TROLL > AntiSemitism > AntiPalistinianism ! Did the Jews learn from WWII?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
Here are some precise figures:

Palestinian Refugees: An Overview

Estimates vary of the number of Palestinians refugees displaced from within what became the borders of Israel in 1948. In 1949, the United Nations Conciliation Commission put the number at 726,000; the newly-established United Nations Relief and Works Agency subsequently put the number at 957,000 in 1950. The Israeli government has in the past suggested numbers as low as 520,000, while Palestinian researchers have suggested up to 850,000. Of this population, approximately one-third fled to the West Bank, another third to the Gaza Strip, and the remainder to Jordan, Syria, Lebanon or farther afield.

In 1967, another 300,000 Palestinians fled from the West Bank and Gaza, to Jordan (200,000), Syria, Egypt and elsewhere. Of these, approximately 180,000 were first-time refugees ("displaced persons"), while the remainder were 1948 refugees uprooted for the second time.

Estimates put the Palestinian population at approximately 6.6 million in 1995. In 1995, UNRWA data showed some 3,172,641 registered refugees in its "area of operation" (West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon), plus an estimated 335,000 non-registered "displaced persons".

So every Palestinian who fled from war zones in wars started by arab states was "expelled by Israel" (yes, if the Israelis hadn't been there, the poor victim arab states wouldn't have had to start those wars and get their asses kicked )

And every Palestinian born in the west bank since then is a "refugee" on the theory that his or her parents were "refugees" from Israel?

[Sirotnikov]

Contrary to claims from Arab propagandists at the time and some since, no evidence has ever been produced that any women were raped. On the contrary, every villager ever interviewed has denied these allegations. Like many of the claims, this was a deliberate propaganda ploy, but one that backfired. Hazam Nusseibi, who worked for the Palestine Broadcasting Service in 1948, admitted being told by Hussein Khalidi, a Palestinian Arab leader, to fabricate the atrocity claims. Abu Mahmud, a Deir Yassin resident in 1948 told Khalidi "there was no rape," but Khalidi replied, "We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews." Nusseibeh told the BBC 50 years later, "This was our biggest mistake. We did not realize how our people would react. As soon as they heard that women had been raped at Deir Yassin, Palestinians fled in terror." *

* - "Israel and the Arabs: The 50 Year Conflict," BBC.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


If I was an Israeli, living in the day to day reality of wondering if my wife and children would be spread in pieces and splattered all over the pavement for the crime of being an Israeli...

And if you were a Palestinian living in the West Bank who worried that your children might get splattered from a few thousand metres away for the crime of living on the wrong side of a fence? Palestinian civilians live with a much greater chance of being blown to pieces than Israeli civilians do, and to suggest that it is defensible to hold a people responsible for the actions of all its members leads down an interesting path. The path, it appears, that most in the region have chosen to follow.

Personally, it raises the bile in my throat to see apologists for both sides on TV explaining why their side is the one who should be forgiven for civilian deaths on the other. Israel doesn't "mean" to blow the **** out of residences when children are inside, Arafat doesn't have the "power" to stop his suicide bombers. Yesterday I watched a former Israeli general explaining that the IDF should make life so "unpleasant" for the Palestinians that they will leave "voluntarily". Without any formal statement to that effect, the Israelis seem to have undertaken just such an endeavour.

[Sirotnikov]

The Economist, a frequent critic of the Zionists, reported on October 2, 1948: "Of the 62,000 Arabs who formerly lived in Haifa not more than 5,000 or 6,000 remained. Various factors influenced their decision to seek safety in flight. There is but little doubt that the most potent of the factors were the announcements made over the air by the Higher Arab Executive, urging the Arabs to quit....It was clearly intimated that those Arabs who remained in Haifa and accepted Jewish protection would be regarded as renegades."

Time's report of the battle for Haifa (May 3, 1948) was similar: "The mass evacuation, prompted partly by fear, partly by orders of Arab leaders, left the Arab quarter of Haifa a ghost city....By withdrawing Arab workers their leaders hoped to paralyze Haifa."

Benny Morris, the historian who documented instances where Palestinians were expelled, also found that Arab leaders encouraged their brethren to leave. The Arab National Committee in Jerusalem, following the March 8, 1948, instructions of the Arab Higher Committee, ordered women, children and the elderly in various parts of Jerusalem to leave their homes: "Any opposition to this order...is an obstacle to the holy war...and will hamper the operations of the fighters in these districts" (Middle Eastern Studies, January 1986).

[Sirotnikov]

On November 30, 1947, the date the UN voted for partition, the total within the boundaries of the State of Israel (as fixed by the Armistice Agreements of 1949) was 809,100. A 1949 Government of Israel census counted 160,000 Arabs living in the country after the war.1 This meant no more than 650,000 Palestinian Arabs could have become refugees.

[Mark_Lipovrovskiy]

KH: Dang. I knew it would happen. That former IDF general (rather low ranked btw), will soon be the head of the Mafdal Party, the (previously, so it seems) moderate religious party.
He's a jerk.
Trouble is, that this view has become increasingly popular (48% accord. to recent polls) among the Israeli public, as a result of terrorist attacks.

[Alexander's Horse]

I think saying Israel expelled a "few thousand" is like holocaust denial - no wonder the Palestinians call the formation of Israel their own holocaust. I suppose Mark will be telling me that Hitler only killed "a few thousand" Jews.

I was going to ignore MTG's usual "facts and figures" filibuster but actually the refugee numbers are very well documented because they were all registered with UNHCR etc.

Mike, you should do your own but since your too lazy to, here's a few links, including a jewish source:

http://www.passia.org/palestine_facts/MAPS/Refugees-UNWRA-2001.html

http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/UN/unrwatoc.html

http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/1291/9112028.htm

http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/MEPP/PRRN/proverview.html

http://www.palestinianrefugees.com/webpages/books/english/palrights-eng.htm

[Sirotnikov]

Yesterday I watched a former Israeli general explaining that the IDF should make life so "unpleasant" for the Palestinians that they will leave "voluntarily". Without any formal statement to that effect, the Israelis seem to have undertaken just such an endeavour.

That could be his personal view... and notice he is a "former" general.

The policy of Israel is different.

The problem is that it's not always easy to see what people on the ground are doing.


--

In his memoirs, Haled al Azm, the Syrian Prime Minister in 1948-49, also admitted the Arab role in persuading the refugees to leave:

“Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homes. But we ourselves are the ones who encouraged them to leave. Only a few months separated our call to them to leave and our appeal to the United Nations to resolve on their return.”
- The Memoirs of Haled al Azm, (Beirut, 1973), Part 1, pp. 386-387

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov
Benny Morris, the historian who documented instances where Palestinians were expelled, also found that Arab leaders encouraged their brethren to leave.

Yes, Benny Morris has found that happened. However, you are making it seem like that's only what he found. The truth is, what Morris wrote is that in most cases, Palestinians were fleeing the war itself, and only in some cases was it because of Arab leaders tellin them to flee or because or Israeli attrocities at Dier Yassin (massacre) and Lydda (death march) and Jaffa (litterally thrown into the sea, where they had to be rescued by boat).

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
http://www.arts.mcgill.ca/MEPP/PRRN/proverview.html

How odd you should end up with a McGill link. It's stereotyped as the Jewish english Montreal school while Concordia is the Palestinian one.

[Sirotnikov]

“The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live.”
— PLO spokesman Mahmud Abbas ("Abu Mazen"), Falastin a-Thaura, (March 1976).


Gee horsie, it's interesting that you included one israeli site... among 4 others.

anyway, this proves my claims that there are no 3 million refugees in the west bank and gaza
TABLE 2: UNRWA Registered Refugees (June 1995)

	In Camps	Not in Camps	Total
Jordan	238,188	1,050,009	1,288,197
West Bank	131,705	385,707	517,412
Gaza	362,626	320,934	683,560
Lebanon	175,747	170,417	346,164
Syria	83,311	253,997	337,308
TOTAL	991,577	2,181,064	3,172,641

(from horsie's site)

[Seeker]

Che: Sorry, I forget my indoctrination into capitalism...you obviously are using a different definition of 'collectivist'?

And who are these groups in the Knesset "calling for the extermination of the Palestinians"?

Any links?

[KrazyHorse]

Seeker, I don't know about extermination, but the Tourism (?) Minister who was assassinated a few months back was apparently a member of the party that advocates forcible expulsion from the occupied territories.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Yes, Benny Morris has found that happened. However, you are making it seem like that's only what he found. The truth is, what Morris wrote is that in most cases, Palestinians were fleeing the war itself, and only in some cases was it because of Arab leaders tellin them to flee or because or Israeli attrocities at Dier Yassin (massacre) and Lydda (death march) and Jaffa (litterally thrown into the sea, where they had to be rescued by boat).

Contrary to claims from Arab propagandists at the time and some since, no evidence has ever been produced that any women were raped. On the contrary, every villager ever interviewed has denied these allegations. Like many of the claims, this was a deliberate propaganda ploy, but one that backfired. Hazam Nusseibi, who worked for the Palestine Broadcasting Service in 1948, admitted being told by Hussein Khalidi, a Palestinian Arab leader, to fabricate the atrocity claims. Abu Mahmud, a Deir Yassin resident in 1948 told Khalidi "there was no rape," but Khalidi replied, "We have to say this, so the Arab armies will come to liberate Palestine from the Jews." Nusseibeh told the BBC 50 years later, "This was our biggest mistake. We did not realize how our people would react. As soon as they heard that women had been raped at Deir Yassin, Palestinians fled in terror."*

- "Israel and the Arabs: The 50 Year Conflict," BBC.


And while most did run frmo the war, you shouldn't omit that many DID run away because of the Arab amries.

[Alexander's Horse]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov

anyway, this proves my claims that there are no 3 million refugees in the west bank and gaza

Really splitting hairs aren't we Siro, "in the west bank and gaza"