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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
"campaign of aggression, oppression, theft, colonization, destruction and murder"
This list of epithets has become a lame excuse not to engage in concrete productive peace negotiations with Israel. The useful mantra of the BIS (Blame Israel Syndrom).
Yeah, I’m disgusted too Winnica.
FYI, it's 25% not 70%. But it's still too much. That's the consequence of being a small beleaguered nation: it is forced to mantain massive spending for the defence and the security of its citizens (10-15% of the overall budget and biggest ratio of defense spending to GDP) and has too little left for the social issues.
But if you really care about the well-being of the Shoah survivors (beyond the ostentatious sterile contempt), please, you can help here concretely: link to zdaka.org
It's indicative to see how the (extreme) left and the (extreme) right are here united in condemning Obama's support for the Jewish state of Israel as propaganda, each side for its own purposes.
Settlers out is the only solution . otherwise give everyone the vote and forget about Israel
Settlers out isn't the solution since this would not lead to peace. And the Palestinians are the first who will not agree to get the vote by Israel. So forget about it.
Well, Krauss, you need to get the whole picture. Not even the Palestinians seem so favorable to the two-state solution. Fatah and Hamas seem to be reconciled and are on track to form a government of national unity. FYI, Fatah does not accept Israel as a Jewish state (its official ceremonies, however, incite to hatred against Jews indiscriminately, Israeli and beyond), while Hamas does not accept the existence of Israel itself. So where do you see the willingness of the Palestinians for a two-state-solution? More fantasy than reality. Moreover, can you imagine that they agree to accept ONE state of Israel of which they become citizens? But if their intention is to eliminate it, how can you assume that they would like to join? Impossible, my friend.
The presence of 750'000 settlers is not a problem, if there is the willingness on both sides to find a compromising solution. But there isn't. Israel knows that giving up the settlements does not mean peace (at least until the Palestinians do not radically change their eliminative aims). The Palestinians, for their part, will not stop wanting to eliminate the state that they think is the cause of all their woes and troubles (at least as long as there are Jewish settlements and, I would add, Israel itself).
So, I would not be sure that the narrative shift will happen soon, or that it will happen at all. And if it happens, who knows if something will change? Or do you think the world will attempt to impose the One-state solution to the two contenders, as it attempts to impose today the two-state solution?
Bet a penny that One it has the same chance of success as Two - that is, no chance.
And yes, eee. This seems to be a very sensitive and embarassing topic for the pro-Palestinian anti-Zionist discourse indeed. Chu's so eloquent maxim "you reap what you sow" justifies implicitly that even religious anti-Semitism as political means to fight Jews indiscriminately is legitimate.
Is this sane? I don't think so and I believe that this casts a pretty grim light not only on the Palestinian Authority which plays the trustworthy partner for peace (at least in front of Western cameras), while it promoting the ugliest anti-Semitic hatred to its people; but also on the anti-Zionist movement, which can not distance itself from this kind of despicable attitude because this would probably turn upside down their very ideological premises. If they are for justice, peace and human rights, why this embarassed silence, even veiled justification?
It's pathetic.
you reap what you sow
Are you saying that removing the skullcap from the Dome of the Rock is a legitimate act, since the Palestinians never stopped to incite to kill the Jews and this goal will still remain their priority in future? And are you saying that Israel should continue to settle Judea and Samaria, since the Palestinian authority promotes events which can be considered a declaration of war against any presence of Jews in ME? You reap what you sow. Is this what you want to suggest?
BTW Chu, is it really clear to you that the Mufti in his sermon is referring to an old traditional religious Hadith according to which the Muslims have an Islamic obbligation to kill the Jews? That this Hadith, promoted during official Palestinian cerimonies and broadcasted on the PA (Fatah) television, is much earlier than the state of Israel and that it targets all the Jews indiscriminately? That this is anti-Semitism to the core, promoted by that same Palestinian authority which claims to be a reliable peace partner for a two-state-solution in the eyes of the West?
Are you now able to get the implications of your self-righteous reap-and-sow-maxim, or do you still think that promoting religious anti-Semitism as political tool against the existence of the Jews in "Palestine" is a legitimate act?
Does the reality hurt? Maybe can the message pass through without the link, to make it more 'palatable'?
So again: here is a message of anti-Jewish incitement during a recent official Fatah celebration (source pmw.org, there is also a video for the Arabic speaking persons).
"The following is an excerpt from the Fatah ceremony broadcast on PA TV:
Moderator at Fatah ceremony:
"Our war with the descendants of the apes and pigs (i.e., Jews)
is a war of religion and faith.
Long Live Fatah! [I invite you,] our honorable Sheikh."
PA Mufti Muhammad Hussein comes to the podium and says:
"47 years ago the [Fatah] revolution started. Which revolution? The modern revolution of the Palestinian people's history. In fact, Palestine in its entirety is a revolution, since [Caliph] Umar came [to conquer Jerusalem, 637 CE], and continuing today, and until the End of Days. The reliable Hadith (tradition attributed to Muhammad), [found] in the two reliable collections, Bukhari and Muslim, says:
"The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews.
The Jew will hide behind stones or trees.
Then the stones or trees will call:
'Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'
Except the Gharqad tree [which will keep silent]."
Therefore it is no wonder that you see Gharqad [trees]
surrounding the [Israeli] settlements and colonies.."
[PA TV (Fatah), Jan. 9, 2012]"
When will you also confront the problem of anti-Semitism in Palestinian politics and society? Or do you think that a sweatshirt in Jerusalem showing the removal of the dome's 'skullcap' is a more offensive and serious crime than open incitement to kill Jews promoted in official events by the Palestinian Authority (not to mention Hamas')?!? What do you think about this?
These journalists are ridiculous. With great chutzpah and without a shred of concrete evidence, they point their accusing finger at Israel. Here we can se how the fundamental principle of law "in dubio pro reo" is simply unhinged from its foundation to create and uphold publicly an worn-out and idiotic conspiracy theory. Neither self-control nor any law seem able to retain the irrepressible need to release the bias against Israel.
Fortunately, the public in its majority is intelligent enough to see the donkey dressed as a lion.
dumvita -
If a country like Iran finances and arms organisations active in the ME and beyond considered 'terrorist' by the USA and the EU, this is usually called 'waging war through proxies'. Furthermore, if this country is fervently working to acquire nuclear capabilities, refusing to cooperate with the international community on this very sensitive issue, but in fact escalating the tensions by its words and deeds, than we can speak without reserve of a potential threat to the other countries in the Middle East and beyond, that must be dealt with accordingly. To say otherwise is to deny all the evidence.
He should wait and do NOTHING, while the Eye of Evil turns its sight on his peaceful country???
peaceful country?
Not really .... link to cfr.org
It was of course not Weizmann but Herzog.
Hence the fact that Zionism is racism.
When and where have you been stuck, Shingo? On November 10, 1975?
Maybe you need to take a leaf out of Chaim Weizmann's gesture in his response and finally move forward. link to youtube.com
“anti-Zionist
because”Arab reaction to Jewish immigration to Palestine was in all respects similar to the reaction in European countries to Jews fleeing persecution elsewhere: opportunism, alarmism, xenophobia.
Moreover, the emerging Palestinian nationalism of the early twentieth century became the forerunner of a subsequent inter-war tendency among the Palestinian Arab nationalists to affiliate with parallel xenophobic and anti-Semitic European forces, the National Socialists above of all, to give additional weight to their "anti-Zionist because".
This proves that, far from wanting to share the future with the Jewish minority, Palestinian nationalism increasingly became violent (and similarly to xenophobic nationalist movements in Europe) it regarded the Jews as "aliens", rejecting in fact the very presence of a larger Jewish community in Palestine. There never was a political desire to share the land with the Jews - at the most only to reign undisputed over a small and weak Jewish 'dhimmi' minority, as was the rule and tradition through centuries of Arab-Muslim domination.
The lack of any 'ample evidence' of the contrary provided by you and Hostange is eloquent, indeed.
Yes there was. 2000 years they lived in harmony, until enter zionists. That was The End.
Yes, if Dhimmitude is considered a life in harmony .....
Yes you did.
But you missed a couple basic lessons of history, mig.
link to enotes.com
Give me a break Shingo. You are making a talking point out of the question wether the egg or the chicken came first. I could follow you if we were discussing about the North American Indians or the Indios in South America, who couldn't oppose any significant resistance and succumbed to the overwhelming forces of the colonial powers. But in light of the aggressive rhetoric and the violence unleashed against the Jews in Palestine (not only the immigrants, but also the natives) from the beginning of the century, if I were you I'd be more careful to use this kind of distorted moral judgment based on mere chronological parameter. Because if I were to apply the same dumb standards, I could provide a long list of facts of nationalist Arab violence, persecution and extortion against Dhimmi Palestinian Jews occurred in the nineteenth century, from 1848 onwards - in order to reverse again 'your' Arab Palestinian chronological primacy of 'reactive violence' "in favor of the Jews". But I don't want to argue on this niveau.
The main question remains: was there ever a true will on (Palestinian) Arab side to share the power with the Palestinian Jews and co-exist peacefully with them? The answer is definitely no, never. Not easy to stomach the fact that Arab (pan-)nationalists could and can be as "ruthless, cunning and deceiptful" as the Zionist nationalists, isn't it?
@Hostage,
Of course I was quoting the official policy of the representative of the Arab Higher Committee regarding the government of the Arab State of Palestine.
Did I maybe miss something? Where did the Arab Highter Commitee elaborate the concept of a shared government between Arabs and Jews in a envisioned Arab state of Palestine? Is there any constitutional project, any political program or anything else that you could provide to support your claim, beyond the mere affirmation of principle that the "rights of all minorities" would be protected?
Or you're building castles in the air as your usual, Hostage?
@American: Uh,uh,uh…your type always inspires me to tell the brutal truth
Your brutal truth, Americano.
As was the case with the Zionist leaders.
Perhaps you have not noticed, but you've just admitted that between the policies of the Zionist Jews and Palestinian Arabs than the Palestinian pan-nationalists there was no difference. So on this we can agree.
Except you're not yet been able to admit that Jews have simply been a bit smarter to manage the looming. Thas is the only difference. You can parrot this as much as you want, dear Shingo.
As was the case with the Zionist leaders.</i<
Perhaps you have not noticed, but you just admitted that between the policies of the Zionist Jews and Palestinian Arabs than the Palestinian pan-nationalists there was no difference. So on this we can agree.
Except you're not yet been able to admit that Jews have simply been a bit smarter to manage the looming. Thas is the only difference. You can parrot this as much as you want, dear Shingo.
The Arab leadership objected to “a great immigration of alien Jews”, not to extending equal rights for the Jews living in Palestine.
There may have been some few Palestinian Arabs who somehow envisioned a sort of co-existence between Arabs and Jews in an Palestinian Arab Muslim state, based on a unspecified equal treatment and rights, but they were minor voices, clearly unable and too insignificant to influence the general attitude and policy toward the Jews. In truth, Arab leaders and nationalist Arab Palestinians groups opposed to any Jewish presence in Palestine, were predominant before and during the British Mandate.
For example, Aref Pasha Dajani, major of Jerusalem during WWI and President of the Muslim-Christian Association in 1919, addressing the American King-Crane Commission in June 19, 1919, stated:
“It is impossible for us to make an understanding with them [Jews] or even to live them together… Their history and all their past proves that it is impossible to live with them. In all the countries where they are at present they are not wanted and undesirables, because they always arrive to suck the blood of everybody, and to become economically and financially victorious. If the League of Nations will not listen to the appeal of the Arabs this country will become a river of blood.”
Musa Khazem El Husseini, Mayor of Jerusalem 1918-1920 and Palestinian Arab personality belonging to the influential El-Husseini family, said to Winston Churchill in March 1921:
"The Jews have been amongst the most active advocates of destruction in many lands... It is well known that the disintegration of Russia was wholly or in great part brought about by the Jews, and a large proportion of the defeat of Germany and Austria must also be put at their door." (Righteous victims)
Note that he used the word "Jews" not "Zionists" to define his scapegoat.
Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, his nephew, maybe the most notorious (or acclaimed, depending on the point of view) Palestinian nationalist leader, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, founder of Army of the Holy War, leader of Arab Higher Committee, and Head of SS Muslim Hanzar Division, made certainly no secret of his hostility towards the Jews. He was the one who istigated, together with his oncle, the 1920 and 1929 riots against the Palestinian Jews and who planned with the help of the Nazis the operation ATLAS, asked his patrons to bomb Tel Aviv and even hoped that Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel's offensive in North Africa would eventually lead to the final solution of the Jewish problem in Palestine.
So, let's be honest: there has never been any such thing as Arab desire to coexist peacefully with the Jews in a single state called Palestine. In this sense, the charge made against the Zionists to be the only ones guilty for not wanting a country governed jointly is demonstrably false. The Arabs, far from being ready for that step, undertook policies in the opposite direction, trying to get rid of the Jewish minority as best they could and by means of violence since the dawn of their nationalistic movement. That was in fact the main goal of their nascent movement.
Woody was blaming the early Zionists for the failure of a united Palestine governed by Arab and Jews. So I asked him if he could give any evidence that during the British Mandate the Palestinian Arabs were, unlike the Jews, as he states, in favour of a one-state-solution called 'Palestine'.
Regrettably, he failed so far to mention a single Palestinian Arab leader proposing the coexistence and power-sharing government of Palestinian Arabs and Jews in one state. He could only cite Azzam Pasha, a Egyptian - not a Palestinian Arab - whose reputation is, to put it mildly, at least doubtful.
You quotes Azmi Bey, but he was the turkish governor in Jerusalem in 1910-11. He was probably turkish, not "Palestinian Arab". And, as turkish governor, he didn't represent the Arabs in Palestine.
So, I'm still waiting for a single Palestinian Arab voice in favour of that alleged early version of an equalitarian 'Jewish-Arab one-state-solution' ....
“We are fighting for an Arab Palestine. Whatever the outcome the Arabs will stick to their offer of equal citizenship for Jews in Arab Palestine and let them be as Jewish as they like. In areas where they predominate they will have complete autonomy.”
These words are nothing but smoke and mirrors. Azzam Pasha threatened the Jews of Palestine with a "war of extermination". In addition, he was not a Palestinian Arab, but an Egyptian diplomat, with family origins in Egypt.
If there was no Palestinian Arab state envisioned before the 1947 Partition, it was because the state was envisioned to be one governed by both the Palestinians and the Jews. .... The only reason there was a need for separate Jewish and Palestinian states was because the Jews refused a jointly governed state, in favor of their ethno-supremacy.
Can you substantiate this claim, Woody? Mention please a single example of Palestinian Arab will or at least acceptance to cohabit with the Palestinian Jews in one state governed by both before 1947? Just one example.
Transjordan was added after the fact to the British mandate, and was explicitly exuded from the territory designated to harbor the Jewish national home, which itself was only to be shared with the indigenous population anyway.
But neither was a Palestinian Arab state envisaged by the British Mandate west of the Jordan. It took shape only in the partition plan of 1947, which the Palestinians rejected in the first place. So if the Palestinians do not accept a Jewish state west of the Jordan even today, how they think they can get their own Arab Muslim state on the same piece of land, once British mandate and intended to be the Jewish national home - moreover to come after sixty years of further wars and terror aka 'armed resistance'?
Maybe is Karren Harrington is not entirely wrong to consider Jordan as possible part of the solution. For many Palestinians it is already one.
From your first answer: "the Jews are oppressing the Palestinians." "It is long past time for the Jews ..."
From your posthumous hasty correction: "The Israeli Jews are holding ...."
Slip of the tongue, Woody?
You may be aware that the Palestinian extremists in fact normally use the general ethnic wording "the Jews" while referring to "the Israeli Jews", generating a perceptible change in the connotation of their speech and message.
Why are you buddies unable to face - I mean, honestly - the Palestinian extremism, if not to relativize it to a mere reaction to the so-called Israeli 'occupation'? Why are you intellectually so encapsulated in the attitude of denying or justifying Palestinian extremism, even ending up with inadvertently plagiarize their repulsive rhetoric? Just wondering.
But I do not expect a coherent response from you or anyone here, I only want to point out that, in light of the above expressed doubts, your categorical demand that "the (Israeli) Jews pull back to the 1967 lines" can not be taken seriously. Not even remotely. - Unless their (and your) very questionable stance can be finally clarified at the root.
"you seem surprisingly less alarmed by the extremists in your midsts, and their actual DEEDS. they not only have racist extremist words, but the power to carry things out. "
Your surprise is misdirected. Extremists are unacceptable in both camps and should be confronted. But while in Israel the extremists are in fact countered by secular forces - and I am convinced that they will be increasingly isolated and put to justice (as happened last week with violent settlers) -, in the Palestinian territories they have a majority, both in Gaza and possibly in the West Bank if elections were held. Here I see a main problem, which you and your "human rights movement" deliberately ignore and refuse to address.
Please, jonah, don’t be afraid.
If someone speaks straight as an arrow about the fact that he wants it all and by means of force, why should I trust him? Why shouldn't the Israelis be afraid of anti-Semites like Ismail Haniyeh and his bunch of fellows who rule Gaza and in a possible future also the West Bank, please? Have they not given proof of their intent time and again? Are inflaming speeches, incitement only for the the "base", maybe just empty words for the "silly gullible people"?
So why are you speaking about 2SS or 1SS, coexistence, universal human rights etc ...? For whom?
how do you know the person you are addressing, Inanna, does not come from that community jonah?
Check your facts, annie. I wasn't addressing Inanna.
"I have never seen such self destructive policies by such self anointed gods in the history of our planet."
Perhaps because you are not so well acquainted with the history and the present of our planet, buddy.
"…therefore, says the Zionist, based on my assumptions it’s actually OKAY that the Jews oppress the Palestinians."
Things are a little more complicated than you think. There is a 'occupation' still considered legal according to international law (R 242, sic!)), there are land claims by both sides. Start with these fundamentals and you will approach a little closer to the truth, my dear anti-Zionist.
"BDS is a peaceful, non-violent means to achieve equality and universal human rights “from the sea to the river” whether within a 2SS or 1SS (as Inanna points out above)."
This abysmal naïveté makes me want to cry. But anyway I thank you for showing me so frankly your credo, that expresses so well the belief of the BDS movement to its core and in its entirety.
Nevertheless, I want you to pay attention to the fact that what you think is right - "achieve equality and universal human rights from the sea to the river" - could have a pretty different meaning for the Arabs and Palestinians you defend so passionately. They may actually not share your vaunted humanist values, or probably they may, but only in appearance. As a simple reality check can so easily confirm. link to youtube.com
So I'm not sure on what your humanitarian and equalitarian zeal can really depend on: holy ingenuity or wickedness dressed in holiness.
Bill,
there is no lasting nor just solution giving the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, as well as the Golan Heights, to the Palestinians/Arabs as long as they want "all Arab lands", that means "from the sea to the river".
The BDS is in fact an apology of Arab revanchism.
Israeli-Chinese ties aren't that bad.
link to jpost.com
Nor are the relations between Israel and Russia or India.
link to israelseen.com
link to indembassy.co.il
These nations don't seem to have any pressing reason to saction Israel, on he contrary.
"The Russians, Chinese, Indians, Europeans etc. can sanction Israel without a UN resolution, like is the case in Syria. So, why are they not doing it if Israel is violating so many UNSC resolutions as you claim?"
This is a good question, eee. But don't expect a (rational) answer from the detractors of Israel. They will at the most say that Israel is either ruling America through her lobby, or ruling the entire Western world through her lobby, or maybe even ruling the entire world through her lobby.
The world is flat and the nose is content with the nearest horizon.
Good new year annie, cough cough.
No Toivo, I'm not Israeli, but I have relatives in Israel.
And no, I don't like the Latma satires because they allegedly should be racist on the Arabs, as mirrow of "anti-Arab racism by the "Israelis" (I suppose you mean obviously the "Israeli Jews", since Israeli are also one million and a half Arabs).
In fact, they are not. What you perceive as alleged racism is in truth nothing but a satire on the pervasive hypocrisy displayed by both the Arab and Palestinian - but here we can already speak without problems of deliberate duplicity - AND the West, in particular Europe. That means anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish hypocrisy (in fact, you yourself have just excluded Arabs from being "Israeli", since Arabs can not be anti-arab racists, or not?) in disguise of 'humanism' and 'humanitarianism', that contaminates the whole discourse about the I-P-conflict. This makes me so laugh, Toivo.
Because, unlike you und your fellows, who want only to see an alleged and apparent Israeli racism in them, I see in these satire the bitter (and very Jewish) humor, directed to the prevailing pseudo-humanitarian respectability - read 'political correctness'-, which hypocritically turns away the look on the evident evil, unless it can see and project it onto those "Israeli racists", or better to say: those "Jews of Israel".
For this ridiculous exercise of cruel hypocrisy there is nothing better than a pretty good laugh. Thanks, Latma.
I like a lot the latma satires. Their humor is very Jewish, surely a little over the top - as satire should be - but always with an undeniable element of truth inside. But I can also understand the non-Jewish (and anti-Zionist) frustration in seeing these videos. It's like asking a cactus to understand the foolish grin of Eli Wallach in "The Good the Bad and the Ugly." Can not.
If you resort to comparisons with insects and other parasitic creatures to designate Jews, you get to the same level of a Julius Streicher and his Stürmer. It’s anti-Semitism at its worst.
Israel withdrew 2005 completely from Gaza, all settlements were uprooted and the Gaza strip became off limits for Israelis and Jews. Did it help to stop terrorism, improve the relationship and the peace prospects? No at all. Actually, it worsened the situation on the Southern border, with thousands of rockets on Israel cities, and increased radicalism within the strip. So why should Israel end the occupation in Judea&Samaria, if the Palestinians responde to Israeli withdrawals with more violence? You expect the Israelis to commit suicide and then you wonder that they are not willing?
As for the settlements, you’ve proved time and again your contempt and ignorance for Jewish history and culture: Why can the Jews not live in that what they consider the heartland of their ancient and modern land? It’s illogic, at least as long as they have not greater good, as could be a lasting peace, in exchange for the offering of the territories.
This is no valid comparison. The Lehi fought primarly against the British, which were considered occupier. Besides, before the bombing attack of the King David Hotel, the group issued a warning which unfotunately was ignored. The Lehi ribbon commemorates the fight for the establishment of Israel, the fight for freedom, not the killing of civilians.
But what kind of message do the Palestinians send when Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, honors with a visit the murders of a Israeli teenager lured by a woman to his death? Would you consider it a pacific gesture if Netanyahu or Peres would visit Baruch Goldstein, if still alive, in prison? Kach was outlawed in Israel immediately after the massacre, and is not sitting in the government (as Hamas for example, which is responsible for hundreds of terror attacks against Israeli civilians).
And, in your view, they are not intitled to have this land, right?
How do you expect to be taken seriously with such radical position, Cliff?
"uproot the leeches"
So was also the talk about the Jews in other age, and so speaks the President of the IRI and his entourage today.
Do I understand right that you are in favour of a foreign intervention against the "settlers of Israel"? And how exactly will this happen? Will "Palestine" be invaded and liberated by "international" forces?
But let me ask you something plain and simple, Exiled. Why should Israel make any kind of concessions to the Palestinians - even when they were right "according" to international law (they are of course not, in the same extent as there is no such a thing like "Palestine" the way you hypostatize).
Why on earth should the Israelis trust people who celebrate terrorism against Israeli civilians today? link to ynetnews.com
Is there any valid reason to give them (and you, the so-called pro-Palestinian supporters) any positive credit?
They look all like Shalit, when he was released – skinny, unsteady and deadly pale. In addition, the Red Cross certainly has never been able to visit them. Detention in Zionist prisons must be really inhuman.
Could be even sooner in several other Middle Eastern countries. Israel is a young democracy and the Arab minority enjoys far more civil rights, medical care and social welfare than the masses in surrounding states. When the latter will ever reach the standards of Israel, that would mean a huge improvement in life of the Arab people - and not only for them.
Moreover, it's quite pathetic that the EU seeks to interfere in the internal affairs of Israel, while the suburbs of their cities are becoming true ghettos for the foreign immigrants, often North Africans, with no future prospects and no rights. I think here applies the saying that you should sweep first before your own door, before you sweep the doorsteps of your (far) neighbors .....
Israel will be able to deal with the radical settler movement, because it is a democracy, and like all democracies will curb the extremist tendencies within it, as happened in the seventies and eighties in Europe. - Unlike the Palestinians, who tend to tolerate, if not to promote, intolerant and militant groups within them (see the extremist fringes associated with the PLO: the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine or the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade - and with Hamas: the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, for instance or the Popular Resistance Committees).
I think extremism is a far more acute problem in Palestinian society, which has not yet developed the tools of democratic self-regulation.
I know this is your hope and your goal. But it is not going to happen so easily. Israel itself is a democracy in which all minorities, also the Palestinian, have recognized civil rights such as to vote their own political representatives, to freely appeal to the courts, to openly express their opinions (Tibi docet!), to enjoy social welfare and medical care without restriction. The Israeli settlement policy in the Territories, which is often stylized as the primary cause of the conflict, it is actually the consequence. The attempt by the Palestinians and their supporters to internationally brand Israel as the main culprit is doomed to fail, because the lack of democracy and transparency on their side does not go unnoticed. It's a foul play.
So I'm sorry to disappoint you, Hosteleh. You will probably have to wait for another sixty years.
Rather, I wonder what kind of stuff you are sniffing throughout the year Shingo.
Where exactly is written in the High Court judgement (about the route of security fence) that the settlements in genere are a violation of the 4th Geneva Convention on human rights? Can you support this claim indicating the passage verbatim in the text(s)?
This is the usual anti-American cospiracy theory. We need only to have a look in the "clean" record of the other members sitting in the UNSC to see how your statement appears to be hypocritical at least. Russia/former USSR?! Construction of the Berlin Wall, bloody repression of democratic movements in their own country and in its sphere of influence, the war in Afghanistan and Chechnya, support of dictatorial regimes such as Iran and Syria, imperialistic aims ...... China?! Repression of democratic movements in their own country, widespread death penalty (4000 executed a year), invasion and illegal occupation of Tibet since 1950 (one million deaths, ethnic cleansing against the Tibetan people, destroyed thousands of monasteries, systematic struggle against Tibetan culture), support of dictatorial regimes in neighboring countries, expansionist intentions .......
Never heard about the Negroponte docrine?!
Are you maybe an Iranian agent? The resolutions against Iran were all unanimously adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, thus with the power to impose sanctions. This is not the case for the resolutions about the I-P-conflict. The US rightly defends Israel against one-sided resolutions which only aim to target and damage Israel, neglecting to consider the real causes of the conflict.
You can’t be that thick Jonah. The US has been dutifully vetoing and blocking all measures to do so. It’s hardly a secret.
Was waiting for this, Shingo.
What if instead the world body was taken hostage by the anti-Israel lobby (build on the power of oil), and if America had remained as the only guarantor of a balanced handling of international law? What if the resolutions condemning Israel, mostly proposed by her foes and passively (slavishly, I would add) seconded by the automatic majority in both Councils, were in fact biased, the result of hostility and double standards? - resolutions which ask only from Israel but nothing in exchange from the Palestinians?
You find this funny, isn't it?
But let me ask: Why should the UN mother's body be any different from its various "children", among which the most recent is the HRC, created in 2006 ostensibly ad hoc both to produce and adopt on the same breath one-sided resolution against Israel after another, while most of its constituent nations, far from being democratic or pacifist, get away with a cynical laugh - maybe like yours?
Hostage -
Of course there is nothing specious about the comments above, that’s why I supplied readers with links to verify what we were saying.
If the ICJ advisory opinion and GA resolutions you are referring to are 'binding' for Israel, as you state, you've so far quite pathetically failed to explain and provide evidence about why these decisions are still awaiting - even after more than 40 long years of "unlawful situation" - to be implemented by the competent UN organs by virtue of the same international law, that means through coercive enforcement, since Israel is in so flagrant "breach of international law", as you state above.
But don't bring me more quotes please. Just answer this simple question if you can, Hostele.
If that would be relevant, annie, it would have been enforced long time ago. It was not and it will not be, because any kind of "enforcement by coercive action" has no legal basis. But please, continue to fool yourself.
On one thing you're right, in any case: I am indeed wasting my time here trying to bring some reason and balance in this group of radical anti-Zionist activists, who can not help but make wall around their specious beliefs.
My respect goes to Phil, however, to allow an open debate on the Middle East conflict, even if I disagree with his anti-Zionist positions. But at least he, unlike many visitors to his website (as well as certain despicable contributions here that border on libel), shows a certain degree of tolerance for divergent opinions.
So, since I'm not so masochistic, I'll stop for some time to interfere in your holy cause, leaving the field open to your delusions - without further (my) objection.
Have your fun!
Ciao!
The ICJ, the Repertoire of the Practice of the Security Council, and the Repertory of Practice of United Nations Organs explain .........
Reality itself exposes your captious arguments, lost in multiple streams of documents of secondary importance, to be what they are in truth: irrelevant. Israel has no legal obligation to comply with non-binding resolutions and advisory opinions, as much as you claim the opposite. You know better than me that only the Security Council has the legal power to decide binding resolutions, as it did with Resolution 242 (again: which was adopted under Chapter VI, recommending “pacific resolution of dispute”, not requiring "enforcement by coercive action".)
So go on to quote your thousand and one non-binding resolutions and advisory opinions, Hostage. Those who can not swim in the river must be content to soak their feets in the many side streams. Unless they really lern to swim.
I have a little Hanukkah joke for you here, Hostie. Hope you'll appreciate:
UN envoy demands 'Palestinian steak'
Israeli Ambassador Prosor, Palestinian Observer Mansour put on one-time stand-up show during UN gala dinner
A bit of a friendly banter: Israeli Ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor and Palestinian Observer Riyad Mansour decided to leave their differences aside for one night in favor of showcasing a healthy sense of humor, Yedioth Ahronoth reported Sunday. The two entertained UN Chief Ban Ki-moon and fellow diplomats in what can only be described as a one-time stand up show during the UN Correspondence Association's annual gala dinner and dance last week.
Playing on the Palestinian demand for an independent state, Mansour delivered the following lines: "I've waited long enough for my steak. I want it at a temperature of 67 degrees and I want the right to return it."
Ambassador Prosor was quick to reply, saying "The Palestinian will not get his steak until he sits at the table," referring to the Palestinian refusal to return to the negotiating table.
link to ynetnews.com
"No he and Jonah have energetically spammed the site..."
So you consider the arguments that we've "energically" brought in support of our belief simply spam? That is your opinion about an open debate? Anyway, it may also explain your bad opinion of Judaism, expressed in the revealing statement: "There is no single definitive list of the 613 commandments, but all of them have one or more related to the practice of slavery." Check your "account", Hostage.
...is (Zionism) therefore part of traditional Judaism? Cause if that is true, you have justgiven the entire rest of the world a good reason to dislike and mistrust Jews.
Quelle incroyable naïveté!
Correction: Moreover, it
seems!fails! to mention that the Resolution 242 was adopted under Chapter VI of the UN Charter recommending “pacific resolution of dispute”Dear Mooses, I see you have a little bit difficulty to discern between law and reality. There aren't laws in Israel that state: "The men are not created equal", "Discrimination by race or religion or gender is allowed" and so on. Or do you believe that racial discrimination in your beloved country is written in your basic Laws?
In 2004 fourteen of the most qualified jurists in the World disagreed.
Most qualified?
First of all: the ICJ is only enabled to give advisory opinions, not binding resolutions. The latter pertains only to the Security Council.
Secondly: its advisory opinion fails to consider the content of Resolution 242 in its entirety, namely the second principle that requires "secure and recognized boundaries". Moreover, it seems to mention that the Resolution 242 was adopted under Chapter VI of the UN Charter recommending "pacific resolution of dispute", thus intended to be followed and implemented via negotiated settlements between the concerned parties - and not under Chapter VII that empowers the Security Council to “require enforcement by coercive action.” In other words, it fails to acknowledge that the occupation of the territories is to be considered lawful, the same extent as the the Six Day war is a just war according to international law (Resolution 242 - Chapter IV, sic!)).
Thirdly: The conclusion that "the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (including East Jerusalem) have been established in breach of international law", based on article of the Fourth Geneva Convention, is false, since there wasn't and isn't any "forced transfer" or "deportation" of Israel's own population into the "occupied territories".
Besides, the UN Charter doesn't entitles the ICJ or the General Assembly to assign or affect 'ownership' of the Territories. There is no legal international document declaring the Territories as "Arab territories" or "occupied Palestinian territories", unless we want to believe and suggest, as the ICJ does (in violation of its own statute), that the UNGA resolutions are legal documents.
Last but not least: Even the Oslo Accords and the Gaza-Jericho agreements recognize Israel legal presence in the Territories. Did the ICJ forget this?
All this doesn't mean that I do support the continued construction of Jewish settlements in the territories, and that there aren't unlawful situations in the Territories that need to be addressed, even urgently (settler violence for instance) - it means simply that a just solution of the issue of the settlements, as well as all the other issues of the conflict (for instance Arab Palestinian terrorist activities) must, can and will be reached only through direct peace negotiations, as required by Res. 242. The Palestinians need to understand that nobody can and will dispense them from their part of responsability.
"There was no exile."
So if there was no exile, what was then? Was there anything for you, Shingo?
1. 93% of the land is held in trust by the Jewish National Fund for the use of Jews wherever they may be in the world. That means the Palestinians (20% of the population) are only entitled to use 3% of the land. No provision to accommodate natural growth.
2. ID papers coded to differentiate Jews from Muslims
3. Intense airport security, where all items are removed from the cases of Arabs
4. Demotion of Arab homes
5. Refusal of permits to rebuild them
6. Prohibitions on Arab land purchases and the resulting overcrowding in Arab towns
7. Re architecting roads and bridges so that only Jews can travel on them
8. Gross neglect of infrastructure and services such a water, electricity, clinics and schools, especially in the Negev.
9. Exclusion of Arab workers from wealth generating sectors of the economy
10. Firing workers who speak Arab rather than Hebrew"
Etc., etc.
You are making the usual decontextualized list of allegations, but you've not substantiated what you said above ("Israel had racism and xenophobia written into the foundation of it’s ideology and it’s laws"): Where exactly is racism and xenophobia written into the foundation of Israel's ideology and laws?
"Don’t forget that Israel is so indispensable to my continued existence as a Jew that I’ve visited it exactly twice in my entire 55 years, for a grand total of a few weeks, most recently in 1986."
Maybe not for Witty in particular, but definitely for the Jewish people as a whole. However, the ceaseless mockery of the individual in your comments alludes to the real, offensive character of your tacit criticism of the universal.
Except that unlike Italy, Israel had racist and xenophobia written into the foundation of it’s ideology and it’s laws.
Really? Where? Show me where exactly. Or is it another of your puerile allegations.
Shingo -
This in itself does not prove whether Zionism is older than 114 years or otherwise.
Ok. And do you know also what anniversary does Italy celebrates this year?
link to quirinale.it
Italy - not Jordan or Saudi Arabia - exists as modern state since 150 years, not longer.
Israel is certainly headed towards becomming an apartheid and fascist entity.
And where do you get this "certainty" from?
Jews like you and eee can’t even come to an agreement as to what defines Judaism and the Jewish identity, so it is very much an abstract creation.
Judaism is not a monolithic religion, there are different currents, however originating from the same ancient Mosaic source born in the land of Israel, the foundation of the entire Judaism.
When Hertzl envisioned a Jewish homes, Palestine was but one of a number of locations being considered. Land in Africa and Australia was also considered, which only seved to underline the fact that Zionism has no connection with Palestine.
But it is no surprise that Zionism, beyond the pragmatism of circumstances, then opted for the ancient land of Israel.
Can you imagine Switzerland placed somewhere in africa or Asia, without its Alpine culture, its mountains, its founding myths whose places are there to be seen and experienced, its dairy cows, its Swiss federalism, its clocks, although a nation comprised of different linguistic and cultural groups?
This applies to all nations of the world, including Israel.
There was no exile. That too was invented, along withthe lies about the creation of Israel.
No exile? Don't you know the meaning of "Diaspora"? link to en.wikipedia.org
Thank you Annie for sharing these videos. Of course every form of xenophobia must be condemned, also in Israel. But racism is not an exclusive prerogative of Israel. Last week a crazy Italian racist has hunted and killed some African people in Italy. This happens all over the world. It is wrong and hypocritical to apply different standards to Israel.
Nonetheless, Israelis have left practically no stone unturned in their efforts to stimulate anti-semitism with their flagrant violations of international law and brain-dead hasbara campaigns.
This is a anti-Zionist argument that goes beyond objective verification of the facts. It stems from a partial and biased view of the ME-conflict.
Besides, fervent anti-Zionists deny on the one hand the connection between the Land of Israel and Judaism/Jewish people, but on the other hand they are the first to link Israel with anti-Semitism in the world, a phenomenon of racist hatred of the Judaism/Jewish people as a whole. Actually, they should slowly acknowledge that anti-Semitism to Zionism and Israel is earlier, and that Israel is often just an excuse to revive old anti-Semitic pattern.
The vast majority of Jews will not defend endless wars, occupation, and apartheid in order to see the concept realized.
Again, Hostage, this generalization stems from a biased view of the ME-conflict, it doesn't correspond to reality and defies a factual objective analysis.
Nobody cares if the vast majority of Jews support an abstract concept.
If you consider Israel an abstract concept, what shall we say about the majority of world countries. Are "Egypt", "Jordan", "Saudi Arabia" .... - but even Switzerland (you remember, the legend of William Tell ...), the US, Italy and so on not "abstract concept" too? Think about the essence of the concept of state.
- The Jews as people . . . is ideally and historically – strongly rooted and connected to the land of Israel.-
No they aren’t and weren’t. The majority of Jews lived elsewhere for thousands of years without any base of operation or direct connection to Palestine. To many of them it was just an allegory in their prayers for the world to come.
If reality were as you say, we can not explain why so many Jews, also religious Jews - that means the largest majority in world - are living today in Israel. Why this, if Israel has no connection with Jews and their religion?
Hostage -
not all Diaspora Jews need or are willing to make Aliyah to Israel (maybe because of the tough neighborhood?), but the vaste majority of the Jews worldwide strongly supports the very idea and existence of the Jewish state in the land of Eretz Yisrael. So if anti-Semitism would again raise its ugly face - God forbit!, - many Jews would choose to head for Israel as their new home, simply because Israel is considered the nation of the Jewish people.
Even though the early Zionism was primarily a political movement - and it aimed at the establishment of a secular state -, Israel can not just be considered a political national(ist) entity (on the basis, good to be ignorant, on "xenophobia and fascism"), as you inveterate anti-Zionists want us to believe. Culture, history and religion of that state, that nation, is indisputably Jewish. If you've read the Torah, even without being Jewish, you should know that all events and stories told in the holy book of the Jews take place in the land of Israel or in exile from the land of Israel. The Jews as people, and their religion, Judaism, are not an abstract cloud that moves across the sky, without any anchoring to the ground. Or simply a scattered, throughout history persecuted minority, without any roots nor clear identity. On the contrary they are - that is ideally and historically - strongly rooted and connected to the land of Israel.
So Zionism acted as political movement (and it is still mainly), because the creation of any state must necessarily be a political event, but its action was aimed at the land where Jewish history, culture, religion and myths were originally born and would return to be alive. The main reason for the Zionist movement was as we know anti-Semitism in Europe, but its goal was not a Jewish homeland in Uganda or Madagascar, it was the land of Israel, homeland versus exile. Zionism gave the home back to a exiled people, with a religion of exile.
If you deny this fundamental fact, you can not be taken seriously and you simply reveal your hidden political agenda.
Shingo: "There is no doubt that Zionism is a recent invention and only 114 years old. There is no point disputing it."
"l'shah-NAH ha-ba-AH b'y'ROO-sha-LAH-yim" - Next year in Jerusalem
These words are recited every year at the end of the Seder since the time of the first exile. They expresses in nuce the Zionist ideal of a return to Israel, that eventually was realized through the restoration of the Jewish national home in Palestine. The injunction not to forget Jerusalem, the site of the Temple, is a major tenet of Judaism. The Hebrew language, the Torah, laws in the Talmud, the Jewish calendar and Jewish holidays and festivals all originated in Israel and revolve around its seasons and conditions. Zionism is the natural and necessary completion and reunification of Judaism to its roots.
Obviously you have no clue, neither about Judaism nor Zionism.
"In fact, Miko Peled himself read through the transcripts of those meetings ..."
Who stated this, Miko Peled himself, the peace activist who lives in the US, like other Israeli critics of Israel living now abroad, with the crowds of grateful listeners hanging from their lips? So he knows better than all the others, the Morris' and the Shlaims, so useful in other occasions.
"I never get wet."
This is the advantage to be a cyberactivist, Moosi.
Thank you for your suggestion Richard, but I do not think you'll ever be able to awaken these people to a even remotely skeptical attitude with respect to their prejudices and their tribalism. It seems to me unrealistic, given the degree of anti-Zionist indoctrination. Their objectives are overtly offensive and seek the dismissal of the ideological enemy. The criticism of Israel here expressed, despite having valid elements, is too imbued with Arab Palestinian propaganda, and I fear it is only predictive of new conflicts. So, rather than hope to raise in them a more self-critical spirit, I think it's important to continue to oppose the reversal of values and the misrepresentation of reality at work here and elsewhere. So that the lie does not come to prevail.
He’s a kneejerk ideologue and so when he sees a comment that upsets him he automatically assumes the commenter must believe the exact opposite of what he thinks on everything.
No, Donald, you definitely didn't get my point. I do not deny that Israel was caught off guard when it was attacked during the celebrations of Yom Kippur - and it had to fear for his very survival as a state and people.
But I actually criticize the very ideological premise that leads you to your gross historical misinterpretations. You state that Israel can be forced to compromise and peace only through strength because it only understands the language of violence. Your words:
In fact, in the immediate aftermath of the six-day war, on 19 June 1967, the Israeli cabinet secretly decided to offer all gained territories back in exchange for a comprehensive peace with Egypt and Syria. This generous offer is a historical fact unanimously recognized by leading historians, regardless of whether it actually was then transmitted by the Americans to the Egyptians and Syrians, as Morris says (Righteous Victims), or never was sent, as Shlaim states (The Iron wall). The desire for peace by the Israelis after the six-day war is unquestionable, while the Arabs made very soon clear what they thought of the possible peace prospect through their infamous Khartoum resolution (namely the "three NO's": no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations). BTW, do you know what your venerated Shlaim says about the 67-war? Read it by yourself: "President Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt triggered the crisis by embarking on an exercise in brinkmanship that went over the brink, with disastrous consequences for all concerned. ...... True, Israel fired the first shot, but the slide into crisis that culminated in war was not of Israel's making. Rather, it was the result of over-bidding in the Arab cold war. Israel was like a football thrown on to the field and kicked around by the various Arab players - but the game ended, unusually, with the football kicking the players."http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/jun/08/featuresreviews.guardianreview4
As for your stated and supposed generous peace offer by Sadat that Israel allegedly so 'contemptously rejected' ( according to the common anti-Zionist wording), you maybe need to follow the timeline of events which eventually led to the Arab aggression war on Israel - through the testimony of those directly involved. The biased misleading historical version propagated without any filter on this website is not only disappointing - it's shameless.
link to youtube.com
Mooser -
we are here because there is a urgent necessity to confront the murky "irreproachable logic" of the anti-Israel front, in the first place over there in the ME and as reflex here in the West. Because this apparently so coherent anti-Zionist anti-Israel logic is actually based on half-truths, omissions, a revisionist approach of history, blatant lies and sheer hatred. I'm becoming more and more convinced of this, with every new thread.
And you wonder why am I here? Because I'm afraid of the moment (which is however approaching, unfortunately) when your distortions and your relentless bashing of Israel will leave me completely indifferent. That moment would mean - contrary to your illusions, but also contrary to what I want - that my hope for compromise and peace in the region is gone. That's why I'm still here, Moosi.
eee -
Don't bother our anti-Israeli friends with too complicated questions that they can not understand. The syllogism that encompasses the whole issue is for them simple and consistent:
A) Israel is a state of aliens called Israeli Zionist Jews; B) the Palestinians are the original native people who want to return to their homes; C) therefore Israel must disappear to make room to the Palestinian refugees.
From this basic syllogism they further infer that: 1) every action or reaction undertaken on the part of the Palestinians and their allies against the Zionist Israeli invaders is legitimate; 2) every action or reaction undertaken on the part of Zionist Israel is an abominable crime that just demostrates and confirms (as if there was any need) the criminal nature of this entity; 3) the Palestinian have every right to liberate their land from the criminal Zionist entity.
As you can see, their logic is irreproachable.
When the Egyptian military showed it was a formidable opponent in 1973, Israel suddenly became more interested in territorial swaps and peace with Egypt.
Your reading of events is very indicative for the total enstrangement of anti-Zionist historiography from historical facticity. If it were not written before me, I could think that this was simply a bad joke. But it is not - this is real historical revisionism at work, practiced live.
Just a little quiz for you, Donald:
1) How many miles did Israeli troops get to within of Cairo, after having pushed back the Egyptian army and crossed the Suez Canal?
2) How many miles did the Israeli troops get to within of Damascus, after having pushed back the Syrian forces from the Golan Heights, using the main road from Tiberias to the Syrian capital?
Ideally, the Israelis would try to work with Palestinians to reach a mutually acceptable solution, but until then, it looks like some sort of pressure of the nonviolent type needs to be used.
As explained above, there isn't such a thing as "non-violence" in Palestinian attitude and actions. It's an oxymoron in itself.
Egypt had offered peace before 73, but between 67 and 73 Israel had contempt for Egypt.
False claim. You need to revise your biased historical opinions, Donald.
Egypt peace proposalswere made on a take or leave it basis. Nothing new under the Arab-Palestinian sun.
What Israelis seem to understand is force, unfortunately.
The blame-Israel-mantra was and is always a good excuse to wage war against Israel. If this your belief, are you suggesting that only force will solve the conflict? Are you here just trying to make palatable the apology for anti-Israel violence?
You continue to refuse to address the evidence and insist on attacking Peled-Elhanan.
Peled-E. is a left-wing activist, known for her radical views. Why can only you accuse of bias and unreliability the right-wings?
it says we must give a blank check to Israel right or wrong in every way because God said so and we will go to hell if we object.
So was the peace with Egypt, and the return of the entire Sinai Peninsula, as well as the peace treaty with Jordan also God's will? Good to know, citizen.
tree
"their criticisms do not equal the “indoctrination of hate” that you falsely claim"
What is false is the last video I posted, please? This is the reality on Al-Aqsa-TV. The editor had the courage to post the link, do you have the courage to watch it?
"As illustrated before ( and you have not refuted this because you can’t) Israeli textbooks do the same kind of thing."
From the above quoted text by citizen: "Peled-Elhanan approaches her subject from a radical political background." Is Peled maybe "not biased and inflamatory"? Do you have any other "more moderate" source to support your claims against Israeli textbooks?
Another case of Zionism overcoming simple logic. the greatest impact on Palestinian attitudes towards Israelis is made by the Israelis they see everyday at checkpoints, etc-the IDF.
The same can be said for the Israeli kids in regard to the daily rockets and terror against Israeli civilians and kindergarten, don't you think? Or are you maybe denying the fact that also Israeli children can be traumatized by Palestinians war deeds?
And yet you insist that a cartoon character introduced on TV in 2009 is somehow responsible for suicide bombing made 9 years prior.
No, I'm saying that these kids are indoctrinated from early age. The suicide bombings made 9 years before had the same root: indoctrination. link to en.wikipedia.org
And if the editor has the courage to show it, I would like to add this other video of "TV-education". No fear: nothing terrific, only the flat normality on Palestinian TV.
link to youtube.com
tree -
indeed, these reports are quite moderate, because the rest is not digested by the sensitive stomachs of the mondo editors. The first pdf of The Israel/Palestine Center for Research and information (IPCRI) offers perhaps the most dispassionate, comprehensive and detailed examination of the PA textbooks. But even here we read the following description of the concepts of "Jihad, Freedom, Sacrifice and Martyrdom" in Palestinian textbooks (those of more moderate Fatah faction, let alone those of Hamas):
"The concepts of Jihad and Martyrdom, mostly in their religious and militant form, appear in a large number of quotations (Quranic and literary). These quotations are presented in both historical and present-day contexts. In the former case, they mostly relate to the duty of defending the new religion and safeguarding its achievements against the infidels and the apostates. In the latter context, these quotations are mostly interwoven with the themes of librating the homeland from the hands of invaders, occupiers, oppressors, and usurpers. No references are made to a “Jihad” against the followers of the other monotheistic traditions or their symbols, beliefs and holy places,
however within the current political context clear inference can be made by the pupils that the text is in fact referring to “Jihad” against the Jews and against the State of Israel.
• Several passages contain references that promote making sacrifices for the sake of the homeland. Sacrifice is understood in different contexts to include sacrificing self, material possessions, steadfastness, etc. In this context, sacrifice would entail martyrdom which is the terminology used today for suicide bombers (as well as for others). Several of the references relate to sacrifice made in the recent past in Palestine and in Arab countries seeking freedom and independence from the British and French.
Maps
•"Israel as a sovereign state within the borders of pre-1967 does not appear in any of the maps, nor does any Israeli city established by Jewish immigrants/Israel in modern times (e.g., Netanya, Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, etc.). Some maps show the whole country as “Palestine” with the regions of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip distinguished from the rest of the country.
• Several world and extended regional maps are presented in different contexts that show Palestine and the neighboring countries, all labeled with the exception of Israel.
• A series of topographic maps accompany material that talk about the geographic and physical features of what is referred to as “Palestine”. The maps cover the area of “historical Palestine” and include plains, rivers, mountain ranges, desert regions, coastal plains in both the State of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip."
But more impact on the children than textbooks have PA and above all Hamas television and radio programms. We all know the lovely Teddy Bear Nassur Al-Aqsa TV. This is his debut in 2009: link to youtube.com
To Citizen, a critical review of his educator(s):
The Psychopathological Acting Out of Israeli Educators and 'Celebrity Jew and Israel Bashers' - The case of Nurit Peled-Elhanan
By Dr. Gary Katz, (Ph.D., The Wright Institute,Berkeley,California,1979)
"This professional educator has turned to malicious indoctrination of a hateful ideology which she advocates to replace the liberal democratic tenets of Israeli culture. Israel has integrated people of all cultures and colors in an ongoing social experiment that has been remarkable given its mere 60 year tenure. Integration of over 900,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries has been a priority. No refugee camps purposely displayed so as to showcase their 'victimhood.'
Yoav Peled is an avowed communist who teaches political science at Tel Aviv University. He made news in 1997 after his niece was murdered in a suicide bombing by Palestinians. Peled flamboyantly invited a PLO spokesperson to the girl's funeral and, at the funeral, explained how her death was all the fault of then-Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Peled pronounced this view to the world in an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times. The Prime Minister was insisting on “reciprocity" and received "atrocity" instead.
Nurit Peled-Elhanan, lecturer in Language Education at Hebrew University blamed Israel for the death of her daughter Smadar (z'l). Smadar (14 years old) was killed by an Arab suicide bomber on September 4, 1997. Did she blame the Arab murderer? No Way! "Neither Judaism nor Islam nor any religion for that matter are the cause for murder and terror. Racist education is. American imperialism is, and Israeli ruthless regime of occupation is....The people who are destroying the world today are not Muslim. The people who are using the most sophisticated disastrous weapons to kill thousand of innocent civilians are not Muslim. They are Christian, and Jewish."
Nurit Peled-Elhanan is the sister of Yoav Peled. At the funeral for her own murdered daughter, a spokesman for the PLO was invited to speak and tell everyone how the death of Smadar was all the fault of the Israeli government. Peled-Elhanan is active in the leftist extremist anti-Israel Gush Shalom organization which helps explain some her significant clinical psychopathology.
"And if my son Yigal really does want to participate in the military programs that they impose on high school students starting in grade 10, or God forbid, to enlist in the army of occupation and torment, I will see it as a dreadful educational failure. A terrible maternal failure. And if I do not do everything I can to prevent him from becoming a murderer or a corpse at age of 18 I will know that I betrayed him and my vocation as a mother." Who else has she betrayed in her highly visible position? Not just tens of thousands of our children.
Only the technical psychological term misuse and misrepresentation used by the anti-Israel Israelis, BBC et al to pathologize any person who insisted on facing the actual reality ("paranoid": unjustifiable fears?) rather than mindlessly escaping to the safety of academia with their hallucinations (including 'negative' hallucinations, i.e. not seeing what actually IS there) as well as ordinary hallucinations of a 'commitment to peace and stopping terror by Abbas', the success of leaving 'land for peace', the change in intergenerational transmission of Jew-hatred to children in the PA in their textbooks and TV programming, the glorification of the most heinous of crimes and cold-blooded random murder, etc. Of course BBC called us "paranoid" when we fear what has happened on an unimaginable scale since we left the Gaza-Egypt border. Never a retraction or clarification or even an accounting of the fact that more weaponry and explosives have been smuggled into Gaza in the last 2 years than the previous 40 years. The pathology is ...well, malignant and untreated as well as unamenable to treatment. As for me, despite my Civil Rights credentials and working with third World children and in academia for 35 years, I am suddenly pronounced a right wing Nazi for mentioning anything not anti-Israel. And Marx' great contribution of historical materialism, i.e. facts are real and cannot be ignored or history and possibility for progressive change is undermined...this great boon to understanding is also ignored by the 'new' extremist-left.
....
That someone like ... Peled-Elhanan would make a career out of castigating ISRAELI textbooks and trumpeting the illegitimacy of Israel, the racist state, is truly reprehensible as her flowing misrepresentations and apologist distortions masquerade as truth wherever she is invited."
link to isracampus.org.il
With regard to the rest of your post:
Jordan was not carrying out ethnic cleasing, home demolition, eviction and illegal settlement construction – unlike Israel
Read the definition of 'ethinc cleansing' and compare the definition with the demographics of the Palestinians territories: Where is Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing, please? Where exactly, if the global Palestinian population growth rathe corresponds to 2.097%?
Besides, where exactly is written that the settlements are 'illegal'? Where is the binding resolution? And also, where are written
the legal - that means according to the law (to which you appeal so often) - property rights on the land supposedly owned by the Palestinians? And they are somewhere, is there any evidence that you could provide?
Before 1948 the Palestinians were part of the Ottoman Empire, then they became Jordanian citizens, and finally - after 1967 - they were called Palestinians. Nobody wants to deny the legitimacy of their request for a sovereign state, but this request must be negotiated with the Israelis, because there is no rightful owner according to a unanimously accepted and recognized law. Unless you want to go back to the Balfour Declaration, that was incorporated into the binding San Remo resolution of the 1920 ..... Or if you absolutely want to play on Resolution 242, so you should know that it does not automatically - de jure - give the territories to the Palestinians, but makes an Israeli withdrawal from territories dependent on the peace process between Israel and its neighbors (including the Palestinians).
And if the settlements are part of the occupation, are you suggesting that the renouncing of violence will lead to teh settlements dissapearing?
Are you suggesting that violence will lead to the disappearing of the settlements and of the Israeli presence in the territories (aka 'occupation')?
Hi Shingo -
first of all I try again to post some links about Palestinian indoctrination to hate you asked me for, which the censors on mondo seem so terribly scared to publish. But this time I promise: no video of parents praising the matyrdom of their children, no selected documents about Palestinian children as combatants, no anti-Semitic propaganda on Palestinian media - only pure and simple pdf-documents and reports about the issue. Enjoy the instructive reading!
link to ipcri.org
link to impact-se.org
link to fpc.state.gov
link to robat.scl.net
Yes, eljay, you said it, but you need more intellectual courage to see beyond the veil of your ideological blindness. The occupation is there because there is a ongoing war in ME, with weekly and daily firing of rockets and (attempts of) terror attacks on Israeli territory. Before 1967 there wasn't any Israeli occupation, just the Jordanian one, yet Palestinians had nothing to complain and became citizens of Jordan without flinching. However, Israel was even then constantly under attack both through wars forced upon her by the surrounding Arab countries and through terror attacks by Palestinian fedayeens. So, according to logic, it can not be the Israeli occupation. The occupation is necessary as long as the is a state of potential or actual war against Israel. The settlements are the consequence, not the cause of violence. It's the war waged against Israel, on several fronts. Renounce the violence, the incitement, the unilateral diplomacy, the delegitimization, the terror - and occupation will end. But you need to be ready to choose the path of peace. Palestinians are not, they prefer to play the victim and blame Israel. So be it.
You show little understanding of the realities of the occupation and little sympathy for Palestinian resistance
Shmuel,
I have no sympathy for Palestinian resistance, indeed. But not because, as you may think, I'm against resistance per se. I have for instance great respect for the Tibetan resistance against China, or the resistance of the Myanmar people against the military junta. This kind of resistance deserves my full and total respect. Not so the Palestinian so-called "struggle", which is in fact a state of belligerency against Israel at various level, as I said above, in which even children are used as tool of fight and propaganda. I don't consider it a form of honest, true resistance. To put it frankly - you deny this, of course - Palestinians do not really fight for their own state - living side by side with Israel in peace and security -, but rather for the destruction of Israel, which they still consider an alien entity. This makes their case so desperate, because there is no honesty in a resistance which want the dissipation of the adversary. As long as they do not know how to separate clearly between war and resistance, renouncing violence and terrorism, their alleged fight can not be considered serious and will get my condemnation. The resistance should not be done by placing bombs in cafes and markets, launching rockets on cities, sending young men throwing stones or a gang of terrorists to kill Israeli civilians along the border, but rather by electing people who can bring reconciliation ans peace between the two peoples. When will a Palestinian Aung San Suu Kyi become head of the Palestinian protest or resistance? That is real strength, not the bogus claim of Palestinian alleged "resistance".
This doesn't mean that the life conditions under occupation are not difficult. They are - but mainly self-inflicted, because of the policies on Palestinian (and Arab) side, deleterious to say the least.
Then try to use some proper reasoning, cloak, and I will listen to you.
Annie,
if you appreciate my honesty, so don't be angry with me if I will try to be even a little more honest. These kids and young men who throw rocks against the police - the army works here as police force - and not only against the police but also against Israeli Jewish civilians, are not there for their own, but because they are sent there to riot, endangering their safety and life. It would be like if I, being contrary to the city traffic, send my children on the streets to stop the cars against which I fight. Hard to accept for me and civilized people, but I can not help but notice that the Palestinians abuse their children for political and propaganda purposes - and even in warfare. There are many reports on it and you need only to google them. There is a veritable industry of martyrdom orchestrated by the political and cultural authorities within the Palestinian society, aimed at inculcating in the children the spirit of sacrifice in the service of a political and religious cause. Here a single symptomatic example: link to haaretz.com
This is disconcerting, but a fact beyond doubt. If you would be honest, you would have the moral courage to admit it, but I fear you aren't.
Instead of working toward political reconciliation and peace, the Palestinians choose the path of confrontation and belligerency at various levels, and are not afraid to use their kids as tool of fight and propaganda in order to score points in their favor. This sad and narrow-minded, to put it mildly. We know this topic is taboo for you and your friends, who tend to idealize the Palestinian struggle to the romantic image of the resistance of American Indians against the white invaders, with the consequent obsessive demonization of Israel. This vicious cycle is perpetuated as long as people like you will not learn to be more honest with the truth that shows us the reality. Western moral dishonesty helps to keep the Palestinians in their misery, feeding in an artificial dichotomous way the contrapposition to the "evil Zionists." This mentality is fatal to a solution of the conflict.
There is another path, which brings hope, not misery. Here an example: link to nswas.com
Indeed, Gellian. Little kids throwing stones against soldiers is a risky provocative game, such as in following classic weekly protest. link to youtube.com
It begins in supposedly peaceful way, but soon it degenerates into chaos and violence against the police.
Sad to say, but it seems to be part of the strategy of the Palestinians. And when a young man or boy hurling rocks is struck by a tear gas canister, as in this case, with all cameras focused on the event, they can blame the Israelis for it. All Western media will report the fact, Israel critics will have more daily food for their abysmal criticism and the Palestinians will score propaganda points for their fight, as was intention. That are the rules of the game.
"The Israeli made a living for Palestinians, for the last 60+ years, sort of like their version of Grimms Fairy Tales ,where they are the racists, aggressive villains who take a great , malicious pleasure in destroying their poor victims."
Actually, dumvitae, you have described exactly what is your 'fairy tale'.
"Every Jew living in Israel is directly or indirictly guilty of thievery of some form or other"
Not the million and half Palestinians living in Israel as citizen of the Zionist state? Well, astonishing. Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism as the two sides of the same coin. You're not making a good service to BDS.
You find the interview with Sharar Arieli here:
link to wbez.org
"Those people screaming for the death of Zionists"
There were screaming for the death of all Jews, Walid. Or do both words have the same significance for you (and for those people)? Seems logic to me - but it isn't really a surprise.
"Now it wants to expel 22,000 thousand of Bedouins from their natural habitat."
I challenge any western country to accept that more than 30 thousands of people who want to settle down where they want, on land legally (based on decisions ruled by the court) not belonging to them. You don't need to accept it, but for comparison it may be interesting to hear the position of the Israeli government in this regard.
link to chicago.mfa.gov.il
"you are wondering why people are chanting these things?"
Is this the canonical rationalization for the hatred against Israel?
"Israelis are not very nice people."
Are these people the same you call Zionists, Walid?
Oh yes, the democratic spring in the Arab world, welcome to good new old world.
link to ynetnews.com
"The Hungarian Jews were all murdered in 1944 after the Allies discovered what the Germans were doing....The Zionists didn’t do anything to save them. They just wanted to get their own people out .... "
The disgraceful blame-on-the-Zionists-game goes on unabashed. Fact is: It was the Nazis who destroyed the Jewish communities in Europe, including the Hungarian Jews, while the allied forces were closing both eyes on the genocide. The Zionists did everything it could to save the lives of their brothers, but the means and influence at their disposal were limited. Nevertheless, the Ungarian Zionist movement became active very soon to help the persecuted Jews escape deportation.
link to www1.yadvashem.org
It is believed that Eichmann offered to "exchange" one million Jews for certain unspecified goods. The Zionist leaders discussed the issue
link to jewishvirtuallibrary.org
but the deal was never finalized, due to Allied objections.
Accusing the Zionists for having saved 'only' few thousand Hungarian Jews, while other 150'000 were killed in Auschwitz, means turn things upside down and pretend it's true. This attitude must be called appalling here, not what the Zionist did in 1944.
So explain me please, jwp, what do the Palestinians want really? I mean, not what you want the Israel could have done if ..., but what the Palestinians want - the moderates and all the others. Sure of your answer.
I do agree with you annie. For Israel today there is a threat from within the country - the extremist religious forces -, and from outside the country - the Islamist forces that want to destroy the Jewish state. These opposite extremist forces are complementary to each other. Both Netanyahu and Abbas seem willing to give major concessions to their own partners sitting in the governments. On Israeli side, the opposition is to uncompromising to come to an agreement with Netanyahu and create a new government of national unity. On Palestinian side, Abbas and his old Fatah guard are too interested in their political (and real) survival to sit at the negotiating table with the Israeli counterpart and find a compromise for peace.
The ongoing status quo we witness today on the ground is the direct result of the current political status quo on both sides, a bad omen for both indeed.
But as is well known, Abbas could not even pass the Rubicon with Olmert, who in 2008 offered him a territory - including land swaps - equivalent to almost 100% of the entire West Bank. So it's actually more than correct to ask if among the Palestinians there are (have ever been) true peace-willing moderates, and not just on the paper.
On this I agree for once with the "critics" of Israel: the growth of Jewish religious extremism is a threat to the state of Israel and its democratic secular character, comparable to the threat posed to Israel by the Palestinian Islamists. Both parties - the Jewish religious right and Hamas - are now in the Israeli resp. the Palestinian government, and the fact that their influence is growing on the long term, doesn't bode well for reconciliation and peace in the region. The moderate Palestinians, if there are still some around, should not disdain to deal with Netanyahu today, because tomorrow may be far worse.
Shingo -
It's somehow ironic that you call Benny Morris to your aid, since he made it clear and mantained that the Palestinians' expulsion was born out of war rather than design. Probably you think of Pappe but you say Morris, because the first would prove all too well your bias.
Where is it written that the Zionists, Ben Gurion himself, wanted a 80-90% Jewish majority in the new-born state? Where are the blueprints of a master plan? Simple allegations borrowed from the likes of Pappe or Khalidi are rather the proof of the contrary, no evidence at all.
You are in denial of the fact that Arab countries adopted anti-Jewish policies even before the creation of Israel and hardened them in the year and decades to come until the indigenous Jewish communities were completely destroyed. The true ethnic cleansing was perpetrated by the Arab states, in reprisal for the founding of the Jewish state.
As said above, if the primary purpose of Zionism was to build a purely Jewish - - "Arab-free" - state or a state with overhelming Jewish majority, we can not explain why today there are a million and half Palestinians - at least 20 per cent of the present-day population - living in Israel and other millions in the disputed territories, whereas there are only a handful of remaining Jews throughout the Arab world. The reality speaks volumes.
Last but not least, there are many accounts that support the argument that a good part of the Arab population was urged, even ordered and threaten, to leave their homes. Here is a small selection:
Kenneth O.Bilby, the correspondent in Palestine for the New York Herald Tribune during the War of Independence wrote in a book published shortly afterwards that said:
"The Arab exodus, initially at least, was encouraged by many Arab leaders, such as Haj Amin el Husseini, the exiled pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, and by the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine. They viewed the first wave of Arab setbacks as merely transitory. Let the Palestine Arabs flee into neighboring countries. It would serve to arouse the other Arab peoples to greater effort, and when the Arab invasion struck, the Palestinians could return to their homes and be compensated with the property of Jews driven into the sea.
After the war, the Palestine Arab leaders did try to help people -- including their own -- to forget that it was they who had called for the exodus in the early spring of 1948. They now blamed the leaders of the invading Arab states themselves. These had added their voices to the exodus call, though not until some weeks after the Palestine Arab Higher Committee had taken a stand."
- Kenneth O. Bilby, New Star in the Middle East, (Doubleday, 1950).
The British news magazine The Economist, no friend of Israel or the Zionist movement, reported on October 2, 1948, while the war was still in progress, that
"Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in [the Palestinian, now Israeli, city of] Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit... It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."
On May 3, 1948, the American news magazine Time reported that
"The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by order of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city.... By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa."
Sir Alan Cunningham, the last high commissioner for the British administration of Palestine, which was in the process of withdrawing from the country while the fighting raged, wrote to the Colonial Office in London on February 22, 1948, and again on April 28, 1948, that
"British authorities in Haifa have formed the impression that total evacuation is being urged on the Haifa Arabs from higher Arab quarters and that the townsfolk themselves are against it."
John Bagot Glubb, the commander of Jordan’s Arab Legion, said: “Villages were frequently abandoned even before they were threatened by the progress of war” (London Daily Mail, August 12, 1948).
The American consulate in Haifa had telegraphed Washington on April 25 that "local Mufti-dominated Arab leaders urge all Arabs (to) leave (the) city [Haifa] and large numbers are going." Three days later the consulate followed up this communication with another that said, "reportedly Arab Higher Committee ordering all Arabs (to) leave."
On April 23, Jamal Husseini, the Acting Chairman for the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine , admitted as much in a speech to the United Nations Security Council:
The Arabs did not want to submit to a truce. They rather preferred to abandon their homes, their belongings and everything they possessed in the world and leave the town. This is in fact what they did.
And on April 27, 1950, only two years after the Arab evacuation of Haifa, the Arab National Committee of Haifa asserted in a memorandum submitted to the governments of the Arab states that
The removal of the Arab inhabitants... was voluntary and was carried out at our request... The Arab delegation proudly asked for the evacuation of the Arabs and their removal to the neighboring Arab countries.... We are very glad to state that the Arabs guarded their honour and traditions with pride and greatness.... When the [Arab]delegation entered the conference room [for negotiations with the Jewish authorities in Haifa] it proudly refused to sign the truce and asked that the evacuation of the Arab population and their transfer to neighboring Arab countries be facilitated.
In June 1949, only six months after the conclusion of hostilities, Sir John Troutbeck, the head of the British Middle East office in Cairo and, according to historian Efraim Karsh, "no friend to Israel or the Jews," made a visit to Gaza and interviewed some of the Arab refugees there. Troutbeck reported that he had learned from these interviews that the refugees
"...express no bitterness against the Jews (or for that matter against the Americans or ourselves) [but] they speak with the utmost bitterness of the Egyptians and other Arab states. "We know who our enemies are," they will say, and they are referring to their Arab brothers who, they declare, persuaded them unnecessarily to leave their home... I even heard it said that many of the refugees would give a welcome to the Israelis if they were to come in and take the district over."
And the Palestinian Arab newspaper Falastin, only a month after the war ended (Feb. 19, 1949), reported that
"The Arab states which had encouraged the Palestinian Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies, have failed to keep their promise to help these refugees."
And a Jaffa paper, As Sarih (March 30, 1948) excoriated Arab villagers near Tel Aviv for “bringing down disgrace on us all by ‘abandoning the villages.”
The way you quote and interpret Sharett shows that you are not really in touch with the meaning of his words. Just too superficial.
I’m so sick of the Nakba/Holocaust denial that’s tolerated here
The irrationalist approach to the ME conflict become once more evident with the strained, arbitrary and entirely unhistorical comparison between "Nakba" and "Holocaust". Quite far away from reality and intellectual/moral decency.
Shingo -
1) There wasn't a Zionist master plan for the expulsion of the Arab population, that means: no pre-planned Zionist ethnic cleansing. The Arab population escaped the flaring fights, often pressed by local Arab leaders with the promise to return soon after the defeat of the Jews, and when expulsions occurred, this happened primarily out of strategic and military considerations. If there had really been a master plan of ethnic cleansing hatched in a Zionist bunker, as you buddies claim without providing clear evidence, 157000 Palestinians would and should not have remained in their villages in the new state of Israel, because by definition the purpose of a plan of forcible population transfer is a total and permanent removal of the minority problem, as seen in many cases of ethnic cleansing in Europe and beyond, while a plan that leaves an unwanted minority in the country, which can become a threat to the future, is per se a stillborn, a failed plan. So how to explain that the cynically calculating, ruthless Zionist leaders put together a master plan, envisaged from the earliest origins of the movement, which they were unfortunately unable or unwilling to complete, causing a potential damage to the future stability of the country? Because, in truth, there was no master plan.
2) When 700000 Palestinians leave their homes it's forcible transfer and ethnic cleansing, but when a million Jews leave their homes it's simply voluntary emigration .... Seems convincing.
3) Are the Muslim Palestinian and Arab citizens of Israel rather Arabs, Palestinians or Muslims, what do you think?
If I would say: Palestinians have no right to live in Israel, would you think first of the Palestinians, the Arabs or the Muslims?
Chaos - you didn't address my questions, instead you dispayed a emotional mix of revanche ("Arabs will outnumber you again") and fear ("you will resume killing them"). In doing so, you were unknowingly able to display the two main negative emotions that characterize this conflict. The solution is however in a more pragmatic and balanced approach.
Let's soften the tone for sensitive ears ...
"This is elemental Zionist history."
Your version of elemental Zionist history, I would add. Not all have to agree with the theories of Rashid Khalidi or Ilan Pappe. History and reality of the ME conflict are not a one-way street....
But maybe you can help me clarify a couple of basic questions that keep buzzing around in my head:
How explain that Israel, whose intrinsic founding Zionism - as you say - planned and carried out the forced expulsion of the Arab population in its almost entirely, has now a large and growing Arab minority of a million and a half with equal rights, while the entire Arab world now has only some small enclaves of a few thousand Jews, probably destined to disappear with the time? And how can we explain that the Palestinians, who - we hear time again - never opposed and fought the presence of native Jews but only the Zionist/Israeli invaders, already pointed out that they do not want to have a Jewish minority in a future Palestinian state?
link to haaretz.com
“The fact that there are a million and half Palestinians in Israel today does not contradict that in any way.”
The iron logic of the anti-Zionists never ceases to amaze me.
If all these early Zionists planed so long in advance to expel the Arab Palestinians from what would become the future Jewish state, and with the civil war first and the Arab-Israeli war then, they had actually - merciless as they were - the golden chance to implement their master plan to the end, so why do today live more than a million and half Palestinians in Israel, not to mention all the millions in the territories?
You will of couse explain me this strange negligence of the Zionists, will you?
"The Zionisst have NEVER been interested in peaceful and negotiated solutions."
This only is worth to be refuted: link to meforum.org
The rest of your reply is just the usual obstructive non-sense.
Seafoid, yakiri
Not just rhetoric, I'm afraid. If the "political violence" (aka terrorism) flows from the "occupation", as you state, we get in trouble to explain quite a lot of acts of Palestinian violence that can not be attributed to the "occupation", unless the Palestinians means as "occupation" the very Jewish presence in Israel, the very existence of Israel als Jewish state.
The Hebron massacre of 1929 was the first serious act of violence against Jews during the British Mandate for Palestine, later occurred similar other massacres committed by both sides. But then, in 1929, there was no "occupation" yet. There were tensions between the two nationalistic movements, there had been already riots in 1920 and 1921, true, but the situation in the twenties was far from being a threat to the Arabs of Palestine. According to the British census, in 1929 the Jews were not more than 15% of the population, for a total of about 150,000 inhabitants. The Arabs made up the majority of 80-85% for a total of 850,000 people. Besides, parallel to the aliyahs, the flow of Arab immigrants from neighboring countries, "attracted by the improving agricultural conditions and growing job opportunities, most of them created by the Jews" (Gilbert), never came to a stop.
So how was it possible that the Jewish Hebron community became the easy target of such a primitive destructive aggression by their Arab neighbors? That was not simply a reaction to any kind of "occupation", that was sheer (mass) murder of innocent people, istigated by local Arab leaders. Other solutions were possible, peaceful and negotiated solutions. But even then, the Arabs chose the path of violence.
This first act of savagery against the Jews of Palestine already contains in nuce the pattern of Arab-Palestinian violence, whose motivation goes far beyond mere "occupation". This is often just a good excuse for the "political violence".
"Palestinians also gave shelter to the Hebron Jews – was that not a true humanity and unselfishness too?"
Of course it was. But the problem were the others, the mob of Jew-killers who slaughtered indiscriminately men, women and children. As long as the majority of the Palestinians tollerate and even support the terrorist minority of Jew-killers in its center, there is no reason for the Hebron Jews - and Jews in general - to stand by idly and expose themselves to other massacres. Modern Jews are willing and ready to defend themselves, although many may not like it.
Were the victims of the massacre only "Ashkenazi settlers"?
No, there were also indigenous Sephardi Jews among the victims. You know why? Because Rabbi Eliezer Dan Slonim Dwek, who was born in Hebron in 1900, refused to hand over the young "Ashkenazi settlers", the Jeshiva students of his house. So he was killed on the spot by the mob, along with his wife and his 4-years-old son. His gesture was a act of true humanity and unselfishness, for which he paid with his life.
"And why did the 600 year old Jewish presence in Hevron abruptly end in the 1920′s?"
Probably it was here also the "very high American content", too ...?
I don't agree with the attitude of the Zionist movement in Hebron, but maybe it's simply a reactive way to be on its guard in a quite hostile environment. I just wonder what would happen to this small Jewish community, if it were not protected by the IDF.
Were Jews living in Hebron until 1929 "settlers"?
Is the difference between monotheism and paganism clear to you?
I can guess where your religious relativism wants to go ....
Yahweh was since the beginning not a deity among others but the "one true God". The only syncretism reported is the contentious reference to Asherah as the "mother goddess". In fact, the rise of the Hebrew monotheist religion, which considered Yahweh as the god of Israel, derived from the the creation of a unified kingdom early in Iron Age II.
Small-scale, indeed, but real. Has the Jewish people ever been large-scale?
Here they even attempt to deny the very existence of the Jewish people and its small-scale ancient kingdom. Do you find that to be honest? I do not.