There was a potential game changer in Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ speech at the General Assembly – but it wasn’t in the words he said: that this marks the end of the 20-year-long U.S.-backed failed peace process, and the potential beginning of a whole new approach to Palestinian-Israeli diplomacy, one based on international law, human rights and equality for all.
No longer is the failed U.S.-controlled "peace process" the only diplomatic game in town. The Palestinian application for recognition as a full Member State of the United Nations places the diplomacy squarely where it has always belonged — in the UN, not in Washington. And while that may be weakened by Abbas' seeming willingness to continue to engage in this long-failed process, there is at least the basis for rebuilding a new diplomatic basis different from the current approach that maintains Israel’s huge disparity power and accepts Israeli “red lines.” This could mean something really new – diplomacy grounded in international law and human rights that ends occupation, ensures the right of refugees to return to their homes, and replaces apartheid with equality for all.
None of this, of course, is certain. Diplomacy is far more about political will and political power than it is about abstract rules; relying on the UN as both venue and player in a new process makes some new results possible — it doesn’t make them inevitable. Reality will require a huge level of new political will, certainly from some countries willing to back the membership/statehood bid, and most especially within the Palestinian diplomatic strategy and the Palestinian diplomats themselves.
Chairman Abbas’ speech was very carefully drafted to include the right of return of Palestinian refugees as a continuing right, and the continuing role of the Palestine Liberation Organization as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. That's important, because there has been much understandable fear among Palestinians, especially refugees and exiles, that the potential transfer of UN representation from the PLO to the “government” of a still-inchoate “state” could mean the disenfranchisement of refugees both in their representation at the UN, and in the need to fight for their right of return as guaranteed by UN Resolution 194.
Ensuring that a "government" of Palestine actually acts on that right, of course, remains a difficult challenge, but again it is a matter of political will, not UN rules. Any country — certainly the State of Palestine but also South Africa, or Micronesia, or indeed the United States — could take up the cause of Palestinian refugees’ right to return home in the UN forum in a serious way, demanding UN enforcement of Resolution 194. The problem of the right of return still being denied after so many years reflects U.S.-backed Israeli power, but the problem of it not being central to UN operations and high on the UN agenda reflects political will, not arbitrary rules. But, as Abbas finally acknowledged, “It is neither possible, nor practical, nor acceptable to return to conducting business as usual, as if everything is fine.”
So the challenge now is to make this new opportunity real, and to take maximum advantage of it, not to let it dissolve into endless bureaucracy. There is a serious danger that the UN Security Council, rather than moving to schedule a rapid vote with its inevitable US veto, will instead move to create a committee, to launch an investigation, to commission a report… and otherwise move to simply bury the Palestinian application in the labyrinthine mumbo-jumbo of UN diplo-speak. The issue might not re-surface for months — perhaps not even until after the November 2012 U.S. election, which would of course mean President Obama would not face the international consequences of the veto he has promised for domestic political reasons.
It was perhaps especially important that Abbas referred directly to the nonviolent mobilization of Palestinians across the Occupied Palestinian Territory, praising the “popular peaceful resistance to the Israeli occupation and its settlement and apartheid policies and its construction of the racist annexation Wall” and described it directly as being “consistent with international humanitarian law and international conventions.” That recognition was significant, given that the initiative for the widespread nonviolent protest movement in the Territory was created by and continues to gain most of its support from mobilized civil society, not from the officials of the Palestinian Authority.
And while he didn’t mention the word “BDS” — the Palestinian civil society call for “boycott, divestment and sanctions” that shapes much of the international mobilization in support of international law and human rights in Palestine — Abbas clearly was including the global movement for nonviolent pressure on Israel in his reference to that movement’s “support of peace activists from Israel and around the world, reflecting an impressive, inspiring and courageous example of the strength of this defenseless people, armed only with their dreams, courage, hope and slogans in the face of bullets, tanks, tear gas and bulldozers.” The reference to bulldozers as part of the Israeli war machine was particularly powerful, both because of the centrality of the boycott and divestment campaigns against Caterpillar across the U.S., and especially because of the worldwide outrage over the killing of Rachel Corrie, the young American peace activist killed in Gaza in 2003 while protecting a Palestinian family’s home, by an Israeli soldier driving a giant D-9 Caterpillar bulldozer.
At the end of the day, a speech is only a speech, an application for membership is only a piece of paper. But these actions set the stage for some possibilities that did not exist before. Certainly dangers continue. The head of the PLO was greeted with a standing ovation from at least part of the General Assembly when he said that “after 63 years of suffering of the ongoing Nakba: Enough. Enough. Enough. It is time for the Palestinian people to gain their freedom and independence.”
Maybe he’ll set a deadline, and maybe some governments will take seriously their obligation to protect an occupied population suffering under decades of occupation, apartheid and dispossession. Maybe, just maybe, this will mark the beginning of a different approach to achieving Palestinian rights and equality — with the world, not the U.S., as the “honest broker.” Twenty years of a U.S.-controlled process designed to maintain Israeli power and privilege is over — it’s enough. Now the challenge remains to create a new, UN-based process grounded in international law, equality and human rights — for all.
Phyllis Bennis is a Fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies; her books include “Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: A Primer” and “Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s UN.” This post originally appeared on the Institute for Policy Studies blog.
The real danger for Zionists is that people are going to become informed on some of the “unspoken truths” of the conflict, for example: the transfer of what was 56% of historical Palestine to what was 5% of the population at the time of partition. Can anyone out there justify this?
Ending the occupation is necessary and admirable, but the gross inequity of the situation will continue, with the Palestinians having their “state” on 22% of historical Palestine.
One state. For all its people.
Dan
the Swiss TV station TSR had a fascinating video yesterday that showed how a couple of thousand Jews in the early 20th century via the Nazi holocaust in WW2 dispossessed the Palestinians.
link to tsr.ch
The injustice is so blatant.
hi seafoid,
do you have a link for that, that is in english? sounds french to me… thanks – james
James
It’s just in French unfortunately but the pictures and videos are very interesting
Point of clarification: it was 55 (or so) percent to the Jews which made up 1/3 of the population.
Nonetheless, I agree with your point. Imagine Israel’s answer today if the UN said it wanted to resolve the conflict through a 50/50 split of the land. Does anyone think that Israel would accept that?
correction – i meant to refer to the ownership of the land in palestine, with jews owning 5-7% at the time of partition; it certainly was 65-35 arab
cheers dex
Dan Crowther It should be made clear that ‘real estate’ owned by individuals or companies or trusts or even Government Institutions, is not the same as ‘territory’. E.g., The Japanese Govt owns large tracts of ‘real estate’ in Australia. It ain’t Japanese ‘territory’.
Talknic -
Right. Agreed.
Yeah land possession is a different issue:
The Jewish National Fund, from Jewish Villages in Israel, 1949:
Of the entire area of the State of Israel only about 300,000-400,000 dunums [10%]– apart from the desolate rocky area of the southern Negev, at present quite unfit for cultivation — are State Domain which the Israeli Government took over from the Mandatory regime. The J.N.F. and private Jewish owners possess under two million dunums. [2%] Almost all the rest [88%] belongs at law to Arab owners, many of whom have left the country. The fate of these Arabs will be settled when the terms of the peace treaties between Israel and her Arab neighbours are finally drawn up. The J.N.F., however, cannot wait until then to obtain the land it requires for its pressing needs. It is, therefore, acquiring part of the land abandoned by the Arab owners, through the Government of Israel, the sovereign authority in Israel. Whatever the ultimate fate of the Arabs concerned, it is manifest that their legal right to their land and property in Israel, or to the monetary value of them, will not be waived, nor do the Jews wish to ignore them. … [C]onquest by force of arms cannot, in law or in ethics, abrogate the rights of the legal owner to his personal property. The J.N.F., therefore, will pay for the lands it takes over, at a fixed and fair price.[25]
Dan, you use the term “Historical Palestine” so how far back in history do you want to go? I personally like the period when the “territories” were called Judea and Samaria.
I had never heard of a country called Palestine. There was no such identifiable entity of a group that was only non Jews. Suddenly, when the UN, back then, still a sane institution voted to partition this former Ottaman empire colony into a Jewish and Arab states, whoa, we are Palestinian. There was no call for a Palestinian state during Ottoman rule. There was no call and struggle for Gaza and the West Bank to become a Palestinian state.
So, Dan sure, let’s look at history. Where did the name Jerusalem come from?
wash rinse repeat wash rinse repeat
>> “let’s look at history. Where did the name Jerusalem come from?” <<
Jerusalem was a city of the Amorites called Jebus. Part of it was taken by Judah, then later all of it by David, who renamed it Jerusalem, "possession of peace".
For much of its history it has not been a city of peace but of conflict, lost and regained and fought over for some 600 years, then for the next 1900 ruled by others until 1967.
During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times.
“I had never heard of a country called Palestine.”
Then your education was woeful.
” There was no such identifiable entity of a group that was only non Jews”
Are you denying that there were people living in Palestine before the Zionists, or are you denying that the people had any right to live there?
“There was no call for a Palestinian state during Ottoman rule.”
But as soon as the Australian, British, Indian, and Arab forces had defeated the Ottomans, the people wanted independence. They were not happy with the Mandate.
” so how far back in history do you want to go?”
Assuming, for the sake of the argument, that today’s Palestinians are the descendants of those Arabs who conquered Palestine in 1636, that’s close to 1400 years old history during which very few Jews were calling Palestine home. Is that long enough for you?
“I had never heard of a country called Palestine.”
If so, what was the name of the land that the Zionists took over to found the state of Israel? No man’s land?
“Where did the name Jerusalem come from?”
Who gives a sht? For 1400 years the name was (and still is) Alquds. Jerusalem is the biblical name, you can’t force it on people who call it something else.
“There was no call for a Palestinian state during Ottoman rule.”
Crude ignorance!
From wiki on the rise of Arab nationalism under the Ottomans:
“In the 1860s, literature produced in the Mashreq (the Levant and Mesopotamia) which was under Ottoman control at the time, contained emotional intensity and strongly condemned the Ottoman Turks for “betraying Islam” and the Fatherland to the Christian West. In the view of Arab patriots, Islam had not always been in a “sorry state” and attributed the military triumphs and cultural glories of the Arabs to the advent of the religion, insisting that European modernism itself was of Islamic origin. The Arabs, on the other hand, had deviated from true Islam and thus suffered decline. The reforming Ottoman and Egyptian governments were blamed for the situation because they attempted to borrow Western practices from the Europeans that were seen as unnatural and corrupt. The Arab patriots’ view was that the Islamic governments should revive true Islam that would in turn, pave way for the establishment of constitutional representative government and freedom which, though Islamic in origin, was manifested in the West at the time.[11]
Arabism and regional patriotism (such as in Egypt or in the Levant) mixed and gained predominance over Ottomanism among some Arabs in Syria and Lebanon. Ibrahim al-Yazigi, a Syrian Christian philosopher, called for the Arabs to “recover their lost ancient vitality and throw off the yoke of the Turks” in 1868. A secret society promoting this goal was formed in the late 1870s, with al-Yazigi as a member. The group placed placards in Beirut calling for a rebellion against the Ottomans. Meanwhile, other Lebanese and Damascus-based notables, mostly Muslims, formed similar secret movements, although they differed as Christian groups who disfavoured Arabism called for a completely independent Lebanon while the Muslim Arab societies generally promoted an autonomous Greater Syria still under Ottoman rule.[12]
link to en.wikipedia.org
Longlivemyfoot is one of the crudest propagandists that have ever commented on this site for the simple reason that falsitudes of the kind he spouts have been debunked zillion times!
19th century Palestinian nationalism under the Ottomans:
Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal consider the 1834 revolt of the Arabs in Palestine as constituting the first formative event of the Palestinian people,[10] whereas Benny Morris argues that the Arabs in Palestine remained part of a larger Pan-Islamist or Pan-Arab national movement.[11]
Also:
Israeli historian Professor Haim Gerber (who teaches Islamic History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem) has written a scholarly academic piece entitled ” ‘Palestine’ And Other Territorial Concepts In The 17th Century”. In this academic article Professor Haim Gerber discusses a 17th century religious leader named Mufti Khayr al-Din al-Ramli (1585-1671)[6] who lived in then Ottoman-ruled Palestine in the city of al-Ramla, Palestine.[7] Professor Gerber documents that Khayr al-Din al-Ramli’s religious edicts (fatwa, plural fatawa), collected into final form in 1670 under the name al-Fatawa al-Khayriyah make important statements regarding territorial awareness in then Ottoman ruled Palestine in the 17th century. “These fatawa are a contemporary record of the time, and also give a complex view of agrarian relations. Modern scholars are using his works to trace the path of embryonic territorial awareness, specifically that of Palestine. His fatawa reference the Roman province of Palaestina Prima, or as it was known in the early Islamic period, Jund Filistin. It was originally thought that term died out during the Mamluk and Ottoman states, as they did not use this concept, however, the way that al-Ramli used the term suggests otherwise. When it is brought up, he never defines the term, and uses it only in passing, suggesting that his audience would have an understanding of what he meant.”[8] Professor Haim Gerber notes that Mufti Khayr al-Din al-Ramli’s 1670 collection again entitled al-Fatawa al-Khayriyah “on many occasions mentions the concepts Filastin, biladuna (our country), al-Sham (Syria), Misr (Egypt), and diyar (country), in senses that go far beyond ‘mere’ objective geography. While I am fully aware that some may claim that such territorial concepts may simply refer to one’s native home, place of birth, a close reading of al-Ramli may suggest that there is something more to it, and that we are in fact looking at something that can only be called embryonic territorial awareness, though the reference is to social awareness rather than to a political one.”[9]
link to en.wikipedia.org
——————
I hope this will do for the bottom shelf hasbarists.
Rashid (Khalidi) argues that the modern national identity of Palestinians has its roots in nationalist discourses that emerged among the peoples of the Ottoman empire in the late 19th century, and which sharpened following the demarcation of modern nation-state boundaries in the Middle East after World War I.[5] Khalidi also states that although the challenge posed by Zionism played a role in shaping this identity, that “it is a serious mistake to suggest that Palestinian identity emerged mainly as a response to Zionism.”[5]
link to en.wikipedia.org
falsitudes of the kind he spouts have been debunked zillion times!
that’s why i responded ‘wash rinse repeat’. it’s crazy sometimes. but we must remember there are newbies reading all the time so these responses (yours are an excellent example) are important. repetitive lies create an opportunity to shoot down the arguments again and again and the day has arrived lies like his will never be presented without the attending rebuttals. every lie has to be slashed and decimated. that’s how history is written in the age of the internet. israel’s history has been sustained thru myth, those days are over.
Great collection of responses to longlivemyfoot, thankgod! You clearly have a good handle on the recent history. As to ancient history, it is my understanding (to be corrected) that there were people in Palestine when the Arabs arrived. They were probably in large part the Jews who were not driven out by the Romans. My reading is that the Romans might have driven out a few leaders after the Bar Kokhba revolt but the vast majority stayed behind and probably converted to Islam when the Arabs arrived. Ironical! Oh I forgot, hasbarists don’t do irony!
Yes, exactly. It’s not to convince or convict them but to use them to tell the true facts and expose their motivations.
We are part of the truth that’s out there, which is what this blog is all about. We present the genuine and that’s what makes the counterfeit so glaringly obvious.
What I find strange, john h, is that to any newbie reading the blog longlivemyfoot has been totally discredited – making statements that are easily countered by a few minutes spent researching on the web – and yet without fail he will be back spouting the same myths tomorrow. Why does he not see that he is not advancing the Zionist case (such as it is) to the new reader? I wonder, sometimes, if he is actually working for our side.
“As to ancient history, it is my understanding (to be corrected) that there were people in Palestine when the Arabs arrived. They were probably in large part the Jews who were not driven out by the Romans.”
Not only Jews but Christians too. The oldest Christian communities in the world today are Palestinian. If I only mentioned the Arabs (Muslims) it was to assume for the sake of the argument that ALL Palestinians are Arabs (which they’re obviously not) who’ve been inhabiting the land for at least 1400 years which should be long enough a period to make them native as much as any other ethnic group who happened to precede them whether Christian or Jews.
Funny how they disappear, never offering an actual argument, as soon as their cliched, jaded old platitudes are exposed. Come on, shortlivedisrael, where are your comprehensive replies?
Totally agree, thankgod, about how long it should take to establish their right to be called “native”. But our Zionist friends try to argue otherwise and so it is worth noting that those they dispossess are in part at least descended from the Jews they use to justify their claim on the land.
And I knew about the Christians – also converts in part from Judaism in the first few centuries of the modern era.
Exactly straightline. Also my understanding is that they strongly dislike to be reminded that many Palestinians today have origins of Jewish faith who converted at one stage as many did during Muslim sovereignty. The reason is obvious. They have wronged their own who happened to borrow a different path.
“that’s why i responded ‘wash rinse repeat’.”
And I don’t blame you Annie. There’s a limit to one’s diligence and willingness to take the necessary time and effort to debunk their well rehearsed absurdities and cliches. They may even count on our lassitude from repeating over and over again the same arguments.
“israel’s history has been sustained thru myth, those days are over.”
amen
Israel’s history is dripping in Palestinian blood
“it’s crazy sometimes. but we must remember there are newbies reading all the time so these responses (yours are an excellent example) are important”
You are right, of course, but as usual, I’m astounded by the patience it takes to deal with what can only be willful misunderstanding and intentional ignorance, and that’s before we get to any of the moral implications.
However, the road to the identification and quantification of the exact composition and actions of ziocaine just got a whole lot shorter. Is it a Jews-only road?
Jerusalem was named after that Canaanite deity, Salem, god of the west or setting sun.
As for whether there was ever a country called Palestine, I don’t know why it’s important, but after all, before 1948 there was never a country called Israel either. As LLI likes to note, there were places called Judea and Samaria. Samaria, together with Galilee is roughly encompassed in the territory labeled as “Israel” in some biblical maps. The biblical maps are, of course, notorious for being reconstructions from the rather grandiose and already exaggerated biblical claims, created at least 1000 years after the kingdoms supposedly existed.
I think Judea was an independent kingdom with a “Jewish” ruler for a brief 200 years out of 10000 or so years of history. Not to say all the people were Jewish, hence, debatable whether it was a “Jewish state” however, the “Jews” of that period did practice putting people to death who didn’t accept their faith, so maybe you could say it was.
I put “Jew” in quotes because the religion was led by hereditary priests and very different from the rabbinical Judaism we’re more familiar with. There were monotheists that many people call Jews, however, given that most people of that area adopted the branch of the Abrahamic faith known as Christianity, who knows but what Christians can claim they are the root trunk from which Judaism sprang rather than vice versa. In which case, one should say that there was never a Jewish kingdom in Palestine before 1948, but a Christian or proto-Christian one.
lyn117 is correct, Jerusalem is mentioned in the tablets of Amarna which precede Judaism as Ursalim or the foundation of Salem. The name in Arabic is Urshalim al Quds
lli :
“There was no call for a Palestinian state during Ottoman rule.”
++++ But when brits marched in, they happily jumped to revolt ottomans. And aim was independent state. Are lli trying to say that what palestinians plan to do, now and in the past, is mostly dependent zionist judgement.
Yes there was – it was under teh Husseing/McMahon treaty.
From the people who built it, the Hittites, Jebusites and Canaanites.
Where did the name Jericho and Galilee come from?
I understand that the etymologies suggested for ‘Jericho’ are ‘Fragrant City’ and ‘City of the Moon’ – no doubt bestowed by people who did not at the time consider themselves Israelites.
Galilee, referred to by Matthew, quoting Isaiah, as ‘Galilee of the Nations’
was presumably a place where several populations were represented, though the Jewish population was almost certainly the great majority in Matthew’s time, the first century CE. I understand that the name is connected with a common semitic term for ‘circle’ and that the Assyrians called the province ‘the Circle’, which would be consistent with it’s being a centre for many tribes.
I had never heard of a country called Palestine. There was no such identifiable entity of a group that was only non Jews. Suddenly, when the UN . . .
Not one, but two international court court cases established that Palestine was one of the newly created allied successor states of the Ottoman Empire by no later than 1925. The United States, Spain, and Italy had formally recognized the State by 1932 in their commerce treaties. You can learn more about the history of the State of Palestine here: link to mondoweiss.net
thanks for that link hostage.
The hasbara troll known as LongLiveIsrael wrote: “I had never heard of a country called Palestine. ”
I have in front of me a book entitled ‘Operation Babylon: Jewish Clandestine Activity in the Middle East 1946-51′. It was written by Shlomo Hillel who helped 125,000 Iraqi Jews travel from Iraq. His biography states he ‘immigrated to Palestine in 1934 … was elected to the Knesset in 1953 … in 1959 he joined the foreign service … served as a minister in the governments of Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin …’
In the Prologue he describes the first flight from Iraq including the text ‘The closer we came to Palestine the more the sunrise caught up with us. And then suddenly the dull brown Golan Heights gave way to the blue sea of Galilea below us, and then we were home’
He later describes a journey by car with ‘Moshe Baran, of Ta’as, the clandestine arms industry of the Hagannah, or Jewish underground in Palestine’ and so on and on.
He certainly seems to be aware of a country called Palestine. But then what would he know huh?
Egbert, LLI is all pumped up on Ziocane since he saw his leader go to the UN and scowl at it. It usually last a fews weeks for trolls to simmer down.
No, it was a PLACE called Palestine. There was no Palestinian government, no Palestinian judiciary, nothing but a British Mandate. Jews, Christians and Muslims who lived there were “Palestinians”
You deftly avoided the comment about how there was no identifiable Palestinian National movement, similar to Zionism for the Jews. I find it ironic that Turkey is now all about the Palestinians, but didn’t see the need to give them a country when they occupied the area as Ottomans. Neither did Jordan and Egypt when they occupied the West Bank and Gaza.
Are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that the Palestinians in the area were simply ripe for Jewish conquest, and that’s it? God, no wonder they wanted your specific type of Jew out of Great Britain. The rest of the world has moved past colonialism, Mr. “White Man’s Burden.”
Palestine didn’t need a ‘national movement’ since they already lived there, and had done so for hundreds, if not thousands of years. They didn’t need to invent a nationalist ideology with a modern revisionist history which altered the facts, eradicating the ones which didn’t suit it, and erecting an entirely new ‘ancient’ history to justify the land theft, dispossession and ethnic cleansing of people who had committed no crime, apart from existing inconveniently in this place you now suddenly remember is called Palestine. And of course they had governing and regulatory structures. you are way out of your depth, as proved by many of the eloquent and informed posts above, none of which you have engaged with or offered a considered response to. I wonder why.
You deftly avoided the comment about how there was no identifiable Palestinian National movement
You deftly avoid that a “national movement” does not make a nation. Usually people define themselves as belonging to a specific group based on a common history and regional culture.
Would you argue, without the unification of Germany in 1871 there wouldn’t be Germans? In the sense that it means the people living in the different regions?
Look, exactly for this type of silly argument I backing Abbas’ move, in spite of the complex discussion of the issue.
Even if there was no state called Palestine there was no justice in giving the place lock stock and barrel to a crowd of Yiddish speaking Eastern European Jews that Europe didn’t want.
More often than not, Chaos isn’t worth spending any time responding to.
First, I am not British and never have been. I am ISRAELI.
Second, in case you missed it, Israel agreed to the UN decision to partition the land governed by the British that had all kinds of people living there into two states. The Arab world refused and went to war. They tried to do that again in 1967 and in 1973. Now they go to the UN whining that they are dispossessed victims. It’s like the famous joke about Chutzpah. A child kills his parents and then begs the court for mercy on account of him being an orphan,
This fairy tail has been debunked to people far more intelligent and better educated than you.
Israel started the 1948 war 5 months before the Arab armies came to the rescue of the Palestinians.
Every leader from the PM to the leaders of the IDF have admitted that Israel started the war on false pretenses in 1967 to steal land.
No, it was a PLACE called Palestine. There was no Palestinian government, no Palestinian judiciary, nothing but a British Mandate. Jews, Christians and Muslims who lived there were “Palestinians”
I gave you a link with dozens of citations which prove beyond all doubt that it was a state called Palestine which was merely under a League of Nations mandate.
Dr. Mustafa al Khalidi was Mayor of Jerusalem and previously served in both the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of Palestine during the 1930s. On many occasions he exercised the jurisdiction of the High Court of Justice and entered judgements against the mandatory government. The notion that the Arab and Jewish citizens of Palestine did not participate in the Mandate era government or exercise sovereign jurisdiction through their jurists and local officials is simply without merit. You are only demonstrating your own ignorance.
The famous joke. Yes, that old one. But as an inhabitant of Teh Jewish State, perhaps you can regale us with some joke the rest of us haven’t heard yet. I mean, you have your finger on the pulse, right?
LLI, you just claimed on another thread that you had family members that died in Auschwitz. So your family is actually from Europe, isn’t it?
Yes, my family lived in Hungary. How did they end up in Hungary?
Where is their and mine ancestral homeland? Israel. My Hebrew name is Naftali whose origin goes back to the twelve tribes of Israel. For a while I lived in the Galilee area with the mountains called Harai Naftali as the backdrop. I certainly have a much stronger connection to Israel then you have to the USA.
lli :
“Where is their and mine ancestral homeland? Israel. My Hebrew name is Naftali whose origin goes back to the twelve tribes of Israel. For a while I lived in the Galilee area with the mountains called Harai Naftali as the backdrop.”
++++ I have two sons, who are named after old German Kaisers. Does that mean now that they can claim as rulers of Germany ?
( funny story as such, after our youngest was born, and given name, friend of mine pointed this funny coincidence )
So longlive you’re an Arab jew? You certainly give off moocho euro jew vibers. Please also clarify if you look Galilean.
You must be the only person I know of who’s actually able to trace his tribal roots back to 2ooo years – or was it 3000 – hang on I think I heard it repeated that it’s 5000 years. LOL whatever dude. I guess if your lying PM can fake a heritage, you can too.
The twelve tribes of Israel is a myth.
There’s plenty where LLI came from Tazxi. I’ve lost count of how many Zionists claim that their grandparents have a family tree pinned to the wall of their kitchen lllustratng their lineage back to King David.
Okay you’re Hungarian. I’m not interested in your fabricated pseudo-Atlantean heritage, LLI.
longliveisrael September 25, 2011 at 10:31 am
There was a Palestinian Passport, Palestinian coinage, Palestinian government and Palestinian Judiciary.
What is lacking is your knowledge and awareness. Probably education, as well.
all that is missing was a Palestinian state.
“Where is their and mine ancestral homeland? Israel”
Our current state of knowledge suggests that your ancestors (and mine, and everyone else’s) came from East Africa.
Why don’t you claim that as your ancestral homeland?
And why is your ancestral homeland so important to you, anyway? You are not your ancestors.
My homeland is where I have my home, and that is Australia, not East Africa.
There was no Israeli state at the time eitehr.
all that is missing was a Palestinian state.
We’ve been here before. A dumb*ss tried to sue the US Secretary of State claiming that Palestine was not a foreign state and that he shouldn’t have been stripped of his US citizenship for becoming a citizen of Palestine.
The US District Court for the District of Colombia ruled that the Executive branch of the US government had recognized Palestine as a foreign state:
See Kletter v. Dulles link to dc.findacase.com
FYI, US immigration law still requires immigrant aliens from Mandates or UN Trusteeships to be treated as citizens of separate foreign states.
I personally like the period when the “territories” were called Judea and Samaria.
so you “like” to revert to the times of legendary King David and the short period of a united Judea and Israel? Or do you have more the times of Hasmonean expansion under John Hyrcanus in mind?
I had never heard of a country called Palestine.
The name was used by the Greek historian Herodot–„Syria palaistine“ –in the 5th century B.C.E and later adopted by the Romans.
Also I would be careful with the use of the term Samaria, since it reflects a complex history., just as there seems to be evidence that the Palestinians are in fact the descendants of
the Samaritians What is the settlers claim based on. Are they the rightful inheritors of King David, John Hyrcanus? And how exactly does that work. Or is all based on Yahweh’s word via Moses the Egyptian?
Perfect Lea! Just perfect!
TGIA, is LLI Israeli? Or American pro-Israel hawk?
The latter, could be Canadian, but the same thing. The ones who have absorbed a Hollywood version of Israel, combined with a John Wayne (armed with F16′s and nukes) style macho sense of superiority. And about as real.
LLi,
I was very concerned that your thoughtful comment was being responded to by too many of those anti-zionists that are know to frequent MW. So, to achieve some much needed fairness and balance, I looked for a Zionist historian’s view of the origins (or non-origins) of the term Palestine. Here’s a good one from 1917 written by the famous Zionist Albert Montefiore Hyamson: It’s entitled “Palestine”, oddly enough. Chapter 1 is entitled “Palestine Under the Romans”.
Hmmm, will that do LLi? It’s available for free on the internet. It’s a good read. In it you will learn wonderful things from the early Zionists, like how they have no intention of harming the indiginous inhabitants of Palestine and how they only hope to share it with them and live in peace and harmony together.
Oh, and LLi, you can just ignore the earlier screed from all those anti-zionists. I mean what do they know compared to someone of your lofty stature.
“TGIA, is LLI Israeli? Or American pro-Israel hawk?”
I can’t be sure Lea but Danaa, (who’s Israeli and grew up in Israel) has a theory on these vicious “Israeli” hasbarists who pollute this site. She thinks that they don’t “feel” Israeli to her and they’re rather American citizens posting from the comfort of their homes in the US.
Ask Daana if she knows the term Tikfetsi Li, and if that is Israeli enough for her.
She knows very well that being Israeli is not just about being born in Israel.
Yes it is. Beyniod that, you’re delving into mythology and the land of unicorns.
So Shingo, if someone is not born in the USA, then they shouldn’t be American, based on your logic above.
She knows very well that being Israeli is not just about being born in Israel.
Being Israeli is ALL about being born in Israel. Or getting yanked there when you were of an age when you couldn’t make that decision, legally, on your own.
Otherwise, you’re a garden variety Jew who lives somewhere else. You have to apply for citizenship like anyone else, even though you were told you were entitled. (We know Finkelstein and Hedy Epstein aren’t, because their shoes aren’t white enough, to use Mooser’s analogy.)
Sorry LLI, you’ve lost me.
You said that being Israeli is not just about being born in Israel. That’s clearly BS – in other words, my point it that being an American means being eitehr born ni America or nationalized.
Where’s the confusion?
You said that being Israeli is not just about being born in Israel.
Repeat after Supreme Court President Shimon Agranat: “There is no Israeli nation separate from the Jewish people. . . . The Jewish people is composed not only of those residing in Israel but also of Diaspora Jewries.”
The fact that a citizen of “Arab” nationality was born in Israel does not mean he or she is Israeli.
“Where did the name Jerusalem come from”?
do you mean al quds al sharif?
Islamic connection to Jerusalem is at best only 1400 years, so sorry, no prize for you
I take it then you reject the Christian connection to Jerusalem too? The city belongs to Jews and Jews alone?
Chaos, not sure if I am following your logic, but are you saying Christ came after Christianity?
“let’s look at history” — and also at Torah, the basis of the Jewish claim.
Torah tells us that when Cyrus told Hebrews they could leave their exile in Babylon and return to Jerusalem, the majority chose to remain in Babylon. “If I forget thee o zion,” it’s because life is sweeter someplace else.
If Jews were in Palestine for all those years, why didn’t Jews make the desert bloom? Why didn’t Jews establish democracy and prosperity for all in Palestine, over their millenia-long tenancy there?
Hebrews remained in Babylon from 586 BCE until 1950 CE.
Why didn’t Jews create liberal democracy and prosperity in Babylon/Baghdad/Iraq? And when Jews and Muslims were expelled from Andalusia, why didn’t they seek refuge in Babylon? When Jews were discriminated against in Germany, why didn’t they seek refuge in Babylon, ?
Let’s look at history — Jews, like all people, sought and seek the places where they believe they can achieve the greatest economic and educational opportunity. Why not be up front about it?
Nonsense. Jews could not do any of that until they were masters in their own land. Jews were somewhat successful in Arab lands DESPITE their dhimmi status and despite sometimes fairly harsh decrees against them.
link to amazon.com
You and the others here never talk about the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Arab/Muslim world. Those countries are the real apartheid states. In fact, even among Muslims, the hate is so great, that they murder each other almost on a daily basis, never mind what they do to Christians, Copts etc.
Liberal democracy? How long has that been around in the Western world?
Myth piled upon myth once again. Ignoring the many excellent points above, ill changes tack once again, and moves over to another chapter of that thin novel, the hasbara creed for beginners. Fail.
On the contrary, this has been discussed and debunked countless times on this forum.
There was no ethnic cleansing of Jews from Arab countries, which is why Mizrahi Jews reject that phony version of history, which was invented in the 1970′s.
“If Jews were in Palestine for all those years, why didn’t Jews make the desert bloom?”
And let’s not forget that for close to 2000 years the Jews in Palestine where hardly more than 2% of the population! So yeah sure. A permanent presence indeed….of an infinitely small minority (until 1903 when the first wave of 25,000 Zionist immigrants enters Palestine, coming mainly from eastern Europe). The Arabs together with those who’ve been there since time immemorial were the 98%.
Here:
The Ottoman census of 1878 indicated for the Jerusalem, Nablus, and Acre districts that Muslim population= 403,795= 85.5%; Christian=43,659=9.2%; Jewish=15,001=3.2%; Jewish (Foreign-born)= Est. 10,000=2.1%… It must be remebered that lost of Palestinians avoided the Turkish census for mainly these reasons: a) to avoid taxes, b) to avoid military conscription.
link to palestineremembered.com
LLI, September 25, 2011 at 1:59 pm
You are profoundly full of shit.
And that masters in their own land nonsense? You have yet to find it. You obviously gave it up 2000-3000 years ago. Or you lost it fair and square in a battle.
Nothing about your manufactured past entitles you to slather myth over a piece of real estate you covet and claim ownership. Oh yeah, you can do it; hence, the consequences. Just don’t whine about them.
it was never debunked Shingo, look it up. do some research.
Hmm, that’s too bad MRW. I was going to use LLI’s logic for when I retire. I felt I could just waltz over to Ireland and grab me some land and set up shop. After all, my ancestors were forced to leave my ancient Irish homeland (which has a 5000 year history) because of the great potato famine. I have my rights. They’ll take me back and give me some land won’t they? Hell, my ancestors left less than 200 years ago, not 2000. They gotta let me back.
Ah, on second thought, I don’t think so. The idea of 20 million plus disaspora Irish descending on the Emerald Isle claiming ancient ownership rights over the locals probably wouldn’t set so well with the current inhabitants. Most of us are a pretty polyglot group anyway; our pure Irish blood has been seriously diluted over the years. They’ll be polite but they won’t let us come back and stake ancient property claims.
Too bad I’m not Jewish. I could use my 2000 year old undiluted racial/cultural/religious purity to stake my right of return to all of Palestine . I could find me a nice West Bank settlement and push a few of those illiterate, itinerant Arabs out of my ancient Jewish homeland to make room for me. That’s the way things should be.
LLI, there’s a lot of us out here with ancient homelands that our ancestors were forced to leave from for a variety of reasons: famine, politics, religion, etc. Why do just Jews have a right of return? Why do Palestinian Arabs and Christians and Druze have no say in the matter? The truth is that your only claim to a part of Palestine is a derivative colonial claim you got from the British, which was then approved by the League of Nations and transferred to the UN. While unfair to the Palestinians, it does give you a right to stay in the portion of Palestine granted you by the UN. Nothing more.
I have DBG and yes, it has been debunked. Even the Mizrahi Jews in Israel reject this phony concoction that was invented in the late 70′s.
longliveisrael, for a Jew you don’t make logical sense. So the Palestinians have defined themselves as such in juxtaposition to Jewish Israelis, so what? There was no need to do so so clearly before the Jewish settler came from Europe because prior there to Jews and Arabs celebrated each others holidays, were very tolerant of each other.
How have the Jews defined themselves? By distinguishing themselves from the balance of humanity, whom they labeled goyim thousands of years ago. And they preceded to write separate those two classes in terms of justifying treating them differently, despite the belief that all of mankind was made in the Creator’s image.
The goys didn’t name themselves goys. To them ,back in antiquity, there were a wide variety of tribes, and when a power was big enough, as in Rome, where Rome had the power and control, Roman citizenship was the over-riding identity or not as it is in the USA today.
It’s not uncommon in Jewish analysis to conclude that there would be no Jews if not for anti-semitism. Indeed, that Zionism, for example, can not exist without it. Is it so hard to use the same logic to conclude that Palestinians would never have identified themselves as such without Zionism as practiced on them?
I don’t agree completely. Jews worked to distinguish themselves from gentiles or goys long before The Holocaust. And they did so even when assimilation was a real option, and do so now.
I think the biggest fear establishment Jew have is that they actually are no different than Gentiles. They want to have their cake and eat it too: “I’m just like you, a person among persons, a nation among nations.” This wish wars inside such Jews with “I’m a Jew, I’m special, unique. Maybe I’m only 10 better than you because I’m a Jew.”
For such Jews s the fear of a pogrom or Shoah around the corner more powerful than the fear of assimilation?
I apologize for my typos and missing letters, but I hope all get my drift.
When someone presents an argument in a rational manner, even if I disagree with it, I can review it and learn from it and respond. Chaos, Shingo, Cliff and Annie etc however feel that they need childish insults to get their points across, in fact, usually just leave out the points, since they don’t have any. Of course, it does not matter to me, but it really just demonstrates that the issue is not the Palestinians, but simple hatred of Jews.
I find your assertions puzzling. The goyim as you refer to them put us in ghettos, made us wear clearly identifiable garments and then accuse of us being exclusive and clannish. Every once in a while, they would decimate us, or expel us. Jews like nothing more than to assimilate, we see it now in the West all the time.
Yes, I know, you are all tired of hearing of the Shoah. However, I am trying to figure out how it was that my mother, not a religious Jew, living in some small town in Hungary ended up in Auschwitz where her extended family was destroyed. I guess it was because she had an air of superiority about her vis-a-vis the goyim.
The lesson I am supposed to learn from this according to you and Shingo etc. Stop being such a Jew. Stop being paranoid. When Iran says they want to wipe you off the map, they are just being farcical. When even so-called moderate members of the Fatah leadership say that Israel should not exist, we should just grin and bear it. When Hamas and Hizbollah say they Israel should be eliminated, why it’s just rhetoric.
When Nasser said back in 1967 that the Jews would be pushed into the sea, he was just currying favor with the Arab world. Had they gone through with their desires and defeated Israel, why it would have been the gentlest defeat ever..
“Stop being such a Jew” I had to pull back my fingers when I read this on my way to typing other bon mots. You ain’t like no Jew of my acquaintance. Perhaps, rather, you should start being more of one.
LLI,
You were ignoring ou arguments long before anyone started insulting you. As others have observed, you are a hit and run commenter. You posts some pro Israeli comment and then dissapear when you are challenged on it.
Dimissing arguments that refute you as hatred of Jews is beyind childish, it is cowardly and pathetic.
Everyone is still trying to figure that out LLI, but what we know for sure is that the Palestinians had nothing to do with it.
On the contrary LLI. You are not ” being such a Jew” when you are spreading pro Israseli propaganda and lies. That has nothign to do with being Jewish.
When some pro Zionist propaganda arms tells you that “Iran says they want to wipe you off the map” , the wise thing woudl be to verify if it is true or not. Do you resent being lied to LLI or do you find comfort in someone comfirming and playing to your fears?
Again, when a pro Zionist propaganda arms tells you that a member of the Fatah leadership says that Israel should not exist, would you want to know if it;s true or would you rather comfirming your fears?
When Nasser said back in 1967 that the Jews would be pushed into the sea, Eshkol, Rabin, Begin and most of Israel’s leaders knew he was trash talking but did not take him seriously. So why do you prefer to play dumb and act like a child?
When someone presents an argument in a rational manner, even if I disagree with it, I can review it and learn from it and respond. Chaos, Shingo, Cliff and Annie etc however feel that they need childish insults
lli, citizen was very polite and rational and you chose to respond by whining at us. you didn’t really engage his comment other than complain.
Yes, I know, you are all tired of hearing of the Shoah. However, I am trying to figure out how it was that my mother, not a religious Jew, living in some small town in Hungary ended up in Auschwitz where her extended family was destroyed. I guess it was because she had an air of superiority about her vis-a-vis the goyim.
well then what are you doing here? why don’t you go try to figure it out elsewhere.
“when a pro Zionist propaganda arms tells you”
In other words Shingo, you have that magic capability of discerning propaganda from the truth, but somehow we Zionists and those who support us don’t. This is the common refrain in supposedly refuting our comments, we are all blind or paid hasbarists.
I did not say that Palestinians had anything to do with the Shoah, though not for lack of trying by Haj Amin al-Husseini. However, what it does mean, when we are threatened with extinction, we take it very seriously. We also take Holocaust denial very seriously, and if you claim that Iran does not mean what they say about destroying Israel then nothing else you say has any value.
As for commentating, when someone here presents a statement that is presented well and is open to debate, sure. When it’s a rant like Chaos usually like to spout, it’s a waste of energy and pixels.
As for Nasser, yes, that’s why Israel had it’s army mobilized for weeks, because they knew he was just kidding.. Closing the Straits of Tiran, putting several divisions into the Sinai and kicking out the UN. Meanwhile the mobs in Egypt and Syria scream “Itbach al Yahud”
I’m laughing at his sense of humour even now.
However, what it does mean, when we are threatened with extinction, we take it very seriously……and if you claim that Iran does not mean what they say
yawn.
It’s not magic LLI, it’s about ideology and colelctive trauma. You’ve had collective trauma passed on to you based on the tragedy of your family history and as such, you’re conditioned to filter out a narrative that does not fit that indoctrination.
This was very well illustrated in the documentary “Defamation”. There’s a scene where Jewish students from Israel are taken on a trip to the death camps in Poland. Throughout their trip, they are accompanied by an Israeli secrete service agent to “protect” them. In reality, his role it to isolate the group as much as possible from the local population and convince the stundents that they are surrounded by rabid anti semites everywhere they look. They are conditioned to assume evryone they come into contact with is hates them and that they are not safe to venture out in public on their own.
link to youtube.com
The most striking and distubing scene takes place when 2 of the girls try to strike up a conversation with 3 elderly Polish men who ask them if they are Israeli. The girls, who don’t speak Polish, immediately assume the men are calling them pigs and animals. It’s not the reality, it’s their belief system.
I am not claiming Iran does not mean what they say, I am arguing that the trasbnlation you have been given about wiping Israel off the map has been debunked by people who actually speack Farsi.
Holocaust denial is repugnant, but even Ahamdinejad doesn’t explcitly deny it so much as question the official narrative and propose that it be investigated. Personally, I see nothing wrong with that. Why shouldn’t it be investigated?
You can’t hjave it both ways LLI. You’re tryign to argue that Nasser’s mobilization of his forces proves he was on the offensive while Israel’s mobilization of it’s forces proves it was on the defensive. In fact, Rabin, who was Israeli Chief of Staff at the time explcitly said that: “I do not believe that Nasser wanted war. The two divisions which he sent into Sinai on 14 May would not have been enough to unleash an offensive against Israel. He knew it and we knew it.”
Mordecai Bentov, a member of the wartime national government, goes further and argues that:
“The entire story of the danger of extermination was invented in every detail and exaggerated a posteriori to justify the annexation of new Arab territory.”
General Peled, Chief of Logistical Command during the war and one of 12 members of Israel’s General Staff agrees:
“Israel was never in real danger and there was no evidence that Egypt had any intention of attacking Israel.”
So you see LLI. All of thos who were in the best position to determine if Nasser was a threat, and who had first hand intelligence, deny it. Similarly, the
closing the Straits of Tiran (which lasted only a week anyway) was certainly no threat to Israel, seeing as 5% of Israeli shipping used the route.
So haveing been provided all this evidence, your insistence that Israel acted in self defense against a threat of extinction can only suggest that you are clinging to your victimhood because it’s part of your identity.
Interestingly, one of the Rabbis who was intereviewed in the Defamed documentary suggested that non religious Jews are most obsessed with anti Smeitism, and some of the non religious Jews interviewed admitted that their preoccupation with victimhood was the fondation of their Jewish indentity given that they were not religious.
Long Live Israel NOT!!!,
In one of your above posts you speak about how Jews were forced to live in ghettos. Curious, is it not, that the rabbinical leaders of Europe’s Jewish communities were not pleased with the emancipation of the Jews that began in Europe at the end of the 18th century because it broke the stranglehold they had over their fellow Jews who required outsiders (“goyim”) to liberate them.
Herzl, according to his diary, was troubled by what he described as the lack of a transition period after emancipation in which Jews would have been taught how to live with Gentiles without provoking them and that the inability of Jewish capitalists to do so was the cause of anti-semitism. (Obviously, Herzl was a self-hater.)
The goal of Israel today and from the beginning has NOT been to become a “normal” state like any other as some have said but to be the world’s largest Jewish ghetto. In that, I must admit, it has succeeded.
You see annie, Shingo actually knows how to craft an intelligent response, something you can learn from him.
Shingo, no doubt that I, like many Jews have a deep trauma conditioning given what we and our families went through, and given our history. The question is, what is it we do about it. In fact, if I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp and was told daily that the Israelis and Jews did this and that to us, I would probably join a terror group.
So, yes, our reality and conditioning is super powerful. I have stated here on several occasions that I do not want to fight the Palestinians or anyone else for that matter. Ask any veteran Israeli combat soldier and they will tell you the same thing. We know how ugly war is, no matter who is involved.
WE NEED TO RESOLVE THE ISSUES BETWEEN US AND THE PALESTINIANS TO MUTUAL BENEFIT.
We need to get to the point where not even one more person is wounded or killed.
On this site however, as it is for many who call themselves activists, it’s not about peace between our two people. Its about delegitimizing Israel, it’s about eliminating Israel. THAT I WILL FIGHT, AND SHOW NO MERCY.
LLI,
You are so tedious.
LLI,
It may amaze you to know that we agree on everything you just said, except the claim that anyone wants to eleiminate Israel. If anyone were to endorse that view, their comment would be censored by the moderator.
No one here has the ability to delegitimizeIsrael. Only Israel has the capacity to delegitimize Israel, and does so, as many Israeli diplomats apprently believe.
Why did the Zionist pamphlets my grandparents have refer to the area as “Palestine” and why was the jpost, formerly the Palestine post?
Listen hasbarat, we all admit that there was no *independent* country of palestine, but denying the accepted (and >100 year old) term for that area, and there obvious identity, is absurd and only works on the uninformed (or perhaps biased Zionists, full of “rationalizations”, “logic”, “comparisons”, “paradigms”, selective imperial documents with selective interpretations, etc., etc.)
Apparently, once Europe had nation states, and much of the world did not have “independent states”, we could disregard all their logical rights and steal entire countries… Oh wait, that’s kinda what we did for many areas hundreds of years ago, and we all admit it was wrong.
Zionists like to go back to imperial periods, and even 2000 years ago. Sadly the world likes to deal with the present and recent past, and surely does not want to regress to modes of being 100 or 2000 years ago. Seems many Zionists do, especially the settler fringe. Some seem to be right out of the Torah/Old Testament.
we all admit that there was no *independent* country of palestine,
Actually Great Britain entered into bilateral treaties with Palestine. Unlike British territories, Palestine did not enjoy any Imperial trade preferences and its citizens were considered foreign aliens when they visited Great Britain. Prof. Hersh Lauterpacht wrote an advisory opinion in his capacity as counsel to the Jewish Agency for Palestine which cited a 1932 decision of the British Law Lords, Simon and Erleigh. Lauterpacht noted that the British government had already reached the conclusion that Palestine was a “third independent State” for the purposes of the most favored nation clause in its own commerce treaties.
link to books.google.com
The UK High Court of Justice ruled that Palestine was a separate foreign state when Kletter was arrested and deported. See the cite to R v. Ketter [aka Kletter] 1940, 1 KB 787 in Kletter v Dulles. link to dc.findacase.com
The two 1925 cases I mentioned above established that Palestine, not Great Britain, was the successor state of the Ottoman empire with respect to contracts, territory, debts, archives, and citizenship. So no, we don’t all agree that there was no independent country of Palestine.
My bad… the zionist lies are so numerous and full of chutzpah, sometimes I accept a lie, or a watered version of the lie (but STILL a lie).
Appreciate your correchtion and deep knowledge. Oh the house of cards the zionists built… But their nukes and fundamentalism is what scares me. We can end the occupation but to get them to accept refugees, after reviving, modifying, and radicalizing such thick ancient tribalism into zionism? Just seems insurmountable.
“So no, we don’t all agree that there was no independent country of Palestine.”
Your stunningly detailed and brilliantly deployed knowledge notwithstanding, the point that baffles me is why Zionists think this is so important?
Do they really think that the lack of a Palestinian state, or the lack of a Palestinian “national consciousness”, or some such, means that the Zionist programme to take over the land and expel or subjugate all of its Arab inhabitants is morally justifiable?
If so, how is the argument supposed to work?
If so, how is the argument supposed to work?
Despite the fact that the American and French people had been exercising popular sovereignty for ages, the modern colonial enterprises were justified either on the basis of terra nullius or the idea as Ralph Wilde puts it that certain peoples in the world were “uncivilized”, lacking organized societies, a position reflected and constituted in the notion that their “sovereignty” was either completely lacking, or at least of an inferior character when compared to that of “civilized” peoples.”
Those legal fictions were discarded when colonialism was outlawed and the UN declared that level of civilization could no longer be used as an excuse to withhold independence from colonial peoples.
link to www1.umn.edu
Marcelo Svirsky, “The Production of Terra Nullius and the Zionist-Palestinian Conflict” has a good discussion of the mentality we are witnessing in this case.
link to cardiff.ac.uk
Thanks for the links. The first three pages of Svirsky are appalling. They look like the product of the Postmodern Generator. But there, he is drawing on French frauds. (“I draw on Deleuze and Guattari’s..”)
When he gets down to the Terra Nullius concept and Zionist practice, he writes much more clearly and makes a fair bit of sense in explaining Zionist collective psychology.
However, what I was imagining was that there was some sort of Zionist argument from
“Palestinians did not have a state/national consciousness/etc.”
to
“Therefore it was permissible to push them from their farms and houses.”
From Svirsky it looks as though there is no such argument. It is merely a piece of self-deception.
The Zionist tells himself ‘there is no Arab people living in intimate fusion with the country, utilizing its resources and stamping it with a characteristic impress: there is at best an Arab encampment’ and thus succeeds in convincing himself that the farms, villages, etc., never really existed. And if they never existed, there is no harm in eradicating them.
If that is what is going on, it is no wonder that the Zionist makes loud declarations about “no Palestinian state, etc., but never explains why this matters. Explaining would reveal the self-deception.
There were also Palestinian passports and stamps clearly imprinted with the name, Palestine, were issued by the Palestinian Post Office that were over-stamped with a reference to the British Mandate.
The fact of the matter is that the Zionists there, here, and everywhere, called it Palestine. Theologians of very persuasion called it Palestine. There was no debate about it, Numerous books were written which called the land Palestine. That Zionists now try to say there is or was no such thing as Palestine is just to reaffirm something I learned long ago, Zionists tend to be pathological liars and what is true is only that which is useful to them. Long Live Palestine!!!
Jeffrey :
“There were also Palestinian passports and stamps clearly imprinted with the name, Palestine, were issued by the Palestinian Post Office that were over-stamped with a reference to the British Mandate.”
++++ Little more that that, even from legal perspective :
British mandate officials in 1922 :
“”Further, it is contemplated that the status of all citizens of Palestine in the eyes of the law shall be Palestinian, and it has never been intended that they, or any section of them, should possess any other juridical status.”"
link to unispal.un.org
The first three pages of Svirsky are appalling. They look like the product of the Postmodern Generator.
Then you are lucky I didn’t cite Rosemary E. Shinko, “Discourses of Denial: Silencing the Palestinians, Delegitimizing Their Claims,” Journal of International Affairs 58.1 (2004) or Joyce Dalsheim, Settler nationalism, collective memories of violence and the ‘uncanny other’, Social Identities, Volume 10, Issue 2 2004 , pages 151 – 170
When he gets down to the Terra Nullius concept and Zionist practice, he writes much more clearly and makes a fair bit of sense in explaining Zionist collective psychology.
Yes I was only citing him for a discussion of the mentality.
From Svirsky it looks as though there is no such argument. It is merely a piece of self-deception.
Oh no, there is a legal argument that is widely considered incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial, or senescent. e.g. Yehuda Zvi Blum, The Missing ‘Reversioner: Reflections on the Status of Judea and Samaria, 3 Israel L. Rev. 279 (1968). No one accepts that a territory with an organized population in the hundreds of thousands or millions can be considered terra nullius, except of course *ssholes like Danny Ayalon.
The accepted view is that the old-fashioned concept of sovereignty was inapplicable to international regimes of divided legal competences such as the LoN Mandate and UN Trusteeship systems and that the people of the territory retained their residual sovereignty after emancipation. In the International Status of South West Africa advisory opinion, Judge McNair argued:
It is no accident that Yehuda Blum and Julius Stone were the originators of the myth that only Great Britain and Pakistan recognized the union between Arab Palestine and Transjordan. They also implied that the inhabitants of the territory needed to obtain some other form of special recognition in order to exercise their own sovereignty. In fact nothing was required beyond the UN decision to terminate the mandate based upon “their ability to stand alone” and the admission of the new entity, Jordan, as a full member of the UN.
“Then you are lucky I didn’t cite …”
Probably very lucky, and I thank you for your restraint.
Perhaps I don’t understand the full ramifications of “sovereignty” as a legal term, but I am not sure that arguments about sovereignty – even incompetent, irrelevant, immaterial, or senescent ones – deal with the aspect that I am interested in.
Human beings were driven out of their homes, and dispossessed of their farms, factories, and businesses, by people who had no prima facie greater rights to those homes, etc, (and, indeed, no rights to them at all as far as I can see). This seems grossly immoral to me, and I cannot see that the lack of a state/national consciousness/etc., makes it any more moral.
I am not, here, concerned with legality, self-determination, independence, or political sovereignty, but with fundamental morality. And I wanted to know if the Zionists actually had a moral argument – no matter how poor – in play here. They never seem to present one.
I am not, here, concerned with legality, self-determination, independence, or political sovereignty, but with fundamental morality. And I wanted to know if the Zionists actually had a moral argument – no matter how poor – in play here. They never seem to present one.
The Jewish people have equated legal arguments about the law of conquest with moral arguments for centuries (e.g. Torah, God told us to conquer the land). The only platform that the Zionist Organization ever had was one based upon law. Eli Likovski wrote an essay on the Status of the Jewish Agency and WZO which explained that when the Zionist Congress said “to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine, secured under public law” that it meant “public international law”. See page 32 of Daniel Judah Elazar, Alysa M. Dortort (editors) “Understanding the Jewish Agency: a handbook, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 1984
Human beings were driven out of their homes, and dispossessed of their farms, factories, and businesses, by people who had no prima facie greater rights to those homes, etc, . . . This seems grossly immoral to me
The law of nations is not silent on the subject of conquest. For example, the decision in United States v. Percheman, 32 U. S. 51 (1832) was based upon the common sense of justice and of right(eousness):
link to supreme.justia.com
The Charter of the United Nations is based upon universal principles of international law including self-determination and the prohibition of the threat or use of force for reasons that are inconsistent with those principles of international law. The ICJ noted in the Wall case that a corollary to the prohibition of force is the customary rule against the acquisition of territory by war. So Blum’s “Missing Reversioner” theory is a fundamentally immoral one.
So, in short:
(a) there is no moral argument from lack of a state/national consciousness, etc., to “it is not wrong to drive them out and steal their stuff”,
(b) the lack of a state/national consciousness, etc., is offered as a legalistic distraction to us and as a support for the self-deception of Zionists,
(c) the Jewish people (or at least the Zionists) don’t understand the difference between “legal” and “right”.
That explains a great deal about why, when I ask for the argument, I am met with Zionist silence.
Been wondering the same thing for a long time
LLI,
I call it “historical Palestine” because its now called “Israel” – not sure if you heard, but about 100 years ago, a bunch of racist messianic jews called “zionists” immigrated to Palestine, under the protection of the British and began a program to take over the land and expel all of its Arab inhabitants. Turns it out it went pretty well. When things that used to exist no longer do, we say that they are a part of this thing called “history.” E.g., The Dodo Bird.
Just to mention from ancient history, which we talk about sometimes, that non-Biblical reference to Palestine begins about the same time as reference to Israel. The general biblical report – things seem different in Genesis – is that the Palestinians had no single king but did form a state and were ruled by a committee of Five Lords. If you ask me ancient Palestine was the only democracy in the ME.
I personally like the period when the “territories” were called Judea and Samaria.
Which was 2,000+ years ago. But they were areas WITHIN PALESTINE, if you will check the maps and literature.
The Zionists have been trying to for 64 years.
I agree with Dan Crowther that the biggest danger for Zionists is that the American people will actually become informed about the history of the Israeli state, the tremendous injustice done to the indigenous people with the aid of US tax dollars and loss of prestige. The resulting great lack of proportion is severe and will registered with even a moron. The American Israel First press may even have to talk about the Nakba and Abbas’s characterizaion of it as “on-going” in his speech at the UN for statehood. Why?
Because the Republicans are making Israel a key campaign sound bite; hoping for more results like Turner’s win of Weiner’s empty seat in congress. Obama’s responsive clear NO on Palestine statehood stressing Israel’s victimhood angle without even mentioning the occupation has now upped the ante. Proof is that for the first time ever Fox News’s fake debate segments allowed the usual token fake lefti to actually talking about Israel’s settlements for about 15 seconds.
Perhaps Ron Paul’s consultants will actually decide they may as well allow Ron Paul to get a bit more specific about what’s wrong with US foreign policy since the media ignores and dismisses him same as all the cable TV News channels of whatever stripe–Ron Paul’s economic and monetary message is being pillaged by both sides, yet that’s the result. This is the time for Ron Paul to rise as far as he can; he will never get another such chance. He’s already called upon US audience to stand in the shoes of Iran for a minute to get a tad of perspective. Israel’s occupation might just be debated live on TV due to incessant mouthing of all the usual hasbara soundbite rhetoric long known to the exceptional American.
The nightmare of the lobby is that any light gets shone onto the issue.
And that is inevitable now.
he transfer of what was 56% of historical Palestine to what was 5% of the population at the time of partition.
Dan, it feels you are mixing up population and possession of the land. The population was roughly 2/3 Palestinians and 1/3 Jewish (recent emigrants and a minority of Jews that had lived there). No need to exaggerate, it still wasn’t fair.
Well they became a 1/3 of the population in the frame of 5 to 10 years due to intense immigration. Otherwise for decades since the 1920s they were barely more than 5 to 10% of the population. It’s like saying that the Jews in the West Bank are a 1/3 of the population knowing that the majority of the settlers were dumped there in the past 5 years. For 100s of years Jews were a very small minority.
Well they became a 1/3 of the population in the frame of 5 to 10 years due to intense immigration.
Well, yes. We can’t take the context out of the scenario. Buber left Germany only in 1938, and he better did. The problem is that he and the other cultural Zionists didn’t win the day, and that somehow was connected to the understandable resistance of the Palestinian population.
We all know that without the Nazis there wouldn’t have been a Jewish state, don’t we?
The legal basis of the division is an altogether different story.
Concerning LLI, I would really like to take a look at the Israeli history curriculum, if he is an Israeli.
LeaNder,
If you go back to the top, I admit a mix up in my first post- I didnt mean to exaggerate, and I apologize for doing so.
Hillary Mann Leverett, Professor Juan Cole, Zogby all on same page about Obama’s speech at UN
Prof Cole on the same page
link to juancole.com
“But the biggest hypocrisy in Washington was reserved for the Palestinians, who labor under a repressive military occupation in the West Bank and are besieged and blockaded in Gaza. If anything they are far more deprived of basic political rights than the people in Egypt or Tunisia last year this time.
But the Obama administration’s response to the bid of the Palestinians for membership in the United Nations has been to seek to forestall it, to strong-arm Mahmoud “Abu Mazen” Abbas, and to twist the arms of countries like Nigeria and Gabon to get them to vote against it.
Obama’s argument, which simply echoes that of the Likud government in Israel is that the Palestine Authority is sidestepping the peace process by going to the UN. But that is a ridiculous proposition. There is no peace process. Obama failed to provide one. Thus, the Palestinians are wise to make an end run around the US in the region, since American policy toward the Palestinians has been since the time of Harry Truman to sacrifice them at the altar of US domestic politics (Truman pointed out that he had Jewish constituents, but no Palestinian ones to speak of). The Israel lobbies in the US are so powerful and successful that 81 congressmen spent some of their August recess in Israel!
The Palestinians are stateless. They have no citizenship in anything. That is why the Oslo process could be short-circuited by Binyamin Netanyahu and why Israel could renege at will from all the commitments it had made to the Palestinians. It is why Palestinian land can be usurped at will by Israeli squatters on the West Bank.”
This interview with Hillary Mann Leverett nails it
link to raceforiran.com
Zogby on Obama’s speech
link to huffingtonpost.com
Interesting photo history. Only goes so far back
link to foreignpolicy.com
“Twenty years of a U.S.-controlled process designed to maintain Israeli power and privilege is over — it’s enough. Now the challenge remains to create a new, UN-based process grounded in international law, equality and human rights — for all.”
If Israel is going to be challenged by the Palestinians with a negotiation position ‘grounded in International Law’ then those are 1948 borders
Israel has been a Ponzi Scheme nearly from it’s inception – it’s as every move they have made is to provide cover for their previous illegal move.
Every Israeli act has been created to make it impossible for Res 194 to ever be instituted and to somehow keep the 70% of Palestinians in the Diaspora out of ‘Greater Occupied Palestine’
It Palestine really insists on a resolution in confomance UN Resolutions (esp UN194), the Geneva Conventions and all International Law – that of course means the ‘One State Solution’
Israel’s main thrust has been to support Palestinian-go betweens that would sign off no ‘Bantustan-Palestine’ rather than one that takes into account the Palestinian Diaspora
Are the Palestinians (I think Hamas already is demanding exactly this) really going to drop the Israeli-line and go for the One State Resolution that essentially honors UN 194?
It would be the end of Israel as we know it but then the Israeli decision to ethnic cleanse Palestine was the end of Israel as it was contemplated (and insisted upon by the UN with UN194 as a precondition for Israeli statehood)
“Now the challenge remains to create a new, UN-based process grounded in international law, equality and human rights — for all.”
says it all
and who will take up said challenge?
the palestinian people + the worldwide justice for palestine movement
BDS, BDS, BDS
Settlers load up on munitions
link to guardian.co.uk
It sounds as though Adam Klugman is going to have a very good program this (Saturday) evening. The second hour (7:00-8:00 PM EDST) of his program will deal with how Jews and Muslims got along with each other in the Middle East before the creation of Israel.
LISTEN TO “MAD AS HELL IN AMERICA” WITH ADAM KLUGMAN ON AM 620 KPOJ (PORTLAND, OR), SATURDAYS FROM 3:00-6:00 PM PDST [6:00-9:00 PM EDST]
MAD AS HELL IN AMERICA (archived podcasts) – link to madashellinamerica.com
P.S. Klugman’s program also has some excellent ‘bumper music’.
Retrieved from: link to en.wikipedia.org
24 September 2011
“Milḥemet Mitzvah or in Biblical Hebrew Milḥemeth Miṣwah (Hebrew: מלחמת מצווה, “War by commandment”) is the term for a war during the times of the Tanakh when a king (of the Kingdom of Israel) would go to war in order to fulfill something based on, and required by, the Torah without needing approval from a Sanhedrin, such as war against Amalek.”
===
“At the top of the hierarchy came what was later to be called milchemet mitzvah [Holy War]. Holy war was of two kinds. Either it was waged against peoples especially designated by God as His enemies, such as the Amalekites, or else it served to achieve some sacred end, such as possession of the Land of Israel. Either way it was considered more than a purely human affair: it represented the Lord’s own special quarrel, so to speak. Milchemet mitzvah was a war of extermination in the fullest sense of hat term. The Israelites who engaged in it were put under strict obligation to spare nobody and nothing. Men, women, and children, even nonhuman living beings such as asses and cattle, were to be put to the sword. All material possessions were supposed to be burnt, the only exceptions being gold, silver, copper, and iron [this being considered a precious metal], which were to be consecrated to the Lord’s use.”
Martin Van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York City, New York: Free Press, 1991). 134-135.
“There is, in Israel today, a resurgence of extremist groups who would like nothing better than to see the entire bloody concept revived and put back into operation.”
Martin Van Creveld, The Transformation of War (New York City, New York: Free Press, 1991). 141
=====
milchemet mitzvah more than any rational understanding of national interests explains the Zionist Israeli’s behavior since 1967. That the U.S. political elite has allowed lobbyists to handcuff the U.S. government to the Zealots means the future is dark. The U.S. political elites have to unshackle themselves. The question is whether the political class wants to. That issue will only be resolved by an “us [i.e. U.S.] or them [Zionists]” moment. Presumably that was what Bin Ladin was after.
Atzmon says this is just the endlessly repeated Book Of Esther again. New players take the same old roles, or they are assigned them. A potboiler novel with a very long life, eh?
The only place where I would disagree with you, gingershot, is in the last paragraph. Israel was always contemplated as involving ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. Ben Gurion said as much and so did Herzl and Weizmann well before 1948.
There are selective but well documented evidences of that here:
link to robat.scl.net
Thanks for that link, just more grist for the mill.
And yet the Israelis have the gall to insist on security gaurantees from the Palestinians. Un – fíng believable.
“guarantees” ?
++++ If someone wants guarantees, buy him/her a toaster.
we have had real problems with toasters of late.. it seems they are all made in the same factory in china and they all break down and have a short life… no guarentees with toasters since they are now all made in china, lol…
There is a geo-political game-changer as well. The centre of economic and political power is moving to the far East. As American power dwindles, Japan, South Korea, and Thailand will care less and less about what America wants. China and Vietnam don’t care a lot about what America wants anyway.
But the Far Eastern countries do want stability in the Middle East.
Far Eastern countries don’t care about Jews. Jews play almost no role in their cultural or religous traditions. (Malaysia and Indonesia, being largely Muslim countries, are exceptions, but they are strongly pro-Palestinian. Only the northern half of the Philippines is Christian.) They don’t care if they get called “anti-Semites”. The Holocaust was far away and long ago and nothing to do with them.
Nor are they likely to have much sympathy with European colonisers.
So if Israel can’t keep American military secrets flowing into China, it can expect little support from the Far East.
Will Europe and America continue to be able to prop Israel up for much longer?
“Will Europe and America continue to be able to prop Israel up for much longer?”
Europe won’t but regarding America it depends on what involvment Israel had in 9/11. If that was a false flag operation for the sake of Israel then they go down together.
It appears that we may all have been conned again. The NYT reports that at the same time Obama was publicly urging Netanyahu to abandon settlement activity, he was quietly shipping him Bunker-Busting Bombs!
link to nytimes.com
I don’t think that was a conb Remax,
The Israelis never do anything without exacting a price.
Obama caught a lot of flack from the Jewish Establishment for mentioning settlements in pubic; his handlers convinced him he needed to show he really loves Israel or else. Nothing’s change since Truman.
i hope this doesn’t happen. we were just discussing this around here yesterday. either way i’m assuming they can’t put it off forever.
i’m very much in favor of this being a game changer. bring it on.
too bad the un doesn’t look into finding an end to the selling of military arms globally… the security council members and countries like israel would be screwed… the rest of the planet might have a chance at surviving another 50-100 years though…. i don’t think boeing, lockheed martin and other companies that make this shit care about that though…
US government employees know their government violates the Arms Control Act regarding Israel on a regular basis. But at the top objections are squelched.
i am surprised that cheney and bush didn’t just re-write the ”arms control act” so that groups like carlyle and etc. etc. can have no limits on the instruments of death the extended bush family can continue to profit on… have to keep up the great tradition passed down from preston, lol..
Leon Hadar who got the US-ME right in 1992 has just announced:
Pax Americana is over
But unlike Great Britain in 1947, the United States cannot pass the Middle East torch to a friendly global power willing to assume its responsibilities.
Trouble, trouble, trouble….
Palestinian FM Rejects Quartet Proposal for Not Addressing Settlements, Israeli Withdrawal
Lebanon Ex-PM Hariri Praises Abbas, Slams Israel
Erdogan: Israel-Turkey Relations May Never Be Normal Again
Pakistan Warns US: ‘You Will Lose an Ally’
I am waiting for the headline:
“Saudi Embargos Oil to the US”
I don’t believe the US saw the Arab spring coming when it did, but their intelligence must have anticipated that things would not continue unchanged when Mubarak died, not least because he had been trying to groom his son and despite draconian police controls the Egyptian people were clearly not happy with that. Furthermore the Brookings 2010 Arab Public Opinion Report showed that while almost all the Arab public wished for a nuclear free ME, a substantial majority saw a nuclear-armed Iran as being better for them while Israel kept its arsenal, and among those who believed Iran did have a nuclear weapons program, 70% overall, with a staggering 81% of Egyptians, still thought Iran had a right to its nuclear program. See pages 47/49 of the PDF report (URL at the top of this link).
link to brookings.edu
Leaving aside the issue of Iran’s nuclear program, those figures can be read as profound distrust of the US.
It seems to me likely that on top of these and other global developments, the Arab Spring changed the game dramatically for the US, and from that point the Palestinians moved to the bottom of the list while Israel’s development as a vast US military base equipped with a human shield in the form of settlement populations was accelerated.
Anyone watching the movements of the United States right now must be in awe of its international doublespeak. While itss more liberal proponents swear fealty to Israel and condemn all attempts by Palestinians to achieve the symbolic recognition of statehood status from the United Nations, it’s conservative wing is so ideologically intertwined with Israel….and it’s lobby… that it has offered the Solidarity with Israel Act (sponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah) as a punitive threat of the withholding of all American funding by the United States to the United Nations should the multilateral institution recognize the state of Palestine.
Really, I can’t handle this country much longer.
It will all end in tears, mamma.
How long will decent Americans stand by while the giants push and crush the children of the holy lands:
link to dailystar.com.lb
Back to the UN vote on recognition of Palestinian statehood. You may be interested in some facts you may not know regarding how UN recognition of Israel seat came about–some things change, yet remain the same. Or do they? link to haaretz.com
There is a danger in seeking too much from an account of past events strung out along a time-line while failing to take account what was going on in people’s minds. Europe was only just out of war, everything was scarce and rationed. While people in the UK, for instance, were as shocked as anyone when the concentration camps were opened, one needs remember that they too had just been through years of horror and loss and there was a degree of relativity in their response because the Jews were not the only victims of Hitler’s deranged policies although today a younger person might well think they were because they have so actively kept that part before the world. Sympathy was not restricted to Jews, it encompassed all victims, Jews included, whose lives and families had been torn apart. The persistence of the Jews for their state came to be regarded as a nuisance, the ‘Jewish problem’ it was called, and setting up a home for them seemed to many a good way to get them out of one’s hair. It had nothing whatsoever to do with Zionism, an ideology about which most people knew nothing and cared less. It wasn’t even an issue among the new socialist intellectuals who viewed the Israel experiment in idealistic terms as an opportunity for an oppressed people to show the world how a modern state should operate, those idealists are dead now but their disappointment as that dream began to fade from around 1970 was palpable.
If we are to find accord in our lifetime, we must put aside selective events from the past and deal with each day as it comes. Leave the past to historians to write and rewrite, and rewrite.
You know I think Remax hits on what may be the biggest *moral* issue/victim involved in all of this.
Someone, I forget who but I seem to recall it being a jewish scholar/thinker/writer, noted that in the jewish community—in the U.S. at least, and the Diaspora outside of Europe—the Holocaust “changed.” That … in its immediate aftermath and up even until the 1960′s while of course they felt it deeply it wasn’t until that later decade if not into the 1970′s that it started to become something that they identified as having some unique meaning to jewry and jewry alone. That they somewhat … identified with it.
Afterwards, this guy who I can’t recall, said that it only then started to kind of become “owned” by jews in a way.
Now of course no-one can gainsay their right to this, and indeed what I find interesting and dispiriting is not their reaction to it but everyone else’s. When I was growing up (America’s heartland, in the ’60′s and 70′s), whenever the Holocaust came up it was still very very much talked about in the mode of “… see what humans are capable of?”
I.e., not what only *Germans* were capable of, and not what only jews were subject to, but what humans are capable of doing to other humans, period.
And predictably the Holocaust of the jews in the camps was really also just tied in when people were speaking—without in the least trying to minimize the special spite directed at the jews—at all the atrocities committed by all the various Axis actors in the war, against all the various victims. The Rape of Nanking … and even—amongst the better read—the victims of the communists such as in the Gulag, or the starvation of the Ukrainians and etc.
We’re losing something then I think by letting that sensibility slip. And this means no criticism whatsoever of jewry for its sensibility; indeed, one might criticize the Poles or the Slavs generally for not having their own version of the Yad Vashem, or the Christian peasants in the Soviet Union, and etc. and so forth. Or maybe one big damn monument to all those lives flayed out in that spasm of madness that the two ideologies of fascism and communism caused.
… all once again bringing back what is I think is the primary lesson that in the end it’s just f____ing *people* and human nature that’s the core evil. The horror that, given the right circumstances, all of us are maybe capable of doing the same to someone else. A great big slap in the face to all our pretensions about how good we are, how incorruptible we are, how far from savagery we all are…
Really a terrible thing if this kind of lesson somehow faded out I think. And a real danger: Oh how convenient to think that … *we* could never be Germans. Or that because we are not jews that *we* could never be rounded up. Our subconscious just loves to edit out of our memories those lessons that don’t support our own egos, doesn’t it?
And that lesson goes for everyone with two legs, in both ways: There’s nothing about it that says that yesterday’s worst perpetrators can’t be tomorrow’s worst victims, and vice-versa as well. And indeed that’s *precisely* what that lesson says, doesn’t it? “If you are human, your nature is that of both beast *and* prey.”
“Someone, I forget who but I seem to recall it being a jewish scholar/thinker/writer, noted that in the jewish community—in the U.S. at least, and the Diaspora outside of Europe—the Holocaust “changed.”
I think you’re talking about Peter Novick and his book “The Holocaust in American Life”.
“When I was growing up (America’s heartland, in the ’60′s and 70′s), whenever the Holocaust came up it was still very very much talked about in the mode of “… see what humans are capable of?”
I.e., not what only *Germans* were capable of, and not what only jews were subject to, but what humans are capable of doing to other humans, period.
And predictably the Holocaust of the jews in the camps was really also just tied in when people were speaking—without in the least trying to minimize the special spite directed at the jews—at all the atrocities committed by all the various Axis actors in the war, against all the various victims. The Rape of Nanking … and even—amongst the better read—the victims of the communists such as in the Gulag, or the starvation of the Ukrainians and etc.
We’re losing something then I think by letting that sensibility slip. And this means no criticism whatsoever of jewry for its sensibility; indeed, one might criticize the Poles or the Slavs generally for not having their own version of the Yad Vashem, or the Christian peasants in the Soviet Union, and etc. and so forth. Or maybe one big damn monument to all those lives flayed out in that spasm of madness that the two ideologies of fascism and communism caused.”
That’s exactly correct, I think. As an example, take a look at Shirer’s book “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”, which came out in 1960. There’s a section on Nazi atrocities and a huge portion of it is devoted to the genocide against the Jews, as it should be. But the tone is more like what you’re talking about–the point was that the Nazis had committed numerous crimes against humanity and the crimes against the Jews were among the worst, but they didn’t make the others shrink in significance. Sometime in the 70′s there was a shift in tone, towards elevating the Holocaust above all other crimes in history. I think Timothy Snyder in his recent book “Bloodlands” is attempting to shift things back towards a more universal approach to the crimes in eastern Europe in the 30′s and 40′s. Stalin began the mass slaughter of millions, then Hitler joined in, and in a sense the two ideologies fed off of each other.
“… all once again bringing back what is I think is the primary lesson that in the end it’s just f____ing *people* and human nature that’s the core evil. The horror that, given the right circumstances, all of us are maybe capable of doing the same to someone else. A great big slap in the face to all our pretensions about how good we are, how incorruptible we are, how far from savagery we all are…”
Right again, IMO. This used to be the lesson of the Holocaust as I recall. But again, in my lifetime some people seem to have tried to shift the meaning to a more self-serving account. The lesson is that only a certain group of really awful people are capable of acting the way the Germans acted, and so there must have been something fundamentally wrong with Germans.
Thanks for that, Sin Nombre.
It’s not just the Holocaust whose meaning has shifted. I get the impression today that in many younger people’s minds World War II itself was ABOUT the Jews. That it wasn’t about land or power or political systems, but just an excuse to kill Jews. It’s a cartoon version of history that I think owes much to media portrayals.
That many if not most young Americans believe that WW2 was largely Hitler’s “War on the Jews” as Lucy Davidowicz titled her book is not so much the work of the media but is due to the dedication and diligence of the Zionist establishment, largely the ADL and the AJC in conjunction with national and local Jewish federations that have heavily lobbied school districts and textbook publishers from coast to coast.
Consequently, beginning with reading the Diary of Anne Frank in the 7th grade, by the time American schoolkids leave high school they will have spent far more time studying the Jewish holocaust than not only the rest of WW2, the genocide of the Native Americans, the ills of slavery and the civil rights movement.
The Zionist establishment not only puts pressure on publishers and school boards who decide on what textbooks to issue their students, they also provide the kind of well designed teaching materials and lesson plans that make a hard working teacher’s life a little easier. And when available, of course, they try and get the schools to invite holocaust survivors as guest speakers.
at parent teacher night recently (grade 6) we were informed that history class would begin with ancient civilizations and with luck make it as far as the first world war. then we were told that in spite of that ambitious task the students will still cover the holocaust and get at least one book in on that subject, to which the parents all nodded approvingly.
Getting back to Bennis’s article, it is sad to note that her only reference to Obama’s groveling acceptance of Israel’s primacy in formulating US Middle East policy in his speech before the UN is her use of the mainstream media term, “for domestic political reasons.”
Despite the excellent work she has done on the Israel-Palestine issue over the years, Bennis’s failure to acknowledge the power of the Zionist Lobby has been and apparently remains her “Achilles’s heel.”
Blankfort, I notice that too and was also disappointed in Bennis’s Article as to her “for domestic political reasons.” I’ve noticed this line has been happening fairly often lately. It reminds me of how the very specific findings of the 9/11 Commission as to motivation of the attackers (US rubber-stamping of Isael was the biggie, followed by US bases in SA) was reduced to the banal abstraction that foreign policy always has some bad blowback. (I forget the exact substituted abstract words for the Commission’s conclusion for public consumption.)
Agree with you about what she missed
That is exactly why I linked these articles
Hillary Mann Leverett, Professor Juan Cole, Zogby all on same page about Obama’s speech at UN
Prof Cole on the same page
link to juancole.com
“But the biggest hypocrisy in Washington was reserved for the Palestinians, who labor under a repressive military occupation in the West Bank and are besieged and blockaded in Gaza. If anything they are far more deprived of basic political rights than the people in Egypt or Tunisia last year this time.
But the Obama administration’s response to the bid of the Palestinians for membership in the United Nations has been to seek to forestall it, to strong-arm Mahmoud “Abu Mazen” Abbas, and to twist the arms of countries like Nigeria and Gabon to get them to vote against it.
Obama’s argument, which simply echoes that of the Likud government in Israel is that the Palestine Authority is sidestepping the peace process by going to the UN. But that is a ridiculous proposition. There is no peace process. Obama failed to provide one. Thus, the Palestinians are wise to make an end run around the US in the region, since American policy toward the Palestinians has been since the time of Harry Truman to sacrifice them at the altar of US domestic politics (Truman pointed out that he had Jewish constituents, but no Palestinian ones to speak of). The Israel lobbies in the US are so powerful and successful that 81 congressmen spent some of their August recess in Israel!
The Palestinians are stateless. They have no citizenship in anything. That is why the Oslo process could be short-circuited by Binyamin Netanyahu and why Israel could renege at will from all the commitments it had made to the Palestinians. It is why Palestinian land can be usurped at will by Israeli squatters on the West Bank.”
This interview with Hillary Mann Leverett nails it
link to raceforiran.com
Zogby on Obama’s speech
link to huffingtonpost.com
Hillary Mann Leverett is damn tough on Obama
link to raceforiran.com
link to juancole.com
Not tough enough Kathleen.
I was disgusted with Obama’s speech. What are monumental failure!
Add to what Bennis has written that Abbas stated, upon his return to the West Bank, that negotiations would not resume until Israel ceased expanding the settlements. That is a very open challenge to Obama. Saudi Arabia has just announced women will have the right to vote and to share responsibilities in the advisory councils. This is the same Saudi Arabia that warned it would take action if the US rejected UN recognition of Palestinian statehood. All politics is local, everywhere in the world.
What a fascinating discussion. This internet thing is very bad for the official Zionist history.
LOL seafoid – word!
Fatah, the so-called moderates among the Palestinians and what they really say in Arabic:
link to memritv.org
lli, why you dont get some from Mein Kampf. Its as good as memri. Or reading jewish matters from Der Stürmer.
You’re linking to memri and expect to be taken seriously? Why do you think memri exists? Clue: it isn’t to provide an independently verifiable source of information.
Regardless of who posted it, do you dispute what he is saying in the video?
You have Mondoweiss, we have Memri
so what? seriously, so what? here’s a video for you. it’s current too.
Memri is an ISraeli propaganda arm run by a known Israeli propagandist who lied us into war.
We have a truth-telling blog, and you have a racist hate-speech mill that is paid to spin lies.
Regardless of who posted it, do you dispute what he is saying in the video?
No but you’ll have explain what’s wrong with what he said. There’s nothing wrong with calling Obama, Netanyahu, or Lieberman scumbags. After all, they have ordered or endorsed extra-judicial killings; pressured Fatah on the UN HRC Fact Finding Reports on Gaza and the Attack of the Aid Flotilla; & have pressed for renunciation of refugee rights.
This guy on AJ was responding to criticism about the UN bid being based upon 1967 borders and the possible impact on refugees. There was also criticism that Israel would get off too lightly.
He indicated that there will still be a final settlement that can address the issue of refugees and compensation and that a bid for UN membership can’t resolve all of the issues in one go. He also indicated that far from getting off lightly, Greater Israel would come to an end if Israel withdraws from East Jerusalem, evacuates 650,000 settlers, and removes the Wall. When one of the others tried to discuss the destruction of Israel, he said that it was nonsense to discuss such an impossible task; that it isn’t Fatah policy; and that people should keep such thoughts to themselves. He said Fatah only wants what has already been agreed upon in resolutions and he wants to say to the world you promised and turned out to be liars.
I agree with Annie. So what? Seriously, so what?
I have been amazed by the intense efforts from the EU, France, the Brits, the Quartet, as well as the US to stop Abbas’ UN gambit. It has been a full press effort at the highest level with many high level diplomats involved. Everything else stopped for three weeks. The question is why, particularly since the US and Europeans are saying little or nothing would change if the Palestinians were admitted.
The only answer I can come up with is that there must be some very strong intel indicating the probability of a huge negative reaction from the Arab street, as well as from the Saudis, that could result in major harm to US and EU interests in the event of a veto. Nothing else justifies this intense an effort, particularly since admitting Palestine to the UN would likely help the negotiations by setting the 1967 line as the anchor.
While certainly the Israelis don’t want the Palestinians admitted because it will change the game against them by making the issue a legal one that won’t necessarily need to be resolved only through negotiations. It will also cut the US out of the role of sole biased mediator and designated Netanyahu lap poodle (a role Tony Blair plays for the Quarted). But, I can’t see how all the massive diplomatic efforts stem just from Israeli bitching and lobby efforts in the US and one the continent. Its got to be a real tangible fear of something far worse happening if there is a veto. If that’s the case then maybe there still is a hope that the US won’t veto when push finally comes to shove. Hope springs eternal.
Abbas has turned out to be a real stud. Good on him. I hope he stays tough cause he is on a roll!
Irish I have been pondering these recent developments on similar lines. A few weeks back I expected the US to simply announce their opposition to the Palestinian bid but otherwise just let it play out. That would have been sufficient to placate the lobby. However, with Obama’s speech, our pressure against Gabon and Nigeria and now this new role of the quartet suggests we are really expending some serious diplomatic capital to stop the bid.
The quartet is interesting. Russia has no interest in helping US support Israel. But they can be bought and their price is high.
In any case I have no idea what the “real tangible fear” is that is driving this policy. It just has to be more than the 2012 election.
The big fat fear ToivoS is the civil war that’s likely to break out in israel if israeli settlers are forced back to the ’67 border – forced there by international law, and subsequently enforced by Nato, it’s military arm.
The skinny fear, a lesser fear to the zionists (lesser because they can drag in America for help on this one): is that a regional war could easily get sparked off by the rapid de-Arabization of Jerusalem. Even the gulf nations would go to war over jerusalem.
Either way, israel goes to hell – and either way it takes us down with it.
Taxi,
I agree those are both realistic fears for the Europeans and US, but they are long-term fears. I think all the diplomatic hullabaloo must be related to a more immediate fear/threat.
Toivo,
I don’t think Israel or its US lobby would have been at all placated by anything but a promise of a US veto. Israel hates this idea as it puts it front and center back in the realm of the UN and all the legal issues they are so desperately trying to avoid. As long as they can hold onto to “negotiations between the parties” as the only means to a solution, they won’t have to face the legal issues of the settlements, the 1967 border, etc. UN membership will put the legal spotlight back on Israel which has no rock to hide under.
Yeah, the “real, tangible fear” has to be more than the US election since the Europeans were and are heavily involved in trying to stop Abbas, yet could care less about our election. I doubt Israel has the power to force the Europeans to fight against the veto, so it must be some real threat of what could happen after the veto. It must be something very big to generate all this high level diplomatic commotion.
I think it’s the access to the ICC. That’s what scares not only Israel but also the US and perhaps some others that may be outed. Bring it on!
I think you’re right john h -
there’s been some discussion about this on other threads here.
In any case I have no idea what the “real tangible fear” is that is driving this policy. It just has to be more than the 2012 election.
The fear is that Abbas & company have announced their desire to address their problems by non-violent means in the ICJ and ICC. The United States government has a veritable psychosis about that subject and is afraid that other countries in the Middle East might follow that example. Years ago, the Bush administration pressured the Iraqi interim government to reverse its decision to sign the Rome Statute on the International Criminal Court.
link to ipsnews.net
If Palestine goes after Israel for crimes committed on its territory since the Statute entered into force in July 2002, the citizens of Iraq might very well demand that their government hold US and UK officials accountable too. There is ample evidence in the public domain of a joint criminal enterprise to wage a war of aggression against the nation of Iraq and widespread war crimes and crimes against humanity. The same thing can be said of the crimes committed on Egyptian territory in connection with the CIA rendition program and US assistance to Omar Suleiman and President Mubarak in suppressing political dissidents.
Even if those skeletons in the closet don’t result in criminal liability, they might result in ICJ cases, like Military and Paramilitary Activities in and against Nicaragua (Nicaragua v. United States of America). In recent years, the Court has held that countries like Israel and Uganda are responsible for payment of compensation that, in some cases, would amount to tens of billions in claims. So of course the United States wants to resolve the Middle East crisis on the basis of power politics – outside the framework of international law.
Hostage, interesting legal points as usual. You mention Nicaaragua v US. The US simply ignored that ruling. That is partly why I discounted legal rulings as an important factor — the US as the world’s only superpower is not bound by them it seems.
Hostage,
Good points, but why are the Europeans so heavily involved in this? They’re not looking at ICC or ICJ liability so why are they carrying the US and Israel’s water?
The combined diplomatic efforts for the past 3 weeks or so to shut down the UN gambit are unprecedented. I think they are all worried about linkage/blowback. The Brits and Spaniards already had a major taste of what can happen. The French and the Brits have seen recent massive public unrest, and Muslim unrest in terms of the French. The Germans have a huge unfranchised Turkish population that could light up. I think all of this is the most likely explanation.
What I can’t figure out is why all the combined US/EU pressure is being applied against just to the Palestinians. The proposals they were offering were clearly coming from Tel Aviv through Ross, Blair, et al. I mean refering to the settlements as “demographic changes” was ludicrous and sure to buttress Abbas’ resolve.
Why are they all so fearful of the Israelis? Christ, it’s a third tier country with a population less than half of Los Angeles’, or a third of New York City’s. It’s GDP is 10 percent of New York City’s and maybe a fifth of Los Angeles’. What is the deal here? If they are all really terrified of the linkage/blowback possibilities, why not go directly to the source and hammer the shit out of the Israelis by everybody agreeing to stop all trade, all tourism, etc., etc. until they agree to the Arab Peace Initiative?
My only explanation is that everybody expected Abbas to fold so offered him nothing. Maybe the gloves will come off with regard to the Israelis as the veto date approaches? But that doesn’t really make sense when you look at the last Quartet offer.
You would think the combined leaders of 500 million EU citizens, plus another 300 million in the US could stand up to 5 million irrational, suicidal Jews when US/EU vital national interests are being threatened. I mean christ we are about to lost Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia as result of this mess, that is 3 critical allies and 180 million Muslims, all for 5 million “ungrateful” Jews? What’s the deal here?
That’s a very good question irishmoses. One that I have often pondered.
The fear of the lobby and campaign donations can’t be enough to drive such anxiety and fear. It has to be some kind of serious blackmail that Israel has thretaned the West with. I can’t help but think back to the Samson Option and the threat of Israel startign a major world war if it doesn’t get it’s way every time.
The fact that the US and it’s allies are willing to risk so much suggests they are seriously fearful of what the Israelis are willing to do.
The US simply ignored that ruling. That is partly why I discounted legal rulings as an important factor — the US as the world’s only superpower is not bound by them it seems.
The Court entered an intermediate judgement regarding the application of the Contadora Process and the Security Council adopted a resolution on the establishment of ONUCA (“United Nations Observer Group in Central America”). Events dragged-on until the dispute was finally ended under the Esquipulas Peace plan. A new Nicaraguan regime temporarily stopped pursuing claims against the US, but the ICJ had reserved the right to set the final amount of compensation owed by the US in the event the parties can’t come to an agreement on their own:
President Daniel Ortega subsequently revived the issue and suggested that he thought Nicaragua was entitled to about $17 billion. link to bbc.co.uk
If Nicaragua goes back to the ICJ, there will undoubtedly be some states that will honor any ICJ judgment or resulting Nicaraguan claim against US-owned foreign assets.
Good points, but why are the Europeans so heavily involved in this?
They are up to their eyes in the Afghan misadventure which is another can of worms. As you’ve noted, even if you don’t factor-in the possibility of criminal or civil liability, a veto on Palestine might spark unrest or discontent throughout Asia and in sections of the European population.
My only explanation is that everybody expected Abbas to fold
It’s normal for people living under regimes of occupation and terror to go through cycles where they collapse and then snap back. The PA and PLO leadership publicly committed to this course of action 2 years ago. Abbas is 76 and his brother died recently. I don’t think it was very likely that he would hand his rivals a huge political victory and go-off quietly into retirement empty-handed without leaving behind any legacy.
Even if Dennis Ross was counting on that, he still should have noticed when Abbas and Fayyad started giving everyone two middle fingers (way up) last spring. They did that each time anyone suggested they should resume talks despite construction in the settlements and that it was premature or improper to take the statehood issue to the UN in light of the instability caused by the Arab Spring. I have to agree with Prof. Walt. This is the type of foreign policy expertise you get when you recycle the same people who were responsible for our previous failures.
Hostage. thanks for that update. I thought there was an outstanding judgement, had no idea that it was still in litigation (or whatever it is called in international law between states).
had no idea that it was still in litigation (or whatever it is called in international law between states).
When there are vast sums of money involved or an intense desire for revenge, cases in international law can literally go-on for centuries. For example, the French Spoliation Cases involved the condemnation of American ships by French admiralty courts in the 1790s. The ship owners and their descendants pursued claims until “the fat lady sang” in 1915.
Stay on point irish, it’s Zionists not Jews
Remind me again how Saudi Arabia is an ally of the US and it’s people.
What can I tell you, if only all those leaders read Mondoweiss, why they would know the real truth and would dump Israel in a flash. All they have to do is ask Chaos what to do.
You would think the combined leaders of 500 million EU citizens, plus another 300 million in the US could stand up to 5 million irrational, suicidal Jews when US/EU vital national interests are being threatened. I mean christ we are about to lost Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia as result of this mess, that is 3 critical allies and 180 million Muslims, all for 5 million “ungrateful” Jews? What’s the deal here?
I’m glad you put your country on par with Saudi Arabia when it comes to US relations, that’s one of the few things you’ve said I can agree with, LLI.
LLI,
I could have said “Israelis” but that would have included Arab Israelis so I used Jews, meaning Israeli Jews. I don’t think Zionists would have been better since not all Israelis are Zionists. My point was why are we sacrificing the best interests of 500 million EU allies, 300 million of our own citizens, and 180 million of our key Mid East allies for a mere 5 million Israeli Jews who, in any case, are “ungrateful” for what we have done for them (per Robert Gates)? Is one Israeli Jew more important to us than 200 of our own citizens and critical allies? I don’t think so.
As to the Saudis (not to mention the Turks and Egyptians) of course they are an important ally of the US, imperfect though they may be. Their natural resources, critical strategic location, and size make them far important to us as allies than Israel could ever hope to be.
I agree, there is a palpable sense of urgency and it feels dangerous. Might it be something to do with a planned attack on Iran’s nuclear enrichment facilities? There was a somewhat tantalising piece about China not stopping Israel if it decides to attack Iran, which was dated May but Haaretz brought out again (?) four days ago.
link to haaretz.com.
Obama has provided Netanyahu with Bunker Busting Bombs which cannot really have any other purpose.
link to nytimes.com
All this UN stuff may be casting too bright a light for such a plan?
I also wondered about a possible attack on Iran. Is it possible that Netanyahu threatened Obama that if they failed in blocking the Palestinian bid for statehood, then Israel would invade Iran thereby pulling the US into the resulting war (afterall, there is not a inch of difference between the US and Israel)? That seems just too extreme.
BTW, those bunker busting bombs would be much more effective against Hezbollah in S. Lebanon, I think that is why Israel wanted them.
“Its got to be a real tangible fear of something far worse happening if there is a veto. ”
I think you have nailed it
An interesting point; totally the sheer energy put into preventing progress was the one feature suggesting that something important has happened. Can we take the stated reason as correct, that an actual veto would enrage the world against the US, and therefore it would better for the US to bury it?
I personally would have said that this public determination to ever prevent justice was just as bad as a formal veto, but this is diplomacy. Not rocking the boat is seen as a positive goal. I suppose by everybody except for those being murdered by israeli pogroms.
Abbas didn’t get through. If you watched the American press on Sunday news shows, the presence of Palestinians was reinforced, but still not as able and willing neighbors.
They were still presented as angry Arabs, rather than as responsible and persuasive.
I liked Abbas’ speech (I only saw the first half hour). I just saw Netanyahu on David Gregory, and he was still able to spin Abbas as recalcitrant, the obstacle, entirely deflecting any aspect of his policies comprising an obstacle to peace.
In the Netanyahu interview, he referred to Abbas describing the land as the homeland of Muslims and of Christians (maybe he was referring to Palestinian community). Netanyahu made hay of his omission of Jews in the description of historical connection, and Gregory did not confront him.
Well of course. And if Ethan Bronner, Wolf Blitzer and Haim Saban told you there were nukes in Iran, you’d jump off that bridge too.
There is a rational reason for the objection to the Palestinian petitions, with many opportunistic reasons hiding in the shadows.
The good reason is as stated, that a Palestinian state absent a peace is a precarious state for its people, and for its neighbors.
The opportunistic reasons are the many that secretly or not so secretly do not desire a peace. The opportunists are on the Zionist right, the Palestinian Islamic right, and the solidarity left that desires only agitation towards a single state.
Hey Witty,
Have you decided to come out of hiding?
Of course there’s a rational reason Witty – if you happend to be a fascist, rascist supremacist with colonialist ambitions to steal the West Bank and East Jerusalem – as you do.
That’s not a reason,t at’s a hasbra talking point. The growing consensus si that Bibbi and Israel does not want peace, but land.
Bill Clinton: Netanyahu isn’t interested in Mideast peace deal
link to haaretz.com?
Netanyahu proved Israel doesn’t want peace
link to haaretz.com
So let me get this straight — the Jewish nation has a right to self-determination. The Palestinian state doesn’t.
The only opportunists are Zionist settlers, and people like you who buy political cover for them while they go out and murder and steal.
he’s not all bad Chaos, Witty does hold his nose when doing so after all, so it can’t be all that pleasant for him.
Great, so that means he does his ethnic cleansing one-handed. I hope what he’s holding is his nose. :P