought it would be you that posted it. That must have been your aim, because as an attempt to justify indiscriminate rocket attacks on civilians, it's just plain laughable. You can call it "meaningless hypocritical handwringing" - I prefer to see it as genuine disgust at the use of deadly weapons for indiscriminate, racially motivated attacks by an organisation of extremist sectarian lunatics.

And as for "large scale radicalisation of the Israeli working class". You're the last person I expect to descend into such total cliche. This nonsense could have been cribbed off the back of Socialist Worker 30 years ago (when the odd working class person actually read it). A two state solution is possible, and is, as McIntosh says, the only hope for long term piece.

The old "Democratic secular state" nonsense is a recipe for civil war and another generation growing up with violence.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Probably the best justification for Cast Lead I've seen. Never thought it would be you that posted it. That must have been your aim, because as an attempt to justify indiscriminate rocket attacks on civilians, it's just plain laughable.

*smashes face into desk repeatedly*

Approximately how many times have we been through the timeline of events leading up to the Gaza War?

I think this must be what Sisyphus felt like...


You can call it "meaningless hypocritical handwringing" - I prefer to see it as genuine disgust at the use of deadly weapons for indiscriminate, racially motivated attacks by an organisation of extremist sectarian lunatics.

As I was at pains to point out, knowing the misrepresentation that would undoubtedly occur, it wasn't an attempt to justify them. I was pointing out that Hamas's actions were probably legal under international law and where the blame genuinely lies in the face of this massively dishonest (morally and logically) 'as bad as each other' narrative.

The 'racially motivated' stuff is the usual, seemingly interminable, nonsense.


And as for "large scale radicalisation of the Israeli working class". You're the last person I expect to descend into such total cliche. This nonsense could have been cribbed off the back of Socialist Worker 30 years ago (when the odd working class person actually read it). A two state solution is possible, and is, as McIntosh says, the only hope for long term piece.

The old "Democratic secular state" nonsense is a recipe for civil war and another generation growing up with violence.

I've already explained why I think the two-state solution is actually the unworkable option. Like pretty much everything else it seems to be forgotten within minutes of it being written.

[khib70]

*smashes face into desk repeatedly*

Approximately how many times have we been through the timeline of events leading up to the Gaza War?

I think this must be what Sisyphus felt like...



As I was at pains to point out, knowing the misrepresentation that would undoubtedly occur, it wasn't an attempt to justify them. I was pointing out that Hamas's actions were probably legal under international law and where the blame genuinely lies in the face of this massively dishonest (morally and logically) 'as bad as each other' narrative.

The 'racially motivated' stuff is the usual, seemingly interminable, nonsense.



I've already explained why I think the two-state solution is actually the unworkable option. Like pretty much everything else it seems to be forgotten within minutes of it being written.
Believe it or not, I share your frustration. Basically neither of us is going to convert the other, so we end up repeating arguments. I would still maintain that your quote not only validates Cast Lead in international law, but also most previous IDF actions in the area, so its probably a hostage to fortune.
You're playing the Fallacy of the Superior Virtue of the Oppressed card, as defined by Bertrand Russell and popularised by Nick Cohen.

And the racial motivation of Hamas, Hizbollah etc can be backed up by even a cursory glance at their media. I hesitate to link into any of the vile racist **** broadcast on Al Aqsa TV and other official media outlets of both Hamas and Fatah, but it's there if you care to look for it.

A one state solution will end up as an Arab state and on the form book won't be either secular or democratic and definitely not both.

[Betty Boop]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the assassination of Mahmoud al Mabhouh, and the identity theft of British citizens, for the purposes of fake passports, which were used in the killing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/17/dubai-assassins-stolen-british-identities

[hibsbollah]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the assassination of Mahmoud al Mabhouh, and the identity theft of British citizens, for the purposes of fake passports, which were used in the killing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/17/dubai-assassins-stolen-british-identities (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/17/dubai-assassins-stolen-british-identities)

Mossad's fingerprints are probably all over that.

[khib70]

Mossad's fingerprints are probably all over that.
Probably. And good for them. One less terrorist arms smuggler makes the world a marginally better and safer place.

Some obvious naughtiness with the passports, certainly. But let's live in the real world. Al-Mabhouh was a senior member of an organisation which has declared war on Israel and is committed to its destruction. He is personally responsible for the deaths of two Israeli soldiers. He has been surgically removed from the picture. No civilian casualties, no "collateral damage".

It's a cruel and ugly business. But those who live by the sword.....

[McIntosh]

When I was a lecturer at the University of Westminster I had a very bright student and he joined the IDF. My wife and I had him down to the house and over dinner he told me he had ambitions to join military intelligence, he considered being culturally and linguistically English and a UK passport holder to be advantegeous. My word little do we know!!!

In relation to the issue, Hibsbollah is right it clearly has Mossad's fingerprints all over it, they are either becoming over confident or clumsy or both. This operation has been a technical and political disaster of the first order - everyone of their operatives has now been compromised and the diplomatic fallout with 'friendly' nations is there to be seen.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Believe it or not, I share your frustration. Basically neither of us is going to convert the other, so we end up repeating arguments. I would still maintain that your quote not only validates Cast Lead in international law, but also most previous IDF actions in the area, so its probably a hostage to fortune.

You can maintain it all you like, it will still be the case that a quick look at the lead-up to the Gaza War would reveal that you are completely and utterly wrong.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen you have to repeat an argument, whereas every factual observation I make seems to be discounted/forgotten/disregarded almost as soon as it’s made. Bias to Power seems to seriously impair argumentative and critical faculties, turning otherwise intelligent people into complete fools.


You're playing the Fallacy of the Superior Virtue of the Oppressed card, as defined by Bertrand Russell and popularised by Nick Cohen.

Oh yes, in his pathology...

I'm not. But it's undoubtedly true that responsibility lies first with those who create the environment in which such events take place rather than those who are forced to live in such conditions.


And the racial motivation of Hamas, Hizbollah etc can be backed up by even a cursory glance at their media. I hesitate to link into any of the vile racist **** broadcast on Al Aqsa TV and other official media outlets of both Hamas and Fatah, but it's there if you care to look for it.

It would be a serious deterioration of your position if you were to actually try and claim that either Hamas or Hezbollah’s opposition to Israel is racially motivated.


A one state solution will end up as an Arab state

Heaven forfend! Imagine those retrograde barbarians trying to run a country. The very idea...


and on the form book won't be either secular or democratic and definitely not both.

Definitely not both? Oh, ok then.

[khib70]

When I was a lecturer at the University of Westminster I had a very bright student and he joined the IDF. My wife and I had him down to the house and over dinner he told me he had ambitions to join military intelligence, he considered being culturally and linguistically English and a UK passport holder to be advantegeous. My word little do we know!!!

In relation to the issue, Hibsbollah is right it clearly has Mossad's fingerprints all over it, they are either becoming over confident or clumsy or both. This operation has been a technical and political disaster of the first order - everyone of their operatives has now been compromised and the diplomatic fallout with 'friendly' nations is there to be seen.
While your second paragraph is largely correct in that the operatives were photographed and there is not a great deal of doubt about the perpetrators' identity, they all escaped

I suspect, on Mossad's past record, that they will see the diplomatic fallout as a price worth paying. Particularly in the case of the Munich murderers who were hunted down around Europe - it's happened before.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Mossad's fingerprints are probably all over that.

And increasingly looking like further Fatah collusion.


Probably. And good for them. One less terrorist arms smuggler makes the world a marginally better and safer place.

Some obvious naughtiness with the passports, certainly. But let's live in the real world. Al-Mabhouh was a senior member of an organisation which has declared war on Israel and is committed to its destruction. He is personally responsible for the deaths of two Israeli soldiers. He has been surgically removed from the picture. No civilian casualties, no "collateral damage".

It's a cruel and ugly business. But those who live by the sword.....

Oh no, the absolute swine. Personally responsible for the deaths of two members of the armed forces occupying his country, the humanity...

[khib70]

You can maintain it all you like, it will still be the case that a quick look at the lead-up to the Gaza War would reveal that you are completely and utterly wrong.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen you have to repeat an argument, whereas every factual observation I make seems to be discounted/forgotten/disregarded almost as soon as it’s made. Bias to Power seems to seriously impair argumentative and critical faculties, turning otherwise intelligent people into complete fools.



Oh yes, in his pathology...

I'm not. But it's undoubtedly true that responsibility lies first with those who create the environment in which such events take place rather than those who are forced to live in such conditions.



It would be a serious deterioration of your position if you were to actually try and claim that either Hamas or Hezbollah’s opposition to Israel is racially motivated.

OK, Take your pick. http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=427



Heaven forfend! Imagine those retrograde barbarians trying to run a country. The very idea...

I have never, and would never describe Arabs in those terms. Hamas, on the othe hand....



Definitely not both? Oh, ok then.

Past experience suggests this. That's why I said "On the form book"


And increasingly looking like further Fatah collusion.

Can't argue with that. I would call it "cooperation" though



Oh no, the absolute swine. Personally responsible for the deaths of two members of the armed forces occupying his country, the humanity...

If you want to see it that way. To me, it's not his country, and they weren't occupying it. My point was that it's not surprising that he's a wanted man as far as Zahal and Mossad are concerned
Basically, if randomly firing rockets at civilian targets is a legitimate act of war, then so is bumping off the equivalent of a senior general in a hotel room

[Betty Boop]

Gordon Brown has ordered a full investigation in to the use of fake British passports. It will be interesting to see how robust this investigation will be, as Israel is again accused of flouting International law.

[LiverpoolHibs]

OK, Take your pick. [/URL][url]http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=427 (http://www.palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=427)

Ha, Palestine Media Watch, seriously?

I didn't say that sections of the resistance were not (quite often) guilty of anti-semitism. It's unarguable that they are. However, to claim that they are motivated by racism/anti-semitism just makes you look ludicrous.


I have never, and would never describe Arabs in those terms. Hamas, on the othe hand....

The implication was there in the unadulterated fear of it becoming an 'Arab state'.


Past experience suggests this. That's why I said "On the form book"

What past experience? Past experience dictates that even under the immense strains of a brutal occupation the Palestinian people have built a robust and accountable democracy.

You wouldn't be trying to homogenise the entire Middle East into an amorphus mass, would you?


If you want to see it that way. To me, it's not his country, and they weren't occupying it. My point was that it's not surprising that he's a wanted man as far as Zahal and Mossad are concerned. Basically, if randomly firing rockets at civilian targets is a legitimate act of war, then so is bumping off the equivalent of a senior general in a hotel room

Sorry, it's not his country? I thought you were opposed to the Zionist push for a Greater Israel and supported a Palestinian state, has the mask just slipped?

And would you be of the same opinion if Hamas had 'bumped off' Gabi Ashkenazi?

[khib70]

Ha, Palestine Media Watch, seriously?

I didn't say that sections of the resistance were not (quite often) guilty of anti-semitism. It's unarguable that they are. However, to claim that they are motivated by racism/anti-semitism just makes you look ludicrous.

Yes, I know, PMW is an Israeli organisation. I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of this material, however. Given that these statements are being made on the official media channels of Hamas and Fatah, it's reasonable to assume that they are close to the world view of both organisations


The implication was there in the unadulterated fear of it becoming an 'Arab state'.

No fear involved. My point was that it would quickly develop into the kind of ethnicity based entity that you yourself dislike. "retrograde barbarians" is your phrase, not mine



What past experience? Past experience dictates that even under the immense strains of a brutal occupation the Palestinian people have built a robust and accountable democracy.

Which one, Hamas or the PA? I think even their most fervent advocates would find it hard to describe either with a straight face as running a "robust and accountable democracy" There's only one of those in that region.

You wouldn't be trying to homogenise the entire Middle East into an amorphus mass, would you?

No, just pointing out a fact. (That no Arab state that is both secular and democratic currently exists). I don't do pan-Arabism.



Sorry, it's not his country? I thought you were opposed to the Zionist push for a Greater Israel and supported a Palestinian state, has the mask just slipped?

I don't doubt your honesty - don't question mine. When I questioned the word "his" I was referring to ownership, not nationality. The soldiers concerned were on leave within the legitimate boundaries of Israel when they were abducted.

And would you be of the same opinion if Hamas had 'bumped off' Gabi Ashkenazi?

Yes. For him it's an inevitable occupational hazard, and I'm sure he accepts that too.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Yes, I know, PMW is an Israeli organisation. I have no reason to doubt the authenticity of this material, however. Given that these statements are being made on the official media channels of Hamas and Fatah, it's reasonable to assume that they are close to the world view of both organisations

Well, given that in the past you've said you take the word of the I.D.F. over that of a U.N. employee in Gaza, that doesn't really say alot.


No fear involved. My point was that it would quickly develop into the kind of ethnicity based entity that you yourself dislike. "retrograde barbarians" is your phrase, not mine.

Israel's already an 'ethnicity based entity' - fundamentally so. There's no other nation in the region run on ethnocratic lines.

And it wasn't 'my phrase', was it...


Which one, Hamas or the PA? I think even their most fervent advocates would find it hard to describe either with a straight face as running a "robust and accountable democracy" There's only one of those in that region.

The one that exerts state authority over millions of people whilst keeping them disenfranchised? The one that constantly threatens to ban Arab and leftist parties from participating in elections?

It was P.A. elections that brought Hamas to power. Fatah control in the West Bank is, however, essentially a Junta. You're absolutely right.


No, just pointing out a fact. (That no Arab state that is both secular and democratic currently exists). I don't do pan-Arabism.

That's not pan-Arabism.

Are you forgetting Lebanon? And, of course, the O.P.T.'s prior to Israel and the U.S.'s proxy crushing of democracy. I thought they were meant to be all for that...


I don't doubt your honesty - don't question mine. When I questioned the word "his" I was referring to ownership, not nationality. The soldiers concerned were on leave within the legitimate boundaries of Israel when they were abducted.

Hmmm, I'm afraid I am going to question your honesty.

To me, it's not his country, and they weren't occupying it

I'm struggling to see how else that can be read. It's either stupendously clumsy or it was meant as I took it.


Yes. For him it's an inevitable occupational hazard, and I'm sure he accepts that too.

And it would be 'good for them', as well?

[hibsbollah]

Gordon Brown has ordered a full investigation in to the use of fake British passports. It will be interesting to see how robust this investigation will be, as Israel is again accused of flouting International law.

Israeli ambassador being called in to see Broon re-stolen passports.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/17/israeli-ambassador-summoned-dubai-murder (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/17/israeli-ambassador-summoned-dubai-murder)

[khib70]

Israeli ambassador being called in to see Broon re-stolen passports.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/17/israeli-ambassador-summoned-dubai-murder (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/17/israeli-ambassador-summoned-dubai-murder)Ooer! Intelligence operatives using fake passports shock horror! Never catch our chaps in MI6 doing that! Damned unsporting,what?

I bet Ron Prosor is really cacking himself about this little soiree

[Betty Boop]

Israeli ambassador being called in to see Broon re-stolen passports.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/17/israeli-ambassador-summoned-dubai-murder (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/17/israeli-ambassador-summoned-dubai-murder)

Quite right. Can you imagine if it was the other way about, they would be knocking on the door of Number 10.

[Betty Boop]

Passport to the Truth in Dubai Remains Secret

By Robert Fisk

February 17, 2010 "The Independent" - - It's a propaganda war. Whoever killed the Hamas official in Dubai – let's speak frankly – it's part of an old, dirty war between the Israelis and the Palestinians in which they have been murdering their secret police antagonists for decades. Whose were the passports? Or should we say "passports". So here's a moment to reflect on realities.

Many Dubaians believe that the collapse of the emirate's economy last year was the revenge of Western banks – spurred on, of course, by the Americans – to punish them for allowing Iranian shell companies to use Dubai as a sanctions-busting base during the cold-hot war between the US-Israeli alliance and Iran. Now the Americans (or the Israelis – you can take your pick) want to turn Dubai into the Beirut of the Gulf. That was actually a headline last week – in The Jerusalem Post, of course – which painted Dubai as dangerous as it was economically calamitous.

But hold on a minute. According to a Dubai "source" of The Independent – readers will have to judge what this means – the security forces of the aforesaid emirate informed a "British diplomat" in Dubai (presumably the consul, since the embassy is in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi) of the UK passport details almost six days ago and "did not receive an appropriate reply". If this is true – the Foreign Office will be wrathful in its denials – then why didn't the British immediately express their outrage at the use of forged British passports and cough up details of the equally outrageous frauds a week ago? This misuse puts every British citizen at risk.

Yet the Foreign Office – so keen to warn British citizens of the dangers they face in the Middle East – sat on their large behind and did bugger all. I'm sorry. If they had the details, they had a duty to UK citizens to speak up. If they hadn't got the details, they should have told us. But they were silent. Why? Was there a cold breeze coming beneath a closed door?

Far too many police forces are now sending their minions to Israel to learn about "terror". The Canadians actually dispatched a team of cops to Tel Aviv who allowed themselves to wear "suicide vests" for publicity pictures. Air France now hands the US details of all its passengers' profiles – which, of course, go straight to the Israelis – despite the fact that Israeli security officers (like hundreds of Arab security officers in the Middle East) may well be involved in war crimes.

Now a small addendum. The Dubai authorities apparently gave the British the (allegedly) forged Irish passports under the misapprehension that Dublin was still a major city of the United Kingdom. Things, needless to say, changed in Dublin almost a hundred years ago – although how many readers can name the date of Dubai's independence from British rule? – but this elementary mistake suggests that the Dubai version of events (the inexplicable failure of the British to explain their silence) may contain a distressing truth. Don't we (the British? Gordon Brown? etc, etc) care when killers use supposedly British passports?

It is too soon to give a reply. But I should add that the Dubai authorities have other information which they have not yet revealed. The world awaits.

©independent.co.uk

[(((Fergus)))]

Yeah, if only they'd spent less time farming and sitting round on their ***** and more time constructing a time machine to see what was going to happen thirty years in the future. Lazy ****ers.

You make the 1858 land registration sound like the most normal thing in the world. When, in fact, it was a tactic of Ottoman imperialism that tied those who registered ownership to a period of service in the Ottoman army, payment of taxes and fees to what was seen as an illegitimate external authority and external regulation of land they'd lived on and farmed for years.

Do you reckon there are many people who refused to register their land in 1858 still knocking about?

Still cursing not making the time machine, no doubt.

Some people didn't need a time machine to see the advantages of putting their names to the land - despite the obligations - and so benefited in the long run. Those who didn't paid the price. Such is life.




Nope. Have you just made that up?

I'm quoting directly from his, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness.

Sources yield the following results regarding those selling land:

Non-Palestinian Absentee Landlords - 143,577 Dunums (58%)
Palestinian Absentee Landlords - 88,689 Dunums (36%)
Local Landlords and Fellahin - 15,200 Dunums (6%)


I've also quoted from that book, presumably we've quoted from different time periods. No matter; this whole debate about absentee/non-absentee landlords is a red herring anyway. The Zionists bought the land legally. If certain Arabs had grievances, then they should have taken it out on the selling landlords and smallholders directly. Legal eviction does not justify the destruction of property, never mind assault and murder. By trying to drive out the Jews through force, they condemned themselves to the same fate.



A better poorly written and historically innacurate undergraduate module paper? Or a better history of the Druze in Israel? I think Kais Firro is considered the best in that field.

What does Firro say that contradicts the summary in that paper (which includes Firro in the bibliography)?

From what I've read, the Druze official position during the 1936-39 Arab revolt was neutrality, with some joining the rebellion and others supporting the Jews. Both sides courted Druze support, however the neutrality alone was seen as treachery by certain Arab groups (a mindset that continues today with the Fatah/Hamas conflict, albeit Fatah are by no means neutral) who carried out murders and desecrations. As a result, the Druze gravitated towards the Jewish side while the Arabs became increasingly anti-Druze.

Whatever the machinations, Druze fought alongside the Jews in 1948 and continue to do so today. Were/are Jewish-Druze relations perfect? No, far from it, yet that relationship is and was preferable to the other option.


That wasn't what I asked, but never mind.

Can't have been important then.

I have to say I've come round to your way of thinking on the two-state issue. From what I've read and seen as a result of this debate, I now accept that it will never work. Unless it is carved up by its neighbours, there can only be one state on that territory: Israel. Until everyone in Israel and the occupied territories accepts the existence and sovereignty of Israel there will always be terrorism and counterterrorism. If not, a two-state situation will just be another platform for continued conflict.

[(((Fergus)))]

Eh? It's not for me to lay down a timetable.

The most preferable method for bringing it about would be the large scale radicalisation of the Israeli working class, encompassing a rejection of Zionism and ethnocracy as a mode of state building.

No need for a timetable on that one :wink:

[McIntosh]

I have to say I've come round to your way of thinking on the two-state issue. From what I've read and seen as a result of this debate, I now accept that it will never work. Unless it is carved up by its neighbours, there can only be one state on that territory: Israel. Until everyone in Israel and the occupied territories accepts the existence and sovereignty of Israel there will always be terrorism and counterterrorism. If not, a two-state situation will just be another platform for continued conflict.

How can Israel exist as a Zionist state with a population of 5,634,321 Israeli Jews; 398,525 Palestian Jews; 1,513,998 Israeli arab/muslim; 3,932,763 Palestian arab/muslim; 318,999 Israel Christian; 298, 987 Palestian Christians. The Jews would represent 49.87% of the population while they would be the largest group they would be a minority. Denying voting rights to Palestinian christians and muslim would be completely unacceptable, it would create an apartheid state.

I can only think that you are arguing for a secular state because any alternative would mean a subject people. I personally believe a secular state would be best but I fully acknowledge is the most difficult to attain and the two state solution still appears the only way forward.

[hibsbollah]

The Jews would represent 49.87% of the population while they would be the largest group they would be a minority.

Hence the alternative; 'ethnic cleansing':agree:

[(((Fergus)))]

How can Israel exist as a Zionist state with a population of 5,634,321 Israeli Jews; 398,525 Palestian Jews; 1,513,998 Israeli arab/muslim; 3,932,763 Palestian arab/muslim; 318,999 Israel Christian; 298, 987 Palestian Christians. The Jews would represent 49.87% of the population while they would be the largest group they would be a minority. Denying voting rights to Palestinian christians and muslim would be completely unacceptable, it would create an apartheid state.

I can only think that you are arguing for a secular state because any alternative would mean a subject people. I personally believe a secular state would be best but I fully acknowledge is the most difficult to attain and the two state solution still appears the only way forward.

No, the whole point of Israel is that it's a Jewish state. If the Arabs were ever to get the upper hand, they would massacre the Jews. That's why Israel will never allow that to happen. If that means denying people voting rights, then so be it. It's no different to the lot of Arabs in neighbouring states.

Given attitudes on the Arab side - hatred of Israel/Jews and unwillingness of neighbouring states to accept the Palestinian refugees - the only option I can see at the moment is the current status quo. Gaza is an experiment in the two-state model and it has failed dismally so far. The problem is the Arabs are still totally unwilling to share any of the land with Israel. For that reason Israel has to dominate the Arabs in order to protect itself.

[(((Fergus)))]

Hence the alternative; 'ethnic cleansing':agree:

:agree: Although second-class citizenship (zero access to politics or military) would be another alternative.

[McIntosh]

No, the whole point of Israel is that it's a Jewish state. If the Arabs were ever to get the upper hand, they would massacre the Jews. That's why Israel will never allow that to happen. If that means denying people voting rights, then so be it. It's no different to the lot of Arabs in neighbouring states.

Given attitudes on the Arab side - hatred of Israel and unwillingness of neighbouring states to accept the Palestinian refugees - the only option I can see at the moment is the current status quo. Gaza is an experiment in the two-state model and it has failed dismally so far. The problem is the Arabs are still totally unwilling to share any of the land with Israel. For that reason Israel has to dominate the Arabs in order to protect itself.

You know this is outrageous. Fergus, denying any ones human rights is completely unacceptable it is the lowest form of Fascism.

I hope you really don't mean this but if you do all, you are doing is facilitating the end of the Zionist project which is so clearly dear to your heart. With remarks like this you can easily understand why there is so much hatred to Israel.

In respect to your second comment the Palestinians are refugees in their own land it is a complete injustice and a humanitarian disaster. Your third comment is a complete fiction there have been numerous offers on the table in the last sixty years which completely contradicts this nonsense, so many I dare not list them.

I have heared your logic so many times before in Rhodesia, Northern Ireland and South Africa - all these states fell, Israel will be the same with your type of logic. When you deny human rights to other it is inevitable that your own will ultimately be denied that is the cycle that you have allowed your self to be drawn into. I don't know why you have said this but the Palestinians are human being with human rights. If you deny this you would be using the exact same argument that the Nazi used against the Jews - the Palestinains are not sub-human. Israeli blood is no more important than Palestinian blood and visa versa - they both are red.

In your reply please no racism it may well get you banned and damage this entire forum.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Some people didn't need a time machine to see the advantages of putting their names to the land - despite the obligations - and so benefited in the long run. Those who didn't paid the price. Such is life.

Why would anyone be 'obligated' (by an illegitimate colonial power) to put their name to the land they'd worked for centuries?

That's a delightful sentiment and in no way makes you sound like an apologist for colonialism.


I've also quoted from that book, presumably we've quoted from different time periods. No matter; this whole debate about absentee/non-absentee landlords is a red herring anyway. The Zionists bought the land legally. If certain Arabs had grievances, then they should have taken it out on the selling landlords and smallholders directly. Legal eviction does not justify the destruction of property, never mind assault and murder. By trying to drive out the Jews through force, they condemned themselves to the same fate.

The numbers you quoted were for a very short time period.

How would you take grievances out on an absentee landlord? This is mental.


What does Firro say that contradicts the summary in that paper (which includes Firro in the bibliography)? From what I've read, the Druze official position during the 1936-39 Arab revolt was neutrality, with some joining the rebellion and others supporting the Jews. Both sides courted Druze support, however the neutrality alone was seen as treachery by certain Arab groups (a mindset that continues today with the Fatah/Hamas conflict, albeit Fatah are by no means neutral) who carried out murders and desecrations. As a result, the Druze gravitated towards the Jewish side while the Arabs became increasingly anti-Druze.

We've done this...


Whatever the machinations, Druze fought alongside the Jews in 1948 and continue to do so today. Were/are Jewish-Druze relations perfect? No, far from it, yet that relationship is and was preferable to the other option.

Well, yes. To the extent that (broadly) siding with the powerful/oppressor over the powerless/oppressed is the 'sensible' option.


Can't have been important then.

Nope, just that I've grown very used to avoidance, sophistry, misrepresentation and vacillation.


I have to say I've come round to your way of thinking on the two-state issue. From what I've read and seen as a result of this debate, I now accept that it will never work. Unless it is carved up by its neighbours, there can only be one state on that territory: Israel. Until everyone in Israel and the occupied territories accepts the existence and sovereignty of Israel there will always be terrorism and counterterrorism. If not, a two-state situation will just be another platform for continued conflict.

That's not my way of thinking. That's the way of thinking of the most rabid, right-wing Zionist.


No, the whole point of Israel is that it's a Jewish state. If the Arabs were ever to get the upper hand, they would massacre the Jews. That's why Israel will never allow that to happen. If that means denying people voting rights, then so be it. It's no different to the lot of Arabs in neighbouring states.

Given attitudes on the Arab side - hatred of Israel/Jews and unwillingness of neighbouring states to accept the Palestinian refugees - the only option I can see at the moment is the current status quo. Gaza is an experiment in the two-state model and it has failed dismally so far. The problem is the Arabs are still totally unwilling to share any of the land with Israel. For that reason Israel has to dominate the Arabs in order to protect itself.


:agree: Although second-class citizenship (zero access to politics or military) would be another alternative.

Sorry, but you're an absolute lunatic.

[McIntosh]

:agree: Although second-class citizenship (zero access to politics or military) would be another alternative.


Why don't you go the whole way and call them "dirty, filthy arabs" because that appears to be what you are saying!

So what about the half a million Christians would they be first class citzens?

[(((Fergus)))]

Denying human rights? The Arabs should have thought about that before they commenced killing Jews in 1920.

If Israel were an Arab country, the Palestinians would have been massacred and expelled long ago - as happened in Jordan in the 1970s.

Regarding hatred of Israel, when has the world ever loved the Jew?

[McIntosh]

Denying human rights? The Arabs should have thought about that before they commenced killing Jews in 1920.

If Israel were an Arab country, the Palestinians would have been massacred and expelled long ago - as happened in Jordan in the 1970s.

Regarding hatred of Israel, when has the world ever loved the Jew?

Hold on a minute - don't confuse a lie with a fact on all three counts.

Anti-zionism is not anti-semitism, though you for your agenda you would like people to believe that fiction.

You know your remarks are shameful, you should hide your head in shame.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Denying human rights? The Arabs should have thought about that before they commenced killing Jews in 1920.

If Israel were an Arab country, the Palestinians would have been massacred and expelled long ago - as happened in Jordan in the 1970s.

Regarding hatred of Israel, when has the world ever loved the Jew?

I repeat, you're an absolute lunatic.

In a way, it's actually rather refreshing that you've decided to forgo the facade of reasoned debate and lowered yourself to this hate filled nonsense.

[hibsbollah]

Regarding hatred of Israel, when has the world ever loved the Jew?

Spielberg was doing rather well in the 80s and 90s.

In all seriousness, Fergus, have you been taking a higher than usual dose of anti-tolerance pills? This isnt like you:confused:

[(((Fergus)))]

Why don't you go the whole way and call them "dirty, filthy arabs" because that appears to be what you are saying!

So what about the half a million Christians would they be first class citzens?

Why don't you stop putting words in my mouth and try to understand the point without referring to your own prejudices?

As long as Israel is Jewish by a large majority then they can tolerate democracy involving a non-Jewish population. If that majority was substantially reduced, the Jews would have to take action to retain the Jewish character of the state, e.g., limiting political rights. Is there any country in the world that would uphold the rights of a group that threatened the existence of the state?

Our mistake IMO is to apply our precious liberal values to what is a life-or-death battle for supremacy. At least it's life or death for Israel; for the Arabs, its a case of glory or humiliation. As long as one square foot of Israel exists, the humiliation of the Arabs will not be expunged. Of course there are plenty of Arabs who have gotten over themselves and are happy to live with Israel. They though are not the problem.

[(((Fergus)))]

Spielberg was doing rather well in the 80s and 90s.

In all seriousness, Fergus, have you been taking a higher than usual dose of anti-tolerance pills? This isnt like you:confused:

I think it's just dawned on me the extent to which some Arabs (and muslims/non-Jews in general) wish to see the total destruction of Israel. I used to think it was a quarrel about land, and so land exchange would solve it, when in fact it's more to do with humiliation, mortification, loss of status, etc.

[McIntosh]

I think it's just dawned on me the extent to which some Arabs (and muslims/non-Jews in general) wish to see the total destruction of Israel. I used to think it was a quarrel about land, and so land exchange would solve it, when in fact it's more to do with humiliation, mortification, loss of status, etc.

You're not quick in the up take then - hate only begates hate. a lesson there for you.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Why don't you stop putting words in my mouth and try to understand the point without referring to your own prejudices?

As long as Israel is Jewish by a large majority then they can tolerate democracy involving a non-Jewish population. If that majority was substantially reduced, the Jews would have to take action to retain the Jewish character of the state, e.g., limiting political rights. Is there any country in the world that would uphold the rights of a group that threatened the existence of the state?

Quite. It's essential Israel learn lessons from Edward Carson, Ian Smith and P.W. Botha...

[(((Fergus)))]

You're not quick in the up take then - hate only begates hate. a lesson there for you.

So everyone now loves Israel?

[(((Fergus)))]

I repeat, you're an absolute lunatic.

In a way, it's actually rather refreshing that you've decided to forgo the facade of reasoned debate and lowered yourself to this hate filled nonsense.

Coming from someone who advocates the people's republic of Palestine, that's a compliment.

[LiverpoolHibs]

I think it's just dawned on me the extent to which some Arabs (and muslims/non-Jews in general) wish to see the total destruction of Israel. I used to think it was a quarrel about land, and so land exchange would solve it, when in fact it's more to do with humiliation, mortification, loss of status, etc.

Ha, there's nothing like a bit of amateur psychoanalysis. A veritable Jacques Lacan.

[McIntosh]

Why don't you stop putting words in my mouth and try to understand the point without referring to your own prejudices?

As long as Israel is Jewish by a large majority then they can tolerate democracy involving a non-Jewish population. If that majority was substantially reduced, the Jews would have to take action to retain the Jewish character of the state, e.g., limiting political rights. Is there any country in the world that would uphold the rights of a group that threatened the existence of the state?

Our mistake IMO is to apply our precious liberal values to what is a life-or-death battle for supremacy. At least it's life or death for Israel; for the Arabs, its a case of glory or humiliation. As long as one square foot of Israel exists, the humiliation of the Arabs will not be expunged. Of course there are plenty of Arabs who have gotten over themselves and are happy to live with Israel. They though are not the problem.

You, put the words in your own mouth. What right does anyone have in limiting the human right of anyone. I repeat Israel rights are not any more important than Palestinian rights all men and woman "are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights".

You talk about Jews and Arabs, I talk about and prioritise human beings if that a prejudice I am guilty as charged. You are blinded by fear we are not in a 'life or death battle for supremacy' that only exists in the minds of a dangerous fringe. That battle has been won by the industry of China.

Israel cannot expect that its double standards will be accepted or tolerated for ever. Denying the democratic rights to half the population of which half a million will be Christian would not run well with the organ grinders in the US. The tide is going against Israel sadly, it only has itself to blame.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Coming from someone who advocates the people's republic of Palestine, that's a compliment.

Aye, imagine someone advocating a state based on equality for Arabs and Jews. That's definitely more maniacal than someone advocating keeping a near-majority population of a Greater Israel in permanent second class status or even a campaign of ethnic cleansing to maintain a ethnocratic state.

And I'm not particularly interested in what it's called.

[(((Fergus)))]

You, put the words in your own mouth. What right does anyone have in limiting the human right of anyone. I repeat Israel rights are not any more important than Palestinian rights all men and woman "are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights".

You talk about Jews and Arabs, I talk about and prioritise human beings if that a prejudice I am guilty as charged. You are blinded by fear we are not in a 'life or death battle for supremacy' that only exists in the minds of a dangerous fringe. That battle has been won by the industry of China.

Israel cannot expect that its double standards will be accepted or tolerated for ever. Denying the democratic rights to half the population of which half a million will be Christian would not run well with the organ grinders in the US. The tide is going against Israel sadly, it only has itself to blame.

Human rights are limited in all conflict scenarios, e.g., internment in WWII. If the Arabs accept Israeli sovereignty then their situation will inevitably improve.

[(((Fergus)))]

Aye, imagine someone advocating a state based on equality for Arabs and Jews. That's definitely more maniacal than someone advocating keeping a near-majority population of a Greater Israel in permanent second class status or even a campaign of ethnic cleansing to maintain a ethnocratic state.

And I'm not particularly interested in what it's called.

Nice dream, unfortunately it would be a nightmare.

[McIntosh]

Human rights are limited in all conflict scenarios, e.g., internment in WWII. If the Arabs accept Israeli sovereignty then their situation will inevitably improve.

This is very unlike you, you really are opening your self up - inevitably improve to what 'second class citzen' status.

Now you would agree that the 'arabs' are human being with human rights. There are no second class human beings just human beings. Fergus, this devotion to a zionist Israel does not help Israel, it weakens it because it makes it look arrogant, selfish and racist.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Nice dream, unfortunately it would be a nightmare.

Yeah, much better that the ideology, behaviour and rhetoric of white minority rule in southern Africa is shifted over wholesale.

Has the fact you sound like a racist ****bag really not clicked yet?

[hibsbollah]

I think it's just dawned on me the extent to which some Arabs (and muslims/non-Jews in general) wish to see the total destruction of Israel. I used to think it was a quarrel about land, and so land exchange would solve it, when in fact it's more to do with humiliation, mortification, loss of status, etc.

Even if I agreed with your historical version of events, which I don't, it still wouldnt explain your lurch from reasoned debate to crass generalisations 'the Arabs would just kill all the Jews'. :confused: This apocalyptic thinking is usually used to justify the unjustifiable; fascism, racism, genocide, that sort of thing.

[Betty Boop]

Mossad’s Murderous Reach:

The Larger Political Issues

By James Petras

February 22, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- On January 19 Israel’s international secret police, the Mossad, sent an eighteen member death squad to Dubai using European passports, supposedly ‘stolen’ from Israeli dual citizens and altered with fake photos and signatures, in order to assassinate the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud al Mabhouh.

The evidence is overwhelming: The Dubai police presentation of detailed security videos of the assassins was corroborated by the testimony of Israeli security experts and applauded by Israel’s leading newspapers and columnists. The Mossad openly stated that Mabhouh was a high priority target who had survived three previous assassination attempts. Israel did not even bother to deny the murder. Furthermore, the sophisticated communication system used by the killers, the logistics and planning surrounding their entry and exit from Dubai and the scope and scale of the operation have all the characteristics of a high-level state operation. Furthermore, only Mossad would have access to the European passports of its dual citizens! Only Mossad would have the capacity, motivation, stated intent and willingness to provoke a diplomatic row with its European allies, knowing full well that Western European governments’ anger would blow over because of their deep links to Israel. After meticulous investigation and the interrogation of 2 captured Palestinian Mossad collaborators, the Dubai police chief has stated he is sure the Mossad was behind the killing. The Larger Political Issues

Israel’s policy of overseas assassination raises profound issues that threaten the basis of the modern state: sovereignty, rule of law and national and personal security.

Israel has a publicly-stated policy of violating the sovereignty of any and all countries in order to kill or abduct its opponents. In both proclamation and actual practice, Israeli law, decrees and actions abroad supersede the laws and law enforcement agencies of any other nation. If Israel’s policy becomes the common practice world-wide, we would enter a savage Hobbesian jungle in which individuals would be subject to the murderous intent of foreign assassination squads unrestrained by any law or accountable national authority. Each and every state could impose its own laws and cross national borders in order to murder other nation’s citizens or residents with impunity. Israel’s extra-territorial assassinations make a mockery of the very notion of national sovereignty. Extra-territorial secret police elimination of opponents was a common practice of the Nazi Gestapo, Stalin’s GPU and Pinochet’s DINA and has now become the sanctioned practice of the US “Special Forces” and the CIA clandestine division. Such policies are the hallmark of totalitarian, dictatorial and imperialist states, which systematically trample on the sovereign rights of peoples.

Israel’s practice of extra-judicial, extra-territorial assassinations, exemplified by the recent murder of Mahmoud al Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room, violates all the fundamental precepts of the rule of law. Extra-judicial killings ordered by a state, mean its own secret police are judge, jury, prosecutor and executioner, unrestrained by sovereignty, law and the duty of nations to protect their citizens and visitors. Evidence, legal procedures, defense and cross examinations are obliterated in the process. State-sponsored, extra-judicial murder completely undermines due process. Liquidation of opponents abroad is the logical next step after Israel’s domestic show trials, based on the application of its racial laws and administrative detention decrees, which have dispossessed the Palestinian people and violated international laws.

Mossad death squads operate directly under the Israeli Prime Minister (who personally approved the recent murder).The vast majority of Israelis proudly support these assassinations, especially when the killers escape detection and capture. The unfettered operation of foreign state-sponsored death squads, carrying out extra-judicial assassinations with impunity, is a serious threat to every critic, writer, political leader and civic activist who dares to criticize Israel.

Mossad Murders - Zionist Fire

The precedent of Israel killing its adversaries abroad, establishes the outer boundaries of repression by its overseas supporters in the leading Zionist organizations, most of whom have now and in the past supported Israel’s violation of national sovereignty via extra-judicial killings. If Israel physically eliminates its opponents and critics, the 51 major American Jewish organizations economically repress Israel’s critics in the US. They actively pressure employers, university presidents and public officials to fire employees, academics and professionals who dare to speak or write against Israeli torture, killing and systematic dispossession of Palestinians. So far, most critical comments, in Israel and elsewhere, of Mossad’s recent murder in Dubai focus on the agents’ “incompetence”, including allowing their faces to be captured on numerous security videos as they clumsily changed their wigs and costumes under the camera gaze . Other critics complain that the bungling Mossad is “tarnishing Israel’s image” as a democratic state and providing ammunition for the anti-Semites. None of these superficial criticisms have been repeated by the US Congress, White House or the Presidents of the Major Jewish American organizations, where the mafia rule of Omerga, or silence, reigns supreme and criminal complicity is the rule

Conclusion

While the critics bemoan the clumsy Mossad job, making it harder for Western powers to provide Israel with diplomatic cover for its operations abroad, the fundamental issue is never addressed: The Mossad’s acquisition and alteration of official British, French, German and Irish passports of dual Israeli citizen’s underscores the cynical and sinister nature of Israel’s exploitation of its dual citizens in the pursuit of its own bloody foreign policy goals. Mossad’s use of genuine passports issued by four sovereign European nations to its citizens in order to murder a Palestinian in a Dubai hotel room raises the question of to whom ‘dual’ Israeli citizens really owe their allegiance and just how far they are willing to go in defending or promoting Israel’s overseas assassinations.

Thanks to Israel’s use of British passports to enter Dubai and murder an adversary, every British businessperson or tourist traveling in the Middle East will be suspected of links to Israeli death squads. With elections this year and the Labor and Conservative parties counting heavenly on Zionist millionaires for campaign funding, it remains to be seen whether Prime Minister Gordon Brown will do more than whimper and cringe!

[speedy_gonzales]

In both proclamation and actual practice, Israeli law, decrees and actions abroad supersede the laws and law enforcement agencies of any other nation.

See this, this makes me wanna scream "Naw it disnae", if you commit a crime in a foreign land, and are caught, then you will be tried by foreign courts. You can't just pull out a 'get out of jail free card' a'la Monopoly!
I'm not pro arab/muslim but it's this kind of arrogance from Israel that makes me wanna bang their heads together.
It is quite obvious to all that Israel has powerful allies in Washington, but that doesn't mean they can strut about doing as they please, Israel, im my opinion, is the small boy hiding behind the playground bully, one day that bully is going to be off sick whilst he is left in a big playground full of non-friendlies!

[LiverpoolHibs]

This (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100301/roy) is an absolutely stunning article on the current situation in Gaza, the enforced humanitarian and economic crisis caused by the siege and Israeli policy towards the Palestinian Territories generally. I doubt anyone could produce a more comprehensive and well-written piece. Everyone should read it.

Sara Roy - Gaza: Treading on Shards

"Do you know what it's like living in Gaza?" a friend of mine asked. "It is like walking on broken glass tearing at your feet."

On January 21, fifty-four House Democrats signed a letter to President Obama asking him to dramatically ease, if not end, the siege of Gaza. They wrote:
The people of Gaza have suffered enormously since the blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt following Hamas's coup, and particularly following Operation Cast Lead.... The unabated suffering of Gazan civilians highlights the urgency of reaching a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and we ask you to press for immediate relief for the citizens of Gaza as an urgent component of your broader Middle East peace efforts.... Despite ad hoc easing of the blockade, there has been no significant improvement in the quantity and scope of goods allowed into Gaza.... The crisis has devastated livelihoods, entrenched a poverty rate of over 70%, increased dependence on erratic international aid, allowed the deterioration of public infrastructure, and led to the marked decline of the accessibility of essential services. This letter is remarkable not only because it directly challenges the policy of the Israel lobby--a challenge no doubt borne of the extreme crisis confronting Palestinians, in which the United States has played an extremely damaging role--but also because it links Israeli security to Palestinian well-being. The letter concludes, "The people of Gaza, along with all the peoples of the region, must see that the United States is dedicated to addressing the legitimate security needs of the State of Israel and to ensuring that the legitimate needs of the Palestinian population are met."

I was last in Gaza in August, my first trip since Israel's war on the territory one year ago. I was overwhelmed by what I saw in a place I have known intimately for nearly a quarter of a century: a land ripped apart and scarred, the lives of its people blighted. Gaza is decaying under the weight of continued devastation, unable to function normally. The resulting void is filled with vacancy and despair that subdues even those acts of resilience and optimism that still find some expression. What struck me most was the innocence of these people, over half of them children, and the indecency and criminality of their continued punishment.

The decline and disablement of Gaza's economy and society have been deliberate, the result of state policy--consciously planned, implemented and enforced. Although Israel bears the greatest responsibility, the United States and the European Union, among others, are also culpable, as is the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank. All are complicit in the ruination of this gentle place. And just as Gaza's demise has been consciously orchestrated, so have the obstacles preventing its recovery.

Gaza has a long history of subjection that assumed new dimensions after Hamas's January 2006 electoral victory. Immediately after those elections, Israel and certain donor countries suspended contacts with the PA, which was soon followed by the suspension of direct aid and the subsequent imposition of an international financial boycott of the PA. By this time Israel had already been withholding monthly tax revenues and custom duties collected on behalf of the Authority, had effectively ended Gazan employment inside Israel and had drastically reduced Gaza's external trade.

With escalating Palestinian-Israeli violence, which led to the killing of two Israeli soldiers and the kidnapping of Cpl. Gilad Shalit in June 2006, Israel sealed Gaza's borders, allowing for the entry of humanitarian goods only, which marked the beginning of the siege, now in its fourth year. Shalit's abduction precipitated a massive Israeli military assault against Gaza at the end of June, known as Operation Summer Rains, which initially targeted Gaza's infrastructure and later focused on destabilizing the Hamas-led government through intensified strikes on PA ministries and further reductions in fuel, electricity, water delivery and sewage treatment. This near daily ground operation did not end until October 2006.

In June 2007, after Hamas's seizure of power in the Strip (which followed months of internecine violence and an attempted coup by Fatah against Hamas) and the dissolution of the national unity government, the PA effectively split in two: a de facto Hamas-led government--rejected by Israel and the West--was formed in Gaza, and the officially recognized government headed by President Mahmoud Abbas was established in the West Bank. The boycott was lifted against the West Bank PA but was intensified against Gaza.

Adding to Gaza's misery was the decision by the Israeli security cabinet on September 19, 2007, to declare the Strip an "enemy entity" controlled by a "terrorist organization." After this decision Israel imposed further sanctions that include an almost complete ban on trade and no freedom of movement for the majority of Gazans, including the labor force. In the fall of 2008 a ban on fuel imports into Gaza was imposed. These policies have contributed to transforming Gazans from a people with political and national rights into a humanitarian problem--paupers and charity cases who are now the responsibility of the international community.

Not only have key international donors, most critically the United States and European Union, participated in the sanctions regime against Gaza, they have privileged the West Bank in their programmatic work. Donor strategies now support and strengthen the fragmentation and isolation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip--an Israeli policy goal of the Oslo process--and divide Palestinians into two distinct entities, offering largesse to one side while criminalizing and depriving the other. This behavior among key donor countries reflects a critical shift in their approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from one that opposes Israeli occupation to one that, in effect, recognizes it. This can be seen in their largely unchallenged acceptance of Israel's settlement policy and the deepening separation of the West Bank and Gaza and isolation of the latter. This shift in donor thinking can also be seen in their unwillingness to confront Israel's de facto annexation of Palestinian lands and Israel's reshaping of the conflict to center on Gaza alone, which is now identified solely with Hamas and therefore as alien.

Hence, within the annexation (West Bank)/alien (Gaza Strip) paradigm, any resistance by Palestinians, be they in the West Bank or Gaza, to Israel's repressive occupation, including attempts at meaningful economic empowerment, are now considered by Israel and certain donors to be illegitimate and unlawful. This is the context in which the sanctions regime against Gaza has been justified, a regime that has not mitigated since the end of the war. Normal trade (upon which Gaza's tiny economy is desperately dependent) continues to be prohibited; traditional imports and exports have almost disappeared from Gaza. In fact, with certain limited exceptions, no construction materials or raw materials have been allowed to enter the Strip since June 14, 2007. Indeed, according to Amnesty International (http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=18552), only forty-one truckloads of construction materials were allowed to enter Gaza between the end of the Israeli offensive in mid-January 2009 and December 2009, although Gaza's industrial sector presently requires 55,000 truckloads of raw materials for needed reconstruction. Furthermore, in the year since they were banned, imports of diesel and petrol from Israel into Gaza for private or commercial use were allowed in small amounts only four times (although the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, periodically receives diesel and petrol supplies). By this past August, 90 percent of Gaza's total population was subject to scheduled electricity cuts (http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=246552) of four to eight hours per day, while the remaining 10 percent had no access to any electricity, a reality that has remained largely unchanged.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Gaza's protracted blockade has resulted in the near total collapse of the private sector. At least 95 percent of Gaza's industrial establishments (3,750 enterprises) were either forced to close or were destroyed over the past four years, resulting in a loss of between 100,000 and 120,000 jobs. The remaining 5 percent operate at 20-50 percent of their capacity. The vast restrictions on trade have also contributed to the continued erosion of Gaza's agricultural sector, which was exacerbated by the destruction of 5,000 acres of agricultural land and 305 agricultural wells during the war. These losses also include the destruction of 140,965 olive trees, 136,217 citrus trees, 22,745 fruit trees, 10,365 date trees and 8,822 other trees.

Lands previously irrigated are now dry, while effluent from sewage seeps into the groundwater and the sea, making much of the land unusable. Many attempts by Gazan farmers to replant over the past year have failed because of the depletion and contamination of the water and the high level of nitrates in the soil. Gaza's agricultural sector has been further undermined by the buffer zone imposed by Israel on Gaza's northern and eastern perimeters (and by Egypt on Gaza's southern border), which contains some of the Strip's most fertile land. The zone is officially 300 meters wide and 55 kilometers long, but according to the UN, farmers entering within 1,000 meters of the border have sometimes been fired upon by the IDF.

Approximately 30-40 percent of Gaza's total agricultural land is contained in the buffer zone. This has effectively forced the collapse of Gaza's agricultural sector.

These profound distortions in Gaza's economy and society will--even under the best of conditions--take decades to reverse. The economy is now largely dependent on public-sector employment, relief aid and smuggling, illustrating the growing informalization of the economy. Even before the war, the World Bank had already observed a redistribution of wealth from the formal private sector toward black market operators.

There are many illustrations, but one that is particularly startling concerns changes in the banking sector. A few days after Gaza was declared an enemy entity, Israel's banks announced their intention to end all direct transactions with Gaza-based banks and deal only with their parent institutions in Ramallah, in the West Bank. Accordingly, the Ramallah-based banks became responsible for currency transfers to their branches in the Gaza Strip. However, Israeli regulations prohibit the transfer of large amounts of currency without the approval of the Defense Ministry and other Israeli security forces. Consequently, over the past two years Gaza's banking sector has had serious problems (http://www.palthink.org/en/Economy/46.html) in meeting the cash demands of its customers. This in turn has given rise to an informal banking sector, which is now controlled largely by people affiliated with the Hamas-led government, making Hamas Gaza's key financial middleman. Consequently, moneychangers, who can easily generate capital, are now arguably stronger than the formal banking system in Gaza, which cannot.

Another example of Gaza's growing economic informality is the tunnel economy, which emerged long ago in response to the siege, providing a vital lifeline for an imprisoned population. According to local economists, around two-thirds of economic activity in Gaza is presently devoted just to smuggling goods into (but not out of) Gaza. Even this lifeline may soon be diminished, as Egypt, apparently assisted by US government engineers, has begun building an impenetrable underground steel wall along its border with Gaza in an attempt to reduce smuggling and control the movement of people. At its completion the wall will be six to seven miles long and fifty-five feet deep.

The tunnels, which Israel tolerates in order to keep the siege intact, have also become an important source of income for the Hamas government and its affiliated enterprises, effectively weakening traditional and formal businesses and the rehabilitation of a viable business sector. In this way, the siege on Gaza has led to the slow but steady replacement of the formal business sector by a new, largely black-market sector that rejects registration, regulation or transparency and, tragically, has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

At least two new economic classes have emerged in Gaza, a phenomenon with precedents in the Oslo period: one has grown extremely wealthy from the black-market tunnel economy; the other consists of certain public-sector employees who are paid not to work (for the Hamas government) by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Hence, not only have many Gazan workers been forced to stop producing by external pressures, there is now a category of people who are being rewarded for their lack of productivity--a stark illustration of Gaza's increasingly distorted reality. This in turn has led to economic disparities between the haves and have-nots that are enormous and visible, as seen in the almost perverse consumerism in restaurants and shops that are the domain of the wealthy.

Gaza's economy is largely devoid of productive activity in favor of a desperate kind of consumption among the poor and the rich, but it is the former who are unable to meet their needs. Billions in international aid pledges have yet to materialize, so the overwhelming majority of Gazans remain impoverished. The combination of a withering private sector and stagnating economy has led to high unemployment, which ranges from 31.6 percent in Gaza City to 44.1 percent in Khan Younis. According to the Palestinian Chamber of Commerce, the de facto unemployment rate is closer to 65 percent. At least 75 percent of Gaza's 1.5 million people now require humanitarian aid (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14393) to meet their basic food needs, compared with around 30 percent ten years ago. The UN further reports that the number of Gazans living in abject poverty--meaning those who are totally unable to feed their families--has tripled to 300,000, or approximately 20 percent of the population.

Access to adequate amounts of food continues to be a critical problem, and appears to have grown more acute after the cessation of hostilities a year ago. Internal data from September 2009 through the beginning of January 2010, for example, reveal that Israel allows Gazans no more (and at times less) than 25 percent of needed food supplies, with levels having fallen as low as 16 percent. During the last two weeks of January, these levels declined even more. Between January 16 and January 29 an average of 24.5 trucks of food and supplies per day entered Gaza, or 171.5 trucks per week. Given that Gaza requires 400 trucks of food alone daily to sustain the population, Israel allowed in no more than 6 percent of needed food supplies during this two-week period. Because Gaza needs approximately 240,000 truckloads of food and supplies per year to "meet the needs of the population and the reconstruction effort," according to the Palestinian Federation of Industries, current levels are, in a word, obscene. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization and World Food Program, "The evidence shows that the population is being sustained at the most basic or minimum humanitarian standard." This has likely contributed to the prevalence of stunting (low height for age), an indicator of chronic malnutrition, which has been pronounced among Gaza's children younger than 5, increasing from 8.2 percent in 1996 to 13.2 percent in 2006.

Gaza's agony does not end there. According to Amnesty International, 90-95 percent of the water supplied by Gaza's aquifer is "unfit for drinking." The majority of Gaza's groundwater supplies are contaminated with nitrates well above the acceptable WHO standard--in some areas six times that standard--or too salinated to use. Gaza no longer has any source of regular clean water. According to one donor account, "Nowhere else in the world has such a large number of people been exposed to such high levels of nitrates for such a long period of time. There is no precedent, and no studies to help us understand what happens to people over the course of years of nitrate poisoning," which is especially threatening to children. According to Desmond Travers (http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/10/hbc-90006003), a co-author of the Goldstone Report, "If these issues are not addressed, Gaza may not even be habitable by World Health Organization norms."

It is possible that high nitrate levels have contributed to some shocking changes in the infant mortality rate (IMR) among Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. IMR, widely used as an indicator of population health, has stalled among Palestinians since the 1990s and now shows signs of increasing. This is because the leading causes of infant mortality have changed from infectious and diarrheal diseases to prematurity, low birth weight and congenital malformations. These trends are alarming (and rare in the region), because infant mortality rates have been declining in almost all developing countries, including Iraq.

[LiverpoolHibs]

The people of Gaza know they have been abandoned. Some told me the only time they felt hope was when they were being bombed, because at least then the world was paying attention. Gaza is now a place where poverty masquerades as livelihood and charity as business. Yet, despite attempts by Israel and the West to caricature Gaza as a terrorist haven, Gazans still resist. Perhaps what they resist most is surrender: not to Israel, not to Hamas, but to hate. So many people still speak of peace, of wanting to resolve the conflict and live a normal life. Yet, in Gaza today, this is not a reason for optimism but despair.

[khib70]

Mossad’s Murderous Reach:

The Larger Political Issues

By James Petras

February 22, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- On January 19 Israel’s international secret police, the Mossad, sent an eighteen member death squad to Dubai using European passports, supposedly ‘stolen’ from Israeli dual citizens and altered with fake photos and signatures, in order to assassinate the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud al Mabhouh.

The evidence is overwhelming: The Dubai police presentation of detailed security videos of the assassins was corroborated by the testimony of Israeli security experts and applauded by Israel’s leading newspapers and columnists. The Mossad openly stated that Mabhouh was a high priority target who had survived three previous assassination attempts. Israel did not even bother to deny the murder. Furthermore, the sophisticated communication system used by the killers, the logistics and planning surrounding their entry and exit from Dubai and the scope and scale of the operation have all the characteristics of a high-level state operation. Furthermore, only Mossad would have access to the European passports of its dual citizens! Only Mossad would have the capacity, motivation, stated intent and willingness to provoke a diplomatic row with its European allies, knowing full well that Western European governments’ anger would blow over because of their deep links to Israel. After meticulous investigation and the interrogation of 2 captured Palestinian Mossad collaborators, the Dubai police chief has stated he is sure the Mossad was behind the killing. The Larger Political Issues

Israel’s policy of overseas assassination raises profound issues that threaten the basis of the modern state: sovereignty, rule of law and national and personal security.

Israel has a publicly-stated policy of violating the sovereignty of any and all countries in order to kill or abduct its opponents. In both proclamation and actual practice, Israeli law, decrees and actions abroad supersede the laws and law enforcement agencies of any other nation. If Israel’s policy becomes the common practice world-wide, we would enter a savage Hobbesian jungle in which individuals would be subject to the murderous intent of foreign assassination squads unrestrained by any law or accountable national authority. Each and every state could impose its own laws and cross national borders in order to murder other nation’s citizens or residents with impunity. Israel’s extra-territorial assassinations make a mockery of the very notion of national sovereignty. Extra-territorial secret police elimination of opponents was a common practice of the Nazi Gestapo, Stalin’s GPU and Pinochet’s DINA and has now become the sanctioned practice of the US “Special Forces” and the CIA clandestine division. Such policies are the hallmark of totalitarian, dictatorial and imperialist states, which systematically trample on the sovereign rights of peoples.

Israel’s practice of extra-judicial, extra-territorial assassinations, exemplified by the recent murder of Mahmoud al Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel room, violates all the fundamental precepts of the rule of law. Extra-judicial killings ordered by a state, mean its own secret police are judge, jury, prosecutor and executioner, unrestrained by sovereignty, law and the duty of nations to protect their citizens and visitors. Evidence, legal procedures, defense and cross examinations are obliterated in the process. State-sponsored, extra-judicial murder completely undermines due process. Liquidation of opponents abroad is the logical next step after Israel’s domestic show trials, based on the application of its racial laws and administrative detention decrees, which have dispossessed the Palestinian people and violated international laws.

Mossad death squads operate directly under the Israeli Prime Minister (who personally approved the recent murder).The vast majority of Israelis proudly support these assassinations, especially when the killers escape detection and capture. The unfettered operation of foreign state-sponsored death squads, carrying out extra-judicial assassinations with impunity, is a serious threat to every critic, writer, political leader and civic activist who dares to criticize Israel.

Mossad Murders - Zionist Fire

The precedent of Israel killing its adversaries abroad, establishes the outer boundaries of repression by its overseas supporters in the leading Zionist organizations, most of whom have now and in the past supported Israel’s violation of national sovereignty via extra-judicial killings. If Israel physically eliminates its opponents and critics, the 51 major American Jewish organizations economically repress Israel’s critics in the US. They actively pressure employers, university presidents and public officials to fire employees, academics and professionals who dare to speak or write against Israeli torture, killing and systematic dispossession of Palestinians. So far, most critical comments, in Israel and elsewhere, of Mossad’s recent murder in Dubai focus on the agents’ “incompetence”, including allowing their faces to be captured on numerous security videos as they clumsily changed their wigs and costumes under the camera gaze . Other critics complain that the bungling Mossad is “tarnishing Israel’s image” as a democratic state and providing ammunition for the anti-Semites. None of these superficial criticisms have been repeated by the US Congress, White House or the Presidents of the Major Jewish American organizations, where the mafia rule of Omerga, or silence, reigns supreme and criminal complicity is the rule

Conclusion

While the critics bemoan the clumsy Mossad job, making it harder for Western powers to provide Israel with diplomatic cover for its operations abroad, the fundamental issue is never addressed: The Mossad’s acquisition and alteration of official British, French, German and Irish passports of dual Israeli citizen’s underscores the cynical and sinister nature of Israel’s exploitation of its dual citizens in the pursuit of its own bloody foreign policy goals. Mossad’s use of genuine passports issued by four sovereign European nations to its citizens in order to murder a Palestinian in a Dubai hotel room raises the question of to whom ‘dual’ Israeli citizens really owe their allegiance and just how far they are willing to go in defending or promoting Israel’s overseas assassinations.
Thanks to Israel’s use of British passports to enter Dubai and murder an adversary, every British businessperson or tourist traveling in the Middle East will be suspected of links to Israeli death squads. With elections this year and the Labor and Conservative parties counting heavenly on Zionist millionaires for campaign funding, it remains to be seen whether Prime Minister Gordon Brown will do more than whimper and cringe!
This piece by a Marxist sociology professor is a particularly nasty one of its type. Full of "Jewish Lobby" conspiracy theories, and wild allegations, none of which are supported in the least by evidence.

The bit in italics in particular is an attack on Jewish citizens holding joint nationality, with not a shred of evidence produced. The statement that anyone who criticises Israel could become a target for "Mossad death squads" is unutterable bilge.

The implication that there is a Jewish "mafia" controlling media and employment in the US and elsewhere, again without a shred of evidence, is , IMO a vile racist slur. And, no , I don't think that's over the top on a forum where people defending Israel get called "racist ****bags".

Liverpool Hibs' quoted piece at least comes from an admirable source publication, and takes great pains to produce evidence for all its assertions.

This piece, is just sloganising polemic of the worst kind. The sort of stuff that makes a lot of us despair of the modern Left.

[LiverpoolHibs]

This piece by a Marxist sociology professor is a particularly nasty one of its type. Full of "Jewish Lobby" conspiracy theories, and wild allegations, none of which are supported in the least by evidence.

The bit in italics in particular is an attack on Jewish citizens holding joint nationality, with not a shred of evidence produced. The statement that anyone who criticises Israel could become a target for "Mossad death squads" is unutterable bilge.

The implication that there is a Jewish "mafia" controlling media and employment in the US and elsewhere, again without a shred of evidence, is , IMO a vile racist slur.

While I think 'vile racist slur' is taking it too far, I'm sort of with you on Petras. It's a bit of a shame because he's very good on lots of other things but seems to lose his critical faculties when it come to Israel and its lobbying groups.

There's lots to criticise in that article (his recurring theme that the Israel lobby - which does exist, despite your purblind refusal to believe it - makes the U.S. political system act against its will is such a load of nonsense) so you don't need to make up stuff about him claiming a 'Jewish mafia'; he said that the 'mafia rule of Omerga [sic.]...reigns supreme'.


And, no , I don't think that's over the top on a forum where people defending Israel get called "racist ****bags".

Oh come off it, he didn't get called a racist ****bag for defending Israel, he got called it for saying things like,

Denying human rights, Arabs should have thought about that before they started killing Jews in 1920.

Or advocating ethnic cleansing and keeping a majority population in the region as permanent second-class citizens. And that's just the start of the truly disgusting rant he went on.


Liverpool Hibs' quoted piece at least comes from an admirable source publication, and takes great pains to produce evidence for all its assertions.

This piece, is just sloganising polemic of the worst kind. The sort of stuff that makes a lot of us despair of the modern Left.

Why, on earth, would you 'despair' of something that is anti-thetical to your own political beliefs in the first place?

[Tinyclothes]

As Noam Chomsky once said:

'Non-violent resistance activities cannot succeed against an enemy that is able freely to use violence. That's pretty obvious. You can't have non-violent resistance against the Nazis in a concentration camp, to take an extreme case...'

Israel it seems is allowed to freely use violence for their 'cause'. I don't blame Palestinians using violence as they really have no choice when up against such a large, repressive power.

[hibsbollah]

This piece, is just sloganising polemic of the worst kind. The sort of stuff that makes a lot of us despair of the modern Left.

I completely agree with you, a rubbish article on all counts (isnt the rule of silence 'omerta'? ) and he obviously doesnt understand Hobbes either. It always worries me when writers refer to 'Jews' as a racial group instead of Israel as a state.

[khib70]

I completely agree with you, a rubbish article on all counts (isnt the rule of silence 'omerta'? ) and he obviously doesnt understand Hobbes either. It always worries me when writers refer to 'Jews' as a racial group instead of Israel as a state.
Me too mate. Actually the guys' website reads like the Dave Spart column in "Private Eye" - it's almost like someone parodying the left, and not very well at that.

He's even had a dig at Human Rights Watch as some sort of CIA front, because they dared to criticise Hugo Chavez:faf: And spelling errors are fairly frequent. He needs a cold shower and an editor.

[Betty Boop]

Me too mate. Actually the guys' website reads like the Dave Spart column in "Private Eye" - it's almost like someone parodying the left, and not very well at that.

He's even had a dig at Human Rights Watch as some sort of CIA front, because they dared to criticise Hugo Chavez:faf: And spelling errors are fairly frequent. He needs a cold shower and an editor.

Says the guy who uses websites such as Palwatch! :greengrin

[LiverpoolHibs]

Excellent article here (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/23/pa-israel-ramallah-political-establishment) on how Abbas, Dahlan and the West Bank P.A. facilitate the occupation.

How the P.A. Helps Israel Occupy - Jesse Rosenfeld

Since the Palestinian Authority's initial diplomatic disaster (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/10/20091011182856246590.html) over the Goldstone report, it has switched into reverse gear, issuing a barrage of condemnation of Israeli occupation and rhetorical flourishes (http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/10/2009108222821260976.html) for Palestinian justice. However, suspected links between PA security forces and the assassination of Hamas's Mahmoud al-Mabhouh (http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=169099), together with strengthening cooperation between PA security and the Israeli military in the West Bank, reflect a far different reality for Palestinians living under occupation.

Israeli invasions of PA territory have increased since the summer, hitting Ramallah (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1149043.html) regularly for the past few months to arrest popular struggle leaders and international solidarity activists, and raiding the offices of grassroots anti-occupation movements. While usually it is impossible to go more than two blocks in the West Bank Palestinian political centre without seeing armed PA forces, when the Israelis come into town, they are ordered back to their barracks and are nowhere to be seen. I witnessed this countless times while living in Ramallah.

Meanwhile, Israeli military assassination missions against resistance in Nablus (http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=249829) resumed on 26 December, with three men linked to the Fatah movement being killed in cold blood while PA security forces connived with the Israeli military and were nowhere to be seen. Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri was quoted by Maan news agency (http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=249698) speculating that there was PA involvement in the assassination and warning that "resistance should be encouraged, not plotted against".

The Fatah leadership running the PA has been unwilling to make the concessions necessary for national unity, while simultaneously the PA security forces (western and Jordanian trained) continue arresting and torturing (http://www.alhaq.org/pdfs/Al-Haq%20-%20Torturing%20Each%20Other%20-%20Executive%20Summary%20%5BEnglish%5D.pdf) those tied to resistance, primarily Hamas-connected. These days the political establishment in Ramallah has expressed a far greater interest in retaining western support (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/17/cia-palestinian-security-agents) than resolving national division and leading a unified resistance to the occupation.

Indeed, it seems that the western countries backing Israel and calling on Mahmoud Abbas to return to the negotiating table are also those turning a blind eye to the illegal arrests and torture. According to Wisam Ahmed, advocacy officer at Al-Haq – West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists – both PA and American officials have been notified about the widespread use of illegal political detention and torture by PA security, yet it has continued.

"Some of the third parties' interests are different from what we feel are the interests of insuring Palestinian unity," Ahmed said on 21 December. "Their main interest is to ensure that there is no change to the status quo."
It is a status quo that accommodates shifts in public face, provided there is no real shift in relationship and co-ordination on the ground. Regardless of whether official talks are happening or not, the PA operates in constant dialogue and co-ordination with Israeli occupation.

Last month, when I spoke to Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) prisoners' affairs representative Khalida Jarrar, she condemned the PA for continued political arrests of Palestinians and the maintenance of security co-ordination with Israel.

"The assassinations are a clear example of why [the PFLP] have a policy calling for the PA to end security coordination," she said in reference to the killings in Nablus last December.

Jarrar highlighted that both the security co-ordination and political arrests are part of PA compliance with the Quartet road map. "As Palestinians we have an opportunity to review our negotiations with Israel and our security co-ordination should stop. We should have a political overhaul of the process and this means a demand for the implementation of international resolutions and a relaunching of popular resistance," she stressed, illustrating the PFLP alternative to the current PA practice.

While Jarrar and her Marxist party (http://www.pflp.ps/english/?q=pflp-denounces-occupation-assassinations-6-palesti) have tapped into the common feelings on the West Bank street, the basis of power rests in the hands of the western countries keeping Abbas financially and militarily afloat. At the same time, Israel recognises the advantage of a policing partner in the West Bank that fuels internal Palestinian division, tolerating the rhetorical flourishes volleyed over the wall.

Regardless of what Palestinians call for, provided that the rhetoric and guns remain enough to appease or silence the West Bank, both the PA and Israel have an interest in maintaining a form of status quo and playing their parts in managing the occupation.

[Betty Boop]

This Time We Went Too Far

YouTube - This Time We Went Too Far (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amqp4NzMyrc)

[LiverpoolHibs]

Israel approves (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8558347.stm) 1,600 new settlements in Occupied East Jerusalem; illegal under international law. The U.S. somehow thinks (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8556786.stm) this doesn't violate an Israeli 'promise' of a 10 month moratorium. That should really be astounding, shouldn't it?

Good piece by Yonatan Mendel in The London Review of Books on state-sponsored hasbara.
As a result of mounting anti-semitism in Europe and the generally poor showing of Israeli hasbara there, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education are sending a delegation of 11th-grade students on a hasbara mission to Europe.
Letter to headteachers
Hasbara is the noun form of the Hebrew verb ‘to explain’, in the sense of advocating a position. ‘Propaganda’ might seem the obvious translation but that might not do justice to the intensity of feeling that lies behind it. A Ministry of Hasbara was first created in 1974, with Shimon Peres in charge; in 1975 it was disbanded and hasbara became a multi-ministerial task. Since then, the importance of hasbara has come to the fore every time Israel has been involved in a major conflict – the 1982 war, the 1987 intifada, the 2000 intifada. In March 2009, two months after the invasion of Gaza, Israel re-established the Ministry of Hasbara; the current minister is Yuli Edelstein.

The hasbara aspect of the Gaza operation was put in train several months before the invasion. In May 2008 four French-speaking Israelis were selected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in conjunction with the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organisation, to visit Switzerland, France and Belgium, where, as the Jewish Agency spokesperson put it, they were to ‘deliver the messages that our official diplomats cannot’. ‘Stick to your personal stories,’ they were told, ‘do not be drawn into political discussions. There will be people who irritate you and say that you are occupiers … do not go there.’ Similar, English-speaking delegations set out for Britain, Ireland, Holland, Denmark and the US. German speakers went to Germany. On arrival, they gave interviews to the local media; they met members of parliament, members of the Jewish community and local bigwigs and spoke, as instructed, of their own experience – the constant shelling, the effects on their families, their businesses, their daily lives.

When the attack on Gaza started, hasbara efforts were intensified. In an interview on Channel 2, broadcast under the title The Hasbara Front, a ministerial spokesman summed up the situation:
We have success in our hasbara efforts in North America … In Eastern Europe the media show that they understand our just cause … Western Europe though is a much tougher hasbaraarena … some of the voices that we hear from there correspond to the anti-semitic monster which is hidden under the beautiful tiles of Europe … It is time now to understand that hasbara is not the responsibility of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs alone. Each and every one of us is an envoy of hasbara. Every Israeli and every supporter of Israel wherever they are must play their part in these difficult days when we are fighting for the future of the entire Middle East.
Two weeks into the attack Benjamin Netanyahu, then head of the opposition, addressed an audience of 16-year-old Israeli students in a TV broadcast entitled Hasbara and History: 45 minutes were given over to teaching the students how to explain Israel to the world. ‘We need to learn the technique of our enemies,’ he said: ‘they reverse the outcome and the result; they blame Israel for occupying the territories, even though these territories were originally occupied as a result of their aggression … We need to convince the world that we are right. The real battle is about who is right and who is not.’ He didn’t confine himself to abstractions but put the students through their paces: ‘You have three minutes on French television, what do you say?’

Only the lack of efficient hasbara – and anti-semitism – is allowed to explain the criticism Israel receives. Take the Goldstone Report. Political (and personal) attacks on Goldstone began as soon as the report was published. Shimon Peres said that Goldstone was a ‘small man out to hurt Israel’. Ehud Barak called the report ‘a shameful document’. Netanyahu said it was ‘a distorted report’ written by a ‘distorted committee’. Danny Danon literally tore it up as he was addressing the Knesset. More hasbara was called for. The response to the arrest warrants for war crimes that were recently issued in the UK against Tzipi Livni and others was the same: it was an anti-semitic act – and a failure of hasbara. ‘Arab propaganda has influenced most of Europe,’ Moshe Ya’alon, the deputy prime minister, said, ‘and meanwhile we have neglected our public diplomacy.’

In February this year, the government’s Masbirim website (masbirim: ‘those who explain’) drew up a set of instructions for Israelis travelling abroad. The website, which according to the Ministry of Hasbara had 130,000 hits in its first week, aims to ‘provide information to counter criticism that might be experienced abroad’. It details Israel’s achievements in technology and agriculture, as well as suggesting ways to ‘encourage visits to Israel’, ‘to dispel myths about Israel’ and to deal with political criticism. Visitors to the website are advised, when arguing with ‘people of other cultures’, to ‘maintain eye contact … if you look away it might be seen as lack of attention and your argument will lose its force,’ and ‘to keep generally still … rapid movements can create nervousness and confuse.’ The same advice is being broadcast on Israeli television. Further afield, to ensure that the Israeli tourist is comprehensively brainwashed before landing in London or Rome, the Ministry of Hasbara distributes its brochures to passengers about to board El Al flights, and the TV campaign is beamed to aircrafts’ in-flight entertainment systems. There is no running away.

When Israel sent 200 soldiers to Haiti to set up a field hospital on a football pitch in Port-au-Prince, the Israeli media crowed. ‘What do you think about that, Goldstone?’ was one headline. ‘Israeli Delegation to Haiti Makes All Others Pale,’ said another. ‘Well Done Us,’ said a third. But the most disturbing was: ‘The Haiti Disaster: Bad for Them, Good for the Jews.’

[(((Fergus)))]

Even if I agreed with your historical version of events, which I don't, it still wouldnt explain your lurch from reasoned debate to crass generalisations 'the Arabs would just kill all the Jews'. :confused: This apocalyptic thinking is usually used to justify the unjustifiable; fascism, racism, genocide, that sort of thing.

You're right: in most countries in the world this apocalyptic thinking would be used to justify all sorts of excesses - which makes the reality in Israel all the more remarkable.

My sudden lurch to this position is based on the realisation that peace between Israel and some sections of the Arab/muslim (and western) world is simply not possible. I didn’t appreciate the level of animosity that exists towards Israel in particular – whatever its borders - and Jews in general. Those who are capable of making peace with Israel have done/are doing so already, many of them in possession of Israeli passports.*

As for the conflict between those who wish to see Israel cease to exist and those who do not, the only possible 'solution' is for the fight to continue until one or other changes its mind.

If Israel were any other country in the world, after having defended itself repeatedly from attack (which began long before the existence of the country itself and mirrored European anti-Semitic boycotts and violence in the 1920s/30s), it would have killed or expelled all potentially hostile populations from its conquered territories in the way the Russians, Poles, Czechs, etc., did with the Germans after WWII. Israel's relative restraint stands in marked contrast to the actions of all Arab states who dispossessed and expelled their Jewish populations even though they had nothing to do with Israel’s creation and defence.

It could be said that, in not expelling all Arabs in the way the Arabs expelled all Jews, Israel has made a rod for its own back. Then again perhaps it is the fact that Israel is at least attempting to create a democratic state that incorporates its Arab citizens – yes still imperfect, but remarkable** under the circumstances - that sets Israel apart from the ethnically cleansed and backward dictatorships that surround it.


* While the anti-Israel bloc agitates for the 'liberation of Palestine', many Palestinian Arabs are already enjoying freedom and prosperity on land where their families may have lived for many generations. The 'sacrifice' they have made is to accept Israeli sovereignty where previous generations/inhabitants accepted the sovereignty of the British and/or Turks. If any Arab citizen of Israel is unhappy with this situation and the undoubted inequalities they face then there are 22 Arab countries - with territory of 99.9% to the 0.1% of Israel - where the hand of Muslim/Arab brotherhood will surely be extended and they can enjoy the unique benefits of Muslim rule, Sharia law, etc., without having to rub shoulders with Jews. Thanks to the expulsion of Jews in the 20th century, these countries have expropriated territory amounting to five times the size of Israel for them to live in. According to Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, however, "77 percent of Israeli Arabs would rather live in Israel than in any other country in the world (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/995466.html)". This is not only due to the natural attachment to one’s home, since, as discussed previously, the majority of Israeli Arabs would rather live under Israeli government than have their community transferred to PA control. (http://70.85.195.205/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59497) (Keevoon reference here (http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs021/1101712342378/archive/1101922202301.html)).

** The fact that about 19% of the Israeli population is non-Jewish, there are Arabs in the Knesset and cabinet, Arab soldiers in the army, Arab judges in Israeli courts (including one on the supreme court), Arab professors in universities, Arab doctors in hospitals, asylum for Arab homosexuals and others escaping death in the PA, etc., proves through action not rhetoric that Israel is either a) crap at ethnic cleansing (contrast with Jordan where all Jews were ethnically cleansed from Transjordan in 1921 plus the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1949) or b) capable of building and maintaining a comparatively tolerant society despite the constant state of enmity towards the Jewish settlement which has existed for at least 100 years.

[hibsbollah]

You're right: in most countries in the world this apocalyptic thinking would be used to justify all sorts of excesses - which makes the reality in Israel all the more remarkable.

My sudden lurch to this position is based on the realisation that peace between Israel and some sections of the Arab/muslim (and western) world is simply not possible. I didn’t appreciate the level of animosity that exists towards Israel in particular – whatever its borders - and Jews in general. Those who are capable of making peace with Israel have done/are doing so already, many of them in possession of Israeli passports.*

As for the conflict between those who wish to see Israel cease to exist and those who do not, the only possible 'solution' is for the fight to continue until one or other changes its mind.

If Israel were any other country in the world, after having defended itself repeatedly from attack (which began long before the existence of the country itself and mirrored European anti-Semitic boycotts and violence in the 1920s/30s), it would have killed or expelled all potentially hostile populations from its conquered territories in the way the Russians, Poles, Czechs, etc., did with the Germans after WWII. Israel's relative restraint stands in marked contrast to the actions of all Arab states who dispossessed and expelled their Jewish populations even though they had nothing to do with Israel’s creation and defence.

It could be said that, in not expelling all Arabs in the way the Arabs expelled all Jews, Israel has made a rod for its own back. Then again perhaps it is the fact that Israel is at least attempting to create a democratic state that incorporates its Arab citizens – yes still imperfect, but remarkable** under the circumstances - that sets Israel apart from the ethnically cleansed and backward dictatorships that surround it.


* While the anti-Israel bloc agitates for the 'liberation of Palestine', many Palestinian Arabs are already enjoying freedom and prosperity on land where their families may have lived for many generations. The 'sacrifice' they have made is to accept Israeli sovereignty where previous generations/inhabitants accepted the sovereignty of the British and/or Turks. If any Arab citizen of Israel is unhappy with this situation and the undoubted inequalities they face then there are 22 Arab countries - with territory of 99.9% to the 0.1% of Israel - where the hand of Muslim/Arab brotherhood will surely be extended and they can enjoy the unique benefits of Muslim rule, Sharia law, etc., without having to rub shoulders with Jews. Thanks to the expulsion of Jews in the 20th century, these countries have expropriated territory amounting to five times the size of Israel for them to live in. According to Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, however, "77 percent of Israeli Arabs would rather live in Israel than in any other country in the world (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/995466.html)". This is not only due to the natural attachment to one’s home, since, as discussed previously, the majority of Israeli Arabs would rather live under Israeli government than have their community transferred to PA control. (http://70.85.195.205/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59497) (Keevoon reference here (http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs021/1101712342378/archive/1101922202301.html)).

** The fact that about 19% of the Israeli population is non-Jewish, there are Arabs in the Knesset and cabinet, Arab soldiers in the army, Arab judges in Israeli courts (including one on the supreme court), Arab professors in universities, Arab doctors in hospitals, asylum for Arab homosexuals and others escaping death in the PA, etc., proves through action not rhetoric that Israel is either a) crap at ethnic cleansing (contrast with Jordan where all Jews were ethnically cleansed from Transjordan in 1921 plus the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1949) or b) capable of building and maintaining a comparatively tolerant society despite the constant state of enmity towards the Jewish settlement which has existed for at least 100 years.

To summarise then, Israel is a model of restraint:faf:

Like I said already Fergus, even if your historical analysis was correct (and its either partial, irrelevant, or so riven with holes I hardly know where to start), your logic is all over the place. You need to start with a redefinition of 'Arab'. They're not a homogenous bloc you know.

[khib70]

Israel approves (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8558347.stm) 1,600 new settlements in Occupied East Jerusalem; illegal under international law. The U.S. somehow thinks (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8556786.stm) this doesn't violate an Israeli 'promise' of a 10 month moratorium. That should really be astounding, shouldn't it?

Good piece by Yonatan Mendel in The London Review of Books on state-sponsored hasbara.
As a result of mounting anti-semitism in Europe and the generally poor showing of Israeli hasbara there, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education are sending a delegation of 11th-grade students on a hasbara mission to Europe.
Letter to headteachers
Hasbara is the noun form of the Hebrew verb ‘to explain’, in the sense of advocating a position. ‘Propaganda’ might seem the obvious translation but that might not do justice to the intensity of feeling that lies behind it. A Ministry of Hasbara was first created in 1974, with Shimon Peres in charge; in 1975 it was disbanded and hasbara became a multi-ministerial task. Since then, the importance of hasbara has come to the fore every time Israel has been involved in a major conflict – the 1982 war, the 1987 intifada, the 2000 intifada. In March 2009, two months after the invasion of Gaza, Israel re-established the Ministry of Hasbara; the current minister is Yuli Edelstein.

The hasbara aspect of the Gaza operation was put in train several months before the invasion. In May 2008 four French-speaking Israelis were selected by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in conjunction with the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organisation, to visit Switzerland, France and Belgium, where, as the Jewish Agency spokesperson put it, they were to ‘deliver the messages that our official diplomats cannot’. ‘Stick to your personal stories,’ they were told, ‘do not be drawn into political discussions. There will be people who irritate you and say that you are occupiers … do not go there.’ Similar, English-speaking delegations set out for Britain, Ireland, Holland, Denmark and the US. German speakers went to Germany. On arrival, they gave interviews to the local media; they met members of parliament, members of the Jewish community and local bigwigs and spoke, as instructed, of their own experience – the constant shelling, the effects on their families, their businesses, their daily lives.

When the attack on Gaza started, hasbara efforts were intensified. In an interview on Channel 2, broadcast under the title The Hasbara Front, a ministerial spokesman summed up the situation:
We have success in our hasbara efforts in North America … In Eastern Europe the media show that they understand our just cause … Western Europe though is a much tougher hasbaraarena … some of the voices that we hear from there correspond to the anti-semitic monster which is hidden under the beautiful tiles of Europe … It is time now to understand that hasbara is not the responsibility of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs alone. Each and every one of us is an envoy of hasbara. Every Israeli and every supporter of Israel wherever they are must play their part in these difficult days when we are fighting for the future of the entire Middle East.
Two weeks into the attack Benjamin Netanyahu, then head of the opposition, addressed an audience of 16-year-old Israeli students in a TV broadcast entitled Hasbara and History: 45 minutes were given over to teaching the students how to explain Israel to the world. ‘We need to learn the technique of our enemies,’ he said: ‘they reverse the outcome and the result; they blame Israel for occupying the territories, even though these territories were originally occupied as a result of their aggression … We need to convince the world that we are right. The real battle is about who is right and who is not.’ He didn’t confine himself to abstractions but put the students through their paces: ‘You have three minutes on French television, what do you say?’

Only the lack of efficient hasbara – and anti-semitism – is allowed to explain the criticism Israel receives. Take the Goldstone Report. Political (and personal) attacks on Goldstone began as soon as the report was published. Shimon Peres said that Goldstone was a ‘small man out to hurt Israel’. Ehud Barak called the report ‘a shameful document’. Netanyahu said it was ‘a distorted report’ written by a ‘distorted committee’. Danny Danon literally tore it up as he was addressing the Knesset. More hasbara was called for. The response to the arrest warrants for war crimes that were recently issued in the UK against Tzipi Livni and others was the same: it was an anti-semitic act – and a failure of hasbara. ‘Arab propaganda has influenced most of Europe,’ Moshe Ya’alon, the deputy prime minister, said, ‘and meanwhile we have neglected our public diplomacy.’

In February this year, the government’s Masbirim website (masbirim: ‘those who explain’) drew up a set of instructions for Israelis travelling abroad. The website, which according to the Ministry of Hasbara had 130,000 hits in its first week, aims to ‘provide information to counter criticism that might be experienced abroad’. It details Israel’s achievements in technology and agriculture, as well as suggesting ways to ‘encourage visits to Israel’, ‘to dispel myths about Israel’ and to deal with political criticism. Visitors to the website are advised, when arguing with ‘people of other cultures’, to ‘maintain eye contact … if you look away it might be seen as lack of attention and your argument will lose its force,’ and ‘to keep generally still … rapid movements can create nervousness and confuse.’ The same advice is being broadcast on Israeli television. Further afield, to ensure that the Israeli tourist is comprehensively brainwashed before landing in London or Rome, the Ministry of Hasbara distributes its brochures to passengers about to board El Al flights, and the TV campaign is beamed to aircrafts’ in-flight entertainment systems. There is no running away.

When Israel sent 200 soldiers to Haiti to set up a field hospital on a football pitch in Port-au-Prince, the Israeli media crowed. ‘What do you think about that, Goldstone?’ was one headline. ‘Israeli Delegation to Haiti Makes All Others Pale,’ said another. ‘Well Done Us,’ said a third. But the most disturbing was: ‘The Haiti Disaster: Bad for Them, Good for the Jews.’
Interesting that this stuff on hasbara comes from someone who (along with one or two others) methodically pastes huge pro-Palestinian articles from various sources, and is quite happy for the board to be inundated with articles and videos from the likes of Petras and Finkelstein. But of course, you're just trying to counter the activities of the "Israel lobby", aren't you.

And I see we finally got our attempt to belittle the Israeli aid effort in Haiti, as I predicted a while ago.

I see Fergus has pluckily returned despite the abuse fired in his direction recently. I notice as usual though that for all the disparagement of him, noone has come out and refuted any of his arguments about the ethnic cleansing in Transjordan pre 1948 etc. Christians in Nigeria would probably be able to identify with these arguments though.

Funny isn't it, I notice in passing. 500 people, mainly women and children, massacred in a single night, and no outraged threads, no picketing of the Nigerian embassy. The elephant is still firmly parked in the living room

[LiverpoolHibs]

Interesting that this stuff on hasbara comes from someone who (along with one or two others) methodically pastes huge pro-Palestinian articles from various sources, and is quite happy for the board to be inundated with articles and videos from the likes of Petras and Finkelstein. But of course, you're just trying to counter the activities of the "Israel lobby", aren't you.

Ha, seriously? Yeah, my occasional posting of articles I've read that I've found interesting and think others may too are is definitely comparable to the Israeli Ministry of Hasbara.

Who are the 'likes' of Petras and Finkelstein? I don't think I've posted anything by either and the one article of Petras' that has been posted was preety roundly criticised.


And I see we finally got our attempt to belittle the Israeli aid effort in Haiti, as I predicted a while ago.

Ah, a return to the low stuff - excellent. You haven't got to anything of the sort. You've got a man critiquing the Israeli media response to the Israeli aid effort in Haiti.

Instead of making stuff up, maybe you could explain why you don't think that's ripe for criticism?


I see Fergus has pluckily returned despite the abuse fired in his direction recently. I notice as usual though that for all the disparagement of him, noone has come out and refuted any of his arguments about the ethnic cleansing in Transjordan pre 1948 etc. Christians in Nigeria would probably be able to identify with these arguments though.

Yeah, plucky Fergus. Plucky, racist Fergus.

Given the first sentence I can only assume you agree with the sentiments he was pulled up for earlier - and has noticeable never defended since?

And give people a chance, this is the first time I've been on since he's posted; and as far as apologias for slaughter and oppression go it's quite intricately structured - though full of glaring innacuracies and related fallacies.


Funny isn't it, I notice in passing. 500 people, mainly women and children, massacred in a single night, and no outraged threads, no picketing of the Nigerian embassy. The elephant is still firmly parked in the living room

From low to really, really low. Well done.

Presuming that you know anything whatsoever of what's going on around Jos, it's quite incredible that you can attempt to use that as somehow indicative of anything. Really astounding.

[LiverpoolHibs]

You're right: in most countries in the world this apocalyptic thinking would be used to justify all sorts of excesses - which makes the reality in Israel all the more remarkable.

Incredible. The implication being that Israel has commited no such excesses.

I'm sorry to use an overused pejorative, but that's the thinking of a bona fide fascist.

'We routinely occupy your land, slaughter, disposses, blockade, starve, deny you access to the basic necessities of human existence, destroy your entire infrastructure, ban you from using roads in your own territory, destroy your few remaining means of making money, shoot you if you attempt to farm your land, destroy your houses to build ones in which you won't be able to live, defy international law after international law. But actually we're terribly restrained in the face of such terrible provocation as, erm,......'


My sudden lurch to this position is based on the realisation that peace between Israel and some sections of the Arab/muslim (and western) world is simply not possible. I didn’t appreciate the level of animosity that exists towards Israel in particular – whatever its borders - and Jews in general. Those who are capable of making peace with Israel have done/are doing so already, many of them in possession of Israeli passports.*

Oh, of course. It's them Ay-rabs who are the intractable ones, they're the ones who are in violation of numerous international laws and routinely break ceasefires. It's not like they have a permanent offer of a truce and negotiations on the table or anything like that.

You seem to have absolutely no interest whatsoever in any actual historical or political fact. Why is that?

What should happen to those who aren't capable of legitimising their own slaughter, oppression and dispossession? Are we back to the large scale ethnic cleansing you suggested earlier on?

Arabs (or otherwise) in possession Israeli passports have not necessarily 'made peace' with Israel as well you know.


As for the conflict between those who wish to see Israel cease to exist and those who do not, the only possible 'solution' is for the fight to continue until one or other changes its mind. If Israel were any other country in the world, after having defended itself repeatedly from attack (which began long before the existence of the country itself and mirrored European anti-Semitic boycotts and violence in the 1920s/30s), it would have killed or expelled all potentially hostile populations from its conquered territories in the way the Russians, Poles, Czechs, etc., did with the Germans after WWII. Israel's relative restraint stands in marked contrast to the actions of all Arab states who dispossessed and expelled their Jewish populations even though they had nothing to do with Israel’s creation and defence.

Haven't we done this?

Anyway, this is a particularly ludicrous section of a generally ludicrous and purblind post.

I'll quote a few prominent Zionists who staunchly oppose this narrative of the 'Jewish Nakba'.

Ran Cohen (Iaqi born, former Knesset member): "I have this to say: I am not a refugee. I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee"

Yisrael Yishyahu (Yemeni born Israeli Labour Party politician): "We are not refugees. [Some of us] came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations"

Shlomo Hillel (Iraqi born former Knesset speaker): "I do not regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists."

There was undoubtedly some expulsion of Jews from Arab nations - and it should be condemned in the strongest terms, and compensation, right of return should be invoked if applicable - but to compare it to European twentieth century pogroms is so stupid, tasteless and historically innacurate it's untrue; just as it is to compare it to al-Nakba. Arab nations often treated their Jewish populations brutally and inequitably reactively. In contrast, Israel is predicated on the violent dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestine. And that's without straying into the difference between a nation ruled by a dictator/unelected leader/monarchy and the concept of a colonialist settler project.

I refer you again to Yehouda Shenhav's Ha'aretz article (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=329736).

See below for the absolutely ludicrous (not to mention disgusting) idea that Israel showed 'restraint' in not carrying out a full ethnic cleansing of Palestine


It could be said that, in not expelling all Arabs in the way the Arabs expelled all Jews, Israel has made a rod for its own back. Then again perhaps it is the fact that Israel is at least attempting to create a democratic state that incorporates its Arab citizens – yes still imperfect, but remarkable** under the circumstances - that sets Israel apart from the ethnically cleansed and backward dictatorships that surround it.

No, in not expelling the entire Arab population from their native lands - but depriving them of economic independence - Israel provided itself with the reserve army of labour it needed to grow its economy to the position it is now. Expulsion of the entire Arab population was competely unfeasible for this reason - a dispossed, native population dependent on the new colonial state for employment was a pre-requisite for founding Israel. Make sure they never get up above 20%, though!

Them darned historical facts again.


* While the anti-Israel bloc agitates for the 'liberation of Palestine', many Palestinian Arabs are already enjoying freedom and prosperity on land where their families may have lived for many generations. The 'sacrifice' they have made is to accept Israeli sovereignty where previous generations/inhabitants accepted the sovereignty of the British and/or Turks. If any Arab citizen of Israel is unhappy with this situation and the undoubted inequalities they face then there are 22 Arab countries - with territory of 99.9% to the 0.1% of Israel - where the hand of Muslim/Arab brotherhood will surely be extended and they can enjoy the unique benefits of Muslim rule, Sharia law, etc., without having to rub shoulders with Jews. Thanks to the expulsion of Jews in the 20th century, these countries have expropriated territory amounting to five times the size of Israel for them to live in. According to Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, however, "77 percent of Israeli Arabs would rather live in Israel than in any other country in the world (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/995466.html)". This is not only due to the natural attachment to one’s home, since, as discussed previously, the majority of Israeli Arabs would rather live under Israeli government than have their community transferred to PA control. (http://70.85.195.205/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=59497) (Keevoon reference here (http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs021/1101712342378/archive/1101922202301.html)).

Perhaps, just perhaps, they'd prefer to live in Israel than any other country in the world because it's their home? It's where their family and friends are, where their families have lived and worked for centuries.

Again, we've done the second poll previously.


** The fact that about 19% of the Israeli population is non-Jewish, there are Arabs in the Knesset and cabinet, Arab soldiers in the army, Arab judges in Israeli courts (including one on the supreme court), Arab professors in universities, Arab doctors in hospitals, asylum for Arab homosexuals and others escaping death in the PA, etc., proves through action not rhetoric that Israel is either a) crap at ethnic cleansing (contrast with Jordan where all Jews were ethnically cleansed from Transjordan in 1921 plus the West Bank and Jerusalem in 1949) or b) capable of building and maintaining a comparatively tolerant society despite the constant state of enmity towards the Jewish settlement which has existed for at least 100 years.

You're absolutely insane. I'm sorry, but you are. But I'll leave the rest - as I really cannot be bothered going over what has been done time and time again in the face of someone with such a bizarre conception of history as yourself - and focus on the Transjordan reference as khib mentioned it.

I'm not exactly sure what you're referring to. The Jaffa Riots? Or do you mean 1929? Do you have a reference/link for it?

[khib70]

Ha, seriously? Yeah, my occasional posting of articles I've read that I've found interesting and think others may too are is definitely comparable to the Israeli Ministry of Hasbara.

Who are the 'likes' of Petras and Finkelstein? I don't think I've posted anything by either and the one article of Petras' that has been posted was preety roundly criticised.

I don't think you post these things merely because you "find them interesting". You're trying to convince people who may lack knowledge or interest of a cause in which you passionately believe. Nothing wrong with that, whether it's you or the Israeli government.



Ah, a return to the low stuff - excellent. You haven't got to anything of the sort. You've got a man critiquing the Israeli media response to the Israeli aid effort in Haiti.

Instead of making stuff up, maybe you could explain why you don't think that's ripe for criticism?

I think that the media of a country frequently and inaccurately portrayed as murderously oppressive and racist have every right to point to anything that contradicts that picture. And to castigate the ludicrously slanted Goldstone report at every turn



Yeah, plucky Fergus. Plucky, racist Fergus.

Given the first sentence I can only assume you agree with the sentiments he was pulled up for earlier - and has noticeable never defended since?

And give people a chance, this is the first time I've been on since he's posted; and as far as apologias for slaughter and oppression go it's quite intricately structured - though full of glaring innacuracies and related fallacies.

I'm not seeing racism, and if anyone's taken a low swipe it's those who are accusing Fergus of it. He's pointed out that Israel could have secured its long term future in 1948 by expelling the Arab population, but they didn't. He didn't suggest that they should have. He would be quite wrong in my view if he implied that it would have been any kind of acceptable option, or that the resultant state would have any claims to be truly Jewish. He has also suggested that an ethnically cleansed Jewish state is one of the options available to Israel in the future. I disagree with him about that because such a state wouldn't be Israel. Neither is it racist to suggest that there are Arabs who hate Jews and want to kill them.



From low to really, really low. Well done.

Presuming that you know anything whatsoever of what's going on around Jos, it's quite incredible that you can attempt to use that as somehow indicative of anything. Really astounding.

The point you perpetually seem to miss about these allusions is that while we all agree that sectarian violence of any kind is vile and unacceptable, only the perceived crimes of Israel seem to be worthy of your time and effort, and that of the Left in general. The fact that you can be "astounded" that anyone is concerned about your localised humanitarianism says it all, really.

[hibsbollah]

I see Fergus has pluckily returned despite the abuse fired in his direction recently. I notice as usual though that for all the disparagement of him, noone has come out and refuted any of his arguments about the ethnic cleansing in Transjordan pre 1948 etc. Christians in Nigeria would probably be able to identify with these arguments though.

Funny isn't it, I notice in passing. 500 people, mainly women and children, massacred in a single night, and no outraged threads, no picketing of the Nigerian embassy. The elephant is still firmly parked in the living room

I hope that comment wasnt directed at me. I shared a season ticket with Fergus a few seasons back and i'm sure he's big enough to deal with a difference of opinion. I wasn't 'abusing' anyone.

Really nasty things going on in Nigeria by the sounds of it, I read a report on it yesterday. The lack of a thread about it on here isnt necessarily evidence of 'the left' not caring about violence by Muslims, which is what you seem to be suggesting. I personally just am not very well informed about it.

[khib70]

I hope that comment wasnt directed at me. I shared a season ticket with Fergus a few seasons back and i'm sure he's big enough to deal with a difference of opinion. I wasn't 'abusing' anyone.

Really nasty things going on in Nigeria by the sounds of it, I read a report on it yesterday. The lack of a thread about it on here isnt necessarily evidence of 'the left' not caring about violence by Muslims, which is what you seem to be suggesting. I personally just am not very well informed about it.
No it wasn't. I know you're capable of arguing vigorously with anyone without resorting to abuse.

And I'm not suggesting that the Left doesn't care about violence by Muslims. I'm suggesting that some have an agenda so focussed on Israel, and on not offending Islam in any way, that they don't treat issues equitably.

As usual, LH is suggesting that "there's more to" the Jos atrocities, which is his response of choice to anything that involves violence by anyone except Israel. I await his telling us what that is with some anticipation. There was a fairly extensive report in the Times on Monday:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7054630.ece

[hibsbollah]

No it wasn't. I know you're capable of arguing vigorously with anyone without resorting to abuse.

And I'm not suggesting that the Left doesn't care about violence by Muslims. I'm suggesting that some have an agenda so focussed on Israel, and on not offending Islam in any way, that they don't treat issues equitably.

As usual, LH is suggesting that "there's more to" the Jos atrocities, which is his response of choice to anything that involves violence by anyone except Israel. I await his telling us what that is with some anticipation. There was a fairly extensive report in the Times on Monday:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7054630.ece (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7054630.ece)


Horrifying. Theres no mention in the report of any context or background to the massacre, although there is clearly a pattern of (largely unreported)killings on both sides (or at least between the southern police and the mostly Muslim northeners); http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=18628 (http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=18628) .

Some of the comments underneath the Times article are revealing;

daryl benson wrote:

It's cowardly and ridiculous how the UK media tries to conflate all religions and pretend that Christianity and other religions are just as violent as Islam. I'm sure that according to the Times this attack is somehow to be blamed on America, Zionism or some combination of the two!

So even Mr Murdoch and the Times gets tarred with the bleeding-heart liberal, muslim-loving brush. What chance does The Guardian have:faf:

[LiverpoolHibs]

I don't think you post these things merely because you "find them interesting". You're trying to convince people who may lack knowledge or interest of a cause in which you passionately believe. Nothing wrong with that, whether it's you or the Israeli government.

Fairly low-level activism is in no way comparable to a nation which refuses to comply with international law sponsoring its citizens to act as mouthpieces for Zionism in other nations.


I think that the media of a country frequently and inaccurately portrayed as murderously oppressive and racist have every right to point to anything that contradicts that picture. And to castigate the ludicrously slanted Goldstone report at every turn

What was 'ludicrously slanted' about the Goldstone Report?

It is not innacurately portrayed as murderously oppressive and racist. It is demonstrably so.


I'm not seeing racism, and if anyone's taken a low swipe it's those who are accusing Fergus of it. He's pointed out that Israel could have secured its long term future in 1948 by expelling the Arab population, but they didn't. He didn't suggest that they should have. He would be quite wrong in my view if he implied that it would have been any kind of acceptable option, or that the resultant state would have any claims to be truly Jewish. He has also suggested that an ethnically cleansed Jewish state is one of the options available to Israel in the future. I disagree with him about that because such a state wouldn't be Israel. Neither is it racist to suggest that there are Arabs who hate Jews and want to kill them.

I haven't taken a low swipe, a number of his comments on this thread after his apparent 'epiphany' are explicitly racist. Not least:

Originally Posted by hibsbollah http://hibs.net/message/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://hibs.net/message/showthread.php?p=2359977#post2359977)
Hence the alternative; 'ethnic cleansing'

http://hibs.net/message/images/smilies/agree.gif Although second-class citizenship (zero access to politics or military) would be another alternative.

and...

Israel has to dominate the Arabs in order to protect itself.

and...

If the Arabs were ever to get the upper hand, they would massacre the Jews. That's why Israel will never allow that to happen. If that means denying people voting rights, then so be it. It's no different to the lot of Arabs in neighbouring states.

and...

Denying human rights? The Arabs should have thought about that before they commenced killing Jews in 1920.


The point you perpetually seem to miss about these allusions is that while we all agree that sectarian violence of any kind is vile and unacceptable, only the perceived crimes of Israel seem to be worthy of your time and effort, and that of the Left in general. The fact that you can be "astounded" that anyone is concerned about your localised humanitarianism says it all, really.

No, the problem is, just as with your regular comments about Sudan and the Darfur conflict - you don't actually understand the subject that you seek to use to draw attention to my apparent 'localised humanitarianism'. This is made apparent by the fact that you seem completely oblivious to the fact that the massacre you mention was the response to a previous massacre of the Muslim tribal group who carried out this atrocity in the village of Kuru Karama. To attempt to use your uber-simplistic understanding of this as a point-scoring exercise reflects very badly on you indeed and further reveals your apparently deep-seated Islamophobia. I won't pretend to be particularly knowlegeable on the problems in Nigeria (which is why I wouldn't make a thread concerning this particular conflict), but it comes as no surprise to see (as with your Times article) this particular atrocity imaged as the 'starting point' of a conflict without any cause other than 'vicious, inhumane Islam'. Look up the Yelwa Massacre is you want to see some of the history of this particular conflict.

Just because there are two conflicts regarding 'ethnic tension', to one extent or another, does not mean you can attribute people talking about one and not the other down to an 'agenda focussed on Israel' or a 'localised humanitarianism'. It makes a mockery of your arguments.

I make no apology for being particularly interested in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Why should I? Israel is a truly exceptional case.

[LiverpoolHibs]

No it wasn't. I know you're capable of arguing vigorously with anyone without resorting to abuse.

And I'm not suggesting that the Left doesn't care about violence by Muslims. I'm suggesting that some have an agenda so focussed on Israel, and on not offending Islam in any way, that they don't treat issues equitably.

As usual, LH is suggesting that "there's more to" the Jos atrocities, which is his response of choice to anything that involves violence by anyone except Israel. I await his telling us what that is with some anticipation. There was a fairly extensive report in the Times on Monday:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7054630.ece (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article7054630.ece)

Sorry? I think I've said that in response to two different situatuions. Your childish over-simplifications of the Darfur conflict and now these atrocities in Nigeria. That does not equate to a response to 'anything that involves violence by anyone except Israel'.

If you're going to argue at this level, there's really little point continuing.

N.B. There's even less point if you consider that an 'extensive report'.

[khib70]

Sorry? I think I've said that in response to two different situatuions. Your childish over-simplifications of the Darfur conflict and now these atrocities in Nigeria. That does not equate to a response to 'anything that involves violence by anyone except Israel'.

If you're going to argue at this level, there's really little point continuing.

N.B. There's even less point if you consider that an 'extensive report'.
There's even less point continuing if you are going to fling more accusations of racism ("deep seated Islamophobia") at anyone who criticises any action by Muslims or Arabs. Now that's "childish over-simplification" with a venegance. And I said "fairly extensive" - another case of writing any source off that doesn't tell you what you want to hear?

[LiverpoolHibs]

There's even less point continuing if you are going to fling more accusations of racism ("deep seated Islamophobia") at anyone who criticises any action by Muslims or Arabs. Now that's "childish over-simplification" with a venegance.

No, it isn't and I'm not flinging accusations of racism at anyone who dares criticise any actions by Muslims or Arabs. That's just silly.

I've highlighted the particular parts of Fergus' particularly unpleasant diatribe from a while back that I consider to be deeply racist. Neither you, nor he when I initially objected, have suggested why I shouldn't think them so.

Again, I think your counterpointing of any debate surrounding Israel with what you - incorrectly - see as essentialised and non-contextualised Islamic violence against non-Muslims reveals, as I said, a fairly deep-seated Islamophobia.

In both cases, I'm just going on the evidence as it's presented.

Just because in the case of one conflict it's fairly simple to see who the oppressive, persecuting agent is does not mean that it is naturally as simple in other conflicts. And vice-versa.


And I said "fairly extensive" - another case of writing any source off that doesn't tell you what you want to hear?

No (incidentally what other sources have I 'written off because they don't tell me what I want to hear'?). I'm not even writing it off, it's a case of disputing the description of it as 'fairly extensive' when it gives no account whatsoever of the context of the conflict in which this atrocity took place.

[khib70]

No (incidentally what other sources have I 'written off because they don't tell me what I want to hear'?). I'm not even writing it off, it's a case of disputing the description of it as 'fairly extensive' when it gives no account whatsoever of the context of the conflict in which this atrocity took place.
Letter from Baroness Cox of the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust in today's Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article7057039.ece

To save time, the salient part reads:

"However, your leading article reflects an inaccurate misrepresentation of the history of violence in referring to “a Christian-on-Muslim attack in January”. There are always claims and counter-claims, but on that occasion, reports clearly indicated that the killings began when Muslim youths attacked Christians on a Sunday morning, on their way to church. Muslims were also killed as those under attack began to fight back.

In the violent attacks, not only in Plateau state, but also in neighbouring Bauchi and other northern states, a consistent pattern has emerged: they are initiated by well-armed Muslim extremists, chanting militant slogans, attacking and killing Christian and other non-Muslim citizens and destroying homes and places of worship.

In the early stages of the attack, the Muslim militants take corpses to mosques, where they are photographed and released to the media, creating the impression that these are Muslim victims. The security forces have reportedly been too slow to intervene to stop the massacres. Subsequent retaliation has led to the deaths of Muslims, some of whom also died when security forces eventually intervened.

During our last visit, I met Muslim and Christian leaders who are committed to trying to promote peace but their endeavours will not be helped by misunderstanding the reality of the situation. All the evidence on the ground indicates that these acts of violence are not primarily political or tribal. They are instigated by militant Islamist extremists."

Still, you've no doubt got her down as an Islamaphobe too

[Betty Boop]

Letter from Baroness Cox of the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust in today's Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article7057039.ece

To save time, the salient part reads:

"However, your leading article reflects an inaccurate misrepresentation of the history of violence in referring to “a Christian-on-Muslim attack in January”. There are always claims and counter-claims, but on that occasion, reports clearly indicated that the killings began when Muslim youths attacked Christians on a Sunday morning, on their way to church. Muslims were also killed as those under attack began to fight back.

In the violent attacks, not only in Plateau state, but also in neighbouring Bauchi and other northern states, a consistent pattern has emerged: they are initiated by well-armed Muslim extremists, chanting militant slogans, attacking and killing Christian and other non-Muslim citizens and destroying homes and places of worship.

In the early stages of the attack, the Muslim militants take corpses to mosques, where they are photographed and released to the media, creating the impression that these are Muslim victims. The security forces have reportedly been too slow to intervene to stop the massacres. Subsequent retaliation has led to the deaths of Muslims, some of whom also died when security forces eventually intervened.

During our last visit, I met Muslim and Christian leaders who are committed to trying to promote peace but their endeavours will not be helped by misunderstanding the reality of the situation. All the evidence on the ground indicates that these acts of violence are not primarily political or tribal. They are instigated by militant Islamist extremists."

Still, you've no doubt got her down as an Islamaphobe too

Tapestry of violence haunts central Nigeria


By JON GAMBRELL (AP) – 1 hour ago
JOS, Nigeria — Christians and Muslims once shared their lives together in Nigeria's fertile central belt, buying each other's goods in mixed neighborhoods and cultivating each other's farms across a sun-baked plateau.
But growing religious hatred, political and ethnic rivalries and increasing poverty have led to two outbursts of savage violence this year in which men, women and children and even babies were butchered, and that harmony seems lost forever. Now, many people carry weapons and man impromptu road blocks, fearful of the military, the police and each other.
Various factors have been weaving a tapestry of violence here but Sunday's bloodshed, the more recent, was mostly about revenge. Christian villages near the city of Jos were attacked before dawn, less than two months after Muslims were targeted and a mosque torched, with hundreds killed, their corpses stuffed into wells and sewage pits.
Witnesses say Sunday's pre-dawn silence was broken by gunfire. Simple, one-room houses were set ablaze, the flames illuminating villages that have no electricity. People ran from their burning homes. Assailants with machetes were waiting. Many of those who were cut down were children. At least 200 people died.
One 20-year-old man arrested for allegedly taking part in Sunday's attacks said his family members died at the hands of rioters in January. Of those who were attacked on Sunday, he said: "There are some people that kill all our parents. We went to avenge what they did to us."
Nigeria, a nation of 150 million people, is almost evenly split between Muslims in the north and the predominantly Christian south. The recent bloodshed has been happening in central Nigeria, where dozens of ethnic groups vie for control of the nation's fertile "middle belt."
"Jos is a mini-Nigeria. All segments of Nigeria are here," said state police commissioner Ikechukwu Aduba.
National leaders appear to have little control over this region in Africa's most populous nation. The police and army failed to prevent these horrific massacres. Acting President Goodluck Jonathan promised security forces will bring the city and outlying areas where 1 million people live under control, but many Christians fear the Muslim-dominated police force and military. Local youths armed with kitchen knives and machetes have formed self-protection gangs in neighborhoods and scrutinize each passing vehicle.
Sixty kilometers (38 miles) from Jos, in the village of Ku-Got, men armed with machetes, homemade swords, slingshots and bows and arrows stand guard amid arid cornfields. Barricades made of boulders and cacti manned by frightened locals block many roads. Nigerian security forces rarely, if ever, patrol these areas. They're usually beyond cellphone range and there's no electricity.
"It's clear these people are unprotected here. If you have to carry a bow and arrows in your own town, you are unprotected," said Mark Lipdo, who leads a Christian foundation in Jos.
Despite once working on farms belonging to the Muslim Fulani ethnic group, the people of Ku-Got now look out over the silhouetted mountains and worry that armed Fulani herders will be coming down the ridge. Villagers say they buried two old women killed by Fulani raiders Sunday. The attackers razed their homes, broke a glass pulpit at the Christian church and destroyed the community's only satellite television receiver.
"They want to inherit the land," said the Rev. Joshua T. Dafom, who preaches at the church. "They want to wipe us out to inherit the land to graze their animals."
For their part, the Fulanis now watch over their herds of cattle in groups of armed men numbering into the dozens, instead of going alone, unarmed, to watch over the animals as they once did, said Fulani community leader Sale Bayari. The men now fear a "guerrilla war" against the ethnic group that left many of them dead during the January rioting but are prepared, Bayari said.
"My people have an instinct for survival," he said.
Plateau state, of which Jos is the capital, has long been known as "The Home of Peace and Tourism." It has unspoiled savannas, wild animals like leopards and hippos, waterfalls and curious rock outcroppings. But the monicker is now a sad irony.
"Plateau state has become a jungle," said Bayari, who is being sought by police for the Sunday attacks. He spoke to The Associated Press by mobile telephone from a neighboring state.
Jos was also once a hub for tin mining, but its economic fortunes have waned in the last decades. Muslims are locked out of stable government jobs because the state views them as settlers, not Christian "indigenes." Christians have a strained relationship with the Hausa-speaking Muslims who run businesses and live in the region.
All these tensions boiled over in September 2001 in rioting that killed more than 1,000 people. Mobs of Christian young men roved the streets of Jos, asking people if they were Christian or Muslim. When a person answered Muslim, the mob would attack with knives, machetes and sticks.
Another convulsion of violence hit in 2004, in which 700 people were killed. More than 300 residents died during a similar upheaval in 2008.
Now, instead of talk of peace, there is talk of more revenge and of pre-emptive attacks. The people of The Home of Peace and Tourism wait in terror for the next frenzy of violence.
Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Letter from Baroness Cox of the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust in today's Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/letters/article7057039.ece

To save time, the salient part reads:

Still, you've no doubt got her down as an Islamaphobe too

Haha, brilliant! You are aware that it was her, along with Lord Pearson, who invited Geert Wilders over to speak at the Lords, aye? Or that she's one of the founders of the One Jerusalem campaign to ensure Jerusalem becomes the united and undivided capital of Israel? Or that she's held conferences on the 'Persecution of Christians in Britain Today'? Or that she has talked of the need for British Christians to 'draw a line in the sand' against Islam because Britain's 'cultural and spiritual heritage is under threat'?

If she actually thinks that the violence in the Nigerian Plateau is nothing to do with economics or politics but is instigated by 'militant Islamist extremists' then she's even stupider and more unpleasant than I thought. It's interesting that she doesn't reference any of her 'evidence on the ground'; all of which apparently corroborates her analysis. Presumably she doesn't regard Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/01/22/nigeria-protect-survivors-fully-investigate-massacre-reports) and it's report (http://www.hrw.org/en/node/11354/section/8) (which, dare I say it, could even be described as fairly extensive) into the events as important evidence.

[khib70]

Haha, brilliant! You are aware that it was her, along with Lord Pearson, who invited Geert Wilders over to speak at the Lords, aye? Or that she's one of the founders of the One Jerusalem campaign to ensure Jerusalem becomes the united and undivided capital of Israel? Or that she's held conferences on the 'Persecution of Christians in Britain Today'? Or that she has talked of the need for British Christians to 'draw a line in the sand' against Islam because Britain's 'cultural and spiritual heritage is under threat'?

If she actually thinks that the violence in the Nigerian Plateau is nothing to do with economics or politics but is instigated by 'militant Islamist extremists' then she's even stupider and more unpleasant than I thought. It's interesting that she doesn't reference any of her 'evidence on the ground'; all of which apparently corroborates her analysis. Presumably she doesn't regard Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/01/22/nigeria-protect-survivors-fully-investigate-massacre-reports) and it's report (http://www.hrw.org/en/node/11354/section/8) (which, dare I say it, could even be described as fairly extensive) into the events as important evidence.
Of course I'm aware of that. She also wrote in a jointly authored paper on Islamism:

"'It is our hope and intention in writing this paper that non-Muslims may develop a better understanding of Islam and better relationships with moderate peaceable Muslims, and that both Muslims and non-Muslims may thus develop appropriate responses to the current complex situation' (p.xiii).

The West, Islam and Islamism attempts to build bridges with the majority of peaceable Muslims. To this end we need to be able to conduct an open and mutually respectful dialogue. However, the situation is complicated by the way in which some defenders of Islam have tried to shut down the sort of full and free discussion which we expect in Western societies to be able to have about all systems of belief by accusing critics of 'Islamophobia' (p.104)."

The word "busted" springs to mind:wink:

The HRW report is extensive indeed and I haven't had time to read it all. But it does say this:

"The southern Kaduna minority tribes' initial embrace of Christianity was to some extent a reaction to the marginalization and oppression they had suffered under Hausa Muslim rule.[149]"

and this

"Christian community leaders in Kaduna allege that this practice is increasingly widespread.The general secretary of the KadunaState chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria told Human Rights Watch that in general in Kaduna city, "[p]eople with Christian names will not get an indigene form.People with Muslim names have no problem."[154]Similarly, a pastor from Barnawa district in Kaduna South local government complained that in that district "[a]nyone whose name is Paul, Peter or any other Christian name is a settler now."[155]"

If anything feeds "Islamophobia" it's the unseemly rush to appease Islamic opinion on every turn, not to ask awkward questions, and to find a way to exonerate any and all negative actions by Islamic groups of any description.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Of course I'm aware of that. She also wrote in a jointly authored paper on Islamism:

"'It is our hope and intention in writing this paper that non-Muslims may develop a better understanding of Islam and better relationships with moderate peaceable Muslims, and that both Muslims and non-Muslims may thus develop appropriate responses to the current complex situation' (p.xiii).

The West, Islam and Islamism attempts to build bridges with the majority of peaceable Muslims. To this end we need to be able to conduct an open and mutually respectful dialogue. However, the situation is complicated by the way in which some defenders of Islam have tried to shut down the sort of full and free discussion which we expect in Western societies to be able to have about all systems of belief by accusing critics of 'Islamophobia' (p.104)."

The word "busted" springs to mind:wink:

I'm confused, what about that has 'busted' me?

She (or anyone else) is perfectly entitled to engage in 'full and free discussion' without being accused of Islamophobia. She hasn't done that; inviting a vicious bigot like Geert Wilders to the Lords is not engaging in a full and free discussion unless she also thinks it would be necessary to invite, say, David Irving to the Lords to ensure a 'full and free discussion' of the Holocaust.


The HRW report is extensive indeed and I haven't had time to read it all. But it does say this:

"The southern Kaduna minority tribes' initial embrace of Christianity was to some extent a reaction to the marginalization and oppression they had suffered under Hausa Muslim rule.[149]"

and this

"Christian community leaders in Kaduna allege that this practice is increasingly widespread.The general secretary of the KadunaState chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria told Human Rights Watch that in general in Kaduna city, "[p]eople with Christian names will not get an indigene form.People with Muslim names have no problem."[154]Similarly, a pastor from Barnawa district in Kaduna South local government complained that in that district "[a]nyone whose name is Paul, Peter or any other Christian name is a settler now."[155]"

If anything feeds "Islamophobia" it's the unseemly rush to appease Islamic opinion on every turn, not to ask awkward questions, and to find a way to exonerate any and all negative actions by Islamic groups of any description.

Sorry, who's doing that? And of course what that actually means, as with any apologia for any form of racism, is that you attempt to off-set any 'uncontrollable' racist sentiment with a bit of slightly lower-level racist sentiment from 'on-high'. It's also pretty archetypal example of victim blaming.

The passages that you have so judiciously selected from the HRW reports in order to promote the ludicrous (and yup, Islamophobic) notion that violence in the Nigerian Plateau is caused by 'militant Islamists' do nothing of the sort.

[ballengeich]

I estimate 12 pages, with pages 8-12 being a online boxing match (erudite of course) between a select band of posters :greengrin

Almost a prophet, but your estimate suggests you're working on constructing trams.

[khib70]

I'm confused, what about that has 'busted' me?

She (or anyone else) is perfectly entitled to engage in 'full and free discussion' without being accused of Islamophobia. She hasn't done that; inviting a vicious bigot like Geert Wilders to the Lords is not engaging in a full and free discussion unless she also thinks it would be necessary to invite, say, David Irving to the Lords to ensure a 'full and free discussion' of the Holocaust.



Sorry, who's doing that? And of course what that actually means, as with any apologia for any form of racism, is that you attempt to off-set any 'uncontrollable' racist sentiment with a bit of slightly lower-level racist sentiment from 'on-high'. It's also pretty archetypal example of victim blaming.

The passages that you have so judiciously selected from the HRW reports in order to promote the ludicrous (and yup, Islamophobic) notion that violence in the Nigerian Plateau is caused by 'militant Islamists' do nothing of the sort.
It's getting increasingly hard to engage in any kind of meaningful debate on here. You're the man who accuses others of "childish oversimpification" at the drop of a hat, then resorts to flinging accusations of "Islamophobia" about. There is nothing Islamophobic about identifying or criticising Islamist extremism. To accuse someone of "victim blaming" for identifying the perpetrators of a massacre is just plain perverse.

Geert Wilders is a bit of a wacko, and I certainly don't endorse banning the Koran or any other book of any description. But he is not a "vicious bigot" because he articulates the genuine fears of communities all over Europe. If opposing religious fundamentalism makes you a bigot, does that apply to those, including yourself, who fulminate about American Christian fundamentalism?

Your response, and that of most of the left, to Islamism seems to swing between appeasement, denial, and purposeful blindness. Extremist Islam is not just a threat to capitalism and Western liberal democracy. It's a threat to civilisation itself. And it's the refusal to face that that allows people like Wilders, and the EDL/BNP to take centre stage. And your turning cartwheels to explain away atrocities, or blame them on someone else is doing noone any favours, except the extremists at the other end of the spectrum

[LiverpoolHibs]

It's getting increasingly hard to engage in any kind of meaningful debate on here. You're the man who accuses others of "childish oversimpification" at the drop of a hat, then resorts to flinging accusations of "Islamophobia" about.

As I'm sure you're perfectly well aware, I have not accused anyone of 'childish oversimplification' at the drop of a hat. I have accused you of it once, when you engaged in a piece of 'childish oversimplification'. Suggesting that the fundamental cause of the violence in the Nigerian plateau states is 'militant Islamism' is a 'childish oversimplification' (not to mention thoroughly pernicious), hence I pointed it out.


There is nothing Islamophobic about identifying or criticising Islamist extremism. To accuse someone of "victim blaming" for identifying the perpetrators of a massacre is just plain perverse.

I have already explained why I accused Fergus of outright racism and you of Islamophobia. Nothing either of you have said has indicated to me that I should rethink that position; in fact, you haven’t even really responded to the accusation. It was not done rhetorically or mendaciously but out of a reasoned analysis of what you have written.

Where did I accuse you of victim blaming for identifying the perpetrators of this (particular) massacre? Again, you can’t just make stuff up. I accused you of it for suggesting that the way to combat groups such as the EDL and Islamophobia generally (it’s also worth noting your enclosing of the term in inverted commas) is to pander to their beliefs and not allow them a monopoly on their hatred - that, at the root, 'the Other' is to blame for the racism they face. That's what 'victim blaming' is.


Geert Wilders is a bit of a wacko, and I certainly don't endorse banning the Koran or any other book of any description. But he is not a "vicious bigot" because he articulates the genuine fears of communities all over Europe.

Sorry? Someone wanting to ban the holy book of millions of people isn't a vicious bigot? Someone who describes the holy book of millions of people as 'fascist' isn't a vicious bigot? Someone who claims that the right to religious freedom should not apply to one particular religious group isn't a vicious bigot? Someone who wants to end immigration to his country of one particular group of people isn't a vicious bigot? Someone who supports the voluntary repatriation of one particular group of people isn't a vicious bigot? How's that then?


If opposing religious fundamentalism makes you a bigot, does that apply to those, including yourself, who fulminate about American Christian fundamentalism?

He doesn't oppose religious fundamentalism (in fact, he's fully in favour of it when it comes to Israel), he opposes Islam.


Your response, and that of most of the left, to Islamism seems to swing between appeasement, denial, and purposeful blindness. Extremist Islam is not just a threat to capitalism and Western liberal democracy. It's a threat to civilisation itself.

No, my response to Islamism is not to engage it the nonsensical generalisations and homogenisations that are all too common in the West, and to strongly oppose the conflation of Islam generally with one (consistently over-inflated; see 'a threat to civilisation itself') strand of Islamism. All Islamism means is a political orientation of Islamic teaching; this can take any number of forms just as (re. your point above) a political orientation of Christianity can take any number of forms from the progressive radicalism of Latin American Liberation Theology to the reactionary bigotries of a Jerry Falwell or a Pat Robertson. And just as political orientation of Jewish religious teaching can take any number of forms from Jewish liberation theology and the Israeli Black Panthers to the Jewish far-right in Israel.

As a semi-aside, considering the mass-hysteria concerning the non-exsitent 'ricin plot' of a few years ago. How many people are actually even aware of this (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/8556059.stm) genuine one, that has received so little coverage? Why's that, I wonder? Could it be, shock horror, that it didn't involve those dastardly Muslims?


And it's the refusal to face that that allows people like Wilders, and the EDL/BNP to take centre stage. And your turning cartwheels to explain away atrocities, or blame them on someone else is doing noone any favours, except the extremists at the other end of the spectrum

Jesus Christ, what atrocities have 'I explained away'? And what cartwheels have I turned to do so?

[hibsbollah]

Obama administration in war of words with Israel.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/14/israel-palestinian-territories (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/14/israel-palestinian-territories)

Either a)Obama showing some clear blue water between himself and George W's pro-Israeli stance or b) the new Jewish homes is a step too far even for usually pro-Israeli Obama, depending on your point of view of Obama:greengrin


One of President Obama's most senior aides has described Israel (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israel)'s sudden announcement of plans to build 1,600 homes in occupied East Jerusalem (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/08/israel-construction-settlement-west-bank) as an "affront" to the US which could undermine peace efforts in the Middle East (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middleeast).

Yesterday, David Axelrod said the move, which overshadowed a visit to Israel by the US vice-president, Joe Biden (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/10/israel-joe-biden-east-jerusalem-settlements), was "very destructive".
"This was an affront, it was an insult but most importantly it undermined this very fragile effort to bring peace to that region," he said on NBC's Meet the Press. "For this announcement to come at that time was very destructive."

Axelrod, one of the architects of Obama's election, is not the first US official to have criticised the decision but he is one of the president's closest advisers. His remarks came after the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/binyamin-netanyahu), sought to downplay the row with Washington.
"We opened the newspapers this morning and read all kinds of commentary and assumptions regarding the crisis with the US. I recommend not to get carried away and to calm down," Netanyahu told his cabinet today, Associated Press reported. "There was a regrettable incident that was done in all innocence and was hurtful, and which certainly should not have occurred."

Asked about Netanyahu's remarks, Axelrod said he believed the strong rebuke from Washington had sunk in. "I think the message was received," he said, although Netanyahu gave no indication the government was prepared to cancel the plan.

In his remarks to the cabinet, Netanyahu said: "Israel and the US have mutual interests but we will act according to the vital interests of the state of Israel."

The announcement on Tuesday that thousands of new homes were being planned in Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem came on the eve of Biden's arrival in the region for discussions to restart "proximity talks" between Israel and Palestinians, with the US mediating. Almost immediately, the news prompted Palestinian leaders to pull out of the new round of talks.

Israel's cabinet minister, Isaac Herzog, apologised for the timing of the announcement but not for its substance.
Obama administration officials have criticised the scheme in a stream of sharply worded statements accusing the Israeli government of jeopardising good-faith negotiations with the Palestinians.

Hillary Clinton spoke at length with Netanyahu by phone on Friday, calling the move a "deeply negative signal" about Israel's approach to its relationship with the US. In an interview on Friday, Clinton also called the move "an insult to the US", though she reiterated that the US-Israel relationship remains "durable and strong". She suggested the move was the work of elements within the Israeli government who oppose the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

"It was just really a very unfortunate and difficult moment for everyone … and I regret deeply that it occurred," she said.
Israel has agreed to slow construction of settlements in the West Bank but has refused to halt building in East Jerusalem. Israel considers East Jerusalem, which it captured in the 1967 war, its sovereign territory and Netanyahu has spoken frequently in defence of settlements there.

[khib70]

Obama administration in war of words with Israel.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/14/israel-palestinian-territories (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/14/israel-palestinian-territories)

Either a)Obama showing some clear blue water between himself and George W's pro-Israeli stance or b) the new Jewish homes is a step too far even for usually pro-Israeli Obama, depending on your point of view of Obama:greengrin


One of President Obama's most senior aides has described Israel (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israel)'s sudden announcement of plans to build 1,600 homes in occupied East Jerusalem (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/08/israel-construction-settlement-west-bank) as an "affront" to the US which could undermine peace efforts in the Middle East (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middleeast).

Yesterday, David Axelrod said the move, which overshadowed a visit to Israel by the US vice-president, Joe Biden (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/mar/10/israel-joe-biden-east-jerusalem-settlements), was "very destructive".
"This was an affront, it was an insult but most importantly it undermined this very fragile effort to bring peace to that region," he said on NBC's Meet the Press. "For this announcement to come at that time was very destructive."

Axelrod, one of the architects of Obama's election, is not the first US official to have criticised the decision but he is one of the president's closest advisers. His remarks came after the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/binyamin-netanyahu), sought to downplay the row with Washington.
"We opened the newspapers this morning and read all kinds of commentary and assumptions regarding the crisis with the US. I recommend not to get carried away and to calm down," Netanyahu told his cabinet today, Associated Press reported. "There was a regrettable incident that was done in all innocence and was hurtful, and which certainly should not have occurred."

Asked about Netanyahu's remarks, Axelrod said he believed the strong rebuke from Washington had sunk in. "I think the message was received," he said, although Netanyahu gave no indication the government was prepared to cancel the plan.

In his remarks to the cabinet, Netanyahu said: "Israel and the US have mutual interests but we will act according to the vital interests of the state of Israel."

The announcement on Tuesday that thousands of new homes were being planned in Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem came on the eve of Biden's arrival in the region for discussions to restart "proximity talks" between Israel and Palestinians, with the US mediating. Almost immediately, the news prompted Palestinian leaders to pull out of the new round of talks.

Israel's cabinet minister, Isaac Herzog, apologised for the timing of the announcement but not for its substance.
Obama administration officials have criticised the scheme in a stream of sharply worded statements accusing the Israeli government of jeopardising good-faith negotiations with the Palestinians.

Hillary Clinton spoke at length with Netanyahu by phone on Friday, calling the move a "deeply negative signal" about Israel's approach to its relationship with the US. In an interview on Friday, Clinton also called the move "an insult to the US", though she reiterated that the US-Israel relationship remains "durable and strong". She suggested the move was the work of elements within the Israeli government who oppose the creation of an independent Palestinian state.

"It was just really a very unfortunate and difficult moment for everyone … and I regret deeply that it occurred," she said.
Israel has agreed to slow construction of settlements in the West Bank but has refused to halt building in East Jerusalem. Israel considers East Jerusalem, which it captured in the 1967 war, its sovereign territory and Netanyahu has spoken frequently in defence of settlements there.
Obama is spot on on this one. The Jerusalem settlement plan is just madness. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the "vital interests of the state of Israel", which firmly lie on facilitating the peace process by calling a halt to settlement building in all areas. In any negotiations, you have to give to receive, and it's time Netanyahu stopped pandering to zealots and settlers and considered the real interests of the majority of Israelis and Palestinians

[LiverpoolHibs]

Obama administration in war of words with Israel.
[/URL][url]http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/14/israel-palestinian-territories (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/14/israel-palestinian-territories)

Either a)Obama showing some clear blue water between himself and George W's pro-Israeli stance or b) the new Jewish homes is a step too far even for usually pro-Israeli Obama, depending on your point of view of Obama:greengrin snip...

Quite alot going on here I think, especially when coupled with the Petraeus leak (http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/14/the_petraeus_briefing_biden_s_embarrassment_is_not _the_whole_story). Pretty tricky to untangle.

It would be dangerous to overplay the Biden-Obama fury especially considering, as I posted above, the settlement building had been given the ok by the U.S.; the State department explicitly stating, "...it does not violate the moratorium that the Israelis previously announced." The U.S. is well aware (and supportive of the position) that opposition to a divided Jerusalem is not the preserve of the Israeli far-right but is a throughly mainstream view.

So, essentially, what Biden and Obama are angry about is that the settlement building coincided with an official U.S. visit and the proposed talks that were due to take place. You just need to see the apology issued by Netanyahu and Yishai.

"The team will formulate regulations to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents in the future,"

I.e. We'll make sure we don't make such announcements when you're in the country and may be embarrassed again. We'll resubmit the proposal - just as you said we could - in a couple of weeks when you're out of sight and mind. Or even the first point on Hilary Clinton's list (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1156467.html) of grievances given to Netanyahu;

1. Investigate the process that led to the announcement of the Ramat Shlomo construction plans in the middle of Biden's visit.

I'd tentatively suggest that this is largely about Egypt - with the U.S. attempting to do everything to ensure that Mubarak (or his son if Mubarak decides not to stand) is returned in the elections next year. There's a pretty enormous anti-government sentiment in Egyptian civil society that overlaps significantly with pro-Palestinian sentiment - both of which make up a substantial part of the broad alliance behind Mohamed El Baradei.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Incidentally, today is the anniversary of the murder of Rachel Corrie - crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer while attempting to stop the illegal destruction of Palestinian homes.

Billy Bragg - The Lonesome Death of Rachel Corrie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZJkjS_i600)

[McIntosh]

Obama is spot on on this one. The Jerusalem settlement plan is just madness. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the "vital interests of the state of Israel", which firmly lie on facilitating the peace process by calling a halt to settlement building in all areas. In any negotiations, you have to give to receive, and it's time Netanyahu stopped pandering to zealots and settlers and considered the real interests of the majority of Israelis and Palestinians

:top marksCould not agree more, spoken for truth.

[hibsbollah]

Quite alot going on here I think, especially when coupled with the Petraeus leak (http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/03/14/the_petraeus_briefing_biden_s_embarrassment_is_not _the_whole_story). Pretty tricky to untangle.

It would be dangerous to overplay the Biden-Obama fury especially considering, as I posted above, the settlement building had been given the ok by the U.S.; the State department explicitly stating, "...it does not violate the moratorium that the Israelis previously announced." The U.S. is well aware (and supportive of the position) that opposition to a divided Jerusalem is not the preserve of the Israeli far-right but is a throughly mainstream view.

So, essentially, what Biden and Obama are angry about is that the settlement building coincided with an official U.S. visit and the proposed talks that were due to take place. You just need to see the apology issued by Netanyahu and Yishai.

"The team will formulate regulations to prevent the recurrence of similar incidents in the future,"

I.e. We'll make sure we don't make such announcements when you're in the country and may be embarrassed again. We'll resubmit the proposal - just as you said we could - in a couple of weeks when you're out of sight and mind. Or even the first point on Hilary Clinton's list (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1156467.html) of grievances given to Netanyahu;

1. Investigate the process that led to the announcement of the Ramat Shlomo construction plans in the middle of Biden's visit.

I'd tentatively suggest that this is largely about Egypt - with the U.S. attempting to do everything to ensure that Mubarak (or his son if Mubarak decides not to stand) is returned in the elections next year. There's a pretty enormous anti-government sentiment in Egyptian civil society that overlaps significantly with pro-Palestinian sentiment - both of which make up a substantial part of the broad alliance behind Mohamed El Baradei.

That link to the Petraeus story in FP was excellent. "Israel's intransigence could cost American lives." Self-interest, that could indeed be the motivation in Obama's team publically flaying Netanyahu.

[Betty Boop]

Incidentally, today is the anniversary of the murder of Rachel Corrie - crushed to death by an IDF bulldozer while attempting to stop the illegal destruction of Palestinian homes.

YouTube - Billy Bragg - The Lonesome Death of Rachel Corrie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZJkjS_i600)

Rachel's parents have raised a lawsuit against Israel, for her unlawful killing in Rafah.

http://rachelcorriefoundation.org/2010/03/954

[Betty Boop]

Israel’s ‘No renting to Arabs’ policy


Jewish couple lose court battle to help Bedouin friends

By Jonathan Cook in Nevatim

March 22, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- The Zakai and Tarabin families should be a picture of happy coexistence across the ethnic divide, a model for others to emulate in Israel.

But Natalie and Weisman Zakai say the past three years -- since the Jewish couple offered to rent their home to Bedouin friends, Ahmed and Khalas Tarabin -- have been a living hell.

“I have always loved Israel,” said Mrs Zakai, 43. “But to see the depth of the racism of our neighbours has made me question why we live in this country.”

Three of the couple’s six dogs have been mysteriously poisoned; Mrs Zakai’s car has been sprayed with the words ”Arab lover” and the windows smashed; her three children in school are regularly taunted and bullied by other pupils; and a collection of vintage cars in the family’s yard has been set on fire in what police say was an arson attack.

To add to these indignities, the Zakais have spent three years and thousands of dollars battling through the courts against the elected officials of their community of Nevatim, in Israel’s southern Negev desert, who have said they are determined to keep the Tarabins from moving in.

Last week the Zakais’ legal struggle looked like it had run out of steam. The supreme court told the two families the Tarabins should submit to a vetting committee of local officials to assess their suitability – a requirement that has never been made before by the Negev community in the case of a family seeking to rent a home.

“The decision of the committee is a foregone conclusion,” Mr Tarabin said.

Chances for Jews and Arabs to live together -- outside of a handful of cities -- are all but impossible because Israel’s rural communities are strictly segregated, said Alaa Mahajneh, a lawyer representing the Zakais.

Israel has nationalised 93 per cent of the country’s territory, confining most of its 1.3 million Arab citizens, one-fifth of the population, to 120 or so communities that existed at the time of the state’s creation in 1948.

Meanwhile, more than 700 rural communities, including Nevatim, have remained exclusively Jewish by requiring that anyone who wants to buy a home applies to local vetting committees, which have been used to weed out Arab applicants.

But Mr Mahajneh, from the Adalah legal centre for the Arab minority, noted that legal sanction for such segregation was supposed to have ended a decade ago, when the supreme court backed an Arab couple, the Kaadans, who had been barred by a committee from the community of Katzir in northern Israel.

Although the Kaadans were eventually allowed to move into Katzir, the case has had little wider effect.

In fact, Mr Mahajneh said, the decision in the Zakais’ case suggests “we’re going backwards”. The Kaadans won the right to buy a home in a Jewish community, whereas the Tarabin family were seeking only a short-term rental of the Zakais’ home.

The Zakais said they had been told by the officials of Nevatim, a community of 650 Jews a few kilometres from the city of Beersheva, that it would not be a problem to rent out their home.

Mrs Zakai brought the Tarabins’ ID cards to the community’s offices for routine paperwork. “When I handed in the IDs, the staff looked at the card and said, ‘But they’re Muslims’.” Later, according to Mrs Zakai, the council head, Avraham Orr, rang to say he Arabs would be accepted in Nevatim “over my dead body”.

Several weeks later, Mrs Zakai said, two threatening men came to their door and warned them off renting to Arabs. Soon afterwards 36 cars belonging to Mr Zakai, who has a used car business, were set on fire.

Then behind the Zakais’ back, Nevatim went to a local magistrate’s court to get an order preventing them from renting their home. The couple have been battling the decision ever since.

Mr Mahajneh said the Tarabins had accommodated a series of “extraordinary conditions” imposed by Nevatim on the rental agreement, including certificates of good conduct from the police, a commitment to leave after a year, and limited access to the house’s extensive grounds.

But still Nevatim officials were dissatisfied, insisting in addition that the Tarabins submit to questioning by a vetting committee to assess their suitability. Although 40 other homes in Nevatim are rented, Mr Mahajneh said testimonies from past members of the vetting committee showed that this was the first time such a demand had been made.

“It is true that anyone buying a property in Nevatim is supposed to be vetted by the committee, but there is no reference in the community’s bylaws to this condition for renters,” Mr Mahajneh said.

In 2008, a district court judge in Beersheva overruled Nevatim’s new condition, arguing that the vetting requirement would be “unreasonable and not objective”. The supreme court judges, however, sided with Nevatim in their concluding statements on March 10.

Mrs Zakai said they had offered to rent their home to the Tarabins after the Bedouin couple’s home burnt down in their village in early 2007, killing one of their 10 children. The Tarabins have been living with relatives ever since, unable to afford a new home and keen to move away from the site of the tragedy.

Mr Tarabin, 54, said: “I want Khalas to rest and heal and this place would have been perfect for her. The house has large grounds and we could have kept to ourselves. No one in Nevatim needs to have anything to do with us if they don’t want.”

A Nevatim resident who spoke anonymously to the Haaretz newspaper last week suggested reasons for the community’s opposition: “If tomorrow the entire Tarabin tribe wants to live here and we don’t agree, what will people say? The problem will start after the first one comes because then dozens more families will want to move here.”

The close friendship forged between the Zakais and Tarabins is rare in Israel. The privileged status of Jews legally and economically, communal segregation and the hostility provoked by a larger national conflict between Israel and the Palestinians ensure that Jewish and Arab citizens usually remain at arm’s length.

But Mr Zakai, 53, whose parents emigrated from Iraq and who speaks fluent Arabic, befriended Mr Tarabin in the late 1960s when they were teenagers in Beersheva. Later they served together in the Israeli army as mechanical engineers.

Mrs Zakai said: “If Jews were being denied the right to live somewhere, it would be a scandal, but because our friends are Arabs no one cares.”

Avraham Orr, the Nevatim council head, denied that he was opposing the Tarabins’ admission because they are Arab. “There are rules,” he said. “Every family that wants to buy or rent a property must first go through the committee.”

Fearful of the implications of the Kaadan ruling, Jewish communities in the Galilee unveiled a new approach to barring Arab applicants last year. They introduced bylaws amounting to loyalty oaths that require applicants to pledge to support “Zionism, Jewish heritage and settlement of the land”.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.

[LiverpoolHibs]

That must have been the briefest and least-serious altercation there's ever been in international politics.

Massive U.S./Israeli arms deal. (http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1159155.html)

U.S. the only member of the UNHRC to vote against a motion condemning Israeli settlement building in the Occupied Territories. (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1158708.html)

[hibsbollah]

That must have been the briefest and least-serious altercation there's ever been in international politics.

Massive U.S./Israeli arms deal. (http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1159155.html)

U.S. the only member of the UNHRC to vote against a motion condemning Israeli settlement building in the Occupied Territories. (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1158708.html)


:grr:Joke.

I wonder what they mean by 'The aircrafts (sic) were manufactured specifically for Israeli needs'.

[LiverpoolHibs]

Youtube - Demonstration in Paris against the inauguration of 'Esplanade Ben Gurion'. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxUN6oX7Fgo)

The French know how to protest! :greengrin

[Betty Boop]

YouTube - ACTIONS contre Ben Gourion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxUN6oX7Fgo)

The French know how to protest! :greengrin

Well done the French! :greengrin

[LiverpoolHibs]

Max Blumenthal - Feeling the Hate in New York City (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R611drTEHPA)

****ing lunatics.

[One Day Soon]

Max Blumenthal - Feeling the Hate in New York City (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R611drTEHPA)

****ing lunatics.

The last time I heard lunatics like those they were demanding the elimination of Israel. Separated at birth perhaps?

[Betty Boop]

YouTube - Feeling the Hate in New York (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R611drTEHPA)

****ing lunatics.

:agree: Obama is a Muslim. :yawn:

[khib70]

YouTube - Feeling the Hate in New York (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R611drTEHPA)

****ing lunatics.


The last time I heard lunatics like those they were demanding the elimination of Israel. Separated at birth perhaps?
Agree with both of you.:greengrin

[(((Fergus)))]

:grr:Joke.

I wonder what they mean by 'The aircrafts (sic) were manufactured specifically for Israeli needs'.

"Israel insists on equipping all its aircraft with indigenously developed communications and self protection systems"
http://defense-update.com/newscast/0310/news/israel_c130j_26032010.html#more

Apparently this deal is awaiting 'political approval' anyway.

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2010/me_israel0265_03_31.asp

Will be interesting to see how Obama fares with Israel.