The Other Side of Israel’s Birth
This spring we are obsessed with anniversaries: the fifth year since the invasion of Iraq, the 40th since the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and, of course, the 60th anniversary of Israeli independence. Each such marker shapes our understanding of history, framing how a story is to be told and how it is to be remembered. I am struck by one conspicuous anniversary that is not making many headlines.
On tour recently in the U.S., Eitan Bronstein, director of the Israeli organization Zochrot, explained that “zochrot” is the Hebrew word for “remembering,” intentionally used in its feminine form to imply that this organization is not about the standard history of schoolbooks but about a memory grounded in compassion. Zochrot focuses on educating Israelis about the other side of the 1948 War of Liberation, the dispossession and expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians living in what was to become Israel. Through careful documentation of the locations of more than 450 destroyed Palestinian villages, by interviewing and photographing Palestinians living in Israel and surrounding refugee camps, Zochrot creates a living human memory that encompasses the other side of history.
Mr. Bronstein has been touring with Mohammad Jaradat, a Palestinian activist, negotiator at the Madrid peace talks and co-founder of Badil, Arabic for “alternative,” a foundation that researches and advocates for Palestinian residency and refugee rights. He is part of a vigorous Palestinian movement for civil society that is largely unknown in the U.S.
Listening to these two men, I was struck by how memory shapes our understanding of history and how dangerous it is to blind ourselves to the realities of the past. For decades, Jews have shaped the memory of the Holocaust, honoring its victims and justifying the behavior of its survivors, creating a story in which we Jews are all at some level survivors, claiming Israel’s victories as our own. The narrative of indigenous Arab resistance to a Jewish state and acknowledgment of the human suffering that was a consequence of Israeli military victory and political policy thus become a personal as well as a political threat.
Mr. Bronstein contends that Israel’s failure to recognize its responsibility for Palestinian dispossession is a critical though invisible part of Israeli history, that embracing this history is the first step toward acknowledging Palestinians as fellow human beings, and that this process can lead beyond peace to permanent reconciliation between the two peoples. While the Palestinians clearly “lost the war” in 1948, the decision to prevent them from returning to their ancestral homes was a political decision that has led to a constant state of friction and war between Israel and its neighbors.
At a time when Jews and Palestinians express little hope for a peaceful future, Mr. Bronstein offers us a path where Israelis acknowledge the price of their victory and take responsibility for their share of the Palestinian catastrophe. At the same time, Mr. Jaradat is working for the kinds of civil rights that are enshrined in international and human rights law, reminding us that Palestinians deserve nothing less than we would expect for ourselves. Both men share the conviction that acknowledging the Palestinian refugees’ internationally recognized right to return and developing creative solutions — from resettlement to financial compensation — is the foundation of a lasting resolution of the conflict.
As Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary today, I wonder what would happen if this tragedy, Al Nakba, were to be publicly recognized alongside the Israeli victory. Perhaps taking the risk of acknowledging the pain of the “other” and seeing “the enemy” as a real person is how peace is ultimately made.
The dispossession of two-thirds of the Palestinian population in 1948, and the consequences borne by generations of families living in Israel, the occupied territories, refugee camps and the diaspora, can no longer be hidden. It is time to acknowledge that other anniversary and to move forward with eyes and hearts open to the suffering of all the children of Abraham.
Alice Rothchild, a physician, is the author of “Broken Promises, Broken Dreams: Stories of Jewish and Palestinian Trauma and Resilience” and co-chairwoman of Jewish Voice for Peace, Boston.
Copyright © 2008, The Baltimore Sun
The birth of America is often taught as a glorious thing with little mention of what happened to the native Americans.
Imperial history rarely includes recognition of what the “other” people went through.
We aren’t supposed to care anyway because they are presented as savages, terrorists, etc… and not as fathers, mothers, grandparents, etc…
As they say, history is written by the victors. We are often told what ‘degenerate’ natives lived on the North American continent. Well, in some ways, they probably were, as so many had been wiped out by European diseases in advance of the white tsunami. Disease vectors only require a few carriers (trappers, explorers, etc.)
We really have no idea of how the natives lived because the first settlers were already seeing populations decimated by especially smallpox but also many other diseases to which they had no resistance.
Imagine if native americans were immune to plague and landed on the shores of Europe shortly after its inhabitants had mostly succumbed to a plague epidemic. That might be a comparable analogy.
Beautifully said. I am hearing this thoughtfulness and inclusiveness more and more. Ms. Rothchild, you are a worthy spokesperson. Please keep thinking and writing. Your voice is needed now more than ever.
I’m not sure why the Israelis should bear the responsibility for a war that they very definitely did not start. This article makes it sound as though it was (and is) the Israelis, and not the Palestinians, who are responsible for keeping this war going. Which isn’t true. It’s time the Palestinians stopped playing the victim card, and openly and frankly acknowledge what they did and accept full responsibility for their endless attacks on Israel, going back over 100 years. Encouraging the Palestinians to blame the Israelis will only make their situation worse.
mikep,
You seem incapable of recognizing the Zionist jackboots on the Palestinians’ necks. You are more a hindrance to progress in the midEast than a help.
Unfortunately, the left only thinks of Jews displacing Arabs or Europeans displacing native-Americans in the Western Hemisphere.\\
They ignore Vietnamese displacement of Montagnards, Turkish displacement of indigeneous people in Asia Minor, Bulgarian displacement of indigeneous people along the Danube. The Bulgars originally came from the Volga.
You say, “Israel’s failure to recognize its responsibility for Palestinian dispossession is a critical though invisible part of Israeli history…”
Invisible only to Israel and its pals, invisible only to the wilfully blind. “Disposession”? What a polite little word - how about plunder, looting, sacking, rapacity, razing, depredation, laying waste, raid, pillage - even a moment of relative honesty is cushioned - you are still too kind…to the plundereres.
But honesty is a start.
As always, there are two sides to every story. Every time.
Rothchild…?
Was it your grandpa/great-uncle who wrote the personal-cheque for the Donated-building of the Knesset, in Tel Aviv? [If so, was it the same/exact-checkbook used to support Hitler’s rise to Power — a few-years previous?]
And, how many of the Rockefeller’s are on your family mailing-list, come Passover or X-mas?
[Probably ‘None of the Above’ — considering the tone of this-Article…?]
Ken Mitchell,
I am unsure what effect you intended to make with your rather odd comments.
Which “left” are you refering to? Are there organized campaigns by the Montagnards seeking justice from the Vietnamese? And, if so, what are their demands and what role can an American person on the “left” play in modifying Vietnamese behavior? I confess to not spending time reading up on the conditions of ethnic minorities and displaced peoples in Turkey. If the Bulgars are still moving in to the Danube and displacing the indigenous Danubian people, maybe we should talk about what can be done?
In the case of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, this is not ancient history. And there is an ongoing struggle within American culture to win approval for Israel’s behavior and to suppress knowledge of the recent AND ONGOING brutality against the Palestinians.
Israel could probably do most of the crimes they are doing without American subsidies, but it would be more difficult. I doubt Israel could continue to behave aas they do without American diplomatic and military support, however.
The current “Happy Birthday Israel” campaign is a PR effort to win American popular support for Israel’s policies and American Jews like Alice Rothchild is bucking the pressure by speaking up and trying to educate Americans, including other American Jews, into facing the unpleasant truth about Israel, and the US’s uncritical support for Israel.
A journalist heard about a little old Jewish man who’d been going to the Wailing Wall to pray every single day for 60 years. Impressed, he sought out the old gentleman for an interview. “What a remarkable thing,” he said, “praying there so much for so long. What do you pray for, sir?” The little old man replied, “I pray that Jews, Muslims and Christians can all live together in peace, respect and toleration.” “And how do you feel about it?” the journalist asked. The old man answered, “Like I’m talking to a fucking wall.”
“Perhaps taking the risk of acknowledging the pain of the “other” and seeing “the enemy” as a real person is how peace is ultimately made.” - This is a nice suggestion. Why don’t you apply this in your article?
Israel’s history has not been written by the victors. There is a rich, varied and complex historiagraphy among Israeli scholars alone - not mentioning the many non-Israeli scholars who add their own voices!
It seems that “Jews for Peace” are ready to accept responsibility for everything that Israel is accused of doing but are silent when it comes to speaking out for the equal number of Jews living in Arab countries who were dispossed of their property and wealth at the same time as the “Nakba.” What about recognizing the historical Jewish presence of Jews in places like Jerusalem and Hebron, who were cleansed from those places in violent pogroms several times in History (before the Nakba occured)?
If you really are for peace then insist that BOTH sides take responsibility for their actions.
courageous guys. too bad we don’t have more like them in the u.s.
Jack 37,
It is truly sad how how little empathy there is. The Palestinians would like very much to stop being brutalized and to have their land back. The Israelis would like very much to negotiate with someone who’s first demand isn’t that they all (the Jews) march into the sea and kill themselves. But, here we are, talking to a wall.
2008 is the 60th of Israel, Nakba and the UN UNIVERSAL DECLARATION of HUMAN RIGHTS upon which Israel’s very statehood was contingent upon upholding.
To name but one:
Article 13.
(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.
(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.
THE REST:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=107&Itemid=175
Eileen Fleming, Reporter and Editor WAWA:
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author “Keep Hope Alive” and “Memoirs of a Nice Irish American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory” and the soon to be released “BOOM BOOM BENNY STORY”
Producer “30 Minutes With Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu”
“…justifying the behavior of its survivors, creating a story in which we Jews are all at some level survivors, claiming Israel’s victories as our own.”
This would indicate that you are of Sephardi-extraction, and actually share with these Palestinians some ancestral-connection/Claims to/in the Levant — beyond the late-1800’s, that-is? [Since the primarily-European/Western and Ashkenazic-Jewry — the 98%-majority in modern/Ersatz-Israel — were NEVER related-to any of the Jews of ancient-Israel/Judah. As for the Diaspora’s — of only the original Sephardi-Jew’s — most of them are content to stay where they are (for instance, the largest-community extant, in Iran, who are refusing to “return to this-Israel” — even when ‘bribed’ with up-to 6o-grand each of the American taxpayer-contributions offered by Israel, recently, along with stolen Settlement-Acreage).]
As for those ‘victories’, those being ancient-or-modern, I think I’d ‘pass’ on the “Claiming, with-Pride”…personally.
“The birth of America is often taught as a glorious thing with little mention of what happened to the native Americans.”
That ‘lesson’ and Example was not ignored by the Zionist’s of the late-1800’s…to be sure!
jwatt writes “If you really are for peace then insist that BOTH sides take responsibility for their actions” and equates the Nakba with expulsions of Jews from Arab countries. Of course, from the perspective of individual rights, these are exactly the same. All of the Jews who were expelled from Iraq and Saudi Arabia etc in 1948 should be allowed to return, because they are humans and have rights under the universal declaration of human rights.
I’m sure the Arab states would be happy to accept any returning Jews in exchange for the return for dispossessed Palestinians to their homes in Israel and the occupied territories.
But I’m guessing that jwatt would refuse to accept a fair offer like that, based solely on rights and not on “might makes right”.
By the way, Palestinian villagers were not responsible for expelling Jews from other countries, they were not responsible for the holocaust, and they bear no kind of legal responsibility for ancient expulsions of Jews from Palestine. Furthermore, they were not obliged to “win the war” (as Rothchild seems to imply) against a far stronger Zionist invasion force in order retain their natural human rights. Rights do not disappear because you are on the losing side of a war. For instance, in our time, Iraqis “lost the war” (if one chooses to see it like that), but Iraqi refugees still have an undiminished and uncompromised right to return.
The only other side is that we Jews wish to be left alone to pray as we see fit and be productive members of human society as we have done for thousands of years.
By the way, hundreds of thousands of Jews were living in Iraq in the late 1800’s and all were killed or forced to give up their posessions and citizenship and cast adrift with no country. The last Iraqi pogrom was in the 1950’s. Read “Mother of the Pound” if you care to know a piece of the truth. The author and his wife are still alive and would love to clarify any facts for you if you were truly interested in the truth and the “other side”.
Why is Common Dreams so biased against Israel and the Jews? Jews have been throughout history and continue to be today including in these pages, the MOST PERSECUTED PEOPLE ON EARTH.
Shame on you.
fresh1
“I’m sure the Arab states would be happy to accept any returning Jews in exchange for the return for dispossessed Palestinians to their homes in Israel and the occupied territories.”
Can you tell me just precisely what makes you so sure? In my humble opinion, you are dead wrong in this assumption.
“Free Tibet” is an often heard phrase these days. How about making “FREE PALESTINE” just as common? It is American tax dollars that support the state of Israel to a large degree. We can help the Palestinians more than we can help those in Tibet.
msaftler; you say “Jews have been throughout history and continue to be the MOST PERSECUTED PEOPLE ON EARTH”
Sir; When my daughter went through a phase where everywhere she went there was trouble, what did I point out to her?
Obviously this; if wherever you go there are problems; YOU ARE THE EFFING PROBLEM AND MUST CHANGE”
This I taught my child because the truth is what it is.
Tell me, why? Why As You Pointed Out, wherever Jews have gone, why have they have been hated and persecuted? Why more than any other group as you pointed out? Why throughout the millenia as you pointed out?
Tell me why.
I seek your answer honestly.
The notion that the arab nations would ever let the jews they forcibly kicked out back in is idiotic. And if they did let them back in, be assured they wouldn’t get the rights that the arabs in israel would get.
But of course, its israel that’s the “apartheid state”, right? Give me a break. The notion that these later generations have a “right of return” to places they never lived at is stupid. Its’ the government of the country that sets the immigration standards, not terrorists living outside of that country. Maybe al-queda should determine who will get american citizenship?
Mike- Jews have not been persecuted everywhere, america being a great example. Minorities everywhere get persecuted, and if anything jews have had it easier. There are MANY religious minority groups, such as the cathars, that no longer exist due to persecution. It’s completely irrleevant how much and even if jews have suffered in the past. The government of israel sets the borders and immigration policy, and the UN recognized israel as a country with a government. There’s no need to bring in all this historical grief, as the palestinians present behavior justifies an israeli response.
The following is from Jeff Halper of Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions
You may read more at http://www.icahd.org/eng/
RETHINKING ISRAEL AFTER SIXTY YEARS
Jeff Halper
May, 2008
Israeli Independence Day 2008, marking the sixtieth anniversary of the rise of the Jewish State on the ruins of Palestinian society, should be cause more for sober reflection and reevaluation than for celebration. True, Israeli Jews have much to celebrate. Only a few weeks ago the shekel joined the fifteen strongest currencies in the world, and with an economy fueled by diamonds, arms, high-tech, security services and tourism, Israel’s economy is booming. Israel’s international position continues to soar: the European Union recently upgraded its links, German Chancellor Angela Merkel brought half her cabinet to Jerusalem to emphasize that Germany was Israel’s “loyal partner,” and President Bush will come for the second time in the past few months. Celebrities like Steven Spielberg (who withdrew as a cultural consultant to the Olympics in protest of China’s human rights violations), Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google founder Sergey Brin, Rupert Murdoch and Henry Kissinger, alongside South African Nobel Laureate and anti-apartheid crusader Nadine Gordimer, will also grace the festivities. And as for the “conflict,” it has been effectively removed from the public consciousness (with the exception of Sderot) as attacks inside Israel have been virtually eliminated. What’s not to celebrate?
A lot, it turns out, though most of it exists beyond the bubble that insulates the Israeli public from its wider reality, and so does not dampen public celebrations. After sixty years, however, several fundamental developments have materialized which were not anticipated by the Zionist movement nor Israel’s founding, but which must be squarely acknowledged and addressed. First, the vast majority of Jews did not and will not come to Israel. Israeli Jews represent, if emigrants are factored in, less than a third of the world Jewish community. Only 1% of American Jews ever came, and most of them are religious, even ultra-orthodox Jews, or the elderly, who live there only part-time. The reservoir of potential Jewish immigrants has been exhausted. Second, some 30% of Israel’s population - almost 50% if we include the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories who, it seems, will stay permanently under Israeli rule - are not Jews. This is the Demographic Bomb, made even more threatening to a “Jewish state” by the fact that the Palestinians are a people whose national rights can no longer be denied. Israel/Palestine is a b-national country which somehow must either be partitioned or shared. And finally, the greatest irony of all, it is Israel, by its own hand, through its massive settlement project, that has foreclosed partition and created a thoroughly bi-national entity which can only lead to a one state or apartheid.
These realities are irrefutable; they have been exhaustively documented and are plain to anyone with the eyes (and open-mind) to just look. What remains for anyone sincerely looking for justice, peace, security and the well-being of Israel (dare I say of both peoples?) is to unflinchingly face this political equation and rethink the viability and justice of Israel as a Jewish state. Only then will we find a way, based on reality and the best interests of these two inextricably linked peoples rather than on wishful ideological preferences, to reconcile the “facts on the ground” with the rights, claims and needs of all the country’s inhabitants. That is not an easy task; it requires a fundamental re-conceptualization of the two-state paradigm and, with it, the very possibility of preserving Israel as a Jewish state. This rethinking is, however, a prerequisite to formulating a political program that, given the events of the last sixty years, has a fighting chance of resolving this conflict. It is also essential to redeeming Israel, whether as a country or as a national entity within a wider bi-national state or regional confederation.
Most dramatic development, one ignored or denied by Israelis even though their successive governments bear responsibility, is the disappearance of the two-state solution. Anyone familiar with Israel’s massive settlements blocs, its fragmentation of the Palestinian territories and their irreversible incorporation into Israel proper through a maze of Israeli-only highways and other “facts on the ground,” anyone who has spent an hour in the West Bank, can plainly see that this is true. The expansion of Israel’s Matrix of Control throughout the Occupied Territories, coupled with an absolute American refusal to allow international pressures on Israel to meaningfully withdraw, has rendered a viable Palestinian state unattainable - and thus the two-state solution, unless we Jews, Israeli and Diaspora, are willing to become the world’s new Afrikaners ruling permanently over an impoverished Palestinian mini-state, a chilling thought on this 60th anniversary.
It turns out, however, that we have mechanisms for both delaying forever a political solution and avoiding the predicament of apartheid. It is enough that we maintain a de facto apartheid since, for the vast majority of Israeli Jews, it is enough to merely assert a two-state solution, to profess to support it as a general idea, in order to considered peace-minded. In fact, most Israeli Jews, like most Jews of the Diaspora, require a Palestinian state as a condition for the existence of a Jewish one, the alternative being a bi-national state which is anathema to a Jewish one. But since being in de facto control is better than making concessions power but can nevertheless be presented as a “pro-peace” position, two-state supporters require only the notion of a Palestinian state, a never-ending process towards it. Especially since few believe in, genuinely aspire to, or even care about such an eventuality. As long as a Palestinian state can be held out as a possibility, the pressure’s off.
Thus many Israelis, Diaspora Jews and others - including such searching and otherwise radical figures as Noam Chomsky and Uri Avnery, together with the Peace Now, Brit Tzedek, Rabbis Michael Lerner and Arthur Waskow and members of Rabbis for Human Rights - cling tenaciously to the two-state solution, all refusing to admit that it is no longer viable as a solution. (A growing coterie of Jewish organizations - ICAHD, the Jewish Voice for Peace, parts of the European Jews for Just Peace coalition and others - are unable to reconcile Israel’s “facts on the ground” and unconditional support for its occupation policies on the part of the US and Europe with the prospect for a genuine two-state solution. While not yet embracing a one-state solution, they advocate a kind of holding pattern, expressed in the phrase “end the Occupation,” until some viable solution emerges, a rational position nonetheless considered “radical.”)
Underlying this refusal to even entertain the notion that a two-state solution is no longer possible is the realization that, if a Palestinian state cannot be detached from Israel, then the conflict is one which encompasses the entire country from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River. This, in turn, raises issues we’d rather leave untouched, events and policies we have suppressed these past 60 years. A Palestinian state - or, again, the prospect of a Palestinian state - is needed, above all, not for the Palestinians but for us Israelis. It is the only thing that will leave Israel intact as a country and, no less important, leave its dybbuks at rest.
And the dybbuks - any sense of guilt or responsibility for the terrible events of 1948 and thereafter - are at rest, and thus the festive spirit of the 60 Years in Israel. They have been exorcised from our public mind. Focusing exclusively on a two-state solution, on the Occupation, leaves Israel itself intact, removed from the political discussion, off the hook. The threat to modern Israeli narrative, legitimacy and political claims by going beyond 1967 to 1948 - a threat inherent in marking 60 Years - has been excised. But if the dybbuks have been silenced, the Palestinian poltergeist of 1948 continues to stir under the feet of the dancing Israelis. For a good half of the people of Palestine/Israel, the 60 Years is precisely the issue, the unresolved Nakba, the catastrophe as present and alive for Palestinians as the Holocaust is for the Jews. The 60 Year anniversary takes us beyond the Occupation to those issues and questions we have so successfully blocked out, which we refuse to acknowledge or discuss.
Did the Palestinians really flee or did we, the Israeli Jews, drive them out? If almost half the inhabitants of that part of Palestine apportioned by the UN to the Jews in 1947 were Arabs, how could we have turned even that small bit of land into a “Jewish state”? Is Zionism, then, truly free of war crimes or did we in fact conduct a deliberate and cruel campaign of ethnic cleansing that went far beyond the borders of partition? In that context, was the occupation of the entire land of Palestine the result of Jordanian miscalculation or, from a perspective of forty years later, was in actually an inevitable “completion” of 1948, as Rabin and many others have said? Can we reconcile a genuine desire for peace with a steady annexation of the Occupied Territories, including almost 250 settlements? Do we prefer a false peace - insulation from attacks even as Palestinian resistance to occupation grows - to territorial concession leading to a viable Palestinian state? Can we really expect to “win,” to frustrate Palestinian aspirations for freedom in their homeland forever, and if we do, what kind of society will we have, what will our children inherit? Do we have a responsibility towards the Palestinians as the people who dispossessed them of their land, first and foremost the refugees of 1948 and 1967 and the tens of thousands of families whose homes we wantonly demolished? As Israeli Jews speaking in the name of world Jewry, can we expect our Diaspora to support a crime going on these past 60 years and thereby implicate them, thus undermining the moral basis of their community, convictions and faith? And the hardest question of all: What about the moral basis of Zionism? Are we truly the victims, or have we perpetrated a terrible crime for which redemption means coming to terms with what we have done - a task far harder than simply making peace? If Palestinians are understandably preoccupied with throwing off the oppressive Occupation and reclaiming a least a part of their country, their identity and their freedom, shouldn’t we Israelis be equally preoccupied with cleansing ourselves of the transgressions that require us to suppress our guilt, shirk our responsibilities and, in the end, fail to reconcile with the Palestinians with whom we are so entangled despite a hundred “generous offers”?
For Israeli Jews, 60 Years is a cause for celebration rather than reflection. Still, the poltergeist churns, the celebrations are exaggerated, even forced, an unsettled disquiet permeating the festivities, most visibly in the presence of thousands of soldiers and distinctly militaristic character. The Palestinian people, exhausted, brutalized, impoverished, steadfastly refuse to disappear or submit. In 1967 Israel defeated the entire Arab world in six days; after more than 40 years it is unable to pacify the unarmed Palestinians. As the history of colonialism shows, a people cannot be defeated, oppression cannot be normalized or sustained, no matter how strong the dominating regime seems to be. Nineteen sixty-seven had to do with occupation. Had we dealt with that wisely and justly, Israel today could have been a Jewish state on 78% of the Land of Israel living at peace with its neighbors. Nineteen forty-eight, the focus of the 60 Years, is a different matter entirely. With the Occupation having been transformed into a permanent political fact (a Palestinian prison-state a la a South African Bantustan will not resolve the conflict), the question of peace, co-existence and reconciliation now shifts to the entire country, to an indivisible Israel/Palestine. No need to blame the Palestinian for that; they accepted the two-state solution way back in 1988. It is us, those who thought (and still think) that military power combined with Jewish victimhood can defy a people’s will to freedom, who carry the responsibility.
Nothing remains, if we want to salvage a national Jewish/Israeli presence in Palestine/Israel, but to courageously confront what we did in both 1967 and 1948 so as to transform the 60 Years into the turning point whereby we finally dealt with the presence in our country of another people with equal claims and rights. When we truly quiet the poltergeist and put our dybbuks to rest. Supremely difficult, the fundamental rethinking this will require is the only way out. And if, in the end, because of our policies, a bi-national polity emerges in Israel/Palestine, well, if done in a spirit of mutual recognition and reconciliation, it may in fact represent the original and ultimate aspiration of Zionism: a genuine homecoming of the Jewish nation to the hearth of its civilization. Now that will be a cause for genuine, unfettered celebration.
(Jeff Halper is the Coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD). He can be reached at ).
Jeff Halper is an utter idiot. Hey Jeff, the arabs started the 1948 and 1967 wars, and in both cases were planning to genocide the jews. So what exactly does israel have to “courageously confront”? The fact that they won?
Stop scrolling the discussion with this crap, peace.
MIKE PETERS: As per the analogy to your daughter, your implication here is that it’s a Jewish personality disorder! If you have any understanding at all of authoritarian regimes and their insistence on uniform acceptance of “laws,” and the degree to which CHURCH and state have been fused throughout most of Europe’s history, then your question should never have been posed!
The CHURCH used the threat of heresy to MURDER millions, like all the women burned as witches. Jews have always been the inconvenient witness of another way! Although Israel sets a very poor example, mirroring the aggressive traits of those that formerly used such tactics to persecute Jews, by in large the progressive community has MANY Jewish leaders and thinkers. Although the great anti-semetic taunting is that Jews are bankers and own Hollywood, etc, I have alway seen in Jews (not all by any stretch of the imagination) a good deal of compassion on account of having seen/experienced suffering first hand.
My father was a Conservative Jew and as a child, I was taught much about the Holocaust. It shaped my vision of justice for ALL, and my realization of what ANY government can do in the way of barbarity if it uses militarism to FORCE a consensus.
Any outsider group can function as a convenient scapegroup. That’s what’s being set up in America today regarding Arabs and/or Muslims. I vehemently oppose the rationale whether it’s directed at American Indians, Black Americans, Japanese Americans, Muslim Americans, etc. The true progressive stands for JUSTICE FOR ALL. We are, I believe, born into our particular family units, ethnicity included, for a reason. The key is to use the roots of our experience as a basis for making the world a better place for all.
Every individual has the choice of whether his life will serve self or the greater good. It’s hopeful that these two goals can dovetail. Enlightenment does not belong to any particular people. It’s a cosmic equal opportunity employer to those with eyes to see.
The more pressing current issue is not so much Israel’s birth as it is the inordinate influence it exerts on the U.S. political scene and the consequences thereof for any possibilities of an equitable resolution.
Dwight David Eisenhower (who was, for those who may be too young to recall, a Republican president) is perhaps best known for his farewell address warning of the dangers of the Military-Industrial(-Congressional) Complex. What is less well known is his equally grave concern about Middle East developments generally and about Israel’s efforts to influence the U.S. political environment in particular. When he was running for re-election in 1956 and simultaneously trying to contain growing instability in the Middle East as a result of tensions between Israel and its neighbors, wrote a letter to an adviser which included the following comment:
Can anyone imagine any candidate for public office in the U.S. today who would even consider telling Israel’s head of state to f— off in such blunt language? To the contrary, can anyone even imagine a candidate who, on the grounds of putting America first, would be so bold as to refuse the unqualified and absolute “oaths of fealty” that Isreal routinely demands and gets from U.S. politicians almost without exception?
Recalling another farewell address, this one by George Washington, USans would do well to bear in mind his caveat about “passionate attachments” to any one particular foreign nation:
According to “Jewbacca”, “The notion that these later generations have a “right of return” to places they never lived at is stupid.”
May I presume you are speaking of the European Jews who “settled” in Palestine?
Kent Shaw
Kent, yes, the reason they had a “right of return” was because the british government, and later the israeli government, which CONTROLLED the area, decided to let them in.
Again, as I said twice in my above post, its the government of a country that decides who comes into that country. People actually kicked out of homes that still exist might have some argument, but I don’t buy that all of them were even kicked out. NO part of this narrative is settled, as far as I’m concerned. And who will be responsible for investigating who actually lost a home and how they lost it, the UN??
Don’t make me laugh.
As per the Jeff Halper article posted above, I’d give all 3 patriarchal religions a lot more credit if THEY led the way to turning the Middle East into a place of peace and tolerance of OTHER. Once that consciousness permeates, better land agreements can begin.
Sioux please don’t encourage more Jeff Halper scrolls.
You wilfully miss my point, Jewbacca. So I will pedantically spell it out for you. The European Jews who “settled” Israel in 1948 never had any ancestors from that part of the world. Okay? Get it? No right of return for them, just as you posit no right of return for Palestinians several generations beyond 1948. Their leaders chose a religion as part of an effort to unite their people. Too bad they chose Judaism. Maybe if they’d chosen Catholicism, today we’d have a “right of return to Italy” for Catholics worldwide. Don’t make me laugh, indeed.
Kent, I never claimed they had a “right”! I said the british willingly let them in! If the british had not, it would have been their decision to make. I do NOT recognize a “biblical claim” to israel or any other place. Its the arabs that claim large swaths of land as “theirs”, or as “muslim lands”, as if the land itself could only be for one religion. Only the most extreme jews argue that way.
You didn’t get my point, so lose the condescending tone. Typical leftist…
This is outstanding!
thank you for your thoughts Siouxrose.
And I have a solution too; I invite all the Palestinian and Jewish people of the world to come and live at my house.
It would be perfect because no fighting is allowed.
And Kurds Maronites Alawites Druze et al could share that SILLY piece of land!
You both wrong. The right of return is for those who either Jewish in ethnicity or religion. Zionism actually emphasizes the secular, and many Orthodox Jews oppose Zionism.
Nahida, those who murder jewish religious students and then cheer in the streets are not members of a “family of humanity” that I want to be a part of.
All this talk of humanity and rights, and not one critical eye toward how the palestinians view these things…
I am constantly amazed at the Zionist responses to articles like this, and have decided not to respond personally to the usual suspects here. Total waste of time. To have a reasonable debate about something like this — and one that can end in some sort of understanding — requires that both sides possess morality, conscience, a sense of justice and simple, basic humanity. That leaves my opponents at a disadvantage.
It is pointless. Here’s why:
First, they usually begin by offering already disproven propaganda that no educated person believes any more. It is futile to argue about facts that aren’t facts, and no amount of proof offered interests them. They believe their own mythology.
Then they call everyone who disagrees with Israel’s illegal and universally condemned policies and behavior — wait for it — anti-Semites, even though most of them do not possess a drop of Semitic blood (change anti-Semite to self-hating Jew if not a Gentile). This is insurmountable and cannot be countered. I know I am not anti-Semitic, but how can I prove that? I can’t, not even by declaring undying devotion to their pathetic cause, for I might still be hiding some secret bias.
Then they usually progress to recounting how terrible life as a Jew is, not for them of course, but how it used to be the case. This is followed by a list of injustices that were committed against Jews in various Arab countries (not Palestine, of course). There will be no mention of how well Jews do in this country and around the world.
Then they bring up The Holocaust (as if this had anything whatsoever to do with Palestine).
Then they tell us we’re all stupid. Here they might have a point, for some of us are. See Christians United for Israel.
Then they demand we pity them and acknowledge that their suffering outweighs all other human suffering that has ever transpired on the planet. The 40 million or so killed by Mao, the equal numbers Stalin disposed of, the millions in Cambodia and Vietnam, all pale in comparison. Apparently Jewish blood is more precious than anyone else’s, their suffering more poignant, their grief more enduring. If you do not agree to this premise, you are a — wait for it — Nazi.
Then they demand we recognize their superiority.
I just keep wondering why they don’t themselves see how counterproductive this is.
Or why they seem to have no grasp of history. One would hope that by now they would cease doing the very things that have caused them so much trouble for centuries.
Apparently not. And while the majority of Jews who read these supremacist comments here and elsewhere hardly agree, they too seldom speak out, allowing once again their most racist elements to act as agents on their behalf, tainting all of them to many people. Not to me personally, because I know hundreds of Jews who fight for peace and understanding and who abhor these sort of hardcore Zionist remarks. But there are people who do not have my advantage.
If things progress as they are now, with so many Zionist American Jews pushing war (overtly and loudly) and the destruction of our country, this will not be a good place to be named Silverberg. And it will be the fault of a fraction of the Jews, like the ones that write these arrogant and inhumane responses.
My comments above are in reference to those Jewbaca and Kent Shaw, although Jewbaca is absolutely worse on blaming the British, and then using lower case letters to refer to them, probably showing his Anglo phobia. The British government authorities tried to keep the Zionists and the Arab nationalists apart and keep the peace while they had control of Palestine as it was called.
Also anti Semite Baca, because that’s the way Zionists act by always sacrificing Jews on their altar of Zionism, stop backing self hating extremist Zionist Jews, by supporting those who back the real interests of themselves and all humanity and seeing the need for empathy for human suffering of the Palestinians.
Oh, and I didn’t mean to leave out extreme Gentile Zionists, who are just as wrong headed.
AD, I don’t “blame” the british, I’m jewish and I think they did the right thing by letting jews in and with the Barflour declaration! They just should have left earlier. You have to be paranoid to be reading into my choice of caps. I’m not a scottish nationalist I’m a jewish one!
Opel: Please point out where I mentioned anti-semitism? That issue is irrelevant as Israel can win its arguments on the merits, no matter whether they are arguing with “anti-Semites” or not.
Jewbacca = Jew Baka. That’s some japanese for ya. Dude’s a racist who only values jewish life instead of respecting all human life.
As for my take on the subject, it was utterly moronic to take a population of european jews and stick them in the arab desert, regardless of what ancient jewish cities were located there. What should have been done is to carve out a nice big chunk of central / eastern europe (you know, where these people lived!) and made that into a new country for them. Why when Germany was the aggressor were they not the ones to sacrifice territory to the people they victimized? Makes no damned sense. Doing it that way would have prevented all these problems right from the getgo.
wow kitty what a harsh and insulting response. Wait a second, you edited! She insulted me worse in the first post. Anyway, don’t give me that only values jewish life canard. Saying that kind of thing puts you in the same boat as those who always cry out “anti-semitism.” Where are all those people, by the way? I thought they made it impossible for any of you to express yourselves.
Yea, let’s go back in time and carve up Germany, I can’t believe no one’s considered that a viable option yet!
Jew Baka:
Your posting record proves the point, and I’m just calling it as I see it. Your support of conquest and occupation proves that human life not of your race doesn’t count to you. Your support of policies that privilege one race and religion and disenfranchise and oppress those of any other once again proves your racism. Why can’t non-jews vote in Israel? Why do they live under curfews and movement restrictions? Why is their land taken and their homes and farms demolished and settlements built on conquered territory? You know that’s against UN law, right? You know collective punishments and race-based population restrictions are illegal as well, don’t you? Racism is the belief that one race is privileged above others, your support for those policies mark you as racist. Deal with it.
And your “the local government decides these things!” is no defense. No one held back when South Africa pulled that shit, and many of us refuse to hold back now. Apartheid is apartheid regardless of where it’s practiced or who the victims and perpetrators are.
You don’t want to be called a racist, stop acting like one. You don’t want to be called a fool, stop acting like one. I judge you by your actions, and yours are sorely wanting.
PS: The “worse insult” mentioned that was edited was that I said he was a “jerk”, and I decided that needed to be clarified to explain why I felt that way.
Isn’t it time we got rid of all theology?
Surely the above comments expose its mind-numbing stupidity, its implausibility, its extreme divisiveness.
P.S. I just did a post on Egyptian theology and ‘weighing the heart.’ It’ll make you laugh but the tragedy is that religiously-deranged people still believe in similar things in 2008.
The reason the Jews are persecuted is that they continue to deny Christ as their Savior. He was very plain in John Chapter 8 about the future of the Jews if they didn’t accept him. I am not being anti sematic, just honest about the Bible.
Down with Israel, the racist, genocidal and colonial state.
Sigurdur11:
Way to promote freedom of religion there, pal. Really, are you saying that being the “wrong” religion justifies persecution? Really, is that what you’re saying? You’re a worse bigot than Jew Baka is.
fresh1 May 14th, 2008 4:47 pm
‘…Furthermore, they were not obliged to “win the war” (as Rothchild seems to imply) against a far stronger Zionist invasion force in order retain their natural human rights. Rights do not disappear because you are on the losing side of a war…
Aggression is illegal period. And constitutes a War Crimes, and considering the time-line, it looks like the US and UN are co-conspirators with foreknowledge and at least connivance into complicity. I wonder what Prof Francis Boyle would state on that proposition.
opeluboy May 14th, 2008 7:45 pm
RIGHT-ON! and very regrettably, but in a small percentage, just as with, as Martin Luther King Jr., so eloquently stated it on the eve of his assassination, “some of our sick white brethren” and and they come in all shades, religions and nations. But, being defensive out of fear of group annihilation, is not an absurd or unjustified fear. And fear is inculcated religiously with the holocaust museums. Remember lynching of black men in the south was intense and totally racist, they could not deny being black, they were murdered. My grandfather was country preacher who went to stop a lynching, and was beaten to death by the KKK policemen, my father never got over that. He would cry about it when drunk, the pain is real and took it to his grave.
I can come to the conclusion, that the whole human race, is a series of victims, begetting victims, who beget victims. But, some of are taught it, maybe out of lies believed or just gone along with, for lack of courage to go against prevailing mindset. I heard racist remarks against Asians for the main part from as far back as I remember. First the Japanese, “they will shake your hand, with one-hand, and stab you in the back with the other!” I remember John Wayne in ‘The Flying Tigers’ saying in his airplane, “Let’s send those slant-eyed satins back to hell where they came form!”
I was foolish enough to enlist in the army, and was sent to Korea, there the names used were categorically racist, and I resented it, and at the same time the Civil Rights Movement was mounting, and I was supportive, and made the connection of my father’s grief, my grandfathers murder, and the mindset of the racist I soldered with. It was very disturbing.
Back in states I was stationed at Fort Ord, the Watts Riots broke out, and we were put on alert, weapons where drawn from the arms room, 2.5 tons trucks with trailers full of ammunition outside our barracks! … this is hard… We were to sent to back up the California National Guard and LAPD, that was unable to break the spirit of the righteous indignation fighting back manfully in the streets of Los Angeles. (my hands are actually shaking) Well, it was a real moment of truth, my heart was with the people, the black people in LA. And, for clarity, I am white. So, we began to discuss it, and decided we wouldn’t do it, and if necessary defend ourselves from the red-neck lifers who were itching to do it, and the whole troop was polarized, with my black comrades freaked out and were of the same mind. And that ladies and gentlemen, is why we were not sent, because we were unreliable, and they had a problem, a political problem on their hands. Could they just send white soldiers from Dixie?
What has to do with Israel? They do not identify with the Palestinians, they are segregated, indoctrinated, and must use psychological screening to pick cold-blooded killers to occupy the West Bank, to run over activist with bulldozers, to harass people at check-points, to shoot little girls in the head, to turn of electricity and starve people sadistically.
But let me share with an article I read today, that will horrify you too.
Beating the Drums of a Broader Middle East War
Israel, Syria, and Lebanon Prepare the “Home Fronts”
And the best case scenario is we can go on the wars of the past, for the one confronting us may foreclose that for just around everyone in the Middle East.
The Jews are not the most persecuted people in history, they have just been more effective in turning their experiences into religious myth. The gypsies are equally persecuted. Hitler in fact killed more gypsies (Romanies) on a percentage basis than Jews. Gypsies are still persecuted wherever they live and they still do not have a homeland.
Many peoples have been persecuted throughout history and all for the same sorts of reasons: they set themselves apart from the greater community, or, their religion was seen as a threat. The Cathars were persecuted and wiped out because of their religious beliefs. Compared to the Cathars and Gypsies the Jews have been fortunate.
there is a very simple reason why Jews have faced persecution at times and that is because their religious beliefs make it necessary for them to set themselves apart from the greater community and to be ‘other.’ The message they send to the greater community is that they are different, if not special, superior, or clearly disinterested in ‘mixing’ with them. Any group which sets itself apart in this way is likely to be persecuted at certain times. Armenians, gypsies, fundamental christians all experienced the same sorts of persecution as the Jews, for the same reason. When times are tough, sadly, and one would wish it were not so, people look for a scapegoat and there is a good chance that their eye will fall upon anyone who is different or who refuses to fully join the greater community.
It is important also to remember that many Jews, like many Armenians, gypsies, no doubt Cathars and others, have lived happily and peacefully in various countries and many have lapsed from their religion as my ancestors did. I can trace my Jewish ancestors back to England in the 1700’s and while they may have fled some persecution (or they may not have) to go to London, they didn’t suffer any from that point. My direct ancestors lapsed as did all my other religiously inclined ancestors and for that I am grateful.
Jewish persecution has been mythologized to such a degree … and I would dd, probably because it is intrinsic in the religion. If you stand at the Wailing Wall, what you are hearing are people ‘wailing’ about wrongs done to them thousands of years before. A modern psychiatrist would consider this dysfunctional.The inability to move on and process experience is psychologically unhealthy. So the religion itself has enabled Jews to mythologize and fantasize their own suffering while completely ignoring the part they have played in their history and the suffering they have inflicted on others …. the Canaanites thousands of years ago and the Palestinians today.
Yeah, go tell a native american that the jews are the most persecuted people in the world. Oh, wait, find one first. Good luck with that.
Check out the last name. Do you think that she feels regret about her great-grandfathers actions????
Rosross
You said someting important. The inability to move on. While it is nessesary to understand the true past. It is also nessesary to understand that things that happened 100 years ago might not be replayed in the same way today. We have better info in some ways than our granddads did.
twistoflex.
Yes, I agree. Understanding the context of an event is important. I guess it is what lawyers and judges do in a court of law. They study the event and the information available and take into account mitigating circumstances.
There have been many things done in the past which are now considered to be ‘wrong’, occupations and colonisations amongst them along with lobotomising women, using physical violence on children, removing indigenous children from their parents, slavery … to mention just some and it is right, in an enlightened world, to recognise them as wrongs but we also have to take into account that the attitudes and values of the times were different.
Terrible cruelties have been perpetrated upon human beings in the name of ‘right’. This is not to let people off the hook, but to say that wrongs done in the past have to be assessed by the values of the times.
Trying to right the wrongs of the past will always be limited. The important thing is to recognise those wrongs, to admit to those wrongs and to set about redressing them as much as we can.
Sadly I think the Israelis have been ill served by their leaders, their religion and the world at large. All have enabled, if not encouraged, Israelis to believe in their own superiority and pure victimhood and in the doing it has dehumanised them as they seek to dehumanise those that they dispossessed. As Halper said, if Israel had been a benign occupier instead of a brutal one bent upon continued colonisation, Israelis could have been living in peace for decades.
Until the world demands that Israel abide by the norms of justice forced upon all other historically recent colonising nations, there can never be justice or peace. America, Australia, Canada and New Zealand would simply not be allowed to get away with doing to their indigenous people what Israel does to hers. That is not to say those nations have got it all right, nor that they have gone as far as they need to go in improving the quality of life for indigenous peoples, but they have at least admitted to the wrongs inherent in their foundation, made apology and sought to make redress. If nothing else their indigenous peoples have full and equal rights as citizens. Israel can do no less,
Jewbacca
You are a TROLL, go back to where u came from….
Guess what, I posted a comment here at 11:38 pm, meant for the parallel article here on Common Dreams.:
Israel at 60: Zionism’s Fatal Flaw
by Ira Chernus
Which is stronger in background and analysis. And since you are interested in the subject, dive in there, and read her artical. I used under Edit, Find on This Page, the word Zionist and it came up 19 times in her article and 16 by the posted comments as of a couple hours ago. Where is not in Alice Rothchild article, and at the same time, only once among the comments posted.
Actually Windows shut me down, saying there was a problem, and my link to an article got near the top of a post, and I thought is was being blocked. A tedious night!
rosross:
Israelis are ill served by their leaders, as have been Americans. It’d be best to remember that before you go on to state that they’ve been “dehumanized” and “believe in their own superiority and pure victimhood”. Sure, that description fits some, but by no means all. They’re all individuals, not a monolithic mass, and there are more than a few who oppose their government’s policies and many who actively work for better.
kitty,
Yes, I should have clarified. I did not mean in an absolute sense but rather the ‘culture’ of the society is sourced in a religious belief in superiority and pure victimhood and that has a dehumanizing impact simply because when we are not equal with other human beings, they cannot be equal with us and so we dehumanize them and in the doing dehumanize ourselves.
This is not particular to Israelis but it has perhaps become more generalised because of the isolation and denial within which the culture is immersed.
Of course they are all individuals and of course there are exceptions, many brave exceptions, who work for justice and human rights, but, in the main, Israeli society sees the Palestinians as an inconvenience at best and as inferiors, less than human at worst.
And yes, Americans have also been ill served by their leaders, as have many peoples, but it is a matter of degree. America does not face destruction through the actions of its leaders in the way that Israel probably now does.
I know there is more honest, open debate in Israel than you will find elsewhere, particularly in the US, but sadly, the level of ignorance and denial is very great in regard to the Palestinians and when the time comes, Israelis will no doubt say what the Germans said: ‘But we didn’t know.’
The average Israeli, because of ignorance, denial or a combination of both, has no true conception of the atrocities its Government has committed upon the Palestinian people. Those who do, turn a blind eye because they believe myths such as: ‘there were no Palestinians here when we came,’ ‘Palestinians are terrorists,’ and Palestinians want to kill all Jews. The propaganda factor in Israel is high and most people do not find their way beyond it.
I suggest people read Illan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleanisng of Palestine. He is an Israeli, lecturer at Haifa University. Plan Dalet. Google it.
But it is a mistake to think that Israel is in control, or that Americans have sold out to Israel, or that it is a Jewish conspiracy. The invisible hand is across the Atlantic, ruling us all from London, with agents that have penetrated all of our institutions, and they use Israel to be a cover for their influence. American agents that do good, get knighted by the Queen. We called Tony Blair Bush’s poodle, but Bush was Tony Blairs poodle.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8977
“Events on this scale take decades or even centuries to develop. In fact such plans may have been in the works at least since the late 1800s, when three world wars were allegedly forecast by such figures as the celebrated Confederate general and Freemason Albert Pike, elected Sovereign Grand Commander of the Scottish Rite’s Southern Jurisdiction in 1859.
True to Pike’s prediction, 1914-18 saw World War I, which forced the centuries-old rule of the European landed nobility to accommodate to the banking elites and to the heads of the industrial cartels which built the war machines of the combating nations.
According to Benjamin Freedman (1890-1984), an American eye-witness to events within the Woodrow Wilson administration, Wilson took the U.S. to war only after being pressured to support Great Britain when the British agreed to facilitate creation of a Zionist state in Palestine . The original Zionists, led by Theodor Herzl, had been favorably disposed to accepting a British offer of virgin land in Kenya , but the financiers wanted Palestine because of Middle Eastern oil and proximity to the Suez Canal . The result was the Balfour Declaration of 1916.
At the end of World War I came the Russian Revolution, when the financiers paid for the Bolsheviks to destroy the Russian Christian monarchy of the Romanoffs. Soviet communism was the result. Less than a generation later another world war was fought, with World War II ending with the triumph of the U.S. , Britain , France , the Soviet Union, and China as allies. Afterwards, finance capitalism exerted its control of the developing world through the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. According to economist Michael Hudson, the West declared the existence of a Cold War only after the Soviet Union refused to accede to U.S. hegemony by joining the IMF. (Michael Hudson, Superimperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire, 2003)
Another major revolution followed World War II, as had happened after World War I, but this time in China , where the communists under Mao Tse-Tung took over. In 1948, the nation of Israel was declared, partly through the instrumentality and wealth of the Third Baron Rothschild, who was also an MI5 controller and alleged Soviet agent. (See Roland Perry, The Fifth Man, 1994.)”
Many people forget, the civil war was not really about slavery, it was an attempt by the British and French to divide and rule America, and the Scottish Rite was made up of Tory sympathisers, and infiltrated by the Illuminati globalists. Russia saved our bacon. Both Lincoln and the Czar were then assasinated as punishment. Cecil Rhodes and his Round Table designed a plan to globalize the world, and recover America. Russia and America were the biggest threats to their plans, so they destroyed Russia with Communism and spread anti-semitism, and took over our money and government with the help of Rothschild agents in NY who were able to establish the Fed in 1913 after creating a banking panic in 1907, and thus were able to take over our government, and end the Republic we call a Democracy. As Rothschild said, give me control over a nations money, and I care not who makes the laws.
And so the 20th century became a century of genocide and wars.
Israel is held hostage by the same enemies America, and the world, is held hostage by. Both have leaders in government who are traitors to the people they govern, who terrorize their own people into surrendering their liberties and support perpetual war, sometimes even staging the attacks that kill their people. Do not be deceived, the monster hiding behind the curtain is not who you think. American and Israeli Jews and Christians and non religous and Muslims in both places, have a common enemy, and should unite, and not play into the hands of those who divide and rule us.
The White race is only interested in its own well-being with little regard, if any, to others.
I read most of the comments with an aching head. Siouxrose and Nahida were the only ones I actually enjoyed.
Item One: There is no [name your least-loved ethnicity] conspiracy ruling the world - there are a huge number of idiots thinking they rule the world, and when you see the number of idiots that believe them, you understand it’s half-wits conspiring with half-wits to rob other half-wits … keep your wits and your wallet about you, and don’t be a half-wit.
Item Two: As far as Jews and persecution goes, Jews were persecuted in Christian Europe because the Christian Church failed to understand some rather trenchant comments of one Jesus of Nazareth, concerning shaking the dust of your feet when you meet a town that doesn’t want to listen to you, letting the dead bury the dead, and such - in other words, if they don’t want to hear you, you have no right to force them to. The Muslims were told in the Quran - in a frankly sarcastic tone - that they weren’t actually forbidden to make peace with those who wanted to live at peace with them - ie, continuous war wasn’t an Islamic virtue - so Jews in Al-Andalus for example, or Baghdad around the same time, didn’t have that sort of thing to worry about - ie, nothing like the expulsion of Jews from England following “Saint Hugh of Lincoln”’s death - unjustly blamed on the Jewish community of Lincoln. Jewbacca’s blaming that sort of thing on Muslims is showing more his confusion than anything substantial - Zionism and the dislocation and troubling of Muslims in Palestine _before_ the Naqba, were already a cause celebre in the Middle East, and British meddling in Arab states like Iraq were a major reason for the eventual - and repulsive - farhud al-yahood or pillaging of the Jews in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities - the British had glommed onto the Iraqi Jews to act as their collaborators, and the other Iraqis weren’t happy with them.
Item Three: Blaming people is a very effective way of avoiding facing the issues. It’s one of the behaviors of half-wits, the worship of which I have warned you about above. The problems of Israel and Palestine are best faced by facing them, not blaming everybody else. The Zionists who regularly post on CommonDreams fail to understand this. Jeff Halper is one person facing the issues; the Zionist posters aren’t. Wake up, half-wits. Check your wallets, Zionistas. Your leaders are laughing all the way to the bank.
The problem seems to have nothing to do with ethnicity or religion. It seems to have everything to do with class. It’s yet another battle in the class war, the Likuds and their allies being the class war aggressors, the elites pushing the people around, yet again, the people being the Palestinians in this case. So maybe progressive energy should focus on the class issue, and promote zero tolerance for classist aggression. The advantage is that that the class issue is clear and unambiguous, plus progress made is leveraged against all classist aggression, or in other words, 90% of all human induced problems. Not to obscure the plight of any individual victim group, but look, a new approach is sorely needed if we want to finally get some traction on any front.
I’m repeating what others have said, so this should be easy to read.
One way to look at this is as a part of European movement to other lands for the past four or five centuries. Like European settlement in South Africa, South America, and Nrth America, Austalia and NZealand,there is a combo of forces from Europe and in the colonized lands driving the project. Like Mother church in Latin America, the Dutch Reform in S Africa, and the Puritans and French Mother Church in Nrth America, the colonizers claim religion based rights in their settlement.
The colony also needs a racist approach toward the indigenes, and the setting up and maintaining of institutions to keep the colonizers ‘on top.’
The colonizizers’story is about religious persecution back in Europe, and the mission to establish a purer society, blessed by the deity, in the ‘new’ land. ( ‘New’ to the colonizers)
The project is open ended, leaving room for endless expansion. The ‘vision’ or ‘dream’ means that on the ground there is endless acquisition of land and resources.
Israel is just a latter day example of European colonization of other parts and peoples of the world. With all the support they get from Europe and Nrth America, there is no sense to their making peace. They’re on a roll…today the Jordan, tomorrow, the Euphrates.
Besides, one of the incentives in Europe and Nrth America to make the project work is anti semitism. If Israeli Jews has to live in peace, equality and justice with their (ugh) Arab neighbours, many will, like Africaaners, leave to live in Europe and Nrth America. Anti semites in Europe and Nrth America don’t want that to happen.
” Perhaps taking the risk of acknowledging the pain of the other and seeing the enemy as a real person is how peace is ultimately made.” I agree whole-heartedly! This is the essence of empathy and compassion and the beginning of equanimity. What hope exists can only be arrived at by this path.
Thank you JohnR,
Calling other people trolls is not showing empathy. Dismissing opinions contrary to your own is not understanding. Realization that everyone has a viewpoint and attempting to understand that viewpoint is compassion.
We are the progressives here. We are not the “dittoheads” goosestepping, together in formation. Show some tolerance for your fellow posters.
MiMiCcS; Hello. you ascribe the Russian Revolution to individuals (But not the Chinese Revolution) You sure about that?
In other words, do you really feel that if xy & z indidviduals had not existed the Revolution would never have taken place?
Enjoyed your post.
thanx mike
Israel has been gradually attaching land that doesn’t belong to it and butchering Palestinians in the process. Hitler would’ve been proud.
The original 1948 land itself doesn’t belong to Israel and until this mistake is not corrected, the entire region will suffer.
Kitty, like most pro-arabs, you are a complete liar. Non-jews can vote in israel and in fact hold positions in the Knesset. I suggest you actually learn something about israel before you insult it, but of course I could say that to every single leftist in here.
John, claiming the israelis are after the Euphrates is repeating the most truly idiotic of arab propaganda. The reason for israel’s expansion in 1967 was the attacks they were dealing with from the land they expanded to. They have certainyl expanded enough for their security needs and actually pulled out of gaza, so how can you continue to push this canard?
The response to their gaza pullout shows without a shadow of a doubt why israel cannot pull out of anywhere else.
Ros: And why is it that israel always needs to do something for peace? What about the arab countries and the palestinians?
tetti_tatti
“The original 1948 land itself doesn’t belong to Israel and until this mistake is not corrected, the entire region will suffer.”
I am pretty certain the UN says it does. I guess you don’t believe in their authority in the matter of arbitrating between competing groups.
So, what do you want the Israelis to do? Give up their state, their army, and turn over all authority to the Palestinians?
To all you who so fervently believe in the ‘right of return’, I respectfully suggest you leave whereever it is that you you live now, return that place or property to the nearest Native American, and then go back to whereever it is your ancestors came from.
And if you’re not willing to give up your property because it was unjustly taken from Native Americans by your American ancestors, then what gives you the right to demand Israelis give back their land and property to Palestinians? Seriously.
You want to talk the talk, then walk the walk.
Israel is utterly dependent upon the military and financial might of the U.S. to keep them fed, fueled and secure. There simply aren’t enough Israeli’s to support the production of fighter aircraft, helicopters, heavy tanks and missiles.
America’s economy is in the toilet and getting worse. The governor of the wealthiest state in the US just announced a plan to fund the state government with lotteries. The people of California might just be stupid enough to go for that rather than finding realistic ways of governing their state.
Peak Oil is here. Oil producing nations cannot possibly produce enough oil to keep their populations happy and export to the rest of us. Israel is dead last on the “nations OPEC is sending oil to” list.
Global Warming is destroying crops. Pushing the prices of basic grains beyond the ability of even oil exporters to purchase them.
The population explosion has hit a critical point. In particular the ability for arab governments in the Middle East to support their existing populations on national incomes may be in doubt. Egypt, most notably has a very large population of young people without the means to start families. Millions of young men who have no hope of a legitimate sexual outlet is a recipe for revolution or war.
Israel will face increasing pressure from it’s borders while the US will be held hostage to it’s energy needs as it’s economy crumbles. At some point the siege of Israel will start simply due to demographics in arab states. Israel is a convenient target for domestic rage.
It won’t end well for any party. Make peace now. Share Israel’s solar technology. The other option is getting closer.
Mphack
I think Native American just want back what is legally thiers by a supreme court ruling and U.S. Treaty. The rest you don’t have to give back but it would be nice if you paid for it…
pangolin,
“Israel is utterly dependent upon the military and financial might of the U.S. to keep them fed, fueled and secure. There simply aren’t enough Israeli’s to support the production of fighter aircraft, helicopters, heavy tanks and missiles.”
I would like to know what makes you think this. American financial and military aid amounts to less than 5% of Israel’s economy. They produce their own tanks (Merkava), jets (Kfir), missles (Arrow), and export UAV’s to the US. IAI could easily produce attack helicopters if purchasing them wasn’t cheaper. Just precisely what facts (if any) do you base your statement on?
I have little to quibble with you on the rest of your post but I think you are dead wrong saying they are “utterly dependent”. In many ways their military technology is in advance of our own.
Treefrog
Why wait for the government to give it back? You’re so righteous then lead by example. Really - give back your property to Native Americans and go back to whereever you came from. Otherwise you’re just another hypocrite.
RE:mphack May 15th, 2008 3:58 pm
“To all you who so fervently believe in the ‘right of return’, I respectfully suggest you leave whereever it is that you you live now, return that place or property to the nearest Native American, and then go back to whereever it is your ancestors came from.”
mphack…since evidence points to the so called ‘Native Americans’ originating from Asia does this mean we have to give everything back to the nearest Asian person I can find? Gee, after a trip to WalMart, and looking at the US trade deficit in China’s direction, it looks like we already are doing just that. If, as we’ve been taught from even before the Leakey’s, Africa is the ancestral home for ALL humans, don’t you imagine it will get a bit crowded there…and don’t you think the people already living there will have some objections?
Since you’re so smart maybe you can help me with a little problem I have regarding your comments. Granted, the so-called ‘Native American’ immigrants have been her for 11-14,000 years, and my family only arrived here just short of 400 years ago. Given there are no humans idigenous to the American continent, and to become a so-called ‘Native American’ it looks like just a subjective guess on a timeline, at what point does my family qualify for the title of so-called ‘Native American’, especially since one thing we have in common is the so-called ‘Native Americans’ & my family both arrived on these shores long before the United States of ‘Americans’ was even a country?
jewbacca,
Responsibility rests with Israel because it has all the power. The colonizers of America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand also had the responsibility to make peace with those they conquered and colonised for exactly the same reason … they had the power so they could.
The Palestinians are powerless. The Arabs do not have the power that Israel’s backer, the US does, but, at the end of the day, power rests with the occupier and so does responsibility.
The ARabs have offered peace and recognition to Israel if Israel returns to pre:67 borders…. Israel rejected this offer. The Palestinians have offered and kept a number of cease-fires …. Israel has refused to abide by them. The Palestinians have protested peacefully … the Israelis have shot them for it.
Israel is massively armed and holds the Palestinians imprisoned. Would you argue that prisoners have as much power to negotiation settlements with those who control the prison? I doubt it.
That’s why responsibility rests with Israel. And, I would add, it also rests with Israel because under the Geneva Convention and UN guidelines, Israel, as the occupying power, has a duty of care to those it occupies.
tetti=tatti.
The UN has no power and in fact had and has no right to partition any nation and give a slab away to someone else. The majority of people living in Palestine at the time opposed partition. Under any basis of human rights and democracy the partition was therefore illegal. Israel’s foundation was illegal, as have been all colonisers. The difference is Israel refuses to admit to the wrongs inherent in its foundation and make redress. The UN and international community should also apologise to the Palestinians and pay compensation for the wrong done to them. Only when this wrong is recognised will there be any hope of peace.
M & Ms, that British conspiracy theory of yours replacing a Jewish conspiracy is just really nutty.
Now as to Jew Hating Zionist, would you stop attacking Ms Kitty or I’m gone get Marshall Dillan on the job.
The history of the ‘nakba’:
How ‘Nakba’ proves there’s no Palestinian nation - by Steve Plaut, History News Network, 30 April 2008
http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/50197.html
‘Over the past few years, the term nakba (also spelled naqba) has become the favorite nonsense word of the Anti-Israel Lobby. Meaning “catastrophe” in Arabic, it has been embraced by anti-Semites all over the planet to refer to Israel’s creation, which supposedly imposed a “catastrophe” upon the “disenfranchised Palestinian Arabs.”
Of course, the real catastrophe that befell the Arabs in 1948-49 was that they failed in their attempt to annihilate Israel and exterminate its population, and for that they paid a price.’
I posted this once before but it deserves a wider readership; it deserves a much wider readership than articles selected for publication by CommonDreams by editors who don’t know much about history.
Apollonius,
How then do you explain the fact that at the time of partition the UN recognised that the majority of the people in Palestine, Palestinians, were opposed to partition? One presumes that some may have been Jewish but one presumes that most were Muslim or Christian.
I don’t have to explain the fact. Germany lost over half of its territory in the years 1914 - 1945. Russia didn’t even lose a war and recently lost more territory than the whole United States.
Nations and peoples make bad decisions. I can’t think of anyone who has a collective history of worse decisions than Arabs have made over the last 15 centuries.
If I’m going to get riled about injustice, Palestinians place last on my list of people to feel sorry for.
Appalling, the UN partition plan of 1947 did call for two states, and it was the Zionists who with cold blooded killing, rape, pillage, and all the rest took over twice what the UN fairly provided for. Now let’s just things straight on that. Also Germany, not any damn body in the Middle East carried out the Holocaust, and that country should, by all rights, have been the location of an exclusive homeland for the Jews, and if need be Gypsies and others as well. Let the ones who stirred the storm reap the whirlwind. Give the Palestinians a damn break. No Germany didn’t lose what you said at all, the western part after the Second World War it started got tons of US taxpayers money.
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was a Nazi. The Arabs collaborated big time with the Germans all through the pre-war and into the war period.
The history of the Arabs damns them. Constantly on the attack, the most racist, imperialist, violent people in all history. They’re not worth getting worked up about.
Some of the richest people and some of the richest nations on earth are Arab countries. There are two dozen Arab countries. They cover a land mass greater than Europe. Let Arabs take care of their own instead of breeding orcs.
Thanks for the math, Nam, but I think Mr. Apollonius is beyond help. The brainwashing was very effective. I guess now he’ll try the failed ploy next of pulling out the old anti-Semitic card again since we completely disagree with his Zionist delusions.
I’ve told you before, Ape, that’s a lying dog that no longer will hunt. Haven’t you gotten it through your head by now that a self-proclaimed ‘chosen people’ doesn’t necessarily mean others have to agree, especially when they commit criminal agressive acts & atrocities? Torah Jews, meaning they respect God enough to let him/her/it decide when they should deserve a homeland, deserve the respect ALL religions are entitled to as a path to keep people from acting out their baser animalistic instincts, but you seem of the Zionist ideology, meaning to hell with God’s opinion, we’re just going to TAKE a homeland, and damn anyone or any God who gets in our way.
I imagine it is difficult for you, with your ‘might makes right’ philosophy, to understand the Torah Jewish people deserve respect for their righteous faith, while secular Zionists deserve nothing but contempt, but enough people are now catching on to your unrighteous warmongering ‘ploy’ that you soon will, regardless of how you attempt to insulate yourselves through political, financial, military, & media control measures, discover there is a karmic (& physical) penalty to pay. When you worship at the alter of money, greed, and power it might last for awhile, but there is hell to pay eventually/ultimately. You are warned, but probably not listening, or too dense to comprehend the warning to visualize the dire consequences of the idelogy you embrace.
As a much greater/wiser man than you (or any of your seriously disturbed ilk) said, “You can fool some of the people some of the time…”
BTW, as a point of information I don’t subscribe to any organized religion, but especially am a fierce opponent of Zionism, which to me equates exactly with Fascism.
Appalling, you just got to stop trying to pass off Zionist propaganda and fiction as facts. I won’t even go into all the details, but the remark about the Arab world going along with the Nazis is pure BS. The Zionists in Germany were playing footsie with the Nazis when the Holocaust was going on. The only flags that could fly over Germany while the Nazis had control were the Nazi flag and the Zionist one. Now deal with that! Also look up what a Jew and top member of the international Zionist movement had to say about that movement’s successful plot to sink the SS Patria loaded with Jewish refugees from the Nazi persecution on the European continent whom the British authorities sought refuge for.
Oh, and Signature “Christian,” that’s a lot of signature but no Christianity with regard to your rant toward all Jews, a great people who don’t deserve that damn bull!
For the record, I have never accused anyone of being a troll in my posts. I don’t believe I have dismissed anyone else’s opinion as being unworthy. I do believe that I often fall into the trap of my own ego or my own desire to be right. If I have disrupted anyone else’s process of being and becoming, then let me apologize. I will try to be more conscious of my effects on other people and more appreciative of their efforts. The people who post on CD are by and large the ones who still care about humanity (except for the ones who don’t) and they all matter.
Why don’t the defenders of Israel ever broach the subject of the continued building of the settlements in the West Bank? Israel is just another greedy capitalist nation intent on grabbing as much land and resources as possible. I have a real problem with the amnount of power they wield in our gov. When people wake up, hold on to your asses Zionists, the backlash will be doozy.
Nahida,
Welcome to the CD comment system! I am familiar with you from informationclearinghouse and other fora.
But be warned, you may not get as friendly a reception here.
And to makesomething clear to the Zionists, when someone called for the “elimination of the Zionist entity”, they mean the end of a government, not any persons.
I am for the elimination of the US imperialist entity, but that doesn’t mean I want to kill anyone.
AD:
Thanks for the support.
USAn, don’t speak for the arabs. No, they mean the slaughter of every jewish man, woman, and child in the region. And if you don’t believe me, just take a google and listen to what they really have to say, when they arn’t speaking to the western media.
AD, zionist flag flying over nazi germany? You guys coming up with nonesense doesn’t change the facts of arab aggression against israel.
Good to see some others on here not buying the pro-arab line, keep it up guys.
Ross: Talking about how much “power” israel supposedly has, and comparing them with colonial powers, doesn’t answer or even speak to the moral equation at ALL.
The palestinians have “the power” to murder civilian israelis, and as long as they continue to do so, israel must defend itself. It doesn’t matter if israel has more money or more power, it still has the obligation to protect its citizens from terrorists. You guys try 50 ways to ignore palestinian violence, but at the end of the day its the reason for every problem that they face.
Lets hear some discussion of this, instead of the usual israel bashing.
AD,
There is a much better historical record supporting the assertion that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem supported the Nazis. Your post about Zionists playing footsie with them is absurd.
No what I said about the Zionists in Germany playing footsie with the Nazis is a damn fact, and it can be verified by checking with Orthodox Jewish sources including rabbis. The Nazi and Zionist flag were just as I said the only ones flying over Germany when the Nazis had control of Germany. kendpotter, you just plain wrong about that. Also the damn Grand Mufti no more spoke for the Arab world then than W truly speaks for the American people today, and actually much less so.
In the time of the Holocaust, top level Zionists were at best indifferent to the fate of their fellow Jews. The ones at the top who successsfully plotted the sinking of the Patria filled with Jewish refugees were cold blooded killers of their own people who turned around and blamed it on the British authorities, thus giving aid and comfort to the Nazis. Now deal with that, and that’s from an inside source, one who was at that meeting to plan the blowing up of that ship and who dissented from that decision.
AD, what you say is utter nonesense, and also completely irrelevant. Jews asking Hitler to deport rather then murder them is not “footsie” or “collaboration”, and no amount of historical revisionism is making your points anyway.
Because, why would the holocaust be relevant to arab aggression against israel in the first place? The grand mufti of Jeruslam certainly spoke for his people more then these ficticious nazi zionists you claim to have an “inside source” on. There was even a palestinian SS unit that the grand mufti started. It saw action in the balkans, against serbian rebels.
You lefties are more obsessed with the holocaust then jews are, and the reason is wishful thinking!
Well, I consider Arabs somewhere close to hopeless. Most are Muslims and their minds have been poisoned. The Arab tribal mentality doesn’t do them in good stead either. In a few years they face ecological, social catastrophe, and political catastrophe.
Those who get stuck on crticizing the U.S. (or Israel, or whoever else is supposedly directing the fate of the Middle East (no, no, no, it couldn’t POSSIBLY have anything to do with the behaviour of the people who live there)) need to get a grip on the fact that China, India, and any number of other regional players will soon wield (and in many cases already wield) as much influence in the world as America. China and India are likewise not even slightly interested in Arabism, which ranges in popularity from irrelevant to repulsive in world politics today.
Appaling, you and Jew hating Zionist need to stop peddling all this Zionist fiction and propaganda. Both of you should go out to see if you can get some of these fairy tales published. Oh, I’m wrong AIPAAC, a pack of lies has already done that for you.
Presence, why do you keep suggesting I am hateful or I don’t care about other people’s lives? You guys constantly say this about me, yet never take a critical look at what YOU support.
Presence, what I post is the truth about this situation, and it i