"A sovereign Palestine? No chance"

[Spinoza]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/a-sovereign-palestine-no-chance/2006/12/31/1167500013390.html?page=fullpage

"snip> "For the sake of reality, let's put aside whatever views and prejudices you may hold on the Palestinian question. Put aside any animosity about grasping Jews or murderous Arabs. Put aside the Holocaust, and Muslim anti-Semitism. Put aside hopes and judgments. Simply look at what has happened on the ground. Stripped of all emotion and prejudice, right and wrong, one reality becomes clear: there is no chance of a sovereign, autonomous Palestinian state. Not within our lifetimes. No chance. None.

Not only won't there be a sovereign Palestinian state, there can't be.

It's no longer viable. At every historic juncture since Israel was created in 1948, rhetoric has taken precedence over pragmatism in the Arab world. As a result, every one of these historic junctions has resulted, without exception, in material defeat for the Palestinians." <snip

(While I agree with the essential point made by the writer there is one statement of historical fact which I believe is misleading in what it leaves out. The statement: >snip "In 1948, roughly 700,000 Palestinian Arabs - the number remains contested and inexact - heeded calls from the Arab world and fled their homes in the newly proclaimed Israel. The result? The Palestinian position of 1948 now looks infinitely superior to the Palestinian position of today." It seems incontrovertible from the work of the Israeli historian Bennie Morris that-- at least-- some substantial percentage of the Arab Palestinians who fled Israel during the 48 war were motivated in their flight by fear of the Irgun following the killings of Deir Yassin. An objective statement about the 1948 Arab flight should at least acknowledge the role played by the killings at Deir Yassin in addition to the (undisputed) calls by sundry Arab leaders. But, with this single caveat, the rest of the article is dead on in my opinion and merits a serious discussion.)

[wtmusic]

1. Yes Palestinians are different from other people

They don't want stability, decent jobs, a country to call their own, a secure place in which to raise their families. In an area with no effective government and little foreign aid, they're acting just like people in an area with no effective government and little foreign aid!

Can't be. N'uh uh. :eyes:

[David Dunham]

2. If the US were to recognize a Palestinian state, it would exist.

Israel could do nothing if the US were simply to recognize a Palestinian state in the west bank and Gaza with Abbas as its head.

[The Magistrate]

5. That Is Quite True, Mr. Dunham

It remains one of the enduring mysteries of the situation that the political leadership of Arab Palestine does not simply declare itself sovereign, on the territory it presently occupies, as it has every right to do. An overwhelming proportion of the world's nations would immediately recognize their state, and even if the U.S. did not, it would be sufficient to establish its legitimacy as a sovereign entity.

[furman]

13. Do the Palestinians want their own state?

Palestinians unilaterally declaring statehood would strip them of the
ability to play the role of poor helpless victims without a state.
Israel would no longer be seen as a brutal aggressor.
The Palestinians and the Arab world at large could
no longer blame their problems on the "occupation".

Issues such as final borders, settlements, refugees, and Jerusalem would still be
unresolved. Only now, the Palestinians would not reap as much world sympathy because
they would have a state of their own.

The radical terrorist groups are not even interested in Palestinian statehood.
They are only interested in killing Jews and the dissolution of the Jewish state.

Notice how the Palestinians have made very little noise about declaring statehood or
desiring their own state over the past few years. Recently their rhetoric has focused
on demanding that Israel withdraw to the Green Line. This is because
the Palestinians are concerned that the world opinion might shift to
accept the view that major settlement blocs outside the 1967 border
should be part of Israel.

I suggest that the Palestinian leadership does not really want their own state,
unless it is on their own terms and that it preferably includes all of Israel (what they call "Occupied Palestine").

[The Magistrate]

14. Who Does Not Want Things On Their Own Terms, Mr. Furman?

Indeed, the only real question here is boundaries, and certainly part of the reluctance of the Arab Palestinian leadership to declare themselves a state resides in the fact that doing so must establish some limit outside of which Israel exists as a recognized fact. Recognition of Israel at this level might prove political suicide, or even suicidal in the physical sense, for the man or men who did it, and the latter might prove true even if most Arab Palestinians accepted and approved the action, fanatics being generally unmoved by the desires of the mass of people if these conflict with their own visions.

There is little danger the Israeli settlements in the lands of the Jordan valley over-run in '67 will be viewed widely in the world as something that should be part of Israel. The world will doubtless do nothing material to eject Israel from these, but that is not even the same thing as acceptance, let alone acknowledgement: it is simply inertia, and having more important and profitable things to do with one's energies. The settlements are violations of international law, and their status cannot be regularized save by negotiation with legitimate representatives of the people of Arab Palestine. If they are to be obtained for Israel in such negotiation, there must be balancing concessions offered by Israel, whether of land or money or some other thing of value to their foes. The only other course is to write the things off and pull their people off the land. Unilateral annexation is just not on, legally, and quite exceeds the rights of a legitimate occupying power.

[furman]

18. Everyone would like things on their own terms, but negotiations involve compromise

Compromise has not been a Palestinian strong suit.
On the other hand, Israel has demonstrated that it is willing to make vast concessions for peace.

In your last post you said that "the settlements are violations of international law".
In actuality, the legality of most of the settlements is disputed.
See Israeli - Palestinian ProCon.org for a summary of both sides of the issue, or this entry in Wikipedia for more details.

Whether Israel has the legal authority to unilaterally annex parts of the West Bank is something I cannot answer.
However, it has certainly been discussed as an option should they fail to reach a negotiated settlement.

[The Magistrate]

19. Let Us Be Blunt, Sir

The willingness of both sides in this conflict to compromise on the actual territory of the old Mandate could be combined in the navel of a flea with room for lint in abundance left. The ceding of the Sinai is immaterial to this, and the strategic and tactical dexterity of Mr. Ben Gurion in the early days, that led him to understand accepting partition was the wisest course, never foreclosed a resolve to get more to hand if opportunity offered, as it soon, and expectably, did.

There is no dispute any longer that the Geneva conventions apply to the area, and no dispute any longer that the article forbidding movement of an occupying power's people to land it occupies applies, and forbids the program of settlement. Since there is no enforcement mechanism, as a matter of practical fact, Israel is free to violate the law, but that is no ground for pretense it is not a violation. Unilateral annexation would have no more validity than did the Trans-Jordanian annexation of the whole of the same area in '49.

[Shaktimaan]

25. That's somewhat debatable.

When Trans-Jordan annexed the West Bank it was a different scenario. For one, Trans-Jordan was an aggressor who unilaterally took land that had JUST been ceded to the local inhabitants to be a soviergn state. The land clearly was not meant to be part of Jordan. But now we are dealing with a west bank that did belong to a state and has been relinquished. Just because Jordan dropped the territory in '88 does not mean that it automatically becomes its own state based on a general assembly vote over 50 years ago that was never implemented.

When Jordan dropped the WB there were two populations, Israeli settlers and Palestinians. Had Jordan kept the land then the UN rules would surely apply. But since they left there isn't any reason that the land occupied by settlers has to revert to the Palestinians, especially since they have never had an established nation of their own. Once Jordan left the local Palestinians lost a great deal of their legal claim to any WB land that they weren't actively occupying.

Please note that I am speaking purely in terms of the validity of international rules of occupation and am NOT making a recommendation or ethical justification for continued settling in the WB. Just trying to illustrate that it isn't cut and dry in any sense, even in the realm of law.

[The Magistrate]

28. It Is Cut And Dried, Sir

There is now a ruling of the World Court on the matter. Judges with jurisdiction on the matter have rendered their decision on the applicability of the law, and that will be precedent in any future proceeding.

The illegitimate Jordanian annexation does not alter the status of the land, any more than my purchase of an automobile from a thief would alter the title possessed by the owner it was stolen from. There were no Israeli settlers in the area till after the Israeli military over-ran it. Israel has a right to exercise military occupation of the area, but military occupation does not include any right to annex, or to settle elements of the occupier's population on the area.

[furman]

32. That ICJ advisory opinion is not legally binding

This issue is not as cut-and-dried as you are portraying.

Israel (and at least 30 other countries) have disputed this ICJ ruling.
Instead, Israel complies with the rulings of its own Supreme Court.

See Legality of Jewish Settlements for an excellent interpretation of the Israeli position on the ICJ ruling and settlements.

[The Magistrate]

33. In The Sense That It Compells No Action, Sir, It Is Not Binding

As the only extant ruling by a competent international court on the question of the applicability of the Geneva Accords, it is binding as precedent for any future consideration of that question by the World Court or the International Criminal Court, and will certainly be given great weight by any national court called upon to rule on a matter touching the question.

That some people disagree with it does not alter this: there is no body to which the ruling can be appealed, and so it stands as the state of the law on the questions. There are elements of the ruling that seem to me in error, but that does not alter the fact that it is the law now, or lisence me to say it is not the law now.

[Shaktimaan]

46. Illegitimate?

Seeing as how the UN resolution was not only never enacted but was also only a non-binding General Assembly resolution I fail to understand how your car thief analogy applies. It's not like there was a Palestine that existed but then lost the land. It's not like there was a legal "title" so to speak consisting of international recognition of a Palestinian nation or borders. It is the same as how Jerusalem never became an international zone run by the UN. Is anyone arguing that Israel and Palestine legally must turn this city over to the UN?

Consider Kurdistan. According to the Treaty of Sevres the Kurds were supposed to have their own state but it never materialized. Are Turkey and Iraq now legally obligated to withdraw from those lands?

And you are incorrect in your assertion that no Israelis lived in the West Bank before the six day war. Hebron, for example, was a Jewish cultural center for centuries. It was only after the Hebron Massacre in 1929 that the British moved all of the Jews out for their own protection. I don't see how anyone can say that any of this land definitively "belongs" to one ethnic group over any other.

[The Magistrate]

56. Two Small Points, Sir

The Jordanian annexation was illegitimate because military occupation does not convey a right to annexation in the current state of international law. It was roundly denounced as illegitimate during the eighteen years it was in force by the great majority of the world's diplomatic establishments.

As Israel did not come into existence prior to 1948, you can hardly rope the unfortunate Jewish community of Hebron into this as Israelis: they were not, and most of them being quietist Orthodox, were not even Zionists. The statement that there were no Israeli settlers or settlements in the areas over-run in '67 until after their military occupation is true. Certainly there were some Jews there prior to '48 at various places and times, but that is not the same thing.

[Shaktimaan]

60. I'm not sure I understand...

what the difference between Zionist Israeli settlers and non-Zionist Orthodox natives are in terms of whether settling in the West Bank has any possible legitimacy. Of course there weren't Israeli settlers there beforehand if you mean "zionist Israeli citizens who settled in the WB specifically during the 18 years that Jordan occupied it."

But if you are willing to look at a UN resolution from 60 years ago as a template for drawing borders today why is it any less relevant to look 20 years past then? Whether the Jews of Hebron 80 years ago were zionist
or not shouldn't have any bearing on the legitimacy or lack thereof of settlers today.

Personally, I am not a fan of the settler movement. However I don't see how Israel has an obligation to honor an agreement made several decades ago which was never honored by any of the other parties involved.

[The Magistrate]

62. Then This May Clarify The Matter For You, Sir

What makes the settlement program begun after '67 illegitimate is that it is a violation of international law as this defines the rights and obligations of a power exercising a military occupation of a populated area. Who may have lived where prior to the commencement of the occupation is irrelevant: an occupying power cannot settle its own people on land it occupies without violating the Geneva Accords.

A person debating in favor of Israel makes a very poor move by anything said to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the '47 Partition in full, for it remains the root of legal existance for the state of Israel. The thing cannot work both ways: if it does not mandate the formation of an Arab Palestinian state on a designated portion of the Mandatory Territory, then it does not mandate formation of the Jewish state of Israel on a designated portuion of that territory either. Israel has already had, by the general recognition that its boundaries incorporate a signifigant portion of the original Arab Zone acquired by conquest in '48, a healthy bite at the apple. Best to say "enough", and step away from the table, rather than keep pressing for even more, in my view....

[msmcghee]

64. While I think I understand your position . .

. . it seems that in this statement of clarification you have pointed out both that the 1947 UN Mandate is the "root of legal existence for the state of Israel" - and yet you also point out that Israel has had a healthy bit at the apple that "incorporates a significant portion of the original Arab Zone acquired by conquest in '48" - and you see no problem with that.

So you seem to accept some advance beyond the original boundaries on the basis of what you call conquest - what I call land taken in a defensive war to secure Israel's further defense from those same parties in the future.

But, whatever we call it - it is a different arrangement than the original Mandate called for - and you seem to accept it.

So, are we not talking about boundaries that remain in dispute because the Palestinians either . .

a) refuse to negotiate such boundaries because they don't recognize that Israel is a state with the right to negotiate them in the first place, or . .

b) there is no party in Palestine that has the will or backing of a majority of Palestinians to negotiate such an agreement?

You seem to treat the Palestinians as some politically coherent group of wronged people who have a grievance that needs to be addressed. The reality seems much worse to me. They are united only in their hatred of Jews and their refusal to permit any form of national Jewish presence in the ME. That is the over-riding reality that makes it impossible for world bodies to treat them as simply a people yearning for a state.

As if 60 years of painfully consistent history were not enough, certainly recent events such as Arafat's flat rejection of the Clinton principles at Taba should make that clear. Certainly, their recent failure to do anything in their own interests in terms of establishing some framework or institutions that would promote even the idea of statehood after the withdrawal of Israel from Gaza should make that clear.

You can't take land away from a people who reject every opportunity to establish their legal right to that land through a statehood recognized by the world. To treat them as if that's what they want and deserve is a engaging in a convenient myth that will only prolong their suffering IMO.

You must realize by now that the myth of Palestinians yearning for their own state is there because of the PR efforts of Arab states and other parties who desperately wish to see Israel expelled from the ME and who have no desire to see Palestine an independent state.

By perpetuating that myth Israel can be characterized as an "apartheid" state that deserves condemnation, withdrawal of aid and military support, embargoes, etc. - a favorite canard of many posters here that would ultimately make Israel less able to defend itself if carried out. The myth supports those intentions admirably.

[The Magistrate]

65. The Result Of The '48 War, Ma'am

Met with acceptance from the United Nations, marked by the incorporation of Israel into that body, and also occured before the ratification of the current codes of international law. This gives it at least a solid appearance of legality, that is not going to be overthrown.

Both your conditions "a" and "b" have some validity, and a third condition "c", namely that some Arab Palestinians do not recognize as legitimate the present boundaries of Israel incorporating portions of the Arab Zone, could readily be added. Prominent militant bodies in Arab Palestine adhere to both "a" and "c", and certainly no political body in Arab Palestine has the authority to bind these bodies to any agreement it might reach that incorporated a recognition of Israel on its current widely accepted borders, or indeed, on any borders at all.

Political coherence in a group of people is not a necessary element for recognition that that group of people have grievances and have been wronged, and that a people lacks political coherence does not eliminate the grievances or erase the wrongs they feel and suffer. Support for Israel's existance and acceptance of its legitimacy as a state does not require denying that Israel was established at the expense of the people of Arab Palestine, and that they take this as a grievous wrong against them, and have every right to do so. Nor does recognizing the people of Arab Palestine have every right to feel aggrieved and wronged require adopting the view that all they have done in acting on these feelings is wise, or right and lawful. Under the strain of defeat and evident helplessness, people do not always behave rationally, indeed, they very seldom do. Often, they do things that only make their situation worse.

[msmcghee]

66. Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

You say, "Political coherence in a group of people is not a necessary element for recognition that that group of people have grievances and have been wronged, and that a people lacks political coherence does not eliminate the grievances or erase the wrongs they feel and suffer."

I agree with that in every respect. I would actually like to believe that the last 60 years of death, conflict and suffering on both sides was simply a misunderstanding on the part of Israel and US of the intentions of the Palestinians - and that once Israel realizes their real peaceful intentions (that have been hidden until now due to unfortunate cultural differences) that we can all get on with specifying the terms of some mutually agreeable and peaceful final resolution.

Oh, if only that were true. But, doesn't even my stating it in those terms cause you dismay - at the realization that such a view is so far from the truth? I think there has been so much incoherent intransigence for so many years on the Palestinian side that many otherwise reasonable people have become weary of trying to cope with the ugly reality of this conflict - so that they now psychologically deny it.

Arabs (and Persians) in the ME are terribly offended by the presence of Jews enjoying statehood in their region of the world. They are prepared to do anything including nuclear war if it is ever in their means - to prevent Israel from enjoying any semblance of a peaceful existence there.

Everything that has happened, from the several wars of aggression against Israel, to the rejection of all peace overtures, to the suicide and rocket attacks against Israel - has been for that one purpose. The few states who have dropped out of the jihadist mindset and have signed treaties with Israel - still have large majorities who hate Israel and the Jews who live there - many of whom would rejoin the efforts of Hisb'allah and Hamas and the others in a minute if they were not held in constant check by secret police and military force.

This isn't about borders or checkpoints or occupation or "apartheid". It's about destroying Israel. Only when that Arab mindset is changed will any peace be possible. As the PBS documentary illustrated so well last nite, Arabs have invested heavily for many years - not in preparing their people for peace with Israel as a neighbor someday - but in education their young in the worst forms of hatred and in vast propaganda efforts to assure that that mindset of hatred will never change.

Until then - virtually everything that happens in the ME will be driven by Israel's enemies to reach their goal of the destruction of the state of Israel - just as everything that has happened so far has been just that.

We in the West simply can't wrap our brains around this. We have been steeped in enlightenment values for over two hundred years now. Those values have allowed us to eliminate slavery, give women the vote and many other progressive acts of improvement of the lot of people throughout the world. We can't imagine that anyone else would not seek the same enlightened values and the benefits they bring if given the chance.

Unfortunately, a large part of the world still lives by tribal values - where their desire to destroy other tribes, even a whole nation state of peace-loving democratic people - is far more appealing to them than having a state to call their own that would be run by the consent of the governed. I'm afraid such things are just corrupt infidel fantasies to many people in this world - and probably to a majority of the non-Israeli residents of the ME (but not all, mods).

I am saying, that while I agree with your sentiments, I just don't think that they apply. It is a matter of wishful thinking and our inability to imagine that human minds are not all alike in the fundamental values that guide their behavior decisions. Tribal minds have different values and will arrive at different conclusions given the same conditions.

The UN was created with the implicit belief that given the opportunity to avoid war and benefit from peaceful resolutions to problems - that all nations and their leaders would naturally seek such beneficial outcomes. The UN was formed by reasonable, non-tribal entities.

I propose that for the reasons stated above - given the current state of mind of Israel's enemies - it is not possible for the Palestinians or their allies to accept any resolution of this conflict short of Israel's destruction. Several centuries of history in that region backs me up on that.

IMO - it is foolish and ultimately destructive for the hopes of peace to pretend that the situation is otherwise. I would love for someone to convince me I am wrong.

[The Magistrate]

67. We Do Seem To Get At Cross-Purposes On Occassion, Ma'am

And may have done so here again.

It is not my view that there is any particular inclination towards peace on the part of any party to this conflict, or that this conflict is rooted in any particular mis-understanding of the other's motives by either party to it. What semblance of peace it may be still possible to extract from this situation depends upon acceptance of what force and power have established, and is capable of maintaining, and learning to live within the parameters actually in existence, and likely to persist.

It is my view, however, that people, human beings, whether acculturated to a tribal social order or an Enlightenment view, or just about any other social permutation conceivable, do generally as individuals prefer a peaceable, prosperous, and stable condition to a condition of war, poverty, and chaos. This is the ground which the acceptances refered to above must be rooted in, and can be rooted in. Certainly the political and social leaderships of both sides must co-operate in some degree for this to have a chance of flowering, and if either does not, matters must simply cripple on as they are at present.

In a situation where co-operation between parties is required, even though the actions of one side only cannot likely secure success, it may still be of benefit to one side to do the things it would do if it had the co-operation of the other party in hand. One possible benefit is a sort of clearing the ground, clarifying the matter's real underpinnings by removing a variety of excuses proffered by the opponent for its unco-operative behavior. Another possible benefit is a reduction of the level of aggravation experienced by the individuals who make up the collectivity of the other side's social order. The first can greatly improve the political situation of the side that attempts this, and the second can greatly weaken the support for continuing hostilities on the opposing side.

You would doubtless agree that if, say, Fatah were to unequivocally acknowledge the existance of Israel, even within the '49 boundaries, and not only state it renounced violence against Israel, but took real steps to break and suppress violence against Israel by other militant bodies in Arab Palestine that dissented from this position, this would not only have a tremendous effect on political life in Israel, but would place the Israeli state and people under a powerful obligation to reciprocate on similar lines. It seems to me a mistaken view that if Israel were to, say, cease and roll back the settlement program in the Jordan valley, this would not have some effect on the political life of Arab Palestine beneficial to Israel, and place the political leadership and people of Arab Palestine under a powerful obligation to reciprocate with concessions of their own. If, in the event, it did not have such an effect, then it would be clear to all where the matter actually stood: the other side would be deprived of a leading excuse, and Israel be no longer open to the charge it really sought the complete dispossession of the people of Arab Palestine.

[msmcghee]

68. We are discussing human nature in the context of this conflict.

I greatly appreciate the opportunity as this is the only area where a broader understanding of the conflict will be found IMO. I implore the mods to allow this to continue as most of my efforts along these lines have been deleted in the past. To forestall such an outcome - let me state up front that I am speculating about different mindsets that exist in different cultures in the world. I am not making assertions that I believe are provable. I am searching for possible reasons why this conflict seems to go on endlessly and resist all attempts at some reconciliation.

Also, I absolutely would never ascribe cultural characteristics to any individual within that culture. As I have said repeatedly, I am sure there are many Arabs and Persians whose values are "enlightened" - and who would wish for peace as much as I do. Yet, it is an established fact of social psychology that people in groups act differently than they would individually. It is this group mentality that drives much of the conflict in the world - certainly in the ME - and it is a topic that certainly deserves space in any intelligent forum discussing this conflict.

****************************************

Now, you say, "It is my view, however, that people, human beings, whether acculturated to a tribal social order or an Enlightenment view, or just about any other social permutation conceivable, do generally as individuals prefer a peaceable, prosperous, and stable condition to a condition of war, poverty, and chaos."

Yes, I know you believe that. And that is where we disagree. IMO some people, who have grown up in an environment where from an early age war and conflict are glorified and where death in war against one's enemies is seen as glorious and redemptive do not ". . prefer a peaceable, prosperous, and stable condition to a condition of war, poverty, and chaos."

That is my point. These people in every generation will find their war. In the ME today, where internecine conflict between Druze, Shia, Sunni, Bedouin and various political and family factions always seethe beneath the surface and frequently break out into armed conflict - Jews having a state in the region provides a very potent cause celebre' and focus for the warlike components of the tribal mentality that pervades most ME Arab / Persian cultures.

Your "belief" IMO is the result of the common human tendency to believe that everyone is basically just like they are - that they could not possibly be driven by a completely foreign and opposite set of values. But, different cultural mentalities are like living in a different place and time. They only permit certain views of the world to exist - at least openly and effectively.

In your last paragraph you posit that if Fatah made peaceful overtures that it would change the outlook of the Israelis. And likewise if Israel made such overtures that the Palestinians would be forced to look anew at the situation and possibly see some room for compromise.

Israel has consistently hoped for and looked for peaceful overtures from the Palestinians for 60 years - and has found none. Israel has consistently found that what appeared to be peaceful overtures on the part of Arabs often turn out to be deceptive attempts to find some advantage for those hoping to destroy Israel. What few genuine peaceful intentions have developed - these were always met with Israeli reasonableness and compromise and signed treaties - as in Jordan and Egypt.

Actually, Fatah is currently making signs in a peaceful direction. We will see if those signs are only a means for Fatah to cripple Hamas and take firm control over the Palestinian struggle against Israel. Even so, both Israel and the US are acting, " . . to do the things it would do if it had the co-operation of the other party in hand", as you suggest - and is giving Fatah every opportunity to prove its intentions are honorable.

You further state, "It seems to me a mistaken view that if Israel were to, say, cease and roll back the settlement program in the Jordan valley, this would not have some effect on the political life of Arab Palestine beneficial to Israel, and place the political leadership and people of Arab Palestine under a powerful obligation to reciprocate with concessions of their own."

Do you mean that it would have an effect similar to what occurred when Israel pulled out of Lebanon in 2000? Or are you referring to the effect it had on Palestinians' desire to compromise when Israel removed all settlements and pulled out of Gaza one year ago this month?
_______________________________

I don't want to be in the position of simply arguing with you about these points. I'd like you to show me evidence that what you say is true and that I have misinterpreted the events of history that have brought us to where we are today. I am open to contrary evidence and I'd like to be wrong.

[The Magistrate]

69. As You Said At The Start Of This, Ma'am

You are making assertions you do not believe are proveable. That, you must admit, would make it rather difficult to do as you suggest in closing, namely to prove to you that you are wrong. We do seem to have somewhat different takes on human nature, and that being a pretty variable and malleable thing in itself, we have really little prospect of compelling agreement to our view from the other, and cannot really say both of us are not right, or wrong, for that matter. We cannot really do much but restate our views at one another, employing what rhetorical resources we can bring to bear to heighten the effectiveness of our expressions.

Just about all societies that survived with any great population into the present day have exalted the martial virtues in some degree. Claims that participants in war represented the most vital elements of the species and that war was the highest action a people could engage in were commonplace in the West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to the point of constituting the common wisdom of the period. The great piles of corpses accumulated in the first half of the twentieth century rather knocked the stuffing out of that view, but it will doubtless re-surface, as it has been a hardy perennial all over the world. But it has always co-existed with a pronounced tendency on the part of soldiers to run away from the fighting line, and of parents to regret and resist the appearance of their off-spring in battle, and the preference of many people for making money and smelling roses instead.

What is important is not to ascribe dominace of either a martial or a pacific view to any particular cultural stream, as if this was an un-alterable charactaristic of it down the course of time, independent of events and circumstances around it, but to pay attention to the balance of these two contrasting elements within a culture, and if this balance seems skewed in a damaging way, seek ways to alter it. A people that feels its existance is threatened, that feels itself under assault and powerless, that experiences its daily condition as a collection of grievances, is going to have a disproportionate number of people who want to fight, and are willing to die and kill, and see their loved ones dead in the cause. But so long as there are real daily grievances, conditions that can readily be perceived as assault and threat, and as constituting a real existential danger, it cannot be rightly said that the people who display a disproportionate willingness to fight and die do so because of elements in their culture that direct this, rather than as a result of the circumstances the individuals who make up that culture perceive themselves to be in. If the edge is taken off their condition, the proportion of people looking to kill and die may well decline.

[msmcghee]

70. Thanks for indulging me.

While my current assessment is that strong cultural beliefs and a tribal mentality are the controlling factors among ME Arab regimes - and that those factors will not permit the existence of or even the recognition of a Jewish state much less peace with it no matter what Israel does short of leaving - I sincerely hope that my admittedly cynical view is wrong and that you are right.

Cheers.

[msmcghee]

71. I see that after I jumped in here with . .

. . a response to The Magistrate - that you dropped out of the subthread. I hope you didn't stop because of that. I was enjoying your comments.

[Tom Joad]

3. (undisputed) calls by sundry Arab leaders? I don't think so.

There were many calls put out to Palestinians as to how to respond, and most pleaded with Palestinians to stay put.

While i do appreciate your acknowledgment of Deir Yassin and the terror tactics of Irgun, there were many attacks on Palestinian civilians, it was not an isolated case. Terror worked for the founders of Israel.

[calzone]

4. Well, there's just too much drek in this hit-piece...

....to refute. It would take a novella. All I can do is post the fabrications and propaganda.
Whether the author is deliberately taking part in perception-management or is just a useful tool that doesn't have the work ethic to research the facts, this is a hit-piece, and suitable only to line a birdcage.
All the excerpts below are examples of ca-ca. Pure, extruded ca-ca.

"He was a senior Fatah official with the Palestinian Authority's intelligence service in Gaza City, and his would-be assassins were almost certainly from Hamas, the rival Palestinian political party which won power in last year's election."

"The level of conflict between the Palestinian parties simmers just below the level of civil war, even as the spoils keep shrinking."

"For the sake of reality, let's put aside whatever views and prejudices you may hold on the Palestinian question. Put aside any animosity about grasping Jews or murderous Arabs. Put aside the Holocaust, and Muslim anti-Semitism. Put aside hopes and judgements. Simply look at what has happened on the ground. Stripped of all emotion and prejudice, right and wrong, one reality becomes clear: there is no chance of a sovereign, autonomous Palestinian state. Not within our lifetimes. No chance. None."

"At every historic juncture since Israel was created in 1948, rhetoric has taken precedence over pragmatism in the Arab world."

"As a result, every one of these historic junctions has resulted, without exception, in material defeat for the Palestinians."

"In 1948, roughly 700,000 Palestinian Arabs - the number remains contested and inexact - heeded calls from the Arab world and fled their homes"

"In 1967, Israel was invaded by its Arab neighbours in the Six Day War."

"In 1987, the first Palestinian intifada began at the instigation of PLO leader Yasser Arafat"

"In 2000, Arafat launched the second intifada, his response to Israel's final offer in the Oslo peace accords."

"What the Palestinians were offered in 2000 is now impossible today, because Israel has since encircled Jerusalem with settlements housing 100,000 Jewish settlers. And Israel began building the Wall."

"In 2006, Hezbollah attacked Israel"

"political opposition was Islamicised"

"Hezbollah lost its military control of southern Lebanon"

"In the West Bank, the dividing fence and wall became a reality, effectively halting suicide bombings"

"The wall is a tragedy. The wall is bad. It is the direct result of Yasser Arafat's intifada.

"The Palestinian workforce was integrated into the Israeli economy, with relatively free movement into Israel."

"Education and health systems were built, universities opened, local governments were functioning, corruption was minimal, and life expectancy had soared from 47 under Arab rule to 68. Then came Yasser Arafat and Fatah."

"Fatah is the mafia," Abu Toameh told me. "It is responsible for most of the anarchy on the West Bank.

"Through all the wars, terrorist bombings and threats of annihilation, and despite intense internal divisions, Israel has grown into a muscular economy of almost 7 million, with a per capita gross domestic product far higher than any Arab neighbours, including Saudi Arabia. The Jewish population has grown from 600,000 to 5.3 million, with a birthrate higher than those in Western Europe. Per capita, Israel has the most engineers and the most high-tech economy in the world."

Gee, that leaves about.....5% of the text from the article that isn't bat guano.:-) Time for a re-write!

[Tom Joad]

6. The writer is basically rewriting history and denying the real suffering of

millions of people, blaming their oppression on themselves.

Not unlike what the sewage that came out of Tehran a few weeks ago.
Serious discussion? Please.

[The Magistrate]

7. Do You Really Think, Mr. Joad

That the political leadership of the Arab Palestinian people has made no mistakes, and bears no part of the blame for the situation the people it leads are presently in?

[Tom Joad]

8. I am not in the habit of blaming people for their own oppression.

[msmcghee]

9. Yes, well that's the point it seems. n/t

[The Magistrate]

10. You Might, Though, Sir, Wish To Cultivate The Habit

Of looking facts square in the face, without resort to ideological blinders like "I am not in the habit of blaming people for their own oppression." In many instances, people contribute, by their own mis-judgements and foolish choices, to the predicaments they find themselves in. Your reply here seems to suggest an inability to critique, let alone criticize, the actions of the side you give your allegiance to, in favor of a course of simply demonizing the side you oppose as "oppressors" of your favored "victims".

[calzone]

11. Bollocks.....

The Palestinian leadership has made mistakes. They are not, however, responsible for the Palestinians present predicament. That blame lies squarely with the zionists.
Mr magistrate, you have been using sophistry and hyperbole in place of honest debate.
Your "people are responsible for their own foolish choices and misjudgements" sounds just like the Mr. Potter-ish, republican, libertarian, mean-spirited, disingenuous argument about the homeless and poor. How about this. Do you really think the Israelis have no responsibilty whatsoever for the present Palestinian predicament? See?
I suppose the Jews were responsible for the holocaust because they didn't rise up en masse and form an underground resistance after kristolnacht, and the Poles were responsible for the retaliations taken after those 2 bumblers assasinated Reinhard Heydrich? And I suppose the native Americans were responsible for their near extinction because they failed to assimilate and realize that those treaties weren't going to be honored, and because they failed to develop (or steal) better weaponry?
Reminds me of that scene in Animal House after Flounder lent Otter his brother's car..."Hey, quit crying flounder...face it...you fucked up...you TRUSTED us!"

[The Magistrate]

12. Before Citations From 'Animal House', Sir

One must tremble indeed, as a master of the art must surely have been met....

And of course, being described as "...republican, libertarian, mean-spirited, disingenuous..." is an awful burden to bear up under....

But on close examination, you have not really made any sort of argument at all, only some disagreeable noise. You have ventured some analogies to Second World War history with which you are obviously not too familiar (Heydrich was so famously killed in Czechoslovakia, not Poland, and all European resistance organizations did take into account in their planning the cost of expected reprisals balanced against the expected benefit of a lethal operation), and seem to have done so only so that you could squeeze in crab-wise a comparison of the Hitlerite exterminations to the present situation in the Middle East. That is as frank a confession of forensic bankruptcy as exists in the lexicon of this subject.

The nearest thing to a point you even attempted to press was to play the mirror game, in evident expectation my answer would be that the Israelis bore no responsibility for the present situation of the people of Arab Palestine. But the fact that the poor choices of the political leadership of Arab Palestine have had a great deal to do with the plight they find themselves in today does not amount to anything near a view that the Israelis bear no responsibility for their own actions towards that people, and have not contributed to that people's plight.

What you seem to have difficulty acknowledging is that this has been for more than eighty years a war of peoples in which each has fought to win, and in which one side has fought a great deal more wisely than the other. It has, accordingly, made a better job of achieving its objectives, while the other has squandered what could have been, at the start of the conflict, a winning hand, and finds itself today in a desperate plight. The importance of this is that, so long as the mistakes of the Arab Palestinian leadership are not accepted, examined, and corrected, but instead lauded as salvaging pride, or in accordance with justice and right, or whatever other style of rot, and in consequence are persisted in, as if they could lead to anything in the future but the defeat they have produced in the past, the plight of the Arab Palestinian people is certain to grow ever worse. It would seem to me that anyone who desired the well-being of that people would be interested in altering the behavior that has done so much to land them where they are now, to prevent that more dire future condition's materializing. People have control of their own behavior, not of other people's, and therefore must look to what they can do themselves to alter the dynamic of their relation with others.

[calzone]

15. Yup, yer right about Heydrich..

I mixed the two countries, but the point remains the same. Congrats, you triumphed on the minutae while leaving the tank unscathed.

"all European resistance organizations did take into account in their planning the cost of expected reprisals balanced against the expected benefit of a lethal operation
Yep, and there was heated disagreement. The Czechs certainly weren't for the op, but the allies weren't exactly "the good guys" (there were none) so who gave a squat. Tell the kid whose mother had her head cut off for harboring them that it was worth it. I mean, before they killed him.

Listen, just to clarify things, how about skipping the flowery fluff-language OK? This is a public forum, not the Oscar Wilde fan club

"you have not really made any sort of argument at all, only some disagreeable noise."
Yeah, that's why you wrote 3 paragraphs to answer me, Mr. Palin your honor.

"...republican, libertarian, mean-spirited, disingenuous..." is the tactic you used, and it would only be a burden if you subjected yourself to honest introspection. It might then serve as a catalyst for you to employ more honest debate tactics.
No, the poor choices of some of the Palestinian leadership has not had "a great deal" to do with their predicament.

"...only so that you could squeeze in crab-wise a comparison of the Hitlerite exterminations to the present situation in the Middle East. That is as frank a confession of forensic bankruptcy as exists in the lexicon of this subject."
It's called using your own bollocks tactics against you, sparky. I sense it hit home.

I actually didn't expect an answer to my Israeli question. It was a rhetorical device, that flew over your wig.

"What you seem to have difficulty acknowledging is that this has been for more than eighty years a war of peoples in which each has fought to win, and in which one side has fought a great deal more wisely than the other. It has, accordingly, made a better job of achieving its objectives, while the other has squandered what could have been, at the start of the conflict, a winning hand, and finds itself today in a desperate plight. The importance of this is that, so long as the mistakes of the Arab Palestinian leadership are not accepted, examined, and corrected, but instead lauded as salvaging pride, or in accordance with justice and right, or whatever other style of rot, and in consequence are persisted in, as if they could lead to anything in the future but the defeat they have produced in the past, the plight of the Arab Palestinian people is certain to grow ever worse. It would seem to me that anyone who desired the well-being of that people would be interested in altering the behavior that has done so much to land them where they are now, to prevent that more dire future condition's materializing. People have control of their own behavior, not of other people's, and therefore must look to what they can do themselves to alter the dynamic of their relation with others."

Koresh! Man are you long-winded and pompously inflated. You could've distilled that down to 2 sentences. I would never...NEVER...publish any submission by you if I were in a position to do so.
You're a modern day Marjorie Rawlings before she stopped writing about crap she knew nothing about.
I always have difficulty acknowleging horsemanure masquerading as insightful analysis. It's an annoying habit of mine.
The Palestinians were chased off their lands by a treacherous, unholy alliance between zionists and Brits. The Pals were betrayed, and Israel has behaved like a bully and has been recognized by all but the U.S. and the U.K. as a rogue nation ever since. Israel has been the aggressor. Yes, even in the 67 war. Foreign policies have been manipulated by the zionists. Many Israelis detest and distrust the zionists, but till now have been unable to outmaneuver them. But the Pals today are in a very positive position.
They defeated Israel roundly in the last war, crushing the false vaneer of invincibility. Israel has for years been unable to get people to move to the "homeland", they've tried desperate measures to draw people in but they've been horribly unsuccessful, and it ain't just the high phone bills and rent...delaying Aliyah.
Meanwhile, the IDF's policies and the government's poor decisions have alienated the world and strengthened the Palestinians cause. The truth is out there. I realize that when there's a suicide bomber on an Israeli bus the press is rushed to the site and given full access, while when there's an Israeli atrocity or civilians slaughtered by the IDF the press is kept away, blocked from reporting. But the truth is stubborn, and the character and pedigree of the zionist controlled policies is well known. Hamas and Hezbollah won key democratic elections, they're in control of governments now, and if they're having a hard time of it it's cuz the zionists and their allies...the U.S., have given them the cold shoulder. Stupid. Real stupid. The Isreali right wingers are really stupid people, and they don't realize it, because...well...they're stupid. For 30 years I've been saying that the Israeli iron fist policy is clenched around their own throat, and I've been vindicated, over & over. Didn't take a rocket scientist. Just something most zealots and religious nutcases lack...common sense.
The Israelis have a population problem, while the Pals are beating their asses with babies and bullets. Guess those nukes were frustratingly useless. There will come a day when the fortunes are reversed in Palestine and Israel, the Isreali Jews will be the minority enclave, and I don't think the majority Palestinians are gonna be too magnanimous. But I could be wrong. I've been to Arab countries and befriended the locals...those I met were remarkably fair-minded, particularly the devout Muslims, after all, the Koran is a book of tolerance and forgiveness of one's enemies.
We'll see.
But this article is pure bat guano.

[The Magistrate]

16. The General View Of 'Pals' For Arab Palestinians, Sir

Is that it is a derogatory usage, but of course if you are enamoured of appearing muscular and sweaty when you speak a fondness for that sort of thing is understandable.

You seem resolved to continue maintaining that people arrive in circumstances without contributing to these themselves, and to maintain that pointing this out is somehow innappropriate, or even vile, and beneath anyone seriously considering a matter. But it is generally the crux of a thing involving humans, and their situations either as individuals or groups under leadership. Fortune, certainly, and sometimes diseased conditions of some sort, can play important roles, but these, again, are beyond anyone's control, whereas the choices one makes within the available options are within a person's control, and are therefore the things it is most profitable to concentrate on in analyzing what might be changed to the benefit of an actor in some circumstance.

If you were to read more deeply in the history of the matter than you evidently have done, and particularly to incorporate some Zionist works into your reading, you would find your charming fairy tale of "a treacherous, unholy alliance between zionists and Brits" difficult to maintain. The Zionists of the period commencing about 1930 and continuing to the dissolution of the Mandate considered the English to have been their open opponents, and allied with the Arabs right up to the last days of their rule in the place. It is a view with as much fact behind it, and probably more fact, than the summary you present. The thing came down to a war in '48, which would not have taken place, or certainly not have taken place on the same lines and with similar result, had the Arab Nationalist leadership of Arab Palestine accepted the Partition decreed by the United Nations. From refusal to co-operate in local rule in the early days of the Mandate on the grounds Jews too would be involved, through siding with the Reich in the thirties and into the first years of the Second World War, to this rejection of compromise in '47, the early mis-calculations of the Arab Nationalist leadership in Palestine dug a terrible hole for their people, that none of their subsequent actions has done anything but deepen.

Your view that the Arab Palestinians are today in an excellent position makes me itch to get you on the other side of a deck of cards, for people who think like that are apt to stay in the game on a trey in the hole and staring at an ace up, and can provide a comfortable living for others, as well as a good deal of entertainment when they curse their bad luck instead of their bad judgement. The people of Arab Palestine are being squeezed ever further, and are in a situation today where about the only way out is an actual civil war, bloody as it would be, that ended with the breaking of the religious rejectionists and installation of a party willing to accept just about what was rejected towards the end of 2000, several thousand lives and acres ago.

[calzone]

27. Pals is not regarded as derogatory....

You seem resolved to continue maintaining that if I'm between classes in the 4th grade and three 8th graders surround me and demand my lunch money, it's my fault that I go home with a black eye & missing front tooth because I made the poor choice of refusing to hand it over. Options: Capitulate and hope they're satisfied.--negotiate---holler for help---bluff---fight.
Nope, no sense in blaming the 8th graders.
I've read zionist works, I know the history, but my guess is that you're applying the same odd, truncated logic to your interpretation.
I suspect you're not a fan of Robert Fisk.
I also suspect you'd take this article at face value.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/56637

So you call my statement that the Arabs were betrayed by the zionists and Britain a fairy tale, and "difficult to maintain"? The only thing difficult to maintain is my ability to take you seriously. I mean....dude.

"For the Arabs, the Balfour Declaration was perceived as an act of dishonesty, as the cooperation that had been going on between Arabs and the British during the World War 1, in the Hijaz region against Ottoman supremacy, had involved a promise of help to establish a united Arab country, reaching from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf."
http://lexicorient.com/e.o/balfour_d.htm

'His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.'

That last sentence is a real knee-slapper.


"The UN Partition Resolution 181 of 29 November, 1948 and the subsequent defeat of the Arabs became known as the Palestinian nakba (catastrophe). The term sums up one of the biggest humanitarian tragedies in modern history. Not only were the majority of Palestinians uprooted from their homes and driven from their land, Palestine as a geo-political entity was virtually effaced from the map and the national identity of an entire people faced extinction.

Only about 11 per cent of Palestinians managed to remain in what became the state of Israel. Forced to adopt Israeli nationality, they became an ethnic minority in their native land and were referred to as "Israeli Arabs" as part of the design to eradicate all notion of a specifically Palestinian affiliation. With the same intent, Palestinians in the West Bank were attached to Jordan. Amman was declared the capital of both the east and west banks while Palestinians in Gaza came under Egyptian military rule. In Jordan the Palestinians were politically amalgamated into the Jordanian system whereas in Egypt Abdel-Nasser abolished all Palestinian political parties and subordinated Palestinian political activity to the monolithic National Union, and later the Arab Socialist Union, parties.

The vast majority of other Palestinians were condemned to the wretchedness of refugee camps in various Arab countries, where for the most part they remained deprived of fundamental human and political rights. As far as the international community was concerned the Palestinian cause had been reduced to a refugee problem that periodically cropped up on the UN agenda, with, moreover, no Palestinians to speak on their own behalf."
http://www.fromoccupiedpalestine.org/node/1482

"The British promised the Arabs giving them independence if they fight the Turks. They did, under the command of Lawrence of Arabia. In the meantime they secretly promised Weisman, the head of the Zionist movement, that the British will give them Palestine in BELLFORE PROMISE. The Arabs were betrayed by Britain's Foreign Minister. Crusade #12 was the creation of Israel and support as a weapon and spearhead against the Arab World to control the area."
http://www.mothersagainstwar.info/fadhliessay.htm

"At the end of World War I, the victorious British and French fell like wolves on the rotting carcass of the defeated Ottoman Empire. After promising Arabs independence, Britain betrayed them, dividing the ex-Ottoman Mideast into weak states run from London."
http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2002/08/iraqs_history_is_written_in_blood.php

"In the aftermath of the World War 1 Palestine was brought under the mandatory power of the British who betrayed the Arabs, and ruthlessly helped the Jews to realise their goal of a separate state.

The Jews adopted both deception and crime. They first started buying prime property in Palestine offering attractive prices which many Palestinians, unaware of the conspiracy, couldn't resist. Hand in hand they trained and armed Jewish terror gangs to kill, frighten and drive away unarmed and innocent Palestinians at gun point from their land.

Some of the most notorious Jewish terror gangs were Haganah, Irgun and Stern. Two of their main leaders were Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, godfathers of terrorism, who were later elected prime ministers of Israel."
http://www.sundaytimes.lk/061126/International/i504.html

It goes on...and on...and on. Unless you just google the first entries on the subject. You see, the Israeli govt and rightwing interests have literally google-bombed the net with THEIR version of history, like for the first 3 pages and 44 entries, using camouflaged, innocuous names like "mideastweb.org" an "Palestinenet.org" and other equally misleading monikers, you have to dig into each site to discover the agenda-bots.
Hell, just watch freakin' "Lawrence of Arabia". Sheesh. Weizman was good buds with the British movers and shakers, there was only lukewarm unease by some Jewish Brits, thinking the declaration was a ruse to eject the diaspora. Paranoid sots. At least the zionists, dumb as they were, were cunning enough to grasp the value and advantage. The Arabs? Just like the native Americans, too damn trusting. They operated under the misconception that leaders held a man's word in high esteem.
There was no "rejection of compromise" unless you're talking about the Israelis. "I want all your land and you need to move" is not a negotiable card.
This has continued throughout the whole history of the conflict. The PLO, Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah repeatedly, time after time, reach out and offer a truce, an olive branch to the Israelis, and time after time right up to this very last conflict, the Israelis turn them down flat. No negotiation...period. All those babies killed in Israel and Palestine, in the Gaza strip and West Bank? Thank the bloody zionists. As long as they insist by arms that "God" gave them a deed to land, babies will die. (never thought I'd quote Bill O'Reilly, but there you are)
Don't agree with my assessment of the Palestinian position? Think what I described is fantasy? Then don't read the Israeli newspapers, or listen to orgs such as......

http://www.nimn.org/

http://www.Jewsagainsttheoccupation.org

http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/homepage.asp?pi=25

http://www.btselem.org/English/

Because you'll have to e-mail them to invite them all to poker.

[pelsar]

29. rather humerous....

the quotes above and links make the palestenains out to be a bunch of morons......

They first started buying prime property in Palestine offering attractive prices which many Palestinians, unaware of the conspiracy, couldn't resist.

yes those sneaky "zionists" had a conspiracy that they kept secret (what was it?)..and worse they offered to "buy land"...and the pooor palestenians...they actually sold those conspiracy minded jews land.

hmm should be a law against jews buying land! (well actually there was and still is in many countries...at least they have some sense!!)

there are quite a few other gems in the previous posts....but i really dont want to spill my coffee on the screen and keyboard as i reread them.

[calzone]

35. So that is your refutation?

Sorry kiddo, deftly attempting to turn this into anti-semitism won't work. You could attempt a more novel approach, such as using facts...

[pelsar]

54. see the magestrates response.....

he has much more patience than i do........

[The Magistrate]

31. 'The Onion', Mr. Calzone, Does Some Excellent Journalism

Should it be all that survives a thousand years on, the picture of the world today that could be gleaned from its pages would provide a passable sense of the present day, superior to that many newspapers could provide.

Your historical efforts here are amusement at best and propagandist distortion at worst, ommitting far too many facts in the matter to be considered even the product of an effort at accuracy.

One of their weaknesses is treating "the Arabs" as a single and unitary entity. That was hardly the case at the time of the Balfour declaration. The English made some vague commitments to the Hashemites at Mecca: these, as events were to prove, did not even enjoy the full allegiance and support of the Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula. The Hashemites came out of the deal pretty well: they did not get a Kingdom at Damascus, which the French drove them out of, but recieved a Kingdom at Baghdad and an Emirate in Transjordan. The Arabs in the area of Palestine continued loyal to the Ottoman throughout the Great War, with a few executed exceptions, and hardly performed any service to the English war effort to place the English under any reciprocal obligation.

That you find the final sentence of the declaration "a real knee-slapper' says more about you than about the item you quote. One of the dangers many Jews at the time perceived in the Zionist movement was that, if it were successful in establishing a Jewish State somewhere, this might be taken in some places as a pretext to deport Jewish citizens involuntarily to it, it being a noteable element in many European nationalisms that Jews were not really a native element of the country. The modern success of the Zionist movement began, you may recall, in consequence of the Dreyfus episode in France, where Jews had enjoyed equal rights longer than any place in Western Europe, and political Anti-Semitism at the time marked the politics of Austria, and was pushed to the point of organized state murder in Czarist Russia. Subsequent deterioration in the period after the Great War hardly needs pointing out.

Your excerpt from the Telegraph continues the theme of distortion by ommission, of a sort that can only be aimed at people who are ignorant of the facts of the matter. There was no appreciable use of arms by Jews against Arabs native to the area prior to the wave of murderous riots commenced by the Arab Nationalists with the Abu Musa affair of 1920 in Jerusalem, which were frankly intended by their authors to terrorize Jews into departing. The first reprisals of note were carried out by veterans of the Jewish Legion, which had fought alongside the English under Gen. Allenby, and were being demobilized near Jaffa at the time of the murderous riots against Jews there a year later. The entire decade was marked by killing riots conducted by the Arab Nationalists against Jews, culminating in the Hebron massacres of '29, and renewed in the thirties under the rubric of the Arab Revolt. The Sternists and their like only commenced operation in the latter stages of this episode, and the Hagganah was not an appreciable armed force until the English found it necessary in the thirties to recruit Jews to the police in the same period, as most of the Moslem police sided with the rioters. They were, in short, not the institutors of violence but johnny-come-latelies to it.

To call the sequelia of the '48 war "one of the biggest humanitarian tragedies of modern history" is beneath even the Onion as an exercise in humor. Between the events attendant on the seperation of Pakistan from India, the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War, the tremendous displacement of persons in Europe after World War Two and the Stalinist seizure of Eastern Europe, the Greek Civil War, and the seizure of Tibet, all roughly contemporaneous with it, it scarcely qualifies as a minor event, and viewed against the whole backdrop of modern, twentieth century history, both subsequent and prior to it, it constitutes no more than a rounding error in the toll of human suffering and murderous catastrophe. And even so, it would not have occured had the Arab Nationalists accepted the Partition, and the states of the Arab League refrained from invading the Jewish Zone declared by the United Nations. If, absent this, the Zionist leadership had taken steps to drive Arabs from the Jewish Zone, and to seize more land, the politics of the matter would have been decisively different, and Israel would probably not now exist as a state.

[calzone]

36. Man, where do u get your scripts?

"The Hashemites came out of the deal pretty well: they did not get a Kingdom at Damascus, which the French drove them out of, but received a Kingdom at Baghdad and an Emirate in Transjordan. The Arabs in the area of Palestine continued loyal to the Ottoman throughout the Great War, with a few executed exceptions, and hardly performed any service to the English war effort to place the English under any reciprocal obligation."

This is completely false. There isn't an iota of truth in it. I'm amazed. Read, mr. Magistrate...read something other than revisionist history.

"That you find the final sentence of the declaration "a real knee-slapper' says more about you than about the item you quote."

Here we go with the ad-hominems. What it says about me is that I actually looked back and read what eventually occurred. You should try that sometime. Hence, the sarcastic amusement.

As I pointed out and you repeated and changed, only paranoid folk would've seen the attempt as a ruse to deport. There was no precedent or indication. There were better reasons to oppose the Sykes-Picot/Balfour betrayal.

"There was no appreciable use of arms by Jews against Arabs native to the area prior to the wave of murderous riots commenced by the Arab Nationalists with the Abu Musa affair of 1920 in Jerusalem, which were frankly intended by their authors to terrorize Jews into departing."

Pure bat guano. You've apparently been brainwashed. That chicken&egg hogwash is propaganda.
Try reading something other than official Israeli government releases.
Then you attempt to debunk the ONION? It's......a......satirical piece, meant to point out the sheer stupidity of the Israeli governments policies...remember when I said how stupid and criminal the Israeli armed forces and govt was in the recent war which destroyed the Paris of the middle east? Olmert's approval rating is now 22%. The Israelis dropped 1.4 million cluster bombs in civilian areas of Lebanon....all on the last day of the war when peace negotiations were underway. Every day children are maimed and killed from those 1.4 million cluster bombs, dropped while both sides were in a cease fire and discussing peace terms. Convoys of civilians were coaxed out of their homes with promises of safe passage, then swooped upon and slaughtered by Israeli helicopters and off-shore artillery. Those Israeli soldiers that everyone claims were captured on Israeli soil? They were captured on the other side of the border in a raid. Those buildings flattened (the entire region was flattened) because the Israelis said they were bases for rocket firings? Pure crap. No rockets, no fighters. Old tactic, we use it all the time in Iraq. Funny how we never hear that. We don't hear alot of stuff, we hear parrots like you erupting revisionist propaganda. Hell, even the Israeli soldiers knew it was a big screw up, they were quoted saying so. Reminds me of the mass mutinies of the refusniks before, actually getting up in front of the brass and saying "I ain't gonna do this no more, it's criminal and it just makes more terrorists." The Israeli govt tried to paint them as cowardly hooligans but they couldn't, these were battle tested heroes whose bravery was unquestionable.

"it (the '48 war) would not have occurred had the Arab Nationalists accepted the Partition, and the states of the Arab League refrained from invading the Jewish Zone declared by the United Nations. If, absent this, the Zionist leadership had taken steps to drive Arabs from the Jewish Zone, and to seize more land, the politics of the matter would have been decisively different, and Israel would probably not now exist as a state."

Again, I wouldn't have my tooth knocked out if I'd just have handed over my lunch money, house and land when the guy backed by superpowers told me to hand them over. You call the Arabs "nationalists". Clever. I guess if you're forceably ejected from your land and watch whole villages massacred you're a nationalist if you resist. This reminds me of the standard practice of calling Muqtada al Sadr "the radical". Always, every time his name is mentioned, it always has the obligatory prefix "the radical cleric". Now it's changing, it's now the "anti-American" cleric.
Appeal to them emotions, manipulate that perception.
The Arabs were supposed to be treated with respect and inclusion at the creation of Israel, they were supposed to be co-inhabitants, they weren't, they were lied to & rolled over.
Theodor Herzl never liked the Arabs anyway, he always planned to roll over them and eliminate them. Cooler heads among the zionists told him..."you better do it the right way, you need to respect the Arabs and deal with them fairly"...Herzl regarded them as stupid, soft, do-gooder idiots. NOW who's the idiot? Lebensraum didn't work out for ANYBODY,.... surprise.
No magistrate, I don't bite on the dumb chicken & egg argument, it's a device to muddy the truth, which is that the original aggression came from the Israeli zionists, and they've been keeping it alive ever since and topping themselves every year with the level of atrocity and brutality.
A vicious circle indeed, but the Israelis are the ones with the pen. Like I said and you cannot refute, time after time the Israelis refuse to negotiate for a peace when it's offered. And the UN has so many condemnations of Israel I've lost count, and how do the Israelis respond? They deliberately target the UN members and blow them to smithereens. Take that you damn meddlers.
During a prolonged period of peace what did Sharon, the butcher of Beirut do? He deliberately sabotaged the peace by pulling the Al Aqsa stunt. Gee, what a coincidence, a phalanx of thugs accompanying Sharon to the holy site with ..OH!...cameras on the scene! Who could have IMAGINED that the intifada would've been the result? Sounds like the Bush regime.."we never imagined that would be the result"
What was never reported was that the ground Sharon defiled was also probably holy Jewish ground, since the exact extant of the original temple grounds are not known. he doesn't care of course...this is a guy that had thousands of civilians massacred, like...he cares about such trifles. There's bigger fish to fry.
Those are the facts, you may try to counter them with more sophistry and goofy pseudo-history but I like to throw the facts out there. At least I can do that.

[The Magistrate]

38. You Are Going To Have To Start Holding Up Your End, Mr. Calzone

If you cannot make the necessary effort to provide at least a little sport, the shrillness and wrigglings you do provide will not be sufficiently amusing to entice my continued attention. There are other sources of pleasure avaliable to me.

You have claimed this statement is completely false: "The Hashemites came out of the deal pretty well: they did not get a Kingdom at Damascus, which the French drove them out of, but received a Kingdom at Baghdad and an Emirate in Transjordan. The Arabs in the area of Palestine continued loyal to the Ottoman throughout the Great War, with a few executed exceptions, and hardly performed any service to the English war effort to place the English under any reciprocal obligation." You are going to have to back that up, by pointing out its errors. In other words, you are going to have to demonstrate that the Hashemite Feisal did not briefly hold a Kingship at Damascus at the close of the Great War, and that he was not driven from it by the French, and that he did not subsequently become the King of Iraq in 1922, and that his brother Abdullah did not become Emir of Trans-Jordan that same year, and you will have to demonstrate that these were not the result of English patronage, and further, you are going to have to detail the various acts of military co-operation with England against the Ottoman forces carried out by armed bodies of Arabs from Palestine you seem to be under the impression actually occured, though no standard history of campaigns in the area includes the slightest mention of them.

Further, you are going to have to provide instances of Jewish attacks on Arabs prior to the Abu Musa riots of 1920, and somehow manage to make disappear the entire history of Arab Nationalist riots against Jews during the twenties and thirties. It will be very difficult to do, and putting your fingers in your ears and making rude noises around a stuck-out tongue will not manage to achieve the task you have set yourself.

You will need to point out any attempt at "de-bunking" the Onion piece on my part, which will be difficult as the rest of this, since no such effort was made. It is generally adviseable to read what you are replying to, rather than replying to an imagined item of your own concoction.

Arab Nationalism is the proper name of a political movement, that dominated political life among Arab Palestinians in the period of the Mandate, and into the years beyond. Why you seem to feel this neutral and accurate term should not be employed quite escapes me.

Mr. Herzl has been dead a long time, and past the early stages of the Zionist movement had no appreciable influence on events. What his views may or may not have been does not interest me, or effect the matter here at hand. The Zionist enterprise aimed to take over an area of land in the Levant, and populate and rule it, with or without the let and leave of the inhabitats. In other words, it was just one example of something humans beings have been doing for just about the whole length of time the species has been in existance on this earth, and is as normal an endeavor for humans to engage in as it is possible to conceive.

You continue to shy away from facing that had the '47 Partion been accepted by the Arab Nationalist leadership of Arab Palestine, and the states of the Arab League, that there would be today a state of Arab Palestine, of an extent that included a good deal of land now acknowledged by the world at large to be part of Israel. People certainly have the right to go double or nothing on a stake, but they do not get to complain when the cards go against them on the draw. When people resolve on war, they had better be sure not to lose: the consequences are generally very bad, and most often worse than the original postion hazarded by fighting in the first place.

Since you insist on bringing up the matter of Sharon's brief stroll upon the hill, you invite the question why you think it was so important a thing as to require outbreaks of riot and several years of killing? Had everyone simply ignored it, everyone would be a good deal better off. Certainly he intended it as a provocation, and the result was probably all that he desired. But those who gave him what he desired were playing into their enemy's hands, and doing him a favor. It is not my habit to do my enemies favors, or to behave as they hope me to. People are responsible for choosing the wisest course available to them, even when under extreme provocation. To claim one could do no other than to respond to a provocation is to own oneself a child rather than an adult, and unfit to manage one's own affairs without guardianship and guidance.

[Violet_Crumble]

40. Could you please comment on the OP itself? I'd be curious to hear yr opinion...

And I'd like to see you give it the same detailed attention yr giving to the posts of those in this thread who think the OP was a pile of crap....

[oberliner]

42. The author of the article in the OP did not direct snide comments to The Magistrate

Whereas the poster to which he is reponding did.

Perhaps that explains the detailed attention given that person.

That person accused The Magistrate of using sophistry and hyperbole in place of honest debate.

In his next post, that person derided The Magistrate's "flowery fluff-language" and suggested that he used less than honorable debate tactics.

That poster also said The Magistrate was "long-winded and pompously inflated" and implied that he was writing about crap that he knew nothing about.

[Violet_Crumble]

44. The Magistrate is holding his own when it comes to snide comments...

Personally I think they're both out of line, and aren't adding anything constructive to this thread. I've developed a habit of responding to snide comments by actually focusing on the OP and I'd like to see the Magistrate comment on the OP and I don't think it's an unreasonable thing to ask...

btw, when it comes to "flowery fluff-language" I'm very fond of Oscar Wilde's work and think there is no comparison between his style and the Magistrate's :)

[calzone]

49. Sometimes the truth generates even collateral damage. n/t

[Englander]

58. No-one took up that offer?

Of actually commenting on the crappiness of the original article?

[The Magistrate]

59. The Article Does Not Particularly Interest Me, Sir

A couple of comments here appended to its presentation did.

The piece is not too well written, and obviously written by someone with an axe to grind. There is some validity to its basic thrust, however. Every spasm of violence by the Arab Palestinian militants, and by the Arab powers in general, have resulted in an increasingly straitened set of circumstances for the people of Arab Palestine. Within that society, nothing has been done to construct a viable political authority, but factionalization has remained the order of the day. This, combined with the first factor, does raise unfortunate questions over whether or not a sovereign state of Arab Palestine really does remain a viable possibility for the future at this point in the game. My preference is certainly that there be such a state, but desire cannot be allowed to dictate analysis, and the possibility this is no longer feasible is a real one.

[Violet_Crumble]

61. Of Course Not. The Author Is Pro-Israeli...

You responded to another poster for basically repeating the mirror image of the content of the article, yet aren't interested in the distortions and incorrect facts in the article. If one captures yr interest but not the other, then the question has to be why...

Sorry, but if yr talking about writing style when it comes to Paul Sheehan's article, then it's what I'd consider to be well written, as is much of what he writes. He's concise and to the point and doesn't meander and beat around the bush. The problem, as always is the content. I didn't realise that it's okay to ignore the content of an article and just make a few noises about some supposed basic pretext being valid, and I don't think that's a good way to view articles on the conflict. If I use that yardstick, there's some articles I know are full of crap that I could coyly give approval to by saying there's some validity to the basic thrust....

[The Magistrate]

63. My Two Initial Comments Here, Ma'am

Were directed to a person who stated that a state of Arab Palestine could indeed exist, and to a person engaged in a bit of boiler-plate incorporating an unconscienable degree of exaggeration by invoking Holocaust denial, which is too much by a great deal more than half than the matter warrants. The first seemed worth a sort of seconding, and the second is the sort of thing that generally promises some amusement.

You have been here long enough to know that it is my view the political leadership of the people of Arab Palestine does indeed bear a good deal of the blame for the unhappy position of that people today, a view based on a consideration of the conflict's history that is as deep and even-handed as it is possible for me to manage. Indeed, it seems to me this proposition is beyond sensible cavail: the only thing there is room for debate on concerning it is it what the fact of it signifies. Further, it has been for a couple of years now, since the realization of the security barrier under Sharon, my view that the future prospects of this situation are, to put it mildly, damned depressing, and this is one of the reasons for my having left off daily debate on this matter about the time the barrier was completed. A death watch is seldom a pleasant occupation. It may well be that this "Second Intafada" was the final mistake, and that the full toll of consequences from it will prove to include the foreclosing of any possibility of erecting a viable state of Arab Palestine on the remnant of the Arab Zone assigned in '47. Not every problem has a good solution, and sometimes people lose irrevocably.

[calzone]

47. You seem to want to build pretty....

...straw men. Tsk tsk. You can ignore my compilations of quotes and links, while providing not a ghost of backup yourself, but you ain't fooling me, and I suspect you're fooling no-one else, except the Israel-firsters. Hot air sir. You are full of it.
"You have claimed this statement is completely false: "The Hashemites came out of the deal pretty well: they did not get a Kingdom at Damascus, which the French drove them out of, but received a Kingdom at Baghdad and an Emirate in Transjordan. The Arabs in the area of Palestine continued loyal to the Ottoman throughout the Great War, with a few executed exceptions, and hardly performed any service to the English war effort to place the English under any reciprocal obligation." You are going to have to back that up, by pointing out its errors. In other words, you are going to have to demonstrate that the Hashemite Feisal did not briefly hold a Kingship at Damascus at the close of the Great War, and that he was not driven from it by the French, and that he did not subsequently become the King of Iraq in 1922, and that his brother Abdullah did not become Emir of Trans-Jordan that same year, and you will have to demonstrate that these were not the result of English patronage, and further, you are going to have to detail the various acts of military co-operation with England against the Ottoman forces carried out by armed bodies of Arabs from Palestine you seem to be under the impression actually occured, though no standard history of campaigns in the area includes the slightest mention of them."

:-) So you carefully instruct me that I must HELP you construct your own straw man? *snicker*.
You may not make my argument for me, or characterize my argument in your own words to make it appear that you've made some kind of point.

"The opponents of Arab nationalists had bigger guns" T.E. Lawrence, on the Anglo-French/zionist betrayal of the Arabs.

Sir Henry McMahon, Kitchener, and others in Cairo conceived the idea of harnessing the forces of Arab guerillas to help defeat Turkey.
Promises were put forward to the Moslem Arabs of independence if they united and fought alongside the British forces under the direction of British officers. The British Government endorsed the agreement and T.E. Lawrence led the campaign under Feisal, Prince of Mecca.

All of Lawrences efforts and the sacrifices of the Arabs were betrayed.

The aims of the Balfour declaration and the Sykes-Picot plan were to create a Jewish state in Palestine and partition the rest of Arabia between British and French colonial interests.
Lawrence tried to sabotage the conspiracy by putting the Arabs in control of Damascus, Feisal was in control, but the French "had bigger guns".

Feisal was robbed of his rightful reign over Syria after being forceably deposed, and shunted to Iraq. I like to keep the focus magistrate. I don't allow pranksters that get caught blowing hot air to cloud the argument and steer it towards tangential ca-ca.

The Arabs were betrayed by the Brits...that was my statement, you challenged it, but have offered no backup, no proof, no theory and naught but a slough of excremental assertions which have no bearing on the issue, but you hold them up as if they do. Shame.

The fact that the Arabs were betrayed by the Brits is unassailable. Yet, you tilt. I've provided many links, and there are hundreds on the net, yet, you deny. Oh well. Play your little games.

The other 2 pseudo-arguments you offered are 1. "the Palestinians started it!" A lovely, sophomoric cop-out standby from Israel supporters when all else fails. Unfortunately, it's just not accurate.

2. "The Palestinians are defeated, doomed, and have no one but themselves to blame." I crushed that nonsense as well, but as usual you huff & puff and claim otherwise, with no support.

"a Zionist state that was established by and is being governed by people of European ancestry in a part of the world where Arabs have been the overwhelming majority for millennia is doomed to failure. A country in which white European Jews hold virtually all the power and have all the rights and privileges, while those who are native to the region are treated at best as non-entities, is an anachronism and, as history has shown, it can never be at peace.

during the first world war the British promised the Arabs independence if they would support the European allies (the British and the French) in their fight against the Ottoman Empire (the Turks, who were allied with the Germans). The Arabs were betrayed. The British, instead of permitting the Arabs to govern the territory in which they lived and helped to liberate, divided it up with the French and became their new overlords. At the same time, over the objections of many prominent British Jews -- not to mention the Arabs in the region -- the British government offered the Zionists, who made up only a small fraction of the Jewish population, a piece of the Ottoman empire as well.

That's when the dispute between the Zionists and the Arabs started. It isn't particularly complicated or difficult to understand. The British imperialist establishment, which never had any love for Jews, simply took over the Arabs' land and, for their own political reasons, promised a part of it to the Zionists as a "Jewish national home." The people living in what used to be known as Palestine have been objecting to that land grab since the end of the first world war -- thirty years before the state of Israel was created.

Imperialism, like slavery, was inhumane and unethical in the nineteenth century and it still is. Back then it might have been workable for those who were benefiting from the arrangement. Today, in an age of hijackable airliners, missiles, nerve gas, biological weapons and suit-case sized atomic bombs, it isn't. Evidently, the events of 9-11 and the ensuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan haven't been convincing enough. Now, Israel and the Fundamentalist led US, with a nod from Canada and Europe, are colluding in the destruction of Gaza and Lebanon. Unless we are able to open our hearts and minds the carnage will spread. And none of us is safe from it."
http://www.onedemocraticstate.org/harawitz.html

Man, he says it so well. That's called "common sense" magistrate. Pure logic is like a knife with no handle, it cuts the weilder. And it cuts even deeper if the weilder doesn't even choose to recognize facts.
As for the Onion piece, good Gawd you spent a full paragraph trying to debunk various meaningless assertions from the article that had no bearing on this debate and were only originally intended to serve as a temporary scaffolding for the article's premise. You did it, it right there in black and white, and I'll tell you what Mag, you are playing LFG's. (little f***ing games). It's TROLL behaviour. Fine. As long as you serve as a pair of convenient shoulders for me to launch my Katusha rockets, and I don't yet get bored, I'll use you.
Mr. Herzl was the founder and chief architect of the zionist movement. Yet you say "he was inconsequential." More little games.

"The Zionist enterprise aimed to take over an area of land in the Levant, and populate and rule it, with or without the let and leave of the inhabitats. In other words, it was just one example of something humans beings have been doing for just about the whole length of time the species has been in existance on this earth, and is as normal an endeavor for humans to engage in as it is possible to conceive."

Fascinating. You have just stated that imperialism, slaughter, theft, racism and genocide are perfectly normal, acceptable, fair and natural. Wow. I guess I now know exactly who/what I am debating.

The '47 partition was never accepted by the Arabs in the form it was eventually tendered, with good reason. It didn't take the Arabs' interests into account. The Arabs would've agreed to a more even-handed plan, they said as much. But the zionints, then as now, wanted it all.
Your further assertion that if I give someone an ultimatum to relinquish their land and home or I'll kill them, and they decide to fight, they have only themselves to blame if they lose. Phew.

"Since you insist on bringing up the matter of Sharon's brief stroll upon the hill, you invite the question why you think it was so important a thing as to require outbreaks of riot and several years of killing? Had everyone simply ignored it, everyone would be a good deal better off."

Either you have absolutely no understanding of the middle east, Arabs, Islam or human nature...or you're continuing to play LFG's. I wonder why we made such a big deal over 9/11. I mean, it was only a few 1000 little Eichmann's and some old buildings. They bulldoze old buildings everyday to make way for progress. Was it so important a thing? If everyone had just ignored it, they would be a good deal better off. There. I hope you like the mirror. And ummm, you make it sound (probably deliberately) as if it was the Palestinians doing the killing.

"Certainly he intended it as a provocation, and the result was probably all that he desired. But those who gave him what he desired were playing into their enemy's hands, and doing him a favor."

You are a very strange person. Honestly. I'm not trying to call you names, I'm just doing you the unpaid service of honestly and accurately evaluating you. I will enter this in your permanent record. You once again put forth the amazing "logic" that those who are wronged and successfully provoked are responsible for their own oppression. I'll bet I know what you'd defend. Some members of the IDF had this little practice....they'd get on a bullhorn and yell insults and taunts at Palestinian children who were just going about their business. At other strategic points, snipers were standing by, ready to take a shot, and when the Pal kids inevitably responded to the challenges and taunts by yelling back or throwing rocks, the snipers, working in tandem, took their shots and killed children. When reporters asked how they could justify shooting kids, the answer was that they were authorized to do so, since "any child likely to be of Bar Mitzvah age was fair game". That's 12yrs old. But 10-12 will do. You'd support that, magistrate. I have no respect for you whatsoever.

[The Magistrate]

57. The Cry Of 'You Made A Strawman!" Is One Of The More Entertaining Yelps, Sir

A 'strawman' is the technique of constructing a position for an opponent, either because what a disputant has presented as an argument or position is unclear and imprecise, which is a quite legitimate useage, or in an effort to distort what a disputant has presented as an arguement or position, which is not legitimate. Neither thing is going on here: you made a flat claim that a statement of fact was false, and were challenged to demonstrate the falsity you proclaimed. You have completely failed to do so, and shown once again that you really know very little about the intricacies of the Great War and its aftermath in the Middle East.

The basic root of your mis-apprehension remains the view that "the Arabs" were a coherent whole and as such co-operated with the English and were promised items in return. That view is mistaken, even grotesquely over-simplified. Arabs from Syria, including Palestine, and Mesopotamia, constituted the bulk of Ottoman forces in the Near East opposing the English. The Hashemite Sherif Hussein was not induced to rebel by the English, but offered his services on learning the Ottoman intended to oust him from his position at Mecca. He claimed he would be able to command the allegiance of over a hundred thousand Arab troops through a network of Nationalist secret societies, and would contrive a wide-spread rebellion throughout the Arab peoples ruled by the Ottoman, none of which materialized. He and his sons Feisal and Abdullah and Ali never controlled or represented anything during the Great War but a portion of the tribes of the Hejaz. Their initial victory at Mecca was secured by Egyptian troops provided by England. Mr. Lawrence looms a great deal larger, owing to his skill at self-promotion, than his actions actually warrant, and to say he led the fighters of the Hashemites is greatly in excess of the facts: he superintended payment of them, certainly. In one of your earlier comments you seemed to suggest viewing that grand movie, "Lawrence of Arabia", as a guide to history, and this may be at the bottom of your difficulties here: it is an entertainment, not a history.

Some promises were made to Hussein and his sons: they were not promises to "the Arabs", but promises to those individuals they would have rule of an Arab state. Feisal was quite aware this state would not include territories west of the Damascus-Alleppo railway line, and even when he sought to disregard this understanding by taking Lebanon after the fall of Damascus, he explicitly stated, according to minutes of his meeting with Gen. Allenby, that Palestine was not part of the independent Arab state he had been promised. Nor did he press for Palestine at the Versailles Conference, though the Syrian National Congress claimed it, along with a good deal more, for a "Greater Syria" in a resolution of 1920. For all the checkered history of their dealings, the Hashemites, it must be repeated, did come rather well out of the matter, with a Kingdom and an Emirate, and a further Kingdom in Arabia for Ali that was lost to ibn Saud and his Ikhwan warriors despite a good deal of English military assistance.

Your continued reference to an attempt of mine to "debunk" an Onion article continues to mystify me, and you are really going to have to be kind enough to point out at least what you think was an effort to refute an Onion article.

Most of the rest of this comes under the heading of "Say something once, why say it again?" as far as further engagement with it goes, with perhaps one exception. Human beings are aggressive animals, and have been taking everything from land to life from their fellows in an organized fashion throughout human history. What is dirt normal deserves being recognized as such, and attempts to present the norm as some extraordinary and unusual exercise in vicious criminality are doomed to fall flat. Most people are quite aware of the norms, and judge matters by their relation to it, by whether they have grossly exceeded the general run of events. The Zionist enterprise, and the various conflicts attendant on it commencing in '48 and into the present day, do not exceed the general run, and indeed, do not measure up even to the average in cruelty and horror, on the part of either side. Indeed, the most striking element of this situation remains its diminutive, vest-pocket nature, and the contrast of this with the amount of attention it receives.

[msmcghee]

53. Here's one of your claims that is full of crap.

There are others but I'll just pick one obvious one that should serve to make anyone wary of everything else you say. This one is 100% wrong and easy enough for anyone to verify. Even Hizb'allah has never questioned this version of events as far as I know.

You said, "Those Israeli soldiers that everyone claims were captured on Israeli soil? They were captured on the other side of the border in a raid."

From Wiki: The conflict began when Hezbollah fired Katyusha rockets and mortars at Israeli military positions and border villages, diverting attention from another Hezbollah unit that crossed the border and abducted two Israeli soldiers and killed three others.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_Israel-Lebanon_conflict#_note-NYTMyre

From UN Report: On 12 July, the South-Lebanon based militia Hezbollah in an action mirroring the 25 June Hamas operation in Southern Israel, crossed the Blue Line and kidnapped two Israeli soldiers. Hezbollah then joined Hamas by announcing that the soldiers were being held hostage against the release of various prisoners detained in Israel. This latter Hezbollah action, widely recognised as a war crime, was denounced almost universally. The Secretary-General also pointed out that the operation was a "blatant breach" of Security Council resolutions.

http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/site/c.glKWLeMTIsG/b.1862907/k.405E/Update_Report_No5brLebanonIsraelbr20_July_2006.htm

Feel free to apologize for such an outright and blatant libel.

[Violet_Crumble]

39. Yeah, actually it is derogatory...

It's been used in the past here by a few pro-Israeli posters and it's intent is to be derogatory. I must commend the Magistrate for speaking up for the first time about the use of the term 'Pal', even though in this case unlike others in the past I don't think there was any intent to use it in a derogatory way :)

Here's why I think the term is derogatory and unlike others, I don't care whether it's pro-Israeli or pro-Palestinian posters who use the term - over here we have a large Lebanese population. What kicked off the Cronulla riots was some racist moron sending out a text-message that was then forwarded on and on, urging people to turn up and 'bash some Lebs'. Racists never refer to Lebanese-Australians as Lebanese, they're always referred to as 'Lebs' and what accompanies that term just adds to the derogatory nature. Same goes for referring to the Palestinians as 'Pals', imo...

[calzone]

48. OK, I'll look into it further. n/t

[oberliner]

17. Well, there's just too much drek in this hit-piece...

....to refute. It would take a novella. All I can do is post the fabrications and propaganda.
Whether the author is deliberately taking part in perception-management or is just a useful tool that doesn't have the work ethic to research the facts, this is a hit-piece, and suitable only to line a birdcage.
All the excerpts below are examples of ca-ca. Pure, extruded ca-ca.

"The Palestinians were chased off their lands by a treacherous, unholy alliance between zionists and Brits."

"The Pals were betrayed, and Israel has behaved like a bully and has been recognized by all but the U.S. and the U.K. as a rogue nation ever since."

"Israel has been the aggressor. Yes, even in the 67 war. Foreign policies have been manipulated by the zionists."

"Many Israelis detest and distrust the zionists, but till now have been unable to outmaneuver them."

"Israel has for years been unable to get people to move to the "homeland", they've tried desperate measures to draw people in but they've been horribly unsuccessful, and it ain't just the high phone bills and rent...delaying Aliyah."

"I realize that when there's a suicide bomber on an Israeli bus the press is rushed to the site and given full access, while when there's an Israeli atrocity or civilians slaughtered by the IDF the press is kept away, blocked from reporting."


This post is pure bat guano. Time for a rewrite!

[Violet_Crumble]

20. And there I was thinking you were talking about the OP...

I'm kind of curious about why many people in this thread have chosen to pull apart what other posters say in the thread while not holding the OP to the same scrutiny, because when it comes to bat guano, Paul Sheehan is right up there with his conservative heavyweight Piers Ackerman....

[Englander]

22. I saw this article yest, & I thought it was supposed to be satire.

Because I couldn't believe what I was reading, it was so bad. If you could explain who this Sheehan
writer is, Vi, for anyone who doesn't know who he is (myself included) as the article's from an
Aussie paper?

[Violet_Crumble]

23. Some background on Paul Sheehan...

In short, I don't waste my time reading much written by him, but I think he's a racist prick based on the race-baiting he engaged in after the Cronulla riots...

Paul Sheehan is a Sydney Morning Herald journalist who returned to Australia in 1996 after a decade in the US and, according to his book he liked what he found: "The overt culture of the nation - its language, cuisine, music, writings, film, dance, architecture, design, sport - all, at their highest expression." Australia, Sheehan believed, had triumphed from a cultural revolution.

But in his time away, other changes had also occurred. Bob Hawke and Paul Keating had achieved what no other Labor leaders had managed - more than a decade in power in Canberra.

Sheehan is obsessed with the notion that "national problems have been caused by shoddy management and by the racial politics played by the Labor Party and its surrogates in the multicultural industry". Multiculturalism in Australia is nothing more than "Labor's prodigious political bluff, a bluff that has cost Australian society uncountable billions of dollars and ruined lives." Forget Jeff Kennett, forget Nick Greiner, forget Kate Carnell, the only multiculturalists are Labor.

On 25 May 1996, Paul Sheehan wrote a piece for The Sydney Morning Herald entitled "The Multicultural Myth". In the article, he claimed that SBS television was "a metaphor for the evolving fantasy that Australia should be a cultural federation of glorious diversity", opined that complaints to the Anti-Discrimination Board were so numerous they were having a "carcinogenic effect on racial cohesion in Australia", called the president of the Anti-Discrimination Board, Chris Puplick, the "unofficial Godfather of Grievance in NSW" and said one of the reasons for high unemployment in NSW was "the plethora of Thought Police employed by the State". Somehow multiculturism was threatening Australia's egalitarian culture "built through trial and error, and fought for and protected with blood and suffering of millions of Australians".

Then came this classic: "Nation building is invariably bloody. Australia was going to be colonised. And if it had been occupied by one of the imperial cultures of Asia (with their long record of fratricide, liquidation of dissent and ethnic chauvinism), there would probably be no revival of Aboriginal culture today owing to a shortage of Aborigines." No mention of the mid 1800s "dispersal" practices that culled Aboriginal numbers.

Reactions to the piece were heated. The most extreme form the introduction to Among The Barbarians. Sheehan is dismayed by the comments, even wounded, displaying all the disingenuousness of the child who writes "fuck" on the dining room wall and can't understand why he's in trouble.

http://www.thesydneyinstitute.com.au/ahfaContent.php?ahfaID=33

[Englander]

24. He sounds like the typical conservative -

Fond of re-writing history towards a right-leaning slant, extremely disingenuous, biased against any
ethnic/religious minorities, & outraged by the thought of multiculturism.

[pelsar]

55. its been a long time...

since we've had such crap being written.....and i believe you know it as well......usually there a few posts and the poster leaves (which ever side of the line they are)..for reasons unknown this one is staying...guess its kind of a game to refute, but there are so many lines to refute, i wouldnt even know where to begin.

[Name removed]

26. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[oberliner]

30. I just thought it was amusing

that you attacked the article in the O/P for being a propaganda-filled hit piece but in response you posted your own propaganda-filled hit piece.

I don't see how a post like yours does anything to help advance the cause for a peaceful resolution of this conflict.

[Name removed]

34. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[oberliner]

37. Making baseless, unsupported assertions isn't debate

Yet, is that not exactly what you did in your first post?

All you did was list quotations from the original article and say that they were "caca".

I was just trying to point out that you were engaging in the same sort of propaganda in your follow-up post that you accused the author of the original article of doing.

I agree with you that putting forward the truth is never counter-productive. However, is it really the truth that Israel is "recognized as a rogue nation" by all but the US and the UK?

Do you really believe that using the phrase "treacherous, unholy alliance" does not constitute propaganda?

If you want to debate the veracity of the claims in your post, I am willing to do so. More constructive, though, I think, is for us to focus on finding some areas of consensus as we seek a peaceful resolution to this conflict. That is, after all, what we are all working toward, isn't it?

[calzone]

50. Nope. That's not what I did

I made no claim, I called BS.
This is a political forum, not the Disney fun message board, we are all presumably adults and not related to Mr. Flanders. I'll speak my mind, and I always give an opponent in debate the exact same amount of respect they show me. Actually, when they tend to go overboard and get all "conservative underground" on my ass, I refrain from dialing the potentiometer too high into clipping. But any debate that remains artificially polite is boring and masturbatory.
You are saying that for me to challenge propaganda is in itself...propaganda. You need to revisit the definition.
Yes, it's the truth that Israel is considered a rogue nation when the amount of UN resolutions and world opinion is taken into account. For that matter, the U.S. is considered a rogue nation by the world. The U.S. is considered to be the greatest threat to world peace by popular consensus.

No, I don't believe that using the phrase treacherous unholy alliance is propaganda when referring to the way the Palestinians were treated since 1918. And I'm not alone, by a longshot.

"If you want to debate the veracity of the claims in your post, I am willing to do so. More constructive, though, I think, is for us to focus on finding some areas of consensus as we seek a peaceful resolution to this conflict. That is, after all, what we are all working toward, isn't it?"

Whatever you want. We won't find any peaceful resolution to this crisis, we are peons. But popular opinion may eventually influence progress through our leaders. I have suggestions. They're quite simple and effective, IMO. We stop sending 6.5 billion a year to Israel, 2 billion of which is mandated as military arms and equipment. We make foreign aid to Israel match the amounts we give other M.E. countries, and we make the foreign aid CONTINGENT upon the Israelis actually stopping the settlements, genuinely pulling out of the territories they seized in '67, and sitting down at the tables and negotiating with the Palestinians for peace in GOOD FAITH. A good start would be a guaranteed right of return and recognition. Then we establish normal relations with Hezbollah and Hamas. Then we withdraw completely from Iraq and stop trying to influence M.E. politics. This will result in a complete cessation of terrorist attacks against America, and peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, IMHO.
There you have it. Simple huh? That's rare for something to be pure & simple. Oscar Wilde once said "The truth is rarely pure and never simple". But even the best orators weren't always right.
Oh, and instead of AK-47's, the Palestian people should be supplied with camcorders. That would be a much more powerful weapon.

[oberliner]

51. Civility and respect are fundamental elements of this community

They are written about extensively in the Discussion Forum rules page and are expanded upon in the guidelines specific to this particular subject forum. I am aware that this is not the "Disney fun message board" but I have come to expect that discussions here would be conducted in accordance with those rules and guildelines and would be free from sophmoric comments about "first beers" and "spindly arms".

I have not made any attempt to defend any of the statements in the article cited in the O/P.

In your initial response to said article, you indicated that the article was a hit piece, and then you went on to list a series of excerpts which you identified as "ca-ca". You concluded by saying that all but 5% of the text of the article was "bat guano".

To my mind, that consitutes make a claim about the article. Even if you were just "calling BS" you are still making a claim - a claim that the article is filled with lies.

Nowhere in that post did you provide any evidence that countered any of the statements in the article that you identified as lies. All you did was list them and say they were BS.

I do not see how that is not an instance of making unsupported assertions. You asserted that the article was BS and you did not support that assertion with any evidence or information.

Please note that I did not express any disagreement with your negative appraisal of the aforementioned article.

You made a later post, however, that seemed to do exactly what the article in the original post was doing, that is, make extreme and in some cases erroneous statements about the conflict.

One such statement was:

"I realize that when there's a suicide bomber on an Israeli bus the press is rushed to the site and given full access, while when there's an Israeli atrocity or civilians slaughtered by the IDF the press is kept away, blocked from reporting."

And yet, here we are, a few days after an incident where Palestinian civilians were killed by the IDF and there are wire stories and photos from the incident in countless news pubications in the US and around the world.

Here is a link to a story from MSNBC, complete with photo: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16467444/

The plan for peace that you outlined at the bottom of your message is an interesting one and I think it would be valuable to discuss various elements of it further, if we can leave out the name-calling and some of the more dubious accusations

I do think it's possible that this forum can serve as a place of productive, intelligent discussion about the conflict among progressives who have very different ideas about how best to achieve a peaceful solution, but who are all committed to trying to find one.

[calzone]

52. Look who's talking

And you've done nothing but attack me since you started posting.
The rules clearly qualify the call for civility with the reminder that this is not a place for those with thin skin. I have not called anyone names, as you say. I'd say that you failed to read my original response to the article, except that you used the same language to deride me as my post, (without providing any facts to refute it). Here's a reminder. I said the piece was so replete with innaccuracies and falsehoods that it would take a novella to refute. So I listed the points that were gross distortions and material mistatements of facts. You then chose to come out of the blue, and snidely accuse me of being ...snide. Look, if you stick your neck out and stumble, once in a while you're gonna come across someone like me that isn't gonna let you off the hook. If you engage in pretentious and judgemental mudslinging, you'll occasionally get stopped short. That's life. No one forced you to post, each person has to be responsible for their own actions and accept the natural results.
No, I made no false or inaccurate statements. I backed much of my statements up and explained them well. You OTOH, have contributed nothing to the thread but whining about being "nice", after you've taken your swing. I get enough of that from the republicans these days.
I'm glad to see that you finally brought one single issue up that you'd like to differ about. Unfortunately, it does absolutely nothing to refute my point.
"If innocent people were hurt, this was not our intention,” he (Olmert)said."
I am getting so weary of hearing that, after about the 574th time in the last few years.
Let me try to explain this to you oberliner. For over a decade the practice I described has been taking place. Hundreds, maybe thousands of incidents, reporters are facilitated to cover the carnage from a suicide bomber or a bus bomber, but kept away from incursions by the IDF that result in death and destruction. To refute this, you post one, single, recent incident...where the Israelis don't have operational control, and instead of an incident like I described, this one was an all out military assault on terrorist cucumbers and radishes....

"It began when troops tried to arrest fugitives from the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a violent Fatah offshoot, in the vegetable market. A gunbattle erupted, and Israeli forces sent reinforcements, including armored personnel carriers, bulldozers, jeeps and an attack helicopter.

For about two hours, a heavy battle raged, sending residents scrambling for cover. Bursts of gunfire, loud booms and ambulance sirens could be heard across Ramallah. At one point, a helicopter fired large-caliber bullets.

The apparent target of the raid, Rabih Hamed, was seriously injured. A photographer for the local news agency Maan was critically wounded by a gunshot to the head."

And one member of the press is shot in the head. 2 hours of battle we are told, and no Israeli casualties while 4 Palestinian civilians and 20 more (we aren't told if they're civilians) are injured. So no, this has no similarity to my point and the Israelis couldn't contain this one. You'll have to do better than this, but what can you do? You can't change history.
I forgot to mention among my suggestions for peace, it would be appropriate if Israel would pay for the rebuilding of Beirut. That would be a smart gesture. I ain't holding my breath on that though.

[Englander]

21. Kick, for Truthiness. n/t

[Violet_Crumble]

41. Here's the obvious question...

Paul Sheehan stresses that there won't and can't be a sovereign Palestinian state. My question for anyone who likes the way Paul Sheehan is thinking is what do they think there will be instead of a Palestinian state? I see only two options and neither of them are pretty - the first is an expanded Israel taking in Gaza and the Occupied Territories. As the population of the Occupied Territories would outnumber Israeli-Jews, that would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state unless the Palestinians were not given the same rights as other Israelis. While that would have Israel remaining a Jewish state, it would mean the end of Israel as a democracy. The second option is eternal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. While the occupation has gone on for decades, it's taken its toll on Israel and would just eat away at the foundations of the state. And I strongly doubt the Israeli population have the stomach or the willingness to continue the occupation for much longer...

[pelsar]

43. you got both right....

the next question is what kind of state will the Palestinians make.....and the answer to that is "in gods hands" (or perhaps the throw of the dice)..seems to me their next real leaders are probably in elementary school right now, so what they will be and who they are can not be known at this point.

btw an interesting aspect of the war in lebanon was precisly that....that the territories have eaten away at the IDFs ability to defend israel.....to busy chasing kids as opposed to practicing urban warfare tactics....which may be the next war......

[Violet_Crumble]

45. Unfortunately I think yr right on that...

seems to me their next real leaders are probably in elementary school right now, so what they will be and who they are can not be known at this point.

When I studied the I/P conflict it was back in the days of Sharon and Arafat and I'm figuring most people thought back then things could only get better when both of them were gone. My lecturer told us that he didn't see any chance of negotiations and the emergence of a Palestinian state until both were gone, but here it is a few years later and things are even further away from a peaceful resolution and I think it's going to be a hell of a long time until things do start to come good...

[jonahprophet]

72. Judaism, Christianity, Islam

Yes, i agree, there is absolutely NO CHANCE for a sovereign state like Palestine to exist.
The solution is to UNIFY both the state of israel proper and the west to create ONE STATE
for all jews, christians and Muslims in the area,.,

[Shaktimaan]

73. Good luck with that.

I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you though.

[martymar64]

74. Their will NEVER be peace in that little patch of land. NEVER!

Judging from the OP and the responses, it is clear that to even imagine that peace is possible is a delusional pipe dream. The sides of this controversy are so entrenched that neither will concede an inch of ground, rhetorically or literally.

As an American , I can only wish that my tax dollars not be squandered on this fiasco, for either side. As much as I respect the efforts of those that strive for peace in this area, they're wasting their time.
I'm sorry that I have to be so blunt about it, but I call it like I see it. As Mercutio said, "a pox on both of your houses."