Like me, our friend Caroline wholly opposes the ethnic-cleansing of the Jews in Judea and Samaria in order that the Arabs can create yet another racist Judenrein state.
Unlike our friend Caroline I still favor a two-state solution, although I have come to understand that it will never come about through a negotiated agreement and therefore encourage Israel to simply declare its final borders and remove the IDF to behind those borders.
In any case, you should give this a listen because she makes some excellent points and it is exceedingly refreshing to hear a Jew stand up for Jewish civil liberties rather than joining with the anti-Zionists to condemn these evil "settlers."
One of my major criticisms of "progressive Zionists" is that they tend to demonize and defame their fellow Jews who live where neither Mahmoud Abbas nor Barack Obama want them to live. Doing so encourages violence toward those people, is anti-Semitic on its face, and represents one example of what I call The "Palestinian" Colonization of the Jewish Mind.
Barack Obama recently said this:
But the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination, their right to justice must also be recognized. (Cheers, applause.) And put yourself in their shoes. Look at the world through their eyes.The problem is that in far too great a measure we already see the world through their eyes. We far too often see ourselves as illegal, racist occupiers who are oppressing the indigenous population. Such a view neither comports with the facts on the ground, nor does it comport with any expansive view of the history of Arab-Jewish relations in the Middle East.
The ability to see with the eyes of your opponent is of important strategic value, but it becomes a major liability when key aspects of their worldview, and of their propaganda, become key aspects of our worldview.
I say it is long past time that we stood up for our own civil liberties.
Yes, but none of them were founded upon the insistence that 0.0% of the population be of the 'undesirable' group right from the start. Palestine would be uniquely alone amongst all nations of the world to that end, I believe...
ReplyDeleteMy concern is that this 'Palestine' would be a state recognized as such as the world's first fully functional terrorist entity given international legitimacy and who's domestic and international policies and actions are intentionally, specifically clustered around terrorist acts and this is entirely considered to be a legitimate expression of their government. Which if, it's unavoidable should at least be equitable. That is, if there's no way to get them to stop trying to kill Jews, then bus bombings and rocket attacks and massacres should be a tool they use with EVERYONE. So for instance if "Palestine" gets into a treaty dispute with Jordan? Mass murder. If Gaza wants to renegotiate their fishing rights with Egypt? Suicide bombings in Cairo. If "Palestine" isn't happy with such and such declaration of the UN? Blow the building up. I'd be entirely fine with any of that as long as they employ their interpretation of international law the same way everywhere all the time.
ReplyDeleteSame worries here, but there are a few million stateless people there who Israel can't occupy forever. Which is not to say that Israel's occupation of the territories hasn't been warranted, given the penchant of the people there to try and repeatedly murder Jews whenever possible, and also their having launched and lost multiple wars, as well as having refused a state every time they were given the opportunity - but it has to end sooner or later. Time to cut them off, and let them fend for themselves I say.
ReplyDeleteTheir leadership isn't ready at this time, but that's their problem, and we can hope as the years go by their people will ultimately tire of poverty, corruption and a constant state of war, and maybe mature a few centuries into the modern age?
I dunno. Maybe I'm a hopeless dreamer, but yeah. It's a shitty situation either way you look at it, but unilaterally ending the drain of the current situation seems to be the least shitty path for now, at least in my opinion...
Trudy, let me see if I understand you correctly.
ReplyDeleteYou are suggesting that Israel annex some modified version of Area C in order to maximize a Jewish demographic advantage within final declared borders.
Is that the basic idea?
I know that the same people who are entirely content with forcing five hundred thousand Jews out of their homes and communities would scream "racism!" to the rafters about this idea, but I would go with it.
I just want Israel to end all of this mishagas, as my dear 'ol ma might have said. I want Israel to establish its final borders.
I'm not sure I quite get the last part of your comment, tho.
Are you suggesting a plebiscite among the Arabs who remain within Israel, but outside of the '48 armistice line, on the question of national allegiance and that they would, in effect, be held responsible for the outcome of that plebiscite?
JayinPhiladelphia,
ReplyDelete"...the Palestinian state, if there ever is to be one (and which I support the creation of, if even only just to get this issue off of Israel's back once and for all)..."
But it wouldn't get it off Israel's back. Long, long ago, I used to be a supporter of the two-state solution, when I believed in the "Jews in pre-1967 lands, Arabs in post-1967 lands, all so neat and that way everybody's happy" theory of solving the Jewish–Arab conflict.
Today I know the ethnic cleansing of the post-1967 territories of their Jews is just one in a two-part stage plan. Let's suppose (I wish this could be purely hypothetical, but it isn't) an Israeli government did a repeat of August 2005 on Judea and Samaria; let's even be wildly optimistic and assume the Arab colonists in their newly formed state did not take after the August 2005 example by shelling Tel-Aviv with Kassam rockets. We'd still be in the tight spot. How? The conflict would be moved to pre-1967 Israel; it would be over the "equal rights" of the Arabs in pre-1967 Israel, if not the "Right of Return."
The few remaining Israeli Jewish concessionists say to this, "But we'll be within Israel's internationally recognized borders! We'll be within the bounds of international law! The world will let us do anything we want within those borders!" For this discussion I'll leave out that shameful "The world will let us..." statement (the antithesis of Zionism) and focus on that piece of naivete, the thinking that the world will let the remnant Jewish state stay Jewish just because it's within the pre-1967 borders. And I've got a bridge to sell them (to those that believe in that). The Arabs will demand the unJewishing of the pre-1967 Israel, they will riot to achieve their aims, quashing those riots will be compared to Soweto, and the world will heap the usual cache of abuse—U.N. condemnations, BDS, you name it—on the small, pre-1967 Jewish State for failing to get with the program of becoming a "state of all its citizens," a potential Lebanon where there is no protection for the erstwhile majority once demographics have come into force (and you can rest assured they would—if not by birthrates then by means of the "Right of Return").
We could have learned this lesson from a lot of countries. I mentioned Lebanon, but there's also France. Arguably the French couldn't continue holding on to Algeria, but are they at peace now? No, not by a long shot: The Algerians they gave independence to are now a settler-colonist minority of 20% in mainland France. And it's not that there was no warning. This is what Algerian revolutionary and second president Houari Boumedienne had to say in a 1974 speech to the U.N.: "One day, millions of men will leave the Southern Hemisphere to go to the Northern Hemisphere. And they will not go there as friends. Because they will go there to conquer it. And they will conquer it with their sons. The wombs of our women will give us victory." The similarities to Arafat's Johannesburg speech of 1993, where he said Gaza and Jericho would be first and Jaffa and Haifa would be last to be "liberated," are uncanny.
As things stand, I don't believe in any possibility of coexistence. Even Belgium isn't getting on well as a binational state—no violence, but the two constituent nations hate each other's guts.
Zion, let me ask you this.
ReplyDeleteIf Israel were to annex the entirety of Judea and Samaria, what would be the political status of the Arabs in that area?
Here's what I think. Between 8 and 10% of all Yesha is incontestable. It is and will always be Israel. It's nonnegotiable and everyone knows that even the PLO. In that 8-10% resides something like 3/4ths of all the Jews in Yesha. They are, effectively on the Green Line or in bedroom communities to Jerusalem. There is a further tiny land area of what the Arabs like to call "East Jerusalem" where something like 30,000 Jews live give or take (and, for what it's worth, 30,000 Israeli Arabs who moved there subsequent to 1967. They too hold Israeli identity cards.) Whether or not it's plausible to claim to move 60,000 people it's simply an impossibility. The Israeli historian Yaacov Lozowick who is now the head of the Israeli National Archives and until recently was an active blogger has published quite a bit of information demonstrating that is in fact impossible to divide Jerusalem. It cannot be done. So it's an all or nothing proposition. It goes to Israel.
ReplyDeleteFor the vast bulk of Yesha, the parts that are already under sole PLO control they need to go their separate way. Let them build their own roads and water treatment plants and sewers and power plants. Let them run their own courts and do whatever it is bureaucrats in the mafia actually do. That's 85% of the total land area of Yesha. And it is quite nearly all of the "Palestinians" who live there. The real sticking point is not Jerusalem it's the quarter of Israeli Jews who don't live in towns immediately adjacent to the Green Line or Jerusalem or within a few hundred yards of that. The problem is places like Kiryat Arba 12km out in the middle of nowhere out by Hevron. If you were to draw a line more or less around those areas you'd have to encompass at least some Arabs if only to incorporate roads in and out of these enclaves. Take all those people Arab and Jew, and have them sort it out. If the Arabs win, they get to buy out the Jews, or, if they can't, everything gets razed to the ground and the Arabs can dance on the rubble. If the Jews win, it's sort of a hollow victory because they'd still be horribly exposed. The best Israel can do is establish a timeline that sorts out an orderly withdrawal. If the revenant of Jews there want to still live there then they are, sadly more or less on their own. Sorry if that's cold but untenable is untenable. It would leave them in no better position than the 8,000 people of Gaza who ultimately were forced out.
(If you think that Gaza was a situation that could have been maintained then I would point you to the history of Rhodesia where 300,000 whites tried to hold on to power over 7,000,000 blacks. Even though the army was actually integrated and most of the police were black, it was never going to survive long term as a viable political option. The numbers were never going to be on their side)
In either case the people who live there get to essentially decide their final status and once that occurs a clock starts counting down to a complete separation of infrastructure. If Non Israeli Arabs want to work in Israeli businesses then instead of day work permits and such they are subject to a formal work visa process like any other foreign workers. The borders are formalized and no one need worry about a 'blockade'. It's now two different countries with border control. Any act of aggression across the border is an act of war.
An undivided Jerusalem would remain in Israeli control & any Arabs who prefer to be "Palestinian" nationals have to apply to resident alien status in a foreign country. The Waqf is dissolved and replaced with an organization of Israeli Arab Muslims who get their own seat or seats in the Knesset which is responsible for answerable to Israel and Israeli Muslims and no one else. If Qatar or whoever want to give money to the al Aqsa it goes to the government of Israel which then works with this new group that replaced the Waqf to use it. Or Qatar can take their ball and go home.
ReplyDeleteI would also at that point start another clock that instructs all governments that Jerusalem is the capital and any embassies that claim otherwise will be downgraded in diplomatic status when the clock counts down.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteHow should I know? I'm not in a position of policymaking, I don't know what those in power would do. Or are you asking me what policy I'd set if I were?
Zion,
ReplyDeletethe latter, of course.
I guess what I really want to get at is the question of Palestinian-Arab political rights in Judea and Samaria if Israel were to annex the entire region.
But, yes, what would you do?
Would you give them full and equal rights or would it be something more akin to the political rights of, say, the Puerto Ricans under American rule in which they have something near full rights in local autonomy but no rights to the national franchise?
And do you think that the international community would stand for any such thing when it comes to Jews?
I'm just thinking aloud, you understand.
And then there is the question of ethics, which I have some thoughts on, as well.
But I want to know what you think.
Take your time, tho. We do not have to rush through this.
"Would you give them full and equal rights or would it be something more akin to the political rights of, say, the Puerto Ricans under American rule..."
ReplyDeleteI think it's pretty clear now, 130 years since the beginning of the renewal of active Jewish nationalism, that the Arabs won't settle for anything less than a reversal of the situation to what it was back before 1882—Jews living under the apartheid laws of Islam. And that's the best-case scenario, believe it or not.
You give them partial rights like in Puerto Rico, both they and the outside world will ramp up the talk of "Bantustans." You give them equal rights, they'll use it as a lever to implement the Rwanda solution, that of the dissolution of the Jewish state through demographic overpowerment (q.v. Lebanon also). They don't want to live side by side with the Jews as equals, even if they say so for worldwide media consumption, and after 130 years, a lot of Israeli Jews no longer believe in coexistence either.
The Sudetenland 1945 solution is what I'd do if I were in the position to decide on it. Of course, I wouldn't do it right away, I'd prepare the groundwork, most important of which would be the total incapacitation of the worldwide media outlets in carrying anti-Zionist water. A lot of hard-Leftists say, "You won't do this with the eyes of the world upon you." I agree with them: The Jewish State will need, first of all, to force all the busybody cameras to look elsewhere.
"And then there is the question of ethics, which I have some thoughts on, as well."
First off, I ought to tell you that as an Orthodox Jew any matter of ethics for me is decided by the Torah. I'm not disparaging those who get their ideas on ethics from some other source, as long as they're honest about it, but I must make it clear my ideas can in no way be my own.
The Torah says, No genocide, these aren't Canaanites or Amalekites (whenever the Arab colonists portray themselves as "descendants of the Canaanites," I think to myself, "They should thank God they aren't"); the rule for a hostile nation that is neither Canaanite nor Amalekite tallies perfectly with the 1945 Sudetenland solution. So, as far as ethics are concerned, the Torah, which sets the ethics in my view, says it is perfectly ethical to remove all the members of a hostile nation from the Land of Israel. In fact, the warning in Numbers 33:50–53 is quite severe to do it thoroughly, and the commentaries say negligence of this falls under "kindness to the cruel that leads to cruelty to the kind" (because it would leave an enemy population that would be a constant threat to your women and children).
I'm a guest on your blog; if this direction of discussion isn't to your liking, please tell me and I'll respect any request you make.
Zion -
ReplyDeleteMy thoughts on the first matter are that Israel can tell 'the world' to go suck eggs after freeing themselves of the current situation. Aside from of course the Arab nations, and a few whiny cranks holding 'protests' at modern day bund camps in Oakland and London, I don't see any continued sustainable assault on Israel's legitimacy going on after that.
Furthermore, considering the financial and energy situations of many countries in the west, specifically the downward trajectory of same, I think that in 20 or 30 years from now, domestic concerns are going to be a much more pressing matter in our countries than the cries and moans of the masses who have been singing just this verse of the same old song (the song being 1400 years old, of course) for a century.
On the second, I'm not making any excuses whatsoever for the other Arab countries and their failure to accept and integrate Palestinian-Arabs into their nations. It's disgusting how they've used millions of people as pawns in a propaganda war for decades. But just accepting the situation as it is currently, unfortunately, is, I believe unilaterally declaring final borders, keeping all of Jerusalem and the major Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria, along with whatever else is judged as necessary for security, and then letting the Palestinians do what they will with the remainder is the least bad option.
As for a so-called 'right of return,' I would hope Israel will tell those who insist on same to 'return' to Palestine, or find somewhere else. Anywhere but Israel, which ain't their home. Lock it up, and get on with continuing to be the most successful state in the Middle East.
I'll leave open the possibility that perhaps I am wildly misguided, but I don't think it's too far out of bounds to hope that Israelis can elect a strong(er) leadership to assert that the world can go screw itself in response to any further demands upon it, after finally getting itself out of this mess.
JayinPhiladelphia,
DeleteThe way Jew-hatred works, it always finds a new pretext after the old one is no longer relevant. That is the basis for my prognosis on the continued hostility of the world to a pre-1967 borders rump Jewish state.
"Aside from of course the Arab nations, and a few whiny cranks holding 'protests' at modern day bund camps in Oakland and London..."
The Arab/Islamic nations are well-represented in world politics, including U.N. declarations. More significantly, they're still the oilmasters. The academic world in the West is overwhelmingly hard-Leftist. Given these conditions, I see no reason why the Jewish–Arab conflict would be permitted to deflate to its true, near-insignificant proportions. This is an investment, and the investors call quite a few shots.
"Furthermore, considering the financial and energy situations of many countries in the west, specifically the downward trajectory of same, I think that in 20 or 30 years from now, domestic concerns are going to be a much more pressing matter..."
I agree, but that would translate to an easing of pressure on Israel if and only if the world is off its dependency on the Arab oilmasters. If not, then the crisis could actually intensify the pressure on Israel. Look right now how the industrialized states fear for oil prices in case of an attack on Iran.
"As for a so-called 'right of return,' I would hope Israel will tell those who insist on same to 'return' to Palestine, or find somewhere else."
Yep, I'm 100% with you. But remember, that's a pretext-in-waiting. Arab imperialist aggression lacking the pretext of the post-1967 territories would immediately bring the "Right of Return" as the new demand. And act violently upon it. And the world would do as its custom: Condemn Israel for resisting. I wish it were not so, but I see no reason for things to magically change just because the Jewish state had shrunk to this or that size.
I just think there's nothing to gain and much to lose by doing a repeat of August 2005 or even the Begin–Sadat Treaty on Judea and Samaria. The trouble with peace treaties with our neighbors is they're always one change of government away from being nullified.
"but I see no reason for things to magically change just because the Jewish state had shrunk to this or that size."
DeleteSo I think this is ultimately where we differ. I believe the situation will change, and pressure and assaults upon Israel's legitimacy from the West will at least significantly die down once the 'occupation' issue is finally settled.
If I'm wrong, it won't immediately affect my everyday life (though of course I have a vested interest in Israel's existence, too). Though it will affect you and yours, so of course I understand and respect your thoughts here as well. Please don't think I'm downplaying your opinions.
I do think that once the current situation changes, and 'occupation' is no longer an issue, we move into a next stage where the anti-Israel side does not have nearly the amount of rhetorical weaponry they possess today. Sooner rather than later, Israel's enemies are finally going to be seen by everybody for the base Jew-hating fanatics that they are, and their support will dry up amongst the mainstream in the west. At least as far as I see things.
Clarification:
ReplyDelete"1945 Sudetenland solution" refers to the forced removal of all Germans from the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia (now in the Czech Republic), the allegation of whose "oppression by the Czechoslovak government" had been used by Hitler as the pretext for cooking up the 1938 Munich appeasement agreement ("Peace for our time") in which Germany was given the Sudetenland (without Czechoslovakia's say in the matter), and shortly afterward the remaining state was conquered as well.
For this reason I occasionally call the Arab colonists in Israel (both pre- and post-1967) "Sudeten-Arabs." Like the Sudeten-Germans, they're not a nation in their own right but an accessory to an irredentist claim by an imperialist aggressor (in our case: Either the Arab world or the Islamic community of believers). As with the Sudeten-Germans, it is best to neutralize the conflict at its pretext before it conflagrates. From Wikipedia, this is what Winston Churchill had to say about the policy of removing Germans from regions of the newly defined non-German nation-states after WWII: "Expulsion is the method which, insofar as we have been able to see, will be the most satisfactory and lasting. There will be no mixture of populations to cause endless trouble... A clean sweep will be made. I am not alarmed by the prospect of disentanglement of populations, not even of these large transferences, which are more possible in modern conditions than they have ever been before." The page adds this after the quote: "From this point of view, the policy achieved its goals: the 1945 borders are stable and ethnic conflicts are relatively marginal."
It is the height of chutzpah on the part of hard-Leftists to compare to the Nazis anyone who proposes policies whose aim is to prevent war and genocide. I'm not a supremacist of any kind; I believe in the ideal of "The State As Its Nation's Castle," where the resident nation is protected from demographic encroachment through exclusive rights, because my reading of history has taught me that having multiple nations under a single political roof (nation-state) is a recipe for disaster. No nation is obliged to share its political space with members of other nations, any more than a family must invite non-family members as permanent residents in their home (as in that scene in Doktor Zhivago).
Zion,
ReplyDeleteI'm a guest on your blog; if this direction of discussion isn't to your liking, please tell me and I'll respect any request you make.
I consider you a friend to the blog and I very much thank you for your knowledge, insight, and candor.
I absolutely want this to be a place where people from all sorts of viewpoints can discuss the Arab-Israel conflict in an intelligent and fair manner... a place where people respect one another in a friendly way.
The only people who are not welcome here are anti-Zionists or Israel Haters.
Given the long, long history of Arab persecution of the Jews in the Middle East I very well understand the impulse toward transference and if you tell me as an Orthodox Jew that it comports with Torah principles, I cannot even begin to imagine what I could say to change your mind.
In any case, I suspect that neither one of us will see this in the near, or even far, future.
It's not going to happen.
But isn't it utterly hypocritical that leftists, even Jewish leftists, are OK with the forced transference of Jews out of Judea, yet absolutely horrified at the forced transference of Arabs out of that region?
I'd say it even reeks of a bit of humanitarian racism, Mike.
ReplyDelete"I consider you a friend to the blog and I very much thank you for your knowledge, insight, and candor."
ReplyDeleteThanks. And I appreciate your inclusiveness. What I don't want is to foist an unwanted image on an owner of a blog. I left CiFWatch, totally voluntarily and with no hard feelings, because I thought I was stressing Adam Levick's appearances (as a respectable, mainstream blog) far too much. He never said a word, but I felt that way.
"Given the long, long history of Arab persecution of the Jews in the Middle East I very well understand the impulse toward transference..."
With a lot of Israeli Jews this thought is arrived at through a process of elimination: You evaluate this solution and that solution and eliminate any solution found wanting, and that's the only one left. But I wouldn't call it a mainstream line of thinking; because of the practical problems (which everybody, no matter how much ideologically inclined, has to acknowledge), it's more of an underground current of thought.
"...and if you tell me as an Orthodox Jew that it comports with Torah principles, I cannot even begin to imagine what I could say to change your mind."
Not necessarily; there might be a different interpretation. The recently deceased Rabbi Froman believed in the possibility of peaceful coexistence; he was as Orthodox as they come. He was very much isolated in his thinking, however. His ideas sound like pipe-dreams to most Israeli Jews today.
"In any case, I suspect that neither one of us will see this in the near, or even far, future."
I'm inclined to agree about the near future, given that there is no daring leadership in the offing. The far future...? Let's just say I have the stopwatch set to 250 years. I'm well prepared for the possibility that I won't see the end of this conflict in my lifetime.
"But isn't it utterly hypocritical that leftists, even Jewish leftists, are OK with the forced transference of Jews out of Judea, yet absolutely horrified at the forced transference of Arabs out of that region?"
That's precisely the non-religious justification I make for the idea: If the hard-Leftists say there are circumstances that make ethnic cleansing OK, who am I to argue with such impeccable moral authorities? (Dark sarcasm in action.) At this point there are some of them who retreat to the Binational Solution: "No-one's going to be moved; Jews and Palestinians are to live peacefully and happily as equals under a single state." Well, that skirts the issue of transference, but it does so by substituting an exceedingly dangerous pipe-dream in its stead.
On The San Remo Conference:
ReplyDeleteHoward Grief - EC4I middle east conflict documentary: Give Peace A Chance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubDhnM0MUmY
"A 15 minute film about a new perspective for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians based on the discovery of the formerly classified minutes from the San Remo peace conference of April, 1920. This long hidden document explains the legal rights of the Jews as well as the Palestinians."
----
On the British administration of the British Mandate of Palestine:
The Rape of Palestine, by William B. Ziff, 1938
http://www.amazon.com/Rape-Palestine-William-B-Ziff/dp/1578988802
"Reprint of 1938 edition. The Rape of Palestine is a scathing indictment of the British administration in Palestine. It is well documented and makes full use of quotations from the writings of non-Jewish persons who served under that administration and themselves complained of the anti-Semitism shown by government officials. Among them was Douglas V. Duff, who complained that 'it did not pay for one's seniors to think that one had any undue sympathy for the returning Jews'. Even if only one-half of the evidence amassed by the author were true, he would have proved that nearly all the persons sent out to administer Palestine were anti-Semitic and determined to evade the Mandate and destroy the Jewish national home."
George Gilder:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L4egLu6mas
"...I came to [the issue of Israel] very late in my life -- ...on the verge of my seventies. And...as I looked upon this phenomenon, it seemed to me that virtually everything I'd been reading about it for decades was not just slightly in error, it was just totally misconceived and ridiculous. And I must say, the idea of a 'Palestinian' state today is just an utter absurdity...The...notion that this is somehow tenable...that a group that...has recently [at the time of this talk in 2011] just...been sending grad missiles targeted at the Ashkelon desalinization plant that supplies all the water to Gaza -- their own water -- ...should be awarded with a nation state...that has been devoted, since it's origins in... Haj Amin al-Husseini -- the Grand Mufti, and Hitler's...consultant on the Holocaust -- I mean...it's just bizarre. And then...we have...Mahmoud Abbas, who's supposedly a moderate, and a 'moderate' among the Palestinians [the 'Palestinian' Arabs -- the members of the political organizations of the 'Palestinian movement'] is somebody who's unsure whether to celebrate the Holocaust or deny it's existence. ...This is just an absurdity. And the degree of the absurdity became evident to me when I read a book recently, after writing 'The Israel Test', by a man name Walter Lowdermilk.
"...He showed that the Jewish settlers actually *created* this country. That you couldn't contemplate five million Arabs living in this area without the heroic and unprecedented achievements -- of [soil] reclamation, and water management, and public hygiene, and electrification -- that these first Jewish settlers achieved. They essentially created this nation. There was none. ...And as they created prosperity, there was migration from other parts of the Arab world to take advantage of the huge opportunities that these few Jewish settlers created. So the Arab population steadily grew -- with a slight dip after the '48 war, but this whole notion -- I have piles of books that document in all sorts of mendacious detail -- that somehow Israelis displaced ['Palestinian' Arabs] is just preposterous on the basis of demographic numbers. The more Israeli settlers, the more ['Palestinian' Arabs] migrated [to the land of Israel]...and the Israeli spearhead of creativity and accomplishment created the possibility of Palestine [the land of Israel] supporting a population of Arabs. And it's just...all the 'Naqba' nonsense is just bizarre. There wouldn't be any, there is no, 'Palestinian' nation -- except Jordan! ...And I believe that the Israelis have negotiated with these people far too long! Why they think they got any claim?! Tell them to go negotiate with the Jordanians and the Syrians!"
"...You know, I think all American policy is really distorted by this view that there's something else of significance in the Middle East besides Israel. ..." "...That's where I go to find new technology -- fundamental advances. It's in Israel. ...It is *the* vital asset in the Middle East, but it's also the vital asset of world capitalism. It's the spearhead of world capitalism today. ...And the thing is, our adversaries know it! ...Our enemies know that there is nothing more important in the world than Israel! They are right! They aren't wrong! They know that if the Jihad defeats Israel it *will* defeat the West."
"...I mean, only in Washington can they believe that this tiny country the size of Vermont is somehow too big, and needs to amputate land -- the one thing it doesn't have much of -- in order to acquire peace from a Nazi movement. That's the essence of Washington's policy. ..."
Palestine, Land of Promise, by Walter Clay Lowdermilk, 1944
ReplyDeletehttp://www.amazon.com/Palestine-Land-Promise-Walter-Lowdermilk/dp/B0007ILEAA
Mudar Zahran -- 'Palestinian' Arab writer and academic from Jordan who currently lives in the U.K. as a political refugee:
ReplyDelete"[The solution has] always been there"; "Jordan has always been the homeland for the Palestinians [the 'Palestinian' Arabs]. This was the agreement. Very few people understand the history of the problem."
Yes yes that is history. This is politics. It is incontrovertible fact that the UN, the West, the EU and the White House are wholeheartedly in favor of ethnic cleansing of Jews. It is laughable to even suggest there's an arguable point on this among them. Perhaps they differ in how many Jews they'd like to see ethnically cleansed. Some say all some say half some say 80-90%. It is largely not relevant what any of them say. It is Israel's business. Alone. That is why I suggest they move on their own to secure what they can and cast the rest of Judea and Samaria to rolling brown hills of dusty nothing of the Arabs. Give them most of Yesha, say 90%. Come back in 50 years it will look like the 16th century. Or it won't. Who cares? Give it a few years and they will prove to be as ungovernable with each other as they are with Israel. It will inevitably degrade into tribal violence. This won't stop them squatting in the dust with their begging bowls screaming for infinite handouts. But again, who cares? For a few billion dollars a year more than the EU, UN and US spend to pretend they're doing something useful with them, there could be an entirely foreign operated 100% aid-based 'nation' of Palestine where literally no one ever has to have a job or do the least thing. Everything paid for and run by foreigners and foreign money. Sound surprising? 90% of the non-government jobs (which are mostly no show jobs with impressive titles) in all the Gulf Arab states, are performed by foreign nationals. Citizens per se, do nothing, rarely go to work or do anything except leisure things. This is the Arab way and the only difference between Qatar and Ramallah is Qatar has billions of dollars of their own pumping out of the ground. All we need do is give them that money so they sit home, sip coffee and make more Arabs. Again, no one actually cares. We'll be over here curing cancer and operating felafel stands on the moon and they can be beheading one another on the dole over real or perceived insults to their honor. I think it can be done for no more than 10 or 15 billion Euros a year. A small price to pay for what our moral elders in Brussels claim is the #1 human rights tragedy in the history of people and the root cause of everything's that gone wrong in the world, ever. Fair enough. For the price of bailing out tiny Cyprus every year they have the opportunity to be the owner-operators of "Palestine" a fully owned subsidiary of ShariEUa Inc., itself an operating chapter of IslamCo. They don't even need to do a title search because they don't believe in such nonsensical things as laws.
ReplyDeleteI'm telling ya, you and Dan Greenfield need to go bowling.
Delete:O)
Yes, but the history is the politics. It's the history that's being lied about that is the politics.
DeleteAnd it's not "The West". It's the Western elites (cultural and political). They are lying about the history as part of advancing their politics.
What needs to be done is to tell the factual true history -- to "The West". To the people of the West. And most importantly, to the American people.
Jewish people hugely and fataly underestimate the importance of telling crucial essential facts.
And, as part of that, Jewish people hugely and fataly underestimate the significance and effect of the huge propagation of lies that vilify the Jewish people.
Jewish people need to feel empowered. Jewish people need to realize that they have the power to change things. Jewish people need to realize that they have the ability to protect themselves. To protect themselves what needs to be done is for Jewish people to tell the facts of the history (and current reality) of the situation.
Jewish people, in general, have never really done this. In any context in any situation.
Jewish people need to start doing this.
Typo/spelling correction:
Delete"...fatally..."
Dan is correct:
DeleteJewish people hugely and fataly underestimate the importance of telling crucial essential facts.
It's about focus.
Anti-Zionists and Israel Haters usually employ a very tight focus in relating their narrative of Israeli/Zionist/Jewish malevolence.
So, for example, if an Israeli soldier is caught on video smacking a Norwegian "peace activist" in the face, they can put that out as yet another reason to despise the Jewish state of Israel.
The focus is about as tight as you can get. It avoids any kind of context or ambiguity.
What I think we need to do is widen the historical context to include the history of Jewish dhimmitude under the boot of Arab-Muslim imperial rule.
Naturally, depending upon what we are writing about on any given moment, we will narrow that focus as necessary, but it should always remain backdrop.
I noticed that friendlystranger, or whatever his name is on dkos, put up a video which he entitled something like, "IDF Arrests Ten Year Old Palestinians."
In this case, the focus was so narrow and thus so biased that he failed to include the part of the video in which the little waifs were trying to kill Jews by stoning them.
So, that's an ultra-tight focus.
We need to open up the conversation to the larger historical context and we need to expand the current context to a war between the vast Arab majority against the traditionally despised and persecuted minority of Jews in the region.
This is not only productive for the cause of Jewish freedom, but it has greater historical and contemporary accuracy, as well.
Mike, but, yes, it is important to open up the conversation to the larger historical context and to expand the current context to a war between the vast Arab majority against the traditionally despised and persecuted minority of Jews in the region.
DeleteThat is also what we need to do.
And, I think that what is very important for us to do is to communicate the facts of the situation to authentically liberal-minded Arab people, and to join in friendship with, and to join in effort with, authentically liberal-minded Arab people.
I think that that is crucially important for us to do.
I don't disagree, Dan.
DeleteThe point is to widen the focus.
If we happen to be discussing the western media than we need to keep Der Sturmer in mind when we assess, say, a cartoon that shows Ariel Sharon munching on a Palestinian child.
The whole conflict, whether on the Arab end or the Palestinian-Arab end, or the progressive left, or the media, or whatever aspect we may be discussing, needs to be understood within the larger context of the history of the Jewish people and seen as a continuation of trends that were prevalent in earlier generations of our dhimmitude, of the ghetto life, of the various persecutions and pogroms that pointed toward the Holocaust.
That's the point.
Palestinian-Arab kids throwing rocks at Jews, or at Jewish soldiers, are not engaged in a valiant form of resistance to oppression. On the contrary, they are doing what little Arab kids have been doing to Jews for fourteen centuries.
The difference now, of course, is that we have the means to defend ourselves, thank G-d, but we cannot feel assured that we will maintain those means without vigilance and strength.