8 Children Killed in Israeli Attack

[Kropotkin]

Well, I think it's wrong to say that Israeli-arabs are second class citizens. There's discrimination but so it is against minorites in most countries. I've read some about that and I haven't read any reasonably objective source imho that states that they are second class citizens. Israel has some questionable immigration laws on the other hand but I guess that has it's "natural" explanation.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Arrian
Cybergnu,

I'm curious (not an attempted troll - I'm serious) about something.



Are you saying you think they should have accepted the offer of Uganda? What about the native Ugandans?

Though I think debating the creation of Israel in 1948 is a useless exercise in the context of trying to bring about a peaceful resolution to the bloody mess that is the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (it's there now, and it ain't goin' anywhere), I do wonder what would have happened if we'd somehow managed to give them Montana instead. Or New Jersey... I wouldn't miss it.

-Arrian

HEY!!!

Leave my state outta this!

[Shiber]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Along came the jews, who didn't have this restriction.

Not true. Want me to quote from the bible for you?
Jews are not allowed to loan with interest but they were driven out of all other professions other than trade, and those who couldn't be traders (didn't have the connections needed for the job or couldn't travel much) became loaners. Many were beggers too, with very little success though. They had no other choice since they really didn't have any other ways of supporting their families.
Btw, if you think Jews became rich as a result then you're wrong again. Most of the rich Jewish families started from businesses such as trading, accounting, journalism or law.

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Which is exactly what I've been saying. But it also means the jewish people have abdicated their claim to Israel for a higher standard of living.

The standard of living is not that good in Israel today either. The rate of unemployment is very high and many people live in poverty. Still there are immigrants from European countries and N. America where the standard of living is much, much higher.
However, when you're talking about a mostly uninhabited land filled with swamps and deserts and flies that pass terminal diseases and is terrorized by bandits... well, then it's practically suicide going to a place like this. It's better to continue mentioning Jerusalem every Jewish holiday and live in Europe or N. Africa rather than migrate to Israel with a 99.9% chance of dying.

In my opinion Jews only began to migrate to Israel in large groups in the 19th century because this is when they started to get together and form groups such as Hashomer Hatsair and Bilu. Those groups were founded as a result of the Jews seeing other nations return to their homeland and remembering they have one too, and now would be the time to migrate there are the public opinion was pro-nationalism.

Originally posted by CyberGnu
And they were offered Uganda, which they turned down. 'The jews need a nation of their own' is not sufficient reason to displace the arabs who already lived in palestine.

If the Muslims were exiled for Mecca do you think they would settle for Uganda?
As for displacing the arabs, noone wanted to do that. As you know there were talks between Zionist leaders and ME leaders. The Zionist movement as a whole didn't strive to replace arabs with Jews, it was only some Zionist extremists who decided that Palestine cannot be split between Israel and the Palestinians.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by CyberGnu


Zevico,
I mentioned the jews returning to jerusalem in the 7'th century a few pages back, as I think they prove part of my point here: Jews could have returned to palestine at any time between 200AD and 1900AD, but decided not to do so for various reasons, most likely standard of living.

And as I've told Shiber, accepting the easy choice of a higher standard of living invalidates all further claims on the land of palestine in favor of the people who took the hard choice, i.e. ekeing out sustenance out of the palestinian soil.

Those were ultra-religious Orthodox Jews. The force that drove them to migrate to Israel was not nationalism, but a much stronger force - a strong sense of religion and the belief that migrating to Israel and studying Torah in Jerusalem would grant them a place in heaven.

[S. Kroeze]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Somehow it seems the modren jews has gone from believing in the Torah to believing in the infallability of israeli text books.

It doesn't matter how well we prove that statements such as 'there was plenty of land available in palestine' or 'prior to 1950 there was no such thing as a palestinian' are patently false, the reply is always 'your source is biased/wrong/anti-semitic, and our textbooks are right because it says so in our textbooks'.

The paralells to say, creationists, are quite striking. Nothing we say will ever be accepted, because they know 'the truth'.

Of course, there are always dissenters. In the old days they were burned as heretics. In modern Israel they are merely shunned, branded as 'self-hating jews'.

But you can break out of it. Be critical. Don't accept statements without a proper source, barring a reductio in absurdum. And train your mind to accept the fact that when reality and preconceptions clash, reality wins every single time...

Dear Gnu,

I completely agree with you.
This is highly distressing indeed.

We could point out that irrigation systems of the '30s are incomparable with modern techniques.

This is what I found about the availabe farming land:

"Qassam invoked the Koran against Arabs who sold land to Jews, threatening to brand them as infidels and to deny them religious burial. The loss of land, he charged, had forced peasants to live from hand to mouth. He knew whereof he spoke. According to Pamela Ann Smith's figures, "While each Jewish resident in 1935 had, on average, 28.1 dunams (7 acres) of arable land, there were only 9.4 dunams [slightly more than 2 acres] for each Arab," who had to live well below subsistence level.[20]"

(source: T.A.Idinopulos: 'Weathered by Miracles',1998)

[20] Shai Lachman, "Arab Rebellion and Terrorism in Palestine, 1929-39; The Case of Sheikh Izz al-Din Al-Qassam and His Movement," in Kedourie and Haim, Zionism and Arabism, 60.
note for Sirotnikov: 'Weathered by Miracles' is not identical to 'How Israel Was Won' by B.Thomas; it was written by another author and has a different title; nor was it published by Neturei Karta
Nevertheless this knowledge is of dubious sources and factually incorrect or misleading. True specialists do not need to go to the library and search for quotes proving that this is bull; they prove their right by repeating it a zillion times.
The fact that person after person, who studied Israeli history and Israeli law for final tests in Israel does not agree with this information, proves that this information is most probably wrong.
No one should bother much for one misleaded professor of religious studies at an American university, resident scholar at the Ecumenical Institute for Advanced Theological Studies in Israel, with an alt.history book

But since Arabs are just savages they deserved to lose all land. This was effectively accomplished in 1948.

From the traditional viewpoint the jews should return to the promised land with the messiah etc. A mostly secular ideology like Zionism changed that.

Yes indeed! For the Orthodox it was always forbidden to advance the reestablishment of a Jewish state in any possible way. Only the Messiah can end the Diaspora, which is Divine punishment for Jewish sins. The ultra-Orthodox still follow this rule. The Orthodox were always the most fierce opponents of Zionism. You should definitely visit the Neturei Karta website!

So it is a combination: loss of influence of Orthodox doctrine, combined with increasing Anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe and also the dominant position of Western civilisation. Before the nineteenth century it was impossible to conquer parts of the Ottoman empire.
It would have been logical when secular Jews would have tried to establish a state in Poland or Russia. But the Russian, German and Austrian empires were far too strong. The Arabs/Muslims were by most Europeans considered to be 'ape-men savages'!

One other remark: it is probably true that there was in the beginning no Palestinian identity. Palestinians considered themselves to be part of Syria. It was secret diplomacy between Britain and France that drew the border.

Sincere regards,

S.Kroeze

[Shiber]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Shiber, you've misunderstood one thing: Palestinian resistance is not originally against Israeli attacks but against Israeli occupation. Furthermore, there ARE extremists, but they exists on both sides. When you finally understand that the Israeli who shot Rabin is of the same mindset as a few of the really hardcore palestinian organizations, particularly Hamas, then you finally have a chance to understand the conflict.

In 1993, Arafats popularity was immense. He had established peace with Israel, a palestinian state seemed to be attainable. He staked his politicial future on peace with Israel leading to a palestinian state. Hamas, his political rivals, saw it differently. They wanted Israel eliminated, and the only way they could do that was to stop the peace, get Israel to continue its heavy handed occupation until eventually the rest of the muslim world rose up in arms.

Sadly, Israels failures to keep the promises in the Oslo treaty only benefited Hamas at the expense of Arafat, where it eventually got to the point where Arafat couldn't act against Hamas without losing popular support.


The only groups gaining on the current situation are the extremist groups in palestine, such as Hamas, and the extremist groups in Israel, such as Likud.

Of course there are extremists on both sides. There were people in America who said they now want to kill every Muslim in the world, but if they are caught attacking a Muslim they are jailed. Same in Israel.
In fact not recently the Israeli police has cracked down on a gang of settlers that is responsible to the deaths of many Israeli Muslims, which they stabbed, as well as for many acts of sabotage of property owned by Muslims. Arafat, on his side, has done no such thing.

Arafat has been constantly saying in public that peace with Israel is stage one, whereas stage two is the total elimination of Israel by the terrorist network which he intended to build up in the Palestinian state.
Back then, most Israelis thought he was only saying that to please his people and the Muslim world. Sadly, Arafat's failures to keep the promises in the Oslo treaty only benefited Israeli parties such as the Likud who were against the Oslo process.

P.S. I think you're confusing the Likud with Shas and Moledet. The Likud may have harsh policies concerning Palestinians and the conflict but at least they don't make racist remarks like Shas and Moledet do.
Sometimes I'm sorry that Democracy grants parliament members a partial legal immunity so they can say whatever they want. Some remarks made by extreme right-wing parliament members really make me angry.

[S. Kroeze]

Originally posted by Kropotkin
Well, I think it's wrong to say that Israeli-arabs are second class citizens. There's discrimination but so it is against minorites in most countries. I've read some about that and I haven't read any reasonably objective source imho that states that they are second class citizens. Israel has some questionable immigration laws on the other hand but I guess that has it's "natural" explanation.

Did you read this thread:'Apartheid in Israel'?
(rather long, but I put quite some effort in it)

[Kropotkin]

On another subject closely linked to the text books of Israel and usually showing up around here regards how the later to be (or whatever) Palestinians gave up all their land more or less voluntary and thise chosed to go into exile in 1948. Later revisionist Israeli researchers that has looked into opened archieves from the time has found that there was in fact a lot of violence and threats involved but this is something that's a national tabu and has not really been accepted yet.

No, I don't have a link but if someone really wants to I guess I could find one...

[Shiber]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Shiber, I've already posted proof: the british white paper.

As I said, if you don't agree with it, you will have to post something that agrees with you. Claiming that there is lots of land today doesn't prove anything, especially since Israel prides itself of making even the desert into fertile land...

Besides, you are making the claim that there was lots of unused land in palestine. I'm saying you are wrong. That I've proved my point is secondary, even if I hadn't done so you would still be required to back up your statement.

I can't give you any evidence of my claim other than the eye evidence that I've mentioned because honestly, I have no idea where I can get maps that show unused land. If I ever come across such a map I'd be happy to post it.
Maybe you should visit Israel one day and see for yourself. Just drive around the unresidential roads, you'll see lots of unused land.

Regarding your last statement, it was Ben-Gurion's dream to make the Negev desert into fertile land. Israel does make efforts to grow things in the desert but on a very small scale, mostly because such efforts have turned out to be very unprofitable. Most projects have actually ended up putting Negev farmers into debts.

[Kropotkin]

S. Kroeze: Interesting but nothing new. I have heard of the Histradut before and that's a good example of discrimination even if it's not really the same as making Israeli-arabs into second-class citizens as it's not de jure the goverment.

I guess Eli's esoteric response ( ) made me think it was pointless to read anything but the first post though.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by CyberGnu


You do realize that everything you say here can be applied to pretty much ANY people under oppression. Take a look at your own people in 80-100 AD. Does 'masada' mean anything to you?

End the occupation, and the propaganda will end too.

The Sikari'im (the people of Masada) were considered extremists by the Jewish society. They were separatists and didn't want any contact with anyone who wasn't a Sikari'i, nor did any of the other Jews want contact with them. They were shunned, and their actions abolished. You can't possibly compare them with the Hamas.
Btw, I guess when you were told the story of Masada, the part about the Jewish historian (his name temporarily slipped my mind) who tried to convince them to end their resistance was omitted.

[Shiber]

Originally posted by Kropotkin
Oh I wonder what happend to those that used to use that land.

There are more fields and plantations in today's Israel than there ever were during the British mandate (counting both Jewish and non-Jewish agricultural land), therefore there was room for additional agriculture then.

[Kropotkin]

Numbers please...

Meanwhile the simple fact that the IDF transports soldiers in huge numbers to Masada might be a small tradition that kind of backfires when you think of the wackos that died there...

[Shiber]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
Just the fact that there IS a debate is a sad statement on the objectivity of the Israeli school system.

The latest books issued and approved by the current minister of education are blamed to be too pro-Zionism. The previous minister of education was blamed for approving books that were too pro-Palestinian, and for wanting to introduce the songs of Darwish, the Palestinian national poet, into the Israeli educational system and have every student study them in literature class.

Debate is unavoidable. You cannot find the balance that will satisfy both sides.

[S. Kroeze]

Originally posted by CyberGnu
BTW, IIUIC, Kreuze isn't saying secular marriage is forbidden but that it is not recognized legally. Different cause, but the end result is the same.

Furthermore, don't make the mistake of equating not knowing one tidbit of information with not knowing anything.

How someone could possibly overlook my post on page 9 is truly beyond my comprehension.

So in the end we seem to agree that 'mixed' marriages are allowed (since when?). Yet is still surprises me that the legislator(parliament) did NOT decree by law.

Kropotkin: When you are truly interested in the subject-matter you should read more; I collected a lot of information, also from other books. Prepare to be shocked!
Of course the main (only) strategy of the Israeli lobby was to discredit ALL studies.
I also listed several good studies about Israel.
Even the Britannica was thrashed by our beloved moderator!