[Tonic]

Does this The Times story ring familiar?

The “separation barrier” that Israel has built to keep out Palestinians. However, many Arabs are moving into Jerusalem to take advantage of the residential permits. The exodus is evident. Streets are empty, the school roll has fallen from 1,500 to 500 pupils, blocks of flats have lost 80 per cent of their tenants and businesses have closed, moving north to Ramallah.

The Times December 04, 2006



The “separation barrier” that Israel has built to keep out Palestinians. However, many Arabs are moving into Jerusalem to take advantage of the residential permits (Peter Nicholls)


Israel's wall has forced Palestinians to move home - right into Jerusalem
Stephen Farrell, Jerusalem

Wealth and ID cards allow shift
Drastic changes to population

East to West, the flight has begun. Israel’s controversial “separation barrier”, expanding inexorably over wadis and high streets, is near completion along large stretches of its route. Slab by 30ft slab, it seals off Jewish-majority West Jerusalem to protect it from West Bank suicide bombers. Except that the wall designed to keep out Palestinians has driven thousands of them into inner Jerusalem.

Most East Jerusalem Arabs lucky enough to hold the much-prized Israeli Jerusalem identity cards granting them residency rights have already slipped inside the concrete curtain before its gates slam shut.

The result is drastic social and demographic changes to the outskirts of a Biblical city that is now twice-walled — from some vistas Ariel Sharon’s concrete legacy is clearly visible outside Suleiman the Magnificent’s Old City ramparts.

The “outer” neighbourhoods now lie half-deserted, abandoned by those able and wealthy enough to move.

In the “inner” suburbs the laws of supply and demand have doubled rents and increased land prices in Arab neighbourhoods and even — irony of ironies — forced the new arrivals into Jewish areas. “Many Arabs are moving into the settlements because they are very close to the Arab areas,” said Raed Jaber, a 27-year-old Arab from al-Eizariya, who now owns a creperie serving the overwhelmingly Jewish residents of the settlement of Pisgat Zeev.

“I’ll move in myself in a year or so when I get married,” he shrugs, dismissing antipathy from religious Jews who have leafleted the area urging residents not to rent to Arabs.

Taxis and commuters can still flit through a narrow gap left for builders to complete the final section, but this is expected to close within weeks. The exodus is evident. Streets are empty, the school roll has fallen from 1,500 to 500 pupils, blocks of flats have lost 80 per cent of their tenants and businesses have closed, moving north to Ramallah.

Increasingly discernible is the influx of poorer, socially conservative West Bankers, drawn by falling rents.

Yellow-plated Israeli car numberplates are being replaced by green Palestinian ones, more women are veiled, East Jerusalemites are disappearing from offices and classrooms, and shopkeepers have noticed the arrival of Jenin and Nablus accents, raising security concerns.

“The moment they started digging the wall here, people started packing and moving. Now 90 per cent of the homeowners have gone,” sighed Hani Bakir, 42. “Crime has increased, shops are being looted and houses broken into.”

“We had to move inside to keep our Jerusalem IDs, because of the health services, so my dad can get to work, to stay in contact with family and friends and simply to have access to Jerusalem without a permit,” she said.

A 2006 study by the refugee rights agency Badil found that 17.3 per cent of 5,100 Jerusalem Palestinians surveyed moved because of the wall.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 46,00.html

Bobby Kennedy on King David Street, Jerusalem, in 1948. Behind him is a British military checkpoint at the intersection of what is today Agron Street

Boston Post - June 3, 1948



British Hated by Both Sides
Robert Kennedy, Special Writer for Post, Struck by Antipathy Shown by ‘Arabs and Jews'

By Robert Kennedy


Set Up Laboratories

The [Jews] wish no other country, and in 1903 when Uganda was offered to them as a homeland, they were unanimous in their refusal. The Balfour declaration, when it was made, however, they felt was the answer to their prayers.

Under the supposition that, at the finish of the [British] mandate, this was to be their national state, they went to work. They set up laboratories where world-famous scientists could study and analyze soils and crops. The combination of arduous labor and almost unlimited funds from the United States changed what was once arid desert into flourishing orange groves.

Soils had to be washed of salt, day after day, year after year, before crops could be planted. One can see this work going on in lesser or more advanced stages wherever there are Jewish settlements in Palestine.

From a small village of a few thousand inhabitants, Tel Aviv has grown into a most impressive modern metropolis of over 200,000. They have truly done much with what all agree was very little.

The Jews point with pride to the fact that over 500,000 Arabs, in the 12 years between 1932 and 1944, came into Palestine to take advantage of living conditions existing in no other Arab state. This is the only country in the Near and Middle East where an Arab middle class is in existence.

In his biography Robert Kennedy and His Times, historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. reported that during his visit to Palestine, Kennedy wrote to his parents that the Jews he met "are different from any Jews I have ever known or seen." As for the Arabs, he wrote, "I just wish they didn't have that oil."

http://www.jcpa.org/

The Palestinian Myth



The general impression given in the media is that Palestinians have lived in the Holy Land for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Palestinian National Authority’s own website only article on the site with any historical content is called “Palestinian History - 20th Century Milestones” which seems only to confirm that prior to 1900 there was no such concept as the Palestinian People. Geographers had long concluded that it was improbable "that any but a small part of the present Arab population of Palestine is descended from the ancient inhabitants of the land.

The country was almost empty in the 19th century. The British Consul General, James Finn, wrote in 1857 that "the country is in a considerable degree empty of inhabitants." He added that the land's "greatest need is that of a body of population." Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, the great British cartographer, reached similar conclusions in 1881: "In Judea it is hardly an exaggeration to say that for miles and miles there was no appearance of life or habitation."

According to official Ottoman Turk census figures, in 1882, in the entire Palestine, there were only 141 000 Muslims, both Arab and non-Arab. This number was to skyrocket to 650 000 Arabs by 1922, a 450% increase in only 40 years. By 1938 that number would become over 1 million or an 800% increase in only 56 years. Population growth was especially high in areas where Jews lived.

Many "Palestinians" Arabs are emigrates from neighbour Arab countries who were lured by the prosperity the Zionists created in British Palestine. Substantial immigration of Arabs to Palestine took place during the first half of the twentieth century; from 1893 to 1947 while the Palestinian Arab population slightly more than doubled in areas where no Jews were settled, it quintupled in the main areas of Jewish settlement.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt concluded in 1939 that "Arab immigration into Palestine since 1921 has vastly exceeded the total Jewish immigration during the whole period."

From the years from 1890 to 1945 about 500,000 Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi and Eastern Palestine [Jordan] Arabs settled into West Palestine.

Winston Churchill was British Colonial Secretary when he visited the Middle East in the winter of 1920-1921. Anti-Semitic elements in the British government tried to assert that the Jews were not needed to develop Palestine. Churchill replied:

Left to themselves, the Arabs of Palestine would not in a thousand years have taken effective steps towards the irrigation and electrification of Palestine. They would have been quite content to dwell—a handful of philosophic people—in wasted sun-drenched plains, letting the waters of the Jordan flow unbridled and unharnessed into the Dead Sea."
In 1939, Winston Churchill noted that “ "So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population."
Exact population statistics may be problematic, but it seems that by 1947 the number of Arabs west of the Jordan River was approximately triple of what it had been in 1900.

In 1930 the British Mandate sponsored Hope-Simpson Report noted that "unemployment lists are being swollen by immigrants from Trans-Jordania" and "illicit immigration through Syria and across the northern frontier of Palestine is material".

Malcolm MacDonald, one of the principal authors of the British White Paper of 1939, which restricted Jewish immigration to British Palestine, admitted (conservatively) that were it not for a Jewish presence the Arab population would have been little more than half of what it actually was.

*A MAJOR MIGRATION FROM MUSLIM COUNTRIES, especially to the coastal plain, took place during 1830-1947.

*The origin of most Palestinian refugees was from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Sudan, Algeria and Libya, migrating during 1830-1947. The Arab population of Jaffa, Haifa and Ramleh grew 17, 12 and 5 times during 1880-1947.

*"30,000-36,000 SYRIANS migrated to Palestine in recent months" (Syrian daily, La Syrie, Aug. 12, 1934).

http://palestinefacts.org/

[Verv]

Verv, who will take drastic actions?

Both sides.

It is war, after all.

[Tonic]

Verv

Verv, who will take drastic actions?

Both sides.

It is war, after all.

MB just removed this thread in ME furum, what I wrote there

SeriousCat

One would think that because the Jews know what atrocities were committed against them during the Holocaust that they'd be mindful how they treat others, yet their memories, coupled with the country being in hostile territory (owing to the fact that it was illegally seized by the Allied powers) have made them a touch edgy.

taliz

This is because of the benefit Israel, or rather Zionism gains from the Jewish status of victims and perpetuating a fear of another holocaust of the Jewish people. Which has resulted in the holocaust being seen as a singularly Jewish affair, with people immigrating to Israel out of some perceived fear, be it real or make believe in the lands they have "fled" from. In turn what we have today is a role reversal between a people who were once the camp prisoners, who have become todays camp guards. Expunging catch phrases such as "Never again!" as some form of legitimization of their justified cause to oppress others so they can enjoy a modicum of comfort and safety.

The holocaust industry has been quite effective it its role - but thats what happens when a movement turns such a terrible event into folk lore to suit the movements political goals.

The greatest mistake of the Zionists was the unfinished war of 1948. If you decide you want the land be decisive and just finish the war; clean the territory with its hostile inhabitants. The world public opinion in 1948 was more favorable. Israel tried to be "human" and left most of the population but after few generations that wasn't enough for the new anti Zionists and they refer to the war as "ethnic cleansing" any way. Better would be to be serious with the ethnic cleansing back than.

We don't hear any atrocity stories from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Greece, Turkey and even former Yugoslavia, when the ethnic cleansing was real and solved the problem. The current Israeli nightmare is the ongoing skirmish that no one sees its end.

Yet the Palestinisns still flee to Israel. Why? After all the liberal public opinion view them as powerless abused lot while Israel atrocity is protected only by The holocaust industry. So why they cling to Israel to milk the Zionists? Israel had to be decisive. You can't blame only the public opinion who turned against Israel today. Israel indecisive action in the past brouth upon her this nightmare.

The Times December 04, 2006



The “separation barrier” that Israel has built to keep out Palestinians. However, many Arabs are moving into Jerusalem to take advantage of the residential permits (Peter Nicholls)


Israel's wall has forced Palestinians to move home - right into Jerusalem
Stephen Farrell, Jerusalem

Wealth and ID cards allow shift
Drastic changes to population

The exodus is evident. Streets are empty, the school roll has fallen from 1,500 to 500 pupils, blocks of flats have lost 80 per cent of their tenants and businesses have closed, moving north to Ramallah.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 46,00.html

[Arthur2sheds_Jackson]

Prytych thoughtfully answered with:

I see, if it doesn't happen right in front of you, it simply cannot be true. You know World War 2 never happened, either.

My point was regarding the title of THIS thread, a point which you dismissed. That latest reply addresses nothing that was said before.

If you can't be consistent in your argument don't bother.

[Maas]

It isn't they like the country itself, but their life quality in here. From the article: "Poll: 77% of Israeli Arabs would rather live in Israel than in any other country in the world"

quality of life.... or just the weather....
the poll doesn't say why, so you can't just make something up.

[Tonic]

Maas
Same weather in Palestine yet they rash to milk the Zionists

The Times December 04, 2006



The “separation barrier” that Israel has built to keep out Palestinians. However, many Arabs are moving into Jerusalem to take advantage of the residential permits (Peter Nicholls)


Israel's wall has forced Palestinians to move home - right into Jerusalem
Stephen Farrell, Jerusalem

Wealth and ID cards allow shift
Drastic changes to population

East to West, the flight has begun. Israel’s controversial “separation barrier”, expanding inexorably over wadis and high streets, is near completion along large stretches of its route. Slab by 30ft slab, it seals off Jewish-majority West Jerusalem to protect it from West Bank suicide bombers. Except that the wall designed to keep out Palestinians has driven thousands of them into inner Jerusalem.

Most East Jerusalem Arabs lucky enough to hold the much-prized Israeli Jerusalem identity cards granting them residency rights have already slipped inside the concrete curtain before its gates slam shut.

The result is drastic social and demographic changes to the outskirts of a Biblical city that is now twice-walled — from some vistas Ariel Sharon’s concrete legacy is clearly visible outside Suleiman the Magnificent’s Old City ramparts.

The “outer” neighbourhoods now lie half-deserted, abandoned by those able and wealthy enough to move.

In the “inner” suburbs the laws of supply and demand have doubled rents and increased land prices in Arab neighbourhoods and even — irony of ironies — forced the new arrivals into Jewish areas. “Many Arabs are moving into the settlements because they are very close to the Arab areas,” said Raed Jaber, a 27-year-old Arab from al-Eizariya, who now owns a creperie serving the overwhelmingly Jewish residents of the settlement of Pisgat Zeev.

“I’ll move in myself in a year or so when I get married,” he shrugs, dismissing antipathy from religious Jews who have leafleted the area urging residents not to rent to Arabs.

Taxis and commuters can still flit through a narrow gap left for builders to complete the final section, but this is expected to close within weeks. The exodus is evident. Streets are empty, the school roll has fallen from 1,500 to 500 pupils, blocks of flats have lost 80 per cent of their tenants and businesses have closed, moving north to Ramallah.

Increasingly discernible is the influx of poorer, socially conservative West Bankers, drawn by falling rents.

Yellow-plated Israeli car numberplates are being replaced by green Palestinian ones, more women are veiled, East Jerusalemites are disappearing from offices and classrooms, and shopkeepers have noticed the arrival of Jenin and Nablus accents, raising security concerns.

“The moment they started digging the wall here, people started packing and moving. Now 90 per cent of the homeowners have gone,” sighed Hani Bakir, 42. “Crime has increased, shops are being looted and houses broken into.”

“We had to move inside to keep our Jerusalem IDs, because of the health services, so my dad can get to work, to stay in contact with family and friends and simply to have access to Jerusalem without a permit,” she said.

A 2006 study by the refugee rights agency Badil found that 17.3 per cent of 5,100 Jerusalem Palestinians surveyed moved because of the wall.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0, ... 46,00.html

[Dreder]

quality of life.... or just the weather....
the poll doesn't say why, so you can't just make something up.

I use my logic. What are the reasons they rather to live here, in your opinion?

[Tonic]

Dreder

Well, they don't afraid to yell death to the Jews in Arabic. For example, a protestthat took place in Umm al-Fahm show Arab Israelis yelling "Death to the Jews", you can also see there Arab Israeli MKs, as Ahmad Tibi.

Nothing also stops half of the Arab Israelis from saying in another poll that they "justify Hizbullah kidnapping".


Than no, your claims have no validity whatsoever.

Maas

Nothing also stops half of the Arab Israelis from saying in another poll that they "justify Hizbullah kidnapping".

Sais it all that the poll we are discussing is inconsistend with what you type.

Maas

Maas, I was refuting his claims. You are really annoying, start reading what I am writing and than comment instead of writing bullshit as usual that has nothing to do with my claims at all

all I wrote is that the results of your polls are inconsistent with the results of this poll. How could an Arab loving Israel have such an oppinion about a getting it's own soldiers getting kidnapt? Something is not right.

"Poll: 77% of Israeli Arabs would rather live in Israel than in any other country in the world". 77% higher than the proportion of Jewish Israelis who want to stay in Israel, or the proportion of Brits who want to stay in Britain. Those "Israeli Arabs" define themselves as ‘Palestinian citizens of Israel’ yelling "Death to Israel" and "justifying Hizbullah kidnapping". But that does not exclude or contradict the finding that 77 per cent would rather live in Israel, that maybe reflects their feelings about where they would have any chance of doing better financially.

Israelis don't like the idea of feeding their enemies. Yet Maas don't understand it.

Israel is golden mine for the Arabs gold diggers. Maas why don't you understand the nuance of Israeli Palestinian conflict?

http://www.jewishsf.com
Friday April 7, 2000
Poll shows Israeli Arabs feel more like Palestinians

JERUSALEM (JPS) — Israeli Arabs are beginning to see themselves more as Palestinians living in Israel than as full-fledged Israelis.

Forty-six percent described themselves as Palestinians or Arab-Palestinians in Israel, while 21 percent opted for the description of Palestinian Arabs, 9 percent as Arabs and just over 3 percent as Palestinians.

Only 11 percent chose the option of describing themselves as Israeli Arabs, which had been the common practice in the past. And just 4 percent described themselves as Israelis.

There is a fundamental problem with the existence of a large Israeli Arab minority in Israel. Israel exists as a Jewish state for the Jewish people and Israeli Arabs can only feel a limited identification with that state, if any at all.

[Tonic]

MVictorP

Best solution for the ME would be a dual state, with a proportional parlementary but an effective Jewish oligarchy -they know how to run things. As for Jewry's sake itself, a city-state in Jerusalem (not unlike Vatican) would suffice IMO, as far as the goy world is concerned.

That or a smaller, non-expentionnist but still exclusive Jewish state protected by the UN.

There are no utopic solutions.

Nice North American worldwiew. Really. Unfortunately this most progressive idea didn't work in the Old World. Not in Europe (see Yugoslavia) and certainly not in the Middel East where become a "Jordanian Jew" is not difficult, it is simply impossible, by law. And in Suadi Arabia you can't open a Church or a synagogue. Israel can not be measured by some fantastic standarts.




Israeli (left wing) author A.B. Yehoshua rejects one state solution (binational state)

"I think binationalism would eventually lead to destruction and a daily war everywhere because the core of identity would begin to be trampled upon. I think that what would happen is that Jews would flee from here and the Palestinians would come."So you're essentially totally destroying the fabric of life and the desire to even be a part of your community, of your state, your identity, your symbols.

"The thing that worries me most now, the real basis of my worry, is that the Arabs don't really want two states.

"And this has to be prevented," he adds. "We came here, Jews from Yemen, from Vilna, from France, from America, we gathered the remnant of the Jewish people after the Holocaust, we came here to live with ourselves, to see if we can live with ourselves. We don't need to enter into a symbiosis with the Arabs, just as we don't need to enter into a symbiosis with the Ukrainians or the Americans."

But why exactly is a binational state a bad thing?

"Because these are two completely different peoples - in religion, culture and language. These are two entities between which there is an economic abyss. Both are also tied to the outside - the Palestinians are tied to the Arab world and we to the Jewish world. A binational state is a recipe for the annihilation of the Israeli state."

Last update - 21:52 15/02/2008


Hard talk

By Gidi Weitz and Dror Mishani

Tags: A.B. Yehoshua, Israel

The sensitivity we show, in a very profound way, in regard to someone who has been abducted, is much greater and much more pronounced than in their codes," writer A. B. Yehoshua offers an example to illustrate the sharp contrast he finds between Jews and Arabs.

They carry out abductions in order to get back prisoners who are in our jails.

"No, no, forgive me, but that's not why they abduct people."


So you're saying that we're more sensitive to human beings?

"We have our moral codes, for better and for worse, and they have their moral codes, for better and for worse. I'm not going to get into their system of codes now. They can send people to blow themselves up."

And we can't?

"No. I don't think that in the Holocaust, anyone would have said this to his son. And I'm not even talking about going to kill German children, but even going to blow yourself up among the German army that wants to kill you. We don't want to destroy them, and meanwhile they give out candies in Gaza. After they see that they killed children and old people, they give out candies?! Their suicide doesn't stem just from here. You see it in Iraq, you see it in all kinds of places. They're killing their brethren, they're killing their own people."

The truth is that he doesn't want to talk politics. Yehoshua implored us to devote the conversation to literature. But after 20 minutes, as we were sipping the espresso he made, he suddenly tensed and announced, of his own accord: "The thing that worries me most now, the real basis of my worry, is that the Arabs don't really want two states.

"And this has to be prevented," he adds. "We came here, Jews from Yemen, from Vilna, from France, from America, we gathered the remnant of the Jewish people after the Holocaust, we came here to live with ourselves, to see if we can live with ourselves. We don't need to enter into a symbiosis with the Arabs, just as we don't need to enter into a symbiosis with the Ukrainians or the Americans."

But why exactly is a binational state a bad thing?

"Because these are two completely different peoples - in religion, culture and language. These are two entities between which there is an economic abyss. Both are also tied to the outside - the Palestinians are tied to the Arab world and we to the Jewish world. A binational state is a recipe for the annihilation of the Israeli state."

As we were meeting in Givatayim, in the high-rise apartment building where he stays every weekend to be with his grandchildren, we suggested that he draw on his literary talents to imagine that in a binational state, a Palestinian family would be living in the apartment below. What would bother him then?

"On Yom Kippur," he quickly replies, "I couldn't force him not to take out his car or turn on the radio and all that kind of thing. It's his right to do that."

But you're secular.

"What does it matter? Yom Kippur is very important to me."

It's important to you that no cars be traveling outside?

"It's important to me that Yom Kippur should have a certain character - also within the Jewish community. It bothers me that I'm in a community, and this community has a character of its own, it has a memory of its own, it has holidays of its own, while the other has holidays and a character of its own. I think binationalism would eventually lead to destruction and a daily war everywhere because the core of identity would begin to be trampled upon. I think that what would happen is that Jews would flee from here and the Palestinians would come. So you're essentially totally destroying the fabric of life and the desire to even be a part of your community, of your state, your identity, your symbols. I have a lot of things in common with the moderate religious here in Bnei Brak."

Much more than with a Palestinian from Nablus?

"Certainly."

With people from United Torah Judaism you have more in common than with Mahmoud Darwish?

"Certainly. Mahmoud Darwish lives according to different Muslim codes. I'm not against them, I respect them."

Yes, but you're both secular intellectuals.

"But there are secular intellectuals in Cyprus and Greece, too. That's not the problem, the intellectualism. The problem has to do with the fabric of life and the foundations of the identity, with the flag. You'd first of all have to change the flag."

So the flag will be changed, is that so important?

"Gentlemen!"

Would another national anthem frighten you?

"Definitely. Another national anthem would frighten me."

We haven't yet lost hope

This week, Yehoshua's new book, "Ahizat Moledet" (Hakibbutz Hameuchad Press) is in the bookstores. It is a collection of essays he has composed and lectures he has given in the past few years. Some deal with his literary work, such as the article on his novel "Open Heart," in which he charmingly explains how one can write about India without having visited there. Another part deals with national issues: the attempt to solve the riddle of anti-Semitism, for instance, or Ehud Barak's request for forgiveness from Mizrahi Jews.

Yehoshua, 71, is a generous host. He pours the drinks, serves strawberries and nuts, permits his guests to smoke. He puffed on his last cigarette during the Six-Day War in 1967, when he swore never to take up smoking again until peace comes. He regrets that this won't be happening any time soon. For him, the crisis with the Palestinians began in 2000, he says, "after Clinton sat there for two weeks poring over every map and every village in order to finish the thing and Arafat came out with a crazy intifada. Now it's the job of the Arab League and of Europe to restore faith in the idea of two states for two peoples."

Among the explanatory material sent to us in anticipation of the interview, several corrections Yehoshua made by hand appeared to indicate something about the man who in 1976 called on Israel to talk to the Palestine Liberation Organization. In one of them, he decided to remove the adjective "brutal," which had been appended to the word "occupation." "I don't know if it's a brutal occupation," he explains. "I crossed it out because, in my opinion, there is also a proportion to occupation. I'm not about to equate the occupation with Nazism. Look, there's one measure anyway. During four years of the second intifada, one of the most sophisticated and strongest armies is facing militias, and 4,000 or so Palestinians are killed and 1,000 or so Israelis. You want to say that this is Nazism? Nazis would have killed 4,000 in an hour! Things have to be put in a historical context, as they are, and to describe us as Nazis is totally filthy and despicable."

And what about our guilt? A few weeks ago, during President George W. Bush's visit to Israel, Yehoshua published an article in the Italian newspaper La Stampa in which he suggested that Bush recall the American ambassador in Israel for "consultations," in order to pressure the Olmert government to evacuate the illegal outposts. "I was just stunned," he explains. "For three years we've been promising to take down the unauthorized outposts. Arik Sharon said it, Olmert said that it's a disgrace. The outposts are unauthorized by Israeli law, it's not that America says they're illegal. So I say: You want to help us? Are you truly our friends? If you would exert some simple pressure, by means of the most minimal thing, recalling the ambassador for consultations, would have helped. Olmert isn't doing it and the government isn't doing it out of fear."

Fear of what?

"Of the settlers. We're getting into a situation where after the disengagement the right is making a threat, and by its logic, it can say as follows: You carried out the disengagement, you demolished settlements, overall everything went smoothly. But you think you can keep on with it? Look what happened - the Qassams keep on coming. But no one thinks about what happened before the Qassams, what happened during the four years of the intifada in Gaza: 40 people were being killed in a year. Families and soldiers were being killed there at a time when settlements and the army were there. You remember the soldiers who had to search for the body parts of the soldiers who were killed in their tanks?

"So the Qassams have to be dealt with in a radical way and we have to see what can be done about that, and I'm in favor of rationing electricity and fuel; and at the same time I'm in favor of a call for a mutual cease-fire with the Gazans. Soon, I and a group of writers are going to issue an appeal for a cease-fire, before there's a major operation and more blood is spilled on both sides. But it's impossible to say that our security situation has become intolerable and that when we were still there it was okay. But they say: Now you want to remove settlements in Judea and Samaria, in a place that's much more ideologically significant? We won't let you. And that's why the government is scared."

Yehoshua is concerned that it won't be possible to evacuate the settlers from the territories, not even with a final status accord. "There has to be a Jewish minority within the Palestinian state, since we're not going to start now uprooting Ofra and Beit El and all that. We'll propose to them and to the Palestinians: You want a state? We'll give you the maximum territory on condition that you also accept a Jewish minority within it. Like we have a minority of 20 percent, you'll have a minority of 2 percent, even less. I think that a disengagement now would just be so problematic. You saw what it was like to remove 8,000 settlers from Gaza, what sort of effort it required? And that was still somehow under Sharon's authority. Now you're going to go and uproot 200,000 Jews from Judea and Samaria? All kinds of other ways have to be found. Particularly, a solution in which Jews will be able to live as Palestinian citizens within a state of Palestine, and that would immediately solve the whole uprooting problem, which could turn into hell."

And is Olmert capable of this?

"I think so."

After his good friend, the writer David Grossman, in his speech on the eleventh anniversary of the Rabin assassination, denounced Olmert and company as a "hollow leadership," Yehoshua called him up to complain. "I love Grossman like a brother, but after that I said to him: You should know, Golda wasn't hollow, Dayan wasn't hollow, Sharon wasn't hollow. These were not hollow leaders and they did the biggest damage to the State of Israel, more than Olmert has done. Hollowness is not the problem."

When you, Grossman and Amos Oz call for a cease-fire, as you did toward the end of the Second Lebanon War, do you really think anyone cares? Aren't you living in a bygone reality?

At the start of the war, Yehoshua was squarely within the consensus, and supported the attack on Lebanon. "I definitely supported it. A military organization that doesn't control a state, that hoards thousands of rockets and declares that its objective is to destroy the State of Israel, abducts two soldiers, kills eight, unleashes a barrage of Katyushas. What am I supposed to do? What am I supposed to do?!"

To hold back, to take it. Maybe that's part of the price you have to pay in this region.

"No, no. Not to just take it. No. Absolutely not."

But what came out of this war in the end?

"Good things came out of it overall. There's an international force situated on the border. So your army is weak? So you suddenly discovered serious problems with the army? Well, you can say: Fortunately, it was discovered during a limited war like this one. But the essence of the response is to say to the Lebanese government: Gentlemen, it's unacceptable that there is this organization that you don't control. I mean, you're sitting in Beirut and playing there in the casino and everything's very nice, you have these wonderful cabarets and everything, and here you also have this maniac organization. Just imagine if we were to say to the Arabs: Look, we're a peace-loving country, but we have this air force that's kind of crazy and every so often they take out their airplanes and fire at you?"

That's not symmetrical.

"Yes it is symmetrical. What is this? Either you take sovereignty or you don't take sovereignty. I ask the same thing of the Arabs that I ask of myself. Sovereignty, responsibility for the territory."

Don't you think Olmert should have quit after the war? Wouldn't that have helped our political culture?

"I think that if he would have up and quit, it might have helped. But does anyone think that the moment you get rid of a prime minister, who by the way was not responsible for the army, who received the army as a given, who was prime minister for just a few months and for whom the army was not his field of expertise, so the moment you get rid of him - do you think you've solved all the problems?"

Partial Jew, total Jew

In the past two years, Yehoshua has stirred the ire of diaspora Jewry, particularly in the United States and France, after he voiced a sharp distinction between them and the Jews who live in Israel. "I'm a total Jew because I live in Israel. You are partial Jews," he admonished them, and he repeats this assertion in his book.

What exactly do you mean when you cite this difference between the partial and the total Jew?

"The Jew in the disapora is essentially a free Jew, he's free from another Jew, while here we are ruled by Jews. Jews can send us to prison, and Jews send us to war, impose taxes on us, Jews evict us from our homes. All of these things that are completely new elements in the 2,000 years since the destruction of the Temple. I'm just saying: You are partial Jews on this level in which I contend with the totality of the reality and I am in a binding relationship among Jews, while you - no Jew can touch you, no Jew can impose anything on you, can compel you to do anything. It's all basically up to you. That's the point."

So you're not a partial Jew because you're not religiously observant, let's say?

"No, no, that has nothing to do with it. Jewishness is not connected at all to religion. Jewishness is a people. In the diaspora, too, they don't think that a Jew who is not religious is not Jewish. After all, the term 'Jew' is a term that connotes belonging to a people."

The Orthodox might not agree with you.

"I think they would agree with me, since in the end, they can tell me - You ought to do such and such, but an Orthodox Jew would never deny my essence as a Jew. I can go against all the religious precepts and he'll still tell me: You are a Jew. And if, after I've denied everything I should fall fainting at his feet and say, 'Help me,' he'll help me."

But he won't agree that you are a total Jew.

"Look, there are also people who will say: If you're not against the occupation, you're harming your Jewish soul. Or someone could say: If you're against Greater Israel, you're hurting Judaism. But these are all matters of will, it's not the same thing. The fundamental things are related here to the very framework of life, that we live together, that this is a binding framework, as with any other nation. If tomorrow you were to travel to Ecuador and fall into some canyon there, then I, with my tax money, am obligated to send a rescue team to save you. It's my duty, there's a binding system here, and this is a new thing, and it's what creates the totality of these things."

But, historically, without diaspora Jewry, it's not clear that your existence here would have been possible. The injection of funds during the 1950s, for example, was like vital oxygen at the time.

"It's possible that they really did help us a lot. What I'm saying is that if our entire existence is dependent on them, then it's an existence that is problematic at its core. We needed their help, because we made this state for them, too. Their contribution was not simply an act of kindness. They knew that this state, if they ever find themselves in trouble or want to come here, that this state will automatically open its gates to them, and from this perspective, this is just what my Zionism is."

Yet today this place is the least safe place for Jews. This is the paradox of Zionism.

"Is Bangladesh a safe place for Bangladeshis? This concept that the Jews are searching for a safe place for themselves is essentially a concept that stands in contrast to the basic concept of a homeland. I can tell you that in 60 years, 22,000 people have been killed here, which is about equal to the daily quota in Auschwitz. England wasn't safe during the Blitz, either. So does that mean you're going to say: England is not a safe place?"

Do you feel anger toward diaspora Jews? If your children were to decide tomorrow not to live here, to live abroad, would you be angry at them?

"I'll say one thing: If you go somewhere else, then identify with it fully. If an Israeli leaves Israel and moves to New York, then go ahead, now Harlem is your brother, you pay taxes to the Americans, you live with them, you're responsible for all the American issues. Take the Americans and identify with them completely."

Are you angry with some of American Jewry for their part in nurturing the settlements?

"Yes. I expected American Jews, who were raised on democracy, to know very well that the moment there are settlements here, it will eventually lead to an apartheid state. They should have naturally, as Americans, because of their democratic American identity, been against this thing. I was dumbfounded that they were so quick to give up on these democratic values. The problem is especially with liberal American Jews, who knew quite well that this was not okay and not good, but because they were so loyal to Israeli politics and the Israeli government, they subjugated their values for the sake of some kind of unconditional solidarity with the State of Israel."


Does the question of the Nobel Prize concern you?

"Why? Not at all. Fifty percent of the people who receive a Nobel Prize - you don't remember them. Tolstoy didn't receive a Nobel Prize, Joyce didn't get one, Kafka didn't get one, lots and lots of people didn't receive it. Come on, what is it, a halo that you put around your head? The real problem is my struggle for recognition here. Here."

Here in Israel - that's what's matters to you most?

"Yes, that's the most important."

If you didn't sell any more books here, but you sold all over Europe, that wouldn't be good for you?

"Here. Here. What they write about me in the 'Sefarim' book supplement [of Haaretz] is more important to me than five good reviews in The New York Times. Here, this it where it has to stay. In the National Library. That's the place that's important to me. For musicians and painters and so on, there is really more of an international system. But with us it's the national system that really judges us. No one knew Alterman or S. Yizhar outside of the country, but they are so significant in Israeli culture."

Are you the same person when you sit down to write an essay as when you sit down to write literary prose?

"There's a difference. There's a part of me that wants very badly to understand and to fix things. I have that from Zionism, which thought we could repair the Jewish people. A group that was just half a percent of the entire Jewish people established everything that we now have here. It's incredible. And they did it outside of the Jewish people. If the Zionist party had run in an election in the early 20th century, it would have received only 6 or 7 percent of the Jewish people's vote. A majority of the Jewish people was against this thing. They went ahead and made this project. There was something sort of omnipotent then that is still with us today. So I have this side that wants to understand and wants to change things, and therefore sometimes I also give advice on what to do with this or that, out of the feeling that it is possible to fix things. I believe in constant repairing. Maybe that's really the most fundamental motto for me, and in my self-definition as a leftist. This matter of anti-Semitism, which is really the heart of the story, is an attempt to understand this infrastructure that continually repeats itself. Not what the Jews are guilty of. The Jews aren't guilty. But within the structure of Jewish identity there's this thing that could have made such outlooks possible. And therefore I'm out to correct Jewish history, that's all. To correct it and not just to continue it."

[Tailz]

Tonic wrote:

Yes they love the social benefit of the state. That don't make them less hostile element

As hostile to Israel, as Israelis are to them?
Maybe you should read the article and look at how both the Arabs and the Jews are looking at ways to coexist, rather than being a little troll and vilifying the Israeli Arabs.

What comes around, goes around... ya-know...

Arthur two sheds jackson wrote:

Well I'd rather be knee-deep in rabbit shit than cowshit but it doesn't mean I 'love' standing in the former.

Heheheee! You brought a smile to my day, thanks! Haha!

Tonic trolls some more:

The greatest mistake of the Zionists was the unfinished war of 1948. If you decide you want the land be decisive and just finish the war; clean the territory with its hostile inhabitants. The world public opinion in 1948 was more favorable. Israel tried to be "human" and left most of the population but after few generations that wasn't enough for the new anti Zionists and they refer to the war as "ethnic cleansing" any way. Better would be to be serious with the ethnic cleansing back than.

Those "hostile inhabitants" were hostile because of all the crap that had been going on with the Zionists (and grumpy Arabs too). They were hostile because a buch of guys with guns were looking to kick them out of their homes and replace them with their own Volk.

It was ethnic cleansing because there were actions of ethnic cleanings that took place.

I find it appalling that your advocating ethnic cleaning! Obviously you didn't learn anything from the Holocaust. Jeez, had anyone advocated this (ethnic cleansing) about Jews the forum mods would come down on them like a ton-o-bricks. But nah, I am happy you can publicly get this off your chest, at least it exposes hate mongering trolls like you.

We don't hear any atrocity stories from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Greece, Turkey and even former Yugoslavia, when the ethnic cleansing was real and solved the problem. The current Israeli nightmare is the ongoing skirmish that no one sees its end.

We didn't hear about it because it was covered up by the state, why didn't the world hear about the holocaust till after Nazi Germany was defeated, because the Nazi state did its best to cover it up. Even the Israeli state has had its own state sponsored cover ups to cover assassinations that would make the Israeli state look bad if the truth leaked out.

Yet the Palestinisns still flee to Israel. Why? After all the liberal public opinion view them as powerless abused lot while Israel atrocity is protected only by The holocaust industry. So why they cling to Israel to milk the Zionists? Israel had to be decisive. You can't blame only the public opinion who turned against Israel today. Israel indecisive action in the past brouth upon her this nightmare.

They move to Israel because it offers a better life, economically, better jobs, better wages, etc. Still does not mean they can't disagree with Israeli colonial policy.

As for Israeli atrocities protected by the Holocaust Industry only... heh, how many IDF soldiers have shoot Palestinian civilians and fronted up to the courts and received little more than a slap on the wrist? All those instances of Human Shield use, how many officers have been court-marshaled for the offense? Oh certainly the courts have told the IDF not to do it- but has anyone been prosecuted for it?

http://www.geocities.com/kreplach_oy/Saudi_Aparthied.jpg

Yes, and what about the Israeli only roads? Yeah I agree its shitty, but don't blow your horn when your lot is doing the same shitty thing.

[Maas]

Israel is golden mine for the Arabs gold diggers. Maas why don't you understand the nuance of Israeli Palestinian conflict?

You know the gold mine is at the other end of the middle east. And it is way more peacefull over there than in Israel. How much you may dislike that idea, but them Arabs over there are fucking rich. You don't understand even the simple idea of income!

[Nets]

^ Maas, not for Palestinians it isn't. The Gulf states treat poor Arabs like slaves. Remember when Kuwait expelled 400,000 Palestinians in 1991?

[MVictorP]

The greatest mistake of the Zionists was the unfinished war of 1948. If you decide you want the land be decisive and just finish the war; clean the territory with its hostile inhabitants. The world public opinion in 1948 was more favorable. Israel tried to be "human" and left most of the population but after few generations that wasn't enough for the new anti Zionists and they refer to the war as "ethnic cleansing" any way. Better would be to be serious with the ethnic cleansing back than.

This has to be written in a cynical matter, Tonic, lest it makes you condoning what the Nazis did during Barbarossa.

It's the concept of ethnic cleasing that is at fault, not its shoddy execution.

Nice North American worldwiew. Really. Unfortunately this most progressive idea didn't work in the Old World.

Okay, okay. How about "a smaller, non-expentionnist but still exclusive Jewish state protected by the UN", then?

I'm pretty sure that if Israel pulls back both the colonists and the IDF which makes their crime possible, compensate these Palestinians that were displaced and accept a UN mandate to police any given buffer zone out there for at least 30 years, things would go just fine.

That, however would be an admission of wrongdoing by the zionists, and it's what makes it about as utopic as the previous one. Too bad, because it would be the only thing that would guarantee Israel any prospect of lasting peace.

[Tonic]

MVictorP

This has to be written in a cynical matter, Tonic, lest it makes you condoning what the Nazis did during Barbarossa.

No I condon what Czechoslovakia did to Sudeten Germans and the Greco-Turk "Population Swap" that brought to its conductor the Nobel Prize.


The "ethnic cleansing" practice praised for the end solution of the Greco-Turk war and even won the nobel peace prize for its organizer - Fridtjof Nansen, Nobel peace prize Greco-Turkish war ( 1922-1923).

The "ethnic cleansing" as term, presumably a moral judgment intended to pathologize such attitudes, coined by one reporter, Roy Gutman from New York's "Newsday" paper during the last Balkans war. During the Greco-Turkish war it was called something else: "exchange of population".


In British Palestine

British Palesine's Peel Commission Report 1938

The cancer of conflict must be cut out. As Sir Walter Smiles, a Conservative member in British House of Commons said on November 24, 1938, during the debates on the Peel Commission Report, "No matter what sacrifice or discomfort people who were transferred were put to at one time, it might be better to get it over at once as the Greeks who left Asia Minor and went to Greece learned, rather than to be always at enmity with their neighbors".

Four Nobel Peace Prize winners have proposed population transfer - Sir Norman Angell, Christian Lange, Philip Noel-Baker (in the specific case of Palestine), and Dr. Fridtjof Nansen as the proponent of the Greco-Turkish exchange. This speaks volumes about the morality of transfer. And especially in our case. As Hoover wrote in 1954 when he reached the age of 80, replying to a congratulatory letter, which referred to his transfer plan, "We were on the only sane track!".

Nets

^ Maas, not for Palestinians it isn't. The Gulf states treat poor Arabs like slaves. Remember when Kuwait expelled 400,000 Palestinians in 1991?

Kuwait expelled 400,000 Palestinians in 1991 after the treason they faced from the Palestinian brothers when Saddam occupied Kuwait. Israel is not allowed to expel its own fifth columns after much worse disloyality on much longer time.

taliz

We don't hear any atrocity stories from Czechoslovakia, Poland, Greece, Turkey and even former Yugoslavia, when the ethnic cleansing was real and solved the problem. The current Israeli nightmare is the ongoing skirmish that no one sees its end.

We didn't hear about it because it was covered up by the state, why didn't the world hear about the holocaust till after Nazi Germany was defeated, because the Nazi state did its best to cover it up. Even the Israeli state has had its own state sponsored cover ups to cover assassinations that would make the Israeli state look bad if the truth leaked out.

Had to clarify. There are no atrociety stories *today* in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Greece, Turkey and even former Yugoslavia because the ethnic skirmishes are no more there. They solved it. Even Serbia is no more isolated and boycotted cause that phaze of history is over. But Israel Palestine conflict is not solved one way or another. It's still ongoing conflict. That's what fuels the skirmishes and the atrocities. One decicive measure could save all the future killings.

The decicive solution can be what MVictorP offers or ethnic cleansing Sudetenland style (poor Germans). Just solve it.

I find it appalling that your advocating ethnic cleaning! Obviously you didn't learn anything from the Holocaust. Jeez, had anyone advocated this (ethnic cleansing) about Jews the forum mods would come down on them like a ton-o-bricks. But nah, I am happy you can publicly get this off your chest, at least it exposes hate mongering trolls like you.

No you don't learn from the Holokult (TM by MVictorP). The Jews prayed the Nazis will end with Jewish expulsions and not much than this. This was the basic of the Nazi-Zionist negotiation (Haavara/transfer agreement) before the war and Stern Gang plan after the war was broke. Read history not just the book of Norman Finkelstein, the "son of Holocaust survivor" who could be a son of Kappo as well, you know. Many of them left to live.

I guess Norman Finkelstein's Holocaust Industry (where you get all your ugly knowledge) slander the Haavara agreement.

[Tailz]

Tonic wrote:

Had to clarify. There are no atrociety stories *today* in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Greece, Turkey and even former Yugoslavia because the ethnic skirmishes are no more there. They solved it. Even Serbia is no more isolated and boycotted cause that phaze of history is over. But Israel Palestine conflict is not solved one way or another. It's still ongoing conflict. That's what fuels the skirmishes and the atrocities. One decicive measure could save all the future killings.

So just commit mass ethnic cleansing and be done with it, and that will make everything all right. A wrong is still a wrong.

The decicive solution can be what MVictorP offers or ethnic cleansing Sudetenland style (poor Germans). Just solve it.

Personally I find your "means justifies the ends" as vulgar as Hitlers finial solution to the Jewish Question (Poor Jews). Hitler was just trying to... solve it.

No you don't learn from the Holokult (TM by MVictorP). The Jews prayed the Nazis will end with Jewish expulsions and not much than this. This was the basic of the Nazi-Zionist negotiation (Haavara/transfer agreement) before the war and Stern Gang plan after the war was broke.

Oh come on, Hitler had been threatening the Jews since the 1930's! Are you as delusional as Stalin to think he'd sign an agreement that totally goes against everything he wrote about in Mine Kampf? Lucky the Zionist leaders were not that stupid, but the Stern Gang was, considering they offered to help the Nazi's - strange the Nazi's never took them up on the offer? What was it Stern wrote "Your the Master Race over there, we are the Master Race over here, so lets work together against a common foe." yes yes, really lovely literary pose.

Read history not just the book of Norman Finkelstein, the "son of Holocaust survivor" who could be a son of Kappo as well, you know. Many of them left to live.

Heh, your pissed he may be the Son of a Kappo, and thats enough to discredit everything he does to you? Guilt by association eh? Curious that it was Alan Dershowitz who started the rumor about Finkelstein's mother being a Kappo, I wonder why he did that?

You know, I know a guy who was a Kappo, and they went through hell just as much as any other concentration camp survivor. And in the finial days of the war, the SS were bumping off the Kappo's quicker than camp survivors. As the camp guards were shit scared of being ID'ed by the Kappos.

I guess Norman Finkelstein's Holocaust Industry (where you get all your ugly knowledge) slander the Haavara agreement.

I get my information from as many sources as possible - even people who saw the things I talk about first hand.

[Maas]

But Israel Palestine conflict is not solved one way or another. It's still ongoing conflict. That's what fuels the skirmishes and the atrocities. One decicive measure could save all the future killings.

So just commit mass ethnic cleansing and be done with it, and that will make everything all right. A wrong is still a wrong.

I'll remain a problem, because the people who did the cleansing think they know best how to solve that problem.

Oh come on, Hitler had been threatening the Jews since the 1930's!

It was the reason Einstein moved to the US.

[Tonic]

taliz

So just commit mass ethnic cleansing and be done with it, and that will make everything all right. A wrong is still a wrong.

All war is wrong. Nothing is more morally absolute wrong in "population swap" or "ethnic cleansing". If anything it's "relatively" less evil.

Lucky the Zionist leaders were not that stupid, but the Stern Gang was, considering they offered to help the Nazi's - strange the Nazi's never took them up on the offer? What was it Stern wrote "Your the Master Race over there, we are the Master Race over here, so lets work together against a common foe." yes yes, really lovely literary pose.

You read this bullshit in Lenny Brenner's 'Zionism in the Age of the Dictators', don't you?

Oh come on, Hitler had been threatening the Jews since the 1930's!

British propaganda I keep hearing over and over again. During the first two years of the war (ceratainly before) Germany was actively pushing the Jews to immigrate. It was Britain that locked the Jews into death trap.

Personally I find your "means justifies the ends" as vulgar as Hitlers finial solution to the Jewish Question (Poor Jews). Hitler was just trying to... solve it.

The anti-Holocaust card is your only card. Pathetic. The counter Holocaust Industry is all what protect you from historical rationality.

Heh, your pissed he may be the Son of a Kappo, and thats enough to discredit everything he does to you? Guilt by association eh? Curious that it was Alan Dershowitz who started the rumor about Finkelstein's mother being a Kappo, I wonder why he did that?

Norman Finkelstein is part of that Holocaust Industry (or Holokult, TM by MVictorP) though what he says is sweet to you ears. He's part of the Bullshit. Elie Wiesel, the poster boy of Holocaust Industry is another one.

[Tailz]

Tonic wrote:

All war is wrong. Nothing is more morally absolute wrong in "population swap" or "ethnic cleansing". If anything it's "relatively" less evil.

Fighting a war to defend oneself from aggression, I don't think there is much wrong with that. It is when the defender passes over to become the aggressor when that war becomes unjust.

Conducting population swops or ethnic cleansing just compounds the error of aggressive war.

You read this bullshit in Lenny Brenner's 'Zionism in the Age of the Dictators', don't you?

Not first off, saw info about it in a doco about the SS, and they had comments about various negotiations between the Zionist organizations and Reinhad Heydrich, but I did eventually see references about comments made about such a Stern offered deal in that book, although I have not read that book. But even then, you dispute the Stern gang made the offer?

British propaganda I keep hearing over and over again. During the first two years of the war (ceratainly before) Germany was actively pushing the Jews to immigrate. It was Britain that locked the Jews into death trap.

British propaganda? Have you fallen out of your tree?

OK, I have got to hear this, how did the british lock the Jews into a death trap?

On a side note, in regard to the Germans pushing the Jews to leave. The Nazi's simply wanted to get rid of them, any way that could. And because a Nazi official saw how much trouble there was having to do the rounds of various government departments to get all the documentation stamped and signed for passports in order to leave - the Nazi's streamlined the process to be as efficient as possible to make it easy (and thus quicker) for Jews to leave Germany.

The anti-Holocaust card is your only card. Pathetic. The counter Holocaust Industry is all what protect you from historical rationality.

Your attempting to discredit me because I don't wish to see one group of people commit mass murder or ethnic cleansing upon another group of people - are you off your rocker?

As for my rationality of history, considering I have been studying the history of the Second World War for the last few years, that I have meet and talked with veterans of the Allies armies, the German army, and Holocaust survivors, and that I am considering doing a degree in it, I would hope I know a little about the time period.

Norman Finkelstein is part of that Holocaust Industry (or Holokult, TM by MVictorP) though what he says is sweet to you ears. He's part of the Bullshit. Elie Wiesel, the poster boy of Holocaust Industry is another one.

The shameful thing is the Holocaust was used as a tool by the Zionists - you just don't want to believe it.

[Tonic]

Fighting a war to defend oneself from aggression, I don't think there is much wrong with that. It is when the defender passes over to become the aggressor when that war becomes unjust.

Conducting population swops or ethnic cleansing just compounds the error of aggressive war.

Who was aggressor in 1948, taliz?

But even then, you dispute the Stern gang made the offer?

Read Joseph Heller study about the Stern Gang. I never heard the phrase "master race". Their approach was not different from USSR policy (until 1941). Lehi (dubbed Stern Gang by the Brits) leader, Nathan Yellin Mor, was pro-Soviet and Communist. He was inspired by the Soviets. Nathan Yellin Mor own life was saved because of this Russian Nazi pact. When the war broke out, Sep 1939, he fled Warsaw, out of advancing German forces to Russian occupied-Poland (and NKVD hands). In a sense his "offer" to the devil was more of the same Ribbentrop–Molotov pact. He may be operated under Soviet NKVD instruction, before they let him to go to Palestine. It still doesn't clear

Britain tried to fight Germany until the last Russian (not to say Jewish) blood drop. Their clueless maneuver was rational if desperate. I would do the same.

On the other hand, Palestinian Arabs offered their help to Hitler on the same ground you accuse the Jews. I have no idea why your history reading miss it.

[Tailz]

Tonic wrote:

Who was aggressor in 1948, taliz?

Oh the Arabs most certainly were, and the Zionists were right to defend themselves. But they also switched from defending to attacking.

Read Joseph Heller study about the Stern Gang. I never heard the phrase "master race". Their approach was not different from USSR policy (until 1941). Lehi (dubbed Stern Gang by the Brits) leader, Nathan Yellin Mor, was pro-Soviet and Communist. He was inspired by the Soviets. Nathan Yellin Mor own life was saved because of this Russian Nazi pact. When the war broke out, Sep 1939, he fled Warsaw, out of advancing German forces to Russian occupied-Poland (and NKVD hands). In a sense his "offer" to the devil was more of the same Ribbentrop–Molotov pact. He may be operated under Soviet instruction. It still doesn't clear what was his NKVD enquiry about, before they let him to go to Palestine.

Yes you got me with the comment of "master race" i was being too simplistic and derogatory in my writing to describe the whole conversation between Naftali Lubenchik (Lehi) and Werner Otto von Hentig (Nazi) with just a short quip of words.

Britain tried to fight Germany until the last Russian (not to say Jewish) blood drop. Their clueless maneuver was rational if desperate. I would do the same.

Yes I have heard that cry before, it became fashionable during the Cold War for Russians to blame the British for the excessive Russian deaths - when really they died because Soviet military leadership was poor because it had been purged by Stalin.

On the other hand, Palestinian Arabs offered their help to Hitler on the same ground you accuse the Jews. I have no idea why your history reading miss it.

Actually it was the Mufti who made the offer, but I don't know how the offer was received, or how much ground support the offer had aside from the Mufti - anyway - Had it been taken up I would have expected Rommels Africa Korps to have included a formation of Muslim soldiers offered by the Mufti, but I don't remember any such formations being on the books of Rommel's order of battle. Even then the Arabs in North Africa tried to stay out of the fighting of ether side, in Rommel's notes for the time (the book: Rommel Papers, The) - Rommel makes comments about how the British are trying to seed descent among the North African Arab tribes to attack the Axis forces, which the Arabs were generally ignoring (the same comments are mirrored in the book Panzer Commander by Hans von Luck, at that time in North Africa with the 3rd Panzer Reconnaissance battalion of the 21st Panzer Division).

The one thing that did piss the Arabs off was the poor treatment at the hands of the Italians, carrying out a number of raids against Italian positions and supply lines. So had the Mufi had been successful, I would have suspected a Muslim formation to have joined the Axis forces in North Africa or to have functioned as partisans against the British supply lines - just as the Stern gang had offered.

So no I'm not ignorant of the Mufti's offer, but just to help you out with your attempt to vilify Muslims with duplicity with the Nazis - there were Muslims who did fight for the Nazi's during the second world war in units such as 13th Waffen-Gebirgs Division der SS Handschar (kroatische Nr 1) which was raised from Bosnian muslims in 1943. But the treatment the Muslims received from their SS overlords caused the division to mutiny, with the German cadre staff being murdered. Himmler in his rage used all available force to crush the rebellion and the ring leaders were executed - however the unit was not disbanded as it was sent to Yugoslavia to confront partisans, where it committed many atrocities. Eventually the unit was disbanded and the leftovers formed into a kampfgruppe which fought in the retreat through Hungary and Austria before surrendering to the Soviets.