"Israel never took someone else's land. There never was a Palestinian country, state or homeland, so there was nothing to take from anyone."

Just read it again. It is a classic case of a non-sequitur ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_sequitur_(absurdism) )

But besides the fact that the statement is illogical as proof of anything, much less that no-one was prejudiced or had anything taken from them by the creation of Israel, it is somehow seen to be a "truth" on this forum. Let us dig a deeper.

The implication is, as far as territory is concerned, that land only belongs to a cultural entity if it is a country, state or homeland. I vehemently disagree with part of this arrogant, no, obnoxiously irreverent view. It smacks of the most odious aspects of past colonialism.

It has all the sordid rejected ring to it of "Don't worry about taking that land for tea plantations, it just belongs to some wogs"; or "You can settle here on the Highveld; it is only populated by kaffirs"; or "No problem. These valleys only belong to a bunch of redskins".

And indeed in those days Darjeeling, the Transvaal or Ohio were not States. They were not a Countries. But were they homelands to some indigenous peoples? I say "Yes they were!!" and the fact that their sovereignty did not equate to that created by Europeans largely after the Rennaissance, or that the group did not necessarily have a unique language or religion, does not detract from them being someone's ancestral lands at all. Not one bit.

So to go back to the racist, imperialistic and outmoded, in fact, formally rejected, white colonialist ways as an argument for Israels justification for ethnic cleansing, strikes me as a slap in the face for modern democracy. But we will return to that topic in a subsequent Myth and site this case again.

And next, what history is there to suggest that the southern Levant of the "Holy Land" was not someone's ancestral lands, a very small minority being Jews, some being Christians, but the vast majority being what are today called Palestinians.

It was noboby's homeland. Rubbish!!!

klipklap Myth #3:
"Israel never took someone else's land. There never was a Palestinian country, state or homeland, so there was nothing to take from anyone."
Your Mythical inventions are rather convoluted.
You keep on insisting that these are "Zionist" Myths when, in fact, they are "klipklap" Myths.
Let's examine your convolutions...
As opposed to what nation state in the history of humanity?
You see, you have a rather severe logic train problem here. If you want to claim that Israel is unique in the history of mankind, in that people were dispossessed when Israel became a State, then that is obviously absurd.
However, pointing out that people have always become dispossessed when any nation on the planet first became a State, or even during the time that any nation on Earth was in the process of becoming a State, sometimes lasting hundreds or thousands of years; is simply a fact. It has nothing to do with "Zionist myths." It's a silly argument.
This is an indisputable fact. So?
Oh. So, in your logic train, unless your fictional Palestinians existed a priori, then the Arabs, who live in Israel; left Israel; or live elswhere who at one time lived in Israel, simply do not exist.
What?
Arabs are Arabs. Many lived in what is now Israel. Many left what is now Israel.
Today, many folk call some of these Arabs, Palestinians.
Great!
However, these "Palestinians," as a "people," did not exist before the creation of the State of Israel. That's a fact.

__________________
"There is no way this winter is ever going to end as long as that groundhog keeps seeing his shadow.... He's got to be stopped. And I have to stop him."

You have mentioned this twice now Moishe, so each time you do again, I am going to show that you are just plain wrong, and as usual sucked the "fact" out of your thumb.

Let us do this one without further delay:
You yourself read that quote before Moishe. It was "our big thread". Remember ... it was the "now let's move on to the other big myth in JP5's post". You had just forgotten. Don't worry - it happens to most of us. I forgive you for saying I made it up.

Okay.
Except that you rather pointedly state your myths in your own terms.
These are your inventions.
Which is fine. Do you disagree with my response above?

__________________
"There is no way this winter is ever going to end as long as that groundhog keeps seeing his shadow.... He's got to be stopped. And I have to stop him."

The Zionist Myths that Klipkap has presented can be found on any board or forum where Israelis mentioned in variations but basically as Klipkap perports. But they do appear regularly as a point in debate. They are Zionist myths that are repeatedly refuted. Janglo Abu and yourself are regular contributors to the Zionist Myth bag.

And, as I continually point out, you have no apparent disagreement with my claims that you are simply inventing this weirdness.
I am refuting the "Myths" as y'all are stating them.
You claim that I am not understanding what you are trying to give over.
Fine.
Then change your language and present your mythology in the clear manner that you claim is easily refuted.
Because, thus far, your myths are nonsense.

__________________
"There is no way this winter is ever going to end as long as that groundhog keeps seeing his shadow.... He's got to be stopped. And I have to stop him."

You Moishe have never heard of the desolate land quote of Mark Twain used to justify the Setting up of Israel? “The land for people for a people with no land.” Never seen anything like that on any ME forum? Never seen the classic Golda quote about there being no Palestinians but her. I take it that every time you see quotes such as those you would say what? Maybe something like “How patently absurd.”

You are completely right in suggesting that it is weird, but the weirdness lies within the anti-Palestinian proponent of the empty land Myth. That the Arabs living there and really come from Arabia even when the Other carriers of the Cohen Modal Haplotype Y chromosome show that is not the case.

Critics of the theory point out that the Cohen Modal Haplotype has also been found in significant numbers in groups of non-Jews, notably Italians. However proponents of the theory are quick to explain these anomalies. They state that history records the migration of large numbers of Jewish slaves to Rome (what is now Italy), particularly in association with the building of the Colosseum.
However, the Cohen Haplotype has also been found among significant numbers of non-Jewish Arab and Kurdish populations. Although this too could be explained in part by miscegenation, assimilation, and conversions, there is an alternate possibility that the marker precedes all of these populations and is a precursor to some common ancestral group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y-chromosomal_Aaron

The bulk of the CMHg chromosomes were observed in J1 (53.0%) and J2 (43.2%), with a small portion falling outside of haplogroup J (3.8%). Members of the CMHg were observed throughout the world, with significant frequencies in various Arab populations: Oman (20.1%), Iraq (15.2%), Palestine (9.5%).

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2005/12...haplotype.html

The development of methodologies for defining population genetic structure has provided the ability to identify the major ethnic contributions in individual subjects in diverse populations. Using a genome-wide SNP panel we observe population structure in a diverse group of Europeans and European Americans. Under a variety of conditions and tests there is a consistent and reproducible distinction between "northern" and "southern" European population groups: most individual subjects with southern European ancestry (Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Greek) have >85% membership in the "south" population; and most northern, western, eastern and central Europeans have >90% in the "north" population group. Ashkenazi Jewish as well as Sephardic Jewish origin also showed >85% membership in the "south" population consistent with a later Mediterranean origin of these ethnic groups. Based on this work, we have developed a core set of informative SNP markers that can control for this partition in European population structure in a variety of clinical and genetic studies.

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/search/label/Ancestry

A sample of 526 Y chromosomes representing six Middle Eastern populations (Ashkenazi, Sephardic, and Kurdish Jews from Israel; Muslim Kurds; Muslim Arabs from Israel and the Palestinian Authority Area; and Bedouin from the Negev) was analyzed for 13 binary polymorphisms and six microsatellite loci. The investigation of the genetic relationship among three Jewish communities revealed that Kurdish and Sephardic Jews were indistinguishable from one another, whereas both differed slightly, yet significantly, from Ashkenazi Jews. The differences among Ashkenazim may be a result of low-level gene flow from European populations and/or genetic drift during isolation. Admixture between Kurdish Jews and their former Muslim host population in Kurdistan appeared to be negligible. In comparison with data available from other relevant populations in the region, Jews were found to be more closely related to groups in the north of the Fertile Crescent (Kurds, Turks, and Armenians) than to their Arab neighbors. The two haplogroups Eu 9 and Eu 10 constitute a major part of the Y chromosome pool in the analyzed sample. Our data suggest that Eu 9 originated in the northern part, and Eu 10 in the southern part of the Fertile Crescent. Genetic dating yielded estimates of the expansion of both haplogroups that cover the Neolithic period in the region. Palestinian Arabs and Bedouin differed from the other Middle Eastern populations studied here, mainly in specific high-frequency Eu 10 haplotypes not found in the non-Arab groups. These chromosomes might have been introduced through migrations from the Arabian Peninsula during the last two millennia. The present study contributes to the elucidation of the complex demographic history that shaped the present-day genetic landscape in the region.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q..._uids=11573163

The study of genes is very interesting.

Haplotypes constructed from Y-chromosome markers were used to trace the paternal origins of the Jewish Diaspora. A set of 18 biallelic polymorphisms was genotyped in 1,371 males from 29 populations, including 7 Jewish (Ashkenazi, Roman, North African, Kurdish, Near Eastern, Yemenite, and Ethiopian) and 16 non-Jewish groups from similar geographic locations. The Jewish populations were characterized by a diverse set of 13 haplotypes that were also present in non-Jewish populations from Africa, Asia, and Europe. A series of analyses was performed to address whether modern Jewish Y-chromosome diversity derives mainly from a common Middle Eastern source population or from admixture with neighboring non-Jewish populations during and after the Diaspora. Despite their long-term residence in different countries and isolation from one another, most Jewish populations were not significantly different from one another at the genetic level. Admixture estimates suggested low levels of European Y-chromosome gene flow into Ashkenazi and Roman Jewish communities. A multidimensional scaling plot placed six of the seven Jewish populations in a relatively tight cluster that was interspersed with Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations, including Palestinians and Syrians. Pairwise differentiation tests further indicated that these Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations were not statistically different. The results support the hypothesis that the paternal gene pools of Jewish communities from Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East descended from a common Middle Eastern ancestral population, and suggest that most Jewish communities have remained relatively isolated from neighboring non-Jewish communities during and after the Diaspora.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q..._uids=10801975

I wonder why the genetecists refer to Palestinian and Arabs and not just to one group?

As a matter of fact, I have heard of these quotes.
So Mark Twain and Golda Meir were Zionist Mythmakers? Is that your point?
And again, just to simply bore you to death, this rather obscure statements by these two people has to do with:
"Israel never took someone else's land. There never was a Palestinian country, state or homeland, so there was nothing to take from anyone." - How?
I really would suggest that if that is not the Myth you are attempting to explode that you make some sort of statement of Myth that you are attempting to explode.
And, the "Myth" quoted has exactly what to do with "empty land?"

Your genotype studies are interesting but appear, on the face of it, to be totally irrelevent.
Perhaps you could tie it together somehow?

__________________
"There is no way this winter is ever going to end as long as that groundhog keeps seeing his shadow.... He's got to be stopped. And I have to stop him."

MZ:

Ah, I could have known that the infamous Trouw quote was marching towards this thread with ill-deserved confidence. This quote, which is open to interpretation anyway, is bandied around by Palestinian-deniers the world over as some kind of "evidence". By the way, "Zahir Muhsein" gets about 553 results in Google, that's how famous he actually is...

So, lemmesee, so far we've got one quote in that highly reputable scholarly publication and one guy's word that the Palestinians are a Nazi fabrication. That don't impress me much...

Why don't you try this for size: on how early Zionists approached the 'Arab question'. Don't forget to read the references...

You and KL (and to some extent Greg and of course "Mr zero clue" (*)(*)(*)(*)enstein) are simply trying to fight a rearguard fight that was lost a long, long time ago. With no evidence apart from some hearsay and a few measly quotes, you're trying to uproot an enormous body of evidence that's been around since Zionism started to organise itself. Apart from some new arrivals in Israel (usually right-wing American Jews and quite a few Kahane supporters), some non-Israeli Jews (usually Americans too) and a plethora of non-Jewish "Israel Firsters", most of which are influenced by the "From Time Immemorial" school of "thought", no serious person accepts the 'empty Palestine' croc, or its derivative 'there are no Palestinians', as anything remotely near valid.

The whole 'there are no Palestinians' non-issue is very similar to any other conspiracy theory: a variety of sub-theories, often internally contradictory, gets called into life in a desperate attempt to prove something that simply isn't true.

MZ, it doesn't come as a surprise to me you also believe in this: after all you need a rationale to justify your expulsion fantasies. And what better excuse than to claim 'they don't really exist anyway'...

http://hearoisrael.blogspot.com/2006...om-within.html

No Myths here then??

Two Zionist Approaches to the ‘Arab Question’, 1891-1907 November 25, 2006
Posted by davidzarnett in Israeli History. trackback

During the early twentieth century, the ‘Arab Question’, although pressing and central for some, was only a secondary priority for most in the Zionist

http://davidzarnett.wordpress.com/20...ion-1897-1901/

This is a very good article on the empty land/ There is not such thing as a Palestinian syndrom/Myth although MZ calls it a conspirscy theory.

The use of Mark Twain and Golda's quotes are part of the Zionist Myth that there were no Palestinians and that the land was empty. The myth that The Palestinians only turned up because of the employment offered by the superior Jewish endeavours. "From Time Immemorial" by Joan Peters version of the population of Israel.

The quotes are normally used to prove the case for the above Zionist Myth No. 3. The Myth that Palestine was an empty land. The Myth that there were no people who became known as Palestinians. The Myth that there was no Palestinian government etc. etc. And that because of all the above Myths the Zionists had every right to take the Land and call it Israel.

The genotype studies were just to show that the people in Palestine have a lot of similarities and that just possibly every body in Palestine/Israel has as much right to the area. And beside you were getting confused with the thread that I was trying to give you something to focus on.

I was wondering out load as to why you joined the thread if you could not understand, or were feigning ignorance of, the direction of the thread???

'It was the Palestinians who made the desert bloom!'
Khalidi, Walid. Before Their Diaspora: A Photographic History of the Palestinians 1876-1948. Washington DC: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1991.

"Contrary to prevailing opinion in the Western world, the Palestinians were responsible for the bulk of agricultural production in the country during the British Mandate. By the end of the Mandate, the total land area under cultivation by Palestinian farmers (excluding citrus) was 5,484, 700 dunams (one dunum=one thousand square meters), and the area cultivated by Jewish farmers was 435,500 dunums. [1] With regard to desert cultivation, by 1935 The Palestinians were farming 2,109,234 dunams in the Negev, [2] whereas total Jewish landholdings in the Negev in 1946 did not exceed 21,000 dunams. Thus it was the Palestinians who made the desert bloom!" (page 125)

1. A Survey of Palestine: Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the Information of the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, 2 vols. and supp. (Jerusalem: Government of Palestine, 1946), 1:323.

2. The Area of Cultivable Land in Palestine (Jerusalem Jewish Agency, 1936), p. 13.

"Palestine was married to another."

Just because the early Zionists wanted Palestine did not make Palestine empty. Ignoring the problem did not bring a solution but only exacerbated the problem.

This myth is part of the "Arab immigration" myth of the Israelophiles and an extension "making the desert bloom" myth.

Modern public Hygiene methods brought in with the British mandate allowed the indigenous population to increase. The introduction of better farming techniques was introduced by the British to the Palestinians at agricultural colleges built by the British. The Jewish Kibbutz brought citriculture to the area but that had the downside of taking cereal crops out.