Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
We can live in truth or lie in death
Today, 58 years ago, the United Nations partition plan for Palestine was officially enacted, despite the opposition of every country in the region, and the first major Arab-Israel war began. Webdiary columnist Roslyn Ross marks the event with this sobering review. Roslyn's last Webdiary piece was There can be no tolerance of torture.
by Roslyn Ross
I remember growing up during the Cold War years, wondering, more often than one would wish, just when the radio-active cloud would roll across the horizon. In those days the likelihood of World War Three seemed very real when probably it wasn’t.
In these days the likelihood of World War Three may not seem so real when probably it is. Not only do we have the bloody mess of our own making which is Iraq but we have George Bush threatening to ‘nuke’ the Iranians.
Now, there’s no denying that the Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad may sound a little crazy, but then so does George W and unlike the Americans and the Israelis, the Iranians have not actually attacked, let alone bombed anyone, for over a century, without being attacked first, as they were by Iraq, in a war backed by the Americans. But who is going to let the ‘facts’ get in the way of a good story let alone anything approximating truth as more recently published translations of what Ahmadinejad actually said suggest?
It was interesting to spend a couple of months in Russia last year and to discover that what Russians believed about the West during those chilly years of stand-off, was exactly what we were led to believe about Russia. Each side was convinced of its rightness and innocence and each side was convinced about the aggression of the other. Both sides were being told lies.
Interestingly, the ‘lies’ remain, only the names have been changed. The charges levelled against the Russians, are now being made against Muslim/Arab terrorists and movie bad guys are now Islamic extremists instead of evil Russians. Not only are we being lied to now, as we were then, but the lies of today sit upon a dangerous pool of ignorance. If, in the near future, we found ourselves caught up in the nuclear nightmare of World War Three, how many people would know the underlying causes?
Some ‘causes’ are recent; the injustice of invasion, occupation and economic ‘colonisation’ of Iraq with reports showing some 200,000 Iraqis dead and counting three years into the conflict, and taking into account the Gilbert and Burnham report published in the Lancet in 2004 which estimated 100,000 Iraqis dead after just 18 months of war and occupation. And then there are the tens of thousands dead and maimed in Afghanistan because of American ‘retaliation’ for 9/11... an act, committed, not by Afghans but by Saudis!
But one of those ‘causes’, fertile with potential, has been with us for more than half a century; The Great Catastrophe. May 15 marks the 58th anniversary of the dispossession of the Palestinian people and the beginning of their suffering under occupation and colonisation by Israel. In all instances many people are woefully ignorant about what is going on although in the case of the Palestinians, most are completely ignorant about the original injustice of partition and the ongoing human rights abuses the Palestinians have suffered and continue to suffer to this day.
And one major reason for that ignorance is the lack of information provided by the media and our political leaders. The Palestinians, more than any other occupied people, have been buried under a deadly weight of political correctness. In other words, you can’t talk about the human rights abuses, and war crimes, that Israel has carried out and continues to carry out against Palestinians because the anti-semitic ‘flag’ might get waved and we can’t have that. Or can we?
It has long been said that truth is the first casualty of war, perhaps even more so when the war is one of invasion and occupation. The Greek tragic dramatist, Aeschylus (525BC-456BC) is reputed to have been one of the first to say it, and it was probably hardly original even then, but truth has always been a flexible medium in the hands of the powerful. The controversial journalist John Pilger, would argue it is even more so today because of what he calls ‘journalistic censorship,’ which is both imposed from above and by journalists on themselves.
It is not truth, but journalism, which is the first casualty of war, said Pilger, in his address, ‘Reporting War and Empire, at Columbia University, New York.
It is, he says, censorship by omission, whose power is such, that in war, it can mean the difference between life and death for people in faraway countries such as Iraq.
Or Palestine, I would add, a country whose own suffering has been generally ignored because the public is, in the main, ignorant as to why Palestinians are fighting against the State of Israel.
It is this ‘weeping sore’ of injustice which has for so long fuelled anger in the Arab and Islamic world. The success of Israeli and Jewish lobbyists in their bid to gain egregiously biased support from the United States for their continued occupation and colonisation of Palestine has turned this anger into rage.
And yet, if the press and politicians are to be believed it is only the Israelis who have a right to be enraged. It is the suicide bombers that we hear about and the suffering of Israelis, not the constant murder, misery and suffering of the Palestinians.
We all heard about the nine Israelis who died in a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv last month, but how many heard about the 66 Palestinians killed by the Israeli Army in the past three months? Most of them were civilians and many were women and children. 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! Hardly fair one would have thought unless you belong to the ‘might is right’ school.
And to make matters worse, in between bombing the Israelis collectively punish the imprisoned population with sonic booms which doctors say cause miscarriages and which terrify adults and completely traumatise children.
One in five Palestinian dead is a child. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights says at least 408 Palestinian children have been killed since the beginning of the intifada in 2000. Many of these children, one as young as four, had been shot in the head by Israeli Army snipers.
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.’ It may have been one of the first in Palestine but it is not the last.
With the Israeli Apartheid Wall, an enormous rise of concrete where land-grab masquerades as security, snaking through the occupied territories, more and more Palestinians are finding themselves ‘concentrated’ into ‘camps’ controlled by Israeli Army checkpoints.
The wall divides families from each other, farmers from land, people from jobs, children from schools, the sick from hospitals and the occupier from the occupied. And the colonisation continues apace. In the weeks following the pullout of 8,000 illegal settlers from Gaza, about 23,000 Israelis moved to the West Bank.
The Palestinians live under constant harassment from settlers and the Israeli Defence Force. On April 10 Israeli army forces distributed fresh demolition orders in Agaba, a village in the west of the Jordan Valley. They come on top of sixteen previous demolition orders which threaten to destroy the social, economic and cultural institutions of the village. The village is located on a hilltop and therefore of strategic ‘value’ to the occupation forces. During the Oslo period, when colonisation of the Occupied Territories became Israeli Government policy, this area was designated a C zone and slated for more settlement expansion.
The villagers of Agaba, like so many others, continue to fight to hold on to their land. On April 17 IDF forces attacked a school in Anata and injured five children. Since August the Apartheid Wall has run through the middle of the schoolyard. Anata has always been a part of Jerusalem’s urban area, but the Wall and a settler bypass have turned it into a ghetto. There are plans to expand settlements further making life even more of a living hell for the Palestinian community as Israel pursues, what a UN report has termed, its unilateral approach to a ‘solution’.
From the moment that the United Nations and the international community made the decision to partition Palestine, against the will of the majority of the people living there, in order to allow the creation of the State of Israel, the scene was set for bloodshed.
Whatever one may believe about Jewish ‘rights’, whether because of their suffering at the hands of the Nazis, or because thousands of years before, some followers of their religion had lived in this part of the world, the simple fact remains that to dispossess people in order to set up your own State is morally and legally wrong.
The international community and the United Nations simply did not have the right to partition Palestine even though, at the time, the proposal ‘supported’ by the UN amidst accusations of diplomatic intimidation by the Americans, to force the vote, was very different to what the Zionists had in mind and what has come to pass.
Let’s say it was discovered that the Gypsies (Romany), another Stateless people, and equally persecuted as Jews were by the Nazis and others, had once had a homeland in say Australia, and the international community decided they should be allowed to create a new one here... Would Australians support it? Should they support it? Could they be criticised for fighting against it if they opposed it and it was done anyway? That is the reality for the Palestinians.
The Italians (Romans) invaded England and established London (Londinium) and yet few would argue that they had a ‘right’ to reclaim any of it. And yet this was the argument put forward for the establishment of Israel where the ancient Hebrews had invaded Canaan (Palestine) and established Jerusalem. How do we know that the Palestinians who were dispossessed by the creation of Israel were not descendants of the original Canaanites and therefore with far greater right to the land? We don’t!
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 ‘war’ to establish the State of Israel was based on lies. Just as the English said Australia was ‘terra nullius’ to justify colonisation, so the Zionist catchcry was: ‘A land without people for a people without a land.’
The Jewish writer, Ahad ha-Am, otherwise known as Asher Ginsberg, who became the central figure in the movement for Cultural or Spiritual Zionism, in 1891, voiced opposition to the political Zionist agenda of settlement in Palestine and said: "From abroad, we are accustomed to believe that Eretz Israel is presently almost totally desolate, an uncultivated desert, and that anyone wishing to buy land there can come and buy all he wants. But in truth this is not so. In the entire land, it is hard to find a tillable land that is not already tilled."
The establishment of the State of Israel involved mass ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, mass transfer resulting in the depopulation of nearly 85 percent of the native indigenous Arab population resident in the territories that came under Israeli control. They were dispossessed of their vast rural and urban real estate and financial properties and some three-quarters of a million Palestinian Arabs (today numbering over four million) were stripped of their right to citizenship in Israel.
Joseph Weitz, "one of the architects of the Zionist settlement’ said: ‘Among ourselves it must be clear that there is no place in the country for both peoples together ... The only solution is Eretz Israel, at least the west part of Eretz Israel, without Arabs ... and there is no other way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighbouring countries, transfer all of them, not one village or tribe should remain..."
Not surprisingly, the Palestinians, having had their protests and their rights unilaterally dismissed, and had their people dispossessed, if not killed, at the hands of Zionist gangs using the sorts of tactics we now classify as ‘terrorist’ decided, with the help of their allies to fight back. The irony is that people who cannot find justification for the Palestinian fight against occupation and colonisation would give full support to French partisans for instance, in their fight against occupation. Or, one might add, to the British, if Hitler had succeeded in his invasion plan.
During the 1948-49 war and throughout the 1950’s some 500 Arab villages and cities were destroyed and almost all were razed to the ground by the Israeli Army. 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!
Moshe Dayan, the Israeli military leader and politician said in a speech in 1969, "You even do not know the names of these (Arab) villages and I do not blame you, because these geography books no longer exist. Not only the books, but also the villages no longer exist. There is not a single settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab village."
When the Palestinians and their allies lost the war of 67, Israel became the occupier of all of Palestine. Not only has Israel become increasingly brutal as an occupying force over the past decades, it has instituted a colonisation plan which makes a viable Palestinian State impossible, and given the malicious cruelty involved in its application, a plan which, one can only assume, seeks to make life so impossible for any remaining Palestinians that they will leave.
That colonisation ‘plan’ has involved dispossession, demolition of homes and destruction of orchards and vineyards, (many of them ancient although there are now accusations that some of those removed are sold to Israelis.) Israel’s response to the Palestinian fight for freedom has been bombs, bullets, wilful destruction of schools, hospitals and government infrastructure, assassination, imprisonment without trial, torture and collective punishment. Since the latest intifada began more than three times as many Palestinians than Israelis have been killed including large numbers of children.
And all the while Israeli settlers, living illegally on Palestinian land, look down from the well-watered lawns and their neat streets, or travel on their Israeli-only roads which cut through the heart and hearth of Palestine, far removed from the carnage which is carried out in their name. But one thing which the Israelis have overlooked in their colonisation plan is the fact that when people have nothing left to lose but their lives, then they will choose to ‘lose’ their life willingly in the fight for freedom.
I spent time in Israel and Palestine a few years back and was struck by not only how little Israelis know about their neighbours but how racist they are in regard to Palestinians in particular and Arabs in general. It may be a defensive mechanism but it is a dangerous one. So too are the myths or lies which Israelis believe about the founding of their State. Most believe there were no Palestinians when Jewish settlers arrived in the 19th century and that at partition the Palestinians left voluntarily. This is despite more recent evidence presented by historians, many of them Israeli, like Dr Ilan Pappe, to the contrary. They believe that the Palestinians came later, which rather makes the fact that countless Palestinian refugees have keys to homes in Israel, all the more remarkable.
They also believe that a Palestinian and an Arab are the same thing and Palestinians should just go to an Arab country because there are so many of them and they have so much more land than Israel. One doubts that an Italian or German would happily give up their homeland because, after all, they are European and there are lots of European countries in which they can live.
Israel, in so many ways, has become what South Africa was in the worst years of apartheid when denial was the ‘drug’ of the day and ignorance may not have been bliss but it was truly comforting.
But there are Israelis who are prepared to not only seek the truth but to talk about it despite being villified. Dr Pappe is a member of a group called the ‘New Historians,’ which revises and challenges the main Israeli version of 1948 and debunks several of the myths surrounding the foundation of Israel.
One other Israeli who does not do the drug of denial is scholar and author, Uri Davis, who believes that Israel is an apartheid and racist state, but in less visible form than South Africa was.
In South Africa, he says, some 87 percent of the territory was reserved under law for white citizens only. In Israel, some 93 percent of the territory (not including the West Bank and Gaza) is reserved under law for Jewish citizens only. Where the distinction in South Africa was between white and non-white, the apartheid distinction in Israel is between Jew and non-Jew.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he says, is essentially a conflict between a settler-colonial state and an indigenous population dispossessed by the colonial project. Where it differs from South Africa is that visitors to South Africa in the apartheid era would have seen it immediately; benches, toilets, parks and transport divided into white and non-white. In Israel the core apartheid is veiled.
Davis says consistent efforts are also made to ‘remove’ any evidence of non-Jewish inhabitants. The Jewish National Fund, for instance, which appears to be an environmentally friendly organisation concerned with ecology is instrumental in planting forests and establishing recreation facilities.
“Well, it is the case,” says Davis “that JNF forests and facilities are open to all, but it is equally the case that most, almost without exception all, of these forests are planted on the ruins of Palestinian Arab villages ethnically cleansed in the 1948-49 war.
The wall today, he says, represents an attempt by the Government of the State of Israel to cap the expulsion of Palestinians with a Bantustan solution for the rest of the country.
“The question of terrorism and the casualties inflicted by terrorism on an innocent civilian population is a very serious question, but the wall is not there to alleviate this crisis of terrorism – the wall is there in the first instance as an attempt to Bantustanise Palestine and to isolate the indigenous population in what are effectively huge concentrations camps,” said Davis.
The media and political ‘silence’ surrounding the original and ongoing injustice suffered by the Palestinian people is said to be sourced in fear. Fear of being thought anti-Israel, of licensing the expression of anti-Semitism and of legitimizing talk of a Jewish ‘conspiracy’ in terms of the power Israel wields in the United States, the one nation which could, if it chose, bring justice, resolution and peace to this ghastly and potentially internationally catastrophic conflict.
Even if the occupation of Iraq ended tomorrow, if America makes peace with Iran and puts its ‘nukes’ back on the shelf and if Israel builds its apartheid wall all the way around its State, puts a roof on top and concretes the country from one end to the other, the occupation and colonisation of Palestine, if not justly resolved, will remain the one ‘match’ which can ignite the region and make the nuclear nightmare of World War Three a hideous reality.
For that reason, if for no other, this is one fight for justice that involves us all.
 |
 |
 |
| © 2006 - 2008, Webdiary Pty Ltd |
| Disclaimer: | This site is home to many debates, and the views expressed on this site are not necessarily those of Webdiary Pty Ltd. Contributors submit comments on their own responsibility: if you believe that a comment is incorrect or offensive in any way, please submit a comment to that effect and we will make corrections or deletions as necessary. |
The Jews Of Antwerp
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.
Geoff: Yes, the Indians
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?
curious about the diamond trade
Hi Roslyn, do you know the history of how the jains became important in the diamond industry? History is very tricky at times to analyse because often a transnational group will be listed just as a national of a certain state rather than what their ethnic group is. We often forget that there are many diaspora in the world but the most successful are Jewish, Indian and Cantonese, methinks. What do you?
I think this is mainly due to the advantages to commerce in having easy connection with international trade and introduction available where ever they go, as well as the bond of being a minority group. I notice this works with Aussies when travelling too as a support and introduction network. From memory this also used to include the Arabs who through Islam had common bonds with many peoples in many countries, as great traders and I think the great Richard Burton used such in his trips, such as to Mecca.
So do you know how this monopoly was broken? Or is it just diversified and Jewish and Indian commercial interests have been closer lately? A way into the expanding Indian market, "franchised". Cheers
BTW did you read the UN report about the diamond trade in Africa as related to various conflicts?
The Truth About Antwerp
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.
Objectivity
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
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
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
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.
Roger Fedyk, the emotional charge
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.
It is Still A Matter Of Inches
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.
Sheik Shady
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??
Deir Yassin remembered
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.
well done Will, truth justice and fairness is the protection
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.
A few other questions
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.
Israelis the aggressors
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.
One state solution
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.
Scott: I think you make
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.
Two-State Solution
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.
Now is what matters
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?
I was right!
Roslyn, it's not often that I'm right but when I said you were brave for opening up this issue, I was spot on.
Problem is that, despite all the heated words, nit-picking, red herrings, declared indifference, and self-righteous bombast on this thread, nothing has changed in the Palestinian Territories and nothing will.
'Might is still right' and the general apathy in the world about this huge injustice prevails as do its scary implications. Regardless, well done!
Daniel: The only thing
Daniel, the only thing which matters is that the issue is discussed. Sure, at times it is rabid rant and tedious nit-picking, all designed to distract and destroy debate, but, at the end of the day, if one person thinks a little more about this terrible injustice then it is all worthwhile.
I disagree with you that nothing will change. It will, everything changes. The only thing will be how many more must die and suffer, on both sides, before it does. That is all, but change it will. Life is only ever about change.
In reality Israel cannot win. Neither can the US in Iraq because in the modern age it is impossible to win a war of occupation. It was only possible in the past because the conqueror carried out genocide. That is no longer allowed as much as some nations might wish it were.
So the stark reality is this: it doesn't matter how long or high Israel's wall is it will never be legal and will ultimately fall. Israel can 'establish' any borders it likes, but they will not stand unless they are agreed upon by the Palestinians.
Israel may continue to dispossess the Palestinians but one day the millions of Palestinians living outside of their land will return.
It is interesting to note that abused and occupied people's always have very high birth rates. It is as if Mother Nature knows that life is at risk and compensation is needed. The Arab-Israelis are on their way to outbreeding Jewish Israelis and the Palestinians living under occupation, despite constantly being murdered by their occupiers, are also outbreeding their aggressors.
Time dictates that a Jewish State cannot last. Time dictates that Israel cannot maintain its occupation nor hold the land it has taken. ( I would qualify: 'the land it has taken' refers to the Occupied Territories. I accept the existence of the State of Israel but only on original borders unless changes are agreed to with the Palestinians.)
The tragedy is that if reason were applied a fulfilling and peaceful life could be attained sooner, both for Israelis and Palestinians. But reason and religion seem not to go hand in hand and this blood and misery will continue for some years yet. Unless of course Iran is bombed in which everything will go to hell in a basket and resolution of a rather different kind will be imposed on all concerned.
What a waste of human blood and grief it all seems!
One more thing
The "Truth" Slowly Emerges
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:
I could go on and on. But there is only so much of this "truth" that can be stomached in one sitting.
Is That All?
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!!
Mark Ross's Perspective
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 Need For Any Other Forum
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.
OK
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 ...
Sigh.
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.
I actually made it a bit over 2 km
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.
Will: If you cannot
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.
Hühnerleiter? Search me, or better: google
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!
And have you heard the one
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.
Funding to Israel
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.
Funding
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.
Funding for Israel from the USA,congress report 2003
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.
Funding
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.
a Malthusian misanthrope?
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.
Wie geht es dir
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.
King David bombing
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.
King David Hotel Bombing
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?
King David Under Carpet Bombing
Actually I know quite a bit about it too, if I say so myself.
Ask me! Ask me!
Gruezi Phil
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?
Opinion piece?
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.
Misunderstanding?
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.
Peter: You are right,
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.
Potted summary of Success & Failure
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.
Jacob: Yes, the
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.
another candidate
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?
Ride 'em Cowboy!
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.
A Palestinian View
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.