Well, i'll be...

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by GePap
According to modern israeli historians, like Beni MOrris,

I should not for accuracy that Benni Morris no longer stands by his earlier work. I don't think he's repudiated it, but the 2nd Intifada has made him rather anti-Palestinian.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by GePap
The diplomat
Oh, and get the timeline straight. The first violent acts were Jews driving Aarbs out of lands given to Jews by the partition. The invasion of the Arab amies came later.

I'm afraid I will have to disagree with you there. CNN did a very fair and balanced review of the Arab-Isreali conflict two years ago and it said the Arab population was the victim of the propoganda of Arab governments. As a way to motivate people to attack the Jews several Arab news organizations said the Jews would rape Arab women, kill the Arab men, and drink the blood of Arab children if they were not defeated. After the broadcastes Arab populations heard of the advancing Jewish army and mass hystaria broke out; many Arabs believed that they and there family would be killed and so fled as refugees.

After the '48 ended Ben Guren offered to let the Arab refuges return but only if the Arab states signed a peace treaty with Isreal and recogniced Isreal's right to exist. To the last every Arab government refused so Ben Guren refused to let the refugee return.

That fact more then anything else is why Isreal ended up with so much of prepartition Palistine.

[Az]

GePap:
1) The red blobs are jewish settlements that were formed in the specific effort to grab no-ones land. That means that no-one was around them, because whenever a jewish settlement was surrounded by arab ones, it was usually given away to the arabs.
2)The fertile lands weren't always that fertile. They were muddy and swampy, and that was the reason why the jews could own them at the first place, because the arab land owners didn't really mind selling them.
3) currently , Israel is a highly industrialized economy, and the equipment it posseses allows it to grow oranges in the desert, while many polluting industry, and phosphate extraction plants exist. This didn't exist in the 40s. yet, still, over the 50 and something percent of land that comprise the negev, lives only one million people, 2/13s of the population.

happy now

[The diplomat]

Originally posted by GePap
[b]
Look at that map: the land in red is owned by Jews, everything else by Palestinians. So compare how much land the jews loose in the partition (all red lands in the dark green and olive green) vs all the land the Arabs loose: all lands not in red in the light blue.

The only significant part of the blue area that the Arabs lose is the Negev which is a desert.

The rest of the blue area is not much bigger than the red. The UN designated Jewish State is basically a small sliver near the Golan and a disconnected sliver from Haifa to Tel Aviv and a worthless desert. You call that a viable Jewish State?

The Arab get all the rest: all Gaza, all of Judea&Samaria and pretty much all of Galilee by the Lebanese border.

You call that fair?!?!?

[Az]

The Arabs liberated themselves from the Ottomans, and the newly established Arab Kingdom of Syria included the whole of Palestine within it. France and Britain then invaded, carved the area up, gave Iraq to the erstwhile King and gave Palestine to his brother Abdullah. Then in 1922 Britain split Palestine in two, creating East and West Palestine, East Palestine becoming the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan

well, that's a rather interesting pov. 'The arabs liberated themselves from the ottomans'. The whole move was a big british scheme to clear away the remains of the ottoman empire, using british forces, ( The brits fought the turks, and captured the area), and then install, in conjunction with the french ( of course! ) a series of puppets, that were ordered to preside over people that had little or no connection to them. While the kings were desert dwellers, the people in the principalities were mostly farmers. The land that is now called Jordan, should be IMO, a part of a future arab state here. It would be only fair, I don't care how much this king of theirs is cute, etc. oh, and this will happen.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
CNN did a very fair and balanced review of the Arab-Isreali conflict two years ago

Fair and balanced my ass. CNN US takes a fairly pro-Israeli line. Repeating that old chestnut about Arab propaganda only confirms it. Arab propaganda accounted for a only a minority of Arab refugees, as did the accounts of massacres of Arabs which were spread far and wide by the Jews themselves.

The major factor which caused Arabs to flee was the approach of armies, Arab and Jewish. As in every other war in history, when war comes to your town, you leave. When the fighting is over, you go home and try and put your life back together again, but they couldn't go home.

Also, Oerdin, in order for Israel to join the UN one of the conditions was that Israel allow the return of the refugees. It was also a general resolution, and, IIRC, a secutiry council resultion. Israel accepted this. It wasn't contingent on peace with the Arab nations.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by The diplomat
The Arab get all the rest: all Gaza, all of Judea&Samaria and pretty much all of Galilee by the Lebanese border.

You call that fair?!?!?

Since they owned it and lived there, yes. Just because what Israel was assigned wasn't a vialbe state doesn't mean it's not fair. The indigenous inhabitnats of a land have the ultimate right to decide whether they shall be part of one state or another. The rights of these people were respected by no one.

[GePap]

The Diplomat:

Well, because the Palestinians made up 99% of the population of those lands that they were being given.. or about 700,000 Palestinians to 10-20,000 Jews.

And arabs still made up 45% pof the population of those lands given to the Jews- all of this discounting the Negev.

Thats why it was fair, at elast if one believes more in individual rights and such and not on colective rights, and even under that banner, it is still more fair to jews than Arabs.

Che:

Well, any good history book is based on sources. Can Morris repudiate his sources?

Oerdin:

I have never seen any evidence of those broadcasts. No one has ever produced a record of them, or a transcript, and those that fled repudiate their existance. To me they are a myth.

As for that offer, having read up on the diplomacy after 1949, including things the US was involevd, tell me that that is another relative 'falsehood'. It would be cheap to call CNN liars, but what they say does not sit with allt eh written texts i ahve read on the issue.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by GePap
Compare this to the 30,000 member fo the hagana back in 1947. The fact is that the first act of the 1948 conflict, as Che has stated, was composed of Jews attacking and forcing Palestinains to abandon thier lands within the lands partitoned for the jews, and then atatcking into lands given to the Arabs. This is history, not opinion.

Please remember that this was done by a handful of illegal Jewish terrorist organizations, that it was only done in a handful of villages, and that the Isreali government (unlike any Arab government) took actions to arrest and imprision members of these organizations.

Again CNN has a great documentary about all this for sell and it deals with this subject very fair and impartially.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Azazel
'The arabs liberated themselves from the ottomans'.

The Brits pretty much got nowhere with the Turks. Despite being the "sick man of Europe," they pretty much held theyr own against all comers. It wasn't until the Arab revolt that they began to start losing. It was the Arabs, albeit, led by a Brit, who defeated the Turks. They established their own state which was overthrown by the Anglo-French forces in 1919.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by GePap
Che:

Well, any good history book is based on sources. Can Morris repudiate his sources?

I'm not saying his former work is wrong, but it is important when the author no longer stand by his work. There are enough other New Israelis, however, that Morris' defection makes little difference.

[Az]

Maybe in Syria, but it certainly wasn't the case here.( I just hate the word 'Palestine')

[GePap]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Please remember that this was done by a handful of illegal Jewish terrorist organizations, that it was only done in a handful of villages, and that the Isreali government (unlike any Arab government) took actions to arrest and imprision members of these organizations.

Again CNN has a great documentary about all this for sell and it deals with this subject very fair and impartially.

I have read many books on the subject, many biased, many not. All in all, they paint a very different picture. israel did not severly punish those involved in such crimes, during the 1948 campaign or after. An example:

Soon aftre the 1956 invasion of Egypt by isreal, in Gaza a gang of Egyptian laborers was captured and then killed. We are talking about 20-30 men, perhaps a little more. The israelia rmy investigate the crime and found an officer guilty. He was givenabout 3 years for ordeing these people killed. Ben Gurion stepped in and demanded the man be pardoned. He was. then he was given the job of admistring the Gaza strip during that short tme the israeli had it back in 1957.

That does not sound like very harsh punishment.

[chequita guevara]

It was all Syria. It's just all the fighting took place in the North, Damashq being the capital and all.

Who do you think it was that capture al-Aqaba? It wasn't the Brits.

[GePap]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
The Brits pretty much got nowhere with the Turks. Despite being the "sick man of Europe," they pretty much held theyr own against all comers. It wasn't until the Arab revolt that they began to start losing. It was the Arabs, albeit, led by a Brit, who defeated the Turks. They established their own state which was overthrown by the Anglo-French forces in 1919.

It was a combination of Arab and British forces that drove the Ottomans out. After all, the British were at the forefront of taking jerusalem. At the same time without Arabs attacking Ottoman garrisons and hampering thier movements the british would not have gotten as far.

Oh, and the League mandate Britian was given over palestine did include the Balfour declaration.