The NY Times on Palestinian Refugees

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1. Khalid al cAzam (former Prime Minister of Syria) — 1973:
   “…..the summons of the Arab Governments to the population of Palestine to leave and take refuge in the neighboring Arab countries…..this collective flight served the Jews and strengthened their position without effort. …..Since 1948, we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes, when we ourselves were the ones who induced them to leave….”
   According to Mid-East historian Max Dimont, some of the Arabs (particularly from Jerusalem area) were also induced to leave by Jews, though, not necessarily by any official Israeli agency and not necessarily by force.
   It is absolutely certain that their continued lack of a nationality (over 60 years time) is due to the fact that their (mainly Arab) hosts keep them as concentration-camp prisoners and refuse to allow the UNHCR to re-settle them.
   According to Joan Peters, a significant number of Arabs residing in Palestine by 1947 were not legitimate residents and had been bussed in by the British in an effort to appease the militant Arab factions, who were attempting to block any Jewish majority nation from taking shape.
   The United Nations estimated that 465,000 Jews left their homes and possessions in the Mid East and some 750,000 Arabs left Palestine. Do the Jews get to go back to their nations and reclaim their possessions?
   Winston Churchill said in 1939:
   “So far from being persecuted, the Arabs have crowded into the country and multiplied till their population has increased more than even all world Jewry could lift up the Jewish population.”
   Joseph Farah (www.wnd.com) wrote in 2001:
   ” . . . readers from around the world have asked me what is meant by the term “Palestinian.” The simple answer is that it means whatever Yasser Arafat wants it to mean. Arafat himself was born in Egypt. He later moved to Jerusalem. Indeed, most of the Arabs living within the borders of Israel today have come from some other Arab country at some time in their life. . . . since the beginning of the Oslo Accords {as of 2001}. , more than 400,000 Arabs have entered the West Bank or Gaza. They have come from Jordan, Egypt and, indirectly, from every other Arab country you can name. The Arabs have built 261 settlements in the West Bank since 1967. We don’t hear much about those settlements. We hear instead about the number of Jewish settlements that have been created. We hear how destabilizing they are — how provocative they are. Yet, by comparison, only 144 Jewish settlements have been built since 1967 — including those surrounding Jerusalem, in the West Bank and in Gaza. . . : If Israel’s policies make life so intolerable for Arabs, why do they continue to flock to the Jewish state?
   This is an important question as we see the Palestinian debate now shift to the issue of “the right of return.” According to the most liberal claims by Arab sources, some 600,000 to 700,000 Arabs left Israel in and around 1948 when the Jewish state was created. Most were not forced out by Jews, but rather left at the urging of Arab leaders who had declared war on Israel. Yet, there are far more Arabs living in these territories now than ever before. And many of those who left in 1948 and thereafter actually had roots in other Arab nations. This is why it is so difficult to define the term “Palestinian.” It always has been. What does it mean? Who is a “Palestinian”? Is it someone who came to work in Palestine because of a bustling economy and job opportunities? Is it someone who lived in the region for two years? Five years? Ten years? Is it someone who once visited the area? Is it any Arab who wants to live in the area? Arabs outnumber Jews in the Middle East by a factor of about 100 to one. But how many of those hundreds of millions of Arabs are actually Palestinians? Not very many. The Arab population of Palestine was historically extremely low — prior to the Jews’ renewed interest in the area beginning in the early 1900s. For instance, a travel guide to Palestine and Syria, published in 1906 by Karl Baedeker, illustrates the fact that, even when the Islamic Ottoman Empire ruled the region, the Muslim population in Jerusalem was minimal.
   The book estimates the total population of the city at 60,000, of whom 7,000 were Muslims, 13,000 were Christians and 40,000 were Jews. “The number of Jews has greatly risen in the last few decades, in spite of the fact that they are forbidden to immigrate or to possess landed property,” the book states. . . It is also true that the Arab population increased following Jewish immigration into the region. The Arabs came because of economic activity. And, believe it or not, they came because there was more freedom and more opportunity in Israel than in their own homelands. What is a Palestinian? If any Arabs have legitimate claims on property in Israel, it must be those who were illegally deprived of their land and homes after 1948. Arafat has no such claim. And few if any of those shooting, bombing and terrorizing Israelis today do either. ”

   –end-of-quote
   I truly wish the best for these long suffering people. I simply have a different explanation for their suffering then the standard PC version, which we often hear on this blog. I also complement Mr. Plitnick for squeezing out a posting that is uncharacteristically NOT 1000% supportive of the Arab position or 10,000% condemning of the Israeli side.

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2. “to leave and take refuge in the neighboring Arab countries…this collective flight…we ourselves were the ones who induced them to leave….”

   What do you think this phrase means, “induced them to leave”? That the whole thing was something the Arabs thought up? And what about “take refuge”? From what? Or “flight”? From what? Again, were the Palestinians fleeing from the Arabs yet somehow also taking refuge with these Arabs? This is preposterous. The claim you are making on the basis of this quote (context? source?) is dishonest as well, because it conceals what the Palestinans were taking refuge from.

   This is like the wife-beating husband who rails at his brother-in-law for giving refuge to his abused wife and children, blaming him for causing his wife to walk out on him. It was not the wife’s brother who “induced” her to leave; it was her abusive (and delusional) husband.

   It was the early Zionists who induced the Palestinians to leave. The Arabs offered them refuge. Apples and oranges.

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3. According to Joan Peters

   Joan Peters’ book is known to be a fraud, a propaganda tract posing as a piece of scholarship. It is noted for its deceitful misrepresentations of primary documents. Benny Morris’s book, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict (1999) is the standard history of the subject and does not list Peters in his bibliography nor does he have so much as a single quote from her book, to my knowledge. If you can point out to me where the purported British bussing is discussed in Morris’s book, please do so. So far, I’ve not found that either. I assume it’s another fabrication. You would do well to follow Morris’s example in not relying on Peters as a source. He is perhaps Israel’s most eminent historian.

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4. Nice quote from Morris in the article cited by Mitchell above:

   “We must distinguish between official government statements and the attitudes of the
   public. The official line remains unchanged: that Israel had nothing to do with the creation of the refugees, that Arab leaders asked or ordered Palestinians to flee, and therefore Israel had nothing to do with it. But the Israeli public ?partly influenced by our extensive research into recently opened
   archives, research which is, as you say, now entering high school textbooks?have begun to
   understand that a large part of the Palestinian population fled because of Israeli attacks and Israeli expulsions. An increasing number of Israelis now recognize that Israel played a significant part in creating the problem. But Israelis also engage in the psychological repression of what they know intellectually. No
   people likes to feel that its own statehood was built on the ruins of another people’s fortunes.”

   The “significant part” which Israel played is called ethnic cleansing.

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5. John Baker wrote: (quoting Khalid al cAzam)
   “to leave and take refuge in the neighboring Arab countries…this collective flight…we ourselves were the ones who induced them to leave….”
   His comments:
   “What do you think this phrase means, “induced them to leave”?
   Exactly as it sounds. The traditional Arab community, being a regimented and tribal body, acted on directions from the collective Arab leadership to clear the way for the pending assault and they were also told to only expect a short delay, before returning to the ENTIRE (liberated and sanitized) nation of Israel. There were a variety of programs in play. There is no doubt that a couple of thousand Arabs who were most responsible for the decades of attacks on Jewish civilians were shown the highway. It is equally as certain that Arabs living (in peace and tranquility) within traditional mixed neighborhoods, such as Haifa, were unsuccessfully encouraged (by the Jewish population) to remain. Their departure en-masse is quite dispositive as to the Arab motivation, even in other locations, where the Jews may have been glad to see the Arabs go.
   You further queried:
   “That the whole thing was something the Arabs thought up?”
   Not the whole thing. A vast majority. When the violent (and murderous) thugs and their henchmen were shown the door, a far larger grouping of their local constituents automatically followed. The largest number (perhaps in the 500-600,000 range) were issued directions by Arab national leaders to retreat, or risk getting caught in the crossfire.
   You next asked:
   “And what about “take refuge”? From what? Or “flight”? From what? Again, were the Palestinians fleeing from the Arabs yet somehow also taking refuge with these Arabs? This is preposterous.”
   Not at all. The logic is clear and concise. They were taking refuge from the Arab tanks and artillery, that would be raining down on the Jewish who remained behind. The context is that of a former Prime Minister of an Arab nation who had been removed from power by a military coup and who was recounting from his personal memory.
   The source is:
   “Semites and Anti Semites” by Prof. Bernard Lewis (Princeton). The context is clear.
   You’ve gotten desperate John.
   You next state:
   “Joan Peters’ book is known to be a fraud, a propaganda tract posing as a piece of scholarship. It is noted for its deceitful misrepresentations of primary documents . . “
   So say you. Wikipedia describes her as a former producer for CBS and (ironically),
   “DURING THE CARTER ADMINISTRATION SHE SERVED IN THE GOVERNMENT AS A SUBJECT EXPERT ON ISSUES RELEATED TO THE MIDDLE EAST.”
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Peters
   Her agency bio says: “From Time Immemorial is in current demand and is in use as a textbook in the United States and in Israel. This monumental and fascinating book, the product of seven years of original research, will forever change the terms of the debate about the conflicting claims of the Arabs and the Jews in the Middle East. Ms. Peters served as White House Adviser on American Foreign Policy in the Middle East during the Carter Administration. She has lectured at the U.S. State Department and at foreign policy institutions in the U.S. and abroad. Ms. Peters has addressed many thousands of community events, as well as colleges and universities around the U.S. as well as in England, Canada and Israel. She has appeared on more than two hundred radio and television discussion or talk shows and has participated in numerous symposia here and abroad about the Arab-Jewish relations and related subjects. Ms. Peters has conducted many fact-finding missions to Israel, Syria, Egypt, and other areas. She produced a series of CBS News documentaries about the wars in the Middle East and has acted as a foreign affairs commentator on Public Television. She has contributed to Harper’s, Commentary, The New Republic, The New Leader, and other periodicals. Ms. Peters currently is an advisor, trustee and Executive Committee member of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy based in New York.”
   –end of quote
   But you never answered my question: If the Arabs who claim “right-of-return” hypothetically have a legitimate claim, what about the 465,000 Jews (and their descendants) who fled various Mid East countries during the same period? What about the fact that their land and property was probably worth about 5-10 times more then the equivalent Arab property? (at the time). Do they retain rights of recovery and repatriation? It may be a ridiculous question (as they would be cut to shreds in such a move) but it is nonetheless, a principled (rhetorical) question.
   Also, you don’t seem to have any concern for the 60 years that these people have spent in HELL, at the hands of their own brethren. Kept nation less like animals. Can I assume you hold no criticism for their “zookeepers”? Of course not. Why would you? After all, WE ARE TALKING ABOUT JEWS, AREN’T WE??
   Professor Lewis also says in the same text:
   “To be deeply concerned about the fait of Arab refugees from Palestine is a natural and humane response. If it is accompanied by a total indifference to other refugees in Europe, Asia, Africa and elsewhere, of whom there are countless millions, most of them far worse situated then the Palestinians, this may raise reasonable doubts. [1]
   In the same way, to support the political cause of the Palestinian Arabs is a legitimate and justifiable political choice. But if it is accompanied by a lack of interest in other causes in the region and elsewhere, questions may arise. [2]
   This world is full of causes that attract foreign well-wishers and supporters and many factors may determine the outsider’s choice. One of them may be a shared hatred of the adversary.”

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6. notes:
   [1] – “Resaonable doubts” as to the opinion of the subject party being ‘un-biased’.
   [2] – “Questions” as to; If the person so described maintains anti-Jewish motivations.

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7. Since you asked (not), here’s my position on the awda. I believe the bottom line is that whatever happens Israel must be preserved as a majority or predominately Jewish state, and that it must be guaranteed the right to live as such within its borders in peace alongside a separate Palestinian state.

   I believe the terms of the awda are negotiable like everything else, as long as there is the will to do it.

   My opinion is that to Palestinians the naqba (catastrophe) is the emotional equivalent [not the historical equivalent!] of the Nazi Holocaust. They see that event as key to their self-understanding as righteous victims in exactly the same emotional terms that Jews understand the Nazi holocaust and their own identity. For that reason, to continue to argue the standard Israeli government line as you have, that the Arabs were responsible for creating the refugee problem, that they “induced” the Palestinians to leave, that they are the chief abusers, etc. is in Palestinian thinking the emotional equivalent of Holocaust-denial. When you argue as you have above, you sound to a Palestinian the way Ahmadinejad sounds to Israelis.

   I further believe that nothing could help solve the return problem quite so much as an honest admission of responsibility on the part of Israel for the forcible expulsion (ethnic cleansing) of the Palestinian Arabs in 1948. Barring that, it would at least help if there could be a stop to the blame-the-Arabs rhetoric. Everyone knows that is nothing more than a much-beloved Israeli myth, and an insulting one at that.

   Implementation, reparations, economic rehabilitation, (limited) repatriation, all these things can be negotiated, traded for land, a quit claim, etc. But I really believe that a straightforward acknowledgement of responsibility on the part of Israel would have a surprising positive effect on the whole discussion and make it much easier than anyone thinks at this point. And as I said, I think it possible this can be worked out in such a way that Israel remains a majority Jewish state, as it should.

   Thank you.

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8. John:
   I wasn’t there is 1948 and I assume, neither were you. More perplexing is that fact that by your reasoning, literally hundreds of thousands of Arabs should have been able to personally attest to the claim that they were forced out by Israeli Jews. Yet, I have personally never heard of any such testimonies and if there are any such eye-witness reports, they have so far escaped my scrutiny. Perhaps you know of a resource wherein Arab EYE-WITNESSES (victims) have asserted (in any significant numbers) that they themselves had been forced to depart Israel by Jews. By your thinking, there should be multiple libraries full of such eye-witness recountings.
   The historically factual method of their departure is quite important from three perspectives: First, such people loose any legal rights they might have otherwise had, if they departed to join the inbound attack, even as ‘reserves’ or in ‘moral support’.
   Second, if they intended to become Israeli residents and citizens, they should have stayed to fight-off the encroaching Arab armies. Do you seriously expect me to agree that the Israeli Jews would have possibly evicted these people, had the adult (Arab) men volunteered to fight alongside the Jews?
   Lastly and perhaps most importantly, the method of their treatment (and virtual captivity) for the past 60 years has a direct moral (equitable) relationship to the method of their departure from Israel. If, as you state, they were forced to flee by the Jews, then their (mainly Arab) concentration-camp ‘commandants’ would only bear a portion (perhaps a majority portion) of the blame for their ensuing despicable treatment. If, as I continue to assert, they were strategically displaced — like pawns, by their own leadership, then, their sub-human treatment for the past 60 years amounts to nothing less then a war crime, perpetrated by their own brethren, some of whom are fabulously rich with oil money, (an economic resource should have been obsoleted decades ago, in favor of clean & renewable energy resources.)
   Maybe if the Jews first admitted to killing Christ, poisoning wells and drinking the blood of ‘Gentile’ babies, (as a Passover ritual), this might be a liberating ‘first step’ towards the acceptance of blame for more modern crimes, such as inventing communism, overthrowing the Sultans of Turkey (to cooperate with ‘Western’ conquest of Arabia) and yes, perpetrating ‘Nazi style’ horrors on the Arabs.
   BTW: Thank you back.

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9. Maybe if the Jews first admitted to killing Christ, poisoning wells and drinking the blood of ‘Gentile’ babies…

   I am embarassed for you. Making a straw man out of the ancient blood libel, because I suggested Israel honestly admit to what the world knows to be the historical truth? Pitiful. You know the line you are arguing about what caused the naqba is itself a kind of blood libel. You are suggesting that the Arabs devoured their own people, which is even worse than the ancient libel you just alluded to. Have you no sense of shame or decency?

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10. Had a war of annihilation against the Jews of Palestine not been declared and attempted, the FLIGHT — from expulsions to Arab inducement — would not have happened. This and in ’67 were out and out attempts at genocide against the Jews of Palestine. This cannot be debated, yet they’re never framed that way. Just a thought.

    We could also argue what the Zionist leadership had in store for the Arabs that lived among them had a war not waged. But a war was inevitable, from the beginning, and
    If it was 20-30 towns cleansed by the IDF in ’48, Israel should issue formal apologies and compensation. Aside from that, part of making peace is the Arabs have to admit some fault of their own, or at least their own rules, for their misfortunes. Who can see this happening?
    Shouldn’t it be that civilians be expected to pay, to an extent, for the crimes of their leadership. Especially if their leaders coninuously lose wars fought on its behalf.

    The Arabs have indeed devoured their own in this conflict. Is this even debatable? Most of the Arab world agrees that the Palestinians are cruelly used as pawns. And what’s especially sad are the 10% of the Palestinians who’ve internalized Israel’s existence but can’t speak up, out of fear.

    Baker…Since you’re fond of the battered wife metaphor. Here’s one. Israel is to blame for the refugees ….as….. the battered wife is to blame for her black eye. Had she not pissed him off, he wouldn’t have hit her, and she wouldn’t have the black eye. So the blame sort of started with her. You’re a little “blame the victim”, but you don’t mean to be. You’re convinced Israel is no victim in this conflict, least of all not today. Loaded with nukes and the 4th, 5th or 6th strongest army, and let’s not forget the unflinching support of the world’s only superpower…. why do us Jews continuously put up with this victim mentality?…mostly perpetrated by the Zionist industrial complex and various American Jewish leadership, and let’s not forget Abe Foxman. Oiy. We’re all screwed…but mostly me since I’m up this late writing on a Jews for Peace blog. Jews for Peace…what a sad choice of words.

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11. What’s the difference who “induced” the Palestinians to leave-or whose “fault” it was? Under international law refugees have a right to return to the area they fled during a crisis. Whose “fault” it was is irrelevant; people have human rights AS HUMAN BEINGS; these rights are not contingent upon nationality or conduct of a government. And since when do people need “inducement” to flee a dangerous situation? Fleeing from danger is a natural survival instinct; inducement is not necessary.

    In any case, this constant focus on the past is not helpful. Problems can only be resolved by examining the situation that currently exists and coming up with a solution that is reasonably acceptable to most of the people involved. That requires that the “blame-game” be abandoned and replaced with actual problem-solving behavior.

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12. This and in ‘67 were out and out attempts at genocide against the Jews of Palestine

    Both were responses to the yishuv, one of the assumptions of which was that the indigenous didn’t matter and that the land could be cleansed of them. Once that is enacted in war and terror, it is also genocidal. No one frames it that way, of course.

    Had she not pissed him off, he wouldn’t have hit her, and she wouldn’t have the black eye.

    This is precisely the standard Israeli propaganda line about the Palestinians, the battered wife who caused her own black eye.

    The Arabs have indeed devoured their own in this conflict. Is this even debatable?

    Isidore is referring to Arab responsibility for the flight in 1947-48. The Palestinians left the land because of a ruthless campaign of terror conducted by the Israeli military and paramilitary groups. What happened to them subsequently is of course not debatable, but it does not diminish Israeli responsibility for the expulsion in the first instance.

    In solving the problem of “the right of return” we are inevitably drawn to the past, as with the Nazi Holocaust, because that’s where the injury ocurred. I believe the Palestinians can be “induced” to give on this, and it will be very difficult for them to do so, but the Israelis do need to stop adding insult to injury by claiming that the flight of the refugees was Palestinian’s own fault. It will help even more if they admit that the flight was the result of the yishuv.

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13. John Baker
    You wrote:
    “I am embarrassed for you.”
    Dr. DeBusse say:
    Thank you for the most kind gesture but better to save your embarrassment for your own needings.
    You say:
    “I suggested Israel honestly admit to what the world knows to be the historical truth?”
    Dr. DeBusse say:
    Whether the entire “world knows it”or not has little relativity to whether its actually true. Which is exactly why I made the comparisons, that I guarantee you were just as “true” in their day.
    You asketh:
    “You are suggesting that the Arabs devoured their own people?”
    Me sayith:
    “Devoured” may not be the correct word and a single sound-bite [bumper-sticker] may not be the correct carrier for the correct word(s). ‘Sacrificed’ might be a more accurate concept. Since the collective Arab leadership had no possible inkling that it might loose the 1947-48 military conflict, they may not have seen it as being much of a burden on the Arabs they educed to depart. After the defeat, these displaced souls became a reminder to the Arab hosts of their own incompetence. So, yes, in broad theory, the Arabs were responsible for the devouring of their own. That is my position and it is not only a shameless and decent one but a position shared by numerous high-profile historians. Since it is true, it can not be:
    “even worse than the ancient libel you just alluded to.”
    Which were false.
    Conspicuously very absent from your answer is anything I mentioned by way of eye-witness documentation, from those actually displaced. Could it be that the Arabs have kept these people in a virtual “prison” out of embarrassment themselves? As not to create a library of first-hand attestments of what really happened?

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14. Jill Friedman Says:
    “What’s the difference who “induced” the Palestinians to leave-or whose “fault” it was? Under international law refugees have a right to return to the area they fled during a crisis.”
    Except that the legal defination for “Refugee” states that someone must be “outside the country of their nationality”. Since Palestine was never a nation, and since some of these so called refugees are in the PA zones, it make then entire notion very difficult to unravel. There are also circumstances wherein legal “refugees” would loose their status as such. Being invited to join an attacking force or being in sympathy with that force against one’s own home-towns is probably a disqualifier. Prior to WW2, large numbers of Americans were beginning to join the “Lincoln Brigades” which were going to Spain to fight the Nazi allied Franco Regeme. The U.S. State Department issued a warning that any American Citizens departing for such a reason would loose their citizenship and rights to return. Other such examples exist.
    No one can yet explain how and why the Arab host countries have been successfully blocking the UNHCR from resettling these people for 60 years. Not you Jill and not John Baker either.

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15. Baker: Once that (cleansing Arabs) is enacted in war and terror, it is also genocidal.

    Be careful about the term “genocide” when referring to the cleansing of Palestinian Arabs. Also, my point was that even if we assume both sides had genocidal intentions, the Arab side beat them to the punch. Thus, shouldn’t they admit some culpability? Why only Israel? Because they now have the bigger guns?

    Also, what’s with using the term “yishuv”. How scholarly of you. Yishuv is a benign term….there were recent immigrants and Jews living in Safed for centuries. Both were “yishuv”. Can’t you just say “Jews of Palestine”?

    You’re right….’48 and ’67 genocide attempts by Arab forces were “responses” to the Yishuv. Who thought they were responses to high inflation in W. Europe, or the Yankees finishing in last place?

    What is this obsession with Israeli “propaganda” about the Palestinians? And there’s no “standard line”. Israeli propaganda is embarassingly non-existent and ineffective. American Jews do a lot of the work, but they’re also incompetent and can never get on the same page. But admitting so would put JVP out of business. The Palestinian cause is so founded about “standard propaganda lines” and it’s usually others making the case for them (i.e. like American Jewry making the case for Israel). There’s no story telling or anecdotes of the flight in ’48. (see below) And your battered wife metaphor makes no sense here.

    “The Palestinians left the land because of a ruthless campaign of terror conducted by the Israeli military and paramilitary groups.”

    Too vague with “the land”. The majority left because there was a viscious land being waged around them…and they only had to travel a few miles to the East. In some cases, IDF and paramilitary groups forcibly evicted Palestinians. Is this removing a hostile population in a time of war or ethnic cleansing. It was a bit of both, but this was the exception, rather than the rule.

    Interesting how when reading the NYT and they interview a Palestinian refugee, whose family, the writer says “was forced to flee in ’48”. That’s the standard line. What does forced to flee mean? Forced to flee by whom? No stories passed down to the grandchildren? Someone on here made the point about a lack of detail re: Palestinian flight. That’s never mentioned.

    Like I said, Israel should acknowledge responsibility in some cases, but not for the whole problem. Besides, you’re amazingly naive to think this will make a difference in easing Palestinian minds. On the contrary…it will never be enough. The Palestinian body-politic has been programmed to be even more offended by any Israeli good-will gesture (oh yes, there have been many…virtually uncovered by the pro-Israel media).

    Israel is $%&*@#, now and forever.

    And Baker, I didn’t get how the Right of Return inevitably draws us to the Holocaust. Please explain.

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16. Why would any self-respecting Palestinian accept the ’67 borders as their future state? The West Bank was created in 1949 and these would-be borders should have no special significance to Palestinians. What has special significance is the rest of Palestine. Does anyone really believe the Palestinian body-politic would be content with a shrunken Palestine, no matter how viable it could be?

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17. Dan Brooks wrote:
    “Interesting how when reading the NYT and they interview a Palestinian refugee, whose family, the writer says “was forced to flee in ‘48?. That’s the standard line. What does forced to flee mean? Forced to flee by whom? No stories passed down to the grandchildren? Someone on here made the point about a lack of detail re: Palestinian flight. That’s never mentioned.”
    —That would have been me.
    I can’t quite figure you out Dan. You seem to have adequate contempt for both cases.
    There are still numerous Holocost survivors who are walking around with numbers tatooed on their forearms. These people have FIRST HAND eyewitness accounts of their flirtations with death. Yet, we never seem to hear any FIRST HAND reports from any Arabs. If there were hundreds of thousands of them, that is FAR FAR MORE people then were liberated from concentration camps. (Hypothetically), there should be a listing of these people and their specific claims (and first-hand recounts) a MILE long. I have never seen or heard even one. Very strange. Unlike yourself, Mr. Brooks, I would not have been satisfied with a ‘family heritage story’, though, as you correctly mention, even these are few-and-far-between and missing any substance (detail).

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18. Both were “yishuv”.

    What I said was “the yishuv.” I believe your quarrel is with the English (the) and not the Hebrew (yishuv). I said “the” meaning, roughly, the particular under discussion, heretofore mentioned, known in discourse, etc., because I was referring to the Zionist yishuv.

    See the interview with Benny Morris in Tikkun referenced above by Mitchell:

    http://www.ee.bgu.ac.il/~censor/katz-directory/01-11-26morris-tikkun-interview.pdf

    In it Morris said,

    “On the macro-level, there is no question that there would never have been a Palestinian refugee problem had there been no Zionist movement. If Jews hadn’t started buying up land and pushing Palestinians off the land, and then in 1948 and again in 1967, pushing out Palestinians, there would be no Palestinian refugees. And on the micro-level, there
    were many specific instances in 1947-48 in which Israel took military steps that caused Palestinians to be expelled.”

    In other words, as I said, the flight was the result of the yishuv and the preciptating “military steps” Prof. Morris referred to.

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19. Isidor: You seem to have adequete contempt for both cases.

    I dislike spokespeople of both cases, but only contempt for one case and its spokespeople… the Palestinians and their supporters. It’s a shame too, because there are thousands of Palestinians who are progressive, or are apolotical, and eager to live a normal life with Israel as a neighbor, but they have no voice. I’m uneasy that I could be against a people’s liberation movement and that I could be against a group like JVP (talk about an Orwellian spin on the word peace).

    I’m also upset with many today who try to make Israel’s case. They trod out the same Fox News arguments and they often times appeal to red state folks who might be anti-Arab…and would side with Israel regardless. The argument that Israel’s policies are to blame for where we are now could be easily demolished if there were young, competent LIBERAL spokespeople who’d be able to speak on campus, submit opinion pieces and speak on CNN. This is not the case. There’s a real crisis with the current political climate. It’s becoming way too polarized, where liberals are meant to think one way. Where if you cite one of the conflict’s serious problems, for example — Palestinian incitement in the media and community, officially sanctioned by the PA — then you’re branded a fear monger or anti-Arab. Or if you try to describe Israel’s real security dilemma, more cries of “fear monger”, as if we all attended the AIPAC breakfast.

    I’m a liberal. At first this was because anything Conservative or Republican nauseated me. Then, it was because I explored liberal causes and agreed with them. It’s a very scary time when the Palestinian cause is now a liberal cause. The Palestinian cause is not simply about living in dignity and self-government and ending the occupation, it’s about something more sinnister than Westerners can stomach….eliminating Israel, not by Katyushas or blowing up a Sbarro’s, or pushing them into the sea, because this is impossible now, but deligitimizing it in the court of public opinion…basically through defamation. Israel is to be pressured and isolated by the rest of the world, not to restore a sense of justice for the Pals (based on our sense of justice), but to bring Israel closer to its end. And most of the rest of the world understands this and goes along, or is just suckered into believing putting pressure on Israel will bring peace. I could at least respect someone who agrees that only by ending Israel will restoration of Palestinian justice be done.

    Some of us liberals don’t want to acknowledge a world where justice for one people can mean the end of another nation. That kind of cynicism isn’t used by us when judging Israel’s enemies…only for Israel. Nowadays, Jews are fearful of being labelled homers and saps if they defend Israel, more so than Jews critical of Israel fearful of being labelled anti-Semitic or self-hating. Bad times.

    Oi vey..this ramble is done….and I just had the heartiest New England clam chowder you’ve ever seen typing this up. Nap time and then to prepare for shabbos. Nothing wrong with a little trayf before bench licht.

    Dan

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20. apologies for the italics..I’ll try to remedy

    Ladies and gentlemen…and Isidore, in order to minimize my consumption of bandwidth, let me combine my response to several queries by simply referring you to an article which covers a number of them better than I could:

    http://www.counterpunch.org/bisharat12032003.html

    I believe this should answer a number of questions bearing on my assertion [see post #7]that the expulsion of Palestinians is in their thinking the emotional equivalent [not historical equivalent] of the Nazi Holocaust in Jewish thinking. I believe the artice shows why if this point is not accepted, there will never be a peace, and why if it is accepted peace may be easier to achieve than you currently think. Call me naive, if you like, but first read the piece and then call me naive.

    I do want to make one quote from it, because it is from a Jewish source and therefore there is a chance Isidore and Dan may believe it:

    “In 1948, three quarters of a million Palestinians were driven from what became Israel, their homes, land and possessions taken over by the new Jewish state. Most were victims of direct military attacks, forcible expulsion orders or a deliberate campaign of terror and intimidation, fueled by actual massacres. A post-war internal report from the Haganah (a quasi-official Jewish militia) stated that of 391,000 Palestinians who had fled by June, 1948, some 73 percent had done so in response to Jewish military operations.”

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21. Baker…I’m not sure what my quarrel is. I think I entered this blog with a major chip on my shoulder, so I was just looking to bust chops….and it worked. I’m sorry. (see, if only Israel can say that!)

    About Morris in Tikkun…on macro, I agree. Only the most delusional Zionist wouldn’t. Now did Morris use “pushing Palestinians off the land” figuratively? He must’ve. The expulsions didn’t come until ’48 and ’67, as he points out. If Arabs wanted to sell their land to Jews, that’s their problem. Not every human being has nationalistic drive. So I wouldn’t use an agressive term like “pushing”. There were other Arab settlements in Palestine to which they could go — and they did. I bet you wouldn’t go near Morris’ writings now. The 2nd Intifada wacked him over the head. He’s very direct in who he blames for the perpetuation of the conflict.

    So anyway, yes….I agree that Israel did take military steps in ’48 and ’67 to expel Palestinians. Agreed. More so in ’48 though. The actual numbers are in dispute, but try getting access to an Israeli military archive.

    “the flight was the result of the yishuv and the preciptating “military steps” Prof. Morris referred to.”

    Just to revisit this….again, my good man, did not a WAR lead to all of this? Irrespective of Zionist intentions to cleanse Palestine of Arabs (which is def. up for debate), HAD the Arab states and Palestinian paramilitary groups NOT declared an avowed and open war of annihilation against the Jews of Palestine, we wouldn’t be talking about refugees.

    Thus, here’s a simple equation:
    Yishuv Activity + Harsh and genocidal, but predictable, Arab war = REFUGEE PROBLEM

    Are both to blame? I guess you could argue a refugee crisis was inevitable from the earliest days of Zionism. We know Zionism has flaws, but does this make it immoral?

    Have I mentioned how I stumbled on this site? No, I don’t think so. Gather ’round. I’ve heard of you guys before and I’m sure I’ve perused your site once or twice. But I was reading about Finkelstein’s talk at Penn and the demonstrations and counter-demonstrations. One of the counters was co-sponsor JVP distributing materials “that argued the campus should hear a speaker who ‘strays from the well-worn path of Zionist Orthodoxy.'” Well, that he does. But is Finkelstein the only one who strays from that path? Tons of interesting pundits stray from Zionist orthodoxy, which I can barely type with a straight face. Z.O. is mentioned like it’s produced by some well-oiled propaganda machine. It was mommy and daddy waxing poetic about kibbutzim and Entebbe and recapturing the Western Wall and their first trip to Israel. Or Israeli spokesmen singing the praises of Israel’s rebirth. So what?? I think Z.O. never dealt with refugees and the perpetuation of the conflict because they felt this wasn’t their fault. Z.O. obviously wouldn’t talk about the real Israel: tough life for immigrants, racism against Sephardic Jewry and Arabs, an out of control sex trade, a twisted sense of power and a weird psych. complex given to a whole new crop of Israeli kids serving in the territories, and now a self-destructive privatization of the economy (including reparations for survivors), and too many other problems to name. No ardent Zionist today really believes Israel is some shangri-la.

    But I don’t know man, I don’t think Z.O. has been taken seriously in the last 20 years…and when it was, it wasn’t desseminated globally. Definitely not since ’87. Actually, since the early 70’s, the Pals have captured the world’s attention, and have had the floor — the UN, then the media (controlled by whom?), now the campuses. Yet what we hear in the west, especially in the states, is the Israeli point of view? What is the Israeli pov? I don’t think there is one. I’ve never heard it. Israeli pov is fragmented, and when it comes to an American Jewish hold on the media…it’s also more fragmented than you think…and American Jews in press and publishing are very careful and want to come across as fair in their coverage. Who wants to be accused of having dual loyalty?

    I don’t know, SVP, where did us Jews go wrong? Did we?

    And Baker, you still didn’t address the Holocaust thing you brought up earlier.

    Dan

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22. Dan:
    I too am a leftist who has been supportive of the Israel case on this blog. When I first did so, someone proclaimed that a “liberal” supporter of Israel is an oxymoron and contradiction in terms.
    Oddly, I don’t exactly agree with you either. Go figure.
    I specifically think the world at large has been intimidated by the Arab experience since at least 1907. That is when the worldwide annual production of automobiles went up from 5,000 to 75,000 in one year. I further conclude that we (mainly ‘nebbisha’) Jews ruin the Arab’s whole ‘alpha-male’ program for the ‘Arab/Muslim cause’. How can they succeed in pushing the rest of the world around, when they can’t even successfully intimidate the chronically feeble and nerdy Hebrews? Even worse, how can they intimidate (and therefore control) their own people?? This is why Israel can not be permitted to live in peace. It is a staging-ground and stepping-off point for Arabic domination. Its their “first base”.
    Having said that and only to be fair, I think there is something which most people who debate with me on this blog fail to appreciate.
    I don’t particularly love Israelis. They annoy me and always have. Furthermore, they well know how annoying they can be and don’t even take insult when they are told.
    If one were to remove the most objectionable qualities of the ‘Arab cause’ from the equation, namely, the big-swingin-dicks (Nassir, Saddam, Bin Laden, etc..), the Jew-hating (in guise of some legitimate political motivation), the mis-treatment of women and radical Islam, there is a very good chance that I would personally prefer Arabs to Israelis, who pretty much are beyond any hope of repair. Of course, we can’t have a designer world full of designer artifacts and generally, we have a multiple-choice in most questions.
    All of these personal preferences aside: It is my firm and informed conviction that the Israelis have a FAR better moral and legal case then the Arabs. There is almost no realistic comparison. Very few people are not for peace. People on this blog claim some sort of moral monopoly on the quest for peace. The question is when does peace equal surrender and moreover, would surrender even guarantee peace?? In every violent conflict in the entire history of the world, there existed a population of appeasers. Sometimes they control the center of the chess board and other times they sit in the bleacher seats and wait for the chance to hurl insults at the status-quo. These insults are traditional and familiar and include:
    Racist; Genocide; Occupier; Deifier of International Law; Storm-Trooper; Apartheid and in this most recent Mid-Eastern conflict, claims of a CIA/Mossad conspiracy to attack New York and Washington. Had flight 93 made its original target (which was purported to be the White House), then, what would these appeasers be saying?
    What is truly scary is that there is probably a HIGHER percentage of White Americans, who believe that 9-11 was a planned attack by the USA and Israel, then their counterpart American born Arabs. We hear this from Rosy and Cindy and Ward and many other lily-white college teachers and a large litany of other white Americans, including actors and lawyers. Very few such comments are heard from American born Arabs. Ironically, most of them know better. They have far fewer misconceptions on the subject, which is partly why their families moved away from the M.E. and joined the mosaic of American cultural diversity.

    John:
    You quoted:
    “A post-war internal report from the Haganah (a quasi-official Jewish militia) stated that of 391,000 Palestinians who had fled by June, 1948, some 73 percent had done so in response to Jewish military operations.”
    Assuming this is hypothetically true (which I still debate, based on traditional reading of main stream history and the profound and blatent lack of eyewitness accounts), 73% of 391k = 285k. 465k Jews were forced to leave their homes and possessions, in the variety of Arab nations where some families had resided since 600-BC. Why is this fact NOT a topic of your myopic conversation? These people lived in stinking tents, without heat or electricity or plumbing or sometimes shoes, for several years–while they contemplated the possible total destruction of Israel and the completion of Hitler’s “final solution,” earlier supported by the chief political and spiritual leader of the Palestinian Arabs. If the Palestinian-Arab leadership encouraged the annillation of the Jews starting 25 YEARS BEFORE the establishment of the state of Israel, what were the chances that this nation was going to improve the Arab political disposition? Which is why the attacks of the combined Arab armies were more then mere mere politics and Dan is right about that. They wanted to finish what Hitler had started.
    In Sept. 1953 a (false) rumor made headlines across the world. No region had these headlines printed in larger text then the Arab Middle East:
    “ADOLPH HITLER IS ALIVE AND LIVING SAFELY IN BRAZIL”
    During this brief frenzy of Arab joy and Jewish loathing, the Cairo newspaper al-Musawwar asked Anwar Sadat what he WOULD write to the “Fuhrer” if the news proved true. Mr. Sadat authored the following ‘open letter’ for print:
    “I congratulate you {Adolph Hitler} with all my heart, because, though you appear to have been defeated, you were the real victor. You were able to sow dissension between Churchill, the old man, and his allies on the one hand and their ally, the devil, on the other. Germany is victorious because it became necessary for the world balance of power that Germany be created anew, whatever East and West might think. THERE WILL BE NO PEACE UNTIL GERMANY IS RESTORED TO WHAT IT WAS, AND THIS IS WHAT WEST AND EAST WILL BRING ABOUT IN SPITE OF THEMSELVES . . [emphasis added] As for the past, I think you made some mistakes, such as opening up too many fronts or Ribbentrop’s short-sightedness in the fact of Britain’s old man diplomacy. But you are forgiven on account of your faith in your country and people. That you have become immortal in Germany is reason enough for pride, and we should not be surprised to see you again in Germany, or a new Hitler in your place.”
    –Anwar Sadat (from “Semites and Anti Semites”)

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23. My life of blogging is less than a day old, but I think I already need a break. But a little something before I head out:

    – Referring me to a Bisharat piece, which I’ve read before, on Counterpunch??? Oiy….now at least I know what I’m dealing w/ here. This only insults Isador and me…right before Shabbos no less. To be fair, I need to respond to the content, and not tear into the messenger. It will be done… and my apologies for the condescension. Oh, you did give me license to call you naive once I read the piece. So, just one and done….you’re naive.

    – “…expulsion of Palestinians is in their thinking the emotional equivalent [not historical equivalent] of the Nazi Holocaust in Jewish thinking…”
    Not the historial equivalent!….phew…glad you threw in the disclaimer, cause you never know when Abe Foxman will chopper in, call a press conference and label you an anti-Semite.
    I do see where you and Bisharat and some others are going with the emotional equivalent thing…and you may mean well, but no…still wrong. It’s not necessarily offensive, just off target, but this deserves an explanation, and I’ll get back to this as well…

    – “I do want to make one quote from it, because it is from a Jewish source and therefore there is a chance Isidore and Dan may believe it”

    I won’t speak for Isadore, but I’ll say that I’m insulted. I may believe it because it’s a “Jewish” source? Where do I begin? Should I even go there? No, I won’t. That line is so played…and it’s too upsetting right now and I need to leave work. Oh man, I have some serious work to do on this site.

    Lila tov.

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24. Isador…I agree with you more or less.

    I’ll just say this about the Israeli thing…
    I love Israel much more than I love Israelis.

    Yes, every Israeli I’ve known has been a real pill, but I don’t know what you mean, that Israelis are “beyond any hope of repair.”

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25. Dan said,

    HAD the Arab states and Palestinian paramilitary groups NOT declared an avowed and open war of annihilation against the Jews of Palestine, we wouldn’t be talking about refuge

    Yebbut, they declared war because of the Zionist yeshuv! They declared war because Zionists had been in a campaign of systematically cleansing the land of Palestinians from the beginning. If not Herzl, other early Zionists knew that taking the land from the indigenous inhabitants was going to be a serious problem. Yes, the Zionists were buying up land. And they had agreed among themselves not ever to sell any of it to any Arab in perpetuity. The dispossession of the Palestinians did not suddenly just happen in 1948. It had been going on under the radar for decades, and the situation boiled over in 1948. Hence my metaphor of the Palestinians as the battered wife. The brother-in-law didn’t “break up the marriage.” Her husband had been doing that for years.

    If you will please read the article I linked to, you will understand what I mean about the Holocaust. To the Palestinians, their expulsion from the land is emotionally the equivalent of the Holocaust. It is vital for peace, IMHO, that Israel concede this point.

    When supporters of Israel argue that the Palestinians left voluntarily, that they left because Arab leaders duped them, that they did not really suffer because they have not made an industry of family stories of their suffering, etc., this stuff is the equivalent of Holocaust-denial to the Palestinians. It is exactly the same tactic that the Holocaust-deniers have always used: try to convince the audience that “it never happened.”

    Here’s another quote from the article,

    Like slavery for African-Americans, internment for Japanese-Americans and the Nazi holocaust for Jews, the “Nakba” (“Catastrophe”) was a seminal event in the consciousness of the Palestinian people. No act of the Palestinians justified their expulsion. Their only “crime” was that they were born Christians and Muslims in a place coveted by the Zionist movement for an exclusive Jewish state, and refused to slink off into history as a vanquished people…Israel’s denial of responsibility for the refugees, and rejection of their repatriation…is, at this stage, as galling and hurtful as the original expulsion itself. The pain of denial should be intuitively understood by victims of the Nazi holocaust — indeed, by all of us who are repelled by denial of that terrible episode in history.”

    Sorry for the length of that. Please read the op ed. Everything I meant to say about “right of return” is really in that piece.

    http://www.counterpunch.org/bisharat12032003.html

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26. I won’t speak for Isadore, but I’ll say that I’m insulted.

    Sorry. I meant only to tweak you a little. Look. As I have asserted, you and Isidore have been engaged in what to the Palestinian mindset is on a par with Holocaust-denial. You are using the same tactics exactly. I once heard a speaker from the ADL who is a “specialist” in rebutting the claims of Nazi Holocaust-deniers. He is assigned to that whenever these things crop up. He said that long ago he decided only to quote original Nazi sources in making his arguments against them, otherwise they deniers just dismiss the evidence. Mutatis mutandis [Latin, how scholarly of me!] I thought it better to cite a report from the Haganah than numbers from a pro-Palestinian awda website. But I didn’t really mean to offend you [Isidore, maybe], and it wasn’t a serious accusation. I also didn’t mean to offend you by referring to the Bisharat piece. I am really just trying to express my opinion and make myself understood. However, I think I am pretty much done arguing this topic.

    Shalom

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27. Dan:
    Here’s what I mean by “beyond any hope of repair”.
    Jews are generally high-functioning and “N” type personalities. This is proven over and over again by their (our) continued success, which if often blamed on “evil” and “disreputable practices–by many (else) in the world.
    In reality, (my opinion) it is the result of two factors:
    a. Reading and writing being part of the Jewish tradition and culture for thousands of years.
    (This is also true of East Indians and Chinese, for the same reasons).
    b. Unlike East Indians and Chinese, we have been chased and battered near to extinction and therefore, the most resourceful and intuitive Jews have remained alive to have offspring, who then inherit their enhanced skill-set.
    Israelis are the ‘movie-stars’ and hyper-hyper achievers of the Jewish nation. They are no smarter then the rest of us but are sometimes 10x as egotistic. Their biggest flaw is that they HAVE NO EARTHLY CLUE WHAT A GOOD IDEA SOUNDS LIKE and live through their entire lives paying homage’ to the phantasm of how they think success should appear. If one is a Doctor or a successful lawyer or some other high-profile achiever, then, that person gets to speak with authority. Everyone else is to be scorned and ignored. Ironically, though Israelis are probably more collectively knowledgeable then any other group of its same size in the world, they are equally unwilling and therefore incapable of learning anything. Beyond hope in that respect.

    John:
    You are in La-La land buddy. Majnoon al tool. [that’s Arabic]. You’ve got it backwards:
    “Zionists had been in a campaign of systematically cleansing the land of Palestinians from the beginning.”
    If you consider paying exorbitant prices for otherwise worthless land as “cleansing”. In that case, every up-scale neighborhood in the world would have the same qualification. Hawaii today has almost no Hawaiians. Were they “ethnically cleansed”? Or were they educed to leave with more money then they ever saw and took a willing hike to Arizona?
    After WW1, the Arabs got independence. The Armenians (Christians) got independence. The Jews and their distant cousins the Kurds, got a foot up their ass. The Jews spent WW2 in ovens. The Arabs mostly encouraged this in places where there was NO ZIONISM.
    You wrote:
    “And they {Zionists} had agreed among themselves not ever to sell any of it to any Arab in perpetuity”
    And your point is? Jews in religious Jewish neighborhoods in the USA don’t sell to non Jews, nor would non-Jews want to pay the upscale prices for those houses. This is no crime.
    You wrote:
    “The dispossession of the Palestinians did not suddenly just happen in 1948.”
    For once you are absolutely right. The Arab and Muslim leadership was opposing an independent Jewish homeland not since 1920 but since 1620. When, finally they could no longer have their way and the Jews gained support the same way the Armenians had after WW1 (through being the victims of Genocide), the Genocide was set to continue and complete.
    To call your writing a joke would be an insult to the comedians of the world.

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28. Isidore said,

    I have never seen or heard even one. Very strange. Unlike yourself, Mr. Brooks, I would not have been satisfied with a ‘family heritage story’…

    Very revealing. You see, Dan, what I meant about sources and deniers. Unlike you, Isidore tells us in advance that he will not believe a second- or third-hand report from a Palestinian refugee family. He says he’s never heard a single first-hand account, and you say the interviews with survivors you’ve read in the NYT lack detail. The implication, of course, is that if Isidore has never heard even one and you have never heard one with detail, then the whole thing is a myth.

    My question to you both is this. How many Palestinian refugees have you personally talked to about the nakba of 1948? How many Palestinian refugee famlies have you personally talked to about what happened to their relatives in 1948?

    These people don’t get a lot of press, TV interviews, you may have noticed. Not here and certainly not in Israel. And everyone knows the Palestinians have not been anywhere near as successful at telling their story as have the Jews at telling theirs.

    That being said, oral history projects are beginning. Here’s a website, which includes video:

    http://www.palestineremembered.com/OralHistory/Interviews-Listing/Story1151.html

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29. John has decided to refrain from addressing myself directly and now, in an act of scorn and disrespect, only addresses my statements in a third-party fashion. That’s OK too.
    He provides a link to a video feed site which purports to have about 250 interviews (out of 750,000 original displaced persons). The dates on these interviews seem to be no earlier then 2004, some 45 years after the events that are being debated took shape. Since they are in Arabic without translations, I (for one) have no idea what is being said. The total running time is: 53,549 minutes which equals about (average) of 3.56 hours per episode. It should only take about 10 minutes to describe the pertinent aspects to these people’s legal claims, namely, the circumstances of their purported departure.
    I have never claimed that zero Arabs were shown the highway. To the contrary, my assertion is that a couple of thousand families who had been identified with the militant elements — those who had been murdering Jews (and moderate Arabs alike) for some 30 years {by 1948} were kicked the hell out, as rightfully they should have been. In any other set of circumstances (involving other ethnic groups, Germans, Polls, Croatians, Japanese, Africans, etc., such war lords (and their henchmen) would have been lined up and shot. Since each such person likely had an extended family, one such eviction more often meant 5-10 people left town. As tribal and regimented persons, each such family probably had an entourage of loyalists, who would willing follow them off the edge of a cliff, maybe amounting in full to 50-100,000 people who took a hike. However, it is well known that the Arab leaders from the attacking nations spread the word to clear off. There is NO OTHER EXPLANATION for why the Arabs of the Haifa area, who were LONGSTANDING close friends with the Jews, also departed en-masse. These people were begged to stay by the secular and peacenik Jews of the area. Yet, many left. John also completely ignores the 465,000 Jews who were displaced from Arab nations during the same time frame. As if those people had no rights.
    John:
    You are a story-teller (to be kind).
    Lets look at India/Pakistan:
    A few hundred years back, there were NO MUSLIM populations in India and the two contemporary groups are mainly the same exact ethnic group, same DNA and same ancestry.
    In 1947, before the creation of Israel and without any U.N. mandate, Pakistan decided to succeed. This was solely based on the Muslim’s diverse religious practices, as there were no other differences. Both groups ate the same foods, spoke the same languages, dressed the same and all the way down the line to the smallest detail. The civilian violence did not begin to stop until the Hindus remaining in Pakistan picked up and left.
    Sometimes, the best solution (perhaps the only bloodless solution) is to separate the competing ethnic groups. It may not been in keeping with your utopian concept of ‘cumballah’, {‘ooh-ba-doo’ in Arabic} but, where you live john, when’s the last time a different ethnic group began explosions aimed at your favorite pizza parlor?
    What’s REALLY scary is that guys like you would be among the first to join the ‘brown shirts’ if your own home and community were daily being threatened. You are a conviction in search of a crime.

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30. There are too many points that need to be addressed…too little time.

    For now…one item: what is with this 465,000 Jews from Arab lands? Are you kidding me Isidor? Isn’t it around 800,000? I’ve never heard a number as low as 465,000. That’s unheard of. Please don’t tell me JVP is your source for info on the conflict. Please? While the Pal. refugee number is hotly disputed; Israelis say 400K (prob. bullshit) UN says: 711K and Pals say 900K (who’d believe anything they say?) Let’s say our blog agrees to put it at 600K. That’s still a few hundred thousand less than the Arab Jewish refugees, which you seldom (I’ve read one article in the NYT) hear about; and most Jews just shoot you a blank stare if you mention it.

    I just feel the record needs to be set straight on this.

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31. John said: and you have never heard one with detail, then the whole thing is a myth.

    No, I never thought the whole thing is a myth. I’m embarassed that not just families connected to hostile sources were expelled, but whole villages were emptied. We’re not miliary men. Perhaps there were other forces at play besides ethnic cleansing, perhaps there weren’t. That could be harder to figure the more it recedes in time.

    I do think the whole thing is exaggerated…for politics. It’s a hard qualifier…instead of saying Israel expelled some Palestinians, or a fifth of all Palestinians, sometimes you just hear: Israel expelled the Palestinians. It’s a little more nuanced, no?

    John said: These people don’t get a lot of press, TV interviews, you may have noticed. Not here and certainly not in Israel. And everyone knows the Palestinians have not been anywhere near as successful at telling their story as have the Jews at telling theirs.

    Completely ludicrous. Not partial ludicrosity, but complete! If you didn’t eat up this line, there’d be almost no point to JVP. And it’s actually sad that most people feel like you…people who genuinely support Israel think this. That doesn’t make it true. This requires research and documentation, but from what I’ve seen, and what has been documented since 1987, the Pals have gotten tons of press, had their reps interviewed, touchy feely stories in major American newspapers. The only touchy feel stories on Israel you read are about the victims of suicide bombings.
    …as if suicide bombing really conveys the difficult position Israel is in, and not looked at as part of the intent to put international pressure on Israel.

    Certainly tons of press in Israel. Do you read the Israeli papers? Ever read Ha’aretz and Ma’ariv? I read Ha’aretz everyday…and I’m proud of it too. I’ve built up an immunity over the years to some of drivel there. I think it’s still Israel’s best paper, and no other paper in the world gives you details about what’s happening in the territories.

    The Palestinians indeed have not been as succesful in getting their story across….or at least bought. I think they’ve had a fair shake in communicating it. You should really drop this cliche. I guess if it’s repeated enough.

    And what do you mean by “as the Jews telling theirs?” The Jewish story isn’t exactly the Israeli story. And are American Jews all on the same page? Kristof w/ the NYT is Jewish and is very unfair in what he writes on Israel….so is Steven Erlanger….countless other reports. Should we assume Jews all tell the same story about Israel? Another big argument on here is that Israel speaks for world Jewry. It has never claimed such a thing. What’s worse…you guys have hijacked the Jew card when it comes to Israel. You can’t wait to let people know you’re Jewish. I’d imagine if your family survived the Holocaust, you couldn’t wait to throw that in their as well.

    John,let me ask you, putting aside the sins committed, do you consider the founding of modern Israel a compelling and inspiring story?

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32. Isidor, good points.

    Just please tell me it’ll all be alright. And are you a member of JVP? Do you really buy into the JVP dogma? It doesn’t seem like you do.

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33. And what do you mean by “as the Jews telling theirs?” The Jewish story isn’t exactly the Israeli story. And are American Jews all on the same page?

    I shoulda known. You know, you don’t have to take issue with everything I say. It’s not a requirement. In fact, by taking issue with everything I say (which is why I don’t have time to respond to Isidore, btw) you dilute your own ability to convince. Also, it gets pretty tiresome, so if that’s not your intent, take a deep breath.

    So, here’s the same thing, this time from a Jewish source. A line from How Israel Lost: The Four Questions by Richard Ben Cramer, page 65,

    […]one trick the Palestinians never learned from the Jews was how to take control of their own national narrative and employ it for their own aims. As a consequence, we simply don’t know their story – about which lack the majority of Palestinians will profess amazement and dismay.

    Ha’aretz and Ma’ariv don’t have interviews with refugees of the nakba who tell first-hand what happened to them in 1948, correct? That’s what I am talking about. You want first-hand accounts? Well where have you looked? In Israeli newspapers or TV? I don’t think so. I read Ha’aretz, and I’ve never seen interviews with old refugees. So when Isidore says he has not seen or heard “even one. Very strange,” it’s really not strange at all. [Also, notice he went into hyper-denial mode on the subject after I posted the oral history link. They’re too recent. They are too long. [Too much detail?]They are in Arabic. Denial, denial, denial. You see why the ADL man quotes only Nazis now?]

    Yes, the founding of Israel is a compelling and inspiring story, the other bit left aside. I am for Israel and believe it should continue as a Jewish state. I do not think Zionism is immoral in principle. I simply want Israel to do the right thing here with the people whose land they stole. I don’t think that requires undoing sixty years of facts on the ground or taking down the remarkable achievements of the people of Israel. But I am also for the Palestinian people and think they should have their own state. I do not believe they can actually return in any significant numbers; only a token number, symbolically. But “doing the right thing” requires at a minimum that Israel stop the nakba-revisionism, acknowledge that the flight of 1948 was not voluntary, and admit what their own declassified documents say: that the vast majority of Palestinians were driven off their land by Israeli military and paramilitary actions, including massacre, and that Israel actively also prevented the return of the refugees by passing laws which disallowed it and by razing entire villages in some cases.

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34. John,

    There’s so much to take issue with. So I will take a deep breath.

    Again, your obsession with providing Jewish sources is revealing. As if a Jew making the argument validates it. I like how Ben Cramer describes the Israeli narrative as a “trick”, being “employed for its aims”. Oiy. Another Jew who was forced to spend one too many summers at Zionist boot camp, now he’s rebelling. Why is all this cynicism reserved only for the Israeli narrative? Don’t you think the Palestinian camp plotted out their own narrative. Indeed they have. Not really in dispute.

    No one’s denying Palestinians being expelled. I just haven’t read many accounts. And yes, the NYT, when there’s an article about the subject, doesn’t have details. I’ve also spent a good deal of time in E.I. And you apparently aren’t familiar w/ Ha’aretz.

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35. You can’t wait to let people know you’re Jewish. I’d imagine if your family survived the Holocaust, you couldn’t wait to throw that in there as well.

    I’m a gentile, Dan. But thank you for the thought. Maybe your comment was addressed to JVP as a whole.

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36. Again, your obsession with providing Jewish sources is revealing.

    I hope it reveals my frustration at dealing with nakba-revisionists, who exactly like their cousins the Holocaust-deniers summarily dismiss any evidence they don’t agree with by impeaching the sources. See the strident revisionism in Isidore’s posts, esp. 29. If you don’t like my “obsession” with providing Jewish sources, stop the denial and revisionism.

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37. Why is all this cynicism reserved only for the Israeli narrative? Don’t you think the Palestinian camp plotted out their own narrative.

    By “take a breath” I meant let it go. It was a benign statement; not a criticism of the Jews. I was not trying to make any point other than that the Palestinians have not been very good at PR. You don’t agree? Fine. No need to make a pilpul over it. Want criticism of the Palestinians? Read Cramer’s book. He has plenty to say about that.

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38. Dan:
    Thanks for the oxygen brother. I have been nearly alone on this blog for what seems like months.
    The 465,000 figure is (as I inderstand) the official United Nations number, as is the 735k number of displaced Arabs. Not that I necessarily believe everything (or anything) the U.N. gags up, as they have been well known as:
    “An executive committee for third world dictators” {Jean Kirkpatrick}
    However, I just prefer not to argue each and every detail and so I concede the U.N. records on this point.
    You asked:
    “Just please tell me it’ll all be alright. And are you a member of JVP? Do you really buy into the JVP dogma? It doesn’t seem like you do.”
    John: My Karma drove over my Dogma. I am a Hebrew (not Jewish by religion) and a leftist with exceptions. I am not a JVP member nor would they want the likes of myself. I am a peace lover but I also love vacations I can’t afford, women I never had and jobs I never got. Loving something does not make it practical or attainable.
    PS> I’m not sure it will all “be alright”. I hope and act towards that end.

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39. Thanks Isidor,

    I wouldn’t concede that point. If that is the UN number, it is as famous scholars are known to say “a complete fraud”. It’s a point we need in the propaganda war, which needs to be faught better by us. Another refugee problem was created from that war, Jewish refugees unknown by most, spread across an entire continent, and notably, parts of the west bank, and everything was stripped from them, many of them publically humiliated, and in some cases killed– and that’s not all…they OUTNUMBERED the Arab refugees! Like by a hundred thousand!! That’s a real gas. It gets funnier…but we won’t go there tonight. We know what happens next.

    Anyway, facts matter…especially in this kind of debate. There are so many of them, it’s hard to run a fact check on all of them, especially when they are rapid fire.

    It’s funny…with all this talk about muzzling open debate…1. I’m not so sure it’s “muzzled”…and if it is, 2. does this so-called debate warrant attention? would focus on this debate, were it left unfiltered by the Zionist Industrial Complex straight into the brains of millions of Americans, help or hurt the cause of peace? I think it’ll hurt. This conflict is too complilcated for the public..and the masses in general. Besides, informing the public about saya the Palestinian refugee problem should go hand in hand with something that might indict the other side…say the six decade old land and propaganda war waged against Israel?

    This is why my worldview is so dark. Famine, genocide, war, i’m deadened by all of it. I’m a real scholar of the Holocaust and other genocides…it’s an interest of mine. Good times, right? Even though that stuff gets me down….it’s that Israel is so maligned and defamed, on a daily basis, that really leads the list of heartbreaks in my life. And there’s a lot of suffering out there, but my heart really goes out to Israel…because no matter how many nukes it has, or anti-Israel events Abe Foxman cancels, or Palestinian children shot by the IDF, Israel was and will always be the underdog in this conflict…and until you come to understand that, you’re a novice on this conflict….you could be a janitor, or a professor of mideast studies, you’re a novice. No doubt that’ll sound ludicrous to John, but John has a lot of things to learn about this conflict…and friends on this blog willing to help.

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40. Not ludicrous, Dan. My heart goes out to both people and find both stories compelling and moving. It may sound ludicrous to you that I see all of humankind as victims of the Holocaust changed by it forever. Yes, much to learn. Always grateful for help. “Dependent on the kindness of strangers.”

    Here’s something I ran across last night in Benny Morris’s Righteous Victims – now the standard history of the Zionist-Arab conflict (from 1881-2001) – regarding the causes of the Palestinian exodus of 1948 (pages 252-253):

    Why 700,000 people became refugees was subsequently hotly debated between Israel and its supporters, and the Arabs and theirs. Israeli spokesmen – including “official” historians and writers of textbooks – maintained that the Arabs fled “voluntarily” or because the Palestinian and Arabs states’ leaders had urged or ordered them to leave, to clear the ground for the invasion of May 15 and enable their spokesmen to claim that they had been systematically expelled. Arab spokesmen countered that the Israelis had systematically and with premeditation expelled the refugees. Documentation that surfaced in massive quantities in the 1980’s in Israeli and Western archives has shown that neither “official” version is accurate or sufficient.” [emphasis mine]

    The truth turns out to be far more complex and far more interesting [read his book, if you haven’t!] than either “official” version.

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41. Eeek. Tags bit me again. Sorry.

    Hope that helped.

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42. Dan:
    You wrote:
    “because no matter how many nukes it {Israel} has, or anti-Israel events Abe Foxman cancels, or Palestinian children shot by the IDF, Israel was and will always be the underdog in this conflict…”
    You must have some sort of ‘Jedi’ certification because Mr. John has spat blood at me for far less of a conclusion. He seems to treat your various (pro-Israel) statements with much more base respect. Oh well . .
    Re: Numbers:
    Since some in the M.E. Arab (and international Pro-Arab) communities will assert that no Jews even lived in the Mid East prior to WW2, certainly, to these people — there could not have been any exodus of Jews, and so the numbers quoted thereof would also have {to them} equally been a total fabrication, even if the number is one. If I put on a ‘lawyer’ hat, my aim is to hope to comprehensively disempower the overall pro-Arab point on this question, by saying that both the exact numbers and the exact circumstances of each group’s departure will never be known. Nor does it really matter because the entire reason for the establishment of a ‘Jewish National Homeland’ was to (after thousand’s of years as wanderers) provide these long suffering people a place where they can sleep at night. The fact that they may not have achieved the night’s sleep they so greatly desire or deserve is of course a far greater pity. But people like John and former Pres. Carter (and most of the regular posters on this site) don’t even see the situation that way. They see a group of mainly European colonialists, who prefer the sunshine of Israel to the chilly winters of Poland and Germany and thought they easily could just steal the ancestral lands of the innocent and indigenous Arab population of Palestine. They further conclude that the Jews of Israel are the moral equivalent of the white farmers and diamond miners of South Africa. We will never hear even a single word cross most of these bloggers mouths, that detracts from their total conviction that the Arabs are blameless for the present circumstances. John, for example believes that “Ethnic Cleansing” of Arabs was occurring since the 1890’s. He uses the words “ethnic cleansing” the same way that Milosevic used it, which is generally a self-serving code word for ‘genocide’.

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43. Dan wrote: “Israel…because no matter how many nukes it has, or anti-Israel events Abe Foxman cancels, or Palestinian children shot by the IDF, Israel was and will always be the underdog in this conflict…and until you come to understand that, you’re a novice on this conflict….

    Merriam Webster says:
    UNDERDOG
    1 : a loser or predicted loser in a struggle or contest
    2 : a victim of injustice or persecution

    Well, given all these nukes mentioned by Dan I can’t see israel qualifying as number 1.
    And number 2. Is the State of Israel a victim of injustice or persecution? I would say not.

    We have a thriving economy, political and social freedom, and about 60% of our Jewish citizens travel abroad each year. Not bad for an underdog. I guess Dan thinks the Palestinians are doing better than us and I just don’t know about it. maybe the stories about the Palestinian economy shrinking 24% in the fourth quarter of 2006, and the horror stories of malnutrition in Gaza are just a cover story to hide their obvious freedom and affluence – and their mighty military which is cowing Israel the Underdog.

    Now Dan can call me a novice if he likes, but as an Israeli I can’t agree. I’m the one living in a nice home about to take my kids on a camping trip, visit friends for Pesach, then go off to a juggling festival up north and hang out for a few days of recreation, swimming and good times with friends. In the meanwhile my Palestinian neighbors one kilometer away in Kalkiliya over the Green Line are under lock down. An IDF spokesman announced today that there will be a general closure in Judea and Samaria for the duration of the Passover Holiday (for Arabs only of course).

    So forgive me my naivete Dan, but it seems to me that the underdog in this situation is the folks who are under lock and key, not the people with the nukes, who man the checkpoints, give and take away freedoms, and of course continue to build at a rapid pace more settlements on land that is considered by no-one to be the sovereign territory of the state of Israel – not even our own government.

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44. While I have empathy for “always…the underdog” in purely emotional terms, I would have to caution that the danger of that if accepted in purely rational-factual terms is that it could be used, and has been used throughout history by people who so perceived themselves, the Germans included, to justify just about anything and everything.

    Isidore – one reason I don’t bother to respond to you so often is that I have grown weary of your hyperbolic strawmen and your proclivity for putting words in my mouth. By “ethnic cleansing” I mean not genocide but “transfer.” It is well-documented that this was the intent of Zionist leaders from the 1880’s. Is this shocking or even surprising? How would the Zionist project have been possible otherwise? Get caught up on your historical reading in books based on the declassified documents, by Morris, Finkelstein, etc.

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45. oiy oiy oiy…a lot of responses. I’ll refute them shortly, espeically my underdog point. Ooh…Fred’s gonna get it. Maybe tomorrow. Please be patient…the Mets are about to close out the Cards. We must have priorities in life.

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46. Fred:
    You (in Israel) may have a “thriving economy” but we in the United States and especially the Jewish independent business-people are living off equity (if that). The last 5-6 years has been akin to WW2.
    Your stock “Webster” definition of “underdog” aside, the Hebrews of Israel have three distinct disadvantages, which have never fully gone away for a single 24 hour period:
    1. They are outnumbered by Arabs by about 80/1 (underdog-esque?)
    2. They maintain a distinct disadvantage in the eyes of most of the rest of the world, including some quantity of Christians, those who truly couldn’t care less about Arabs and are only fixated on the Jews being eternally damned for murdering God. I could clip-and-paste numerous such statements from other blogs I attend. One went something like: ‘God gave the Arabs to the Jews as punishment for rejecting his son and their savior’ –end-of-quote.
    3. Of those who are not religiously motivated, many believe that right-or-wrong, Israel must be sold-out because the Arab nations are too many and too important as a strategic ally. Another blogger claimed to be retired from the Pentagon and assured the readers that the ultimate (official) plan for Israel is either to surrender (he called it “making peace but in reality that is all Israel has endeavored to do for 60 years and the correct translation is “surrender” to whatever terms the Arabs demand) or if not, be fed to the Arabs.
    4. Many citizens of countries with large Muslim populations (such as France) would have just as soon that Hitler finished the job. (Sound disadvantageous yet?)
    5. It is very rare to see an Arab (or Muslim) who supports the Israeli position. And for a very practical reason. Such people are traditionally not tolerated within their communities. Up until his death, Yasser Arafat was still ordering the summary execution of people whom he had personally concluded to be collaborators. This was far from a new development. Between the years of 1920 and 1947, over 3,000 peaceful and moderate Arabs were executed as traitors by militant Arab factions within Palestine. These were teachers, intellectuals, poets, leading citizens and even a few clerics. (BTW: A few such moderate and pro-Western Islamic clerics were murdered by hit-squads during the beginning stages of the Iraq military action.) We Jews on the other hand have a significant percentage of apologists, who spend their time rationalizing everything wrong with Israel (and Jews) and everything just and proper about the “Arab cause”. I am proud of the fact that our culture encourages diversity of opinion but too many people (outside the loop) confuse this for an irrefutable admission that the Israeli position is bogus.
    The bottom line is very simple:
    Sudanese Blacks are ‘underdogs’ without Apache helicopters.
    Israelis are underdogs WITH the Apache Gun Ships.
    Maybe you guys in Israel should start a little fund for American Jews who have lost our businesses as result of the animosity associated with America’s continued support for Israel. Oh yes, I almost nearly forgot, you are sending all your excess cash across the green line.
    You wrote:
    “I’m the one living in a nice home about to take my kids on a camping trip, visit friends for Pesach, then go off to a juggling festival up north and hang out for a few days of recreation, swimming and good times with friends.”
    That’s nice. I am a federally documented victim of Sept. 11 and have spent the past years fighting three interrelated legal suits. Oh, I almost forgot again, the Mossad was behind 9-11. Drat the luck.
    I have not seen a vacation for 6 years and (depending on the outcome of one of the cases), I may loose my home and be indebted for about $5-million dollars, about 65% being the other party’s legal bills (@ 6 lawyers x $475 /hr. x 5 years of litigation).
    While I do not dispute your factual description of the plights of the Palestinian-Arabs, nor do I discount their suffering, nonetheless, THEY ARE NOW AND HAVE ALWAYS BEEN IN THE SOLE POSSESSION OF THEIR OWN SALVATION. Namely, PUT DOWN THE WEAPONS, STOP TEACHING THEIR CHILDREN HATE, PROPAGANDA AND MARTYRDOM, AND GET RICH AND EDUCATED ALONG SIDE THE JEWS. Had they made that decision at any point since 1947 until now, they would still be second class citizens but second class rich and educated citizens.
    Moreover, in the biased and myopic world view, the suffering of the Palestinian-Arabs is the only injustice worth contemplating. While tragic, this group only represents a tiny fraction of the Arabs in the M.E.. No one seems to give a rat’s ass as hundreds of civilian Arabs are daily being butchered by other Arabs and Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere. There’s that senility sinking in again. I forgot that the Terrorism in Iraq is also our fault.
    The entire problem would be solved if Egypt were to annex Gaza and Jordan annex the rest of the P.A. zones. That’s the solution I vote for. The Palestinian-Arabs have no need for their own nation and having it is akin to a goldfish being responsible for its own fish-bowl. If the world didn’t have so much animosity for Jews, such a solution would have taken shape decades ago. So Israel is an “under-dog” for one other reason. Namely, they have been turned into ‘gladiators’ of the Romanesque arena. If it takes the suffering and death of some local Arabs to sell tickets and pay-per-view, then, that’s the price of admission.

    John:
    You wrote:
    “By “ethnic cleansing” I mean not genocide but “transfer.” It is well-documented that this was the intent of Zionist leaders from the 1880’s”
    Except that you appear to include ‘transfer’ by way of exorbitant cash payments, which is only “ethnic cleansing” in your own warped reality. However, when you say the words, other people hear ‘at the wrong end of a gun barrel’ which was not even have alleged to have begun until 1947 (not 1880s’). Moreover, much of the cash being paid for arid desert was paid to Turkish potentates, who were not Arabs and did not even live in Palestine. Lastly, it was illegal for Jews (and only for Jews) to purchase land in Palestine for 300 years, until the end of WW1. The only way they managed to get around this was through more payouts (bribes) to local Turkish officials.
    Lastly, I don’t know who you exactly refer to by “Zionist leaders” but I suspect this Hertzl guy and his infamous diary come into focus. The thing about Jews is that we don’t have such “leaders” who dictate how we run our affairs. I’m sure if you look hard enough, you will find a few Jews who supported Hitler too. So what? Its interesting that you seem to deny that the Arab heads-of-state (in 1947) could possibly influence the local Arab population of Palestine to leave, while, you equally conclude that one Berlin Jew (Hertzl) was the puppet-master responsible for decade upon decade of Jewish immigration into Palestine and the methods, practices and conduct of those immigrants. He neither invented ‘Zionism’ nor did he implement it. He merely romanced it and placed the subject on the world’s radar screen, where it has been kept in still-motion (by people like yourself) ever since.

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47. There appears to be a problem with this web page. The posts are not being posted.

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48. Fred:
    You (in Israel) may have a “thriving economy” but we in the United States and especially the Jewish independent business-people are living off equity. The last 5-6 years has been akin to WW2.
    Your stock “Webster” definition of “underdog” aside, the Hebrews of Israel have three distinct disadvantages, which have never fully gone away:
    1. They are outnumbered by Arabs by about 80/1 (underdog-esque?)
    2. They maintain a distinct disadvantage in the eyes of most of the rest of the world, including some quantity of Christians, those who truly couldn’t care less about Arabs and are only fixated on the Jews being eternally damned for murdering God. I could clip-and-paste numerous such statements from other blogs I attend. One went something like: ‘God gave the Arabs to the Jews as punishment for rejecting his son and their savior’ –end-of-quote. Of those who are not religiously motivated, many believe that right-or-wrong, Israel must be sold-out because the Arab nations are too many and too important as a strategic ally. Many citizens of countries with large Muslim populations (such as France) would have just as soon that Hitler finished the job. (Sound disadvantageous yet?)
    3. It is very rare to see an Arab (or Muslim) who supports the Israeli position. And for good reason. Such people are traditionally not tolerated within their communities. Up until his death, Yasser Arafat was still ordering the summary execution of people whom he had personally concluded to be collaborators. This was far from a new development. Between the years of 1920 and 1947, over 3,000 peaceful and moderate Arabs were executed as traitors by militant Arab factions within Palestine. These were teachers, intellectuals, poets, leading citizens and even a few clerics. (BTW: A few such moderate and pro-Western Islamic clerics were murdered by hit-squads during the beginning stages of the Iraq military action.) We Jews on the other hand have a significant percentage of apologists, who spend their time rationalizing everything wrong with Israel and everything just and proper about the “Arab cause”. I am proud of the fact that our culture encourages diversity but too many people (outside the loop) confuse this for an irrefutable admission that the Israeli position is bogus.
    The bottom line is very simple:
    Sudanese Blacks are underdogs without Apache helicopters.
    Israelis are underdogs WITH the Apache Gun Ships.
    Maybe you guys in Israel should start a little fund for American Jews who have lost our businesses as result of the animosity associated with America’s continued support for Israel. Oh yes, I almost nearly forgot, you are sending all your excess cash across the green line.
    You wrote:
    “I’m the one living in a nice home about to take my kids on a camping trip, visit friends for Pesach, then go off to a juggling festival up north and hang out for a few days of recreation, swimming and good times with friends.”
    That’s nice. I am a federally documented victim of Sept. 11 and have spent the past years fighting three interrelated legal suits. Oh, I almost forgot again, the Mossad was behind 9-11. Drat the luck.
    I have not seen a vacation for 6 years and (depending on the outcome of one of the cases), I may loose my home and be indebted for about $5-million dollars, about 65% being the other party’s legal bills (@ 6 lawyers x $475 /hr. x 5 years of litigation).
    While I do not dispute your factual description of the plights of the Palestinian-Arabs, nor do I discount their suffering, nonetheless, they are now and have always been in the sole possession of their own salvation. Namely, put down the weapons, stop teaching their children hate, propaganda and martyrdom, and get rich and educated along side the Jews. Had they made that decision at any point since 1947 until now, they would still be second class citizens but second class rich and educated citizens.
    Moreover, in the biased and myopic world view, the suffering of the Palestinian-Arabs is the only injustice worth contemplating. While tragic, this group only represents a tiny fraction of the Arabs in the M.E.. The entire problem would be solved if Egypt were to annex Gaza and Jordan annex the rest of the P.A. zones. That’s the solution I vote for. The Palestinian-Arabs have no need for their own nation and having it is akin to a goldfish being responsible for its own fish-bowl. If the world didn’t have so much animosity for Jews, such a solution would have taken shape decades ago. So Israel is an “under-dog” for one other reason. Namely, they have been turned into ‘gladiators’ of the Romanesque arena. If it takes the suffering and death of some local Arabs to sell tickets and pay-per-view, then, that’s the price of admission.

    John:
    You wrote:
    “By “ethnic cleansing” I mean not genocide but “transfer.” It is well-documented that this was the intent of Zionist leaders from the 1880’s”
    Except that you appear to include transfer by way of exorbitant cash payments, which is only “ethnic cleansing” in your own warped reality. However, when you say the words, other people hear ‘at the wrong end of a gun barrel’ which was not even have alleged to have begun until 1947 (not 1880s’). Moreover, much of the cash being paid for arid desert was paid to Turkish potentates, who were not Arabs and did not even live in Palestine. Lastly, it was illegal for Jews (and only for Jews) to purchase land in Palestine for 300 years, until the end of WW1. The only way they managed to get around this was through more payouts (bribes) to local Turkish officials.
    Lastly, I don’t know who you exactly refer to by “Zionist leaders” but I suspect this Hertzl guy and his infamous diary come into focus. The thing about Jews is that we don’t have such “leaders” who dictate how we run our affairs. I’m sure if you look hard enough, you will find a few Jews who supported Hitler too. So what? Its interesting that you seem to deny that the Arab heads-of-state (in 1947) could possibly influence the local Arab population of Palestine to leave, while, you equally conclude that one Berlin Jew (Hertzl) was the puppet-master responsible for decade upon decade of Jewish immigration into Palestine and the methods, practices and conduct of those immigrants. He neither invented ‘Zionism’ nor did he implement it. He merely romanced it and placed the subject on the world’s radar screen, where it has been kept in still-motion (by people like yourself) ever since.

    ***This is the third time I have posted this message since 04-01***
    Either there was a tech problem earlier or “Big-Brother” has powered-up. I had to change my name and email.
    Isidor Farash
    (AKA Prof. Trollstein)

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49. John Baker,

    Do you think Israel uses plays itself off as the underdog, in order to justify its actions against neighboring countries/the Palestinians?

    If so, how?

    Thanks,
    Dan

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50. For some reason, a post by Isidor was caught by our spam filter. I see no reason why it should have been, other than possibly the length of the post. This forum is not moderated (I hope to keep it that way, and you all can help by being civil to each other, which, for the most part, you are). So if you post a comment and it does not appear, being caught in the spam filter is likely the reason. If you don’t see your comment appear, please e-mail mitchell@jewishvoiceforpeace.org and I’ll look into it asap. Apologies to Isidor for the delay in his post appearing.

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51. Dan re: #49

    I really have no opinion on that and also don’t want to get into that.

    Best, John

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52. Isidore,

    Your bloviations are difficult to deal with succinctly.

    From what I can tell, your opinions have been formed on the basis of books that are now outdated or in the case of Peters thoroughly debunked. I don’t have time to straighten you out on all this.

    “Ethnic cleansing refers to various policies or practices aimed at the displacement of an ethnic group from a particular territory.” – Wikipedia.

    So, yes, “policies and practices” includes the economic means which the Zionists used to “disappear” the Arabs, to separate them from their land. It includes the military means to expell them and the statutory means subsequently enacted to prevent the return of the refugees to their homes and villages afterward. And it includes the relocation of Jewish settlers to occupy seized Arab lands. That the “policies and practices” of ethnic cleansing were part of the very DNA of Zionism is clear from the writings of Dubnow and Ben-Yehuda in the 1880’s down to Ben-Gurion and Yosef Weiz in the 1940’s. Once Palestine was selected, disappearing the Arabs was the agenda.

    “Herzl was the puppet master”

    Another strawman. Come off it. I made no such claim.

    All this stuff is well past arguing about, Isidore. It really is. Get caught up on your reading of books published since 1990 and get back to us. Go read Benny Morris, Righteous Victims. Read Finkelstein’s Image and Reality after that. You are simply not in possession of the facts you think you are.

    I don’t like your repeated use of the phrase “people like you” or “people like John.” It’s offensive, as you should well know, because it is a rhetorical trick racists use to plant the suggestion that there might be more than one kind of human being, when in fact we are all the same. How about something like “those who share your views” instead of using the word “people”?

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53. Whenever I get scared that John is on the verge of making a good point, he asks us to read a Finkelstein book to validate the point, and I breathe easier. If you need N.F. to back up a point…

    Morris has been clear that Finkelstein misused his book. And no matter how many Finkelstein articles on the topic, Peters’ “From Time Immemorial” has not been “thoroughly debunked”. It doesn’t really matter that the book might’ve been the product of shoddy scholarship…the topics of a transient Arab population in Palestine and Arabs attracted by Zionists is such a charged issue…those who want to believe it will and those who don’t, won’t.

    Didn’t Peters serve as Middle East expert in the Carter administration? But that’s just an FYI.

    John, “ethnic cleansing…part of the very DNA of Zionism.” ?? Clever. Be careful what quotes you cite. There’s a whole industry of fake Zionist quotes.

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54. Didn’t Peters serve as Middle East expert in the Carter administration?

    And this is important because…? Someone who worked for Carter couldn’t have written a fake book? Her book has been debunked in numerous articles by not just one person but by numerous people. Everything else aside, it has been superceded by more recent scholarship. Morris does not cite it, does not put Peters in his bibliography.

    Be careful what quotes you cite.

    I quoted Wikipedia and Isidore. Whatever Morris may claim about Finkelstein, Morris will also tell you there is a whole industry of fake Zionist history of the events of 1947-48. His career actually has been built on deconstructing that fake history.

    he asks us to read a Finkelstein book to validate the point

    Actually, my information about early Zionists came from Morris. I asked Isidore to read a book by Morris and one by Finkelstein (my source on Ben Gurion and Weiz). Two scholars completely at odds in many respects. But both confirm the basic facts, and neither thinks Peters’ book is useful, not to put too fine a point on it. It has no place in our discussion.

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55. part of the very DNA of Zionism.” ?? Clever.

    I believe the metaphor is Finkelstein’s; not mine. Regardless, why should the point be surprising? What do you believe they could possibly have intended to do with the indigenous people, the owners of the land, given that their intent was to create a Jewish state with a permanent Jewish majority on that land? (What? Transfer them? I’m shocked, shocked I tell you.)

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56. John:
    1. You choose your words and I shall choose mine.
    2. People like you write:
    “Your bloviations are difficult to deal with succinctly”
    A catchy bumper-sticker, if misplaced and probably a backwards projection of reality.
    You wrote:
    “From what I can tell, your opinions have been formed on the basis of books that are now outdated or in the case of Peters thoroughly debunked. I don’t have time to straighten you out on all this.”
    Outdated HISTORY books? How Orwellian. . .
    Re: “Ethnic Cleansing”
    Please refer back to Wikipedia.
    Here’s what the page NOW says on the subject:
    “Ethnic cleansing refers to various policies or practices aimed at the displacement of an ethnic group from a particular territory. The term entered English and international usage in the early 1990s to describe certain events in the former Yugoslavia, with the violent ‘cleansing’ of Bosniaks. Its typical usage was developed in the Balkans, to be a less objectionable code-word meaning “genocide” but its intent was to best avoid the obvious pitfalls of longstanding international treaty laws prohibiting war-crimes. This Orwellian term has since become still more Orwellian, because it is occasionally used as a claim of war-crimes, when no war-crimes actually exist. For example, “Ethnic Cleansing” has become improperly used to describe a situation wherein poorer ethnic groups are being displaced economically, by other, generally more affluent ethnic groups.”
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing

    I have corrected the previously inadequate Wikipedia definition. Which is exactly why quoting Wikipedia is often the most ridiculous academic tool available. Remember who is “Goldstein” here John. At best, you are a wannabe “Goldstein”.
    people like you never seem to address the key issues in a debate and simply avoid them. For example, when I asked you how it is that a few individuals who you associate with the “Zionist leadership” could be considered the group leaders for the entire world’s Jewry, while you also (simultaneously) assert that the Palestinian-Arabs of 1947 would NOT have been inclined to follow directions from NUMEROUS local Arab heads-of-state, you simply ignore, change gears and call such questions: “bloviations”. You are not even a good propagandist. If you would like some lessons on refining your art, I can refer you to a few web sites with more talented propagandists to be emulated.

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57. “I have corrected the previously inadequate Wikipedia definition.”

    How Orwellian!

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58. ” I asked you how it is that a few individuals…could be considered the group leaders for the entire world’s Jewry…”

    I never said that. Achooooo! Sorry, I’m allergic to strawmen.

    “…directions from NUMEROUS local Arab heads-of-state.”

    If you are referring to the famous “Arab Radio Broadcasts,” they are a well-known Zionist fabrication (Peters again!). Never happened.

    Get up to date on your reading.

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59. Hopefully you didn’t waste a lot of time on the Wikipedia bit. I’m afraid you missed the point. If you recall, in another of your failed experiments in ESP, you were trying to tell me what I had in mind when I said “ethnic cleansing,” claiming that I was referring to genocide. I tried to convince you that I meant “transfer.” The point of my citing Wiki was to illustrate what I meant; not what Wiki meant. Apparently, your ability to understand plain English is no better than your psychic ability to read my mind.

    I won’t quibble over the terminology. The idea from the beginning was to disappear the Arabs. The means have changed. At first economic measures were used. Didn’t work too well, but what could they do? When war broke out, the opportunity was seized to transfer the Arabs by force, threat, and intimidation (while blaming it on the refugees themselves). After the war measures were enacted to prevent the refugees’return. Transfer by any other name is still transfer [Verlagerung]. It’s all part of a long continuum, however it may have manifested at any given point as circumstances dictated. And it worked. They disappeared the Arabs. By the end of the war, Israel held 20,418,023 dunums of land. Of that,
    only 1,475, 766 were owned by Jews.

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60. John Baker wrote:
    (Quoting myself):
    “I have corrected the previously inadequate Wikipedia definition.”
    He asserts:
    “How Orwellian!”
    1. How original . . ! and such a snappy retort too!!!
    2. The object was NOT to revise history (that WOULD be Orwellian). It was simply to reinforce my numerous previous statements that Wikipedia is a worthless research tool and best quoted by ‘Ingsoc’ party members [read: people like yourself].
    Re:
    “I never said that. Achooooo! Sorry, I’m allergic to strawmen”
    I am afraid you are really allergic to agreeing with me. It was no leap of logic to extrapolate your words for my objection to your words. I simply took two separate post subjects and combined them to illustrate your ongoing hypocrisy and lack of simple reason. The readers shall be left to decide if a general denial of the role the Arab leaders had in the displacement of the Arab populations equaled a fair comment from me, drawing the contradiction with your parallel (though opposite) assertion that a few Jews lead an army of ‘Zionists’ and dictated their tactics. Deny all you want. Maybe it makes sense to you and a few others who take ideological refuge herein.
    You wrote:
    “Apparently, your ability to understand plain English is no better than your psychic ability to read my mind.”
    Re:
    John: I could hardly expect to read your mind when you yourself seem to have such a difficult time.
    The ‘bottom line’ is very, very simple. 99% of the people (I am confident) in the general population WOULD NOT call economic ‘gentrification’ “Ethnic Cleansing”. “Ethnic Cleansing” was developed as a kinder (self serving) way of saying “genocide” by way of outright murder or through forced eviction, AKA the Cherokee Nation, Armenians, etc..
    It is NOT equated with situations where people use cash payments to rid themselves of an unwanted ‘underclass’. If it were, hundreds (perhaps thousands) of examples in the 20th century would qualify. Since you assert that this so called “ethnic cleansing” began in the 1880’s, you are also defining it to include the results of cash payments that Jews made to acquire land, in what later became Israel. You have admitted so much but attempt to insist that your characterization of the term is correct. However, 99% of the General population would be mislead by such a definition and so, you are being intentionally misleading — in order to slander a population of Hebrews. This is quite standard for fringe-leftists. Conservatives will argue over minutia while liberals will simply bend the frame-of-reference with cute deviations of the truth and even the basic language.
    Furthermore, the Jordanian Citizenship law of the 1950’s clearly mandated that Jews acquired with the parts of Palestine they annexed, were to be singled out for denial of citizenship, while Muslims were granted citizenship. This is not even denied and yet it plays zero role in your assessment of the one-sided, ongoing and relentless accusation that Israel has somehow achieved a special status as abusers of human rights.

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61. The most grand and exhaulted order of the Trollsteins herwith invites like-minded individuals to join in the worthy cause.
    The first official meeting of the Trollstein lodge will take place as an adjunct component to this web log, at a time and place later to be announced.
    All those interested in membership should respond by posting the word: “Oyh” herein.
    Howabout it Dan??

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62. What was done through predatory and partly-covert economic means from the 1880’s through 1947 was of a piece with what followed from 1948 on. Before and after: the same. The means changed, but devotion to the objective of parting the Arabs from the land was unflinching. From the minute Palestine was selected, that was the agenda, and it never changed.

    In Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict from 1881-2001, Morris quotes Ben-Yehuda writing in 1882 in a letter to Peretz Smolenskin (p. 49),

    “The thing we must do now is to become as strong as we can, to conquer the country, bit by bit…We can only do this covertly, quietly…We will not set up committees so that the Arabs will know what we are after, we shall act like silent spies, we shall buy, buy, buy.”

    Gee, Isidore, what was it that they were after that they didn’t want the Arabs to figure out? Why could they only “conquer the country” by acting “covertly, quietly”?

    Here again is a quote from Benny Morris in the article cited above by Mitchell:

    “On the macro-level, there is no question that there would never have been a Palestinian refugee problem had there been no Zionist movement. If Jews hadn’t started buying up land and pushing Palestinians off the land, and then in 1948 and again in 1967, pushing out Palestinians, there would be no Palestinian refugees. And on the micro-level, there
    were many specific instances in 1947-48 in which Israel took military steps that caused Palestinians to be expelled.” [emphasis mine]

    I will repeat my question. What do you think the Zionists could possibly have been thinking as they planned to take over Palestine if not to transfer the Arabs by one means or by another?

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63. John:
    You’re really killin me now. Who needs “Family Guy” when I have John the internet channel?
    “ . . . predatory and partly-covert economic means . . “
    A SECRET conspiracy to BUY-OUT the Arabs. The horror . . The horror . .
    Why was it “predatory”? Because it was double super-secret?? When the Walt Disney company decided to open a theme park in Orlando Florida, it sent a group of front companies in to do it as quietly as possible. If not, they would have had to pay double or triple. I was unaware however, that Mickey Mouse was involved in ETHNIC CLEANSING of the poor White swamp people of Orlando. My bad.
    Thank God the Jews in pre-WW1 Palestine did not resort to brandishing their lawyers.
    “ . . . we shall act like silent spies, we shall buy, buy, buy. . . ”
    God Help us. We Jews ARE eternally guilty! And rightfully so. You’ve uncovered our double super-secret chant. What ever shall we do without a double super-secret chant???
    I have to email this to a few Arab people who I am certain will find it even funnier then me. Is it OK if I quote you on other web pages?
    I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall of the cave where Osama Bin Laden gets the Arabic translation of your ‘Fatwa’. It is funny enough to cause the dead corpse of Saddam Hussein to bust out laughing.
    Seriously . . .I needed that. Better then “Mr. Bean.”
    Back to seriousness. Wait, I can’t its too funny.
    OK, I’ve got it together now. Wait . . . OK. Here’s where you take a hairpin turn away from reality and the three known dimensions of ‘space-time’:
    1. It had been illegal for Jews to move to or own land in Palestine, (on and off) for all but a brief period during the previous 1,850 years. At least during the previous 300 years prior to WW1, Jews were legally barred from doing so by the Turkish Ottoman empire. Until 1920 anyway, ‘secretly’ would have been their only option.
    2. You first assert that Israeli military ops were responsible for exodus of Arabs out from Palestine in 1947-1948, which I have already disputed and we will never convince one another on this point. Nor are you even remotely moved by the Jewish refugees fleeing from all over the Mid East into their sanctuary, Israel. Again as before, your myopic view is centered exclusively around the suffering of the Arabs. You also ignore the fact that about 20,000,000 (twenty-million) Arabs and Muslims have been emigrated into virtually all the “Western” countries over the past 20-25 years and seemingly NONE of these have come from the so-called Palestinian refugee populations. Essentially, what was originally counted as 735,000 by the United Nations and was about 280,000 more then the equivalent number of Jews who crossed their paths, had ballooned to a population of between 4-5 million. These people could today be living as full citizens in Spain or Paris or Belgium or Holland or Sweden or any number of other EU nations, if not for the political blocking of their re-settlements, mainly by their host countries who keep them like prisoners in concentration-camps—for the sole and exclusive purpose of keeping the dispute with the Jews alive and active. This point also does not hold any moment with you.
    3. But where you really go berserk is when you characterize the purchasing of land (secret or otherwise) as “ethnic cleansing” and don’t even make any distinction between that method of acquiring a Jewish homeland, versus your (later – post-WW2) claim of forced expulsions of Arabs. This is just OUT THERE buddy. Next you will assert that Jews who purchase Falafel off of an Arabic food stand are secretly “boycotting” the Arabs.
    John: Your dreams are missing you again buddy
    ):>>>={ (official seal – Royal order of trolls)

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64. Why was it “predatory”?

    Think “hostile takeover.”

    Is it OK if I quote you…?”

    The quote was from Benny Morris. (See ref.)

    See you on the next thread. You’re out of ammunition, and I’m out of patience.

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65. Actually John, the pertinent quote is from 1882 {Ben-Yehuda}. His statements are neither very noteworthy or very comical.
    What makes them HILARIOUS is your reliance on them for a 2007 argument about the alleged mistreatment of the Arabs, during the first 1/2 of the 20th century. This period of time, from 1880 to 1940 was their grand age of advance. In 1880 (when the quote was penned) the Arabs of the M.E. were at the very bottom of the economic strata. They were not in charge of their own countries, had (by far) the highest infant mortality rates in the world and were on a pay scale tied at the world’s very bottom, with Chinese Coolies. They (mainly) lived in tents without plumbing and cooked with camel dengue. Their livestock (if they were ‘affluent enough and had any) shared their tents with them. The only people in the world who would even want to compete for their land were Jews and they were willing to pay handsomely for these plots of desert. Hardly a “hostile takeover” and even further from “ethnic cleansing”, The Jews were their greatest economic resource.
    Until 1907 when the automobile became the world’s most sought after possession and the oil these Arab tribes were sitting on became a source of political power. Shortly thereafter, plans were being set in by England, France and later by the USA to re-divide the regional power. The Arabs were “emancipated” and their benefactors in the West were rewarded with greater political and economic control and the same power and wealth was wrestled away from Germany and Turkey. All of a sudden, these non-descriptive desperately poor Arabian tribes became big-shots. After WW1, most of them, with the exception of Jordan (who had no oil and had been rewarded with 38,000 sq. miles of Palestine, that really belonged to the Jews) switched sides once again and ultimately supported Hitler, in order to wrestle control away from the “Allied Powers”, who had earlier handed the Arabs their independence. (Had Hitler won, it would not have been long before another oil-war over would have been mounted). All the Jews wanted was to buy their way into the spiritual center of their universe.
    To you, all of this 127 years of history adds up to is gross disempowerment and disenfranchisement of the Arabs and grand-theft and unfair advantages for the Jews.
    I am not “out of ammunition”, I just don’t need anymore. I do not debate you for your benefit but rather, in hopes of reaching some of your disciples, who may retain a modicum of human decency.

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66. in hopes of reaching some of your disciples, who may retain a modicum of human decency.

    By “disciples” I take it you mean people like me. Well, to each his own. Personally, I’d rather reach someone with a modicum of indecency. ;o)

    …your reliance on them for a 2007 argument

    Huh? I thought I was talking about the 1880’s. That’s why I used a quote from the 1880’s.
    Hello?

    the Arabs of the M.E. were at the very bottom of the economic strata.

    Which makes their exploitation by the olim all the more deplorable.

    The Jews were their greatest economic resource.

    Yep, bought the land of desperately poor people and then expelled them from it in perpetuity. With benefactors like that who needs enemies?

    Bye!

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67. John:
    You keep saying goodbye but you keep coming back.
    You wrote:
    “Huh? I thought I was talking about the 1880’s. That’s why I used a quote from the 1880’s.
    Hello?”
    The original discussion related to my objection to your claim of “Ethnic Cleansing” of Arabs by Jews, which you asserted has taken place non stop from the 1880’s until now. The quote was from the 1880’s but your context was ongoing.
    You wrote:
    “Yep, bought the land of desperately poor people and then expelled them from it in perpetuity. With benefactors like that who needs enemies?”
    First off, no one has even claimed that ‘expulsion’ took place prior to the end of WW2. When’s the last time you sold someone a house but stayed living in it — after you sold it, or sold a car and continued driving it??
    Your arguments are generally strings of (often disjointed) bumper-stickers. Hard as you try, you can not turn what occured during the first 1/2 of the 20th century into a bad time for Arabs and a good time for the Jews. You have got it way, way backwards — in almost ever respect. Only on a few very fringe web logs would your statements go mainly indisputed. If you would like, I can post your exact statements on a Muslim blog I attend and return with the copies of the harsh critisisms these will get from both Muslims and Arabs. These people are not necessarally any smarter then yourself, just less into denial and gros rationalizations.

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68. “When’s the last time you sold someone a house but stayed living in it — after you sold it.

    From Righteous Victims by Benny Morris, page 37:

    “…Jewish colonists, with their backers abroad, bought tract after tract of land. In some cases the land was uninhabited and untilled; in others purchase led to the immediate eviction of Arab tenant farmers, many of whose families had themselves once been the proprietors. The fear of territorial displacement and dispossession was to be the chief motor of Arab antagonism to Zionism down to 1948.”

    While you are explaining what the Zionists planned to do about the Arabs once they selected Palestine, maybe you can also explain why the Arabs for no apparent reason (?) rose up in 1948 in revolt against these kindly benefactors who were helping to part them from their land.

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69. John:
    I have never heard of this Benny Morris before your references and I am not sure how many of his facts I would question or not. Often, when long and complex histories are involved, what is left off is as important as what is included. Of course, such a reference that may leave out certain key issues, while possibly over-stating other ones, through the use of semantics and inuendo-based code-words (like “Ethnic Cleansing”–where it may not reaaly be appropriate), may leave the reader with false conclusions overall.
    For instance, when you say:
    “Zionists” . . .”selected Palestine”
    You make it (wrongly and falsely) sound as if this was a choice based on opportunity and the weakness of the “native” populations. A choice like, as earler alluded to, when Walt Disney chose Orlando Florida. This couldn’t be further from the truth and illustrates you (and possibly Morris’) lack of understanding of the driving forces in play.
    Jews are instructed from an early age that “The Promised Land” (Palestine) is their only real home. I personally think its rediculous but I can understand appreciate their deep religious and cultural attachment.
    You have never answered my longstanding question:
    How is it that the Catholics get their own automonous and “ethnically pure” homeland (the Nation-state of ‘Vatican City’) and the Mulsims have two such places (Mecca and Medina), while the founders of monothesim (the Jews) lack similar credentials for Jerusalem?? While Mecca is totally free from any competing faith (not even a Christian bible is allowed in), Israel is a mixed culture of Hebrews and Arabs and protects the rights of all faiths to practice freely. I also lack any appreciation of your point when you say (in quotes):
    “in others purchase led to the immediate eviction of Arab tenant farmers, many of whose families had themselves once been the proprietors.”
    What are you saying? That the Arabs formally owned the lands before the Jews made the purchase? Or, more probably, the (Arab and Muslim) owners of the land, sold it to Jews while the Arab tennants were still using it??
    Either way, I fail to see the crime. So I don’t deny the facts being purported, I just deny that those facts amount to any crime.
    The owners of these lands (probably Turkish potentates) were using their property to their best economic advantage, first by renting to Arab farmers and next by selling to the first person who paid their (probably outragious) price (the Hebrews). Capitolism is not always pleasant. I do not worship at the altar of the allmighty buck. However, these lands were NOT purchased to exploit the tennant-farmers you reference (which by the way is also done every day of every year in every country).
    These were Jewish families who had been legally (exclusively) barred from moving to and/or owning land in Palestine for most of 1,850 years. When they got their chance, they did their best with the cash they had.
    The Arabs got a tremendous gift and advantage with their emancipation and independance from Turkey. They acquired total control of Mecca and Medina. However, the Jews and Kurds remained disenfranchised nations. The Jews answer was to buy their way in. It is no coicidence at all tha the two remaining conflicted spots in the Mid East today are Israel and Kurdistan. There may have been some ‘injustice’ against local Arabs in both places. However, overall, the greater injustice remains against the Jews and Kurds, respectively, who have not had a minute of true peace since at least WW1.
    My family owned miles and miles of land (perhaps 100’s of miles) in Poland. I have no idea who lives there now (post WW2) and I am sure I have no rights. Nor do I really care. But life is not always fair. You won’t see my family engaging in terror or ‘Holy-war’. Germans also lost rights to their lands after WW2 and so did Hundus in Pakistan and many other similar examples throughout modern history. Only the Arabs maintain a legion of sycophants who lament only for them.

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70. You make some good points here, Isidore. I don’t concede all of them, but they are reasonable. I have no doubt that all of these matters are far more complex than can be explained in a brief quote or a blog post. I also have no doubt that there is more than one side. It is also a given that Zionism arose in the context of the Diaspora and against a historical backdrop of European anti-semitism and outright persecution. And as far as awda, as I have said, I believe there are sixty years of facts on the ground that are simply not going to be overturned at this point and that alternatives to an actual return will have to be negotiated.

    Morris is Israel’s most eminent “new historian” – a revisionist. He has written a number of books on the topic; I have only quoted from one, which I recommend you read. As Mitchell mentioned in his essay at the head of our post, Morris has done more work on the history of the refugee crisis than anyone and through research involving the flood of declassified Israeli documents (IDF, Haganah, etc.) which became available in the 1980’s. The book I refer to is nearly 800 pages long. If this were a simple or one-sided matter, he probably would have written a shorter book. As Dan Brooks pointed out above, Morris particularly since the second intifada has an extremely negative opinion – not to say loathing – of Palestinians, so he does not present a one-sided case for the Arab position. I think you should read it and obviously decide for youself what you agree with or not, but you should read it.

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71. John:
    Thank you.
    As you suggest, I will read the Morris title you reference. I would equally suggest that you read Dore Gold’s “The Fight for Jerusalem”. I know you have a low opinion of Gold and frankly, I am neither a fan of his or the Lekud party he is a member of. But personalities and party affiliations are not the issue. There are two pertainant issues to be considered:
    1. To what extent are his facts accurate and free from even modest “spin” or semantical slight-of-hand?
    2. Has he left out any material facts, that should reasonably have been included, in the interest of a fair historical record?

    As for #1: I am very confident that his rendition is very free from being either misleading or innacurate. Over the years, I have developed a sense for how and where people bend the language. When little or no language bend is detected, usually there will be no factual misreporting either, because people generally mis-report first and take linguistic liberties as ‘insurance’ or as ‘icing’ -or- only when they know they can’t misreport factually, without being busted.
    Re: #2
    I will grant that he is very light on presenting any counter-points, even where same may be only fair and perhaps even necessary to correctly understand the picture.
    For this inadequacy, I suggest the reader deduct a modest percentage of credibility, without questioning the facts which are being presented (in their true light).
    Have a nice holiday.

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72. Isidor….oy!

    I’ve been away, doing my part in helping to prop up the Zionist Industrial Complex. Our GDP forecast ain’t lookin good this year…. I think taking off the shelves our line of Canned Palestinian Children Meat line was a bad move. True, canned meat usually appeals to the trailer park crowd, and it got a bit un-PC, but…eh.

    Ya know…I was thinking about the conflict yesterday (go figure) and it got me thinking about what the most unsettling aspect is. Considering I’d expect this sort of behavior from Israel’s enemies, the media, and groups like JVP, I think there’s nothing that upsets me more than conservatives leading the way with Israel advocacy nowadays. It just breaks my heart. I get the RJC newsletter emailed to me weekly — for shits n’ giggles — and it makes me want to vomit how they relentlessly try to drive into your head how bad the Dems are for Israel, which is total bull.

    Now I have to get back to reading Baker’s posts….after this stiff drink.

    Isidore…you should know who Morris is. I’m about to order from amazon the reframing anti-Semitism book. I bet it’ll confirm what I’ve thought all along…that this whole misuse of anti-Semitism has been amazingly exaggerated. But why not spend $7 to be annoyed, you know?

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73. I wouldn’t say Morris loathes the Palestinians, John. I would say he loathes the Palestinian body-politic, if we can dignify it with such a term.

    Don’t you think there’s a difference between Palestinians and THE Palestinians?

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74. Don’t you think there’s a difference between Palestinians and THE Palestinians?

    Sure.

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75. Isidore, I’ll see if I can find a used copy on amazon. Thanks.

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76. John,

    Is there anything wrong with detesting the Palestinians, while loving Palestinians?

    and…why are the ’67 borders so significant to Palestinians? After all, wasn’t the term West Bank invented in 1949? Doesn’t all the land have special significance to them? Why would they accept such a small state, when they could’ve had such a larger state sixty years ago, especially when it’s cut off from Gaza? What kind of state is that?

    Thanks for your time.

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77. Dan:
    I gotta say brother, you’ve got a sense of humor, which is what I have needed to see. As such:
    ):>>>={ The most grand and exhaulted order of the Trollsteins herwith inducts you into the sanctum-sanctorm. Congradulations!

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78. Is there anything wrong with detesting the Palestinians, while loving Palestinians?

    I hope not. The problem is universal, isn’t it? I mean, I certainly don’t think my so-called representatives represent me. I feel their pain, I guess you could say. We have the best Congress money can buy.

    I was just telling my wife btw, that I hope even if we get a Republican in 2008 – God forbid – it will be someone who sees the insanity of not talking to people, especially our enemies. I think it is essential for example that the Hamas representatives be part of any peace talks, because if they are not the treaty will not be worth the paper it is written on. Anyway, it’s dangerous not to talk especially to your enemies, and they are not changed by withholding discussions, as far as I can see.

    “Why would they accept such a small state…especially when it’s cut off from Gaza? What kind of state is that?”

    I don’t know why the 1967 borders. Recent international consensus? I was thinking today about the separation wall/fence. Somewhat along these same lines, who is being fenced in/off, the Palestinians, or the Israelis? It has a kind of ghetto-like feel to it to me. And I wonder if it doesn’t sort of ghetto-ize both people. What do you guys think?

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79. Isidore…you should know who Morris is. I’m about to order from amazon the reframing anti-Semitism book.

    Morris? or Finkelstein?

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80. Morris? or Finkelstein?

    Naw…I’m goin right to the creme de la creme. I wanna hear what right honorable Plitnick has to say about it. Although I’ll require serious meds to get through it, I’m sure I’ll benefit. It’s important to know how criticism of Israel is stiffled with the anti-Semitism charge. When and where, and what this truly means to us as a people. I look forward to these insights.

    Isidore: I’m sorry that I came off pompous with “you should know who Morris is.” It’s just…when you’re me, and you come on a site like this and read all sorts of ludicrous statements…you start to lose your patience….fast.

    You guys probably know something about coverage of the conflict…and who’s foolin’ who. I have a pretty good idea of who’s foolin’ who. But let me ask you something…you remember one headline a few months ago: Islamic Jihad steps in to mediate between Hamas and Fatah? Wasn’t it funny having a headline like that? C’mon…the punchline’s in the headline.

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81. Brother Dan: {I think d really refer to one another as the more formal “brother in public, as we are both fellow Trollsteins}.
    I know who Finkelstein is, mainly due to very abbreviated quotes here and there. References by John were honestly the first I had heard of Morris. When it comes to history, I do not find that the more’s the better, or the newer the better. My tried-and-true resources are Lewis and Dimont. Between these two authors, hundreds (if not thousands) of interesting and informative details are provided. Viewed in the aggregate, this fact-trail would be very hard to offset with the further gleaning of knowledge regarding (for example) a half-dozen shameful events which “Zionist” Jews and/or Israel were ultimately busted over. It would sort of be like finding our (for example) that “Princess Diana” had herself been drinking on the evening of the crash. At the end-of-the-day, she was not driving the car.
    I have also read the Qur’an, which would be quite uncharacteristic for ‘left-nicks’ such as those who blog herein. What is startling is the different translations and interpretations of those translations. These differences usually seem to relate to the key verses that have the most practical meaning in the law and (by proxy) in politics. For example, (in case you hadn’t read the news), consider the recent headline:
    “Woman re-interprets Koran with feminist view:”
    “NEW YORK (Reuters) – A new English-language interpretation of the Muslim Holy book the Koran challenges the use of words that feminists say have been used to justify the abuse of Islamic women. The new version, translated by an Iranian-American, will be published in April and comes after Muslim feminists from around the world gathered in New York last November and vowed to create the first women’s council to interpret the Koran and make the religion more friendly toward women. In the new book, Dr. Laleh Bakhtiar, a former lecturer on Islam at the University of Chicago, challenges the translation of the Arab word “idrib,” traditionally translated as “beat,” which feminists say has been used to justify abuse of women. “Why choose to interpret the word as ‘to beat’ when it can also mean ‘to go away’,” she writes in the introduction to the new book.”
    –end-of-quote
    http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyid=2007-03-23T002513Z_01_N21290159_RTRUKOC_0_US-KORAN-FEMINIST.xml&src=rss&rpc=22
    Anyway, as not to digress too muchly, I’ve got the picture. Noam Chomsky and his Orwellian linguistics is not about to give me an ‘epiphany’.
    I know EXACTLY why the Jews have been the world’s scapegoats and ‘escaped convicts’ for the past 2,000 years and it sounds in human nature much more so then any sort of H.G. Wells era Germanic “Zionist” ‘future fantacy’.
    PS> Finkelstein is actually the evil cousin to the Trollstein movement. Be careful with him. He knows all our secret handshakes, criptic chants and so forth.

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82. “I wanna hear what right honorable Plitnick has to say about it.”

    Has Mitchell written a book?

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83. Let me throw out a couple of statements and two questions for you to respond to, if you choose:

    As Herzl conceived it, Zionism was to be an answer to “the Jewish Question.” A hundred
    and twenty years later, that problem has been replaced by “the Arab Question.”

    Because of Arab resistance, the Zionist project has depended for its success on Israel aligning or attempting to align itself with one of the Great Powers (the Ottomans, Britain, the United States) for support.

    Does it bother you personally that Israel is still dependent for its continued existence on heavy support from a foreign power, namely the United States?

    Do you see, as one of the dividends of a lasting peace with its neighbors in the ME, that the day might someday come when Israel could truly stand on its own without being sustained by the United States at current levels?

    [Fair Disclosure Statement: I am sympathetic to cultural or religious Zionism and would consider myself a Zionist in the manner of Martin Buber, i.e. one who believes that the way to peace is not paved by power, by the methods of nationalistic domination.]

    http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/buber1.html
    http://crosscurrents.org/leon.htm
    http://www.buber.de/material/peacetalks.html

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84. PS> BTW:
    “30 hurt in fuel attack on mosque in Yemen Worshippers doused with gas before attackers locked doors, burned mosque– Updated: 3:15 a.m. ET April 7, 2007 –>
    SAN’A, Yemen – Attackers poured fuel over worshippers at a mosque in northern Yemen, locked the doors and set fire to it, wounding 30 people, the official Saba news agency reported. The attack took place Friday in the northern province of Amran, south of Saada, where troops are battling Shiite Muslim rebels who the government says want to install clerical rule in the Sunni-dominated country.”
    –end-of-quote
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17991750/
    What has the Jewish Voice for Peace to say about these expanding examples of Muslim-on-Muslim violence?? No U.S. Troops (to blame) in Yemen . .
    In the end, the Jews might be in the position of brokering (mediating) a peace between Shiite and Suni war-lords.
    Actually, such would not be unique. In the late 1800’s Balkins, Jewish Rabbis were consulted as mediators by the various other waring factions (Catholic, Russian-Orthodox and Muslim) as the only group they all would agree to trust.
    In the interum, we have served a much more valuable role as ‘decoys’, to keep them off each other.

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85. John:
    You did not specify who you are asking but I shall assume it is either myself, Dan, both, or anyone else reading.
    Did not someone warn you long ago not to “feed the trolls”?
    Regarding the support Israel gets from the USA:
    Of course I would prefer if this were not the case. Many people in the USA are resentful, both from an economic standpoint and also because some would prefer to befriend the Arabs and Muslims. Some believe that doing that would be in the USA’s best interest and American Jewish supporters of Israel are often referred to as a “Fifth column” in the fringe-right (KKK) vernacular.
    However, the stark truth remains that if not for the ongoing desire that parts of the world have to destroy Israel, Israel would not need any support from anyone. Moreover, were Israel left alone to live in peace, the citizens would contribute a greater level of benefit to the entire world, in the fields of medicine, technology and other advances. As an analog: When Henry 8th replaced the Vatican with the Church of England, all Catholic clergy were banished. It was later uncovered (in the 1990’s) that a monetary of monks had discovered the process for smelting advanced metals, 200 years before it was believed to have been invented. Since the mechanics for this process was large and difficult to construct and needed to be done subterraneously over a large area of hundreds of Sq. Feet, the technology was left behind to rot and was not replicated for 200 years. Certain historians believe that this singular event retarded the “Industrial Revolution” by 200 years.
    My point is that the average Israeli is tied up in military service for a significant portion of their lives, their economy is burdened with the expense of protecting against a surprise attack and their technology is partly dedicated to the advance of killing people, not saving them. We can not know what advances would have been. We can assume that some would have been impressive.
    You wrote:
    “ . . I am sympathetic to cultural or religious Zionism and would consider myself a Zionist . . .”
    Please forgive me for finding this statement somewhat comical.
    Please see:
    http://www.starpulse.com/Actors/Candy,_John/Trailers/460/
    Please watch John Candy’s clip. That is my first comment.
    My second comment is a rehash from earlier posts. Namely, since I am no “Zionist”, how could I acknowledge that you are? It is my belief that “Zionism” exists merely as a phantasm, both to those who love it and those who hate it. Like the “World Wrestling Federation”.
    ‘Black-Power’ advocates are no longer called “Abolitionists” and Women’s rights activists are no longer referred to as “suffragettes”. “Zionism’s” original meaning was: A voluntary end to the worldwide Diaspora, through the creation of the Jewish National Homeland. After its creation, these people became either: Israeli citizens or, supporters of Israel. “Zionists” are found in Flash Gordon episodes, even if they themselves don’t realize it.
    Thanks for the sympathy however. You wouldn’t be covertly angling yourself up for a membership in the Trollstein Order, eh?
    ):>>>={

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86. You wouldn’t be covertly angling,,,?

    Not angling for anything, covertly or otherwise. Genuinely curious as to your (pl.)opinions on those matters.

    My other statement was to indicate where I am on the spectrum vis-a-vis Israel. I put that in terms of Zionism because the “right of return” (where we started out, recall) gets into the issue of “the demographic demon” and Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state.

    “…if not for the ongoing desire that parts of the world have to destroy Israel, Israel would not need any support from anyone.”

    Exactly so. And do you think the time will come?
    Excellent points btw about what contributions are being missed.

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87. John:
    Are you sure you would like my philosophical views? Because once on that road, many things are intertwined. Here is a small preview of the “Troll-ist” doctorine.
    ):>>>={ We are but monkeys with fancy buttons that light-up pretty colors.
    Our lifestyles are unsustainable and the life-support of our planet is verging on collapse. Were we definitively worthy of saving, maybe a ‘miracle cure’ would present itself.
    The situation in the Mid East is only a symptom of the larger ailment.
    We do not treat one another the way we would like to be treated. This is (IMHO) ultimately at the root-cause of most of our woes. It has to do with the “mimic” reflex, which is hard-wired into the Primate brain and mainly subconscious. It’s a large part of how we humans learn. This process creates an acute lack of objectivity (“he said – she said”). Without this objectivity, wars (and general inefficiency) are inevitable. Since its ‘hard-wired’ there is no cure, per-se. The only work-around I know of is to think twice (perhaps thrice) before giving one’s self credit and to deny one’s self certain benefits, on general principle. This will not “even the score” because we are incapable of even keeping objective track of what the score is. It does however, evidence a level of “good-faith”. That may be all we have to work with.
    Me Easter message.

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88. my philosophical views?

    They sound very familiar. I have a good friend who expresses similar thoughts.

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89. I’ll let this stand as my Passover-Easter message. It was written a while back by Uri Avnery. It still makes a lot of sense.

    “The Right of Return”

    http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/archives_article127/

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90. John:
    You had to go for the last word. Now you’ve got me going all over again. OK. Such is the life of a Troll.
    Your linked web article states:
    “Both sides will accept it, in the end, because there is no other.”
    The “it” referenced begins with the needed acknowledgement of “historical wrongs” done by Jews to Arabs (not the other way around or even both ways). It continues with the right of all (Arab) peoples who consider themselves “refugees” to choose between either financial compensation or a “right of return”.
    It speaks of:
    “Palestinian national ethos”
    This essay is typical and pure appeasement of the side with the biggest thunder-of-boots.
    There is no “Palestinian national ethos” for two reasons: a) There is no Palestinian Nation and b) because most Palestinian-Arabs are merely non-descriptive Arabs, who’s families often originated from all the regional zones and moved to Palestine sometime in or around the 20th Century, to avail themselves of the economic opportunities. In some cases, (particularly between 1920 and 1947) they may have included the riffraff off the streets of Damascus, the pick-pockets of Cairo, or the political dissidents of Jordan. The TRUE Palestinian-Arab families, who’s roots were set in the area for hundreds of years, were a more affluent and sophisticated class, some of whom had family-members who had been Jewish and been converted to a secular variety of Islam, over the preceding decades and centuries.
    And that same thematic defect runs rampant in the entire essay. It overstates the few points where some kernel of truth exists and completely leaves out the numerous important points which might be unflattering to its desired message.
    When I visited Israel in 1984, the ONLY complaint the local Arabs had was that they wanted better paychecks. This desire grew with time as Russia began to allow their Jews to emigrate out, (after many decades of persecution and preventing their escape). It permitted the militant aspects of the ruthless leadership (then in exile) such as Mr. Arafat, to gain momentum and traction among local West Bank and Gaza Arabs.
    So I go back to the previous quote: “Both sides will accept it, in the end, because there is no other.”
    The author does NOT mention that part of the “it” must also be the end to unlimited Jewish emigration into Israel. Those are the competing interests. Its not simply the allowance of Arabs to enter but the preventing of Jews from entering at will.
    The essay conspicuously neglects to mention the $30-billion dollars offered Mr. Arafat (back when a wheel-barrel of U.S. Dollars was worth MORE then a glass of water.)
    BTW: Has anyone actually done a study to see what negative and adverse effects these Arabs (who are desire-some of ‘return’) would have on the ARAB populations already inhabiting the areas, both inside Israel and in the “PA zones”? This is the most glazed-over issue of all. Why would it be in the best interest of the existing Arab-Israeli citizens to have such masses of people dumped on their back-yard? Answer: It wouldn’t. Some may think it might but as we just saw today with the Yemen attack and sectarian war breaking out inside of Pakistan, there is no sure expectation that these competing (Arab) populations would not find themselves at each others throats.
    Lastly, without burning-out, I repeat my allegation, told to me personally by the U.N. High Commissioner of Refugees, Ruud Lubbers:
    The various host countries have consistently been blocking all efforts by the United Nations to resettle these populations into comfortable surroundings with nationalities and passports. Its AMAZING that no one other then myself ever talks about this. Its under the heading of “mitigation of damages”.
    Even if what you insist to be true (which as you know I dispute) that the Arabs were forced from their homes by conditions that would qualify them as “refugees” and therefore provide them with a “right of return”; and even if there is to be no countervailing circumstances — created by the Jews who fled for their lives from the variety of Arab countries after 1947, how does one NOT blame the host countries for keeping these people living in squallier, nation less and penniless for 60 years??? Here, at the end of the day is the unmistakable larceny and the core of the fright that the Israelis have (not a “scarecrow”). If the Arabs are willing to treat one another this way, what possible chance could the Jews have, sans their perpetual majority and ‘iron-fisted’ policies???
    The essay is a ‘bed-time story’. Very Carter-esque and as such, very dangerous because it lulls one into a false sense that the natural solution would materialize, if we just stopped chasing it away with bad-will.

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91. Isidor:

    by the way, just how many a.k.a.’s do you have? try this out … you might want to go over to Harvard and take this up with Ms. Roy.

    “How Can Children of the Holocaust Do Such Things?
    A Jewish Plea
    by Sara Roy
    April 08, 2007

    CounterPunch

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    We have nothing to lose except everything.
    Albert Camus
    During the summer my husband and I had a conversion ceremony for our adopted daughter, Jess. We took her to the mikvah, a Jewish ritual bath where she was totally submerged in a pool of living water — living because it is fed in part by heavenly rain — and momentarily suspended as we are in the womb, emerging the same yet transformed. This ritual of purification, transformation and rebirth is central to Judaism and it signifies renewal and possibility.
    The day of Jess’s conversion was also the day that Israel began its pitiless bombing of Lebanon and nearly three weeks into Israel’s violent assault on Gaza, a place that has been my second home for the last two decades. This painful juxtaposition of rebirth and destruction remains with me, weighing heavily, without respite. Yet, the link deeply forged in our construction of self as Jews, between my daughter’s acceptance into Judaism and Israel’s actions-between Judaism and Zionism — a link that I never accepted uncritically but understood as historically inevitable and understandable, is one that for me, at least, has now been broken.
    For unlike past conflicts involving Israel and the Palestinian and Arab peoples this one feels qualitatively different — a turning point — not only with regard to the nature of Israel’s horrific response — its willingness to destroy and to do so utterly — but also with regard to the virtually unqualified support of organized American Jewry for Israel’s brutal actions, something that is not new but now no longer tolerable to me.
    I grew up in a home where Judaism was defined and practiced not so much as a religion but as a system of ethics and culture. God was present but not central. Israel and the notion of a Jewish homeland were very important to my parents, who survived Auschwitz, Chelmno and Buchenwald. But unlike many of their friends, my parents were not uncritical of Israel. Obedience to a state was not a primary Jewish value, especially after the Holocaust. Judaism provided the context for Jewish life, for values and beliefs that were not dependent upon national or territorial boundaries, but transcended them to include the other, always the other. For my mother and father Judaism meant bearing witness, raging against injustice and refusing silence. It meant compassion, tolerance, and rescue. In the absence of these imperatives, they taught me, we cease to be Jews.
    Many of the people, both Jewish and others, who write about Palestinians and Arabs fail to accept the fundamental humanity of the people they are writing about, a failing born of ignorance, fear and racism. Within the organized Jewish community especially, it has always been unacceptable to claim that Arabs, Palestinians especially, are like us, that they, too, possess an essential humanity and must be included within our moral boundaries, ceasing to be “a kind of solution,” a useful, hostile “other” to borrow from Edward Said. That any attempt at separation is artificial, an abstraction.
    By refusing to seek proximity over distance, we calmly, even gratefully refuse to see what is right before our eyes. We are no longer compelled, if we ever were, to understand our behavior from positions outside our own, to enter, as Jacqueline Rose has written, into each other’s predicaments and make what is one of the hardest journeys of the mind. Hence, there is no need to maintain a living connection with the people we are oppressing, to humanize them, taking into account the experience of subordination itself, as Said would say. We are not preoccupied by our cruelty nor are we haunted by it. The task, ultimately, is to tribalize pain, narrowing the scope of human suffering to ourselves alone. Such willful blindness leads to the destruction of principle and the destruction of people, eliminating all possibility of embrace, but it gives us solace.
    Why is it so difficult, even impossible to incorporate Palestinians and other Arab peoples into the Jewish understanding of history? Why is there so little perceived need to question our own narrative (for want of a better word) and the one we have given others, preferring instead to cherish beliefs and sentiments that remain impenetrable? Why is it virtually mandatory among Jewish intellectuals to oppose racism, repression and injustice almost anywhere in the world and unacceptable — indeed, for some, an act of heresy — to oppose it when Israel is the oppressor, choosing concealment over exposure? For many among us history and memory adhere to preclude reflection and tolerance, where, in the words of Northrop Frye, “the enemy become, not people to be defeated, but embodiments of an idea to be exterminated.”
    What happens to the other as we, a broken and weary people, continually abuse him, turning him into the enemy we now want and need, secure in a prophecy that is thankfully self-fulfilling?
    What happens to a people when renewal and injustice are rapturously joined?
    A new discourse of the unconscious
    We speak without mercy, numb to the pain of others, incapable of being reached-unconscious. Our words are these:
    * ” . . . [W]e must not forget,’ wrote Ze’ev Schiff, the senior political and military analyst for the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz, “the most important aspect of this war: Hezbollah and what this terrorist organization symbolizes must be destroyed at any price. . . .What matters is not the future of the Shiite town of Bint Jbail or the Hezbollah positions in Maroun Ras, but the future and safety of the State of Israel.” “If Israel doesn’t improve its military cards in the fighting, we will feel the results in the political solution.”
    * “We must reduce to dust the villages of the south . . .” stated Haim Ramon, long known as a political dove and Israel’s Minister of Justice. “I don’t understand why there is still electricity there.” “Everyone in southern Lebanon is a terrorist and is connected to Hizbollah. . . What we should do in southern Lebanon is employ huge firepower before a ground force goes in.” Israel’s largest selling newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth put it this way: “A village from which rockets are fired at Israel will simply be destroyed by fire. This decision should have been made and executed after the first Katyusha. But better late than never.”
    * “[F]or every katyusha barrage on Haifa, 10 Dahiya buildings will be bombed,” said the IDF Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz. Eli Yishai, Israel’s Deputy Prime Minister, proposed turning south Lebanon into a “sandbox”, while Knesset member Moshe Sharoni called for the obliteration of Gaza, and Yoav Limor, a Channel 1 military correspondent, suggested an exhibition of Hezbollah corpses followed by a parade of prisoners in their underwear in order “to strengthen the home front’s morale.”
    * “Remember: distorted philosophical sensitivity [sic] to human lives will make us pay the real price of the lives of many, and the blood of our sons,” read an advertisement in Ha’aretz.
    * “[A]ccording to Jewish law,” announced the Yesha Rabbinical Council, “during a time of battle and war, there is no such term as ‘innocents of the enemy’.”
    * “But speaking from our own Judaic faith and legal legacy,” argued the Rabbinical Council of America, “we believe that Judaism would neither require nor permit a Jewish soldier to sacrifice himself in order to save deliberately endangered enemy civilians. This is especially true when confronting a barbaric enemy who would by such illicit, consistent, and systematic means seek to destroy not only the Jewish soldier, but defeat and destroy the Jewish homeland. New realities do indeed require new responses.”
    * The Israeli author, Naomi Ragan, after learning that many of the war dead in Lebanon were children, wrote “Save your sympathy for the mothers and sisters and girlfriends of our young soldiers who would rather be sitting in study halls learning Torah, but have no choice but to risk their precious lives full of hope, goodness and endless potential, to wipe out the cancerous terrorist cells that threaten their people and all mankind. Make your choice, and save your tears.”
    Many of us, perhaps most, have declared that all Palestinians and Lebanese are the enemy, threatening our — Israel and the Jewish people’s — existence. Everyone we kill and every house we demolish is therefore a military target, legitimate and deserving. Terrorism is part of their culture and we must strengthen our ability to deter. Negotiation, to paraphrase the Israeli scholar, Yehoshua Porat, writing during the 1982 Lebanon war, is a “veritable catastrophe for Israel.” The battlefield will preserve us.
    The French critic and historian, Hippolyte Taine, observed:
    “Imagine a man who sets out on a voyage equipped with a pair of spectacles that magnify things to an extraordinary degree. A hair on his hand, a spot on the tablecloth, the shifting fold of a coat, all will attract his attention; at this rate, he will not go far, he will spend his day taking six steps and will never get out of his room.”

    We are content in our room and seek no exit.
    In our room, compassion and conscience are dismissed as weakness, where pinpoint surgical strikes constitute restraint and civility and momentary ceasefires, acts of humanity and kindness. “Leave your home, we are going to destroy it.” Several minutes later another home in Gaza, another history, is taken, crushed. The warning, though, is not for them but for us-it makes us good and clean. What better illustration of our morality: when a call to leave one’s home minutes before it is bombed is considered a humane gesture.
    Our warnings have another purpose: they make our actions legitimate and our desire for legitimacy is unbounded, voracious. This is perhaps the only thing Palestinians (and now the Lebanese) have withheld from us, this object of our desire. If legitimacy will not be bestowed then it must be created. This explains Israel’s obsession with laws and legalities to insure in our own eyes that we do not transgress, making evil allowable by widening the parameters of license and transgression. In this way we insure our goodness and morality, through a piece of paper, which is enough for us.
    What are Jews now capable of resisting: tyranny? Oppression? Occupation? Injustice? We resist none of these things, no more. For too many among us they are no longer evil but necessary and good-we cannot live, survive without them. What does that make us? We look at ourselves and what do we see: a non-Jew, a child, whose pain we inflict effortlessly, whose death is demanded and unquestioned, bearing validity and purpose.
    What do we see: a people who now take pleasure in hating others. Hatred is familiar to us if nothing else. We understand it and it is safe. It is what we know. We do not fear our own distortion — do we even see it? — but the loss of our power to deter, and we shake with a violent palsy at a solution that shuns the suffering of others. Our pathology is this: it lies in our struggle to embrace a morality we no longer possess and in our need for persecution of a kind we can no longer claim but can only inflict.
    We are remote from the conscious world — brilliantly ignorant, blindly visionary, unable to resist from within. We live in an unchanging place, absent of season and reflection, devoid of normality and growth, and most important of all, emptied-or so we aim — of the other. A ghetto still but now, unlike before, a ghetto of our own making.
    What is our narrative of victory and defeat? What does it mean to win? Bombed cars with white civilian flags still attached to their windows? More dead and dismembered bodies of old people and children littered throughout villages that have been ravaged? An entire country disabled and broken? Non-ending war? This is our victory, our achievement, something we seek and applaud. And how do we measure defeat? Losing the will to continue the devastation? Admitting to our persecution of others, something we have never done?
    We can easily ignore their suffering, cut them from their food, water, electricity, and medicine, confiscate their land, demolish their crops and deny them egress — suffocate them, our voices stilled. Racism does not allow us to see Arabs as we see ourselves; that is why we rage when they do not fail from weakness but instead we find ourselves failing from strength. Yet, in our view it is we who are the only victims, vulnerable and scarred. All we have is the unnaturalness of our condition.
    As an unconscious people, we have perhaps reached our nadir with many among us now calling for a redefinition of our ethics-the core of who we are — to incorporate the need to kill women and children if Jewish security required it. “New realities do indeed require new responses,” says the Rabbinical Council of America. Now, for us, violence is creation and peace is destruction.
    Ending the process of creation and rebirth after the Holocaust
    Can we be ordinary, an essential part of our rebirth after the Holocaust? Is it possible to be normal when we seek refuge in the margin, and remedy in the dispossession and destruction of another people? How can we create when we acquiesce so willingly to the demolition of homes, construction of barriers, denial of sustenance, and ruin of innocents? How can we be merciful when, to use Rose’s words, we seek “omnipotence as the answer to historical pain?” We refuse to hear their pleading, to see those chased from their homes, children incinerated in their mother’s arms. Instead we tell our children to inscribe the bombs that will burn Arab babies.
    We argue that we must eliminate terrorism. What do we really know of their terrorism, and of ours? What do we care? Rather, with language that is denuded and infested-give them more time to bomb so that Israel’s borders can be natural-we engage repeatedly in a war of desire, a war not thrust upon us but of our own choosing, ingratiating ourselves with the power to destroy others and insensate to the death of our own children. What happens to a nation, asks the Israeli writer David Grossman, that cannot save its own child, words written before his own son was killed in Lebanon?
    There are among Israelis real feelings of vulnerability and fear, never resolved but used, intensified. Seeing one’s child injured or killed is the most horrible vision — Israelis are vulnerable, far more than other Jews. Yet, we as a people have become a force of extremism, of chaos and disorder, trying to plow an unruly sea-addicted to death and cruelty, intoxicated, with one ambition: to mock the pauper.
    Judaism has always prided itself on reflection, critical examination, and philosophical inquiry. The Talmudic mind examines a sentence, a word, in a multitude of ways, seeking all possible interpretations and searching constantly for the one left unsaid. Through such scrutiny it is believed comes the awareness needed to protect the innocent, prevent injury or harm, and be closer to God.
    Now, these are abhorred, eviscerated from our ethical system. Rather the imperative is to see through eyes that are closed, unfettered by investigation. We conceal our guilt by remaining the abused, despite our power, creating situations where our victimization is assured and our innocence affirmed. We prefer this abyss to peace, which would hurl us unacceptably inward toward awareness and acknowledgement.
    Jews do not feel shame over what they have created: an inventory of inhumanity. Rather we remain oddly appeased, even calmed by the desolation. Our detachment allows us to bear such excess (and commit it), to sit in Jewish cafes while Palestinian mothers are murdered in front of their children in Gaza. I can now better understand how horror occurs-how people, not evil themselves, can allow evil to happen. We salve our wounds with our incapacity for remorse, which will be our undoing.
    Instead the Jewish community demands unity and conformity: “Stand with Israel” read the banners on synagogues throughout Boston last summer. Unity around what? There is enormous pressure — indeed coercion — within organized American Jewry to present an image of “wall to wall unity” as a local Jewish leader put it. But this unity is an illusion — at its edges a smoldering flame rapidly engulfing its core — for mainstream Jewry does not speak for me or for many other Jews. And where such unity exists, it is hollow built around fear not humanity, on the need to understand reality as it has long been constructed for us — with the Jew as the righteous victim, the innocent incapable of harm. It is as if our unbending support for Israel’s militarism “requires putting our minds as it were into Auschwitz where being a Jew puts your existence on the line. To be Jewish means to be threatened, nothing more. Hence, the only morality we can acknowledge is saving Israel and by extension, ourselves.” Within this paradigm, it is dissent not conformity that will diminish and destroy us. We hoard our victimization as we hoard our identity — they are one — incapable of change, a failing that will one day result in our own eviction. Is this what Zionism has done to Judaism?
    Israel’s actions not only demonstrate the limits of Israeli power but our own limitations as a people: our inability to live a life without barriers, to free ourselves from an ethnic loyalty that binds and contorts, to emerge, finally, from our spectral chamber.
    Ending the (filial) link between Israel and the Holocaust
    How can the children of the Holocaust do such things, they ask? But are we really their rightful offspring?
    As the Holocaust survivor dies, the horror of that period and its attendant lessons withdraw further into abstraction and for some Jews, many of them in Israel, alienation. The Holocaust stands not as a lesson but as an internal act of purification where tribal attachment rather than ethical responsibility is demanded and used to define collective action. Perhaps this was an inevitable outcome of Jewish nationalism, of applying holiness to politics, but whatever its source, it has weakened us terribly and cost us greatly.
    Silvia Tennenbaum, a survivor and activist writes: “No matter what great accomplishments were ours in the diaspora, no matter that we produced Maimonides and Spinoza, Moses Mendelssohn and hundreds of others of mankind’s benefactors — not a warrior among them! — we look at the world of our long exile always in the dark light of the Shoah. But this, in itself, is an obscene distortion: would the author . . . Primo Levi, or the poet Paul Celan demand that we slaughter the innocents in a land far from the snow-clad forests of Poland? Is it a heroic act to murder a child, even the child of an enemy? Are my brethren glad and proud? . . . And, it goes without saying, loyal Jews must talk about the Holocaust. Ignore the images of today’s dead and dying and focus on the grainy black and white pictures showing the death of Jews in the villages of Poland, at Auschwitz and Sobibor and Bergen-Belsen. We are the first, the only true victims, the champions of helplessness for all eternity.”
    What did my family perish for in the ghettos and concentration camps of Poland? Is their role to be exploited and in the momentary absence of violence, to be forgotten and abandoned?
    Holocaust survivors stood between the past and the present, bearing witness, sometimes silently, and even in word, often unheard. Yet, they stood as a moral challenge among us and also as living embodiments of a history, way of life and culture that long predated the Holocaust and Zionism (and that Zionism has long denigrated), refusing, in their own way, to let us look past them. Yet, this generation is nearing its end and as they leave us, I wonder what is truly left to take their place, to fill the moral void created by their absence?
    Is it, in the words of a friend, himself a Jew, a “memory manufactory, with statues, museums and platoons of ‘scholars’ designed to preserve, indeed ratchet up Jewish feelings of persecution and victimhood, a Hitler behind every Katyusha or border skirmish, which must be met with some of the same crude slaughterhouse tools the Nazis employed against the Jews six decades ago: ghettos, mass arrests and the denigration of their enemy’s humanity?” Do we now measure success in human bodies and in carnage, arguing that our dead bodies are worth more than theirs, our children more vulnerable and holy, more in need of protection and love, their corpses more deserving of shrouds and burial? Is meaning for us to be derived from martyrdom or from children born with a knife in their hearts? Is this how my grandmother and grandfather are to be remembered?
    Our tortured past and its images trespass upon our present not only in Israel but in Gaza and Lebanon as well. “They were temporarily buried in an empty lot with dozens of others,” writes a New York Times reporter in Lebanon. “They were assigned numbers, his wife and daughter. Alia is No. 35 and Sally is No. 67. ‘They are numbers now,’ said the father. There are no names anymore.”
    “They were shrunken figures, dehydrated and hungry,” observes the Washington Post. “Some had lived on candy bars, others on pieces of dry bread. Some were shell-shocked, their faces blank . . . One never made it. He was carried out on a stretcher, flies landing on lifeless eyes that were still open.”
    As the rightful claimants to our past we should ask, How much damage can be done to a soul? But we do not ask. We do not question the destruction but only our inability to complete it, to create more slaughter sites.
    Can we ever emerge from our torpor, able to mourn the devastation?
    Our ultimate eviction?
    Where do Jews belong? Where is our place? Is it in the ghetto of a Jewish state whose shrinking boundaries threaten, one day, to evict us? We are powerful but not strong. Our power is our weakness, not our strength, because it is used to instill fear rather than trust, and because of that, it will one day destroy us if we do not change. More and more we find ourselves detached from our past, suspended and abandoned, alone, without anchor, aching-if not now, eventually-for connection and succor. Grossman has written that as a dream fades it does not become a weaker force but a more potent one, desperately clung to, even as it ravages and devours.
    We consume the land and the water behind walls and steel gates forcing out all others. What kind of place are we creating? Are we fated to be an intruder in the dust to borrow from Faulkner, whose presence shall evaporate with the shifting sands? Are these the boundaries of our rebirth after the Holocaust?
    I have come to accept that Jewish power and sovereignty and Jewish ethics and spiritual integrity are, in the absence of reform, incompatible, unable to coexist or be reconciled. For if speaking out against the wanton murder of children is considered an act of disloyalty and betrayal rather than a legitimate act of dissent, and where dissent is so ineffective and reviled, a choice is ultimately forced upon us between Zionism and Judaism.
    Rabbi Hillel the Elder long ago emphasized ethics as the center of Jewish life. Ethical principles or their absence will contribute to the survival or destruction of our people. Yet, today what we face is something different and possibly more perverse: it is not the disappearance of our ethical system but its rewriting into something disfigured and execrable.
    As Jews in a post-Holocaust world empowered by a Jewish state, how do we as a people emerge from atrocity and abjection, empowered and also humane, something that still eludes us? How do we move beyond fear and omnipotence, beyond innocence and militarism, to envision something different, even if uncertain? “How,” asks Ahad Haam, the founding father of cultural Zionism, “do you make a nation pause for thought?”
    For many Jews (and Christians), the answer lies in a strong and militarized Jewish state. For others, it is found in the very act of survival. For my parents-defeating Hitler meant living a moral life. They sought a world where “affirmation is possible and . . . dissent is mandatory,” where our capacity to witness is restored and sanctioned, where we as a people refuse to be overcome by the darkness.
    Can we ever turn away from our power to destroy?
    It is here that I want to share a story from my family, to describe a moment that has inspired all of my work and writing.
    My mother and her sister had just been liberated from concentration camp by the Russian army. After having captured all the Nazi officials and guards who ran the camp, the Russian soldiers told the Jewish survivors that they could do whatever they wanted to their German persecutors. Many survivors, themselves emaciated and barely alive, immediately fell on the Germans, ravaging them. My mother and my aunt, standing just yards from the terrible scene unfolding in front of them, fell into each other’s arms weeping. My mother, who was the physically stronger of the two, embraced my aunt, holding her close and my aunt, who had difficulty standing, grabbed my mother as if she would never let go. She said to my mother, “We cannot do this. Our father and mother would say this is wrong. Even now, even after everything we have endured, we must seek justice, not revenge. There is no other way.” My mother, still crying, kissed her sister and the two of them, still one, turned and walked away.
    What then is the source of our redemption, our salvation? It lies ultimately in our willingness to acknowledge the other-the victims we have created-Palestinian, Lebanese and also Jewish-and the injustice we have perpetrated as a grieving people. Perhaps then we can pursue a more just solution in which we seek to be ordinary rather then absolute, where we finally come to understand that our only hope is not to die peacefully in our homes as one Zionist official put it long ago but to live peacefully in those homes.
    When my daughter Jess was submerged under the waters of the mikvah for the third and final time, she told me she saw rainbows under the water. I shall take this beautiful image as a sign of her rebirth and plead desperately for ours.”

    Sara Roy is Senior Research Scholar, Center for Middle Eastern Studie, Harvard University. “A Jewish Plea” will be published in The War on Lebanon: A Reader . Nubar Hovsepian (ed), Interlink Publishing, Spring 2007. Sara Roy can be reached at sroy@fas.harvard.edu

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92. I wish I could contribute more to this blog. I skimmed the last few messages. Just to address a few:

    Plitnick does indeed have a book. Something on the abuse of anti-Semitism. (played!) I think someone should write a book on how the abuse of anti-Semitism is itself misinterpreted and miscast….to a gullible and uneducated public.

    Other than a few Foxman references, I’m sure it’ll be scarce on details.

    Just to bring me back from the dark side, I got Karsh’s book on the new historians. I’ve heard it tears to shreds most of what they did. It’s called “Fabricating Israeli History…something or rather..” I call it a comfort book.

    What else?? Oh, I saw John’s reference to Martin Buber. It’s funny how we’re tossing around all these names, while other young people are talking about athletes or something.
    I feel like we should be on a stoop, comparing trading cards…Sure, Buber batted .327 in ’21…but nobody could run down a fly ball like Ahad Am.

    John, did you write up there that the “Arab problem” has replaced the Jewish problem? I…I…I don’t want to address something like that. At least not on here. It would have to be at a public debate. Which by the way, we should all set up. Who’s game? Isidor????

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93. Dan said,

    ” I got Karsh’s book on the new historians. I’ve heard it tears to shreds most of what they did.”

    Actually, I would welcome discussion of Karsh’s book. I have not read it. But it would bring the discussion here from 1980’s, pre-archive-based books to current state of the art in historical writing. Assuming anyone still wants to discuss 1948. I don’t know about that, but it may be unavoidable at some point since, as Morris says, at the core of the conflict are still the refugees.

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94. SOLVET ET COAGULA…
    QUIEN ME VA HA ENTRAGAR LAS LLAVES DE MIS PALACIOS. (yasir arafat)
    QUIEN ME VA HA ENTRAGAR LAS LLAVES DE MIS PALACIOS. (yasir arafat)
    QUIEN ME VA HA ENTRAGAR LAS LLAVES DE MIS PALACIOS. (yasir arafat)
    Gracias, sus datos han sido recibidos con éxito.
    Le responderemos lo antes posible.
    Nombre: ROBERTO
    Apellidos: GONZALEZ DOMINGUEZ ALA
    Email: cutulu@hotmail.com
    Comentarios: INMORTALIDAD SOBRE UNA ROCA. VIVA LA REPUBLICA… ?????? ???????? ???????? ???? : ?????? ?????? 2006 ?? ?????? 5:43 1 -?????? ???????? ???????? ???? : ??? ????? 2006 ?? ?????? 7:07 ???? ?? ??? ?? ?? ??? ??? ?????????? ???? ????? ???? ??????.?? ????? ???????? ?? ?????? ??????.????? ????? ???????? ??? arcángel ?????? ?? ?? ???? ?? ??????? ?? ???? ?????? ?????? ? ????????? ?? ??? ???? ???????? ?? ?????.??? ??? ???? ????? ?? ???? ????? ??????? ? ????? ?? ?? ????.??? ???? ?? ?? ????? ???? ?????? ?? ???.??? ?????? ?? ?????????? ??? ???? ?? ??????? ?? ?? ?? ?????? ?????? ??????????? ??? ?? ??? ???? ???????????? ???? ?? ??? ??? ???? ????????? ??????? ???? ??? ??? ?? ?? ???? ?? ?????????? ??? ??? ????? ???? ????? ???? ? ??? ??? ????? ???????? ???? ??? ???????? ????? ????? ?? ???? ?????? ?? ????? ???? ???? ??? ?????.?? ???? ????? ??? ??? ??? ? ?? ????????????????? ???? ?? ????? ???? ????? ? ??? ???? ????? ?? ?????????? ?? licantropía.?????? ????? ?????? ?? ????? ???? ?????? ???? ??????? ?? ???????? ? ?? ???? ??????.????? ??? ?? ?????? ?????? ???? ????? ???? ??? ??? ?? ?????????? ???? ??? ????? ??? ?????.????? ???? ?? ?????? ?? ?????? ???? ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ??? ?? ??? ????? ???????? ??? ?? ?????? ? ??? ???? ??? ?????? ? ?????????? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ?? ??? ?????? ??? ????? ??? ????? ???? ???? ?? ??????? ???? ????.?????? ?? ???? ???? ?? ????? ?? ????? ? ??? ?????????? ???????? ??? ??? ??????? ???? ???? ?? ????? ??? ?? ??? ?????.??? ???? ????? ???? ???????? ?? ???? ?????? ???? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ?????? ??? ?? ???? ???? ??????? ??????? ??????? ? ???? ?? ???? ?????? ??????? ???? ??? ???? ??????? ???? ???? ????? ????? ??? ???? ?? ????? ???????? ???????.??? ???? ???? ?? ???? ??? ???? ????? ??? ???? ????? ????? ?????? ??????? ??????? ??? ???? ???? ?? ???? ???? ????.????? ????? ?????? ????????? ?? ??? ????.??? ?? ?? ???? ??????? ?????? ???? ?? ???? ???? ?? ?????.??? ?????? ????????? ?? ????? ?????? ?????????? ??????.???????? ??????? ???? ???? ????.?? ???? ?? ???? ??????? ???? ??? ??????.?????? ?????? ?? ???? ??????.???.???? ???????? ??? ?????? : ????? : ???????? ?????? ??? ??????? : ???? ???????? – ? ?? nombre :?????? ???????? ???????? ROBERTO GONZALEZ DOMINGUEZ Says: September 7th, 2006 at 5:43 pm 1. Roberto Gonzalez Dominguez Says: August 31st, 2006 at 7:07 pm Soy la persona que esta dentro de cada cuadro, inclusive se podría decir que son mis pensamientos. En diferentes religiones poseo distintos títulos. Para unos soy un santo, para otros soy un arcángel y para otros cuantos uno de los cuatro jinetes del Apocalipsis, Poseidon, Adan, el Ala que dibuja Leonardo Da Vinci. También se podría decir que mi perro es el diablo, pues estoy dentro de cada cuadro. Desde que nací tuve la decisión de quedarme con mis padres. Los Ángeles o músicos comenzaron a dedicarme todas sus canciones o a develar mis sentimientos por medio de la música, de igual forma comenzaron a dedicarme la mayoría de las películas, pues soy una de las pocas persona que poseen la piedra filosofal o sea cada libro que lea por mas fantasioso que este, comienza a volverse realidad para mi, aunque para algunas personas y religiones también soy un alquimista, se podría decir que mi melena son los cuadros que existen por el universo. Por cada libro que leo por mas fantasioso que este, se me viene un problema y comienza a volverse realidad para mi, aun asi hable sobre vampirismo o licantropía. A veces convierto el agua en vino de la tanta sangre que derramare en un futuro, o en mi nombre se derramo. Gracias a todos mis títulos se podría decir que fui el creador del vampirismo y el primer hombre lobo sobre la tierra. También podría decirles muchas cosas sobre el más viejo de los vampiros, y que algunos como David Copperfild aun siguen con vida, que Buda ni Cristo no están muertos, y que hay otros tres tipos de vampiros en este planeta incluyéndonos a nosotros mismos, pues el que me ve jamás muere. Aunque a veces me sano con las lunas del agua, también me emborracho, o emborracho a las personas con las lunas que aparecen en el agua cuando agito un vaso. De igual forma me protejo y platico con un rayo láser que recibo desde el profundo espacio exterior, que para muchos seria una súper computadora, pues no hay pregunta imposible para el, aunque se puede manipular para que cure a todas las personas, aun no hay personas que financien mis proyectos. Como despedida podría decirles que cuando nací me fui oliendo el cuadro de un personaje pobre, que un tío colgó en la pared de la casa de mi abuela. Talvez por ello los animales todo el día plieguen. Me tengo que financiar para adherir mi existencia con la de los cuadros. Tengo las llaves del vaticano en mi pueblo protegidas por el subcomandante Marcos. Al dalai lama cortando cabezas en mi pais. A Bin Laden tomandose video en el estado. Y decenas de reyes en mi correo. Tambien recibo mis propias ordenes desde el espacio hacia mi ordenador. Bendiciones de Ayatola, Mohamad y Tolomeo. Todas las fotos me las dedican el papa Juan Pablo II y Yaser Arafat. Todo esta planeado por la diferencia de calendario. Desde Oriente Proximo.Atte. ALA Donaciones No. de Cuenta: 5470 4649 4172 0516 Tipo de tarjeta: UNI Santander-K Banco: Santander Serfin Mi nombre: Roberto Gonzalez Dominguez ROBERTO GONZALEZ DOMINGUEZ Says: September 7th, 2006 AT 5:43 p.m. 1. Roberto Gonzalez Dominguez Says: August 31st, 2006 AT 7:07 p.m. I am the person who this within each picture, inclusively could be said that they are my thoughts. In different religions I have different titles. For I am santo, for others I am arcángel and for other whichever one of the four riders of the Apocalypse, Poseidon, They accept, the Ala that Leonardo Da draws Vinci. Also it would be possible to be said that my dog is the devil, because I am within each picture. Ever since I was born I with my parents had the decision to have left. Los Angeles or musicians began to dedicate all their songs to me or to reveal my feelings by means of music, similarly began to dedicate to me most of the films, because I am one of the few person that has the filosofal stone that is each book that reads by but fantasioso which this, begins to become reality for my, although for some people and religions also I am an alchemist, would be possible to be said that my melena is the pictures that exist by the universe. By each book which I read by but fantasioso which this, a problem comes to me and begins to become reality for, even so it speaks on vampirismo or licantropía. Sometimes I turn the water wine of as much blood that will spill in the future, or my name flare. Thanks to all my titles could be said that I was the creator of the vampirismo and the first man wolf on the Earth. Also it could say many things to them on oldest of the vampires, and that some as David Copperfild even follows with life, that Buddha nor Christ are not deads, and that are other three types of vampires in this planet including us to we ourself, because the one who never see me dies. Although sometimes I heal myself with moons of the water, also me emborracho, or emborracho to the people with the moons that appear in the water when I shake a glass. Similarly I protect myself and platico with a laser beams that receipt from the deep deep space, that stops a many serious super computer, because there is no impossible question for, although can be manipulated so that it cures to all the people, not yet are people who finance my projects. As dismissed it could say to them that when I was born I was smelling the picture of a poor personage, who an uncle hung in the wall of the house of my grandmother. Talvez for that reason the animals all the day fold. I must myself finance to adhere my existence with the one of the pictures. I have the keys of the Vatican in my town protected by the subcommander Marks. To dalai it licks cutting heads in my country. To Bin Laden taking itself video in the state. And tens of kings in my mail. Atte. ALA Donations Not of Account: 5470 4649 4172 0516 Bank: Santander Serfin Type of card: UNI Santander-K Mi nombre: Roberto Gonzalez Dominguez DOMINGUEZ de GONZALEZ de ROBE
    RTO dit : 7 septembre 2006 CHEZ 5:43 P.M. 1. Roberto Gonzalez Dominguez indique : 31 août 2006 CHEZ 7:07 P.M. Je suis la personne que ceci dans chaque image, inclusivement pourrait être dit qu\’ils sont mes pensées. Dans différentes religions j\’ai différents titres. Pour moi suis santo, parce que d\’autres je suis arc?el et pour l\’autre celui qu\’un des quatre cavaliers de l\’apocalypse, ils acceptent, Poseidon, l\’aile du nez que Leonardo Da dessine Vinci. En outre il serait possible d\’être dit que mon chien est le diable, parce que je suis dans chaque image. Depuis que je suis né I avec mes parents a eu la décision à être partie. Los Angeles ou musiciens a commencé à consacrer toutes leurs chansons à moi ou à indiquer mes sentiments au moyen de musique, a pareillement commencé à consacrer à moi que la plupart des films, parce que je suis un de la quelque personne qui a la pierre filosofal qui est chaque livre par lequel lit mais le fantasioso qui ceci, commencent à devenir réalité pour le mon, bien que pour certains et religions également je sois un alchimiste, seraient possibles pour être dites que mon melena est les images qui existent par l\’univers. Par chaque livre par lequel je lis mais fantasioso pour lequel ceci, un problème vient à moi et commence à devenir réalité, néanmoins il parle du vampirismo ou licantrop? parfois je tourne le vin de l\’eau autant de sang qui se renversera à l\’avenir, ou de ma fusée nommée. On pourrait dire grâce à tous mes titres que j\’étais le créateur du vampirismo et du premier loup d\’homme sur la terre. En outre elle pourrait indiquer beaucoup de choses à elle sur plus vieux des vampires, et que certains comme David Copperfild suit même avec la vie, que Bouddha ni Christ ne sont pas des deads, et ce sont trois autres types de vampires en cette planète comprenant nous nous ourself, parce que celui qui ne me voient jamais des matrices. Bien que parfois je me guérisse avec des lunes de l\’eau, aussi moi emborracho, ou emborracho aux personnes avec les lunes qui apparaissent dans l\’eau quand je secoue un verre. De même je me protège et le platico avec les rayons laser qui acquittent de l\’espace profond profond, ces arrête des beaucoup d\’ordinateur superbe sérieux, parce qu\’il n\’y a aucune question impossible pour, bien que puisse être manoeuvré de sorte qu\’elle traite à toutes personnes, sont pas encore les gens qui financent mes projets. Car écarté lui pourrait dire à eux que quand je suis né je sentais l\’image d\’une pauvre personnalité, qu\’un oncle a accrochée dans le mur de la maison de ma grand-mère. Talvez pour cette raison les animaux tout pli de jour. Je dois moi-même financer pour adhérer mon existence avec celle des images. J\’ai les clefs de Vatican en ma ville protégée par les marques de subcommander. Au dalai il lèche des têtes de découpage dans mon pays. À Ben Laden se prenant visuel dans l\’état. Et dizaines de rois dans mon courrier. Atte. Donations d\’AILE DU NEZ pas de compte : banque 5470 4649 4172 0516 : Type de Santander Serfin de carte : Nombre d\’UNI Santander-k mille : Roberto Gonzalez Dominguez DOMINGUEZ del GONZALEZ del ROBERTO dice: 7 settembre 2006 a 5:43 P.m. 1. Roberto Gonzalez Dominguez dice: 31 agosto 2006 a 7:07 P.m. Sono la persona che questo all\’interno di ogni immagine, potrebbe dirsi complessivamente che sono i miei pensieri. Nelle religioni differenti ho titoli differenti. Per sono santo, dato che altri sono arc?el e per l\’altro quale uno dei quattro riders del Apocalypse, Poseidon, accetta, il Ala che Leonardo Da disegna Vinci. Inoltre sarebbe possibile da dirsi che il mio cane è il diavolo, perché sono all\’interno di ogni immagine. Da quando sono stato sopportato la I con i miei genitori ha avuta la decisione da lasciare. Los Angeles o i musicisti ha cominciato a dedicare tutte le loro canzoni a me o a rivelare le mie sensibilità per mezzo di musica, similmente ha cominciato a dedicare a me che la maggior parte delle pellicole, perché sono uno della poca persona che ha la pietra filosofal che è ogni libro da che legge ma fantasioso che questo, comincia a trasformarsi in nella realtà per il mio, anche se per alcune gente e religioni inoltre sono un alchemist, sarebbe possibile per dirsi che il mio melena è le immagini che esistono dall\’universo. Da ogni libro da cui leggo ma dal fantasioso cui questo, un problema viene a me e comincia a trasformarsi in nella realtà per, nondimeno parla sul vampirismo o licantrop? a volte giro il vino dell\’acqua di tant\’anima che si rovescerà in avvenire, o del mio chiarore nome. Grazie a tutti i miei titoli potrebbero dirsi che ero il creatore del vampirismo e del primo lupo dell\’uomo sulla terra. Inoltre potrebbe dire molte cose a loro su più vecchio dei vampires e che alcuni come David Copperfild persino segue con vita, che Buddha né Christ non è deads e quello è altri tre tipi di vampires in questo pianeta compreso noi noi ourself, perché quello chi non lo vedono mai dadi. Anche se a volte mi guar con le lune dell\’acqua, anche me emborracho, o emborracho alla gente con le lune che compaiono nell\’acqua quando agito un vetro. Mi proteggo similmente e il platico con i fasci laser che fanno una ricevuta dallo spazio profondo profondo, quei arresta i molti calcolatore eccellente serio, perché non ci è domanda impossibile per, anche se può essere maneggiato in modo che curi a tutta la gente, non ancora è la gente che finanzia i miei progetti. Poichè allontanato esso potrebbe dire a loro che quando sono stato sopportato stavo sentendo l\’odore dell\’immagine di povero personage, che uno zio ha appeso nella parete della casa della mia nonna. Talvez per quel motivo gli animali tutto il popolare di giorno. Devo io stesso finanziare per aderirmi la mia esistenza con quella delle immagini. Ho le chiavi del Vatican nella mia città protetta dai contrassegni del subcommander. Al dalai lecca le teste d\’attacco nel mio paese. A Bin Laden che si prende video nel dichiarare. E dieci dei re nella mia posta. Atte. Donazioni del ALA non del cliente: banca 5470 4649 4172 0516: Tipo de Santander Serfin di scheda: Nombre di UNI Santander-K miglio: Roberto Gonzalez Dominguez ROBERTO GONZALEZ DOMINGUEZ sagt: 7. September 2006 BEI 5:43 P.M. 1. Roberto Gonzalez Dominguez sagt: 31. August 2006 BEI 7:07 P.M. Ich bin die Person, die dieses innerhalb jeder Abbildung, einschließlich gesagt werden könnte, die sie meine Gedanken sind. In den unterschiedlichen Religionen habe ich unterschiedliche Titel. Für bin mich santo, denn andere bin ich arc?el und für anderes welches einer der vier Mitfahrer der Apocalypse, Poseidon, sie annehmen, der Ala, daß Leonardo Da Vinci zeichnet. Auch gesagt zu werden würde sein möglich, das mein Hund der Teufel ist, weil ich innerhalb jeder Abbildung bin. Seitdem ich geboren war, hatte I mit meinen Eltern die Entscheidung zum verlassen zu haben. Los Angeles oder Musiker fingen, alle ihre Liede mir einzuweihen an oder meine Gefühle mittels der Musik aufzudecken, anfingen ähnlich, mir einzuweihen, den, die meisten Filmen anfängt, weil ich einer der wenigen Person bin, die den filosofal Stein hat, der jedes Buch das liest aber fantasioso das dieses, Wirklichkeit für mein zu werden, obgleich für einige Leute und Religionen auch ich ein Alchemist bin, würde sein möglich, um gesagt zu werden, das mein melena die ist durch, Abbildungen ist, die durch das Universum bestehen. Durch jedes Buch, das ich aber fantasioso, das dieses, ein Problem zu mir kommt und, zu werden anfängt Wirklichkeit lese durch, für, allerdings spricht es über vampirismo, oder licantrop? manchmal drehe ich den Wasserwein so vielen Bluts, der zukünftig verschüttet, oder meines Namensaufflackerns. Dank alle meine Titel konnten gesagt werden, die ich der Schöpfer des vampirismo und des ersten Mannwolfs auf der Masse war. Auch sie könnte viele Sachen zu ihnen auf ältestem der Vampires sagen und daß einige, wie David Copperfild sogar mit dem Leben folgt, daß Buddha noch Christ nicht deads sind und die andere drei Arten Vampires in diesem Planete
    n einschließlich uns wir ourself, weil das sind, wer mich nie Würfel sehen. Obgleich mich manchmal ich mit Monden des Wassers heile, auch ich emborracho oder emborracho zu den Leuten mit den Monden, die im Wasser erscheinen, wenn ich ein Glas rüttele. Ähnlich schütze mich ich und platico mit den Laserstrahlen, die vom tiefen Weltraum quittieren, diesen stoppt viele ernster Supercomputer, weil es keine unmögliche Frage für, obgleich manipuliert werden kann, damit sie zu allen Leuten kuriert, sind nicht schon Leute gibt, die meine Projekte finanzieren. Da entlassen ihm zu ihnen sagen könnte daß, als ich geboren war, roch ich die Abbildung einer armen Persönlichkeit, die ein Onkel in die Wand des Hauses meiner Großmutter hing. Talvez aus diesem Grund die Tiere alle Tagesfalte. Ich muß selbst finanzieren, um mein Bestehen mit dem der Abbildungen zu haften. Ich habe die Schlüssel des Vatican in meiner Stadt, die durch die subcommander Markierungen geschützt wird. Zum dalai leckt es Ausschnittköpfe in meinem Land. Zu Bin Laden, der video im Zustand sich nimmt. Und 10 Könige in meiner Post. Atte. ALA Abgaben nicht des Kontos: Bank 5470 4649 4172 0516: Santander Serfin Art der Karte: UNI Santander-k Meile nombre: Roberto Gonzalez Dominguez 1. Roberto Gonzalez Dominguez diz: Agosto 31o, 2006 em 7:07 pm Cuadro de esta dentro de cada do que do persona do la do Soy, pensamientos inclusivos do mis do filho do que do podr?decir do SE. T?los dos distintos do poseo dos religiones dos diferentes do En. Santo do un do soy dos unos de Parágrafos, jinetes del Apocalipsis de cuantos uno de los cuatro dos otros do arc?el y parágrafo do un do soy dos otros de parágrafos, Adan, Poseidon, dibuja Leonardo Da Vinci do que do Ala do EL. EL diablo do es do perro da milha do que do podr?decir de Tambi?se, cuadro estoy de dentro de cada dos pues. Padres do mis do con do quedarme do decisi?e do la do nac?uve do que de Desde. O comenzaron dos m?sicos dos ?geles o de Los os canciones o de um sus dos todas do dedicarme sentimientos develar por medio de la m?sica de um mis, comenzaron igual do forma do de pel?las dos las de um mayor?de do la do dedicarme, que do persona de soy una de las pocas dos pues poseen o este filosofal do que do fantasioso dos mas do por do lea do que do libro do cada do mar do piedra o do la, comienza um realidad parágrafo milha do volverse, alquimista tambi?soy do un dos religiones dos personas y dos algunas de parágrafos do aunque, que dos cuadros dos los do filho do melena da milha do que do podr?decir do SE existen o universo do EL do por. Este do que do fantasioso dos mas do por do leo do que do libro do cada de Por, SE mim comienza do problema y do un do viene um realidad parágrafo milha do volverse, futuro hable do en un do derramare do que do sangre de en vino de la tanta do agua do EL do convierto dos veces do licantrop? A do vampirismo o do sobre do asi do aun, derramo do SE do nombre do en milha de o. Gracias um tierra do la do sobre do lobo do hombre do primer do EL de EL creador del vampirismo y do fui do que do podr?decir do SE dos t?los do mis dos todos. O sobre EL m?viejo de los vampiros dos cosas dos muchas de Tambi?podr?decirles, aun de David Copperfild do como dos algunos do que de y siguen o vida con, ni Cristo de Buda do que nenhuns est?muertos, incluy?onos do planeta do este de tres tipos de vampiros en dos otros do feno do que de y mismos dos nosotros, que do EL dos pues mim jam?muere do ve. Aunque veces mim sano las con lunas del agua, emborracho do tambi?me, emborracho de o um que con dos lunas dos las dos personas dos las aparecen o vaso do un do agito do cuando do agua do EL do en. O forma igual do De mim exterior do espacio do profundo do EL do desde do recibo do que do l?r do rayo do un do con do platico do protejo y, computadora do s?per do una do seria dos muchos de parágrafos do que, pues nenhum EL imposible de parágrafos do pregunta do feno, cura manipular do que de parágrafos do puede do SE do aunque personas dos las dos todas, aun nenhum que dos personas do feno financien proyectos do mis. O pobre do personaje de EL cuadro de un do oliendo do fui do nac?e do cuando do que dos podr?decirles do despedida de Como, la do t?colg? do un do que pared o abuela de de la casa de milha. O EL do todo dos animales dos los do ello do por de Talvez d?plieguen. Mim con financiar la de los cuadros do existencia da milha do adherir de parágrafos do que do tengo. Subcomandante Marcos do EL do por dos protegidas do povoado indígino de Tengo las llaves del vaticano en milha. Pais do en milha dos cabezas do cortando do lama do dalai do Al. Um estado do EL do en do vídeo do tomandose de Bin Laden. Correo de Y decenas de reyes en milha. Ordenador da milha do hacia do espacio do EL do desde dos ordenes dos propias do mis do recibo de Tambien. Bendiciones de Ayatola, Mohamad y Tolomeo. Fotos dos las de Todas mim papa dedican Juan Pablo do EL dos las II y Yaser Arafat. Por la diferencia de calendario do planeado do esta de Todo. Desde Oriente Proximo. Atte. ALA Donaciones Nenhum de Cuenta: 5470 4649 4172 0516 Tipo de tarjeta: UNI Santander-k Banco: Nombre de Santander Serfin milha: Roberto Gonzalez Dominguez ROBERTO GONZALEZ DOMINGUEZ???: 2006?9?7?5:43 p.m. 1?? Roberto Gonzalez Dominguez???: 2006?8?31?7:07 p.m.?? ?????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????? ??????santo????????Leonardo Da?Vinci????????4???????1?????????????????????????????arcángel???? ??????????????????????????????????? ?????????????i???????????? ?????????????????????????????????????????????????????fantasioso??filosofal????????????1????????????????????????????melena??????????????&a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;a mp;# 31169;?????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????????????????????fantasioso?????????vampirismo?licantropía?????????? ??????????????????????????????????????? ????????vampirismo??????????????????????????????????????????? ??????deads?????????3?????????????????????????????????ourself???????????????Copperfild????????????????????????????????????????? ?????????????????????emborracho??????????????????????????????emborracho? ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????platico????????????????????????????????????????????????????| 79;????? ??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ????????Talvez??????????? ????????????????????????????????????? ??subcommander??????????????????????????? dalai????????????????? ???????????????????????? ??????????10? Atte? ??????????: 5470 4649 4172 0516?????: Santander Serfin????????: uni SantanderK mi?nombre: Roberto Gonzalez Dominguez ??????? ???????? ?????? ???????? : 7-? ????????, 2006 AT 5:43 ?. 00 ?. 1. ??????? ???????? ???????? ?????? : August 31st, 2006 AT 07 ?????, ? ??????, ??? ??? ? ?????? ?? ??????????, ???????????? ????? ???? ?? ???????, ??? ??? ???? ??? ?????. ? ?????? ???????? ? ???? ????????? ????????. ??? ? santo, ??? ?????? ? arcángel ? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ?? ??????? ????????? ???????????? ?, ?? ?? ????????, ???, ??? ???????? ?? ????? ????????. ????? ????? ???? ?? ???????, ??? ??? ?????? ???????, ????????? ? ?????? ? ?????? ??????????. ? ??? ??? ??? ? ??????? ? ? ????? ??????????, ???? ?? ??????? ? ????????. ???-???????? ??? ????????? ????? ????????? ??? ???? ????? ??? ??? ? ????????? ????? ?????? ??????????? ??????, ?? ????? ??????? ??? ??????????? ???????, ?????? ??? ? ???? ?? ???????? ???????, ??????? filosofal ??????, ??????? ?????? ?????, ??? ??????, ?? ?? ??????? ???? fantasioso, ???????? ????????? ? ????, ???? ? ????????? ??????? ? ???????, ? ? ???????, ????? ???????, ??? ??? melena ????? ??????????, ??????? ?????????? ? ????. ? ?????? ?????, ??????? ? ????????, ?? ??? ??? fantasioso, ???????? ??????? ?? ??? ? ???????? ???????????? ? ??????????, ???? ??? ??? ??????? ? vampirismo ??? licantropía. ?????? ? ???????? ?? ???? ? ????, ??? ????? ?????, ??????? ??????????? ? ??????? ??? ??? ??? ??????. ??????? ????, ??? ????? ????? ???????, ??? ? ??? ?????????? ? vampirismo ?????? ??????? ???? ?? ?????. ????? ??? ????? ?? ??? ?????? ??????? ?? ? ????????? ?? ????????, ? ????
    ?????, ??? ????? ??? ????????? Copperfild ? ??????, ??? ?????, ?? ??????? ?? ????? ??????????, ? ?????? ??? ???? ???????? ?? ????? ???????, ??????? ??? ?? ourself, ?????? ??? ???, ??? ??????? ?? ?????? ????, ?????. ???? ?????? ? ??? ? ??????????????? ???????? ????, ????? ??? emborracho, emborracho ??? ? ?????, ??????? ?????????? ??? ? ????, ????? ? ???????? ??????. ????? ??? ?? ? ???????? ???? ? platico ? ????????? ??????, ??????? ?? ????????? ???????? ?????? ???????, ??? ????????? ?????? ????????? ????? ?????????, ?????? ??? ?????? ???????????? ??? ???????, ???? ????? ?????????????? ???, ??? ?? ????????? ???? ?????, ?? ????, ??????? ??????????? ??? ???????. ??? ?????? ??? ??? ?? ??????? ??, ???, ????? ? ??????? ? ??? ????? ??????? ?????? ??????????, ??? ???? ?????? ? ????? ???? ???? ???????. Talvez ?? ???? ??????? ??? ???????? ???? ????. ? ?????? ??? ????????????? ?????????????? ????? ????????????? ? ????? ?? ??????????. ? ???? ????? ?? ???????? ? ??? ????? ?????????? subcommander ?????. ??? dalai ??? ??????????? ????? ?????? ? ???? ??????. ??? ??? ?????? ? ????? ???????????? ? ?????????. ? ???????
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