In the latest New Republic the Israeli historian Benny Morris raises my favorite issue, dual loyalty, this time with respect to Israeli Arabs. In rejecting author Tom Segev's likening of the Arab minority in Israel to blacks in the U.S. during the civil rights movement, Morris says the following:
Israel's Arabs were part of a people that had launched a war to destroy Israel in 1948 and continued guerrilla and terrorist warfare against Israel during the following decades... Is Africa besieging the United States and engaged in a war against it, with a putative African American fifth column within?
I take Morris's point. I imagine that a lot of the Arab citizens of Israel sympathize with/are fervent supporters of the Palestinians. Just as a lot of American Jews sympathize with/fervently support Israel. Hey, they're our people! That 1948 war was backed on the Jewish side by many Americans, some of whom sent illegal arms to Palestine. A fifth column indeed. This is the problem when you establish a religious state. You divide people according to religion and put a lien on American Jewish citizenship in this country.
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And of course, the real problem with Morris's account is that he twists the facts around to make it as if the Arabs started the war against Israel. The reality, of course, is that it was Israel that started planning a comprehensive campaign of ethnic cleansing since the late 1930's, which Morris himself has gone a long way to illustrate and document. The real smoking gun documentation work, of course, was done by Ilan Pappe in his latest book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine (see excerpts here: link to 71.18.226.238
It always amuses me how Morris can ALWAYS continue to parrot the line of the 'Arabs started it all' and attacked Israel for no reason but their pure anti-Semitic Muslim fundamentalism, in spite of the fact that he did so much to prove the opposite of it. His scholarship speaks volumes and he provides all the evidence, but then backs down and continues to parrot the official Israeli propaganda line.
By that respect, of course, the Palestinian become really different from what Morris portrays them to be. Yes, not exactly like African Americans, but in an even worse situation than South African blacks, and closer to Native Americans.
Before the establishment of Israel it was the Jews who were referred to has Palestinians. The Arabs were part of the larger Arab mass. It was the Palestine Post and the United Palestine Appeal. But I digress, read Mark Twains account of his travels there in the late 19th century. Or perhaps the desecration of jewish religious sites. Or perhaps the mufti hanging out Berling during the war. Or perhaps the 1929 massacres in Hebron. And for a people that contend genocide and ethnic cleansing how come their population rises at a geometric rate. The fact is that compared to multiple other peoples the Palestinians are incredibly coddled and it's for one reason, OIL. Without that the Arab world wold be ignored and allowed to thrash around in its ignorance, honor killings, and blood feuds.
Before the establishment of Israel, Palestinians referred to themselves as Palestinians. Their national movement goes back into the late 19th century. They don't "count" for Pearlman, so what Palestinians wrote and said about their cause is irrelevant to his argument. Pearlman can claim the Palestinians are "coddled," (if they're coddled, I'd sure like to see what 'uncoddled' would look like–maybe a full fledged massacre of 3.5 million in the West Bank brought to the world by US F-16s?) because like many who open their mouths on Palestinians, he's never been to the West Bank, nor lived under Israeli occupation.
As for being coddled by "The Arabs," in fact, the Palestinians have not been treated well by "moderate" Arab states, particularly Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon but also the Gulf States for whom the Palestinians have always been a nuisance, since their citzens sympathize with them and disagree with the way Arab leaders give in to D.C. to stay in power over their people.
No, the Arab world has failed the Palestinians and ignored its own public opinion for the sake of currying favor with D.C. and now Tel Aviv.
Just not true free speech lover. The Palestinian designation is recent, dating from the establishment of Israel and particularly from the establishment of the PLO. Which was in 1964, 3yrs before the six day war and when the "territories" were under Arab control. They are the highest per capita aid recipients in the world and a subject of obsessive interest from the UN and the world media. Their are multiple peoples who would love to switch places with them. However, their opposition is the Jews. And that makes all the difference. Both in world opinion and what Israel is willing to do when fighting them
The Palestinian paper al-Karmil founded in 1908 refers to the native population of Palestinians from the first issues in 1908. Palestinians founded the paper al-Filastin in 1911.
Bill Pearlman differs in no major way from apologists for German Nazism that deny genocide during WW2. In fact, he corresponds to the most vile group of German Nazis that used to engage in pilpul as whether Jews constituted a Nichtvolk (not-people) or a Gegenvolk (anti-people).
Liberal German Nazis were willing to accept the idea that Jews were a Volk just as liberal Zionists concede that a Palestinian nation exists. And just as liberal German Nazis rejected the rights of Jews in their native countries in Europe, liberal Zionists have been happy to deprive Palestinians of their fundamental human rights in Palestine.
How does one know that a Zionist is lying?
He is breathing.
BTW, Safidean can probably confirm, but I have yet to meet an Israeli Palestinian that identified himself or herself primarily as an Israeli Arab. The nomenclature "Israeli Arab" is Zionist terminology.
Here is my Timeline of Zionist Crimes and Arab Reaction: link to members.aol.com
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No question about it, Israeli Arab is a bullshit term. There Palestinians, enemy collaberators and combatants. And I'm not saying that there isn't a Palestinian identity now, no question about it, there is. However, it goes back no longer than 60 yrs and really more like 45. The idea that this is some sort of great ancient culture is crap. And in fact the Romans changed the name of the area from Judea to Palestina. Which if that didn't happen would make Joechem a Judean I suppose. The Palesinians are incredibly coddled in comparison to numerous other peoples and again, put the oil reserves someplace else and nobody, and I mean nobody would give a shit
Palestinian Muslim culture is almost certainly a direct evolution of the Jamesian Christianity of the Judean, Galilean, Samarian and Edomite peasantry of the 2nd and 3rd century CE.
I discuss the James Christian aspect of Islam in link to eaazi.blogspot.com
. (I can't get the homily to format properly in this blog.)
Geary discusses the reuse of gentilics by unrelated populations in The Myth of Nations. A more complete discussion would have addressed the projection of modern national terminology backwards in time for legitimacy as well as the occasional renaming of ethnic, tribal, regional or national groups.
Here is my guide to discussing ethnic Ashkenazim and Israel.
How to talk about Zionism, a new improved guide
http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2007/04/how-to-talk-about-zionism-new-improved.html
While Israeli law is generally phrased with the use of the terms Jew or Jewish people,(*) Zionism is almost wholly a production of ethnic Ashkenazim.(**) Polish or Russian Jews of Tatar/Turkic, Persian or Georgian ethnicity were not involved in the development of Zionist ideology and generally have not gotten along particularly well with ethnic Ashkenazim even if in recent times racist ethnic Ashkenazim have managed to co-opt, recruit and enmesh Jews of other ethnicities into Zionist crimes.
The point is important because Zionist propaganda reinterprets the Ashkenazi ethnic group as the pan-Judaic ethnonational group in order to make a ridiculous primordialist claim to Palestine just as German Nazi propaganda equated modern Germans to ancient Teutonic and Gothic tribes in order to claim that only pure Germans had a right to reside in German territories. Neither primordialist claim has a shred of truth, but it is worthwhile to remember that the basic ideas of both German Nazi and also Zionist primordialism developed together in the common fields of Central and Eastern European blood and soil nationalism. The poisonous weeds of German Nazism and Zionism cross fertilized each other.
Modern Germans probably have more Celtic, Slavic and Turkic ancestry than they have ancient Teutonic or ancient Gothic ancestry.
Ethnic Ashkenazim have no ancestral connection to Palestine. The culture, language and religion of Roman period Palestinian Galileans, Judeans and Idumeans were completely unlike those of modern ethnic Ashkenazim.
Progressives should not give any legitimacy to Zionist (really ethnic Ashkenazi Nazi) terminology by using the racist language of Zionism. In 1948 racist ethnic Ashkenazim stole Palestine with concommittant plundering and ethnic cleansing of the native Palestinian population. Today, racist ethnic Ashkenazim and racist Zionist colonizers manipulate the US political system to the detriment of the USA for the sake of Israel. These racists squander American wealth and lives to the benefit of their racist tribalism.
Avoiding the terms Jew, Jewish, Judaism etc. provides many benefits.
Ignorant Christians often believe that because the foregoing terms have some sort of etymological relationship to Judea, Jews have some sort of overriding right to claim Palestine. The idea is moronic because the use of the term Roman in Roman Catholic certainly does not give Roman Catholic Irish the right to steal Rome from the residents of Rome.
Furthermore, when people argue that all decent people should criticize, oppose and denounce racist Jews for what they do (stealing Palestine or supporting the theft of Palestine), many worry that such criticism comes too close to criticizing Jews for being Jews, which is a bad thing. When people argue that all decent people should criticize racist Ashkenazim and racist Zionist colonizers for what they do (stealing Palestine or supporting the theft of Palestine), there is no difference between such criticism and the criticism of German racists during the 30s and 40s for ethnic cleansing, invading Poland, and mass murdering. Most people consider criticism of German racists and German Nazis at that time period to have been a good thing. Likewise today criticizing ethnic Ashkenazi racists and Zionist colonizers is also a good thing. Everyone should do it (especially antiracist ethnic Ashkenazim, who can neutralize bogus accusations of anti-Semitism by taking the vanguard position in demanding the abolition of the State of Israel and the eradication of Zionism/ethnic Ashkenazi Nazism).
(*) In a similar fashion German Nazi law was usually phrased with the use of the terms Aryan or Aryan race. Modern Israeli Hebrew does not make a distinction between people or race, and the words used correspond best to German Volk.
(**) Likewise German Nazism was almost wholly a production of ethnic Germans and not every group that the German Nazis defined to be Aryans. Houston Stewart Chamberlain is one of those few non-Germans (actually half Germans) that made a fairly large contribution to German Nazi thinking. The Polish nationalist poet Mickiewicz made some similar and early contributions to Zionist thinking among ethnic Ashkenazim. Just as Chamberlain had some German ancestry, Mickiewicz had some ethnic Ashkenazi ancestry, but it is not hard to find cases of wholly non-German individuals that supported German Nazism as well as wholly non-Jewish people that support Zionism. During the 30s German Nazis that sympathized with Zionism and Zionists that sympathized with German Nazism were not uncommon.
The Zionist Myth of the Renaming of Palestine
When I last visited Nablus in Samaria, I saw early 1st century epigraphy that used Eretz Plishtim to designate at least Samaria and probably the whole region associated with the Hasmonean and Herodian kingdoms.
In other words the term Palestine must correspond to a region far larger than the area Philistia in the map at link to en.wikipedia.org
. [Note that Nablus (Greek Neapolis) corresponds to the city designated Shechem on the map.]
In general when we look at the usages in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Assyrian, and Egyptian, we must conclude that Palestine has been for the most part the normal terminology for the last two millennia for the region currently wrongfully held by the State of Israel (timah shmah).
Eretz Yisrael has only limited theological significance, and the attempt by Zionists to rename the region Eretz Yisrael in non-religious contexts is an exercise in Zionist hasbarah (propaganda) or — to be more precise — creative pseudononomatology.
Phil,
This is somewhat off-base, but have you read Shlomo Ben Ami's "Scars of War, Wounds of Peace"? Definitely the most insightful history of the Arab-Israeli conflict I've ever read. His discussion of the Six-Day War is far more sophisticated than Benny Morris' polemic.