The JTA reports on an interesting new study measuring "the Israeli-Jewish Collective Memory of the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian Conflict," and it has some surprising results. Perhaps the most important is that 47% of Israeli Jews believe that the Palestinian refugees were expelled by Israel in 1948.
The study was conducted by two Israeli researchers last summer, Rafi Nets-Zehngut, a fellow at the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Teachers College of Columbia University, and Daniel Bar-Tal, a faculty member at the School of Education at Tel Aviv University. You can find all the survey results here. Although some of the results are still pretty disturbing (56% still believe that Arafat rejected the "generous offer" because he did not want peace with Israel), the report shows a positive trend where younger Israeli Jews are less likely to believe the Zionist narrative.
Several interesting points stand out. First, it's clear the researchers were interested in the relationship between the collective memory of Israeli Jews and the prospects for peace. Bar-Tal comments, "holding such a Zionist narrative serves as an obstacle to peace since it promotes negative emotions, mistrust, de-legitimization and negative stereotypes of Arabs and Palestinians.” The report shows that the more people are connected to the Zionist narrative, the less likely they are to support peace agreements. The report also shows a that "a strong connection was found between the collective memory of "past Jewish persecution" (regarding anti-Semitism and the Holocaust)" and identification with the Zionist narrative. Coincidence?
Sadly not enough!
Of course Palestinians were expelled. That is a historical fact. The thing you don't realize is that it was necessary to do so, and we would so again if we have to.
RE: "…negative stereotypes of Arabs and Palestinians." FROM THE SURVEY: According to the answers to question # 17, 47% of Israeli Jews believe that Palestinian terror is solely or primarily motivated by the inherently violent nature of the Arabs, while only 9% believe it is solely or largely due to Israel’s actions (i.e. the Occupation) MY COMMENT: This seems to me to be the crux of the problem on the Israeli side. Regarding “the inherently violent nature of the Arabs”, it sounds to me like racism (not to mince words). Remember 'dem "Injuns"? NETANYAHU’S FATHER: “The Bible finds no worse image than this of the man from the desert. And why? Because he has no respect for any law. Because in the desert he can do as he pleases. The tendency towards conflict is in the essence of the Arab. He is an enemy by essence. His personality won’t allow him any compromise or agreement. It doesn’t matter what kind of resistance he will meet, what price he will pay. His existence is one of perpetuate war.” – Ben Zion Netanyahu SOURCE OF NETANYAHU'S FATHER'S WORDS – http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009...
Although some of the results are still pretty disturbing (56% still believe that Arafat rejected the "generous offer" because he did not want peace with Israel),… The population has been made aware of the fact that some Palestinians were expelled ever since the publication of Uri Milstein's book some 20 years ago through a variety of public discussions, newspaper articles high school text books, and, of course, the hysterical international media. In contrast, there is no reason to not to believe either that Yasser Arafat rejected Barak and Clinton's offer, or that this offer was, under the circumstances "generous", or that he was not serious about peace with Israel. You see, Adam, peace with Israel would have meant ending the conflict, which would have, in turn, meant telling all those Palestinians in their "camps" that their were no homes for them to return to and no doors for those rusty keys that they had kept all those years.
Why? Because the modernized western white Jews have more of a right to land than the dark skinned sand niggers? I'm not sure where you live but let me give you a hypothetical circumstance. Let's say you live in America. In 50 years the Chinese become the sole superpower in the world. They decide that they are a superior race and they want to set up a colony in the United States. They decide that because they are superior, everyone who isn't Chinese must be cleansed to make room for the Chinese colony. You and your family are forced our of your home. Are they justified?
Actually, now that I have had a chance to look at the survey data, I find that the headline is erroneous, if not purposely misleading. The figure of 47% comes from combining two results: 39.2% who responded that the Arabs left due to three factors (fear, calls of leaders and expulsion by the Jews) plus another 8% who felt that only the last factor was a cause of the refugee problem. Of course 39.2 plus 8 does equal 47 (or 47.2) but this figure is meaningless as a claim that "Almost half of Israeli Jews believe Israel expelled Palestinians in 1948". Obviously, those Israelis who believe that all Arabs left as a result of expulsion by Israelis is only 8% To speculate on what proportion of the refugees resulted from the two other factors in the 39.2 percent who responded affirmatively to this question simply does not make sense.
"it was necessary to do so, and we would so again if we have to. " Yes, precisely. Herzl understood this as did the rest of Israel's founders (no matter how vigorously JES insists upon denying it). Without ethnic cleansing it would not be possible to establish a Jewish state anywhere that had an existing non-Jewish population. And in order to maintain what Israelis so coyly call "demographic balance" it is necessary to continue to ethnically cleans the land, by one means or another. The Jewish State cannot be maintained without it.
It is not really the crux of the problem. The crux of the problem is Zionism. The racism is merely the natural outcome of an inherently racist ideology, program, and the set of actions necessary to carry out that program.
And where have the other 50% been for the last 20-25 years or so? Got their heads firmly planted in their backsides, have they?
And with you walking around with your head up your ass and them walking around with their's up their's, I guess there isn't really a lot of hope. BTW Shirin, I've always suspected that, in fact, you're a bagel-butted JAP from Encino.
Your arguments are getting more cogent and effective by the day, JES. Congratulations. And I have no idea what you are trying to say in the second paragraph, but it sounds like some sort of American-Jewish insider language due to the bagel reference, and I am sure it is not intended as a compliment. You must be getting really desperate.
PS JES, I am shocked – SHOCKED! – that you have not challenged Jewish Reader's assertions, let alone my response.
Do Jews get it?
Some more info on Jewish belief systems
So glad we are not subjected to Thor's claptrap.
Thor's POV is delineated and well sourced on his blog. Thor also goes to the trouble of responding in detail to adverse comments on his blog. This is in great contrast to Jacobwolfen's infantile scream of "claptrap." Further, many of Thor's essential themes are validated by serious scholarship. Here, for example is an Israeli scholar's informative article on the acknowledged "Father of Jewish Settlements In Palestine." It details the evolving cultural mindset that produced in tandem what later became notoriously known respectively as Nazism and Zionism. http://www.tau.ac.il/tarbut/sadna/Bloom/HEIEtan%2...
…and 100% of these squats accept the thievery are the thieves
the jacobwolfens are only interested in their system of hate
Citizen (why is it that so many here have to identify themselves as "Citizen" or "American"?), Thors' (Joachim's, or whatever he chooses to call himself) responses are indeed claptrap, no doubt about it. First of all, he is – and I don't use these terms often – an anti-Semitic, homophobic, racist neo-Nazi. Need I be more explicit? His responses to critics are often incoherent ramblings and usually miss the point. His blog is full of articles written by – Joachim (Thors) – and there is very little scholarship, serious or otherwise involved. For example, most everyone knows that the German historical and social-Darwinism movements of the 19th century produced both Zionism and Nazism – they also produced Marxism, ethnology, cultural anthropology, modern linguistics and a host of other diciplines and movements – most of which had if not a decidedly positive influence on society, at least a benign one. (Just because a lineage produces a single black sheep doesn't make the whole family evil!)
Yes, of course in an ideal situation all the arabs would leave Israel voluntarily, and move to an arab country. There are a few things you are forgetting. The arabs deserved to be expelled due to the fact that they declared war on us and tried to do a genocide against us. Also, the arabs were victims of their own propaganda, in that the arab media exaggerated Jewish atrocities, causing arab villagers to flee based on false information. Even if the "demographic balance" changes in favor of the arabs, the Jews will remain in control. Democracy is not so important to us that we are willing to die for it.
Rather than Thor's?
Use of racist theory sites as research is not well sourced, The study of bullshit is not serious scholarship.
Beautiful, JR, thanks! I could not ask for a better interlocutor.
The headline is not misleading in the least, but is entirely accurate according to your own description of the survey results. And no one who has made even a semi-serious study of 1947 and beyond* suggests that all the Palestinians were expelled. That does not change the fact, however, that what took place during that period was by definition ethnic cleansing, and that it was intentional, planned, and systematic. *Significant ethnic cleansing took place inside Israel after 1949, including expulsions and internal displacement.
Almost half of Israeli Jews believe Israel expelled Palestinians in 1948. that is like saying almost half of Israeli Jews believe believe the earth is round.
And half of you believe the protocols are a true document.
and we would so again if we have to All you have to do is get in touch with Lord Balfour and have him commit the Royal Government of England to committ itself to a "homeland" for the Jews. After that, bide your time till WW2 is over, and seize your moment! "We"? Who is this "we" that can do it again? I think this Jewish "we" is about the same as Ed's "the rest of us" And do keep in mind, there are about enough Jews in the entire world to fill two good sized cities.
"BTW Shirin, I've always suspected that, in fact, you're a bagel-butted JAP from Encino" JES49 "First of all, he is – and I don't use these terms often – an anti-Semitic, homophobic, racist neo-Nazi. " JES49 Well, JES49 ought to know, huh.
These three blog entries below identify the three primary lies of Zionism:
You make a valid point. Some (but far from all) of the racism is a consequence of "Zionism". In fact, some of this racism is probably imported from the racism inherent to U.S., U.K. etc.