Israel Is Suppressing a Secret It Must Face
How did a Jewish state founded 60 years ago end up throwing filth at cowering Palestinians?
When you hit your 60th birthday, most of you will guzzle down your hormone replacement therapy with a glass of champagne and wonder if you have become everything you dreamed of in your youth. In a few weeks, the state of Israel is going to have that hangover.
She will look in the mirror and think — I have a sore back, rickety knees and a gun at my waist, but I’m still standing. Yet somewhere, she will know she is suppressing an old secret she has to face. I would love to be able to crash the birthday party with words of reassurance. Israel has given us great novelists like Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, great film-makers like Joseph Cedar, great scientific research into Alzheimer’s, and great dissident journalists like Amira Hass, Tom Segev and Gideon Levy to expose her own crimes.
She has provided the one lonely spot in the Middle East where gay people are not hounded and hanged, and where women can approach equality.
But I can’t do it. Whenever I try to mouth these words, a remembered smell fills my nostrils. It is the smell of shit. Across the occupied West Bank, raw untreated sewage is pumped every day out of the Jewish settlements, along large metal pipes, straight onto Palestinian land. From there, it can enter the groundwater and the reservoirs, and become a poison.
Standing near one of these long, stinking brown-and-yellow rivers of waste recently, the local chief medical officer, Dr Bassam Said Nadi, explained to me: “Recently there were very heavy rains, and the shit started to flow into the reservoir that provides water for this whole area. I knew that if we didn’t act, people would die. We had to alert everyone not to drink the water for over a week, and distribute bottles. We were lucky it was spotted. Next time…” He shook his head in fear. This is no freak: a 2004 report by Friends of the Earth found that only six per cent of Israeli settlements adequately treat their sewage.
Meanwhile, in order to punish the population of Gaza for voting “the wrong way”, the Israeli army are not allowing past the checkpoints any replacements for the pipes and cement needed to keep the sewage system working. The result? Vast stagnant pools of waste are being held within fragile dykes across the strip, and rotting. Last March, one of them burst, drowning a nine-month-old baby and his elderly grandmother in a tsunami of human waste. The Centre on Housing Rights warns that one heavy rainfall could send 1.5m cubic metres of faeces flowing all over Gaza, causing “a humanitarian and environmental disaster of epic proportions”.
So how did it come to this? How did a Jewish state founded 60 years ago with a promise to be “a light unto the nations” end up flinging its filth at a cowering Palestinian population?
The beginnings of an answer lie in the secret Israel has known, and suppressed, all these years. Even now, can we describe what happened 60 years ago honestly and unhysterically? The Jews who arrived in Palestine throughout the twentieth century did not come because they were cruel people who wanted to snuffle out Arabs to persecute. No: they came because they were running for their lives from a genocidal European anti-Semitism that was soon to slaughter six million of their sisters and their sons.
They convinced themselves that Palestine was “a land without people for a people without land”. I desperately wish this dream had been true. You can see traces of what might have been in Tel Aviv, a city that really was built on empty sand dunes. But most of Palestine was not empty. It was already inhabited by people who loved the land, and saw it as theirs. They were completely innocent of the long, hellish crimes against the Jews.
When it became clear these Palestinians would not welcome becoming a minority in somebody else’s country, darker plans were drawn up. Israel’s first Prime Minister, David Ben-Gurion, wrote in 1937: “The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.”
So, for when the moment arrived, he helped draw up Plan Dalit. It was — as Israeli historian Ilan Pappe puts it — “a detailed description of the methods to be used to forcibly evict the people: large-scale intimidation; and laying siege to and bombarding population centres”. In 1948, before the Arab armies invaded, this began to be implemented: some 800,000 people were ethnically cleansed, and Israel was built on the ruins. The people who ask angrily why the Palestinians keep longing for their old land should imagine an English version of this story. How would we react if the 30m stateless, persecuted Kurds in the world sent armies and settlers into this country to seize everything in England below Leeds, and swiftly established a free Kurdistan from which we were expelled? Wouldn’t we long forever for our children to return to Cornwall and Devon and London? Would it take us only 40 years to compromise and offer to settle for just 22 per cent of what we had?
If we are not going to be endlessly banging our heads against history, the Middle East needs to excavate 1948, and seek a solution. Any peace deal — even one where Israel dismantled the wall and agreed to return to the 1967 borders — tends to crumple on this issue. The Israelis say: if we let all three million come back, we will be outnumbered by Palestinians even within the 1967 borders, so Israel would be voted out of existence. But the Palestinians reply: if we don’t have an acknowledgement of the Naqba (catastrophe), and our right under international law to the land our grandfathers fled, how can we move on?
It seemed like an intractable problem — until, two years ago, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research conducted the first study of the Palestinian Diaspora’s desires. They found that only 10 per cent — around 300,000 people — want to return to Israel proper. Israel can accept that many (and compensate the rest) without even enduring much pain. But there has always been a strain of Israeli society that preferred violently setting its own borders, on its own terms, to talk and compromise. This weekend, the elected Hamas government offered a six-month truce that could have led to talks. The Israeli government responded within hours by blowing up a senior Hamas leader and killing a 14-year-old girl.
Perhaps Hamas’ proposals are a con; perhaps all the Arab states are lying too when they offer Israel full recognition in exchange for a roll-back to the 1967 borders; but isn’t it a good idea to find out? Israel, as she gazes at her grey hairs and discreetly ignores the smell of her own stale shit pumped across Palestine, needs to ask what kind of country she wants to be in the next 60 years.
–Johann Hari
©independent.co.uk
She has provided the one lonely spot in the Middle East where gay people are not hounded and hanged, and where women can approach equality.
Not true when only 1/2 the women in the population are given equality and the other occupation and oppression. Turkey actually has a good track record on women’s rights and Arab countries like Tunisia have made enormous strides.
What a load of crap this article is.
dcbeltway —- Did you read the entire article?
The author assumes that the Israel-Palestine question can be addrewsede rationally. The creation of the State of Israel was not a rational decision. Zionism is not a rational philosophy. Once one predicates the creation of a nation-state on the belief that “God” gave the land to the Jewish people and anyone living there who are not Jewish are interlopers, then one has dispensed with ratioality.
I don’t think the Israeli government on a very large number of the Israeli people want peace. I think they want the Palestinians, including the Israeli-Palestinians, to go away. I think many Israelis are prepared to exsterninate them, but are only restrained by being accused of genocide. If they can poison the Palestinians to death, then they can claim that it was the inability of the Palestinians to develop an adequate suwage system that caused their death. That Israel prevents that from happening is irrelevant.
A second dilemma is that the pro-Israel Jewish people in the U.S. pretty much have our Congress under their control with respect to America’s Middle Easst policy. Thee is no reason for them to have to comprmise on this issue as long as they are winning.
The third dimension of this is that pro-Zionist Jewish people have an extraordinary amount of contempt for the Arab people generally. Read Leon Uris’ book “Haj” each page drips with contempt for the Arabs. They are regarded as a people who are backward, ignorant, ad incapable of rational thinking. That prior to the dispersal of the Palestinian people, they were the most educated people in the Middle East is irrelevant. They are not the most educated today, and they will never again be the most educated while they remain under the control of Israel.
Lastly, the people who hold political power in Israel today are the right-wing religious Jews and the Russian Jews, both of whom are well familiar with what Stalin did to control the Russian people, and I don’t think they would hesitate to use Stalinist meathods for a second.
So, how do we deal with a conflict that has no rational basis to in in the first place? How do Arab and Israeli people, as well as progressive Western people discuss this question if there are no shared common logic or presumptons.
Maybe the Arabs in the Middle East generally should be exterminated and be done with it. Then the Jewish people can build their Jewish state in peace. Eventually, especially with one’s ability to control media, everyone will forget that Arabs ever occuped the Middle East. One should never underestimate the capacity of the American people to feel bigotry toward almost anything. Once they are told that Arabs are evil, or the anit-Christ they will believe it and accept the inflicting any amount of torture on Arabs.
Good luck.
“Voice of America - 2 hours ago
By Robert Berger Five members of a Palestinian family and a passerby have been killed by Israeli tank fire in the Gaza Strip.”
I see that the Jews are celebrating Israel’s birthday with yet another ritual slaughter of someone else’s women and children. Is there no end to this bloodlust?
Cadabra - I think most of your post is on point, but I would like to point out that a great majority of Israelis in every poll taken over the last few years favor a return to peace talks, even under fire. Just as in the US, Iran and many other countries, what the government and the people want are often two very different things. Also, as a Jewish woman, I appreciate you making a distinction between Zionist Jews and the rest of us.
Whatfools - I am not one to level hysterical anti-Semite charges against anyone critical of Israel and in fact am very critical of Israel myself. But I cringe to read your blanket statement about “the Jews” celebrating with violence. Can you be more specific? Perhaps by using the “Israelis” or, even more specific “the Israeli government”? It would make Jews like myself a lot more comfortable standing beside a critic such as yourself to demand justice and peace for Palestinians and Israelis.
“The Israelis say: if we let all three million come back, we will be outnumbered by Palestinians even within the 1967 borders, so Israel would be voted out of existence.”
______________________
Hari has written a compassionate and thoughtful article that unfortunately offers only illusory solutions. Jewish victims of injustice and ethnic cleansing founded a nation based on injustice and ethnic cleansing; the conditions of Israel’s creation sowed the seeds of its own destruction. Ergo a two-state solution based on the ‘67 borders is no solution at all; it would only perpetuate Israel’s original sin and cause unending regional instability.
Israel cannot remain a Jewish state, i.e. a racist theocracy, and survive. That is the secret Israel is suppressing and must ultimately face. The only just–and therefore viable–solution, is to let Palestinian refugees return to Israel proper if they choose, and let the current Israeli theocracy be voted out of existence, hopefully to be replaced by a secular democracy with equal rights for all races and religions. If Israelis assimilate, the Zionist project will come to a peaceful end.
The alternative is an eventual nuclear holocaust in the ME. Israelis must choose their fate.
Whatfools - I wanted to spend a moment on the idea of “bloodlust”. Please don’t mistake my explanation as condoning Israel’s actions, but at least as far as many Israelis and Jews in general, particularly here in the US, the narrative of victimhood and constant danger run very deep. Jews have suffered terribly as a community at the hands of numerous entities over the years. The formation of Israel came after decades of violent oppression in Russia and, of course, during the Holocaust. A great number of Jews living in the US have theirs and their children passports on them at all time, even in a country that whole-heartedly supports the Jewish State. The sense of persecution and constant danger runs very deep within the Jewish community, and for good historical reason.
Now, of course, the danger is not so present or imminent and many Jews have gone from being the oppressed to the oppressors as in the case of, particularly in the case of right-wing Israelis and a great proportion of American Jews. But the psychology of centuries of persecution can go a long way to expressing the “bloodlust” you mentioned. Again, I’m not trying to condone it, just going for a little illumination into the collective mindset that has led to the tragedy that is known as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict…
So now the persecuted are the persecutors, and they can justify it by the past. It seems to me like the cycle will continue. Most Jews that I know are otherwise very rational people, but many tend to become irrational in a discussion like this.
What I see is that an oppressed people were given some of the most highly prized (for religious reasons at least) land on the planet and then they go around thrusting sticks at their neighbors; you know, the ones that they displaced.
BreeMass asks that we make a distinction between Jews and Israelis. The line is getting blurred. Many I know, if asked whether Judaism is a religion or nationality, respond “Both!” That, of course, is rediculous. So an Israeli born Jew moves to chicago and marries a catholic who converts him. Is he now a catholic Jew? what about his children? Half jewish? Perhaps Italian Jewish. I think it means something different than an Italian Jew.
Are we so P.C. that we can’t say “He’s a jew?” Is it now “He’s jewish” or “He’s a jewish person” or “Jewish people” instead of Jews. Just wondering.
“How did a Jewish state founded 60 years ago with a promise to be “a light unto the nations” end up flinging its filth at a cowering Palestinian population?”
Israel flings shit because it IS shit. The fact that it throws its sewage at the Palestinians is the perfect metaphor for what it is as a nation. How can a state — pseudo-state — be a light unto the nations when it is founded on genocide and theft? The very same question can rightly be asked about the United States, the so-called beacon of the world, which was equally founded on genocide and theft. The U.S. and Israel are so close because they are the same in spirit, in essence. And when the Palestinians are all gone, which ultimately they will be, Israel will settle down in the former land of Palestine and be content…for a while. And then it will begin casting hungry looks around at its Arab neighbors. Its DESPISED Arab neighbors. It will want more land. And the U.S. will support Israel in its wars of conquest. While I doubt it will turn out this way, I wouldn’t be surprised if the crazy neocons in both Israel and the U.S. dream of a day when between the two of them they own the whole Middle East. There is no limit to the insanity of the neocons of these two countries.
There is no way for Israel to survive except by full genocide of the Palestinians. There isn’t room for both of them. Since the other Arab nations haven’t interfered so far I doubt they’ll do anything to stop Israel now, and in any event Israel can always threaten to nuke anybody. Though come to think of it, the Middle East is a pretty small piece of real estate, and the fallout would surely hit Israel too — would they risk using nukes so close to home?
It’s ugly any way you look at it.
“She has provided the one lonely spot in the Middle East where gay people are not hounded and hanged, and where women can approach equality.”
I am not sure how women can be equal in a country that does what is written in this article:
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-31536420080122
About gay men I am not very sure too. A country that is built on religion cannot approach such issues fairly.
Qbldsmoove - the term “Jew” or “the Jews” often gets thrown around as an epithet and therefore, particularly when it prefaces a statement about the celebration of violence, makes me somewhat uncomfortable, I admit. Saying somebody is Jewish has different implications than saying somebody is a Jew. I’m not trying to be PC, just expressing a preference. I’m not a Jew, I am a person who is Jewish. Being Jewish is an important part of my identity but isn’t the sum total of who I am? Do you see what I mean? And of course, this is one Jewish girl’s opinion, but then I’m a girl who also cares about language.
Also, Judaism is a lot of things - a religion, a cultural identity - but it is not a nationality and whoever is saying that it is is, quite simply, mistaken. Israelis are citizens of Israel. Most Israelis are Jewish, to be sure, but not all or even most Jewish people are Israeli. I’m Jewish by religion and ethicity, but American by nationality.
yvmore - The majority of Israelis are secular Jews, but Israeli politics get dominated by, as the article pointed out, a minority of ulra-Orthodox Jews. Reform and Conservative Jews generally believe in gender equality and orientation equality; in fact Reform Judaism has both of these things written in their charter.
This is one of the constant tensions in Israel, between secular and orthodox Jews - like the US, a very influential vocal minority has a disproportionate amount of power over politics and government. And, like ths US, it’s a very tough issue to resolve. Unfortunately, unlike the US, this is all tangled up with the issue of Palestine and Palestinians so it brings the internal struggles to bear on the external issues, although I can see a parallel in the Iraq situation.
Jews in Palestine.
Europeans in North America.
The same imperialist lies: no on lives there, it’s “God’s will” that you occupy these lands.
And then - what to do with these “savages” who oppose “God’s will”? - genocide, of course.
Isn’t Western “civilization” great?
“The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.”
Sounds chillingly close to Hilter’s “Final Solution”
Israelis think their shit dont stink…
“Vast stagnant pools of waste are being held within fragile dykes across the strip, and rotting. Last March, one of them burst, drowning a nine-month-old baby and his elderly grandmother in a tsunami of human waste”
Fasce it, we are ALL drowning in Israeli shit, from the US AIPAC Congress to Iraq
Breemass said: Jews have suffered terribly as a community at the hands of numerous entities over the years. The formation of Israel came after decades of violent oppression in Russia
Bullshit. Yes, there has been Jewish oppression… but why? Why were the Jews ‘oppressed’? Why is there “anti-semetism”? Think about it. The “Jews” have cause just as much trouble as they have received. I will NOT tolerate any more of the Oh the poor Suffering Jews type talk… it’s bullshit.
And yet again to my mind, this brings up the Warsaw ghetto. There are parallels between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto.
Please, present any counterpoints or further support to this idea, I want to learn more.
Thank you for your posts, BreeMass. I appreciate the distinctions you draw. I am most thoroughly anti-Zionist and anti-AIPAC and yet absolutely NOT anti-Semitic.
Just as I don’t wish to be held responsible for the sins of the American fathers (slavery, genocide against native peoples, wars including the current one in Iraq) I feel for good-hearted Jews the world over who embrace tikkun (sp) and peace and can only watch in horror as their Israeli brethren cheer over over the wholesale slaughter of the Palestinians.
elmysterio - Are you kidding me? Does the phrase “blame the victim” mean anything to you? Obviously those pesky Palestinians must be to blame for their own oppression by the Israeli government. I suppose it goes without saying that Africans were to blame for their enslavement? And, by the same token, those damn Jews are to blame for their own extermination at the hands of Nazis - been reading Mein Kampf lately? Or just the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
Let’s see, the Holocaust, pogroms in Russia and throughout Eastern Europe that occured periodically for centuries. To be fair, the oppression suffered by Jews over the centuries has been directed primarily at Ashkenazi Jews in Europe; Sephardi Jews living under Muslim rulers were generally free from religiously- or ethnically-based oppression.
I understand that oppression doesn’t justify the oppression of others, but you do no favors to anybody when you engage in blatantly deny history.
“There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face . . . for ever”.
Priestess - the parallels you draw to the history of slavery in America is indicative of exactly what I was trying to express. As a young American Jew, I only know about oppression through the stories of my family and I’ve never really experienced it myself (except in course in the echoes of idiots like elmysterio who deny any of it ever happened or that it was the fault of the Jews). But understanding the history and the mindset is key to understanding the actions and fears of many in the Jewish world. Just as people including American Jews and Israelis do themselves a disservice by chalking up Palestinian violence to ingrained irrationality without exploring the root causes, so do Israeli detractors when they dismiss the collective psychological effects of centuries of oppression leading up to and including the Holocaust.
I too am anti-AIPAC, although to be honest I can’t truly consider myself anti-Zionist since I support Israel’s right to exist. However, I firmly reject the Zionist tenet of “a land without people for a people without land” a desperately wish that my forefathers had made different choices for the Jewish people as a whole. I do indeed embrace tikkun and watch in horror as my fellow Jews engage in what I consider debasement of our most holy ideals. I advocate in the US for a just resolution but despair at ever seeing one…
TZ - You are correct in seeing parallels between Gaza and Warsaw, although, in all fairness, even at their worst the Israelis are not engaging in the unapologetic slaughter of Palestinians. To be sure, the actions of the Israeli government may, over the long term, have the same effect and Israelis are certainly engaging in war crimes against the Palestinians, I cannot in all conscience compare the Israelis to Nazis.
I personally think a better comparison is to apartheid South Africa and the bantustans on which black South Africans were forced to live to make room for white South Africans. Palestinians’ movements among the bantustans (the West Bank and Gaza) is limited and tightly controlled; borders are controlled by Israel, along with seaboard, airspace and resources. Their services are limited, their water and electricity is diverted for use by Jewsish-only settlements (although settlements don’t technically exist in Gaza anymore).
Again, I can see the parallels with Warsaw, but I think South Africa is a better example. You mentioned you want to learn more, but I don’t know exactly what information you are looking for. If you’d be more specific, I’d be happy to elaborate!
ACC 2:14pm
Ah! Good point- Israel and US do indeed share the same “beginnings”~ genocide and racism. What an ugly world to be forced to live in. God knows I want out.
Israel–where a Brooklyn Jew can claim ownership of land that was in native hands for generations. That they are too cheap to treat their own sewage only reinforces the negative stereotype of Jews. What a pity…for the Palestinians.
It’s time to force dual citizens of US/Israel to choose their country–no person can be fully loyal to two countries. I suspect many of dual citizenship to elevate Israel above the US, and the only solution is to show them the door and not allow them US citizenship. As one sympathetic to Judaism, I have to say the time to stop the horrible imbalance in relations with Israel is now, before Jews are once again scapegoated and persecuted. Only this time, it will be in the US, where Jews consider themselves safe. The Christian Zionists will lead the way…todays friends are tomorrow’s enemies. Wake up AIPAC, before it’s too late…
Breemas,
The Jews brought it on onto themselves in WW2. Read Benjamin Friedman’s speech in 1961 to see the explanation of how the jews back-stabbed its own protectors…not once,but many times over in their history. And sad to say, but the next holocaust will come, but not by the hands of the Muslims or Arabs, but the same fascists-mentality folks that run this country now.
There are so many things wrong with this article, that I don’t even know where to begin, but I’ll try:
1) “They were completely innocent of the long, hellish crimes against the Jews.” Not even close to being true. There is a long history of problems between the Jews and Arabs of Palestine (my grandmother is 8th generation born in the land of Israel and traces back a few hundred years and this is documented). To assume that the Arab Israeli conflict began in 1945 or 1948 when the Jews fled the persecution in Britain is foolish and only proves your lack of knowledge about the subject.
2) “The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.” - This is a lie and was never said. You are quoting Pappe, which automatically discredits almost everything here, and you keep saying it (this isn’t the first place you’ve used this quote). It is true that Ben-Gurion in 1937-38 supported the transfer of the Arabs out of the area of the Jewish state-to-be – which was precisely the recommendation of the British Royal (Peel) Commission from July 1937, which investigated the Palestine problem. The commission concluded that the only fair settlement was by way of partition, with the Jews receiving less than 20 per cent of Palestine, but that, for it to be viable, the 20 per cent should be cleared of potentially hostile, disloyal Arabs.
3) “some 800,000 people were ethnically cleansed, and Israel was built on the ruins.” You are suggested Israeli/Jews killed 800,000 Arabs, and to those who do not have deep knowledge of the conflict, they have no reason to believe it’s not true. This isn’t true. There is a difference between murdering people and them leaving. Most of those left on their own, many stayed, many returned, and Israel offered that more return (those who weren’t security risks) but Arab nations encouraged them to wait until Israel was wiped off the map.
4) Your comparison to the UK doesn’t even make sense. How can you compare a country that has been around for such a long time with a strip of land that was never declared any type of country. Furthermore, the Jews have always had a presence in the land, not to mention historic ties for thousand of CONSECUTIVE years.
5) “Israel can accept that many (and compensate the rest)” No problem. More Jews have fled Arab countries than Palestinians fled Israel. Once those Arab countries compensate the Jews that were force to leave, oftentimes with only the clothes on their backs, Israel will do the same. Be a man, Arab countries. Go first.
6) “This weekend, the elected Hamas government offered a six-month truce that could have led to talks.” Why is that? Could it be because a) why do a temporary truce? Try a real one? and b) every few months, when the Hamas gets tired or is low on resources, they offer a truce, things are OK for a while, and then they get stronger yet again. That’s not peace - that’s reloading your weapons.
I urge you all to read my blog where I show you more sides of Israel than what you usually get to see. http://realisrael.wordpress.com
“The Jews brought it on onto themselves in WW2.”
-Posted by horrified @ April 28th, 5:27 pm
“There are so many things wrong with this article, that I don’t even know where to begin”
-Posted by TalTalK @April 28th, 5:35 pm
____________________
Horrified, it almost sounds like you’re justifying persecution of the Jews by those Nazi bastards. Say it ain’t so.
TalTalK, your claims are bogus defenses of crimes against humanity. I suppose you think the Holocaust is just a myth too? Pappe’s research hasn’t been challenged by any serious historians, and Walt and Mearsheimer back up the figures cited by Hari and the statement by Ben-Gurion. I’m not going to your blog to read more of your vicious nonsense.
Ostrogoth - why would I think the Holocaust is a myth? Part of my family was killed and others are survivors. I am not saying the Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves, nor am I saying the Palestinians brought everything upon themselves either.
I’m not saying that there aren’t injustices against the Arabs, but that does not change the fact that much of what is said here is untrue. The fact that the only part you dispute is the quote shows you have selective hearing (or reading).
BreeMass - excuse me for once again mentioning my blog, but calling Israel an apartheid is misuse of the word for many reasons. Instead of diving into it here, you can read the first two parts of my posts here: http://realisrael.wordpress.com/2008/04/27/an-israel-aparheid-debunked-part-1-definitions-and-history/
In short, however, the South Africa apartheid had racism set in law, it was legal discrimination that was based on the notion of white supremacy. Israel has no such laws and no legal discrimination, and while racism is present in Israel (as it is in the US and other places), you can hardly call it an apartheid.
Gaza and the West Bank cannot be compared to bantustans because those areas are not part of Israel. Furthermore, Israel did not make all of the Arabs live there. For Gaza and the West Bank to be bantustans, Israel would have to annex the terriroties, which is does not want to do.
horrified - it makes me laugh that you think I’m going to take you seriously if you actually believe for a moment that anything Benjamin Freedman (as it is actually spelled, not to be confused with Benjamin Friedman the Harvard economist) has to say is anywhere close to factual. Please. Have you read his theory on how Jews aren’t actually Jews, but are really the descendants of a Turkic-Mongolic race who infiltrated the Jews centuries ago. Freedman himself, of course, was a “racially pure” Jew. Let me say it again: Please. Even the rabid white supremacist circle with which he surrounded himself thought he was nuts, although that didn’t stop them from claiming him as their own pet anti-Semitic Jew.
But, for the sake of argument, say he was right. Who exactly were “the Jews” who supposedly sold out Germany? Why were they not named and tried for treason? Surely not every single Jew in Germany was involved in the plot? So why wait fourteen years and then unleash a twelve year Holocaust on not only the Jews supposedly involved in this traitorous plot against the poor Germans but systematically exterminate every Jew in Europe? The idea is completely non-sensical, let alone backed up by any factual evidence besides the ramblings of an obviously disturbed and hateful individual.
Even if it was all true and a group of German Jews sold out Germany in WW1 (which, just for clarification, is completely ridiculous), I am offended by the suggestion that their actions somehow justify the slaughter of 6 million innocent people, not to mention millions of others deemed “racially unpure” or “enemies of the state”.
whatfools - you may check out a sampling of Benjamin Freedman’s speeches to understand why somebody likes me cringes when they hear blanket statements about “the Jews”.
BreeMass– thanks for your thoughtful and insightful comments.
The US occupation of Iraq is eerily similar to the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. We both see “terrorists” everywhere and say they are “hiding behind civilians” when they are actually resistance fighters whose families we (and Israel) kill when we attack with bombs and tanks and fighter planes. Israel seems actually to be afraid of Hamas, which has zero power to “destroy” it. The US just wants Iraq’s oil and is now fighting to eliminate the Sadrists who oppose our occupation in order to keep Maliki in power until the parliament signs the disastrous oil leases with US and British companies.
For a ray of hope at least for Israel’s victims in Gaza, see jstreet.org, a new lobbying group that has been formed to oppose the Zionist rhetoric and influence over Congress that AIPAC has enjoyed for decades. J Street also includes a PAC that will endorse and help fund candidates for public office who share its views — peace and justice for both the Israelis and Palestinians, NOT just the destruction of “terrorists.”
TT - Honestly, I’m not really interested in your blog. I’m Jewish, I know the arguments and your supposed “evidence” is not going to change my mind. I never said that what is happening in Occupied Palestine is exactly like South African apartheid, but it is close enough. And really, to say that Israel hasn;t and doesn’t want to annex the West Bank and Gaza is dangerously disingenuous. Have you been to the West Bank and Gaza recently? I have. Israel has full military control of both areas, controls movement in, out and within the territories, controls the airspace and resources and is busily settling as many Israelis as possible in the West Bank. So whether or not it exactly parallels apartheid in South Africa is an argument over semantics.
Legally, apartheid may not be defined law, but given that Israel has separate laws for Israel proper and Occupied Palestine seems pretty damn close.
Also, your argument that the WB and Gaza would have to be “part of Israel” for the situation to be considered “apartheid” is also disingenuous. Israel has never defined it’s borders for very specific political reasons and numerous maps available in shops in Ben Yehuda clearly show a unified Israel incorporating the WB and Gaza.
The question of victim or perpetrator…
I’ve been called an anti-semite on this site in the past for suggesting that IF jews behaved in the past as they are now perhaps they were being punished, not persecuted.
Take it at face value. Call me names if you would rather than to have to look within.
QBM - I appreciate your candor. Generally speaking, unless we go back to biblical times, Jews have never had any power to impose their beliefs on anybody else. I don’t think you are an anti-semite for suggesting it, simply that you are asking an honest question. Other Jews may feel differently, but that;s how I feel about it. Shalom!
Apparently, few people read the bible. Try Joshua when you want some light reading. When Moses led the Jews to the border of Israel, Joshua took them across the border and they butchered everyone they came across for the purpose of stealing their land. Men, women, children & infants. They even got the dogs, cats, chickens & sheep. They left nothing alive because they thought their magic sky-god told them it was OK. The Palestinian Holocaust perpetrated by Israel in the last 60 years is not an aberration . . . it’s an ancient jewish tradition.
Ostogorth,
No i do not think the holocaust was a good thing as a lot of people died needlessly. What I am trying to say is that the hatred toward the Jews was brought on by the Jews themselves.
Breemass,
Your response was expected. You assume that the Germans killed Jews just because they woke one day and decided to do so. Think it through for once. Something must have happened to cause the backlash they faced then, not only in Germany, but also in Russia and early USA. You make me laugh more than I make you laugh.
Let me ask you this: If the right wing Christian Zionist are funding the Zionist Jews in Israel to cleanse the holy land of heathens (to bring forth armegeddon), what would happen when all the heathens are eliminated and only the two ‘master’ race/religion remain? Who is going to kill whom? You got an answer to that? I would like your response. BTW, this is no conspiracy. Read up on John Hagee and the right wing religious nuts in Israel.
The state of Israel was formed as the second modern Jewish state. The first was in Siberia, subordinate to Moscow but far enough away to be independent. The descendants of the Khazars decided it wasn’t good enough for them.
Israel is unlikely to have sufficient resources to adequately compensate the Palestinians without ceding a large amount of land. Less than 10% of land in Israel is privately owned, and most of the rest was simply stolen.
horrified, I never once said that I thought the Germans woke up one day and decided to kill Jews. Don’t condescend to think I haven’t thought this through and I’ll ask you to not put words into my mouth. Something must have happened, yes, and it was called virulent nationalism as a result of the Depression with the Jews, communists, gypsies, homosexuals and any other non-Aryan group as a convenient scapegoat for the suffering of Aryan Germans.
I am well aware of the links between fundamentalist Protestants and right-wing Israelis and I am quite aware that those same Christians who support Israel now expect the Jews to either convert or go to hell. Again, you’re not telling me anything I don’t know…
BreeMass.. You go sister more power to you. Keep them all in line
BreeMass: I’m not saying that the Jews weren’t persecuted at the hands of the Germans… what I am saying is that has been used as a “get out of jail free” card ever since… And frankly, it sickens me. So go ahead, stick up for the jews.. call me names, whatever the hell you want. I frankly don’t care.
I am so sick and tired of the “oh the poor poor jews” line of thinking. It’s utter bullshit.
“Something must have happened to cause the backlash they faced then, not only in Germany, but also in Russia and early USA.”
- Posted by horrified @ April 28th, 7:29 pm
“I’m not saying that there aren’t injustices against the Arabs, but that does not change the fact that much of what is said here is untrue. The fact that the only part you dispute is the quote shows you have selective hearing (or reading).”
- Posted by TalTalK @April 28th, 6:36 pm
________________
Horrified, the Nazis were trying to exterminate Jews. Millions of them. That’s not a backlash. The Nazis alleged self-defense against pollution of Aryan racial stock by Jews. It was vicious racism, pursued with Teutonic efficiency, ruthlessness, and sadism.
TalTalK, the Holocaust is not a myth, and neither is Israeli ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. I dispute everything you said. I’ve heard all those sham claims before, but I’ll itemize my response if you want.
1) “There is a long history of problems between the Jews and Arabs of Palestine…”
Proving what exactly? That the Palestinians deserve to be ethnically cleansed?
2) “‘The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.’–This is a lie and was never said.”
Who’s more credible? Pappe, Walt and Mearsheimer, or you? See Walt and Mearsheimer, “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.”
3) “Most of those left on their own, many stayed, many returned, and Israel offered that more return (those who weren’t security risks) but Arab nations encouraged them to wait until Israel was wiped off the map.”
Israel used terror tactics against the Palestinians to drive as many as possible off their own land. See Walt and Mearsheimer, “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.”
4) “Your comparison to the UK doesn’t even make sense.”
700-800,000 Palestinian refugees have as much right to their land as the British or anyone else have a right to theirs. Hari’s analogy is valid.
5) “Once those Arab countries compensate the Jews that were force to leave, oftentimes with only the clothes on their backs, Israel will do the same.”
Pure distilled, refined cynicism. You know what you can do with it.
6) “…when the Hamas gets tired or is low on resources, they offer a truce…”
In other words, the only good Arab is a dead Arab.
You are defending crimes against humanity, my friend, just like those who defended racist persecution of the Jews. You cannot possibly believe the claims you are making. I repeat: who’s more credible? Pappe, Walt and Mearsheimer, or you? Haha.
Breemass,
Like most of my Jewish friends you are very intelligent, apparently quite compassionate, and have spent much time pondering these questions… not all of my Jewish friends have and they don’t like it that I do. I accept that there is an Israeli state. I wish that those that control it would consider that their actions perpetuate the problem.
Keep a level head and it will serve you well, as you seem to know.
Anti-Semitic my ass. Palestine was populated by Arabs, a 100% Semitic people. Israel was settled by primarily European Jews, definitely NOT a semitic people by any stretch of the imagination. The ISRAELIS are the ANTI-SEMITES!! They have been conducting a slow genocide against the Semitic Palestinian People for 60 years. I may be anti-Israeli. I might be anti-Zionist. I might even be anti-Jew. But I am most definitely NOT anti-Semitic. I was none of these before I attended a university whose student body was approximately 70% Jews from New York City. Believe me, I do know that “the Jews” bring down “anti-Semitism” upon themselves. I’ve lived it. I’ve seen it. I’ve been a victim of it. Individually, some of them are really nice people. I even had a couple Jewish girlfriends. But as a group, they are hugely anti-”outsider”. I wish no Jew harm. I wish most Jews could say the same about non-Jews. Harsh words. Very harsh. Also very true.
Conservatives are behind every unnatural disaster.
The one state solution, a secular state where everyone is equal Jew, Arab, Druze, Muslim,Christian you name it is the only just solution. Then no more aid from the US…we’d agree to leave the country alone and for the diverse people within it to run their own affairs. This is the answer.
BreeMass - Of coursed there is a distincton between these Jewish religious nut-jobs and the majoarity of Jewish people. I have friends who feel deep shame at what is being done in their name. In the last Presidential election, a number of credible pndits, including the Jewish Daily Forward, which I read regularly, predicted that between 25% and 40% of the Jewish vote would go Republican (Bush being such a good friend of the Jews and all that). As it turned out approximtely 23% of the Jewsih vote went Republican. In normal times (whtever that means) 18-20% of the Jewish vote is Republican with considerable consistency. Thus, the Republicans increased their Jewish vote by at most 3-5%. This means that at least 75% of Jewish people voted against Bush and his militaristic policies.
I don’t know why it is that the organizations that claim to represent the Jewish peoople are right-wing. I guess that is where the money is. But I don’t understand it.
There is one thing I do know. Unless American, European and Israel policy toward the Arabs becomes more moderate and reasonalbe, the Jews will be feared and hated for a thousand years. The governments may be bought off, like Egypt, but their people will hate. The right-wing Jews talk about “never forgetting” what the Germans did to them. Well the Arabs aren’t going to forget what has been done to them. Neither the Jews or the Arabs have a concept of forgiveness. Forgiveness is forgetting. Ask any Buddhist. As long as we refuse to forget, we re-create the past and all its anger and bitterness in our future.
I fear Zealots more than I fear bigots and racists. One can’t talk with a zealot. All on can do is avoid them, but at the very least keep nuclear weapons out of their hands.
Peace!
elmysterio, I didn’t call you names, but it seems that you deliberately misread my post to be an apology for Israeli policies based on past oppression. You in turn seemed to suggest that the Jews got what they deserved. Perhaps I misunderstood, but that was the way it came across. If you go back and read my original post, you will see it was a specific response to a question about bloodlust. I explicitly disavowed the idea that Jews have suffered so therefore their oppression of Palestinians should be condoned. Instead, I pointed out some of the psychological reasons driving many Israelis and American Jews as a way to try and understand their fears and therefore address them. I likened it to American Jews and many gentile Americans dismissing Palestinian violence as simple bloodlust without any reason or basis. Perhaps I am naive, but I believe that one of the fundamental problems in this conflict is the inability of each side to see the validity of each group’s historical narrative. Explicating and attempting to understand where the other side is coming from is the first step towards actual resolution.
Cadabra - Most of the Jewish supporters of the right tend (mind I say tend, not are) to be Orthodox and conservative Jews who find dovetailing interests with the right when it comes to Israel and social issues. Even though most Jews across the political spectrum tend to be pro-Israel, they also tend to be very liberal on social issues, so that even those on the far left find themselves in agreement with the right when it comes to Israel. However, there are enough pro-Israel left candidates that they don’t have to compromise on social issues to attain their goals with regards to Israel. In short, most Jews who vote Republican do so more out of concern for issues like abortion, stem-cell research, etc than they do Israel.
Also, just on a philosophical level, I have to admit that I disagree with your statement that forgiveness is forgetting. It’s impossible to forget, even when we wish desperately that we could. In my humble opinion (and my personal life has pounded this home of late) true forgiveness comes from accepting. Accepting that people are not perfect and they are capable of bad hurtful things, but they are also capable of redemption and beauty. Trying to forget the bad things that happen to us is futile; I think it’s better to try and accept what has happened and try to learn from it as a road to forgiveness. Just a thought…
This is not a religious conflict but a colonial conflict. (East) European and North American Jews occupying Arab land, just like European whites had once occupied (and committed genocide) North America.
kent shaw - I appreciate your honesty and agree that the term anti-semitic is a misnomer since both Jews and Arabs are Semitic peoples. I won’t take issue with your post since I don’t know your experience. I will say this, however: the whole idea of Jews as group being “anti-outsider” is a perfect example of how history has shaped the collective experience of Diaspora Jews (those living outside Israel, which is most of us!). Ashkenazi Jews (those in Europe, primarily Eastern historically) living throughout Eastern Europe went through centuries where they were barred from owning property and thus were confined to closed city quarters. Pogroms and other sorts of violence and discrimination occurred with some regularity, especially when times were hard (because they could not have land, they could not own farms, they generally took up “city” work and as such could be very vulnerable to natural disasters that made food supplies low. Because they had no land of their own on which to farm they were generally dependent on purchasing food - but I digress). The point here is that centuries of cultural isolation and intermittent violence led to an anti-outsider mindset, which pervades even today.
Having said all this, I find it somewhat interesting though that this seems to often get translating into Jews being elitist, snobby, anti-outsider, etc, etc. My mother’s family is Irish Catholic and they are just as “anti-outsider” as the Jewish side of my family. They wanted their kids to grow up and marry not just Catholics, but Irish Catholics. I live in Boston and the Italians in the North End are ridiculously “anti-outsider” and they are primarily Italian Catholics. Mormons are pretty much the same. Have you ever met any Pentecostals?
I guess my point here is twofold: 1)Jews have very good historical reasons to be wary of outsiders, although many Jews are making an effort to change this, particularly here in the US and; 2)why does it seem that Christian groups who are just as “anti-outsider” as any Jews not suffer the same sort of derision for being “anti-outsider” in the first place?
citizen - Exactly! This is the dual narrative issue I mentioned. Israelis and many Jews see it as a fight for our very survival, Palestinians see it as simply an extension of rampant Western colonialism. These two narratives must be reconciled or at least heard by both sides for there ever to be a just resolution!
I think a reasonable person could say that if this were any country other than Israel committing daily crimes against humanity, it would have been over long ago, or at the very least we would not be bankrolling it and both parties fighting over which can be the Israelis greatest enabler.
I think a moral person could say that everything that has happened since the founding of Israel has been a crime, and that right and wrong do not end at Israel’s yet undeclared borders.
Which nation, which community, which landed family does not in one way or another have theft, intimidation and homicide on its historical balance sheet?
Nationality is a tribal affair. The very establishment of one sovereignty is at the expense of another. Sometimes there is the more pernicious purpose of land and wealth accumulation - think of any stage of European history, her wars and colonial expeditions.The Germans, Persians, conquests under the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates, the Italians, Japanese, Chinese, British, French, Portugese, Spanish, Turks, Mongols, Russians and Romans to name a few have engaged in these kinds of campaigns.
On other occasions it has been matters of sheer survival.Brutish tribal warfare - a case of “us or them”. It’s not pretty, however, a fight for tribal survival is not in the scheme of things necessarily greedy, it’s instinct and fundamental. Amicable co-existence is far more preferable, but without the leadership and without the groundswell of grassroots will of the two or more peoples to get along, it might be pragmatically unachievable.
The Jewish people who had been persecuted, assaulted, intimidated and murdered en masse throughout history are not unusual as human beings in taking desperate measures to ensure their own tribal survival.
To make out that there is anything more sinister about what the Zionists have done to what the Germans, Persians, Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates, the Italians, Japanese, Chinese, British, French, Portugese, Spanish, Turks, Mongols, Russians and Romans and many others have done, or are doing today is nothing short of wild bigotry. It’s anti-semitism if you are too blind to see that.
Is there a solution? Continue fighting is one. Spread hate and messages of blame. There is just nothing brilliant or enlightened in that. Keep fighting, keep hating, enjoy your game from the sidelines or better yet take up arms and help make this world an even more reprehensible place than it already is.
The Poor Poor Persecuted Jews. Throughout History.
Expelled From One Country After Another.
Wherever They Would Go To Seek Refuge.
Persecuted. Hated.
I Wonder Why?
(Maybe in one instance; flocking like VULTURES to A BROKEN BLEEDING GERMANY in ‘17, 18 and becoming overnite landlords w/ mobile money-Carpetbaggers-who turned the screws to a starving people and country-much of Hitler’s hate was born of this….)
You Reap What You Sow.
A New Hitler is Maturing a certain as The Sun Also Rises.
And pumping their excrement into the faces and water of their victims?
HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE THE MOST HATED COUNTRY ON EARTH?
You Nazi Cowardly Scum.
Bree - I apologize for being unclear about annexing the WB and Gaza. Studies have shown that at lest 70% of Israelis want the Palestinians to have their own country and get on with their lives. The pullout from the Gaza territories almost 3 years ago proves that Israel tried to begin their side, We displaced thousands of our own people in an attempt to do so. Save the extremists, most people don’t want Gaza and MOST portions of the WB. I say MOSt because there are those who still believe in the notion of the “full” Israel.
I know about the military control of Gaza and the WB. I don’t need to go there for it. I would’ve been lynched (proven, so don’t even try to convince me otherwise). Israel had pulled out mostly from Gaza but were forced to go back in when hundreds of rockets were being launched at our people every week. You think we want our 18 year old kids over there? You are sadly mistaken.
Of COURSE Israel has separate laws for Israel proper and Occupied Palestine. Palestine isn’t part of our country. Do you expect us to give them citizenship and the right to vote in Israel? While US law allows citizens living overseas to vote in its elections, Israel doesn’t (other than diplomats). You live in a certain place.
As for the maps, you can find the regular ones too, those that show Gaza and the WB darkened, or at the very least, not part of Israel. The exact borders of the WB are difficult becuase there are hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens living in very important parts on the edges. There is an enormous majority of Israelis who want out of the WB too, where the only point of indecisiveness is regarding the borders (and it’s really only 4 cities that are a big problem here). Most Israelis are all for clearing those damn settlements that each have 20 people living in caravans.
Ostrogoth:
I do not deny by any means that there have been senseless killings ON BOTH SIDES. But comparing the Holocaust to the Palestinian situation is ridiculous. Were it ethnic cleansing, ISRAEL WOULD BE KILLING ALL ARABS. You don’t see them doing a thing with the Israeli Arabs. Yes, there is some racism. And I am by NO means justifying it, but hell? Rodney King? Matthew Shepherd? There’s plenty to clean up everywhere. You cannot claim by ANY means that there is ANY systematic cleansing of Arabs otherwise we would have to be killing the Israeli ones too. As for your points:
1) “There is a long history of problems between the Jews and Arabs of Palestine…” Proving what exactly? That the Palestinians deserve to be ethnically cleansed?
DON’T twist my words. I have NEVER said that. I dispute the notion of ethnic cleansing to begin with. You did not read everything I wrote. The author here is talking about the Arab-Israeli conflict as if it has only existed since 1948. The notion that, until Israel was declared a country, Arabs and Jews lived in 100% peace is preposterous. yet the only mention of the conflict begins in 1948.
2) “‘The Arabs will have to go, but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as a war.’–This is a lie and was never said.” Who’s more credible? Pappe, Walt and Mearsheimer, or you? See Walt and Mearsheimer, “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.”
I will let this go, if only because I don’t have the time, unfortunately, to look up sources.
3) “Most of those left on their own, many stayed, many returned, and Israel offered that more return (those who weren’t security risks) but Arab nations encouraged them to wait until Israel was wiped off the map.” Israel used terror tactics against the Palestinians to drive as many as possible off their own land. See Walt and Mearsheimer, “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy.”
Israel used some scare tactics, yes. But that doesn’t change the fact that they had offered most of them to come back (with exceptions). Ben Gurion said in 1948 “When the Arab states are ready to conclude a peace treaty with Israel this question will come up for constructive solution as part of the general settlement, and with due regard to our counterclaims in respect of the destruction of Jewish life and property, the long-term interest of the Jewish and Arab populations, the stability of the State of Israel and the durability of the basis of peace between it and its neighbors, the actual position and fate of the Jewish communities in the Arab countries, the responsibilities of the Arab governments for their war of aggression and their liability for reparation, will all be relevant in the question whether, to what extent, and under what conditions, the former Arab residents of the territory of Israel should be allowed to return.” See: Howard Sachar, A History of Israel: From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time.
Israeli President Chaim Weizmann said in 1948, in reaction to the UN plan, “We are anxious to help such resettlement provided that real peace is established and the Arab states do their part of the job. The solution of the Arab problem can be achieved only through an all-around Middle East development scheme, toward which the United Nations, the Arab states and Israel will make their respective contributions.” See: New York Times, (July 17, 1949).
4) “Your comparison to the UK doesn’t even make sense.” 700-800,000 Palestinian refugees have as much right to their land as the British or anyone else have a right to theirs. Hari’s analogy is valid.
People have a right to return to their land, but he’s comparing apples to cement. There’s not comparison and no analogy here.
5) “Once those Arab countries compensate the Jews that were force to leave, oftentimes with only the clothes on their backs, Israel will do the same.” Pure distilled, refined cynicism. You know what you can do with it.
It’s cynicism, alright. The fact is that in 1949, Israel offered to allow families that had been separated during the war to return, to release refugee accounts frozen in Israeli banks (eventually released in 1953), to pay compensation for abandoned lands and to repatriate 100,000 refugees. See: Terence Prittie, “Middle East Refugees,” in Michael Curtis, et al., The Palestinians.
The number of Jews fleeing Arab countries for Israel in the years following Israel’s independence was nearly double the number of Arabs leaving Palestine. Many Jews were allowed to take little more than the shirts on their backs. These refugees had no desire to be repatriated. Little is heard about them because they did not remain refugees for long. Of the 820,000 Jewish refugees between 1948 and 1972, 586,000 were resettled in Israel at great expense, and without any offer of compensation from the Arab governments who confiscated their possessions. See: Arieh Avneri, The Claim of Dispossession,.
Israel has consequently maintained that any agreement to compensate the Palestinian refugees must also include Arab compensation for Jewish refugees. To this day, the Arab states have refused to pay any compensation to the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were forced to abandon their property before fleeing those countries. Through November 2003, 101 of the 681 UN resolutions on the Middle East conflict referred directly to Palestinian refugees. Not one mentioned the Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
6) “…when the Hamas gets tired or is low on resources, they offer a truce…” In other words, the only good Arab is a dead Arab.
Again, you’re putting words in my mouth. I don’t believe in that at all. I had Arab friends in the States and I have them now (not to sound like I have a Resident African American). I’ve worked with Israeli Arabs and gone out with (some) of them to the movies and the mall. As for the Palestinian ones, in my middle school, back in the late 80s, we had an “exchange” program of sorts where we would meet once every couple of weeks with Palestinian kids our age, and real friendships were forged (though most of us lost touch when we started moving away, me especially when I returned to the States).
I am by NO means defending any crimes against humanity, but while we’re on the subject, why is it that the UN always condemns Israel but never Palestine? When they blow up 20 of our people at a pizza place, no one says a word.
I wish all the people that came here with thier thousands of years of tradition and religion would go back to where they came from and take thier religions with them. This was a peacefull nation before you came here.
Breemass, thanks for your input.
TalTalK, you might be interested to know that most of the problems did in fact start with the First Aliyah in 1882-1903, when the English Rothschilds were persuaded to support the Jews fleeing the pogroms in Russia and Eastern Europe, to establish the first Zionist settlements. The problem was caused when the Zionists made it clear that once they had bought the land, they wanted no Arab villagers living on it and working it the way they had been doing previously. It’s not that different from the ways various European powers treated the people in their colonies, and is reprehensible to the exact same degree, neither more nor less. It is an abuse of power, and a breaking of a long-standing custom that served everybody well.
Before that, the only major harm done to Arab Jews that I know of, was that caused by some Europeans alleging that Jews were responsible for the disappearance of some Belgian religious. I think that was the first time the European Christian Blood Libel was used in Muslim lands. The Blood Libel is nonsense, since consuming blood is strictly forbidden in Judaism.
And you mentioning the Arab Jews - apparently when one Moroccan Jew, Amir Perez by name, was contesting the Israel elections, he didn’t get a positive word. And most Arab Jews remember the ma’abarot - resettlement camps - with less than enthusiasm. Hatred for Arabs apparently extends to Jews who are culturally Arab and religiously and ethnically Jewish.
Some things are just poison. Some things I can’t stand.
And for what it’s worth, this little trick of letting the “untermenschen” drown in their own and others’ excrement - it’s one of the things the Third Reich committed in Poland against Lodz Ghetto. I think it’s one of the things that was covered in the Nuremberg Trials, though I am open to correction. I take it very seriously.
As for those arguing it’s a “Jewish” thing to abuse power - guess what, it’s occurring in places where there are no Jews, and where there have never been Jews - like the Cook Islands, the Solomons, or Fiji for example. It’s a human thing - grow up. I’ve only got one life, and it’s too short to waste time on professional idiots.
DuraMater -
I’m going to start with the excrement one since I don’t remember it being addressed:
Hari accuses Israel of sole responsibility for polluting West Bank groundwater supplies. It is no secret that Israel has a chronic water problem and lags behind many other developed nations in environmental protection. However, the Palestinians are equally to blame for polluting the environment in the West Bank (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/934768.html), which has, in turn, also caused damage to Israel’s own water supplies.
The West Bank mountain aquifer is one of the largest freshwater sources supplying both Israelis and Palestinians. Indeed, Israelis and Palestinians have jointly tackled (from NYT: http://tinyurl.com/6jzle2)such pollution and Israel has used its own expertise to provide Palestinian population centres with sewage treatment facilities (http://tinyurl.com/558kbv). Why would Israel purposely destroy its own limited water supply?
I didn’t say there weren’t forms of racism here. While there is still an ashkenazi-sephardic problem here sometimes, it’s not nearly what it was before. As for Amir Peretz, excuse me, but he’s an idiot. If he didn’t get positive press it’s because everyone knew he was a disaster. he’s not the first non-European Jew to run for some kind of an office. As for the maabarot, that was 50 years ago - that’s long over. All towns are a mix of the European and Arab Jews. For heavens’ sake, there’s so much “intermarriage” between the european and “arab” Jews that you can’t even call that such an issue - my polish sister is married to a moroccan, so my nephew (and soon-to-be niece) are both. Everyone’s mixed with everyone. it’s like saying that people are against Obama because his skin is dark. Please.
As for Jews in Arab countries, not to druge up old history, but slavery in Egypt? And there’s more. The Arab conquest of the land of Israel (in ancient times) was a good thing for the Jews for the most part, considering the fact that their homeland was taken from them. However, in Egypt, in 1945, with the rise of Egyptian nationalism and the cultivation of anti-Western and anti-Jewish sentiment, riots erupted. In the violence, 10 Jews were killed, 350 injured, and a synagogue, a Jewish hospital, and an old-age home were burned down. (I’m only showing pre-1948 issues, not those after, of which there are many.)
The Iraqi Jews took pride in their distinguished Jewish community, with it’s history of scholarship and dignity. Jews had prospered in what was then Babylonia for 1200 years before the Muslim conquest in AD 634; it was not until the 9th century that Dhimmi laws such as the yellow patch, heavy head tax, and residence restriction were enforced. Capricious and extreme oppression under some Arab caliphs and Momlukes brought taxation amounting to expropriation in AD 1000, and 1333 the persecution culminated in pillage and destruction of the Bagdad Sanctuary. In 1776, there was a slaughter of Jews at Bosra, and in bitterness of anti-Jewish measures taken by Turkish Muslim rulers in the 18th century caused many Jews to flee.
In Yemen from the seventh century on the Jewish populations suffered the severest possible interpretation of the Charter of Omar. For about 4 centuries, the Jews suffered under the fierce fanatical edict of the most intolerant Islamic sects. The Yemen Epistle by Rambam in which he commiserated with Yemen’s Jewry and besought them to keep the faith, and in 1724 fanatical rulers ordered synagogues destroyed, and Jewish public prayers were forbidden. The Jews were exiled, many died from starvation and the survivors were ordered to settle in Mausa, but later, this order was annulled by a decree in 1781 due to the need of their skilled craftsmen.
The Jewish community of present-day Morocco dates back more than 2,000 years. There were Jews living there, before it became a Roman province. in 1032 AD, 6000 Jews were murdered. Indeed the greatest persecution by the Arabs towards the Jews was in Fez, Morocco, nothing was worse than the slaughter of 120,000 Jews in 1146
Jimmy Carter, speaking on “Charlie Rose,” reports that for every Israeli killed, an average of 40 Palestinians die: for every Israeli child, 8 Palestinian children. He also says that MOST Israelis DO want to negotiate and work something out “even” with Hamas—it is the US GOVERNMENT and high-level Israeli fanatics who are actually in the way. The Palestinians say they WILL recognize Israel according to the 1960s borders, Israel knows this, and has nonetheless continued setting up and approving THOUSANDS of new “settlements” (which is what early Americans called their invasions of already-inhabited places)….”The ones with all the power are the ones who have to take the first steps,” Carter says—and Charlie Rose and the rest of the HACKS just keep muddying the waters….
It is the most staggering irony that a nation founded by - and populated with - a people fleeing persecution and genocide, has itself now become a nation that persecutes and commits genocide against another people.
The Jews have become the very thing they used to despise. The Jewish state of Israel now looks an awful lot like the Nazis.
How ironic, this complete reversal. I have nothing but contempt for Israel, and all Jews who support Israel. That is not an anti-Semitic statement. It is an anti-persecution and anti-genocide statement.
TalTalK, take your tall tales elsewhere. Are we supposed to believe forum trolls like you or respected historians and researchers like Pappe, Walt and Mearsheimer? Besides, who is on whose land? Apologists for ethnic cleansing like you would have us believe that Palestinians are merely squatters on Israeli land. You’re no better than the defenders of Nazi war crimes during WW2, who characterized the Nazi persecution and deportation of Jews as “self-defense.”
If you’re interested, which I doubt, here are some excerpts from Walt and Mearsheimer’s “The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy”:
“In 1948, when Israel was founded, its 650,000 Jews were only about 35 percent of Palestine’s population and they owned only 7 percent of its land.” (p. 92)
“…expulsion was a frequent topic of conversation among Zionists since the earliest days of the movement, and it was widely recognized as the only realistic way to solve the demographic problem that stood in the way of creating a Jewish state. Ben-Gurion saw the problem clearly, writing in 1941 that ‘it is impossible to imagine general evacuation [of the Arab population] without compulsion, and brutal compulsion.’” (p. 95)
“The opportunity to expel the Palestinians and create a Jewish state came in 1948, when Jewish forces drove up to seven hundred thousand Palestinians into exile. Israelis and their supporters in the United States long claimed that the Arabs fled because their leaders told them to, but scholars have demolished this myth. In fact, most Arab leaders urged the Palestinian population to stay home, but fear of violent death at the hands of Zionist forces led most of them to flee. After the war, Israel barred the return of the Palestinian exiles. As Ben-Gurion put it in June 1948, ‘We must prevent at all costs their return.’ By 1962, Israel owned almost 93 percent of the land inside its borders. To achieve this outcome, 531 Arab villages were destroyed ‘and eleven urban neighborhoods emptied of their inhabitants.’ Former Israeli Defense minister Moshe Dayan captures the catastrophe that the Zionists inflicted on the Palestinians to create the state of Israel: ‘Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist, not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either…There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.” (pp. 95-96)
On page 88, Walt and Mearsheimer write “While Israel’s citizens are of many backgrounds, including Arab, Muslim, and Christian, among others, it was explicitly founded as a Jewish state, and whether a citizen is regarded as Jewish ordinarily depends on kinship (verifiable Jewish ancestry).” The footnote to this text states: “According to the Law of Return, a ‘Jew’ is defined as ‘a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion.’”
On the same page, the authors also state: “In addition to Israel’s commitment to maintaining its Jewish identity and its refusal to grant de jure equality for non-Jews, Israel’s 1.36 million Arabs are de facto treated as second-class citizens.”
And: “Israel’s treatment of its Arab citizens is more than just discriminatory. For example, to limit the number of Arabs in its midst, Israel does not permit Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens to become citizens themselves and does not give these spouses the right to live in Israel. The Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem called this restriction ‘a racist law that determines who can live here according to racist criteria.’” (p. 88-89)
“In addition to Israel’s commitment to maintaining its Jewish identity and its refusal to grant de jure equality for non-Jews, Israel’s 1.36 million Arabs are de facto treated as second-class citizens. An Israeli government commission found in 2003, for example, that Israel behaves in a ‘neglectful and discriminatory’ manner toward them. Indeed, there is widespread support among Israeli Jews for this unequal treatment of Israeli Arabs.” (p. 88)
Ostro: I’m not a forum troll of any kind. If you look me up you’ll see I have commented very few places - and most aren’t related the issue at hand. I felt the need to comment and I am doing so.
I am NOT saying ethnic cleansing is OK in ANY way whatsoever, and neither are the citizens of Israel! Just the opposite! Many warn against the possiblity of it happening and to be careful not to allow it to reach that. I also didn’t say that the palestinians weren’t on the land before, but so we were the Jews. And while we’re on it, in the couple of decades that Jordan controlled Palestine, why didn’t they declare a country? I’m not blaming anyone or saying they brought anything upon themselves - stop putting words in my mouth that I have no said here, nor on my blog, nor in any comment online, nor in real life. I did NOT say at ANY point that Palestinians are squatters, and I did not say at ANY point that they should be kicked out. the notion of a transfer has always been spoken of and never taken place. We have not been deporting millions of palestinians, there is no transfer, and it cannot be compared to the holocaust, nevermind the fact that Jews never hurt anyone physically in any way and never killed anyone. Again, this is me defending myself and what I know is right, NOT defending crimes.
And I take deep offense to you continuously taking my words and twisting them in a way that will “make” your point. As a 3rd generation to holocaust survivors, the LAST thing I would EVER do is something that could even remotely be construed as supporting any type of genocide.
You are throwing around words for the sake of using them.
Listen up, TaltalK, and reread the excerpts from Walt and Mearsheimer. Don’t try to bury me in excrement. If what you claim were true, Zionists would have withdrawn from the West Bank, would have allowed the return of Palestinian refugees, would have created a secular democracy instead of their current predatory, racist theocracy; would not have collectively punished Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza with random murders, torture, and terror tactics aimed at defenseless civilians, would not have cut off Gazans’ food, water, and power, nor confiscated their tax revenues; all because the Palestinians dare to resist ethnic cleansing. You spew out lies and falsehoods in support of war crimes, and that makes you an accomplice–regardless of whether you really believe the things you’re saying.
2000 Million Christians
1500 Million Muslims
13.5 million Hebrews
PNAC=HEBREW ORGANIZATION
=REMOVE SADDAM= IRAQ WAR
= AMERICA’S ALL TIME TRAGEDY
read pnac policies from 1990’s on Google.
Bush Foreign Policy Team predominantly Hebrew from PNAC.
Breemass, your posts have been wonderful. I hope you’re considering becoming a writer of some sort, because you choose your words thoughtfully and create a poignant, well-structured argument that really elicits good responses.
There seems to be a lot of good debate going on here, and I feel I’ve learned something by just browsing the comments. Yet in all of the talk I have failed to see anyone really address the issue of the Israeli government pumping untreated sewage into Palestinian land. If this is true, then every single poster should take issue with that. There’s nothing to justify or rationalize such a policy. For an elderly woman and a child to drown in literal shit, and then have everyone focus on whether or not they’re pro-Israel or not (what do these terms even mean?) is to miss the horror of such an occurrence. We can’t be blind supporters or deniers and allow ourselves to get tangled up in something which does nothing to change the situation. We must say there are things which cannot be allowed. Merely arguing over whether or not Israel was created unfairly hampers the changes we can make today. Good or bad, it happened. While we should not forget the circumstances of its creation, if we are more caught up in debate over who did what when, then we basically are ignoring the incredible suffering of real, living people. Those are the ones who we need to be concerned with.
What a load of crap…
I don’t care how well said, Israeli sewage is where I draw the line.
BreeMass Said: except in course in the echoes of idiots like elmysterio who deny any of it ever happened or that it was the fault of the Jews
That’s a lie there liar… I NEVER said it didn’t happen… What I said is ask yourself WHY it happened… and then my other point is that, in my opinion, the Jews have squandered any sympathy they may had by becoming JUST like the Nazis.
Also, calling me an idiot doesn’t do anything to prove your point. I have JUST as much right to my opinion as you do… So fuck you.
While it is true that Israel like many other countries has problems with water pollution, there are some encouraging signs of progress towards some solutions to this problem. There are joint Israeli / Palestinian teams working in coopeeration to clean up the rivers.
http://www.ejil.org/journal/Vol4/No4/art5-03.html
The author of this article ignores these recent positive developments. Hopefully this progress will continue with even more cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians, until all of their differences are settled peacefully.
BreeMass—-Welcome–your posts are so full of light and a real attempt to honor differences, and to encourage creative dialogue—-something in shortsuppy too often here on CD. Many blessings to you!
Ostrogoth - I’m done responding you because you clearly repeat the same thing over and over without listening to others.
Ms. Ann - I actually addressed the excrement thing: Hari accuses Israel of sole responsibility for polluting West Bank groundwater supplies. It is no secret that Israel has a chronic water problem and lags behind many other developed nations in environmental protection. However, the Palestinians are equally to blame for polluting the environment in the West Bank (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/934768.html), which has, in turn, also caused damage to Israel’s own water supplies.
The West Bank mountain aquifer is one of the largest freshwater sources supplying both Israelis and Palestinians. Indeed, Israelis and Palestinians have jointly tackled (from NYT: http://tinyurl.com/6jzle2)such pollution and Israel has used its own expertise to provide Palestinian population centres with sewage treatment facilities (http://tinyurl.com/558kbv). Why would Israel purposely destroy its own limited water supply?
What we all have to understand is that every nation has its right-wingers and wherever patriarchal religions reign, there will be fundamentalists prone to violence “in the name of God.”
Like what we did in Afghanistan where we armed religous fanatics and created the “Taliban” — as made clear by Zieg Brzynski . . . “in order to bait the Russians into Afghanistan in hopes of giving them a Vietnam type experience” — this is also what happened in Israel!
Nixon armed Israel’s right-wing religious fanatics –
Currently it is impossible to tell the difference between Israeli arms production and US weapons production they are that closely intertwined.
Israel has been used by America to move into the Middle East –
Wake up, America!!!
Israel will drown in its own shit sooner or later. Does anyone think that these ZIONIST PIGS would not hesitate to gas every Palestinian fi the world wasn’t watching.
Support of this criminal regime by the US is because the US government is controlled by…. You guessed it> Tel Aviv
And here’s by who: http://salonesoterica.wordpress.com/2008/04/03/dual-us-israeli-citizens-running-american-government/