“Preserving Israel’s Uncertain Status Quo,” by Aaron David Miller on the Times Op-Ed page, includes this disturbing argument:
Yes Israel has serious worries… The country’s demographics look bad — too many ultra-Orthodox Jews, Palestinians and Israeli Arabs and not enough secular Jews.
Search for these phrases in the New York Times: Too many blacks in Alabama. Too many Jews in New York City.
Note that Obama’s friend Eric Yoffie, a liberal Zionist, has used the same phrase, “too many Arabs.” I.e., you don’t pay a price for such rhetoric in the U.S. No; you get into the New York Times!
By the way, the thrust of the Aaron David Miller analysis is that things are not bad in Israel, especially in light of the uncertainties of the Arab Spring. Israel is the Silicon Valley of the Middle East, and the so-called economic peace in the West Bank has “generated more than a manageable status quo.”
thanks phil, i am really not groking the point of the nyt choosing to publish this op ed. it’s just a same ol same ol ‘israel is doing the best that can be expected’ type thing. even the title ‘Preserving Israel’s Uncertain Status Quo’, why would anyone think the status quo is worth preserving? it’s a mess.
Notice, that there are two kinds undesirable Jews listed there, not just “Arabs”!
Do you not see the completely ROFL of that? Israel’s problem (besides the Arabs) is the wrong kind of Jew And Gee whillikers, Rabbi, wouldn’t those be the kind of Jews “Ultra-Orthodox” and not “secular”, that would have the most trouble fitting in elsewhere? The kind Israel was supposed to be for, Rebbe?
This is, without a doubt, the most hysterically deluded Zionist viewpoint I’ve ever seen. Too many fanatics or pietist dreamers, not enough secular? Gosh, I wonder why?
[i]Do you not see the completely ROFL of that? Israel’s problem (besides the Arabs) is the wrong kind of Jew[/i]
I wouldn’t take this too seriously. It looks like a fig-leaf inclusion to try to dull the otherwise obvious racism of that passage. If you say Israel has too many Palestinians and Israeli Arabs, it just looks racist. If you put “Orthodox Jews” in there, you look a bit more ecumenical in your prejudices.
“If you put “Orthodox Jews” in there, you look a bit more ecumenical in your prejudices.”
Possibly, but we sure get a lot of (it is to laugh, hyena-like) “liberal Zionists” here who try to blame Israel’s problems on those same two groups.
(I’m sure you figured this out by now, but this comment system likes < and not [ for HTML)
The question is, how many more examples of clearly racist statements by ‘liberals’ like Aaron Miller is needed before larger swathes of liberals actually wake up?
The ‘civil rights activist’ Abe Foxman clearly stated in an interview with the Forward a few weeks back that he ‘saw nothing wrong at all’ with the Levy report(the same report which was headed by a fanatical settler who denied there even was such a thing as an Occupation).
When are people going to call these people and tell them they can’t hide behind their Jewishness and that ethnic nationalism is ethnic nationalism, and if we don’t support it in the U.S., Australia, Canada, Europe and elsewhere why for Jews only?
Of course the answer you get is that ‘those countries are different’.
Well, duh, no shit sherlock. They’re liberal democracies, not blood and race-based states.
If you want to support that, go ahead. But don’t pretend to be a liberal.
And as long as most liberals(especially white liberals, who are mostly spineless on these issues due to identity politics) just let these racists off the hook in a way they’d never let a white nationalist, this will continue.
Oh and by the way.
As for Israel. Yes, it’s hi tech sector is doing well. But that’s mostly driven by secular Ashkenazis(a fast declining demography) as well as Russian immigrants, a one-shot boost.
Israel’s PISA scores are below every single Western nation despite a per-capita gdp which is close to the European average.
Even if you take out the arabs from the scores(who score below some third world nations because the resources to the arab school children is abysmal), and only look at Jews(and even excluding the Haredim), Israel still places below every single Western nation, including Greece(which is at the bottom).
And if you want background why Aaron Miller is having a racist rant on the NYT; 50 % of all primary school children in Israel are either Arab or Haredim.
There’s way to fix both group’s dismal results, but that would require stopping subsidising settlers and infrastructure investment in West Bank colonies and instead investing in eduation instead, not something Israel is willing to do.
“it’s a mess” immoral, illegal, inhumane.. that is what apartheid is. Have noticed for about three years Aaron David Miller is Israel’s new spokes person in the U.S. MSM. Talk of the Nation and other NPR programs have him on all of the time
‘Aaron David Miller is Israel’s new spokes person in the U.S. MSM’
Yes – because he’s supposedly so devoted to achieving a just peace and so cognizant of the obstacles (as a former peace processor). And so he drones on with poignant regret that the U.S could never seem to act as an honest I/P broker, but only as ‘Israel’s lawyer’. It’s very very sad, he admits, but who is he, living in the comfort of Chevy Chase Maryland, to ask Israel to change its ways. The more he drones, the clearer it becomes that he must have been a very willing ‘lawyer’.
“Aaron David Miller is Israel’s new spokes person in the U.S. MSM.”
Oh please, Kathleen. Do you even know who the guy is?
I suggest you read his book.
“Oh please, Kathleen. Do you even know who the guy is?”
Yeah, isn’t he the one who suggested “transfer” for the Ultra-Orthodox and non-secular Jews to solve Israel’s problems?
Can somebody remind me what is the difference between a ‘Liberal’ Zionist like Aaron David Miller, with his “more than a manageable status quo,” and Yesha chairman Dani Dayan’s settler-triumphalist “[w]hile the status quo is not anyone’s ideal, it is immeasurably better than any other feasible alternative”?
If only libzio master chef Witty were still here, I’m sure he’d toss us up a tasty bowl of word salad haiku that would sort out this perplexing conundrum.
“Too many blacks in Alabama. Too many Jews in New York City. ”
Black and Whites are not at war in Alabama, and there is no conflict I know of involving Jews in New York City. There is a conflict between Jews and Arabs in the Middle East.
Surely, Phil, you realize the irony of this argument. Part of the Arab case against Israel was too many Jews in the Holy Land. We’re OK with them as a small minority, but not in any real numbers where they might want sovereignty and rule over us.
Israel’s demographic case has little to do with racism. Israelis are worried, and rightfully so, about being ruled by Arabs just as Arabs were worried about being ruled by Jews. Arabs have been attacking Israel since before its founding, and have made no bones about wanting to drive the Jews out of the Middle East.
Other than that, you ignore the fact that many countries consider demographics in their policymaking. Serbia is not going to allow huge growth in the Albanian population. American politicians make constant cause out of the number of Hispanics from Latin America, and no immigrant I know of engages in rhetoric that their aim is to take over America the way Palestinian rhetoric has focused on reversing 1948. European politicians have repeatedly lamented the number of Muslims in Europe.
It’s easy to make things like this look bad when you ignore history and context.
@hophmi,
“It’s easy to make things like this look bad when you ignore history and context.”
Which you are guilty of. Sixty years, the entirety of your life, isn’t the definition of history.
“Learning From Arab Jews”
link to tonykaron.com
Hitler had a problem with too may Jews in Germany. Racists always have a problem with people of the wrong type:- they are a “security” threat or a “demographic” threat in Orwellian language. How exactly should Serbia solve the problem of Albanians have too many babies in Serbia? How should white South Africa have better solved the problem of too many blacks in South Africa? Apartheid? Democracy with equal rights? If you don’t believe in the second option then you are a RACIST!
“How exactly should Serbia solve the problem of Albanians have too many babies in Serbia?”
The international community solved it by making Kosovo an Albanian state.
“How should white South Africa have better solved the problem of too many blacks in South Africa? ”
South Africa is different. It was 80% Black and it was a straight de jure system that was an end in itself. With the I-P conflict, you’re dealing with populations that are basically of equal size and just as importantly, are not interested in a one-state solution.
Yes, it’s true, South Africa is an extraordinarily segregated democracy. I’ve been there. I’m not sure, given the current situation there and rise of young leaders like Julius Malema, that the inspiring pluralistic spirit in South Africa today will make it another generation if things stay the way they are now.
How about Zimbabwe? What do you think of that situation? How about the former Yugoslavia? How did that turn out?
“With the I-P conflict, you’re dealing with populations that are basically of equal size and just as importantly, are not interested in a one-state solution. ”
Except that the Jews there have been running a one-state solution for 40 years, in which the Jews and a token handful of Arabs get rights and the rest don’t.
The notion that the Arabs aren’t interested in a one-state solution is only true if the Jews would be willing to permit a two-state solution. They’re not. If you were to ask the Palestinians whether they prefer (1) to remain occupied forever, as the acts of the Jews seem to indicate is their plans or (2) a single state where Jews and Arabs enjoy full political and social equality and all get the vote, equally, what do you think will be the outcome?
“How about Zimbabwe? What do you think of that situation? How about the former Yugoslavia? How did that turn out?”
You have no right to fear these results when the Jews are holding West Bank and Gaza utterly and completely. If the israelis don’t want to be a Zimbabwe, then they have to withdraw totally and completely. If they aren’t willing to do that, they demonstrate they are the aparthied racists.
South Africa is different. It was 80% Black
And Ottoman Palestine was more than 90 percent Arab. As the name implies, the “Ashkenazi Jews” were non-indigenous immigrants like the the Afrikaners.
Once again, demographic expert U.O. Schmelz highlighted the fact that there was no indigenous Jewish demographic threat:
See U.O. Schmelz Demographic Research of the Jerusalem
and Hebron Regions Towards the End of the Ottoman Period, in David Kushner, Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period: Political, Social, and Economic Transformation, BRILL, 1986, page 363.
“And Ottoman Palestine was more than 90 percent Arab. As the name implies, the “Ashkenazi Jews” were non-indigenous immigrants like the the Afrikaners. ”
Ashkenazi Jews did not come to Palestine to make money or use the Holy Land as a refilling station. They came to flee persecution. And they had historical and religious roots in the region. There is no comparison between these two situations, and you cannot keep ignoring the difference in context.
Ashkenazi Jews did not come to Palestine to make money or use the Holy Land as a refilling station. They came to flee persecution. And they had historical and religious roots in the region.
The hell they didn’t. Most of the Zionists were of the atheist, bomb throwing anarchist, or socialist varieties. Read Herzl’s and Ben Gurion’s diaries or Jabotinsky’s articles before you try to deliver lectures to anyone about their religious roots. Those sources reveal that they were motivated by dreams of empire, conquest, or free plots of state land just like other settler colonial societies . The South African “Myth of Origin” is based upon the fact that Jan van Riebeeck founded the first Dutch settlement and that two hundred French Huguenots, fleeing religious persecution in their homeland, followed soon after.
There is no comparison between these two situations, and you cannot keep ignoring the difference in context.
Oh I can’t huh? This NYT report is cited in Uri Davis, Apartheid Israel: Possibilities for the Struggle Within, Zed Books, 2004:
– link to books.google.com
There’s plenty more where that came from.
“They came to flee persecution.”
Some of them, possibly. But how does that excuse what they did once they got there? Or do you figure Jews have a “gimme” Holacaust to inflict on the peoples of their choice?
“There is no comparison between these two situations, and you cannot keep ignoring the difference in context.”
‘Your Honor, I realise I murdered my parents, but for cripes sake, have mercy. I’m an orphan!’
I don’t give a rats ass how many times I have to repeat that Jewish history in the Holy Land isn’t a myth. You keep believing in the Khazar theory, Hostage.
As usual, you rely on polemical literature to make your point. So some Afrikaner found justification for his ridiculous system in Israel. I could care less.
Israel was recognized by the US, and USSR, and many other countries in 1948.
“You keep believing in the Khazar theory, Hostage.”
Still can’t understand what that has to do with it? I don’t care who the Zionists were, I don’t care who the Palestinians were.
Why was it necesaary for the Zionists to treat them like that? And if you want to get right down to cases why on earth were the Zionists shitting in the bed they planned to sleep in for the next eternity?
What was/is the purpose of that?
Hophmi, of course, is always fighting the first-ditch battle for Israel. Maybe he hopes that if he never, ever admits the Zionists were responsible for anything they did, he can get an extenuation on McNaughton rule grounds.
I don’t give a rats ass how many times I have to repeat that Jewish history in the Holy Land isn’t a myth. You keep believing in the Khazar theory, Hostage.
If your myths are true, then I’m only repeating them. There are more than just the one theory about the origins of the Khazars. You can read about one of them in the very detailed article on Armenia at the Jewish Virtual Library. link to jewishvirtuallibrary.org
That theory is based upon multiple sources, including some Jewish ones, concerning the Armenian origin of the Khazars. FYI, the eternal Torah claims that a mere 10 generations before Abraham got his copy of Noah’s Y-Chromosome, it was resting on the mountains of Ararat somewhere in Armenia, in the company of some identical copies carried by his sons Shem, Ham and Japheth. Note that they all would have had so-called “Levantine” DNA according to the criteria established by the Einstein Medical Center studies, despite the fact that the accounts indicate it originated elsewhere in the Middle East. The JVL article repeatedly associates biblical Haran with this region too. It also states:
– link to jewishvirtuallibrary.org
Ashkenaz was a 3rd generation descendant of Noah. The local history of the Jews in Armenia, like that of the other Jews of Central Asia, dates back as far as the deportations from the Northern Kingdom of Israel by Assyrians; deportations from Judea and Syria by the Armenian Emperor Tigranes the Great; and deportations of Jews from Persia. In short, there’s no reason to believe that Khazars were thoroughbred Turkomen if they originated from Armenians, when there were so many reports of large numbers of Israelites and Jews living in Central Asia hundreds of years before the current era and the conversion of the Khazar Kingdom. There were frequent contacts with Byzantine and other Jewish communities.
Still can’t understand what that has to do with it?
It doesn’t have anything to do with it, except for desperate Zionists who channel Joan Peters in order to prove that Palestinians were either unworthy or recent arrivals and that a bunch of European Jews should be considered homeboys.
>> Israelis are worried … about being ruled by Arabs just as Arabs were worried about being ruled by Jews.
The “Arabs” were worried about Jews establishing a supremacist “Jewish State” in Palestine at the expense of the “Arabs” (they were right) while Israel is worried that it may not be able to remain a supremacist “Jewish State” in Palestine at the expense of the “Arabs”.
>> Arabs have been attacking Israel since before its founding …
Pretty impressive, attacking a nation before it’s even founded. Might have something to do with the fact that a supremacist “Jewish State” was being founded in Palestine at the expense of the “Arabs”.
>> Serbia is not going to allow huge growth in the Albanian population.
As long as all immigrants to Serbia become Serbian citizens with the same rights as every other Serbian citizen, there’s no problem. The same cannot be said for the supremacist “Jewish State” in Palestine.
>> It’s easy to make things like this look bad when you ignore history and context.
Funny stuff, coming from a Zio-supremacist who advocates for a supremacist “Jewish State” in Palestine at the expense of the “Arabs”.
The Jews are worried about being expelled or exterminated by the Arabs, not about having them as part of a rainbows and unicorns fantasy secular government.
“The Jews are worried about being expelled or exterminated by the Arabs”
LMAO. Then you all need to seek therapy. I understand that pathological paranoia responds wll to clinical pharmacology.
LOL. Fredo, you also forgot about them chasing after your wimmin’ and poluting your precious bodily fluids. LOL. If you’re going to do the whole paranoia-turns-into-racism thing, you’ve just GOT to have those two in there.
“LMAO. Then you all need to seek therapy”
Really? I’m curious: do you think Middle Eastern Muslims just lie as part of their culture, or do you think their words have any value? I think you believe the former, because you obvious don’t believe them when they say hostile things toward Israel, from Ahmedinejad and Nasrallah and Hamas today, to Husseini, Nasser, Saddam Hussein, and an endless number of Hamas clerics in the past.
>> The Jews are worried about being expelled or exterminated by the Arabs …
Poor little Zio-supremacists! :-( They’re so worried about being “expelled or exterminated by the Arabs” who resent them for having used terrorism and ethnic cleansing to create an oppressive, colonialist, expansionist and supremacist “Jewish State” in Palestine at their expense, and for having maintained that state by means of a 60+ years, ON-GOING and offensive (i.e., not defensive) campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder, that the only thing they can thing of doing is to continue with their 60+ years, ON-GOING and offensive (i.e., not defensive) campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder in order to preserve their oppressive, colonialist, expansionist and supremacist “Jewish State”!
Aggressor-victimhood sure is a tough gig… :-(
That’s OK, Eljay. I know you don’t care. That’s part of the reason Jews decided to form a state, so we wouldn’t have to worry about whether people like Eljay care.
Poor hophmi, doesn’t seem to realize everyone can see the fat kid with its hand stuck in the cookie jar after having been already given half the cookies on May 15th 1948.
“That’s part of the reason Jews decided to form a state, so we wouldn’t have to worry about whether people like Eljay care.”
Yeah, it’s all Eljay’s fault you people are torturing Palestinians.
>> That’s OK, Eljay. I know you don’t care. That’s part of the reason Jews decided to form a state, so we wouldn’t have to worry about whether people like Eljay care.
Poor little aggressor-victim Zio-supremacist! :-(
It must be hard for you to see clearly though the crocodile tears you and your collective are crying even as you continue to steal, colonize, destroy and kill, but the essential difference between someone like me and a hateful and immoral Zio-supremacist like you is that I believe in, among other things, freedom, justice and accountability for everyone – not just one particular “collective” – while you believe in your hateful and immoral Zio-supremacism.
“Really? I’m curious: do you think Middle Eastern Muslims just lie as part of their culture, or do you think their words have any value?”
Neither. I think you are paranoid. Clinically paranoid. In fact, you are so paranoid that you cannot see political posturing for what it is.
“because you obvious don’t believe them when they say hostile things toward Israel,”
Of course they say things like that. The zionists brutally invaded and took over someone else’s country — and in the process callously destroyed the lives of people with whom these speakers have a cultural, familial, political, religious and/or ethnic connection. And the damnable israelis continue it today even after they have, for a decade, ignored a more generous peace plan than the israelis deserve. If the israelis are going to be so thick-skulled and pig headed in their bigotry and degradation and evil against the Palestinians, why would you expect, that these men would have nice things to say about the criminals while the crime is happening?
Why don’t you — instead of pretending that them someone saying nasty things about you is the problem — fix the real problem: which is the zionist offenses and crimes against the Palestinians. When that is fixed, I’m sure the minor insults that have your panties in a bunch will go away.
Fredblogs says: “a rainbows and unicorns fantasy secular government.”
Like say that ‘rainbows and unicorns secular government’ we’ve been practicing here in the US with at least partial success and partial sincerity for two hundred plus years?
Not to mention, that most of the rest of the civilized world is at least attempting to take up — again with at least partial success?
Interesting to see where one winds up standing if one is for Israel.
Woody Tanaka says: “…LOL. Fredo, you also forgot about them chasing after your wimmin’ and poluting your precious bodily fluids. LOL. If you’re going to do the whole paranoia-turns-into-racism thing, you’ve just GOT to have those two in there.”
Life imitates art — or at least, life imitates Woody.
‘chasing after your wimmin” — remember the ‘rape’ conviction?
‘polluting your precious bodily fluids’ — back in 2002 or so, some minister banned Palestinians from digging wells on the grounds that if they were allowed to do that, they would deliberately poison the ground water.
It ill becomes an Israeli sycophant to talk about lying cultures and hostility – and not just hostile words either, but daily relentless systematic hostility.
The Jews are worried about being expelled or exterminated by the Arabs, not about having them as part of a rainbows and unicorns fantasy secular government.
No, here in Kansas “the Arabs” don’t pose a credible threat to “the Jews”. If Israel hadn’t done such a good job of establishing the legal procedures and tactics for expelling and exterminating others, their citizens could all sleep much better at night too.
In Kansas the Muslims are to greater or lesser degree assimilated into the American culture of live and let live. In the Middle East, they mostly want to expel and/or exterminate the Jews from the Middle East. The governments of some countries have accepted that they can’t do that, and signed treaties, or at least stopped attacking directly, but the populations are still fairly hostile to Israel. Meanwhile the Palestinian goal is not peaceful coexistence, but expulsion or extermination of the Jews and replacement of Israel with Judenrein Palestine.
In the Middle East, they mostly want to expel and/or exterminate the Jews from the Middle East. . . . . the Palestinian goal is not peaceful coexistence, but expulsion or extermination of the Jews and replacement of Israel with Judenrein Palestine.
One of these two communities is living on the inheritance of 5 million refugees living in exile nearby, and it ain’t the Palestinians. Nuff said.
“Really? I’m curious if you think Middle Eastern Muslims lie as part of their culture…blah, blah, blah”
Really? I’m curious: do you think Jews just lie as part of their culture, or do you think their words have any value? I think you believe the former, because you obvious don’t believe them when they say hostile things toward Palestinians. And even worse, you ignore the history of the things they’ve done. Actually done, you know, like in real life. Oh look Hophmi, there’s some drool on your chin. Would you like a Nakban to wipe it off.
“Meanwhile the Palestinian goal is not peaceful coexistence”
Yes, it’s been nothing but one long tragic tale of Palestinian ethnic cleasing, theft, discrimination, and 60 years of Palestine occupying Israel’s land.
My God, Fredblogs, what flabby little joke of a man you are.
@ hoppie
Dumb immigration comparison and argument.
First…..most Jewish ‘immigrants’ to Palestine even before 1945 were zionist believers who had ALREADY announced their intention to create a Jewish nation on Palestine land…duh…the zionist were blabbing it all over the world, you think the Arabs or Palestine didn’t heard it ?
Second….the immigrants into America and elsewhere, in the 20th century anyway, didn’t come in and run people off their land and out of their homes by force and violence as Israelis did in 1948.
Third….IF some immigrants had come in the US in 1948 as the Jews did in Palestine to make a separate nation on land to be ‘taken’ from the current US inhabitants of it…they would have all ended up dead with Washington burned to the ground for even considering it.
Even today if the US decided to ‘give’ Calif or Texas to the Hispanics to make a Majority Hispanic Nation ruled by Hispanics you would see a bloody war of non Hispanics against the Hispanics ‘and’ against the US government.
The Israelis weren’t benign ‘immigrants” into Palestine, they were usurpers.
That’s the difference. And you can’t compare it to ‘immigration’ in other countries.
Nailed it
“First…..most Jewish ‘immigrants’ to Palestine even before 1945 were zionist believers who had ALREADY announced their intention to create a Jewish nation on Palestine land”
Yes, again, it’s not inherently racist to try and create an autonomous community.
“Second….the immigrants into America and elsewhere, in the 20th century anyway, didn’t come in and run people off their land and out of their homes by force and violence as Israelis did in 1948.”
And, of course, nothing at all, like a war, happened in 1948. Ask the Native Americans who ran them off their land between 1600 and 1900. Ask the Mexicans who ran them off their land in 1848. Are you ready to return California and Texas?
“The Israelis weren’t benign ‘immigrants” into Palestine, they were usurpers.”
That’s a racist view.
‘Yes, again, it’s not inherently racist to try and create an autonomous community.’
It may not be inherently racist but it is certainly inherently threatening to the existing inhabitants, especially since you’ve never stipulated that you were going to form the sort of ‘autonomous community’ which would not interfere with their lives.
Hophmi says “…And, of course, nothing at all, like a war, happened in 1948. Ask the Native Americans who ran them off their land between 1600 and 1900. Ask the Mexicans who ran them off their land in 1848. Are you ready to return California and Texas? “
Ah. Ye Olde Indian argument. Sorry — that’s been shot down a few too many times to bother with it again.
Yes, again, it’s not inherently racist to try and create an autonomous community.”..hoppie
It is when you want it be a Jews only country and steal another people’s land for that purpose and run the non Jews off.
You so twisted in zionism you don’t understand what racism is.
That’s not remotely a ‘racist view’, and what a slippery little phrase ‘autonomous community’ is for the development of systematic segregation, dispossession of another community and apartheid. I suppose words mean what you want them to, said Alice.
um no it isn’t no matter how you want to slice it going to an area and explictly saying we are coming to take over is a hostile non innocent act. when you enter an area basicly saying at best we are seeking dominion over you at worst we are going to force you out people are rightfully going to view you as a threat.
Yes, again, it’s not inherently racist to try and create an autonomous community.
Herzl et al didn’t limit their stated political objectives to an autonomous community. They were publishing manifestos about the establishment of a Jewish state in all of Palestine.
Your lame-assed attempts to reframe the debate are the same-old same-old pilpul. The 1st and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution would prohibit the creation of either an ethnic or religious Jewish state in the USA.
Article 62 of the Treaty of Berlin contained a similar set of safeguards regarding equal rights:
@ColinWright
Not so much shot down as handwaved away by hypocrites who live on land stolen from the Indians while saying “things are different now”. If it is wrong to live on land your ancestors stole from another people, why are you doing it?
“Herzl et al didn’t limit their stated political objectives to an autonomous community. They were publishing manifestos about the establishment of a Jewish state in all of Palestine.”
There were many ideas at the time, and it’s not like the Arabs would have had a different viewpoint if the Jews wanted a state on 3% of the Mandate instead of the whole thing.
“Your lame-assed attempts to reframe the debate are the same-old same-old pilpul. The 1st and 14th Amendments to the US Constitution would prohibit the creation of either an ethnic or religious Jewish state in the USA.”
That’s nice. The 1st and 14th Amendments would prohibit a lot of stuff that is law in democratic countries and a lot more that is law in non-democratic countries. Israel does not have to meet the standard of the US constitution. Are you a lawyer?
“Article 62 of the Treaty of Berlin contained a similar set of safeguards regarding equal rights:”
Your point? I’m sorry, I really could care less about the Treaty of Berlin, particularly in light of the second-class citizenship most Jews experienced in Arab societies. Today, Israel is by far the most diverse state in the region, with a better record of respecting minority rights than its neighbors. Ask a Christian in Iraq where he’d rather be. Ask a Coptic Christian in Egypt. Ask a Bahai in Iran.
The Treaty of Berlin is a particularly inapposite example to use here and shows again why everything you post must be scrutinized for exactly the kind of pilpul you accuse me of. Then again, based on your white supremacist treatment of the Talmud, maybe you should steer clear of using Talmudic concepts in your arguments.
The Ottoman Empire was an EMPIRE, not a small state. It comprised dozens of ethnicities, religions, and national subgroups. It is not surprising, therefore, that protection for minorities would be enshrined in the Treaty of Berlin. It’s also not surprising that most minority treaties of the period were not respected, that the Ottoman Empire broke up into a collection of national states of one brand or another.
Fredblogs says:“@ColinWright
Not so much shot down as handwaved away by hypocrites who live on land stolen from the Indians while saying “things are different now”. If it is wrong to live on land your ancestors stole from another people, why are you doing it?”
I charge for deflating ‘the Indian argument’ these days. Got $20?
‘Hophmi says “…And, of course, nothing at all, like a war, happened in 1948. Ask the Native Americans who ran them off their land between 1600 and 1900. Ask the Mexicans who ran them off their land in 1848. Are you ready to return California and Texas? “
O.K…….. let’s all get in a time machine and go back to the 17 century.
Where does that put you and the Jews?
There were many ideas at the time
Hophmi there was only one Zionist program for Palestine. Dr. Eder was the Chairman of the Palestine Commission when he testified to the Haycroft Commission that there would be only one national home in Palestine and no equality between the Jews and the Arabs. The Zionist Commission to Palestine was also the designated as the Jewish Agency for Palestine and became an official public body that represented the Jewish Yishuv. It supplied the offensive literature and testimony to the King-Crane Commission.
“Article 62 of the Treaty of Berlin contained a similar set of safeguards regarding equal rights:” . . . Your point? The Treaty of Berlin is a particularly inapposite example to use here and shows again why everything you post must be scrutinized for exactly the kind of pilpul you accuse me of.
One of my points here has always been that Israel is violating a minority rights agreement with the UN which preserved rights that were placed under international guarantee by the Treaty of Berlin. those rights concern freedom of movement and access to the Holy sites on both sides of the Green Line. See the paragraph 129 (pdf file page 109) of the ICJ Advisory Opinion. link to icj-cij.org
The San Remo Resolution, which Zionists turn to almost reflexively in order to justify their colonial enterprise, contained an undertaking that was an amendment to the Mandate. It was a safeguarding clause for the pre-existing rights of the non-Jewish communities. link to cfr.org
The Allied Powers were justifiably concerned about the weasel wording of the Balfour Declaration. While it mentioned the “political rights” of Jews it only mentioned the “civil and religious rights” of the non-Jewish communities of Palestine. The Treaty of Berlin had guaranteed that religion could not be used as grounds for exclusion or incapacity in matters relating to the enjoyment of civil or political rights, admission to public employments, functions, and honors, or the exercise of the various professions and industries.
The ICJ noted that Article 13 of the Mandate and an entire Chapter of the UN Partition Plan had been devoted to safeguarding clauses and protections of “existing rights” that guaranteed the liberty of access, visit and transit to the Holy sites to all residents and citizens.
Abba Eban acknowledged that the minority rights plan contained in the General Assembly resolution was an obligation that was capable of acceptance by Israel alone. So your comment about the state of human rights in the region and pilpul are just more of the usual deflection and misdirection. See the verbatim minutes link to un.org
@ColinWright
Nice excuse. But I just put out the argument you would use, so maybe you should pay me. Your argument being that “it’s different now”. Which somehow makes it OK to keep stolen land, as long as it was stolen long enough ago to be convenient for you.
“Yes, again, it’s not inherently racist to try and create an autonomous community.”
Oh, nobody said it was “inherently racist”. In fact, you can commit an atrocious amount of crimes, atrocities, and theft “creating an autonomous community” before we even consider the racism involved. And why did those Zionists need to form an “autonomous community”? There was a community there, it could and did include Jews, why didn’t they join it?
And by the way, setting you and your gang up as an “autonomous community” is just a fancy way of saying ‘a bunch of outlaws’.
And gee, it never occurred to those genius Zionists that the way they treated the Palestinians might provide anti-Semites with everything they needed to defend their actions toward Jews? Ah, but that might mean Zionists showing some consideration for the rest of the Jewish community, and we all know Zionists are the supermen of the Jewish community, and the rest of us exist to serve them
“But I just put out the argument you would use, so maybe you should pay me.”
C’mon, man, Didn’t your parents ever tell you it’s not nice to pull your pilpul in public?
hophni: Arabs have been attacking Israel since before its founding, and have made no bones about wanting to drive the Jews out of the Middle East.”
And the Jews in Israeli have made no bones about wanting to drive Arabs out of Judea and Samaria.
“And the Jews in Israeli have made no bones about wanting to drive Arabs out of Judea and Samaria.”
Sure, some have said that. A lot more Palestinians have talked about killing Jewish civilians and reversing 1948. But the vast majority have not, and indeed, there are still millions of Palestinians in the West Bank. If Israel wanted to throw them out, it would have happened by now.
“Sure, some have said that. A lot more Palestinians have talked about killing Jewish civilians and reversing 1948. But the vast majority have not, and indeed, there are still millions of Palestinians in the West Bank. If Israel wanted to throw them out, it would have happened by now.”
And hoppy’s unspoken conclusion: “So just ignore what the Jews have said, but don’t for a minute suggest that the Jews should ignore what the Arabs said. Also, Holocaust.”
Hophmi says: “… But the vast majority have not, and indeed, there are still millions of Palestinians in the West Bank. If Israel wanted to throw them out, it would have happened by now.”
That is a lie. Israel would do it in a heartbeat — if she thought she could get away with it.
Sharon even floated a trial balloon to that effect during the Al Aqsa intifada. He was firmly warned off.
@ Woody:
hoppy’s unspoken conclusion is: “So just ignore what the Jews have said and done but don’t for a minute suggest that the Jews should ignore what the Arabs said. Also, Holocaust.”
@ Hophmi
Have you by any chance read the books by Morris and Pappe, and if so, can you explain why you do not agree with them? If your objections to their work are factual, why not point them out right here?
“And hoppy’s unspoken conclusion: “So just ignore what the Jews have said, but don’t for a minute suggest that the Jews should ignore what the Arabs said. Also, Holocaust.””
Sorry, but you won’t be permitted to put word in my mouth. I did not mention the Holocaust.
I think you want it the other way around – ignore what the Arabs did, but obsess over what the Jews did.
“That is a lie. Israel would do it in a heartbeat — if she thought she could get away with it.”
LOL. It’s clear that they could, easily. Which country would stop it?
“Have you by any chance read the books by Morris and Pappe, and if so, can you explain why you do not agree with them? If your objections to their work are factual, why not point them out right here?”
Pappe isn’t a respected scholar; he’s a polemicist. Morris’s view is that the ethnic cleansing was not planned, took place on both sides, and was par for the course for a war.
” “So just ignore what the Jews have said and done but don’t for a minute suggest that the Jews should ignore what the Arabs said. Also, Holocaust.””
Because clearly, we need two people to repeat the same thing here. Don’t put words in my mouth, RoHa.
hophmi says:
August 16, 2012 at 1:12 pm
“That is a lie. Israel would do it in a heartbeat — if she thought she could get away with it.”
LOL. It’s clear that they could, easily. Which country would stop it?
>>>>>>>>>
Actually most any country in the ME could stop it…IF …the US didn’t stand in their way.
You might ask…how long till will the US keep other countries off you? Forever?
Or just until Americans elect a president with FP positions similar to mine and others there?
No country in the Middle East would even try to stop it. They’d whine about it, they might try to ship some more weapons to terrorists, but ultimately, they would do nothing and try nothing capable of stopping it.
“Pappe isn’t a respected scholar”
Because he doesn’t tow your (and Morris”) far right line?
BTW, Exeter University was more than happy to have him. Here:
“He is currently a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, director of the university’s European Centre for Palestine Studies, co-director of the Exeter Centre for Ethno-Political Studies. He was formerly a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa (1984–2007) and chair of the Emil Touma Institute for Palestinian and Israeli Studies in Haifa (2000–2008).”
link to en.wikipedia.org
Nope, they haven’t hoppy. More unsubstantiated b.s.
If crap like that were even empirically measured then you could easily reproduce it here. Of course that doesn’t stop you from producing crap of your own.
Whereas we do have some general consensus of who said what on what side – meaning vis a vis, their respective leaders because we all know who they are and can potentially verify such statements.
Whereas some Zionist hysteric, boy-who-cried-antisemitism relies on the racist assertion that the amorphous blob of ‘Palestinians’ simply said more hateful statements and we are to believe him given his track record of trustworthiness (LOL) – even though the notion itself is ludicrous.
Did you forget to take your pills this morning hoppy?
“ignore what the Arabs did”
No one will ever forget it, Hophmi. They galloped in on foam-flecked white steeds, followed by wave upon wave of armoured flying carpets, and kicked the Jews out of Europe! And everybody knows why Hitler wasn’t blonde!
Pappe isn’t a respected scholar; he’s a polemicist.
Except of course for the fact that he is the Chair in the Department of History at the University of Exeter; and the editor of many of the standard Academic and Professional textbooks used in Middle Eastern History and Political Science courses worldwide. Many of his books have been reprinted in multiple editions sold through mainstream publishers, e.g.:
*I.B. Tarus/MacMillan USA link to us.macmillan.com
*Cambridge University Press UK link to cambridge.org
Oh, Pappe has a chair. BFD. Pappe himself has said that he is trying to tell his subjective version of the past.
link to electronicintifada.net
In the same article, Pappe calls Benny Morris’s biography on Glubb Pasha “lame” and “insignificant”. It’s published by Macmillan too, so according to Pappe, the great Macmillan publishes lame and insignificant books. Like his, maybe.
“No country in the Middle East would even try to stop it. They’d whine about it, they might try to ship some more weapons to terrorists, but ultimately, they would do nothing and try nothing capable of stopping it.”
Fredo, this is post is a perfect example of your bigotry. Even in the face of the hypothetical final and complete ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from Palestine, people who dared defend themselves against the Jews who were carrying out this crime against humanity would still be, in your eyes, be “terrorists.” It’s terrible that such despicable bigotry is all you bring to the table.
Oh, Pappe has a chair. BFD.
Correction, he was appointed as the Chair of the History Department.
Pappe himself has said that he is trying to tell his subjective version of the past.
It’s hard to see how you, of all people, could complain about that. Many lawyers, like yourself, earn an honest living doing the very same thing for the people that they represent. Military historians have to deal with conflicting reports and claims. Sixty year-old subjective evidence usually can’t be independently verified by a trusted third party.
Every dissertation or book advances an original point of view as a result of research. I’m certain that a learned scholar with an earned Doctor of Philosophy degree from Oxford University can make up his own mind after reviewing the facts and evidence and defend his own conclusions. Let’s let Pappe speak for himself on that point:
In the same article, Pappe calls Benny Morris’s biography on Glubb Pasha “lame” and “insignificant”.
MacMillan plugged “The Road to Jerusalem” as “the first in-depth account of Glubb’s thinking and actions during 1948, as he led his small army into Palestine and war against Israel. His aims and actions, which lie at the very heart of the controversy between “Old” and “New” historians of the Arab-Israeli conflict, are carefully detailed using, for the first time, contemporary British, Arab Legion, and Israel Defence Forces intelligence sources.”
But Glubb published his own in-depth autobiographical account of his thinking, aims, and actions, in “A Soldier with the Arabs”, Hodder & Stoughton, 1957. So Morris really wasn’t exploring new territory in this particular volume. He mainly relied upon material from the IDF archives, and laboriously (re)confirmed the details of Glubb’s account. It’s useful, but at times it’s not too inspirational. Eugene Rogan had already published a chapter in Rogan and Shlaim’s volume on “Rewriting the History of 1948″ using the Arab Legion archive material and King Abdullah’s autobiography. Needless to say, Road to Jerusalem wasn’t one of Morris’ bestsellers.
But it is happening. Don’t you ever look at the maps showing how much land Israel continues to seize in the west bank? When Israel seizes a hilltop, or puts in another 4500 units in east Jerusalem, surely you don’t believe the former Palestinian residents get invited back to share the new housing and use the swimming pools?
Palestinian opposition to Jewish immigration was wholly justified. Zionist Jewry sought to usurp and colonize Palestinian land and that is exactly what happened.
Furthermore, the Palestinians were not immigrants. You are and so are your Israeli relatives.
The Palestinian opposition to Jewish immigration would be on par with Native American opposition to Manifest Destiny.
This is a colonial conflict, and Israel is a colonial entity. It is actively stealing and colonizing Palestinian land. Hence, you wash your hands of your responsibility to basic human decency by saying simply, ‘it is war’ by dismissing the paradigm Phil related to here vis a vis 1960s America and the Civil Rights struggle.
During that era, there was a war too. The police and the government weren’t exactly friendly with people of color or of a particular political disposition either. I mean does this need to be said? It’s fitting how a Zionist even revises American history to suit his own agenda. Laughable though, because the 60s were/are far too iconic to re-brand.
And how long did it take us to get to that point even? What preceeded it?
Duh. You’re such a putz hoppy. I can’t believe you’re half-heatedly agreeing with this clown, Phil. He is such a token Zionist, that you’re scratching the bottom of the barrel here to keep the discussion going from appearing one-sided.
Anyways, yes, Israel is at ‘war’ with the Palestinian people. Not a war where Israel is any kind of helpless victim or victim at all. Israel is quite literally a rapist in this relationship. That is the power dynamic.
Norman Finkelstein summed it up perfectly a couple of decades ago when Wolf Blitzer – then an AIPAC goon – evaded a question about what threats Israel would face from a Palestinian State. He said Israel has as much to worry about Palestine as the Soviet Union does about Luxeomburg.
Anyways, carry on with your antisemitism-in-every-corner bagpipe parade of dub-step dbaggery, hoppy.
“Palestinian opposition to Jewish immigration was wholly justified. Zionist Jewry sought to usurp and colonize Palestinian land and that is exactly what happened.”
Then you believe racism is justified.
“Furthermore, the Palestinians were not immigrants. You are and so are your Israeli relatives.”
Many were, actually.
“The Palestinian opposition to Jewish immigration would be on par with Native American opposition to Manifest Destiny. ”
No, it would be more on par to white opposition to black families moving into a suburb.
“This is a colonial conflict, and Israel is a colonial entity.”
No, it’s a land conflict, and Israel is not a colonial entity.
‘Then you believe racism is justified.’
Why is it racism — it’s a natural fear of dispossession.
First you say:
and you also write:
How can you even begin to justify these two positions? If it was not racist to try to create an autonomous community, then was not racist to for the Palestinians to preserve thier autonomous community from zionist usurpers.
Hophmi says: “…Many were, actually…”
That is to say, ‘many [Palestinians] were [immigrants], actually.’
Of course, you left the words out yourself — people would have noticed if you’d put them in. You just wanted to slip in your beloved Joan Peters fantasy unobserved.
The need for that fantasy is really telling. Of course Israel would be indefensible if the Palestinians were there. So it becomes logically necessary to pretend they weren’t there.
The actual truth is simply denied.
The logic is identical to Holocaust Revisionism. Nazi Germany becomes obviously indefensible if the Holocaust occurred. Therefore, the Holocaust didn’t occur.
This would be amusing if a four-year old did it, and what was at issue was a cookie. When it’s a matter of a neo-Nazi state being permitted to continue to stomp around, it’s not so funny.
hophmi: Supply the numbers. Saying something does not mean it is factual. We all know how many Zionists went to Palestine (akin to 45 million immigrants into USA as per ratio of the population at the time).
true Israel is not a colonial entity only because their is now host country. it is still an expression of hostile foreign takeover.
Let us suppose, for one dizzy moment, that the majority of the Arab population of Palestine before 1945 were, in fact, immigrants.
That puts them on the same footing as the Zionists! If the Zionist immigrants had rights in the land, surely the Arab immigrants had the same rights!
So it was unjust for the Zionists to deny the Arabs their rights.
‘No, it would be more on par to white opposition to black families moving into a suburb.’
This analogy would have some merit if the new families constituted a cohesive ideological group and steadily moved in with the goal of asserting their political authority over most or all of the neighborhood. Neighborhoods don’t really work this way (as potential sovereign political entities) so the analogy would still be kind of shaky.
What’s wrong with the Native American analogy? Why doesn’t that fit?
So you believe that the Palestinians wanted their own autonomous community. Good. You’re probably right, though it took them until the 1960s to figure out what nationalistic grouping they were. Thus, the two-state solution is the best one.
” You just wanted to slip in your beloved Joan Peters fantasy unobserved.”
I don’t agree with Joan Peters, though a real count is apparently somewhat controversial. My main point is that arguing Jews were immigrants does not prove they had no right to be there. I do not endorse the idea that were no Palestinians in the Holy Land when Jews began migrating in substantial numbers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
“The logic is identical to Holocaust Revisionism.”
I would like it noted that I am not the one bringing up the Holocaust here.
To be a colonial entity, you have to be a colony _of_ some mother country. Think of Dutch and English _colonies_ in the new world. Sovereign nations are not colonies. The U.S. ceased to be colonies when they became a separate nation.
Israel is a sovereign nation. Not a colony of some other nation. I realize you anti-Israel types like to belittle Israel, but let’s not abuse and distort the English language to do it, hmmm?
To be a colonial entity, you have to be a colony _of_ some mother country.
No, see Gershon Shafir’s Chapter “Settler Citizenship in the Jewish Colonization of Palestine”, Caroline Elkins (Editor) Susan Pedersen (Editor) “Settler Colonialism in the Twentieth Century: Projects, Practices, Legacies,” Routledge, 2005 link to amazon.com
Of course Zionists in many of the European mother countries did establish old-fashioned chartered colonial companies and colonial societies. Herzl obtained land company charters and charted the Zionist Organization’s trust companies in Great Britain. He actively pursued other charters with the Prussian and Ottoman heads of state. He told Max Nordau that other states would follow Great Britain’s example and that new reserves of power could be created in Mozambique with the Portuguese, in the Congo with the Belgians, and in Tripolitania with the Italians. link to books.google.com
FYI, some of the governments of the western states actually established consulates in Palestine in order to facilitate its colonization and restoration to the Jews. In the 19th and early 20th centuries the vast majority of Jews were not Ottoman subjects, they remained “Protégés” of their home country consulates, or switched allegiances to become protégés of Great Britain, Prussia, or the USA. Great Britain and Prussia actively recruited Zionist and Protestant protégés. See
*Alexander Scholch, “Britain in Palestine, 1838-1882: The Roots of the Balfour Policy”, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Autumn, 1992), pp. 39-56 Stable URL: link to jstor.org
*Ruth Kark, American Consuls in the Holy Land, 1832-1914, Hebrew University Magnes Press, 1994 link to amazon.com
*M. Vereté, “Why Was a British Consulate Established in Jerusalem?”, The English Historical Review, Vol. 85, No. 335 (Apr., 1970), pp. 316-345 Stable URL: link to jstor.org
“but let’s not abuse and distort the English language to do it, hmmm?”
Good idea! So why don’t you tell us what all those “_” thingies mean?
I’m not sure I would call that “English language” but you seem to think it is. So please, instruct us in English.
Yup, I’m gonna take English advice from a guy who is afraid to use the spel-chek button because he’s got homonymophobia.
You’re probably right, though it took them until the 1960s to figure out what nationalistic grouping they were.
I see you’re still learning disabled. That shopworn hasbara is a myth that won’t hold water. It’s been debunked many times here at MW and elsewhere.
BTW the “Jews” are still a group who have not “figured out” what national group they belong to or even how to answer the question Who is a Jew?
“I see you’re still learning disabled. That shopworn hasbara is a myth that won’t hold water. It’s been debunked many times here at MW and elsewhere.”
It’s never been debunked. It isn’t an argument against current Palestinian nationalism, it’s just a fact. And your childish polemical rejection of it with a nasty claim about Jews doesn’t make it any less of a fact.
“And your childish polemical rejection of it with a nasty claim about Jews doesn’t make it any less of a fact.”
Ah, Hopmi’s really piling on the “polemical”s today. Can it be long til “tendentious” appears. I bet he could get them both into one sentence.
And your childish polemical rejection of it with a nasty claim about Jews doesn’t make it any less of a fact.
There’s nothing “nasty” or childish in pointing out that there is still no evidence of a “Jewish nationality” here in the USA. If you’re determined to make false statements about Palestinian national identity, then it’s appropriate to point out that about half the Jews in the world have deliberately chosen to live here in the USA, and have no interest in being governed by Orthodox religious officials or Zionists in Israel.
It’s never been debunked. It isn’t an argument against current Palestinian nationalism, it’s just a fact.
Yes it has been thoroughly debunked. But let’s go through the motions of doing it one more time. It was completely contrived propaganda when the Jewish Agency first employed your innuendo about the lack of Palestinian nationalism, and the related arguments, claiming: 1) that there was no Palestinian nation. 2) that the Land of Palestine had never been an Ottoman administrative district; 3) that “the Arabs” had vast reserves of suitable land elsewhere in which Palestinians should pursue their own national sovereignty; 4) that this sovereignty and population transfer scheme was part of the Law of Nations. See for example Moshe Shertok’s deceptive testimony to the UN Ad Hoc Committee on Palestine: link to unispal.un.org
Neville J. Mandel noted that throughout the 19th century the Ottoman Government employed the term “Arz-i Filistin” (the “Land of Palestine” ) in official correspondence, meaning for all intents and purposes the area to the west of the River Jordan which became “Palestine” under the British in 1922. He noted also noted that the Arabs used the term “ Filastin” and that the Jews used the term Palestine in their Basel platform and when they established their first business, the Anglo-Palestine Bank. See ”The Arabs and Zionism Before World War I”. University of California Press, . ISBN 0-520-02466-4
link to books.google.com
During the Egyptian invasion in 1831 the country had been placed under a single administrator and all of the major population centers and clans in the districts from Hebron to Nablus took part in the national uprising.
In Baruch Kimmerling and Joel Migdal,The Palestinian People: A History, Harvard University Press, 2003 the authors wrote that Palestinian nationality was already clearly evident during the Egyptian-Ottoman war (1831-1833). Israeli Historian Butros Abu Manneh noted that in 1830, on the eve of Muhammad Ali’s invasion the Sanjaks of Jerusalem and Nablus were transferred to the control of Abdullah Pasha the Governor of Acre and that the move had united the whole of Palestine in one administrative unit. See The Israel/Palestine Question: A Reader (Rewriting Histories), Ilan Pappé (Editor) Routledge (April 2, 1999), page 38.
The Foreign Relations of the United States indicates that the Convention of the 15th July, 1840, continued to treated Palestine as a single administrative unit. The Convention referred to the territory as “Southern Syria or Palestine” and the Pashlic of Acre which included command of the fortress of St. John and the territory of Southern Syria. The Ottoman Empire and its European Allies granted Muhammed Ali, during his natural life, the government of Acre on the condition that he withdraw from the other Ottoman territories he had occupied, beside Egypt and Palestine, within 10 days. An enclosure contained a description of the boundaries and an explanation that, since he had not accepted the offer within the time allotted, he had forfeited “that government”. See Index to the executive documents of the House of Representatives for the second session of the forty-fifth Congress, 1879-’80, pages 1019-1021 link to digicoll.library.wisc.edu
With the Ottoman restoration of 1841 the districts of Hebron, Gaza, and Jaffa were permanently added to Jerusalem and the district of Nablus remained part of “Jerusalem” until 1858. Damascus supported efforts to destroy the port and trade monopoly that Acre and Nablus enjoyed by placing them under the jurisdiction of their chief rivals in Beirut. After the loss of the Balkan districts and the British invasion and occupation of Egypt, the Central Ottoman government became alarmed over its position in the Holy Land. Officials were torn between the need to organize the districts into a united front and fears of a Palestinian uprising against the Sublime Porte. In 1872, the Prime Minister added the two northern districts to Jerusalem and announced that it would be elevated to the status of a Province. So the whole of the Land of Palestine was under a single administration once again. Two months later, he was sacked and Acre and Nablus were restored to the jurisdiction of Beirut. See The Israel/Palestine Question, page 39
The notion that the Ottomans were in control of the territory and that the inhabitants never expressed a desire for a unified state can be dispelled by an official memorandum in 1884 and subsequent petitions filed with the central government calling for a single administrative unit. A member of the Sultan’s entourage in the Yildiz Palace, Ahmed Hamdi, complained that between Aqaba in the south and the northern towns of Nablus and Salt there was a stretch of 800 hours travel distance of an anarchic nature where no single government employee was ever seen or heard from and which was entirely left to the Bedouin shaykhs (‘urban mesayihine terk olan)”. He went on to say that in order to effectively strengthen the state’s authority in the region, it should be discussed whether it was not wise to unite all territories around the District of Jerusalem into a new province. However, he strongly advised that this entity should not be called ‘Palestine’ (Filistin), as this might arouse the curiosity of the Europeans, especially the British. He noted self-critically that the Ottomans did not even possess a map of the southern deserts of Palestine. See the discussion on pages 53 & 54 of Johann Büssow, Hamidian Palestine: Politics and Society in the District of Jerusalem 1872-1908 link to books.google.com
Büssow and Jens Hanssen, describe the situation in the remainder of the period before WWI as one of “administrative limbo” in which the districts of Jaffa, Nablus, and Acre repeatedly petitioned the government to unite them with the district of Jerusalem and make it the Provincial capital, e.g. link to books.google.com
See also Fin de Siecle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital, Oxford University Press, 2005 link to books.google.com
In 1907 an official Ottoman Atlas added the secondary label Filistin to the District of Jerusalem. So there can’t be any argument that Beersheba, Hebron, Jerusalem, Gaza, and Jaffa were all part of a single administrative unit named Palestine. See the discussion on page 57 and the map on page 58 of Johann Büssow, “Hamidian Palestine:
Politics and Society in the District of Jerusalem 1872-1908″, BRILL, Aug 11, 2011: link to books.google.com
Even if the residents of that region only expressed an occasional interest in the northern districts, they still considered the region between the Jordan and the Mediterranean and Aqaba and Nablus their national homeland of Palestine. The authors writing in the newspaper Filastin often equated ‘Palestine with the District o f Jerusalem. In a leading article in 1912, Yusuf al-‘Isa wrote that his ‘homeland (watan) extended ‘from the borders of Egypt to the Balqa [i.e. the District o f Nablus and the adjacent part of Transjordan] and from the mountains o f Moab [on the Eastern shore of the Dead Sea) to the Mediterranean’. One year later, the well-known Jerusalemite intellectual Raghib al-Khalidi wrote in an article entitled ‘Reform in Palestine’ (Al-Islah fi Filastin) that his ‘homeland’ was the District of Jerusalem. link to books.google.com
Jabotinsky was the head of the Zionist Executive’s Propaganda Department when he wrote that the Palestinians were “not a rabble but a nation, perhaps somewhat tattered, but still living.” More to the point he said: “If it were possible (and I doubt this) to discuss Palestine with the Arabs of Baghdad and Mecca as if it were some kind of small, immaterial borderland, then Palestine would still remain for the Palestinians not a borderland, but their birthplace, the center and basis of their own national existence. Therefore it would be necessary to carry on colonization against the will of the Palestinian Arabs, which is the same condition that exists now.
– See The Iron Wall (We and the Arabs), first published in 1923. link to danielpipes.org
It’s a matter of public record that Israelis suffer from a spectrum of psychotic, antisocial, or narcissistic personality disorders related to this issue. Their Ambassador informed the US government that the mere mention of the word “Palestine” triggers violent outbursts and rage in individual Israelis. They insist that Palestine was a historical fiction, despite abundant evidence to the contrary from historians and the competent legal authorities concerned (who ruled time and again that Palestine was a de jure legal entity and a mandated state). See for example Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Vol. Xviii, Near East, United States. Dept. of State, G.P.O., 1995, ISBN 0160451590, page 341.
A variety of authoritative academic sources say that Zionists are deliberately dishonest about the origins of the Palestinian people, their nationality, and their nationalism. See for example:
*Rosemary E. Shinko, “Discourses of Denial: Silencing the Palestinians, Delegitimizing Their Claims,” Journal of International Affairs 58.1 (2004);
*Baruch Kimmerling, Politicide: Ariel Sharon’s War Against the Palestinians, Verso, 2003;
*Marcelo Svirsky, “The Desire for terra nullius and the Zionist-Palestinian Conflict,” in Paul Patton and Simone Bignall (Eds.) Deleuze and the Postcolonial, Edinburgh University Press 2009.
*Lawrence Davidson, “Historical Ignorance and Popular Perception: the Case of U.S. Perceptions of Palestine, 1917,” Middle East Policy3.2 (1994): pages 125-148;
*Joyce Dalsheim, Settler nationalism, collective memories of violence and the ‘uncanny other’, Social Identities, Volume 10, Issue 2 2004 , pages 151 – 170;
One of the constituent acts of the crime of apartheid is the denial of the right to a nationality and self-determination. A variety of legal authorities say that Israel denies Palestinians in the OPT their right to a nationality by denying Palestinian refugees from inside the Green Line their right of return, residence, and citizenship in the State (Israel) governing the land of their birth. Israel’s policies in the OPT also effectively deny Palestinians their right to a nationality by obstructing the exercise of the Palestinian right to self-determination through the formation of a Palestinian State in the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza Strip. See
*The South African HSRC – University of London SOAS study “Occupation, Colonialism, and Apartheid” link to electronicintifada.net
*The International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion in “Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” link to icj-cij.org
And who is preventing peace hoppy? Here’s a piece (another kind) I cited here a couple of days ago, which undoubtedly you didn’t read.
link to fair.org
Hophmi:” Israelis are worried, and rightfully so, about being ruled by Arabs”
If Israelis didn’t want to be ruled by Arabs (or rather Palestinians) they should not have moved to Palestine. The blacks in Alabama had no choice. The Zionists did.
How about saying “Israelis are worried about being ruled by natives of their own country” then at least we see the moral vacuum that you inhabit.
Hophmi:”Arabs have been attacking Israel since before its founding, and have made no bones about wanting to drive the Jews out of the Middle East.”
No the Jews lived in the Middle East for millenia in relative peace with Arabs. It was the colonization of Palestine by Zionists that precipitated the current conflict.
The rest of your argument is just as specious – as usual – except for the final sentence which I totally agree with.
“No the Jews lived in the Middle East for millenia in relative peace with Arabs. ”
That’s false. They were at best second-class citizens.
“No the Jews lived in the Middle East for millenia in relative peace with Arabs. ” That’s false. They were at best second-class citizens.
When World War I broke out there were 5 Jewish Deputies serving in the Ottoman Parliament. The British didn’t establish any elected representative legislative body at all during its twenty five year-long period of tutelage.
Hophmi says: “That’s false. They were at best second-class citizens.”
When in Europe they were not massacred at best!
David J Wasserstein in his Jewish Chronicle article “So, what did the Muslims do for the Jews?” writes:
“Islam saved Jewry. This is an unpopular, discomforting claim in the modern world. But it is a historical truth. The argument for it is double. First, in 570 CE, when the Prophet Mohammad was born, the Jews and Judaism were on the way to oblivion. And second, the coming of Islam saved them, providing a new context in which they not only survived, but flourished, laying foundations for subsequent Jewish cultural prosperity – also in Christendom – through the medieval period into the modern world.”
link to thejc.com
“Along with legal near-equality came social and economic equality. Jews were not confined to ghettos, either literally or in terms of economic activity. The societies of Islam were, in effect, open societies. In religious terms, too, Jews enjoyed virtually full freedom. They might not build many new synagogues – in theory – and they might not make too public their profession of their faith, but there was no really significant restriction on the practice of their religion. Along with internal legal autonomy, they also enjoyed formal representation, through leaders of their own, before the authorities of the state. Imperfect and often not quite as rosy as this might sound, it was at least the broad norm.”
“That’s false. They were at best second-class citizens”
Thjen why on earth did they go there? Sounds to me like you’re just about admitting that Zionism was pretty much a matter of getting as many scared, poor, deluded and misinformed trapped in a situation in which they would do the Zionists dirty-work for them. If the anti-Semitism of the Arabs was so abvious, why didn’t the Zionists avoid the place?
“They were at best second-class citizens.”
And yet I recall reading a story in the Thousand and One Nights in which a poor Muslim in Baghdad gets a rich Jew to act as his lawyer in court, on the grounds that the Jew will get greater respect.
Some years ago at Christmas time I remember driving home listening to a rabbi on the car radio lamenting that so many young Jews were being taught that their history was nothing but a long tale of prejudice and oppression. The truth is, he said, for most of history in most parts of the world Jews enjoyed peace, prosperity and a higher standard of living than most of their fellow citizens. I can tell you from personal observation that here in the United States, among my extended family, it’s certainly still the case.
Black and Whites are not at war in Alabama
Jews and Israeli Arabs are not at war in Israel either, yet the article says there are too many Israeli Arabs.
American politicians make constant cause out of the number of Hispanics from Latin America
Hispanics are immigrants to the US. Israeli Arabs are the descendants of people who were already there before the grandparents of 90% of Israeli Jews set foot in Israel. After having expelled a majority of Arabs from Israel in 1949, claiming that there are two many of them today adds insult to injury.
Israel’s demographic case has little to do with racism.
When a prominent state-paid rabbi says that Gentile sperm shouldn’t be used to impregnate Jewish women because it passes on barbaric traits, one cannot be faulted for believing that racism plays an important role in Israel’s “demographic case.”
“…Surely, Phil, you realize the irony of this argument. Part of the Arab case against Israel was too many Jews in the Holy Land. We’re OK with them as a small minority, but not in any real numbers where they might want sovereignty and rule over us.
Israel’s demographic case has little to do with racism. Israelis are worried, and rightfully so, about being ruled by Arabs just as Arabs were worried about being ruled by Jews…”
This is complete nonsense. Israel’s demographic case has everything to to do with racism.
If I recall aright, Hispanics just became a plurality in California. Or maybe it was just Hispanic children.
I’m not too sure — and that’s really my point. I simply don’t pay all that much attention. ‘Whole lot more Hispanics around than when I was a kid’ — and that’s about it.
I can’t say I’m overjoyed at the development, but it doesn’t disturb me unduly. Certainly I see no need to somehow insure continued Anglo political domination, or to expel those Hispanics who are already here, or whatever.
That would be because — at least relatively speaking — I am not racist, nor do I require racial domination to feel secure.
You’re regurgitating that variety of the Zionist rationale that says ‘we’re just like everyone else.’
Oh no you’re not. You’re a whole lot worse — and I’d rather have nothing to do with you. That means cutting all support. At a minimum, we should look on with folded arms while the rest of the world decides what to do about you.
Whole lot more Hispanic around than when I was a kid”
And worked for ther Census department?
“I can’t say I’m overjoyed at the development”
That’s where we differ. I sure as hell am. Those people are the best thing that ever happened to America. And if they’re illegal, that makes ‘em even better in my opinion. My forebears were illegal immigrants, although why a Moose would have forebears I’ll never know.
The sooner this country is minority-majority, the better off we will be.
Mooser, I once saw a bumper sticker that had a picture of pilgrims, and underneath it read, “Puritans: America’s first illegal immigrants,” so don’t fret about your forebears. :)
And the sooner this country’s alternative media becomes the mainstream media, the better off we will be.
Mooser says: ‘The sooner this country is minority-majority, the better off we will be.’
You prefer to watch from a comfortable distance, of course.
Bremerton, Washington: ‘The racial makeup of the city was 74.97% White, 7.50% African American, 1.95% Native American, 5.53% Asian, 0.93% Pacific Islander, 2.57% from other races, and 6.56% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.59% of the population.’
Whites outnumber any other ethnic group by 10-1.
“so don’t fret”
I don’t even touch anything with frets. I’m bad enough on my own axe.
Whites outnumber…”
Bremerton is cheap, and seedy, it was the only place I can afford to live. And would I take my wife away? ♪She’s a young girl, and cannot leave her mother.♪ And there’s very little possibility of employment here, outside the federal installations, which makes it safe for me.
But don’t worry, Colin, some of my best friends are white, I think. Hard to tell under the masks and pancake make-up.
And besides, I am uniquely adapted for a water-side suburban environment. Naturally, I won’t eat crabgrass, but there’s plenty of blackberries.
And of course, the conditions of my parole, and this goddam thing on my ankle. Nope, ♪ I ain’t goin’ nowhere.♪
Besides, Colin, obviously you made up that quote about the “racial” makeup of Bremerton, or you would have linked it so we could see the source.
Okay Mooser, I obviously made it up.
Gimme a break…I’m surprised at how non-white it is. We’re talking Washington State, after all. Had I made the numbers up, I would have guessed 85-95% White.
…but that’s probably just your neighborhood, right, Mooser?
“I would have guessed 85-95% White.
…but that’s probably just your neighborhood, right, Mooser?”
Because every Jew is rich, and can pick exactly where he wants to live? So rich economic considerations, the kind which might make him end up in a minority neighborhood, don’t apply?
Oh, don’t apologise. that particular bit of anti-Semitism a million times (all Jews have money) and I’ve even used it to my advantage once or twice.
What really weirds me out is that you knew where to look for minority numbers down to a tenth of a percent. I can’t even imagine looking up the minority numbers for a place I move to.
“And the sooner this country’s alternative media becomes the mainstream media, the better off we will be.”
From our mouth into God’s ear, both of those things.
‘This is complete nonsense. Israel’s demographic case has everything to to do with racism.’
I’m not sure racism should be at the core of this debate. The issue is power and dispossession. If the dispossessors are non-racists, does that legitimize the dispossession? If the dispossessed are in fact racists, is their dispossession then legit.
“I’m not sure racism should be at the core of this debate. The issue is power and dispossession. If the dispossessors are non-racists, does that legitimize the dispossession? If the dispossessed are in fact racists, is their dispossession then legit.”
This here’s creeping socialism.
More seriously, someone is always dispossessing someone else. The computer industry techies moving up to Portland have been dispossessing the White trash logger types that were the native fauna of that city — driving them and their high school dropout wives and their four kids out to Salem where they belong.
However, doing it by race is a lot worse. After all, John Q. trailer trash can always learn HTML or learn plumbing or something. It’s pretty hard to become Jewish if you’re Palestinian.
So yeah — it is about race. Or in this case, religion and fantasies of ethnicity.
“have been dispossessing the White trash logger types that were the native fauna of that city — driving them and their high school dropout wives and their four kids out to Salem where they belong.”
And I’m the one who is obsessed with minority stereotypes? The bit about the “White trash logger types” and “high school dropout wives and their four kids” is very telling. I know, I know, you have a statistical source which will prove those things, like it proved I’m a rich Jew.
“After all, John Q. trailer trash can always learn HTML or learn plumbing or something.”
How kind of you to see hope for them. And considering their plight is all the result of their own doing, it’s magnanimous! Of course it must be, Colin. After all, you’re a decent guy, and if it wasn’t their fault, you would empathise with their circumstances, right?
Ok — whenever two ethnic groups collide, or one harms the other it’s about ethnicity or ethnicity and religion. But the Zionists didn’t dispossess the Palestinians because they were racist meanies, on the prowl for other groups to subjugate. They wanted the land and the Palestinians were in the way. The Zionists would have preferred a land that was truly empty — unfortunately there aren’t many such lands. By the same token, the Palestinians didn’t resist mass Jewish immigration because they were a bunch of racist meanies — comparable to a neighborhood of whites resisting black home buyers (as one poster here has put it). They acted out of a justified desire for self-preservation.
I think defining this situation in terms of ‘racism’ can be distracting, though I wouldn’t deny it had relevance. I would argue that HTML and plumbing aren’t all that relevant.
Wanting the land and dispossessing people who are in the way, ie were there before, seems rather mean to me and would surely seem a bit mean by most people’s standards, including the standards proclaimed by Jewish people. (That’s unless it’s a ‘suspension of the ethical’ for some God-given purpose: was it really that?) Making a claim on behalf of a group defined by heredity is claiming rights in the name of heredity, ie of race, so is a claim to superior status for one race over against others. Making the claim on behalf of a group defined by religion would be less racism than religious fanaticism, which would not be that much better.
“Part of the Arab case against Israel was too many Jews in the Holy Land.”
I think you are misconstruing the Palestinian argument with a straw man argument. My understanding is they did not object to Palestinian Jews living in Palestine, but with outsider Jews colonizing the land from the outside, with a view toward creating a “Jewish State” which disenfranchises everyone else.
“Arabs have been attacking Israel since before its founding…”
How backwards. You can’t even get yourself to say that before the ethnic cleansing of 1948, Palestine existed, where it was being destroyed by the zionists.
it wasn’t so much the arab were worried about being replaced it was zionism stated objective.
and Israelis feeling their are to many arabs in “Israel” is rascist. it be like like saying there are to many germans in germany.
Hey, Hophmi, tell us how we, as good Zionists, can help get some of theose awful Ultra-Orthodox and non-secular Jews out of Israel. Why, some of those bastrds won’t even join the IDF!
Part of the Arab case against Israel was too many Jews in the Holy Land. We’re OK with them as a small minority, but not in any real numbers where they might want sovereignty and rule over us.
You’re focusing on the wrong part of the equation. The Zionists were making bold public statements about taking over the country and evicting the Palestinians, just as soon as they could get enough immigrants together to handle the job. That’s what the Palestinians were worried about.
In 1914, a circular entitled “General Summons to Palestinians – Beware Zionist Danger” was distributed and published in the press. It warned that “Zionists want to settle in our country and expel us from it” and it was signed anonymously by “a Palestinian”. See Neville Mandel, The Arabs and Zionism before World War I, University of California Press, 1980, page 220 link to books.google.com
The 1919 charter of Ben Gurion’s political party, Ahdut Ha’avodah, called for the establishment of a Jewish Socialist Republic in all of Palestine and demanded “the transfer of Palestine’s land, water, and natural resources to the people of Israel as their eternal possession.” See Ben Gurion and the Palestinian Arabs, Shabtai Teveth, page 99
None of you pinheads ever explain exactly why the Zionists should have ever been granted “rule over” the other citizens of the country. The head of the Zionist Commission to Palestine gave public testimony to the Royal Commission after the 1920 Palestine riots that said the Jews intended to rule over the non-Jewish citizens:
The King-Crane Commission had also taken testimony and had been “supplied with literature on the Zionist programme by the Zionist Commission to Palestine:
–http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/392AD7EB00902A0C852570C000795153
So it wasn’t that there were too many Zionists, the problem was that there were too many insufferable, overbearing, Zionist pricks.
I don’t know, maybe it could have had a little something to do with an understandable fear that the foreigners were gonna take over, as suggested by both British and Zionist actions? When you find a group that will happily accept colonization, hophmi, do let me know. Deal?
“We’re OK with them as a small minority, but not in any real numbers where they might want sovereignty and rule over us.”
How is that any different than the israeli government you bend over backwards to defend to this day? At least the Palestininans were acting in their home, not importing people from Russia and Brooklyn who had no connection whatsoever with the land.
“Arabs have been attacking Israel since before its founding, and have made no bones about wanting to drive the Jews out of the Middle East.”
Yes, because the Jews declared that they intended to take over Palestine and kick the Arabs out. Can you blame the Arabs for fighting back? or is self-defense only something you permit to Jews?
Just wait till George Zimmerman gets acquitted because the Prosecution threw the case.
There is a pseudo war on blacks in the South because of their numbers, a lot of states create voter suppression laws that while technically aren’t based on race, no one can deny that’s what the purpose is. Like requiring to show a drivers license when you vote, black people who rely on public transportation might not have a drivers license because they never needed it, and they certainly aren’t going to have a passport if they never left the country.
Nah, he’s going to get acquitted because his injuries give him reasonable doubt. BTW, he isn’t going with “stand your ground”, he’s going with straight up self-defense. Which fits with his story that he had no opportunity to retreat with the guy on top of him and bashing his head into the ground.
Just as Protestants in Ireland were worried about being ruled by a Catholic majority, whites in South Africa were worried about being ruled by a black majority, and pieds noirs European settlers in Algeria were worried about being ruled by a Muslim majority.
Were those fears “rightful”?
Considering that about 1 million of a population of about 5 million whites have fled South Africa since the blacks took over and that it is now a contender for the title of rape and murder capitol of the world… yeah, could be their fears were “rightful”.
So you think apartheid should have been continued?
Glad to know you’re not only racist to Arabs and Muslims, Freddy. At least you’re consistent. It couldn’t possibly be that some whites left because they no longer enjoyed a privileged status over the blacks they’d been oppressing for so many years. Or that the newly freed blacks might harbor just a wee bit of hostility toward the Afrikaners. How awkward!
I’m not surprised that, as a Zionist, you don’t count all the rapes and murders committed during apartheid by whites against the subjugated indigenous population. When such depravity is meted out to the Untermenschen by their ‘betters’ — that’s all kosher, right?
‘Surely, Phil, you realize the irony of this argument. Part of the Arab case against Israel was too many Jews in the Holy Land.’
Ok – but the Arabs were already there (along with a few Jews) when the Jews immigrated more or less en masse with a clear intent to set up a Jewish state. How could the indigenous population not feel threatened? That mass immigration started the ball rolling. It was the catalyst for the mutual resentment and distrust which ensued. It made the current Israeli fear of Palestinian numbers inevitable.
but hop two wrongs dont make a right. i agree that the palestinian opposition to immigration is not that different from the rightwing opposition to immigration lefties oppose in the us today. but why are americans making these arguments at face value?
im glad you think it looks bad though
Yes, Phil, demographic arguments do look bad in the 21st century. But as students of foreign policy, we have a responsibility to examine the context, not just the statement, and to avoid forcing utopian ideas on others far away that we would not force on ourselves. The fact of the matter is that many Palestinians worry about demography just as the Jews do; that is why many want a two-state solution, not a one-state solution. I see the one-state solution as utopian, whether it’s the right-wing version or the left-wing version. Both visions suffer from a lack of real engagement with the reality of what that solution portends. Aaron David Miller tends to be very pessimistic on the conflict (his memoir, the Too Much Promised Land, is a good read), and will tell you that those who advocate a two-state solution vastly underplay the complexity of that vision too.
This piece reminds me of what John Mearsheimer wrote a dozen or so years ago before he became a polemicist, when he said, putting on his realist cap, that the security issues Israel faced made a two-state solution unlikely. Mearsheimer predicted pretty much what we have today, status quo, developing ministate in the West Bank, Israel with a state that the Palestinians and others in the region will never let them fully enjoy.
“and to avoid forcing utopian ideas on others far away that we would not force on ourselves.”
ROTFLMSJAO!! You tell ‘em Hophmi! No sir, why on earth should we force utopia on “others” when we can consign the, with complete impunity, to a horrible dystopia?
And you’re a “student of foreign policy” Can anybody show me the typographical emoticon for a long, hysterical howl. Yes sir, Hophmi, if there is anything AIPAC is devoited to, it’s “studying” America’s foreign policy.
Yes, Phil, demographic arguments do look bad in the 21st century.
Hophmi, the Zionists were publicly demanding all of the natural resources. They had been granted the long term concessions on the Jordan river and the Dead Sea. The head of the Zionist Commission announced that the Jews would rule over the non-Jews just as soon as they outnumbered the Arab communities. Only an idiot like you would attempt to flip that plan of total subjugation into a disparaging remark about the Palestinian Arabs.
It was “clearly understood” by one and all that Zionists were doing everything in their power which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine – and it’s risible to suggest otherwise.
Let’s read Wilson’s 20th century “democratic argument” again. It still sounds pretty good, even in the 21st century:
–http://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/392AD7EB00902A0C852570C000795153
Hophmi says: ” Mearsheimer predicted pretty much what we have today, status quo, developing ministate in the West Bank, Israel with a state that the Palestinians and others in the region will never let them fully enjoy.”
Your hypocrisy makes me gag. There is no ‘developing ministate’ in the West Bank and you know it. What there is is a relentless process of dispossession in which the Palestinians are begging for a bantustan and you’re shooting for walled ghettos.
i agree that the palestinian opposition to immigration is not that different from the rightwing opposition to immigration lefties oppose in the us today.
What are you talking about, Phil? Do immigrants to the U.S. explicitly state that their goal is to establish an ethnic nation state in all or part of the the U.S.? Do they establish “colonial societies”? Do they lobby foreign governments for charters to establish a “homeland” on American shores?
Remind me Shmuel was there an established Palestinian state with long history of political independence before 1948 that we somehow all missed that let’s you make this comparison?
Remind me Shmuel …
So which colonialist argument is it this time, Oleg? Was Palestine a “land without a people for a people without a land”, or were the native Palestinians merely “savages” without will or agency?
But you haven’t answered my question Shmuel you are trying to evade it
because you fully well aware that the comparison you have made is flawed.
“was there an established Palestinian state with long history of political independence before 1948″
Not again!!! This has been answered umpteenth times but you won’t acknowledge so why should anyone bother respond to a tone-deaf arguing in ill faith?
Get lost!
But you haven’t answered my question Shmuel
Because your question was irrelevant, unless you make at least one of the two colonialist assumptions I cited.
The two colonialist assumptions are yours Shmuel not mine
you made them for me you deal with them and your flawed comparison.
/Get lost!/
No i won’t.
So which is it, Oleg? Were there no people in Palestine, or were the people who were there merely of no consequence? Otherwise, your “question” is completely irrelevant to Palestinian objections to Jewish immigration.
The Palestinian objections to Jewish immigration cannot be compared
with this
/What are you talking about, Phil? Do immigrants to the U.S. explicitly state that their goal is to establish an ethnic nation state in all or part of the the U.S.? Do they establish “colonial societies”? Do they lobby foreign governments for charters to establish a “homeland” on American shores?/
OlegR August 15, 2012 at 9:28 am
“.. was there an established Palestinian state with long history of political independence before 1948 that we somehow all missed…?
Irrelevant. Israel was established, declared and recognized based on UNGA res 181. Whatever lay outside of Israel May 15th 1948, ain’t Israeli.
The Palestinian objections to Jewish immigration cannot be compared
with this
Do we really have to do this step-by-step?
What difference does it make whether there was an established Palestinian state with [a] long history of political independence before 1948 or not? A foreign political movement sought – through immigration, colonial sponsorship and the force of arms – to impose a foreign polity on the native population of Palestine. Is this in any way similar to the largely economic migration to the United States? If anything, the lack of an “established Palestinian state” would have made the native population more vulnerable to colonisation and thus more justified in its fear of Jewish immigration.
If you dismiss the will and agency of the native population of Palestine, because it lacked “an established state” and a “long history of political independence” (without entering into the merits of the argument itself – which has been discussed extensively at MW), you are either saying that there were no Palestinians to oppose the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine (“land without a people”), or that their opposition – and consequently their opposition to Jewish immigration – was of no consequence. I presume you are arguing the latter, i.e. that the lack of a pre-existing native polity of a specific nature (a “state”) rendered the interests and desires of the native population irrelevant to any designs an organised body of immigrants might have to establish their own polity there – which is a classic colonialist argument.
“No i won’t.”
O come on, Oleg, if you’re spending so much time here, you’re already lost, and you’re looking for a way out. Flee! is my advice. Do you want to end up a pitiable spectacle, like “yonah” crying “jew-baiting at the words “Kosher pickle”?.
If you want to have your Zionist nervous breakdown in front of everybody, go ahead, but I prefer to experience my humiliations in private, and I don’t like to watch anybody else’s.
No, I won’t “As Phil’s hand reaches for the “ban” button, a vise-like grip closes over his wrist, and begins to bear down inexorably, crushing his bones.’
Well, Oleg, you’re here on sufferance, and if you want to pretend otherwise, go ahead, might as well round out that make-believe world you live in.
Observing Shmuel in action against OlegR is like watching the Jamaican sprinters vs. some third-graders.
“Observing Shmuel in action against OlegR is like watching the Jamaican sprinters vs. some third-graders.”
I keep on wondering if Mondo is sending Oleg and the rest gratuities. They argue like a fighter paid off to take a dive.
Hey OlegR – I thought you were called up for reserve duty by the IOF – to be stationed somewhere near the Sinai/Israel border! there I was – so worried about your welfare…BTW – that was less than 15 days ago that we all got notice of your imminent draft. It was so timely also – just when those Egyptian police were killed – in comes OlegR to the rescue. Not a very long reserve duty notice. Must be early release…now that the border quieted down some.
So what’s up OlegR (who claims to be in Israel)? Salafi bedouins took a break, so you could get a chance to take on Shmuel and the Jewish colonial history? I just hope you are well and did not get wounded or anything, especially not in the moral plexus. As it is, you are several points down in just the latest bout.
Shmuel, thank you! You demolish Oleg’s argument with dignity and grace. I would find it difficult to do .
Please come to London. I’d be honoured to shake your hand and have my family meet you.
Thank you so much, bintbiba. I am touched, and the honour would be mine. I hope to take you up on it one day. Much health and happiness.
Oleg, you and your pathetic cause are already lost.
Thanks for the comedy hour.
Shmuel, Oleg was saying that the Zionists only took away Palestinians’ homes, villages, land, communities and way of life, but not their “state,” so what was their problem? Don’t pretend not to understand this perfectly reasonable argument.
From Hostage a week or so ago on this site:
In Kletter v Dulles, the Court ruled that in 1932 the Executive branch of the US government had recognized Palestine as a separate foreign state in its treaties of commerce.
There was a long discussion of this issue. Please OlegR keep up! And don’t argue with Hostage – he’ll wipe the floor with you!
“The Palestinian objections to Jewish immigration cannot be compared
with this…
You’re simply attempting to inject a red herring into the argument. There was originally an attempt to compare immigration to the United States with Jewish immigration to Palestine.
This fails on innumerable scores. The one that was picked was that immigrants to the United States did not want to set up their own separate state but were more than willing to join the society already there. If you want to compare Jewish immigration to Palestine with immigration to the United States, you have to demonstrate that the Jewish immigrants were willing to become part of Palestinian society.
Remind me Shmuel was there an established Palestinian state with long history of political independence before 1948 that we somehow all missed that let’s you make this comparison?
Oleg that’s pretty easy. It was an integral part of the sovereign and independent Ottoman state. It had been for centuries. Whether or not the administrative subunits of a country are independent states in their own right is, and was, irrelevant under the public international law of the 19th century.
England, Russia, France, Austria, and Prussia used the Napoleonic Wars and the Egyptian–Ottoman War as opportunities to begin intervening in the region militarily and politically to establish colonies of Christians, like the Swabian Templars, and Jewish colonies in Palestine. They made no secret about their desire to carry-on a so-called “peaceful Crusade” to reclaim the Holy Land as part of the popular and widespread programs of millenarian movements that were based on chiliastic Christian beliefs. The fact that you are still using the bogus arguments that the subjugation and eviction of the Palestinians from their own homeland was justified because their country was supposedly terra nullus simply proves that you’re pathetically ignorant, not the rest of us.
link to yorku.ca
The Palestinian objections to Jewish immigration cannot be compared
with this
/What are you talking about, Phil? Do immigrants to the U.S. explicitly state that their goal is to establish an ethnic nation state in all or part of the the U.S.? Do they establish “colonial societies”? Do they lobby foreign governments for charters to establish a “homeland” on American shores?/
Sure it can Oleg, because Palestine was an integral part of a sovereign and independent Ottoman State. It had been for centuries, much to the chagrin of the Christian Powers, including the Russian Empire. They established Latin, Orthodox, and Anglo-Prussian Episcopal Protectorates there using a series of wars and peace agreements. The latter made proteges of the many Jews and Protestant denominations that were not on such good terms with the Latin and Orthodox protecting powers. link to yorku.ca
/.. It was an integral part of the sovereign and independent Ottoman state. I/
But not the Palestinian state and they weren’t equal citizens but subjects.
“But not the Palestinian state and they weren’t equal citizens but subjects.”
Irrelevant. The precise political condition existing at the time does not mean that a horde of European Jews and later squatters out of Russia and Brooklyn, like you, who have no connection whatsoever with the land, could invade and take over. That’s what the principle of self-determination is all about.
But not the Palestinian state and they weren’t equal citizens but subjects.
Even the Jewish Virtual Library has biographical articles that explain that the Palestinian representative of the District of Jerusalem was the Speaker of the Ottoman Parliament. See link to jewishvirtuallibrary.org
There were also many Jewish Deputies, like Emmanuel Karasso from Salonica, who participated in the Parliamentary debates on Zionism.
*http://books.google.com/books?id=4VZ4PcOKzrAC&lpg=PA108&ots=AcDWGGrSOf&pg=PA108#v=onepage&q&f=false
*http://books.google.com/books?id=4VZ4PcOKzrAC&lpg=PA111&ots=AcDWGGrSOf&pg=PA111#v=onepage&q&f=false
You might want to study-up on your history. Prof Donald Quataert explains that the term Ottoman was a misnomer. The Empire had long-since ceased to be a strictly Turkoman state through intermarriage of the members of the ruling dynasties. See “The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922, Cambridge University Press, 2nd Edition, 2005. It was also a Multinational Empire due to territorial accretions and grants of local autonomy to the various ethnic and religious communities that it had incorporated. See for example Avigdor Levy (editor), “Jews, Turks, Ottomans: A Shared History, Fifteenth Through the Twentieth Century”, Syracuse University Press, 2002
“/.. It was an integral part of the sovereign and independent Ottoman state. I/
But not the Palestinian state and they weren’t equal citizens but subjects.”
…and this is why it was decided that neither Norway nor Ireland nor Poland nor Latvia nor Lithuania nor Estonia nor Finland nor…
Screw it. List is too long and I’m not even half way across Europe — let alone the rest of the world.
Sorry — but the lack of previous national independence has hardly been sufficient to deny peoples their freedom. The Palestinians are definitely there, they’re certainly not Jewish, and Palestine should be theirs.
You have to live with it. There is no justification for Israel — not even the negative one that there isn’t something that should be there instead.
“I agree that the palestinian opposition to immigration is not that different from the rightwing opposition to immigration lefties oppose in the US today.”
Really, Phil? Last I checked, there were no Great Powers offering to give half the United States away to the sovereignty of people who aren’t even here yet, to atone for sins the US had nothing to do with and/or create a “non-Christian” outpost in the strategic Americas. Nor have militias from any of our minorities marched on our most sacred national sites proclaiming their wish to take over (see: Jabotinsky and the Betar youth movement). Nor have any of our minorities been putting out propaganda claiming our culture is backwards and America would be a wasteland if not for them. Nor has there been any nationalistic terrorism aimed at driving whites out of certain areas.
I’m afraid it’s apples and oranges.
To add to what Pamela said, the immigrant Zionists immediately set up land covenants that prohibited non-Jews from ever owning, living, or working on JNF land, and insisted that the Mandate Government give them preference in hiring and higher pay than the Palestinian Arab population.They also demanded that any local governing body that was set up give Jews 50% of the representation, at a time when Jews were less than 15% of the population there. ( The Zionists also set up their own selection process for the Jews they would allow into Palestine. Political beliefs, youth, and usefulness to the colonial project were paramount concerns, NOT refugee status or the need for asylum.)
None of this is comparable in any way to US immigration. No one in their right mind would find this kind of immigration benign. Phil, you really need to stop romanticizing early Zionism. Deutscher had it all wrong.
“there were no Great Powers offering to give half the United States away to the sovereignty of people who aren’t even here yet”
Last I check, the United Nations had an entire committee devoted to the Palestinian issue, and the UNHCR spent about half its time dealing with Israel.
Let’s stop this complaining about half. The original Mandate included Jordan. The Arabs got 3/4 of the original Mandate, and the 1/4 assigned to the Jews included the sparsely populated Negev Desert.
“to atone for sins the US had nothing to do with and/or create a “non-Christian” outpost in the strategic Americas.”
Please. This is another one. The Arabs argued against a Jewish state collectively. They were by and large on the wrong side during WWII. They paid a price for that at the UN. They also paid a price for their own intransigence and refusal to seriously cooperate with any UN inquiry into the issue, particularly UNSCOP and the Anglo-American Committee. Read the memoirs of Bartley Crum and Jorge Garcia-Granados.
” Nor have any of our minorities been putting out propaganda claiming our culture is backwards and America would be a wasteland if not for them.”
Huh?
” Nor has there been any nationalistic terrorism aimed at driving whites out of certain areas.”
You mean like Arabs did to the Hebron Jews in 1929?
the original UN mandate included jordan? we’re back to this argument are we?
yawn.
You mean like Arabs did to the Hebron Jews in 1929?
only 17 more years and you will be able to cite a source from 100 years ago you justify zionist ethnic cleansing. and only 4 more years and you’ll be able to use a an alleged ‘mandate’ that was never in effect but, according to your ilk allegedly in effect for all of one year or something to rationalize some ‘original mandate’. hasbarists hump these excuses ad nauseum and they will never hold water. i’m starting to understand this yidish pilpul thing better all the time. so loverly someone labeled it. thank heavens for yiddish!
“The original Mandate included Jordan.”
Lie.
“The Arabs got 3/4 of the original Mandate, and the 1/4 assigned to the Jews included the sparsely populated Negev Desert. ”
Who cares. “The Jews” had no right to anything.
“The Arabs argued against a Jewish state collectively.”
Yes, and they were in the right. The Jews had no business being there, except for those few who were there before the zionist invasion.
“They also paid a price for their own intransigence and refusal to seriously cooperate with any UN inquiry into the issue,”
And if the robber comes to steal your money and rape your wife, that’s what we’ll call your self-defense: “intransigence and refusal to seriously cooperate.”
“You mean like Arabs did to the Hebron Jews in 1929?”
You can never know what would have happened if the zionists hadn’t mounted an invasion and executed a plan to steal the land from its inhabitants.
Go and google, Rabbi Baruch Kaplan Hebron 1929, Hoppy, and read about the Palestinians who protected the Jews there and the Zionist provocation.
“They (the Arabs) were by and large on the wrong side during WWII.”
HUH?!!
What does that mean? Can you cite one Arab country which fought against the Allies?!!
“HUH?!!
What does that mean?”
It means that Amin al-Husayni didn’t like the Jews in Palestine so hoppy blames all Arabs for this one person’s acts.
Let’s stop this complaining about half. The original Mandate included Jordan.
Here you go Hophmi: In August 1919 Balfour himself noted in a memo that the boundaries of Palestine did not yet extend into the lands lying east of the Jordan river and recommended that they might, but not however to include the Hedjaz Railway, which was an exclusively Arab interest [sic]. Note: The railway was built using charitable donations from Muslims to facilitate travelers making the Hajj pilgrimage, so it was managed as Waqf.
The provisional boundaries were subsequently established by an “Aide-memoire in regard to the occupation of Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia pending the decision in regard to Mandates, 13 September 1919″ that was handed by Mr. Lloyd George to M. Clemenceau and placed before the Versailles Conference. It divided the territory between the British, French, and Arab administered OETAs on the basis of the “principles of the Sykes-Picot agreement” and “the Sykes-Picot line”. Palestine was strictly limited to only that area occupied by the British forces after their withdrawal from Syria. Palestine did not include Transjordan, which was part of the Arab OETA. The memoire mentioned “the Arab State” that the British and French had committed to support in Zones A and B under the terms of Sykes-Picot. The memo is available in the FRUS and in J. C. Hurewitz collection. All of the plans involving OETA North, South, and East had to be changed after August of 1920, when the French overthrew Feisal’s Syrian Kingdom. The relevant extracts are:
The Resolution of the San Remo Conference, April 1920 simply conferred the mandates and stipulated that the boundaries would be determined by the Allied Powers at a later date. link to cfr.org
After the French overthrow of the new Arab State in August 1920, the British and French concluded the Franco-British Convention on Certain Points Connected with the Mandates for Syria and the Lebanon, Palestine and Mesopotamia, December 23, 1920. It established the boundaries between the territories under the British mandates of Mesopotamia and Palestine. The British decided not to include Transjordan in their Mesopotamian mandate. link to jstor.org
The British government had insisted on fulfilling the pledge made by McMahon to the Hashemites regarding territories east of the line from Damascus, Homs, Hama, and Allepo. The Jordan river had been the administrative boundary between the Sanjak of Jerusalem and the Syrian Vilayet containing Damascus. The boundary between Transjordan and Palestine were established according to biblical formulas. Those were set by the Jordan river crossing recorded in Yehoshua – Joshua 4:1-7; and the limits of “Dan to Beersheba” mentioned in Shoftim – Judges 20:1. Gideon Bigger relates that Lloyd George interrupted the Deauville negotiations with the French regarding the northern boundary to consult George Adam Smith’s works about the geography of the Holy Land. See Gideon Biger, The Boundaries of Modern Palestine, 1840-1947, Routledge, 2004, ISBN 0714656542, page 120
On 21 March 1921, the Foreign and Colonial office legal advisers decided to introduce Article 25 into the Palestine Mandate. It was approved by Curzon on 31 March 1921, and the revised final draft of the mandate, including the territory of Transjordan, was forwarded to the League of Nations on 22 July 1922. See Aaron S. Klieman, “Foundations of British Policy In The Arab World: The Cairo Conference of 1921″, Johns Hopkins, 1970, ISBN 0-8018-1125-2, pages 228–234
That’s Woody’s attitude in a nutshell. “The Jews have no right to anything”.
“The Jews have no right to anything.”
Individual Jews have the same rights as all other human beings, and no more, but I suspect you are talking about group rights here.
I have grave doubts about the idea of group rights that are not derived from individual rights, but I will set those doubts aside, and simply ask you
(a) what group rights “the Jews” have,
and
(b) what principles those rights are based on.
“i’m starting to understand this yidish pilpul thing better all the time. so loverly someone labeled it. thank heavens for yiddish!”
Oh, Annie, just go ahead and say it, you know you want to! I’m warning you, it starts with “pilpul” and before you know it, you’re saying things like “pastrami sandwich” or even “Kosher pickle”. And I’ve got one even “yonah” was afraid to say, but I’m not: “Gefilte fish”. Oh, don’t act so shocked! After all, if you’re Jew-baiting, you wanna catch something! And a sandwich and pickle is lunch, what about dinner?
““They (the Arabs) were by and large on the wrong side during WWII.”
HUH?!!
What does that mean? Can you cite one Arab country which fought against the Allies?!!”
Well Iraq — briefly, for reasons which had nothing to do with the larger struggle.
On the other hand, the Arab Legion rendered yeoman service both in putting that down and in overthrowing the Vichy French in Syria. The Zionists made no comparable contribution.
i’m starting to understand this yidish pilpul thing better all the time. so loverly someone labeled it. thank heavens for yiddish!
No need for Yiddish. There are some perfectly good English words – like casuistry or sophistry or speciousness – that express the very same idea. Like its Greek and Latin counterparts, pilpul also has respectable origins.
Thanks Shmuel, we should collaborate on a Yiddish glossary… Phil
We need a glossary of the top few hundred Yiddish, Hebrew and English terms used by pro-Israel activists — the terms which best reveal the basic structure of their core ideology and psychology.
When you get the ideology and psychology figured out and in focus, it becomes obvious why Zionism has become mired down in intractable and insoluble problems with nearly everyone.
Thanks Shmuel, we should collaborate on a Yiddish glossary
We can start with this: link to youtube.com
(Yiddish followed by English and Russian)
“Thanks Shmuel, we should collaborate on a Yiddish glossary… Phil”
Well, the competition is stiff. Think you can do a better job than this? And if that doesn’t do it for you there’s a plethora (Yiddish for “mass”) Yiddish glossaries on the web.
‘thank heavens for yiddish!’
Give a nod to Hebrew in this case — ‘pilpul’ comes from the word for ‘pepper’ (am I pilpulizing?).
“That’s Woody’s attitude in a nutshell. “The Jews have no right to anything”.
ROTFLMSJAO!!! Three times over! Fredblogs, I’ve never noticed that Mr. Allen had any trouble gratifying one particular Jew’s wish for anything, even things most of us wouldn’t dream of.
“That’s Woody’s attitude in a nutshell. ‘The Jews have no right to anything’.”
Correct. The Jews, as a group, had no right to Palestine. Those individuals who happened to be Jews and who lived in that society, of course had a right to the full complement of political, social and human rights, without regard to their ethnicity and religion.
The difference between you and me, Fredo (putting aside your deficits in intelligence and basic reasoning skills), is that I am willing to believe that all of the people, from the Med to the Jordan are entitled to that full complement of political, civil and human rights — including full equality and a vote in the government which controls their lives — regardless of religion or ethnicity. For you, that’s something that only Jews are entitled to. You are a pitiful creature.
“the Arab Legion rendered yeoman service both in putting that down and in overthrowing the Vichy French in Syria.”
And the Libyan Brigade (I forget its correct name) fought alongside the Long Range Desert Group and the Eight Army against the Italians and Germans in the North African actions that prevented the Axis from taking the Suez Canal and Palestine.
The Zionists did take part in the fighting against the Axis powers. Moshe Dayan lost his left eye in action fighting Vichy French forces in Syria.
Phil, Hophmi posts something that is full of demonstrably false Zionist myths ” the “Arabs have been attacking Israel since its foundation” etc. and all you do is give it credibility by saying “two wrongs don’t make a right”. Bulls**t. The situations of the Palestinians on their own land and the Israelis on land stolen from the Palestinians are not equivalent!
Should Americans shrug off uncomfortable truths because they don’t sound nice and sit right with some of American PC language.
And why did you take the Orthodox Jews out of the headline Philip.
Talking about context.
Should Americans shrug off uncomfortable truths because they don’t sound nice and sit right with some of American PC language.
The Palestinians didn’t complain about an indigenous “demographic threat” from the Jews, so its a very lame argument.
Demographic expert U.O. Schmelz highlighted the fact that there was no indigenous threat:
See U.O. Schmelz Demographic Research of the Jerusalem
and Hebron Regions Towards the End of the Ottoman Period, in David Kushner, Palestine in the Late Ottoman Period: Political, Social, and Economic Transformation, BRILL, 1986, page 363.
OlegR: “Should Americans shrug off uncomfortable truths because they don’t sound nice and sit right with some of American PC language…”
The difficulty here is that what you are asking us to do is not to shrug off ‘uncomfortable truths’ but to equate them with lies and distortions.
If the Mexicans promoted immigration with the express purpose of creating a Catholic state (or state of any specific religion) in California or the U.S., and denying equal rights to persons of other religious/ethnic groups, I too would be anti-Mexican immigration. No Mexican or Mexican organization is promoting such a cause that I’m aware of, almost all of them come to the U.S. for work in order to help their relatives back home, or to become good U.S. citizens. The children of Mexican immigrants are happy to socialize with or marry people of other ethnic groups and religions.
So no, the right-wing opposition to immigration is not really the same as Palestinian opposition to immigration, which was mostly based on the expressed intent of the zionists to take over.
If this is to say that Palestinian opposition to immigration in the years leading up to ’48 is akin to right-wing American opposition to immigration, I beg to differ. There’s a difference between immigrating in order to integrate within an established society and immigrating in order to colonize, and the Jews made it clear that their intentions were the latter. I don’t see why anybody would consider it wrong for any group to resist colonization just as I don’t see why such resistance or opposition would be attributed to racism. If the Swiss were to decide to colonize Canada tomorrow, I’ll bet that the Canadians would resist even though their corresponding majorities are of the same race.
“i agree that the palestinian opposition to immigration is not that different from the rightwing opposition to immigration lefties oppose in the us today.”
You gotta be kidding, Phil! The right-wing opposition to immigration is irrational fear as those immigrants have no objective of taking over the land they want to move to unlike the Palestinians who were worried for good reasons as Zionists were pretty open about their intentions of takeover . I’m really disappointed (understatement) that you made such a blatant false analogy.
I’m highly disappointed (understatement) too, godthankingatheist.
What Hophmi wrote is such sewage.
“no immigrant I know of engages in rhetoric that their aim is to take over America the way Palestinian rhetoric has focused on reversing 1948.”
Palestinians are the natives, it’s the Israelis who are the immigrants.
It’s like saying “We have to make sure Native Americans never grow in numbers”.
Disgusting.
Miller’s ideas about Israel have become the new received wisdom for Israel’s supporters. There is no hurry, because Israel is doing fine– its just not perfect. Notice that there is no reference to rights or justice or anything else in this formulation about Israel– and without any people power pushing towards a peace they are largely correct. Governments are obviously not going to push Israel to do anything. So Miller’s take on things has a way of shaping reality– I suppose that, at dinner parties and other get togethers, when Israel supporters are forced to confront voices of despair, this will be their answer: “Yes the situation is not ideal, but things are not totally bad.” I suppose we can hope that Iran does get a bomb, and that forces some change in Israeli behavior, but barring that, what is that could conceivably change the status quo and push Israel into some sort of settlement?
“… the so-called economic peace in the West Bank has “generated more than a manageable status quo.”…”
The Israelis really get the Palestinians coming and going. If they’re quiescent, it’s ‘more than a manageable status quo.’ If they rebel, it’s ‘terrorism.’
Too many Zionists running big media in the US. It’s time to bring in Jewish Voice for Peace journalists as permanent replacements to cover the plight of the Palestinians rather than cover it up.
“Too many Zionists running big media in the US. It’s time to bring in Jewish Voice for Peace journalists as permanent replacements to cover the plight of the Palestinians rather than cover it up.”
Partly this is a function of just how awful things are.
One can be pretty frank about what goes in the US, or goes on in Great Britain — or goes on in Greece, for that matter. It’s not actually all that awful.
What’s more, even the awfullest revelation ever won’t call the being of the country into question. Greece is…Greece. What else would it be?
Israel’s not like that. First, the cat really cannot be let out of the bag: fully and freely discuss exactly what is going on there and always has gone on there in the mass media and it’s all over. Second, that same analysis will make it clear there’s no justification whatsoever for anything resembling the current Israel to last one minute longer.
So the truth has to be vigorously repressed — because Israel could never live in the light of the truth. DON’T turn on the light. That’s the watchword.
“Yes Israel has serious worries… The country’s demographics look bad — too many ultra-Orthodox Jews, Palestinians and Israeli Arabs and not enough secular Jews. ”
Oh well, some Jews, I guess, are just more equal than others. And some, of course, are just too Jewish, and some are well, icky
No let me see, you start a country by theft, plunge it into war and occupation for 50 years, an increasingly unfair and tense society socially ruled by fanatics and worse and you wonder why reasonable, intelligent, secular people don’t wanna live there. Yup, that one’s a big mystery, let’s get a couple of Crays daisy-chained and see if we can come up with an algorithm which can explain it. Okay, start the computers working! Wait, why did the fuse blow….
“Yes Israel has serious worries… The country’s demographics look bad — too many ultra-Orthodox Jews, Palestinians and Israeli Arabs and not enough secular Jews.”
Hang on just a bit longer, Israel ProudZionist 777 is on his way! Problem solved!
Man, and I used to think Sadly, No! was funny. And that sentence made it past an editor? He couldn’t have been Jewish, that must be it. No Jew would put up with that kind of anti-Semitism! Ultra Orthodox Jews and non-secular Jews are not good? The NYTs is gonna hear from me!
At last a huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders, and at least some of the guilt is gone. It wasn’t my fault, now I know what was wrong with my family! Too many Ultra-Orthodox and non-secular Jews. No wonder we had problems! Hey, not even Israel can put up with them!
Didn’t these secular Jews base their case for stealing Palestine on some religious book?
Heh.
@ hophmi
Apples and oranges.
Snippet from ’08 Pew Research result:
A record 12.7 million Mexican immigrants lived in the United States in 2008, a 17-fold increase since 1970. Mexicans now account for 32% of all immigrants living in this country. The second-largest nationality group of immigrants, Filipinos, accounts for just 5% of all immigrants in the U.S.
More than half (55%) of the Mexican immigrants in this country are unauthorized. Overall, Mexicans comprise about six-in-ten (59%) of the estimated 11.9 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S.
No other country in the world has as many total immigrants from all countries as the United States has immigrants from Mexico alone. Other than the U.S., the country that hosts the largest number of immigrants is Russia, with 12 million foreign born, many of whom are natives of countries that were part of the former Soviet Union.
“More than half (55%) of the Mexican immigrants in this country are unauthorized.”
Good! Shows grit! There’s no way we’ll ever break the hold of the Zionists on America without these people. Can you imagine how they would react to Hophmi’s tragic tale of Jews excluded from “certain white-shoe law firms”?
“Can you imagine how they would react to Hophmi’s tragic tale of Jews excluded from “certain white-shoe law firms”?”
I’m trying to recall seeing a lawyer with white shoes.
Maybe I just don’t commit the right crimes.
“Good! Shows grit! There’s no way we’ll ever break the hold of the Zionists on America without these people. Can you imagine how they would react to Hophmi’s tragic tale of Jews excluded from “certain white-shoe law firms”?”
This is what comes of living in your little White bubble Mooser.
If you knew some of these people (not Mexicans so much as other Hispanics) you’d realize that an awful lot of them are Evangelicals, and the Evangelicals firmly if rather vaguely think Israel is just wonderful.
“If you knew some of these people (not Mexicans so much as other Hispanics) you’d realize that an awful lot of them are Evangelicals, and the Evangelicals firmly if rather vaguely think Israel is just wonderful.”
Look Colin, I don’t mind you lokking in my windows, but peering directly in my mind, well, that’s too much.
Oh well, if you are going to expose me for the bigot, the fearful bigot I am, I’ll just have to take it like a man (or what I imagine a man would take it like)
“you’d realize that an awful lot of them are Evangelicals, and the Evangelicals firmly if rather vaguely think Israel is just wonderful.”
Oh well, at least you don’t confine your ominscience to me, you know all about “them”, too.
I can sometimes tell what people are thinking, but to sense the vague, but firm thoughts of Evangelical Hispanics? You don’t know how I admire a man who posesses extra-sensory bi-lingual abilities.
“This is what comes of living in your little White bubble Mooser.”
Oh, you mean the “White bubble” you created using your made-up statistics?
Besides, among “Whites” wouldn’t I be the minority?
Mark Thompson, ougtoing bbc director general, is to tbe the new president and CEO of NYT!
link to guardian.co.uk
No problem then as Thompson and his wife are committed Zionists which is of course the main reason why he was chosen.
Good for the BBC. NYT policy on Middle East reporting won’t change!
In 2009, Thompson kept a humananitarian fundraising for Gaza from BBC television. That must have earned him this job.
link to news.bbc.co.uk
I first encountered Aaron David Miller at a panel at the Woodrow Wilson center with Trita Parsi and Efraim Sneh. He disgusted me then, and he disgusts me now.
“too many ultra-Orthodox Jews, Palestinians and Israeli Arabs and not enough secular Jews.”
So now there are too many religious Jews in Israel?
So who would man their settlements if not for religious Jews?
A previous on line Jewish contact, jedell, who has relatives living in settlements said most settlers are religious fanatics.
“said most settlers are religious fanatics.”
Worse than fanatics! Genocidal maniacs! You may want to see what this settler’s T-shirt is displaying:
“Are you Jewish?
Yes= Life
No= Death”
link to angryarabscommentsection.blogspot.com.au
—————-
This should be up there on Mondoweiss as a response to that disgusting bus ad about the civilised versus the savages. Americans should see what the “civilised” is really thinking (and doing).
Funny (not really) how the US State Department asked Sandra Tamari the same question.
Phil/all Professor Juan Cole has an amazing pie chart up of donations to the race up over at Informed Comment. The pie chart shows Adelson and team controlling the making of the pie. Unable to link
Statements like Aaron David Miller’s in the NYT set the stage for a new round of ethnic cleansing in Israel/Palestine. And all the war talk sets the stage for a war that will provide the opportunity for that round of ethnic cleansing.
Miller’s op-ed and the quote in question gets to the basic problem of (Ben Gurion) Zionism. Currently in Israel, every pregnant Jewish woman is a “mazel tov” and every pregnant Arab/Palestinian woman is a demographic problem. The goal of Zionism was/is Jewish self determination, “to be a free nation in our land” (Hatikva) and the essence of Jewish self determination is maintaining a Jewish majority.
(In America the concept of diversity, e pluribus unum, one out of many, is entirely different and at least in theory welcoming to any and all immigrants. The theory is tested in practice at various times of financial crisis and sociological crisis, but the theory is solidly welcoming to all.)
Is it conceivable to shift from the need for a Jewish majority to the acceptance of a Jewish minority status? Conceivable, maybe, but certainly not near to the thoughts of most Israeli Jews and currently for good reason.
The dangers of a Jewish minority status are clear to Israeli Jews and should be clear to those who see clearly. When Egypt and Syria (and Iraq and Jordan, just to name a few of the nearby Arab countries) evolve into full blown democracies and stand the test of time regarding separation of mosque and state and respect for individual rights and the rights of their minorities, then (in theory) one can demand of the Israeli Jew, there is nothing to fear from being a minority in the land: you will be protected as individuals and as a group, just as individuals and minority groups are protected in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan. But meanwhile, the future in Syria looks bleak, Iraq’s sectarian violence was almost fatal and still takes large tolls of dead and Egypt has a long road to travel to prove its democratic credentials and longevity. (The west has played a large role in the stunted growth of these countries, but that does not mean that these countries have yet proven what their futures will be.)
yonah says: “…The goal of Zionism was/is Jewish self determination, “to be a free nation in our land” (Hatikva) and the essence of Jewish self determination is maintaining a Jewish majority…”
The only problem with your fine, moderate-sounding discourse is that the attempt to implement this goal was made with someone else’s land.
I may well want a three bedroom house in a nice neighborhood, a new car, and a swimming pool. That’s more or less okay.
It is not okay if I decide to realize it by taking your house and kicking you out.
“I may well want a three bedroom house in a nice neighborhood, a new car, and a swimming pool.”
Providing the ethnic breakdown in the neighborhood meets your standards. Of course a “three bedroom house in a nice neighborhood, a new car, and a swimming pool” sort of guarantees you’ll be right in the ‘hood with all the homies.
Mooser (rather pathetically) says: “Providing the ethnic breakdown in the neighborhood meets your standards.”
Technically, there is only one white family on this block. Moreover, mine isn’t it.
So what are you talking about?
“Technically, there is only one white family”
Ah, finally I’m going to get that “technical” description of race I’ve always wanted!
“to be a free nation in our land” (Hatikva)
If only for ONE problem. It’s NOT your land! Will never be.
Did anyone notice this sentence in the op-ed?
“The discoveries of natural gas in the Mediterranean will not only take care of Israel’s needs but by 2017 make it a significant exporter.”
The only gas that was discovered in the Mediterranean was off the coast of Gaza and it lies well within Gaza’s territory, NOT Israel, even though they have been trying to steal it (and why not, Israel itself is the biggest heist of our time and has been steered by a cabal of thieves since it was born)
Ms. Abulhawa it’s awesome to see you posting here!