Syrian Ambassd. speaks of Syria's peace initative; Shuns acknowledging Israeli press

[Ned]

BTW, this is a little off thread, but what do Israeli's think of Jimmy Carter? According to this clip, at least some think he is an anti-Semite.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBaDfue_Rys

[Edan]

Originally posted by Heresson
no

Odd, since it was part of the mandate.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Edan


Odd, since it was part of the mandate.

But it is not part of the anti-Zionist agenda. It doesn't fit the template.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Heresson


OK. So lets say the Bretons start to emmigrate en masse to Cornwales or whatever it is called. They came from there after all, now they want to return. They have no souvereign state, and France persecutes them.

Still

a) Jewish "connection" was outdated, obsolete.
b) irrelevant. Mandate ment Palestine was to become independant in its unity
c) Jews had an autonomic republic within USSR

Cornwales?


Theres Cornwall, and theres Wales, both of which were populated by Brythonic celts.
1. I note that Bretons for the last thousand years have NOT made their "welsh homeland" a key part of their identity, as Jews have wrt the land of Israel. 2. Nonetheless it would not seem unreasonable for bretons to want a right to return to Wales 3. Esp if they faced persecution in France comparable to what Jews have encountered in many parts of the world.


Autonomic Republic, thats a good one. If the Pals were given a "state" that was as Palestinian as the Birobidizian Aut Oblast is Jewish, and that was just as sovereign, would you consider that an acceptable outcome.

Poland under the tsars had far more autonomy than Birobidizian.

[lord of the mark]

[QUOTE] Originally posted by Heresson




"My dear, these were not immigrants. Grand Duchy of Lithuania used to have byelorussian as its official language even before union with Poland. Byelorussian is very close to polish,"

Im quite aware that the Grand Duchy was a multiethnic state, and that it had official documents in Byelorusian. I doubt very much that Belarusan is closer to Polish than it is to Russian.


" and it got even more so during this times (during USSR era, it was kind of re-ruthenised). Later it was switched to polish. Grand Duchy of Lithuania in its late days was a state of polish culture, not lithuanian... "

Surely you mean Belarusan culture, unless youre talking about after the linkage with Poland.

"just like meklemburg was not a lechite state anymore. Until late XIX century, lithuanian nation in ethnic sense did not exist. Lithuanians, including the lithuanian-speaking peasants of Zmudz, were de facto part of polish nation, took part in polish uprisings etc."

The Lithuanian peasants lacked national consciousness, which peasant everywhere tend to do. They followed, presumably, their landlords, who tend to be Poles or Polonized. Going by pre19th consciousness always favoured Poland, a nation of Szlachta.


" Many, many important Poles of XIX and XX century came from Lithuania/Byelorus and did consider themselves Lithuanians = Poles. Mickiewicz is a good example. His is the polish national epopee, in which we learn that our fatherland is Lithuania and how lovely are the lands and folk from over Niemen river."

A dynastic marriage, followed by the assimilation of the aristocracy, makes Lithuania YOUR homeland? By that standard Bohemia is the German homeland, Holland had a fair chance of being the French homeland, and France narrowly missed being the English homeland.


"Poles of Lithuania were not result of immigration, but peaceful polonisation."

No Poles migrated after the dynastic union?

And were all the Poles of Vilna descendants of folks who alway lived in Vilna? Hadnt some migrated from other parts of the Grand Duchy? I mean if you dont accept that Jews who migrated from Egypt, Syria or Istanbul, IE other parts of the Ottoman empire, were "native" to Jerusalem, why should we accept claims based on the full borders of the Grand Duchy? Whose recreation Poland violently rejected in 1919?

Now IF a Lithuania with the bounds of the the Grand Duchy had been recreated - that would have meant a genuinely multicultural state in the heart of eastern europe. It would have been much better for Poland, and much better for the Jews - heck, there might have been far less pressure for return to the land of Israel in that case.

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by Ned
BTW, this is a little off thread, but what do Israeli's think of Jimmy Carter? According to this clip, at least some think he is an anti-Semite.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBaDfue_Rys

I'm not deeply familiar with him or his policies.

I haven't heard anyone blame him of anti-semitism.

From what I know he was a terribly delusional lefty. Some sort of Yossi Beilin, only sadly, an American president. I suspect he has done America and its allies much more harm than he had done to Israel.


I can tell you though, that not all American politicians who are perceived "pro-Israeli" were indeed as pro-Israeli as thought.

American foreign ministers especially, have often been nasty SOBs.

America has often played Israel to advance its own power and influence in the ME, even at the expense of Israeli interests.

I heard a theory regarding Lyndon Johnson, whereby he played off Saadat against Israel in 1973, by letting Saadat understand that "if he shuffles the cards" (meaning - attacks Israel, even without intent of "winning") America would press Israel to concede the Sinai occupied territory, and will force Israel to a fair agreement.

In retro-spective, the 1973 had lots of pluses for US policy.

It created a crisis in which the US gained critical political influence:

- Israel became heavily dependent on US military and economical aid, thus giving the US a huge financial and political leverage
- Israel considered itslef grateful to US military equipment for the victory.
- Israel became much less self-assured and more hesitant due to the war trauma (=less risk for US interests).

- Egypt severed its ties to the USSR (suspected - at US pressure and for a promise to press Israel into a peace deal)
- Egypt became dependent on US military and economical aid.
- The US came out successfull pressing for a peace deal, which includes peace for land, which from that point was seen as the formula for success. This making the US seem both strategically successful, and the only hegemony able to cut deals.

[Ned]

1973?

You are talking about Henry Kissinger.

There is no doubt that Kissinger's main objective was to get the USSR out of the ME and to make both Egypt and Israel reliant on the US. He succeeded.

But, was this disadvantageous to Israel? Look at what happened a few years later. Peace with Jordan and Egypt.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Interesting how polarizing Jimmy Carter has become. His newest book Paletinian Peace Not Apartheid is rife with either complete 5 star reviews or 1 star reviews.

Carters Stuff

[Ned]

Ogie, I watched his interview yesterday on Meet dePressed, or some such show. He consistently hammered Israel and Bush, virtually demanded that we reverse our policies on cutting off funding to the PLA due to Hamas. Nary a word about Hamas' declared intention of destroying Israel.

It was this one-sided kind of display that energized the caller to accuse Carter of being an anti-Semite in the linked video above. If he were a known quantity in 1977, I doubt whether Begin would have given him the time of day.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

I'm doomed I tells ya. I live most of my youth in Pennsylvania where our claim to fame is James Buchanan as our only President. I move to Delaware where they never rated a President then down to Georgia where we have Jimmy Carter.

So I 've got either the gay president that abdicated responsibility or the traitor representing my respective states executives.

[Sirotnikov]

Do You really believe that without Israel, there would be PLO?

What connection does it have?
Without the big bang, would there be PLO? Therefore the Big Bang is probably the reason for the PLO

The critical player in the setup of the PLO is Egypt. The PLO would not have existed without Egypt, even if Israel was there.



Heresson, look I'm tired.
None of your arguments hold water, and most of them are silly and rather baseless.

I'm willing to go on and argue, but is no longer fun, since I don't feel challenged, and what is more important - I don't feel like I learn anything.

So tell me if you want me to go on.

[Heresson]

Im quite aware that the Grand Duchy was a multiethnic state, and that it had official documents in Byelorusian. I doubt very much that Belarusan is closer to Polish than it is to Russian.

Lets put is this way: we've read a correspondence of one our queen in byelorussian... and I thought it is polish with some ruthenian addings... today it is closer to russian, probably, but even at the beginning of XIX century, a scientific mission from Petersburg found it "polish dialect", only to change its status to "russian dialect" a bit later.
It is something between polish and russian... it is much closer to polish than ukrainian (at least the official ukrainian, which is based on eastern dialect) is.

Surely you mean Belarusan culture, unless youre talking about after the linkage with Poland.

You haven't noticed the "in its late days" part, though You quoted it

The Lithuanian peasants lacked national consciousness, which peasant everywhere tend to do. They followed, presumably, their landlords, who tend to be Poles or Polonized. Going by pre19th consciousness always favoured Poland, a nation of Szlachta.

ukrainian peasants lacked consciousness and so did byelorussian, yet only where Poles were a large minority by percentage and where Lithuanians were, uprisings really had some support.

A dynastic marriage, followed by the assimilation of the aristocracy, makes Lithuania YOUR homeland? By that standard Bohemia is the German homeland, Holland had a fair chance of being the French homeland, and France narrowly missed being the English homeland.

It is all true! Bohemia was close to being a german land, just like Silesia... If France became english-speaking (I think the result of winning of 100-years war would be the other way round), parts of it may have become english... though geography would play a role here;
parts of Poland/Lechite lands that have been part of Germany or under its influence for centuries, like Meklemburg, Brandenburg, Wendenland, Berlin areas, Luzyce (modern-day Saxony), Western Pomerania, Lower Silesia and parts of Upper, Lubusz region,
also Prussia, they became german-speaking and became part of german fatherland, even if some slight indigenous minority (in Luzyce, Lower Silesian and Pomeranian case) remained.
I'd compare it with Cornwall, which might have had an identity of its own, but was lost.
Until soviet revolution, polish was the language of culture, of gentry and of cities, through entire former Grand Duchy, and the language of the capital of the region and the surrounding lands (it remained the language of areas around Vilnius until today). Wilno was part of polish ethnic territory and part of polish history just like lithuanian. Grand Duchy's history was and is not only part of tradition of these who speak lithuanian. Lithuanian identity was only to be created. Enough to say that first session of lithuanian parliament was held still in polish.
And that the first head of polish state and later dictator of it, Pilsudski, was a polish Lithuanian.... who considered himself Lithuanian, of course, but saw place of it in Poland.

No Poles migrated after the dynastic union?

Oh, surely some did, though I think a bigger influence was that pagan Lithuania used to capture thousands of Poles in its raids and settle them in Lithuania - kind of like Crimea did with Ukrainians.
Yet, before ww2, Lithuanians were a lesser minority in Wilno/Vilnius (Vilna is a russian name based on polish one, btw, it is exactly polish, just short o in russian is read as a)and areas around it than in Byelorussians... I guess it points that they accepted polish culture... many of Poles there have surnames of lithuanian origin... just like Germans of former polish provinces used to have polish surnames.

And were all the Poles of Vilna descendants of folks who alway lived in Vilna?

Some yes, some not.

Hadnt some migrated from other parts of the Grand Duchy? I mean if you dont accept that Jews who migrated from Egypt, Syria or Istanbul, IE other parts of the Ottoman empire, were "native" to Jerusalem, why should we accept claims based on the full borders of the Grand Duchy?

I don't understand what You mean... Care to explain?

Whose recreation Poland violently rejected in 1919?

You probably mean that there was a quickly dissolved lithuanian-bylorussian socialistic republic...
Of course Poland opposed it... first because it was soviet, and secondly because de facto it was anti-polish...
Was it supposed to be united with Poland as well, anyway?
I remind You that Pilsudski's plan, opposed within Poland but mostly impossible due to lithuanian opposition and soviet military strenght, was creation of "Miedzymorze"
"Intermarrum", or whatever, a federation of Poles, Lithuanians, Byelorussians and Ukrainians as opposed to (soviet) Russia. That would be a multiethnic state as well... wouldn't You like it? But perhaps not, because only in Byelorus, Jews were an important part of population...
When it comes to Lithuania, there were ideas of giving it Vilnius, accepted by Poles, but either making it a Swiss-like canton state, or making polish the second official language - pretty sane propositions for a country halfly polish. But these plans were not opposed by Poles, but by lithuanian nationalists, who wanted to re-lithuanise polonised territories. Interestingly, in soviet Byelorus, where Poles were a significant, yet not a major minority, polish was one of 4 official languages - together with bylorussian, russian and yiddish.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Sirotnikov


Without the big bang, would there be PLO? Therefore the Big Bang is probably the reason for the PLO

Don't be silly. PLO was to fight Israeli occupation. There would not be PLO without Israel. Simple... it's sad that trying to understand it makes you tired.

I think the arguements of You, and others in this thread are mostly arguements of people who do not have any reason, so they have to find some curving the reality.
Some of my points were trolls... but some of them are true, and I do not find myself refuted in any way.

[Heresson]

Originally posted by Edan


Odd, since it was part of the mandate.

only until 1921

[Ned]

Originally posted by Heresson


Don't be silly. PLO was to fight Israeli occupation. There would not be PLO without Israel. Simple... it's sad that trying to understand it makes you tired.

I think the arguements of You, and others in this thread are mostly arguements of people who do not have any reason, so they have to find some curving the reality.
Some of my points were trolls... but some of them are true, and I do not find myself refuted in any way.

H, IIRC, the PLO came into existence prior to the '67 war and was one of the reasons the war happened in the first place. The PLO staged attacks from Jordan (now the West Bank), IIRC, and Israel responded with an incursion. That helped spark Syria and Egypt to go on the warpath.

So, unless you contend that all of Israel is "occuppied" territory, your cause and effect posture between the PLO and the territories occuppied after the '67 is actually backwards. The PLO caused the war that created the "occuppation."

But this is whay one expects from the PLO. It actually causes endless grief and misery to the Palestinians in its unending efforts to destroy Israel.