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**Eli** · March 22, 2002, 06:56

Re: How to counter zionist propaganda

History didnt start in 1947.

**Zoid** · March 22, 2002, 07:00

Israel is a democracy

Myth
Israel consistently describes itself as a bastion of Western democracy and as the only democratic state in the entire Middle East. To demonstrate that theirs is a "democratic" country, Israel emphasizes that Palestinians in Israel have the right to vote, that there are Palestinians in the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), that Palestinian citizens enjoy a higher standard of living than Arabs in neighboring states, and that the only distinction Israel makes between Jews and Palestinians in Israel is that Palestinians are not required to serve in the Israeli army.

Facts
Israel's 1948 Declaration of Independence defined Israel as both a Jewish and democratic state, committed both to the "ingathering of the [Jewish] exiles", and to guaranteeing equality to all its citizens regardless of race, religion, or gender. Yet, in defining the state as a specifically Jewish state, Israel effectively compromises the degree to which it can be truly democratic.

As a Jewish state, Israel rests on three minimum conditions: Jews form the majority, Jews are entitled to special treatment and preferential laws, and a reciprocal relationship exists between Israel and the Jewish people in the diaspora. The Palestinian minority inside Israel, now comprising one-fifth of the Israeli population, is excluded and therefore discriminated against: by privileging Jews, the state treats non-Jews, which is its official name for Palestinians (miyutim lo yehudim) as second-class citizens.

Constitutional equality
Lacking a formal constitution, Israel's Knesset has propounded a series of Basic Laws that form a constitution-in-evolution. Prior to 1992, none of these Basic Laws guaranteed any basic rights to Israeli citizens, Jews or non-Jews. However, in 1992 the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom was passed. It authorised courts to overturn Knesset laws that were contrary to the right to dignity, life, freedom, privacy, property and the right to leave and enter the country. It pointedly did not include the right to equality, however.

Further, section 1A of this Basic Law states that it aims to anchor "the values of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state". Given the lack of an explicit law that constitutionally protects equality for all citizens, an emphasis on the Jewishness of the State again compromises equal rights protection for the large and growing Palestinian minority.

"The Zionist dream is to construct a state which is as Jewish as England is English and France is French. At the same time, this state is to be a democracy on the Western model. Evidently, these goals are incompatible. Citizens of France are French, but citizens of the Jewish state may be non-Jews, either by ethnic or religious origin or simply by choice [...] To the extent that Israel is a Jewish State it cannot be a democratic state"
-- Noam Chomsky, Forward to The Arabs in Israel (Adalah, Legal Violations of Arab Minority Rights in Israel, 1998, p. 9 --

Political participation
Palestinians' right to run for elections to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, are also limited by their acceptance of the notion of the Jewish state. These limits are expressed in the Law of Political Parties (1992) and, in particular, the amendment of section 7A(1) of the Basic Law: The Knesset, which prevents candidates from participating in the elections if their platform suggests the "denial of the existence of the State of Israel as the state of the Jewish people". Under this section a party platform that challenges the Jewish character of the state, i.e., that challenges Zionist ideology and praxis by calling for full and complete equality between Jews and Arabs in a state for all its citizens, can be disqualified, as such non-Zionist lists have been in the past. The law prohibits Palestinian citizens from mounting a political challenge to the state's Zionist identity in a legal forum, the Knesset.

"It implies that, on a decidedly fundamental level, there is no real equality between Arab and Jew in Israel. The state is the state of the Jews, both those presently resident on the country as well as those residing abroad. Even if the Arabs have equal rights on all other levels the signal is there: Israel is not their state."
-- David Kretzmer, The Legal Status of the Arabs in Israel, Westview Press, 1990, p. 42-43 --

Direct discrimination
Here are two clear examples of laws that discriminate against Palestinians by distinguishing between Jews and non-Jews:

Citizenship rights and The Law of Return
National identity is the main factor in deciding the acquisition of citizenship in Israel. The Law of Return grants every Jew the right to immigrate to Israel. The Nationality Law automatically grants citizenship to all Jews who have done so, and also to their spouses, children, grandchildren, and all of their spouses if they can meet the Halachic criteria of Jewishness. The privilege of automatic naturalization/repatriation is reserved only for Jews. Palestinians can only acquire citizenship by birth in the country to Palestinian parents who have already obtained Israeli citizenship, residence (after meeting a cumulative list of conditions) or naturalisation (which is exceptionally rare).

The Israeli Law of Return discriminates against 5 million Palestinian refugees who are prevented from returning to their homes of origin and their properties. The Committee on the Implementation of the Convenant on Economic, Social and Economic Rights noted in 1998 that Israel's 1950 Law of Return "discriminates against Palestinians in the diaspora upon whom the Government of Israel imposed restrictive requirements that make it almost impossible to return to their land of birth." The Committee further noted with concern that internally displaced Palestinians in Israel continue to be displaced and dispossessed of their lands. In 1998, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination noted that: "the rights of many Palestinians to return and possess their homes in Israel is currently denied," and strongly recommended that Israel give "high priority to remedying this situation."

Special status of Jewish organisations
As a result of the World Zionist Organisation-Jewish Agency Law, the Jewish National Fund, Jewish Agency, and World Zionist Organisation have special constitutional status in Israel and are known as quasi-governmental or extra-state bodies. These are very influential Jewish organisations that benefit and represent Jews only, but have authority over certain governmental functions, including ownership and development of state lands, housing projects and settlements. Their activities are co-ordinated with the government and they receive significant tax-exemption privileges. These agencies, which do not represent all the citizens of Israel, but rather, Israeli Jews and World Jewry, exercise far-reaching influence on state decision-making boards (particularly in agriculture and land use).

The Palestinian minority is excluded entirely from these agencies' actions and decisions as either beneficiaries or participants. Furthermore, no government organisations perform the same functions for non-Jews. Consequently, Palestinian needs are systematically disregarded.

Indirect discrimination
Even more pervasive is the use of "non-discriminatory" criteria in statutes that reaffirm and reproduce legal, social, and political differences in the treatment accorded Jews and the non-Jews, i.e., the Palestinian minority:

Military service
Many preferences and benefits in Israel are accessible only to those who have performed their military service. While military service is technically compulsory for all citizens, by discretion, the vast majority (90%) of Palestinian citizens are not required to serve, whereas the majority of Jews do. As a consequence, Palestinians do not receive the wide range of benefits, including larger mortgage loans, partial exemptions from course fees, and preferences for public employment and housing. The discriminatory factor is that in many cases the link between the benefit offered and the requirement of military service is tenuous, as for example, in employment opportunities, and government offices provide benefits beyond what is officially legislated. The most celebrated example of this was the level of state child benefits, which until 1997 were available to families contingent on parents' military service, rather than being contingent on more obvious and relevant socio-economic factors.

The impression that this is a mechanism for privileging Jews is borne out by the fact that Jewish Yeshiva students, who, like Palestinian citizens, do not perform any military service, yet are granted the benefits regardless, a policy which has been upheld by the Israeli courts.

Place of residence
The government categorises the country into different zones and awards different statuses and benefits to different regions and towns. For instance, it defines certain areas as national development areas, which then makes them eligible for benefits such as special tax incentives for industry, educational programmes, and housing incentives. Development areas are supposed to be determined according to socio-economic criteria. Yet the zones are drawn to include a disproportionate number of Jewish localities and to exclude nearly all Palestinian ones.

For example, in the 1998 classification, out of 429 localities accorded Development Area A status, only 4 were Palestinian, despite the fact that Palestinian towns and villages are consistently at the bottom of the socio-economic scale in Israel. These zoning patterns and decisions were used to exclude the vast majority of the Palestinian minority from these benefits.

Institutional discrimination
The Palestinian minority in Israel is discriminated against by those aspects of the legal system that allow the government to adopt discriminatory policies, or the discretionary power that can be used by Israeli officials to maintain a systematic pattern of preferences.

Budgets and resource allocation
The Budget Law, which governs Israeli state funds, does not specify what proportion should be earmarked for minorities; that decision lies within officials' discretion. Because of their lack of representation in government offices and ministries, Palestinians receive substantially less funding for local government budgets (usually 50 percent less), and have less resources allocated for welfare budgets, school facilities or other educational programmes. Often this discrepancy is justified by the fact that the government administers projects in cooperation with the Jewish Agency, thus necessitating only Jewish beneficiaries.

Uneven implementation of the law
There are three ways in which the implementation of the law adversely affects the Palestinian minority in Israel:

Positive statutes that the State is expected to enforce or services that the State is required to provide can simply not be implemented in Palestinian communities, such as the Compulsory Education Law, and the provision of truant officers or counselors, despite the fact that Palestinian students form 75 percent of those who drop out of school throughout the whole country.

Laws that apply to both Jews and Palestinians can be selectively or predominantly implemented only in relation to Palestinians, such as land confiscation laws or house demolitions orders to prevent or counteract unlicensed building.

Laws can be implemented according to vastly different criteria for Jews and Palestinians, such as criteria for family assistance in educational programmes or production quotas for agricultural production. Often quotas differences are maintained due to a lack of Palestinian representation in decision-making bodies.

The judicial review of this institutional discrimination is limited. To date, there is not one case in which the Supreme Court has accepted a case of discrimination against the Palestinian minority and ruled to protect its rights. It usually accepts the claim of the Israeli State that its policies serve national priorities and therefore are not intentionally discriminatory, or that the different treatment accorded Jews and Palestinians before the law is legitimate, as they are different ethnic or religious groups. Even when historical discrimination is acknowledged, the court will not rule to close the gaps, arguing that responsibility lies within the decision-making powers of the executive.

In short, Israel is a full democracy only if we are to consider Apartheid South Africa a full democracy.

The Palestinians chose to leave their land in 1948

Myth
Israel and its supporters claim that Palestinians left their homes in Palestine of their own accord during the 1948 war

Facts
In the 1948 war the Palestinians were largely defenceless, and sought to avoid getting caught in the fighting which broke out. A significant proportion of the Palestinian population was terrorized into leaving.

At first this was the result of threats, intimidation and acts of terror, in cities like Jaffa and Jerusalem, carried out by two Jewish terror organizations, IZL (Irgun Zvai Leumi) and LEHI (Lohamei Herut Israel). Of such acts the most notorious occurred on 9 April 1948 at the village of Deir Yassin on the western side of Jerusalem, when 120 villagers were killed. Deir Yassin had a devastating impact on Palestinian civilian morale, in the words of Israeli military intelligence,

"a decisive accelerating factor [to flight]"
(quoted in Benny Morris, 'The Causes and Character of the Arab Exodus from Palestine: The Israel Defence Forces Intelligence Service Analysis of June 1948', Middle Eastern Studies, vol.xxii, no. 1, January 1986, p.9).
Deir Yassin has always been considered as an Irgun outrage, but the destruction of the village was approved by the Haganah.

There were also deliberate efforts to force the Palestinians to leave their homes. During the summer months of 1948 a decision was taken to prevent Palestinian villagers, both in the forward battle area and behind Jewish lines, from harvesting their summer and winter crops in 1948. Others were directly expelled. In July 1948 Jewish forces resolved to seize the two Palestinian towns of Lydda and Ramla. From the start, the operations against the two towns were designed to induce civilian panic and flight, and at least one of the four Jewish brigades was told:

"Flight from the town of Ramle of women, the old and children is to be facilitated. The males are to be detained"
(Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, 1947-1949 (Cambridge, 1987), p.28).
In Lydda fear led to panic, and many were shot down in what amounted to a large-scale massacre of probably 250-300 men, women and children after the town had surrendered.

When General Allon asked:

"What shall we do with the Arabs ?"
Ben-Gurion made a dismissive, energetic gesture with his hand and said:
"Expel them"
(Morris, p. 207).
Approximately 70,000 inhabitants of the two towns were then driven out, almost 10 percent of the refugee total.

Expulsions, sometimes accompanied by atrocities, became increasingly frequent in the mopping-up operations from late summer 1948 onwards, and increased the fearfulness of the Palestinian population. In the course of his research the Israeli historian Benny Morris found an Israeli Intelligence report that estimated that 70 percent of those who fled in the decisive period up to 1 June 1948 did so as a result of direct or nearby Jewish military or paramilitary action. In other words, they fled either because they were expelled or because they thought their lives were in immediate danger, not because they voluntarily 'abandoned' their homes. Furthermore, it was widely understood what was intended, and it took place under 'a coalition government whose policy, albeit undeclared and indirect, was to reduce as much as possible the Palestinian population which would be left in the country and to make sure that as few refugees as possible would return.

By 1948, the number of Palestinian refugees was estimated 780,000. Zionists claim that this figure is 520,000. Israel's Six Day War proved almost as great a disaster for the Palestinians as the 1948 war had been. Large numbers of Palestinians fled or were expelled from villages or refugeecamps, particularly those on the floor of the Jordan Valley where they could flee across the river. Altogether 355,000 Palestinians crossed to the East Bank, of whom 210,000 had not previously been refugees and were now described as 'displaced'. Of those displaced either during the 1967 war or immediately after it, only 15,000 were allowed to return, less than 5 percent of the total. By 1994, the 'displaced' of 1967 numbered an estimated 800,000. Once again, as in the period after the 1948 war, Israeli troops routinely shot civilians trying to return home.

Even after the armistice agreements of 1949, Israel continued to expel or coerce thousands of Palestinians into leaving, notably from the "Little Triangle", a strip of West Bank land ceded by Transjordan during negotiations, and in the south from Majdal ("Ahkelon") on the coast, to Faluja and Bir Saba. the environs of Hebron, and from the demilitarized zone east and north of the Sea of Galilee. In 1953 it expelled another 7,000 bedouin.

Only 17 percent of the Palestinian population, approximately 160,000 remained in what became Israel. What had just taken place was the second major case of ethnic cleansing in the post-war world

**Zoid** · March 22, 2002, 07:01

The creation of the Palestinian refugee problem is balanced by the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries

Myth
Israel and its supporters claim that the Palestinian refugees' losses and claims are balanced by claims resulting from a comparable exodus of Jewish refugees from the Arab world, so consequently, nothing worse than a "population exchange" or a "double exodus" had occured.

Facts
First, the Palestinians are refugees; their exodus was involuntary and enforced. Oriental Jews, also known as Mizrahim or Sephardim, came to Palestine, in most cases, voluntarily. A small minority of them may have suffered in the countries of their birth in the Arab world, but the vast majority moved to Palestine of their own accord or in response to Zionist recruiting efforts in the Arab lands as well as in Iran.

Secondly, the movement of Oriental Jews into Palestine did not occur concurrently with, or immediately after, the Palestinian exodus. Only about 126,000 Oriental Jews (mostly from Iraq and Yemen) emigrated to Palestine in the two years immediately following an-Nakba in 1948. The remainder who elected to move to what became known as Israel, particularly those from North Africa, did so much later. The whole emigration of Oriental Jews was thus spread over twenty years.

Zionists regularly portray the lot of Oriental Jews in Arab countries as one of misery, fear and virulent anti-Semitism. But Jews of the Arab world had never experienced the appalling race hatred so characteristic of European anti-Semitism. In general, Jews lived in harmony with their Muslim compatriots in the Arab-Islamic world. When Jews did experience persecution during their 1,300 years under Muslim rule, it was not because they were Jews - for many others also suffered under particularly despotic rulers.

The emigration of Oriental Jews to Palestine was not a result of force majeure. For many, the motive to move was economic. For others, the majority, the chance to live in a Jewish state as Jews was greatly desirable and attractive. The chance to trade their minority status in their countries of origin for a majority status in the Jewish state was appealing to many Oriental Jews.

For many others, direct covert pressure from Zionist agents provacateurs, in need of Jewish colonists, stimulated their emigration. Operations "Magic Carpet" and "Ali Baba" simply scooped up Yemini Jews and flew them to what became known as Israel.

In Iraq, Zionist agents planted a series of bombs targeting the Iraqi Jewish community. As a result, all but a few thousand left for Israel, believing that the bombs were the result of anti-Jewish sentiment. The facts were first revealed, in part, in 1966 when Yehuda Tagar, an official in the Israeli Foreign Ministry, broke silence about his part in the business. Zionist terrorist activities against Jews in Iraq are well documented but not well known. The Black Panther, a magazine for Oriental Jews, tells much of the story in its November issue of 1972. Yehuda Tagar's testimony was first printed in Ha'Olam Hazeh (29 May 1966).

If any individual Oriental Jew has a legitimate grievance against an Arab government this would in no way diminish the State of Israel's responsibility towards the Palestinians whom they uprooted.

One should remember that, according to Zionism, Jews who come to Israel do so as the culmination of millennial aspirations. Migration to Israel on the part of world Jewry is considered a duty. In Israel, an immigrant Jew is an oleh, someone who has "ascended", who has fullfilled aliyah. Therefore, the situations of the Palestinians and Oriental Jews are thoroughly dissimilar and not parallel.

The Palestinian refugees were forced out against their will, have never relinquished their rights to their land and homes, and cannot be denied their inalienable right to return, guaranteed under international law.

**Urban Ranger** · March 22, 2002, 08:28

KX,

Good readings and all, but I don't think copying and pasting all the material from the other wesite is going to help right now, and you're violating their copyright as is.

A better approach is to use the material to back you up in your arguments against zionistic revisionists.

**Zoid** · March 22, 2002, 08:38

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
KX,

Good readings and all, but I don't think copying and pasting all the material from the other wesite is going to help right now, and you're violating their copyright as is.

Oops, didn´t think about copyright

But at least I mentioned the source...

A better approach is to use the material to back you up in your arguments against zionistic revisionists.

I will, but talking to the zionists on Poly is like banging your head against a brick wall...

**Sava** · March 22, 2002, 09:03

Sounds like Arab propaganda to me.

Israel existed thousands of years before Islam was even around. They have more of a claim to the area. Look at all the major conflicts in the world today. They all are in Islam infested areas.

**Tom201** · March 22, 2002, 09:18

Yap and the Roman Empire existed thousands of years bevor the French Republic, the friggin French should give their lands back to Italy its rightfully Roman land

**Sava** · March 22, 2002, 09:30

Originally posted by Tom201
Yap and the Roman Empire existed thousands of years bevor the French Republic, the friggin French should give their lands back to Italy its rightfully Roman land

Italians aren't Romans...

**Tom201** · March 22, 2002, 09:35

They are the ancestors of past Romans

Some of them live in Rome so they are Romans

My point is that this whole "some thousand years ago things were like this therefore we have the right to this and that", is rediculous.

**Sava** · March 22, 2002, 10:31

Originally posted by Tom201
They are the ancestors of past Romans

Some of them live in Rome so they are Romans

My point is that this whole "some thousand years ago things were like this therefore we have the right to this and that", is rediculous.

Culture and heritage is important to some people. In the 9th century, Muslims conquered the Kingdom of Israel and forced the Jewish people to scatter across Europe. The Jews have managed to survive 12 centuries of persecution. And after WWII, when they nearly faced annihilation, the Allies gave them back their original homeland, which is occupied today by the Arab scum.

Let me ask you this Tom, if the Russians invaded Amsterdam, and expelled all the Dutch, occupied it for 12 centuries, and then a group of Allies then kicked the Russians out and let the Dutch back to their homeland, would you be against this?

Let's face it. Israel is a democratic society. The Arab world is an autocratic society run by chauvenists who oppress freedom and women. This isn't a case of Jew vs Islam... Muslims should be free to practice their religion. But the leadership of the Arab world should not be allowed to keep a tyrranical reign over the people of the Middle East.

**Zoid** · March 22, 2002, 10:45

Sava you´re an ignorant ****! But what could be expected of a zionist...

If you didn´t have USA and imperialist powers holding you up you would be dogfood by now... Tom makes an excellent point, to bad you´re so narrowminded you can´t see it.

**General Ludd** · March 22, 2002, 10:49

Let's revert the world to the state it was in 12 centuries ago

It'll be great, we could do mass genocide in every country, kill billions of people and cause utter chaos, and then when it's all done we can live the dark ages over again!

**laurentius** · March 22, 2002, 10:54

Talking about been retrospective, Oswald

**Sava** · March 22, 2002, 10:55

Originally posted by Kamrat X
Sava you´re an ignorant ****! But what could be expected of a zionist...

If you didn´t have USA and imperialist powers holding you up you would be dogfood by now... Tom makes an excellent point, to bad you´re so narrowminded you can´t see it.

Yeah, I'm ignorant because I'm opposed to a world that supports terrorism, oppression, and persecution. Good point there.

Did you know that Hitler's "Mein Kampf" is the 6th highest selling book in Palestine?

Tom's point is stupid. The Israelis have a right to reclaim their homeland that was stolen from them long ago by the Arab scum. And the US and its imperialist powers aren't holding me up. Freedom is. That's why the Palestinians, and the rest of the Arab world is going to lose in this war against terrorism. Once people realize that there is a world without oppression and persecution, a world where you can be free, people never want a fundamentalist dictator running the show.

Modern day freedom started in America. Then spread to Western Europe. After WWII, most of Europe was freed. After the Cold War ended, the old Soviet bloc became free. And after the War on Terror is over, the Middle East will be free.

Anyone against Israel, is against freedom.

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How to counter zionist propaganda

How to counter zionist propaganda

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