Last week I blogged about Commentary’s piece denying the Nakba, which was underwritten by the chairman of the New-York Historical Society– a landmark of Nakba denial, published in what was once a glory of Jewish intellectual tradition: Commentary, the magazine I grew up with, stacks of it, my parents didn’t throw it away. The article demonstrates how fealty to Israel is eroding Jewish intelligence, as it has forced some of the smartest people on the planet to devote themselves to alchemy, coming up with elaborate proofs that black is white.
One paragraph that particularly disturbed me said that "huge numbers of Palestinian Arabs were being actively driven [Commentary's emphasis] from their homes by their own leaders and/or by Arab military forces.. In Jaffa, Palestine’s largest Arab city, the [Arab] municipality organized the transfer of thousands of residents by land and sea…" In making this assertion, author Efraim Karsh denied the New Standard View, that the Zionists forced the Palestinians from Jaffa. He offered no evidence.
Having just attended a speech on the Nakba by Lila Abu-Lughod, an eminent anthropologist at Columbia University, in which she stated that her father had been "driven" out of Jaffa by Zionists, I posted about the Commentary piece, and a couple days later Commentary published an annotated version online, including the following footnote to support Karsh’s claim re Jaffa:
See, for example, Qiryati-Dafna to all fronts, “Occurrences in Jaffa,[Apr.] 11, 1948-[Apr.] 20, 0740,” May 2, 1948, IDFA 1949/8275/162; Palestine (Cunningham) to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, May 1, 1948, FO 371/68547/E5665/4/71.
The first citation is a document in the Israel Defense Forces Archives, the second in British Foreign Office records. I have no idea what these documents say. One question I’d raise off the bat is that the first refers to events in Jaffa between April 11 and 20. The crucial days in the emptying of Jaffa were after April 23… I urge Commentary to publish these documents in full, in the name of transparency.
I am not a scholar of the Nakba, I just rattle around on-line. The most outrageous element of Karsh’s piece was his contempt for Arab informants; they don’t seem to count as witnesses for him. Going round the internet, I can show you two sources for my belief that Arabs were driven out of Jaffa by Zionist forces.
Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, a leading Palestinian scholar now deceased, whose experience his daughter Lila Abu-Lughod cited at that lecture, offers the following story of his boyhood:
After the exams ended [at the beginning of April 1948] and we were free, some of the students volunteered to work for the National Committee [the Palestinian leadership body]. The committee had decided to levy a tax on every family who insisted on leaving. [emphasis mine] … I worked in a branch of the committee based in the headquarters of the Muslim Youth Association near the port of Jaffa. Our job consisted mainly of harassing people to dissuade them from leaving, and when they insisted, we would begin bargaining over what they should pay, according to how much luggage they were carrying with them and how many members of the family there were. At first we set the taxes high. Then as the situation deteriorated, we reduced the rates, especially when our friends and relatives began to be among those leaving.
We continued collecting this tax until 23 April, when the combined force of the Haganah and the Irgun succeeded in defeating the Arab forces stationed in the Manshiya quarter adjacent to Southern Tel-Aviv. On that day, as we realized that an attack on the center of Jaffa was imminent, I and my family decided that they had to be evacuated temporarily. We rented a van, into which we crammed all the women and young children and sent them to Nablus. I and my elder brother Yehia remained behind to defend our city.
Leaving the city had become difficult, as the Haganah had cut the land road, and the only way out was the sea with all its risks.
Abu-Lughod’s daughter Lila,
the professor of anthropology, states in the Jerusalem Quarterly that "great panic" began in Jaffa after news
reached the city of the massacre
at the village of Deir Yassin, on April 9, in which over 100
Arab civilians were killed by the Zionist Irgun.
Here is another piece, from Shukri Salameh, who I gather was an office worker:
Every night [in spring 1948, apparently] we woke up at the sound of shooting coming from the Eastern and Southern borders of Jaffa, i.e. from the directions of Agro-Bank and Bat Yam, Jewish Settlements. Sometimes it seemed so close to us that we had to sleep on the floor. Occasionally in the daytime Yvonne, my wife, picked up large bullets stuck on the outside of our stucco walls.
At about 4.00 a.m. on 25 April there was a distant sound of bomb explosions from different directions of Jaffa. With the beginning of daylight the sound was becoming louder. My younger clerk had ventured downtown to explore but soon came back with a shrapnel wound in his right thigh. It was not too deep and we administered first aid to the cut. He told us that mortar bombs were dropping on the center of town including some residential areas. The bombs were coming from Tel-Aviv and Agro Bank and Bat Yam Jewish settlements. I contacted our travel agent who had made flight reservations for us from Lydda airport to Cairo. His wife was also scheduled to fly with us. He said all flights were suspended indefinitely. Then I decided to drive out of the city in my car. Our target was Amman, Transjordan, where my brother had moved his family temporarily. I drove to the house of Edmond Rock, the Honorary Consul of Transjordan to obtain visas to enter the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan. He readily stamped our passports, whereupon I made two attempts to drive out of the City and twice mortar bombs exploded on the highway in front of us which compelled me to make a U-turn and head back home.
I drove to the safer sea harbor area and found a couple of hundred people assembled there with suit-cases and bundles of clothes. They were in a state of panic hoping that some boat would sail into the harbor and take them out. Among them were a few friends who approached our car and asked if we wanted to be included in lists they were preparing. My wife adamantly refused as she feared the sea. I drove back home and later I joined a couple of prominent figures to call Mr. Crosby, the British District Commissioner and ask if the British had already decided to surrender Jaffa as they seemed to have done with Haifa some two weeks earlier. [The Brits still were the authority in Palestine, for 2 more weeks]…
The thumping sound of mortar explosions was gradually becoming more distant. In the evening there was complete silence, but the experience had planted a sense of fear and despair in the hearts of everyone. We hardly slept that night and early in the morning I drove off with my wife and baby daughter out of the City along the only highway that leads to Sarafand and Ramleh. This was the main route to Jerusalem. As we passed in front of the Neter Jewish Agricultural Settlement we saw a large group at the entrance gazing at all the fleeing cars and trucks and laughing.
There is one question for Commentary. On what basis did it dismiss these readily-available statements?
P.S. I’m inaugurating a new category: Jaffa. Jaffa was once the largest Arab
city in Palestine, home to 70,000 Arabs, the heart of Palestinian
culture right on the Mediterranean next to the new Jewish city of Tel
Aviv. Jaffa was so Arab it was designated an Arab enclave inside the Jewish state under the ‘47 U.N. Partition plan. I’m interested in other statements about what happened there during the Nakba.
Related posts:
- Rima Bordcosh’s Memories of Her Family’s Flight From Jaffa in ‘48
- Jaffa Is Still Contested Space (Even in Jewish Hearts and Minds)
- ‘Commentary’: ‘Nakba’ Is Arabic for ‘Picnic’
- ‘Commentary’ Shows Fairness to Two Critics of Israel
- In ‘1948′ History, Benny Morris Cites Only Israeli Sources for Atrocities at Deir Yassin and Jaffa
{ 28 comments }
Arabs drove out Jews (or, "ethnically cleansed them") from Hevron partially in 1929, and totally in 1936; Arabs drove Jews out of Gaza in 1936; Arabs drove Jews out of Gush Etzion in 1948; Arabs drove Jews out of the Old City in Jerusalem in 1948; Arabs drove Jews out of Beit Ha'arava in 1948; Arabs drove Jews out of Atarot in 1948; Arabs drove Jews out of Kfar Darom in 1948; Arabs drove Jews out of Shechem (Nablus) in 1936, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Karsh also denied that Zionist leaders in the 1930s and 40s were thinking of transfer. Benny Morris wrote a propos of this: “Karsh can shout until he is blue in the face that the Zionist leaders in the 1930s and 1940s rejected all thought of transfer: Mountains of evidence speak to the contrary.”
Don't forget the covenant they have entered into with Janus.
Slightly off topic,or is it?
http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0820,home-alone-mdash-with-medicaid-fraudsters,440951,4.html
village voice > news > Home Alone—With Medicaid Fraudsters by Tom Robbins
"What's more interesting are some of the characters alleged to be at the top of the food chain in the home-care fraud schemes. This month, Cuomo brought his biggest case yet, charging a Brooklyn firm called B&H Healthcare Services, doing business as Nursing Personnel Home Care, with having bilked the state out of at least $30 million in bogus Medicaid billings.
Cuomo filed a criminal indictment—alleging grand larceny and fraud—against the company and its president, a man named Walter Greenfeld. He simultaneously filed a civil suit in State Supreme Court asking for treble damages against the company (that would be $90 million), and named the firm's officers and shareholders as defendants.
Here's one of the interesting aspects of the civil suit: Several of the shareholders identified in the lawsuit have the same last names—Schreiber and Goldstein—as the two principal officers of B&H Photo, the giant camera retailer on Ninth Avenue. Moreover, according to Cuomo's complaint, B&H Home Health Care/Nursing Personnel for some reason paid more than $2 million to B&H Photo.Then there's the fact that the biggest owner in B&H/Nursing Personnel, according to the complaint, is a major political contributor named Isaac "Yitzchok" Schwartz, who lives on Rodney Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and holds 40 percent of the company.
Schwartz is well known in political circles as a generous donor to campaigns. He has mostly kept a low profile, but his picture got snapped in 1996 when he showed up at LaGuardia Airport with leaders of Williamsburg's Hasidic community to welcome then–Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole and escort him to a Brooklyn fundraiser."
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/bassem_naeem/2008/05/hamas_condemns_the_holocaust.html
Hamas condemns the Holocaust
We are not engaged in a religious conflict with Jews; this is a political struggle to free ourselves from occupation and oppression
Bassem Naeem
All Bassem Naeem articles
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May 12, 2008 2:30 PM | Printable version
As the Palestinian people prepare to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nakba ("catastrophe") – the dispossession and expulsion of most of our people from our land – those remaining in Palestine face escalating aggression, killings, imprisonment, ethnic cleansing and siege. But instead of support and solidarity from the western media, we face frequent attempts to defend the indefensible or turn fire on the Palestinians themselves.
One recent approach, which seems to be part of the wider attempt to isolate the elected Palestinian leadership, is to portray Hamas and the population of the Gaza strip as motivated by anti-Jewish sentiment, rather than a hostility to Zionist occupation and domination of our land. A recent front page article in the International Herald Tribune followed this line, as did an article for Cif about an item broadcast on the al-Aqsa satellite TV channnel about the Nazi Holocaust.
Speaking of Palestinians, eat your heart out Phil, Mondo Weiss Boy just scored a major interview with Norman G. Finkelstein.
An Interview With Professor Norman G. Finkelstein
http://homo-sapien-underground.blogspot.com/2008/05/interview-with-professor-norman-g.html
Bar Kochba wrote:"Arabs drove out Jews (or, "ethnically cleansed them") from Hevron partially in 1929, and totally in 1936; Arabs drove Jews out of Gaza in 1936; Arabs drove Jews out of Gush Etzion in 1948; Arabs drove Jews out of the Old City in Jerusalem in 1948; Arabs drove Jews out of Beit Ha'arava in 1948; …" etc.etc.
So it was in fact the Jews who were ethnically cleansed from Israel. Would your source for these extraordinary statements by any chance be Mr.Efraim Karsh?
Arie Brand, I don't know how you are, but the fact that ethnic cleansing was practiced by both sides is pretty much indisputable. Uri Avnery, for one,says so. Yes, some Jews – about 10,000 – were ethnically cleansed from some territories in the Palestine during the War of Independence. Yes, this is much less than the number of Arabs who were ethnically cleansed (this number is disputed, but it is probably in the hundreds of thousands; those that left on their own accord – out of fear or whatever – for the most part were not allowed to return.) I can see in your comment the same disrespect and denial of some people's misery and the drive to claim exclusive victimhood as employed by the ardent Naqba deniers and Zionist apologists.
by defintion a zionist is a liar. by training a zionist is a liar. by
term 'zionist' is used in the west, esp, the usa. i think mainly to conceal the important zionists – jewry. antijew to say jews.
israelis dont refer to themselves as 'zionist'. the word has little meaning there.
"Yes, some Jews – about 10,000 – were ethnically cleansed from some territories in the Palestine during the War of Independence."
"Ethnically cleansed" means permanently removed. Are you telling me that the great majority of these Jews couldn't get back to the place they allegedly had initially been removed from, as happened to the Arabs?
To whine about the temporary dislocation of a comparatively small groups of Jews in the face of the massive injustice inflicted on the Arabs strikes me as grotesque.
And the Arabs 'left on their own accord' did they? And during 'the war of independence'? The very fact that you chose these formulations betrays unfailingly where you are coming from.
Your moralizing about 'disrespect' etc.and your pretence to stand above the parties will not hide it.
from basem naeem:
"As the Palestinian people prepare to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Nakba ("catastrophe") – the dispossession and expulsion of most of our people from our land – those remaining in Palestine face escalating aggression, killings, imprisonment, ethnic cleansing and siege. But instead of support and solidarity from the western media, we face frequent attempts to defend the indefensible or turn fire on the Palestinians themselves.
One recent approach, which seems to be part of the wider attempt to isolate the elected Palestinian leadership, is to portray Hamas and the population of the Gaza strip as motivated by anti-Jewish sentiment, rather than a hostility to Zionist occupation and domination of our land. A recent front page article in the International Herald Tribune followed this line, as did an article for Cif about an item broadcast on the al-Aqsa satellite TV channnel about the Nazi Holocaust.
In fact, the al-Aqsa Channel is an independent media institution that often does not express the views of the Palestinian government headed by Ismail Haniyeh or of the Hamas movement. The channel regularly gives Palestinians of different convictions the chance to express views that are not shared by the Palestinian government or the Hamas movement. In the case of the opinion expressed on al-Aqsa TV by Amin Dabbur, it is his alone and he is solely responsible for it.
It is rather surprising to us that so little attention, if any, is given by the western media to what is regularly broadcast or written in the Israeli media by politicians and writers demanding the total uprooting or "transfer" of the Palestinian people from their land.
The Israeli media and pro-Israel western press are full of views that deny or seek to excuse well-established facts of history including the Nakba of 1948 and the massacres perpetrated then by the Haganah, the Irgun and LEHI with the objective of forcing a mass dispossession of the Palestinians.
But it should be made clear that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian government in Gaza denies the Nazi Holocaust. The Holocaust was not only a crime against humanity but one of the most abhorrent crimes in modern history. We condemn it as we condemn every abuse of humanity and all forms of discrimination on the basis of religion, race, gender or nationality.
And at the same time as we unreservedly condemn the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews of Europe, we categorically reject the exploitation of the Holocaust by the Zionists to justify their crimes and harness international acceptance of the campaign of ethnic cleansing and subjection they have been waging against us – to the point where in February the Israeli deputy defence minister Matan Vilnai threatened the people of Gaza with a "holocaust".
Within 24 hours, 61 Palestinians – more than half of them civilians and a quarter children – were killed in a series of air raids. Meanwhile, a horrible crime against humanity continues to be perpetrated against the people of Gaza:…"
speaking of finkelstein(lwb).
i think he was a willing zionist sacrifice as a warning to others.
he hits the right buttons re israel, but his solutions dovetail with israeli solutions.
as lwb indicates in his satire, finkelstein is probably wealthy from depaul. he was helped in this by power brokers putting pressure on the univ. in addition to his departure wealth, he writes books and gives speeches(how much per?).
at the same time finkel was getting rich, another professor(cant remember name) at depaul was terminated with zilch. same at new york schools. why?
they werent parts of a strategy.
If you check the Western news archives you will see that beginning sometime in 1948 it was the Palestinians who suddenly became the "terrorists" in "all the news fit to print." Prior thereto, in the USA & England, it was the reverse in the main. That's what's such a horrible joke about "the war on terra" –and other mind constricts, like the historically misleading "Islamofascists" branding.
Here's a question for you all:
Why did Britain refuse to recognize Israel for almost two years, while Truman needed only 11 minutes?
Free Speech & Democracy in action.
Here's another question:
What prompted the Balfour Declaration, and why did American doughboys go "over there?"
And how was WW11 directly related to the Versailles Treaty following WW1?
And how did American hegemony after WW2 directly relate
to the American neocon's doctrine, taking a page from Hitler and Mao in terms of revolution sprouting from the barrel of a gun?
I am starting to wonder about a certain type of mistakes, wondering the mistake-surface is not simply an easy denial layer, and that the mistakes are carefully grafted perception management. OK, I may be going to far. But then? It comes from the Pipes distribution networks.
http://www.meforum.org/article/1886
Review of: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappé… by Seth J. Frantzman
http://www.meforum.org/article/1886
… [Pappé] left Haifa University in 2007 after the exposure of his research errors undercut his master's thesis and his endorsement of the British boycott of Israeli universities prompted the president of the university to call for his resignation.[8]
Exposure of what? Errors in Pappé's master's thesis? How many of the readers are familiar with the case?
So far, as Finkelstein before, I had not touched Pappé's books. The controversy put me off. As with Finkelstein before, this will change now!
Here the article the note alludes to:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=167664
Very easy today, dear Seth Frantzman. ;)
Arie Brand, take time to read even some basic info on the conflict. To ask whether Jews could return to the places they were driven from in 1948 is like to ask what year it is. If you don't know, these places were occupied by Jordan. So, no, Jews could not return there. None, nil, zero.
You say "To whine about the temporary dislocation of a comparatively small groups of Jews in the face of the massive injustice inflicted on the Arabs strikes me as grotesque."
Were did I whine, exactly? I was pointing out that the events in question happened. And it was I who stressed that a much larger number of Arabs were driven out. The fact that many left "on their own accord" is also indisputable – they say so themselves. "On their own accord" in itself is not satisfactory – that's why I stressed that the one motivation was fear, just s I stressed that they – most of them, at least, were not allowed to return once the hostilities were over.
Pick your fights, Arie, I am mostly on your side, but if you want your arguments to be convincing you cannot go to one extreme lie to eradicate another.
Hmmm? One of my characteristic traits is that when I find mistakes, I subconsciously seems to take care to make one myself.
OK. this was not quite the article alluded to.
But, still: I never heard or read of Pappé being accused of errors in "his" thesis. I am open to corrections as Wikipedia seems to be. But sources please! Should be listed under education, no???
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilan_Papp%C3%A9
In case somebody wants to alert Ilan to this "libel" it feels, I don't have much time:
http://www.ilanpappe.org/
Before I have gone again.
Liberal White Boy: "Fake it till we make it!" ;):-):)
The truth is, most Germans did not oppose Hitler's government, most Jews did not deny, do not deny what their government has done to the Palestinians since 1948, most Americans, did not, do not deny Bushco & the neocons' disposal of their national wealth and prestige–it's just a question of whining about the bad implementation and escalating price.
As for the majority of Arabs in all Arab lands, they are not even allowed to whine in semi-public.
I wonder what Asia is thinking about all this? With its track record, its pretty horrifying for things to come.
Still here so one please allow one last note. In between doing the really nasty job of filing papers, mountains of paper.
********************************************
"… at the same time finkel was getting rich, another professor(cant remember name) at depaul was terminated with zilch. same at new york schools. why?
they werent parts of a strategy."
dancer, this is plain silly.
and pure speculation, ask a lawyer like Charles, what the percentages are if you are surrender too fast. What the rates are before the final edict, yes there was a "provable" campaign, which was denied by DePaul. Against the official positions, he would have needed evidence. How do you prove a phone call by Dershowitz? And what does that prove. There was a conversation, but what exactly did they talk about?
I think he surrendered when he realized what an emotional burden a fight over several years would mean, and how much of his forces it would swallow. Apart from the money, it would have cost him.
Can you imagine he actually loved to be a teacher? he loved the exchange, he loved to watch people develop a path of their own. Loved to read the occasional gem in the mass of the ever equal of student's papers.
Love usually is a two way road: If his students loved him he loved them, in his own ways, or put another way: he loved teaching.
LeaNder | May 15, 2008 at 09:56 AM
of course this is speculation on my part.
but:
all finkel's solutions are israeli. and..(repeat'g)
in addition to his departure wealth, he writes books and gives speeches(how much per?).
at the same time finkel was getting rich, another professor(cant remember name) at depaul was terminated with zilch. same at new york schools. why?
WHY?
and you ignore the pressure on depaul from zionist/jewry. what was negotiated? they negotiated for finkel. yes, to remove him but that was the strategy. he is a warning to all others who care for their jobs. but others will not receive a 'package'.
If Finkelstein had launched a political fight to save his job he would have placed himself in the role of a victim being persecuted for his views. I think at a very deep emotional level he does not view himself as a victim nor does he want to portray himself as such.
He had a great case and I was surprised when he refused to pursue it.
"I think at a very deep emotional level he does not view himself as a victim nor does he want to portray himself as such."
**He had a great case and I was surprised when he refused to pursue it.**
Posted by: syvanen | May 15, 2008 at 10:32 AM
maybe rationalizing for NF?
he did have a good cause, but he is to serve as a warning and jewish power negotiated his severance pkge.
There's a lot to say about LeaNder's observation. It's not always in one's most practical long term interest (net cash value & net emotional stress value) to fight the main status quo apparatus.
I think Finklestein just wanted to survive with some energy and economic means to continue his fight for truth and justice. It's helpful to keep in mind the dug in powerful prevailing status quo array. Think of a progressive "house husband" fighting for equal treatment regarding child custody and support in 1970 USA.
One only has so many years in one's life.
i think nf is a a zionist and part of the team. only zionists and the ignorant would deny that a genocide is taking place against the palestinians. NFs other comments are ludicrous or deceiving.
interview with n. finkelstein at counterpunch.org by jelle bruinsma:
January 5 / 6, 2008
"Are American Jews Beginning to Distance Themselves from Israel?
Norman Finkelstein in The Netherlands
By JELLE BRUINSMA
On the 5th and 6th of December Norman Finkelstein toured the Netherlands and gave three speeches. I attended all of them, and in the meanwhile had the opportunity to ask Finkelstein some questions. What follows is a summary of his speeches and the interview.
The topic of his first speech, in Amsterdam, was 'The coming break-up of American Zionism.'
In a surprisingly optimistic lecture he talked about the demise of the Israel-lobby, that began after the first Intifada. Ever since it has become more and more difficult to reconcile liberal values with Israel and American Jewry is forced to choose. Historians, human-rights organizations and the International Court of Justice have all rendered an overwhelmingly negative verdict on Israel's record. Now that Israel's record has caught up with it, American Jewry is slowly choosing to distance itself from Israel.
But we're nevertheless only at the beginning of the demise of American Zionism, and the reality on the ground has not yet changed for the better. One frightful reminder of the current situation: in the previous year 457 Palestinians have died as a result of the conflict, in comparison to 10 Israelis. But this is also where the problem is: no one knows the record. The public needs to know the record, and it will become clear that this is probably one of the simplest conflicts to solve today, were it not that one side is supported by the United States. Therefore it is also absurd that the United States is holding a so-called 'peace conference', while it is the main obstacle to peace.
The situation in Gaza, in the meanwhile, is turning ever more horrible. Richard Falk warned of a Palestinian Holocaust, and Ilan Pappe said a genocide was taking place.
Finkelstein: "Everything doesn't have to be a Nazi Holocaust or genocide for it to be awful. There are conditions short of genocide which are also terrible. I think the Palestinians rations are being cruelly reduced to get them to repudiate Hamas. Is it the Holocaust, is it a genocide? No in my opinion it's not. Is it horrible? Yeah, I think it's horrible. I think it's better to avoid the labels and just stick to the facts. This is what's happening. This is what the human rights organizations are reporting, this is what the UN organizations are reporting. Is this right, is it just, is it collective punishment, is it terrorism, i.e., the targeting of civilians to achieve a political aim? People are intelligent enough to draw the right conclusions on their own."
And how far does the influence of the Israel-lobby reach in all of this?
Mearsheimer and Walt argue that the Israel-lobby is the strongest factor in U.S. support for Israeli policy and that it was also the major factor in the decision to invade Iraq.
Finkelstein: "Well, to begin with, there is no necessary connection, obviously, between the two. The lobby can be influential on the question of Israel and not be influential on the question of Iraq. So we should start out with making the point that it doesn't have to be a question of either/or [see also Finkelstein's article 'The Israel Lobby. It's not either/or', Counterpunch May 1 2006]. There's obviously a middle position that's possible. It influences some things but not all things. And that's my impression from going through the record.
"I have examined some instances close up. So let me give you a concrete example. Consider what happened on the question of the U.S. position on a full Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied in June 1967. Right after the June 1967 war the United States supported the position of a full Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied. Arthur Goldberg, who was the US representative at the UN, made several statements during the deliberations in the General Assembly, saying that one condition for resolving the conflict is a full Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied.
"Then, when the UN General Assembly was unable to reach a resolution on the conflict, it moved to the Security Council. At this point the lobby, Israel's supporters in the US, went into action. Pressure came to be exerted on President Johnson not to support a full Israeli withdrawal. And that's why in the famous resolution 242 it doesn't say Israeli withdrawal from all the territories. It says "from territories," although in its totality the resolution does call for full withdrawal. But the U.S. conceded to Israel some linguistic wiggle room which it then exploited.
"There you see a clear-cut case where the US partly reversed its position on a crucial question, the resolution setting the terms for resolving the conflict, because of the pressure exerted by the lobby. So I think that if you look through the record you will find many instances including those documented by Mearsheimer and Walt where the lobby went into action when the US tried to resolve the conflict in ways Israel opposed.
"Then when you turn to regional questions like Iraq and Iran, where major US interests are at stake, it is different. (Fundamental interests are not at stake in the question of Israel-Palestine. The US has an interest, but it's not a major interest.) But when you talk about Iraq, Iran, you're talking about oil, you're talking about regional domination. And there the Israel-factor is not significant at all. It is very striking, I have now read all the books on the decision-making leading to the war in Iraq. You can name around four or five. We don't have yet a diplomatic record, we don't have a documentary record. You have the books by Richard Clarke, Craig Unger, George Tenet, Bob Woodward, and so on. You look at all of them, there is no evidence that Israel was a factor at all. Ok, Clarke lists it as one of five factors. But nobody has named it as a significant factor in US decision-making in going to war. Everyone agrees, there's no dispute, the main architects of the war were Rumsfeld and Cheney.
"If you look at Mearsheimer and Walt, they don't argue that Cheney and Rumsfeld are part of the lobby or that they are stupid. And they don't deny that Cheney and Rumsfeld were the main architects of the war. So what are you left with? The only possible way to reconcile the reality with their thesis, is that these neoconservatives – Wolfowitz, Libby, Feith, Wurmser – had to have tricked and duped Cheney and Rumsfeld. That's not very plausible. In addition, according to Mearsheimer and Walt, the neoconservatives are out there working for Israel, it's not hidden. They cite statements by Wolfowitz and Libby. They mention they won all of these awards from Israel-lobbyists, for their work on behalf of Israel. So now you have to bear in mind, the neoconservatives worked with Cheney for 20 years. They were his immediate subordinates, people like Wolfowitz. He knew them like the back of his hands. So what you're know saying is, if Mearsheimer and Walt are correct, that Cheney and Rumsfeld hired de facto agents of a foreign government who then tricked them into involving themselves in a war which didn't serve any American interest but served Israeli interest. "
And what to do about the occupation? Boycott Israeli academia?
"I see arguments on both sides. I'm pretty pragmatic on that question. The occupation is forty years old. We have to end it. If the boycott's going to help, in principle I'm not opposed to it. But in politics, I think, the best strategy is always the line of least resistance. The boycott raised, for some people, complicated questions of principles of freedom of speech, academic freedom and so forth. I happen not to be impressed with them, but I recognize it creates a more complicated question. And my view is to look for targets that are easier.
I thought a very good target was the issue of the wall. If the Palestinian leadership had a drop of intelligence (I'm not talking about the people, the people are perfectly intelligent) and if they were committed to being leaders, not just being collaborators of the Americans, once they had that wall advisory opinion [by the International Court of Justice] you organize several hundred thousand Palestinians, just with picks and hammers and we're going to the wall and knocking it down; the international court said, the wall has to be dismantled, we're simply enforcing the court's decision.
"Israel would have had a terrible time. If it starts shooting at the demonstrators, the Palestinians hold up this document, the World Court opinion. This is what the opinion says, the wall has to be dismantled. And all the attention is going to turn to the World Court. What's the World Court going to say? Well, it's true, that's what we've said, the wall has to be dismantled. And, the World Court said, it's a violation for which the whole world is responsible and must see reversed. Then the Palestinians could've said, it says that everyone has to implement this, not just Israel.
"Probably people would've been killed. I'm not going to deny it, and I'm the last one to trivialize the loss of human life, I cling to my life to the last breath, but people are being killed anyway, and that's my whole point. If people are being killed anyway, why do it in suicide bombings, which besides being morally repugnant are never going to work, they are just acts of vengeance. If you want to accept the loss of life, that's your choice, I'm never going to tell anyone to give up their life. But if you accept the loss of life, then do it for something that can work. And I think having organized around the wall, you know, half a million Palestinians, that would have been a real problem for Israel. Would've been a huge victory."
"But "the Palestinians are [now] no longer a factor, they cannot do anything. With a leadership so divided, both leaderships being incompetent, so it hardly makes a difference which comes into power. We can't even discuss that, there's no point. On our side, I think, [we need to] get that public debate going. To struggle hard, to enable the public to know. That the basic facts of the conflict are very different than the way they have been hitherto depicted in the press, in the media, and so forth, to open up the public debate. And then I think from there some serious organizing can begin."
And what should we organize for exactly?
At Oxford Union Finkelstein was going to debate the one-state versus the two-state solution [the debate was cancelled after lobbying to remove Finkelstein from the panel]. Finkelstein at one of his speeches remarked that he was getting impatient with people who were talking about the one-state solution. When I stated that he supports a two-state solution along the lines of international law, he corrected me. "No, I do not support a two-state solution. I don't support states. I remain an old-fashioned communist. I see no value whatsoever in states. If the borders were to disappear between every state in the world, I think it would be a much happier place. I don't support it, in the sense that I support it as a principle. I support it in the sense only that in terms of trying to reduce the suffering of the Palestinians (and, actually, to prevent Israel from self-destructing), it seems to me a necessary step towards trying to create a better world, a more humane world."
And how about the argument that with a two-state solution the Palestinians will only get 22 % of their homeland, would that just be a pragmatic question, saying, yeah but it's better than what we have now?
"Yes, I think 22 is better than zero. If it is something viable there. If it's just going to be, what they used to call Oslo, "a leopard-skin" , these patches of Palestinian territory surrounded by Israeli settlements, then it is ridiculous. I hate it when these things are personalized with me, I have no moral authority whatsoever. It has nothing to do with me. This is the international consensus. It is built on the two-state settlement. The reports of the human rights organizations, the votes in the United Nations, the World Court advisory opinion are all premised on Israel being an occupying power and the two-state settlement being the desirable resolution of the conflict. You think you can undo that consensus? You think you can reverse it? You can create one state in the face of it? I don't see from where the power to do that comes. I haven't seen the supporters of the Palestinians able to force Israel to withdraw one inch. And now you want to defy the whole international community? Fine, show me how you're going to do it, apart from in somebody's living room."
Jelle Bruinsma is a first-year student of International Relations at Groningen University, The Netherlands.
Peter wrote:
"Arie Brand, take time to read even some basic info on the conflict. To ask whether Jews could return to the places they were driven from in 1948 is like to ask what year it is. If you don't know, these places were occupied by Jordan. So, no, Jews could not return there."
Since I live in another time zone I could not answer you earlier.
Accusing your opponent of ignorance won't help you.
I said 'ethnically cleansed' means permanently removed. The West Bank has since 1967 been under Israeli control (you might learn something from my earlier six part series on how Israel managed to keep Jordan out in the aftermath). If the original place of those dislocated Israelis was there and they still had ambition to return they no doubt could still do so then. But my hunch is that most of that category had already been amply compensated in Israel and possibly from property stolen from the Arabs. Others were probably only temporarily dislocated within the 72 % of the pre-1948 mandate area the Israelis had allocated to themselves.
Yes I call it whining (a Zionist specialty)when in the face of what happened to the Palestinians in 1948 you attempt to focus on a much smaller and quite different category of victims.
And since you are trying to make so much of this I would like to hear about your sources (and not stuff from some Zionist website please).
Facts to Zionists is like Krytonite to Superman.
Peter wrote:
"… the number of Arabs who were ethnically cleansed (this number is disputed, but it is probably in the hundreds of thousands; those that left on their own accord – out of fear or whatever – for the most part were not allowed to return.)"
This formulation is as close as one can possibly come to the official Israeli myth on the ethnic cleansing operation against the Arabs that took place in 1948 ("the Arabs left vcoluntarily") while attempting to avoid the accusation that one has swallowed this hook, line and sinker.
Firstly P. puts the total number in doubt ("this number is disputed" – it is not disputed that over 750,0000 were displaced)- then he comes as close to the myth as he can ("those that left on their own accord") referring to a motivation that seems rather groundless ("out of fear or whatever")when the horrible details are not specified.
Pappe refers to the methods employed:
"ON A COLD WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, 10 March 1948, a group of eleven men, veteran Zionist leaders together with young military Jewish officers, put the final touches on a plan for the ethnic cleansing of Palestine1. That same evening, military orders were dispatched to units on the ground to prepare for the systematic expulsion of Palestinians from vast areas of the country2. The orders came with a detailed description of the methods to be used to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding villages and population centers; setting fire to homes, properties, and goods; expelling residents; demolishing homes; and, finally, planting mines in the rubble to prevent the expelled inhabitants from returning. Each unit was issued its own list of villages and neighborhoods to target in keeping with the master plan."
In this operation meticulous village files were used that had been prepared long before:
"The final update of the village files took place in 1947. It focused on creating lists of “wanted” persons in each village. In 1948 Jewish troops used these lists for the search-and-arrest operations they carried out as soon as they had occupied a village. That is, the men in the village would be lined up and those whose names appeared on the lists would be identified, often by the same person who had informed on them in the first place, but now wearing a cloth sack over his head with two holes cut out for his eyes so as not to be recognized. The men who were picked out were often shot on the spot."
And:
"Once the plan was finalized, it took six months to complete the mission. When it was over, more than half of Palestine’s native population, over 750,000 people, had been uprooted, 531 villages had been destroyed, and 11 urban neighborhoods had been emptied of their inhabitants. The plan decided upon on 10 March 1948, and above all its systematic implementation in the following months, was a clear case of what is now known as an ethnic cleansing operation."
Pappe remarks:
" … when it comes to the dispossession by Israel of the Palestinians in 1948, there is a deep chasm between the reality and the representation. This is most bewildering, and it is difficult to understand how events perpetrated in modern times and witnessed by foreign reporters and UN observers could be systematically denied, not even recognized as historical fact, let alone acknowledged as a crime that needs to be confronted, politically as well as morally. Nonetheless, there is no doubt that the ethnic cleansing of 1948, the most formative event in the modern history of the land of Palestine, has been almost entirely eradicated from the collective global memory and erased from the world’s conscience."
The Zionists have indeed been for a long time remarkably succesful in spreading the myth that the Arabs had left voluntarily. The after effects of this can still be seen in contributions such as that by P.
Source: Ilan Pappe, "The 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine" Journal of Palestine Studies,
issue 141, Fall 2006;
This article provides a summary of his 2006 book on the matter.
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