Does it surprise you that liberal internationalists wish to provide neocons political cover unto the last day? Not really. George Packer wants David Frum to replace Bill Kristol as a columnist at the Times. Frum is a smart guy and he writes well, but he did say "victory or holocaust," a hideous creed, when he was promoting the Iraq war, and his wife said he wrote "axis of evil," thereby taking the lead in the giant IQ-drop known as the Bush administration. I guess the intellectuals who underwrote the Iraq disaster will continue to flourish so long as the editors who underwrote it are still needing to cover their fannies.
Here is Frum, writing lately on the Nakba and the new historians, Benny Morris's book:
This is smugly ethnocentric. The atrocities of the Israelis are parallel to ethnic cleansing activities in the former Yugoslavia, and in India and Pakistan. The "atrocities" included massacres. The central city of Arab life in Palestine, Jaffa, was reduced in a matter of weeks from 70,000 to 4 or 5,000 Arabs; the residents were terrorized and in many cases literally forced into the sea; and a city that was to be Arab under U.N. partition became a suburb of Tel Aviv, with primo real estate. Frum says the Israeli/yishuv leaders were not to blame. This defies common sense. It is denial disfigured by the fact of his religious identification. Consider the abuses that go on routinely in the West Bank: what is the "standard" Israelis expect of themselves? And if they expect it, why is it so casually and routinely violated?
If you just keep replacing the expression "Zionism" with "Jewish Colonialism", it becomes clear that this sort of ethnic cleansing and bigotry was an intrinsic part of the project all along. Futhermore, justifying the Nakba and what we might call Nakba-related-programme-activities is the central feature of both Israeli political life and jewish activism outside israel.
The disorientating fact is that all this colonialism, racism, and ethnic cleansing is interpreted through the lens of intense ethnic self-congratulation on 'liberal' grounds. But it's the liberal self-congratulation of jewish colonialiam which is its (somewhat) bizarre aspect, not the actual rape of the indigenous population. The standards that the Israelis expected of themselves were the Nakba. They still do expect and celebrate those standards.
I expect that the Arab population of Jaffa following 1948, ended up MUCH higher than your 4,000-5,000 estimate.
When I visited Israel in 1968, Jaffa was primarily an Arab city. (but included among the Jewish population mostly "Arab Jews" that you referred to in an earlier post).
Are you objecting to Frum's using Israeli ethical inquiry as the problem with his statement, or that the ethical behavior was quantitatively too low?
In general, are you trying to restore your focus onto the "forest", or have you permanently determined to stay only on the "trees".
I doubt Frum has even read the book closely.
His assertion that "Arab leaders and state broadcasters did indeed encourage local inhabitants to flee" is a conclusion that Morris' work explictly rejects.
Morris and the other 'new historians' have shown that while in a few local cases Palestinains were urged to evacuate a village or two prior to combat, the overwhelming majority left as a result of anxiety and panic caused by atrocities committed by Israeli forces.
RE: " I expect that the Arab population of Jaffa following 1948, ended up MUCH higher than your 4,000-5,000 estimate."-Witty
"Most of the well-heeled Arab population that could afford to run, did," recounts Williams, leaving only about 3,000 people in Jaffa."
By what stretch of the imagination does Frum "write well"? "instrumentalities of war" The guy's another Witty.
Nothing like stirring up the pot. The equation of 1938-9 with the
21st Century constellation is something Joe Goebbels would admire. Too bad Americans are so ignorant.
The other Otto is right. What makes supporters of Zionism so frustrating is the constant defense of the crimes from a "liberal" point of view. Rather than a proper triumphal colonial narrative like the British had, the Zionists have a wierd inverted narrative of being constant victims. No self respecting European colonial empire ever behaved in such a whiny and unmanly fashion. It is down right pathetic when one compares the official narrative with the real history of Palestine. It would be like British soldiers complaining of being unfairly attacked by unarmed Indian women and children. But, it is precisely this narrative of there being no Jewish villians and only Jewish victims in history that has gotten the Zionists support in the US.
Jaffa was a predominantly Palestinian city prior to 1948 with about Arab 120.000 residents.
In 1950 there were about 3.400 left.
Today Jaffa has about 56.000 residents the very large majority of whom are Jewish.
However the majority of Jaffa's Arabs live in such neighborhoods as Ajami, Jabaliya and lev yafo.
From wikipedia.
"In 1945, Jaffa had a population of 101,580, of whom 53,930 were Muslims, 30,820 were Jews and 16,800 were Christians.[13] The Christians were mostly Greek Orthodox and about one sixth of them were Greek-Catholic. One of the most prominent members of the Arab Christian community was the Arab Orthodox publisher of Filastin, Issa Daoud El-Issa Daoud Isa."
Supplement to a Survey of Palestine (p. 12-13) which was prepared by the British Mandate for the United Nations in 1946-7
Wikipedia also reports the Ottomans clearing the city in 1917, and the British in the mid-30's.
Not "always there". Not consistent population figures.
The story about the Irgun seems largely accurate though, that they sought to take over (for military or ethnic cleansing purposes is a different question).
Not the simple story presented by either myth.
Yes, Richard…and?
And,
The rational approach is to identify what is occurring (good and bad, from MULTIPLE perspectives).
And,
To address the actions and policies in context, using the best of your imagination and reasoning to improve the situation even if it is circuituitous.
And,
To PROPOSE.
And,
To WORK to change the conditions that invoke subsequent consequences, rather than ONLY the consequences or political power relations.
And,
To HELP, rather than know or rather than advocate.
Witty, to the Palestinians, its all about power politics because they are the direct victims of same. Even though your own kid is not in the US Military but over in Israel sucking up there, and why not given the history of the gate-keeper for Obama, don't expect all goys to just cheer for you and yours uber alles.