Thread: Resolution 242; What it REALLY means

Israel must vacate the stolen occupied Palestinian territories and recognise the soverighn nation of Palestine - as did everyone else when Israel was formed in the 1940's

UN CHARTER - One nation cannot gain land via military conquest.

What the hell is the IDF doing in the Occupied territories>?

Why is it building Illegal walls on land which os not owned by Israel?

GOD IS WATCHING THE CHOSEN PEOPLE very carefully at the moment.

BEWARE!

Originally Posted by i.beletesri

That and the promise of the British Administrators/conquerors and the World's only Legal body at the Time.. League of Nations.
And not to forget.. there was the 1919 Agreement OF THE Head of The Arabs.

Thanks for the reply Beletesri. So in addition to the owning of real estate, you add to your main reasons for viewing the creation of the State of Israel as just, the British promise, the Weizmann-Hussein dialogue, and the League of nations. Let’s take them one by one.

Which British promise, Beletesri? The earliest one of significance in this context was made by Sir Henry McMahon, the most senior British diplomat in the Middle East to Faisal bin Hussein in October 1915. Here is the core text of his promise:

“The districts of Mersin and Alexandretta, and portions of Syria lying to the west of the districts of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo, cannot be said to be purely Arab, and must on that account be excepted from the proposed delimitation. Subject to that modification, and without prejudice to the treaties concluded between us and certain Arab Chiefs, we accept that delimitation. As for the regions lying within the proposed frontiers, in which Great Britain is free to act without detriment to interests of her ally France, I am authorized to give you the following pledges on behalf of the Government of Great Britain, and to reply as follows to your note: That subject to the modifications stated above, Great Britain is prepared to recognize and uphold the independence of the Arabs in all the regions lying within the frontiers proposed by the Sharif of Mecca.”

So in October 1915 Britain promised independence to Arabs in all regions proposed by Hussein, with certain exclusions. These exclusions included areas of Turkey and Syria west of Damascus, i.e. nothing to do with current day Israel or the Palestinian territories; brilliantly clear, right? The Arabs were promised independence of Israel/Transjordan, well before the promise more than 2 years later to the Zionists.

But let us look at the promise to the Zionists, that is, the Balfour Declaration of November 1917, a letter from Arthur James Balfour to Lord (Walter) Rothschild, leader of the British Jewish community which was classified, meaning of restricted access. Here it is in its entirity – one of your four cornerstones of validity for the State of Israel:

“I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country".
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.”

He promised them a national home for the Jewish people, it being the clear understanding that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.

So what is this? Were the British being two-faced, and why? The Brits might say that they werent being two-faced since the two promises were mutually compatible. How? Well they had promised the Arabs independence in the disputed 1948 area of Transjordan/Palestine, and they had promised the Jews a national home. What a crock of nonsense. It must have been clear that the Zionists would take this to mean independence, as you clearly do Beletesri. And of course, the Arabs say “You promised us first.” And the Zionists ignor that fact, blowing up the importance of the vague wording of Balfour versus the rather precise wording of McMahon, and ignorring the part saying “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done to prejudice the civil rights …. of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

And this is your second cornerstone proving the validity of the State of Israel. Excuse me if I reject it out of hand. May I also remind you that in Winston Churchill’s 1922 White Paper he denies strongly that a Jewish state would be the eventual outcome.

Forget about the October 1919 Weizmann-Faisal Agreement – that was clearly a desperate measure by Faisal Hussein four years later when he got to know of the classified Balfour agreement and the “secret “ Sykes-Picot Agreement which also shafted the Arabs. Even so, did the Zionists get independence within the next few years? You bet they didn’t because the Brits had never promised it – read Balfour and Churchill again.

So why did the Brits start to mess with the Arabs who revolted against the Ottoman empire (remember Lawrence of Arabia?) on the basis of the McMahon upholding of Arab independence in the area where Israel now exists? One theory has it that during WW I the British wanted access to the process to make cordite, a new explosive at that time, and the knowledge was in the hands of …. Guess who … the same Mr. Weizmann. Are the pieces of the Britsh duplicity starting to fall?

So your second underpinning justification is, at best, highly fragile. Let me put it this way, Beletesri, if I have difficulty swallowing these mechanations, guess what the Arabs thought of them, and still do.

On to your third keystone, the League of Nations. Just one short question. When was the League of Nations EVER given a right to change or make new International Boundaries, especially to give a peoples ancestral home to a foreign group? Where did the lesser member states ever vote to have such a right included in the constitution of the League? It is a very emotive reasoning, so I will leave it at that.

So why did the British throw in the towel in 1947? Think perhaps Rooseveld and the potential Jewish support for the USA entering WW II. Think collective Western guilt over the Holocaust. There was an even more fundamental reason - Britain's huge war debt and the only way out of it was to get a US loan, and to get that - to sell out the Palestinial Fellahs. Nice hey? Fair? Just? Legal - only just. Acceptable? Depends whether it is your house into which the settlers moved without you even having been consulted, or if you are one of the settlers or their supporters.

I repeat, weren't the Fellahs already shafted enough up to 1948? Well, the shafting certainly didnt stop there, but that is not within the context of the topic - Creation of Israel - that Beletesri insisted on.

My next posting will revert to thie thread topic - UNSC 242 and what it really means.

Originally Posted by Lackluster

There is certainly nothing to argue with there. I just don't really think Palestinian fecundity (which continues at extremely high levels to this day) is really the issue. One people's ability to procraete themselves into a position of numerical superiority vis a vis another has no bearing when discussing the morality and ethics of any situation. I realize this particular subthread has to do with matters pertinant to demographics, but this seems an unintentional diversion to me.

At the advent of Zionism, there were more Arabs than Jews living in the area called Palestine. THis is certainly undisputed fact. Since there were no people called Palestinians then, however, the demographic issue is between Jewish and Arab, and this is an important fact to remember. As more Jewish people moved into the area and provided economic stimulus, SOME additional Arabs moved into the region, and as you have stated, they procreated at high levels and as the infant mortality rate dropped, their population increased. This is true for both those who were already there and those who moved in.

Arabs (by culture) and Jews are both native to this region, and todays populations reflect similar characteristics, both to each other and to the amount of non "pure" blood in each population. Even as people like to characterize jews as "European", the amount of European blood in Jewish Israelis is little different than the non "palestinian" (as they have been called for the last several decades) blood is in the local Arabs.

The real issue people should be discussing is the status of Arab vrs Jew in the time frame between the 1880s and 1950s. What happened to the populations? How and why did people move from one area to another? What are the causes for antagonism, and how was this antagonism agitated from beyond the region? How did the major powers affect the outcome? There are so many questions to ask BESIDES the minutia of who was there and who wasn't that to fail to address these other issues is to fail to grasp the situation.

In, say, the 1930s to 1940s, there were close to a million Jews living in Arab lands who aren't there any more. There were also close to 700,000 Arabs living within what is now Israel who aren't there any more. There has been a winnowing of populations, but grievances remain, and until one understands the nature of those grievances, and unless one applies the same moral standards to one group as they do the other, I doubt there can be any really meaningful dialogue.

thanks for a great reply. I will endevour to follow this up within the next day or so.

Originally Posted by i.beletesri

It certainly IS true..(that the Zionists are peacelovers who never took anything from anyone) unless you'd like to document Arab attempts at Peace and recognition from 1948 to 2003 the 'Saudi Peace Plan'. LOL

Note despite tons of BS there is Still no rebuttal to my statement (despite quoting it and promising an answer with more time) about where the vast majority of the Refugees came from... and that would be the Arab-Started War in 1948, NOT the partition, Resolution 181 which created Israel.

Will there be anything else?

Oh you bet, there is a lot more. I would like to break your response up into three issues to make it more manageable. [And yes, I did notice your weaseling about your statement that the Arabs got 99% of the Ottoman empire]

1) That the Zionists are peace lovers who never took anything from anyone
2) That the Arabs were responsible for the Palestinian refugees because they started the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and
3) The challenge that I document Arab attempts at peace since 1948

I will leave issues 2 and 3 for a later date.

Issue 1): This is rather boring since it has been done many times before, especially by Ashley. The Zionists worked from the late-19th century to achieve a Jewish homeland, and increasingly came to hold that this state should be in their historic homeland, in “the promised land” of 2000 years ago; in Palestine a territory that was occupied by another people.

They created socialist centres that excluded the local inhabitants – true colonialist actions – not at all friendly or demonstrating a peace-loving nature. These centres created defence infrastructure, which might be understandable, but was being done in a Mandate for the original inhabitants. This was clearly viewed as an aggressive move – “you come into my house and you carry guns?” They put the British under pressure using means unavailable to the Palestinian Fellah to allow further accelerated immigration into the British Mandate, which was absolutely against the McMahon undertaking. These were NOT friendly peace loving actions. In fact they were the direct cause of the 1929 Arab revolt.

The Arabs in the region opposed the idea of turning part of Palestine into a Jewish state, objecting to any form of Jewish homeland. This was the source of much of the Palestinian and Arab resentment against the British government and Jewish immigrants in Palestine. It was a very natural reaction by a people who had lived on and used the land for thousands of years, but had always been subjects of an occupier. Just when a major power had made them a promise that seemed to provide an end to this situation, the promise proved to be only partially fullfilled. In response the British government issued a white paper that placed restrictions on Jewish immigration and Jewish land purchases in the remaining land in an attempt to limit the socio-political damage already done. By now the McMahon promise had deteriorated into a debate about who should get how much of the British Mandate. The Arabs were incensed. The Mandate holder had sold them out.

Let’s move on from these barefaced attempts to acquire another people’s ancestral grounds. But before we leave it, I ask you if you sincerely expect the Fellahs NOT to view these moves as acts of aggression and the very opposite of peace loving overtures?

Who or what was Lehi; the Stern gang? Why did the British authorities describe them as a terrorist organisation? Who assassinated Lord Moyne? Who assassinated the UN Mediator, Count Folke Bernadotte? Is the Lehi ribbon an Israeli military decoration? What is the Irgun that operated in Palestine between 1931 and 1948? Did they bring illegal immigrants into Palestine during the mandate? What did David Raziel of the Irgun mean by active defence? In case one rejects the Irgun as a marginal group, who was its leader from 1943 to 1948? Of significant importance, why did the Irgun step up its activities against the British in 1944? Who bombed the King David hotel killing 91 people? What role did documents relating to the Jewish Resistance Movement play in this bombing? Who used a car bomb to destroy the Goldschmidt House Officers Club in Jerusalem? Who hanged two British sergeants who were never guilty of any crime?

But by far worst of all, who killed 100+ villagers in the Deir Yassin massacre?

And what is the name of the organisation that the Irgun evolved into, and still exists prominently in Israel today?

And all of this happened during a mandate that promised the Arabs in 1915 “to recognize and uphold the independence of the Arabs in all the regions lying within the frontiers proposed by the Sharif of Mecca” and in 1917 “that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine.”

Do you insist that it is true that a bunch of terrorists as described above were peace loving and never tried to take anything from anyone.

I trust that it will not be necessary for me to answer the above questions. That would really waste my time. Can I assume that anyone researching those questions will have enough proof that the Zionists were anything but peace loving? Does that suffice as facts, Beletesri?

And is it now clear that the Zionists single-mindedly pursued their aim for over 50 years to aquire a Jewish homeland on ground that was the ancestral land of another people? And you say it is true that the Zionists never took anything from anyone. What sort of logic do you use?

*EDIT*

KlipKap:
1) On what precedents of International Law do you base this asssertion, namely that residence gives the right to new statehood?

i.beletesri
Well gee Klipkap.. there isn't much Intl Law on this at all.
So you intentionally pose a non-sequitor/fallacious/strawman question. Sleazy tactic.
Nonetheless...
Rarely has there been a 30 years promise, agreement of the Leader of the 'other side', Faisal, and finally a vote of the successor and yet a Second Intl Body, the UN!
How many States have that kind of legal underpinning?

You'll note in/BY his truncation of my quote there's NO Answer to how many states [Don't] have the legal underpinning that Israel does.

And he keeps repeating this non-sequitor... asking for 'precedents' for the divsion of Land of a Giant 400 year old Empire that was overturned at the ONLY the dawn of Internationalism, the League of Nations!...
As if a lack of answer would be a win for him. A 'strawman' I called it but answered it anyway.
The First underpinning... or should we say Second underpinning since he himself concedes RESIDENCE!
A Giant precursor and reason in and of Itself. thanks.

Then there was HIS #2:

KlipKap 2) Even if we were to accept your thesis (which I dont due to the total lack of supporting facts, contrary to your mantra that you have supplied them in more than sufficiency to prove your case) in which of the Ottoman administrative units were the Jews in the majority?

i'Beleetesri
Just One as previously documented.
But as also previously documented, 2/3 of what became Israel was State Land, passing from the Ottomans to the British to The Jews.
Taking care, in fact, to give Israel the sparsest most Arid Parts, including the HALF of that country that is the Negev Desert.. again, owned by No Arab.

Nope, #2 Not dealt with at all.
This part of HIS Numbered series.. also now OVER.

Then there was His own #3!

KlipKap
3) Why were they given a Vast amount of territory greater that their "majority" territory?

i.beletesri
Not 'Vast' in any sense. Less than promised originally and again- the Crappiest parts.

Yes, # 3 now gone too.
I must say I've rarely heard anyone, sane or not, describe Tiny Israel as "Vast".

*EDIT*

I think a few 3-Woods could get you across most of "Vast" Israel except for the the Sparse Negev Sand Trap. LOL


Yes, I then moved on to HIS #4!

Klipkap: 4) Where do you get the statistic that the Arabs were given 99% of the Ottoman empire


i.beletesri
I Have already documented the Arabs got 87% of the British Mandate alone:
See my reply to Foolo here doing Just that:

http://www.politicalforum.com/middle...46-2000-a.html

Maybe you can do the math for the other few percent now? I hope?

Well you guessed it. He no longer has a challenge to that Either! And remember these were HIS Numbered points.


"Vast"..blah blah.



Then there was HIS 5 and 6:

Klipkap
5) What was the REAL legal basis for Israel's creation - the real source, not some acquired authority?
6) Did this source respect the promises made to the two parties in the current conflict?

i.beletesri
5, already covered above.
Israel was at least as legitimate as Capricious British creations such as Jordan and Iraq, and unlike them and others.. were voted on by a World Body.. the UN. (not to mention it's predecessor again) How many states have more legal underpinning than Israel? How about The USA?

So do we have any answers to my direct Specific/pinpoint rebuttal/CRUSHING of HIS numbered points?
NO.

Just more angry Ramblings and one more/ALMOST new point...lets call His #7.
7. ""That Arabs were promised states too in 1915.""
fine.
Well, as previously said and Unrebutted above- the Arabs got 99% of the Ottoman Empire and did indeed get all the states they were promised, including Jordan/Palestine1, 77% alone of the Mandate which was smaller than the Ottoman whole, and 'Palestine'/2, another 10%.
Israel was given 13% of the Mandate (about 1% of the Ott Empire), 2/3 of which was State Land, and about Half of which they already owned.

In fact. I'd say Arabs now rule about 110+% (guesstimate only) of pre-Ottoman their 'range', if you include real and large injustices like domain over Kurdistan and Other peoples. (none of which will get a string out of Klipkap)

My next post to deal with his next post, including a/nother Truncated and MISquotation of me.

KilpKap "Quoting"/Mis/short-quoting me
Originally Posted by i.beletesri:

It certainly IS true..((that the Zionists are peacelovers who never took anything from anyone)) unless you'd like to document Arab attempts at Peace and recognition from 1948 to 2003 the 'Saudi Peace Plan'. LOL

Note despite tons of BS there is Still no rebuttal to my statement (despite quoting it and promising an answer with more time) about where the vast majority of the Refugees came from... and that would be the Arab-Started War in 1948, NOT the partition, Resolution 181 which created Israel.

Will there be anything else?


Klipkap: Oh you bet, there is a lot more. I would like to break your response up into three issues to make it more manageable. [And yes, I did notice your weaseling about your statement that the Arabs got 99% of the Ottoman empire]

1) That the Zionists are peace lovers who never took anything from anyone
2) That the Arabs were responsible for the Palestinian refugees because they started the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and
3) The challenge that I document Arab attempts at peace since 1948

I will leave issues 2 and 3 for a later date.

You'll note HIS Added parenthetical precursor to my "quote" which I wasn't answering:

Namely: "((that the Zionists are peacelovers who never took anything from anyone))"

I WAS answering The Second part of his Premise HE LEAVES OFF!

klipkap: Given all of the above, where do I stand. Firstly, stop the Myths that try to show that the Zionists are pure law-respecting peace-loving people who only accepted what is rightfully theirs, both in 1948 and... with the Arabs never having made any serious effort to seek peaceful solutions to the conflict. That is simply not true.

It's the SECOND part which I said certainly IS true- that Arabs, until the 'Saudi Peace Plan' had indeed made NO real peace attempts until.

But indeed answering the First part now...

Israel had, just after the the 1967 War, offered all the Land back in exchange for mere Peace and recognition from the Arabs.
This was rejected by the Arab States Unanimously a month later/Aug '67 at the Khartoum Conference. (and more than just a BTW, thus 'occupation')
The above being the most Serious, but not lone, attempt by Israel/Zionists that comes to mind.


So that concludes 1-7 in my First post, and # 1 in his second post. (since he is dealing with his made up #2 and # 3 "At a later date")

fini.

Originally Posted by Lackluster

There is certainly nothing to argue with there. I just don't really think Palestinian fecundity (which continues at extremely high levels to this day) is really the issue. One people's ability to procraete themselves into a position of numerical superiority vis a vis another has no bearing when discussing the morality and ethics of any situation. I realize this particular subthread has to do with matters pertinant to demographics, but this seems an unintentional diversion to me.

I agree as regards to the thread topic. I wanted to reinforce that that the idea of imported arabs has been considered secondary to natural expansion, by mainstream and respected demographers for a long time, while i accept that it isn't the complete picture. there's a lot of political leverage to be had by either side in the exclusion of any one of the factors, be it Arabs saying that nobody Arab immigrated, or by Israelis arguing that the land was empty.
I feel no one is served by clinging to only the part of the equation which suits.
Unfortunately it is a recurring theme of a middle east forum to fight the battle for transparency over and over, while any one side re-iterates long-held ideas which don't bear scrutiny. I think I was mistaken in thinking you were taking that path, so the diversion was my fault..

At the advent of Zionism, there were more Arabs than Jews living in the area called Palestine. THis is certainly undisputed fact. Since there were no people called Palestinians then, however, the demographic issue is between Jewish and Arab, and this is an important fact to remember. As more Jewish people moved into the area and provided economic stimulus, SOME additional Arabs moved into the region, and as you have stated, they procreated at high levels and as the infant mortality rate dropped, their population increased. This is true for both those who were already there and those who moved in.

Agreed

Arabs (by culture) and Jews are both native to this region, and todays populations reflect similar characteristics, both to each other and to the amount of non "pure" blood in each population. Even as people like to characterize jews as "European", the amount of European blood in Jewish Israelis is little different than the non "palestinian" (as they have been called for the last several decades) blood is in the local Arabs.

There is no doubt of genetic continuity in my mind, and this is what for me constitutes the tragic nature of the whole region, however I am a firm believer that the Ashkenazi on the whole did appear different and bahave differently to native Jewish populations. I think they made fundamental colonial mistakes which a lot of countries have also made in their turn. Those for me are principally the exclusion of native labour where possible, particularly by the marxists. This marxism, mainly from the second aliya also was alien to what was a a conservative religious region. The ashkenazim in effect brought European skin, unfamiliar and segregationist philosophies, european style methods of fighting even, to a place that had remained a fairly consistent backwater for centuries.
I believe the arabs didn't know how to react to this massive change, and conflict was inevitable.
We can see in any place that immigration alone is a driver for conflicts just like this, in any corner of the world. Right now I think south Africans are killing immigrants with the same skin colour, religion and language as thenselves, purely on the basis of unemployment brought about by the situation.

The real issue people should be discussing is the status of Arab vrs Jew in the time frame between the 1880s and 1950s. What happened to the populations? How and why did people move from one area to another? What are the causes for antagonism, and how was this antagonism agitated from beyond the region? How did the major powers affect the outcome? There are so many questions to ask BESIDES the minutia of who was there and who wasn't that to fail to address these other issues is to fail to grasp the situation.

I will fall back on my above reasoning to reply to this, but I will add, that the Arab street has rarely been a good friend to palestinians. I think all sides accept this. It serves a lot of regimes to have the Palestinians in the position they are in. I think it's not quite as bad as it used to be but the trend is still there, to hold up the cause as a causus belli but do nothing constructive to fix the situation.
we have seen that palestinians don't fit in well in other countries nearby, but this is perfectly understandable and quantifiable if one accepts that they, by moving, pose exactly the same pressures on their neighbours as those that were applied to them. No country can absorb an influx of 1/2 a million or a million people for long. It's why they struggle in Jordan and lebanon, because they don't come from there.

In, say, the 1930s to 1940s, there were close to a million Jews living in Arab lands who aren't there any more. There were also close to 700,000 Arabs living within what is now Israel who aren't there any more. There has been a winnowing of populations, but grievances remain, and until one understands the nature of those grievances, and unless one applies the same moral standards to one group as they do the other, I doubt there can be any really meaningful dialogue.

I am a big fan of moral standards and law being universally applied. If an arab fires a rocket which kills an innocent Israeli, he should be tried and incarcerated, and if a tsahal soldier shoots an innocent Palestinian, they should receive exact like. I think the first step to universal law, is to bring people under that law. At the moment neither party is really accountable for their actions. In a practical reality right now, perpertrators of wrong run free on both sides, in spite of the protestations by either side to the contrary. we know this because we see it unfold.

The painful first step to law is for both sides to transform their environment. It won't do to wall in an entire people. it won't do to fire rockets. the problem is I see litlle honesty in either side. Israelis won't stop building settlements, and palestinians won't stop firing rockets.
There needs to be an honest arbiter but we have none. Both sides are trying to wait the other out to get more than they can realistically get if they make peace now. palestinians may never be able to roll back the push of the settlers, the settlers may never push out the people there.

I know this is off-topic but I have chosen to do so in an attempt to bring some order and honesty to this thread.

It is time to put Beletesri’s dishonest debating style to the sword. As an illustration of what I mean by this, I am going to provide my quote, his rebuttal, and then his conclusion of his glorious victory on a particular topic. I will leave it to the readers to conclude whether his claims to great debating victories are as disillusioned as I read them to be, but more importantly, whether his debating tactics make positive contributions or not. Here we go – not a single reference to the topic, namely the issue of “99% of Ottoman empire being given to the Arabs” has been omitted – honest Injun. It starts with the following statement by Mr B (Beletesri):

Mr B: Especially in light of the fact the Arabs were given 99% of the Ottoman Empire (Permalink #118 - 11th May)

Klipkap: 2) Where did you get the statistic that 99% of the Ottoman empire was given to the Arabs? Reference please. (Permalink #119 – 12th May)

Mr B: (dead silence to the question, although he loves berating other posters, Klipkap included, for not having responded to his challenges or analysis)

Klipkap: (repeating) 4) Where do you get the statistic that the Arabs were given 99% of the Ottoman empire? (permalink #149 – 18th May)

Mr B: I Have already documented the Arabs got 87% of the British Mandate alone (permalink #151 – 17th May) – a classic non sequitur (Mr B knows what that means; his spelling is just a bit iffy); also obfuscation – not replying, but pretending to by responding to a different topic.

Klipkap: [And yes, I did notice your weaselling about your statement that the Arabs got 99% of the Ottoman empire] (permalink #155 – 18th May)

Mr B: Yes, I then moved on to HIS #4! [See permalink # 149 above] Well you guessed it. He no longer has a challenge to that Either! And remember these were HIS Numbered points. (permalink #156 – 18th May) Isn’t that amazing? He seems to believe that we are swallowing the Mr B non sequiturs and obfuscations and that he is brilliantly cleaving us apart with his incisive rhetoric.

Mr B: Well, as previously said and Unrebutted above- the Arabs got 99% of the Ottoman Empire ….. (permalink #156 - 18th May)

Beletesri – let me save you any further embarrassment. The Turkish people are not Arabs.

But that only makes the style that you so often display even more irritating. You assign yourself victories even when you are in a deep pit.

May I congratulate both Akira and Lacklustre on well-reasoned positive contributions to Middle East understanding, all achieved without calling each other names or embarking on non sequitur rhetoric. I will strive to match you in my contributions.

Originally Posted by klipkap

Oh you bet, there is a lot more. I would like to break your response up into three issues to make it more manageable.

1) That the Zionists are peace lovers who never took anything from anyone
2) That the Arabs were responsible for the Palestinian refugees because they started the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and
3) The challenge that I document Arab attempts at peace since 1948

After having described the historical effects of the Zionist drive to create a Jewish state in Palestine, and the terrorist activities of Lehi and the Irgun in Permalink # 155, I would like to finish off Issue 1) with some extracts that describe the short period between UNSC resolution 181, the actual creation of the State of Israel, and the immediate aftermath.

These are Jews writing about atrocities committed against the Palestinian people and based mainly on Israeli Defence Force archives:

http://www.merip.org/mer/mer230/230_beinin.html
“On July 11, 1948, Aharon Cohen, director of the Arab Affairs Department of the socialist-Zionist Mapam party in Israel, received a carbon copy of a military intelligence report. Israel, a state less than two months old, was embroiled in a war with neighboring Arab states that would last until 1949. The document in Cohen’s hands analyzed the reasons for the flight of 240,000 Palestinian Arabs from areas which had been allocated to the Jewish state by the November 1947 UN partition plan and another 150,000 from the Jerusalem region and areas allocated to the Arab state. Cohen was upset to read the report’s conclusion that 70 percent of these Arabs had fled due to “direct, hostile Jewish operations against Arab settlements” by Zionist militias, or the “effect of our hostile operations on nearby (Arab) settlements.”

“Over the course of Arab-Jewish fighting between 1947 and 1949, well over 700,000 Palestinians were made refugees, the majority of them by direct expulsion or the fear of expulsion or massacre.”

“Some two dozen massacres of Palestinians were perpetrated by pre-state Zionist militias and Israeli forces, the most infamous of them on April 9-10, 1948, at the village of Deir Yassin.”

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan04/Ash0126.htm

Note that the works quoted below of Benny Morris are of a historian who recommends further ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, including those who are Israeli citizens. He is no wimpy anti-Zionist or pinkie liberal.

“Benny Morris is the Israeli historian most responsible for the vindication of the Palestinian narrative of 1948. The lives of about 700,000 people were shattered as they were driven from their homes by the Jewish militia (and, later, the Israeli army) between December 1947 and early 1950. Morris went through Israeli archives and wrote the day by day account of this expulsion, documenting every "ethnically cleansed" village and every recorded act of violence, and placing each in the context of the military goals and perceptions of the cleansers.”

“The new archival material, Morris reveals, records routine execution of civilians, twenty-four massacres, including one in Jaffa, and at least twelve cases of rape by military units, which Morris acknowledges are probably "the tip of the iceberg." Morris also says he found documents confirming the broader conclusions favored by his critics: the expulsion was pre-meditated; concrete expulsion orders were given in writing, some traceable directly to Ben Gurion.”

New York Times, May 11, 1997: “Moshe Dayan, the celebrated commander who, as Defense Minister in 1967, gave the order to conquer the Golan...[said] many of the firefights with the Syrians were deliberately provoked by Israel, and the kibbutz residents who pressed the Government to take the Golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland...[Dayan stated] ‘They didn’t even try to hide their greed for the land...We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn’t possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn’t shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance further, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot.
And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that’s how it was...The Syrians, on the fourth day of the war, were not a threat to us.’”

Beletesri maintaints that it is true that the Zionists are peace loving people who never took anything from anyone, or, at best, rejects my Zionist Myth that contains this wording.

Well Mr B, the IDF archives and Moshe Dayan contradict you.

End of issue 1)