[wat0n]

I would ask for evidence if it were important, but you are welcome to explain the difference and provide the evidence of petition/ruling.

The quote includes the link to the ruling, but of course you won't know it's a judgment if you do not read it, not even the introduction.

Let's get this straight though because you are quite funny, 2 Israeli Arabs in 1995 go and ask to lease land to build a home, they are told that they cannot do that because they are not Jewish, they go the courts and they win the right to build their home in 2000, the court ruling which you hail as game-changing asked from the state to consider their application and whether to allow them or not. The State decided in 2007 to eventually allow these 2 people to build their house, in the same year the state reaffirmed the JNF discrimination laws. And you are trying to convince me and yourself that this state is not discriminatory?



After all it only took them 12 years to be allowed to rent something.

Firstly, no, the state did not reaffirm anything in 2007, the bill you mention was defeated and was never made law (because, yes, it was a change to already existing law).

Secondly, the case was rather long because 1) it had to go through lower courts before reaching the Supreme Court and 2) because it was a conflict that did not involve only the Ka'adan family and the State but several others including representatives from Katzir.

It only killed 2 little children and nobody else and these children died rightfully on your opinion because not everyone in the block died? This is getting really cringe-worthy.

They weren't targeted and a bomb that could fulfill the requirement of distinction was used.

Why not from Asia, or the planet or the universe? I mean when you cleanse people from one area and they move to another area, it's not like they left Asia, or this planet or even the universe. They still "here", just not where their houses used to be.

It's not even clear the houses were theirs to begin with, but in any event the total Arab population of Area C was not and has not been significantly reduced by the demolition of these allegedly illegal buildings (and indeed, often the same families just return and build them again, just to get them demolished once again and the cycle repeats itself).

This is as absurd as stating that there was ethnic cleansing, when the Spanish government demolished some houses inhabited by Romanis a few years ago in Puerta del Hierro we discussed elsewhere. I bet you'd laugh at people claiming this was ethnic cleansing and rightly so.

And of course, you also choose to ignore instances of much, much worse treatment of civilians (including expulsions) when some of your favorite ethnic groups are involved, e.g. Serbs.

[noemon]

The quote includes the link to the ruling, but of course you won't know it's a judgment if you do not read it, not even the introduction.

I really do not understand what you are trying to communicate here, I asked you to provide evidence of your claim that it was not a petition but a ruling. Do you have any?

Secondly, the case was rather long because 1) it had to go through lower courts before reaching the Supreme Court and 2) because it was a conflict that did not involve only the Ka'adan family and the State but several others including representatives from Katzir.

The case in the Supreme Court(not lower courts) was concluded in 2000, can you explain why it was applied in 2007? Is it because the court enforced its ruling to the state as you claim?

Are you an Israeli non-Jew in Israel? Do you want to rent some land to build a house, get a Jewish lawyer, some x thousands of dollars later and a minimum of 12 years, then god willing if you 're still alive and still have the money, then maybe you will be able to lease some land to build a house.

Soon you will tell me that this is just an Israeli subsidy for Jewish real-estate lawyers in Israel.

I really do not understand what you want me or other people to understand from this exactly? What's your point? That this is standard EU procedure, that Israel is normal as any western liberal state? What is it you want from me..to say that?...what?

They weren't targeted and a bomb that could fulfill the requirement of distinction was used.

You are not making sense. You claimed these children were collateral damage, prove it by providing evidence that the target was a valid military target.

This is as absurd as stating that there was ethnic cleansing, when the Spanish government demolished some houses inhabited by Romanis a few years ago in Puerta del Hierro we discussed elsewhere. I bet you'd laugh at people claiming this was ethnic cleansing and rightly so.

The population of Arabs in Israel being reduced from 88% to 20% is the same as the Spanish government rehousing some 10 families from some make-shift buildings into social housing? So now you claim that Israel provides alternative accommodation for the houses it demolishes in the West Bank? For the villages and towns cleansed from Israel? Really? Evidence for your ridiculous claims.

And of course, you also choose to ignore instances of much, much worse treatment of civilians (including expulsions) when some of your favorite ethnic groups are involved, e.g. Serbs.

Evidence of myself justifying war-crimes and pretending that they are not so. You have been asked numerous times, you keep mum but you keep trying to insult me regardless. Evidence or apologies.

[Heinie]

Retaliating against a Hamas target for a few projectiles that landed harmlessly in an Israeli open field fired by a Selafist rogue group who are enemies of the Hamas government betrays the unreasonable and morally indefensible policy of the Israelis in how they go about deciding targets for their sophisticated precision rocket strikes. "Israeli military officials say that although the rockets may not have been launched by Hamas, the group is responsible for anything fired from its territory."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/israel-retaliates-for-gaza-rocket-fire-with-air-strikes-hamas-hacks-israel-tv/2016/03/13/0214541e-f9ee-48e0-8402-39fc4838b65c_story.html
May God forgive them.

[Saeko]

Retaliating against a Hamas target for a few projectiles that landed harmlessly in an Israeli open field fired by a Selafist rogue group who are enemies of the Hamas government betrays the unreasonable and morally indefensible policy of the Israelis in how they go about deciding targets for their sophisticated precision rocket strikes. "Israeli military officials say that although the rockets may not have been launched by Hamas, the group is responsible for anything fired from its territory."

What is your alternative? Should Israel ignore or accept rockets launched into its territory by hostile groups? If so, then does the same rule apply to Palestinians? Why isn't Hamas responsible for military actions carried out on its own territory against Israel, especially when it considers itself a state? If a bunch of Israeli extremists who were officially opposed to the Israeli government but residing in Israeli territory were to launch attacks on Palestinians, would it be acceptable for the Israeli government to not take responsibility for what is happening on its own soil?

[Heinie]

What is your alternative? ...

The right approach would be for the Israelis to recognize the state of Palestine, end the occupation, and cooperate with the Palestinians in combating rogue Salafist elements who are hostile to both Hamas and Israel.

[Saeko]

The right approach would be for the Israelis to recognize the state of Palestine, end the occupation, and cooperate with the Palestinians in combating rogue Salafist elements who are hostile to both Hamas and Israel.

You haven't actually answered any of my questions. You have only stated the ultimate goal, but in order to reach that goal, intermediate steps have to be taken, and my actual questions need to be answered.

Again, if Israel is wrong in retaliating against Palestinians, are Palestinians also wrong in retaliating against Israel? If the Palestinians cannot be held responsible for attacks against Israel launched from their territory, are the Israelis similarly absolved of that responsibility?

[Heinie]

You haven't actually answered any of my questions. You have only stated the ultimate goal, but in order to reach that goal, intermediate steps have to be taken, and my actual questions need to be answered.

I see it differently. So-called steps is code for the bogus peace process. The time for process has long passed.

Again, if Israel is wrong in retaliating against Palestinians, are Palestinians also wrong in retaliating against Israel? If the Palestinians cannot be held responsible for attacks against Israel launched from their territory, are the Israelis similarly absolved of that responsibility?

The two situations are not compatible. Israel and its military force which is occupying Palestine is in no way similar to the occupied Palestinian people who have no military and little means to resist Israeli state terror.

[wat0n]

I really do not understand what you are trying to communicate here, I asked you to provide evidence of your claim that it was not a petition but a ruling. Do you have any?

Just read the ruling. Though it would be even easier if you just read paragraph 40 in full, including the part that states it is an order

The case in the Supreme Court(not lower courts) was concluded in 2000, can you explain why it was applied in 2007? Is it because the court enforced its ruling to the state as you claim?

Are you an Israeli non-Jew in Israel? Do you want to rent some land to build a house, get a Jewish lawyer, some x thousands of dollars later and a minimum of 12 years, then god willing if you 're still alive and still have the money, then maybe you will be able to lease some land to build a house.

Soon you will tell me that this is just an Israeli subsidy for Jewish real-estate lawyers in Israel.

I really do not understand what you want me or other people to understand from this exactly? What's your point? That this is standard EU procedure, that Israel is normal as any western liberal state? What is it you want from me..to say that?...what?

Thankfully, the ruling is prospective and thus should be taken as a legal precedent for similar cases, which is why it took a relatively short time for the Israeli AG to state that JNF leasing policies had to change after they were challenged in 2004.

You are not making sense. You claimed these children were collateral damage, prove it by providing evidence that the target was a valid military target.

I think it was as clear as it could get.

The population of Arabs in Israel being reduced from 88% to 20% is the same as the Spanish government rehousing some 10 families from some make-shift buildings into social housing? So now you claim that Israel provides alternative accommodation for the houses it demolishes in the West Bank? For the villages and towns cleansed from Israel? Really? Evidence for your ridiculous claims.

As it was shown the last time you tried to bring this up, many of the affected Roma in Puerta del Hierro did not get any alternative housing and many of those who did rejected the offer because they didn't want to leave any relatives behind.

Evidence of myself justifying war-crimes and pretending that they are not so. You have been asked numerous times, you keep mum but you keep trying to insult me regardless. Evidence or apologies.

Asked and answered, it is even clear what you were answering to by simply reading the post above yours. Your past haunts you, which is not my problem. Sorry.

[Saeko]

I see it differently. So-called steps is code for the bogus peace process. The time for process has long passed.

Ok. So you believe that Israel must unilaterally concede to a set of terms, with no guarantee of cooperation from the Palestinians, and the justification for which you refuse to provide?

The two situations are not compatible. Israel and its military force which is occupying Palestine is in no way similar to the occupied Palestinian people who have no military and little means to resist Israeli state terror.

So the Palestinians are justified in attacking Israel, but Israel is not justified in attacking the Palestinians. Israel is responsible for attacks on Palestinians conducted by groups operating within its territory, but Hamas is not responsible for attacks on Israel conducted by groups operating within its territory. Honestly, you could have just said that and then given the above explanation as well.

With regard to that explanation, did Israel lose justification for its occupation after its occupation succeeded, or was it never justified in occupying Palestinian territories in the first place?

[Heinie]

Ok. So you believe that Israel must unilaterally concede to a set of terms, with no guarantee of cooperation from the Palestinians, and the justification for which you refuse to provide?

The Palestinians are not occupying Israel. Ending the occupation has to be a unilateral action. The only guarantee is that the Israelis will never get willing cooperation from an oppressed people. The justification for the withdrawal of Israeli forces to the 1967 border is international law.

So the Palestinians are justified in attacking Israel, but Israel is not justified in attacking the Palestinians. Israel is responsible for attacks on Palestinians conducted by groups operating within its territory, but Hamas is not responsible for attacks on Israel conducted by groups operating within its territory. Honestly, you could have just said that and then given the above explanation as well.

A people are justified in resisting occupation by a foreign country; yes. Israel, as an occupying country has a legal responsibility to protect the Palestinian people. No, Hamas is not responsible for the actions of its enemies such as Salafist rogues or the Israeli Defense Force.

With regard to that explanation, did Israel lose justification for its occupation after its occupation succeeded, or was it never justified in occupying Palestinian territories in the first place?

The 1967 War was between Israel and its neighbors. Land gets occupied during a war but when the war ends so should the occupation. It is illegal to acquire territory by means of war. Israel is not at war with Jordan, Egypt, or Syria. The people of occupied Palestine have a right to self determination.

[redcarpet]

Israel is still at war with Syria. Without peace treaties or unilateral peace declarations Arab states are still at war with Israel.

[Saeko]

The Palestinians are not occupying Israel. Ending the occupation has to be a unilateral action. The only guarantee is that the Israelis will never get willing cooperation from an oppressed people. The justification for the withdrawal of Israeli forces to the 1967 border is international law.

There is no reason for Israel to end an occupation of a country that is still at de facto war with Israel.

A people are justified in resisting occupation by a foreign country; yes. Israel, as an occupying country has a legal responsibility to protect the Palestinian people. No, Hamas is not responsible for the actions of its enemies such as Salafist rogues or the Israeli Defense Force.

A country is also justified in occupying hostile countries. No, Israel does not have a legal responsibility to protect the Palestinian people, a hostile nation. That's absurd.

The 1967 War was between Israel and its neighbors. Land gets occupied during a war but when the war ends so should the occupation. It is illegal to acquire territory by means of war. Israel is not at war with Jordan, Egypt, or Syria. The people of occupied Palestine have a right to self determination.

The war is not over because Hamas and the PA refuse to surrender to Israel.

[noemon]

Just read the ruling. Though it would be even easier if you just read paragraph 40 in full, including the part that states it is an order

You claimed that the petition filed by the Supreme Court in the Knesset was not a petition but a ruling:

Although the Israeli Supreme Court itself has filed a petition that the policies of the JNF violate Israeli anti- discrimination laws, the Israeli Knesset approved the renewal of the JNF Law in July 2007, in its preliminary reading allowing the JNF to continue the practice of refusing to lease land to Arab citizens.

You were asked to provide evidence of your claim that the petition was not a petition. And just to make this clear to everybody the Israeli Supreme Court made a ruling that the State of Israel is being racist towards non-Jewish Israeli citizens and then it had to file a petition for the State to consider its ruling effective.

Are you losing your mind again, quoting something else and talking about something else like 2 days ago with the Patriarch?

Possibly.

Thankfully, the ruling is prospective

The petition of the Supreme Court you mean to the State of Israel.
Prove that no more petitions are required every single time and that 12 years of legal battles are no longer required for non-Jewish Israelis.
You did not answer my question, what is your expectation here exactly?

I think it was as clear as it could get.

Certainly, you clearly have no leg to stand on yet you insist on pretending.

As it was shown the last time you tried to bring this up, many of the affected Roma in Puerta del Hierro did not get any alternative housing and many of those who did rejected the offer because they didn't want to leave any relatives behind.

I do not understand what makes you lose your honour as a man by being dishonest over such trivial matters, honestly I do not but I really do feel sorry for you. The Roma in Puerta del Hierro were rehoused in social housing, the article said that not all of them had been rehoused as of the date the article was written, yes indeed but they were in the process of rehousing them from one location to another, not all their houses were dismantled either though and if you claim that the Spanish authorities left people intentionally homeless by pretending that they destroyed their houses and left them on the street then please be my guest and provide evidence, but please get some backbone and seize from badmouthing other countries in order to make yourself look less of a hypocrite than you already are.

The City Council of Puerta del Hierro did not make people homeless like Israel does to Palestinians, it authorised the demolition of their make-shift houses due to sanitation reasons and gave them alternative accommodation.

Asked and answered, it is even clear what you were answering to by simply reading the post above yours. Your past haunts you, which is not my problem. Sorry.

Nothing haunts me at all, you are insulting me and providing no evidence of your insults despite repeated requests to that effect. You seem to be haunted and thus have the need to perform such vile deeds. As I said above I truly do feel sorry for you.

[Pisa]

"Of course", they should all just leave and be done with it, otherwise face the consequences of being born in the wrong place in the world. Your zionist logic is great. You do not realise though that this is not a zionist web-site but an international one with people that understand more than you imagine and that you make more damage to your cause than you realise.

But before you give me the known crap I've heard before from wat0n, think about this logic you put forward...when England expelled all the Jews and they moved to France or wherever, the Jewish European population was not reduced within Europe so it can be said that the Jews were not ethnic-cleansed in Europe. Apply this in your mind before you make any more embarrassing statements.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I'm neither as patient, nor as polite as Wat0n.

When England expelled all the jews, the ethnic cleansing took place in England, not in Europe. I don't see the connection with my comment, though.

From 85% of the population in 1920, Arab Muslims in Israel are now 20% of the population. These are numbers dear Pisa. And it is cute that you dismiss Israeli Professors in Israel, but they have a lot more credibility than you or any other apologist.

May I remind you your own words?

The house that was struck by the IDF rocket killing two children is in Gaza which is one of the most densely populated areas on Earth.

Indeed, purposely herded there by Israel itself, which makes the whole ordeal cringe-worthy in deed.

This is what I'm talking about. Prove that Israel purposely "herded" arabs to Gaza.

May I also remind you that in Mandatory Palestine of 1920, the number of arabs included those in the more than 60% of Palestine east of the river Jordan, and those in the rest of today's Kingdom of Jordan, and christians too? Sorry, but the number of arab muslims in Mandatory Palestine in 1920 does not equal the number of arab muslims in the territory that will become Israel.

I'll throw in a bonus. The first reliable census of the population of Mandatory Palestine (what remained of it after Transjordan has been created) took place in 1933, and included of course arabs in Gaza and what is called today The West Bank.

[Heinie]

There is no reason for Israel to end an occupation of a country that is still at de facto war with Israel.

The West Bank and Gaza were administered by Jordan and Egypt respectfully. Since Israel is not at war with either country nor with the Palestinian people, there is no justification for the occupation and blockade.

A country is also justified in occupying hostile countries. No, Israel does not have a legal responsibility to protect the Palestinian people, a hostile nation. That's absurd.

Your opinion does not concur with international law. That a country is "hostile" gives no right on another country to occupy it. The duties of the occupying power are spelled out primarily in the 1907 Hague Regulations (arts 42-56) and the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV, art. 27-34 and 47-78), as well as in certain provisions of Additional Protocol I and customary international humanitarian law. The Israelis persistently violate these responsibilities, in particular and most egregiously:
The occupant does not acquire sovereignty over the territory. (Israel has annexed East Jerusalem and vast areas of the West Bank for its military and settlers.)
Occupation is only a temporary situation, and the rights of the occupant are limited to the extent of that period. (Israel has been occupying Palestine for half a century.)
The occupying power must respect the laws in force in the occupied territory, unless they constitute a threat to its security or an obstacle to the application of the international law of occupation. (Israel has placed all Palestinians in the West Bank under martial law but Jewish settlers come under Israeli law.)
The occupying power must take measures to restore and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety. (Palestinians are not safe from the Israel Defense Force, "Border Police", or attacks from armed Jewish settlers. You might consider it absurd that Israel has an obligation to protect the Palestinian people and certainly their actions support your view but it is the opposite to international law.)
To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the occupying power must ensure sufficient hygiene and public health standards, as well as the provision of food and medical care to the population under occupation. (Israel has rendered all but 10% of water in Gaza unfit for human consumption. The last remaining waste water treatment plant in Gaza was bombed to bits by the IDF in 2014. Hospitals in Gaza have been bombed. The IDF have entered hospitals in the West Bank and shot patients. Checkpoints prevent pregnant women from getting timely passage to hospitals for Palestinians. Insufficient nutritious food is permitted into Gaza by the Israelis.)
Collective or individual forcible transfers of population from and within the occupied territory are prohibited. (Israel has been transporting Palestinians from most of the West Bank, demolishing Palestinian homes in Area C (over 60%), declaring vast stretches of land and natural resources forbidden to Palestinians and reserved for expanding illegal settlements and the occupation army.)
Transfers of the civilian population of the occupying power into the occupied territory, regardless whether forcible or voluntary, are prohibited. (The Israelis have been allowing Jewish settlers to move into many areas of the West Bank.)
Collective punishment is prohibited. (The IDF collectively punishes Palestinians by rounding-up children and civilians and holding them without trial or access to legal representation. Nighttime home invasions by occupation soldiers are commonplace.)
The taking of hostages is prohibited. (The IDF uses Palestinians as human shields when conducting neighborhood invasions.)
The confiscation of private property by the occupant is prohibited. (IDF soldiers have stolen money and property during home invasions.)
People accused of criminal offences shall be provided with proceedings respecting internationally recognized judicial guarantees (for example, they must be informed of the reason for their arrest, charged with a specific offence and given a fair trial as quickly as possible). Arbitrary arrests of Palestinian civilians and long-term detentions without trial is common practice by the IDF in the West Bank.)
You can read more from the International Red Cross.
https://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/misc/634kfc.htm

The war is not over because Hamas and the PA refuse to surrender to Israel.

Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are under blockade and occupation and not at war with Israel. The 1967 War lasted only six days.

[noemon]

When England expelled all the jews, the ethnic cleansing took place in England, not in Europe. I don't see the connection with my comment, though.

When 85% of the Muslim population lost their homes in Israel, they were ethnic-cleansed from Israel dear Pisa, 700,000 out 800,000 people. When their homes are being bulldozed and the Palestinians swept and herded further and further inside the West bank and Gaza like cattle, they are being ethnic-cleansed from their territories.

That you do not see the connection is irrelevant, others like wat0n for example saw it straight away. A ridiculous connection & argument regardless though.

May I remind you your own words?

Yes, let us be reminded of your denial even when coming by Israeli Professors of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem:

The Israeli historian Benny Morris did it again. Morris is not only a historian with impressive achievements but also an Israeli and international icon. One year after the publication of his book The Birth of Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949, published in 1987, he proclaimed himself a “new historian.” He become the great guru of a small imaginary group appointed by him and including mainly Avi Shlaim, Uri Milstein and Ilan Pappé. Membership in this group varied from time to time according to Morris’s sympathy or antipathy.

Morris basically claimed that all the Israeli historiography that preceded his book and several other writings was completely fabricated, a series of untrue myths designed to serve the Zionist need for legitimacy. Morris, with his great arrogance and unique talent for public relations provoked an immense furor among the old Israeli academic and intellectual establishment and became the hero of many Palestinians and a small group of younger Israeli academics who perceived him as a “debunker” of Zionist lies.

On the other hand he was accused by mainstream Israeli academics and intellectuals with “post-Zionism” and subverting the very legitimacy of Israel’s existence. This triggered endless nonsense and semi-professional and mainly political debates in Israel and abroad about the meaning and extent of “post-Zionism” (frequently labeled as “anti-Zionism” or even “post-modernism”) that included arbitrarily any serious or less serious critical (or supposedly critical) study on Israeli history, society and politics. Most of this debate caused great damage to Israeli historical, social and cultural research. Books and papers were judged not by their intrinsic values or shortcomings, but by their categorizations as Zionist, post-Zionist or anti-Zionist. Instead of being preoccupied with serious research, people devoted a lot of time and energy to polemics on this futile issue. Younger academics were scared and chose their research projects carefully in order to avoid being identified with one of the "camps.”

To Morris’s credit, it must be said, that he was very little involved in these debates, even if he enjoyed being at the center of the storm. Morris in general loved to leave his moral and ideological attitude toward the events he described ambiguous, and this was a correct position from his positivistic historian’s point of view, in which role he claims objectivity, even if a careful reading of almost all of Morris’ writings reveals a very simplistic and one-dimensional view on the Jewish-Arab conflict. Despite all his “discoveries” about moral wrongs perpetrated by the Israelis, on the bottom line, he always tended to adopt the official Israeli interpretation of the events (in The Refugee Problem and Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881-2001, but less in Israel’s Border Wars). Another interesting issue is Benny Morris’s compulsive dealings with the problems related to “transfer” of the Arab population, which most of his readers wrongly interpreted as anchored in a deep moral indignation.

As with most of Morris’s other claims, the pretension to be the first and only Israeli who dealt with the ethnic cleansing of the Arabs reflected a partial reality. His book indeed touched a very central and painful nerve of the Israeli-Jewish current past, the uprooting of about 700,000 Arab Palestinians from the territories that would become the Jewish state, the refusal to allow them back to homes after the war, and the formation of the refugee problem during the period of the 1948 war and after. He also surveyed some atrocities committed by Jews during the inter-communal war that played some role in the “voluntary” flight of the Arabs from their villages and neighborhoods. Weirdly enough, Morris devoted a very salient and extensive discussion to the centrality of idea of “transfer” (i.e., ethnic cleansing) in Zionist thought, but concluded that the Palestinians had not been expelled by the Israelis in compliance with a master plan or following a consequential policy. This was not precise.

Plan D and the Israelification of the Land

At the beginning of the 1970s. I had begun to work on research at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which, I hoped, would produce a Ph.D. thesis in sociology. The subject was the Zionist ideology of land and its relationship to other political doctrines. In the earlier stages of my research, I was shocked to discover that a major “purification” of the land (the term “ethnic cleansing” was unknown in that period) from its Arab Palestinian inhabitant was done during the 1948 War by the Jewish military and para-military forces. During this research I found, solely based on Israeli sources, that about 350 Arab villages were “abandoned” and their 3.25 million dunums of rural land, were confiscated and became. in several stages, the property of the Israeli state or the Jewish National Fund. I also found that Moshe Dayan, then Minister of Agriculture, disclosed that about 700,000 Arabs who “left” the territories had owned four million dunums of land.

Another finding was that from 1882 until 1948, all the Jewish companies (including the Jewish National Fund, an organ of World Zionist Organization) and private individuals in Palestine had succeeded in buying only about 7 percent of the total lands in British Palestine. All the rest was taken by sword and nationalized during the 1948 war and after. Today, only about 7 percent of Israel land is privately owned, about half of it by Arabs. Israel is the only “democracy” in the world that nationalized almost all if its land and prohibited even the leasing of most of agricultural lands to non-Jews, a situation made possible by a complex framework of legal arrangements with the Jewish National Fund, including the Basic Law: Israel Lands (1960), the Israel Lands Law and Israel Lands Administration Law (1960), as well as the Covenants between the Government of the State of Israel and the WZO of 1954 and the JNF of 1961.

Now the remaining puzzle was if this depopulation was a “natural” consequence of the war, which led the Arab populations to flee the country, as Israel officially states all the time while simultaneously accusing the Arab leadership of encouraging this flight, or if it was an intentional Jewish policy to acquire the maximum amount of territory with minimum amount of Arab population. Further research showed that the military blueprint for the 1948 war was the so-called “Plan D” (Tochnit Daleth). General Yigael Yadin, Head of the Operations Branch of the Israeli unified armed forces, launched it on March 10, 1948. The plan expected military clashes between the state- making Jewish community of colonial Palestine with the Arab community and the assumed intervention by military forces of the Arab states. In the plan’s preamble, Yadin stated:

The aim of this plan is the control of the area of the Jewish State and the defense of its borders [as determined by the UN Partition Plan] and the clusters of [Jewish] settlements outside the boundaries, against regular and irregular enemy forces operating from bases outside and inside the Jewish State.
Furthermore, the plan suggested the following actions, amongst others, in order to reach these goals:

Actions against enemy settlements located in our, or near our, defense systems [i.e., Jewish settlement and localities] with the aim of preventing their use as bases for active armed forces. These actions should be divided into the following types: The destruction of villages (by fire, blowing up and mining) – especially of those villages over which we cannot gain [permanent] control. Gaining of control will be accomplished in accordance with the following instructions: The encircling of the village and the search of it. In the event of resistance - the destruction of the resisting forces and the expulsion of the population beyond the boundaries of the State.
The conclusion was that, as in many other cases, what seemed at first glance a pure and limited military doctrine, proved itself in the case of “Plan D” to comprise far-reaching measures that lead to a complete demographic, ethnic, social and political transformation of Palestine. Implementing the spirit of this doctrine, the Jewish military forces conquered about 20,000 square kilometers of territory (compared with the 14,000 square kilometers granted them by the UN Partition Resolution) and purified them almost completely from their Arab inhabitants. About 800,000 Arab inhabitants lived on the territories before they fell under Jewish control following the 1948 war. Fewer than 100,000 Arabs remained there under Jewish control after the cease fire. An additional 50,000 were included within the Israeli state’s territory following the Israeli-Jordan’s armistice agreements that transferred several villages to Israeli rule.

The military doctrine, the base of Plan D, clearly reflected the local Zionist ideological aspirations to acquire a maximal Jewish territorial continuum, cleansed from Arab presence, as a necessary condition for establishing an exclusive Jewish nation-state.

The British colonial regime – between 1921 to 1948 – provided a political and military umbrella under which the Zionist enterprise was able to develop its basic institutional, economic and social framework, but also secured the essential interests of the Arab collectivity. As the British umbrella was removed, the Arab and the Jewish communities found themselves face-to-face in a zero-sum-like situation. By rejecting the partition plan the Arab community and leadership were confident not only in their absolute right to control the whole country that then had an Arab majority comprising two-thirds of the population, but also in their ability to do so. The Jewish community and leadership appreciated, on the one hand, that they did not have enough power and population to control the entire territory of Palestine and to expel or to rule its Arab majority. Thus, on the other hand, they officially accepted the partition plan, but invested all their efforts towards improving its terms and maximally expanding their boundaries while reducing the number of Arabs in them.

It was impossible, at that stage, to find hard evidence that, despite its far-reaching political consequences and meaning, “Plan D” was ever adopted by the “political level,” or even discussed by it. My intuition said that many political and national leaders knew very well that there were some kind of orders and plans that were better not to discuss or present officially. Later Morris’s findings supported the correctness this intuition. In any case, though, the way that the military operations of 1948 were conducted does not leave any room for doubts that Plan D was indeed the doctrine used by the Jewish military forces during this war, or about the “spirit” and perceptions behind it.

In the Winter of 1974, I submitted my Ph. D. thesis and it was approved by the relevant committee of experts in the Spring of 1975. For many years, I tried to publish it, without success. My senior colleagues at the Hebrew University explained to me with a strain of pity, “well everybody who lived in this country in that period knows precisely what happened, but it is not publishable yet. Perhaps it will be after a hundred years or so….” Some others kindly advised me to find more interesting topics for research. However, I insisted and finally I found the Institute of International Studies of the University of California at Berkeley ready to publish it. The book was published in 1983 under the title Zionism and Territory: The Socio-Territorial Dimensions of Zionist Politics. Being a “dry” professional text, it did now draw public attention and achieved limited circulation but became well known and widely quoted by a small circle of experts.

The Israeli Demographic Discourse

Morris’s latest controversy involves the public position he has taken on the possibility of a second act of ethnic cleansing. It is impossible to understand this controversy without understanding the demographic background to it. The issue is a complex one, but stated briefly, if current demographic trends continue, Jews will cease to be the majority population even within pre-1967 Israel within the next 40 to 50 years. A younger Arab population with a far higher birthrate makes this almost inevitable, even if there is continued immigration from the Diaspora. This fact creates a great deal of anxiety among all segments of the Israeli polity.

The radical solution to this dilemma is “transfer” of the Arab populations. “Moderate” versions of these proposals call for exchanges of territories with their populations. In these scenarios, areas in Israel with large Arab populations like the lower Galilee would be given to a Palestinian state in exchange for Jewish settlements in the territories being incorporated into Israel. More extreme solutions to this dilemma call for forcible expulsions of Palestinians, not only from the occupied territories, but even from Israel itself. This fringe opinion, in the last years has become somewhat respectable.

Formerly, solutions involving transfer were voiced openly only by followers of Meir Kahane. Yet by 1990, another party endorsing “voluntary transfer,” General Rehavam Ze'evi's Moledet Party, had become part of the Israeli government coalition. The “voluntarily” was added only to preserve the party from being accused of inciting a crime. Presently, Moledet (as part of a parliamentary bloc headed by Benny Elon, another supporter of “transfer”) is again part of the government. In 2002, the National Religious Party chose a new leader, General Effie Eitam, who has called for transfer of hostile Arabs to other countries if a major war presented an opportunity. Indeed, most transfer scenarios, including that newly proposed by Benny Morris, are based on a “War of Armageddon.” which would provide the cover for massive ethnic cleansing. The recent American assault on Iraq heightened this atmosphere of “anticipation.” No wonder that under those circumstances, in which the Israeli government was the most enthusiastic foreign supporter of the war, that a group of Israeli academics published in the Guardian (October 2, 2002) a “hysterical warning” about the possible intention to commit such an act under the cover of a regional war.

As the Palestinian armed resistance and terror continued, public opinion polls consistently indicate a perpetual increase in the number of Israelis wishing to expel Palestinians from the occupied territories and even Israeli Arab citizens. For example, according surveys conducted by Asher Arian for Jaffe Center of Strategic Studies of Tel Aviv University, in 1991, 38 percent of the Jewish population supported the “transferring” of the Palestinians out of the occupied territories through force while 24 percent favored expelling also the Israeli Arabs. In 2002, the percentages rose to 46 and 31 consecutively.

The alternative solution is to use the remaining time to withdrawal from the occupied territories and to achieve a major reconciliation between the Jews and the Arab citizens of Israel and their full integration as individual and ethnic group within the Israeli state on a complete equalitarian basis. Proponents of this solution argue that the vast majority of the Arab citizens of Israel is committed to the Israeli state, its values and culture, and appreciates its potential democracy. Furthermore, this alternative solution is necessary to save Israel from being another pariah-state (like South Africa under Apartheid regime). Benny Morris’s recent contribution to this controversy is to adopt a solution on the more radical end of a contuum of possible strategies for dealing with the so-called “demographic problem.”

The Outing of Benny Morris

At the beginning of 2004, Benny Morris industriously prepared a “revised” version of his The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem and a Hebrew version of the Righteous Victims, and toward their publication he published two articles in the Guardian (October 3, 2003 and January 13, 2004) and gave an extensive interview to Haaretz Magazine (January 8, 2004). Basically the three pieces reflected the same ideas; however the Hebrew interview is less subtle and more directed to Morris’s internal political audience, therefore it is more interesting and calls for a critical reading.

First and foremost, the historian underlined the new findings that justify the new version of Refugee Problem: “What the new material shows [– says Morris –] is that there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought. To my surprise, there were also many cases of rape.” After some detailed description of the rape and murder of Palestinian girls, Morris concluded that “because neither the victims nor the rapists liked to report these events, we have to assume that the dozen cases of rape that were reported, which I found, are not the whole story. They are just the tip of the iceberg." Additionally he found that in twenty-four cases, about 800 Palestinians were massacred under different circumstances. And he added:

That can't be accidental. It's a pattern. Apparently, various officers who took part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of murder. Ben-Gurion silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who did the massacres.
However, one of the most interesting conclusions of Morris – what brings him closer to my findings – is that

from April 1948, Ben-Gurion is projecting a message of transfer. There is no explicit order of his in writing, there is no orderly comprehensive policy, but there is an atmosphere of [population] transfer. The transfer idea is in the air. The entire leadership understands that this is the idea. The officer corps understands what is required of them. Under Ben-Gurion, a consensus of transfer is created.
It is not yet ethnic cleansing as a pre-planned part of a military doctrine as I found in the initial research, but just “projected message.” However, in another way this is worse then my conclusions because it is openly referred to Ben Gurion himself.

So far it is the “old good” and expected Morris. The restless debunker of Israel’s sins. However, suddenly the interview took a sharp turn from historiography to philosophy: “Under some circumstances expulsion is not a war crime. I don't think that the expulsions of 1948 were war crimes. You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs. You have to dirty your hands." Moreover,

if he was already engaged in expulsion, maybe he should have done a complete job. I know that this stuns the Arabs and the liberals and the politically correct types. But my feeling is that this place would be quieter and know less suffering if the matter had been resolved once and for all. If Ben-Gurion had carried out a large expulsion and cleaned the whole country - the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan River. It may yet turn out that this was his fatal mistake. If he had carried out a full expulsion - rather than a partial one - he would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations.
Leave apart for a moment the moral implications of this statement and ask about its factual basis. All previous research by Morris shows that the refugee problem was and still is the core issue in the Jewish-Arab conflict. A “full expulsion” – presuming that was possible from a military and international point of view (a very dubious presumption) – would only triple the number of refugees. Morris has no answer about how such a cleansing should reduce the suffering and by whom. He knows very well that the absorption of even the “limited number” of 700,000 refugees caused famine and epidemics in the “host” countries.

Another crucial point that Morris should know very well was that the conquest of the West Bank would have pulled the only well-trained Arab army into the conflict, the Trans-Jordan Legion. Such a conquest would have violated the tacit agreement between Ms. Golda Meirson and King Abdullah about the partition of the land of Palestine between the Jewish state and the Kingdom. In such a case, the balance of power in the 1948 war would have been different and would have resulted in the same outcome of the war. Ben Gurion was very anxious on this point, and the only battles between the Arab Legion and the Jewish forces were local and took places in the Jerusalem area, the only disputed territory between the sides.

But Morris has abandoned his historian’s mantle and donned the armor of a Jewish chauvinist who wants the Land of Israel completely cleansed from Arabs. Never has any secular public Jewish figure expressed these feelings so clearly and blatantly as Professor Morris did. And in order to be completely lucid on this point he drew an analogy between Israel and North America: "Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history." I do not know today any American historian or social scientist that agrees that the annihilation of the indigenous population of the continent was a necessary condition for the American nation or the constitution of American democracy. And these are facts and not “political correctness” as Morris loves to call any arguments he cannot deny.

However the issue is less about what happened in past and more about Morris’s wishful thinking and prophecy about the future: To the interviewer’s question if Morris advocates a new ethnic cleansing today he replies: "If you are asking me whether I support the transfer and expulsion of the Arabs from the West Bank, Gaza and perhaps even from Galilee and the Triangle [Israel], I say not at this moment. I am not willing to be a partner to that act. In the present circumstances, it is neither moral nor realistic. The world would not allow it, the Arab world would not allow it, it would destroy the Jewish society from within. But I am ready to tell you that under other circumstances, apocalyptic ones, which are liable to be realized in five or ten years, I can see expulsions. If we find ourselves with atomic weapons around us, or if there is a general Arab attack on us and a situation of warfare on the front with Arabs in the rear shooting at convoys on their way to the front, acts of expulsion will be entirely reasonable. They may even be essential."

This doomsday scenario drawn by Morris is so fantastical not only because the Palestinian citizens of Israel proved, despite very harsh conditions and generational discrimination their “loyalty” to the state, but also because the existence of dense Arab population within the narrow strip of the Holy Land is the best insurance Israel has against being attacked by strategic nuclear or other WMDs. Otherwise, Morris is unable to understand that the moment that nuclear, biological and chemical weapons were used in the context of the Middle East by any side, it is already too late to save anything in the region.

But hatred toward the Arabs, their society and culture crush any logic in Morris’s thought. The Palestinians are "the barbarians who want to take our lives. The people the Palestinian society sends to carry out the terrorist attacks… At the moment, that society is in the state of being a serial killer. It is a very sick society. It should be treated the way we treat individuals who are serial killers." After thirty five years of oppression, colonization of their land, expropriation of their water, ignoring almost all of their freedoms, administrative detention of tens of thousands of Palestinians, systematic destruction of their social and material infrastructure, it is more than ironic to talk about the Palestinians as barbarians and a sick society. If the Palestinian society is sick, who is responsible for this sickness and which society is sicker and an institutionalized serial killer?

Morris’s mind is full of contradictions: Before he described the Palestinian ”barbarism” he described the whole conflict as “in comparison to the massacres that were perpetrated in Bosnia, that's peanuts. In comparison to the massacres the Russians perpetrated against the Germans at Stalingrad, that's chicken feed.” To these one may add the American bombardment of Dresden into rubble and other innumerable atrocious acts committed by the “Westerner” and other non-Arabs to conclude who are the “barbarians.” Or after describing the rapes and the massacres committed by the Jews he comments that “it turns out that there was a series of orders issued by the Arab Higher Committee and by the Palestinian intermediate levels to remove children, women, and the elderly from the villages. Morris interprets that as proof that many of those who fled the villages did so with the encouragement of the Palestinian leadership itself, which proves that the Jews were not so much responsible for the cleansing. Morris cannot understand the obvious: what could be more human, in the face of rapes and massacres, than evacuation of women and children from a war zone? So, again the non-human Palestinian victims are responsible for the consequences. To say that he applies a double standard is a serious understatement.

By the same token, Morris fails to ask the right questions about the failed Camp David summit. If the Palestinian strategy is to destroy Israel in phases, why didn't they accept the “most generous offers” of Ehud Barak Camp David summit, as was described in the famous interview of Morris with Barak in the New York Review of Books (June 13, 2002)? But one cannot ask for much logic in an emotional outburst by an archivist, when he tries to compose a generalized and coherent picture from his thousands of details. Then he turns to his own prejudices and stereotypes of the Islamic and Arabic culture that happen to be fashionable and well fit the present moods of the Israeli-Jewish and some parts of Western political culture since the September 11 calamity. But the historian is not just a part of the collective mood and expresses it, he also provide historical and intellectual legitimacy to the most primitive and self-destructive impulse of a very troubled society. Perhaps it is indicative that to the interviewer’s question -- "if Zionism is so dangerous for the Jews and if Zionism makes the Arabs so wretched, maybe it was [from the start] a mistake?" – Morris lacks any meaningful answers.
- See more at: http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/3 ... udWda.dpuf

[wat0n]

That you do not see the connection is irrelevant, others like wat0n for example saw it straight away. A ridiculous connection & argument regardless though.

Yes, because we have argued about this in the past. Pisa has not.

As for the rest of your arguments in your last post answering mine, the same answer applies to each and every of them: You are just selectively reading the sources because you have no answer to them.

Regarding Kimmerling's opinion, I recall I showed he was selectively quoting from Plan Dalet and that Benny Morris - an actual historian, unlike Kimmerling - did not reach the same conclusions precisely because he didn't do that. As such, Kimmerling's just debating like you do: Cherry-picking the parts of the primary sources that might fit his ideological narrative, pretend that this is the only relevant part and then whine or just repeat the same nonsense ad-nauseam if exposed. This is also how certain Dutchman used to debate here as well.

[Heinie]

More Palestinian children under Israeli threat
Referring to the four projectiles that landed harmlessly in open fields, with the news that two innocent Palestinian children were killed by an Israeli retaliatory rocket, Israel's defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, said, "We will act even more harshly if these attempts continue."
http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/israeli-retaliatory-strike-kills-2-palestinian-children-in-gaza-1.399111


Moshe Ya'alon - the sort of man who speaks for Israelis

[noemon]

Yes, because we have argued about this in the past. Pisa has not.

Irrelevant, Pisa made the same argument like yours which quite evidently comes out of a handbook like in the call centres.

"Palestinians are increasing their world numbers so they cannot be ethnic-cleansed." This argument remains as ridiculous as it has been shown to you in the past.

As for the rest of your arguments in your last post answering mine, the same answer applies to each and every of them: You are just selectively reading the sources because you have no answer to them.

Problem is you have no argument except for stating this again and again, like a broken record. This is not even an argument though.

Regarding Kimmerling's opinion, I recall I showed he was selectively quoting from Plan Dalet and that Benny Morris - an actual historian, unlike Kimmerling - did not reach the same conclusions precisely because he didn't do that. As such, Kimmerling's just debating like you do: Cherry-picking the parts of the primary sources that might fit his ideological narrative, pretend that this is the only relevant part and then whine or just repeat the same nonsense ad-nauseam if exposed. This is also how certain Dutchman used to debate here as well.

Kimmerling trashes the contradictory Benny Morris, who one day of the week explicitly says that Israel ethnic-cleansed the Muslims* and the other day of the week says that it is completely justified and that if he were in control he would do it again and that Israel should in fact do it again**.

As for misrepresenting things, you have yet to apologise for all these stuff, plus all the rest you have added in here, like pretending that the petition was a "ruling nis absolute-effective immediately", with a 7-year old delay and at the end of the day be explicit about it, what is it you want exactly? What would make you happy? To say that Israel is a normal EU-style country who respects the rights of all religions and peoples, where spitting is a form of love, where persecution exists because of over-representation? Where non-Jewish Israeli citizens cannot even rent some land? Where the UN is not allowed in the country? Where Christian patriarchs face persecution?

What exactly do you want and especially you who have the audacity to insult others when you have done all of the above and the below:

You got caught red-handed misrepresenting Mazuz, you got caught red-handed blaming Orthodox priests for the actions of Israeli ministers, you got caught red-handed claiming that Israel prosecuted Papadimas when it didn't, you got caught red-handed misrepresenting the Haaretz article trying to pretend that the Jewish custom of spitting applies only to the Haredi when the article states that its a widespread phenomenon, you are shamelessly trying justify the persecution of Greeks because as you say they are overrepresented, you vehemently refuse to acknowledge any wrong-doing on the part of Israel persecuting the Orthodox Patriarchs. You misrepresented the report claiming that equal religious rights refers to fantastical tax-breaks because you do not have the guts to admit the obvious that the state you apologise for is racist pure and simple and not just against Muslims but against Christians too.

*

First and foremost, the historian [Benny Morris] underlined the new findings that justify the new version of Refugee Problem: “What the new material shows [– says Morris –] is that there were far more Israeli acts of massacre than I had previously thought. To my surprise, there were also many cases of rape.” After some detailed description of the rape and murder of Palestinian girls, Morris concluded that “because neither the victims nor the rapists liked to report these events, we have to assume that the dozen cases of rape that were reported, which I found, are not the whole story. They are just the tip of the iceberg." Additionally he found that in twenty-four cases, about 800 Palestinians were massacred under different circumstances. And he added:

That can't be accidental. It's a pattern. Apparently, various officers who took part in the operation understood that the expulsion order they received permitted them to do these deeds in order to encourage the population to take to the roads. The fact is that no one was punished for these acts of murder. Ben-Gurion silenced the matter. He covered up for the officers who did the massacres.
However, one of the most interesting conclusions of Morris – what brings him closer to my findings – is that from April 1948, Ben-Gurion is projecting a message of transfer. There is no explicit order of his in writing, there is no orderly comprehensive policy, but there is an atmosphere of [population] transfer. The transfer idea is in the air. The entire leadership understands that this is the idea. The officer corps understands what is required of them. Under Ben-Gurion, a consensus of transfer is created.

**

However the issue is less about what happened in past and more about Morris’s wishful thinking and prophecy about the future: To the interviewer’s question if Morris advocates a new ethnic cleansing today he replies: "If you are asking me whether I support the transfer and expulsion of the Arabs from the West Bank, Gaza and perhaps even from Galilee and the Triangle [Israel], I say not at this moment. I am not willing to be a partner to that act. In the present circumstances, it is neither moral nor realistic. The world would not allow it, the Arab world would not allow it, it would destroy the Jewish society from within. But I am ready to tell you that under other circumstances, apocalyptic ones, which are liable to be realized in five or ten years, I can see expulsions. If we find ourselves with atomic weapons around us, or if there is a general Arab attack on us and a situation of warfare on the front with Arabs in the rear shooting at convoys on their way to the front, acts of expulsion will be entirely reasonable. They may even be essential."

[skinster]

Both sides have used human shields, skinster.

The UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The Goldstone Report, Israeli human rights B'Tselem, the IDF have all concluded that the IDF used/uses Palestinians as human shields. I already posted on the Israeli court ruling against the IDF using Palestinians as human shields, something that still continues.; you can see in this soon-to-be-released film by Max Blumenthal and Dan Cohen, how Palestinians were used as human shields during the most recent massacre in Gaza, two years ago:
[youtube]5J8LYuf7x3A[/youtube]

Here you can watch testimony given on the use of human shields in Gaza by Israelis during Operation Ethnic Cleansing in 2014, by Ivan Karakashian from the human rights group, Defence for Children International.
[youtube]VFlR3A6ipz4[/youtube]


Pisa thinks he/she provided evidence of Palestinians using Palestinians as human shields, from the following sources:

1. MEMRI which is a biased source based in Washington and owned by an Israeli, that has been called out by journalists for being highly questionable as a source.
2. IDF, no comment.
3. CNN, no comment.
4. The Jerusalem Post, no comment.

The other sources he/she used are the neoconservative think-tank, The Gatestone Institute (lol) and some website called 'kickassfacts' (lol).

Pathetic and worthy of being called out.

What is your alternative? Should Israel ignore or accept rockets launched into its territory by hostile groups? If so, then does the same rule apply to Palestinians?

Israel should end its occupation and blockade of Gaza; rockets are a response to that terror. From your posts it appears you don't understand what Gaza is, it's one of the two regions of Palestinian territory that are controlled by Israel, except life in Gaza is much worse than life in the West Bank (where it is also awful for Palestinians) because in Gaza they are basically imprisoned and living in what amounts to a concentration camp. Israel is violating international law by imposing these conditions on Gaza (and the West Bank).

The reign of terror in Gaza is 95% Hamas' effect of rule, remember.

Here you can read about how Israel spawned Hamas. and also be reminded that Hamas only got power in the 90s while Gaza has been under vicious attack by the Israelis since the 50s.

Noeman, I wouldn't bother wasting time on waton, he is an apologist that will - even when proven wrong - defend his position until he's blue in the face. His deflection by way of bringing up other topics in this thread should be ignored because topics are meant to stay....on topic and deflections by zionists should be seen for what they are.

On topic: it's unfortunate that Israel continues to occupy and kill Palestinian children in their beds but the defence of the IDF who dropped those bombs on the children by zionists on this board remains ever so cute. Yes, it's the children's fault or Hamas' fault but never the occupying army that is at fault. Only zionists believe this shit, thankfully.