Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Pat Moshea, while I understand your argument, it seems that this is a matter of small measurements.

My point, which really has nothing to do with which side carries the moral and legal high ground  (neither in my opinion), is that when we talk about where some atrocity happens, it is subjective and not necessarily factual.

I originally made the point that building a German war dead memorial 1.5 kilometers from Auschwitz would be an outrage. My family is Polish and the idea that Russia would build a memorial to its own war dead in the Katyn Forest, the site of the massacre of 4000 Polish officers,  would be insensitive in the extreme. And to follow that point, anywhere in the Katyn Forest would be offensive.

Roslyn, I agree the “war on terror” declared by Bush, and quickly joined by the likes of Howard and Blair was an excuse to invade Iraq and control the Middle East oil reserves. The Palestinians have been treated cruelly since the formation of Israel. Thousands of Palestinians and Iraqis have paid with their lives for our lust for energy. Its about time Australians thought more about our actions abroad than how many dollars they have in the hip pocket. One day we will all be held to account.

Greg: When I use the term 'legal' I do so in terms of a legally established 'right.' Now, it may well be that in the seventeenth century when the US was colonised there was a legal right to do so and ditto for Australia in the 18th, but at the same time there may not have been. And, even if there were, I doubt that those 'laws' would hold up in a modern context.

It may not have been illegal for Europeans to have colonised as they did at that time but was it absolutely legal, as in written into law? I doubt it, simply because it never occurred to them.  But my point remains; it is the interpretation of that legality in this day and age which matters. And that interpretation has taken into account the wrongs inherent in such colonisations and the rights, ignored at the time, of the people living there.

The terms I have used throughout are 'the wrongs inherent in their foundation.' I think you are splitting hairs. And that is time-wasting.

Let's just say, for example, that there were laws written at the time making it perfectly legal for colonisation to take place .... you might like to post links to them but I doubt they exist, but let's just assume that there was some legality to it .... Surely what matters, is not what was legal then ..... many things were legal then which we now consider to be illegal, like transporting convicts, keeping slaves etc., ..... but which is considered just in the modern world.

In the modern world such colonisations are considered unjust which is why historically recent colonising nations like Australia and Israel are called to account. If such colonisations were not wrong, as you seem to suggest, then why have nations like Australia sought to bring justice to those who were dispossessed and called to make redress for the wrongs inherent in their foundation?

If this had not happened you might have a case but it has happened and that means it is not just my personal opinion that such colonisations constituted a wrong, but the view of the world at large and the legal community.

What on earth do you think land rights was about, if not a bid to set to rights the wrongs of occupation and colonisation as much as was practically possible? I ask only the same of Israel.

And I never said it was a peculiarly European habit and neither do I consider only Europeans accountable. But, as we both know, the most developed world, at this point in history, is largely European in content or origin and it is this culture which has reached a point of civilization where such injustices are recognised and addressed.

One can only wish that in time the Vietnamese and Thais reach the same point of accountability.

But, in comparing apples with apples, we are talking about nations which consider themselves to be developed democracies and the Israelis claim to be in the same place. Therefore, in comparing developed democracies and their attitudes to injustices of colonisation it is only Israel which refuses to act from a position of justice.

You said: Whatever “redress” Australia and like countries may have made to their indigenous populations has not been premised upon any admission of illegality of colonisation.

To be legal one has a 'right in law.' This right in law may have existed at the time or may not. Such 'rights in law' no longer exist in the modern world and for that reason such colonisations could not be considered legal in this day and age. As I said, it was legal once to trade in slaves and transport convicts but we reject that now and regard it as a matter for redress where possible.

It was legal I am sure for the Nazis to strip the coffers of those they occupied ..... but they were later called to account.

Here is what matters.

As to colonisation being immoral..... the definition of moral is that which pertains to right or wrong behaviour.

Do you consider it right behaviour to occupy and colonise?

I do not, therefore it is immoral in my mind, and no doubt in the minds of many others and that is why I say what I say. I can understand why it happens. I can see the practicalities in it and even at times the necessity but that does not make it right and therefore does not make it moral. It never was of course. It is just that civilization has developed to a point in the past century or so when we recognise it is not right ... that it is immoral.

Israel is not being called to account for the immoral colonisation of Canaan by Jews in ancient times, but for the immoral colonisation of Palestine in the last sixty years.

The view I espouse is that which has become accepted amongst developed nations, i.e.: those nations which we may suppose have reached the highest level of development to date. The bar if you like of civilized behaviour. It seems reasonable to settle for that bar.

I would qualify that this does not mean I believe we are as civilized as we need to be, or as civilized as we think we are..... nor does it mean that I believe civilized values and behaviour are only to be found in the developed world.

What I do believe is that the values of this world, flawed as they are and sadly wanting, represent the best opportunity to date for the greatest number of people to live a just and fulfilling life.

You are right, morality does change over time but there are some basics which are constant and the Ten Commandments, written as recent evidence now shows, by the ancient Egyptians, who no doubt pilfered them from the even more ancient Mesopotamians:

Murder is wrong and theft is wrong and cruelty to others is wrong.

All of these things are inherent in colonisation and always have been. By default, if for no other reason, occupation and colonisation is wrong and therefore immoral.

I said: “You might also like to show how these views are NOT mainstream opinions and how that makes the Australian support for independence for East Timor completely 'out of character'?”

You said: This comment shows a remarkable ignorance of the history of the struggle for East Timorese independence and Australia’s role in it.

I fully understand the history of the East Timorese and have long considered Australia's actions at Government level in supporting Indonesian occupation and colonisation to be truly shameful .... on all sides of politics. Ditto West Papua. My point was based on the principle that Australians supported freedom for the East Timorese, probably because it was just and right, and therefore, it was logical to assume that they should support freedom for others who were suppressed in the same way, like the Palestinians.

You are talking about the Australian Government; I was talking about the people and Australian public opinion. Such opinion was limited by ignorance of the true nature of Indonesia's aggression for a long time, just as many are ignorant of the true nature of Israel's aggression.

I do not believe Australians, as Pat inferred, support occupation and I believe the strong support for East Timorese independence reflected this. One is of course entitled to interpret information in any way one chooses but I lean toward what makes sense and seems logical.

All I can say is if Malcolm Duncan's comments are sourced in an understanding of law I am merely grateful that I have come across much better informed and considered lawyers in my time and he is not representative of the profession. The lawyers I know use words wisely and economically and can empirically defend what they say.

Now, don't get me wrong, I do not believe this is what Webdiary is, or should be about, but I make the comment because the law is being raised by you, and used by Malcolm as some indicator of superiority.  I have a great respect for the law but we are not talking about law here in essence but principles of justice. The law is excellent if used with discretion but as often as not is the 'ass' it is reputed to be.

You seem unable to appreciate principles and the application of principles to complicated issues of morality and justice. I do not argue from a basis of law but a basis of principle. I have never claimed to be any sort of expert in law. Clearly you are not either or you would be more discreet in what you say or better able to clearly defend it.

As a basic principle in this day and age occupation and colonisation are considered to be an infringement of human rights as the United Nations has stated and as the law can defend.

I am sure you would agree that if Jews had a legal right to win compensation from Germany then the Palestinians will also be able to do the same. At times like this the law can be useful. 

An Israeli air strike in Gaza has killed four Palestinians.  See here.

“Saturday's missile strike, which medics say also killed a boy and his mother and grandmother, is the latest such attack since April, when an Israeli air strike killed an Islamic Jihad militant after a deadly suicide bombing by the group in Israel.”

This is an act of terrorism. No different than when a suicide bomber kills.  Israel should have an immediate weapons embargo.  The UN should call Israel to account.

Killing of innocent people is never justified. 

Will,  while the history of Taba and Camp David are interesting as history they are hardly relevant to today.

Arafat is dead and Sharon is as good as dead. The past is gone. The Israeli-US side says Arafat threw away a good deal while the other side said there is nothing he could truly accept for many reasons, one being the right of return was not addressed.

One side says  they have evidence Arafat walked away but the other side has evidence that Israel walked away.

Quite simply. Who cares? They are both gone. What matters if the here and now and the fact that this unholy mess has gotten messier.

In terms of resolution who got offered what when and who said no when they should have said yes and who walked away is time-wasting and pointless.

The situation at this point in history is:

Israel occupies Palestine and does so in a brutal way and maintains a colonisation programme as part of that occupation.

If you do not believe occupation is wrong and colonisation is a no-no in this day and age then who cares what happens? Leave them to it.

But if you do think it is wrong and you do care then what must be addressed are the core facts:

Israel was founded on a wrong which must be addressed and redressed. The occupation is wrong and must be ended and the settlements built since 67 are illegal and must be removed or negotiated.

The core questions are:

How to end the occupation?

How to provide justice to the Palestinians for their original dispossession and the wrongs inherent in the founding of the State of Israel?

How to provide justice and compensation for the suffering endured by Palestinians under Israeli occupation?

How to remove the settlements established after 1967, and/or negotiate portions of said settlements remaining as part of Israel?

How to provide a viable State for both Israelis and Palestinians?

Or, how to provide one State with full and equal rights for everyone regardless of race, creed or sex?

John,  given that the media is controlled by a few in this day and age, and particularly in the US, and the media and government work hand in hand, it is not surprising that the so-called 'war on terror' gets the coverage and distortion that it does.

You can no more have a 'war on terror' than you can have a 'war on drugs.' Such 'wars' are ephemeral by their very nature.

The US has gone to war, or started wars, because it says it is fighting an enemy and since 9/11 it has believed it has a right to attack pretty much anyone it chooses in this regard.

It would be interesting, should the ever growing in strength conspiracy theories, show that 9/11 was 'set up' by forces in league with the US government, to see if Washington is in term bombed as pre-emptive action against an enemy. But we're probably a way away from that.

 The insanity of this 'war on terror' is of course, that if we believe the official view, the 'terrorists' were all, or nearly all, Saudi. And yet Afghanistan was bombed and Iraq was invaded! Not much logic there, unless 9/11 was merely an excuse for invading Iraq, as more recent evidence seems to show that it was planned long before 9/11, and is part of an American hegemonic plan to control oil.

But beyond this digression I do not think it is fair to include Palestinians in this lineup of terrorists when they are an occupied people subjected to massive State sanctioned terrorism from Israel.

One can understand without condoning the violence used but if Palestinians are to be classified as 'terrorists', then the Kashmiris, Chechens, Irish, French, Dutch, Polish etc., partisans, the Jews trapped in the Warsaw Ghetto,  the West Papuans, the Achenese and any other occupied people must also be classified as terrorists. This means the indigenous people of Australia, the US, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa were also terrorists because they too used violence in their fight against occupation. So did the Indians in their fight against British Rule but we do not call them terrorists.

Why are the Palestinians terrorists and not the others? What is it that makes their situation as an occupied people different?

Scott, I think you make a good argument but surely the real problem which Israel faces is its desire for a Jewish State. This is something which Israelis care less about than their Jewish supporters who live elsewhere, but it is those supporters who provide funds to keep Israel functioning and so they are somewhat trapped.

I suspect that one of the reasons Israel wants to colonise all of Palestine and remove the Palestinians is because the grand plan is to make room for more Jewish immigrants. There are of course as many, if not more Jews in New York, and the only way that Israel can ever be a Jewish State, racist as that is and ultimately doomed because of it, is if it can reduce or remove non-Jewish numbers and, at the same time, increase Jewish numbers.

Removing the demand for a Jewish State would, I suspect, open more doors than anything else. Perhaps this is the issue which needs to be tackled before any sort of solution can be found.

The irony of course is that the US is Israel's biggest supporter .... there would be no functioning Israel without its money .... and yet the demand for a purely Jewish State infers that Jews are not safe elsewhere, including America. Somewhat ironic I feel. But then much of life is.

If focus is put on this racism then surely the US cannot defend it without suggesting that it is also a threat to Jews.

Geoff, yes, the Indians are now a major force in the diamond trade in Antwerp. Interestingly most are Jains and come from the same part of India originally, Gujarat.

The group to which I was particularly referring were the Hasidic Jews who are more noticeable because of their 17th century dress and who tend to live in the area of Berchem where I lived in the late '80s. The Chief Rabbi certainly did have solid gold handles on his Rolls Royce then but may not now. Times change.  At that time, it was a source of irritation to locals, as were numerous other things.

My point was that groups which establish a level of exclusivity and set themselves up within a community and yet not really a part of it will always be vulnerable during times when discrimination rears its ugly head. That is a responsibility they take themselves.

My other point was that while Jews may have been tossed out of lots of places they have done pretty well in Antwerp ..... some six hundred years .... so I asked, do the 'good' bits negate the 'bad' bits? Or do you only recount the places they were thrown out of in a bid to justify them throwing out the Palestinians?

And here's another very interesting and recent story about the Jews of Antwerp.

"The Belgium city of Antwerp has the largest diamond market in the world. Orthodox Jews controlled the trade for centuries but now globalization has seen this displaced by dealers hailing from India." 

I have found nothing that would suggest that Antwerp has a Chief Rabbi, that he drives a Rolls Royce and that it has solid gold handles. Mind you, given the rich and intriguing history of these people, it would take someone of a certain type who would firstly notice, and then report it as the only thing worth mentioning, even if it were true. 

Roslyn, in your assertions about the colonisation of Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa you have gone far beyond merely expressing an opinion. You have made a claim, which is false, that the colonisation of those countries was illegal. At the time Europeans colonised those countries it was not illegal for them to have done so. None of the governments of those countries has ever, as you have falsely claimed, “admitted” that their founding though colonisation from Europe was illegal. At the time of colonisation the occupation of the land of others and their dispossession and enslavement was the legal norm throughout the world and was done just as much by non-Europeans to each other as by Europeans to non-Europeans.

For example, during that same period the Vietnamese moved down from the Red River Valley in modern northern Vietnam, occupying first the Kingdom of Champa in what is now central Vietnam, and then the lands of the Khmers in what is now southern Vietnam. At the same time the Thais, in configuring their current borders, occupied lands held by the Burmese, the Khmers and, in the south, the Malay kingdom of Pattani. The list goes on and on. 

Whatever “redress” Australia and like countries may have made to their indigenous populations has not been premised upon any admission of illegality of colonisation. Rather, in the case of New Zealand “redress” has been on the basis of applying the terms of the Treaty of Waitangi of 1840, in the case of the United States upon the application of numerous treaties made in the 18th and 19th centuries by the various States and the United States Government with the various Indian nations, in the case of Australia, in the Mabo instance, in applying English common law of 700 years standing with regard to property rights over unalienated Crown land. Further "redress” has been provided as part of the normal function of any government anywhere in ameliorating the lot of disadvantaged minorities. 

Whether or not a person holds an opinion in the 21st century that colonisation is wrong does not change the fact that at the time it occurred the colonisation of Australia etc was not illegal and it is not possible to retrospectively render an act which, at the time it was done, was legal, into being illegal.

Beyond your erroneous assertion that the colonisations of Australia, the United States, Canada, South Africa and New Zealand were illegal you claim further that they were immoral and ask Pat Moshea:  

“Would you also like to support your claim that 'not everybody considers colonisation a wrong,' and cite examples where this is stated by modern democratic nations? I am sure you can get the Chinese to support you in this, or even the Russians, but let's aim for the top 'bar' that humanity has set in terms of civilized behaviour”

You have merely asserted that the colonisations were immoral, (as usual, without providing a scintilla of evidence to support your assertion) and of course you are quite entitled to hold any personal opinion you care to as to what you consider moral or immoral behaviour. However your question to Pat posits that there is some widely subscribed view held by modern democratic nations that sets the moral standard to which we all either subscribe to, or should subscribe to, regarding events which occurred centuries ago, so let us examine the quality of your assertion.

The top bar of what humanity has set in terms of civilized behaviour is, of course, set by Western nations, among them Australia, the United States, Canada, and New Zealand, and it is not the general opinion among the populations of those countries, whether they be the descendents of the original colonizers or more recent immigrants to those countries, that the European colonisation of those countries was a wrong for which they have to atone. It is doubtful, too, that Europeans, with their history of shifting borders and mass dispossessions in the 20th century, would be ready to venture a view about European colonisation in the New World as being a wrong for fear of being accused of rank hypocrisy as well as having to give “redress” to the numerous other non-European countries that they colonized in from the 16th century onwards. Instead you will find that they take the sensible view that morality changes over time and that things that were moral in the past may not be morally acceptable now, and vice-versa, but that it is meaningless to apply modern concepts of what is morally acceptable to pass judgement on the actions of others in past centuries.

You also comment to Pat that:

“You might also like to show how these views are NOT mainstream opinions and how that makes the Australian support for independence for East Timor completely 'out of character'?”

This comment shows a remarkable ignorance of the history of  the struggle for East Timorese independence and Australia’s role in it. Australia  consistently supported Indonesian rule in East Timor, formally recognized it as an integral part of Indonesia and did not support  East Timorese independence until after the then Indonesian President, B.J. Habibie, unilaterally and irresponsibly, decided to hold a referendum on independence in the  then province, for which the East Timorese overwhelming voted in favour.

I appreciate that your untrue assertions about the legality of past colonisations are not put forward willfully and with any intent to mislead. Rather it is clear that you are not a lawyer and therefore when you comment on what the law is your comments are, unlike, say, those of Malcolm Duncan, who previously tried to engage you on how the law actually works, simply uninformed by any knowledge of the law, or for that matter of history. Much the same is true on your writing on the morality of European colonisation of the New World countries.

 

However the fact that you put forward such egregiously erroneous assertions regarding the legality  and morality of colonisation in past centuries casts doubt on everything you write where you purport to comment on the legality or otherwise, and the morality or otherwise, of the establishment of the State of Israel.

Jews have lived in Antwerp for some six hundred years without much of a problem. This is somewhat remarkable given that many of them are Hasidic and set themselves singularly and clearly apart from the greater community. There's always a risk in that, which any group, religious or otherwise must choose when they live in this way. (Roslyn Ross)

Those interested in a brief and truthful account of the Jews of Antwerp and Belgium, including an account of their courage and the courage of other Belgians of the "greater" community, during WW11, should go here.

Sites accepting donations to the United Israel Appeal,  The Jewish National Fund and other bodies established to counter the lies and disinformation of the anti-Israel, antisemitic and racist propagandists will be posted here shortly.

You need go no further than the article that appears at the top of this page and the followup comments to appreciate how important their work is. 

The security wall must and will be completed as soon as possible. If necessary it will be re-inforced. It is the most positive and successful peace iniatative in decades. How valuable it is can easily be assessed, as usual, by the degree of antagonism it provokes among the Israel-haters. No further analysis is necessary. It has already saved countless lives.

For those interested in supporting the "Buy Israel" campaign, to counter anything the haters can organise, and to show solidarity with a small liberal democracy's desperate on-going struggle for survival and peace, not to mention its enormeously courageous history and inspiring, miraculous foundation, I will be sending some links soon. 

John Pratt I heard part of that show, and thought the speaker made some excellent points. I'll get the whole transcript. Thanks for the link.

Scott Dunmore asks "would you and all of good will like to start putting up models for a two nation single state?"

Well there have been such proposals but I still think the two-state solution is the best. This was embodied, in the Camp David and Taba negotiations of 2000/2001, and in the non-governmental Geneva Accord, and Peoples' Vote plans.

I posted a fairly exhaustive review of these official and unofficial proposals on January 16, 2006 at 10:00am on the "What's changed about me?" thread. There's also quite a bit of discussion of the events of the June 1967 War. Come to think of it the whole thread makes interesting reading.

This thread seems to head into endless repetitions of specific moral assertions!

This was discussed brilliantly on Radio National’s Encounter program this morning:

“Why is terrorism being taken so seriously? This question requires nuances. We need to distinguish between reasons and causes. And we need to differentiate various groups involved in this war. Why wage war against these terrorists? Offhand, one might think that such a grand response to terrorism is undeserved. This thought is supported by comparing this response with the response to other threats to our life and well-being - such as cardiovascular disease and cancer, for instance, which annually kill some 100,000 people in Australia alone (400,000 in the UK; 1.5 million in the US), or road traffic, which kills about 1,700 each year (over 3,000 in the UK; 43,000 in the US). In 2002, only about one in 2,000 deaths of Australians was due to terrorism. And even in the US in 2001, the corresponding ratio was one in 750, that is, 0.13 percent. It would seem that a small increase in the effort to combat cardiovascular disease or cancer or road accidents or any of several other, similar threats would do much more to protect our survival and well-being, at lower cost, than revving up the war on terror.

I see two main explanations for why terrorism is taken so seriously. One is that public attention to terrorism serves important domestic constituencies. It serves most obviously the news media whose economic success depends on their ability to attract the public's attention. And it is vastly easier to attract the public to stories about terrorists and their plans and victims than to stories about cancer and cancer victims or to stories about traffic accidents.

  

Public attention to terrorism also serves the interests of politicians as a class, and incumbents in particular, who can gain greatly increased attention, authority, respect, and deference to claimed secrecy needs from their efforts to protect a frightened public against terrorism. Ordinary citizens in the US, UK, and Australia, who have been supporting the war effort, at least tacitly, are a different matter. Why have they been so supportive of the new war? One reason is, of course, that citizens do not want themselves or their friends or relatives to be killed or hurt by terrorist attacks. But this more prudential reason does not explain the enormous public attention paid to terrorism and the great cost, in terms of money and also civil liberties that citizens seem willing to bear to combat terrorism, because the war against terrorism is not a cost-effective way of protecting our health and survival. Of course, citizens are to some extent irrational. They do not realize how small the threat really is………………

 

We are in the same boat with the terrorists in this sense: We use moral language just as they do. Our moral judgments are fallible just as theirs are. And we have a moral responsibility, just as they do, to take the greatest care to ensure that the important decisions we make are not merely ones that we, however sincerely, believe to be morally justifiable, but also ones that we can actually justify.”

“We get endless repetitions of specific moral assertions ("The United States is the great Satan" or "It would be wrong to withdraw our troops now, and we must stay the course"), and endless repetitions of unexplicated generalities ("We must fight the infidels wherever they dishonour what is sacred" "We must defend freedom against the enemies of freedom"). Such moral appeals are made on all sides. But since they remain unjustified and unexplicated, there is no substantive moral debate.”

Will thanks so much for posting this, it is so inspiring to read of people getting together regardless of their religion and looking at what has happened and not being afraid to build something for those who perpetrated it to see that it was wrong and it cannot be hidden and unless faced there is a false national morality.

It is humbling to realise dreadful things were done in one's name and frightening to realise it could be hidden and never acknowledged or atoned for. This warns us all to be vigilant of our government as there are always those who have no moral limits in their drive to succeed their goals and have adopted an "elite" moral creed to allow that.

So much of WW2 history was fuzzed for the public. The glorifying of the allies deeds, obliterating from the victors' history the reality of war, the atrocities on both side, the unleashing of savagery that destroys forever the inner peace of those involved. By fairy flossing war it is easier to use that method and build profits for the military industry while sacrificing what is really important. Look what happened with the public finally having a glimpse of real war in the Vietnam debacle.

If people properly saw "Iraq" and the occupation they would be pulled out so fast. A country that glorifies it's military, relies upon it's weapons for security and the use of nukes as deterrent is setting itself up for a fall especially when sabre rattling is added. That would be such a loss of something that could be good with a rethink. People like Paul Eisen can strengthen their countries defences more than any store of weapons. What victory do weapons bring as compared to international respect and acceptance and opening of trade and tourism and interlearning and building bonds. Thanks for reminding us of the great work being done by Israelis towards a peace with justice. It is a pity they are not the ones in power.

How does one stop the war industry from perverting policy? I can only think that all who work in the industry have their children being the first called up for frontline action, rather than sent off to other countries to "study" ,as so many of our eminent leaders today did, to escape Vietnam draft. I spent an afternoon with a chap from 'Nam and his tales are the kind that never can be told, management tales that are so bizarre that you would question they could even be true, but I know him, they are. Ever wonder why so many vets were hooked in Heroin when they came back? Dreadful. A legacy we still face and the drug barons are so happy for. War bad. Peace good. Solutions with truth justice and fairness stop wars.

Peter, that poll you recalled was heartening.

I see I was wrong about Will and Roslyn going somewhere constructive. Never mind, would you and all of good will like to start putting up models for a two nation single state? One major concern for the Israelis is the burgeoning Palestinian population that it is predicted would soon outnumber their own. A possible solution to that could be a constitution that recognised both nations and gave equal representation to both. Before anyone starts thinking "how's that going to work," you can imagine an immediate political division in both camps and resulting coalitions along political lines rather than ethnic/religious ones. Anyone else?

Will, given your vigorous defence of Jay and what's been going on here I was starting to wonder about you but I don't recall Jay having a sense of humour. Nice one.

I would qualify, when I say the way forward belongs in respect, dialogue and compromise, anything else is madness, I am referring to the Israeli act of building its Apartheid Wall.

I would also say that the way forward for the Palestinians belongs in respect, dialogue and compromise, however, as the occupied people the Palestinians have minimal power to push their cause while Israel has maximum power to push for respect, dialogue and compromise. At the end of the day each side will have to approach the issue from this persective. And there will be an end of the day. It may be years or decades and many more may die on both sides but the day will come. The day of justice always does in one way or another.

Angela, good post and I think you raise an important point. The role that the US plays in all of this has been mentioned before by myself and others, but I think your post raises the question: Is the way to resolution through actions against the US rather than against Israel? Or perhaps both.

It is a reality that the only way Israel can be pushed to resolution, and that will have to happen before there can be resolution, is if the US is a part of the pushing.

As you suggest, there is a lot which does not make sense.

The Israeli ApartheidslashSeparation Wall is a reality which approximates ' pure evil' in the world today if only because it is so consciously malicious in the way that it is constructed. Even the Berlin Wall, terrible as it was, did not equal such infamy because the Berlin Wall cut a city in two whereas the Israeli Wall cuts towns, villages, homes, schools, families and lives in two. Not only that, it imprisons those who remain behind it in a series of 'concentration camps' or 'bantustans.' Even at their worst the Russians were not so intent upon making life an utter misery for the people they wanted to control.

The Israeli Apartheid Wall, for that is what it is, represents one of the greatest injustices ever inflicted on a people, let alone an occupied people, and yet it raises barely a murmur in the United States.... the land of the free, the bastion of the brave, the 'leader of the free world.'

The occupation is shocking enough and its brutality appalling, but this wall raises to venal heights the lengths that a nation will go to colonise. One can only assume that the 'end game' is to make life so utterly unbearable for Palestinians that they will leave.

I suspect what Israelis do not take into account, given the high level of racism they have toward Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular, is that the Palestinians are no different to them and that rather than being the inferior beings they presume, they have a will and an integrity as great as any other human being and they will not be driven out.

The fact is they have nowhere to go and so this wall will breed yet more generations of resistance fighters, who, one presumes, will resort to yet more violent methods in order to be free.

As one Israeli writer suggested, no doubt tongue in cheek but salient all the same: The only way that Israel can really protect itself is if it builds a concrete wall not just along the Occupied Territories but around the entire State and then proceeds to cement the land from one end to the other to seal off access from the earth and cements it on the top, to seal off access from the air. Only in this way can Israel ever be sure that none of the people it occupies can reach it.

But of course, before doing this they would have to remove all non-Jewish Israelis just to be sure and probably all Jewish Israelis who have expressed sympathy with the Palestinian cause.

Therein lies the insanity of it. The way to peace lies in respect, dialogue and compromise. Anything else is madness.

I would add, however much I may criticize Israel for its barbaric behaviour I would include in my criticism the United States in particular and the developed world in general for allowing this atrocity to take place. As long as this wall stands we are all culpable because unlike the Berlin Wall, the Israeli Apartheid Wall can be brought down by the actions that the rest of the world takes in pushing the United States to push Israel to a place of justice and reason.

One small thing that anyone can do is to help inform any Americans that they know of just what this wall is and does. The other thing that can be done is to support any boycott movement against Israel and the United States in order to bring it down.

The Israeli Apartheid Wall will fall, just as the Berlin Wall did, but one would only hope, sooner, not later, and without the  even greater level of death and suffering which it has the potential to deliver.

Anyone who has seen this 'satanic' structure, either in reality or in photos, can only grieve not just for the Palestinians imprisoned in its cold shadow, but also for Israelis who now live with the knowledge that this is what they have become; this is how far their dream has been debased.

This shameful Wall, landgrab masquerading as security, may cut through the 'heart' of Palestinian daily life, but it cuts through the  spiritual heart of Israeli and Jewish culture at the same time, and that 'wound' will be far more difficult to heal, even when the wall is no more than rubbled dust.  

So we have an intrepid 29 year old adventurer exploring South West Tasmania in 1942. My uncle in his twenties was fighting. He flew in the Battle of Britain, and it's about all he can remember nowadays. We were at war weren't we, how was all this helping Australia at her most desperate? Hardly a martyr that would have been respected by any Australian peers. Instead looking at colonising our country for another nation. A real fifth columnist. Bringing in 75,000 foreigners to take the land and planned by a Lenninist communist, one of those guilty of dreadful atrocies in Soviet Ukraine. Amazing. I thought that was the stuff of spinmeisters. I had not realised it was so recent and so outrageous. And with financial backing and political stooge aproval.

Maybe we better look more closely at the private city Rio Tinto is secretly planning at the end of the F3? It seems one must be vigilent for traitors who take advantage of wartime vulnerability. And no-one bats an eyelid. Who else shall we carve up Australia for? Come and get it, idiots living here, for the taking. Who else wants a chunk of Australia to make a different nation state. Remarkable indeed in perspective.

How close to a Palestinian perspective we may have had. A fully armed independent communist state with nuclear weapons now just south of Melbourne. No loss to our country, but perhaps an investigation into his accomplices should now be made and how we can be defended gainst such betrayals again. cheers fellow Aussies.

Hi Syd, I was curious so I did a bit of a look about the funding of Israel by the USA. I remember reading also, I think something came up from Finkelstein and his book the Holocaust Industry about Germany having given 70 billion in reparations mainly to Israel (his gripe was that it should have gone to the Holocaust survivors, bit of a complex issue). Do others have better figures for Germany? Israel has certainly benefited if this amount is even close. Add the three subs and what a friend Germany has been since the war.

Now this Congress report states the US government funds (without mentioning funds via tax-deductible charity/gifts which are also government funded but not in the calculation of about 1 billion, and income from Israeli bonds). It starts: "Israel is not economically self sufficient and relies upon foreign assistance and borrowings to maintain it's economy".

Conditions of aid have been suggested and applied in 1953 when Eisenhower froze aid because of water diversion project from Syria, and again Baker threatened to freeze aid if settlement activity did not occur. G W Bush threatened to take out "the Wall” money if that building didn't stop was dissuaded by Bauer (Christian right) at Sharon's request.

Economic changes also are mentioned as conditions. The very first paragraph shows that economic persuasion would be potent.

It is interesting that the Christian right wing can chose to stop such persuasion about humanitarian issues, shameful really. Bauer should be asked to explain more openly why he causes the American people to support the inhumane Wall.

The Congress report is interesting reading. Why Israel has so many exceptions and such special treatment in the funding process is curious.

America actually pays interest on the grants given as they are, unusually, given in one annual lump sum which is then invested in US bonds and the US pay Israel interest.

Wowoo. Dumb-ass US. Paying interest on a gift. I must have got that wrong. The loans are a homebuyers dream. Imagine the bank guaranteeing the mortgage itself and then when you shop around and get lower interest, the bank guarantees that loan too to the private institution. A total of about 15billion so far. I really want those guys to negotiate for our next loan.

There have also been in addition 46 billion in cancelled loans (effectively grants without need for supervision if had been grants officially) for military purposes. Hefty.

It is all a bit complicated for me but it seems in summary to be over 90

billion in grants until 2003, and over 60 billion in military aid until 2003 as well.

The special conditions seem to be important. Israel is very lucky and probably grateful to the USA and its people for being such a rich and reliable friend in propping up the economy and supplying it's military might. One has to presume the policies pursued by Israeli government are therefore already approved by the US government or for some reason the US fails to properly influence direction and deed. This is why the Walt and Meirsheimer paper is so curious.

The solution? Why is peace elusive? One must look at why the US allows such policies despite being damaging for the US itself and very expensive. If a solution is to be found one must know all the background information. Money rules the world so follow it, as they say. The facts presented in this Congress paper only add more questions that need answers.

Pat,  would you like to explain why, if it is merely my personal opinion that countries founded in this way need to admit to it and make redress, that Australia, the United States, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa have all felt a need to do this and have in fact implemented what you call 'my personal opinion' as policy?

I had not realise that my 'personal opinion' was that powerful!

Would you also like to support your claim that 'not everybody considers colonisation a wrong,' and cite examples where this is stated by modern democratic nations? I am sure you can get the Chinese to support you in this, or even the Russians, but let's aim for the top 'bar' that humanity has set in terms of civilized behaviour.

You might also like to show how these views are NOT mainstream opinions and how that makes the Australian support for independence for East Timor completely 'out of character'?

You might also like to elaborate on how my clarification of my personal position as a pacifist constitutes something behind which to 'hide.'  I made the point to differentiate between what I would choose and what most people choose to do because the reality is that what I would choose is not the way of the world and that is a fact of life with which I must live.

And whether you have realised it or not, most of Webdiary is opinion pieces for discussion purposes. What that means is I, or you, present an opinion, argued with substance and others are free to discuss it and debate it and present an opposite opinion, also substantiated.

The history of this conflict is not the issue. The issue is the original and fundamental wrong of partition and colonisation, which created all the wars which followed, and the ongoing wrong of a brutal occupation and continued colonisation. Everything else pales into insignificance because these are the injustices with which Israel must deal.

You believe that if the Palestinians renounce terrorism and lay down their weapons there could be peace tomorrow?

Well, Israel is the occupier and has all the power, so, is it not reasonable to suggest that if Israel were to renounced its State sanctioned terrorism, which is what bombs, assassinations and sniper fire amounts to, and halted immediately all colonisation, there could be peace tomorrow?

Would you like to explain why it is the people who are living under brutal occupation and watching yet more of their land taken away have to be the ones to act first?

Would you also like to explain why when Hamas called a ceasefire and honoured it and Israel ignored it and continued to bomb and kill, it is the Palestinians fault?

I am presuming that you also believe that when the French were occupied it was the responsibility of the partisans to stop fighting and call for peace talks with the Germans. And that when the Germans bombed Britain as part of their invasion and colonisation plan it was the responsibility of the British to renounce violence and call for peace?

If your answer is no, then would you like to explain why one occupied people, the French, have a right to fight and another, the Palestinians, do not?

We are talking principles here. It can't be one rule for everyone else and another for the Palestinians.

And the territories are not disputed. They are occupied. The United Nations and the international community hold that all lands beyond Israel's original borders are occupied .... not disputed. They are disputed only in that Israel disputes the right of Palestinians to exist.

Would you also like to clarify just which comments I made are 'anti-semitic,' or more to the point consitute 'Arab anti-semitic'?

You said: It is not Israel that is dysfunctional. They have not elected a terrorist organisation as their government and filled their streets with gun toting factions of thugs

It's pretty dysfunctional to believe you are under threat when you are armed to the teeth with nuclear weaponry and backed by the world's most powerful military and you are fighting against a  people you hold under occupation.

They have elected a terrorist organisation. Or at least they did. Sharon in particular but Israeli leaders before have carried out a State sanctioned campaign of terror against the Palestinians and continue to do so.

And you can find the 'gun toting factions of thugs' in the illegal Israeli settlements it's just that they are Israeli settlers cradling Kalishnakovs and daubing Palestinian doors with: 'Kill the Arabs" , 'Vermin" and the like.

Quite a lot in common really.

Sorry, but you can't use the word 'terrorism' about a people living under occupation. That would have made the all of the people living under German occupation terrorists and I don't think you believe that. And one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

You reveal your position, sadly, when you use words like: "a filthy, scabbed drug addict,"

I am assuming this 'drug addict' is kept a prisoner in his home and has had to watch his family and friends being killed when their homes were demolished above them, or his children shot by snipers as they play, his villages, towns, agricultural lands destroyed by an occupier who wants to colonise yet more of it.

The 'addiction' to which you refer is to freedom. Are you suggesting that people who live without freedom do not have a right to fight for it? If Australia were occupied and colonised would you not fight? I wouldn't, because I believe only in passive protest, but would you also not fight?  And if you would, then why do you deny this right to the Palestinians?

When I referred to Israelis also being 'pawns' in a bigger game, I meant that they too are at the hands of Israel's supporters, Jews, who live elsewhere to a large degree, but also the fundamentalist christians in the United States ..... all of whom pull the strings of the US administration and which make resolution of this conflict impossible because they do not really care about anything other than the dream of an Israel which contains all of Palestine.

As someone else posted, nearly 30 percent of Israelis and Palestinians would accept one State. The people living there are the ones who suffer and that is on both sides. The people who do not live there but who channel the money in for yet more illegal settlements, yet more weaponry, yet more intransigence care nothing for the blood that is shed on both sides but only for their own insane dream.

And you know, you might be right about the microchips implanted in Bush, Blair and Howard's brains..... I've wondered about that and you could be on to something.

Will, Interesting link for the Jewish proposal in Australia. Yes, that's pretty much what I read a long time ago. But had thought it was a State they were talking about when in fact it was really just a colony, or area, which would be set aside with Jews as Australian citizens but with some autonomy.

The Tasmanian option was something of which I had not heard and sounds more like the 'dream' or fantasy of one man.

I disagree with you that someone had to be dispossessed. Why?

If it is a given that Jews must have a homeland then why are you not demanding dispossession of someone else so the gypsies can have one too? Why are you also not demanding that the Kurds have their State returned to them? Perhaps you are. At least then you are consistent.

The fact is that the Jews would not have been given a homeland without the Holocaust. Dumb luck on their part, Fate, Destiny or whatever. But it still does not make what happened right, nor legal.

The other thing which is often overlooked is that the Jews, like the gypsies, while often encountering persecution, also very often chose to leave where they were living and to settle elsewhere. In many instances they did not have a problem. In many instances they converted or changed their religion.

My ancestors, on two sides, emigrated from England and assimilated, or dropped their religion in essence.  

Jews have lived in Antwerp for some six hundred years without much of a problem. This is somewhat remarkable given that many of them are Hasidic and set themselves clearly and singularly apart from the greater community. There's always a risk in that which any group, religious or otherwise must face when they choose to live in this way. No, I don't condone the resentment this can engender in the greater community but I can understand how it happens.... particularly when times are difficult.

I lived in Antwerp for a few years and while it is all fairly peaceful, the locals do grumble about the disdain which they feel this Hasidic community shows to the community at large. The Chief Rabbi's Rolls Royce with solid gold handles doesn't help either.

I guess my point is that it always takes two. Peoples who have been persecuted must also accept that they play some part in what happens to them.

There are many persecuted peoples throughout history at different times and some, like the Cathars and Hugeunots have disappeared from view, but it is important to remember that discrimination was not something 'invented' for the sake of it, nor for the sake of Jews, gypsies, homosexuals or whatever group it is which is singled out by society.

Citing instances of Jews being thrown out of Arab countries does not justify Jews throwing Palestinians out of their country. And, for all the instances of Jews being dispossessed there were countless ones of them being absorbed into the country and being allowed to practise their religion in Muslim and Christian nations. Do the 'good' acts negate the 'bad' ones?

Surely at the end of the day the reality is that countless religious groups have been persecuted and dispossessed .... that fact formed the foundation of the colonisation of the United States for example ... throughout history but we no longer believe that such things are right.

Which makes it even more ironic, if not tragic, that Israel should be doing exactly that in this day and age.

What matters if the here and now. And in the here and now Israelis and Jews are doing unto others what they would not have done to themselves... and, in the doing, betraying a core tenet of the religion.

It's interesting that the Jewish version differs from the Christian in this respect. The Christian teaching is: Do unto others what you would have others do unto you!

The Jewish teaching is: Do not do unto others what you would not have done to you!

All of those centuries of experience later and the Jews are 'doing unto others what they are still condemning others for doing unto them.'

That's probably the greatest tragedy of all in this terrible mess.... the clear lesson that human beings learn little or nothing from their experience. That experience does not make us wiser but more foolish, and more maliciously vengeful.

Roslyn, just caught up with your post: Peter You are right.  Thanks!  that is almost a first!   ;-)

Your statement: "There is in fact nothing published which is entirely objective. It is just not possible.'   Some day, somewhere, sometime, that I would enjoy discussing with you.

Please keep up your contributions. I find them interesting.

(Oops! That could be the kiss off death)

Will,  I sincerely believe my claim regarding Deir Yassin and Yad Vashem is a true statement. I have substantiated that claim.

You call it a mis-statement. Prove it or drop it.

I have nothing more to say. My case rests. Your opinion, which is all you give, is worth nothing. Substantiate it or withdraw it.

 

Will,  home-made rockets fired from Gaza are part of the Palestinian fight against occupation. Until Palestine is free then all Palestinians will fight against the ocupier. Or are you suggesting that if Hitler had succeeded in invading and occupying England and the Brits got Devon back the people there should not fight to free the rest of their country?

In addition, the Israeli withdrew its army from Gaza but only to the outside. Israel controls air, land and sea access to Gaza. It is a prison. Israel also controls the Egyptian side. They have demolished countless homes to create a dead zone between Gaza and Egypt.

A prison is a place where one is kept and where one does not have freedom to leave. Gaza is a prison!

The issue here is not what Egypt did or did not do. The issue is what Israel is doing!

Will, I was reporting a Palestinian view. I do not endorse the view of Germany being divided for a variety of reasons, however, on the basis of principles if say, hypothetically, one had to choose between Palestine and Germany if such a division had to take place then, clearly, as a matter of justice it should be Germany not Palestine.

The point the Palestinians were making was it was not their fault and yet they have had to suffer. One could also have argued, hypothetically, that there were numerous other countries in the Middle East which had committed wrongs against Jews and which could be held to account before Palestine.

One could also argue,  that given that the Jews originally stole the land anyway from the Canaanites, that they had no right to it anyway and given that the Jewish religion, as new translations of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs indicate, can  probably be traced back into Egypt, one could then make a case that the original homeland was Egypt. But, given that the ancient Egyptian religion, from which  it now seemsJudaism derives, can then be traced back to Mesopotamia (now Iraq I think) one could argue that the Jewish homeland should have been there.

It is, as you can see, all completely ridiculous and the point remains that there was never any legal or moral justification to divide anywhere to create a Jewish homeland.

Just as we could not now countenance a similar action to create a Romany homeland as much as one might wish to do.  I would add, that just as the Gypsies, or Romanies, were no doubt expelled from their homeland, so too they also chose to leave their homeland and settle elsewhere. As did the Jews.

For about the last century the world at large considers invasion and colonisation to be wrong. That's why, as I said, the historically recent colonisers, the US being the oldest of some four hundred years give or take, have had to admit to the wrongs inherent in their foundation and make redress.

If it is wrong for the US, Australia et al, then clearly it is also wrong for Israel.

To clarify, while justice would have been better served by the division of Germany instead of Palestine, that too would have been wrong and as much a disaster as the partition of Palestine has proved.

But, I repeat, here is where we are at. Israel does exist, however disasterous that may be and most accept that it should continue to exist on original borders.

The issue is, what Israel needs to do about the wrongs inherent in its foundation and the compounding wrongs of occupation and colonisation..... wrongs which you seem to ignore int he main.

The Deir Yassin issue is closed. My case stands. You have not made a case showing Yad Vashem does NOT stand on Deir Yassin land. The maps show only that Deir Yassin land, as is claimed, could clearly have reached beyond where Yad Vashem now stands. It is dishonest of you to keep suggesting that I said Yad Vashem was built on Deir Yassin, the village, when I said it was built on Deir Yassin land.  To pursue the issue in this way is time-wasting but I suspect that is the goal. I have nothing more to say on the matter unless you post clear proof that Yad Vashem could not possibly have been built on land belonging to the people of Deir Yassin.

The ideas of creating Jewish homelands in the Kimberley and in Tasmania were both discussed earlier this year on the Radio National program The Ark.

Author Leon Gettler discusses the Tasmanian proposal:

"Leon Gettler: It happened through a chap called Critchley Parker Junior. He was the son of a Melbourne mining magazine publisher. He was born in 1911. He and Steinberg had approached two Tasmanian premiers, A.G. Ogilvy and his successor, Robert Cosgrove, who were sympathetic to the idea, but of course then in 1941, you had the attack on Pearl Harbour, and war with Japan shot to the top of the political agenda, so the Australian Jewish Settlement sank to the bottom.

Parker though, was not to be deterred, so in March, 1942 he set out to survey his proposed homeland site in Tasmania’s remote south-west.

Now you don’t even go there, even if you’re a really good, experienced bushwalker. His extensive, fanciful plan for the settlement included a foundational mining industry, a fish canning factory, an Antarctic whaling venture, passenger shipping across Bass Strait, manufacture of liquors, perfumes, weaving of high quality fabrics, he even thought as far ahead as offering scholarships to poor nations and acquiring valuable works of art.

What he never told Steinberg was that the Jewish settlement he envisaged was going to be called poinduk, apparently an Aboriginal word for Swan, and was to be modelled on Russian collectivism.

On this journey that he undertook, he went by boat to the base of Mount Mackenzie in the south-west, he had notebooks and letters and I’ve seen those, and he was on his own, and there were violent gales and he got lost. He lit an agreed distress signal, no-one answered. He survived for several weeks, surviving in the end on aspirin, and died. Critchley Parker was the only Australian martyr who died for a Jewish cause.

Rachael Kohn: Remarkable! But as Leon Gettler points out in his book, An Unpromised Land, Aboriginal claims to the country were not even considered an issue by Australia at the time."

Someone was going to have be "dispossessed."

Roger Fedyk, the emotional charge in an accusation such as that relies on portraying a memorial to one set of people being built on top of a site another set of people were killed on by the former. Once normal people realise that the former group were killed over one and a half kilometres away... it loses its effect. That is exactly the reason why it was couched in half-truths and word play at the onset.

Hiroshima is a false analogy. See if you can find an American War memorial within the blast area. Better still, find an American War memorial 1.5+ km outside the zone in which people died from the effects of the blast. Try working from there.

Then see if you can find a reason why terms such as ground zero figure so significantly in human imagination. It is where the thing actually happened. Which is why when people in New York wish to pay homage to the victims of 9/11, they do not go down the street 1.5 kms from the site of the twin towers to do it. Why only the trashiest tv shows claim to be on the spot of something when they are in fact some distance away.

I repeat, the emotional thrust of the argument relied upon making an association in the reader's mind based upon a spot where people died - it did seek to do this dishonestly. At best, you are now able to claim that the word 'land' could also be employed to denote an area far from the actual killing. However, doing this you must realise that the emotional hook in the argument is not valid, and presumably that anything else in the 'argument' that rested upon that is also not valid.

The claim of dishonesty and lying is not directly tied to the literal meaning of the word - it is to the conscious employment of it to obtain false benefits or support for the so-called argument.

Roslyn Ross, quite apart from you attempting to tramp through history, not everybody considers colonisation a wrong, and the second half of your premise - that countries which were founded this way need to admit that and make redress - is again merely a personal opinion. Neither are these mainstream opinions either. Don't forget that. Peddling propaganda portrayed as fact with a sly 'for discussion purposes' and then hiding behind pacifism when people pick you up on it is bullshit.

You talked of the '67 borders; if Egypt and Jordan had not annexed & occupied the disputed territories of the West Bank and Gaza, and then attacked Israel, there would be no dispute over the territories now - almost 40 years later. That there is still a dispute lies in the refusal to negotiate by both the Arabs and the Palestinians, who chose instead terrorism and violence. That unfortunately is the brutal truth. If the Palestinians could bear to renounce terrorism and lay down their weapons tomorrow ...there would be peace. Then Israel and the Palestinians could properly negotiate how the disputed territories should be dealt with.

I know it's hard to understand, but it's not up to you. Sure, you can keep spewing the Arab's anti-semitic propaganda for them. Maybe you swallow their line because you know deep down that they have historically proved themselves unable to offer anything but a violent response to overtures for peace and negotiation.

Bear that in mind next time you talk of pushing Israel to the negotiating table. It is not Israel that is dysfunctional. They have not elected a terrorist organisation as their government and filled their streets with gun toting factions of thugs, stripping the millions of dollars of foreign aid from their services and people to support ongoing terrorism. Like a filthy, scabbed drug addict who knows subconsciously that giving up his addiction will involve many, many years of pain readjusting to normalcy, they content themselves instead with the moment though they know it will kill them. And you egg them on. All they have to do is stop.

And just who are these shady shadows who really call the shots for the pawns in Israel, that don't live there, that no one knows about yet they keep regularly popping up in your posts??

Roslyn I haven't called you a liar at any point. I believe, and have said, you sincerely believed the Deir Yassin/Yad Vashem misstatement.

The Jerusalem Fund's Palestine Center has a report on Deir Yassin Remembered, an initiative to build a memorial to the victims of Deir Yassin. Some excerpts:

"Deir Yassin Remembered was founded seven years ago. Its board is comprised half of women and half of men, half of Jews and half of non-Jews. [Director Paul] Eisen explained: 'Deir Yassin is as important a part of Jewish history as it is of Palestinian [history].' Eisen hoped to explain what the massacre 'means to me as a human being and as a Jew.' ”

"Today, Israel’s Holocaust museum Yad Vashem sits across the valley from Deir Yassin. Eisen visited the museum 25 years ago and remembers the 'narrative exhibition,' the tribute to the one million children killed, the shrine with its the smoky flame representing to him the destruction of 'an entire way of life, an entire culture.' Eisen recalls 'most of all' exiting the shrine to see an “astounding panoramic view of Jewish Jerusalem.”

The location of the exit is 'no accident.' It symbolizes 'the future, [the] redemption [of] Israel.' What the building’s designer did not know was that it faces Deir Yassin. This site commemorating the 'universally known symbol of Jewish suffering' faces the 'unknown symbol of Palestinian suffering.' "

By the way, I very much agree with this approach of making the acknowledgment of Deir Yassin part of the reconciliation process.

Roslyn you note: "For more than a month Israel has been bombing Gaza with some 200 shells a day. Yes, this is in ‘retaliation’ for some feeble home-made rockets which the Palestinians fire at their occupiers in a pitiful fight for freedom, and which do little or no damage, but the Israeli over-kill, literally, is considered acceptable when the Palestinian resistance to occupation is not!"

The rocket attacks are from Gaza. Israel withdrew from Gaza last September. So how is this "resistance to occupation?" Or are the rocket attacks on behalf of those in the West Bank?

You also contend that "Gaza is surrounded by an electric fence and is a huge prison, ‘with a million inmates,’ as described by Israeli film-maker, Ram Loevy. It is a place of collective punishment, and in the purest sense, a ‘concentration camp.’ "

Gaza has a border with the Egypt at the Sinai Peninsula (which Israel also returned to Egypt in compliance with UN SCR 242) so is hardly dependent solely on Israel for access to the outside. Where are the Gazans' Egyptian brethren? These are the same Egyptians who occupied Gaza for 19 years and never once (to my knowledge) offered it to the Palestinians as part of their state.

Roslyn writes "The only Australian option for a Jewish state of which I have read was the Kimberley. I'm curious about the Tasmanian one though. Do you have any links? there may well have been more than one although I would have been surprised by Tasmania given how many people lived there at the time and the value of the land ..... as opposed to the concept of useless desert."

I'll try to find the reference. There was an article a few years ago in a Tasmanian magazine called 40 Degrees South, about the proposal. I'll try to find it. I'm sure the Kimberley may have been discussed.

Your point again, the gist of which I may have missed: " 'And, as the Palestinians point out, why should their country be divided to create a homeland for Jews because they had suffered at the hands of the Nazis? Surely if justice were done it would have been Germany that was divided?' The paragraph begins with, as the Palestinians point out ..... it is they who raise the issue of dividing Germany, not I. I would have thought that was clear enough."

So you're saying you're not endorsing the view that Germany not Palestine should have been divided? You're just reporting it. With respect to my substantiation of the relative locations of Deir Yassin and Yad Vashem, earlier in this thread I posted links to two maps.

Shall I post them again? Look at the maps (have you? One of them was drawn by the Irgun themselves), and then come back and tell us again that:

"One of the worst massacres of Arabs took place at Deir Yasin in April 1948 and it is on this land that the official State of Israel holocaust memorial, Yad va-Shem, now stands as well as the City of Jerusalem cemetery. There’s something seriously tasteless, or sublimely arrogant, about building a memorial to the suffering of your own people on land where you have committed a war crime!"

Even your own Israeli "revisionist" source describes Yad Vashem as being "across the valley" (or maybe it was "the other side of the valley") from Deir Yassin.

Angela writes: "People use the Holocaust to say a homeland is needed and justified. Then, if that is so, then why in Palestine, whose people caused none of the suffering?"

A homeland is needed and justified for many reasons, of which the Holocaust was just the final straw.

But taking your point, and Roslyn's (that "justice" would dictate Germany, not Palestine, be partitioned), where then? That's my challenge to you and Roslyn.

You say your " 'own standards' are not the belief that anyone has the right to ethnically cleanse anywhere and to implant new peoples there." Fair enough.

Then how do feel about the ethnic cleansing of the thousands-of-years-old Jewish community of Jerusalem? The desecration of graves and holy sites there? The expulsion of the Jewish community of Iraq?

It's one thing to toss off remarks; another to follow through and consider their implications in a wider context and take responsibility for their logical consequences. To think things through before making potentially inflammatory statements.

An attempt to show respect for the forum and give fair warning. I did not say I had been defamed. I did not suggest for a second that WD is privileged. There must be hundreds of people  who were involved in the planning, design and construction of this building. And this is the internet.

OK ...

First Syd Drate, a day late with what should have been an immediate retraction. For the most part Syd, your responses are predictable but on the odd occasion you do surprise and it leaves me wondering why you write that which you mostly do. Consider yourself enigmatic.

Will and Roslyn's last posts have saved me the trouble of trying to salvage something from all the not inconsiderable effort and time spent on this. I'll wear patronising. Yes I also believe a two-state nation to be a good idea; I also believe the same about getting rid of Saddam Hussein and if I was a mouse I'd definitely endorse belling the cat. So just how do we go about sneaking up on the bugger and tying it around its neck?

Malcolm, for someone who professes not to give a toss about this you seem to have expended a lot of intellectual capital proving it. My suspicion is you do but to what end? Repeating a truism is not going to make people go away.

For those who are dissatisfied with Webdiary I cannot understand why you seek to find anything more than a gabfest but one from which I and quite a few others take a lot of satisfaction and value. If our musings here result in anything it will be by chance but the chance exists however remote. I'll back Hamish on this; if I say something stinks, I don't need someone jumping down my throat with "Scott, where is the forensic evidence for the presence of noxious gases and have you any nosewitness sources to endorse your claim?"

Luv yuz all, can we discuss the options of resolving what can be the agreed premise; that there is a problem; that we care about it and if not in the real world, then here.

Ok Roslyn, you finally tempted me in!
There was a time when my sympathies lay with the Israelis.  In the sixties, friends of mine went and did their two years on a kibbutz — probably the only reason that I was aware that they were Jewish!
Many blame Arafat and the Palestinians for the fact that no progress has been made on sorting this mess out, but it is very obvious that Sharon had no interest in having any proposal work.

It has long been clear to me that the Israelis are the aggressors.  The perpetual claim that the Jews have forever been victims long ago lost its impact on me, and in fact emphasised how little they had learned from their own experience of compassion for the weak, the disposed, and the downtrodden.

Over the past 40 odd years there can be few nations who have a worse human rights record than do the Israelis.

It is my view that the simplest way of looking at Israel is to see it as a detached State of the US.  The ugly arrogance so apparent under the Bush regime has long been apparent in Israel’s marauding.  Without the support of the US — funds, armaments, vetoes, and the shadow of US military support/backing  — Israel would long ago have been forced into meaningful negotiation.

The pity of this ugly situation is that for all the years pain and horror, Israel must eventually lose.  Having spent 40 odd years working at being hated, detested, feared, by everybody throughout the Middle East, they are now confronted with the fact that Iran has developed rockets with a range of up to2000 kilometres.  This being so, they are obviously capable of manufacturing lesser rockets.  Iran has the wherewithal and the capacity to manufacture an unlimited number of rockets.  The area has untold —  millions?  — who would be willing to be trained in small rocket squads of five or six people who could be easily trained to launch these rockets.

Disperse these rocket squads within an arc as far out as 2000 kilometres, each squad with five or six rockets, launch the first volley of  rockets at a precise time, and the shear volume would overwhelm the Israeli defences, and the dispersal would leave them without a meaningful target, in the  conventional military sense.

On a more cheerful note, sometime back I saw, heard or read a report that stated that in both Palestine and Israel surveys had shown that there was 28 percent support for a one state solution, and they did not care what it was called, or who governed it, always provided that it was a democratic state.

Of course, the vested interests would not like such a solution, but 28 percent support without any organisation pushing the issue is an extremely strong base.  Perhaps, just perhaps, ordinary people might finally get sick of the brutal games of the power hungry and force a commonsense resolution upon them. 

Israel does have the death penalty. It has, as Geoff stated, only executed one person as a state. It has authorised repeatedly target assassinations, killing ruthlessly anyone around the "target". Do you need examples listed? Do I have a few hours?

Tasmania? Cute. Hunter Valley I heard, with the coal and river. Do you have the transcript?  Texas as a proposed site for world Jewry to have was the site that floored me, imagine a Palestinian-type war there now over the land! Did you read about Ararat in New York? That would put the idea of a homeland ahead of Hess and Herzyl.

Will, just to clarify a misconception you seem to have about my and probably Roslyn's views on such issues, my "own standards" are not the belief that anyone has the right to ethnically cleanse anywhere and to implant new peoples there.

People use the Holocaust to say a homeland is needed and justified. Then, if that is so, then why in Palestine, whose people caused none of the suffering? I think that is the argument to which you are trying to refer. It is merely academic now as Israel is a state and yet Palestine is not, and still suffering for others crimes. The injustice of the world.

That is the belief of the Zionist organizations such as you said,who discussed that at the WZO at the turn of the century  ,and others had like the Nazis who planned in the 1930s, to clear the Slavs in the East  for Lebensraum... I suspect there have been many other ethnic cleansing plannings, and I suspect a revision of our own history will show a more deliberate policy by some of the more ruthless types, as all groups have, in the 1800s regarding Aborigines. That doesn't mean it is right and to be praised, and I have noticed in history one reaps what one sows. How ironical if the Indonesians should use the Aboriginal territory aspirations to justify supporting them militarily. Reap away. History is littered with such excuses for invasions.

I think what Malcolm may have meant by history needing time is the telling of secrets that need all the deed doers and their heirs dead. The opening of archives and then resealing is so frustrating for historians. Look at the incredible data from the Soviet files.

I have been looking at history from a financial base for a few years; it is quite and eye-opener and I wonder there are not more books written. Especially the recent "I Was an Economic Hitman" by Perkins, currently under fire by the neocon stooges. Ouch it was.

Cheers

Will, I am aware that there is significant information on that incident. My only point was that it has been impolitic to raise it in matters of state involving any of the world powers.

It may as well not have happened because it is generally ignored.

The "outright fabrication" you refer to does not exist even though you are convinced it does. In this case, it seems that matters of millimetres or metres or kilometers has taken on a significance that smacks of another agenda.

When the Americans dropped a bomb on Hiroshima, just exactly where did they drop it? The effect of the bomb did not cover the whole of Hiroshima so perhaps we could make a case that in fact they did not drop a bomb on Hiroshima at all but only on an area to which we will give another name. Sound stupid? Yes, it does. And that is the same argument that is being put about Deir Yassin and Yad Vashem by some in this forum. I cannot help wondering why?

Geoff, what is it that makes your responses so irrational? In your last reply to Mark Ross you state "...repeat your claims outside this forum then I am happy to arrange for the matter to be resolved before an independent tribunal once and for all" 

There is no need to wait, Geoff. There are only  a handful of places in the whole of Australia in which you cannot commit a libel and they are the various parliaments. Webdiary is not privileged. If a libel has been committed which defames you personally, in Webdiary,  then you can immediately take legal action. I am sure that Malcolm would be pleased to advise on who you could engage as your solicitors and barristers.

Of course, if you have not been personally defamed then you won't have a case, but I doubt you believe that. So go to a lawyer, go visit a tribunal (not sure which one you are talking about), spend a few thousand dollars of your money first (you may be able to get it back if you win but it is not guaranteed) and test the waters.

As to "shut up about it", I am afraid not. You do not set the framework for what can be discussed or not. In fact you have absolutely no say in that at all. And, as I have said to you before, it is impertinence.

If you wish to discuss the right of Israel as a state to exist then I would explore that further. This is a significant issue for me because I am neither Jewish nor a believer of any sort and the idea that a state can be formed on the basis of people's religion is a nonsense to me.

For all you lawyer bashers:

What's the difference between a pigeon and a bankrupt solicitor?

The solicitor's wife owns the Mercedes.

Now get stuffed. 

If only you saw how stupid you're making yourself look with your bullyboy techniques, Geoff.

Don't threaten legal action, just go ahead and do it. Otherwise, I suggest you shut up about it. 

Solomon Wakeling, I suspect your source regarding the funding to Israel could be a bit biased. Have you ever wondered why the rich Arab countries have not done more to help the Palestinians, could it be that it suits them to keep things simmering or that they are shrewd enough to know not to waste good money on a hopeless cause?

I have often thought that if the Israelis and the Arabs get together, with the Israelis know-how and the Arabs oil we are all screwed.

Don't know what you saw as aggressive in my response Scott.  I'm a bit puzzled by your response to my response. I just happened to be going through the thread, saw your note, was a little mystified by what it meant, and thought I'd take a minute to ask, is all.

I think we may have all noticed at some stage that the written word does not always reflect a verbal tone. I've been accused of shouting before when I thought I was just asking nicely.

Anyway no offence intended.

BTW, you're right about the Greco-Roman thing. It is beyond that I was referring to.

Actually I know quite a bit about it too, if I say so myself.

Ask me! Ask me!

Peter:  You are right, people should accept opinion pieces for what they are but at the same time, the writers of the opinion pieces should be able to substantiate their position. In other words they should be able to provide evidence as to why they have taken the position that they have. There will always be opposing views and it is then just a matter for the other side to provide evidence as to why they believe what they believe.

And you are right again in saying that the writers should not be attacked for their view, particularly when they can show 'just cause' as to why they hold it.

One of the difficulties seems to be with people discerning between opinion and evidence and accepting that, on the evidence, the person has just cause for their view.

The 'slanging' matches are unfortunate and reflect on those who hurl the abuse rather than those who are meant to receive it.

It should be possible to debate conflicting points of view without people taking it personally or trying to personalise it.

I haven't counted the number of times I have been called a liar in response to this article but to date, no-one has yet posted anything to prove that accusation. When I post material which has formed a foundation for my view it is dismissed as being from 'Israel-haters' or simply completely ignored.

All column pieces, which is what I believe Webdiary is pretty much about, are subjective. I spent long enough in the press to know that everything, even news stories, are subjective to some degree. There is in fact nothing published which is entirely objective. It is just not possible.

But column pieces in newspapers and in online forums are, by their very nature subjective. It merely behoves the writer to be able to make a case for the position they have taken. And, as I said, it behoves those who oppose it to make a case for their position as well.

At the end of the day no one side is going to prove the other 'wrong' in many instances, but hopefully, and I think this is the importance of forums like Webdiary, there will be a sharing of information as well as an offering of opinion.

But you are right, the abuse is off-putting. Perhaps that is the goal.  I would respectfully suggest that maybe it is up to people of considered reason like yourself to ensure that the goal is not achieved.

Will:   If you cannot present positive evidence that Yad Vashem is NOT on Deir Yassin land then I think it is time for you to stop calling me a liar. 

I have shown where I 'picked' it up as you put it. Would you show where you 'picked' up the proof that Yad Vashem is not on Deir Yassin land, or, if we are to split hairs, not on the neighbouring land of Ein Karem. I believe it is on Deir Yassin as I have shown.

I look forward to reading your proof in post but as far as I am concerned this topic is closed. I have made my case and I stand by it.

Will: The only Australian option for a Jewish state of which I have read was the Kimberley. I'm curious about the Tasmanian one though. Do you have any links? there may well have been more than one although I would have been surprised by Tasmania given how many people lived there at the time and the value of the land ..... as opposed to the concept of useless desert.

I termed discussion of the Australian option as a digression because in terms of the core focus of the article it is. How is it central to my argument that the creation of Israel was illegal?

If a State of Israel had been created elsewhere and involved the dispossession of others, against their will, that too would have been illegal. If the Australian Government had provided a tract of land with no-one living on it and if the decision had been put to referendum and passed by the Australian people then that would have been legal.  The Government dropped the idea because it did not believe the people would accept it.

Surely 'if justice were done it would have been Germany which was divided,' is a comment which reflects the Palestinian view. And yes, in terms of justice it would have been more 'just' than the partition of Palestine. But this is not to say that I was suggesting it was logical, advisable or functional.

You are being facetious in your reply. I did not suggest that Germany should have been divided. I merely made the point that this is a question Palestinians ask, and understandably so.

You clearly miss the gist of what I posted.

Here it is again:

And, as the Palestinians point out, why should their country be divided to create a homeland for Jews because they had suffered at the hands of the Nazis? Surely if justice were done it would have been Germany that was divided?

The paragraph begins with, as the Palestinians point out ..... it is they who raise the issue of dividing Germany, not I.  I would have thought that was clear enough.

Scott: I bother because I believe everyone who posts to me deserves at least one reply. There is however a limit.

Jacob: Yes, the Palestininians would be starting from a position of disadvantage. Even more so following the destruction of their lives during occupation.

What I found interesting though, when I spent time in Israel, was how Third World it was in look and function. Having spent more than a decade in various Third World countries I could make a comparison. To be honest, it was not what I expected. I really thought, historical bits aside, that it would look like the best of the West. It doesn't.

One hears about the scientific and academic achievement and yet walking through the streets of Tel Aviv or Jerusalem you could be in Africa or India minus  the number of beggars,(although that may have changed since I was there with poverty levels rising) but with shabby buildings and a lot of litter. Ditto in how the place actually functions.

Perhaps they did not pick up as much from the 'movers and shakers' as you seem to think.

Personally I think that another tragedy of this unresolved conflict is the impact it has had on the ability of Israelis to function as well as they could. This war of occupation and colonisation not only corrodes the Soul, it sucks the economy dry as well.

Israel could be a terrific place without this 'war'; I hope one day it is.

Will: Thank you for your post. I agree the important thing is to move forward and discuss options although it is difficult to see how there are many alternatives to one state or two viable ones.

As to Taba, look, I agree with what you say but would just take the position that Arafat for a variety of reasons could not accept what was offered. Yes, it was better than Bantustans but no, it was not enough for him to accept.

Anyway, Taba and its ilk are, I think, now irrelevant. One of the problems with this issue being discussed is that people want to tramp back through history to try to say, I'm the victim, they are the baddies.

I believe that what matters is where they are at, not necessrily how they got there. That's a debate which can be argued to death and has been. Sadly, the death of Palestinians more than anyone else.

I guess I begin from the basic premise that colonisation is now considered to be a wrong and countries which were founded in this way, as Israel was, need to admit to that and make redress.

I also believe occupation is wrong and continued colonisation under the cover of occupation is wrong. These things need to be addressed.

Israel has unfortunately squandered any moral ground which it had, and, despite the wrongs of its foundation it did have a lot and could have kept it, by the brutality of this occupation and the colonisation it has continued to carry out.

By the way, I do appreciate what the Holocaust means to Israelis and Jews but I don't happen to think anything is sacred. That is my nature but it is also I believe, a quintessentially Australian view of life. And I particularly do not believe in ignoring a reality just because someone's feelings might be hurt. People dying is one thing; feelings are just feelings.

The Holocaust has in fact been betrayed and belittled by so much that Israelis and Jews have done in its name that I hardly think my comments regarding the placement of Yad Vashem constitute the greatest 'offence' to the memory of those who died.

You clearly have a deep and broad knowledge of this issue. What possibilities do you see?

I for one suspect that the two state solution is the only option because I do not believe that Jews (who have a lot of the power and the money) are ready to accept Israel as a non-Jewish state, in a way that I suspect many Israelis would.

I feel great sympathy for Israelis, despite the part they play in their own suffering through denial and dysfunction, because I feel that very often they too are pawns in the game like the Palestinians. The people who call the shots in regard to Israel are rarely the people who live there.

I suspect, however painful it might be, it is going to be easier to push Israel to return pretty much to 67 borders (and negotiate any changes) than it is to push international Jewry to accept a One State solution.

Clearly, if this is not resolved, and the bloodshed and misery continues, I suspect the world at large will force a one state solution but only after something truly terrible has happened to the Palestinians. That is if it does not turn into a conflagration which engulfs everyone.

I would like to see a solution sooner not later. I also believe that boycotts are an important tool to be used by ordinary people, in a bid to create a new 'face' for Israel and  for Palestine.  I use the term 'tool' as opposed to 'weapon' because there are far too many weapons being wielded already in this part of the world.

The distance between Tel Aviv, on the coast, and Jerusalem is 35 kilometres. When I lived in Sydney, on the coast (Northern Beaches) I drove about that distance every morning to get to work in the CBD. Then the same distance in the evening to get home.

I haven't bothered checking but Deir Yassin is probably about a similar distance from Yad Vashem as it is from the Israeli Knesset.

Either the claim that Yad Vashem is on the land once occupied by Deir Yassin is true or it is bullshit. Frankly the only interesting thing now is watching who emerges from the cracks to defend this bullshit despite its thorough debunking. No surprises so far.

The only reason this bullshit claim was made in the first place was because of the emotional punch it packed. To describe the exposure of this deliberately deceitful and provocative lie, in the teeth of an almost religion-like defense and contempt for facts, now as nitpicking, is beyond pathetic.

I have already said that this bullshit claim is libel. Mark Ross if you are prepared to put your money where your mouth is and repeat your claims outside this forum then I am happy to arrange for the matter to be resolved before an independent tribunal once and for all. That goes for everybody else as well. Otherwise I suggest you shut up about it.

I have nothing more to say on the subject.

No - nobody's sweeping anything. Let's talk about the King David Hotel bombing. What would you like to know about it? I know heaps, and I'll be glad to tell you.

I don't mind facing ALL the bits of history, warts and all.

What I object to is outright fabrication.

But that was estimating by going from the Irgun's map from 1948, to a modern map that didn't actually show Deir Yassin, with me interpolating to where I reckoned the location of Deir Yassin must have been.

But Mark no amount of verbal gymnastics by anyone can put Deir Yassin at Yad Vashem. Anyone who's been to Jerusalem knows that.

Roslyn tried to sell us a real porky. I doubt she meant to. She probably just picked it up somewhere, believed it, because of course Israelis would do such a callous thing. The rest of the mob believed it for the same reason. Hamish picked out that one excerpt, again, probably not really giving it much thought. And why would he? The whole piece is just boilerplate anti-Israel screed.

That's the biggest problem: how unoriginal the piece is. And surely in "intellectual" circles this must be a bigger no-no than mere anti-Israel bigotry.

Geoff, I'm genuinely puzzled by your response which I think I can be forgiven for perceiving as aggressive. If you read more into it than I intended then may I suggest it's time for a little introspection? I said "apropos of nothing in particular."

If you want to know what was in my mind because you obviously didn't discern it, was a sad reflection on how much richer our lives would be without the sort of crap that I see going on here.

Etymology is not my strong suite, I would have thought the English alphabet, (Alpha, Beta) was more Greco-Roman but I could be wrong. However I do know that it is also littered with Hindi, Malay and some Chinese as a result of British colonial ventures, so just what was the point you were trying to make?

I would have been more gratified if you had pointed out that I had left out the most important numeral. 0

Some more "truths" some people choose to live in.

It says a lot when after a desperate and increasingly shrill search in the usual places and an almost comical tap dance of word plays and conflicting denials, not even the Palestine Media Centre could be relied on to come up with anything like a "source" or an "authority". Never mind. No doubt they'll have this new "truth" on their site inside a month. With better organisation it could have been arranged in advance.

Those who are interested can see how I predicted this issue would end days ago on the other thread.

Some other "truths" barely touched on:

• That the Jews were a "tiny minority" in Palestine prior to the UN partition plan. "Less than 1%". Perhaps someone was confusing Palestine with Australia. What the heck. What's a few kilometres? Stop nit-picking.
• That the Jews were all refugees from Europe and the partition was set up to accommodate them. Never mind the large Jewish population that was Palestinian born. Never mind the Jewish refugees from Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Iraq, Sudan, Yemen, Iran ... where they had live since Roman times and which were equivalent in numbers to Arab refugees of the 1948 war, They are inconvenient to the "truth" and therefore erased from history.
• That the total ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem and the West Bank of Jews never happened, or if it did it is inconvenient to the "truth" and therefore should not be mentioned.
• That 85% of Palestinian Arabs were dispossessed of their land and property. Where the hell do people get this stuff from? Then again I don't want to know. Forget the Palestinian Arabs who already lived in Jordan, West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem. Forget those who moved to take advantage of property from which Jews were forced. Forget those who never had any land and took their property with them. Above all, forget those who stayed put and became full Israeli citizens. Then double the remainder and come up with any glib statistic you feel like. After all it's the "truth" we want.

I could go on and on. But there is only so much of this "truth" that can be stomached in one sitting.

Four days after Roslyn's vivisection at the hands of Will and Geoff and all we have is a cartographic infelicity to show for their pains. It turns out that by assuming that 1.5 kilometres is 'near enough', Roslyn has caused the death of children and libel to boot. Naughty, naughty.

Let's put this in perspective for those whose hyperbole has rendered them incapable of rational thought. To walk 1.5 kilometres is to walk from Hyde Park to the Opera House. It is also like walking from the MCG to the Vic Arts Centre or from my house to the shops and back. With the possible exception of the last example, it is probably a walk that thousands of people do everyday. To say that Yad Vashem is not in the same place as Deir Yassin is nitpicking bullshit. However, if Webdiary discussion is to be reduced to nitpicking bullshit, then let me add my 1.5 kilos worth.

Will tells us in another thread that the two sites are a few kilometres away from each other. Now... Will, when you say "a few kilometres", do you mean less than a couple but more than one? Could you possibly have meant more than two but less than five? A few could be reasonably construed as at least three. Three kilometres is twice the actual distance. By saying "a few kilometres" instead of 1.5, where you trying to pull the wool over our eyes with unsourced and factually incorrect rubbish? No. Of course you weren't. You just assumed that "a few kilometres" was near enough for most reasonable people.

At the end of the day, both Roslyn and Will should be forgiven for having trouble with maps in the Middle East. Apparently it happens to the locals as well!!

Phil, the King David Hotel bombing is one of those prickly incidents that has been swept under the rug. It is not politic to raise it but there it is.

When you think that the whole world is your enemy you do bad and unconsciable things because you have no confidence in the options, ask any Palestinian.

I have commented previously on the funding to both the Israelis and the Palestinians. The following link to postings I've written that should help put both issues in perspective: Palestinian refugees' situation here and here and here. See here for documentation of what was and was not on offer in the terms of the Camp David and Taba negotiations in 2000 and early 2001. It has bearing on the money offered to the Palestinians for aid and compensation.

G'day Roger.

Y'can use Google as an adjudicator; compare the 'hit' counts for each variation. Also, when I searched, 'Hühnerleiter' came up first:

Web Results 1 - 100 of about 484 German pages for "Leben ist wie" "kurz und beschissen". (1.03 secs)

So now, if we try looking for Hühnerleiter, I quickly found:
Zweidrahtspeiseleitung, and Spreizer zum Bau einer "Hühnerleiter" (Paralleldrahtleitung) Artikel Nr. 00096. Spreizer für Hühnerleiter aus Polykarbonat. Abbildung: Nr. 1 (all of which seem to have something to do with Elektronik und Antennen), among I suppose lots more...

Due to birds (big white ones chew bits off the house), our external TV antenna-lead could be a candidate, but I suppose a chicken-coop stairway could also qualify.

BTW, Q: what's the difference between a pigeon & a bankrupt lawyer?

A: The pigeon can still make a deposit on a Mercedes.

Avagoodweegend!

Syd Drate, can I ask why you think Palestine would end up as a third world country? My understanding is that the US gives excess funding to Israel. According to this source, it is 30% of their aid budget. Perhaps if this imbalance was rectified an independent Palestine might have a chance to properly develop its economy. I still don't see any alternative to a two-state solution. Putting an end to the state of Israel, as Hamas wants, is impractical. There needs to be a compromise.

Roger Fedyk, I think the wrongs of history should be rectified as far as is practicable. I think negotiations over land should continue and that the Palestinian people should get a fair deal out of it. However I prize peace above all else, and can't see how that can be achieved without compromise on both sides.

Hamish, I did not intend to suggest that opinion pieces not be run.  Merely that readers ought to accept them as what they are. Opinion.

I was not attacking, or did not intend to attack Webdiary. It is my view that attacking the person, rather than discussing/debating their point of view, is off-putting. I read most of the original pieces, contribute rarely as I have neither the time nor the inclination to read or get involved slanging matches.

I present this as an opinion that is intended to be constructive.

Regards.

Hamish: apologies for misunderstanding, and your point is well made. Glad to hear from you when we do Peter.

Eichmann was the first and last. There was another execution in very controversial circumstances but that happened just prior to the foundation of the State.

Your point Scott ? The next time you use the English language you might reflect that it has an alphabetic structure ultimately based in part in Hebrew. And that the English language is potted with Hebrew words.

Ironic isn't it?

I also like the paraphrased English version, "Life's a bitch and then you die". Just did not get "Hünerleiter" (chook's ladder), is this a colloquiallism?

Malcolm, I am starting to worry about you, old chap. Lawyers are not actually renowned for their brevity but you seem to be forgetting to add something explanatory.

Sadly, I agree with you, the Maoris do not run New Zealand. They are among the world's dispossessed. Now, I have actually been agreeing with your original position, namely that the history of aborigines everywhere is one of dispossession as wave after wave of militarily stronger groups muscle them out of the way and become the new aborigines.

Now, your position, apart from "I don't give a f...", as I read it, is that the displacing force brings with it its own legitimacy. That is, the situation on the ground trumps everything, allowing the proto-lawyers to proclaim "this land is our land, {the} god{s} gave it to us". Now feel free to chip in anytime with a comment or a legal correction.

"Do you read any history or do you just habitually invent it?" If I did not know better I would say that you were being just a little bit narky. However, it appears that you are requesting some personal information so I am happy to oblige. In the past 3-5 years, I have read:

• Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time, a biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt war time years
• Albert Hourani's A History Of The Arab Peoples
• Violet Asquith Bonham-Carter Winston Churchill As I Knew Him
• Herbert Bix's Hirohito and The Making Of Modern Japan
• Margaret Thatcher's The Downing Street Years
• Carlo D'Este's A Genius for War: A Life of General George S. Patton,
• William Shirer's The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich (actually this is the third time I have read the unabridged edition, silly me, you would have thought I would have learned the first time)
• Giles Milton's White Gold : The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and Islam's One Million White Slaves. This one is a cracker, guaranteed to turn your pubes white and I would take a bet that virtually no one knows about this 200 year slice of history.
• numerous other books, mostly biographical and historical, including The PM's Bodyguard which I reviewed for WD. I'll take a look in my library, if you would like more titles
• I also have a comprehensive library of theological books which I listed in another WD forum here under the post title of I Said, You Said.

Seeing you are so interested in my reading habits, I am fully trained in speed-reading techniques and can comfortably read 600 wpm. I usually read 2 or 3 books at a time. My current reading list is Mozart's Women by Jane Glover, For The Love Of Good Food by Serge Dansereau and Mental Illness - A Personal Story by Jo Buchanan. Anyway, enough about me how about you sharing your reading list (and don't forget the history books)?

"You certainly don't seem to have any realistic perspective on it (and I still think commentary on anything post about the Boer War is far too close for proper historical perspective)." I'm sorry Malcolm, "realistic perspective", according to who? Oh, you! Well I think that a little amplification is order. We just can't say "because I say so", can we? Whats that? Oh you can! Gee Malcolm, I know that you're good but can't you at least put a hundred words together to point out my error.

And I'm glad that you cleared up the "Boor War" thing, we were getting really hung up on how to read history. Of course, there is the teensy weensy problem of extant historical sources. I mean after they are gone, writers could write anything they want, and do. It does leave the field open to revisionists, does it not, old chap. Still, I do see your point.

"Nothing but opinion", yes, the very ethos of much writing, even here in WD. I like to think that I am somewhat discerning in my "crap" but you don't know until you open a book up. Sometimes you don't even know until you're finished reading. And then sometimes you don't know at all, until someone, (not unlike yourself) comes along and tells us.

Brilliantly written as usual, looking forward to your next installment.

Bloody hell mate. You're determined to get that cigar aren't you? What is it about Canowindra? Something to do with riding kicking bulls?

This will have to wait a couple of days. I've just finished fielding your last spurious claim.

From a certain big-note - err, 'big boy' (G'day Malcolm):

Let me make this quite clear: from a purely personal view, unless it has a bearing on Australia's strategic interests, I don't give a stuff what happens in the rest of the world. Everyone, in my view, is welcome to find his own way to hell in a handbasket. Suffer the little children, well that's par for the course historically, most of them live long enough to procreate and produce more children to starve to death anyway. Don't like seeing children starve or be blown up or whatever? Stop the bastards having them. Now there's a solution that will fix things in about a generation.

Hmmm. To "produce more children to starve to death" is Malthusian[1]; "I don't give a stuff what happens in the rest of the world" may be misanthropic[2]. Then this: "... tell the UN. There's a warm fuzzy rational group of humanitarians."

Objection, your honour! Going "to hell in a handbasket" and worse, "warm fuzzy" are examples of sloppy, pig-higorant and weak-kneed Ameri-speak (spit, spit!) - and as such hardly belong in a thoughtful forum - one might'a thunk.

The first bit of this Malthusian idea: that "the population should be restricted so ..." - may in fact be in the implementation phase both here and in the US, but if so then only for the toadally cynical purpose of decreasing even further the already next-to-non-existent competition for the Oh, so rich fat-to-the-point-of-obscene-cats' already grossly unfair 'share'. (The US has about 5% of world's population and consumes approximately 25% of (currently!) available resources; then, only about 1%, say are estimated to control some (ghastly) vast proportion, I heard recently as much as 90%, of all that (irresponsibly 'printed') dough...) What I'm really tryin' to say here is, that greed is right out'a control; what ever happened to a fair suck on the sauce-bottle?

But: This Malthusian idea is demonstrably false (and therefore outmoded if not completely invalid) in 'Western' countries at least, since the more eddy-kay-shun, daaarlings, the fewer the sprogs. Full-stop; so if y'wanna avert a Malthusian crisis, all y'have t'do, is provide a sufficient level of education for all. Full-bloody-stop, again.

(Before we leave Malthus, Roger (Grüezi!) might appreciate this: Das Leben ist wie ein Kinderhemd, kurz und beschissen! One could substitute 'eine Hünerleiter,' but it's not so luschtig anymore ...gäll?)

Now, misanthrope. Hmmm. The problem I have here, is that lawyers, one might suppose, while needing to be a bit detached or whatever; since they perforce spend a certain amount of their time trying to get some guilties off the hook - who would have to lie? One, or both? But, when they 'grow up' they transition - well, some of them, to become judges. Who would presumably need to have wisdom, empathy, and be able to recognise justice when it stood up in their porridge - get my drift? Whither, Malcolm?

That's the end of my warm-up, down to serious business:

Malcolm has asserted, that "Might is neither right nor wrong; it just works mate."

The implications are horrendous; try this one: that the US may 'get away with' their illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, as may Israel 'get away with' their illegal occupation of Palestinian lands, with no possible come-back - just as long as they control enough guns - and nukes.

In other words, it's back to the wild West, and nobody is safe anymore, ever.

Well done, Malcolm. Actually, of course, Malcolm is just a commentator like the rest of us; basically we're all armchair spectators. The real perpetrators here, are the current B, B & H of course, but more consistently, the US, UK (and Australia, a cowardly pimple on an hegemon's arse) - and Israel. Note that the ink was hardly dry on whatever paper Israel's establishment was on, before the fighting started. The Israelis knew what they were doing, just as B, B & H did with their bloody lying illegal invasion of Iraq; murder for oil!

Lots'n lots'a people point to terrorism in general and suicide bombing in particular, tut-tutting and how deplorable. But: it could just be, that Israelis invented terrorism (King David Hotel bombing (July 22, 1946) anyone?) In addition, as Robert Pape asserts in Dying to Win, suicide bombing may have far more (nearly all?) to do with lands regarded as being illegally occupied (Palestine, Iraq, hmmm?) than any religion, let alone Jihad. Really again, daaaarlings, we in WD are supposed to be able to see through the abso-bloody-lute lies and spin which dominate in the (corrupt!) MSM (incl. bit bits'a the AusBC - spit, spit, again! Boo! Hiss!)

Whither, morality?

Whither, hope?

Stop the world, I wanna get off...

-=*end*=-

Refs:

[1] Malthusian adj. of Malthus's doctrine that the population should be restricted so as to prevent an increase beyond its means of subsistence.  Malthusianism n. [Malthus, name of a clergyman] [POD]

Malthus, Thomas Robert (1766–1834), English economist and clergyman. In Essay on Population (1798) he argued that without the practice of ‘moral restraint’ the population tends to increase at a greater rate than its means of subsistence, resulting in the population checks of war, famine, and epidemic. DERIVATIVES Malthusian adjective & noun Malthusianism noun [Oxford Pop-up]

[2] misanthrope n. (also misanthropist) 1 person who hates mankind. 2 person who avoids human society.  misanthropic adj. misanthropically adv. [Greek misos hatred, anthropos man]

misanthropy n. condition or habits of a misanthrope.

Roslyn Ross, yes I have been to Israel, 23 times over the past 42 years and I also lived there for 18 months.

Yes Dubai is indeed a great city if you can afford to live in a 6 star hotel, not many Palestinians can do that unless you are one of the corrupt officials and yes I know there are corrupt Israelis too. The locals who live in Dubai do indeed have some wonderful services in health and education, and are indeed a model for a great many countries.

However my observations over the years have shown that the Palestinians have wasted their time, with their leaders doing very little for their people. Arafat was one of the most corrupt people you would ever meet, he ripped millions off the Palestinians. I personally believe that the Palestinian leaders have let their people down, and formented trouble for their own reasons.

When I go back there I usually visit and spend some time with a good friend of mine, a Palestinian schoolteacher, she is sometimes in tears as she tells me of some of the things that the Palestinian authorities do. I should contact her and get her to write a piece for WD.

Hamish: needless to say, that would be brilliant Syd.

Roslyn, Angela: it was in Tasmania, way out near Bathurst Harbor. But by your own standards, it could not have been anywhere but Europe - Germany to be exact. Otherwise someone would have had to be displaced - Ugandans, Alaskans, someone. We're talking about moving all the Jews that remained in Europe after WWII. Still millions, despite the Nazis' ambitions.

It's not a digression - in fact Roslyn it is central to your argument that the creation of Israel was a illegal.

As you note, "as the Palestinians point out, why should their country be divided to create a homeland for Jews because they had suffered at the hands of the Nazis? Surely if justice were done it would have been Germany that was divided?"

So let's hear your plan. How will it work? Which part of Germany do you think would be best? Will they have to change all the road signs to Hebrew? Will the new Jewish homeland be its own sovereign state, or semi-autonomous province of Germany? And of course, by now we'd be talking about displacing Germans who had nothing to do with the Nazi Shoah. Where will they go?

Come on, Roslyn, I'm challenging you to stand by what you've written or renounce it. Which is it going to be?

And oh by the way, Angela, Israel does not have the death penalty. I believe the last person to be executed was Eichmann.

Syd, Roslyn, apropos of nothing in particular, I was struck with a sense of irony the other day by a news item on some incident in Israel. There was a road sign or hoarding written in the script of the Israelis (can't bring it mind) with Arabic numerals.

Roslyn, you must know by now how predictable Syd is. Why do you bother?

Thanks Roslyn Ross for the clarification. Just as you demand "redress" for the Palestinians, I was demanding redress for the truth. You have now provided it. I do not deny the significance of the Nakhba for Palestinians, or their suffering during the partition of Palestine and afterward. You note:

I mean that Deir Yassin has come to symbolise for Palestinians their Great Catastrophe (links posted elsewhere on this) in the same way that the word Auschwitz conjures up for Jews the Holocaust.

Fair enough point. I, for one, respect the importance of symbols like Deir Yassin to the Palestinians. Now just as you respect the symbolic importance of Deir Yassin for Palestinians, perhaps now you have a better appreciation, and respect for the power of the Holocaust as a symbol for Jews.

It is not necessary to trample on the memory of Holocaust (not just Jews - yes I know!) victims to advocate a fair deal for the Palestinians. Nor is it necessary to fabricate history to criticise the actions of Israel. (If you look back through all my postings at Webdiary, by the way, you will notice that I don't accuse anyone of anti-Semitism. And I haven't accused you. And I won't. So let's just get that one out of the way.)

And by the way, I actually agree that some form of "redress" is due the Palestinians. The best "redress" for the Palestinians, would be for them to have a stable, sustainable, state. For the first time ever. As was offered to them, along with considerable monetary compensation, at Taba in 2001. Not everything they wanted, no I don't claim that. But not nothing, and definitely NOT "Bantustans." I have referred to maps of what was and was not on offer at Camp David and Taba, as attested to by participants on both sides and independent observers such as the EU representative.

And in fact, I share many of your criticisms of Israel. I'm not blind.

Now perhaps we can discuss the best way to move forward towards the goal of TWO stable, democratic states in Israel-Palestine, with neither having to apologise for its existence.

I have resisted the urge to join this thread. It seems to me to be a continuation of  Should Iran be attacked?, and that There can be no tolerance of  torture drifted in this direction.

To me the very idea that the question, Should Iran be attacked? deserved to be dignified with an answer is offensive.

That said this has become a nitpicking dogfight. Surely Hamish, these contributions are Opinion Pieces, not news items, or anything more substantial.

[Hamish: we'd love more journalism obviously, but if we didn't run opinion we wouldn't have much content. Opinion is extremely relevant in politics I might add.]

Should readers disagree with the views put, or question the accuracy of sections stated as fact, then surely the appropriate course is to present a different point of view, or question the fact with information which raises the question of whether this is in fact, fact, or opinion? Personal attacks and references to the writers assumed beliefs or political alignment add nothing to the issue under discussion. I suppose the issue comes down to whether Webdiary is a forum for the discussion of issues, or some sort of a club. Perhaps I am wrong in assuming that it is the former.

Hamish: Peter, I wish people would stop attacking Webdiary and start doing exactly what you think is required (ie "present a different point of view, or question the fact with information which raises the question of whether this is in fact, fact, or opinion". You're a Webdiarist too mate.

Yeah, and the Maori run New Zealand. You pass this off as "analysis"? Ask any of the "dispossessed" what they think about it. They don't like it. They still have to lump it.

Do you read any history or do you just habitually invent it? You certainly don't seem to have any realistic perspective on it (and I still think commentary on anything post about the Boer War is far too close for proper historical perspective).

That trend is worsened by all the crap we get that passes for history but is nothing but opinion. That should get the post-modernists going.

Roslyn Ross: "So what is it which dooms the Palestinians to failure and assures the Israelis of success?"

That's pretty obvious.

For Israel's success, thank an affluent and abundantly supportive diaspora, and a legacy that has benefited from centuries of "exile" from the land of milk and honey, reaping the benefit of dwelling among the true movers-and-shakers of history.

For Arab/Palestinian failure, blame the obverse, including centuries of backwardness arising from subjection to this or that backward conquering hegemony.

Quite simple, really.

Solomon, I refered to Poland and Czechoslovakia in my last post to you. I meant to write Austria and Czechoslovakia. My apologies.

The last time we had this conversation Mark I sensed you were a little dissatisfied with my initial response to your claim (as you set out above ).

The Anne Bayefsky speech is here.

So I attempted a further reply a couple of days later (20 October 2005 8:27 am). It is possible you overlooked it. I repeat what I said then here:

Mark, I've had another look at your reference to see if it perhaps could qualify on some interpretation but I still honestly can't see it.

Consider the context. Bayefsky is addressing the UN. She is saying the UN has a problem. That problem is antisemitism which manifests itself as discrimination against Israel. An obsession. To my eye she makes an overwhelmingly powerful case.

In the course of making out this case she makes a brief reference to the "Great Poison" speech. She knows what Brahini actually said and so does her audience.

But she is talking about the UN. Of course there is a point where the attacks on "Israeli policy" are so one-sided, incessant, contradictory and dishonest and the language used so violent ("Great Poison"), the allegations so extraordinarily concentrated on one member state, that a certain line is crossed.

Her point is the UN has crossed that line. I agree with her.

And I still agree with her. The only thing I would add is regard has to be had for the date of the speech. The notorious Durban conference, which was the last straw for many including me, was still a fresh memory.

Perhaps the Brahini speech taken in isolation might not have warranted an allegation of antisemitism against him (but that is still debatable - that "Great Poison" bit sets my teeth on edge). But Brahini was a senior UN official whose office did not inhibit him from making such a one-sided and violent attack on a member state and we must remember that Bayefsky was making her allegation against the UN. In my opinion she was quite right to use the Brahini speech in support of that allegation.

You can claim the challenge if you wish. I just do not agree.

Geoff, I have another candidate for you ( Death, Life, Truth, Lies, And This ...). I came across it while browsing through the archives and reading a post I made in response to Will Howard in what’s changed about me?.

In A world without Israel, Amnon Rubinstein writes:

Consequently, all these eradicators, whether they are Israeli, Jewish or distinguished professors, are objectively - if one may revert to Marxist terminology - biological anti-Semites.

The "eradicators" he is talking about are a "group of academics and journalists" who are "eradicating Israel - not with nuclear weapons but with ink and paper".

One of them is Professor Tony Judt. Rubinstein writes:

Professor Tony Judt of New York University also wiped Israel off the map in the New York Review of Books in October 2003 by writing that "Israel is an anachronism" and by proposing that it be replaced by a binational state.

Here is Judt's NYRB article: Israel: The Alternative. He does argue that Israel is an anachronism ("It has imported a characteristically late-nineteenth-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law"), but most of the article discusses the future.

He can see three options: withdrawal to the '67 borders; a single state incorporating the West Bank and Gaza (and a Palestinian majority within a few years), or a single state with the expulsion of the Palestinians.

He considers the two-state solution no longer attainable. Ethnic cleansing is not acceptable. So the only alternative is a binational state of Jews and Arabs. He concludes: "The very idea is an unpromising mix of realism and utopia, hardly an auspicious place to begin. But the alternatives are far, far worse."

You may dispute his analysis. I'd say that the two-state option has a better chance of being achieved, but it isn't very likely either. But he seems to me to be arguing for what he believes to be the welfare of Jews (whether mistaken or not). It is an odd definition of anti-semitism if he is included - and he is named by Rubinstein.

Is this an "example of someone serious, seriously suggesting that any criticism of Israeli Government or military policies is ipso facto anti-semitism"?

Not really. You do set the bar high, Geoff.

I'll take an op-ed writer for the Jerusalem Post as someone serious. Rubinstein is certainly very serious in what he is suggesting. But it isn't "any" criticism of Israeli policy. It is criticism of Israeli policy towards the peace process, and the offering of an alternative. If all Judt did was criticise the barrier, or the targeted killings, he wouldn't qualify. His criticism is broader, and his conclusion is that, in the best interests of the Jews (and everyone else, but primarily the Jews), Israel should become a binational state. So, for Rubinstein, he is one of the "biological anti-Semites".

Is Judt anti-semitic?

First heard about it from Dad (he keeps up with things I don't and vice-versa) but I seem to recall the best reference I can remember off my own bat is Guns Germs and Steel.

Geoff, I read you last post and want to give it some thought as you have taken the trouble to delve deeper into some of the issues exposed here.

I note your concerns and will do my best to put my own perspective on those concerns.

A Palestinian view of Yad Vashem from the Palestine Media Centre. Courtesy of the link posted by Phil. Just for those who can't be bothered accessing the link it shows that yes, Palestinians do 'care' that Yad Vashem was built where it was built.

For the Palestinians, the very place where Yad Vashem was erected, has a significance that goes beyond its being another chunk of expropriated Palestinian land. In 1948, at about 1400 meters distance from this memorial museum, the massacre of the villagers of Deir Yasin took place, in which 254 Palestinian civilians were brutally slaughtered by Zionist terror organisations. The explosion of fear resulting from this massacre, was part of the strategy of expulsion of the Palestinians by the Zionist ideologues, and helped them succeed in driving over 800,000 Palestinians from their homes, causing the biggest and longest-standing refugee problem in modern history. Deir Yasin therefore became symbolical for 'Al-Nakba', 'the Disaster', the term which Palestinians use to refer to the events of ethnic cleansing surrounding the 'founding' of the Zionist state.

Phil:  Thank you for that. No, I did not come across that in my travels despite the belief of my critics that I spend all my time on Arab or Palestinian sites. I am sure they erase from memory the many links I post which come from Israeli sources.

But yes, it backs up what I am saying and provides  a Palestinian link as Hamish requested. However, I am sure that  the site and the author will be instantly dismissed because they are Palestinian/Arab.
 

G'day Roslyn, with no editorialising, this:

The Legacy, Holocaust Memorial and Nakba-Deniers*
09/04/2005
By Tariq Shadid
"For the Palestinians, the very place where Yad Vashem was erected, has a significance that goes beyond its being another chunk of expropriated Palestinian land. In 1948, at about 1400 meters distance from this memorial museum, the massacre of the villagers of Deir Yasin took place, in which 254 Palestinian civilians were brutally slaughtered by Zionist terror organizations."

[The Palestine Media Center]

*PalestineChronicle.com, Friday, April 08 2005 [same story, IMHO original source]

Syd, just a tad prejudiced are you? You seem to be suggesting Palestinians are inferior. Hardly fair without giving them a chance. Have you been to Israel? It looks more like the Third World than the First and I've seen Palestinian villages much cleaner than Tel Aviv is.

Would you like to elaborate on what it is that condemns the Palestinians to failure?

You can't cite religion or culture  since quite a few (not as many as there were) are Christian not Muslim and Dubai, both Arab and Muslim, is one of the world's most modern and stunning cities. It beats Tel Aviv hands down. Muscat, in Oman is nice too. See, those pesky Arab Muslims can do it too!

So what is it, in your mind, which dooms the Palestinians to failure and assures the Israelis of success, given, as you said, an equal playing field on which to begin?

Solomon, there is an intractable problem in your acceptance based on what Malcolm has written. The problem is that the world of states is always in a flux. Military victory by the Palestinians will draw a totally different reality. Will the Israelis meekly accept their dispossession because "them's the rules"? Hardly likely!

Today that seems a remote possibility but in 58 years time when the American star is waning and China and India have taken over the mantle of the world's largest economies and militaries who is to say that the world's mightiest arsenal is not put at the disposal of the Palestinians.

The argument that Israel has the right to exist is specious. Ask the North and South American Indians what they think about the right of the US, Canada and all the Latin and South American states to exist. On Columbus Day, native South Americans spit on the ground to curse it because it allowed Columbus, Cortez, Pizzaro and others to take it so easily. Ask indigenous Australians what they think about having their land stolen from them. If the Australian natives were more highly organised, even in loose tribal coalitions, such as the Sioux or Apache, Australia in all likelihood would not be an English-speaking continent today. Even today, Australia exists only because of its military. Without that military we could very well be an Indonesian province.

England and France in the late 1930s were perfectly happy to see the sovereign states of Poland and Czechoslavkia disappear. When Hitler took them over they were erased from the world map.

Israel exists because of its military might and nothing else. The UN mandate was merely a starting point. That is not a rock on which you can build an enduring future. Those who think so know nothing of history. The Israelis need to make an accomodation with the Palestinians as equals before anything useful can happen.

The only thing that I can agree with you on is that suicide bombing is inexcusable and pointless.

Angela, while it falls into the digression basket, yes, you are right, there was a suggestion that a Jewish homeland be set up in Australia. I think in the Kimberley, an area that was considred 'useless desert' but of course, which was later found to be diamond country. Something of an irony in a way given the high number of Jews in the diamond business.

I think some serious thought went into this on the Australian side and even on the Jewish side although the Zionists were always adamant I think that it was Palestine or nothing.

It's a long time since I read about this and I could not find any current links but memory says that it was ultimately rejected by the Australian Government because they decided that the people would  probably not like it. Probably not. I doubt at the time they considered the 'people' to be Aboriginal.

I had never heard of this. Until I read the article I thought it was some kind of hoax.

Mind you, any political implications are beyond me.

Hamish: I did not use the word 'malicious' in regard to map making. It seems to me you are 'interpreting' the post this way.

I said Palestinian villages had been left off on purpose. I said this because it is a fact that Jewish villages and towns were built on top of them and they were the names which went on to the maps.

Israel has not drawn maps showing destroyed Arab villages although of course, such maps can still be found from before the foundation of Israel.

Moshe Dayan said, "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist!"

Now, running with a ball which has been clearly 'thrown' and I have posted other relevant links in other recent posts, it seems reasonable to me to then say what I said. Destroyed Palestinian villages have been left off on purpose and logically so one would say. There's another debate and I am sure a long one as to how much effort Israel puts in to erasing evidence of Palestinian habitation.

One example of the policy to 'erase'.