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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
Devastatingly handsome would be an overstatement at my age but I was a devastatingly charmer, especially with boas that were allergic to Arabs; hope you're not a Moroccan.
Rachel, rudeness doesn't necessarily come only in 4-letter words; I was joking too. Is it true what Demize said about your flirting?
Cliff, from the way you described her, she's not very different from all the others with their list of talking points but in her case, she seems to be trying extra hard to be a pain in everybody's ass for some reason. Maybe she got borred with her list of things to throw out. Living in sterile Toronto can do strange things to a person's psyche, especially if she's got a bit of French in her as she claims.
Not sucking up, Rachel, you're not my type but I'm perplexed why you go out of your way to piss people off for no apparent reason like with your kharrah comment the other day.
Deep deep down you must be an OK person.
Thanks, Sumud, and to Rachel's chagrin, I'm not Shia and still very proud of Hizbullah for having liberated most of the country like 80% of all Lebanese and half the 80% aren't Shia either.
Are you more French than Jewish with your otel and probably call it le 'qat saisons. You don't have to worry about showing your low class; we know you're in Toronto, the most borring place on earth and where this chain originated.
Rachel, you can keep yourselves liberated from Hizbullah simply by staying on your side of the border. Do you say Four Seasons Hotel or Four Seasons Khhhotel?
Speaking of holiday, tomorrow, May 25th is a national holiday in Lebanon to celebrate the Lebanese National Resistance and the liberation from Israeli occupation that happened on May 25, 2000.
The comment in the ZOA article about Nasrallah having said that he would go after all the Jews conveniently gathered in Israel is a fabrication to fuel their paranoia. Hizbullah's comments about Israel in regards to the Palestinians are usually made only on the annual Day of Al-Quds that fall on the last Friday of Ramadan. Nasrallah has said that he would never cross over into Palestine to fight the Palestinians' war for them but that he would accept the Palestians' decision to enter into an agreement with Israel for 2 states even if he didn't agree with it. That sure doesn't like someone that stays up nights thinking of destroying Jews.
Maybe Klein would want Brennan to wash his mouth with soap for having pronounced the vile word. Years ago when Israel was pretending to negotiate with Arafat, there was the question of letting the Palestinians have part of Jerusalem for their capital on condition that they never refer to their city as Jerusalem in any language and that only the name "al-Quds" would be permitted. This has become just another dirty word for the Zionists.
It's not the first time Chomsky visits Lebanon and meets with Hizbullah officials; he's an old friend now. Video from his 2006 viosit to the Khiam concentration camp:
link to youtube.com
Richard Parker, what happened between 1975 and today is that the Shia got very well educated and because of it, they now own the bus instead of being told to stand at the back of it. Today, as a switch you have Sunni and Christians working for Shia employers, something that would have been impossible 3 decades back. The Sunni and Christians are still trying to treat them like shit but they are now doing it astutely but failing. They are now about 45-50 % of the total Lebanese population with the Sunni still steady at 20-25% and the Christians down to about 17% from 55% of 60 years ago.
The list as we all know is not about preventing materials that can be used against Israel but simply to make life unbearable for Gazans. It's punishment pure and simple and I'm sorry to have to say that this was and still is ordered by the Americans. Israel doesn't do anything that the US doesn't OK. Everybody talks about pressuring Israel to lift the blockade but everybody is knocking a the wrong door. It's the old good cop-bad cop routine.
Eva, there's amistake on Gisha's list. Shasmpoo is ok but not conditioner. I remember from a year back how Israel stopped a shipment of shampoo (Pert, I think) because the formula included conditioner (2 in 1). Conditioner must include some explosiove properties.
It's described in the UNRWA Julu 2009 report:
"...Items prohibited from entering Gaza include books, paper for textbooks, crayons, light bulbs, candles, matches, musical instruments, clothing, shoes, mattresses bed sheets, blankets, tea, coffee, chocolate and nuts. Hair conditioner is banned, while shampoo is not. No petrol or diesel has been allowed through the official crossings into Gaza since November 2008. Gaza's power plant receives only 70% of its weekly fuel requirements and only half of the cooking gas needed. "
It was about time that the Palestinians start using their brains and do something that they have been asking others to do on their behalf.
More on Fayyad's new look; it has the settlers calling the boycott "economic terror" and asking for the "proximity talks" negotiations with the Palestinians be stopped :
Settlements Boycott Campaign Starts In The West Bank, Settlers Outraged
Tuesday May 18, 2010 16:05 by Ghassan Bannoura - PNN
Israeli settlers groups called on the Israeli government to stop proximity talks with the Palestinians due to the settlements products boycott campaign that started today in the West Bank.
The Campaign “House-to-House” was launched by the Palestinian National Pride fund. Hundreds of Palestinian men and women started on early Tuesday morning to go from house to house in all Palestinian communities in the West Bank to raise awareness about the settlements products and encourage people to stop using them. The campaign is endorsed by PM Salam Fayyad and President Mahmoud Abbas.
Palestinian farmers, local made dairy products, and soft drinks industry will be one of the major benefiters of the settlements products campaign.
In total Palestinians consume up to $500 million of settlements products per year, according to Palestinian officials. The products range from nuts to construction materials.
link to imemc.org
>>Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran have each officially stated recently that they would NEVER recognize Israel. (Richard W.)
You make it sound as if it's a cardinal sin not to; they don't have to. The 10-year hudna proposed by Hamas wasn't very far from an actual acceptance of Israel as having offered it was a recognition of sorts but this wasn't good for Israel because it wants to keep the hostilities goig with the Palestinians to continue stealing more land. As to Hizbullah it has already said that it had no intention of entering Palestine to fight the Palestinians' battles for them and it's willing to live with whatever the Palestinian people decide they want to agree with Israel. Iran is giving support to the Palestinian people without necessarily fighting their battles for them. This recognition business that Israelis keep harping about is to feed their paranoia.
Back on Feb, 18th, there was a discussion here on Eisenhower's threat of sanctions to get Israel out of the Sinai in 56 but not discussed was that this had been Eisenhower's second threat to Israel, the first having occurred a few years before when Israel was just starting out on its long career of stealing water and Eisenhower had put his foot on Israel's neck because of it:
Accordingly, in 1951, contrary to the armistice agreements and over the protests of U.S. and U.N. officials, the Israelis began moving military units and bulldozers into the demilitarized zone on the Syrian border. Spurred by hostilities in the area over water, in 1953, the Eisenhower Administration prepared a unified plan for the use of the Jordan River. In September 1953, Israel, in an apparent attempt to preempt the American plan, secretly began a crash program to construct a nine-mile long pipeline in the demilitarized zone to divert Jordan River waters.
When the Americans learned of Israel's activities which included around the clock work crews, they protested and President Eisenhower went so far as to suspend vital economic aid to Israel. No announcement about the aid suspension was made at the time, perhaps to keep from drawing the ire of the Zionist lobby at home.
However, soon afterward, the Israelis launched an unrelated attack on a West Bank Jordanian village, killing 53 people which came to be known as the Kibya massacre. As a result of the ensuing furor, on October 18, 1953, the Eisenhower administration made public its cutoff of aid to Israel. Eleven days later, under the pressure from the U.S. Zionist lobby and a pledge by Israel to suspend work on the diversion project, U.S. aid was resumed. (Taking Sides: America's Secret Relations with a Militant Israel, by Stephen Green, William Morrow and Co., N.Y. 1984. "The 1953 Aid Cutoff: A Parable for Our Times," pp. 76- 93.)
Israeli work on diverting the water of the Jordan River was only temporarily suspended -- perhaps for as long as two years. By 1960, however, the diversion project -- which came to be known as the National Water Carrier -- was complete and in fact was the target of the PLO's first (and unsuccessful) attack in 1964.
Jordan and Syria strongly protested Israel's unilateral appropriation of their water because Israel's diversion made local agricultural activity impossible.
Full article on the history of Israeli water theft in the WB, Gaza and especially Lebanon:
link to desip.igc.org
Israel has a history of going back on its agreements. First with the Lausanne Protocol and with this National Water Carrier project to steal Jordan River water 2 years after it had agreed with Eisenho0wer that it wouldn't do it. In later years, Bush Sr had threatened to block American guarantees for Israel's $10 billion loan renewals if Israel wouldn't stop settlements expansion but after it promised to stop and the US guaranteed Israel's loans, it went back on its word and continued its expansion.
There are none so blind as those who will not see. Americans are smart enough but they are still on the guilt trip from the holocaust and from having turned their backs on the Jews in their hour of need. Add to this American self-interest in having a reliable bouncer in the area and lots of brainwashing on how the Israelis and Americans share the same "western values" and you'd see how Israel gets away with theft and murder. Then there's the money.
Another long, very interesting and detailed recounting of the 49 Truman-Israel saga along the lines established here by Victor Kattan in which it tells of Truman's offer of $400 million to Syria to resettle 500,000 Palestinian refugees and of the very first threat made against Israel by the State Dept to take back the refugees or the US would withold $49 millions in import-export loans. You can guess what happened to that threat.
From an Alternative Insight 2008 article, "The 1948 Recognition of Israel; The impact, legacy and relevance of an earlier history"
Truman could claim that his support for partition won him the election and prevented Governor Dewey, who also supported partition, gain the White House. Nevertheless, the post-election provided him with an opportunity to show he was not captive to the Zionist enterprise. What did he do? He only half-heartedly pressured Israel in 1949 to resettle displaced Palestinians. This token maneuver is verified by George McGhee, the U.S. coordinator on Palestine Refugee Matters in an article published in: The Palestinian Refugees: Old Problems - New Solutions, University of Oklahoma Press: Norman, OK, 2001, pp. 77-87, states:
…McGee threatened the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. that if Israel did not accept 200,000 refugees, the US would withhold $49 million worth of Export-Import Bank loans to Israel. The Israeli Ambassador was unimpressed with McGhee's threat and responded that McGhee "wouldn't get by with this move." The Israeli Ambassador boasted that "he would stop it…."
True to his word, the Ambassador was able to nip McGhee's threat in the bud. That same afternoon, the White house phoned McGhee to say that the President would have nothing to do with withholding loans to Israel. Never again would a State Department official under President Truman attempt to intimidate Israel on the issue of refugees.
link to alternativeinsight.com
And the Arab comments to Israel's compliance and non-compliance to the protocol it had signed:
The Lausanne Protocol Regarding Refugees, May 12, 1949.
Meanwhile, again regarding Israel's admission into the UN, the UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine, trying to carry out UNGA Resolution 194 of December 11, 1948, regarding refugees, wrote the Lausanne Protocol. It was based on the partition plan of Resolution 181. Israel and the Arab states signed the protocol on May 12, 1949, a few hours after Israel had been voted into the UN? By signing, Israel left the impression:
(a) that it was willing to give up the areas, including Jerusalem, which it had seized militarily but which were outside the area allotted to it by the partition plan, and
(b) that it would allow the return of the refugees. As noted above, believing that Israel would soon agree to these two protocol points, several nations that had not approved Israel’s membership now voted for it.
They were soon disappointed. Israel later obliquely admitted that it had cooperated during the talks leading up to the protocol signing because it wanted to be accepted. Israel's own Government Yearbook 1950 stated:
Some members of the United Nations wished at this oppor-tunity to test Israel's intentions with regard to the refugee, boundaries and Jerusalem issues, before approving its appli-cation for admission. In a way, Israel's attitude at the Lausanne talks aided its Delegation at Lake Success in its endeavour to obtain the majority required for admission.(Israel, Governement Yearbook 1950, p.143).
However, within six weeks of signing the Lausanne Protocol regarding refugees and being admitted into the UN, Israel's delegation to the Conciliation Commission for Palestine indicated to it that the delegation "could not accept a certain proportionate distribution of territory agreed upon in 1947 as a criterion for a territorial settlement in present circumstances (UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine, Third Progress Report, for 9 April through 8 June, 1949, 6.21.1949 (A/927), p.3).
Thus Israel repudiated the allocation provision of the partition plan of Resolution 181. This was the very plan that Israel, in arguing against the Bernadotte plan some seven months previously, had insisted "is a valid instrument of international law.”(Khouri, The Arab-Israeli Dilemma, p.85) Israel again used a UN resolution that it had agreed to, as long as it worked to Israel's advantage, but discarded part of it when it became disadvantageous.
On an article on Jerusalem Post, March 5th 2000, By Janine Zacharia "Refugee issue threatens Israel's UN standing", Zacharia, quoting Francis Boyle, legal adviser to the Palestinians during past Middle East negotiations, says: "If Prime Minister Barak is going to deny the right of the Palestinianrefugees to return to their home, he will abrogate and violate one of the most important conditions for Israel's admission to the United Nations". "Boyle said that as a condition for admission into the UN in 1949, Israel agreed to accept UN Resolution 194 that says Palestinians should be allowedto return to their homes if they wish or receive adequate financial compensation if they choose to remain elsewhere...".
To read the full article, please visit: link to jpost.com,
The basis of all discussions on the Palestinians' right of return is found in the May 12, 1949 very short 2-paragraph protocol signed by Israel and the Arabs. It was later admitted by Israel that it had signed under pressure from the US and to convince the UN membership of Israel's goodwill in having recognized the partition plan and the return of the refugees and it therefore accepted Israel's membership in the UN. 6 weeks later, Israel reneged on the protocol. Israel's signing of the protocol had been a gimmick.
This sheds light on another Zionist myth about the Arabs never having accepted the UN partition plan. By having signed the protocol on May 12, 1949, the Arabs (after the armistice) effectively recognized the UN partition plan. The following version and commentary was taken from a MFA site:
The Protocol of Lausanne, 12 May 1949.
Below is the text of the Protocol signed by the Conciliation Commission and the Chairman of the Israeli delegation; an identical Protocol was signed on the same day by the Arab delegation. The "working document" referred to was the Partition map annexed to General Assembly Resolution 181(II) of 29 November 1947. The Arabs claimed that, by signing the Protocol, Israel in a manner recognised the 1947 Partition Plan. Israel held that the map was to be taken, as the text of the Protocol stated, as a, and not as the, basis for negotiations.
The text of the protocol:
The United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine, anxious to achieve as quickly as possible the objectives of the General Assembly's Resolution of December 11, 1948, regarding refugees, the respect for their rights and the preservation of their property, as well as territorial and other questions, has proposed to the Delegation of Israel and to the Delegations of the Arab States that the "Working Documents" attached hereto, be taken as basis for discussion with the Commission.
The interested Delegations have accepted this proposal with the understanding that the exchange of views which will be carried on by the Commission with the two parties will bear upon the territorial adjustments necessary to the above indicated objectives.
Lausanne, May 12, 1949.
(Signed) CLAUDE DE BOISANGER, Chairman (France)
(Signed) CAHID YALGIN (Turkey)
(Signed) MARK ETYRIDGE (U.S.A.)
(Signed) WALTER EYTAN (Israel)
Here's my rough translation of part of a Feb 18, 2008 article on the 1948 history of Palestine using maps by Dominique Vidal in Le Monde Diplomatique:
Contrary to Israel's stated desire to make peace with its neighbours after the war, Israel’s New Historians described how it accepted the UN protocol on the partition and the refugees’ right of return so that it would be accepted as a member of the UN. But right after it was admitted, its leaders set about to systematically sabotage the Lausanne Conference as confirmed by Walter Eytan, the co-GM of the Israeli Foreign Ministry: “My prime objective was to begin sabotaging the May 12 Protocol that we were forced into signing in our struggle to be admitted into the UN."
(Ilan Pappé, The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-1951, I. B. Tauris, New York, 1992, p. 212.)
link to blog.mondediplo.net
>>For the Israelis, it's "an insufferable situation," according to Avi Elkayam, who represents the settlement's 300 factory owners.
This looks like the settlers are suffering more than the Palestinians. Great news; 17 factories down and 283 to go.
Rima Fakih was born in Srifa in Lebanon's Jnoub about 10 km from the southern border.
Pablemont, the Jews weren't the only ones. When Israel declared its independence, it became a free-for-all and the rush was on to grab the Palestinians's land. Israel may have ended up stealing and controlling it all but there were other players out to screw the Palestinians. A little known fact especially among Arabs was the side deal made by Jordan's Abdullah and Golda Meir on November 17, 1947 in which Jordan had agreed to practically stay out of the coming war with the Jews and which contradicts the Zionist mantra on how ALL the Arabs pounced on poor little helpless Israel in 49; from Wiki:
In 1946–1948, Abdullah actually supported partition in order that the Arab allocated areas of the British Mandate for Palestine could be annexed into Transjordan. Abdullah went so far as to have secret meetings with the Jewish Agency (future Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was among the delegates to these meetings) that came to a mutually agreed upon partition plan independently of the United Nations in November 1937.[8][9] This idea of secret Zionist-Hashemite negotiations in 1947 was expanded upon by New Historian Avi Shlaim in his book Collusion Across The Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine. This partition plan was supported by British Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin who preferred to see Abdullah's territory increased at the expense of the Palestinians rather than risk the creation of a Palestinian state headed by the Mufti of Jerusalem and Nazi propagandist[10] Mohammad Amin al-Husayni.[3
link to en.wikipedia.org
I'm puzzled because unlike in French, in English both the country and the river are called Jordan but in French, the country is called la Jordanie and the river is called le Jourdain. The WB being adjacent to the river would make it Cisjourdain and not Cijordanie.
Hi TGIA; like puzzles? Since Cisjordanie is the west bank of the river (Aldaffah-l-gharbiyyah) and cis means on the same side, how is it that it's not called Cisjourdain since it's on the side of the river and not the country? From yesterday's Figaro; at least the French know the difference between the occupied WB and Israel:
Israël interdit la Cisjordanie à Chomsky
AFP
16/05/2010 | L'intellectuel juif américain Noam Chomsky a déclaré aujourd'hui avoir été empêché par les autorités israéliennes de se rendre en Cisjordanie, où il doit intervenir devant une université palestinienne.
Did he refuse an invation from an Israeli university?
JPost just reported that the decision to block Chomsky is being reviewed and he may be allowed in:
...The Interior Ministry denied entry to Jewish American linguist Professor Noam Chomsky – one of Israel's fiercest opponents – on Sunday and turned him back from the Allenby Bridge Border Crossing at the Jordan Valley, but indicated by press time Sunday night that it may reverse its decision and allow Chomsky to speak at the Bir Zeit University near Ramallah.
"We are checking with the IDF's Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Interior Ministry Spokeswoman Sabine Haddad told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday evening. "If COGAT gives us the all clear, we will grant him entry," she added.
Haddad said the initial decision to deny Chomsky entry was down to a "misunderstanding," and denied claims that Chomsky's name was on a black list of individuals prohibited from
entering the country. She confirmed he was questioned for a number of hours before being denied entry by the Interior Ministry's Immigration and Border Authority.
Speaking from the Jordan Valley, Chomsky told Channel 10 TV, "I've often spoken at Israeli universities."
In 2009, following Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, Chomsky said, "supporters of Israel are in reality supporters of its moral degeneration."
And a bit more, Yonira, on the disintegration:
15 Haredim Detained By Police During Ashkelon Protests
On Friday night, horsemen and special crowd-dispersal police units were deployed around the hospital. Police stressed that no measure would be spared and that the commanders were instructed to act as they see fit, including making arrests, in order to maintain public order.
15 haredim detained during Barzilai grave relocation
Bulldozers, tractors arrive at Ashkelon's Barzilai Medical Center around midnight in preparation for relocation of ancient graves to take place Sunday morning. Fifteen haredim detained by police following protest on site. Ashkelon police chief: We will carry out cabinet decision.
Shmulik Hadad • Ynet
Yonira, here's part of what I was talking about from today's Haaretz:
Israel approves plan to lure 15,000 expats home
Returning citizens who have been abroad for five or more years will receive many of the same benefits as new immigrants.
By Lior Dattel A new plan to encourage the return of some 15,000 Israeli expatriates from abroad received government approval on Sunday.
The plan, formulated by the Prime Minister's Office and the Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, consists of a marketing campaign aimed at expatriate Israelis as well as a package of tax, education and health insurance benefits for Israelis who have lived abroad for five or more years to return to Israel.
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, around 750,000 Israelis currently live overseas, with around 60 percent in North America and 25 percent in Europe.
link to haaretz.com
Yonira, of course Israel won't disappear but it will become something somewhat like Lebanon with its various sects continuously fighting each other for their piece of the pie. Palestinians simply have to sit back and enjoy the show and eventually their turn will come up and they'll inherit the largest piece because of their numbers. We already see it in Israelis opting to leave the country and the government doing backflips to attract new immigrants with attractive financial incentives. but it's not working.
Yonira, Israel worries about the Finkelsteins and the Chomskys because it's been built on a shaky foundation with smoke and mirrors. Otherwise, it would laugh off activists but since it isn't, it panics at the mere though of a Chomsky giving a lecture and this should tell you what Israel is about. Slogans won't carry Israel for another 20 years and it's slowly starting to disintegrate from within.
lareineblanche, Chomsky can still be denied entry to the US under the current security agreements between Israel and the US that allows Israeli agents to work the major US points of entry to screen incoming and outgoing travelers since 3 or 4 years. A similar agreement was signed between Israel and Canada to cover points of entry in Canada. It's highly likely that before Chomsky's plane took off from the US, word of his intended travel plans had already reached Israel and the decision was taken to block his entry. What you see happening in Israel or by Israel today is a sign of things to come in the US and in Canada.
Yonira, do you think that Chomsky is a threat to Israel? You said, you'd tell me what Israel is afraid of but you didn't. It would put a stop to a lot of guessing on my part.
Doesn't international law and the UN say that Israel shouldn't be occupying Palestinian lands?
potsherd, probably some screwy homeland security concern/gimmick like what happened in the US with Bush. It won't be long the police state mentality will spread to Israel itself and sites like Haaretz will be shut down. Paranoia justifies many queer actions.
Yonira, while you're LOLLING, would you explain why Israel would prevent Jewish civiliams like Finkelsteim and Chomsky from reaching the West Bank? What is it afraid of?
The nonsense is Israel having given a free pass to any Jew to return to Palestine/Israel while preventing Palestinians from returning to their land.
Yonira, I'm enjoying seeing you and like Israelis begining to wet your pants about the BDS steamroller coming down your way. Chomsky being an Israeli is not an issue since he's a Jew and Jews are supposed to have a free pass to enter Israel. The Middle East's only democacy?
Yonira, about Nasser, you're not totally wrong but you're not totally right. There is no doubt about Israel's intention to attack Egypt but Nasser led with his chin with his incessant threats to Israel, the expelling of the UN forces, the closure of Tirana and the non-stop flaming rhetoric over the Egyptian airwaves about what he was going to do to the Jews. It seems that while he was doing all this, he was secretely trying to negotiate with the Israelis that kept giving him the finger. I'd say that Nasser miscalculated in the same way Nasrallah miscalculated in 2006 when he assumed that the whole thing would result in a routine prisoners swap. This doesn't take anything away from Israel's plans of attacking Egypt in 67 and Lebanon in 2006; Nasser and Nasrallah gave Israel the alibi it needed to do it.
This becomes obvious when you look into some aspects of the 67 war like the deliberate bombing of the USS Liberty, the attack on the Golan only after Egypt had been defeated, the pre-arranged deal with Jordan that was similar to the one as in 48 and later in 73 that basically kept Jordan out of Israel's hair during the fighting and Lebanon's refusal to mobilize to join Nasser's planned party.
Those 76 photos described what happened very well. Other than black and white and the one with the truck convoy, they were almost identical to the pictures we saw coming out of Gaza last year. Israel didn't have white phosphorus, or dense nnert metal (DIME) or DU bombs back then but the innovative Israelis of back then (like those of today) were not averse to using bacteriological warfare on the unsuspecting Palestinians. Israel introduced a lot of things to the ME from terrorist bombings, to blowing up houses, chemical weapons, nuclear weapons, torture, concentration camps and so many other goodies. It's no wonder these smart people earned so many Nobels in so many fields.
TGIA, putting Shakespeare aside for a moment, Rachel is better described as a museraigne than a mégère. She probably mistook what you called her for a compliment.
Does it really matter for Rachel if the actual number of villages turn out to be 400 instead of 580 and would it lessen the Zionist crimes?
Israelis or Zionists have been talking about getting rid of the Palestinian Arabs for over 70 or 80 years. The subject comes and goes but never really disappears'
Benny Morris the first time around criticized Ben Gurion for not having evicted all the Palestinian Arabs but in his revised version, he softened his views somewhat because he had been put in the doghouse with his initial revelations. Wiki has this on him:
...According to The Economist: "Mr Morris also said, in an interview that stunned his supporters, that Israel was justified in uprooting the Palestinian 'fifth column' once the Arabs had attacked the infant state, and that the number executed or massacred—some 800, on his reckoning—was 'peanuts' compared with, say, the massacres in Bosnia in the 1990s."[8] On the subject of Israel's Arab citizens, Morris has argued:
The Israeli Arabs are a time bomb. Their slide into complete Palestinization has made them an emissary of the enemy that is among us. They are a potential fifth column. In both demographic and security terms they are liable to undermine the state. So that if Israel again finds itself in a situation of existential threat, as in 1948, it may be forced to act as it did then. If we are attacked by Egypt (after an Islamist revolution in Cairo) and by Syria, and chemical and biological missiles slam into our cities, and at the same time Israeli Palestinians attack us from behind, I can see an expulsion situation. It could happen. If the threat to Israel is existential, expulsion will be justified..
...
You should be scared DavidSiden; you have earned the right to be through your actions but I'd bet you anything you're not half as scared as those kids in Gaza watching the white phosphorus rain on them. I hope you don't go into shock.
DavidSiden, you're upset at the symbolic destruction of a few crates of Israeli produce; I'm upset at the destruction of 24,145 houses in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza since 1967 and the 4,247 houses in Gaza last year by Israel and let's not forget the hundreds of thousands of olive trees uprooted by the enviromentally friendly only democracy in the ME:
link to icahd.org
As to your question to Weiss and Horowitz about their failure to condemn Arab hatred, comfort yourself thinking that everyone else is.
"Aref, Naeim Giladi was a well known anti Zionist Jew.
Historian Dr. Yosef Meir, a noted Iraqi Zionist underground operative, argues in a rebuttal article to Giladi that the bombings in Iraq against the Jews was the Iraqi government or Arab nationalists." (DavidSiden)
David, Giladi said it himself that was an anti-Zionist and he went on to explain why he was so along with the horror stories on how the Jews were poisoning the Palestininian Arabs' water wells with typhus and dysentery bacteria.
If Giladi would have been alone making such declarations, one would be be skeptical but he wasn't. Yehouda Shenhav, a noted Israeli scholar whose parents were Iraqi Jews said more or less what Giladi said about the yanking of Jews out of Iraq and describes why the Zionists did it.
I think read what Dr. Yosef Meir wrote about what Giladi wrote rather than having read Giladi's story yourself. The Near-East company you read about was owned by the Jewish Fund and the lead agent on the flights was a Mossad agent. There was collusion with the Iraqi Prime Minister's Office since the PM and other top Iraqi officials were owners of the travel agency that booked all the flights of the Iraqi Jews and they personally benefitted from the exodus.
Naim Giladi's story:
link to bintjbeil.com
LeaNder, non, si tu tiens à Lafontaine, c'est Rachel la montagne qui accouchera d'une souris aves ses mensonges et ses boufées d'air chaud lorsque tu entends ses cris de guerre. Selon Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, tu es responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé. Donc, j'ai aucunement l'intention d'aprivoiser la mesquine Torontoise et je laisse cette facheuse besogne à notre défenseur de la foi, Athéedieumerci qui se fera un plaisir exceptionnel de s’en occupier.
Shmuel, koussa mehchi, like the stuffed grape leaves and cabbage rolls and most middle-eastern food is really Turkish. In the very varied Lebanese food, only 2 are recognized as truly Lebanese in origin: tabouleh and kibbee; everything else goes to Turkey that controled the whole Med area for 400 years. Of course, the Turks had nothing to do with knishes, blintzes, matzohs, bagels and stuff like that as these were very Jewish; everything else they have in Israel is borrowed or stolen.
TGIA, le truc sur le cochon est un dicton québécois qu'elle doit surement connaître et qui décrit parfaitement sa mentalité ou sa personnalité enmerdée et enmerdante. Elle est plutôt comme une museraigne qu'une mégère.
TGIA, I tried being nice to her and look what I got in return. Donne à manger à un cochon et il vient chier sur ton perron.
It goes without saying that Israel stole Palestine, Sumud, I tried to describe the ongoing soft theft of America by the Zionists because this thread about Emanuel and Saban and which of the two is more Israeli than the other reminded me of this ugly ongoing fact in the unsuspecting US.
For fuck sake get your own propaganda points. It is not enough that you stole genocide, holocauste, ROR, and hummus too? (Rachel)
I have yet to see Arabs using the word holocaust to describe what the Zionists did to the Palestinians. You can continue claiming exclusivity to the use of the word holocaust; Zionists have used it in all sauces and milked it dry to the point that it has lost much of its value.
As to hummus, it probably broke your little black heart last week to see Lebanon break the Guinness record of the largest Hummus plate that weighed 10,452 kg. The number of 10,452 happens to be the area in sq km of Lebanese territory to remind Israel that it still occupies a few of those kilometres to steal water from them and to keep its thieving fingers off the rest.
And no, I'm not a moderate Israel-loving Lebanese; there is no such thing unless you are speaking to a traitor on Israel's payroll or one aspiring to be.
Rachel, not very original, are you? Lebanon has been called a lot of things, some nice and some not so nice but the "shitty little country" designation has already been attributed to Israel in 2001 by the French ambassador to London, Daniel Bernard. His actual words were:
"All the current troubles in the world are because of that shitty little country Israel." The diplomat added, "Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?"
link to news.bbc.co.uk
DavidSiden, What does the KKK have to do with my remark about the Zionists slowly infiltrating everything in America, am I saying something that is not true? I realize that their time is coming to an end with the religious guys taking over Israel and they want to have another country to control when that happens. Half the czars appointed by Obama reporting directly to him are Zionists and these don't include Emanuel, Axelrod, Indyk, Ross and the rest of the gang. Not long ago, there was a discussion here about a senior Israeli military officer that has a senior position with the American defense establishment.
It saves Israel a lot of effort and money getting the inside dope directly from the top source at the White House. While attention is being focussed at getting the Zionists to ease off on the Palestinians, no one is noticing their takeover of America.
Disaster in Arabic is "karitha" or "nakba". His Zionist ears must have heard "karitha" as "harta". Maybe he's like eee (Haled Meshaal) and can't distinguish between the "K" and "H" sounds.
People like Emanuel pretending that they can be both American and Israelis are really moles within the US administration undermining America with their pretended dual loyalties and their pro-Israel decisions and actions are reflecting adversely on other Jews primarily loyal to America. Saban, Emanuel, Indyk, Ross, Dershowitz and so many others are parasites working for Israel.
Since the discussion is about Muslim fundamentalists, Akbar Ganji is right to a certain point only. Palestine plays an important part in the rise of fundamentalism for some but there are other factors equally important like poverty, frustration, ignorance, backwardness, deprivation, abuse by leaders and so on that turn people to fundamentalism. The Ayatollahs did not reach the top and topple the Shah because of Palestine. Muslim fundamentalists in Aceh Province don't even know where Palestine is located on a map and Palestine is the last thing on the minds of Wahabists. Of course, some have taken up the Palestinian cause but for most, fundamentalists are looking to turn back the clock and not thinking about Palestine.
By the way, thanks Walid for such infos… (Zamaaz)
Stick around and keep an open mind and you'll learnh things your mama never told you.
They are, Kapok, they don't just look it.
Zamaaz, lost opportunity had nothing to do with it; the Jews wanted to steal all the land and the Palestinian Arabs didn't accept this idea and chose to resist it and lost. You don't have to be an Einstein to understand this.
There was nothing moral about it either even if the Zionist leaders felt that the Jews’ need for a country with empty spaces able to absorb future immigrants morally outweighed the rights of the indigenous Arabs. It gives us an idea about the morals of the Zionists starting with the super thief Herzl. To use your cockeyed way of thinking, one could say that the Germans needed to have the Jews out of the way and they chose the most moral way of going about it.
The redeeming element in the quote by Benny Morris is that it acknowledges that there had been indigenous inhabitants on the land, that Herzl himself had transfer of the Palestinian Arabs on the brain and that the plan extended to across the Litani in Lebanon, 3 things that Israelis continue denying to this day. Was there something like Sunday School for Jews where you guys picked up all the bogus history about the history of the Jews in Palestine that you keep repeating?
Zamass, you asked: Was it Israelis’ joy to be in constant conflict or aggression against the Palestinian Arabs? Or they Israelis, were simply placed in dire situation they have no other option but to ‘hit back’? When you were surrounded, and attacked several times, and threatened with national extinction what will you do other than defend yourself?
Jews put themselves in that situation when they decided the Palestinians' country from under them to take it all but the Palestinians were not willing to go along with it. You keep forgetting that part with the endless bullshit talk of Jews fighting for their survival. From the outset of Zionism, the plan was to get rid of the Palestinian Arabs. Read what an Israeli historian had to say about these plans:
Benny Morris, PhD, Professor of History at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel, in his 2001 book Righteous Victims, wrote:
"For many Zionists, beginning with Herzl, the only realistic solution lay in transfer...Following the outbreak of 1936 [Arab Revolt], no mainstream leader was able to conceive of future coexistence and peace without a clear physical separation between the two peoples--achievable only by way of transfer and expulsion...
Moreover, transfer was seen as a highly moral solution. The Zionist leaders felt that the Jews' need for a country with empty spaces able to absorb future immigrants morally outweighed the rights of the indigenous Arabs--who were no different than their brothers across the Jordan or Litani [Rivers] and could relocate there with relative ease if the transfer was well compensated and well organized...separation was preferable to an intermingling, which could only end in a bloodbath.
Transfer would best be accomplished 'voluntarily.' But Palestine's Arabs did not wish to evacuate the land of their ancestors, and they made this very clear. Moreover, neither the Ottoman Turks nor the British were of a mind to clear out the local population to make room for the Jews. The matter raised ethical questions that troubled the Yishuv [Jewish community of British Mandate Palestine] from within and inspired opposition to Zionism from without. Yet transfer, however problematic or cruel, offered a way out of the demographic dilemma, and it was sporadically given an airing."
Tree, I wasn't implying that Deir Yassin was the one and only massacre by the Jews, there were countless others and even more vicious. I was pointing out that the Palestinians inadvertently helped spread the fear which played into the hands of the Jews. Here's a list of the massacres:
link to guardian.150m.com
The massacre at Deir Yassin was ugly, as with all massacres and very sad for the Palestinians. The Jewish terrorists committed the massacre with the intent of spooking the the Palestinian population by making an example of Deir Yassin but the Palestinians committed a big blunder when they tried capitalizing on the massacre to draw the neighbouring Arab countries into their battle against the Jews. The 100 or so actually massacred became over 250 in the Palestinian propaganda and the news spread like wildfire throughout Palestine that the Jews were massacring the Arabs and this spooking helped the Jewish cause more than it helped them in bringing in the Arab armies. Today the Jews deny the horrors they committed at Deir Yassin and the Palestinians are slow to admit their error in having inadvertently helped the Jews spread the word.
Other than for the presence of Palestinian Jews that had every right to be there, there was really never anything legitimate about Israel from its first day. How could people that went through a holocaust be treating others with so much brutality?
Walid, I saw the Dersh at Fordham last fall, and he was still making the same point about international law. (David Samel)
The guy must irk you to no end on 2 levels, as a Jew and as a lawyer. We are thankful that he represents but a minute section of both. He should accept becoming ambassador for Israel to rid Americans of him.
Another dropping from Dershowitz, the advocate for human torture; the guy foresaw Arizona from way back in October 2001 in a NYT essay:
A national ID card could actually enhance civil liberties by reducing the need for racial and ethnic stereotyping. There would be no excuse for hassling someone merely because he belongs to a particular racial or ethnic group if he presented a card that matched his print and that permitted his name to be checked instantly against the kind of computerized criminal-history retrieval systems that are already in use. (If there is too much personal information in the system, or if the information is being used improperly, that is a separate issue. The only information the card need contain is name, address, photo and print.)
From a civil liberties perspective, I prefer a system that takes a little bit of freedom from all to one that takes a great deal of freedom and dignity from the few -- especially since those few are usually from a racially or ethnically disfavored group. A national ID card would be much more effective in preventing terrorism than profiling millions of men simply because of their appearance.
link to nytimes.com
There are no limits to Dershowitz' smelly droppings. One of his most memorable ones was made in December 2003 to Israel's elite gathered at Herzliya in which he tells them in so many words why they should disregard international law if they don't like it; makes one dread what he's been teaching at Harvard:
"We have a joint project between Israel and the US, which lawyers must lead. Our project is to propose new rules of international law. Israelis are obliged to follow the rules of law in the democracy called Israel, as I am within the US. Your moral obligation to comply with international law is voluntary. You are not represented in the making or implementing of those laws. International law lives or dies by its credibility, not by the democracy by which it has been constructed. I am suggesting the change of the rule of law. Democracy should not have to justify its actions and show how the rule of human rights has become a weapon in promoting human wrongs... You are the lab for that process. You are contributing greatly. Do not allow the world to bully you into believing that you are the human rights violators..."
Avi, Bigmouth is telling the students to harass their professors to intimidate and silence them; I don't think he's looking at having them jailed. Can Ilan Pappé return to teach in Israel?
Debonnaire, the creep is creepier than you are making him but I don't agree with your disparaging him for having been the defense lawyer of people you dislike; they had rights to a lawyer and they picked the creep. It was his job to defend them. This doesn't make him any less creepier for the garbage he spews but you can't fault him for having accepted the job of defending indicted people.
Steve, are you opening a parenthesis on Ralph Nader?
Dershowitz said with a wag of his finger, "welcome to Israel! Where everyone has a right to express their opinion!"
When Dersh said “everyone”, what he really meant was “80% of Israeli citizens”. (Avi)
Avi, even among those privileged 80%, they can express their opinion only if it's pro-Zionist Israel. Shlomo Sand and friends although Jewish would be automatically excluded.
"Dershowitz's call for students to undermine professors they disagree with and report their classroom behavior to outside political watchdogs (with assistance from partisan operatives like himself)"
... like what happened a year ago with Professor William Robinson that was reported by a couple of his students for having broadcast an e-mail to his class comparing what Israel did to Gaza with the holocaust and saying Israelis were like the Nazis.
Bigmouth is in fact asking the TAU students to become Campus Watchdogs for him to shadow Sand & Co and make their lives a living hell.
I read the same message as lobewyper. It was all about the little sliver of land with people already at a great risk from the barbarians at the gate needing security assurances with every concession that has to be made along the very long road to achieving full security.
Why doesn't Israel simply allow the US to set up a massive military base there? There is probably no greater security for Israel than that.
This isn't Mondoweiss, this is the Twilight Zone.
Richard, you are reinforcing my doubts. The American taxpayers are annually dishing out a billion to Israel and almost another billion to Jordan for having made peace with each other when they were never at a serious state of war. Jordan too has some restless natives of its own and maybe the king is powerless to stop the boycott. Over 70% of Jordanians have roots in Palestine and probably don't give a damn about the deals with Israel.
TGIA, can't help thinking there is something fishy in this. Without thinking badly of Jordanians that are beautiful people, the past history of collusion between the Hachemites and the Zionists make me suspicious. Maybe this Jordanian king is for real but I love the idea and I hope nothing stops it from happening and succeeding.
No Richard, yopu wouldn't accept blaming anyone else but the Arabs for what happened to the Jews, Haj Husseini and all because this is what you have been indoctrinated to think. If you want to take it back further than the single Farhud incident you are now hanging on to, we can go back to the 1890s and the first mention of the plan to rid Palestine of its Arab inhabitants to make it exclusively Jewish and they weren't using the Biblical gimmick back then either. Before your mother-in-law was sheltered by the Hungarian family, the Arabs in Hebron had sheltered 75% of Hebron's Jews when the riots broke out there and the Arab king of Morocco had sheltered the whole Jewish community from the Nazis. I already mentioned that the number of Jews in Lebanon actually increased after the 48 war broke out and continued increasing over the next 20 years.
Of course things weren't always sugar'n'spice between Arabs and Jews everywhere but this is a natural thing. Today you have differences between Jews and Jews in Israel too.
Arabs don't hate Jews, they just hate thieving and murdering Zionists. Show me one that isn't and I'll respect him like I do other Jews.
Sorry I omitted that the LRB also coverd a second book:
Baghdad, Yesterday: The Making of an Arab Jew by Sasson Somekh
Ibis, 186 pp, £9.50, November 2007, ISBN 978 965 90125 8 9
Here are bits and pieces from the review covering Somekh's book some of which clearly describe that the Iraqi Jews were not expelled but had been yanked out by Israel:
-The freezing of Palestinian assets by the Israeli government and the arrival in Iraq of eight thousand Palestinian refugees in the summer of 1948 did nothing to calm things. Responding to a wave of popular anger, the Iraqi government declared Zionism a capital offence, fired Jews in government positions and, invoking Stalin’s support of partition, found another pretext to round up Communists of all sects.
-Mossad’s objective was not to improve the position of the Jews in Iraq, but to hasten their departure. Pamphlets appeared discouraging Jews from mixing with Arabs, and arguing that any attempt to do so ‘leads to butchery’.
-The Israeli government circulated stories about Iraqi ‘pogroms’ and ‘concentration camps’ and denounced the hanging of seven Jews charged with Zionist activism in March 1949 – executions that Mossad’s own agents in Baghdad insisted had never occurred. Unless Iraqi Jews were allowed to emigrate, Israel warned, it would back armed resistance to al-Said’s government, or find itself unable to prevent Iraqi Jews already in Israel from killing Palestinians in revenge. The Israelis also began to promote the idea of a ‘sorting out’ of populations, involving a swap of Iraqi Jews for an equal number of Palestinian refugees, an idea quietly encouraged by the Foreign Office
-‘Why didn’t someone come to see us instead of negotiating with Israel to take in Iraqi Jews?’ the chief rabbi of Baghdad, Sasson Khedourie, wondered. ‘Why didn’t someone point out that the solid, responsible leadership of Iraqi Jews believed this to be their country – in good times and bad – and we were convinced the trouble would pass?’ Iraq’s Jews, who had tended to wait for trouble to pass, had to be pushed into leaving. And pushed they were, in a series of attacks which began with the Abu Nawas bombing in April 1950 and resumed in 1951, as the deadline to register to leave Iraq approached. It’s long been rumoured – and many Iraqi Jews fiercely believe it – that Israeli agents orchestrated these bombings in order to drive the Jews to emigrate, though there is no proof of Mossad’s responsibility, or of anyone else’s.
-Somekh flew to Israel on 21 March 1951 with two hundred other Jews. Their ‘exile’ had ended, but he ‘saw no one kneeling down to kiss the sacred ground’. Before they could leave the plane, passengers were told to remain seated while a man sprayed them with DDT – a greeting none of them forgot. They landed in Lydda, where, on 13 July 1948, Israeli forces led by Yitzhak Rabin had driven more than thirty thousand Palestinians from their homes in one of the largest, most brutal expulsions of the war. Scores of refugees from Lydda and the neighbouring town of Ramleh died of hunger and thirst on the forced march eastwards to Ramallah. The towns were looted afterwards, their homes occupied: scenes with which the Jews who remembered the farhud were all too familiar.
-Somekh was temporarily held at an absorption camp on the coast near Haifa, while immigration officials decided which transit camp he would be sent to – a process known as siddur. He hated the word, since it ‘sounded very much like the Arabic tasdir, which means “the exporting of goods”. We angrily protested the fact that overnight we had been transformed from people into goods, imported and exported by Yiddish-speaking clerks.’ The transit camps were open-air holding centres with tents made of corrugated tin: ‘We lived in palaces and they put us in tents,’ the novelist Samir Nakkash recalls in Forget Baghdad, an arresting documentary about Iraqi-Jewish writers in Israel. But it wasn’t the conditions that caused the Iraqi Jews to despair so much as the denigration of their culture in Ashkenazi-dominated Israel. That Abraham and Jonah had lived in Mesopotamia was irrelevant to Ben-Gurion: ‘we don’t want Israelis to become Arabs,’ he said with his usual bluntness, and the Iraqi Jews were dangerously close to being Arabs in Israel.
Richard, you insist on staying bogged and fogged in the Farhud that you seem to think account for most of those 1000 straws. Here's a bit on it from another viewpoint, taken from the London Review linked above; it should be clear to you that although the violence against the Jews was committed by the Iraqi Arabs, the strings were being pulled by the British and this is the second opinion saying practically the same thing but if you are still not convinced, I'll provide more:
The British invasion, however, led to the worst assault on Jewish life and property in the history of Iraq, the farhud (‘breakdown of law and order’) of June 1941. Despite threats from al-Gailani’s supporters that the Jews would be punished for ‘treason’, the British refused to secure the capital. ‘There will be many people killed if our troops do not enter,’ one intelligence officer warned, but Cornwallis ordered British soldiers to remain on the outskirts of Baghdad when the regent returned. The presence of British bayonets, he argued, would be ‘lowering to the dignity of our ally’. To preserve the fiction that Britain had not so much occupied Iraq as restored its legitimate government, defeated but fully armed Golden Square soldiers were permitted to enter Baghdad, singly rather than in formation. It was 1 June, the Jewish holiday of Shavuot.
As these soldiers crossed the Khir Bridge to the western side of Baghdad that morning, they passed small groups of Jews walking in the opposite direction after prayer services to welcome the regent. They were furious to see the Jews in all their finery, and since it was Sunday, not the Jewish Sabbath, they assumed they had dressed up for the regent. The Jews were set upon, first with fists, then knives. The farhud continued for two days, an orgy of murder, rape and arson that left two hundred Jews and a number of Muslims dead. Most Jews hid in their basements; some, like Shamash’s family, were given shelter by Muslim neighbours. No help came from the British, who remained on the right bank of the Tigris, out of respect for Iraqi sovereignty
Richard, it wasn't only one bombing that spooked the Jews in Baghdad but 6.
I wish you'd read how the Farhud was made to happen and not just its end results. Naeim Giladi who was there at the time wrote:
...Who was behind the rioting in the Jewish quarter?
Yosef Meir, one of the most prominent activists in the Zionist underground movement in Iraq, known then as Yehoshafat, claims it was the British. Meir, who now works for the Israeli Defense Ministry, argues that, in order to make it appear that the regent was returning as the savior who would reestablish law and order, the British stirred up the riots against the most vulnerable and visible segment in the city, the Jews. And, not surprisingly, the riots ended as soon as the regent's loyal soldiers entered the capital.
My own investigations as a journalist lead me to believe Meir is correct. Furthermore, I think his claims should be seen as based on documents in the archives of the Israeli Defense Ministry, the agency that published his book. Yet, even before his book came out, I had independent confirmation from a man I met in Iran in the late Forties.
...Today there is no doubt in my mind that the anti-Jewish riots of 1941 were orchestrated by the British for geopolitical ends. David Kimche is certainly a man who was in a position to know the truth, and he has spoken publicly about British culpability. Kimche had been with British Intelligence during WW II and with the Mossad after the war. Later he became Director General of Israel's Foreign Ministry, the position he held in 1982 when he addressed a forum at the British Institute for International Affairs in London.
link to bintjbeil.com
Richard, the best word to describe the root of the problem, is "Israel".
Richard, you seem interested in the history of the Jews of Iraq but you are reading from sources that aren't telling you the full story of what happened. There was collusion between the Zionists (as usual) and some Iraqi government officials to help with the emptying of the Jews from Iraq. There was some of TGIA's "cui bono" in this story. Here is a short piece from a very comprehensive recounting to what happened:
... the Iraqi government had passed the Denaturalisation Act, which allowed Jews to emigrate provided they renounced their citizenship, and gave them a year to decide whether to do so. Al-Suwaida (Iraq's Prime Minister) expected that between seven and ten thousand Jews would leave out of a community of about 125,000, but a mysterious bombing in Baghdad on the last day of Passover, near a café frequented by Jews, caused panic, and the numbers registering soon outstripped his estimate. The position of the Jews in Iraq had been deteriorating with alarming speed ever since the outbreak of the Arab-Israeli war in 1948: they were seen as a stalking horse for the Zionists in Palestine, and were increasingly rewarded for their expressions of loyalty to Iraq with suspicion, threats and arbitrary physical assaults. By the spring of 1950 the question was when, not whether to leave, and on 9 May NEAT (Near East Air Transport) signed a contract with the Iraqi government to organise their departure.
For Richard Armstrong and NEAT, the uprooting of the Middle East’s most ancient Jewish community was not a mere business transaction: it was a mission. Armstrong was really Shlomo (né Selim) Hillel, an Iraqi-born Mossad agent; NEAT was secretly owned by the Jewish Agency; and Israel, not Cyprus, was the refugees’ ultimate destination. It’s unlikely that al-Suwaida and the minister of the interior, Saleh Jabr, were fooled. Hillel claimed to be the ‘swarthy-skinned son’ of a British colonial official who’d worked in India, but he didn’t look much like an Armstrong. And he’d been arrested a few years earlier in Baghdad, where, under the alias Fuad Salah, he’d been training Zionist militants in attics and cellars. But if the Iraqis knew who he was, they didn’t call his bluff: they owned shares in the tourism agency in Baghdad through which NEAT had chosen to operate, and stood to benefit from the deal. ‘We parted on the most cordial terms,’ Hillel remembered in his memoir, Operation Babylon. By the end of 1952, almost all of Iraq’s Jews had fled, in what Mossad called Operation Ezekiel and Nehemiah.
For Adam Shatz' full book review of Memories of Eden: A Journey through Jewish Baghdad by Violette Shamash:
link to lrb.co.uk
Richard, it wasn't Naziism that happened. The article that you posted said it was all about Zionists and it was the implication of the Zionists that spoiled it for the Iraqi Jews.
From the article you posted (Magic Carpet), the game wasn't really so much about goosing up the number of Jews to fill the void left by the expelled Palestinians as much as it was about laying the foundation for an offsetting claim that would eventually arise by the expelled 700,000 Palestinians and as aburd as it sounds, it seems to have gelled in the minds of most Jews. Even if the claim that they were expelled by the 10 or so Arab countries was right, what is there to justify the Jews saying that the Palestinians alone should be made to pay for it? Of course, some Jews were unjustly expelled and their properties were confiscated but these would have a valid claim against specific countries like Egypt, Yemen and so on but not against the Palestinians. Palistinians had nothing to do with Jews being expelled from Egypt or Yemen. It's as you said about keeping us busy on the defensive dodging all these absurdities being thrown out.
I'm for Jews making claims about having been expelled and having had property confictaed by Arab countries but the Zionists are adamantly against such actions as it undermines the counterclaim they have in store to offset similar claims by the Palestinians against Israel. It's odd though that in 2004 and contrary to what appears as Zionist policy, the American government had a hand with the drafting of claims procedures by the 100,000 Iraqi Jews for eventual compensation by the Iraqi government and I'm wondering if the US would be as helpful in helping the Palestinians in the same way. The Iraqi Property Claim Commission had offices in 10 US cities:
link to en.wikisource.org
Sumud, back on March 28th, you and TGIA went through the same exercise trying to convince Yonira about Jews having bombed other Jews and got the same silence in return; it contradicts the folklore of all the Jews having been expelled from Arab countries. In Lebanon after the 48 war, the Jewish population actually increased and continued increasing until the late sixties. Most of the Lebanese Jews left for Europe and the Americas at the same time as other Lebanese were leaving for better economic opportunities elsewhere. A large number of Jews left after the Israeli shelling of the Magen Avraham synagogue in 1982 in a repeat of what you wrote about having happened in Baghdad to spook the Jews into fleeing. What is special about the Jews of Lebanon is that in addition to having contributed money to the war effort against the Zionists in 48, those that eventually left held their noses at Israel. In Tunisia, 8 years after the 48 war, there were still over 50,000 Jews in Tunisia and at Tunisia's independence, they were offered French or Israeli citizenship and only half took the Israeli one. Yehouda Shenhav also wrote that the Zionist claim of Jews having been all expelled from Arab countries at Israel's creation was bogus.
About the synagogue in Beirut, the full restoration will be completed in a few months:
link to facebook.com!
Hi droog, good to see you too; more of an escapee than a refugee.
PG, wrong link to the Arnon Soffer famous words although the link is to another excellent article about the Zionist collaboration with the rogue apartheid regime of South Africa. The quote is from his in his interview with Ruthie Blum and reported by Paul de Rooij in CounterPunch in his article "The Carnivores and the Ivy League Apologist: The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers. It was a good article, one in which it's described how Dershowitz told the annual gathering to improve the efficiency of vanishing the Palestinians at Herzliya to disregard any international law that is not favourable to Israel; words of wisdom from big mouth.
link to counterpunch.org
"Hamas Foreign Minister “Zahar:”After we defeat the Zionists we will persecute them… we will persecute them to eternity " (from Shamir's list of quotes)
The guy lost 2 sons in their fight to liberate their land from the Israeli occupiers; what did you expect him to say after his people had been persecuted for over 70 years? You have to put your quotes in context. He is also reported to have said during a television broadcast that the Israelis "have legitimised the murder of their own children by killing the children of Palestine... They have legitimised the killing of their people all over the world by killing our people."
I suppose that your notes only include the part where he mentions something about the legitimity of killing Israeli children.
PG, they have all the looks and all the motions and all that is missing is the goose step. Maybe they do it en cachette.
About Nasrallah's quotation that every Zionist has stuck to because it feeds their paranoia, you should know that political leaders say such rah rah rah things at rallies to pep up the faithful. If it wouldn't have been for Nasrallah keeping the peace, Israel today would have been a much different place. He also made other speeches that Zionists did not bother put in their hasbara book such as his telling the flock that Hizbullah had no intention of trying to liberate Palestine from the Zionists. You guys should light a candle every night for Nasrallah to stay alive because you wouldn't want to have to deal with the second in command, the one with the white turban.
RW, I'm well aware of the 2000 elections and the dangling chads and the Supreme Court decision. Do you feel the Americans deserve accolades because they didn't riot in the streets because of it? Were they expected to? I seem to have more respect for America and Americans than you do.
Shamir, the Arabs could have had 42 countries and these may or may not have stolen them from their rightful owners but what has this to do with Jews stealing the land from whatever you would like to call the inhabitants and rightful owners of what was known as geographical Palestine? Referring to places by folkloric Biblical names like Judea and Samaria will never justify the theft of Palestine by the Jews.
As to your other post about PA religious leaders calling for the killing of Jews, these guys are big talkers. Compare the number of Jews killed to the number of Palestinians killed. In Lebanon, Israel has killed over 20,000 civilians over the years and how many Israeli civilians have been killed by Lebanese people? I'm just sticking with Israelis as thieves for now, don't get me started on Israelis as killers. If you want, I can tell you about "Little Auschwitz" that was opened and operated by Israel at Ansar in south Lebanon or that other Israeli concentration camp at Khiam. When we make parallels between Israelis and the Nazis, we can back them up with facts.
What are you trying to say about Bush, Richard?
Eva, Israel is already there and is already on number 8 on denial. Maybe the scope of the mass killings (number 7) by Israel is debatable though but it's not for lack of trying as we saw in Gaza last year and in 2006 with the raining of white phosphorus over civilians and on Lebanon in 2006. Israel doesn't need a single Hitler; it has a lots of little Hitlers but they go by different names like Netanyahu, Peres, Rabin, Sharon, Shamir, Begin, etc. All of these had one thing or another to do with your 8 points including Lieberman that is trying hard to make the list.
Avi, there is no weaning off of anyone that does not want to be weaned off. There is nothing to doubt of the Zionists' pre-48 ultimate goal of total theft. Any talk of the shifting goal post by Israel is window dressing; nothing has shifted in the master plan since 48. Since 2002, the Arabs including the Palestinians formally agreed to let Israel keep what it had up to the 67 lines and now they are accepting even less under some face-saving land swaps since most of the half million squatters in the illegal settlements aren't going anywhere; the Zionists still want all of it. What the Arabs keep getting in return from Israel is the finger. It's as eee and Richard said, a fact of life that Palestinians have to live with. Likewise, eee & company are going to have to live with another fact of life that will have the Jews demographically drowned in a sea of Palestinians and no matter how many walls they build, how many people they massacre or how many apartheid laws they enact, they cannot vanish the totality of the 6 million Palestinians from their faces. They would need a Hitler of their own to get permanently rid of those 6 millions.
eee, no. I don't like either of them and while we're at it, the guy's name is Khaled, not haled and his organization is called Hamas, not Khamas. Do you say Sheraton Hotel or Sheraton Khotel?
Yes, Mark, that guy was very very sharp and there was also a very fluent in English lady lawyer that worked with him. They both were excellent but we haven't seen them in years. Today we're stuck with the Erakats and the guys that look like pirates without the eye patch. This doesn't help the Palestinians at all especially with Israeli PR that tries to make them look like vermin.
TGIA, yes, that lady major replaced the cocker spaniel-eyed Marc Regev that made you cry with his explanations on how sad Israelis were in having had to do what they did.
Chaos, about the "papers please", this isn't from yesterday or the Arizona law but it goes back 3 years; Arizona is just the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure you knew about it and it must have slipped your mind about the super hush-hush security agreement that was signed between the Israel and the US with a lot of mumbo-jumbo that can be reduced to profiling of passengers at major US airports by Israeli security people. Of courswe, Israel isn't at these airports to help the US with its Mexican problems. Here's is a short summary of it:
link to mops.gov.il
A year later, a similar agreement was also signed hush-hush with the Canadian government to do likewise ad there too, the Canadians did not get into this agreement to have Israel help them with the Haitians. There is more mentioned in the Canadian agreement and it describes how Cheney, Chertoff and these people had a hand in both agreements:
link to globalresearch.ca
And now, Israel has an even newer joint deal with the Americans:
link to dhs.gov
All this to say that the Arizona thing has the hand of Israel written all over it and very much the same manner that Israel trained the Americans in Iraq in house-to-house searches using human shields.