Three friends directed me to "A Heated Debate Over Israel," in the NY Times letters to the editor section, responding to the Tony Judt piece. Best letter is the second, by Howard Rubenstein, immediately after Abe Foxman, who– does the Israel lobby have a stranglehold?–gets top billing. One friend: "Notice the numerous official responses. And my sense that individual responses were likely to differ. I wonder if J Street wrote in. And did Arab-American groups and individuals write in and get excluded from the conversation? Where are their voices?"
But another friend notes the progress: You will see two of eight letters are from Americans who do not appear to be Jewish, challenging the special relationship. Charles D. Smith of San Diego, James Opie of Portland. It's great that they, who help pay the $3 billion a year, are given a platform. Especially when you consider that Judt gets to write his piece in the first place in some measure because he's Jewish. (Reportedly the Times once insisted that he put this fact into one of his pieces criticizing Israel, as
James North notes the Jonathan Reich letter, from Lakeland FL, saying that removing the settlements from the West Bank is "ethnic cleansing." North:
"This is the definition of chutzpah. First you kick people out of their homes. Then you steal their land and build on it. Then when they demand their property back, you accuse them of 'ethnic cleansing.'" North asks, Is this a new Zionist talking point? Well actually it's been around for a while now.
Of course it's a Zionist talking point. Witty said the same thing months ago and recently affirmed the notion again in a previous blog entry about Sahkarov's(sp) widow. They don't care about justice or the law. Very few Zionist commentators (none on this blog; I'd refer to Magnes Zionist but he is probably considered anti-Zionist) make principled arguments. Everything they say is a tactic.
FWIW, Charles D. Smith (author of one of the good letters in the Times) is the author of pretty good textbook, "Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: A History with Documents."
If you go to the American Zionist web site you will see that they define governing law as sourced in Jewish law and religion, not anything larger in scope. So they do care about justice or law, it just has to conform with Jewish law. If you are thinking of Nazi law, you have found the correct parallel.
The reds had their own version of the rule of law too.
Let us bow down and give thanks! I can't believe these nice people are going to allow the rest of us an opinion.
Maybe they should have asked a Holocaust denier like Mahmoud Abbas his opinion. We would then be treated to a statement like this one: "It seems that the interest of the Zionist movement, however, is to inflate this figure [of Holocaust deaths] so that their gains will be greater. This led them to emphasize this figure [six million] in order to gain the solidarity of international public opinion with Zionism. Many scholars have debated the figure of six million and reached stunning conclusions—fixing the number of Jewish victims at only a few hundred thousand."" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Abbas
Hasbara alert. You know the Zionists are getting nervous when they begin trashing the Head House Arab, Mahmoud Quisling Abbas.
I don't understand your comment, thedhimmi. Are you talking about the Holocaust of the Gypsies? The Ukranians in 1932? Are you talking about how it was once taken as gospel that Germans turned Jews into Lampshades and bars of soap? Are you talking about other old big lies that have not stood the test of time, such as that there were extermination camps and gas chambers in Germany, or are you quibbling that you don't understand why the number of Jews who died at Auschwitz keeps going down on the sign there? Are you a truth denier? Do you view those facts I just mentioned simple Holocaust denying? Please clarify. What exactly does a "Holocaust denier" deny? Thanks mucho!
The fact that Jewish leadership wants holocuast "denial"..which they consider to be 'questioning anything" about it a crime or censored tells you all you need to know. I am not up 'holocuast deniers" but haven't seen any serious person who denies that jews were indeed singled out and killed for being jews. That is undeniable. The bit that I have seen is people questioning the numbers and related methods of extermination, which is a valid study. The scientific and historical community are constantly researching events much older in history than the holocuast and discovering new information. The only reason I can see for banning all questioning of the holocaust is the zionist fear that it might turn up new information that contridicts part of their meme.
Itr's a distraction. There was a historical event called the Nazi Holocaust that claimed millions of lives. Refusing to allow that event to serve as justification for crimes against the Palestinians is not "holocaust denial." It's called morality.
Aside from being a "talking point", the significance of removing 500,000 from their current homes, is that it is a cruelty. Its a cruelty to remove Palestinians en masse from their homes. Its a cruelty to remove Jews enmasse from theirs. If a second wrong, there is a common slogan. "Two wrongs don't make a right". That doesn't conclude that title is perfected, or the compensation isn't required to perfect title, or that laws removing ethnic based restrictions on occupancy, shouldn't be enforced. Title questions MUST be heard by a legitimate court process, on an individual case basis. The political urge is a mob approach. Its surprising to hear Phil not be sensitive to law in suggesting a mass approach rather than a legal one.
I agree. One thing about the holocaust that is undeniable is that…..without the holocuast 'shield' the jews/zionist would never have been able to get away with what they have done….in Palestine or within the US government. If Israel were Arab or Buddhist or anything else it would be on the US list of terrorist states and axis of evil. ..we would have have intervened as we did in Bosnia .
Actually the title question has already been heard. By the UN and the International Court. They declared ALL the settlements illegal. They declared the Wall illegal. They declared the portions of Jerusalem Israel built in illegal. Period. No dispute. No higher court exist. The only 'titles to be perfected' would be "if" a land owner sold a plot of land within Palestine or the settlements to a Jew who lives on it.. That would change nothing having to do with the illegality of the settlements. It would only mean that a jew bought property WITHIN Palestine. It would NOT mean a jewish owned piece of property WITHIN Palestine was part of Israel. As Abbas recently stated, 'if" that condition exist ,a legitimate sale between two parties, the Jew who "purchased" the property is free to live or remain in Palestine,as a citizen of Palestine. I don't know how it could be clearer.
The logical end point of your "cruelty" argument is the One State Solution. Since it would be "cruel" to move Jews who are squatting on Palestinian land, the only humane solution is one state with equal rights for all. Thanks, Richard. Maybe you are a decent guy after all.
Actually, the UN general assembly made those declarations, on the basis of advisory opinions by the ICJ. They are not determined, not law. I'm glad that you finally acknowledge that there some valid title holders among some settlers, possessing perfected title. The big question is how to resolve the status of title for those on contested land. I favor allowing them to remain, without any provisions of exclusivity, and requiring compensation to perfect existing contested title, and as Palestinian citizens.
Or, two states with equal rights for all.
Holocaust denier, Ziogrupenfuhrer thedhimmi? You mean like Israeli President Shimon Peres denying the Armenian Holocaust when he said "What happened to the Armenians was a tragedy, not a genocide"? You mean that kind of Holocaust denial?
That Jews were killed by the Nazis in the Holocaust is a fact and so are the Gas Chambers. The number of people killed in the Holocaust (which shouldn't subtract from the horrific nature of the incident) is a matter for historical debate. Whether one Jew was killed or 6 million doesn't make a difference, and arguing that less people were killed than is stated (which is in my opinion a bit petty anyway) is not the same as denying the Holocaust ever existed.
What if the owner wants his family's land back because the family has owned it for centuries? What about that person whose family owns all the land under the Tel Aviv airport? Why cant he or she get it back? Look RIchard, the entire government of Switzerland was tied up in knots for decades getting Jewish money put into accounts back into rightful owners' hands. Ditto owners of art. Long contracted lawsuits. Now it's OK to accommodate the usurpers? Because they're Jewish squatters on land for 20 years and uprooting them is going to be a hardship? Land, like art, increases in value. And the original owner has the right to get it back and benefit from that rise in value. Period. No ifs, ands or buts. It's not like Israel didn't know the settlements were illegal. It's not like the Israelis dont know they're illegal. They just dont give a shit. Ron Kampeas gets his apartment in an illegal Israeli settlement subsidized by American taxpayers, and right-wing Jews here in this country wail about Mexicans and fan that awful fire. Situational morality.
It wasn't "cruelty," Richard, for those 500,000 "settlers" to build homes and communities on occupied territory, in the process stealing the resources, acreage, and (via check points and "Jews-only" roads, and dignity of the Palestinians in the area? Please. Let's not lose sight of what these "settlements" are: Cheap, modern housing that are essentially bedroom communities for cities in Israel proper whose construction has been encouraged by a government that wants to put as many "facts on the ground" as possible that will favor the Israeli side in any final settlement. There is nothing "cruel" about telling the people in these brand-new, history-less communities that they need to get off of the stolen land they've been living on and move a few miles up the road (something that, no doubt, could be easily paid for by the government ). The "cruelty" argument is an EXCUSE! Israel knew damn well what it was doing when it got behind the settlement movement. You can't rationalize your way around this one, Witty.
Yeah, one half of the entire population of Armenians died. For any — any — who think it wasn't a genocide, have a gander: http://www.armeniapedia.org/index.php?title=Armen...
The problem Shimon Peres has with recognizing the Armenian Genocide is that it was engineered by The Young Turks. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau Sr's letters (available in The London Times archives) to President Wilson about how The Young Turks studied medieval torture techniques with a vengeance is chilling. The word 'genocide' didn't exist then. Morgenthau called the 'an extermination of a people'. The problem is The Young Turks were Doenmeh Jews from Salonica, just like Ataturk. They were extraordinarily jealous of the successful Armenians, who were taught by an American in the early 1880s how to industrialize their businesses. His name was something like Robert Anderson. The Jews of Salonica were poor. In addition a common expression at the time was “It takes 10 Jews to outwit a Greek, And 10 Greeks to outwit an Armenian.” And they hated it. So, as Theodor Herzl wrote in A Jewish State, “Supposing His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return pledge ourselves to regulate the whole finances of Turkey.” The Rothschilds had run the Sultan and the Turks deeply into debt and promised to fix it if the Sultan would sell them Palestine. The Young Turks engineered the killing of the Christian Armenian “Amalekites” and grabbed their businesses. The threat was over the Sultan that he would be blamed for it and start a Christian/Islam war. Jabotinsky was working as a newsman for a while. The intrigue is the stuff of movies. =============================== "WHEN KEMAL ATATURK RECITED SHEMA YISRAEL "It's My Secret Prayer, Too," He Confessed" By Hillel Halkin http://report-abuse.lahana.org/blog/SHEMA%20YISRA...
Don't be naive. Of course numbers make a difference when talking about genocide. (As well as some other factors such as the ethnicity of the victims, their religion and so on…) That said, I don't know of any respectable researcher who does not put the number of Jewish holocaust victims in the range of several million, and almost all of them speak of 5+ million Jewish victims. It is somewhat unfortunate that the "six million" figure has become such a political dogma, because several highly respected historians, including the late, great Raul Hilberg have arrived at somewhat lower figures. Hence, not every modification of that "six million" figure can be equated with "playing down" the event. However, a figure as low as "a few hundred thousand" is almost certainly a deliberate diminishment of the Holocaust for political reasons.
One might also point out that Mahmoud Abbas, who is a Holocaust denier, no doubt, and Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian PM, have both said that settlers are welcome to stay right where they are–provided they become Palestinian citizens. So the whole judenrein argument is actually, factually really truly not one based in reality.
Seems redundant. What for? I mean, if the Palestinians will be trusted to treat the Jewish minority fairly in a small state – which you apparently assume – why shouldn't they be trusted to treat the proportionally far larger Jewish minority in a large state fairly?
The Armenians were elbowing in on his gig. Kind of hard to suck up to the Turks if you don't ask them to acknowledge the genocide of Armenians. Armenian history, is seems, is strategically inconvenient.
We have Armenian neighbors. They'll tell you it was a genocide.
Yes, but Abbas did not agree to let the settlers use violence against their Palestinian neighbors. Kind of a deal breaker.
Meaning? Borders please? I hope you don't consider 400 meters around Jericho a "Palestinian State."
I don't think 6 million and lampshades and bars of soap and gas chambers in Germany is true, nor do I think "a few hundred thousand" is true. The point is the Holocaust is a business and PR campaign cloaking horrible activity against the Palestinians, as well as something rooted in lesser fact still horrendous. The real issue, is does "Never Again" refer only to Jews? If so, Goering was correct, as Truman acknowledged at times, though he went for career, same as Eichmann; Arendt spelled it all out, the banality of evil–simple careerism at the core.
I agree. The West felt guilty, so it gave the Jews an insurance policy in land for all jews living and yet to be born; the problem is, there were other people living there–one racist act (by omission if not more) fixed by another racist act.
Perhaps the problem is that we keep calling them "settlers", when in truth they are colonists and illegal ones at that. they are very much like the french settlers were in algiers, possibly worse, because the arrogance is greater. Unlike witty, I see nothing wrong with evacuating america-subsidized interlopers, no worse than calling the sherif to remove squatters. Witty also continues to pretend that these colonialists are regular folks who just happened to find themselves living in the wrong place. But these colonists should not be confused with people who have conscience, morals and/or a sense of propriety. They are more like thieves who pretend to live normal lives knowing full well that these lives are built on the graves, misery and oppression of other humans. Witty who justifies their actions is as guilty as they are of criminal mindedness, which he then sets to excuse as high mindedness. There are people in israel (many, actually) who would not shake hands or acknowledge a colonialist. They are not advocating harming them, just socially boycotting them much as one would repulse a foreign bio-agent t that emits an unpleasant odor and is potentially infectious, even virulent. There are rabbis who don't consider the colonialists jewish, regardless of who birthed them. personally, I don't consider someone who willingly – and knowingly – justifies murder, mayhem, robbery and arrogance Jewish. Judaism can be found. But it can also be lost. To wit, check out witty.
Law in Israel is wrapped up in historical Jewish law as delineated in the Torah and Tamud. Israel is a Zionist enterprise. It's not governed by internationally recognized law–even the Zionist web sites say so. In the end, it's bipolar in its ethics. That's the core of Judiaism itself, no matter what icing you want to put on it. Plain speaking, neither Judaism, and even more, Zionism, are humanist ideology–isn't that what the Jesus model and declared history shows?
Talk to some Ukrainian neighbors about 1932 also. It's not taught in USA schools or colleges.
All true. Morgenthau later came up with his plan to blow back Germany into the stone age. He and his German helper IKE did what they could, killing Germans any way they could for years after WW2 and transferring ethnic Germans from the east to the west, when millions died along the way. At this time Germans were the largest white ethnic group in the USA–as they still are, though this is changing fast, Mexicans uber alles. Ethnic politics in the future will be much more obvious, as it already is–German Americans actually were assimilated. The USA now will be at best a constant shaky balance of ethnic tribes, weak as the Old Austrian Hungarian Empire. That said, how's the future look?
I have a great idea witty since you are a great believer in titles, how about quid pro quo? 500,000 settlkers stay where they are (provided they can show clear title to the land, as in rightfully bought from rightful owners) and 500,ooo palestinian refugees are let back into israel selected from among those who have a clear title. They can be resettled in some fine neighbourhoods around eg, tel aviv./yaffo and everybody can be happy. Sounds fair to me – if hebron should not be judenrein, tel aviv should not be arabreine.
Maybe we should call them "squatters".
Citizen, please, it is scary when someone like you writes something like this. It is, according to my Polish education, 5.4 million of Jews, many were killed just by being found outside of ghettos, many died of illness and starvation in the ghettos before being taken to concentration camps where they were worked to death, and many were taken in cattle tracks to extermination camps where they were gassed and where their bodies were burned. Gas chambers are real, ovens are real and they worked day and night. Bars of soap and lampshades are real, but they were never produced on the industrial scale.
No area in Israel should be arabreine, and no area of Palestine should be Judenreine (not my favorite term). Title is the question of whether an INDIVIDUAL (not a nationality) has right to own a specific piece of land or other property. The nature of contested property, is that two (or more) individuals claim that their rights are superior to the others. Forced relocation of anyone doesn't change the status of title from contested to consented. If a family is forced from a home that they understood that they had a legal right to reside in, they contest a forced relocation. Tel Aviv is not Arabreine by the way.
It was cruelty to displace the Palestinians. Thats the significance of describing the proposal to displace 500,000 Israelis as a second wrong.
Mahmoud Abbas is not a holocaust denier. Between 1948 and 1967, all but a few dozen Jews were forced by law military to leave the West Bank, even communities that had families residing there for multiple hundreds or thousands of years.
I think you're being too pessimistic – It takes a couple of generations to fully integrate and it always has done. As long as immigration doesn't spiral put of control and the government has semi-decent policies for assimilation, everything should work out.
Richard, I believe you about '48 to '67 without going to check on it from other sources, but that was the Jordanians, who did also deny access to Jewish holy sites in Jerusalem and elsewhere. I have no problem admitting that. But Israel has done far worse, and the current Palestinian leadership (whose holocaust denial is politically inconvenient because despite their corruption and ineptitude, despite the fact that Abbas cancelled elections and has become a sort of permanent dictator, despite the fact that he is using his security forces to crack down on any dissent, whether Islamist or otherwise, they are now the "Western" "moderate" "reform" leaders, like Mubarak and Rafiq al-Hariri).
If I understand you correctly, mere physical possession of property provides one with the "right to contest", making it 'contested property'. That would presumably apply to say, your car, were you kind enough to lend it to me for a day – say in return for saying 5 prayers a day on your behalf, and I absconded with it for a year. Let's fast forward for a moment now. In court (assuming that's where the case would end, rather than in a damp prison cell for poor me) I forthrightly maintain that possession is 90% of ownership and that I understood your intent was to give me the car as payment in kind for said prayers – a duty I undertook with no small amount of expeditioussness and diligence. I then throw myself upon the mercy of the court claiming that the car is necessary for me to maintain my livelihood (saying those prayers while walking is exausting!) and that it would be cruel and inhuman to deprive me of said vehicle. to support my case, I present the court with a stack of documents showing the extent of maintenance and love lavished upon the car. During discovery, I get you to supply your doctor's certificate indicating that a recent annual check up indicated you are in excellent mental and physical health (thus proving my prayers were extremely effective) as well as photos of the 4 other cars you own, showing conclusively you never had much need for the vehicle upon which I lavished such care. I'll call upon the heart felt, if tear drenched, testimony of your wife and other kin who recounted your habit of making donations to one and all in need, even as your own accountant's words point to a pattern of donations to institutions and individuals you judge worthy and pious. Finally, just in case anyone failed to follow the logic, I called your chabad son as a witness for the defense to drive home my case that prayers delivered with intent are indeed as good as gold, and may not only constitute sufficient payment in kind, but are in fact priceless – even to the degree that you should have probably been praying for the insurance as well. And what do you have to bolster your suit? just one little piece of paper, showing your title to said car, duly signed by the great state of NY motor vehicle department. In your hubristic certainty of the rightness of your case, you did not even bother to hire a lawyer, you silly thing, and tried to get the witnesses dismissed – to their great displeasure I should say, as mostly they seemed all too willing to allow the full power of their presence and words to speak on my behalf. The judge – who BTW is armed with a thick file of your comments on this site – will hopefully crumble in the face of the exquisite logic laid out in my defense – and should by all rights rule for me – the hapless defendant, perhaps with the caveat that I must continue praying most vigorously for your well being for one additional year. Needless to say – you pay the court expenses – with hard cash…..dare I say? on the way home your wife admon ishes you for being such a heartless person seeking to evict me from a property i clearly needed and took good care of, for a mere piece of paper. Maybe she forgives you later, I wouldn't know. The Lubavicher rabbi is another story, but we won't go there. Now that's where your logic regarding "contested title" leads. It's been really a nice car, BTW, thanks. Also for the inspiration.
MRW – is this really true about the young turks executing the armenian massacres? do you have any additional links to this (pro and/or con)?
Dana, you gave me an excellent ideas…. I wouldn't mind entering Mr. Witty's property to give it a spring clean while my husband will undertake some gardening duties. I can do a mean prayer as well, do you think you could accompany me to court at some future date? An additional witness to my praying wouldn't go amiss, either.
Definition of chutzpah is to kill one's parents and beg court's mercy because one is now an orphan. The second definition is to transfer the population to the settlements and then claim that their removal is "ethnic cleansing".
Do you favour the Arab refugees of 48 from Israel being allowed back (as ethnic cleansing is a wrong you clearly disagree with) and fight for the resolution of their "contested" title while inhabiting their now abandoned villages? Or are you arguing for different rules for different populations based on their ethnic origin?
This is very funny, Dana. It feels you would be a good writing partner with Phil for a storyline that treats the topic lightly. At least you've got the necessary wit to dampen Phil's rage which lately feels more and more melancholic again.
How ironic you post this today. It must be there’s a modicum of synchronicity.
I posted an article on my own blog – Restoring the whole debate, from A-Street to Z-Street
My complaint is the missing part of the alphabet – from A to I – and the lop-sided discourse that’s the consequence.