ISRAEL: Most Hated Country in the World?

[Sirotnikov]

Originally posted by GePap
Did the inhabitants of Palestine have ANY say in their own fate back in 1919?

This is the attitude I find most vexing, most obnoxious, most troubling. If one believes in the principle of national self-determination, then what right at all did a bunch of Brits have to decide the fate of the Arabs and Jews living in Palestine?

And if national self-determination is not paramount, if some other international customs take precedent, how can one then argue against say the Palestinians being afforded the rights they were promised as human beings, of being able to determine their own lot?

The inhabitants of Palestine had no political or historical cohesion, much less an organized leadership back in 1919.

The political structure was almost non existant, based on non organized people and primitive clan-like strucutre. It was more developed in the city where there were older respected clans with political authority. That however did not, to my knowledge spread beyond local influence - and there was only basic understanding among said clans of the national political idea. Much less any kind of popular support of cohesion to give it foundation.

As such - the palestinian inhabitants had very little to say about their own fate mostly because they had no organized structure to do so, nor did most of them see anything else than a continuation of their either nomadic or feudal like structure.

The higher arab committies were formed with the active help of the british in hopes to answer the need for representation of the arab inhabitants.
Sadly reality hit home, and as far as I understand, they spent most of the time bickering over authority between rivaling clans, and had very little connection to the majority of arab falah peasants. Nomadic tribes had no representation at all.

The brits ruled the area out of international authority by the league of nation. You can call it wrong in retrospect - but it was perfectly justified then. Most of the political ideas that drive you to criticise it now, simply did not exist in 1919.

The palestinians' basic rights as human being were never in question, neither by the british authorities nor by jewish activists who legally bought lands and usually compensated the previous inhabitants or even hired them. Infact, all early zionist works talk about different ideas of a bi-national state, or a two state federation. You're

3. in 1946 most Zionists were amenable to a partition, which would have meant the Palestinians would have had their own state for their millions, and the Jews their state for their millions.

Except that back in 1946 the population in Palestine was still overwhelmingly Arab. So who were the Zionists to be making decisions about the fate of lands inhabitted by non-Jews?

Nice trick.

The decision about the fate of lands inhabited by non jews was left to the higher arab council, and the mediation attempts between the sides were held by the US and the british.

[qoute]
So the Arabs in palestine were to bear the European's shame? nice. [/QUOTE]
Which rights did they lose exactly?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap

The basic issue of course was that in 1948 the population of the mandate was 67% Arab and 33% Jewish. So any way you cut it, it was simple to make an "Arab" state in which the vast majority were Arabs, but impossible to make a "Jewish" state without a massive Arab minority.

And as everyone knew, the jewish state with its slim Jewish majority, the day it was declared, would receive masses of immigrants, not only people living the DP camps in Europe, but Jews held in British detention camps in Cyprus. Had the Brits provided emergency asylum in Palestine during the war to refugees, the numbers would have looked much different. Had they simply not "walled off" Palestine with their "apartheid barrier" of immigration patrols, and simply used more moderate means to control immigration, the numbers would have looked different. The actual numbers as of 1947 were themselves morally suspect, and the states that voted for partition knew that.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by GePap


Have a clue before you speak..wait, Oh, its you Straybow...

Partition does not equal ethnic cleansing. The UN said the Jews could form their own state in one part of the land, the Palestinians on the other. That decision gave NEITHER side the right to force individuals of the other group from their lands or their homes if that land came to be in the "other sides" state. Doing that would violate the INDIVIDUALS human rights, though I know the concept of human rights, such as property rights, are a mystery to you.

There was no campaign of ethnic cleansing. The documented expulsions are of Arabs living in places like Lod, on the road to beseiged Jerusalem, who were removed to maintain security on that road. Rabin, whose memoirs have been used to confirm the expulsion, in those very same memoirs expresses the reluctance he and his troops felt in executing the removal. In at least one other instance, IIUC, arabs were removed from one area under Israeli control, to another area under Israeli control, hardly a smart move for a govt seeking to expell arabs from territories under its control.

As I believe even post-Zionist historian Benny Morris has stated, the mass of the movement was due to the conditions of war, and was inevitable whether the Zionists encouraged it or not.

[DinoDoc]

Deir Yassin? There didn't seem to be much reluctance there.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Deir Yassin? There didn't seem to be much reluctance there.

1. Rabin and his troops were not present at Deir Yassin. In fact NO haganah troops were present there. the forces there were Irgun.

2. The Irgun who were there denied that anything happened other than a battle, in which unfortunately some civilians were killed. Its he said, she said, so to speak.

[Keygen]

What is this with you all? What, Jewish don't deserve to have a country on their own? Do we all deserve to have one and they don't?

And I am fed up with this hypocritical muslin "support" to the Palestinian people. I saw what their neighbors, the Jordanians did to them a few decades back. Yeah, the Palestinians should have their own land but not within ours, take the Jewish land only

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Keygen
What is this with you all? What, Jewish don't deserve to have a country on their own?

I wouldn't have voted for the partition if I had been around if that is what you are getting at. Why should other peoples be made to pay the price for Europe's shame?

[Dinner]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Deir Yassin? There didn't seem to be much reluctance there.

That was done by a Jewish terror group which the Israeli government has since arrested and punished. To bad the Arabs will never do the same to their terrorist groups.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
I wouldn't have voted for the partition if I had been around if that is what you are getting at. Why should other peoples be made to pay the price for Europe's shame?

Whine all you want. Legally the land was under the control of the UK and they met the league of nation's requirements for partition. It was the will of the world that the Jewish people have their historical land returned to them.

[lord of the mark]

an interesting interview with an israeli intell officer about the Leb war.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/001399.html

[Keygen]

Originally posted by DinoDoc

I wouldn't have voted for the partition if I had been around if that is what you are getting at. Why should other peoples be made to pay the price for Europe's shame?

I can't be more specific. Don't Jewish deserve a country on their own?

Besides most modern countries in Middle East were British and French creations after the dissolution of Ottoman Empire and did not reflect to actual national entities in some cases. Take Iraq for example.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Oerdin
That was done by a Jewish terror group which the Israeli government has since arrested and punished.

That explains why their leaders became Israeli PMs.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
That explains why their leaders became Israeli PMs.

The Irgun was disarmed, including the firing on the Altalena.

However the Irgun leader, Menachem Begin was NOT deprived of his right to citizenship, but was allowed to run for the knesset, where he was a leader or the opposition for almost 30 years before becoming PM.


We accept Abbas as President of the PA, despite his former career as a leader of a terrorist organization.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Whine all you want. Legally...

That does really answer the question. Why should other peoples have been made to pay the price for the shame of Europe?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
The Irgun was disarmed, including the firing on the Altalena.

This post /= what Oerdin said which is what I pointed out. They were neither arrested or punished.