Am I a anti-semitist?

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Chris 62
I have been watching the ebb and flow of this, and find some things unusaul, to say the least.
Friend Ethelred is an example of this, he continues on about how Israel has no right to exsist, but if we accept his logic, neither does Palestine.

I never said that. I said it never SHOULD have been created. I would really appreciate it if people would stop putting words in my virtual mouth.

Nation: A people connected by blood ties, generaly manifested by community of language, religion, customs, ect...From Webster's English dictionary.

Which is not the same as nationanality as I pointed out before. Israel is a nation. Jews are ethnic group. They are not all that closely related by blood anymore after many hundreds of years of living outside the Middle East. The customs vary from country to country as the do the languages in daily use. In most countries those Jews that do learn Hebrew do so as a second language. Many secular Jews never learn Hebrew.

As Britain was in the process of taking the area from the Ottomans, their rightful and leagal owner, it certainly does have leagality.

Would you care to show a source of international law to back that up? In 1917 at that?

As for the Ottomans being the rightful and legal owner, I doubt that locals ever agreed to that.

Just because YOU don't accept it changes nothing.
It's also interesting to note that the Ottomans, a Muslim state, allowed Jewish immigration, whereas the British often blocked it.

Allowing immigration is not the same as promoting a Jewish state.

Force is the bases of ALL agreements, it's the basis of real politik, otherwise things like the Kellog Briand pact would actually mean something.
If you don't understand this, you shouldn't discuss politics.

Force however is not a legal basis for action. Its just action and law is not inherently involved.

Your statement supports Isrel here.

It supports Jewish ownership of land in the Middle East. Nothing more and nothing less.

It might be interesting to look at why they wanted such a homeland.
Could thousands of years of opression almost everywhere in the world have played a part?

Which has nothing to do with justifying what had happened in the Middle East. Does oppresion of Jews in Europe by non-Jewish Europeans justify oppression of Arabs in the Middle East?

The Zionist movement was given life through the rampent anti-semitism seen in Europe and the USA.

Mostly in Europe. The anti-semitism in the US wasn't all that much different then the anti-Italian sentiment.

Like many anti-Israelis, you go on about how they have no leagal rights to the land, where is the leagal right that says they don't?
Who does?

If they don't have a legal right then its pretty hard to justify the creation of Israel isn't it. There is the UN held right of self-determination. That was abrogated in the creation of Israel for the non-Jews in the territory.

It certainly isn't the Palestinians, they wern't even called that untill the 20th century.

What does the name have to do with it? They were still Arabs and not Jews. They still were not allowed self-determination. The name Palestine is just way to dodge the reality that the majority of the people were not Jewish.

The last legal rulers were, let's see....
That would be Israel, in the days before Rome took the place, so spare me the nonsense that they have no right to be there.

You just claimed the Ottoman Turks were. How about you make up your mind? Rome was just as legal. So was Egypt under Saladin. All of them including the Israelites took the land from someone else. The question here is self-determination.

By your own logic, every arab there is an invader with no leagal rights.

That's why your argument doesn't hold water, and never will.

Ahh but the Arabs are the one group that DIDN'T invade. They filled in the empty land after the Romans drove out the Jews. The Bible is quite clear that the Israelites stole the land from its previous inhabitants. The pretext being that Jehovah gave it to them. If it was given they wouldn't have had to fight. They took it.

[Natan]

Ahh but the Arabs are the one group that DIDN'T invade. They filled in the empty land after the Romans drove out the Jews. The Bible is quite clear that the Israelites stole the land from its previous inhabitants. The pretext being that Jehovah gave it to them. If it was given they wouldn't have had to fight. They took it.

I seem to recall a seventh century conquest of Jerusalem by the forces of Omar ibn al-Khatab . . .

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Ned
Ethelred, just so we are all on the same page, below is a link to a US Army manual on the history of Palestine.

That isn't a US site. It says quite a few things. Including

The Dreyfus affair proved for Herzl, as the 1881 pogroms had for Pinsker, that Jews would always be an alien element in the societies in which they resided as long as they remained stateless. He believed that even if Jewish separateness in religion and social custom were to disappear, the Jews would continue to be treated as outsiders.

Herzl put forth his solution to the Jewish problem in Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) published in 1896. He called for the establishment of a Jewish state in any available territory to which the majority of European Jewry would immigrate. The new state would be modeled after the postemancipation European state. Thus, it would be secular in nature, granting no special place to the Hebrew language, Judaism, or to the ancient Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Showing that the idea of a Jewish state long preceded the events you mentioned. It has also a rather dubious concept that statelessness is the cause of anti-semitism.

And then there is this little bit:

In the new British strategic thinking, the Zionists appeared as a potential ally capable of safeguarding British imperial interests in the region. Furthermore, as British war prospects dimmed throughout 1917, the War Cabinet calculated that supporting a Jewish entity in Palestine would mobilize America’s influential Jewish community to support United States intervention in the war and sway the large number of Jewish Bolsheviks who participated in the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution to keep Russia in the war. Fears were also voiced in the Foreign Office that if Britain did not come out in favor of a Jewish entity in Palestine the Germans would preempt them. Finally, both Lloyd George and Balfour were devout churchgoers who attached great religious significance to the proposed reinstatement of the Jews in their ancient homeland.

Showing that the Britain wanted a Jewish state to support its own aims in the region.

And this little bit which supports what I have been saying pretty nicely.

Ultimately, it was found to contain two incompatible undertakings: establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jews and preservation of the rights of existing non-Jewish communities, i.e., the Arabs. The incompatibility sharpened over the succeeding years and became irreconcilable.

And now back to Ned

According to the Army manual, the Arabs rioted in Jerusalem in 1920, killing numbers of Jews. The riots were responsive to the election of Faysal as king of Syria which included the British mandate of Palestine. The rioters believed that the election of Faysal as king would end the Belfour declaration.

Yes showing the Arabs were not happy with the idea of a Jewish state on Arab land. Big suprise.

One Vladimir.Jabotinsky apparently was a Jewish hero in the defense against the rioters. He began to call for the formation of a Jewish state. However, the majority of the Jews of Palestine did not at that time agree. Later, after the Arab revolt of 1936, even they changed their views.

This is Army manual incorrect?

I don't think so. Especially the parts showing that the Vladimir Jobotinsky was not the person that came up with the idea of a Jewish state. You did some rather selective reading.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Natan

I seem to recall a seventh century conquest of Jerusalem by the forces of Omar ibn al-Khatab . . .

Was the city primarily Jewish at the time? I am sure there was a conquest as the Moslems did a lot of that around then. Jerusalem is not all of the territory. A significant city just not exactly all of what now constitutes Israel.

Jews returned to Jerusalem frequently. Rome actually kicked them out twice. The first in 70 AD of course and a second time later.

The Romans tended to get upset when people revolted.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

On Wilson being a racist, this is the first I have ever heard on that.

You are kidding?! The whitewashing of our Presidents' flaws are shocking. He was even more racist that TR, and that is saying something .

Wilson would have been at home in the ole' CSA.

HEY. I like Teddy. So what did he do that was racist? Not saying he didn't, I am just curious.

[Natan]

Originally posted by Ethelred
Was the city primarily Jewish at the time? I am sure there was a conquest as the Moslems did a lot of that around then. Jerusalem is not all of the territory. A significant city just not exactly all of what now constitutes Israel.

The Jews were expelled from the city and the country by the Byzantines, but that's not the point, the point is the Arabs took it by force. That's really the main way to establish control over an area.

Early Zionist and Arab nationalist thinkers were not very clear on their aims. Many Zionists wanted a bi-national state, as did many Arabs, King Faysal for example.

[Ethelred]

Originally posted by Natan

Invited by Mexico's military dictator, to be specific.

Well yes. Bad idea all the way around from Mexico's point of view. At least it was a Mexican dictator and not one of the foreign dictators.

"The problem" would never have arisen because the Jews would have stayed in Europe and been exterminated by the Nazis. With hindsight, we see that the Balfour declaration saved hundreds of thousands of people from being murdered.

Maybe more would have moved to the US instead. It still isn't justification for creating a European Jewish state in the Middle East. Also the people in this case were mostly survivors of the Halocaust not people that were there before it. My boss for seven years fought in the First Arab Israeli War before he moved to the US. He survived and escaped from a concentration camp in Italy.

I disagree. Firstly, both parties opposed the idea thoroughly. Secondly, the history of multi-ethnic states forged out of warring parties is not a happy one. If Czechs and Slovaks couldn't stick together except under the Soviet jackboot, I doubt Israelis and Palestinians could set aside twenty years of low-level warfare and fifty years of nationalism to create a democratic state.

Then the whole idea was bad from the start. Which has been my point.

And the Jews were expelling Arabs because the Arabs wanted to create an Arab state even in areas primarily Jewish.

European Jews and mostly refugees. Why should the Arabs pay for the actions of Nazi Germany?

You are defining them as terrorists because you disagree with their goals, even though the attack was on a military target and a warning was given beforehand to prevent both civillian and military casualties. In short, people who disagree with you are terrorists. That definition someone detracts from the meaning of the term.

I am defining them as terrorist because there was no war. If warning stopped a bombing from being a terrorist act the IRA would have made a lot less terrorists bombings than they really have. If you had looked at the link I posted the British called it a terrorist attack at the time. Ben-Gurion dropped his association with people responsible for the attack so I would guess he too thought it was terrorism.

[Chris 62]

Originally posted by Ethelred
I never said that. I said it never SHOULD have been created. I would really appreciate it if people would stop putting words in my virtual mouth.

If you were consistant, it probaly wouldn't happen.

Which is not the same as nationanality as I pointed out before. Israel is a nation. Jews are ethnic group. They are not all that closely related by blood anymore after many hundreds of years of living outside the Middle East. The customs vary from country to country as the do the languages in daily use. In most countries those Jews that do learn Hebrew do so as a second language. Many secular Jews never learn Hebrew.

Look at the definition again, there is a connection on several areas, namely:
Langauge (they do indeed speak yiddish)
Religion (are you claiming they no longer follow the jewish faith?)
Customs (They still honor the same holidays and heros that they always did).

What your doing here is trying to split hairs, because the definition does indeed refute your intial assertion.

Would you care to show a source of international law to back that up? In 1917 at that?

The world was at war, the Ottomans were a Central power, the British and Allied power.
Do you dispute that nations who fight a war have no right to what they take by force of arms?
That is a post WWII attitude, not one from the colonial era.

As for the Ottomans being the rightful and legal owner, I doubt that locals ever agreed to that.

Depends on what you consider leagal, which is the point I have been making all along.
You say the Jews have no leagal right to a state there.
Can YOU back that up with some law?

Allowing immigration is not the same as promoting a Jewish state.

Seeing as the Ottomans wern't fond of losing their empire, that is patently obvious, but again, it's a matter of post WWII values vs colonial era values.

Force however is not a legal basis for action. Its just action and law is not inherently involved.

Tell me, what leagal voice is there in international politics?
There are scads of treaties to be sure, and what people consider moral, but legality?
Something like the Hague convention of 1908 outlawed bombing, yet in war, every nation does exactly this.

Trying to argue the ME from a leagal standpoint is next to impossible.

It supports Jewish ownership of land in the Middle East. Nothing more and nothing less.

Then ownership by arabs constitues ownership and nothing else, meaning the Palestinians have to right to a country, by your definition.

Which has nothing to do with justifying what had happened in the Middle East. Does oppresion of Jews in Europe by non-Jewish Europeans justify oppression of Arabs in the Middle East?

Just where exactly is this "opression"?
I'm not talking about Imran's nonsense about massacres and such, I'm talking imperical proof.

Are you aware there wasn't even a "PLO" till 1965?
If these people were so "oppressed", why was there no organization for them for 17 years?
If this "oppression" is so severe, why is it, that it only manifested itself in the late 1990s?

No sir, throwing out the "arabs are oppressed' card is nonsense.
This is a situation entirely of their own making.

Mostly in Europe. The anti-semitism in the US wasn't all that much different then the anti-Italian sentiment.

I would tend to agree with that, I only mention the USA because our European friends tend to become perturbed when singled out, right or wrong.

If they don't have a legal right then its pretty hard to justify the creation of Israel isn't it. There is the UN held right of self-determination. That was abrogated in the creation of Israel for the non-Jews in the territory.

A rather creative view of historical events on your part.
The original partion plan had a lot more Arab lands, but they refused, they liked the idea of war better, and went that route.
Now, 50+ years later, they want what we called a "do over" when I was a boy, a second chance at the pot.
Sorry, you start a war and lose, you must suffer the consequences.

What does the name have to do with it? They were still Arabs and not Jews. They still were not allowed self-determination. The name Palestine is just way to dodge the reality that the majority of the people were not Jewish.

Once again, go back to the partion plan of 29 November 1947.
They certainly WERE allowed this, self determination, they refused.
They wanted war.

You just claimed the Ottoman Turks were. How about you make up your mind?

I was using this as an example of your convuluted logic, I thought you would understand the symbology, in the future I will make it more plain.

Rome was just as legal. So was Egypt under Saladin. All of them including the Israelites took the land from someone else. The question here is self-determination.

Self determination is the sop you continue to use, so let's use it here and now.
Let's hold a vote, based on the real world, right here and now, on said borders.
Only people on the land may decide, by your parameters.
Once again, you prove Israel's right to exsist, by your own example.
You cannot escape it, no matter how many times you reach for the past, or try to use that for an example.
For the fact is, when the Israelites arrived in the holy land, there were few cities.
David built Jeruselem, as a postion between the northern and southern tribes of Israel.
They were first here, all others are invaders, if you want to use history as a base.
That is, unless you can produce a phillistine, then you might have a claim to Haifa or Tel Aviv, but forget Jerusalem, they built the damn place.

Ahh but the Arabs are the one group that DIDN'T invade.

Ahh, yes they did.

They filled in the empty land after the Romans drove out the Jews.

The Romans were driven out by the Sassined Persians, who were driven out by the Muslims, who were driven out by the Crusaders, who were driven out...See how that logic flows?

The Bible is quite clear that the Israelites stole the land from its previous inhabitants.

It doesn't say that at all.
But it does explain your views quite a bit.
If you want to push foward this point, you must produce said bible passave that says they stole it.

The pretext being that Jehovah gave it to them. If it was given they wouldn't have had to fight. They took it.

I see your a biblical scholar also.

All you have done is dodge and twist, you have proven nothing, despite considerable verbage on your part.

[quote]
HEY. I like Teddy. So what did he do that was racist? Not saying he didn't, I am just curious.]Absolutely nothing.
This bit of revisionist history had been put forth by several college students here, based on nonsense propagande based of the USA's fight against the phillipenne insurrection.

The sorce they quote is from a single book by left-wing nut (no, I'm not right, OR left) who made up outragious kill totals based on nothing whatsoever.

[Imran Siddiqui]

HEY. I like Teddy. So what did he do that was racist? Not saying he didn't, I am just curious.

Oh, he was a product of his time, but he undoubtably was a racist. He had a racial heirarchy, with the Teutons at the top, followed by other Euros, and then Slavs, and the rest of the world's populace. The Japanese provided some problems, because they were advanced (as evidenced by 1905), but they were Asian.

Yes, he was a product of the times, but he was a racist as well. Believed it to be scientific though. I don't consider him any less of a great man for it.

And don't listen to Chris, the Phillipines was a black mark on our history. Many sources point to the torture we did, such as filling a man's belly with water and then stomping on him to force the water out and doing it over and over. It wasn't pretty at all. But that wasn't the reason Teddy was a racist. Most Americans didn't think highly of those brown people when we recieved the islands.

Of course, one thing that happens to be overlooked is that we were probably the best colonizers of the bunch. We actually ended up accepting that the Filipinos could become Americanized, and gave them good jobs in administration and listened to them.

The insurrection wasn't a good period though to look at the US.

[Natan]

Maybe more would have moved to the US instead.

Nope, immigration to the US was ilegal after 1917 unless you had a relative there. Thousands of secular German Jews moved to Israel in the 30s simply because it was the only place they could go, if they hadn't, they'd be dead. I think that's a good justification for their going there, don't you?

Then the whole idea was bad from the start. Which has been my point.

Your claim was that a multi-national state would have been better than partition; I'm saying that it would have been unworkable.

European Jews and mostly refugees.

No, the Arabs were trying to seize areas which were already majority Jewish before holocaust survivors started pouring in in 1948. Besides, a quarter of the Jewish population was Sephardi (from middle eastern countries) in 1948, and the proportion rose thereafter.

Why should the Arabs pay for the actions of Nazi Germany?

I think the question is why should the Jews lose their right to an independent state just because they came to the area to escape extermination?

I am defining them as terrorist because there was no war.

In what sense was there no war?

If warning stopped a bombing from being a terrorist act the IRA would have made a lot less terrorists bombings than they really have.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, the IRA places bombs in civillian areas and gives evacuation times which are insufficient.

If you had looked at the link I posted the British called it a terrorist attack at the time.

Does that prove anything at all? Reffering to any opponent as a "terrorist" was standard for the playbook of the time; the USSR and the Germans described anyone who opposed their rule in the same way.

Ben-Gurion dropped his association with people responsible for the attack so I would guess he too thought it was terrorism.

Ben-Gurion was a political opponent of the Irgun for altogether different reasons and from a much earlier date.

[Ethelred]

If you were consistant, it probaly wouldn't happen.

Big if since I have been consistant.

I take that as an admision that you did indeed make up my position.

Look at the definition again, there is a connection on several areas, namely:
Langauge (they do indeed speak yiddish)

Who is they? Yiddish is spoken by primarily by German Jews and Jews that came from Germany. Not very many American Jews actualy speak Yiddish. I know almost as much Yiddish as most Jews in California. A few dozen slang terms is what most know out here.

Religion (are you claiming they no longer follow the jewish faith?)

Lots don't. A lot of American Jews are upset over this. You really should have noticed this considering you live in New York.

Customs (They still honor the same holidays and heros that they always did).

Well my boss did but the owner of the store did not. He was a fifth generation atheist and still ethnicly Jewish.

What your doing here is trying to split hairs, because the definition does indeed refute your intial assertion.

I am not splittling hairs. My point was that a nationality is not a state. The rest was pointing out how the definition of nation that you gave did not fully fit Jews. Ethnic group does.

The world was at war, the Ottomans were a Central power, the British and Allied power.
Do you dispute that nations who fight a war have no right to what they take by force of arms?
That is a post WWII attitude, not one from the colonial era.

Israel is a post WWII state. You have a problem with consistancy.

Depends on what you consider leagal, which is the point I have been making all along.
You say the Jews have no leagal right to a state there.
Can YOU back that up with some law?

I don't have to. You have to show a legal basis for the State of Israel as you are the one claiming its legal.

It is however against the UN principle of self-determination as I pointed out before.

Tell me, what leagal voice is there in international politics?

The UN is one. The Hague is another. The International Law of the Sea doesn't seem to apply but it is the only real international law.

There are scads of treaties to be sure, and what people consider moral, but legality?
Something like the Hague convention of 1908 outlawed bombing, yet in war, every nation does exactly this.

Trying to argue the ME from a leagal standpoint is next to impossible.

Well then there is no way to legaly justify Israel is there?

Then ownership by arabs constitues ownership and nothing else, meaning the Palestinians have to right to a country, by your definition.

Where did I give one there? Perhaps you left out a few words. I do that myself and way too often.

The only thing I have used for a definition of a legal way to found a state in the present world is the principle of self-determination. Which was denied to most of the inhabitants of the land now called Israel when it was founded.

Just where exactly is this "opression"?
I'm not talking about Imran's nonsense about massacres and such, I'm talking imperical proof.

Taking land by fiat is opression and that is what happened when Israel was founded. No one asked the locals.

Are you aware there wasn't even a "PLO" till 1965?
If these people were so "oppressed", why was there no organization for them for 17 years?
If this "oppression" is so severe, why is it, that it only manifested itself in the late 1990s?

What does the PLO have to do with a single thing I have said? Nothing is what. I have ONLY been talking about the creation of the state of Israel not what has occured since then.

Not being allowed to have a say in what nation they would belong to strike me as oppressive. If we weren't talking about Israel I suspect you too would find it unjust.

No sir, throwing out the "arabs are oppressed' card is nonsense.
This is a situation entirely of their own making.

Its a situation created in 1948 and before. I am not talking about today and I have been very consistent about this. You are talking about the PLO and post 1948.

I would tend to agree with that, I only mention the USA because our European friends tend to become perturbed when singled out, right or wrong.

Too bad for them on this. However I understand your point.

A rather creative view of historical events on your part.
The original partion plan had a lot more Arab lands, but they refused, they liked the idea of war better, and went that route.

Why shouldn't they have gone to war over it? The partition plan was unjust. There is simply no excuse for giving mostly Arab land to a bunch of Europeans.

Now, 50+ years later, they want what we called a "do over" when I was a boy, a second chance at the pot.
Sorry, you start a war and lose, you must suffer the consequences.

From their point of view the founding of Israel was an act of war. They had not agreed to it and the only way to stop was to fight. Hardly an unreasonable action.

Again I point out that I am not talking about 50 years later. I am only talking the founding of Israel.

I was using this as an example of your convuluted logic, I thought you would understand the symbology, in the future I will make it more plain.

The convolution was yours not mine. I have been standing on the principle of self-determination. Not much convolution in that.

Self determination is the sop you continue to use, so let's use it here and now.
Let's hold a vote, based on the real world, right here and now, on said borders.
Only people on the land may decide, by your parameters.

You really have a hard time understanding what people say when you don't like the consequences. I have been exceedingly consistent that I am talking about the founding of Israel not the present situation.

Once again, you prove Israel's right to exsist, by your own example.
You cannot escape it, no matter how many times you reach for the past, or try to use that for an example.
For the fact is, when the Israelites arrived in the holy land, there were few cities.

The only thing holy there are the bodies. Once again you invent a position for me. Please stop doing it. You claim to be a historian. Do you make up the words for historical people also? I will ignore the rest of that section since it is just more of same. You making my thoughts for me.

I am fully capable of expressing myself. I don't need your help.

Ahh, yes they did.

No. You are mistaking the Moslem conquest for an invasion by Arabs. The Arabs were there allready they just weren't Moslem yet.

The Romans were driven out by the Sassined Persians, who were driven out by the Muslims, who were driven out by the Crusaders, who were driven out...See how that logic flows?

None of whom drove out the Arabs. Its darned hard to drive out nomads.

I see your a biblical scholar also.

All you have done is dodge and twist, you have proven nothing, despite considerable verbage on your part.

Well how about you show my error on what I said about the Bible then? Can't do it can you?

I haven't dodged and I haven't twisted but YOU have tried to make up my position.

[Natan]

Yiddish is the language of Ashkenazi Jews, who are somewhere around 80% of the world Jewish population. Most American Jews don't speak Yiddish anymore (although it is undergoing a modest revival), nor do most Ashkenazi Jews in general because Hebrew has taken its place as the international Jewish language. 100 or even 50 years ago, almost every Ashkenazi Jew spoke Yiddish, except for German Jews who spoke German.

Ethnicity is a poor definition of Jewish identity because world Jewry is divided into a series of distinct (and usually distinctly Jewish) ethnic groups. Moroccan and Polish Jews speak different languages, eat different foods, etc. There are definitely Jewish ethnic groups, but Jews as a whole are not an ethnic group.

Nation sort of fits though, because there is a common history and origin - for what it's worth, genetic studies show that Jews are still genetically related to each other (and, interestingly, to the Palestinians) despite thousands of years in exile. Jews from different countries have historically communicated in Hebrew. Also, Jews have always described themselves as a people or a nation.

Also, as for the Balfour doctrine, it's legal basis was the British Palestine mandate given to Britain by the League of Nations.

[Ethelred]

Nope, immigration to the US was ilegal after 1917 unless you had a relative there. Thousands of secular German Jews moved to Israel in the 30s simply because it was the only place they could go, if they hadn't, they'd be dead. I think that's a good justification for their going there, don't you?

Well the dead part was in the future at that point so it can't justify things. However the rest is true I suppose.

So when did it again become possible to move to the US without a relative? I think you are overstating that one. I know there were strong restrictions and many were based on nationality.

At least at present and for a long time now the part about relatives applies to people over the limit. The limit back then was around 200,000 I think. Not sure.

Your claim was that a multi-national state would have been better than partition; I'm saying that it would have been unworkable.

I do think it would have been better. Lebanon succeeded in mixing Christians and Moslems for centuries till the Palestinian refugees messed up the balance. It certainly would have been more just if it could be made to work. Just because it would have been difficult doesn't mean that it shouldn't have been attempted.

No, the Arabs were trying to seize areas which were already majority Jewish before holocaust survivors started pouring in in 1948. Besides, a quarter of the Jewish population was Sephardi (from middle eastern countries) in 1948, and the proportion rose thereafter.

What Arabs seizing areas? That wasn't what we talking about at that point so I don't what context you have that in.

A quarter Sephardic still leaves it as mostly European. I am a little fuzzy on Sephardic/Ashkenazy. Weren't the Spanish Jews also Sephardic?

I think the question is why should the Jews lose their right to an independent state just because they came to the area to escape extermination?

My point is that there was no such right.

In what sense was there no war?

In what sense was there a war? No one had declared one. David Ben Gurion did not agree with that action and he became the first Prime Minister so I would guess he would be the most representitive of the Jewish position in what LATER became Israel.

Carefull or you will be justifying the Intifada as a war.

The previous Intifada made a lot more sense than this one. Tying bombs to gullible kids is sick. I do not understand why the Palestinians have never learned how to engage in a non-violent refusal to aquiesce to Israel. If they ever do that Israel will have serious problems with getting any help at all. They need a Ghandi and what they have is Arafat.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, the IRA places bombs in civillian areas and gives evacuation times which are insufficient.

They have often put bombs without any warning. I am talking about the times they give warning. Insuficient warning is little different from none. I would suspect that idea of short times is to be too short to remove the bomb. I see nothing to respect either way. I would really apreciate it if my fellow Irish-Americans would quit supporting the bastards.

Does that prove anything at all? Reffering to any opponent as a "terrorist" was standard for the playbook of the time; the USSR and the Germans described anyone who opposed their rule in the same way.

It proves it wasn't just my idea. It would be hard to find a definition of terrorism that didn't include that attack.

[Ned]

Ethelred, the people Romans settled into the newly created province of Palestine after the defeat of the Jews in 135 were mainly from Syria. After the universal suffrage was granted to all residents of Roman Empire in the early 200's, all residents of Palestine were Roman citizens.

Below is a description of the critical events in the early six hundreds that led to the capture of Jerusalem, Syria and the Persian Empire by the Arabs.

When Heraclius first came to the throne in 610, the Byzantine Empire was being attacked from numerous sides. In the west, the Avars and Slavs were expanding into the northern Balkans. The Slavs controlled the Danube regions, Thrace, Macedonia, and were soon invading Central Greece and the Peloponnesus. In the east, meanwhile, the Persians under the rule of Chosroes had begun a series of successful attacks on the empire resulting in the loss of Damascus in 613, Jerusalem in 614 (destroying the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and capturing the Holy Cross) and Egypt in 619. Recognizing the difficulty in fighting on two opposing fronts at the same time, Heraclius signed a peace treaty with the Avars in 619, and focused on the eastern half of the empire. In the spring of 622, Heraclius left Constantinople for Asia Minor and began training his troops over the summer, focusing on a more involved role for the Byantine cavalry.

In the autumn, Heraclius' army invaded Armenia and soon won several victories over the Persians. The Avars, in the meantime, became restless and Heraclius was forced to renegotiate the peace treaty with them at a much higher tribute level. Heraclius then returned to the army and for the next several years unsuccessfully attempted to break through the Persian army and into Persia. In August of 626 while Heraclius and his army were in Lazica away from Constantinople, a Persian army attacked the city from the east while an army of Avars, Slavs, and Bulgars attacked from the west and from the sea. On August 10, the Byzantine navy was able to defeat the opposing fleet and then rout the combined Slav and Avar land force. With the defeat of their allies, the Persians retreated to Syria.

In the autumn of 627, Heraclius began to work his way into Persian territory winning an important battle in December at Nineveh during which most of the Persian army was destroyed. As Heraclius continued to move further into Persian territory, Chosroes was deposed and succeeded by his son Kavadh-Siroe whose first act was to secure a treaty with Heraclius. The treaty was very favorable to the Byzantines and returned all the former Byzantine territories to the empire. Within a few short months, Kavadh-Siroe fell ill and died after naming Heraclius as guardian of his son, Chosroes II. For all practical purposes, the Persian Empire no longer existed. In 630 Heraclius traveled to Jerusalem where he returned the Holy Cross to the city among much acclaim.

The defeat of the Persians created a larger problem for the Byzantine empire. The struggle between the Byzantines and the Persians had worn down both sides and the defeat of the Persians allowed the Arabs to quickly absorb what remained of the Persian empire. It also removed the buffer between the Arabs and the Byzantines allowing the two empires to come into contact and conflict. In 634 the Arab armies invaded Syria and defeated Theodore, the emperor's brother, in a string of battles. Heraclius raised a large army that attacked the Arabs near the Yarmuk, a tributary of the Jordan, in the fall of 636. After a successful beginning, the larger Byzantine army was defeated allowing the conquest of Syria. The Byzantine defeat also led to the Arabs quickly taking Mesopotamia, Armenia and eventually Egypt.

Here is a link that describes the Persian conquest of Jerusalem. History records that 20,000 Christians lost their lives. Apparently, the Persians chose not to kill the Jews, but left them in the city. Thus when the Arabs captured Jerusalem and 634, it probably was a city that was inhabited by Jews, who were Roman citizens.

Thereafter, the people converted to to Islam. They learned to speak Arabic in order to read the Koran, as the Arabs refused to let it be translated into any other language.

Back to the U.S. Army handbook, there is a quite interesting description of how the British during WWI made a number of inconsistent deals to gain the support of the Saudi family, the Jews both in Palestine, United States and Russia, and the French, giving each of them "pieces" of the Middle East, sometimes, the same piece. The Saudi King believed he had a deal with the British that would give his family to right to rule Palestine, although document was not clear in this point. However what is clear is at the Saudis have been among the leaders in hostility to a Jewish state in Palestine. They seem to have given up however on the concept of having a member of their family rule Palestine.

I think we both agree that the Arabs never cooperated with the British mandate, never agreed to the Belfour declaration, refused an offer from the U.N. in 1947 to have a separate Palestinian state, committed repeated acts of violence on the Jewish people in Palestine prior to 1948, made war on them when they created state of Israel in 1948, again in 1967, again in 1973 and finally in the current Intifada that began several years ago and has progressively increased in violence.

Somehow, throughout all these events, it has been the Jews who have provoked the attacks by not agreeing to leave Palestine or to live in a state dominated by Arabs who clearly would not permit free Jewish immigration into the Holy Land even as they were being butchered by the millions by the Europeans. As a suicide bombings and machine-gunning of little girls increased to several a day, you would deny them the right to defend themselves and put a stop to barbarous Arafat.

Do I understand your position correctly?

Ned

[Natan]

Originally posted by Ethelred
Well the dead part was in the future at that point so it can't justify things. However the rest is true I suppose.

German Jews were not deprived of their citizenship and executed in one day. During the 1930s they were stripped of their citizenship, deprived of their rights, and ultimately expelled from the country. If some were able to see (as Jabotinsky saw) that Hitler was going to murder them, I think that's a good justification for their immigration. Also, the vast majority of the non-German Jews who came to Israel did so fleeing Czarist Russia, home of the pogrom. These people were refugees.

So when did it again become possible to move to the US without a relative? I think you are overstating that one. I know there were strong restrictions and many were based on nationality.

At least at present and for a long time now the part about relatives applies to people over the limit. The limit back then was around 200,000 I think. Not sure.

I think you're confusing this with the quota system which ended in 1917, but at any rate, do we agree that there were severe restrictions which prevented most German Jews from going to America?

I do think it would have been better. Lebanon succeeded in mixing Christians and Moslems for centuries till the Palestinian refugees messed up the balance. It certainly would have been more just if it could be made to work. Just because it would have been difficult doesn't mean that it shouldn't have been attempted.

Lebanon did not succeed for centuries because it did not exist as an independent state until after World War I. Before that the country was less urbanized so ethnic groups couldn't interact either violently or peacefully to the same extent, but they did manage to have a very nasty turf war between the Druze and the Maronites in the mid-nineteenth century which led to French intervention. And while the Palestinian refugees didn't help, the growing size of the Shi'a community was going to tear Lebanon apart anyway. Nor has Lebanon succeeded in "mixing" Christians and Muslims. The whole Lebanese system is and always has been based on a careful balancing of the different ethnic groups' interests and influences, AFAIK intermarriage is close to non-existant. Lebanon's civil war was quite disastrous. The other multi-ethnic middle eastern states are just as bad: Iraq exterminated 200,000 of its kurdish citizens and killed tens of thousands of Shi'ites; Syria killed thousands of Sunnis to maintain Alawite power, and Sudan is waging a very nasty war against animists and christians in the south of the country.

What Arabs seizing areas? That wasn't what we talking about at that point so I don't what context you have that in.

You were arguing that the Arabs only expelled Jews because Jews were trying to create a Jewish state, and I responded that Jews were only expelling Arabs because they were trying to create an Arab state, in both cases by seizing territory.

A quarter Sephardic still leaves it as mostly European. I am a little fuzzy on Sephardic/Ashkenazy. Weren't the Spanish Jews also Sephardic?

In the narrowest sense, Sephardi Jews are those of Spanish origin, but they're scattered accross the world because Spain expelled its Jews in 1492 and didn't let them back in. Most of these expelled Jews ended up in the Ottoman empire, so all Jews in Arab countries are usually called "Sephardi."

In what sense was there a war? No one had declared one. David Ben Gurion did not agree with that action and he became the first Prime Minister so I would guess he would be the most representitive of the Jewish position in what LATER became Israel.

Menachem Begin had declared the war several times. Do you acknowledge a difference between guerilla warfare and terrorism?

Carefull or you will be justifying the Intifada as a war.

The previous Intifada made a lot more sense than this one. Tying bombs to gullible kids is sick. I do not understand why the Palestinians have never learned how to engage in a non-violent refusal to aquiesce to Israel. If they ever do that Israel will have serious problems with getting any help at all. They need a Ghandi and what they have is Arafat.

The Intifada would be a normal war if not for the intentional targetting of civillians. I'm not arguing that Palestinians can't kill Israeli soldiers.

They have often put bombs without any warning. I am talking about the times they give warning. Insuficient warning is little different from none. I would suspect that idea of short times is to be too short to remove the bomb. I see nothing to respect either way. I would really apreciate it if my fellow Irish-Americans would quit supporting the bastards.

What is the point of putting a bomb in a disco if you don't intend to kill people with it? And if they don't kill anyone, isn't it just dangerous vandalism?

It proves it wasn't just my idea. It would be hard to find a definition of terrorism that didn't include that attack.

I think any definition of terrorism which includes attacks on military sites with special precautions taken to avoid civillian casualties is absurd. The United States didn't declare war on Sudan before bombing it, but I don't think our action there could be considered terrorism.