Natan -
I understand that the British were the colonial power primarily responsible for setting up a "Jewish state" following WWII.
Stealing, and it began following WWII.
If the state of Israel constituted only those lands acquired by Jews through these means, then you'd be right (although their lands - Jewish owned lands - were stolen to form Israel). But some of the lands taken to form Israel were owned by Arabs who did not sell to Jews.
That "confiscation" is called theft.
If these Germans acquired Polish and Czech land by virtue of Nazi occupation, you'd be right. But many Arabs were on the land before Arab armies attacked Israel and the Germans did not attack the Poles and Czechs to stop them from "confiscating" land owned by Germans.
If they took land owned by Germans, yes.
But that's not what happened. The Germans were an occupying force and expelled (albeit replaced by another occupying force - the Russians).
The Kurds have lived on that land for centuries.
If your land is taken away by virtue of that change, then it is theft.
I never said they did, I said they began afterwards.
Being forced off your land by someone else's war does not justify the "confiscation" of your land by the winner of that war.
None of which justifies the theft of their land.
I didn't say anyone was killed, I said they were faced with the predicament of death should they try to keep their land - a predicament that led them to flee. But I would not be at all surprised if some Arabs refused to give up their land and were killed for resisting.
When did I say the land should be turned over to Arafat? He isn't the legitimate owner either.
Statute of limitations is a legal concept invented by governments that often has nothing to do with honoring the rightful owner's claim to their land. And if any Indian can show his ancestors owned the land my house sits on, I will offer them money to buy the land or take my house and go elsewhere. But that isn't going to happen because Indians did not live on my little plot of land. Had I been alive 150 years ago while the land owned by Indians was being "confiscated", I would have opposed that policy, not defended it!
Two wrongs don't make a right...
Were the Indians wrong for trying to rid their land of Europeans who were taking it? Whatever the motives of foreign Arab powers, the result was the "confiscation" of Arab land - Arabs who were not part of the foreign attempt to get rid of the Jews.
If that resolution "granted" land owned by Jews and Arabs to other Jews for the creation of Israel, then yes.
Speaking for a "government" is not the same as speaking for Arab landowners who lost their possessions because of a war engaged in by others.
If someone tries to steal your home, then "genocide" against the perpetrators is a valid form of self-defense. He did not say they would seek out Jews throughout the world to kill, only those Jews occupying the land of Arabs.
If it was his intention to kill Jews who had a rightful claim to land in the Near East, then he was no better than any other thug. But his actions do not justify the confiscation of Arab lands.
It began with the UN resolution "granting" Jews someone else's land.
"The Arabs"? Don't you mean SOME Arabs? My actions do not justify your theft of someone else's land.
Exactly! And did the UN resolution "granting" Jews the land for the state of Israel respect the property rights of Arab and Jewish landowners?
So the Israeli army never kicked Arabs off their land? Give me a break! Either you or Sirotnikov already said the Israeli army "secured" villages and that the land was "confiscated" because the rightful owners never returned or returned "too late".
And who did this? Other Jews? You didn't respond to my point, only identified others who were wrongfully forced off their land.
He cited an Arab population for 1947 and a more recent figure to claim they breed like wild monkeys while also claiming the Jews created an economic situation that attracted Arab immigrants. He needed to show how much of that increase was do to immigration and pro-creation by the original Arab population before making - "justifying" - his analogy.
Not necessarily. If I am trying to steal your neighbor's home, you have the moral authority to help your neighbor defend what is his. However, if these Arab states also meant to remove or kill the rightful Jewish and Arab landowners, then they were in the wrong too.
Unless you can prove ALL Arabs living there were attacking the legitimate Jewish owners of land, then your comment is irrelevant.
Example?
I don't care when it began, the fact is, it began.
Now you're citing the ideological and economic reasons for the buying and selling of land? I never said no land was bought or sold, only that the claim that Jews bought the land in an effort to deny the fact some land was stolen was an inaccurate generalization.
But many did come back. My leaving for a year's vacation in Polynesia doesn't mean the "government" can hand my home over to one of the millions of immigrants to the US each year. Besides, not every Arab landowner just walked away from their land. And the UN resolution creating the state of Israel already took Arab lands before the war.
Then it's up to you to prove your claim that more did than not. Did the fact many Japanese Americans had relatives in the Japanese army justify the "confiscation" of their lands?
My neighbor's refusal to house me after you've stolen my home doesn't justify your actions.
True, but not a right to steal the land or gun down Arabs not involved in the conflict.
What propaganda? That a UN resolution just handed over land owned by Arabs to the new state of Israel?
Why couldn't they return?
Excuse me? The foreign Arab nations attacked on the heels of the UN resolution handing over Arab lands to create Israel. That was what I said, how you got something else from that is beyond me.
How so? The Poles did not "confiscate" the lands of Germans in 1939.
The UN resolution and the willingness of the British and Israeli governments to enforce it constituted the confiscation.
Which doesn't absolve the thief of his crime. And once again, you're attributing the words of a foreign Arab "leader" to the Arab landowners whose land was taken.
How did the Brits "take the land?"
what do you mean by "take the land" and when did it start?
Jews were buying up land at market prices throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, but I don't think that can be called stealing in any known sense of the term in the English language.
Later, the Israeli government, after the 1948 war, began confiscated Arab property either because its owners were absent and unlikely to return, or for a variety of other reasons.
But the Arab war of genocide and extermination cannot be viewed as defense against later Israeli land confiscation anymore than the German war of genocide and agression can be viewed as defense against later Polish and Czech expulsions of Germans and seizure of their property.
So Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Russia are stealing German water and electricity?
But that's not what happened. The Germans were an occupying force and expelled (albeit replaced by another occupying force - the Russians).
Are the Kurds stealing Iraqi oil? Not every border change is a theft.
Not every border change is a theft.
Again, the expulsions can't be said to start before the 1948 war.
During that war, many Arabs left for a variety of reasons.
First, rich people started leaving because they were afraid of the general destruction of war. Later, they were kicked out either by Israelis afraid of hostile guerillas in their rear or Arab armies implementing a scorched earth policy. An example of the former would be the expulsion from Ramle and Lod, an example of the former, the expulsion from Haifa and Jaffa.
Who was killed for refusing to give up their land?
They have more rights then there supposed sole and legitimate representative, the one to whom it seems you would like to turn the land over to, that is, Yasser Arafat and the PLO.
I disagree. There's a statue of limitations on these things; you can't demand back someone else's house just because your grandfather lived there two generations and many wars ago. If you disagree, I hope you'll be turning your house over the nearest Native American tribe.
Two wrongs don't make a right...
But you're ignoring that the primary purpose of the 1948 war was, on the Arab side, to exterminate the Jews, and on the Jewish side, to defend their property and lives from the Arab armies.
Good, so you also oppose resolution 242.
He speaks for the Arab governments just as much as G.W. Bush speaks for America and Mullah Omar speaks for the Taliban.
He spoke on the eve of the '48 war, and besides, genocide is not under any circumstances a form of self defense.
If it was his intention to kill Jews who had a rightful claim to land in the Near East, then he was no better than any other thug. But his actions do not justify the confiscation of Arab lands.
1) False, because "the theft of the land" cannot in any reasonable sense of the term be said to have begun before the war, and the Arabs declared their intention to exterminate the Jews before any land had been seized.
2) The Arabs were driving Jews off of their property throughout the war and before it.
Both Jews and Arabs.
Well, sometimes they sold the land, other times the Arab armies kicked them out.
You're ignoring the people who were already there - the people (Jewish people) who were kicked off their land to create the West Bank and Gaza.
The monkeys comment was inappropriate, but what Siro is saying is that before 1948, much of the growth of the Palestinian Arab population was through immigration, and afterwords through a high birthrate. Obviously no one tries to sneak in to a refugee camp to get the yummy UNRWA food.
So you agree that the Jews were right to defend themselves from the Arab states?
I can't think of a single instance where Palestinian Arabs organized to defend their villages as opposed to raiding Jewish ones. They didn't have an organized army, they weren't an independent country.
So do you.
Again, the "theft of the land" cannpot be said to begin until After the Arab states launched their war of genocide.
Before 1948, that's the only way land transferred from Arabs to Jews. Jews would raise a lot of money to buy land there for ideological reasons and also because of the desperate need of Russian and German Jews for a place of refuge, and the land's value to them was greater than its value to Arab farmers.
If you can't come back, I don't think the government is obligated to hold then land until your government lets you take it while millions of refugees flood the area.
And if more did than did not, then generally Arabs did
The Arab states could easily have settled the Palestinians in their own countries, for example, in the homes of the Jews they kicked out, but they chose not to.
And the Jews had a right to station troops in these villages to prevent them from bein used to gun down Jews on the roads, as they were in fact being used.
Yes, but if they were fearing as a result of Arab propaganda, I think the Arabs who made the broadcasts have to bear responsibility for their refugee status.
Their rightful owners who stayed are usually still there, those who fled have been unable to return to this day and the land is now lived on by others. All of it is part of Israel, but that has nothing to do with whether it is owned by Arabs or Jews.
So the objection turns out not to be to the loss of individual property but the idea of Israel itself as an affront to Arab pride.
Good, you're getting closer to the truth. But by this logic, the German invasion of Poland in 1939 was completely justified.
1) Again, any land confiscations began after the 48 war.
3) "You took my house, now I'm gonna kill you and your relatives and anyone else who happens to be nearby you" is even worse.
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