Two days ago in New York's Four Seasons hotel, I met a sophisticated friend from the Arabian peninsula whose identity I must disguise, and we had a grim conversation. He made a number of points:
--The situation in Israel/Palestine is very bleak. There is no way out. The Israelis have the power, and they will continue to make life intolerable for Palestinians in the occupied territories, until those who can leave, leave. And of course the educated Israelis are also all leaving...
--The U.S. still has the power over Palestine's future, as it did in 1948. Empires are built slowly and they collapse slowly. The U.S. is the hegemon for the foreseeable future. And when it comes to Israel, there is no countervailing force to American support for Israel. Europe is nothing. The Arab world is nothing. The nations of the General Assembly are nothing. The non-Zionist movement inside the U.S.-- come on, it is very small.
--We (Arabs) always told the U.S. that we can't abandon Palestine because it is an issue of our identity. This we have explained for 70 years. Palestine is part of our identity, it cannot be subjugated. We have also explained that if the Palestinians accept a two-state solution, we would accept it. Would we accept an Israeli Jerusalem? Of course not. We can't; Jerusalem must be shared.
--You (Mondoweiss) are naive about power.
Morality means nothing without power. Yes, you talk about the civil rights movement, inside your country. But that was a domestic frame. In the international frame, there is only power. These countries talk about the International Criminal Court for Gadafyi and for Bashar al-Assad, but you will never see a prosecution of an Israeli or an American for war crimes. Because who has the power.
--For supporters like myself of Arab liberation, freedom in Palestine was always a necessary but insufficient condition. Not until the subjugation of Palestine ends can the Arab world be liberated. The other condition is of course the end of the dictators. The Egyptian revolution is not a revolution yet. The regime has not been changed. And this is everything. Egypt is everything for the Arab world. If the Tunisian revolution succeeds, and Egypt fails, Tunisia does not matter.
--I admit that I did not foresee the Egyptian uprising. I have studied Arab politics forever and I was completely surprised. Maybe I will also be surprised by Palestine. But everything has failed for the Palestinians. Violent resistance failed. Negotiation failed. What do they have left? Yes I have always called for nonviolent resistance to create a democracy between the river and the sea, I was against Oslo. Because what do they get: Fayyad. They must elect a collaborationist government for their own occupation.
--You say the Israel lobby is a special interest. I disagree. I have lived in Washington. A special interest is not as integrated into the cultural and political life as this lobby is. Jews are an integral part of the American establishment. The media-- the top layers are well over 50 percent Jewish. The political class? Finance? You have the complete integration of people who are indoctrinated in Zionism.
--Of course, you are not a Zionist. I can't tell you how much I like what the Jewish non-Zionists and anti-Zionists are saying. But you are such a small group. I will tell you the ones I can't stand. The liberal Zionists. I have more respect for the hard core Zionists, they tell you what they want. All the liberal Zionists do is whine and do nothing. Look at the New York Review of Books. But that man Daniel Levy interests me. I think that at his heart he is no longer a Zionist.
I (this is Weiss talking now) told my friend that Levy's path (his brave statement at J Street earlier this year, "I'm not convinced that [the two-state solution] is the only model") is one that many other American Jews are following. And we will be part of the countervailing force in American politics that will end the lobby. You can't maintain a regime of anti-Arab racism in American life for 70 years (one that has been so costly to Americans, from the USS Liberty to the killing of Bobby Kennedy to Rachel Corrie to the Palestinian motivation for the 9/11 attack) without changing the channel. History moves. We are going to have another chapter. American realists are on our side, the military thinkers are on our side, Arab-Americans...
Of course when I got home, I saw the grim news from the flotilla and recognized that the US still runs the table here, and we are all prisoners of the Israel lobby. And as for my friend's social understanding about the nature of the Establishment, well, I share it: Jews are empowered as never before, and Obama's fears about the pro-Israel-Jewish presence in the Democratic Party make it impossible for him to be fair in this arena. And all this leaves me feeling only greater urgency about the need to end the fever of Zionism inside American Jewish life.
“Empires are built slowly and they collapse slowly. The U.S. is the hegemon for the foreseeable future. And when it comes to Israel, there is no countervailing force to American support for Israel.”
And until the US deals with this conflict in a fair way Americans and US national security are at risk. Period. Israel and the US may have the military power. But the hate, anger and violence towards Israel and the US will grow and manifest in more violence.
“But the hate, anger and violence towards Israel and the US will grow and manifest in more violence.”
-And it will spread beyond the Muslim world.
Zionists attached themselves to the U.S. for a reason. They needed a power source because their representation is small. Their big mistake was to try to control too much and worse to impose their bias on the masses. This breeds suppressed resentment.
The flotillas 1 and 2 expose Zionists as controlling, oppressive thugs. Of course Palestinians already know this, and everyone is relieved not to be in their shoes, but now that the rest of the world is feeling this oppressive behavior first hand, people are realizing they have a personal stake in this struggle…protecting their own freedom and the law that was meant to protect us all from being distorted at the will and convenience of bullies.
“Empires are built slowly and they collapse slowly.”
The USSR did not crumble slowly. Once people realize the Empire’s money is BS, it can crumble quite rapidly.
The resignation about the seemingly insurmountable difficulty of dislodging AIPAC that is expressed in this article is, I suspect, shared by all who post here.
i am not resigned to accept it is insurmountable so i do not share this opinion.
Even though I was, and am, a staunch opponent of this flotilla, it is hard to read the despairing sentiments expressed by Phil’s friend and others here without being moved by them. I therefore have no desire to rub salt in the wounds of those here who are plainly upset about the aborted flotilla.
Let me just say this: While I opposed the flotilla, I hoped, if it did sail, that no one would be hurt, and that the flotilla activists would manage to emphasize their non-violent message without incident either to themselves or to the Israelis.
Phil’s friend says that if the “Palestinians accept a two-state solution, we would accept it.” That is, and remains, the best course open to helping the Palestinians on the road to self-rule and responsible statehood, and, at long last, ending the conflict. I know many people here do not see that, but I hope someday they do.
Honestly…WAKE UP!
And stop treating us like children in the 3rd grade. How condescending can you get?
Nor do I. As stated previously, the answer is to end the Zionist occupation of US policy. This is happening: AIPAC’s numbers are decreasing, while JVP’s (Jewish Voice for Peace) numbers are rapidly increasing. U.S. Jews need to be made to fully understand the realities of the barbaric policies of the government of Israel, and this is happening, little by little.
Not by me. AIPAC is the Tammany Hall of this era.
What happened Tammany Hall ?
Say not ‘The struggle naught availeth
The labour and the wounds are vain
The enemy faints not nor faileth
And as things have been, they remain’!
This is an idealistic poem but the point that power, however irresistible at any time, is not for ever, is still true and realistic.
AH Clough’s reason for ‘not saying’ these pessimistic words in his 1855 comment on the failures of liberal Europe was that ‘westward, look, the land is bright’ – meaning, I think, that the United States was arriving on the world scene and would represent a newer and more moral form of power. To our more jaded eyes that hope may seem somewhat misplaced but in reality it was both misplaced and sound. Change comes, perfection doesn’t.
this need to end the fever of Zionism inside American Jewish life?
a dose of aspirin?
a full measure of reality
u.s. supported zionist entiy israel under threat?
u.s. supported zionist entiy israel is the threat
to jews?
to all living beings
justice for palestine?
end of threat
He hates Fayyad. He hates liberal Zionists.
“And all this leaves me feeling only greater urgency about the need to end the fever of Zionism inside American Jewish life. ”
And by that you include “liberal Zionism”, your family, the majority of those that you grew up with, the majority of your neighbors, all because you are frustrated that your sympathizers aren’t allowed to storm a border (even an occupied one).
Amplified emotion in a body, but without clarity of direction.
You think that Fayyad is a puppet as your friend described?
I agree with you that the fever should be controlled, but the blood remains. Are you after the fever or the blood?
You think that Fayyad is a puppet
fayyed would not be in power otherwise crazy. no one elected him.
if fayyed was the issue there would be a palestinians state. fayyed is not the issue, he is there to molify, to extend an illusion of ‘economic peace’ in place of freedom. wake up.
And, he is the only Palestinian that has been successful at removing the considerable obstacles to Palestinian sovereignty, the “puppet”.
The fact that YOU sing his praises should immediately raise a red flag.
The primary obstacle to Palestinian sovereignty is Israeli colonialism. Fayyad has done nothing to remove this obstacle.
“He hates Fayyad. He hates liberal Zionists.”
Ever wonder why that is? Seriously, Richard, don’t just assume that your ideology is solely the innocent victim of other people’s irrational hatreds.
“And by that you include “liberal Zionism”, your family, the majority of those that you grew up with, the majority of your neighbors,..”
Yeah, well, Richard, life can be full of conflicts you know. My immediate family excepted, I grew up around a bunch of Southern whites with, to varying degrees, unreconstructed, romanticized views of Southern history.
I feel your pain, Richard–you liberal Zionists have a lot in common with Shelby Foote
Donald,
Don’t you care about goal?
You imagine ideology or racism in my comments.
You express often your impatience and frustration with the continued relationship.
I state that an important objection of mine to militancy is that it DETERS Palestinian sovereignty.
I want to see Netanyahu have no component of truth in comments when he states that Israel “needs” to occupy.
But, every time there is a militant statement that even infers a threat to or delegitimazation of Israel, it gets likud elected.
That Phil’s Arab friend (or maybe Phil’s reporting) does not describe any sensitivity to Israel’s concerns, confirms the fears, rather than confronts them.
Witty, you are something else (what exactly I can’t exactly put my finger on). You expect Phil’s Arab friend to be sensitive to Israel’s concerns? For the thieves who have stolen his homeland? Nobody with any sense of decency at this point in time would give a damn for Israel’s concerns any more than they would have for those of apartheid South Africa. It’s an incurably racist state that needs to be dismantled and that should be the concern of everyone who is not, themselves, an incurable racist.
Jeff, Witty’s insensitivity incarnate. If you just lost your legs he’d be in your hospital room, murmurring about his chipped fingernail, interfering with the nurses trying to stop your bleeding.
I think you illustrate a child’s story I told my kids for years.
Its a story of (w)holes.
“Nobody with any sense of decency at this point in time would give a damn for Israel’s concerns any more than they would have for those of apartheid South Africa.”
Do you believe that concern for Israeli people is to be rejected? Do you believe that the democratically elected will of the Israeli people should be rejected?
If so, what do you propose instead? What is more humane than self-governance?
Do you believe that the tone of your comments will shame others into believing that their community should perhaps not be entitled to self-govern?
It is THE form of statement that enables ethnic cleansing for example. You sound like likud. I’ve heard similar from them.
If your views are realized, there will only be pendulum swings in the mideast. Either that or the majority of Jews will be chased out.
Liberal Zionism is the affirmation of Live AND Let Live.
The absence of the AND in the statement is the difference between a world of self-governance and a world of oppression.
You can’t advocate the killing of either community, or even the means of the community’s self-governance without advocating suppression in some form.
Your non-acceptance of Israel IS the problem.
“self-governance”
Just FYI: There is no such thing. The very term is an oxymoron.
The same concern shown by you, Witty, for apartheid S Africa back in the day should be shown for Israel, that former nation’s last bosom buddy.
For Witty:
Emcee (appearing with a Gorilla)
I know what you’re thinking:
You wondered why I chose her
Out of all the ladies in the world.
That’s just a first impression,
What good’s a first impression?
If you knew her like I do
It would change you’re point of view.
If you could see her through my eyes
You wouldn’t wonder at all.
If you could see her through my eyes
I guarantee you would fall (like I did).
When we’re in public togtheer
I hear society moan.
But if they could see her through my eyes
Maybe they’d leave us alone.
Spoken: (There you are my liebling. Your favourite!)
How can I speak of her virtues,
I don’t know where to begin?
She’s clever, she’s smart, she reads musics
She doesn’t smoke or drink gin (like I do).
Yet when we’re walking together
They sneer if I’m holding her hand.
But if they could see her through my eyes
Maybe they’d all understand.
(Emcee and Gorilla dance)
Why can’t they leave us alone.
Spoken: Meine Damen und Herren, Mesdames and Messieurs
Ladies and Gentleman
Is it a crime to fall in love?
Can we ever tell where the heart truly leads us?
All we are asking is eine bisschen Verstandnis
Why can’t the world leben und leben lassen?
‘Live and let live….’
I understand your objection
I grant you the problem’s not small
But if you could see her through my eyes
She wouldn’t look Palestinian at all.
>> I want to see Netanyahu have no component of truth in comments when he states that Israel “needs” to occupy.
Israel has a need to defend (as do the Palestinians), but it has no “need” or justification or right to occupy.
But I wouldn’t expect an immoral, Zio-supremacist apologist – one who is able to justify the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians as “necessary” – to understand that.
Witty, the fact that the Jewish people of Israel have voted for a government that has continued to expand illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank including occupied East Jerusalem, have overwhelmingly (94%) supported Israel’s 2008-09 onslaught on Gaza as well as its continued siege, who can politically dissent without fear of imprisonment and who can read the truth about what their country is doing in the mainstream Israeli press should they choose to do so, makes them more culpable than any people, yes, any people in history for their country’s crimes and so, frankly, apart from those very good souls who may represent the best of Jewry, I don’t give a damn for the rest, what they think, what they want, or for their future.
While one may object and say Americans are equally to blame for our country’s far greater crimes, in the defense of most of my countrymen and women, they have been born and raised in a cloud of ignorance and the majority have little to no knowledge of what their country is really doing and have been educated not to care.
In Israel, with all able bodied men and women, except for the religious parasites, obliged to serve in the military, there is no excuse for ignorance. History will judge them accordingly as the outside world, apart from the politicians their money can buy or bend, has already begun to do. .
Oh please!
If zionism is Live & Let Live I am Elvis.
There has never been any group as hostile to the world and everyone in it as zionism is.
“There has never been any group as hostile to the world and everyone in it as zionism is.”
Thanks for showing your true colors. That is one of the most ridiculous statements ever posted on mondoweiss.
“While one may object and say Americans are equally to blame for our country’s far greater crimes, in the defense of most of my countrymen and women, they have been born and raised in a cloud of ignorance and the majority have little to no knowledge of what their country is really doing and have been educated not to care.”
So why are you not devoting an effort to educate them?
“In Israel, with all able bodied men and women, except for the religious parasites, obliged to serve in the military, there is no excuse for ignorance.”
Really? So all the arguments about Ziocaine and people in Israel being brainwashed by the system are bogus? You really like to hold the stick from both sides don’t you. In addition, between 1 in 3 and 1 in 4 Israelis is an actual combat soldier. Are those not on the front lines excused for being ignorant?
“I don’t give about them” is the key phrase.
10 years ago, the majority voted for labor, a change.
And, 2 years from now they could again, if there was savvy political organizing. It would still be a Zionist party, but it would be Zionist party that willingly negotiates in good faith and fairly with a Palestinian party that willingly negotiates in good faith and fairly.
You advocate in your words for collective punishment, in the same reasoning that likud advocates for collective punishment of Palestinians for electing Hamas even shortly after the murderous second intifada.
My consistent thesis is that militancy is the greatest obstacle to Palestinian liberation, as ironic as that may sound to you.
ONLY acceptance of the other and assertive negotiation will achieve Palestinian liberation, at least in our lifetimes.
All of the other alternatives to two democratic states pose worse consequences for Palestinians.
A single democratic state that affords equal rights to purchase land in all of Palestine will yeild some integration, but likely overwhelmingly dominant Jewish style and residence and western law for property for example.
Only a Zimbabwe type revolution (in which there is NOT equal rights for individuals but politically corruptly sold “ethnic” rights) would yeild more Palestinian control, and I sincerely hope that you are not an advocate for Zimbabwean path to “success”.
The second option is a process of permanent militant struggle, always bordering on intimate violence and civil war. The consequences of civil war in Israel/Palestine is nearly certain Israeli military victory and nearly certain rationalized dispossession of a few hundred thousand more Palestinians.
The third option is two states in a state of profound conflict. That also risks war and overwhelming defeat for Palestine.
The best option remains negotiation of a two-state solution, accompanied by recognition and enthusiastic adherence to peace agreeement and ongoing communication between the states.
Too much to stomach. Too bad. This is not South Africa with 10% controlling 90%. This is 50/50, living in different regions, with each community thinking of themselves as distinct nations.
Want to get there? Support Fayyad and Abbas and Fatah, and reject the right-wing resistance of Hamas.
Triple e asks why i have not been devoting my time to educating the American people and the answer is that I have, as a public school teacher off and on since 1990 and as a radio show host for more than a decade and as a political activist for more years than I can count.
The fact that the majority of Jews in Israel, and from my experience here, are raised with the twin beliefs that Jews are superior to non-Jews and that anti-semitism is endemic with the “goyim, (a toxic brew when such a group assumes power) does not excuse, for a single minute, the crimes that Israel has committed against the Palestinians and its Lebanese neighbors to the north.
Sooner or later, virtually every Israeli will be on the front lines and those that never get there have someone in their family who will serve as an occupier. Given the choice of reading a newspaper such as Ha’aretz that carries articles critical of Israeli policy, they prefer those that are often indistinguishable from those of the 3rd Reich. In other words they choose to be ignorant and they will never be allowed to say “I didn’t know.” And that applies to you, as well.
“A single democratic state that affords equal rights to purchase land in all of Palestine will yeild some integration, but likely overwhelmingly dominant Jewish style and residence and western law for property for example.”
I’m willing to let the Palestinians decide if they want to take that terrible risk. So let’s just go along with the single state and see four ourselves if it plays along your delusional nonsense here, okay? No problem, right?
“Too much to stomach.”
I’m telling you what’s too much to stomach. Your sanctimonious, incoherent, preachy nonsense.
You have absolutely no recipe for the Palestinians to get the very least they can reasonably expect: An actually sovereign, viable state on the 1967 lines with minor 1:1 land swaps and East Jerusalem as a capital. You are either delusional or dishonest about the fact that Israel has never, ever agreed to this in any negotiations, no matter which party it was governed by and you expect that by “accepting” Israel the inner goodness of the Israeli side will magically come out and they will roll back their current policy of reducing the Palestinian territories to unviable, nonsovereign Bantustans.
But then again, that’s what you want, right? You want the settlers to be kept in, and the refugees to be kept out. You want Israel to retain full control of borders, airspace and resources. You want Palestine to be helpless, Israel armed to the teeth and enabled to trample Palestinian sovereignty at its leisure. At heart, all you want is for the Palestinians to accept the Israelis as their overlords, but at the same time you want a modern, benign-looking paintjob for this colonialist setup so you can keep your pretenses of being liberal. And you are whining about the fact that the Palestinians just won’t accept how much better they could have it by just agreeing to Israeli overlordship.
I can fully understand why Phil’s Arab friend hates your, and your ilk’s guts.
Blankfort,
Every American has the opportunity to read this site or many other sites on the Internet, yet you are quick to condemn Israelis “because they can read Ha’aretz” but not Americans that can read mondoweiss. Why?
Why can’t you admit that according to your point of view Americans are just as culpable as Israelis?
“ONLY acceptance of the other and assertive negotiation will achieve Palestinian liberation”
But the Israelis refuse to accept the other.
“The best option remains negotiation of a two-state solution,”
But the Israelis refuse to negotiate a two-state solution.
“accompanied by recognition”
The Israelis refuse to recognise Palestinian rights and they refuse to recognise the wrongs they have done.
“and enthusiastic adherence to peace agreement ”
The Israelis violate any and all agreements.
“This is 50/50,”
Then divide up the land 50/50, instead of (at best) 78/22.
“There has never been any group as hostile to the world and everyone in it as zionism is.” …That is one of the most ridiculous statements ever posted on mondoweiss.
Well then let’s fix that. Here are a few of the most ridiculous statements ever:
*Judeophobia is a variety of demonopathy with the distinction that it is not peculiar to particular races but is common to the whole of mankind, … Judeophobia is a psychic aberration. As a psychic aberration it is hereditary, and as a disease transmitted for two thousand years it is incurable. Leon Pinsker, Auto-Emancipation
*The Jewish question exists wherever Jews live in perceptible numbers. Where it does not exist, it is carried by Jews in the course of their migrations. We naturally move to those places where we are not persecuted, and there our presence produces persecution. This is the case in every country, and will remain so, even in those highly civilized–for instance, France–until the Jewish question finds a solution on a political basis. The unfortunate Jews are now carrying the seeds of Anti-Semitism into England; they have already introduced it into America. Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State
*Anti-Semitism increases day by day and hour by hour among the nations; indeed, it is bound to increase, because the causes of its growth continue to exist and cannot be removed. Its remote cause is our loss of the power of assimilation during the Middle Ages; its immediate cause is our excessive production of mediocre intellects, who cannot find an outlet downwards or upwards — that is to say, no wholesome outlet in either direction. When we sink, we become a revolutionary proletariat, the subordinate officers of all revolutionary parties; and at the same time, when we rise, there rises also our terrible power of the purse. Theodor Herzl, The Jewish State
Labor or Likud, Democrats or Republicans. It’s a matter of style, not substance in both cases. Labor knows how to talk nice while expanding settlements as Rabin did after Oslo. And besides, collective responsibility is not the same as collective punishment of which Israel is the past master, something that you have yet to complain about. At a certain point, if for example, Israel chooses to use a nuclear weapon on another country, collective responsibility and collective punishment will quite likely merge.
eee, are you really as stupid as that question makes you appear to be or is that you are totally out of even semi-solid arguments? Or both.
There is a world of difference between looking for information on the internet and passing over a newspaper that is for sale at your local kiosk and is regularly attacked by members of the Israeli government. Not only that, as I pointed out, virtually every Israeli man and woman, except for the religious parasites, will participate in some way in maintaining Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land.
The closest comparison could be made with white South Africans who lived comfortably with apartheid and whites in the American south who lived comfortably with Jim Crow.
Jeffery,
Looking for information on the internet is much easier than picking up one newspaper out of many in a kiosk. You have really dug yourself a hole here.
How about the American Jews? Are they culpable as much as Israeli Jews? After all they are responsible for finding out what Israel does in “their name”, no? They should be aware of the situation right? Many have relatives in Israel and study about Israel in their community.
I include, of course, among the culpable that segment of Jewish Americans that believes that Israel is their homeland and is part of the organized Jewish community, the main activity of which is supporting Israel and defaming and silencing its critics.
In some ways, elements of that group are worse because their power and influence rely on Israel remaining a belligerent that claims to be always having to fight for its legitimacy. Thus, as we saw with Camp David and later with Oslo, even the most mildest of moves away from that belligerency have not been welcomed with open arms by the organized Jewish community since the OJC view such moves as a threat.
Richard Witty said, ‘I’m lucky that James North is off in West Africa, and unable, for now, to interpret me very often. I can hardly hide my glee that the freedom flotilla may have been stopped. I support free speech and peaceful protest — as long as no Israelis are inconvenienced in any way.’
Hi James. Always enjoy reading your comments. The Anti-Mascot has been spamming more than usual, now that you’re on vacation(?).
Hope you come back soon!
Did I mention I was at school with Daniel Levy (and Sacha Baron Cohen)? Smart guy.
So, we should all donate to the American Cancer Foundation?
Maybe the thing to do is fight for a radical change in US political campaign doantions on one hand, and get behind the movement to force AIPAC to register as the agent of a foreign government, on the other hand–that’s what Bobby Kennedy was tring to do when he was inconveniently assassinated.
Sirhan’s appeal lawyer recently said there was a 3 month period that Sirhan does not remember at all, a product of brainwashing. And there is the forensic evidence: Bobby was shot behind the ear, but Sirhan always remained in front of him. Hence the theory of a second shooter who actually murdered Bobby.
Sirhan confessed he still felt, “…towards the Jews as they (the Jews) felt towards Hitler. Hitler persecuted them and now they’re persecuting me in the same style.” link to danielpipes.org
Don’t hide behind innuendo, Citizen. Do you think a cabal of Jews brainwashed Sirhan Sirhan and had Bobby Kennedy assassinated?
We do not know who brainwashed Sirhan Sirhan and killed Bobby Kennedy.
Where is Citizen’s innuendo that it was a cabal of Jews?
And what’s that got to do with the topic of this thread? Slow day at Hasbara Central, gf?
totally agree with this un-named views. Too many people think that the ethnic cleansing of Palestine can be stopped easily. It can’t.
Some people think that Israel is in some sort of crisis with regards to its devouring of Palestine, but any sense of crisis just plays into Israel’s hands. Israel is more powerful than ever. Israel completely owns US policy with regards to Palestine/Israel and any other US policy which impacts on Israel. There is no reason for the status quo, which is the continuing dismemberment of Palestine, not to continue.
While the world watches and leaders help Israel thumb its nose at the Law; everyone is secretly thankful they weren’t born a Palestinian having to be under the boot of Israel.
Some of us of course express our righteous indignation at this, and try to do our part to remedy the situation, while others look the other way kind of like people who cross the street or pretend to be distracted when a homeless person is in their path or even see an impossible situation not worthy of outreach.
“–The U.S. still has the power over Palestine’s future, as it did in 1948.”
Back in 1948 US had nothing to do with Palestine or Israel
I was Joseph Stalin of USSR who pressed for UN recognition of Israel. US was strictly against.
“–We (Arabs) always told the U.S. that we can’t abandon Palestine because it is an issue of our identity. This we have explained for 70 years. Palestine is part of our identity, it cannot be subjugated. We have also explained that if the Palestinians accept a two-state solution, we would accept it. Would we accept an Israeli Jerusalem? Of course not. We can’t; Jerusalem must be shared.”
Now that’s bullshit.
1 – Arabs never told US anything regarding Palestine during late 1940s early 1950s because at the time USA had nothing to do with Israel whatsoever.
2 – Palestine never had to do with “Arab identity”. It’s not homeland of Arab nation, nor it is home for any prominent Arab leader, neither it has any other high importance. Furthermore, Palestinians are hardly accepted as equals by other Arabs, which is the reason why until today Palestinians live in refugee camps and were not granted civil rights by host countries.
3 – For 70 years Arabs explained nothing, only started one war after another.
4 – Jerusalem is not mentioned in Koran not even once. Jerusalem must be shared? Why? Because some Arabs want it so?
5 – 2-state solution has been on the table since May 1948. It was Arabs who declined it and started the first war on new-born Israel.
“And we will be part of the countervailing force in American politics that will end the lobby.”
That will imminently lead to most gruesome consequences for USA, because Israel will have to choose another strong ally out of rather short list: either Russia or China; and each of these global superpowers will be more than happy to have such sophisticated ally.
False. The US pressed and bribed other states to vote for UN recognition. The 2million Truman received in campaign contributions had a lot to do with it.
The USA helped create Israel you dolt, and by the early 1940′s, the Zionist leadership had already decided to jettison Britain in favor of the US.
Most support to Israel came from the US.
Which is why the British promised them independence in 1915. As for Furthermore, Palestinians not being as equals by other Arabs, don’t confuse the dictators (who want the Palestinians to disappear) with the public.
False. With the exception of 1973, Israel started every war since 1948.
False on all counts.
1. Jerusalem is indeed mentioned in Koran, though Israel was created in 1948 for the first time, so Biblical BS is irrelevant.
2. Israel was created based in the agreement that Jerusalem was be shared. Of course, one can understand why you’re indignant about Israel being required to agree to it’s commitments.
Because some Arabs want it so?
And Israel have violated at ignored it ever since.
Like most parasites, Israel will end up destroying itself along with it’s host. There is no way Israel will ever enjoy another parasitical relationship like it has with the US. China and Russia have seem what Zionism has done to the US and Britain.
You’re spewing hasbara lies, lightbringer.
Try reading some history:
link to alternativeinsight.com
Back in 1948 US had nothing to do with Palestine or Israel
I was Joseph Stalin of USSR who pressed for UN recognition of Israel.
WTF? The United States was the first country in the world to recognize the State of Israel and US UN Ambassador Phillip Jessup placed the resolution accepting Israel’s application for membership in the UN on the Security Council agenda. The rest of your post is just as nonsensical. The US negotiated with the Arab states for years over the Palestine Mandate. At the San Francisco Conference, the US proposed admitting Palestine into the UN together with Belorussia and the Ukraine.
Russia and China both recognize the State of Palestine.
Exposing the Scofield Reference Bible of the Christian Zionists is more important.
Edit: I didn’t mean this as an answer to your post, Hostage. I mindlessly hit the reply button.
“It’s not homeland of Arab nation,”
What nonsense is this? Palestinian Arabs had their homes there. They and their ancestors had lived there for generations. How can it not be their homeland?
Jerusalem is not mentioned in Koran not even once. Jerusalem must be shared? Why?
What do you think Al-Quds and Bayt al-Maqdis are?
Lightbringer: Jerusalem is not mentioned in Koran not even once. Jerusalem must be shared? Why?
MRW: What do you think Al-Quds and Bayt al-Maqdis are?
No no, MRW. Lucifer is right. Jerusalem (and all of historical Palestine) should belong to the religion that mentions it most in its holy scriptures. That religion is, of course – as I have long argued on this site – Christianity (814 times)! I propose the immediate establishment of a special UN commission to supervise the orderly restoration of power to the House of Anjou, specifically Juan Carlos of Spain, Rey de Jérusalen.
Shmuel: I’m sorry that my travels are not taking me though Italy, so I could salute your wit and humanity in person.
Thanks, James. I look forward to meeting you some day (and you know where all roads eventually lead …). Safe and fruitful travels.
I wanna be Rey.
I wanna be Rey.
Sorry, MRW. Unless you are a direct descendant of Yolande of Brienne or Henri de Lusignan, you’ll have to make do with a lesser title. How do you fancy being Count of Cana, Earl of Emmaus or Marquis of Magdala? Assuming you are a Christian, of course.
Shmuel,
Outta luck, I’m not a Christian. Probably why I didn’t know what a Rey was. ;-) But the Marquis of Magdala has marvelous alliteration, n’est-ce-pas?
P.S. I’m about to plant this link some place else here in honor of July 4th, but you get a head’s up:
link to freedomboxfndn.mirocommunity.org
” because Israel will have to choose another strong ally out of rather short list: either Russia or China; and each of these global superpowers will be more than happy to have such sophisticated ally.”
- Oh bruther! The arrogance is staggering. What are you going to say next: Either we get our way or we’ll blow you away to kingdom come?
Darkbringer has no appreciation at all for the US’s prime factual role in recognizing Israel and pressuring the swing vote (a couple of tiny totally economically subservient countries) at the UN for Israel to become “a nation among nations” there. Israel thanked the US by never honoring the conditions subsequent to gaining a seat at the UN. This is Israel’s well-established pattern to this day.
“That will imminently lead to most gruesome consequences for USA, because Israel will have to choose another strong ally out of rather short list: either Russia or China; and each of these global superpowers will be more than happy to have such sophisticated ally.”
LOL…what wouldn’t’ I give to see Israel under Putin’s wing……that would be the last the world would ever see or hear of Israel. Perfect justice. Netanyahu would be in diapers sitting in a Russia jail.
7 Reasons Vladimir Putin Is the World’s Craziest Badass
link to cracked.com
I must admit I smiled at the image of Netanyahu trying to get away with treating Putin as he has Obama.
Neither Russia nor China can replace the US when it comes to Israel because neither will be prepared not only to give, as opposed to sell, Israel it’s very best weaponry and guarantee it a “qualitative edge” over the combined Arab armies, but it will not act as Israel’s poodle dog in the UN which is equally important.
In other words, the best Israel can expect from either China or Russia is to be treated as a normal country which won’t allow itself to be pushed around as the US has been. One reason: neither China nor Russia has the equivalent of our Congress that can be bought or intimidated and wealthy Jews in Russia have learned to keep their eyes on profits and not politics as Khodorkovski has learned.
RE: “we are all prisoners of the Israel lobby.” – Weiss
SEE – Demystifying 9/11: Israel and the Tactics of Mistake, by Dr. Alan Sabrosky, Dissident Voice, 06/29/11
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to dissidentvoice.org
P.S. ALSO SEE: Israel Is Spying In And On The U.S.?, by Carl Cameron, Fox News (four video clips from shortly after 9/11)
LINK – link to informationclearinghouse.info
Dickerson!
Alan Sabrosky is a terribly deceptive crank, and really a discredit to the honest researchers who expose Zionism. I read the Dissident Voice piece and what Sabrosky writes sounds learned but is just exploded by a few simple facts.
First, here is the rebuttal of the Dancing Israelis link to 911myths.com
Van With Explosives
Regarding the van with explosives, 8 minutes after the report of that, there was a retraction: Police confirm arrests but deny explosives find
4:34:43 AM
NYPD officers have confirmed the arrest of three men on the New Jersey turn-pike.
However officials denied any explosives were found in the van.
Officials declined to say why exactly the men had been arrested.
link to archives.tcm.ie
Document the Event
Does saying “I wanted to document the event” mean the blogger knew the meteor was about to strike? Of course not. It simply means he wanted to record what had happened.
And equally, every single person who pointed a camera at the WTC on 9/11 did so because they wanted to “document the event”. The phrase does not in any sense imply that they knew what was going to happen.
WTC7
WTC7 was on fire all morning, and had a huge gash taken out of the bottom! link to debunking911.com . Just because it looks like a controlled demolition, *does not mean* that it was a controlled demolition!!
Seeing through hasbara is the essential job of MW, but there is the danger of false leads and blind alleys! The problem of Sabrosky is that he is published in the same places as genuine investigative journalism, and Sabrosky’s shoddy thinking tarnishes the other material, which is very important.
Try to stick with Carl Sagan’s dictum: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Robert, quite aside from whether or not there was evidence of explosives in the van of the Mossad agents, who were identified by name as such in the Forward 3/15/02, there is no question but that these agents were working for a phony moving company, Urban Movers, also described as a Mossad front, who were reported to the police by a NJ resident who saw them filming the burning WTC tower and who appeared to be celebrating the event. None of that is a matter of dispute, nor is the fact that they were arrested and held by the NJ police for two months, with minimum mention in the US media, until they were released and allowed to return to Israel.
Some questions remain that even Carl Sagan (unless, he too, was a Zionist) would agree required an explanation. Here are five:
1) How did these Mossad agents come to be across the river in NJ with a video camera recording the event before it had been reported as a “terrorist” act?
2) What were these Mossad agents and their phony moving company doing in New Jersey or in the US in the first place?
3) Why did the US not prosecute these Mossad agents as foreign spies?
4) Were their government figures or private individuals who intervened in their behalf?
5) Why was this not fully reported in the US media or included in the 9-11 Commission report?
A last question for you Why does Sabrosky’s take on 9-11 upset you more than all the facts I listed above? Are you not troubled by Mossad agents operating on US soil? Don’t you wonder or care about what they were doing? Do you think it is totally impossible for Israel to have been involved in 9-11? Do you discount other evidence that the Israelis knew about it in advance, such as the call to the Indigo messaging center two hours before the attack, warning of it, that was published in Ha’aretz and the Washington Post and then dropped through the cracks without a mention afterward?
Jeffrey, MRW
The reason that I get excited about this is that it’s terribly important NOT to head down the nowheres-ville of conspiracy theory where the conspiracy theory can’t even put together a coherent statement of the theory! We’re not here to be BSers. We’re not here to live the JFK/UFO/etc etc conspiracy theories all over again. So if there is really good information, and a plausible model, then that’s fine, but the WTC crap, AFAIK doesn’t rise to the level. I’ll look at MRW’s stuff.
Brief responses: Agree with your first paragraph, it appears that they were Mossad agents working on something else (Islamic fund raising in NJ). It is known that Mossad does spy on the US, as does Russia, etc and there is an understanding on the part of law enforcement that both sides spy on each other. So the FBI released them and asked for “a promise not to spy again”, which is perfect sweep-in-under-the rug language.
Regarding the Odigo message center, it is indeed very interesting.
Here is the Haaretz report:
Odigo, the instant messaging service, says that two of its workers received messages two hours before the Twin Towers attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen, and the company has been cooperating with Israeli and American law enforcement, including the FBI, in trying to find the original sender of the message predicting the attack.
Micha Macover, CEO of the company, said the two workers received the messages and immediately after the terror attack informed the company’s management, which immediately contacted the Israeli security services, which brought in the FBI.
“I have no idea why the message was sent to these two workers, who don’t know the sender. It may just have been someone who was joking and turned out they accidentally got it right. And I don’t know if our information was useful in any of the arrests the FBI has made,” said Macover. Odigo is a U.S.-based company whose headquarters are in New York, with offices in Herzliya.
So while it is interesting, it’s nothing like proof.
And also, there is no single model that has been proposed as an alternative. It’s just a cat’s-breakfast of doubt of the official story. Noam Chomsky, who is a scientist himself, doesn’t believe in 911 conspiracy.
Robert, you want a theory: there are about 2500 architects and engineers who have signed a statement expressing their belief that the WTC towers and Bldg 7 were brought down by controlled demolition. That would have required explosives to have been pre-positioned there to be set off in coordination with the planes hitting the towers (which only required those with the explosives knowing about the planes, not the reverse).
How would those explosives be delivered? By a moving company. By coincidence, there was one, Urban Movers, which just happened to be a Mossad front, which, you say, is just as normal as Netanyahu getting 29 standing ovations from Congress. Everyone does it, Russia, etc. so that makes it okay and we don’t have to wonder what they’re up to.
By another coincidence, Larry Silverstein, who had recently bought the WTC, happens to be a close friend of Netanyahu with whom he speaks frequently. He made a bundle on the 9-11 insurance pay-off. Now, if Silverstein wanted those buildings done away with, there was Urban movers who, if wearing workman’s coveralls while delivering the explosives, would have been virtually invisible to the office workers going in and out of the building and would have all the proper papers to show the building security.
Now, is that what I think happened? I really don’t know but if you think that is not in the realm of possibility, than you are not only intellectually dishonest, but stupid, as well.
If you’re looking for a true conspiracy theory, I’ll give you the official narrative of 9-11 that the Bush-Cheney administration has been handing out for years.
As for Chomsky, he has been playing the role of Left gatekeeper for years, first with the JFK assassination, then with his dismissal of the power of the pro-Israel Lobby, and now with 9-11. And he won’t debate any of it.
Jeffrey Blankfort wrote : “As for Chomsky, he has been playing the role of Left gatekeeper for years, first with the JFK assassination, then with his dismissal of the power of the pro-Israel Lobby, and now with 9-11. And he won’t debate any of it.”
Jeffrey, I have read your excellent articles challenging Chomsky, and I am interested in your views here — why do you think Chomsky is gatekeeping? Is it that he is ( to use Gilad Atzmon’s words ) ‘tribal’ too, and thus, still ‘loyal?’ Or, is that he is afraid of the massive power of the lobby, and just ‘doesn’t want to go there?’ Perhaps he just doesn’t want the added burden that challenging the lobby would bring on him.
I also notice that he has no wish to discuss right of return in any depth ( he usually brushes it off and wants to move one ) and, as far as I know, he does the same with discussion of BDS.
What do you think? If he is a gatekeeper, for how long has he been acting as one, and why do you think he does so?
By the way, I think you should compile your significant knowledge of the whole I/P conflict into a book — are you going to do so? It would make an excellent read.
Robert wrote : “We’re not here to live the JFK/UFO/etc etc conspiracy theories all over again. So if there is really good information, and a plausible model, then that’s fine, but the WTC crap, AFAIK doesn’t rise to the level. ”
Robert, I too have no interest in conspiracy theories and the kinds of ‘scenes’ that surround them, and I did my best to ignore WTC theories as a total waste of time. But, for any thinking person, it becomes unavoidable — the govt. versions of events ( from US and UK ) are ludicrous on every level and just don’t stand up to even the most basic scrutiny. Even seasoned journalists like Robert Fisk , who mocks conspiracy theorists, does not believe it, and balanced, rational commentators and academics like Tariq Ramadan, also doen’t believe it.
It is not the case that ‘conspiracy theories’ related to WTC / 9-11 are all about ‘alien laser rays’ ,and, ‘ the plane was a magical projection and wasn’t even there’ and other such utter nonsesense : no, most people who question that day simply see that the state explanations are just fantastical on every level. As Blankfort says, the state versions are so ‘out there’ as to be conspiratorial, not the doubters version.
And you say that Chomsky, a scientist, supports the state story of what happened on that day : sorry, but Chomsky is a professor of linguistics, and not engineering or physics. Linguistics may well be a science, but not a branch of science that helps him understand how a totally secure, strong building can drop in seconds in a manner that baffles engineers and demolition experts in its orderly speed and precision.
Well, not to put too fine a point on things but we’ve heard Mr. Weiss himself bemoaning his own tribalism. Honestly, I find this impulse completely alien, as a Catholic. When a Catholic priest is unmask as having committed crimes, Catholics don’t have an impulse to press and press a defense for him once the evidence is concrete that there was wrongdoing.
Chomsky has been in denial about the whole concept of “Jewish power” from the beginning of his writings on the subject of Israel and Zionism, an issue he was reluctant to take on until challenged to do so by our late mutual friend, Israel Shahak, who complained, according to Chomsky, that he was writing about Central America, Vietnam and other issues while ignoring the one that had been closest to his heart.
Chomsky was raised a Zionist and became an active one with a leftist youth group, Hashomir Hatzair whose position was not nearly as progressive as Chomsky remembers it. He still claims to be a Zionist insisting that it is Zionism that has changed and not him. This is simply a comfortable illusion on his part and has no basis in reality, any more than his stating, as if it were a fact, that establishing an exclusive Jewish state, was not the goal of the Zionist movement until the Nazi Judeocide. This requires him ignoring considerable evidence to the contrary which only someone in his exalted position can expect to get away with and, for the most part, he has.
While he would not acknowledge it, he clearly falls into the category of “tribalist” and that, no doubt, was the cause of his admitted fear, on the eve of the 1967 war, that Israel would be wiped out, and that would account for his obsession with denying the power of the Israel Lobby and the perfidious role it has played in shaping US Middle East policy on Israel’s behalf.
Going beyond allowing what has happened to the Palestinians, it has included getting us into the current Iraq war.as well as the first one, in 1991, when its minions in the media and the think tanks kept up a relentless drumbeat for attacking Iraq over its occupation of Kuwait rather than giving negotiations a chance to work.
None of this, of course, is ever mentioned by Chomsky.The neocons whose bloody hand prints were all over the 2003 invasion and who might be described as the “strike force” of the Israel Lobby simply do not exist for him.
By insisting that Israel is supported by Washington because it serves as America’s “cop on the beat” in the Middle East, he can deflect blame being placed on Jews collectively. That it may have briefly performed in that capacity, having allegedly persuaded Syria not to intervene during Black September in Jordan 41 years ago, and even that is debatable, is irrelevant. That it has been bribed by the White House to stay out of both Iraq wars, turning the notion of beat cop on its head, is equally so. Since Chomsky refuses to debate any of his Left critics, he doesn’t have to offer proof for anything he says or writes and those who still worship at his feet are by this time mostly brain dead.
His opposition to both the Palestinian right of return (“not realistic”) and BDS targeting Israel is consistent with a Zionist position designed to protect Israel as, of course, is his adamant opposition to creating a single state of all it citizens. Add to that his further opposition to using the term “apartheid” to describe the situation in Israel and the West Bank, a term that would certainly resonate and be more comprehensible than calls to “end the occupation” in the ears of your average American and you have what could easily be described as a major asset for Israel setting the agenda in the highest echelons of the American Left.
Robert,
None of what you write is borne out by NYT and other accounts that are available via Paul Thompson’s excellent timeline. I don’t care what those cheezy debunk-911 sites say. You have to be brain-dead to accept the official story. There were explosives found in one of the white vans. Dan Rather reported it that day, and the police who made one of the stops have a youtube about it. There were two white vans, one the parkway and another at the GW Bridge. There are police blotters. There were the photographs in one van of the Israelis with their lighters lit in front of a smoldering WTC2, the first tower to go down. Do not insult our intelligence that three Israelis were going to casually locate a parking lot in a residential NJ area to photograph was they didn’t know was about to happen as if they were casual tourists on the street. Enough.
Abe Foxman was so upset over the Fox series in December 2001 that he begged them to remove it.
And your statements about WTC7 are simply bizarre in terms of all the ACTUAL video evidence there is and Larry Silverstein’s own statements on PBS in 1994.
Further, Dr. Alan Sabrosky is not some fly-by-night blogger. He was educated and taught at the US Army War College, the #1 school in the country. Better than Harvard or Yale. He is not a fool, and neither are the credentialed architects and engineers who agree with him. So put a sock on it.
MRW,
As I responded to Blankfort, my primary motivation against Sabrosky is not political at all, it’s as a physicist (I have 3 degrees in applied physics), and I understand that very very few conspiracy theories are true. They are almost always incoherent. They are very often bullshit.
Could you reply with links to the white vans, the police blotters, and the youtube video of the explosives?
“Do not insult our intelligence that three Israelis were going to casually locate a parking lot in a residential NJ area to photograph was they didn’t know was about to happen as if they were casual tourists on the street. Enough.”
Why not? These Mossad agents on a different, unrelated mission, learn about 9/11 and they hunt for a spot to take photos. They do act happy (I believe the NJ woman), and act like assholes. So?
“And your statements about WTC7 are simply bizarre in terms of all the ACTUAL video evidence there is and Larry Silverstein’s own statements on PBS in 1994.”
Can you explain this? There is video and photos of WTC7 on fire and with a gash in it. It was burning all morning. Choose the simplest explanation.
“Further, Dr. Alan Sabrosky is not some fly-by-night blogger. He was educated and taught at the US Army War College, the #1 school in the country. Better than Harvard or Yale. He is not a fool, and neither are the credentialed architects and engineers who agree with him. So put a sock on it.”
Ordinarily I dislike and distrust the Discredit the Messenger tactic used by Zionists, and others. But this one might be closer to the truth:
Here is research on Alan Sabrosky from Yahoo Answers:
link to answers.yahoo.com
Who the heck is Alan Sabrosky?
The guy runs all over the Internet claiming he is 100% sure that it was Mossad behind the 9/11, but does not give a single proof except his reputation of a “military expert”. He says he was a top figure in some U.S. Army War College and that he has the classified information.
Who knows what?
7 months ago Report Abuse
Y.K. Cherson
Best Answer – Chosen by Voters
Alan Sabrosky bills himself as the former Director of Studies at the U.S. Army War College. He has made quite a name for himself in recent months by first declaring himself a military expert with high-level connections in the U.S. military hierarchy, then by outrageously claiming that Israel was responsible for 9/11 and that the U.S. military knows this and is concealing it. While he offers no evidence for this, he claims that he should be trusted because of his “expertise”. The truth of the matter — with respect to both his background and his claims — is quite different, of course.
Sabrosky was working at the US Army War College as an administrator. He never was the director or dean of the college. Far from it. According to the Press Office of the Army War College, in the mid-1980s, Sabrosky served as a civilian administrator at a research department of the college, supervising the publication of papers written within that department. Putting it simple, he was something like a librarian, a mid-level civilian manager at a military college, without access to the sort of highly classified material of the sort he now fraudulently claims to have. Moreover, he worked there 25 years ago. How on earth could someone who worked on the level of a college librarian in the 1980s be privy to top secret information about the 9/11? And how on earth could he be the only person to know about it or think it worth revealing?
The guy is making dough on 9/11 and on the hot wish of Arabs and their fans to make Israel look like a monster.
Don’t bother with these people, Robert. if you’re a friend of the Palestinian cause, you’ll realize that they are discrediting it by associating it with this kind of whackiness.
Robert, as one scientist to another -
Call me a skeptic on everything, including any and all conspiracy theories, being that reality itself may be a kind of conspiracy theory (hey, we really could all be part of a software matrix, run not by some malevolent machines – as in the movie, but perhaps as an educational game of sorts. For whom neither I not anyone can say. — I can make a great case pointing out how every single bit of evidence points in that direction, and your only defense will be that you don’t think so because it “feels” real. But as an applied physicist you would know that it is not possible to get out of “The Box” virtually by definition, because that’s exactly how we define a “closed box”, so of course, it feel real inside the box, it being a tautology).
Ultimately, your arguments against those who see strange patterns surrounding 9/11 boil down to the fact that you just can’t believe anyone would such a thing (unless they are Arab, in which case anything is believable, isn’t it?). And why can’t you believe the possibility that not just Arabs are capable of ghastly things? probably because you can’t imagine yourself sacrificing this many humans for a cause, no matter how significant. But Arabs are not like you, so who knows about their motivations? Yours is therefore an argument by projection, which will preclude true objectivity. A in: I can believe it about them (other, as in “Arabs”) but not about “us” (as in properly civilized westerner).
So you say: “The guy is making dough on 9/11 and on the hot wish of Arabs and their fans to make Israel look like a monster…”
But if you could bring yourself to admit that Israel really could behave as a monster, then the entire gist of your counter-argument would change tenor, wouldn’t it? that is, if you can be that self-honest (not easy, I know).
The difference between you and others who’d entertain a 9/11 conspiracy may boil down to just that – they believe that Israel (as an entity, not to be confused with individual Israelis of course) could – and would indeed behave monstrously if it felt it served its interests – however poorly or irrationally these may be defined.
I remain a skeptic because I know – in my guts – what Israel (again the collective entity) is capable of. Read Abigail Abarbanel take on the Insanity of it all, and you may just get a twinge or two of doubt (if you need link, ask and I shall provide).
Danaa,
“The guy is making dough on 9/11 and on the hot wish of Arabs and their fans to make Israel look like a monster…”
That didn’t come from me, it came from the Yahoo Answerer.
I actually have a common answer for the conspiracy theory and “we really could all be part of a software matrix, run not by some malevolent machines – as in the movie, but perhaps as an educational game of sorts. ”
It’s the following: The amount of information that in takes to create a perfect simulation of reality, is so great that you would need a computer the size of the Universe to compute all of the possibilities. This comes from Daniel Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained” (1991).
This is strong evidence that we don’t live in a simulated universe. The same logic goes for a 9/11 conspiracy being something other than what has been stated. It would require many conspirators, and someone would talk.
Another point to mention to Blankfort is that all events in this world are described by a LOT of information. There are coincidences all the time, lots of things to chew on. So with the JFK assassination, with 9/11, there is lots of fodder for research. FWIW, there is some interesting, respectable information that Sarah Palin might have faked the pregnancy with Trig Palin. link to andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com . Is it true? Mmmmmmmmm—not 100% convinced.
I am with Danaa on this Robert,
I am a qualified engineer. While I don’t see how a massive conspiracy was pulled off, the official explanations for what took place defy the most basic laws of physics.
Are you sure you have a background in physics Robert? How many steel buildings have collapsed in hostyr at freefall speed due to fire?
Put your physicist hat on for a minute. Even if you consider the official explanation about the heat weakening the steel, it would mean that the whole building would have had to reach an equalized temperature at the weakening point of steel and all those stell supports woudl have had to have failed at the same time.
That as you know, is physically impossible withuot inserting the whole structure in a furnace.
What evidence is there that they were on an unlreated mission? If they only learned about 9/11 at that moment (while driving a van fileld with explosives), then hwo is it they knew right away that Arabs were to blame? And why did they tell an audience in Israel that they were in the US (not just NJ) to document the attack?
Simulation is nothing more than applying mathematical principals to model real world events.
The Manhatten project was pulled off without anyone talking.
As I recall, Edgar Allen Poe once wrote a short story in which he solved an actual murder which seemed to be based on a number of coincidences. There might be one or two coincidences, he noted, but when they number six or seven or more (as they have in both the JFK assassinations and 9-11) they are no longer coincidences but form a pattern pointing to a conclusion.
Even though I was not an admirer of JFK, I was wise enough to note the number of strange coincidences that led away from the government’s conclusion that his murder was carried out by Oswald, acting alone but it’s not something that I will rehash here. There are, as many, if not more, in the case of 9-11, and what I find curious is that some of those who swallow the government’s conspiracy theory hook, line and sinker and advise us to do the same, are otherwise telling us all the time, as does Chomsky, that our government lies. I guess he means only on the small things.
I have to back up Shingo at least in terms of the physics of it. And I recommend going and looking into the UL and NIST testing to find out how incredible it is.
I’m not going to pretend to know exactly what brought down those towers, but a localized, off center impact that somehow compromised over half of the main structural elements (according to the NIST simulation, that is what’s required) when that sort of impact and fire could not possibly compromise that many core structural members (whereas in the UL post-mortem none of the test structures failed under those conditions)
There was a skyscraper in Venezuela that was virtually gutted by fire. Not only did it fail to fall straight down… it failed to fall at all.
I have no doubt that al-Qaeda wanted to kill every man, woman and child in the WTC. They declared themselves an overt terrorist threat not only to the US, but the world (and most of their victims to date have been fellow Muslims). But those planes, by themselves, could not have taken out a modern skyscraper.
And frankly, I don’t think it even matters anymore why those skyscrapers fell. The damage, as they say, has been done and I’m not merely talking about the loss of life in Manhattan. I’ve come to the revelation that most Americans don’t care — about truth, about justice, about human rights and social responsibility — so I’ve stopped trying. There are people out there who are committed to not drowning in their own effluence, and that’s who I’m going to help from now on.
Find those nukes in Iraq yet, hophmi?
There was an extraordinary number of individuals who were either connected with the JFK assassination or were investigating it and wound up dead by less than natural causes, what these days might be called a “death cluster.” And the fact of the matter, there are a number of sources that indicate the US had forewarning of the attack. What is most remarkable was the stand down of NORAD on that day which was an absolute requirement for the event to take place. A coincidence? Gimme a break.
“The same logic goes for a 9/11 conspiracy being something other than what has been stated. It would require many conspirators, and someone would talk.”
This was a point old Muhammad Heykal made.
Osama’s group in Afghanistan would have been closely watched, if not penetrated, by the Afghans, the ISI, Iranian, Indian, and Turkish intelligence. Of course, the Indians have people in the ISI and vice versa. And all the other intelligence organisations would be trying to watch those.
Some of the alleged hijackers were in the Hamburg cell of Al-Qaeda, under the noses of German intelligence.
The operation took a great deal of planning, and involved a large number of people.
Surely, suggests Heykal, some word of it would have leaked out.
And yet, allegedly, no-one found out any detail till the last minute.
Robert: “The amount of information that in takes to create a perfect simulation of reality, is so great that you would need a computer the size of the Universe to compute all of the possibilities. This comes from Daniel Dennett’s “Consciousness Explained” (1991).”
I read excerpts from that book and am not convinced. For one, this was 1991, and enormous amount of progress has been made since both in computer capacity and in software development. For another, your comment proves what I meant by being “Inside the Box”. To you the universe is what you think and believe it to be based on observations we, who are in the box, make (and that include all our instruments and theoretical constructs). But who says it has to actually be all there? Ever wondered why we have a finite speed of light? maybe so we can’t get out there too far? that one little parameter does kind of limit the amount of data that needs to be simulated quite drastically.
Another little food for thought is evolution. Were I a simulator of universes, why, that’s just what I might come up with – let things chug along on their own – using a few basic starter algorithms, then see where it goes (right now nowhere very good, so me thinks the simulators – such as “they” are may be getting a bit frantic; that is if you were to assume that the purpose of the “game” is like all games – ie, last as long as possible).
“This is strong evidence that we don’t live in a simulated universe.”
Seems like your rules of evidence are rather weaker than mine. One book – from 1991?
But hey, I don’t want to hijack this good thread so I’ll quit here on these tantalizing few notes, perhaps to ponder another day on another thread.
You should pay attention though to what Jeffrey, MRW, Shingo, chaos and others here are saying. There is such a thing as one coincidence too many. And we haven’t even touched upon the peculiar timing of the Anthrax mystery (which remains so, to this day, the would-be “perpetrator conveniently dead). Just another of those “timing” coincidences…..
More like the testing that NIST did not do or the results of experiments they conducted that they deliberately ignored/left out, because it contradicted the official narrative. This includes the claims by a NIST spokssman that he had never heard anything about molten iron.
Also, to further challenge the failure due to heat theory, here’s a few points I would like to add.
1. It was claimed that the temperatures reached would have weakened the steel members by 50%. That means only the members directly subjected to the heat would have been affected, which does not explain why the members failed perfectly and unformly on every floor
2. Most engineers will verify that redundancy is build into every design. When it comes to such structures, normally 200%. Thus even if every bean was weakned by 50%, it should have at least maintained some degree of integrity.
hophmi said : “Don’t bother with these people, Robert. if you’re a friend of the Palestinian cause, you’ll realize that they are discrediting it by associating it with this kind of whackiness.”
The official story is the totally whacky one hophmi. Huge parts of it just do not make sense.
I have no interest in silly conspiracy ‘scenes’ and the kinds of people that seem to flock around them, but, I can no longer take the official story seriously.
After all — Can you explain the following fall ?
link to youtube.com
As Jeffrey Blankfrot and others have said here; it is the OFFICIAL story that is just absurd. How could anyone believe it?
“Morality means nothing without power. Yes, you talk about the civil rights movement, inside your country. But that was a domestic frame. In the international frame, there is only power. These countries talk about the International Criminal Court for Gadafyi and for Bashar al-Assad, but you will never see a prosecution of an Israeli or an American for war crimes. Because who has the power.”
I can’t quite agree with the first sentence above, but the rest of it is dead on.
The reason you can’t agree with the first sentence is because you don’t know what it’s like to be occupied and to have a truly justified cause and no voice because you are the eternally demonized party and the oppressor always appears good and moral and decent. Maybe in a utopian world “morality” always wins; but not in a world where Zionism exists.
There is another dysfunctional invocation inherent in this post.
That is that it revives the likud theme of “we are surrounded” by hundreds of millions of Arabs offering democratic participation proportional to population in the whole of the Arab world (meaning none functionally).
Did you intend to invoke that sentiment?
Are you still blaming us for Israelis voting for Likud?
The Jewish rise to power has not been based on bloodline, even if it’s true that we were(are?) clannish, simply because we had to. The rise was based on enormous effort, discipline and intensity. We didn’t have access to the elite in the years leading up to the civil rights movement, but we were quickly gaining power by mostly meritocratic means.
Arabs can learn from this.
That doesn’t mean that power doesn’t corrupt: we’re all human, Jews or non-Jews. But it just must be frustrating for him to realize how much more powerful Jews are in America than Arabs, and I can understand that(even empathize with it to some extent) but truthfully I would always prefer things to stay as they are, instead of seeing the erosion of Jewish triumphalism in exchange for a more fair situation in Palestine.
In the end, however, I think we are seeing the closing days of the Jewish peak. The Asians are coming, and even wasps too, but not my or Phil’s generation of wasps. They’ve played too long in the woods of the Northwest and Minnesota doing nothing in particular.
Check the out coming generation in Goldman Sachs. It’s all European. The head of Citi is an Indian. They’re rebounding big time, and Phil is right that we are biased towards our own too, which could probably have left more competent characters out in the cold before.
We’ll continue to be a powerful presence but I don’t think we’ll see the peak days of today in the future in America, sadly if that will be so, even if we are now probably a permanent presence up in the stratosphere and I wouldn’t want it any other way, Palestine be damned.
“I wouldn’t want it any other way, Palestine be damned.”
Here’s my two cents on this: Zionism be damned!
And I hope people realize that a large majority of Jews think exactly as you when you stated this: ” I would always prefer things to stay as they are, instead of seeing the erosion of Jewish triumphalism in exchange for a more fair situation in Palestine.” and how much this statement has to do with the “erosion” of freedoms and self-determination the rest of us value, and the unfair representation of the Jewish minority over the “gentile” MAJORITY.
When people wake up to this ever worsening situation; then you will see justified anger in the streets. The masses may be dumb for now, but don’t count on them never waking up. People resent being controlled by a MINORITY as the Arab “spring” is proving.
I don’t want to make this a Jew vs Gentile argument. I would prefer it to be a Zionist vs Non Zionist fight with a great number of Jews in the latter group, but let me tell you something, YOU are in the category of those Jews whose hubris supercedes their conscience and are, as a like-minded group, taking this fight into dangerous territory and will be solely responsible for the consequences wherever they lead, and you will also make it difficult for Jews who recognize their priorities in this human race and are humbled by them because we are not in this Universe to toot our own horn.
I’m only stating what I see and how much resentment this kind of hubris is creating that may inevitably reach a boiling point. Or has your own hubris clouded your judgment so much that you’re actually blind to how human nature works?
“I would always prefer things to stay as they are, instead of seeing the erosion of Jewish triumphalism in exchange for a more fair situation in Palestine.”
Well I whipped out a rant on this early but evidently it was too harsh on the tribe for publication.
So let me just say this.
When you see Anglo Saxon tribalism decide it’s tired of Jewish triumphalism’s affect on the US and others…your aren’t going to like it.
It will be Israel and/ or Jews or Zionist be damned.
And then you will perhaps think a just peace with Palestine would have been a small price to pay.
That is exactly why a Jewish state is required. The Jews need a refuge when the Anglo-Saxons go crazy.
Why not try avoiding provoking the host for a change?
The get-out-of-jail-free Israel card seems only to engender greater risk taking. At the expense of the integrated diaspora. Just when we were all getting along so well.
Hubris ever seeks a new victim.
I really wouldn’t want a strip of sand and 200 nukes as my trump cards in the game of history.
Alec,
You wouldn’t, but million of other Jews do.
What you call “provoking” I call just trying to achieve your best. Also, the likelihood of anyone harming Jews given the strength of Israel is very small. Any organization with bad intentions will have to contend with the organized might of Israel.
I hope you realize that my comment was tongue in cheek to show how inconsistent American’s position is.
eee wrote : “That is exactly why a Jewish state is required. The Jews need a refuge when the Anglo-Saxons go crazy.”
But why do the goyim just ‘go crazy’ eee? Is it some primitive psychic flaw, something inherent, just waiting to explode within the goy? Really, if you can tell us why, repeatedly, all through history, the goy have suddently, ‘burst out and behaved that way’, then it will help us understand anti Semitism, and help us prevent it. Please tell us your theories.
You might want to read Israel Shahak’s chapter on Poland too, from around page 63 — ( disclaimer : I do not support the webhost by the way, and know nothing of their agenda)
link to bandung2.co.uk
eee, still waiting for a reply regarding your post about those ‘crazy anglo Saxons’, who, periodically, just ‘go crazy’ — if you can tell us why they ‘just go crazy’ again and again, it will help them self reflect and understand themselves.
MR, I think eee will be back here soon with his answer; I heard he was busy studying up on the Magna Carta and skimming over the online volunteer translation of 200 Years Together from Russian to English.
Since when did doing your best mean slavery and apartheid and organ theft?
Citizen wrote, “MR, I think eee will be back here soon with his answer; I heard he was busy studying up on the Magna Carta and skimming over the online volunteer translation of 200 Years Together from Russian to English.”
Indeed Citizen, indeed — I just get so tired of Jews ( many of them it seems) who automatically assume that ‘goys just always go crazy’ against Jews; “I don’t know why….they….just go maaaddd.” In that world view, all of us goys are anti semitic — it is just a matter of time until our inherent hate and prejudice shows itself. I find that assumption very offensive.
I hate the assumption ( common amongst many gentile too ) that all through history, the goy have been born with some defective impulse leading them to automatically hate Jews.
Finkelstein and Hilberg scorned Goldhagen for precisely that assumption — Goldhagen’s view was that the entire German society had some kind of inherent Jew hating wickedness, just waiting to overflow into irrational mass murder.
Your friend has a lot of wisdom, but he is not realizing that the Palestinians haven’t played two big cards yet. The first is the recognition of the state at the UN, but the bigger one, the titanic one, is to give up completely on two states and go full bore for the One State Solution.
I think that in a clash of the Titans between the Titan of Zionism and the Titan of Democracy, that the Titan of Democracy will win.
I have a big question for MW contributors: I finally went to Ma’an News Agency, and I saw this editorial: link to maannews.net,
asking what was the meaning of Fayyad’s ultimatum of Friday a week ago.
Fayyad said Israel “should either give Palestinians freedom or the right to vote.”
And Ma’an responded “We need to decide whether we want a confederation with Jordan, or a state in cooperation with Israel.”, also “A Palestinian state which can enable the Palestinians to live in dignity and build institutions is attainable only through agreement with Jordan or Israel”. And also “If the leadership has abandoned the two-state idea, they should tell the public whether they want confederation with Jordan or Israel or both rather than leaving us citizens confused.”
My question: Is it theoretically possible that confederation with Jordan is on the table? Is it possible that American/Israeli power will force a confederation with Jordan?
All of the One State talk rests on the idea that Jordan has no business in this, and Egypt has no business in this, and that the Palestine issue will not be shoved on to them. Is it possible that that assumption is not right?
In a clash between Zionism and Democracy, Democracy will and should win. Unfortunately, this may be more of a clash between Zionism and Arab/Islamicism with Democracy an afterthought and a convenient flavoring of both.
“–You (Mondoweiss) are naive about power.”
It is easy to listen to the Cassandras. What is most obvious from the period that began on September 14 2008 with the collapse of Lehman Bros is that the world is in a state of flux where all relationships and assumptions are in question. The US is dominant for as long as China buys its bonds and S&P judge it worthy of a Triple A rating.
Authority has been the biggest loser so far. Leadership without credibility.
The next 10 years will be full of surprises as the US economy continues its deleveraging and people pay off debt rather than spend credit. there will be no return to the fake prosperity of 2006.
Neither party will be seen to have any economic competence. Israel will drive further into extremism.
Another talented generation of Palestinians will emerge and learn from the experience of things like the flotilla. New media will bring activists. together. We will all be wiser. Zionism will not adapt. There will be even more settlers.
Israel is set to permanent american hegemony. All of its eggs are in one basket.
Dershowitz will die and AIPAC won’t have a younger generation to replace the older bigots.
What’s not to like ?
SEAFOID- “What is most obvious from the period that began on September 14 2008 with the collapse of Lehman Bros is that the world is in a state of flux where all relationships and assumptions are in question.”
I agree completely, however, the rest of your comment contains some assumptions and predictions which are inconsistent with your opening statement.
“The next 10 years will be full of surprises as the US economy continues its deleveraging and people pay off debt rather than spend credit.”
I hope you are aware that the US has a debt based money system and that paying off debt will effectively reduce the supply of money unless we change our financial system to create sovereign money. A reduction in the money supply would precipitate deflation and financial collapse, a very real possibility, and one which has likely been anticipated and planned for. As for China and bond purchases, China buys US treasuries because they have few alternatives. I think your 10 year event horizon is optimistic. I’m guessing that the next 18 months will be critical.
Keith
“deflation and financial a very real possibility, and one which has likely been anticipated and planned for.”
Another lesson of the crisis is that the market doesn’t do contingency planning. It’s all about procrastination until there are no more choices left.
When deflation strikes the US will be shorted to death. That ‘s how the hedge funds work.
the other thing, Keith, is that the US economy is far weaker than people in the market will admit. 3 years on it still needs ultra low interest rates because anything higher would cripple “the recovery” that can’t gather steam. I wouldn’t be surprised to see another round of Quantitive Easing where the Fed buys the bonds held by investors to keep a floor on prices before the end of the year.
seafoid, you got it right about the US economy. Your projection about the Fed too. I don’t think China will be dominant, but US economic power has pancaked; is flat, and this creates a more competititve economic arena for the world–Uncle Sam and his kids won’t be buying any more summer homes in the next decade. The Marshall Plan is ancient history.
China won’t be utimately dominant-nobody will. there will be multiple centres of power. The writ of the US will weaken and ultimately many of its 600+ overseas bases will be shut down.
Israel got the war it wanted in Iraq but the price was the weakening of its patron.
The weakness of the US economy will speed up the process. 40 years ago America was also in crisis as the post war keynesian model broke down. The last 30 years have been full of the neoliberal reaction and they strung things along for another generation but there is no way out of the debt hole now. There are no easy answers. The US has been living beyond its means for far too long. Plutocracy doesn’t help either.
AIPAC may continue to dominate -I really doubt it- bit even if it did it would only be in charge of a diminishing pie.
South Africa abandoned apartheid when the cold war ended. Israel will probably do so when neoliberalism collapses.
I hope you are aware that the US has a debt based money system and that paying off debt will effectively reduce the supply of money unless we change our financial system to create sovereign money.
Bingo. Who the hell understands this? The entire Republican argument that average schmoes are buying tooth and tong right now about the deficit, the deficit, the deficit, is a scam. The Dems aren’t much better because they don’t understand a damn thing and are spending all their time voting for Israeli concerns so they can win an election. You have idiots, I mean real idiots, like Michelle Bachmann and Mitch McConnell framing the economic debate. It’s like anointing me to do your brain surgery.
The only ONLY reason why the overseas American companies are trying to find a way to repatriate their money without any tax burden (their selfishness at our expense) — bring the businesses home — is because they see the writing on the wall. The US dollar will be worthless unless we get production up. Jobs. And those mofo’s took those jobs overseas and are bankrupting us as a consequence. One of those “unforeseen consequences” that the geniuses couldn’t figure out ahead of time, even though Jimmy Goldsmith tried to warn them in 1994 that GATT would destroy this country.
I was at the GATT hearings in Geneva in 1966.
I was a college student at the time and my father was testifying before GATT for the US manufacturing industry.
Every single thing GATT and Washington were told about how it would decimate the US manufacturing industry has come true right down the line. It was the begining of the end of the US as a production gaint.
American,
Can you give me some more details so that I can look this up? This thread is dead but if you answer here, I’ll check your profile for the answer.
Would appreciate this a lot. I had no idea this started in 1966. I thought it was a late 1970s, early 80s phenomenon. Can you remember the date? What were the names of some of the US business groups that testified, if you remember? I need particulars to help me search; ever since Google changed its algorithm in Feb, it is censoring.
Jimmy Goldsmith (Sir James) went to Congress in 1994. They wouldn’t listen. You ever see this? [Laura Tyson's arrogance is flipping insane.]
link to video.google.com
Reduce the window size for better resolution.
American: was it called GATT then?
American, never mind. I found them all. Thanks.
was it called GATT then?
The details regarding the origins of the GATT are covered in the United Nations sections of the Foreign Relations of the United States for 1947, pages 909-1025 and 1948, pages 802-947.
O.K…….
Somewhere around here I have a paper I did on it..buried in a 40+ year old box.
The groups involved in the hearings I attended were primilary textile, furniture and hardwood-plywood manufacturers. My father owned several manufacturing companies in those industries and was president of the US Manufacturing Association at the time so he was called upon to represent those interest.
Needless to say 10 years later when the ” emergency restraint on imports” was ignored the shit really started to hit the fan for US manufacturing. The advance of countries like Japan and China was a pure ‘export led’ boom for them at the expense of the US industrial base and millions of jobs in the US.
I had occasion in the late 70′s to see a prime example of it….a small company I was looking at was buying US hardwood and ‘shipping it raw’ to China and importing the finished product back into the US at a lesser price than they could manufacture and sell it for here. So a company that had employed 500 people in manufacturing a finished product became a export import business instead. Multipy that several thousand times in different manufacturing sectors and that was the result of GATT. The next logical step for major companies was to simply off shore their manufacturing facilities completely…which they did.
Around this same time my cousin in law was the attorney for Pittsburgh steel as the steel producers started to come under attacks from imports also.
US production was ‘given away’ a long time ago. That’s why the US is described as a ‘consumer and service based economy’ today….that’s is all it is, and despite all the spin you hear from politicians that’s not a real economic base for the ‘whole’ country to survive on.
Seafoid can predict the future of the world financial system? I think not.
Of couse no one can. Including myself. But I know this. China and the US have a symbiotic relationship. We trade them treasury paper for cheaply made goods. China desperately needs our economic engine to support their still young economy. They do not have the internal demand, and must export in large numbers.
Companies come and go. Lehman’s demise was a blip. The vast majority of companies that made up the original Dow 30 are long gone. In the big scheme/long term, one of america’s greatest strengths is the cocept of creative destruction. Large companies that seem invincible will continue to vanish, leaving nothing behind but worthless swag.
America has suffered a civil war and a great depression, and only come out stronger. A longish bout of sluggish economic growth is hardly a herald the end is near.
America has no real competitors. china and India have huge internal problems. Europe is highly dysfunctional. This century will see America dominate even more than the last.
Economic booms and busts are part of the natural order. Just like weather patterns. We were built from nothing, forged in violence and have thrived off constant innovation. Nothing has changed. America will only get better.
Wishful thinking by our adversaries is nothing new, or anything to worry about. It drives us harder, in fact. Those counting on our collapse (to grant their wishes) should study their history books more while leaving their emotions aside. Being our ally has always been more beneficial than being our enemy, at least for the last 100 or so years. Funny how some here think
the opposite.
Me, all my eggs are in the American basket. I’ll give anyone 100 to 1 odds who wants the opposite side of that trade.
China is moving up the value chain:- it is increasingly moving away from making cheap low value goods to send principally to the USA and making more expensive high value goods which it wants to sell to Europe and elsewhere. Wen Jiabao the Chinese Prime Minister has just made a visit to several European states signing trade deals and agreed to buy European debt. The fawning way he was greeted said it all. As far Europeans are considered he is more important to them than the President of the USA is. If the Chinese wanted they could buy all the debt of Greece, Ireland and Portugal solving overnight Europe’s fiscal problems. Can the USA do that? It could once after the Second World War like it did with the Marshall Plan. A new railway now goes from Central China to Germany loaded with trains with goods every day cutting the sea route which was 30 days down to just 11 days. For me the increasing irrelevance of the USA was exposed when Gates the outgoing Defense Secretary chastised other NATO states to increase military spending as the USA could not take the burden indefinitely. His words fell on deaf ears. European states face no outside military threat and are not going to increase military spending to fight Washington’s wars, since they do not have the money even if they wanted to. At some point China will humiliate the USA and the world will know that there is a new Superpower. It maybe that China will aggressively push the Yuan to replace the Dollar as the world’s reserve currency. If that were to happen, a distinct possibility within the next 20 years, the USA would loose its empire and its hegemony.
China has tremendous internal problems that many here are readily (and eager) to gloss over. Great wealth disparity, huge natural resource issues, a still somewhat centralized sytem of (govt) control, etc. One of their biggest problems is corruption. Illegal copycatting via copyright violations is endemic to their cutlture. It may never resolve itself.
As recently events clearly attest, Europe is hardly China’s economic salvation. The reason the Chinese dont buy all of Greek etc debt is because ultimately it would solve nothing. Doing so would just permit the PIIGS’ unsustainable lifetyles to continue, and eventually leave China holding the bag. There is no simple panacea to Europe’s debt woes. There are only painful choices, and unpleasant consequences.
There are four main currencies in the world. Not quite half of the world’s foregin currency transactions are in US doollar. The US Treasury market is the largest and most liquid, by far, of any sovereign debt in the world. The Yen, pound and Euro are the other three contenders – but not really. The Yuan is not even on the charts. The chinese prefer their currency pegged (artifically) to the dollar, because it gives their exporters an advantage. The dollar may see its domimance diminish, but the Chinese have a long, long way to go before their Yuan is even a clear fifth.
Two World Wars make Europe quite cognizant of the perils of a weak military. Their poor performance (via NATO) in Libya is a startling reminder of their unpreparedness. Without the US as a backstop, they will have to make changes. As memories of the nazi regime become less fresh, Germany may be called upon to reassert its role as military power (via NATO). They are unquestionably capable.
China has four times the population of the US and less than half its GDP. Do the math. On a per capita basis China ranks in the bottom half of the world, around 94th, at about $4500 per person. This compares to the US with the world’s largest single economy and at around number 10 on per capita basis, at ~$47k per, roughly ten times China.
Paper currencies must be fungible. No one outside China has any real faith in their government’s integrity and its pseudo communist system.
I was in business school in the early 90′s when Japan and its mighty Keiretsu’s were going to take over the world. The US was bloated, inefficient and crumbling. Guess what? The academics got it all wrong. Shocker. But not really.
No other country in the world is as flexible or as innovative as the US. Google, facebook, the two newest and leading tech companies, one could argue, both US. This isnt luck or accident. Its a pattern that has been repeated over and over again. American creativity and innovation is the ultimate “killer app”.
Look how we recovered after the Civil War. There are no real issues remaining between north and south, other than occassional political nastiness. Ultimately we have the world’s largest and most cohesive sytem. It works too well and would cost too much for anyone, besides a few nuts in the woods, to really ever consider walking away from.
Seafoid, there have been many crisis beyond what you list. And guess what? The next day 99.9% of americans got up and went about the activities, as usual. You can pine for our demise, and make all kinds of arguments why it must be so. But you would be wrong, and history proves it.
MRW, you do so flatter with me your prose. And you know where that will get you….LOL
When will China pass the US in per capita GDP? Ever? Rare earth minerals are not reallly. They are just difficult to mine, and challenging enivironmentally. US companies, like Molycorp, are already tackling the issue with great intensity.
China has to keep stealing our know-how in order to keep up. That is not sustainable. They face tremendous internal problems, about which you are apparently clueless. The ole “china is rising, america is falling, better dump israel to save your asses” is just pure gobbleygook. No one buys it outside the folks already in your choir. Sing away!
I’ll just pick up this one thing from a long piece of nationalist, uninformed chest-thumping because it’s so funny..
Yeah. The way the US recovered from a minor internal conflict which did not any appreciable damage to any important infrastructure, did not even touch the majority of the country and only took another 100 or so years to smooth out the underlying racial issues surely outshines the way that Europe, Russia and China recovered from, oh, I dunno, the total devastation of WW2!
By the way, when do you assume the huge drop in Chinese growth rates that would be required to keep their economy from overtaking the US one will happen? It’s gotta be fairly soon if the US is to remain in the top spot. Or do you project US growth rates rising to ~10% annually in the near future?
A minor internal conflict that took the lives of more Americans than all our other wars COMBINED. Yea. The majority of the country didn’t exist! It was not populated. Atlanta was burnt to the ground (my city). The southern economy and mindset was devastated.
And yet today we don’t have suicide bombers or other such internal strife. We are over it. Meanwhile the ME is still fighting the same wars from thousands of years ago. They will never resolve.
Just because China, with 4 times our population, may one day exceed our gross GDP, they have a VERY long way to go in per capita and most other measures. Huge wealth dispairities between coastal and inner areas. Onerous central oversight (one baby per family). The preference for males and easy abortion access has left them seriously bereft of female mates. Huge environmental issues. Social unrest in the outer provinces and among minority groups. Terrible corruption and a lack of rule of and respect for law in areas like copyrights. Worker abuse. Horribly low wages. Lack of infrastructure. China’s problems are IMMENSE.
Before you ever call the US civil war a minor conflict you should read up on it. I bet even some of your buddies here would strongly disagree with that characterization.
Yeah, the US civil war only killed more Americans than any other war. And the American recovery was really quick, as MLK could point out, if he still lived. I won’t even mention Griffith’s filmed view of the Reconstruction Era. What’s that stars n bars flag doing over there? Where has the old US nuclear family adage of the 1950′s gone, the one that reminded US kids that “people in China are starving,”so eat your Starlac?
Bart, the US civil war is not comparable to the I-P conflict. The US civil war was just that–a war between settlers, while the I-P conflict is a war between the settlers and the natives–in defiance of the principles set by Nuremberg. Go back to your comic books.
So foxtrotting what? Still nothing compared to the devastation which other nations suffered and recovered from. Believe me, it’s pathetic. Any Pole, Russian, Chinese, German or member of dozens of other countries will just roll his eyes at your thoroughly moronic attempt to prop up the US as the champion of recovering from horrible devastation.
Oh really? From a thousand years ago? I must have missed the latest raids by the Byzantine air force into the Fatimid Caliphate.
You so have no idea what you are talking about, it’s not even funny.
Wealth disparity in the US is the worst in the industrialized world, and in the same ballpark as China’s (depending on how you measure, slightly higher or lower.) If that was an indicator of anything, the US would be a developing country.
Bart,
Bravo!
I read a previous post by you where you referenced Anthony Beevor’s excellent books on the battles of Stalingrad and Berlin. They’re superb. I also like John Erickson’s work, and Albert Seaton’s “The Russo-German War” and “The Battle of Moscow” which are both the best single volume treatments I’ve yet read. I enjoy reading your commentary, especially on financial and economic matters. I hope we hear more from you.
Rare earth minerals are not reallly. They are just difficult to mine, and challenging enivironmentally. US companies, like Molycorp, are already tackling the issue with great intensity.
Only three companies outside of China globally produce significant high-purity metals or alloys, or both. They are:
1. Molycorp
2. Great Western Mineral Group
3. Japan’s Santoku
The feed stock for all of these operations, other than one European subsidiary, comes from China. The high-purity-metals and alloys capacity of all three combined, is less than 5% of the world’s total demand.
WSJ two weeks ago:
China plans to set up a strategic reserve for heavy rare earths in what would be another step towards protecting key resources and ensuring supplies for the domestic market, people with direct knowledge of the plan said.
The plan, which hasn’t yet received final government approval, would likely reduce volumes for export and boost rare earth prices.
And
It also would follow an approval in 2009 to build strategic reserves of light rare earths in China’s Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region. That plan is supposed to be undertaken by Inner Mongolia Baotou Steel Rare-Earth (Group) Hi-Tech Co. (600111.SH), the country’s largest rare-earth producer by output.
As Rare Earths expert Jack Lifton points out, China is stock-piling and restricting production for its domestic needs, which means:
We’re up shit’s creek as this article details: “U.S. Military Supply of Rare Earth Elements Not Secure”
link to technewsdaily.com
We owned it all in the 1980s: the world’s greatest RE supply and — this is vitally important — the knowhow to create high-purity rare earths, an art even more than a science (you can’t just manufacture like a gallon of gasoline, it takes years to learn how to refine for REs at each level of the process.)
But when the manufacturers in this country needed help in the early 90s, the “Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow” crowd (that gave us GATT, destroyed Glass-Steagall, and moved our manufacturing to China) said fuckyu, go to a cheaper labor pool. Clinton’s WH and the Republican Congress (1995-2007) will go down in history for the destruction they’ve wrought, and for being the dumb-as-logs most selfish people in government ever. And please don’t give me any bullshit about Clinton and the surplus or five million new American jobs: those new jobs were overseas US companies, and the average middle-class worker lost 20% in wages.
Let me dumb it down for you, Bart.
The West, including Japan and Korea, will have to move all their high-tech operations (especially the ones they are safeguarding domestically) to China in order to obtain critical raw materials.
Yes, they have and so do we. The wealth disparity is nowhere near as distorted as ours. The 29 standing ovations Bibbi was given was a testament to the depth fo corruption in Washington, where campaign donations (aka bribes) are part doing business and the conflict of interest is a accepted as the norm.
Wow, the irony is really lost on you isn’t it? That is exactly what has taken place n the US, which has gone on teh biggest spending binge in the history of the world for over a decade.
Europe’s debt woes are nothing compared to ours and painful is guarabteed in the country, especially as the baby boomers hang up their gloves.
And that is the disaster waiting to unfold. It was becasue so much US curency was held off shore that the US was able to get away with such reckless spending and borrowing, because deamand for the dollar kept it strong and kept it overseas. Repayments were easy to make and bombs easy to sell.
That is all comming to an end. Russia, India and China are all dumping the dollar, including Saudis, who historically have been the biggets defenders of the US dollar. As Seafoid explained. raising interest rates, which would have sustained the dollar in the past, will lead to economic collapse.
The dollar will collapse and when all those worthless noptes come flooding back to our shores, the realityof hyper inflation will set in. Debt repayments will be unsustainable and the US will become a 2nd world nation or worse.
Liquidity is worthless when there is no demand.
Unpreparedness for what? Attacking a third world state that was armed by the West?
As for Lybia, NATO’s woes are no different to those the US has had for a decade in Iraq and Afgahnistan.
China has four times the population of the US and 9% growth. Do the math.
As for US GDP, it is hugely inflated and heavily propped up by the face value of assets that are toxic or worthless.
Not in hindsight.
The academics didn’t get it wrong, they got it right a few decades early because htey didn’t forsee the massive intervention of the Fed (whcih created 2 economic bubbles) and the now catastrophic exploitatin of over the counter derivatives, CDS’s.
In spite fo Japan’s woes, they stil hold massive savings and having been to Japan in the last 6 months, I can assure you that the retail outlets are packed.
The US has stayed afloat through nothing more than complexed and massive ponzi schemes. That’s not flexibility, that’s simply plauing with monopoly money.
They will go the way of Yahoo, but in any case, the Nasdaq is not going to save the US.
So is Israelm, but in any case, the same BS was said about Japan – that they were copying and stealing and guess what? They created the world’s second largest economy by doing so.
Wishful thinking Bart. The US is already heading headlong towards irrevelance.
Hi Shingo, your points would resonate that much more if you’d run your posts through a spellchecker first. I don’t meant to be a bore but honestly there are a dozen typos in your carefully put together post above, most of which you could fix inside of one minute. Firefox will spellcheck for you in the browser.
Update, yesterday.
Huge rare earth deposits found in Pacific -Japan experts
So Robert Werdine hails Bart. The story line thickens….
At least now I know which side Bart is really on. I had some trouble figuring it out with all this dissing of China and the propping up of can-doism, American style. Thanks Robert.
CORRECTION:
The rare earth story I cite at July 5, 2011 at 2:17 pm appears to be manipulated about the resource sizes: “estimated 100 billion tonnes of rare earths in the deposits.” The scientists made no such claim in their paper.
In fact, they report these as the deposit finds (remember, also, they are under 2-3 miles of water, and under the sea floor):
And they report this: an estimated 10 meter-thick bed of mud in the eastern South Pacific, with an area of 1 square kilometer, could yield approximately 9,000 tonnes of rare earths. They also estimate that a 70 meter-thick bed of mud in the central North Pacific, with an area of 1 square kilometer, could yield approximately 25,000 tonnes of rare earths.
So someone was dicking with the story (Reuters, BBC, Nikkei) either as a stock play, or to do some damage before China’s upcoming export quotas on REEs.
Just wanted to correct the record here.
The GATT works against China in the same way as everyone else.
“WTO Panel Rejects China Rare Earth Export Limits
New York (July 6, 2011) A World Trade Organization panel ruled Tuesday that China’s restrictions on the export of certain raw materials violated international trade agreements, rejecting the country’s claims that the measures were designed to conserve scarce resources and limit pollution.
The WTO dispute settlement body concluded that China’s export quotas and duties on bauxite, magnesium, zinc and other minerals — used in a range of technologies — ran afoul of promises it made when it joined the WTO.
The decision marks a victory for the U.S. and the European Union.”
Hostage,
This ruling is in response to a case filed in 2009 over coke, bauxite, fluorspar, magnesium, silicon metal and zinc, specifically. It doesn’t specifically address the rare earths, although China said today it would review that policy as well.
It also said it would appeal, which will take, what, another three years? The EU, US and Mexico could slap on sanctions if China failed to appeal or comply, but maybe they will anyway.
Going to be interesting to see how the Chinese handle this one, especially since they started their REE stockpiling programs last year, and reduced REE production quotas for environmental and future generation reasons. They also have a plan to clean up their pollution from REE processing—currently non-existent—which is truly, unbelievably horrendous. They just dump the radioactive waste outside the factory in a huge lake and field. Miles of it. All dust.
“Lehman’s demise was a blip.”
The system is in crisis, Bart. Lehman’s demise was no blip.
It follows on from 1991, a massive collapse of commercial property that destroyed the junk bond market and the 1983 latin america debt crisis , also caused by stupid US bank lending .
You could also consider the Asian currency crisis of 1998, the tech crash of 2001, the collapse of LTCM, the 1987 crash. The system is inherently unstable.
link to nybooks.com
El Gordo will come and that will be the end of US hegemony. And Israel will pay.
“Me, all my eggs are in the American basket. I’ll give anyone 100 to 1 odds who wants the opposite side of that trade.”
I’ll take you up on that.
About one of the dumbest perspectives on the economic relationship between China and the US I’ve read:
We trade them treasury paper for cheaply made goods. China desperately needs our economic engine to support their still young economy. They do not have the internal demand, and must export in large numbers.
We don’t “trade them treasury paper for cheaply made goods.” We borrow from them to buy their goods.
China doesn’t “desperately need our economic engine to support their still young economy.” Our economic engine is going kaput. Walmart and Target are having trouble selling their goods (Chinese) here because Americans don’t have the extra cash. China walked away with our proprietary technological know-how, our vendors, our suppliers, and our customers because American companies gave it to them after China got Most Favored Nation Status courtesy of Mr. Rahm Emanuel, et al, in 1999, thinking the relationship would go on forever with the Chinese acting submissive and grateful. When the five-year Non-Disclosure and Manufacturing contracts were up in 2004/2005, the Chinese didn’t re-up. They closed the factory and opened another across the street, shutting out the arrogant Americans who were only there to save labor costs and screw American workers. Sure, some transnationals went to Vietnam, but none of those profits are making it back to the US, and China is merrily supplying who we used to AND cutting out the American middleman.
China is on target to surpass the US economy in 2016.
It has all the rare earth deposits (95-97%) and it has already put a hold on exporting production. You can kiss our green tech business goodbye.
Exporting is how a country gets rich, especially when you’re exporting at a profit. Look at Germany. Our trade deficit is enormous: $500 billion/yr. Trade deficits are when you import more than you export, or said another way, you are paying out more than you’re taking in in income.
You have no clue what you’re talking about.
America has suffered a civil war and a great depression, and only come out stronger.
When we had a 30% trade tariff, which paid for government up until the Civil War, then 2/3 of it until WWI. Now, we’ve copied the Brits who lost their empire with global free trade. Ulysses S Grant told the Brits when they tried to get us to go the global free trade route in the the middle 1900s: Yeah, we’ll do it in 200 years when we’re as rich as you are. Upshot? Britain lost its reserve currency status and the USA became ascendant.
Out first Free Trade agreement was in 1985 with Israel. That was the beginning of the end.
Bart, go back to your comixs. You say, inter alia, “We were built from nothing, forged in violence and have thrived off constant innovation. Nothing has changed. America will only get better.”
Maybe you should bone up on dwindling resources, both in America & the world? And check out the trend in world population growth? Just for starters.
And since I’m on a history kick these days, let me correct this: their still young economy.
China had the world’s greatest economy until the end of the 17th C. For centuries. It was the greatest seafaring nation in the world until they let the Brits in with opium to destroy their culture from within.
Look at their ships under the Chinese Muslim, Admiral Zheng He (they incorporated Arabic maritime technology, which was the finest in the world . . . Those same Arabs y’all like to sneer at):
link to en.wikipedia.org
Look at their trade routes with over 300 ships in each fleet 50 years before Columbus was even born:
link to ngm.nationalgeographic.com
China doesn’t have a young economy. It’s recovering from kicking the westerners out, and adopting the wasted Russian idea of communism. It has more experience about how to grow and maintain an economy than we do. And it has waaaay more patience, in addition to taking the longview. If you think it’s going to let the USA ruin the global economy with the still unregulated derivatives, you’ve got another thing coming. Petersz has it right.
So Chinese culture (or insert AIDs, global warming, african poverty, pretty much any bad thing) was destroyed by….wait for it….. the greedy white man!
Dang, I think I might have heard that a time or two before. LOL
Bart, nobody said that or implied it, and the Chinese themselves don’t blame whitey–they do blame the Japanese though.
Citizen – reread MTW’s post above mine ” it was the greatest seafring nation in the world until they let the Brits in with opium to destroy their culture from within”
Bart, since when did pointing out who a drug dealer is demolish the charge against a defendant of abusing or even possession of drugs?
If the white man had managed to destroy AIDs, global warming or African poverty, then I’d say, go whitey!
You should know citizen – it’s always the white man’s fault. Western civilization is everyone’s favorite boogeyman. It’s a tired refrain.
Whitey has pulled humanity up from the muck, but even it can’t do miracles. But whitey will save us in the end. Unless you are an enemy. Then, I almost pity you. Almost.
“This century will see America dominate even more than the last. ”
I doubt it. 80% of everything Washington does these days is about considerations abroad….not about US economic domestic fundamentals.
Our government has put the US in the position of being like the shoemakers children who had no shoes.
That’s the amazing thing. We will accomplish this DESPITE the US govt!
FYI, we didn’t get here by luck or accident. In 300 years we have gone fom nothing to the most powerful and wealthiest nation in history because our system works the best.
The USA will overcome its problems. New challenges will always arise, but ultimately our allies will be rewarded and our enemies vanquished. It is our history, and our foreseeable future.
There is still time for you to jump on the bandwagon, but it does grow short. :)
What do you mean “WE,’ paleface Bart?
Bart, yes, “we didn’t get here by luck or accident.” And we will ipso facto eventually realize that Israel is not a friend.
You did.
Hey, that’s what all the previous most powerful and wealthiest nations said.
FOLKS- This has been a most interesting discussion following seafoid’s initial comment. There is a lot I agree with and a lot I disagree with and a lot I am uncertain about. Since Mondoweiss concerns the war of ideas in the Middle East, I don’t intend to make any lengthy comments. The one area, however, which I seem to differ with most of you is that I see the current period as an intentional effort to “shock” the system away from national economics into a system of complete neo-liberal globalized economic and financial control by the transnational corporations and financial oligarchs.
Currently, we have a globalized system in which the financial system led by Wall Street directs the course of events via monetary power, the ability to provide or deny funding for the real economy, and to permit or deny the funds for trade, and for the interest cost of this funding. Countries not fully in the system are under attack (Libya, Syria, etc). Smaller western states such as Greece are under economic attack to force them into IMF style receivership. The US has had its manufacturing base intentionally hollowed out, and is now undergoing the initial phase of structural adjustment, funding for social programs eliminated or reduced, public assets privatized. There is nothing “normal” or “natural” about this. It is all a consequence of economic policies initiated by the financial oligarchy.
I do not see an American economic recovery. I foresee global oligarchic control and/or global financial collapse. Also, a significant possibility of a “limited” nuclear war spinning out of control and, if not, global warming and other environmental catastrophes virtual certainties. Other than that, I am incurably optimistic.
It did for a while, but it’s terminally broken and there is no way back. We became the wealthiest nation in history through investment, production and manufacturing. We don’t do that anymore.
How exactly is that going to happen Bart?
I kept hearing that from my friends in the banking industry. I aske them how exactly this was going to happen and they waved their hands dismissively and blathered on about innovation etc. and yet quarter after quarter, the numbers have become increasingly diasterous.
The reality is that the last 2 bubbles were fuelled entirely by cheap credit. The Fed flooded the country with money to avert 2 recessions and now we’ve reached the point where the hole is so deep, there is no getting out of it.
The same was said fo the Roman and British Empires – until they collapsed.
Keith, I for one here, agree with your characterization of the globalized financial system, and I bet I am not alone. I also agree with your forecast for the future.
Barterino, I wish it worked the way you said.
You didn’t read American’s statement. Critical. 80% of everything Washington does these days is about considerations abroad….not about US economic domestic fundamentals.
You write:
You have your economic head up your ass. We got where we were by WWII by protecting ourselves economically…the way China is doing now. China is doing USA 1791-1945. And we ain’t doing it anymore. We’re doing what Britain did to lose its empire.
You can thank Rahm Emanuel (1998-1999) and his Wall Street buddies for pushing it over the goal line.
Then i guess it’s your bad luck you are who you are koshiro. I’m so sorry.
You really should try a new tact. I’ve already pointed out the “the USA is collapsing, we must dump Israel (and embrace Islam/iran/ etc) to save ourselves” is totally rejected by most Americans. You see, its just that we don’t consider surrender and subjugation to our enemies much of a victory. I know, I know, we are ignorant, stupid and brainwashed
zombies. I’ll be at home later tonight crying myself to sleep about that! Lol
Bart, Why do you pesist in your either/or scenario? Who are you talking to here on MW–who’s been arguing we should dump Israel and embrance Islam/Iran to save ourselves? Is that the same in your mind with pursuing a balance of interests rather than enmeshing ourselves with a single foreign country?
Seafoid was not making a prediction. He was explaining the most likely outcome.
The problem China has is that they own over 1 trillion of our debt and the only way they can hope to recoup it is by propping up our hemoraging economy.
It came out of those setbacks because it was able to create a strong productin base. The US has stopped producing anything, and there is no plan, stratergy for returnign to producition.
One has to laugh when hearing someone from the US talkgn about China’s internal problems, or that it is highly dysfunctional. Just this week, it was reported that an entire bridge in San Franciso is being manufactured in China and shopped to the US is pieces.
Thus was the prediction of PNAC and their Project for the New American Century. As with that prediciton, yours will tuen tou to be just as delsional, in fact it already has.
Shingo,
“The US has stopped producing anything”?
REALLY? You need t0 check your stats. The US still produces more than any single nation in the world. I mean, you do realize the US still has a GDP twice the size of China, right (even with one fourth the population)? That simple math stat alone should be illustrative enough, but you can confirm via the internet.
I remember back a few years ago when all the chicken littles came out screaming how the US was done, collapse was imminent, our enemies would soon be dancing on our corpse. etc Yet here we still are. Weird eh?
Keep on predicting disaster. It has been a favorite pastime for doomsayers and pessimists for eons. Wasnt it Y2K that was supposed to destroy us a decade ago? Yea, that was….a non event.
End of the world as we know it scenarios have NEVER actually come to pass. You sure you want to make a big bet on a track record like that? LOL
I mean, you do realize the US still has a GDP twice the size of China, right (even with one fourth the population)?
40 percent of US GDP is government spending. US Federal debt exceeds 100 percent of GDP and an alarming proportion of that is monetized by the Fed. That means the Treasury is issuing debt and the Central Bank is buying it, i.e. the US is paying its debt by printing money.
Bart,
Produces what Bart?
The US has moved to a consumer and service economy, and produces very little. If we were producing so much, why are we borrowing money from China to buy stuff that they produce for us? If we were producing so much, why do we borrow billions a day just to9 remain solvent?
A GDP calculated entirely on consumption, which in turn is based on spending and deabt. But you are not looking beneath the surface – at what expense is this consumption being funded? The irresponsible monetary and fiscal policy of the US government create the biggest consumption binge in world history, where American consumption – now greater than 70% of GDP – kept us from really having a recession. In reality, all it did was to put of the recession to some later day.
Our biggest export is inflation, via T Bills that are being devalued in real time by the Feb’d printing press. That’s why we needed QE2, because the rest of the world has stopepd buying government bonds.
No, it’s not weird at all. Government intervantion simply prolonged it. A few years ago, QE1 was just being rolled out and now the life support of QE2 is about to run out.
What thsi means is that when the collapse comes, it’s going to be even worse.
And those doomsayers and pessimists were proven right, as we saw with Rome and Great Britain.
Who said anythgni abotu the end fo the world. I know Americans are brough up to believe that the world ends at the Eastern and Western seaboards. it will be the end of the American Empire, but the world world will go on.
It’as not actually paying it’s debt, it is borrowing more money to service it.
So, Bart, rule Britannia! Still rules the wave huh? Sun never sets on it?
And the industrial base of the US is still purring along nicely, eh? How’s the foreclosures in your neck of the woods, and the jobless rate? How many job applications sit in the holding tank at your local McDonald’s?
Shingo, Bart didn’t get the memo about our consumer & service-based economy, nor about the morphing of our industrial shops into import-export casinos and overseas job placement services. And he missed the memo about the US debt ceiling debate going on now in the US Congress. His nose remains stuck in his Superman Comix hoard and The Simpsons.
It’as not actually paying it’s debt, it is borrowing more money to service it.
No money is actually being “borrowed” when the Fed monetizes the Treasury debt. There is no foreign demand for US assets. So, the Fed has announced a $300 billion commitment to buy Treasuries. At the same time it is also enabling the foreign central banks to trade their Agency debt for Treasury debt. So, money is simply being printed (ex nihilo) for use in buying US government debt. It’s a shell game.
I agree, but the US government is stil servicing the loans it does have, and printing dollars to do so.
Yes, Hostage, a shell game that actually is an electronic spreadsheet devoted to “creative accounting?”
What’s not to like? Hmmm, perhaps the fact that it’s all a hypothetical pipe dream, because left to their own devices, Zionists will WIN in the end.
Wow, you think the younger generation of Zionists is more adaptable and tolerant than the old folks in the Lobby? Go to youtube and read the comments of the I/P videos. Scary, and the abuse is staggering. Did you not notice the “white shirts” on Jerusalem Day? Young supremacists.
One more thing, your entire comment is a deflection from commenting on the fact that Zionists like to CONTROL. Seems to me like you’re in denial.
i’ve been listening The Next Decade by George Friedman (I was curious) the author argues for a fabric of illusion to balance powers and maintain American interests. he throws democracy, human rights and international laws under the bus for the sake of maintaining power and an American standard of living/ lifestyle. the author maintains that a good American president is Machiavellian and deceptive/ should lie to the people he supposedly represents/ voted him into office.
it’s no wonder Americans are dumbed down with bipartisan charades according to Friedman pinning people against each other is purposeful design to exhaust resources and energies on fighting so that the status quo is maintained.
American and Israeli politicians really don’t want an informed, educated, organized public to hold them accountable. Educating and organizing the public will continue to be key actions in the fight for Palestinian Equal Rights.
Lydda Four Eight,
A great antidote to this is Future Babble by Dan Gardner.
I was against Oslo. Because what do they get: Fayyad. They must elect a collaborationist government for their own occupation.
Fayyad’s government is the only Arab regime which has filed a criminal complaint against Israel with the International Criminal Court and demanded a real state (as opposed to a paper state). All the Palestinian ICC complaint requires is an endorsement in the form of a “state referral” in accordance with Article 14 from one of the other Arab ICC State Parties to the Rome Statute, such as Jordan, Comoros Islands, Djibouti, & etc. The Mavi Marmara was flagged in the Comoros Islands for heaven’s sake! Where is it’s criminal complaint for last years attack on the flotilla?
If you call Fayyad a collaborator, then what do you call the leaders of these other Arab states? With friends like them who needs enemies?
hostage, i read the notes left behind by the state department when they met w/the PA to set up the attack on hamas re the gaza bombshell. fayyed was all over their plans. i’m not saying he has no spine or can’t improve but someone approved or went along w/spending US ‘aid’ to the west bank allegedly for palestine on apartheid roads. and he didn’t say anything about it. he’s the money guy. perhaps after the palestinian papers he wised up.
Annie, I’ve never seen any State Department memo about the attempted Gaza coup that even mentioned Fayyad. The “talking points” memo that proposed an undemocratic government based upon a “state of emergency” declared by President Abbas does not mention Finance Minister Fayyad. Neither does the Vanity Fair article.
There was an “Arab Quartet” memo among the documents published by Vanity Fair that discussed Fayyad. But it only mentioned him in connection with ways to restore international and Arab donor funding after the US had made it illegal for banks to transfer money to the PA through the Temporary International Mechanism(TIM). Abbas had already named Fayyad, an independent party technocrat, as Director of the Economic Department of the PLO. The Arab Quartet Plan simply recommended that structure be maintained and that Fayyad continue to develop financial plans to fund security, economic, and political priorities as he saw fit and to eliminate funding to extralegal entities. That was the same role he had already been playing as Finance Minister under the National Unity Government and the World Bank/IMF TIM fund manager under the Abbas and Arafat regimes. The PLO Negotiations Unit involved in the Palestine Papers scandal reports to the PLO Executive Council, not to Fayyad.
The Palestinian memos cited in the Vanity Fair articles discuss strengthening Abbas’s control over the key security forces under NSA Dahlan and Gen. Dayton. All of those memos call for an end to the occupation that began in 1967 and the establishment of an independent state of Palestine. Those particular memos don’t call for improper collaboration with Israel.
There really was no “bombshell” in the Arab Quartet memo discussion about finance. The discussion about the “endgame” in case the National Unity Government (NUG) would not accept the Quartet principles didn’t call for a military coup. It discussed withdrawing Fatah from the coalition to trigger its collapse and new elections. That probably would have led to a Palestinian civil war, but Netanyahu’s coalition partners threaten to pull out of the government every day – its not illegal. The requirement for the PA to establish internal law and order, stop terrorism, and deter extralegal forces was nothing new or improper either. So, the Arab Quartet memo is not a smoking gun IMHO.
The Israeli government and the WZO built the “apartheid roads”. Fayyad proposed that USAID spend some of the money the US Congress had earmarked for its public works projects on roads and water wells for the Palestinian inhabitants. Describing that as collaborating with Israeli apartheid is mean spirited nonsense.
It really doesn’t matter what we think of Fayyad. He, along with Abbas and Erekat, are considered to be collaborators with the Israeli government simply because that’s what they have been doing for the past several years and Abbas has been doing that since he negotiated the surrender of Palestinian land at Oslo and relieved Israel of having to economically support the Palestinians as an occupying power.
Fayyad is a technocrat who had been living and working in the US and who, from everything I’ve heard, has no following among Palestinians in the West Bank and certainly not in Gaza. He maintains better relations with Israel and the US than do the other PA officials.
He does have the support, however, of Alan Dershowitz who interviewed him in Ramallah which was reported in the Jerusalem Post of May 13, 2010 from which this is excerpted:
link to jpost.com
Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor who has become one of Israel’s most committed and articulate advocates, on Wednesday emphatically hailed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as a potential partner for peace, calling him “the best that Israel has, and probably the best that Israel has ever had.”
Speaking to The Jerusalem Post immediately after a 90-minute meeting with Fayyad in Ramallah, their first meeting, Dershowitz said Fayyad “genuinely would like to bring peace and a two-state solution, based on his conception of what a two-state solution would look like.”
This, he stressed, was “very different” from Israel’s conception, in matters relating to security, among others. But overall, said Dershowitz, Fayyad’s differences with Israel fell into the realm of “reasonable disagreement.”
“I didn’t hear a single argument that seemed unreasonable,” said Dershowitz, adding, “The same goes for my recent meetings with Israeli leaders.”
Thus, he said, “you have reasonable people [on both sides] disagreeing over reasonable issues.
“Whether that gulf can be bridged is a hard question,” he said. “But we’re in the realm of reasonable disagreement, and that’s a big step forward.”
It was very different from the Arafat era, he said, to encounter “reason and civil disobedience” on the Palestinian side, compared to the previous “unreason and terror.”
Nonetheless, he stressed that his glowing assessment of Fayyad did not necessarily encompass the PA leadership as a whole.
“I don’t think you can generalize from him to others,” he said. “It’s not clear to me that he speaks for the [PA] government, even though he’s the prime minister. But [it is significant] that he’s entrusted with so important a position.”
Dershowitz said he had asked Fayyad “hard questions” about PA support for the Goldstone Report, about Fayyad’s campaign against Israel’s joining the OECD, about PA incitement against Israel, and about his campaign to boycott settlement goods.
The professor, author of The Case for Israel and The Case Against Israel’s Enemies, said Fayyad did not attempt to claim that the Goldstone Report on Operation Cast Lead was accurate, that “he didn’t seem too unhappy” to have lost the OECD battle, and that he condemned incitement.
Himself a critic of the settlement enterprise, Dershowitz said that Fayyad had “a very good point in using nonviolent means” to show opposition to the settlements.
As far as other final-status issues were concerned, Dershowitz said he did not believe Fayyad, “as a pragmatist,” would make “the same fatal mistake that Arafat did and give up on peace over a fake right of return.”
On security, he went on, “Fayyad argued against IDF troops periodically entering Ramallah and in favor of bolstering the internal PA security forces. He makes a persuasive case,” said Dershowitz, adding the caveat: “These aren’t areas I’m expert in.”
(End of excerpt)
Those internal PA security forces are not there to protect the Palestinians from the Israelis but the Israelis from the Palestinians there being no instance of resistance by the latter since the Abbas regime came into place. They are collaborators as indeed is Fayyad however worthy his ultimate motives may be.
What planet do you think we live on? The “Gullible” planet where you pretend to give us insider information and we just lap it all up because it sounds good?
“Those internal PA security forces are not there to protect the Palestinians from the Israelis but the Israelis from the Palestinians there being no instance of resistance by the latter since the Abbas regime came into place. They are collaborators as indeed is Fayyad however worthy his ultimate motives may be.”
I agree, Jeffrey. And should the West Bankers ever get uppity and deviate from the programme, they will get the Gaza treatment. There is no place in Zionism for Palestinian rights.
hi hostage, here’s the original vanity fair article w/the box linking to the proof is in the paper trail which has a set of 4 docs not just plan b.
not sure what to make of this because it was in the 4th and final document that i very much recall the importance of fayyed w/the facilitation of the plan. however, my memory might be playing tricks on me because now when i open that link it doesn’t appear as a rough frumpled doc, it looks a lot more ‘normal’. i’m not saying vanity fair updated it i am just saying it is not at all what i recall. either way it is introduced like this:
i have posted about this before,on another site. i can go try to search for it. i recall typing out portions of the text (couldn’t copy the photo of the doc). that is not available now.
unless i’ve gone off my rocker. everything, all the money for the plan which entailed flushing out security to suit Dayton was run thru fayyed. his name was mentioned several times and it was mentioned casually, like a done deal. i’ll go look and see if i can find anything, it has been years but i’m not that crazy.
What planet do you think we live on? The “Gullible” planet where you pretend to give us insider information and we just lap it all up because it sounds good?
I was responding to Annie’s post and citing documents that are in the public domain. I have never failed to cite readily available published sources that support my views or rationale.
Ever since 2002 there has been an International Criminal Court and there have been reports of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed against Palestinians. The only time the Palestinian government ever filed a criminal complaint against Israel was under Prime Minister Fayyad. The Fayyad regime was the only Palestinian government that ever got UNESCO to resolve that Israeli authorities had systematically confiscated, looted and excavated hundreds of sites, including the Bilal bin Rabah Mosque and Al Haram Al Ibrihimi. Fayyad’s government plan for Ending the Occupation and Establishing the State cited the 1988 Declaration of the State of Palestine. It calls for an actual end to the occupation that began in 1967, not just another unilateral declaration of statehood at the UN. He has funded the renovation of Palestinian schools in East Jerusalem over the objections of the Israelis. He has personally supported non-violent demonstrations against the occupation and the wall. He demanded that Israel either give Palestinians their freedom or give them the right to vote. He has slashed Palestinian labor in the settlements while initiating a boycott against Israeli manufactured goods and calling on the EU to condition upgraded relations with Israel on improvements in Palestinian human rights. He has campaigned against World Bank funding for the Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal project and threatened to take the case to the ICJ. None of that represents the agenda of his “foreign investors” or the Israelis, but that is how colonial peoples have traditionally undermined a Metropole from inside the captive market in the colonized territory. If that’s collaboration, then Ghandi was a British collaborator.
Arafat’s PLO agreed to the Mitchell report recommendations and the Quartet demands on behalf of the Palestinian people to abandon terror, to establish law and order, and to put a stop to terror attacks against Israelis. Israel has employed Hamas opposition to the PLO for years in its plans to prolong the peace process and backed lawsuits against PLO and PA assets in the US and other countries based upon claims resulting from Hamas terror attacks on Israelis. It is unsurprising then that the PLO decided to use force against Hamas when it refused to accept the PLO’s policy decisions. That doesn’t mean that the PLO accepted the State Department’s talking points. Many people gloss over similar historical episodes where factional disputes were settled by violence. General Washington employed public executions to overrule the will of the people serving in his revolutionary army. They “mutinied” when they hadn’t been paid in months and they couldn’t go home to support their own families – even after their enlistments had expired. At the time, many of them felt they had simply traded one tyrant for another. For their own part, the PLO and Fayyad demanded that Israelis put a stop to price tag terror attacks against Palestinians and reminded the Israeli side that it was a condition under the Quartet Plan for resuming the stalled negotiations.
We all tend to forget that the western world has abandoned the Palestinian people and their leaders to their fate at key moments in the past, forcing Ramallah into tactical surrenders, even when Arafat was in charge. It was widely reported that Israel’s Shin Bet chief told Abbas that if the Goldstone vote occurred, the West Bank would be attacked and turned into “another Gaza”. Deciding to “live to fight another day” is not collaboration. In 2009, it was the Fayyad -Abbas government that negotiated the terms of Security Council resolution 1860 after weeks of stalling by Condi Rice. It not only included a call to end Operation Cast Lead and the blockade of Gaza, it contained a call for intra-Palestinian reconciliation with Hamas through mediation with Egypt and the Arab League. That wasn’t the agenda of Israel or the western donors. Despite the widespread claims that they had adopted the State Department “talking points”, Fayyad had tried to arrange for the payment of public employee salaries in Gaza, the transfer of cash to the banks in Gaza, and payments for Gaza’s fuel and utilities. He did that even when he had a shortfall of $50 million a month in his own West Bank budget brought-on by withdrawal of Western and Arab funding.
Both Fayyad and Abbas have indicated that they will dissolve the PA and pursue a single state solution if the Palestinians aren’t given their freedom or if the UN refuses to recognize the Palestinian State.
The PA’s “Palestinian Independent Investigation Commission established pursuant to the Goldstone Report” condemned rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza as a matter of general policy, but it did not accept the gratuitous conclusion of the UN fact finding mission regarding the various unconfirmed reports about the numbers and kinds of attacks; that each of them automatically constituted an indiscriminate “terror” attack; or that military objectives had not been targeted. See paragraphs 16-19 on .pdf file pages 49-50. link to un.org
thank you hostage. you know i respect your input here immensely. running out, we review your full post later. again, thank you
P.S. I forgot to provide a link to illustrate that the Palestinian Authority’s assets (+$1.3 billion) were frozen as a result of a Hamas terror attack on an Israeli family.
Note: Israel claims that it applies the applicable humanitarian laws from the Geneva Conventions and the 1st Additional Protocol, but has never stipulated which rules it has chosen to apply. It obviously is carrying out “reprisals”, like house demolitions, against civilian third parties in accordance with Article 50 of the Hague Convention of 1907. When the headlines in Israel advise us that: The IDF has fired more than 5,100 shells at Gaza in six weeks or that Palestinian families have been killed while playing soccer or having a picnic at the beach, Israel is simply inviting reprisals against its own civilian population – like the recent attack on the school bus.
During the trials of The WWII War Criminals, the opinion of Hersh Lauterpacht from Oppenheim’s International Law, 6th and 8th Editions was cited to define reprisals and to determine when reprisals against civilians, towns, and villages were authorized in accordance with Article 50 of the Hague Convention (see pages 3 & 4).
Here is the guidance from section “6.2.4 Reprisal” of the 2007 Edition of the US Navy Marine Corps, and Coast Guard “Commander’s Handbook On The Law Of Naval Operations:
Many states have obviously accepted Israel’s policy of reprisals and refuse to issue arrest warrants. At the same time, they dismiss Hamas attacks as illegal acts of terrorism. The Palestinian Authority Commission report did not adopt that view.
The only answer is for each of the parties to recognize the other side as an existing belligerent State, with all of the rights and responsibilities of a High Contracting Party to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the other modern international laws of warfare.
Big Question for Hostage: I finally went to Ma’an News Agency, and I saw this editorial: link to maannews.net asking what was the meaning of Fayyad’s ultimatum of Friday a week ago.
Fayyad said Israel “should either give Palestinians freedom or the right to vote.”
And Ma’an responded “We need to decide whether we want a confederation with Jordan, or a state in cooperation with Israel.”, also “A Palestinian state which can enable the Palestinians to live in dignity and build institutions is attainable only through agreement with Jordan or Israel”. And also “If the leadership has abandoned the two-state idea, they should tell the public whether they want confederation with Jordan or Israel or both rather than leaving us citizens confused.”
My question: Is it theoretically possible that confederation with Jordan is on the table? Is it possible that American/Israeli power will force a confederation with Jordan?
All of the One State talk rests on the idea that Jordan has no business in this, and Egypt has no business in this, and that the Palestine issue will not be shoved on to them. Is it possible that that assumption is not right?
Hostage, you make an eloquent argument on behalf of Fayyad and the PA, but the fact remains that its militia has served not only to prevent Palestinian attacks against the Israeli occupiers but it has violently suppressed protests by West Bankers both in solidarity with the people of Gaza while they were under attack and with the people of Egypt when they were protesting against the PA’s great ally. Mubarak.
When Palestinians are regularly fired on while non-violently protesting, the PA militia is nowhere to be seen and the report you cited referring to a statement by Fayyad at Bi’ilin a week ago after months of protests at that wall without his presence says nothing about him making a demand, presumably to the Israelis, “that Israel should either give Palestinians freedom or the right to vote.” That was said to the Palestinians at Bi’ilin which is not nearly the same as saying that, and doing it publicly, to his Israeli masters.
You write that “Israel has employed Hamas opposition to the PLO for years in its plans to prolong the peace process. It is unsurprising then that the PLO decided to use force against Hamas when it refused to accept PLO decisions.”
You seem not only to be placing the blame on Hamas for the Palestinians’ failure to move forward but that it is being paid by the Israelis to do so. Otherwise you would have chosen a term other than “employed.” You ignore the history of the PLO which has been rife with corruption going well back into Arafat’s misrule in Lebanon prior to the 1982 invasion and which continued without let-up to the point where it became the major reason for West Bankers voting for Hamas when they had a chance to do so.
While it is all very well and good that Fayyad supports a boycott of goods produced in the West Bank and reducing Palestinian employment in Jewish settlements, he is opposed to the world-wide boycott of Israeli goods as well that has been called for and supported by Palestinian civil society. Why? Because Fayyad, like Abbas, is more than eager to settle for a Palestan, a demilitarized statelet that would totally be dependent on the US and/or Israel and would suppress dissent to even a greater degree than it is doing now. And the refugees? Fayyad, ever the realist, does not include them in the mix.
The Security Council resolution on Gaza turned out to be meaningless whereas the efforts by the Abbas-Fayyad regime to keep the UN from immediately taking up the Goldstone Report were successful in short-stopping it. To quote the article you cited from Ha’aretz:
Diskin, the head of Shin Bet, “said Israel would withdraw permission for mobile phone company Wataniya to operate in the Palestinian Authority. That would have cost the PA tens of millions of dollars in compensation payments to the [Kuwaiti] company.” So maintaining that deal was evidently worth more than the lost Palestinian lives in Gaza.
Here’s more:
“Commission chairman and PA legislator Azmi Shuaibi told Al-Watan TV at the time that in a three-hour session Abbas admitted to the panel that he had made a mistake in asking the UN body to defer the vote and said he was sorry that the affair had been exploited for political ends.
“Thirty-three of the UN council’s 47 members supported the PA’s initial endorsement of the Goldstone report. The matter was slated to be transferred from the UN General Assembly to the Security Council, when to the surprise of diplomats on all sides the PA delegation agreed at the last moment to defer the vote until March 2010.”
That’s collaboration any way you can look at it, and if you want more, just consult the Palestine Papers that were turned over to Al-Jazeera by a PA employee who thought the behind the scenes dealings by the PA with Israel should be made public.
Finally, by even participating in the charade of a “peace process,” the PA beginning with Oslo, has given credibility to the notion that the problems of the Palestinians can be resolved by an agreement “between the parties.” In other words between the person being raped and the rapist. Again, Fayyad may have the best of motives but in the end he is still a collaborator.
Is it theoretically possible that confederation with Jordan is on the table?
Fayyad was speaking about the state of Israel granting Palestinians the freedom to live and vote in a single state.
Is it possible that American/Israeli power will force a confederation with Jordan?
No.
All of the One State talk rests on the idea that Jordan has no business in this, and Egypt has no business in this, and that the Palestine issue will not be shoved on to them. Is it possible that that assumption is not right?
Jordan and Egypt, along with the Arab League are involved in the negotiations, e.g. the Arab initiative proposal. The Israeli-Jordanian peace treaty did not effect the status of any territory that came under Israeli military control in 1967. So, Jordan still has a quiet role pending the negotiation of the final status agreement.
When they dissolved the federal union between the two Banks, King Hussein and Yasser Arafat publicly discussed the possibility of the two states entering into a formal confederation, but neither man was interested in restoring the old federal union. I don’t think there is any renewed interest in either the idea of union or confederation. Entire volumes have been written about the subject. See for example Musa S. Braizat, The Jordanian-Palestinian relationship: the bankruptcy of the confederal idea, I. B. Tauris, 1998.
Neither Egypt nor Jordan is going to be forced into accepting any security responsibility for the West Bank or Gaza, since that would automatically mean they would once again become the targets of Israeli military reprisals.
In the past, Israel’s security psychosis about “defensible borders” has always precluded the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state that would “cut Israel in half”. So, Gaza and the West Bank are likely to remain isolated with some sort of arrangement, like a tunnel, for transit of people and goods. The Arab and EU-Med Free Trade agreements will mean that Egypt, Israel-Palestine, and Jordan will eventually become trading partners.
Those internal PA security forces are not there to protect the Palestinians from the Israelis
The Al Jazeera Transparency unit has published classified documents which say that between February of 2008 and May of 2009 the internal PA security forces handled 386 complaints against the Israeli army and settlers; turned over to Israeli custody 273 Israeli civilians who “mistakenly” entered Palestinian‐controlled areas; and in 249 instances requested Israeli coordination in arresting wanted persons and “extending the duration of a patrol”, i.e. hot pursuit.
If the recent shooting incident at Joseph’s Tomb is any indication, they are not there to protect Israelis.
Hostage,
Thank you for that. Do you have any idea what the Ma’an editorial was talking about? Why did they talk about it? Here it is: link to maannews.net
Robert
The shooting at Jacob’s Tomb was the rare exception to the rule as your statistics bear out. While they turned over to Israel 273 civilians who were in Palestinian controlled areas instead of investigating and/or jailing them themselves, they requested Israeli assistance in arresting 249 “wanted persons,” which is a code name for Palestinians wanted by Israel. If that is not collaboration, I don’t know what is.
If there is a single instance in which any member of that Vichy militia defended a fellow Palestinian against an armed Israeli soldier or border guard I have never heard or read about it.
I think you have gotten yourself out on a shaky limb in your support of the PA, Hostage, and that’s too bad because otherwise you have provided excellent information.
Annie,
I had provided hypertext links to both Plan B and “The Proof Is in the Paper Trail” in the text of my earlier post:-)
The Mondoweiss story on General Dayton and the Palestine Papers explained that Fayyad avoided Dayton and even refused to meet with the man. The only time Fayyad said anything on the record about the Gaza uprising was in a meeting with Secretary of State Rice. He said “On Gaza, there was only one winner: Hamas” and that “international intervention had not been effective.” A note at the bottom of the page indicates he was speaking from talking points that had been prepared by others. So, there is no indication that he was involved in any way. The letter from Erekat to General Dayton explained that, pending the implementation of reforms, Abbas still controlled the Security Forces (such as they were) – not the PA ministers. Erekat did not work for Fayyad. He told the PLO Negotiations Support Unit that he hadn’t been in the Prime Ministers office in months.
On the Vanity Fair documents page, there is also a recorded interview with the author in which he explains that:
*He obtained these four documents from a number of different sources (2:20);
*A source originally approached him and said that he could obtain some documents captured from Fatah by Hamas when it took over Gaza, but that plan didn’t work out (6:30);
*That Hamas launched a preemptive coup against an anticipated American-backed Fatah coup (3:11);
*That people in both Washington (David Wurmser) and Palestine (?) either conveyed and confirmed the details of the story to him about the Bush administration pressure to conduct elections and its subsequent pressure to overturn the results.
*Studio guest Mike Batistick noted that when the coup happened, it was really no surprise (4:30)
General Dayton reported to the State Department. He employed contractors and didn’t obtain money or weapons through the DoD or the Congress. Egypt supplied his Jordanian-based training program with its weapons, not Fayyad.
I don’t doubt that the Bush administration wanted to put an end to the national unity government, but the PLO would have done that on its own anyway – without any outside encouragement. I provided another link in one of my earlier posts which explained that, long before the PA parliamentary elections, a private civil lawsuit concerning a Hamas terror attack had resulted in $1.3 billion of the PLO’s assets being frozen. It wasn’t possible for the PLO to remain officially connected with a group that refused to renounce violence against Israeli civilians and to also run a government and pay for all of the public sector financial obligations too.
In accordance with the 1988 Declaration of the State of Palestine, the PLO Executive Committee (headed by Abbas) is responsible for the formation of the provisional government of the State of Palestine “until such time as the Palestinian people exercises full sovereignty over the land of Palestine”. It can also initiate action to remove the government with a no confidence motion. The PNA is a creation of the PLO-Israeli Oslo Accords. That agreement stipulated that the PLO is ultimately responsible for conducting the foreign relations, including the negotiations on the final settlement with Israel. Hamas was not a party in the PLO. So, winning 56 percent of the seats in the PNA Parliament did not necessarily entitle Hamas to dictate the terms of PNA foreign policy toward Israel. Between January of 2006 and June of 2007 (about a year and a half) Abbas and Khaled Mashaal tried unsuccessfully to form a unity government and to end intra-communal violence. See Major events after Hamas-led Palestinian government comes to power in 2006
Abbas could not get Hamas to publicly renounce violence. That was a condition for restoring financial support from the EU, US, and Arab States – and in obtaining PA revenues collected by Israel.
Fayyad was originally installed to serve as a firewall between Arafat, the extralegal militias, and funding from the AHLC donors and the US Congress. That’s why there is a $0 line item for “lethal and non-lethal weapons” in the joint training and payroll budget request from General Dayton’s team and the Palestinian technical team for reform contained in the annex of the 3rd Vanity Fair document. It is unlikely that this document originated in the State Department as the author suggests, since the last paragraph on page 1 mentions the US Administration, the Palestinian leadership, and the Israeli government as third parties who had not yet seen the action plan. It looks like a Dahlan-Dayton product that was run-up the chain of command.
Note: Arafat had spent money arming whichever groups he wanted, but there was no effective civilian control over the various militias. No elected official could ever deliver on a final peace treaty while there were dozens of independent militias in existence. One of the stated objectives was to gain control over the Fatah-affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades which still launches mortars and rockets from Gaza. So, this was not intended to be a blueprint for a military coup. Palestinian civil society had also complained about militias roaming the streets, having to pay in order to pass through private checkpoints, kidnappings and ransoms, and being tortured by these Palestinian groups. So, PNA security sector reform was turned into a civil society and Road Map obligation and funded by the foreign donors. There were already several books about the subject before the 2007 Gaza conflict, e.g.:
*Passia 2006 Palestinian Security Sector Governance: Challenges and Prospects
*DCAF 2007 Entry-points to Palestinian security sector reform
*European Union Coordinating Office for Palestinian Police Support (EU COPPS) & Palestinian Civil Police Development Programme 2005-2008 – Factsheet
*USA: Security Sector Reform Program September 2005 – October 2007
There is an overview in Squaring The Circle: Palestinian Security Reform Under Occupation
The claim that these particular Vanity Fair documents are the proof of a planned military coup, or that the arms transfers from Arab countries to General Dayton were a secret is almost scatalogical story telling. Six months after the elections, World Net Daily reported that Olmert had given clearance for a massive delivery of arms from Jordan to the Presidential Security Forces. By October 2006 Haaretz was reporting that the US was preparing the Presidential Guard to take on Hamas in the Gaza Strip”. Hamas initiated the Gaza uprising the following June (2007).
There is nothing in the Vanity Fair “final document” except the same old 2003 Road Map obligations on security sector reforms and an early draft of the Abbas-Fayyad “Ending the Occupation Establishing the State” program that was adopted by the 13th government in 2009.
Do you have any idea what the Ma’an editorial was talking about?
The editorial asked and answered its own rhetorical questions. Fayyad did not mention Jordan at all. The author treated the Hashemite Kingdom as an inanimate object or literary device – a strawman – not another political entity whose population and leadership has any say in the matters under discussion.
History provides many examples of states emerging from long periods of de facto and de jure annexation and colonization, such as East Timor or the Baltic States. On that basis alone, it is simply not possible to arbitrarily state that the moment has been reached, and it is “too late” for a two state solution. The author obviously chose to ignore the fact that Fayyad was asking the Israelis for freedom on behalf of the people, or the right to vote. The people already know about the de facto incorporation of much of their territory into an Israeli polity under a military occupation regime. One thing’s for sure, if a caretaker government announced plans for a union with Jordan, Maan would be writing editorials saying it had no mandate from the people to do that.
I think you have gotten yourself out on a shaky limb in your support of the PA, Hostage, and that’s too bad because otherwise you have provided excellent information.
Jeffrey, I haven’t replied to the comments you’ve made here so far, because you are behaving like the proverbial “hostile witness” and reacting to whatever published sources I’ve cited with innuendo and convoluted assertions. I objected to the claim that Fayyad is collaborating with the occupation and intend to continue to do that until some reality-based evidence to the contrary is presented.
*The Jerusalem Post has reported that in practice Fayyad’s official boycott is effecting businesses and products from the Israeli side of the Green Line and that “both Abbas and Fayyad relentlessly engage in inimical campaigns abroad in favor of such boycotts in other countries.” Fayyad most definitely has pursued boycotts, sanctions, and divestment efforts against Israel, including lobbying efforts against Israel’s membership in OECD, withholding World Bank financing for the Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal, and granting an upgrade of EU – Israel relations. After the vote on the EU upgrade was suspended indefinitely, the Vice President of the EU Parliament claimed it was “an answer to PM Salam Fayyad, who launched an appeal to the EU to not upgrade its relations with Israel since after Annapolis there have not been improvements, neither in lifting the closures on Palestinian areas nor freezing settlements”.
*Barghouti’s bdsmovement.net website has published articles which praise PA Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad’s official campaign and say that it’s closed down dozens of settlement businesses and adversely impacted hundreds of others.
*Fayyad has established a fund to compensate Palestinians impacted by the ban on employment in the settlements. The Israeli Knesset has predictably reacted by proposing legislation that would require money collected by Israel, and owed to the Palestinian Authority, be handed over to Israelis hurt by the boycott instead. Complaining that Fayyad isn’t doing enough to support BDS is just another example of blaming the victims.
*Regardless of the number of times Barghouti and others repeat the propaganda about the second mobile operator license, it simply doesn’t hold water. Abbas and Fayyad authorized a criminal complaint to be filed directly with the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC and called on the Arab League to establish an independent fact finding mission to be sent to Gaza. Haaretz reported that Israel had demanded that the PA withdraw the complaint and that it deployed the threat to withhold the mobile license. Neither the complaint nor the very damning report, “No Safe Place”, have never been withdrawn. The PA ministers, the Arab League Secretariat, and the fact finding mission team members held follow-up discussions with the Prosecutor urging him to take the case long after Israel attempted to blackmail the PA. See Israel demands PA drop war crimes suit at The Hague, 27/09/09 and the chronology in paragraphs 8-10 of the Prosecutor’s report to the UN regarding the PA complaint. Dr. Khashan accompanied by a delegation from the Palestinian National Authority and advised by Professor Vaughan Lowe of Oxford University, visited the Court on 15‐16 October 2009. On the same days, the Prosecutor was also visited by a high level Arab League Secretariat delegation and the members of the League’s Fact Finding Committee ‐ Professor John Dugard (Chair, South African), Judge Finn Lynghjem (Norwegian), Solicitor Raelene Sharp (rapporteur, Australian), Professor and forensic expert Francisco Corte‐Real (Portuguese), Professor Paul de Waart (Dutch), and Advocate Gonzalo Boye (Chilean/German).
*Fayyad has appeared at Bilin in support of the weekly demonstrations on several occasions. He has made appearances during olive harvests at places like Turmusayyah, Tormos Ayya, Iraq Burin, and Aboud accompanied by the UN Middle East envoy and the US Ambassador. His remarks are usually carried by Maan and the other wire services. Damning him with faint praise for stating that Israel either has to grant the Palestinians their freedom or the right to vote is counterproductive no matter how many times he has visited Bilin. It’s like complaining about the number of times Kennedy or Reagan visited the Berlin Wall before they spoke out against it. Fayyad’s remarks would have been a Mondoweiss headline if any other Palestinian had made them, but we have this story about a conversation with the anonymous Arab ankle biter instead.
*The fact remains that Fayyad does engage in activism and intervenes diplomatically on behalf of Palestinians, e.g. Fayyad put out a press release saying that he had spoken to the British Consulate in Jerusalem and told the British Ambassador that the arrest and deportation of Israeli Sheikh Raed will harm the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian People.
*Blaming Fayyad for PLO corruption or misconduct in the militias or the PA Security Services is almost like blaming Dennis Kuinich for the Patriot Act, CIA renditions, the network of secret US prisons, and waterboarding. These are the guys who have tirelessly campaigned against that sort of thing throughout their public careers. Fayyad was brought on board by the donors to keep the corrupt elements from getting their hands on the foreign aid accounts. The Fatah party old timers in the PLO Executive Committee have been the main opponents of the Fayyad-civil society reforms and institution building in the financial and security sectors. They oppose his nomination for prime minister just as much as Hamas. The LA Times and Maan reported that demonstrations sympathizing with Egyptians were suppressed in both the West Bank and Gaza.
During the interview of the Gaza bombshell author by the editor of Vanity Fair, their discussion about the anticipated American-backed coup attempt in 2007 got sidetracked by a lengthy digression regarding the fact that Hamas had immediately imposed an oppressive regime and was brutally torturing lots of innocent people, including one of his close personal friends. Nowadays it’s reported that Hamas and its associates have been using their control of smuggling tunnels, money changing, and tax revenue to buy prime tracts of land and buildings across Gaza while legitimate businesses there are going broke. So, it looks like a little “Fayyadism” wouldn’t harm the residents of Gaza either.
they requested Israeli assistance in arresting 249 “wanted persons,” which is a code name for Palestinians wanted by Israel. If that is not collaboration, I don’t know what is.
The report that I cited actually said: “In 249 instances, however, Palestinian requests for coordination were denied. These requests involved arresting wanted persons and extending the duration of a patrol.”
So, it logically follows that no “collaboration” could have occurred in these particular cases.
BTW, the Al Jazeera source does not say that “wanted person” is code for a Palestinian wanted by Israel. It also does not follow – based upon the Israeli refusal to cooperate in making the arrests – that these were cases involving Palestinians wanted by Israel.
You write that “Israel has employed Hamas opposition to the PLO for years in its plans to prolong the peace process.
Of course. Israel officially designated Gaza an “enemy entity” after it had privately confided to the United States government that it would be “happy” if Hamas took over because the IDF could then deal with Gaza as a hostile state.
The pre-state Jewish Agency established Arab intelligence sections in the political and military departments which it used to infiltrate and subvert Palestinian resistance groups. It always sowed hate and discontent in order to pit the competing factions against one another. The government of Israel has always claimed that there is no point in negotiating with the Palestinian leadership because they are either all terrorists or else they don’t speak on behalf of all the terrorists.
A number of reliable sources, including several U.S. intelligence officials told the UPI correspondent on terrorism that that beginning in the late 1970s, Tel Aviv gave direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas in order to divide and dilute support for a strong, secular PLO. PM Netanyahu is “employing” Hamas in the current round of “heads I win, tails you loose” in the other sense of the word. Hamas is his excuse not to negotiate with the PA. He said “the PA will have to choose peace with Israel or peace with Hamas” because “There is no possibility for peace with both.”
There is by now a general agreement that Israel sponsored Hamas to the degree that, at the very least, it allowed it to grow under Israeli occupation as a religious counter to the secular PLO and one that also challenge its corruption. It is also obvious that Israel prefers to have an enemy it can classify as “Islamic terrorists” so it can resist holding negotiations with the PA as long as they are in an alliance. (In the same sense, Al Qaeda has been very convenient for the US although it would be hard to make an argument that this was all foreseen when the mujahadeen were armed and supported against the Russians in Afghanistan but that was a possibility.)
By focusing on that aspect, however, one can end up believing that the “peace process” has some legitimacy and that the Israelis should be forced to sit down with the Palestinians and negotiate a settlement that will leave the Palestinians with a neutered Bantustan.
Again, you have made an eloquent argument on Fayyad’s behalf although it is an unacceptable stretch to compare his power within the PA in which he is the Number Two official with that of Dennis Kucinich over the contents of the Patriot Act.
I might argue that it was the BDS launched by Palestinian civil society that pushed the PA to initiate a boycott against Israeli products produced in the settlements and that it was the release of the Palestine Papers that pushed the PA to announce that it would seek approval for statehood from the UN GA in September.
I have no brief for Hamas and know there are too many legitimate criticisms of how it has controlled Gaza to be ignored but that is not the issue here. Both it and the PA have made more mistakes than intelligent decisions from my perspective which as a non-Palestinian counts for little in either the short or long run.
The best I can say for Fayyad is that he is serious about establishing a Palestinian state that will be aligned with the West and is playing the cards he was dealt. When that, as it does, requires a degree of collaboration with the Israelis or shmoozing with pro-Israel American Jewish groups such as The Israel Project, he is ready to do it.
link to theisraelproject.org
it is an unacceptable stretch to compare his power within the PA in which he is the Number Two official with that of Dennis Kucinich
I’ve given you plenty of links here to third-party sources on the subject of reforms in the Security Sector which establish that the political arms of the factions didn’t control the militias in the first place and that the forces under the PA’s control operate under the nominal control of the President, not the Prime Minister or Interior Minister. Erekat authored a document that appeared in the Palestine Papers series about that.
I might argue… …that it was the release of the Palestine Papers that pushed the PA to announce that it would seek approval for statehood from the UN GA in September.
Fayyad’s official government plan to end the occupation and establish the state by 2011 predated the release of the Palestine Papers considerably. There has also been a requirement for the Quartet to promote recognition of a Palestinian State and UN membership since 2002.
I am curious about your seeming obsession with defending Fayyad.
Because I’m pretty well informed, and I’ve never seen any evidence of any wrong doing by Fayyad. I’ve seen plenty of editorializing based on rumors, hyperbole, and blatant propaganda. I ordinarily do comment when the facts don’t support a proposition someone is advancing.
Maybe Fayyad is unwittingly doing exactly what Israel wants and executing Israel’s plan for the Palestinians to a T and maybe its intentional. He probably knew that complaint would lead nowhere; he does after all need to win the hearts and minds of Palestinians and not have them suspect he’s actually a collaborator leading them down the garden path while he sells the farm. Unfortunately, he’s doing exactly that, but you can’t fool all the people all the time, and those who are awake will wake up the rest soon.
Fayyad is building the infra-structure of a permanent occupied state.
Maybe you are unwittingly doing likud’s bidding by opposing the one effort that has the tangible prospect of realizing Palestinian sovereignty.
And maybe you’re a wolf in sheep’s clothing expressing fake concern for Palestinians. Maybe you think Palestinians are just dumb farmers that should settle for less. Maybe you think they can’t handle sovereignty when the rest of the human race has this basic right or are not human enough to deserve sovereignty and their full rights and the land that belongs to them legally. Maybe you think that because Israel allows them a few economic perks and self-governance they’ll give up sovereignty in exchange and Israel can keep what it stole and the best and biggest part of the pie without feeling threatened by Palestinian demography or GUILTY, in other words have their cake and eat it too! Maybe you like Fayyad because he’ll make THEFT and OCCUPATION seem palatable. Maybe you’re a condescending cynic and a liar who likes to waste time trying to insult our intelligence.
What Richard is trying to say is that by pursuing an all or nothing strategy you may also get nothing. Is Fayad more inclined to compromise with Israel than Hamas? I believe so. Does that mean Hamas could bring the Palestinians a better deal? I don’t think so.
As for support of the Palestinian street, that is a non issue since Fayad is appointed by Abbas. In any case, it is a strange argument to put forward by people who support Barghouti who has zero support in the Arab street.
So you’re saying the
JewsPalestinians should just give up and let theNazisIsraelis keep what they took?The Nazis took 1.5 million kids from the Jewish people and we have yet to get them back. I believe we have even given up on this.
The Palestinians should compromise. That is the only way to reach a solution. Both sides must accept an historical compromise. The compromise will reflect of course the relative power of both sides. To think otherwise is to be naive.
The Nazis took 1.5 million kids from the Jewish people and we have yet to get them back. I believe we have even given up on this.
unfortunately, unlike palestinians you do not have a choice in the matter because they are dead. but i am completely certain if you did have a choice you wouldn’t be considering a ‘compromise’.
your framing is more than disappointing wrt palestinians compromising. from what postion? as the victims? as the oppress? as the occupied? they should compromise with a powerful country showing no signs of compromising whatsoever.
The compromise will reflect of course the relative power of both sides. To think otherwise is to be naive.
and a giant f u to you. you are not asking for a compromise you are asking for a capitulation.
Maybe I am expressing fake concern for close to 20 years now (or 41 from my first experiences in the West Bank and Golan).
I like Fayyad because he mutually improves lives, but primarily Palestinian, and has the prospect of ending up with a viable Palestine living in peace with Israel.
If you think that is a bad outcome, then you have some personal work to do.
>> The compromise will reflect of course the relative power of both sides. To think otherwise is to be naive.
And there you have it, the Zio-supremacist interpretation of everything that the horrors and immorality of WWII and its aftermath have taught us: “Give me what I want, or I will take it from you!”
No surprise that the interpretation lacks any sense of shame, of humility, of morality, of justice or even of kindness. “We took it, it’s ours, get over it…and if you don’t, we’re going to perform some more ‘required’ evil on ya!”
eee, you are a bold and unrepentant example of all that is hateful in humanity. RW must be proud to have you as the robust co-collectivist who’ll do the dirty work he’s not strong enough to tackle, while he “holds his nose” and cheers you on.
eee,
I agree with you. The Palestinians should accept a compromise, and “The compromise will reflect of course the relative power of both sides.” Personally I think the compromise should be to accept that their liberation struggle won’t rehearse the Algerian independence struggle. I think they should let the people stay but expropriate them. But my say in the matter is minimal, although yours is still less, and in any case they’ll figure that on on their own. As everyone knows,the question is not one of “compromise.” There will be a compromise between perfect justice and history. The question is one of the timing of that compromise. And time is working against you. You’ve chosen to make the suffering on the road to that compromise greater than it would otherwise be, and that’s one of the sadder things any human being could possibly elect to do.
Yep, wasn’t Himmler a sensitive guy? He really did care for his troops, as his address to them reveals apropos what they need to do to the Jews.
Why, isn’t that the best example of Israeli shooting, gassing, and crying?
As the Palestine Papers revealed, Fayad has as much chance on delivering a deal as Hamas.
Rubbish. Barghouti managed 25% of the vote while he was sitting in prison.
Max,
Isn’t that the eternal question around the I/P conflict:
Which side is time working against?
For 63 years the Palestinians have been saying that time is on their side. The facts on the ground say otherwise. Obviously, what they could have gotten peacefully in 1947, they cannot get today without winning a war.
To me is quite clear that time is on Israel’s side. Israel is a vibrant society with more startups per capita than any other country in the world.
As I see things, it is the unwillingness of the Palestinians to compromise that is leading to their suffering. The real bone of contention is the right of return which Israel cannot accept.
Where did you pull that bone out of eee?
I’d say the real bone of contention is the little land which the Palestinians still have left, the off sea gas, the water resources, the border with Jordan, the border with Egypt, the ports, the settlements, the settlers, Israeli’s white shirts….
Actually anything and everything the Palestinians might get down to a piece of chocolate is a bone of contention to Netanyahu, Likud and most of Israeli society. You are out-apartheiding the Afrikanners, whom you/Israel supported for so long.
You like Fayyad because he was hand picked in Tel Aviv and takes his orders from Washington.
Alec,
The Clinton parameters could have been a basis for solution many times over if it weren’t for the right of return. There were no settlements till well into the seventies and no gas till a few years ago. The salient problem is the Palestinian demand for the return of the refugees and their descendants. That would negate the idea of a Jewish state. Not that the rest does not have to be negotiated, but it can be overcome. I see no solution for the right of return.
Shingo,
The Barghouti in prison was not the one I was talking about. He is one of the leaders of Fatah. I was talking about the one that was recently touring the US and that posts here.
“The salient problem is the Palestinian demand for the return of the refugees and their descendants. That would negate the idea of a Jewish state.”
Of course, the very idea of a Jewish State is wrong. But leaving that aside, it is pretty much a commonplace that a version of the RoR could be negotiated which would lead to just a small number of Palestinians returning to Israel.
The big obstacles are:
Israel does not want to give up any territory.
Accepting the RoR in any form would count as an admission of guilt. Israel refuses to admit to any fault.
Accepting the RoR in any form would count as recognition that Arabs are human beings. Israel refuses to acknowledge this. (It might lead to calls for equal treatment of the Arabs in Israel.)
You are referring to Omar Barghouti whose promotion of the BDS campaign has done more to mobilize foreign opposition to Israel and its barbaric policies than anything anyone in the PLO or PA hierarchy have done and who is not pretending that something positive can be accomplished by sitting down with one’s oppressor. And that is why Israel has mobilized its forces internationally against the BDS campaign. You might not take it seriously but the ZIONTERN does.
EEE- “Obviously, what they could have gotten peacefully in 1947, they cannot get today without winning a war.”
You should be ashamed of yourself for uttering such propagandistic nonsense. What do you HONESTLY think the Palestinians could have gotten peacefully in 1947? The nominal acceptance of the unjust UN partition by the Yishuv was a tactical maneuver. The Nakba was initiated prior to the departure of the British and prior to the entrance of the reluctant Arab armies. The intent was to drive as many Palestinians out of their homeland as possible to permit the creation of an overwhelmingly Jewish state. Deir Yassin was a Palestinian village that had peaceful relations with the surrounding Jewish communities, yet whose inhabitants were massacred to send a message and create a panic induced flight. Palestinians attempting to return to their homes after the fighting were killed. The Zionist expulsion of the Palestinians was ruthless, efficient and premeditated. To argue that the Palestinians could have peacefully gotten even so much as an unjust solution in 1947, much less true justice, is an indication of your total lack of intellectual integrity. Since you are obviously a Zionist, I suppose I am being redundant in regards to your integrity. Shame on you!
Keith,
You are completely wrong. If the Arabs and Palestinians would have supported the UN partition plan, Israel would have had no choice but to live with it. The civil war in Palestine started after the partition vote on November 29, 1947 because the Arabs rejected it.
link to en.wikipedia.org
It is an historical fact that the Palestinians could have gotten more by accepting the UN Partition plan.
False. Ben Gurion stated that the partition was a stepping stone towards reclaiming Palestine in it’s entirety. He never suggested that the acceptance/rejection of the partition by the Arabs woudl facilitate or limit this agenda.
False. The expulsion of the Palestinians began the day after and continued through May of 1948.
How can it be a historical fact when it never happened?
“How can it be a historical fact when it never happened?”
In Israel nevernever-land, everything is possible. Even those which didnt happen.
>> There were no settlements till well into the seventies … The salient problem is the Palestinian demand for the return of the refugees and their descendants.
How did the construction and expansion of settlements resolve this “salient problem”?
Omar Barghouti whose promotion of the BDS campaign has done more to mobilize foreign opposition to Israel and its barbaric policies than anything anyone in the PLO or PA hierarchy have done and who is not pretending that something positive can be accomplished by sitting down with one’s oppressor.
I don’t believe that is an accurate representation of his views. But in any event, let’s remember that while calling for a total academic and cultural boycott of Israel, Barghouti continues to pursue his own education there as a student at Tel Aviv University. So he hasn’t stopped “sitting down” or discussing philosophy with the Israelis.
Shingo,
Said you:
“Ben Gurion stated that the partition was a stepping stone towards reclaiming Palestine in it’s entirety. He never suggested that the acceptance/rejection of the partition by the Arabs woudl facilitate or limit this agenda.”
Oh, not this again. Well, to quote one authority, “How can this be a historical fact when it never happened?”
Of course Ben Gurion had always wanted as much of Palestine as he could get, and to have as small an Arab minority as in any future state. But the gap between what he wanted, which he often gave voice to, and what he knew he could get, were considerable. That was why he accepted the principle of partition: because he had to. He prepared for war, and he was certainly not going to remain within the vulnerable lines of the partition if the surrounding Arab states attacked. The defense of those lines would be any staff officer’s nightmare. In the event of hostilities they were simply not defensible. In September Moshe Sharett told an interlocutor that if the Arabs initiate war, “we will get hold of as much of Palestine as we can hold.” The war was thus the game-changer: in the post May 15 period all of Palestine would be up for grabs and everyone simply seized as much as they hold and defend.
But there is no evidence that the Yishuv accepted the partition with the intention to violate it, and not much sense to the notion that they did. Why not simply reject the partition in the first place, on the grounds that the Arabs also rejected it, and then make a grab for as much territory as they could get? And why pour so much diplomatic effort into obtaining the area they were awarded, if the intention was to violate it ASAP? What was the point?
Also, if it was the plan to accept the partition and then violate it, why wait through nearly five months of bloody and near fatal attacks by the ALA and Palestinian militias before they finally took to the offensive in April? If the Yishuv was weak and disorganized on November 30, 1947, the Palestinians, as you would surely concede, were far more so.
eee: “The civil war in Palestine started after the partition vote on November 29, 1947 because the Arabs rejected it.”
Shingo: “False. The expulsion of the Palestinians began the day after and continued through May of 1948.”
You have to be kidding. What did this “expulsion” consist of? Arab attacks in fact began on November 30, the day after the partition vote. On that day, a Jewish ambulance en route to the Hadassah Hospital came under fire, a group of Arabs ambushed a Jewish bus traveling from Netanya to Jerusalem, killing five and wounding seven, and attacked another Jewish bus en route to Jerusalem from Hadera, killing two. A Jewish person was murdered in Tel-Aviv’s Camel Market, in the prison at Acre Arab prisoners attacked Jewish ones, who were forced to barricade themselves in their cells before the British intervened, in Haifa Jews passing through Arab neighborhoods were shot at, and Jewish vehicles were stoned all over Palestine. Over the next several days there were shootings, stonings, and rioting, bombs tossed into cafes, Molotov cocktails thrown into shops, killing and maiming scores.
On December 2, a mob of several hundred Arabs ransacked Jerusalems’s Jewish commercial center, looting, burning, stabbing, and stoning all before them. On December 4, some 120-150 armed Arabs attacked the Efal kibbutz, the first small unit military attack on a Jewish settlement, and on December 8 Hasan Salame, commander of the Lydda front, launched another large-scale attack on the Hatikva quarter in south Tel-Aviv. Both attacks were repulsed, but they set the pattern for the conflict, which was evolving from mob rioting and armed clashes to more military/guerilla style small unit operations. It was not until December 9 that the Hagana’s head of operations, Yigael Yadin began responding in kind to consolidate and protect crucial Jewish transportation arteries.
On the CounterPunch website Oct.9, Barghouti wrote an article condemning the PA’s position on the Goldstone Report the title of which was unequivocal, “Dissolve the Palestinian Authority.”
link to counterpunch.org
In January, when the PA broke up a solidarity demonstration with the Tunisian uprisings, Barghouti reportedly told Le Monde, ““It’s unbelievable. … The police are in the process of confirming the charge that the Palestinian Authority is on the side of Ben Ali and that it also fears the people and the street.”
link to thelede.blogs.nytimes.com
In the introduction to his book on the BDS movement, Barghouti wrote:”that his group does not receive support from the PA and that he
hopes for the PA to be reconstituted on a democratic basis. Evoking
the Palestinian national poet, Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008), he argues that, “Only the whole Palestinian people can recover its unity and will to lay siege to the siege to which it was condemned by the ‘peace process.’” link to ruthfullyyours.com
I am not sure what relevance his being a student at Tel Aviv university has to this discussion. It seems, since he had embarked upon this campaign, he has had little time to spend there. His views on the PA and the “peace process,” however, are unmistakably clear.
Thanks Jeffrey,
For illustrating why it is that Witty is such a fan of the PA.
Seriously Robert,
I don’t know if it’s false bravado or a serious case of denial on your part, but Hostage wiped the floor with yuou not long ago over this debate.
Not only did it happen, but it happened on numerous occasions, not least of which was documented in the letter Ben-Gurion wrote to his son. Your own weasel words suggest you know this, which is why you carefully chose to use the qualifier that Ben-Gurion accepted the principle of partition , which clearly leaves wiggle room for his own interpretation.
The gap between what he wanted, and what he knew he could get was in his mind, only a matter of time and stages. As Hostage pointed out a month ago,
Benny Morris, Shlomo Ben Ami, and David Tal documented the fact that Weizmann and Ben Gurion viewed partition as part of a phased plan to take over the whole of Palestine. Even Ben Gurion’s biographer, Shabtai Teveth, admitted that Ben Gurion had made up his mind that the only relationship between the Jews and the Arabs would be a military one and that economic, social, and geographical partition (de facto apartheid) were inherent in Ben Gurion’s conception of Zionism. See pages 10, 12, 43-44, and 179-184 of “Ben-Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs”, Oxford University Press, USA, 1985. Teveth informs us that Ben-Gurion, inspired by the Peel Report, considered “a Jewish state in part of Palestine as a stage in the longer process towards a Jewish state in all of Palestine.” Lecturing to Mapai activists on 29 October 1937, Ben-Gurion explained that the realization of the Jewish state would come in two stages: the first, “the period of building and laying foundations,” would last ten to fifteen years and would be but the prelude to the second stage, “the period of expansion.” The objective in both stages was “the in-gathering of the exiles in all of Palestine.” It is because of these views, Teveth tells us, that Ben-Gurion made no attempt to contact Palestinian leaders after 1936. We also learn from the official history of the Haganah that in the summer of 1937, ten years before the UN partition resolution, Ben-Gurion ordered the Haganah commander of Tel Aviv, Elimelech Slikowitz (“Avnir”), to draw up a plan for the military takeover of the entire country in anticipation of Britain’s eventual withdrawal from Palestine expected in the wake of the Peel Report. Despite all of that evidence, you claim that the victims are to blame because they rejected the UN partition proposal, but fail to mention the fact that the Jewish Agency itself rejected the Peel plan and the UNSCOP majority and minority plans and asked for a larger territorial allocation. In any event, the Security Council and the President of the United States stated that the UN Charter did not permit the plan of partition to be imposed on the Palestinian people by force.
Shabatai Teveth and Benny Morris both cited David Ben Gurion’s letter to his son Amoz in 1937, which explained his support for partition. It said that a Jewish state in part of Palestine was only the beginning, not the end of the process. Ben Gurion stated that he was building a first rate military that would enable the Zionists to complete the task of redeeming the entire land and settling in the remainder of Palestine – with or without the consent of the Arabs. Decades later, Ben Gurion selected that letter for publication as a reflection of his thinking on the subject. See Letters to Paula and the Children, translated by Aubry Hodes, University of Pittsburg Press, 1971, page 153.
That’s easily debunked by the fact that he sent Zionist forces into the Arab portion of the partition long before the “Arab states attacked.”
Such a statement does not dispel the fact that Ben Gurion was taking the land anyway, given that the interlocutor was unlikely to have been anyone Sharett would have shared such secrets with.
The war was no game-changer. The Haganah, along with the Lehi and Irgun were already expelling Palestinians from November of the previous year, as well as blowing up hotels, conducting drive by shootings, bombings etc.
On cotraire Robert. In a speech delivered on 22 May 1947 in the People’s Council about establishing a Jewish state in all of Palestine, and and his remarks a week later, he explained that his acceptance of the principle of partition was an attempt to gain time until the Jews were strong enough to fight the Arab majority. In fact, he pledged to Mapai’s Central Committee that the borders of Jewish independence as defined by the UN Plan were by no means final. See Scars of War Wounds of Peace, page 34
On 18 February 1948, Moshe Sharett wrote “We will have only enough troops to defend ourselves, not to take over the country.” Ben Gurion replied:
If we will receive in time the arms we have already purchased, and maybe even receive some of that promised to us by the UN, we will be able not only to defend, but also to inflict death blows on the Syrians in their own country – and take over Palestine as a whole. I am in no doubt of this. We can face all the Arab forces. This is not a mystical belief but a cold and rational calculation based on practical examination. ” Ben Gurion Archives, Correspondence Section 23.02-1.03.48 Document 59, 26 February 1948. –See page 46 of Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld, reprint 2007
It should be obvious, as I have explained. Ben Gurion and the Yishuv needed the partition plan to get to first base and consolidate their strength. They didn’t believe they had the means to grab all of Palestine, and indeed, they knew that they would be unable to overcome the Jordanian military, not to mention the 1946 Treaty of Alliance between the UK and Transjordan.
Also, during the 20th Sitting of the first Knesset Ben Gurion pointed out that annexing the Triangle and Hebron (without ethnic cleansing) would (a) add 500,000 to 800,000 Arabs to the population of the State of Israel. He noted that the Arabs would outnumber the Jews and that they would have to be given the vote. Herut MKs replied there were millions of Jews elsewhere in the world that would come. Ben Gurion replied that the new Arab Kneset would adopt laws that would prevent them from coming. See “The Armistice Agreements with the Arab States”, in Netanel Lorch (ed), Major Knesset Debates 1948-1981, Vol. 2, JCPA/University of America Press, 1993, page 515
Seriously Robert, are you deliberately playing dumb? By your own admission, the diplomatic effort was not poured into obtaining the area they were awarded, but into gaining legitimacy. You were forced to concede that Ben Gurion only accepted the principle of partition, not the borders, thereby allowing the Zionist leadership to then cite arguments about borders being indefensible and therefore unacceptable to Israel.
As I have explained to you, they used those 5 months very effectively, expelling half of the Palestinians, and destroying half the villages they would eventually end up expelling and destroying. Remember that the British were still there and preventing any of the Arab armies from setting one foot in Palestine until after they withdrew.
The Yishuv were anything but weak and disorganized. By the beginning of 1948, and despite the presence of the British, the Jewish Agency was in practice in military and administrative control of Palestine. The Haganah became an army of 35,000, plus 10,000 more in commando units (ie Palmach, Irgun and Stern Gangs).
When Britain’s General officer commanding in Palestine, General John Darcy, was asked about the military situation crafty the pull-out of the British forces, he said:
“The Haganah will take over all of Palestine. They could hold it against the entire Arab world.”
Why are you investing so much effort to pretending as though this is news to you? For crying out loud Robert, the Zionists had already bombed the Kind David Hotel more than a year before that.
Zionists immediately started seizing land, even land beyond what the UN partition set for the proposed Jewish State.
“The Zionists were by far the more powerful and better organized force, and by May 1948, when the state of Israel was formally established, about 300,000 Palestinians already had been expelled from their homes or had fled the fighting, and the Zionists controlled a region well beyond the area of the original Jewish state that had been proposed by the UN. Now it’s then that Israel was attacked by its neighbors – in May 1948; it’s then, after the Zionists had taken control of this much larger part of the region and hundreds of thousands of civilians had been forced out, not before.” p132 Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
As for respective violence, I can play that game just as easily. Not only were the Haganah, Irgun, Palmach and Lehi expelling Palestinians and destroyign villages, but they were also busy going about their every day business of terror, having begun a decade earlier:
December 11, 1947 Six Arabs were killed and 30 wounded when bombs were thrown from Jewish trucks at Arab buses in Haifa; 12 Arabs were killed and others injured in an attack by armed Zionists on an Arab coastal village near Haifa.
December 13,1947. Zionist terrorists, believed to be members of Irgun Zvai Leumi, killed 18 Arabs and wounded nearly 60 in Jerusalem, Jaffa and Lydda areas. In Jerusalem, bombs were thrown in an Arab market-place near the Damascus Gate; in Jaffa, bombs were thrown into an Arab cafe; in the Arab village of Al Abbasya, near Lydda, 12 Arabs were killed in an attack with mortars and automatic weapons.
December 19, 1947. Haganah terrorists attacked an Arab village near Safad, blowing up two houses, in the ruins of which were found the bodies of 10 Arabs, including 5 children. Haganah admitted responsibility for the attack.
December 29, 1947. Two British constables and 11 Arabs were killed and 32 Arabs injured, at the Damascus Gate in Jerusalem when Irgun members threw a bomb from a taxi.
December 30,1947. A mixed force of the Zionist Palmach and the “Carmel Brigade” attacked the village of Balad al Sheikh, killing more than 60 Arabs.
January 1, 1948. Haganah terrorists attacked a village on the slopes of Mount Carmel; 17 Arabs were killed and 33 wounded.
In the beginning of 1948, there were 2 bombings,
The first (Jan 4) , a car bomb which destroyed the Old Ottoman House in Jaffa, the Sariah, killing 26. The second in Jerusalem (Jan 5) blew up Semaramis Hotel, killing 20 Palestinians. In a letter (January 6, 1948), the British High Commissioner for Palestine sent a letter to DBG, inquiring if the Haganah had been behind the Semaramis Hotel bombing. 2 days later (Jan 8), DBG sent a letter in response, admitting that the Haganah was responsible.
On Feb 2, 1948, a news report was aired stating that:
“A direct challenge to the United Nations and it’s powers of war prevention comes from Palestine. The definition of legal and illegal forces becomes daily more obscure. Haganah, the force first legally raised for the defence of Jewish settlements, appear to function hang in glove with Irgun Svai Leumi, the outlawed terrorist army. Full scale training is under way in a score of camps throughout the country. There is no shortage of arms or ammunition.”
I’m sure Hostage will be by shortly to smack you down AGAIN, but it’s good to see you owning up to to your Zionist Ashkenazi roots.
Shingo,
I did not deny that Ben Gurion had made the statements you quote. I denied that he (and other leaders of the Yishuv) accepted the UN partition with the intent of violating it, unless attacked by the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab states. Since the Arabs rejected the partition and did attack the Yishuv immediately after the partition vote, and again on May 15, that is the “historical fact” that “never happened.”
It also underscores the problem of interpreting all of Ben Gurion’s statements as clues to some massive plan to ethnically cleanse Palestine of Arabs when no such plan ever existed. As I said before, Ben Gurion had always wanted as much of Palestine as he could get, and to have as small an Arab minority as in any future state. But the gap between what he wanted, which he often gave voice to, and what he knew he could get, were considerable. That was why he accepted the principle of partition: because he had to. The hostility of the Arabs, and the impediments posed by the British and the international community, all combined to make it inevitable: Palestine would have to be shared.
It is simply impossible to remove BG’s statements from the context of the events in which they were occurring: the Arab Revolt, the intransigence of the British on immigration, the persecution of the Jews in Europe, and the coming war. All of this inevitably induced an understandable sense of siege. Surrounded by enemies and restricted and obstructed by the British, the Yishuv, in the decade before the partition, was mostly concerned with the prospect of just surviving and remaining a viable, cohesive entity, not with pipe dreams of expelling all the Arabs. Simply put, they had other things to worry about.
The Haganah was created to protect the communities of the Yishuv against Arab violence and was a largely defensive force prior to the 1948 war (ever hear of Havlagah?). In lieu of the violence and uncertainty of the Arab revolt and the at best equivocal stance of the British, a whole number of plans and contingency scenarios were drawn up by the Haganah, at Ben Gurion’s behest, in the decade before the UN partition. What community, what fighting force, surrounded by hostile enemies and uncertainty, and unable to rely on anyone else, would do any less? The attempts of left-leaning anti-Zionist historians (Pappe, Khalidi, etc.) to read into these contingency scenarios one long conspiracy to ethnically cleanse Palestine is a narrative for the paranoid. While the situation facing the Yishuv in these years was uncertain and unpredictable, to put it mildly, none of these scenarios were ever acted upon.
BG, like others in the Zionist movement certainly talked of a transfer of populations along the lines of the Greco-Turkish exchange effected more than a decade before with the British and a few Arab leaders in the late 1930’s, but nothing ever came from them, and the Peel Commission proposals simply lapsed into non-implementation.
The fact of the matter is that both Jewish and some Arab leaders were talking about population transfers at the time of the Peel Commission. The years of the late 1930’s during the Arab revolt, were certainly stressful for Ben-Gurion, and it is not surprising that he made many hostile and militant statements during this period. But a truer portrait of his feelings on the Peel Commission were stated here in an August 1937 emergency session of the 20th Zionist Congress, convened in Zurich:
“We do not want to dispossess, [but piecemeal] transfer of population [through Jewish purchase and the removal of Arab tenant farmers] occurred previously, in the [Jezreel] Valley, in the Sharon and in other places … Now a transfer of a completely different scope will have to be carried out … Transfer is what will make possible a comprehensive [Jewish] settlement programme. Thankfully, the Arab people have vast empty areas [in Transjordan and Iraq]. Jewish power, which grows steadily, will also increase our possibilities to carry out the transfer on a large scale.”
Writes Morris:
“Both David Ben-Gurion, the leader of the Zionist movement and Israel’s first prime minister, and Chaim Weizmann, the movement’s elder statesman, supported transfer. The background was the Arab revolt and the growing anti-semitic persecutions in Europe which heralded the Holocaust; the need for a safe haven for the Jews in Palestine had become acute just as Arab violence was pushing the British into closing the doors to immigration.”
Tying discussion of these transfer scenarios—which were discussed in the context of a final, total settlement—and the events of 1948 which were peculiar to the war that stemmed from the Arabs’ rejection of the 1947 partition, is disingenuous and misleading.
Said Benny Morris:
“ My feeling is that the transfer thinking and near consensus that emerged in the 1930’s and the early 1940’s was not tantamount to pre-planning and did not issue in the production of a policy or master plan of expulsion; the Yishuv and its military forces did not enter the 1948 war, which was initiated by the Arab side, with a master plan for expulsion.” (“The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited,” p.60).
Indeed, while there is ample evidence that BG was dissatisfied with the idea of partition, he nonetheless accepted it both in principle and in fact, as the only plausible, workable basis upon which to establish a viable Jewish state.
Though the idea of transfer would be discussed all the up to the UN partition, Ben Gurion, in the aftermath of the Peel Commission, had dismissed the idea of transfer as a viable proposition, as shown by the fact that not one of the 30-odd submissions the JAE made to the Palestine Partition Commission (the Woodhead Commission, 1938) suggested population exchange and transfer.
His further disdain for any forced transfer of Palestinian Arabs is evinced in his July 1947 testimony before the UNSCOP Committee, when he went out of his way to reject the 1945 British Labour Party platform `International Post-war Settlement’ which supported the encouragement of the movement of the Palestine Arabs to the neighboring countries to make room for Jews.
On December 3, 1947, four days after the partition vote, and just as Jewish-Arab hostilities were getting underway, BG said in a speech to Mapai supporters:
“In the territory allotted to the Jewish State there are now above 520,000 Jews (apart from the Jerusalem Jews who will also be citizens of the state) and about 350,000 non-Jews, almost all of whom are Arabs. Including the Jerusalem Jews, the state would have at birth a population of about one million, nearly 40 per cent of which would be non-Jews. This [population] composition does not constitute a solid basis for a Jewish State; and this fact must be viewed in all its clarity and sharpness. With such a composition, there cannot even be complete certainty that the government will be held by a Jewish majority. From here stems the first and principal conclusion. The creation of the state is not the formal implementation process discussed by the UN General Assembly. . . . To ensure not only the establishment of the Jewish State but its existence and destiny as well — we must bring a million-and-a-half Jews to the country and root them there. It is only when there will be at least two millions Jews in the country — that the state will be truly established.
There can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60 per cent, and so long as this majority consists of only 600,000 Jews. . . .We have been confronted with a new destiny — we are about to become masters of our own fate. This requires a new approach to all our questions of life. We must reexamine all our habits of mind, all our systems of operation to see to what extent they suit our new future. We must think in terms of a state, in terms of independence, in terms of full responsibility for ourselves — and for others. In our state there will be non-Jews as well — and all of them will be equal citizens; equal in everything without any exception; that is: the state will be their state as well.”
There is no mention of transfer or expulsion expressed in these sentiments, but another method to increase the Jewish majority of the state: immigration.
Ben Gurion continued: “The attitude of the Jewish State to its Arab citizens will be an important factor—though not the only one—in building good neighbourly relations with the Arab States. If the Arab citizen will feel at home in our state, and if his status will not be the least different from that of the Jew, and perhaps better than the status of the Arab in an Arab state, and if the state will help him in a truthful and dedicated way to reach the economic, social, and cultural level of the Jewish community, then Arab distrust will accordingly subside and a bridge to a Semitic, Jewish-Arab alliance, will be built…” (Ben Gurion’s own words in his Ba-Ma’Araha Vol IV, Part 2, pp. 260, 265) cited from “Fabricating Israeli History,” (1997, Efraim Karsh, p.44)
Also said Ben Gurion on May 4, 1948:
“We hope to have soon a free parliament in the state of Israel, democratically elected by all its citizens: all the Jewish citizens and all the Arab citizens who would like to remain in Israel (“Palestine Betrayed,” 2010, Efraim Karsh)
The simple fact, in sum, is that, whatever their misgivings, the Yishuv, however grumblingly and reluctantly, accepted both the principle and the particulars of the UN partition, the Arabs rejected it out of hand, rejected both the partition and the principle of partition, along with the establishment of any sovereign Jewish state whatever its size, sought to abort the nascent Jewish state by force, failed, suffered defeat, and the Palestinian refugee problem was sired from the aggressive war waged by the Arabs. There would have been no refugee problem if there had been no war, and there would have been no war if the Arabs had accepted the partition instead of seeking the arbitration of force. The notion that the Jews accepted the partition with the intention of seizing all of Palestine and ethnically cleansing the Arabs is a conspiracy theory that is belied by the facts and is as implausible as it is improvable.
Said you:
“On 18 February 1948, Moshe Sharett wrote “We will have only enough troops to defend ourselves, not to take over the country.” Ben Gurion replied:
‘If we will receive in time the arms we have already purchased, and maybe even receive some of that promised to us by the UN, we will be able not only to defend, but also to inflict death blows on the Syrians in their own country – and take over Palestine as a whole. I am in no doubt of this. We can face all the Arab forces. This is not a mystical belief but a cold and rational calculation based on practical examination. ‘”
Said Benny Morris: “At the start of the civil war, Whitehall believed that the Arabs would prevail. ‘In the long run the Jews would not be able to cope…and would be thrown out of Palestine unless they came to terms with the Arabs,’ was the considered judgment of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff.”
Prospects of a Jewish victory were not rated high at the time among the US intelligence community, either: “The Jewish forces will initially have the advantage. However, as the Arabs gradually coordinate their war effort, the Jews will be forced to withdraw from isolated positions, and having been drawn into a war of attrition, will gradually be defeated.”
The Haganah, in the midst of a rigorous process of reorganization, was caught flat footed by the outbreak of hostilities the day after the partition vote. They thought the attacks were just more “disturbances.” Only really by January, with increasing numbers of Arab militias and armed groups attacking Jewish communities and roadways, did they realize that the war that they had long feared had in fact begun.
On January 10, the ALA attacked Kfar-Szold. On January 14 a Palestinian militia attacked Etzion Bloc, taking heavy casualties, but, in the next two days, wiping out a platoon of 35 Jewish fighters sent in as reinforcements. On January 20, the ALA attacked Yechiam. On February 16, the ALA attacked Tirat-Zvi. These attacks were repulsed, to be sure, but the attacks were not only increasing in frequency and size, but in sophistication as well. The situation in March continued to deteriorate even further, with further attacks on Magdiel and Ramot-Naftali, and the ambush of three Jewish convoys where much equipment was lost and 59 killed. A British report commented at the time:
“The intensification of Arab attacks on communications and particularly the failure of the Kfar Etzion convoy (March 27-28), probably the Yishuv’s strongest transport unit, to force a return passage has brought home the precarious position of Jewish communities both great and small which depend on supply lines running through Arab controlled country. In particular, it is now realized that the position of Jewish Jerusalem, where a food scarcity already exists, is likely to be desperate after 16 May.”
It is difficult to know, therefore, what “practical examination” this supposedly “cold and rational calculation” of Ben Gurion’s could have been based upon.
Said you: “[The Israelis] used those 5 months very effectively, expelling half of the Palestinians, and destroying half the villages they would eventually end up expelling and destroying.”
You seem to forget something. The first Arab-Israeli war is called a war because it was a war, and not a one-way criminal act inflicted by one side upon another helpless victim. In the pre May 15 stage the Yishuv was on the strategic defensive and the war was a localized, low-intensity conflict between the Yishuv and other assorted Jewish and Arab militias and paramilitaries ever since the announcement of the partition in late November 1947, and what occurred between Nov. 1947 and May 15, 1948 was a series of local attacks and counter-attacks between the Arabs and the Yishuv in the context of that conflict. Of course, acknowledging that context runs contrary to the attempts here to portray the situation as an ongoing act of Jewish ethnic cleansing and wanton criminality.
The situation for the Yishuv in early April, just after the successful ambush of the latest Jewish convoy to Jerusalem on March 31, was precarious. The sabotage of the convoys was increasing, the strangulation of the roadways and all arteries of communication between the scattered communities of the Yishuv were sharpening, the attendant shortages of basic commodities and weapons inside Jerusalem were growing, and the siege around the city was tightening. When US Rep to the UN Warren Austin announced in late March that the war in Palestine proved that the partition was impossible, thus indicating a backtracking of American support, it only added to the gloom and the increasing demoralization of the Yishuv. A British report in early April read:
“It is becoming increasingly apparent that the Yishuv and its leaders are deeply worried about the future. The 100,000 Jews of Jerusalem have been held to ransom and it is doubtful that the Arab economic blockade of the city can be broken by Jewish forces alone. If the Jewish leaders are not prepared to sacrifice the 100,000 Jews of Jerusalem, then they must concede, however unwillingly, that the Arabs have won the second round of the struggle which began with a Jewish victory in the first round on the 29th of November.”
This then was the dire situation facing the Yishuv in early April of 1948. It would be interesting, to say the least, to know just how and when the Yishuv, operating for the last five months on the strategic defensive, and in the midst of this desperate and precarious struggle to maintain its existence, found the time, the effort, and the resources to spend the previous five months “expelling half the Palestinians and destroying half the villages they would eventually end up expelling and destroying.”
In late March Ben-Gurion saw the scattered, disconnected communities of the Yishuv and their vulnerabilities to attack. He knew they would have to be consolidated into a defensive perimeter or they would be annihilated piecemeal, and that the communication arteries between the communities would have to made secure. This led to the formation of the Plan Dalet (Operation Nachshon). As for the Plan, Benny Morris writes:
“The essence of the plan was the clearing of hostile and potentially hostile forces out of the interior of the territory of the prospective Jewish State, establishing territorial continuity between the major concentrations of Jewish population and securing the future State’s borders before, and in anticipation of, the invasion [by Arab states]. The Haganah regarded almost all the villages as actively or potentially hostile…the plan was neither understood nor used by the senior field officers as a blanket instruction for the expulsion of ‘the Arabs’.
But, in providing for the expulsion or destruction of villages that had resisted or might threaten the Yishuv, it constituted a strategic-doctrinal and carte blanche for expulsions by front, brigade, district and battalion commanders (who in each case argued military necessity) and it gave commanders, post facto, formal, persuasive cover for their actions. However, during April–June, relatively few commanders faced the moral dilemma of having to carry out the expulsion clauses. Townspeople and villagers usually left their homes before or during battle, and Haganah rarely had to decide about, or issue, expulsion orders…”
The attempts by the likes of Khalidi, Pappe, and others to portray the Plan as a blueprint for the total expulsion and dispossession of the Arabs from Palestine is simply a conspiracy theory. It was a military operation, first and foremost to consolidate a defensive perimeter among the Jewish communities in Palestine in response to nearly five months of attacks, and, secondly, a preparation for the attack by surrounding Arab states that BG knew was inevitable.
Prior to the Haganah’s launching of Operation Nachshon in the second week of April 1948, the engagements between the Yishuv and the Arabs had never involved anything larger than company-level units on either side. The Arab Liberation Army (ALA) offensive against the Yishuv in Mishmar-Haemek had just been repulsed with heavy losses, Palestinian military commander Abd al-Qader al Husseini had been killed on April 8, the Stern/Irgun had just perpetrated the Deir Yassin massacre on April 9, the Muslim Bothers launched a failed attack on Kfar-Darom on April 10, there was an ambush of a Jewish medical convoy by the Arabs on April 13 slaughtering some 80 nurses and doctors in cold blood (as retaliation for Deir Yassin), and there was a failed Druze offensive against the Yishuv in Usha and Ramat-Yohanan in Galilee. This is the true context of the events in which the flight of the refugees occurred: the violence, involving heavy fighting and, yes, some atrocities that were being committed by both sides.
There is a New York Times story from May 2nd, 1948 titled “Despair is Voiced by Arab Refugees: Evacuees from Palestine say Jews Crash Through Weak Resistance by Volunteers”:
‘A stream of Arab refugees is moving eastward across the Jordan river. Many of the refugees passing Jericho en route to Trans-Jordan, a few miles away, are from Jerusalem and Jaffa. They say they fear that Jewish offensives are crashing through weakened Arab volunteer resistance. Haifa was described as almost a ghost town, with its population having dwindled to less than 20,000 from a normal figure at least five times that..’
This too provides a fascinating snapshot of a crucial stage in the conflict though, again, not that of a one-sided criminal/ethnic cleansing operation. Here was the situation on May 2, 1948: The Hagana had just captured Haifa the week before, where much of the Arab population left despite Jewish pleas to remain. The Hagana had just wound up Operation Jebusite, a successful operation to secure the surrounding Jerusalem neighborhoods, though they had been repulsed in their attempt to capture Sheik Jarrah. The Arabs had just launched what would be a failed attack on the Galilee kibbutzim, and the Hagana would consolidate their defensive perimeter in eastern Galilee in anticipation of the coming Arab offensive.
The article, however, touches upon an unpleasant and little discussed subject: the anger and resentment of the refugees not only toward the ineptitude and folly of their own leaders, but their anger and distrust of their Arab brethren in the surrounding states.
Said the article:
“Talk of Arab governments rescuing Palestine sounds like another case of too little too late…The Arab Liberation Army of Yarmuk was described by the refugees as a hodgepodge collection of adventurers, ne’er-do-wells, and soap box orators who had never numbered more than 3000, and who had relied on Palestinian villagers for cannon fodder.
The reported agreement by five Arab states to wipe out the Zionist state meets with skepticism from the refugees. With an air of disillusionment, they point out that the so-called Arab War Council of five states that met last week in Amman, the capital of Trans-Jordan, had included no Palestinian Arab.”
The skepticism and the anger was well founded. As Efraim Karsh has written:
“Even the ultimate war victims—the survivors of Deir Yasin—did not escape their share of indignities. Finding refuge in the neighboring village of Silwan, many were soon at loggerheads with the locals, to the point where on April 14, a mere five days after the tragedy, a Silwan delegation approached the AHC’s Jerusalem office demanding that the survivors be transferred elsewhere. No help for their relocation was forthcoming.
Some localities flatly refused to accept refugees at all, for fear of overstraining existing resources. In Acre (Akko), the authorities prevented Arabs fleeing Haifa from disembarking; in Ramallah, the predominantly Christian population organized its own militia—not so much to fight the Jews as to fend off the new Muslim arrivals. Many exploited the plight of the refugees unabashedly, especially by fleecing them for such basic necessities as transportation and accommodation.”
Karsh adds:
“During a fact-finding mission to Gaza in June 1949, Sir John Troutbeck, head of the British Middle East office in Cairo and no friend to Israel or the Jews, was surprised to discover that while the refugees
“express no bitterness against the Jews (or for that matter against the Americans or ourselves) they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states. “We know who our enemies are,” they will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their homes. . . . I even heard it said that many of the refugees would give a welcome to the Israelis if they were to come in and take the district over.” (Efraim Karsh, “1948: Israel And The Palestinians—The True Story,” Commentary Magazine, May 2008)
The point is not that the refugees did not blame the Jews for their plight; they did. But these snapshots by the NYT article and Karsh’s quote from Sir John Troutbeck reveal a more complex portrait of the refugees feelings at the time that we seldom see: their feelings of betrayal and abandonment by their leaders and fellow Arabs, and the often shabby treatment they received at their hands.
It is thus crucial to remember, and never to forget, that the events which led to the flight of the refugees did not occur in a vacuum; they occurred in the context of a war, a war that was waged by the Arabs and which resulted from the Arabs’ rejection of the partition. Arabs had been fleeing Palestine ever since the outbreak of the violence following the partition. Certainly, later on, the Deir Yassin massacre, and the hysterical broadcasts exaggerating the scale of it, sowed panic and (unintentionally) influenced the flight of the refugees, but the violence of the fighting in the towns and villages—especially in the intensification of the fighting from April onwards, the flight of so many high ranking Arab functionaries, and the near total breakdown in services also played a role in the exodus of the refugees throughout the 1948 War. This is not to deny that there were not some expulsions at Lydda and elsewhere; there were, but the numbers of those expelled were rather few. All Palestine was a war zone in those days, and, in general, Palestinian Arab society had always been governed by a somewhat fragile and incohesive polity at that time, and it simply collapsed under the strain of the conflict, as did countless other societies in Europe during World War Two. When war comes to your village, it is only human to want to get out of the way until it is over.
Said you: “For crying out loud Robert, the Zionists had already bombed the Kind David Hotel more than a year before that. Zionists immediately started seizing land, even land beyond what the UN partition set for the proposed Jewish State.”
The fact that Stern/Irgun terrorists had been attacking the British among other nefarious acts for years does not make the Jews the aggressors in the war that followed the partition. It was initiated by the Arabs. What Arab land, in the immediate aftermath of the partition, was seized by the Yishuv?
To answer your last question, Robert, in truth it was ALL Arab land and the Yishuv was composed almost entirely of European settlers who had been born elsewhere and who had colonized the land (the term they used) in the name of the Jewish people, making them essentially no different that Europeans who had done the same in what is now the US, Australia, and South Africa in early centuries when those who declared such actions to be immoral were few and far between.
That all of them believed they had God on their side and they were seeking a refuge from oppression was irrelevant. Prior to the Nazi Judeocide, Jews were so far from being the most victimized population on the planet that only the Eurocentric and those who believe the lives of the indigenous of other continents are not worth counting would have put their suffering on the charts. In other words the Ashkenazi had no business being in Palestine trying to establish a Jewish state and they would not have succeeded had not Imperial Britain paid them off with the Balfour Declaration in 1917.
Also, it is an historical deception to portray the “Yishuv” as a threatened population that was not looking for war and to expand its territory, which it did, moving its boundary well beyond the land granted in the partition vote. Before the 48 war they were already getting gun making machinery smuggled out of the US as well as US war planes and trained pilots to fly them, also illegally smuggled, and new rifles manufactured in Czechoslovakia would arrive with Stalin’s approval.
Your use of Efraim Karsh as a counter to Ilan Pappe and other by implication, other “new Israeli historians” is not surprising and exposes, as if you hadn’t previously done so, where you are coming from and why you are posting on Mondoweiss. Karsh is one of the foremost propagandists of Zionist mythology as a Google search quickly reveals. Here’s Herr Karsh writing in Commentary in 2002, in an article titled, “What Occupied Territories?”:
“No term has dominated the discourse of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict more than “occupation.” For decades now, hardly a day has passed without some mention in the international media of Israel’s supposedly illegitimate presence on Palestinian lands. This presence is invoked to explain the origins and persistence of the conflict between the parties, to show Israel’s allegedly brutal and repressive nature, and to justify the worst anti-Israel terrorist atrocities. The occupation, in short, has become a catchphrase, and like many catchphrases it means different things to different people.
Taken together, the charges against Israel’s various “occupations” represent — and are plainly in tended to be — a damning indictment of the entire Zionist enterprise. In almost every particular, they are also grossly false.
“In 1948, no Palestinian state was invaded or destroyed to make way for the establishment of Israel. From biblical times, when this territory was the state of the Jews, to its occupation by the British army at the end of World War I, Palestine had never existed as a distinct political entity but was rather part of one empire after another, from the Romans, to the Arabs, to the Ottomans. When the British arrived in 1917, the immediate loyalties of the area’s inhabitants were parochial — to clan, tribe, village, town, or religious sect — and coexisted with their fealty to the Ottoman sultan-caliph as the religious and temporal head of the world Muslim community.”
Of course, that there was no state of Palestine prior to the Zionist invasion is irrelevant and a smokescreen and ignores the fact that Palestinians had been working the soil for centuries and although the land had been called Palestine for as long, the modern notion of nationhood, in general, was of consequence only to politicians and intellectuals who didn’t. People who work the land, be they in Palestine or anywhere else have a connection to it that doesn’t require their further proof or explanation.
Robert, you have more than earned your Sayanim stripes. It may be time to peddle your papers somewhere else.
I denied that he (and other leaders of the Yishuv) accepted the UN partition with the intent of violating it, unless attacked by the Palestinians and the surrounding Arab states.
Your long-winded denial didn’t address the published facts contained in Shingo’s comment, so you wasted your time. Israeli military historian David Tal says “the Jews initial acceptance of the Partition resolution was not mere rhetoric; the strategic planning of the war against the Palestinians was based upon it.” He also said that the Jews had no intention whatever of accepting the internationalization of Jerusalem as stipulated by the partition resolution. See David Tal, War in Palestine, 1948: strategy and diplomacy, Routledge, 2004, ISBN 071465275X, page 471
In the cite Shingo provided you from Scars of War Wounds of Peace, Schlomo Ben Ami said the same thing. He said that Ben Gurion’s apparent acceptance of partition was only a tactical maneuver. He categorically rejected a Jewish state in anything less than all of Eretz Israel or the finality of the borders of partition both before and after the adoption of the UN resolution. A few days after the UN had adopted the resolution, Yigal Allon said the borders of partition cannot be for us the final borders. The partition plan is a compromise plan that is unjust to the Jews. We are entitled to decide our borders according to our defense needs.
Four days after UNSCOP held its first public hearings, the Jewish Agency sent a letter that came to be known as The Status-Quo Agreement. See Israel in the Middle East: Documents and Readings on Society, Politics, and Foreign Relations, Pre-1948 to the Present, Itamar Rabinovich, Jehuda Reinharz, UPNE, 2007, page 57.
It was addressed to the Ultra-Orthodox World Agudat Israel organization and explained that the establishment of the State required the approval of the United Nations. Ben Gurion said that it would not be possible unless the State guaranteed freedom of conscience and full equal rights for all of its citizens in advance, but he pointed out that no organ could dictate the terms of the State’s constitution after the fact and the State would be able to adopt a constitution according to the wishes of the people. Israel subsequently lied about the incorporation of equality and minority rights in its fundamental laws of state in order to gain approval on its application for membership in the UN. Then it lied again in 1950 and claimed it had never provided the necessary declaration to the UN.
The Status Quo Agreement is a graphic example of bad faith and proof that the Yishuv never intended to comply with the requirement for constitutional protection of equality and minority rights in accordance with the General Assembly resolution. The UN most definitely was an organ that had the authority to dictate the terms of Israel’s constitution because the Jews were asking for jurisdiction over the Arab minorities in their own homeland. So, the UN placed their rights under UN protection as a condition for granting Israel title to part of the Palestinian territory.
wow.
And it should be added, that Israel never has produced a constitution for that would have meant either declaring Israel to be a state of all of its citizens or one in which Jews had superior rights to non-Jews which, as the whole world knows, has been the case, in practice.
You flatter me Hostage. Almost all of those publiched facts I cited were those I had filed away from your earlier posts on the subject.
Indeed, Israel is the only state that was admitted to the UN under an agreement that it would allow the refugees to return. Again, Israel lied to get what it wanted, then reneged on the deal.
Robert,
Your post is a text book example of cognitive dissonance. How can you possibly argue that Ben Gurion wanted something, but didn’t act on it (because he didn’t think he could get it), but then achieved it by his subsequent actions?
The Palestinians did not attack the Yishuv immediately after the partition vote, quite the opposite. After all, they had nothing to attack with, having been disarmed and their leadership driven out of Palestine a decade earlier.
Your own confused thesis is also undermined by the fact that you argue against taking Ben Gurion’s statements at face value, while using statements he made to buttress your own argument.
The undeniable reality is that the gap between what he wanted, which he often gave voice to, and what he knew he could get has turned out to be one and the same. As he stated on numerous occasions, he recognised that achieving this aim would need to be achieved in stages, which is why he “accepted the principle of partition”, as opposed to the UN interpretation of partition.
FYI. The British were in Palestine to crate the Jewish state, not impede it. Without the British, there would be no Israel.
There is no necessity to remove BG’s statements from the context of the events in which they were occurring. Indeed, the persecution of the Jews in Europe only hardened his resolve. Ben Gurion originally dismissed the Iron Wall doctrine and then ended up embracing it.
The Arab Revolt was never a contributor to any sense of siege, nor was the British policy on immigration. The British after all, smashed the Arab Revolt on the part of the Zionists, such that the Palestinians were leaderless and disarmed by 1937. Indeed, the principals of collective punishment and home demolitions was introduced to the region by the British, and inflicted exclusively on the Palestinians. Between 1936 and 1939, the British killed 5000 Palestinians and 14,000 wounded. On the other hand, 100 British soldiers and 400 Jews were killed. One of every 10 Palestinian males of fighting age was either in prison, killed, wounded or expelled from the country. There were no institutions left in the Palestinian society. The battle for Palestine was lost not in the 40′s, but the late 1930′s because Britain smashed the Arab revolt and Arab forces.
So no, there was no sense of siege from the Arab Revolt, apart from the Arab perspective of course.
Even the so called immigration restrictions were overblown. Immigration increased every year from 1937, even after the White Paper. As for survival, expelling all the Arabs was considered key to it since Hertzl.
The Haganah were clearly involved in aggression for years prior to 1948 and as for Havlagah, that was a bit of propaganda they could afford seeing as the British were there to do their dirty work of collective punishment for them.
You can argue till you’re back and blue in the face that Ben Gurion’s plans were all based on contingencies, but the simple fact of the matter is that any entity that has the luxury and sadism to invest in a program like the “village files” project, is clearly one that has malevolent motives and confidence in it’s military superiority.
link to haaretz.com
One need not be a left-leaning anti-Zionist historian to see it for what it was – a clear and unequivocal plan to expel the Arab by force.
The Zionists developed flame throwers and used them to burn down villages. At dawn (Feb 15) troops from the Haganah the Palmach launched an attack to test their effectiveness in expelling Palestinians from their villages. Yitzak Rabin, then the field officer of the Palmach, supervised the expulsion of 1,500 Palestinians from Qisarya Village ( Feb 15), near Haifa and the destruction of the village.
They targeted 5 villages on the coast, as a test, and under the eyes of the British and found out that expulsion quite easy. There was little resistance and the British didn’t interfere. To insist that all of this was one big happy accident is narrative for those is serious denial.
Is it any wonder therefore, that Netenyahu has refused to declassify more than a million classified documents from that period on the grounds that their release would threaten Israel’s national security?
It’s amusing that you keep referring to the Greco-Turkish “ exchange”, when Ben-Gurion cited the Turkish-Greek war crime as an “example” in which the Turks “expelled the Greeks from Anatolia.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 191-192). It is also ironic to point out that this is the SECOND time in history when Turks are cited as an “example” to justify perpetrating WAR CRIMES. The first being Chaim Weizmann, Ben-Gurion, and Moshe Sharett – the second was Hitler when he cited the Turkish genocide of 1.5 million Armenians (during WW I) as a precedent for the holocaust.
In any case, your own quote from BG explicitly cites that “Jewish power” would “increase our possibilities to carry out the transfer on a large scale.”
Thus, Ben Gurion lays it in unambiguous terms for you and you still deny it.
What makes it a truer portrait, other than the fact you like the sound of a high profile speech he gave over the far more honest statements he committed to his own diary and partners in crime. Morris tries to justify what strengthened Ben-Gurion’s determination to expel the Arabs, but it does not contradict that this was indeed Ben-Gurion’s plan all along. Morris himself admits that he bases his conclusion on his “feelings”.
On the contrary, he accepted it as a temporary measure that was necessary in order to achieve the prize. Soon after the U.N. Proposed Partitioning Palestinian in November 1947, Ben-Gurion urged his party to accept the partition because it would never be final, and the borders of the future “Jewish state” would never be static. He said:
“not with regard to the regime, not with regard to borders, and not with regard to international agreements.” (Simha Flapan, p. 32)
I mentioned earlier that Benny Morris, Shlomo Ben Ami, and David Tal had documented the fact that Weizmann and Ben Gurion viewed partition as part of a phased plan to take over the whole of Palestine.
While addressing the Zionist executive, he emphasized the tactical nature of his support for partition and his assumption that:
“after the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the [Jewish] state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of the Palestine” (emphasis added). (Simha Flapan, p. 22)
Similarly he also stated:
“The acceptance of partition does not commit us to renounce Transjordan. One does not demand from anybody to give up his vision. We shall accept a state in the boundaries fixed today–but the boundaries of the Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them.”
By 1949 Ben-Gurion had proved that he was as good as his word. (Simha Flapan, p. 52-53)
Let me repeat what Ben Gurion’s biographer, Shabtai Teveth, documented – that Ben-Gurion, inspired by the Peel Report, considered “a Jewish state in part of Palestine as a stage in the longer process towards a Jewish state in all of Palestine.”
Let me also repeat what Ben-Gurion said in a lecture to Mapai activists on 29 October 1937, when he explained that the realization of the Jewish state would come in two stages: the first, “the period of building and laying foundations,” would last ten to fifteen years and would be but the prelude to the second stage, “the period of expansion.”
Ben-Gurion’s prediction of ten to fifteen years was out by 5 years. Pretty amazing when you think of it.
And contrary to yours and Morris’ denial, there was indeed action on the part of BG to realize this goal. The official history of the Haganah reveals that in the summer of 1937, Ben-Gurion ordered the Haganah commander of Tel Aviv, Elimelech Slikowitz (“Avnir”), to draw up a plan for the military takeover of the entire country in anticipation of Britain’s eventual withdrawal from Palestine expected in the wake of the Peel Report.
At no stage did Ben Gurion dismiss the idea of transfer as a viable proposition, which is why the best argument you can come up with to support that allegation is that none of the submissions to the Woodhead Commission 1938 suggested population transfer – which proves nothing. Ben-Gurion had insisted that transfer was the only solution to the problem on many occasions to the Peel Commission. In May 1944 Ben-Gurion expressed without restraint, his conviction that transferring the Palestinian Arabs was inherent in the very conception of Zionism. He said:
“Zionism is a TRANSFER of the Jews. Regarding the TRANSFER of the [Palestinian] Arabs this is much easier than any other TRANSFER. There are Arab states in the vicinity . . . . and it is clear that if the [Palestinian] Arabs are removed [to these states] this will improve their condition and not the contrary.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 159)
As for the Woodhead Commission, which was created as a half hearted attempt to accommodate Arab concerns, but was rejected by both parties anyway.
You left out this part and for obvious reasons:
“There are 40% non-Jews [Palestinians] in the area allocated to the Jewish state. Such a demographic balance questions our ability to maintain Jewish sovereignty. Only a state with at least 80% Jews is a viable and stable state.”
Thus, far from opposing transfer, Ben-Gurion was clearly telling the audience (in a very public speech) that Jewish sovereignty could not be achieved without taking steps to address this equation.
This statement has no significance or relevance as to Ben-Gurions plans to expel the Palestinians, other than to reveal his cynicism. According to Ben-Gurion’s biographer, Micheal Bar-Zohar, the dispatching of Golda Meir to Haifa soon after its occupation was nothing but a political and tactical ploy. Zohar wrote:,
“The appeals to the Arabs [of Haifa] to stay, Golda’s mission, and other similar gestures were the result of political considerations, but they did not reflect [Ben-Gurion's] basic stand. In internal discussions, in instructions to his people, the ‘old man’ demonstrated a clear stand: it was better that the smallest possible number of [Palestinian] Arabs remain with in the [Jewish] state.” (Simha Flapan, p. 84)
Ben-Gurion’s plan was to create an 80% Jewish majority in Israel, so he was prepared to allow some Arabs to remain, though he cynically implies that whether they do so or not is their choice. In a July 16 document, he stated that he:
“we should prevent Arab return at any cost.” He also cited once again the Turkish-Greek war crime as an “example” in which the Turks “expelled the Greeks from Anatolia.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 191-192)
The simple fact, in sum, is that, the Zionists wanted a significant Jewish majority in Israel when one hadn’t existed and they wanted more land than had been allocated to them under the UN Partition Plan, and on both occasions, they got what they wanted through violence, and just as importantly, on no occasion were they made to face the consequences for their crimes. While the Zionist leadership sought UN legitimacy, they had no respect for the authority of the body. Soon after the UN voted to partition Palestine in November 1947, American support for Partition was diminishing and on March 19, 1948 the U.S. representative at the UN, Warren Austin, announced that partition was no longer possible. Ben-Gurion responded to the idea of a UN trusteeship in a press conference in Tel-Aviv as follows:
“It is we who will decide the fate of Palestine. We cannot agree to any sort of Trusteeship, permanent or temporary. The Jewish State exists because we defend it.” (Israel: A History, p. 165)
Note that Ben Gurion did not refer to the Jewish territory, but Palestine as a whole, thus it is blatantly false to suggest that the Yishuv reluctantly accepted both the principle and the particulars of the UN partition. Ben Gurion considered the particulars for Israel to decide. Thus, it it elementary that Israel would have followed through with it’s plans with or without the US partition vote, and regardless of whether the Arabs accepted it. Thus, there would have been a refugee problem whether the Arabs regarless. The notion that the Jews accepted the partition with the intention of seizing all of Palestine and ethnically cleansing the Arabs is thus beyond question. Ben-Gurion said in February 7, 1948
“The war will GIVE us the land. The concept of ‘ours’ and ‘not ours’ are ONLY CONCEPTS for peacetime, and during war they lose all their meaning.” (Benny Morris, p. 170 & Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 180)
Clearly Ben-Gurion saw war not as a threat, but an instrument to take land.
“On 18 February 1948, Moshe Sharett wrote “We will have only enough troops to defend ourselves, not to take over the country.” Ben Gurion replied:
Ben-Gurion and General John Darcy (Britain’s General officer commanding in Palestine) , clearly disagreed. In fact, the civil war was nothing but a formality for the Zionist forces, seeing as they had a hugely armed and expertly trained military. The New York Times reported at the time that Ben Gurion wrote in his diary that at every stage of the war Zionist troops outnumbered combined Arab armies. The Arab armies where disorganized having little combat experience prior to this with the exception of some of the Jordanian forces. Most Arab soldiers were using outdated arms from WWI or earlier which were inferior to the Zionist armies WWII arms and artillery.
Isolated positions outside of Israel’s borders perhaps.
If the Haganah was caught flat footed by the outbreak of hostilities the day after the partition vote, it was because they had already begun expelling Palestinians and destroying Arab villages. They had nothing to fear however, with the numbers so heavily weighed in their favor. On average, each Palestinian, armed with a WWI era rifle was pitted against 6 highly trained and highly armed Zionist fighters, with unlimited ammunition.
On January 4 and 5, the Haganah bombed the Old Ottoman House in Jaffa, the Sariah and the Semaramis Hotel in Jerusalem. During the first 3 months of 1948, the Zionsits were responsible for dozens of bombings in cities and villages and killings on roads, carried out by Mistaravim (disguised as Arabs).
They blew up homes, and planted explosives at night. That hardly sounds as though they were worried about being caught flat footed.
It was certainly one sided. While 300,000 Palestinians were deliberately expelled by the Zionists, and hundreds of villages destroyed, not one village or town in Israel was taken by the Arabs.
Yeah right. On April 8-9 1948 Ben Gurion told Mishmar Ha’emek representatives to burn and destroy the neighboring villages. He said:
“[They] said it was imperative to expel the Arabs [in the area] and to burn the villages. For me, the matter was very difficult. [But] they said that they were not sure [the kibbutz could continue to exist] if the villages remained intact and [if] the Arab inhabitants were not expelled, for they [i.e. the Palestinian Arabs villagers] would [later] attack them [i.e. Mishmar Ha'emek].” (Benny Morris, p. 116)
“They [Mishmar Ha'emek people] faced a cruel reality … [and] saw that there was [only] one way and that was to expel the Arab villagers and burn the villages. And they did this. And they were the first to do this.” (Benny Morris, p. 116)
Yes, a series of local attacks and counter-attacks between the Arabs and the Yishuv, and a massive campaign to expel Palestinians and destroy Arab villages.
And speaking of weapons inside Jerusalem, please remind me what part of Jerusalem resided inside the Jewish territory of the UN Partition? That’s right, none of it, which made the Zionist forces stationed there part of an invading force which the Arabs had every right to attack.
It reminds me of story I read from Afghanistan, when US troops were passing through a farm and asked the owner if he’d seen any foreign fighters, and he replied, “yes, you guys”.
Rubbish. When Austin announced in late March that the war in Palestine proved that the partition was impossible, Ben Gurion replied that “It is we who will decide the fate of Palestine. We cannot agree to any sort of Trusteeship, permanent or temporary. The Jewish State exists because we defend it.” (Israel: A History, p. 165)
Hardly the words of a demoralised population. There was never a dire situation facing the Yishuv at any stage in 1948, and were at no stage on the strategic defensive, let alone facing any struggle to maintain its existence. Let’s not forget that the Zionist forces had a powerful air force by this stage, whereas the Arabs had WWI era rifles with little ammunition.
You must be confusing the Yishuv with the Palestinians. Soon after Haifa’s collapse s in late April 1948, Ben-Gurion was shocked when he visited the city. He stated that Haifa was like:
“a dead city, a corpse city,” he noted in his journal, a “horrifying and fantastic sight.” But there too the advantages were clear: “What happened in Haifa can happen in other part of the country if we will hold out . . . it may be that in the next six or eight months of the campaign, there will be great changes in the country, and not all to our detriment. Certainly, there will be great changes in the composition of the population of the country.” (Simha Flapan, p. 99)
Plan Dalet (the plan to ethnically cleanse Palestine) came into effect the moment the Declaration for the Establishment of the State was announced to come into effect, though had been unleahsed already outside the area of Israel’s sovereignty before May 15th 1948. Deir Yassin was an integral part of Plan Dalet, the master-plan for the seizure of most or all of Palestine. [...]Nothing was officially disclosed about Plan Dalet [...] although Ben-Gurion was certainly alluding to it in an address [on April 7, 1948] to the Zionist Executive:
“Let us resolve not to be content with merely defensive tactics, but at the right moment to attack all along the line and not just within the confines of the Jewish State and the borders of Palestine, but to seek out and crush the enemy where-ever he may be.
According to Qurvot (Battles) of 1948, a detailed history of the Haganah and the Palmach [the Zionist fighting forces], the aim of Plan Dalet was “control of the area given to us by the U.N. in addition to areas occupied by us which were outside these borders and the setting up of forces to counter the possible invasion of Arab armies” and to do so before the British departed. It was also designed to “cleanse” such areas of their Arab inhabitants.
Yes, Plan Dalet was a conspiracy and some conspiracy theories are true, which again explains why Netenyahu has refused to declassify 1 million documents from that period on the grounds of national security.
That’s because the Palestinians had nothing larger than rag tag volunteer militia of company-level unit size. They had no organisation, no leadership and no weapons, hence only small units from the Haganah were required to deal with them.
False again. Even the commanders of Zionist forces boasted about being responsible foe the expulsion of hundreds of thousands and the destruction of hundreds of villages. Rabin underlined the cruelty of the operation as mirrored in the reaction of his soldiers. He stated during an interview (which is still censored in Israeli publications to this day) with David Shipler from the New York Times on October 22, 1979:
“Great Suffering was inflicted upon the men taking part in the eviction action. [They] included youth-movement graduates who had been inculcated with values such as international brotherhood and humaneness. The eviction action went beyond the concepts they were used to. There were some fellows who refused to take part. . . Prolonged propaganda activities were required after the action . . . to explain why we were obliged to undertake such a harsh and cruel action.” (Simha Flapan, p. 101)
In this statement Rabin completely debunks the narrative that the Arabs fled or that there was no plan to expel the Arabs. Here were Jewish men being orders to carry out the expulsion as part of an “eviction action” and that the Zionist leadership went to great lengths to “ explain why we were obliged to undertake such a harsh and cruel action”, so clearly, the expulsions were not isolated or reactionary.
Ben-Gurion declared on October 21, 1948 that Palestinians in Israel were good for one thing, running away:
“The Arabs of the land of Israel [ Palestinians] have only one function left to them — to run away.” (Benny Morris, p. 218)
Of course it does, because attacks on the British were intended to remove what they considered to be the one impediment to achieving their aims.
Ben-Gurion eloquently articulated the fundamental goals of Zionism to Auni Abdul Hadi, a prominent Palestinian politician before 1948, as the following:
“Our ultimate goal is the independence of the Jewish people in Palestine, on both sides of the Jordan, not as a minority but as a community of several million. In my opinion, it is possible to create over a period of forty years, if Transjordan was included, a community of four million Jews in addition to an Arab community of two million.” (Israel: A History, p. 74)
Every inch they seized outside their borders, which was close to half the land allocated to the Arabs under the partition. After all, the borders of 1949 were nothing like the border of 1948.
Seriously Robert, are you trying to be funny or have you simply given up?
Werdine, your long-winded selection, characterization, parsing, sequencing, and quoting of events and how those events unraveled during the time period in question mirrors similar arguments made by “Holocaust deniers” that the Hitler regime never had a blueprint plan to exterminate the German Jews, that what happened was not intentional on the part of said regime, but rather was reactive, more defensive than not. If the Holocaust cannot be denied, why should the Nakba be denied as you do, that is, as a premeditated occurrence? If the Nakba does not rise to Murder One, does The Holocaust? Or would you, all and all, over the respective time periods in question, characterize both as more akin to Manslaughter, or Gross Criminal Negligence? How about more akin to statutory Felony Murder? And in any case, why isn’t Israel paying reparations to the Palestinian people?
Shingo,
Said you: “The Palestinians did not attack the Yishuv immediately after the partition vote, quite the opposite. After all, they had nothing to attack with, having been disarmed and their leadership driven out of Palestine a decade earlier.”
“Did not attack the Yishuv?”
“Nothing to attack with?” Are you joking?
I have addressed this before. Arab attacks in fact began on November 30, the day after the partition vote. On that day, a Jewish ambulance en route to the Hadassah Hospital came under fire, a group of Arabs ambushed a Jewish bus traveling from Netanya to Jerusalem, killing five and wounding seven, and attacked another Jewish bus en route to Jerusalem from Hadera, killing two. A Jewish person was murdered in Tel-Aviv’s Camel Market, in the prison at Acre Arab prisoners attacked Jewish ones, who were forced to barricade themselves in their cells before the British intervened, in Haifa Jews passing through Arab neighborhoods were shot at, and Jewish vehicles were stoned all over Palestine. Over the next several days there were shootings, stonings, and rioting, bombs tossed into cafes, Molotov cocktails thrown into shops, killing and maiming scores. Young Arabs commandeered the offices of the local national committees demanding weapons, and the AHC proclaimed a three day strike to begin the next day, enforcing closure of Arab shops, schools, and businesses and organized and incited Arab crowds to attack Jewish targets. On December 2, a mob of several hundred Arabs ransacked Jerusalems’s Jewish commercial center, looting, burning, stabbing, and stoning all before them.
Up until December 4, most of the Arab violence was scattershot and the result of intifada-like incited mayhem. It was on December 4, however, that the real Palestinian Arab assault began in earnest, when some 120-150 armed Arabs attacked the Efal kibbutz, the first small unit military attack on a Jewish settlement, and on December 8 Hasan Salame, commander of the Lydda front, launched another large-scale attack on the Hatikva quarter in south Tel-Aviv. Two days later there was another abortive assault on the Hatikva, and an armed assault on the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. All these company-sized attacks were repulsed, but they set the pattern for the conflict, which was evolving from mob rioting and armed clashes to more military/guerilla style small unit operations. It was not until December 9 that the Hagana’s head of operations, Yigael Yadin began responding in kind to consolidate and protect crucial Jewish transportation arteries. The war had begun, and the Arabs were attacking the Yishuv, not the other way around. At the Arab league summit in Cairo, it was decided to send one million Egyptian pounds and 10,000 rifles to the Palestinian war effort.
Now, if they “had nothing to attack with,” what, pray tell, were the Arab assaults on the Efal kibbutz on December 4, the Hatikva quarter on December 8 and 10, and the Jewish quarter in Jerusalem on December 10 conducted with? Broomsticks?
“You can argue till you’re back and blue in the face that Ben Gurion’s plans were all based on contingencies, but the simple fact of the matter is that any entity that has the luxury and sadism to invest in a program like the “village files” project, is clearly one that has malevolent motives and confidence in it’s military superiority.”
“[M]alevolent motives?”
“[T]he luxury and sadism to invest in a program like the “village files” project?”
Your capacity for hyperbolic exaggeration always seems to be in inverse proportion to the object involved.
The files show the most basic of contingencies—self defense. Any small, vulnerable entity of scattered communities existing in a hostile environment, and not happily acquiescing in its own obliteration, would do no less than plan for its own defense in the face of repeated attacks. This is an action born of “luxury” and “sadism?” Oh, please.
The article quotes Shimri Salomon, the person in charge of the Haganah archives in Tel Aviv:
“Why the focus on the villages?”
“During the Arab Revolt the villages served as bases of departure and places of sanctuary for the gangs – the armed groups that acted against the Mandate authorities and against the Yishuv. The villagers also supplied the gangs with money and food, and many members of the gangs were recruited from the villages. Collecting information about the access roads to the village, the places of hiding in its vicinity, its sources of water, its physical structure and the location of observation points in our direction, and the concentration of this information and of other relevant information in a special file was considered a vital and effective means in case the need should arise to act against the village or against a gang that relied on it.”
In other words, a classic example of defensive contingency planning.
“Were the village files used in the conquest of the villages in the war of 1948?”
“Testimonies exist, particularly of commanders and soldiers who were involved in the village files project before the War of Independence, stating that in general the files were used and proved useful in the war – for example, in the fighting in the villages around Jerusalem – but I found only a few references to the use of specific files in the war. In my estimation, if files were used, it was mainly in the first half of the war, in what is now usually referred to as the inter-communal war or the civil war – that is, before the invasion of the Arab armies.”
“What use was made of the files in the war?”
“In my estimation, the files were used primarily to plan limited operations against villages, whether for deterrence or for punitive purposes. In certain cases files might have been used to plan the conquest of a village. At the same time, advance surveillance was usually conducted before such operations, in which updated and specific intelligence was collected. After the invasion, when the fighting was against regular armies, the situation changed. The deployment and the activity on the ground were influenced by the change in the character and in the mode of operation of the major enemy the IDF now confronted. There were also other changes which reduced the relevance of the village files. In the second half of 1948, the ability of the IDF’s mapping and photographic service to supply the forces with real-time aerial photographs improved apace, and in some cases it was also possible to carry out flights manned by scouts who provided information to the combat units.”
What the files really show is the Haganah’s sophisticated and analytic methods in the way they approached the security issue. All in all, it is not surprising (except to paranoid anti-Zionists) that such information and intel was collected at that time, and the files, by all accounts, are hardly what could be called a blueprint for the ethnic-cleansing of Palestine. They were contingency plans, and not much used in the war, in any event, as they were superseded by much more up to date intelligence. Do you really imagine that these files were created in response to some non-existent threat? Where, I wonder, was the “luxury” and the “sadism” that you spoke of? You really need to broaden your horizons beyond Flapan, Pappe, and Khalidi.
“There is no necessity to remove BG’s statements from the context of the events in which they were occurring. The Arab Revolt was never a contributor to any sense of siege, nor was the British policy on immigration.”
No, certainly not. Perhaps historians should refer to this time as “The Leisure Time,” or “The Happy Time,” or “The Luxury Years,” for the Yishuv, so care free and happy-go-lucky were they, with nary an existential concern to trouble them. As far as can be seen from your perspective, there does not seem to have been any need for the Yishuv to have been armed altogether. After all, since the Arabs of Palestine and their brethren in the neighborhood presented no threat to the Zionist endeavor, and, later on, to the UN partition resolution, why should Palestine’s Jews have had to bother with self defense? Sired from the corrupting bad seed of Zionism, it would thus seem that if the Haganah came into being, it was not in response to any danger posed by Arab attacks on Jewish life and property in Palestine, to fight Hitler, or, later, to defend the nascent state against an all out assault, but rather as a kind of predatory, at-the-ready task force to enforce expulsions of the Arabs when the time was right, and secure the borders of the nascent state that the Arabs would leave for the Yishuv in their wake.
Please. This viewpoint is disingenuous, and, if sincerely expressed, paranoid and amateurishly ahistorical. Thus, every Israeli contingency plan, every hint of a far-fetched idea expressed by David Ben-Gurion and other Israeli planners, finds its way into this narrative as conclusive, damning evidence for the Yishuv’s plans for expansion and ethnic cleansing, to the exclusion of any other consideration or contingency, and painting Ben Gurion himself and the others as a cabal of racist scoundrels and Milosevich-like ethnic cleansers.
I see that you are doing your little dance with the Flapan Ben Gurion quotes again. It does not seem to occur to you that it is simply disingenuous to deduce longstanding national trends, ideologies, or policies on the basis of a handful of random statements uttered over decades of extensive political, diplomatic, and military activity.
Moreover, it is important to note that these meetings with the JAE, where much of the “transfer” talk occurred, were called in response to a specific agenda forced upon the Zionist movement by the British government—namely, the implementation of the 1937 Peel partition plan, including its proposal of an exchange of land and population between the prospective Jewish and Arab states similar to that effected between Turkey and Greece in the wake of World War I. In accordance with the Commission’s proposals, the British were to carry out the transfer, and there is no evidence to prove that the Zionist leadership ever played any role in urging the British to adopt this course of action; it was the British who urged it on them.
Nevertheless, after much deliberation (some for, some against), and while accepting the principle of partition, the Zionist leadership ultimately rejected the idea of coerced transfer. When the Woodhead Commission went to Eretz-Israel, in its Report it wriggled out of any form of transfer or population exchange. It even added in a footnote: “On behalf of the Jews it was also made clear to us that Jewish opinion would be opposed to the exercise of any degree of compulsion.”
The Zionist leadership had believed from the beginning that their objective for a Jewish majority in Palestine would come about by means of massive Jewish immigration, not expulsion. Plans within the movement at the end of the 1930s envisioned the influx of a million Jews to Palestine within a decade. That number, of course, was aimed at guaranteeing a Jewish majority, which is why the Arabs were so intransigent and hostile to immigration: because they wished to prevent a demographic transformation.
Of all the national movements in history, Zionism has been one of the most copiously documented and the most openly, transparently discussed within. There are records, not only in the political and diplomatic sphere, but also in all of the social, educational and propagandistic work over many years throughout the movement. Yet, despite all this massive documentation, what do they show? That the “transfer” idea is expressed, at best, in only isolated and fragmentary statements–secret thoughts and wishes, but nothing remotely resembling a program, or plan of action.
None of that is to suggest that Ben Gurion did not support the transfer proposals in the Peel plan when they were proposed to him and the others; he did. There was also a political element to this: Ben Gurion was also attempting to garner support from the 20th Zionist Congress for the partition plan they were bad mouthing as a sell-out; the idea of transferring Arabs out of the 15% of the apportioned Jewish sector of Palestine would, he hoped, sugar the pill of partition, and make it palatable to the Congress. In later years, he spoke against the transfer, most notably in rejecting the British Labor Party’s idea of transferring Arabs out of Palestine.
“If the Haganah was caught flat footed by the outbreak of hostilities the day after the partition vote, it was because they had already begun expelling Palestinians and destroying Arab villages.”
You have yet to produce evidence of these “expulsions” that were supposedly taking place in the period just before the partition vote, and immediately (i.e., the first two weeks) afterward. Where were they expelled from and to, and how many?
“They had nothing to fear however, with the numbers so heavily weighed in their favor. On average, each Palestinian, armed with a WWI era rifle was pitted against 6 highly trained and highly armed Zionist fighters, with unlimited ammunition.”
This is another exaggeration, though it is true that the Haganah was better equipped than the Arab/Palestinian forces at the outset.
After the 1948 war both sides subsequently argued that they were the weaker side; the Israelis to emphasize the extent of their triumph, the Arabs to excuse the extent of their defeat. In demographic terms, the Arabs had an overwhelming edge: some forty million Arabs and 1,200,000 Palestinian Arabs against some 650,000 of the Yishuv. The Arabs/Palestinians’ edge in land mass, economic resources, and potential economic resources were even greater.
The Yishuv, however, had prepared for war, and the Arabs had not. The Yishuv was a highly motivated, and political and economically cohesive entity, and this cohesion was reflected in the Hagana’s superior organization, leadership, and tactics. Nonetheless, there were weaknesses, the Haganah were in the process of reorganization when the fighting broke out, and they reacted slowly to developments. Their superiority, such as it was, was only in relation to the Arabs’ inferiority in numbers, cohesion, and equipment.
Despite this, Palestinian militias and the ALA performed reasonably well against the Yishuv in the Nov.1947 to March 1948 period. In fact, despite their weaknesses, they were succeeding quite handsomely. Abd al-Qadir al Husayni was a very clever and cunning warrior. He had a healthy respect for the Yishuv, and knew that the war could never be won against them on terms of equality. Like the Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest in the American Civil War, he understood how to turn his enemy’s strength into weakness: attack his supplies and the roadways by which he receives them. And it worked: by tying the Haganah up with scattered attacks on all sides of the Yishuv communities at carefully placed intervals, and causing them to disperse their superior numbers in defense, Husayni was able to negate his enemy’s superior forces, strangle the Yishuv’s vulnerable supply lines with virtual impunity, and besiege Jerusalem. Quite a feat, that. Husayni was killed leading a charge in the battle for Qastal hill on April 8. He died as he had lived, heedless of his own life, and stupefied with bravery. His loss was a bitter blow to the Palestinians’ morale, for he was irreplaceable.
With the death of Husayni, and once the Yishuv took to the offensive on April 6 with Operation Nachshon, the fragility, disorganization, and demoralization of the Palestinian armies became apparent, and Palestinian Arab society, always poorly led, fragile and already disintegrating from the violence and chaos enveloping Palestine since the partition vote, quickly collapsed under the strain of the war. That, again(!), is the context in which the flight of the refugees took place in the first stage of the civil war (Nov.30, 1947-April 6, 1948).
When I remarked in my July 4 post that the Yishuv had been on the strategic defensive in the five months prior to Nachshon, you replied that, “[The Israelis] used those 5 months very effectively, expelling half of the Palestinians, and destroying half the villages they would eventually end up expelling and destroying.”
It cannot be anything but obvious to anyone that this is simply untrue. In the first place, the Haganah did not expel “half of the Palestinians,” which would run to about 300,000-400,000 Palestinians (that is if you were referring to the refugees; if you were referring to the total population it would be much higher). Roughly 75,000, perhaps more, at best, fled in this period, and they were not expelled. As Morris has said, “During this period, Jewish troops expelled the inhabitants of only one village—Qisariya, in the Coastal Plain, in mid-February (for reasons connected to Jewish illegal immigration rather than the ongoing civil war)—though other villages were harassed and a few specifically intimidated by the IZL, LHI, and Haganah actions (much as during this period Jewish settlements were being harassed and intimidated by Arab irregulars).” (“1948: The First Arab-Israeli War,” pp.94-95).
What is revealed in your shallow, disjointed exegesis of this period of the war is your ignorance and/or indifference to, the military dimension of the conflict, and the role that the fighting played, among other things, in the flight of the refugees. It is not even clear to me that you concede there was even a war at all; just one long, extended, well planned ethnic clearing operation that met negligible or meager resistance.
But this is untrue. The Arabs launched company sized assaults against the Efal neighborhood (December 4), the Hatikva quarter of Tel-Aviv (December 8 &10), the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem (December 10), a major convoy to Ben-Shemen (December 14), Kfar-Szold (January 10), Etzion Bloc (January 14), Yechiam (January 20), Tirat Svi (February 16), Magdiel (March 2), Ramot-Naftali (March 4), successfully ambushed three major Jewish convoys (March 27, 28, & 31), and attacked Mishmar-Haemak (April 4). The period was certainly punctuated with terrorist attacks by the Stern and Irgun from December 12 and onward, and a few limited retaliatory attacks by the Haganah in the first two weeks of February, but nothing any where near the scale of the Arab attacks. Despite their weaknesses and disorganization, the Palestinian militias and the ALA had found the Yishuv’s weak spot: the crucial roadways between the scattered settlements, and they hammered home their operational and geographical advantages with a tenacity and a skill that stretched the Yishuv almost to their breaking point. Before early April, the Haganah was, by and large, on the defensive, and fighting for its existence.
It was, at long last, a war, a war bitterly fought between two sides, and not a one sided ethnic-cleansing push against a helpless victim.
I have taken note of the various methods of obfuscation among some of the principal prevaricators here on this blog. The David Samel method seems to be to take statements I make, wrench from them the most heinous and evil of motives as can be had, and proceed to misrepresent my statements along the lines of the paranoid interpretation he has posited. The Hostage method is to make a spurious assertion, or twist a quote out of context, advance a specious argument on it, and then make an utterly irrelevant citation (or a flurry of citations) supposedly in support of the specious argument. Your own method is a bit more brazen: make a thundering exclamation (False! Rubbish!), then follow it up with some disjointed, spurious, or irrelevant response and hope no one calls you out on it.
By the way, I was reading a spirited colloquy between you and some other commenters on a Joseph Dana article in Tablet Magazine on June 5 where one commenter called you a “troll” for registering a dissenting view. I wonder, how did that feel?
On the CounterPunch website Oct.9, Barghouti wrote an article condemning the PA’s position on the Goldstone Report
The thing that stuck me as odd is the way it builds to a dénouement that goes right past the Gaza war victims and makes a narcissistic-sounding claim that the PA’s actions were nothing short of a betrayal of the BDS movement.
Barghouti had already written articles for Counterpunch which explained about Europe’s Collusion in Israel’s Slow Genocide and the UN Complicity in Israel’s Massacre in Gaza. If he hoped to make it appear as though the UNHRC was busting down the starting gate to prosecute the IDF for its role, then why did the teaser line say “The UN Must Adopt the Goldstone Report” and the summation include this: “Ultimately, the failure of the UN Human Rights Council to adopt the Goldstone report is another proof, if any is needed, that Palestinians cannot hope at the current historical moment to obtain justice from the US-controlled so-called “international community.”????
Using the PA as a convenient strawman to pillory the UN should have fooled no one.
The Palestinian Authority already had a detailed criminal complaint of its own against Israel that is still pending before the Court at the Hague. The UN Human Rights Council has file cabinets full to overflowing with confirmed reports from John Dugard, Jean Zeigler, Desmond Tutu, Miloon Kothari, et. al. regarding war crimes and crimes against humanity that are still awaiting UNHRC action.
In the 2004 Wall Case, Ramallah’s position (See Annex II) was that because Israeli measures taken against Palestinians are neither necessary nor proportionate, they give rise to criminal liability by the Government of Israel for violations of human rights contained in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and some prima facie grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The ICJ affirmed all of those violations and the need to bring the responsible individuals to justice (paragraph 145) The UNHRC has never called upon its member states to pursue prosecution of the individuals responsible for those violations either in their own national courts or in the ICC.
The Goldstone report cited the ICJ’s findings, but it also leveled new allegations against Israel, and Palestinian groups in the West Bank and Gaza. The UNHRC does not need permission from non-voting observers, like Palestine, to discuss its own fact finding reports. That’s especially true when Palestinians also happen to be among the accused parties with possible conflicts of interest.
The US had publicly stated it would not allow the report to be placed on the Security Council agenda and that it would veto it if it ever came to a vote there. So, it was not unreasonable for one of the responsible Palestinian government officials to seriously consider asking for a delay on the symbolic vote in the UNHRC when Israel threatened to turn the West Bank and its population into “another Gaza”. When Israel subsequently attempted to use the delay for propaganda purposes and the Palestinian people demanded the matter be voted-upon, Abbas reversed course and admitted his own responsibility. FYI, the PA Inquiry noted that PM Fayyad had been asked to delay the vote by the US Ambassador in Ramallah and that Fayyad had refused.
I am not sure what relevance his being a student at Tel Aviv university has to this discussion.
Wikipedia says that Barghouti is currently enrolled at Tel Aviv and that there have been calls for his expulsion due to his involvement in the international call for an academic boycott of Israel. If it’s necessary to make exceptions for victims to pursue their education, then it is a mistaken view to blame other Palestinians who are opposing the occupation with the non-violent methods available to them.
Hostage,
First I suspect the “teaser” on Barghouti’s article was written by whoever posted it on the CounterPunch site.
Secondly, given that you have gone to considerable lengths to show that it was Abbas who made the decision to block the Goldstone Report, using the unlikely excuse from the head of Shin Bet that were he not to do so, Israel would turn the West Bank into another Gaza, I am curious about your seeming obsession with defending Fayyad.
Do you really think that the PA should be negotiating the future of Palestine with the Israelis when the power relationship is so unequal and the best the Palestinians can hope for is a Bantustan with few of the trappings of genuine sovereignty? Having participated in this farce himself, do you think Fayyad believes he can produce anything better? Do you? In fact, the question might be asked of you at this point is, do you support what is commonly referred to as the “two-state” solution?
Robert, from the length of your post it looks like you must have quit your day job or maybe this is your day job.
So what we have is Karsh without Karsh being cited. But this is one paragraph in which you actually, if unintentionally, spelled out the truth:
“This viewpoint is disingenuous, and, if sincerely expressed, paranoid and amateurishly ahistorical. Thus, every Israeli contingency plan, every hint of a far-fetched idea expressed by David Ben-Gurion and other Israeli planners, finds its way into this narrative as conclusive, damning evidence for the Yishuv’s plans for expansion and ethnic cleansing, to the exclusion of any other consideration or contingency, and painting Ben Gurion himself and the others as a cabal of racist scoundrels and Milosevich-like ethnic cleansers.”
And it’s never stopped. 200,000 more in 1967 and various and sundry and sadistic ways of doing it since.
Yes Jeffrey,
It’s a contigency that has been in place for 64 years.
Still, you have to take your hat off to Robert’s masterful display of cognitive dissonance. On one hand, he insists on drawing our attention to the lengths the Zionists went to prepared for war (ie. contingencies) in order to assure their survival, yet he simulateously expects us to acceopt that even though Ben-Gurion and the leadership were obsessed with achieving a Jewish majority in Palestine, the expusion fo 750,000 Palestininians (which BG and co saw as paramount to Israel’s existence) was an unforseen outcome.
Pure delusion.
Robert ,
We can all see that you’ve based your entire thesis on an ambush of an ambulance, and made a vain attempt to extrapolate this into some large scale assault on the Yishuv, but it simply doesn’t hold water.
As I pointed out to you, and you continue to ignore, the Zionist attacks against Arabs were already in full swing. While the fact that the ambush took place on the day of after the partition vote, it does not suffice as evidence of any co-ordinates plan to attack the Yishuv.
The murder of Sami Taha in September by Jewish activists had already set the ball in motion, so the “ambush” could well have been a revenge attack. A murder and a prison riot is even less compelling.
The fact that until December, most of the Arab violence was random and un coordinated, much less organized only further illustrates that the Yishuv were not under any military attack. The Arab Revolt may well have been crushed by the British, but the sentiment was clearly running strong.
The Zionist terror gangs had been conducting terror attacks against the British for 2 years, clearly coordinated with the Zionist command, which sent a very strong message to the Arabs that the Zionists were clearing the line of sight to unleash their full fury on the Arabs unhindered by British interference.
The December 4th events came as no surprise. In a speech before the Histadrut Executive, (just four days after UN General Assembly Resolution 181 was adopted), Ben-Gurion rejected the Resolution 181 borders or the establishment of an Arab state. This was nothing less than a declaration of war against the Arabs.
The riots that took place the next day were a response, not to UNGA 181, but to Ben Gurion’s denouncement of it. That’s when the war had begun, if you could even call it that, given how absurdly one sided it was. The outcome was simply a formality, and an ideal opportunity to begin the expulsion of the Palestinians.
Very few of those weapons made it to the Palestinians. The Zionist forces were already aware of plans to move these weapons and had set ambush traps, which stopped almost all of these weapons (little more than WWI era rifles that is) reaching their destination.
Throughout the 5 months, the balance was so rediculously weighted in the favor of the Zionists militias, that statistical, there were 6 well armed Israelis fighters for ever Palestinian armed with 1 WW1 era rifle and a handful of bullets.
Given how futile those efforts were, they might as well have use broomsticks.
Seriously Robert, are you for real? The Palestinians made a feeble attempt to overrun kibbutz and got their asses handed to them, with 70 Palestinians being killed. It was a pretty dumb move seeing as the kibbutz was where the Zionist forces were basing much of their training.
The attack on the Hatikva Quarter resulted in 80 and 85 Arabs were killed and about 145 wounded by Jewish forces. So again, they clearly had little or no weapons.
So has your grasp of the facts.
The Village Files do not show anything to do with the desire of self defence. The testimony of Haganah commanders is hardly objective. Self defense has nothing to do with details like the quality of the land, how wealthy the populations were, the output of the crops, the political affiliations of the population, or how difficult it would be to occupy it.
It was simply an audit to establish assets the Zionist leadership wanted to acquire – the quintessential hostile takeover.
What the files really show is the Haganah’s sophisticated and analytic methods in the way they approached ethnic cleansing. They simply used this intelligence to fast track their plans to expel the Palestinians and prioritise which villages would be saved, which would be destroyed etc. The quote you deliberately omitted is that
“In certain cases files might have been used to plan the conquest of a village.”
Reading between the line, this stands as a frank admission that the files were use to plan for the conquest of villages deemed to be worth the effort.
What is surprising is the extent of your cognitive dissonance. On one hand, you’re claiming that the Zionists left nothing to chance in the event that war would take place, yet you simultaneously insist that where it came to establishing a Jewish majority state (a dream the Zionist movement had held onto for years), the Zionist leadership left this outcome entirely to chance but magically achieved this result anyway.
The Palestinians were an inconvenience, but posed no threat, which subsequent events served to underline. The fact that the Haganah the Palmach were able to develop flame throwers, conduct trials and experiment with techniques to determine how difficult it would be to expel and eradicate villages suggests that there was indeed plenty of sadism involved and very little sense of panick.
And you need to roaden yours beyond Karsh.
On the contrary. How else were they going to carry out their mass land theft and ethnic cleassing of Palestine once the British had left?
When Moshe Sharett warned that “We will have only enough troops to defend ourselves, not to take over the country.” Ben Gurion assured him on 18 February 1948, self-defense was of little concern:
“If we will receive in time the arms we have already purchased, and maybe even receive some of that promised to us by the UN, we will be able not only to defend, but also to inflict death blows on the Syrians in their own country – and take over Palestine as a whole. I am in no doubt of this. We can face all the Arab forces. This is not a mystical belief but a cold and rational calculation based on practical examination. ” Ben Gurion Archives, Correspondence Section 23.02-1.03.48 Document 59, 26 February 1948. –See page 46 of Ilan Pappé, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oneworld, reprint 2007
So Ben-Gurion was in no doubt about the capacity of the Zionist forces to take over all of Palestine, so surely a few thousand poorly armed, poorly trained Palestinian volunteers was never going to be any concern – especially with the British wiling to help spirit away thousands from the major cities like Haifa and Tibirius on their behalf.
God only knows where you got the idea that the Haganah were created to fight Hitler, who had been dead nearly 3 years, but your explanation of the Hanganh is right on the money. When in 1945, Chain Wiesman proposed that the Haganah should collaborate with the Stern and Irgun in order to speed up the withdrawal of the British from Palestine, the Haganah well and truly crossed into the land predator..
No, I’m afraid that yours is the amateurishly ahistorical. It’s easy to dress up every plan as a defensive contingency plan, but when the leadership openly embraces and nurtures terrorist militias to achieve it’s goals, only the naïve and delusional would continuer to insist that the motives were strictly pure and altruistic.
It must be the inspiration I am gleaning from your waltz with Karsh, but I must say that I find this statement from you truly unhinged.
Seriously Robert, this goes way beind cognitive dissonance and denial and borders on mental atrophy. So what you are suggesting is that statements from the Zionist leadership, spanning more than half a century, should be dismissed as anomalies, even if those very declarations and stated aims have proven to be prophetic?
If I didn’t know you better, I’d say this was a clever attempt at comedy.
That’s simply false.
The much of the “transfer” talk preceded the Peel partition plan by half a century. In fact, there are countless statements endorsing trasnfer/removal of the Arabs dating right back to Hertzl.
As for your OCD about the Turkish/Greek plan, I already pointed out that the two leaderships that cited this arrangement as a bromide were the Zionist Leadership and later, the Nazis.
Oh please Robert, you’re now beginning to sound senile. In the 1930s, David Ben-Gurion expressed his strong support for compulsory transfer, crowing that “Jewish power” was growing to the point that the Jewish community in Palestine would soon be strong enough to carry out ethnic cleansing on a large scale (as it ultimately did). In fact, the Zionists knew from the start that there would be no persuading the Palestinians simply to leave voluntarily and that violent conquest would be necessary to implant the Zionist state.
As it turned out. the British did play a part in the expulsion of Arabs regardless, forcing thousands on to boats and ferries headed for Lebanon and Haifa.
There is absoltely no eviendecne that the Zionist leadership ever rejected the idea of coerced transfer. The most compelling argument you’re come up with is that they stopped proposing the idea to the Woodhead Commission, which they had ultimately rejected anyway.
Oh please Robert, do you seriously expect to get away with this pathetic stunt? The problem with you hasbara hacks is that you haven’t come to terms with the age of Google. I looked up your sleazy little quote and this is what I found:
“Zuchovitsky was concerned with the public relations aspect of the transfer and suggested that the Zionist Establishment refer to it not as “the transfer which we are carrying out” but as “the transfer which the Mandatory Government must implement.” He added, that any memorandum submitted must clearly stress this transfer as one of the conditions essential for the Jewish State to be realised, hence incumbent upon the British Government to implement.(275)
Katznelson blamed the British change of attitude towards the transfer proposal on various Zionist groups who argued against it within their institutions. As we see later in this work, the British Government in an Official Despatch stated, “On behalf of the Jews it was also made clear to us that Jewish opinion would be opposed to the exercise of any degree of compulsion.” Katznelson added that transfer was a matter of principle.(276)
Although the British Government had changed its views on the transfer of the Arabs, both Eliahu Berlin(277) and Ben-Gurion held that this question could not just be dismissed. Ben-Gurion suggested that they compromise by altering the wording “compulsory transfer” to some other phrase – connected either with citizenship or agricultural zoning – having the same force.(278) “
So there you have it Robert. What you dishonestly and cynically tried to pass off as a reversal of support for transfer from the Zionist leadership was not a reversal at all, but a re-branding of the policy to sound less offensive.
It’s no surprise that you failed to provide a link.
Clearly, the Zionist leadership knew very well that their objective for a Jewish majority in Palestine would not come about by means of massive Jewish immigration alone. As Ben-Gurion said, a 60% majority in Israel was not sustainable in the long term. The idea of a demographic threat to the Jewish state was born from the very beginning.
Correction. Of all the national movements in history, Zionism has been one of the most copiously narrated and least understood, and that is what the Zionist movement has worked painstakingly for half a century to maintain. The success of the Zionist movement has been heavily reliant on the false narratives and myths that we are seeing melt away in the wake of the information revolution.
It comes as no surprise that Netenyahu has refused to declassify more than a million documents relating to the 1948 to 1967 period, that were due to be released to the public, on the grounds that their release would constitute a threat to Israel’s national security.
It is no surprise therefore, that the documentation that has been released to the public has expressed, fragmentary statements. Yitzak Rabin documented in his own memoirs that Be-Gurion was very guarded about giving his orders to expel Palestinians explicitly, preferring instead to wave “his hand in a gesture which said: Drive them out! [garush otam in Hebrew].”
As you yourself admit, Ben-Gurion was a politician and was cognizant of the ramifications Israel’s actions would have in terms of maintaining support from Israel throughout the 20th century.
How is this possibly an exaggeration when one side was armed with state of the art weapons, limitless ammunition, tanks, an air force, and the other with WW1 era rifles and a handful rounds?We all know that the Zionist forces tried to argue that they were the weaker side, but that was clearly a rouse to garner world sympathy and support. Such claims from either side proves nothing, other than their capacity to lie.
You always run back to this position when you’re argument is failing – that the facts don’t matter, only what the Jews believed. And you accuse me of being ahistorical?
Please!!
The demographics played no part in the relative strengths of either side, epsecialyl seeing as most of the Arabs were vehemently opposed to war. Ben Gurion’s diary explicitly documents the fact that the Zionist forces outnumbered not only the Palestinians, but the combined Arab armies every step of the way, not to mention the fact they enjoyed a massive military advantage in terms of weaponry.
Yes Robert, you’ve already said this. What is it with you? Do you have a pre-prepared set of bullet points that you simply cut and paste into your responses? You remind me of an old uncle I had who kept telling me the same story, verbatim, forgetting he’d told me countless times.
The fact that the Yishuv prepared for war, and the Arabs had not only serves to strengthen the argument that the Zionist forces had malevolent motives from the start. In fact, and rather tragically, Palestinians recall how they watched the Zionists rolling out weapons in the early 40′s and wondering what they were up to.
Yes, you’ve posted this same diatribe before Robert. It didn’t make your argument then and it doesn’t now.
In the first place, the Haganah did not expel “half of the Palestinians,” which would run to about 300,000-400,000 Palestinians (that is if you were referring to the refugees; if you were referring to the total population it would be much higher).
Of course it’s true Robert. As Noan Chomsky documented in his book,” Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky”
“The Zionists were by far the more powerful and better organized force, and by May 1948, when the state of Israel was formally established, about 300,000 Palestinians already had been expelled from their homes or had fled the fighting, and the Zionists controlled a region well beyond the area of the original Jewish state that had been proposed by the UN. Now it’s then that Israel was attacked by its neighbors – in May 1948; it’s then, after the Zionists had taken control of this much larger part of the region and hundreds of thousands of civilians had been forced p132 Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky
So a great deal more than 75,000 were expelled in this period, and yes, they were expelled by force, seeing as the Haganah and co had already committed massacrer and Deir Yassin and Lydda during this period.
On this count, Morris is wrong. Yitzak Rabin, the field officer of the Palmach, supervised the expulsion of 1,500 Palestinians from Qisarya Village ( Feb 15), near Haifa and the destruction of the village. The expulsions were to test how easy it would be to carry out these attacks and had nothing to do with Jewish illegal immigration
The Zionist forces targeted 5 villages on the coast, as a test, and under the eyes of the British and found out that it was quite easy. There was little resistance and the British didn’t interfere. In each village, 30 or 30 of it’s men carried old rifles, which no leadership and no plan.
No Robert, what is revealed in your cynicism and the lengths you will go to in order to maintain the myths, lies and false narrative of crimes that expose Zionism for what it is.
To a large extent, that is true. As many have documented, including Shlom Ben Ami, the civil war was already lost for the Palestinians in the 1930′s, after the British smashed the Arab Reviolt, disarmed the Arabs, destroyed the government institutions and expelled the leadership.
As for the company sized assaults against the Efal neighbourhood and Hatikva quarter, I have already exposed what a pathetic, ineffective and meaningless exercise that was. The Jews repelled the attack like they were swatting flies.
It was only a war once the British allowed the Arab armies to enter Palestine, and even then, the Zionist forces had an overwhelming advantage, especially seeing as Glubb and Abdul-Huda had already assured the British they would not enter the Jewish territory.
And we’ve taken note of your one trick pony strategy of repeating your lies and half truths verbatim not matter how often they are debunked and exposed.
You’re simply a liar Robert. You came to this blog lyign from day one, lying about your identity and your background and now, you’re simply repeating the hasbara lies – granted, you’ve made a better case that most of the hasbara hacks that come and go.
The ultimate weakness you Zionist propagandists have is that you are unable to adapt and respond to your diatribes being debunked. As we see countless times with Witty, he will stet something he knows to be false (hoping no one will notice) and when he is refuted, he dusts himself off and returns another day only to repeat the same garbage.
That’s precisely your MO.
it didn’t bother me one bit. Is stepped into Zionist occupied territory, so I wasn’t expecting a warm welcome. Those that referred to me as a troll didn’t actually bother refuting my argument, so clearly they were at a loss for something worthwhile to say.
Robert it’s pathetic when the best evidence you can supply to establish the collective guilt of the 1.8 million Palestinian inhabitants in 1948 is:
In previous posts here I’ve provided you with an array of published sources, including the leadership of the Jewish Agency, which all said that the majority of Palestinians accepted partition and refused to take up arms with the Arab Liberation Army.
FYI, one of my great-uncles worked with Ezra Danin in various positions in the Jewish Agency and Haganah Arab intelligence departments. They operated branches that collected information for the conquest; branches that concluded bogus non-aggression pacts with local Arab officials; and groups that coordinated with and carried out the instructions of the infamous Transfer Committee. So, your suggestion that the attainment of the object of all of that planning, propaganda, and effort was merely a coincidence is utterly without merit. In February of 1948 Ben Gurion told a JNF official that the Jews didn’t need to buy land anymore, but to conqueror it.
wow
one of my great-uncles worked with Ezra Danin in various positions in the Jewish Agency and Haganah Arab intelligence departments. They operated branches that collected information for the conquest;
Excellent anc concise rebuttal Hostage. The fact that the Transfer Committee was set up in May 1948, well and truly ebunks Robert’s argument that Ben Gurion, or the Israeli leaership, changed their minds about transfer.
Shingo,
Said you: “As I pointed out to you, and you continue to ignore, the Zionist attacks against Arabs were already in full swing.
Yes, I know. You said earlier: “If the Haganah was caught flat footed by the outbreak of hostilities the day after the partition vote, it was because they had already begun expelling Palestinians and destroying Arab villages.”
As I said in reply to this in my previous post, you have yet to produce evidence of these “expulsions” and villages being destroyed that were supposedly taking place in the period just before the partition vote, and immediately (i.e., the first two weeks) afterward. I ask you again: What villages were destroyed and when? When and where were they expelled from and to, and how many?
Said you: “The murder of Sami Taha in September by Jewish activists had already set the ball in motion, so the “ambush” could well have been a revenge attack.”
You have to be kidding. I’m not sure where you pulled this one from, but it is simply not true. According to Zachary Lockman in his “Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906–1948,” Taha was murdered by the Mufti :
“…tensions had been growing during 1947 between [Sami Taha] and the Husayni loyalists who dominated the Arab Higher Committee. The Mufti and his allies seem to have been increasingly angered by what they saw as Sami Taha’s refusal to obey the AHC’s orders, as well as by his growing inclination to chart an independent course in the political arena. Taha’s purported deviations included the PAWS’ (Palestine Arab Worker’s Society) alleged refusal in November 1946 to endorse the AHC’s call for a day-long protest strike on the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration; the PAWS’ adoption that same year of a vague “socialism” as its guiding principle—a step which had to do with both its growing political ambitions and its rivalry with the communist-led AWC; Taha’s talk of creating an independent Arab labor party; his denunciations of partisan and factional politics; and his pronouncements on political matters, which though often vague or naive were taken as criticisms of the Husaynis’ domination of the nationalist movement. Perhaps most damning were allegations that Taha was in favor of seeking some modus vivendi with the Jews and might even be willing to accept partition, as well as the PAWS’ secretary’s ties with some of the exiled Mufti’s political rivals, particularly Musa al-‘Alami, who in the late summer of 1947 was regarded by the Husayni camp as the leader of those forces within the Palestinian Arab community most amenable to some compromise with Zionism…
Taha’s efforts to defend himself and the organization he led were unavailing. On September 12, 1947, he was assassinated outside his home in Haifa. His murderer was never apprehended, but it was generally believed that Sami Taha was killed on orders of Amin al-Husayni, as part of a campaign by the Mufti’s camp to settle accounts, intimidate potential opponents, and tighten its grip on the Arab community as the final phase of the struggle for Palestine approached. It was thus probably no coincidence that Sami Taha came under public attack very soon after UNSCOP recommended that Palestine be partitioned, a recommendation whose implementation the AHC vowed to fight with all the means at its disposal.”
Said you: “We can all see that you’ve based your entire thesis on an ambush of an ambulance, and made a vain attempt to extrapolate this into some large scale assault on the Yishuv, but it simply doesn’t hold water… While the fact that the ambush took place on the day of after the partition vote, it does not suffice as evidence of any co-ordinated plan to attack the Yishuv.”
That is not what I said, or did. I did not “base” my “thesis” on any such thing. I argued, simply, correctly and accurately, that random Arab violence began against Jewish targets all over Palestine in response to the partition vote the day after the vote was taken, and continued to escalate henceforth into more organized small-scale military operations.
As I explained, “Up until December 4, most of the Arab violence was scattershot and the result of intifada-like incited mayhem. It was on December 4, however, that the real Palestinian Arab assault began in earnest, when some 120-150 armed Arabs attacked the Efal kibbutz, the first small unit military attack on a Jewish settlement, and on December 8 Hasan Salame, commander of the Lydda front, launched another large-scale attack on the Hatikva quarter in south Tel-Aviv. Two days later there was another abortive assault on the Hatikva, and an armed assault on the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. All these company-sized attacks were repulsed, but they set the pattern for the conflict, which was evolving from mob rioting and armed clashes to more military/guerilla style small unit operations.”
And this is true.
The numerous Palestinian militias lacked a central organizing authority. Scattered all around Palestine, they were mostly local (and tribal) in character and formation, being any where from squad, platoon to company level size, armed with pistols, rifles and small stocks of ammo. There was little co-ordination between the militias, though neighboring villages would often assist each other.
Outside of the local militias, the main Arab/Palestinian fighting forces consisted of the Arab Liberation Army commanded by Taha al-Hashami, and the most prominent militias commanded by Abd al-Qader Husayni of the Jerusalem front, and Hasan Salame of the Lydda front.
The Palestinian war effort was plagued from the beginning by disorganization, lack of equipment and resources, lack of cohesion and effective command, divided allegiances, and intense political and military inter-Arab rivalries. As Morris wrote, “There were simply too many diverse Arab units and too many bodies pulling the strings from the outside.”
The small-scale violence of the first several days were incited and encouraged by Arab leaders both inside and outside of Palestine, and the military attacks on the settlements were launched by company-sized Arab and Palestinian militias. Throughout December and January the military attacks on the roadways and settlements continued to escalate in scale, frequency, intensity, and sophistication.
The UN correctly held the Arabs responsible for the outbreak of violence. The UN Palestine Commission was never permitted by the Arabs or British to go to Palestine to implement the resolution. On February 16, 1948, the Commission reported to the Security Council:
“Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General Assembly and are engaged in a deliberate effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein.”
The Arabs, indeed, made no attempts to deny starting the war. Jamal Husseini told the Security Council on April 16, 1948:
“The representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight.”
Indeed they did.
As Morris has written, “there was a clear, organized Palestinian Arab response to the UN resolution. Guided by Husseini from Cairo, the AHC on 1 December declared a three-day general strike to begin the following day. On 2 December, a large Arab mob, armed with clubs and knives, burst out of Jerusalem’s old city and descended on the New Commercial center at Mamilla street, attacking Jewish passersby and shops. A number of people were injured, one seriously, and the district was set alight. The mob then proceeded up Queen Mary Street and into Jaffa Street. Haganah intelligence identified two AHC officials, Muhammad Ali Salah and Mahmoud ‘Umari, as leading the crowd. Small Haganah units fired above and into the mob as Mandate police and troops generally looked on. Indeed, several policemen joined in the vandalizing and looting, though others helped evacuate the Jewish wounded. The mob eventually turned back and dispersed. But the war had begun.
Yet that day, and for the next few weeks, no one really understood this. For most, the sporadic violence appeared to be just another wave, akin to the Arab outbreaks of 1920, 1921, and 1929; it would pass…But the violence was gradually to snowball into full-scale war, in which Palestinian Arab society would be shattered and the Arab world traumatized and humiliated.” (Benny Morris, “1948: The First Arab Israeli War,” pp.76-77)
Said you: “The riots that took place the next day were a response, not to UNGA 181, but to Ben Gurion’s denouncement of it. That’s when the war had begun, if you could even call it that, given how absurdly one sided it was. The outcome was simply a formality, and an ideal opportunity to begin the expulsion of the Palestinians.”
This is, by far and away, the most preposterous suggestion you have yet forwarded. So it was Ben Gurion’s alleged “denouncement” of the partition that led to all the upheaval and violence throughout Palestine and the rest of the Arab world? Not the partition? They were fine with that? Who knew?!
Are you really posting a connection between some speech made by Ben Gurion to the outbreak of the violence? What evidence is this based upon? Also, if you would, please provide a link to an untruncated text of BG’s “denouncement” that supposedly started the war. I would be most interested to read it.
Your “there was no rejection of the partition/ there was no war” thesis seems to have come to naught. Your attempts to deny it notwithstanding, the Arabs, both in and outside Palestine, rejected the UN partition, which they had never accepted from the beginning. Arab UN delegates warned that any attempt to implement the partition would lead to war; after the partition vote was taken, the Arab delegations in the UN walked out of the plenum.
Eliahu Sasoon, of the JAE, who was worried and doubtful about the Yishuv’s ability to win an all-out war against the Arabs, sent Azzam Pasha, the Arab League secretary, a letter in early December 1947 expressing the Jews’ desire to avoid conflict, and implored the Arab League to accept the Jewish state; the letter was unanswered. The previous September, Pasha had rejected Abba Eban’s offer of Jewish-Arab conciliation and cooperation, telling him that the Jews were foreigners, their presence in Palestine was only temporary, and that their only hope was to abandon Zionism and statehood and accept Arab rule in a unitary state.
Arab violence in response to the partition was hardly limited to Palestine; violence literally exploded in all the Arab capitols, with thousands taking to the streets chanting anti-Jewish and anti-Western slogans. There were also physical attacks on British and American legations, so much so that the British government had to make arrangements to evacuate British citizens from Syria. In Cairo, the ‘ulema of Al-Azhar University (one of Islam’s supreme authorities) proclaimed a “worldwide jihad in defense of Arab Palestine.”
There is simply no room for serious debate on this. The Arabs attacked the Yishuv in response to the partition vote the day after the vote was taken. They attacked not only because they rejected the partition, but because they rejected any independent, sovereign Jewish entity in any part of Palestine, whatever its size, and were determined to crush it. They had long vowed to do so, and made no secret of it. There were bitter disagreements between the various Arab governments about the timing, means and methods by which the war against the Yishuv in Palestine was to be waged, but certainly no disagreement about whether or not to do so. The questions debated between them were a matter of when, and how, not whether or not. The conflicting strategies, loyalties, and agendas would doom the Arab war effort. But all were united in viewing the crusade for Palestine as a matter of principle and honor, and they honestly and honorably believed in their cause. The first attacks were sporadic, spontaneous, and lacking in coordination, but they grew in frequency, scale, intensity, and sophistication.
The Arabs developed a shrewd, sensible strategy of tying up the settlements with attacks and attacking the vulnerable roadways between them. The ALA attack on Kfar Szold on January 10 was by some 900 armed fighters. The January 14 attack on the Etzion Bloc by Abd al-Qader al-Husayni consisted of 1,000 armed fighters, and showed a commendable tactical sophistication, with the main force of 400 hitting the bloc’s main settlement and diversionary attacks hitting the flanks of the surrounding areas. The January 20 attack on Yechiam was by 400 fighters armed not only with rifles, but with medium and light machine guns and mortars, and the ALA attack on Tirat-Zvi by some 300-500 troops was commenced with a heavy barrage of mortar and machine gun fire. The Haganah could count on their tactical superiority and the advantages inherent in the defense to fight back the assaults, but the Arabs had the operational and geographical advantage: they could attack anywhere, anytime, and the Yishuv could not bring their superior strength to bear on meeting every attack.
In any event, these were far from the rag-tag, one-sided “feeble” ventures you described. The Arabs waged war against the Yishuv, and, despite their weaknesses and disadvantages, did so with a skill, tenacity and bravery that, I think, commands respect. It is unfortunate that in your silly, disingenuous attempts to deny the reality of this war, or that it was even a war at all, in order to slander the Jews as monstrous ethnic cleansers, that you deny the Arabs and the Palestinians this respect as well.
Said you: “So there you have it Robert. What you dishonestly and cynically tried to pass off as a reversal of support for transfer from the Zionist leadership was not a reversal at all, but a re-branding of the policy to sound less offensive. It’s no surprise that you failed to provide a link.”
Ah, I see you are now borrowing from the David Samel playbook, trying to catch me in a “lie” as well as engaging in a bit of Hostage-like misattribution as well.
The source you are quoting from is “A Historical Survey of Proposals to Transfer Arabs from Palestine 1895 – 1947,” by Rabbi Dr. Chaim Simons, from which I quoted as well. I did not, however, quote from the section you cite and I did not speak of any “reversal” of support; these are both fabrications on your part. I explicitly acknowledged that there was support for the idea of transfer in the context of some final agreement, but that the Yishuv (and the British government) ultimately rejected it and nothing ever came of the “transfer” proposal. It was simply one of many “peace plans” that were fated to land in the dustbin. In an earlier post, I said:
“BG, like others in the Zionist movement certainly talked of a transfer of populations along the lines of the Greco-Turkish exchange effected more than a decade before with the British and a few Arab leaders in the late 1930’s, but nothing ever came from them, and the Peel Commission proposals simply lapsed into non-implementation.”
And this is true. Said Chaim Simons:
“At the Mapai meeting on 5 July [1937], Shertok (Sharett) gave a summary of the Peel Report, including the section on the population exchange proposal… However, as Shertok pointed out, although the Commission put forward its proposal as an ‘Exchange of Population’, the unequal numbers of Arabs and Jews involved by this “exchange” meant that the stress would inevitably be on a “compulsory transfer” of Arabs. He added, however, that the Peel Commission did not state this specifically but “hoped” that the Arab and Jewish leaders would themselves come to an understanding on this matter.”(78)
Shertok’s summary was followed by a discussion. However, only two speakers – Chaim Shorer and Yitzchak Ben-Zvi – referred to the recommendation on population transfer. Shorer felt “there was no real value to be placed on the chances of transferring the Arabs to Transjordan, because they would not wish to leave a Jewish Palestine of their own freewill, and we are not going to transfer them by force.”(79)”
Also,
“Israel Idelson, a leading member of the Kibbutz HaMe’uchad movement, spoke about the demographic problem in Palestine and pointed out that no-one at that meeting could possibly believe that it would be possible within the near future to implement what the Peel Commission had proposed regarding Arab transfer. The Arabs would not transfer voluntarily – it was not in their interests to move to Transjordan or Beersheba. Regarding compulsory transfer, Idelson queried whether it was implementable or desirable? Moshe Shertok then interjected: “The compulsion comes after the agreement.” Idelson agreed with Shertok and drew the parallel with the Greco-Turkish transfer, adding however, that the reason for Greece’s agreement to compulsory transfer was that she knew that if her nationals did not transfer from Turkey, they would remain under an oppressive regime. It was the reality of the situation which forced Greece to agree to the transfer.”(83)”
Also, if I had provided a link to the quote from the Woodhead Commission cited in my post, it would not be the one from which you cite in yours. In my post I said:
“Nevertheless, after much deliberation (some for, some against), and while accepting the principle of partition, the Zionist leadership ultimately rejected the idea of coerced transfer. When the Woodhead Commission went to Eretz-Israel, in its Report it wriggled out of any form of transfer or population exchange. It even added in a footnote:
“On behalf of the Jews it was also made clear to us that Jewish opinion would be opposed to the exercise of any degree of compulsion.”
The quote mentioned in the paragraph I wrote came from the following passage further down the page on the Chaim Simons study from where your quote is taken from, under the subheading “Retraction of Peel Commission Recommendations”:
“The “Partition Commission”, as it was officially called, headed by Sir John Woodhead, arrived in Palestine in April 1938, stayed there for three months and subsequently published their Report in November 1938. Chapter 8 of this Report was entitled “The Possibility of Exchanges and Transfer of Population.” In this chapter, the Commission examined “the possibility of voluntary exchanges of land and population and the prospects of making provision by works of land development, for a larger population than exists to-day and thereby facilitating the transfer of persons who desire to move from one area to another.”(322) A footnote appended to the word “voluntary” stated that in the Despatch of 23 December, “it was announced that His Majesty’s Government have not accepted the Royal Commission’s proposal for the compulsory transfer in the last resort of Arabs from the Jewish to the Arab area. On behalf of the Jews it was also made clear to us that Jewish opinion would be opposed to the exercise of any degree of compulsion.(323)
The source for this “Jewish opinion” was not stated. Ben-Gurion and Weizmann supported the transfer proposal as set out by the Peel Commission, and there were favourable opinions expressed by Jews at the World Unity Council, the Zionist Congress at Zurich and in the British Houses of Parliament. It is true that there were other Jewish leaders who were opposed to compulsory transfer. It would therefore have been much more accurate and fair for the Woodhead Commission to have written that Jewish opinion was divided on this question.”
Which is exactly what I said: “…after much deliberation (some for, some against), and while accepting the principle of partition, the Zionist leadership ultimately rejected the idea of coerced transfer.” Which is why no proposals for transfer were submitted to the Woodhead Commission.
It is unclear, in any event, what this quote of yours is supposed to prove. In the first place, the quote you cite here is but a fragment of an extended discussion of the JAE on June 12, 1938 chaired by Moshe Sharett (Shertok) in which “Shertok told the members that the Woodhead Commission was asking for a feasibility study on the transfer of Arabs from the proposed Jewish State to Syria.”
The meeting was thus one of many convened to respond to the Commission’s request for a feasibility study—how or whether it would or could work. The World Unity Council, the Zionist Congress at Zurich, and the British Houses of Parliament had all debated the transfer proposals exploring the myriad problems of implementation, and with some weighing in favor, and some against it. This was the meeting of the so-called “”Population Exchange Committee” of the JAE on the transfer proposal to be submitted to the Woodhead Commission. While exploring various ideas and methods of transfer, the committee too saw the problems of implementation, and feared the consequences for world Jewry by associating themselves with the transfer of Arabs from the proposed Jewish state:
“[Menachem] Ussishkin, similarly said that the Jews could not themselves carry out this transfer, as, if they were to attempt it, “all the world would rise up and rebel against us.” The first to oppose it would be the Jewish community who would fear repercussions on Jews in other countries. Ussishkin considered, “Only the British Government is able to do it, if they want.” He explained that two things were required, “the might of England and Jewish money”, and if the former were available, the latter would be found.” (272)”
Selig Eugen Soskin, who, concurrent with the meetings of the JAE, was producing a draft memorandum for the Woodhead Commission on various scenarios and proposals for implementing the particulars of the Peel Commission’s “Exchange of Land and Population” recommendations. According to Chaim Simons:
“Soskin claimed that the Arabs would benefit from such transfer and “would be freed from exploitation by the effendis.” To carry out this transfer, he proposed the setting up of a Commission. Among their tasks would be selecting areas in Transjordan for colonisation of the Arabs.(298) Paragraphs dealing with finance were also included in this memorandum.(299)
Some days after editing this memorandum, Shertok obviously had second thoughts about the wisdom of submitting it to the Woodhead Commission. This we know from a note written to Dr. Joseph – the initials of the author are illegible – on 13 June 1938. In this note the author wrote, “Mr. Shertok has induced Dr. Soskin not to send in his memorandum on Transfer of Population.”(300)
Another memorandum for the Woodhead Commission which mentioned the Peel Commission’s transfer proposal was written by Ussishkin. He submitted it towards the end of July 1938, and it was immediately published as a supplement to the Jerusalem newspaper, the “Palestine Review”. In this memorandum, Ussishkin discussed the transfer from both political and ideological grounds. He pointed out that the Peel Commission had “made a sound political proposal:- to expropriate the land and to transfer the Arabs to Transjordan and to other Arab states… from a practical standpoint the proposal is sound and proper.”(301) From the moral point of view, however, Ussishkin thought that perhaps it would be difficult. He considered that “no Jew and no Zionist” would say “that the million Arabs now in the country must leave it.”(302)”
The quote you cite is thus as misleading as it is meaningless—it is a mere fragment from a long set of deliberations. It was not about “rebranding” a policy. The policy—transfer—was proposed to the Jews, was considered, deliberated upon, debated heatedly by them with some for and some against, and ultimately rejected. What matters in the end is not what was deliberated upon and debated, but what was decided, and what action was taken or not taken.
The whole function of the “Population Exchange Committee” of the JAE was to prepare proposals that the JAE might submit to the Woodhead Commission. It was a study committee, not a policy making committee, and it held its last meeting in June 1938. After that, it quietly and unofficially disbanded, and not one single of the thirty proposals and memoranda submitted to the Woodhead Commission contain any mention of transfer, compulsory or otherwise. There was thus no policy left to “rebrand”—the policy was dead in the water. There was no “transfer” policy. It sunk with the Peel Proposals.
Said you: “How is this possibly an exaggeration when one side was armed with state of the art weapons, limitless ammunition, tanks, an air force, and the other with WW1 era rifles and a handful rounds? We all know that the Zionist forces tried to argue that they were the weaker side, but that was clearly a rouse to garner world sympathy and support. Such claims from either side proves nothing, other than their capacity to lie.”
Hardly. It does, however, once again “prove” someone else’s well worn capacity for hyperbolic exaggeration, if not lying, and I’ll give you a hint: it isn’t mine.
“[A]rmed with state of the art weapons, limitless ammunition, tanks, [and] an air force?”
Please. At the end of November 1947, the Haganah had 10,662 rifles, 3830 pistols, 3662, 9mm Sten submachine guns, 775 .303 caliber Bren light machine guns, 157 Vickers medium machine guns, 16 anti-tank guns, 670 two-inch mortars, and 84 three-inch mortars. The Haganah had no tanks, no artillery, no anti-aircraft guns, no combat aircraft, about 11 civilian spotter planes, and a few makeshift armored cars (actually trucks with steel plating welded on to them). Ammunition was hardly plentiful: some fifty rounds per rifle, and six to seven hundred rounds per light and medium machine gun. The Arabs were certainly less well armed than the Yishuv, but, considering the arsenal of their competition, that wasn’t saying too much. They, however had other advantages, and they made the best of them.
Said you: “The demographics played no part in the relative strengths of either side, especially seeing as most of the Arabs were vehemently opposed to war.”
Well, it is certainly true that many Arab communities and villages were eager to stay out of the fighting, and did so. Many, by the way, even fled, and in rather large numbers! But the Mufti’s militias and the ALA were not Jeffersonian Democrats, and did not make war by obtaining the consent of the locals to launch attacks on the Yishuv; they did as they pleased, and that was that. This was war.
As I have vainly attempted to explain to you, the Yishuv at this stage was faced with a basic operational problem: their superior numbers, such as they were, could never be concentrated at a single decisive point among the scattered, disconnected settlements in the Negev and Jerusalem areas, and those snaking up the coastal plain and into Galilee. The ability of the Arabs to field their forces on a wide front., and concentrate their individual armies at decisive points of the fronts and settlements, and harass and strangle crucial roadways, created a fundamental asymmetry between them and the Yishuv that the Yishuv’s numerical superiority was powerless to contest. As I said before, the Haganah could count on their tactical superiority and the advantages inherent in the defense to fight back the assaults, but the Arabs had the operational and geographical advantage: they could attack anywhere, anytime, and the Yishuv could not bring their superior strength to bear on meeting every attack and ambush. The Arabs thus had a considerable operational and geographical advantage, and they worked it.
Said you: “So a great deal more than 75,000 were expelled in this period, and yes, they were expelled by force, seeing as the Haganah and co had already committed massacres and Deir Yassin and Lydda during this period.”
They did? Deir Yassin and Lydda did not occur in this period. Deir Yassin occurred on April 9, three days after Operation Nachshon was launched, and Lydda occurred in mid July.
Remember: when I remarked in my July 4 post that the Yishuv had been on the strategic defensive in the five months prior to Operation Nachshon in early April 1948, you replied that, “[The Israelis] used those 5 months very effectively, expelling half of the Palestinians, and destroying half the villages they would eventually end up expelling and destroying.” To which I responded:
“It cannot be anything but obvious to anyone that this is simply untrue. In the first place, the Haganah did not expel “half of the Palestinians,” which would run to about 300,000-400,000 Palestinians (that is if you were referring to the refugees; if you were referring to the total population it would be much higher). Roughly 75,000, perhaps more, at best, fled in this period, and they were not expelled.”
You replied, in turn, that I was incorrect, and that “of course it’s true.” Your quote from Chomsky, however, is irrelevant. It refers to the number of refugees on May 15, more than a month after the fighting had massively escalated and spread as a result of the Yishuv taking the offensive on April 6. The period in which the Yishuv was on the defensive was between the partition vote (Nov. 29, 1947) and the launching of Operation Nachshon (April 6, 1948). You said that the Israelis “used those 5 months very effectively, expelling half of the Palestinians, and destroying half the villages they would eventually end up expelling and destroying.”
You have yet to demonstrate how “half the Palestinians” (some 300,000-400,000) were “expelled” in this period, and how the Yishuv went about the business of “destroying half the villages they would eventually end up expelling and destroying,” whatever that means. Morris, in his most recent study of the conflict, estimates about 75,000 or more fled in this period, and that they fled, and were not expelled, except in the case of Qisariya. If Morris is wrong about this, and you are right, you have yet to demonstrate and document how this is so. Where, in this period, did these massive expulsions of hundreds of thousands occur, and when? Can you, for example, list the Haganah (or other) units involved in these expulsions?
Said you: “It was only a war once the British allowed the Arab armies to enter Palestine, and even then, the Zionist forces had an overwhelming advantage, especially seeing as Glubb and Abdul-Huda had already assured the British they would not enter the Jewish territory.”
While it is certainly true that ‘Abdullah had decided at the last moment before the pan-Arab invasion of May 14 to confine his objectives to seizing as much of the West Bank as possible, it doesn’t negate the fact that Syrian, Iraqi, and Egyptian attacks both into and toward Jewish held areas were occurring all around the crescent shaped perimeter that the Yishuv were presently holding, causing them to disperse their forces, thus creating a fundamental asymmetry between them and the Arabs not dissimilar to the situation in December and January, though this time the Yishuv were far more numerous and better equipped.
Well, that about finishes it. Nice chatting with you, old boy, as always!
Shingo,
The Irgun attacked the Arab villages of Tira near Haifa, Yehudiya (‘Abassiya) in the center, and Shuafat by Jerusalem. The Irgun also attacked in the Wadi Rushmiya neighborhood in Haifa and Abu Kabir in Jaffa.
You’re the one who has to be kidding. It never ceases to amaze me how Zionists love to hype the near superhuman powers of the Mufti. Contrary to your claims, Lockman does not state Taha was murdered by the Mufti, but that “it was generally believed” he was was killed on orders of al-Husayni.
No evidence is given.
The Mufti had been in exile a decade by the time of Sami Tahs’s murder, and he had no following in Palestine, so clearly, he could not have murdered Taha. The AHC was no longer operational, with it’s leaders expelled. God knows where lockman got the idea that Husayni enjoyed any domination by 1947, when he’d become entirely irrelevant. Even more laughable, is the claim that PAWS had ties with some of the exiled Mufti’s political rivals, when the entire leadership was in exile.
Contrary to Lickman’s claims, Jews were indeed apprehended for Tahs’s murder.
You were not correct nor accurate, but vague and deliberately misleading. First you cites 2 incidents (as opposed to Arab violence began against Jewish targets all over Palestine) and you deliberately omitted Ben Gurion’s speech on the 3rd of December, explicitly rejecting the borders of 181 and rejecting any Palestinian state.
I understand why you had to be so dishonest about this, as your phoney thesis would have fallen apart otherwise.
Furthermore, you tried to suggest that the so called “attacks” against Efal kibbutz and the Hatikva quarter was evidence that the Palestinians were well armed, when in facts, they were easily repelled and beaten precisely because they weren’t.
All of the Palestinian militias lacked a central organizing authority because they had no leadership to speak of. As you subsequently admit, there was little co-ordination between the rag tag groups of volunteers.
The Arab Liberation Army (which was lead by Fawzi al-Qawuqji) was anything but an army, with it’s numbers barely reaching 6,000 (fewer than the active members of the Irgun and Stern Gang), thus, there were no prominent militias apart from them.
There was no Palestinian war effort. The militias were confined to trying vainly to defend their Arab villages and towns from the assault by the Zionsit forces, but they were easily overwhelmed.
False. As I pointed out, there had been no Arab leaders in Palestine since 1937.
Oh pleaser, get real. 2 weeks prior to that, (Feb 2) a news report was aired stating the Zionists were doing precisely that:
“A direct challenge to the United Nations and it’s powers of war prevention comes from Palestine. The definition of legal and illegal forces becomes daily more obscure. Haganah, the force first legally raised for the defence of Jewish settlements, appear to function hang in glove with Irgun Svai Leumi, the outlawed terrorist army. Full scale training is under way in a score of camps throughout the country. There is no shortage of arms or ammunition.”
As for the Commission reported to the Security Council, your quote is ONE of the items reported (labelled (c)). Once again we find you cherry picking your quotes and going to great lengths to omit was is incovenient to your hasbara.
Under a) what we find is this statement:
”The security situation in Palestine continues to be aggravated not only in the areas of the proposed Jewish and Arab States , but also in the city of Jerusalem, even in the presence of British troops.
So the UN Palestine Commission was being given a hostile reception in both territories, not just Arab. The delegates from member states, including the U.S., arrived at the conclusion that the plan was impracticable, and, furthermore, that the Security Council had no authority to implement such a plan except by mutual consent by concerned parties, which was absent. Furthermore, parties, which was absent in this case. The U.S., Syria, and other member nations were correct in their observations that, while the Security Council did have authority to declare a threat to the peace and authorize the use of force to deal with that and maintain or restore peace and security, it did not have any authority to implement by force a plan to partition Palestine contrary to the will of most of its inhabitants.
And most importantly, far from upholding its founding principles, the U.N. effectively acted to prevent the establishment of an independent and democratic state of Palestine, in direct violation of the principles of its own Charter.
Yes, we all know how good you are at the cut and paste Robert, but you do yourself no favors by plagiarising paragraphs at a time without quotes. Husseini’s comment to the Security Council was of no consequence and an example of baselss hubris, The ALA didn’t even come into existence in March, nearly 4 months into the civil war, so the ALA could hardly have taken credit for beginning the fight.
That’s not what I said. You mentioned the December 4th violence, yet failed to mention that the Ben Gurion denounced the partition and the idea of an Arab State the day before. That’s the principal of cause and effect. The connection between Ben Gurion’s speech and the outbreak of the violence is hardly controversial.
At the Dec 3 meeting, Ben-Gurion declared that “the borders are bad from a military and political point of view.” He also explained that
“in the area allotted to the Jewish state there are not more than 520,000 Jews and about 350,000 non-Jews, mostly Arabs (apart from the Jews of Jerusalem, who will also be citizens of the state). The Jewish state, at the time of its establishment, will be about a million people, almost 40 percent non-Jews. Such a composition does not provide a stable basis for a Jewish state. This fact must be seen in all of its clarity and acuteness. Such a composition does not even give us absolute assurance that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority”
So by your own admission, there was no war to speak of. Violence most certainly, but it proved to be little more than an inconvenience for the Zionist forces, who easily accounted for the resistance to their take over of Palestine and certainly posed to hindrance to their plans for ethnic cleasing.
Yes the Arabs rejected the partition, which gave one Jews (one third of the population at the time) ,three times more land than the area allotted to them by the Peel plan and 55% of Palestine. The Arabs were right to reject it both on grounds of morality and equity. Needless to say, the Zionists only agreed to it in principal and regarded it as temporary anyway.
Ben Gurion had already stopped talking to the Arab League a decade earlier, and rather than endorse Eban’s icdea of Jewish-Arab conciliation and cooperation, endorsed the Transfer committee.
Oh please, stop embarrassing yourself Robert.
The Zionist forces had already been attacking the British in Palestine and throughout Europe. Zionist terror groups tried to bomb British political leaders in London and carried out terror attacks in Europe.
Winston Churchill, then former PM, commented about the Zionist terror attacks saying that:
“They have shocked the world. They have affected strongly people like me, who in the past, have been consistent friends of the Jews and constant architects of their future. However, the British refrain from a violent response to acts of Zionist terrorism, even though the were seventy-five thousand British soldiers in Palestine”
You are right, there is simply no room for serious debate on this. The Arabs did not inflict any coordinated attack against the Yishuv in response to the partition because there was no coordinated Arab response to speak of. And contrary to your claims that they they rejected any independent, sovereign Jewish entity in any part of Palestine, it was Ben Gurion who explicitly did so during his December 3rd speech.
Israel were expelling Palestinians, as they had long vowed to do so for more than half a century, and made no secret of it. No Arab governments participated in war against the Yishuv in Palestine, but against Zionist forces illegally amassed in Palestine, which is why none of the armies invaded Israel.
No, the attacks were sporadic, and spontaneous and lacked in coordination. It was the resistance to the Zionist forces that grew in sophistication, albeit futile and ineffectual. There was no operational or geographical advantage, given that the Haganah had a very effective air force, which assured their dominance in all of Palestine.
The reprisals by the ALA in January posed no problem whatsoever for the Hanagah, who were setting off bombs in Jaffa and Jerusalem. In a letter (January 6, 1948), the British High Commissioner for Palestine sent a letter to Ben-Guirion, inquiring if the Haganah had been behind the Semaramis Hotel bombing. 2 days later (Jan 8), DBG sent a letter in response, admitting that the Haganah was responsible.
During the first 3 months on 1948. the Zionsits were responsible for dozens of bombings in cities and villages and killings on roads, carried out by Mistaravim (disguised as Arabs). They blew up homes, and planted explosives at night.
The Arabs resisting Zionist forces but in no position to wage war against the Yishuv., though I agree that those that did resits displayed bravery against overwhelming odds.
Catching you in lies is all to easy Robert. Your selective quotations are vulnerable to anyone who can use Google.
But that is clearly a lie Robert. There is absolutely no evidence that the Yishuv ever rejected transfer. None whatsoever – even among the sources you provided. The transfer plan was simply re branded to sound less offensive to the intentional community, but it remained the same plan regardless.
And as history has illustrated, the only plan that was fated to land in the dustbin were those that opposed transfer.
Your obsessive reference to the Greco-Turkish ethnic ceasing doesn’t help you in any way, seeing as Hitler also cited the war crimes of the Greco-Turkish plan to justify his own sadistic agenda. In fact, one could argue that the expulsion of the Palestinians very much mirrored the those of the Greco-Turkish expulsion.
The understanding that the Arabs would not transfer voluntarily was seen as a problem, but not a hindrance to Transfer plans, as Ben Gurion pointed out on countless occasions. None of the speeches you cited to the Peel Comission ever denounced that the Zionist leadership would not take this matter into it’s own hands. Indeed, Ben Guirion stated explicitly that Jewish power would achieve this aim, as indeed it did. Ben Gurion never stopped insisting that transfer was fundamental to the Peel Commision.
Your obsession with the Woodhead Commission is equally futile seeing as it was rejected by both the Zionist leaderships and the Arabs.
As you pointed out, the Woodhead Commission survived only 3 months. In any case, the Woodhead Commission only ever thought to touch on the plan of “voluntary exchanges of land and population”, which the Zionist leadership rejected anyway.
That pretty much says it all, because while Jewish opinion was divided on this question, the Zionist leadership was not. Therefore my argument stands. At no point did the Zionist leadership reject the idea of coerced transfer.
It proves that you are lying and selectively quoting. As I pointed out, “Ben-Gurion suggested that they compromise by altering the wording “compulsory transfer” to some other phrase – connected either with citizenship or agricultural zoning – having the same force.
So in spite of all your BS, what you insist was a rejection of the transfer plans was simply an exercise in altering the wording “compulsory transfer” to some other phrase.
There is no arguing this point Robert. The Zionist leadership was committed to transfer and never wavered from it.
All that proves is that they were holding discussions about the feasibility of transfer and how to pull it off with the least amount of harm. It proves nothing. What is laughable however, is that you have contradicted yourself.
You claimed that the Zionist leadership had not made any proposals for transfer to the Woodhead Commission, yet you now admit that they had extensive discussions about the feasibility of transfer.
Of course, putting all your eggs in the Woodhead Commission basket is futile, seeing as in May 1944 Ben-Gurion expressed without restraint, his conviction that transferring the Palestinian Arabs was inherent in the very conception of Zionism. He said:
“Zionism is a TRANSFER of the Jews. Regarding the TRANSFER of the [Palestinian] Arabs this is much easier than any other TRANSFER. There are Arab states in the vicinity . . . . and it is clear that if the [Palestinian] Arabs are removed [to these states] this will improve their condition and not the contrary.” (Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 159)
Clearly, Ben-Gurion had not lost any enthusiasm for the idea of expuslion of the Palestinians, six years after the Woodhead Commission had been terminated.
That was November 1947, over the coming months. the Haganah indeed acquired have an air force, tanks, artillery etc. In any case, the Arabs wee stuck with WWI era weapons and the ratio was such that one arab with a rifle was faced with 6 well armed Jewish fighters. The Arabs had no advantages to speak of.
Under fear of extermination yes.
Your claims of operational problems of the Yishuv are indeed in in vain, given that they had such military superiority. Such operational issues never compromised the Zionist forces’ capacity to deal with the rag tag Palestinians groups.
At no stage were they required to rely on their superior numbers.
The Arabs had no ability to to field their forces on a wide front because they had no central command, any leadership to speak of and any form of organisation. To coin your own terminology, the most they could do was “harass” the Yishuv and present and inconvenience the Zionist forces, but little beyond that.
The Arabs had no operational or geographical advantage to speak of, which is why they failed so miserably.
Not Lydda, but the period we are discussing is the 5 months between UN181 and Israel’s declaration of independence, during which the Arab armies were prevented from entering Palestine by the British.
There were a number of other massacres at Tantura, Lodd and many others.
The Yishuv were never on any strategic defensive in the five months prior to Operation Nachshon in early April 1948, which is why the Haganah were able to exploit those 5 months to expel half of the Palestinians.
I’ll take Chiomsky’s word over yours any day. The Arab forces were not allowed into Palestine until the British withdrew, so the period up to May 15 that Chomsky referred to is indeed relevant.
So I have no need to demonstrate how “half the Palestinians” (some 300,000-400,000) were “expelled” in this period.
Jewish held areas outside of Israel of course, and not only that, but Jewish held areas outside of Israel where Zionist forces were residing.
I really don’t see what you are trying to achieve by your desperate and verbose cutting and pasting from Karsh. You’ve lost the argument and no one is buying your BS. The Zionist leadership expelled 750,000 or more Palestinians and they did so according to a desire and a plan they had in place before hostilities broke out.
There’s no point denying it and your conflation and spin is convincing no one. Moshe Sharett said it best when he was ending his career in the mid-1950s. He came to the conclusion that Israel cannot be ruled without deceit as if it’s essential for the Jewish state’s survival. He wrote just before resigning that:
“I have learned that the state of Israel cannot be ruled in our generation without deceit and adventurism. These are historical facts that cannot be altered. . . In the end, history will justify both the stratagems and deceit and the acts of adventurism. All I know is that I, Moshe Sharett, am not capable of them, and I am therefore unsuited to lead this country” (Simha Flapan, p. 52-53).
In other word, what Moshe Sharett is saying that the “Jewish state” is incapable of surviving without lying to its citizens and the rest of the world; in fact it has been national security for the “Jewish state” to do so.
You’re simply another tool in that exercise.
Shingo,
You earlier said: “As I pointed out to you, and you continue to ignore, the Zionist attacks against Arabs were already in full swing.”
And:
“If the Haganah was caught flat footed by the outbreak of hostilities the day after the partition vote, it was because they had already begun expelling Palestinians and destroying Arab villages.”
To which I replied on July 15:
“[Y]ou have yet to produce evidence of these “expulsions” and villages being destroyed that were supposedly taking place in the period just before the partition vote, and immediately (i.e., the first two weeks) afterward. I ask you again: What villages were destroyed and when? When and where were they expelled from and to, and how many?”
To which you then replied on July 18:
“The Irgun attacked the Arab villages of Tira near Haifa, Yehudiya (‘Abassiya) in the center, and Shuafat by Jerusalem. The Irgun also attacked in the Wadi Rushmiya neighborhood in Haifa and Abu Kabir in Jaffa.”
This is a non response, and you know it. Nobody, least of all me, denies, or has denied, that the Stern and Irgun terrorists were carrying out terrorist attacks in this period. The Stern and Irgun terrorists did not destroy villages and expel their inhabitants, however much they would have liked to. They were not anywhere near large enough to carry out such a task, or tasks. Such “expulsions” were simply not occurring in this period. I think you need to either acknowledge that you are wrong about this, or produce evidence to support your argument, something you have signally failed to do as of yet. So I ask you again: What villages were being destroyed and when in this period (immediately following the partition vote)? When and where were the inhabitants expelled to and from, and how many?
I pointed out in my July 10 post that Arab attacks began on November 30, the day after the partition vote when a Jewish ambulance en route to the Hadassah Hospital came under fire, and a group of Arabs ambushed a Jewish bus traveling from Netanya to Jerusalem, killing five and wounding seven, and another attacked another Jewish bus en route to Jerusalem from Hadera, killing two.
Casting doubt on whether these attacks (and others) were inspired by the partition vote the day before, you replied on July 11:
“The murder of Sami Taha in September by Jewish activists had already set the ball in motion, so the “ambush” could well have been a revenge attack.”
To which I replied in my July 15 post:
“You have to be kidding. I’m not sure where you pulled this one from, but it is simply not true. According to Zachary Lockman in his “Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906–1948,” Taha was murdered by the Mufti…”
To which you replied on July 18:
“You’re the one who has to be kidding. It never ceases to amaze me how Zionists love to hype the near superhuman powers of the Mufti. Contrary to your claims, Lockman does not state Taha was murdered by the Mufti, but that “it was generally believed” he was was killed on orders of al-Husayni. No evidence is given.
The Mufti had been in exile a decade by the time of Sami Tahs’s murder, and he had no following in Palestine, so clearly, he could not have murdered Taha. The AHC was no longer operational, with its leaders expelled. God knows where Lockman got the idea that Husayni enjoyed any domination by 1947, when he’d become entirely irrelevant. Even more laughable, is the claim that PAWS had ties with some of the exiled Mufti’s political rivals, when the entire leadership was in exile. Contrary to Lockman’s claims, Jews were indeed apprehended for Tahs’s murder.”
After reading this reply of yours, I decided to consult Professor Lockman himself on the matter. Professor Zachary Lockman is currently Professor of modern Middle East history and chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University. I sent him the following e-mail on July 18:
“Professor Lockman,
My name is Robert Werdine, and I am currently engaged in a debate on the Mondoweiss blog with a commenter who insists, incredibly, that the violence and mayhem that ensued in Palestine in the immediate aftermath of the UN partition vote was not due to the Arabs’ rejection of the partition, but were (possibly) acts of revenge for the (alleged) killing of Sami Taha by Jewish activists.
That the violence was not incited by the murder of Taha is, I’m sure you will agree, safely beyond dispute. But when I disputed this commenter’s assertion that Taha was killed by Jewish activists by citing your own assertion in your excellent “Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in Palestine, 1906-1948″ that Taha had been clashing with the Mufti and was likely murdered on his orders, this commenter asserted that you were wrong, and that Jewish activists were arrested for Taha’s murder.
It seems to me most unlikely that Taha was murdered by Jews, as he was, unlike the Mufti, something of a conciliatory figure. Why would they do it?
My questions are:
–Is there any connection, that you are aware of, between Taha’s murder and the outbreak of violence following the partition vote?
–Is it possible that Taha was murdered by Jewish activists?
–Who other than the Mufti would have had a motive?
–Did the Mufti likely murder Taha?
Thank you, Sir, for any consideration you could give to these questions. I am a great admirer of your work.
Best regards,
Robert Werdine”
Professor Lockwood answered me the same day with the following reply, which I quote verbatim with his permission:
“Dear Mr. Werdine,
In my research for the book I never (as far as I can recall) came across any indication, much less evidence, that Jews were arrested for Sami Taha’s murder. It is of course possible that I missed something, but I never saw any report or insinuation of such a thing in the press or in an archival document, or heard any suggestion from (Arab or Jewish) trade unionists and others I interviewed that this is what happened. And I wonder which Jews or Jewish group might have had an interest in assassinating him at that moment, and to what end?
It seems much more plausible to me that he was in fact killed by agents or supporters of the Husayni camp, engaged in that period in settling accounts, silencing critics and rivals, and bringing people and organizations in line in preparation for the approaching struggle against partition; and as I noted in the book, in the weeks before his murder Taha had been accused in the pro-Husayni press of being a Zionist agent.
Moreover, to attribute the violence that erupted immediately after the adoption of the partition resolution to Taha’s murder seems very far-fetched, if that is what someone is claiming. For one, two and a half months intervened between the two dates, so the timing would not seem to work very well; and while Taha’s assassination attracted attention at the time it was soon forgotten as other dramatic events ensued.
With best wishes, Zachary Lockman”
That, it seems to me, settles the matter. The notion that the Arab violence following the partition was in anything other than in response to the partition, which the Arabs volubly and bitterly opposed and vowed to fight, was and is preposterous on its face. The notion that the attacks were in response, or even in relation to, Sami Taha’s murder the previous September, or that Taha was murdered by Jewish activists, are even more so. These are pure fabrications on your part, unsubstantiated by any evidence. Of course, if you have research or documentation to refute or even dispute any of the Professor’s findings, I am sure the Professor would be most interested to learn about them. I would too.
Said you: “You were not correct nor accurate, but vague and deliberately misleading. First you cited 2 incidents (as opposed to Arab violence began against Jewish targets all over Palestine) and you deliberately omitted Ben Gurion’s speech on the 3rd of December, explicitly rejecting the borders of 181 and rejecting any Palestinian state. I understand why you had to be so dishonest about this, as your phony thesis would have fallen apart otherwise.”
“Dishonest?” You’re really getting desperate. This is beyond disingenuous on your part; it is actually pathetic. This is beginning to resemble some of David Samel’s better efforts to catch me in a “lie.”
Allow me to quote myself, again. I said:
“Up until December 4, most of the Arab violence was scattershot and the result of intifada-like incited mayhem. It was on December 4, however, that the real Palestinian Arab assault began in earnest, when some 120-150 armed Arabs attacked the Efal kibbutz, the first small unit military attack on a Jewish settlement, and on December 8 Hasan Salame, commander of the Lydda front, launched another large-scale attack on the Hatikva quarter in south Tel-Aviv. Two days later there was another abortive assault on the Hatikva, and an armed assault on the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem. All these company-sized attacks were repulsed, but they set the pattern for the conflict, which was evolving from mob rioting and armed clashes to more military/guerilla style small unit operations. It was not until December 9 that the Hagana’s head of operations, Yigael Yadin began responding in kind to consolidate and protect crucial Jewish transportation arteries. The war had begun, and the Arabs were attacking the Yishuv, not the other way around.”
This was the truth, and nothing but. The partition was violently rejected by both the Arab and Palestinian leadership and, it would seem, most of the people, though what percentage of the Palestinian people might have supported the partition is unknown to me (I would be interested to find out, if anyone here knows. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out that many did). The anger provoked by the partition vote was first expressed in rioting and other acts of random mob violence, some spontaneous, some organized, and then led to organized military attacks on the Jewish settlements by militias. The military attacks, as I said, grew in scope, scale, frequency and sophistication as time went on. This is what happened. Some of the mob violence was spontaneous and some orchestrated, but all of the violence against the Jews sprang from one source: the rejection of the partition, which the Arabs hated and felt to be unjust to them.
Now, what, in any of this, is “dishonest,” or even remotely inaccurate? You simply have not made your argument on this with anything even remotely resembling evidence or testimony. I ask you again: Please produce evidence that the violence following the partition, both the mob violence of the first few days, and the military attacks that followed, bore no relation to the partition. I mean, what are you arguing here? That the Arabs were furious about the partition and had openly sworn to fight it, but that the violence they were wreaking against Jewish targets in the days following the vote was about something else—perhaps a delayed reaction to the death of a labor leader a few months before, or some speech by David Ben Gurion? What in the world ever inspired you to advance such an utterly ludicrous argument in the first place?
As for my “omission” of Ben Gurion’s December 3 speech, well, yes, that was deliberate, and for the simple reason that there is not a shred of evidence that this speech (which you have still not quoted in full, untruncated form—more about that later, though) even remotely played any role in the outbreak of the violence. My refusal to subscribe to your preposterous conspiracy theory on this does not make me “dishonest.” It just makes you look silly.
Said you: “Furthermore, you tried to suggest that the so called “attacks” against Efal kibbutz and the Hatikva quarter was evidence that the Palestinians were well armed, when in facts, they were easily repelled and beaten precisely because they weren’t.”
And,
“There was no Palestinian war effort. The militias were confined to trying vainly to defend their Arab villages and towns from the assault by the Zionist forces, but they were easily overwhelmed.”
Well, both of these statements would appear to be consistent with your absurd “there was no war” thesis.
“[W]ere easily repelled and beaten precisely because they weren’t [well armed]?”
“The militias were confined to trying vainly to defend their Arab villages and towns from the assault by the Zionist forces, but they were easily overwhelmed?”
As far as the first statement is concerned, what in the world could this be based on? There is not a shred of evidence that either attacks failed because of lack of arms and/or ammunition. While the Palestinian militias certainly had severe arms shortages (as I have previously acknowledged), there is nothing to indicate that they lacked sufficient arms to carry out these particular attacks; quite the contrary. Salame’s December 4 attack on Ef’al provoked a furious firefight, and was only repelled by the timely arrival of Palmah reinforcements.
The attack on the Hatikva Quarter was even fiercer. Like the Romans sallying off to defeat Hannibal at Cannae in 216 b.c., Salame’s fighters had set off to Hatikva with a full detail of bags, sacks, and other luggage for the spoils and booty they expected to reap after their victory. In the melee that ensued, Salame’s fighters drove back the Haganah a bit, and even captured a few houses, promptly looting them and then putting them to the torch—a grim foretaste as to what would have happened had the Quarter fallen to them. Only when Haganah reinforcements arrived (by circuitously infiltrating British patrols) were the Arabs beat back, and put to flight, leaving sixty dead behind them. Alas, as with the Romans, there was no victory to be had.
There is thus no evidence that the attacks failed for lack of arms or ammo. The reasons for the failure of the two attacks, in my view, probably can be traced to two factors: poor tactics and leadership on the part of the attackers, and the advantages accruing to the defenders of defending against the attack, instead of being the attackers.
Let me explain. In infantry encounters not involving mobile forces (tanks, mechanized infantry, etc.) or aircraft, the defense always has the advantage. The attacker must expose himself out in the open while the defender can shoot at the attacker from under or behind cover. In the American Civil War the long range rifle, which enabled defenders to pick off their enemies from long distances, made attacks very expensive for the attackers. World War One demonstrated the advantages of the defense even more so: The machine gun made almost every infantry attack an exercise in futility. The Germans at Verdun, and the British at the Somme and Passhendale launched attacks against well fortified entrenchments where their infantry were literally mowed down like corn in the tens of thousands to negligible gains. The British, in fact, lost nearly 20,000 killed and nearly 40,000 wounded on the first day of the battle of the Somme—the largest number killed and wounded in the history of the British army. Simply put, the advantages that the rifle and the machine gun gave the defense made both of these wars two of the bloodiest wars of attrition ever fought.
Thus, without the benefit of tanks, artillery, or aircraft, the attacking Arabs, unless they could achieve the advantage of surprise, were unlikely to prevail in these encounters where the advantages rested with the defenders. Besides bad planning and crude tactics, the exposure of the attackers to the automatic small-arms gunfire of the defenders also probably accounts for their much higher casualties. It seems that many of these earlier Arab attacks were executed by simply throwing units of untrained militia against this or that settlement, and just hoping for the best. They could inflict serious punishment nonetheless, causing the Yishuv to scatter their forces from one hot spot to another, and hitting their communications. Later on the Arabs would learn from their errors and devise more sophisticated tactics, like softening up targets with mortar and heavy machine gun fire, as they did at Yechiam (January 16) and Tirat-Svi (February 16), and launching diversionary frontal assaults to supplement sharp flank attacks, as Abd al-Qader al-Husayni did in the attack on Etzion Bloc (January 14).
In any event, there is no evidence that the attacks on Ef’al and Hatikva failed because of lack of arms or ammo. While the Palestinians had severe arms shortages, they always had more than enough to conduct attacks when they chose to do so. And they certainly did on these two occasions.
As for your second statement: “There was no Palestinian war effort. The militias were confined to trying vainly to defend their Arab villages and towns from the assault by the Zionist forces, but they were easily overwhelmed.”
In the period between the passing of the partition Nov.29, 1947 and April 6, 1948, I am certainly aware of retaliatory attacks (actually, revenge killings) by the Haganah on Khisas in Galilee on December 19, Balad ash Sheik and Hawasa on Dec.31-Jan.1, and the Semiramis Hotel in west Jerusalem on January 5-6 (in which some 26 civilians died). There were also certainly a series of small counter-assaults on other small targets in this period, but the Haganah was, by and large, on the defensive in this period. But other than these mentioned, and, of course, terrorist attacks by the Stern and Irgun, what did this “assault by Zionist forces” on Palestinian militias that were “easily overwhelmed” consist of? Where did these “assaults” take place? What villages were “overwhelmed”? What forces were involved?
Said you:
“As I pointed out, there had been no Arab leaders in Palestine since 1937.”
It is certainly true that the Arab revolt had fractured the then-Palestinian leadership. But in June of 1946, the foreign ministers of the Arab league created the Arab High Executive (AHE) with Haj Amin al-Husseini as chairman and Jamal Husseini as vice-chairman. With the Mufti’s return to Cairo, the nine member AHE was renamed the AHC (Arab High Committee), and the Mufti influenced Palestinian affairs from there. The AHC was the recognized leadership, such as it was, of Arab Palestine, even if other Arab leaders overrode and marginalized him when it suited them, which was often. The Husseini’s anti-opposition terrorism against the Nashashibis and others in the previous years had largely eliminated rivals for their power by this time. The Mufti had agents and supporters all over Palestine that were directly answerable to him and his brother. For the British Mandatory government, the Mufti and his brother were the ones with whom Atlee and Cunningham dealt.
When I pointed out that the UN Palestine Commission held the Arabs responsible for the attacks, and the failure to implement the partition, you said:
“Oh please, get real. 2 weeks prior to that, (Feb 2) a news report was aired stating the Zionists were doing precisely that…”
No it doesn’t. Your news report states that that the Haganah “appears’ to be working with the Irgun terrorists. So what? This news report supposedly contradicts and refutes the Palestine Commission’s findings? Please.
You also said:
“As for the Commission reported to the Security Council, your quote is ONE of the items reported (labelled (c)). Once again we find you cherry picking your quotes and going to great lengths to omit what is incovenient to your hasbara. Under a) what we find is this statement:
”The security situation in Palestine continues to be aggravated not only in the areas of the proposed Jewish and Arab States , but also in the city of Jerusalem, even in the presence of British troops.’
So the UN Palestine Commission was being given a hostile reception in both territories, not just Arab.”
In my post, I quoted the following statement from the February 16, 1948 report of the UN Special Commission to the Security Council:
“Powerful Arab interests, both inside and outside Palestine, are defying the resolution of the General Assembly and are engaged in a deliberate effort to alter by force the settlement envisaged therein.”
If this statement is merely one isolated condemnation of the Arabs that I lifted out of the context of a report in which Jews and Arabs were equally blamed for the violence, then I would, without question, be guilty of “cherry picking.” Let us by all means see if that is the case, and if my alleged fraud is to be exposed.
Now, implicit in you statement (“the UN Palestine Commission was being given a hostile reception in both territories, not just Arab) and your quote from the report, is the notion that the UN Commission found both the Jews and Arabs to be equally at fault for the violence and the rejection of the partition. But this is simply false. The statement that you quote merely says that the situation in both areas continues to be “aggravated.” It does not state, here at least, what the source of the aggravation is. It does, however, do so in the statement I quoted, and the report elaborates further on this statement in the most thorough and unequivocal terms in the subsequent section of the report.
The statements quoted by both of us (sections a. and c.) are derived from section one of the report (“MAIN CONSIDERATIONS”). Here are the remaining four subsections of section two, titled “THE SECURITY SITUATION IN PALESTINE TODAY:
“6. The Secretary-General has been informed by the Arab Higher Committee that it is determined to persist in its rejection of the partition plan and in its refusal to recognize the resolution of the Assembly and “anything deriving therefrom”. The Subsequent communication of 6 February to the Secretary-General from the representative of the Arab Higher Committee set forth the following conclusions of the Arab Higher Committee Delegation:
“a. The Arabs of Palestine will never recognize the validity of the extorted partition recommendations or the authority of the United Nations to make them.
“b. The Arabs of Palestine consider that any attempt by the Jews or any power or group of powers to establish a Jewish State in Arab territory is an act of aggression which will be resisted in self-defense by force.
c. It is very unwise and fruitless to ask any commission to proceed to Palestine because not a single Arab will cooperate with the said commission.
d. The United Nations or its commission should not be misled to believe that its efforts in the partition plan will meet with any success. It will be far better for the eclipsed prestige of this organization not to start on this adventure.
e. The United Nations prestige will be better served by abandoning, not enforcing such an injustice.
f. The determination of every Arab in Palestine is to oppose in every way the partition of that country.
g. The Arabs of Palestine made a solemn declaration before the United Nations, before God and history, that they will never submit or yield to any power going to Palestine to enforce partition.
“The only way to establish partition is first to wipe them out – man women and child.”
7. The Commission has no reason to doubt the determination and force of the organized resistance to the plan of partition by strong Arab elements inside and outside of Palestine. In an official report, dated 4 February 1948, the Mandatory Power states that:
“1. The High Commissioner for Palestine reported on 27 January that the security position had become more serious during the preceding week with the entry into Palestine of large parties of trained guerrillas from adjacent territory. A band of some 300 men had established itself in the Safad area of Galilee, and it was probably this band or part of it which carried out an intensive attack during that week on Yechiam settlement, using mortars and heavy automatics as well as rifles.
2. On the same date, the High Commissioner further reported that a second large band of some 700 Syrians had entered Palestine via Trans-Jordan during the night of 20-21 January. This band had its own mechanized transport, its members were well equipped and provisioned, and wore battle dress. The party appears to have entered Trans-Jordan from Syria and then crossed into Palestine at a point at which the entry of Syrians was not expected. The Syrian and Lebanese frontiers are manned on the Palestine side by both troops and police, although the nature of the border country makes it extremely difficult to secure the entire frontier against illegal entry, especially at night. On arrival in Palestine, this band appears to have dispersed, and its is thus now impracticable to deal with it by military action. So far as is known, its numbers have not engaged in illegal activity beyond the possession of arms.
3. Arab morale is considered to have risen steadily as a result of these reinforcements, of the spectacular success of the Hebron Arabs in liquidating a Haganah column near Surif, and of the capture and successful dismantling by the Arab National Guard of a Jewish van filled with explosives which was to have been detonated in an Arab locality. Even the relatively serious loss of life and damage to property caused by Jewish reprisals, have, in the High Commissioner’s view, failed to check the revival of confidence in the fellaheen and urban proletariat. Panic continues to increase, however, throughout the Arab middle classes, and there is a steady exodus of those who can afford to leave the country.
4. Subsequent reports dated 2 February indicate that a further party of troops belonging to the ‘Arab Liberation Army’ arrived in Palestine via the Jisr Djamiyeh Bridge during the night of 29-30 January. The party, numbering some 950 men transported in 19 vehicles, consisted largely of non-Palestinian Arabs, all in uniform and well armed. It is now dispersed in small groups throughout villages of the Nablus, Jenin, and Tulkarm sub-districts. The security forces have taken action to prevent further incursions across the Jisr Djamiyeh and the Sheikh Husseini Bridges.”
8. A subsequent communication from the Mandatory Power under date of 9 February 1948, also reports that:
“A report has been received from Jerusalem to the effect that it is now definitely established that a second party of some seven hundred guerrillas (believed to be under the command of Fawzi Bay al Kankji) entered Palestine via Djamiyeh Bridge on 29th/30th January. It is understood that this band dispersed rapidly among the villages of Samaria and that there is now in that district a force of not less than 1400. Although this force has dispersed, it remains cohesive and is increasingly exercising considerable administrative control over the whole area. As an instance of this, the force has of its own accord and in collaboration with Arab National Committee, already deals with local bandits and other petty crimes. The presence of this force, which exhibits a surprising degree of discipline, has been warmly welcomed by the inhabitants of Samaria. It appears anxious to avoid becoming involved with the British Security forces. The secrecy which cloud the entry of the second contingent is due to a deliberate and successfully imposed policy of silence.
“Individual attacks by Arabs on British troops and police have increased. These are due partly to a desire to obtain arms even at the price of murder, and partly to nervousness, particularly in rural areas, caused by the frequent use by the Jews of British uniform in order to facilitate offensive action.”
9. The main facts controlling the security situation in Palestine today are the following:
a. Organized effect by strong Arab elements inside and outside Palestine to prevent the implementation of the Assembly’s plan of partition and to thwart its objectives by threats and acts of violence, including armed incursions into Palestinian territory.
b. Certain elements of the Jewish community in Palestine continue to commit irresponsible acts of violence which worsen the security situation, although that Community is generally in support of the recommendations of the Assembly.
c. The added complication created by the fact that the Mandatory Power, which remains responsible for law and order in Palestine until the termination of the Mandate, is engaged in the liquidation of its administration and preparing for the evacuation of its troops.”
One thing is obvious from this report: the Commissioners apparently did not get your memo about there being “no war in Palestine,” “no Palestinian leadership,” or “no Palestinian war effort,” much less that Jews had rejected the partition and were even equally to blame for the violence. There could not be a more thorough, more complete discrediting of your whole ludicrous “no Palestinian war/no war effort/no leadership” thesis than this report. The report leaves no doubt about the AHC’s utter rejection of the partition and their sworn and bitter determination to resist it’s implementation by force, which is, by the way, what they had been doing since the vote was taken. The report also recounts, in detail, on the activities and attacks of the various Arab militias and the ALA that had been infiltrating from neighboring countries.
The Commission’s conclusions on the security section of the report are unequivocal:
a. Organized effect by strong Arab elements inside and outside Palestine to prevent the implementation of the Assembly’s plan of partition and to thwart its objectives by threats and acts of violence, including armed incursions into Palestinian territory.
b. Certain elements of the Jewish community in Palestine continue to commit irresponsible acts of violence which worsen the security situation, although that Community is generally in support of the recommendations of the Assembly.
What is abundantly clear from all of this is that you not only cherry picked your own quote from the report, but blatantly misrepresented it as well. Not only does your quote from the first section of the report not contradict the statement I quoted, but your assertion that your quote proves that “the UN Palestine Commission was being given a hostile reception in both territories, not just Arab” is simply false. There is simply no getting around this. While the report duly notes the “irresponsible acts of violence” committed by “certain elements of the Jewish community” (i.e., the Stern-Irgun terrorists), the Commission acknowledges the Jews’ acceptance of the partition, and posits blame for the violence almost solely on the Arabs’ rejection of the partition, and their attempts to thwart it by force.
Also, where in the report are the mentions of the massive “expulsions” of Arabs by the Jews, the “villages destroyed” by them, and the supposedly vain efforts of the Palestinian militias to resist the “assault by Zionist forces” in which they were “overwhelmed?” Where indeed?
Said you: “Husseini’s comment to the Security Council was of no consequence and an example of baselss hubris, The ALA didn’t even come into existence in March, nearly 4 months into the civil war, so the ALA could hardly have taken credit for beginning the fight.”
Jamal Husseini’s statement to the Security Council on April 16 was, far from being a statement of “baseless hubris,” completely and utterly consistent with everything that the AHC had told the UN Commission, as well as everything that Arab leaders had been saying both before and after the partition vote. Husseini had earlier told the NY Times that the Arabs “would never allow a Jewish State to be established in one inch of Palestine,” and warned that attempts “to impose any solution contrary to the Arabs’ birthright will only lead to trouble and bloodshed and probably to a third World War.”
As for the ALA, what has this to do with anything? Husseini said nothing in reference to the ALA, nor anything in reference to the ALA taking credit for “beginning the fight.” The Husseinis, in fact, fought hard but failed to prevent the ALA from being commanded by one of the Mufti’s most bitter rivals, Fawzi al-Qawuqji, and complained (correctly) that the ALA would deprive Husseini’s forces of much needed arms and supplies, though the Mufti did manage to secure appointments of two of his protégés, Abd al-Qader al-Husayni, commander of the Jerusalem front, and Hasan Salame, commander of the Lydda front into the Jaysh al-Jihad al-Muqaddas (“Army of the Holy War”). The Husseinis regarded the ALA (and its commander, Fawzi al-Qawuqji) as a rival to their own efforts, and the feeling was mutual: the Arab league had set up the ALA to counter the designs and influence of the Mufti. ‘Abdullah of Jordan set up his own force to thwart those of both the Mufti and the ALA, and Farouk of Egypt set himself against the Mufti, ‘Abdulla, and the ALA, saying: “The Arabs ought to get rid of all three of them: the Mufti, Abdullah, and Qawuqji.”
What a warm, endearing portrait of inter-Arab unity and resolve!
In any event, your statement about the ALA not being formed until March 1948 is simply wrong. According to Morris:
“The largest and best organized Arab formation fighting in Palestine until the pan-Arab invasion of May 1948 was the ALA, consisting mainly of volunteers from Syria, Iraq, and Palestine mustered by the Arab League in Syria. The volunteers were trained in Syrian army camps in Qatana, near Damascus, beginning in November 1947, and the ALA was officially established on January 1, 1948, with Fawzi al-Qawuqji at its head. Company and battalion sized formations entered Palestine from Lebanon and Jordan starting in December-January 1948 and fanned out in the mixed towns, to bolster local Palestinian militia contingents, and in the hill country of Judea and Samaria. They were equipped with a diverse collection of light weapons, light and medium sized mortars, and a number of 75mm and 105mm guns, with a small stock of shells.” (Benny Morris, “A History of the First Arab-Israeli War,” p.90)
It is apparent that Morris, too, did not get your memo about there being “no war in Palestine,” “no Palestinian leadership,” or “no Palestinian war effort.” In any event, the ALA was formed in November 1947 (not March 1948), began infiltrating Palestine the following December, and was officially established on January 1, 1948. Prior to March 1948, the ALA launched attacks on Kfar-Szold (January 10), Yechiam (January 20), and Tirat-Svi (February 16).
Said you: “You mentioned the December 4th violence, yet failed to mention that the Ben Gurion denounced the partition and the idea of an Arab State the day before. That’s the principal of cause and effect. The connection between Ben Gurion’s speech and the outbreak of the violence is hardly controversial.”
You are correct that I deliberately did not mention BG’s speech because it had no known influence on the December 4 attack on the Ef’al kibbutz. And let us be clear: you are positing a causal connection here between BG’s December 3 speech and the December 4 attack on Ef’al. And let us be clear about this: you have yet failed to introduce a shred of evidence of such a connection.
As for the text of the December 3 BG speech to Mapai that I requested, here is what you gave:
“At the Dec 3 meeting, Ben-Gurion declared that “the borders are bad from a military and political point of view.” He also explained that
“in the area allotted to the Jewish state there are not more than 520,000 Jews and about 350,000 non-Jews, mostly Arabs (apart from the Jews of Jerusalem, who will also be citizens of the state). The Jewish state, at the time of its establishment, will be about a million people, almost 40 percent non-Jews. Such a composition does not provide a stable basis for a Jewish state. This fact must be seen in all of its clarity and acuteness. Such a composition does not even give us absolute assurance that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority”
I have one, simple question. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
This is utterly laughable. This is the “rejection” with which you have been decorating this blog, where BG was supposedly “rejecting” the partition, and that supposedly provoked the Arabs to such fury and violence?! Oh, please!
In the first place there is no “rejection” of the partition here; BG is simply stating the facts about the awkward borders of the apportioned Jewish state “from a military and political point of view” and he was right: as I said before, the defense of those lines in a war would be any staff officer’s nightmare. There is no rejection of the partition in this speech.
Secondly, you are here engaging in the very cherry picking of quotes out of context that you (falsely) accused me of earlier. It is understandable that you cut the quote where you did, because the remainder of the speech so utterly contradicts the nefarious and rejectionist sentiments claimed by you that it begs the question of why you would even cite it in the first place. After “Such a composition does not even give us absolute assurance that control will remain in the hands of the Jewish majority,” Ben Gurion says:
“From here stems the first and principal conclusion. The creation of the state is not the formal implementation process discussed by the UN General Assembly. . . . To ensure not only the establishment of the Jewish State but its existence and destiny as well — we must bring a million-and-a-half Jews to the country and root them there. It is only when there will be at least two millions Jews in the country — that the state will be truly established.
There can be no stable and strong Jewish state so long as it has a Jewish majority of only 60 per cent, and so long as this majority consists of only 600,000 Jews. . . .We have been confronted with a new destiny — we are about to become masters of our own fate. This requires a new approach to all our questions of life. We must reexamine all our habits of mind, all our systems of operation to see to what extent they suit our new future. We must think in terms of a state, in terms of independence, in terms of full responsibility for ourselves — and for others. In our state there will be non-Jews as well — and all of them will be equal citizens; equal in everything without any exception; that is: the state will be their state as well.”
There is, by the way, no mention of transfer or expulsion expressed in these sentiments, but another method to increase the Jewish majority of the state: immigration.
Ben Gurion continued: “The attitude of the Jewish State to its Arab citizens will be an important factor—though not the only one—in building good neighbourly relations with the Arab States. If the Arab citizen will feel at home in our state, and if his status will not be the least different from that of the Jew, and perhaps better than the status of the Arab in an Arab state, and if the state will help him in a truthful and dedicated way to reach the economic, social, and cultural level of the Jewish community, then Arab distrust will accordingly subside and a bridge to a Semitic, Jewish-Arab alliance, will be built…” (Ben Gurion’s own words in his Ba-Ma’Araha Vol IV, Part 2, pp. 260, 265) cited from “Fabricating Israeli History,” (1997, Efraim Karsh, p.44)
So that settles it. Ben Gurion did not reject the partition in this speech, and it is therefore impossible that the Arab assault on Ef’al on December 4th, or any other subsequent attack, could have been in response to it. The violence up to the 4th was largely spontaneous and scattershot, but the December 4 assault on Ef’al was the beginning of the military assault in earnest on the Yishuv, to abort the partition and any Jewish sovereign entity, and it would culminate eventually from an inter-communal civil war between the Arab and Palestinian militias and the Yishuv into what would later be a war between Israel and the surrounding Arab states, and the Arabs were the aggressors in both stages of the conflict. The mob violence and the subsequent military assaults all sprang from the same source: rejection of the partition and any Jewish statehood. Ben Gurion’s December 3 speech contained no discernable rejection of the partition or provocation; quite the contrary. If you can find any statement by any Arab leader expressing the warm and friendly sentiments toward Jews that BG had expressed toward Arabs on December 3, I would be most interested to read it.
Said you:
“Yes the Arabs rejected the partition, which gave one Jews (one third of the population at the time) ,three times more land than the area allotted to them by the Peel plan and 55% of Palestine. The Arabs were right to reject it both on grounds of morality and equity.”
This argument ignores the fact that some 550,000 Jews and some 397,000 Arabs would be living in the proposed 55% allotted to the Jewish state, while some 800,000 or more Palestinian Arabs would be living in the 41% of the Arab Palestinian state, and that 62% of the Jewish state envisioned by the partition would have consisted of desert, while the Palestinians were offered the most fertile land. (Some 100,000 Jews and an equal number of Arabs would inhabit the 4% international protectorate of Jerusalem). This further ignores that the rejection of the partition did not stem merely from objections to the specifics of the partition plan (though there was that, of course). The Palestinians, and the Arab world, were, and had been, rejecting any independent Jewish sovereign statehood in any form or size, for quite some time. That, and not some objections to the particulars of the partition, was the crux of the issue. It still is today.
“Ben Gurion had already stopped talking to the Arab League a decade earlier, and rather than endorse Eban’s idea of Jewish-Arab conciliation and cooperation, endorsed the Transfer committee.”
The Arab League was not formed until March of 1945. However, it would not be surprising to find out that BG did not meet with any Arab or Palestinian leaders since 1937, if this is in fact true, since they had been fractured and exiled by the Arab revolt, and their exiled leadership were currently consorting with the Nazis. Given the depth of the Arab/Palestinian rejection of Zionism in Palestine at that time, what, do you imagine they would have had to discuss? Did Arab leaders request a meeting with BG that he spurned? Was there an Arab peace plan floating about that BG was avoiding or thumbing his nose at?
What evidence do you have that BG rejected either Eban’s or Sason’s conciliatory gestures? You present none. Certainly these sentiments by Eban and Sason are consistent with those expressed in BG’s Mapai speech.
When I pointed out that: “There were also physical attacks on British and American legations, so much so that the British government had to make arrangements to evacuate British citizens from Syria.”
To which you replied:
“Oh please, stop embarrassing yourself Robert. The Zionist forces had already been attacking the British in Palestine and throughout Europe. Zionist terror groups tried to bomb British political leaders in London and carried out terror attacks in Europe.”
This is yet another classic Shingo irrelevant, non-response. What are you talking about?
I was describing the widespread violence throughout the Arab world that was occurring in response to the partition (which you were denying). So, being unable to dispute this fact, you pulled out that old all-purpose standby of Stern and Irgun terrorism, as if that in some bizarre way disputes what I said, and which is totally irrelevant to what I was discussing, which were the Arab reactions to the partition vote. .
Said you:
“You are right, there is simply no room for serious debate on this. The Arabs did not inflict any coordinated attack against the Yishuv in response to the partition because there was no coordinated Arab response to speak of. And contrary to your claims that they they rejected any independent, sovereign Jewish entity in any part of Palestine, it was Ben Gurion who explicitly did so during his December 3rd speech.”
You are correct that the Arab response to the partition lacked coordination. There was no master plan of a response. The Arabs simply opposed the partition and vowed to fight it, but were confused and in disagreement about the methods, means, and timing of the effort to abort the partition. The response graduated from uncontrolled, indiscriminate mob violence and crimes against Jewish targets, to small unit, and later company and battalion sized military attacks against the settlements and roadways. You have yet to produce evidence that there was, at this time, any acceptance of an independent Jewish state by any Arab leader because there are none to be produced.
Said you:
“Israel were expelling Palestinians, as they had long vowed to do so for more than half a century, and made no secret of it. No Arab governments participated in war against the Yishuv in Palestine, but against Zionist forces illegally amassed in Palestine, which is why none of the armies invaded Israel.”
Huh? Until May 15, the Arab states waged war in Palestine through their primary proxy, the ALA. What were these “Zionist forces illegally amassed in Palestine?” The Haganah? What are you talking about?
When I said, speaking of the first attacks of the Arabs following the partition, that “The first attacks were sporadic, spontaneous, and lacking in coordination, but they grew in frequency, scale, intensity, and sophistication.”
You replied: “No, the attacks were sporadic, and spontaneous and lacked in coordination. It was the resistance to the Zionist forces that grew in sophistication, albeit futile and ineffectual. There was no operational or geographical advantage, given that the Haganah had a very effective air force, which assured their dominance in all of Palestine.”
This just gets better and better. WHAT AIR FORCE?!! There was no air force, just a few single engine civilian spotter planes. This was the “very effective air force, which assured their dominance in all of Palestine?” Oh, for shame. It is perfectly obvious that whenever you find yourself stumped for a factual response to an argument or fact you dislike you simply make something up and hope someone doesn’t call you on it. Pitiful.
In an earlier post, when I accused you of exaggerating the weaknesses of the Arabs at the outset of the conflict following the partition, you replied:
““How is this possibly an exaggeration when one side was armed with state of the art weapons, limitless ammunition, tanks, an air force, and the other with WW1 era rifles and a handful rounds? We all know that the Zionist forces tried to argue that they were the weaker side, but that was clearly a rouse to garner world sympathy and support. Such claims from either side proves nothing, other than their capacity to lie.”
To which I replied, demolishing this assertion:
“At the end of November 1947, the Haganah had 10,662 rifles, 3830 pistols, 3662, 9mm Sten submachine guns, 775 .303 caliber Bren light machine guns, 157 Vickers medium machine guns, 16 anti-tank guns, 670 two-inch mortars, and 84 three-inch mortars. The Haganah had no tanks, no artillery, no anti-aircraft guns, no combat aircraft, about 11 civilian spotter planes, and a few makeshift armored cars (actually trucks with steel plating welded on to them). Ammunition was hardly plentiful: some fifty rounds per rifle, and six to seven hundred rounds per light and medium machine gun.”
You then replied, not denying you were incorrect:
“That was November 1947, over the coming months. The Haganah indeed acquired have an air force, tanks, artillery etc. In any case, the Arabs wee stuck with WWI era weapons and the ratio was such that one arab with a rifle was faced with 6 well armed Jewish fighters. The Arabs had no advantages to speak of.”
This too, is simply false. In the first civil war stage (Nov.30-April 6, 1948) the Haganah had no heavy artillery (except mortars, and a few howitzers) and no combat aircraft to speak of. And despite the success of the Haganah in defeating the weaker Arab and Palestinian militias in the second stage of the civil war (between early April and May 15), at the outset of the pan-Arab invasion, the defects in the Haganah’s organization and equipment were still apparent, and they were still short of heavy weapons. It had 2 or 3 light tanks (stolen from the British), 12 armored cars, 3 half-tracks, and 3 coastal patrol vessels. It had 28 recon and transport aircraft, but not one single combat fighter or bomber. In the post May 15 period they were able to replenish their arms (mostly infantry and artillery ware) with a considerable bounty, and even got a few fighters and bombers (some of them in crates). By October 1948 the IAF was flying about a dozen serviceable fighters.
The first Arab-Israeli war, in both the civil and pan-Arab invasion stages, was by and large, an old-style infantry war, where the involvement of aircraft and armor were marginal. Also, when attempting to discern the relative strengths at the outset of the conflict, viewing the total numbers of troops listed in an order of battle can be misleading. What matters is the number of soldiers that can be trained, armed, and put into the field. For example, the Haganah at the beginning of hostilities in December had about 35,000 men in uniform, but only 2000 were full time soldiers. By the end of December there were 7500 full time soldiers (2500 of which were Palmahniks). By April there were 24,000, by mid-May at the time of the pan-Arab invasion there were 30,000, and by mid-July there were 64,000.
Though the Haganah had been reforming and refitting itself since Ben Gurion took the defense portfolio in 1946, they had not really begun the process of restructuring itself from a defensive militia into a full-fledged military force until the weeks before the partition vote. On November 7, 1947, Ya’akov Dori, Haganah chief of the general staff, issued an order concerning “the order for a national structure”:
“The danger of an attack on the country by the armies of the neighboring Arab countries…necessitates a different structure and deployment. Opposite regular armies it is imperative to prepare in a military, as opposed to a militia force—trained, armed and structured along military lines.”
According to Morris:
“The restructuring took on a life of its own, fueled by the spread of hostilities that began at the end of November, and the prospect of pan-Arab invasion, and by March 1948, nine brigades had begun to form, with expanding brigade and battalion HQ’s, recruitment centers, training camps, logistical services, and armories. It was a race against time, and everything was in flux; in every sphere there were shortages. The organization and equipping of the brigades was hampered by the continuous operational burdens to which each was subjected by the ongoing war against the Palestinian Arab militias…” (Benny Morris, “1948: The First Arab-Israeli War” p.200)
What was taking place then, in the months between the partition vote and the launching of Operation Nachshon in April 1948 was a hurried, often haphazard process of restructuring, re-equipping, and reorganization, all of which were occurring under the strain of a sustained military assault on the settlements and the roadways between them. It is thus even more doubtful that the Haganah would find the time, the manpower, and the resources to expel some 300,000-400,000 Palestinians and destroy their villages in this period, but more about that below.
Said you:
“The Yishuv were never on any strategic defensive in the five months prior to Operation Nachshon in early April 1948, which is why the Haganah were able to exploit those 5 months to expel half of the Palestinians.”
To which I replied:
“In the first place, the Haganah did not expel “half of the Palestinians,” which would run to about 300,000-400,000 Palestinians (that is if you were referring to the refugees; if you were referring to the total population it would be much higher). Roughly 75,000, perhaps more, at best, fled in this period, and they were not expelled.”
To which you answered
“I’ll take Chomsky’s word over yours any day. The Arab forces were not allowed into Palestine until the British withdrew, so the period up to May 15 that Chomsky referred to is indeed relevant.”
Huh? No it is not. Chomsky is referring to the number of refugees on May 15, which were considerably more numerous than before the launch of Nachshon on April 6. He is simply dealing with an entirely different stage of the war than we are discussing, which is the first stage of the civil war Nov.30 1947-April 6, 1948). It is therefore totally irrelevant.
“So I have no need to demonstrate how “half the Palestinians” (some 300,000-400,000) were “expelled” in this period.”
Ha! Yes you do. In fact, Chomsky’s figure may be an underestimate for the number of refugees on May 15. According to the table on Wikipedia’s “Information on the depopulation of Palestinian towns and villages (1947–1949)” the total number of refugees created between November 9, 1947 – March 31, 1948 was about 22,600 though an asterisk indicates that the figure is probably 70,000, and that the total number created between April 1 – 13 May 1948 grew to about 400.000—100,000 higher than Chomsky’s figure.
The period we are discussing, again, is the pre-April 6, 1948 period. Morris and Karsh, in a rare moment of agreement, both put the refugee figure for this period at about 75,000-100,000, and though the table on Wikipedia puts that figure a bit lower, I’ll stipulate to the higher estimate. In any event, you need to, at long last, either disown your assertion that “The Yishuv were never on any strategic defensive in the five months prior to Operation Nachshon in early April 1948, which is why the Haganah were able to exploit those 5 months to expel half of the Palestinians” or make an argument citing evidence that proves that some 300-400,000 Palestinians were expelled and their villages destroyed in this period.
You have posited the assertion that the Yishuv was not on the defensive in this period, and that they were attacking Palestinian militias and communities, overwhelming them, and were expelling hundreds of thousands Palestinians and destroying their villages from the passing of the partition onwards, and that the Jews, not the Arabs, were the aggressors in this war. That is your assertion, and that is your thesis.
I therefore ask you again, what did this “assault by Zionist forces” on Palestinian militias that were “easily overwhelmed” consist of? Where did these “assaults” take place? What villages were “overwhelmed”? What forces, what units, what commanders were involved? What were their numbers? If Morris, Karsh, and the others are wrong about the number of refugees created in this period, and about whether or not they fled or were expelled, and you are right, you have yet to demonstrate and document how this is so. Where, again, in this period, did these massive expulsions of hundreds of thousands occur, and when? Can you, for example, list the Haganah (or other) units involved in these massive expulsions?
I have noticed that your responses are becoming more disjointed and unhinged. At some point I think you are simply going to have to admit that this whole thesis of yours is simply false. Instead of all these rhetorical and argumentative gymnastics, why don’t you just admit the truth: that there is not a shred of evidence to prove your assertions?
When I said “While it is certainly true that ‘Abdullah had decided at the last moment before the pan-Arab invasion of May 14 to confine his objectives to seizing as much of the West Bank as possible, it doesn’t negate the fact that Syrian, Iraqi, and Egyptian attacks both into and toward Jewish held areas were occurring…”
You replied:
“Jewish held areas outside of Israel of course, and not only that, but Jewish held areas outside of Israel where Zionist forces were residing.”
You have argued this before, I think, saying that “The Yishuv were not defending anything, they were fighting to take territory beyond the agreed borders. The Arabs did not invade Israel, but the Arab region of Palestine.”
It is false. As I have said before, on May 15 the Arab League sent the UN a cablegram reaffirming to them their rejection of the legitimacy of the partition, the rejection of any Jewish sovereign state, and their intentions to “intervene in Palestine solely in order to help its inhabitants restore peace and security and the rule of justice and law to their country, and in order to prevent bloodshed” and establish a unitary Palestinian state.
Their intention to disallow any Jewish sovereign presence was, of course, the truth, but the intention to allow an independent Palestine was a lie, as all of the surrounding states in the league had their own designs on the area. According to Morris, by the end of the war, the “Arab war plan…changed into a multinational land grab focusing on the Arab areas of the country. The evolving Arab plans failed to assign any of these whatsoever to the Palestinians or to consider their political aspirations.”
UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie wrote in his memoirs “The invasion of Palestine by the Arab states was the first armed aggression the world had seen since the end of the [Second World] War. The United Nations could not permit that aggression to succeed and at the same time survive as an influential force for peaceful settlement, collective security and meaningful international law”
In the invasion plan agreed to in April and executed in May, Syrian, Lebanese, Iraqi, and Transjordanian armies were to invade the nascent Jewish state in a wide, multi-pronged pincer to conquer the Galilee and the eastern Jezreel valley before reaching Haifa, the main objective. The ALA would attack Jewish held Malikya from Lebanon, the Syrians would attack Jewish held Mishmar Hayarden north of the Sea of Galilee, and Jewish-held Samakh to the south of the sea. Iraqi and Jordanian forces attacked in a three pronged thrust that fanned out north to Jenin and Ulm al-Fahm, west to Nablus and Tulkarm, and south to Ramallah and Jerusalem.
Meanwhile an Egyptian force would pivot at Rafah into a parallel two-pronged advance to the north, the eastern thrust slicing through Jewish–held areas of the Negev just north of Nirim, Gvulot, Tse’elim, Alumim, northward through Beersheba and Hebron to Jerusalem. The western thrust would go through Gaza to Isdud with Tel-Aviv as the objective, with a detachment peeling off eastward from Maidal to al-Faluja to Beit Jibrin in an attempt to link up with the eastward thrust and surround the Jewish encampments in the Negev.
This then was the plan that was put into action. Its aim was to abort the nascent Jewish state and establish a “unitary Palestinian state” that the Arabs would then slice up between themselves. As I said before, while it is certainly true that ‘Abdullah had decided at the last moment to confine his objectives to seizing as much of the West Bank as possible—something I did not deny in the first place, it doesn’t negate the fact that Syrian, Iraqi, and Egyptian attacks both into and toward Jewish held areas were occurring all around the crescent shaped perimeter that the Yishuv were presently holding, causing them to disperse their forces, thus creating a “fundamental asymmetry” between them and the Arabs, just as I said they did.
The Pan-Arab plan’s execution thus broke down amidst the disunity and distrust of the various partners toward one another, and their competing, conflicting agendas. As Benny Morris wrote:
“Thus in the days both before and after 15 May, the war plan had changed in essence from a united effort to conquer large parts of the nascent Jewish state, and perhaps destroy it, into an uncoordinated, multilateral land grab. As a collective, the Arab states still wished and hoped to destroy Israel—and, had their armies encountered no serious resistance, would, without doubt, have proceeded to take all of Palestine, including Tel-Aviv and Haifa.”
In any event, the notion that “the Yishuv were not defending anything, they were fighting to take territory beyond the agreed borders” and that “the Arabs did not invade Israel, but the Arab region of Palestine” can now be seen as the demonstrably false fairy tales that they are. Both sides, in the post May 15 stage, wanted as much territory as they could conquer and hold, and the Arabs were the aggressors in an attempt to seize as much from both Jews and Palestinians as possible.
In conclusion, let us take an opportunity to inventory your numerous falsehoods and distortions. Your Greatest Hits:
–There was no real war in Palestine in the first civil war period between the Yishuv and the Arabs/Palestinians, just a long, well-planned, one-way ethnic cleansing operation by the Jews that met negligible or meager resistance.
–There was no Palestinians war effort.
–There was no Palestinian leadership.
–The Arab violence against Jewish targets following the partition was not in response to the partition, but perhaps Sami Taha’s murder in September, and Ben Gurion’s December 3 speech to Mapai.
–The Jews, not the Arabs, were the aggressors following the partition vote, the Yishuv was on the offensive in the first civil war period, and the Palestinian militias “were confined to trying vainly to defend their Arab villages and towns from the assault by the Zionist forces, but they were easily overwhelmed.”
–The UN Palestine Commission was being given a hostile reception in both territories, not just Arab, and blamed both sides for the violence.
–The ALA wasn’t formed until March 1948.
–There was no Arab rejection of any sovereign, independent entity or state, and Ben Gurion is the one rejected the partition in his December 3 speech to Mapai, which was “nothing less than a declaration of war against the Arabs,” thus provoking them to outrage and violence, and they further emphasized their displeasure with this speech in a company-sized military assault on the Ef’al kibbutz the following day.
–The Yishuv, at the beginning, “was armed with state of the art weapons, limitless ammunition, tanks, [and] an air force.”
– The Yishuv was not on the defensive in this period; they were, in fact, attacking Palestinian militias and communities, overwhelming them, and were expelling hundreds of thousands Palestinians and destroying their villages from the passing of the partition on November 29 onwards to early April.
–The Arabs did not invade Israel on May 15, but only the Arab region of Palestine.
Taken together, these spurious, baseless assertions are a clear example of how one person’s anti-Israel dementia drives him into almost hysterical flights of exaggeration, misrepresentation and downright falsehood.
And to what end? To deligitimize Israel, and to perpetuate the scurrilously false narrative that Israel is a racist, colonial, apartheid state who murdered, oppressed, and ethnic-cleansed its way to statehood.
What the evidence really shows is that the Nabka was sired from the war, and the war from the Arabs’ rejectionism, lack of realism, and still-persisting allergy to compromise that made it inevitable. The war resulted from the Arabs’ rejection of the partition, and the refugee crisis resulted from the war. The chain of causation here is simply undeniable: there would have been no refugee crisis if there had been no war.
Having rejected the path of diplomacy and compromise, the Arabs sought the arbitration of force; it was to be a war of annihilation. Ever since the announcement of the partition in November 1947, they sought to destroy the nascent Jewish state, failed, suffered catastrophe and defeat in the process, and, as usual, blamed everyone but themselves, and still do. The Nabka was indeed needlessly self-inflicted by them, and the refugees and their descendants have paid a horrific price for their unpardonable folly and intransigence. They still do.
Jewish self-determination did not need to come at the price of the Palestinians’ exodus. The Palestinians, who also had a right to self determination that the Jews never denied, certainly would have had it if they and the surrounding Arab states had accepted the partition. Their self-determination was not only suppressed by the surrounding Arab states in the 1949-1967 period, but spurned repeatedly by their leadershi
To Shingo (Continued)
….leadership on multiple occasions afterward. Palestinian leaders have been the principal impediment to their own self-determination because they continue to insist that it can only be fulfilled by blotting the self-determination of the Jews living in Israel. This is “justice.” Having voided the partition arrangement by opting for war, the refugee problem caused by the war was never going to be realistically solved inside the new Jewish state except on a limited basis, which the Arabs rejected in any case. Opting for war instead of partition had consequences.
The attempts to take this tragic, complex historical event and reduce it to a simplistic, one-sided caricature is a testimonial to how politics and ideology have been, and are, polluting and distorting the writing, reading, and interpretation of history, and betray the scurrilous attempts to blur the distinctions between aggression and the defense against it that is at the heart of the attempt to deligitimize the Jewish state.
You, Sir, are a tool in that discreditable, and dishonorable enterprise.
Just tuned back in on Weirdine’s predictable verbiage. Perhaps, the question is whether Jewish settlers in Palestine had any more right to “self-determination” in Arab Palestine than did French settlers in Algeria, Afrikaners in South Africa, the British in Australia, or Europeans in what became the United States. What all of these interlopers had in common was that the only way that they were going to succeed in their colonial ventures was by displacing or massacring the indigenous inhabitants through whatever violent means were at their disposal and by denying those they displaced self-determination in their own homeland.
What separates the Jewish or Zionist variety from the others was that it has taken place not in centuries past where the latter’s criminal actions created on each occasion a fait accompli but in the lifetime of those who have been its victims and who have not allowed themselves to disappear or be totally suppressed by their “conquerors,” which is how Moshe Dayan described it.
The indigenous peoples of this country did not go down without a fight, nor, as we have seen, did they in South Africa or Algeria, and today, the Palestinians have a rapidly growing number of supporters throughout the world who are making that support felt by Israel in a number of ways, causing the leaders, cadres, and followers of the Jewish state, there, here, and everywhere, to scream that Israel is being “delegitimized.”
One might argue that one can not delegitimize something that was not legitimate in the first place, but aside from that, Israel’s responses to pressures from both without and within have been to further the process of delegitimization at such a rapid pace that it is unlikely to see its 75th birthday in its present form. That’s 2023. Of course, if it initiates a war with Iran it will be that much sooner.
Lightbringer, like Israel, is more of a blight bringer. This is pure FLAME type of Zionist propaganda. (1) The US had nothing to do with Israel in the 40s and 50s? While the support for Israel by the Soviets was important in that through Czechoslovakia it supplied weapons. it was the recognition by Truman over the recommendations of the State Dept. that was key, not to mention that the US looked the other way as American Jews provided arms including surplus US war planes, plus their pilots, to assist the Zionist cause.
Truman needed both Jewish money and Jewish votes to get elected and had he turned his back on Israel as Sec of State Marshall had suggested, he would have been toast and Dewey would have been president.
(2) That Palestine had nothing to do with Arab identity, to borrow Blightbringer’s term, is bullshit. FDR, after a meeting with King Ibn Saud of Arabia following Yalta, reported that he had made a promise to the King not to allow the Zionists to take over Palestine and that he had learned more about the issue talking with the king for five minutes than he had from all the pundits back in Washington, which is well known.
Palestinians who were fled or were ethnically cleansed by Israel did not wish to become citizens of the neighboring countries but to go back to their homes and villages in Palestine which they anticipated doing and would have done had Res. 194 been enforced.
(3) The war by the Arab states against Israel in 1948, as ineffectual, as it was, was as legitimate as the UN approving the partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states without the majority of Palestinians having any input. Then, in 1956, in 1967, in 1978, in 1982, and again in 2006, it was Israel that started the wars. The only other one initiated by Arabs was 1973 after Israel had refused peace overtures designed to get Israel to relinquish the land it had taken in 1967.
(4) The fact that Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Koran is irrelevant. After the Koran had been written, it became the third most important center and the Al-Aska mosque is one of the most important in the Muslim world. More importantly, it has been inhabited by Arabs for centuries, not by Jews from Teaneck, Brooklyn, Beverly Hills, or Pinsk, or Minsk.
(5) It was no more the business of the UN to divide up Palestine than it was for the British to offer it to the Zionists in 1917. Unless you think that Jews are superior to other human beings, why would they, and no other peoples be entitled to a land that they inhabited for a limited time sometime in the past? Because the Bible says so? Who wrote it? Who, in fact, created the monotheistic god who, according to the book, gave the early Hebrews the order to wipe out the people of Canaan and steal their land? One might even call the bible the earliest form of Zionist propaganda since it has been used to justify every Israeli crime.
Jeffrey,
And the latest form of Zionist propaganda, according to Reverend Stephen Sizer. ;-)
The ‘Bible story’ of the Israelite polity and Kingdom is, when properly read, a poetic reflection on the terrible interface between religion and violence and a story of a terrible failure. It needs no Sandist scepticism to see this. The writers repeat – from Jabin of Hazor to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon – but keep constantly fresh – the story of the Israelites/Judahites’ failing to honour God and so falling into subjection to foreigners, ie not seeing that their identity, their worldly being is bound up with their spiritual being and aspirations. It is also a story of internal dissension from the days of Gibeah in Judges to the days when the people of the land were unhelpful to Ezra and Nehemiah, of legitimate kings rejected, of intense religious hostilities.
This sad story is offset and dramatically intensified by the story of the prosperity and pride of the United Monarchy, the one interlude when all seemed well and which Zionist pseudo-archaeological propaganda (here confronted with Sandist scepticism in full force) insistently emphasises. But whatever the real history of the glorious or not so glorious tenth century the real message of the Bible, reaching its final state centuries later, is not that this pride and prosperity is the natural state to which the Israelites will return but that it is the state which true religion and only true religion brings. And the whole story is about God’s plan for all humanity.
I can’t think of anything less legitimised by the Bible than the secular Israel of the Zionists in which a race is elected to special privileges regardless of its religion.
“I can’t think of anything less legitimised by the Bible than the secular Israel of the Zionists in which a race is elected to special privileges regardless of its religion.”
Thanks again, Martin.
Watch Alan Hart’s interview with Sizer. You’ll enjoy.
link to vimeo.com
Flash Version:
link to vimeo.com
He [Sizer] is one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject of Christian Zionism and evangelical Christian fundamentalism in all of its forms. In his book Christian Zionism: Road Map to Armageddon, he shows how elements within the Christian Zionist movement have become “the most powerful and destructive force at work in America today.”
MHughes, this was a very well reflected post from you (again). You would have made a good medicine-man.
MRW What caught my attention most in Hart’s interview with Sizer was their concern that extremist Zionists are intent – and actively engaged in – destroying the Al Aqsa mosque.
Here is the first item you see on the website of the Temple Mount Faithful group:
“The goal of the Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement is the building of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in our lifetime in accordance with the Word of G-d and all the Hebrew prophets and the liberation of the Temple Mount from Arab (Islamic) occupation so that it may be consecrated to the Name of G-d.”
link to templemountfaithful.org
The Titanic was unsinkable until it sank!
Wow! What an intelligent friend. I feel like he’s my alter-ego only I dish it ‘like Zionists dish it: as insolently as possible…right back at ‘em. But he said everything exactly like I see it, even with regards to the Egyptian Revolution.
That being said. This sentence by Phil struck me: “…we are all prisoners of the Israel lobby.” I find it rather tame. It’s more accurate to say: WE ARE ALL PRISONERS OF ZIONISTS. Because Zionists are like an army of ants…every single one of them working for one goal-to control the message and CONTROL public opinion and policy; never mind the means. So they’re like a global lobby comprised of the Ambassador to Timbuktu, the media mogul, the Hollywood producer, the retired geezer in Boca Raton, the IDF megaphone, the Jewish desperate housewife in New York, the Moldovan settler smart-ass launching filthy epithets in bad English from the West Bank, “Moshe” the nerd firing away accusations of anti-semitism at “Israel’s haters” from his basement bunker and on and on pathetically onward they march to the same drum.
The description of Fayyad is stunningly accurate. Let me be blunt: While Abbas did nothing for his people and wasted time in power bending over; Fayyad is even more dangerous; he’s Benedict Arnold; he’s the one who’s betraying Palestinians with a “kiss”, fooling them into believing he’s on their side, when really he’s given up on their side, he doesn’t believe and so he’s giving Israelis the “farm” on a silver platter. The man sickens me. Collaborator or TRAITOR…more like it. Palestinians need to be awakened to this man’s GAME. In the next elections he’ll be the Manchurian Candidate.
It would be interesting to know who this friend is. He definitely SEES.
I resent the hell out of Zionists because living in a country that’s supposedly Democratic and free, I don’t feel free. I feel like I live in an occupied country, where my government doesn’t represent human rights or my values especially when it comes to foreign policy. I feel like Zionists are trying to steal my voice and my freedom.
Oh and speaking of “liberal” Zionist Democrats. Is there a more TWO-FACED species of liberal than that? They’re liberal in every way, except where it concerns Israel, then they go all nasty on you, turn on the mean-spirited “insolence” and hubris and become as fanatically right-wing, controlling and irrational as any Republican or Conservative you’ll ever meet and at times even, more so.
the Ambassador to Timbuktu, the media mogul, the Hollywood producer, the retired geezer in Boca Raton, the IDF megaphone, the Jewish desperate housewife in New York, the Moldovan settler smart-ass launching filthy epithets in bad English from the West Bank, “Moshe” the nerd firing away accusations of anti-semitism at “Israel’s haters” from his basement bunker and on and on pathetically onward they march to the same drum.
you’re definitely forgetting a massive component of zionists kalithea. or maybe you just haven’t heard. Michele Bachmann: The Hated Jew. read it and weep. but whatever you do, don’t forget the christian zionists because there are more of them in this country than those other zionists. like ten fold…
Yes, and although they support each other, both secretly hate each other since each thinks that in the end they will be the only true chosen (ie master race) left standing in the sight of the messiah but the common thread that unites both Zionists and Christian Zionists is their complete and utter delusion and self-fulfilling destructiveness.
There may be more Christian Zionists in terms of numbers but they are not on the same field when it comes to political clout and contributions to members of Congress. They are not the ones running WINEP, AEI, the Saban Center or the Hudson Inst., they are not the ones in key positions in the State Dept. and the Treasury. They are not the ones writing the op-ed columns in the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post that are syndicated in newspapers all across the country. They are not the talking heads that one sees on the “news” shows or hears on NPR.
They do serve to keep the Republicans in line when it comes to Israel but most were afraid to speak out even before they appeared on the scene. What they do is provide tax-exempt contributions to neo-fascist Israeli organizations like the one that filed the complaint in Greece against the Audacity of Hope and settler groups, particularly those in Jerusalem..
Max B has an excellent article on Hagee & a video of his funding entities like the The Israel Law Center (Shurat HaDin):
link to maxblumenthal.com
Here’s a supplemental article on Team Beck, Hagee, Lieberman Zionist Trio currently fueling an Armageddon panic combined with Israel First mania: (–Perry too):
link to religiondispatches.org
PS: I also feel as if the Zionists of every stripe have stolen the country I was born and raised in–I feel I too live in occupied territory, the USA, which, like me, is celebrating its birthday tomorrow. Tomorrow, when I see the firecrackers go off, I will think of the futile puny Palestinian rockets & the power of AIPAC. Well, mighty Britain once ruled the seas…
Hagee & a video of his funding entities like the The Israel Law Center (Shurat HaDin)
I posted a link to the complaint in a comment about the Bauer v Mavi Marmara et. al. civil suit over at Tikun Olam the other day. It is a backdoor attempt to revive senescent war prize law against a list of foreign-flagged vessels and the Audacity of Hope. It attempts to apply a domestic statute that prohibits the arming of vessels, within the United States, for use in the service of a foreign power. I don’t think Hagee is going to get much bang for his buck out of that case.
Zionism is fatally flawed. In the long term an exclusive Jewish State won’t work because it’s unjust and unsustainable. Recognizing that Zionism is the main obstacle to a just peace is starting to be recognized even by people who, for years, supported all manner of initiatives and processes that would leave the Jewish State intact and the Palestinians with crumbs from Israel’s table. We’re witnessing and participating in the decline of support for Zionism in the US. Zionists can throw all the money and power they want at Israel’s “image problem,” it wont change the growing reality that Americans are just not that into Israel and we bristle at seeing our political leaders pushed around by the likes of Netanyahu.
it was a uphill battle from the beginning…
“I can’t tell you how much I like what the Jewish non-Zionists and anti-Zionists are saying.”
I can’t tell you how much I love what Islamic liberals like Ayaan Hirst-Ali and Zuhdi Jasser are saying.
Useful idiots are well, useful.
LOL! Said eee while looking at hophmi.
And still Fayyad moves Palestine closer to viability and sovereignty that will last.
Translation: And still Fayyad move Palestinians closer to willing serfdom which is the only settlement Israelis and Zionist false-flag Liberals like me are willing to accept.
That’s Witty speak for Israel stealign more land, continued enthnic cleasing and settlement building.
The “Goldstone Report” is key to ending the Holocaust Israel and the United States of America are waging in the energy countries of the Middle East. Eliminating whole populations root and branch as well as the unifying religion of Islam is their aim, as they both graphically demonstrate in Gaza/Palestine. As the Arab friend said: “There is no way out.”
Where Hitler used gas chambers America is dropping uranium tipped bombs by the ton so that they penetrate water tables. All water runs to the seas.
The ageing Bilderberg Group is helping hide the Goldstone Report but all in are aware what they enable is far worse than what Hitler did. Iconic Netherlands and her ageing Queen Beatrix, the granddaughter of the WW11 time Dutch Queen Wilhelmena who thought of the group are now caught in a pattern of lawlessness represented by the war on Palestinians, the ruling party espousing hate speech as law after a positive ruling from an august court in the Hague….splits the country from stem to stern….as desired by the ambitious and the war empire. As is to be done in vast France.